The Duran Podcast - Biden White House aims to scapegoat Netanyahu

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Biden White House aims to scapegoat Netanyahu

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in the Middle East and the war in Israel and Gaza, as well as some interesting statements from Biden himself, who now appears to be changing course a bit, shifting in his policy with regards to to the war in the Middle East, where he is now calling for a pause in the war in order to. to allow humanitarian aid in Gaza. This is actually pretty significant, and it signals not only confusion in the United States, but perhaps it may signal that even the Biden White House

is starting to get very concerned with what's happening in the Middle East. The New York Times did a report and said as much that the Biden White House is concerned with what's going on in the Middle East, and the way Netanyahu is handling this war. And of course, all of this is in the context of an election in 2024 where Biden's polling numbers with Muslim and Arab Americans is sinking. It's evaporated.

So what is going on? Well, let's just go back to last week when we were doing various programs about Biden's disaster strip to the Middle East. The fact that he got incredibly close to Netanyahu appeared to give in public a Netanyahu, in effect, a blank check, said various things which upset and annoyed Arab leaders, found that the Arab leaders in Amman, in Jordan, weren't prepared to meet with him, that he wasn't even able to go to Saudi Arabia and things of that kind. And we were already talking then about how this had all the makings of a political diplomatic debacle.

And we are now seeing all of that play out in real time. I think that is the big takeaway of all of this. There is a military operation going on in Gaza. Israel has sent troops into Gaza. There is fighting there. I have to say straight away, there is very confusing information about what is going on. But it is clear that Israel is taking casualties. Of course, Hamas is also taking casualties.

No doubt many more casualties than Israel is taking. But Hamas has an ability to absorb casualties, to say it straightforwardly, which Israel doesn't have. And that's the first thing to say. There are also pictures going around the world all the time, despite all the attempts to try to limit information from Gaza, which shows massive destruction there, many civilians being killed,

there's more reports of hospitals being bombed, or at least the Israelis telling hospitals to evacuate, things of that kind. I mean, these are very, very politically damaging, I'm being very careful in my choice of words, very damaging, disastrous images that are being circulating around the world. So last week, we already talked about it.

On Friday, we had the first resolution coming out of the United Nations at the General Assembly calling for a humanitarian ceasefire. We've also had a succession of reports from UN officials, from various humanitarian agencies that are connected to the, the UN criticizing implicitly, pretty obviously, the actions, the conduct of the military operation in Gaza. We've also had other agencies starting to weigh in. We've had protests in

various countries. We've had splits in the Democratic Party. And it is now clear that all these attempts to launch a war against Iran, which I have no doubt, by the way, I'm absolutely sure that that was part of the agenda, that those are being strongly resisted across the Middle East, and we've also had a decision by the Arab states to reject any idea

of a relocation of the population of Gaza into Sinai, into Egypt, or into Jordan, or even into Iraq, or all sorts of places that have been talked about. And so what we also see is around the world,

world. Now there is the first signs of a cascade effect diplomatically. We've seen Jordan recall its ambassador from Israel. We've seen Chile and Colombia do the same. Colombia, by the way, traditionally and historically, a friend and ally of Israel. And we also see Bolivia, which has a more leftist government. They've actually broken diplomatic relations. And there's talk that more countries might follow suit and that we might have a cascade effect. There is an ongoing debate going on in the General Assembly where the United States is clearly on the retreat and there is also ongoing debates going on in the Security Council. So what we're now starting to see are the first signs of the administration in a retreat.

They're starting now to retreat. They've called off the idea of an attack on Iran, at least for the first signs of the administration. on Iran, at least for the moment. I mean, we can never count on this for sure, but Biden had this critically important telephone conversation with Al-Sisi, the Egyptian president. I've discussed the readout on my channel. Very extraordinary readout. It didn't even mention Hamas. It said no displacement of the people from Gaza, no wider war, agreement to allow humanity, supplies into Gaza, and it even referred in a sort of elliptical way to the possibility of humanitarian pauses. So that already signalled a retreat. Now we've had a string of articles

starting to appear in the US media, in the New York Times, in Politico, distancing the administration from Netanyahu. And talking about the need, you know, that Netanyahu is clearly on his way out that his time in the pre as prime minister of israel is short in other words the united states wants or the administration wants to see him go and then today we've had these mumbling unincorherent comments from biden in which of course he doesn't call for a ceasefire the united states has repeatedly rejected a ceasefire coming round and saying that there's going to be a ceasefire would be a political humiliation.

So he's talking about a humanitarian pause. But from what I can tell, a humanitarian pause, which in this kind of context appears to amount in effect to a sort of ceasefire. So we can see that the accumulating

pressure from around the world, from within the United States, from people within the Democratic Party, are leading the administration, leading Biden, into a position diametrically opposite to the one that he took when he went to Israel all those days ago and made all those mistakes which he did then and when he took that decision to deploy all those huge forces to the Middle East. Let us be under no doubt what we are starting to see is a diplomatic debacle in the making.

Is Netanyahu going to be the person that they try to throw under the bus? Exactly. Because you are getting a lot of articles. You're getting a lot of articles, which are talking about Netanyahu having to go from the U.S. side of things. I'm not sure if the Israeli media is reporting the same thing. But we know that Netanyahu going into this war was not very popular to begin with. He has a lot of domestic issues. And so maybe he's the one that they're going to try to scapegoat.

But, I mean, he's also a political survivor as well. and political mentions as much in the article that they talk about with regards to the Biden White House wanting Netanyahu to go. He is clearly the four guy. I mean, as I said, a diplomatic debacle in the making. So whom are you going to blame? Because you always have to blame someone. You blame Netanyahu. But who was it who went to Israel in the first place and gave Netanyahu a blank check?

He was Biden. You know, he might have said all kinds of things in private. You know, we only have leaks to this effect. You know, show restraint, exercise restraint, you know, think before. But in practice, the public optics were, we are with you all the way. And he was moving all those warships to the Middle East, giving every impression that the United States was preparing to take some kind of kinetic action, which, as we discussed on our programs, was clearly directed against.

So yes, Netanyahu is being prepared as the full guy. Of that, there is no doubt at all, and they're now working. And again, if you look at these media articles, it's absolutely clear to me that that is what they're doing. They're pulling the various strings in Israel to try and get him removed. Netanyahu, as you correctly say, is a political survivor. He is a far canio political operator than Biden is. We have to say that. He is also, you know, somebody who doesn't, by the way, like Biden very much. But already he's making all kinds of speeches, incredibly inflammatory, very dangerous speeches. Like, you know, the notorious one, you know, about, you know, Amalek and all of this,

which are clearly intended to try to solidify support within Israel from the more hardline people within his coalition who are a... essential in order to keep him in power. So it's going to be very difficult, very difficult indeed, to throw Netanyahu under the bus, but be under no doubt that is exactly what they're trying to do. Yeah, but I also think that Netanyahu's statements and speeches are targeted at the U.S., the evangelical base, and more importantly the neocons. Because I think Netanyahu understands, while Biden is a neocon, Biden is being moved into the direction. to create a ceasefire and a pause for the reasons that you outlined.

And, of course, you know, to find someone to scapego for this debacle that is taking place. And Netanyahu understands that if he's going to remain in power and if there's going to be any group of people that is going to support him in the United States, it's going to be the hardcore neocons. Absolutely. He's appealing to them as well. And, you know, he's basically telling the neocons, you know, they're trying to maneuver me out. You guys need to support me and keep me in power. And Lindsey Graham, he was speaking to CNN yesterday. And, you know, he said that there's no, there is no red line.

There's nothing that Israel could do in Gaza from a military perspective that is going too far. So I mean, that was Lindsey Graham basically saying Netanyahu, we have your back. So you can see this, the struggle. Exactly, that's the point. Netanyahu is, as I just said, a far canier political operator than Biden is. Now, there's been lots and lots of criticism around the world of Netanyahu speech, and I think it deserves that criticism. I think it's entirely the wrong speech for a leader to be making at a time of war. But Netanyahu has political objectives. He wants to retain his position as Prime Minister. within Israel, that speech helps him do that.

He wants to outmaneuver Biden in the United States. This speech helps him to do that as well. He is successfully framing it, I say successfully, in terms of the neocons. And as you rightly say, the evangelicals, he is framing this as a struggle between good and evil, darkness and light, as he also said, I believe in a tweet. of course they're backing him. Biden comes out the loser whichever way this thing goes. Now if he had acted with any degree of skill, if his people around him, you know, Lincoln and Sullivan and all these incompetence had acted with any degree of skill, he would have avoided getting into this mess.

But of course he didn't. He went to, he went to Israel. He gave, as I said, Netanyahu, to all intents and purposes, looked like a blank check. And of course, Netanyahu is cashing it. So it's all very well for Biden to turn around now and say, well, we need a humanitarian force. Displacement of populations isn't really what we're about. And we don't really want a regional war, which, by the way, read, we're not actually at the moment going to go to war with Iran. he might be saying all of this,

but he's given signals to the past to all sorts of people who are interpreted those signals in a particular way, that those are the things, all the things that he wanted. And we see people like Lindsay Graham are saying that there are no red lines

in terms of what Israel can and should do. And others are going even further than that. So Biden has completely mismanaged this whole situation. And it needs to be said. But there's always the component of the elections as well. And in the Biden White House, you have Jake Sullivan, who's the campaign guy. And he's getting the feedback from the DNC.

And they're giving him the numbers as far as the support for Biden is concerned. And Biden is losing two very big groups in the United States because of this war. His position for Israel in this war. losing the Gen Z and he's losing the Arab Muslim Americans. And in a state like Michigan, that's a very important voting block that you need to carry if you're going to win Michigan. And so, you know, as I was reading the articles from the New York Times and Politico, I got the impression that the Biden White House would like Netanyahu to go. They would like this war to wrap up in a couple of months.

because they even said that Netanyahu probably only has a couple of months left. And they would like to forget about all of this and then rebuild their ties with the Muslim American community, the Arab American community and the Gen Z in order to win back their vote before November 2024. I mean, this is what I think they're hoping for. But, you know, if I was Sullivan, I would embed on this. Well, hope springs eternal, as they say. You're able to win back all of these people.

My own personal view is that the damage has now been done in electoral terms. I cannot imagine that the people that we're talking about, especially the Arab Americans, are going to be won back in that kind of way, whom they're going to vote for, or even if they're going to vote at all. There's another matter. But I cannot really see that they can be won back. They should have thought of all of this before. Of course, they didn't.

They followed initially the route that the neocons laid out for them, because you're absolutely right. Biden is himself a neocon. So he did what the neocons told him. And, you know, Blinken and Sullivan are ultimately neocons themselves. So they went with their visceral instincts. they didn't weigh properly the international reaction and they didn't weigh properly the reaction within the United States

and so they as I said he's a loser whichever way you look now you know it might be he can pull something off does anybody think that Joe is going to pull anything off that he's the kind of politically astute skillful operator the person who you know he's able to come up with some great soaring rhetoric some great vision that will be able to win people back I can't, I really don't think so. What they're going to do is they're going to blame it all on Netanyahu,

try to leave a shoot out. That might turn out to be very difficult and very messy. And at the same time, as they're doing that, they're going to blame everything on Donald Trump and, you know, try to crank up the hostility to Donald Trump to even more stratospheric levels. And by the way, I was looking at the polling data from the Republican primaries,

and it looks increasingly now as if Trump is going to walk them. I mean, he's so far ahead of all the other candidates that it's not even possible to talk about a real alternative to him. So he's going to get the Republican Party nomination. That looks almost, well, it looks as certain as anything in politics ever is, in which case, as I said, he's strongly positioned, it seems to me, despite all these legal cases, come the election. Next, here.

I wonder what benefits Netanyahu more? A short war or a long war? Well, I think that in terms of what Netanyahu's options are, I think what benefits him is a short war and a short victorious war, one which the Israeli military goes into Gaza, smokes out Hamas, and Netanyahu can then present himself

to the Israeli people as the victor who defeated Hamas. Now, I have to say this. I don't think this is realistic and achievable. You know, I'm getting all kinds of people with military backgrounds explaining to me what Israeli strategy is. And I follow this. I'm not a military person.

I've said so many times. But I follow all of this with great interest. But it seems to me that we're looking at a time scale that's going to last weeks and months for these plans to work out. I don't think that works best for Netanyahu. And of course it doesn't work well for Biden at all. Not with the deteriorating situation geopolitically that we're starting to see

and also the domestic problems that you've highlighted. So I just don't think this is going to work. I don't think we're going to see a quick campaign in Gaza. And I think that is the military reality. I, you know, we went on that program that was hosted by David Sacks on X spaces, and I was listening very carefully to what Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis was saying, and he was also explaining there why this is going to be a very complex and difficult campaign. He didn't say that, you know, if time was available,

an indefinite amount of time was available, that Israel wouldn't, in the end, win. but as I repeatedly say it's not a question war is not just a question of you know military things it has to be it has to be conducted within a political framework and the political framework just doesn't allow for a long war

Netanyahu can't grind this out like Russia can grind this out for various reasons. I mean, there's various economic, size, the geography, the size of the countries is very different. But, you know, Netanyahu also doesn't have the popularity and support that Putin has inside his country. I think that's a big difference. It's a fundamental difference. Netanyahu is it didn't go into this conflict at 80% approval rating. No. He's going into this he went into this war, a very battered and investigated. I mean, he's got the court cases of prime

minister. We forget there were protests in Tel Aviv. Every week, it seems, for the past 12 months. Every week you were having protests because of the judicial reform that he enacted. So he's in a much more vulnerable position than Putin or Russia. And I don't think, Time works for him. No. In Russia's case, time absolutely works for Russia. Well, exactly. And that brings us to the key point.

Because, of course, the difference is the one that you've just highlighted. The Russians opted to fight for a long war. I mean, they could have gone in all in. They could have, you know, attacked the energy system, you know, launched missiles against, you know, directly into the power plants, you know, not just now, but all the way back in March 2022, they could have done all of those things. They could have, you know, unrestricted bombing campaigns in the eastern Dombas, all kinds of things. They could have done that. They chose not to. They chose to take it slow. And they also chose to act in a very restrained way. And of course,

Putin has come in for massive criticism within Russia, from various people for doing this and for keeping the gloves on as they saw it. But he understood, not just him, but the entire Russian leadership, the Russian leadership, both the political and the military leadership,

understood that playing it long worked to their advantage. They understood that war is ultimately a political matter. And we see how they've how it's worked in the end to their advantage.

We're seeing it increasingly clearly now. Now, with Israel, it is the diametric opposite. I mean, this has been massively improvised in a huge hurry. Nobody has really sat down and thought through what to do. And instead, they've gone in for a war where if they are going to launch a war, they needed to be a short one. but in fact it has to be a long one and nobody either in Israel or even more

in Washington in the administration seems to have understood that a long war works against Israel but it also works against the interests of the United States they shouldn't have declared war no they should have launched a special like a special terrorist operation

Absolutely. And they should have... That is what they... Yeah, that is what they should have done. By declaring war, you say that this is, you know, because war is an act between states. That is exactly. All that you say is exactly true. And of course, it's exactly the same mistake that the George W. Bush administration made, you know, after 9-11. I mean, you know, they also declare this war on terror. We know the result. The point was, and I said this now many times, I don't want to repeat myself about this. avenues that could have been followed and there were there was machinery available you know

illegal machinery the UN the Security Council all of those places which an intelligent administration and it it it did need to be the US administration because expecting the Israelis to go down that road was up would have been asking I think an awful lot but the US administration should have followed that route and had it done so we were would now be, they would now be in a very much strong, in a very strong position overall indeed. Amas would have been isolated. The international global opinion would have become united behind it. We would have started to see the Security Council move to Chapter 7 sanctions and authorizations probably of military and enforcement action and all the massive political damage that we're seeing

both in the United States and in the Middle East and globally would have been avoided. But of course, these brilliant people, these masters of the universe, these geniuses, you know, Newland and Blinken and Sullivan, they didn't think that way. All right, we will leave it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, odyssey, bitch, shoot, telegram, Rumble, Rockfin, and Twitter X. to the Duran shop. 20% off.

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