Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defiant response to the three indictments finally brought against him, on Thursday, would, under any circumstances, constitute a crisis for the rule of law in Israel. But Netanyahu’s defiance comes as the climax of a larger crisis for Israel’s democracy, which has been building at least since Netanyahu’s reëlection, in 2015. It places the country’s divided people on unknown and dangerous terrain. The indictments—for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust—are, Netanyahu insists, an attempted “coup” against him, conducted by the police, the state prosecutor’s office, and other judicial authorities—his version of the Trumpian claim that a “deep state” is attempting to overturn the will of the electorate. He seems intent on conducting a preëmptive countercoup using the office of Prime Minister, which he currently occupies only as the head of a transitional government, to appoint potential allies to key government positions, conduct escalatory military operations, collude with an increasingly desperate Donald Trump, and rally his followers against Israeli Arabs, whose parties he tars with the vague charge of “supporting terrorism.” Two close elections this year have not returned Netanyahu to the office, but they have not dislodged him either.
By law, an Israeli minister indicted for a criminal offense is required to resign. By precedent, a Prime Minister must: two already have, and not for crimes committed while in office. Yet Netanyahu seems determined not to relinquish power. “My sense of justice burns within me,” he said on Thursday evening, in a speech that was unprecedented in its pathos and its attacks on state prosecutors, including the Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, who had announced the indictments. “I cannot believe that the country I fought for and was wounded for, that I’ve brought to such achievements,” he said, will allow “this kind of tainted justice.” For the rule of law to prevail, he added, “we have to do one thing: to finally investigate the investigators,” which would entail the appointment of an “outside” commission of inquiry into the prosecution’s methods, as if the Attorney General, whom Netanyahu himself appointed, were somehow part of a secret conspiracy against him.
Yohanan Plesner, the director of the Israel Democracy Institute, has called for Netanyahu to resign, saying, “The head of government serving in office under the shadow of indictment harms the public’s trust in the country’s institutions and Israel’s character as a Jewish and democratic state.” The danger, though, is that the defenses of a “Jewish” state, for which Netanyahu claims to be indispensable, and those of a “democratic” state, which presume laws promoting individual sovereignty and equality, are not comfortably conjoined in a country where theocratic power and occupation have been increasingly normalized, at least since 1967. And it is especially difficult to see how surviving leaders of Netanyahu’s Likud Party will see democratic norms as paramount when their political positions depend on not seeing them. Netanyahu’s Justice Minister, Amir Ohana, said that he is “completely confident that the test of history” will vindicate Netanyahu’s remaining in office. The Tourism Minister, Yariv Levin—an attorney and a former deputy head of the Israel Bar Association—defended Netanyahu’s claim that the investigations were “tainted.”
Just twenty-four hours before Mandelblit announced the indictments, Benny Gantz, whose Blue and White Party won a plurality in Israel’s September election, informed President Reuven Rivlin that he had failed to form a governing coalition, which would have made him the next Prime Minister. Gantz blamed his failure primarily on Netanyahu’s determination to escape prosecution. Urged on by Avigdor Lieberman—the leader of the secular, right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel, Our Home”) party, who holds the balance of power in the Knesset—Gantz had tried to form a “liberal, national-unity coalition” with Likud. This, Lieberman said, would be a center-right government without either religious “messianic” parties or Arab ones (a slight to Arab leaders, who mainly argue for democratic norms, not Arab-nationalist excesses). Gantz seemed ready to accede to Rivlin’s formula that Netanyahu should be Prime Minister first in such a unity government—with the proviso, to be legally guaranteed, that Gantz would become the acting Prime Minister should Netanyahu be indicted and forced to take a “leave of absence” to defend himself in court.
Netanyahu rejected even this formula, insisting that the Haredi and national-Orthodox parties should join him in a coalition—presumably in exchange for securing Netanyahu’s immunity from prosecution—and that Netanyahu should go first as Prime Minister. Neither condition was acceptable to Blue and White. Frustrated, Gantz quietly floated the idea of founding a minority government resting on the support—actually, the agreed parliamentary abstentions—of the Joint List, composed of parties representing Israel’s Arab citizens. Netanyahu declared, “If a minority government like this is formed, they will celebrate in Tehran, Ramallah, and Gaza the way they celebrate after every terror attack. This would be a historic national terror attack on the State of Israel.”
Lieberman, a nationalist bigot, didn’t need Netanyahu’s demagogy to scotch any such government; key members of Gantz’s own party who were once associated with Netanyahu threatened to sink the idea of a government requiring Arab support. These are not simply tactical moves by sly politicians; they testify to an atmosphere in which an embattled Netanyahu seems certain that he would have the backing of the majority to subordinate liberal democratic institutions. He thus seems, in his own way, to join the ranks of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in Turkey, and Viktor Orbán, in Hungary. The attacks on Israeli Arabs are telltale.
Gantz’s response to Netanyahu’s “investigate the investigators” speech was immediate. The country is not “undergoing a government coup,” he said, but rather “an entrenchment.” Yet, as a former Army chief of staff who conducted the 2014 war in Gaza under Netanyahu, Gantz could not fully lay out how brazen Netanyahu’s acts of entrenchment have been. On November 8th, while Gantz was trying to reach a political agreement with the Joint List, Netanyahu appointed the ultra-rightist Naftali Bennett as Defense Minister, reportedly admitting to Likud ministers that inviting his younger rival into the transitional cabinet was a political maneuver, meant to keep his bloc of rightist and Orthodox allies from bolting. Then, on November 12th, Israeli air strikes in Gaza killed Baha Abu al-Ata, a commander of Islamic Jihad, which is backed by Iran.
The Ata assassination was predictably followed by escalating exchanges of fire between Islamic Jihad and Israeli forces, along with new exchanges between Israel and Iranian-backed Syrian forces, culminating in Israeli air strikes on dozens of Iranian and Syrian military targets in Syria, which killed as many as twenty Iranians. Michael Oren, the former Israeli Ambassador to Washington, wrote in The Atlantic that, should war break out in Israel’s north, the country could be hit by as many as four thousand missiles a day. No one should doubt the mounting Iranian threat in Syria. But no one should doubt, either, how convenient the timing of the assassination was for Netanyahu. His and Bennett’s decision to kill Ata came just as Gantz was trying to form a government, arguably, a coincidence: Ata was, Netanyahu said, “a ticking bomb.” Inarguably, however, the ticking must have seemed louder to Netanyahu just as Gantz entertained the idea of coöperating with Israeli-Arab political leaders, many of whom have routinely condemned Israeli military actions in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s remaining in office would mean continued concessions from the Trump Administration, which is apparently eager to show itself a faithful ally to pro-Israel forces in America, and is willing to accommodate Netanyahu with escalating shows of devotion to his rightist base. On November 18th, before Gantz gave up trying to form a government, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the State Department will no longer abide by its 1978 legal opinion that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal. “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law,” he said. The United States has always accepted the argument that the settlements violate the Geneva Conventions and are, in any case, an obstacle to peace. Pompeo, increasingly embroiled in Trump’s impeachment hearings, seemed more concerned with handing Netanyahu a vote of confidence, in spite of the Prime Minister’s own legal woes.
There are ways out of this crisis, though it’s hard to see how any of them will be taken unless Israeli democrats can mobilize public opinion, which remains sharply divided. A recent poll revealed that slightly fewer than half of respondents think Netanyahu should resign because of the charges pending against him. That’s more than the proportion opposed to or ambivalent about a resignation. The country’s political divide is, in part, geographic. Anti-Netanyahu forces are concentrated in affluent Tel Aviv and along the Mediterranean coast, and pro-Netanyahu forces are focussed in poorer areas—Jerusalem, the settlements, and peripheral towns—and resent the coastal élites about as much as they revere Netanyahu.
The immediate question is how senior Likud leaders will respond. The former Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar has called for a leadership primary and announced that he would run. But others, still cowed by Netanyahu, or just afraid of alienating the increasingly populist rank and file when a primary eventually does come, have argued against any leadership contest now. There seems little doubt that Netanyahu could win a preëmption of a primary from the party’s thirty-seven-hundred-person Central Committee. Earlier this week, he and Haim Katz, the Central Committee’s chair, said that they will advance a joint proposal to cancel a primary in the event of a third general election.
Reports have circulated that Netanyahu would resign in exchange for a Presidential pardon. But this seems an underestimation of the crisis he has precipitated. No one knows what might happen if Netanyahu remains the head of Likud and wins a new election, and the President, reinforced by the courts, refuses to grant an indicted member of Knesset the mandate to form a government. Nor is it known what might happen if another election produces a deadlock or a Blue and White coalition with the Joint List, and Netanyahu supporters take to the streets. The good news, perhaps, is that Tel Aviv’s business leaders and Israel’s police and security establishment—now identified with Blue and White—will also have their say.
Given the superficial similarities—the nationalist demagogy, the legal investigations, the defiance, the incumbent party’s flocking behavior—the temptation to draw parallels between the democratic tests in Netanyahu’s Israel and Trump’s America may prove irresistible. But America’s democratic institutions are far more numerous, established, and dispersed than Israel’s; America’s constitution is more comprehensive than Israel’s Basic Laws, its secular standards more stipulated, its media more independent, and its enemies much farther away. What can’t happen here, as Sinclair Lewis ironically put it, can, of course, happen anywhere, but it’s more likely to happen where institutional resistance is demonstrably more fragile. As ideals, “Jewish” and “democratic” were always vaguely in tension. Netanyahu’s gambit to stay out of court risks turning these into rallying points for confrontation.
Former Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell Worked for Israel
A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.
Ben-Menashe says that well after the introduction, though again he does not specify what year, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein began a sexual blackmail operation with the purpose of extorting U.S. political and public figures on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. He stated:
In this case what really happened, my take on it, in the later thing, is that these guys were seen as agents. They weren’t really competent to do very much. And so they found a niche for themselves — blackmailing American and other political figures.”
He then confirmed, when prompted, that they were blackmailing Americans on behalf of Israeli intelligence.
In response to his statement, Zev Shalev replied, “But, you know, for most people it’s hard for them to think of Israel as being … blackmailing their leaders in the United States, it’s a very …” at which point, Ben-Menashe interrupted and the following exchange took place:
Ari Ben-Menashe: You’re kidding? [laughs]…. It was quite their M.O. Sleeping around is not a crime, it may be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime, but sleeping with underage girls is a crime.
Shalev: It was a crime in 2000 as well, but they let him off that…
Ben-Menashe: And that it is [why] always so he [Epstein] made sure these girls were underage.
In addition, when Shalev asked Ben-Menashe about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Ben-Menashe stated “After a while, you know, what Mr. Epstein was doing was collecting intelligence on people in the United States. And so if you want to go to the U.S. if you’re a high-profile politician you want to know information about people.” Ben-Menashe subsequently stated that Barak was obtaining compromising information (i.e., blackmail) that Epstein had acquired on powerful people in the United States.
PROMIS, sex, and blackmail
If Robert Maxwell did recruit Epstein and bring him into the “family business” and the world of Israeli intelligence, as Ben-Menashe has claimed, it provides supporting evidence for information provided to MintPress by a former U.S. intelligence official, who chose to remain anonymous in light of the sensitivity of the claim.
This source, who has direct knowledge of the unauthorized use of PROMIS to support covert U.S. and Israeli intelligence projects, told MintPress that “some of the proceeds from the illicit sales of PROMIS were made available to Jeffrey Epstein for use in compromising targets of political blackmail.” As was noted in a Mintpress series on the Epstein scandal, much of Epstein’s funding also came from Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner, who has documented ties to both organized crime and U.S. and Israeli intelligence.
After the PROMIS software was stolen from its rightful owner and developer, Inslaw Inc., through the collusion of both U.S. and Israeli officials, it was marketed mainly by two men: Earl Brian, a close aide to Ronald Reagan, later U.S. envoy to Iran and close friend of Israeli spymaster Rafi Eitan; and Robert Maxwell. Brian sold the bugged software through his company, Hadron Inc., while Maxwell sold it through an Israeli company he acquired called Degem. Before and following Maxwell’s acquisition of Degem, the company was a known front for Mossad operations and Mossad operatives in Latin America often posed as Degem employees.
With Maxwell — Epstein’s alleged recruiter and father of Epstein’s alleged madam — having been one of the main salespeople involved in selling PROMIS software on behalf of intelligence, he would have been in a key position to furnish Epstein’s nascent sexual blackmail operation with the proceeds from the sale of PROMIS.
This link between Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation and the PROMIS software scandal is notable given that the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence has been for blackmail purposes on U.S. public figures and politicians, as was described in a recent MintPress report.
Can an ex-spy be trusted?
When dealing in the world of deception and intrigue that defines intelligence operations, it is often difficult to determine whether any individual linked to an intelligence agency is telling the truth. Indeed, in the United States, there are examples of elected intelligence officials committing perjury and lying to Congress on several occasions with no consequences, and of intelligence officials feeding politically motivated and untrue information to agency assets in the media.
So, are Ari Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Epstein and the Maxwells trustworthy? In addition to the aforementioned, corroborating information for his claims, a review of Ben-Menashe’s post-intelligence career suggests this is the case.
Ari Ben-Menashe arrives at Harare International Airport, in Zimbabwe, Feb. 22, 2002. Photo | AP
Prior to his arrest in November 1989, Ben-Menashe was a high-ranking officer in a special unit of Israeli military intelligence. He would later claim that his arrest for attempting to sell American-made weapons to Iran was politically motivated, as he had threatened to expose what the U.S. government had done with the stolen PROMIS software if the U.S. did not cease providing Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with chemical weapons. Ben-Menashe was later acquitted when a U.S. court determined that his involvement in the attempted sale of military equipment to Iran was done on behalf of the Israeli state.
After his arrest, Ben-Menashe was visited in prison by Robert Parry, the former Newsweek contributor and Associated Press reporter who would later found and run Consortium News until his recent passing last year. Parry remembered that, during that interview, “Ben-Menashe offered me startling new information about the Iran-Contra scandal, which I thought that I knew quite well.”
Israel’s government immediately began to attack Ben-Menashe’s credibility following his interview with Parry, and claimed that Ben-Menashe had never worked for Israeli intelligence. When Parry soon found evidence that Ben-Menashe had indeed served in Israeli military intelligence, Israel’s government was then forced to admit that he had worked for military intelligence, but only as a “low-level translator.” Yet, the documentation Parry had uncovered described Ben-Menashe as having served in “key positions” and performed “complex and sensitive assignments.”
A year later, Ben-Menashe would be interviewed by another journalist, Seymour Hersh. It would be Ben-Menashe who first revealed to Hersh secrets about Israel’s nuclear program and the fact that British media mogul Robert Maxwell was an Israeli spy, revelations that Hersh would not only independently corroborate but include in his book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Hersh was then sued by Robert Maxwell and the Maxwell-owned Mirror Group for libel. The case was later settled in Hersh’s favor, as the claims Hersh had made were true and not libelous. As a result, the Mirror Group paid Hersh for damages, covered his legal costs, and issued him a formal apology.
After Ben-Menashe’s interviews by Hersh and Parry, Israel’s government was apparently concerned enough about what Ben-Menashe would tell congressional investigators that it attempted to kidnap him and bring him back to Israel to face state charges, much like Israeli intelligence had done to Israel’s nuclear-weapons whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. The plan was foiled largely thanks to Parry.
Parry, who broke many key stories related to the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and beyond, was tipped off by a U.S. intelligence source about a joint U.S.-Israel plan to have Ben-Menashe first be denied entry to the United States on his planned trip to give congressional testimony. Per the plan, Ben-Menashe would be denied entry to the U.S. in Los Angeles and then be deported to Israel, where he would have stood trial for “exposing state secrets.” Parry called Ben-Menashe and convinced him to delay his flight until he secured a guarantee for safe passage from the U.S. government.
Ben-Menashe subsequently gave a sworn statement to the House Judiciary Committee that mostly focused on U.S.-Israel collusion regarding the theft and creation of a “backdoor” into the PROMIS software. Ben-Menashe offered to name names and provide corroborating evidence for several of his claims if he was offered immunity by the committee, which, for whatever reason. declined that request.
Prior to the conclusion of the Hersh “libel” trial, which would later uphold Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Robert Maxwell’s Mossad activities as true, there was a concerted effort in the U.S. press to downplay Ben-Menashe’s credibility. For instance, Newsweek — in an article on Ben-Menashe entitled “One Man, Many Tales” — claimed that “inconsistencies may undermine Ben-Menashe’s testimony in the British courtroom proceedings,” citing inconsistencies from sources in Israel’s government and Israeli intelligence as well as Ben-Menashe’s ex-wife and Israeli journalist Shmuel (or Samuel) Segev, a former IDF colonel. It goes without saying that such sources had much to gain from any effort to discredit Ben-Menashe’s claims.
According to Parry, this media campaign, which employed American journalists with close ties to Israel’s government and intelligence agencies, was very successful “in marginalizing Ben-Menashe by 1993, at least in the eyes of the Washington Establishment.” After a years-long media campaign to discredit Ben-Menashe, “the Israelis seemed to view him as a declining threat, best left alone. He was able to pick up the pieces of his life, creating a second act as an international political consultant and businessman arranging sales of grain.” The effort to marginalize Ben-Menashe has continued well into recent years, with mainstream news outlets still referring to him as a “self-described ex-Israeli spy” — despite the well-documented fact that Ben-Menashe worked for Israeli intelligence — as a means of downplaying his claims regarding his time in Israel’s intelligence service.
After the conclusion of the Hersh libel trial, Ben-Menashe became an international political consultant who “surrounded his far-flung business activities in secrecy and got involved with some controversial international figures, such as Zimbabwe’s leader Robert Mugabe,” and
“conducted his international consulting business … in a wide variety of global hotspots, including conflict zones,” according to Parry. In addition to Mugabe, Ben-Menashe has also recently come under fire for his consulting work on behalf of Sudan’s military junta and Venezuelan opposition politician Henri Falcón.
Ben-Menashe has also maintained ties to several different intelligence services and eventually became a controversial whistleblower whose information led to the arrest of the former head of Canada’s Security Intelligence Review Committee, Arthur Porter.
As far as his character is concerned, Parry noted that Ben-Menashe could often be “his own worst enemy” and that, even though Parry considered his information regarding Iran-Contra and PROMIS reliable and noted that much of it was later corroborated, he “often compound[ed] his media problem by treating journalists in a high-handed manner, either due to his suspicions of them or his arrogance.”
Bill Hamilton, the original developer of the PROMIS software and head of Inslaw Inc., also found Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies to be credible, though he expressed doubts about Ben-Menashe’s character.
Hamilton told MintPress the following about Ben-Menashe:
Ari Ben Menashe was the first source to tell us reliable information about the role of Rafi Eitan and Israeli intelligence vis-a-vis PROMIS but, in the end, of course, he was a clandestine services-type guy whose official duties include the ability and willingness to lie, cheat, and steal.”
A threat revived
While Ben-Menashe may have been viewed as a “declining threat” after the early 1990s, his plans to meet with Robert Parry of Consortium News years later in 2012 to discuss Iran-Contra and other covert dealings of the 1980s appeared to change that. Right before he planned to travel from Canada to the United States to meet with Parry and “finally prove” the truthfulness of his past claims, a fire-bomb was thrown into his Montreal home, destroying it.
Ari Ben-Menashe surveys the damage to his home after it was mysteriously firebombed. Photos | Robert Parry
Though Canadian media referred to the incendiary device as a “molotov cocktail,” Consortium News reported that “the arson squad’s initial assessment is said to be that the flammable agent was beyond the sort of accelerant used by common criminals,” leading to speculation that the accelerant was military-grade.
Had it not been for the bomb, the origins of which Canadian police failed to determine, Ben-Menashe would have traveled to the U.S. alongside a “senior Israeli intelligence figure” to be interviewed by Parry. The other intelligence-linked individual, according to Parry, “concluded that the attack was meant as a message from Israeli authorities to stay silent about the historical events that he was expected to discuss.”
Though neither Ben-Menashe nor Parry directly blamed Israel’s government for the destruction of Ben-Menashe’s home, Parry noted that the bombing did succeed in “intimidating Ben-Menashe, shutting down possible new disclosures of Israeli misconduct from the other intelligence veteran, and destroying records that would have helped Ben-Menashe prove whatever statements he might make.”
While Ben-Menashe’s post-intelligence associations with controversial governments and individuals have given plenty of fodder to the still thriving media campaign to discredit his claims about covert U.S.-Israel operations in the 1980s, there remain troubling indications that the Israeli government sees his information on decades-old events as a threat.
Now, with the major efforts by powerful Americans and Israelis to distance themselves from Jeffrey Epstein and other figures associated with his depraved sex trafficking operation, Ben-Menashe may soon again find his reputation — and perhaps more — under fire.
The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities | SOAS University of London
33:50
Madeleine Albright’s comments we are the
indispensable nation we have a right we
have the responsibility and now we have
the military power since we’re Godzilla
to turn the world into a different place
to remake it in America’s image think
about the concept of American
exceptionalism no American politician
can you know move one micrometer away
from American exceptionalism right you
know that Barack Obama who got
criticized on this issue was forced to
say that America is the indispensable
nation he used those words
it’s American exceptionalism we’re
different we’re better but that
nationalism juiced the liberalism the
nationalism coupled with the liberalism
coupled with the fact that we were so
powerful coupled with the fact that we
had this template in their head about
how we were going to make the world a
much better place and we were off to the
races what’s the track record let’s talk
about the Bush Doctrine and the greater
Middle East the Ukraine crisis and
us-russia relations I’ve talked a bit
about that and then the failure of
engagement with China these are the
three most glaring examples of failure
the bush doctor the Bush Doctrine was
designed to turn the Middle East into a
sea of democracies in keeping with
liberal hegemony it’s very important to
understand that the war in Iraq 2003 was
not going to be in the minds of the
liberal hegemonist the last war in the
Middle East it was the first stop on the
train line
the second stop on the train line if you
want to include Afghanistan we didn’t go
much further in terms of invading other
countries because Iraq turned into a
fiasco but the idea was that we could
use military force or the threat of
military force the threat of military
force to overthrow governments in the
region and install liberal democracies
in their place and therefore produce
peace in the Middle East that solved the
proliferation and terrorism problems I
know this sounds crazy now but this is
the way we were thinking you remember
Afghanistan is finally under American
control by December 2001 and then in
early 2002 the Americans are talking
about maybe invading Iraq the Israelis
catch wind of the fact that we’re going
to do Iraq and the Israelis send a
high-level delegation to Washington to
say why are you doing Iraq you should be
doing Iran it’s the greater threat the
Americans say don’t worry Iraq is the
low-hanging fruit we’re gonna go in and
do a rack and then when we’re done with
Iraq will either do Syria or Iran next
but we won’t have to do one or two more
of these military invasions before
everybody in the region understands how
powerful we are and throws up their hand
and jumps on the american bandwagon the
israelis foolishly believe the americans
thinking that we have found the magic
formula for winning wars and they then
begin to champion an invasion of iraq
right what’s the result total disaster
it’s truly amazing the amount of murder
and mayhem that the united states is
responsible for in the Middle East truly
amazing
virtually no successes and nothing but
failures and failures were huge numbers
of people died countries are physically
wrecked
Afghanistan now the longest war in
American history I know not a single
37:47
national security analyst who thinks
37:49
there’s any possibility we can win that
37:51
war and all we’re doing is checking
37:52
can down the road now so that Obama
37:55
doesn’t get blamed for losing
37:58
Afghanistan and now Trump doesn’t get
38:00
blamed for losing Afghanistan to Iraq we
38:03
wrecked that country Syria where the
38:06
United States displayed of a very
38:08
important role in trying to topple Assad
38:11
that’s hardly ever repeat reported in
38:14
the media that’s a total disaster the
38:17
amount of murder and mayhem we’ve
38:19
created in Syria no Libya we did a great
38:21
job there right with the help of the
38:23
Europeans my god right the Bush Doctrine
38:27
in the greater Middle East an abject
38:29
failure then there’s the Ukraine crisis
38:31
and us-russia relations I’ve talked a
38:34
little bit about this you know in the
38:35
West here in Europe and certainly in the
38:38
United States we blame the Russians for
38:40
the crisis well I don’t buy this
38:44
argument for one second from the time we
38:47
started talking about NATO expansion the
38:50
Russians made it very clear that it was
38:52
unacceptable to them they were too weak
38:55
to stop it in 1999 that’s when the first
38:58
tranche took place they were to stop too
39:01
weak to stop in 2004 which is when the
39:04
second tranche of expansion took place
39:06
but after 2008 when we were talking
39:09
about doing Georgia and talking about
39:11
doing Ukraine they said this is not
39:14
gonna happen
39:15
it was April 2008 at the bucura summit
39:19
the bucura Sneyd au summit April 2008
39:21
where when the meeting was over with the
39:24
declaration was issued by NATO that said
39:27
Georgia and Ukraine would become part of
39:30
NATO the Russians went ballistic it’s no
39:33
accident ladies and gentlemen that a
39:35
couple of months later in August 2008
39:38
you had a war over Georgia Georgia
39:40
Russia war August 2008 Bucharest summit
39:42
April 2008 and then on February 22nd
39:46
2014 you had a major crisis break out
39:49
over Ukraine the Russians had no
39:54
intention of letting either Georgia or
39:57
Ukraine become a Western bulwark on
40:00
their doorstep and the end result is
40:04
that neither one of those countries has
40:06
come Western bulwark and the Russians
40:09
are going to great lengths to wreck
40:10
those countries and the Russians are now
40:13
going to great lengths to split NATO
40:15
apart and split the EU apart so that
40:17
they can expand further eastward and
40:20
further where we have terrible relations
40:24analysis was based on the idea that
57:28
there is a genuine effort in u.s.
57:31
foreign policy to export democracy and
57:36
some would say that you know this was
57:39
more like a Trojan horse to expand US
57:42
dominance or hegemony or however you
57:44
want to call it and that example such as
57:47
Pinochet in Latin
57:48
America or the Shah in Iran or or you
57:51
know us alliances with with autocracies
57:53
all over the world do not really
57:56
unprovided of evidence for a real
57:59
genuine effort to spread democracy in
58:02
the way it was done in in Europe with a
58:04
Marshall Plan that was really a genuine
58:06
effort to democratize absolutely agreewith you the European continent but with
the Iraq invasion in particular there
was no Marshall Plan there was no really
systemic structure competent effort to
create a democracy the only
administrator that was guarded after the
invasion was the oil ministry and none
of the others so this is just a point
for my for my own understanding about
the trajectory of of you know what
happened to to the liberal United States
and we used to no good
these are two great issues and let me do
my best to answer them I take them in
reverse order first of all with regard
to what happened with the Shah would
happen with Pinochet Guatemala in 1954
and your comments on the Marshall Plan
remember my argument is that liberal
agenda only takes effect with the end of
the Cold War really about 1990 so I
would argue that the this is just
dovetails with what you said the United
States has a rich history of
overthrowing democratically elected
leaders right and furthermore preventing
the emergence of Democrats in other
cases and furthermore aligning itself
with murderous thugs and dictators and
my argument would be then in a world of
realpolitik where security competition
is it play you’re going to see a lot of
that kind of behavior so I’m not
challenging that part of the story in
any way what I’m saying is that after
59:58
1990 Oh
but so recently up until Trump the
United States I believe was genuinely
committed to spreading democracy around
the world now a number of people
including some of my really good friends
make the argument that you make which is
dead even after 1990 this is a Trojan
horse their argument is John this is you
know the atavistic realist United States
taking advantage of the unipolar moment
to dominate the globe and then
disguising its aggressive behavior with
liberal rhetoric okay now uh I think
that’s wrong okay and I think whether
you’re you and my friends are right or
I’m right is largely an empirical
question it may be the case in thirty
years when they open the public records
there is an abundance of evidence that
supports your perspective which is that
we behaved in a very realist
we tried to become a global hegemon and
we successfully covered it up and we
bamboozled people like John okay that
that may happen I cannot deny that okay
but my argument to you and to my friendsis that I believe that’s wrong and I
61:23
believe that the people who are who have
61:29
been conducting American foreign policy
61:30
are not that clever they’re fools
61:32
they’re fools and they are remarkably
61:36
idealistic and I think there is an
61:39
abundance of evidence to support my
61:41
position right I can’t adduce it all
61:44
here or we can’t have a big debate about
61:45
it but I do think that’s true and the
61:48
reason I go to the case of NATO and I
61:50
say that NATO was not about containment
61:53
cuz I’m anticipating your question
61:56
necessarily from you maybe from somebody
61:59
in the audience
61:59
right and I’m trying to show you that
62:01
NATO expansion was not realpolitik at
62:04
work
62:05
it was liberal hegemony but again I
62:09
think I’m right in the terms of the
62:11
story that I’m telling you
62:12
but again this is an empirical question
62:14
and as you well know we want to be
62:16
humble in this business because we’re
62:18
sometimes proved wrong your question
62:21
about nationalism and liberalism I’m
62:23
gonna make two responses to that first
62:26
of all I do think one can make an
62:28
argument that liberal democracy is in
62:31
trouble in the United States with Donald
62:34
Trump as the president I think most
62:37
people believe that there is some chance
62:40
some reasonable chance he will get
62:42
reelected I think eight years with him
62:45
could do a great deal of damage to
62:47
liberal democracy but I would take it a
62:52
step further and say that Trump is a
62:54
manifestation of you know underlying
62:58
forces that are at play here that don’t
63:03
bode well for liberal democracy so I’m
63:05
not at all making light of what a
63:09
dangerous situation were in and of
63:11
course not only applies to the United
63:14
States as I told you folks in my talk if
63:17
you go look at Freedom House’s data
63:19
since 2006 the number of liberal
63:22
democracies in the world has been going
63:24
down now another fascinating issue you
63:28
raise is the whole question of the sort
63:36
of omnipresent state in the United
63:39
States right that doesn’t look like a
63:42
liberal state it looks like it’s
63:44
interfering in the management of almost
63:48
everyone’s daily life I don’t want to go
63:53
into this in any great detail but
63:54
basically when I talked about rights I
63:59
was talking about negative rights I was
64:02
talking about freedoms and the problem
64:05
is that in the modern world this is all
64:07
to be a good thing we’re not just
64:09
interested in negative rights were
64:10
interested in positive rights and the
64:14
best example of that is just think about
64:16
this the right to an equal opportunity
64:20
it’s not just the right to life liberty
64:22
and the pursuit of happiness we you’re
64:24
talking about freedoms those were
64:26
we’re talking about rights like the
64:28
right to health care the right to equal
64:33
opportunity those are called positive
64:35
rights and they’re very important in
64:38
every society today including the United
64:41
States and the point is once you start
64:44
talking about positive rights as well as
64:47
negative rights the state begins to get
64:50
involved in a really serious way and you
64:53
remember folks when I told you about the
64:55
three solutions that liberals have to
64:59
dealing with potential for violence
65:01
I said inalienable rights tolerance and
65:04
the state and remember that I said that
65:07
it’s very important to have a limited
65:09
state and the point that you’re making
65:11
is that we’re moving away from that
65:13
limited state and I think in modern
65:17
societies it’s very hard not to do that
65:22
I’m agreeing with you because of the end
65:24
is because of the emphasis on positive
65:26
rights and then when you start thinking
65:30
about things like artificial
65:31
intelligence the national security state
65:34
the ability of the state to intervene in
65:36
our daily lives you see that liberal
65:39
democracy is a fragile device that
65:44
really has to be protected so I’m
65:47
agreeing with you in very important ways
65:50
in terms of ever saying that was
65:53
essentially the point that we are all in
65:56
the same boat in many ways trying to
65:58
struggle to keep the rights alive when
66:00
trying to struggle to keep a democracy
66:03
alive here but questions from from the
66:07
audience and if I may I take two at a
66:10
time John is that okay it’s perfectly
66:12
fine I should have said at the beginning
66:13
by the way switch off your mobile phones
66:15
I mean Jeff reminded myself with a so –
66:19
two questions the lady with the colored
66:23
jumper yes I forgot to bring over a big
66:31
piece of paper
66:33
hello thank you very much for your talk
66:35
in your talk you mentioned international
66:37
institutions particularly the WTO and
66:40
the IMF as kind of instruments of
66:43
liberal hegemony I’m wondering what do
66:45
you see the future of those
66:47
international institutions now that
66:49
there’s a failure of in of liberal
66:52
hegemony thank you okay one more
66:54
question the gentleman in the back just
66:57
right at the back yes with the highest
66:59
hand ah yes that’s what the blue blue
67:01
sweatshirt hi thanks you said that
67:08
obviously liberal Germany is faltering
67:12
is it any more or less faltering than
67:17
autocracies such as China Russia Thank
67:21
You Jon first question had to do with
67:32
the future of international institutions
67:34
I believe that in a highly
67:40
interdependent world and we live in a
67:43
highly interdependent world a globalized
67:46
world a hyper globalized world cult
67:49
whatever you want international
67:52
institutions are absolutely essential
67:55
and that doesn’t mean that certain
67:59
international institutions won’t die but
68:02
if they do they’ll be replaced by new
68:04
international institutions there’s just
68:07
no way you can do business without
68:11
international institutions international
68:13
institutions is I learned a long time
68:15
ago when I wrote an article on this
68:17
subject are basically rules and you need
68:20
rules for all sorts of reasons when
68:23
you’re doing business and that business
68:25
can be economic it can be military I
68:28
mean if you have military alliance NATO
68:31
as an institution the Warsaw Pact as an
68:33
institution if you’re gonna fight the
68:35
Cold War all over again you’re going to
68:36
do it with a mill
68:37
Alliance which is an institution you
68:39
need the WTO although I think you need a
68:42
different variant of it you need the IMF
68:45
the World Bank the Chinese have created
68:48
the aii big institutions are here to
68:50
stay
68:51
Donald Trump can get rid of NAFTA but he
68:54
in effect just produced another
68:56
institution that looks like NAFTA so
68:59
institutions aren’t going away no
69:01
question in my mind on that the
69:05
gentleman up here asked me about whether
69:07
you know the Chinese political system
69:10
and the Russian political system were
69:12
also failing and maybe failing more so
69:15
than liberal democracy I don’t know what
69:19
the answer is to that at this point in
69:21
time I think that both the Chinese and
69:26
the Russians are doing reasonably well
69:28
at this point in time what the long-term
69:31
future of those political systems is
69:35
it’s hard to say so I’m just not too
69:41
sure I think in in both the Chinese in
69:45
the Russian case a lot depends on the
69:47
economy and I think a lot depends on how
69:53
much progress they make on the economic
69:57
front over the future but I think at
70:00
this point in time to some extent
70:02
everybody’s in trouble okay two more
70:05
questions
70:06
the lady in the back all the way
70:16
my question is about based on the
70:20
relationship between China and United
70:22
States do you think we are entering oh
70:26
we are already living you know in new
70:29
Cold War era and secondly do you think
70:34
that sports country US and China will
70:37
end up in Susa dated Trump’s will end up
70:41
way so City Detra okay second question
70:52
yes the gentleman right here would you
70:57
wait for the microphone it’s right that
71:02
it’s in the front yeah thank you
71:04
it’s okay sorry to make you run hi John
71:09
thank you for your talk much of the US
71:12
political discourse lately around Trump
71:15
seems to be focused apart from the
71:17
collusion with Russia seems to be on the
71:20
lack of coherence of foreign policy and
71:23
I think looking at some of trumps
71:26
rhetoric in recent years it seems to
71:29
align a lot with the core tenets of your
71:31
book tragedy of great power politics and
71:33
in particular we see Trump adopting an
71:35
offensive realist position towards China
71:37
we see him somewhat buck-passing Syria
71:40
to Russia and we see a kind of offshore
71:42
balancing with regards to NATO in Europe
71:45
so my question is to what extent do you
71:48
think that Trump is a meerschaum
71:50
heurists
71:50
so to speak truth
71:51
[Music]
71:54
okay John okay I’ll take the first
72:01
question on China and the United States
72:04
and the young woman in the back asked me
72:07
if I thought there was a new Cold War in
72:10
store between those two countries I
72:13
think the answer is yes my basic view of
72:18
international politics is that the great
72:20
powers in an ideal world want to
72:23
dominate their region of the world and
72:26
they want to do like the United States
72:29
did in the Western Hemisphere they want
72:30
to be the only great power and they
72:34
don’t want any other distant great
72:36
powers coming into their backyard and if
72:40
you look at China today China’s growing
72:44
economically and militarily and I think
72:49
that the Chinese are very interested as
72:51
they should be in dominating Asia and
72:55
that means not only being the most
72:58
powerful country in the region but also
73:01
making sure the Americans are pushed out
73:04
the Americans well the Chinese talk
73:11
constantly these days about the century
73:14
of national humiliation which ran from
73:17
the late 1840s until the late 1940s the
73:21
Chinese were weak over that hundred year
73:24
period and they were exploited by the
73:28
Japanese the Americans and the European
73:30
great powers they have never forgotten
73:32
that
73:32
and their goal is to make sure they are
73:35
really powerful in the future if you
73:38
were to go up to a Jap to a Chinese
73:40
policymaker or remember the Chinese
73:43
foreign policy League and say to that
73:45
person you have two choices you can be
73:48
twenty times more powerful than Japan or
73:51
Japan can be 20 more times powerful than
73:54
you do you think it makes any difference
73:56
they would laugh in your face they would
73:59
tell you we know what happened the last
74:00
time Japan was 20
74:02
more times powerful than us we intend to
74:04
be 20 times more powerful than Japan in
74:07
the future and then when you ask the
74:09
Chinese behind closed doors what they
74:11
think about the Americans running ships
74:13
and aircraft up their coast and having
74:16
ground forces off their coasts and
74:18
places like Korea and Japan they will
74:21
tell you in no uncertain terms if they
74:24
get powerful enough they will try to
74:25
push us out beyond us meaning the
74:27
Americans beyond the first island chain
74:29
and then beyond the second island chain
74:32
and if you look at how they think about
74:33
the waters around them they’ve made it
74:35
very clear that they think the South
74:37
China Sea belongs to them and we’ve made
74:40
it clear to them we don’t agree with
74:42
that they’ve made it clear they think
74:44
the East China Sea belongs to them and
74:47
there’s a real possibility they’ll get
74:49
into a fight with the Japanese over
74:51
those small islands in the East China
74:53
Sea
74:53
then there’s Taiwan which is a potential
74:56
flashpoint of great significance China
74:59
is not a status quo power so the Chinese
75:03
as they get more and more powerful are
75:06
going to try and become more and more
75:09
influential in East Asia and they’re
75:12
going to try and push the Americans out
75:13
and you know what the Americans are
75:15
going to do the Americans are going to
75:16
pivot to Asia and they’re going to try
75:18
and contain the Chinese and they’re
75:20
going to push back so I would argue that
75:24
there is likely to be trouble ahead and
75:29
put it in your terms you are likely to
75:31
get a new Cold War in Asia second
75:38
question had to do with Trump and he
75:43
accused me of being in bed with Donald
75:46
Trump intellectually this is a
75:49
frightening thought
75:54
yes right that’s right then we know
75:58
there is no connection look to be
76:03
serious I think that I think that Donald
76:06
Trump has no coherent foreign policy I
76:10
think he flies by the seat of his pants
76:12
and he has certain intuitions and I do
76:18
think apropos your question that some of
76:21
those intuitions are consistent with a
76:23
realist perspective in other words when
76:26
Trump says that he is not interested in
76:30
using military force to spread democracy
76:33
around the planet that’s an argument
76:35
that resonates with realists there’s
76:38
just no question about it now another
76:41
example that you used was containment of
76:44
China right that of course resonates
76:47
with realist logic but also you want to
76:50
remember that the person who articulated
76:52
the pivot to Asia was Hillary Clinton
76:54
and the Obama administration the Clinton
76:56
administration was also interested in
76:58
the pivot to Asia so this is not
77:00
something new to trump but it gets
77:03
consistent both with the Democrats and
77:05
with Trump with basic realist logic my
77:08
problem with Trump is that he’s done a
77:10
half-baked job of pivoting and dealing
77:14
with our Asian allies Trump’s big
77:16
problem and this is where you know he
77:18
parts for realism his realist believed
77:21
that alliances matter allies matter and
77:24
if you’re gonna deal with an adversary
77:28
like China right you need help from
77:31
countries in East Asia and you don’t
77:34
want to be slapping him around which is
77:36
what he does I also think the TPP the
77:39
trans-pacific partnership which was an
77:41
economic institution that was designed
77:44
to contain China right it was designed
77:48
for economic purposes but also for
77:49
security purposes he vetoed that or he
77:53
killed that when he came
77:54
to office that was a big mistake so I
77:58
think a lot of what he has done is
78:00
inconsistent with a realist approach but
78:03
there is no question that he does have
78:04
realist tendencies although again it’s
78:07
not part of any sort of grand theory of
78:11
how the world works okay last round of
78:14
questions
78:16
the gentleman white sweatshirt thank you
78:24
so much for your talk it’s very
78:26
enlightening I just have a question with
78:30
regards to the Iraq invasion
78:33
so you said and I quote there are
78:36
virtually no successes in Iraq and I
78:39
personally think that there were some
78:40
successes for the United States let’s
78:44
put aside all of the inexplicable damage
78:46
that has been wrought on to the Iraqi
78:49
population I think that there were
78:53
benefits for it for its economic
78:56
interests in the long term we can see
78:59
today that although what was done in
79:01
Iraq was a failure in many ways many oil
79:05
contracts if not all were given to
79:08
American country companies like
79:10
ExxonMobil war was created which
79:14
increases the demand for for weapons
79:17
which in turn can increase manufacturing
79:20
and selling of weapons by American
79:23
companies although all these contributes
79:27
to the economic superiority of the
79:29
United States and its prominent
79:31
companies so we need a question I will
79:34
come to the question because we’re
79:35
running out of time all right I
79:37
apologize for that so we can’t imagine
79:40
the United States today without its
79:42
superior economy right so I ask can the
79:49
Iraqi invasion be seen as a commercial
79:51
success for the United States
79:53
thank you very much the second question
80:05
hi thank you very much for your talk
80:08
my question is regarding the European
80:10
Union as America focuses on itself more
80:13
and liberalism takes a backseat do you
80:16
think there is a future for the European
80:18
Union and what do you think the future
80:19
holds for Western Europe thank you I
80:29
should go okay thank you
80:31
with regard to your question about Iraq
80:33
I thought you were gonna argue that it
80:36
had some benefits for Iraq but obviously
80:39
you’re arguing that it had benefits to
80:41
the United States economic benefits for
80:43
the United States I don’t believe that
80:46
I think it’s estimated that the two wars
80:53
won in Afghanistan and two in Iraq and
80:56
the Iraqi war is the more expensive the
80:58
two of the two is gonna cost us
81:00
somewhere between four to six trillion
81:03
dollars over time again when you think
81:08
of all that money and and and and the
81:11
consequences for the Iraqi people it’s
81:14
just stunning right but for the six
81:16
trillion dollars I don’t think the oil
81:19
companies ended up making much of profit
81:24
as a result of the invasion and I think
81:28
in terms of arms sales yes we sold some
81:31
more arms but not enough to really
81:34
matter not enough to really affect the
81:36
economy so I don’t think I don’t think
81:42
that you’re right that the the United
81:44
States benefited economically from this
81:47
war but again even if it did it wouldn’t
81:49
justify you know what happened in Iraq
81:53
and by the way remember that one of the
81:55
principal consequences of the invasion
81:58
of Iraq was the creation of Isis just
82:01
don’t want to lose sight of that
82:04
second question a very interesting
82:06
question on the EU and the future of the
82:08
European Union and you prefaced it by
82:11
saying America’s losing interest in
82:15
Europe to some extent and as American
82:18
interest in Europe wanes what does that
82:21
mean for the EU I make two points first
82:26
of all I believe that one of the reasons
82:29
probably the main reason that European
82:32
integration has been so successful and
82:35
there has been peace in Europe is
82:37
because of the presence of the American
82:40
military in Europe its NATO it’s the
82:45
American pacifier as I often say to
82:48
audiences you know I’ve spent a lot of
82:50
time going around Europe since 1990 when
82:52
the Cold War ended I have never met a
82:56
single policymaker a single pundit a
82:59
single academic a single representative
83:03
of the foreign policy establishment in
83:05
any country in Europe who wants to see
83:07
the Americans leave Europe this is quite
83:09
remarkable and now I was recently
83:12
Romania as recently in Denmark the
83:15
Romanians and the den Danes do not want
83:18
us to leave Europe and it’s because they
83:20
understand that this I’m throw but the
83:23
American military presence that NATO
83:25
underpins the EU and peace and security
83:29
in Europe okay that’s my view so in
83:33
terms of the future of the EU what
83:37
really matters in terms of the United
83:39
States is that we stay in NATO keep NATO
83:43
intact and keep American forces here the
83:47
second point I would make to you the
83:49
problems in the EU today despite all
83:52
Donald Trump’s rhetoric have nothing to
83:55
do with the United States they’re mainly
83:59
Eurocentric problems problems associated
84:02
with the euro problems associated with
84:05
brexit if you look at what’s going on in
84:07
Italy and a lot of these problems by the
84:10
way have to do
84:10
with nationalism right I’m not going to
84:12
get into that in any detail here but
84:14
there are real problems in the EU today
84:17
but those problems are not the result of
84:21
the United States right so the Europeans
84:24
have to figure out how to fix those
84:25
problems but more importantly for the
84:28
Europeans they got to keep the Americans
84:30
here in my opinion I think the America
84:33
the European elites understand correctly
84:35
that an American military presence is a
84:38
pacifying factor here in Europe the main
84:43
pacifying factor thank you very much
84:46
John unfortunately we have to leave it
84:48
at that there will be a drinks reception
84:51
outside in the foyer but join me once
84:54
again to in thanking professor much I’m
84:58
afraid
84:58
excellent
85:00
[Applause]
85:05
you
85:06
[Applause]
Rashid Khalidi “Brokers of Deceit”
Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East, by Rashid Khalidi
In his seventh book on the Middle East, Khalidi, Columbia professor of modern Arab studies, looks closely at the American role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Focusing on the 1982 Reagan Plan, the Madrid Peace Conference a decade later, and Obama’s shifting position on Israel’s settlements, Khalidi argues that the U.S. has impeded, not furthered, an agreement.