Among Other Things, Israel’s War in Lebanon Could Help Elect Trump
Our call this week will be at our new regular time: Friday at 11 AM Eastern
Our guest will be Rami Khouri, director of global engagement at the American University of Beirut, a fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, DC, a contributor to Al Jazeera online and the former editor of Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper. We’ll talk about the history and politics of Lebanon, Israel’s attacks on the country, and its escalating war with Hezbollah.
Paid subscribers will get the link this Tuesdayand the video the following week. They’ll also gain access to our library of past Zoom interviews with guests like Rashid Khalidi, Thomas Friedman, Ilhan Omar, Omar Barghouti, Benny Morris, Noam Chomsky, and Bret Stephens.
My New Book
Knopf will publish my new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, on January 28 of next year. I hope the book will contribute, in some small way, to changing the conversation among Jews about what is being done in our name. But I’m keenly aware of two things: First, Jewish voices like mine usually get more attention in the US than do Palestinian ones. Second, while I’m publishing my book, Palestinians in Gaza— and beyond— are suffering in unspeakable ways.
So, while I hope you consider buying my book, I hope you’ll also consider buying a book by a Palestinian author. As the weeks go by, I’ll make different suggestions, but I’ll also feature suggestions from readers. The first is a classic that has profoundly shaped my thinking, Edward Said’s The Question of Palestine. What comes through is not only Said’s knowledge about Palestinian history and politics, but his humanism and his refusal to dehumanize anyone, even as his people have been dehumanized in such profound ways.
I also hope you’ll consider donating to a charity that works in Gaza. One good option is Medical Aid to Palestinians. If you have other suggestions, please send them.
Premium Members, Ask Me Anything
We’ve added a new membership category, Premium, which is $179 per year (or higher, if you want to give more). In addition to our weekly Zoom interviews, Premium Members get access to a monthly live “ask me anything” zoom call and the video of that call the following week.
Our next “ask me anything” will be this Wednesday, October 9 at 11 AM Eastern.
If you’re interested in upgrading, hit the subscriber button below or email us with any questions.
Paid subscribers will get the link this Tuesday and the video the following week. They’ll also gain access to our library of past Zoom interviews with guests like Rashid Khalidi, Thomas Friedman, Ilhan Omar, Omar Barghouti, Benny Morris, Noam Chomsky, and Bret Stephens.
Sources Cited in This Video
Donald Trump calls on Israel to “defeat” Kamala Harris.
Things to Read and Watch
(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)
In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Max Freedman asks whether South Florida is the future of American Jewish life.
Tareq Baconi on two Palestinian memoirs.
Simon Kuper on Elon Musk and the shadow of apartheid South Africa.
Adam Shatz and Michael Walzer on Israel’s pager attack in Lebanon.
I talked about the escalating war with Hezbollah with MSNBC’s Alex Wagner and about Trump’s conflation of American Jews with Israelis with Ali Velshi.
Upcoming Talks
On September 25, I’ll be speaking at Vanderbilt University. On September 29, I’ll be speaking via zoom to the Jewish Council of Australia. On October 29, I’ll be speaking at the University of Victoria and on October 30, I’ll be speaking at Congregation Emanu El in Victoria.
See you on Friday,
Peter
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
So, Donald Trump said something pretty extraordinary on Friday. I mean, it was extraordinary even for him. He was speaking at this Republican Jewish event, and this is what he said. Now, he’s speaking again to a group of Republican American Jews, and he says, ‘you have to defeat Kamala Harris more than any other people on earth. Israel, I believe, has to defeat her. I’ve never said this before. I’m thinking, Miriam’—he’s talking to Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson’s widow, big supporter of his campaign—‘I’m thinking, Miriam, more than any people on Earth, Israel has to defeat her.’
So, there are two things that I think are significant about this. The first is that Trump is speaking to a group of American Jews as if they’re Israelis. And this is really part of a long pattern. You notice that he’s been doing this for many years. He often, speaking to Jewish audiences, will call Benjamin Netanyahu ‘your Prime Minister,’ or for Israel as ‘your country.’ And I think this has to do fundamentally with this just kind of ethnonationalist view of America that, unless you are a white Christian, you are in some sense essentially foreign. So, you may remember that back in 2016, I think it was, he called this Mexican American judge, Gonzalo Curiel, who was actually born in Indiana, he called him ‘Mexican’ right. Years later, he told the people in The Squad that they should go back to their countries, even though most of them were born in the United States.
So, his view is that kind of, if you’re not white and Christian like him, you are in some sense kind of essentially foreign. And so, he sees Jews as essentially foreign and, therefore, kind of as essentially as Israelis, right? So, that’s the one thing that’s striking about him. And he kind of can’t understand why American Jews are voting against him because they don’t think he’s good for America, because he sees them as people who should be voting for what Trump thinks is good for Israel because he sees them as essentially Israeli, or essentially kind of more loyal to Israel than to the United States.
But the other part of this statement that’s so remarkable is he’s explicitly calling on Israel to defeat his opponent, right. And remember how big a deal it was in 2016 when it was reported that there were private interactions where the Trump campaign was encouraging the Russians to try to give them information about Hillary Clinton. But this is much, much more blatant than that. Trump is explicitly calling on a foreign government to defeat his political opponent and intervene in the political campaign. And, in fact, there’s a lot of evidence that Benjamin Netanyahu is doing just that. Netanyahu has a long history of a close association with the Republican Party, and of meddling in American presidential elections.
And I think one way of understanding what Netanyahu is doing now, by launching this war in Lebanon is—I mean I think there are multiple reasons he’s doing this—partly, I think continuing the war helps to continue keeping him in power. I think it’s also a way of distracting from the fact that there’s no prospect that Israel is gonna destroy Hamas in Gaza. And it’s also a way of distracting from the fact that he hasn’t done the one thing that would actually get Hezbollah to stop launching rockets, which is to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza. And Hezbollah said very explicitly they will stop firing if there’s a ceasefire in Gaza. But Netanyahu doesn’t want a ceasefire in Gaza, in part because that would bring down his government, because the right wing elements would leave the government.
But in addition to all of that, right, I think he recognizes that doing this, starting a regional war, helps to do exactly what Donald Trump wants him to do, which is to make life really difficult for Kamala Harris. Because remember, what is the Trump campaign about? First of all, it’s about the economy, supposedly being bad. Secondly, it’s about the border supposedly being out of control. And thirdly, it’s about the world supposedly being out of control. So, what could be better for Donald Trump than for Benjamin Netanyahu just to launch a regional war and make people think that, under the Democratic administration, the world is in chaos.
And so, you need to bring Donald Trump—I mean Donald Trump, of all people, right, to bring it back to stability—but Netanyahu is serving Donald Trump’s interest by doing that. And Trump is explicitly asking him to do this, right. But it’s kind of remarkable how Israel—because Israel is coded as America’s ally, not its adversary, right—you can have these very blatant calls for interference, and these actions that I think really do constitute a kind of form of interference, and it doesn’t get discussed in the same way that Russia’s electoral interference gets discussed.
And even worse than that, right, you have the Biden Administration itself deeply complicit in the very actions by Israel that are not only terrible people for in Lebanon, and I think terrible for people in Israel, but undermine Kamala Harris, and therefore threaten the continuation of liberal democracy in the United States, right? It’s just astonishing that a Democratic president, who has staked his entire presidency on the fight for liberal democracy in the United States, is arming and protecting in international fora Israel, as Israel does things that—in addition to being disastrous in a number of other ways, I think—are also disastrous for the continuation of liberal democracy in the United States because they increase the chances of Donald Trump being elected. And Donald Trump is saying, please do this. And the Biden administration is essentially helping Benjamin Netanyahu do this.
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