Welp, They Got Their War on Iran

Welcome to The Left Unsaid.

This is Episode
10. It's a special Father's Day edition.

And this Father's Day,
we are firing up the grill

and we are tossing
some American myths over the coals.

It's about the only time we fired up
the grill on Father's Day

as a vegetarian family.

Well. That's true.

Actually, I don't want that personal
information going out into the world to.

That we’re vegetarian?

Well, you shouldn't have signed the ...

You shouldn't have signed the release.

brought to you, of course, here

by your father in chief, Patrick McElwee,
as well as the mom over there.

Mom in chief Meg. And,

I don't know, are you child in chief?

I guess as the eldest. Child?

Yeah, child in chief.

We'll give him that.

All right.
He's not really a child anymore.

Okay. Ish. Awkward adolescent in chief.

I don't know about that one.

Not that awkward.

Once again, Finn and I are recovering
from a long week of filming.

I'm honestly surprised
you two are sitting here.

You've had, like, virtually
no rest over the last week and a half.

all of your weekends have been filled to
the brim with, with political activities.

But for us, like, that's kind of restful.

You know, some people rest by lounging

and suntanning, and we Yeah.

Finn and I were up in DC.

We got to roam the halls of Congress
with a camera for a few days.

We ran into Medea Benjamin and CodePink.

Got to see the bravery
of the women of CodePink.

And also some of the men. One man,
in action.

Yeah, we followed them around
with the camera as they confronted

a lot of elected members of Congress.

It was pretty cool to see.

We were there when they, staked out
Pete Hegseth

and and gave him, a stern talking to.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Yep. They're brave.

I mean, I got to say, like,
I saw them also, out on the National Mall

climbing all over the military vehicles
that Trump had parked out there.

This was, of course,
the week leading up to Trump's, Well.

What I thought was going to be Trump's
big military parade.

I mean, he'd hung out with Kim
Jong IL or whatever his name is.

And, seemed like he really had
some big ambitions for his 79th birthday.

I gotta say, the parade itself
just didn't look that spectacular.

Looked pretty boring to me.

I mean, you all left the day before
it happened.

You came back.

Back home here, to North Carolina and.

And just watching it on TV, it's like.

Wow, that's just a lot of people marching.

didn't have anybody dancing.

I didn't see too many marching bands.

I'm sure there were some,
but it was very bland.

It was just group after group,
just coming down in their uniforms ...

In small groups.

Yeah. They don't even march in lockstep,
you know.

Yeah.
Their marching was not even very good.

I got to say, they're slacking.

I mean, I approve I, I that's how I would
march were I them.

I think that's, that's
the kind of military I want,

I want sort of like a kind of a loungy
just kind of, I’m

just strolling down the street,
each one to his own.

I think there's something
very American about that.

I do predict that we're about to get

a lot more ceremonial units
in every branch of the U.S.

military, just so someone like Trump can,
you know, have that, like, pageantry of,

the authoritarian lockstep
march with color coordination, etc., etc..

So was it eerie, y'all, walking

along the National Mall
with all these military vehicles?

I don't know, what do you think, Finn?
I would say, again, lackadaisical.

You know, there was like one tank,
you know, they put a couple of helicopters

out there, but it
it wasn't that significant, to be honest.

I mean, mostly the mall was just covered
with good DC liberals playing softball.

Oh, yeah.

Around these, around
these machines of war, Yeah.

So we're gonna
we'll be showing you more footage

from what happened to us in DC,

because we got some great stuff
for the documentary.

Of course.

Finn got a hug from somebody
very special, but that's going to be saved

for the for the big release. We gotta hook
you with something, you know?

Still basking in that hug. Oh.

What a hug. That was a quite a hug.

So. Yeah.

So we didn't get to stay in DC for the,
military parade itself,

but we decided to come home because DC

wasn't actually
going to be the site of big protests.

But back here in Chapel Hill,
we all went to a nice, No Kings protest.

What'd you guys think?

What'd you think of the big tent protest
Finn?

I don't know, I mean it's, it's obviously
good that so many people got out, but,

I guess we live in a kind of upper middle
class, suburban area.

So ... Here in Chapel
Hill, North Carolina.

Yeah.

The people that came out
to our local protests, weren't exactly,

what you might call experienced
protesters.

You know, it was a lot of, like

the United States defends freedom,
and so we defend the United States.

There was a lot of institution defending
going on, which I'm not a huge fan of.

You know, I think it needs to be,
a movement that builds something new

rather than just, seeks
to return to something,

that we had before,
which, already wasn't working for,

a lot of of Americans
and people around the globe.

Honestly.

but was working for a certain
kind of American.

Right?

Like someone

who, makes a certain amount of money,
you know,

you can see why the politics might just
be, hey, that was working

pretty well, you know, that
neoliberalism, like, it was it was fine.

Like, why are you all complaining? Almost.

so it's a position of privilege.

What we saw at our
No Kings protests was someone dressed up

as George Washington, a lot of the people
completely decked out in red,

white and blue, which, you know, no shade.

Lots of flags. It's not.

It's not really my thing.

If you know me personally,

you know, I'm like,
not super into, red, white, blue dressing.

Glorifying slave owners.

Right. Not super into that.

The parents stepping on eggshells here
and Finn’s just like, yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

this kind of, honoring, without critical
inquiry of what America's past actually

was and continues to be for, a whole lot
of, working class people, and people

less fortunate than the more wealthy
suburban liberal class.

Yeah.

And I would say for like, seasoned

protest heads like ourselves,
it was a bit of culture shock.

I've got some amazing audio of
some of the chants

that were led by
the folks at the local march.

Some very strong language, I have to say.

I don't know if it would be family
friendly.

let's put that on right here.

Ding-a-ling!

My goodness, my my goodness.

What has political culture
come to these days?

I don't know I,
I don't know how the police are allowing

these rioters
to use, such abusive language. No,

but, you know, part of me thinks, like,

if we're going to have a mass revolution,
which at the moment, we definitely need

a coalition to beat the fascists
that are coming to power.

So, like,
I guess this is what it looks like,

at least here in Chapel
Hill, North Carolina.

I'm sure it's very different
in different places, but we are like

one of the bastions of the professional
middle class (PMC) culture.

Yeah. Go ahead Finn. Yeah.

I mean, if you go down to Durham,

about 30 minutes away from us, it's
more working class city.

You'll get a lot more,
the rich chants going there.

We went down to the last protest, over
there, Oh, yeah, the Hands Off protest.

Yeah. They had some pretty good energy.

But yeah, here
there's not too much of that.

But, you know, no shade.

I'm, I'm glad that these people,
showed out to, to do something,

even if maybe clearly it wasn't their,
their favorite thing to do.

But I guess the other thing I'm annoyed at

is that they'll I kid you not.

This is a sign I saw.

It was like, resist fascism.

Vote blue.

that was a sign.

And just like, if it's fascism,
you're not getting out of it by voting.

Right?

Well, and also,

I noticed that

one of the speakers at the march,
I mean, they had all the local Democratic

notables, maybe not all of them,
but they had several Democratic notables

speaking, and one of the local notables
who came out was, state Representative

Alan Buansi our local Democrat
in the North Carolina state legislature.

And Finn you've got some history there

because he came to speak
to your high school.

You guys came prepared
with some questions that I don't think

he was prepared to answer about his votes

on free speech around Israel, Palestine.

Yeah.

He voted for, North Carolina to adopt the,

IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism,

which includes,
calling the, state of Israel

a racist endeavor and also comparing
contemporary Israeli policy

to that of the Nazis, anti-Semitic,
which is, of course, ridiculous.

And this bill that he voted for

basically linked criticism of Israel
to hate crimes in North Carolina.

So it's a

pretty dangerous escalation at a time
when we are already seeing police violence

deployed against pro-Palestinian
or anti genocide protesters.

And of course, it was before Trump
got elected.

But now we're really seeing
the weaponization of all that,

that so called
anti-anti-Semitism legislation

being deployed against not just anti
genocide protesters, but potentially

a much larger segment of the politically
engaged population in the United States.

Yeah.

But anyways, I asked him this question
about why he voted for this bill.

at the time Joe Biden was president,
if he had called on

the Democratic leadership to, stop
the genocide in Gaza and he didn't

honestly really have a good answer
to either, he was just like, oh, yeah.

Well, like, I,

I don't think that you can, like,
prosecute people based on that bill,

or whatever he said it was something
he was concerned about, which is like,

you know, if you don't agree with this,
then why did you vote for it?

Right. Right.

And of course, we know why he voted for it
because the conventional wisdom

at every level of politics,
the United States at the current moment

and for the last,
I don't know how many decades

is that you have to kowtow to Israel
no matter what.

You know, one other thing
I noticed at the protests

is that we had the only “No War with Iran”
sign, which that really did surprise me.

Yeah. It did.

Especially given some of the politics
around that back in like 2005,

during the high tide of the Iraq
occupation,

when there was a large contingent
of fighting liberals

who were worried
and against a war with Iran.

You did a whole tour.
You organized a whole tour.

We did. Yeah.

We took, we took an author,
Stephen Kinzer, who's written some great

a great book
about the coup in Iran in 1953.

We took him on a tour, I think, of 30
or 40, events across the country.

We had,
not just the hardcore left on our side,

but there were a lot of liberals who were
also concerned about a war with Iran.

So, I'm hopeful that the lack of signage,
worried about a war with Iran

at the present moment doesn't represent
some kind of permanent split.

I mean, I absolutely

am clear that the left feels like

it's difficult to be in coalition
with the liberals based on

what has happened over the last year
and a half in Gaza,

with Biden full-throatedly
supporting a genocide.

But I hope there's not like a counter
reaction of liberals just knee jerk

identifying with Israel, perhaps
because they don't like being criticized

by the left here domestically.

I mean, I think they would do it
anyways, right?

like, I don't think that's

a good reason why we shouldn’t
criticize them for supporting a genocide.

And clearly you know that.

But yeah,
some people near me tried to start a chant

at this protest for Palestine.

There were like some isolated groups here
or there that, like, had signs

related to Palestine.

But, you know, most of the liberals

weren't that into chanting in general,
compared to, you know, other protests.

I've been at, but especially not
this one only like us

and a few, other people here
and there picked up the chant,

and that was,
that was pretty disheartening because,

you know, it's one of the most gruesome
things that Donald Trump is complicit in.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

I would still no significant amounts
of aid reaching this starving people.

But you know, one of the reasons
why we do these big tent protests

and we show up with our signs

is because it's an educational moment as
well you know, a lot of these folks are,

you know, an elderly neighbor
or people who may not have been out

to protest recently,
who may be consuming corporate news media

and to see a sign that says,
remember, fascism didn't start with Trump,

or it's to see a sign that says,
Killing kids is not self-defense.

You know,

seeing the signs might break through
a little bit, might might cause them

to go home and Google or to,
you know, to figure something out.

Yeah. You never know.

Absolutely.

I mean, these protests are as much
for the people taking part of them

as people
watching from the outside or something.

And so I do think, at least for us,
we'll keep showing up with our

No War on Iran signs with our Stop
Bombing Kids in Gaza signs

and have as many conversations with people
there as we can.

And clearly there’s
a lot of education on Iran to be had.

it's maybe time for us
to turn our attention to what's

actually going on now
between Israel and Iran.

So Israel launched what was billed as
a potential decapitation attack on Iran.

They seem to become very fond of this
in the Netanyahu war cabinet.

Similar to what they did
against Hezbollah with the pager attack

where they tried to take out the chain
of command

of Hezbollah's militia in Lebanon.

They launched attacks with
it looks like a combination of missiles

and drones
that they had smuggled across the border,

into Iran, similar again
to what the Ukrainians recently did,

in Russia, having
smuggled drones inside of Russia and then,

launching a coordinated attack on some of
their military installations there.

The Israelis, attacked some nuclear sites.

And when we say nuclear sites,
we should be clear

that these are civilian nuclear sites
where they are enriching uranium

as they are allowed to do
under nuclear agreements,

that they're a party to specifically
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,

which does allow Iran the right
to enrich uranium

for its civilian nuclear power usage.

It's also worth pointing out that Israel,
is and has been in violation of

and has not signed the
the nonproliferation treaty.

They have nuclear bombs that are not
regulated by the international bodies.

You know, that Iran does cooperate with.

That's right.

And, so Israel attacked
these nuclear enrichment sites,

they attacked some other military sites,
and they also did these pinpointed

assassinations of generals
and nuclear scientists inside of Iran,

sometimes smashing through the walls
of their apartments, killing them.

And not only them,
but also their families.

In many cases, neighbors.

And, this was billed as a
as a huge strategic success.

But since then we've seen night
after night missiles flying

back and forth between Iran and Israel.

And it looks as though we might have moved

into a phase of this war
that is a shooting war.

and Israel did not at all
eliminate Iran's ability to retaliate.

Now, first thing we got to be clear about
is this is an illegal war of aggression.

Absolutely. Israel calls it preemptive.

But Iran was in no way about to attack
Israel.

In fact, they were negotiating.

They were participating in peace
negotiations

between Israel,
the United States and themselves.

In fact, today,
the day we’re recording, on Father's

Day, on Sunday,
there was another round scheduled.

And Trump had been making
all kinds of noise like the United States

was optimistic that there were going to be
a breakthrough in the talks.

The United States wasn't
directly involved in the attack on Iran,

but they have since been involved
in defensive operations,

helping to protect Israel from being hit
by the Iranian retaliatory missiles.

and I will say, the US
is never really not involved in anything.

Israel does because, you know,
they supply, most of their equipment,

a lot of the funding for their military
and a lot of training as well.

And, you know, if the US really wanted
Israel to not strike Iran,

Israel couldn’t have struck Iran.

You know, clearly the US
is deeply complicit in what Israel did.

Yeah.

As President Trump himself
put it in a tweet, Israel

used beautiful weapons
from the United States in their attack.

Another reason
why I hate the word beautiful now.

I mean, it's also unclear the extent
to which the Trump administration

was pretending to engage in negotiations
and pretending to be optimistic about them

in order to lull Iran

into a false sense of security
before this unilateral, unprovoked attack.

Right.

And and what makes it even more shocking
is, that

it's pretty widely known, even in the U.S.

intelligence community,
that Iran was not developing

a military nuclear weapon.

Yeah.

We can go to the testimony here two months
ago of Tulsi Gabbard, who's Trump's

director of national intelligence,
testifying that the IC,

which is short for the intelligence
community, believes that Iran has

no nuclear program, is not close
to developing a nuclear weapon,

and in fact has had no nuclear
program since at least 2003.

And so despite that,

the supposed fact
that Iran is about to develop

nuclear weapons is the justification
that the Israeli government is leaning on

to provide a veneer of legitimacy
to their unprovoked attack,

it's worth going back in time
and taking a look at the history

of these claims that Iran is about
to produce a nuclear weapon.

You can go back 40 years ago
to find Israel's first claims that Iran

was 3 to 5 years
from producing a nuclear weapon.

But, even more recently
with Netanyahu himself

in his political career, he first warned
that the Iranian government

was about to produce a nuclear weapon
back in 1992, 33 years ago.

And here in the show notes,
I'll just drop this graphic tracking

the claims about Iranian nuclear weapons
by Netanyahu over the years.

And we can just see that this has been
a recurring feature of his politics.

And, you know, it reminds me of,

like, these religious cults
who say the world is about to end.

They give you a specific date,
the specific date comes and goes.

And somehow that religious cult continues
on, reinterpreting, I guess,

whatever data
they have further into the future.

But certainly, a claim by Netanyahu
that Iran is about to have nuclear weapons

shouldn't be taken as evidence that it is.

But once again, we have

we have the double standard

that international law applies
to everybody except Israel.

And even the response of the Europeans.

You know, we've been talking a lot
about sort of the tide shift of Europe

with respect to how Israel
was treating the Palestinians in Gaza.

Well, take a look now at the releases
they've been coming out with.

Just as an example,
take a look at this, German statement

condemning Iran for its quote.

Indiscriminate attack on Israeli
territory.

Yeah. For real. Crazy.

Just completely crazy that,
their condemnation

is reserved for Iran,
who is, of course, retaliating

to an attack on their territory by Israel
while they were negotiating.

And it shows just how weak this “Israel
has the right to defend itself”

line has always been.

And, you know, it's just blatant

mental Shield
that breaks down at the slightest touch.

And just the way in which they think
we're all such sheep.

I mean, it's
just worth reminding ourselves

and repeating the lessons
all of us alive as George W Bush claimed

that they had to invade and occupy Iraq
because of weapons of mass destruction.

“WMD”, “WMD”, hammered into our brains
by the mainstream media,

clearly lies at the time,
clearly shown to be lies

by the fact that they found no weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq.

Right.

The claims of these governments
cannot be taken seriously.

They must provide evidence.

And of course, they don't even feel
the need to come up with anything.

Yeah, not to mention the many, many, US

Congress members
who have said basically the same thing.

Most Republicans, there's a few holdouts
like Tom Massie, a pretty impressive,

Republican refusing
to go along with the war in Iran train.

And the Democratic camp,
I would say, is split in half.

and in the mainstream U.S.

press, I was just watching some of
these channels like CNN and also MSNBC,

and they're using words like “stunning”,
“incredible”, “extraordinary”

to refer to the Israeli attack on Iran.

You know, one quote that it kept coming up
over and over was this

one: “the total intelligence
domination and penetration”.

I mean, they just love this
kind of language.

Wow. The military language of adversaries
and so on.

Like it's a chess game. Hmm.

While totally ignoring the environmental
impact of of these kind of strikes.

Yeah. You see the big fire.

Huge fires
striking the oil refineries or whatever.

I mean.

Absolutely.

What a catastrophe.

And to call it stunning. Yeah.

Absolutely incredible.

Just nothing about the human consequences
on the Iranian side.

We do hear about the human consequences
now that there's missiles

falling in places
like Tel Aviv and Haifa inside Israel.

We do. Yeah, of course.

But again, the double standard about who
which casualties get mentioned.

I will say

there is some acknowledgment
of the recent history,

especially by Democrats
of the nuclear agreement that was

negotiated under President Obama,

that Trump tore up at the very beginning
of his first term back in 2016.

You know, the Iranians rightfully say,
hey, we had an agreement.

not to enrich uranium
past a certain point, past a point

where it could be developed
into a nuclear weapon,

because nuclear weapons require
a higher level of uranium enrichment

than civilian use for power plants.

And Trump tore it up.

The Europeans could have stepped in
and said, okay, well,

we're going to protect Iran,
despite the United States

pulling out of the agreement
will protect them from sanctions.

We’ll hold up the agreement from our end,
and they completely failed to do that.

I would be so surprised if Iran doesn't
make the political decision

now that they do need a nuclear weapon.

And that's a tragedy because.

Right, it really is.

Because weapons, nuclear weapons
are a scourge on the face of the Earth.

And the more
they get spread around the world,

you know, the less possible
we'll ever be able

to put that genie back into the bottle.

I will note too
on the on the, on the Democratic side,

The Democrats try to play this game
where they accept the basic assumptions,

like the basic narrative, the right wing
narrative of what's happening

on the global stage.

But they inexplicably deny the solutions.

President Obama did this all the time
where he would tell people,

oh, Islam is not the reason for terror.

Like, don't condemn Islam.

It's Islamophobic to say
that Islam is the cause of terrorism.

But he could never say the real reasons
that terrorism was happening

because of the political underpinnings,
the the objections, because of the US.

Empire, right. The empire, neocolonialism.

And so the the Democrats are just left
without a real explanation,

and they leave a lot of people
who don't follow this regularly,

who can't substitute in a critique of US
empire that the Democrats

are leaving out to say, well, okay,
why is terrorism happening, then?

The Republicans tell me it's Islam.

The Democrats
just say it's not just Islam.

That's racist.

but they don't give me any real
explanation for why it's happening then.

Because of course
they can't critique the US empire.

Well we had another example of that here
with Hakeem Jeffries who's widely

seen as the leader of the Democrats in DC,

as the House
minority leader of the Democrats.

And he says, quote,
we certainly believe that

Iran should never be allowed
to become nuclear capable.

They are an enemy, not just to Israel,
but to the United States

and to the free world.

But we also want to see
a reduction in hostilities.

Why, man, if they're

if they're an enemy to the free world,
dude,

like, attack them,
drive them off the face of the Earth.

They're an enemy to the free world,
you know, like it just it doesn't compute.

Right.

And this is why, you know, the MAGA folks
will will call this stuff out.

Yeah.

I think to a lot of people,
they see that and it just looks,

I don't know, it looks weak.

Or maybe Hakeem
Jeffries is an enemy to the free world.

He recognizes it,
but he wants a reduction in hostilities.

I mean, it's of course, total B.S.

Again,
the Iranian regime has no nuclear program,

by the assessment of the US government
itself, hasn't since 2003

and was in negotiations to restart
an agreement that the United States

unilaterally pulled out of.

I mean, it's completely upside down.

Well, Finn has to sign off here to go
hang out with some friends.

All right. We'll let you off the hook
Finn!

See ya buddy.

And not to say, of course, that

this means that we're supporting
the Iranian government itself.

The Iranian government uses
these flare ups between them and Israel

internally to Iran to sort of solidify
their own legitimacy.

By all reports, it's working.

There's a real rally around the flag
effect happening inside of Iran.

So any internal resistance to the Islamic

government of Iran
has been weakened by this.

Yeah.

So do you want to go into a little deeper
history here, between Israel and Iran,

just the region in general, like why,
why are we here?

Sure. I mean, yeah,
it's it's a it's a complicated history.

But yeah, it is worth knowing like,
why do we have an Islamic government

in Iran?

Well, a lot of that goes back to 1953,
when the United States and the United

Kingdom overthrew a democratically elected
leader, Mosaddegh,

who was a democratic,
secular leader of Iran.

And the reason they did it was because
he wanted to nationalize Iranian oil.

Right.

He was a bit of a democratic socialist,
let's call him.

Yeah.

I would say even a very light
democratic socialist,

more of a nationalist,
a secular nationalist.

Yeah.

And it happened in 1953 at a time
when the Cold War

was really starting
to ramp up, and policymakers no longer

tolerated any kind of nationalism
in the Third World.

And so they overthrew Mohammed Mosaddegh,

and they replaced him
with the Shah of Iran, who was a dictator

who had good relationships
with Israel, recognized Israel.

Well, that state of affairs
lasted for 25 years or so

until the Iranians had enough
of this dictator and they overthrew him,

and he was replaced by the Islamic faction
of that revolution.

And they've been in power ever since.

And part of their power,
part of the legitimacy of that government

is its opposition to Israel,
which it calls the Zionist entity.

And the U.S. empire. Exactly.

Since that revolution, there's been all
kinds of tensions between Iran, which is,

an Islamic government with a certain
flavor of Islam called Shia,

and the Arab countries
that lie between Israel and Iran,

such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf states.

some of which have been secular at times,
Iraq under Saddam

Hussein was governed by a secular ideology

or Islamic themselves,
but under the Sunni flavor of Islam,

such as in Saudi Arabia, you know, Iraq
and Iran fought a brutal war in the 80s.

Where Iraq was supported by Saudi Arabia
and many of the other Arab states.

But Iran's power in the region
actually grew quite a bit

as a result of the United States
invading and occupying Iraq,

because Iraq is a country
that's split between Sunnis and Shia

and many of the Shia,
not all by any means,

inside of Iraq,
had some alliance with Iran.

And so you saw over the course of the US
occupation, which was a complete debacle,

destroyed all kinds of infrastructure
inside of Iraq,

including the government infrastructure,
led to rebellions

among the Sunni Sunni population
that led to ISIS.

This radical Islamic political group

that took over large swaths of Iraq
and Syria, destabilized Syria,

During
all this time, Iran sort of steadily

built up its infrastructure
across its border into the eastern side

of Iraq,
installing things like power lines,

communications networks
and so on, and really increased

the amount of influence
that Iran had in the region as a whole.

That was seen as an unforgivable offense
by Saudi Arabia, the United States

and Israel,
who conspired for a long time to try

to oppose Iran's influence.

Iran had friends
like the Syrian government under

Assad, the Houthis in Yemen,
Hezbollah in Lebanon,

and yes, indeed, Hamas inside of Gaza.

So a lot of the what's been happening
has been proxy wars

by Israel and others
against Iranian allies in the region.

Interestingly, back in 2023,
China brokered

the reestablishment of relationships
between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Under the new crown
prince of Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed bin Salman.

Which to me raises the question of like,
what's going to happen with Saudi Arabia

in this Israel Iran war, although it seems
that they have been assisting

Israel in defensive maneuvers
against Iranian missiles coming through.

So my guess is mostly because

of their strong ties to the US
that Saudi Arabia.

Is weighing in more on the side of Israel
than on the side of Iran.

But it could have all gone
a different way.

There were definitely voices.

I mean, back when we were organizing the
No War in Iran tour,

there seemed the real possibility
that the United States could reorient

and find within Iran reformers
that were democratic reformers

and the seeds of a secular society
there, and a lot of interests

in common, especially at the time.

The interest of Solidifying
the governability of Iraq.

So the United States
didn't have to occupy them forever,

but that wasn't the road that was taken.

Instead,
we find ourselves in a shooting war

between Iran and Israel
with no real idea of

how far this is going to go, of what
the long term consequences would be.

It's a reckless gamble,
and I think the biggest bet

on the Netanyahu government
is that they're going to be able

to draw the United States in.

Well, and also, perhaps another reason
why Israel just went ahead with this

is also to draw attention away from Gaza
and the flak that they're getting

for all of their war crimes there
and the genocide that's happening.

I know that at around the same time,
perhaps a day or

so before they destroyed
the telecommunications line in Gaza.

And there was a complete internet
blackout there, pretty much.

Unless you had an eSIM

Even having an eSIM did not

mean that you had enough, reception
to upload a video to social media.

People weren't able to call family members
in different areas,

to check and see if they're okay.

And from what it seems, there was,
an even further intensification

of bombardment in Gaza

as this internet blackout happened.

and sadly, it seems that again,
around the same time frame as the stuff in

Iran is happening, Israel has imposed
a total siege on the West Bank.

The West Bank, of course, being the other
major population center for Palestinians

and territory occupied by Israel

illegally
in contravention of UN resolutions on it.

you know, Gideon Levy, who's an Israeli
journalist writing in Haaretz, points out

that this is likely to overshadow
what's happening to the Palestinians.

which is very sad indeed.

Well, Meg, we've lost our 16 year old.

And, maybe it's time for us to start
bring it to a close.

But we did promise to try to have some
good news towards the end of our podcast.

Okay.
Do we want to talk about Zohran again.

Yeah, let's talk about Zohran.

Yeah.

Zohran, and here in episode ten,
which I think is in itself

good news,
that the fact that we got two episode 10.

Yeah, sure.

So keep on listening
if you haven't hit like and subscribe

wherever you're listening,
give us a rating,

give us a review
and come to TheLeftUnsaid.net and

sign up for our mailing list
if you haven't done that already.

But yeah, let's talk about Zohran.

So Zohran Mamdani is running
for mayor of New York City,

and looks like he may even have pulled
ahead, at least in one poll that I saw,

of Andrew Cuomo, the former governor
of New York, who resigned in disgrace

after being accused of sexual harassment
by many women.

Real, real upstanding sleazebag, you know.

So, Zohran’s just so amazing.

I mean, I heard somebody saying, is this
it seems as though

the left may have found its Obama
figure, and.

Yeah. I feel like it could be true.

I mean, he's
got a real gift for this politics stuff.

He really does. He his eyes light up.

Yeah, he's a he's
a light in the darkness for sure.

And and his appeal is that he relentlessly

focuses on the needs of working people.

Yeah.

He's got a real
nice message in a city we can afford.

And a very

clear
message, we learn the lesson from losing

a lot of working class voters
to the Trump movement, the simplicity of,

how their message comes across, you know,
just hammering the same things over.

Of course, for them
it's the scapegoating of fascism.

Oh, it's the immigrants
who are taking your jobs and whatnot,

you know, hammering it over and over
again, you know, the same message.

And Zohran is really good
at sticking to his economic populism.

And he talks about wanting people
to live in dignity.

And I love that. Yeah.

And he ties it into like a broader
narrative.

It's not just like a policy here,
a policy there, but you see that like the

the arc of his vision.

And I think that really appeals to people.

You know, he's talking about city run
grocery stores to bring down the price

of groceries,
talking about free bus fares and rent

freezes in the city, actually
investing in building housing for people.

but he also says, which I think is
what is giving him a huge amount of clout

with so many people is he

he can very honestly say, look,
I do not take money.

I don't take big money from anybody.

I'm not beholden
to the Israeli government.

I'm not beholden to wealthy landlords.

I'm not beholden to DoorDash.

all these folks are throwing money
at Andrew Cuomo, for example.

But he can honestly say, look, the only
people I speak for are New Yorkers.

I mean, you know,
you mentioned the Israeli government,

which might send outta place there.

But what's been surprising is -
maybe not surprising, but instructive

yet again
- is as he's risen up in the polls,

it looks more and more likely that he's

going to beat the guy
everybody thought was going to win.

Andrew Cuomo.

You see the elite of New York City
coming out.

and just incessantly asking him
about his support for the state of Israel,

a foreign government,

despite the fact that he's
going to be the mayor of New York,

he's not going to have any kind of
foreign policy responsibilities.

But they're constantly asking him,
does he support Israel?

Will he travel to visit Israel?

Quite amazing in itself is.

Jaw dropping. Especially, you know,

New York is 10%, Jewish people,
not all of whom are Zionists.

Isn’t it also 9% Muslim?

Yeah, 9% Muslim. Yeah.

They never ask him anything
about how he he's going to support

the Muslim population in New York.

Of course, he's got a great answer
to all this Israel baiting.

Yeah. And what's his answer? Well,
they always ask him, right.

Does Israel have a right to exist?

I never heard him get asked,
does Palestine have a right to exist?

Does Iran have a right to exist?

But it gets asked
if Israel's right to exist.

And he just says straightforwardly,
it has a right to exist as a state

with equal rights. Right.

And so to
then answer that very straightforward

response, people would have to say, well,

what about as a state
not with equal rights?

Because of course, Israel is currently

constituted is not a state with equal
rights.

It's a state that privileges.

Its Jewish citizens over anybody else.

that's an instructive response
and this kind of thing

that's happening in the domestic debate.

We should we should all learn from that.
From the left.

You can criticize it right?

people will say,
well, does Israel have a right to exist?

And some people will say, well, no,
it doesn't.

But, in that same way, like the U.S.

also doesn't really the idea
that states don't have rights to exist.

That's not a right
enshrined in international law.

And I've always found that to be
a confusing response, honestly. Yeah.

Right now it sorta is it is what it is.

And right
like the United States does exist.

It does exist. Israel does exist.

And it has also wiped out
so much of the native

population, the genocide,
it's a settler colonial state.

And I think when people ask, “Does
Israel have a right to exist?”

what they're implying

and what they're worried about
is a sort of a reverse genocide

that Israelis themselves will be,
cleansed from the land where they live.

Which is not something
that anybody could support.

I mean, just like we couldn't
support the cleansing of all

immigrants to the United States
who aren't Native

Americans
It's a reality that exists on the ground.

And so, so making those places, places

where everybody can live with dignity
and justice and equal rights.

Equal rights.

Right. That's that's the answer.

And his answer is a good one.

Yeah. I think it's a good one.

You know, on, this Father's Day,
I was actually revisiting, a book

that made a big impact on me
and was written by Zohran's dad.

Yeah. Mahmood Mamdani.

Mahmood Mamdani, who's,
you know, really interesting guy.

He's, political scientist

who's of Indian heritage,
but he grew up in East Africa and Uganda,

and he wrote this great book called
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.

It came out in 2004.

So the year after Iraq,
I think he wrote a lot of the book

in response to W’s war on Terror,

quote unquote,
and the invasion of Afghanistan.

And he was really answering this
very popular

interpretation of 9/11

and the political violence perpetrated

by Muslims in particular.

there was a popular idea
out there of this clash of civilizations.

A whole lot of nonsense, in my opinion,
which he calls culture talk.

instead of that, what Mamdani writes about
is the historical specificity.

Where does the political violence
of groups like Al-Qaeda come from?

And we can also ask,

where does the political violence
of a group like Hamas come from?

And they do come from specific places,

and some of that history is internal
to those movements themselves.

That's complicated.

But not everybody participating in Islamic
political movements agrees with.

In fact, most people do not.

But there were sort of various forms,

such as the radical Wahhabism
that came out of the Muslim Brotherhood

or certain parts

of the Muslim Brotherhood,
that embraced a kind of political violence

in response to the conditions
they found, which in the case of Israel

is a settler colonist,
settlers versus natives.

But you find similar kinds of things
in other places.

you know, colonies around the world.

And he

looks both at that internal structure,
but also at late stage Cold War

under Reagan,
where the United States and Israel

had a strategy of proxy wars
because the United States wasn't able

to commit ground troops after Vietnam for
a long time, because the people remember

there was a strong reflex

against committing the United States
military itself to conflicts.

And so instead
they would use proxy forces.

And they did this in Nicaragua
against the Sandinista, where they funded

the Contras, who pursued a genocidal war
within Nicaragua

against peasants
and other supporters of the Sandinistas.

But they also did this against
the Russians in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

And what they were doing is
they were often building up religious

based and in Afghanistan,
in particular, Islamic based

political groups against leftist
secular governments like Russia.

Right, who was invading
and occupying Afghanistan.

So the al-Qaeda actually comes directly
from this late Cold War politics,

Al-Qaeda was built up

by the United States
with the help of Israel and other allies.

And inside Palestine,
Israel was building up Hamas

as a way of undermining the secular
nationalist

Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO,
headed by Yasser Arafat.

So anyway, so there's a there's a history
to political violence. And.

Zohran Mamdani's dad was all over it.

It's a great book.
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.

That's a good, good recommendation.

Yeah, absolutely.
I'm also reading a great book right now.

I'm not quite finished with it,
so I'm not ready to talk about it, but,

if you have a chance,
pick up Genocide Bad by Sim Kern.

It is a fabulous book.

Sim writes about Jewish history,
and they contextualize all of the, hasbara

and kind of give you, the reader,
a way of responding to it.

And ... hasbara meaning?

Propaganda that comes out of Israel.

So I highly recommend
that book. All. Right.

And maybe,

maybe a preview of what's
going to be coming on

a future episode of The Left Unsaid.

Hopefully so. Well, this has been episode
ten of The Left Unsaid.

We made it into double digits.
Happy Father's Day!

Thank you very much.
Thank you very, very much.

Nothing you'd rather do than talk about

Middle Eastern history on Father's Day.

That's right, that's right.

Well, please come to TheLeftUnsaid.net.

Check out what we have to offer there.

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