Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 11/22/23 Trita Parsi on the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Scott is joined by Trita Parsi to discuss the horrific situation playing out in Gaza. They discuss what we know about the scale of suffering before zooming out and examining the broader geopolitical situation. Scott and Parsi also talk about how the war has affected the domestic political dynamic in both Israel and Washington DC. Discussed on the show: Treacherous Alliance by Trita Parsi “Biden admin officials see proof their strategy is working in hostage deal” (Politico) Trita Parsi is the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Parsi is the recipient of the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Follow him on Twitter @tparsi. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and the brand new, enough already. Time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003. Almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at Scott Horton.4. You can sign up the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. Hey, guys, on the line, I've got Trita Parsi,

and he used to be with the National American-Iranian Council. Now, he's the co-founder and the president or vice president or one of those important things at Responsible Statecraft. That's the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. A great group of our friends is who it is right and over there at Responsible Statecraft. And he wrote a bunch of books, but especially he wrote Treacherous Alliance, which is one of the most important books about American foreign policy, Middle East policy, certainly, that you could ever read. Welcome back to the show, Trita. How you doing? Doing well.

Thank you so much for having me. Happy to have you here. Listen, I've been seeing on Twitter that you're keeping very close tabs on developments going on in the Gaza Strip there. So I think I want to start with that, the reality of the humanitarian situation for people who maybe are only kind of sort of keeping up with it or don't really know they're maybe waiting for some secondhand information about just what exactly is happening there. Could you give us a good thumbnail? It's a complete disaster. I mean, just today you had on Ammanpur and CNN, the UN Relief Chief Martin Griffin's saying that this is the worst thing he's ever seen.

And that includes the work he did in Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge of the killing fields. I know, I saw that. So it tells you something. You know, this is, and he says it, he says that I'm choosing my words carefully here. I'm not trying to exaggerate. this is the worst he's ever seen and if you just take a look at the numbers 68% of the killed are women or children yeah and that's what he meant by the way i mean the the raw numbers in cambodia are in the millions but he was talking about how it's the women and i think specifically

he meant there it's the 68% of the i think did he say dead or of the overall casualties are women and children dead he said of the dead of the dead men and children and that's just incredible When you compare that to other conflicts, we had about 600 to 700 dead children in Ukraine over the course of 20 months. We have more than 5,000 dead children in Gaza in the course of six weeks. The pace is just unparalleled. Every day between 150 and 180 children are killed. That was around 10 to 20 at most in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan. so part of the reason why you see people being so angry and upset is precisely because of these numbers this is in terms of proportion unlike anything we have seen it's you know it's just a killing machine of children and so many of them are dying the worst possible deaths because they're asleep and their building gets hit by a bomb by israel and they are all crushed to death so there's a very large number

of dead people that we haven't identified yet so when the Gaza health authorities say that it is about what 14,000 at this point and some people here questioned that the Israelis themselves three weeks ago said that they estimated that they had killed about 20,000 people because so many are crushed on the buildings and have not been identified yet yeah well and you know crush to death is just also another way of saying buried alive too and you know I've seen this from some of the pictures from the craters you know the bomb blasts and the aftermath and there was one last week where all you can see is the guy's legs sticking straight out of the ground and he's just buried alive that way there's no way and they're trying to dig for him but there's no way they're going to get him out of

there in time he's buried up to his knees and just this is what's happening to people over there that that proportion and israeli numbers themselves that their officials have in interviews given not necessarily in statements and we're talking about them identity identifying a couple of dozen Hamas officials that they believe have been killed in all of this. So the number of civilians being killed compared to Hamas fighters is just absolutely ridiculous and incomparable to what we have seen in other wars. Yeah, I mean, they know that the Hamas guys are hiding underground while they're bombing these buildings full of people they know are civilians, right?

Exactly. If this was really about going after Hamas, it would have made more sense from the Israeli standpoint. Given their patterns in the past, I mean, the Israelis are the ones that have conducted more assassinations outside of Israel than any other country. In fact, much of the rules of engagement there have been established by the Israelis and then later on adopted by the United States. If they were really going after Hamas, that would have probably been far more effective than what they're doing right now. If they're trying to destroy Gaza and make it uninhabitable and get rid of 2.3 million Palestinians and should, shoved them into Egypt and other countries, which their own interior minister just said

on Israeli TV yesterday as that being the plan or as that should be the plan. Well, then this strategy perhaps makes sense. But why is the United States signing off on such a strategy? Remember, Biden attended the war cabinet when the plans were designed for this war. This is not something that the United States

or the Biden administration can claim any type of plausible deniability for no certainly not i mean they're shipping weapons there all the time um and now so listen treata i mean the thing is nobody wants to go out on a limb and be too alarmist and look like a jerk later maybe some people don't care but you know i feel like i don't want to just say it's clear they are going to cleanse the entire strip and it's a genocide and it must be stopped on that basis because you know what it's sort of a little bit speculative and a little bit deniable. No, we're just going after

Hamas, they say. And yet they also keep leaking all these trial balloons about you know, actually you ought to take them or let's push them into the Sinai or let's push them you know elsewhere into Egypt or into Jordan or who knows where.

And so is it safe to say now that no, look, this is a genocide. They're clearly cleansing the strip. They're going to keep at least what, the northern half of it clear of Palestinians and refuse to allow them to come back and it should the policy must be opposed on that basis or no we're still too afraid to go all the way out on that limb because we still don't exactly know that for sure or you say things so on the issue of a genocide we have

plenty of legal scholars who have come out and and declare that this does meet the standards for a genocide and a critical component of that of course is the declaration of intent which again, over and over and over again, has been provided by Israeli officials. But even if you want to disagree with that assessment, bottom line is, in my view, the number of deaths, the proportion of civilians, the complete inefficiency of actually going after Hamas, the clear lesson from all previous examples,

from Israel's own invasion of Lebanon in 1982, previous attacks against Gaza, the US experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. shows you still cannot win this militarily. For every civilian killed, you're probably producing three more Hamas recruits. So that in and of itself should be sufficient to have the United States press for a ceasefire, even if we just set aside definitions of genocide, etc. Moreover, another factor i think should be absolutely crucial in the american consideration is that the longer this goes on the higher the risk that american troops are going to get killed by an attack by iraqi or syrian militias and the united states is going to get dragged into yet another war in the middle

east on october 26 there was an attack by an iraqi militia against the herbal air base in northern iraq the drone and managed to get through the american air defenses it hit the the barracks on the second floor, 5 a.m. in the morning, but out of pure luck, the explosives on the drone did not explode. Had it exploded, probably two dozen American soldiers would have been killed in their sleep. There would have been massive pressure on the Biden administration to strike, not just Iraqi militias, but probably Iran as well. And much indicates that Biden would not have been able to withstand that pressure. And we would have been at a full-scale war in the Middle East. Now, there's been 62 attacks against American bases since October 7th. As a point

of comparison between January, 2021, when Biden took office, and March 23, there had been about 80 attacks against American bases over the course of more than two years. In six weeks, six we're just going to count on luck and we got five dead already i mean treated they say it was a training accident maybe it was or maybe it was deniable forces we don't know there's a mysterious circumstances either way it's still five five kia right there sort of exactly yeah um and then no especially though the only thing that can the only thing that can stop this stop these attacks against u.s bases and troops is a ceasefire And we are risking a regional war for objectives and achievements in Gaza that cannot be defined, probably cannot be achieved.

And it really raises the question, why, for what? Yeah. Well, listen, this is along the lines of your previous work and going back into the deeper context here. But I think it's so important. I cite you all the time. And I just like to hear you tell me I remember this right, and I'd like the audience to hear you explain how this could possibly be right compared to what we think we know, Trita, that Israel and revolutionary Shiite Iran, fundamentalist Iran under the control of the meaner, old Ayatollah, Khomeini, remain friends after the revolution of 79 and the hostage taking of the Americans and the burning of our flag and we're the great Satan and America. and Iran being eternal Cold War enemies ever since then. But Israel kept getting along with them after that, you say in Treacherous Alliance, until the year 1993, which proves lots of different things, including Israel can get along with Iran, right?

Certainly. Now, obviously, they weren't best friends or anything like that, but because of the common interest they had back then due to the geopolitical circumstances, which was that both of them saw a major threat in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, as well as from the Soviet Union, two key factors that had pushed Israel and Iran closer to each other during the time of the Shah. Those factors remained, in some ways from the Iranian perspective, the relationship with Israel became even more important because now after the hostage crisis,

Iran was on bad terms with both superpowers. It was at war with Iraq. It needed weapons. And guess what? the only country that it really stepped up to provide the Iranians with those weapons. And I'm talking about the Iranians under the terms of Ayatollah Khomeini. Israel helped Iran get all of those weapons because it made sense for the Israelis to make sure that Iran would not lose the war against Iraq. Setting aside all of these different things of ideology, etc. Setting aside that it's during this period that the Iranians helped create Hezbollah in Lebanon. So the idea that these ideological factors is driving this just simply doesn't have a lot of evidence.

evidence in the history. On the contrary, we have seen that the Israelis have dealt with all kinds of actors at various times, including Hamas. Incidentally, the Israelis were part of helping create Hamas back in 1987 as part of an effort to weaken the PLO, because back then the Israelis viewed Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization as a bigger problem, and they wanted to create splits within the Palestinians. So they helped groom and put together Hamas and Islamic fundamentalist organization coming out of the Egyptian Brotherhood. Hang on just one second. Hey, y'all, the audiobook of my book, Enough Already.

Time to End the War on Terrorism is finally done. Yes, of course, read by me. It's available at Audible, Amazon, Apple Books, and soon on Google Play and whatever other options there are out there. It's my history of America's War on Terrorism from 1979 through today. Give it a listen and see if you agree. It's time to just come home. Enough already. Time to end the war on terrorism. The audiobook. Hey guys, I've had a lot of great

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Tom has done such a great job on putting together a classical curriculum for everyone from junior high schoolers on up through the postgraduate level, and it's all very reasonably priced. Just make sure you click through from the link in the right margin at Scott Horton.org. Tom Woodses' Liberty Classroom. real history, real economics, real education. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size?

Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. Well, and, you know, Trita, especially that example that you cite there about even while everything is going on in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting against the Shiites and particularly Hezbollah, and Iran is backing them and nurturing them as sort of the rise of Iran's 51st state over there in southern Lebanon, and Israel's still dealing with them. And just because, hey, interest and these things are complicated in all sorts of different shades of. dark gray, every bit of this story, which just goes to show that all of the rhetoric, and this why I love about that book, everybody, you've got to read Treacherous Alliance, okay? Because

what it does is it shows you this whole story of America, Israel, and Iran, with the poor Iraqis, the God-forsaken Iraqis, stuck in the middle, and all of this back and forth, but it's all told from the point of view of the highest-level strategists and thinkers on each side. None of this day-to-day, news cycle crap is in there. And when you look at it from that angle, you can see just how completely bogus and irrelevant all this news cycle stuff is. Like, for example, the complete black and white issue of Israel's relationship with Iran. And Iran, oh, they hate us. Oh, they want to kill us. Oh, we have to... When you look at the reality of the situation, it's as complicated as hell. And what you see, in fact, is Israeli Jews and Iranian Persian Shiite guys shaking hands and doing deals,

clean ones and very dirty ones too all along when they need to, which means they can again soon, right? That's it. Absolutely. And they do constantly. I think it's important to recognize that most of the time, I would say the vast majority of the time, when we hear you can't negotiate with the other side because of X, Y, and Z. they're horrible they have this ideology they don't understand anything but violence what it actually signals is your own lack of desire to negotiate rather than an actual obstacle

political ideological strategic two negotiations just look what happened yesterday there you know was an announcement of a piece of a prisoner swap between hamas and israel brokered not by the united states as some media has reported but rather by katar and egypt Those negotiations have been going on for several weeks. In fact, they started almost immediately after October 7. So if you can negotiate that, you can negotiate a lot of other things. Hey, and everybody, isn't that exactly what I said? I'm sorry to interrupt.

But isn't that exactly what I said, everybody, immediately was get Egypt in there to negotiate. It's the first thing I said. Absolutely. And this happens all the time. And it's a major disfavor that a lot of folks in the media, a lot of folks in government, allow this mythology to spread that negotiations are so difficult and it's it's so you know there's almost perfect constellation that needs to exist in order for there to be a possibility for negotiations that's simply not true that's not to say that negotiations always succeed

it's not to say that there aren't times and circumstances are better or worse for negotiations but that's not usually what is being invoked what is being invoked is that the other side is evil the other side belief system is incompatible with ours and as a a result, we cannot negotiate. That simply is not true, and we should be very happy that it's not true, because if it was true, guess what? We would be at war all the time. Right. Well, and we are, but we don't have to be, for sure. And hey, look, it's one big planet, and we're all stuck on it together. So either Earth is big enough for Western civilization and Islamic civilization, as divided as we all are anyway, or not so. And it's got to be, because what's the other

alternative there is no alternative uh no acceptable one um so let me ask you this now treated because man this is like the equivalent of 10 000 suicide bombs went off on each side and and they're climbing down of the level of hatred and fear and feeling of emergency and resentment and everything i mean god what the poor people of the gaza strip are going through right now is just unbelievable and and somehow everybody's got to put even these feelings aside sometime relatively soon and figure out a new way forward do you have in mind you know some kind of vision of a positive way forward even from here say if everybody had a chance to take a breath after the ceasefire and assess what the hell are we going to do now

let's say maybe someone wise or were to replace benjamin netanyahu as prime minister and Somebody who certainly just more reasonable than someone as ideological as him, someone to work with on that. And then, I don't know, the situation. And, guys, I'll let you speculate whatever you want about that. But, I mean, just tell me what you think. Well, I think in the short term, the only thing that can and must be achieved is a ceasefire. But with the ceasefire comes additional diplomacy that can open up the pathway for other things. I think still, in the short term, we're not going to be able to see any meaningful

process, but a ceasefire in and of itself is extremely valuable because it saves lives on both sides. And incidentally, the more children are being killed or taken hostage, the further way we will be from peace in the long run. So it is upon us to end this fighting as soon as possible in order to maximize the chances of being able to get back into a real process. However, here's the bright spot, I would say. I think it's going to be impossible. Once we have achieved a peace process for their two, well, impossible maybe too strong a word, but I'm very skeptical that there will be a return to the old formula after a ceasefire. And the old formula is the one that we have had for the last 15 or so years in the last seven years explicit.

And that is we're actually not trying to get a two-state solution. We're actually not even trying to get peace. Through the Abram courts, we wanted to move beyond the Palestinian. issue and just integrate Israel into the rest of the region. By we, you mean Benjamin Netanyahu's doctrine was here, right? Well, no, I'm talking about the United States as well. The United States has since the Trump peers explicitly moved towards the Netanyahu plan, which is just to move beyond the Palestinians, celebrating direct flights between Tel Aviv and Dubai,

if that's the sign of peace and claiming peace because two countries that were never at war with each other normalized relations. Remember how all of that was celebrated? Remember how the Biden administration did not change that at all? In fact, they doubled down on it because they were trying to get an even bigger prize, which was to get normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel at the expense of the Palestinians while at the same time even considering offering the Saudis defense guarantee, security, which would mean that the United States would send troops U.S. servicemen and women to die for the House of Saar.

All of that was being done. We were completely neglecting the Palestinians. And I think it's impossible to return to that formula. There's going to have to be something that addresses the plight of the Palestinians, the fact that they continue to live on their occupation. And that political will did not exist prior to all of these atrocities. I find it difficult to see a serious effort being mustered that doesn't actually try to address it. Will it address it sufficiently?

Will it be doing more than just throwing breadcrumbs at it? Hopefully it will do much, much more than that. But if you had asked me in late September of this year, did I see any prospect of the United States, Europe, and other parties getting serious about the Palestinian issue? I would have told you no. Now I think actually may happen, But it's not going to happen in the short term.

Yeah. Well, I mean, even as far as Netanyahu goes, I mean, it makes so much sense for him to keep the war going as long as he can so he can stay in office. But it seems also that, like I've made the comparison before, that, you know, W. Bush had only been in office for eight months, Trita. How could anyone have expected him to do his job as leader of the security force by that short? amount of time. And so he was given total grace for September 11th. Got a 90% approval rating out of it. But it seems like if it had been Bill Clinton's third term, boy, he'd have been in trouble for that because everyone would have known that this was his fault one way or another, you know? It would have been that much clearer. And boy, Netanyahu's in however you want to

count it, something like his fifth term if we were counting American presidencies here. And so at the end of the Netanyahu doctrine, this whole thing is just in his lap. And so it seems like, you know, like Churchill after the end of World War II, he's going to be right out at the end of this thing if it ever comes. Definitely. No one is expecting him to survive this. And it has created speculation, perhaps some evidence as well, that this likely will mean that he will try to keep the conflict going as long as possible. Perhaps not at this intense level. but at a level that at least make sure that it goes on it doesn't come to conclusion because the minute it comes to a conclusion that's probably when his political career finally also comes to

a conclusion yeah well and i don't mean to spin it like uh burney sorry benny gans is any kind of hero or anything certainly i know noftali bennett who was recently the prime minister yerlipid these guys are very ideological especially bennett but like benny gans is a former general and so he's soaked in blood but he's more of a professional dispassionate type in a sense more of a technocrat than a lecudnik right so there's like a possibility i would be careful i think what we've seen in israel over the course of the last decade and during the reign of netanyahu which is that you know there's been a significant radicalization of the israeli society and certainly Hamas's attack has further contributed to that. So I would be careful to pin too much hope to the idea that as soon as this

or that specific leader is out, there will be a significant change. That's not to say that I don't think it would be quite welcome to see Netanyahu finally step aside. Well, yeah, I was only going to say it raised the possibility. I'm going to go any further than that, you know. Yeah, yeah. But I'm sorry, go ahead, go ahead. My point being, look, there's structural factors here that is going to make it more difficult to be able to see the type of a change that I think is needed. So even without Netanyahu there, we're still going to be dealing with a very, very significant problem in radicalization of Israeli society, as well as radicalization of the Palestinians. And this is, again, part of the reason why the longer we allow this to happen, the worst the situation gets. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, now, so I know you said that you got to go to the White House for a briefing and this and that. So that reminds me that you're in D.C. and you do have your thumb on the pulse of things. And I think probably no Democrats a little better than Republicans when it comes to that. So what do you think about the atmosphere there, the level of patience or fed up inness among anyone who matters? I've never seen something like this amongst the Democrats. There is an extreme level of anger and disappointment and disillusionment with the manner in which the Biden administration has handled this, the manner in which it has treated other Democrats, the manner in which Biden has

just completely gone in the direction of giving a standing carte de blanche to the Netanyahu government. And when you read things such as what he said in the political yesterday, where it said a One of the concerns that the Biden administration had about a ceasefire, including a prisoner swap, is that the pause would allow journalists to get into Gaza and be able to better cover the carnage that is taking place there. And that would have a more detrimental effect on the U.S. public opinion on the war in a manner that the Biden administration found apparently problematic. Yeah. So the Biden administration has a clear understanding of how bad the situation is. That's not the problem. The problem is if American public finds out about how bad the situation is. When you read this, not in, you know, this is not in anti-war.com or, you know, a fringe outlet. This is political, which, you know, many would say actually has a given its German owners, rules that they've set up in Germany, at least for it, in which you have to sign. a pledge to Israel's security in order to be able to work, at least for the mother company

of political, you know, this was reported in political. And of course, Democrats know this because they have had their conversations with the administration. It leaves a tremendous challenge for many of these Democrats to be able to continue to deal with the Biden administration, given these decisions that they've made in the manner in which they have handled this conflict and how they have handled those in the Democratic Party who have objected. And I think it's also important to note that the Democrats, by and large, have been quite disinclined or even intimidated to criticize Biden on a whole set of different issues out of fear that that somehow is going to be beneficial to Trump or to their Republicans.

We saw, for instance, how they sent a very benign level. letter last August, supporting Biden in Ukraine, but asking for a diplomatic strategy to complement his policy. And it created an uproar. And within 24 hours, they would drew the letter. And I think what you're seeing here is a lot of pent up anger at the Biden administration

because they have not been listened to. They have not been heard. And when they have spoken out, they have been punished, not necessarily by Biden himself. but by others in the Democratic Party. So now that dam has broken, that dam has been quite powerful. It's not just an anger over how they're handling Gaza, I think. It goes deeper than that.

Yeah. Well, I mean, certainly on the entire left half of the American political spectrum, you have the left half of that is 100% against this, and more and more of the liberals and the progressives as you get closer to the center there also agree. But the commanders of the Democratic Party, boy, there are. all Bill Clinton on this and they don't want to budge one bit. So that's going to be a hell of a fight for the rest of this year. And then importantly, hugely, you know, the first poll I saw said 56 and that sounded a little hopeful. But another one said very recent poll, 50% of American Republicans want a cease fire here. Wow. So how many percent? 5-0. Want a cease fire. Which come on, man, for the Republicans, we might as well celebrate that like it's 75 as far as what an advance that is. That's, look,

that's half of Republicans criticizing Biden not for being weak and not killing enough people, but instead because they want an end to this. That's huge. And I don't know if, I know it's not as severe a split as it is on the Democratic left and all of that. But to have that sentiment among the America firsters that even when it's Israel, they kind of remember how they felt about Ukraine a year ago and they don't really feel like flip-flopping that bad right now. Thank you very much. As broke as we all are, et cetera, et cetera. And so it's a huge crack up on both sides.

I think in some ways it's even more, in some ways I would say it's even more significant than what you're seeing on the left. The position on the left is fits an old pattern. The only reason we haven't seen that pattern more is because of the hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington. But now the pattern has come back, but it was supposed to be there all the time because that tension has been there and has been growing. Right.

The fact that what is surprising, the bigger break is that we're seeing it also happening to a certain extent on the right. And I think, again, a main factor, perhaps not the only one, is I think the realization amongst a lot of folks on the right that this actually could drag the United States into war and if you don't want to get the united states into another war then it doesn't matter if that war is because of ukraine or because of israel you just don't want to be in another war yeah yeah and especially when as you mentioned the threat is of iraq war four that's what we're at risk of getting into right now because of what israel's doing in gaza which if you lost your son or your brother or your leg

in Iraq War two or three, or one, but especially two or three, you might be ready to not go back there anymore now, you know? Be sick and damn tired of it, for real. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, man. So, listen, I always appreciate your insight. I cannot recommend Treacherous Alliance highly enough. It's one of the best books I ever read on any of this stuff. And I absolutely love the Quincy Institute and all the great work that you're doing there. So thank you for all that. Thanks so much, Scott. For your time again. Appreciate you, ma'am. Talk to you, sir. Bye.

All right, y'all, and that is Trita Parsi again at the Quincy Institute for ResponsibleStatecraft. That's ResponsibleStatecraft.com. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com. anti-war.com, scothorton.org, and libertarian institute.org.