Pod Save the World - Blockbuster Senate report on Russian election interference

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

Foreign policy analyst and author Rula Jebreal joins to discuss the US-Israel-UAE diplomatic agreement announced last week. Tommy and Ben talk about the major Senate intelligence committee’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, the latest in Belarus, why thousands are protesting in Thailand, a US diplomatic humiliation at the UN, reports that Iran was also paying the Taliban bounties to kill US troops, and updates out of Lebanon, Portugal and Spain.

Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben, Ben, a lot going on this week. We just wrapped up a fantastic interview with our guest today. Rula Gibriel. She is a foreign policy analyst, an author. You've probably seen her on TV. And it was really great to talk with her about this agreement that was announced last week between the U.S. Israel and the United Arab Emirates because I think there's a lot more to be discussed than what's been covered so far. We're going to cover a lot today. So there's this massive Senate Intelligence Committee report that just dropped about Russian interference in the 2016 election that we've been combing through. We've got some updates on the election in Belarus, protests in Thailand, a diplomatic humiliation for the U.S.

at the U.N. Check in on Lebanon, Portugal, Spain, and cover some reports that Iran was also paying the Taliban bounties to kill U.S. troops, very troubling stuff. And then, Ben, I want to ask you about why officials were talking shit about Matthew Pottinger, the Deputy National Security advisor. So that's a fun one. Also, Ben, just curious for you, why do you think you have not just rented, but like established residency in the heads of a lot of like very senior officials in the Republican party? One of them, the National Security Advisor literally mentioned you on a Sunday show. It misstated your views on the Israel-UA-E deal, by the way. Yeah, I mean, Tommy, as you say, the one thing I'm grateful to these guys for is that they have charged me no rent to be in their head like this.

But, I mean, look, the thing I've learned over the years is I've been kind of a boogeyman to this constellation of people and in the Emirates and in Israel and in right-wing Republican politics is that they don't like to have actual debates on the merits. They don't want to debate their Iran policy versus ours. They don't want to have to explain how this agreement somehow moves us closer to peace with the Palestinians because it doesn't. So they call your names and they say, you're an Iranian-Ni-9-Ey-9-Ey, whole. Like, that's kind of the response to everyone. It's just childish and it's reflexes of people who frankly don't know what they're doing and or they do know what they're doing, but they can't defend it. And so they just call you, call your names. I would also say it's a reminder that

this administration is full of small people in big jobs. And if you're the national security advisor and you're attacking a guy who would have worked for you four years ago, you look like a petty asshole who is unwilling to actually have a conversation about really big important stuff. So whatever, O'Brien. Yeah. And, you know, the only other thing I'd say about this is it like, you know what? Like sometimes people are like, well, you know, give Trump credit when the same people who are doing crackdowns in Portland, like the same authoritarian's did this. So you have to question their motives.

Absolutely. And if the best thing you muster is to go on a Sunday show and call anyone who like raises questions about what they did, the ITOLs, well, that's a bit of a tell also. Yeah, yeah. We'll examine this deal in much more detail. But everyone just maybe trust but verify. Reagan once said that maybe, whatever. Anyway, real quick, if you guys want to hear us talk about not just foreign policy but also politics, the Democratic National Convention is happening right now.

Go to crooked.com slash convention. If you want to join us each night starting at 9 Eastern, we're doing our fun group, that thing. Lots of hosts from Crooked, talking about the speeches, cracking jokes, trying to stay sane through all these hours of programming. So check it out. Ben, let's get to this Senate Intelligence Committee report. This just got dropped on us today. It's the Intel Committee's fifth and final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. And it's a big one. It's a thousand pages. It was bipartisan. Remember, the Senate Intelligence Committee is led by Republicans, so they had to work together on most of this. And it was focused on counterintelligence threats and vulnerabilities. So here are some conclusions that jumped out to me like early on. One, Putin ordered the hacking effort. It was extensive. it was designed to help Trump, hurt Clinton, and generally undermine the U.S. democratic process. We've known this for a while. This is new. The report describes Paul Manafort's employee of many years, Constantine Kalimnik, as a Russian intelligence officer. That is far more definitive than the

previous descriptions of him as having ties to Russian intelligence. And remember, this is a guy with a longstanding relationship with Paul Manafort. It describes Kalimnik as an integral part of Manafort's operations in Ukraine and Russia. Remember that Manaforts, gave Kalimnik the Trump campaign's internal polling data, which is not normal, talked to him about strategy. The report suggests that Klamnik might be tied to the Russian military intelligence or the GRU, their specific hacking efforts in this case. He's talk about how Kulimnik later spread the idea that actually Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election and not Russia, so he was trying to cover up the crime. A couple of the things, they found that WikiLeaks sought to join

this Russian effort and likely knew exactly who they were helping. Here's a tantalizing detail, Ben. On the day of the infamous Access Hollywood tape that came out, Roger Stone got a tip. It was coming. He called a right-wing lunatic who you're probably familiar with named Jerome Corsey. Jerome Corsee had a relationship with WikiLeaks. In that call, Stone told Corsi to have WikiLeaks release the Podesta emails that day. They broke, WikiLeaks broke them 30 minutes after the Access Hollywood tape broke. It seems very likely that that decision was coordinated directly with Trump or with his direct knowledge because they talked that day, Stone and Trump. They also found that the Russian participants in the Trump Tower meeting had much more extensive and disconcerting context with the Russian government than previously known.

It also criticizes the FBI for giving too much credence to the Steele dossier and not really adjusting their approach when parts of it began to unravel a little bit. And then finally, like it says that Russian officials, Intel services, others working with the Kremlin, were able to exploit Trump's inexperienced transition team. So that's sort of after the fact. So, Ben, this report is, it's timely and it's infuriating, right? Like, timely because Russia is trying to do this again. Hopefully this wakes people up. We take it more seriously. But mostly, I'm just so pissed because, like, clearly there was collusion, coordination

between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, aka Russian intelligence. It seems very likely Trump knew about it. But all the key witnesses, Stonewold, somewhere later pardoned, Mueller failed to push hard enough for an in-person interview with Trump. Barr was later able to spike the thing. So here we are. Like, this is collusion dead to rights in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee document, but seemingly the world is just moved on from this story. Yeah, I mean, what this tells you, right, is the absolute worst case scenario of what you could have possibly imagined happened the day after our election in 2016 with respect to Russia and Trump happened.

because let's just step back. Russian intelligence was coordinating with the campaign manager for Donald Trump and a range of other associates around Donald Trump to help him get elected. And the specificity of that coordination wasn't just like the kind of thematic creation of social media content. It literally dealt with things like the fact that the WikiLeaks dump happened right after the Access Hollywood tape, the existential threat to Trump's campaign to create a diversion. Like, that's a degree of coordination that, I mean, we used to debate collusion. Like, we are now at a much more specific level here.

And so the story is clear. Like Russia wanted Trump to win. Trump wanted to accept Russia's help. People around Trump, including his highest aides on his campaign, set up connections with Russian intelligence, and they ran the play, and it worked. And I don't, you know, there's nothing more to it. It's an open and shut case. It's a layup, you know?

And I think what's so infuriating is that... George Senate might say it's a slam dunk, Ben. But anyway, continue. Yeah, I mean, exactly. It's beyond a layup. And I mean, what's so infuriating is that we somehow allowed this whole thing to be so sidetracked for so many years with all these bullshit off-ramps and Donald Trump yelling about text messages between FBI agents who were having a failure or something

or, you know, attacking Mueller and Mueller. being silent. I mean, it just shows you like how much the, the, the democratic accountability in our system failed on this issue. And sure, it succeeded in getting this report out, but I almost had a question when reading this report of, like, why are they just telling us this now? Like, how long have they known all these things? I mean, imagine how things would have been differently if these revelations were consistently put forward, so that Trump couldn't just gaslight the whole thing. Yeah, and like Richard Burr, Republican from North Carolina, best known these days for dumping a bunch of stock after he got a

coronavirus briefing, led most of the work on this. He stepped down from the committee. Marco Rubio took over. Rubio, the loser that he is, is out there spinning this as being about a win for Trump because of the steel dossier. So it just, it shows you how unsurious the Republican Party is. And I think, frankly, that's why we're here. That's why we're here. Yeah, no. And we're here on the doorstep of another election where you have to assume the Russians are doing the same thing. And we've taken no steps to protect ourselves. I think what it shows is, look, you know, pretty amazing, Tommy, they were sitting here having learned this level of detail about how the last president of the United States was elected in coordination with a Russian intelligence operation. And it's like the fourth

biggest story after, you know, the pandemic and the economy crashing, everything else. And that, that is what it is. But I think it demonstrates the need to come back at this from a view of accountability after we get rid of Trump. You know, that we can't. not let this thing, just because people are tired of hearing about it, just because you think, you know, maybe they talked about it too much in MSNBC and Twitter and all the rest of it, doesn't mean that there shouldn't be consequences for the fact that this happened. And, you know, and look, the fact that Roger Stone is right in the middle of this, and he was pardoned by Donald Trump, talk about, you know, somebody trying to engage in a cup rep. I mean, that's literally an act of

obstructive justice. So I think this adds fuel to the necessity of there being some capacity commission or otherwise to look back at all this if Donald Trump is defeated. Yeah, we either deal with this or it's going to happen again. Exactly. Let's talk about another election that Vladimir Putin is trying to control this time in Belarus. So, you know, Ben, it's pretty amazing. The people of Belarus are just refusing to go quietly as President Alexander Lukashenko tries to steal this election.

We've talked about this the last couple of weeks. Lukashenko has led Belarus for 26 years. He's often called Europe's last dictator. This year, he faced a strong challenge from an opposition candidate named Svetka. Lana Tikunovskaya. Lukashenko has a long history of rigging elections. But this year, you know, observers were saying, like the popular support was not behind him, not that it ever is. So when Lukashenko announced that he'd won the August 9th election with 80% of the vote, people took to the streets and they just haven't left yet. So on Sunday, there was a rally.

It was called the largest in the country's history. Thousands have been arrested, many of whom said they were tortured. On Monday, Lukashenko visited a tractor plant. And according to the BBC this was a quote from him. We held the election until you kill me. There will be no other election. Great. Those workers booed him and they chanted, go away, go away, which is pretty amazing

that they were shouting this guy down. But, you know, Lucas Higo might also not want to give him any ideas because they seem pretty bold. He sort of offered to hold a referendum on changes of the Constitution. I think everyone knows that's just a stalling tactic. So these protests are still growing. Workers are striking at state-run factories. Hundreds of state TV staff have walked off the job or resigned.

Ticketoskaya says she's ready to step in and prepare new elections. Ben, looming large in all of this is, you know, the Belarus's shared border and weird partnership with Russia. There's a lot of speculation, including on Russian State TV, about whether Russia might send in troops, though some analysts I read pointed out that it would probably be counterproductive because the opposition in Belarus is anti-Lukashenko, not anti-Russia. So something to consider. Our former colleague Mike McFaul wrote a piece the other day about what the U.S. and Europe should be doing. He's a former ambassador to Russia and mostly a democracy expert. So Mike argued that the U.S. and Europe should coordinate sanctions on Lukashenko and his government, call for the release of political prisoners and threaten even greater sanctions if that doesn't happen.

He suggests Pompeo offered to mediate and negotiate a transition and that the U.S. and Europe should warn Putin publicly and privately not to intervene or else to help face tougher sanctions. Ben, what do you make McFaul's ideas? And like, how worried would you be if you were Lukashenko right now? Well, I think if Lucas Schenger should be worried, and this is the reality of authoritarianism and totalitarianism, which is that these leaders seem inevitably entrenched until one day they just aren't. When the fear factor is broken, these are not just protests, people are not going to work, people at state television are not going to work. The whole country is just fed up and they're decided to no longer be afraid. And things can change very fast in autocratic systems like that. We saw that happen with the collapse of a lot of the Soviet-backed governments in Eastern Europe, obviously, in the 80s and early 90s.

And Putin knows that, right? I mean, that's what he's afraid of happening in Russia. This is a little different than Ukraine for a couple of reasons. Ukraine, part of what was an issue in Ukraine, part of what people were protesting about, is they wanted to take steps to draw closer to the EU. Right. Belarus is not doing that. Yeah.

These people just want Lukashenko gone. There is no agreement for them to potentially join the EU. So there may be less incentive for Putin to stick himself in the middle of this and to frankly risk a backlash coming to him like what came to Lukashenko by rolling tanks in. On the other hand, he's done it before in both Georgia and Ukraine. So you have to take the threat seriously. But again, it's not an obvious choice for Putin to do this. one of the things he's already seen is that in some of the protests in Russia that have been taking

place, there have been people holding the flags of the Belarusian opposition. So there's a risk for this thing to go contagious into Russia as well. And so Putin may actually have an interest in just seeing some transition in Belarus to at least calm things down. I think in terms of the U.S., yeah, I mean, absolutely, I think we should be united with the Europeans and opposing sanctions on Lukashenko, on essentially, you know, declaring that we, We don't see Lukashenko as having legitimately won this election and that we're on the side of the people in the streets. But again, we're not going to be the ones to shape this outcome.

It should be the people of Belarus who shape the outcome. But we should make it unequivocally clear that we're on their side and that we see Lukashenko as someone who's not legitimately won his election. Yeah. I bet Putin is watching closely. Some protests have been happening in Eastern Russia where I think he removed a popular governor and people are pissed about it. By the way, one way to, I think, get a better understanding of what's happening in Belarus,

and a lot of places, Ben, is to listen to your new podcast, Missing America. Today's episode is about the rise of nationalism. It is one of my favorite episodes. There's tons of David Lammy. Tell us more. Well, no, it's, you know, it is directly tied to this because essentially we look at, okay, over the last decade, why has there been this rise in nationalism globally? But we look at it, particularly the prism of Europe, you know, Brexit, and Victor Orban and Hungary,

and the Law and Justice Party in Poland. And what David walks us through is how right-wing leaders took advantage, I think, of this kind of crisis of people having a lack of a sense that government was working, a sense that the institutions of globalization and democracy had failed after the 2008 financial crisis. And just kind of a yearning in this 21st century world win for belonging, that the right wing took advantage of,

that all these nationals came along, and they offered the oldest form of belonging there is. You know, you're on this team, and it's us versus, It's us versus immigrants. It's us versus Muslims. It's us versus George George Or so what have you. And then we hear from some remarkable activists from Poland and from Hungary and from Switzerland of all places where they successfully be back right-wing nationalism about the lessons that worked for them. And it is directly tied to Belarus because, yeah, Lukashenko's more entrenched, but he's running the same playbook, essentially, which is nationalism on top of authoritarianism.

And the people in the streets, they're running the same playbook that these actually. activists talk about, which is just mobilization and focusing on local issues that have make a difference in people's lives and not succumbing to apathy. You know, we're seeing a plan in Belarus. I really think we're potentially at a hinge point here where time is running out for these nationalists and autocrats. But, you know, it's up to all of us to make sure, starting in our election here, that there's something else that can take their place. Yeah. Well, listen, everyone should check out Missing America. Subscribe today. It's one of my favorite episodes that's out today. So you will love it. Yeah, I love this episode. This is probably, yeah,

this is definitely my one or two favorite episodes. Okay. Ben, let's turn to Thailand, because that's also on the list of countries where protesters have taken to the streets. So according to the BBC, police in Bangkok say 10,000 people were part of an anti-government rally on Sunday in Thailand that lasted eight hours and has been called the biggest protest in the country in six years. Their demands include one, the prime minister's resignation to a new constitution. three new parliament, and then for the government to stop harassing dissenters, basically. The South China Morning Post detailed how protesters are using, like you said earlier, the Hong Kong protest playbook.

And they're doing this cool thing where they're throwing up the three-finger salute from the hunger games to symbolize the reforms they want. So like they're taking this modern. They're also calling for reforms to Thailand's monarchy. And so here is why that is so risky. In Thailand, criticizing the royal family will get you thrown in jail. And we're not talking about like a knight in the slamer. We're talking about three to 15 years per charge.

It's called the Les Meges de la. I think I said that right. It's been in place for 100 years. The Thai constitution says, the king shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. No person shall expose the king to any sort of accusation or action. I don't know that that would go for well for our friends in the UK then. So the thing that's so pernicious about this is anyone can accuse anyone else

of insulting the monarchy, and the police have to investigate the allegation. So you can get tossed in some long pre-trial detention for nothing, not that it's acceptable to arrest you for doing something, but it's just easy to be abused. So the current prime minister came to power in a military coup in 2014. Since then, the number of these cases has more than doubled, even for online offenses, like liking a Facebook post deemed offensive to the monarchy. One guy was threatened with 37 years in prison for insulting the king's dog, which seems crazy. So protesters basically want the monarchy to be accountable to the elected government and the constitution. Thailand's economy is also struggling mightily.

They dealt with the coronavirus well, but their tourism business just dropped to zero because of the disease. They also, you know, they're also angry about the dissolution of a pro-democracy political party in February. They believe the government may be responsible for a pro-democracy activist going missing in Cambodia. So that's pretty dark. Ben, you know, given the stakes involved with these crazy laws in Thailand, it's already pretty remarkable to see these protesters out in the streets in the open like this. But, you know, we also know that Thai security forces have crushed protests in 1973, 76, 1992, 2010. What do you remember from this coup in 2014? You were in the white house at the time. You've like

spent a ton of time in the region. And do you have hope for these protest movements? So like I hate to ask you to predict, but it's remarkable. So, yeah, I'll do a little bit of background here. So Thai politics kind of got polarized because there was this populist guy, Thaksin, who got elected prime minister, who was, even though he's a really rich guy, had very broad support kind of in the countryside and outside of the traditional elite. And that's not familiar. Yeah, exactly.

And the military hated him and kind of the established powers and the BNB Bangkok hated him. And, you know, he was taken out in a coup. his sister got elected. And so in 2014, his sister was Prime Minister, Yingluck. And, you know, they deposed her in a coup. And so it kind of polarized things. Now, throughout history, there have been coups in Thailand that usually lead to some return to democracy elections. That didn't really happen this time. The military took power and they basically kept it. So the first major element to keep in mind here is that you had a military coup that, It was never followed up by some return to democracy or some negotiation with the opposition.

The people who took power just held it. The second thing that happened is the monarchy. So Thailand had this revered king for decades, a symbol of national unity. The kind of one thing that brought the Thai people together was their affinity for their king. His son was always seen as kind of this dilettante. I mean, this guy, you mentioned the dog, he made his dog a current. and the Thai armed forces. You know, he lived most of the time in Europe.

You know, he was kind of doing the life of a jet set globally. And so he does not have the same attachment to the people. And the king died a couple years ago. And so now you've got a situation where the rural family is no longer the unifying symbol it used to be. And the military is not giving up power. And that's a pretty unstable mix, right? Yeah.

So I think what we're seeing is the backlash to that. Like, wait a second here. You know, the justification that the military-backed government uses is kind of their, the world Thai government. But we don't have any sense that there's democratic legitimacy for this government. And we don't have the same feelings towards this guy that we did towards his father. And so I do think that there's long odds for these protesters in the immediate term, that there's likely to be, you know, a pretty brutal response from Thai security forces.

But I think it's an indication that this is not going to go away in Thailand, that unless there's some process to try to return towards democracy, that this is going to become a pressure cooker. And there's enough experience in Thai history of democracy that people aren't going to want to put up with that. And the Hong Kong piece is really interesting because one of the things I learned that you'll also hear about missing America is that across Southeast Asia,

democracy activists are teaching Hong Kong tactics. And so we may see mass mobilizations in other parts of Southeast Asia as well. Okay, Ben, this is a first iteration of a new segment that I was hoping to call, this could be us, but you trumpin? We can workshop that a little bit. It's about leaders around the world doing cool shit that makes me super jealous of them.

Today's example is the president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebello de Sousa. So he has been traveling around Portugal to promote tourism. On Saturday, he took the job so seriously that he swam out into the ocean to help rescue two kayakers who had capsized, got caught in a current,

and were struggling to flip the kiosk, kayak back over and get to shore. He's a hero, Ben. This could be us, but we got Trump who, I don't, I bet he can't swim. I don't see him as a big swimmer. Does anybody think that Trump would run into the issue to save anybody? I mean, I'm actually surprised Tommy that Jacinda Ardurn hasn't already done this. Me too. You know, I expected, you know, I expected the second would be that she single-handedly ran into a burning building and saved everybody in the building, given how she's handled things. But, you know, props to this guy. I mean, that's the kind of leadership that is sorely lacking here in the United States.

Some good do-it-yourself leadership. Justinda Ardern, they should have to push their election a month, I think, because they had a bit of a flare-up of the coronavirus. So a third of the country is now in lockdown. Trump tried to suggest that that shows that all the praise that she and others were getting was undue, but it was like nine cases a day. Nine cases. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, yeah. Okay, let's talk with the UN for a minute. We'll see if that last segment sticks around. So there was some news out of the UN on Friday that was embarrassing for the Trump administration, frankly. So the U.S. tried to pass a resolution at the UN Security Council that would have extended a global ban on selling conventional arms to Iran. This was part of the original Iran nuclear deal or the JCPOA. The details of this thing matter a lot less than the fact that it failed miserably. The U.S. got one vote from the Dominican Republic. Russia and China voted against it, 11 countries

out of the other 15 abstained, including the U.K., France, and Germany. It just shows that we're bad at diplomacy, and it shows that apparently the State Department, the U.N., they're okay with looking totally isolated in the world when it comes to Iran policy, basically. But, Ben, the big question is what happens next, right? We've talked about this on the show. Pompeo has threatened to use something called snapback provisions that would return all UN sanctions on Iran that existed before the Iran deal.

Iran and everybody else argue that, hey, you guys withdrew from the JCPOA, like you're not part of the deal. You can't do this to us. So, you know, that seems like a spirited debate. Our allies also worry that if we proceed with this, you could have half the world, like recognizing the deal, half the world not. Some of them sanctioning Iran, some not. Iran could fully abandon their limits on their nuclear activities.

Ben, can you remind us what these snapback provisions are and why people are so worried about this potential move? I mean, even John Bolton thinks this is a bad idea. Yeah, so it's, it is complicated. But the short answer, essentially, is that we negotiated is one of the reasons why it was a pretty good deal. That essentially, and I won't go through the intricacies of how this happened, but any one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council could pursue a snapback of multilateral sanctions if Iran violated the terms of the JCPOA.

That, however, is essentially something that was supposed to be available to countries, in the nuclear agreement. So the bottom line to this whole thing is, the Trump administration left the JCPOA. They abandoned it, they tore it up, they walked out on it. And they are now, years after they did that, seeking to use something embedded in the JCPOA

to reimpose a set of sanctions on Iran. And the rest of the world is saying, wait a second, you can't leave the JCPOA and be the ones you've burned it down and then say that you get to make use of some of the provisions in it, which is a pretty logical position. Pompeo is actually arguing. I mean, it's insane.

And even John Bolton acknowledges this. He's actually essentially arguing that the U.S. is still a party to the JCPOA. So it can do this. The headline of the press release that they put out when they pulled out of the JCPO is the United States withdrawals from the JCPOA. So this is complete the same dishonesty, the same maddening kind of hypocrisy they apply to everything. It's also not a binding contract. It's a political agreement.

Well, yeah, yeah, and the rest of the world is not with this program. And so it's chaos. And basically either Trump will get reelected and there'll be more complete chaos around Iran policy, more, you know, we're going to walk up to the break of war and the Iranans are moving forward their nuclear program or they'll lose the election and there'll be some return to sanity here. I mean, that's the bottom line. I will say, Tommy, there's one other subplot here, which is that the, I noticed the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., who I'd never, you know, has anybody ever thought of this?

person, I'd actually forgotten that she was there. And this is someone who stands on the shoulders of Susan Rice and Samantha Power and Adelae Stevenson. I mean, it just shows you how far we've fallen that these Trump flunkies are in all these jobs doing this crazy stuff. Yeah, I know. Also, you know, I mentioned this before in the show. I've been reading this great new book by Robert Draper about how the Iraq war came to be, was sold, the intelligence case, the arguments that were made. And it's taking me back to that period of time in 2002 when, you know, it felt like a fate accompli in the U.S. but we were actually so unbelievably isolated from almost everybody else when it came to this decision. It was like the U.S. and the U.K. were walking this playing together. The French were

hard against. The Germans were against. Like it feels like this is happening again when it comes to Iran policy. And that wasn't the case like four years ago. Yeah. I mean, you know, again, And it shows that like you either take diplomacy seriously and, you know, the world responds to your leadership or the world just checks you out, which is what's happened now. Yeah. Let's check back in real quick on Lebanon because things are getting worse, sadly. So we talked about this massive explosion that Rocked Bay route earlier this month. I saw some subsequent reporting, Ben, from Reuters where they talked to experts who estimated that the explosion was the equivalent of two to three. 300 tons of TNT. So that's how big this thing was. Killed hundreds, wounded thousands more,

left hundreds of thousands homeless. Now according to the Associated Press, coronavirus cases are spiking to record highs. This comes after, you know, the explosion made three hospitals in Beirut unusable. So it's just an unbelievably awful situation for the people there that struggling to feed their families. There's massive political instability. So I just wanted to mention this so people were aware and say again, like if you want to help out, check with the Lebanese Red Cross, they're doing heroic work. Those who Liz Sly, the Washington Post-Berut Bureau Chief recommended supporting. Yeah, and the only I'd add to this time is,

he's like part of what's happened is tens and tens of thousands of people have become homeless. And a lot of residences, apartments, houses have been destroyed. That's terrible news. The slight sliver of hope there is that if there is international systems, it can be put into reconstruction of homes and apartments, that might simultaneously create some jobs, create some work while putting people back in their homes. So hopefully there can be a well-funded, internationally supported, relatively straightforward rebuilding effort that both get some people to work and get some people back in their homes.

Yeah, agreed. Well put. So this report caught my eye. On Monday, CNN reported that U.S. intelligence believes that Iran has also been offering bounties to Taliban fighters if they target American or coalition troops in Afghanistan. The report said they found payments linked, the U.S. intelligence community found payments linked to six attacks in the last year alone. This is, again, separate from the bounties reportedly paid by Russia. In January, we all remember Trump ordered a drone strike on Qasem Soleimani, the top Iranian general because the administration claimed at the time he was planning imminent attacks on U.S. service members. The evidence for this imminent threat was thin and vague and they basically walked it back when they had to report up to Congress.

But even that conversation was focused on threats to U.S. personnel in Iraq, not in Afghanistan. So this report kind of caught me off guard. The CNN report makes it sound like no specific action was taken by the White House in response to these Iranian bounties because they were worried about screwing up the ongoing peace talks with the Taliban. Ben, the article specifically points to a major attack last December on Bagram Air Base by members of the Haqani Network as being one that was funded by Iran.

I wondered if you could just like tell people who the Haqani Network is real quick. And like, does this report surprise you? I mean, I feel like we've long heard about Iran providing certain types of weapons in Iraq or other places. I don't recall such specific reporting about Iran in Afghanistan. The bounty program seems pretty aggressive. But, I mean, maybe this is just fairly standard for like. like these IRGC creeps.

Yeah. So first of all, the Hikadi Network, you know, they're part of the kind of the Taliban front. They're, you know, they come from a tribal area on the border of Afghanistan and into Pakistan. And Hacani is actually part of the tribal name there. And, you know, have been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Back when we were in an office, among all of the different, you know, groups that kind of fought with the Taliban, The Akani Network was particularly noted for engaging in these kind of attacks against U.S. forces into Kabul in particular. And, you know, essentially really the U.S. military saw them as one of the leading force protection threats in the country, in part because they had the safe haven in Pakistan as well.

Now, so it's not a surprise that the Akhani Network would launch a complex attack against U.S. forces. In terms of Iran, it's not particularly surprising. They've kind of played lots of different sides in Afghanistan. What they really want more than anything is to retain, you know, this is on their border. They retain some leverage in Afghanistan, be able to work through proxies. Obviously, they want the U.S. out as well. So this is of a piece with the type of stuff Iran does, although more aggressive than anything that I remember. With us, it was more like they want to kind of maintain these ties.

Like the idea of just kind of direct bounties, I don't remember anything like that. So this would be an escalation from Iran. And by all accounts, Donald Trump did absolutely nothing, you know, just like he did nothing with the Russian bounties. And part of what's so astonished to me is just how much they were invested in this peace deal that they would look the way, the other way. I mean, imagine being a U.S. We've got a bunch of troops in Afghanistan.

How do they feel totally abandoned? Their commander-in-chief doing nothing, even though he's got reports sitting on this desk of Iranian and Russian bounties on their heads that we also. have reports were acted on. And this guy's doing nothing because of his precious peace deal with the Taliban. And never mind. Why are we even still in a peace deal with the Taliban if they're taking money from Russians and the ringings to kill American soldiers? Yeah, I was trying to read between the lines on this one. I was like, is this an administration leak because they want to show yet another way that Iran is bad to justify future attacks on them? Maybe, but it also makes

them look completely feckless and pathetic. Like you, look, we all want people. We all want peace in Afghanistan, but like Donald Trump just wants to get out of there. He doesn't really care if they cut a deal. The idea that they wouldn't respond in some way to protect these U.S. troops if like there were six or seven or maybe more attacks on U.S. personnel that were reimbursed by the Iranian regime is wild to me, especially just given the makeup of these like right-wing hawks when it comes to Iran. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very, very strange story. Ben, one quick follow-up, I just wanted to do. So a couple weeks back, we talked about how the former king of Spain, King Juan Carlos, had announced he was leaving the country in the middle of this

major corruption investigation into his activities. Spanish authorities are reportedly investigating whether a $100 million payment to Juan Carlos from Saudi Arabia was a kickback associated with the construction of a high-speed railway project by some Spanish firm in Saudi. So Juan Carlos abdicated the throne in 2014 after a separate corruption investigation. it means he's no longer immune to prosecution, hence getting the fuck out of there. Ben, guess where he is now living? Oh. Where is a corrupt king welcomed?

I mean, you know, there's like the Seychelles, there's like Monaco, like... Closer to home for this episode. The United Arab Emirates, the corrupt ex-King is reportedly close to the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, who you will hear all about in our conversation with the religion of real. Are you surprised? No, I'm not. And the Seychelles are, you know, usually...

actually where the Emirates like to vacation, right? So it's kind of, it's a close. But yeah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, that doesn't surprise me. Yeah. Two more things. So this caught my eye because of the unbelievable pettiness that I think tells you a lot about the people who work in the White House. So according to a report in The Daily Beast, a bunch of White House senior staffers have grown increasingly frustrated with a guy named Matthew Pottinger. So he's the Trump Deputy National Security Advisor. Ben, are they mad about, you know, the pandemic response being disaster. Are they mad about freeing relations with key allies?

The fact that the world is laughing at us? No, they're mad at Pottinger because he decided to wear a mask early on in the pandemic. And they interpreted that as somehow an affront or a challenge to Trump, who was at the time shitting on masks, I guess. Just, you know, quick reminder to all the idiots who are quoted in the story. Masks protect the people around you, not the one wearing the mask. and Pottinger's boss, Robert O'Brien, got the coronavirus. But look, before you decide, any of these people are good guys, know that Pottinger is also credited

with lobbying to call COVID, the China virus, and is some, you know, crazy extreme China hawks. So great people. Well, but yeah, Pottinger says this guy who used to hear was like a normal, you know, conventional kind of Republican guy who's become completely, I think, radicalized with anti-China fervor. But tell me, it's like these guys are like the kids. high school who like took pride at failing the tests and like beat up the kid who did his homework or something. You know, like, how petty. And these are the people sitting at the heart of the pandemic

response and they're hazing a guy for wearing a mask. I mean, like, for being right. What the hell? You know, like this is where we're at. Criticizing the guy talking smack about him to the press. Yeah. For correctly noting that the pandemic was going to be a big deal. Taking steps to protect his colleagues. Yeah. That gets you. Such a loser wearing a mask. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Total loser. Okay. We're going to take a break in a second and we're going to talk to Rula Gibriel about this peace deal, in quotes, between Israel and the UAE that was mediated, negotiated something by the United States. But before we get to the conversation with Rula, Ben, I just want to see if you had any thoughts before we really interview her on our thoughts. Because we thought it was particularly important to talk to Rula today because there are no Palestinian voices being interviewed, quoted, acknowledged in these stories. And she is. a Palestinian. Yeah, I mean, here's the base line of how I look at this deal, right? And I want to be clear, like normalization, Arab recognition of Israel is a good thing that

people have wanted to see for a long time, that the idea that there are a bunch of Arab governments that reject Israel's right to exist, you know, don't recognize Israel, that changing has been an objective that I think we can all share. Rula, I think, makes the point quite passionately that true normalization, It has to include people, not just governments. But beyond that, I think there's a couple of things I just wanted to say to unpack this deal. First of all, the U.A. and Israel have been getting closer and closer and closer for a long time now. They basically coordinated in Washington.

They talk to each other. They're all kinds of back channels. Frankly, front channels, like people hanging out of Catholic Romano, the kind of heart of the D.C. establishment where this was negotiated. But I saw this, Tommy, as someone who lived through a lot of diplomacy with, and around these countries. And I thought, okay, what are the motivations of these leaders? Because really nothing that much changes. We'll see there's a roadmap to open up embassies and that kind of stuff. That would be good. There's a discussion of direct flights. That would

be good. But essentially, the UAE and Israel have already basically been aligned on a lot of stuff in the region, including kind of an anti-Iran front. So what is really happening here? Well, Bibi has got himself on a limb with annexation. He knows he can't do annexation right now. We're in the middle of a pandemic. People in Israel aren't even focused on it. So he doesn't want to move forward. And so he climbs down from what he said he was going to do and get something in return.

And that's basically it, you know, for Bibi. This is a win. What is MbZ up to then, the Mohamed bin Zayyad? And you'll hear Rula calling Mbz, Mbz, Maham bin Zad. the ruler of the UAE. Well, he knows that he's in a pickle if Joe Biden is elected president because he's basically been front-center

in promoting Maham bin Salman, who's chopped up a journalist. He's been front-sent in the war in Yemen. The UAE's been a full partner with the Saudis on that until recently. He basically has been trashing Democrats, including our former boss, Barack Obama, very openly. So he needs to do something

to buy some goodwill in Washington, to inoculate himself against and hedge against a Biden victory. Or maybe to help Trump his best buddy get reelected. So that's what's in it for him. In addition to the reports coming out now that all this advanced weaponry can be sold to him now, that the U.S. has not transferred certain advanced weapons to any Arab country because Israel has to have a certain military advantage

in the region. We're waiving that now for them. So he gets arms. He gets a hedge of Biden. wins, and he gets to do a favor for Trump in case Trump wins, obviously. And what doesn't happen here? The thing that graded me most about the kind of fawning coverage of this thing is even if you say, okay, this is incrementally a step forward, another, albeit a small Arab country recognizes Israel, it was described as a, quote, historic peace agreement.

Like, the UAE and Israel weren't in conflict, and the people that need to be a part of a peace agreement are the Palestinians. That's what Donald Trump said himself he was going to assign Jared Christian to do at the beginning of this administration. And the extent to which they've been totally wiped out and forgotten in this whole picture, I think just tells you this isn't about peace. This is about three leaders, Trump, Bibi, and Netanyahu dealing with short-term political problems that they have by dressing this up as some massive historical Camp David-style thing when it's just not that. And really, you'll hear. I think a very visceral frustration with it.

But I mean, that's basically how I look at this. Yeah, I share your frustration. There's a very Singapore summit vibe to a lot of the coverage where there is a lot of credulous repetition of something being historic without a real effort to unpack the substance because the substance isn't even finalized yet, nor is there really an effort to look under the hood at the broader sort of significance for the Palestinian people, what it might mean for the people of Yemen, if Saudi Arabia in the UAE are sold advanced drones, right? Like, how is that going to stop the civil war that's been raging for years? It could lead to an end run

around Congress for some of these arms sales. So if people like this deal, they think it makes Israel more secure. I'm totally here for those arguments, thrilled to like talk more in detail about it. We did want to talk to Rula today because there's just been zero Palestinian voices and it's so important. on earth would you believe promises made by Donald Trump and BB Netanyahu right before an election? Like those are the last people you should just like take on faith. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm glad you said it this way too because I wouldn't be very clear, right?

Like it's not like this is the worst thing to ever happen or anything. This could be a positive thing, right? I'm happy to be wrong. No, but and you could believe that this is an incrementally positive step. One more country recognizes Israel. But this is not what it's been presented as this, like, massive thing. I mean, it's just, this isn't like Egypt negotiating peace with Egypt after fighting its neighbor, after fighting all these wars in the largest country in the Arab world, or Jordan, again,

a neighbor that it has been fighting wars with. This is like people that they're kind of in business with behind the curtain, and they're just kind of opening the curtain and saying, yeah, you know, the thing that everybody knows, who's been working in diplomacy in the Middle East for the last decade plus. Everybody knows that the Israelis and Emirates coordinated on all manner stuff. So they're basically coming public with that before an American election. Okay, but like it's just to give this kind of clean shot of it, this is somehow an historic peace agreement.

I think, again, even if you think it's a positive step, and I think there are reasons you hear from rule about why it might not be positive, right, particularly what it does to the Palestinians. But to hype it like this is just kind of bizarre. And it was weird to see the American news media just kind of give Jared Kushner like a clean shot to do a victory last. Yeah. If you're comparing this to Egypt and Israel signing their regional peace deal in 79 or the Jordan Peace Treaty in 1994, you need to just read a book, dig a little deeper because this is not that. I think the press sometimes like on paper, the event seemed big.

You want to give Trump his due because you criticize him so much. But I just encourage everyone to listen to our interview because I think there's a lot more to this, especially for the Palestinian people. So we'll take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll have our conversation with Rule of Gibriel. American presidents used to lead the free world. Today, it's going to be only America first. Our president's trying to dismantle it.

I'm Ben Rhodes. In my new podcast, we'll look at how America's turned its back on the world, leaving nationalists, despots, and sectarian strongmen to do whatever they want. But we'll also meet a global movement of progressives who are fighting back, and we'll learn how to be the country the world needs us to be. Subscribe to Missing America from Crooked Media, wherever you get your podcast. Rula Jibrill is a foreign policy analyst, journalist, author, novelist, screenwriter, and a great follow on Twitter.

Rula, thank you so much for joining the show. Thank you for having me. So last week, President Trump announced what has been described as a historic peace deal, and we'll get into that description in a bit, between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The deal is basically the Israelis agree to suspend their plan to annex territory in the West Bank in exchange for normalizing relations with the UAE. We will now refer to it as the Cafe Milano Accords, because apparently this diplomatic back and forth started at a dinner at an overprone,

Price-Georgetown restaurant called Cafe Milano, as one does in Washington. But before we get to the conversation and the questions, I just want to quickly define a couple of things for listeners in case they don't know these terms. So previously, Israeli Prime Minister B.B. Netanyahu had announced his plan to annex parts of the West Bank. Annexation means the Israeli government declares sovereignty over that land, over parts of the West Bank where there are Jewish settlements, and then potentially sovereignty over land along the West Bank's border with Jordan, called the Jordan Valley. The exact amount of territory subject to annexation isn't defined, I don't think. I think it's probably like literally being drawn on maps in these meetings. But according to an analysis by the

Washington Institute for Near East Peace, the high end estimate could mean Israel taking control of 29% of the West Bank, where 109,000 Palestinians currently live. Normalization means that Israel and the UAE will have public diplomatic relations instead of just contacts behind the scenes, and the two sides will agree to negotiate agreements on a whole bunch of stuff from establishing embassies, tourism, direct flights, et cetera. So this is something Israel really wanted. So, Rula, the first question to you is almost all of the coverage has been focused on what this means for Trump, Netanyahu, but there has been little to no focus on what it means for the Palestinian people.

So that's my first question. I mean, what do you think this agreement means for the Palestinian people and for the hope of a future Palestinian state? Zero, nothing. So three things, if I may. Bebe Natanyahu, Jared Kushner, or the Trump administration, and MBZ, share, they have shared values. So MBZ, who is the ruler, unelected ruler of the United Arab Emirates, always had diplomatic relationships secretly with the Israelis. They always been a very viable of the record relationship. Why of the record? Because they were concerned about the Arab public opinion and the Arab rage. Because 80% or almost 90% of the people who live in the region, 400 million people, by the way, the Emirates are only 1 million. 1 million in a region of 400 million people. They oppose any normalization of relationship with Israel or, let's say,

with the last occupying nation on earth because of their oppression of Palestinians. They always stated the Arab world unanimously and Arab rulers decided that the only way to make peace is Israel except basically to withdraw from the occupied territories. That was always the position. So what the Emirates are doing is pivoting from that position saying, we don't care what the Arab public opinion wants or we don't care about what the region wants, we care about what we want. And what they want basically is during state authoritarianism all over the Middle East. For them, their natural ally is Nabiliaz, denying millions of people, any rights whatsoever in the case of the Palestinians. So they're

accepting the idea that Palestinians will be living perpetually under military occupation. The The Moratis are the one that in 2011, basically, when the Arab Spring started and in the White House, we had President Obama, the first African-American president that absolutely sympathized with the Arab movements who called for democracy, dignity, social justice. MBZ saw that as a threat. So he waged, basically, pumped billions of dollars, waging a war on the pro-democracy camp in the Middle East. Not only that, he decided to wage war on America as well, indirectly by exporting and importing the regime change agenda that George W. Bush, basically, that was his idea. So what did he do? He was the first one behind the scene to back Donald Trump. He was the first one to try to arrange meeting between Russia and the Trump campaign.

MBSZ is the one that actually endorsed the Muslim ban. I mean, think of that. You have a ruler who is the sovereign or the despot who govern a country where the overwhelming majority of people are Muslims, and he's endorsing a Muslim ban in America. He endorsed also the concentration camp in China. For him, it's about creating an access of autocrats that crush people, the dominant people, that basically deny people all over the board, whether in America, in Palestine or Israel, or even in the MENA region, any rights whatsoever.

You can drink alcohol, you can drive a car, you can have a relationship, and you can have dancers in the desert, but never in the Middle East. What he doesn't want anybody to open their mouth about reforms. So this is the model that we're seeing. So, Rila, you know, in the past, the Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabian, the UAE, you know, had signed on to the Arab Peace Initiative, which, as you kind of alluded to, suggested that there would be full normal. civilization with Israel when there was a two-state solution, when there was a Palestinian state. And the U.A.E is obviously broken from that and essentially green normalized in exchange for a promise to suspend annexation. At the same time, you know, the Palestinian leadership has, you know, been besieged internally and externally. My question is for the Palestinian people.

Where did they turn? You know, where do they look for support now in a neighborhood, where MBS and Sidi-Rab, it doesn't seem to care at all about the Palestinian cause. MBZ, as you say, seems more interested in perpetuating autocratic power than certainly doing anything for Palestinian rights. Iran is obviously focused on its own conflicts with some of those same actors and its own internal challenges. Where do Palestinians look right now for hope? So Palestinians are, they see themselves,

and their struggle for their survival and continuation as a nation. I mean, we reached a level of hopelessness and despair where they are concerned about their existing and continuation as a nation. They feel that they are like the Kurds, stateless people without any support whatsoever. Where they are looking, to be honest, Ben, for the first time I've seen exactly like these access of autocrats are trying to enable, empower, and help each other. other, they're looking at the international community who stand for equality and justice all over the world. From Black Life Matter to pro-democracy activists in Belarus or even creating a democratic

awakening, so when Black Life Matters were protesting in America, black Palestinians were protesting against racism in America and racism in Israel in Palestine and the occupied territories. When the movement for pro-democracy was happening around the Arab world in 2012 and 11, Palestinians had the same, they understood the fight, and they actually expressed solidarity with that movement, whether it's in Cairo, in Riyadh, whether even if it's in Hong Kong. So they're looking at the international community, not institutions, not anymore rulers, but they're looking at the people. So what Muhammad bin Zayy, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, MBS, or even Bibi Natanyahu, they're basically bypassing the popular vote and popular will or, let's say, the public opinion, they think that they can disregard it.

We've seen this model before, and it failed. So we always, in the United States, had a direct relationship with Arab regimes, with despotic regime, from Mubarak to Gaddafi to others. Where did that leave us? They flip us with mass radicalization, mass unemployment, mass despair, and a region in disarray and a region that is in conflict with itself. Donald Trump doesn't care if the world collapse or burn. He has the same mindset like Bibi Netanyahu and like Assad. Let the country burn if I stay in power.

And this is a scary moment, not only for Palestinians, but it's a wake-up call, I think, for Americans. because if that autocratic rule arrived to America and if Donald Trump win again, what you're going to see that Muhammad bin Zayed and Mohammed bin Salman, who can chop somebody like Jamal Khashoggi in an embassy and can be defended by the president

and his son-in-law, the slum lord, what you're going to see actually, people become, I mean, we see protesters being virtualized in the street of Portland and elsewhere. we are going to see even a further shift on police state tactics. I mean, as you know, Ben, I predicted not only a victor of Donald Trump in 2015, I predicted that there will be an authoritarian, fascist-style government in America if this guy win a second term.

What you see in the occupied territories, this will become a common tactic in America, in American Street, against anybody that stands in the face of Donald Trump. Starting with people like you, Ben Rhodes, because they view you as the real opposition. They can dismiss what I say. I'm a black Palestinian who happened to be a Muslim, who happened to be critical of these autocratic regimes. But you've been in these power rooms, you've been in the conversation rooms, you've seen Mohammed bin Zaid, Mohammed bin Salna.

You understand how they operate. You know they're in the depth of their depravity and what they're willing to do. But also we know that they're now financing people around the world. In Yemen, for example, their allies on the ground who are fighting on their behalf are al-Qaeda. Who's going to stand up to these people? Donald Trump? I don't think so. Yeah, I want to dig into that because a lot of the coverage of this deal suggests that there's this major strategic realignment happening in the region, right? Like the theory goes that these Gulf countries in Arab states, they may not love Israel, but these days they seemingly care less about the Palestinian cause because they care more about Iran. You know, one could question whether some of these leaders ever really cared about the Palestinian cause or it's just something they used to rally people.

But that's, you know, sort of a different question. But, you know, implicit in the coverage, right, is the suggestion that the UAE is the first in a wave of dominoes to fall. And now you'll see normalization between Israel and Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, just like a wave of peace deals breaking across the region. And my question is, one, have you seen any evidence of this besides like Jared Kushner background statements? asserting it. And then two, maybe a little counterintuitively, like, knowing the destructive role that the UAE and Saudi have played in Yemen, knowing that Mohammed bin Salman has dispatched kill teams to multiple countries to silence critics, is normalization destined to be good? Right? Like, I'm not pretending that our only diplomacy is with good guys. The Iran deal, I think,

is a great example of that not being the case. But we're not hearing a lot about what this could mean for average people in any of these countries who maybe don't like their rules. Yeah. So let's start with normalization that it will have a domino effect. That's a myth. I understand that the alternative reality that this administration has been promoting for day one, when it comes to the Middle East, it's bloated, basically. So let's look at Bahrain. Bahrain is a province of Saudi Arabia. Whatever Saudi Arabia decides Bahrain will do. Arman is a different issue, and Arman, I think, in a very different position. But if you talk about Sudan, Sudan have a transitional government, which has followed the popular uprising that's been taking place in the last six, seven months. These transitional figures are bankrolled and linked to Saudi Arabia and basically MBZ and MBS, the AUE and Saudi Arabia.

So MBZ has been bankrolling these figures in Sudan, in Yemen, has been bankrolling the tyrant in Egypt that Donald Trump called my favorite dictator, has been bankrolling Haftar in Libya, who's this military strong man that's been basically committing all kind of atrocity and war crimes. So normalization with Arab rulers or dictators doesn't mean normalization between Israel or the rest of the region. Look at that. You have two kind of normalization historically that happened, with Egypt and Jordan.

Does any really, Israeli, can go to Egypt and feel really safe there? Or they have embassies. It's like a bunker. They are hiding inside these bunkers because they understand, insinclably, that unless they have a deal with a Palestinian who are the direct, the people on the ground that are subjected to Israeli, ruthless military dictatorship, unless they have some kind of deal with the Palestinian, there's no kind of renormalization.

Any Israeli that will put his foot anywhere in the region is threatened, basically, because what they see, they see them as a symbol of the military occupation and the oppression against the Palestinians. So one thing is to have Mohammed bin Zay take his private jet going to Israel or some, I don't know, as Jared Kushner,

or somebody that's a Twitter celebrity that can go to the mosque and pray and post pictures, something else, is actually to go to Morocco, Mauritania, Jordan, even Egypt that had diplomatic ties with Israel for any Israeli and feel safe and feel that he can walk around without being attacked. What we are seeing is return to the past

when we thought that Sadat, who did peace with Egypt, will open the door for really a different relationship with the Israelis, different narrative. It didn't happen with Egypt, which is the biggest country in the region, one of the biggest, 80 million people, now 100 million people. It will not happen with a Gulf tyrant who is ruling the lives of 1 million people in a region of 400 million. It's preposterous. And Phoebe Natanyahu is exploiting this for very cynical reasons. He's a corrupt wannabe dictator. He wants, he's attacking the judiciary like Donald Trump. He's attacking the media like Donald

He's attacking. Remember, he's the man that flobbed against the Iran deal in America. He came by passing the president, President Obama. He was so racist against President Obama. You know why? Because he's seeing President Obama what he never wants to see in his country. A man, basically a normal citizen

from a different background. His father was Muslim. He is a black man. Rise from the bottom to the top. That's a kind of revolution. they're trying to crush the idea that citizens can rise up from any background and basically become the prime minister or the president of their country. They want to crush any democratic aspiration of the people.

That's what they are about. This deal is basically a smokescreen. They are selling weapons between Saudi Arabia to the Saudis, to the Emirates. Now Israel can sell weapons directly. It's an armed deal discussed as a peace deal. This is what it is. about. So, Rula, if you, as you said, the future of Donald Trump is reelected, it's quite dark here in the Middle East, if there is a change administration, if there's a Joe Biden presidency,

how would you want to see the United States approach these countries differently? What, what, I mean, obviously you can't untangle yourself from all the weight of history and all the hypocrisies of American policy, but, but as a starting point, what would you like to see a Democratic administration do differently? Well, first, don't have, I mean, one thing is to look at the reality for what it is or what we want it to be. So if the people around Biden-Harris administration are people with all due respect to Wendy Sherman, with all due respect to Ben Shapiro, are still tied to the idea that there's one,

there's a two-state reality when on the grounds of fact are speaking, speak volume, then we have a serious problem. You are projecting your ideals and ideas on a reality that does not exist on the grounds. When Palestinians signed the peace deal in 1993, together with Israel, there were only 60 settlements in the West Bank. 26 years on, we have 200 settlements and almost 600,000 settlers. In the last 26 years, people in America and across the world, and especially in Israel, they'd been pumping billions of dollars

in a colonial infrastructure in the occupied territories. It's a de facto annexed. We are in a one-state reality, and it needs to be acknowledged. I am like President Rivlin, President of Israel. I'm a one-stater. We need to shift and pivot and somehow tie Israeli aid

the billions of dollars that Israel received on regular basis to some democratic reforms inside the occupied territories. And I'm not talking about only announcement like Jared Kushner. I'm talking about real reforms. You have ministers who are sitting in the cabinet of Israel who lives in the occupied territories. You have two Supreme Court justices. It's a de facto one-state reality. I agree with President Rivlin of Israel. We're already in a one-state

reality. Let's give equal rights to Palestinians and voting rights. Because if you deny them, the basic right to vote and select their legitimate representation, that's the right. has a name and the name is apartheid. So either you acknowledge that there's de facto apartheid and distance yourself from this or don't put the hypocrite, you know, charade process of a two state when on the ground it does not exist. I hope in the next administration to see people like you, Ben, and others who can challenge the administration on their stance. I mean, we can't live in a hypocritical world anymore. The world is watching. We live in an aquarium where everything is visible. So if we keep looking at what what some of Democrats are deluding themselves with,

then it's like the myth of climate change. It's coming. It's not here. No, it is here and it's endangered our existence. And we need to deal with it. Two quick things just before my final question. One, I just want to clarify that it's Dan Shapiro, not Ben Shapiro working for Biden. That's the meanest thing ever said about Dan Shapiro. Just kidding. We're not big. Ben Shapiro fans there too. What you said about arm sales is super interesting. There's all these reports now that this this deal might allow the U.S. to sell the UAE, the F-35, the most advanced jet, some advanced drone technology. So it does seem like a way to skirt Congress. It seems like a way to get around what DC nerds called, call Israel's qualitative military edge or QME,

which basically requires that the U.S. sell them arms and preserve their primacy militarily in the region. But my last question for you, it's like all the coverage of this deal is getting folded into this sort of Middle East peace framework, which again, stepping back is weird because the Palestinians are not part of the negotiations. So it seems like that's absurd on its face. The Financial Times had an interesting editorial where they point out that normalization was the main, if not the only point of leverage for the Palestinians in these negotiations. And now it is partially gone, if not on the road to fully gone. And the F.T. wrote, yeah, I mean, they wrote, rather than delivering peace, this deal is likely to exacerbate Palestinian sense of hopelessness.

That will only store up greater problems for the future. Do you agree with that argument? And do you think there's a way to counteract it? You know, you mentioned the one state solution, but, you know, through these negotiations, maybe. Look, I think the push should be, I really don't think that Palestinians can achieve anything at this point without an international consensus about do we accept in the 21st century that people are captives, are slaves in their land? I think if your answer is no, then you have to challenge this administration and the other

and to challenge Bibi Netanyahu. It's been easier to challenge Trump in this country than to challenge Bibi Netanyahu. Let's be clear. You can challenge any Republican or Democrat in this country and go after them on all kinds of issues. But when it comes to Israel, you know, you have this camp that's tried to somehow over-protect Israel,

which undermine Israel democracy. In the name of protecting or further protecting Israel, even Democrats, they basically, now we're watching reality where an Israel Prime Minister can come to America, lobby against a sitting president and wagged his finger in his face in the White House and disrespect him and have ministers, cabinet ministers,

basically saying racist things against the first African-American president. I mean, I remember the wife of the minister of defense under Bibi Netanah where she said, I like my coffee. It's black and weak, like President Obama. I mean, the kind of racist disgusting discourse. So Trump is impopular everywhere. except in Israel.

Why do you think? I mean, when you overlook racism against Palestinians, you are basically normalizing racism against everybody else, every minority group. And that's why it's important to talk. Regarding the armed deal, and I think this is so important, there's an arm, after Jamal Khashoggi was butchered, after the Ritz-Carlton coup somehow,

where MBZ decided he needed some cash, and he used his relative, like, an ATM card, where he tortured them until they hand him over the money. And he keeps doing it, by the way, including one American citizen that was torture in the risk carton. And this administration decided that, yeah, we're fine with it. We're fine with concentration camp with China. We're fine with MBZ and MBS doing all kind of atrocity around the region

because we don't care about human rights. We don't care about anything. We care about the money. So I think when the next administration would come in place, and I hope when we win, I hope there would be a serious investigation about the biggest scandal of this administration, and it's not Russia.

It's how much financial ties Donald Trump and Jared Kushner have with the Saudis and the Emirates, because this is a real story. When you have a sitting president who bypass Congress multiple times after they veto selling weapons to the Saudi butcher, because he thinks that selling weapons

to this guy is a good thing, I think it's not because he think it's a good thing, because there's something more sinister. Why did Donald Trump, who campaigned against the Saudis in 2015, decide that his first state visit is to Saudi Arabia? I wonder how much that visit cost all of us in terms of, you know, democratic, shattering democratic norms. I wonder how much did he pocket from that visit, and I think we need a serious investigation. And one of the things that happened, the lack of accountability after the Iraq war emboldened further, the racist, the xenophob, and war criminals. And I believe that somebody like Donald Trump, who endorse oligarchy and corruption and endorse war crimes, I think once we investigate him, and if we hold him to account, it will become a preventative measure for the futures that anybody would come to office.

He would think twice before repeating these kind of crimes. Absolutely. Let's hope. Well, listen, Rula, thank you so much for joining the show. It was great to have you. It was great to unpack the incredibly annoying conventional wisdom about this deal. And we appreciate it. Yeah, thanks a lot, Rula. Thank you, guys. Thanks again to Rula for joining the show. Ben, thanks again to you for doing this pod with no air conditioning, all your windows closed on a sweltering hot Los Angeles Day. Yeah, I'm officially hot over here. Like, there's a sweat situation that is well suited to podcasting. Tommy, and not other forms. But it's really hot here in Los Angeles. And yeah, in our climate-friendly house here, we have no air conditioning. So we're paying the price for that. But I can't whine. You and I both lived in D.C. where if you walk outside in the summer, you're drenched and sweat in about

30 seconds, like one week where it cracks 90 degrees and we've gone so soft that, you know, we freak out. Totally soft. Although the difference is in D.C., you are usually running to the metro in a Joseph A. Banks that traps heat like one of those, you know, silver blankets after you run a marathon. You just want to, like, shoot yourself on the train. Yeah. Anyway, all right, man. Thanks everybody listening. Talk to you all next week.

POTS of the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. Potsafe the World is mixed and edited by Chris Basil. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our amazing digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmelkonian, and Milo Kim. and film and share our episodes, videos every week.