Good afternoon. I'm Ben Rubin.
Welcome to UK column. Today I'm excited to have what I
think promises to be an important conversation with
Doctor David Miller and Vanessa Bailey.
David Miller is an author and an academic, very famously or
infamously sacked by Bristol University few years ago for his
anti Zionist views based on his extensive research into the
Zionist movement in the UK. And Vanessa, as UK Column
viewers will know, is a regular contributor to UK Column News
and through her fantastic articles, Welcome David and
Vanessa. Thank you.
Thanks. We've asked David and Vanessa to
join us today to get into what I think is probably one of the
most important issues of the current moment here in the UK,
certainly, but also I think further afield.
And one of the things that I've personally been seeing in the
maybe more mainstream public discourse around the two primary
conflicts that are taking place in the world at the moment, the
war in Gaza between Israel and Palestine and the war in Eastern
Europe between Ukraine and Russia, is that there are many
people, particularly as they might define themselves, sitting
on the political left. And this is especially prevalent
in our cities and in our university campuses.
And in particular with the younger generation that people
and and and groups are very much pro Palestine.
And on that basis, I think anti war, anti genocide, which is a
position that I think anyone with any decency would hold.
But also at the same time pro Ukraine and backing Zelensky and
Ukraine and ultimately NATO in the war against Russia, what
they call Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine.
And my view based on my understanding of the situation
is that those two positions are actually irreconcilable.
And I know that there are clear links between Israel and the
Zionist movement and Ukraine. And in fact I've heard it
described Ukraine described previously as northern Israel
essentially. And I think that this is
something that needs to be explored further.
And David has written on this quite a bit previously, produced
some fantastic articles, very well referenced articles.
And I'm really looking forward to finding out more about this
issue today and hopefully providing A counterpoint, a
counter narrative to that kind of dominant discourse that I've
talked about that I've been seeing here in the UK and
further further afield. So my first question then to
you, David is, is this something that you recognise this
coincidence between the support for Palestine and and the
support for Ukraine in the in these groups that I've
described? Well, I think that's broadly
correct. I mean, the the epidemic of
Ukrainian flags on the High Street seems to have died down a
little bit over the last couple of years.
But there is a strong feeling, I think, on the what I would
characterize as the liberal left, which is hostile to Russia
and on that basis is favourable to Ukraine, although they might
have at the edges some worries about.
Some of the. Positions taken by Zelensky or
about the, the role of Nazism in the Ukrainian forces, etcetera,
which they don't tend to go into a lot, but they, there are some
ways. But they these sort of liberal
positions are that yes, of course you shouldn't kill
Palestinian children. And yes, of course, they would
say that they have the same position, which is that you
shouldn't kill Ukrainian children, which of course is
their attempt to draw a parallel between the special military
operation in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, where of
course, there is no such parallel as anyone who has
examined the issue for a moment will conclude.
So yes, of course there is this this kind of contradiction in
liberal left ideas. But we see we see this in a lot
of issues that the liberal left position on many, many issues is
quite simply wrong. But on some issues, they they
kind of get it right. They're kind of right on
Palestine. I mean, they don't go nearly far
enough for me. But that's the problem with
liberalism. It's kind of right twice a day,
like a stop clock. And on the question of Ukraine
is comprehensively wrong, Of course, the idea that Putin was
provoked in Ukraine is of course, a sound one, as anyone
who's gone back to the records of the pledges given by a slew
of different Western, including senior American leaders,
including the presidents to the Russians, that they wouldn't go
an inch towards Russian borders. And of course, they then
proceeded to allow all of the Eastern European countries,
almost all of the Eastern Bloc countries to join NATO.
And that's of course what provoked the special military
operation in Ukraine, was the potential accession of Ukraine
to the EU and indeed to NATO. But also, of course, the assault
on the the secessionist people of the Donbass, who after the
coup in Ukraine back in 2004, fought A secessionist war.
And essentially what was happening was they were being
killed and massacred and the Russians went in to defend them.
And they now those provinces have of course, overwhelmingly
voted to join Russia and to not to be part of Ukraine anymore.
So there's there's no comparison between the two.
The there is one comparison. However, and that is that the
West is of course on the side of Ukraine and I'm joining NATO and
the EU. And the West, of course, is also
on the side of the genocide in Gaza.
So that's that's what's what's where the real equivalence is,
is if you support Ukraine, you're effectively in having the
same position as the West, which is supporting the generous in
Gaza, as everyone knows. So liberal positions don't tend
to work out very well with those realities.
No, certainly not. The the term liberal I think
might be part of the problem. I always like the phrase stand
for nothing, fall for anything. I think that seems to be
operative here. Yeah, yes, indeed.
I mean, look, the what's happening in in the Ukraine now,
of course, is, is a somewhat complex, isn't it?
We've we've just seen, haven't we?
The the deal which was apparently made between the
Russians and the Trump administration such that the
Russians would scuttle from Syria let letting the government
of Bashar al-Assad collapse in exchange for a settlement in
Ukraine. And you know, I don't want to be
rude to Mr. Putin, but how is that settling?
Does he think it doesn't appear that it's going anywhere fast
that the. It looks like the Americans have
surprised lied about the extent to which they were willing to go
for a settlement in Ukraine. And and we're getting really so
far nothing much in the way of any kind of progress, Although
at the same time we are also seeing.
Ukrainian lines collapse at a more accelerated rate than has
been the case for the last months anyhow.
So I think that there's a there's an issue here about
what's actually happening in Ukraine and whether.
We're going to see an end to the conflict in Ukraine.
And in a way that's it's a parallel with what's happening
in Gaza because of course the Americans have promised various
things to specifically to Hamas and also to the Iranian
government, which they then have gone back on.
And it's they, they told, in fact, they told Hamas that they
would have a ceasefire for a, for a, for a period if they
released that American slash Israeli prisoner.
And they did that. And of course what then happened
was that the Israelis escalated immediately thereafter.
So what what we're seeing I think in in this period is an.
Indication of the the way in which the Trump administration
operates it. It says all sorts of nice
things. And then it goes back on them.
It it lies. And this is not a surprise.
This is what American governments always do.
Indeed. Vanessa, did you want to chime
in on that? Yeah, Arnie, I think David's
absolutely right, particularly on the Trump administration.
You know, psychologically, Trump is a is a businessman.
He's also a borderline sociopath.
And I think any negotiation with Trump should be viewed in, in
the prism of it being a win, lose negotiation, a win for
Trump and a lose for whoever he's negotiating with.
This is well known. It's also well known that what
the Americans do, whether it's Trump or or A and other, we know
that there's very little difference between the, the, the
so-called duopoly in, in, in the US.
The, the fact is that that when entering negotiations, they
enter dishonestly. So, so they present a
negotiating paradigm which then is completely changed.
I mean, initially they were talking with Iran about enabling
up to 3% enrichment of uranium. Now suddenly the red line is any
enrichment of uranium, which of course is a red line for the
Iranians. And so this is what the US
regularly does. But I think also coming back to
the point about the the liberal view on Palestine and Ukraine, I
think what liberals often do is to ignore the historical
context. And we're obviously going to get
more into that, But the connections historically between
particularly Benjamin Netanyahu and the former founders of
Zionism or one particular form of Zionism, Zayev Jabotinsky or
Jabotinsky, however you want to say that who not only founded
what is now known as revisionist Zionism or expansionist Zionism.
Netanyahu's father, Benzion Netanyahu, actually worked for
him as a private secretary. He edited all of the
publications of Jabotinsky's branch of Zionism, which was
founded in Odessa. And Odessa was known fondly by
the Zionists as the Gates of Zion because it was the hub or
the centre, the nerve centre of the Zionist operations on the
continent. And then later was the hub from
which the majority of the settlers came from Europe,
particularly Eastern Europe and particularly Ukraine to settle
and and basically steal Palestinian land.
And Yapotinsky was famous for his 1923 article The Iron Wall
in which he said there is no justice, no law and no God in
heaven, only a single law which decides and supersedes all,
which is settlement. And so we'll get more into this
and I'm sure David can add to that, but but I think this
connection is something that, as you said, that the so-called
left wing in, in Europe and the UK, even in the US are woefully
ignorant of and potentially also wilfully ignorant of.
I, I think many of these kind of liberal anti war pacifist
organisations 1 denied the right of armed resistance, but two
divide their support along lines of ignorance, in other words,
or, or lines where they deliberately ignore the
historical context, which leads them to take a very mistaken
position. We had that on Syria.
We had many of the pro Palestinian movements in the UK
in particular taking an anti serious stand for the majority
of the regime change war because they've been duped by members of
the pro Palestine, let's say lobby on the side of the Muslim
Brotherhood that were instrumental in pushing the
regime change narratives from 2011 onwards.
So I think it's a very good lesson for people to take a deep
breath before taking any kind of support position for anything
that is being orchestrated effectively by the West in any
way, shape or form. And Ukraine, Russia's war was
definitely orchestrated by the West.
And take a deep breath and and study the history of that
conflict. Yeah, I I completely agree with
you. I think a lot of people
essentially just take the easy route with this stuff and also
get very much caught up in the kind of two week news cycle, the
latest thing. And however that's been
presented to them and they barely look at anything, you
know, two years, 20 years, certainly not 200 years back,
right? So I think that's a big part of
this. So look, there's we've just
covered a whole slew of different issues and we're
certainly going to come back to US and Russia and Trump and
Putin and Syria a bit later on in the discussion.
But Vanessa, thank you for that. You've just introduced a little
bit about the history of Zionism and it just links into Ukraine.
I wonder, David, if you wanted to to add on to that and, and
give us some of the context both politically, but I think also
religiously and, and theologically as well, because
the the roots really do run deep here.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's an interesting thing here which is
where I can talk about the development of Zionism in the
Ukraine. But it also because of the way
people react to how you talk, how one would talk about this or
how I would talk about it given the historical record.
It, it gives an useful insight, I think into the way in which
sections of the I've used the term liberal left, but I'm
really talking about now the the left, the actual supposed
so-called revolutionary socialist left, which which, and
it shows in their response to how I will talk about this.
It shows the way in which I think effectively their ideas
about the Jews and about Zionism have been effectively influenced
and captured by Zionists themselves.
And I'll try and explain that as well.
So look what the the settlement in Odessa.
I used the word settlement advisedly because Odessa was a
town founded by Catherine the Great.
The. Empress of Russia, and it was
founded by her after I think in 1796, they had kicked the
Muslims out. The Ottoman Empire had been in
that that area and they were kicked out and they founded a.
New settlement. A settler colony.
And amongst those who went, there were people of Russian
origin, of German origin and, and a number of others, but also
Jews who who were not allowed in the Pale Settlement and they
were went to Odessa to found. Odessa and so the the Jews who
were there as as were the as the others who were there were
settler colonists. They had gone and the natives
had been removed by Russian armies and they had set they
settled there in a settler colony.
Now, when I mentioned this before, I think two years ago
now, I was denounced, yes, of course, by the right, but also
by the the left, including leading members of the
revolutionary left in this country as being an anti Semite.
Because somehow if I was saying that Jews were settler colonists
in another place, that must mean that I think that Jews are all
have this propensity because of their religion or something or,
or to to settler colonialism. And of course that this is
simply ridiculous. Hartley was born out of
ignorance. They had no idea that Odessa was
a settler colony, no idea at all.
And so there's a there's a kind of sense in which the a kind of
Zionist friendly view permeates the anti war movement and the
anti racist movement in the UK, which has been the case for a
long, long time. Let me take a second out to
explain how that happened. So in the aftermath of the
Second World War, many servicemen came back from the
war to find a nascent fascist movement on the streets in the
UK. And many of these, including
many Jewish ex servicemen and many members of the Communist
Party formed a group called the 43 Group, which was dedicated to
fascism on the streets. And the BBC did a documentary
about the 43 group success of the city group some years ago.
Now this was an organization which was fighting fascism on
the streets, but which also had a relationship to Zionism such
that by 1948, thirty or forty of its members went to Palestine to
to take part in the Nakba. And indeed the the leadership of
the organization signed up on block to affiliate to the Argon,
the the revisionist Zionist terrorist organization coming
out of the whole Jabotinsky experience.
And since then of course there have been Zionist influences in
the anti racist movement all the way through.
There have been 22 major influences. 1 is Zionist anti
racist groups, IE not anti racist groups such as the
Community Security Trust or Tell Mama or Hope not Hate for
example. But on the other hand, also
largely Trotskyist, sometimes communist influenced anti racist
groups which have been soft on Zionism.
They've had a a relationship with Zionism, which is that we
have to have a common front with the Zionists.
Thus we don't focus on the main form of racism in the country,
which in in this this period has been anti Irish racism, anti
black racism and now Islamophobia.
Instead we focus on fascism and Nazism, which of course are the
the least threatening ideological currents for people
of color in this country. So that I think is part of the
problem is that there's been a compromise between the Zionism
in all of the, the far left and all of the anti racism, almost
all of the far left, all of the anti racist movement, which has
meant that it's very difficult for them to actually deal with
some of the issues we now face in relation to the genocide.
Now back to the Ukraine. So yes, the the Zionist movement
was effectively created in Odessa as as Vanessa says, was
referred to as the gates of Zion by the Zionist movement
themselves. And there was a guy called
Steven Pinsker who set up an organization called the Lovers
of Zion prior to the existence of the Zionist movement in in
the 80's. The Zionist movement of course,
was created in the 1890s. So there's a strong history of
Zionism there. Of course, Jabotinski was from
there a significant number of very senior Israeli military and
indeed prime ministers. And presidents have come.
From Ukraine. So it's a, it's a kind of
Crucible for the creation of the settler colony in Palestine.
And that relationship, of course, has never really fully
dissipated. And and maybe we'll go on to
talk more. About that.
But that, that's the, the history of this is that Zionism
comes from Ukraine. So it's not surprising then that
many of the, the Zionists who are in Ukraine have a, have a
sort of a strong view on Ukrainian nationalism.
And the, the thing I would say about that to explain that is
that that the from the very beginning of Ukrainian
nationalism, there was a strong parallel between Ukrainian
nationalism and Zionism. Partly because of course they're
very similar ideologies, but also practically they had a they
had a a relationship. So famously Jabotinsky made a
deal with the the Ukrainian proto fascist leader Simon
Petliura, who of course was assassinated on the streets of
Paris by, by a Jewish Russian anarchist, if I'm not mistaken,
because of his involvement in pogroms against the Jews.
And Jabotinsky at one point wrote in his diary that this
this would be his epitaph that he was the, he was the Jew who
had made a deal with the, with the effectively the fascist
Petliura. And there's, there's a famous
Soviet cartoon from from that period, from the 1920s with
Petliura in his grave and Jabotinsky at the side of the
grave weeping tears over the the the murder of his his
compatriot. So there's historically been a
strong relationship between Zionism and nationalism.
The issue in terms of Zionism and its relationship with the
left and the fact that the left, they're kind, they're kind of in
a bit of a bind at the moment, right?
Because actually, I think the issue is that a lot of, well,
first of all, you've, you've kind of pointed out that a lot
of these proto communist ideas were heavily influenced by
Zionist thinkers in the 1st place.
And actually the, the kind of, the, the end point of a lot of
the kind of radical left activists and even people who
are fairly mainstream in this, like Jeremy Corbyn, for example.
They're they're, they're, they're actually interested in
this idea of global governance, right?
They actually think that global governance and top down
centralized control is a is a good thing.
It's just that they want it to come from their side of the
political spectrum versus the other side of the political
spectrum. So that puts them in quite an
interesting position in terms of, you know, what they, what
they can and can't say and what they allow themselves to, to see
and, and to condemn out there in, in what's happening in the
world. Well, I mean, I think that, I
mean Jeremy of course is not really an anti Zionist.
There really has been, there are people on the, I mean a party
like the Socialist Workers Party is a party which has always
historically been anti Zionist. I mean, it's famously, it's a
leading ideologue, a guy called Tony Cliff.
Who anglicized his name from GAIL Gluckstein and of course
had experience of the the settler colony in Palestine
because he was there him and his not then wife Cheney Rosenberg.
She lived on a kibbutz, A Hashim Mahatsayer kibbutz and her
Hashim Mahatsayer was the most radical left wing of the Zionist
organizations and their experience of that kibbutz and
the fact that it was Jews owns and tiara, but it was
endemically racist. That's what turned them off
Zionism. And so ever since then the SWP
has been an anti Zionist organization, at least formally.
But now it seems to have a a real difficulty in actually, not
just the SWP but the whole of the left actually in using the Z
word. You can't say Zionism because
that will somehow over emphasize the responsibility of the
Zionists for the genocide and under emphasize the
responsibility of US imperialism.
That will let US imperialism and indeed the British role in the
genocide off the hook. And that's a profoundly
misguided, a mistaken approach to take in my opinion.
You know, you, the people who supported Hitler in the Second
World War. Yes, there were British
companies and American companies and in fact American publicists
and PR operatives, they weren't the ones who were responsible
for what the Nazis did. It was the Nazis.
And, and similarly in this case, it's the Zionists who doing the
killing, the Zionists who recruit the people, the
thousands of young men and women who have gone from the UK and
France and Germany and Brazil to commit the genocide.
They're they're the ones who did this.
Of course they are supported by the Americans who give them 70%
of the weapons and the political cover by the the Germans who
give 30% of the weapons. And of course by the British
should do the the overflights, the intelligence overflights for
the the IDF, more overflights in fact than the IDF to themselves.
But nevertheless, we should be clear, the people who are, who
are training their guns on the heads of three-year old toddlers
are Zionists. And it's the Zionist movement
which has has LED this strategy and the Zionist movement which
is carrying out the strategy. And therefore we need to, I
think, focus on Zionism, what it is, how it operates and how it
can be defeated, rather than have a kind of what, what I
might impolitely call a Lily livid approach, that which says
we don't actually discuss the Zionism.
Yeah. And I, I think just, I wanted to
come back to the Jabotinsky because I think he's really
someone that where people can make that very clear connection
between Zionism and Nazism in Ukraine.
Because as David rightly said, he collaborated with Simon
Petlura, who'd actually massacred 10s of thousands of
Jews from 1919 onwards in, in the programmes in, in that
particular area, right? Yabatinsky basically agreed to
provide Jewish militia to support Petlura on the basis
that they would be collaborating against a potential threat from
communism, IE from then the Soviet Union.
And Jabotinsky went on to form the Better Youth Movement,
which, as David has pointed out in one of his articles, were
dressed very reminiscently of kind of fascist youth groups in
brown uniform. He was a supporter of Mussolini.
But most importantly, he believed in this revisionist
Zionism, which was followed, as I said, by Netanyahu's father,
Bentian, and now of course, by Benjamin Netanyahu himself,
who's the longest serving sort of Prime Minister in in the
occupied territories. And, and this was that
colonisation could only be imposed by force.
There was no peaceful resolution with Palestinians.
And of course, that is exactly what we're seeing to be Benjamin
Netanyahu's policy against Palestinians both in the West
Bank and in Gaza, but also the fact that that Netanyahu is
incorporated into his administration, some of the far
more right wing members of Israeli political movements,
including, excuse me, Bangabir and Basil Al Smotrich.
Smotrich has just gone on record saying, you know, forget, forget
about any kind of peaceful resolution, starve the
Palestinians. We need to eradicate them
completely. Moshe Feidlin has just gone on
saying our problem isn't with Hamas, it's it's with all
Palestinians, particularly babies.
We should be murdering the babies.
And so, you know, when when you look at this, it's, it's a, it's
an unbroken arc from Jabotinsky to Netanyahu now.
And, and that's what people are failing to recognize.
They're failing to make this direct connection to
Jabotinsky's policies as a Zionist cooperating with Nazis
in Ukraine and Banyaman Netanyahu's policies now to
exterminate Palestinians both in the occupied territories and in
Gaza to ensure the final solution, which is Zionist
settlement of those territories. This is what I think people
really struggle with, right? Because you've just talked about
Jewish militia collaborating with Nazis in Ukraine who had
actually committed atrocities against Jews in order to achieve
their own political agenda. It's, I think a lot of people
struggle with the level of cynicism and just the pure naked
lust for power required to do these to carry out these kinds
of actions. I know that it is as you
describe. I mean, let's remember that the
militias which Jabotinski formed were intended to be malicious,
to protect the Jewish people. They were Jewish nationalist
militias. The agreement that Vanessa
referred to was an agreement that the Ukrainian nationalists
would govern their people, the Ukrainians, and that the Jewish
nationalists would govern their people, the Jews, with their own
militias. And the only time where they
would have to have anything to do with each other and have to
fight together was against the Russians.
That was the that was the deal. And.
That that is the kind of philosophy they have.
It's a very, very similar philosophy.
So yes, of course they don't want to be themselves to be
attacked, but they they believed they had a deal with with, with
the proto fascists of pet Leura and and the rest.
And that they have, they have, of course, had a very similar
idea about what it was, what, what the, what the state it or
the idea of the Jewish people was and how similar that was to
the Ukrainian nationalism. Now, in a way, I think what, how
they started to think about Jewish nationalism learned and
took a lot from the Ukrainian nationalists.
It's very, very similar when you look back at it.
They have, they have this very similar ideas about the, about
the Vulc, about the, the people, about the, their, their
sovereignty over, over other people, which is very similar
to, to Zionism today. Now Vanessa also referred to
the, the, the, the uniforms. Now the, the betar was of of
course, the, the kind of youth wing of the, the revisionist
movement. And, and if you look, if you go
on, if you, you do a Google image search for Betar and you
look for the black and white photographs, you find all sorts
of interesting looking uniforms on these young men, including as
a famous 1 from 1923 in Poland, I think, which has the, the
young menachem begin in his military uniform.
The, the if you look at Betar's website today, they, they still
exist today. And I'll talk about that.
They have a 7 principles. I have had this from the
beginning. One of the principles is Magen,
which means protection, and it requires members, individual
members, all members of their organization to engage in
military and paramilitary training and to be willing
personally to fight come the appropriate moments.
From the beginning, Betar has been a militia, which is a
military organization, and today it remains the same.
They have of course been involved in the US recently in
compiling lists of Jews to provide to the Zionists who
will, who will thus thus afterwards be stopped from going
to this entertained amenable to all sorts of other punishments
that the Zionists might put together for them.
And just the other day they threatened to kill Francesca
Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur.
This is a, a development within Zionism, which is about
developed about the resurgence of effectively Jewish militias
outside in the US, in the UK. And there are various iterations
of these organizations. And what we're seeing is the
return effectively of Jewish terrorists to the streets in the
West, which hasn't been the case since around the 1940s when of
course the Ergen and the Lehi, the Stern gang were engaged in
terrorist activities in the UK, up and down the UK, including
force the famous Argon sale in Glasgow, which people are are
often not aware of. We talked a bit about the
history and the links between the Zionist movement in Ukraine
but through the 1920s, thirties and 40s.
But this obviously goes right up to the present day.
I mean, to what extent is this embedded into organisations like
the IDF for example? Well, this is the other thing.
I mean, you're, you're remarking about this people, people are
finding it difficult to get their head round Nazis and the
Zionists cooperating in the 90s and 20s and 30s.
Well, it's happening today as well.
I mean, let's remember that there are Nazi militias inside
the Ukrainian armed forces, in fact increasingly over the over
the period since the SMO was launched, having effectively the
whip hand inside Ukrainian military forces.
Now amongst those who have joined up the to the Ukrainian
military are a number of Ukrainian Jews, including
members of the Habad sect which is a genocidal Hasidic Jewish
sect which is organised all around the world.
I'll talk about that more in a minute.
But that the the role of the of the of the Zionists in the the
Nazi movements inside Ukraine is is is instructive.
One of the founders, the two Co founders of battalion, the
famous Nazi group inside the Ukrainian air fortress was an ex
IDF officer. So that those kinds of legs are
are they are baked in from the beginning of the the Nazi
movement in Ukraine. And it's no surprise therefore
that organizations like HABAD and indeed other Orthodox Jews
in Ukraine have joined up with both non Nazi forces in Ukraine
and and indeed with Nazi forces. Habad is a an organization which
comes from a place called Leubovici, which I think is now
in present day Belarus. And the the headquarters of the
organization is in Brooklyn, famously revealed just the other
year. Well year last year I think it
was as having secret tunnels built under it by some kind of
rebel faction within the organization.
Now HABAD is a a genocidal organization.
It's an organization which believes that that non Jews have
animal souls. It's an organization which is,
according to the Shin Bet, the Zionist intelligence agency,
involved in most of the price tag revenge attacks on
Palestinians in the West Bank around the settlement of
Vietzar. And of course it's it's an
organization which has outreach emissaries all around the world.
There's 5000 branches in different parts of the world,
1300 in America, 150 in Britain, 150 in Canada and organisations
all the way across the Ukraine. Dense network in the Ukraine and
indeed of course in Russia, which we might come on to later.
Now in Ukraine, the Habad have been close to one of the key
oligarchs in Ukraine, a guy called Igor Kolomoyskiy, who of
course owned the television station where Zelensky got his
start and then funded Zelensky in his campaign to become Prime
Minister or President. He then fell out with with
Zelensky. But amongst the other things
which he was funding were the Aidar Nazi Aidar Battalion and
indeed the Azov Battalion, as well as funding being one of the
key funders of the what's called the biggest Jewish community
centre in the world in Nipro Petrovsk, which is a Habad
centre, which there's plenty of little videos on online.
You can go and look at that architecturally questionable
building. Let me let me put it that way.
So look, the, the, the connections between extreme
ultra Zionist genocide organizations and the, the Nazis
and Ukraine are not something that have been dreamt up by by
people who are conspiracy theorists or on the left or
whatever. These are actual relationships.
Now, Kolboiski of course, was involved also in a number of
corruption charges in terms of effectively theft of public
assets in the, but also the way in which that that was then the
money from that was then laundered through European
institutions and into the US. So we hit, there was a network
in the US, in Florida and in New York State of, of charities
which were laundering the money. And these charities were all run
again by Habad. So there's a really interesting
sort of underworld here to this, which which does suggest that
the relationships between Zionism and Nazism and Ukraine
and the Ukrainian government are not not something which are are
just, you know, marginal. Certainly not.
Vanessa, would you like to weigh in on that?
Reports also of former or even current IOF military fighting in
Ukraine because I think her ex put out an article bemoaning the
fact that they weren't being recognised as fallen when I
think between up to 16 IDF fighters were killed in Ukraine.
But even during the 2014 who organized of course by largely
Victoria and Newland with the US administration backing when she
made the famous phone call during which she she told the EU
to bug her off. I'm saying it far more politely
than she did. And basically they were known to
be IOF militia fighting at that time among those that were
leading the coup and also massacring the civilians, of
course, in the Maidan and and you know, Dasser itself,
ironically enough. But not only that, Israel has
been supplying weapons, including the table rifles to
the Ukrainian militia and to the Idor and as of battalions.
And of course, not forgetting Zelensky's rather bizarre
comment that Ukraine will become big Israel, which I think was
fairly early on in, in the conflict.
And the fact that Elena Zelensky, I'm, I'm not sure
actually whether Zelensky joined himself in the end, but Elena
Zelensky visited Israel as did I think it's Ilyas Molyenko who
was a member of intelligence within the Azov Battalion and
who visited after the the. What was the big factory in?
It's just as of something anyway, he visited Israel, was a
guest. Thank you.
That's it. And he visited Israel and was
sort of given red carpet treatment by Netanyahu and his
administration. And so, as you said, the
connections between Ukraine and Israel have continued pretty far
into the present day and not and I believe actually that one of
Netanyahu's election promises was a victory for Ukraine, along
with supporting freedom fighters in Iran, of course.
So the Chabad thing I think is, is absolutely crucial to
understand as well, right? Because we've talked about the
political background to this, but I think that the the
theological background is, is as, if not more important.
You describe Chabad as a genocidal organization.
Some of their texts are absolutely astonishing.
We'll provide some links so people can have a look at this
stuff for themselves. And the Chabad rabbi, I'm going
to say this incorrectly, but it's Menisha Mendel Schneerson
is the way I'm going to pronounce it.
Please correct me if if if I'm not doing that right, doing that
justice. But he had an extraordinarily
close relationship with Netanyahu.
Now, many people actually view Schneisen, certainly within the
Jabat movement, as actually being the Jewish Messiah.
I don't think that he actually adopted that mantle himself.
And I do seem to remember him it being reported that he told
Netanyahu that he would, that Netanyahu himself would see the
arrival of the Messiah in his lifetime.
So there's some kind of prophetic stuff happening here
as well that I, I don't think people really properly
understand. And, and he was, I think, as you
mentioned a moment ago, born in what is now today Ukraine,
right? I mean, so the, the, the, the,
the, the depth of this is, you know, it's not just political.
It runs a lot, a lot deeper than that.
Well, look, I think people don't understand.
You see, the theology now, the theology is quite important.
I mean, I, you know, I'm, I'm a sort of materialist.
I believe that material things. Shape the world, but of course,
ideas about how the world is and how the world might be also help
to shape the material world. So I think we should understand
that Chabad is a Hasidic sect, yes.
And it's a, it's a, it's a kind of outreach organization.
So it has these 5000 odd offices around the world, but there are
hundreds of other, well not hundreds, but there are lots of
other Hasidic sects, most of which are inward looking and
which have very similar views to geologically.
And about the state of Israel, there are very few.
I mean, let me just try and explain this.
So from the beginning, these of these sects that almost all of
them come from Eastern Europe, from Lithuania, from Poland,
from Hungary, from Belarus, from Ukraine, and indeed from what's
now Russia. And, and as the, the boys from
Natura Carter, the, the well known anti Zionist Hasidic group
are always saying, well, in 1947 the chief Rabbis were agreed
there should not be a Jewish state, that it was a
responsibility not of, of, of humans to create a Jewish state,
but only of the divine. And so they were all at that
stage anti Zionist. Right now, people find it very
difficult to get their heads around this.
These were anti Zionist in a sense that they didn't believe
that humans, that the Zionist movement had the right or, or
the ability even to create a Jewish state.
And if they did create a Jewish state, it was it was outside the
realms of religion and something to be condemned.
Now, of course, what happened after the creation of the State
of Israel was that they, almost all of them made their peace
with Zionism. Some of them of course, remain
of the view that they are young, shouldn't serve in the IDF,
while at the same time being practically supportive of the
Zionist state, including of course, serving in the cabinet.
Netanyahu's current cabinet, they have people in there who's
who's young people don't join the IDF.
Incredible. So these are anti Zionist people
who are Jewish supremacists, right?
That's the distinction I would make.
Not all Jewish supremacists are Zionists, all Zionists are
Jewish supremacists, but there are anti Zionist Jewish
supremacists who of course in in almost all cases are happy to
collaborate with the the state of Israel.
There's one large sect called the Satmar which remains anti
Zionist in a in a more straightforward way, but they're
not in favour of Palestinian liberation.
So there's a whole range of these Hasidic groups, almost all
from from Eastern Europe, almost all of which are Jewish
supremacist and indeed genocidal.
The Habad are interesting because they are the only
outreach grouping. They they have these offices all
around the world. The others don't do that.
They have their own religious organizations and their own
shivas and etcetera. But Habad are there to convert
and convince that convert non views to some extent, but mainly
to bring Jews either observing or non observing Jews further
towards the ultra Orthodox position.
And that seems to be the thing which which they are most
successful at. There's the evidence from from
the Zionists, from Zionist surveys on campus in the US that
the people who are most are taken along by and taken in by
Khabad or not people who are already ultra Orthodox, but
people who are in the reform or the progressive or the liberal
wing of Judaism, of which of course are Zionist synagogue
movements. So that's that their role.
Their role is to radicalize and to and to bring people to the
position of supporting the genocide in the way which the
Podesta has been outlining, which the, the so-called
extremists in Netanyahu's government they are doing now.
Of course, the the Schneerson, the Rebbe who died in 1994.
No, I don't think he believed he was the Messiah that all of the
all of the Chabad doesn't believe that he's the Messiah.
There's a faction who believe that he's the Messiah and the
faction who, who, who, who believe that he's not but they
are they are. But they believe in the third in
the building of the temple, the destruction of Al Aqsa in in the
same way as many of the other factions who are engaged in that
kind of activity do as well. So they, they, they have a, a
sort of role in, I suppose, radicalizing the, the, the more
secularist Zionist movement. And you can see in the, the
history that we've, we've had over the last 90 or 100 years
that we've, there's been a trajectory from the dominance of
the, of a secular leftist Zionism towards a secular
rightist Zionism, with the dominance of revisionist Zionism
in Israeli politics since 1977, towards a more religious, a
bigger, a bigger role for religious Zionists and the ultra
Orthodox. And that's what we're seeing
now, I think. I'd like to introduce you and
certainly our viewers. You're probably familiar with
this David and Vanessa, right? And people might have clocked
I've got a Jewish surname and a Jewish first name as well.
Actually, I'm a quarter Jewish and I was raised as an atheist,
but I've never been in the synagogue.
I don't speak Hebrew and I'm just a bit of a random mixture,
to be honest with you. But there is a phrase that I
hear quite a bit when I get invited to Jewish events and I
speak to Jewish people as I do on a on a regular basis that two
Jews three opinions. And that really seems to be
coming through in, in what you've just described to us
there, David, in terms of the, the situation that we have in
front of us, the, the, the role of Chabad, as you just described
to radicalize the other Jewish organizations in the Reform
progressive and the liberal areas of Judaism is, is, is, is
very interesting. Umm and umm, they uh, also, I
think if we might just just jump back to the US now, I'm
particularly interested in the influence that they're exerting
over the current sitting U.S. President because we talked
about Shabad's umm headquarters in New York and Trump visited
there. I can't actually off the top of
my head remember if it was pre or post election last year, but
there was a number of videos circulating online of him
visiting the headquarters or visiting and praying at the
grave of Menisha Mendel Schneerson.
And there are even suggestions, not least from people in Trump's
inner circle, that he is, in fact the first Jewish president
of the United States. I mean, to what extent do you
think that could be true? Look, the the relationship
between Habad and the Trump camp is, is reasonably well known.
I mean, the Trump himself, through one of nations, has
directly funded Habad. Of course, he's made a point of
visiting them and going to Nerson's grave and, you know,
hanging out with him. He's had them in to visit him.
And but of course, let's remember that the the key link
between Trump and Habad is his son-in-law Kushner, and he he,
and. Trump's daughter who to whom
he's married, Of course. They attend a Habad shul in in
DC when they're when they're there and Kushner has given huge
sums of money. To Habad in in the USI think
perhaps elsewhere as well. So there's there's a connection
there with that that no, it's not just that the Habad are
trying to influence the President, but the President's
son-in-law is actually funding Habad.
And so that's kind of part of the the intrigue here.
And let's remember that. Kushner's role is not just to
push the interests or the official Zionist movement or the
ultra Orthodox guys like Khabad, but also to, to effectively
grease the wheels of the normalization process.
And that's why he's had this massive involvement with the
Saudis and indeed to some extent with the the UAE and the, the,
the, the use of the sovereign wealth, the Saudi sovereign
wealth fund that massive kickbacks and bribes that have
been going to the Trump family. And no doubt in future years
we'll find out that they're much more extensive than we are
currently aware of. So that's all part of this mix
here, that there's a direct question of corruption.
But as to whether Donald Trump himself is due or is converted,
I, I don't know. I don't pretend to have the
information on that. But you know, it's not
impossible, is it? Stranger things have certainly
happened. Vanessa, do you have any
thoughts on this? I think it's very important to
understand the importance of the Zionist influence through Jared
Kushner. I mean, David mentioned this
normalization program which began under the first Trump
administration, firmed the Abraham Accords.
And of course that basically brought in I think it was
Morocco, Sudan and UAE as as the initial adherence to to that
accord. But of course what we're seeing
now is Trump putting pressure on the Al Qaeda self elected
president of Syria, Jolani, to lift the sanctions in order for
him to agree to normalise relations with Israel under
those Abraham Accords. So those Abrahamic accords were
in an incredibly important step, which began back in 1997 with
the CIA scripting of the Clean Break Doctrine, which was
commissioned by then politician Benjamin Netanyahu.
Which actually, again, was an extension of Jabotinsky's
expansionist strategy to partition all of the neighboring
countries to Israel to both weaken them and give Israel an
opportunity to have greater influence in the partitions that
would be created. And of course, that's exactly
what we're now saying in Syria, is the coming to fruition of
Netanyahu's vision, which originated with Jabotinsky in
Ukraine. And the partitioning, not only
the extermination of Palestinians and the final
supremacy of Zionism over Palestinian territory, but also
this partitioning and normalization of relations with
all neighboring countries, the destruction of resistance to
Israel and the weakening of every single nation that may
pose a threat to Israel in the future.
And this began in Ukraine. I think this is what what is
very important for people to keep relating to.
You know, David goes into fantastic depth.
I tend to simplify things a little bit more for people in
particular who are struggling with this kind of, as you said,
three do what is it, 2 Jews, but you have three opinions of
etcetera. Because it becomes so complex
when you get into the different factions, the competing
factions, even within Zionism itself, within the Knesset
within and so on, right? I mean, in Ukraine there was
even the creation of of kind of, what was it a blending of
Marxism and Zionism, right? So there there were, there were
different factions even in Ukraine.
You had the Jabotinsky, you had the love of Zion, which was Leon
Pinsker. You had Bev Boratov, who created
the censuses between Marxism and Zionism, which then became the
Israeli Labour Party. And I had Harm who created the
society Ben A Moshe, which was a form of cultural Zionism.
So in in all of these factions, you have these these
subsections, let's say that may on on some subjects or on some
strategies have common ground and in others, not so.
But, but I think in the end, if we look at direction of travel,
we're heading in the direction of travel that Jabotinsky
foresaw and that Netanyahu's father certainly supported and
Netanyahu has picked up and run with.
And I think you know that that for me is is becoming even more
clear with what's happening in the region, not only in
Palestine. Yes, I use the term cynicism
earlier, but I also think maybe pragmatism in pursuit of a
shared objective is, is what we're looking at with a lot of
this stuff. The reference to communism and
Zionism, I think is really interesting.
DI saw a quote, I'm going to forget the name.
Maybe one of you can can help me out with it.
But the the guy that ran the gulags for Stalin quoted as
saying some people call it communism.
I call it Judaism, right? So these things are very closely
and intrinsically linked with each other, right?
So this is fascinating, A fascinating discussion I want to
think about. We talked a lot about the the
historical context, the deep connections between these two
countries, these different ideological systems.
How is this being enabled and enforced in the media and the
political system? Let's if we could focus on the
UK, but also let's just think more broadly across the US.
We've talked about these influence networks, but you know
how we're actually seeing this coming to light in the, the, the
media around, you know, let's talk about some names even, you
know, the BBC, the Guardian, maybe some of these other
commentators in the, in, in, in the British system today.
Well, look, these are. I think complex matters to same
but. The the way in which these
influence networks operate, I think is much more sophisticated
and more deeply embedded than perhaps we have understood.
So the way in which people tend to talk about these things is
that they talk about the Israel lobby and of course there have
been some famous books on on that issue.
The first of which of course, which broke the whole issue open
was John Mearsheimer and Stephen Waltz book The Israel Lobby and
US foreign policy from 2005. And then of course, more
recently we've had a Elan Pappies book on the Zionist
lobby history of the Zionist lobby in the the US and the UK.
But look, the, the Israel lobby is only a small fraction of what
the Zionist movement does. And so I think the other, the
other elements of what it does, which I'll talk about in a
minute, are the ones where there's which are really
important. So the Israel lobby, of course,
is the organizations that we all know about, which is there to
influence USUK and other European countries and indeed
other countries in general to influence their foreign policy
and indeed aspects of their domestic policy.
So in the in the US, everybody knows that there's the there's
APAC, there's the Anti Defamation League, there's the
Foundation for Democracies and, and a number of other think
tanks, lobby groups, etcetera. And that's the Israel lobby.
OK, now they are, they are important and they do exert
power and do exert influence. But there's another way in which
the Zionist movement operates, which is the tip.
It's a the Zionist movement is a broader thing than the Israel.
I mean, the Zionist movement is there to ensure that Zionist
ideas are spread and, and, and made powerful around the world.
They, they state this openly in their founding manifesto, which
was created in 1951 at the World Zionist Congress, the first one
they held after they created the so-called State of Israel.
And in that Congress, they said, right, we should, we've, we've,
we've got what we wanted. We had, they had a program
before called the Ball Ball programme, the Basil programme
based on the, the Congress where they, they decided that in
Switzerland. And we've got, we've got a
Jewish state. What will we do now?
Will we just demobilize the Zionist movement?
And they said, no, no, we'll not do that.
And they had a vote on this and there were no votes against.
There were some people who who used to vote, who abstained, but
there were no votes against and they voted to.
I think it's 438 votes to zero. I forget the exact votes to
continue with the Zionist movement.
And amongst the things they said that would do is strengthen the
influence of Zionism in the community, meaning the Jewish
community wherever it's organised in the US, the UK and
elsewhere. And that's what they do.
And that that has two elements to it.
First of all, they want to recruit and train the young
people in the ideology of Zionism so that they can go on
to become Zionists later in life.
Some. Sometimes that will mean.
You know, going to to become colonists in, in an occupied
Palestine, join the IDF, et cetera.
But on other occasions, what it means is joining Zionist
organisations in the UK or the US, et cetera.
But a a further. Element of this, of course, is
infiltrating the societies in which they operate such that
when the, the moment comes, when the tap on the shoulder comes,
I, I like to say the tap on the shoulder comes.
But of course in many cases the tap on the shoulder isn't needed
when the moment comes to do the right thing for the Zionist
movement. When you're high up in the BBC
or the Financial Times or in, in a financial cooperation or in
the civil service or in the police or in or wherever it is,
when the, when the moment comes, you will take the, they want you
to take the right decision in favour of the Zionist movement.
And that's what that's you have to have an understanding of that
in order to understand the way in which the institutions of
this society and many other societies in in the West
especially, have been penetrated and infiltrated by the Zionist
movement. Take the example of the media.
You you raise the issue of the media.
Now people have been going on about the BBC for the last few
months, especially since Owen Jones wrote this article in
December or January where he revealed that Raffy Berg, who's
in charge of the BB CS website, was effectively operating a, a
kind of a, a mechanism whereby he had to authorize or approve
almost all BBC coverage of Palestine.
Now he is a fanatical Zionist. Now of course that this is an
important element of, of control by Zionism of the BBC because
they've got a person insight. The other element of course is
the massive propaganda streams that come from Tel Aviv and
indeed from the British government as well in supporting
the Zionists. I think the other thing you've
got to understand is that it's not just the external pressure
which causes the BBC and it's not just the fact of one person
inside the BBC which causes the BBC to be so pro Zionist.
It's also that they have people high up in the hierarchy and in
fact in the most senior committees of the BBC who are
themselves Zionists. So the most senior committee of
the BBC. Has I think.
Five people on it. The CEO of BBC News, a guy
called Robbie Gibb is on it, a guy called Nicholas Sirota,
who's the external representative, a couple of
other people who I forget now, but they always have over the
five people on the committee. They always have at least 2 who
are convinced rabid Zionists. Robbie Gibb is a perfect
example. This is the guy who runs the
Jewish Chronicle, took over the Jewish Chronicle when it was
failing because of so many libel defeats.
And it's now become even more extreme in its Zionism in the
last two years as a result of of him taking over the
organization. So if you, if you want to
understand why Zionism gets so, so much favourable coverage in
the media, yes, it's to do with external pressures and PR and
propaganda and all the usual things has Mara as they call it
in Israel. But it's also to do with the
fact that there are Zionists inside all these news
organisations quite often in in prime positions.
For example, at Sky News. It's the case, it's the case in
the Financial Times, it's the case in the Guardian, it's the
case in the Mail and and many other media outlets as well.
So it's it's external and internal influences.
And a lot of this is about, I think, embedding confusion into
the, the public discourse because right the, the, the
organizations we've talked about the, the pretty much dominant
accepted narrative, I would say across the whole of mainstream
media is to, is pro Ukraine anti Putin.
It's Putin's war, it's a war of aggression, all of these terms
that we hear on a constant basis, right?
So they've really embedded that and they allow some lively
debate between both sides of the the argument as it relates to to
Israel and and Palestine. But it's this Ukraine this, this
adamant insistence that Ukraine are the good guys and Putin's
the bad guy, while allowing some lively debate over here.
That I think is one of the main essentially divide and rule
tactics that they have for for sowing discord amongst amongst
the population. Right.
And then actually we talked about the media.
One of the most striking things I've seen over the past few days
just popped up in my timeline on on on LinkedIn.
I think it was was one of the the the chief executive of one
of the the the biggest charities in the UK and internationally
based in the UK international charity who attended the Pro
Palestine March in London over the weekend was sharing a lot of
the images from the March and talking about what an important
moment it was. And then I actually clicked on
to have a look at her own profile page and the header
image is her speaking on stage at a Pro Ukraine event in in
Trafalgar Square. It looked like, I can't remember
exactly the location. And that to me, was just the
perfect example of how this thing has just been really
deeply, deeply embedded into the discourse, and it's really
astonishing how they've managed to do it.
Well, I think that's that's right.
I mean, there are there are people who on the left who, who
have become. Even better than they were
before on the question of Palestine.
But still, some of those people have a blind spot that they
can't quite get to the idea that Russia might not be what what's.
The the idea of Russia, which is encouraged in all the kind of
NATO propaganda fantasies, so that that's the kind of
interesting thing is that people can't sort of divorce themselves
from that element of the propaganda.
They can perfectly well deconstruct Israeli and Zionist
propaganda, the British government's ridiculous defenses
of, of Israel. They can deconstruct David Lamb
and the, the, the intelligence flights over Gaza, but they
can't quite bring themselves to deconstruct the views which were
given about Russia. And that's kind of interesting
in itself. And of course it reminds one of
the of the famous Bob Dylan song about I've learned to hate the
Russians all through my whole life.
If another war comes, it's then we must fight.
And that of course it is very, very deep in the psyche.
Actually more it's deeper than we perhaps we thought so that
that's an interesting thing to, to see and also indicates the
the need for us to redouble our efforts at deconstructing anti
Russian propaganda has been flooding our media for many
years now through the, the alleged assassination campaigns
which Vladimir Putin is operating against dissidents,
the alleged poisoning of the Skripals.
Remember that ridiculous fiasco. And then of course the, the
integrity initiative, all those documents which were which were
leaked showing that there was a military intelligence project
dedicated to countering Russian propaganda, which was actually
mainly focusing on attacking Jeremy Corbyn.
And so all of that has been naturally quite successful in
its its pooling of the levers of public consciousness in a way
which the British government's attempt to defend Israel has
not. Absolutely.
I think there's there's certainly a lot of the old Cold
War stuff still embedded into kind of Gen.
X and above, right? That's that's certainly the
case. I think the other thing that's
really important now that we're talking a little bit about
Russia and Putin is to understand that you actually
don't have to pick a side in these conflicts.
And it's not always going to necessarily be the case that
there is a good guy and a bad guy fighting.
It might be that there are two bad guys is fighting and we
talked a bit about Jiabad's relationship with Trump, but
he's also they also have quite a lot of sway in Russia and
particularly over Putin, it would seem.
I don't know too much about that.
I mean, there's certainly there is a, a rabbi who is called
Putin's rabbi who is a herbad rabbi.
But that's because, well, I don't want to underestimate the
the potential significance of it.
I haven't done enough research on this, but certainly it's the
case that all through Russia and indeed the Ukraine that the,
the, the apparatus of Jewish communal representation.
So the organizations which in Western Europe and the UK are
run by the official Zionist movement in the Ukraine.
And in Russia those organizations are run by Habad.
And so that's kind of an interesting contrast.
Of course we see, we see the what happened, what maybe we
should say a bit, what about Syria?
So what happened in Syria? Of course the the word Russian
military lookout posts on the border with the Golan Heights.
There was of course the Russian naval base and the Russian air
base in Syria as part of the the agreement to help the government
of Assad. And that of course, and of
course the Russians were to some extent trying to divert IDF
bombers from from from bombing Syrian targets.
But of course, we should also remember that the Russians
deliberately and openly coordinated with the Israelis to
allow them to bomb Damascus. Now, in retrospect, that's an
indication of the the. Weakness of the support of
Russia for Syria. And it's an indication also, I
think of the, the way in which the, the, the kind of
relationship that they have with Habad and with, with Israel has,
is worth looking into. For example, there was, there's
an organization called the Jewish Agency, which is one of
the four pillars of the Zionist movement.
All four of these organizations are based in the same building
in Jerusalem. And King George Street, known
known as the national institutions and the Jewish
agencies function one of the the four pillars, as I say, is to
arrange for people to become settler colonists in Palestine.
The, the, the function of the other organizations is of
course, to, to provide, to steal the land so that they can settle
there. And, and thirdly, to raise the
money to cook, to pay for all of this.
Now, the Jewish Agency was about to be closed down by Putin, by
Russia, I think in 2021. And there was a series of court
cases which came up and then they were delayed and they were
delayed and they were delayed. And it had the Jewish Agency has
not been shut down as a, as a, as a, an agent of a foreign
state which is engaged in hostile activity, which it
plainly is. So there's an indication I think
in in that relationship of the the, the kind of questionable
position of Russia in relation to the Zionist entity.
And that of course is how met or where you would expect about to
have some kind of influence as well.
Just layer upon layer of complexity here.
Let's some just just finish up. Unfortunately, we've lost
Vanessa because I would have loved her to to chime in on
that, that on Syria, of course, I mean, it's certainly her area
of expertise, but unfortunately it looks like the connection has
been lost. Just to to finish up though, you
mentioned earlier on the reticence of some of the radical
left to talk about Zionism because they believe that it
lets the British and US empires off the hook for their role in
the things that are happening in the world around us today.
So what extent do you see the British and US empires and
Zionism as being fundamentally intertwined with each other?
I mean, is that not essentially just the same thing, Just one
thing, isn't it? So I come at this from from
having done lots and lots of research.
And as I've done the research, some of the things that I've
found may start to make me question previously apparently
established nostrums or theories.
So I think that that yes, of course there is a very close
relationship between the US, the UK and Israel. the US is of
course the primary sponsor of the the genocide.
It supplies the weapons that it provides political cover.
And as I've said, the UK provides intelligence
overflights. And of course we have the Elbit
arms firms in the UK, which Palestine Action are doing a
tremendous job of smashing up over the last couple of years.
But look, the the the other thing about Zionism is that it's
inherently, inherently colonial, yes.
Inherently genocidal, yes. Inherently racist, yes.
But it's inherently expansionist and eliminationist.
So it has to expand. It has, it has to find more and
more places for their people to settle.
And that doesn't just mean the beachfront apartments in Gaza.
It doesn't just mean the West Bank.
It also means, of course, invading and expanding the
territory into what's what they've always said from, from,
you know, right back to Hertzel is a greater Israel.
Vanessa mentioned the, the Jabutinski's thoughts on
settlement, which of course are in the same vein now, of course,
that's what that's what they're trying to do here.
They're they got pushed back out of most of Lebanon, but they
still have extra bits of Lebanon they didn't have at the
beginning of last year. They have a huge swathe of, of
the South of Syria. Now they what they want to do is
they want to push into, back into Egypt, take the whole of
Jordan, take most of Iraq, take all of Lebanon, all of Syria up
to even including part, a little part of Turkey, the South of
Turkey. That's what they plan to do, and
that's called Greater Israel. Now, in addition to that, of
course, that what they want is Vanessa was talking about
normalization. They want to normalize relations
with the whole of West Asia and North Africa, which means that
they want to be able to operate these countries effectively as
client states. Now that as a plan is an
imperialist plan, it's not an imperious plan, which is the
same as the the interests of US imperialism.
And this is where I I think that yes, of course they're entwined,
but there are, there are overlapping ways in which they
operate and where, where they have shared interests and there
are other ways where they have divergent interests.
And that I think is becoming increasingly apparent.
And it will become increasingly apparent as the US has to decide
what to do about its relationship with Israel.
I think they will have to decide whether they're going to cut
Israel loose. And Israel will, will want at
that stage, whether it collapses or not, to go on to, to create
this Greater Israel project. I mean, it's an, it's an
imperialist power in itself and it's an emerging imperialist
power. So I would say that yes, of
course they're entwined, but they, they all, all of their
interests do not coincide. Another complex web, it would
seem. OK, look, that's pretty
fantastic and fascinating and enlightening conversation.
David. Thank you so much for taking the
time. Also to Vanessa, who
unfortunately has dropped off the call.
Thank you very much, David. It's a pleasure.
Thank you very much. And stuff.
So I've been Ben Rubin, you've been watching UK column.
Thank you for watching.