Netanyahu: Israel Must Rule “From The River To The Sea” | #NovaraLIVE

Welcome to Navarra Live, I'm Michael Walker and it is a traditional Friday evening, so I'm joined with, or joined by, sorry, Aaron Bastani. Aaron, how are you doing? Very well, Michael. I like that. It's a tradition. We like tradition here at Navarra Media, particularly when it comes to our Friday night shows. Yeah, I think I'm getting more into tradition as I age and maybe that will come up later. Coming up later on tonight's show, the US show once again that they are supporting Israel no matter what. Yes, it's another press conference with one of their officials and this one is really, really shocking. The Tories' approach to small boat crossings has been called out by a barrister on Question Time, a barrister who used to be a refugee, or I suppose still is a refugee, but very, very interesting intervention there. And the Davos elite have been gathering this week in the Alps. I'm sure it's very gorgeous to be there, as long as the expense is paid, very expensive to be there. One particular clip shows how out of touch they are. In the future, the state of Israel have to control on the entire area from the river to the sea. This is what happens when you have sovereignty. This truth, I say to our American friends, and I also stopped the attempt to impose as us a reality that will jeopardize us. A prime minister in Israel has to be able to say no, even to the best of friends. That was Netanyahu speaking yesterday and once again making his intentions very clear. And his use of from the river to the sea is interesting. If a student protester uses those same words in a chant, well, it's a national crisis. But when the Israeli prime minister says Israel alone will control everything from the river to the sea, well, let's send him some more weapons. Netanyahu include part of Lebanon as well in his plans for a greater Israel. Earlier in that speech, he had said that we cannot tolerate being under threat. He said withdrawing from Lebanon was also a mistake. So somewhat ominous there. Now the phrase from the river to the sea has been discussed endlessly by now, but just in case you're not clear of the meaning, the river it refers to is the Jordan River, which separates Jordan from Israel-Palestine. The sea in question is the Mediterranean Sea, which is along the coast of Israel-Palestine. Now from the Palestinian side, from the river to the sea is a call for all of that area to be Palestine. From the Israeli side, from the river to the sea is a call for all of that area to be Israel. Now that doesn't necessarily make those chants two sides of the same coin though. When people on the Palestinian side say it, they often mean a single secular state where everyone in the territory has the vote. And when people on the Israeli side say it, they tend to mean clearing out Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank or a system of occupation and apartheid. Now the difference there isn't just accidental for advocates of a greater Israel. You couldn't have everyone in the state given a vote, or everyone between the river and the sea given a vote, because then it would lose its character as a Jewish state because it would no longer have a Jewish majority. Now unsurprisingly, the Palestinians object to the vision of a greater Israel, where Palestinians are either got ridden of or disenfranchised. Now a spokesperson for Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has said this, Of course Netanyahu has based his entire political career on the premise that Israel can have relative peace and stability without a Palestinian state. He came to national prominence as an opponent of the Oslo Accords, and last year he presented a map of what he called the New Middle East to the UN and it marked Israel as covering the whole of historic Palestine. So yesterday's statement comes as no surprise, however it is significant as the more Netanyahu's position is made explicit, the harder it should become for Israel's Western allies to defend them. Well that's the theory at least. At a press briefing yesterday, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller was asked whether the US would be applying pressure on Israel to change course on the question of a Palestinian state. I don't think we need to offer any kind of pressure. The pressure is reality. The pressure is the reality that I just laid out, that without a tangible path to the establishment of a Palestinian state, there are no other partners in the region who are going to step forward and help with the reconstruction of Gaza. There are no other partners in the region who are going to step forward and help establish Palestinian-led governance of Gaza. There are no other partners in the region who are going to step forward and integrate with Israel and make further assurances about Israel's long-term security. So that's just the reality. It's not the United States exerting pressure or not. It's the reality of the situation that Israel faces. And without making some of these tough choices that we've outlined, that will continue to be the reality and there will be no actual solutions to any of those very real short, medium, and long-term problems. So you're basically saying that their current position is not going to lead to any solution. There's no way that this will be solved. Does that mean cutting, you know, do you continue to supply weapons and other support to an ally that is not listening to the warnings that you're giving? So I know that's a question I get a lot. And I will answer it by saying, you know, Israel is a longtime ally of the United States. They're a longtime friend of the United States. And there are friendships, and not just at the government-to-government level, but there are longstanding friendships between our two peoples. And one of the things that you can do when you have this kind of longtime alliance and longtime friendship is that you can have these very frank, candid, and sometimes actually quite difficult conversations, both with the leadership of the country and with the country at large. Have you ever heard a more pathetic response from an American spokesperson? We don't need to apply pressure. The pressure is already there. Well, then can you explain why the Oslo process has been dead for 24 years now, why there is no movement within Israel for a two-state solution that has any power whatsoever? If you don't need to apply pressure, how's that worked out for you? And then this idea, you know, they're our friend, we just ask them nicely. You are the only country in the world that Israel actually listens to, right? Because they rely on the United States both for military protection and economic support. I mean, especially for military protection, frankly, because if Israel had to go it alone and was sort of risking a war from all sides, they need American firepower to back them up. So America has all the cards here, and they say, oh, no, we don't need to pressure them because inevitably, they'll just come to realize that they need a two-state solution. Has he watched any clips from Israeli TV recently? Has he heard anything that not just Netanyahu, but the leadership of the opposition have said? No one with any power in Israel is talking about a two-state solution. So if they need, if they'll just have to wake up to reality, why haven't they done it yet, right? And maybe it's because they don't mind the endless continuation of conflict. He's saying if they want to win the conflict, they're going to have to accept a two-state solution. They don't mind continuous conflict, right? Because they can afford to have continuous conflict because they're constantly backed up by the United States. Right? It's just, it's just twisting reality on its head. Aaron, I mean, what did you make of that? That response? I have to say, I just thought it, I found it pathetic. Crazy and almost inexplicable when you try to understand it from a sort of reasonable point of view. Firstly, as you said there, Israel absolutely benefits from permanent crisis and conflict. In the absence of an enemy, i.e. the Palestinian people, Israel is one of the most politically, socially, religiously polarized societies on earth. You basically have polar opposite views with regards to the role of the church, quote, religion and the state between liberal Israeli Jews and between Haredim, ultra-Orthodox Jews. One has a birth rate of about 1.5 children per woman, the other has about seven or eight. So you have these immeasurably different kinds of social values, ultra-nationalist or ultra-Zionist parties, two of which are in government. They don't even allow women to stand for office. You know, and yet you have people saying, you know, Tel Aviv is the LGBT capital of, you know, the Middle East. So wildly contradictory values. And I think it's really important to say that actually what you said there, Michael, the role played by this conflict, papers over so much of that, so many of those tensions within the idea of Israel, right? As both somewhere that could be a liberal Zionist state, but also somewhere which is giving rise to far more fundamentalist forms of religious expression. That's the first point. Secondly, as you've rightly said, again, the United States is the only country with real leverage over Israel. This idea that Israel needs nobody is so stupid, so nonsensical. Israel, Michael, can't even meet its basic needs for fresh drinking water without desalination plants. Okay? Forget even the military technology imports from the West, principally the United States. Steel production. You think Israel produces enough, you know, steel to be able to produce the kind of military hardware that it wants to create, or maintain the kinds of civic infrastructure that has 10 million people, right? Food. So look, they've done incredible things with regards to agricultural productivity, water desalination, and so on. But this idea that we don't need anybody, ultimately it's one of the most vulnerable countries you can imagine, particularly given its standard of living, its GDP per head. A lot of that is dependent upon global supply chains and military alliances, economic alliances with the West. You get rid of that, the country no longer exists as we know it. Maybe it could still defend its borders, but it wouldn't be particularly affluent, and there would be a hell of a lot more hardship. That's the first point. On top of that, Michael, this really brings us back to this conversation of what we were talking about earlier on in the week. Somebody said to Zahra Soltan, Rishi Sunak, in fact, said to Zahra Soltan, you were saying that we need to call on the Israelis to de-escalate. Why don't you condemn Hamas and Hezbollah and the Iranians? As if the IRGC are having their little cup of tea, and then they hear it over the internet. Oh my God, Zahra Soltan has condemned us. Guys, we've got to pull out. Zahra Soltan, the British left, has no leverage with these people. The West, meanwhile, does have leverage with Israel, for the reasons I just outlined, primarily economic and military, but especially the US has massive, massive leverage with the Israelis. At the same time, we're hearing idiots say, Zahra Soltan and the British left should condemn Iran or Putin, as if they care what we think. Well, no, actually, the one instance where that is obviously the case, where it would actually make a difference, is the United States, is Israel, and to a lesser extent, the UK. Yet, when that is put to American foreign policy makers, they think it's an absurd proposition. It really does highlight, this is absurd. People who are going absolutely out of their minds to condemn university students saying, from the river to the sea, and yet, when that is the stated foreign policy objective of a Prime Minister, Netanyahu, who's overseeing a conflict right now, which has killed, we think, in excess of 25,000 Palestinians, by the way, Israel's losing troops too, nobody thinks that's as serious, from the river to the sea. So what a protracted conflict, many civilians dying, we don't know really what it means in terms of wider geopolitical stability in West Asia, but that's less important than, you know, John and Jane saying, from the river to the sea at Caltech. What fucking moron thinks that? Well, I'll tell you who thinks that, it's the people that control the US and UK media. What we've just said might lead you to suspect that the United States might lack a plan for the Middle East, medium term or long term. This next clip won't reassure you. Are the airstrikes, when you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes. So he's asked, are the airstrikes in Yemen working? And he says, when you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes. Aaron, have you ever had a more honest summary of US foreign policy in the Middle East? No. This is, Michael, this is US foreign policy for the whole of my lifetime. Is it working? No. Are we going to keep on doing it? Damn right. You know, not even, is it working? Is this counterproductive to your interests? Yes. Absolutely. It's completely fucking us. Are you going to keep doing it? We're going to double down. You ain't seen nothing yet. Look, we're having this conversation actually about really the possibility of regional war in West Asia, potential state breakdown across many, many countries, affecting hundreds of millions of people. You would think the right care about this stuff, because of course that means refugees coming to Europe. Apparently not. We're literally having this conversation because 25 years ago, well, a little under, the United States and the UK decided to invade Iraq when that neighborhood wasn't even that bad. Things were quite calm compared to now anyway. And that created the platform for Iran to extend its influence everywhere, ISIS and so on and so forth. Just a really great foreign policy at this point for the US, but stop doing stuff. Don't do anything. Liberal humanitarians and liberal interventionists. We need to do something. No, the best thing you can do, nothing. Stop doing things. The more you stop, the better it will be. If you're being really sympathetic to him, you could interpret it as him saying, have they stopped the Houthis yet? No, but we're going to keep doing it until it does. But he says something more specific. When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. So it's not, they're not even in the process of stopping the Houthis, right? It's not that we haven't stopped them yet, so we should continue. This is not in any way working whatsoever, but we're going to keep doing it. It's interesting. I mean, you got an interview out with Philip Pilkington, haven't you, this Sunday? I know he talks a lot about how the major powers are in real trouble at the moment, because in part because of the development of new technology and drones and the like, it's really cheap to put a major ship under threat, and it's quite expensive to protect a ship. I mean, I haven't heard the interview yet, so I'm not sure that that's what you go into, but I listen to your guest a lot, Philip Pilkington, and that's what he's always talking about. Yeah, the economics are fascinating, Michael. And look, the thing is, you could have Operation Prosperity Guardian, they send all these ships down to the Red Sea, the Houthis stop, you know, loitering munitions, and they stop medium range missiles and anti-ship missiles, they stop doing that for a month. Okay, well, the ships go back, they start again. It's a very expensive thing to enforce. As you've said, these ships are also at risk, not high risk, because they can defend themselves, but there's a possibility that actually US or British Navy ships get damaged, possible. I don't think it's really talked about enough. Iran has medium range missiles that can go to Cyprus, that can go to Bahrain. They could be used against US and UK military bases, they could be, but they're being used against US military bases in Iraq. Why can't that happen to UK bases in Bahrain or Cyprus? Honestly, I've not seen a single person say that. Why won't they do that? They're doing it in Iraq, they've started it in Pakistan, they're doing it in Syria. Why wouldn't they? So yeah, it's a huge point of contention, which really I think most policy leaks haven't really grasped, only in their defense, most people hadn't even realized until, what, three months ago. But as Philip puts it, and it is a must watch interview this Sunday, Michael, at 6pm, until really this year, we thought to enforce a blockade on somewhere, you needed to have a massive military, and a massive navy. And of course, to have a massive navy, you needed a massive GDP, you needed a massive domestic industrial sector. That was what, if you wanted to blockade somewhere, it was like, you know, as the king of hearts, you know, the ace of spades, it was like the top card in geopolitics, and it requires lots of stuff. And all of a sudden, actually, what you need is access to relatively, now, relatively cheap technology like, you know, Mahajah drones, and maybe a Shahab 3 missile or two, a few cruise missiles. And actually, now, you can do pretty much the same thing. You don't need to be a tier one power. That's new, it's unprecedented. So really interesting. And Philip, you know, he is not a lemming, he thinks for himself, which is great, comes from a bit of a different political sort of tradition to perhaps me or you, you know, I labeled him the Adam twos of the right. But very interesting insights. And I think on the Red Sea, and on that point you just made there, very original thinking. And I think people will learn a lot from listening to him on Sunday. Can't wait to hear it. Back to Israeli plans and what Israeli politicians are saying. The National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gavir, has been speaking again. This week he said Israel needs to occupy Gaza and stay there. Ben-Gavir also talked in grim terms about encouraging people to leave Gaza. And many of Israel's practices in Gaza should be read in that light. You are less likely to want to stay somewhere if your home and workplace has been bombed, or if you're subject to arbitrary detention and torture. On that latter issue, the spokesperson for the UN's High Commissioner on Human Rights has released a statement today. Raveena Shamdasani has been in Rafa since Monday, and she has said this. During my time here, I have managed to meet a number of released detainees. These are men who were detained by Israeli security forces in unknown locations for 30 to 55 days. They described being beaten, humiliated, subjected to ill treatment and to what may amount to torture. They reported being blindfolded for long periods, some of them for several consecutive days. One man said he had access to a shower only once during his 55 days in detention. There are reports of men who were subsequently released, but only in diapers, without any adequate clothing, in this cold weather. Depriving people of food is an even more crude way of encouraging them to leave their homeland. Now, on that issue, the charity ActionAid said that 2.3 million people face starvation and disease. They also said this. Confusing and arbitrary rules about the type of aid permitted to enter Gaza is resulting in thousands of essential items being stopped at border crossings and prevented from reaching those who desperately need it. Among the items rejected during inspections are oxygen cylinders and anaesthetics for hospitals which are vital for those injured in airstrikes, including the 10 children on average each day who are having to get one or both of their legs amputated. They say stone fruit is being refused entry, under the explanation that the stones could be used as bullets or used to plant trees, even while famine looms, and tent poles, which are key to providing shelter for Gaza's 1.9 million displaced people, are also being turned away, ActionAid has heard. Huge challenges also face those attempting to distribute aid that is delivered inside Gaza. Not only is there a lack of fuel to transport it, but many roads have been destroyed by airstrikes, while, as a result of intense overcrowding, others are home to sprawling tent cities set up by displaced people, making them impossible to use. Now, this is the second time I've read this, because I put this in the script earlier, and actually it's only just jumped out to me, this point about stone fruit being refused in case it's used to plant trees. Now, if one of the conditions of anything entering Gaza is that it can't allow a tree to bloom, you've got to think, what are those long-term plans? And I do think, you know, when people say, oh, it's ridiculous to talk about Israel committing genocide, they're a democracy with the rule of law just like ours, how can you accuse them of something so barbarous as this? Well, if you look at what their politicians are saying, we need to encourage these people to leave. Ben-Gavir, by the way, in that clip was also sort of asked, do you think we can just expel these people then? And he says, we can do whatever we want. If we want to do it, we can do it, right? And if you look at the actions of Israel in connection to those statements being made by very, very senior politicians, then it is a genocidal logic. How can we make life for Gazans as difficult as possible so that they leave? That's ethnic cleansing. If you do it on a mass scale, that's genocide. Aaron, do you think this is sort of starting to kick in as a reality to more people, right? That this isn't a counter-terrorism operation. This is something more akin to ethnic cleansing. Michael, this is the Israeli state. I don't know what people are sort of expecting. You know, there was a very famous terrorist incident. And of course, you know, many of these people who committed this kind of stuff went on to enter Israeli politics. They were the founding fathers and mothers of Israeli politics, Israeli civil society. They came from terrorist organizations like the Haganah, the Ergun, you know, the Stern gang. And one of the things they did in 1946 was to blow up somewhere called the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Killed many, many people. I think killed more than 90 people. Killed a hell of a lot of people, including UK service personnel. I'm completely unapologetic about this, by the way. Hundreds of British service personnel died in the mandate of Palestine, I think really from maybe 45 to 48. It was hellish. Hellish. They wanted to get out as quickly as possible. Now, you might say that's a long time ago. In 2006, Michael, people were celebrating the 60th anniversary of the King David Hotel bombing. 2006. 60 years later. Celebrating terrorism, which killed civilians, including, by the way, Jewish people. So I think that sort of tells you this is not a normal country. You know, you can say what you like about the Brits and the Americans, but like, I can't think of an example where people aren't celebrating, you know, the explosion which kills dozens of civilians. I can't think of it. I cannot think of it. So it's a unique state. You know, yes, of course, there's a majoritarian voting system, they have PR for their legislature, actually a more democratic system than what we have. In terms of certain civil liberties for minorities who are Israeli, not bad. Certainly better than many other countries in the region. But this idea that somehow like Europe or the US is just crazy, you know, yeah, the analog is maybe the US under Jim Crow, you know, the US before the civil rights movement. Yeah. I mean, it's worse than that. But that's the analog here. It's certainly not the US today. And I think people say it's, you know, it's a democracy. And if you mean it's got a majoritarian voting system, yeah, and people elect, you know, the government. Okay, fine. But it's not a democracy in a meaningful, meaningful sense. It's a democracy in so much as, you know, it's possible that things could change as a result of democratic political decisions being made by the Israeli people. That's possible. It could change the better. That's possible. It's not impossible. But it's nothing, it's nothing like countries in Europe, the US, I should also have many other countries in Asia, right? South Korea, you know, it's much more developed democracy than Israel. So very strange line. And of course, people say that's partly because of the neighborhood it comes out of while Iran's on democracy. Well, it wasn't until the mid 1950s, Mossadegh was the prime minister, and then of course, he was removed in a coup backed by the CIA and the Brits. So yeah, of course, Israel is going to be more democratic than certain countries in the region, given that whoever tries to be a democrat is immediately removed. That's not particularly hard to work out. If you talk about the other major power in the region, Egypt was briefly a democracy, wasn't it? But the Muslim Brotherhood got elected. And, you know, Israel and the United States weren't too happy about that. Now, was it them who led the coup? It doesn't seem clear to me, but they were definitely supportive of the Israeli military establishment clamping down on democracy in that country, so long as it, you know, met or accorded with the West geopolitical interests. It's been another week of rows and resignations over the Tories' plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. And on Question Time, Barrister Hashim Ahmed said it wasn't worth all the energy. We know it's not worth it. You know it's not worth it. I'm sure Bim really deep down in his heart knows it's not worth it. And yet, let's think about what's happening right now. First things first, it's important to acknowledge that people are really concerned about the boats crossings and so many people are dying and something has to be done. I think any rational person agrees on that level. Two years ago, I travelled to Dresden, the German town, and I met an Eritrean man who had been deported from Israel to Rwanda. He'd been paid to go to Rwanda. Rwanda had a reciprocal arrangement with Israel to take refugees. When he got there, the Rwandans said, you don't need to stay, there's the door. And he used the money that he was given to make his way back that treacherous journey and he made his way to Dresden where he sought asylum again. The Supreme Court in Israel struck down that law. And when we got to our Supreme Court, there's a passage by our learned judges where they said the Home Office hadn't even assessed the Israel-Rwanda policy before they decided to adopt it. That's really interesting, that final point, because he's saying, look, the UK often say this is an experimental policy, of course it's not going to work straight away, but we are sort of at the front line when it comes to working out how to deal with asylum seekers in the 21st century in a very cruel way. But he's saying this has been tried before and it didn't work, and the reason it didn't work is because you can send people to Rwanda, but if they're free to leave again, you know, they didn't want to go to Rwanda in the first place, I mean, it sounds like in this instance they wanted to go to Israel, then they got sent to Rwanda, and then they ultimately go to Germany. I suppose as the Tory party, you could say, well, if they go to Rwanda and then they leave Rwanda and go to a different European country, fine, as long as they don't come back here. I mean, that might be the conservative policy. As we've, you know, said so many times though, on this show, the Rwanda policy isn't going to deter anyone because the plan has only ever been to sort of send 1% of people to Rwanda. If people risk their lives to come from the Middle East or North Africa, they're not going to be deterred by a 1% chance of getting sent to Rwanda where they might just leave again. Hashim Ahmed is a very impressive guy and he's very well qualified to speak on the topic of the law and refugee policy. This is from a profile of him in The Guardian. Mohammed is a Somali who was born in Kenya, where he lived in a rundown part of Nairobi with his four siblings, another having died, his mother, who also had six children from a previous marriage, and his travelling salesman father. When his father died in a car accident in 1993, Mohammed and three of his siblings were sent to England as refugees. They lived with an aunt and then in various low rent housing, some of it rat infested, and were eventually reunited with their mother. A confused and alienated boy, he spent most of his teen years in a state of geographical and psychological dislocation. He went to a struggling comprehensive in North West London, where the head teacher was beaten up and laughed at, but he eventually managed to get a place at the University of Hertfordshire to study law and French. From there, he was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to Oxford, gained a position at Number Five Chambers, noted experts in planning law, became a successful barrister, an accomplished public speaker, and a broadcaster. He's made two well-received documentaries for Radio 4, and he's just written a book. Now if this was something that was sort of in discussion in the public domain now, you'd say, what? He came as a refugee just because his father died? That doesn't sound like a real refugee, right? Now I don't know the history of this guy, but the facts of the matter are, he came to Britain, got an incredibly, you know, impressive education against all the odds, and is now working as a very impressive barrister, right? Clearly an asset to British society. And we would say, well, you're not entitled to asylum just because your father has died? So you know, he's a good example of how it can be a bit short-sighted to sort of treat everyone with suspicion who's trying to come to the country. With that in mind, let's see what Muhammad went on to say next. We know it's not going to work. It's unviable. It's expensive. The only person it's working for is the Rwandans, because they won't give us a penny back. And what we're seeing right now, instead of them actually dealing with this properly and actually having some real ideas, do you know what they're doing? They're attacking our judges. They're attacking our rule of law. They are dividing a society. They are making us feel like refugees are the scum and who are foreign. They refer to the European courts that we are a part of that have United Kingdom judges as foreign courts. It's not only just disgusting, as this young lady was saying, it's unconscionable. The rhetoric is poison. And we have to acknowledge that. And absolutely, I end where I started, which is this is an issue that we need to grapple with. The gentleman talked about the French authorities. The French authorities have offered for us to station ourselves over there, provided we pay. Imagine how much we could have used for that 400,000 pounds on that side of the channel. 400 million. I beg your pardon. For us to be on that side of the channel to monitor it. Instead, this week, with everything that's happening in the world, everything that's happening in this country, this week, our prime minister spent his precious time dealing with the loonies in his parties. It's unconscionable. So, again, very, very well put. I mean, it was interesting. He was sort of saying something does need to be done about this. This isn't a sustainable situation. He sort of proposed that if the UK had a, I suppose, a processing centre, was it? Or just a monitoring centre? I suppose a processing centre in Calais would make sense to stop people crossing the channel. Of course, that only would work, in a way, would be piggybacking off the harsh border control that the European Union has, because people can only get to the UK from France, of course, or obviously, some other Northern European countries, Belgium, potentially, the Netherlands. I think it's mainly France and Belgium, isn't it? This is an issue where, actually, I don't know where it's going to go. Because, obviously, if you're a European country, if you're Italy, and you put a processing centre in North Africa, I think you'll get lots of people applying, and then lots of people who won't get accepted, and then they might still take the boat route. So, I do think this is a difficult issue, but I do think that the Conservatives, they're just doing a ridiculous form of politics. Hours and hours and hours of rowing, resignations, drama on political news programs for something that everyone recognises won't work. And there's sort of another suggestion as to why this won't work, which has come out this week, which I've found very interesting. It's from Faisal Islam, so he's offered some commentary on what he's been hearing in Davos. I mean, it all sort of comes from this impromptu interview with Rwanda's president at Davos on Wednesday. BBC, is the UK deal working? Ask the UK. The Supreme Court said that your country's not safe. Is it safe for refugees? Ask the UK. It is the UK's problem, not Rwanda's problem. But you're getting hundreds of millions of UK taxpayers' money, with not a single refugee. It is going to be used from those people who will come. If they don't come, we can return the money. There might be no... OK. Faisal Islam has now followed up from that interview with these posts on Twitter. So he says, epic Davos buzz, Fred, which is a little bit ridiculous, but let's go on. Leading African figures told me privately that Kagame's clear frustration with the UK-Rwanda deal communicated to me, it's UK's problem, we have money back, or we can have money back. Also reflect eyebrows being raised in other African nations about general look for a man who likes to be seen as the modern leader of a confident Africa, and who may have clocked that it may be reversing his considerable investments in nation branding. For example, I'm sponsoring Premier League football teams. He goes on, remember there are two sides to this deal, so the UK-Rwanda deal. I got a note from a very connected commentator after my doorstep, quote, it's a really bad look for him. He knows that the whole point of this policy is to make the UK government look tough on migrants on the grounds that Rwanda is presumptively a terrible place to be sent to. It puts the Rwanda country brand back like 20 years. The only thing people associate with the country is the worst place the Brits can think to send people. Now context here, some real buzz about Africa jumping value chains, not just producing minerals, but the finished products the world needs, and doing so within a massive new free trade area. I thought this was a really interesting angle, Aaron, that isn't talked about much in the UK media, and to be frank, which we haven't talked about much on this show either, which is that if you are, well in this case a Rwandan government, but any other government that the UK might seek to make such a deal with, you want to present yourself as a great place to invest, a positive up and coming place in the world. If you're famous for being, for want of a better phrase, a dumping ground for migrants that other people don't want, and actually a deterrent, a whole country is a deterrent. When you think of deterrents, you think of prison, don't you? You say as a deterrent, we're sending people to Rwanda. It's putting Rwanda on the same level as a prison. It's not a good look, is it? It might be the case that even if this gets up and running, countries are reluctant to engage in these kinds of deals with countries in the global north. We don't want these migrants, so we'll give you some money to take them. That's not really the role we want to be playing in the global economy. That's totally right. The deal that was mentioned there in terms of national branding is obviously Arsenal. I don't know if people know this, but you've got Visit Rwanda sponsoring Arsenal Football Club, a major global football brand, not cheap. It's about 10 million pounds a year, that deal. You're flushing money down the toilet, right? If on the one hand, you're saying, oh, let's promote our national brand, people can do ecotourism or God knows what in Rwanda, I think it's quite good for that, right? Go look at megafauna and these giant creatures and whatnot, and kinds of wilderness that broadly exist in some of Europe, but nothing like what you get in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, obviously. On the one hand, you're promoting that. On the other hand, you're saying, yeah, okay, we'll take, to be fair, it's a lot of money, right? I think so far, they've taken 300 million from the British government, they've not had to do anything, but basically, they're advertising as though we're a dump, we're a shithole. We're the worst possible place you could send people, and I don't think Rwanda is that, by the way. I think Rwanda's probably, I'm sure has the potential to be a remarkable country, amazing natural assets, great climate, lots of solar potential. If you're thinking about becoming a more prosperous country in the 21st century, it has a lot going for it. But you're certainly not doing that by allowing the Tories to depict you as like the worst hellhole imaginable. The analogue here is, of course, Nauru, which is used by the Aussies for their undocumented migrants. They send them to this small island, I think there's another one as well, I think it's primarily Nauru, isn't it? That's different, that's a micro-state, fundamentally. Rwanda is a country, it's not a large country, but it has a very densely populated, by African standards, it's a large-ish country, and this whole point about, well, what kind of country do you want to be in the 21st century, broadly speaking, Africa is not developing as it should be. It's not falling into the slipstream that was created. It's not East Asia in the 70s, right? But there are some countries that are moving up the value chain and doing pretty well. In Kenya's one, Nairobi is becoming a major global hub, partly because of its location near the Gulf, young population, very well connected. But if you look at, for instance, the major cities, on the face of the earth, I think even by 2050, all the world's largest cities will be in sub-Saharan Africa, by 2100, literally all of them, Kinshasa, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Lagos. So between population growth and urbanization, Africa's going to see a hell of a lot of growth over the next 70, 80 years, economic growth. Will it be enough to meet the needs of people in sub-Saharan Africa? That's the $64 million question, particularly with climate change, particularly with not using fossil fuels. We don't know the answer to that. However, there are some countries who look like they could step up economically. And there are others which have the potential to be, you know, economic global superstars like Nigeria, enormous country with incredible mineral assets. Whether or not that happens, again, a question for another day, but what you're definitely not trying to do is advertise the whole world that we're a shithole and we're a dumping ground for people that the Brits don't want. That is not what the Koreans and the Chinese and the Indonesians and various other countries in East Asia have been doing over the last 30, 40 years as a developmental model. Megaphone's the world. Yes, we're a dumping ground. Doesn't seem wise. And I think, frankly, Kagame will probably pull out of it, I think. I think. I mean, they've got $300 million for nothing, but it seems to be more of a headache than it's worth at this point. You know, realistically, given the prospects of a Labour government, they wouldn't want to continue the deal. I mean, my God. There are very few examples of such toxic marketing, you know, self-imposed toxic marketing strategies by a country. This is up there for sure. I'm not a contract lawyer, but I assume if you've just been handed 300 million pounds and you think the other side is going to withdraw from the contract, you wait for that to happen instead of saying, oh, no, we're going to pull out of the contract and presumably therefore lose your rights to that 300 million pounds. If I was the president of Rwanda, I would be biding my time, say, you know, Labour going to be in power soon and they'll pull out, then we get to keep the money because that's how the contract works. I mean, as I say, I haven't read the contract, but that would seem, you know, from what I've read in the newspapers, it seems like they don't actually have an obligation to give that money back. I'd have thought if they pull out, they would do. So in a way, they're laughing, but they probably don't want this to go on for much longer. So maybe if the Conservatives pull, you know, a rabbit out of the hat and dramatically win the next election, they might say, you know, we're not doing this for another five years. A US State Department spokesperson has proven there is nothing Israel can do that will lead to condemnation from the United States. Matthew Miller was asked about shocking footage that shows Israel blowing up Gaza's al-Israa University. Now, according to the university's Facebook page, Israeli troops had been using the building as a military base for the past month. Now, blowing up universities, which you already control, doesn't look much like self-defense. But let's look at the answer from the State Department spokesperson. I don't know if you've seen the video. It's pretty widely available. I have seen the video. But it certainly looks, I mean, it looks like a controlled demolition. It looks like what we do here in this country when we're taking down an old hotel or a stadium. And you have nothing to say? You have nothing to say about this? I have seen. I mean, to do that kind of an explosion, you need to be in there. You have to put the explosives down. And it takes a lot of planning and preparation to do. And if there was a threat from this particular facility, they wouldn't have been able to do it. So, I have seen the video. I can tell you that it is something we are raising with the governor of Israel, as we do often do. Raising as what? To ask questions and find out what the underlying situation is, as we often do when we see reports of this nature. But I'm not able to characterize the actual facts on the ground before hearing that response. But you saw the video. I didn't see the video. I don't know. It looks like a bridge being imploded or something. I don't know what was under that building. I don't know what was inside that building. It doesn't matter what was under the building, because they obviously got in there to put the explosives down to do it in the way that they did. Again, I'm glad you have factual certainty about it. I just don't. All I have is what I saw in the video. I just don't. And I think you guys saw it too. We did see it. And I can say that we have raised it with the governor of Israel. And it's not troubling to you? We are always troubled by any degradation of civilian infrastructure in Gaza. But without knowing the actual underlying circumstances, I'm a little hesitant, I think for reasons that should be understandable, to pass definitive judgment on it from this podium. Now, this is one of those situations where definitive judgment really can be given from a podium. You don't need an investigation into this, right? As the reporter said, this was clearly a controlled demolition, which means Israel controlled the building. And so there's no possibility that they could have been subject to a military threat. They blow up a university, clearly sort of a site of cultural value, a civilian piece of infrastructure. There's no military threat and a controlled demolition, right? So there's no ambiguity there. And it's also a bit rich for the US government to now say they won't comment on anything without having absolute certainty. Now, back in November, the world was appalled that Israel was putting Gaza's largest hospital under siege. Here's what Joe Biden had to say about that at the time. You have a circumstance where the first war crime is being committed by Hamas by having their headquarters, their military, hidden under a hospital. And that's a fact. That's what's happened. That's a fact. That's what happened, said Joe Biden. You remember that after the Israelis took control of al-Shifa, they did in fact find no command centre under the hospital. They did find a few tunnels, but pretty much every outlet around said, that is not sufficient evidence for a headquarters. There's a few tunnels, a few rusty Kalashnikovs. This is not the Hamas command centre that the Israelis were talking about, and which Biden said he knew as a fact was there. Aaron, you know, how much trust has the American government lost by acting like this, by essentially, you know, it's taking the piss of everyone who is listening to their statements in those press conferences. For sure. And they're taking the piss out of the American electorate, the American public. There is nothing that Israel can do, seemingly, which will draw condemnation from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. President, nothing. You know, we're so close to absurdity here, Michael. It's almost like, well, we don't know. Maybe there was asbestos down there, guys. Maybe it was a public health hazard. We don't know. Maybe there was a rat infestation or some cockroaches. We don't know. Who knows? Just basic common sense is being demonstrated by the gentleman asking the question. Well, they could get in there to put the explosives. You don't need to. It doesn't make any sense. Common sense is so rare at top level politics, particularly when it comes to foreign affairs. It just does not exist. You can go down the dog and duck and talk to half a dozen people and they will make more sense than the U.S. State Department, the people running the world's most powerful military. It doesn't make any sense. We have to have a longer conversation, and we can talk about this to various people on downstreams and, you know, in podcast series and whatnot, but the United States' relationship to Israel in terms of foreign policy choices is unique, and it's uniquely bad for the U.S. in many ways. We can talk about, okay, well, it's an outpost for U.S. empire in a difficult neighborhood, et cetera, et cetera, which is true, particularly after the fall of the shah in 1979. Israel was very much its last, you know, Saudi is a client state or was a client state, but Israel has a different kind of relationship to the U.S., that's fair. But as you've highlighted repeatedly on the show, Michael, the U.S. wants to go to other parts of the world, and it keeps being drawn back in because Israel wants this chaos in the region because it suits their national interests. Fine. In a way, you understand that. I don't sympathize with it. I don't agree with it, but I can totally get my head into the mind of, I can totally put myself in the shoes of, put myself in the mind of, you know, an Israeli ultranationalist conservative wants basically Palestinians out of the West Bank, wants Palestinians out of Gaza. I can understand, I can understand it's horrific, but I can understand it. I don't understand what the U.S. gets from this bizarre relationship to Israel, where at a rate of knots, it is losing any political capital with the majority of the global population and a majority of the world's countries, the global South, right? Okay. So some countries in Europe don't know to sit and they cheer it on, by the way, that's not the case. It's basically just Britain and like the Netherlands and Germany at this point. If we were paying attention with regards to the Red Sea, Michael, of course, the French, the Spanish, the Italians weren't on board with that. The Saudis weren't on board with that. And that's before you talk about, you know, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, et cetera. So in a 21st century, multipolar world, you know, this is a very strange calculation by the U.S. They look ridiculous. They're losing any credibility they ever had. And of course, for decades, people have said this rhetoric about human rights, rule of law, you know, global based international rules system. Obviously, people didn't really believe it entirely. It wasn't evenly distributed at the very least. But now it's just, it's a joke. It is a joke. And one of the few assets the U.S. has over somewhere like China or Russia is they can say, OK, we're not perfect, but as a global policeman trying to uphold certain rules, we're better than the alternative. I mean, are you? I don't know. If I'm somebody in West Asia, the Middle East, I look at China, I think, I don't see how they could be worse than you guys. I don't see how they could be more unfair. It's quite clear to see why the existence of Israel in the Middle East is helpful for the United States. It's helpful to have a country which is, you know, it's constitutionally will always be an ally of the United States because it's totally dependent and reliant on the United States. So it's not like, you know, Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States, but you sort of imagine a scenario where it sort of switches allegiance. You can't imagine that with Israel. So I can see why it's helpful for them to have that state there. But why let it get away with plans for a greater Israel? That to me doesn't seem to serve any purpose for the U.S. So why not have this sort of client state, but actually use your influence to make it behave a bit more, you know, what's not, I mean, they're behaving rationally of what you want is a greater Israel, but to why enable them to act in a way which is constantly creating new conflicts in the Middle East when, as you say, Aaron, they want to pivot to different parts of the world. So yes, you know, when it comes to all these questions of the Israel lobby, I don't think it's because of the Israel lobby that the United States supports Israel, but I do wonder if it's the Israel lobby that means that the United States supports Israel, whatever they do. And it doesn't actually apply any real pressure on Israel to change its ways, which I think would serve the American national interest a bit better. Moving on, the U.S. might be content to enable Israel to get away with murder. Many countries in the global South are less keen, though. As you'll know, the International Court of Justice is currently assessing the initial part of South Africa's case that Israel is guilty of genocide. So they'll be discussing at the moment whether to put out sort of a preliminary ruling that Israel has to change its behavior. Now Mexico and Chile have referred both Israel and Hamas to the International Criminal Court over potential war crimes. Now, unlike the International Court of Justice, Israel is not a member of the ICC and does not recognize its jurisdiction. So they do argue the ICC has nothing to do with what's going on here because we haven't signed up to it. However, Palestine has been a member of the court since 2015, and the ICC prosecutor says the court does have jurisdiction over crimes committed in Israel and occupied Palestine. We'll be coming back to this story as we will be coming back to the case at the International Court of Justice, which is currently coming to make its decision. My understanding is that it's the case at the International Court of Justice, which might be more significant because that should rule fairly soon when it comes to preliminary measures. Whereas as far as I understand, the ICC will sort of be collecting evidence for a much longer period of time. The world's elite have been gathering this week in a luxury ski resort in Davos and suspicions that they're criminally out of touch just won't go away. Speaking at the forum, this was the editor-in-chief of the Financial Times. Ironically, I think the UK will appear to be by the end of the year and Martin, I think you will disagree, but let's see. But by the end of the year, the UK is going to appear as one of the more stable countries because we essentially have gone through our era of populism. I'm not being complacent. We could have another wave, but we've gone through our populism. We had Brexit. And I think now we have essentially two parties sort of where I think business can live with and will probably be far less consequential an election than everywhere else. So I don't really understand what that means, we've gone through our era of populism as if it's something that only happens once, right? The United States, you could say, also went through that era of populism with the election of Donald Trump. But the idea you only have one era suggests, well, you do it once, you sort of lash out, you have this sort of irrational crazy moment where you're sort of protesting against the world and you elect someone like Donald Trump and then you realize it's a terrible idea and then you move on. Well, look at the polls in the United States, right? The era of populism isn't over because they've done it already. They're going to reelect Donald Trump. The fundamentals haven't really changed. Aaron, I know you weren't particularly impressed with that intervention. What do you make of it? Well, it doesn't get more cliche, does it, Michael? The editor of the Financial Times in Davos saying, oh, they've gone in as if it was some teenage blip. We've grown out of it now, guys, don't worry. And for me, as somebody in the UK, most of our viewers and listeners are too, right now we're looking at the potential collapse of the Tory party. I think on the same day, Reform got 12% in an opinion poll, the Tories got 20. Now, I don't think Reform will get 12% in a general election, I don't think that, but I do think that after the general election, which right now the Tories look set to lose, the question is how badly, there will be a fight for the soul of the Conservative Party and either it will be destroyed or replaced by a party to its right and people to the right of the people who have been generally running the Conservative Party for a lifetime, they want to be far more nativist, far more socially conservative, and of course the Thatcherite economic agenda would come back. It's really on the cultural stuff, on the value stuff, wholly different creature to what we've seen with the Conservative Party thus far. You've got people saying, oh, would Nigel Farage lead the Conservative Party? This is now something which is in circulation as a talking point, I'm not saying it's likely, but it's a talking point. And you have the editor of the FT saying, oh, populism's over, really? When people are saying Farage might be a Tory MP leading the Conservatives, the Tories might get less than 100 seats in the next general election. I think if reform ran with Farage as being someone prominent, they could. They could. And then, of course, in that aftermath, the role of talk TV, GB News, the Telegraph, the Mail, I think the Telegraph in particular, there is clearly now a political project at the heart of the Telegraph, which is to replace the Tory Party as we know it with something different, certainly push the Cameroons aside. That's right-wing populism. Donald Trump just broke the record in the US. I know she was saying the UK, but broader context here. Donald Trump in the caucus in, what was it, Iowa, the first primary, he got 51% of the vote. The record before was 41%. He got 30% more than the next best person. And people say, well, only 13%, 14% turnout. It was minus 30 degrees. That's kind of what happens when it's cold. So the idea that the era of populism is over, no, we're looking at an era of populism, which is being driven by technological change. The costs of entry to politics, media have fallen. Time Navarro media can even exist, right? We're looking at massive economic and political grievances, economic really since 2008, in this country especially. And those things aren't going away. You know, the technological kind of shifts and the economic malaise, those aren't going away. Walk down a high street. I know I say this all the time. You know, I posted a video of a place near where I live, Waterlooville in Hampshire, about what a dump it is. It's a dump. The place looks awful, awful, awful. Looks like something from 28 days later. It was picked up then by a bunch of papers, the sun, the mirror. I instructed the sun to remove it. And I got the mirror to pay the lady whose video it was. They gave her some money. But then the Daily Mail of all people, they sent a reporter down there taking pictures. I recommend people Google this, Waterlooville Daily Mail. You'll see the pictures. It looks horrific. And that is the experience of much of England, including the southeast outside of London. But the reality is, Michael, these people, like the editor of the Financial Times, only care about a few square miles of this country. Really. Mayfair, a little bit of South London maybe these days, Dulwich, the city of London, Canary Wharf. That's what they care about. And then, yeah, maybe like their country piles. The rest of the country can go to hell. They don't care. They literally don't care. The people watching this, whether you're in Aberystwyth or Brighton or Bournemouth or Carlisle, doesn't matter. You don't matter. And as she says, the point of, quote unquote, democratic elections is that they have really two parties that are amenable to business. By the way, she doesn't mean business as you and I understand it, like small business. Again, go to a high street. Business ain't thriving. She means asset managers. She means multinationals. She means financial services. That's what she means. We have two political parties who will do what we want. Okay? Bugger the rest of you. Bugger the rest of the country. And that mindset has already exercised extraordinary political blowback over the last 15 years. Extraordinary. Why would it stop? Why would the effect and the consequence disappear if the cause is still there? The basic causality. Apparently, that's too difficult to grasp if you're the editor of the Financial Times. I suppose people always come up with these sort of reasons why it's just specific. Oh, yeah. Donald Trump might get re-elected, but that's because the electoral system, you know, they've got these primaries and then they've got first pass. We've also got first pass the post. I mean, it seems, you know, the odds are on that we will have a conservative party after the next general election, which is more Trump-like. And then we will have a general election where the two horses in the race are a centrist, center-left liberal party and a populist right party. Very much like what they're having in the United States right now. And as you say, the fundamentals, I don't see how they would have changed whereby, oh, yeah, that was possible in 2024. It's not going to be possible in 2029. I don't get it. I suppose before we wrap up, Aaron, because I live in East London, I live in Hackney, you know, there are lots of problems, high rents, lots of poverty. But one thing you can say about Hackney is that the high streets are thriving, right? So I don't see the sort of same day-to-day sort of struggles of sort of downtrodden high streets that you do. What is your sort of solution? What do you think, you know, beyond sort of governments talking more about this, do you have any sense of sort of how you would revive high streets outside of Britain's major cities? Yeah, it's a great question. And by the way, there are some great high streets not in major cities. You know, near here, Winchester, very affluent place, has a great high street. If you go to the Hay Festival, Hay on Why, there's not many empties. You know, it's very prosperous. That's one part. You know, if you have a wealthier, more prosperous society, high streets won't look like that. However, if you go to Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, you don't see high streets like you do in this country in smaller cities and towns. So what would I do? I think we need to recognize they're not going to go back to what they were before. I'm not suggesting they can. We need to recognize they probably need more green space. You need to have more housing. That doesn't mean the kind of housing we presently see, which basically means, okay, that used to be a shop, but a white UPVC door and it turned into an HMO. No, we need thoughtful, soft density with regards to mixed residential commercial development. That's one thing. We need to not make every last piece of housing infrastructure, infrastructure just generally, about shareholder returns and creating money for asset managers. That's the second thing. Thirdly, we need to understand there needs to be a greater role for the state in building a different kind of economy in regions beyond London. So you probably want some kind of regional investment bank investing in small and medium sized enterprises. And then fourthly, you need a better quality of local government. You have to reverse the austerity that we've seen to local government since 2010. This is just a start, by the way, but it'll make a huge difference. You need to reverse that austerity, just basic stuff like picking up litter, keeping streets clean, dealing with antisocial behavior, basic stuff. It's not going to get rid of any of it, but it just rolled the clock back a little bit. And I would personally, at half the number of councillors we have, I'd make them do twice as much work and pay them twice as much. We need better people as councillors. And then people have said, well, if you have fewer councillors, you have less representation. Guess what? Most councillors are over 65. They're retirees. I love many of them, but we clearly need a better cross section of society and public administration and local government. I have city mayors for pretty much everywhere, town mayors too, because if there's an issue, you say, there's a problem. There's people are fly tipping. What are you going to do about it? With councils, I don't think it's the same level of accountability. Um, and I would really aim at a renewal of local government and try and devolve tax raising powers well away from Westminster. So a lot there, Michael, but lots of low hanging fruit as well. Lots of low hanging fruit. We choose not to do it because our economic model suits certain people who are very powerful, very wealthy. They don't live in these places. They don't care about these places. Yeah. I mean, it's just not a good look. You could, for anywhere to choose to say that, to go for Davos. Vicky Klee has got a comment. You can't finish this early on a Friday when it's just you two. And we do have a tendency to sort of go on a Friday, a little behind the scenes reveal for you. We did have a fifth story today. It was going to be Rushdie Sunak sort of laughing and then ignoring or seeming to ignore the woman talking about the waiting lists and sort of her daughter waiting for a long time in, I think it was A&E. I'm not sure. An initial clip went out that made it look like he just completely ignored her and it would have been a complete catastrophe for him. It turns out that from a different angle, they did speak for a while. So that's been a controversy on Twitter today, which we decided it probably wasn't worth covering considering it seemed to be a bit of a storm in a teacup. Aaron, it has been a pleasure as always. Michael, my pleasure. And can I say one thing very quickly? Please. I know often on this show, I hope Fox doesn't cut this out. It's important. We often talk about things negatively, how bad things are. Also very important to say brilliant people are doing brilliant, fascinating, interesting things right across the country. And that's the kind of stuff we want to report here at Navarra Media. It's not all about the doom and gloom, but we need politicians to stop stopping them. We need to unleash their potential. There's lots of brilliant people. They need a helping hand not to be ignored and shushed by people like the FT's editor. Very appropriate way to end the show and to end the week. We'll be back on Monday. Have a fantastic weekend. For now, you've been watching Navarra Media. Good night.