Piers Morgan Uncensored - “DANGEROUS Game Trump Is Playing…” Iran-Israel ft. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Prof Marandi & Avi Shlaim

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

An influential group of Israeli historians have argued for decades that the country was forged in violence - that the original displacement of 700,000 Palestinians was not an accident of chaos, but deliberate ethnic cleansing. This viewpoint deeply challenges Israel’s founding narrative as a desperate underdog seeking fairness and peace. In this episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, two opposing titans of historical and political debat - Simon Sebag Montefiore (author of 'The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East') and international relations scholar Avi Shlaim - discuss their opposing worldviews and how they continue to shape today's conflicts, from the events of October 7th to the escalating war involving Iran. Plus, as President Trump threatens an “economic D-Day” and both sides talk up the return to all-out war, we break down the latest developments in Tehran and across the Middle East, also joined by Tehran University’s Professor Mohammad Marandi. (00:00:00) Introduction  (00:01:54) Professor Marandi on Iran America’s implementation of economic hardship on Iran  (00:08:37) Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz  (00:19:55) The Iranian regime’s support for terrorist organisations  (00:22:07) The 25th anniversary of 9/11  (00:29:10) Simon Sebag Montefiore joins Piers to discuss his latest book on Middle East (00:38:23) The Israeli government’s increasingly violent rhetoric and anti-semitism  (00:45:58) The Two-state solution  (00:51:57) Simon Sebag’s new historian categorisation and critique of the Israeli government  (00:56:13) IR Scholar Avi Shlaim reacts to Piers’ interview with Simon Sebag  (00:59:10) Piers asks Avi Shlaim about the criticism of the Israeli government being stifled  (01:05:01) How many Israeli locals actually support the government vs those against it?  (01:08:42) Categorising Israeli activity in Gaza as a Genocide  (01:11:43) Avi Shlaim on Netanyahu’s war in Iran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always $3.75. And get Life Brand Pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. You can't seriously believe that the Israelis were in cahoots with Osama bin Laden to destroy the Twin Towers in New York. Al-Qaeda went to the White House and got perfume from... the President of the United States.

How significant was the Iranian Revolution in 79 in bringing us to where we've got to in the Middle East? 1979 is one of those revolutions that is a complete game-changer. Because not only does it bring Aitola Khomeini, extraordinary, unruffless revolutionary statesman to power, but it also unleashes a battle within Islam. Detanyahu is obsessed with Iran. For the last 30 years, he has been advocating a joint American-Israeli strike against Iran.

No American president until Trump was stupid enough to go along with his mad skin. Whether the nation of Israel is ultimately to blame for decades of turmoil and hatred in the Middle East is not a new debate. An influential group of Israeli historians have argued for decades that the country was forwarded. in violence that the original displacement of 700,000 Palestinians wasn't an accident of chaos but deliberate ethnic cleansing. It's controversial because it challenges Israel's founding mythology about a desperate underdog which is only of a sort fairness and peace. And these two opposing worldviews continue to frame debate

about everything from October the 7th to the ongoing war in Iran. We're going to hear from two opposing titans of this argument, one of whom says appropriately that the real flashpoint of our times was the Islamic Revolution in Iran. We begin in Iran, where talk of an economic deed day has been replaced by growing signs that all-out war is erupting once again. Rejoining me from Tehran is Professor Mohamed Morandi.

Professor Miranda, welcome back to Onseno. Thank you. You know, I just want to start by saying that I do appreciate you coming on the show a lot. I know we've had some fractious exchanges, which is understandable, given what we're talking about, and we have violently different opinions about a lot of this stuff. But I respect the fact you come in constantly to debate this into the show

and that you debate with other people. And I'm not oblivious to the fact that you are living through in Tehran a pretty tough period, right, for people in Tehran. What is life like there? Well, thank you. If you travel to Tehran and you drive around the city or take the metro or a bus or a taxi, you probably wouldn't notice anything. You won't see any destroyed buildings because the city is huge.

So even though there are destroyed buildings, but you probably wouldn't see one unless you asked to be taken somewhere. And if you go to shops, there are people in the shops. if you go to restaurants, they're full of people. But if you go to the shop owners or the restaurant owners and ask house business, they'll probably say it's not good. So by appearances, it looks like any pretty well-developed city. It's a very clean city.

Every night they take out the garbage, the street that's safe. Women can walk around pretty safely at midnight alone. in most areas that I can think of, I can't say everywhere. But it's a safe city, it's a clean city. But, again, if you go and ask the shop owners and the restaurant owners and business people, they'll say it's difficult. And if you ask workers, they'll say that inflation is very high.

Right. Because annual inflation in Iran apparently hit 66% last month. And history would tell us that when people get hungry, they can get rebellious. So there obviously will be concerns there. But aside from that, Donald Trump and the Americans appear to be now moving rhetorically from a position of we're going to bomb the hell out of Iran

to get the Iranian regime to bow to our wishes, to a position now that they are going to apply more and more economic hardship, that they believe the route through this to a victory is to cause more and more economic harm. Now, given what you've just said, given there's already clearly a lot of economic pressure in the country and in Tehran in particular,

how much does that concern Iranians that the Americans may choose to now wage a specific economic war more than any other variety? Well, the United States has been engaging in economic warfare for decades, and the objective of, economic warfare is always civilians. We know from a Lancet report that came out a while back that Western sanctions from 1971 to 2021 across the world have led to roughly 38 million deaths.

So the objective is to kill people. It's to destroy lives. It's to destroy countries. It's to make society crumble. Like what they're trying to do in Cuba, what they did in Syria, what they've been. done to a large degree in Libya and so on. The list goes on in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. So the objective is to make Iranian society crumble.

I've even seen, I think, a U.S. senator go on the Sunday morning shows on one of them and say people, and he was basically he was so happy. He was saying that Iranians don't have food and saying it with such pleasure. Of course, it's not true, but that's subjective. So the Iranian economy is shifting towards a wartime economy. That's happening as we speak. And it's going to be difficult, no doubt, but the Iranians are also going to do the same to the United States. And they have said that they're going to, if they shut down our oil trade, then we're going to shut down their oil trade.

So the Strait of Hormuz will be completely shut down. So basically, this is a double-edged sword. And if you recall, the last time the United States used siege warfare against Iranians, that was after the 40-day war, where initially it started with unconditional surrender, and then he had to accept the 14-point Iranian plan as the framework for negotiations. After that, he imposed a siege. But ultimately, he had to accept the MOU. True that he tore up the MOU and never...

implemented it, but he did say when he signed it to justify the concessions that he was forced to give, that I don't want to be a Herbert Hoover. I don't want to preside over a Great Depression. And look at the bond markets, look at Japan, look at the price of oil, look at the price of sulfur and everything else. So this is a dangerous game that Trump is playing. You know, we saw comments about the Iranian economy at the weekend from President Masoud Pazitschkin, who told state media that exports and imports and import to slumped nearly 35% because of sanctions of the blockade of Iranian imports. And the Iranian Central Bank governor recently said we're facing four or five major challenges

simultaneously, including maximum sanctions, blockade, cutting off oil exports, and a budget imbalance, each of which puts pressure on the government. economy. One of the neighboring countries told me that if one-fifth of what happened in your country happened in our country, we wouldn't be able to govern the country. And there are concerns, I know this, about some of the smaller Gulf states, whether it's Kuwait, Bahrain and others, that they are suffering a lot as well. And that there are genuine fears. There could be some uprisings in some of those states the longer this goes on. So everyone is hurting. But in In terms of the strategy by the Americans, you say that the Iranians can shut down the Strait of Hormuz.

There is a concerted attempt right now to try and work out a different way to get energy through that region, which doesn't involve the Strait of Hormuz. How concerned are you that the upshot of this leverage, which undoubtedly the Iranian regime is currently utilizing very effectively, of being able to turn the tap on and off of people going through the Strait of All Moose, that if the Strait of All Moose ceases to be the big thoroughfare for 20% of the global energy and it simply moves elsewhere,

that you could, in the end, self-sabotage. Well, there are two things here. One is that we didn't start this war. Oil and LNG and fertilizers and sulfur and helium and everything else was passing through the straight of foremost for decades without any difficulty for the most part. And the United States and the Israeli regime launched a war, thanks to Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby. But the Saudis, the Marraqis, the Kuwaitis, the Bahrainis, the Qatari's, and of course Jordan, they were all a part of the war. They facilitated the airstrikes. They gave the

United States bases and air bases and jet fuel and allow them to use their airspace and to fire missiles from their territory. So they're a part of the war. And that's why they're in trouble now. And building pipelines, which will take many years, will not solve the problem. Because if they want to continue to help the United States kill Iranians, they bombed a wedding last night, killing four people, including a small boy and a teenager, and six others are in bad shape and hospital, if they want to continue helping the United States kill Iranians,

then they're going to pay the price. But those pipelines are not going to help because the oil fields and the gas fields are alongside the Strait of Front, alongside the Persian Gulf or in the Persian Gulf. So you can have your pipelines, but if you're going to engage in war with Iran, at the behest of Trump and Netanyahu, then your oil fields and gas fields can be destroyed. So the smart thing for these countries to do is to say, no, we're not going to take part in the killing of Iranians.

And then we wouldn't be in the situation that we are today. If these five countries, Jordan aside, it's probably the worst proxy of all, but if these five countries just told Trump, no, you cannot use our territory, you cannot use our airspace, you cannot use bases in our country against Iran, it would be over. There are many reports circulating, and it is very hard to know what to believe from anyone in this war, frankly, after six, seven months.

But there's many reports suggesting that the Iranian leadership is split between hardliners who want to just continue this as long as they possibly can, believing they have the upper hand, believing they have the leverage of the strait, and also the ticking clock for Trump of the midterm elections in the United States and the ticking clock for Netanyahu, of course, with elections in Israel as well this autumn. That if they just keep running down the clock, the pressure on both Trump and Netanyahu could get enormous, and they might ultimately lose a lot of their power.

Netanyahu might get voted out, and Trump may lose control of Congress and would then be into lame duck territory. But there are also moderates who think that the economic pressure in particular, yes, it's causing damage to the rest of the world, although not, of course, particularly to the United States, because they don't get much energy themselves from the Strait of Hormuz. They don't need it, but to the rest of the world has been very damaging. But it's also clearly very damaging to Iran and its economy

if the Strait of Hormuz is shut, because a lot of the energy that goes through benefits the Iranian economy. So there's this conflict, which is not entirely surprising to me if that is what is going on, between hardliners and moderates. Is that true? Well, there are three layers that I have to sort of discuss here. One is the fact that the United States is hurting. The price of energy and inflation is going up, and we're seeing the bond market is how much trouble they're having. with it and it's probably not going to get better. So they are hurting. And then I have to point out again that Iran does not want to hurt the global economy. You pointed out correctly that Iran benefits from the trade of hormones. Iran wants to do business and trade. But Iran didn't start

this war of aggression. And it was carried out based on lie after lie after lie. And even the motives behind the war changed every day. One day it was the U.S. Secretary of State said, that the Israelis were about to attack, so we decided to attack. The next day it was that it was because Iran was two weeks away from a nuclear program, a nuclear weapon. Whereas just in the last year's war, Trump had said he had obliterated Iran's nuclear weapons program, which is, by the way, non-existent. You have a colleague, Peter O'Borne, who wrote a very good book, a small book,

called A Dangerous Delusion about Iran's nuclear program. People should read it. You should read it. It's a very slight book and a very good book. And it just shows that the whole thing from the very beginning was based on dishonesty. Of course, I said read going to Tehran too, and you weren't too happy with that. But these are good books to read. So in any case, the reasons for the war were all lies.

It was because the Israeli regime wanted the war. So it was imposed on Iran. But then the point that you make about hardliners and moderates, you are basically undermining a very powerful narrative that has been existent in the West for decades. And that is that Iran is this despotic regime and there's no dissent in Iran. There's open debate. You've seen these debates on television. We see it online.

You see it in universities. There are differences. But with regards to how to deal with the United States at the moment, there is unity. And that unity is in the fact that Trump signed an MOU. And the Iranians are saying that he has to abide by that for this to come to an end. He committed himself to it, but from day one, he undermined it. He never forced the Israeli regime to leave Lebanon. He didn't end the genocide in Gaza.

These are Article 1. He did not return Iran stolen assets. He continued to expand the sanctions regime as the MOU was being implemented. He continued to threaten Iranian officials and Iranians. That was a violation of the MOU. And then in Article 5, of course, he went and opened up his own corridor for ships in the Strait of Hormnals, which was a violation of Article 5, which everyone can read. So the Iranians are saying, look, you want this to end? You have to implement the MOU.

The president says it. The chair of the Supreme National Security Council says it. The Speaker of Parliament says it. Parliament says it. The government says it. Everyone says that, and the leader has said it. So the United States has signed Trump himself with his own signature. Of course, his signature is worthless.

But with his own signature, he endorsed an MOU. And the Iranians are saying, we're not going to accept anything less than that. There is a lot of speculation about whether your new Supreme Leader is actually alive because he hasn't been seen. when can we expect to see him? Well, I haven't seen him, so I'm not in his office. I can't tell you. But I would say one thing, Pierce, and that is that if we don't have a Supreme

Leader and he's been martyred and he's, we are doing an extraordinary job defeating the global superpower and the Zionist regime alongside it with their entire coalition. So without a leader, if we're doing that well, then I think Iran deserves to be called the global superpower. I think it's pretty clear that we have a leader who is in charge and the country is being managed. We are fighting the global superpower, which is ruthless, whose leader constantly says he's going to wipe out this country, is going to take us back to the Stone Age. And these are all crimes against humanity. He's threatening to obliterate the country to wipe out the civilization.

He says this regularly, and there's no protests in Western Parliament. What about the rhetoric that's come out of your Supreme Leaders about Israel, about America? What about the rhetoric of other senior members of the Iranian regime over the last decades? I mean, the rhetoric comes both ways. You know, the argument the Americans would use is, well, when you hear a Supreme Leader saying death to America and wanting to wedded to getting rid of Israel and saying that Israel's the root of all evil and so on, this is part of the problem, right?

It works both ways. Actually, Ayatollah Harmony, the martyr. He once, I think it was actually a year ago. He said this many times, but I think the last time was a year and a half ago. He said very specifically that when people say death to America, they're not talking about the American people. They're talking about this empire.

that carries out atrocity after atrocity, war after war, siege after siege across the world. And we're seeing it today. The only difference between Trump and previous presidents is he's taken off the mask. He goes to Venezuela, and it's now become clear that he did bomb fishermen. But he goes to Venezuela, kidnaps the president, and says the oil is mine. This is 19th century stuff now. This is early 20th century stuff now. It's out in the open.

But this has been the behavior of the United States all along. And with regards to Israel, I think in the last discussion that we had, I made it very clear that Iran's opposition to Israel is its opposition to ethno-supremicism and ethnic cleansing and genocide. Iran believes that Jews, Christians, and Muslims must live as equals in that country. And we have a Jewish population in Iran. We have a Jewish member of parliament. Our constitution says that there must be a Jewish.

Jewish MP, no matter how small the Jewish population is. You wouldn't deny, but notwithstanding everything you've just said, you wouldn't deny, I presume, that the Iranian regime has, for decades, supported groups like Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah, who many view, including in my country, in the United States, as terrorist organizations. You wouldn't deny that. No, of course not, because the Palestinian people,

they've been uprooted from their land. The people of Gaza who are facing genocide, it's a Holocaust. I didn't say that. You know, I said that on the previous show, Ronald Reagan, when the Israeli regime invaded Lebanon in 1982, and by the way, there was no Hezbollah back then. Hezbollah was created during the occupation of Lebanon by the Israeli regime. During that occupation, Hezbollah was created. Ronald Reagan said what the Israeli regime was doing in Lebanon was a holoca.

What is going on in Gaza is infinitely worse, infinitely worse. But the people in Gaza who've been decimated and hundreds of thousands have died. I mean, have no doubt those who've died of illness and the Israelis prevent medicine from getting in, food from getting in. I mean, the list goes on. But those people in Gaza, they're not from Gaza. Overwhelmingly, they're from Palestine. They are refugees from 1948 when the Israeli regime did back then the same thing that they're doing to these people now. Now, the Nekba.

So, yes, we support the Palestinian – Iran supports all the Palestinian groups, religious and secular. And of course, it supports Hezbollah. Hezbollah expelled the Israeli regime from Lebanon. It was a national liberation organization. And Hezbollah supports the Palestinian people. And the Houthis, as you call them, or Ansar al-Law, when your government was supporting the Israeli regime in its genocide, they shut the trade of hormones. to help the Palestinian people. And the United States waged war against them.

But they wouldn't back down because they were saying no to genocide. The Iranians, the Houthis, as you call them, or Ansar Allah, the Yemeni armed forces, the Yemeni government, Hezbollah, the axis of resistance. They say no to genocide, and that's why they're so evil. We're about to have the 25th anniversary of 9-11, one of the deadliest terror attacks in history. and, of course, an event that had enormous consequences for the rest of the world, and in particular, the Middle East. In the wake of the attack, the then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hameini,

denounce the attacks in a televised sermon. He said that mass murder of human beings is condemned. He explicitly condemned Al-Qaeda for carrying out atrocities in the name of Islam. Would you agree with what he said that day? Yes, and thank you for raising this. Do you know that a decade after 9-11, the former U.S. national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, back then he was working for the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He wrote in an email on February the 12th, 2012, to Hillary Clinton, his boss, that in Syria,

and this is, you can look this up, Wikileaks has published it. That's why they're in trouble. In Syria, Al-Qaeda is on our side. My question to you, Pierce, is that I've seen the documentaries, documentaries about 9-11. And I've read books and articles about 9-11. There are many questions about 9-11. and they're growing by the day. But my question is, how is it that a decade after 9-11,

the United States is working with al-Qaeda in Syria? And before Syria, they were working with them in Libya. This is the question I have. So when people tell me that 9-11 must have been carried out by elements within Western intelligence agencies and perhaps the Israeli intelligence agency using al-Qaeda, that email for me makes that argument sound plausible. I used to ignore.

You can't be serious. I know you said this before about Mossad maybe being involved. You can't seriously believe that the Israelis were in cahoots with Osama bin Laden to destroy the Twin Towers in New York. Yes, I think it is quite plausible. That's ridiculous. Did that point you lose that? Netanyahu immediately afterwards that this is good for Israel

and we saw the dancing people and the dancing Israelis. This is not what your supreme leader, your supreme leader made it crystal clear in his condemnation of al-Qaeda. Of course. This was a terrible thing to have happened and that al-Qaeda would have blamed. Al-Qaeda went to the White House

and got perfume. from your president, the president of the United States. Al Qaeda did not come to Iran and get perfume. Well, I thought you had American citizenship. No, I don't. But, okay. So the U.S. president, the current U.S. president, gave him perfume in the White House. So this is the guy who was one of the, a deputy to the head of ISIS.

And then he became the head of ISIS in or ISIS or ISIS or. back then it was the Islamic State of Iraq in Syria, both al-Qaeda, and then there was a split within al-Qaeda. So, and then we had ISIS, and he was the, he was the al-Qaeda boss in Syria. So these people, you're telling me that these people had nothing to have nothing to do with U.S. intelligence agencies. And how come within 10 years they were so close together that they were working together in Syria?

Al-Qaeda is on our side? I think the history shows that whether it's Nelson Mandela or whether it's Martin McGinnis and Jerry Adams in Northern Ireland, that there are people categorized as terrorists who later evolve into different people. And I think it's possible. This was 3,000 people in just one hour. There's a difference between power people being killed. I don't believe for a moment. that Mossad or the Israelis had any involvement in taking down the Twin Towers in New York.

And I think it's pretty offensive, actually. Particularly given that New York has the highest population of Jews outside of Tel Aviv, I think it's a ridiculous thing to say. But look, we'll agree to disagree on that. What does that have to do with Israel? Wait, wait, wait, Pierce. What did Judaism and Israel don't make them equal. You're basically attributing all the atrocities that are taking place.

And the Zionist regime, which does this to Palestinians, yes, I could easily envisage them doing it to people in New York, including to Jews. But when you say the Jewish population in New York, you are basically equating the Israeli regime and Musad with Jews. No, no, no. And what people like I are doing is saying, no. I'm saying, I'm saying the idea, I'm saying, no, I'm saying, no, I'm saying, no, I'm saying, no, I'm saying, I'm saying, no, I'm saying. It's like saying Muslims are... Hang on, hang on, don't misquote me. I'm saying that the idea that you're putting forward

that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, worked with al-Qaeda to commit the appalling terror attacks of 9-11, it is particularly reprehensible to put that forward as a narrative, knowing that there are over a million Jewish people living in New York. Why would Israeli... What does that have to do with anything? Why would Israeli intelligence... Because so many Jews also...

So many Jews died in the Twin Towers. The idea that the... Of course. So what you're saying is you're accusing the Israeli government of the time and Mossad of deliberately murdering many of many Jewish people in New York. Why would they do that? Well, first of all, if this is offensive, go and watch Tucker Carlson's documentary on 9-11.

and the questions that he raised are the very same questions that I have. It just doesn't make the true. It's because Tucker asked him. It doesn't mean they're true. I encourage you to watch the documentary. I watched it. And there is substantial,

there are major questions that need to be answered and the United States won't answer them. You know what? I couldn't disagree with you more. But Professor Miranda, it's always good that you come on uncensored and you take the questions and we have this debate. I think it's important, so I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Joining me is an esteemed a story in his new book is entitled The Cauldron, The Making of the Modern Middle East, and Simon Seabag Montefiorey joins me now, who I think you prefer to be called Seabagabag Montefi for the purpose of this interview. Sometimes. Let's call you that. I like all guests to be addressed how they choose.

The quadrant, the making of the modern Middle East. Since October the 7th, I've hosted myriad debates on here. of course. Often extremely lively, volatile, sometimes outright shouting matches, between quite intransigent groups of people, both of whom make utterly compelling and passionate arguments why they're the real victims in this never-ending conflict. At the heart of your book, what is the argument you make?

Well, first of all, it's a history book. It's a balanced history book. And the whole point about it is it steps back. from that sort of hyperbolic shouting match, which you've sometimes hosted on your show. I don't choose it. Sometimes it happens because people feel unbelievably passionate about these things. But that's partly because of the crazy era win of social media,

where everyone is kind of rage, click-baited into a frenzy. So the whole point about this book is it's a step back. And that's why it covers the last 125 years. It isn't just about the Israel, Palestine. It's also about Iran. It's about the creation of Turkey, for example. It's about the creation of Saudi Arabia. It's about it covers from Morocco to Iran, from Turkey,

down to Yemen and Sudan. And all of these things need to be discussed, too. But I would say that a bit of perspective can help us understand where we are with the creation of Israel and with the creation of the other big states. I mean, everyone's obsessed with Israel, of course. It's the issue of the moment. But you really need to go back, as I do in this, the book to the Ottoman Empire, how it worked, and also the creation of other states.

I mean, Saudi Arabia, my book opens with Saudi Arabia being conquered by Ibn Sao, King Abdullahis, who created Saudi Arabia in 1932. He storms Riyadh with 40 fighters, climbs over the wall, gets into the harim of the governor, and when the sun rises, he jumps out, fights the governor and found, by conquest over the next 30 years, a new kingdom. Turkey, too, is a country that's created in a very similar way to Israel, in fact. And I know you're a key to talk about Israel. But, you know, you can't...

This is all very relevant. You can't really understand this era and the era we're in today without looking back at how these states were created. Israel is, in fact, quite typical in the way that the states of this region were created. We're still seeing the four... from the end of the Ottoman Empire, the end of the Persian Empire too. And Iran is only comprehensible this.

Now, if you want to understand what President Erdogan is doing, for example, which is a pretty big question now, and where Israel is going to stand amongst the great powers of the region, you've got to go back to the beginning, and the creation of Turkey, which most people have forgotten about now. And that's one of the missions of the book. It's like all the 19 states of the Middle East. How are they created?

How do they get to? where they are today. You said on X, the cauldron is out now. It almost killed me to write it. It was both the most satisfying and most challenging book I've written, a work of love, but also a trial by fire. Just elaborate on that. Well, I mean, it's what we were saying.

I mean, this is a subject that is now the object of hyperbolic rage across the Western world and in the region. on the streets of our big cities, on our universities. But I have an almost passionate mission to try and explain in this region to people that often have very, very narrow viewpoints and narrow understanding of it. Why? Because partly because this is a great story

and people should know it. This book is written to be enjoyed as a great drama with giant titanic figures in it, nation builders, tyrants, terrorists, etc. But also, if you do look at the regions where there are vicious ethnic feuds, like, for example, the Turks and the Kurds, all the Israelis and the Palestinians most notoriously,

or the north and south of Sudan, the only way that you're ever going to get peace is a recognition of the story, the narrative, the tragedy, the sins of the other. And that is one of the missions of this book. And that's why it's a labour of love. Partly because I love the region. And I love the people, most of them.

And partly because, you know, Israel-Palestine, for example, that can only be solved when they both sides recognize each other's tragedy. And that has to go right back to the beginning. I remember a piece, Jonathan Friedland, the Guardian journalist. He was a Jewish man. And he wrote a very good column in which he said, you know, if I really worked hard at this from a dispassionate point of view,

I could write a very good argument for both the pro-Palestinian side and the pro-Israeli side about who really has the right claim to be the real victim here. And it was a really interesting thought-provoking piece because he wasn't coming at this from a completely blinkered view.

He was like, look, I get it. I get that this is very complicated. People feel very strongly about it. There are these competing claims to land. A lot of it is driven by ethnicity and religion and other things. It appears on the face of it to be intractable. Do you see hope? Yeah, I do see hope. And first of all, you know, it is all about victims and oppressors and so on. But actually, I don't take that approach in this book at all.

And nor should any of us, because it's a lot more complicated than that. And actually, I don't sort of favouritise any particular victim or favouritise any oppressors or colonialists or any state or any people. Everyone counts or no one counts. whether they are Sudanese or Ghazans or Palestinians, Kurds, Yazidis or whatever. But you're absolutely right that it does look intractable. The truth and matter is that all Tefniq feuds can be solved in the end. We're at a particularly tragic moment when everybody is at their most bruised

and everybody is traumatized now in both peoples, if you're talking about that particular conflict. And, you know, I don't think anyone's going to. going to be able to negotiate a settlement towards this in the next six months. But, A, it's essential that, you know, conversations start again properly. And B, there are plans. I mean, I am a great, you know, I tell the story of the Israelis in here, but I also tell that story of the Palestinians.

I'm a passionate believer in Palestinian self-determination, as I am in Israeli self-determination. You might think this is like, this is now a kind of dreamy kumbay-a-harm. approach. It isn't. It's the only way this is going to work. Both sides have to take hits. Both sides have to take, make sacrifices. Both sides have to agree to compromise. Does that look likely now looking at what's happening on both sides with Hamas, the dominant, most dynamic force on the Palestinian side, with the far right, the most dynamic force in Israel. It doesn't look likely now. But between 1985 and about 2010, more than 20 years, there was a majority on both sides. There was a majority on both

sides who believed in negotiation and sharing, there are always going to be large constituencies on both sides that want to drive out the other, if not liquidate them. And that's a reality of Middle Eastern ethnic feud feuds. But there only has to be a majority on both sides. It's happened before, it can happen again. And it is the only way this is going to work. But I think, you know, it's been interesting sitting here doing endless for years now since October the 7th about the journey I've gone on about this. And you know, I've discussed this, you know, privately, and I would be shared a cafe together. And, you know, I would categorize my journey as being, I thought what Hamas did in October

the 7th is one of the most despicable terror attacks in modern times. I thought Israel didn't just have a right to defend itself, but a duty to defend its people, not least because Hamas was saying publicly, we want to keep doing this. I then began to get real misgivings about the scale of what was coming back and the number of Palestinians that were being killed and what was happening to Gaza and express so. And that's a journey I think a lot of people have gone on. And I've become increasingly concerned by the rhetoric coming out of the Israeli government,

not least by Benghavir and Smodrich, who I genuinely think are borderline psychopaths like the people they're trying to take on with Hamas. And the real sadness at the heart of it, I feel, is for Jewish people around the world, of whom there are only 15, 16 million. You know, nearly 2 billion Muslims, 15 million Jews. I was trying to remind people the differential there. But the amount of opprobrium coming towards Jewish people, the amount of antisemitism, the rising anti-Semitism, the fear that so many Jewish people are living in. And of course, I understand a lot of it comes from genuine anti-Semites,

but I also think the actions of this Israeli government are making lives more difficult, not better, for Jewish people around the world. Am I wrong? I'm the biggest critic of this government in Israel. I think they're a disaster. They're the worst government they've ever had. I think various ministers on them are repulsive,

and they are a disaster for Israel. And many of the things they're doing are a disaster for Israel. for example, in the West Bank, for example, and the messianic kind of hilltop youth in the West Bank, that has to be stopped, not only because it's totally wrong, but because it's going to destroy Israel. Israel could dissolve into a sort of militiaized state,

like Lebanon. Yeah. But here's the thing. There are ways to criticize Israel. The way to criticize Israel is, like, I think that the Israeli government is a very bad thing. Let's hope another one comes. But meanwhile, let's denounce it as possible.

Let's stop it doing it. the bad things it wants to do. Here's the way not to criticize it, to say, well, I hate the government in Israel because it's part of a Jewish conspiracy of lunatic blood-sucking Jewish bankers who are acting in a weird conspiracy, who control everything,

who love to sort of kill people for no reason. All of this is totally unacceptable, is racism, it's bigotry, and it has now achieved a sort of momentum. And I agree with that, and it's fueled by social media, But I would also say simultaneously, there's been another disturbing thing, which is when people like me, you have a lot of Israeli and Jewish friends,

I have done for many times, been to Israel, when people like me do exactly what you said, which is criticise the government, as I criticise my own government over the Iraq War, for example, a lot of people immediately say, you're being anti-Semitic. In other words, they try and categorize legitimate criticism of the government's actions with anti-Semitism. I find that insidious, too. Yeah, but that is insidious.

And one of the mistakes of this government in Israel has to have been overused that claim. And claim every criticism of them is anti-Semitism. Well, in fact, some of it is actually justified criticism of their conduct. And that has been a disaster for Jewish people all over the world. But it doesn't in any way justify anti-Semitism and nor should it be used to justify anti-Semitism.

And, you know, I grew up in a world where I was very lucky, I grew up in Britain where Jewish people have been welcomed. And, you know, that is changing now. And, you know, Jewish communities all over the world are now increasingly frightened, even in America. And with good reason. And with good reason. And so, you know, people who discuss this a lot, you're one of those people, you know, need to be punctilious and meticulous in the words used. The words really matter.

And, you know, I would also apply that to the great sort of, you know, many of the big debaters in America who run podcasts and so on. They have now crossed a line. And, you know, what can't happen in a civilized society, in our open societies, which differentiate us from the horrible societies of China or Iran or Russia, is to have reigns of terror, little witch hunts, cultural purity tests. everything has to be discussed openly. Nothing must be taboo. And that is the key. And that is why I've written this book partly. In this book, you'll find how the Palestinians didn't get their state in 48

and how many of them lost their lands. How Israel did get their state. Why did one get a state and one didn't? Because they were both meant to get state. What really happened? And was that moment, talking of cauldrons, was that the fundamental failure? by the international community

to get that sorted from the start properly. In other words, if it had been sorted properly, we could have avoided decades of mayhem. Yes. I mean, the two things that are most important is Britain was then running out of its empire and what Winston Churchill called scuttling. And this book is filled with scuttles. There was a scuttle from Palestine,

the scuttle from India, Pakistan, the scuttle from Aidan. All of these ended in complete bloodbaths, which, many of which have forgotten. So in 47, 48, Britain handed this over to the UN, and they were particularly nervous about it because they'd just done another very similar scuttle, another partition, India-Pakistan, in 47,

in which 12 to 14 million people were killed, 12 to 14 million people were driven out of their homes, one to three million people killed. Just astounding numbers. So Britain panicked the Attlee government, and they gave the problem, to the new UN. And when the UN devised the petition plan

to give an Arab state and a Jewish state, they divided Palestine into seven unsustainable, undefensible segments and just did nothing to enforce it. And Britain just left. And so they just left them to fight it out. The two communities started to fight for more than six months. And then on May the 15th, 1948, the British just left, scuttled, out, ran out of them.

there and five Arab states invaded the new state of Israel, determined to drive the Jews out and into the sea. But in that war, 750,000 Palestinian Arabs either fled or were driven out of their homes. You know, the numbers of those two are laid out in the book. And out of it, the Israelis and the Jordanians managed to seize the most territory. All the Arabians, the Arabians, invading states hoped to get a bit of Palestine for themselves, which is why no Palestinian state was created. And the real victors of 1948 were, of course, Israel, which just had to survive, though it was nine miles wide and its narrows. Well, I remember interviewing Netanyahu in Jerusalem for CNN in 2011 or 12, whenever it was. And he did a very effective thing. I've talked about it a few times

when it was a big mat behind his desk in his office. And he said, watch this. And he put his hand on Iran and he put his hand on Saudi Arabia and he put his hand on Iraq. And he went around all the big states there and he said, now watch this. And he took his thumb and he put it on Israel right bang in the middle. He said, now do you see the problem?

And as a way of simplifying the whole thing, it was very effective because he got this tiny, tiny place of Israel surrounded by much, much larger Arab states. And yet it looms very large and that's why everyone thinks, you know, Israel's this kind of new sort of military superpower building an empire. No, the territory is tiny and that's one of the reasons why it is challenging, it would be challenging to have two states in that narrow territory. It really would be challenging. And I want to see a Palestinian state, but it has to, they, the two states

would have to recognize each other and allow each other to function. And you also have to have people on both sides leading who want a two state solution. Yeah. And one of the things we look at In the moment, neither side wants a two-state solution. No, because we're in a situation of terrible trauma. Do you see any parallels with Northern Ireland? Well, people always ask about Northern. British people always ask about all, especially with Army connections, like you. But actually, it's so different.

I mean, British people loved saying this. It's actually totally irrelevant. At its height, the Northern Ireland, the Irish, the Provisional IRA had 300 gunmen. Three hundred. Hamas alone had. 40,000 armed troops. Hezbollah has 50,000 troops and thousands of missiles. So the scale is bigger.

The actual dispute in terms of people thinking it's unsolvable. And then I remember in the... I was running the Daily Mirror in the late 90s, when finally you got leadership who really wanted to make it happen. That's the point. In the UK, you had John Major, then Tony Blair. In America, you had Bill Clinton,

you had Senator Mitchell and others. And there was a concerted will that whatever it took were going to do this. I mean, I think the parallel I would make was, you've got these warring, intractable sides killing each other for decades. And then ultimately, they both had to give. They both had to give up stuff.

You know, we had to stomach people on the political wing of the IRA suddenly being in government. And Sinn Féin is now the major power in Northern Ireland. In other words, these things can be done. Yes. But they need leadership that actually wants it to happen. And also, these movements need to be ready

to convert themselves into political movement and they need to understand that they'll be allowed to exist as political movements. And leadership is the thing. The leadership has been terrible. You know, part of what's happening, the nightmare that's happening at the moment in the conflict is because of appalling leadership on both sides. Hamas, of course, is just a genocidal terror organization. But this Israeli government is extreme and those ministers are just beyond the pale. And then you've got a sort of corrupt octogenarian running the Palestinian Authority. If you look back in history, and this book is filled with these people,

there are amazing people who risk their lives. You know, King Abdullah of Jordan was negotiating a very sensible plan where he would rule on behalf of the Arabs what are now that regarded as the West Bank. And he was negotiating with Israel. And Ben-Gurian, Israeli Prime Minister, was talking to him, a route straight through to Gaza where they would have a port. In later peace negotiations, Sadat, you know,

risked his life to do this. NASA was going to, you know, was going to negotiate. And Rabin lost his life. And, you know, I knew Chimon Peres very well. He was the sort of Israeli leader that we need. So, you know, on all these fronts, we need brave leadership. There's been terrible leadership. But on all sides, there are lots of decent people who could, lead this. And you're absolutely right. There just needs to be a point, which we may be getting

close to when everyone is so sick of the blood, sick of the killing, sick of the tragedy, sick of the intolerance. And in all these communities, there are huge constituencies of people that respect each other, that want to live together. They may not like the way Israel was created. They may not like the way the Palestinians have fought Israel. But actually now is the time to respect each other's histories and stories, and that is what this book, I'm hoping, does. Two quick points before we finish. One, how significant was the Iranian revolution in 79 in bringing us to where we've got to in the Middle East? One's got to realize that Iran is so important. It's a huge country, and it's one of the main sources, referring to your point at

the beginning. Of course, the Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the destabilizing aspects of this. But then so was the Cold War. And now so is Iran. And Iran, really, everything about Iran, you've got to go back to the beginning of the century. You've got to go back to the two Pallavi Shars. But you're absolutely right. 1979 is one of those dates, one of those revolutions, very like the 1789 French Revolution, 1776 in America, 1917 in Russia, that is a complete game changer.

And it's a game changer because not only does it bring Ayatollah Khomeini, extraordinary, ruthless revolutionary statesmen to power. But it also unleashes a battle within Islam, where the Iranian revolution is, of course, a Shia revolution, but it also unleashed a new anti-Western radicalism across the whole house of Islam, including the Sunnis. And that battle is still going on. One way to look at what's happening now

is a battle for the nature of Islam between a pro-Western open to ideas, open to technology, a school of Islam, and another school of Islam that is intolerant to the West, that is intolerant to its own people, and that doesn't care so much about the living standards and openness of its society, but is a radical resistance towards any Western influences, or towards openness within Islam itself. And that is one way of looking, if we step back, what's happening, happening right now?

You've been seen by some as a kind of direct counter to the so-called new historians, a very influential group of Israeli scholars who emerged in the late 80s, including our next guest, who are much more critical of Israel as a colonial regime that they say developed into a genocidal regime and so on. And in recent times they've been joined, and some would say surpassed, by growing tide of a very influential online opinion from the far left, far left, people like Norman Finkelstein, and isolationist right, Tucker Carlson and others, who argue that Israel is a cornerstone of all problems in the Middle East. And you sum it up in the book by saying, this is just a latest chapter in the West Strange, proprietaryal interest in the Holy Lamb. It started in the late first millennia after Christ and is still growing strong between 1914 and

the 2000s. The spirit worked in favour of a Jewish state. In the last 20 years, the same obsession is inverted against it. The emotive ideological campaign to replace the Judaic Republic with the state of Palestine is ostensibly secular, but often has the feel of a religious movement, even a crusade. Really interesting analysis of that. I guess my final question would be, we may have already answered it with the talk of leadership, but how does this get reconciled? Yeah, I mean, it can only get reconciled with leadership. By the way, those new Israeli historians, their work is all in the book. and is kind of encompassed in it. And you respect their own.

I respect a lot of their points. I don't respect narrow ideological analyses of these very complicated issues. But the key point is one, you know, you've touched on. You know, the West has this weird, fetishistic obsession with the Holy Land for all sorts of reasons to do with our Christianity. We think we're in a post-religious era.

In fact, look at the wording of the crime, the purity tests. the creedos, it's almost a religious movement. But the only way to solve this is realism. You know, the West has a great history, and this new anti-Zionist movement, as much as the pro-Zionist movement that came before it, is in contradiction to the reality.

If you look at what's happening, there's a power struggle now between lots of new powers in the Middle East. That's what we're seeing with Iran, Turkey, Pakistan is now moving on. we're seeing a convergence of all these different theatres. It's a fascinating moment in terms of geopolitics. And who will come out of it?

Israel is one player. It's interesting, for example, that all the major military powers now in the Arab world aren't Arab-speaking. You know, they're Persian speaking, Turkish speaking, Urdu speaking, Hebrew speaking. So, you know, these powers are now competing in a way that they never did before.

So we're in a new territory. In the West, we now have this. this swelling of this kind of semi-religious movement to demolish Israel and Israeli society. What we actually need is our governments to not to take advice from small cadres of furious, raging activists, but actually to be responsible and say,

there are Arab societies in this region, they're Iranian communities, there are Kurdish, this is a very complicated region. If you look at the Holy Land, we have an Israeli name, and an Israeli state that isn't going anywhere. It's a nuclear power. It's 10 million people.

At the same time, almost, with only slightly smaller numbers, we have a Palestinian nation. Some of them live in the West Bank. Some of them live under the Palestinian Authority. Some of them live in Israel, as citizens, with equal rights, and many of them are thriving in the Israeli society. And some of them are tragically living in the most desperate circumstances in Gaza.

And we've got to solve that problem. their lot has to be improved immediately. But ultimately, we need to realize that neither of these communities are going anywhere. And our leaders need to show a bit of leadership, too. And the leaders of the region need to. And that is what we must pray for. Maybe what they should do is read this book

and understand their history a little bit more clearly, and perhaps a little bit wider than they're currently allowing their brains to compute. That would be good. That would be good. Great to see you. Thank you very much for having me. Really good to talk.

I appreciate it. Well, Abyshleim is an emeritus professor of international relations at Oxford University, one of the world's leading historians on Israel. He has a rather different view about the country's founding. Welcome to you, Avi. Welcome to Uncensored. Thank you very much for inviting me. You were listening to my interview with Seabag Montefiore.

What's your reaction to what he said? One of the issues that you discussed was the relationship, between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. And I would like to emphasize much more strongly even than you did, though you made the point, that there are two completely different things. Anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews because there are Jews. Anti-Zionism is criticisms of the state of Israel,

and particularly Israeli policies towards are the Palestinians. But Israel and its friends have tried really hard to conflate the two in order to silence legitimate criticisms of the state of Israel. And there is the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, that's the International Holocaust Remembers Association. And it's a completely vacuous definition which the government adopted and has been imposing on local,

authorities and on universities. And it says, the definition says, anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, but it doesn't say what that perception is. But then there are 11 examples that illustrate anti-Semitism. And seven of the 11 examples relate to Israel. Israel has nothing to do with it. So to say the state of Israel is a racist,

project is anti-Semitic under the definition. And so I think it's very important to insist that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. Of course, it's possible for someone to be both anti-Semitic and anti-Zionists. But then you have to show evidence that his real motive is hatred of Jews. Yes.

And that's not true in most cases. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, I've been very critical of this current Israeli government, but no more critical than I was of my own UK government when they went to war in Iraq in 2003. That didn't make me anti-British, and I don't think any criticism I make of the current Israeli government makes me anti-Israeli or anti-Jew.

Why would it? You know, I don't feel that way. So I do resent it when people use that as a... They try and do it to shut you down. They want to stifle and censor criticism, legitimate criticism, of a state or government. And I really hate that. It's a very insidious thing. And the previous government, headed by Sir Kirs Tarmer,

pursued that line of almost blind support for Israel. And Kier Stahmer described himself as an unconditional Zionist. So his support for Israel was completely unconditional. It wasn't conditional as it should have been on Israeli observance of international law and Israeli respect for Palestinian human rights. And the last government went a very long way in banning Palestine action. Palestine action is a direct action group. It's nothing to do with terrorism.

And yet that government made Palestine action a terrorist organization, and anyone who supports Palestine action is now liable to 14 years in prison for supporting a terrorist organization. It's nothing of the sort. So there has been an attempt, concerted attempt by the government and by the judiciary to clamp down on free speech. on Israel and Palestine. Where did you disagree with Seabag Montefioree in the things he was saying?

About, he was quite right in saying to understand what's happening now, any aspect of the Middle East conflict, including Israel, Palestine, you have to understand the history. And I am a historian. Yes. And my book is called Genocide in Gaza, but it's a collection of essays, including historical, essays and I say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is made in Britain.

Britain is responsible for this conflict. Going back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when the Jews were 10% of the population, the Arabs were 90%, and yet the British government supported self-determination for the Jews and denied it to the Palestinians. The British mandate, the history of the British mandate in Palestine lasted from 1917 to 1948, but I can summarize it for your listeners in one sentence. Britain stole Palestine from the Palestinians and gave it to the Zionists. So I'm highly critical, much more critical than Simon of the British role in all this.

And I'll say something that may surprise you. The situation in Gaza, the genocide in Gaza is a direct result of the Balfour Declaration because of British support for the Zionist movement from the beginning. A Jewish American intellectual, Noam Chomsky said... Yeah, I went to him. He said, Settler Zionism is the most extreme and vicious form of imperialism. And the Palestinians have...

Zionism is a settler colonial movement and Israel is a settler colonial state. And the Palestinians, for the last century, have been at the receiving end of Zionist settler colonialism on the one hand and Western imperialism on the other hand. First under Britain and subsequently under America. And the logic of settler colonialism is the elimination of the natives, not compromise, not partition of the land.

It's the elimination of the natives in order to take over the land and its resources. Well, we're seeing this more and more on the West Bank, and I think it's disgraceful. You know, what we're seeing, criminal acts against the Palestinians on the West Bank by Israeli settlers, and no one seems to want to stop it.

Exactly. The international community has completely failed the Palestinians all along. And Gaza, the genocide in Gaza, is the climax of rank-to-wing, settler colonialism and on the West Bank in the shadow of the war in Gaza there's been an

huge intensification of settler violence and of ethnic cleansing this is what is going on but it's not just the violent settlers they operate with the support

and encouragement of the government and with the protection of these Israeli army. So it's not a lunatic group that is run wild. It's the Israeli government that is implementing a systematic policy of ethnic cleansing, both on the West Bank and in Gaza. Let me ask you, because I don't know the answer, how many Israelis living in Israel do you think support this and how many are against it? A tiny minority of Israeli. share my views. The Hamas led attack on Israel on the 7th of October, 2023, was a real turning point in the history

of this conflict. It was a horrific attack on civilians, and it was dramatic for the Israelis. So the Israeli response, Israeli society's response to this. trauma was now from now on anything we do is justified and anyone who criticizes us is an anti-semit So in the wake of the Hamas attack Israeli society has gone off the rails and they can't think rationally anymore Hence massive support something like 90%

support, public support for the war in Gaza. And initially, there was also support for the Israeli-American attack on Iran. So the war was popular, but Netanyahu wasn't because he never accepted responsibility for the failure of his policies that caused the Hamas attack. The Hamas attack didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened in the context. The context was 57 years of suffocating Israeli colonial rule and Israeli occupation. Would you still, notwithstanding that, would you still condemn what happened that day as a despicable act of terrorism?

I utterly condemn the Hamas attack on the 7th of October because it was directed against civilians. And killing civilians is wrong period. It's wrong when Hamas kills Israeli civilians, but it's equally wrong when the Israeli government kills Palestinian civilians. That is an act of state terrorism. And the Israeli response in Gaza hasn't been directed just at Hamas. It's been directed at Palestinian society as a whole, therefore I condemn it. Israel has been committing many crimes in Gaza.

Domicide, which is a destruction of homes. The Israel has destroyed 82% of the housing in Gaza. Medicide, the destruction of the health system. Systematic destruction of the health system in Gaza. Scholasticide, the destruction of the educational system. Israel has bombed, damage or destroyed 512 schools and all 12 universities. But worst of all is genocide, an attempt to destroy the whole of Palestinian society in Gaza. Of course, the pro-Israeli side say it's not genocide.

If we wanted to commit genocide, we'd just drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza, and that would be the end of it. What do you, and they say that the death toll is no worse than what the British did to the German civilians in World War II in Dresden and so on. What do you say to that argument? That it's totally baseless this argument. There is a charge of genocide against Israel.

The international court, of justice in the Hague is still considering it may take them years to reach a final decision. But in the meantime, they have issued orders for preventive measures to Israel. They said there is a risk of genocide in Gaza. They gave Israel orders to stop the rhetoric of genocide and the the actions of genocide, Israel hasn't taken a blind bit of notice. Then there is the convention, the 1948 convention for the prevention and punishment of genocide. And remember, 1948, the reason for that convention is to prevent what happened to the Jews under Nazi Germany

from happening to anyone again. And that definition. is genocide is the intent to destroy in whole or in part a religious, ethnic or national group. And this is what Israel is doing in Gaza. And the British government has a legal beauty under the Convention to stop all arms sales and support for Israel. The Convention doesn't say member states can wait and see and then see, then wring their hands and say, oh, what a pity genocide happened. The British government and all other member states have a legal duty to stop, to prevent genocide, and that means stopping all arms sales to Israel and all defense support for Israel.

And under another international court of justice decision, not about genocide, but about the legal status of the occupation. It's the most comprehensive condemnation of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in Gaza, and it says the occupation must end, and Britain and all other member states have a duty to stop supporting the occupation. And I would say the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is the most prolonged and brutal military occupation of modern times. I just want to ask you finally about Iran. This war's been raging now for over six, seven months. You wrote an article for Al Jazeera called Netanyahu's poodle,

arguing that President Trump had been duped by the Prime Minister of Israel into going along with this war. Do you still feel that? And what do you feel will be the consequences now of this war, given it clearly hasn't gone the way that Netanyahu told Trump it was going? going to go? I absolutely stand by what I wrote. Netanyahu is obsessed with Iran, and for the last 30 years, he has been advocating a joint American-Israeli strike against Iran. No American president, until Trump, was stupid enough to go along with his mad skin. But Netanyahu persuaded Trump in his

first term to go back on the Obama nuclear deal, 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which was a very good deal which protected Israeli security. But Netanyahupt prevailed on Trump in his first term to not just withdraw from their deal, but to go all out to destroy it. And he succeeded. And now in his second term, Netanyahu persuaded Trump to attack Iran, and he gave him false information. He said to him, the Iranian regime is on its last legs. One knock, and it would collapse like a house of cars, and you'll be the victor in this war. And we have seen what happened. as John Meersheimer said to you, the war on Iran is the biggest strategic blunder in American history.

I couldn't put it better myself. It's been a terrible blunder for America and for the rest of the world. It's been done immense damage to America, and Trump is in a hole that he dug for him. He doesn't know how to get out of it. So he's issued six military ultimata to the Iranians and none of them worked and now he's issued a seventh ultimaton which is economic to destroy the Iranian economy and this isn't going to work. And Netanyahu is the one who manipulated Trump into this war which has backfired disastrously. And one of the consequences for America is that Iran attacked American bases in the

Gulf and in Jordan and attacked American Gulf infrastructure. So the Gulf states are now asking themselves, what's the point of having America as an ally with friends like that, who needs enemy. So this is undermining the whole structure of the alliance structure for America in the region. And also, Trump didn't realize his aim was regime change. This hasn't happened. The new leadership is much more hard-line, hard-core. than the previous leadership. And the previous leadership was cautious, and they didn't close the Straits of Tehran,

the Strait of Hormuz, whereas this group have closed the Strait of Hormuz with far-reaching consequences for the international economy, and it's Trump and Netanyahu who are responsible for giving them this weapon which they are using and continue to use with very far reaching consequences

for the world economy and for standards of living, the cost of living in America and everywhere else. So it's been a disastrous war. The architect of this war is Netanyahu, and Netanyahu is a genocidal psychopath and his aim was to destroy Iran and the axis of resistance, which includes the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza.

That was the aim, but it hasn't succeeded. This war hasn't achieved any of its aims. It hasn't stopped the Iranian capability of uranium enrichment, It hasn't disrupted the Iranian program of long-range ballistic missiles, and it hasn't stopped American support for its allies. So a comprehensive disaster brought about by Netanyahu and his manipulation of his poodle of, of Trump. Avishlame,

thank you very much indeed for coming in. I've really enjoyed our conversation. I appreciate it. Thank you for inviting me. Pierce Morgan Unsensit is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Pierce Morgan Unsensate on Spotify and Apple Podcast.

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