Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael

On this edition of Parallax Views, this episode is a double feature featuring two experts on U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, and the Israel/Palestine conflict: Geoffrey Aronson and Paul R. Pillar, both of whom have recent articles in Responsible Statecraft that should be of interest to anyone following the Gaza War.

Geoffrey Aronson, the former director for Foundation for Middle East Peace and the editor of the bimonthly Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories until June 2014 discusses his piece "The Ghost of Ariel Sharon Hovers Over the Gaza Strip" about how Gaza faces what he calls a "The Future is the Past, The Past is the Future" scenario when the current war ends. He takes us back to the policies of Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel in the early 2000's, and offers a grim picture of what Gaza will look like going forward, but also the failure of policies by both Israel and the United States.

In the second segment of the show, Paul R. Pillar, an academic and 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency as well as a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies of Georgetown University and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, joins the show to discuss his articles "Is Gaza on track for permanent war?" and "With world's focus on Gaza, West Bank conflict brews". We'll discuss those articles as well as U.S. foreign policy, the October 7th Hamas attack, U.S. foreign policy, and much, much more.

On this edition of Parallax Views, James W. Carden, former adviser to the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission at the U.S. Department of State, returns to the program to discuss his articles "The Coming War in the Caucasus" (The American Conservative), "Israel's Other War: Ethnic Cleansing in the South Caucasus" (Antiwar.com), and "Kurt Campbell: The Lobbyist As Diplomat". Fears are mounting that the Aliyev regime, with the ever-present hand of Erdogan's Turkey, could soon target southern Armenia only months after the ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh. We'll also discuss Israel's role in arming Azerbaijan and the potential geopolitical reasons Israel has for doing so. Moreover, we'll discuss U.S.-Armenia relations, the Azeri lobby and it's influence in Washington, D.C., the resignation of Josh Paul from the State Department over the current Biden policy on the Gaza War, how elements of the so-called dissident wing of the American conservative movement's realism and restraint community have betrayed the plight of Armenian Christians, trauma-specialist Dr. Gabor Mate on Gaza, foreign policy fixture Kurt Campbell and his ties to shadow lobbying efforts, and more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, Dr. Andreas Krieg, an associate professor in the School of Security Studies at King's College, London and author of Subversion: The Strategic Weaponization of Narratives, joins the show to discuss Israel's strategic culture and its failing. He argues that Israel has responded to the Oct. 7th Hamas attack with strategic ambiguity and is fighting the current war in an outmoded fashion. We also discuss his experience attending a workshop on Hasbara, the nature of Israeli information warfare and synthetic disinformation, the question of whether Hamas can be defeated and the issue of blowback, the IDF's entering the Hamas underground tunnels and the problems that poses for the IDF, how the underground tunnels Hamas is using are likely going to undermine Israeli technological advantage (ie: the issue of low-tech warfare), Israel setting itself up for a long war, the Palestinian insurgency movement and Hamas as an idea, the goal of "eradicating Hamas", the Biden administration, the need for a political solution to the Israel/Palestine and how avoiding it is against Israel's security interests, ceasefire, claims that videos of Palestinian suffering are a fake "Pallywood" production, and much more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, a double feature on Israel/Palestine, the Israel-Hamas War, the bombardment of Gaza, the Oct. 7th attack, and related subjects.

First up, Israeli hostage negotiator and peace activist Gershon Baskin joins us to discuss his experiences negotiating with Hamas, his harsh criticisms of both Hamas and the Israeli government (especially under Benjamin Netanyahu), what he refers to as the "New Form of Apartheid" in Israel, what it will take to get the hostages back and why that course of action will not be taken, his hopes for a future peace that will allow Palestinians and Israelis to both be offered dignity and a sharing of the land, his recent communications with Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad, and more!

In the second half of the program (timestamp: 44:18), Jason Pack, author of Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder and co-host of the Disorder podcast with Alexandra Hall Hall, joins us to discuss his Foreign Policy piece entitled "Qatar Is the Key to Middle East Peace". Jason argues that a condominium of Arab states led by Qatar are the way forward for stabilizing a postwar Gaza. Qatar, he makes the case, must help take a lead in the administration of a postwar Gaza that will eventually deal with the issue of Palestinian sovereignty. We will also talk about the "global enduring disorder" paradigm for understanding international relations and events.

On this edition of Parallax Views, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs' UN correspondent Ian Williams, author of UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War, joins the program to discuss the longstanding bad blood between the UN and Israel going back to the assassination of UN official Count Bernadotte by the militant Zionist paramilitary group Lehi (also known as the Stern Gang) in 1948. We discuss this in light of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres making statements that drew the ire of Israel and pro-Israel voices as well as Israel's Ambassador to the UN Gilda Erdan wearing a yellow star to the UN, claiming there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and saying the UN is aligned with Hamas. We'll also discuss longstanding issues between the State Department and Israel, AIPAC and pro-Israel lobbying efforts, Christian evangelical support for Israel and how that support is driven by apocalyptic religious views, 20th century Zionist paramilitary groups and terrorism, and more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, journalist James Bamford, known for his groundbreaking investigations into the NSA (The Puzzle Palace) and the Iraq War (A Pretext for War), returns to the program to discuss his recent The Nation piece entitled "Why Israel Slept" about the October 7th Israel intelligence failure and the Israel covert operation Project Butterfly back by the late billionaire Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson and involving a now defunct Israeli private intelligence firm known as Psy-Group. Psy-Group, for the uninitiated, was also a target of Robert Mueller in the Russiagate investigation. We'll also be going over some of the issues Bamford addressed in his latest book SpyFail: Foreign Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence. Bamford explains how Project Butterfly used Israeli resources, which could've been used for security in Israel (ie: along the Gaza border), for a cover operation aimed at de-legitimizing pro-Palestinian voices in the United States. Bamford also discusses AIPAC, the Iraq War and neoconservatives, the FBI officials who've voiced frustrations with pro-Israel lobbying groups, the intelligence failure of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, and much, much more.

On this edition of Parallax Views, Prof. Nathan J. Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and author of six well-received books on Arab politics, joins the show to discuss his grim analysis of postwar possibilities as covered in his Carnegie Endowment for International Peace piece "There Might Be No Day After in Gaza". We'll also discuss the concept of the one-state reality in Israel/Palestine and why it is different than talking about the one-state solution. Moreover Nathan will explain the situation in the West Bank and the settler violence happening there. Prof. Brown argues that the postwar possibilities for Gaza are dim, and he disagrees with a number of the commentators arguing that the United Nations (UN), Israel, or a multilateral coalition of Arab states including Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar will administer Gaza after the war is over. What he predicts is that Gaza will be turned into a "supercamp" run by camp committee and gangs with periodic attacks by Hamas and raids by Israel.

On this edition of Parallax Views, Prof. James M. Dorsey of The Turbulent World w/ James M. Dorsey blog returns to discuss the latest development in the Gaza War and the recent joint Arab League-OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) summit that brought together Arab and Muslim world leaders like Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Iran's Ebrahim Raisi, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Prince Mohammed bin Salman al Saud, and others together in an emergency meeting about the Israeli assault on Gaza. We'll also discuss the rage in the Arab/Muslim world over the bombing of Gaza and what it could mean for autocrats in the region, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's invocation of Amalek during the Gaza War, the rehabilitation of Assad in the Arab world, perceived U.S. double standards in the Middle East, the censure of Rashida Tlaib, French President Emmanuel Macron's call for the bombing of Gaza to end, and much, much more.

On this edition of Parallax Views, the outspoken and often controversial journalist Eric Margolis, who has long covered issues related to the Middle East, South Asia, and Islam, joins the show to discuss his views on the Israel/Palestine situation, the bombing of Gaza, the implications for the U.S. and the Arab world, and much, much more.

On this edition of Parallax Views, we continue our series on Israel/Palestine, the fallout from the October 7th Hamas attack, and the Israeli bombing of Gaza with Ariel Gold, Executive Director of the Fellowship for Reconciliation. Ariel joins the show to discuss her article "Who’s Drinking Netanyahu’s Genocidal Amalek Kool-Aid?". She explains what's troubling abut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's invocation of the biblical story of Amalek and what it entails. We also discuss the Christian Zionism, the Kahanist movement in Israel a far-right Israeli political figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir, the debate over if the current bombing campaign in Gaza constitutes a form of genocide or attempted genocide, and much more.