The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3626 - Decoding Israel's Superpower Ambitions w/ Daniel Levy

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

It's Fun Day Monday on The Majority Report   On today's program:   Donald Trump's erratic behavior puts the ceasefire with Iran in serious jeopardy. The deputy foreign minister of Iran says that Trump is sabotaging the diplomatic path by saying one thing and then doing another.   U.S. Marines seize an Iranian-flagged ship in the strait of Hormuz in a violation of the ceasefire.   Daniel Levy, president of the U.S Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin, joins the program to discuss his recent op-ed in The Guardian headlined: "What Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right really mean when they invoke 'Greater Israel'   In the Fun Half   Former Obama staffer, Ben Rhodes explains the Obama administration's rationale on their Cuba policy and calls out Joe Biden for being so chicken shit that his inaction led to Trump's blockade that is killing people at this moment.   Zohran Mamdani offers his assessment on the current state of the Democratic party.   Podcast dummy Jillian Michaels invites podcast idiot Stephen Crowder on her show to compare NYC Mayor Mamdani to the Ayatollah of Iran.   Sam Harris also does an insane segment on his show about Mayor Mamdani, calling him a sinister theocrat.   We take a look at highlights from this past weekend's Michigan Democratic Party Endorsement Convention. Topics include Mallory McMorrow throwing herself a parade, Haley Stevens getting booed and COry Booker begging for a Michigan fist.   All that and more   To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: ZOCDOC: Go to Zocdoc.com/MAJORITY and download the Zocdoc app to sign-up for FREE and book a top-rated doctor WILD GRAIN: Get $30 off your first box + free Croissants in every box. Go to Wildgrain.com/MAJORITY to start your subscription. LEESA MATTRESSES: Go to Leesa.com for the SPRING SALE and get 20% OFF ON SELECT MATTRESSES, PLUS get an extra $50 off with promo code MAJORITY Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this show at join the Majority Report.com and get an extra hour of content daily. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Monday, 420. That. In 2006, my name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. I forgot like a zoo because I was high.

We are broadcasting live. Steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA on the program today. Daniel Levy, peace negotiator from Oslo II under Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yitzag Ramin. He's a recent op-ed in the Guardian headlined, What Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli right really mean when they invoke greater Israel. Also on the program today, U.S. sees an Iranian ship, possibly stalling in negotiations. Meanwhile, Democrats well in stalking distance to flip the Senate, the U.S. tariff refund portal opens.

you won't see a dime of that $160 billion you paid. Supreme Court memos leaked show the naked partisanship of the Supreme Court and John Roberts behind the scenes. Congress facing a 10-day FISA deadline. And meanwhile, DHS funding deadline is the White House can't continue to executive order money past April. Knives out as Kosh Patel denies regular blackout drinking. Trump approval rating at a second term low. Early trials in pancreatic cancer MRI vaccines show astonishing efficacy. DOJ demands Michigan's Wayne County handover election ballots from 2020.

All this and more. on today's majority report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, it is... Fun Day Monday. Funday Monday, yes. And I am back from Las Vegas, and I will give my annual report. I actually left up $400. Wow.

Congratulations. Which puts me on a lifetime balance of somewhere around negative $400 probably. But this is big. I never come back. Last I spoke to you, you were only up $200. So you went back for more, which is usually not the best idea. No, usually what happens is I come back and I lost $50.

But this time, I don't know. And we're no, we don't have any more extra money. Like, like. Let's get right into this because, Daniel Levy will speak to the designs of the state of Israel and perhaps provide a good explanation as to why we are, why we're engaging in this war, at the very least, it will give us the perspective of why Israel is. Over the course of the weekend, it was a little schizophrenic, would you say in terms of whether

we are actually entering into any type of peace negotiations or if there's any type of diplomatic effort that's actually being waged by the United States on Friday or Saturday, I should say, the foreign minister of Iran, I should say the deputy

foreign minister of Iran, Said Khadazda, had this to say. I'm trying to sabotage the path of the diplomatic efforts through this diplomatic circus that they are adopting. They thought that the force and the pressure and the escalation is part of the solution. No, these cannot be for the benefit of anyone. Diplomacy must prevail.

One by one, please. one by one. President Trump said that if there is no agreement on Wednesday, there will be a return to the military action. Then let's President Trump talk. He talks too much. He said contradictory things within the same statement. This cannot be prevented. I don't know what exactly he meant. The American people must decide about him. If his statements are lined and if they are going with international law, then we will continue our defense with all heroism, with all nationalism and patriotism, who will defend Iran, the oldest civilization on the planet.

We will fight till the last Iranian soldier, war cannot lead to any positive. solution. The Americans must understand and must learn the lesson. The era of colonialism must come to an end. They cannot dictate the orders on the other nations. They can't, literally. They've been unable to. I mean, this is where Iran is strengthening itself on the world stage just based on using their leverage with the geography that's that they have and the advantage that they have. And he's pointing this out, Trita Parsi, his kind of recent writings about this have been really helpful in understanding what's been happening here because Trump continues to undercut the negotiations by pursuing the optics of

victory over good faith negotiations. And that includes a troop buildup in the Middle East. But in particular there's an acute example where Trita Parsi points out that Iran and the Gulf countries had agreed to a deal that would have stopped Iran bombing some of the GCC countries, but Iran wanted to announce it themselves and look like it was on their terms. This is what these sensitive negotiations look like. And Trump went on true social and humiliated Iran and antagonized them instead of agreeing to the terms of the mutual off ramp that just would have had Iran announce and look like they were in control and dictating these terms because they are. But Trump is so self-conscious of that very reality that he's sabotaging peace.

And in that same piece, I mean, he reminds us that all of the players have a domestic audience. And so they need to be able to show that they are not coming out of these negotiations. They need to be able to show a win for all parties involved in these news. negotiations. Trump is making that extremely difficult. Here is Trump on Sunday, this is yesterday, at 3.10 p.m., posting on truth social. Here it is. Iran decided to fire bullets yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz, a total violation of our ceasefire agreement. Many of them aimed at a French ship and a freighter from the United Kingdom. that wasn't nice, was it? I know.

My representatives are going to Islamabad, Pakistan. They'll be there tomorrow evening for negotiations. Iran recently announced that they were closing the strait, which is strange because our blockade has already closed it. They're helping us without knowing, and they are the ones that lose with the closed passage $500 billion a day. The United States loses nothing. In fact, many ships are headed right now to the U.S.

Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska to load up compliments of the IRGC, always wanting to be, quote, the tough guy. We're offering a very fair and reasonable deal, and I hope they take it because if they don't, the United States is going to knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran. I should just note that's a war crime. No more Mr. Nice guy.

They'll come down fast. They'll come down easy. And if they don't take the deal, it'll be my honor to do which has to be done, which should have been done to Iran by other presidents for the last 47 years for the Iran killing machine to end. Not helpful. No.

And then, I guess 30 minutes later, Trump had this to say, which of course was an announcement. Today, Iranian flag cargo ship named Tuska, nearly 900 feet long and weighing almost as much an aircraft carrier tried to get past our naval blockade. It did not go well for them. U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer.

The Spruance intercepted Tuska in the Gulf of Oman and gave them a fair warning to stop. This was not written by Donald Trump. I mean, you can tell by just like the lack of like random capitalization. The Iranian crew refused to listen to our Navy stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engine room. And then lastly, this from Donald Trump, this morning. This morning, which I don't know, it's a good, I guess, segue to talk to Daniel Evie. Trump, for no reason, maybe just because it's 420, had this to say. Israel never talked me into the war with Iran.

I promise. The results of October 7th added to my lifelong opinion, that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon did. The results, the results of October 7th, you know, the results. Not the bestly, you know, turned sentence there. There's not a lot of, he wrote this one. I watched and read the fake news, pundits and polls in total disbelief. 90% of what they say are lies and made up stories.

The polls are rigged, much as the 2020 presidential election was rigged, just like in the results in Venezuela, which the media didn't like talking about. the results of Iran will be amazing. And if Iran's new leaders, regime change are smart. Iran can have a great and prosperous future. I mean, it's hard to know if this is just sort of like, you know, the madman theory in practice. But, well, he's at the very least self-conscious about that Israel talking point.

There's, we're, tomorrow, I'm sure, we'll cover what is bound to be historic freakouts from Tucker Carlson and Candice Owen. and the other Christian nationalists in the Republican Party because an Israeli soldier was photographed in southern Lebanon desecrating a statue of Jesus Christ. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Trump, two days ago, announced that he will participate in a marathon reading of the Bible. I think that's happening today because they're genuinely concerned

about the split with their fundamentalist Christian base on this issue. And it's becoming more pronounced. It's pronounced with the young people that they're so immensely concerned about that they were trying to make turning points USA into their like Hitler Youth Project or whatever they were trying to do. Well, that group of people really doesn't like Israel right now. And that's a problem for Trump. Yeah. It's going to be interesting to watch him read it and then get surprised. Like, oh, I did they do fish into wine?

What? I don't know the, I need some help with that Bible, at least that version. In a moment, we'll be talking to Daniel Levy. He's the president of the U.S. Middle East Project, a former Israeli peace negotiator under Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. But first, a couple of words from our sponsors. This episode of the Majority Report brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, seasonal pastries, and fresh pastas.

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Lisa.com promo code majority we'll put all that information in the podcast and YouTube descriptions. I'm going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll be talking to Daniel Levy. We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. I want to welcome back to the program. Daniel Levy.

It has been far too long. He is the... Hold on one second. Are we not up? Yeah, don't worry. We can't have that preview line right now. We're working on that. We just don't have that right now. We're going to get in touch up with our people on that. All right. We were experiencing some technical problems. Bear with us. But we have Daniel Levy on the phone. He is the president of the U.S. Middle East project, a former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Minister Zhaou Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. and has written a piece in the Guardian.

What Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right really mean when they invoke greater Israel, Daniel, welcome back to the program. Really good to be back with you. So what does, well, first I guess maybe, you know, and obviously I have questions to ask you about Lebanon and Iran, but this all folds into sort of this, this greater rubric of what the agenda of the Israelis are at this time.

Give us a sense of like, you know, when we hear greater Israel, what does that ostensibly mean? And then let's talk about it both as a material thing and in terms of as a projection of power. And that's the point I'm trying to make that, of course, there is a territorial component to this. Israel has never had fixed borders. Whether we're approaching Lebanon or Iran, I always think you don't get it if you don't

center Israel's project against the Palestinians, because once Israel is set on ensuring that the Palestinians will not have their rights, their freedoms, any national collective existence with Israel recognizes, it sets itself on a certain course with the rest of the region. It might be able to find leaders who are okay with that, but essentially that's not something that Curry's public favor across the Middle East, and therefore Israel is on a certain course. So when I think about greater Israel, it's not just about this total victory zero-sum project with the Palestinians. And I also don't think it ends with, is Israel going to acquire some more territory in Lebanon, in Syria? There are folks in the Israeli government, ministers,

parliamentarians, including from Natanyahu's only could party, who do talk about settling parts of Syria, Lebanon, think about Israel expanding its territory. I don't think that's realistically on the cards right now. And therefore, the piece of it that I want to draw to people's attention is that Natanyahu is pursuing a geopolitical project attempting, and I don't think he can succeed, but it has to be stopped, attempting hard power domination. The creation of a zone of Israeli, hard power hegemony of Israeli control, really, in a much more expanded region than the area which Israel might call its borders or where Israeli troops might be deployed or settlements might be constructed. And to do that, he needs to make sure that that cannot be challenged.

Part of that is therefore bringing down Iran as any kind of power balancer. To do that, you need the US. He has to bring the US into that war. But it also means being part of an effort to dismantle, we can collapse surrounding states and create vulnerabilities in other states so that Israel can co-op them to its project. Israel's not the only one that has, of course, played a role in the collapse and the chaos in the region. And if that sounds like a very far-reaching project, it's because it is, and I consider that to be overreach dangerous for the region, but also for Israel itself. I mean, on some level, what you're talking about is like a similar sort of like a dynamic with the Monroe Doctrine or the Donro Doctrine, as it were, where there's a

There is that Israel is looking for just essentially hegemony in the region. So let's talk about the different elements that are necessary for them to achieve that, at least in their minds. And it gives us a sense of a blueprint of where they're going. Obviously, the first is to downgrade the strength of Iran and its ability to it's just, it's strange, like, what is it about getting Iran out of the picture, or at least, or removing its capacity that is so crucial to Israel? So, first, let's just acknowledge this has its antecedence in projects that Israel tried and got

over time historically various elements of buying from various U.S. administration. So folks may remember or may not, when Natanyahu comes to power in 96, he works with a bunch of neocon hawks in the US, Richard Perl and others on a strategy for the clean break, which is to remake the Middle East. That's where part of the Iraq obsession comes in. But just parking that historical bit right now, in terms of what you asked, which I'm now struggling to. remember. But yes, it is a version of trying to do a Dom-Roe Doctrine in the region. And why do you need to bring down Iran? Because Iran offers the potential, at least, of being able to limit that. Now, we saw that Israel went after post-October 7 what it claimed to be the kind of proxy network.

And we were told that that had been fatally weakened with Hizmolah in particular, Hamas. I mean, to see any of these simpheus proxies is getting it wrong in the first place, certainly to see Hamas in that sense. But I think the reason that Natanyahu is doing what he's doing against Iran is he sees that we are in a moment of great geopolitical fluidity. Now, for a lot of actors, especially those who are allies of the U.S., European NATO states, the near neighborhood, Canada, even Tier 1 East Asia allies, this is about kind of ducking and hoping you don't get hit by the fallout from this moment. Natanyahu almost uniquely saw this as a moment of great opportunity. He saw this as a moment where before a new set of rules comes into place, before some kind of restraint is imposed on him.

Because historically, US administrations create a very permissive environment for Israel in general, and particularly on the Palestinian question. But he's never had an American president who he could get to do this. He's tried, God bless him, for decades, Nathangya, who tried to find an American president who would go to a major war with Iran. And, I mean, we've all read that New York Times piece about the presentation in the situation room.

And, you know, my friends who are defense correspondents in different U.S. media outlets have said, they have written umpteen times over the years, the piece that says, if you go after Iran, here's what's happened, here's what happens in the street, trade of Hormuz, it was all very predictable. No president has fallen for it. And Nathlianz detected, I think, a couple of things. First of all, that with Trump, there was a unique possibility of persuading this president in this administration with such a hollowed-out

interagency process to do this. I think the other thing he detected was, he might not have much longer to do it, even if it wasn't Trump, because Israel's image is tanking in the U.S. US and because American power itself is not what it once was. And this was the time therefore to go for it. Well, the U.S. is almost showing itself to be a paper tiger here. This is with its inability to control the flow in the Strait of Ormuse and showing the limits of the United States' naval buildup as well as its ability to patrol the straight in the surrounding areas because Iran just has a geographic advantage that would have been obvious if you were looking at this

in the way that in the manner that you describe. But I'm fascinated about the Gulf countries and some of the news that's come out over the weekend, including a Wall Street Journal item that reported that the UAE is demanding basically U.S. dollar currency swaps right now and these guarantees

and they're threatening to trade oil and gas in Chinese currency if that is not guarantee. One, what do you make of this? And if you could expand on why the U.S. dollar pegging itself to oil and gas and to energy is so important to U.S. worldwide financial dominance and what it could mean if some of these Gulf countries traditionally under our auspices move towards trading in Chinese currency. Right. So, to take one step back to come at that. So one of the outcomes of this war, which Trump constantly says,

nobody could have expected this except everybody could have. And the Iranians told us this would happen. And the Gulf states knew it would happen. And that's one of the reasons they didn't want this war to start, which was that when attacked using whatever kit, intel, bases that the US has in the GCC states, Iran was going to respond against that American basing, and sometimes it went beyond that. And when Israel went up the escalatory ladder, and sometimes America did as well, and it started hitting all refinage, for instance, then did what it said it would do, and it responded in time.

Therefore, the Gulf has taken a serious hit. My argument on the Israeli side is that this was a premeditated intended byproduct of this war. It wasn't like, oh, that's a shame, but I guess we have to deal with it. It was, we get a two for here. First of all, we get America to help take down Iran. Secondly, we managed to weaken those Gulf states a little bit and create some vulnerabilities and dependencies there that we can exploit as part of this domination project.

So the Gulf now sees itself in a position where, despite the love affair and despite all the investments and despite the supposed security guarantees that America presents, And despite buying all this American stuff militarily and subsidizing the American military industrial complex to the extent to which they have. And despite Trump's first major international overseas visit being to those three Gulf states, the Gulf sees that when it comes to their existential interest. They had virtually no hearing in the White House.

And the White House did Israel's bidding and to hell with the consequences for the Gulf. That has placed them all in an unenviable position. They're on the horns of a very acute dilemma, but they're all making their own calculation because although there is a degree of GCC, the six different Gulf states, coming together and trying to work out what to do next day. They all are in different positions. The story just before this war started was a massive fallout between the UAE and Saudi Arabia over issues to do with Yemen, Sudan and other things.

We remember that just a few years ago, those. two states and others were blockade in Qatar. So they are all managing their own hedge. And the way that the UAE, if that reporting is accurate, seems to be doing it, is to say, you haven't delivered on what we expected. Now, for the UAE, that might look different to Qatar or Saudi Arabia. And therefore, we are going to put in play the thing that you are most vulnerable on, which is precisely what you just pointed out to us, which is the centrality of the dollar as the global reserve currency in American power. We think of American power, sometimes in soft cultural terms, sometimes we think it in hard military terms. But none of that creates the degree of

hegemony that we see if you can't use the power of the dollar. We see how that has been used. We've seen over the decades taken to extreme levels now the weaponization of the treasury, the weaponization of access to the international financial system because of the dollar's dominance. And so one of the things that has been worrying American leaders is what if energy trade between, for instance, the Gulf and China, is denominated, not in what we call petro dollars, but in petro- yuan, if the payments were made outside of the dollar system. And one of the things we've seen Iran do during this Israeli-American initiated war is to take these payments for ships that have gone through the strait of hormones.

Now, how have they done that? People haven't been paying them through a financial system that America could control. They've been using crypto and other things. So you, look, we're not at the moment of de-dollarization. There's a journey still to go on. But this war, as in many other respects, in accelerating American decline, because part of this war is an American attempt to address decline anxiety by attempting to reassert primacy and preponderance, and it won't work.

And if you see, if there's any truth to this, that the country like the UAE is threatening, what is threatening, then maybe it won't do it this time. But many countries are looking and saying, okay, how do we get ourselves out of this dependency on the US, which is unpredictable, unreliable, doesn't listen, and is not going to be able to re-assert primacy. So we better prepare for the world that we are moving to. And China isn't looking to step in and become a global policeman, become a global hegemon become an empire in the way that America did. It's basically at the moment waiting and watching and seeing America cause itself tremendous self-harm.

Yeah, well, that's my quick follow-up then is, is just back to the original kind of first part of your response. Why would Israel think that this would bring the GCC countries further into the U.S. sphere of influence? because what it's kind of betrayed is that the U.S. is mostly interested in defending Israel, and they are not necessarily capable of providing the guarantees that these countries maybe, you know, on paper that the U.S. said that they would provide in terms of defense. So if Netanyahu was looking at that objectively, he might see that this could accelerate the deterioration of that relationship. Right? So here's where I think Nathaniahu looks at this and says,

look, if the outcome of this is more uncertainty regarding the US, but at least I use that US power to smash Iran, then that's a pretty good outcome anyway. And I think, you know, as we hinted at earlier, it's a kind of use it or lose it. If I don't use it now, when am I going to use it? We may be, right. We can use it to smash Iran, and it may smash the U.S. in the process, but this is what, that's not our problem.

Precisely, that's not my problem. And then that takes us to the second part, which is, well, what does, how does that work, that it, that it pulls the Gulf more into the U.S. sphere of influence. Well, maybe this isn't about putting them more into the U.S. fear of limits. Maybe it's about saying, if I, if I've smashed this up, if we've created a collapse state in chaos, not regime change, that was. the Israeli plan, in Iran, the spillover effect is felt in the Gulf. Then as they look around and say, well, what do we base our security on now? They go, we may not like it, but there is, the most powerful military in the region is over there. It's Israel. And just days before, and I think this is really telling, just days before this war broke out, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in

Israel and Nathaghanu talked about something which he hadn't really talked about before. He said we're establishing a hexagon of alliances in the region and he referenced India and Ethiopia is the closest ally in East Africa. He talked about Greece and Cyprus who have energy partnerships with Israel in the Southeast Mediterranean and he talked about the Gulf. So I think what he was saying is your option basically becomes join this new alliance. We're the centerpiece of the new alliance. By the way, we're a nuclear power. None of you are.

And that's how you start thinking about the future. And he's publicly come out and said in a press conference during this war, listen, the alternative to Hormuz and to Bab el Nandeb to getting your gas to market, build the pipelines, built them through to Haifa, Israeli ports on the Mediterranean, and that's how you'll get to market. Now, again, I think this is an Israel. that's getting high on its own supply and is well I mean way ahead of itself because if you're going to go in that direction then you go through Syria to Turkey and that's an alternative route

which already is is more in the process of happening but that's that's the thinking Israel by the way talks about Turkey as the next big target that it intends to pursue and so what you have in the region partly at the moment is this dilemma because the goal, for instance, is furious in Iran, for understandable reasons. It looks at how problematic the US has been in this. But it also says, after the last two and a half years of Gaza, when our people, our publics, saw those images on their social media feeds every day, at that radicalizing destabilizing influence on the region, do we now have to come up with a strategy for containing

and deterring Israel, including militarily, Nattanyahu's gamble is that they won't be able to get their act together because they can't agree with each other because they're in competition with each other and Israel will be strong enough to muscle this out. And that's, right now, that's the game we're in. And which of those GCC countries, I mean, my guess would be Saudi Arabia, but which would be most likely to lead a resistance to that type of, like, new regional order, I guess. Right. And kind of the combination of Saudi Arabia and leader resistance is nice and novel, but not the terms

they normally are thinking. But the answer to your question may partially. already becoming interview. And I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but you just had a meeting for the third occasion of a grouping that has come together recently. Saudi, Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt. Their ministers just met again in Antalya in Turkey over the weekend.

And so I think what they are saying is, we're the big players. We need to precisely address. those questions. I don't know if one can compare it to the coal and steel community that led to the European Union seven decades ago. It is going to be hard for them to cooperate. But yes, Saudi Arabia is absolutely front and center of this. By the way, of course, Saudi has been hit, but this war looks very different from anyone who's sitting in Saudi compared to the rest of the of Saudi is a much bigger country. It's not a city state. Riyadh has basically lived normally

for the last several weeks, unlike Manamar in Bahrain, Kuwait City, Dubai or Doha. So I think they potentially at least have the ability to work with these other states if they choose to do so. And that's the big if. Natanyahu, of course, has been pushing for normalization with Saudi. The Iranian did have a rapprochement, brokered by China, with Saudi. Saudi has that traditional relationship with the U.S. And just as is the case with many other states in the world today, the question is how they look at the U.S. and how they hedge their options over the next period. And so, I mean, if I understand this correctly, the Israeli plan is to – it also includes the idea that –

it is aware that perhaps its support in the United States is on very shaky ground. And B, a bloody nose for the United States, or at least one, you know, maybe that's not so obvious, but creates some type of like internal bleeding would probably be a good thing because as they recede the, at least from their perspective, their capacity to provide stability in the region or is the last, you know, or the best resort to provide theoretically stability in the region rises. And so the GCC countries begin some like type of tacit agreement that there'll be some Israeli hegemony over that region for, you know, because of the vacuum-creative. by the United States.

Right. So this is where I think one can only understand this if one feeds in the other things that we haven't talked about yet, which is that this is an Israeli prime minister who still faces a court case. Every week he now sends his lawyers to the court to say, hey, our guy can't come to court this week. Sorry, he's busy with war. He's been doing that for months.

So this is an Israeli prime minister who, who, who has wrapped up the fate of the state so much with himself that I think that's the only way you can understand that he's now making calculations, which over-ambitious is an understatement. Right. Because he sees himself now as a perpetual war leader. So I think this doesn't make sense. I think unfortunately, when you throw it into the mix of an Israel that was already on an ideological journey towards a more extreme place where the manufactured trauma then met the real trauma of October 7.

So he's able to carry the state with him. It's a state that is now populated at some of the higher levels of governance by a new right elite, which is full of zealots, if you look at some of the leaders of Chris Chimbert, the newly appointed head of Mossad, etc. So therefore, he can make a go of this kind of a strategy. But if you ask me whether I think he can put it off, my answer ultimately would be no. If you ask me whether he is actively seeking the weakening of the US. I think for him it's an acceptable outcome.

his read maybe, as we said, that it's something that's going to happen anyway, and Israel's ability to do whatever it wants with U.S. backing may be coming to an end. But there is another angle to this, which is that Natharou may say, look, hopefully it doesn't come to that. If it does, it's an acceptable price to pay. But Nathiru may actually be saying, Look, this looks a bit far, far reaching what we're doing with the US, but never bet against my and Israel and the Israel lobby's capacity to pull things around in America. Look, the polls don't look great right now. There's an anti-Israel wing of Maga.

We know who they are. But we've got in place the mechanisms, the people, the lobby groups, the evangelicals. that this polling will subside. My friends are buying up both legacy and new media, left right and center with the Ellison takeover at TikTok and of CNN and the Barry Weiss's of this world. So he may think we've still got this. Well, the question is then, but if Iran is strengthened by this war and then the U.S. relationship and U.S. Israeli relationship is indelibly harmed in that way, that's the outcome that I feel like is not being considered. Because if the U.S. withdraws and you don't have that naval buildup

and you don't have that military buildup to be the guard dog for Israel and say even Iron Dome funding is in question, and Iran is strengthened during this period, which is what it looks like is happening. Is Israel in trouble? My one word responds to that would be boom. That's exactly what I'm trying to argue. to my Israeli friends, but this is a ticket to a very bad place for Israel.

I think that is the outcome. Interestingly, you're increasingly hearing that kind of a critique, elements of it at least, inside Israel itself. It's like, oh, who would have thunk it? After two and a half years, Hamas is still there, because you can't defeat the resistance movement militarily if the cause of the resistance is still in place. In fact, if you've made it even worse by conducting genocidal policies.

Oh, in Malar, which we thought we had totally vanquished, is still there. Oh, when we go after Iran, there's a reason Iran has survived decades of sanctions and is a real state with real capacities. So this is like the babe in the woods, this new awakening every day to the realities of the world. And this plays very badly, I would argue, potentially for Israel. And myself, I've reached this conclusion. I think others have that the edifice of actual existing Zionism as a project that can't live a peace with its neighbors,

as a project of domination, it needs to be fundamentally revisited change, stripped down, and that's the best way forward, also for security and well-being, for Israel's Jewish community, which I think should remain there and needs to remain there, but not running an ethno-supremises project. That's one conclusion, one can reach, including the wash-over effect in terms of what it means for Jews around the world and what they're supposed to be supportive of but what they should actually do. That's one thing. That critique is not widespread in Israel.

I think what is increasingly coming to the surface in Israel is this isn't working. Right. This idea that you can solve anything and everything militarily isn't working. That's part of the critique of the opposition to Natanyahu. Unfortunately, that opposition says we need to back up our military victories with political realistic plans is not something that they offer

because none of them have a realistic political plan either. And frankly, I mean, it seems at least from this vantage point that the critiques are wildly outnumbered, at least in terms of the Israeli population and etc. But with that said, do you have a sense of like, all right, what is their measure? So they have taken land in Lebanon. They have taken territory in Syria.

They obviously have, you know, fully occupying both the West Bank and Gaza, Gaza again, and have essentially shoved Palestinians into, I don't know, 15% of where they were living before in Gaza. what what is the metrics in which they think they need to hit for their plan for this type of dominance to exist? And I would encourage people to read your piece, which is on your substack, and we will link to it as well. But it gives a sense of like trying to be almost like, I don't know, the spoke of a three-quarters wheel where we're all sorts of different, resources sort of flow through Israel and power emanates out. But when they look at, like, when they, if they have a whiteboard where they're saying, if we may, you know, occupied this percentage of land in Lebanon, this percentage of land in Syria,

we have this government in Lebanon. we have this you know I mean what is the situation which they think this actually

sort of like comes to fruition it's an interesting question I mean you could look around and say okay

Syria collapse state poses no danger plus and this is true elsewhere as well Israel has good working relations

with various ethnic minority groups there that's a modus operandi Syria, thick, Lebanon, I won't go through the whole checklist with each one, right? You could go to the different countries in the region that pose no threat. You could then go to the countries that Israel has created relations of dependency.

Jordan is in a very uncomfortable place vis-à-vis Israel, deeply unpopular but significant degrees of dependence. Egypt. Israel has built relations with. with Egypt is in sorry with Ethiopia where Egypt has the big contestation over the dam where Egypt is sorry Israel and UAE have been working in Sudan which poses a problem between you can you can build the layers of a strategy even Israel's recent recognition of Somalilat playing in that part of the of the neighborhood

so it is I mean you also you can look at a country like UAE and how many countries it is involved in. So you see these tremendously ambitious plans and Israel may be looking at it and saying, what? Maybe it's good. Maybe we were even encouraging Trump to get on his aggressive position against NATO, because maybe that weakens Europe as a potential pressure vehicle against us. And maybe they'll even need us. Israel's just a massive arms deals with Germany. So Israel may look at this and say, we're not winning any popularity prizes in the near future. But in a world where there are different equities that people are going to need.

Hard power is one of them. We've got hard power. We've got mill power. We've got tech power. and people respect a lot of that power. We can set ourselves up in a relatively invincible fashion that even those for whom their public opinion is not going to like it, and even if some of them themselves may hold their noses to come into this relationship,

we are going to be an indispensable part of the future global architecture. If that sounds compelling, it's because Israel has not yet had to confront that being challenged in meaningful ways. I mean, I think this grandiose schematic comes from the fact that Israel has been treated with such indulgence and impunity, despite everything it's done to the Palestinians, that that has empowered this thinking. But then we've got to keep things in perspective. I mean, it's sort of like it's analogous to Trump in some ways. Well, except it's a tiny country. It's a tiny country with a tiny divided population. There's huge civil fractions and tensions and fissures amongst the population,

significant brain drain, significant capital drain. The reserveists are exhausted. So it's somewhere in between this picture of a country, many people I speak to in Israel. And like we are much closer to the verge of collapse than people think. And I don't, I don't want to go to either extreme that it can pull off

this grandiose vision or that it's it's on its last means. But yes, this all feels like a reach too far. But that's how the thinking goes. If you, you know, if one would to unpick it. And I know we've got just limited time with you here. But just

lastly, like, how does their aspirations or when they say Turkey's next like what is that look like I mean in what way

I mean there is it are they funding Kurdish separatists are they attempting to what would they be attempting to do in terms of Turkey and at what point do they come they run afoul of NATO

and Turkey will host the NATO summit in July if things go according to plan. So it's interesting for me that it's Naftali Bennett. I mean, this is government policy against Turkey and Israeli diplomats go around the world talking about Turkey in the same tones that they used to talk about Iran in many respects.

But it's the opposition leader, briefly, prime minister and the person who is best position to replace Natanyahu and Natanyahu and to lose an election, Naftali Bennett, who has gone furthest in kind of publicly identifying and targeting that Turkey is the next. next is the next country that needs to be brought down. Now, I don't think we're heading towards a direct clash between the two. They are in closer proximity now, given their respective

positionalities in Syria, for instance. Israel is a historic backer of the Kurds. What I think you are going to see beyond the rhetoric, and you are probably seeing already, is multiple ways in which there are little shadow contests between Israel and Turkey. Maybe that's not the only issue at play, but in various arenas, Israel's recognition of Somaliland versus the close Turkish relationship with Somalia being one example, then being on opposite, not that they're directly involved, but to the extent to which their backing sides in Sudan would be another one, obviously things to do with Syria, but obviously things to do with pipelines, with where, how energy is going to get out to the world, Israel's close relationship with Greece.

If the Gulf looks, as it will undoubtedly, look for ways of at least hedging vis-à-vis Hormuz in the future. So pipelines to Israel versus pipelines to Turkey. So there's going to be all these ways in which, if we carry on down this trajectory, you will see elements of competition, whether that then goes into a way. a much more aggressive direct confrontation. I think it's far too early to tell. I think this maximalist Israeli project will hit the rails before it gets to that. And Turkey is a very significant, very serious and militarily capable country. And remember what I spoke about earlier, that in that grouping of four that is beginning to meet regularly and to think about how one shapes the future of the

region. Turkey is a very important player. It's Turkey, Saudi, Pakistan, and Egypt. And Turkey in that mix definitely is thinking about containment of Israel as one of the projects that needs to be on the agenda of a grouping like that. Last question really quickly. Can you just give us a sense? You mentioned people, there's fractures within Israel. We don't really have a great sense in the Western press of how much damage Iran has inflicted with their missile attacks. let alone how much of that capital flight is really hurting Israel internally. I mean, people don't really want to be associated with a genocidal, settler colonial state. That's got to be having some economic impact.

So if you could just shed some light on what damage is being inflicted upon Israel, both militarily and in terms of their internal economy. Yeah. And look, I wish I could report to you that, you know, there's a, there's a, huge contestation in Israel with people who are disgusted by the behavior towards the Palestinians, etc. As we know, sadly, that's not the case. But where does all this come to the fore?

So the extent to which companies are maybe their address is based overseas, not putting their Israeli foot forward, even if the Israeli people in charge of those enterprise. is unhappy to admit that and wouldn't want to admit that. There's a massive question inside Israel over the military service over those who serve and who don't serve, but the ultra-Orthodox community against the religious nationalists is one of the areas. One feels that.

I think the correct picture to paint is is of an Israel that it is, that is, like I said, it's not, it's not on its needs. But there is a feeling that is palpable in a significant cohort of the community. But something is going wrong, is not working here. The damage done by Iran has been, I think it's been the, fact that Iran could continue to send missiles over throughout this period, the grandiose aims and claims that Israel went into this war with have not been borne out. It's not that there's huge damage that isn't being reported. There is damage that isn't being reported,

but it's of a manageable scale that the cost can be absorbed. But it's, but it's, it's, it's, it's, of a manageable scale. the cost can be absorbed but it's this sense of while there is still support for the war it's this sense of consistently underestimating your adversary and thinking that you can

solve everything militarily and given the extent to which that permeates Israeli thinking There's almost a sense of helplessness because you don't have an opposition politician who can stand up and say, obviously this is wrong, we've told you it's wrong, we wouldn't have done it this way, we have other answers, and if only you vote for us, you'll get those answers in power. No one has been offering that. So today, as this war goes increasingly pear-shaped. None of the leaders of the Zionist opposition, I should draw a distinction because the Palestinian-Israeli, community has its political representatives and they have a very, very different perspective. But none of the leaders of the Zionist party opposition can come to this with clean hands and say, told you so, because they've all backed this war, they all back the genocide in Gaza. So I think that

adds to not only the consensus around madness, but also the increasing sense of helplessness and of hopelessness because no one from within the Zionist camp is offering a alternative, probably because you can't solve this from within a Zionist narrative. Daniel Levy, president of the Middle East project, former Israeli peace negotiator, thanks so much for your time today. We will put a link to your piece that is both in The Guardian and your substack. Really appreciate it. Just a fascinating perspective on what the Israeli agenda is.

Thanks again for your time today. Really appreciate it. Pleasure. Good to speak to you, both. Thank you. All right, folks. That does it for us. I mean, it is, I think, at least contextualizes like, you know,

why this is happening. And certainly, I think, from, you know, Netanyahu's perspective, Donald Trump and Donald Trump right now prior to the potential of a Democratic House and maybe now a Democratic Senate in six months or ten months from now, a year from now,

why he saw it as his sort of last, best chance to do it. And of course, also, we're talking about a bunch of old men. And it's not like, you know, he can wait another 10 years for this to happen. I still contend that Trump must be getting some type of kickback on this. But nevertheless, it's largely irrelevant. But that is a, someone just wrote in the IMs, that's upsetting.

And it is a scary prospect that there are these type of designs and what it involves doing. It suggests that to the extent that Netanyahu continues his influence over Donald Trump or Donald Trump, you know, perceives himself as a macho guy, we could be in this war for a very long time. So on that note, we'll head into the fun half. So your support that keeps this show happening. You can become a member at Join the Majority Report.com. when you do you only get the free show free of commercials. You also get the fun half and you get to send us IMs.

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Check it out. Justcoffee.coop. Use the coupon code majority. Matt, what's happening in the Matt Leckian Media universe? Yeah, tomorrow on Left Reckoning, we're asking the, we have Matt McManus on talking about conservatives who are asking the big questions like, we're the Athenians right to kill Socrates. We're asking all those questions.

Also, Kylie Chung on to talk about pink pilling and the use of celebrity gossip as a way to cultivate right-wing. reactionary ideals into younger people. So check that out coming up tomorrow on Left Reckoning. Subscribe to our Patreon, Patreon.com slash Left Reckoning. Quick break. Fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now.

And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now. But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second. Emma, welcome to the program.

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