The Duran Podcast - Extremist Politics in Israel and Ukraine - Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Extremist Politics in Israel and Ukraine - Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen

Welcome to today's program. My name is Glenn Dyson. I'm a professor of political science. With me is Alexander Mercuris from the very popular Duran. And the guest today is Alistair Crook, who's an excellent background from extensive diplomacy. Today we're going to discuss some of the intelligence failure in Israel and also thereafter a bit about the Western approach to Russia and perhaps support for somewhat unsavory political groups. So, yeah, let's just jump straight into it. We now have a war again in Israel. Alistair, how do you see this?

What caused all of this? How did this happen? Could you give us? an overview. Yes, I'll try to do it briefly because I think many people haven't really understood the context. And the context is really important. You know, it hasn't just happened out of the blue that Hamas have decided to go through the fence and attack Israel. There is a background to it. And it's a background that goes back quite a long way. But it's reached its apex. It's reached its sort of crucial point at the moment. The first point that is really

key to understand is that there has been a schism in Israel that is profound. And the two sides are more or less equally balanced. In fact, the balance in Parliament and the balance has been in an electoral term shifting towards what has now called the right. It's a coalition, in fact, of groups of the national religious and the settler and other groups. And that has now, if you like, has a majority in the Knesset, the parliament in Israel. Now, this group has a completely different vision of the future of Israel. They don't accept the status quo, the status quo about a sort of occupation that is convenient for most Israelis, that it seems until the day before yesterday seemed to be working quite well.

And they want to move to establishing what they see is the original purpose of Israel, which was to establish, if you like, Israel. on the land of Israel. That means the West Bank and the historic lands of Israel, which does not coincide with the actual Israel today. And they also want to remove the ability of the Supreme Court to overthrow the laws that are produced by their parliament in which they are a majority,

because they believe the Supreme Court is based. basically a sort of a secular liberal structure institution, which is designed to perpetuate the status quo. And the important really point is, and this is what was so dramatic, a little while ago when one could see images coming out of the Prime Minister's office in Israel, It was Mizrahi that was coming out of that.

Now, many of your viewers and listeners may not realize the Mizrahi are the Oriental Jews. These are the Jews that come from North Africa and from the Middle East. But there have always been the underclass. They have been the sort of rather deprecated underclass of Israel year after year. And they've built themselves up and they now take an office. And they have been complaining often, and they've been saying, listen, listen, you know, so often we fight the election and we take office, but we're never in power. Because the establishment stops us doing what we want, which is to not only establish, if you like, the land Israel on the land of Israel. They want to reestablish Judaism, not in a secular way, but in a religious.

Judaism, and they even want, and this is part of their complaint against the Supreme Court, they want to return to Jewish law, halakhah, which is, if you like, I mean, people might see some sort of resonances with what's happened in the Islamic world, and Sharia, and the establishment of a, you know, caliphate and a legitimate, I don't know whether that's a good metaphor to make, But this nonetheless is what is happening. So this is the point to really understand. You have two big, powerful blocks in Israel, Mizrahi, and then the secular, if you like,

liberal elites of Herzlir and Tel Aviv clashing about what is the future vision of Israel, on which there's no agreement, what is the past of Israel, upon which there's no agreement and what is the way to go forward on which there's no agreement. So that is the background

of where we are. But the most important points, the most important commitments, that these have been, there's nothing new. These, I remember the present justice minister laid out the plan for this 10 years ago at a conference

in Israel. And he said, you know, it's going to take time, but this is where we're going. And the two commitments were to rebuild the temple on the temple mount. That was absolutely the case. And then the secondly was to establish Israel on the land of Israel. Now, just to be clear so that people understand, rebuilding the temple on Haram al-Sharif, Temple Mount, means demolishing Alaksa Mosque.

Establishing, if you like, the land of Israel. Israel on the land of Israel means, if you like, removing many Palestinians from the West Bank and removing what political rights they have, which is one of the reasons those fight is going on. So this is what has been happening. And I remember even years ago when I was second, I was seconded to the American government to be part of the team of Senator Mitchell, fact-finding committee into the first interfaida. And of course, what started the first interfaida?

The visit to Alaksa by Sharon. Even then, I remember some of Sharon's guide. He actually sent me off on a tour around the settlements with his great friend, the intelligence officer, Rafi Aitan. And at the time, the point of this was to see that the settlements would never be reversed. And he sent me around, and he told them to speak to me, you know, in clear terms, which they did.

And then it was pretty clear that Chiron's visit was about raising the, if you like, the profile of religious nationalism, which we see sitting in the government today. And an organization which was tiny then, tiny when I first knew, the Temple Mount movement, about rebuilding the temple. These people are deadly serious. They now have seats in cabinet and are going ahead. with it. And they've already brought three red heifers over to Israel, preparing them for sacrifice at the point at which this temple starts to be rebuilt. And recall, this is not something

that is just a sort of little far, you know, outlier in the case. The whole of the Israeli cabinet met not so long ago, I think about two months maybe or so ago, in the tunnels under Al-Axa and said this is ours.

We claim it. This territory is ours. And they were sitting precisely underneath the third holiest site in Islam. So just to finish story, sorry it takes a little long, but it's important because

I think so little of this context is really understood more widely. Two years ago, when the settlers stormed Alaksa, and Hamas started firing rockets into Tel Aviv. I don't know if you called it. It was about two years ago. This happened. And the Hamas called it, and this was so important, called it, This is the interfather of Alaksa.

We are there to save Alaksa. Not Hamas. Not the Palestinian cause. Not nationalism. But this is about Alaksa. And that we will protect Alaksa. And what happened was unparalleled. The West Bank rose up and for the first time what we call the 79 Palestinians,

the Palestinians from that were, that are in Israel. who are there as the citizens of Israel. They rose up, too, and you may remember it, it was a very violent place. Well, what happened just a few days ago? I mean, on Saturday we had this, right? But on Thursday, 800 radical settlers with the support of the security forces

stormed and invaded Alaksa. It's not even mentioned, I think, very much in much of the press. But this is a really important trigger. So you asked me the first question was intelligence failure. Listen, I could see this coming. Others can see this was building. We're building because, of course, you know, what we're talking about is the Palestinians facing another al-Nakpa,

if this really went ahead. and if Palestinian is, if you like Israel, is founded on the land of Israel, and if you like the cleansing of Palestinians, it's coming too very much to ahead. And then on Thursday, if you like, I mean, we saw 800 coming on to the, invading Al-Aqs at the Temple Mount

to make this point. And then afterwards we had what you saw on Saturday. And I don't think it was, for me, it was not such a surprise, therefore. I mean, there was a straight line linking what I saw with Sharon's visit from that time and the purpose. And incidentally, Sharon's, I think it was his assistant said to me, he said, listen, at the moment we can't establish Israel. on the land of Israel. We can't establish the land of Israel. But the Prime Minister, A.E. Sharon, he foresees the time when America is sufficiently weak,

and it will be possible to do that. And we will do that. It may take some time to get there. And so this has been in the works for a long time. Why do Western intelligence services get blindsided? Well, I'll tell you very simply, is one is hubris. They think, you know, the Palestinians are not particularly competent of these things and that there are the backward people. I mean, just as they thought the same, I'm not, this is not against the Palestinians, because I remember during the 2006 war, the naval head of intelligence in Israel made in the Knesset the extraordinary comment.

He said, we didn't put any of our defense systems on the ship that was attacked by Hesboli. He said, you know, because our intelligence people had told us, you know, that Hesbolo rode on donkeys and wouldn't have any capability. And I'm sure it's not like that now. That's, you know, that's an old story and long since changed. But really the bottom story is this. you know, the move to technical intelligence. First of all, you get too much intelligence. I mean, you know, someone quoted this week in one of the Israeli papers.

You know, Shinbeck can see into every bedroom. Oh, fine, that's great. But, you know, who has the experience to understand that one sentence that is important? amid millions of language and recorded conversations and things, what's the one that really is the beginning of a change and is important? And I just think all of that is gone. The technical site has sort of swamped it. And it's the same.

We've seen this in Ukraine with the Western services getting it so wrong there because they don't, you know, if you demean the people that you are, who are your adversaries, and don't understand them enough, and don't try to understand them, then you won't recognize the key point. And the last thing, of course, is I think that Western intelligence surfaces don't understand, if you like, symbolic meaning. Aksa means something quite different

It's not just any mosque It means something Absolutely integral To Muslims She and Sunni alike I stop, sorry Well I think what you've said It's absolutely momentous

Because if this is going to be an attack On If there's a preparation for an eventual attack And ultimate demolition Of Al-Axa Well I am not somebody who is particularly versed in Islamic history or Middle East history, but even I can see that's going to be tremendous. I mean, what would be the effect of that, not just on the Palestinians,

but on the wider Islamic world? I mean, would we see turmoil? I mean, would we see events of, you know, epochal significance? I mean, how... or discuss or predict such a thing. I mean, it would be the start of something, something colossal, and something that we are completely unprepared for in the West. And by the way, you're absolutely correct. I only found out about this incursion into Alaksa that happened last week. I only found out about it yesterday.

And I'm not somebody who doesn't follow the news in West. Exactly. It's not been reported. Even people who do independent media haven't been writing about it. Because we in the West are very stuck in our sort of very mechanical rationality. And so we don't understand, you know, the huge meaning that Dalaksa has. And as I say, it's both for she and Sunni. Now, in a certain ways, I mean, the security minister, Ben-Gavir, has been absolutely committed.

He's committed to rebuilding the temple and therefore demolishing the mosque at some point. And the provocations go on week after week. And what's changed so much is that he controls the police and the security apparatus. and before they would keep people the radicals, the extremist, out of the mosque in order to try and preserve some sort of calm. But now they are totally in line with Ben Gavir and the radical element in the government, in Netanyahuas government now, which is pursuing this. So in a way, you can wonder if what Amherst? did was an attempt to preempt the big effect, that it was not just a reaction to last Thursday, but an action to preempt and to bring to a head, if you like, events that were building and

accumulating and would lead to something that would be out of their control rather than in their control. So I don't have an answer to that. I mean, I'm not privy to all the things, but yes, it was not, I mean, what happened was, didn't surprise me at all. In fact, I expected it, and I thought this would be coming at some point. I mean, you know, the details of it was not, were not, I don't know. But you only have to look at what's happened to see it was, clearly very well planned and very well thought through. And, you know, it seems to me the next stages are also quite clear and quite dangerous, but I don't suppose the West is thinking much about it, and certainly the Israelis or not. Israel has promised to go into Gaza, and it's

assembling a big force to do that. Well, I know Gaza quite well. I mean, you know, It's the most, you know, the worst sort of urban area if you wanted to conduct military warfare. It's a jumble of houses. It's a mess. And, you know, I mean, people have this idea, but they don't really understand it. I mean, how do you tell a Hamas member? I mean, you go into Gaza, there are three and a half million people. lots of men and young youths, how do you tell them?

I mean, you can't. It's something that they think and something that they belong to. I mean, they're not sitting there in uniforms and sort of, ah, you know, he's in green, bang, and he's dead. It's not like that. I suspect that, you know, these people are not stupid. They knew that, because this is the usual Israeli answer, is to come and bomb Gaza

and even to come into it and to invade it. So that's the first part which I think is expected in which shall happen. Then what next will be we wait to see what happens from the north.

Hamas has said that we are prepared, all immobilized for perhaps the final unfolding of plants of the, I can't remember the exact words they used, but something like that. You can see them in their formal statement. And they've been firing into missiles into the Shaba farms. Shabar farms occupied by, or at least part occupied by Israel. and Israel took a little bit more recently, which resulted in Hezbollah setting up a tent, again on internationally claimed Lebanese territory, but which Israel occupies.

So Hezbollah is starting the war of the sovereignty of Lebanon, gently in the north. with a few missiles. They've destroyed three Israeli radar sites, in fact, on the Shabar farms in the last few days. I don't know if that's been much in the press, but they have destroyed three radar. All in the Shabar farms, which is, strictly speaking, and recognized is,

I mean, but it's not sort of implemented, but is claimed Lebanese territory. And there's good reasons for that claim. I mean, even the Americans would say there's a good cause of that claim. And Israel has been responding with artillery back into Lebanon. So I think this is really how we watch the unfolding steps. I don't think it's going to go that quickly, but it could move more quickly than people expect.

And for now, I think that... we will find Israel entering into a quiet mar, into Gaza. I mean, I was in Israel during the first interfaida, and, you know, the fighting in, I saw the fighting in the north, in Nablus and in other cities. I mean, you know, it's door to door, I mean, street to street, it's not going to be, it's not going to be at all easy. And then there was the questions of the hostages.

And none of those are really dealt with. I mean, you know, I've had to do hostage negotiations before, once with hostages in Alaksan several times since. I mean, either individuals or the Israeli government asked me to negotiate with Hizbullah, the return of bodies or prisoners held by Hesbullah, you know, it's not as straightforward as people think. You have to start off, you've got to know who you've got. I mean, you know, because Israel will determine the price it's going to offer, determining on who is a hostage, and whether they're women or men or fighters or what, or whether they're wanted men and things.

So all of this is going to take a lot of time and effort. And then the negotiations have to begin. And, you know, that is not easy either. Someone has to be given a mandate to do it. And, you know, sometimes the Israelis have sort of turned to a country like Egypt to try and adjust. But I don't know if they'll choose someone. but the old rule of hostage hostages, I mean, which I recall well is,

if you don't open a channel of communication, I have someone who has a mandate to negotiate within the first week, then you spend a year or two years negotiating about how to negotiate a channel for the release of hostages. So I think all of this is sort of, you know, part. And clearly this was, you know, thought through before, from what we've seen on the ground. I think it's quite clearly thought through by people. I was curious.

I found an interesting talk about the schisms within Israel. But I was curious, who would the United States will usually support? I mean, because often one gets the impression that the United States would support more of the hardliners, but you also mentioned that Israel would likely wait to implement this historical state of Israel until when the Americans were sufficiently weak. Well, this schism, as you mentioned, often we, I think we miss it in the West because it's just one Israel. However, when you, of course, turn to Israeli media, you get a very different view.

I think it was only yesterday the editorial in Hares. Blamey, you're saying that Netanyahu was bearing the main responsibility for the war. And the former head of Mossad only a month ago argued that Israel could undermine its own security by imposing apartheid. Again, the head of Assad. So you obviously have these divisions within Israel, which does really appear in the Western media. But that being said, why would the weakness of the United States be required for, the hardliners to advance their agenda. Because the United States, and very importantly, reformist Jews, overwhelmingly in the United

States, totally support the secular, liberal Ashkenazi component, without a doubt. And they are aghast by what Netanyahu and his right wing are doing. and they detest it. And so America is fully supporting the protests against Anadnejahou. Now, I'm not saying this, but Israeli correspondence, I don't want to give the name only because if I do, I might have got the wrong name or something, got it wrong. But I mean prominent left wing, if you like,

correspondence of, you know, Harats and things like. that are saying, you know, there's effectively a coup d'etat underway in, you remember that many of the military didn't turn up and operating. There's a division also within the army. At the very, very top level, it's always been, in fact, Ashkenazi, secular, even Kibbutznik. And the army used to be run by Kbootsnikobotsnichen. But then now, even when I was there, we saw the settlers coming in. And now all of the command, like sort of at the kernel and the major level, is commanded by settlers who are totally in line with Bengavia and the rightest policy of establishing

taking the West Bank and establishing the land of Israel. So America is putting huge pressure to try and persuade Netanyahu to go back and rejoin with the liberal secular world and with Gans and Lapid, the sort of the leaders of the left in Israel. And that's the protests. I mean, you know, the protests have been going on week after week after week. with for a long time. And as you know, running protests of that size for that long takes a lot of money. And people ask where the money is coming from. And the Prime Minister asks where the money is coming on from these protests.

So, you know, this, what's happening in Israel is much more conflictual than probably people from the outside have realized, partly because Israel doesn't discuss this much outside. of its own bubble, shall we say, but it's much more and bitterly fought over. And if you like, the Ashkenazi liberal left are fighting to the very end to keep the Supreme Court in being.

So what's the beef about the Supreme Court? Well, if you ask the Mizrahi in the government at the moment, they would say, just look at it. Fifteen members, 14 Ashkenazi, one misrahi. So they see it entirely

is a sort of instrument of secularism, i.ean non-Judaism. These people aren't even really Judaic. In the view, not I'm saying it, of the view of some of the people in

form the government today. I'm going to go to one further question, which is that if we have a long war and a war in Gaza, and it does turn into a quagmine, by the way, I mean, we all remember these wars, they start, people say they will go in and they will clear out the terrorists. They said that in Lebanon. They said that in Afghanistan. And they turned into long, very debilitating wars and in the case of Lebanon of course Israel was eventually largely pushed out will this create will this exacerbate this divide in Israel's Israeli society what will it do to Israel itself if there's a long war I mean will we see further polarization

further radicalization there's I mean at the moment a push on to create a unity government, a wartime unity government. And that's normal. I mean, traditional, shall I say, in Israel to do that in the wartime. But the blame game is already started. And there's a sort of agreement that they should wait on the blame game, particularly on the military failures, until after they've finished in Gaza.

But I think that you have to understand one important thing is that I show you know that Ned Njahou is indicted and faces prison. But the only thing that stands between him and that are the right on his coalition. If he ceases to be a prime minister, then he likely will end up in prison. And so in many ways, the coalition lead Netanyahu rather than Netanyahu leads the coalition. And so he is not really free to sort of make new coalitions as easily as it's often assumed in Washington. And so I think that as soon as, I think as soon as this will happen, you know, as soon as we move to the next stage, the split will re-emerge, the break will reemerge.

Already, the liberal press, if you read the liberal English-speaking press in Israel, they say, It's all the fault of Netanyahu and his right wing which distracted us and left us sort of at odds because we were all doing our protests and what have you and we didn't see what was going to come. And then on the other side, there was the Mizrahi elements. I told the Mizrahi, but I mean because it's a coalition. The coalition says, yeah, but who was actually, you know, who was the chief of defense stuff? Who are all these people? They're not Ms. Rahi. They're Ashkenazi.

I mean, you know, come on. We're not going to take this. That we're responsible for the failure. We have to investigate the failure more clearly. But it's true that this sort of clash, I think, is going to sort of emerge very strongly in the blame game quite shortly. I hope you should I can change topic slightly

if yeah you had yours to the other article you also had written now on on Reynard Gelen and his role

in the establishment of the CIA and also how this is seen to influence Ukrainian policies to this day again And it becomes often, at least in the West, it becomes a difficult topic to discuss because, you know, once you address the far-right and fascist groups in Ukraine, I'm told that, you know, it's merely Russian propaganda. And because Zelensky's Jewish ancestry, there's, well, no more to discuss.

But what is also fascinating is that, yeah, both Poroshenko and Zelensky were very much against the nationalist. I would say they once faced the dilemma of either having nationalist as a powerful ally, or a powerful adversary, they both changed their position and aligned themselves with them quite closely, which therefore made peace with Donbass and Russia quite impossible. But taking this back until the end of World War II, could you elaborate on your article about the role of Galen? Yes, I'm not, you know, I'm very much aware that these are sensitive issues, and I'm not trying to. But nonetheless, there is a fact because it was in fact the British who established OSS and the CIA and also were involved in the process. There was a great uplift of, if you like, Germans who had fought in the Second World War against Russia, an uplift of these people to the United States in various fields, not particularly.

intelligence and that's where the Gaelan organization, which was huge I mean employing 4,000 people and double that with their sources was there but also of course in science all the science technologists and the

atomic project and everything the West and I don't this is not aimed at America because I'm saying it was Europe I mean the Britain and America you know

drain the expertise and the files that they could at the end of the war which you can say was not you know not such a stupid thing perhaps to have done but nonetheless it had some

sort of long tail consequences that we are still living with and one of them is is the sense that, of course, you know, most of these people had been, you know, immersed in a war, two wars against Russia. Russia was deeply seen as an adversary, you know, for most Germans who'd fought in the war was seen as an adversary. And I mean, some of that ideas, because it ran up. I mean, the American foreign policy default position was still rather that of Buchanan at that time,

which was, you know, we don't want to get involved in these sort of things. First of all, let's keep a distance from it and definitely keep a distance from European wars and things. And that was so it did have, I think, in effect. But my point was much more about identity and the impact of the impact of, this raising of the idea of warfare based on a clash of identities. And what happened, and this is where the Ukrainians that were part of the Gaelan organization that had served in the Wermacht in the Galicia division during the war, adopted an identity which was sort of congruent with German identity.

They tended to see themselves as having a Viking and a German heritage. They were not Slavs in their view. They were Germanic and Viking in their background. and therefore this put them, you know, very closely in line with German thinking. And German thinking at that time had been very much involved with identity. I mean, the idea, you know, from the 30s onwards, the idea of, you know, the identity and your inheritance, shall we say, that you come with was clear. But in the Ukrainian case, it's had this big impact on how we approach to the war with Ukraine, because the Ukrainians continue to insist.

I mean, now we're talking about West Ukrainians, continue to insist that they are different, that they are not Slavs. I mean, and you have this, and it's, I mean, this is said by the head of their defense, the National Security Council and he said look you know those the Russians those are Asians

they're not like us they're Asians Asians are right but they're not human and you have to understand that they're not human I think I gave the exact words that Donald spoke and it's reflected

in their underlining law that Zelensky put into basis that only you Ukrainians of German extraction are entitled to full rights and Tartars, I think it is, and some other case, but not ethnic Russians are excluded entirely from this process. But just to be clear, I mean, there is absolutely no basis for that. There is no, nothing in the DNA of Western Ukrainians that separates them from Slavs. There's nothing in their language, which is distinctly German. If anything, it's a sort of dialect of Russian.

They claim it comes from old Germanic and old roots, but there's no evidence for this. And this has caused this great problem. I mean, part of why this after 2014 and the attacks on the Donbass. They were fighting Asians. You know, they weren't actually, they're not like us. They're not really human. I mean, and this is what the head of their national security council said about two years ago. They're not, you know, we don't treat them as humans.

And so it's lent a very, you know, identitarian. structure to the war, which makes the idea of negotiations extremely difficult, firstly because, I mean, it's got worse over the period, the sort of identities. I talked a little bit about how, if you like, a Brasinski, Zibig Brzynski, had used identity, first of all, in Afghanistan, where I was, I remember very clearly, and then setting it up, you know, an Islamic identity against the secular socialist identities that were prevalent through much of the Middle East at this time. And then in his book in 97 and said, how we destroy Russia is by stirring up the identity rivalry in Ukraine

because we can use this as a means there to, if you like, leverage against Russia and break up the idea of the heartland ever creating unity. Because without Ukraine, Russia will not be a power. With Ukraine, Russia will be a power. That's what he wrote. He was then Carter's National Security Advisor. And he'd been the one persuaded Carter to insert the Islamists into Afghanistan. and then he suggested this with Ukraine.

Now, how can Russia deal with us? In the short answer, is they can't, because it's a false identity. There's no doubt, I mean, West Ukrainians and East Ukrainians are Slav. I mean, they're culturally, they're linguistically, they are Slav. So to try and negotiate it, and this is where it's become so complicated, and dangerous is because you know what the implication

of what you know they are saying when they say this is that you know Europe goes to the Nipa River that's Europe I mean genetically and culturally and linguistically

it goes to the NEPA and after that is Asian and somehow this has started to slip into certain parts of you know, language and thinking in Brussels, and you hear them talking about the European family fighting against Russia. So it's not possible to sort of base a negotiation, I believe, with Russia, one that will be sustainable on this false basis of trying to sort of find a way

of accommodating this false identity in one part of Ukraine. Yes, you know, Ukraine, we have to give it all the means that it can be independent and sovereign and everything and have an identity as Europe when it isn't. It's the Russians cannot

accept to be told that they are sort of Asian and alien and that they are being treated in this way because they're not human, which is precisely the words that were being used in that case. So the only thing it seems to me to go do is to go back to that greater mission from the post-war period that there was never a proper treaty

at the end of the Second World War. That it was just left hanging because there were understandings. And America said, not an inch beyond the German frontier, will we go? And people may, I mean, Russians may complain that their own leaders were remiss

and not nailing all this down better, but the fact is that this is the lacuna. that really is at the bottom of getting an idea of where is the degree, what is the frontier of security interest, particularly is, you know, it's no longer just West Asia, it's now the heartland. I mean, it's Central Asia and West Asia, and Russia and China have interests there. It's not just, you know, separate within the stance and things like this. So really, it can only be when there is a proper discussion about how to find a modus vivendi between the Western sphere of its interests and the sphere of interests that are represented by the heartland.

It's going back to McKinder, but operated for the changes that have taken place in this period when we now have the heartland becoming power. the major pole of power in the next era. So that was really the point of it and how identity has been hijacked. But it means that all those calling for, in America calling for a frozen conflict and that we should just freeze it

and give a little bit of weapons to keep, Ukraine going and then, you know, ask them to sort of negotiate with Russia. I mean, you know, they cannot do it on the basis that is being insisted on by the ultra-nationalists in West Ukraine that they have a complete, that they are Europeans and are not any part of this Asian project and that they want to be kept quite separate from them and that they don't, trust and don't like and intend to remove their influence from their lands to the extent that it is possible. That's not a basis for negotiations, I believe. I think that's absolutely right. Just a few quick points. I first started to encounter the kind of literature and language that you've just

been talking about around the time of the Orange Revolution. I was reading in English, because just that's where I have to read it, things that were being written among some people, some people, not everybody in Ukraine at around that time. And I remember being absolutely astonished by some of the things that I read. And I also remember, by the way, having a very bitter route with somebody from Ukraine

at around that time on those specific issues. and this person denying to me, I remember, that even in the 17th century, Russia was a European country, or that it was referred to in the 17th century in Europe as a European country, an emperor. And I remember that I pointed out to him that Shakespeare actually references Russia and that Hermione in the winter's tale, in fact, Russian, and refers to the fact that her father, is the emperor of Russia, which basically ended that discussion rather abruptly.

But I've been aware of this literature. I'm sure Glenn has encountered it, and it's become more pervasive and more widespread with every single year that has happened since the Orange Revolution of, I think it was in 2004. And it's been very disturbing, and it's been very clear to me that these are two irreconcilable things. things, what the Russians stand for, and what the Ukrainians or what these people in Ukraine want, it's like fire and water. They simply will not mix, and nor can they coexist together. I think that is absolutely clear to me, and it's been clear to me, for a very long time. I think the Russians have had a lot of trouble accepting this. I think that they've been

very resistant for very long to this. the idea that Ukraine has been going in this direction. I think they do understand it now, and I think it is one of the reasons why they see this very much today as an existential issue and why the Russians, like the Ukrainians, are saying a freeze of the conflict is impossible. It is simply not going to happen. It is something that we cannot accept or countenance in any way. But there was the other thing which you talked about, which is about Galen and about his organization and its effect in the West.

And this is something I have to say that I'd not really thought about. I never really imagined that we'd had all of these traces in the West from this time. And I think the first thing I would say about Galen is that he was clearly a very able man, but ultimately he was unsuccessful. he was not a successful person in the advice he gave to the German leadership of that. You mentioned in your article that he was consistently underestimating what the Russians can do. It seems to me that this distorted stereotyping of the Russians, this idea that they're incompetent, that they're chaotic, that all of those things. Well, could it be that we've so internalized Galen-type thinking, and you could see where the identity issues might come in,

that they're now having an effect on our own ability to carry out objective assessments? I think you're exactly right, unfortunately. I think it has sort of permeated unseen, not consciously, but unconsciously, into the ability. And as I say, recall that at that time, between the two wars, there was the sort of great sort of shift

to social Darwinism and other influences. There was making sort of German identity and the need for Germans' ability to sort of reassert itself as a great power. and therefore, you know, to denigrate, I mean, you know, having lost the war in terms of Russia, I mean, there's, you know, always, I mean, look at the West's view about Vietnam. No, we didn't lose the war.

The politicians lost the war. I mean, if you'd left, I mean, the generals, I mean, you know, West Point all, all, there were about four books written to say, you know, the law. war was never really lost. It was just that, you know, if America had been allowed to do what it, you know, should have done. I mean, so, you know, maybe these things are sort of, you know, coming in. And certainly we've seen this sort of massive, and I think it's been the underestimation of Russia have been also much affected, of course, by the outcome of the the Cold War and

Fukuyama's end of history meme, that's had a big effect clearly on the way of thinking. But it goes back even further. It was a long time ago, I mean, the

story of Russia being weak, I can't remember the exact date, but was first promulgated one of the the Tsars, the Tsar, I think we're talking about 17, 60, 1770, married a Polish, your historian probably

married a Polish girl, and she was virulently anti-Russian. There was this great fake letter that was created at the time, which said that essentially Russia was a paper tiger. And then Bonaparte took it up. And then Galen took it up and now much of the Western establishment has taken it up as being a sort of continuing sort of theme anyway.

These things track on. Well it does remind me a bit about the rhetoric as well from Nazi Germany because I often cite Victor Klempeter who was a Holocaust survivor, Jewish and an author. much about distinctive languages of the Nazis in which towards the Jews. And he said they were very dual.

Either there were a scornful derision because of their inferiority of the Jews, or they were scornful, you know, they're hopefully backwards, almost like insects. On the other hand, there was also this panic-stricken fear that civilization would not survive them. And I'm wondering if Galen was able to transfer this a bit into the current discourse on Russia, because we do the same. Either they're hopefully backwards, they're coming, stealing the toilets and taking chips out of our washing machines.

At the same time, they determine all our elections, all our referendums. They may conquer Europe at any time. So either fighting us, fighting Ukraine in the shovels or with hypersonic missiles. It's either those two extremes.

And, yeah, I don't know, also call a speech a speech by Christopher Hitchens, actually, when he pointed out that Gailen's huge influence on America's intelligence community that introduced something very ugly into the US. But I see this same racial rhetoric enters sometimes because you probably heard Sweden's foreign minister, Carl Bilt. In 2014, as they were taking to the streets about the time before Yanukovych was toppled,

he went out on Twitter and he wrote that on the street. streets tonight, this is Eurasia versus Europe, repression versus freedom. This is civilization versus the barbarians. And even after in 2022, he repeated similar ideas. He pointed pictures of orcs versus, you know, white knights. And it's important to see that this goes back to the very radical xenophobic policies of the Hadrian Western Ukraine. Because from that perspective, you know, the Ukrainians and Russians do not share a common civilizational cradle from Kievan Rus.

Instead, Kivenruz is only the heritage of Ukraine while the Russians are the ancestors of, you know, the golden horde, the barbarians from the east. And that's why they always need this ethnic, Asian barbaric identity assigned to the Russians as opposed to the European and civilized. of the Western Ukrainians. It's just interesting to me that this is becoming, spilling over a bit into the West, because we used to talk in similar racial terms. John Maynard Keynes, he used similar, you know, expressions, even Churchill to some extent.

But after the World War II, we began to define us versus them more in terms of ideology, as opposed to being, for the centuries we talked about, you know, East versus West West as being civilized versus, you know, inferior Asiatic peoples. But, you know, for the past 80 years, we stopped it. It just feels like it's coming back to some extent. This is the bigger picture.

And I think it's very important you've touched on that because this is, I just hinted at it a little bit in saying how, you know, you see Europeans talking about our European family against Russian values of autocracy or whatever they, how they, how they, not undemocratic and autocratic. But I think that the point about this, I think that what we're seeing and what was intended by some elements was that the sort of Ukrainian, if you like,

position, iconic standing for all Western values, woke values, modern values, technological, digital values, that that was to be set against Russia. But it is also sort of being absorbed by Europe and being presented by Europe to the point at which we will soon come to, if you like, what will the big war be against? It will be one of European values against Russian,

if you like, values that are, if you like, regressive and are religious. implying that religious values are backward, I mean by that. Of course, I don't mean it myself. I'm saying it as how it's presented and that they're not capable of modernity. And so, you know, as we, you know,

I think we were heading into that direction, really, until the offensive collapsed. And then, you know, Russia is now in a stronger position and you probably saw Rick Valdei when you were there, I mean, very much more confident in its promulgation

of its identity and its inheritance. But I feel Europe is flipping back very much into a sort of rather narrow perspective. And, you know, when I was working for the

a high representative in Israel, Palestine. I mean, European policy at that stage was, you know, we want to be able to facilitate a solution between the two peoples, find a way of sustained peace. Not very easy, not likely. But, you know, when I see the first thing that I, saw on Saturday, von der Leyen coming out and sort of saying unreservedly, we stand only with Israel. We put, you know, all our buildings are going to be colored in colors of Israel.

You know, it rules the European Union out from having a role to play with the rest of the Middle East and with Russia and parts who have a more nuanced understanding. of what has happened on that land between those two peoples. And it just sort of paints them into where Europe and wave flags and we'll dress up in yellow and blue to represent Europe. And this makes it much harder for, I think, for Europe to find the ability to come to terms, which eventually it will have to do with Russia and with the heartland.

powers assuming a much bigger role in the world. They'll have to undo some of this sort of rah-rah-rah language of yeah, yeah, yeah. We're here, we're pursuing this. It's going to be very difficult to do, but can I just say there's also a very interesting contrast in help, which is, Glenn was in Baldi, but Putin delivers this very interesting speech.

covers much of the ground that he's already covered before. But he's now presenting what I suspect is a Russian consensus about themselves, which is that in contrast to this very exclusive one, which is the one we see in Ukraine and to some extent in Europe and the West, the Russian view of themselves is becoming more inclusive. They say we're a country, we're a civilizational state, we include within ourselves people of many different ethnicities, many different religions, but that is what we are. That is what we, that's what makes us strong. That makes what makes us, you know, the kind of country that not only we are, but which we want to be

and which we want to develop. And it's a very sharp contrast, and it's one that's founded, I would say, on Russian, history. It's also not just very different from the one that we had in the wet. We're developing, we're retreating into the West. You know, people like Morel talking about we're the garden, they're the jungle. Robert Kagan in the United States, has apparently said the same kind of thing. But of course, it's also different, I would say, from what the Soviet Union was,

in the sense that the Soviets did have an international. vision, but as I thought Putin also correctly said, it was a class-based vision in some respects. It was international working class solidarity, whereas now the Russians are saying, well, we've got to move, we're no longer thinking in those terms anymore. We're talking more about civilizational blocks, but blocks which are inclusive and which seeks stability, and which are prepared to relate better to each other. And it's a short change. Well, I think it's supported particularly by the, if you look back at Europe and our European strength.

That period where everything flourished, trade and commerce and everything, it flourished because there was cultural competition. All the city states competed against. against each other, Siena against Florence, against all the states and trying to be more culturally advanced it. So it was cultural, if you like, a competition that actually gave the energy and the impetus to Europe to move forward, not conformity, not sort of the dead hand of, you know, single messaging. It was very different. So I think. think that Russia has done that and it's already moving beyond because I think that is the way

we can see this even in the United States that it's moving away from simply, you know, blue, red, class differences. Politics is taking a very different course as it's focusing more on sort of very essential values about life, about, you know, marriage and families and the role they play in societies and about work. All these things are no longer sort of class-based, but are sort of based in cut across and intersect. And I think he's got, as usual, he's picked up and got the, sent it the wind direction exactly right.

it reminds me of a lot to what was stated a century ago in the 1920s. At that point you had a lot of the Russian conservatives who had been forced to leave, well, what was in the Soviet Union. They envisioned when the Marxist project would unavoidably fail at some point that they would become a more conservative Eurasian state. so also leaning more towards diversity of identities and ethnicities within and ethnicities within Russia

of course different turns towards liberalism instead in the 90s but no but the civilizational diversity that topic did stick out because it for me it it almost sounds like a call for

a return to Westphalia because once you have calls for universalism, you know, the universalist claim of the United States for, you know, for liberal values, then this becomes a legitimate, if you will, for, for sovereign inequality in which, you know, you can interfere in domestic affairs of other countries. That's why I thought that the Russian or Putin's argument in favor of diversity of civilization, suggesting each civilization is unique. It would advocate for, yeah, sovereign equality in accordance with West Pali. I want to see similar rhetoric coming out of China

because they have the Global Civilization Initiative, which is almost exactly what Putin said in Valdai. And now you hear the Indians also calling themselves a civilizational state. So there is a lot of the same rhetoric coming. Yeah. And I think, you know, equality is not perhaps the best word, but sort of parity. You know, you can be big or small, but are you treated as having something of value in its own right that is perhaps not the same in terms of its commercial success, but that you treat others with esteem for what they stand for,

whether they're big or small? and I think that sort of sense of parity is very clear from what Russian thinking is now moving towards, you know, that you treat all the states with esteem and parity and treat them as equivalence or on a pari, if you like, with you in terms of esteem and your position in the world. It's very interesting. And I mean, you've been referenced the heart. And of course when one talks about the heartland, that brings us back to McKinder before the First World War. But he saw the world.

I think this is a fair characterisation of Mokinda, but he saw it very much in terms of power that he who controls the heartland controls the world. But the Russians, who ultimately they are at the core of what you might refer to. I mean, one does refer to as the heartland. It's McKinder's Heartland. They don't seem to be seeing it in those terms at all. They see the Heartland as instead not, you know, out to dominate the world and the way that McKinder imagined, but rather to stabilize. It's to bring together people than a sort of much more stable way.

Everybody respects everybody. Everybody works and looks for mutually acceptable solutions. there seems to be very much a Russian cash phrase at the moment, but one can see what they need, but everybody treats everybody with respect. There's a comment that Putin again made, I think he said, you know, we're respected because we respect people. We respect the others, so they respect it.

Parity, precisely, what I'm saying. It's parity of esteem. Esteem. You provide people. I remember saying that so early on to, to Senator Mitchell long ago about the Northern Ireland thing rather than I said

the most important thing to any person any human being is whatever his job whether it is low or high that society the community gives him esteem

in that work and treats him as a valuable member whether it's a local community or a global one. And on your point on McKinder, I think the key thing that, I mean, I think what Putin is grasped

and Russia and China are grasping, are implementing, not grasping, they got it long before I do, is the sense that, you know, there are times in human life when sentiments start to turn and shift, and what was excessive. and sort of unquestioned and left, you know, in stasis.

Suddenly sentiments shift. And I think what they understand is, so what we're dealing with is the sort of trying to deal with a collective psyche. I mean, not quite in the Jungian way, but a collective psyche of human beings. It's easier now because we have so many. of instant communication. And I'm not talking about propaganda in full war.

I'm talking about understanding the shift in the way and which direction, the directionality of the shift in people's psyche. And I think they've hit it immediately in terms of Africa, terms of, you know, the global south. they understand the shift in psyche that has taken place there, the sort of sense, no, you can hit back. You don't have to be a sort of, you know, hit over your head and be a subjective person. You can hit back, and it's important to do that.

And I don't mean that in a pointless way, but in the sense of trying to reassert a sense of personal sovereignty, because collective sovereignty only comes when people have a sense of personal sovereignty. So I think all of that is, I mean, there's a sort of sense of that this is not a walk in McKinders' time of naval power, land power, tanks, ships, the literal Western way of thinking,

but have taken it to a sense of a sort of metaconsciousness. I'm just inventing the word for the moment, I mean a meta-consciousness and how to interact with the metaconsciousness, and they've got it. They've got the feel that this is shifting, and they know how to deal with it and are working with it, whereas the West is still stuck very largely in that sort of mechanical way of thinking. But that being said, I feel like some of the ideas of Mackinder are still built into this, well, collective consciousness, if you will, because as the Russian Eurasianist of 1920, they're very much built on Mackinder.

Their idea was, because maritime power versus land power, they saw the maritime powers as being inherently imperialistic, because if you're going to rule Eurasia from the periphery, then you have to, well, divide and conquer. This has been the common rule since, you know, the polyomac continental system. But essentially, what they're seeing the Eurasian identity is being. the necessity to cooperate with others. Because in the way, you know, while countries like China and Russia might have different formats for Eurasia, none of them can achieve their goals without harmonizing and cooperating

with the other. So you see this, instead of, for example, keeping the Iranians and Saudis apart, their benefits comes from if they're able to resolve the differences, if they want to be able to have a relations with one without alienating the other. But again, I'm not sure if that would translate into a... No, it is, but I mean, you know, you can't walk away from McKinder entirely, and we don't, because both in the bricks and in the West, everyone is trying to establish military posts of the choke points of trade. I mean, because whether it's at the Hormoz or whether it's at the Suez Canal,

I mean, look at all of the expansion of the bricks was, you know, carefully sort of, if you like, bookending the Straits of Hormoz. Then Ethiopia is on the crucial point. Egypt controls parts of the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal. I mean, this is McKindersink, I mean, essentially. So it hasn't gone, but I'm just saying that it's been surmounted in a way, what you see in Russia, that it's still there as a sort of base. level, but I mean, they've moved above that and moved out of the literalism.

And this is where I will, I personally will end, which is to come back to what you were talking about, which was earlier about the fact that we never had a treaty at the end of the Second World War. We've never had a proper establishment of a structure of peace in Europe. We have, we have the Helsinki process, which which is a sort of pale imitation of a treaty, but not a real one, or at least so I feel. And given that the Russians are thinking in this way at the moment, and I think you're right, I think that is a general trend, and I think that will probably continue and consolidate. It actually, if we are sensible in Europe, which is debatable and in the West,

Well, actually, that does, it seems to me, offer a route towards eventually some kind of reaching of a modus vivendi with the Russians, perhaps even enshrined by some kind of treaty process, which is that they are not seeking to dominate Europe. That doesn't seem to be part of their agenda at all anymore. arguably perhaps it never was or at least not in the way that we thought it was but clearly it's not what they're looking at or thinking about now so if we leave them alone they will leave us alone if we respect them they will respect us and vice versa so there is actually you think it through there is actually a potential eventually if we could put all these identity issues that you were talking about all of these ideas that we've perhaps taken from the mid-20th century, from what was being thought in Germany and in Central Europe at that time,

if we can get past all of that. There is a way forward. Well, John Kennedy almost did it. He almost did it. He was blocked to begin with. They cornered him. They tried to block it. But he did it without consulting.

them and he met a positive reaction and something happened but then of course he was killed yes well we're almost up to an hour and a half I don't know what you think Glenn but

I think that this is... I think my voice probably has reached his his little bit too I hope it's an emens the stimulating program Alistair and by the way that article is a brilliant article, which I would really recommend people read, and they will find references to John Kennedy

there and his speech. I recently reread that speech, by the way, and it is an extraordinary speech. The greatest speech in American presidents as the Second World War has made in my opinion. But anyway, it's there. It's in, it's discussed by Alistair in that article. On my behalf, I'd like to say thank you thank you indeed thank you thank you for setting it up thank you