All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I am the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and I've recorded more than 5,000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org.
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The full archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton show.
All right, you guys on the line, we've got the great Philip Weiss, the editor, the founder and the editor of the blog Mondoweiss at mondoweiss.net.
And man, has he got a great stable of writers over there for you guys.
And I owe you an apology, Phil.
I had to unsubscribe from your morning email because I was spending my first three hours of the day reading every great thing on your site, and I just couldn't do it no more.
But now that means I'm way behind on all my Israel-Palestine news.
That's fine.
So you are the great Scott Horton.
Let's just be on the record about that, okay?
I'm not so sure, but I'm trying.
How are you doing these days?
You know, we're doing all right.
We got all stocked up and locked down and armed up and ready for whatever comes.
So you know, I'm generally an optimist and a people person.
I think things are probably going to work out okay in the end, but I don't know how long that's going to take.
I'm not predicting the worst, but I'm prepared for it.
Yes.
Great.
Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot going on in Israel right now, as there is in every country, you know.
And it's pretty peculiar what's happening there in that Netanyahu, who seemed to have been on the ropes politically, is now using coronavirus to try to resuscitate his career and get a fifth term as prime minister.
Yeah.
And he was really right up against it, right?
Not entirely surprising, but I don't know how much detail you want on this, but in the recent election, the March 2nd election, Netanyahu, his party had the most votes at 35 or 36, but his opposition was given the opportunity to form a new government.
Benny Gantz, his chief rival, was given that opportunity because Gantz can command a total of 61 votes behind him, a majority of the Israeli parliament.
And so it appeared that Gantz was going to try to form some kind of what they call minority government, interim government, so as to oust Netanyahu.
And so Netanyahu's days finally look to be numbered.
That 61 votes that Gantz has on his side include wildly disparate ideological partners.
Avigdor Lieberman, who is anti-Arab racist, and the 15 votes of the joint list, which is largely Arab voters and legislators.
And so, yet they were all going to get together because they all want to get rid of Netanyahu.
They would join hands in this unlikely coalition to get rid of Netanyahu.
And because Lieberman and many others don't want an indicted prime minister to head, an indicted prime minister is directing Israel's sort of public life, as Netanyahu has done for, you know, 10 years now.
But with coronavirus, Netanyahu has been able to have these sort of fatherly chats every night, berating the public on its bad behavior, whipping people into shape, telling them what they have to deal with, and ordering more and more surveillance of the Israeli public.
And he seems very popular with the Israeli public.
His numbers are up to 60 or 70 percent suddenly.
And meantime, his minions inside the Knesset are trying to block Gantz's efforts to replace him.
So that's pretty much the big picture.
If there are specifics around that, I can drill down, as they like to say these days.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, no, please do.
I mean, explain what it was that they did.
What's the maneuver that they're resorting to in the Knesset to prevent Gantz?
Because if I understood it right, I think Rivlin, the president, which, unlike in our country, the president of Israel has essentially no power.
His only job is to essentially ask whoever's got the majority vote to—he gives them the chance to form the first government and appoint the new prime minister.
And weren't they going to—didn't they have that scheduled for this coming Monday?
So is that canceled now?
I think it's been put off.
I mean, they have—he's largely a figurehead, yes, Rivlin.
But the one thing that they were going to do immediately in the Knesset, yeah, this coming week, was to pass legislation with the 61 votes saying an indicted member of the parliament cannot be a prime minister, which would block Netanyahu's path.
And secondly, they were going to say that no prime minister can serve for more than two terms.
Well, Netanyahu said, I believe, four.
So again, his path would be blocked.
So they were going to pass this legislation.
In the meantime, Netanyahu responded with sort of emergency legislation.
A couple of things have happened, emergency measures.
His handpicked attorney general has punted his trial on corruption charges, Netanyahu's trial, for another two months, saying during an emergency coronavirus, we can't go with normal court business.
And then his—the speaker of the Knesset, who is a Likud member still, this guy named Yuli Edelstein, said basically is trying to lock down the Knesset and say there's going to be no committees, no—we can't go forward right now, we're under an emergency.
So Netanyahu is using all his powers to try to block any effort to challenge his leadership.
And so you see a lot of Israelis, and let me emphasize, these are Jewish Israelis who have not been subject to this type of authoritarian rule personally, as Palestinians have politically and personally for 70 years, complaining about a putsch and a coup and a dictator.
But there's a lot of anger toward Netanyahu now, even among sort of middle-of-the-road Israelis.
And yet the public, you know, the public in a crisis like this, you know, big surprise.
They love a dictator.
So I don't know—obviously, I have no idea how this is going to work its way out.
But the hopeful sign is that you see the Palestinian legislators talking about, we have to work with—you know, this society is only going to work when everybody has equal rights and we work together.
And look at all the Palestinians who are in the health sector.
I mean, the number of Palestinians—nurses, doctors, and pharmacies—is astronomical in Israel.
It's, I think, upwards of 25 percent in each of those categories, or 20 percent.
And nearly half of all pharmacies are run by Palestinians in Israel.
So not only are they mounting an anti-authoritarian campaign, the opposition, but also an actual real democratic campaign.
We never see in the Jewish democracy real democracy.
It's always a Jewish democracy, which gives Jews higher rights.
But on this occasion, the importance of these 15 Palestinian legislators to this plan to unseat Netanyahu, even the conservative Israeli legislators, Jewish legislators, seem to be stomaching it to get rid of Netanyahu.
And so I think that, just like so much else in this pandemic, we don't know what kind of world is going to emerge on the other side.
But the hopeful read of this thing is that, you know, maybe there will be a greater empowerment of Palestinians.
I'm a hopeful person on that, that the Palestinian parliament members, the Joint List, their party is the only game in town on the liberal left in Israeli politics, really the only game.
Do you think that the party that founded Israel was the Labor Party, that socialist, Zionist, Ashkenazi, European, you know, Holocaust-surviving party in the 40s and 50s and 60s, dominated 70s, dominated Israeli politics, David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan?
That Labor Party is down to three seats out of 120.
So that's how fluid Israeli politics is.
They're down to three seats.
And they're not even left.
And the left-wing party merits, submarined its one Palestinian legislator, knocked him off the list, and hooked up with Labor and a right-wing Jewish party.
It's just very, the degree of demoralization on the Jewish left in Israel is incredible.
And the degree of inspiration and belief in the Palestinian liberal politics of Israel is higher than it's ever been, with 15 seats, one by the Joint List.
And if there is a fourth election, and there could well be a fourth election, given that deadlock has been the status quo in Israel for the last year, then I think Palestinians could win as many as, it's been said, as many as 18 seats, which would be a remarkable rise.
Now, I should emphasize that the one thing I've left out is that Israel, the Jewish democracy, is one of the most racist political structures in the world.
I mean, there are a lot of them, but it's right up there.
And even this opposition to Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, is using the Palestinian votes, the 15 seats, to try to knock out Netanyahu.
But he has no real intention of including them in his government.
And there have even been assurances, with no Arabs, you know, who'll be in government.
And his actual and ultimate goal might be, Gantz's ultimate goal, might be to combine the two largest parties, his Blue and White, and Netanyahu's Likud, in what is called a national unity government.
And in a time of crisis, they're saying, we need to have a unity government.
You're saying the Blue and White people are saying that now, or Likud's saying that now?
Blue and White people are saying that, but on condition that Netanyahu is not at the top of it.
I was going to say, because I saw a thing last week where, it might have even been something I read by you, that said that, no, it wasn't by you, it was something else I read, I'm sorry.
But it was saying that he...
I forget what I wrote.
It was, oh, I know what it was, it was Netanyahu had proposed this publicly in the media, that I know will do a thing, a last resort, and then I'll stay prime minister for two years and then hand it over to you.
And then Gantz replied that if that was serious, how come you leaked it in the media instead of sending your people over here to talk about it?
I didn't see that.
That's funny.
Well, I have certainly seen these proposals, and time of crisis, let's join the two largest parties.
But what is interesting about Israeli politics right now is, despite that kind of urgency, that many, even in our country, there's a greater degree of bipartisanship than there has been in the recent years.
Despite that urgency, two things are more important than...two things are more important.
First, getting rid of Netanyahu is more important to these legislators than even a unity government.
And getting rid of Netanyahu is even more important than Israeli racism.
So it's a remarkable shift in the Israeli political culture.
I don't know how...
I think that they're holding fast on this determination that if we form a unity government, it's without Netanyahu.
We don't want Netanyahu.
We're sick of Netanyahu.
The three elections so far have shown the Israeli public is not in a majority for Netanyahu.
That's the message that Gantz and his friends keep saying.
And so if there is a fourth election, I think they'd go to a fourth election before they agreed on a government, the one that you just described, in which Netanyahu has first in rotation.
The president of Israel, that figurehead you referred to earlier ago, Rivlin, I think he would like it if they just made...everyone should get along, keep Netanyahu...he would like it if they kept Netanyahu prime minister, I think, under such an arrangement.
But there's just such a strong block, even in the Jewish politics now, of just, we want to see Netanyahu's back.
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Well I could see that.
I mean, boy, for Avigdor Lieberman to join into a coalition, even temporarily, with the Arabs like this is really something, huh?
Yes, exactly.
I mean, this is a guy who said Arabs should have their heads cut off.
He proposed transferring Palestinians out of Israel into Jordan.
Essentially what the Trump plan proposes, take these people, 100,000 or so citizens of Israel, and say, hey, guess what, you're now citizens of a new state of Palestine.
We've stripped you of your citizenship.
That was Netanyahu's, excuse me, Lieberman's bold plan.
And now he's making, breaking bread of a sword with these 15 Palestinian legislators.
And I just want to throw one other curve in here, just so people understand, I mean, to get back to coronavirus, and that is that Netanyahu is really trying to shut down the Knesset in a lot of ways right now because of the emergency.
And so this guy will use anything.
I mean, he is, it is just kind of wonderful to watch him in action because his latest move is, hey, look, the average age of the Knesset is not 14 years old.
We can't have these guys walking in and out of the Knesset building all the time.
It's a danger.
So we've got to limit Knesset activities right now to the most emergency.
So he's going to do anything to stymie this anti-Netanyahu effort.
And meanwhile, he's riding on sort of popularity polling, and he knows it.
And every night or so he has these speeches that are very informal.
And you talk about dictatorships, and everyone is sensitive right now to the degree to which our leaders are citing, quoting, listening to public health officials, and the degree to which they're going on their own and imposing authoritarian measures just because it makes them feel good.
And Netanyahu is really erred on.
He's shown his true cards because he even demoted, he wasn't even having public health officials come out with him.
He was public health official in chief.
And it's on the one hand kind of chilling, and on the other hand, we read it in history books and we see it in other countries now.
Yeah.
Well, and that's the thing.
I mean, with this guy, it was funny.
I was talking with Eric Gares, the boss at Anti-War.com about this the other day, and all these different stories about, well, they formed a group and then no, they haven't.
Some Likud toady suspended the parliament and this and that.
And it was just, there's too many conflicting stories came out on one day.
And he said, well, I guess we'll wait a day and see how things sort out a little bit here.
And he just said, you know what?
None of this matters.
The guy's dictator for life.
He's never leaving office.
There's no rule of law.
He's going to do whatever he has to do to stay prime minister.
He's by far the most powerful politician in Israel.
And he's still relatively young and healthy, and he ain't going anywhere.
We're stuck with this SOB from, you know, indefinitely, essentially.
I wish he'd said that at the start, because I think it's a helpful analysis, and one that hadn't occurred to me.
And I think that there's a lot of truth in that.
I mean, regardless of any legal procedure and formal process and election and everything, who's still at the head of that government?
You know?
Netanyahu and the guy.
And now he's got his greatest ally is, you know, I heard once that, you know, there's only one person whose life has been saved by coronavirus.
That's Benjamin Netanyahu.
You know, this guy will use anything, and, yeah, I think Eric's right.
Yep.
You never let a crisis go to waste, especially if you're Benjamin Netanyahu, you know?
That's brilliant.
That might be where Rahm Emanuel got that quote from, you know?
Yeah, well, it's not as if there aren't many degrees of separation there, are there?
No, absolutely not.
Yes.
Oh, man.
All right.
Well, yeah, so it's not a happy story, but not that it's a happy story anywhere.
But there are some signs of hope even here, I think.
Yeah.
OK, well, so here's the real bad news, and we'll have to end on this.
I know you need to go a little early here, but what is, I mean, I'm terrified about the poor Palestinians on the West Bank, but in the Gaza Strip, is there an outbreak already in Gaza, and is there anything that anyone would be able to do to save those people once the community spread is on in that desolate Warsaw ghetto-like no-man's land there, where these refugees are stuck because they were born with the wrong religion?
You know, you're raising the most important question, and, I mean, factually, right now the information is that there is not, in the Gaza Strip, in 1.2 million people, that there are no cases.
How long will that remain the case?
No one thinks that that will remain the case.
On the other hand, the fact that they are under siege and blockaded might explain partly why that's the case.
In the West Bank- Right, yeah, their own kind of outside-enforced quarantine, right?
Right, right.
I mean, on the West Bank, so far the number of cases is fairly small, but, you know, you have this huge Palestinian prisoner population.
There are already rumors of how many Palestinian prisoners have gotten the virus, you know?
So this is the most important question for people who care about Palestinians, is what this is going to do to Palestinian life.
And given the way the United States is treating Iran right now, I mean, how is Israel going to be with this population?
What are they going to justify?
What are they going to use this virus to justify?
And there again, you see the joint list, the Palestinian legislators, stepping up and saying, hey, we're all in this together.
This is one vote.
Yeah, what a great opportunity for peace for Israel and for America and for anybody who's fighting about anything.
I have an idea right now.
Let's kill Iran with kindness.
Let's lift all the sanctions.
Let's send them every bit of aid and food and extra masks and whatever we can do.
And forget the past.
The past is dead.
It's a whole new world now.
Why do we have to fight the ITAL?
Because Netanyahu says so?
Forget that.
Absolutely.
I mean, when did that?
It was a revolution 40 years ago.
Who cares?
You know?
I mean, seriously, Ronald Reagan sold the missiles just a couple of, you know, days after that.
And the Israelis got along with them until they decided to turn on them for their own political purposes in 1992.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And they stayed friends with the Ayatollah for 10 years after the revolution.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And, you know, the thing is about the relations between Palestinians and Jews and Israel and Palestine, it's all just politics.
You know, it's not.
There's nothing fundamental.
I mean, there's a lot of racism, but ultimately, it's a human political arrangement.
And just like you said, everything's yesterday now.
Right.
I mean, everything's ancient history.
And so I don't know.
I mean, what you just said to me is actually a hopeful thing, because, you know, there are some voices saying this in Washington.
There are some people saying, you know, suspend all sanctions against Iran.
And North Korea, too.
Does anybody believe there are no cases of corona in North Korea?
Oh, my.
I mean, what an opportunity for the most powerful and wealthiest country in the world to help the poorest and weakest and stupid and back ass where it is communist dictatorship by just saying, you know what?
The past is dead.
Let's be friends.
Let's work this out.
You need fuel oil.
You need medicine.
You need whatever we can help you with.
And let's just move forward.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Now, of course, that would mean that anyone who has a heart and a brain and the interests of the American people or the people of the world in mind, rather than just the special interests, like the arms dealers over at Boeing and Lockheed and their interest in keeping up tensions with North Korea and the anti China lobby that just wants our troops in South Korea, not for North Korea, but to use against China.
If it's not for those evil, corrupt, tiny, tiny, tiny minority special interests having this way, then any decent set of human beings in charge of this country would do exactly what I just said.
Scott, you know, as I said, the great Scott Horton.
So I'm in complete agreement.
And also, I don't think that this sort of understanding and moral clarity is that utterly elusive.
Right.
Yeah.
This is for everyone except the Lockheed vice presidents.
They're all confused.
They don't understand what I just said.
But everybody else gets it.
Right.
And why isn't it politically right now, you know, just like a no brainer and be just a giant winner.
You know.
All right.
Well, listen, you are so great.
And your whole stable of writers over there, Mondo Weiss, are so great.
I don't know what we do without you.
I appreciate it so much, Phil.
OK, Scott.
All right.
Thank you, man.
Thank you.
That is a great Philip Weiss.
Mondo Weiss dot net.
That's where you read about Israel, Palestine every day.
And he's got a ton of great writers over there, including himself, too.
Mondo Weiss dot net.
