Pod Save the World - Norwegian Prime Minister Explains Decision to Recognize a Palestinian State

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Ben speaks to Jonas Gahr Store, the Prime Minister of Norway, who explains why he decided to formally recognize a Palestinian state alongside the leaders of Spain and Ireland. Then, Ben is joined by Fareed Zakaria to talk about the long term prospects for peace on multiple fronts like Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, and China and Taiwan. They also discuss Zakaria’s new book, “Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present”. Finally, Ben interviews Ravi Gupta about the new podcast from Crooked Media, “Killing Justice”.  For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to POTS of the World. I'm Ben Rhodes. And today we have a three-part show for you. That's right. Triple the content. First, I'll talk a little bit about the latest news out of Israel and Gaza. But then I will be speaking with Jonas Garstota, the prime minister of Norway, who took the significant decision this past week to recognize a Palestinian state alongside Spain and Ireland. He'll talk a bit about what that decision means, why he made it, and how he sees the future of potential Palestinian state. Then you will hear my conversation with Fried Zakaria, journalist and author of the new book, Age of Revolutions. Freed was my co-host to talk about a variety of different issues. We talk about the situation in Israel. We talk about Russia and Ukraine. We talk about Taiwan and China. So we kind of step back and tick the lay of the land on all these global hot spots that we've been talking about on the podcast. I want to note, Freed and I pre-taped our conversation on Friday, May 24th. So it doesn't reflect all. of the things that have happened since then and things obviously moved very quickly. But actually,

the utility in talking to a guy like Fareed is that ability to step back and he had a lot of smart things to say about the Middle East, about Russia, China, and his new book, which is really truly extraordinary. And then we talk to Ravi Gupta. He is the host of a new limited series from Cricket Media and the branch called Killing Justice. I've been involved in this series. I've listened to the first three episodes. They're incredible. You should check that out. We'll talk about this mysterious case of a judge's murder in India, the difficulty of getting to the truth and what it says about where India and Indian democracy is going. Before we get to my interview with the prime minister, though, I do want to just bring people up to speed on a really terrible tragedy that took place on Sunday. Over 45 civilians were killed and more than 200 injured in an Israeli strike on a displacement camp in Rafa that ignited a huge fire.

If you've seen any of this, it's absolutely unimaginable suffering inside a tent camp. We've seen just charred bodies of civilians. We've seen children killed, a beheaded child, the worst kind of scenes of civilian suffering in war that one can imagine. The Israeli government has said that the strike was targeting two Hamas leaders, but Netanyahu did come out and call the death toll and the circumstances of the strike a tragic mistake and said that they're investigating, that the IDF is investigating. The Israelis say that their munitions alone couldn't have caused the mass of fire and are looking into all possibilities, including the option

that weapons stored in a compound next to the target may have ignited as a result of the strike. And I'll come back to that in a second. That's also not all. Palestinian officials say at least 29 people were killed in two separate strikes and Rafa on Tuesday. Israeli tanks were rolling to the center of Rafa for the first time. And according to UNRWA, which was in charge of that facility that was burnt, 1 million people have now left Rafa over the last three weeks. We'll talk more about this next week with Tommy. I think the one thing I would offer on this is this is exactly why people said that they should

not go on to Rafa because things like this were going to happen, because they've happened in the other places where Israel's done these kind of ground invasions. And whatever you're doing, if you are lighting tent encampments with children in it, in an area that was a declared safe zone that Israel said was a safe zone, then you're doing something deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. And the fact that it came, you know, less than, I don't know, a couple days after the ICJ, the International Court of Justice demanded a halt to Israel's Raf operation less than a week after the ICC sought arrest warrants for the prosecution of Israel's political leadership for war crimes.

I just, you know, sometimes you run out of words to describe this conflict. People need to look at what's happening with their eyes and we can see what's happening in Rafah. It doesn't in any way diminished the horror of what Hamas did, there's space for these two things to be true, that this military operation is gone profoundly wrong in a dark, dark way, which we saw most acutely recently in Rafa. And that's something that the U.S. has to wrestle with. And look, I have my own history with the phrase redline. Sometimes it's an oversimplification of complicated issues. In this case, President Biden suggested that going into Rafa would be a red line for him, kind of suggesting some kind of cutoff of support. The one thing you cannot

argue is that somehow they're not in Rafa. They're bombing Rafa. They're killing civilians in Rafa. They're tanks in Rafa. If this is not an operation Rafa, then I don't know what it is. So can we please just kind of dispense with the semantic games about whether some red line has been crossed? It has. The question is, what is the U.S. going to do about it? And I believe that it's past time to be much clear in where we stand in terms of restricting. military assistance that's not purely defensive like air defense missile defense systems to be voting for ceasefires at the UN. There are a lot of things that can be done to try to send a message that this war needs to end and we need to get towards a two-state solution. That leads me into

my conversation with a leader who's doing that work, the Prime Minister of Norway. Check out the interview here. Okay, we are very pleased to welcome to Podseo the world, a leader that I've long admired and who's taken, I think, a very practical and brave stance this week. Prime Minister of Norway, Jonas Garstota, thank you so much for being with us. Good to be with you. Thank you. So, Mr. Prime Minister, you, in coordination with Spain and Ireland over the course of last week, Norway has joined many other nations in recognizing a Palestinian state. Tell me a bit about why you took this decision to take this step of formal recognition of Palestine

and how it came about that you did this in coordination with Ireland and Spain as well. Well, there's a long story about timing. This is not exact science. Why was not this done 70 years ago or 30 years ago or over here? But, you know, Norway since the Oslo Accords in 1993, we have been supporting and actively particularly supporting a process towards what would end up as two states living side by side. And the intention was that recognition of Palestine, a formal recognition of Palestine, would happen as part of a broad between Israel and Palestine.

Now, that has not happened year after year. Still, it has been an objective. For Norway's part, we have said over the last year that it was not necessarily linked to such a final peace agreement. but it had to come at the right moment. So why is this the right moment? And this is, of course, also linked to the tragic war unfolding in Gaza after the terror on the 7th of October, the Hamas terror, the war unfolding.

And what is emerging from the international community is that after this war, after the ceasefire, the release of hostages, there has to be a new political track towards a two-state solution, something which is Palestine secured in the war, principles based on international law living alongside Israel. So our objective was to say that this is the moment to send that signals to Palestinians. You are not forgotten. You are not doomed to be dominated by Hamas, militant groups and violence,

downward spiral of your economy. So the paradox now is that we have never been farther away on the ground, I would say, to have two states living side by side in peace. But politically there's a new momentum coming from the US, from Europe, from the Arab states. And we simply, you know, this is a conflict that has implications all over the world. And we simply have, as responsible citizens, we have to take decisions that would create a new dynamic from a very, you know, complex point of departure.

But that's why we believe it was right. Why Spain and Ireland? Well, I don't, to do this as a one of, as one country, I think would be a missed opportunity. Madrid and Oslo were important to kick off what happened with the Oslo process. So there is some message in Spain and Norway. Ireland came along. And I believe there will be more European states also coming in the near future. Yeah, I thought actually the symbolism was quite powerful of Spain and Norway,

given how central Madrid and Oslo were to basically what we know is the peace process. And I was going to follow up on this question of what happens next, because the U.S. position for a long time has been, I used these talking points for eight years. They were used before me. They've been used after me. We believe that the two-state solution should be negotiated by the parties, and we don't like steps that go around that process, essentially. Now, clearly, that has failed. And I think, you know, in some ways, Norway taking this step, it's pretty profound because it's kind of signaling, you know, it's been, what, 30 years in Soslo, but it is kind of saying, guys, this is not working, and we need to be open to

different approaches. And I think if you assess the landscape now, you have an Israeli government that rejects a Palestinian state. You have, well, in Hamas, a Palestinian, part of the Palestinian leadership rejects Israel, the Palestinian Authority accepts it. You've got this Abraham Accords process that kind of ignored the Palestinians, and you have this kind of direct recognition of Palestine by now 140 plus countries at the United Nations. Where do you see these pieces? I mean, I know you're kind of someone who thinks about the puzzle pieces of geopolitics. Where do you see this going forward? What is the role of Europe? Because in the past, I think, you know, Europe, you know, the U.S. pressured Europe to not do things like this. What does this say about the role

of Europe in trying to address a situation in which kind of U.S. brokered peace talks are clearly not working? Well, first of all, on foreign policy in general, I mean, on your or pod, you discuss foreign policy, how do you exercise it? And I think it is with foreign policy like many other areas of life. If you do this, keep on doing the same thing year after year and it fails, at some stage you have to say, okay, is changing a course, is it a profound change, or is it simply trying to reach your objectives with all the means? And for my case, Norway's case, it is the latter. Because we have always, you know, a Tuesday solution will not be an easy thing. But you have to hold it against the alternative, which is what we have seen now,

downwards spiral. And honestly speaking, you know, the other alternative in one state solution, where people would live inside one state, that would have to be on the basis of equal rights. And that will not happen. I mean, Israel is against a two-state solution and against that other option. And that's why what I'm saying is that, yes, there is a change to a position. It has not worked. And now we have a government in Israel that openly says it will not support it. So what is the puzzle then? As I see it, you know, the way the – I acknowledge the complexity of being American administration now. It is a very complex task.

And I respect that. I've heard President Biden's very clear message about a two-state solution. And I think with the Arab states, you know, what they are doing now is to – there are Abraham Accords, but there is also upgrading the 2002 Arab peace plan, which basically says that we, the Arab world, now much more profoundly, we will live with Israel. We will respect Israel. We will recognize Israel normal relations. But this is the triangle. The other part, the second part of the triangle is that we have to recognize that part which is called Palestine. If you don't do that, you will continue to be hampered by violence and our spiral.

And the third part is, you know, the way the U.S. will play its role in this region, you know, ranging from security guarantee, arrangements, presence. And, you know, Norway chaired this meeting alongside. this weekend alongside Saudi Arabia, a meeting of Arab ministers and European ministers on this issue. So I believe here there is a dynamic which the US actually can use, because this is something we have to put together as pieces. Both as regards Gaza, what will Gaza be in the future, how do we take care of a Palestinian authority which need to reform profoundly? And that was the second meeting Norway shared this weekend because we chair the donor support group

with Deputy Secretary from the US Kurt Campbell present, giving a very strong address of how we have to support the reforms of the new Palestinian administrations. So there are many pieces in these puzzles and we just have to work on them side by side. But for me, fundamentally, the day after this war, when we started to look ahead,

we avoid to have this every second year, Palestinians deserve the integrity of what state gives around the notion of Palestine, if you see what I mean. And that, I believe, is giving hope to people in Gaza and not to forget the West Bank, which is really now in a very dire situation. And, you know, I keep telling my Israeli friends, if you let the PA collapse, if you go on as you do on the West Bank, you're going to have hope also on that side. Yeah, you mentioned that, you know, you chaired these.

meetings, the ad hoc liaison committee, this is a collection of countries that are providing assistance to the Palestinians. It's interesting when you think about it, if you go around essentially like a peace process that, in my experience, under Prime Minister and in Niao, at least, it was often, you know, meant to play for time, you know, nothing happens, they build more settlements, they change facts on the ground in the West Bank. That's my view. But the thing about recognition and assistance is, in a way, you kind of have to just start building the Palestinian state in the West Bank in particular, instead of kind of waiting for some negotiated process, that there's clearly a need. I mean, what do you see is the needs for, on the Palestinian leadership

side, how do you build something that is representative of the Palestinians that is responsive to their concerns that addresses some of these issues around corruption? And frankly, some of these issues around just an elderly leadership that's kind of been somewhat humiliated by Israel over the years. I mean, what do you see as the most important ways in which donor countries, and that's often going to be Europe and Arab states, can contribute to a different Palestinian leadership than Hamas or a kind of Palestinian authority that feels like it needs a bit of a 2.0 version. Well, let's be fair about history here. I mean, the leadership on the Palestinian side, if you go back to 2005. They were people who were, I think, honest people. They were non-wild. They recognized

Israel. They wanted to respect, you know, UN resolutions. I was foreign minister at the time. I worked alongside Private Minister Salam Fayyad, who was an able, you know, guy who put the economy back on track. In 2011, in September, you know, there was one flag going up ahead of the UN building of a new state. That was South Sudan. which was not very able to run itself. It could have been Palestine, because at the time the World Bank and the IMF said that, you know, they run their economy in a decent way.

And since it has gone the wrong, it has just gone down downwards. And, you know, we now know that this has been partly the objective of successive Israeli governments. You know, to divide and rule the Palestinians, to say to the international community, we have no counterpart. And of course, Hamas has a tremendous responsibility for spoiling these processes. And some are saying that recognizing Palestine now would be the wrong signal to Hamas. I would say the contrary.

Hamas is against Israel. We are in favor. Hamas is against two-state solution. We are in favor. Hamas is in favor of violence. We are against. So we have to give the Palestinian again this integrity that comes from UN resolution, from normal statehood.

And then the Palestinian Authority, you know, being prime minister there now is extremely complex. They have to reform. Their leadership has been there. You know, how could you hold elections in these areas over the successive areas? But obviously, there has to be reform and renewal and moving ahead on major fronts. I know about it.

So it's going to be easy. No. But I think, you know, the point of departure to say that we have clear expectations to you, Palestinian authority. We will support you, but here is what we also want you to do, the direction we want you to move in. And what about the U.S.? Is the one country that has some amount of leverage, or at least the most amount of leverage on Israel? I mean, if you listen to the podcast, you know, I have my frustrations with this. I know you're a close friend of the U.S. on so many issues and have worked hand in glove on Ukraine. I'm just wondering how you would express, you know,

as a friend, how concerned are you that, one, about just the U.S. kind of continuing to provide pretty significant support to Israel in this war, but also kind of, you know, the danger of the U.S. being so out of step, what seems like world opinion and so out of step with organizations like the ICC and the ICJ. How should we Americans think about the risks to the kind of status quo approach, like you said, that we keep doing even though it doesn't keep working? Well, Ben, I mean, from your years in the administration, I think you know that Norway It really puts itself in a global podcast giving advice or lessons to our close. And, you know, on the Middle East, let me say this, the Oslo Accords led to Oslo because there was this very close and trusted coordination between Norway and the US.

And obviously what we have done by recognizing is something that the US is not doing at the moment. We have explained, we agree on the objective, but, you know, we saw this as the right step for us to move now. I acknowledge the very complex role they have to go on and give very clear signals. There has to be some conditions with those signals. And what has happened now in Rafa, what happens around these international court issues, has profound implications, I think, on Europe. And I would like to see, you know, nobody will ever question that the US is there as a guarantor for Israel. And, you know, I hear this government in Israel talking about all those.

who are against them and enemies against them. I think Israel, in this foundation, has pretty solid support, you know, for being a state, living in a complex environment, living in a very, you know, with Iran and all the rest of it, we are online there.

But, you know, when we do as we do, is that we see that moving ahead, as we have done in previous years, is a disaster for the Palestinians. It is decreasing security for the Israelis, and it has profound ramifications beyond the region. And there is where the U.S. comes in.

And I still wish to have a world where the U.S. have a profound say. And the role and the word and the action of the U.S. really weighs in. And that's why I really hope that, you know, we will be able to end the war and then to move on to that next chapter. I do want to just ask you one question on Ukraine, because you've been so out front on that issue as well. You know, we're in this moment when it feels like the battlefield momentum has just a bit against the Ukrainians. President Zelensky's kind of been appealing for additional support,

additional kinds of weapon systems or perhaps help in shooting things down. But in general, just feels like there's a status quo that is a bit uncomfortable. Where do you see the war right now? And what kind of things, either politically or militarily, do you think Ukraine supporters need to at least consider going forward to try to shake the momentum in a better direction? Well, first think about it, that Ukraine has been able to hold back this massive invasion and the enormous mobilization from Russia. It's in itself very telling. I believe that, I mean, for Norway, being in Europe, neighbor to Russia, you know, we see

that defending Ukraine's right to defend itself is a core principle, I believe, you know, visibly Ukraine, but also for the security order in Europe. And what we need to do now is really to hear his call, and that is for air defence primarily. That is critically important. And important parts of the air defence now defending Ukrainian cities comes from Norwegian technology. We produce this nasan battery system, and there's patriots and others, but we really have to come up and see what can we do to support them. And then I think, you know, we support Ukraine's right to defend itself.

at some stage, there has to be moving over to a new phase, where we are not seeing this as a storm at a battlefield. From my perspective, this has to be Ukraine's call. When are we in a situation where you can move into a different phase? There will be a NATO summit. There will be in mid-July, in D.C. There will be a meeting in Switzerland, mid-June, about, you know, the peace formula, countries coming together. And I think we also have to politically to work on that. Last remark is that, you know, Russia will be there also after this war. Sometimes I hear people talk about Europe as they are kind of with a pair of sisters taken Russia away from the European map. We have to consider and conceptualize the European security order in the

future that will give security to countries small and large. I know there are large countries such as Russia, who would like to go back to spheres of influence, a kind of Yolta-1945 scenario, that is not Europe for the 21st century. And Europe had the biggest toolbox of resolving conflicts of this order of any continent. And we need to get back to the thinking of how that should be. And I'm a bit wary that we are now constantly talking military escalation, and it is necessary, but we also need some of ourselves to discuss, you know,

what security order is best for Europe. If you go back to World War II, the World War II post-World War order was started to be conceptualized in 1942, 43. And we now have to spend also time on looking how we can avoid this terrible strategy unfolding in Ukraine to happen elsewhere. That's very interesting. I just want to say, because it ties together the two things we've been talking about. So you're sitting there and you're thinking as the leader of Norway, which is a very interesting. has a kind of additional role in terms of diplomacy and assistance over the years. It's kind of one of the kind of better behaved stakeholders in the international order. But you're looking at both

the situation in Israel and Palestine and in Russia, Ukraine. And what kind of ties this together is thinking about both how do you weather the storm that we're in. But in both cases, you're talking about, hey, we actually need to start thinking about what's the future of Palestine and Israel? What's the future of Russia and Ukraine? Yeah. But there's one more dimension to this, Ben, there's one more dimension to this, which I like to highlight. And that is, you know, we travel, we travel around in the global south to explain the meaning of this war in Ukraine, you know, trying to call their attention to how serious

this is. And then comes Gaza, and then comes the question of, do you have double standards? And that is a critical issue. And, you know, for me, you know, you cannot compare these two conflicts because they are too different. But human lives can be compared. And that is why I think, you know, having, you know, today I've been traveling around Norway, visiting schools and universities to see what this does to people. You know, the young generation gets all these news, not by text explanation, but by images coming in on their mobile phones, you know, on all kind of social media. And they keep asking, you know, it's a life, a life, it's a murder a murder, it's a disaster, disaster. And, you know, it's not a one-to-one. But there's a bigger

picture where we, I think, who believe we belong to the free world and these principles, we have to be very wary these days, not to be, you know, fall in the double standard basket. Yeah. In some ways, it's more important than ever to avoid that. Well, look, I really appreciate you coming on and explaining a very consequential week in Norwegian foreign policy. And as people heard, you're thoughtful always on these issues and trying to see the big picture. So thanks for joining us and look forward to keeping in touch. Thank you so much. Do you know some undecided voters or do you want to get to know some undecided voters so that you can convince them to show up this election year?

Fear not, Pod Save America host John Favro is back with Season 4 of the Wilderness to give you the insights you need to persuade the persuadables in your life. With the help of some of the smartest strategists, pollsters, and organizers in politics, John explores the thought process of voters who are slipping away, frankly, and dies into what we can do between now and November to secure our democracy. You're not going to want to miss this. I love the wilderness. New episodes will drop every other Sunday in the POT of America feed.

So listen wherever you get your podcast. We have a very exciting co-host, a good friend of mine. journalist, author, and CNN host, Fareed Zakaria. Freed, so glad to have you here. Thanks for joining us. Great to be here. I'm a fan, so this is so much fun for me. Well, we're turning the tape. People should know, first of all, Farid, probably, you know, perhaps Barack Obama's favorite commentator. So part of my job in the White House was not only to talk to you as a journalist,

but to make sure that I, you know, I was getting your commentary in front of the boss, so he didn't miss any of it because you always wanted to see it. but you're also the author of an extraordinary new book that we're going to talk about in a few minutes called Revolutions. Just at the top, let me just congratulate you and encourage everybody to pick this one up. This is really a sweeping look at what's happening now through the prism of revolutions past and history. So really looking forward to talking to you about that.

But we're going to dive in with some revolutionary activity that's happening around the world for if that's okay with you. Totally fine. Let's start with Gaza. it's been a busy week, to say the least. I'm just going to give a quick recap here. We talked in the last podcast about the ICC requesting arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galant. Then since then, we've had some additional steps taken. Spain, Norway, and Ireland went out in a coordinated fashion to say

that they would recognize a Palestinian state formally. This is largely symbolic in the sense that you know, these countries join over 140 countries at the United Nations General Assembly who've recognized Palestine. But at the same time, it doesn't create a Palestinian state, and the U.S. would continue to veto the creation of Palestinian state through the UN Security Council. That said, as I'm working my way up to question here for you, but there's so much news to get through, this adds to kind of the momentum, I think, of pressure on Israel and pressure on the old paradigm of the peace process. Netanyahu, of course, condemned it, called it a reward for terrorism. But then, just this morning, before we began talking here, the International Court of Justice

announced that Israel must halt its military operation in Rafah. Here's how Judge Noaaf Salam, the president of the ICJ, the highest court in the world, explained this move. Israel must immediately hold its military offense and any other action in the Rafah governor, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in government. of life, conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. This is citing immediate risk to civilians in Rafa, and this comes after the ICJ previously kind of warned of the potential for genocide, and you heard him use language about the destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza and whole or in part. So to summarize here, we've got the

ICC issuing arrest warrants for the Prime Minister of Israel. We've got three European nations, which have generally not recognized Palestine in the same percentages as other nations, taking that step this week. And then today we had the ICJ issuing this order. Meanwhile, in U.S. politics, you know, the Biden administration condemned the ICC. And then just yesterday, the U.S. Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, announced that Bibi Netanyahu will be invited by him and Chuck Schumer to address a joint session of Congress. So where I start after all that is just how you make sense of someone, as nobody is better

than you at following both U.S. politics and global politics. This gap between where the U.S. government is and the U.S. Congress is and the rest of the world, I don't even know how to describe it anymore. I mean, how do you put in context the different views that we saw this week from Washington versus the rest of the world? No, you're absolutely right. This is one of the areas where the United States is just in a completely different place than almost all of the rest of the world. some countries in Europe, to be fair, are also very, very different from, you know, where Spain is, for example, the Germans have been very strong with supporters of Israel for obvious historical reasons. The UK has tended to be very supportive. India has tended to be very supportive.

And, you know, so there are unusual cases. Hungary, bizarrely, is very supportive of B.B. Netanyahu. They don't say, Auburn doesn't seem to like most Jews, but he's found one he likes, BV Netanyahu. Yes, exactly. But look, I think the best way to think about this is where does this take us? Where does it go?

The pressure on Israel is real, even though the Israelis will deny it. They don't want to feel like a pariah state. They felt like one of the great things that had happened in Israel over the last 10 years was the increasing normalization of Israel, perhaps because it was seen as a kind of tech superpower, whatever. And that gave Israelis immense sense of pride. But it is important to think about the reality.

Israel has the power on the ground. All this pressure makes no difference if it doesn't move Israel. Because the Security Council can't grant a Palestinian state. Only one country in the world can do it, and that is Israel. Israel controls that ground. It is not going to allow a Palestinian state. state to happen, you know, just because somebody in the U.N. passes a resolution. So the American position of hugging Israel, both expresses certain American values, I suppose, but I would argue

just strategically, it is a smart place to be, if you can use that hug to privately pressure the Israeli government. And I would argue the Biden people are actually now doing something very, something that is positive and strategic and has a chance of working. I don't want to say more than that because look, you can always make money betting against the peace in the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian process. But what the Biden people are trying to do is just go to the Saudis, go to the

Egyptians, go to the UAE and company, but above all, go to the Saudis and say, do you want this deal, a normalization with Israel? The Saudis have basically said yes. So the question is, how do you get the Israelis to recognize that this is a deal of a lifetime? This is what they have always wanted. Normalized relations with Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the two holy mosques, the largest funder of Arab governments. So that really would integrate Israel into the region, which has always been the dream. And what they have to do is recognize that They need to do something serious and real with the Palestinians. Bibi needs something like this to get out of the mess he's in, to restore his credibility,

to give the sense that he's a winner and he can get a diplomatic triumph out of it. And if you want a Palestinian state, you need a right-wing politician to deliver it. If a left-wing politician in Israel proposes or agrees to a Palestinian state, it will not happen because the right wing will tear it apart. So I guess as someone who's been a little more skeptical, but like you said, it's always easy to bet on skepticism in this. The data points I look at are in Israel right that actually doesn't see Saudi normalization as the goal.

You know, they see basically they want all the land. And here I mean Ben-Gavir and Smaltrich, you know, like the far right clearly would prefer to control the West Bank in Gaza than to have Saudi normalization and deal. Netanyahu, you know, has kind of generally, when push comes to shove, broken in that direction. And so I guess just the follow-up I would have is I understand that play, but I also feel like we've done the hug strategy, you know, basically since Oslo, you know, with some friction along the way and I was a part of some of that friction. Do you see, like, what is the utility? of this kind of three-dimensional puzzle, right? You've got, because I think there's a role for pressure.

And so you've got these, you know, call it bad cops, but like you've got the Europeans saying, we're, you know, we're done with direct negotiations. That leads nowhere. That's how the Israeli government has played for time in the past. We're going to shortcut to recognition to apply some pressure here. You've got obviously the international legal proceedings, which are kind of a different track. Then you've got this kind of Abraham's Accords track from the Gulf. I mean, like, what is the manner in which that assembles? Like, where does the place for pressure versus the place for diplomacy come, particularly when you're dealing with, as you said,

an endgame that is inside of Israeli politics, which is very hard to control? Yeah, I mean, look, obviously, you're making a lot of very smart points. So to be clear, if in order for this to work, Bibi would have to announce that he was in, you know, he was in favor of a Palestinian state, which would mean he would lose those two extreme right-wing members of his coalition, Ben Govira and Smirrullich, and they would collapse the government as a result.

There would be new elections. And the BB's theory would have to be he would now be able to form a more centrist coalition, which, to be fair, was how he's always governed. This is the exception over the last 20 years. So this would take him back to more of a kind of liquid and center-right. coalition, they would win the election because he was promising Saudi normalization and things like that. Of course, it could not happen. But on the other end, if it doesn't happen and another center-right politician, and I know that Naftali Bennett thinks that this is a perfect opportunity

for him might step in and do something like that, maybe even, you know, gallant or something like that. So it's a tough one. But your larger question is a very good one, which is, could American pressure work better? Look, American pressure could work if you were able to convince the Israelis that this did not present an existential threat to them. Israel has lived under a kind of garrison fortress mentality for much of its existence. It has not worried about external pressure. From 48 to 73, the United States was not particularly supportive of Israel. 67 is really the shift with the Johnson administration. So they've been alone, and they felt fine, we're going to, you know, well, so I'm not sure

it would be as effective as people do. But the other piece of it is, in order for it to be effective, we have to talk about the reality of politics in America, too, which is no president can do this in a context in which this is a deeply partisan issue, and he's going to get outflanked. And the best example of this was Obama with, you know, with the Iran nuclear deal. Bibi was determined to scuttle the deal. Obama was basically putting a lot of pressure. You correct me if I'm wrong about this. And Bibi does an end run where he gets the Republicans to invite him and give a joint session of Congress and essentially undermines everything Obama's

doing as a result of which the Iran nuclear deal ends up being an executive agreement, which then Trump can pull out, which was a, I mean, the whole thing was a disaster because the Iran nuclear deal was, you know, a very effective diplomatic triumph in many ways. Yeah, well, it all would have worked if Donald Trump didn't get elected in 2016. That's American politics. That had a follow-on effect on in Iran, which is, you know, I don't want to exaggerate the degree to which there are reformers and hardliners in Iran. It's a hardline theocracy. But there was a spectrum. And the people who wanted a more, more integration and less of a kind of aggressive foreign policy were totally discredited once Trump pulled out of the deal.

and the hardliners who had always been against the Iran nuclear deal are now totally triumphant and totally in control in Iran. So the whole thing has been a disaster, but it was precisely because we had this partisan division in the United States. Yeah. Well, it foreshadows what we'll talk about a little bit later with your book because, I mean, it's also how hardline politics in different places kind of reinforces each other, which, you know, brings us to the the high priest of hardline politics in the world today, Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. So it's not been trending well-fried, as you've been covering. Russia has continued its military advance on Kharkiv, making pretty steady, if incremental,

gains. I think Zelensky has been out asking, you know, with increasing urgency for, you know, permission to use weapons that he's been provided on Russian soil, for help in shooting things down. There's some debate after Tony Blinken's recent trip to Ukraine within the Biden administration about how far to go with that. I wanted to ask you as someone who like me, I think, you know, you've been incredibly sympathetic to and supportive of the Ukrainians and also probably a bit worried about, you know, Russia's not going anywhere. So the idea of like a total military defeat of Russia has always seemed kind of a bit fanciful. And I think some people got a little too, you know, predictive of that and hyperbolic and the belief that you could completely dislodge Russia from,

say, Crimea. What do you make of this balance between, does it help to reach a better negotiated settlement to kind of open up the aperture, let the Ukrainians take some more shots in Russia, give them some more advanced weapons? How do you balance that against the kind of inevitability that there's going to have to be some negotiating at some point? How do you see that, I mean, to continue to the theme of kind of three-dimensional impossible puzzles to assemble. You know, Ukraine is asking for those material and that permission at the same time that they're preparing for a peace summit in Switzerland and mid-June, which is mainly about validating their own kind of terms for a peace negotiation. Russia's not at that summit. How do you see the mix of military support and diplomacy

in the context of what the best outcome could be for Ukraine? Yeah, this is a really tough one. And I think it shows you how, you know, people can criticize from the outside, but it's complicated, right? So if you were to just say, let the Ukrainians have everything you want, let them strike deep into Russia, you know, shoot down Russian stuff that's over Ukrainian airspace willy-nilly. Putin has made it clear he would respond. Now, he is threatening to respond with tactical nuclear weapons, even if that's not true. You know, Russia is a great power. It is the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. There's a veto and the Security Council.

It has troops spread all over. You know, it has equities in the Middle East. So it is something to be careful about. You know, the West does not want to go to war with Russia directly. This is something we try to avoid throughout the Cold War for good reason. Because, you know, basically the danger in a situation like that is if you get into a direct confrontation, neither side can back down. You know, this is the classic doom loop of security spiral you get into. And if each side feels they can't back down, you inevitably get to a point where you are

actually engaged in a major war with another nuclear power. And that could take you up an escalation ladder that you don't want to go. So that's the fear. All that said, I think the Biden people are probably being too cautious. I think that there is more they could allow the Ukrainians to, particularly give them weaponry that allows them to do it. I also think maybe there's a way to do something that's kind of a bit of a wink-wink saying, we have told the Ukrainians that they can't, you know, they can fire into Russians a territory. We believe they're adhering to that. You know, the Ukrainians,

nobody's checking on them every day. Nobody's giving them, you know, vetoes. If the Ukrainians are firing occasionally, you know, missiles a little bit further, it's the fog of war. I mean, I wonder whether there's some piece of that. The air defenses part, I'm much more sympathetic to the Ukrainians. Why couldn't you set up an air? We saw how well it worked in the case of Israel. And by the way, that one worked in Israel largely because of the United States, not because of the Iron Dome. My understanding is we shot down 50% of the 300 Iranian missiles, drones, cruise missiles that came over. Why couldn't we do something like that? For example, you know, make Kiev impregnable, make Kharkiv impregnable, you know, and things like that.

So I do think, look, at some level, Macron is right when he says, are we in this to win? If we're in this to win, why are we tying one hand behind our backs? You know, we need to be clear that we will do what it takes to win. And we shouldn't be signaling in advance that we're not doing, you know, we're taking this off the table. We're taking that off the table. I think that if we took a more aggressive strategy, if we allowed the Ukrainians to take a more aggressive strategy, we probably would get some victories. But I do agree with your basic point at the end, which is this is going to end in a negotiation.

It is going to end in a negotiation which has a settlement that looks roughly like where we are now. In other words, the Russians have taken about 18 percent of Ukraine. They took more than the Ukrainians took back some. it's somewhere in the 18 to 20 percent that the Ukrainians have lost. I don't think they're getting that back. The question is, can you get to the point where the two parties are willing to accept that reality? I don't think they will ever accept the legitimacy of it. The Ukrainians will never recognize that as Russian. The Russians will probably want more. You know, there's historic Russia

is actually another 10 percent of Ukraine. The Russians are not going to get. And so the question is, at what point does it feel like you can get to the negotiating table and have a serious conversation about this, or even an armistice like the Korean War, which may be how this ends. You know, the Korean War is not technically over. They just stop fighting. That's why it's called a DMZ, a demilitarized zone. And maybe that's how this ends. But that the, you know, the key, I think, is for us to convince the Ukrainians, look, your goal

should be a free sovereign democratic Ukraine anchored in the West. The particular size of that Ukraine don't get hung up over. And somebody has to convince the Russians, look, you know, you have become a total pariah, you've been denied access to all this technology, you've been, you know, your economy is in a very, very difficult state. There's a way out. And I wish we had better relations with the Chinese because that would be one very powerful way to go. But if you could get both of those things to happen probably next year, the problem is the Russians are waiting for Trump. And they're waiting for Trump and they think Trump is going to surrender for the Ukrainians and cut a deal. And so none of this is going to happen until next year. Yeah, look, I think that's

very well said. I mean, at the price of, you know, of losing Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine are, you know, full membership in the West, essentially. Exactly. You know, I think that's a better, you know, it's obviously not what Ukrainians would want, and I wouldn't expect them to want that. And it's tragic for the Ukrainians that are on the other side of that iron curtain. But, I mean, your Korea, you know, examples, a good one in the sense that that turned out pretty well for South Korea.

And that kind of leads me, you mentioned China, to the last piece of this World War III puzzle that we're trying to avoid. And one of the things I thought about, Fried, is how much these are the fault lines of unresolved history, which we'll get to in your book in the sense that Ukraine is just beyond the NATO umbrella. Taiwan, unresolved piece of history from obviously the end of the Chinese revolution. Israel, just beyond treaty obligation, right? So we're kind of all on these fault lines where, you know, Russia, China, Iran kind of run into the U.S. and its allies. Taiwan is obviously at the forefront of that and the one piece of this that is not.

not an act of conflict yet. They recently inaugurated new President William Lai on May 20th, which predictably heated things up. I'm going to play a short clip here translated from William Lai's inauguration speech. I want to call on China to cease their political and military intimidation against Taiwan, share the global responsibility of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait as well as the greater region, and ensure the world is free from the fear of war. carefully formulated language there, as these things always are out of Taiwan. China, I think inevitably was going to respond to something, and they described some military exercises that they did

kind of flexing their muscles around Taiwan as, quote, strong punishment for the separatist acts of Taiwan independence. William Lai in the past has been more for leaning and supporting independence. He's moderated as part of his campaign. Now William Lai is touring military bases in Taiwan. He's talked about kind of a peace through strength approach. He's put their military on alert. What is the best way for Reid to, in continuing our theme of trying to balance the need to stand with a democratic partner, but also to avoid a war that would not be good for that democratic partner as well as everybody else? How are you looking at Taiwan right now? And how do you see the U.S. in particular as the balance that needs to strike between supporting Taiwan, deterring China,

but not necessarily provoking China by, you know, upping the ante and the kind of arms we provide or security guarantees we provide to Taiwan. First, I want to underscore something you said that I thought was so well put, which I hadn't thought about exactly in that same way, which is that you have these three historically unresolved areas, as it were, a kind of almost like the detritus of history. And, you know, you're having a challenge to the American order and the American, hegemony or Western hegemony or the liberal international, or call of what you will, but they have found these weak spots precisely because they are historically unresolved. If you think about it,

you know, the status of Ukraine unresolved because it was not just part of the Soviet Union, but part of the Tsarist empire. So it's 300 years old. The occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza, 56 years unresolved. And of course, Taiwan unresolved. since 1949. And so, you know, those are the, you know, so you have tension, you have problems, you have but these become the trip wires that could actually lead you to conflict. With regard to Taiwan, the thing I worry about is this. The Chinese always had a strategy towards Taiwan, which was that time was on their side.

I think Deng Xiaoping once said to Kisinger, look, at the end of the day, you know, where 1.4 billion people on one side of the Taiwan Straits and there are 22 million people we're going to be the largest economy in the world. Inevitably, the magnetic attraction is going to pull them toward us. Some words to that effect. And I think that really was the Chinese strategy. Kick the can down the road because at the end of the day, these ties will keep building. And what's happened, and this is partly because of what things that have happened in Taiwan, but partly Xi Jinping, very much more repressive ruler, much more anti-democratic, shut down the promises he made in Hong Kong and democracy in Hong Kong.

And so the Taiwanese look at all of that and they are becoming much more independence-minded. So what Xi Jinping correctly is realizing is that maybe time is not on his side, that Taiwan is becoming every day, every month, every year, more independence-minded. more proud of its democratic character. And so, in a very real way, does he have a window of opportunity to act now rather than 10 years from now? So to my mind, American strategy has to be a kind of deterrence strategy that is not provocative, but that very slightly, in the way that the Chinese keep trying to do a little bit of the

salami tactics of adding more flights, more harm as much, very slightly, you just keep. building up the deterrent capacity. You just keep building up the deterrent capacity. And I think, again, to give credit to Biden, what he's done is he's taken our policy, which was, if that's famously been described, as strategic ambiguity about whether we would defend Taiwan. And the way I would call it is it's a strategic ambiguity, but a little less ambiguous. So that four times on the record when he is asked, will the United States defend Taiwan? he says yes. He was once asked, wait, he was saying American troops would go in and defend Taiwan, and he

says, yes. The next day, the press asks Jake Sullivan, has American policy toward China, Taiwan changed? And he says, oh, no, the same policy is strategic ambiguity. Now, you know, you try to figure out that puzzle. But what I think they're doing is they're saying, we're shading strategic ambiguity, so it's a little less ambiguous. Should they do more? I think it's a very careful game, because this is a neuralial.

issue for China. And this is not a Xi Jinping issue. Most people don't realize the Taiwan issue, every Chinese leader has been it's in the constitution of the People's Republic of China, that Taiwan will be unified. It is, as you put it, the leftover part of the communist revolution that took over. It's the one piece they weren't able to take over. And so I would be, I would be careful. I would also try to work on more broadly having better working relations with China, you know, in a way that allows you, again, to build that deterrent a little bit, but signaling to the Chinese at the same time, look, we are never going to provoke anything. We're never going to recognize Taiwan independence. And, you know, I think Jake Sullivan put it

very well. He said, the Taiwan situation, I think this is on my show, that it's always been illogical and contradictory, but all that weird and illogic and contradictory stuff has held peace for, you know, since 1949. Let's just try, and particularly since the Shanghai communicate. Let's just try to keep it going. You know, sometimes you can't solve these problems. Let's just keep the peace. Oh, yeah. No, I totally agree with you. I mean, on this one, I think we're very aligned. In solving the problem isn't the goal here. It's avoiding the status quo, as weird as it is, is great, you know. And I think in addition, I think they've been good at not just the messaging, but, you know, the slight turn and weapons provided, instead of just giving them big, you know, showy weapons that are kind of useless in a contingency, right, like new ships or new planes, giving them the things that they actually need to defend themselves, right? You know, anti-tank weapons, anti-ship weapons, smaller arms, frankly, the stuff that the Ukrainians have used. The so-called occupying strategy, which I think is exactly right, yeah.

Yeah, you know, so it's actual deterrence and not. just kind of an arm sales for the sake of arm sales. Well, look, this history turn that we took is a great way of working into your book here. And as someone who wrote on the subject of the rise of kind of populist autocracy, I think one thing's been missing from a lot of the writing about this and commentary about this rise of populism and ethonationalism and autocracy is the historical context. And this is one of the things that this year and new book, Revolutions does so incredibly well. So you take this kind of sweeping look at past revolutions, particularly, you know, things like the Dutch, British and French, the industrial

revolutions here and in the UK. And then you kind of juxtaposed that with whatever's been going on in kind of the post-Cold War period. As people who follow your commentary, you know, what I like about your worldview for read, and I've tried to emulate as best I can, is that you work in not just politics, but the economy, the technological change, issues around identity. And so you kind of paint this picture. And I wanted to just start by asking you kind of what motivated you to write this book to take this entry point? And presumably, you wanted to talk about the revolutions and the populism that is remaking our world today and it contributed everything we just talked about. You chose to kind of enter through the doorway of these kind of mainly European

revolutions of the past, what drew you to that idea? And what was it like to kind of step out of the present and look at the present from that prism of past revolutions? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. In some ways, at the broadest possible level, Ben, I think you and I were motivated by very similar things. I read your last book and loved it. And what you were really talking about was, look, the world seemed to be going a certain direction after 1989. And it was a direction that for people who believed in, you know, the Enlightenment liberal project of the Western world and the way it was being universalized with human rights and democracy and freer markets, freer trade, freer information, this seemed like a wonderful thing. And it seemed like, you know, human aspirations were being fulfilled. And then something happened.

And it's, you know, it's gone, it's gone, hey, why, or it's got at least gotten much more complicated. And there's, you know, there's a big backlash. What is going on? So at the meta level, it was that. I began thinking about it about 10 years ago with the rise of the Tea Party because I noticed something very bizarre. The Republican parties tends to be a very hierarchical party, very top-down. There's that famous line about presidential nominations that Democrats have to fall in love.

You know, you think about Clinton, Obama, Kennedy, but Republicans fall in line. They nominate the guy, the next guy on the list, you know, Bob Dole, John McCain. I mean, this is the party that nominated Richard Nixon five times for its presidential, vice presidential ticket. So that party was being upended by an insurgency. And the insurgency was very unusual in that it was not really Reagan's Republican Party. It wasn't about free trade and, you know, spreading democracy or and limited government. It was mostly about cultural issues. The theater scotch, Pauli,

D.L has this wonderful book about the Tea Party. She spent a year basically hanging out with them. And she says all their motivations were cultural. It was immigration. It was what we would now call the woke agenda multiculturalism. A lot of it was, you know, the backlash of the first black family in the White House. A black president. And it's absolutely clear. That's why even today, Ben, I think there's something like 30% of the Republican Party says we don't believe Obama was born in America. I mean, there's still, you know, which is, I always have taken a way of expressing a kind of visceral cultural objection to, you know, to the rise of, you know, blacks or Obama, however

you want to put it. It's a kind of, it's a kind of, you know, opposition to all this diversity, multiculturalism that's sweeping through American society. So, When I started to think about it in terms of that kind of a backlash, I asked myself, well, we've had periods of great change before, these great revolutions which have moved societies forward. What did the backlash look like? And why will, you know, how did it work? And I was fascinated when I would go back to find that even with the Dutch, you know,

who really the beginning of modern politics, the enormous technological progress, enormous economic revolution, and it produces an identity revolution. They start to think of themselves as Dutch, as Protestant, not as part of the Catholic Habsburg Empire. And there's a backlash. There develops a party that says, this is way too much change, too much, too fast. Let's go back to the old ways. We'll take you back to a simpler age. There was almost like there was a party that said, we'll make the Netherlands great again,

which has always been the politics of nostalgia, you know, is. It's the oldest form of politics out there. And it turns out it's very, and it gets heightened when you have a lot of progressive change. Well, and what was interesting to me about that, that you seem to kind of be particularly drawn by the Dutch Revolution, but then also how, you know, they fed into the glorious revolution in England with William of Orange. it seemed to me, you know, part of what you admired about how that was kind of managed, unlike, say, the French Revolution where they, you know, burned it all down and then Napoleon

rampaged across Europe, right, is that there was this kind of bottom up, you know, demand for change, but it kind of was captured by reform of political institutions, right? So, you know, it's kind of what we would think of as a more conservative revolution. So it was like an incremental embrace of pluralism reform. I mean, right now it seems like we're caught in between a kind of burn it down right-wing nationalism and a far, like a left-wing that hasn't kind of figured out how to win the populist fight. And then like social Democrats who are in this kind of very strange place of like defending institutions that they used to criticize, you know, like the CIA and the, you know, the military industrial complex is now. I mean, what did you take from that? Because I could feel your affinity for kind of the William of Orange character.

And what can we learn about a different model of revolution than MAGA or, you know, communism, essentially? Yeah. I mean, look, you're asking the central question is how do you navigate through these kind of periods of revolution? And it feels like the ones that have done it the best. And by best, I mean, the ones who've been able to do it in a way where the change, the progressive change, that we all want endures are the ones who have tended to be incremental, the ones who have recognized that, you know, societies can only take so much change, so fast, who've been willing to take a half loaf or even a quarter loaf rather than the full loaf. And I think that

for people, you know, who generally are of that inclination, my feeling is always just, you know, be understanding. Like, take, for example, immigration as an immigrant. The U.S. in 1975 was four, four and a half percent foreign born. It's today 15 percent foreign born. Look, I think that's a wonderful thing. It's enriched America in a hundred different ways, but it's a lot of change, you know, particularly for people who have lived in a very monocultural kind of atmosphere in a town or community. So just be understanding, be, you know, try to try to persuade. Don't shame people. Don't make it feel like they're somehow morally inferior if they don't understand what you what you understand. Similarly, on some of these gender issues, you know, I mean, I look,

I think people like Clinton and Obama practice that politics, you know, people, I know that it's now very unpopular to say, or, you know, it's a sign of supposedly Obama's kind of retrograde politics that he initially was in favor of civil unions, but not gay marriage. But that's a perfect example of a politician trying to make sure he's not too far ahead. of his country. He's not too far. You know, there was a wonderful line that Franklin Roosevelt has where he says there is a terrible thing to be a leader and to turn around and to notice that there is no one following you. You know, you can only lead if you have, if you figured out the positions that you have that have enough of a following, that it will then lead to enduring change.

And I think on the left, there tends to be a sometimes a search for purity and an impatient with that process. And I would just say, look, the goal here is to make these changes endure, not to get a momentary victory. Yeah, there was another great Roosevelt line that Obama used to quote to me all the time about this, the interplay between politicians and public opinion, where he was meeting with Randolph, the great head of the Black Porter's Union, who ended up being the leader of the March from Washington in 1963. And Randolph had a bunch of demands for FDR and he said, I agree with all those demands now, go make me do it, you know. And he did actually. He pressured him to make some big changes. Well, I want to make sure I also

ask you, though, in the second half of the book where you're dealing with, you know, it's a great survey of the changes that are happening now in the economy and technology, in identity politics. But you also obviously given your perspective, and for this audience, you know, geopolitics is a part of this. And part of what's so unsettling to me, frankly, interesting in reading your book and how you kind of weave these threads together is we are somehow simultaneously in this country going to have to figure out how to not lose our democracy and how to not end up in World War III. And like those are somehow related, but they're also somewhat distinct. And it kind of comes back a bit to the China piece. But one of the things

that worries me is that, and you interview a lot of people on your show, right, who, including Democrats, including people who I might agree with on almost all the a lot of the individual issues, but it's kind of a mindset of American primacy, you know, and in your head of the curve on anticipating a multipolar world. Look, I, you know, I don't like a lot of things Xi Jinping does, but, you know, you argue in the book for kind of finding a way of coexistence with China and finding ways to form kind of, you know, obviously partnerships of shared interest around things like climate change and technology that we're going to have to do. How do you, coming out of this process, how did you look at the ways in which we can reconcile

both the need to manage the revolutions in our own society with the need to kind of coexist with a different system like China in the world? You know, I came out of, in doing the research for this, I came out of it a little more pessimistic on that front. You and I shared the perspective entirely on where we'd like to see the kind of sweet spot of American foreign policy, which is, you know, find a way to cooperate with China where you can. Of course, there's going to be a lot of competition. Of course, there's going to be a lot of tension. But, you know, let's try to not have a situation where the two largest economies in the world are, you know, are moving in a, in just one direction,

which is toward greater and greater tension, because particularly given Taiwan, that could easily lead to a great power war that we've avoided for 75 years. The trouble is what I discovered is that for Xi Jinping and Putin, it's not just that they are balancing against American power in a simple, cold, calculated, rational way. They are also balancing against American liberal ideas. She is very much a cultural conservative. He believes that, you know, the greatest danger to the Chinese Communist Party is to be infected by all these Western, for China to be infected by all these Western ideas about openness

and individual rights and individual autonomy. And so he has been launching a campaign of basically saying, you know, we don't want this. We are a different society. Putin, of course, has done it even more dramatically with the embrace of the Orthodox Church and, you know, denouncing gender rights in the U.S. But what I came to realize is that these guys are not just balancing against American heart power. They're balancing against American soft power. So they also want, in an odd way, for their domestic politics, this idea of oppositionalism toward America is part of their

domestic ideology. It's part of what gives them a certain kind of domestic credibility. So all of which means it's a little more difficult to get to, you know, kind of moments of cooperation, arenas of cooperation. So I've come to a kind of view that it's a little bit less hopeful, which is, look, we are at best going to have a cold peace with China. It's, you know, what we have to avoid is a heart war and a cold war. And the reason we want to avoid a heart war is obvious, but the reason we want to avoid a cold war is because it would so distort our society. It would mean America would be consumed with this. It would mean an arms race with the second rich.

country in the world, a country of great technological sophistication, it would mean that we would end up, you know, diverting so much of the energy and attention, we need to build America back, build the economy, invest in our society, build and maintain our democracy. Everything would go away, and we'd be, and do we really want that? And so is there a path? And there is a path. it's a working relationship with an adversary. It probably resembles detente with the Soviet Union. You know, we were in a period of intense geopolitical rivalry with the Soviet Union, but we found a way to talk to them. We found a way to stabilize things. We found a way to make sure that there were channels of communication open so that nothing happened that was a misunderstanding.

Nothing happened that was kind of, you know, like some kind of accidental crisis that then just exploded. Well, look, Frida, I really appreciate you coming on today. People listening should definitely pick up revolutions. I mean, we've scratched the surface of such a rich, researched, and obviously elegantly written book. And I share your, you know, like you, you and I have been trying to find that sweet spot for the entire time I've known you. And it's hard not to be pessimistic, but we've gotten through some tough times before. Hopefully we can do it again. But I like how you have evolved your own thinking by examining the kind of politics of countries and not just seeing foreign policy as, you know, a collection of foreign interest. It's an extension of domestic

politics, right, for all these places. So thanks so much for coming on and thanks for writing book. It's a huge pleasure to do this with you, Ben, a long-time admirer of everything you write and of this podcast. So thanks for having me. Just in time for June, the Pride or Else collection just launched at the Cricket Store. It includes designs for everyone, whether you're leading the parade or showing up as an ally. Allies this month isn't about you,

but you still get some merch. The collection also includes fresh versions of our best-selling, leave trans kids alone, you absolute freaks, merch. That's Evergreen, unfortunately. Most importantly, a portion of the proceeds from every order go to Crooked's Pride or Else Fund

in support of organizations working to provide gender-affirming care and life-saving resources to queer and transgender communities across America. Prep for Pride at crooked.com slash store. Okay, I'm very pleased to welcome to Podsaid the world, the founder and CEO of Branch

Media, which has got a lot of great podcasts. You should check out the Lost Debate, but we are here to talk about killing justice, which Branch did with Crooked Media. I've been very proud to be an executive producer, which, you know, I didn't do much work on this one, Ravi, but it's really turned out great. It's an extraordinary podcast, so congratulations and thanks. for coming on. Well, thank you. And you know, you did the most important thing, which was to land us with Crooked and we're really excited a partner, you know, and to get this story out there because it's, it couldn't come at a better time. Well, yeah, let's start there. I mean, I want to start with the podcast and then get into Indian politics. Just, it's kind of interesting how this is all begins with you, this whole idea for this podcast. And really this whole journey of you as an Indian American who had not really dove into the podcast. And, you know, the podcast. And really this whole journey of you as an Indian American who had not really dove into the podcast. And,

politics and identity of India. Tell our listeners how this idea came to you, what the origin story of this podcast is, the murder that got your attention. Yeah, so I run this, this nonprofit media company called The Branch, and we're small and we kind of, we only take on a few projects a year. And a couple of years ago, I got an email. And like, I imagine you get these kinds of pitches all the time. I always get these emails saying, you know, let's do this podcast together. Let's do this project. And I usually ignore them, not because I want to be rude just because you've thrown enough time to vet all these things. But one email I got that really caught my attention was basically making some pretty grand claims about this death of a judge in India that they said was

really suspicious and that landed at the doorstep of Modi and his right-hand man, a guy named Amit Shah, who's the current home minister and many people speculate potential successor to Modi, basically saying these guys are potentially implicated in the death of this judge. And I was like, well, that's serious. So I started vetting it and it was kind of an unlikely project because although my name is Ravi Gupta, I was raised by my mom who's Polish American in India. My dad, who's Indian, left us when I was a kid. And so I went up tackling this project both to try to get to the bottom of the story of what happened to this judge, but also as an excuse to go to India for the first time and explore this part of my identity. I have a fully Indian name and I have

50% of my DNA from India, but know a lot less about the country than I should. And so that has been the journey I've been on for the past year. Well, I mean, that makes you in a way the kind of perfect guide, right, for people who are kind of just coming to this like you are. One of the things I love about the podcast, which again, everybody should check out killing justice, is you kind of set out to answer this question of what happened with the potential murder of this judge and is there a connection to Ami Chah and we'll get into Ami Chah a little bit. But for people, just think of Ami Chas if you combined, you know, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Mitch McConnell, all into one guy. I mean, this is really Modi's right-hand man almost barely begins to describe it. So it's a huge

allegation. And you've got investigative journalists and people listening to this podcast know that it's hard to be an investigative journalist in India these days. And what's interesting to me about it is you go to find the answer to that question. And it leads like all good reporting to just more and more questions. And it's hard to get people to talk kind of on the record about what happened, which kind of tells its own story. But as you're going on this journey, you're learning about yourself, you're learning about Indian identity, you're learning about Indian politics. How did the project change in the course of you reporting it and traveling to India and following up with sources.

Yeah, it's really fascinating because there's the personal side of things. So from the moment I get off the airplane in Mumbai, people are correcting me on the way I'm pronouncing my own name, right? So from the beginning, it is just a jarring experience. And if you've ever been to Mumbai, I imagine you might have. It is outside of my personal experience, Mumbai is like nothing I've ever seen. It's not like any other place on Earth. Yeah.

It's crazy. So all the personal stuff, which we can get to, is it was incredibly rewarding. awarding. But then on the question of this mystery, there's two parts of it. There's like the actual threads of what happened to this judge. And I learned a lot more that it wasn't just about this particular case that this judge was hearing, which was basically Amit Shah, who was the current home minister, was accused of murder. It went all the way back to the Gujarat riots in 2002, where the guy that was allegedly murdered was also alleged. to be central to the riot story, which I learned throughout the course of this reporting,

which actually I thought this was an interesting story to begin with, but then I realized, oh, why is this a case that civil society in India is so up in arms about? Oh, because it potentially leads all the way back to the most inconvenient thing about Modi that exists, right? So that is, that in and of itself was interesting. But then I think at the end of it, right, the show is called Killing Justice, right? We were trying to find out what happened to this judge. But I think really it has a double meaning as the show goes on because it's really about the death of justice period in India, right?

People awaiting a decade to get a trial. People who can't, you know, reporters who can't report simple stories without threat of harassment and jail time. You know, opposition leaders being jailed. Like, you know, as we speak right now, one of the leading opposition figures, who's the chief minister of Dali was just arrested not too long ago. And basically he's having to campaign. going back and forth to jail. These are the types of things that should happen in Russia, not India, the world's alleged largest democracy. And so much of the story kind of leads us there too, right?

We really spent a lot of time with what happened to this judge, but we also spent a lot of time saying, well, what happened to India? You know, is this even a democracy anymore? Yeah. I mean, what's so interesting to me in listening to it is that, you know, there's multiple kind of overlapping potential crime. and one leads to the other. So many. Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating.

And, you know, and there's so much effort to just obstruct any effort to get to the truth. And this is the killing justice title that it's like there's the one thing that's clear. It's kind of a true crime podcast where you keep bumping into the obstruction crime, right? But you just get the sense that there's this iceberg and these crimes are like the piece of the iceberg that is sticking up above the water. And underneath it is this whole rise of Hindu nationalism. And the Gujarat riots, which killed over a thousand Muslims when Modi was governor of Gujarat, is kind of like an origin. It's not an origin story, actually, but it's an accelerant, I guess, to the rise of Hindu nationalism, is there. I really like how you brought in history, too,

because you bring in the history of the BJP, that's a Hindu National's Political Party, and the RSS, which is the kind of, you know, let's face it, fascist-aligned kind of civil society organization that led into the BJP. Yeah, that's my favorite episode we did, is episode three. Yeah, episode three is really good. I listened to it the other day. And, I mean, what did you learn? I mean, you know, like you said, you would not delve deep in your Indian or Hindu identity.

What did you learn as a kind of person about, you know, because people think that you like Hindu, they probably don't associate Hinduism with kind of violence and, yeah. What did you learn about this, the RSS, the BJP, the forces that created Modi and Ami. Yeah. Well, I think about it from the perspective of, you know, the RSS is a perfect example. So the RSS is an organization that nobody, like, if you don't know what it is listening, it's going to sound bizarre because it is, I think it is the most underappreciated organization in the world. It has thousands and thousands of chapters, They have these thing called Shaka's, which happen every evening and every morning. And it is a, it's like as if you took the Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA, the Boy Scouts, and the Republican Party, and then maybe the evangelical church and put them all together into one organizing organization and actually made it a paramilitary organization that trains people on how to use weapons, but also teaches them to connect with their religion.

It is an incredibly powerful organization. and a lot of people get the sort of relationship between the RSS and the BJP, which is Modi's party flipped. They think that the RSS is some kind of subsidiary to the BJP, whereas the RSS is the organization. The BJP is subsidiary to it, for the most part. That might be changing recently, but by and large, that's how it goes. A member of the RSS allegedly assassinated Gandhi, so this thing goes all the way back to the origins of the country. And you would think, based on that history, right, that, okay, this is an organization that, would be a pariah given what we know about Gandhi and how central is to the country. But Modi is

not only a former member or a current member, because it's one of those things that you basically once a member, always a member. He was a member of the RSS, but he was also an organizer of the RSS. So he was actually like a very central figure in the RSS, as was Ahmed Shah. So this is an organization that is at the heart of the story. And so much of what we were trying to figure out in this story was, is a conspiracy possible, right? I was thinking about Navalny a lot when we were doing this. And this was before Navalny died. But about how Navalny would always talk about, like, basically, the conspiracists don't have to be as competent as you think they are, right? He has a really good part of his documentary.

He kind of talks about how incompetent they could actually be. And they also could be everywhere. And that actually doesn't make you sound crazy to say that there's, like, the possibility of a sweeping conspiracy. And so many roads led back to this RSS organization. And they gave me tons of access, which was actually pretty wild about the story. They basically opened the doors to me. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, when you're feeling confident, I guess, you know, you tell your story. It was the confidence, but also my name. You talked about, like, why I was the perfect guide. It's like they heard this name, Ravi Gupta, like a very Hindu name. And they're obsessed with cast, even though they pretend they're not. And my cast is like a merchant class. It's kind of like a middle cast. And I guess that means something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that means something to them. You know, I didn't, I didn't know any of this, by the way. Like, they're telling me this, you know, as I'm going through India.

So what's interesting is, you know, you and I know each other from Obama days, kept in touch. So obviously, you've been involved in the rise in observing the rise of the right wing or far right here in the U.S. With Trump, well, Tea Party, Trump, MAGA. There are obvious parallels and then there are obvious differences between Trump and the kind of white nationalist, make America great again movement here and the Hindu nationalist, you know, make India great again or Hindu again in India in the sense that there are authoritarian tendencies in it and there's a lot of otherization of political opponents. What did you find to be the similarities and differences between Trump and Modi and the BJP and the Republican Party? Yeah. And actually that on the

RSS point is related, it's that I understand. understand why the organization has power, and this gets to why Modi has power. It gives people meaning. And I think this is something for us on the left and the center. We have to grapple with the fact that the right wing across the world, I think, is doing a better job at handling modernity than we are in terms of giving people meaning. So when I watch these kids every evening show up to the RSS meetings, which I attended, they're showing up and they have a place to go. They have people who are nurturing them. they have, you know, through the identity with their religion, they have a, they have like a

story and a real purpose, right? And I think sometimes the left, and this is certainly true in India, doesn't have a counterweight to that, right? We don't have this, like, a coherent story that we're telling which we could get to in terms of the problems with the left in India. But Modi is, is like, if this were like a Terminator analogy, he's like the T-1000 from Terminator 2. Like, he is a different, much more powerful version of populism than Trump ever could be. He is more popular. He is the real deal in terms of his connection to everything he says, right? He believes it, where I have serious questions about what Trump believes or doesn't believe.

He has a very coherent ideology. He's extremely disciplined. You talk to people who are in Modi's camp. He'll sit through six hours of meetings and not go to the bathroom. He's just, like, on it. He truly grew up poor and talks about it in a way that, like, the most of effective populists can. But most importantly, the right wing in India and the right wing in the U.S. have some marked differences. The most important is the right wing populists in India are

truly populists in the sense that they have a digital welfare scheme where they're sending payments to the poor. They've expanded infrastructure. So like the mythical sort of infrastructure week that Trump has is actually a real thing in India. They also have massive spending on renewable energy. Like when I was at the RSS headquarters, they were hosting a climate conference. So it's like these are types of things that you would not see in the right wing. And because of that, I think they have more staying power. Not that, you know, we're obviously going to be dealing with our right wing for the rest of our lives. But Modi, I think, is much more deeply entrenched.

And like his people are more deeply entrenched. And they're of a much different variety. I think they are just more authentic. It's not to say that they're, I love what they're doing. But they have a, they have a coherent. and a substance that I don't think our right-wing in the U.S. has. Yeah, no, I agree with that. And I've been doing a lot of reading about India lately, you know, maybe in part because I've

been listening to this podcast. And, you know, there's real grievances. Yes. About not just a deep-seated, you know, poverty, but, you know, India has gone through a succession of humiliations and colonizations, suppression of Hindu identity, you know, for hundreds of years. And, and Nauru and Gandhi and the Congress Party, they kind of dealt with the British. and then try to channel that into a kind of a secular democracy, but clearly it didn't hit deep enough

for people, some people. And what you're describing, I think is exactly right. The question I have for you is, you know, you set out to answer the mystery of what happened in this murder, and you kind of, I think, found something bigger and richer, which is a mystery of what happened to India. And the question is, where's it going? So we're talking about towards the end of the Indian election. and Modi looks poised to win. He's been particularly banging the anti-Muslim drum of late. We talked about that with Ranaiov recently. Where do you see this going?

And what would you say, you know, to people on the Indian center and left or in the Congress party or in the opposition about, you know, as a political person, like what would they also need to be doing differently going forward? Yeah. Oh, man, in some ways it reminds me a lot of the fights that we have at home. It really is a global struggle. But, you know, when I think about, you know, what you mentioned, like the mystery at the heart of this case, right? It was 2014 when lawyers, this case was going through the courts and all the stuff that we investigate happened.

It was the exact pivot point when Modi actually, and the way that the case was dealt with, the dividing line was when Modi came to power. Basically, Shah looked like he was going to be held accountable for this alleged murder that he was originally charged with. And then Modi comes to power. The impunity starts. This case in many ways straddles the difference between the Gandhian pluralism of the past and the Modi era. Now, not knowing what the election results will be, but based on what everybody seems to think, which is that the BJP will win, although there's a big question about whether they'll have to form a coalition government. There are a couple of things that are going to be notable in the future here. Number one is the Communist Party is really a political dynasty.

Nehru, his daughter, Indira Gandhi, her son Rajiv Gandhi, then Sonia Gandhi, who a lot of people allege was really behind the Mulman Singh government, the last Congress Party government. And then now Rahul Gandhi, it's basically 70 years of one family running the party that was basically running the country. And Modi, like any good populist, grabbed on to that and was like, and like I think any good populace is going to take some truth, and then they're going to add a bunch of crazy to it, which I think is what Modi has done more effectively than anybody in the world. And the real challenge for the opposition in India is to give them less truths to deal with that you

aren't speaking to. And the economist and a lot of people who are really good observers of India think this could be the last Gandhi in Rahul. And no offense to Raul Gandhi. I have no personal negative feelings about him, but I think that the people of India want new blood in the politics. And so when you think of the future, my sense is there's this India, which is an acronym coalition, which is a bunch of different parties. What I would love to see come out of this race is that no more political dynasty, let's get some new voices, maybe even new parties, right? There are some really interesting new parties like that chief minister in Delhi that could

create a new narrative. Now, as for Modi, unless he loses, he's going to come out emboldened. And I think there's going to be an economic message, which he's really going to push manufacturing. He has a real economic problem. There's mythology about how good India's economy really is, which if we want, we could talk about. But he will certainly lean more into the Hindu nationalism. And he's been alluding to like big plans after the election, which we'll have to wait and see. So I think that things could get a lot worse in terms of the authoritarian bend of the country after this election.

Yeah, it feels like that way it's going to get worse before potentially it can get better. But look, I would just want to congratulate you. It's such a great podcast. I love limited series podcast, the ability to tell a story and let it breathe a little bit. So I just want to, again, recommend everybody go check out Killing Justice, this new limited series from Cricket Media in the branch. Episodes one and two are already out on Apple and Spotify. Subscribe to it.

So you get in your feed, don't miss an episode. You can get ad-free episodes on our friend of the pod community at cricket.com slash friends. But Ravi, congratulations to you and the team. I know it's been a long and winding road. Oh, thank you, man. It's not easy to do things. Not easy to report in India.

It's risky. It's complicated. It's politically fraught. There's actually a great Vox. Zach Beauchamp has a good investigation out about how the Indian government, it kind of intimidates people, critics in other countries. I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. They'll be coming for me soon. So yeah, if I get arrested in the next few weeks, everybody knows what it's about. Yeah. Yeah. We can vouch for your character otherwise. So that's what it's about. But you were courageous among everything else. So congratulations for that. Thank you, my friend. Okay. Thanks to Ravi Gupta. Thanks to the prime minister. And thanks to Farid for joining us. I will see you next week. If you want to get ad freak episodes, exclusive content, and more,

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