Video Infoblog; John Mearsheimer: Netanyahu’s GRAVE MISTAKES Will End Israel! IDF War CRIMES Continue to Rise
well I think that most people around the world were not surprised by what happened uh this isn't the first time he appeared before Congress and was treated like royalty I mean this has happened before and most people around the world understand full well that basically the Israel Lobby owns Congress and they can uh pretty much get anything they want so it's not surprising in that sense but the fact is that it further embarrasses the United States it makes us look like the world's greatest Hypocrites we are always talking about international law a rules-based system uh and so forth and so on the importance of Human Rights uh and here you have a war criminal he is a war criminal he is a leader who is uh in charge of a genocidal campaign in Gaza who is being wildly cheered by most of Congress and this just does enormous damage to America's reputation and it will be a stain on our reputation for the foreseeable future as it should be what turned my stomach was my own conclusion uh that those people standing for him they don't represent me they don't represent the American people they represent the donor class that got them uh elected very few had the courage not to go Congressman Thomas Massie longtime friend of mine the only Republican and maybe about a hundred Democrats although many of those Democrats that didn't show like KLA Harris for example uh voted for and supported all the uh Appropriations to Israel they just didn't want to be seen in the same room with the war criminal well I'll give those people who didn't go credit for not being there you're absolutely right that normally they would support Israel hook Line and Sinker when it comes to the funds and weapons that they need uh to kill Palestinians in Gaza but nevertheless the fact they didn't appear when Netanyahu uh appeared on Capitol Hill is a minor Victory and I feel good about that yeah I agree with you were you surprised that he was so bellicose that he offered no uh uh peace plan in fact he didn't mention peace or the concept of Peace at all no I was not surprised that he was so bicos I also was not surprised that he told a handful of Lies uh bold-faced lies which of course Congress just lapped up uh and it's very important to understand on your point about the peace plan what's going on here is that we in the United States or we in the west are hoping that he will come up with some sort of U agreement uh to go along with the ceasefire and then some sort of agreement to go along with working out a viable political solution for dealing with Gaza over the long term he of course has no interest in doing either one of those things it's just very important to understand that basically what he is interested in doing is ethnically cleansing Gaza he wants to drive all of the Palestinians out he's not interested in the ceasefire uh he wants to do everything he can uh to make as a Palestinian free well he just presided over the murder of the chief negotiator on the other side and of the team there there's the fellow they killed and of the team of negotiators he was the most moderate pushing for the ceasefire most aggressively and they executed him yes I mean this is just a way of uh not putting Netanyahu or the Israelis more generally in a situation where they have to maneuver to kill any meaningful negotiations for a ceasefire uh if you kill Han the way they did you can say that that is why we're not having any peace negotiations but how can you be taken seriously at the negotiating table when you murder somebody on the other side of the table I realize he wasn't literally in the other side of the table but he was crawling the shots they're not interested in being taken seriously at the negotiating table they're not interested in going to the negotiating table as I said their basic goal is to cleanse Gaza all right then they have been duping and maybe it's easy to do Joe Biden and Tony blinkin since October this is no surprise to you I hope right of course that's what they're doing and uh uh Biden and blinkin are not very sophisticated when it comes to thinking about Israel one could argue they're not very sophisticated about International politics in general but with regard to Israel and with regard to what Netanyahu is doing uh it's very clear that Netanyahu is in charge and he manipulates Biden and blinkin as he sees fit and they go along with it with a smile on their face here's the uh Algerian ambassador to the United Nations at the security Council you'll see the Israeli Ambassador rather than politely listen pull the TR the earplug of the translation out of his ear I've never seen that before but maybe that's what happens at the security Council cut number 14 Chris we are on the precipice of a catastroph this morning Israel committed an act of Terror by assassinating is Han in tahan violating international law violating the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran now everything he said was truthful and documented correct correct and the Israelis don't even want to don't even want to talk about it add to that before we get to where this is going uh the killing of a Hezbollah commander in Beirut under the pretext if you can believe this if they expect people to believe this that he killed fellow Arabs who were playing soccer uh in the Goan Heights it's inconceivable to me that Hezbollah would do that but that was the excuse for blowing him away in Beirut how many more of these staged assassinations can the in foreign countries uh of people who are not engaged in violence can the Israelis get away with before this blows up many many more because the United States protects them at every turn and the United States has accompli in Western Europe so there's nothing to stop the Israelis here what people have to understand is the power of the Israel lomby and you saw this clearly uh when Benjamin Netanyahu came to Capitol Hill on July 24th right that that's the Israel lobby at work or what you like to call the donor class at work and uh we protect Israel no matter what so they can start wars they can do pretty much anything and uh the United States will protect them and indeed it's quite clear that we will not only protect them we will arm them uh I don't know what more to say what will happen what will happen uh if Hezbollah uh attacks in a very uh forceful way there kamla Harris she obviously didn't have a problem shaking his hand in front of the cameras there just didn't want to do it in the Congress but uh what happens if they ramp up the uh violence uh with Hezbollah and Iran gets involved uh this will not be good for us and it will not be good for Israel what you want to understand here and I think this is something that most Americans don't understand please explain Israel is in really deep trouble right it's in really deep trouble today and more importantly it has no way out uh they were unable to defeat Hamas in Gaza number one number two they're stuck in Gaza right they're not not getting out and you remember they left in 2005 because it was a hornet's nest they're back in there right number three they have no meaningful military solution against Hezbollah they cannot defeat Hezbollah and with regard to Iran even if they get into a war with Iran and they launch lots of missiles and Rockets and aial attacks at Iran and do a lot of Destruction Iran will still be there and Iran by the way is on the road to acquiring nuclear weapons so they have all of those external problems then they have these Wicked internal problems which we saw on display earlier this week surrounding these nine reservists uh who were arrested for gang raping a Palestinian prisoner and by the way that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the horrors that the Israelis have been inflicting on the Palestinians but anyway these non reservists uh who engaged in this gang rape were arrested and the end result is that Ultra ritis broke in to two different army bases to uh reverse this arrest and if you look at the performance of the police and you look at the performan of uh the reservists in the IDF some of whom joined with the protesters you see that the Israelis run the real risk down the road of a civil war then finally you want to understand that what's on display these days is Manifest evidence that Israel is heavily dependent on the United States they cannot fight these wars they cannot continue like this without American Support we have given them $18 billion doll in 2024 just think about that $18 billion and we helped them in their military fight with Iran on April 14th uh we are giving them all sorts of Weaponry they need us they need us to provide diplomatic support so this is not quite the independent country that Israel likes to think of itself as it is heavily dependent on the United States so when you take all of these factors into account you then ask yourself the question how can they get out of this attack Hezbollah in Lebanon are we serious they did this 1982 they did it in 2006 it was a disaster their army is worn out from what's happened in GSA where they haven't beaten Hamas they would be insane to invol invade Lebanon even if we were to help them so how do they fix that problem how do they fix the problem in Gaza all these problems are unfixable they in trouble and they are digging deeper and the and the reason they're digging deeper and the reason these problems keep getting being exacerbated every day in my view can be it can be stated in one word Netanyahu again you don't want to blame it all on Netanyahu and you want to remember that there are people to the right of him uh inside of Israel he is basically a Centrist he is not you know an arch right winger there's no left to speak of in Israel there's sort of a center and a far right and a right and uh Netanyahu you can put him in the center or on the right he's not on the far right but there are people to the right of him and if Netanyahu were to go away tomorrow the basic problem that I described would not change also I would note to you that you cannot underestimate the responsibility that the donor class has for causing this problem or causing this set of problems that Israel faces and perpetuating those problems the donor class makes it almost impossible for the United States to put any pressure on Israel to act in smarter ways the government of the United States for all its faults has understood for a long time that Israel is pursuing suicidal policies especially with regard to the occupation but we cannot put any pressure on Israel simply because of the donor class so you want to remember that as Israel is digging deeper and deeper and deeper it is getting more and more support from the donor CL class than ever when the uh right-wingers broke into the prison did they successfully extract uh the nine IDF prisoners or are they still incarcerated for the horrific crimes that they committed no they're still incarcerated uh they broke into the first base at which point the uh Israelis moved the prisoners to a different base uh north of Tel Aviv and then the protesters broke into that base but by that point in time the security forces inside of Israel had forcefully moved uh to shut down the protests and therefore the prisoners remain uh in jail and after that first Breakin the knesset actually debated uh in immunity for uh IDF members who abuse uh and torture Palestinians and at the same time they debate that they uh debated whether or not it should be lawful to put a bullet between the eyes uh of Palestinian prisoners uncharged unprosecuted unconvicted because they need bed space they need room in their jails what kind of a democracy has debates like that the question I would ask you is why they why do they even need to have these debates they just do this as a matter of course this is the way the Israelis act all you have to do is look at the history of Israeli Palestinian relations and what happens in Israeli prisons to understand that this is commonplace Behavior this is I would guess the debate was because they wanted to satisfy the right if if this passed and it was proposed by the lud by netanyahu's Coalition so it presumably will pass when there's a vote but if it passes then those nine guys are set free well are you going to be surprised if that happens no no I'm not going to be surprised but my my stomach is going to be turned uh that things like that happen under our eyes and still we give them money is there anything the Israeli government could do that would cause the American government to say enough is enough not that I can think of uh I hope I'm wrong but to take a a president Max Blumenthal uh before something like that is going to happen well it would be very nice if Max was elected president and he could override Congress uh uh at every turn and then uh execute a more rational policy toward Israel but as you and I both know that's not going to happen anytime soon but I just want to say one other thing on this judge it is important to understand that Israel's reputation does matter uh it's hard to say exactly how it matters at this point but Israel is doing enormous damage to its reputation inside the United States and outside of the United States uh around the world uh we live in the age of instant information everything that happens inside of Israel is U almost everything uh of any consequence is filmed and those videos that result are sent around the world there stories on the front pages of newspapers and so forth and so on so people are well aware of what's going on here and this by the way is why you have this real disjuncture between public opinion in the United States and how Congress acts towards Israel right the lobby is able to basically use its leverage on policy makers or politicians to get what it wants but it's having a devil of a Time controlling the discourse because it's so obvious to people what Israel is doing and as is the case with you I believe it's repulsive to huge numbers of Americans and huge numers of other people outside of the United States does the United States have any credibility in the international diplomatic Community well it has some but it's diminishing for sure and uh you know when you why is it diminishing because of the obsequent behavior towards Israel yes and in good part because of how we have reacted to the efforts of the icj and the ICC uh to hold Israel accountable for its Behavior I think for most people around the world the ICC and the icj are held in very high regard lots of people around the world really care about international law and they expect the United States which helped create this rule-based order to obey the rules and to get countries like is Israel to obey those rules as West as well and when that doesn't happen it does significant damage to a reputation switching uh gears uh Professor Amir shimer uh what is the significance of Russian and Chinese fighter jets uh right off the co there they are by the way right off the coast of Alaska basically the Russians and the Chinese are telling the Americans we can do to you what you do to us uh the Americans fly aircraft and maneuver ships up and down the Chinese Coastline and of course if you think about what's happening with regard to Nato expansion in particular what's happening inside of Ukraine uh you basically see the United States thinks that it can get right up into uh Russia's face and the Russians tell us they don't like this and we say too bad well the Russians are retaliating by saying we can play the same game that you're playing and you saw this by the way a few weeks back when the Russians sent a submarine and some other ships off the coast of Florida to visit Cuba are there nuclear um or are there submarines capable of firing nuclear weapons uh off the Atlantic coast of the United States which could reach Atlanta or Washington or Boston or New York I don't know whether they're there now but there's no question that the Russians have uh submarines armed with uh nuclear weapons that can't hit uh the United States there's just no question about that and the same thing is true with regard to the United States we have submarines uh that can hit China or can hit the United States very quickly if uh the Hezbollah uh Israeli conflagration gets out of control and Iran enters and turkey enters would Russia enter I think the Russians would be very reluctant to enter but their hand could be forced I mean if the Turks were to come in they'd have to come through Syria uh and the Russians are present in Syria in rather significant numbers and if the uh uh if the United States and the the Israelis started bombing Turkish forces in in Syria o uh I mean not only would that involve Syria it might involve the Russians and by the way if you talk about that scenario you want to remember that turkey is a member of NATO you're reading my mind so what happen what happens then a a a NATO member has been attacked under Article Five by another NATO member the United States of America the creator of NATO you tell me I have no idea no I have no idea either but if I happen this this is why we I believe do not want this war to escalate and here I'm talking about the conflict between uh Hezbollah and Israel we do not want it to escalate because we can see all these possible ways that that war plays itself out that would be disastrous for the United States but what I find amazing about American foreign policy makers behavior on this issue is how foolish it is and you're saying to yourself what does he mean uh the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said that if Israel gets into a war with Hezbollah the United States will come to Israel's defense this is not something you want to say if you're trying to cool the Israelis Jets you want to basically convey to the Israelis that they're on their own and you're not going to bail them out this time because that greatly reduces their incentive to start a war Austin tells them here we're talking about the Israelis that if they get into a fight with Hezbollah we will come to their aid this just makes it more likely I'm not saying it means that it will happen but it makes it more likely that the Israelis will pick a fight with Hezbollah and then we'll go down the roads that you were describing before Poss where the Turks might come in the Russians might come in and so forth and so on so you just see here again how foolish American foreign policy is but that Aid would likely come from the sea or the sky we're not going to send Marines into the Golan Heights or or into uh the West Bank or into Northern Israel are we no I don't think so I think that's extremely unlikely but to go back to the scenarios that you were positing what if the Turks come in what if the Russians come in what if the Iranians come in then are all bets are off I mean who knows exactly how this would play out the thing you want to remember here is that we live in a world of radical uncertainty you and I can posit all sorts of scenarios that might occur if the Israelis in hezb get into a full-scale fight but we can't be sure which one will occur and you can posit some really dangerous scenarios from an American point of view and not rule them at a court and this of course is why we should be doing everything we can to make sure that such a war doesn't start Chris do we still have the uh clip of President erogan yes okay so um uh Professor M Sher here's president erdogan in his own way through threatening Israel tell me what you think of this what was our import export ratio in the defense industry where have we come to but my dear brothers and sisters let none of these fool us or should deceive us we must be very strong so that this Israel cannot do these ridiculous things just as we entered kabak just as we entered Libya we will do the same to them there's no reason for us not to we have to be strong so that we can take these steps this is not the first time he's been harshly critical of the Israeli government but now he says he there's no reason not to enter Israel is he a blow heart or is this a serious threat well who knows for sure I mean he's committed himself publicly to doing this so he will pay a certain price uh if he backs off uh and as you know uh sometimes you get into situations where you're boxed in where you really have no choice and he may feel that he has to do something to back up those words it may be the case that he is a blo hard and in the event uh he's afraid to do anything of any consequence but then again that might not be true we don't know for sure but again you just see uh just see more evidence of the fact that we are out on a slippery slope and if we're not careful uh we could slide into a major war we meaning the United States in the Middle East which is the last thing we need at this point in time uh transitioning just for a moment over to uh uh Ukraine uh it seems from all of uh your colleagues who are on the show and and everything that I've been able to say that things are getting worse and worse for Ukraine and Russia's March Westward uh is inexorable uh and Unstoppable do you agree yeah and I think if you look at the mainstream media it's begin beginning to catch up with that line of argument right I think that the mainstream media understands now uh that uh the Russians are clobbering the ukrainians and more importantly that the ukrainians have no way of rectifying the problem or to put it in more general terms the ukrainians plus the West together have no way of recting rectifying the problem so what's going to happen here is it's only going to get worse we just can't tell a story as to how Ukraine uh fixes this problem and Stems the bleeding or even reverses the tide which is what a lot of people talk about it just not going to happen the ukrainians are in deep trouble and uh and finally the mainstream media is catching up with that story do you think maybe there's some negotiations going on that we don't know about through intermediary just as we woke up this morning and found found out that the Turks had negotiated this enormous prisoner swap that involved nine different countries but two people that were very much uh in focus on on the part of the American public uh whan and gershovich and one person very much the focus I forget his name the uh the professional killer uh in Germany uh on the focus of the Russians well I think there is a possibility that negotiations are taking place in the back Channel I think a lot of Americans are hopeful that once those negotiations get started they will quickly lead to a resolution of this war in Ukraine I don't think that's going to happen uh I I think that uh unless the Ukrainian military completely collapses on the battlefield it is going to be extremely difficult to get any sort of agreement uh and that is due in large part to the fact that the Russians are making uh extreme demands as they should from my point of view they're making extreme demands and those are demands that the ukrainians and the and the west or the Americans mainly uh will be unwilling to accept uh so I just don't see how uh you can find the actual ingredients that are necessary for a meaningful peace agreement where's the woman that started all this where's Victoria nulan today well uh you know she's teaching at Columbia University with her friend Hillary Clinton although they're probably on summer break just like the University of Chicago but I I would not uh blame Victoria Nan the person who really started this was George W bush uh and you could even make the argument that the person who started it was Bill Clinton Bill Clinton is the president who started NATO expansion and basically made it clear that we had an open door policy on NATO expansion George W bush in April 2008 of course was the president who said that Ukraine was going to become part of NATO but every president since George W bush has doubled down on our effort to bring Ukraine into NATO who is it that promised a Gorbachev that NATO would never move one inch Eastward that must have been Jim Baker under George HW Bush am I right that's correct and that's before Bill Clinton that's before Bill Clinton when Bill Clinton came to office there was no commitment to expand NATO and he made the initial decision I believe it was made in 199 94 and Clinton of course came into power in January of 1993 and shortly after he came into power we began to debate the whole question of what to do uh with Eastern Europe and uh at first people talked about the partnership for peace which was something the Russians could easily live with uh but then we began to talk seriously about NATO expansion and it's very important to understand that in the 1990s in the United States there was a huge debate between people who favored NATO expansion and this of course includes President Clinton himself and those who were opposed to Nato expansion and those people who were opposed basically said that someday this is going to blow up in our face and the Russians are going to react and we're going to have a major conflict uh in Eastern Europe that's not going to be good and they of course proved right but they lost the debate in the 90s and the point that I made to you is after the9 were over after Bill Clinton left office right and George W bush came into power in his last year in office 2008 that's when he decided that he wanted to cap off his presidency uh with a feather in his cap and that feather in his cap was going to be NATO expansion into Ukraine and of course that is the principal decision that led to the disaster today although you don't want to lose sight of the fact that President Obama president Trump President Biden have all doubled down on President George W Bush's April 2008 decision right uh Professor Mir shamer thank you very much thank you for the uh recitation of of a forgotten history and thank you for your analysis of what's Happening Now my vacations are history I hope you'll come back and visit with us again next week I I will and I look forward to it
