The Duran Podcast - Europe and Israel Decline & Fragment - Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

Europe and Israel Decline & Fragment - Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Hi everyone, my name is Glenn Dyson, and today I'm joined by Alexander Merkurs and Alastair Kruk, one of the finest and more insightful diplomats we have here in Europe. There's a lot to discuss. It appears that Europe is a bit in a panic, perhaps. It doesn't like the current status quo or the new status quo, looking for alternatives. and at the same time we're seeing some fragmentations in Israel. But I thought we could start with Europe, as we now see that the United States' ambitions to push for ending the Ukraine war

is not being well received among the European capitals. And there's now discussion about whether or not should fill the shoes of the Americans, now that perhaps the nation's, system made the mite fragment, or at least there's some discussions that we can't trust the Americans. What are the potentials there? Do the Europeans have the solidarity to do this? Do they have the money?

Are they able to access the minerals and the resources? How are you, the two of you assessing this? Because are the ambitions going a bit beyond what's realistic? I think, and I know Alexander, because I listen to you, you've been touching on this Ukraine shoe. And I really just want to sort of say two things, because largely I think you've covered. But the important thing to say is that initially at the last meeting between the delegation of the American people, Americans and the Ukrainians. As you know before it, the Stama had sent Jonathan Powell, the old Blairite, deep state

functionary, to go and see Zelensky. And the aim from Stammer and Macron was to persuade them to go with the European agenda, which was an air and sea sea spa and to push for security guarantees. And that's what they told him to do. And that was accepted by the Ukrainians at the time. But I understand that Yemak, the chief of staff, who led the talks because Zelensky was not in it, had been pre-warned by the Americans,

that this wouldn't work, that this wouldn't run. And so when it came to it, Aaron C. M. Sysva, no, said the Americans. When it came to the issue of European peace schemas, no, said the Americans. When it came to security guarantees, the key thing that Zelensky had been wanting, no, said the Americans. So it was a sort of clean ceasefire. So, andrei Yomack was aware of this as he, before he went in, which is why Zelensky was removed partly from the tocs. But the European, the British, driven clearly by interests also in Washington, the sort of meta-security state, wanting to be.

to keep the war going, at least dragging on for a year or two, depending which European you talk to about how long they wanted to go on for. The Americans flatly turned all that down, but there seems to me still, maybe you can solve it, or maybe you have the answer, but there's a missing piece to this somehow for me, because clearly Trump understood that Putin had said umpteen times, and this was certainly in the system. You know, this message about what was coming had come back from Moscow. Certainly, I mean, from this last week. But even before that, I mean, because Lavrov had laid it out again and again and again,

no ceasefire. We won't accept a ceasefire. So, so, you know, my first puzzle was, you know, I'm sure he knows that. I'm sure Trump knows that. Certainly his team are aware that that's been the position since June last year. So why did they do it? I mean, was it an attempt?

It wasn't an attempt, I think, to, I mean, the Europeans were literally brushed aside. I know that Politico and others are saying, oh, no, Stoma played a magnificent part in the he didn't. I mean, and also, to be truthful, I mean, you're British and I'm British, but, you know, actually, you know, the British are not held in highest team at all by this American team. I mean, they put up with it, but they, you know, rather, they just tolerate it, but they they regard it as something that have been irritation. So they'd already squashed the sort of European proposal.

But the part's missing for me is why did they then insist on a ceasefire, knowing that Putin was likely to say no. I mean, it's not very obvious to me exactly. And I was looking for the clue. And there was just one little word that was said by Marco Rubio that called my attention. And what he said was, you know, in a ceasefire, we can have elections. And I wondered, because the one thing, you know, Putin's construct of, you know, the conditions that he laid out in June and no ceasefire. But one of the key elements has always been, and for me, I think it is their main element, is that they think it's not possible.

to do business with the extremist regime in Kiev, the hypernationalist structure, which the meta-deep state, the security state of Britain and America, put into place in the police, and the security and intelligence aspects in the wake of the Maidan coup. And they've used that to control,

the whole process in Ukraine during all this time. They've had complete control over that. And of course, Trump is opposed to this. I mean, he's opposed to the deep state for him, as Fanon calls it, you know, the big enemy. The big enemy. And the British part of it is largely seen in America. I'm sorry to say this if it offends anyone, but it is seen as the original parasite. if you like in the whole process,

not widely admired in America. I mean, going back to Russia Gate and all those aspects, it was seen to be Britain and has been seen in Ukraine that Britain has been pushing. There's still a question about who gave the targeting intelligence for not so much this latest attack on, on Moscow, but the one before that, a few days before that, on St. Petersburg, because that would have needed targeting input. And, you know, the Europeans kept saying, oh, well, you know, we can

do it or, you know, we can find a way of passing the intelligence. They'll be livid if that is what's happened. They, because, you know, that breaks all the rules. You can't pass that out without, you know, American permission. So there we are on this. And I just wonder if what is, you know, what we don't know, which was privately and perhaps the discussions between Wittkoff and Putin and others, I'm sure Putin will have said, you know, we can't do business with Zelensky.

And we need partners in the government. We need someone not like, you know, the government, the government there, which for so long has just been saying, no, every inch we want it back. Every inch, no territorial concessions, nothing. So I don't know, but I feel there's a missing part of this jigsaw that I don't quite, haven't quite got for sure to explain why it is. I disregard all that nonsense about, you know, sanctions and financial war.

That's for the internal, you know, hawks at home in Washington. I don't think for a minute it's, you know, that Russia or Moscow is taking that terribly seriously. Sorry. I'm sure they're not taking it seriously. Oh, sorry. Were you going to say more? No, I said sorry for... No, I think you're absolutely correct about that. I don't think they're taking that seriously at all.

and I don't think they're going to accept, by the way, a ceasefire simply in the way that has been outlined because it would mean a reversal of their position. But they do want to see governmental change in Kiev. Now, they've been talking about the Russians now. The Russians have been talking about this for some time. Putin has been talking about this. He's been openly questioning Zelensky's legitimacy. The Americans are now questioning.

Zelensky's legitimacy. They've called him a dictator. There's been articles in the more right-wing parts of the American media that are now repeating that theme, including one of the American Conservative, by the way, which is almost mainstream. So I think that the Americans and the Russians probably do agree on one thing, which would be that it would be wonderful if we could get Zelensky out of the picture. And the Americans do seem to to be talking to pre-Maidan era politicians like Timo Schenko, for example. And I can imagine how Timoshenko could be an acceptable interlocutor to the Russians. Putin and she actually worked quite well together, even though there were tensions as well.

So quite possibly, this is where it's heading. I think that people are focusing too much on this isolated ceasefire proposal. Firstly, you're completely right. All of those things, the security guarantees, the European peacekeepers, what was in effect a no-fly zone. That's obviously, the Americans are not having any of that.

The Americans are setting up their own negotiating team. And again, I think people did. aren't getting the significance of that because it means that the Americans expect to be negotiating directly with Russians about Ukraine. The Ukrainians will have a negotiating team too, but the Americans will have theirs, so they will actually be,

it's going to be the Paris talks all over again. It's ultimately going to come down to the Americans and the Russians talking to each other. And I'm going to say something. I know, you know, I think that, The Americans and the Russians are talking to each other an awful lot already, probably much more than we know. And I'm going to say that I think one of the problems we have is that a lot of the channels that are being used are informal ones because Trump doesn't trust the State Department. I think that's absolutely clear.

Rubio is apparently intending to sack lots of people in the State Department. So I suspect that all sorts of people are talking to each other. There's all kinds of contacts going on. The intelligence agencies are going to meet Ratcliffe and Erichkin are going to meet apparently. So probably there's some kind of negotiation already underway, except we can't really know what it is because we're not party to it. But it looks to me as if partly the purpose of the clean, ceasefire, maybe that the idea of putting forward the clean ceasefire was in order to bury all of these other ideas, you know, no flies.

Exactly. Putting up peacekeepers and all of that. Brush away all that European non-from their perspective. Exactly. Can I just say one thing about this? I'm not so sure. I mean, one of the things which was quite striking was that Judge Napolitano was in Moscow. And he said, and I mean, two things which were really interesting in that in connection with elections and so on.

Because Lavrov underlined, something I didn't know, at least maybe I didn't forgotten it, but he said that in the Ukrainian constitution it specifically excludes membership of NATO. And in the Declaration of Independence of, what was that, 92 or something like that, similar. exclusion of membership of NATO in both those documents, the Constitution and the Declaration. And I think that's quite important. The other thing was he spent two hours talking to them, which does not suggest that there are all these channels everywhere open, that Lavaarov spends a full two hours in this talking with people who have no official. position was for ever. Now, when I was in Moscow about three weeks ago or something like this,

one person said to me, and I thought this really was a very important insight in what he said, look, you know, about Europe and about America, he said, of course we read everything. We read everything we can. But, you know, we don't have the feel of the people opposite. We don't actually sort of get the sense. And I think, you know, having been a sort of negotiator in these things in the past, one of the hardest thing is to get a sort of mediator or a message taken that just says it clearly, factually, without an angle, without a gloss, without his own sort of or her own sort of take on it. You'd be surprised how few people can manage just to do a single straightforward.

And I think this is one of the reason he spent to us with a judge because the judge is straight, absolutely straight. You know, maybe he has his opinions and things like this, but he's straight as a die. He doesn't have, you know, he doesn't have, he doesn't have sort of his own particular angles and things like that that he's trying to push. He just says it as he's heard it. I was wondering though if some of this push for the ceasefire could be seen as bringing the Ukrainians as well as the Europeans closer to the negotiation table because they're all very

excited. I see the media filled up now. Everyone's picking up the ball and what Rubio said that the ball is in Russia's court, which both the Ukrainians, and the Europeans appear to interpret it as either now Russia accepts what no Russia can't accept. Otherwise, America will have to come back to the Europeans and go put max pressure on the Russians and effectively embrace the Biden politics. But on the other hand, if this is just an opening position to go to the Russians, then it could be seen as merely a tactic. I was wondering if you had any thoughts.

around this? I think, as I said, I think, you know, all this threats at Russia and sanctions and whatever is to assuage, you know, the Lindsay Graham's and opposition in the United States that he hasn't gone sort of soft on Russia or Putin. I think there is more going on. I think that extent you're right, because as I say, there's something, there's a part of this jigsaw that I don't think we've sort of gotten to yet about why they would do a ceasefire when Putin has said about, I don't know how many times, no ceasefire. But I think if it is linked or if it is for the purpose of changing the government in Kiev, that changes the context. Then after that, then the possibility of serious talks might open out.

Because the ceasefire sort of as the first exercise without a change in government in Kiev seemed to the Russians to be just pointless and that it would only result in the rearmament of Ukraine and then more problems for Russia. But if there is an understanding about what constitutes, an acceptable government. There are a number of people. I don't think Zalusini, who is in London, is even considered, he's a British candidate that is being pushed.

But I think, you know, there are others, and there are others living, you know, not so very far from Russia, Medevchuk, for example, and things. Although he perhaps hasn't got a broad enough base, I don't know, to be can. way, I'm sure the Russians are absolutely on top of this, who's possible and who's a candidate. So I think, you know, that this is what's got to be tied up, the elections and how it work. And, I mean, you know, they need to be supervised and things in some way, not by the Europeans, but by another, whoever it might be.

But then I think, you know, then it might be that it's possible to move on. So I think the message that came back from Moscow in this recent visit was very much that the Russians see things positively, but are very, very careful. And, you know, what we all forget is because we think, talk about Trump, his constituency and the sort of Senate and this and that. But Putin has a constituency too. And rushing into a deal after Maidan 1, Maiden 2, you know, Istanbul, I mean, you know, we'll lose him the domestic constituency. So he has to be very, very careful.

I'm sure he's explained that to Whitgolf or others in the American team. I hope they understand it because they tend to think that only the Americans have a constituency and that others leaders somehow don't have a constituency and that they can do what they're told. There are some leaders that do do that, but not in Russia, not in Iran, not in China. I agree. I think that we I do remain generally optimistic

I think that the Trump personally clearly wants to end the conflict in Ukraine and I think that that is the driver that is ultimately

going to determine the outcome because he's imperative to end the conflict in Ukraine is so strong that ultimately that is what will be done. And if he has to tilt things to accommodate Russian concerns,

I think he will do so. Now, that begs a number of questions. Firstly, why does he want that? Why is it so important for him to try to end the conflict in Ukraine in the way that he does? I mean, he talks about the humanitarian aspects, but I don't think any more,

assumes that that is the only explanation. The second is, how do the Europeans see all of this? And what does it mean for them? Because for them, clearly, they are also very, very nervous about these developments. And you would have thought that peace in Europe is something that they would welcome, but quite obviously they don't. Any thoughts? Yes.

I think I would say on the first part of your thing, you know, he doesn't actually care much about Ukraine per se. It is only for him a portal to a great reset. He wants to reset many things, not just, as I've said, not just a question of Ukraine, but he said several times he wants to deal with the Middle East, with Iran, with other things of business. and of course then comes the question of missiles and weapons and nuclear issues. So, I mean, this is the important business. And Ukraine, I don't mean to diminish the Ukrainian.

Of course, everyone feels their own state is at the center of the universe, but I don't want to diminish them. But nonetheless, against the background of the great reset that Trump is planning you know, it may not work, but this is what he's set on. He needs to get Ukraine out of the way so he can get to the meat of the issues, which is how to get to some agreement. As we said just at the outset, indeed, I mean, these already started on a rebalancing on the economic front. And that will impinge upon Russia and China, you know, because China,

is still the biggest holders of treasuries and da-di-da. Anyway, all that will have to be talked through and what happens with bricks in the financial system. So there are a lot of things that are really very, very important to the United States and to Trump. So he has, I wrote about a month ago and said, you know, is Trump positioning for Ukraine losing? And I think you can see many of the ways when he sort of describes Zelensky as a loser, and this was a war about nothing and why did it even start, that if it comes to it, and he said, too, a number of times, he said, well, look, you know, I mean, Russia may just prevail. It's a big state. It's a big machine. I think he used the term big machine.

So, I mean, in the last result, he may just say, Russia, you know, finish it off in your own way, do it properly and nicely, and then we want to talk about big picture. And I don't say that that's his first option. I think he would like to have it done in a sort of more orderly fashion. And I should think that that's what Putin wants to. But I think that I'm just trying to use that example as a sort of to say, really, to put the big picture into perspective, because everything is Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine in Europe. And in America, it isn't.

Ukraine is just actually the obstacles to being able to move to what is important, the big picture. What role does it leave Europe if this happens? Well, this is what Europe is terrified about, because a normalization between Russia and the United States, which is likely at some stage to include China and perhaps have aspects of bricks in this to, India, and so on. this where does a sleeve you know euro stuck out on a periphery going back reverting back to their original function which was a stopping place on the great silk

roads I mean that's how Europe originally became wealthy you know the great silk the the great the silk rose passed through and ended up in Venice and that was was the main source of our income. And this is why it's so important to Europe. Two reasons. One is because Ukraine has really been the only glue holding together a very disparate European Union. I mean, there are fractures all over the place and Ukraine.

The compulsion to support Ukraine. I mean, they are absolutely obsessive. Support Ukraine. you know, as long as it takes. So Ukraine was really so important for them. And it was also important for the Europeans because it was the gateway into the Russian threat and to present everyone with the idea that Russia is threatened and it's going to invade and we need weapons.

And this is more reflection of the very weak European economy. It has no assets on its balance sheet, whether it's Germany or whether it's Britain. There is no collateral to underpin new loans to take on new debt. It would have to be debt that is with no collateral, with nothing to back it up. And they need somehow to find a way because the European economy is just really slowly sliding down and down and down. Price rises, less jobs and everything like that. The only engine of growth, they originally thought the green project would be something they can pour billions in, you know, imagine money out and invest. it in tech and green, and that would provide jobs. It doesn't provide jobs in a real sense at all.

I mean, you know, for a very select few who can code, okay, but, you know, it's not ones that, you know, that can bribed in the Italian countryside, you know, work and jobs and things that will restimulate the economy. So the great emphasis has got to be on launching defense industries and others on the basis of huge amounts of debt. But you notice what's missing in there, which I think is a big giveaway, is that only about 158 billion, I think, was for rearmament and weapons. And then 500, in the German case, was for investment, broadly described as investment in sort of productive industries.

In other words, it's going to be like the Inflation Reduction Act, a huge boondog of money, if you like, a big sort of slush fund that can go out to certain industries and certain, you know, institutions that support the government largely and sort of disappear into that structure. In other words, they need to liquefy the system, especially if NATO is sort of slowly going, because NATO has just been, in effect, the sort of military arm of US aid. I mean, does the same functions, you know, sponsors, people, conferences, you know, money for publications and all these things. It's also, and a retirement home for generals and others where they can go. and rest in NATO before their call back to some function of some time. I mean, it doesn't do much useful work, and it costs a huge amount. And I think that the sort of Mertz's plans are partly thinking, well, if NATO goes,

we need what's going to be our, you know, slush fund that's going to sort of keep all these things liquefied in Europe in the next period. I'm not sure he'll get it. In fact, I'm very doubtful that he will get it because, I mean, it's not clear that it's going to, it would need the debt break to be removed from it. That needs a two-thirds majority in the Bundesrat to do that. Even with the Greens, it's not clear that he would necessarily get two-thirds majority.

And then the other parties like AFDA and Der Linker are saying, well, we'll go to court. if you try doing this, because the only way he can do it is by this illicit way of saying, well, we're going to use the old parliament. Yes, it's been voted out of office. It doesn't matter. We will just use that to get rid of the debt break, and then we'll shift into the new government where we don't have a majority sufficient to do these things.

I don't know how this is going to run in Germany, but, you know, ultimately, I think, for Germany, for Britain, you know, it's very clear this is going to require cuts in welfare in real programs that affect ordinary Germans and ordinary British people to fund because they're out of fiscal space. They haven't got the fiscal space to do any of these projects. I mean, it sounds nice. Oh, yes, we need to militarize and everything. And secondly, there isn't really a defense industry of that sort of standing.

I mean, it can change that quickly. There are some defense companies in Europe. But, you know, if you look at Ukraine, something like, I think, 67 to 83% of all weapons were all American, as you'd expect. Europeans were a very small proportion of that. So I don't think we're going to see that emerge. I don't think it's going to come very easily. So Europeans are really, I mean, they're really panicked because, first of all, you know, without Ukraine, what is, you know, around what does everyone unify? The fractures are obvious, the East, the Baltics, you know, Italy, France.

Germany in another direction. I mean, how are they going to find unity? I don't think very easily. So that blue is gone and then they face, you know, really the fact that the next period is going to be traumatic because Europe have sort of responded to the economic crisis by creating surpluses. Germany had a big surplus. Even Britain has a surplus. Even Britain has a surplus. not so big on trade with America and elsewhere. And now tariffs are coming and that is going to be problematic. Yes, Europe can retaliate. But, you know, what's going to happen is the Chinese are going to probably dump their

surplus production into Europe, what they can't sell in America if the tariffs are too high. And so Europe is going to have to contend with tariffs and the increase. And that is going to hit the euro, because they don't have the sort of spare, if you like, flexibility in the euro. It's only 20% of sort of global reserves. And at the moment, you know, the gold is all going to the United States and American money coming out of the sort of sinking stock market is coming into Europe. But it's ephemeral money. It's not money for the governments.

This is money that is speculative for trading, traders using it and others, but it's not actually going to change the economic situation of Europe. So Europe seems to be breaking down. I thought before we run out of time, if it's possible to shift towards Middle East, because, well, you authored a very interesting article about, we often hear about, of course, in the media, Israel's struggle with all its neighbors, but within Israel, this is, yeah, something we don't get too much insight from our own media, but that is that Israel has become deeply fractured. This is something, actually, both of you have been discussing, so instead of me reading out your article, I was wondering if you could. give an overview of what the argument is, because for many people, this would be something they wouldn't

necessarily be familiar with. Well, it's very serious. There is something of a very deep struggle that may even evolve into a conflict inside. And on one side you have, if you like, this war and it's thought of in Israel as a war against the deep state. And you might wonder what people are talking about and what I mean. And basically this is all tied up with the Supreme Court and the legal reforms. And really, what we're seeing, what the deep state means in those terms. terms was how some years ago the Supreme Court sort of absorbed the competencies to itself in terms of judgment.

There isn't a constitution in Israel that's the basic law. And they also assumed to themselves the right of judicial review of any act passed by the government. So, in fact, the government really couldn't govern as a sovereign government. It's all about the separation of powers. The old issue we see taking place in America, the separation of powers, because the Supreme Court could strike it down, and the Supreme Court could weaponize the prosecutional services and the Criminal Act against the bureaucracy could use.

that against the elected representatives. All this became quite acute because at the last election, and I think I mentioned that before, at the last election, wow, what happened was one of those points of inflection, that what the class, if you like, of people that were generally, in American terms, the deplorables, if you like, the underclass not so well paid doing the people. much of the dirty work, if you like, in the jobs, won the election. And this has brought both a cultural ethic element to it, because the group that won the election essentially composed of people who come from the Middle East Jews who come from the Middle Eastern North Africa, to have a very different cultural view from the Europeanized Ashkenazi

world. These are mostly the professional class. They live in Tel Aviv and Hathalia and enjoy big incomes. And these people are connected to the Supreme Court. Let me say at the time of the election, there are 15 judges on the Supreme Court. Fourteen are Ashkenazi. One only was Mizrahi. And so it was seen as, you know, a part of, that's why it's called the deep state for many Israelis, and they see this action. The consequences of this has been a huge pushback, of course, from the Europeanized liberals who say, you're leading us to a completely different destination. You're taking us to a Judaic state based on Halakah Law, that's a Jewish system of law, and a non-secular state which is based on revelation and biblical terms. And we want a democratic, liberal, modern state of Israel. And so this is the once-back of the clash.

And the second level is ideology. because the labor who dominated, ready, right up from Bangorian's time, right up, the Labour element, the Labour Party element, if you like, conceived of Israel's security in terms of that it cannot impose totally on the Middle East because they're a minority in the Middle East. You couldn't, if you like, guaranteed to prevail overall and that you were going to have to fight periodic wars, but you could not also afford to have a big army.

There weren't the people and there wasn't the money for a big army. This was the classic thing that happened to America in the wake of the Vietnam War. Lyndon Johnson, you know, couldn't get it through. And Israel couldn't get it through. So you have to do this. So the answer was, if you like to have reservist army, small professional army, and good intelligence. And then 7th of October came.

And 7th of October seemed to many Israelis to prove that the deterrence theory, that you could just deter by mowing the lawn periodically and whatever. and that would deter your enemies and you could survive on that basis had exploded with the 7th of October. And the answer to it, Smotrich comes up and the right, and it's been there for some time. This is not just 7th of October, it much, but it's been there at times. Say, no, he's been saying this for some years. No, there's no solution of a two-state solution. There's no sharing of power with the Palestinians.

We have either to expel them or to eliminate them by perpetual war. And I recall him saying that by six years ago. I mean, and the key here, and this is the point of my article, which I was really sort of at the end of it to trying to get to the point is Smotrich, I recall him saying, admitting it in this public, in this video, in it, and he said, you know, we're going to do the actual final cleansing, you know, the Nakbar 2, if you like, of it. We're going to have to have an emergency. And if we don't have an emergency, we've got to have a big war. I mean, this is people who believe in Armageddon.

I think you had a brief discussion of that not so long ago on your program about the, I mean, this is the epistemological, I mean, real schismism, secular enlightenment thinking on the one hand, and on the other hand, biblical revelation, the revelation of the revelation of, of the Bible, which you are obliged and commanded to obey. It's not about discussion. It's not about rationality. It's not about sort of arguing it. Revelation is something that demands it. And so I put a little link in that to a discussion at high schools about the Talmudic requirement to...

for Israel to slaughter its enemies, all of them, women, children, animals, water, the Amalek. And they were talking in the Amalek at the school and saying this is how it has to operate and this, you know, unfortunately, it's compulsion because you don't have a choice. So this is, I mean, these are big divides, cultural divides, ethnic divides, the Mizrahi versus the Ashkenazi. then you have the ideological divide and you have the final element in this divide is eschatology

that we actually want to see Armageddon. We invite it because we know that God's promise is that we will prevail, our enemies will be defeated, and so we want to move. You have something of the similar sort with redemption in the United States, the evangelicals are trying to move much closer to redemption,

because that's when the Messiah will return. And so in this context, what I was really saying was, you know, secular conflict management, Trumpian, if you like, the Trumpian sort of very reductive, transactional politics, doesn't work if the people you're dealing, with. You know, you can say, hell will break loose if you don't do what I tell you. And if you don't relieve these hostages, it'll break loose. But what if they say, great, let's bring it on. Go ahead. That's what we want. We want Armageddon.

Especially if at a certain level, you also see Armageddon as the mechanism to solve what look like insoluble problems. If there are enormous tensions, great, within your society and you say that you can't coexist with the Palestinians, you have to find some kind of way to resolve this problem of the Palestinians. So you have the biblical injunction, the divine injunction to seek Armageddon, and at the same time, Armageddon is the way out of it. So you can see that you can actually see the power, the potential power of this kind of thinking. And why? I just want to, can I interrupt just for the thing?

Just for a second to say that, you know, the Bangorian dilemma was resolved by having a smaller professional army and reservists and deterrence. And the breaches of the iron wall would be expected and would take place. But with the new paradigm, which is to treat the rest of the region as Amalek, how does Israel survive in this wider context, in this bigger picture? What is it's, I mean, does it just go on? They're now doing this in Syria, in Lebanon, and, you know, Yemen. And is this constitute a real future for a state? And I think this is why this breakdown is so bitterly felt and so argued. I just want to say, because I'm sure you'll get lots of people coming back to and say,

yeah, but we don't see that in Harat's. And we don't see it coming up. It's not in the English, particularly in the English mainstream media. an internal discussion that is conducted almost entirely in Hebrew. It is not for outsiders, not even for American reformist Jews living in New York. So it's not something that is widely seen. But I've tried to explain, once I explain the sort of mechanics, they think it comes obvious why there is such a big division and why it could explode. If Netanyahu goes or is they're planning to remove him by coup d'etat.

I mean, if that happens, you know, what happens in Israel? What will be the consequence? I don't answer that question. I don't know. And just to follow up on your point about New York, because one of the questions you ask in your article is, does Trump understand this? I don't think he does, because his knowledge of Jewish people comes from the people he has interacted with.

And he is from New York. He interacts with the Jewish community in New York. And he interacts with the Jewish community in Florida. These are the two places where he, which, you know, so this is his conception of what a Jewish community, what Jewish people are all about. I am quite sure that he is not familiar. he doesn't really understand any of this

because it never presents itself to him. I'll just get to finish with one thing. I mean, eschatology, apocalypse, we see this take a particularly terrifying form in Israel. And I think, as you correctly say, when these kind of things take hold, a society which embraces them is going to fracture inevitably. but, well, I'm not going to say the book quite as apocalyptic, and we don't have the same eschatology

in Europe, but in a kind of a way, going back to what you were saying about embracing militarism has the way out of our problems, not just our geostrategic and security problems, but our economic and social problems. It's not ultimately that different. It's as much of a blind alley and a route through to disaster as anything that is being argued about in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and other places. That's just all I wanted to say that.

No, I think that you hit the nail on the head. I mean, just as I've tried to show in terms of Israel, the idea of Germany and France and Europe, you know, seriously militarizing towards an imaginary war launched by Russia against Europe. I mean, it's just a recipe for economic disaster because they will be overwhelmed by the debt that they incur on this. It will not lead to any good result. They will become more and more isolated from the world.

They won't be wanted as partners by, you know, other states. all the business will go between Russia and the United States and also China in that process. Europe will be left sort of isolated and as a sort of forlorn unloved partner on our little promontory of Eurasian. So I find the narratives that prevail in Europe so dangerous because we do have possible solutions ahead of us. There are compromises that can be made with Russia the basic sources of

this conflict. It doesn't have to be this defined by zero-sum game. Indeed if the Americans even lost, are losing interest in Europe then preserving this security architecture, this very, again, zero-sum

security architecture of hegemony. I think it's all of this could be changed. But I just don't see any political imagination. And I think part of the reason is also that everyone has been locked in so thoroughly into these narratives. And instead of finding actual solution, and there are several possibilities here, we're now going to cut ourselves off from an economic partner, try to move towards war.

And even if it doesn't end in war, pursuing all these armaments, we're going to spend the last money we don't have driving the continent further down. So it's very sad to see and it's all being done to the great applause and conviction in their own self-righteousness and how important this fight is. It's extraordinary. Also, when you see the Europeans addressing the rest of the world, it's as if we are standing on our principles while they are not. I think a large part of the world is starting to look at us.

like we've lost our minds to some extent and I guess they're not wrong though I mean the distinction I always make particularly make when I go to Russia don't keep please don't I tell them Zacherova and things

don't talk about the Europeans there are the elites that's what you mean if you like these are these are actually what you're talking about but look at the German

election. The fastest growing, if you like, party in terms of youth vote, the 45 to 35 was AFD. And the linker took the 25 and younger. And the youth vote is going in one direction. And the old guard, I mean, the problem for Europe is they've destroyed all the bridges to the future. No party can actually get you to, you know, as you say, there are solutions. But how do you get there? Because they've destroyed all the bridges by their cordon sanitaire, which stops, you know, AIFT being a member, it's not allowed to be part of it, their linker is excluded. These are the parties that actually have the most support amongst young Germans. And they favor a different relationship with Russia. But all the bridges are.

are being knocked down. And, you know, the Bolsheviks at the top are sort of, you know, are doubling down on repression. And we see it in Romania and in Britain and elsewhere. So the elites are becoming increasingly divorced from their own base, isolated internationally, and running out of money. It is a grim picture, but sooner or later that I think paradigm is going to break. I don't know when, but it is going to break. And then I think we will see, just as we've seen in America, it shifts really quite suddenly. And I said some time ago when I was in Russia, I said, you know, the first break will come in America.

Then there will be a long pause. and then we will see a Europe following suit and changing the outlook. And I think that's, I still think that that's going to happen. It'll come. But we have to go through a sort of period of catharsis.

Yeah. I agree. And it will be a very, it will be a very hard and grim time for young people especially. Yeah. They're the people who, in front of whom the bridges have been destroyed in effect.

So it's not surprising that they're becoming disaffected and disillusioned. There's always alternatives. There's alternatives for Europe and there were alternatives for Israel before, by the way, just to say, at least I think the were. It's just that conscious decisions were always made to reject them. And it's the same here. Yeah. That's where I finish.

I did it whether Glenn has, Alister, whether you've got further things to say. Nothing else to add. Any final words, Alistair? No, no, not beyond. And I want to thank to both of you again for being so, yeah, generous with your time. And yeah, this was very interesting.

So thanks again. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, Adam. An immensely insightful program, if I could say, always is with you, but especially so perhaps today.