Air Date 1/31/2025
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award -winning Best of the Left podcast.
The genocide and subsequent ceasefire in Gaza is only the latest horrifying consequence of botched military misadventures in the Middle East. And if the history of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons can teach us anything, it's that atrocities have long shadows.
For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes The Socialist Program, American Prestige, Behind the News, Revolutionary Left Radio, CounterSpin, and Democracy Now! Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections: Section A, The Deal; Section B, Ceasefire Politics; Section C, The Empire; and Section D, Now What?
Gaza Ceasefire Explained Reading Between The Lines - The Socialist Program - Air Date 1-16-25
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: There's a lot to talk about. What does Biden say about the agreement? What does Donald Trump say about the agreement? What does Netanyahu and the Israelis say about the [00:01:00] agreement? Again, what did the regional actors say about it? Okay, and we want to talk about what the Palestinian people say, and the Palestinian resistance forces. We want to hear their voices. You know, the United States characterizes every Palestinian resistance organization as a terrorist entity. So if you show solidarity with the Palestinian people, you're frequently labeled in the United States, as aiding and abetting terrorism. I mean, the U. S. said the same thing about the ANC and Nelson Mandela in South Africa up until 1988 and even beyond, actually. But I want for our audience to hear what the Palestinian resistance forces say about this agreement.
Now, first of all, it's a three stage agreement. I wanna go over the three stages with you, but let's first hear if you have it, what did Hamas say about it? What is Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian resistance group? What did the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine? All of these organizations, again, identified as terrorist entities [00:02:00] such that the US media and the US people never hear, or the US media never tells what they think, and the US people never hear what they think. But I want people to hear what they're saying about the ceasefire agreement.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Absolutely. I think that's really important. Hamas has made (an) official statement and also has had a few speeches from different members of the political bureau. They have announced a ceasefire agreement. They have said, I'm quoting here, "The ceasefire agreement is the result of the legendary steadfastness of our great Palestinian people, and our valiant resistance in the Gaza Strip, over the course of more than 15 months. This agreement to halt the agression is an achievment for our people, our resistance, our nation, and the free people of the world. It comes as part of our responsibility towards our steadfast and patient people in the proud Gaza Strip." They also announced in a speech just within the past hour that In their assessment, the ceasefire represents the achievement of all of their demands since the beginning of the genocide, and they laid [00:03:00] out the framework of the ceasefire.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: Okay.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Now, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad had a very similar tone. They said, "Our people and their resistance are imposing an honorable agreement to stop the aggression, withdraw, and conduct an honorable prisoner exchange due to their legendary steadfastness and brave and valiant fighters." They also mourn the righteous martyrs, and they look forward to healing the wounds of the Palestinian people, and extend greetings to all of the steadfast fighters in the Gaza Strip.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine released a statement just before the official announcement of the ceasefire, where they condemned the ongoing assassinations and bombardments that Israel was still carrying out today.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: They assassinated- the Israelis, using a drone, assassinated a Palestinian journalist as he was announcing a ceasefire.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Just after. He was- those moments right before the ceasefire, you know, kept getting closer and closer. The whole world, people of Gaza were like, "It's going to be announced. It's going to be [00:04:00] announced," over the past couple of days. No one has slept for the past couple of days. And this young journalist was speaking live on his social media saying, "I'm so excited for the ceasefire to be announced." And then just after that, he was assassinated. Horrific.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: By a drone. A drone strike.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Yes. And over the past, I think, a couple of days, more than 86 Palestinians have been killed in bombardments. And it was going right up until the ceasefire was officially announced.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: So the PFLP statement condemns that. And what, how do they characterize the ceasefire?
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: They say that the- this is right before it was announced they said, "Amid this continued aggression," which is the ongoing bombardment, "the Palestinian resistance factions are intensifying their efforts to halt this aggression as soon as possible. War criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, mired in his failures and defeats, will ultimately find himself and his fascist government compelled to agree to a ceasefire after their catastrophic failure to achieve any of their objectives beyond [00:05:00] inflicting death and destruction on unarmed civilians."
The Ceasefire in Gaza w Mohammad Alsaafin - American Prestige - Air Date 1-19-25
DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: And I just want to highlight two things before we move into the deal. It's this point of anti-democratic foreign policymaking, which I think is correct. I think it's anti democratic in two ways. On one hand, you have the Congresses you're talking about, which is basically shaped by lobbying. And has been shaped since the 1970s by a combination of AIPAC and basically Evangelical lobbying represented today, primarily by Kufi, even though it's something that goes back further and further.
So you have the classic foreign policy thing, where organized interests that have capital are able to sway an issue or areas that aren't primary for most Americans. Something that's been going on since the 19th century, if not earlier. And on the other hand, you have a clerisy of foreign policymaking, ensconced in two separate bodies. One, the literal official organizations of state like the National Security Council or the Department of Defense, none of those people are elected. Most of them are career appointments, particularly in the DOD and the NSC [00:06:00] bureaucracy. And they basically just do whatever they want with absolutely no democratic accountability.
And then on the other hand, you have the so called "Blob" which is sort of the techno-scientific institutions like think tanks, which themselves play an enormously influential role in foreign policy, that oftentimes receive government spending from both foreign governments and the US government. And I point everyone to the Quincy Institute's think tank report that just came out that actually traced foreign funding. And those people have absolutely no democratic accountability to anyone. And then you have a third group, which is the, basically the traditional military industrial complex. The variance defense groups that kind of just lobby in favor of, if not war, defense spending and armament spending.
So you have this entire complex of institutions that basically insulate foreign policy decision making and policy making from the public. And I just want to emphasize that it's an enormous problem when two thirds of Americans don't want something to happen. And it just happens with literally no fucking, [00:07:00] even consideration that it not. And I want to just underline that as a gigantic problem for the left.
Trump's Middle East Plans w Mouin Rabbani - Behind the News - Air Date 1-23-25
DOUG HENWOOD - HOST, BEHIND THE NEWS: Okay, let's start with this deal, whatever it is, the ceasefire deal, is nearly identical to the outlines of one proposed in May. What were the details of that proposal? And then what happened? Why did it become okay eight months later when it wasn't so good in May?
MOUIN RABBANI: The deal consists of three stages. And the first stage, essentially, consists of a temporary suspension of hostilities, together with a limited Israeli-Palestinian exchange of captives, and a surge in urgently needed humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip.
The second stage, which is not yet finalized, and the negotiations on which are supposed to begin on day 16 of the first stage, which is supposed to last for a total of 42 days, we'll see a larger Israeli [00:08:00] withdrawal from within the Gaza Strip, a reopening of the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, a much broader exchange of captives, and of course, a continuation of the suspension of hostilities.
And if the third stage is then concluded and finalized, then we're really talking about an indefinite ceasefire and the completion of the exchange of captives, or rather at that stage, any remaining bodies held by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will be handed over to the Israelis in exchange, I presume for additional Palestinian prisoners and hostages and bodies held by Israel. And the reconstruction plan that is supposed to be implemented under the supervision of Egypt and Qatar, the two main mediators of this agreement, together with the United Nations.
Now as you mentioned, this multistage deal [00:09:00] is essentially identical to the one presented by former president Biden in late May of last year, which Biden said at the time was not so much an American proposal, but rather a proposal that had been formulated by the Israelis and presented by the Americans in Washington. And now the Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, has said that in fact, the deal is also very close to what had initially been proposed in December of 2023, shortly after the temporary ceasefire and a limited exchange of captives took place and then collapsed because Israel decided to resume the war.
What happened is that after Biden presented the Israeli agreement in late May, and then Hamas accepted it in early July of last year, something that Netanyahu [00:10:00] did not expect, he began adding new conditions. Such as that Israel would maintain an indefinite presence in what is called the Netzarim Corridor, which essentially bisects the Gaza Strip into north and south. That Israel would maintain a indefinite read permanent presence in what Israel calls the Philadelphi Corridor, which is the border zone between Gaza and Egypt, that Israel would retain freedom of action within the Gaza Strip.
Essentially, The deal that Netanyahu is proposing is that Israel will retrieve all its captives and hostages and then resume its genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip. And under Biden, the Americans went along with this. They basically claimed, falsely as we now know, that the only reason the deal was not being consummated was because Hamas was refusing to accept it. Whereas we now know the real reason, and this has been made clear, not only by everyone who has looked [00:11:00] into this, but even by Netanyahu's own negotiators. The real reason was that Israel kept proposing new conditions and changes designed to make it impossible for Hamas to accept an amended deal. And Hamas essentially said that they're only going to accept the deal that had been proposed by Biden. They did show some flexibility in terms of the wording and the sequencing and so on, but there were no major changes.
So then you- as you rightly ask, well, what happened? Why is Israel suddenly accepting the agreement that it had rejected for the past half year? Well, the key issue is that the American attitude changed. The incoming Trump administration made clear to the Israelis that the incoming president did not want a foreign policy crisis on his hands on the day he entered office. And he absolutely did not want a crisis on his hands that also included American hostages [00:12:00] in the Middle East, because several of the Israelis being held in the Gaza Strip are also dual nationals. In other words, they're also US citizens.
And it was as a result of basically Israel being given its marching orders that Netanyahu came to the conclusion it was not a very good idea to get on Trump's bad side at the very outset of his tenure, and went along with this agreement. You know, Trump had said on several occasions after the election that if there is no deal, there will be hell to pay. And everyone interpreted this as a threat to Hamas, which I'm sure it was, but it wasn't a threat directed solely at Hamas. It was a threat directed at everyone involved: 'Finish the deal and make sure there's a ceasefire by January 20th.'
Israeli analysts have also pointed out that there are other factors that have now made it easier for Netanyahu to accept the deal. And they're [00:13:00] talking about one thing that we have now that we didn't have last summer is that Israel has successfully eliminated two leaders of Hamas. (Israel) has managed to decimate the leadership of of Hezbollah. It has bombed Iran and, of course, the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad has collapsed and is no more.
That has led to improved poll numbers for Netanyahu, an expansion of his coalition, making it easier for him to accept the deal and lose a few of his coalition partners. But then there is also the explanation that was put forward by the Biden administration and particularly by former Secretary of State Antony Blinken. And can I just say what a relief it is to be able to say "former Secretary of State Antony Blinken." He said that it was the pressure Hamas felt, because of all these Israeli military achievements that I just mentioned that finally compelled a weakened and isolated [00:14:00] Hamas to accept what it had been rejecting throughout the second half of 2024. That's a bald-faced lie, to put it politely. Because first of all, Hamas had already accepted this agreement in early July, 2024. And secondly, and more importantly, all these developments that were enumerated, the assassinations of the Hamas leaders, regime change in Syria, the decimation of the Hezbollah leadership, and so on, took place after Hamas had already accepted the proposal. So they were completely irrelevant to its calculations at the time that it made its decision to play ball.
On the Situation in Syria and its Implications for the Region - Revolutionary Left Radio - Air Date 1-6-25
BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: So most listeners will have been aware that the Assad government has collapsed, but who are the forces and individuals that are attempting to replace him? And what is the current state of Syria overall in the wake of recent events?
ANGIE: So I can speak to this a bit. Apologies in advance. My cat tends to be a little bit active in the [00:15:00] background. In terms of actors, I would say we can go ahead and say everyone is a free Syrian today. I would argue primarily the actors that we have to focus on are Khayat al Tahrir al Sham, the HTS, led by Mohammed al Zawlani.
There's still confrontation with other forces, from the SDF to other Turkish groups, that are continuing to, we can say, resist or experience skirmishes in different areas of the region, that are just still trying to establish what law is under what area, and what individuals are essentially permitted to remain in their homes.
There's still certain local militias within the Valley of the Christians that have not completely disbanded, despite orders for disarmament, but the actors that we have to focus on in Syria are Hayat Tahrir al Sham and everybody in the West. So I would argue this includes Turkey, this includes Israel, this includes actors like [00:16:00] Iran and Russia, this includes France, this includes Germany, this obviously includes the United States.
But the actors that we need to look at in particular are puppet masters in Syria right now. And so what we're looking at in terms of the actual event is a performance at the moment.
BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Yeah, and would anybody like to follow up on that? And maybe even just tell us a little bit more about exactly what happened, because I'm sure there are perhaps even some people in our audience that are totally unaware of exactly what even has occurred, so maybe setting that up could be helpful.
In terms of what happened, that's still being parsed out. The fact that the Syrian army just laid down its arms with no fight, that it kept receiving orders to retreat, And that Assad very abruptly left, is still something that everybody, every actor in the region is trying to piece together. What we know for sure is that Assad was declared the victor of the Syrian civil war for the [00:17:00] sheer reason that it was launched to oust him and he remained in power. However, that victory that he had was an incredibly fragile one.
He presided over a country that had been radically, dramatically de-developed by bombing, by foreign intervention, by the US administered occupation of a third of the country, which happens to be the most lucrative region in terms of its wheat and oil supplies. So, he presided over a very fragile Syria, whose economy had been devastated by, again, many of its major cities being decimated. By its breadbasket and its oil fields being largely occupied by the US proxies in the region as well as the US military itself. So that it collapsed so quickly is what [00:18:00] I think surprised everybody. Because I sometimes I often think of how when the Berlin Wall fell not even the CIA was prepared for it. You know, so this resulted in such a stunning collapse as something that is probably going to be studied for the immediate future and probably well past that, but again, anybody who wants to-
MOHAMMAD: I just have a quick thing to add in addition to what Ed already stated, which is that all of this has to be taken within the context of the sanctions that have been placed on Syria as well, which these sanctions, again, have had a severe impact on the Syrian population and then perceptions of Assad as well. And on the region all together. So all of this is also not without taking into consideration the interventionist policies of the United States and other imperial forces.
BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Absolutely. And we'll definitely get back to that and talk about that in more detail. But Angie, go ahead.
ANGIE: Yeah, I don't want to go too far into the sanctions at the [00:19:00] moment, since I'm sure we'll circle back. But I think from that point that Mohammed makes, it's important to also recognize that the interventionism in Syria cannot, at any point, be separated from Syria's stance and position towards Israel and Palestine.
Prior to the fall of the Assad regime, if that's what we want to kind of conceptualize it as, Turkey and Syria spent the summer and the fall and the beginning of winter essentially negotiating a reopening of their state's relationships. So Erdogan has been pursuing Assad for nearly six months at the point at which Turkey opens the borders for Hayyat al Tahrir al Sham to enter Syria.
And that order comes, critically, in the moment that Netanyahu is announcing the weak ceasefire on south of Lebanon and then also warning Assad to not play with fire. And I think it's really important to kind of reintegrate that tie that Netanyahu speaks and Erdogan [00:20:00] moves when it comes to Syria.
Katherine Gallagher on Abu Ghraib Verdict - CounterSpin - Air Date 11-29-24
JJ: Well, the case is landmark, in part just because of the way that it names contractors as responsible parties. It’s always been their argument, right, that they’re just private actors following orders from the US, and the US has immunity, so we do too, right? That’s part of what’s important about this.
KATHERINE GALLAGHER: That’s precisely right. Over the 16 years of litigation, CACI has filed at least 15 motions to dismiss. And whether they’ve invoked Derivative Sovereign Immunity or the Political Question Doctrine or the Government Contractor Defense or the Law of War Immunity, or most recently and throughout trial, the so-called Borrowed Servant Defense—all of these boiled down to essentially one argument, which is, we were working with the US military, [00:21:00] and anything we did was because they were overseeing it. And if they were overseeing it, they should have any responsibility, not us. We were just, essentially, following orders.
Democracy Now!: Ex-Abu Ghraib Interrogator: Israelis Trained U.S. to Use “Palestinian Chair” Torture Device
Now, the conduct at issue in this case—and we have clear decisions from the Fourth Circuit saying as much in our long litigation—the conduct at issue is unlawful. We’re talking about torture. We had plead war crimes, we’re talking about cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. These are violations of US domestic criminal law, and they are also violations of US-signed treaties, including the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.
And so, this is not conduct that the military could order anyone, whether it’s soldiers or contractors, to do. This is unlawful, illegal. [00:22:00] So CACI’s defense fails, insofar as this is not a lawful order that they could have ever received from the military.
But, additionally, CACI was hired to supervise its own employees. This is a for-profit corporation that hired employees at will. So, unlike an enlisted person at Abu Ghraib, the CACI employees could quit at any time, and notably, some did, and one even did, more than one, because of what they saw happening at Abu Ghraib. So this corporation should be held accountable for its own employees’ conduct.
And that’s precisely, after 16-and-a-half years, what a jury in Alexandria, Virginia, found to be the case two weeks ago when they gave down a verdict against CACI and for our plaintiffs.
JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: [00:23:00] I will say I’m disheartened by the relative quietness of media around the verdict. There has been some coverage, but I feel like I can say pretty confidently that had this case died in court, we would’ve never heard about it again.
But I’m also saddened by the accounts that I have seen: Virtually all of them use the phrase “over two decades ago.” And that, to me, is not a neutral tag. It’s a linguistic wink that says, “Why are we still talking about this?” But as you’ve noted, the case has taken this long because CACI has resisted it for this long, right?
KATHERINE GALLAGHER: That is absolutely the case. The plaintiffs filed back in 2008, and our plaintiffs, to this day, the 20-year time period doesn’t erase or make this historic. They are living every day with being an Abu Ghraib torture [00:24:00] survivor. They still suffer from nightmares, from flashbacks, and talking about Abu Ghraib is not something that’s easy for them to do.
The fact that this case went to trial not once but twice, and that the plaintiffs had to tell their account, tell about their suffering, their humiliation, more than once, it wasn’t easy. And to remember the kinds of details, some of it is seared in their memory, and others, of course, over 20 years is less clear than it used to be. But the nightmares and the mental harm has continued to this day, and it should not be something that is relegated to the history books at all.
And one of the things I’d note: There weren’t many photos shown during trial, but there were a few photos shown during trial, [00:25:00] and there were a couple of jurors who appeared to be on the younger side. And when those photos came up, particularly for one of the younger jurors, who may not have seen this on the cover of the paper each day, as those of us did back in 2004, there was absolute shock. There was absolute shock. I mean, these photos were shocking for everyone, but the accounts seemed to be unknown. And that is not something that should be permitted to happen.
And that’s part of why, despite the difficulty, our plaintiffs have brought this case forward, and stayed with it throughout all of this time, so that it is not forgotten. And it is so that what was done in our name, for me as a US citizen, is also not forgotten. And they want to be sure that this never happens to anyone else again. So to the extent that corrections [00:26:00] haven’t been made, whether by the US military or by CACI, to ensure that their employees or soldiers do not ever, ever treat detainees, or humans, in the way that the Iraqi men, women and children who were held at Abu Ghraib were treated, that’s what this case is also about.
Trump's Middle East Plans w Mouin Rabbani Part 2 - Behind the News - Air Date 1-23-25
DOUG HENWOOD - HOST, BEHIND THE NEWS: I'm speaking with the journalist and political analyst Mouin Rabbani. Some people have expressed skepticism about the story that Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, laid down the line with Netanyahu and Netanyahu fell into line, saying this is just PR, to buy some time, to have a smooth inauguration.
First of all, do you think this story is believable and longer term, what next? Trump is talking about Gaza's potential as a seaside resort. Jared Kushner said something similar last year. What do they have in mind? Do you have any sense of that?
MOUIN RABBANI: I don't know if they have anything in mind. Let me just answer the first part of your question first, is that we've had multiple [00:27:00] reports from multiple sources providing details of the Trump transition team's interactions with the Israelis, and specifically about his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff's, meetings with Netanyahu. These seem entirely credible. The general tenor that the Trump administration read the riot act to Netanyahu and told him to get into line to me seems entirely believable.
There isn't a better explanation of why Netanyahu had been rejecting this agreement throughout the past six months, had never come under any pressure from the Biden administration to sign onto it, and all of a sudden, as soon as Trump's people got involved...
The second, and I think more important part of your question, what do the Americans have in mind? Here it's much less clear because we do know [00:28:00] that Trump's people absolutely did not want a crisis on January 20th. Is that all they cared about? Are they now going to lose interest, given that Gaza and the Middle East did not interfere with the inauguration? If they now lose interest, does this mean that Netanyahu can now derail the agreement after its first stage to ensure that the second and third stages of this agreement are not implemented? Or will they remain on top of things and keep the pressure on to ensure that the rest of this agreement is implemented? And there are conflicting signs here.
On the one hand we have Witkoff not only saying that he intends to remain personally engaged, but there's even suggestions that he will soon be visiting the Gaza Strip. And in a quote, attributed to him to ensure that there are no provocations to derail the agreement. And he then made a point [00:29:00] of saying, and I'm not only talking about Hamas. So those are words [we] would never have heard from any of Biden's people.
And then there's the larger context. Yes, they've talked about the Gaza beach front as if this is essentially a real estate deal and not a political crisis or a decades long issue of occupation and self determination and so on. But I think the other issue here is that while we're very much focused on US-Israeli relations, we would do well to pay equal attention to US-Saudi relations. And why am I saying this? You may recall that during his first term, Trump, through Prince Jared of Kushner, engineered a normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, then Bahrain, then Morocco. And the big prize was seen as Saudi-Israeli [00:30:00] normalization. That didn't occur. Biden made it the centerpiece of his Middle East policy, at least until October 2023, and even after that, and also didn't achieve it.
Will Trump now return to this item? Will he make this the centerpiece of his Middle East diplomacy? The reason is to believe that he will. We then have to see how the Saudis respond. Will the Saudis simply go along with it without seeking to impose any conditions regarding the Palestinians simply to curry favor with the Americans the way that the Emiratis and the Bahrainis did? Will they assess that this is simply not going to happen because the Israelis are too extreme and won't be willing and won't be pressured by the Americans to make any significant political moves? And will the Saudis therefore focus much more on concluding a bilateral agreement Saudi-American agreement? Or will the [00:31:00] Saudis go to Trump and say, We want to do this. This is what needs to happen. An end to occupation. Whatever other political arrangements that would fundamentally transform Israeli Palestinian relations. You, Trump, get not only to sell many billions more of weapons, and we keep the Chinese role in Saudi Arabia limited, and we limit our relations with Russia. And as a bonus, you get a Nobel Peace Prize.
If the Saudis do that, Trump may very well go for it. That will, of course, I think, create very significant tensions in Washington between the various elements of his own constituency, where you have a collection of neocons, Israel firsters, Christian evangelists, isolationists, people who feel that the U. S. is being led by the nose by Israel and so on.
So these are things I think that have yet to materialize and we'll know much more in the next few months. [00:32:00] Does Trump have a clear agenda for the Middle East? If he does, who is going to be formulating that agenda? Or were they simply focused on the transition and don't really care what happens next?
And then of course, there's also the broader question of Iran where conditions now are very different than they were during the first Trump administration.
Egypt, Jordan Reject Trump Plan to Clean Out Gaza; Palestinians Return to N. Gaza in Historic Day - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-27-25
AMY GOODMAN: So, these comments of Trump, the last ones echo his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had said in the last year that Gaza is great beachfront property, talking about it as a kind of real estate deal. Trump, most recently, on Air Force One on Saturday night saying that more than a million Palestinians should be moved to Egypt and Jordan, that he spoke to the Jordanian king. Meanwhile, Jordan and Egypt — talk about their responses and, most importantly, the response of Palestinians.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, both Jordan and Egypt have rejected this, and they’ve done so since the beginning of this genocidal assault. You know, these comments were welcomed by the far-right [00:33:00] ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who said, you know, this would be the voluntary emigration that they’ve been dreaming about for Palestinians to be forcibly displaced outside of Gaza and for them to rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza.
I think what’s — yes, we have to acknowledge what’s happening today, which are these incredible scenes of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Palestinians, who have withstood an unprecedented genocidal assault, returning back to the north. Now, we spoke at Drop Site to Mustafa Barghouti just a few days ago, and he said the return of forcibly displaced Palestinians to the north will be the ultimate defeat of Israeli plans, because it means that the goal of ethnic cleansing did not materialize.
Let’s remember what happened. If we go back to October 7th, 2023, when Benjamin Netanyahu took to the airwaves and declared war on Gaza, he said, “Leave now,” to the, you know, 2.3 million Palestinians who are living in [00:34:00] Gaza. Just a few days later, we saw this shocking directive for all 1.1 million Palestinians who are north of Wadi Gaza to flee to the south. And we saw this unbelievable, unprecedented aerial bombing campaign and many people forcibly displaced to the south, many of them to Rafah in the beginning. And let’s not forget that at the time, Western governments, including the United States government under the Biden administration, were trying to persuade Egypt to take in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displace them in northern Sinai, offering economic incentives. There’s reporting that shows that this was taking place. Egypt rejected it at the time, but, more importantly, Palestinians rejected this.
And then we saw them build what’s called the Netzarim Corridor, which bisected Gaza. This was a six- or seven-kilometer-wide strip of land. They completely depopulated, forcibly displaced, ethnically cleansed that area, destroyed almost all of the buildings there, set up military bases. [00:35:00] And this was, essentially — reporting shows in Haaretz this was called a “kill zone.” Any man, woman or child, unarmed, would enter — it’s unclear where the border was of the Netzarim Corridor — they would be shot and killed. And this was essentially the place that divided Gaza. Once you crossed there, you could not go back. We saw in October also a concentrated extermination campaign in the very north of Gaza, in Jabaliya, Jabaliya refugee camp, in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, where they completely did not allow any aid in and then very systematically started attacking these towns and cities and forcing people out on, essentially, what were death marches to the south, across the Netzarim Corridor, and back.
And, you know, despite all of this, people withstood. They remained on their land. And now we’re seeing these incredible scenes of people returning home. And to think that, you know, Trump can just say they should [00:36:00] move to Egypt or Jordan, I think, you know, is preposterous. And we’re seeing right now that this is kind of an ultimate defeat of the plans of ethnic cleansing, that have dated back to the 1950s for Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to go to that quote of Jared Kushner, made months ago — that’s Trump’s son-in-law and former adviser — weighing in on Israel’s war on Gaza, saying Israel should move Palestinians out of the besieged territory, which he said contains very valuable waterfront property, making the remarks during an event hosted by the Middle East Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
JARED KUSHNER: And Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable to — if people would focus on kind of building up, you know, livelihoods. You think about all the money that’s gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done. And so, I think that it’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think, from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and [00:37:00] then clean it up. But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s a pretty amazing comment, invaluable beachfront property. Earlier today, I was watching the Palestinian attorney Diana Buttu on Al Jazeera. When asked about what Trump said, you know, I think all agree it does look like a demolition zone. There’s no question about it. How can Palestinians live there? And she said, “OK, if there’s that question, rather than moving them to neighboring Arab states like Egypt and Jordan, what about moving them home?” She said 80% of the people of Gaza come from places in Israel.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, I mean, this is why Gaza has long been a site of resistance in historic Palestine and long been a place that Israel wants to ethnically cleanse, because it is the largest concentration of Palestinian refugees in [00:38:00] historic Palestine. So, it has always been a restive place. These people, who 80% of them are their descendants, want to return to their homes, which are mostly the towns and villages around Gaza. And like you said, this is now — they are returning, in these really incredible scenes that we’re seeing right now —
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is a flood of humanity.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: People hugging, who haven’t seen — they’ve been separated from their family members, from mothers and fathers, separated from their children, for 15 months, and they’re reuniting for the first time. They never thought they would see each other again.
But they are returning to, as you said, a devastated landscape. Nearly the entire — every house has been destroyed or badly damaged. The government authorities are telling people to bring their tents with them. There are not even enough tents for people to set up on the rubble of their homes. And as we’ve been seeing in other parts, as well, while Israel has violated the ceasefire nearly every single day, killing Palestinians, especially in [00:39:00] Rafah, the death count, the official death count, has been also shooting up since the 19th, when the ceasefire went into effect, because dozens of bodies are being recovered from under the rubble. And so, you know, I’m afraid we’re going to see a lot of this as people search for their loved ones as they’re returning to this devastated landscape. But they are determined not to leave their land, and many of them will set up tents on the rubble of their homes.
AMY GOODMAN: And then we go to the West Bank and what’s happening there. We just spoke to Mariam Barghouti. You wrote a piece with her for Drop Site. If you can talk about intensification of violence against Palestinians there?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, essentially, what we saw soon after the ceasefire went into effect, a war on the West Bank, initially dubbed the Iron Wall. All of these things had been taking place already — attacks on Jenin, closures of checkpoints and so forth — but a massive escalation of this, to the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2002, [00:40:00] an invasion of Jenin. Right now they are demolishing the refugee camp, not just with bulldozers as we’ve seen in the past. They are actually detonating, the way they have done in Gaza, parts of this. Two thousand families have already been displaced. Across the West Bank, there was usually around 700 military checkpoints. Now there’s close to a thousand. They’ve all closed down. Cities have been closed off from each other. People can’t leave their towns and villages to go to school, to go to work. They’re separated from each other. And so, this is — they’re laying siege to the West Bank. And a lot of what we show in the reporting and what has been said was that this was a trade-off that Netanyahu — trying to convince his ministers, like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, to sign onto the Gaza ceasefire plan, that they would launch this kind of unprecedented military assault on the West Bank
Gaza Ceasefire Explained Reading Between The Lines Part 2 - The Socialist Program - Air Date 1-16-25
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: I just want to, as we get towards the finish line, I want to just recontextualize what's going on. The war against the Palestinian people is [00:41:00] not new. The Nakba, May 1948, the terrible ethnic cleansing, hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes, the use of massacres by Zionist violent gangs in 1948. We know about that. And then it continued. The seizure, or attempted- the invasion of Egypt and the seizure of other Arab lands by the Israelis with the support of Britain and France at that time in 1956.
In 1967 was a turning point. It was a six day war against Egypt, Syria, and the others, as we talked about. Six days. In six days, Gaza was seized. In six days, the West Bank was seized. In six days, the Golan Heights were seized, and now they've been annexed from Syria. In six days, the Sinai was seized from, you know, and Egypt had a massive army.
In six days, the Israelis did this. After 465 [00:42:00] days, not in Egypt, not in these other places, but against this little strip of land, against the people concentrated in this little strip of land called Gaza. After 465 days, there is a negotiated end to the war. It's not an- if this was a complete victory for Israel as the US is going to try to present it, there would not have been a negotiated end. There would- complete victories include unconditional surrender imposed on the defeated party. But instead, the Israelis have come back to the negotiating table, and they've actually changed the position from May 2024 in a way that the deal is actually better for the Palestinian side.
That doesn't mean, this is- I don't want to use language, sort of either hyperbolically or in a Pollyannish way, like something wonderful has happened. The terrible genocide that we [00:43:00] witnessed is something that the Palestinian people, their families, their villages, their communities, their towns, their cities, I mean, whole generations will be scarred by this.
But what's obviously, and I want to end on this, is that even the American government is now recognizing that not only were the resistance forces in Palestine not fully defeated, but all of those who have been killed, the ranks of those who have been killed, are being filled up by the next generation. If you see your mother, your brother, your father, your cousin massacred, and you're eight years old or 10 years old or 14 years old, you're not going to think at the end of the day with a ceasefire, 'Oh, great.' You're going to think like, 'I'm going to keep fighting for my people.' Because this steadfastness, this resilience is actually part of the psychology of the entire people. And that's what makes the Palestinian struggle sort of the detonator [00:44:00] for a global struggle for all of those people who feel oppressed, who are oppressed, who are exploited.
In that sense, this is a battle, not the last battle, but a battle, terrible battle, but a battle that leads to other struggles for freedom and liberation and emancipation. And I think that people in the United States have a duty, an obligation, and a challenge to play their role in helping the Palestinian people win that kind of freedom, because it's the government that speaks in our name. Not necessarily with our consent, but certainly in our name that does all of this with Israel again, facilitating genocide and oppression.
So you get the last word.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Well, Brian, This is an important note to end on. I think that we have to be very clear about what's going on and be very clear that when the United States comes out and says that Hamas has been defeated, Hamas has been weakened, you were referring to Blinken's [00:45:00] comments at the Atlantic Council. Again, he said that Hamas can never be military, militarily defeated because the ranks have filled again. The same number of people that have been killed have been recruited over the past 15 months. He was admitting in many ways, defeat.
It's an irony of history that the greatest imperialist powers throughout history can't seem to learn from the mistakes of their own past or from the past of other empires. Because when you try to oppress a people or a nation it creates the conditions for people to pick up the resistance banner. It inspires more people to fight. If- there's no situation in which the United States and Israel could exterminate the spirit of resistance by killing people. Over the past 15 months, they have effectively killed untold numbers and maimed and wounded many more. But they have actually worked against themselves in terms [00:46:00] of growing the resistance spirit inside and outside of Gaza.
They've created a situation in which they themselves have exposed their own true agenda, and now their own population, the United States population, is completely with the Palestinian people. A year ago, if you asked someone on the street, "What do you think of Palestine?" They may say, "I don't know," or "It's a, it's a long complicated conflict," or, "Oh, the Arabs and the Jews have been fighting for thousands of years."
Now, when you go on the street, the majority of people will tell you "End the genocide." Wearing a keffiyeh is now, it's not a style. It's a political statement that a large number of people have taken up. It's incredible to see the shift among the American population. And the contradictions inside the United States, a growing anti-imperialist sentiment inside the United States, is going to change the correlation of forces, the terrain in which the United States can actually operate its imperialist agenda.
Trump is coming into office in a [00:47:00] very contested moment. And the movement over the past 15 months has played its role in, really at its heart, communicating what's actually going on in the ground, what the role of the United States is, and what the role of the people of the United States actually is. And that we are the ones who speak for ourselves, not the White House.
When Trump comes into office, he's going to bring with him, a lot of confusion because of the different things his friends in his cabinet are going to be saying. Also, his statements. He says he's anti-war. He says he's for the working class. He says all sorts of different things. He says he's for the everyday man.
Our task as the movement is to continue giving that clarity. We're going to have to keep analyzing from the point of view of what is actually happening for the Palestinian people. What is the advancement of the Palestinian cause? What is the advancement of the cause of all oppressed people across the world, including inside the United States, in which we're all up against the [00:48:00] same enemy, the same system, the same billionaire, imperialist, capitalist system, that is exploiting and killing and massacring people across the world. So I think this is a moment for us to be, to really reach out to all of those in our lives. If you're organizers, if you're an activist, to your family, to your friends, to really start explaining to people what's happening.
The ceasefire is one step forward. And now there's many more steps forward to go. After the prisoner exchange, there will be many more Palestinian prisoners that need to be released. There will be a siege that needs to be lifted. There will be the full struggle for Palestinian liberation, the end of the occupation, the end of apartheid. These are all things we're still going to fight for in the Palestinian movement and unite with other sectors of struggle, other fronts of struggle that have shared interests that also see in the liberation of Palestine, their own liberation. I think that this is our path forward and it's- you know, the ceasefire is an incredible moment, an [00:49:00] incredible achievement.
It's an achievement for the Palestinian people, but it's not the end of the struggle. There's much more to fight for. There's a lot of losses to take stock of, and there's a lot of solidarity still that needs to be built.
Note from the Editor on the echos of atrocities
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with The Socialist Program highlighting reactions to the ceasefire from Palestinian groups. American Prestige highlighted the disconnect between public opinion and America's actions abroad, particularly in the Middle East. Behind the News broke down the ceasefire deal in detail. Revolutionary Left Radio examined Syria in the wake of the fall of Assad. CounterSpin explained the landmark case holding a private contractor responsible for torture in Abu Ghraib prison. Behind the News discussed the role of Trump's administration and the politics of the ceasefire. Democracy Now! looked at the plight of Palestinians attempting to return home at the same time as Trump is making comments in support of a purge of the Gaza Strip. And finally, The Socialist Program attempted to recontextualize the ongoing [00:50:00] struggle of Palestinians and the way violence and self-defense are popularly defined in media and culture.
And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive sections.
But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members, who get access to bonus episodes and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new, members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.com/support (there's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.
And we're also trying something new recently, offering you the opportunity to make your comments or questions on upcoming topics, since it takes a bit of time to do all of the research, I can let you know what we're going to be working on and you can potentially join the conversation as it happens. So [00:51:00] next up in future episodes, we're going to be zooming way out to the changing international dynamics under a Trump presidency, followed by an analysis of how the media is shifting and mostly capitulating to Trump.
To get your comments and questions in now for those topics, you can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. We're also now findable on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal with the handle "BestoftheLeft.01". There's also a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected].
Now as for today's topic, I couldn't help but zoom way out on the nature of atrocities while thinking about today's show.
Today we're covering stories that go back 20 years. but there are echoes that go much further. Thinking about the Abu Ghraib prison, one of the major stories about Americans torturing Iraqi prisoners after we liberated the country from Saddam Hussein, was that Abu [00:52:00] Ghraib was one of the prisons Saddam had used to do his own torturing.
So it's a "under new management, same great experience you've come to expect" sort of scenario.
And it's not meant to be an exact parallel. Saddam torturing political prisoners to maintain authoritarian rule is not the same as our years-long anti-Muslim propaganda campaign, part of Bush's war on terror, and the systematic dehumanization of the so-called " Enemy" that always happens in wartime, leading to American prison guards feeling like they could do pretty much any dehumanizing thing they wanted to to their prisoners.
But at some point, those differences and our intentions just don't matter that much. I'm not saying they're irrelevant, but I'm saying that they only take you so far.
Now, a couple of years ago, Amanda and I visited a concentration camp just outside of Berlin, and were surprised to learn that after the Nazis had been defeated by the Allied forces, most prominently by the Soviets, who took Berlin [00:53:00] itself, that the Soviets took over management of that concentration camp and promptly used it to torture dissidents of their regime.
So they helped defeat the evil of the Nazis and promptly took their place. And maybe they weren't exactly the same as the Nazis or held the same intentions, but they sure as hell weren't different enough, and they are rightly condemned for that.
So, you think about all the terrible mistakes that the US made in the post 911 era. Not just the bad decisions to go to war in the first place, but all of the smaller terrible decisions all the way down the line, resulting in the completely predictable betrayal of the values we claim to have about due process and human rights.
And to me, it seemed both shocking but also completely predictable, that Israel would have taken the events of October 7th as the opportunity to model their response on our reaction to 9/11. Explicitly, [00:54:00] loudly, their representatives went on US television to proclaim their intention to fuck up just as badly as we had, violate human rights and rules of war at least as badly as we had, if not worse.
Because some people want so badly for the world to be black and white with a simple "us versus them" narrative and "the enemy" who we don't have to think of as human, and they'll use the actions of others to justify enacting their own darkest desires.
I have no doubt that the Soviets understood the depravity of the Nazis, and took it as license to be nearly as bad while still feeling that they had the moral high ground, just as Israel looked to the US and said, "Well, If you can do it...."
Now, I talked to Amanda about all this, and she brought up the idea, believed by many, that the US are always the Good Guys. [00:55:00] Meaning, we're either doing the right thing, or we're doing the wrong thing, but with the best of intentions, so we can always be forgiven our sins. That's how the idea goes. In large part, this stems from the Second World War. We were on the right side of history on that one, and our self-perception as the perpetual Good Guys have been projected around the world in an endless echo chamber ever since.
Finally, though, after countless ill-conceived wars, acts of imperialism, violations of human rights, supported coups, propped up dictators, and now finally giving full support to an ongoing genocide in Gaza, the idea of good intentions or us being the Good Guys is wearing ridiculously thin.
There are some, particularly on the extreme left, who have seen through the veil of American Good Guyism, just as I have, but have come to the conclusion that our intentions have [00:56:00] actually always been bad.
Then, of course, there are still plenty who hang on to the notion that our intentions are good.
For me, I bristle at either perspective for two reasons. It's always more complicated than that, and there are always a mix of intentions at play when something as big and complicated as a country takes an action, for good or ill, on the international stage.
But also, it just doesn't particularly matter. Fighting over intentions ends up being a distraction from the actions themselves. And digging in on one side or the other ends up being a sort of dogma that obscures reality regardless of which side you're coming from.
So for me, I don't care to pay too much attention to the idea of intentions. Again, not that intentions matter not at all, but we tend to give them far more weight than they deserve. Actual outcomes matter more, and have a far greater impact on a country's credibility in the world.
Lastly, I wanted to tell you [00:57:00] about two signs I saw at that Berlin concentration camp that seem relevant to today. The first was just across the street from the concentration camp explaining why they'd decided to build a police academy adjacent to the camp. It says in big bold letters at the top, "Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority. Article 1, Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany." Then it goes on to explain that, quote, "The Brandenburg University of Applied Police Sciences has been located here on the grounds of the former SS camp, to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial since 2006. The prime educational objective is commitment to the primary principle of the basic law: human dignity is inviolable. As part of their studies, students learn about the history of what happened here and the crimes committed by the police under the [00:58:00] Nazi regime." End quote.
And that is a good and honorable sentiment that is hopefully having the intended impact on German police cadets. I have no information beyond that to judge how well that's going.
In contrast, though, I'm reminded of the recent headlines about Trump's plan to expand our own lawless enclave in Guantanamo Bay to become a concentration camp intended to house tens of thousands of immigrants.
The second sign from the concentration camp that seems relevant today was a plaque in the museum explaining an historical leaflet. It says that the leaflet was from the National Storm Group and was making threats against the judges regarding a particular trial, and then goes on to explain the case in question. Quote, "In August 1932, S. A. Men beat a communist worker to death in front of his family. The assailants were sentenced to death shortly [00:59:00] afterward, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Reichskanzler von Papen. After the Nazis took over power, the murderers were released in March 1933, Just seven months after the murder."
If it's not already abundantly clear, the pardon of the violent January 6th insurrectionists and the DOJ taking down the Capital Violence Most Wanted site seeking information on fugitives and unidentified rioters are just the latest echo of this type of injustice and atrocity. The parallels. are not subtle.
Now, there's the old saying that most of us will have heard our whole lives, some version of the idea that we must remember the past or be doomed to repeat it. What is becoming more and more clear is that there are those who look to the past, particularly the most horrific, widely condemned episodes of the past, and don't fear them, but actively [01:00:00] seek to repeat them.
SECTION A: THE DEAL
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now, we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Next up, Section A- The Deal, followed by Section B- Ceasefire Politics, Section C- The Empire, and Section D- Now What?
The Ceasefire in Gaza w Mohammad Alsaafin Part 2 - American Prestige - Air Date 1-19-25
DEREK DAVISON - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: I do. I want to, I'm a little chagrined to actually stay this long to get to this point, but, um, what has been the reaction that you've seen in Gaza?
I know there've been, I've seen reports of people obviously elated in the streets, but, um, you know, I, I, I imagine you've seen, uh, more video and, um, you know, kind of direct, uh, information about, uh, how this is being received in Gaza than, than I've seen so far. So, so tell us about that. Yeah, I mean,
MOHAMMAD ALSAAFIN: um, the scenes were of jubilation.
I think people are extremely happy. Um, and this is, I think it's not the happiness of It's the happiness of survival. I mean, these people have been through absolute hell. Uh, I think the worst [01:01:00] that, uh, modern warfare can unleash upon a population. They've had to go through, they've been through famine and starvation, forced famine and starvation.
They've been through displacement. They've, they've been through, I mean, you imagine the psychology of a population that has been made to understand that nothing is safe around them, not their children, their children are not off limits, the Israeli snipers, their hospitals are not off limits. Their schools are not off limits, even the tents that people set up are not off limits to Israeli drugs.
DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: Waziristan with regards to drones and it's basically psychologically damaging forever. Children are afraid to leave their homes, blue skies induce terror. It's one of the worst things that you could possibly do to a population. It's beyond horrible.
MOHAMMAD ALSAAFIN: I don't know if you guys have noticed the buzzing sound in the background of every video that's come out of Gaza.
Yeah. Which is like the constant 24 hour drones surveillance over Gaza. That sound has been there. Last time I entered Gaza, it was in 2005, 20 years ago. And that [01:02:00] sound was there back then. Right? So you have, it's not just since the war, you have an entire generation of people who've grown up hearing that buzzing sound.
which is, which tells them you're being watched every step of the way. Um, so yes, it's, it's, it's the happiness. And I just want to like
DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: underline like Americans freak out when they're pulled over by a cop for a traffic violation. Like the, the, the, the scale is literally unimaginable to someone here. And I just think people need to think about that for a second.
It's beyond horrible.
MOHAMMAD ALSAAFIN: It's, it's literally indescribable, Danny. I think unless you actually live there or, or witness it or live there, like even visit and see what it's, what that experience is, there's so much that you can't actually talk about, uh, because the words, the, the, the words don't match the experience and people will have no, I, no way of connecting with what that means.
Um, we, we surveilled by a drone that is armed and can kill you at any time. Uh, but that is the reality that [01:03:00] people have been living in. Um, At the same time, it's worth pointing out a couple of things. Um, 80 people were killed in Gaza today. Um, at least 30 since the since the ceasefire was announced. Um, Israeli airstrikes.
All reports I'm seeing is that the Israelis have intensified their bombing overnight. Um, and so I think people are gonna be counting down The minutes to Sunday, because every minute could literally, uh, result in someone being killed in Gaza. Um, I saw a tweet from a lady who said that the first thing she's going to do when the ceasefire takes effect is she's going to go try and dig out her son's bodies from under the rubble of their home.
Um, I think people need to realize that there are thousands. We talk about the death toll and I think it's, it's even the New York times talking yesterday about how it's actually all. It's actually a vast undercount. The 45, 000 people that are officially being counted. Um, [01:04:00] there are thousands of people who are missing.
Um, we don't know if they are being held by the Israelis. We don't know if they've been shot dead in the next three and corridor, for example, or just zero is actually obtained footage and broadcast footage over the last year, um, showing Israeli soldiers. killing Palestinians near the beach and then bulldozing their bodies into the sand.
So no one knows who those people were, no one knows where they're buried, no one knows what happened to them. Um, there are also thousands of people under the rubble of the buildings that have been bombed, uh, with these massive U. S. weapons, uh, U. S. missiles. Um, part of the reason that they're still there is because, uh, Israel has banned, amongst the things Galo, this heavy machinery to remove the rubble.
So, The civil defense crews that have been digging people out have literally been using like chisels, hammers on their bare hands for 15 months, big people out of the rubble. And there are many places where, uh, people gave up, uh, you just couldn't [01:05:00] move these massive walls of cement. And concrete to get to the people underneath, um, reminded of something that, um, my late colleague, who was, um, one of them just see it as Gaza correspondents before he was decapitated in an Israeli airstrike in August last year, um, was 27 years old.
He has a two year old daughter's in, um, he refused to leave Northern Gaza. His family went South. He stayed there because he won't, he was committed to reporting on what was happening. Until the day that he was killed alongside his cameraman Rami Rifi. Um, they just actually, they were killed on the same day.
Smite and he was assassinated and they were filming at his house, uh, or the rubble of his house where some people have come to pay their respects. And as they left and their press, uh, vehicle, uh, they were killed by an Israeli drone. Um, Smite wrote something just before he died. He tweeted it actually, which is [01:06:00] that he can't sleep because he keeps hearing the voices of the people trapped under the rubble as he walks by.
Because that, that's where the situation, it became impossible to lift or to remove the rubble by hand. And it was also too dangerous to stay in some of these places that had been bombed. That people would be walking by and hearing people trapped under the rubble. Until their voices faded away and they died.
That was a common experience for a lot of people in Gaza. And it's again, one of those things where you cannot comprehend it. I'm saying it to you. I don't know what that actually feels like. Um, but again, for a lot of families, that's the thing that they're thinking about, will I finally be able to bury my, my loved ones?
Will I finally be able to find them?
Gaza Ceasefire Explained Reading Between The Lines Part 3 - The Socialist Program - Air Date 1-16-25
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: So the three, as close as we can know, because there's a variety of different leaks of what the terms of the actual agreement are, many of them have been corroborated multiple times.
So we, we feel that there's, this is a pretty accurate representation of what the ceasefire outlines. Even Biden himself. And of course he has an interest [01:07:00] in this, but he said, it's basically exactly the same as May. Um, it seems to be mostly the same, except for a few small appendixes. But we'll find out in the coming days, exactly, exactly the terms and the precise numbers.
But the face is. Very similar. It's a three phase agreement. The first phase, we have the most information about it because it's going to start soon. It's officially going to start on the 19th. There's a cessation of aggression. 19th
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: of January. Of
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: January, on Sunday. We don't know the zero hour yet, but that will be announced, I'm sure, soon, after tomorrow's deliberations in the Israeli security cabinet.
Now, the 42 days. Already there's been a cessation of, uh, aggression. Um, but it's officially going to start.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: Six weeks, 42 days is phase one. And as of right now, even though it's only announced and hasn't been approved by the Israeli cabinet, as of now there's cessation. As you talked about crowds in Gaza mingling with resistance fighters are out [01:08:00] actually celebrating.
So it appears a cessation. And then the actual agreement goes into effect. January 19th, one day before Donald Trump becomes president.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Yes.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: So what's, what's in phase one?
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: So in phase one, there's multiple things. One is a prisoner exchange. So 33 of the Israelis who are being held captive in Gaza would be released.
That would be, uh, women and elderly. And injured, they will be released in return for a large number of Palestinian prisoners. We know that it will be about 1000 Palestinians who have been basically kidnapped from the Gaza territory after since October 7, 20,
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: Palestinians who have been arrested. Since October 7th,
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: those horrific scenes of the Israeli occupation, rounding up men and, uh, forcing them to strip down, uh, and walk in the rubble and be subjected to [01:09:00] torture and be placed in these detention camps without any tracking of who they are.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: Noteworthy, noteworthy land that These people, these thousand plus Palestinians who have been taken captive since October 7th, they're not called hostages. They're just called Palestinian prisoners, but they're hostages.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Of course.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: So these people are going to be released.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: A thousand of these people will be released.
Um, there will also be others who are released from the Israeli prisons. Uh, there will also be some number, and it's the It's a little bit unclear, but some number of people who were released who are serving life sentences in Israeli prisons. Now these are political prisoners, Brian. Every single Palestinian who's in a Israeli prison is a political prisoner.
It's illegal for Israel to be jailing people of another country, of another nation, uh, in international law. These are political prisoners. These are prisoners taken under conditions of occupation and colonial control. Now when someone's in there for a life sentence, [01:10:00] this means they're Sentenced for their political activity, their resistance activity.
They
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: are the leaders. Their
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: leadership. Uh, so the Prisoner Exchange will also include, we don't know who, but, uh, a number of names from that category. Uh, now besides the Prisoner Exchange, and, and the Prisoner Exchange itself is, significant, and it's going to happen along the stages as well. Thirty three, uh, Israeli captives will be released in the first phase, then another number in the second phase, uh, and then possibly the bodies of those hostages that were killed bymajority of them were killed by the Israeli bombardment itselfwill also be exchanged, but that's still under negotiation.
The prisoner release itself, Brian, is a huge Achievement for the Palestinian people. You can't overstate the amount of optimism that it brings to the Palestinian people. The prisoner question for the Palestinian struggle is a central one. I think it's difficult for, uh, people who are, you know, getting their information from the U.
S. media to really see that impact, the [01:11:00] kind of joy that is accompanied by a prisoner release, by people returning home.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: Is either has a family member or a friend who's in prison.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: There's no Palestinian family that doesn't know someone who has been taken from them, uh, and that's being held in these conditions of torture, uh, in these Israeli prisons.
So, the prisoner release itself is such a huge achievement that everyone is celebrating right now. On top of that, uh, there's also going to be a staged withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Territory. Right now
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: And again, this is all stage one.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: All stage one. Um, right now they're all, all over the Gaza territory.
They're still in active combat. Just since the past couple of days, maybe the past week, at least 14 Israeli soldiers have been killed in, in active, uh, fight with the Palestinian resistance. So they're still all there. Um, they've closed off the possibility for people who've been displaced from the North to return to the North, uh, by setting up, uh, basically a [01:12:00] defect, a border on the Netzerim axis, which is, goes right South of Gaza city.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: So it's, it divides. Gaza east to west, dividing people, basically a wall so people can't go home and then to the north. To
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: the north, yes. They cannot go back to the north. If you remember, and we've talked about it on the socialist program before, one of the proposals that was, the ideas that the Israeli military establishment was circulating was something called the general plan, the general's plan, where they would, uh, Find some way to occupy a significant area of the north of Gaza to create a buffer zone.
They would depopulate it either through massacring people or displacing people. Ethnically cleanse the north of its Palestinian population so they could use it as a buffer zone. That is being thrown out the window with this agreement. Because in the first stage, after seven days of the implementation of the first phase of this agreement, the corridor will be open for people to return to their homes in the north [01:13:00] by foot, and then after that, they will be able to return by vehicle.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: And Israeli soldiers will leave this corridor?
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: They will be leaving this corridor in a staged, uh, manner. So they'll start leaving it in the beginning of the agreement, and then they will continue leaving it until the second phase, where it seems to be that in the second phase, they will be fully leaving that, uh, part, the Netzerim Axis here.
Okay. South of Gaza City. People will be searched on their return because the condition is that they return without arms, without weapons, um, and it seems like the search will be done by some sort of security company or force that is determined by the mediators of this agreement. So we don't know the conditions of it, but Essentially, people are returning to the north.
On top of it, they'll also start to remove their forces from the Philadelphia axis, which the corridor, the southern border, that, um, the border between Rafah in the south and [01:14:00] Egypt, where the majority of supplies and aid, medicine, people going back and forth, All really happened through that crossing.
Netanyahu
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: said the Israelis were never going to leave that corridor.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: And that's why the May ceasefire, uh, negotiations failed. Because Netanyahu said he would never give up control of the border between Gaza and Egypt. Now, and he, and he promised the Israeli people that he would never give up control. In the ceasefire agreement, he's giving up control.
They will gradually reduce forces, um, and after the release of the last hostage from the first stage, they will complete their full withdrawal from the Philadelphia, Philadelphia corridor no later than the 50th day. So a couple of days into the second phase, but they will have a full withdrawal of, um, from the Rafah border crossing and there will be an immediate, once the ceasefire comes into effect, aid flowing in.
Up to 600 trucks a day. Egypt is already working on a mechanism to make this happen [01:15:00] according to Egyptian officials. Um, so, and people will be able to move back and forth, um, also in a phased manner through that border crossing, including wounded fighters will be able to go to seek treatment. A lot of people need medical treatment.
So many people need medical treatment will be able to start going to Egypt to receive that treatment.
The Ceasefire in Gaza w Mohammad Alsaafin Part 4 - American Prestige - Air Date 1-19-25
DEREK DAVISON - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: The second and more obvious is the two red flags or the, that I wanted to talk about is obviously that the second and third phases of this deal don't exist yet. Um, they exist in the barest sense, uh, in that we know sort of what the big ticket items would be that, uh, the second phase would involve, as you alluded to earlier, the release of the remaining October 7th hostages, uh, as well as a full withdrawal, IDF withdrawal from from Gaza.
And then the third phase would involve the release of the bodies of October 7th hostages who have died and the development somehow negotiation of some sort [01:16:00] of reconstruction plan for Gaza. But that's it. That's all we know because the details still have to be ironed out in these negotiations that are supposed to start partway through the first phase.
I know that You know, there's, there's been a lot of talk about, well, this is that, that means this is effectively a six week ceasefire and it'll, the Israelis will resume fighting after that. And I've even seen, you know, Israeli media reporting that like Donald Trump has given Netanyahu the kind of wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you know, behind the scenes that, you know, it's, it's okay, we just do this six week thing.
And then you can go back to whatever you were doing and I'll support it. I'm a little skeptical about this because this is Donald Trump ceasefire now. And if it falls apart in six weeks, It'll be his failure to maintain it and i'm not sure that he's prepared to countenance that not to say that he wouldn't countenance it if it came to that but um, I don't know i'm a little skeptical that what are your feelings on on whether or not this is going to stick or If it's just gonna we're just going to see this first phase and [01:17:00] then back to back to the fighting
MOHAMMAD ALSAAFIN: I think the talk of uh Trump giving Netanyahu a wink and a nudge, um, is, is, is a bit of cope for the Israeli right wing.
Um, I think they, uh, they want to present this as, uh, as some kind of deal between Netanyahu and Trump and that, you know, they'll go back to fighting. Um, I, I'm skeptical as you are. I think other than this being Trump's ceasefire, um, I don't think even in Israel is going to be a political appetite to continue a war.
Um, I think, I think most Israelis. Understand that this war is pointless. They haven't been able to achieve any of the major goals that Netanyahu sold to them. Um, the only way the hostages were released has been through a ceasefire negotiations. Um, This notion of total victory, um, is absent. Like we just said, Hamas is still there and will remain there.
Um, and what's more, even the most fanatical amongst the Israelis, the ones who [01:18:00] actually thought they were going to, uh, build settlements in Beit Hanun and in Jabalia. Well, Israelis are going to be pulling out in a few weeks from those places too. Um, so there isn't a lot to, there is, there's no guarantee that beyond the first phase, uh, the fighting won't start again.
The only guarantee is that they have remained. There will remain, uh, quite a number of Israeli captives. Uh, that is the male soldiers that were captured in Gaza. Uh, after the end of the first phase. Um, so that's kind of the, um, that's the 11 card that Hamas can play. Right. Um, but I just think there's no appetite for work for a war that everyone agrees is pointless.
Um, there's There's no, there's nothing to be achieved by going back to the fighting.
DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: So I have a, just a quick question about that. Uh, just to take a purely cynical, realistic view, so much of Gaza has been destroyed. I imagine that many people aren't going to want to live there anymore. And Trump [01:19:00] is, let's assume not genuinely a friend of the Palestinian national liberation.
And so that he doesn't like seeing these annihilation and he doesn't like the various elements of it, but obviously does he really give a shit if Israel annexes parts of the West Bank and makes them part of Israel? I would say no. So, Um, given, given that, um, it does seem like this might be a strategic victory if one adopts Likud and the rights, and generally a lot of Israel right now perspective on the world that Iran and Hezbollah have been enormously weakened.
Hamas has been enormously weakened. Israeli intelligence has shown to still be quite good in the wake of the failure of October 7th. Um. And effectively, there's a pretty good chance, I think, of them getting the green light for general annexation of large territories of the West Bank. So obviously, I think we should all be happy that the Vernichtungspolitik of the war in Gaza is over.
But Transcribed Um, it seems like Israel is [01:20:00] going to get quite a bit of what it wants. Am I missing something? Or is this, you know, we're happy it's over, but this was a strategic victory for Israel in basically every way, shape and form.
MOHAMMAD ALSAAFIN: Uh, I wouldn't say a strategic victory. I think whether or not Israel gets the green light to annex the West Bank is actually largely immaterial because Israel has effectively annexed the West Bank many years ago.
DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: True. Yeah.
MOHAMMAD ALSAAFIN: And, and, and, and I, I don't say that with hyperbole. Um, I lived in the West Bank, um, until, until about, uh, 2009. And even back then there was full Israeli sovereignty over every inch of the West Bank, no Palestinian sovereignty. Um, if you are an Israeli, uh, you
DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: Correct me if I'm wrong, Mohamed, but basically a lot of those quote unquote peace agreements were still denying Palestinian sovereignty, which is something that we in the United States never reported that these quote unquote Peace agreements still denied sovereignty.
The one thing that an agreement should lead to
MOHAMMAD ALSAAFIN: know the I mean, the Oslo Accords were actually were [01:21:00] were written as a temporary accords that was that were supposed to lead to final status negotiations. Um, that would lead to palestinian sovereignty. They never got there. So the say, so for example, when you talk about the palestinian authority and whatever they exercise in terms of authority in the West Bank is based on a 1993 agreement between the PLO and Israel that was designed to expire in 1999.
And we're now in 2024. So no, there, there's no, there's no Palestinian sovereignty. Um, and I think annexation might actually be a double edged sword for the Israelis. Um, I think for a lot of Israelis, especially their, uh, liberal defenders abroad, um, the notion that, uh, negotiations at a two state solution are on the table, um, help you kind of get past the, the apartheid and.
And the ethnic cleansing, um, once Israel officially annexes the West Bank, if that is what's to happen, um, and it's 3 million Palestinians, then you, you can't use that as a cudgel anymore. You can't talk about a two [01:22:00] state solution anymore. And so I think a lot of countries will be forced to reckon with that.
Um, now I don't have a huge amount of hope. in an international law, Western countries. Um, and I think the last 15 months have have have indicated that. Um, but I do think that actually it would put Israel in a much more difficult situation right now. I think it's perfectly it's got the best of both worlds where it has effectively annexed the West Bank without having to deal with any implications of it.
Um, and so I don't think that this notion that the Israelis actually are going to get to annex the West Bank as a prize. for ending the genocide in Gaza. Um, I don't think that's necessarily inevitable either.
SECTION B: CEASEFIRE POLITICS
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B- Ceasefire Politics.
Biden on Gaza ceasefire 'The elements of this deal were what I laid out in detail' - The ReidOut - Air Date 1-15-25
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: But we begin tonight with big news out of the Middle East. Hamas and Israel have finalized a ceasefire deal that will release the remaining hostages and ensure the departure of Israeli forces from Gaza. The news was greeted with jubilation and tears from Tel Aviv to Khan Younis because [01:23:00] it's the first time there is real hope in the region.
The announcement comes just days before the transfer of power from President Biden to Donald Trump. Now this feels like historical deja vu. It's probably because a similar situation happened in 1981 when American hostages being held at the U S embassy in Tehran were freed just as Ronald Reagan took over from Jimmy Carter.
CLIP: Good evening on the 444th and final day of the hostage crisis, which is also the first day of the new Reagan presidency.
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Here is how NBC's correspondent explained that deal.
CLIP: On the plane coming over, the Carter party told reporters that Iran will wind up with only three billion dollars after withholdings for claims and repayments of loans.
That Carter was close to agreement three times and almost had one just before the election. That the final deal was sealed at nine o'clock [01:24:00] yesterday morning Washington time, but the takeoff was probably held off just to embarrass Carter one more time.
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: A prominent Democratic politician at the time told the New York Times that he was a witness to Republican efforts to prevent the hostages from being freed.
Before election day, President Biden is trying to avoid a repeat of what happened to Carter and make clear that this deal was the fruit of his administration's labor.
JOE BIDEN: More than 15 months of conflict began with Hezbollah's brutal massacre on October the 7th. More than 15 months of terror for the hostages, their families, the Israeli people.
More than 15 months of suffering by the innocent people of Gaza. Fighting in Gaza will stop and soon the Hasidim will return home to their families. The elements of this deal are what I laid out in detail this past May, which was [01:25:00] embraced by countries around the world and endorsed overwhelmingly by the U.
N. Security Council.
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: President Biden and his national security team have been working for over a year to get Israel and Hamas to sign off on a deal. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has taken 12 trips to the region since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns have made frequent trips to the region as well.
And President Biden is correct that this deal appears to be the exact same proposal that he announced last May. What changed? Who will assume office on Monday at noon? And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it no secret that he prefers Trump and wanted to deliver him a win. The Washington Post reported that Israel would gift something to Trump, but it was believed to be a deal on Lebanon.
According to reports, Netanyahu has been speaking with Trump for months while Trump was campaigning for [01:26:00] re election. Trump previously told Axios that Netanyahu never wanted peace with the Palestinians, but Trump told him to do what he had to do with Hamas. Additionally, some of the parents of hostages and Israeli soldiers have been livid at Prime Minister Netanyahu.
accusing him of being deceitful and of intentionally extending and expanding the war for his own political benefit, given how he was blamed for the security failures that led up to the October 7 attack. President Biden acknowledged that these are waning days, the waning days of his administration, but it was in the interest of the world for his administration to work with Trump's incoming administration to get the deal done.
JOE BIDEN: I'd also note this deal was developed and negotiated under my administration, but its terms will be implemented, for the most part, by the next administration. In these [01:27:00] past few days, we've been speaking as one team. I told my team to coordinate closely. With the incoming team to make sure we're all speaking with the same voice because that's what American presidents do.
JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Lacking the same sense of courtesy and decency, Trump immediately took credit for the deal. Yet another example of Trump putting his name on something someone else built. This deal, which Netanyahu delayed for as long as humanly possible, has hung over Biden's head for more than a year and was arguably a key factor in Vice President Harris losing the election.
As parts of the Democratic base peeled off and either stayed home or even voted for Trump as the so called peace candidate.
Ceasefire in Gaza w Akbar Shahid Ahmed - Long Reads - Air Date 1-25-25
DANIEL FINN - HOST, LONG READS: Before moving on to talk about what more we can expect from the Trump administration over the next four years. I want to ask you about the last days of the Biden administration and some of the statements that were made in relation to Gaza [01:28:00] by figures such as Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and others.
Two of the statements that were widely circulated and discussed, one was from Biden where he said that Netanyahu's government initially wanted to carpet bomb Gaza and that he had to talk them out of this. Nice of a BB. I said, you can't be a corporate bomb in these communities. And he said to me, well, you did it.
Antony Blinken saying that he believes Hamas has now recruited new fighters on a scale to make up for their losses over the last year and more.
CLIP: We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants.
DANIEL FINN - HOST, LONG READS: But there were a number of other things that they said and other figures said. Did we learn anything new from them about the stance of the U.
S. towards Israel and towards Gaza and about what has been happening over the last almost 18 months? [01:29:00]
AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: I think the comment from President Biden around the carpet bombing, you know, that echoes this broader self justifying narrative that we've seen from the administration for a lot of the war, which is this idea that without us, the Israelis would have been behaving in these unbelievably violent ways.
And I think what that, what that really begs is the question of knowing that willingness and knowing the data and evidence you were getting from the ground of major attacks targeting civilian infrastructure, often deemed disproportionate by experts in international law and by people able to do the actual research, why would you let them go on with it anyway, right?
And I think you've seen Biden, Blinken, others in the administration do a kind of set of exit interviews to say, weren't we great? This could have been so much worse. And what that flies in the face of is their own [01:30:00] rhetoric of, We believe in international order, we believe in international law, we are upholding these institutions.
If you are in support of all of that, it's never in question, right, whether Israel can carpet bomb Gaza, it's just not permitted. It's not in question whether Israel can stop all humanitarian aid going into Gaza. Not how international law is supposed to work. So for the Biden administration's top figures to be saying, look, give us credit for asking the Israelis to stand by the bare minimum while often exceeding it, I think that's a very, very hard bill for people to swallow.
It's not going to have the effect that they think it will perhaps. In the very insular set of Washington foreign policymakers, this will be enough for them to regain entree to nice dinner parties and speak at various Munich security conferences and Aspen conferences and, you know, feel good about that.
[01:31:00] But I think the broader estimation of history will. still be quite negative. The ones that I was really struck by, Daniel, were, were from some other figures as well, which was Jack Lew, uh, who had been Biden's ambassador in Jerusalem, where the U. S. embassy is, and to Israel is located, despite, you know, all other countries, most other countries not doing that.
Jack Lew said, look, Israel was facing a narrative war as the And this comment he made said, you know, people would say, well, children have been killed by this Israeli attack, but when you look closer, they were children of Hamas fighters and that phrasing it haunts one, right? It's never going to leave you because what it's, it's really saying is there's so much in that as an, uh, there's an assumption of guilt, right?
By association, which is, Again, not the kind of principle [01:32:00] the U. S. is supposed to stand for. There's a, a real inching towards justifying truly the deaths of, of minors and of innocents. And I think that's where, where the Biden administration will be reflected is just how they have. pulled us all into litigating minutia when in fact the broad strokes of the campaign really do violate a lot of what they've said they should stand for and we haven't seen them reckon with that to a great degree.
The one person who expressed a little bit of regret rather than a self congratulatory note was, um, you know, a fellow Irish person, Daniel Samantha Power, the administrator of the U. S. Agency for International Development, who famously wrote the book, A Problem from Hell, about genocide, and of course, many people say that the U.
S. has enabled a genocide. In Gaza, Samantha Power, in her exit interview, said, She regrets [01:33:00] a ceasefire could not have been reached earlier. She declined to specify why or what she could have done differently. And also declined, interestingly, to comment on another situation that many are calling a genocide in Sudan, where the, where the U.
S. partner, the United Arab Emirates, is engaging in activity many people see as war crimes. On its way out, the administration has not done a lot of reflection. As you know, I'm, I'm working on a book on the administration's approach to Gaza. I'm talking to a lot of these people. I have been talking to them.
And, and their narratives, uh, to themselves and I think to their friends are very much about, look at this broader strategic picture. You know, Israel is stronger. Hezbollah is gone. Bashar Assad in Syria. is gone, an anti American pro Iran force. And I think that's something really interesting and to a degree, chilling about the way that after 15 months of war, after most likely [01:34:00] upwards of 60, 000 deaths, according to the latest studies, uh, and the decimation of a huge strip of land, their note is not, is still seeking credit.
It's still trying to present it in this rosy way. And I think that's been the most telling thing about the Biden administration's final statements here and also their effort to kind of wrench some credit for the ceasefire, deeply flawed and unquestionable as it is, I think that shows you that, that they don't want to go down in history as, as a reflective administration, at least not so far.
Egypt, Jordan Reject Trump Plan to Clean Out Gaza; Palestinians Return to N. Gaza in Historic Day Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-27-25
AMY GOODMAN: Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are returning home to the north of Gaza for the first time since they were forced to flee their homes at the start of Israel’s war on Gaza over a year ago. A river of people that stretched for miles walked north along Gaza’s coastal road Monday carrying what’s left of their possessions. Most Palestinians will be returning to find [01:35:00] their homes reduced to rubble. The U.N. estimates 92% of homes in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged over the last 16 months.
President Trump is facing accusations of supporting ethnic cleansing in Gaza after saying he wants to, quote, “clean out the whole thing.” Trump called for Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians living in Gaza, while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One Saturday. He told the reporters he had spoken to King Abdullah of Jordan.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I said to him, “I’d love you to take on more,” because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.
REPORTER: So, you’d like Jordan to house people from Gaza?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: To take people. I’d like Egypt to take people. I’m meeting with — I’m talking to General el-Sisi tomorrow sometime, I believe. And I’d like Egypt to take people, and I’d like Jordan to take people. I could — I mean, you’re talking about probably a million and a half [01:36:00] people. And we just clean out that whole thing. It’s — you know, it’s — over the centuries, that’s — that’s many, many conflicts, that site. And I don’t know. It’s — something has to happen. But it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished.
AMY GOODMAN: Egypt and Jordan have both rejected Trump’s suggestion and emphasized a two-state solution ensuring Palestinian statehood is the only way forward. Hamas and displaced Palestinians in Gaza also rejected the idea of being forced out of Gaza. This is Magdy Seidam, a Palestinian waiting to return to northern Gaza.
MAGDY SEIDAM: [translated] The call by the U.S. president is completely rejected. Completely. Completely. If he thinks he will forcibly displace the Palestinian people, this is impossible. Impossible. The Palestinian people firmly believe that this land is theirs, this soil is their soil. No matter how much Israel tries to [01:37:00] destroy, break and to show people that it had won, in reality, it did not win. It destroyed and ruined things and showed the people that it is a failed state.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s suggestion that more than a million Palestinians should be moved out of Gaza to neighboring Arab states weren’t his first controversial comments on Gaza since returning to office. Shortly after his inauguration last week, Trump said he is, quote, “not confident” the ceasefire will remain in place. He said Gaza appeared to be a, quote, “massive demolition site” that should be rebuilt.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You know, Gaza is interesting. It’s a phenomenal location: on the sea, the best weather. You know, everything is good. It’s like — some beautiful things could be done with it. But it’s very interesting. But some fantastic things could be done with Gaza.
Ceasefire in Gaza w Akbar Shahid Ahmed Part 2 - Long Reads - Air Date 1-25-25
DANIEL FINN - HOST, LONG READS: Before thinking about what the long term picture may be, I have to ask you about whether you think this deal [01:38:00] is going to stick, is going to lead to a permanent ceasefire, because of course it does come in different phases, there are different phases that have to be completed, and we did have a previous temporary truce towards The end of 2023 that at that time led to an exchange of prisoners, but which was immediately followed by a resumption of fighting, which went on for more than a year.
There have been reports that Netanyahu has been trying to persuade some of his right wing coalition partners to stay on board by promising that he will resume the offensive against Hamas. in a few weeks or a few months time. So what prospect do you think there is that this deal will prove to have been a temporary phase or is it going to lead to a more or less permanent cessation?
AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: I, I think about that by looking really at the calendar, right? And what I mean by that is we're now [01:39:00] already almost halfway to the place where, uh, the parties to the deal should be talking about setting up the second phase of the deal. And conditions have not improved in a direction that suggests peace is on the horizon.
So what I mean by that is we're seeing in the occupied West Bank, in Jenin, a really expanding violent operation by the Palestinian Authority, supported by the Israelis, very much working hand in hand as they have for decades. I think that raises the cost for Hamas of being seen as continuing with the deal.
It also, suggested on the Israeli side, there is a desire still to move forward militarily against Palestinians rather than be seen as cutting a deal with them. And I do think that's linked to, uh, the coalition government dynamics. So, so when Netanyahu agreed to the deal, he did see one of his far right allies.
Uh, Itamar Ben Gavir quit the government, but his other most extreme [01:40:00] ally, Belazel Smotrich, remains in the government and is the finance minister, and has said he has a promise from Netanyahu that fighting will continue after the first phase of the ceasefire, right? That the war is not over, and that Israel will somehow achieve this goal of destroying Hamas, which, as we know, remains extremely elusive.
So I think that, that factor is very much driving Netanyahu, the escalation in the West Bank suggests that, that he's not feeling a need to clamp down on, on violence against Palestinians. And then we are just one week away from a really critical deadline, which is when UNRWA, the chief UN agency supporting Palestinians and really the backbone of any humanitarian response and really of infrastructure.
In Gaza, the Israeli Knesset parliament has said, you can't operate, we're going to shut you down, right? And that, that looming deadline without any solution [01:41:00] is another reason why I think we're not likely to see a second phase or something very significant will have to change. Because we also need kind of the same factor that got Netanyahu here, the kind of Trump trepidation factor, I must give something.
Sort of be more conciliatory on the humanitarian aid front, which is a critical factor in whether the talks will continue. There's no indication that the Trump administration will do anything to defend UNRWA, to push for any kind of serious humanitarian response for Gaza. And without that, I don't really see how there's an appetite among Palestinians or, frankly, in the broader region, including among mediators, the Arab states, Qatar and Egypt that are working on these negotiations.
I don't know how they kind of bring everyone to the table if it looks like it's just continued warfare and continued and frankly expanding misery for [01:42:00] Palestinians in Gaza because you've also seen the U. S. turn around and say, We are pulling back on our humanitarian and development aid contributions.
So that has me quite worried that we may not see the second phase of this deal. But there are other dynamics to track. I think, um, the release of some of the hostages. taken by Hamas on October 7th in a violation of international law. It's important to remember. Those folks are going to be talking about not only what they've experienced, but they're going to be talking about what it felt like to be in Gaza for 15 months.
Not knowing whether their government was going to ever bring them home and reunite them with their loved ones. Being there in a situation where, regardless of how they were cared for, they were in a really active war zone where there were limited supplies. As that information spreads, maybe the war in Gaza comes home to Israeli society in a different way [01:43:00] and changes the dynamics there to create a greater impetus for Netanyahu to accept more of a deal just to bring more hostages home.
So that's kind of unknowns, I think.
SECTION C: THE EMPIRE
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next, Section C- The Empire.
On the Situation in Syria and its Implications for the Region Part 2 - Revolutionary Left Radio - Air Date 1-6-25
BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Um, so well, something that's definitely worth keeping an eye on, but stepping back a moment, regardless of Assad as an individual. There's a certain role, um, that, that Syria played in the region under, under Assad, um, when it came to, you know, Iran, uh, the axis of resistance, broader forces of imperialism. We know that it's, you know, in the last several years and during the Syrian civil war, it was, uh, you know, kind of like a regional, uh, War, but also you had global players like the us and russia fighting in syria Terrorist organizations turkey's always trying to you know influence events there as well So how should we understand the role of syria in the last couple of decades?
When it [01:44:00] comes to imperialism when it comes to the axis of resistance, etc And the role that they served in those broader processes
ANGIE: I would say that for me. It's been very clear at several points in the last six years That a contingency for the removal of the sanctions against Syria was a degree of normalization with Israel.
In that regard, I would argue that Syria maybe acted as a wall. I think that we'll be analyzing this for, for decades to come, particularly as more comes out about the particularities of the Assad regime and the Bass Party's involvement up to the, the final moments. But Syria acted as, as a wall that stood.
firmly against further occupation that stood firmly against any attempts to expand or any attempts to intensify the occupation. How true that was, [01:45:00] particularly in later years, debatable. Very, very highly debatable, but there was a, at least in soft power, a very clear, firm no from the Assad regime and the state of Syria that it would not be in any way complicit with the ongoing actions of the Israeli occupation or any actor that chose to engage with that occupation.
That is setting aside the supply routes that it offered for Hezbollah and Hamas. It sets aside that Syria is home for several Palestinian resistance factions and just countless radical thinkers and scholars that have informed our resistance in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine over the decades. Syria, for what it was worth, was the one area [01:46:00] of the region that imperialism had not infiltrated.
BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Yeah, and of course, Syria was one of those seven countries that's now become quite, you know, well known in certain circles that pay attention to this stuff, that Syria is on this list, um, you know, led by the U. S. of countries that have long, You know, been in the crosshairs of imperialism on behalf of, of Israel in the region, but on behalf of, of Western imperial interests more broadly.
Um, and many of those countries, you know, have in one way or another been destabilized, toppled, infiltrated, et cetera. And of course they have Iran in their, in their crosshairs, uh, next, it would seem, but kind of even stepping back from, from that and kind of learning about this history. You mentioned the Syrian civil war kind of, oh, Ed, you have something to add to that before I move on?
I apologize. No, I just wanted to say that part of the thing that made Syria such a prize for the imperialist powers is, as you said, it was one of the very few states in the region that [01:47:00] had not been fully infiltrated by imperialism. Uh, it was a robust economy for most of its modern history, was under the banner of Arab socialism, specifically of the Ba'athist strain, which Ba'athism is a very broad ideology that we don't have time to get into here, but One of the core tenets that the Syrian state enacted was to nationalize its resources for the betterment of its people.
Now, as Angie has said, and I think the best way that people have described, especially Syria under the Assad family, is undemocratic but pluralistic. With, in the earlier years, more robust social programs, you know, uh, It was a mixed economic model whereby the state played a central role in planning and caring for the betterment of the people, but it wasn't waging class warfare against the national bourgeoisie.
We should be very clear that [01:48:00] both Assad, both Hafez and Bashar were anti communist, but at the same time, they managed to develop an incredibly sophisticated healthcare system, incredibly sophisticated education, national education system, which, by the way, led to Syria becoming the art capital at one point of The Arab world, as some might say.
And its housing was even more accessible for us here in the United States. You could not be evicted for not paying your rent under this Ba'athist version of Arab Socialism. Now, in the 1980s, in a memo I'll get more into later, the U. S. explicitly outlined, the CIA explicitly outlined, that their goal was to overthrow Assad and replace it with a, quote, Sunni regime controlled by business oriented moderates, unquote.
And with that comes the need for Western aid and investment to [01:49:00] build Syria's private economy. And that is, frankly, exactly what we are seeing now. Jelani recently announced that he hopes to open up Syria's market towards a more liberal model. So, the specifics of how Bashar had to implement these structural readjustment programs after the fall of the Soviet Union is a conversation for much later time.
But, I just wanted to say that Syria has been the prize for the United States for a very long time. Yeah. And there's, there's three main ways that you get on the wrong side of U. S. led imperialism, which is to nationalize your resources, i. e. not let them be up for grabs for multinational capital. Um, opposing imperial interests in your region or organizing your society along anti capitalist or socialist lines.
And of course, that last one wasn't present, but they don't all three need to be present. Even one of them can be present, and you've put, you've made yourself an enemy of the U. S. led Imperial Corps. And yeah, nationalizing resources and opposing imperial interests. [01:50:00] again, we see any state that takes that tack is going to be put in the crosshairs.
And so Syria has certainly been in the crosshairs for a very long time.
Gaza Ceasefire Explained Reading Between The Lines Part 4 - The Socialist Program - Air Date 1-16-25
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: I agree with you. I, I mean, the changes, the transformation of the way people understand Palestine, Gaza has become in many ways the center of the struggle against imperialism, and it has rapidly expanded the people who see themselves as part of that struggle.
It has, what has happened over the past 15 months has on the one hand shown the The nobleness of the Palestinian cause, the true intention of the Palestinian people who are fighting for their right to live on their land, fighting against an occupation, an imperialist, colonialist occupation that is it.
The most brutal that will go to any means, uh, to exterminate, to attempt to exterminate the resistance and the fact that the Palestinian people have resisted this [01:51:00] and have deflected Israel from and the United States from achieving their military objectives, that is a huge inspiration to people. It changes the way you can see the future for many young people in the United States.
For example, they have never known a day. When the United States is not at war, whether or not it's being spoken about in the media, the idea that the U. S. isn't in control of all territories on the world can feel, it can feel like it's an inevitability. But what October 7 did was, and since then, was one, destroy the image of U.
S. imperialism as some sort of benevolent state. Force that's keeping the world order together. It destroyed it completely. The American people don't have Trusts in or see the White House as a legitimate moral authority anymore So people of the world do not see it that way either it creates a level of doubt every time Biden or now Trump or Blinken or Rubio [01:52:00] or anyone in the past current or next administration is going to go out and say, this is what's happening.
People are going to second guess it. They're going to say, why are you saying that? Because they've lived through the past 15 months where they've seen on their phones, the massacre of, of unarmed, uh, civilians of children, mass starvation. All with the tax money of American citizens and the budget of the United States.
So it's completely exposed the agenda of U. S. imperialism. That is irreversible. People, when they go through that experience, they only get more and more consciousness. They don't go backwards. Once you see it, you can't forget it. And it's, it's a, it's a massive, massive change. I don't think we can really, Understate how important that is for the long arc of the Palestinian liberation struggle, because it was never going to be one in one battle.
I mean, it's going up against the wealthiest, mightiest militaries of the world. Now, when the U. S. is [01:53:00] reshaping the Middle East, when they're trying to carry out their plan to reshape the Middle East, they have to do it in a context in which they are seen for what they truly are. Uh, imperialist, brutal, monstrous, genocidal force.
It's going to be much more difficult for them to get the legitimacy to complete their project, uh, than, than it was before. And The question, the right to resist occupation and colonization and imperialism is now undeniable. The Palestinian people put that back on the table. The question of struggling against your occupiers is no longer a question.
People saw how important it is. They understand that. This is also an irreversible fact.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: Yeah. And I think it's important for us just to take a moment to, to parse the language because Obviously, October 7th was a violent act, you know, when the Palestinian fighters came in to is [01:54:00] called the State of Israel.
That's a violent act. And anybody who, you know, wants a new world would prefer the world to be peaceful. They would prefer the world not to have violence. But when the Israelis routinely bomb Gaza, which they've done, You know, over and over again. I mean, there have been many, many wars, even in the last 20 years, where thousands of people in Gaza have been destroyed.
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: They call it mowing the lawn operations.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: The Israelis use this sort of. Uh, clinical term, we're mowing the lawn, meaning we're going to cut down the resistance. We're going to, we're going to, from time to time, we have to mow the lawn. That's not called terrorism. It's not even actually called violence. It's always called self defense.
Now, when the Palestinians came across the wall into Israel on October 7th, they were coming into a part of historic [01:55:00] Palestine. That had been Palestinian villages, homes, wooden homes and stone homes that were either burned to the ground if they were wood or shattered, broken up if they were stone by the Israelis.
All of the Arab villages in that area, right outside of Gaza, were destroyed as part of the Israeli occupation. military's orders after 1948. So it would be the Palestinian people going back to their homes that had been demolished, violently demolished. And again, use the language violence. Why is that never described as violence?
It's called Israeli independence in the media. That was violence. That was violence. Now, in 2018, the Palestinian resistance forces in Gaza wanted to do something that was nonviolent in the same area, same [01:56:00] area, the same wall that was breached on October 7th. What did they do? Every Friday they came and they had these big nonviolent protests.
They were called the Great March of Return, meaning they could look over the wall and say, we're We want to go home. Those are our homes. Those are our villages. So they use this kind of symbolic, performative, peaceful protest. And the Israeli military shot them. They sniped them. They shot them many times in the legs or the arms, but frequently in the head or the chest.
They killed people in wheelchairs. At the great wall of return,
LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: they killed the emergency medical aid people coming in to treat the wounded from the had been shot from the protests and what did the U.
BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: S. government and the U. S. media say about the great march of return, the peaceful protest in the same area, they said [01:57:00] nothing, they didn't condemn it, they didn't criticize it, they were like, uh, uh, the complicated Palestinian Israeli conflict.
So then the Palestinians have no ability to have a peaceful protest because they're being shot down by the Israeli defense forces. So the option then is if all peaceful protest avenues are foreclosed, picking up the gun also becomes the only available option. Now, George Washington picked up the gun.
I'm very sure King George III would have branded George Washington a terrorist. Um, John Brown picked up the gun against the system of slavery, and the American government sent Robert E. Lee, who at that time was the head of the U. S. military, to suppress it because John Brown was the terrorist, not the slave owners.
who impose violence every day, every hour, every minute to maintain a system of slavery, they were never characterized as terrorists or violent. So I want to, [01:58:00] I want to say all these things, not that they're not obvious, but they need to be said because when we talk about language and the language of violence, the language of terrorism, we also have to recognize that the language of the imperialists Always whitewashes their own, their own violence, which is constant.
And when you scale it up between the violence of the oppressed, the colonized, and the violence of the oppressors, the colonizers, there's no comparison. Again, it's really important when we're fighting this battle of ideas about the narrative. To reject the notion that Palestinian resistance equals terrorism and Israeli violence, American violence equals self defense.
These terms are flawed.
On the Situation in Syria and its Implications for the Region Part 3 - Revolutionary Left Radio - Air Date 1-6-25
BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Now, we've been talking about, you know, the, the The machinations of the Imperial Corps and other countries, and so many other countries are involved in one way or another in Syria, and what's happening, and there's so many competing interests with regards to [01:59:00] what Syria becomes.
Um, but specifically, I'm interested in the roles of the United States, of Turkey, and of Israel in the recent, um, toppling of Assad. So can you talk a little bit about the U S Turkey and Israel's role in all of this and kind of what they stand to gain in the region now that Assad is gone? And, and this certainly ties back to, to the Palestinian resistance as well.
ANGIE: Yeah, sorry. Collecting my thoughts a little bit on that one too. Uh, I don't know if there's an end to what they stand to gain. Unfortunately, Turkey has long been in the on this sort of neo Ottoman streak in terms of rhetoric and I would say behavior. Uh, a friend of mine, a very close friend and, and scholar who I admire a great deal, once said that Israeli nationalism and Turkish nationalism are very often two sides of the same coin.
And that's truly the, the pinnacle of what I think we're seeing here. Erdogan has [02:00:00] long sort of sought out. More control over Syria, whether that meant Syria remained under Assad and he was just able to manipulate it more overtly, or it meant he was physically able to go in and insert the Turkish pound into Aleppo and wave the Turkish flag on the citadel of Aleppo.
So I think there's something in the culture of how these two actors wage their wars. That should be, when I say these actors, I mean Turkey and Israel, um, that is really interesting. The, the techniques that they, they manage, the, the rhetoric that they inspire in their supporters and in their, their footmen is eerily similar.
And I think what both of them stand to, to gain in this situation is economic power, often literally just a land grab. I think Israel is seeing this as a land grab and it's. It's not going to be [02:01:00] resisted. It's clear that the new government, if not setting strict plans, has an idea towards normalization with the entity.
So that's a clear and huge blow to the resistance in the region, just in terms of its legitimacy and its recognition by the states around it. The resistance loses an ally in the Syrian state, that is an immeasurable loss. At least in the moment, I, I, my faith is fully in the resistance and I believe in its victory and every fiber of my being, but we can't then ignore the manipulations done to weaken it and to, to put it in positions of vulnerability.
And I think that that is ultimately. [02:02:00] What Syria has become in the past three weeks is a huge vulnerable sore that can be taken advantage of, again, by any of the actors around it or that are able to get a foot in.
BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Definitely. And yeah, there's already, of course, been reports of HTS, um, having open conflict with aspects of the Lebanese army.
Um, you know, as you said, Israel has used this as an opportunity to grab land, to bomb parts of Syria. The U. S. is certainly interested in weakening, I mean, Iran's position, the axis of resistance more broadly, all of their enemies in the region. Um, so all of these countries certainly, um, stand to, to gain in various ways.
And we can already see are already gaining, um, in, in various ways. And, and that's kind of a, a brutal reality of, of what's happening. But on the other end, I'll go ahead, please.
ANGIE: Sorry, if I can add really quickly, it's also really, really important to, to recognize that one of the first things [02:03:00] that the HTS, one of their first directives that they employed was that all factions of the Palestinian resistance within Syria completely disarm immediately.
So that resulted in huge numbers of PFLP being, whether displaced from the regions that they're sitting in currently or Seeking new safety. These are visible entities that we're talking about. We've also seen huge populations that were associated with the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, the SSNP, in Syria, moving to Lebanon.
So these individual Syrians and individuals that were associated closely with the resistance and with parties that have been allied with and materially aiding the resistance since. either its inception or at least since October 7th, have now been slowly but surely either moving out, displaced from, or pushed out of Syria.
And [02:04:00] that's something that's going to have a huge impact on how our ability to defend the resistance within Syria carries on in the future.
11 Men Freed After 20+ Years of Extreme Deprivation. Will Biden Close Guantánamo for Good - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-8-25
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: After more than 20 years of being imprisoned without charge or trial at Guantánamo Bay, the Pentagon has transferred 11 Yemeni men to Oman to restart their lives. These men had been approved for transfer for years but remained behind bars because of political or diplomatic obstacles. Before arriving at Guantánamo, four of the men transferred to Oman on Monday had been held at secret overseas CIA prisons known as black sites, where torture was common. In recent weeks, the U.S. has transferred four other Guantánamo prisoners.
This latest push at the end of the Biden administration brings the total number of men detained at Guantánamo down to 15, the fewest since the George W. Bush administration turned Guantánamo into a military prison for mostly Muslim men taken into custody around the world during the so-called war on terror. A total of 780 men have been detained at Guantánamo [02:05:00] since 2002. Rights groups are calling on the Biden administration to resettle Guantánamo’s last 15 prisoners and close the notorious prison once and for all. Six of those remaining have never been charged with a crime. Three have already been cleared for transfer by the Biden administration. The government spends half a billion dollars a year keeping the prison and the court at Guantánamo open for this small number of men.
For more on this story, we’re joined here in New York by two guests. Ramzi Kassem is with us, professor of law at CUNY, City University of New York, represented Guantánamo prisoners Moath al-Alwi and Sanad al-Kazimi, who have just been released and flown to Oman. Pardiss Kebriaei is senior staff attorney with Center for Constitutional Rights. Her last client, Sharqawi Al Hajj, was among the 11 Yemeni prisoners just transferred.
We welcome you both back to Democracy Now! Pardiss, let’s begin with you. The significance of [02:06:00] this move by President Biden?
PARDISS KEBRIAEI: You know, Amy, I’ll start with the men and their families. Twenty-three years, they’ve been in prison, in the most extreme deprivation. It’s prison. Guantánamo is prison, and it’s then some, for 23 years. So, the release of these people and their freedom for the first time after all of this time, the chance to reunify with their families and begin to recover and rebuild, is — you know, it’s hard to overstate the enormity of that for them.
Tell us about Sharqawi.
Sharqawi is 51. He’s been inside since — I think he was captured when he was 28, 29.
Where?
Abroad in Pakistan. You know, it’s been 23 years in Guantánamo. He’s gone through his entire thirties and forties there. He’s lost both of his parents in prison. He is among the men you mentioned who was held in [02:07:00] CIA sites before he was brought to Guantánamo in 2004. He was held in those sites for over two years and experienced —
What was he charged with?
Nothing. Nothing. He wasn’t charged with anything. None of the men — the vast majority, most of the men at Guantánamo have never been charged with anything. There are nine people in the system now who have been
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: charged or convicted.
And explain why Guantánamo exists. Precisely for that reason, right? So you can engage in extrajudicial — explain what extrajudicial laws are, that you can be held for 23 years and never charged.
PARDISS KEBRIAEI: I mean, Guantánamo was set up as the place to — it was an intelligence-gathering operation. The point of it was to establish a place offshore where people could be held outside the bounds of the law, without access to courts, incommunicado, and where they could be interrogated. That was the — it was an intelligence-gathering operation from the beginning. That’s why [02:08:00] the site was chosen. And they were held without charge, without access to lawyers or courts for two years into their detention. The treatment they suffered was largely — was for the purpose of breaking them down. I mean, Guantánamo has such a long history, that we’ve forgotten. It’s been documented in scores. But the things that these people have been through — and Sharqawi, you know, speaks on his behalf — in CIA sites is the worst, the worst of what we do. So, in terms of the significance, you know, it is the end of that acuteness, the acuteness of that, and a chance to, you know, start —
Will they be imprisoned
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: in Oman, or will they be free?
PARDISS KEBRIAEI: They will not. They will not. They have landed as free people. Oman has taken people in before. There are over — there are about 30 people who were taken in, in 2015 to 2017. Oman provided them [02:09:00] support and rehabilitation. It’s been a relatively good resettlement. There are questions about the group that was — the Yemenis who were sent there before were sent back, against their will in some cases, to Yemen, after years of being in Oman. And there is a question about that. And it’s important to say that by deciding to take these men in, Oman has an obligation of protection and support.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Let me ask Ramzi Kassem about the two men that you represented, and that you in the last two years have served as senior policy adviser at the White House and also with your students have represented 15 prisoners at Guantánamo, at Bagram Air Base, other secret or U.S. — disclosed U.S. facilities worldwide. Tell us about the two men.
RAMZI KASSEM: Moath al-Alwi is also a Yemeni national. He’s one of the very first prisoners who arrived at Guantánamo almost. I mean, the prison was opened on January 11th, 2002. He was on the second or the third plane. You could tell by his low internment serial number, [02:10:00] 028. He was never charged with any crime. He was, like the majority of prisoners at Guantánamo, sold for a bounty, $5,000 to $15,000, that the U.S. government was paying to tribes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region for so-called Arabs out of place. And, you know, by the government’s own allegations, Mr. al-Alwi never so much as fired a shot at U.S. forces or their allies. Still, he spent 23 years, over half of his life, at Guantánamo. He became an accomplished artist at that time.
Sanad al-Kazimi, like Pardiss’s client, Sanad al-Kazimi survived the CIA black sites. He was disappeared in the United Arab Emirates, survived severe forms of physical and psychological torture at a prison that the prisoners who survived it called “the prison of darkness” or “the dark prison.” The CIA called it the “Salt Pit” or “Cobalt” in the Senate’s report about the torture that happened there. [02:11:00] And he was brought to Guantánamo in 2004. He was also never charged with a crime. He has four kids that he hasn’t seen for the better part of their lives. And, you know, he was looking forward to, as much as possible, try to rebuild and try to reintegrate these roles as a father.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Tell me about the art that al-Alwi — I mean, he is a real — I mean, the level of artistry here. What was Trump’s response when The New York Times did a profile of him as an artist?
RAMZI KASSEM: Yeah, the Trump administration at the time and the Department of Defense under President Trump at the time declared that — basically, banned Guantánamo art, declared that the prisoners could no longer export their art from the island prison to the outside world, all of that because there was a show displaying the art, not just of Mr. al-Alwi but many of the other prisoners, at John Jay College, which is part of the City University of New York. And so, the Department of Defense [02:12:00] decided to impose a ban on Guantánamo art, declaring that the art was literally the property of the U.S. government. We had officials threaten some of our clients that their art would be seized and destroyed. Now, thankfully, you know, our understanding is that Mr. al-Alwi was able to take much of his art with him to Oman, and he looks forward to continuing with that skill set to express himself.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We just have about a minute. What does Biden need to do? He has what? Just over a week left.
RAMZI KASSEM: Guantánamo has always been a question of political will. Biden actually has an opportunity to do more than he has already done. Perhaps the single most remarkable thing about the transfer of the 11 prisoners this week is that there has been complete silence from the Republican camp. And that’s because Guantánamo is no longer as politically valuable as it once was. The Republicans — and this may be the depressing way of looking at it — the Republicans have so thoroughly [02:13:00] won on every front, including with the last election, that they no longer need to beat up the Democrats over Guantánamo. And in that lies an opportunity for President Biden.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And even with DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, the half a billion dollars spent on a prison — for what? It’s now 15 men, Pardiss? Your final comment?
PARDISS KEBRIAEI: And concretely, there are six of the 15 men have never been charged, will never be charged. Three of those men have been cleared for transfer and are awaiting transfer. Those men should be transferred, at a minimum, and that includes a CCR client who remains, Guled Duran Hassan from Somalia. At a minimum, the DOJ, this DOJ, should drop its opposition to their habeas cases, to habeas cases to anyone who will remain.
And are you calling for the
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: prison to be closed?
PARDISS KEBRIAEI: We are calling for the end of the system of indefinite detention to close. And they are very, very close to doing that. That can be done.
Iraqis Tortured at Abu Ghraib Win $42 Million Judgment Against U.S. Military Contractor CACI - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-14-24
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: A federal jury in Virginia has ordered the U.S. military contractor CACI to pay $42 million to three Iraqi men who were tortured at the [02:14:00] notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The landmark verdict came after 16 years of litigation, the first time a civilian contractor has been found legally responsible for the gruesome abuses at Abu Ghraib, which included murder, sexual assault, rape, the use of attack dogs, sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation, dietary manipulation, induced hypothermia, mock executions and the humiliation of prisoners.
We’re joined right now by Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the Abu Ghraib plaintiffs.
In these last few minutes we have, Baher, talk about what actually this lawsuit has been about and who wins this multimillion-dollar settlement.
BAHER AZMY: Yeah, this lawsuit has been about justice and accountability for three Iraqi men — our clients, Salah, Suhail and Asa’ad — who exhibited, I think, just awe-inspiring courage and resilience to fight for 16 [02:15:00] years and get over every innumerable hurdle CACI threw in its way to deflect responsibility, to have their voice heard by a jury. And as you said, it’s also the first time a jury has ever had really the opportunity to review and judge U.S. practices, in this case by a private military contractor, in the 20 years since 9/11 and despite the horrific number of abuses inflicted on many, many dozens of other torture victims.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I mean, Blackwater is a military contractor, very well known. Explain what CACI, or now known as CACI, did.
BAHER AZMY: Yeah, so —
And when was it?
In 2003, CACI was hired by the United States government under a lucrative contractor to provide, quote, “expert interrogators” in Abu Ghraib. And they sent [02:16:00] a number of highly unqualified individuals. The two qualified people who were there actually were whistleblowers and told CACI that they were seeing abuses there and needed to leave.
And then, as it turned out, in the kind of command vacuum that persisted in Abu Ghraib, it was the CACI interrogators who took control and ordered military police, including military police who were court-martialed and spent time in prison for the very abuses CACI ordered them to undertake to, quote, “soften up” detainees, set the conditions, particularly in the night shift. And all our clients suffered the kinds of abuses you regrettably showed on the screen.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, the photos of Abu Ghraib that shocked the world, naked prisoners with bags over their heads, piled on top of each other in a human pyramid as an American soldier, Sabrina Harman, grins behind them. Her colleague Charles Graner can be seen smiling, giving a [02:17:00] thumbs-up. Interestingly, Sabrina Harman testified on behalf of the plaintiffs and broke down on the stand.
BAHER AZMY: Yeah, it was really remarkable and transformative testimony, because she’s one of the co-conspirators who was taking direction from military intelligence, including CACI, to harm detainees. And she’s somebody who expressed — like a lot of the MPs, just was broken by this experience. And what came out in the trial is military generals who investigated Abu Ghraib and documented sadistic, wanton systemic abuses were outraged. The military police who were part of the CACI scheme were broken. And the only person who has never taken responsibility is CACI, until now.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to go to end with one of the plaintiffs, Salah Al-Ejaili, [02:18:00] who was on Democracy Now! a decade ago. He talked about his time in solitary confinement at Abu Ghraib.
CLIP: [translated]
TRANSLATION: These interrogations that happened every two or three days would last for an hour, an hour and a half or two hours, in this manner. The details of the interrogations were different. In some cases, they would bring dogs, then start the interrogation. In other cases, they’d put you in a place and throw cold water or hot tea on you, then start the interrogation. But, of course, all the interrogations were conducted while you were kept naked and hooded, and they’d ask you questions to which you answer. I stayed for 40 days in a solitary cell, and 70% of that time I was kept naked.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: That’s Abu Ghraib prisoner Salah Al-Ejaili. He now lives in Sweden.
BAHER AZMY: He now lives in Sweden, yeah. And just to clarify, the jury awarded each of the plaintiffs $3 million in compensatory [02:19:00] damages and $33 million in punitive damages, because they saw right through CACI’s deflection and finally held them responsible for the egregious and reckless conduct the jury found they engaged in. So, it is a small victory in the context of [inaudible] human rights efforts in the global war on terrorism that so many people have been involved in —
Five seconds.
— over the 20 years. But it’s still significant.
Katherine Gallagher on Abu Ghraib Verdict Part 2 - CounterSpin - Air Date 11-29-24
JJ: I sort of resent the fact, though I understand it, that it’s being reported solely as a lawsuit, and not a human rights crisis. And the coverage as a lawsuit means, first of all, we see a note of monetary outcomes: These folks are getting millions!
And then, also, I see the Washington Post quoting CACI, saying CACI employees say, “None of them laid a hand on detainees.” [02:20:00] Well, “laid a hand on,” like, I don’t know, that sounds like language you got from somewhere else.
But, also, plaintiffs are described as “saying” they were restrained, “claiming” they were tortured. There’s always this degree of difference. And I wonder, I wish, in some ways, we could move it outside of just the lawsuit framework, and talk about the human rights crisis that Abu Ghraib actually presents and presented for the United States.
KATHERINE GALLAGHER: “The jury found not that our clients ‘claimed’ that they were tortured, but that our clients were subjected to torture.”
KATHERINE GALLAGHER: I appreciate that comment and that perspective. And just a few reactions to the language that you cited: What’s important here is, our clients testified in court, under oath, and there were findings made by a jury, factual findings against clear law. And Judge Brinkema gave the jury their legal instructions against which to apply [02:21:00] facts.
So the jury found not that our clients “claimed” that they were tortured, but that our clients were subjected to torture, or cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. The jury found them credible, as did General Taguba when he investigated Abu Ghraib back in 2004.
And, in fact, one of our clients in this case was someone who provided an account of abuse already, back in late 2003. And at that time, General Taguba also found the report by him and other Iraqi detainees credible.
So these are not mere allegations at this point. We have a jury verdict, and the jury awarded each plaintiff $3 million in compensatory damages, and $11 million each in punitive damages against CACI.
And that punitive damages award is saying that it [02:22:00] wasn’t a few rogue employees, but it was a corporation that had responsibilities that it didn’t fulfill. The fact that that punitive damages award was meeting the amount that CACI was paid through their contract at Abu Ghraib, I really think sends a very clear message.
JJ: Finally, and perhaps you’ve answered it, but what are your hopes for the impact of this verdict, and what would you maybe say to other attorneys, frankly, who are working on years-old cases that might never lead to such an outcome?
KATHERINE GALLAGHER: First, on the outcome, we certainly had a big victory, and it was a real validation of our clients, of what was done to them, and of their quest for justice. So that, again, I am very grateful for.
We will be facing an appeal; CACI has made that clear. [02:23:00] So the litigation is not yet over, and our clients have not been given the monetary compensation. But, indeed, there already has been a real recognition for them by the jury, which mattered a lot, I have to say. It mattered a great deal to them, to know that they were heard and that they were believed.
In terms of the bigger picture of what this means, I do think that these cases are important. They may be difficult and, frankly, they also may be lost, but raising the challenges, and bringing the facts to the forefront, and putting harm with proper labels, so that those pictures Abu Ghraib are understood as torture, which means causing severe physical or mental harm, intentionally. And that is what happened to our plaintiffs.
CACI was part of a [02:24:00] conspiracy to do that to our plaintiffs. And, indeed, they may not have been the ones to literally shackle our plaintiffs, but they gave instructions and encouragement to have our plaintiffs so mistreated and so harmed.
And I think that that message of challenging injustice, and for our clients to try and regain some of their agency, some of their dignity, it’s important. And I’m gratified that in this case it ended in a victory, but I still think it’s worth bringing cases, even if that’s not the outcome.
SECTION D: NOW WHAT?
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section D- Now What?
Ceasefire in Gaza w Akbar Shahid Ahmed Part 3 - Long Reads - Air Date 1-25-25
DANIEL FINN - HOST, LONG READS: So we're now in a position where Trump has taken office as president and rolled out his team and his policy agenda for both domestic and foreign policy at the time that we're speaking.
Understandably, there's a great deal of focus and a great deal of concern about [02:25:00] the executive orders that he's issuing in relation to U. S. domestic policy from immigration and other issues of that kind. But what have we learned so far that can clarify what we might have understood at the time of the presidential election?
about what the administration is going to do, its appointments, its policy declarations, what should we expect in relation to Gaza, in relation to Israel, and the wider Middle East. And is there a greater likelihood or prospect of war with Iran, which of course has been a matter of great speculation over the last year, or perhaps further steps towards confrontation that would fall short of outright war?
AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: I think what we've already seen by this first week of the Trump administration is that the battle lines among Trump's team are quite clear, right? So Steve Whitkoff, who [02:26:00] has been his mediator and kind of Middle East special envoy working on this Israel Hamas deal, is already engaged in talking about phase two of the deal and, and trying to craft that using his long standing relationships with Qatar in particular.
But He's already being attacked for it and he's already being seen by some hardline Israel supporters as a stooge of Qatar, by extension, a stooge of Hamas. These narratives are out there and often come from hawkish voices and from, you know, folks who just don't see a value in negotiation and see the world more in a zero sum, we must crush our enemies kind of view.
So that's already coming and The nicer face of that, right, the more finessed face of that is Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, and Mike Huckabee, to an extent, the U. S. Ambassador to Israel. These are figures who, while they're not overwhelmingly, you know, they're not going to be [02:27:00] spreading conspiracy theories, although in the Trump administration there's actually a high likelihood of that always, they're not going to be engaging in mud fights, but they do have very clear, hardline, hawkish Pro Israel views, hardline views on how to deal with Palestinians, and deep skepticism of any degree of autonomy.
Or Palestinian rights, and I think that that's going to be a kind of internal push pull. I think, to the extent to which Rubio keeps his job, which is very much in question in Washington foreign policy circles, he will be a player in this. I think Netanyahu will certainly be trying to push Trump in a more bellicose direction.
And that does extend to Iran. So Iran
CLIP: today, let
AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: me
DANIEL FINN - HOST, LONG READS: During his confirmation hearing, Marco Rubio argued that Iran had been greatly weakened over the past year.
CLIP: Iran and that regime is at its weakest point in recent memory, maybe ever. Their air defenses have been badly damaged. [02:28:00] Their Shia crescent that they were trying to create has been badly damaged.
In Lebanon, in Syria, where they've been basically forced and driven out. Their economy is in shambles. They now are on some days having 6, 8, 12, 9 hour blackouts. They are on the verge of potentially of not having done so already, having to pull back on the energy subsidies that they provide people in that country that are incredibly popular and it would be unpopular to reverse.
So they're in a lot of trouble. What cannot be allowed under any circumstances is a nuclear armed Iran. What cannot be allowed under any circumstances is an Iran and an Iranian regime that has the resources and the capability to restart and continue their sponsorship of terrorism. And what cannot be allowed under any circumstances is an Iran with a military capability of threatening and destabilizing its neighbors and potentially reaching the homeland as well, both kinetically and directly, and also through their surrogate groups who have long planned contingencies for attacks.
I think depending
AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: on how, how the [02:29:00] question mark over the Gaza ceasefire goes, that'll tell us a lot about the direction of Trump's Iran policy. You've heard from the Iranian side a willingness to get back to negotiations with the U. S. to an extent, and that's also being framed. In a kind of standard show of bluster, but rooted to a degree, as by the Iranians, as well, we've expanded our nuclear development and our enrichment and our missile capability to an extent it wasn't in the previous Trump administration.
And that's indisputable, right? As Trump turns around and says, wow, Iran is such a big risk, they're closer to a bomb, they're closer to a bomb because Donald Trump. remove the limits on their nuclear capacity. So that's, he's dealing with a self made dilemma. I've been, you know, in the room with the Iranian president when he's come to New York, talking about wanting to cut a deal with the Americans.
The prospect of president Trump was very much already there. I think the desire [02:30:00] is sincere, but what's so often the problem with Trump is, is there an actual system in place to not just craft a deal. But get that deal through Congress where skepticism of Iran, of many forces, frankly, in the Muslim majority world is very, very deep, right?
And it's going to run through the Republican party. It's going to run through some very hardline pro Israel Democrats. It was hard for president Obama to get his deal with Iran through. If Trump does pursue some kind of agreement, I think that'll become a big fight with Congress. And then to your point that there's a real risk that instead we stumble into a war.
I think President Trump wants to pitch himself as being anti war. That was part of even his inauguration speech. He talked about being defined by the wars that the U. S. will not go into. But war is not always a matter of. of strategy, planning, [02:31:00] rational decision making, it can really just be the wrong set of people at the wrong time.
And what we know is that tensions are so inflamed in the region, wariness of the U. S. is so strong and the desire, frankly, among even U. S. aligned regimes in the region, whether it's the Saudis, whether it's the Gulf States, the desire to be mediators or to, to kind of help finesse and calm things down.
It's a little in the beans. I think everyone's kind of holding their breath. So, so the risk of an unintentional conflagration. Expanding from, from any kind of escalation, right? It could be related to the Houthis in Yemen. It could be related to militias in Iraq. Something I think people forget, uh, but we saw, unfortunately, during the Gaza War, um, is the number of U.
S. troops that are posted all over the Middle East, right? And in places where they are vulnerable. You saw three U. S. troops killed. Almost a year ago now, when a pro Iran militia [02:32:00] did target them. Any of those situations could lead to a really violent reaction from President Trump that could upend any hope of a diplomatic pursuit.
And of course, there are many voices who are saying, look, Israel, I was able to go into Lebanon, I didn't get demolished or decimated. In fact, Israel has actually had its first exchange of missiles with Iran in 2024. Maybe the Israelis can go further and the risk is not as high. And the people who kind of have set that expectation and created that impression are the Biden administration.
who were simultaneously saying they don't want to see a regional war. So as we look at the chances of a regional war, that's also higher because of the choices the U. S. has been making even prior to Trump.
Trump's Middle East Plans w Mouin Rabbani Part 3 - Behind the News - Air Date 1-23-25
DOUG HENWOOD - HOST, BEHIND THE NEWS: Finally, um, you alluded to this earlier, but let's talk a bit more about it. Um, Gaza is Iraq. It's not possible to imagine any civilization being reestablished there. So what's ahead?
What are we going to do? Like 2 million people who are essentially homeless.
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes. 2 million people who are essentially [02:33:00] homeless. Israel's initial intention, one, by the way, that was, um, endorsed and embraced by the Biden administration and specifically by the former Secretary of State, uh, Blinken, the initial proposal was to transfer, in other words, to forcibly deport the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip to the Sinai Peninsula, open the border, push them all out, close the gate, problem solved.
Lincoln, in fact, went to the region and met with officials in the Gulf States and in Egypt and proposed this plan. And much to his surprise, Washington's closest Arab allies categorically, uh, rejected it. It has been suggested that the Egyptian strongman, Abdel Fattah el Sisi, was in principle prepared to consider that.
But was met with very strong pushback from other power centers in the Egyptian security establishment. But [02:34:00] my sense is that at least for the foreseeable future, that objective or that plan is no longer on the agenda. It's no longer considered feasible. And I suspect what Israel wants to do now is to create.
Conditions within the Gaza Strip where if you don't have kind of an organized mass departure of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, you will have a situation similar to what you've had, for example, in Syria or in North Africa, where people We'll get into boats or fishing trawlers or rubber dinghies, try to make it to the nearest island or landmass and either make it or drown in the Mediterranean like so many thousands before them.
Having said that, while I generally agree with your statement about the Gaza Strip, certainly in its current form, not being a viable place for human civilization, we do have somewhat of a historical analogy here. And that's the late [02:35:00] 1940s. What I'm pointing to specifically is that the Gaza Strip did not exist before 1948.
You had Gaza city, certainly one of the oldest cities in the world. And during the British mandate of Palestine, you had the district of Gaza, which was very much larger than the current Gaza Strip, but the Gaza Strip itself is a product of the Palestine war of the late 1940s. and particularly of the Nakba, the mass dispossession and expulsion of Palestinians from territory that became the state of Israel.
And overnight, the population of what became the Gaza Strip more than tripled from 80, 000 to, I believe it was 240 or 250, 000. These were all destitute, penniless, uprooted people who often entered the Gaza Strip on foot with only the clothes on their backs or on, on donkey carts. And there are actually very detailed reports at the time from, for example, the Quakers, an [02:36:00] organization that was quite active in the Gaza Strip during the late 1940s and subsequently from, uh, UN, uh, agencies that were there.
So, you had, yes, Gaza's infrastructure was certainly more prepared than it is today, but it was similarly in no way able to absorb three times, uh, the existing population. Yet, as I always say, one should never underestimate the resourcefulness and the persistence of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. And we're talking about people here who were under blockade and siege for 17 years, for a prolonged period, were not even able to get fuel into the Gaza Strip to run their vehicles, and found a way to use cooking oil to make their cars run and have Taxi transportation and all the rest of it.
Yes, the challenges are going to be enormous. We don't yet know to what extent they [02:37:00] will be supported either by Arab states or the international community or whether, you know, once, uh, the guns fall silent, um, if people will just, uh, move on to the next crisis, but this is an extraordinarily uh, resourceful people that has managed to build a viable society out of nothing, um, once before, and may well succeed in doing so again, particularly if the underlying political crisis that is now in its eighth decade, and that ultimately explains a crisis that erupted on October 7th of 2023, is also addressed.
DOUG HENWOOD - HOST, BEHIND THE NEWS: That's a big qualification.
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes, I readily,
The Ceasefire in Gaza w Mohammad Alsaafin Part 5 - American Prestige - Air Date 1-19-25
DEREK DAVISON - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: Uh, but this, the last 15 months have revealed something, I think, very, Ugly about the Western led international order that is not going to be a you're not going to be able to put that toothpaste to use a trite phrase [02:38:00] back in the tube. What are your thoughts on where we go from here in terms of international law and the structures, the rules of the rules based order that supposedly exists?
What what's what's in store for that?
MOHAMMAD ALSAAFIN: Yeah, I. It's, it's ironic that all these structures were built extensively, uh, and, and designed after World War II to stop something, something like this, specifically something like this from happening. And their credibility has been destroyed at the altar of ensuring Israel continues, gets to continue doing the job there.
Um, it is, it is. It's going to be interesting to see what elements of international law and these international systems, um, actually call back some of their credibility. So accountability, I think, will be key. [02:39:00] Um, the international criminal court has arrest warrants out for you. I'd go on Benjamin Netanyahu.
Um, obviously the United States is furiously working and make sure that the court is undermined or sanctioned if it carries out those arrest warrant. Um, it will be interesting to see how many European countries, um, decide that their relationship with the United States and Israel, uh, supersedes, um, their, uh, you know, their belief in international law or any of these systems.
It's something that I have been thinking about. I'm not an expert. And this stuff, but I think it's very clear. You know, when you look at the United Nations Security Council, any credibility had, um, died every time, um, you know, Robert Wood or, uh, Linda Thomas Greenfield raised their hands, defied the entire world and said that the, no, there's no cease firing.
Gaza continue with the bloodshed. Um, I [02:40:00] think, Danny, you might have written more about this. I would be actually really curious to hear your thoughts.
DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: I think that the, um, uh, it was never great for the global South when you just look at the history, uh, particularly in Asia, uh, the Asian landmass, Paul Chamberlain in his, I think it's called, um, the Cold War's Killing Fields just shows 70 percent of people who died in Cold War conflicts died in Asia.
And some, I think, Believe that's the exact statistic, but people could look it up for themselves. So it was always pretty bad. I think what, what makes this unique is that Israel is in the global imaginary, more connected to Europe than anywhere else. So it's like the periphery of Europe doing it. And I think like Israel is very much a global northern nation.
Um, and so it really, in that sense. in the, in the core, it's on the periphery of the core, but it's still in the core that something like this is able to go, uh, to occur, [02:41:00] um, I think reveals the hypocrisy at the heart of the system. You know, that it's still founded on the type of colonial violence that defined the 1500s to the, the basically the Holocaust, um, when you're talking about the global North.
And so I think that's why it feels so strange because in some sense, if you know history, you know, it rests on this type of violence, but it hasn't been as present for people who are alive today because most of us weren't alive during World War II. So I think like it really exposes the hypocrisy of the order itself.
And what's different about previous moments when that hypocrisy has been exposed in the Western imagination, mostly during Vietnam, that was the big moment a little bit after in Central America, but not as much. Is that there's actually other gigantic powers, particularly China, that really does reshape things.
There's not a, um, for the mo the 20th century, there was no power challenging that order. So [02:42:00] it'd be very interesting, I think, to see what China does going forward. Uh, I think China has taken a step back to this for a variety of reasons. I think it basically doesn't seek global hegemony. It seeks a regional hegemony.
Uh, but I'm curious to how they're going to use the, uh. exposure of the order's hypocrisy to their end. And that's obviously tangentially related to Gaza and the ceasefire, but I think this could have larger repercussions for international relations more broadly. Um, so I think that's going to be a big shakeout going forward to see what happens.
Or it could be that people just say, we always knew it was bullshit. We didn't care. And honestly, the United States gives us trade agreements and enriches our local elite. So fuck China, which could also happen as well. So we'll just have to see and wait. What's going on.
MOHAMMAD ALSAAFIN: Where do you think, do you think that, um, the U S a soft power has taken a hit?
DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: So the way I describe it is that the American century in its initial form had three pillars, culture, politics, and [02:43:00] economy. The culture part has gone away and has gone away over the course of the global war on terror. I don't think that people, people still want to come here because it's better to be in the empire than not.
That's what the right wing always points to. Immigrants want to come here. Yeah, fucking obviously. You want to be the people putting the boot on the neck. You don't want to be the neck. Um, but I don't think that there is this sort of global notion of the United States being a font of democracy, which there really was between the Um, but the, it turns out that you don't actually, the culture is not shock among shocks.
The least important part of that hegemonic project of this American, that I call the American century. It turns out the economy and security are really the Marx and Engels were right, right? Marx wrote about the economy, Engels wrote about the military. Those are still the core forms of power on earth because we haven't yet achieved communism.
That's coming soon. Um, so, uh, we also are in a moment where the sort of the hegemony and the Gramscian sense no longer exists for American empire, but [02:44:00] the pure material power continues to exist. And so that is going to be this issue going forward. Um, I, I mean, I predict that the United States will basically remain in predominance in every region except East Asia.
I think that in the next 10 to 25 years East. The Chinese are going to force the United States out of regional hegemony or region even regional parody, which it arguably has now, but it's going to remain pretty dominant in doing a form of imperial management in Latin America, especially in the Middle East, especially less so Africa.
The U S has always been less concerned with Africa. Uh, and Western Europe will become sort of like the, as it is the little kid decaying brother of the United States. Another large story that we don't really talk about is sort of the decline of Europe in the last 10 years, in a way that very different.
From the two thousands. Um, and I think what, what makes Israel Palestine so resonant as opposed to the particular historical reasons it's resonance. Is it, it it's sort of a fulcrum of the entire world system in a sense. It's where the liminality is [02:45:00] exposed in its most stark form. Um, and I think it, it is, it is going to be key to what comes next.
Credits
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics. We're going to be looking at the big picture perspective on the changing landscape of international politics under a second Trump administration, as well as the shifting landscape of the media as corporations attempt to position themselves to avoid attacks from Trump. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. You can now reach us on the privacy-focused messaging app, Signal, at the username BestoftheLeft.01. There's a link in the show notes for that. Or simply email me to [email protected].
The additional sections of the show included clips from American Prestige, The Socialist Program, The ReidOut, Long Reads, Democracy Now!, Revolutionary Left Radio, CounterSpin, and Behind the News. Further [02:46:00] details are in the show notes.
Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet, Ken, Brian, Ben and Lara for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcasts app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads, and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any new social media platforms you might be joining these days.
So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay! and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you [02:47:00] twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.
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