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- [00:00]
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This is an iHeart podcast.
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- [02:31]
Frank Affne
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- [03:01]
Frank Affne
Welcome to Securing America with me, Frank Affne the program that's a kind of owner's manual for protecting the country we love against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to the glory of God and his kingdom. We're going to be talking about, well, a very interesting spot on the other side of the world. Part of the kingdom at the moment, but there are efforts afoot to turn it over to the dark side. We're going to talk with two of our outstanding experts on the subject in a moment, but before we do, a brief comment from me. It's appalling that Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of a nation with the history of the once Great Britain, is currently not simply groveling before China's communist emperor Xi Jinping. He's actively appeasing freedom's mortal enemy. Last week the UK approved a vast new Chinese embassy in the heart of London. Now Sturmer wants Parliament to bless a disastrous deal likely to result in the Chinese taking over a strategic US Military installation called Diego Garcia. Dozens of influential British and American patriots are issuing today a powerful public statement opposing this unforced error of epic proportions. Coming in the wake of Canada's odious separate peace with the Chinese Communist Party last week, London's pursuit of a new special relationship with Beijing can only further embolden Xi Jinping and invite his aggression at the expense of Taiwan and what else is left of the free world. Those are my thoughts. For more of them follow me at xrankafnie and also@usfuture.org, the website of the Institute for the American Future, which I'm the president, which makes this program possible. Please consider donating at that button at US Future. We're going to speak now to two remarkable thought leaders and duty experts on matters involving the Chinese Communist Party, the Pacific, and particularly the islands that are part of, well, what's known as the Indo Pacific region. We're going to be talking with Cleo Pascal, a senior non resident fellow of the foundation for Defense of Democracies and truly a binational treasure on these matters. She hails from Canada, but she's very much mindful of the importance of protecting America's western frontier. Especially she's joined By Colonel Grant Newsham, United States Marine Corps retired man who also served in the foreign service and has been a businessman in the Pacific region for years. Member of our committee on the present danger, China. I believe both of them are, we are proud to have them as such and believe that what they are able to share with us on the importance of Diego Garcia is what should be operating at the moment both in London and here in the Washington, D.C. capital. Lady and gentlemen, it's great to have you back. Welcome once again.
- [06:06]
Colonel Grant Newsham
I'm glad to be here.
- [06:07]
Frank Affne
Frank, before we get into the drama that's taking place at the moment, both in London and in China for the moment as well as here, let's level set a little bit on the importance of this speck of land in the wide ocean region known as the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia. Why is it of such strategic value? Let's start with you, Cleo.
- [06:42]
Cleo Pascal (continued)
Well, its location is pretty exemplary. It's an island that is surrounded by a lot of water or else other uninhabited islands, which means that it's very difficult to get to. But from there you can also see very far range. You can, you can take a look at what's going on in the Middle East. You can take a look at Afghanistan. You can see what's coming into the Pacific Ocean, into the Indian Ocean and its geographical features means that it has a port deep enough for an aircraft carrier. It can land strategic bombers, it can refuel nuclear submarines. So it really is the ideal base. You're, you're on your own. It's very difficult to approach, but you can reach out and touch a lot.
- [07:26]
Frank Affne
Of really bad opportunity to project power from it. Colonel, you, I suspect have been there in connection with your past line of work in the United States Marine Corps, but certainly you know a lot about the grand strategy here. If that island were in the hands of the Chinese communists as a result of this deal that the Brits are trying to get approved in parliament as we speak, what would be the implications of that, sir? Not only that it's no longer ours to project power with, but perhaps theirs.
- [08:04]
Colonel Grant Newsham
If this goes through, the Chinese would be able to eventually militarily and eventually politically dominate the Indian Ocean region. And they put the Indians in a very difficult position. But as a power projection platform, it's perfect for the Chinese to get. And I would also note from our perspective, this would be like losing Hawaii in terms of its military usefulness. So think of U. S Forces trying to defend, say Taiwan or Japan and into the Pacific and not having Hawaiian bases. It's almost impossible to do. You'd have to go 8, 000 miles almost to do just about anything. This is the only US base in the Indian Ocean region which does, as was noted, allow us to reach up into, into Iran, if necessary, up into India and beyond to help them to the east side of the Indian Ocean, to Africa. Without it, we have nothing. And it also serves as a linchpin between US forces moving east to west around the globe. And it's. There's no alternative to it. You cannot overstate the importance of it. To give that up voluntarily or to allow that to happen is, Is insanity. And if the Chinese get as they eventually will find some part of the globe where they have not put their eyes on it and established a presence and an influence, if they get that, we have put ourselves and our friends in immense danger and we have basically given up our hopes of having any influence in that region as well.
- [09:36]
Frank Affne
So, Cleo, if all of that's true, how is it that the Brits could possibly be surrendering this? And to whom are they surrendering it? And why would that translate, do you think, into the Chinese ultimately being able to exercise the kind of dominion that Colonel Newsom just talked about?
- [10:00]
Cleo Pascal (continued)
So it seems like there's a very narrow group of Brits who are pushing for this. Keir Starmer and the coterie around him and perhaps some civil servants, but even among his own Labour Party, you're starting to get at least one backbencher spoke up against it in the House, which is very uncommon. So it's not widely popular. And the more people learn about it, the more appalled they are. Even in the uk, it was originally presented as a kind of human rights thing because the British forcibly and cruelly deported the Chagossians who were living on those islands in the end of the 60s and early 1970s in order to make way for the. The base doing things like gassing their pets and cutting off medical support. I mean, it was really the way they did it was very, very different than the way the US handled similarly strategically important islands in the Pacific with domestic populations. And the idea was through international law, that the UK needed to decolonize the islands. But the agreement as presented does nothing for the Chagossian people. And in fact the Chagossians in the uk, because many relocated to the UK and became British Chagossians, joined the UK military. In some cases they've come out with a government in exile, and the leader of the government in exile is eloquently and passionately saying that they want the island to stay British, they want the base to stay there, they want to resettle some of the other islands and they want the right to perhaps work on the base if they're looking for employees. But the idea of being handed over to Mauritius is in fact a recolonization.
- [11:53]
Frank Affne
Colonel, there's one other aspect of this just in 30 seconds, if you could touch on it, that the idea that the base must be nuclear free under.
- [12:01]
Colonel Grant Newsham
This deal as well, well, that's part of it too. The government of Mauritius has signed something called the Palindaba Treaty, which says that nuclear weapons will not be stored on Diego Garcia and US Forces going through there sometimes have nuclear weapons. You may have a need to store them there as well.
- [12:21]
Frank Affne
The British made and we neither confirm nor deny that we're doing that. But it can be a problem if they say, well, we're not going to allow you to do it, even if you don't acknowledge it. We have to take a very short break. We'll be right back with more with Grant Newsom and Cleopascal on Diego Garcia and why it must remain not Chinese. Be right back.
- [12:53]
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- [15:00]
Frank Affne
Foreign? So I'm very pleased to say Cleo Pascal, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Grant Newsham, the Center for Security Policy. Grant is the author of a best selling book, Warning the Sorry When China Attacks A Warning to America. Grant, you were finishing a thought and I hated to interrupt you because of the vicissitudes of the clock. Finish what you were saying about the importance of our being able to maintain nuclear weapons storage capabilities on Diego Garcia if we need to.
- [15:45]
Colonel Grant Newsham
Sure. Well, nuclear weapons are a tool that sometimes you have to have. But the problem is that because of the PALA treaty that Mauritius has signed that prohibits having nuclear weapons. Really on Diego Garcia. So what is going to happen immediately is the government of Mauritius is going to raise objections. They're going to be egged on by the Chinese to make it very difficult for the Americans to operate on this ground of nuclear weapons. So as soon as you sign the treaty, you're setting yourself up for this legal nightmare that's coming your way and that makes things very hard. Yeah.
- [16:22]
Frank Affne
Now the Brits are assuring us that there won't be any problems along these lines, though I gather they now have acknowledged that there will be this issue. I, I know you were mindful as a student of history of some previous promises that British governments have made to other foreign peoples. Just a quick word on that Grant before we turn to what the Brits are doing at the moment.
- [16:46]
Colonel Grant Newsham
Sure. Little more than a student of history, but look at Hong Kong. The British promised the people of Hong Kong that they'd have 50 years of freedom and to have their own system. The Chinese strangled that they broke the promise immediately. Yet the British had a handsome turnover ceremony with Prince Charles there and said everything's going to be great. Look at Hong Kong now. It's basically a prison. And go back further. Zimbabwe, the British government said the same thing Trust us. Don't worry about what's coming. Don't worry about Mugabe. We've got everything sorted out. Within two years, Mugabe Dhabi had murdered 20,000 Matabili tribesmen and eventually he looted the country and murdered any number of people and destroyed the place. The British government, after having said trust us, why exactly would we trust them now over Mauritius? Their promise, I'm afraid, doesn't mean a whole lot.
- [17:35]
Frank Affne
Yeah, and you know, we had a fascinating conversation yesterday. I think it was with Rod Martin who said if ever you, you needed a reason to abjure the idea of putting American confidence in the Danes on Greenland's future status. Look at what's happening here with the Brits and Diego Garcia. Mauritius, partly because we have a preceding treaty, an agreement between the United states and the U.K. that said, you know, they would maintain their sovereignty there at least until, I believe it was 2036. So all of this is ebolics and cleo, if you could just give us a sense of the state of play inside Britain. You mentioned that the parliament is being asked to approve this agreement with Mauritius. What are the prospects? Can we tell? And how important do you think this open public statement by scores of prominent Brits and Americans might be in their deliberations?
- [18:48]
Cleo Pascal (continued)
I think it might be quite important because I think the, the premise of the British government now ratification of the treaty is that this is a passing storm. Trump changes his mind. When he was talking about Diego Garcia, he was really talking about Greenland. They're really trying to downplay it. So when you, when you see the signatories on this letter, I mean you've got retired admirals and generals and senior former National Security Council members, military planners. I mean these are people who very rarely come out in public and make this kind of a statement. And all across the political spectrum, I think that the message will be sent loud and clear that this is not going away and this has the potential to seriously if relationship and it goes to what you're saying about raising concerns about Denmark. I mean, if you take a look at the national security strategy and how it raises questions about the future of Europe politically is not contained to Europe geographically. There are parts of Europe in the Indian Ocean, as you can see with the UK India Garcia France is in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean Ocean with Reunion and French Polynesia. They're even in Canada with St. Pierre and Miquelo, which is almost completely surrounded by Canada. And so if you're thinking about how going forward a changing Europe might affect those little pieces of strategic Geography which currently we think of as outposts of freedom projection becoming outposts of vulnerabilities. It really bears serious consideration.
- [20:41]
Frank Affne
Yeah. And Claire, just to nail this down, the relationship between Mauritius and communist China is what exactly? And why is there this real concern that ultimately China would be the beneficiary of what the Brits are doing to us to essentially endanger our hold on Diego Garcia?
- [21:08]
Cleo Pascal (continued)
China's moving into Mauritius in the same way it moves into similar small economically vulnerable countries with a rapacious elite. There's all sorts of concerns about money laundering, drugs, brothels with video cameras in them, the sort of targeted influence coercion campaigns that, that you would expect to see anywhere. And I think China has, has made it pretty clear that they want toeholds across the Indian Ocean. They tried in Sri Lanka, they've tried it in the Maldives, they tried it in the Seychelles. And Mauritius is, is part of that laundry list and it's, it's pretty far advanced. The Indians, I think, thought they had a lot of control there, but I'm not so sure they have as much as they think they do. And anyway, we're talking about a 99 year lease.
- [22:04]
Frank Affne
99 year lease, which has in the fine print that if the Brits somehow managed to miss a payment even by one month, the whole thing is, you know, a dead letter. And the, the arrangement with the United States would be as well. Cleo and, and Colonel Newsham, I, I just want to say your attention to this problem on the other side of the world is so exemplary of the kind of work that you both do and the kind of service that you are so rendering to Americans who just assume that somebody in positions of responsibility is minding the store on these sorts of matters. And I just want to give you a sort of concluding opportunity, each of you to make the kind of appeal that we should be doing and, and I think are in this letter. I believe all three of us have signed this, this open public statement, if you will, to the President of the United States. On the one hand he's, he said this is a great stupidity. After initially I guess thinking it wasn't so bad, but on reflection came to the right conclusion. But also to the British government, especially, you know, the House of Lords, the House of Commons that will be voting on this thing at any moment. Colonel, should we start with you?
- [23:27]
Colonel Grant Newsham
Sure. Well, this is, would be an act of really defense suicide. If we go let this happen, this is how serious this is. Think about losing Hawaii and then trying to defend the Pacific. You can't do it. Think about losing Diego Garcia and trying to operate down defend our interest down in the Indian Ocean and our friends interest. You can't do it. Why would you voluntarily give up just an excellent piece of real estate that has served very, very well and it served very well when the President went after Iran last June was part of the was part of the the plan. So this is something that needs attention, needs to be stopped and we have to somehow get over this idea that all all the British are our friends. There are British who do not like us and prefer the Chinese the Chinese system and so defend america.
- [24:19]
Frank Affne
Cleo, last 30 seconds.
- [24:21]
Cleo Pascal (continued)
Yes, I think that this has been really damaging for US UK relations. I've personally had a senior British official give me inaccurate information on this and the members of the Trump administration who were manipulated or lied to will not forget it. This was a very, very bad decision on the part of the Starmer administration.
- [24:43]
Frank Affne
Perhaps endangering the very underpinnings of the special relationship. Thank you to you both. Come back with updates on all of this. I hope the rest of you will stay tuned. We'll be right back.
- [25:02]
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- [26:04]
Frank Affne
Forget.
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- [27:13]
Frank Affne
Welcome back. And I want to say welcome for the first time to our program of a man that I've only just met. His name is Robert Midgley. He has been communications advisor to four, count them, four prime ministers of the United Kingdom. He knows his way around the highest echelons of His Majesty's Government. As a result, he is these days, however, here in the United States doing a very important charitable work as the spokesman for Friends of British Overseas Territories, one of which is the one we've been talking about with Grant Newsham and Cleo Pascal, namely Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands. We've talked about how it is that those islands are now being relinquished by the Starmer government of Great Britain if it has its way to Mauritius, yes, immediately, but almost certainly in due course to the Chinese Communist Party, our mortal enemies. And I just want to say, Robert, thank you for taking up this cause. Thank you for the delegation that you are squatting around here in Washington at the moment. We're very anxious to, first of all, get a sense from you as to where this whole issue stands inside the British government. We'll talk a bit about the implications for us as well as for Britain, if it goes forward and what are the solutions. But let's level set a little bit on your sense of the state of play, I guess, in the Parliament at the moment.
- [28:57]
Cleo Pascal
Absolutely. And thanks for having me on, Frank. This week is a really critical week with this bill and with the deal. And my main purpose in DC Is to build awareness of what is going on in the UK right now, because there is a real opportunity to take this bill out of play right now and potentially save us from a very embarrassing situation now or in the next 99 years. You know, everything is at play now. This is why we're in D.C. but what's going on in the UK is this bill, which was raised almost a year ago now looks to hand away Geo Garcia and the Chagos Islands and cede sovereignty to Mauritius. And, you know, Geo Garcia has one of the most critical bases in the world. It's a UK US military base. It has B1 bombers there. It has ability to, you know, cover East Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, that whole area. But as well as being able to reach the South China Sea, which is going to be critical in the next 99 years. So this lease, I mean, it's absolutely bonkers from our behalf that this. What we're planning to do is we've held sovereignty over these islands for over 200 years since. Since we defeated Napoleon, the Battle of Waterloo. We've held this territory since 1814 in perpetuity. And now we're looking. The UK is looking. I'm not going to say it's myself, because it's not. Well, the UK is looking to give away all these islands for free and then rent back dio Garcia for 99 years using £46 billion. And I think that is absolutely outrageous. So, I mean, you've probably seen the clips with Trump saying, oh, the UK must need the money. No, we're not selling them, we're giving them away for free and renting the base back territory.
- [30:58]
Frank Affne
And as I understand it, if there's a failure to make the payments, even for a month, the whole thing goes over the side, is that right?
- [31:06]
Cleo Pascal
Yes. So basically, if the UK doesn't make that payment after a month, Mauritius can say, we'll get off our sovereign territory then, which means losing that whole territory, that entire most essential military base in the world. We would just lose it instantly and be asked to depart. I mean, at that point, I think the US would just have to, you know, invade it or something. But what I want to speak about before we move on to another topic is what the state of play is in the uk. The Bill started about a year ago and I think it's quite similar with the us. It goes via both Houses, so it goes through the first introduced, it goes through the first, second, third reading in the House of of Commons, and then it goes to the House of Lords. Now, this is very interesting because we have a socialist Labour government that has a majority, so they've been able to push this through using all their MPs, every single time, 350 votes, which is more than the opposition through a first reading, second, third reading, and now it's rented the Lords, which has a Conservative majority. Now, this is important because they haven't been woken up so far until about a few Weeks ago. So this actually got through a first, second and third readings by complete fluke of the Conservatives not realizing they have the power to do something. And it's thanks to our lobbying behalfs that we've been able to wake them up in the last moment to get amendments through, to get it bounced back to the Common, so called. We passed through the third reading and then we've added some amendments. The amendments succeeded. We had four amendments go through, which meant it was going to go back to the House of Commons to be voted upon. Now, obviously we lost all those four votes in the Commons, but now, which is more interesting, that the President has woken up and said, this deal is terrible. So because he's woken up stupid, I.
- [33:10]
Frank Affne
Think was the word he used, actually.
- [33:12]
Cleo Pascal
Yes, Pure stupidity. So because of this, the US has taken sort of a step back and said, oh, maybe we're not on board with this after all. And the UK is freaking out and said, we're going to sort of temporarily suspend the bill while we understand the Americans and understand, if this is official, their official stance, that we then suspended until we understand that we have got the US back on board. So this is currently suspended, but the Labour Party can bring this back at any moment to push it back through the Lord, and they're determined to give this territory away. Frank.
- [33:46]
Frank Affne
Yeah. And so if, just to follow the logic here, if they blow it through the House of Commons, as you say, they've got an overwhelming majority there, they can force it through the House of Lords if they choose to.
- [34:00]
Cleo Pascal
They could do, they could use role Prerogative of the Parliament act to just ignore the Lord and push it straight through. And that's, that's a real danger that we're playing with right now. I'm not sure they will because it's, it's something that is very rarely used and I don't think Labour considered this big enough to push it through, but I mean, we, we consider it big enough. They don't, they don't treasure it as much as we do. So that's a very last resort. So right now this is kind of in the US hands, which is why we're here, because the US now control the power. There's a, there's a deal that was signed in 1966 that says that the US holds the keys on any changes to the treaty. And also there's another part to it that says it requires two years to make any changes to that treaty. Now, obviously, the socialist Labour government is trying to force this through within a few weeks. And that is not two years. Go on, Robert.
- [35:00]
Frank Affne
The arrangement as I understand it is supposed to apply until 2036 as well.
- [35:05]
Cleo Pascal
That's the current lease. That's not the, the treaty or the arrangement. That's the current lease. And they are also just renewed a lease a few years ago, I think it was 2020, they renewed a lease as well. But this is, you know, the US sees this as so critical. That lease will go over that 2036. It will be renewed without any, any second of a doubt.
- [35:27]
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- [35:27]
Frank Affne
But it may be upset fatally by this effort moment. So give us in, you know, two or three minutes we've got left as clear a call to action as you can on this side of the pond in particular, sir.
- [35:45]
Cleo Pascal
Look, what we need right now is the US to put in formal writing that this needs to be withdrawn. We need the State Department, we need people in the White House to put it into writing that they withdraw their support and this bill needs to be taken off the table completely. This is too much of a security threat. I found out yesterday that, well, Mauritius has now said that nuclear weapons are now not able to be stored on Dio Garcia. This is huge because this is part of the Pendulum PendulumDiba Treaty. And who is a co signatory of that? It's China. China has said they've done an action plan to say that they want to inspect sites with potential nuclear weapons. That could mean China could be inspecting nuclear weapons on Diego Garcia. There's a second point of this because if a war breaks out in the South China Sea, you can't depend on Guam, for example. You can't depend on military bases east of China because they are in range of Chinese missiles, but the Ogarcia isn't. And if you look at the B1 bomber range, it's about 7,500 miles. Now Geo Garcia is 3,800 miles from Taiwan, for example. So there's enough range for B1 bombers to go there and back from Dio Garcia without being hit. This is really essential. So you've got the South China Sea aspect and you've got this inspection aspect as well. If that isn't enough for the US to turn around and say this deal is not compatible with security of the world, then that needs to happen.
- [37:27]
Frank Affne
So the President and Secretary Rubio had previously been, it seems, favorably disposed to this deal. They now have seen the light. The President has said it's a great stupidity. What are the prospects as you see it now? With your good efforts, of course, and a new letter public statement, I guess is what it's being called by scores of prominent figures on both sides of the pond urging the President to do what you're saying. Do you think that's likely to happen? And if not, what, what can we do now to intensify the likelihood of it?
- [38:05]
Cleo Pascal
Look, the President has said what he thinks and then that's cause that's caused a domino effect into how this policy should change. So now we have the policy experts in the White House, we have the advisors who are holding the pen on this. Like I said, we need that formal letter to now go through to the UK government to say formal withdrawal. So that is the next step. A real danger right now is say the embassy or the Foreign Office from the UK is trying to persuade them around using legal text. But we need to make them aware that there's a defense to all those legal texts. There's exemptions they will cite. The electromagnetic spectrum is at risk. We need to say there will be an exemption, a military exemption to Article 48. That pulls it out.
- [38:53]
Frank Affne
All right, there's a lot of detail here. We have to have you back for more explication of it, but we want to make sure that people understand, understand we must say no to this deal and right away. Thank you, Robert Mitchelly. Come back to us with updates. Sir. God bless. We'll be right back folks.
- [39:18]
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- [40:20]
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- [41:29]
Frank Affne
We're back, and I'm delighted to say so, is Rabbi Pesek Wolicki, one of our most important contributors from the Middle east, talking usually about what's going on there, but sometimes what's going on here that bears upon what will happen in the Middle East. He is, of course, the executive director of Israel365Action, where he produces a torrent of very important video newsreels, I guess one might call them, updates on developments that we here in the United States as well as elsewhere around the world need to be apprised of. He is also a podcaster. He co hosts Shoulder to Shoulder. He is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post and a partner frequently in our Victory Coalition briefings and other projects. And we're very proud always to have him with us. Rabbi, welcome back. It's good to have you at a time such as this, my friend.
- [42:31]
Rabbi Pesek Wolicki
Thank you, Frank. It always seems like the news cycle is exploding on us.
- [42:37]
Frank Affne
It's just giving us something to talk about. I consider it a blessing in a fashion. Let's talk about Gaza. First and foremost, congratulations to Israel in the recovery finally, of the last human remains, of the last hostages. This is obviously important in a humanitarian and moral sense, but it also is supposed to trigger the next phase of President Trump's 20 point peace plan. And there are several aspects of that phase that are problematic. And I wanted to get your take on how you see things developing going forward from here.
- [43:20]
Rabbi Pesek Wolicki
Well, Frank, it's interesting that you say that this is supposed to trigger phase two, which is how the whole world is interpreting it and certainly how those forces around President Trump who want to move on to Phase two are interpreting it. Problem is that if we look at the 20 point plan of President Trump's, and it's important to note that the terms phase one, phase two don't appear in that plan. It's not like there's a clearly delineated, this is phase one, this is phase two. And why is that important? Because the opening clauses of the plan do talk about what has to happen first and what has to happen next. And the disarming of Hamas, the complete dismantling. It's more than disarming. The removal of Hamas as both a governing and military body is also part of, quote, unquote, phase one. It's part of the beginning. Meaning when I say phase one, meaning it is written into the plan as the prerequisite for moving on to reconstruction, for bringing in international stabilization force, for, and certainly for Israeli withdrawal from what's called the yellow line, the internal perimeter that Israel has been, that has, has been holding the positions Israel's been holding, which essentially put about 53%. They put 53% of the Gaza Strip under Israeli control. Most of the population is under Hamas control. So this really is the crux of the issue. When you talk about how this is supposed to trigger phase two. You weren't saying that as your opinion. You were saying that because that's the way it's being marketed to all of.
- [45:03]
Frank Affne
Us, among others, by, I think, the United States government, if I'm not mistaken.
- [45:08]
Rabbi Pesek Wolicki
Frank, you and I have been talking for two years, more than two years, about one particular point that now comes to a head. I remember our conversations about this going all the way back to shortly after October 7, that the day that the state of Israel decided, and it was about a month and a half into the war, the day that they decided to place the release of all the hostages on par with the objective of destroying Hamas. You and I spoke about this on your show, and I wrote about it in the Jerusalem Post, where Israel said that we now have two primary objectives in this war, the destruction of Hamas and the freeing of all the hostages. And that came because of a lot of political pressure from the free the Hostages community in Israel. It really became a community. And of course, we all want the hostages free. And this is what we. And I'm sure you remember these conversations, both private and on your show, about how you cannot have two primary goals and that the goal of defeating Hamas, of destroying Hamas, I should say disarming and destroying Hamas and the goal of returning all the hostages are actually, strategically speaking, mutually exclusive. And here we are here. We are Frank. The last hostages come home and there's this big sigh of relief. And now it's, you know, there's a lot. There's an expression going around Israel now that it's finally October 8th, like we finally moved to past. And it's true, there is that closure. The fact that there is not a single Jew alive or dead, not a single Israeli alive or dead, being held by Hamas in Gaza is almost a utopian ideal for many Israelis. It lifts this emotional burden that we've been bearing with us since, since that fateful day. That said, the now we face the issue that there's no roadmap for the disarming of Hamas. The 20 point plan speaks about it as something that will simply happen. And Israel is, I hope and believe, determined not to budge from the yellow line until Hamas is disarmed and removed, because that is the agreement that is the 20 point plan that Israel agreed to.
- [47:13]
Frank Affne
In other words, it's part and parcel of what one might call Phase one. And without that being satisfied, it's not possible to move on. But let me just ask you, Rabbi, because obviously this Board of Peace chaired by President Donald Trump is being stood up. We're being told there's a technocratic government being put in place. I'd be surprised, frankly, if there's not some intensifying pressure to allow some sort of stabilization force to get in there. Your sense that the Israeli government is going to hold fast on this precondition, which I think is not only eminently sensible, but absolutely necessary, depends, it would seem, on something that has been a big factor in everything that's preceded it, namely the relationship between President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu and therefore the relationship between the United States and Israel. Walk us through that quickly. We've got 45 seconds before a break.
- [48:16]
Rabbi Pesek Wolicki
Well, I'm not sure that that's the main thing that it depends on, because from the Israeli side, there is no way that Prime Minister Netanyahu can save face or have a political career or have a legacy to speak of if the Israeli troops start withdrawing from the yellow line before Hamas is disarmed. So there could be a move to bring in some foreign forces as an international stabilization force. But does anyone think that they're going to walk into the Hamas side of the Gaza Strip without Hamas being disarmed? And certainly, does anyone think they're going to take away their weapons and the Israelis will not budge on this? I'm quite certain of it.
- [48:54]
Frank Affne
All right, let's put some money on that because it's a very, very important proposition.
- [49:00]
Rabbi Pesek Wolicki
Oh yeah.
- [49:00]
Frank Affne
Well, let's take a short break. We'll be right back. And we're going to turn to the other big, big unsettled question in the Middle East, Iran with Ruth Bad Pesikwaliki. Stay tuned.
- [49:23]
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- [50:25]
Frank Affne
Forget.
- [50:25]
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- [51:35]
Frank Affne
We're back and so is Rabbi Pesek Wolicki, the executive director of Israel365Action. Check out his videos there folks. They are absolutely superb and really required viewing if you want to stay abreast of what is happening at the moment in the Middle East. Rabbi, we were talking about Gaza. I want to pivot to another very, very fraught situation, and that is the Islamic Republic of Iran remains under the regime of these brutal totalitarian Sharia supremacists. There are reports that they imported jihadists from elsewhere to engage in mass murder of their people. I heard this morning that the BBC was reporting 6,000 people have been killed, but it might be multiples of that. I'm told that reports from inside Iran are now saying perhaps as many as 65,000 have been killed. And that was after Donald Trump said, don't even think about doing that, and promised to help them and is now moving forces into the region with, it appears, the purpose of taking steps to punish the regime. What are we to make of all this, sir? Where is Israel on it? And where do you think we head from here?
- [52:56]
Rabbi Pesek Wolicki
So let's start with where Israel is on it. Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a press conference yesterday. He made a statement about this. And the Iranian regime has been threatening that if the U.S. attacks, it will retaliate by attacking Israel. So Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to that by saying that if, if Iran chooses to make that mistake and attack Israel, they will suffer a blow that is even beyond what they could imagine. He also made a point of saying that Israel is not going to make its decisions based on what the U.S. decides, that the U.S. his exact words were, president Trump will decide what the US Will do, but we will make our own decisions. He opened his statement with that. So it was obviously on top of mind for his messaging. Now, what does all this mean? So you talk about the number of casualties, which is extremely high, and the fact that President Trump made this warning that if they kill protesters, they're going to step in. But let's not forget that the Qataris and the Saudis immediately said that the US Cannot use its bases that are in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and can't use their airspace for any attack. Now, President Trump did not push back on that. But I have to believe, just reading the guy, that he doesn't like to be told what he can and can't do by, you know, vassal protectorate states, certainly what he can and can't do with American assets that are in the region protecting those states. I'm sure he didn't like that. But, and I understand him, he didn't want to blow up the relationship over those statements. It's not the time and place for it necessarily and that's when we started seeing all these other assets moving into the region, including, including the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which has F35s on it, moving into the region, and many other assets, American, American military assets moving into the region. Now also congruently, he was told, President Trump was told by, he was told that the Iranians had held off on executing people. And the killing has stopped. Remember, President Trump said that. And he said, we're checking in that it now turns out that it was none other than our good buddy Steve Witkoff who relayed that message to President Trump. And it was relayed to Witkoff by Masoud Pezesha Khyan, the President of Iran. In other words, Witkoff again was the bagman for the Islamists trying to keep President Trump from attacking them now.
- [55:20]
Frank Affne
And Witkoff was talking about there being a possible deal to come out, a possible deal.
- [55:25]
Rabbi Pesek Wolicki
But now this has all been revealed to have been that President Trump was lied to. Now, there is no doubt that more Iranians were killed because Trump said help is on the way and gave that warning, and they therefore went out into the streets. And that's tragic and terrible and a moral failure. But, but all signs point to the fact that there will be some sort of attack. And I understand also President Trump's thinking that he doesn't want to carry out an attack that won't bring down the regime. And bringing down the regime is not a simple matter. This isn't like, you know, the Assad regime in Syria or the Gaddafi regime in Libya, that there's just like one despot and his family, and if you, and if you get rid of them, Assad flees to Russia. No more regime in Syria. Syria doesn't work that way. In Iran, The IRGC is 150,000 men. Their families. Think about it more as the model of the ccp, where you have a whole strata, a whole stratum of the population that is oppressing everybody else and that has this whole apparatus, and you can't just bring it down by eliminating the supreme leader. So what exactly the strikes will be that President Trump will take and how he'll go about trying to bring down the regime remains to be seen. But it is my feeling, and, you know, I've gone back and forth on this, but I don't think he wants to end up looking like another Obama who blinked and backed off when he made an empty. And when. And made an empty threat. And moving all these military assets into the region really points to the fact that there is, that there is a plan to move forward. Israel will not sit on its hands. Okay. And that's what Prime Minister Netanyahu was saying when he said, we're going to make our own decisions independent of what they. The United States is doing. So this is still all the comfort.
- [57:13]
Frank Affne
It must be noted that the US Central Command commander was in Israel the.
- [57:20]
Rabbi Pesek Wolicki
Other day, two days ago. Yeah.
- [57:22]
Frank Affne
And I think it's not unreasonable to assume that what was being discussed were the plans of the respective parties. So while Israel's actions should not depend on the decisions of the United States and even the timing of them, it is obviously desirable, if there's going to be a strike, that this be orchestrated in concert. No.
- [57:47]
Rabbi Pesek Wolicki
Oh, for sure. There's coordination. There's certainly coordination. I'm just saying there's. There's. And we've seen this develop over the course of the last two years, Frank, that there's increasingly. Israel has been willing to act alone and even in defiance of the United States. We saw that with the admittedly failed strike in Qatar. We saw that with Israel's moves to protect the Druze and Kurdish communities in Syria. That was. And airstrikes in Syria that the United States was opposed to. We saw it with the Hamas guys who were stuck in a tunnel in Rafah, and the US Was pressuring Israel to let them out without their weapons. And Israel said, no, they can either die or get arrested. And Israel ended up killing them all. There's been a number of signposts where we see Israel making its own decisions in defiance of US Policy. Quietly, politely. We're not trying to blow up the relationship, and there's certainly coordination. I'm just saying that when I, When I, you know, as. As a. Let's say as a professional observer of Prime Minister Netanyahu, if I could call myself that, he. There's a. There's a. When he steps up to the mic and the opening words out of his mouth are, the US Will do what it. The US Will decide what it wants to do, and Israel will decide what it wants to do. I think he's making a point.
- [59:05]
Frank Affne
I think he's making a hugely important point. And we hope that he will be acting upon it for both of our country's sake, to finish off this regime in Tehran. Bless you. Rabbi Pesik will like you, come back soon if you would. Hope the rest of you do the same next time. Until then, that you'll go forth and multiply.
- [59:31]
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