Good afternoon. I'm Ben Rubin. Welcome to UK column. Today I'm excited to have what I think promises to be an important conversation with Doctor David Miller and Vanessa Bailey.
David Miller is an author and an academic, very famously or infamously sacked by Bristol University few years ago for his anti Zionist views based on his extensive research into the Zionist movement in the UK. And Vanessa, as UK Column viewers will know, is a regular contributor to UK Column News and through her fantastic articles, Welcome David and Vanessa. Thank you.
Thanks. We've asked David and Vanessa to join us today to get into what I think is probably one of the most important issues of the current moment here in the UK, certainly, but also I think further afield.
And one of the things that I've personally been seeing in the maybe more mainstream public discourse around the two primary conflicts that are taking place in the world at the moment, the war in Gaza between Israel and Palestine and the war in Eastern Europe between Ukraine and Russia, is that there are many people, particularly as they might define themselves, sitting on the political left. And this is especially prevalent in our cities and in our university campuses.
And in particular with the younger generation that people and and and groups are very much pro Palestine. And on that basis, I think anti war, anti genocide, which is a position that I think anyone with any decency would hold. But also at the same time pro Ukraine and backing Zelensky and Ukraine and ultimately NATO in the war against Russia, what they call Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine.
And my view based on my understanding of the situation is that those two positions are actually irreconcilable. And I know that there are clear links between Israel and the Zionist movement and Ukraine. And in fact I've heard it described Ukraine described previously as northern Israel essentially. And I think that this is something that needs to be explored further. And David has written on this quite a bit previously, produced some fantastic articles, very well referenced articles.
And I'm really looking forward to finding out more about this issue today and hopefully providing A counterpoint, a counter narrative to that kind of dominant discourse that I've talked about that I've been seeing here in the UK and further further afield. So my first question then to you, David is, is this something that you recognise this coincidence between the support for Palestine and and the support for Ukraine in the in these groups that I've
described? Well, I think that's broadly correct. I mean, the the epidemic of Ukrainian flags on the High Street seems to have died down a little bit over the last couple of years. But there is a strong feeling, I think, on the what I would characterize as the liberal left, which is hostile to Russia and on that basis is favourable to Ukraine, although they might have at the edges some worries about.
Some of the. Positions taken by Zelensky or about the, the role of Nazism in the Ukrainian forces, etcetera, which they don't tend to go into a lot, but they, there are some ways. But they these sort of liberal positions are that yes, of course you shouldn't kill
Palestinian children. And yes, of course, they would say that they have the same position, which is that you shouldn't kill Ukrainian children, which of course is their attempt to draw a parallel between the special military operation in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, where of course, there is no such parallel as anyone who has examined the issue for a moment will conclude. So yes, of course there is this this kind of contradiction in
liberal left ideas. But we see we see this in a lot of issues that the liberal left position on many, many issues is quite simply wrong. But on some issues, they they kind of get it right. They're kind of right on Palestine. I mean, they don't go nearly far enough for me. But that's the problem with liberalism. It's kind of right twice a day,
like a stop clock. And on the question of Ukraine is comprehensively wrong, Of course, the idea that Putin was provoked in Ukraine is of course, a sound one, as anyone who's gone back to the records of the pledges given by a slew of different Western, including senior American leaders, including the presidents to the Russians, that they wouldn't go
an inch towards Russian borders. And of course, they then proceeded to allow all of the Eastern European countries, almost all of the Eastern Bloc countries to join NATO. And that's of course what provoked the special military operation in Ukraine, was the potential accession of Ukraine to the EU and indeed to NATO. But also, of course, the assault on the the secessionist people of the Donbass, who after the coup in Ukraine back in 2004, fought A secessionist war.
And essentially what was happening was they were being killed and massacred and the Russians went in to defend them. And they now those provinces have of course, overwhelmingly voted to join Russia and to not to be part of Ukraine anymore. So there's there's no comparison between the two. The there is one comparison. However, and that is that the West is of course on the side of Ukraine and I'm joining NATO and the EU. And the West, of course, is also on the side of the genocide in Gaza.
So that's that's what's what's where the real equivalence is, is if you support Ukraine, you're effectively in having the same position as the West, which is supporting the generous in Gaza, as everyone knows. So liberal positions don't tend to work out very well with those realities. No, certainly not. The the term liberal I think might be part of the problem. I always like the phrase stand for nothing, fall for anything. I think that seems to be operative here. Yeah, yes, indeed.
I mean, look, the what's happening in in the Ukraine now, of course, is, is a somewhat complex, isn't it? We've we've just seen, haven't we? The the deal which was apparently made between the Russians and the Trump administration such that the Russians would scuttle from Syria let letting the government of Bashar al-Assad collapse in exchange for a settlement in Ukraine. And you know, I don't want to be rude to Mr. Putin, but how is that settling?
Does he think it doesn't appear that it's going anywhere fast that the. It looks like the Americans have surprised lied about the extent to which they were willing to go for a settlement in Ukraine. And and we're getting really so far nothing much in the way of any kind of progress, Although at the same time we are also seeing. Ukrainian lines collapse at a more accelerated rate than has been the case for the last months anyhow.
So I think that there's a there's an issue here about what's actually happening in Ukraine and whether. We're going to see an end to the conflict in Ukraine. And in a way that's it's a parallel with what's happening in Gaza because of course the Americans have promised various things to specifically to Hamas and also to the Iranian government, which they then have gone back on.
And it's they, they told, in fact, they told Hamas that they would have a ceasefire for a, for a, for a period if they released that American slash Israeli prisoner. And they did that. And of course what then happened was that the Israelis escalated immediately thereafter. So what what we're seeing I think in in this period is an. Indication of the the way in which the Trump administration operates it. It says all sorts of nice things. And then it goes back on them.
It it lies. And this is not a surprise. This is what American governments always do. Indeed. Vanessa, did you want to chime in on that? Yeah, Arnie, I think David's absolutely right, particularly on the Trump administration. You know, psychologically, Trump is a is a businessman. He's also a borderline sociopath. And I think any negotiation with Trump should be viewed in, in the prism of it being a win, lose negotiation, a win for Trump and a lose for whoever he's negotiating with.
This is well known. It's also well known that what the Americans do, whether it's Trump or or A and other, we know that there's very little difference between the, the, the so-called duopoly in, in, in the US. The, the fact is that that when entering negotiations, they enter dishonestly. So, so they present a negotiating paradigm which then is completely changed. I mean, initially they were talking with Iran about enabling
up to 3% enrichment of uranium. Now suddenly the red line is any enrichment of uranium, which of course is a red line for the Iranians. And so this is what the US regularly does. But I think also coming back to the point about the the liberal view on Palestine and Ukraine, I think what liberals often do is to ignore the historical
context. And we're obviously going to get more into that, But the connections historically between particularly Benjamin Netanyahu and the former founders of Zionism or one particular form of Zionism, Zayev Jabotinsky or Jabotinsky, however you want to say that who not only founded what is now known as revisionist Zionism or expansionist Zionism. Netanyahu's father, Benzion Netanyahu, actually worked for
him as a private secretary. He edited all of the publications of Jabotinsky's branch of Zionism, which was founded in Odessa. And Odessa was known fondly by the Zionists as the Gates of Zion because it was the hub or the centre, the nerve centre of the Zionist operations on the continent. And then later was the hub from which the majority of the settlers came from Europe, particularly Eastern Europe and particularly Ukraine to settle and and basically steal Palestinian land.
And Yapotinsky was famous for his 1923 article The Iron Wall in which he said there is no justice, no law and no God in heaven, only a single law which decides and supersedes all, which is settlement. And so we'll get more into this and I'm sure David can add to that, but but I think this connection is something that, as you said, that the so-called left wing in, in Europe and the UK, even in the US are woefully ignorant of and potentially also wilfully ignorant of.
I, I think many of these kind of liberal anti war pacifist organisations 1 denied the right of armed resistance, but two divide their support along lines of ignorance, in other words, or, or lines where they deliberately ignore the historical context, which leads them to take a very mistaken position. We had that on Syria.
We had many of the pro Palestinian movements in the UK in particular taking an anti serious stand for the majority of the regime change war because they've been duped by members of the pro Palestine, let's say lobby on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood that were instrumental in pushing the regime change narratives from 2011 onwards.
So I think it's a very good lesson for people to take a deep breath before taking any kind of support position for anything that is being orchestrated effectively by the West in any way, shape or form. And Ukraine, Russia's war was definitely orchestrated by the West. And take a deep breath and and study the history of that conflict. Yeah, I I completely agree with
you. I think a lot of people essentially just take the easy route with this stuff and also get very much caught up in the kind of two week news cycle, the latest thing. And however that's been presented to them and they barely look at anything, you know, two years, 20 years, certainly not 200 years back, right? So I think that's a big part of
this. So look, there's we've just covered a whole slew of different issues and we're certainly going to come back to US and Russia and Trump and Putin and Syria a bit later on in the discussion. But Vanessa, thank you for that. You've just introduced a little bit about the history of Zionism and it just links into Ukraine.
I wonder, David, if you wanted to to add on to that and, and give us some of the context both politically, but I think also religiously and, and theologically as well, because the the roots really do run deep here. Yeah, I mean, I think there's an interesting thing here which is where I can talk about the development of Zionism in the Ukraine. But it also because of the way people react to how you talk, how one would talk about this or how I would talk about it given the historical record.
It, it gives an useful insight, I think into the way in which sections of the I've used the term liberal left, but I'm really talking about now the the left, the actual supposed so-called revolutionary socialist left, which which, and it shows in their response to how I will talk about this. It shows the way in which I think effectively their ideas about the Jews and about Zionism have been effectively influenced and captured by Zionists themselves. And I'll try and explain that as well.
So look what the the settlement in Odessa. I used the word settlement advisedly because Odessa was a town founded by Catherine the Great. The. Empress of Russia, and it was founded by her after I think in 1796, they had kicked the Muslims out. The Ottoman Empire had been in that that area and they were kicked out and they founded a. New settlement. A settler colony.
And amongst those who went, there were people of Russian origin, of German origin and, and a number of others, but also Jews who who were not allowed in the Pale Settlement and they were went to Odessa to found. Odessa and so the the Jews who were there as as were the as the others who were there were settler colonists. They had gone and the natives had been removed by Russian armies and they had set they settled there in a settler colony.
Now, when I mentioned this before, I think two years ago now, I was denounced, yes, of course, by the right, but also by the the left, including leading members of the revolutionary left in this country as being an anti Semite. Because somehow if I was saying that Jews were settler colonists in another place, that must mean that I think that Jews are all have this propensity because of their religion or something or, or to to settler colonialism. And of course that this is
simply ridiculous. Hartley was born out of ignorance. They had no idea that Odessa was a settler colony, no idea at all. And so there's a there's a kind of sense in which the a kind of Zionist friendly view permeates the anti war movement and the anti racist movement in the UK, which has been the case for a long, long time. Let me take a second out to
explain how that happened. So in the aftermath of the Second World War, many servicemen came back from the war to find a nascent fascist movement on the streets in the UK. And many of these, including many Jewish ex servicemen and many members of the Communist Party formed a group called the 43 Group, which was dedicated to fascism on the streets. And the BBC did a documentary about the 43 group success of the city group some years ago.
Now this was an organization which was fighting fascism on the streets, but which also had a relationship to Zionism such that by 1948, thirty or forty of its members went to Palestine to to take part in the Nakba. And indeed the the leadership of the organization signed up on block to affiliate to the Argon, the the revisionist Zionist terrorist organization coming out of the whole Jabotinsky experience.
And since then of course there have been Zionist influences in the anti racist movement all the way through. There have been 22 major influences. 1 is Zionist anti racist groups, IE not anti racist groups such as the Community Security Trust or Tell Mama or Hope not Hate for example. But on the other hand, also largely Trotskyist, sometimes communist influenced anti racist groups which have been soft on Zionism.
They've had a a relationship with Zionism, which is that we have to have a common front with the Zionists. Thus we don't focus on the main form of racism in the country, which in in this this period has been anti Irish racism, anti black racism and now Islamophobia. Instead we focus on fascism and Nazism, which of course are the the least threatening ideological currents for people
of color in this country. So that I think is part of the problem is that there's been a compromise between the Zionism in all of the, the far left and all of the anti racism, almost all of the far left, all of the anti racist movement, which has meant that it's very difficult for them to actually deal with some of the issues we now face in relation to the genocide.
Now back to the Ukraine. So yes, the the Zionist movement was effectively created in Odessa as as Vanessa says, was referred to as the gates of Zion by the Zionist movement themselves. And there was a guy called Steven Pinsker who set up an organization called the Lovers of Zion prior to the existence of the Zionist movement in in the 80's. The Zionist movement of course, was created in the 1890s. So there's a strong history of
Zionism there. Of course, Jabotinski was from there a significant number of very senior Israeli military and indeed prime ministers. And presidents have come. From Ukraine. So it's a, it's a kind of Crucible for the creation of the settler colony in Palestine. And that relationship, of course, has never really fully dissipated. And and maybe we'll go on to talk more. About that.
But that, that's the, the history of this is that Zionism comes from Ukraine. So it's not surprising then that many of the, the Zionists who are in Ukraine have a, have a sort of a strong view on Ukrainian nationalism.
And the, the thing I would say about that to explain that is that that the from the very beginning of Ukrainian nationalism, there was a strong parallel between Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism. Partly because of course they're very similar ideologies, but also practically they had a they
had a a relationship. So famously Jabotinsky made a deal with the the Ukrainian proto fascist leader Simon Petliura, who of course was assassinated on the streets of Paris by, by a Jewish Russian anarchist, if I'm not mistaken, because of his involvement in pogroms against the Jews.
And Jabotinsky at one point wrote in his diary that this this would be his epitaph that he was the, he was the Jew who had made a deal with the, with the effectively the fascist Petliura. And there's, there's a famous Soviet cartoon from from that period, from the 1920s with Petliura in his grave and Jabotinsky at the side of the grave weeping tears over the the the murder of his his compatriot. So there's historically been a strong relationship between Zionism and nationalism.
The issue in terms of Zionism and its relationship with the left and the fact that the left, they're kind, they're kind of in a bit of a bind at the moment, right? Because actually, I think the issue is that a lot of, well, first of all, you've, you've kind of pointed out that a lot of these proto communist ideas were heavily influenced by Zionist thinkers in the 1st place.
And actually the, the kind of, the, the end point of a lot of the kind of radical left activists and even people who are fairly mainstream in this, like Jeremy Corbyn, for example. They're they're, they're, they're actually interested in this idea of global governance, right? They actually think that global governance and top down centralized control is a is a good thing. It's just that they want it to come from their side of the political spectrum versus the other side of the political
spectrum. So that puts them in quite an interesting position in terms of, you know, what they, what they can and can't say and what they allow themselves to, to see and, and to condemn out there in, in what's happening in the world. Well, I mean, I think that, I mean Jeremy of course is not really an anti Zionist.
There really has been, there are people on the, I mean a party like the Socialist Workers Party is a party which has always historically been anti Zionist. I mean, it's famously, it's a leading ideologue, a guy called Tony Cliff. Who anglicized his name from GAIL Gluckstein and of course had experience of the the settler colony in Palestine because he was there him and his not then wife Cheney Rosenberg.
She lived on a kibbutz, A Hashim Mahatsayer kibbutz and her Hashim Mahatsayer was the most radical left wing of the Zionist organizations and their experience of that kibbutz and the fact that it was Jews owns and tiara, but it was endemically racist. That's what turned them off Zionism. And so ever since then the SWP has been an anti Zionist organization, at least formally.
But now it seems to have a a real difficulty in actually, not just the SWP but the whole of the left actually in using the Z word. You can't say Zionism because that will somehow over emphasize the responsibility of the Zionists for the genocide and under emphasize the responsibility of US imperialism. That will let US imperialism and indeed the British role in the genocide off the hook. And that's a profoundly misguided, a mistaken approach to take in my opinion.
You know, you, the people who supported Hitler in the Second World War. Yes, there were British companies and American companies and in fact American publicists and PR operatives, they weren't the ones who were responsible for what the Nazis did. It was the Nazis.
And, and similarly in this case, it's the Zionists who doing the killing, the Zionists who recruit the people, the thousands of young men and women who have gone from the UK and France and Germany and Brazil to commit the genocide. They're they're the ones who did this. Of course they are supported by the Americans who give them 70% of the weapons and the political cover by the the Germans who
give 30% of the weapons. And of course by the British should do the the overflights, the intelligence overflights for the the IDF, more overflights in fact than the IDF to themselves. But nevertheless, we should be clear, the people who are, who are training their guns on the heads of three-year old toddlers are Zionists. And it's the Zionist movement which has has LED this strategy and the Zionist movement which
is carrying out the strategy. And therefore we need to, I think, focus on Zionism, what it is, how it operates and how it can be defeated, rather than have a kind of what, what I might impolitely call a Lily livid approach, that which says we don't actually discuss the Zionism. Yeah. And I, I think just, I wanted to come back to the Jabotinsky because I think he's really someone that where people can make that very clear connection between Zionism and Nazism in Ukraine.
Because as David rightly said, he collaborated with Simon Petlura, who'd actually massacred 10s of thousands of Jews from 1919 onwards in, in the programmes in, in that particular area, right? Yabatinsky basically agreed to provide Jewish militia to support Petlura on the basis that they would be collaborating against a potential threat from communism, IE from then the Soviet Union.
And Jabotinsky went on to form the Better Youth Movement, which, as David has pointed out in one of his articles, were dressed very reminiscently of kind of fascist youth groups in brown uniform. He was a supporter of Mussolini. But most importantly, he believed in this revisionist Zionism, which was followed, as I said, by Netanyahu's father, Bentian, and now of course, by Benjamin Netanyahu himself, who's the longest serving sort of Prime Minister in in the
occupied territories. And, and this was that colonisation could only be imposed by force. There was no peaceful resolution with Palestinians. And of course, that is exactly what we're seeing to be Benjamin Netanyahu's policy against Palestinians both in the West Bank and in Gaza, but also the fact that that Netanyahu is incorporated into his administration, some of the far more right wing members of Israeli political movements, including, excuse me, Bangabir and Basil Al Smotrich.
Smotrich has just gone on record saying, you know, forget, forget about any kind of peaceful resolution, starve the Palestinians. We need to eradicate them completely. Moshe Feidlin has just gone on saying our problem isn't with Hamas, it's it's with all Palestinians, particularly babies. We should be murdering the babies. And so, you know, when when you look at this, it's, it's a, it's an unbroken arc from Jabotinsky to Netanyahu now.
And, and that's what people are failing to recognize. They're failing to make this direct connection to Jabotinsky's policies as a Zionist cooperating with Nazis in Ukraine and Banyaman Netanyahu's policies now to exterminate Palestinians both in the occupied territories and in Gaza to ensure the final solution, which is Zionist settlement of those territories. This is what I think people
really struggle with, right? Because you've just talked about Jewish militia collaborating with Nazis in Ukraine who had actually committed atrocities against Jews in order to achieve their own political agenda. It's, I think a lot of people struggle with the level of cynicism and just the pure naked lust for power required to do these to carry out these kinds of actions. I know that it is as you
describe. I mean, let's remember that the militias which Jabotinski formed were intended to be malicious, to protect the Jewish people. They were Jewish nationalist militias. The agreement that Vanessa referred to was an agreement that the Ukrainian nationalists would govern their people, the Ukrainians, and that the Jewish nationalists would govern their people, the Jews, with their own
militias. And the only time where they would have to have anything to do with each other and have to fight together was against the Russians. That was the that was the deal. And. That that is the kind of philosophy they have. It's a very, very similar philosophy. So yes, of course they don't want to be themselves to be attacked, but they they believed they had a deal with with, with the proto fascists of pet Leura and and the rest.
And that they have, they have, of course, had a very similar idea about what it was, what, what the, what the state it or the idea of the Jewish people was and how similar that was to the Ukrainian nationalism. Now, in a way, I think what, how they started to think about Jewish nationalism learned and took a lot from the Ukrainian nationalists. It's very, very similar when you look back at it.
They have, they have this very similar ideas about the, about the Vulc, about the, the people, about the, their, their sovereignty over, over other people, which is very similar to, to Zionism today. Now Vanessa also referred to the, the, the, the uniforms. Now the, the betar was of of course, the, the kind of youth wing of the, the revisionist
movement. And, and if you look, if you go on, if you, you do a Google image search for Betar and you look for the black and white photographs, you find all sorts of interesting looking uniforms on these young men, including as a famous 1 from 1923 in Poland, I think, which has the, the young menachem begin in his military uniform. The, the if you look at Betar's website today, they, they still exist today. And I'll talk about that. They have a 7 principles. I have had this from the
beginning. One of the principles is Magen, which means protection, and it requires members, individual members, all members of their organization to engage in military and paramilitary training and to be willing personally to fight come the appropriate moments. From the beginning, Betar has been a militia, which is a military organization, and today it remains the same.
They have of course been involved in the US recently in compiling lists of Jews to provide to the Zionists who will, who will thus thus afterwards be stopped from going to this entertained amenable to all sorts of other punishments that the Zionists might put together for them. And just the other day they threatened to kill Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur.
This is a, a development within Zionism, which is about developed about the resurgence of effectively Jewish militias outside in the US, in the UK. And there are various iterations
of these organizations. And what we're seeing is the return effectively of Jewish terrorists to the streets in the West, which hasn't been the case since around the 1940s when of course the Ergen and the Lehi, the Stern gang were engaged in terrorist activities in the UK, up and down the UK, including force the famous Argon sale in Glasgow, which people are are often not aware of. We talked a bit about the history and the links between the Zionist movement in Ukraine
but through the 1920s, thirties and 40s. But this obviously goes right up to the present day. I mean, to what extent is this embedded into organisations like the IDF for example? Well, this is the other thing. I mean, you're, you're remarking about this people, people are finding it difficult to get their head round Nazis and the Zionists cooperating in the 90s and 20s and 30s. Well, it's happening today as well.
I mean, let's remember that there are Nazi militias inside the Ukrainian armed forces, in fact increasingly over the over the period since the SMO was launched, having effectively the whip hand inside Ukrainian military forces. Now amongst those who have joined up the to the Ukrainian military are a number of Ukrainian Jews, including members of the Habad sect which is a genocidal Hasidic Jewish sect which is organised all around the world. I'll talk about that more in a minute.
But that the the role of the of the of the Zionists in the the Nazi movements inside Ukraine is is is instructive. One of the founders, the two Co founders of battalion, the famous Nazi group inside the Ukrainian air fortress was an ex
IDF officer. So that those kinds of legs are are they are baked in from the beginning of the the Nazi movement in Ukraine. And it's no surprise therefore that organizations like HABAD and indeed other Orthodox Jews in Ukraine have joined up with both non Nazi forces in Ukraine
and and indeed with Nazi forces. Habad is a an organization which comes from a place called Leubovici, which I think is now in present day Belarus. And the the headquarters of the organization is in Brooklyn, famously revealed just the other year. Well year last year I think it was as having secret tunnels built under it by some kind of rebel faction within the organization. Now HABAD is a a genocidal organization. It's an organization which believes that that non Jews have
animal souls. It's an organization which is, according to the Shin Bet, the Zionist intelligence agency, involved in most of the price tag revenge attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank around the settlement of Vietzar. And of course it's it's an organization which has outreach emissaries all around the world.
There's 5000 branches in different parts of the world, 1300 in America, 150 in Britain, 150 in Canada and organisations all the way across the Ukraine. Dense network in the Ukraine and indeed of course in Russia, which we might come on to later.
Now in Ukraine, the Habad have been close to one of the key oligarchs in Ukraine, a guy called Igor Kolomoyskiy, who of course owned the television station where Zelensky got his start and then funded Zelensky in his campaign to become Prime Minister or President. He then fell out with with Zelensky. But amongst the other things which he was funding were the Aidar Nazi Aidar Battalion and indeed the Azov Battalion, as well as funding being one of the
key funders of the what's called the biggest Jewish community centre in the world in Nipro Petrovsk, which is a Habad centre, which there's plenty of little videos on online. You can go and look at that architecturally questionable building. Let me let me put it that way.
So look, the, the, the connections between extreme ultra Zionist genocide organizations and the, the Nazis and Ukraine are not something that have been dreamt up by by people who are conspiracy theorists or on the left or whatever. These are actual relationships.
Now, Kolboiski of course, was involved also in a number of corruption charges in terms of effectively theft of public assets in the, but also the way in which that that was then the money from that was then laundered through European institutions and into the US. So we hit, there was a network in the US, in Florida and in New York State of, of charities
which were laundering the money. And these charities were all run again by Habad. So there's a really interesting sort of underworld here to this, which which does suggest that the relationships between Zionism and Nazism and Ukraine and the Ukrainian government are not not something which are are just, you know, marginal. Certainly not. Vanessa, would you like to weigh in on that?
Reports also of former or even current IOF military fighting in Ukraine because I think her ex put out an article bemoaning the fact that they weren't being recognised as fallen when I think between up to 16 IDF fighters were killed in Ukraine. But even during the 2014 who organized of course by largely Victoria and Newland with the US administration backing when she made the famous phone call during which she she told the EU to bug her off. I'm saying it far more politely
than she did. And basically they were known to be IOF militia fighting at that time among those that were leading the coup and also massacring the civilians, of course, in the Maidan and and you know, Dasser itself, ironically enough. But not only that, Israel has been supplying weapons, including the table rifles to the Ukrainian militia and to the Idor and as of battalions.
And of course, not forgetting Zelensky's rather bizarre comment that Ukraine will become big Israel, which I think was fairly early on in, in the conflict. And the fact that Elena Zelensky, I'm, I'm not sure actually whether Zelensky joined himself in the end, but Elena Zelensky visited Israel as did I think it's Ilyas Molyenko who was a member of intelligence within the Azov Battalion and who visited after the the. What was the big factory in?
It's just as of something anyway, he visited Israel, was a guest. Thank you. That's it. And he visited Israel and was sort of given red carpet treatment by Netanyahu and his administration. And so, as you said, the connections between Ukraine and Israel have continued pretty far into the present day and not and I believe actually that one of Netanyahu's election promises was a victory for Ukraine, along with supporting freedom fighters in Iran, of course.
So the Chabad thing I think is, is absolutely crucial to understand as well, right? Because we've talked about the political background to this, but I think that the the theological background is, is as, if not more important. You describe Chabad as a genocidal organization. Some of their texts are absolutely astonishing. We'll provide some links so people can have a look at this
stuff for themselves. And the Chabad rabbi, I'm going to say this incorrectly, but it's Menisha Mendel Schneerson is the way I'm going to pronounce it. Please correct me if if if I'm not doing that right, doing that justice. But he had an extraordinarily close relationship with Netanyahu. Now, many people actually view Schneisen, certainly within the Jabat movement, as actually being the Jewish Messiah. I don't think that he actually adopted that mantle himself.
And I do seem to remember him it being reported that he told Netanyahu that he would, that Netanyahu himself would see the arrival of the Messiah in his lifetime. So there's some kind of prophetic stuff happening here as well that I, I don't think people really properly understand. And, and he was, I think, as you mentioned a moment ago, born in what is now today Ukraine, right? I mean, so the, the, the, the, the, the depth of this is, you know, it's not just political.
It runs a lot, a lot deeper than that. Well, look, I think people don't understand. You see, the theology now, the theology is quite important. I mean, I, you know, I'm, I'm a sort of materialist. I believe that material things. Shape the world, but of course, ideas about how the world is and how the world might be also help to shape the material world. So I think we should understand that Chabad is a Hasidic sect, yes. And it's a, it's a, it's a kind of outreach organization.
So it has these 5000 odd offices around the world, but there are hundreds of other, well not hundreds, but there are lots of other Hasidic sects, most of which are inward looking and which have very similar views to geologically. And about the state of Israel, there are very few. I mean, let me just try and explain this.
So from the beginning, these of these sects that almost all of them come from Eastern Europe, from Lithuania, from Poland, from Hungary, from Belarus, from Ukraine, and indeed from what's now Russia. And, and as the, the boys from Natura Carter, the, the well known anti Zionist Hasidic group are always saying, well, in 1947 the chief Rabbis were agreed there should not be a Jewish state, that it was a responsibility not of, of, of humans to create a Jewish state,
but only of the divine. And so they were all at that stage anti Zionist. Right now, people find it very difficult to get their heads around this. These were anti Zionist in a sense that they didn't believe that humans, that the Zionist movement had the right or, or the ability even to create a Jewish state. And if they did create a Jewish state, it was it was outside the realms of religion and something to be condemned.
Now, of course, what happened after the creation of the State of Israel was that they, almost all of them made their peace with Zionism. Some of them of course, remain of the view that they are young, shouldn't serve in the IDF, while at the same time being practically supportive of the Zionist state, including of course, serving in the cabinet. Netanyahu's current cabinet, they have people in there who's who's young people don't join the IDF.
Incredible. So these are anti Zionist people who are Jewish supremacists, right? That's the distinction I would make. Not all Jewish supremacists are Zionists, all Zionists are Jewish supremacists, but there are anti Zionist Jewish supremacists who of course in in almost all cases are happy to collaborate with the the state of Israel.
There's one large sect called the Satmar which remains anti Zionist in a in a more straightforward way, but they're not in favour of Palestinian liberation. So there's a whole range of these Hasidic groups, almost all from from Eastern Europe, almost all of which are Jewish supremacist and indeed genocidal. The Habad are interesting because they are the only outreach grouping. They they have these offices all around the world. The others don't do that.
They have their own religious organizations and their own shivas and etcetera. But Habad are there to convert and convince that convert non views to some extent, but mainly to bring Jews either observing or non observing Jews further towards the ultra Orthodox position.
And that seems to be the thing which which they are most successful at. There's the evidence from from the Zionists, from Zionist surveys on campus in the US that the people who are most are taken along by and taken in by Khabad or not people who are already ultra Orthodox, but people who are in the reform or the progressive or the liberal wing of Judaism, of which of course are Zionist synagogue movements. So that's that their role.
Their role is to radicalize and to and to bring people to the position of supporting the genocide in the way which the Podesta has been outlining, which the, the so-called extremists in Netanyahu's government they are doing now. Of course, the the Schneerson, the Rebbe who died in 1994. No, I don't think he believed he was the Messiah that all of the all of the Chabad doesn't believe that he's the Messiah.
There's a faction who believe that he's the Messiah and the faction who, who, who, who believe that he's not but they are they are. But they believe in the third in the building of the temple, the destruction of Al Aqsa in in the same way as many of the other factions who are engaged in that kind of activity do as well. So they, they, they have a, a sort of role in, I suppose, radicalizing the, the, the more
secularist Zionist movement. And you can see in the, the history that we've, we've had over the last 90 or 100 years that we've, there's been a trajectory from the dominance of the, of a secular leftist Zionism towards a secular rightist Zionism, with the dominance of revisionist Zionism in Israeli politics since 1977, towards a more religious, a bigger, a bigger role for religious Zionists and the ultra Orthodox. And that's what we're seeing now, I think. I'd like to introduce you and
certainly our viewers. You're probably familiar with this David and Vanessa, right? And people might have clocked I've got a Jewish surname and a Jewish first name as well. Actually, I'm a quarter Jewish and I was raised as an atheist, but I've never been in the synagogue. I don't speak Hebrew and I'm just a bit of a random mixture,
to be honest with you. But there is a phrase that I hear quite a bit when I get invited to Jewish events and I speak to Jewish people as I do on a on a regular basis that two
Jews three opinions. And that really seems to be coming through in, in what you've just described to us there, David, in terms of the, the situation that we have in front of us, the, the, the role of Chabad, as you just described to radicalize the other Jewish organizations in the Reform progressive and the liberal areas of Judaism is, is, is, is
very interesting. Umm and umm, they uh, also, I think if we might just just jump back to the US now, I'm particularly interested in the influence that they're exerting over the current sitting U.S. President because we talked about Shabad's umm headquarters in New York and Trump visited
there. I can't actually off the top of my head remember if it was pre or post election last year, but there was a number of videos circulating online of him visiting the headquarters or visiting and praying at the grave of Menisha Mendel Schneerson. And there are even suggestions, not least from people in Trump's inner circle, that he is, in fact the first Jewish president of the United States. I mean, to what extent do you
think that could be true? Look, the the relationship between Habad and the Trump camp is, is reasonably well known. I mean, the Trump himself, through one of nations, has directly funded Habad. Of course, he's made a point of visiting them and going to Nerson's grave and, you know, hanging out with him. He's had them in to visit him. And but of course, let's remember that the the key link between Trump and Habad is his son-in-law Kushner, and he he, and. Trump's daughter who to whom
he's married, Of course. They attend a Habad shul in in DC when they're when they're there and Kushner has given huge sums of money. To Habad in in the USI think perhaps elsewhere as well. So there's there's a connection there with that that no, it's not just that the Habad are trying to influence the President, but the President's son-in-law is actually funding Habad. And so that's kind of part of the the intrigue here.
And let's remember that. Kushner's role is not just to push the interests or the official Zionist movement or the ultra Orthodox guys like Khabad, but also to, to effectively grease the wheels of the normalization process. And that's why he's had this massive involvement with the Saudis and indeed to some extent with the the UAE and the, the, the, the use of the sovereign wealth, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund that massive kickbacks and bribes that have
been going to the Trump family. And no doubt in future years we'll find out that they're much more extensive than we are currently aware of. So that's all part of this mix here, that there's a direct question of corruption. But as to whether Donald Trump himself is due or is converted, I, I don't know. I don't pretend to have the information on that. But you know, it's not impossible, is it? Stranger things have certainly happened. Vanessa, do you have any
thoughts on this? I think it's very important to understand the importance of the Zionist influence through Jared Kushner. I mean, David mentioned this normalization program which began under the first Trump administration, firmed the Abraham Accords. And of course that basically brought in I think it was Morocco, Sudan and UAE as as the initial adherence to to that
accord. But of course what we're seeing now is Trump putting pressure on the Al Qaeda self elected president of Syria, Jolani, to lift the sanctions in order for him to agree to normalise relations with Israel under those Abraham Accords. So those Abrahamic accords were in an incredibly important step, which began back in 1997 with the CIA scripting of the Clean Break Doctrine, which was commissioned by then politician Benjamin Netanyahu.
Which actually, again, was an extension of Jabotinsky's expansionist strategy to partition all of the neighboring countries to Israel to both weaken them and give Israel an opportunity to have greater influence in the partitions that
would be created. And of course, that's exactly what we're now saying in Syria, is the coming to fruition of Netanyahu's vision, which originated with Jabotinsky in Ukraine. And the partitioning, not only the extermination of Palestinians and the final supremacy of Zionism over Palestinian territory, but also this partitioning and normalization of relations with all neighboring countries, the destruction of resistance to Israel and the weakening of every single nation that may
pose a threat to Israel in the future. And this began in Ukraine. I think this is what what is very important for people to keep relating to. You know, David goes into fantastic depth. I tend to simplify things a little bit more for people in particular who are struggling with this kind of, as you said, three do what is it, 2 Jews, but you have three opinions of
etcetera. Because it becomes so complex when you get into the different factions, the competing factions, even within Zionism itself, within the Knesset within and so on, right? I mean, in Ukraine there was even the creation of of kind of, what was it a blending of Marxism and Zionism, right? So there there were, there were different factions even in Ukraine.
You had the Jabotinsky, you had the love of Zion, which was Leon Pinsker. You had Bev Boratov, who created the censuses between Marxism and Zionism, which then became the Israeli Labour Party. And I had Harm who created the society Ben A Moshe, which was a form of cultural Zionism. So in in all of these factions, you have these these subsections, let's say that may on on some subjects or on some strategies have common ground and in others, not so.
But, but I think in the end, if we look at direction of travel, we're heading in the direction of travel that Jabotinsky foresaw and that Netanyahu's father certainly supported and Netanyahu has picked up and run with.
And I think you know that that for me is is becoming even more clear with what's happening in the region, not only in Palestine. Yes, I use the term cynicism earlier, but I also think maybe pragmatism in pursuit of a shared objective is, is what we're looking at with a lot of this stuff. The reference to communism and Zionism, I think is really interesting. DI saw a quote, I'm going to forget the name. Maybe one of you can can help me out with it.
But the the guy that ran the gulags for Stalin quoted as saying some people call it communism. I call it Judaism, right? So these things are very closely and intrinsically linked with each other, right? So this is fascinating, A fascinating discussion I want to think about. We talked a lot about the the historical context, the deep connections between these two countries, these different ideological systems. How is this being enabled and enforced in the media and the
political system? Let's if we could focus on the UK, but also let's just think more broadly across the US. We've talked about these influence networks, but you know how we're actually seeing this coming to light in the, the, the media around, you know, let's talk about some names even, you know, the BBC, the Guardian, maybe some of these other commentators in the, in, in, in the British system today. Well, look, these are. I think complex matters to same
but. The the way in which these influence networks operate, I think is much more sophisticated and more deeply embedded than perhaps we have understood. So the way in which people tend to talk about these things is that they talk about the Israel lobby and of course there have been some famous books on on that issue.
The first of which of course, which broke the whole issue open was John Mearsheimer and Stephen Waltz book The Israel Lobby and US foreign policy from 2005. And then of course, more recently we've had a Elan Pappies book on the Zionist lobby history of the Zionist lobby in the the US and the UK. But look, the, the Israel lobby is only a small fraction of what
the Zionist movement does. And so I think the other, the other elements of what it does, which I'll talk about in a minute, are the ones where there's which are really important. So the Israel lobby, of course, is the organizations that we all know about, which is there to influence USUK and other European countries and indeed other countries in general to influence their foreign policy and indeed aspects of their domestic policy.
So in the in the US, everybody knows that there's the there's APAC, there's the Anti Defamation League, there's the Foundation for Democracies and, and a number of other think tanks, lobby groups, etcetera. And that's the Israel lobby. OK, now they are, they are important and they do exert power and do exert influence. But there's another way in which the Zionist movement operates, which is the tip. It's a the Zionist movement is a broader thing than the Israel.
I mean, the Zionist movement is there to ensure that Zionist ideas are spread and, and, and made powerful around the world. They, they state this openly in their founding manifesto, which was created in 1951 at the World Zionist Congress, the first one they held after they created the so-called State of Israel. And in that Congress, they said, right, we should, we've, we've,
we've got what we wanted. We had, they had a program before called the Ball Ball programme, the Basil programme based on the, the Congress where they, they decided that in Switzerland. And we've got, we've got a Jewish state. What will we do now? Will we just demobilize the Zionist movement? And they said, no, no, we'll not do that. And they had a vote on this and there were no votes against.
There were some people who who used to vote, who abstained, but there were no votes against and they voted to. I think it's 438 votes to zero. I forget the exact votes to continue with the Zionist movement. And amongst the things they said that would do is strengthen the influence of Zionism in the community, meaning the Jewish community wherever it's organised in the US, the UK and elsewhere. And that's what they do. And that that has two elements to it.
First of all, they want to recruit and train the young people in the ideology of Zionism so that they can go on to become Zionists later in life. Some. Sometimes that will mean. You know, going to to become colonists in, in an occupied Palestine, join the IDF, et cetera. But on other occasions, what it means is joining Zionist organisations in the UK or the US, et cetera.
But a a further. Element of this, of course, is infiltrating the societies in which they operate such that when the, the moment comes, when the tap on the shoulder comes, I, I like to say the tap on the shoulder comes. But of course in many cases the tap on the shoulder isn't needed when the moment comes to do the right thing for the Zionist
movement. When you're high up in the BBC or the Financial Times or in, in a financial cooperation or in the civil service or in the police or in or wherever it is, when the, when the moment comes, you will take the, they want you to take the right decision in favour of the Zionist movement.
And that's what that's you have to have an understanding of that in order to understand the way in which the institutions of this society and many other societies in in the West especially, have been penetrated and infiltrated by the Zionist movement. Take the example of the media. You you raise the issue of the media.
Now people have been going on about the BBC for the last few months, especially since Owen Jones wrote this article in December or January where he revealed that Raffy Berg, who's in charge of the BB CS website, was effectively operating a, a kind of a, a mechanism whereby he had to authorize or approve almost all BBC coverage of Palestine. Now he is a fanatical Zionist. Now of course that this is an important element of, of control by Zionism of the BBC because
they've got a person insight. The other element of course is the massive propaganda streams that come from Tel Aviv and indeed from the British government as well in supporting the Zionists. I think the other thing you've got to understand is that it's not just the external pressure which causes the BBC and it's not just the fact of one person inside the BBC which causes the BBC to be so pro Zionist.
It's also that they have people high up in the hierarchy and in fact in the most senior committees of the BBC who are themselves Zionists. So the most senior committee of the BBC. Has I think. Five people on it. The CEO of BBC News, a guy called Robbie Gibb is on it, a guy called Nicholas Sirota, who's the external representative, a couple of other people who I forget now, but they always have over the
five people on the committee. They always have at least 2 who are convinced rabid Zionists. Robbie Gibb is a perfect example. This is the guy who runs the Jewish Chronicle, took over the Jewish Chronicle when it was failing because of so many libel defeats. And it's now become even more extreme in its Zionism in the last two years as a result of of him taking over the
organization. So if you, if you want to understand why Zionism gets so, so much favourable coverage in the media, yes, it's to do with external pressures and PR and propaganda and all the usual things has Mara as they call it in Israel. But it's also to do with the fact that there are Zionists inside all these news organisations quite often in in prime positions.
For example, at Sky News. It's the case, it's the case in the Financial Times, it's the case in the Guardian, it's the case in the Mail and and many other media outlets as well. So it's it's external and internal influences.
And a lot of this is about, I think, embedding confusion into the, the public discourse because right the, the, the organizations we've talked about the, the pretty much dominant accepted narrative, I would say across the whole of mainstream media is to, is pro Ukraine anti Putin. It's Putin's war, it's a war of aggression, all of these terms that we hear on a constant basis, right?
So they've really embedded that and they allow some lively debate between both sides of the the argument as it relates to to Israel and and Palestine. But it's this Ukraine this, this adamant insistence that Ukraine are the good guys and Putin's the bad guy, while allowing some lively debate over here. That I think is one of the main essentially divide and rule tactics that they have for for sowing discord amongst amongst the population. Right. And then actually we talked about the media.
One of the most striking things I've seen over the past few days just popped up in my timeline on on on LinkedIn. I think it was was one of the the the chief executive of one of the the the biggest charities in the UK and internationally based in the UK international charity who attended the Pro Palestine March in London over the weekend was sharing a lot of the images from the March and talking about what an important
moment it was. And then I actually clicked on to have a look at her own profile page and the header image is her speaking on stage at a Pro Ukraine event in in Trafalgar Square. It looked like, I can't remember exactly the location. And that to me, was just the perfect example of how this thing has just been really deeply, deeply embedded into the discourse, and it's really astonishing how they've managed to do it. Well, I think that's that's right.
I mean, there are there are people who on the left who, who have become. Even better than they were before on the question of Palestine. But still, some of those people have a blind spot that they can't quite get to the idea that Russia might not be what what's. The the idea of Russia, which is encouraged in all the kind of NATO propaganda fantasies, so that that's the kind of interesting thing is that people can't sort of divorce themselves from that element of the propaganda.
They can perfectly well deconstruct Israeli and Zionist propaganda, the British government's ridiculous defenses of, of Israel. They can deconstruct David Lamb and the, the, the intelligence flights over Gaza, but they can't quite bring themselves to deconstruct the views which were given about Russia. And that's kind of interesting in itself. And of course it reminds one of the of the famous Bob Dylan song about I've learned to hate the Russians all through my whole life.
If another war comes, it's then we must fight. And that of course it is very, very deep in the psyche.
Actually more it's deeper than we perhaps we thought so that that's an interesting thing to, to see and also indicates the the need for us to redouble our efforts at deconstructing anti Russian propaganda has been flooding our media for many years now through the, the alleged assassination campaigns which Vladimir Putin is operating against dissidents, the alleged poisoning of the Skripals.
Remember that ridiculous fiasco. And then of course the, the integrity initiative, all those documents which were which were leaked showing that there was a military intelligence project dedicated to countering Russian propaganda, which was actually mainly focusing on attacking Jeremy Corbyn. And so all of that has been naturally quite successful in its its pooling of the levers of public consciousness in a way which the British government's attempt to defend Israel has not. Absolutely.
I think there's there's certainly a lot of the old Cold War stuff still embedded into kind of Gen. X and above, right? That's that's certainly the case. I think the other thing that's really important now that we're talking a little bit about Russia and Putin is to understand that you actually don't have to pick a side in these conflicts. And it's not always going to necessarily be the case that there is a good guy and a bad guy fighting.
It might be that there are two bad guys is fighting and we talked a bit about Jiabad's relationship with Trump, but he's also they also have quite a lot of sway in Russia and particularly over Putin, it would seem. I don't know too much about that. I mean, there's certainly there is a, a rabbi who is called Putin's rabbi who is a herbad rabbi. But that's because, well, I don't want to underestimate the the potential significance of it.
I haven't done enough research on this, but certainly it's the case that all through Russia and indeed the Ukraine that the, the, the apparatus of Jewish communal representation. So the organizations which in Western Europe and the UK are run by the official Zionist movement in the Ukraine. And in Russia those organizations are run by Habad. And so that's kind of an interesting contrast. Of course we see, we see the what happened, what maybe we should say a bit, what about Syria?
So what happened in Syria? Of course the the word Russian military lookout posts on the border with the Golan Heights. There was of course the Russian naval base and the Russian air base in Syria as part of the the agreement to help the government of Assad. And that of course, and of course the Russians were to some extent trying to divert IDF bombers from from from bombing Syrian targets.
But of course, we should also remember that the Russians deliberately and openly coordinated with the Israelis to allow them to bomb Damascus. Now, in retrospect, that's an indication of the the. Weakness of the support of Russia for Syria. And it's an indication also, I think of the, the way in which the, the, the kind of relationship that they have with Habad and with, with Israel has,
is worth looking into. For example, there was, there's an organization called the Jewish Agency, which is one of the four pillars of the Zionist movement. All four of these organizations are based in the same building in Jerusalem. And King George Street, known known as the national institutions and the Jewish agencies function one of the the four pillars, as I say, is to arrange for people to become settler colonists in Palestine.
The, the, the function of the other organizations is of course, to, to provide, to steal the land so that they can settle there. And, and thirdly, to raise the money to cook, to pay for all of this. Now, the Jewish Agency was about to be closed down by Putin, by Russia, I think in 2021. And there was a series of court cases which came up and then they were delayed and they were
delayed and they were delayed. And it had the Jewish Agency has not been shut down as a, as a, as a, an agent of a foreign state which is engaged in hostile activity, which it plainly is. So there's an indication I think in in that relationship of the the, the kind of questionable position of Russia in relation to the Zionist entity. And that of course is how met or where you would expect about to have some kind of influence as well. Just layer upon layer of complexity here.
Let's some just just finish up. Unfortunately, we've lost Vanessa because I would have loved her to to chime in on that, that on Syria, of course, I mean, it's certainly her area of expertise, but unfortunately it looks like the connection has
been lost. Just to to finish up though, you mentioned earlier on the reticence of some of the radical left to talk about Zionism because they believe that it lets the British and US empires off the hook for their role in the things that are happening in the world around us today. So what extent do you see the British and US empires and Zionism as being fundamentally intertwined with each other? I mean, is that not essentially just the same thing, Just one
thing, isn't it? So I come at this from from having done lots and lots of research. And as I've done the research, some of the things that I've found may start to make me question previously apparently established nostrums or theories. So I think that that yes, of course there is a very close relationship between the US, the UK and Israel. the US is of course the primary sponsor of the the genocide. It supplies the weapons that it provides political cover.
And as I've said, the UK provides intelligence overflights. And of course we have the Elbit arms firms in the UK, which Palestine Action are doing a tremendous job of smashing up over the last couple of years. But look, the the the other thing about Zionism is that it's inherently, inherently colonial, yes. Inherently genocidal, yes. Inherently racist, yes. But it's inherently expansionist and eliminationist.
So it has to expand. It has, it has to find more and more places for their people to settle. And that doesn't just mean the beachfront apartments in Gaza. It doesn't just mean the West Bank. It also means, of course, invading and expanding the territory into what's what they've always said from, from, you know, right back to Hertzel is a greater Israel.
Vanessa mentioned the, the Jabutinski's thoughts on settlement, which of course are in the same vein now, of course, that's what that's what they're trying to do here. They're they got pushed back out of most of Lebanon, but they still have extra bits of Lebanon they didn't have at the
beginning of last year. They have a huge swathe of, of the South of Syria. Now they what they want to do is they want to push into, back into Egypt, take the whole of Jordan, take most of Iraq, take all of Lebanon, all of Syria up to even including part, a little part of Turkey, the South of Turkey. That's what they plan to do, and that's called Greater Israel. Now, in addition to that, of course, that what they want is Vanessa was talking about
normalization. They want to normalize relations with the whole of West Asia and North Africa, which means that they want to be able to operate these countries effectively as client states. Now that as a plan is an imperialist plan, it's not an imperious plan, which is the same as the the interests of US imperialism.
And this is where I I think that yes, of course they're entwined, but there are, there are overlapping ways in which they operate and where, where they have shared interests and there are other ways where they have divergent interests. And that I think is becoming increasingly apparent. And it will become increasingly apparent as the US has to decide what to do about its relationship with Israel. I think they will have to decide whether they're going to cut
Israel loose. And Israel will, will want at that stage, whether it collapses or not, to go on to, to create this Greater Israel project. I mean, it's an, it's an imperialist power in itself and it's an emerging imperialist power. So I would say that yes, of course they're entwined, but they, they all, all of their interests do not coincide. Another complex web, it would seem. OK, look, that's pretty fantastic and fascinating and enlightening conversation.
David. Thank you so much for taking the time. Also to Vanessa, who unfortunately has dropped off the call. Thank you very much, David. It's a pleasure. Thank you very much. And stuff. So I've been Ben Rubin, you've been watching UK column. Thank you for watching.