Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 3/28/24 Ramzy Baroud on the Future of Palestine

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Scott talks with journalist Ramzy Baroud about the present and future ramifications of the war in Gaza. They discuss the political dynamic in the U.S. as well as the geopolitical dynamic in the Middle East and on a global scale. Discussed on the show: “Words vs. Action: A Supplication for Gaza, and Humanity” (Antiwar.com) Ramzy Baroud is a US-Arab journalist and is the editor-in-chief of the Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: The Untold Story of Gaza and The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story, These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons, and more. His new book is Our Vision For Liberation. Follow Ramzy on Twitter @RamzyBaroud and read his work at RamzyBaroud.net. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; 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

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new, enough already, time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more the 5,500 interviews since 2000. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.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 all right you guys on the line i've got ramsie barood from palestine chronicle and he is the author of my father was a freedom fighter his latest is our vision for liberation engaged Palestinian leaders and intellectual speak out and before that apartheid is a crime and the last earth and the second Palestinian Intifada and more and

we run virtually everything he writes I think at antiwar.com as well and we're very happy to have you here Ramsey how you doing? I'm doing great and thank you for having me again. I really appreciate it having you back on I mean so there's so much to talk about with the war and the politics of it and all of that. I guess the first thing I wanted to start with was, and forgive me for this, but the election here and what's going on with the war and the dynamics of it all, because, of course, it's become very important for the Democrats who have extremely Zionist leadership and an extremely over-it voting population there, especially like the whole. left I think two-thirds of the Democratic Party are with you now and or or nominally so at least and so

they have a big crisis there and then you have Trump is trying to be even worse than Biden if he can possibly swing it and it seems like Netanyahu I think is probably trying to stick it to Biden because he prefers Trump and all that Trump administration might bring which according to his closest people would be full annexation and ethnic cleansing and you ain't seen nothing yet. So I just wonder what is your take on all of that or if you agree with any of that or your concerns or silver linings or what have you? Yes, of course, I do agree. But I think that the support for Israel among Democrats and Republicans and when I say that, I mean the establishments as opposed to as opposed to the rank and file, and particularly the rank and file of the Democratic Party,

with time has became a curse for these parties, especially for Biden. As you know, Biden has repeatedly spoken proudly about his Zionist credentials, and he coined that famous sentence, that you do not have to be Jewish to be a Zionist, with him being a case in point, I am not Jewish and I am a Zionist. He said repeatedly, and quite often he made that statement

in political context in which he was seeking money from the Israeli lobby and support, but I think this is backfiring now because by doing so, he basically lost any leverage over Israel. You see, American foreign policy, and I'm sure you already know that, is predicated on some kind of a balance,

between U.S. foreign policy interests, between that of the Israel's so-called security that is guarded by everyone as if it's, you know, the Holy Grail, and the pro-Israel lobby. And these kind of three balances or three items have always been more or less at the same level in terms of their importance and relevance. But the Gaza War has changed these dynamics, and it changed them a lot. Because on the one hand, it seems that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East no longer matters. I'm not defending these policies, of course. They are self-centered and they are militaristic and all of that. But I mean at least from the viewpoint of the establishment, they really just do not matter anymore.

It seems that everything now is about Israel and not just Israel, the right-wing and far-right viewpoint in Israel, and particularly that of Netanyahu and his political service. I mean, imagine an empire like the United States that has been kind of following the same script, more or less, regarding how it wishes to survive and to thrive as an empire all over the world, is now entirely relying on Netanyahu's job. Netanyahu wants to stay in power at any cost. So he's dragging his country behind with him. They're sinking deeper into a swamp in Gaza in which they cannot get out of. and the entire U.S. foreign policy is now dedicated to ensuring that Netanyahu remains in power.

The earlier analysis was different. The earlier analysis was, well, you see, the U.S. is trying to take advantage of this situation to implement its foreign policy. The U.S. has resorted to the good old shock and awe. You know, we, this time, October 7 wasn't exactly a shock or a shock political shock created by the U.S. and Israel, but they could turn it that way by carrying out a genocide in Gaza and forcing Palestinians to their knees and therefore creating a new political reality, not only in Gaza and Palestine, but throughout the Middle East. the new boss is back, Russia and China, you get out of the region, the Americans now have, you know, aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean, they are, you know, they are in the Red Sea, they are in the Arabian Sea, they are in the Persian Gulf, they are everywhere, and they are here to reimpose American authority. Maybe, even if that was indeed the case, this is no longer the case. The Washington Post says that the Americans or the Biden administration is fighting a war that it's not its own war. These are the words of the American officials speaking on condition of anonymity to the Washington Post.

And the same thing more or less has been repeated in other newspapers in the U.S., Politico, Axis, the New York Times, and also by Israeli media as well. So we know that the Americans are fighting a war, that they don't want to fight, and they are fighting. to support Israel in a war that Israel cannot win. So the balances are completely screwed at this point. Even the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, D.C., which has been part and parcel of the Israeli agenda, it's virtually the same, what the lobby wants, what Israel wants. But when we see Chuck Schumer,

the powerful pro-Israel and Zionist ideologue, for that matter, and the conduit between the lobby and the Democratic Party on one hand and Israel and the lobby on the other, telling Israel, you need to remove Netanyahu. Get rid of Netanyahu. You need new elections and this man needs to leave. This is an unprecedented schism. We haven't seen this before. We've never seen the lobby turn against itself in such a way. So yes, it is all true that Biden is a Zionist and Biden is dedicated to Israel. But on the other hand, we are now seeing the limits, the absolute limits of this paradigm, where the U.S. is no longer supporting a policy that can be of any benefit to Israel, to its own, to Washington itself, regardless of the outcome of what is going to happen in God's. Yeah. Well, just like for the country, Israel First is bad campaign strategy for Joe Biden, and it only goes so far, and that was months. ago is how far that went. And, you know, even when you read Haaretz, and I think even in the New York

Times, you know, sympathetic voices saying, geez, even after October the 7th, opinion turned so quickly against Israel because it's just so obvious that they're going so far. Did you see where Donald Trump said, oh, Israel, you got to do whatever you want, but geez, you got to stop putting out video of it because it's so ugly even Donald Trump is disturbed watching these apartment buildings full of people fall down as he put it pour down in other words the rubble just you know um and he was saying this is so destructive for for them because who could who could look at that and see anything but a bully he says I know you want to look tough but geez sometimes you don't want to look tough yeah hear what I mean

yeah yeah that's that's right but i also think that there is more to the story than this because don't forget that the what you see in in us mainstream media and i know scott that you are not a mainstream media person anyway you watch it to be you know from a critical point of view but the vast majority of people do look at fox and see and and and you know and all the rest and despite of all the prejudices and the biases and the lies and the fabrications and and the debunk theories and all of that, people are still seeing this. People are still, you know, kind of turning against the war somehow.

I mean, I'm glad that a lot of people are, you know, some of them at least are resorting to independent media and seeking independent voices, but we know for a fact that the majority is still more or less dedicated to mainstream media. So all of this change and still, still happening through this massive, storm of bias that is unprecedented in its support of Israel. I've been reporting on this subject for over 25 years, and I've never in my life seen this kind of bias, seen this kind of

marginalization of Palestinians, this kind of lies and there's just obstacles to any alternative way of understanding what's happening. Yet, majority of Americans, according to the latest Gallup call, say that this war needs to stop, and Israel has went so far. And this is a is why these parties are panicking. But in the case of the Democrats, it's particularly interesting because for several years now, one poll after another, and not just Gallup polls, but also universities, including Harvard, Washington Post, and others have come up with their own polls about Israel and Palestine. And it's already, and years ago, the rank and file of the Democratic Party has turned against Israel. So this has been building up for years. Biden knows it.

But perhaps, you know, this whole, the initial series of lies that started this war, you know, Israel took advantage of it. The lies were created on purpose to shock people into maybe rethinking what they thought they knew about Palestine and Israel. But with time, people began seeing the truth and seeing the lies. And now those early numbers of majority of Democrats being against Israel. not slowing their support of Israel, no, actually outright pro-Palestin and against Israel, are now galvanizing into this massive movement all across the country, sending clear messages to Biden. I mean, when Biden went to the State of the Union address,

he couldn't get their own time. He was delayed because thousands of people have blocked all major routes in Washington, D.C., leading to Capitol Hill. I mean, this is something that we haven't seen before. Now, what does this mean? For years, we have been told that Israel, not for years, for decades, Israel has become an internal issue, and a domestic political issue for Americans during the times of elections, right?

It means that this is no longer about foreign policy. You don't discuss Israel as part of a foreign policy agenda, like North America, Iraq, Russia, and China. you always discuss Israel as part and parcel of American domestic interests. And it worked. It worked quite well to the point that the likes of Netanyahu learned how to manipulate the issue, the same way that American politicians manipulate domestic issues for their own benefits. And it worked very well for Israel until now we are beginning to see a shift to the point that we might be,

and I'm careful with my words here, but we might be at the cost of seeing. Palestine, Gaza, specifically a domestic American issue in the coming elections. And this is where the panic are within the Democrats. And this is why the change, the sudden change of direction, well, on the one hand, the U.S. abstains from voting for a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and immediate ceasefire in Gaza. One in the other hand telling Israel, don't worry, everything is the same, nothing. has changed. On the one hand, they are saying that they are slowing down shipments of weapons,

and on the other hand, also assuring Israel that nothing has changed. So it's just they are going all over the place. They are hitting so many different directions simply because the U.S. or the first time in years does not seem to have a decided foreign policy, not only in Palestine and Israel, but also in the Middle East. And I think also part of this goes to the major damage. And we don't talk about this quite often, the damage created by the Trump administration. I mean, we are focusing all of our attention here on what Biden has done or failed to do and his track record of supporting Israel. But what Biden has done 2017 when he began a process in which, per the words of Jared Kushner,

his son Allah, denouncing Palestinians as pathetic. And they are completely irrelevant to any discussion about normalization or peace in the Middle East. So he could have made this huge leap on top of the Palestinians, went to Oman, went to Bahrain, went to United Arab Emirates, to Sudan, to the Saudis, and to try to normalize between them and Israel with complete disregard to the importance and the significance of the Palestinian struggle and its centrality to the history of the region. That marginalization of the Palestinians, the move of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, him. The denial of money, yes, some of it has been restated by the Biden administration,

but it was only, it was only refunded or restated just because Biden was afraid that it could harm Israel's security if he stops supporting the Palestinian Authority. But very little of the damage that has been created by Biden has indeed been reversed by the by the by the sorry by Trump has indeed been reversed by the Biden administration and now everybody is paying that heavy price of completely ignoring the Palestinians they don't know anything about the history of that region I mean Jared Kushner made that declaration once if you remember I read I think the number of books he claimed to have read is 25 books he said I've read 25 books in the subject, so therefore he knows everybody.

He's the greatest scholar, and that scholar decided that Palestine doesn't matter. Well, look what is happening now. All of this is an outcome of the kind of damage created by the Americans back then and created by, of course, Netanyahu, who also convinced himself that it is time to finalize the deal. It is time to annex the West Bank. It is time to just completely move forward with total and utter disregard for the Palestinian people, for international law, and for the enshrined and rooted rights of those people. Now, everybody is paying the price and everybody is trampling, trying to fix the issue, and it really has no way of fixing. Aside from acknowledging that the Palestinian people exist, they have rights, and those rights have to be respected.

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Ha, ha, ha, ha, you said. So, yeah. And that was the Trump Netanyahu doctrine. We control the height of the flame. It's cool. We know what we're doing. That's right. I should have thought of that point myself.

I mean, it's the map. I mean, if there's a title to any of this, it's actually the map. You know, that beautiful green map. that's drawn by, you know, maybe Netanyahu himself in his office, standing in front of the international community and just sticking his tongue out to the Palestinians. Again, it comes to show you that that real power cannot necessarily be measured by military prowess or, you know, technology or, you know, this kind of geopolitical moves and complete disregard for people who are supposedly, supposedly defenseless. I never really liked this term about the defenseless Palestinians. It's just really never proven to be true.

There's no such thing as defenseless anything. People have options. And sometimes you push them against a wall that are going to use those options. And what happened since then really proves that, no, you cannot normalize in the Middle East without the Palestinians. I mean, the Saudis have said it themselves,

but they seem to kind of be acting against what they were saying. The Saudis were essentially saying, we will not fully normalize with Israel unless Palestinians have a state and unless Palestinians have their rights and all of these good stuff. But on the other hand, Israeli ministers were going to Saudi Arabia informally, but they were going to Saudi Arabia. Israeli flights were actually flying over Saudi territories. So normalization was in fact happening without the Palestinians, regardless of what the Saudis said. or did not say. And now I don't think neither the Saudis nor anybody else has, you know, believes that real normalization and stability according to their own version. I'm making air quotes as we speak. Yeah. Well, yeah. This was Kushner's great accomplishment was he figured out,

well, what's your price? The American people can afford it. And he just bribed all these different countries that you name there into going along with this. Now it's all gone, completely to hell. And he has no more self-awareness about it than, you know, Netanyahu will admit in public anyway that, well, the solution here is we just got to finish cleansing them then. And it's a real nice beachfront property there. He really even said that at Harvard. We just move them all to the Negev Desert there, see, and then we can build condos. That says the same guy. You know, I really do think that Jared Kushner is a psychopath. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, nobody

he says that. I mean, even Trump himself, I know he didn't say it within the context of caring about the Palestinian people, but it seems that there's certain kind of, you feel like he's fighting against some kind of a moral threshold for the lack

of a better word, but it seems like Kushner is entirely removed from any moral context or equations. It's just, I mean, imagine there are, you know, people in Gaza, including relatives, are reporting that in many areas in the strip, The stench of death, you know, because you have thousands of bodies still piling dozens here and dozens there.

That hasn't been removed. And, you know, there's this powerful smell of death all across the Gaza Strip. And many of them are actually on the beach. They've been buried here at the beach. The high tide removed some of these graves and the bodies are scattered all over. And what Kushner is thinking about is how to you. utilize this to make few extra bucks. He doesn't have enough.

You can't be a normal human being and think that way. But again, this is, you know, if you, and you are watching American media and Israeli media, Israel Hayom, in particular Israel today newspaper, Ha'Arids, of course, and a few others. Forget about the Jerusalem Post and Channel 14. These are, you know, they're still living in denial like Netanyahu. But many in Israeli mainstream media are just saying, it is almost impossible, they say. I think it was Israel. It's almost impossible to defeat Hamas.

There is no military solution. We are losing this war. We are sinking deeper. Well, if that is the conclusion on the military front in Gaza, none of these things that they wanted to achieve can be achieved. There can be no ethnic cleansing. And by the way, the ethnic cleansing is not just something that the Republicans have been saying. the likes of Nikki Haley and Trump and others. It's the Democrats.

I mean, remember there was a famous meeting, the first meeting, I believe, between Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken and Abdul Fattah Sisi, the president of Egypt. The president of Egypt refuses to meet secretly. So he decides to invite the cameras to the meeting, which is something that he usually doesn't do.

So they come in, and then he declares publicly that there can be, be no ethnically cleansing of Palestinians into the Sinai desert. It was very clear that this is why Blinken was there. He was there to float the idea. The idea continued to be floated throughout until very recently, where, again, Shukhri, the Foreign Minister of Egypt, went publicly following in a meeting with Blinken,

declared that there can be no ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to Sinai. It was a message to the Americans. the Americans have been promoting the idea of ethnic cleansing for months because they know. They know, and sadly, that there are only two options in which this war can end in favor of Israel. And I say sadly because of this. Number one, ethnically cleansing Palestinians, or a majority of them to the Sinai Desert. Number two, finishing off the Palestinians entirely, whether through war or family. But if the Palestinians stay, and particularly if the Palestinian in the South end up going back,

North, it's over for Israel. It's over for Israel. And Netanyahu was right when he said, this is going to be the last war. We can't fight any other war. And if this major war against Gaza fails to achieve any of its objectives, there cannot possibly be any more war

in the next decades that would allow Israel to achieve any of its objectives. So at that point, he actually would have to contend with the fact that Gaza is there to stay Palestinians will continue to fight and I need to make a deal with them

I have to face up to it there has to be a deal and if the Palestinians do not leave Gaza and are not defeated in Gaza how in the world am I going to ethnic to cleanse the West Bank? Which is 20 times as long. How can I do that and how can I annex

60 or more or less of the West Bank and make it part of Israel, so-called Israel copper? How can I achieve that if I fail to achieve anything in tiny little Gaza, only 181 square miles? So this is Netanyahu's dilemma. The Americans are reaching the end of this dilemma, saying, you know what? We agreed with you fully in the beginning. We supported you 100%.

But this is hurting us badly. The Middle East is on fire. A war against Lebanon could start any day. The Houthis are now the masters of the Red Sea. I mean, the Hothis. Ansarullah group that had very little control over its own affairs could hardly get medicinal food to Yemen. People were starving in Yemen.

Now they are a powerful geopolitical actor that has just signed a deal in Muscat Oman with China and Russia, according to Bloomberg news agency, that would allow the Russians and the Chinese to go peacefully through the babel-mended strait in the Red Sea in exchange for total support at the Security Council. The dynamics have changed completely, and the Americans cannot afford any more of this. This is why the Americans want this to finish, including Trump himself, finish the job.

Just finish, but you have to do it fast. Yeah, all right, so before I let you go, can you talk a little bit about what you wrote here at anti-war.com, or that we republished there, at least, where you talk about the lessons of South Africa and apartheid. And actually, first of all, can you just explain real quick what that even means for people who are too young to have seen all the posters on the Cosby show and stuff back when? Absolutely, but I wrote a lot about South Africa. If you could kindly just remind me of what specific article. Oh, hell, I got like five of them open here. But, well, I guess it was

just, you talked about how you had been there many times in the battle days when it was still apartheid there and I guess more or less just the lessons of people's refusal to give in finally paying off that kind of thing I guess absolutely I mean first I just put it in in this other context which is for many years we have been told that the global south does not matter does not matter in the context of Palestine frankly doesn't matter at all all foreign policies and all geopolitical paradigms are all determined by the United States by Europe especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But now we are kind of seeing this kind of rise,

this real, determined and sustainable rise by the global South in Africa, led by South Africa. I was in Kenya recently, fairly recently, about a couple of years ago, where I was told that it's really Africa is turning very fast against the Palestinians, not because they have any qualms with the Palestinians,

but because Israel is entering Africa with the support of the U.S., France, Britain, in full force. They are offering all sorts of technologies and weapons and all of that. And now Africa, or many countries in Africa's interests lie with Israel, not with the Palestinians. And I made the argument that apartheid and military occupations and colonialism is something that Palestinians have shared with Africans, for a long time. If anybody should understand the pain of the Palestinians and their struggle should be African countries. But it seems that real politic trump that of this kind of solidarity, historic solidarity, until South Africa came in. And South Africa has a great deal

of moral authority in Africa and all over the world because of their struggle against apartheid. And because of the direct connection between the Palestinians. I mean, let's remember the PLO was actually involved in training anti-apartheid fighters in Algeria and other parts of Africa. So there's like real human connection that was going on for years prior to the collapse of the apartheid regime. And now we are seeing South Africa leading the way towards that kind of shift, not only in Africa but worldwide, challenging the West through its own institutions, such as the International Criminal Court in the Hague. and other institutions. I think it's a fundamental shift,

and I think we are finally beginning to see solidarity translate from mere prose and poetry and articles and all of that into actual political analyses, meaningful and tangible type of political change. I think this is really fundamental, and I think this shift is going to continue, and we are really seeing it taking place in other parts of the world, including Colombia, of course, you have Venezuela, Cuba and other countries,

but also countries like Colombia that has been more or less removed from this discussion are now kind of entering into the fray as well. I think the, you know, if we are just for a single minute, just ignore the genocide underway. I mean, the horrific human cost of this genocide and just think about it in terms of the future. The future is actually for Palestine, not for Israel, in terms of international solidarity. Now we just need this war to end, this bloodletting and genocide to stop in order for us to be able to actually lead this global movement that will bring an end to the Israeli military occupation and apartheid.

All right, you guys, that is Ramsey Baroud. He's the editor of the Palestine Chronicle, and his latest book is Our Vision for Liberation, co-edited with Elon Pape, I guess is how you say there. and we run them all the time at anti-war.com. Thanks very much, Rams. You appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Scott.

The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on K-PFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.