Paul Jay welcomes Adolph Reed, an academic, author, activist, and organizer, for part two of their discussion. Reed says there should be no illusions about corporate Democrats’ aggressive foreign policies, especially in Gaza and Ukraine, but there should also be no illusions that Trump won’t be dangerously worse.
The Biden administration has denounced ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan for seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismael Haniyeh, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri. Middle East analyst Assal Rad underscores the U.S. government’s complicity in Israeli war crimes in Gaza by arming Israel despite numerous ICJ rulings calling for Netanyahu’s government to adhere to its commitments under the Genocide Convention, and most recently, to immediately halt its operation in Rafah. She also discusses the potential implications of the recent deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
In part 2, journalist Tom Stevenson discusses the nuclear threat posited by the ongoing war in Ukraine, with Russia recently staging tactical nuclear exercises close to the Ukrainian border, allegedly in response to provocative statements made by U.K.’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron endorsing Ukraine’s potential use of British-supplied weapons to strike Russian territory. He also breaks down Israel’s destructive aims in Gaza and why certain bloody conflicts, such as the war in Tigray, have been forgotten.
The post-World War II era was characterized by decolonization in Asia and Africa, with resistance movements leading to the unraveling of the British empire in colonies such as former British Kenya, where the Mau Mau launched a lengthy uprising between 1952-1960, as well as in former British India, with the dissolution of the British Raj and creation of an independent India and Pakistan in 1947. Journalist Tom Stevenson provides historical examples illustrating how the rise of American hegemony following the decline of Britain’s imperial power was bolstered by British foreign policy at every juncture.
Israel’s objective is to maintain Jewish-Israeli dominance in the region by imposing inhumane conditions on Palestinians, resulting in the forced displacement of the entire population of Gaza. Paul Jay, the founder of theAnalysis, states that in order to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict, one has to view it from the context of U.S. global hegemony and monopoly capitalism.
Israel’s accusations against a total of 19 UNRWA staff members alleging their involvement in the October 7 attacks prompted 16 countries to pause or suspend $450 million in funding to the agency. A UN investigation resulted in one of the 19 cases being closed and four suspended due to a lack of evidence. Of the 12 staff members initially accused by Israel, 10 of them were fired by UNRWA, while the other two were killed. Israeli claims that 10% of UNRWA employees have ties to Hamas have yet to be substantiated. As Sari Hanafi explains, UNRWA provides critical infrastructure, housing, and education to Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza.
Following Israel’s killing of 7 WCK aid workers, Western politicians appeared to reconsider their unwavering support of Netanyahu’s government, if only for a brief moment. Iran’s attack on military targets in Israel, in response to Israel’s strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, has since been cited by the U.S. and Germany as a justification for continued military support for Israel. Sari Hanafi, Professor of Sociology at the American University of Beirut, discusses Germany’s past genocidal war crimes as well as the ICJ case brought by Nicaragua examining Germany’s complicity in genocide in Gaza.
The fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX passenger aircraft and the recent Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 incident, in which a door-plug blew out after take-off, are consequences of Boeing’s systemic incentivization of profits over safety. Katya Schwenk, reporter at The Lever, discusses the policies of recent administrations to enable Boeing’s industry takeover and criminal negligence, as well as similar practices of covering up safety issues in the shipping industry, which potentially led to the Dali cargo ship’s collapsing of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
The Israeli attack on a civilian aid convoy, which killed seven World Central Kitchen workers, has pushed U.S. officials to entertain policy alternatives to unconditional aid to Israel. Bill Hartung, national security and U.S. foreign policy analyst at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, discusses the Biden administration’s weapons sales to Israel, many of which have not been reported to U.S. Congress. Hartung addresses the role of venture capital firms in shaping the U.S. defense industry, firms which advocate the development of dual-use technology or artificial intelligence as optimized tools to wage warfare.
In part 2, Walid Habbas provides a detailed account of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and its actions to separate Gaza into isolated areas with no public governance and little to no access to humanitarian aid. Not only is Netanyahu’s government holding up the flow of vital aid into the Gaza Strip, it is weaponizing the provision of limited aid in order to accelerate the breakdown of civilian structures and the mass starvation of Palestinians. A scholar on the unequal relations between Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories, Walid Habbas also discusses the political landscape of Palestinian ruling parties and their conflicting positions regarding the path to Palestinian liberation.
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