Part II of Prof. Jeffrey Sachs’ interview on The Duran podcast of January 11, 2025, with Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen hosting.
“So, the idea that Israel is going to be the great empire of the Middle East – and it’s going to impose that by force, and by the force of the United States, in an Arab and Islamic region of hundreds of millions of people – is plainly fatuous, idiotic, suicidal. But that’s actually the policy of these people. […]
Part of the problem is that there is such a dominant view in Washington’s blob-opinion that you hire people, inevitably, who continue with the blob-policies. And so, one of Trump’s realities in the first term, and probably again now, is that whatever he actually believes, a lot of the so-called lieutenants will do end-runs around the president.
We have these ‘memoirs’ of John Bolton, who was one of the most repulsive figures of American politics, who brags about how he repeatedly tricked the president – when Trump was president and he was the national security advisor, and he didn’t like what the president wanted, so he found ways to trick him.
This is the reality, this is perhaps the modus operandi that President Putin describes about the people who come to explain – maybe they don’t explain, maybe they just trick the president.
But when it comes to Israel’s disaster – because it is a disaster for Israel, of course, and a greater disaster for the Palestinians and for the Middle East, which has been in flames for decades now, because of Israel’s policies – there are two distinct parts of the Israel story that are feeding each other, but are both leading Israel to disaster.
One is that policy is overwhelmingly dictated by the military and by the security.
And you see this constantly. If it’s true in the United States, that the politicians are to an extent a side show, in Israel it’s Mossad and the IDF that call the shots more than just about any other part of society.
So, this is a militarized state. This is a military regime. It’s a security regime. It has all of the profound debilities of being a militarized regime, which is that there is no such thing as diplomacy.
There is no understanding that the way to peace has a different route, which is you actually talk to the other side and find a way to make a solution. So, this is a country that for decades completely abandoned any diplomacy at all with the Arab world or with the Islamic world more generally, or with the neighbors in general. None, no diplomacy.
The other fact of Israel – which is really stunning and, again, counterintuitive unless you take a deep dive into it; and then, when you do take a deep dive into it, it’s so perplexing and different from anything you think about – there is an extraordinary religious zealotry that is another fuel of this.
And I don’t mean just zealotry of nationalism, and zealotry of Jewish state and so forth. I mean, zealotry of 6th century B.C. literal texts. This is something absolutely unusual that exists almost nowhere in the world.
But the extremist, zealot rabbis, and the illegal settlers on the West Bank, and the troops in the IDF, are reading from 6th century texts like the Book of Joshua in the Old Testament, which is a book about genocide. It says, God gave the Israelites this land and they are instructed to wipe out every man, woman and child that lives there.
One of the interesting things about that zealotry is that the text says, no this was not the primordial, indigenous land of the Jewish people. This was conquered land, and not just conquered, but conquered in a series of genocides.
Well, it’s very unfortunate if public policy is shaped in this absolutely extraordinary way.
Now, I think what is so utterly tragic and alarming about this, from my own reading – I’m not a scholar of the ancient Middle East or of the 2,600 years of Jewish history under these texts – but I will tell you, as an observer, as a political observer, the zealots have lost their state on repeated occasions during this period.
The ancient Jews had rebellions against powerful adversaries on a zealotry that ended up getting them destroyed. And one of the famous episodes is the rebellion against the Roman Empire in 66 A.D. to 70 A.D., which led to the destruction of the so-called Second Temple of Jerusalem.
But the point is: Excuse me, it’s 66 A.D., and you’re going to rebel against the Roman Empire? And you think that that’s good statecraft?
[…] It was a disaster. If one steps back from zealotry, from literal readings of ancient sacred tests, if one looks at the region of 400 million people, if one looks at international law, simple justice, U.N. General Assembly, Security Counsel – you don’t want to lose the State of Israel by making demands that are so contrary to every norm, standard, law that we have in the international scene. But that’s the route that Israel is on, and that the United States has blindly [followed.]
And at least this I can say, I can’t wait to see the back of the Biden administration, because it was unimaginable for me that this administration would be such a hopeless, reckless failure in following, supporting, financing, arming, providing the intelligence for this utterly destructive, cruel, reckless, illegal set of actions of Israel.
And to this moment, this secretary of state of ours, in his exit interview, says, ‘Naah, everything’s just fine!’
Well, Goodbye Mr. Blinken!”
*** ANTIVIRUS 7.0 ***
https://margheritamaleti.com/2024/05/10/criminal-complaint-rape-sex-trafficking-passport-theft/
https://margheritaviggiano.com/2024/05/10/criminal-complaint-rape-sex-trafficking-passport-theft/
Part I of Prof. Jeffrey Sachs’ interview, Seven Wars in Five Years:
https://margheritamaleti.com/2025/02/14/prof-jeffrey-sachs-seven-wars-in-five-years/
https://margheritaviggiano.com/2025/02/14/prof-jeffrey-sachs-seven-wars-in-five-years/
https://margheritamaletiviggiano.com/2025/02/14/prof-jeffrey-sachs-seven-wars-in-five-years/
