04/01/10 – Philip Weiss – The Scott Horton Show

For Antiwar.com and Chaos Radio 95.9 in Austin, Texas, I'm Scott Horton.
This is Antiwar Radio.
And our next guest is Phillip Weiss from the Mondoweiss blog.
That's mondoweiss.net.
Welcome back to the show, Phil.
How are you doing?
Good, Scott.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
Thanks for joining us today.
My pleasure.
So, what's going on in the world?
Well, I think we're seeing, you know, spring is breaking in the east.
But I think we're seeing a little bit of a Prague spring in terms of the Israel lobbies hold in the United States.
Something really does seem to be changing, you think, huh?
Yeah, I mean, I don't, I mean, I preface all my comments, I preface with the thought that the prize here is freedom for Palestinians who live in Jim Crow conditions and worse at the behest of our government and the Israeli government.
So that is really the prize.
Will this change that I'm excited about, will it have any effect on Palestinian freedom?
I don't know.
I just don't know.
But the great thing is that last week, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, disgraced the pro-Israel community in the United States by standing on a podium and saying, we will not buckle on the settlements in East Jerusalem.
And he disgraced them by demonstrating that when push comes to shove, the AIPAC group and other members, other groups in the lobby, when push comes to shove, they will support the Israeli government over the American government.
And so this was nakedly demonstrated for all to see.
And one good effect of it has been that many Jews who say, hey, we're Americans, we like our policy in the Middle East, we support American policy in the Middle East, not Israeli policy.
There's a difference here between the Israeli interest and the American interest, and we're on the American side.
Not only that, they're on Obama's side because American Jews vote Democrat by what kind of supermajority?
You know, four out of four to one, although that can be shifting just because of this, because many Jews just are going to support Israel blindly, right down to the sea, right down to Jim Crow, right down to apartheid.
But, yeah, there's going to be some breakage on this, and the monolith is going to crack a little, and the Israel lobby will be exposed as sort of a dual loyalty operation.
Well, you know, I've got to tell you, man, there's pretty stark language calling it Jim Crow.
I grew up in Texas, and what I've learned about Jim Crow in my lifetime, and how things used to be there, you know, this is the greatest shame or maybe second greatest shame after the extermination of the American Indians or something in all of history.
I mean, this is harsh stuff.
Are you ignoring the fact that the Palestinians invaded and occupied Israel?
Yeah, yeah, right, right.
I mean, it really does seem like that's the premise of so many pro-Israeli people in this country, that, you know, how can we ever deal with these people when they're not taking the steps necessary to make peace with us, as though they're not living in occupied neighborhoods?
Yeah, it's just crazy.
I mean, the way they stand history on its head, and, you know, just pervert a normal understanding of just what the facts, you know.
And the thing is that the world community, I don't know quite how I feel about it myself, but the world community is prepared to embark on a solution that gives four-fifths of historical Palestine to Jews, to the Jewish state, although, you know, a lot of that state is non-Jewish.
And, you know, that deal isn't good enough for them.
You know, they want more, and that's what Netanyahu is holding out for, and that's what many American Jews in the Israel lobby are supporting, too.
And as a Jew, I say, you know, that's a disgrace.
That's really a disgrace, and it is standing history on its head.
Well, you know, I have this weird ideological bent where I'm just an individualist, and I don't even believe in any of these states at all.
And to me, this is all simply a matter of property rights.
So if Israel, say Israel made a real sweet deal where they steal all this land here, then they give the Palestinians even more land over there.
Well, that doesn't mean anything, because what they just did was they stole land from individuals and gave some to other individuals.
And, you know, it's like we all owe the debt to ourselves or whatever.
No, you're stealing from me.
You know, that's, you know.
And the titles, you know, the title over there, I mean, there's a lot of klepto title, you know.
I mean, there's a lot of land that's been stolen out from under people and sold out from under people.
And, you know, it's scary.
But the ones who have been dealt out again and again are Palestinians.
Well, you know, there's kind of a line in maybe just in time where, I mean, we would argue, right, what are we going to do?
Everyone in America go back to where their great-grandparents are from and give this land back to the few Indians that are left or something?
That's not going to happen.
It's too late now.
The land was stolen, and it was stolen by cutting throats, and women and children too.
But that was a long time ago.
And it's changed.
The land has changed hands in peaceable financial exchanges a thousand times since then and whatever.
And so at some point we quit acting like it's stolen land and consider it legit.
And I wonder, you know, how long can Israel occupy the land there where it's just a fait accompli?
There's never undoing any of it.
But, Scott, you know, you're raising a really fascinating question to me, which is when does an injustice become a historical injustice?
When does it cease to be something that we can resolve in the here and now?
And you're saying, you know, when I say to people that, hey, 800,000 refugees were created in 1948, and they're still refugees, people say, hey, that was in 1948.
The Arab countries have to absorb those refugees, and they don't have rights back in Israel, even though I'm living in their house.
When I say, hey, you know what?
You know what?
Refugee rights are actually respected.
You know, the U.N. has affirmed them again and again since 1948.
They say, what about the Indians?
So how do you answer that?
You just told me that, you know, the crimes were done 150 years ago.
There's nothing we can do about it now.
What's your response to that?
I don't know.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
I mean, it does seem like, well, look, I mean, let's be honest.
All land in all the history of the world was taken by mobs of violent people.
I mean, none of these borders are natural.
All of these governments are basically warfare states or wannabe warfare states under the umbrella of larger warfare states.
You're a realist.
There is no free market in land.
There never really has been.
I mean, I guess it's really a question of, well, okay, here we are.
What do we do now?
I read something this morning where Robert, this is a completely different matter, but he was quoting Chesterson saying people always say you can't turn the hands of the clock back.
But, of course, you can.
That's what a clock is, a thing made by people.
And all you've got to do is just use your finger there.
You move the clock back.
And if the circumstances of our society or our foreign policy are a matter of, you know, what human beings have done before, then they can be set right.
You know what?
The fact of the matter is I would be, well, see, first of all, I want this to be none of my business, Phil, because I want America to have a Switzerland foreign policy.
If the USA as a nation state is to exist at all, I want it to have a foreign policy of nothing.
But second of all, you know, what do I care if there's an Israel within the 67 borders that seems to be the kind of thing that people around the Middle East would be willing to accept if that was a deal made in good faith and the West Bank and Gaza were actually allowed to be a Palestinian state, they were willing to work out a deal over the Sheba farms with the Syrians in good faith and whatever.
I don't understand why it should be that Israel can't live in peace with their neighbors in the Middle East for a long time.
I mean, the right to return from 48, maybe we do have to say that was a long time ago, but 67 borders, at least, I don't know.
You tell me.
Yeah, I mean, I frankly am confused about these issues because, you know, the occupation has been 40, as you point out, is 42 years old.
They're trying to say, well, let's go back to 67.
And the failure to go back to 67 on the Israeli part and the Palestinian part, but on the Israeli part, the failure to honor 67 at all means why should we honor 48?
And, you know, I am confused about what the equity is in the situation.
I'm not entirely sure.
And the one thing I'm sure about is that, you know, we've got to be more balanced in our approach, and we're just creating huge problems for ourselves.
The United States is.
I mean, you didn't care.
I assume you didn't care about this issue 10 years ago.
Did you?
Did you know about it?
And then, you know, 9-11 happened.
And, you know, this thing is on our doorstep, and this is creating, you know, more grievance across that world than any other issue.
And we're responsible.
And you say, you know, I'm jumping around here.
You say turning the hands on the clock back.
Yeah, you're right.
People do turn the hands back, and they've done that in Israel-Palestine because over there, there is Jim Crow.
There is segregation, and they act as if it's normal.
They act just as if people, they were in the South 60 and 70 years ago justifying a system that is completely racist and unfair.
Well, by the way, how does that work?
Because, you know, we talked about this.
Most American Jews are liberals.
As far as white people involved in the civil rights movement in America, it was the Jews more than anybody else who ended Jim Crow among the white people who were involved.
I'm saying, what's with the cognitive dissonance here, man?
I guess you got over yours, and you had to pick, either I'm for Jim Crow or I'm not, huh?
Right, but I think that, you know, part of the Jewish presence in the civil rights movement involved the fact that they were going to a different place.
We were northerners.
I mean, there were many northerners who went south out of righteous, you know, concern about segregation, as I would have.
But it wasn't our backyard.
And in this case, you're dealing with a situation where, if you were at your Seder earlier this week, as I was, you know people who are over there.
You're related to people.
You feel a kinship with these people who are doing these things, and therefore you try to rationalize it.
So if those northerners had been Scotch-Irish, they wouldn't have bothered.
Right.
Yeah, well, actually, there were a lot of Scotch-Irish who, you know, that's interesting, because I don't know how much ethnic kinship they felt with southerners.
There were a lot of Scotch-Irish in the north who took a really strong stand against desegregation.
Right?
I mean, against segregation.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, they didn't let that ethnic thing happen.
I mean, in this case, you're dealing with a very small minority, Jewish people, who have this Holocaust background and therefore feel a great deal of vulnerability.
And the problem is that it's an anachronism.
You know, that happened.
That also happened a long time ago.
The Palestinians are not the Nazis, you know?
That's the projection that is always happening.
The Palestinians, the Arabs are Nazis.
They're not Nazis.
They happen to live there.
And, you know, you push them out.
And, you know, you have to have a more equitable response than saying that terrorism is, you know, because these people are primitive and depraved.
All right, well, I think I've talked to you before about how technically I'm Jewish and the mother's mother thing and all that.
But then again, I had to ask Eric Garris what a matzo was the other day.
So I'm not, you know, I really don't know nothing about it, you know?
But so here's my thing.
I've seen on TV an old recording of Rabbi Kane, who, I'm sure I'm saying that wrong, who, interesting footnote, was the first victim of an al-Qaeda attack in the United States back in 1989 when he was assassinated.
And the FBI refused to look into his friends because I don't know how stupid or evil they are.
Anyway, this guy, Kane, it was an interview on 60 Minutes, an old interview of him, I think on 60 Minutes, where he said, look, the founder of Judaism is not Thomas Jefferson, OK?
And so screw your enlightenment.
This is not about individual rights.
This is about us versus them.
We can do whatever we want.
Women and children and everybody's fair game.
Nits make lice, et cetera, et cetera.
And I thought, wow, well, this is America, and our founder is Thomas Jefferson.
And what we believe in is individual rights.
That's what makes us Americans.
That's why it doesn't matter whether you're from Somalia or China or England.
If you're an American, you assent to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
You're one of us.
You don't even have to be able to speak our language.
We don't care.
Right, right.
It seems like there's a real conflict here.
Yeah, there is.
I mean, I would say that my response to you is partly that America contains a lot of different strains, cultural strains.
And there are people here who are intolerant and ethnocentric and parochial.
But that is an ethnocentric, parochial, and intolerant attitude he's expressing.
And what is important for me to do is to call Jews on this.
If you want to call yourselves liberals, then you can't adopt these attitudes.
And if you adopt these attitudes, then you know what?
You're not a liberal.
You're not a part of the future.
This is not the way the future is going.
And so what he's expressing is this, is it good for the Jews attitude?
And that's not helpful for anyone.
And it was Norman Mailer who said that this is Hitler's bitterest achievement, is that he reduced Jews to this question, is it good for the Jews?
And when people make that type of determination about every action they take in the public sphere, it's going to be very hurtful.
And that's what we're seeing with the Israel lobby.
That's what we're seeing with the Jim Crow conditions in Israel and Palestine, which many call apartheid, separate roadways, pass system, checkpoints.
Pretending this stuff is somehow consistent with modern norms of treating a minority, it's just crazy.
And as you say, it's not good for anyone.
It's not good acting in a way – it's just like an individual in a neighborhood going around acting like a bully.
Now you might say that, well, and again, I'm a libertarian, I'm all about individualism and the Messian principle that man acts and he does so according to his own best interest.
But is it in your best interest to run your life where all you do is stab all your friends in the back and make everybody hate you?
That's not a good way to get by in the world.
A good way to get by in the world is for people to like you and want to do business with you so that then you can take that money and go buy bread with it.
Yeah, well, I mean, obviously these are deep philosophical questions about how much to be for yourself, how much to be for others.
Well, I'm saying they're not contradictory things.
I agree with you.
If you're good for others, they will want to be good for you too.
I agree.
And yet that's a balancing act we all do in our lives.
And I think that in my community that has been distorted.
And that's where I agree with you that I think that, you know, for whatever reason, be it the Holocaust, be it 2000 years of maintaining a minority sort of life in Europe, whatever it is, there's a kind of a failure to understand that when others criticize you, it's not because they're anti-Semites.
And, you know, we see this most clearly in the case of the Goldstone Report on the Gaza slaughter of a year and a half ago or a year and a couple months ago.
Gaza offended the world, appalled the world, angered the world.
And now you have this leading just jurist from South Africa, Richard Goldstone, who's Jewish, who's on the board of the Hebrew University, who says that war crimes were committed and the Jewish community is smearing him.
So here's a situation in which the world is registering its opinion.
And my community, by and large, is nullified, is trying to do judicial nullification.
We don't like to judge.
And, you know, they never like to judge.
And so I really do think that your challenge is the correct one, is how are you going to behave in the neighborhood that is the world?
How are we going to behave?
And this is why I identify myself very clearly as Jewish.
I try to operate inside the Jewish community because I think my community has to be reformed.
I think that it's an essential component of its moving forward and the world moving forward.
If I were a Muslim, I think that I would be very upset about some of the jihadi stuff.
I don't really understand that enough.
I mean, there's ways that I judge it, even as a non-Muslim.
But, you know, there's a limit to my power to affect that community.
There's a limit of my power to affect the Catholic community in the child abuse scandal that's happening.
I have a great deal of power inside the Jewish community, or I have actual power within the Jewish community because I'm a member of that community.
And so that's where I am choosing to do my work.
And, you know, hopefully I'll do it in a loving enough way that I'm not going to alienate Jewish brethren.
But they've got to wake up and smell the coffee on this one.
I wonder how you define the Jewish community.
Like, for example, how many Jews live in America and how many of them even care about any of this at all, have anything to do?
How many of them are just, you know, like...
It used to be people could tell the difference between whose grandparents or whose parents were German or Irish or English or whatever.
But now you're just a white American guy.
You know what I mean?
Aren't most Jews like that?
You know, I think there's a little bit more of a particularist identity among Jews.
There are around five or six million Jews in America, six million Jews.
And, you know, partly because the intermarriage rate and there was this great alarm in the Jewish community that we were a vanishing community.
And for that reason, there's been an emphasis within the Jewish community on trying to maintain numbers and a little bit of circling the wagon.
So I think that young Jews are brought up.
A lot of them deal out of this, as I dealt out of it.
But a lot of them are brought up with this, you've got to stay Jewish, you've got to be in the Jewish community.
And so I think there's more of a strong...
My sense is that there's more of a...
You know, I have like Irish Catholic friends, you know, Protestant friends who all come from tribes, individual tribes.
And I think their tribal identification has relaxed more than my own and the Jewish one.
But you're right.
Generally, these identifications are softening.
And what's more, Israel's behavior is alienating, you know, hundreds of thousands of young Jews.
Why do you want to be identified with a group that swears allegiance to a country that responds with violence over and over again to basic questions of unfairness and land issues?
And, you know, just as you see these Catholics deserting congregations and parishes over this sex abuse thing, that is happening inside the Jewish community.
There are young Jews who say, you know what, this is just not a happy story right now.
And that's got to be dealt with, you know.
I mean, I don't know where...
I'm not especially a religious person.
You know, I don't read the Bible and think that that's the true history of God, although I'm a spiritual person.
And I hope that these things soften, just as I hope that nations, you know, cease to exist.
But I think the end of religion, the end of nation is a long way off.
These are the realities that I deal with in the present constellation of power.
Hmm.
Well, you know, I just...
I'm not really sure, because...
Or, you know, about where all these...
How all these definitions work.
Because, like, for example, the anti-war movement...
Well, antiwar.com, for example, was founded by a Jewish guy.
And I guess a great many of us on the staff of...
Well, out of a staff of seven, I guess five of us are Jews.
And all the different peace groups and all that seem to all be run by Jews, too.
And it seems like if you read the Internet, you read Jews of all different opinions.
You know, so...
But I guess what you're talking about is who answers the letter in the mail that says, donate to this or that politician, or support this or that policy.
But even then, what percentage of Jews participate in that kind of thing, do you think?
You know, you're pointing at a crucial divide between the conservative Jews who are at AIPAC and give a lot of money for Israel, and, you know, the more liberal Jews who go on into the anti-war community.
What...
Well, you know, I guess the thing is, too, is I'm really annoyed by all the Nazis in my comments section.
The Jews this, the Jews that, whatever.
And as Eric Garris says, you've got to learn to discriminate, man.
You know?
In the proper sense of that term.
The difference between who's who and who's not what.
Yeah.
You know, you damn 9-11 gatekeeper.
Yeah, yeah, no, I understand what you're saying.
The problem is that, you know, part of it is ignorance.
Part of it is that you're not allowed to talk about this stuff.
And so there's a lot, there is anti-Semitism out there.
There's also ignorance.
And, you know, part of it comes from the fact that Jews really do have a lot of financial power in this country.
Jews have media power.
That's something that we have been very good at.
And to sort of deny, to say that it's an utter meritocracy and the cultural factors are not coming to bear here, it's kind of naive and ignorant.
And people identify these issues and, you know, they get upset about them.
And there's resentment.
And, you know, so that gets, you know, ladled on top of this is this kind of resentment.
And I feel like the answer to it is to have a more open discussion about these things.
And the extent to which, you know, within Jewish life, too, there are, you know, there are more liberal components, as you say.
There are, you know, anti-war, a lot of Jews in the anti-war movement.
And they've got to be more clear about where they stand on Zionism, which I think Zionism is hurting our country right now.
Yeah.
Well, and now, is Zionism to you expansionist, lacunate craziness or just that Israel ought to exist at all?
Or what exactly makes one a Zionist?
Because people argue about that definition a lot.
And that, to me, is I guess I grew up to understand a Zionist as someone who, I guess, doesn't mind that there's an Israel or something like that.
But then others say, no, these are the people who want the borders of the eastern border of Israel to be Iran.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a great question.
That's a brilliant question.
And I think there's a lot of confusion inside the Jewish community about that.
Because what you see is that, I mean, I think that, first of all, to answer your question directly, Zionism is diverse.
And it includes, quote, unquote, progressive Zionists who want a retreat to the 67 borders, but still want a Jewish state.
And yet it also, what you find is that when you poll American Jews on giving up Jerusalem, giving up the settlements, there are actually really mixed feelings about that.
So that expansionism is sort of my concern about Zionism.
And the reason that I describe myself as a non-Zionist or a post-Zionist, I've sort of given up on the anti-Zionism.
But the reason I'm a non-Zionist is because it seems that expansionism and ethnic cleansing is inside the DNA of Zionism.
And so I think that Israel has got to progress out of that phase where Zionism is really concerned with the Jewish rights.
And Zionists produced the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of 1948.
And Zionists today produce the denial of the Nakba.
You're not even allowed to teach it in textbooks.
So even liberal Zionists tend to have expansionist ideas.
And that's where I just don't think the ideology really serves.
But I'm happy to have that argument.
And I think that there are some Zionists who are very impressive, who actually believe in minority rights.
But this discussion needs to be had openly.
All right, now let's get back to the politics where we started this interview.
I guess the worst one that I saw was Glenn Reynolds, a hero, war blogger among the neoconservatives, who said, if I was the Israelis, not only would I bomb Iran, but I would bomb Iran in a way that would be as harmful to Russia, China, and the United States as possible.
And I guess he meant he wouldn't mind seeing tens of thousands of American army in Iraq slaughtered.
So good for Glenn Reynolds, I guess, when it comes to taking the side of a foreign power against your own country.
He wins the prize.
I don't know why he hates freedom so much.
But he's not the only one.
And so I was wondering if you could kind of rehash for people who don't keep up with all the foreign policy blogs and who's saying what on all these things.
Tell us the story of the politics of the last few weeks here, including General Petraeus and his statement and how that played in.
Okay.
Obama has made it very clear that he regards the Israel-Palestine issue as central to resolving the conflict, as central to American interests in the Middle East.
That we won't make progress until we resolve this issue of Palestinian grievances.
And Obama has made that clear not only by snubbing Netanyahu when he announced that he was having more settlements, but by having General Petraeus has been very upfront about the fact that this is hurting us.
This is a grievance across the Arab world.
And it's been obvious for 10 years and more that this is destroying the American credibility in the Arab world.
So while he is pushing on that, Obama is pushing on that, he cannot alienate Israel completely.
Why?
Because he needs Jews in the American power structure for one thing.
Yeah, because there's an American alliance with Israel.
Yes, that's part of it too.
There may be some American overlap of interest with Israel, but Obama is not going to completely abandon that relationship, that special relationship with Israel.
And what he seems to be indicating is, if you play ball with us on the 67 borders or on Jerusalem, if you become more conciliatory Israel, then we will play ball on Iran.
And Obama has taken a fairly hawkish stance on Iran.
And what he sort of said is, we've got to ramp up sanctions.
So this guy who the Jewish community, the right-wing Jewish community is accusing of being the worst president ever for Israel, is basically doing what Israel wants or what the pro-Israel community wants on sanctions.
And after sanctions, they don't want just sanctions, they want to bomb Iran, as Glenn Reynolds says.
And they don't want to do that on their own.
The world is no longer a world in which you can just go take out the Iraq nuclear reactor as the Israelis did in 1981 without consequences.
There would be massive consequences of an Israeli strike, as you say, on Iran.
And so Israel doesn't want to do that on its own.
It wants Uncle Suckers to back them up on it, either to support it or be part of it, or even do it.
And so that's the game.
That's the game.
And where will Americans be on this?
Where were Americans on the Iraq war run-up when that was all about various bogus reasons were given, but clearly there was a strong pro-Israel interest in taking out Saddam?
You know, Americans didn't have that open conversation.
Are we going to have it now?
What's our interest?
What's Israel's interest?
And isn't it our interest not to attack Iran?
Yeah.
Well, and isn't it really strange to see so many Americans take the side of Israel?
Now, I guess it's easier when Obama's a Muslim and all that kind of nonsense is in the background there.
That makes it easier to marginalize him where he's not America, like George Bush likes to say, hey, don't accuse America of torture.
No, we're accusing you of torture.
That's great.
But Obama, he's a little bit easier to separate from.
Although, Scott, I'm leaving out the most important political fact that I should give your listeners.
And that is that Republicans, for whatever GD reason, Republicans have a favorable view of Israel by 90 percent.
And I don't know that that's related to Obama or his race or his Muslim background and his family.
I think that that is an actual hawkish identification on the part of these right-wing Republicans with Israel.
But Democratic Party, only 40 percent have a favorable view.
And that is the real progress, that among the liberals, they're finally waking up and realizing this ain't a liberal country.
It's really amazing because I think among most right-wingers, just cultural, tend to be conservative types, voters or non-voters in America, that, man, they love that American flag as much as Jesus.
And a lot of them might learn about the end times on Saturday and whatever.
But these are the very same people who had no problem instructing the likes of you and me that to contradict George Bush in wartime was to take the side of the terrorist enemy.
And that no matter what foreign policy discussions, the debate ends at the water's edge.
And if it's the United States of America and officially the U.S. national government in a dispute with a foreign power, they are supposed to side with the United States no matter what.
They're the ones who taught us this, right?
And yet when it comes to Israel, the American right-wing is willing to side with the foreign power?
Or is it just their neocon leaders in print?
You know, I think there's a lot of stupidity in a lot of it, the whole ideology of the war on terror.
I mean, look, they voted for George Bush.
This country voted for George Bush the second time around.
You know, why did they do that?
Tens of millions of people.
Yeah, that's right.
Tens of millions left the house to go and reelect George Bush.
It's just amazing.
Hey, boss, can I get off early today?
I've got to go to the poll and reelect George Bush.
I know, it's fabulous.
And they also believe that Obama was hope and change, even though his Senate voting record promised that he was a bloody-handed, warmongering imperialist and that he would continue to be, and that is what he has continued to be.
Am I right?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, look at Afghanistan.
And really, even what pressure has he really put on Netanyahu?
I mean, he hasn't said, look, no more settlements.
East Jerusalem is to be decided by the U.N.
Security Council resolutions, and I really mean it.
I'll cut your money off.
He hasn't done anything, has he really?
No, I mean, no.
No, I mean, he's snubbed Netanyahu, which is a historic thing.
Well, yeah, I like the snubbing thing, but in substance, what has he done?
I'm with you.
I'm with you.
There need to be sanctions.
There needs to be divestment, boycott.
Hey, there's got to be teeth in this thing, or it's a lot of horse feathers.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it was interesting.
I saw an article, I think it was in Haaretz, that said, Petraeus tells Ashkenazi, who I think is the defense minister over there?
Chief of Staff.
Army Chief of Staff.
Yeah, the military chief of staff.
Oh, there you go.
Right.
And Petraeus tells him, man, I never said that.
And yet the substance of the article is, yeah, he did say that.
And what he said was, Israel's conflict with the people and their occupation of Palestine is, you know, basically getting American troops killed.
It's making American domination of the Middle East that much more difficult.
And he didn't bring up 9-11, but it leads to that very same argument.
Absolutely.
Same thing's happening with the debate over the Chechens and the Russians, because the neocons all take the side of the Chechens in that one, because they hate Russia so much.
So that one is a blowback from Russian foreign policy.
I mean, this basic truth that Mohammed Attah hated us for Israel's foreign policy, domestic policy, is finally, I think, getting through.
Yeah.
And you're the one who first pointed that out to me from that book about the hijackers.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, it's in Perfect Soldiers by Terry McDermott, and in Lawrence Wright's book, The Looming Tower.
And, in fact, Phil, as long as you bring that up, I don't remember the particular discussion, so I just want to make a correction because I have gotten this wrong in the past.
When Mohammed Attah filled out his last will and testament, it was not the day after the Qanaa massacre, but it was just a few days before it, and it was in reaction to Operation Grapes of Wrath in southern Lebanon, so same difference.
Huh, huh.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
But I want to get my chronology straight there.
Look, Americans have to come to grips with this, and apparently Joe Biden, the best thing I heard during this whole thing, is that Joe Biden lectured Netanyahu and said, Hey, look, you're endangering American lives.
And people said that was anti-Semitic when it was reported.
It's crazy.
It's just true.
Yeah, Joe Biden, the notorious anti-Semite, right?
Yeah, he declares himself a Zionist.
So, yes.
Yeah, well, and has a career of being extremely pro-Israel.
Oh, yeah.
He was the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
I mean, come on.
Yes, yeah.
All right, so now let's talk more about John Hagee, as long as I'm keeping you over time here.
No problem.
What is it with the whatever Jewish community, however you define it, alliance with people who want Jesus to kill all the Jews?
What is going on there?
You know, I don't know much about this, but certainly, you know, Christians United for Israel, John Hagee's group, you know, they're supporting Israel.
So pro-Israel Jews are going to make an alliance with anybody they can.
And whether he regards in the end times, you know, the rapture is going to destroy everyone else in Jerusalem or Israel, but righteous Christians, which apparently is his belief, I don't think it matters much to Jews who support Israel.
I think they understand that this is a useful political alliance, and they're going to exploit the hell out of it.
So that's what's going on.
And, in fact, one of the leading Israel lobbyists wrote a book about this called A Match Made in Heaven.
So he loves it, you know, and they love it.
So they're going to use it.
Well, I wonder, do you have any worry about maybe some blowback when all the magic stuff doesn't happen and the world just continues to suck on into the 21st century?
I mean, we're running out of deadlines for the end times to come, you know.
I know.
Once New Year's 2013 comes around, like, come on, y'all, can we get back to real life here?
Does that ever stop them?
I guess not.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, if you believe that, you know, you're going to believe it.
I don't know.
But, yeah, I don't know if there will be blowback.
I mean, God knows there's going to be blowback.
I don't know where.
I mean, the real blowback I worry about is when Americans wake up and they realize that Israel's security played a large role in the decision to go to war in Iraq.
And when, and God knows if they are able, the neocons are able to push a strike on Iran, think of the blowback to Americans.
I mean, it's just going to be incredible, beginning, as you say, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Well, actually, that's my favorite quote of Norman Podhoretz, is that if America strikes Iran, which I hope and pray that they will, it will unleash a wave of anti-Americanism around the world that will make the current anti-Americanism seem like a walk in the park.
Really?
When did he say that?
I'll play the audio right here in your ear.
Let me stop for time for a second here.
Everybody, you're listening to Philip Weiss.
Philip Weiss, he writes the Mondoweiss blog at mondoweiss.net.
Well, if we were to bomb the Iranians, as I hope and pray we will, it will unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all around the world that will make the anti-Americanism we've experienced so far look like a love fest.
On the other hand, that's a worst-case scenario.
Oh, yeah, that's just the worst-case scenario.
Phil, don't you worry about it.
When did he say that, recently?
I believe this was July 2007.
Oh, my God.
That's what it says here, and that sounds about right to me.
And that was, of course, right at the time that not only the Israel lobby but the Cheney faction inside the White House was pushing hard for strikes on Iran and basically were, as far as I can tell, only stopped by the will of then-CENTCOM commander Admiral Fallon.
Who, by the way, did say, look, the Iranians are ants, and we'll crush them whenever we feel like it, but right now is not a very good time.
Wow, wow, wow.
So that was the anti-war faction in the government that prevented this thing from breaking out then.
Wow, wow.
I've got to believe that Obama, though, in his heart, this is the last thing he wants to do, is to bomb Iran.
Well, and apparently that's what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been saying.
And, of course, he said all options remain on the table, etc.
But he also said this would be a very inopportune time for this.
And, you know, it's funny.
I watched this thing last week, Phil, where Frank Gaffney was explaining that Iran is the center of radical Islam and Sharia and this and that, and nobody stopped him to say, wait a minute, are you saying that al-Qaeda is friends with Iran?
Because that's America's fight was with Ayman al-Zawahiri and friends, not the Ayatollahs, who are actually al-Zawahiri's enemies.
Right, right.
I can't believe it.
I mean, that's just incredible.
I mean, the ignorance that is just put forward everywhere is true.
God, that's amazing.
Well, it's the ignorance that they're counting on, right?
Look, nuclear, scary, nuclear, scary.
The American people, 71%, think the Iranians already have nuclear weapons.
I didn't know that.
You see that?
Yeah, it was a true slant.
They did a piece all on it.
Wow, wow.
They already have nukes, and then now they want to bomb them because they got nukes.
And do they know that the Israelis have nukes?
I have no idea.
I don't think anybody ever asked them.
No one ever talked.
Oh, God, yeah.
Since you brought it up, Daniel Ellsberg told me that Mordecai Venunu told him that they have more than 600, and including hydrogen bombs, the super, multi-megaton weapon.
And, you know, Ukraine, I hear that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in order to become part of the European community, yet common market, you know?
Why can't we cut a deal with, why don't we have non-proliferation over there, you know?
Right.
Well, and, you know, this goes back to my Pollyanna view that, geez, if you just had a Yitzhak Rabin or somebody who wanted to work things out over there, I think you'd be fine.
If I was the president, I would send my secretary of state to go cut a deal with the North Koreans and the Iranians and everybody else immediately, and it would just be, look, you have a security guarantee.
We promise not to bomb you.
That's it.
Let's open up relations.
No more sanctions.
Everybody do business and get rich and be friends.
What the hell is going on here?
Yeah, I agree with you.
This is all unnecessary.
It's crazy.
You know, Dick Cheney, this was, I guess, when Democrats are in power, it's okay to be guilty of, you know, Dixie chicks level treason.
When Dick Cheney went to Australia in 1998, he condemned Bill Clinton and the sanctions against Iran.
He said, look, I'm the CEO of Halliburton.
I'm trying to do business here, and you're screwing me up.
The Iranians are reasonable people.
We can deal with them.
Imagine a former secretary of defense going overseas to denounce his president.
Foreign policy is supposed to stop at the...
Wow, wow, wow.
What hypocrisy.
Right.
And what he was saying was what you and I are saying.
We can do business with the Iranians.
Why do we have to have sanctions and war with Iran?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, and you and I believe in the beneficial effects of commerce, you know?
Yeah, of course.
You know, I just saw a thing, well, I guess it's been a few months now, and there's been, you know, wrinkles in this because of, again, American intervention issuing resolutions, taking sides.
But there was a thing where the Turks and the Armenians were opening their borders to more trade and travel.
And, you know, the same thing in North and South Korea until George Bush screwed it up with the sunshine policy.
We'll have trains going across the DMZ letting families see each other more, letting people trade more.
I didn't know that.
Wow, wow, that's amazing.
And there's just no question about it, right?
That if North and South Korea are doing business with each other to the tune of billions of dollars, then they are less likely to bomb each other.
Simple as that.
You don't have to be an economist to figure that out.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Anyway, I'm just sermonizing at you now, Phil.
I'm sorry.
I think it's great, man.
It's great.
Well, thank you.
Well, thank you.
I really appreciate your blog and all that you write there.
And I think that you really are doing a lot to, frankly, normalize what ought to be a normal discussion about American foreign policy.
Well, thank you.
Thank you.
And I really appreciate that.
Yeah, well, you guys are doing a great job at antiwar.com, too, man.
It's great.
I love it.
Right on.
Well, thanks a lot, everybody.
That is Philip Weiss.
The blog is mondoweiss.net.
Thanks again.
Take care.