Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Iran is trying to start a new world order

00:00:00.200 Oh boy, the world is on fire, and I wonder if Trump can stop that.

00:00:04.820 That's one of the questions I put to Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum.

00:00:08.240 If Trump is re-elected in about 90 days, what will happen to all the wars in the world,

00:00:13.620 especially the complex wars in the Middle East?

00:00:16.520 We'll talk about that and other things, but I want you to see it, not just hear it.

00:00:21.240 So please go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe.

00:00:24.320 You'll get the video version of this podcast.

00:00:26.520 Eight bucks a month might not sound like a lot to you, but boy, it adds up for us.

00:00:30.000 If you can do that, you'll help keep us strong and independent because we don't take any money from Trudeau, and it shows.

00:00:35.980 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:41.540 You're listening to our latest podcast.

00:00:52.800 Tonight, will war in the Middle East turn into World War III?

00:00:56.340 A feature interview with Dr. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum.

00:01:00.440 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:03.380 Shame on you, you censorious bug! 0.86

00:01:06.440 Well, the world is on fire as it has been for, I guess, since Donald Trump left office. 0.71

00:01:21.500 And the nations of the world, the aggressors of the world, realized that they could take liberties.

00:01:27.780 Russia invaded Ukraine.

00:01:29.840 The Gaza-based Hamas attacked Israel, as has, in a smaller scale, Hezbollah and Iran.

00:01:39.380 China is eyeing Taiwan and other countries, including the Philippines, Japan, and Korea.

00:01:45.740 But the one that I am worried will turn into a larger conflagration, more even than the Russia-Ukraine war, is the Middle East.

00:01:55.460 You have massive American aircraft carriers there, I think, to tamp down that possibility.

00:02:00.760 But you have rogue forces, like Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups, that are not attached to the country.

00:02:07.960 The Russians would be tempered by mutually assured destruction, let's say. 1.00

00:02:12.700 But that's not something that's a deterrent to the death cult of Hamas or Hezbollah. 0.78

00:02:18.900 It's a very interesting and very dangerous situation.

00:02:21.860 And I think we need a bit of an update.

00:02:24.160 And joining us now to talk about that is a man who studies the Middle East region very closely.

00:02:28.240 It's in his title, I'm talking about Dr. Daniel Pipes, who is the president of the Middle East Forum.

00:02:35.260 He joins us now via Skype.

00:02:36.640 Dr. Pipes, great to see you again.

00:02:39.180 Great to see you, Ezra.

00:02:40.280 You know, there is absolutely a hot war going on between Russia and Ukraine.

00:02:45.520 But I'm of the belief that it is unlikely to engulf the world.

00:02:49.860 I think even though NATO is involved, they're being careful to keep it in the theater.

00:02:54.020 But I am worried about the Middle East, partly because I believe that the United States under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are, frankly, passive aggressive towards Israel and sympathetic to Iran.

00:03:06.440 Can you give me a sense of what's going on in the Middle East?

00:03:11.480 Help me out because your sources and your understanding of that region is far deeper than mine.

00:03:16.160 Is the world at risk of a larger war in the Middle East?

00:03:24.660 The Iranians are disruptive. 1.00

00:03:28.200 The Iranian regime wishes to change the world order, not just the Middle Eastern one. 0.99

00:03:32.840 And it has been going about this systematically for now 45 years, with limited resources, but with a certain cleverness.

00:03:42.280 We can see at present, for example, the Houthis disrupting trade in the Red Sea, Hezbollah dominating in Lebanon,

00:03:51.500 other Iranian allies and proxies, agents, very powerful in Syria and Iraq, also in Gaza, in the West Bank.

00:04:05.220 So the Iranians are on the warpath. 0.92

00:04:07.440 They have been so for a long time.

00:04:10.460 They have problems.

00:04:12.420 The regime is deeply unpopular at home.

00:04:15.280 There could be, at any moment, a conflagration, which leads to its overthrow.

00:04:21.380 And yet, at the same time, it is building nuclear weapons.

00:04:25.260 It is in increasingly close ties with Russia and China.

00:04:32.560 So it's volatile.

00:04:34.840 It's dangerous.

00:04:35.540 But I'm probably not inclined to say that it's World War III potential.

00:04:41.100 As we've seen in the last few weeks, the Iranians have been careful about responding to, presumably, the Israeli execution of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31st.

00:04:56.900 They have been very competent at sabotage and low-intensity conflict.

00:05:03.880 They're not so good at direct conventional warfare, and they've been cautious about engaging in that with Israel, much less the United States.

00:05:11.920 So it's dangerous, but I don't know that it's more dangerous than Ukraine or Taiwan. 0.94

00:05:20.220 You know, you mentioned the assassination of the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, who is typically based, if I'm not mistaken, he was based in Qatar.

00:05:29.800 He was assassinated in Tehran.

00:05:32.020 And so that's quite a bold move, if it indeed was the Israelis, who I'm sure it was. 1.00

00:05:38.500 Typically, Iran strikes back in some ways, in some way. 0.87

00:05:42.560 When Donald Trump eliminated a senior military commander named Soleimani, the Iranians fought, fired back.

00:05:50.100 But it was it felt like it was sort of a show for domestic consumption.

00:05:54.060 Iran has to sort of show its people, I think, that it has some self-respect and won't accept an assassination of an ally on their own turf.

00:06:04.080 I don't think that's come yet, or maybe it has in the form of a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv the other day.

00:06:10.360 But do you feel like another shoe is about to drop?

00:06:12.660 I noticed a few weeks ago a whole bunch of Western airlines canceled their commercially scheduled flights to Israel.

00:06:20.900 It felt like the region was battening down the hatches for war.

00:06:24.120 Is Iran going to punch back for that assassination, do you think?

00:06:27.620 Well, in one way, the anticipation, the fear in Israel of such a response is in itself the punishment.

00:06:37.500 But it is three weeks, and there has been no striking large-scale retaliation by the mullahs in Tehran.

00:06:47.560 I'm inclined to think the likelihood declines as time goes by.

00:06:53.100 The Iranian regime itself has said that it depends on an agreement in Gaza.

00:06:59.900 If there is an agreement, they won't respond.

00:07:01.780 If there isn't, they will.

00:07:03.300 It doesn't look like there is an agreement.

00:07:05.820 It doesn't look like Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, wants such an agreement.

00:07:12.640 So I love predicting, but this is a tough one.

00:07:17.560 If I had to bet, I'd say probably not.

00:07:20.920 Probably not a major Iranian retaliation.

00:07:24.720 Israel typically has short wars, one of them famously called the Six-Day War because it was six days.

00:07:33.020 Even its more difficult wars are typically measured in weeks.

00:07:38.800 This war against Hamas in Gaza is coming up on a full year, and Gaza is geographically a small place.

00:07:47.020 Now, obviously, it's very challenging because it's completely an urban environment.

00:07:50.220 It's underground tunnels.

00:07:52.960 And the main problem, I think, for Israel is the PR problem of the inevitable casualties of a civilian population that is being used as human shields.

00:08:04.420 But that said, I think we have to note that Israel perhaps could have done this months ago were it not being constantly restrained by the United States, demanding a ceasefire, demanding a halt.

00:08:18.740 I think that the fact that Israel has allowed this to drag on has become part of the problem.

00:08:26.600 It has emboldened not just Hamas in Gaza, but it's emboldened anti-Semites around the world.

00:08:33.400 If they were to snuff out Hamas totally, like the Red Army snuffed out Berlin under Hitler, if they had that bunker moment where Hitler killed himself, if Sinwar were to die in Gaza, I think that would deflate these folks who are hoping against hope that this will be a Palestinian uprising that will lead to the destruction of Israel. 0.75

00:08:56.340 And I think it would deflate some of the anti-Semitism around the world.

00:09:00.100 I actually think that Israel's slow pace, which I attribute to the Americans, has been their worst strategic error so far.

00:09:07.320 What do you think?

00:09:08.500 As the author of the recently published book, Israel Victory, I could hardly agree with you more that the slow pace has been a very great error.

00:09:18.160 However, I do disagree with you, Israel, on the cause of that.

00:09:22.900 You're blaming the Americans.

00:09:24.220 And there's a tendency for friends of Israel to blame the Americans or other allies of Israel for the problems, for the mistakes of Israel.

00:09:34.600 I don't agree.

00:09:35.880 I think the Israelis make their own mistakes.

00:09:38.780 And here, to give you the full picture, the Israelis came up with the Oslo Accords of 1993.

00:09:46.420 The Israelis came up with the retreat from Gaza, the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

00:09:53.460 The Israelis came up with the idea of holding elections in 2007.

00:09:59.220 The Israelis permitted the border between Egypt and Gaza to leave their control.

00:10:10.100 The Israelis permitted 15 years of buildup in Gaza. 0.76

00:10:15.400 The Israelis have been incompetent, not the Americans. 1.00

00:10:18.600 The Israelis need to take the blame for this. 1.00

00:10:20.460 Well, that is a very persuasive point.

00:10:22.240 Every one of those things, I can imagine there was some clever 3D chess argument for why it made sense to allow this or that.

00:10:30.920 But every single one of those things you've described has come back to bite them.

00:10:35.160 That said, I don't even know who's…

00:10:39.140 Go ahead.

00:10:39.440 Could I just put it in a larger context?

00:10:41.640 I think the Israeli security establishment has been brilliant when it comes to states, be it the Arab states, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the three countries defeated in the Six-League War, or Iran or other states, Iraq, Sudan, Libya.

00:11:00.680 But it has been pretty much incompetent when it comes to the Palestinians or other sub-state actors like Hezbollah.

00:11:08.300 It has allowed 100,000, 200,000 missiles and rockets to go to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

00:11:14.460 It allowed it.

00:11:15.460 It saw these weapons enter.

00:11:17.340 So, the vaunted Israeli security establishment deserves its high reputation when it comes to Entebbe, when it comes to the Six-Day War, when it comes to dealing with foreign governments.

00:11:33.320 It has not done well when it comes to the Palestinians.

00:11:37.500 I think you're right.

00:11:38.680 Who is setting U.S. policy?

00:11:43.500 I don't think even before they threw Joe Biden out so unceremoniously, I don't think even back then people thought that Joe Biden was the decider.

00:11:56.320 He would be clear and coherent for – it was measured in minutes, not hours.

00:12:02.960 Who then is making the decisions?

00:12:05.440 Is it the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken?

00:12:09.680 Is it – I don't believe it's Kamala Harris.

00:12:13.440 I just don't think she has a lot of ideas about foreign policy.

00:12:17.300 Is it like a Politburo of party activists?

00:12:22.000 Who makes the decisions in the United States?

00:12:24.340 I honestly don't know, but I think we can both agree it's not Joe Biden.

00:12:29.200 Well, I think you're going a little far.

00:12:31.960 He is the president.

00:12:33.180 And he has taken a number of decisive steps.

00:12:37.120 I mean, going to Israel a few days after October 7th, when Israel is in a state of war, that's not something that was programmed by someone else, not by his wife, not by his Secretary of State.

00:12:49.640 He pretty clearly decided to go there in an act of solidarity.

00:12:53.080 Now, the problem for Biden has been – and I do think Biden is still the key factor here, though I agree with you.

00:13:00.420 He has his limitations mentally.

00:13:02.940 His problem has been that he has an old-fashioned democratic affection for Israel, dating back 50-plus years.

00:13:11.920 But his party, the younger people, the activists, despise Israel.

00:13:19.880 So on the one hand, he has a certain lingering affection.

00:13:23.040 On the other hand, political realities, and especially the fourth coming election in November, require him to pull back.

00:13:29.980 So he has been on the horns of a dilemma, and those around him who have strong points of view have been pushing, especially the anti-Israel caucus, which is, as time goes on, stronger and stronger.

00:13:42.380 Though I do wish to point out that the platform of the Democratic Party, which has just been passed at the convention, is quite pro-Israel.

00:13:53.160 These tensions are not completely resolved in favor of the anti-Israel forces.

00:13:57.760 They're stronger, to be sure.

00:13:59.740 But the lingering – you know, Charles Schumer is not what I'd call a great, you know, show mayor, a great protector of Israel.

00:14:07.400 But he, like Biden, he has a longstanding affection for Israel, and he is not anti-Israel.

00:14:15.640 He has rather dubious ideas about how to solve the problem there, but he's not anti-Israel.

00:14:22.440 And the elders of the party, like Pelosi, Schumer, Biden, are still the key figures.

00:14:28.640 And the change might come, might come imminently should Kamala Harris become president, but it's not quite there yet.

00:14:39.400 You know, I remember a few months ago, there was this astonishing speech or statement, rather, made by Schumer where he effectively called for a kind of – I'm going to call it a soft coup against Netanyahu.

00:14:53.140 Here, let me play the clip of that.

00:14:55.280 I've just never seen a senator in the United States call for the replacement of the democratically elected prime minister of another democracy before.

00:15:05.800 Here it is to refresh your memory.

00:15:07.780 I have known Prime Minister Netanyahu for a very long time.

00:15:11.600 While we have vehemently disagreed on many occasions, I will always respect his extraordinary bravery for Israel on the battlefield as a younger man.

00:15:20.440 I believe in his heart he has his highest priority, as is the security of Israel.

00:15:28.560 However, I also believe Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take the precedence over the best interests of Israel.

00:15:41.980 He has put himself in coalition with far-right extremists like Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gavir, and as a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.

00:16:00.540 Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah. 0.84

00:16:04.300 As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th.

00:16:17.740 The world has changed radically since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that has stuck in the past.

00:16:29.320 At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government.

00:16:50.260 I suppose you could say, well, Chuck Schumer, he has an old-fashioned affection for Israel, as used to be more common in the Democrats, but calling for, in the middle of a war, no less, calling for the decapitation and the firing of Netanyahu, yeah, that might not be anti-Israel, but that's pretty crazy.

00:17:11.860 I didn't say it was smart.

00:17:13.860 I didn't say it was smart. 0.99

00:17:14.740 I said it was an affection, a dumb, can we call it a dumb affection? 0.99

00:17:23.000 An affection that has dumb ideas, like creating a Palestinian state as a reward for October 7th? 0.99

00:17:28.840 Yeah, full of bad ideas, but still not anti-Israel, not wishing Israel ill, not wanting to get rid of the Jewish state. 0.97

00:17:37.460 So, you know, it's in between.

00:17:41.980 The Republicans, by and large, are full-throated, pro-Israel, standing by Israel.

00:17:47.540 And there are some Democrats, notably John Fetterman, big surprise.

00:17:52.520 But overall, the Democratic Party or the liberal left in the United States, as around the world, is turning against Israel.

00:18:00.280 My favorite example, Ezra, is of all places in the southern cone of South America, where you have Argentina and Chile.

00:18:12.160 And it could not be more different in this regard.

00:18:15.360 Arguably, Argentina, under Javier Millet, is the most pro-Israel country government in the world.

00:18:22.680 Arguably, Chile, under Gabriel Boric, is not the most anti, but it's pretty close to it, for a country that has nothing to do with Israel.

00:18:34.460 Extremely anti-Israel, to the point that Boric wouldn't accept the credentials of the Israeli ambassador.

00:18:39.980 He didn't want anything to do with him.

00:18:40.900 So there you go, far, far away, as far away as you can get, this argument over Israel and the Palestinians, Israel and Hamas, is playing out and has an important role, far away. 0.80

00:18:53.740 And it's a left-right debate.

00:18:55.820 It's a left-right debate.

00:18:57.060 It didn't used to be that way.

00:18:58.480 But over the past 35 years, since a sequence of events took place in the early 1990s, it has become a left-right debate.

00:19:05.600 And it's becoming ever more, ever more a left-right debate, with these sides ever more clearly distinguished.

00:19:14.560 They're not pure.

00:19:15.260 You can find exceptions, like Fetterman.

00:19:17.260 But they're becoming ever more rare.

00:19:20.880 Yeah, it's very unusual.

00:19:22.200 I was surprised when Javier Millet physically embraced the Israeli flag during his campaign.

00:19:28.840 I just thought, wow, that's a boldness.

00:19:30.540 I mean, he's an extremely bold showman in any event.

00:19:34.460 I mean, from his hairstyle to his speaking style, he's quite a character.

00:19:38.840 He really is Trump-like.

00:19:41.220 But he's an economics professor at the same time.

00:19:43.760 He's a character.

00:19:47.820 I see it, though, in other places.

00:19:49.800 I mean, in Ireland, I see that government, which has always been sympathetic to the Palestinians.

00:19:56.200 I suppose they see themselves both as rebels.

00:19:58.260 The Irish Republic rebelling against the UK over a century ago.

00:20:05.280 But it's odd to see it, because there's so few Jews in Ireland.

00:20:10.940 Ireland has such little interaction with the region.

00:20:15.000 It really is a kind of virtue signaling.

00:20:18.020 I'm constantly astonished by it.

00:20:19.880 The president of Ireland recently sent a, I think it was a condolence letter to Iran on the passing of their president or whatever it was, the guy who died in the plane crash.

00:20:31.460 Like, it's just, it's very strange to see countries with no connection to Israel economically, militarily, diplomatically, and there's no demographic connection, there's no Jewish community, just, you know, poke at Israel for whatever ideological box checking.

00:20:49.660 I just find it bizarre, of all the crises in Ireland, which is a country I follow sort of closely these days, they always stop and make time to take a shot at Israel.

00:20:58.600 It's just, it's just really weird.

00:21:00.160 And Scotland, and Norway.

00:21:02.300 Yeah.

00:21:02.680 And Sweden.

00:21:03.560 Yeah.

00:21:04.480 Look, the left, in the early 1990s, began adopting the Palestinians as their favorite cause, as its favorite cause. 0.86

00:21:13.620 And this has increased, as I say, over the third of a century.

00:21:17.040 It's a result of a whole range of things that happened.

00:21:21.260 The invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the coming together of the European Union in 1992, the Oslo Accords in 1993, and finally, and perhaps most importantly, the collapse of the apartheid regime in 1994, Nestle Mandela coming to power.

00:21:39.840 All these five events turned the left from generally sympathetic to the Palestinians to extremely focused.

00:21:49.640 And the coming out party for this was not coincidentally in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, just days before 9-11.

00:21:57.100 And it has increased over the next two decades, and it's ever more acute.

00:22:03.100 But mind you, it's not just a one-sided phenomenon.

00:22:06.380 The right, which used to have a lot of qualms and problems with Israel, has increasingly adopted Israel.

00:22:13.160 It was, in the 1950s and 60s, the right that was reluctant to work with Israel, saw Israel as an impediment to forming alliances against the Soviet Union.

00:22:25.400 The right has now completely changed.

00:22:27.660 And again, there are always exceptions.

00:22:29.040 But overwhelmingly, the right around the world, whether it's Japan or Brazil or India or Finland or Canada, the right has become Israel's stalwart friend. 0.56

00:22:43.560 This is the dramatic reversal from earlier decades, and it's becoming ever more clear that the right is with Israel and the left is hostile to Israel.

00:22:53.040 I wouldn't say that the left is pro-Palestinian.

00:22:55.440 I would say the left is hostile to Israel.

00:22:57.600 You know, here in Canada, we were always very close at the United Nations, not quite as pro-Israel as the United States was, but pretty close.

00:23:09.700 Jean Chrétien, who was a liberal in name, would boast, when he was pressed on the subject by Jews for not being pro-Israel, quote, enough, he said, 0.83

00:23:21.420 other than America, the Israeli ambassador says we're the most pro-Israel people in the world.

00:23:25.860 Isn't that good enough for you?

00:23:26.760 That was Chrétien's line, and there was some truth to it.

00:23:29.560 But that was before Canada had two million Muslims, many of whom are now citizens and are voting,

00:23:38.560 which demographically there are some wonderful Muslims amongst them who are liberal, who are tolerant, who are pluralistic.

00:23:46.060 For years, our chairman at Rebel News here was our mutual friend Raheel Raza.

00:23:49.500 We know that there are progressive Muslims.

00:23:51.940 We know that.

00:23:52.940 But when you bring in two million Muslim migrants into Canada in short order and you don't vet in any way for cultural fit or for ancient feelings of anti-Semitism,

00:24:05.460 don't be surprised when suddenly out of 338 districts in Canada, 20 of them go with the Muslim vote.

00:24:14.360 And I think that it's not just the left-wing politics that has pulled Justin Trudeau away from Israel.

00:24:20.720 I think he can do the math.

00:24:22.240 There are now five times as many Muslim voters in Canada as there are Jews.

00:24:27.000 As well.

00:24:27.640 And in the UK, it's even worse.

00:24:28.880 There's nothing inevitable about the Islamists, who you're referring to, partnering with the left.

00:24:39.320 They could have, and they still could, partner with the right.

00:24:42.840 They're partnering with the left because the left has said,

00:24:47.940 you Islamists, and by the way, your Palestinian cause, are great.

00:24:51.420 We support them wholeheartedly.

00:24:53.260 Had the right said that and the left not said that, I think the Islamists would be partnering with the right. 0.94

00:25:00.020 In other words, there was nothing inevitable.

00:25:02.000 Back in 1970, 80, we could not have predicted this.

00:25:08.240 It wasn't apparent.

00:25:09.800 The left had not become attracted to Islamism.

00:25:13.760 I think the key event in that, I think it was a very dramatic key event,

00:25:16.700 was the fact that Michel Foucault, a very eminent and very horrible French philosopher,

00:25:24.420 went to Iran as a correspondent for an Italian newspaper in 1979.

00:25:31.240 And he was, I want to say, orgasmic about the Iranian revolution.

00:25:40.580 Finally, there's a revolution.

00:25:41.960 Finally, there's something that he can fully participate in.

00:25:48.000 It was an enormous moment for him and for the left, more broadly, to approve of Islamism. 0.93

00:25:56.300 And Palestinians are a subset of that. 0.89

00:25:59.480 So I don't think it was an outfall.

00:26:02.840 It could have gone either way, and it still couldn't go either way.

00:26:05.920 We see more recently a number of trends where the Islamists have said to the left,

00:26:10.940 you know, we're not your servants.

00:26:17.280 We don't just automatically support you.

00:26:20.100 We could ally with the right.

00:26:22.500 And there have been a number of right-wing political and intellectual figures who said,

00:26:27.440 yeah, come on over.

00:26:28.400 Let's talk.

00:26:29.480 We can perhaps do business together.

00:26:31.140 So it's not cast in stone.

00:26:33.600 You know, I'm thinking of the U.K. election.

00:26:38.480 July 4th was the day.

00:26:41.280 Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, became prime minister.

00:26:45.580 His wife is Jewish.

00:26:47.380 That's a subject of great criticism from many in the pro-Gaza left in the U.K.

00:26:53.800 But there were five seats in the British election that were not won by Labour.

00:27:00.140 They were won in four cases by independent Islamist candidates who campaigned brazenly with the Gaza flag.

00:27:10.100 And all they talked about was Gaza.

00:27:11.640 It was astonishing.

00:27:12.780 And then the fifth MP was Jeremy Corbyn, who was so far out there.

00:27:17.720 He was, I think it's fair to call him anti-Semitic. 0.98

00:27:21.000 He was drummed out of the Labour Party because of that.

00:27:23.480 He won.

00:27:24.800 Him and four other MPs basically are ruling an Islamist fiefdom. 0.79

00:27:32.000 You could say on paper it's a democratic election part of the U.K., but the entire political narrative in those five districts is Islamic.

00:27:42.700 It's really astonishing what's happened to the U.K.

00:27:45.180 And I really think that's what's coming to other countries in the West if it's not already here.

00:27:50.120 Agreed.

00:27:51.220 Agreed.

00:27:51.820 Agreed.

00:27:52.100 And it has scared the Labour Party profoundly and is causing all sorts of reconsiderations of what the Labour policy towards Israel and the Palestinians should be.

00:28:06.540 That's terrifying to me.

00:28:07.720 Dire implications for Israel.

00:28:10.020 No question.

00:28:11.240 I saw a story in the Jerusalem Post the other day that was shocking, and I don't know if it's true.

00:28:16.320 I'm going to ask you because you probably know.

00:28:18.120 After the assassination – I'm switching gears here for a bit – after the assassination of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, the capital of Iran, which is just such a dramatic move.

00:28:31.680 Like it's – you're operating in the most dangerous place for a Mossad agent.

00:28:36.060 There's so much intrigue.

00:28:37.240 There's so – I mean, to accomplish that was clearly astonishing.

00:28:40.700 And from my understanding is there was a bomb pre-positioned in the apartment where Haniyeh was staying.

00:28:49.060 Like it was quite a feat of spycraft, you could say.

00:28:52.860 I read a story in the Jerusalem Post, and I can't believe it's true.

00:28:57.340 Maybe you can tell me if it is.

00:28:58.960 That reportedly the United States revealed those Mossad agents to Iran as a kind of punishment to Israel for doing this action without their full support.

00:29:13.120 That is, America tipped off Iran after the fact to who the Mossad agents were.

00:29:19.020 I don't know if you know that story or the truth of it or if it's been rebuked in some way or refuted.

00:29:25.420 But that was a terrifying article for me, and it made me think that there is a great divide between Israel and America.

00:29:30.860 I miss that story.

00:29:34.240 I'm skeptical of it.

00:29:36.560 Were it the case, we would be hearing very loud noises coming from Jerusalem protesting this.

00:29:45.300 The Israelis would not quietly go in the night. 1.00

00:29:48.040 So the fact that I hadn't heard of it, the fact that it isn't very widely known, suggests that it's rogue.

00:29:58.380 I'm glad to hear it.

00:29:59.420 I heard the other day that Israel declined to give advance notice to the United States on a particularly military operation because they were worried that Iran would be tipped off.

00:30:10.120 And again, maybe this is some overheated leaking, but it does feel to me that the United States is repeatedly holding Israel back from—

00:30:21.420 Because they still believe that the U.S., at least under the Democrats, still believe they can work with Iran as a regional partner.

00:30:28.140 Exactly. Exactly.

00:30:29.740 The Obama administration came up with the idea that if you approach the Iranians the right way, the Iranian regime the right way, then you can do business with them. 0.71

00:30:40.800 And to use their phrase, the Iranians will rejoin the community of nations.

00:30:46.480 It's a nonsensical idea, but it persists in the Democratic Party, and it is the source of the Democrats' deeply mistaken understanding of Iran.

00:30:59.300 The Israelis, in part, did not notify the Americans about the operation against Tania because of fears that it might be leaked, but also, in part, they didn't want to be restrained.

00:31:11.580 And there's a CIA saying that I like and often use, better to apologize than to ask permission.

00:31:20.800 Yeah.

00:31:21.340 I saw on one of these websites, I think it was Flight Tracker, where pretty much every aircraft in the world can be tracked, including military aircraft.

00:31:32.240 It's sort of quite a gripping app.

00:31:37.220 We used it when we were in Davos at the World Economic Forum to track the private jets coming in to that environmentalist conference.

00:31:45.020 It's a wonderful app.

00:31:45.980 It's called Flight Tracker.

00:31:46.940 There's a bunch of them.

00:31:49.040 And I saw this the other day, an enormous number of Russian cargo jets flying back and forth into Iran.

00:31:58.260 And, I mean, really, Russia has decided that its future is with Iran and Syria. 0.62

00:32:07.040 I don't know how American can wiggle in there, too, but has Russia been distracted from its Middle Eastern plans by what's going on in Ukraine?

00:32:17.660 Is Russia an important factor in Iran anymore?

00:32:20.400 Does Iran make up its own mind?

00:32:21.820 Like, I'm wondering, like, sometimes it looks like, for example, North Korea is really just a puppet on the hand of China.

00:32:28.700 That's how it looks to me.

00:32:30.100 Is Iran its own independent player, or is it really an agent of Russia?

00:32:35.160 What would you think?

00:32:37.160 I would say the Iranians make, by and large, their own decisions. 0.99

00:32:41.440 I would say that in Tehran, as in Beijing and Pyongyang, there's a sense that the Russians are needy and can be taken advantage of.

00:32:52.700 I can get a good price for your armaments.

00:32:56.360 You can extract all sorts of benefits because the Russian government is fairly desperate for arms and for other trade.

00:33:07.020 So they're pretty unscrupulous. 0.98

00:33:09.420 This is a bunch of thieves, and the Iranians are making hay. 1.00

00:33:15.580 They're getting money. 0.99

00:33:17.260 They're getting intelligence.

00:33:18.640 They're getting armaments as a result of their cooperation with the Russians. 0.53

00:33:23.580 It's not a perfectly happy relationship.

00:33:27.840 There are plenty of tensions, but each side needs each other and is benefiting from each other.

00:33:34.240 The Russians have very few places they can turn for armaments.

00:33:39.200 And so the Iranians, I mean, who would think that Iran could be an important supplier of armaments to Russia? 0.60

00:33:46.760 But that has, in fact, happened in the past two and a half years.

00:33:50.260 Yeah, that's certainly the opposite of what I would have thought.

00:33:53.900 How about China?

00:33:54.780 I saw the other day there was a massive military parade in Afghanistan where the Taliban were parading some of the literally thousands of military vehicles, including some quite heavily armored specialized vehicles.

00:34:10.520 I think there were even some helicopters.

00:34:12.320 The Taliban were having a military parade with all the stuff that Joe Biden left behind when he hastily evacuated.

00:34:19.680 Like, I'm sure that a lot of those, a lot of that equipment has been, has found its way to the Ukraine-Russia war.

00:34:25.920 I'm sure that, it's just an astonishing thing.

00:34:28.960 But China was there. 0.59

00:34:30.920 There were representatives from China at that military parade for the Taliban.

00:34:37.160 What do you think that portends?

00:34:38.640 The Chinese have showed very great interest in Afghanistan, in the enormous mineral deposits of Afghanistan, in Afghanistan as the neighbor of Pakistan, which is also very, very high on the Chinese priority, in Pakistan's case, an outlet to the Indian Ocean.

00:35:02.500 So, yeah, very, very important.

00:35:04.160 And the Chinese, as you're well aware, are not particularly scrupulous about the nature of the governments they're doing business with.

00:35:13.440 And they're quite happy to deal with the Taliban, especially as the Taliban are rejected by so much of the world.

00:35:20.280 Again, this gives the Chinese, as with Putin, a chance to exploit the weaknesses in Afghanistan and take advantage of the problems the Taliban have to get good deals on minerals and other commodities in Afghanistan. 0.56

00:35:38.260 I should tell you that Canada is still sending foreign aid to Afghanistan, even under the Taliban.

00:35:44.480 Just shocking, but not surprising.

00:35:47.480 Hey, I got one last question for you.

00:35:48.960 I really am grateful for you spending so much time.

00:35:51.020 We're really covering the entire world.

00:35:52.580 But there's so much going on.

00:35:55.280 It's like a frozen river that was frozen for 50 years during the Cold War.

00:36:00.940 It just thawed and things are moving around and it's not quite sure how it'll go.

00:36:06.000 But there was actually a period of four years where a lot of these things were frozen again.

00:36:12.120 Putin invaded Georgia.

00:36:13.580 Putin invaded Ukraine.

00:36:14.880 But all of their invasion stopped when Trump became president.

00:36:19.500 I don't know, but I don't know if it was for fear of Trump or what.

00:36:24.760 But I don't think Hamas would have tried what it tried had Trump been in office, or at least they didn't try it.

00:36:33.380 I think a lot of things were frozen simply out of fear that Donald Trump was unpredictable and that he was the –

00:36:40.720 I mean, even his use of Twitter, which was mocked on late-night comedy shows, it was extremely effective.

00:36:47.240 Like in a single tweet, he basically smashed down Mahmoud Abbas, if I'm recalling who it was, the Palestinian leader,

00:36:54.680 and basically said, we're not dealing with you anymore.

00:36:56.260 In a single tweet, he cut through an ocean of diplomatic legalese, and he just said –

00:37:03.340 he basically said, you're out.

00:37:04.660 In a single tweet.

00:37:05.500 His tweets to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, Donald Trump's wildness, his unpredictability,

00:37:13.000 I think it scared a lot of bad guys, and some of them he scared straight.

00:37:18.200 I mean, he negotiated the unthinkable Abraham Accords amongst former enemies. 0.93

00:37:22.960 What do you think the world expects from America in November?

00:37:29.820 Do you think they're expecting Trump to win again so they're going to get as much dirty deeds done before he's elected?

00:37:36.600 Do you think they're trying to undermine him in some way?

00:37:39.600 Do you think they believe Kamala Harris will win?

00:37:43.500 What does the world think about Trump, especially places like Iran, Qatar, the terrorist groups, China, Russia?

00:37:50.100 What do you think – I think Trump will solve a lot of these problems, but maybe that's me just so desperate for some sort of savior here.

00:37:57.520 What do you think of Trump and his prospects and how that might change the world?

00:38:02.780 Well, the one-word summary of what you just said about Trump is a cowboy.

00:38:09.480 He is the American cowboy, unpredictable, going off in his own direction, trusting his instinct, ignoring sage advice.

00:38:20.060 And, of course, Joe Biden is the opposite.

00:38:22.260 How many decades was he at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, the chairman of it, in all sorts of positions and very much a product of the establishment, someone who relies on AIDS, who relies on expertise, couldn't be more opposite.

00:38:41.980 And in some ways, I think this is to Biden's credit.

00:38:49.200 I'm not entirely a fan of Mr. Trump's.

00:38:52.220 I think, for example, in an area – on a topic like Ukraine, Biden, with all this expertise, has done pretty much the right thing.

00:39:02.480 And I don't know if Trump would have.

00:39:06.300 And I don't know if Putin wouldn't have invaded.

00:39:09.020 But overall, I agree with you.

00:39:11.420 It's better to have a cowboy in the White House than a bureaucrat. 1.00

00:39:14.620 And while the opponents and enemies of the United States would rather have a bureaucrat, so would many of the allies.

00:39:25.400 NATO allies, for example, would much rather have Biden than – or now Harris – than Trump.

00:39:31.600 So overall, I'd say the world, friendly and unfriendly to the United States, would rather have a Democrat than Trump.

00:39:40.700 They will be discomfited in a variety of ways, should it be Trump, whether it be the North Koreans, the Russians, the Chinese, or the Germans and the French and the English and the Canadians.

00:39:53.000 That's predictable.

00:39:54.860 Yeah.

00:39:55.220 Well, that's very interesting.

00:39:56.540 And that's coming up quicker than we think.

00:39:57.820 It's August already.

00:39:58.560 September, October, November, just really – it's probably not even 90 days I'd have to do the math.

00:40:05.260 That's coming up extremely quickly.

00:40:07.080 Well, listen, it's great to catch up with you.

00:40:08.720 And we did sort of around the world in half an hour.

00:40:11.880 Thank you for that, for being generous with your time and your expertise.

00:40:14.640 And we'll look forward to keeping in touch.

00:40:17.420 I enjoyed it as well.

00:40:18.360 Thank you for the invitation.

00:40:19.500 All right.

00:40:19.820 There you have it.

00:40:20.300 Dr. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum.

00:40:22.540 That's our show for today.

00:40:24.060 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

00:40:27.800 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:40:29.700 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - August 23, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Iran is trying to start a new world order

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript