What’s Next In Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza? Experts Tell Mehdi

Welcome to another Zotero Live Town Hall.I'm Mehdi Hassan, the Editor -in -Chief here at Zotero.I've got a great panel for you here today to talk about all of the breaking news and more.Forgive my voice.This is what happens when you watch England defeat Norway.Sorry, Trina, at the weekend.

And I'll lose it completely by Thursday after we beat Argentina.But I've got enough of a voice left.I had a voice for Piers Morgan this morning, and I have a voice for this distinguished panel that I have today.Rula Jibril is here, Zotero contributor, Palestinian -Italian journalist, analyst, academic, author.Trita Parsi, good friend of Zateo, is the Executive Vice President at the Quincy Institute, foreign policy analyst, author of multiple books on Iran.And Rami Khouri is here.

Great to see you, Rami.Longtime Lebanon watcher, former Beirut resident, former Distinguished Policy Fellow at the American University of Beirut.Now, I think you're in Cambridge, Massachusetts right now, Palestinian, Jordanian, American journalist, commentator.Great to have you all here.There is a lot to discuss.We actually scheduled this town hall last week when we thought, you know what?

People aren't talking about Iran or Gaza or Lebanon.Let's talk about those three topics with three experts.And then Donald Trump, as usual, never lets things lie, has decided to restart the war.not that it was ever really over, on the eve of this town hall.So it's been even more relevant than it was before.So let's just jump in right there.

We're going to talk about all three countries and what's going on, Israel and America at the center of all of them.And if you've got questions, I see some of you are still joining the chat.Do stick your questions in the Q &A, and we'll try and get through as many Q &A questions as we can in a little bit.But Trita, I'm going to throw it over to you.You've just written a piece for your Substack.Remind people what your Substack's called so they can go subscribe.

You've written a big piece today about what is going on right now with Iran and the U .S., what implication this will have for oil prices.What's fascinating to me is we were told forever that Iran charging tolls for the Strait of Hormuz is illegal under international law.and maritime law.Donald Trump's solution to Iran charging tolls today, we've been told, is that he will just charge a bigger toll, 20%.

He says he'll take for being the guardian of the Strait of Hormuz.He's bombed Iran on Saturday, bombed Iran on Sunday.And the Iranian foreign minister is mocking him today.Mr. Araghchi tweeting, well, 20 % is too high.We're only doing 1 % or 2%.Trita, what should we think about all this?

We should think that this is frankly a disaster and it did not need to come to this.It was not inevitable in my view.But nevertheless, I think part of the problem is that both sides overreacted to a couple of things happening in the strait.The Iranians are very sensitive about the strait already before the MOU.They believe that they saw efforts by the United States to create a southern corridor in Omani waters that the Iranians would not be able to control.So if war were to start again, the way the Iranians would view it, once the U .

S.restarts the war, the Iranians would no longer have the Hormuz card to play in the same way.And the Iranian position was that they wanted to make sure that all ships coordinated with them their transit and all that coordination essentially would mean that would they they would send an email and say that they're they're intending to transit there's no fees there's no approval or anything of that kind.But there were several efforts to have ships go through the southern corridor, oftentimes turning off their transponders.The Iranians view that as a provocation.I think it was an overreaction to necessarily shoot at them.

This led to once, twice, and now three times military exchanges between the US and Iran.And the last time, this current time, I think the US completely overreacted in the manner that Trump decided to dramatically escalate he himself said that if they shoot one we will shoot 20 that's a declaration of war.disproportionate response and has led to this scenario.I think there's elements of this likely would have happened in some form.I think one of the mistakes the Iranians have done is that they have failed to appreciate The Trump psychology requires some sort of a constant assembly of positive news and progress.And if that doesn't happen, he quickly loses patience and can do a 180.

He's already done that twice now.He started war, went back to diplomacy, started war again.And that as a result, this really is going to make it difficult, even if they manage to get to the table again, to get a deal done.Because after 47 years of enmity, you're not going to have a negotiation that moves in that type of a smooth fairytale whale.It's just not going to happen.And it makes me more skeptical than I was before.

I was somewhat optimistic at various points that actually diplomacy could work because this level of impatience is just not going to cut it.

You've always been more optimistic than me, Trida.Rula, are you optimistic?Because Trida used the word inevitable.It wasn't inevitable.I feel like it was inevitable because Donald Trump was never going to let this just go and the Iranians were never let it just go and Israelis were never going to let it go.The MOU was never going to be the end or the beginning of the end.

Where do you stand on this ruler?But if you want early access to exclusive content, then you have to head to Zoteo .com and subscribe now.You'll be supporting fearless, independent journalism.

Look, it's time and time again the United States has attempted to shred their own, you know, memorandum of understanding because they attempted to basically retroactively continue to change the terms because they didn't like the terms.Every time Donald Trump would discovercertain terms that he didn't read or they didn't inform him enough, so he retroactively tried to change it after signing basically the memorandum of understanding or of misunderstanding.And now we find ourselves in this place that Israel led us to be in.The conversation in the United States is very clear.America lost the war.

And now they're trying, of course, they lost the war.They're trying to impose some kind of conditions after they lost this war.And they're trying somehow to rewrite history.Trump doesn't want to be shamed.But the debate in Israel is completely different.And I think the Americans need to understand that Israelis could not care less about world economy, could not care less about Trump standing, whether he lose the election or win the election or the midterms.

They couldn't care less about all of that.They're actually now plotting and talking about attacking.a NATO country, Turkey.They're in full -fledged commitment to forever wars, and they're willing to go as far as – I mean, today we had this incredible news that came out.We already heard about it, whether it's in Haaretz and in The New York Times and others, that says they even wanted, recruited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad The guy that they called Hitler, Netanyahu himself called him Hitler, Bennett called him Hitler.They wanted to recruit him as president of Iran.

They wanted this guy who they said the most anti -Semite leader that wanted to destroy Israel.

Holocaust denier.

Holocaust denier.They wanted this guy to be the next president of Iran working for them.This tells you something about the Israel mindset.The Israelis in this moment, there is a psychosis in Israel.They are drunk on alcohol.impunity on power, and they lust for destruction of the entire Middle East.

So I think the more Americans understanddid Trump ended in that trap, the more they understand that they need to cut their losses and sign whatever deal.It's not going to be a beautiful deal.It's going to be a messy deal, but they need to cut that deal now before it's too late for everybody.

I keep hearing this thing that Trump wants to cut a deal.Trump wants this over.But he's escalating to de -escalate, to use a phrase that Americans like to use, which is a very strange phenomenon.And for those of you who have not read the Ahmadinejad piece, I'm going to ask Trita about it in a moment.This is the New York Times piece today from Ronan Bergman and Farnoz Fazi and a bunch of other reporters who say that the Israelis were cultivating Ahmadinejad for several years.They flew him out to Budapest for a fake climate change conference so they could make contact with him.

He started wearing tailored suits.He got boated.talks, he trimmed his beard, this is Mahmood Ahmed and Ajad Mahmood tonight at the Holocaust Centre.famously was quoted as saying, wipe Israel off the map, though, of course, many people disputed that translation.And he turns out to be the Israeli choice, not even the Trump choice, to replace the current Iranian government.Rami, before we go back to Iran, just a broader, big picture look at the region.

Iran responded again by hitting Gulf countries, again by hitting Jordan.A lot of these countries sent delegations to Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral.So a lot of people watching are like, what is going on in this region?Is it a love -hate relationship?Are they frenemies?relationship right now between Iran and its Muslim majority neighbors, shall we say?

Well, I was in Jordan last week.I was there for two and a half weeks working on a book and I transited through Qatar on the way back.So I was constantly looking out my window of the airplane to see if there's any missiles.I didn't catch any.And in Jordan, there was very little reaction.People just got used to living in a quiet place.

The reality I think Mandy to understand the bigger picture of what's going on.is that what we're witnessing in the immediate sense is a confrontation between the United States and Iran, and Israel is playing a role there, and Lebanon as well.The bigger picture is that the Iranians who represent, whose positions are supported by probably 80 % of people across the entire Middle East, they're trying to end the colonial period.This is not just a short -term project.And when I say the colonial period, I mean, when you look at where are the three biggest places that resist and confront and challenge the United States and Israel?They're Lebanon, Iran, and Palestine.

They're the three most active fronts.Why is that?Because they were the most devastated by their colonial encounters in many different forms going back the last couple of hundred years.Yeah, so this is a long process.They'll reach an agreement in the short term about something.But the agreements are, you know, when I look at Trump, I see Wile E. Coyote, you know, the Roadrunner cartoon character, those of you who know.

And Wile E. Coyote is getting bombs and putting up cement walls and dropping boulders, trying to catch the Roadrunner.And all of the things he does explode in his face.And this is Trump in action.And he doesn't know how to deal with this.And it's going to go on and on until his people restrain him.Bigger than that is the deeper picture of the situation in the region.

The Arab countries mostly are de -sovereign countries.They're independent, but they don't really have full sovereignty because any major decision any Arab country makes, trade deals, water sources, military sales, whatever, has to be approved by some patron.It used to be the British and the French, now the Americans and the French.role, the Turks play a role, the Iranians play a role.Sometimes the Russians occasionally, maybe the Chinese.There are no fully sovereign countries in the Arab region right now, unfortunately.

Iran is showing what sovereignty really is all about.

And we don't know.And the Israelis obviously don't like that.

The Israelis and the Americans are the targets.This is the last colonial uprising in the entire world.

I think you may be the first person I've interviewed in my 15 years of 20 years of interviewing people that has compared the Iranian regime to the roadrunner, but I like it.No, I compared Trump to Wiley Cody.Doesn't that make you a roadrunner?By definition, Iran is a roadrunner then, even though he may be injured, we're told.Trita, Mahmoud Armenijad, I've got to ask you about this New York Times report that Rula cited.What was going on there?

I mean, we've heard a bunch of Times reporting.That reporting is from Ronan Bergman and Farnaz Fessi and a bunch of others.Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman had other reporting for their book that appeared in the Times a couple of months ago, which was about the Situation Room meeting, when Netanyahu turns up, puts the Mossad director on a big screen, and they run through, apparently, a slideshow of possible replacements for the current Iranian government.Pahlavi's in there.Mahmoud Armenijad's in there as well, according to Swan and Haberman.first time we heard his name.

You know these people inside out.Were they really collaborating with the Israelis?

I don't find it implausible at all that Ahmadinejad would have been a target of the Israelis to be flipped.Whether he truly flipped or not, I don't know.The story in New York Times today says that he was, but then he regretted it and, you know, ended up...He regretted it after they accidentally bombed his company.

Yeah.

Exactly.So, you know, there's details there.that, you know, probably need to be further investigated.But the idea that after having been completely shut out, turned into a pariah, you know, he left office on very bad terms with the Supreme Leader.As you all remember, there were periods while during his last term in which he refused to go to his office for about 10 days.He was sulking at home.

He was doing essentially a quiet protest because he wanted Khamenei to give in on some issue.and Khamenei never did.So, you know, reality, oftentimes, Ahmadinejad was seen as Khamenei's person.And to a certain extent, he was in the beginning.But people forgot that Ahmadinejad never really had his own base.He was rising up because the supreme leader at the time was essentially endorsing him against the reformists, Mousavi, etc.

And as soon as he got into office, he tried to start building up his own constituency.And that became a warning sign for the system, for Bayt al -Rahbari, for the office of the Supreme Leader, who realized, OK, this guy actually has ambitions that go beyond what the reformists did.As you remember, back then, he wrote these 18 -page letters to George W. Bush.He never vetted that with the Supreme Leader or his office.Whereas when Khatami was president, he didn't even dare to have a handshake with Bill Clinton at the Millennium Summit without an explicit approval of Khamenei.So Ahmadinejad came into office from the very beginning, pursuing a line that was very independent.

And not deferential to Khamenei.And that created a major schism between the two of them and the system as a whole.He hardly has any support within the system.So I don't find it implausible at all that he would turn, that he would be a target, that he was a potential person for the Israelis to attack.And I'll be frank with you, if you're sitting in the Israeli intelligence services and you're looking for Iranians to flip, you've got to admit, Ahmadinejad would be one of the most attractive people.It would be like you're catching Moby Dick.

So I'm not surprised at all that they went after him.Whether the rest of the story is true or not, I don't know.

But Trita, it's such a reminder.that when they talk about anti -Semitism, it's all such bullshit.Because as long as you're pro -Israel, you can be a Holocaust denier.It's fine.As long as you're on board.It was never about his anti -Jewish or anti -Semitic tropes.

Can I add one other thing?Just very quickly.Don't forget that the biggest loser in all of this story is Reza Pahlavi, who completely sold out to the Israelis.Completely.And then lost his best pal Lindsey Graham.

And then lost his best pal Lindsey Graham at the weekend.Lost his biggest sponsor in Congress.I would say, Trita, 10 days at home during the pandemic would have been quiet quitting.So I don't know if that's what Ahmadinejad was doing as president.My view of the Iranian solution to this is Mujtaba Khamenei should just build a Trump Tower in Tehran and that solves it all.And that will lead to an end of all conflict.

But a more serious question comes from Vinnie DeStefano, and I want you to take this one, Trita, which is, he's talking about the Khamenei funeral, which didn't get that much coverage in the West, but people who did see it saw tens of millions of people on the street, we don't know how many.He says, my question is regarding the presence of red flags in the hands of many of the people who took part in the state funeral of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, in both Iran and Iraq.I understand, he says, he thinks this is an ancient call for justified vengeance.How do you believe these calls for vengeance may be carried out?I just want to unpack that question from Vinny and say a couple of things.One is that big statement of public support for the government.

Very, very important.What do they do with that?Is that a sign that the new Khamenei is going to be like, I'm not rolling over for you.And I will take revenge for what you did to my dad and other members of my family, because now the war's back on.what is the Iranian strategy now?

A couple of things, you have to really unpack it.First of all, we have to remind ourselves, because I was asked by some Western journalists about this as well, we have to remind ourselves, to the best of my knowledge, there's no example at all in which Iranian officials have called for the President of the United States to be killed until the President of the United States killed Qasem Soleimani.So, The extent to which you heard some calls, it comes all after that.So Trump opened up a completely new era by assassinating Qasem Soleimani, in which some of these calls have occurred.Nevertheless, very important to note, during the entire funeral, there were no calls by any sitting official.for Trump to be killed.

There were slogans, there were some banners, there were things that are unofficial at the end of the day, and I know the U .S.government was looking at this very closely.There was no one that was official.Until you had the deterioration of the situation in the strait, and then Khamenei Jr. comes out with a statement, again, we haven't seen his face, we haven't heard his voice, it's read up on TV, in which he doesn't explicitly mention Trump, but he says that it's the right of the nation to seek vengeance.And undoubtedly it is unhelpful, and it's all coinciding with the Israelis claiming that they had foiled the plot by the Iranians to kill Trump.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know.It sounds way too convenient, given where the Israelis are on this issue.

So on that note, Rula, let me ask you this about the Israel angle.When we talk about Donald Trump in domestic politics, I often quote Steve Bannon from the first term, where he said, scandals, gaffes, controversies.Is that the Netanyahu approach to foreign policy?Because I want to talk about Israel and Iran, but then I feel like I must also talk aboutIsrael in Lebanon but then I must also not forget about Israel in Gaza and of course Gaza is the one that we spent two years non -stop talking about but now no one talks about it apparently there's a border peace everything's fine there's a ceasefire everyone's living in a happy Kumbaya land apparently in the Gaza Strip.

Just want to comment on a couple of things before answering this.First of all, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if you understand Israel mindset, especially of the security apparatus, Shin Bet and Mossad, you need to understand that the level of infiltration that we saw in Iran or Lebanon or Palestine was massive, was truly massive and was terrifying.But at the same time, they really now are understood that they couldn't achieve any of their goals.There's no regime change in Iran.Basically, they didn't manage to dismantle or to disarm Hamas or Hezbollah, Iran's proxy, as they call them.But also, they did not achieve the ultimate goal, which is total annexation and expulsion of the Palestinians' ethnic cleansing.

And everybody is now trying to blame Netanyahu, say, oh, it's like his fault.You need to understand that the liberals in Israel The people who run the security apparatus, Shin Bet, Mossad, Shabak, et cetera, are the liberal ones.Also, the pilots who dropped the bombs over Gaza, over Lebanon, and over Iran are the liberals, are very upset in this moment, because for them, Netanyahu did not complete the job, meaning the job is blowing up totally Iran, rendering Iran a failed state.And this is where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plays in.They were fine that he's a Holocaust denier because then they can justify the fact that he's a Holocaust denier and that he is, as they call them, Hitler, to furtherdestroy Iran from within.

He was a perfect, actually, perfect candidate as president because then it gives them cover to justify the total destruction of the Iranian state.This is why they funded and financed Hamas for almost 15 years.This is why they were arming ISIS in Gaza.This is why around the Middle East, they were arming the worst jihadist groups and funding them.Netanyahu himself bragged about it.In this moment in Israel, as they prepare for the elections in October, the candidates that are going, regardless who is going to win, whether Netanyahu or the other camp, the policy is not going to change regarding the entirety of the Middle East.

The only thing they will change if the other side wins, that they will try to play the propaganda card that you mentioned, meaning they will try to flood the zone with forever plan or roadmap that leads to nowhere where say, we're negotiating some kind of settlements with the Palestinians.By the way, the settlements they negotiate or the ceasefire terms they negotiated and they accepted both with Hamas.And in Lebanon, they never respected those.Actually, the Iranians managed to negotiate a better deal for the Lebanese than the Lebanese state itself negotiated for the Lebanese people.And you need to understand that this is Israel today are acting as not only rogue state, worse.They're acting, basically saying, we could not care less.

And what demonstrate that?The arrest of Ro Khanna.They're now acting as a total out of control state where they said, we don't care anymore about anybody.Everybody is against us.So we better do whatever we want until Trump is in office.

Technically, they didn't arrest him.Yes, they detained an American congressman.

Detained him.

Apologies.And held him.And it was settlers who were then ousted.A gang boy.Local armed security agents.It's kind of very revealing of how settlers act with impunity.

But I'll come back to Gaza.Let me just ask you, Rami Khouri, Rula mentioned Lebanon.There was a quote unquote peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon on the June the 26th.A lot of people were very upset with the Lebanese government saying they gave away too much in exchange for a ceasefire.They gave up any right to secure accountability for the many war crimes that have been committed against Lebanon.What do you make of what the Lebanese government did in June?

Was they just between a rock and a hard place?

I think they were totally helpless.They were desperate.They felt they had to try anything to improve the situation and get the Israelis out of the South.And the Americans realized this.The Lebanese government could not do any serious reconstruction and development because the U .S.

was blocking the World Bank aid and other aid.And the American government then stepped in with the Israelis and said, let's try to create a mechanism, kind of like the Oslo process, a kind of a fake mechanism that sounds good on paper, would appeal to some people who are desperate.And this is what happened.And they went ahead with it.The vast majority of Lebanese don't want to have fake full peace with Israel until there is full sovereignty in Lebanon.The Israelis stop attacking Lebanon and Lebanon controls its own destiny.

And Hezbollah is not a big obstacle to that.Hezbollah has said they will turn over all their arms to the Lebanese armed forces once there is an armed forces and a government that can actually protect Lebanon.So this is not a serious process.It's a new form of what the Britishin the 1920s, 1930s.It's a neocolonial affirmation of the fact that foreign countries, Israel and the U .

S., will determine what happens in Lebanon.And the thing that's so interesting and important to realize is that it was only in Lebanon Palestine and Iran, that you got movements that pushed back against this, and pushed back forcefully and effectively.The Israeli army doesn't want to go into Lebanon anymore because they were getting beaten up so badly by Hezbollah's rejuvenated capabilities.And so they're trying a different approach, which isn't going to work.This is not a serious process, and we shouldn't take it seriously.

By the way, quickly, very quickly, one of our subscribers, Mona, says Rula Jibril is gold.So I thought I'd just read that out.Rami, I wrote a piece for Zetei a few weeks ago when the New York Times and our friends at Dropsite News were reporting that Israeli military officials were calling Christian village chiefs in southern Lebanon saying, you cannot have Shias in your village.We will bomb you if you do not tell them to leave.You cannot hide them in your houses.You cannot give them refuge or safe haven.

And I wrote a piece saying, surely this is at best best ethnic cleansing.At worst, you could say it's genocidal, creating the conditions of life that don't allow for the existence of a community.And Khalil Rahman, one of our subscribers, asks, Can you ask your panel to discuss the evidence about genocide in Lebanon?Is the lack of support for the international community in Lebanon in comparison to Gaza rooted in anti -Shia discrimination?It's an interesting question.Lebanon is a country that's had sectarian tensions for many years.

It's a very, very carefully balanced political system, Sunni, Shias, Christians.And then you have the Israelis throwing in this sectarian oil onto the fire.

partners that they can play with.And so this is nothing new.It's been going on for over 100 years.And they tried it in different forms.They tried it with village leagues and the West Bank and Palestine.They tried it with the thugs in Gaza.

It's just there is too strong a commitment among the vast majority of Arabs, Palestinians and Lebanese and others, to live in freedom and dignity and sovereignty.And all of the people in the Arab region are willing to coexist with a Jewish -majority Israeli state and the Arab peace plan.It's not like they're trying to throw them into the sea, as the Israeli propaganda says.But the Israelis won't do this.Before the Israelis did a genocide in Gaza, they did a genocide against the international system of human rights protections, criminal court protection, etc., the rule of law, and they're continuing.Now the Americans have taken the baton and they're trying to, yesterday or today it was announced that the American government is going to lead a push to destroy the ICC and other things.

So this is a long pattern.It's been going on for a century.Labor, Likud, all of them, between them, have followed it.The difference now in Israel is that the whole system has shifted heavily to the the

Iranian front, Trida, Cheyenne Zarin asks, my question is whether the Kurds are being activated to launch a ground incursion again.There have been reports of clashes in the border area with Iraqi Kurds.Trump alluded that help is on the way again on Fox today.

Look, there was clearly a plan, again, part of this Israeli package that was sold to Trump.of using the Kurds.The specific group that they were looking at was a group that actually was very active in December during the riots.There were some very violent incidents that took place in the Kurdish areas, and those were actually driven by this specific group.It's called PAK.They were actually trained by the United States back in 2014 to fight ISIS.

The U .S.is not clear whether they mistook them for an Iraqi Kurdish group, but they actually were an Iranian Kurdish group.And they have been one of the more violent groups.And that is the group that apparently was supposed to be utilized, but it ended up not happening.And there's several different reasons for it.

One was that the Turks intervened, but it's also because the Kurdish government in Iraq intervened.They realized quickly that this would be an absolute disaster.The Kurds would be blamed for it, and it would cost the Iraqi Kurdish government a tremendous amount.The idea that that would be resurrected I find very unlikely.Could it be that they're trying with some other ethnic group in the border areas, the Baluchis perhaps?It could be, because at the end of the day, we're seeing a situation in which there's a relentlessness in pursuing this, regardless of the results, regardless of the fact that so far everything has been a complete disaster.

It doesn't mean that they're going back to the table and say, you know, perhaps we have the wrong objective.No, they're going back to the table and saying, okay, let's try the same objective, but through some other different mean.And as long as they have the amount of resources they have, as long as there isn't enough of a conversation in Washington in which Israeli intelligence or Israeli argumentsare scrutinized far beyond what it is today, then frankly, why should they stop?They're not the ones paying the price for it.

Before we continue, I would say Kevin Morford, one of our subscribers, has some words of wisdom.He says, Iran wants to enrich uranium.Trump wants to enrich himself.I couldn't have put it better myself.Kevin.Rula, one of our other subscribers asks, Are the European countries powerless in this conflict between the USA and Israel against Iran, despite the huge consequences for their economies due to rising oil prices?

And I would add to that ruler, are we seeing any changes in the European mindset?Andy Burnham is about to become prime minister of the UK in the next couple of weeks.He's put out a video which was Not as much, not as far as I would like to have gone, but a good start where he says my party got it wrong at the start after October 7th.We, you know, a semi -apology for the Labour government blindly supporting Israel.What are the Europeans up to?Even your old Italian friend, Giorgia Maloney, and I say friend, obviously, loosely, a neo -fascist who's tried to sue you, even she's been very, very critical of Israel recently.

Yes, but then when she goes to the European Parliament, her party votes to basically block any suspension or any ban on trade agreements, including with the settlements.However, today there was an important meeting in Brussels, maybe the most important one among all European foreign ministers, and the main debate was about Ukraine.Again, another package of sanctions against Russia, the 19th package, by the way, against Russia, and none against Ukraine.Israel, including the settlements, including the settlers, including Ben -Gvir, who bragged on video of abducting, kidnapping, torturing, molesting European citizens, and bringing them to Israel, humiliating them on video.The Europeans are not weak.They have leverage, and the most important leverage

they're Israel's first and most important trading partner.Listen, I've been pressuring the Europeans for a long time.Obviously, Germany and Italy, they have this past, you know, they killed Jews.They literally committed a genocide against their own citizens who are European Jews.So I don't know if it's a sense of guilt, but I think it's mixed also with deep, racist policies toward brown and Arabs and Muslims, people like us, de facto.So they don't mind.

So when the chancellor of Germany said Israel is doing the dirty job for us, he didn't intend also bombing Iran.He also intended they're basically killing people and we couldn't care less.But there's a shift between European leaders and European public opinion.You talked about 80 % of Americans who are against sending aid to Israel.When it comes to trade and aid to Israel from the European nation, it's 90%.It's overwhelming majority.

I never seen anything like this in my lifetime, this kind of support.So what I'm predicting in the next elections, the issue of Palestine will be crucial.Italy will be voting in maybe seven months or nine months and all countries around Europe.And you will see what happened in New York with Zoran Mamdani and others will be implemented also in Europe.It will take a while to suspend that agreement, trade agreement, also because that trade agreement it has clause number two, and the clause number two says clearly if any country violate human rights, that agreement is null and void.And Europe is acting against its own agreement, against its own laws.

See no evil, hear no evil.Exactly.But I just want to conclude adding one thing.Ursula von der Leyen, Callas, and all these European leaders are considered not only failures,the eyes of millions, millions, hundreds of millions of Europeans who are protesting on a regular basis in the streets, But they are so disgusted, the European, because we just uncovered and discovered that Israeli government is spying on the American government, but also they're using their tools, Paragon and Pegasus.They sold it to European countries, European regimes, and they're spying on European governments.

So I don't know if Georgia Maloney is blackmailed.I don't know if she really...Deep down, I believe she's an anti -Semite.So basically, they positioned in those tools another backdoor to spy on their clients.So I think we will discover a lot of blackmail operations in Europe as well.

Rami, Rula mentioned the word predictions.I'm not going to ask you for a prediction, but what should people who are watching and hearing your analysis, what should they be looking out for next?Especially on the Gaza front, which hasn't got the coverage it should have gotten, where Netanyahu recently got quoted saying, we have 60 % of Gaza, we're going to go to 70%.One of his ministers said, why not 100 %?Ben Gavir has been funding all sorts of organizations in the West Bank in terms of annexation.What should people be looking out for in that part of the world?

I think what you have to look for is not necessarily in the Middle East, but around the world.Palestine has become a global domestic political issue.We've seen in the primaries in the United States how critical critics of Israel are winning and doing well.It's become a global issue because the young people around the world, and it's almost purely or heavily age difference, they do not want their countries to be funding or associated with the genocide.And therefore, what we're going to see is slow change.Change doesn't happen quickly on foreign policy issues like this.

It happens very slowly.If you go back to Vietnam, which I experienced as a college student in the US, it took a decade or so for movement, protests, and all to finally change the government.policies.So we should be looking for more victories by, as Rula mentioned, political parties in the West will run on this.The problem is that the nature of Western democratic systems is such that the Israelis can manipulate them and penetrate them and do terrible things to them.So it takes a long time to get government change at the national level on foreign policy.

And this is what we're witnessing now.In the meantime, people in the Middle East, the popular opinion, which is very strong for Palestine, has no political power.And so it's the political elites that control everything, and this is not going to change very quickly, except if they see in the coming six months that if they get closer to the Iranian position and the Hezbollah position, which is resistance, political resistance, cultural resistance, military resistance, whatever, maybe things will change.At some point, the Israelis are going to have to react to this.Right now, they're on a killing spree.all across the Middle East, occupying, killing, they're creating desolation zones in Lebanon like they did in Gaza, and they wanted to try to do it in Iran.

And nobody's going to stop them right now.And we have to keep assuming that some combination of pressure from public opinion in the West Arab governments and elites in the Middle East and the American government, which is the one immediately that can influence the Israelis, that will happen in the coming two or three years, perhaps, but that's the best we can hope for.One last point that we need a Palestinian government.There's no Palestinian government.The Palestinian people, all the public opinion support they have in the Middle East is not channeled into a proper political process because the Israelis have worked hard to prevent the emergence of a credible, legitimate, and representative Palestinian government.So this is something I would look for.

How can you say there's not a Palestinian government when Mahmoud Abbas is 17 years into his second four -year term?

Yeah.Well, he's not a government.He's a long -serving president.

I agree with you.I agree with you.Yeah, I know.I know.

I realize.

Trita, Trita, first elected in 2005 to serve a four -year term.He's still there in 2026.Donald Trump only wishes.Trita, you said earlier at the beginning of the discussion, just to end with you, you said you were optimistic.Now you're more pessimistic.Where does this end?

That's the question everyone wants.I know it's the $64 billion question.When the fundamentals haven't changed.I mentioned I was on the Piers Morgan show earlier today, and I said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.Trump is doing the same thing again.We're going to blockade the strait.

We're going to charge our tolls.We're going to bomb Iran, et cetera.The Iranians are doing what they're doing.Nothing has really changed fundamentally on the ground, as it were.So where does this end?It just carries on in this kind of low -level way?

Or does America continue to escalate?escalate to de -escalate.People are talking about Cog Island again.I don't know what to believe anymore.

The two sides, through the mediation of regional states, will find some sort of way back to the table.But nothing will have changed even by then.You're right, nothing has changed now.In fact, the conditions for starting the war again are worse than they were back in February.The only thing that may have changed is that the illusion that military power can rearrange facts on the ground in a manner that will favor your negotiation position may no longer be an illusion that exists.It may have been dispelled by this.

But that's in the best case scenario.And then they go back to essentially where they were five days ago.But in a scenario in which trust is even more depleted, if not completely obliterated, confidence on the Iranian side that the U .S.can make a deal or that will stick to a deal will be even shorter and will be even less in supply.So I think this is, even in the best case scenario, I find this to be potentially a killer, something that will kill any prospects for real diplomacy to occur.

Well, we will follow developments very closely here at Zotero.Thank you for your analysis and input and expertise.Always great to have you both, Trita and Rula.Rami, great to have you for a first time.I hope it's not the last time.Our subscribers are watching this today.

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