Alright y'all welcome back to the show Anti-war radio next up is Phil Weiss He keeps a blog called mondo Weiss the war of ideas in the Middle East mondo Weiss dotnet And he's got a lot of other great writers there as well as you are probably aware.
Welcome back Phil How are you doing?
Great Scott?
How you doing?
I'm doing great.
I appreciate you joining us I'm not mistaken today's Friday.
So that's cool.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
I can't wait for the weekend.
There you go well, we'll try not to Well, this isn't going to be a very weekend like conversation.
It'll be serious probably but Maybe we'll like try to figure out a way to lighten it up a little I Was hoping you could teach me a bit about All the ins and outs of Israeli politics and I guess the American side of them as well Over the past couple of weeks at least especially to start out concerning The call for early elections by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then a deal struck with the Kadima party Which I guess had been the odd man out among the major Israeli parties.
Is that right to go ahead and keep a new coalition?
Yeah, I guess it's a little it's been dizzying and the best headline I can give to your listeners is that Netanyahu has now solidified his political support in Israel and To frame it my way, you know, I've often been set often said in the last year Hey American liberals and liberal Zionists all these people who support Israel, but call themselves liberals They should bring down the Netanyahu government People like Peter Beinart and David Remnick these people who say they hate the occupation.
They do hate the occupation You're such liberals.
You're so worried about the future of Israel.
We'll bring down Netanyahu and his support in America and Looks like I'm really wrong because whatever influence these liberals in America have a Netanyahu has now reached out and Sort of solidified his power and put off Put off any kind of vote about questioning his authority for another till till he comes up enough in 2013 anyway, he solidified his power by including the quote-unquote centrist liberals of The Israeli spectrum and it's a real right-wing spectrum, but he's included this big power called Kadima, which I think means center he's included them in his governing coalition, they were outside the governing coalition and part of the weakness of Netanyahu was people said oh, he's got all these right-wing settlers and Religious Orthodox people supporting him.
It's a real right-wing coalition He's got all these people who want to toss Palestinians out of Israel Ethnically cleanse the place even more And religious nuts that's his coalition well, guess what now his coalition includes these more secular types who are in the center who had been in opposition to him and Essentially, he's got the whole Jewish spectrum of Israeli politics on his side with the exception of a few small pockets and his his his votes in the Knesset the governing legislature The legislature which were you know, he used to have like a tenuous majority they're cobbled together out of these right-wing parties he's now got like 94 of the hundred and twenty Knesset legislators on his team and It means that he might be a little bit more liberal in some of his policies But not much, but it also might it means that he might be Gathering girding up his loins to strike Iran.
And so it's it's a very troubling development and just shows us that is Israel is a really right-wing place and a Right-wing leader like Netanyahu is supported overwhelmingly by that society a guy that we would just find completely objectionable in our political discourse because of the racial talk he goes in for There is completely legitimate All right.
Well a few things there now back when Let's say I guess it was at the fall of Olmert and the rise of Netanyahu again Yeah That Daniel Levy said this is Israel of the three Likud's because you have under a hood Barack he was the former prime minister and the leader of the Labor Party and he joined the coalition as the defense minister Right, so right that compromised labor right out of the deal put them under Netanyahu and Barack move way toward Netanyahu's position anyway, and then you had Even further to the right this Israel bet new party of the Russian like secular but hardcore right-wingers, right?
And that's a big door Lieberman And his whole group there and then the odd man out of the group then was Kadima which was Ariel Sharon's party Which was the way I understand it and this is a too simple version I just don't know but it really I think the only real reason that Sharon split off from Likud was maybe a a personal difference with Netanyahu over who ought to have more power and be Tactically speaking should they leave a few settlers inside the Gaza Strip or not?right and right back in 2005 and then but so otherwise Kadima they can call it Center if they want But it was already the Likud party in the first place.
It was there in Sharon's part.
Yeah, I agree with you But help me here I need to ask you a question which will help me in our conversation All right, you know, I live in Tunnel vision here, you know, I'm gonna I'm in a New York upstate New York Jewish guy who's obsessed with this issue So it's all I care about and and I mean since the Iraq War I'm an American first and you know, the Iraq War is what made me focus on this issue But I'm a tunnel vision kind of guy to people out to your listeners follow these Why did they do they know these names Sharon Netanyahu Barak?
Are they following these politics?
Do they understand?
What is their degree of awareness about the significance of these kind of political mutations?
Well, I think folks in the neighborhood don't know anything about it.
My I You know, I live in a world of anti-war comm we're got access to all the most important news all day every day All the time and links to you because your stuff rules, right?so this is you know, I live in the same tunnel as you as far as the information the level of The quantity of information absorbed or whatever, right?but Really?
I just asked myself.
Well, what did I think when I was like 15 or something?
And what I thought when I was 15 was that yeah There's this place called Israel over there and maybe I'll learn about that stuff someday, but not now Right.
I think that's pretty much what most people think about it.
They'll know the first thing about it including me I wanted nothing to do with it and didn't really care about it And then it was the Iraq War that forced me as a Jew to explore that But I guess I'm wondering do you see any signs that Americans generally are beginning to cotton to this?
The significant I mean the significance of the Netanyahu Or just that whole little client state that's wagging the dog the tail that's wagging the dog are they waking up to that?
Mmm, no, I don't think so.
I mean, I think pretty much anybody who's into You know alternative media sources.
Yes, probably gonna go.
Huh?
Wow But TV, I don't think ever I don't even think See like on the lair news hour, they might say talk about the occupation in the West Bank or whatever But they'll never say okay.
Here's the deal.
All right and explain there was a war this occupation began back then and This is the degree to which it's occupied and cut up into little pieces now And this is why that's a problem if you ever want to have a permanent peace deal, whatever.
They don't ever teach like The Israeli occupation 101 to the American people on TV ever ever.
I remember seeing on MSNBC Mika, I think Brzezinski was sick and and Joe Scarborough was out too.
So it was Pat Buchanan and Mike Barnicle and The Queen of Jordan and They actually sat there and had a real discussion about Middle East politics like adults on TV And it was the most unprecedented Unprecedented shocking Incredible thing in the whole world.
It was like you had never believed before You'd never seen anything like that on TV That's you know to me a good measure of it is if it ever happens you can feel how different it is From the usual, you know Line or the usual degree of attention or explanation, you know That we're up against the break we got to take it and then we'll be back with Philip Weiss from the Mondo Weiss blog Mondo Weiss net All right, y'all welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Phil Weiss from the Mondo Weiss blog And It's got a lot of other great writers there as well You really ought to check it out lots of great stuff all the time a very interactive comment section Etc.
And so yeah now another part of your question before the break was what the you know, you were asking me What do people know about?
The Israel-Palestinian conflict Israeli politics, etc You know where I'm from I think in the neighborhood the answer like I said was not very much on the other hand My listeners know all about it because they're really anti-war calm and right readers of things like your blog, etc So they absolutely can keep up when we're talking about who all's doing what in yeah Yeah, and what it means when well here Let me ask you this because I think this might sound a little bit inside baseball, but it's really important to me I've read one thing that said maybe The foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman from the hardcore right-wing Russian Secular party will be out and will be replaced by a Kadima guy who's anti Iran war Maybe I even read that at your blog.
Do you know about that?
Is that possible you think?you know, I That's one of the turns in the story that I have not followed.
I mean, I've seen that as speculation I think first of all, let's say that it was a master stroke politically and like many master strokes It's going to be dissected for a long time and no one is having big he the guy who did it is not Explaining his motivation.
So we're all sort of spellbound by netanyahu right now I mean give it give it up to netanyahu.
There's a guy who got let's remind ourselves.
This is a thug uh I find him to be a thug in his uh, his his personal Demeanor who got 29 standing ovations from the american congress a year ago a man who gets 29 Standing ovations from the congress is a pretty good speaker, which he is He's demagogic as a speaker, but he's also got a ton of political power in our country Debbie Wasserman Schultz The chairman of the democratic national committee was leading those standing ovations She was jumping up and waving her arms to tell everyone to jump up and give him standing ovation And that's the problem that again I get to so often is here You have a liberal debbie wasserman schultz on any number of issues in our country a leading liberal and she's supporting a right-wing uh guy who um is has completely racist policies towards palestinians now To your point, I think that yeah There's a chance that it would mean that lieberman is that lieberman is too much for americans Even american liberals have trouble with lieberman, you know Maybe by getting maybe he'll get rid of lieberman and just solidify if he's just going to solidify his power over obama that is one of the brilliant things here is that we um thought I would say oh, you know, um all they have to do all the liberals have to do is knock out netanyahu and then obama can go forward with his liberal agenda of sort of uh Supporting a palestinian state.
No way, man Uh netanyahu just solidified his support.
He's got it fence post defense post in jewish life In israel and now american jews are just going to line up behind him even more So and isolate anyone who criticizes him in the jewish community, so it's going to be a battle but uh netanyahu's winning Hmm Yeah, well, that's a good point because I guess really if uh, the foreign minister is an anti-iran war guy That doesn't necessarily mean he'll be in any position to check whatever netanyahu wants to do Yeah, I think it only means that people in america will be less concerned For a time.
Anyway, that's true.
And I think the guy they're talking about is shaul Mofaz who was born in iran, but who said hey if they have a sword to our neck we're going to go after him and so Some have interpreted this as paving the water, uh the way to war and I just think it's interesting to watch Obama obama will be less critical of netanyahu than ever because the american jewish community will say well, he's got all of israel behind him Well now When it comes to iran, uh, I know you have here this piece Uh neil kahn's and goldberg c coalition is heightening the likelihood of war And you got elliot abrams here at the council on foreign relations and charles karl hammer um But uh, what do you make of all of them the more, uh, you know Very influential people in israeli society who have basically been coming out very publicly saying what used to be Only small voices in the wilderness pointing out that hey There's actually no evidence that the iranians are even making nukes at all now that seems to be The very official position of a lot of leakers to harrets in the last couple of months, right?
Yeah, well, I think that what we've seen is waves we've seen waves from both sides we've seen the warmongers wave Coming at us again and again and and this that's what you're seeing right now And we've also seen the realists wave And you know any person who looks at this situation has got to say this is the most ridiculous Um crazy thing in the world to go to war with iran.
It's absurd, you know, and just even from the standpoint And obama's got to be saying that even from the standpoint of gas prices What what's going to happen to gas prices, you know, if they go to war on iran, I mean it's going to give us You know six seven eight dollars.
Well, that's kidding.
I mean who knows who knows what the price of gas will be and the point is that any realist looks at this situation and then looks at the human costs and and just And says this is absurd Well, then again so netanyahu he could look at the congress and all their ovations as meaning he's bulletproof and he can do anything Or he could look at it like wow, there's a great thing odd and not ruin Yeah, well, that's true.
But you know Uh, as you pointed out we're finally getting these voices in israeli society that are allowing americans to say this is a crazy idea It's israelis are saying they're messianic Um, and we don't trust them on it So just last week these former security chief former security chief of netanyahu said he's messianic.
I don't trust him on iran Well netanyahu just slam dunked him because he's got this broad coalition.
He may be messianic, but he's got everyone behind him Yeah, and by messianic, they mean he wants to be like winston churchill Oh god got 60 million people killed or something pretty close.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, uh, just think out Yeah, think how many millions could die in this conflagration?well, that's the whole thing of the leaks to the uh The new york times about the war games about how even the most limited bombing campaign against the enrichment sites or something like that Would lead to regional war it would always escalate We tried it six different ways and it always escalates to a war in there I mean look we already have iraq would be on iran's side and syria's side right off the bat if it came to something that big Oh, yeah, no question.
No question.
I mean, this is crazy It's just pure craziness and yet this war party is in our government and has been there for a long time It's in the obama administration This is the party that gave us the iraq war and now that now it's more naked now It's more patently the israel lobby.
That's the only one who wants this war Well now so what do you think about you know domestic politics wise Do you think obama is going to try to take advantage of the opportunity for talks here and come up with some kind of real?
Deal to have a a good reason to have not bombed iran to tell the lobby while he's running for president Or is it going to be more in his domestic political interest to go ahead and scotch the talks and say see?
You just can't talk to those crazies and then bomb them or or promise to bomb them next year That kind of thing or what do you think's going to happen?
You know, I I I your guess is as good as mine But I would say my my guess is that this is the last thing he wants to do And he is going to make nice and stroke those folks, but not do it.
I just don't think that look right now He knows this guy's a sensitive smart guy, and he knows his legacy right now is george bush, too And his foreign policy is george bush, too.
He's for drones.
He's for uh, american presence in Afghanistan forever.
He's got guantanamo open.
I just you know So he knows what his legacy is and he's going to extend that legacy by starting another war I just don't see it.
I don't I think it goes against his natural temperament and When we look at the the um gay marriage issue, you know, this guy is so conservative temperamentally obama That this is an issue that clearly he was in favor of he's been in favor In deep in his heart.
He's been in favor of gay marriage forever is my assumption just based on earlier statements And he's so timid politically and you know, there's a real political cost to taking that stance But it took these other people in his administration to out him on the issue and I feel like that's sort of what's happening on this is that the People are really sick of his timidity on the iran thing and even the israelis are speaking out So I think the guy needs to have some backing but i'm hoping that he will take a stand He will continue to take a stand against a war there.
Yeah Well You know it sure would be a lot better if ron paul was the republican nominee than mit romney because romney's going to be Attacking him for being weak on iran the whole time and he'll have to say no i'm tough instead of having ron paul attack him as an iran hawk and demanding that he Immediately lift all the sanctions and and and pull the navy away from their shores and everything else, right?
Get the jay sock out of there Well, what's gonna happen to that?
Okay What will happen to that voice in the upcoming election, yeah, I mean that's the whole thing and you know, I i'm not I don't know the whole gay marriage thing.
I don't think he cares one way or the other He's just trolling for votes because he's a politician.
I think you know to me Mit romney and barack obama are the perfect clones of each other meaning they're both just empty suits They're both etch-a-sketch guys and somebody wrote that on my facebook page Both of them will say whatever the hell they think that you want to hear today That's all and so if that means yeah We'll nuke iran if that's what'll help him get elected if that's what'll make him a great president Then that's what he'll do if making peace with iran is what he thinks is better for his own personal interest Then he'll do that.
So it really all comes down to you know these sort of uh The meta narrative in the society or whatever are people with this or they're not are they scared enough to go for it?
Aren't they this season, you know, and that's kind of that's your work and my work is Constantly throw water on all that heat that is not worth it.
You know, don't you think the public is on our side on that one?
Yeah, i'm I think in the general sense they are but if if you told them if someone told them Hey, man, they're making nukes.
We gotta stop them and they don't have someone right there saying That's a bunch of crap.
Don't believe it Then they'll believe it and be afraid because americans love being afraid.
That's the whole game.
That's what being american's all about Fooled me fooled them twice shame on them.
Yeah, well And there'll be plenty of shame to go around and lots of blood and and wasted wealth and opportunities galore It'll be wrong scott.
I pray you're wrong Well, you know and the thing is too though I guess as long as the if the official narrative really has changed to hey Even the israeli government admits that there's really not a crisis here.
Um Then uh, you know, maybe they just can't do it because the iranians I don't I haven't seen one real reason to believe outside of some frank gaffney talking point Uh, or netanyahu one or maybe that's the same Um, I haven't seen one reason to believe that they're anywhere near thinking about Starting to actually try to make nuclear bombs there They're within the non-proliferation treaty and for years and years.
Hey, they even were under the additional protocol, even though it was Unratified by their parliament.
They still abided by it while they were negotiating with the europeans But they would settle for you have to halt all enrichment or else or whatever so that eventually broke down But in in any case all i'm trying to say is they betrayed no intention to make nuclear bombs at all the iranians They know that they can make one fast enough.
Yeah, uh to beat us to Drop the nukes on them if we wanted to Absolutely, no evidence.
They're doing that.
Absolutely.
Yes, so I don't know why you know, uh, the The stasis or whatever the the status quo shouldn't just be exactly what it is, you know Really netanyahu's the only wild card and then again, he's really just playing richard nixon pretend crazy anyway, right?
Yeah, that's true.
He works out very effectively and let's remember That this is a country that became nuclear by stealing nuclear material enriched uranium from the united states in the 1960s Right under our noses and no one did anything about it Yep, you know and it wasn't like they wanted to have peaceful uses of that nuke No, they wanted to have a nuclear warhead And you know now it's pretty crazy people who have a control of a nuclear warhead there well, you know, um I guess the conservative estimates are always a couple of hundred but daniel ellsberg told me on the show that Mordecai venunu told him personally that it was 600 and that it included many hydrogen bombs thermonuclear weapons Wow, wow, so now that doesn't necessarily mean tens of megatons Because I guess it could mean miniaturized, you know, very small nukes that still pack a High tens of kiloton blast but small right, but it also could mean Tens and tens and tens of megatons the kind of thing where you could kill all of tehran in one shot that kind of oh Yeah, yeah Well, I mean, you know just the these uh, these nuclear engineers are just dying to see how these little tactical ones work Aren't they?
Oh, yeah.
Well, that's the whole thing.
That's uh, I guess I don't know why they call it the public choice theory it's just the individualist theory of all of uh, Human politics that there really is no such thing as the national interest not even if everybody agrees on it What there is is the interest of the people doing the implementing that's all and the squeakiest wheel gets the grease I like and on and on like that and that's what it's all about.
So it's just like my my favorite example lately is the um Michael hastings piece about libya where he talks about how samantha power Had been relegated to these stupid things like helping iraqis with their stupid democracy But she really wanted to do something important and most of all she wanted to be someone important in the white house again And libya was her chance to move back up to be at least as high as susan rice In the rank of women who kill people in the obama administration And so that's exactly what she became and now to this day people are you know?
There's a war still going on over who's going to be the power in libya And it's spreading to molly and god knows where else from there But that's you know her thing.
She hey, it worked though Now she's better than before or whatever Yeah, well, there's nothing like human ego.
I agree with you And it is individuals.
I agree.
It's individuals in the sum of them.
Yeah, and it's not that many We're running the show.
In fact, you know what i'm gonna go ahead and say this too because I think it's so important and interesting world war ii is always the unquestionable thing all the time and if you're against world war ii in any way then you're For the holocaust somehow or some kind of crazy beyond the pale thing and so just forget it Everyone loves world war ii and john wayne movies and everything But I think and I don't know if maybe you have read it But at least i'd like to very highly recommend to you pat buchanan's book churchill hitler and the unnecessary war Um, and the the phrase unnecessary war actually comes from churchill Who said oh geez, huh?
Maybe we shouldn't have done that derp because what happened was They gave a war guarantee to poland that they couldn't live up to anyway The brits couldn't feel an army to go liberate poland.
They ended up just turning over the soviets Anyway, right poland wasn't liberated till 89 um, but Yeah, so all they did was instead of having hitler fight stalin and he probably would have destroyed the soviet union and then You know if he'd gotten started two years earlier, uh fighting over, you know, their shared new shared border in poland.
Um, He might have just been able to sack moscow and then of course ask napoleon No, no western european army can conquer russia They're all be frozen and shot to death by russian patriots with or without a government anyway And so it would have probably destroyed the soviet union and severely weakened if not completely destroyed Um nazi germany instead they were turned westward And so they conquered france and the netherlands and denmark and all of these places where hitler never wanted to go He always wanted to go east anyway And it was a big stupid blunder to promise this war guarantee to poland and declare war on germany over poland And it was in it and what pat buchanan did is because he knows everybody wants to criticize him and call him some kind of German sympathizer or something So he just quotes british historians the whole time and all they say is boy this was a big stupid thing and yet somehow it becomes ingrained as like the the basis of all right actions america for especially as superman that can do no wrong and of course The israelis as the eternal victims who can do no wrong as well, right, you know, right?
But it was a big stupid thing and and you know what it all really came down to it was neville chamberlain was humiliated Uh by the betrayal of the munich pact and so in a temper tantrum in a big huff He went and gave a war guarantee to poland And in fact the lord gray and all these other Cabinet secretaries and and the defense ministers and whoever they all said you did what you just let the polish colonels Decide whether we're going to have a war with germany or not.
Are you sure?
What are you doing, but he did it because he was embarrassed.
It was his own personal reputation And now everybody says oh you're a chamberlain.
You're a chamberlain for Appeasing the bad guy or whatever when really the the worst example that chamberlain did was make a bad decision in a time of emotion And not thinking forward to what he was doing, you know And so the holocaust was visited not just in the east where it was visited anyway, but in the west as well, you know And nicholson baker's written a book about this too, hasn't he?
Uh, is that the human smoke?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I actually have not gotten to it.
I haven't but I haven't gotten to a very Similar argument I have to get to that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean and you know, it's a horrible thing that uh, You know, it was all the results really woodrow wilson tipping the scales in world war one in a bad way and whatever but um The way that it happened It's one of those things.
It's sort of like the civil war It happened so long ago that it's just you just take it as a given Why would you even you know go into critiquing the policies that led to it on either side or whatever?
It's just sort of you know, it's just a fact of history that kind of thing But when you actually go back and look at you know revisionism on the real causes of world war ii um and And the arguments for it are undermined that'll really change your perspective on a whole lot of everything too I mean the cold war becomes a ridiculous joke if world war ii was a bad idea, you know Yeah, right, right when oliver stone has made that point, you know, here was our this is the here was the country that defeated Who was the country that defeated hitler the soviet union?
You know, right That that russia is what did it, you know, and uh, then oh then they become our big enemy as soon as the war is over Right.
Well, and they got to enslave, uh europe for decades longer And of course they had to they were able to help mao seiteng Uh win the civil war in china and spread communism throughout asia which of course became the excuse for all of america's interventions there and all the ruthless coups and murders and Proxy wars and insanity of the cold war era, you know Mm-hmm.
I'm with you there man and then you know, it's funny because it was our last uh discussion was with uh, Jacob hornberger here and we were talking about how and then when the soviet union was gone The american empire wasn't going anywhere.
NATO didn't disband it grew and when they didn't have a terror war enemy yet They went ahead and picked on they used drug dealers Freaking drug dealers as the excuse to have a world empire there for a while in the early 90s before they could uh, You know get back to the middle east and so on it goes here.
We are already in the future 2012 and They seem to be saying that al-qaeda doesn't exist anymore at the same time They're saying actually al-qaeda exists all over africa in the middle east and we're going to have to stay a war over there forever At the same time that they're turning back to the drug war in south america as well And the whole thing just keeps going on America is the british empire.
Really?
I'm not really interviewing you anymore.
Am I i'm like it man.
It's good I gotta read that book.
Yeah.
Well, it's the kind of thing that um It's a very unpopular position to take to undermine because at least the way I look at it World war ii has really replaced the american revolution and even the civil war as the real foundational myth of america what it is now The empire as it is now and it's you know Every that's why they always compare everything to chamberlain and everything to the great victory Even though as you said it was really the russians that won the war Um, right they still may wear america's superman.
That's why we had a war in libya to save the poor civilians That's why we need to have a war In syria to save the poor civilians from their government as though that's really the side We're on the people but it works because people have seen so many um you know newsreel clips and and movies about our our Heroic liberators marching into paris and all the people greeting them with candy and flowers and whatever You know like it's always 1945 Right, well Yeah, I think I might uh differ with you somewhat on that history scott But we'll leave that for the next time.
Well, go ahead.
We still got a couple minutes.
I already blew the whole break well, you know, I just uh I guess I just buy some of the narrative I buy the narrative and I don't find um I don't find the counter-narrative completely persuasive and I haven't investigated it.
It's not out of but I guess I just buy more I mean that um, I think hitler was evil, you know, uh, well That's the best part of the myth is that the enemies obviously were evil incarnate totalitarian Societies of genocide and ransomware.
I mean look at the japanese in china.
They're no different than the nazis Um, so that's that's the best place to have a big myth Is that our guys were really any different because they those guys were such cartoon caricatures of evil, you know Yeah, but I guess i'd make a distinction between that degree of evil and our guys I don't I don't I just don't put us in the same category Yeah, okay, but there Okay, that's fine You know go back to to truman in in japan and and you know The hiroshima bombs if the nazis had done the hiroshima bombs that would have been the epitome of evil, right?
That you're right.
You're right there.
Uh, and and that's true.
That was I mean Yeah, that's one for that column but uh, I guess I still would make a distinction between the I mean look humankind I I hold no brief for humankind.
I think it's vicious.
Um, and I think that you know there's some people who are good and most people are pretty vicious and selfish, but Uh, I sort of think hitler takes the cake on that one Yeah, well except for stalin You know and mao I mean mao killed 60 million people himself That was all world war ii and then he went and matched that by himself over there.
Wow.
Yeah, good point See I have more reading to do Yeah, anyway, I know it's all very tough.
I mean you really want to go back to it I'm a revisionist on the constitution.
I'd rather kept the articles of confederation I think that's when we went from republic to empire right there It's been aggressive war ever since and I know i'm not going to radicalize you that bad So well, I you're just above my pay grade in terms of knowledge now well, no, it's just uh Yeah, I don't know about that.
I'm sure that's not true.
But anyway, um, all right.
Well listen, so I don't know if you could tell us in a couple of minutes.
Um Um Maybe for people who really don't know about this who really do kind of need a 101.
Can you tell us what it's what's life?like for a palestinian You've been there I think what life is like for a palestinian quite simply is that You're you grow up in a family in the west bank Typically or in gaza, which is even worse you grow up in a family.
You get a really great education This is a society that values education You're going to university And you can walk up to the top of your house The terrace or the rooftop of your house and you can see the mediterranean sea And you can see jerusalem a few miles away and you can't go there That's life for a palestinian.
That's all you need to know some of the most uh promising young Arabs in the world part of the arab spring.
These people are living in Imprisoned and you can't contain that type you that's cruel.
That's oppressive uh It's it's outrageous And when hillary clinton says the situation is unsustainable She is making a huge understatement about conditions that are just outrageous That just uh that shocked the human conscience and that shocked the human conscience the way slavery did in our country 150 years ago to the point where Uh, you had white people in the north who are willing to give up their lives Uh to destroy that institution Revolutionaries who wanted to give up their lives to destroy the institution That's the type of injustice that we're seeing in palestine.
It is drawing worldwide attention It is going to be resolved violently unless people get their heads around this And realize how these people are being oppressed and what we are doing to blight the lives of young idealistic palestinians You know back to our conversation before about you know What americans know about this thing?
The only time they ever show us palestinians is if they're throwing rocks at a tank which somehow is supposed to symbolize their aggression I don't know Um, but also or you know If there's a full-scale intifada and there's some suicide bombings going on once every 10 years or 15 years or so when that breaks out Then they'll put that on the news But meanwhile, they protest peacefully gandhi style mlk style all the time and you can read about it But you never get to see it on tv, right?
I agree with you exactly.
I mean, you know There's tahrir square has been going on there for years without the oxygen of international attention You know, you have small villages rising up against the fact that their well water has been taken away from them What more fundamental principle of human life is there than access to your village lands and waters and your Ancient olive trees that your great-grandfather's planet being cut down by these oppressors It's just it's it's shocking and there is no attention given to the non-violent movement to oppose this That's philip weiss society mondo weiss.net.
Thanks very much for your time.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks scott.
Have a great weekend
