Transcript 0:00 [intro music] Welcome to Trend Lines, a podcast on global affairs brought to you by World Politics Review. My name is Peter Durrie. Avner Inbar joins us later for a look at Israel's right-wing politics. 0:18 But first, I'm joined, as always, by WPR editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, for this week's briefing on world affairs. So Judah, uh, what crossed your desk this week? 0:29 I'd like to start by discussing a great briefing we ran by Andrew Small on UK-China ties and a potential shift signaled by new British Prime Minister Theresa May in terms of Britain's China policy. Uh, 0:46 May's government recently announced that it decided to review a project to build the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, which involved a consortium including France's electricity company, but also China General Nuclear Power Company, uh, to build the, the plant, the reactors. 1:06 And as Andrew notes, it raises the question of whether May intends to more broadly reorient Britain's China policy from what he calls the Fulsome Embrace of China, uh, pursued by David Cameron, uh, May's predecessor. 1:25 And the two complicating factors about the decision are its timing and the reason given for it. 1:33 So to begin with, it comes in the aftermath of Brexit, uh, which had already, uh, sort of thrown all global investors in a state of uncertainty about the future of trade and financial ties with Great Britain. 1:48 Um, so there, the timing is obviously problematic, especially since Asia was identified by pro-Brexit campaigners as a potential lifeline for, for econom- economic survival after the European Union. 2:04 Uh, the reason given is also problematic because the May government relatively forthrightly signaled that, uh, the decision was taken because of security concerns over Chinese involvement in sensitive energy infrastructure. 2:20 Uh, this contrasts with the major premise of Cameron's policy, which had been that the UK would treat China basically as a normal partner without the emphasis on human rights and also the suspicions of, uh, China's ulterior motives, uh, when it comes to espionage and security that is on display by, uh, the other Western plow- powers. 2:44 Um, this obviously caused concern among Britain's European partners, as well as in Washington, while being quite welcome in Beijing, and which resulted in a number of deals, including, uh, financial deals in terms of, uh, China's effort to internationalize its, uh, currency, the yuan. 3:07 Andrew explains, though, that this approach had only ever had a very shallow base of support in the UK, and May was apparently at odds with it as home secretary. 3:18 Um, so between Brexit, which, uh, really calls into question the UK's value as an entry point into the European Union, and China's, uh, annoyance at losing its preferential treatment, uh, Beijing has threatened reprisals for the, for the decision. 3:38 Uh, but nonetheless, it seems that the UK's China policy is set to return to the mainstream position of its Western partners under May's government. 3:47 You also had a, a very interesting briefing on a country, uh, that's, that's more up my alley, uh, you, by, uh, Robbie Corey-Boullé, um, who is a, uh, journalist based in, uh, in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and he wrote a very good briefing about the status of, uh, gay rights in Cameroon, a country that's, uh, that's to the south of Nigeria. 4:11 Um, and Cameroon in, uh, gay, in the gay rights community is quite notorious, uh, for not only having quite harsh laws criminalizing being gay or, uh, uh, committing, uh, acts associated with being gay, uh, but also actually, uh, using these laws to put people behind bars. 4:32 Um, and the, uh, the, the most notorious law is a, is a law from, uh, 1972 known as Article 347, and that carries a maximum sentence of five years, uh, which has already been applied in dozens of cases against people found to be guilty of being, of being gay in Cameroon. 4:55 And 4:57 in, uh, June this year, uh, there, there was a setback for the attempts of the gay rights community in Cameroon to, uh, repeal that law when the, uh, when, when the Cameroonian parliament, um, actually voted to retain it, um, in a, in an important vote. 5:14 And, uh, with the only objection coming from lawmakers, uh, who actually advocated, uh, for a doubling of the maximum prison term under this law. So, uh, 5:25 Robbie goes into a bit of a, a bit of the history of the Camero- of Cameroon's gay rights movement, and, uh, obviously this, this has, this movement has, the activists involved with it, uh, have suffered from quite constant government repression and a very hostile social environment that, uh, sees homosexuality, uh, quite falsely I might add, as a ve- as an un-African things, in air quotes, and a counter to, to prevailing moral- to, to, to prevailing morality. 5:56 And, uh, in the light of this, uh, this parliamentary vote, um, it might seem, uh, that the gay rights movement in Cameroon has little to show for its efforts over the la- over the past 10 years. 6:08 Uh, but Robbie also goes into a few issues where the activists really have brought about change, and, uh, th- this is quite interesting because, uh, they, they were successful in creating support networks for, for prisoners and ex-convicts, uh, who suffered under these, these laws, and also 6:26 Um, they are, they are quite active in HIV and AIDS prevention, and on the whole, the international landscape and the international support for this community has, uh, developed favorably because the, especially the US, uh, is, uh, after, um, uh, after the Bush administration and with the Obama administration, has embraced, uh, supporting gay rights internationally again. 6:48 Um, and also, uh, y- uh, the author points out that the activists have also chipped away at the taboo of, of even discussing sexuality, uh, in the public sphere in Cameroon and, uh, that this is the first step on a way to, uh, changing the minds both of lawmakers and the broader public about gay, about gay rights. 7:08 And I think this, this briefing is, is very important, not only because of the situation in Cameroon, but because Cameroon can stand in for quite a number of African countries who have taken steps to criminalize or strengthen criminalization of gays, uh, in, in their respective societies. 7:26 So, uh, watching Cameroon in that regard is quite, um, quite educational if you want to talk about this issue on the continent at large. 7:35 Yes, uh, uh, an important topic that, uh, that often, uh, can get overshadowed by, um, by some of the other more interest-based coverage. 7:45 Then you had a very interesting briefing on a topic that definitely is not in danger of getting, uh, too little important, in the contrast that it seems to be, um, uh, that it is rather attracting, uh, too much attention in some cases. 8:00 Well, you s- you stole my intro, Peter. [laughs] But, uh, indeed, you're, we're, [laughs] 8:06 we're talking about a briefing by Benjamin Friedman, which is, uh, part of a series I'd mentioned previously on the podcast called The Global Agenda, in which we're inviting authors to identify the biggest priority, uh, they see, whether it's a threat, risk, opportunity, or challenge facing the international order and US foreign policy. 8:28 And as Ben argues, uh, for the US, Canada, and Europe, the biggest danger is overreacting to the threat and cost of terrorism. 8:38 Uh, so he starts out by pointing out the actual scale of the threat from terrorism, which is statistically very unlikely, and although it's often difficult to say this without it sounding very insensitive, uh, when it comes to cause of death, it's also relatively negligible, again, in a statistic sense. 8:57 Um, 8:59 he acknowledges, though, that security policy is not driven by that kind of cold, objective analysis, and as a result, uh, there are th- these accumulating costs of overreacting to terrorism, uh, which Ben identifies as waste in terms of resources, uh, war in terms of military engagement that is ill-advised and, and disproportionately destructive, therefore risking further blowback, and closure in terms of the mindsets that, that lead to shutting or overly securing frontiers, which brings significant economic costs, and also the kind of open posture toward, toward the world that, uh, brings so many benefits and advantages, and is also something of a, of a value, especially for a, an immigrant country like the United States. 9:49 Um, so how can political leaders and policy makers avoid the trap of overreacting to terrorism? Uh, Ben suggests a dose of political courage in terms of communit- in terms of communicating to the public. 10:03 Uh, obviously, political courage is, is often in short supply, so he goes on to add, uh, in introducing competition between security agencies, uh, to encourage creative and cost-cutting approaches to, uh, securing populations against terrorism, rather than encouraging waste through sort of uncompetitive budgeting. 10:25 And finally, what he calls security theater, uh, whereby, uh, political leaders can, can play up inexpensive responses to terrorism in a way that soothes public anxieties without, uh, raising disproportionate costs. 10:39 So it's a nice and, and obviously very topical addition to the series, which will be ongoing through the fall, and which I encourage people to, uh, to follow. 10:48 And, uh, there's another series, uh, that, that he also wanted to mention. 10:52 Yes, it's, uh, I've mentioned in the past that, uh, as part of our global insider email interview format, that we've begun pursuing a series of interviews on particular topics. 11:03 I mentioned in the past, uh, space capabilities, and we just last week launched a new one on indigenous rights and politics in a variety of countries, mainly in Latin America, but, uh, which will also include some Asian countries as well. 11:19 And, uh, we've already run a, a number of the interviews, uh, on Bolivia, Ecuador, and Guatemala, so I really recommend them for anyone interested in, in what's a, a fascinating and, and politically significant issue in, in all of those countries. 11:35 Excellent. Uh, thanks for joining me again this week. It's been a pleasure. [Instrumental music] The Israeli Palestinian conflict seems intractable and has seen no significant progress in more than a decade. 11:50 The Molad Institute's Avner Inbar, author of a recent in-depth article for World Politics Review, joins us now for his perspective on the issue and how it relates to the dominance of right-wing political parties in Israel. 12:04 [Instrumental music] I'm Avner Inbar. I'm the co-founder and co-chair of, uh, Molad, which is a 12:14 think tank based in Jerusalem dedicated, um, basically to the kind of reformulation and rejuvenation of the Israeli left. 12:25 In terms of who, who's governing Israel, it's been, um, more or less the same answer for the past seven years or so, and this has been, uh, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing, uh, Likud party. 12:38 He's already, uh, gone through three different governments in these, um- In this tenure, he's been prime minister before between 96 and 99. And 12:52 the current government, which has been in power for about a year now, is generally considered to be the most right-wing in its political worldview and inclination, the most right-wing in the country's 13:08 history, which in Israel basically means usually, I mean, the differentiation between left and right is in principle, in general, based on one's views with respect to the future of the occupied Palestinian territories 13:27 and the question of a Palestinian state. So we have Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party, who in recent years have shifted a little bit to the left in terms of their official positions. 13:40 They have officially, or I would say kind of rhetorically, espoused the two-state solution. But in practice, are still pretty staunch opponents of the idea of dividing 13:58 historical Palestine between a sovereign Israeli state and a sovereign Palestinian state. He has a few coalitionary partners, most of whom are from the right-wing. And opposing this very right-wing 14:12 governing coalition, we have a very weak and fragmented opposition. 14:20 President Obama says he can't see how Israel survives as a democracy without a peace deal and also says the window is closing on that two-state solution. You're in New York. You've been at the UN. 14:30 What's your response to President Obama when he says that to Israeli ministers? Look, the problem in the Middle East is not the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. 14:38 Right now, I think the status quo is the best option for everyone. Keeping the occupation going is the best option for the Palestinians. It's not occupation, by the way. Judea and Samaria is a territory under dispute. 14:50 We can talk about it. In Area C, for example, there are 400,000 Jews and 90,000 Arabs. A visible solution is that Israel will annex this area and Area A and B in the far future will be part of confederation with Jordan. 15:11 The right wing in general is defined by its opposition to the Palestinian state, but kind of more deeply, we can say that the rights, kind of the core belief of the Israeli right is something called greater Israel. 15:26 That is that Israel's sovereign borders should extend at least over the entire stretch of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. 15:39 I think that the problem is that it is currently not a politically viable option. And as a result, the right wing in Israel doesn't really have a vision. 15:50 And so kind of the most forward-looking agenda is simply to play for time. I call this the politics of postponement. And I believe that this is kind of a core feature or kind of a defining feature of what the 16:05 current and the few previous right-wing governments that we've had have been defined by. And the reason why this vision is not viable is that if you think about it, there are basically two ways to carry it out. 16:21 That is two ways to bring about this greater Israel vision. And both of them involve annexing, kind of formally annexing the occupied territories. The focus mainly is on the West Bank. And 16:37 there are kind of two ways to do that. One is by annexing the territories without naturalizing the Palestinian residents living there, about 3 million of them. 16:48 The problem is that in this case, Israel would kind of officialize its status as an apartheid state. 16:54 And that would probably elicit a strong reaction from the international community, isolating Israel, undermining its security, and certainly damaging the economy pretty severely. The other option 17:08 is that you can annex the territories and naturalize the Palestinians living there. But this would basically kind of bring the idea of a Jewish state to an end. 17:16 And it's something that the vast majorities of Israelis would resist. So I think kind of the core feature or the defining feature of the 17:27 right wing in Israel at the moment is that what they really desire, what they really want to achieve is not attainable. 17:34 So I think that basically if we try to understand the Israeli right, we need to think about what they're out to get, what they want to achieve, which is to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. 17:46 This is something that they have been discussing, stating for 50 years now. And the problem is that they can't really do that. So what they're doing is trying to postpone as much as they can. 18:01 And this, I think, brings us to at least one important differentiation within the right, which is that one important and today the dominant section within the Israeli right is the religious right or religious Zionism. 18:16 And from their perspective, I think that the underlying logic of this politics of postponement is that they believe that at some point something will happen, perhaps even through divine intervention. 18:29 Something will happen that will change the conditions that are currently preventing them from fulfilling this vision. 18:34 And what they're doing in the meantime is being very active on the ground, constructing and expanding settlements in the West Bank. 18:42 And also, which I think in many ways is much more important, they're doing something that starting from the late 80s they have been calling settling in the hearts. 18:54 Kind of in opposition to settling on the, on the hilltops. 18:57 They understand that the actual battle, the actual, uh, um, struggle for the future, um, of, of the occupied territories, uh, is not waged simply on the ground or only on the ground. 19:10 But because Israel is democracy, public opinion and what the majority of Israelis envision, uh, is also crucially important. 19:19 So this project has consisted, um, in kind of a gradual but very successful and im- impressive infiltration into various, uh, centers of power in Israel, uh, for two reasons. 19:32 Uh, first, in order to influence public opinion, uh, but also in case that doesn't work, they ho- they want to have a lot of, uh, clout within the, the establishment, the government, uh, the military, especially the military, the courts, et cetera. 19:48 So, so that if they can't succeed in, in pushing forward their own agenda, they can at least prevent the other side, that is the left or the, the, the peace camp in Israel, they can at least prevent them from carrying out their own. 20:04 So this particular strand within the Israeli right is very dominant in terms of dictating the kind of the contours of public debate in Israel. They do a lot of work on education. 20:18 They do a lot of work on what they call Jewish identity. 20:23 But the religious right has also been very successful in doing, uh, one other thing, and that is basically to push the non-religious right or the secular right, uh, basically outside of the picture, at least with respect to the 20:37 political system. 20:39 So I've said earlier that the ruling party at the moment is the Likud Party, which is historically speaking, has been a secular party influenced by kind of European nationalism that has had a more or less liberal agenda. 20:55 But over the past decade or so, the religious right has managed to kind of push to the side all the factions within the Likud that were still committed to liberal principles. 21:06 Today, even though the majority of Knesset members and party members in the Likud are still kind of secular Israelis, the, the center of power within the Likud has basi-- and, and the, the sense of loyalty has basically shifted to, to the religious right. 21:27 It's somewhat similar, I think, to the, to the dynamic that we've seen in the US, um, with the, with the Tea Party, only I think that in Israel it's been more successful. 21:37 [dramatic music] What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want people to think of? 21:43 There were many people who thought you might be the Nixon who takes, uh, who took the United States to China, by which I mean the hardline, uh, conservative Israeli politician who would make peace with the Palestinians and create, uh, a, a two-state solution. 22:00 Do you still hope or did you ever hope that that would be your legacy? My first responsibility is to ensure the safety and security of the one and only Jewish state. Uh, that's not an easy feat. My father's generation 22:19 was entrusted with, uh, regaining for the Jewish people what was lost, uh, in antiquity, that is, uh, a state of their own. My generation is charged with, um, protecting and nurturing what was regained. 22:37 Uh, and in so doing, I think we can also change the world. The things that we're doing in Israel are changing the world. 22:45 You know, they're changing it in medicine, they're changing it in, uh, communications, they're changing it in, uh, uh, in cyber. 22:52 They're changing it just in so many things that can benefit our neighbors and, and the rest of, uh, humanity. Uh, to do all that, I have to make sure that the future of the Jewish state is safe and sound. 23:09 That's my one goal, and I would like to be remembered as the protector of Israel. That's enough for me. Protector of Israel. 23:25 Benjamin Netanyahu, again, has been prime minister for, uh, seven years now and will possibly be the longest serving, uh, prime minister in the, in the history of, uh, Israel if he will serve out, uh, his, uh, his term. 23:38 Netanyahu, I think, uh, is, uh, is kind of a peculiar, uh, creature within, um, the Israeli right. I would even go as far as to say that he's kind of a sui generis politician because he is a, he is a secular person. 23:53 He comes from a secular background and secular education, and he doesn't, um, I think, buy into kind of the messianic element, uh, that the, uh, Israeli religious right is, is founded upon. 24:07 But he has a very unique, I think, uh, philosophy of history. He believes that there are two forces, uh, in history. 24:16 You have, at least with respect to the Jewish people, you have, you have, uh, us, the, the, the, the Jews, and you have the various incarnations of our enemies and those people who want to, to annihilate us. 24:31 There's a phrase from the Haggadah that Jews, uh, read in Passover, uh, that I think symbolizes Netanyahu's worldview. In every generation, they rise against us to annihilate us. 24:44 And they, which is unspecified in the Haggadah, refers to the Egyptians and the Romans and the Greeks and the, and the Germans, and now for Netanyahu, it's the Arabs and, and, and possibly specifically the Palestinians. 24:57 And his role in Jewish history Is basically to ward off the threats. And his ro-, his role is not to make any progress. His role is not to achieve anything, not to do anything. 25:10 His role is simply to, uh, uh, prevent our enemies from succeeding in their conspiracy to, to annihilate us. So... 25:18 And that, I think, explains the, I think, the most interesting thing about Netanyahu's, uh, um, tenure as prime minister, and that is that he doesn't do anything. 25:28 Uh, which if you think about it, is pretty unique for a very powerful, uh, and prominent, uh, political leader. He-- It's not only that he doesn't do anything, it looks as if he doesn't care about doing things. 25:42 He cares most passionately about spe- about not doing things. 25:46 And the thing that he's most passionate about is not allowing, uh, the Palestinian state, uh, to be established, preventing the, the implementation of the two-state solution, and basically adhering to the status quo, which, you know, in my humble opinion, he simply believes is better than the other options on the table, which is either to divide, um, the land and allow for a Palestinian state or formally annex the, the occupied territories, which is 26:20 both problematic in terms of the reaction of the international community, but also, I think, and possibly more importantly, something that the Israeli public doesn't want. 26:29 A few months ago, uh, in the, uh, in Davos, he simply said, "I want to be remembered as the protector of Israel." 26:37 There's kind of, um, an opposition between Netanyahu and the religious right because the religious right has eventually an optimistic view of the future. 26:46 They believe that we will see kind of an unfolding of a messianic future, and so they try to bring that about. 26:54 And he tries to adhere to the status quo and allow nothing, uh, to happen because the only things that can actually happen are, uh, are bad, or at least, uh, potentially bad. 27:06 I, I think that that's, that's one of the mistakes that people who deal with Netanyahu and who, uh, kind of commentate on Netanyahu have made, um, over the past few years. 27:16 And Netanyahu in the West is often interpreted as kind of a political opportunist, as someone who's only interested in his own political survival. 27:28 And so I think that often people kind of buy his subterfuges and believe his rhetoric when the only reason he says those th- tho-those things are, again, as I said earlier, in order to, to buy time and ward off the threat of, of intervention. 27:44 It's the way to understand his conduct during the 2013-'14, uh, round of negotiations, um, that Secretary John Kerry initiated, um, which was supposed to lead to some sort of an advancement. 27:58 But, um, I think in a way that, uh, was very much, um, expected, and at least we here both expected it and warned against it, uh, couldn't lead to anything, uh, because Netanyahu will never budge an inch, uh, from the status quo. 28:13 He's not, or at least not strictly, an op- a political opportunist. He's a, he's an ideologue. He, he upholds a, a certain worldview and certain view, uh, of Jewish history. 28:25 And if there's one thing I'm, you know, pretty sure about Netanyahu is that no matter what the, um, context will be, he is the last person who would move forward with respect to, um, the two-state solution. 28:43 I tend to agree that the, the status quo is unstable, and that is possibly despite of what Benjamin Netanyahu believes. And we will probably see more waves of terrorism coming from the West Bank and Gaza. 28:59 There will probably at some point, I, I, I'm not an expert on that, uh, region, and I can't really kind of prophesize, but many are saying that in some point in the future, we will see another round of warfare, uh, between Israel and the Hezbollah in Lebanon. 29:14 And I think that that is really kind of the, the Achilles' heel of the entire position of the right wing, because my kind of analysis or my diagnosis of the right wing is that they don't have an end game, and they're just, um, playing for time. 29:30 For the time being, they have managed to frighten the Israeli public enough so that they prefer to stick to the status quo rather than experiment yet again with oppor- negotiations and, and, and progress on the, uh, uh, Palestinian front and with the Arabs, uh, in general. 29:52 But there will be challenges that may change that, uh, that position within the Israeli public. 29:57 If you look at, uh, public opinion polls, you see that there's still a majority of Israelis that support, uh, the two-state solution, and that is despite 15 years, possibly more than that, of incessant propaganda and scare tactics by the right. 30:13 They support the two-state solution, but they currently don't believe that it's feasible, and that explains a lot of their political choi- uh, um, choices. 30:23 We say here at Molad often that many kind of actors in the Israeli political system are dedicated to postponing or preventing the, the moment of choice, a moment where the Israeli public will understand that there are two options on the table. 30:39 One of them is partition, that is dividing the land between Israel and Palestine, and the other one is annexation, which in the more, um, I would say, um, appropriate version will include, uh, naturalizing three million Palestinians. 30:55 We now live inside this kind of limbo in which we can afford not to make the choice between these, um, these two options, and, and that explains a lot of, uh, Netanyahu's, uh, political survival. 31:09 Uh, I don't know and I don't want to prophesize about what will, uh, um, bring about this moment of change. I certainly hope that it won't involve some sort of, kind of war. 31:21 It may take A couple of years, it may take a decade, uh, it may take more than that, uh, but I believe that it's not stable and it will have to, to go, uh, in one way or another. 31:33 This is why I think that the weakness of the Israeli left has been so tragic because I believe that if the left in Israel, uh, would have done a better job of explaining, um, the, the, the options of, uh, um, persuading Israelis of countering the scare tactics of the right, we could have been, uh, in a much, uh, better situation. 32:02 Many thanks to Avner for taking the time to share these insights. You can find Avner's article and more coverage on the Middle East on worldpoliticsreview.com. 32:13 In addition to visiting our website and subscribing to the World Politics Review newsletter, you should also subscribe to Trendlines if you haven't done so already. 32:22 Leaving a rating and review in iTunes would also be fantastic. That helps with our rankings, which in turn increases our visibility in podcast directories and helps other listeners discover the show. 32:35 Trendlines is produced and edited by me, Peter Durrie. 32:37 You can follow me and World Politics Review on Twitter, and you can find links to the pieces covering the issues we talked about in the show notes on worldpoliticsreview.com. 32:47 We will be off next week, uh, but we will return with a brand-new episode in the week after that. So, uh, stay tuned for that. Have a very nice weekend and a very nice week next week, and, uh, see you next time. 33:01 [outro jingle]
