From the River to the Sea: Ibaitik Itsasora (130) eta Jeffrey Sachs

A Global Shock Is Closer Than You Think… | Prof. Jeffrey Sachsç

A Global Shock Is Closer Than You Think… | Prof. Jeffrey Sachs

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjI63mdpAI4)

Transkripzioa:

0:00

says a lot of things. They’re not very consistent. They change by the hour. Um

0:05

and Russia is winning on the battlefield and it’s stated its positions quite

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clearly um about the territorial issues,

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the neutrality of Ukraine, uh the end of NATO enlargement. Uh while not

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everything that uh the Russians have said will come to pass in an agreement

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um they do constitute the the core of what will be agreed. Trump you know

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fancies himself as a dealmaker. So he puts pressure on he makes threats he does bluffs. Uh he changes his mind. He

0:46

says how much he likes the person then how he is disappointed by the person

0:52

then threatens the person. This is a standard behavior. We see it every day

0:57

on almost every issue. Uh but the fact of the matter is um if you look beneath

1:04

the surface, you can see the contours of what the US should agree with Russia.

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First, that the US should stop arming Ukraine over a useless and

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destructive war. That Ukraine should be neutral. uh that this NATO business,

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this enlargement of NATO never should have happened, never should have been threatened, never should have been a

1:30

provocation uh and uh yes that there will be uh some territorial

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exchange as a result of this which also has a long and detailed history. For

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example, uh the two provinces of eastern

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Ukraine called the Donbas uh were subject to a treaty in 2015 called the

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Minsk 2 agreement where Russia and those provinces said look we

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will stay within Ukraine but Ukraine should give them political rights

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because these are Russianspeaking regions and uh the United States and

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Ukraine said, “No, we’re not going to do that.” Even though they signed the agreement. So, from the Russian side,

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they just see a lot of tricks, uh, a lot of, uh,

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US duplicity. Actually, we don’t hear too much about that in our media, but the US once upon a time in 1990

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told the Russians NATO won’t even enlarge at all eastward. Uh, then they

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cheated on that. Uh the United States signed with the Soviet Union the

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anti-bballistic missile treaty. Then the United States left that. Uh then the United States pushed NATO to enlarge to

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Ukraine over strident Russian objections. Then the United States

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helped to overthrow a government in Ukraine in 2014. Uh Russia didn’t like

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that very much. Then the United States said, “Oh, you don’t have to honor this

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Mins 2 agreement.” Russia didn’t much like that. Then Russia and Ukraine came

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close to signing a peace agreement in April 2022 when the United States under

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Biden said, “No, no, no, don’t sign it.” All right. So, this is a little tiresome. You know, the Russians aren’t

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just feeling in a great mood. They they they didn’t uh

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uh fight this war out of their desire. They fought it after provocation after

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provocation came their way. And that’s not being an apologist for Russia. That’s just trying to explain why the

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war came and how it needs to end. I I totally hear you. I think it’s

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important that people understand the history. I think more people are waking up to it than at the beginning of this war. I noticed I’m seeing uh less

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Ukrainian flags that I saw uh at the beginning of the war and more Americans

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are frustrated and they’re saying that they don’t want these wars and they definitely don’t want these forever wars

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and they don’t want uh US dollars going towards these wars abroad either. That’s

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a big part of it, right? That connection. Uh but I I wondered this as well. How likely is it because Donald

4:23

Trump made this promise? I mean, how likely is it that he ends this war with Russia and Ukraine? And should Vladimir

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Putin trust the United States at this point? Well, if if there’s a very public

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agreement on principles uh and it’s signed by Russia and the United States,

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it can be trusted. What’s happened up until now is that things aren’t put on

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paper or statements are made. uh but if things are made very clear then I think

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it’s possible and especially things should be made clear they should also be supported by the rest of the UN security

5:01

council everyone should understand this war needs to end you get the whole kind

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of world community through the UN saying yeah okay these terms this is the basis

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of it if someone cheats we’re going to know which one did it not he said he said he said but rather put it clearly

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of Of course, that takes some skill. You need diplomats. You can’t just do it on True Social. Uh you can’t just say, “Uh,

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I’m threatening you. You must do this in 24 hours. I give you 10 days. I punish

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you if you don’t do this. I’m disappointed. You’re a bad person.” This is not how to run a government. Sorry.

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Uh we need uh diplomats. We need negotiated documents. We need the public

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understanding. Uh Trump, you know, a normal president, frankly, would give a

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speech to the American people explaining the context, the history. This is how

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you actually solve problems. It takes a little bit more care than a true social

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post. I don’t know if we’re going to get more than that, but that’s what it needs.

6:10

Yeah, that’s a really good point. Um, I think that what was really interesting to me, I saw a speech that you gave uh

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not too long ago at the European Parliament. Yes. And very gutsy speech. And I just

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remember the looks on some of their faces. They were just like, “What is he telling? What is he saying here?” Uh,

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but you were advocating for peace and and you were telling them, “We need to end it. We need to stop it. Like, don’t

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send any more weapons, etc.” What was the reception like in the room

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after that speech? Like did any of the the European uh politicians, did any of

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them approach you or how did that go afterwards? Well, uh I told them instead of all this

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war, why don’t you pick up the phone and call the Russian counterparts? Actually,

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maybe even fly to Moscow or have them fly to Brussels or Rome or some other

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place. And uh that room was a little bit self- selected, meaning they knew that I

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was speaking and they chose to come there. So I wasn’t imposed on them. So there were a lot of friendly faces in

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that room. But it circulated widely in Brussels afterwards. And there were

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others that were not so happy with what I said because I told them, “You’re not doing your job. What is all the Russia

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hate?” Okay, that’s not going to get you security. That’s not going to get you peace. The way to get peace is to talk

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to the other side. At least try. They don’t even try. Until today, by the way.

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That’s how ineffective I was. They still don’t pick up the phone. Uh and then they complain, “Oh, America’s

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negotiating without us.” And I tell them, “You don’t have to wait for the United States to make a phone call. For

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God’s sake, you pick up the phone. You go meet.” They don’t do that yet. It’s

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it’s really weird actually. Weird is the only word I can give, you know, a

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precise account of this. They’re afraid. They don’t have their own self-confidence. They are so used to

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depending on the United States. They believe their own rhetoric. I don’t know what it is completely, but what they

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should do is open diplomacy with Russia and discuss these issues.

8:30

And speaking of talking to the other side, uh I remember when Tucker Carlson went to Moscow to interview uh Vladimir

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Putin. There was a lot of backlash uh from corporate media, including from

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some of his counterparts, uh former counterparts at Fox News. People did not want this conversation to happen. And my

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big thing is this. Why is it that, you know, Zalinsky is interviewed multiple

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times uh on corporate media? We always get his side of the story. It is very odd to me that nobody is interviewing

9:02

Vladimir Putin. It’s I think it’s done on purpose. They don’t want you to hear his side of the story. And I think that

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interview that Tucker Carlson did, it really woke a lot of people up. Like, whoa, we didn’t hear this before. Um,

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and it’s it’s shameful. I think when I look at media, as someone in independent media, when I look at corporate media,

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it’s shameful to me that you would only get one side of the story uh about a war that’s been going on for over two years.

9:26

Actually, I say that the war has been going on for 11 years because I put the date to February 2014 when this started.

9:35

It was at a lower level, but thousands of people were killed between 2014 and 2022. So, I think that this has been

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going on for quite a while. I think Tucker did a great job uh making this

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interview. It was a very interesting interview in addition. But we have a bad

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idea that you don’t talk to the other side. But this is really wrong. If you

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don’t talk to the other side, of course, it’s a little bit easier if you want to spin propaganda, but it’s not a way to

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make peace or to settle issues or to understand the other side. We attribute

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motives to the other side that are just wrong. And this is my own experience. I

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talk with the Russians, I talk with the Chinese, I talk all over the world and I

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hear both sides or the multiple sides of an argument and it’s uh very helpful to

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understand because different perspectives are quite real. They’re not

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just uh you know put out there for spin. People have different views of things

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and we need to relearn the idea of diplomacy. And with diplomacy, part of

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the idea is you actually listen to the other side, not making faces and uh

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saying you’re an idiot, you’re a liar. Uh how dare you, but actually listen and

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then respond and they have to listen and then you respond. You know, it’s pretty basic, but we teach our kids that. But

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uh we don’t necessarily see that in our presidents. But anyway, they’re they’re going to

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meet now. So maybe something good will happen. So I don’t want to prejudge. Uh

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but I don’t think that you can solve this on true social. I don’t think so either. And also when

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it comes to the other side, uh if we can pivot to economics for just a second, the tariffs, uh which I did try to warn

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people about, uh when Trump uh re-entered the White House at the beginning of this year, that that would

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impact us here in the United States as well. Um I don’t know if this is Donald Trump trying to make some macho man move

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or whatever, but at this point, if I’m just looking at the data, uh China is soaring. They they are rising. Um I

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don’t think we can fault them for that. I just see them you know that is a competitor and it’s interesting a number

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of people who support uh free market and capitalism uh they don’t support that though

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that very good you know I I’ve been going to China since 1981 so that’s 44

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years and it went from a impoverished country to a booming country and they

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worked hard on this by the way I you could physically see with your own eyes

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how hard they were working cuz sometimes you’d go to a play I’d go to a place I’d be driven to a place late at night and

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the construction would be going on uh on these buildings by torch light uh almost

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in the middle of the night. In other words, they were building their country 24 hours around the clock for years and

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they had a great success and we shouldn’t denigrate them for that. it.

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By the way, trading with China’s been very good for most Americans, not for

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every American. You know, if you’re in a line of business where China’s very

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successfully exporting the products you make at a lower price, you’ll get hurt.

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If you’re a consumer of those goods, you’re benefited. The basic idea of

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trade is not that every single person benefits, but that we have a society in

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which we use taxes and training programs and education and public investment to

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make sure that net net everybody comes out ahead. But we don’t do that. We just

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say if someone’s hurting in our country, first of all, our politicians are so so

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bad. They don’t take any care about people that are hurting. But what they

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do say is, “Oh, China did that.” So they try to blame it on others without taking

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any responsibility themselves for doing the basic things that would make life better for

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Americans. So the whole name of the game is blame it on foreigners, blame it on

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others, don’t take responsibility for fixing things in our own country. That’s the big problem.

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Yeah. And even when it comes to the tariffs, you know, I’m I’m seeing more and more uh President Lula and and BRICS

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in general uh proposing this idea of moving away from the US dollar. And I

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just don’t see the US as a part of a multipolar world. I feel like we’re

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becoming more and more isolationist. I feel like BRICS is growing and it’s getting to the point where people just

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don’t want to work with us. And what I’ve tried to tell like my viewers is that the West is we’re small when you

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compare us to the population in India, you compare us to the population in China, the rest of the world, like we’re

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not as big as we think we are. Oh, bravo. You got it exactly right. And

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we can put some numbers on it. You know, the United States is 335 million people. Uh Europe,

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European Union is 450 million people. So you add it together that’s 800 million

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people. The world’s 8 billion people. So if you take the US and Europe, we’re

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onetenth one tenth of the world population. If you add in you know other

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friends, so add in Canada, Britain, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand,

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the ones that we call the US alliance, it comes to 12% of the world population.

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Maybe if you take a big expanded list 15%. What about the other 85% of the

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world just India and China by themselves is nearly 40%. And so I say exactly what

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you’re saying which is oh we think we’re so big powerful Trump thinks uh I can

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make demands of anybody and the rest of the world’s saying huh who who is this

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guy? uh you know, yeah, we we we don’t want to cross the US, we’d like to have normal relations, but get us to bow

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down, no thank you. Uh get us to make agreements that are not in our interest,

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no thank you. And the president of Brazil, who who I adore, President Lula,

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said the the most clear, explicit thing. He said, “We don’t need an emperor.” Uh

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so he said you know look we want to have normal relations with the US but we don’t need Emperor Donald we don’t need

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an American empire don’t make demands and we can have normal relations

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what are we doing wrong uh in this country economically if you were compare us to to China what what are we doing

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wrong is it our infrastructure is it the job market what do we do

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yeah it’s very interesting I travel a not uh and um

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be you know uh countries that were poor 20 years ago have been built up

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tremendously fast in the last 20 or 25 years. So if you go to an airport

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elsewhere you say whoa this is dazzling. Uh if you come back to our airports well

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they’re being rehabbed a bit but you feel like you’re back in the 1950s. Uh

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my wife and I joke that we know we’re back in America because the elevator doesn’t work, the walkway doesn’t work,

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you know, staircase doesn’t work, people are yelling at you. So it’s uh we need

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to invest. This is how you get ahead. We need to spend money on not war, but on

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modernizing our country. And we haven’t done that. We have spent $7 trillion

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dollar on wars since 2001. Basically, we

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went to war after war after war after war. It’s terrible. What a waste. We

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gave huge tax cuts to people who have so much money that they don’t know what to

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do with it. And then we say, “Oh, there’s no money in the in the budget for uh modernization or for protecting

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the environment or for, you know, taking care of nature.” So, we’re making a lot

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of bad choices. Uh we just had one big ugly bill called one big beautiful bill.

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What was the point of this thing? First, it was a backroom operation, never debated, never discussed, filled with

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the hidden uh gifts to the rich that I don’t even know about because, you know,

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you only learn about these things in some page and hundreds of pages into a

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document way late. But it was a secret operation. The main point of the

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operation was tax cuts for the rich. And the main way to not balance the tax

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cuts, cuz they didn’t even come close. This is a gusher of more red ink. But the main response was cut the health

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care of America’s poorest people. Duh. Could this possibly be fair? Would we

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ever in an open day if we had a real discussion and things were really

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debated and deliberated by the American people would we ever come to this if we

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had a room of a thousand Americans randomly selected not paid for by

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lobbyists but put into a room from all over the country and told you can

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deliberate about the future of the United States. You can get any data you want. You can ask anybody you want their

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opinions, but in the end you vote. Would they ever ever in a million years vote

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the one big beautiful bill? No. Nothing like it. They would say, Elon,

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pay some taxes. Come on. You have $300 billion. Pay some taxes. Uh they would

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say that to Bezos. They would say that to others high on the list. You add the

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top 18 or so billionaires, they’ve got something like three trillion of wealth,

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pay some taxes so that the elevators work and the walkways work and and uh

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and uh it’s not uh just a broken down mess outside our homes

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and the bridges aren’t falling apart. And the bridges aren’t falling apart. Exactly. Another one that people are

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dealing with. Uh, one of the things I wanted to uh pick your brain about is uh

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this idea of peace. Um, because Kim McCarthy came onto the show a while

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back. He wrote a book about uh how JFK wanted to basically, I guess, hold

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Israel accountable with when it came to nuclear weapons. And JFK uh wanted

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peace, wanted to move away from these wars. And some would argue that that’s why JFK was assassinated, that that’s

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why he’s no longer here. Um, this is the fear I think that some people have. Uh,

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some people feel as though if they are a presidential candidate and they run on this anti-war message that they too will

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be JFK, right? And and to that point, I have to say that I think you just have to be fierce and and you have to push

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back against against like those those powers out there. But I think that what

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is starting to happen, and I’m noticing it from voters as well, they’re like, “Well, of course, you know, well, Trump’s going to say this because he

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wants to play their game.” People said the same thing in 2024 when Kla Harris was running. They said, “Well, she has

21:30

to say that because she wants she’s got to pretend to play their game.” But then I look at the money that is attached to

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the political candidates like money from Apac, money from Kofi. And it’s just I don’t think they’re just they’re not

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just playing a game. They they bought into this system and that’s how they were allowed to go as far as they did.

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And I wonder if JFK would have lived if he wasn’t assassinated, does Israel get

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as far as it does, does it get to this point where it it’s a tiny place, but it

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has so much power when it comes to US uh politics and what has happened to the

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Palestinian people. Does it get to that point if JFK lives? Well, let me say first of all, I I also wrote a book

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about President Kennedy’s peace efforts. It’s it’s called To Move the World,

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JFK’s Quest for Peace. Uh it’s actually a book about the last year of his life

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from the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the signing of a peace

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agreement with the Soviet Union called the partial nuclear testban treaty. And

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uh Kennedy was the most gifted statesman in that year of any

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president that we’ve had uh in modern times. I think Franklin Roosevelt was uh our

22:55

greatest president. Uh Kennedy was the only one in my lifetime that I would say

23:02

reached greatness. And on the question, was he killed for his peace efforts? I

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think there’s a good argument for it. Of course, there are things that are not known, but the things that become more

23:16

and more known suggest that this was a CIA action uh at least an action in

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which James Engleton uh who was the head of counter espionage of the CIA played

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an active role. And one of the things Kennedy said at one moment was that he

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wanted to take the CIA and tear it up into a thousand pieces. And uh maybe

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they went and got him as a result of that. So Kennedy was a great peacemaker.

23:48

He gave a speech on June 10, 1963. It’s known in history as the peace

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speech. It’s online. People can listen to it. It’s just mesmerizing. My poor

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family. I made them listen probably 50 times as I was writing my book. So they

24:06

all heard it again and again and again. Now the role of Israel in all of this is

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highly controversial. What we can say is Angleton, who clearly had some

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relationship, perhaps the mastermind or the one who used Lee Harvey Oswald uh

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because Oswald papers were in Angleton safe and Angleton lied about the

24:36

relationship throughout his whole life. Angleton had close relations with Mossad. This is for sure true. Uh and so

24:44

that link exists, but there are many other links also. Uh there’s the Cuba

24:50

link. Uh the anti-Castro Cubans who uh definitely at some low level were

24:57

engaged in this conspiracy or I don’t say definitely, but I think very highly likely. There was the mob uh which was

25:05

in involved as well. So there’s a lot that isn’t sure, but Kennedy resisted

25:13

Israel’s attempt to get atomic weapons. Uh this is for sure. Uh and the Israelis

25:20

were very uh very unhappy about that and they were

25:26

determined to get atomic weapons. And it seems very likely that James Angel

25:32

played a role with Mossad in facilitating Israel getting atomic

25:37

weapons. So there are all sorts of things that need to be better understood. What I would say is though

25:44

Kennedy had a lot of enemies among the war party whether it was Vietnam,

25:52

whether it was Cuba, uh perhaps Israel. Uh but he had a lot of enemies. Uh and

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um I think it was a conspiracy to kill him. And I think what you said is also true. Uh and some historians have said

26:08

uh ever since Kennedy’s assassination, no president has been an independent

26:14

actor because they’re all scared. Uh and you know what motivates Trump? Uh do the

26:21

Epstein files motivate Trump? It’s quite possible. That’s not some crazy idea.

26:28

There’s, I would say, overwhelming evidence that Epstein was a MSAD

26:35

asset and that all the stuff with Epstein had uh

26:42

Israel blackmail around it. Uh the the what’s Epstein doing meeting repeatedly

26:49

with Israeli leaders during this period? It’s, you know, it’s it’s an and you

26:55

watch the behavior of the political class, including Trump. They don’t say a

27:02

word that’s honest about this stuff. So, you know, you have you have enough

27:08

reason to say, “Whoa, something weird is really going on there.”

27:14

And how was Epstein able to get a job as a college professor? uh and said that he

27:20

graduated from Harvard. The Harvard alumni circle is I mean people know if

27:26

he went to Harvard. Yeah. No. And and he was deeply involved in MIT. There was so many weird things

27:33

that make sense if you put it into the context of of a Mossad operation. And I

27:41

think it most likely was. Even when we look at someone like RFK,

27:46

uh, who based on what I’ve read and the videos that I’ve watched, it seems like RFK probably would have won, uh, if he

27:53

wasn’t killed. And it seemed like he really found a way to energize the young people, uh, the anti-war, uh, movement.

28:02

Um, and then he also, uh, was was assassinated. And a lot of times people

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go back to JFK and RFK because they look at them and they feel like that seems like that was the last time.

28:14

Yeah. I RFK I was 14 at the time. RFK was the great first political love of my

28:22

life. Uh, of course I knew President Kennedy, but I was much younger. Um but

28:28

RFK that was the campaign and I he stirred people uh and um he inspired and

28:36

he was going to be president and uh certainly uh people knew that he was

28:41

going to go after the secrets of the assassination. uh and that’s uh definitely one motivation and there are

28:49

so many things wrong with the uh the conventional narrative uh that Sirhan

28:56

Sirhan by himself committed this crime including the fact that the chief

29:02

coroner rejected that conclusion saying that it was the the forensic evidence

29:09

runs completely against it. Sirhan Sirhan was in the front but Kennedy was

29:15

shot behind the right ear and the the shots came from a different direction

29:21

and a lot of eyewitnesses saw multiple people with guns and there’s were so

29:27

many things wrong uh with the LAPD uh investigation so-called and so many

29:35

links with the CIA uh that seems to have shut down the investigation that uh

29:41

you’re just led to absolute despair over this. Of course, it was four people uh

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who were systematically killed uh in in this period, the two Kennedys, Martin

29:55

Luther King and Malcolm X. Uh and uh that was snuffing out the chance for a

30:02

new America in the 1960s. No doubt about it. Why do you think RFK Jr. uh has the

30:10

position that he has on Israel. Um when he first announced that he was running, uh there were more people that were in

30:17

favor of a lot of the things he was talking about. He he was talking about the CIA, how it was a problem, etc. And

30:23

as time went by, you know, then October 7th happened and people saw his position on Israel and a lot of us were like,

30:29

whoa, what is wrong with this guy? Like it was really weird to me. Do you feel

30:35

that RFK Jr. Is is it because he was on Epstein’s jet as well, which he has

30:40

acknowledged. Uh it doesn’t mean he did anything on that island. Do you feel like they tried to blackmail him? Well,

30:46

why does he have that staunch position on Israel? I don’t know. I asked him the same

30:53

question. I did not get a satisfactory answer. We’re friends. We’re classmates.

31:00

Uh we’ve known each other for a half century. Uh, so, uh, I like Bobby a lot,

31:06

but I don’t agree with him on on this issue, of course. Yeah, that was one we scratched our

31:12

heads about. And when it comes to, uh, Gaza, what what is the future for Gaza in in your opinion right now? Donald

31:19

Trump, I just don’t believe any of this anymore, uh, is announcing that, oh, we

31:24

have a ceasefire agreement coming forward and things are going to work out great for the Palestinian people. And I

31:32

envision that they’re either going to they’re going to continue killing them uh or they’re they’re going to make them

31:38

leave regardless. I see it as as ethnic cleansing. I I don’t know how Israel

31:45

gets away with this in the the the world’s view. Like the world has turned

31:50

against Israel. The numbers show that as well. I just I just don’t understand like what is the future for the

31:58

Palestinian people after this? I wrote a uh an open letter to Israel’s

32:04

foreign minister which I posted yesterday which if people are interested they can find on common dreams. Um I sat

32:12

behind the foreign minister at the UN security council last week and I was

32:18

really really taken aback by the words of the foreign minister. I found them outrageous. Uh especially since this man

32:27

was representing a government that is systematically starving 2 million

32:32

people, many of them dying now of their starvation. Uh so uh you could find a

32:39

detailed account of my views. The basic view is that in a not hidden way, the

32:48

government of Israel says that they’re going to control all of Palestine. Uh

32:55

they’re not going to leave the occupied territories. Now, there are three

33:02

occupied territories of Palestine, meaning territories that were captured

33:08

in the 1967 war. If you go back to the borders before that war, uh the borders

33:16

of the 4th of June 1967, uh you have Gaza, you have the West

33:21

Bank, and you have East Jerusalem. There are about uh roughly 6 million

33:28

Palestinian Arabs living in those three areas and another 2 million living in

33:34

Israel itself. Under international law, Israel is illegally occupying Gaza, the

33:42

West Bank, and East Jerusalem. It should leave, and those three places should

33:47

become a state of Palestine. Uh that’s the so-called two-state solution. It

33:53

would work. It would be peaceful. It would be a solution. It’s supported by

34:00

more than 180 countries in the world. So, what stops it? Of course, Israel

34:07

stops it first because Israel says, “No, we are going to control everything.

34:13

Second, it’s the United States. The US is the only major country in the world

34:18

that supports Israel’s extremism. Not just supports it, funds it, and arms it.

34:25

So, this is a joint USIsraeli genocide that’s underway right now. The

34:32

US is actively complicit in this. The American people are against this. The

34:38

latest Gallup survey showed about 69 70%

34:43

of Americans, sorry, 60% of Americans siding with

34:49

Palestine and about 30% approving of Israel. So, it’s a 2:1 ratio. But

34:56

American foreign policy is not made by the American people. It’s made by lobbyists. It’s made by military

35:02

contractors. Uh it’s made by money. Uh it’s made by insider interests. It’s

35:08

made by blackmail as we were talking about. It’s made by many things. Uh and

35:13

so our policy is complicity in genocide. Now if you ask what does Israel really

35:21

want? Whatever they say daytoday, it has been Netanyahu’s

35:28

whole political career to oppose a state of Palestine. And Lood, which is his

35:35

political party in its founding charter says explicitly from the Jordan River to

35:42

the Mediterranean Sea, Israel will be sovereign. So it’s ironic that it came

35:50

to be said by the US government that the chant from the river to the sea is anti-semitic.

35:56

It’s actually a line directly out of the lood political charter but meaning that

36:04

Israel will dominate the Palestinian people. And then you rightly ask well

36:11

how could that ever be? there 8 million Palestinian Arabs, 8 million Jews. Well,

36:17

the only answer is expel them or kill them, starve them, or dominate them

36:25

through apartheid. And that’s Israel’s approach. It varies day by day or month

36:33

or year by year, but the approach is outright hostility. But it’s worse than

36:40

that because it’s so blatant and so vulgar that other governments in the

36:46

region said no this is outrageous. Uh we support the Palestinian cause and Iran

36:53

supported Hezbollah and Hamas to some extent. And Israel’s approach is not

37:01

well maybe we should compromise, maybe we should have two states and so forth. Their approach is, well, we have to go

37:08

to war with any government that supports the Palestinian cause. And since the you

37:15

since Israel is a small country, they look to the United States. Hey, you go to war for us. Netanyahu is the one that

37:23

told us, “Go to war with Iraq in 2003.” People can go on the internet and find

37:28

Netanyahu speaking to Congress in the fall of 2002 saying, “It’s going to be a great war. It’s going to inspire

37:35

everybody. It’s going to bring peace. It’s going to be wonderful. He’s a jerk and always has been a jerk and um he got

37:43

the US into lots of wars. So what’s going to happen now?

37:50

There are more than 180 countries that say a state of Palestine and many more

37:57

joining day by day right now. Australia most recently uh France and Britain

38:03

saying that they’ll recognize the state of Palestine. This is almost the whole world now. It’s just Israel, the United

38:11

States, and a handful of countries that resist. And most of these countries are

38:16

tiny. Micronia, Nau, Vanuatu. I dare people to point them out on a map.

38:22

They’re tiny. These are little Pacific islands. Some of them by law have to

38:28

vote with the US and Paraguay and Argentina. Okay, it’s about six that

38:34

oppose, but all the rest say two-state solution. If there is going to be peace,

38:42

all that has to happen is Donald Trump needs to say, “Okay, we recognize the

38:47

state of Palestine. Gaza is going to belong to the Palestinians.” Uh actually

38:52

the Arab states all through the region would support a demilitarization

38:58

and a local governance by the Palestinians. They would back it up financially. They would back up the

39:05

rebuilding financially. They’ve said so repeatedly. But the United States till this moment says, “No, no, no. We

39:13

support Israel. Israel has the right to exist.” A right to exist is not the

39:19

right to exterminate another people. That is a very good quote there. Um but

39:25

things are looking somewhat hopeful in different ways. Uh this is a big story

39:30

that just came out. Norway uh it appears that their wealth fund, the wealth fund

39:36

of Norway just divested from 11 Israeli companies. This is a a huge story. I’m

39:44

not sure if everybody is aware of it, but it seems like uh more people are willing to divest from Israel as well.

39:50

Yeah. Uh you know, it’s interesting. They divested from 11. There are about

39:55

40 others that they still invest in. So when it was announced, people said, “Okay, not a bad first step, but keep

40:03

going.” So we’ll see what happens. But yes, it was a real step a couple days ago.

40:09

Yes, indeed. And another two more things for you, Professor Saxs. uh you’re at Columbia University. Um I think under

40:16

the Biden administration, it seems like to me uh they were shocked at the rise of the students uh denouncing uh this

40:24

genocide in Gaza. And it almost seemed like they didn’t really know how to respond to this uh at first at least.

40:32

And Colombia has a deep history with this uh as so does Harvard uh standing

40:38

up against apartheid South Africa. Uh, so this was not the the first time. Why

40:43

do you feel like the press and in particular the police more so heavily

40:48

targeted the protesters at Columbia University and they they targeted them at other universities too, but it seemed

40:55

like to me the crackdown was so much greater at Columbia University when you

41:01

compare it to some of the other colleges. Well, it was it was very visible protest. Uh, but to claim that Columbia

41:08

University is an anti-Semitic institution is just about the most ridiculous imaginable claim in the

41:15

world. Oh my god. Are you kidding? This is I can’t even go there. It’s so

41:22

absurd. But that is the meme because the Israel lobby is pushing this and Trump

41:31

is pushing this nonsense and it’s vulgar. It’s so totally phony, you don’t

41:38

even know where to start. And the students were on the right side of history. Um,

41:43

the students are protesting a genocide. For God’s sake, if you can’t protest a genocide,

41:49

what what what can you protest? Exactly. And to that point, uh, you made

41:55

a bold move in 2024, uh, for the presidential election. you, I think, was

42:00

was the first person uh to publicly endorse uh Dr. Jill Stein, which I I

42:06

voted for, uh as well. Um did you receive any type of push back or any

42:12

type of criticism because you endorsed Jill Stein? And I’m asking because there are a number of people that are telling

42:17

me even today they’re still getting flag from people for voting for Jill Stein or supporting Jill Stein. And I I said to

42:24

my audience that Jill Stein’s campaign was the left campaign. It it really was

42:29

and if you supported like a lot of those progressive policies that was over at the Jill Stein campaign. I didn’t see

42:36

that at Kamla’s campaign. I think Kamla blew it uh when she said that she wouldn’t do anything different from

42:41

Biden. I think she blew it when she said she wouldn’t withhold weapons from Israel. Uh and somehow, you know, some

42:47

people believe Trump when he said that he was going to end all of the wars, etc. Uh but did you receive any type of

42:53

push back for endorsing Jill Stein? Well, look, I have said that the

42:58

Democrats and the Republicans when it comes to foreign policy, what’s

43:04

the difference? Uh, one is wararm mongering, the other is wararm mongering. So, uh, you know, this is

43:11

absolutely uh awful. Every presidency for the last uh

43:18

since since at least Clinton, I’ve said, “Oh my god, can’t they do better than

43:24

this?” I’m I’m an unhappy camper. I have to tell you. Uh it’s whenever I hear,

43:31

“Oh, if the Democrats can just get back in, you know, I was a Democrat for most

43:37

of my life, but there’s almost no one to talk to in the Democratic party. You

43:43

look at who are the real uh wararm mongers, it’s almost always bipartisan.

43:49

Uh you have Lindsey Graham, who I regard as the stupidest senator in in the US Senate, uh and Richard Blumenthal, and

43:56

they’re always together. One on the Republican side, one on the Democratic side. Uh and in general, there are a few

44:05

very few politicians I like, by the way. Uh I like Roana in uh in the Congress. I

44:13

I like Ran Paul. He’s a libertarian Republican, but he’s honest and he’s not

44:19

wararmongering and he’s a nice guy and he’s smart, by the way. But so many of

44:25

the people that I’m supposed to like because that was my political party,

44:30

I gave up on. And I thought Biden was a terrible president. Absolutely terrible. And I think Trump is Oh my god. I don’t

44:37

know how. I mean, I’m hoping we’re going to survive this, but it’s uh one after

44:43

the other. They just don’t do their job. Do you think that we’ll ever see uh a

44:49

third party candidate uh get further in the race? Do you ever think we’ll see a third party candidate win the h the

44:56

White House or an independent? It’s it’s so hard because of the

45:01

nittygritty rules. Uh in the end I believe uh Jill did not get on the

45:07

ballot in New York. Uh you know she didn’t get the signatures. Uh you get

45:13

lawsuits everywhere. It’s uh you know it is it’s an oligarchy of these two

45:18

parties to prevent new voices. But you can never say never uh in politics and

45:25

we need a breakthrough. uh and American history shows at times a new party

45:31

rising and it’s so compelling that uh you get mass support and the problem in

45:38

the US has been that mass support has

45:43

been equated with big money backing but then you’re already sold out by the time

45:50

you do that and uh Bernie I advised Bernie Sanders in 2016

45:56

And um you could see how the establishment basically killed his campaign even though he was by far the

46:03

enthusiastic uh the one enthusiastically backed by uh by the voters. Um so it’s

46:11

very hard but we need it. I think we need a peace party actually. We need a

46:16

party that is based on peace. uh because peace is not the domestic agenda but

46:22

there is no domestic agenda if we’re a war economy and a militaryindustrial complex and a CIAled foreign policy then

46:30

we don’t get anywhere and we need to recover even our constitutional

46:36

government from the military-industrial complex so I think the right approach is

46:42

a peace Arby’s