Aaron Maté and Special Guests on the U.S. Role in Ukraine, Gaza's Future & More
Journalist Aaron Maté and guests Prof. Jonathan Haslam and Prof. Nicolai Petro discuss the upcoming Ukraine War peace talks in Istanbul. Plus: political analyst Mouin Rabbani on the famine in Gaza, new Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Palestinian state recognition. ------------ Watch full episodes on Rumble, streamed LIVE 7pm ET. Become part of our Locals community Follow System Update: Twitter Instagram TikTok Facebook LinkedIn
We'll be joined by authors and scholars Jonathan Haslam and Nikolai Petro.
And to discuss the latest in Israel-Palestine, we'll hear from Middle East analyst Mawin Rabbani.
System update starts right now.
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A second round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine is set for Monday in Istanbul.
But as with the first round earlier this month, there is uncertainty about whether or not the meeting will go ahead.
Russia says that it will present a memorandum laying out its terms for ending the war.
But Ukraine accuses Russia of stalling the talks and says it wants to see the Russian proposal before whether it decides to show up in Istanbul.
Now, during a visit to Kyiv on Friday, one of the top supporters of the Ukraine proxy war, Senator Lindsey Graham, cast doubt on the Istanbul talks and promoted his effort to impose new sanctions on countries that do business with Russia.
President Trump said that this next two-week period will be outcome-determinative.
I see nothing about the meeting on Monday and Istanbul to give me any hope at all.
That Russia's interested in peace.
So when this two-week period is over, I think it'll be pretty clear to everybody Russia's playing a game at the expense of the world, not just the United States.
We're going to change that game for Russia.
The game that Putin's been playing is about to change.
He's going to be hit and hit hard by the United States when it comes to sanctions.
China, If you keep buying cheap Russian oil to fuel Putin's war machine, there will be a 500% tariff on all of your products coming into the United States.
So Lindsey Graham is saying there's no hope that Russia is interested in peace and that Putin is just playing a game.
And that's a very common view in Washington.
Antony Blinken, who was Joe Biden's Secretary of State, repeatedly said the same thing.
What we never hear is what the Ukrainians have said about this question.
Three years ago in Istanbul, there were also peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.
And according to one of Ukraine's top negotiators, Oleksandr Chaly, the two sides managed to reach a very real compromise.
In the middle of April, in the end of April, to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement.
For some reasons, it was postponed.
But to my mind, Putin, this is my personal view, Putin in one week after starting his aggression in 24 February last year, very quickly understood he did mistake and tried to do everything possible.
To conclude agreement with Ukraine.
And Istanbul communique, it was his personal decision to accept the text of this communique, which totally far away from the initial proposal of Russia, ultimatum proposal of Russia, which they put before the Ukrainian delegation in Minsk.
So we managed to find a very real compromise.
So Putin really wanted to reach some peaceful settlement with Ukraine.
It's very important to remember.
He says Ukraine and Russia reached a very real compromise.
Well, what happened to the compromise?
We now know what happened.
Boris Johnson, then the UK Prime Minister, came over and told Zelensky on behalf of Washington.
That the U.S. and U.K. would not back up Ukraine if it reached a peace deal with Russia, and that Ukraine should just fight instead.
Well, we know it's happened ever since.
Ukraine and Russia have lost hundreds of thousands of lives, and now we're back in Istanbul once again to revive the very same talks that were sabotaged three years ago.
In Washington, do we ever hear the voices of that Ukrainian diplomat saying that there was a real compromise?
Do we ever hear that acknowledged in the U.S. media?
Never.
I don't think that ever— I don't think that clip has ever been played once on corporate TV.
And the New York Times, as far as I know, has mentioned it a grand total of one time.
Just one time acknowledging that even a Ukrainian official said that there was a very real compromise on the table between Ukraine and Russia.
Well, three years after that very real compromise was sabotaged in Istanbul, Can peace be salvaged today?
To discuss, we are going to hear from two guests.
Up first is Jonathan Haslam.
He is Professor Emeritus of the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge, author of numerous books on U.S.-Russia relations, including his latest, Hubris, The American Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine.
Jonathan Haslam, thanks so much for joining us on System Update.
Good to see you.
As we're recording this, there is talk of a new round of Russia-Ukraine negotiations in Istanbul.
Russia has promised to deliver a memorandum stipulating its main request for the process towards a long-term peace deal.
Ukraine has reportedly submitted its own memorandum that is premised on fundamentally first having a ceasefire.
That's Ukraine's main immediate demand.
What is your assessment so far of this renewed round of peace talks in Istanbul between Ukraine and Russia?
Well, I don't like to sound pessimistic, but on previous occasions, this has always fallen apart.
And the problem is that any meeting between Putin and Trump is predicated on The Ukrainian delegation meeting the Russian delegation.
And the trouble is that when they get together, that's where things fall apart.
In other words, you do need mediation.
They've been at war for too long.
The stakes are too high.
There are people lying on either side to back them up.
The whole thing needs massive decompression.
And really this is the responsibility of the United States and the responsibility of the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to get a grip on this, which is not at all visible because Mr. Witkoff seems to be the troubleshooter of choice.
He does make some sense in the context of the Middle East.
But I don't think he makes a great deal of sense in the Moscow context.
And the Russians are all about status.
So I'm afraid Mr. Witkoff has never really cut it for them.
On the other hand, they haven't put themselves forward.
They've not put themselves out.
So for these reasons, I'm not optimistic.
Well, the Trump administration might say, look, we are putting ourselves out there.
In fact, Keith Kellogg, the Trump special envoy on Ukraine, who has been sidelined by Steve Wyckoff, but is still engaging in these talks and is promising to show up for the new round of negotiations in Istanbul.
Now, he just put out a statement seemingly addressing Russian concerns about NATO.
This is what Keith Kellogg said.
So just some of the notes that I took, there is this report that Putin has outlined these conditions for ending the war, including demanding Western leaders pledge in writing that NATO won't expand eastward.
Is President Trump willing to make that kind of commitment to Putin that NATO won't expand?
Well, I think it's a fair concern.
And we've said that repeatedly, like we've said that And we're not the only country that says that.
You know, I can probably give you four of the countries in NATO.
And it takes 32 of the 32 to allow you to come into NATO.
And we've seen other countries say, we're not too sure about that.
And that's one of the issues that Russia will bring up.
And they're only us just talking Ukraine.
They're talking the country of Georgia.
They're talking Moldova.
They're talking obviously Ukraine and we're saying, okay, comprehensively, That's security concerns for them.
So that's Keith Kellogg, you know, going a lot further than anybody in the Biden administration did.
He's saying that Russian concerns about NATO expansion are fair.
And he suggests there that the U.S. is willing to take NATO expansion off the table not only for Ukraine, but other countries as well, including Georgia, which was promised NATO membership alongside Ukraine back fatefully in 2008.
So what do you make of that?
Keith Kellogg saying that Russian concerns are fair and we're willing to take NATO expansion off the table when it comes to Ukraine and Georgia.
Thank you.
Yeah, this is important.
The whole business began because the United States was determined to expand NATO and then put Ukraine in it.
So this is crucial.
But for how long?
I mean, they've made statements in the past, oh, for so many years, or for the foreseeable future, or, you know, that won't cut it with the Russians.
I mean, I just get the impression that however benign these two intermediaries have been on behalf of the United States, they're not the real deal.
I mean, the Russians, they want the real deal.
And this whole business started, well, it started two ways.
It started one way with the Americans insisting on allowing Ukraine into NATO sometime in the future, which is like An indefinite threat hanging over the Russians.
The other element, of course, is, you know, Putin decided to go to war over this, which was crazy.
And it's a war he cannot win.
But it's also a war Ukraine cannot win.
And it's certainly a war that NATO Europe cannot win.
But it strikes me that the key discussions have to be between the Russians.
And the Americans, with the Americans talking to Ukrainians and then talking the Ukrainians to bring them in at the right point.
So, in other words, the commitments, the security commitments the Russians need and demand can only be obtained from the United States.
And I just think that President Trump is deluding himself.
If he thinks they can take a slow course and allow the Ukrainians and the Russians to wreak so much destruction on one another, in the end they'll be exhausted and come through.
The danger is they have to be preemptive.
And I cannot understand why Marco Rubio obsesses about China at the moment and obsesses about Passports of Chinese students at Harvard when we've got this going on.
He's running the National Security Council and the State Department.
Does he not have a view on this?
If he doesn't, then what exactly is the White House up to?
When you say that Putin can't win the war in Ukraine, I imagine that there are some supporters of Russia who would take issue with that, who'd say, actually, Putin's been restrained in Ukraine.
He hasn't sent nearly the force into Ukraine that he could.
And of course, Russia does have nuclear weapons.
So why, in your view, is it impossible for Russia to win in Ukraine?
Well, I mean, you can win to the point of self-destruction, but you must remember that we don't know.
We hear all the noise.
We hear the noise from Ukraine.
We hear the noise in NATO Europe.
We hear the noise in DC endlessly.
What noise do you hear inside Russia?
Nothing, because they cut us all out.
None in the West have any idea how bad things are in Russia.
And this is a bleeding wound.
The Russian economy is in a terrible state.
They're basically turning it into a war economy.
You can't feed people on a war economy.
It's a disaster for the coming generations.
The Russians are short of labor.
That's why inflation's so high.
I mean, putting young men into the meat grinder.
It's not a solution.
The oil price is falling and will continue to fall for the foreseeable future because I think U.S. is already heading into recession.
If there's a crash on the U.S. stock market and there's a crisis in the world economy, the demand for oil will go down even further.
I mean, the Russians live off oil and gas.
If you were writing a prospectus for Mr. Putin, however loyal you were, you'd have to say, we cannot continue in this way indefinitely.
We need to know at least when there will be an end to the conflict.
And you are not winning it.
You thought you'd win it in two or three days, for God's sake.
And so, you know, it's...
And it's no good sending others, sending people of, I won't say second rate, but they're not the top people.
When I see Rubio visit Moscow, then I'll know they're serious.
And I think that's how the Russians really view it.
Your characterization of Russia certainly contrasts with what Russia puts out.
Russia says it has a strong economy.
And supporters of Putin point to the fact that he does seem to enjoy, if we can believe the polls, strong domestic support.
I mean, do you think he's in at all a more perilous political position than the Kremlin is willing to acknowledge?
Ah, we don't know his political position, but I mean, if US interest rates were put up by the Fed to 21%, what sort of state would the US economy be in?
Why, you know, what sort of condition would that be?
Just as a starting point.
So, I think Putin is firmly in the saddle because he's made sure over a period Since he took power in 2000, certainly since 2004, the people are too frightened to move against him.
So I don't think any hope of that happening is going to alter the situation.
It's the economic situation.
It's the fact that Russia, in the end, it has to resume a normal rate of growth to keep its population On its feet, basically.
And so the economy is the key thing.
If Trump wants to impose harder sanctions on Russia, he can do so.
But the point is that the West looks like it's in disarray.
You have, I would call them lunatics in NATO Europe, talking about World War III and arming Germany in the next five years.
I mean, Germany doesn't have any nuclear weapons.
Britain's got a couple.
France has got a couple.
The Russians can wipe us all out overnight if we went in that direction.
So the trouble is there's no coherence from Washington.
There has to be a coherent NATO position.
And within that position, as you pointed out at the very beginning, You cannot say that Ukraine will enter NATO.
So, in other words, you've got to be firm, but on that essential issue, you have to be flexible.
And it's no use talking about possibilities of war, the Germans using long-distance rockets.
Or giving them to Ukrainians?
I don't know.
The key thing with these missiles is not the missiles.
Who is targeting them?
Are they going to be targeted by the Pentagon?
Are they going to be targeted from NATO Europe, from Rammstein or somewhere?
If they are, and those missiles go in and start hitting Moscow or wherever, you know, this is going to be war.
And you're referring to the statement recently from German Chancellor Mertz, who said that there are no longer any restrictions on the range of weapons supplied to Ukraine, including from us, from the Germans, which suggests that Germany has given or is preparing to give Ukraine long-range tourist missiles.
Yeah, it might, if it was lunatic enough.
I mean, Mertz is a complete amateur.
He lost the elections.
They won't allow the new party on the right to get near power.
So they're trying to hold their country together and adopt a warlike pose.
And Mertz doesn't cut it.
He doesn't impress people.
God knows what, I mean the standard of statesmanship in Europe So one shouldn't look to Europe to save anybody.
What we need is firm action as a thoroughly realist position, and we need presidential commitment.
And every week I turn on or every day I turn on the television.
And the White House has committed itself to something else.
Now it's committed itself to the Reagan Star Wars umbrella idea when the US is practically bankrupt in terms of debt.
There's a sort of stunning lack of realism in the White House at the moment about the world, the world economy.
How you're dealing with foreign powers.
The only realism is in domestic policy, which is ruthlessly realistic.
Maybe that will help them win the house.
Okay, so it may make sense in domestic politics.
I mean, no one's going to win the house in the autumn by saving Ukraine.
That's the truth of it.
So in other words, foreign policy can wait as far as they're concerned.
The trouble is...
We can't guarantee that will continue indefinitely.
But some people in the White House, I think, believe they can wait it out to the autumn.
I want to ask you about A key passage of your book where you identify a memo from the National Security Council written in 1994, which you characterize as basically a turning point in U.S.-Russia relations where the Clinton administration formally adopted a policy of seeking to bring Ukraine into NATO.
And the rationale that this memo lays out for bringing Ukraine into NATO is pretty explicit.
They don't talk about spreading freedom and democracy and collective self-defense.
They talk about establishing a strategic hedge against Russia, which they define as neocontainment.
And they also say that we're going to keep this rationale in the background, rarely articulated, which to me reads as an acknowledgement that it would not look good publicly if we say we're expanding NATO to contain Russia.
It's better for us to say we're doing this to spread democracy and freedom and collective self-defense.
But talk to us about The significance of this memo and why you think it put the U.S. and Russia on a path to war in Ukraine.
Yeah, to contextualize the memo, this was the same notion that George Bush 41 had and his National Security Advisor, that somehow I remember Bush Sr.
Attending a NATO Council meeting and telling Mitterrand, the rather disgruntled French president, well, they're always disgruntled, but he was particularly disgruntled, that NATO had to expand and become global.
And the trouble was, he said this at the meeting without having a private word to Macron.
Sorry, not Macron, to Mitterrand beforehand.
And Mitterrand was an old player, an old politician.
He knew how to deal with it.
And he just squashed Bush's hope to expand NATO and said, you've got to formalize it, bring it to a proper meeting.
And then Bush later approached him privately and they had a fight about it.
And Mitterrand said, we're not looking for that.
We don't need this.
But of course, the key element that the National Security Advisor was putting was they were worried.
Washington was worried.
The end of the Cold War was not something they wanted.
It was incredibly inconvenient.
It meant the US had to reformulate itself.
And they reformulated it as basically the US has to justify staying in Europe.
There was no justification for staying in Europe.
But Europe, in terms of the economy, world economy in those days, was absolutely critical to the health of the United States trading system and financial system.
So, in other words, in order to stay in Europe, they had to find a plausible excuse, and the plausible excuse became the expansion of NATO.
So all this goes back to the desperate attempt in the United States to maintain itself as the, as it were, the top world power.
It's all about power.
Putin knows very well.
You can't assume the Russians haven't read all these memoranda.
I can't imagine that anything in my book was a surprise to Moscow.
Anything.
They will have known all this.
And it was out there in the press in the 90s.
Discussed by all of the top Russianists in the United States, led by George Kennan.
They were infuriated by this policy, which had been snuck in secretly without any proper consultation, and only one Russian specialist ever advocated this, and this was the guy on the National Security Council, who should feel ashamed of himself.
As to what's happened.
How many people have died as a result of this crazy policy?
How many people have died?
Of course, Americans haven't died.
Well, there may be a few special forces somewhere, but other people have died.
And people like Keith Kellogg have openly celebrated this.
I said this is, you know, previously under the Biden administration, he testified to Congress.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator, I believe if you can defeat a strategic adversary not using any U.S. troops, you're at the acme of professionalism.
So it's very openly articulated that we're using Ukraine to bleed Russia.
And for people in Washington, this is a great thing.
Yeah, but when you go back to the Clinton time, the greatest opponents Of the expansion of NATO were the Pentagon, Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense.
They knew what could happen.
They looked ahead.
They weren't fools.
They thought, well, how would we like it if this were done to us?
So General Kellogg may think he's wiser, but we've had so many.
I don't know how many American generals there are, but ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis, even before, from the early fifties under Eisenhower, we've had these American generals who somehow think that there's a military solution to everything.
and general eisenhower it worried president eisenhower that these lunatics were abroad i-i just i-you know i mean Scowcroft, Air Force General, real hawk.
And he had very little understanding of politics, really.
The United States, although has some of the cleverest people in the world, somehow they never find themselves in the core of the US government.
In this interview, I believe you've described both U.S. policy vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine and Russia's decision to invade both as crazy.
So let me put you the Russian perspective.
From your point of view, what should Russia have done to address its grievances?
The expansion of NATO, the refusal by Zelensky, the open refusal by Zelensky and his aides to respect the Minsk Accords.
They were under pressure.
Putin was under pressure to do something about the plight of people in the Donbass.
How should Russia have addressed its grievances and the plight of the Donbass without going to war, as it did in February 2022?
Yeah, but there were only two people in the Russian government who wanted to go to war.
No one else did, including the head of the armed forces, including head of foreign intelligence.
They all thought it was a complete disaster.
And, well, maybe Shoigu didn't think that much because he wasn't very bright.
But certainly the senior military in Russia, they didn't see war as an option.
Look, you had an American president recently elected.
I mean, you didn't have to be a doctor.
As soon as you saw this man appear on stage to conclude that he had Alzheimer's, I knew it immediately.
Okay, so he's not going to make it a second term.
He's being run by all sorts of people.
The US is drifting.
It's spending itself into the grave.
It's getting into trouble with China.
Wait.
So the mystery is why Putin didn't wait.
Well, he felt he'd been waiting since 2004 when the Baltic states entered NATO and he'd spent You know, what will people think of me in the future?
Catherine the Great and all the rest of it.
When I go to heaven, you know, what are they going to say?
And he was under the influence of some really odd people.
So, in other words, the Russian decision was crazy in logical terms, in military-political terms, but it was to do with that nature of that regime.
It is a mafiosi government.
You know, you disagree with them, they conclude you're a traitor, you know, they blow you up, run you over, drop you out of a window.
You know, so when you're dealing with it, you're thinking, how do I deal with people like this?
And this is the failure of the American government, because Biden just thought, I'm going to sit on my backside and say no to everything.
Well, you know, that wasn't a solution.
That wasn't a solution.
On the question of the Donbass, Zelensky and his aides were openly saying Minsk Accords mean the country's destruction.
The Minsk Accords, that was the agreed-upon framework for ending the war in the Donbass.
And there were ethnic Russians being shelled there by US-backed government in Kyiv.
So, I mean, my question is, what should Russia have done to respond to that?
Well, the Russians were the first in their...
As you know, they shot down an airliner because they weren't particularly competent.
They could continue to occupy that area and create trouble indefinitely.
So there was no particular need to send tanks on the route to Kiev.
The Minsk Accords were a I won't say they were a joke, but they weren't serious.
The French and the Germans were using it to buy time to rearm Ukraine.
The British led unconventional forces in and trained up Ukrainian guerrilla forces to fight in the eastern provinces.
The US was backing up the same with intelligence and the rest of it.
So it was an unstable situation, but there was an element of predictability to it.
It was contained.
Putin decided he just couldn't put up with it anymore.
So this relates to him as a personality, him as a leader.
You know, it's just an awful thing that Russians have ended up.
An old friend of mine who used to be in charge of Russian affairs at MI6 used to say that no good can come from allowing an officer of the KGB to take charge of the Russian state.
And unfortunately that was said over 20 years ago and it's proved absolutely true.
But it's not the Russians alone.
If you think you're advising Putin and saying Don't risk.
Don't risk.
And you'd say, yeah, okay, but look at the Germans.
They're just buying our oil and gas.
They don't want to fight with us.
They're not spending any money on armaments.
Their defences are a joke.
Okay, we have to worry about the Poles and the Estonians, but look at Britain.
It's running down its army and navy.
Look at the French.
You know, they just can't get on with their partners in Europe.
Europe's in disarray politically.
So what are we up against?
So the Europeans bear a responsibility, particularly the Germans, for looking totally soft and useless vis-a-vis the Russians.
And now they're trying to overcompensate for it.
So once again, they're doing the wrong thing.
So in other words, in the calculations that were made by people around Putin, it wasn't very convincing to say, oh, we can't act because America has a dynamic president.
No, it didn't.
Oh, we can't act because the germs are tough, strong, and sitting on the front line.
No, they weren't.
In other words, as you went through those Oh, well, China will go along with us.
Oh, okay.
So you can see that whoever was advising Putin on rational reasons of state, every time they put something up, it was ruled out.
They didn't carry any conviction.
Now, yes, but just one counterpoint.
I agree with you that Russia...
But pretty much immediately there were peace talks that began between Ukraine and Russia, which speaks to the argument that Russia was basically trying to enforce the diplomacy that Ukraine and the U.S. were refusing before.
And those talks did culminate in the Istanbul talks of March and April 2022.
And it looks like they were very close to a deal until the U.S. and Boris Johnson said that they would not support Ukraine if it reached a peace deal with Russia.
Do you agree with that assessment?
Yeah, this was the initiative of Naftali Bennett, who's now leading the opposition in Israel.
And he tried to forestall the war before it happened by talking to Putin.
And then with the assent of NATO leaders, he went.
I mean if there was one reason why the British should never ever take Boris Johnson seriously was because how could you take anyone seriously?
I mean, how many deaths lie in his hands?
This was a unique opportunity.
And no one's going to describe Naftali Bennett as some sort of naive softy.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
And when Putin said to him, why are you doing this?
What do you want to make peace for?
And Naftali Bennett said, well, the world's full of Jews and they're here too.
And if there's a war, lots of them will die.
Well, unfortunately, they have.
Final question.
As we've seen in this interview, you are critical of all sides.
But because you've been critical of the NATO side, you're putting out a piece of work, a book that goes against a very dominant narrative that we've seen in the West ever since Russia invaded, where dissenting views on the proxy war effort are marginalized, accused of spreading Kremlin talking points and not given a fair hearing.
As someone, you know, you're a professor at a major Western academic institution.
You've been in these establishment spaces for a long time.
What is your impression of the state of discourse inside the West when it comes to having honest debates about the proxy war effort?
And what has been the response to your book so far?
Yeah, well, in Britain, as your vice president has said, there isn't such a thing as free speech.
There is nominally.
But in practice, there are people in Whitehall.
The deep state has committees set up, designed to suppress all open discussion of these issues.
So they, I mean, I know from a senior former ambassador to Russia who whispered to me at the end of a reception, you know, they've decided you're pro-Putin.
Which is equivalent to saying we'll push you out.
Thank God for the United States for all its faults because Harvard published the book as well.
So it's actually getting some attention.
I mean you may not think it's getting much attention.
Got a lot of attention on the web.
But the British don't just lock people up for silent prayer.
They also smother Open discussion, whether you're talking about even the unconventional TV channels like GB News, which basically is an instrument of the new Reform Party.
Do they ever have anyone on there who actually discusses these issues with any knowledge?
And one of my colleagues, Professor Sakwa, is currently on a sort of blacklist that's leaked out of Whitehall.
To suppress whatever he's got to say.
So, once again, on these matters, and in fact, on any serious matter, unless the United States acts, you know, free speech will continue to die in Britain.
The book is called " The American Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine." Jonathan Haslam, thanks so much for joining us on System Update.
Thank you for the opportunity.
And thanks again to Jonathan Haslam for joining us.
For more on the Russia-Ukraine war, we are going to hear now from Nikolai Petro.
He is professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, author of the book, The Tragedy of Ukraine.
Nikolai Petro, thanks for joining us on System Update.
Nice to be with you, Aaron.
What is your sense of the Ukrainian government's approach right now to these peace talks with Russia?
Ukraine has tried to get its partners on board with new sanctions on Russia with its demand for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.
That hasn't happened.
And Zelensky was basically forced to show up in Istanbul recently at the behest of Donald Trump, who told him to go.
and now there's talk of a second round between Ukraine and Russia.
What is your assessment of the state that I think they're very reluctant to engage in these talks and to have them reach any conclusion because the current regime thrives in this militarized environment.
It has consolidated their power.
It has given them what in Ukraine is called a single majority.
And this is an unheard of period of time for Ukraine, in modern Ukraine, where the executive branch and the legislature, the unicameral legislature, are in the hands of one party.
Any peace deal would result, would automatically begin the clock for new elections.
And these are new elections which I don't know anyone who predicts that Zelensky will do well in them, or even necessarily stand for election, because he has become a very divisive figure in Ukraine.
Divisive regionally, divisive in terms of his conduct of the war, and divisive in terms of his own political views.
There is clearly no constituency that stands solidly behind him.
And he's being attacked from many quarters.
I know we'll discuss the nationalists, but they're not the only ones.
That's one wing of And the other, of course, what we could roughly call the party of non-war.
I'm not sure you could call them the party of peace, quite.
But the ones who want to end the war, and they, of course, see him as dragging their feet in Ukraine.
Since you mentioned the nationalists, Also known in some circles as ultra-nationalist extremists, even neo-Nazis, groups like the Azov Battalion.
The Ukrainian-American journalist Lev Galenkin, he has a term that he used prior to Russia's invasion when it comes to the ability of the ultra-nationalists to prevent a peace deal, to undermine, for example, the Minsk Accords, which was the pact that was supposed to end the civil war that broke out in Ukraine after the 2014 Maidan coup.
And he referred to...
Do they still hold that kind of power inside Ukraine to undermine any potential peace deal that Zelensky might try to enter into?
I don't know whether their power is Quite absolute in that regard.
It's significant because their ability to unleash violence has only grown in recent years because of the militarization of society and the quasi-mythical role that groups like the Azov battalion,
Naidar, Tornado and others play in The military image of Ukraine, the success on the battlefield.
In other words, there's the regular military and then there are the quasi-independent nationalist battalions, which are loosely affiliated with the military and feel entirely comfortable, paradoxical as it may sound, to Criticize the military for not doing what local commanders like themselves who are on the front lines want them to do.
So it's a very chaotic management of the military with a lot of single military commanders perhaps Beginning to think about their own political careers after the war.
It is no secret that prominent military leaders like Andrey Biletsky has political ambitions after the end of the conflict.
So perhaps, you know, they have their social media accounts and they play a prominent role in criticizing the current Ukrainian military.
And its failings, both in terms of battlefield and in terms of mobilization of increased numbers and general criticism of the way that the current government is running the military campaign.
So, there is that.
But on the other hand, If the Ukrainian military as a whole does not have the wherewithal to continue the fight and is destined to lose because of the logistical manpower problems and basic inequality of the fight with Russia, then the nationalist component of that is only a smaller portion of it.
It may be significant, but it doesn't change the overall equation.
And nationalists may be committed to their vision, but they're not necessarily suicidal.
And there is an opportunity, perhaps there, to manage a transition to a post-war scenario.
Now, for the nationalists, as a rule, I suspect this would be a temporary ceasefire.
In anticipation of being able to build up Ukrainian forces to someday relaunch the attack, to foster a revanchist movement for hopefully a not too distant future for Ukraine.
And this puts them at odds with anyone who seeks a true peaceful settlement, which would establish A long-term different relationship between Russia and Ukraine.
So I would say that one of the conflicts in the present time over the negotiations that is likely to carry forward in any post-war political campaign is how the war was concluded.
Was there in fact a ceasefire only?
With no recognition, no actual settlement of the territorial and political disputes with Russia?
Or are we aiming for, did we achieve a settlement of which the ceasefire will be simply a component of the larger settlement?
And to some extent, and this is important for your readers, for your listeners to understand, these two are at odds.
I think if you achieve a ceasefire first, then there is very little pressure needed further to accomplish an actual settlement.
The absence of a ceasefire, however, creates further pressure for an actual settlement.
But absent that pressure, it's unlikely that we're going to get the kind of settlement that at least Russia is looking for.
I'm not sure the Ukrainian government at this point is all that interested in a settlement.
Mostly because, as I mentioned, it unleashes the clock or it sets the clock for new political elections, which the government is likely to lose.
And do you see interest on the Russian side in a peaceful settlement?
You mentioned that there's a revanchist strain on the Ukrainian side, but how about inside Russia, which is now – Do you think Moscow is open to what you would view as a compromise solution inside Ukraine?
Well, there are definitely hardliners pushing for further territorial gains and essentially the unconditional surrender of Ukraine.
That does not necessarily imply the occupation of all of Ukraine, but perhaps a partition along the lines of occupied France and Vichy France during World War II.
I think the current government, Putin's government in Russia, is amenable to A deal that would allow for a sovereign Ukraine, but with limited sovereignty.
I would say that tends to be the norm for most countries.
Limited sovereignty in the sense of not being able to conduct an anti-Russian policy.
I would say that is the bottom line for Russia.
And the way to ensure that for Russia, what that means from Russia's perspective, would be neutrality.
In other words, neutrality would be the compromise.
Hopefully, I mean, the maximum agenda would be a pro-Russian regime, if that were possible, through a coup of some sort in Kyiv.
The alternative that would not be acceptable Would be a revanchist Ukraine which would continue to arm and oppose Russian interests and eventually join NATO.
So the compromise from Russia's perspective that I think Putin is willing to accept is neutrality.
And there are lots of pros and relatively few cons, at least from my perspective, in neutrality.
And I think An able Ukrainian government in a post-war environment could succeed if it played its neutrality to the maximum and sought benefits both from the West and from Russia to support that neutrality could do actually quite well in maximizing its sovereignty in a
neutral context.
Earlier we spoke to the historian Jonathan Haslam, author of a new book, Hubris, which talks about the U.S.-NATO role in provoking Russia in Ukraine.
But he's simultaneously very critical of Putin, who he thinks really miscalculated by invading Ukraine.
He also thinks that Putin's economy right now is in serious trouble.
That the Russian government's claims of growth are really overblown and largely artificially inflated because of the boom of war.
Do you agree with that assessment?
Do you think that Russia is facing more internal pressures and more internal chaos than it's been willing to admit?
Probably, but that doesn't mean that it is in dire straits.
In other words, I think Russia at its worst, economically, can outlast and outspend Ukraine and anything that the West can plausibly offer to Ukraine in total.
In other words, Russia has all the cards in the economic competition vis-a-vis Ukraine and NATO combined.
Whatever the problems are with the Russian economy, they strike me as being more to do with lost opportunities rather than actual losses.
And there are many reasons for this having to do with the global need for raw materials that Russia is willing to provide.
And is still making money on.
There was an article I read today, somewhere, that pointed out that Russia made more on natural resource sales than Ukraine received in total funding from the West.
That's a striking admission.
And that's from the West.
In other words, it does not include what Russia has also undertaken in anticipation of a long-term economic sanctions regime, which is to expand its relations throughout the Third World and with China, China and India.
So I think in the longer run, I would be more optimistic than Mr. Haslam.
About the prospects of the Russian economy because it is not simply defending its turf in anticipation of rejoining the West.
It strikes me that Putin has been very clear on this.
I think one of the more memorable phrases that I saw attributed to Putin about that is that no one is going to lay the red carpet down for McDonald's to come back to Russia.
But the red carpet is open.
And laying down for as much Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, and other third-world investment as they wish.
And the world is a much bigger place than the West.
And I think the hubris that Mr. Haslam is talking about is precisely this failure to recognize that very fact and to attribute, therefore, too much influence and ability Last question for you, Nikolai Petro.
I'm wondering if you can comment on the way Ukraine is presented to us here in the U.S. media.
The way the country is characterized, it's a monolith where people are united behind resisting Russian aggression.
Zelensky has widespread support.
In your book, The Tragedy of Ukraine, you have, you know, Rich access to Ukrainian sources, and you paint a very different picture, and you give voice to Ukrainian perspectives that are just never presented to most Western audiences.
I wonder if you can compare the picture presented here in the West about the nature of Ukraine versus the more complex reality that you see on the ground.
As you point out, I've written quite a bit since my book, even.
About the diversity, the cultural, historical, religious, political diversity within Ukraine.
Understandably, there has been a muting of this diversity in circumstances of a direct military invasion and conflict with Russia.
But one of the interesting things to note is that as the conflict has progressed, Not necessarily to challenge the established narrative, but to question aspects of it.
So people don't necessarily say, well, let's be pro-Russian or let's support a Russian perspective.
What they're saying is,
And secondarily, they have criticized the failure of this regime, I'm talking about critics in Ukraine, to rally the support of their own citizens who feel a close cultural And religious identity with Russia as Ukrainians.
I mean, they are not lesser Ukrainians for that.
And this theme of who is a real Ukrainian and who is a lesser Ukrainian has been promoted by some Western Ukrainian nationalists, but it is a very divisive one.
I have noted over time that as the peace talks have progressed or there's been talk of peace, it is clear that these voices haven't gone anywhere and cannot go anywhere because we're talking about literally half the country identifying as having some sort of connection.
Albeit cultural or historical or family with Russia before 2021, those people haven't gone anywhere.
They may have muted their pro-Russian sentiments, but as soon as the fighting starts, the healing begins.
This is true of every conflict, of every war, and it is to be anticipated here.
So all of those voices that are dissident voices, that have always been part of the natural Ukrainian landscape, are bound to come back.
And that's something I would say we need to start paying attention to already today, because they form the future of a more pluralistic Ukraine.
I think a monocultural Ukraine, if they try to stress that as the future of Ukraine, is likely to be much smaller and much less successful than a truly pluricultural Ukraine, which it has always historically been.
Nikolai Petro, professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, author of The Tragedy of Ukraine.
Thank you so much for joining us on System Update.
Thank you.
And thanks again to Nikolai Petro.
For our last segment, we turn to Gaza.
At the White House on Friday, President Trump claimed that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is within reach.
Well, they're very close to an agreement on Gaza.
And we'll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow.
And we have a chance of that.
And I think we have a chance of making a deal with Iran also.
They don't want to be blown up.
They would rather make a deal.
And I think that could happen in the not-too-distant future.
That would be a great thing.
If we could have a deal without bombs being dropped all over the Middle East, that would be a very good thing.
They can't have a nuclear weapon.
We want them to be safe.
We want them to have a very, very successful nation.
Let it be a great nation.
But we can't have them.
They cannot have a nuclear weapon.
It's very simple.
And I think we're fairly close to a deal with Iran.
Trump's comments come as the U.N. has warned that because of Israel's blockade, Gaza's entire population is now at risk of famine, with one U.N. official calling Gaza the hungriest place on Earth.
This limited number of truckloads that are coming in is a trickle.
It is drip-feeding food into an area on the verge of catastrophic hunger.
It's not a flood.
Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth.
And the aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put The UN's warning of a famine in Gaza comes as Israel and the US have launched an Orwellian new front group in Gaza, which is called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
This can only be described as a dystopian, cynical scheme to replace the UN.
And ultimately advance the Israeli agenda of ethnic cleansing.
Well, to discuss this and much more, we turn now to Muin Rabbani.
He is a Middle East analyst, co-editor of Jadalia, and a non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies.
Muin Rabbani, thank you so much for joining us on System Update.
It's a pleasure to be with you.
Thank you for having me.
We appear to be on the brink of a potential new ceasefire.
Donald Trump at the White House sounding very confident that a deal can be reached based on the fact there have been two previous ceasefire agreements and after which Israel has resumed its mass murder campaign in Gaza.
While, of course, any pause to this carnage is welcome, do you have concerns that this latest deal could just be another pause to the genocide?
Well, that appears to be how it's structured.
And I don't share your optimism that we're on the verge of another ceasefire.
That may well be the case, but it just as easily may not be the case.
And I think it's difficult to ascribe concrete meaning to anything Trump says.
It could be 100% correct.
It could be 0% correct.
I suspect that part of the reason he made this statement is to generate further pressure on the parties, in this case, particularly Hamas, because, and again, bearing in mind that we don't have definitive information, but what appears to be the case is that his envoy,
Steve Wyckoff, has now proposed a formula which doesn't include a guarantee that any Any ceasefire, any suspension of hostilities, will lead to a definitive cessation of hostilities.
And that is Hamas's primary demand because, of course, they've been double-crossed twice already, once by the Biden administration in November of 2023, when they were led to believe that a temporary ceasefire would continue.
And then again in January, March of this year, Where Steve Witkoff basically read the Riot Act and Netanyahu imposed a three-phase ceasefire agreement on Israel that Hamas had already accepted.
And then after implementation commenced, Sought to rewrite the agreement and change its terms.
And when Hamas rejected these revisions, the United States authorized Israel to not only resume but to intensify its genocidal siege and to impose its genocidal military campaign in the Gaza Strip and impose an unprecedented siege on the territory during which not a single drop of water,
not a loaf of bread, a drop of fuel, or even so much as an aspirin was allowed into the Gaza Strip and, of course, with thousands of primarily civilians slaughtered.
And there is apparently now a proposal on the table.
Israel appears to have accepted it and Hamas is studying it, but I suspect that if it doesn't include a clear guarantee of a definitive end to hostilities, and it appears not to, Hamas will have to make a difficult decision between accepting it because the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are absolutely desperate for any relief that is available,
or To basically reject this on the grounds that a temporary reprieve of execution is still an execution and then have to face the full onslaught of continued Israeli genocide.
It strikes me that Hamas is now in an even more difficult position in light of what happened with Adon Alexander, the Israeli-American who Hamas recently freed.
And according to Dropside News, Hamas basically released Aidan Alexander as a gesture of goodwill toward Trump.
that Trump's envoy, Steve Wyckoff, promised Hamas that if you free Aidan Alexander, we'll push for a permanent ceasefire and a renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
And without getting especially if it doesn't guarantee an end to Israel's mass murder campaign permanently.
Well, that's true, but there's also, I think, an important difference, which is what you're referring to was an informal agreement.
Where Hamas released this Israeli soldier who also holds American citizenship, as it said at the time, as a goodwill gesture.
In other words, it received absolutely nothing.
In return, it did so, I think, also under enormous pressure from the governments in the Gulf states that Trump was about to visit because they were keen to let this visit proceed as smoothly as possible.
But as you mentioned, Hamas later stated that they had received informal assurances.
from Wyckoff that the U.S. would enable a surge of essential humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip.
Because it was an informal agreement and there's nothing in writing, you can't prove it one way or the other, though it seems reasonable that Hamas's version of events is accurate.
And here again, assuming for the sake of argument that that was indeed what happened, Hamas was once again double-crossed by the United States.
And that makes it all the more difficult for them to now accept anything that smacks of "constructive ambiguity" that doesn't include firm guarantees that when the guns fall silent, they will not resume once Israel and the United States achieve from the Palestinians what they want.
Why is Hamas holding on to any remaining captives at this point?
All they're doing is giving Israel cover to continue carrying out its goal of mass murder and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
How would you respond to that?
Well, I would respond to it in several parts.
The first, of course, is that I fully agree that Hamas should have never held onto any of the civilian hostages that it seized on the 7th of October.
In May of 2025, the only remaining captives in the Gaza Strip are in fact soldiers, and most of them were serving soldiers in uniform, seized while they were on active duty.
So to, you know, present these as some kind of Innocent civilian hostages is entirely false.
That's the first issue.
The second issue is that, yes, when you go, for example, to Europe or the United States and you listen to Israeli propaganda, this issue of hostages, hostages, hostages is constantly and effectively, though increasingly less effectively, put forward as the main pretext.
By Israel to continue with its genocidal campaign.
But Hamas is also looking at the growing domestic polarization within Israel, where Israel basically has a choice.
Either reach an agreement with Hamas to ensure the release of its captives or to continue the war.
Not only at the expense of the release of the captives, but in the likelihood that they too will be killed by Israeli bombing or failed attempts to free them.
And secondly, you know, Also, Hamas is absolutely not prepared under the current circumstances to release the captives it holds, while Israel continues to hold many thousands of Palestinian captives, some of whom have been in there for decades.
And one of the purposes of its attacks on October 7th was indeed to seize And one of those Palestinian leaders who Hamas wanted freed is not even a member of Hamas.
That's Marwan Barghouti.
Can you talk about the significance of him and why Israel is so determined to keep people like him behind bars?
And it's not only Israel, but I'll get to that in a moment.
But Marwan Barghouti has become kind of this iconic Palestinian leader since he was arrested and imprisoned by Israel in 2002, so some 23 years ago, I think, almost to the day.
And he is, in a sense, the closest that, at least among Palestinian public opinion, the closest Palestinians have to a successor to Yasser Arafat.
The current titular leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is viewed as a legitimate Palestinian national leader by about three Palestinians, arguably two, at most four.
And Hamas is seeking his release for a number of reasons.
First of all, I think it wants to demonstrate to the Palestinian public that it is in this for national and not just factional reasons.
In other words, obtaining the release of prominent Palestinian leaders who belong to other groups like Marwan Barghouti, of Fatih, of Ahmad Saadat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and others, will help Hamas demonstrate that it was acting in the national and not just the factional interest.
With respect to Barghouti, he is also seen as the most likely successful contender for the succession To Mahmoud Abbas if there are elections, and particularly if he is out of prison,
and he is someone who is seen as amenable to national reconciliation with Hamas, whereas the appointed successor, Hussein al-Sheikh, who was recently nominated for the position by Mahmoud Abbas, is basically seen as an Israeli tool.
And it's for this reason that it's not only Israel that has been systematically refusing to release Marwan Barghouti.
There have been times in the past where, in fact, the United States and others have suggested to Israel that it release him.
But even more so, I think, the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is equally opposed to his release.
And there have been instances in the past where We have received very credible reports that the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah has actively lobbied the Israelis against any deal that would secure Barghouti's release.
That's certainly an argument that has been made in the past by Fadwa Barghouti, Marwan Barghouti's wife.
And I should just add, she is herself a prominent Fatah activist as well.
Turning back to Gaza, one of the major stories of this week among just countless horrors was this new fake humanitarian aid mechanism that Israel and the U.S. established, the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,
forcing Palestinians to walk long distances to the south, hoarding people into cages and scenes reminiscent of the concentration camps of the Nazi Holocaust to receive Meager amounts of aid, which for many people wasn't even distributed.
And you had even one US official appointed to lead this resigning because he felt he couldn't take part in what he said was a violation of humanitarian principles.
And there's been so many revelations coming out about this.
There's the involvement of former CIA officials, including one who trained death squads in Central America in the 1980s on behalf of the CIA.
Israeli politicians have said that the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, is directly funding this group.
What do you make of what has unfolded and what are Israel's goals, along with the U.S., in setting up this group?
Israel's goals, I think, on this very rare occasion, we can take Israeli statements of face value, which is that the goals are not the provision of humanitarian aid, but rather the weaponization of food and water in order to compel Palestinians who want to survive to concentrate in the extreme south of the Gaza Strip alongside The Egyptian border,
so that Israel can control them, can control their caloric intake, and can prepare them to be collectively expelled, permanently displaced to Egypt and beyond.
I mean, Israeli leaders have been explicitly clear about this.
So why are we even having a debate about whether Israel is starving Palestinians, whether Israel is seeking to expel them, is beyond me.
You know, when an accused murderer pleads guilty in a court of law, you don't have a debate about whether he actually did it or not, unless you have confirmed evidence that he's taking the rap on someone else's behalf.
And that's not the case here.
This organization entitled the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, I mean, Orwell couldn't have come up.
With a better name.
And as you noted, its head, its director, is this former U.S. mercenary, Jack Wood.
Who was being exorbitantly paid to lead this sham outfit and resigned because he realized it was going to besmirch his reputation for the rest of his day.
So imagine an exorbitantly paid mercenary who knew exactly what he was doing decided he no longer wanted any part of this.
And the scenes that we saw...
The American mercenaries operating under Israeli supervision are so incompetent that they couldn't even manage that.
And one of these distribution centers on the first day was overrun by these desperate crowds.
The heavily armed U.S. mercenaries managing them had to flee for their lives.
And Israel, as it always did, opened up with live fire and killed a number of Palestinians and wounded many more.
Let's turn to the occupied West Bank, which so often gets overlooked just because of the sheer carnage of the Israeli assault on Gaza.
Just today, Israel has announced the construction of 22 new settlements or colonies in the occupied West Bank.
That's one of the biggest settlement constructions that Israel has announced in decades.
And the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, said that this is part of a plan to build what he called a Jewish-Israeli state in the West Bank.
Talk to us about what has been happening in the West Bank, particularly the information that just gets overshadowed because people are so understandably focused on the atrocities in Gaza.
Well, as you've just noted, developments in the West Bank have been very much overshadowed by the genocide in the Gaza Strip, but particularly in the northern West Bank, we've had Israel now for months launching these full-scale assaults.
Particularly on the refugee camps in the north of the West Bank, but also a growing number of constant Israeli pogroms directed at Palestinian villages in the countryside from the north of the West Bank to the Hebron district in the south.
And Israel yesterday, as you said, announced the establishment, not the expansion of existing settlements, but the The establishment of 22 new Israeli colonies.
And Israeli leaders have explicitly said that their agenda is to make the establishment of a Palestinian state in this territory impossible.
Now, why have they done this?
There are different explanations.
Some people believe it's in order to divert attention from what is happening in the Gaza Strip.
My own view is that it's more likely that, and again, I'm speculating, but it's entirely possible that Israel recognizes that Washington is either ready to call time on the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, or is gradually heading in that direction.
Either they believe they will be compensated for that in the West Bank, or they may actually already have some kind of informal assurances from Washington that Washington will not only not make an issue out of the establishment of these settlements, but may even be prepared to recognize a full or partial Israeli annexation of West Bank territory.
And, you know, this is also, we have to see this in...
That this is not only about the Gaza Strip.
This is about the Palestinian people.
And while for months now we have been discussing Israel's intention to expel the population of the Gaza Strip and Trump's harebrained initiative, you know, Gaza Riviera, to do so, it's equally an Israeli agenda in the West Bank.
And all these measures together that we've just been discussing are also geared towards That ultimate outcome.
And finally, I think we also have to understand, you know, it may have been Israel that announced the establishment of these 22 new settlements, but it does so in a context where it has been building settlements in the occupied territories, including in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights since 1967.
Almost six decades.
And not once has it paid a price for doing so.
It has colonized the territory for the better part of a century with absolute impunity and literally 0.0 accountability.
So it's not all that surprising that a state that has gotten away with so much for so long No longer possesses the capacity to act with restraint.
You know, the Israelis have always been very good at proceeding gradually, of doing things under the radar.
But now the restraints are off.
And I would argue Israel is no longer capable of even the self-restraint that you might think is in its best interest.
It's the equivalent of a kid in the candy shop who every time he smashes something up or grabs something else, Gets told how cute he is by the store owner who's bearing the costs of this.
There are reports that countries, including the UK and France, are preparing to recognize Palestinian statehood.
But the US, by contrast, is openly against that, as they have been for many decades.
And I want to get your reaction to some remarks from the US representative at the UN.
His name is John Kelly and this is what he said about the calls for Palestinian statehood that essentially to grant Palestinians a state now would be to reward the attacks of October 7th.
The United States stands with Israel in unequivocally rejecting any effort to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state or impose conditions on Israel which would be unconscionable which would be, I'm sorry, an unconscionable reward for the heinous So there you go.
According to the U.S., it would be an unconscionable reward to Palestinians to give them a state because October 7th happened.
Well, I think what he's really trying to say is once again expressing the traditional U.S. position, which is that the Palestinian people have no legitimate rights.
They have no legitimate grievances and they certainly have no right to an existence independent of Israel in the form of a state on what the United States de facto considers Israeli rather than Palestinian territory.
I believe it's that simple.
Do you see any countervailing force right now in the region or anywhere around the world, whether it's Europe becoming increasingly critical of Israel, talking about recognizing Palestinian statehood, or the Gulf states?
Trump just did a tour of several Gulf countries, talked about making some lavish deals, talked about receiving a gift from Qatar, a very fancy one.
Do you see any pressure going on behind the scenes on the U.S.?
To stop the genocide from some of its allies, whether they're in Europe or the Gulf?
Well, let's take those one by one.
And the Gulf, as you will have noticed, the regional priority of the states that Trump visited were not Gaza, but were a lifting of the sanctions on Syria because the Gulf states are very concerned about having another Iraq on their doorstep.
to the chaos that engulfed Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion, and second of all, of encouraging Trump to continue diplomacy with Iran because they recognize that in the event of a direct military confrontation, they will be in the front line and will be paying the highest price of any such Uh, conflict.
And Gaza was, I think, much less of a priority, barely registered in, in, um, in these discussions, except perhaps, you know, as, as.
as a kind of minor issue.
When we did see the Arab states, and not only the Gulf states, collectively and loudly and very publicly come out in opposition to the United States was in February when Trump proclaimed his harebrained initiative about Expelling all the Palestinians to make way for what he called the Gaza Riviera, because that was a fundamental difference.
Since October 2023, well, for much longer, but particularly since then, Israel has been slaughtering Palestinians in their own homeland.
What changed with Trump's proposal was that these Palestinians would be collectively expelled to the Arab world.
That, in contrast to the genocide in Gaza, is experienced as a direct threat to their national security, a direct threat of their domestic stability, and a direct threat to what remains of their domestic legitimacy.
And it's for that reason that they stood up and said no.
And that's why I don't think this proposal is ever going to get off the ground, certainly not in the form That it was initially proposed.
Europe is different.
What we've seen from Europe is a clear and a significant change in tone, but we have seen absolutely no difference in conduct.
In other words, it's business as usual with a scolding.
And, of course, there are exceptions, you know, Spain, Ireland, Norway.
But if you look at the European Union, I think it's important to recognize, for example, that in 2000, the European Union signed what's known as an association agreement with Israel, an agreement that gives Israel Preferential trade privileges in Europe.
It allows Israeli institutions to participate in various European Union research and development programs as if it were an EU member.
Article 2 of that association agreement makes Israeli compliance with its human rights obligations an essential condition of That was 25 years ago.
And until today, the EU has never invoked Article 2. In other words, the EU has never determined that Israel is not fulfilling its human rights obligations.
And last week, it's true, the EU announced that it would Launch a review to determine whether or not Israel was in compliance with its obligations, meaning that almost two years into a genocide, no one in Brussels knows what's going on,
and they have to launch a review, which is another way of saying we're going to take our time, do an investigation, take even more time to write a report, take even more time to hold discussions about the conclusions of this report, then we won't have a majority and we'll just continue.
With business as usual.
And even more importantly, as pointed out, for example, by Hugh Lovat of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a review was already conducted last year, but it wasn't publicly announced.
It was conducted in secret, and it was apparently a very damning report that was never released and never acted upon.
So, you know, even when we get to issues like...
Well, all well and good, but if it's not paired with concrete action to make such a state possible, to reverse the Israeli occupation of these territories, when you look the other way, when Israel announces 22 new settlements, you know, The occupation started in 1967.
In 2025, statements that are not accompanied by decisive action are not only meaningless, they're worse than meaningless, because what they really do is they serve as camouflage for doing nothing.
And we'll leave it there.
Muin Rabbani, thanks so much for joining us on System Update.
