Video Infoblog: Tariq Ali on U.S. & U.K. Arming Israel's War on Gaza, Pakistan Protests & Macron's Shift Right
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We speak to acclaimed historian, activist and filmmaker Tariq Ali about Western governments' support for Israel's war on Gaza and popular protest in support of Palestine, which Ali calls the "biggest divide we've seen in politics almost since the Vietnam War." He argues that this division is "challenging the very nature of democracy" and the international rule of law. Ali also shares his analysis of South Asian politics — in Pakistan, where former Prime Minister Imran Khan has accused the United States of engineering his ouster, and in Bangladesh, where a student-led uprising recently toppled the authoritarian regime of its former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Finally, we cover developments in Europe. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has appointed conservative leader Michel Barnier as prime minister, despite the electoral gains of the country's left-wing coalition. This comes as far-right and anti-migrant sentiment spreads throughout the Global North.
this is democracy Now democracynow.org the Warr and peace report I'm Amy Goodman in New York joined by democracy Nows Juan Gonzalez in Chicago hi Juan hi Amy and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world US Secretary of State Anthony blinkin has arrived in Britain to meet with the British prime minister Kier starmer and the foreign secretary David Lamy the focus is expected to be on the Middle East Ukraine and the Asian Pacific blinken's meeting comes just days after the United Kingdom announced it's suspending some arms exports to Israel citing a risk they might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza Britain's new prime minister Kier starmer of the labor party defended decision this is a serious issue we either comply with international law or we don't but we only have strength in our arguments because we comp with International Britain's foreign secretary David Lamy told the British Parliament last week many weapons exports to Israel would continue including parts for F35 fighter embarga it targets around 30 350 licenses to Israel in total for items which could be used in the current the rest will continue Oxfam responded to the British government's move by calling for all arms exports to be suspended to Israel to talk about Britain Israel's war on Gaza and much more were joined by tar Ali the acclaimed historian activist filmmaker editor of the new Left review and the author of over 50 books including the forthcoming you can't please all Memoirs 1980 to 2024 he's joining us here in our studio in New York welcome back to democracy Now tar it's great to have you in person very good to be with you in Hanan Amy it's been a long time since I've been in this studio but 12 years almost amazing well today you're here and Anthony blinkin is meeting with Kier starmer in London and the foreign minister David Lamy there have been massive protests in London around UK policy uh towards supporting Israel and its war on Gaza and now you have this um stopping of some armed shipments to Israel uh can you talk about UK stance and the UK US relationship especially when it comes to Gaza right now and Israel the U the UK Amy has been totally complicit in this war they've sent help they've sent uh fighter jets their personnel are involved so for them to pretend somehow that they're an impartial party is utterly ridiculous this war is been supported by the conservative government and it's now being supported by the labor government K starma the Prime Minister you just showed on the screen as leader of the opposition supported the genocide in Gaza supported the cutting off of electricity supported the cutting off of all Water Supplies I I think they have received legal advice that they have to do something or they are liable to international law uh by the courts not that that amounts to very much as we see these days but I think that's the reason they've made a few cuts to the aid but as they themselves say these are meaningless they're purely symbolic and the bulk of the country now wants Aid to Israel and uh military aid particularly cut off the anti-war movement in Britain is one of the largest in the world they' we've had I think now it's almost a year Amy since this War Began almost a year and we've had dozens and dozens of demonstrations some including a million people so the country is opposed to this you know across the board but we have these governments in power I call them the extreme Center governments because right or left they do the same thing and why why is Blink visiting sta normally they send orders online so why the need for a personal visit is to boost each other's morale I can see no other reason it and and T it's not just the UK government but most of the European Union governments can you talk about the the the wide gap between how these governments are dealing with the Israel's war on Gaza and the rest of the world especially the global South well the global South is more or less uniformly hostile to it there's a this is the biggest divide we've seen in politics almost since the Vietnam war that the global South opposed to the war and the West very much in favor of huan and this comes across very clearly now the other thing is that the demonstrators you know Jews non-jews Palestinians non-p Palestinians who've been marching in the streets of Western cities are identifying here very clearly with the global South so even in their own Homeland not to mention in the United States the demonstrations and the campus struggles so what we are seeing is a big divide on a global level and a divide on an internal level where large sections if not majorities are against what their governments are doing in unconditionally what the Israelis have been up to for a year now in in Palestine and this divide is going to continue given what is going on with the rivalries uh and so this this gulf now which has opened up is going to be difficult to resolve I mean whatever else on foreign policy I don't think there will be any big change in the unit United States regardless of who is elected uh so the demonstrations still go on a year later all over Europe including France the Germans have banned demonstrations they don't allow them because of their special uh links to the uh judeo side and Holocaust at the second world war for which the Palestinians are now being punished that's what's uh going on and it's quite a critical situation because lots of young people who I come across and speak to are challenging and questioning the very nature of democracy the nature of the system which exists where one Court International Court after the other has said this genocide must stop pressure on the international criminal court not to prosecute Netanyahu which has been demanded and so international law itself has now been questioned so we are now at a very at a situation where what the United States says goes the decisions are made in the White House in the Pentagon in the state department these are the key institutions which determine what happens in Israel and why the US is doing this puzzles many people who are sympathetic to them why are they doing this when we've had presidents like like Reagan like Bush senior stopping Israel from doing things like this when it was necessary now we not a single phone call both political parties totally complicit in this war they might have other disagreements but on the Gaza War they are completely uh uh United apart from Indies like Jill Stein who personally I would vote for were I a US citizen a sort of EX excellent politician but apart from her uh and a few others there's no one else in the mainstream who's come out against this and this is very disturbing I think for democracy itself and for all its legal institutions and and T I wanted to ask you in terms of uh you're talking about the state of democracy in your own homeland of Pakistan uh Imran Khan has been detained since uh for over a year now accused of inciting violence a former prime minister uh and the UN panel recently had findings that Imran Khan's detention is politically motivated do you think there will be any pressure on Pakistan uh to uh to release him so far there hasn't been any pressure and Imran Khan when he was dismissed uh from Office claimed that the United States was behind the dismissal because of the positions he had taken on uh Ukraine at that particular time he directly accused the state department of having engineered his dismissal so the fact that he is still in prison uh is a sign that the people who control Pakistan are the military politicians come and go political parties come and go politicians change sides in order to get GAIN office but effectively Hanan it is the Pakistani army that has run the show for many many many decades they make the decisions they choose the politicians including Imran he was a military Choice uh and his successes are military choices and now they are nervous because normally they can discredit a politician very quickly they haven't been able to do it in the case of Imran Khan and all the opinion polls show that were there to be an election in Pakistan Imran would win by large majorities throughout the country the Army have now made him a martyr they've made him a popular hero and he's been locked up in prison on completely frivolous and bogus judges so there's also the discussion of banning the PTI party the KH party uh talking about it um oh in citing violence leaking classified information what would that mean well what the classified information he revealed Amy which should be of interest to viewers here is that a senior figure from the Pakistan foreign office said wrote a letter back home um from the United States saying that in the United States he had been told in very clear language that Aman had to go well in Pakistan as in other parts of the world these letters are not they don't remain secret for twoo long so Imran referred to the letter in public uh stating something which most people knew and as a result of that they've charged him with betraying official Secrets I mean there was no official secret everyone knew this in the first place and so I think they're determined to get rid of him Banning his party won't help because his popularity will increase and if there's another uprising like we've seen in Bangladesh recently that could erupt in Pakistan then they've had it I mean they'll have to shoot people on the streets and we'll see a repeat of the uprisings of the 60s and T I wanted to ask you about Bangladesh uh the supporters of of the former prime minister shik Hina have claimed that the United States was behind that as well that it wasn't really a a popular Uprising as much as a color Revolution I'm wondering your thoughts is there any credible evidence that that is so I don't think so Juan I mean you know because the United States has done these things in the past it it can't do them everywhere and what we saw in Bangladesh was a very authoritarian government confronted largely by students demanding Democratic rights and freedoms and an end to laws uh which anti-democratic and they won she ran she was taken by a special plane waiting for her to India and is now blaming the United States for this uh in my opinion there is no evidence to show us involvement so far some may come out we will we will see but uh I think more disturbing is that the students who replaced her had no real alternative so quite a few unprincipled parties political parties and politicians who were there and are now in par or close to it are mistreating awami League supporters and that too is uh unacceptable but in Bangladesh as in Pakistan behind the scenes in Bangladesh it's the military who rules the appointment of a sort of Banker who became a celebrity and won the Nobel Prize Dr Eunice very very aged man older even than me and he is not going to be able to deliver anything behind him it's Army I wanted to go to what happening in in France um tens of thousands of people took to the streets Saturday protesting president macron's appointment of the conservative Michelle barer as the new prime minister even though leftist parties uh won the most votes in July snap parliamentary elections this is the leader of the leftist unbowed party Jean Luke meleson speaking last week and so the election has been stolen from the French people the message has been denied and now we're finding out about a prime minister that was named with the permission and maybe on the suggestion of the farri national rally knowing that the second round of the legislative election has been entirely concentrated on making this National rally feel so that's Jean Luke mesan uh head of unbowed uh you have the leftist winning and the president macron who called the snap election and yet lost it uh giving the Prime Minister ship to the right it's supporing Amy I mean this is you know the sort of trend we see in most of authoritarian uh approach to politics if they lose and Jean luk Melena was determined to fight he created a new united front with the socialists and all Progressive parties to make sure that the extreme right-wing party of marine Leen Was Defeated macron had said before the election let the far right come to par they'll discredit themselves well that didn't happen because of the campaign waged by LEF France in sumis and Jean melaw in particular effectively they created a united front which defeated the far right and this spoiled brat macron Who belongs came up from nowhere you know a sort of technocrat politician now operates as if he's a Statesman I I think he has discredited himself considerably and we shall see he had a meeting with the far right he has not met melanchon once he's made it clear that he's not going to appoint a president from the group or the block which got the largest votes and this is the trend I was referring to earlier or they feel they can get away with anything and they've been demon demonstrations there have been a few strikes as well but there's been no big protest from the so-called International Community I the state department in DC you know no no protest from Foggy Bottom at all that this is intolerable Behavior because you know they tolerate it when their own allies do it how it's going to turn out for macron we shall see I think 52% voted for his impeachment I'm I mean in opinion polls 52% of French people said that macron should be prosecuted impeached so it's he's divided the country quite quite sharply so we'll see what he does I mean barer is a joke figure he got 4% of the vote and he's been appointed prime minister I mean what's needed in France actually to be serious is an abolition of this fifth Republic that was cre created by deal after he seized p as a general in 1958 and it was designed to give the president maximum Powers it's not a democratic State you know in any sense of the word the democracy has tried to push through it and so we need a new Republic and you know melan Cho has been arguing and many of us have been let's have elections to a constituent assembly to choose and draft a new constit ution we need a sixth Republic in France cuz failed and and T I wanted to ask you though across Europe the uh uh extreme rightwing especially anti-immigrant parties have been gaining strength even though in Britain and France they were temp they've been beaten back but even the center has become increasingly more anti-immigrant uh anti-african anti-arab anti in United States Latin American what's your sense of the prospects for progressives and radicals to win popular support given that sectors uh of the working class and the middle classes are are falling prey to this anti-immigrant phobia Ohan this is always the case at times of Crisis social political economic that people from the working class and the middle classes you call it here um get carried away it's a simple propaganda we don't have enough jobs we don't have enough money look at these people coming from outside well in Europe you can say that but in the United States as I always point out everyone has come from the outside except Native Americans so what is the big deal that you know you not just want to exclude people of color uh in Europe of course they went and searched for uh workers all over the former colonies CU after the second world war there's a big and uh what they did effectively was to go and plead with West Indian black nurses to come and run the British national health service for workers to come and run the factories and this is a population which they're now talting but the most reprehensible feature of this as you point out is that mainstream politicians have not managed to frontally take on these arguments in in the new labor government you have slightly uh saying well yes there are problems we have too many uh immigrants labor is working very hard to try and stop the flow uh and the result of this is illegal gangs promising migrants in poverty stricken countries or countries where you have large numbers of people dislodged uh by Wars as we see in the Middle East today and as we've seen for the last five or six years who want to come and seek Refugee and they are being denied entry into the countries which have made these wars and in effect many of them are drowning in boats in the English Channel just dropping dead being pushed out by unscrupulous gangsters who promis them that they'll get them in illegally so it's it's a really Grim situation on on that um front and this is now in Germany too that in recent State elections in the former Eastern Germany turingia the far right party uh IFD won the largest vote I mean you know they can still be outvoted but they won a large vote and this is spreading in other parts of Germany too which also takes in the fact that if some of these far-right groups are saying why are we backing a war with Russia why are we supporting uh Ukraine it's not in our national interests why are we following the Americans so it's immigration and a lot of other issues actually U uh being tied together by these parties and the extreme Center governments Center left and center right do nothing they actually provoking this by doing nothing at all well T Ali we want to thank you for being with us and in our studio we look forward to having you back to talk about your Memoirs when they are released uh Tarak Ali is a British Pakistani historian activist filmmaker editor of the new Left review the author of over 50 books including the forthcoming you can't please all Memoirs 2024 in from London here in New York
