03/18/15 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, I'm Scott Horton here for the Future of Freedom, the monthly journal of the Future of Freedom Foundation at fff.org slash subscribe.
Since 1989, FFF has been pushing an uncompromising moral and economic case for peace, individual liberty, and free markets.
Sign up now for the Future of Freedom, featuring founder and president Jacob Horenberger, as well as Sheldon Richmond, James Bovard, Anthony Gregory, Wendy McElroy, and many more.
It's just $25 a year for the print edition, $15 per year to read it online.
That's fff.org slash subscribe.
And tell them Scott sent you.
All right, Sheldon, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, Scott Horton Show.
I got Phil Giraldi on the line.
He's the executive director of the Council for the National Interest, writes for the American Conservative Magazine and UNZ.com, that's U-N-Z, UNZ.com, former CIA officer.
How's it going, Phil?
Okay.
I'm following, obviously, developments in Israel very closely.
It's interesting what happened there.
Yeah.
Well, so break it down for us.
What do you think?
In order of importance here.
Well, assuming that Netanyahu can pull together a coalition, which is by no means a given, it's clear that the Israeli government has moved considerably to the right.
Netanyahu's appeal on the last couple days was essentially racist and irredentist, and basically he's saying that there will be no Palestinian state, that we will not negotiate with them, and that he got out his votes by making the racist appeal that if the Jewish Israelis didn't vote for him, there were going to be a lot of Arabs coming to the poll.
So it's a move considerably to the right, and I think this is something that will have consequences.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, it's interesting.
First of all, about that racist appeal, pretty blatant there, and I guess not too worried about the long-term trade-off for, well, first of all, just how ugly it looks, saying, oh, the Arabs are going to march on the ballot boxes, like, oh, come on, pretty bad, especially in these PC times.
It's about, you know, if he said that on Twitter, he'd be ruined, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, basically, I mean, he was, and of course, for the listeners, I mean, the Arabs he's talking about were the Arabs who are Israeli citizens and have been Israeli citizens since 1948.
He was saying, don't let them vote, or don't, if, you know, if they try to vote, we have to do something about it.
Right, yeah, exactly.
Never even mind the people of the occupied territories who don't get to vote at all in this so-called democracy.
But yeah, these are the people who, you know, at least in theory, have just as much right to vote as any Jewish Israeli does.
Yeah, that's correct.
So basically, this is like, you know, like a politician today in the United States saying, well, guys, you have to get out and vote because otherwise the blacks are going to vote, and we don't want that, do we?
So, you know, it's that racist, and it's that unacceptable.
And I think this is what, when I talk about consequences, I think that Netanyahu is not going to be able to backtrack on this, not be able to walk away from it.
And the fact that he's saying, you know, no Palestinian state ever, and no negotiations with them ever, essentially puts him into a corner, which I think a lot of Europeans initially, and eventually, I hope Americans will find unacceptable.
Yeah, see, that's the real thing about it is, you know, the racist stuff, you know, for the apologists, they'll figure out a way to say, oh, that's just politics or whatever and move past that.
Somehow, I know TV in America won't make a big deal out of it.
Certainly that kind of thing.
But the the ultimate renunciation of the two state solution, that seems to be a real problem.
As I was reading Ali Abunimah earlier, and he put it perfectly about how this is how the Americans and the Europeans continue to allow the Israelis to get away with what they're doing is everybody agrees that they're not doing what they're doing, that they're working on a peace process, that they're going to solve this someday, that there's going to be a Palestinian state someday.
So when you outright say that's never going to happen, it's not that it ever was going to happen.
It's just that now he's completely blown the cover of the Americans and the Europeans for cooperating on this thing.
Yeah, that's right.
It's going to become increasingly difficult, certainly for European politicians to have anything to do with Israel in kind of a collaborative way.
And of course, it's going to be more difficult to reach that point here in the United States, like Tom Cotton already came out today.
And I'm sure you saw it.
And he announced that he was really delighted that there will not be any Palestinian state.
So, you know, there are plenty of apologies for Israel in the U.S. Congress primarily, but I don't think this is going to go over even very well in the media.
Yeah, well, I don't know.
I guess it remains to be seen whether they're even going to discuss it here.
But yeah, in in Europe, certainly the politics over there, the populations of Britain, France and Germany, this will sort of this has got to be some kind of last straw for them because they actually understand the situation in a way that Americans certainly don't.
Yeah, that's correct.
And and essentially, you know, we might minimize that.
You say, OK, all Israel really needs is the United States to protect it in international bodies, to keep sending it money, to sell it weapons, to provide other forms of support.
But the reality is that a lot of the Israeli economy is dependent on trade with Europe and that can be that can be adjusted very quickly.
I mean, there could be something like like sanctions that Europeans will impose on Israel in various economic sectors.
So, I mean, this is this is not an empty issue.
Right.
And now.
So let's backtrack a little bit to the election results, because I guess, you know, Netanyahu did better than a lot of people said he would.
And yet some reporting is still that the guy, Moshe Kallon, who's in fifth place, he hasn't pledged to either side yet.
And with the Arab list in third place, it's conceivable that that Kallon could be the kingmaker and make a deal with labor or the Zionist Union and the Arab list.
And then Netanyahu wouldn't be the prime minister.
You think there's much of a chance of that?
I don't think there's much of a chance of that because Netanyahu seems to have the edge in terms.
I think the seats that they counted were what he got, 27.
And and the number two party had 23.
So, you know, they have to get 60 seats to have a majority, but there are other tricks they can play, too.
They could have essentially some parties who support them from outside where they don't have to be part of the coalition, but indicate that they're going to get political support.
And then, you know, we'll get the support of all the extremist right wing parties.
Yeah.
Certainly if it comes to either that or turning it over to Zippy Livni and them.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, so I don't know, I guess over at Electronic Intifada, they're saying, you know what, so much the better because and I'm this is my way of saying it.
They're basically saying you're better off just keeping W in power, being exactly what he is and everyone can see him for what he is.
You know, with Netanyahu as W kind of thing.
Right.
Rather than bringing in the fresh new face to carry on the same horrible policies.
And so let it be this kind of, you know, right wing tribalist sort of, you know, outright fascist apartheid type thing rather than having Zippy Livni and this guy Yitzhak Herzog, who would put more of a soft face on it and a more European, a more Tel Aviv than Jerusalem face on it for Western consumption.
Go ahead and let it let the apartheid Israeli regime bear itself for exactly what it is led by a guy who, you know, after all, Netanyahu kind of fits perfectly, doesn't he, as the representative, as the head of state of Israel?
Yeah, yeah, I think it does.
I mean, there was another article out of Israel I saw today.
I think it was on Haaretz, some commentator, I don't remember who it was, said basically, well, now the now the Israelis have the leader that that they deserve.
And then, you know, and he deserves them.
It's a it's obviously a love fest and a perfect fit.
The fascism has won, in effect.
And, you know, but it's really true.
I think the retrospect on this is going to be this was crazy.
They shot themselves in the foot no matter how this comes out.
And it's but of course, I welcome it.
I mean, you know, I think we have to see Israel for what it is.
And I think there has to be effective pressure on Israel to to change things.
And the only way that will happen is if everybody recognizes that someone like Netanyahu is just an outbound fascist.
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
No more talking about Palestine, because what's more important is Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Phil, so everyone changed the subject.
No, I'm just kidding.
When we get back, Phil Durali, more on the Palestinians and on Iran and their civilian nuclear program.
Just a minute.
Unz dot com, the American conservative dot com.
Counsel for the National Interest dot org.
Hey, I'll Scott here.
First, I want to take a second to thank all the show's listeners, sponsors and supporters for helping make the show what it is.
I literally couldn't do it without you.
And I want to tell you about the newest way to help support the show.
Whenever you shop at Amazon dot com, stop by Scott Horton dot org first.
Just click the Amazon logo on the right side of the page.
That way the show will get a kickback from Amazon's end of the sale.
It won't cost you an extra cent.
And it's not just books.
Amazon dot com sells just about everything in the world except cars, I think.
So whatever you need, they've got it.
Just click the Amazon logo on the right side of the page at Scott Horton dot org or go to Scott Horton dot org slash Amazon.
All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
Talking Israeli election results with Phil Durali from the Council for the National Interest.
Which is quite a bit different than the Israeli national interest.
You might be surprised there's daylight in there somewhere.
If you squint, you can see it.
All right.
So now what we've been talking about is how Netanyahu has finally backed the Israelis into the apartheid corner where there just ain't no pretending anymore.
He's announced that it's greater Israel all the way to the Jordan River and the West Bank belongs to the Israelis.
He'll never give it up.
He's expanding the settlements.
There will never be a Palestinian state.
And he didn't really say what's supposed to happen to all the Palestinians who still live on the West Bank.
But so that's my question to you, Phil.
Apartheid as it is, I guess maybe it can last indefinitely with American support, but maybe not.
But then what happens to the Palestinians?
Because I can see where Ali Abunimah and them say, yeah, that's right.
It should be one state, a secular state where everybody has equal rights.
And that's the end of that.
Right.
Which makes sense.
But then again, it seems like if the Israeli Zionists were put into that situation, they would instead engage in another Nakba and reduce that population right back down to the tolerable 20 percent level one way or the other and another horrible massacre.
And maybe the Palestinians are better occupied than dead.
Well, that's, of course, the question I suspect what we're going to see is we're going to see the Israelis creating all kinds of incentives to get rid of their Arabs and they'll be putting a lot of pressure on the people like Natali Bennett and Lee and Avigdor Lieberman have been proposing all along that that Arabs be put under certain restraints and conditions as and I'm talking again about the Arabs that actually live in Israel that are Israeli citizens, that there be specific restraints and conditions as part of their ability to live in the country.
So if you make these conditions more and more onerous at a certain point, the expectation would be that that they will leave.
They'll go somewhere.
And of course, you can if this whole situation, Israel-Palestine collapses, which it could well very well do in short order, because I think the last time we talked, we talked about this lawfare case in New York City whereby the Palestinian Authority, it looks like it's going to be bankrupted.
At that point, Israel has to physically take control of the West Bank and Gaza.
There's no other way about it.
And so you have, in a sense, a de facto one singular state, including everyone.
But the Israelis will obviously figure out mechanisms to get the Arabs out.
And of course, that could range from genocide to just kind of a more administrative ethnic cleansing.
But sure, the Israelis have put themselves in an impossible position now.
And there is no simple or acceptable solution to what Netanyahu has come up with over the last couple of days.
And I don't imagine that knowing or having watched Netanyahu for 20 years, that he's going to try to backtrack from this.
I think this is going to become Israeli policy and he's going to be supported by the hard, hard right inside Israel on everything he does.
And then so what are the Americans going to do about it?
Nothing, I guess, huh?
Nothing.
There was a I think Dan Larrison, Daniel Larrison, had a piece over attack today where he was talking about possible consequences of this.
And he said nothing will happen.
The Congress is too much controlled by by Israeli interests.
The White House is afraid to confront that in any kind of direct way.
And the media will at worst just kind of be ambivalent.
It won't talk about what the Israelis are doing.
Well, man, yeah, I don't know.
It sure seems like a lot of moving parts and you still have, you know, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are completely divided where Hamas controls Gaza and they have even less rights there.
I read at the 972 mag, I think it was or it was the author from the Noam Shazoff wrote a thing, I guess, in The Washington Post or somebody saying that the the Gaza Strip is a maximum security prison, the West Bank, a minimum security prison.
But that's basically the difference between the two.
But so, yeah, I mean, geez, if if there's only what you're saying is I think there's only a certain level of de facto annexation of the West Bank that you can have by the Israeli state before the pretension is over.
It simply has been annexed.
And then I guess at that point, the Americans still won't do anything about it or I mean, because at that point you literally have a situation straight out of or worse than the old South of, you know, pre-civil rights South.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, it's already is that.
But again, with the the layers of gloss off of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's hard to imagine how this can play out, to be honest.
I mean, the the situation is just so bad.
And there are so many genies that have been popped out of the bottle by Netanyahu in his desperate desire to get reelected.
I mean, he's he's basically made it made made a pact with evil with.
I mean, he was evil enough to start with, but he he's made a pact with the most evil, the most the most diabolical elements in Israeli society to get reelected.
And now he he's he owes these people.
And essentially there is going to be there is going to be racism at a level that is unimaginable right now.
And there's going to be there's going to be either genocide or, as they say, some kind of scale down ethnic cleansing.
I mean, this is just it's it's what he has pledged to do.
And what will what will Obama do?
Well, Obama has refused to call him and congratulate him.
That is probably the extent of it.
They're not about to cut the money we give them every year.
They're not going to stop giving them providing them with raw intelligence data.
They're not going to stop repositioning U.S. military equipment in Israel.
They're not going to stop any of these things.
Now, the only the only light I see at the end of the tunnel is what's going to happen with Iran.
If if if Obama is strong enough to defy the Israel lobby in this country, he'll be able to cut a deal with Iran, and that's going to cut the legs out of a lot of what the Republicans are saying and also what Netanyahu has been saying.
And but I I'm not sure that's going to happen.
Yeah, well, what kind of odds are you given that?
Well, I think it's almost 50 50 right now.
But I, you know, having observed Obama through now seven years or whatever, I mean, he's a he's a very cautious player.
He doesn't take risks.
And and one of the risks that has to be at the back of his mind is opening up the Pandora's box, the Israel issue, because there are plenty of Democrats in his party that are strong supporters of Israel.
And and also, of course, the entire Republican Party as a block, a strong supporter of Israel.
So is this a risk he's going to want to take because it's the right thing to do?
I don't know.
I hope he will.
And if he does it, he he basically undercuts a lot of the nonsense that's coming out of people like Tom Cotton and Netanyahu, but he may not have the courage to do it.
Yeah, well, it seems like, man, they're so close to it now if they fail now to to sign this thing.
And it's so obvious the Iranians are willing to pretty much bend over backwards to accommodate American, you know, ridiculous demands here at this point.
But but yeah, so but I am interested, though, in in like you said, what happens if he gets the deal?
Because if he gets the deal, then, yeah, he got a deal.
Finally, a little political capital.
Right.
Then everybody's got to back down a little bit.
Yeah, I think it's a deal that manifestly does what they wanted to do, which is essentially deny Iran the right to enrich uranium beyond a certain point with a strict regime of inspections.
It's going to be hard for his enemies and by his enemies, I mean the Israel lobby and Congress to really go against it in any kind of positive way.
They're just going to look like people that are are, you know, the bankrolls ghost showing up at the banquet and just to make trouble.
And that I think is the reality of it.
But Obama has to, you know, really has to take the bull by the horns in this case.
He's got to do it.
And if he doesn't do it, you and I probably 10 years down the road, we'll probably be talking about this again still and about how bad the situation in the United States in terms of our own civil liberties and everything else has become as a result of this.
Yeah.
That's if I can even get Virginia on the line by then.
That's outside your sector.
That's right.
That's right.
I think that's actually that movie has a lot to say about what Israel-Palestine might look like in about two years.
I mean, you know, you have restricted areas.
Wasn't there a South African movie, too, about these aliens where they yeah, yeah.
Maybe that's another way to look at it.
Hey, you know, I didn't save enough time at all to ask you about what's going on in Syria.
So write about that.
There's talking about talking with Assad and rehabilitating the Al-Nusra Front at the same time.
Explain that, CIA man.
Next time.
Next time.
All right.
That's Phil Giraldi, everybody.
Thanks, Phil.
Thanks, Scott.
You hate government.
One of them libertarian types.
Maybe you just can't stand the president, gun grabbers or warmongers.
Me, too.
That's why I invented LibertyStickers.com.
Well, Rick owns it now.
And I didn't make up all of them.
But still, if you're driving around, I want to tell everyone else how wrong their politics are.
There's only one place to go.
LibertyStickers.com has got your bumper covered.
Left, right.
Libertarian empire.
Police state founders quote central banking.
Yes.
Bumper stickers about central banking.
Lots of them.
And well, everything that matters.
LibertyStickers.com.
Everyone else's stickers suck.
Hey, I'm Scott Horton here to tell you about this great new book by Michael Swanson, The War State.
In The War State, Swanson examines how Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy both expanded and fought to limit the rise of the new national security state after World War Two.
If this nation is ever to live up to its creed of liberty and prosperity for everyone, we are going to have to abolish the empire.
Know your enemy.
Get The War State by Michael Swanson.
It's available at your local bookstore or at Amazon.com in Kindle or in paperback.
Just click the book in the right margin at ScottHorton.org or TheWarState.com.
Hey, all Scott here.
If you're like me, you need coffee.
Lots of it.
You probably prefer it tastes good, too.
Well, let me tell you about Darren's Coffee Company at Darren'sCoffee.com.
Darren Marion is a natural entrepreneur who decided to leave his corporate job and strike out on his own, making great coffee.
And Darren's Coffee is now delivering right to your door.
Darren gets his beans direct from farmers around the world.
All specialty, premium grade with no filler.
Hey, the man just wants everyone to have a chance to taste this great coffee.
Darren'sCoffee.com.
Use promo code Scott and get free shipping.
Darren'sCoffee.com.
Hey, all Scott Horton here.
It's always safe to say that one should keep at least some of your savings in precious metals as a hedge against inflation.
If this economy ever does heat back up and the banks start expanding credit, rising prices could make metals a very profitable bet.
Since 1977, Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.has been helping people buy and sell gold, silver, platinum and palladium.
And they do it well.
They're fast, reliable and trusted for more than 35 years.
And they take Bitcoin.
Call Roberts and Roberts at 1-800-874-9760 or stop by rrbi.co.