Radio ID
Rob : I
have one more question for you, and it may not be a short answer, and that's
Israel. Now just today we learned that
Barak is going to retire from politics and from governing. He's been the moderating force there in the
coalition with Netanyahu and Lieberman.
What do you see happening with Israel?
They just had the truce which Hamas is celebrating as a great victory,
do you see it as a great victory, and where do you see things heading, where it
now looks like Qatar will start giving more money to Hamas than Iran was giving
to Hamas?
Glen : I
have problems with words like "moderating forces." The Israeli regime is a racist regime. I believe that the truce occurred because of
the contradictions that that we we talked about earlier in this conversation,
between the kind of balancing act that the United States has to try to
accomplish when it has an alliance with Muslim fundamentalists in that region,
and at the same time a long time alliance with this racist Israeli regime. This is unsustainable, and I believe that
Hamas understands the contradiction there, knows that the United States was
forced into a position where it had to force the Israeli regime to do what
apparently from the polls most Israelis
did not want it to do, which is not to continue with its ground
defensive, its ground move into Gaza.
Israeli internal politics finding moderates, I think, certainly doesn't
illuminate any situation for me. I can't
distinguish between Barak and Netanyahu and their alliance, I believe, shows
that there isn't too much of a damn difference between the two.
Rob : What
about what looks like it could be a shift for Hamas getting hundreds of
millions from Qatar, whereas in the past they've gotten about a hundred twenty
five million a year from Iran./
Glen : Of
course, that is going to happen, and in terms of Hamas' relationship with
forces on the ground in Egypt, forces that can bring pressure on Morsi no
matter what he wants to do. That's been
greatly strengthened as well. Hamas of
course comes out stronger in this; not just because of the financing that's now
open to it, which also makes it much more independent of the United Nations -
and that means more independent of the United States which dominates the United
Nations - but also because Hamas and the plight of the Palestinians is now part
of the domestic dialogue in Egypt right next door and the rest of the
Arab-Muslim world, in ways that it has not been in recent years. And the US has to deal with that (laughs).
Rob : And
a shift from a Shiite to a Salafi financial support situation?
Glen : I
don't understand what you mean.
Rob :
Well, Iran was giving them about one hundred twenty five million dollars a
year. They recently withheld the money
for four months, and now Qatar is committing to provide several hundred million
dollars a year to Hamas.
Glen :
Yeah, and that creates a bigger contradiction for the United States, which is
what Americans ought to be more concerned about, because the US's prime allies
in that region, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, then become the prime benefactors of
Hamas, who the United States calls a terrorist organization, and of course the
Israeli government is sworn to crush.
This is a huge contradiction for US policy in the region.
Rob : I've long said that what's happening in the
Middle East is one of the hardest problems in the world. And it doesn't sound like it's getting any
better.
Glen : It
means that the Israeli's freedom of movement is seriously curtailed, which is
shown by them having been forced into a truce that they clearly did not want to
enter. And it also means that the United
States' range of movement is also limited by these new and strengthened
relationships on the ground. Now, the
parties who are involved here: Hamas - which certainly is to the right in
conventional terms of the secular PLO, and Qatar and Saudi Arabia -- these are
not good guys from any left perspective.
But, their relationship has the effect of limiting the range of choices
that the United States has in the region.
See, so sometimes what looks like bad news for the left is actually
worse news for the US Imperial project.
Rob :
Fascinating. So, you might say that
Israel's assault on Gaza was a very bad strategic move both for Israel and for
the United States.
Glen :
Yeah, and I believe that this crazy regime in Israel was testing to see what
the reaction would be, to see how the world had changed since the Arab
Spring. Israel has not been as
aggressive. It's always incrementally
wearing down on the Palestinians on the West Bank, that's a constant. But Israel has not been as aggressive since
the advent of the Arab Spring. It's been
looking around, trying to see how its big patron, the United States, was going
to deal with these new realities. I
believe that it sabotaged what most people believe was Hamas truce efforts by
assassinating their military commander in order to test the waters, to see what
was permissible in this new order - what was the nature of the new order. It got its answer from the United States with
that flurry of frantic activity designed to make the Israelis pull back.
Rob : Do
you see anywhere in Israel, and with its neighbors, people or groups that have
the potential to come to some kind of a peace, some kind of balance?
Glen : I
despair of there being anything in Israeli society - I'm talking about Jewish
Israeli society - people seem to forget that twenty percent of Israeli proper
is Palestinian, is Arab. I despair of
any Israeli peace movement having any significant role to play. That's not in the cards, and I won't waste
any time trying to encourage it.
Rob :
OK. We've kind of hit the time barrier
here. We've had a great conversation,
and we could go on and on, I've got a whole list of topics we haven't discussed
- I'm going to have to have you back.
Thank you.
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