The Duran Podcast
Incursion into Rafah and Biden's failed diplomacy
All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Israel and Gaza specifically in Gaza and Rafa. We've had statements from Israeli officials saying that they're going to to enter Rafa even even if the US tells them not to enter even if if the entire world intends them, condemns them. We've actually heard a statement from an Israeli official say as much even if the entire world turns against Israel and condemns them. They don't care. They're going to enter Rafa. Meanwhile, you have Anthony Blinken. He was in Cairo and Anthony Blinken is signaling that they're trying to put together some sort of a ceasefire as well as as a post Gaza. Governance plan or something along those lines with various Arab nations. And it looks like the big condition to get the ceasefire approved from the Israeli side as well as Hamas. But mostly from the Israeli side is to straighten out the terms for the hostage releases for the release of hostages and that's where everything is kind of kind of inching on anyway what what is the situation in Gaza and Rafa in Israel and with Anthony Blinken in Egypt. Yeah, I mean, I think that I think before we discuss this I think it's important to go back and go back to what we were saying a much earlier over the conflict because we have repeatedly made the point in our various programs that there is a steady being build up of diplomatic and political pressure around the world. The United States has been isolating itself. It's become increasingly isolated by vetoing ceasefire resolutions of the Security Council. It is losing support for the administration has been losing support in some key American states Michigan, for example, because of that. But by taking that stance. We've seen its support support for the US collapse in the Middle East itself is becoming increasingly isolated in the Middle East. And it's seen that the global majority is starting to build up against it. And also make point sooner or later, if the United States persisted in taking the stance that it was taking probably there would be a referral to the General Assembly, and we might even start eventually to see moves towards pushing for a peace resolution imposing a ceasefire. And what we also said was that sooner or later the United States would start to shift in the face of this pressure but domestic and international and would come up with its own proposal or would agree to a ceasefire resolution going through the Security Council. And in effect, that's where we are. That's, that's what's now starting to happen. The administration sees that it is taking a paying an unacceptably high political price domestically in certain key battleground states, and they're becoming increasingly worried that they've lost massive amount of political ground. So, bear in mind that the Israelis have been talking about the attack on Rafa for weeks. It's not happened. Clearly, there's been some kind of exchanges and arguments behind the scenes with the Americans. Even though, you know, there's a lot of talk about the attack on Rafa. It hasn't happened up to this point. And one gets the sense that, finally, something has happened. We don't quite know what, but you know, all kinds of things might be going on behind the scenes. Something has happened behind the scenes, which has caused some people in the administration to throw in the towel and say, look, we've got to go for some kind of ceasefire resolution. So they come up with the ceasefire resolution. Now, the proposal to get hostages released in in return for mass release of prisoners in Israeli jails. That's actually what Hamas started with back on the 7th of October. Now, in saying that I don't, I want to make it very clear. I don't prove of this. I'm totally opposed to taking innocent people as hostages. But what Hamas said it did when it took all of those hostages is that it said that it took hostages in order to force the Israelis to release Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. So this actually, if it were to happen, would concede what Hamas was intending at the outset. Probably there's a lot of discussion and argument about this. The Israelis won't be happy. They will say that this is a capitulation to terrorism, which in a sense it is. They will also try to hold on to some prisoners and release others and, you know, we will have a very, very complicated and difficult negotiation around that. But anyway, the United States appears to have come around and accepted that. So they're agreeing to this to this to this extraordinary step. The US is also now talking about a full ceasefire. They're prepared to use the word ceasefire, instead of say humanitarian pause. They're talking at the moment about a six week ceasefire as opposed to an open ended one. But remember, if there is a ceasefire that lasts for six weeks, the pressure to renew it will be very strong. We see that the United States is gradually starting to shift gears. It's taken them a long time to get here, but they've got to that point in the end. They have this continued problem, which is Netanyahu in Israel and the government elites and Israeli opinion, which is on this issue solidly behind Netanyahu. So they don't want to break with Israel. They're trying to get the Israelis to agree to this resolution or to some kind of resolution. The head of, I think it's Mossad is apparently flying to Qatar to participate in the negotiations there for the resolution. The Israelis, however, if a resolution in the form that is being proposed passes through the Security Council are bound to see it as a major blow and as a defeat. So they're going to resist and we see what the US has been up to. We've had Chuck Schumer coming out saying, you know, time for Netanyahu to depart from the scene. They're trying, in effect, to reorder the political situation in Israel itself in order to get to find people in Israel that will agree with what they're trying to do. And perhaps put pressure Netanyahu himself to agree to proposals, which to be very clear are basically about getting Joe out of trouble. How do you explain the statements from Netanyahu, government officials saying that they are going to enter Rafa? What happens if they do? What happens to the Biden and what if they do what happens to Biden and all of these plans? That is a very good question. I mean, you know, a lot of people say that the United States has enormous leverage over Israel. I think that's true up to a certain point. But if the Israelis outright defy what the United States is doing, if they defy a resolution from the Security Council, and of course we don't know that the Americans will be prepared to support a resolution like this in the Security Council, if the Israelis outright oppose it. But, you know, if the Israelis do that, then it puts the administration itself in an incredibly difficult position because they will infuriate. In fact, they probably have already upset and angered, but it will infuriate even further the very large number of supporters for Israel within the United States, including its political class. And that will also affect Trump during the forthcoming election. So, you know, it's unsurprising that Netanyahu is taking this stance quite apart from the fact that he's under huge pressure in from within Israel to complete what he started in Gaza. He's probably also calculating that he's got nothing to lose by taking a hard line with with the administration on this, and that by taking a hard line, it gives him extra leverage and he might be able to extract more concessions from the administration by doing it, but it's entirely possible that the Israelis will in the end say no, it's entirely possible that if they do say no, the administration will back off and will retreat from the idea of a ceasefire resolution of the Security Council with its tail between its legs, in which case politically it's very bad for Biden at home, diplomatically, it's very bad for the United States also, in fact the situation will deteriorate, or it could be that they will try something in Israel, trying to maneuver Netanyahu out, very difficult and very dangerous thing to do and try and do, or alternatively they might finally say to themselves, look, however difficult and bad for us it is, we have to back this resolution, the resolution passes. It's probably not going to be initially a Chapter 7 resolution, that is to say a binding one, so that will give the Israelis some room to maneuver, but there will then be pressure on the United States in the face of Israeli defiance to eventually agree to a Chapter 7 resolution and the United States will be in full scale diplomatic retreat, it's a very difficult situation, but it's the one they got themselves into, because way back in October, very stupidly they gave Netanyahu carte blanche, the one thing, the one thing that might be playing for them is this Netanyahu, who is a clever man, probably realizes by now that there is no military outcome to the conflict in Gaza, that can be packaged as a complete victory, that the attempt to destroy Hamas has been ultimately unsuccessful, that the attempt to drive everybody out of Gaza has also been unsuccessful, he's also aware that the Israeli economy is now in severe recession, 20% contraction, he must realize at some level that Israel and he himself are in a kind of a trap And it might be, because as I said that he's a clever man, is that he might eventually say look, the Americans have put this enormous pressure upon us, we have to back off, don't blame me, blame Biden He then goes to his allies of the United States and works to get a new administration more favorable to Israel than himself, so that might be another game that gets played over the next few weeks, we'll just have to wait and see The Israelis are acting defined, and both their self interest and their feelings show why they would, and the administration is ultimately largely to blame for the fact that they're taking the stance that they are We have a new administration administration, absolutely Would you say that most of this is, if not all of this is driven by domestic US politics and the election, I put it in the polling as well as the recent primary voting, where a lot of people in key swing states like Michigan voted uncommitted they didn't want to vote for Biden Or is there an international foreign policy component? There is an internet, I put it like this, I'd say 70% it's domestic, 30% it's international, the people of the State Department in the Department of Defense in the CIA, they worry about the international dimension and they do talk about this, and they do talk to people like Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken especially About this, but of course the core team around Biden himself, what they are worried about is the election in November, and putting aside what has happened in Michigan, I think the thing that must be spoken the most more than anything else is that According to some polls, you know what doesn't know how far to trust polls in the United States, but according to some polls, a majority of young people, at least a plurality of young people in America are now thinking of voting for Donald Trump Now that is astonishing actually, because as long as far back as I can remember, young people in America have always voted Democrat, so if that is indeed really the case that it must be setting big alarm bells within the White House, within Biden's team And since apparently the Gaza war is one of the reasons that young people are giving in America for not wanting to support Biden, that might be another thing that's pressing them to make the decisions that they are But anyway, the point is that very slowly, very grudgingly resisting every inch of the way, they've now come finally to the point of advocating a ceasefire, as we said they would, even though they haven't yet taken the plunge and all sorts of things could happen that might make them back off Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine Netanyahu wanting to accommodate Biden, especially during this election cycle, given the fact that everyone understands Netanyahu and Biden despise each other But from before the war, they've never liked each other, yeah, so I mean yeah, absolutely, they've never liked each other, no Netanyahu is no reason, no reason, emotionally, or at the moment politically to just do what Biden wants And the fact that Biden is now quite clearly trying to leverage him out of the Prime Minister's job and is getting Chuck Schumer to make speeches like the one that Schumer recently made, that's going to make, and that's going to make Netanyahu even more angry And even more inclined to dig in his heels, but as I said, Netanyahu is nothing if not a cunning man, and he may be saying to himself, look, I'm already in a trap, and this does provide me with a way out where I can convincingly tell my electors, my own voting base in Israel And I trust my friends in the United States that the blame is not mine, it is entirely Biden's, let me, I've been left alone to do what I wanted, I'd have finished the job in Gaza, I'd have finished the job in Lebanon I'd have sorted all of this out, but this weak jellyfish of a man that's duplicitous, treacherous president in the United States tied my hands and didn't let me do it And that's the kind of message I can imagine Netanyahu trying to give, not one I would think he particularly wants to give by the way, Netanyahu has always traded politically within Israel on the fact that he's somebody who has given any good relations with the Americans, but given fact that he has limited choices, it might be what he decides to do, but we'll see what happens It's a complicated game that's being played, it always has been, I mean, this whole business that's happened in Gaza has been complicated right from the beginning, but it's important to say I got to the point where the Americans are now finally talking about a ceasefire, an actual ceasefire, even if only for a limited time, but the diplomatic and political damage already has been colossal for Israel, which has seen its economy contract, it's seen its army heavily, you know, fought in ways that have caused it losses, it's seen Israel lose a lot of its support around the world, and of course with the United States, it's been a geopolitical disaster and there's no other word for it than that Yeah, and the daily images and the suffering in Gaza is just off the off the charts, it's off the charts and off the scale, and of course in the West we see only a fraction of this, elsewhere around the world and the Muslim world in the global south, the global majority, they see this every day, and it's what the, you know, the lean story that people are most interested in, and it's also created a certain radicalization amongst people in Europe in particular in the United States also, so I said this has been a catastrophic affair right from the beginning, and to repeat again, it didn't need to be this way, and whatever your feelings are perhaps, Netanyahu, Israel, the origins of the state of Israel, all of those things and I understand people feelings about this, the fact is that had the American government acted in a more intelligent and sophisticated way back in October, the geopolitical disaster that both it and Israel are now going to experience would have been avoided That's not a value judge, that's not the blank check, exactly, that's not a value judgment, that's just a statement of fact, and you're absolutely right, it can't launch, you never, never give people blank checks, I mean it's a crazy thing to do, I mean, that's the root of bankruptcy, and that's what's happened in this on this occasion That's, yeah, Tariq was mentioning that during our live stream, absolutely, the other day when we were talking about this very issue, and when we've been saying it for a while now, I mean I think, you know, from the origins of this, of this conflict of this war we've been saying that the critical error, the colossal mistake that the Biden White House made was going to Netanyahu and saying, do whatever you want, and Netanyahu said, okay, yeah Well, they didn't even, absolutely, I mean, they went even further than that because of course he was at one point, the Israelis were quite clearly, I think, looking to drive everybody out of Gaza And the Americans are trying to facilitate it, I remember Blinken going around in Georgia and in Egypt and trying to get the Egyptians of the Jordanians to take people from Gaza I mean, crazy ideas, utter stupidity, and it's made the price, I mean, you know, that's why we are, where we are, and had a different approach being taken Thousands, tens of thousands of lives would be spared, and the political situation would be completely different, the geopolitical situation would be completely different from the one we see today People who talk about Joe Biden, you know, this enormously experienced foreign policy president, he is the worst foreign policy president I have ever known, and I think the worst one since the Second World War, beyond any question I mean, yeah, you know, every foreign policy decision that Biden has made the Biden White House has made has been, it's not only disastrous, but it's so clear and obvious what decision they should have made, and what policy they should have come up with And then they go the exact opposite, knowing that that is going to lead to disaster, whether it's Ukraine, whether it's Gaza They told us when Biden was elected, all the mainstream media was saying that for America's back, the foreign policy dream team, the foreign policy wizard Joe Biden, and they couldn't have been more wrong, catastrophically wrong And literally, they could not have been more wrong, the worst foreign policy president I can ever think of, I mean, I can't, I don't remember a worst foreign policy president with this All right, we will end the video there, the Duran.local.com we are in a rumble Odyssey big shoot Telegram rock fin, and Twitter X and go to the Duran shop, 20% off all Greek flag merch use the code Greece 20. Take care [Music]