Deconstructing Trump's Gaza 'Peace' Plan (w/ Norman Finkelstein) | The Chris Hedges Report

[MUSIC] The US peace plan, President Donald J. Trump's comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict, the Internet of Stunning Betrayal of the Palestinian people, was endorsed by most of the UN Security Council in November with China and Russia abstaining. Other states washed their hands of Gaza. They turned their backs on the genocide. The adoption of Resolution 2803 as the Middle East scholar Norman Finklstein writes, was simultaneously a revelation of moral insolvency and a declaration of war against Gaza. By proclaiming international law, null and void the Security Council proclaimed itself, null and void. Fisa V. Gaza, the council, transmuted into a criminal conspiracy. The next phase is supposed to see Hamas surrender its weapons and Israel withdraw from Gaza. But these two steps will never happen. Hamas, along with other Palestinian factions, reject the Security Council resolution. They say they will disarm only when the occupation ends and a Palestinian state is created. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows that if Hamas does not disarm, it will be done quote the hard way. The board of peace, headed by Donald Trump, will ostensibly govern Gaza along with armed mercenaries from Israeli-aligned international stabilization forces, although no country seems anxious to commit their troops. Trump promises a Gaza Riviera that will function as a special economic zone, a territory operating outside of state law governed entirely by private investors, such as the Peter Teal-backed Charter City in Honduras. This will be achieved through the voluntary relocation of Palestinians with those fortunate enough to own land offered digital tokens in exchange. Trump declares that the US will take over the Gaza Strip and own it. It is a return to the rule of vice-royes, though apparently not the odious Tony Blair. Palestinians and one of the most laughable points in the plan will be de-radicalized by their new colonial masters. As these fantasies will never come to fruition, Israel knows what it wants to do in Gaza. It knows no nation will intercede. Palestinians will struggle to survive in primitive and dehumanizing conditions. They will as they have so many times in the past be betrayed. December saw an average of 148 trucks allowed in to Gaza each day instead of the promised 600. They keep Palestinians on the edge of famine and ensure widespread malnutrition. In October, some 9,300 children in Gaza under five were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition according to UNICEF. Israel has opened the border crossing into Egypt at Rafa but only for Palestinians leaving Gaza. It is not open for those who want to return, has stipulated in the agreement. Israel has seized some 58 percent of Gaza and is steadily moving its demarcation line known as the yellow line to expand its occupation. Palestinians who cross the arbitrary line which constantly shifts and is poorly marked when it is marked at all are often killed. 92 percent of Gaza's residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed and around 81 percent of all structures are damaged according to UN estimates. The strip, some 20 miles long and about 7.5 miles wide, has been reduced to 61 million tons of rubble including 9 million tons of hazardous waste that includes asbestos, industrial waste, heavy metals, and addition to unexploded ordinance, an estimated 10,000 decaying corpses although the number may be higher. There is almost no clean water, electricity or sewage treatment. Israel blocks shipments of construction supplies including cement and steel, shelter materials, water infrastructure and fuel so nothing can be rebuilt. Compounding the humanitarian crisis, Israel has revoked the licenses of 37 international NGOs including doctors without borders and this follows Israel's banning of the United Nations relief and works agency or UNERA which provides most of the humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and the diaspora. And the cutting off of water, electricity, fuel, and communications from UNERA facilities as well as the passing of legislation that gives Israel the ability to expropriate UN properties in East Jerusalem including UNERA's headquarters and its main vocational center. Joining me to discuss the continued assault on Palestinians and the failure by the international community to intervene is Professor Norman Finkelstein author of numerous books on the Middle East including Gaza, an inquest into its martyrdom, the Holocaust Industry and his fourth coming book which will be released in March, Gaza's Gravediggers. So Norm let's begin with the Security Council vote on November 17th, 2025, 13 votes to zero to abstentions as I mentioned in the introduction. I was as stunned by it as you were precisely because this isn't in any way a serious proposal, other proposals have been ignored in terms of ceasefires, agreements, etc. But there was just no validity to this at all and you really, I think correctly, excoriate the member states for supporting it. And I think you make the point that this is a watershed moment in terms of the United Nations itself, would you have pointed out, at least has traditionally attempted to uphold international law and this is just a complete tossing away of any pretense of international law. Can you explain this moment? Well, I think here it's good to begin with the statements by Russia and China when they abstained from the resolution. Now Russia and China are obviously great powers and there's a great deal of cynicism and calculation in anything they're going to say. On the other hand, I personally found the Russian statement in particular though the Chinese statement was also very good. I found it believable. Some people said, "Oh, the Chinese abstained because it was a quid pro quo Gaza for Ukraine." And I'm sure that calculation entered into the picture. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not naive, I'm not a baby in the woods. But I thought the Russian statement, the Russian statement said two things of interest to us. Well three things really. Number one, basically Trump said to them or Trump's people said to them. If you don't sign on to this, we're going to give Israel the green light to annihilate Gaza. That it's either this gain or ceasefire is over and Israel goes in and we're not putting any restraints on it, any constraints on it. Well, that was a problem. We have to be honest about the problems. I was furious at what happened. I can't tell you I was walking the streets cursing these people. But I have to be honest about the problem they faced, the dilemma they faced. Number two, the Russian said, "All the Arab and Muslim states and then the Palestinian authority, the state of Palestine, welcomed the resolution. What were we supposed to do? We would come off as more pies than the Pope. We had no choice. They hated the resolution. It was clear as the Chinese. But they said they brought out Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, all the Gulf states, Jordan. What do you do? That was a real problem. They have to acknowledge that they had the real problem there. So the Russians were cornered as were the Chinese. And then the Russians did say, however, they said that there was a lot of armed twisting. They used those words. There was a lot of armed twisting in the capitals and in UN on the officials, the representative of the officials. And then they said, I was surprised by the bluntness. They said, quote, this is a black day in the history of the United Nations. And you know what their last words were? The last words were, don't say we didn't warn you. I thought I was pretty telling you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of Romico's speech in 1947 where, you know, Romico's Stalin's henchman, not many warm spots in his heart, but he gave a very moving speech. And I think this was on the establishment of the state of Israel, right? Yeah. And it was a deeply moving speech. Every two remembers it from that era. And I felt there was a certain amount. Yes, it's a great power. Yes, it's Russia. Yes, Putin is this and Putin is that. But still, I thought there was a degree of candor by Russia that this was something terrible. It had happened at the United Nations, a fog, a criminally deranged megalomaniac. This human wrecking bowl had just destroyed the UN. The UN is for me at this point. I don't want to say for me, I'm not. The issue. The UN is now a rotting corpse. It's dead because what that resolution did for those who follow these things. And you know, I've devoted a lifetime to following them at the level of hyper minutia. It abolished 70 years of UN history. It did. The General Assembly, the Security Council, the International Court of Justice and all sorts of other divisions, committees in the UN. The UN record was an accumulation of debate, discussion, compromise over 70 years that whole history vanish in this UN resolution. If you were to go put up on your screen now, you go for example to the standard UN resolution called "Peaseless Selement of the Palestine Question." It comes at the end of November, early December, each year, right? You know what it begins with? It begins with like a five to seven-page preamble, rehearsing the whole record, what this body has resolved in the course of decades. There's no preamble in this new UN Security Council resolution. It begins as if from a tabular rasa that there was no history. It was abolished by this UN resolution. It vanished. So it was a somber moment. Now in the face of that fact and the fact that we're dealing with my late mother used to reuse the expression "pigs with white gloves" to refer to the ruling elites. This was a pig without the white gloves. A thug. You know, no polish, no penache, a thug. What do you do? Where my opinion is, if you sign on because when you're dealing with a thug, two of the thug is threatening. If you don't sign it, we're not going to break your kneecaps, but we're going to let Israel break Gaza's kneecaps. And three, all the Arab Muslim states, the largest states in the world, we're talking about Indonesia. Indonesia is the fourth most popular country in the world. Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. What do you do? Well, what you could have done if you had some backbone. You could have signed on, we want to save Gaza from Israel's annihilatory assault. Okay? But then you could have told the truth. Algeria didn't have to sing the praises of Trump. You know what Algeria said? Trump has brought peace to the world. You didn't have to do that. No, Algeria went on to be critical of the resolution. But you really have to kiss the master's feet. No. It was pitiful. It was pathetic. You could have pointed up the dilemma, which is what Russia did, which you didn't have to gravel. You didn't have to be a sickle fan. That was unacceptable. I just want to explain what you do in your peace about why this is such a devastating moment. Because up until now, the UN at least paid lip service or fealty to entrenched law that Israel is in occupying power. This is you, Israel must refrain from impeding the Palestinian people from exercising its right to self-determination, including its inalienable right to territorial integrity over the entirety of the occupied Palestinian territory that Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is illegal. Consequently, Israel has an obligation to bring an end to its presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as rapidly as possible. You're quoting the ICJ. This, and this is you, this robust and enduring legal consensus crystallized after protracted deliberation spending almost eight decades among multiple UN organs and was anchored in fundamental norms of international law, the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by war, and the right of peoples to self-determination, the new UN resolution deposited, this comprehensive, legal framework into the dumpster. That's correct. That's what happened. There is, if you may, listen, everybody who has even a faint knowledge of the subject knows we have, you know, we have acronyms like OPT, Occupied Palestinian Territories. There's not a word about occupation in this resolution. There's no occupation. Gaza is not in this resolution. Gaza is not occupied territory. Gaza is nothing in this resolution. There's no connection with the West Bank. Gaza is just suspended in midair in this resolution. Gaza is in the era of the European conquest of Africa. The Eugene expression was called "Resnolius," which means belonging to nobody. Africa belonged to nobody and therefore everyone who is entitled to carve out a piece of it. This is the league of nature. This is the conference of Berlin at the end of the 19th century. We'll be the nation's consulong after World War I. And Gaza has no legal existence in this resolution. I have to say, it was kind of breathtaking. It was kind of breathtaking. The UN resolution, now everybody has a pre-delection for exaggeration, hyperbole poetry. This is no exaggeration. It's not hyperbole. It's not poetry. The UN resolution gave Gaza the Donald J. Trump. It literally did that. It declared that the presiding body in Gaza is what they call a "board of peace." The modalities of this board of peace. Who belongs to it? How is it structured? There's nothing in the board. Nothing there. There's only one thing. Donald Trump is the head of the board of peace. Now, there in mind, he was given personal title to Gaza. In fact, it was reiterated by the UN representative, excuse me, the US representative. After the vote was taken, Donald Trump is in charge of the board of peace. The board of peace is not in charge. It's not, I should say, Donald Trump is not responsible to anyone internally in the board of peace. There are no modalities in the board of peace. And he's not in responsible to anyone externally. The only thing that was required of Trump was that he produced every six months. They say, "We request. We don't even order. We request that he provide every six months a update on the situation." That's it. Gaza is now one more property in the Trump organization's portfolio. That is not an exaggeration. And Trump said in February 2024, he said, "Gaza is going to belong to the United States, and we're going to turn everyone around." went to a lunatic blowhardt. Well, the lunatic blowhardt turned it into a UN Security Council resolution, which is the final word. The UN Security Council resolution is superseded by the body of law. I don't think that's correct. The Security Council resolution is the last word. Even if it wasn't, it doesn't make a difference. You can get into the technical argument to the end of time. The fact of a matter is, as I tried to point out and I pointed out over and over again over the years, there was a robust consensus on how to resolve the conflict, which means that Israel didn't have a leg to stand on. But guess what? It now has a leg to stand on. You like it? You like it? You like it? To the decision to turn the Congo over to Kim Beopold. It was exactly the same thing. The conference of Berlin, the great powers assembled at the conference of Berlin, gave the Congo to one person, Kim Leopold. It was given to him. Technically, it was given to the International Association of the Congo. But then the Belgian legislature subsequently designated him. He was owner of the Congo. And now we have, and by the way, for the reviewers who are not aware, in the course of his tenure as President or presiding officer of the Congo, the estimates are between 10 and 15 million, not a small number. 10 and 15 million Congolese were killed off during the ivory and then the rubber trade. So it's a famous story. Unfortunately, in the English language, there's only one book. It's not a great book. King Leopold's. King Leopold's ghost by Adam Hochschild. But there's only one book on the subject. The famous two individuals who campaigned to end a horror in the Congo were EMWARO and Roger Cacement. In any event, it was just, it was the Congo all over again. I had some correspondence with the great international lawyer, John Ducard. And he said he, the analogy with, the analogy I made with Leopold, he said he hadn't occurred to him, but it really ought to be developed. What happened? Let's talk about the provisions. What we can begin with the call to disarm Hamas is a precondition that Israel has said. Israel, of course, will judge whether Hamas is disarmed or not in their reduction. I said that I quoted Netanyahu who said that if they didn't disarm, they'd do it the hard way. But let's talk about that caveat and the other caveats in there that just give Israel utter and complete control with no, you know, everything comes down to Israel's decision. Israel's, Israel's pronouncements about Gaza, the resolution is organized in such a way that they're the final authority. Well, it says that the IDF, among the powers, there's the international, the international security force, the IDF, Israel's so-called defense forces. They have veto power on any withdrawal, unless Israel agrees that Hamas has been disarmed according to the resolution. It's under no obligation to withdraw. Now, first of all, Netanyahu doesn't want Hamas to withdraw or to disarm. Hamas has never been to issue. From October 8th, Israel made very clear what the issue is. We're going to ethnically cleanse Gaza, or if we're not successful in stimulating a stampede, we'll make Gaza unlivable. So as they said over and over again, there was no secret. This is not a state secret. This is not like the final, Hitler's final solution where you're looking for the Hitler order. Did Hitler issue an order? That's always been a big question. Oh, he'll work. He was among those who still held out. He thought Hitler had issued an order. But it was still, if he had issued one, there would have been a secret order. But there's no secrets here. These are really some day one. We're saying we're going to give the people of Gaza two choices to stay into starve or to leave. That was very straightforward. So when you listen to the talk, Netanyahu says, remember Amalek. Amalek is about every man, woman, and child as well as oxen. Is that Hamas? If you say that you're not going to admit any food fuel or water or electricity, is that Hamas? If you say you're going to make Gaza unlivable, is that Hamas? It has nothing to do with Hamas. From the ones who understood that from the get-go were the South Africans. They didn't, they didn't prosecute Israel on the grounds that it was violating the laws of war. No. They didn't call, for example, for a meeting of the signatories to the Geneva Convention. You could have called that a meeting of the signatories of the Geneva Convention to prosecute Israel's violations of the laws of war. It's called International Humanitarian Law, I.H.L. That's not what South Africa did. It prosecuted Israel for the crime of genocide. If you read their application, the one that was submitted on December 29, 2023, and all their other statements, Hamas is barely mentioned, not because they are trying to aid and abet Hamas, but because they understood that given what was unfolding in Gaza from October 8, Hamas was a sideshow. Hamas was an irrelevance. The issue was, I don't believe, well, we want to be careful about formulations. I don't believe their goal was genocide. I think their means was genocide. The objective was to ethnically cleanse Gaza. However, they were willing to not only destroy a part of the population, they were ready to destroy the whole population to achieve that end. There was no compunction on the part of the Israelis. So I don't believe Hamas ever had much to do with what's been unfolding. Now, the Israelis say, you might recall at the beginning they said there were 20,000 Hamas terrorists, right? Where they got that number, just pulled out of thin air. They're like, "Oh, they're numbers, oh, they're numbers." They're just fake, fakery. Hamas terrorists, they're killed. They don't have a clue how many they're doing. How would they know? They were getting, she getting saturated bombing, carpet bombing of Gaza. 95% of the people they killed who belonged to Hamas was just because they happened to be besides somebody else. You know, they completely are indiscriminate. You don't know how many Hamas terrorists they killed. They don't have a clue. But they said 20,000 and then you know what they said last month, their new figures show there's still 20,000 Hamas. They're 20,000 because for them, the more the merrier, the more Hamas terrorists there are, the more they can say we're not withdrawing, we're not reconstructing, we're not admitting humanitarian aid because the Hamas terrorists are going to confiscate it. So Hamas is just, it's just a prop in the exterminatory enterprise. I want to ask about humanitarian aid. You write the resolution charge the board of peace with coordinating both humanitarian aid and reconstruction, neither will come to pass. As a 2025 ICJ advisory opinion found that the United Nations relief and works agency UNRA was the only humanitarian organization in Gaza, technically competent to provide aid at scale, and that Israel must coordinate with it. But of course, they have banned Hamas, and now just recently announced that they're going to legislate the ability to confiscate their property in East Jerusalem. And you write a little later on, Israel won't admit more than a humanitarian minimum of aid if that much, and probably a lot less, the days of weaponizing starvation as a method of warfare won't be over until and unless the Gaza question has been solved. The reconstruction of Gaza won't happen because it can't happen, and because Israel won't let it happen. But within the board of peace, there is this provision of providing aid. There is a number. Isn't it 600 trucks a day that are supposed to resume? They were supposed to resume the level during the last cease fire. It's never going to happen. I have to say there was so much naïve to tell even by people who should have known better about the resolution. Just take the question of reconstruction. Israel just devoted two years plus to turning Gaza into a parking lot. Can anybody in his or her right mind believe that suddenly they're going to start chanting "Om, give peace of chance, sing in Kumbaya, linking arms, and rebuilding Gaza with those people, with the people of Gaza?" It was just so stupid. Anyone could possibly believe these things. So they said Trump was going to have a meeting with Netanyahu and they were going to discuss reconstruction. That's what was said last week. First of all, he does that all for theater because he has to placate Saudi Arabia-- not that Saudi Arabia cares, but they need a fig leaf. They need a fig leaf because they want to sign onto the Abraham Accords. So that was the whole purpose of the cease fire to enable MBS to come to the White House because he can't come to the White House in the middle of a genocide. That's just a really bad follow-up. So he needs-- so he has to put on the pretense that he's going to talk to Netanyahu about reconstruction. And you know exactly-- first of all, it's all wink, wink. It's all wink, wink. And you know exactly what Netanyahu says. We can begin reconstruction until Hamas has this arm. That's in your 20 point piece plan. So-- and Trump says, yeah. Now, of course, there will still be the need to placate the peace, the Saudis, with face-saving gestures. The thing is, the moment it's no longer front page news, it's over. Israel does what it's once. And so occasionally, there'll be some flare-up. There'll be some reminstrents from the White House. But it'll be business as usual until Gaza has been empty. Which you say will now-- Israel had hoped that it would be a flood. That's what they're trying to orchestrate. But now it'll just be a trickle, I think, or your words. I think they were-- when they set up what was called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or Fund or Foundation, I can't remember now. There were four sites. One was in the center of Gaza. But the other three were right on the border with Egypt, with the Sinai. And the purpose was obvious. To force everybody to go to the humanitarian sites, and then to provoke an expulsion. It didn't work. It didn't work. Probably Egypt put a lot of pressure on the US. So then they had to reconcile themselves to a trickle. But reconstruction, humanitarian aid, it's never going to happen. I want to ask about the International Stabilization Force. You write the resolution to authorize the establishment of a temporary international stabilization force, ISF. The charge of which was to, quote, "stabilize the security environment in Gaza by ensuring the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip." The ISF was to operate, quote, "close consultation in cooperation with Egypt and Israel." And you write, it might be conceded that the resolution recruited a pair of virtuosos at passification, Egyptian strongman Abdel Fatah and CCC seized power in a military coup that climaxed in one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history, while Israel had invested the previous two years in comprehensively stabilizing Gaza by erasing it. Although emphatic that Gaza must be disarmed, using all necessary means, the resolution was conspicuously mute as to why it must be. The reason for this silence wasn't hard to find. If Gaza had to be demilitarized because of the seventh of October massacre, then the obvious question arose after committing a genocide that killed incomparably more innocents didn't Israel also need to be demilitarized. - They were at least discrete enough to leave out certain things. How can you possibly argue that Israel, excuse me, the Hamas has to be demilitarized because of October 7th, 2023, whereas Israel doesn't have to be demilitarized after October 8th onto the present, 2025. That doesn't really make very much logical sense. I mean, I even managed to convince Pierre Smyrgan that if you demilitarize Gaza, then Netanyahu can't be returned to power. I mean, he understood that basic quid pro quo, though I think goes well beyond Mr. Netanyahu, culpability for the genocide. Genocide was unusual because it was not a state project, that's incorrect. The genocide in Gaza, I won't say it's unprecedented, but the genocide in Gaza was a national project. It was endorsed, embraced, and executed at the grassroots, at the, no, the actual physical implementation by the country. It was executed, it was a genocide that was executed by a citizen army, which means-- - We know from the poll numbers, that the vast majority of his half of all Israelis, if I have that right, in one poll, said they should all be killed. - There have been several polls. Let's just begin with the basic ones. From beginning right after October 7th, the poll showed that roughly 95% of Jewish Israelis thought that Israel was either using sufficient force or too little force. Only 5% thought Israel was using too much force. That was consistent over the whole two years. Number two, one poll showed that 47% of Israeli Jews said that Israel should commit genocide in Gaza. The army should commit genocide. They were asked a very specific question. When the army enters a city, should it kill everybody? And the 47% of Israeli Jews said yes. Then there was another poll that asked are there any innocents in Gaza? That was across all of Israeli society, about 15, depending on the Count East Jerusalem, 15 to 20% of Israelis are non-Jewish. It showed 62% said there are no innocents in Gaza. Bear in mind, one half of Gaza's population on children. If you just, if you factor out non-Jewish Israeli Jews, it would come to about 70 to 75% supported that. So this was a national project. And that poses a question, which is, it's not just about netting your home. It's not even just about the leadership class. It's about a whole society that's been effectively not classified. There's no sane person would say this gleefully, on the other hand, would be extremely dishonest to avoid those facts. This was a a national undertaking, the destruction of the people of Gaza. And as you point out of people in the occupation, how not legally debard from armed resistance? If that's the consistent finding of all international lawyers, I should bear in mind they reach this conclusion on the basis of UN General Assembly resolutions. When I try, when you try to determine what the law is, UN Security Council and UN, I don't want to get into the technicalities about UN General Assembly because it doesn't have legislative power, yes that's all true. But UN can still, if there's an overwhelming majority in the General Assembly, it does speak to the broad consensus on whether or not a certain undertaking is legal or illegal. And there is no, there is no aspect of international law that debars people living under occupation from using armed force to free themselves. On the other hand, occupying powers are debard from using armed force to suppress the mass uprising. They are debard from doing that. Let's talk about the political roadmap. So the resolution states that the board of peace will seed sovereign power of Aghaza only when, quote, "The Palestinian Authority has satisfactorily completed its reform program." And after, and that, after the PA of Palestinian Authority, reform program is faithfully carried out and Gaza redevelopment has advanced. The conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood. Talk about that provision. Well, first of all, I mean, every step of the way, not just to laugh, but to guffle at what's being said there. First of all, it provides no benchmarks and how you know whether or not the Palestinian Authority has reformed. Number two, who's going to judge? We have to reach the August standards of Egypt or the divine standards of Jordan or the incomparable standards of Saudi Arabia. Is that the benchmark? You just came back from Egypt. I was talking to a friend yesterday from Iran. And he has an Egyptian doctor as a friend. And he said, "My friend, he's afraid to go back because you get just snatched." For no reason. Just get snatched from the airplane and you disappear. Yeah. And let's be clear that the CC regime, like the Jordanian regime, are deeply hostile to Hamas. They hate Hamas. They hate Hamas. And I don't think they are the best judges of when the Palestinian Authority has achieved a degree of reform. So that's number one. Then what are the benchmarks and who's going to decide when the benchmarks have been met? Number two, it says it may lead, if the Palestinian Authority reforms, can you just read the wording again? It may lead to a pathway. So even if it reforms, it doesn't mean Palestinians will have the right to exercise self-determination. It may. And it doesn't say may lead to a state. It may finally be in place for a credible pathway. That's what the wording. A credible pathway. And then a pathway to what? Well, to what? That has to be decided in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. So as you could see, the entire record of the United Nations, Security Council in general assembly and the International Court of Justice calling for two states and the Palestinians in Aviable Right to Self-determination and Statehood, all of that has been annulled. All we have now is if the Palestinian Authority reforms, it may lead to a credible pathway to what Israel decides when it negotiates with the Palestinians. You know, you can laugh. It's just really sickening. You write, in other words, where Palestinians to meet all the nebulous demands put on them, they still could not exercise their in Aviable Right to Self-determination Statehood, even in the distant future until and unless Israel agreed to it. And then you say, based on standards, milestones, time frames, link to demilitarization, that will be agreed between the IDF and the ISF and the guarantors of the United States, safe for security perimeter, that an essence Israel has veto power over both the exercise of Palestinian Self-determination and any withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, thus ensuring that neither would ever come to pass. Is anyone believe that the Israeli government is going, not just the government, the poll show that people overwhelmingly oppose the Palestinian state? Is anyone believe they're going to agree to it now? So I have to ask you why the member states. I mean, Trump is making war on the UN, it's defunding it. He is no friend of the United Nations. And yet the member states essentially, you know, NELT before the Trump administration to pass this farcical supposed peace agreement, I betted it. I just wonder if you have any idea of the motives. Well, the motives I think are pretty straightforward. Gaza has no power. The time when Gaza had what you might cause symbolic power, namely the cause of Palestine resonated throughout the Arab world. It somehow embodied incarnated the aspirations. And the sufferings of the people in the Arab Muslim world, but that all that has pretty much disappeared, not least because the Arab world endured so many catastrophes in the meantime, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, that in many ways the horrors in Gaza paled the side, what was endured elsewhere. And so Gaza was depleted of its symbolic power. And without any material power and having lost its symbolic power, it's not surprising that states would put their own quote-unquote self interest. First, and second of all, you're dealing with a mafia thug. Now, I want to be clear that as my late mother used the expression, you're dealing with a pig without white gloves. But even with white gloves, you still look thick. Now, you might remember, I don't know if you remember it so long ago now, during what was called the First Gulf War, but the President George Bush senior and his secretary of state, James Baker, they tried to do everything in conformity with international law. And so they were very proud that they carved together what was called the International Coalition. And they had managed to pass from the time that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, until when they launched the First Gulf War, I believe it was March 1991. They managed to get past eight UN Security Council resolutions, condemning Saddam Hussein. And then came that last resolution. And the resolution was, even though it didn't literally say it, it clearly could be read to say that it empowered the US to launch the war. And they wanted a unanimous vote because they were going to be able to launch the war. these are sort of what you might call old school. They like the finesse of having a security council resolution. One country dissented. Do you remember what country that was? - I do not. I was in the golf. I went into Kuwait with Marine Corps and then I was in Basra with the Shiite rebels until I was taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. So I wasn't in the States. - It was me. - I remember. It was Yemen. And which bear in mind, Yemen is the forest country in the Middle East. And Baker went over to the Yemeni representative. You know what he said to him? You can Google it. This is going to be the most expensive vote you have ever had in the United Nations. You ever made the United Nations. Why do I bring it up? That's doing it with subtlety. You could imagine Trump said to other countries like Algeria. You could easily imagine him saying, we're going to increase your tariffs by 300%. We'll bankrupt your country. If you don't vote, because he, because he's a criminally deranged Megalomania. I got the people around them, one of please, the criminally deranged Megalomania. They got to get, you know, no negative votes. So you can imagine, and the Russians are very straightforward. Things that there was a lot of arm twisting. Now you know, there's always arm twisting at the UN. This is the UN. But it must have been of a magnitude pretty high for the Russians to call it, because Russians, you know, arm twist also, but it must have been of a kind of really brazen magnitude that the Russians called attention to it. So I don't think, as I said, when we began the conversation, I don't really fault them for having signed on. But you have the option of telling the truth. You really did. And they were such cowards, except for the two powers, which have power in Russia and China. They didn't shy away from speaking in their statements from speaking to what actually happened. - I just want to close by what this means for Gaza, I'm anything in some ways it's obvious, but I want you to address it. Israel has seized what 56, 58% of Gaza, which is, I mean, already one of the most populated spots on the planet. It's blocking any kind of reconstruction, as I mentioned in the introduction, as you write, humanitarian aid is at subsistence level at best, no clean water, no medical facilities. People are not living in dwellings. What is, what's gonna happen? - I've seen no grounds for optimism. I've seen no grounds for optimism. On the other hand, that doesn't mean we give up. You know, people I think draw the wrong conclusions from some of the things I say. Things are terrible. I think they're lost, in my opinion. On the other hand, all history shows us is, however bad it is, it can always be worse. We can be doing our best just to keep things the same. You know, they, from not Alice in Wonderland, but what was the sequel to Alice in Wonderland? Through the looking cat, was it through the looking cat? - With a queen, I think the queen of hearts as I'm running as fast as I can to stay in place. Well, we're doing everything we can, so it doesn't get worse. It can always be worse. So nobody should think that by giving up, you are, because you think it's hopeless, that it's not gonna have consequences. It has consequences. Definitely has. It could be worse. Israel is a lunatic state. I've said that for 10 years. And if they're left with a completely free hand, then they have largely a free hand. If they're left with a completely free hand, you could do it even worse. You know? So I'm pretty hopeless. But there are, look, I've always said, because I'm careful about this, I've deference to my parents suffering. There's no silver lining in a genocide. There's no silver lining. So I'm not gonna look for a silver lining. I'll just say, in addition, we should pay attention to phenomena like the Mamdani phenomenon. That was a huge blow to Israel and its supporters. And we have to, in my opinion, as you remember, Che Guevara is saying in the 1960s, one, two, three, many Vietnam's, well right now we need one, two, three, many, but not Mamdani's, on the local level strike while the iron is hot, and try to get elected into office, people who are unequivocal on the question of Israel and Gaza and the West Bank, obviously. So that's something to do. It's something to do. One of the things that struck me, I'll just mention too, 'cause this may seem far afield, but I don't believe it's far afield at all. I've been reading a lot of Charles Sumner, the great abolitionist, who's really a person of extraordinary intellect and extraordinary character. And a number of things come to mind. I was reading one of his speeches last night, where he says, "Everything looked hopeless for the struggle against slavery, until," he said, "we finally won the battle for free speech." Was a very deep insight for me, coming, reading it in him, because he said there was a period where states had successfully illegalized abolition societies. So you had lost the right to free speech, but he said, "Over a decade, we struggled, the abolitionist movement, we struggled." And he said, "We won the right to free speech." And for him, this was a turning point. He said, "Now victory was inevitable." Why was it inevitable? Because he said, "We can match any one of their arguments when it comes to free speech. Once they have to confront us in the battle for public opinion, we are going to win." That's why they crushed the free speech. And to me, beginning in the spring of 2024, when I met with students and I spoke and I talked to audiences, I kept saying you have to rest back that right to free speech. Because if we win that right, we're going to win. We're gonna win the battle. They have nothing to stand on anymore. So that, to me, is another lesson. One of the things we have to do now in addition to one, two, three many mum-darnies. One of the things we have to do is, we have to put at the top of the agenda to win back that right to free speech. What did mum-darnie do yesterday, his first act of office? He canceled the Ira definition, the international Holocaust Remembrance Association, definition of anti-Semitism, which was just a writ to cancel free speech. That's what Ira was. First act, cancel Ira, a null it, it's over. That was a good victory because our strongest weapon right now is free speech. That's why the Bill Akman's, the whole crowd of them, the Jewish supremacist billionaires and the Upper East Side. That's why their objective was to crush on college campuses the right to free speech because they know whether you have that free speech, they lose, they lose. So I thought it was a deep insight by some of them when he said, it looked hopeless. It looked hopeless until he said, we had won the right to speak because he said, from any angle, we're going to win. They have won't like to stand on. Another interesting thing to watch him is, in 1815, the US signed into law, the fugitive state slave law. He didn't consider it a law because he had to be illegal under the constitution. meaning some there. So he refers to it as the future of slave act. of course he thought it was illegal in their concentration. In any case, it was interesting to read because he said he was very eloquent. He was mesmerizing. You know, back in those days, people in Congress, I know you're gonna find it hard to believe they gave three hour speeches. They gave three hour speeches. You know what? Some they never looked at notes. Never iced everything. It was a very impressive standard. I was humbled. I was humbled. I did not recognize the degree of erudition, the command of language back then in the US. In any case, Souther said was asked once in Congress, by one of the Southern states, I think it was Virginia, the person from Virginia. He said, "Will you implement the Fugitive Slave Act?" And he replied, "Is Dyservant a dog that he will carry out such an act?" And that created a huge hull of a loop. Is Dyservant a dog that he will carry out such an act? Meaning, some there was advocating, he has an oath of office to uphold the Constitution, and was now some there saying he was not going to uphold the law. So, and he gave it one of his most famous speeches, and he dwelled on it and dwelled on it and dwelled on it, the Fugitive Slave Act. And you know, they called those who enforce the slave hunters, they called them bloodhounds, Fred Dougherb Dr. Douglas called them biped bloodhounds. Why do I mention all this? Because that Fugitive Slave Law is in the Fugitive Slave Law says states have to give up runaway slaves who have fled to their states. So somebody flees from South Carolina to Virginia, in the South Carolina to Massachusetts, Massachusetts has to give up the slave, okay? And that Fugitive Slave Law was our ice. So our ice, it's exactly the same, biped bloodhounds. And they summoned the were with all, some there with grand erudition going through the Constitution to try to explain why. But at the end of the day with all due regard for him, a lawyer is a lawyer, they find, they make a case. You can make the same case as he made, not to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. I'm sure you can make the same case to not enforce ice and not give up these people. He made basically the same arguments. He said, you have a right to trial by jury. He said a slave has the right to trial. Well then, so does an undocumented worker have the right. So there's a lot that we could still do now. And there's actually in my opinion, speaking humbly, 'cause I'm only now reading this, I'm too old to read what I would love to have read. Some there's collected works run to some 20 volumes. I would really love to have, but I'm not, we had done that, it's not gonna happen. There's a lot to learn from our own history. You know what's the most important thing to learn? When some there was asked, what's needed now? What we need now? You know what his answer was? Backbone, backbone, and more backbone. He said, we need three things. Backbone, and backbone, and more backbone. And that's the bottom line. Backbone. If we have the backbone, and we have the numbers in our sight, we can win. I don't believe that. I don't say these things. These are not exhortations to raise the hopes and spirits of the masses. I really believe it. I really believe it. The biggest challenge now from Mamdani, obviously he needs competence. And obviously, he needs efficiency. There's no question, but the biggest challenge is my opinion. It's the last thing he said in his speech. I wish he had emphasized more, but it did come at the very end. He said, this is not the end, this is the beginning. We've got to organize. If we organize and organize and organize, and we have backbone and more backbone and more backbone. It could happen. I don't know how far he can get. These people in power, I won't be surprised if they blow up a subway tunnel and blame it on him. Not serious. Buddy, when you got that kind of money, you're not giving it up. You're not giving it up. If Mr. Mamdani, I don't know. If Mr. Mamdani thinks he's gonna seduce them with his smile, that's not going to happen. And they don't really fear him. They fear and energize population. They want hopeless, despondent people for the poor to be hopeless and despondent. So that's what they fear that these people are entertaining hope that they may get a piece of the pie. So with a combination of organized, organized, organized, and backbone, backbone, backbone, we could do things. We could do things. I'm not gonna say, maybe I'll be wrong. And maybe there are ways to undo the horror that was inflicted on Gaza. I, in this case, I'll use the cliche. I'll be glad to be proven wrong. - Thank you. Thanks, Norm. And I wanna thank Diego Thomas, Max, Sophia, and Victor who produced the show. You can find me at chrissages.substac.com. (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]