TRIGGERnometry - Israel vs Iran - Matthew Syed

00:00:00.000 So why do I say that the regime in Tehran is not subject to that mutually assured destruction doctrine?

00:00:10.180 The reason is because they're religious fanatics.

00:00:12.520 And, moreover, they glorify martyrdom.

00:00:16.580 I was 10 years old when the Iraq-Iran war ignited.

00:00:21.820 And a lot of people don't seem to know about the 20,000 child martyrs

00:00:26.900 who are indoctrinated to walk and sometimes run into minefields and up against machine gun fire

00:00:33.260 to clear a path for the adult military coming in behind. 0.77

00:00:38.480 How is flattening Gaza making Israel more safe when the funders are in Tehran, hundreds of miles away? 0.92

00:00:45.500 The most important thing, I think, for Israel is to isolate Iran, the head of the state. 1.00

00:00:52.340 If they got a nuclear weapon, it is likely they would use it.

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00:01:28.140 Matthew Saeed, welcome back to Trigonometry.

00:01:30.600 You were on only a couple of months ago.

00:01:32.560 We had a great conversation.

00:01:34.300 But you since wrote an article in which you talked about the fact that as a friend of Israel,

00:01:39.700 you were becoming very concerned that what they were doing in Gaza had gone too far, effectively.

00:01:45.180 We invited you on to talk about that.

00:01:47.640 But in the meantime, Israel has also attacked Iran.

00:01:50.380 And then you wrote an article saying, basically, this is the right thing for Israel to be doing, 0.83

00:01:55.020 which I imagine is a fairly uncommon position.

00:01:58.000 People seem to treat Israel and Palestine and other things as kind of like a football match.

00:02:03.520 You know, their team can do no wrong.

00:02:05.320 The other team can do no good.

00:02:07.000 But you've actually got a nuanced perspective on it.

00:02:09.060 So it's great to have you back.

00:02:10.160 Welcome back.

00:02:11.220 Thanks for having me.

00:02:11.900 So break all of that down for us.

00:02:13.360 You know, why did you write the first article?

00:02:14.800 Why did you write the second one?

00:02:15.640 And we'll have a good discussion about it.

00:02:17.120 Well, thanks for having me back.

00:02:18.780 I really enjoyed the last one.

00:02:20.160 I was shocked at the number of people who came up to me in the weeks after saying that they'd seen it and enjoyed it.

00:02:25.860 So it's great to be back.

00:02:28.120 Let's perhaps start with Iran, which I think it's worth saying is not a regime that is likely to be subject to the doctrine of nuclear deterrence.

00:02:43.820 The doctrine of mutually assured destruction is what prevents people with nuclear bombs from initiating a first strike because they worry that in the counter-strike they will be eliminated.

00:02:56.180 So it's a very strong doctrine that even though there are nuclear weapons in the world, we have not yet, thankfully, be subject to a nuclear holocaust.

00:03:06.620 And it's worth saying that even a relatively small nuclear conflict, like between Pakistan and India, which almost flared up recently, would not be localized.

00:03:15.840 It would lead to a nuclear winter that would affect farming around the world and could kill hundreds of millions.

00:03:22.020 We don't think enough about that risk.

00:03:25.140 So why do I say that the regime in Tehran is not subject to that mutually assured destruction doctrine?

00:03:33.560 The reason is because they're religious fanatics.

00:03:35.840 They believe that they have absolute truth, many of them in the regime, and that anyone who disagrees with them by implication are infidels. 1.00

00:03:43.640 They believe that if they can take out infidels, they will go through a door into heaven and be blessed for eternity. 1.00

00:03:55.200 I might have mentioned in the previous podcast that my father was born as a Shia Muslim. 0.96

00:04:01.160 Most of his family are moderates, as are many Muslims around the world, but there are a few that are fundamentalists and believed that my father was an apostate and that he deserved to die.

00:04:12.400 I've looked people like this in the eyes, and I know that they are implacable.

00:04:16.860 In those circumstances, in fact, one other bit of context, if I may briefly, I was 10 years old when the Iraq-Iran war ignited, and for obvious reasons, I took quite a deep interest in that war.

00:04:30.480 And a lot of people don't seem to know about the 20,000 child martyrs who were indoctrinated by the fanatics and the clerics who took over after the 79 revolution to believe that the greatest duty they could perform for Allah was to walk and sometimes run into minefields and up against machine gun fire to clear a path for the adult military coming in behind.

00:04:56.780 And they died, their limbs strewn across battlefields, and they were then glorified in government propaganda, held up as icons of the revolution.

00:05:07.540 And young people, and I've got 11 and 12-year-old children, are so influenceable, impressionable.

00:05:15.580 And the fact that the people who are supposed to protect them indoctrinated them into what is effectively a death cult seems to me very good evidence.

00:05:24.140 In addition to all the more contemporaneous stuff, the repression of women, the killing of people who are homosexual, the funding of genocidal proxies that are committed to the elimination of Israel, tells me that if they got a nuclear weapon, it is likely they would use it. 0.72

00:05:41.560 Let's not forget Ahmadinejad said that Israel was a scourge that should be wiped from the pages of history.

00:05:47.060 The supreme leader called it a cancer, and I could envision an ageing fanatical leader initiating a first strike and then looking at the radar screen and seeing the inevitable response in which that person would die in thinking, I am closer to Allah.

00:06:03.880 I don't think that's true of Vladimir Putin. I don't think Putin is prepared to die for his ideology.

00:06:12.740 He's a venal corrupt leader of the old school. He's worth billions. He had a Black Sea palace. He's got a young girlfriend. He wants to live. 0.97

00:06:22.240 I think the same is true of the North Korean leader with his harem and his looted opulence. 1.00

00:06:28.800 It is not true of religious fundamentalists who glorify martyrdom. That's a long first answer. 1.00

00:06:35.400 But that is why I think, even though I have severe reservations about what Israel has done in Gaza, very, very severe reservation. We can talk about it.

00:06:43.900 We will.

00:06:44.320 I do really want to say that when they operationalise against the regime in Iran, not the people of Iran, 70% of people in Iran hate the regime.

00:06:54.320 They've been immiserated. GDP per capita is like $4,000 compared to $50,000 plus in Israel, a progressive, capitalist, free society.

00:07:04.360 I think right-minded people should support them, given what we know about uranium enrichment.

00:07:10.120 Well, that's where I was going to go next, because I see a lot of people who haven't looked into this, or perhaps you have, making the argument that, look, this is just another regime change war.

00:07:20.600 We've heard all these arguments before. This is just like Iraq. It's WMD. They don't have a nuclear weapon.

00:07:28.120 This is just Israel using the opportunity to go after somebody they've been wanting to go after for a long time.

00:07:34.160 So what is, you know, lay out your concerns about the nuclear weapons programme?

00:07:39.740 It's categorically different. I opposed the war in Iraq. I thought Afghanistan was probably a mistake, because I don't think we had a clear idea of what would happen to either of these places after an invasion.

00:07:53.560 The CIA thought that Iraq would welcome democracy. It would become a Jeffersonian liberal state.

00:07:59.920 Not realising the deep Klan divisions in Iraq would almost certainly lead to civil war, notwithstanding the Sunni Shia divisions.

00:08:09.020 So I can understand why people are concerned, as am I and probably you, about what might happen if the regime falls in Iran.

00:08:16.460 However, the counterfactual here is nuclear weapons, potentially nine or ten nuclear devices, being held by a millenarian cult that is committed to the destruction of Israel and calls America the great Satan.

00:08:37.020 Remember what I said earlier, a nuclear war of that kind, even if it occurred between Israel and Iran, would kill hundreds of millions of people around the world.

00:08:48.380 It's why I find the American first doctrine, sensible doctrine in many ways, but you have intricate global supply chains around the world, which furnishes America with all of the material wealth that they've grown accustomed to.

00:09:01.360 They're not isolated from what will happen there, neither are they from what's happening in Ukraine, but a nuclear war would be catastrophic.

00:09:10.700 And so in those circumstances, I do think that this is different. It's an order of magnitude, two orders of magnitude different to either Iraq or Afghanistan. 0.52

00:09:21.880 But what's the evidence is what people will say, because, you know, if it's just Benjamin Netanyahu saying they're close to getting nuclear weapons, that's not persuasive to a lot of people.

00:09:30.220 Well, you will have read, I think, probably the International Atomic Agency.

00:09:33.360 I'm just getting you to say it.

00:09:34.400 No, sure, sure. I can see I'm doing all the work.

00:09:37.240 But this is, I did read it in full. It's a 20-odd page document.

00:09:41.980 And you will know that these are effectively, you know, civil servants who are paid to inspect and offer a point of view.

00:09:50.440 And obviously they have incentives too, do they not?

00:09:52.820 They don't want to miss Iran's building of a nuclear weapon and then be blamed in the future for one of the great calamities to have befallen the earth. 0.85

00:10:01.260 Neither do they want to be, if we do invade and they haven't got quite as close as we had thought with the WMD in Iraq, they don't want to be held responsible for that.

00:10:08.540 So I think you read it in full, think about what their incentives are, and then try and get a sense of what they're really trying to say.

00:10:14.640 And I invite anyone to read it, because I think they'll come to the same conclusion that I did, which is that Iran, they say, explicitly are in breach of their obligations and non-nuclear proliferation, that they have been deceiving and dissembling for a very long time, and that they can't account for some of the enriched uranium that they think Iran has made.

00:10:35.300 I think what they're telling us is that Iran, this is a big, complex country with complex terrain, I think what they're saying is they can't discount the possibility that they're reasonably close. 0.98

00:10:46.760 How we define imminent is probably quite difficult, but in those circumstances, I can certainly see why Israel, with the air defences down, with what they've done with Hezbollah, taking this opportunity to try and get rid of that threat once and for all. 0.93

00:11:01.240 Matthew, there is a clip that is doing the rounds of Tulsi Gabbard, who's head of national security under the Trump administration, on the 25th of March, addressing the Senate, saying that Iran did not have nuclear weapons.

00:11:16.800 The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khomeini has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme that he suspended in 2003.

00:11:26.500 The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorise its nuclear weapons programme.

00:11:33.840 And there'll be a lot of people going, well, that's somebody incredibly high up under the Trump administration saying that.

00:11:41.520 What's going on there?

00:11:43.120 Yeah, I did see. I did see that. But the evidence may have changed between then and now.

00:11:48.220 It's a very fast-moving situation.

00:11:52.340 I suspect what has happened is that Israel say they have intelligence.

00:11:56.940 I mean, viewers will say, well, you know, they would say that.

00:11:59.960 But remember, this is an independent group of people.

00:12:02.680 And as I say, they have incentives of the right.

00:12:04.500 It must be very difficult to write those reports, because what I've noticed over the last 48 hours is those who don't want there to be conflict to taking out sentences,

00:12:12.140 and those who think they should be taking out, I think read it as a whole and get a sense, and then weigh that up against what it would mean if this fanatical group got hold of the weapons.

00:12:22.700 And then I think the logic of what Israel is doing makes perfect sense. 0.85

00:12:26.480 Because I think another thing that people don't really understand is the Gaza situation is obviously tragic and awful, but it's a glorified proxy war. 0.77

00:12:35.400 That is a war between, effectively, Iran and Israel.

00:12:39.680 It's just Iran are funding Hamas, and they're funding Hezbollah as well, and Lebanon, in order to create this situation.

00:12:45.540 That's right.

00:12:46.000 So it could be argued that this is Israel just simply going to the source of the conflict.

00:12:50.740 Exactly. I mean, this is one of the great ironies of the Middle East, is that Iran has assembled a whole range of proxies, and its interest is in Israel fighting with them, because that diminishes Israel's strength. 0.74

00:13:07.180 It's very expensive, the Iron Dome.

00:13:08.860 When they shoot down rockets, it costs tens of thousands, a rocket that's being fired in only a few hundred dollars.

00:13:15.200 And so it's very asymmetric in terms of the financial ramifications for the two parties.

00:13:20.120 And by outsourcing all of this to the proxies, they don't care about the lives being lost in these proxies. 0.61

00:13:24.860 They don't care about innocent lives.

00:13:26.620 And I feel, to go to Constantine's very legitimate question, that Israel was playing into the hands of Iran after the October 7th atrocity, 0.69

00:13:35.340 by flattening Gaza and alienating global public opinion in a way that has really shattered Israel's reputation into a million pieces. 0.89

00:13:47.320 Do you mind if we park that and just stick with Iran for now? 0.98

00:13:49.480 I really want to have that conversation, but fully, rather.

00:13:52.020 So let's stick with Israel just for the moment. 0.81

00:13:53.620 We'll come back to it, I promise you.

00:13:54.880 So the question was always going to be, this situation was fundamentally unsustainable.

00:14:03.700 It's unsustainable to have Iran and Israel in close proximity, because Iran was going to do whatever it could in order to destabilise Israel. 0.94

00:14:14.480 And that couldn't carry on long term.

00:14:18.380 So something was always going to happen, if we're being brutally honest about the situation.

00:14:22.500 That's right.

00:14:23.720 That's right.

00:14:24.380 And there were two ways.

00:14:26.680 Well, three ways this could have been resolved.

00:14:28.580 One, Naftali Bennett, forgive me, the former Israeli prime minister.

00:14:33.840 I met a few former PMs whilst in Israel in February.

00:14:37.600 I think he was probably the most impressive of the lot.

00:14:40.580 His doctrine was you have to go after the, he called it the head of the octopus.

00:14:45.060 You have all these tentacles around the Middle East, and we're going after the tips of the tentacles. 0.98

00:14:49.980 It's doing nothing.

00:14:50.600 And the source of the problem is still in play.

00:14:54.800 And he and Barak and Olmer, all of them looked at the possibility of bombing Iran's nuclear facilities.

00:15:00.660 But they're very deep underground.

00:15:01.820 They're worried about the ramifications of the Middle East and the relationship with America, which obviously is the ultimate guarantor of Israel's security.

00:15:10.700 And they rejected it.

00:15:12.620 Bennett argued that, I don't think the analogy quite works, but I'll tell you what he said.

00:15:17.020 He said that during the Cold War, there were a number of proxy conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States.

00:15:24.640 But the United States was very sophisticated in fermenting those elements in the Warsaw Pact countries that were anti the regime.

00:15:34.600 In Poland, Czechoslovakia and beyond.

00:15:38.520 And this gradually weakened the core of the Soviet Union.

00:15:43.560 And he said that there are lots of covert things that could have been done to undermine the Iranian regime.

00:15:49.380 So, for example, they turn the Internet off when there are protests against the regime.

00:15:53.640 And that obviously takes away a lot of the fuel for agitation.

00:15:58.900 He said we can go in there and get Starlink and get it up so that people can do it.

00:16:03.460 And he had a whole range of other mechanisms that could covertly and relatively inexpensively go after the regime and that it might then fall.

00:16:11.260 And the other way, of course, is what Netanyahu is doing, which is actually going after them with a full frontal assault.

00:16:19.640 And the other is a status quo, where you hope that the time, which is the Iran nuclear deal, would deter them from going to higher levels of enrichment.

00:16:30.660 But you're right.

00:16:32.880 Two of those are not optimum.

00:16:35.240 In fact, all of them are suboptimal.

00:16:37.560 But in the real world, you have to take the best of the bad options.

00:16:40.300 And before we move on, I guess...

00:16:42.300 Well, I have some more about this as well, so you carry on.

00:16:44.440 Yeah.

00:16:44.800 Before we move on, I think it's worth asking as well, how fragile is the Iranian regime?

00:16:50.200 Because it always appears to the outside layman that these regimes are strong and powerful, and then literally overnight they tend to fall.

00:16:59.120 Is that a possibility with the Iranian regime, or is their stranglehold on power simply too strong? 0.64

00:17:04.680 It's a very interesting question.

00:17:06.120 One thing that has struck me about Western foreign policy in the post-war era, and we may have discussed this when we briefly debated the concept of diversity, is that the analysts were too monolithic.

00:17:22.260 They were almost all white, middle class, Ivy League and Oxbridge graduates, trying to make sense of nations of which they really had no idea, particularly the tribal and clan dynamics.

00:17:33.960 So Iran, forgive me, Iraq, a classic example, Afghanistan, they had no idea that you've got the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks who've been fighting for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

00:17:47.480 The animosity is absolutely vast there.

00:17:49.440 The Taliban were effectively a Pashtun organization, and that's why they recruited so many Pashtuns to what they were saying, because they could go after the Uzbeks and the Tajiks. 0.77

00:17:57.560 We didn't see any of that.

00:17:59.420 We thought the Taliban would fall and all would be okay. 0.75

00:18:02.680 With Iran, as it happens, I've spent the last 48 hours trying to drill down into the structure of Iranian society.

00:18:10.040 I don't think there's enough evidence out there.

00:18:12.080 I've not heard enough.

00:18:13.400 We do know about the – so this is the ethnic dimensions.

00:18:15.900 We know that there are ethnic minorities.

00:18:17.480 I think it's about 70% Persian and there are other ethnic groups there.

00:18:21.520 But the clan structures and some of the other things I think are worth thinking about.

00:18:26.420 On the regime itself, polling, which I think is reasonably credible, says that 70% of the people disapprove.

00:18:33.700 I think a lot of them absolutely detest the regime.

00:18:36.860 Think about it.

00:18:37.700 This is a resource-rich society with an ancient history, extraordinary civilization.

00:18:46.100 And I think I mentioned earlier, GDP per capita is $4,000.

00:18:51.460 That is shocking.

00:18:53.460 And part of the reason for that, of course, is the sanctions.

00:18:56.220 They'd much rather have sanctions than continue going for nuclear enrichment because they're fanatics, these people.

00:19:01.740 So I suspect it might be brittle.

00:19:04.560 But there is a second-order question of what replaces the power vacuum.

00:19:08.560 And we tend, I think, in the West to be optimistic that something will replace it that will be pluralistic and enlightened.

00:19:18.420 And it hasn't always turned out that way.

00:19:20.660 And I want to read much more deeply.

00:19:22.600 I would recommend you bring on somebody who is really deeply immersed in the social and ethnic structure of Iranian society.

00:19:31.780 That was what was missing in the Afghani and Iraqi invasions.

00:19:36.040 Well, we had Ali Ansari on, who was very good on that very thing, to talk about it,

00:19:41.640 when there was the potential for a revolution in Iran a while back, if you might remember.

00:19:45.200 So people can go and watch that.

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00:20:59.280 And now, back to the show.

00:21:01.960 I certainly would not consider myself an expert on this issue or the region at all,

00:21:06.120 but logically, as I'm hearing everything you're saying,

00:21:09.160 it all makes perfect sense and what Francis is saying, etc.

00:21:11.680 But that is the worry, because you could say,

00:21:15.860 well, look, the regime of fanatics, yes, they're enriching uranium.

00:21:19.420 They've got 400 kilograms of uranium at 60%,

00:21:22.780 and they're using 20% to make the 60%.

00:21:25.460 That's very worrying.

00:21:26.940 And they've got an active ballistic missile program,

00:21:30.020 which is how you deliver the nuclear weapons if you ever build them.

00:21:32.420 Like, I get all that, the fanatics.

00:21:37.120 But what happens when you get rid of them?

00:21:39.180 And this is where, perhaps, and again, as you say,

00:21:42.640 people who know more about this would be able to weigh in,

00:21:45.320 perhaps the difference is with previous conflicts,

00:21:49.300 that the Iranians had a period, an extended period of time,

00:21:54.380 when actually it was free.

00:21:56.100 It was fairly liberal, certainly by the standards of the region,

00:21:58.820 under the Shah, for 24, 25, 26 years, maybe, 0.62

00:22:02.720 from, I think, 53 to 79.

00:22:04.400 So, Iranian women are so horrified by the impositions 1.00

00:22:11.040 of the moral police on the now,

00:22:12.800 because they have no freedom.

00:22:15.360 But that is a worry, because if you ask me,

00:22:19.140 should Israel or should we, as the West,

00:22:21.920 destroy their nuclear weapons program, 0.69

00:22:23.780 sounds pretty reasonable to me.

00:22:25.900 But once you start getting into a regime change,

00:22:28.380 then you're getting into second, third, fourth order consequences

00:22:31.700 that I don't think we know a lot about.

00:22:34.380 But it would be much less bad than both the nuclear war

00:22:38.000 that could and probably would happen if they got nuclear weapons.

00:22:41.540 But the other thing that's crucial,

00:22:42.920 and I should have mentioned earlier,

00:22:44.380 is it would lead to instant proliferation.

00:22:46.940 There is no way that Saudi Arabia 1.00

00:22:48.960 would not build a nuclear program.

00:22:52.460 It would then proliferate across the Middle East 0.94

00:22:54.300 and the wider world.

00:22:56.460 It's difficult to exaggerate the existential risk

00:22:59.660 to the whole species if that happens.

00:23:02.140 I talked about a local nuclear war.

00:23:03.580 If that widens, the nuclear winter could wipe us all out.

00:23:06.860 We would not recover.

00:23:08.220 And it's not just the billions of people who would die now

00:23:10.640 that would be affected by that,

00:23:13.180 but the future human beings,

00:23:15.960 our children's children's children,

00:23:18.020 going through future history

00:23:20.140 who will not get a chance to experience the gift of life.

00:23:23.280 We must be aware of existential risk

00:23:27.420 and nuclear proliferation

00:23:29.000 would almost certainly be a powder keg

00:23:31.560 that we would never withstand.

00:23:33.120 Probably not for a decade.

00:23:35.220 Look at the flow between India and Pakistan.

00:23:37.280 Imagine if that was all across the Middle East. 0.96

00:23:39.820 Because once that starts...

00:23:40.980 I mean, look, Pakistan and India, they got there.

00:23:43.800 Israel has got there. 0.97

00:23:44.760 I regret that.

00:23:46.640 It would have been better had the technology

00:23:47.960 not been invented in some ways.

00:23:50.580 Because these are all dual use.

00:23:52.120 Nuclear fission is fantastic as an energy source,

00:23:54.680 and we need it.

00:23:55.420 And we're crazy not to have built

00:23:57.160 more nuclear fission power stations.

00:23:59.460 Fusion will be even more of a game changer

00:24:01.180 if we ever get there.

00:24:01.960 And I think probably we will.

00:24:03.860 Energy is the source of all prosperity

00:24:06.100 and life, of course.

00:24:08.720 But it can be used for devastating effect, too.

00:24:11.300 And the more countries that get it,

00:24:12.540 the more jurisdictions,

00:24:13.920 the more fingers on buttons,

00:24:15.320 the more chances of misunderstandings.

00:24:17.620 Cuba almost flared up.

00:24:18.940 We know of examples where Boris Yeltsin

00:24:21.140 was clutching a briefcase,

00:24:22.760 looking at a screen where a blip is coming across.

00:24:26.100 They think, is this a nuclear strike?

00:24:27.540 It turned out to be a Norwegian rocket

00:24:29.680 going up to the North Pole.

00:24:31.720 But he was being urged.

00:24:32.940 We know about a submarine,

00:24:34.620 a Russian submarine,

00:24:35.820 where they were going to operationalize

00:24:37.700 a nuclear weapon.

00:24:38.400 These scope for misunderstandings...

00:24:39.940 I asked one expert who put it,

00:24:42.380 about 0.5% per year risk

00:24:45.820 of something happening

00:24:47.280 that was an accident

00:24:48.620 rather than purposeful nuclear war.

00:24:50.760 But over time,

00:24:51.660 that tends to 100%.

00:24:53.200 You have 20, 30 countries

00:24:54.880 with nuclear weapons.

00:24:55.720 It's over.

00:24:56.780 So please don't think of this

00:24:58.220 in the same terms as the Iraq war.

00:24:59.680 Iraq's weapons of mass destruction 0.95

00:25:01.060 would not have done any...

00:25:02.040 This is a systemic risk

00:25:03.320 to the whole of humanity.

00:25:06.600 What do you say...

00:25:08.220 Look, as I say,

00:25:09.400 everything you're saying makes sense,

00:25:10.680 but I'm stress-testing the argument

00:25:12.160 for myself and for our viewers.

00:25:14.220 What do you say to people who...

00:25:15.820 I hear a lot of...

00:25:16.640 Like, if you open Twitter,

00:25:17.740 a lot of people are banging on

00:25:18.860 about World War III.

00:25:20.040 I don't really know what they mean

00:25:21.460 because Russia's pulled back from Iran.

00:25:23.660 China doesn't seem to be 0.96

00:25:24.680 particularly supportive.

00:25:27.140 The Middle Eastern countries

00:25:28.380 secretly all are very happy

00:25:29.760 that this nuclear program

00:25:32.220 is being destroyed in this way.

00:25:34.840 But do you see the potential

00:25:36.380 for, like, serious escalation

00:25:38.520 out of what's happening?

00:25:39.280 Well, it's a very interesting question.

00:25:40.940 The most interesting of all,

00:25:42.740 which is how this fits into

00:25:45.040 the major confrontation

00:25:47.200 of our time

00:25:48.900 and our children's time,

00:25:50.940 which is American primacy

00:25:52.400 being challenged by communist China.

00:25:55.280 Now, China is at the absolute center 0.99

00:25:58.260 of this axis of autocratic states.

00:26:01.360 with North Korea, Iran, and Russia.

00:26:05.340 They've been sharing military technology,

00:26:09.020 nuclear technology, drone production.

00:26:12.740 China buys 97% of Iranian oil.

00:26:16.500 Absolutely crucial for China still now, 0.86

00:26:19.380 even though it's building

00:26:19.940 a lot of nuclear power stations.

00:26:22.420 And I, like you, have been struck

00:26:25.100 by Russia offering words

00:26:27.660 that they will help to mediate

00:26:29.420 and other things of that kind.

00:26:31.820 But Iran really backed Russia

00:26:33.980 in the Ukraine war

00:26:35.360 with drone production

00:26:36.560 and other things.

00:26:37.940 And they cut them loose.

00:26:38.920 Russia's basically cut them loose 0.86

00:26:40.340 and said you're on your own, effectively.

00:26:41.860 I wonder whether they've cut them loose.

00:26:45.140 That's one possibility.

00:26:46.280 The other is that

00:26:47.360 the military constraints of Russia

00:26:50.600 are such

00:26:52.540 that they are so required

00:26:55.320 for the front line in Ukraine

00:26:56.960 that they don't have spare capacity

00:26:58.460 to divert to Iran.

00:26:59.760 That's another possibility.

00:27:01.240 I did see a report last week

00:27:02.800 that China had provided

00:27:03.900 a very large batch of chemicals

00:27:05.680 to Iran

00:27:07.020 that helps to transport

00:27:08.860 the ballistic missiles.

00:27:10.840 The question is,

00:27:11.960 to what extent is Xi Jinping

00:27:13.100 a gambler at this point?

00:27:16.060 There are clearly

00:27:17.300 two major confrontations

00:27:18.900 happening in the world

00:27:19.640 at the moment,

00:27:20.500 in Europe

00:27:21.300 and in the Middle East.

00:27:22.480 And it is possible

00:27:24.040 in the coming years,

00:27:27.460 possibly even in the coming months,

00:27:29.800 that Xi Jinping will think

00:27:30.920 this is the opportunity

00:27:31.680 to blockade Taiwan.

00:27:33.360 Now,

00:27:34.440 this is the fundamental

00:27:36.160 nexus

00:27:37.220 of, I think,

00:27:38.420 what will determine

00:27:39.320 the geopolitics

00:27:41.040 of our lifetime.

00:27:42.020 Taiwan, crucial, of course,

00:27:43.300 in the production

00:27:43.740 of advanced semiconductors.

00:27:45.980 Much of the future

00:27:46.620 is going to be determined

00:27:47.460 by these technologies.

00:27:48.600 You're probably aware

00:27:49.300 that China 0.93

00:27:49.780 are extremely close

00:27:51.200 to America

00:27:52.160 in this regard.

00:27:53.460 It's fascinating.

00:27:54.860 I just saw the nature index

00:27:56.600 of the top universities

00:27:58.420 by production

00:27:59.280 of high-quality output research.

00:28:02.580 America is to dominate that list. 0.86

00:28:04.560 Harvard is number one.

00:28:06.060 Nine of the other top ten

00:28:07.700 are Chinese universities.

00:28:10.760 What's the AI, LLM,

00:28:13.320 DeepSeek,

00:28:15.680 not far off,

00:28:17.040 ChatGPT4

00:28:17.960 and some of the others

00:28:18.700 that are coming out.

00:28:19.420 So I think this is

00:28:21.060 a very fundamental question.

00:28:22.760 And for me,

00:28:23.560 and let's just widen

00:28:24.440 the aperture here,

00:28:26.200 because what I think

00:28:28.340 is worrying

00:28:28.820 some of the more sophisticated

00:28:30.260 America-verse strategists

00:28:31.960 is to the extent

00:28:33.020 that America gets involved,

00:28:35.260 even more deeply involved,

00:28:36.580 say, hypothetically,

00:28:38.240 in Ukraine

00:28:39.020 and in the Middle East,

00:28:41.440 do they have the capacity

00:28:42.720 to fight on three fronts,

00:28:45.640 in three theatres?

00:28:46.820 Remember,

00:28:47.100 the Second World War

00:28:47.900 was a number of different wars

00:28:50.540 happening in parallel,

00:28:52.060 and it became a world war.

00:28:54.340 I do think that pattern

00:28:55.700 could re-emerge here.

00:28:57.980 It's not, to me, impossible.

00:29:00.540 And the fundamental,

00:29:01.300 this is probably

00:29:01.920 the most important thing of all,

00:29:03.380 I think,

00:29:03.980 for us to understand,

00:29:05.000 is the real constraint

00:29:06.000 on America

00:29:06.660 and Europe

00:29:08.700 and the free world

00:29:10.340 isn't,

00:29:12.660 as people say,

00:29:13.280 it's our military capacity.

00:29:14.500 We don't have enough munitions,

00:29:15.720 we don't have enough

00:29:16.520 warships,

00:29:19.380 we don't have enough...

00:29:20.340 Although, to be fair,

00:29:21.300 we don't.

00:29:21.860 We don't, yeah,

00:29:22.740 but let's try and drill down.

00:29:24.560 Why don't we?

00:29:25.680 Why don't we?

00:29:26.940 And the reason is

00:29:28.080 we are not willing

00:29:30.000 to take a hit

00:29:31.640 to our standard of living

00:29:33.480 to invest sufficiently

00:29:35.240 in defence.

00:29:36.960 In fact,

00:29:37.620 it's worse than that.

00:29:38.920 What we are actually doing

00:29:40.160 in order to invest in defence,

00:29:41.640 and these are small amounts,

00:29:43.640 you will have seen

00:29:44.160 Keir Starmer,

00:29:45.260 some nondescript committal

00:29:46.660 at 3% in the future,

00:29:48.080 2.3 to 2.5.

00:29:49.360 It's woefully low.

00:29:51.480 Considering where we are

00:29:52.660 in the world at the moment,

00:29:53.960 the threats that we face,

00:29:55.720 we're actually borrowing ever more

00:29:58.260 and therefore pushing the problem

00:30:00.360 to future generations

00:30:01.600 to fund our current lifestyle

00:30:03.780 because we're not prepared

00:30:04.560 to do it ourselves.

00:30:05.300 Now, that's been happening

00:30:06.340 for many years

00:30:07.120 and Donald Trump

00:30:08.140 is not a solution to this.

00:30:10.160 I'm not a fan of Elon Musk.

00:30:11.640 in many ways.

00:30:12.920 I don't like his support

00:30:14.700 for some of the far-right parties

00:30:16.020 to the right of me, certainly.

00:30:18.000 And I don't like the language

00:30:18.920 that some of those parties use.

00:30:20.820 But he was absolutely right

00:30:22.780 to describe the Big Beautiful Bill

00:30:24.720 as a disgusting abomination

00:30:26.120 because it will add trillions

00:30:27.560 to an already enormous debt.

00:30:29.560 That is what is eating us alive

00:30:31.300 and will make it difficult

00:30:32.620 to win a war,

00:30:34.280 which we want to win

00:30:35.120 because we want to defend

00:30:35.960 Western civilised values.

00:30:37.520 And there's also another part of it

00:30:39.380 that hasn't been addressed,

00:30:40.380 which is how many young people

00:30:42.140 in this country and America

00:30:43.880 are going to go out

00:30:45.280 and fight for their nation?

00:30:46.840 It's a very interesting question.

00:30:48.320 Now, I think there are two ways

00:30:50.160 to think about that.

00:30:51.580 So I wonder if that's related

00:30:53.580 to the debt.

00:30:54.440 But let's park that for a second.

00:30:56.800 The polling is not good

00:30:58.020 for the West.

00:30:59.560 And I think the reason for this

00:31:01.540 is something that you're

00:31:02.500 really interested in.

00:31:04.120 And I think I've...

00:31:05.380 It's not that I've come to it late.

00:31:06.560 I've written about it for years,

00:31:07.740 but I hadn't realised

00:31:08.380 how deep it was.

00:31:10.260 Just how anti-Western

00:31:12.400 academic institutions have become.

00:31:14.380 The march through the institutions.

00:31:16.400 The extraordinary loathing

00:31:18.500 for the history of America

00:31:20.320 and the UK.

00:31:23.020 You know, we're racist.

00:31:24.140 We're colonialists.

00:31:25.500 We only got rich

00:31:26.940 by oppressing other people.

00:31:27.860 It is, in my view,

00:31:29.120 a completely bizarre

00:31:30.320 and grotesque distortion

00:31:31.660 of what actually happened

00:31:33.520 in history.

00:31:34.480 You're not going to defend

00:31:36.220 what you don't love.

00:31:37.140 Yeah, but however,

00:31:38.060 however, did you notice

00:31:39.560 in Ukraine,

00:31:40.300 a lot of people said

00:31:41.100 they're not going to...

00:31:42.360 This is a nation

00:31:43.580 with massive corruption,

00:31:44.720 which it has very high levels

00:31:46.760 of corruption,

00:31:47.280 according to the Transparency

00:31:49.040 International Index.

00:31:51.080 There wasn't going to be a...

00:31:52.400 Putin didn't think

00:31:53.500 that people would be prepared

00:31:54.560 to fight.

00:31:54.920 And then when the invasion happened,

00:31:56.940 there was a huge mobilisation,

00:31:58.780 voluntary mobilisation

00:31:59.760 of people willing to fight.

00:32:01.740 Just before the Second World War,

00:32:03.740 I think there was...

00:32:04.560 Forgive me for interrupting again.

00:32:06.140 That's a much better argument.

00:32:07.460 And the reason...

00:32:08.100 The one you're about to make

00:32:09.420 because Ukraine's very different.

00:32:10.820 Ukraine doesn't have 0.98

00:32:11.640 this history of self-flagellation

00:32:14.020 about some past.

00:32:16.060 Ukrainians love their country.

00:32:17.680 And I know people who literally,

00:32:19.700 when the war happened,

00:32:20.460 they drove their wife and kids

00:32:21.740 to the border,

00:32:23.020 said goodbye,

00:32:23.520 and went back

00:32:24.200 and signed up.

00:32:25.860 But that's...

00:32:26.840 They haven't had that history

00:32:28.140 of demodalisation.

00:32:29.640 The argument you're about to make,

00:32:30.900 which is, you know,

00:32:32.120 the Oxford Union voted

00:32:33.280 that they wouldn't fight

00:32:34.140 for king and country

00:32:34.940 just before the Second World War.

00:32:36.700 That's a much better argument.

00:32:37.800 And it changed, didn't it?

00:32:38.740 Yeah.

00:32:39.020 On a sixpence,

00:32:39.760 once they saw

00:32:40.300 the existential threat.

00:32:41.620 And I'm kind of an optimist at heart,

00:32:44.380 but I don't want to sound

00:32:45.280 kind of pan-glossy

00:32:46.200 or unrealistic.

00:32:47.040 I think it is not impossible

00:32:48.340 that when it came to the crunch,

00:32:50.180 people would suddenly wake up.

00:32:51.520 I totally agree.

00:32:51.920 To the extraordinary blessings

00:32:53.840 we have in this country.

00:32:55.260 You know,

00:32:55.400 you're both from immigrant families,

00:32:59.240 as am I.

00:33:00.360 And I do sometimes think,

00:33:02.640 I often bump into the children

00:33:03.920 of immigrants from immigrants

00:33:04.580 who absolutely love this country

00:33:06.080 because they have

00:33:06.820 a much more visceral understanding

00:33:08.320 of what it might be like

00:33:09.740 to grow up in a country

00:33:11.500 which is tribally divided,

00:33:13.800 doesn't have a coherent

00:33:14.620 national identity,

00:33:15.720 doesn't have free speech,

00:33:17.300 doesn't have the,

00:33:18.000 you know,

00:33:18.200 we can sit here

00:33:19.000 and criticise our government.

00:33:20.340 We can start businesses.

00:33:21.660 We,

00:33:22.180 the freedom is magnificent.

00:33:24.280 You know,

00:33:24.400 I've had such a great life here

00:33:25.960 and my children

00:33:26.920 have just an unbelievable life.

00:33:29.120 You know,

00:33:29.700 you think about the history

00:33:30.540 of our species

00:33:31.320 and deaths and injuries

00:33:33.420 and war

00:33:34.460 and violence

00:33:35.320 and disease

00:33:36.300 and what we have now

00:33:37.660 with extraordinary vaccinations

00:33:39.220 and technology.

00:33:40.320 Maybe we've got too sophisticated.

00:33:42.040 Maybe we're not capable

00:33:43.080 of controlling the power

00:33:44.280 we've unleashed.

00:33:45.440 The great E.O. Wilson said

00:33:46.800 the polymath,

00:33:49.440 he was actually somebody

00:33:50.520 who was a biologist

00:33:51.280 by background,

00:33:52.020 very interested in ants,

00:33:53.500 which are a very interesting species,

00:33:55.020 of course,

00:33:55.440 because they're a social insect. 0.72

00:33:58.160 And it has some very interesting,

00:34:00.140 I think,

00:34:00.520 metaphorical significance

00:34:01.520 for humans

00:34:02.560 who are also very social.

00:34:04.920 But he said,

00:34:05.520 we have paleolithic,

00:34:07.660 emotions,

00:34:09.460 medieval institutions,

00:34:11.560 but God-like technology.

00:34:13.460 And it's reaching

00:34:14.300 a point of crisis.

00:34:15.420 At the moment,

00:34:16.360 we're seeing

00:34:16.900 some of these flare-ups.

00:34:18.080 Who knows what AI

00:34:18.960 will eventually do

00:34:20.160 as a dual-use technology,

00:34:22.540 even if it doesn't

00:34:23.260 itself turn on us,

00:34:24.920 which I think

00:34:25.600 is not completely impossible.

00:34:27.080 But we're now living

00:34:28.020 at the noontide of history.

00:34:30.000 And I do think

00:34:31.000 and I do hope

00:34:31.880 that podcasts like this,

00:34:34.660 it's an important part

00:34:35.740 of the collateral

00:34:36.500 that we have

00:34:37.080 in this country

00:34:37.660 to get across

00:34:38.420 to young people

00:34:39.040 that this is something

00:34:39.960 worth fighting for.

00:34:41.700 The blessings

00:34:42.560 that we have,

00:34:44.000 the peace

00:34:45.060 that we've enjoyed

00:34:45.720 for so long,

00:34:46.500 but we need

00:34:46.940 to deter war

00:34:47.840 and we need to spend

00:34:49.040 on our defence

00:34:49.940 to do so.

00:34:51.080 And if it does come

00:34:51.980 in extremis,

00:34:52.740 we need to be able

00:34:53.320 to fight.

00:34:54.200 And it means

00:34:54.700 us changing

00:34:55.420 our ideology

00:34:56.180 because we've been

00:34:57.020 very individualistic.

00:34:58.760 It's been all

00:34:59.340 about the self.

00:35:00.240 What can I do?

00:35:01.260 What is important

00:35:01.960 for me?

00:35:03.920 And people

00:35:05.140 criticise young people 1.00

00:35:06.220 and you can point

00:35:06.920 the finger,

00:35:07.700 but why have they

00:35:09.500 turned out

00:35:09.900 the way they have?

00:35:10.620 That is our fault

00:35:11.420 collectively

00:35:12.100 as a society.

00:35:13.660 And it's going

00:35:14.340 to take a hell 0.73

00:35:14.980 of a reframe

00:35:15.720 to get people

00:35:16.460 to look at the world

00:35:17.600 in another way.

00:35:19.060 But you know,

00:35:19.300 it's interesting there.

00:35:20.840 I agree that perhaps

00:35:22.040 individualism

00:35:23.200 is sort of shaded

00:35:23.720 into hyper-individualism,

00:35:25.360 but you might be

00:35:25.820 interested in this.

00:35:27.080 Where do you think

00:35:27.640 the highest rate

00:35:28.660 of voluntary blood

00:35:29.560 donations are?

00:35:31.180 In the world.

00:35:32.960 The US?

00:35:33.780 The West.

00:35:34.480 Yeah, yeah.

00:35:35.080 And do you know why?

00:35:36.360 Because, yes,

00:35:37.440 there's individualism.

00:35:39.440 And in a way,

00:35:40.100 that's been a really

00:35:40.940 positive thing,

00:35:42.240 that we individuals

00:35:43.200 have rights

00:35:43.940 and aspirations

00:35:44.720 that are more important

00:35:45.840 than what a patriarch

00:35:46.500 might say

00:35:47.080 or a clan member.

00:35:48.620 Clans are so oppressive.

00:35:50.540 You have to do

00:35:51.200 what the patriarch says,

00:35:52.420 marry who they tell you

00:35:53.460 to marry,

00:35:54.040 marriages are arranged.

00:35:55.140 There's no freedom.

00:35:56.720 Individualism was breaking

00:35:57.780 out of the constraints

00:35:58.720 of tribal societies.

00:36:00.200 But what it enabled

00:36:01.060 us to do

00:36:01.500 is create true

00:36:02.160 national identities,

00:36:03.720 much bigger sense

00:36:05.420 of solidarity

00:36:06.860 so that, yeah,

00:36:07.880 I'm prepared to give

00:36:08.620 my blood to a stranger

00:36:09.580 that I've never met.

00:36:10.680 That doesn't happen

00:36:11.260 in tribal societies.

00:36:12.260 They will only give it

00:36:12.960 to people within

00:36:13.540 their own clan.

00:36:14.440 They wouldn't want it

00:36:15.100 from the blood

00:36:15.900 of another clan.

00:36:17.060 It comes back

00:36:17.860 to our discussion

00:36:18.420 of cousin marriage

00:36:19.160 last time.

00:36:19.960 That's what it's

00:36:20.680 really about.

00:36:21.400 To the extent

00:36:23.280 that cousin marriage

00:36:24.040 is a proxy

00:36:24.940 for very small

00:36:26.840 allegiances.

00:36:27.540 So individualism,

00:36:28.920 there's no individualism

00:36:30.280 in these clan societies.

00:36:31.340 It's all about the clan.

00:36:32.660 But they're willing

00:36:33.220 to extort a bribe

00:36:34.420 from you outside the clan

00:36:35.640 to share with their group.

00:36:37.100 They're willing to give

00:36:37.760 jobs only to people

00:36:38.700 in the group.

00:36:39.100 Nepotism,

00:36:39.980 corruption,

00:36:40.500 all flares,

00:36:41.400 don't volunteer blood.

00:36:43.320 United Nations,

00:36:44.260 it was interesting.

00:36:45.580 Those countries

00:36:46.500 that violate,

00:36:47.680 the diplomats get immunity

00:36:49.120 from having to pay

00:36:49.960 parking ticket fines.

00:36:51.480 Those countries

00:36:52.060 from clan societies

00:36:52.960 just parked

00:36:53.640 where they wanted,

00:36:54.440 abused the society

00:36:55.280 they're living in.

00:36:55.820 They said,

00:36:56.120 you know,

00:36:56.580 why would I want to spend

00:36:57.540 for anybody else?

00:36:58.780 Can you see,

00:37:00.340 I like to think

00:37:01.280 of individualism

00:37:01.880 as a breaking out

00:37:02.800 of certain constraints

00:37:04.000 that enable us

00:37:04.620 to create a much larger

00:37:05.700 sense of social solidarity

00:37:07.260 that has benefited us

00:37:08.800 enormously,

00:37:09.920 but perhaps went too far

00:37:11.600 and also has been

00:37:13.880 undermined

00:37:14.960 by we ourselves

00:37:17.440 trying to undermine

00:37:18.860 our sense of national pride.

00:37:20.340 That to me

00:37:20.740 is one of the great

00:37:21.580 tragedies

00:37:22.340 of my lifetime.

00:37:23.440 And I hadn't realised,

00:37:24.960 that's what I meant earlier,

00:37:26.040 how insidious it's been.

00:37:27.860 I mean,

00:37:28.760 isn't it extraordinary?

00:37:30.080 I got my daughter's

00:37:31.280 reading list for history

00:37:32.480 from her school

00:37:33.420 last week

00:37:34.400 for the next academic year.

00:37:37.140 The reason I did that,

00:37:38.260 by the way,

00:37:38.640 is because I haven't

00:37:39.220 taken enough interest

00:37:40.060 in what she's learning

00:37:40.760 at school.

00:37:41.280 I suddenly thought,

00:37:41.780 hang on,

00:37:42.000 what do you think

00:37:43.260 the main topic

00:37:44.020 is next year?

00:37:44.820 Slavery and colonialism.

00:37:46.420 And I want her

00:37:48.300 to make her own mind up,

00:37:49.380 but I want to at least

00:37:50.180 give her the option 0.60

00:37:51.640 of not thinking

00:37:52.980 that we were uniquely

00:37:54.120 slavers

00:37:55.120 and to understand

00:37:56.140 that it was a UK

00:37:57.000 that really fought hard to...

00:37:58.420 I've got a book

00:37:58.980 you can get her.

00:38:00.120 Go on.

00:38:00.700 You've written on this?

00:38:02.180 An Immigrant's Love Letter 0.91

00:38:03.060 to the West.

00:38:03.500 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:04.840 There's a whole chapter

00:38:05.700 about slavery.

00:38:06.120 Okay, great.

00:38:07.240 Excellent.

00:38:07.840 Anyway,

00:38:08.300 would that be like...

00:38:09.080 Would it work for...

00:38:10.420 She's 12?

00:38:11.240 Yeah, it's written

00:38:11.980 for someone...

00:38:12.900 For young people.

00:38:13.340 Yeah.

00:38:13.720 Oh, great.

00:38:14.020 There's a lot of swearing

00:38:14.680 in it, but apart from...

00:38:15.460 It's good for 12.

00:38:17.340 It's good for...

00:38:17.980 There's not a lot of swearing,

00:38:19.880 but there's some.

00:38:20.540 Look, there's far too much agreement.

00:38:22.060 We've kind of coalesced

00:38:23.220 around stuff that we all agree on.

00:38:24.780 Let's come back to

00:38:25.900 the article I mentioned

00:38:27.260 right at the beginning,

00:38:28.080 which is Gaza,

00:38:28.940 where I suspect we may...

00:38:30.540 In stress testing

00:38:31.540 what you're saying,

00:38:32.300 there may be a bit more

00:38:33.160 frisson, so to speak.

00:38:34.640 So make the case

00:38:36.160 that Israel is,

00:38:37.980 you know,

00:38:38.240 gone too far,

00:38:38.920 doing the wrong thing,

00:38:39.740 et cetera.

00:38:41.320 So there's no doubt

00:38:42.240 Israel had to respond 0.97

00:38:44.260 to the October the 7th atrocity.

00:38:48.300 But I think

00:38:49.360 that what Iran

00:38:52.440 was seeking to achieve

00:38:53.760 with that attack

00:38:55.380 through its proxy Hamas 0.99

00:38:56.900 and the crimes

00:38:59.240 that they committed

00:38:59.960 that were heinous

00:39:01.340 and in a sense,

00:39:03.520 I don't want to diminish it,

00:39:04.540 provocative,

00:39:05.980 they were trying to goad Israel 0.89

00:39:07.420 into an overreaction.

00:39:09.780 Therefore,

00:39:10.680 to flatten Gaza, 0.99

00:39:11.860 to kill many thousands 0.99

00:39:13.160 of innocent people 0.95

00:39:14.380 because Hamas,

00:39:15.560 of course,

00:39:16.040 embed their infrastructure

00:39:17.180 in civilian populations

00:39:19.020 and by implication

00:39:20.880 to lose

00:39:23.460 what is crucial

00:39:24.840 for Israel,

00:39:27.180 which is,

00:39:28.640 if you like,

00:39:29.720 again,

00:39:30.180 I don't want to

00:39:30.720 make this sound superficial,

00:39:32.720 but the brand of Israel,

00:39:34.120 which is a liberal democracy

00:39:36.500 in the Middle East

00:39:37.740 that has grown

00:39:39.720 and developed

00:39:40.700 despite the

00:39:42.200 genocidal ambitions

00:39:43.700 of countries around it,

00:39:44.860 survived wars,

00:39:45.780 Six Day War,

00:39:46.480 Yom Kippur War,

00:39:48.120 and that sits

00:39:49.040 often unconsciously

00:39:50.440 behind Western support.

00:39:52.000 We talked about

00:39:52.580 how there's a lot

00:39:53.140 of anti-Semitism,

00:39:54.080 right,

00:39:54.240 in the universities,

00:39:54.920 but the main body

00:39:55.940 of Western opinion

00:39:56.700 is behind Israel, 0.98

00:39:57.680 has been for a long time.

00:39:59.480 I'll caveat that

00:40:00.960 amongst a certain group,

00:40:02.840 amongst young people,

00:40:04.560 you can see the polls

00:40:06.220 for yourselves,

00:40:06.800 they're very,

00:40:07.500 very pro-Palestinian.

00:40:08.380 But if you look

00:40:11.460 at the post-October the 7th

00:40:13.460 polling in America,

00:40:15.880 all demographics

00:40:16.620 except for the very young one

00:40:17.820 was pro-Israel.

00:40:18.660 But if you took the totality,

00:40:20.000 it was extremely pro-Israel.

00:40:21.140 Right, okay, fair.

00:40:21.980 And that obviously influences

00:40:23.300 American foreign policy.

00:40:25.300 And Israel wouldn't exist 0.99

00:40:26.120 without American support.

00:40:29.920 And I think the Israeli,

00:40:31.440 forgive me,

00:40:31.980 the Iranian tactic worked. 0.82

00:40:33.540 Because now you look

00:40:34.240 at polling,

00:40:35.240 and this isn't my opinion,

00:40:36.680 it has objectively been shattered.

00:40:39.980 And the image of Israel

00:40:41.760 has been shattered.

00:40:43.180 And I think part of this

00:40:44.300 is because of what

00:40:45.460 they have done in Gaza.

00:40:46.920 And part of it,

00:40:48.040 a slightly smaller part,

00:40:49.680 is the sense that

00:40:50.440 the administration there,

00:40:51.560 Netanyahu,

00:40:52.860 is a right-wing,

00:40:54.960 quite populist leader,

00:40:56.880 who wants to cling on to power

00:40:58.880 and is kept in power

00:41:00.200 by right-wing nationalist

00:41:02.380 religious fanatics

00:41:03.960 in Smotrich and Ben-Gavir.

00:41:06.640 And I think a lot of people

00:41:08.540 who are pro-Israel

00:41:09.620 suppress some of the doubts

00:41:10.740 about Netanyahu

00:41:11.580 and the coalition

00:41:12.500 because of how awful

00:41:13.620 it was on October the 7th.

00:41:15.380 And they supported,

00:41:16.340 understandably,

00:41:17.080 had a sense of national pride.

00:41:19.120 And now think,

00:41:20.140 well, hang on a second,

00:41:20.900 we are effectively

00:41:21.540 legitimating war crimes.

00:41:23.500 This may well come out

00:41:24.440 in the future.

00:41:25.420 Independent people

00:41:26.180 will describe what's

00:41:26.980 happened in Gaza

00:41:27.540 as war crimes.

00:41:28.840 What are you talking about

00:41:29.780 when you say war crimes,

00:41:30.660 specifically?

00:41:31.240 What do you mean?

00:41:31.660 Being sleep-deprived

00:41:33.900 messes with everything.

00:41:35.360 Reaction time,

00:41:36.240 memory,

00:41:36.720 decision-making,

00:41:37.680 even your emotions.

00:41:39.140 It's like walking around

00:41:40.480 legally drunk.

00:41:41.660 And the long-term effects,

00:41:43.300 just as bad as smoking.

00:41:44.900 Most people reach for melatonin.

00:41:47.120 But here's the problem.

00:41:48.640 Melatonin is a hormone.

00:41:50.340 And most supplements

00:41:51.240 give you doses

00:41:52.100 10 to 50 times higher

00:41:53.960 than your body

00:41:54.780 naturally produces.

00:41:56.260 That's why you wake up groggy.

00:41:57.700 Your sleep gets worse over time

00:41:59.680 and your body stops

00:42:00.960 making melatonin

00:42:02.020 on its own.

00:42:03.140 That's why I use

00:42:04.540 Evening Being by Verso.

00:42:06.760 It's melatonin-free

00:42:07.720 using clinically studied

00:42:09.260 ingredients

00:42:09.760 to help you fall asleep faster,

00:42:11.800 stay asleep longer,

00:42:13.220 and get more deep

00:42:14.420 and REM sleep

00:42:15.520 without messing

00:42:16.740 with your hormones.

00:42:18.560 I've been taking it myself

00:42:19.920 and honestly,

00:42:20.880 I'm falling asleep faster

00:42:22.240 and my mind

00:42:23.000 actually switches off

00:42:24.200 at night,

00:42:24.820 which used to be a battle.

00:42:26.540 Shut it.

00:42:27.180 Of course it did.

00:42:28.000 Head to V-E-R dot S-O 0.99

00:42:32.000 and use code TRIGGER

00:42:33.480 to get 15% off

00:42:35.000 your first order

00:42:35.900 or click the link

00:42:37.060 in the description.

00:42:38.360 That's V-E-R dot S-O 1.00

00:42:41.220 code TRIGGER.

00:42:43.740 The use of starvation

00:42:46.640 is a tactic of war.

00:42:51.960 It's not indiscriminate bombing,

00:42:54.120 but the bombing campaign

00:42:55.640 that has taken place

00:42:56.640 that has killed thousands

00:42:57.840 of people,

00:42:58.680 not all of them innocent. 0.96

00:43:00.120 Many of these are terrorists.

00:43:04.180 And I worry,

00:43:06.360 as somebody who's instinctively

00:43:07.720 pro-Israel,

00:43:08.840 that the next generation

00:43:10.000 of American leaders

00:43:11.640 will grow up.

00:43:12.420 You mentioned how public opinion

00:43:14.100 in that demographic,

00:43:15.620 even after October the 7th

00:43:16.920 and before the bombing campaign,

00:43:18.160 was already more pro-Israel.

00:43:20.180 Will grow up

00:43:20.680 and the images

00:43:21.620 in their minds

00:43:22.520 when they think of Israel

00:43:23.360 will not be the Holocaust, 0.88

00:43:24.720 as it is perhaps

00:43:25.600 for our generation

00:43:26.380 who learned about the Second World War.

00:43:27.540 It will be emaciated

00:43:28.440 Palestinian children, 0.53

00:43:30.100 people queuing up for food,

00:43:31.700 being gunned down.

00:43:33.560 Israel have lied, 1.00

00:43:35.040 I think it's fair to say,

00:43:35.940 from time to time.

00:43:37.680 Don't ask me

00:43:38.360 for the exact examples.

00:43:40.080 I have to.

00:43:43.600 Well, let me come back to you.

00:43:44.760 Not to catch you out,

00:43:45.820 just to substantiate.

00:43:47.300 We're covering a lot of terrain here.

00:43:49.320 I'm sure you have

00:43:50.380 a very good reason

00:43:51.540 for saying that,

00:43:52.220 but I'd like to know

00:43:53.000 what that is.

00:43:53.400 Yeah, I'll come back to you.

00:43:54.660 Okay.

00:43:54.880 Let me think.

00:43:56.760 But even if one...

00:43:58.020 So you're saying

00:43:58.680 what would be...

00:44:01.080 What would be the...

00:44:03.840 The long-term effect of this,

00:44:05.600 I think,

00:44:05.920 is going to be very negative.

00:44:07.300 I agree with you completely.

00:44:09.020 But the question that

00:44:09.880 instinctively

00:44:11.040 you then have to ask

00:44:12.100 is

00:44:12.680 what do you think

00:44:14.020 Israel should have done instead? 0.99

00:44:15.700 I think...

00:44:16.420 So what I think

00:44:17.440 Iran most feared 1.00

00:44:18.380 is a Middle East 0.96

00:44:20.740 where Israel

00:44:21.820 had already signed

00:44:22.740 the Abraham Accords.

00:44:24.240 There was a growing

00:44:25.440 rapprochement,

00:44:27.000 a growing accord

00:44:27.840 between Israel

00:44:28.700 and the Sunni world.

00:44:30.400 Saudi Arabia

00:44:31.160 at a rate of knots

00:44:34.280 faster than I anticipated

00:44:35.620 is modernizing.

00:44:37.240 The leader there,

00:44:38.120 MBS,

00:44:38.700 is very keen

00:44:39.640 on stability

00:44:40.820 in the region

00:44:41.640 because he wants to see

00:44:44.000 economic growth

00:44:44.980 diversify from fossil fuels.

00:44:47.260 And I think

00:44:47.760 what Iran most feared

00:44:48.960 was an accommodation

00:44:50.200 or rapprochement

00:44:50.920 between Israel

00:44:51.720 and Saudi Arabia

00:44:52.580 leading to the very

00:44:53.840 significant isolation

00:44:55.060 of Iran.

00:44:56.900 So let me invite you

00:44:58.200 to consider

00:44:58.700 a counterfactual.

00:45:00.160 Let's say Israel 0.97

00:45:01.180 had responded

00:45:02.080 in a more limited fashion

00:45:04.460 to the October 7th

00:45:07.360 atrocity.

00:45:07.580 Meaning what?

00:45:07.960 So let's say

00:45:08.960 if we say

00:45:10.520 what they've done

00:45:11.100 so far,

00:45:12.000 let's say 20%.

00:45:13.520 So that most people

00:45:15.100 in the world

00:45:15.660 would have said

00:45:16.120 that was completely justified.

00:45:18.140 So quite a few people

00:45:19.280 who were responsible

00:45:20.100 for October 7th

00:45:21.160 would still be alive.

00:45:22.840 Quite a few hostages

00:45:23.920 would still be

00:45:24.660 in the dungeons.

00:45:26.940 But there would be

00:45:27.860 a lot less destruction

00:45:28.940 in Gaza.

00:45:29.580 Something like that.

00:45:29.980 It wouldn't necessarily

00:45:30.860 have had more hostages.

00:45:32.840 They may have been able

00:45:33.500 to negotiate their release.

00:45:34.620 That's quite a claim.

00:45:37.500 Well, they would have

00:45:38.080 had to have released

00:45:38.740 many more prisoners

00:45:41.040 from the other side.

00:45:42.440 Oh, I see.

00:45:43.520 So Israel released 1.00

00:45:44.580 thousands of people.

00:45:45.600 Most of the hostage families

00:45:46.740 don't approve

00:45:47.860 of the attacks.

00:45:48.480 I'm not arguing

00:45:49.220 at this point.

00:45:49.940 I'm just trying to

00:45:51.060 map the picture

00:45:51.980 that you're painting

00:45:52.820 onto my head

00:45:54.080 and everyone watching.

00:45:55.160 So Israel does 0.98

00:45:56.760 a fifth of the destruction

00:45:58.600 exchanges thousands

00:46:00.600 of the Palestinians

00:46:02.460 that it holds

00:46:03.100 in its jails,

00:46:03.820 many of whom

00:46:04.520 are accused

00:46:04.980 of attacking

00:46:05.620 Israeli soldiers,

00:46:06.640 terrorism, etc.,

00:46:07.580 in exchange

00:46:08.380 for getting

00:46:08.860 more hostages out.

00:46:10.820 And statistically speaking,

00:46:13.500 quite a lot of the people,

00:46:14.960 the Sinoas

00:46:15.600 and all of these

00:46:16.480 other people,

00:46:17.020 some of them,

00:46:17.640 quite a lot of them

00:46:18.200 are still alive.

00:46:19.900 That's right.

00:46:20.740 That's right.

00:46:21.880 So that is obviously

00:46:23.580 not optimal.

00:46:24.740 It's not a great

00:46:25.660 situation to be in.

00:46:27.020 And as I said

00:46:27.900 right at the beginning,

00:46:28.620 you often have to choose

00:46:29.380 between very difficult

00:46:30.820 bad options.

00:46:31.560 The most important

00:46:33.820 thing, I think,

00:46:34.520 for Israel

00:46:35.080 is to isolate

00:46:38.340 Iran, 0.98

00:46:39.680 the head of the snakes. 0.63

00:46:40.520 I remember I wrote

00:46:41.100 this column before

00:46:41.760 the attack.

00:46:42.460 Now,

00:46:43.880 so think in your mind.

00:46:47.040 They moved towards

00:46:48.280 an accord with Saudi Arabia.

00:46:49.580 I think this was,

00:46:50.860 if not imminent,

00:46:52.320 something that could

00:46:53.100 have happened

00:46:53.600 in a reasonable

00:46:55.180 time frame.

00:46:55.880 they already have

00:46:57.660 the Abraham Accords.

00:46:59.400 Iran is now 0.99

00:47:00.000 ever more isolated.

00:47:01.900 The Hezbollah attacks

00:47:03.000 have been extraordinarily

00:47:04.420 successful.

00:47:05.660 There have been

00:47:05.960 very limited

00:47:06.700 civilian casualties.

00:47:08.500 That could have

00:47:09.420 taken place.

00:47:10.300 Fantastic.

00:47:12.720 But then they would

00:47:13.480 have had,

00:47:13.980 think of the psychology

00:47:15.160 of the world today,

00:47:16.740 if the attack

00:47:18.620 on Iran

00:47:19.140 had happened

00:47:19.780 without

00:47:21.240 that terrible

00:47:22.880 degradation

00:47:23.560 that has led

00:47:24.960 moderate

00:47:25.740 opinion,

00:47:27.980 middle England,

00:47:29.400 middle America,

00:47:30.200 to think about Israel

00:47:31.140 in a fundamentally

00:47:31.820 different way.

00:47:32.420 I think the world

00:47:33.040 would have been on side.

00:47:33.880 It would have been easier

00:47:34.740 for Europe

00:47:36.640 and America

00:47:37.420 to have come in

00:47:38.320 behind Israel.

00:47:40.220 It would have been

00:47:41.040 much better

00:47:41.740 if it had been

00:47:43.320 an Israeli leader

00:47:44.940 other than Netanyahu

00:47:45.980 encouraging the Iranian

00:47:47.300 people to rise up

00:47:48.400 against the regime.

00:47:49.940 I think that

00:47:50.900 what has happened

00:47:51.660 in Gaza,

00:47:52.240 fairly or unfairly,

00:47:53.900 you have to deal

00:47:54.520 with reality,

00:47:56.200 has undermined

00:47:57.020 the image of Israel

00:47:57.980 that is already

00:47:58.980 affecting them

00:47:59.760 and will affect them

00:48:00.960 more in the years

00:48:01.660 to come.

00:48:02.600 And I think that

00:48:03.140 alternative would not

00:48:04.440 have been ideal.

00:48:05.160 You're right,

00:48:05.600 Sinwar would have 0.99

00:48:06.080 been there.

00:48:07.720 The other thing,

00:48:09.240 I've missed the most

00:48:10.280 important thing of all.

00:48:12.820 I've been told

00:48:13.640 by very senior people

00:48:15.040 that Hamas 0.99

00:48:17.040 and other terrorist

00:48:18.940 groups are replacing

00:48:20.060 lost fighters

00:48:20.940 at a rate of

00:48:22.020 five to one.

00:48:23.560 They're being radicalised.

00:48:25.480 Young people

00:48:26.140 whose parents

00:48:27.140 have been killed,

00:48:27.700 whose siblings

00:48:28.140 have been killed,

00:48:29.260 others around the Middle East

00:48:30.260 watching what's been

00:48:31.180 visited upon Gaza.

00:48:33.020 Pictures daily,

00:48:34.420 images

00:48:34.720 of starvation

00:48:36.720 and death

00:48:38.140 and destruction,

00:48:39.520 that is also

00:48:40.560 going to lead

00:48:41.160 and fuel terrorism.

00:48:43.020 Not for the next year

00:48:44.320 or five years,

00:48:45.020 for the next 50 years.

00:48:47.280 Winning hearts

00:48:48.040 in minds

00:48:48.720 is not an

00:48:49.800 insignificant

00:48:50.660 or soft approach

00:48:52.060 in a situation

00:48:53.240 like this.

00:48:54.240 So doing something

00:48:55.100 that had been

00:48:56.400 less graphic

00:48:57.220 I think would have

00:48:58.780 been better

00:48:59.180 in so many

00:49:00.520 different ways

00:49:01.160 for Israel.

00:49:02.660 Well,

00:49:03.060 let me just

00:49:03.900 see if

00:49:05.200 we can stress

00:49:06.500 test that

00:49:07.000 just for the sake

00:49:07.640 of the fact

00:49:08.180 that I'm not clear

00:49:09.440 in my head

00:49:09.800 what I think

00:49:10.240 about it,

00:49:10.600 genuinely.

00:49:11.480 And a lot of people

00:49:12.420 have a different

00:49:13.460 perspective to the one

00:49:14.320 you just laid out

00:49:15.180 and I just want to

00:49:15.920 find out if we can

00:49:16.780 discuss it.

00:49:18.020 So when I think

00:49:20.320 about it,

00:49:20.800 the first thing

00:49:21.500 I see is

00:49:22.540 that I think

00:49:24.420 this is the first

00:49:25.680 war of this kind,

00:49:28.080 highly urban

00:49:29.020 combat,

00:49:30.380 very asymmetrical

00:49:31.800 in that you have

00:49:33.400 terrorists

00:49:34.180 who don't wear 0.84

00:49:34.780 uniforms,

00:49:35.840 they don't identify

00:49:36.760 themselves as

00:49:37.600 enemies,

00:49:38.560 which an army

00:49:39.480 is supposed to do

00:49:40.480 under the laws of war,

00:49:41.860 hiding under

00:49:42.640 civilian buildings

00:49:43.940 in tunnels,

00:49:45.000 and you've got

00:49:46.640 smartphones.

00:49:47.720 So every time

00:49:48.600 Israel tries to 0.99

00:49:49.380 take somebody out

00:49:50.300 under a civilian

00:49:51.840 building,

00:49:52.880 like this recent

00:49:54.220 guy,

00:49:54.580 he was also called

00:49:55.480 Sinwa,

00:49:55.920 I think,

00:49:56.180 but he had a

00:49:56.900 different first name,

00:49:57.980 he was killed

00:49:58.820 underneath a

00:50:00.100 hospital,

00:50:00.960 right?

00:50:01.500 So every time

00:50:02.280 that happens,

00:50:02.760 you've got

00:50:03.040 smartphone footage

00:50:04.440 and that is,

00:50:05.920 as you say,

00:50:06.540 is causing lots

00:50:07.540 and lots of people

00:50:08.120 around the world

00:50:08.640 to think that

00:50:09.100 what's happening

00:50:09.560 is terrible

00:50:09.960 because,

00:50:11.080 undeniably,

00:50:12.280 at a human level,

00:50:13.660 what is happening

00:50:14.260 is terrible.

00:50:15.300 There's just no way

00:50:16.040 of describing

00:50:17.220 it in any other way.

00:50:18.580 But then I go,

00:50:19.300 okay,

00:50:20.500 let's think about

00:50:21.400 this and contextualize

00:50:22.580 it with previous

00:50:23.200 conflicts.

00:50:24.560 What did we do

00:50:25.560 to Germany

00:50:26.260 at the end

00:50:27.660 of World War II

00:50:28.460 and why did we do it?

00:50:29.740 Well,

00:50:30.460 there was a Russian

00:50:31.900 scientist and historian

00:50:33.280 who did analysis.

00:50:34.420 Basically,

00:50:34.860 in conventional

00:50:35.380 munitions,

00:50:36.500 the Allies

00:50:37.020 dropped the equivalent

00:50:37.760 of two Hiroshima

00:50:38.580 a week

00:50:39.160 on Germany,

00:50:40.500 flattened,

00:50:41.000 I think,

00:50:41.200 over 80 cities,

00:50:42.780 600,000 civilians

00:50:44.120 killed,

00:50:44.480 I think,

00:50:44.760 in the last year

00:50:45.360 alone,

00:50:45.620 something like that.

00:50:46.280 Don't quote me on it.

00:50:47.440 If we'd had

00:50:48.060 smartphones then,

00:50:49.900 you would have

00:50:51.700 exactly the same

00:50:52.420 conversation.

00:50:53.320 Let me test your argument.

00:50:54.700 Hold on.

00:50:55.300 No,

00:50:55.500 I get it,

00:50:55.960 I get it,

00:50:56.420 but I don't think

00:50:56.900 it's,

00:50:57.120 I think it's,

00:50:57.880 if I may say so,

00:50:58.840 not relevant.

00:51:00.500 Okay,

00:51:00.700 tell me why.

00:51:01.480 So,

00:51:01.960 let me ask you,

00:51:03.160 how is

00:51:04.000 flattening Gaza 1.00

00:51:05.160 making Israel 0.77

00:51:06.860 more safe

00:51:07.580 when the funders

00:51:09.840 are in Tehran,

00:51:10.820 hundreds of miles

00:51:11.460 away?

00:51:12.520 Question one.

00:51:13.560 Question two,

00:51:14.520 if you agree

00:51:15.120 with senior

00:51:15.940 people,

00:51:17.540 and actually,

00:51:18.500 it's just obvious

00:51:19.400 that the number

00:51:21.060 of people

00:51:21.520 who are going

00:51:21.820 to turn

00:51:22.220 to extremist

00:51:23.120 movements

00:51:23.760 are going

00:51:24.320 to be high,

00:51:24.960 given what's

00:51:25.360 happening,

00:51:25.720 how is that

00:51:26.080 going to make

00:51:26.440 Israel safer? 0.53

00:51:27.140 Well,

00:51:27.340 I think if you

00:51:28.100 take the World

00:51:28.820 War II example,

00:51:29.920 I think you

00:51:30.900 could make the

00:51:31.940 same argument.

00:51:32.520 You could say,

00:51:32.980 look,

00:51:33.320 Germans seeing

00:51:34.460 their cities

00:51:34.980 flattened,

00:51:35.500 they're being

00:51:35.760 radicalised to

00:51:36.500 continue fighting,

00:51:37.120 which they were.

00:51:37.900 They absolutely

00:51:38.560 were.

00:51:39.280 And Hitler's 0.97

00:51:39.800 propaganda made

00:51:40.760 heavy use of

00:51:41.540 this.

00:51:41.780 They were saying,

00:51:42.220 look,

00:51:42.500 what they want

00:51:43.260 is the end

00:51:43.760 of Germany.

00:51:44.820 And he was

00:51:45.280 using this in

00:51:45.960 order to cling

00:51:46.520 on to power.

00:51:47.400 But they're

00:51:47.720 trying to beat

00:51:48.140 Germany.

00:51:48.960 Right.

00:51:49.680 And Israel's 0.90

00:51:50.540 trying to beat

00:51:50.900 Hamas. 0.73

00:51:51.880 They're trying

00:51:52.440 to beat

00:51:52.700 extremist,

00:51:54.060 anti-Zionist

00:51:54.940 Islamism.

00:51:56.540 Including Hamas,

00:51:57.720 right?

00:51:57.940 Sure,

00:51:58.080 sure,

00:51:58.320 but Hamas is

00:51:59.600 a tiny...

00:51:59.880 One of the

00:52:00.200 reasons they've

00:52:00.680 been able to

00:52:01.220 attack Iran, 1.00

00:52:02.300 people will say,

00:52:02.920 again,

00:52:03.280 we're just

00:52:03.660 having this

00:52:04.060 debate to

00:52:04.820 understand the

00:52:05.360 arguments.

00:52:06.140 The reason

00:52:06.540 Israel is

00:52:07.240 taking the

00:52:07.860 opportunity to

00:52:08.740 take out the

00:52:09.360 nuclear facilities

00:52:10.160 is they've

00:52:11.160 decapitated

00:52:12.120 Hamas and 0.77

00:52:12.780 decapitated

00:52:13.380 Hezbollah.

00:52:14.180 And prior to

00:52:14.800 that,

00:52:15.000 they couldn't

00:52:15.420 attack Iran 0.99

00:52:16.480 and feel that

00:52:17.260 they wouldn't

00:52:17.700 be attacked

00:52:18.140 themselves.

00:52:18.600 I don't think

00:52:18.920 that's true.

00:52:19.600 I think that

00:52:20.020 they were

00:52:20.440 worried about

00:52:20.940 Hezbollah,

00:52:22.060 a truly

00:52:22.860 formidable,

00:52:23.940 we thought,

00:52:24.440 fighting force

00:52:25.380 with lots

00:52:26.880 and lots of

00:52:27.360 rockets.

00:52:28.440 Hamas was 0.86

00:52:29.180 not a

00:52:30.180 deterrent for

00:52:31.200 attacking Iran. 0.60

00:52:32.140 So I don't

00:52:33.200 see that

00:52:33.680 taking out

00:52:34.600 Hamas,

00:52:35.420 and besides,

00:52:36.260 they haven't

00:52:36.560 taken them

00:52:36.960 all out,

00:52:37.600 as we've

00:52:38.300 agreed.

00:52:39.200 And in

00:52:40.440 Germany,

00:52:41.140 they're trying

00:52:41.620 to defeat

00:52:42.180 a nation.

00:52:44.100 That was

00:52:44.440 not an

00:52:44.740 ideology.

00:52:45.520 Nazism wasn't 0.99

00:52:46.340 rising and all

00:52:47.020 sorts of

00:52:47.340 other people

00:52:47.860 in other

00:52:48.560 places around

00:52:49.200 the world

00:52:49.500 in sympathy

00:52:50.040 with the

00:52:50.520 people who

00:52:50.860 just committed

00:52:51.340 the Holocaust. 0.58

00:52:52.580 They believed

00:52:53.380 correctly that

00:52:54.800 they could

00:52:55.160 beat Germany 0.58

00:52:55.840 and overcome

00:52:56.980 the threat

00:52:57.440 of Nazism.

00:52:58.520 That is not

00:52:59.200 at all like

00:53:00.000 Islamic

00:53:00.380 fundamentalism.

00:53:01.220 Because?

00:53:02.520 Because it's

00:53:03.100 an ideology

00:53:03.540 that crosses

00:53:04.020 national borders.

00:53:05.080 So did

00:53:05.520 fascism.

00:53:06.540 I mean,

00:53:06.900 fascism was

00:53:07.500 rife across

00:53:08.540 Europe.

00:53:09.040 Yeah,

00:53:09.240 but come on.

00:53:11.240 I hope you'll

00:53:12.940 acknowledge that

00:53:13.540 it's completely

00:53:14.560 different.

00:53:15.800 German

00:53:16.140 Nazism, 0.93

00:53:17.080 which was

00:53:17.540 explicitly an

00:53:18.520 ideology for

00:53:19.720 a new Reich 0.93

00:53:20.440 based on

00:53:21.400 German ethnic

00:53:22.120 superiority,

00:53:23.080 the Aryan race,

00:53:24.020 that was not

00:53:24.720 a growing trend

00:53:25.720 in other parts

00:53:26.380 of the world,

00:53:26.780 nor was it

00:53:27.200 supposed to be.

00:53:28.000 No,

00:53:28.280 no,

00:53:28.400 hold on a

00:53:28.940 second.

00:53:29.140 One of the

00:53:31.640 divisions that

00:53:32.300 was defending

00:53:32.960 the Reichstag

00:53:33.740 in the last

00:53:34.360 day of the

00:53:34.760 Reich was

00:53:35.240 S.S.

00:53:35.700 Charlemagne,

00:53:36.200 which was

00:53:36.460 full of

00:53:36.820 French Nazis. 0.86

00:53:38.820 Fascism was

00:53:39.540 widespread across

00:53:41.080 Eastern Europe,

00:53:42.280 Southern Europe,

00:53:43.120 Central Europe,

00:53:43.840 and Western

00:53:44.380 Europe at that

00:53:45.020 time.

00:53:45.660 They weren't

00:53:46.180 even that good.

00:53:46.820 I mean,

00:53:47.080 if you look at

00:53:47.620 Italy,

00:53:48.440 Germany,

00:53:49.040 and Japan,

00:53:49.820 they were

00:53:50.460 hardly an axis.

00:53:51.480 They loathed

00:53:52.300 each other.

00:53:52.780 They didn't

00:53:53.100 coordinate effectively.

00:53:54.120 If they had

00:53:54.640 it done,

00:53:54.940 they might have

00:53:55.300 won the war.

00:53:55.900 I mean,

00:53:56.860 these religious

00:53:57.820 fanatics, 0.83

00:53:58.480 ISIS, 0.83

00:53:59.260 the Muslim

00:53:59.680 Brotherhood,

00:54:00.760 Hezbollah,

00:54:01.120 they're all

00:54:01.440 interchangeable.

00:54:02.580 They all hate

00:54:03.380 the West.

00:54:04.240 They hate

00:54:04.600 infidels.

00:54:05.400 They believe

00:54:05.820 that they'll

00:54:06.160 go to heaven.

00:54:06.820 They want a

00:54:07.140 caliphate that 0.95

00:54:08.340 crosses national.

00:54:09.240 One of the

00:54:09.640 reasons that a

00:54:11.620 very famous

00:54:12.320 fundamentalist

00:54:13.360 doctrine was

00:54:14.480 written a few

00:54:15.100 years ago,

00:54:15.600 that they wanted

00:54:16.380 war in the

00:54:17.500 Middle East so 1.00

00:54:18.120 that it would

00:54:18.460 leave a vacuum

00:54:19.180 that could,

00:54:19.840 as it were,

00:54:20.720 create a

00:54:21.940 cross-border

00:54:22.600 caliphate.

00:54:23.340 I think you're

00:54:24.460 underestimating

00:54:25.580 the fact that

00:54:27.520 this is a

00:54:28.500 virus that

00:54:29.640 can travel

00:54:30.280 very widely

00:54:31.360 around the

00:54:32.020 world,

00:54:32.220 even into

00:54:32.720 Western nations,

00:54:34.080 and that to

00:54:34.500 the extent that

00:54:35.160 Israel has 1.00

00:54:35.720 bombed Gaza

00:54:36.400 to a pulp,

00:54:37.380 it has made

00:54:37.800 it much more

00:54:38.540 like, I hate

00:54:39.660 to say it,

00:54:40.140 but mark my

00:54:40.640 words,

00:54:41.720 terrorism of

00:54:43.000 that kind

00:54:43.700 will grow

00:54:44.520 over the

00:54:45.380 course of our

00:54:45.900 lifetimes.

00:54:46.360 I'm sorry to

00:54:46.880 say it.

00:54:47.200 It will make

00:54:47.560 Israel less 0.99

00:54:48.560 safe, even if

00:54:49.400 they take out

00:54:49.980 Iran.

00:54:50.680 But taking

00:54:51.140 out Iran is 0.99

00:54:51.800 obviously the

00:54:52.240 necessary step.

00:54:52.780 Flattening

00:54:53.140 Guards has

00:54:53.440 nothing to

00:54:53.900 do with

00:54:54.220 it.

00:54:55.040 How is

00:54:55.360 that helping?

00:54:56.780 Well, the

00:54:57.540 argument, I

00:54:58.020 think, from an

00:54:58.460 Israeli perspective

00:54:59.200 would be you

00:55:00.020 cannot leave

00:55:00.740 the people who

00:55:01.360 did October

00:55:01.860 7th in

00:55:02.520 power over

00:55:04.060 the border.

00:55:04.760 Even if it

00:55:05.380 means there's

00:55:05.760 going to be

00:55:06.360 thousands more

00:55:07.860 of these people

00:55:08.420 coming after

00:55:09.020 Israel in the 0.59

00:55:09.660 years to

00:55:09.960 come.

00:55:10.100 As the

00:55:10.920 security

00:55:11.260 services...

00:55:12.240 Look, I'm

00:55:13.600 not saying this

00:55:14.400 is the right

00:55:14.860 argument, I'm

00:55:15.400 just trying to

00:55:15.900 understand it.

00:55:16.720 But I do

00:55:17.560 think it's

00:55:17.920 worth bearing

00:55:18.560 in mind that

00:55:19.580 in 20,

00:55:20.220 30 years'

00:55:20.660 time, the

00:55:22.600 fundamentalists

00:55:23.460 and fanatics

00:55:24.160 are, in a

00:55:25.800 certain sense, 0.99

00:55:27.100 psychopaths. 0.99

00:55:28.540 But they're

00:55:29.320 also, in a

00:55:29.880 certain sense,

00:55:30.520 strategic.

00:55:31.580 You can see

00:55:32.240 that these are

00:55:32.760 not...

00:55:33.460 I think the

00:55:34.640 Iranian regime

00:55:35.560 have been

00:55:36.140 playing quite a

00:55:36.780 long game.

00:55:37.680 I think they

00:55:38.360 signed that

00:55:38.900 deal.

00:55:40.140 They were

00:55:40.660 obviously

00:55:41.600 deceiving the

00:55:42.320 inspectors.

00:55:43.420 And I think

00:55:43.920 they want

00:55:44.380 Israel to

00:55:45.000 eventually be 0.98

00:55:45.740 eliminated.

00:55:46.700 And I think

00:55:47.840 they want the

00:55:49.180 image of Israel

00:55:49.940 to be destroyed. 0.68

00:55:51.100 I think the 0.95

00:55:51.780 image of Israel

00:55:52.860 has been

00:55:54.080 disastrously

00:55:56.780 contaminated.

00:55:57.720 I think it's a

00:55:58.260 great country.

00:55:59.860 But I talk to

00:56:00.500 people who are,

00:56:02.000 like me,

00:56:02.720 pro-Israel,

00:56:03.260 and they just

00:56:03.980 think this has

00:56:04.600 been a complete

00:56:05.260 disaster.

00:56:05.800 And I think

00:56:06.620 we have to

00:56:07.060 reckon with that.

00:56:08.140 I agree with

00:56:08.480 that.

00:56:09.160 That's certainly

00:56:09.860 been the case.

00:56:10.560 The question

00:56:11.040 that I'm trying

00:56:11.820 to answer in

00:56:12.220 my head is,

00:56:13.180 were there

00:56:13.440 better options

00:56:14.120 available?

00:56:14.720 And what you're

00:56:15.600 saying is,

00:56:16.400 well, you leave

00:56:16.980 Hamas in power, 1.00

00:56:18.560 you give away

00:56:19.660 thousands and

00:56:20.620 thousands of

00:56:21.420 many of these

00:56:22.600 people who are

00:56:23.300 in Israeli jails

00:56:24.340 are actual

00:56:24.820 terrorists, 0.70

00:56:25.540 like the people

00:56:26.500 who committed

00:56:26.980 October the 7th.

00:56:27.920 Sinwar was 0.82

00:56:28.640 released from

00:56:29.780 an Israeli prison

00:56:30.500 and then organised

00:56:31.340 October the 7th.

00:56:32.480 Well, I mean,

00:56:33.420 there are some

00:56:33.940 hostage, as I

00:56:34.600 understand it,

00:56:35.200 some hostage

00:56:35.700 families who

00:56:36.160 said, no,

00:56:36.540 we must not

00:56:37.020 do deals

00:56:37.700 because it

00:56:38.160 will just

00:56:38.440 mean future

00:56:38.960 families.

00:56:41.260 So there was

00:56:42.340 obviously a

00:56:42.800 tension in

00:56:43.580 Israel's objectives 0.89

00:56:44.440 here, to win

00:56:45.020 the war and

00:56:45.540 to release

00:56:45.860 the hostages.

00:56:46.520 There was a

00:56:46.820 slight problem

00:56:47.360 there.

00:56:47.880 But I think

00:56:50.780 that counter

00:56:51.200 factor is an

00:56:51.700 extraordinary

00:56:52.020 one.

00:56:52.540 Yes, it's

00:56:53.040 a proportionate,

00:56:53.900 proportionate

00:56:54.440 is the wrong

00:56:55.020 words, maybe

00:56:56.440 a more limited

00:56:57.940 response going

00:56:59.520 really powerfully

00:57:00.720 for an accord

00:57:01.260 with Saudi

00:57:01.800 Arabia, the 0.54

00:57:02.860 isolation of

00:57:03.520 Iran, try 1.00

00:57:04.040 and knock

00:57:04.420 out Hezbollah 0.99

00:57:05.120 and either

00:57:06.080 destabilise the

00:57:07.180 regime, Naftali

00:57:08.220 Bennett, or go

00:57:09.180 after the regime

00:57:09.960 directly, Netanyahu.

00:57:11.700 I think that the

00:57:12.720 whole picture of

00:57:14.900 the Middle East

00:57:15.400 and the wider

00:57:15.800 world would have

00:57:16.300 been different.

00:57:17.540 I think the

00:57:18.100 problem is as

00:57:18.800 well, it goes

00:57:19.880 back to an

00:57:20.500 earlier point that

00:57:21.460 we, on the

00:57:22.580 Israelis and the

00:57:23.620 West, are

00:57:24.560 fighting people who

00:57:26.260 do not care if

00:57:26.980 they live or die.

00:57:28.380 And not only that,

00:57:29.760 they would actually 0.92

00:57:30.420 prefer to die.

00:57:31.400 So you're

00:57:32.400 fighting a war

00:57:33.680 where they

00:57:36.600 would prefer to

00:57:37.560 die if it 0.98

00:57:38.440 meant that they 0.77

00:57:39.120 would win in

00:57:39.840 100 and 200

00:57:40.680 years' time.

00:57:42.340 That is a type

00:57:43.880 of war that we're

00:57:44.980 not accustomed to

00:57:45.780 fighting.

00:57:46.360 It's not like

00:57:46.880 fighting the

00:57:47.280 Russians.

00:57:47.660 It's not like

00:57:48.240 fighting practically

00:57:49.500 any other enemy.

00:57:51.180 And as a result,

00:57:52.320 what do you do

00:57:53.440 with that type of

00:57:54.260 enemy?

00:57:54.580 It's practically

00:57:55.220 impossible to win.

00:57:56.340 It's interesting,

00:57:57.260 isn't it?

00:57:58.780 It's difficult

00:57:59.580 sometimes to get

00:58:00.480 Westerners to

00:58:01.360 under, we talked

00:58:02.080 about this before

00:58:02.560 we came on air,

00:58:03.400 the fundamentalist

00:58:04.460 mindset.

00:58:05.980 This, one of the

00:58:07.880 great virtues, I

00:58:08.920 think, of the

00:58:09.380 Enlightenment is the

00:58:11.400 value, the beauty

00:58:12.500 of doubt.

00:58:13.700 Doubt.

00:58:14.740 That we might be

00:58:15.420 wrong.

00:58:16.360 The science, I

00:58:17.360 think, as an

00:58:18.480 institution is one

00:58:19.640 that comes up with

00:58:21.900 bold theories that

00:58:23.280 are testable and is

00:58:24.040 willing to revise

00:58:24.840 them in the light of

00:58:25.580 new information.

00:58:26.860 All scientific

00:58:27.600 theories are

00:58:28.160 provisional.

00:58:29.040 Isn't that

00:58:29.340 fantastic?

00:58:30.660 Whereas with an

00:58:31.320 ideology, I have

00:58:32.920 the truth and

00:58:34.580 nothing will change

00:58:35.340 my mind.

00:58:35.820 Evidence won't

00:58:36.520 change my mind.

00:58:37.520 You can't perform

00:58:38.060 an experiment to

00:58:38.960 show a fanatical

00:58:40.440 religious zealot

00:58:42.000 that their ideology

00:58:43.060 is wrong.

00:58:44.420 And if that is

00:58:45.020 linked, as I said

00:58:45.800 right at the

00:58:46.240 beginning, to the

00:58:46.900 glorification of

00:58:47.700 martyrdom, where

00:58:49.740 the most valuable

00:58:50.960 thing you can do 1.00

00:58:51.580 is to die, that, 1.00

00:58:54.540 as you say, is

00:58:55.300 something that's

00:58:55.780 difficult to get

00:58:56.640 the Western mind

00:58:57.340 to fully engage

00:58:58.020 with.

00:58:58.160 It's almost like

00:58:58.620 the Enlightenment

00:59:00.040 happened too long

00:59:00.900 ago.

00:59:01.280 We find it

00:59:01.680 difficult to

00:59:02.060 understand that

00:59:02.700 somebody could be

00:59:03.340 that way.

00:59:04.000 I think I have a

00:59:04.760 bit of a tenuous

00:59:05.340 sense of what it's

00:59:05.940 like, largely

00:59:06.500 because of the

00:59:09.100 fundamentalists on

00:59:10.460 my father's side of

00:59:11.260 the family.

00:59:12.160 And when you see

00:59:12.700 people who are

00:59:13.200 completely...

00:59:14.100 I like the fact

00:59:15.240 that you tested my

00:59:16.360 argument there.

00:59:16.980 I think you're

00:59:17.400 willing to revise

00:59:18.040 your opinion if you

00:59:18.800 think I've made a

00:59:19.360 good point.

00:59:19.780 I like these

00:59:21.420 conversations because

00:59:22.800 I think I would

00:59:23.340 revise mine too.

00:59:24.820 That isn't...

00:59:25.580 That isn't

00:59:28.880 something that

00:59:29.400 happens with

00:59:29.900 fatherhood.

00:59:30.020 By the way, we

00:59:30.580 should say, just in

00:59:31.440 the interest of

00:59:31.980 balance, I have

00:59:32.940 people in my

00:59:34.380 family, my family

00:59:35.120 are Christian, and

00:59:36.560 some of them are as

00:59:37.920 intractable on certain

00:59:39.360 things and would very

00:59:40.300 happily die for their

00:59:41.400 beliefs with a weapon 1.00

00:59:42.560 in their hands.

00:59:44.440 Orthodox Christians.

00:59:46.000 You know.

00:59:46.120 That's interesting.

00:59:47.640 So they believe 100%

00:59:49.160 that they have truth

00:59:50.120 through revelation, and

00:59:51.980 they'll be willing to 1.00

00:59:52.840 kill... 1.00

00:59:53.960 They'll be willing to 1.00

00:59:54.720 die themselves for

00:59:55.560 their belief.

00:59:55.800 Would they be willing

00:59:56.240 to kill others for

00:59:57.040 their belief?

00:59:57.340 If the other person

00:59:58.660 just didn't believe it, 0.51

00:59:59.700 they would kill them?

01:00:00.160 No. 0.99

01:00:00.660 No, no, no.

01:00:01.200 But if the other

01:00:01.880 person was in conflict

01:00:03.460 with them in some way

01:00:05.480 over their beliefs...

01:00:06.720 Told them that they

01:00:07.500 weren't allowed to

01:00:08.100 believe, they would

01:00:09.420 die for that?

01:00:10.180 No, no, no.

01:00:10.620 They wouldn't do

01:00:11.180 that, no.

01:00:11.780 But they would very

01:00:13.100 happily sign up to

01:00:14.420 fight in a religious

01:00:15.420 war if they were

01:00:16.100 they felt that they

01:00:16.900 were on the right

01:00:17.480 side of that

01:00:17.960 religious war.

01:00:18.600 Yeah, well, I

01:00:19.140 grew up in a kind

01:00:20.200 of evangelical

01:00:20.680 Christian tradition.

01:00:22.180 I don't think that...

01:00:23.420 But it's not the

01:00:24.360 same as fundamentalist

01:00:25.440 Islam as well,

01:00:26.160 let's be honest.

01:00:26.660 Yeah, because it's

01:00:27.420 that sense that you

01:00:28.420 can...

01:00:29.160 That it can be 0.88

01:00:30.120 legitimate to kill 0.99

01:00:31.280 infidels and a 0.99

01:00:32.400 glorious thing, even

01:00:33.680 if they're not

01:00:34.140 threatening your

01:00:34.700 religion.

01:00:36.700 There's also another

01:00:37.720 element that we

01:00:38.320 haven't looked at

01:00:39.040 here.

01:00:39.300 So my grandfather

01:00:40.020 was Venezuelan, but

01:00:40.860 he's originally from

01:00:41.580 the Middle East.

01:00:42.040 He was from Lebanon.

01:00:43.120 But he was a

01:00:43.480 Lebanese Christian.

01:00:44.860 And he was a

01:00:45.360 historian.

01:00:45.780 I remember my

01:00:46.360 mother said to

01:00:46.980 him, we're going

01:00:47.400 to go and visit

01:00:47.940 Israel.

01:00:48.820 So just give me

01:00:49.340 the chronology again.

01:00:51.140 Just explain that.

01:00:52.420 So my grandfather

01:00:53.240 was...

01:00:53.780 His family was

01:00:54.340 originally from

01:00:54.820 Lebanon.

01:00:55.260 They were

01:00:55.380 originally from

01:00:55.920 Tripoli in

01:00:56.440 Lebanon.

01:00:57.360 It's why I look

01:00:58.000 Jewish and I get

01:00:58.700 loads of

01:00:59.040 anti-Semitism

01:00:59.560 online because I

01:01:00.900 look exactly like

01:01:01.560 my grandfather with

01:01:02.560 white skin.

01:01:03.540 Now, I remember...

01:01:04.940 So he was a

01:01:05.460 historian.

01:01:06.480 And I remember my

01:01:07.240 mother saying to

01:01:07.880 him, we're going

01:01:08.360 to visit Israel.

01:01:10.000 Would you like to

01:01:10.920 come with us?

01:01:12.080 And he said the

01:01:12.860 words, as long as I

01:01:14.120 live, I will never

01:01:14.780 set foot in

01:01:15.380 Israeli soil, I

01:01:16.780 will never put

01:01:17.360 money in an

01:01:17.860 Israeli pocket, and

01:01:19.400 I will never, ever

01:01:20.780 acknowledge the

01:01:21.860 existence of that.

01:01:23.360 And then it got a bit

01:01:24.000 fruity, shall we just

01:01:24.840 say.

01:01:26.500 But underneath the

01:01:28.700 joke, there is a

01:01:29.640 very, very real

01:01:30.900 sentiment, which...

01:01:32.000 And I don't think

01:01:32.800 people in the West

01:01:33.520 understand this.

01:01:34.700 The rabid hatred and

01:01:36.680 anti-Semitism rampant

01:01:38.240 through the Arab world,

01:01:39.400 particularly the

01:01:40.040 Muslim world.

01:01:40.620 And by the way, my

01:01:41.460 grandfather was a

01:01:42.180 Lebanese Christian.

01:01:44.540 And when people say

01:01:46.300 Israel have 0.96

01:01:47.300 overreacted, I don't

01:01:49.180 think they also

01:01:50.000 understand the

01:01:51.560 existential threat

01:01:53.380 that Israel is

01:01:54.520 under day in, day

01:01:56.160 out, 24-7, every

01:01:58.080 minute of every hour.

01:01:59.100 Yeah, it's so

01:01:59.540 true.

01:01:59.960 You know, I went to

01:02:00.520 Gaza and the West 0.92

01:02:02.040 Bank in February, and

01:02:03.840 the border of Gaza, I

01:02:05.440 wasn't allowed to go

01:02:06.100 inside.

01:02:06.640 But what fascinated me

01:02:07.820 about the West

01:02:08.380 Bank is because my

01:02:11.860 name, Syed, it's an

01:02:13.960 Islamic name, it's

01:02:14.600 actually a holy

01:02:15.200 Islamic name.

01:02:17.120 And to get talking

01:02:19.260 to people, I mean, it

01:02:20.020 was a bit disingenuous

01:02:21.060 and I was slightly

01:02:21.600 uncomfortable.

01:02:22.220 I didn't tell them I

01:02:22.820 was a journalist, but I

01:02:23.520 wanted to get unvarnished

01:02:25.120 access to what they

01:02:26.260 truly thought, which

01:02:28.300 often might be

01:02:28.900 difficult for a white

01:02:29.640 journalist turning up.

01:02:30.540 They might be a bit

01:02:30.980 suspicious, are these

01:02:31.920 people trying to find

01:02:32.740 out if I'm a...

01:02:33.300 But whereas they've

01:02:33.980 got this side, here's

01:02:36.360 my driving licence, the

01:02:37.420 problem would have

01:02:37.940 been if they'd

01:02:38.480 googled my name and

01:02:39.900 seen that I'd

01:02:40.480 written some pieces

01:02:41.720 that were sympathetic

01:02:42.300 to Israel.

01:02:42.900 That could have been

01:02:43.880 quite dangerous, looking

01:02:45.100 back on it.

01:02:46.480 But I had conversation

01:02:47.740 after conversation.

01:02:49.540 And I would say that

01:02:50.740 of the 20 deep

01:02:52.360 conversations I had,

01:02:55.120 18 or 19 wanted

01:02:58.460 Israel to be 0.98

01:02:59.500 obliterated. 0.99

01:03:01.800 And genocidal set,

01:03:03.760 after one, so

01:03:04.860 polite and lovely and

01:03:06.440 conversational,

01:03:07.420 when it turned to

01:03:08.120 Israel, it got 1.00

01:03:08.980 darker.

01:03:09.560 But they assumed

01:03:10.140 I'd go along with

01:03:10.840 it.

01:03:10.980 And I'm kind of

01:03:11.440 listening and trying

01:03:13.060 to find out as much

01:03:14.260 as I can about the

01:03:14.980 way they think about

01:03:15.820 it.

01:03:16.300 And yes, it's

01:03:17.500 virulent.

01:03:19.020 And complete contempt

01:03:21.400 for a two-state

01:03:22.320 solution.

01:03:22.860 They don't want a 0.90

01:03:23.300 two-state solution.

01:03:24.900 Utter contempt for the

01:03:25.880 Palestinian Authority,

01:03:27.560 which they think is

01:03:28.260 too moderate and

01:03:29.040 corrupt.

01:03:29.720 Huge admiration, many 0.96

01:03:31.360 of them, for Hamas.

01:03:32.100 By the way, just to go

01:03:33.080 back to our earlier

01:03:33.700 one, support for Hamas

01:03:35.120 and the West Bank

01:03:35.680 has gone up and

01:03:37.460 for terrorism.

01:03:39.480 And, you know, this

01:03:40.340 is leading to a

01:03:40.960 horrible cycle of

01:03:41.800 settler violence, which 0.98

01:03:43.680 I think is going to be

01:03:44.440 made much worse by

01:03:45.460 what's happened in

01:03:46.120 Gaza.

01:03:46.760 One of the things as

01:03:47.640 well to what Francis

01:03:49.220 is saying is I

01:03:49.900 remember in my

01:03:51.760 former career as a

01:03:52.800 translator, I used to

01:03:53.700 go to a translator's 1.00

01:03:54.460 conference and there

01:03:55.080 was a lovely Egyptian

01:03:56.360 man there, great guy.

01:03:58.120 He'd always get up and

01:03:59.420 sing at the end of all

01:04:00.520 it.

01:04:00.680 He was a lovely,

01:04:01.400 lovely man,

01:04:01.720 genuinely lovely

01:04:02.480 man.

01:04:03.500 And then one day, and

01:04:04.660 I was not talking about

01:04:06.220 politics or anything at

01:04:07.200 the time, and I remember

01:04:08.320 him talking about, and

01:04:09.880 whenever the subject of

01:04:11.480 the Middle East conflict

01:04:12.600 or anything like that

01:04:13.480 came up, he always, he

01:04:15.380 would always say, well,

01:04:16.080 the Jews want this, the 0.99

01:04:17.280 Jews want that, the 0.90

01:04:18.240 Jews, and I remember

01:04:19.060 saying to him, do you

01:04:19.660 mean Jews or Israelis?

01:04:20.480 Oh yeah, Israelis. 1.00

01:04:21.820 I think the other thing

01:04:23.400 that happens in the

01:04:24.220 Middle East is there's 0.95

01:04:25.180 very little distinction

01:04:26.140 between those two

01:04:27.080 concepts.

01:04:28.140 And so the hatred of

01:04:29.500 Israel is really 1.00

01:04:30.440 projected onto the

01:04:31.460 hatred of Jews

01:04:32.200 specifically.

01:04:34.060 But don't you think

01:04:34.800 that you've got a

01:04:35.860 sort of strange,

01:04:36.740 almost parallel

01:04:37.520 phenomenon in many

01:04:39.120 Western universities?

01:04:40.780 Yes.

01:04:41.200 Yes.

01:04:41.600 I mean, I thought

01:04:42.640 someone should write

01:04:43.040 a book about it.

01:04:43.640 Anyway.

01:04:44.280 So is that in Love

01:04:45.920 Letters?

01:04:46.060 I talk about the

01:04:46.740 fact that, you know,

01:04:47.720 the West has been

01:04:48.660 corrupted.

01:04:48.940 I'll have read that

01:04:49.820 by the time it's

01:04:50.540 come on.

01:04:50.920 Excellent.

01:04:51.420 But could you read,

01:04:52.560 what would be a good

01:04:53.460 book for you to read?

01:04:54.040 Black Box Thinking.

01:04:54.900 Black Box Thinking.

01:04:55.960 Thank you.

01:04:56.480 I'll do that.

01:04:57.900 So anyway, my point is

01:04:59.500 that this is where I

01:05:02.260 think a lot of the

01:05:04.460 Israeli thinking on

01:05:05.520 this comes from.

01:05:06.480 It's like we're

01:05:06.940 surrounded by people

01:05:07.920 who want to do to us

01:05:09.720 every day what they

01:05:11.320 did on October 7th.

01:05:12.520 and you want us to go

01:05:14.240 easy on them.

01:05:15.380 But remember, draw a

01:05:16.540 distinction between the

01:05:17.300 fanatics and the

01:05:17.880 moderates.

01:05:18.240 Very important in the

01:05:19.240 Arab world.

01:05:19.380 But you said yourself.

01:05:20.400 In the West Bank.

01:05:21.480 In the West Bank.

01:05:22.260 But look at, okay,

01:05:23.320 street opinion in

01:05:25.140 Saudi Arabia.

01:05:26.020 But the regimes in the

01:05:29.000 Arab, they are desperate 1.00

01:05:31.100 to have peace with

01:05:32.260 Israel and trade with

01:05:33.580 Israel.

01:05:34.260 And they're hoping that

01:05:35.080 Arab street opinion will

01:05:36.080 follow as the growth and

01:05:37.280 the prosperity comes

01:05:38.360 along.

01:05:39.280 You distinguish between

01:05:40.280 the moderate Arabs and

01:05:41.280 the fanatics.

01:05:41.940 You want to isolate the 0.96

01:05:43.040 fanatics. 0.90

01:05:43.700 Isolate Iran. 0.99

01:05:45.120 And then I think it

01:05:46.260 wasn't impossible that

01:05:47.580 Israel could reach a 0.96

01:05:48.740 situation where all

01:05:49.780 these proxy terrorist 0.87

01:05:50.760 groups were funded by

01:05:52.020 Iran and to an extent 0.80

01:05:54.480 Qatar.

01:05:56.160 I take your point,

01:05:57.620 Matthew.

01:05:58.320 And we talk about what

01:06:00.140 the West doesn't 0.89

01:06:00.820 understand.

01:06:01.380 I always remember my

01:06:02.000 grandfather, incredibly

01:06:04.060 intelligent, was a

01:06:04.960 doctor.

01:06:05.800 When he finished, he

01:06:07.060 was a brilliant doctor.

01:06:08.460 He then became a

01:06:09.200 historian, wrote books,

01:06:10.860 award-winning books, all

01:06:12.460 the rest of it.

01:06:15.180 And I love them, dearly.

01:06:16.840 One of the most singular

01:06:18.900 influences of my life.

01:06:20.440 Especially his views about

01:06:21.340 the Jews.

01:06:21.660 Yeah, exactly.

01:06:22.660 Yeah, having worked with

01:06:23.860 one, mate, turns out he

01:06:24.640 was right. 0.87

01:06:29.120 But a rabid anti-Semite. 1.00

01:06:32.280 Rabid, rabid, rabid. 1.00

01:06:34.300 And this isn't an 1.00

01:06:35.060 ignorant person. 0.96

01:06:36.000 This is a highly 1.00

01:06:37.000 intelligent, highly

01:06:38.160 educated man, spoke

01:06:39.460 four languages.

01:06:41.560 And this is not a

01:06:42.920 minority opinion in the

01:06:44.120 Middle East.

01:06:44.660 And it is a type of

01:06:45.880 hatred that I don't

01:06:47.240 think, if you've lived

01:06:48.240 in Western countries,

01:06:50.280 you will understand.

01:06:52.560 It is, it's something

01:06:54.640 else.

01:06:55.420 The fact that I haven't

01:06:56.540 encountered.

01:06:57.880 It's akin to the KKK's 0.98

01:06:59.800 hatred of black people. 0.76

01:07:00.780 That's what we're really 0.99

01:07:01.680 talking about here.

01:07:02.580 Yeah, it's horrific.

01:07:05.080 I agree with that.

01:07:07.820 But I do think the

01:07:09.060 context has changed in a

01:07:10.540 way that I didn't

01:07:11.340 envision over the last

01:07:12.260 20 years.

01:07:13.680 Those accords were very

01:07:14.980 significant in the

01:07:16.080 Trump's first

01:07:16.780 administration.

01:07:18.140 The fact that MBS, I

01:07:19.240 think, wanted to do a

01:07:20.600 deal with Israel. 0.79

01:07:23.040 That sense that

01:07:24.420 modernization requires

01:07:26.880 trade and relationships

01:07:30.440 with Israel that would

01:07:31.980 lead to the benefit.

01:07:32.960 The great thing about

01:07:33.920 trade, Ridley would have 0.98

01:07:34.900 told you this, Matt

01:07:35.640 Ridley, his wonderful

01:07:37.100 book, The Rational

01:07:37.720 Optimist, it's a

01:07:38.480 positive son.

01:07:39.880 Yes.

01:07:40.260 You do something for

01:07:41.100 each other and you both

01:07:41.980 benefit.

01:07:43.000 Israel could be such a 1.00

01:07:44.820 force for good in the

01:07:45.920 Middle East.

01:07:46.840 And these Iranians, 0.99

01:07:48.420 they were ahead of the

01:07:49.460 curve for so many

01:07:50.420 hundreds of years.

01:07:51.800 And now just completely

01:07:53.720 immiserated by this

01:07:54.940 medieval regime which

01:07:57.320 hits women for lifting 1.00

01:07:59.920 the hijab, that executes 0.99

01:08:01.780 people, that represses

01:08:02.960 free speech and free

01:08:04.160 association, that is

01:08:05.980 subject to sanctions

01:08:07.040 and has to go out to

01:08:09.480 get their oil.

01:08:10.720 I mean, that is no way

01:08:12.240 to live.

01:08:13.500 Where do immigrants want 1.00

01:08:14.840 to come in their

01:08:16.180 millions?

01:08:17.000 Do they want to go to

01:08:17.840 Iran? 0.79

01:08:18.660 No.

01:08:18.940 Do they want to go to

01:08:19.700 Russia? 0.61

01:08:20.340 No.

01:08:21.300 Do they want to go to

01:08:21.860 North Korea? 0.67

01:08:22.340 No.

01:08:22.620 No people in Africa 1.00

01:08:24.000 aspire to go across

01:08:25.660 water and risk their

01:08:26.520 lives.

01:08:26.740 They want to come to

01:08:27.880 the West.

01:08:28.680 When people vote with

01:08:29.700 their feet, they want 0.97

01:08:30.340 to come here.

01:08:31.300 The reason we have a

01:08:32.240 fantastic life.

01:08:33.120 And I think people in

01:08:33.820 the Middle East, even

01:08:35.140 those who have prejudices

01:08:37.980 against Israel, and

01:08:39.220 there are many of them,

01:08:40.760 let's say Arab street

01:08:42.220 opinion rather than the

01:08:43.180 fanatics, I think we're

01:08:44.560 going in the direction.

01:08:45.760 Well, that's a great

01:08:46.900 hope here, isn't it?

01:08:47.880 Because it's ironic for

01:08:50.000 us to say, having just

01:08:50.900 praised the West, but

01:08:51.560 because many of those

01:08:52.860 Middle Eastern countries

01:08:54.020 are not democracies, what

01:08:55.840 really fundamentally

01:08:56.700 matters, is what does

01:08:57.720 MBS think, what does

01:08:58.680 the leader of the UAE

01:08:59.480 think, etc.

01:09:00.480 And they're all very not

01:09:03.340 keen on what Iran is

01:09:04.280 doing, and despite the

01:09:05.740 things that you were

01:09:06.780 talking about,

01:09:07.760 nonetheless would like to

01:09:08.880 have some kind of

01:09:09.460 peaceful settlement with

01:09:10.520 Israel, so that this 0.98

01:09:11.680 can be all put to bed.

01:09:12.460 It's had to be

01:09:13.100 sensitive rights, sort

01:09:14.040 of pushing away the

01:09:14.920 clerics, getting as much

01:09:16.240 as they can without

01:09:17.200 inflaming that

01:09:18.800 religious sentiment.

01:09:20.440 Would you agree it's

01:09:21.260 moved faster than one

01:09:22.400 expected?

01:09:22.740 I think so.

01:09:23.140 And whether people like

01:09:25.200 Donald Trump or not,

01:09:25.860 that is very much to his

01:09:26.820 credit, having seen

01:09:27.900 those accords through.

01:09:29.600 So that, I think, is the

01:09:30.580 hope, but it all

01:09:32.380 fundamentally, I think,

01:09:34.040 depends on what happens

01:09:35.200 with Iran, because if that

01:09:36.900 regime collapses, then you

01:09:39.140 either have a new regime

01:09:41.960 that's good, which is

01:09:44.340 possible in Iran, or you

01:09:45.420 have a new regime that's

01:09:46.200 bad, which is also

01:09:47.120 possible in Iran.

01:09:48.020 Or civil war.

01:09:48.780 Or you have civil war,

01:09:49.840 which is really, really,

01:09:50.800 really bad.

01:09:52.220 And that, I think, is

01:09:53.300 where it's at.

01:09:54.060 Yeah, I agree.

01:09:54.620 I agree.

01:09:55.100 And it might be just worth

01:09:56.300 finishing with this idea

01:09:57.140 of China.

01:09:58.400 China is such an enigmatic 1.00

01:10:01.000 player in this, because a

01:10:04.120 lot of people believed, I

01:10:05.540 don't know if you believed

01:10:06.380 this, that because they had

01:10:08.020 some limits on political

01:10:09.220 freedom, they wouldn't

01:10:10.620 innovate in the way that

01:10:11.700 we've seen in the West.

01:10:12.900 And yet, a lot of their

01:10:14.140 growth under Deng Xiaoping

01:10:15.340 was really catch-up growth.

01:10:17.620 A lot of it was stealing

01:10:19.720 of intellectual property.

01:10:22.280 A lot of it was copycatting.

01:10:25.420 But to my great surprise,

01:10:28.060 they are now definitely on

01:10:29.640 the frontier of technological

01:10:31.640 progress.

01:10:33.380 It says a lot about that

01:10:34.720 country.

01:10:35.120 They're able to do this

01:10:35.980 with what is a repressive

01:10:37.560 clique at the top of the

01:10:39.540 country.

01:10:40.380 But it's an ancient

01:10:41.100 civilization.

01:10:41.940 They had meritocratic

01:10:42.980 entrance exams for their

01:10:44.820 civil service thousands of

01:10:46.080 years ago, not long after

01:10:47.040 the Qin unification.

01:10:49.760 But what worries me the

01:10:51.180 most, I think, is that if

01:10:53.120 the West continues to

01:10:54.800 increase the debt, continues

01:10:57.180 to increase the amount of

01:10:58.380 interest to service the

01:10:59.560 debt, struggles to invest

01:11:01.220 in defense, loses its way,

01:11:04.180 which I think it has been

01:11:05.060 doing to an extent, and China

01:11:07.260 uses the sophisticated

01:11:08.480 technology to become a

01:11:09.960 surveillance state, which it

01:11:11.420 already is becoming, so that

01:11:13.140 they start to really be able to

01:11:14.360 properly control how people

01:11:15.720 think politically, even if

01:11:17.380 they have freedom to think

01:11:18.400 technologically and

01:11:19.320 scientifically.

01:11:20.280 That could be a vision of

01:11:22.240 dystopia of a kind that I

01:11:24.500 think not even all well

01:11:25.580 envisioned.

01:11:26.380 And to the extent that they

01:11:27.440 start shaping the rest of the

01:11:28.760 world in that image, that's a

01:11:30.480 big risk for us.

01:11:31.720 And so I think whenever I see a

01:11:33.080 story of any kind, I think,

01:11:35.440 how is China reacting to that?

01:11:37.440 How are they reacting to Trump

01:11:39.100 and Musk falling out?

01:11:40.160 How are they reacting to, you

01:11:41.980 know, whatever else is

01:11:43.960 happening in the West?

01:11:44.700 And often I think they're

01:11:45.440 laughing and they're seeing

01:11:47.500 us weaken.

01:11:48.220 They think they could go.

01:11:50.040 And I think it's not the

01:11:51.680 Chinese people.

01:11:53.220 I mean, I've been to China

01:11:54.080 many times.

01:11:54.780 I have many rivals in table

01:11:55.920 tennis.

01:11:56.840 Brilliant, brilliant people.

01:11:57.960 Many of you who've suffered

01:11:58.760 terrible persecution during the

01:12:00.360 Cultural Revolution.

01:12:01.520 But that clique at the top, if it

01:12:03.580 managed to commandeer power

01:12:05.240 indefinitely, I think that

01:12:07.580 would be a disaster for the

01:12:09.300 whole world and for the future

01:12:10.740 of civilization.

01:12:12.800 So that's the wild card, I

01:12:14.620 think, in all of this.

01:12:15.620 And what I'm not sure about is

01:12:17.280 what they truly think about

01:12:19.420 what's happening in Iran.

01:12:21.520 It's difficult to decode how

01:12:23.220 they feel about it.

01:12:24.300 Well, that's the perfect answer

01:12:25.260 to our usual last question,

01:12:26.880 which is what's the one thing

01:12:27.620 we're not talking about?

01:12:28.680 You've answered it.

01:12:29.720 So head on over to Substack

01:12:32.140 where we're going to ask

01:12:33.080 Matthew your questions.

01:12:36.340 Coming from a fundamentalist

01:12:37.860 Christian family, do you have

01:12:39.600 any understanding of Islamic

01:12:41.000 and Jewish fundamentalists

01:12:42.320 and what is the difference

01:12:43.200 between them?

TRIGGERnometry - June 20, 2025

Israel vs Iran - Matthew Syed

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