On this week's episode of 'Me and Myself', we're celebrating the release of all the Israeli hostages held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, and celebrating the return of all of the other hostages held captive by Hamas. We're joined by Francis Pouliot, a journalist and journalist, to talk about why this is such a big deal, and why we should celebrate it.
00:05:38.000And his only qualification, it seemed at the time, was that he is the president's son-in-law,
00:05:44.000which is traditionally in a democracy, not how these things are done.
00:05:48.000But he went in there and, you know, a story that a friend of ours told us about Kushner is that he was offered to take a lot of advice prior to going to the Middle East.
00:06:01.000And he said, no, I need to meet everybody and hear them with my own ears and see them with my own eyes for the first time.
00:06:08.000Because what he was trying to do was come at this problem from a fresh perspective.
00:06:12.000And what he cottoned on to, according to my understanding, is effectively that there's a big generational divide.
00:06:19.000A lot of the people who are in charge of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, people like Mahmoud Abbas, they're in their 70s and 80s now.
00:06:26.000And there is a generation of younger people in both in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in the rest of the Middle East who are not actually that interested in fighting their grandfather's war anymore.
00:06:40.000They're interested in jobs, well-being, and they're millennials.
00:06:43.000So they've got smartphones, they're looking around going, why would I live in this when I can do, you know, what these guys have in the West?
00:06:49.000And the Kushner strategy was, how do we focus on the economics of this so that those people feel like they have a future?
00:06:57.000And then all the political stuff gets resolved.
00:07:00.000And that actually is interestingly where a lot of the Middle East now is because, you know, I've been talking to people from a lot of, you know, Jordan, Emiratis, a bunch of people.
00:07:11.000And look, just, you know, let's just be clear, none of them have a lot of time for Palestinians.
00:07:20.000They sort of feel like, I mean, look, if you're Jordanian, you let a bunch of these people in your country and then they'd kill the king, right?
00:07:28.000If you are from other parts of the Middle East, you've offered to help them many times and all they do is sabotage the process.
00:08:26.000And there were points where I was watching this and we asked the question to Netanyahu himself.
00:08:32.000Are you worried in getting trapped in a forever war?
00:08:35.000That was a very real concern because violence, death, brutality, all it does is you then radicalize his people and then who will then join Hamas.
00:08:46.000And you, there's a part, there was a part of me wondering was, well, is this just going to be it?
00:08:50.000So the fact that we've come to this point, I think is a very real cause for celebration.
00:08:55.000Absolutely. A massive cause for celebration, not only for the families of the hostages and the hostages themselves, but it just, it creates the opportunity for a line to be drawn under this, potentially.
00:09:10.000But we don't know, you know, saying that 10 years from now, we might look like complete fools, even celebrating this.
00:09:17.000However, celebrating the hostages being returned and reunited with their families, that in itself is worth celebrating.
00:09:23.000Whether this then becomes the first step of a longer, more expansive movement towards genuine long-term peace, we don't know.
00:09:33.000The foundations are there because like we talked about, you know, most of the countries in the Middle East now care more about the threat of Iran than they do about the hatred many of their citizens feel towards Israel.
00:09:45.000And one of the benefits of those countries not being democracies is they don't really have to care as much about what people call the Arab street, which is very anti-Israel.
00:09:54.000But the people at the top are really not anti-Israel at all.
00:09:57.000They see Israel as a potential trading partner and they see the conflict with Hamas as basically an obstacle in the way for peace and prosperity for their citizens, which is what increasingly they care about, whether that's MBS, MBZ and others.
00:10:14.000So there is the potential for this to be the first step.
00:10:19.000But as I say, as long as Hamas remains in power, I don't think it's viable.
00:10:24.000I mean, the first thing they did the moment this happened is they came out of the tunnels and started killing Palestinians that don't agree with them.
00:11:21.000So you look at Iran and you think to yourself, well, we want stability in the region,
00:11:28.000but can you really have a stable Middle East with Iran and with that regime in place?
00:11:33.000Now, credit to giving credit to the Israelis and the Americans, I don't think Iran is as nearly as confident as it used to be.
00:11:41.000But I don't I wouldn't go nearly as far as to argue that it's calmed down,
00:11:46.000particularly in terms of the way that it sees the Middle East and the way that it sees Israel.
00:11:51.000Yeah. So that's going to present another very significant challenge,
00:11:54.000because there's a very coherent argument to be made that unless something is done about Iran, then you're never going to be able to eradicate this problem.
00:12:04.000But I think the answer to that problem, as I understand it, lies in uniting the rest of the Middle East with Israel against Iran, effectively.
00:12:13.000I mean, the Abraham Accords, when they were signed initially, they ended up including four countries.
00:12:19.000We're hearing rumors now that Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, is about to join them.
00:12:24.000And if you can get Saudi Arabia and other countries as a result of this current peace process to join, then you've basically got the entire Middle East,
00:12:34.000barring one or two countries, united against the threat of Iran.
00:12:39.000That is a totally different prospectus than what we've got at the moment.
00:12:45.000And of course, Iran, as you say, has been defanged somewhat in terms of what's been happening recently.
00:12:51.000So, you know, it's a real day of hope.
00:12:54.000We will find out, you know, I guarantee you, I'm not a historian of this conflict particularly.
00:12:59.000I guarantee you people have sat in rooms like this for decades now on a number of occasions and gone, finally, the first step towards peace.
00:13:11.000I hope, as successful as Trump and Kushner and the rest of his team has been in delivering this, that this carries on.
00:13:18.000And imagine what an achievement that would be.
00:13:22.000Not just to get the hostages back, not just to end the violence right now, but actually to lay the groundwork for permanent peace in the Middle East.
00:13:33.000And there'd be no one who'd be happier than Jeremy Corbyn, mate.
00:13:36.000Well, you know, your joke makes a very interesting point.
00:13:41.000Because I don't know if you noticed, I don't know if our audience have noticed, people watching and listening to this.
00:13:47.000The people who've been calling for a ceasefire right now for the last two years are the ones that are silent or very unhappy now.
00:18:48.000Because this is something I discussed with Chris Williamson when I was on his show.
00:18:51.000Like, those of us who are on our side of many arguments, we have to carefully think through the arguments of the people we don't agree with.
00:20:08.000Out of all the issues, out of everything happening in the world, there's genocides happening, genuine genocides happening in Sudan, in Syria.
00:20:38.000See, I think part of the answer that you're, I think, proving the claim you made, which is a lot of this is about anti-Semitism.
00:20:46.000I also think there's probably a broader thing that I'm sure you'd agree with me as well, which is it's anti-Westernism.
00:20:52.000A lot of these people, they hate the West and they see Israel, rightly, as an outpost of Western civilization in the Middle East.
00:21:01.000So, if you can't destroy the West, I mean, these people are trying as hard as they can to destroy the West, but this is like a point where it's actually vulnerable, where it could be destroyed.
00:21:13.000And I think a lot of their antipathy towards Israel is that they are challenged...
00:21:17.000In the same way that, you know, you and I have had the experience that Irish people, particularly people from Northern Ireland, particularly Catholics, are incredibly deranged about this issue.
00:21:29.000Like, the only time I get people messaging me really hateful stuff is Irish comedians that I used to gig with about this conflict, right?
00:21:40.000And it's not because they care about Palestinians, let's be honest.
00:21:44.000They see themselves in that conflict, their trauma, the experiences of their families, which I have obviously empathy for, but it doesn't apply to Israel.
00:21:54.000But my point is, people, like, project their own shit onto that conflict from all sorts of different perspectives.
00:22:00.000And I think the anti-Westerners, like Corbyn, the people who actually hate this country, and Western civilization in general, they project that onto Israel.
00:22:20.000And I've been following a lot of the hard left, because as you see our economy struggle, as you see the gap between rich and poor widen, as you see young people being unable to afford to get on the property ladder, or have the middle-class life, should we just call it, that their parents and grandparents enjoyed,
00:22:40.000the more radicalized they have become, which I understand actually, and I have a certain degree of empathy for.
00:22:45.000And we've seen the far left grow in prominence.
00:22:49.000And we've seen that with the rise of Zach Polanski, your party, et cetera, et cetera, Zahra Sultana.
00:22:55.000But I've noticed their rhetoric becoming actually, and becoming far more emboldened and far more strident.
00:23:03.000You saw Zach Polanski on Question Time call people in reform fascists.
00:23:08.000And you think to yourself, have you forgotten it was a matter of weeks ago that Charlie Kirk was murdered?
00:23:14.000Can you not understand how that rhetoric is profoundly dangerous?
00:23:19.000Can you not understand that labeling people who are in reform fascists would, to some people, particularly some people who are unstable, who unfortunately there are always unstable people in this society.
00:23:30.000You are making a target of these politicians and these supporters.
00:23:34.000You had Zahra Sultana in a speech saying that we need to fight fascists.
00:23:38.000We need to fight fascists in the ballot box, in parliament.
00:23:42.000I'm like, OK, right. And on the streets.
00:23:54.000Does that therefore mean that you can kick them, punch them?
00:23:57.000Because if that's what you're saying, then that is incredibly dangerous.
00:24:01.000Well, and interestingly, I mean, he's not someone who gets a lot of credit from here on trigonometry, but he deserves credit.
00:24:07.000Lewis Goodall on LBC interviewed Zach Polanski and he asked him, you know, here are the basic criteria for fascism, basic core definitions of fascism.
00:24:17.000You know, complete control of the state, no democracy, lots of other things.
00:24:22.000Which of these does Farage match? And Polanski had no answer for this.
00:24:25.000So you've described Nigel Farage as a fascist.
00:24:28.000Now, fascism, the last time I checked, involved ultra authoritarian nationalism, the suppression of dissent, a single party state, a cult of personality and the use of violence or paramilitarism to achieve its end.
00:24:38.000Which of those criteria would you say, Nigel Farage, satisfies?
00:24:41.000I think most of them are on the way if you actually listen to the things that he's saying.
00:24:44.000A single party state. He's not proposed to abolish British democracy. That's absurd.
00:24:48.000He's not yet. But also during Brexit, when you think about take back control, some of the themes that were in there all seem to be speaking.
00:24:54.000Well, you think that Brexit was about the consolidation and the creation of a single party state?
00:24:59.000I think Brexit was ultimately about protecting the wealth of multi-millionaires and billionaires.
00:25:02.000Yeah, but that's different. No, no, no. You're changing the conversation there, Zach Polanski.
00:25:05.000I've just asked you about how you think Nigel Farage satisfies the criteria of fascism, one of which involves, a really key one, the creation of a single party state.
00:25:14.000What has Nigel Farage said or done which would indicate any legitimacy to the idea that he's in favour of a single party state?
00:25:20.000Well, I was about to finish with what I was saying, which is when you have excess power in this country and wealth, which often come together,
00:25:27.000when that utilises working class resentment, you don't have to be a historian to know there are many times in the history when that's exactly when fascism begins.
00:25:34.000Now, it does not begin, as people say, in jackboots. It doesn't begin always with militarism.
00:25:39.000It actually begins with the kind of rhetoric we're saying. So if you're asking me, is Nigel Farage in full-blown fascist rhetoric?
00:25:46.000Absolutely not. But if you actually listen, and Lewis, you're someone who listens very closely to the things he's saying,
00:25:51.000he's constantly echoing things that have happened in history.
00:25:54.000And by the way, in this conversation, Keir Starmer doesn't get off lightly either.
00:25:57.000If you're going to go on stage and quote Enoch Powell, now, he says he didn't know that's what he was doing,
00:26:02.000but that's not what he meant. I don't believe that for a second.
00:26:05.000But Zapatansky, you're the one who said that we need to have more nuance and complexity in our conversations.
00:26:10.000And yet you're the one calling Nigel Farage a fascist.
00:26:13.000One of the things I have to say, I think the media need to do a much better job, as Lewis on that occasion did,
00:26:18.000of actually holding these claims up to the light of scrutiny.
00:26:23.000If you want to go on a major TV channel, on a major program like Question Time in this country,
00:26:29.000and call someone from a mainstream Democratic Party a fascist, you need to be challenged.
00:27:39.000Well, you best be sure that you can back that up.
00:27:42.000Do you know, I don't know that it's like saying you're a rapist, because I think in our society now, I think being a Nazi is much worse than being a rapist than the way that people think about it.
00:27:51.000Like somebody could go to prison for rape, come out and be rehabilitated.
00:27:57.000If you're a Nazi, I don't think that's a stain that ever washes off.
00:28:01.000So when they call people Nazis, they're really, they're putting a target on their back.
00:28:06.000And, you know, it's like you say, it's been a few weeks, a few weeks after Charlie Kirk was murdered by a guy who was quote unquote anti-fascist.
00:28:20.000And Charlie was not a fascist, but he was killed by someone who was anti-fascist.
00:28:25.000When you call people fascist, you're putting a target on their back.
00:28:29.000Now we live in a country where fortunately people don't have guns, so it's harder to do this.
00:28:35.000But we also live in a country in which it's far less common for people in public life to have security.
00:28:41.000So when you're calling members of reform, you know, does that mean that every politician now, if they lead a popular party, they've got to have a security team?
00:28:50.000Is that the country we want to become?
00:28:53.000But, but if this sort of rhetoric continues, and you know, you and I have made this point for years now.
00:29:01.000If I thought that fascism was here, if I thought that literally Hitler was about to take charge of the country, I would feel it would be my duty to participate in a forceful, i.e. violent movement to oppose it.
00:29:16.000Because that's what you do. That's what our great, our great ancestors did. That's what your granddad did. That's what my granddad, my great grandfather did.
00:29:24.000They went, picked up a rifle and went to the front line to fight Nazis.
00:29:28.000So what are you doing when you're labeling people who are just mainstream democratically elected people as Nazis?
00:29:35.000You're putting them in that same category of people who must be violently opposed. It's incredibly dangerous.
00:29:43.000And, and the worst bit is, is they just seem just to fling this word about. They just hurl it about like it's nothing. Like it's genuinely nothing. And you go 2016, that's not even 10 years ago. Joe Cox was murdered an MP by a foot by a far right extremist.
00:30:02.000And then you go to David Amos, which was, I think, 2022. You go, those are two MPs. And you're, you're putting forward this rhetoric and you're saying the same word again and again and again.
00:30:16.000And we know how propaganda works. You repeat the same thing again and again until people go, oh yeah, they are.
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00:32:19.000And if you want to think about how people sort of assume that whatever's happening in the current moment is like normal, I remember Boris Johnson cycling to work as prime minister.
00:32:29.000Yeah. Or maybe foreign secretary, David Cameron cycling, like a not very popular David Cameron, for example, prime minister could go to work on a bike.
00:32:40.000Now, you know, he had his team around him somewhere, but do you see what I'm saying?
00:33:27.000You know, we've been to, you know, I remember I think it was a spectator party.
00:33:31.000You and I were standing outside waiting for an Uber and Nigel Farage came out and it was like burly blokes just like pushing everyone out of the way.
00:33:39.000And it's not because he's trying to look like a rapper with a massive, it's because he needs a massive security team now.
00:33:45.000Why? Why should the leader of a major British party in a country that historically has no history of political violence?
00:37:56.000He won the popular vote, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:38:01.000We need a government that has the mandate to make the major changes this country needs.
00:38:08.000And if that's reform or if that's a Tory reform coalition, not looking likely, or even if it's a Labour government with a massive mandate, because this government, you know, they actually tried to cut welfare.
00:38:20.000They just couldn't because they don't have the mandate really for it and they struggled to do it.
00:38:26.000That's the one hope is that at the next election, there is a sweeping to power of a party that has the mandate to go, OK, enough of this.
00:38:41.000And that's what I really, really hope, that we actually have a government who's going to come in and actually be prepared to make unpleasant,
00:38:50.000but necessary policies and choices because we've spoken about this many times, including in these episodes.
00:38:57.000We cannot keep going down the road that we're going down with this country.
00:39:02.000Eventually, you need to wake up, smell the proverbial coffee and realize that if we carry on down this road, it's going to enter this country being bankrupt.
00:39:10.000And when you see nations becoming bankrupt, people becoming poorer, naturally that leads to even more extremism,
00:39:17.000which then leads to people who we've just spoken about becoming even more powerful and people being more vulnerable to incendiary rhetoric.
00:39:25.000And because of all of that, we're going to America.