2503 - Has Israel Already Lost?; Trump’s South Africa Obsession w/ David Hearst, Benjamin Fogel

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder | Episode 2503

Title: Has Israel Already Lost?; Trump’s South Africa Obsession
Host: Sam Seder
Guests: David Hearst (Middle East Eye), Benjamin Fogel (South African Journalist)
Release Date: May 22, 2025

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1. Introduction and Overview

In Episode 2503 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, host Sam Seder, alongside Emma Vigeland, delves into pressing political issues concerning Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza and former President Donald Trump's controversial focus on South Africa. The episode features in-depth interviews with David Hearst, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye, and Benjamin Fogel, a South African journalist and contributing editor at Jacobin.

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2. Critique of House Republicans' "Big Beautiful Bill"

Timestamp: [07:12] – [18:40]

Emma Vigeland initiates a critical discussion on the recently passed House Republican bill, colloquially termed the "big beautiful bill." The legislation, which is poised to significantly impact social welfare programs, proposes extensive tax cuts for the wealthy and drastic reductions in Medicaid and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits.

Key Points:

• Deficit Increase: The bill is projected to add over $3 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade.
• Impact on Vulnerable Populations: Approximately 13.7 million Americans could lose Medicaid coverage, exacerbating financial instability in states heavily reliant on federal matching funds.
• Food Assistance Cuts: SNAP would face the deepest cuts in its history, affecting over 40 million Americans.
• Rural Hospital Closures: The bill threatens rural hospitals by stripping essential Medicaid funding, potentially leading to closures and reduced healthcare access in underserved areas.

Notable Quotes:

• "If this was a Democratic bill, the headline would focus on the staggering $3 trillion deficit." – Emma Vigeland [09:07]
• "Republicans are defunding Planned Parenthood and ending Medicaid coverage for millions." – Sam Seder [09:38]

The discussion highlights the disproportionate burden the bill places on low-income Americans and critiques the Republican framing of fiscal policies, emphasizing the lack of media attention on the resultant hardships.

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3. Interview with David Hearst: "Israel Has Already Lost the Gaza War"

Timestamp: [25:39] – [57:48]

David Hearst presents a compelling argument that Israel is destined to lose the broader conflict in Gaza despite tactical military victories. Drawing parallels to the Vietnam War, Hearst asserts that while Israel might win individual battles, the sustained cost in human lives and global opinion will ultimately result in defeat.

Key Points:

• Palestinian Resilience: The unyielding spirit and resistance of the Palestinian population cannot be fully suppressed by military might.
• International Opinion: Global sentiment towards Israel is deteriorating, reminiscent of the shifting perceptions during the Vietnam era.
• Comparative Bombing: Hearst underscores the intensity of bombing in Gaza, noting that in a fraction of the time, the U.S. dropped 5 million tons of bombs in Vietnam, whereas Israel has dropped at least 100,000 tons in Gaza within the same period.
• Oslo Accords Aftermath: The Oslo process inadvertently facilitated massive Israeli settlements in the West Bank, undermining the prospects for a two-state solution and emboldening hardline policies.

Notable Quotes:

• "Israel may win each battle, but it will lose the war." – David Hearst [26:01]
• "The rate of bombing in Gaza is unprecedented, exceeding historical cases like Dresden and Hamburg." – David Hearst [47:26]
• "Netanyahu’s mission to prevent a Palestinian state ensures ongoing conflict and resentment." – David Hearst [34:29]

Hearst emphasizes the unsustainable nature of the conflict, where continuous violence breeds further hostility and entrenches opposition, leading to long-term strategic loss for Israel.

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4. Interview with Benjamin Fogel: Trump's South Africa Obsession and White Genocide Claims

Timestamp: [57:48] – [88:12]

Benjamin Fogel addresses former President Trump's provocative stance on South Africa, particularly his baseless claims of a "white genocide." Fogel provides a nuanced analysis of South Africa's current political landscape, the aftermath of Jacob Zuma’s presidency, and the complexities surrounding land reform.

Key Points:

• Political Shift in South Africa: The African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority for the first time, leading to a coalition government that reflects diverse political ideologies and racial representations.
• Land Reform Misconceptions: Contrary to "white genocide" claims, South Africa's land reform process is slow and based on legal frameworks like "willing buyer, willing seller." There is no active campaign to expropriate land from white farmers.
• Disinformation Campaigns: Fogel highlights coordinated efforts to portray South Africa as a dystopian example of racial violence, likening it to historical injustices to fuel white supremacist narratives.
• Trump’s Diplomatic Ambush: The episode critiques Trump’s attempt to undermine South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa through staged press conferences and misleading narratives about the country’s internal issues.

Notable Quotes:

• "There is no genocide happening in South Africa; the term is used to inflame and misrepresent the situation." – Benjamin Fogel [76:37]
• "Land reform in South Africa is a constitutional and legal process, not an orchestrated campaign of ethnic cleansing." – Benjamin Fogel [77:28]
• "The portrayal of South Africa as a great replacement scenario is a deliberate disinformation tactic by extremist groups." – Benjamin Fogel [85:30]

Fogel dismantles the myth of white genocide in South Africa by presenting factual evidence and contextualizing the socio-political dynamics. He urges listeners to recognize the manipulation behind such rhetoric and understand the genuine challenges South Africa faces without succumbing to extremist propaganda.

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5. Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Episode 2503 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder offers a critical examination of two significant geopolitical issues:

1. House Republicans' Fiscal Policies: The proposed bill threatens to deepen economic disparities and dismantle essential social programs, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations.

2. Israel-Gaza Conflict and South Africa's Political Dynamics: David Hearst and Benjamin Fogel provide insightful analyses on the unsustainable nature of Israel’s military strategies in Gaza and debunk Trump's unfounded accusations against South Africa, emphasizing the role of disinformation in shaping global narratives.

Overall Message: The episode underscores the importance of scrutinizing political agendas, recognizing the impacts of legislative actions on marginalized communities, and challenging extremist narratives that distort international realities.

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Listeners are encouraged to visit Majority.fm for more insightful discussions and to support the program through subscriptions and donations.

Transcript

[Emma Vigeland]

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[Sam Cedar]

You.

[Emma Vigeland]

You won't want to miss this. Blueland.com majority for 15% off. That's blueland.com majority to get 15% off. Now time for the show.

[Sam Cedar]

The majority Report with Sam Cedar.

[Emma Vigeland]

It is Thursday, May 22, 2025. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar and this is the final five time award winning majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, David Hearst of Middle East Eye will be with us to talk about his recent piece. Israel has already lost the Gaza war. It just doesn't know it yet. Later in the show, Benjamin Fogel joins us to talk about Trump ambushing the South African president in a Zelensky esque fashion and pushing false claims of white genocide. Also on the program, House Republicans passed Trump's big beautiful bill in the middle of the night with a party line vote. If adopted by the Senate, the bill would cut taxes for the rich through 10 million Americans off of Medicaid and would be the deepest food assistance cut in SNAP history in the middle of an affordability crisis as tariffs are going to raise prices and the economy is headed towards recession. Two Israeli embassy staff members were shot and killed last night outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. trump's DOJ to drop Biden era police reform agreements in Louisville and Minneapolis, which were started in response to the Black Lives Matter protests. In related news, investigators say a fire at a historically black Memphis church was set intentionally. A deadlocked 4 to 4 Supreme Court blocks Oklahoma from opening the United States first, first public religious charter school. Amy Coney Barrett had recused herself, which made the difference here. Rare good news. Trump tried to give South Africa's president, as I mentioned, the Zelensky treatment yesterday, but it didn't go so well for the White House. They scrubbed the transcript of the meeting from the website. Tonight, Trump is hosting a bribery gala. The top purchasers of his meme coin get to go hang out with the president, including a shady Chinese crypto billionaire who previously had been too worried to come to the United States because he thought he'd get arrested. I mean, but now he gets a lovely dinner at Mar a Lago for. I don't know how much he paid for it, but must be, must be really good food. Another plane crash, this time in San Diego. Trump privately tells European leaders that Putin isn't ready to end the war in Ukraine. You don't say. And lastly, ProPublica finds that more than a dozen executive branch and congressional employees sold lots of stock right before Liberation Day, tanked the markets. What a coinky dink. All this and more on today's Majority Report, or as I should say, a Majority Report. I gotta be better with this branding here. Hello, Russ. Hello, Matt. Hello to everyone in the audience. Let's get going. We've got two great guests today. So this big beautiful bill that the Republicans just passed in the House and they're going to be sending it over to the Senate. If adopted by the Senate wholesale, that's not going to happen. There will be tweaks, but they're starting at such an extreme level that we should be deeply concerned about what comes out the other end. Regardless of Senate input, this bill adds over $3 trillion to the deficit in 10 years. As an aside, can you imagine if this was a Democratic bill, like what the top line headline would be about the deficit and what they were, what was being added to it. If Democrats wanted to increase social spending by but but not add enough taxes to offset it, the like the headline would contain every zero. But because it's tax cuts disproportionately helping the wealthy and the poorest amongst us who are on Medicaid or on SNAP are the ones that are going to be affected. It's just different framing.

[Sam Cedar]

Evil framing.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Like it's taking food out of people's mouths.

[Emma Vigeland]

Framing. The headlines in every paper and on every cable news channel would show like every zero in that $3 trillion deficit number and they have like flaming put horns on the zeros. Like this is. This is going to kill America. It's just, it's crazy to see how the immiseration of people is just not spoken about with the same urgency in our media class that adding benefits would create.

[Sam Cedar]

Are people that might be harmed by say, the largest cut of food assistance? Are they represented in our media?

[Emma Vigeland]

Unfortunately, no. I think that's why someone like AOC is really important. We unfortunately lost two of our other members who are more connected to working class issues in Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman because AIPAC took them out. But we still have members of the squad standing up representing the interests of working people. Here she is talking about what this bill is. The Republicans rushed this through in the middle of the night last night. She's speaking here in particular about Medicaid.

[Sam Cedar]

13.7 billion Americans.

[Emma Vigeland]

13.7 million Americans are the number of people in this country whose health care are going to be stripped in this bill.

[Sam Cedar]

Now Republicans are going to try to.

[Emma Vigeland]

Tell you every single distraction in the book from that essential number. I want people at home to understand that Medicaid and the federal matching funds.

[Sam Cedar]

For Medicaid can make up 30 to.

[Emma Vigeland]

40% of some of the State budgets that we have going on in. Back in your home. Republicans have put this bill together, rushed it together in a matter of hours, on the back of a napkin, shaking it, walking out of the White House and brought it right here to this floor. They are defunding Planned Parenthood. They are ending tons of Medicaid coverage for 13.7 million Americans, including Affordable Care act coverage as well.

[Sam Cedar]

And if you want to get an.

[Emma Vigeland]

Abortion and have a silver plan on, a health care plan that you paid for, you will also be affected by this legislation as well. Also allowing suppressors on guns, children to.

[Sam Cedar]

Be deregulated to some of the largest.

[Emma Vigeland]

Amounts that we have seen since the 1930s. This is just a Christmas bill.

[Sam Cedar]

I yield.

[Emma Vigeland]

Gentlelady issue. 30 seconds.

[Sam Cedar]

And so I want people to understand for, for my Republican colleagues who assure what is in and not in this.

[Emma Vigeland]

Bill, in this process that has been.

[Sam Cedar]

This rushed, when you wake up in the morning, you will realize that you.

[Emma Vigeland]

Voted to defund Planned Parenthood and to take away health care from 13.67 million Americans. And when this country wakes up in the morning, there will be consequences to pay for this. And I yield back.

[David Hearst]

Gentle lady yields.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well said. The bill. We're still getting these numbers because as she says, they rushed it through last night, which is what people do when they're doing good things. Right? You pass bills in the dead of night and don't allow much debate on it. These are the numbers. Let's talk about the tax cuts first and then we'll touch on Medicaid. We've shown this graph before, but I think it's quite effective. Popular information. Judd Legum and crew put this together, showing the distributional effects of the big beautiful bill. Trump's. Trump's. I guess riffing off of Build Back. Better. So stupid.

[Sam Cedar]

Never an original thought.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, all grievance. You see the first quintile. So if you're making up to 17k of earners, you're losing around $1,000 in after tax income by 2026, that second quintile. So this is, you know what, like half the country here. No quintile 2/5 cardinal sent to me trying to do math on the fly.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, it's close enough.

[Emma Vigeland]

I was like conflating quintile and quarter, which is not true, but 17k to 51k in terms of earners, they're losing $705 in after tax income in 2026 by income level. Let's just fast forward to the top 0.1% who are adding $4.3 million in after tax income in 2026. That's as jarring as it gets.

[Sam Cedar]

They're going to create jobs. And I mean, this is all in the context of, you know, people like David Sacks in February. The US now has World War II levels of indebtedness without fighting a world war. Well, I would say were kind of helping a genocide. Is that close enough to World War II comparison?

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

So where did all this money go? And the greatest generation incurred debt for defeat from blah blah, blah. They're worried about this debt. Right. But that is just like the sort of border hysteria about immigrants. That's just to drive people's lizard brain as these people steal money and make sure they take more from themselves even more than they would, you know, under a situation where they're not. We, everyone listening to this knows that these people aren't taxed nearly enough.

[Emma Vigeland]

We know that Republicans increase the deficit and the debt every time they get into power. Bush did, Trump won, did. This bill is supposed to increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion.

[Sam Cedar]

Reagan did. Star Wars.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean like. But it's just because it's a fig leaf for austerity. And to go back to my point at the start of our segment on this, if this was more accurately reported, perhaps Americans would have a better understanding of the true motivations behind this. But austerity treatment gets a different kind of coverage than broad based social programs that are coming towards people gets. Which compare the Bernie Sanders agenda and how that was spoken about and how the spending was discussed in that. How are you going to pay for it? How are you going to pay for it? How are you going to pay for it? Republicans are cutting all of these programs and the non partisan Congressional Budget Office says it will increase the deficit by $3.8 trillion. And it's like, ho hum, what are we going to do about it?

[Sam Cedar]

Which quintile owns your newspaper or which quintile owns the cable network that you see?

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

Which quintile owns all this stuff? Which quintile owns the politicians that are voting on this stuff?

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep. The cuts to SNAP food assistance that over 40 million Americans rely on on a monthly basis are the deepest in the history of the program. The when. When AOC is talking about the Medicaid cuts. Matt, you've talked about this a lot, but this is really important for people to understand. More than 66 million Americans live in areas that are classified as rural. Rural hospitals need Medicaid. One third of rural hospitals in the US are at risk. Of closure due to financial instability. The Affordable Care act, when it expanded Medicaid to adults who have incomes that are up to 138% of the federal poverty level, they expanded Medicaid coverage to around 20 million people. This has been a success of the Affordable Care Act. And that expansion kept rural hospitals afloat. Yep, it kept them afloat because they have very low margins, but they need the capacity to take care of populations without making the money that say, like a New York City or a Los Angeles hospital would be making. And there have been analyses, there's been analyses done of Medicaid expansion states versus rural hospitals in non Medicaid expansion states. 40 states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The 10 that didn't. Chartist group found that the states, the non expansion states, have rural hospitals that are 62% more likely to close than in states with Medicaid expansion. And around half of rural hospitals already conduct their operations with negative margins. So with these, the slashing of Medicaid, you're not just stripping tens of millions or millions of Americans of their health care coverage. It's not just that they lose insurance. Your devastating communities, rural communities, I mean.

[Sam Cedar]

Better outcomes for women and infants. And nearly 50% in rural areas covered by Medicaid. And we act and these. This is the same administration that acts like it's natalist or something like that. No, it's eugenicist.

[Emma Vigeland]

Exactly. J.D. vance is, is that guy, right? He acts like he's the exception that came out of poverty because of how talented he is. But for everybody else, it's time to make them a little bit more desperate so they can become a guy like J.D. vance.

[Sam Cedar]

The guy who changes his name in religion several times as he climbs the ladder and turns his back on the people he supposedly represents.

[Emma Vigeland]

He's the bad kind of class traitor.

[Sam Cedar]

Exactly.

[Emma Vigeland]

But to wrap up here just about how important Medicaid is. Medicaid. There are around 7 million Americans over 65 years old who are enrolled in Medicaid. You may ask, well, why that, why is that the case? That's when, so when Medicare kicks in. But Medicare only pays for short term nursing home stays. Medicaid pays for longer term nursing home stays for low income people. What happens when that goes away? Elder care we have is already so expensive that it's literally like putting these, these older people's kids into debt.

[Sam Cedar]

It's.

[Emma Vigeland]

And, and, and the places where lower income people even go and can use Medicaid payments, oftentimes they're rife with abuse. The system is already sadistic on top of this, attacking nursing home care for that 7 million cohort, those 7 million people over 65 who are enrolled in Medicaid and likely need that additional assistance on top of their Medicare to take care of their health care at that age of their life, that stage of their life.

[Sam Cedar]

And you know, this is going to not only hurt mothers and elderly people, but like you said, this is a dis. Is a slashing of the investment to our public health facilities. And we have been doing this for, we have been doing this for too long, actually. And this is just an acceleration of the lack of investment that we need to keep these hospitals alive. That's why when Bernie Sanders was running, he's talking about what we can do to support rural hospitals. It's sick that, you know, the small town that my mom was from had a hospital in, in the 70s that it doesn't anymore. Like, we're going backwards. Society is decaying around us.

[Emma Vigeland]

And remember how we talked about this too, within the context of public schools and why public schools are such a threat to Republicans and why there are a bunch of Republican states trying to curb free school and public lunches. And they attacked him walls for expanding that in Minnesota. Hospitals, schools, these are like the very few pins that are holding communities together. And that's a threat to Republicans. It's a threat to conservatives. When you have community and you have shared understanding and you have centers of society that are, that are state funded and are not for profit, you are a threat to the conservative project. And that's why they're targeting all of these, all of these institutions. All right, we're going to be speaking to David Hearst in just a sec, but first, a word from some of our sponsors. You know, just like animal predators aim for the slowest prey, hackers target people with the weakest security. And if you're not using ExpressVPN, that's you. You're like a babe in the woods without protection. But ExpressVPN is here to help. And I'd like to thank ExpressVPN for supporting the Majority Report. Visit expressvpn.com majority and you can get an extra four months free every time you connect to an encrypted, unencrypted network anywhere your online data is not secure. That's airports, that's hotels, that's coffee shops. Any hacker on the same network can gain access to and steal your personal data, passwords, bank logins, credit card details, etc. It does not take much technical knowledge to hack somebody. Just some cheap hardware is needed and a smart 12 year old could basically do it. Your data is valuable. Hackers can make up to $1,000 a person selling personal info on the dark web. ExpressVPN encrypts 100% of your network traffic to keep your data safe from hackers. When you are on public WI fi, it works on all of your devices. One click, tap the button, turn it on, you're protected. It's that easy on your phone, your laptop, your Tablet and more. ExpressVPN is essential when I travel for those very reasons. Airport, WI fi. I mean I occasionally like to do some work at the coffee shop or at my little gym cafe. You gotta switch it on. Secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com majority. That's E X P R E-S-S vpn.com majority and you can get an extra four months free. That's expressvpn.com majority. You can get an extra four months free expressvpn.com majority. This will be below in the YouTube and episode description, all of those links and that information. And lastly, did you know that the CDC says that fewer men than women meet the minimum daily intake recommendations for fruits and veggies and men are more likely to overvalue exercise and undervalue nutrition. Well, this is what Ritual is here for. It's a multivitamin that is scientifically developed for men to help fill nutrient gaps in their diets. Sam is a ritualistic user of ritual. It's very helpful because he doesn't have to think about it. It's a science backed multivitamin for men 18 and older with high quality traceable key ingredients and clean bioavailable forms. Omega 3 DHA to help support heart and brain health. Vitamin D3 to support normal muscle and immune function. It contains 10 key nutrients in two delayed release capsules designed for optimal absorption per day. It's designed to be gentle on the stomach with a minty essence in every bottle that helps make taking your multis actually enjoyable. The Ritual multivitamins are vegan, non gmo, project verified gluten and major allergen free and made traceable. What's great about ritual Sam's talked about this is that he doesn't have to worry about it. Ritual sends him the next bottle, the next round when he's run out. Because you can make it, you can do a subscription service there and then you don't have to worry about just forgetting to take your multivitamin. Essential for men is a quality multivitamin from a company you can actually trust. Get 25% off your first month for a limited [e-mail] majority. That's ritual.com majority for 25% off your first month. Again, ritual.com majority for 25 percent off your first month. We will put a link in the YouTube and episode descriptions to all of that below. All right, quick break. And when we come back, we'll be joined by David Hurst. We are back. And we are joined now by David Hurst, co founder and editor in chief of Middle East Eye. His recent piece for Middle East Eyes entitled Israel has already lost the Gaza War. It just doesn't know it yet. David, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

[David Hearst]

Thank you for having me.

[Emma Vigeland]

So I almost want to start with where your piece ends with this sentence, Israel may win each battle as the Americans did in Vietnam, but it will lose the war. Can we work back from there? What brings you to that hypothesis based on what we've seen of a year and a half of genocide at this point?

[David Hearst]

Well, it's not an original thought. It's been said by quite a few people who have actually fought quite hard on Israel's behalf, not least its former Mossad chief. It is the feeling that they win every battle because technologically they're just so much so far superior to the Palestinians and what the Palestinians can reply, but that there are two things that Israel is not under Israel's control. It can't crush the Palestinian spirit or as the Palestinians would say, the Palestinian resistance, which could be violent or nonviolent. And the more it tries to basically kill, the more it's actually hitting a civilian population and just generating another generation of fighters in 10, 20 years time, which is exactly who is fighting this war right now. If you think of the generation that's fighting this war, this is a post Oslo generation that has seen no progress since Oslo in their own national aspirations. And some have sold their taxes for guns. And I've interviewed them. The other thing that has changed in this war is international opinion. And that's where the parallel with Vietnam comes in. In fact, if you go back, LBJ was told by the CIA in 1967 that there was a stalemate with the Viet Cong, which took seven more years to actually pull out, and another president under Nixon to pull out of Vietnam. Here what we have is a quite rapidly deteriorating situation of Israel's image internationally. And I think there is a marked change of tone now 18 months on. I mean, for me, everything that Israel has been criticized of today could have been said in October or November 2023, but the fact that it's being said now is, I think, interesting.

[Emma Vigeland]

What do you make of that then? Is it the. What do you make of the change in kind of liberal posture towards this and we can expand outside of the United States here? The European Union, I know, said I guess two days ago that they're reviewing their political agreements with Israel. You see the Prime Minister in the UK with a little bit more of a chiding tone towards the Israelis. Where do you see that shift having happened?

[David Hearst]

Yeah. And there's also a joint statement of condemnation by Britain, France and Canada, and that could lead to an early recognition of the state of Palestine by all three countries in the not too distant future. Now, I don't know. I just don't know what has led to this, because for someone like me that's been covering this and covering every death, not me personally, my website, every doctor killed, every hospital destroyed, every child starved to death, you can say, why now what's actually changed? Is it statements about mass starvation coming from the UN? Is it because Israel has only today allowed 90 trucks in after, I think 11 weeks of total blockade? Was it the clumsy attempt to cover up the killings of those Red Crescent first responders in Rafah? Is it the fear that when the International Court of Justice actually comes to a ruling on genocide, every leader, every leader that allowed Israel's campaign to continue under a spurious banner of a right to defend itself could be regarded in law as an enabler genocide? Or is it lip gloss, another form of COVID Now the cynic in me says it's the latter because hours after the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, announced sanctions on Israel, an RAF plane took off from a British base of Akrotiri in Cyprus to conduct a surveillance mission over Gaza. And Lamy is not suspending arms supplies or parts of drones or parts for the F35s. And only weeks before, Lamy met his counterpart, Gideon Sar, Israeli Foreign Minister, in what was called a private visit. And yet Saar is a key member of the cabinet that collectively stopped all food going into Gaza. So you could say this is just to cover. Cover, a very shaky position. But that said, I think the cumulative effect on Israel will be real diplomatically.

[Emma Vigeland]

You mentioned the Oslo process. Can you take us back a little bit into that history and explain to people how that more pro Israel agreement than is traditionally written about in the west aided and abetted, I guess the choking off of potential diplomacy in the aftermath of it and increase the level Of I guess, impunity that Israel has experienced in the decades since.

[David Hearst]

Yeah, Paul, just going into that thing that there's something very, very concrete that Oslo allowed. Oslo allowed the biggest wave of settlement of the west bank in the history of the conflict. So you had peace and you had this massive and sudden wave of settlers turning up in the West Bank. I forget the numbers, but if you go back over the figures, it's very clear that I think Oslo produced for Israel something like 325,000 settlers that hadn't been there before. So that's what was a gain for the concept of Greater Israel. Because you've got to remember that Israel is not terribly interested in Gaza Biblically or historically or ideologically or religiously. It is far more interested in the west bank, which it continues to call Judea and Samaria. What Oslo did was provide a process that never came to anything for the Palestinians, but provided concrete gains for the Israelis settlers I've already mentioned. But it also provided this paradigm or this myth that if only the Palestinians got themselves together, they had the right leadership, if only there was the right alignment of stars with the Israeli public, you'd have a Palestinian state which of course never ever happened. And all of that has come the basis of what I would call that Friends of Israel or liberal Zionism. The idea, the belief in a homeland for the Jews that could enable, that was an Israel for all its citizens that could also enable a Palestinian state to be born in a two state solution that is very much crumbled in Benjamin Netanyahu's hands. And he has really set himself a life's mission of preventing stifling a Palestinian state at birth. That is what he will go down in history for. And that is what he's proudest of. And you know, he says it openly now and in fact, on the question of a Palestinian state, this is the one issue in a very, very divided Israel which has people, Israelis say a civil war boiling between liberals and hardliners on the judicial front. That's one point of agreement. There are votes in the Knesset which are near 100% votes on the question of whether a Palestinian state should ever be allowed to be born. There's complete consensus on the Palestinian question between the so called opponents of Netanyahu and Netanyahu himself.

[Emma Vigeland]

And that answer is no. That answer is no.

[David Hearst]

Yeah. Basically the answer is no. And I think the international community have yet to catch up with the reality that a two state solution was something that could have happened with the Arab peace initiative in 2002. The Saudi Arabian plan. But that train has left the station.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes. I mean, there are. There was, I think, some polling out of the University of Tel Aviv that shows that an overwhelming majority of Israelis support Donald Trump's ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza. So the scope of what is liberal and what is conservative thought within Israel is quite different than I think a lot of Westerners would like to imagine, or what we've been told about what political consensus is in Israel. But the part that's just so striking to me is we've been having conversations about how Biden's foreign policy was so disastrous in part because he had this very archaic commitment to the post World War II system of alliances and not speaking to enemies, but building up NATO, building up Aukus and not being hawkish with. With China not reengaging in the Iran nuclear deal, which was Obama's arguably greatest foreign policy achievement during his time. During that time period, you have Trump come in, right, and he's breaking down the traditional liberal foreign policy orthodoxy, eschewing liberal interventionism and saying, you know, this is a failed strategy, which he's right about. But then at the same time, it just feels like that is just about enriching himself. Right. So I'm. I'm grateful to see this kind of change in this national security pattern and orthodoxy and this death spiral that we've all been watching. But if it's not paired with a policy of restraining Israel, then I guess, is there a benefit just purely to breaking up this orthodoxy or this way of thinking? Because it just seems like Trump is mostly only interested in corruption here.

[David Hearst]

Well, I mean, I think that's a very, very good point, and I can't really answer it in a short form. I mean, I think the Biden. Biden's foreign policy collapsed under the weight of what was going on in Gaza. And I think he had levers and he had room to conduct liberal interventionism and continue to conduct that classic set of foreign policy which failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and Russia. When I was in Russia in the 1990s, that was a form of liberal interventionism completely collapsed. It produced Putin, but he still had the opportunity or the wheel room within that failed policy of applying a lot, lot more pressure on Netanyahu, principally by cutting off the arms and saying so. But Netanyahu knew he never would. Netanyahu's got a very, very clear reading of what's going on in Capitol Hill, and he's always had an iron grip on analysis of just how weak the Democrats are and how he can manipulate the Republicans. And it could now be, paradoxically, that Trump, who's only interested in his pocket and where the next golf course is going and his next visit to the queen and how much money he's loading up in his personal coffins, complete corruption could actually prove more of a problem to Netanyahu than Biden could, because he really doesn't. He only thinks in transactional terms about, doesn't think of good or evil. He doesn't care a damn about the Palestinians. And his plan is to create a larger ethnic cleansing, three times larger, in fact, of Palestinians than actually happened in 1948. And considering that all of this conflict arises from that one single event in 1948, how much more conflict are we storing up for ourselves generally? Even if you smash Hamas, smash Hezbollah, even if the whole place goes quiet and the whole place falls under Israeli military control and everything's quiet, you are going to store up a huge explosion 10, 20 years down the line. So it is so imperative now that we change our thinking about Israel, that Democrats change their thinking about Israel, that progressives change their thinking about Israel. And it's so imperative, I think, that we have a clear sighted view of actually which country we're supporting when we say we're a friend of Israel. What sort of Israel are we? A friend of apartheid? Are we a friend of genocide? Are we a friend of ethnic cleansing? Of course we're not. And we've got to stop thinking of Israel in these sort of idealized terms of a country that is genuinely good but is just being overtaken. It's just been seized by the wrong sort of people. It's not that anymore. And there has to be a rethinking of the West's relationship with Israel. Whatever happens to the Palestinians in Gaza, whatever happens to Hamas.

[Emma Vigeland]

I hadn't planned on playing this for you, but you brought me here because when and we're just speaking about how the Democrats need to kind of have a reckoning with liberal Zionism and with support for Israel. There is a fork in the road and you have even it's not just members of the squad in the House or the more progressive members like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, some senators like Chris Van Hollen, who you wouldn't have said is going to be a, an advocate for Palestinians. He's, he's diverged from his own leader in the Senate, who I like to call here, Mr. 17% approval rating, Chuck Schumer. This is from a little while ago but this is what, this is how he speaks about Israel. And you've done decades of reporting in the Middle East. This is almost indistinguishable from how every Republican speaks about both the United nations and international aid organizations. This is under a minute, but I'd love your response here, David.

[Sam Cedar]

So, yes, it's very emotional and to almost all Jewish people, we all have relatives and we know about this has happened again. Genocide is a vicious, vicious word to use. I will say. It's a word that a UN special committee has used. Please. The UN has been anti Israel, anti Semitically against Israel.

[Emma Vigeland]

Double standard.

[Sam Cedar]

Moynihan was my idol.

[Emma Vigeland]

He became famous when in 1976 they.

[Sam Cedar]

Tried to pass a resolution Zionism is racism. To say that the Jewish people should not have a state when every other people should have a state is antisemitism the old double standard. Ipso facto. And the international organizations, I have no faith in them being fair. These same international organizations, when horrible things go in, in Darfur or China or whether they look the other way.

[Emma Vigeland]

That'S actually the opposite of the truth. These international organizations and the United nations are Western in their construction by definition. And the criticism of, like the icc, for example, has been that they basically will prosecute warlords or leaders in poorer countries that the United States has problems with and doesn't go after the. The people most aligned with the west when they commit human rights atrocities. But the ICC had no choice in the case of Benjamin Netanyahu. And in response, the United States is sanctioning the International Criminal Court. There's just your response to that, David, because it sounds like every Republican.

[David Hearst]

This is a leading Democrat politician arguing against a rules based world order. A Democrat arguing against the icc. This is a Democrat arguing against the rule of law. Would he have said the same thing about Putin, which the ICC sanctioned within months of the attack on Ukraine, that this is unbelievable. Unbelievable. I'm not surprised by that clip. I've heard that clip before. I'm not suddenly waking up to it. But this is a really primary facing example of how, how that whole system of liberal Zionism is undermining itself. He said many, many claims there which were all very, very mixed up. All about Jews right to a homeland, all about which is Balfour. We're not talking about Jewish right to a homeland. We're talking about the Palestinian right to a homeland as well. Yeah, we're not talking about the right of Jewish self determination. I come from a family of Jewish refugees from Vienna. Half my family went to Haifa, the other half Didn't. Some were Zionist, others weren't. To link what has happened to all Jews, the suffering of all Jews, to what's happening in Israel. It's exactly what Israel does. And as someone who is Jewish, I'm uniquely offended by that. I have to stop frothing at the mouth almost because I know that's not the case. I know it's not true. I know that Israel does not stand for all Jews. And there is a big, big movement of American Jews saying not in my name. And they are at the forefront of demonstrations against Gaza. And I think that is a positive thing. I'm afraid Chuck Schumer belongs into. Has put himself into the dustbin of history. He's put himself in many ways an honorable man on many other issues, but he's put himself on Israel, literally on the wrong side. And he's justifying whether you call it genocide. I'm not an international lawyer, but an awful lot of lawyers seem to think that's a word that can only be used. But we cannot have a situation and we cannot tolerate a situation where one politician after another, one generation of politician after another, says those sorts of things and in so doing divides. You know, a genocide occurred in Srebrenica, a genocide is occurring in Sudan, but it cannot happen by Israeli at the hands of Israeli troops when there's the evidence that Gaza war is, unlike Vietnam, the most filmed and documented war ever. And the evidence of that, even from the mouths of Israeli politicians or even from the latest opposition figure, Yago Lance accused Israel of having a hobby of killing babies. If anyone else said that, you would call that anti Semitic or blood libel. But this is an Israeli politician saying this. So I think that clip shows you very, very clearly what has to change within the Democrat Party and to change for the side of fairness, for the side of decency, and also for the sake of Israelis and also for the sake of Jews around the world, because that sort of performance has to stop.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep. I mean, you mentioned Vietnam. Gaza is 141 square miles. You wrote this in your piece. In the span of eight years, the US dropped more than 5 million tons of bombs in Vietnam, making it the most bombed place on earth. By January of this year, Israel has dropped at least 100,000 tons of bombs on Gaza. I just want to repeat that in the span of eight years, the US dropped 5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam. A much larger swath of territory than 140 odd square miles. 100,000 tons of bombs on Gaza.

[David Hearst]

Yeah.

[Emma Vigeland]

And. Yeah, go ahead, David.

[David Hearst]

I Mean in terms of historical patterns, that is a comparison of per square mile. Per square mile, it works out at something like 18 times as many bombs. But in terms of historical bombings that have horrified the world since there's a, There's a massive amount of work done on the bombing of Dresden and the bombing of Hamburg, whether that was a war crime or not by the RAF and the firebombing that took place. It turns out that if you compare the amount of bombs dropped on American bombs generally dropped on Gaza, that is more than was dropped on Hamburg and Dresden and Coventry in the, whatever it is, seven years of the World War II, and that was within two or three months. So it was an immense. So, you know, we talk about Biden's weakness. What actually happened was that Biden sanctioned this enormous dropping of American bombs. This could not have been possible before. And I don't make that claim sort of loosely or lightly. There was an Israeli general, I forget now, whom, who said, an Air Force officer who said had America not resupplied US with those 2,000 pound bombs within two, we would have had to stop bombing Gaza within two months. So there are two elements to this war. One is the total nature of it triggered by the Hamas attack, and the other is the length of time it has been permitted to go on. I mean, Blair stopped or not Blair, but he was one of the leaders who, who stopped an early incursion into Gaza and just, you know, after 44 days and said, right, enough already, that's it, finished. But that hasn't happened. And so for Israel has behaved and Netanyahu has behaved in a way that is completely predictable with his alliances and with what he says. What I couldn't have predicted in October 2023 is how long the West, America, Britain, France would have tolerated this. Now they're coming to the end of it. But why has it taken so long and so many deaths to do so?

[Emma Vigeland]

And to wrap up with you, David, you also write about how the, despite kind of some lip service from Mohammed bin Salman and other leaders in the, in the neighboring countries, they're doing these deals with Donald Trump, these financial deals with him, without really meaningful, meaningfully addressing Palestinian plight. You know, there's like a political situation for these undemocratic leaders in the Middle east, which by the way, the United States props up because it's much more streamlined if we can give military aid to these monarchs essentially, than actually encouraging democracy in the Middle east, which is just, it's just so crazy how opposite of the truth it is. But what is the complicity of these leaders in, in the region who have basically publicly supported Palestinians, but have privately been more than happy to kind of do deals both with Israel and the United States? Because that's where the money is.

[David Hearst]

Yeah, I think there are two things that one, they represent a new generation of autocrat. Their fathers had the Palestinian issue stamped on their brow. This generation has YouTube and, you know, TikTok stamped on them. Now they're not interested and they don't regard the Palestinian issue as remotely theirs. They're interested in making money and they think that. And you know, they calculate that in fact a so called normalization with Israel is the route to Washington's heart. And so they use this strategy. Mohammed bin Zayed, who's the President of the United Emirates, introduced a young and unknown prince who was then called Mohammed bin Salman to the Trump clan, you know, before Trump's first term, basically through Israel, Bin Salman visited Netanyahu several times secretly and courted pro Israeli opinion in America by saying he personally didn't give a damn what happens to the Palestinians. And that was very, very much the formula of the Abraham Accords, which was to sort of pave over or cement over the Palestinian problem and use Palestinians as sort of gastarbeiter. You know, those foreign workers across the Arab world. I mean, the tragedy of the Palestinian conflict has always been that Arab rulers have sold them down the river and they're doing the same thing now. They managed to turn temporarily the US policy on bombing Yemen. That has stopped, which is a good thing. And they turned and they persuaded Trump not to assassinate Ahmed Sharra, who's the new leader of Syria that Israel definitely wants to depose and divide into three, but to support him and remove sanctions. Although whether the sanctions will actually be removed is a different matter. It takes a long time to do that. But not a word about Palestine. And I think it's a day of shame for the Arab leaders because quite apart from anything else, forget humanity or forget moral principles, if you have 2 million Palestinians floating around the space having been ejected from Palestine, they'll go anywhere and they will disrupt the stability of any of their polite little rich states because there will be a force of destabilization. And that is about the last thing these rulers want. I mean, the real problem. One last comment. The real problem about normalization is this is a deal, as you said, between a deeply dubious Israeli leadership or ideologically motivated right wing Israeli leadership that wants to, to recreate the borders of Greater Israel and people with almost no legitimacy People who are rulers simply because they are the sons of other rulers. And what they fear through normalizing with Israel is a revolt of their own population. Because. And Mohammed bin Salman has actually admitted this. He said, I couldn't sign an organization deal with Israel, otherwise I might meet the same fate as Anwar Sadat who was shot. And you would meet the same. But that's true.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right, but then that's. But that's what the conclusion of what you're saying is, that if Israel is only accepting an ethnic cleansing plan for the Palestinians, and these Arab rulers are doing this secretly because they're fearful of the backlash with their population, but they don't want to take on millions of Palestinian refugees to absorb them into their countries, it feels like a handshake agreement for genocide, then.

[David Hearst]

Yes, it is. It is. And the only thing stopping genocide, or the major thing stopping genocide, is the determination of Palestinians. And I've met who say, I would rather die on my land than leave. And if you go around the west bank where they're being ejected from their farms on hillsides in South Hebron, and they're not Hamas, they haven't got a gun there and they're facing armed settlers, that's what they say. That's what they do. They die on their land rather than leave. And I think Gaza will do the same thing. I'm surprised that Gaza has held out for as long as it has. I'm surprised there aren't more anti Hamas demonstrations that's taking place. I'm really surprised that this has gone on because this is like being starved into submission. But we're under a big, big illusion. If we think we've got rid of resistance groups by doing this, I think you've just handed the torch to an even more violent generation. The FATA will not benefit or the Palestinian Authority will not benefit if Hamas is crushed. Quite, quite the reverse.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, David, I really appreciate your time today.

[David Hearst]

Sorry for being so gloomy.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, no, I mean, but overall, it is so much, so much suffering. But in terms of the overarching theme of your piece, like, they're winning these battles. They will win every battle. Like Palestine doesn't have an air force, doesn't have an airport. Like the, I mean, a lack of symmetry here. They control the borders of the area that they're bombing. Like, there's no way for this to be an equivalent military conflict. And yet overall, because of the barbarity, I think you're right in the overarching view of Israel's loss here. David, thanks so much for your time today. Middle East Eye does wonderful work. Everybody should check it out. Thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it.

[David Hearst]

Thanks, Emma.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right, quick break. And when we come back, we're going to be speaking with Benjamin Fogel. SAM it we are back and we are joined now by Benjamin Fogel, South African journalist, contributing editor at Jacobin and the head of publishing at the Alameda Institute. Benjamin Ben, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

[Sam Cedar]

Thank you for having me.

[Emma Vigeland]

Of course. And we're so glad that we were able to get you, given the display at the White House yesterday. But before we get to that, can you give everybody some context as to the political situation in South Africa right now? There were elections last year. What were the results of those elections and how does that inform the current context?

[Sam Cedar]

It's actually quite interesting because last year we had historic elections. These elections were historic because the ruling African National Congress lost its majority. Its share of the vote fell below 50% for the first time. This is the party that has governed South Africa since 1999. 4 It's the party of Nelson Mandela. It's the party that you could almost guarantee was going to win an absolute majority every election. So what happened instead of this order? We had a rather orderly in global standards at least, even if it was somewhat dysfunctional in terms of how things came together. A coalition government was formed. A coalition government that includes multiple parties includes the largest opposition party, the Democratic alliance, which is a party that is associated with white voters with other minority voters, including coloreds and Indians. It includes the ifp, which was a party once in a sort of low state of civil war with the ANC during the 1980s. The Zulu nationalist Party includes smaller right wing parties, includes the pac, the Pan African Africanist Congress parties, the center left, center right. It's quite a diverse coalition. Since then, this coalition government has been trying to find its way with more than a few hiccups. And it is almost a year to the day since the election. And South Africa is sort of in this uneasy position in which we have a lot of uncertainty because of the economic situation. We have a lot of worries that perhaps we will lose trade with the United States. A preferential trade deal has existed for quite a while and and that might adversely affect our export sectors. We also have a number of problems, of course, facing the country ranging from poverty, inequality, broken infrastructure and many other problems that plague a great many developing countries. But in South Africa, we have for the first time a multi party coalition government that includes parties that even if they are racialized, are seen to represent all races, even including to a degree an Afrikaner nationalist party, the Freedom Front plus. So it's quite bizarre that we have seen, given that we have a coalition government, this increased and outrageous, in my opinion, intensification of a disinformation and anti South African diplomatic campaign from the Trump White House since he took power.

[Emma Vigeland]

And the history I feel like here is really important too because prior to Ramaphosa becoming president, there was this guy called Jacob Zuma who was quite corrupt, right? And tarnished the reputation of the anc. How did his period of like mass privatization and corruption create the environment for there to be a more coalition government in the last elections? Was that a big part of it?

[Sam Cedar]

So firstly, I wouldn't characterize mass privatization as something which really happened under the Zuma government. What happened was indeed we embarked on an intensification of investment in terms of infrastructure and things geared up to increase state capacity development from trains to ports. It just so happened that was part of a project to channel public monies into private coffers. This is what we call, referred to as state capture in South Africa. It refers in particular to the role played by politically connected businessmen, most notoriously the clan of Indian businessmen, of third rate Indian businessmen called the Guptas, who had a special relationship with the President and to a degree dictated both state policy and and cabinet appointments for quite some time. So Zuma, who took power in 2009 as president, he was elected in that year and governed until 2018, effectively we sometimes refer to as 10 last years. The core institutions of the country, from the tax collection service to the parastatals, the state owned enterprise that run transportation, that run energy, that run water, were run into the ground, handed over to politically connected figures who were working on behalf of various interests to sabotage and fill the coffers of various foreign bank accounts. There was also a concerted propaganda effort done by a British a notorious British PR firm called Bell Pottinger, a firm linked to the Thatcher government as well as the Pinochet regime, which came up with a spin for this era. This spin was that Jacob Zuma, rather than stealing from the poor to benefit politically connected businessmen, was enacting radical economic transformation, a sort of redistributed program to benefit the black majority. But there was rather, contrary to some of the myths out there, a mass movement that emerged. It started among middle class and more elite South Africans, but then included the working class, including cosatu, South Africa's largest trade federation, which was present at the meeting yesterday and there were protests on the street and effectively Zuma was removed before the 2019 election by the ANC because they felt he would be such a liability in that election that it would cost them votes. So Soraphosa, who is a very interesting figure in his own right, who was deputy president there, effectively led that campaign at the end part and became president. Now, he then basically regained some of the ground lost by Zuma in the 2019 election, but since then things haven't been so rosy. He promised to deliver an anti corruption campaign, restoration of state capacity, a prosecution of those responsible for state capture. Capture, some redistribution, but a combination between unable to move beyond the factional politics of the African National Congress. Covid that thing that we might remember and some other unfortunate external economic factors as well as some own goals made his first term quite difficult. Things did not get better. Those responsible for state capture were not prosecuted. The economic performance has been less than desirable and there hasn't been the change that was promised. As a result, South African voters, as you would expect in a democracy, many of them decided to cast a ballot against the ANC for the first time or stay at home or exercise a democratic right to choose something else. And it was clear that the anc, even if received the majority of votes, did not have a mandate to form a government by its own. So it formed a coalition. Now, there is a lot more to cover in this period, but that's a brief history of where we are to this day.

[Emma Vigeland]

I appreciate that context because then we can, I think, move to yesterday to just. Let's take a look at how Ramaphosa, the South African president, responded to a question by Donald Trump about this notion of white genocide in South Africa. This is number eight here. We'll start with eight and then do nine. I'd love your reaction, Ben, to this. This is this exchange at the White House yesterday where he tried to. He tried to. Zelensky, the South African president, but he was a little bit more.

[Sam Cedar]

It's worse than what happened to Zelensky. In fact, I've never seen this before. Who prepares a sort of mini documentary, an ambush for a diplomatic meeting for the press. You know, this is something that, I mean, maybe somewhere, somewhere it's happened, but I have never seen in all my years of observing politics anything quite like this.

[Emma Vigeland]

Here it is, Donald Trump and the President of South Africa.

[Sam Cedar]

For you to be convinced that there's no white genocide in South Africa. Well, I can answer that for President. I'd rather have him answer the president.

[Emma Vigeland]

It will Take President Trump listening to.

[Sam Cedar]

The voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here. When we have talks between us on the quiet around a quiet table, it.

[David Hearst]

Will take President Trump to listen to them.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm not going to be repeating what I've been saying. I would say if there was a Frikaner genocide, I can bet you these.

[Emma Vigeland]

Three gentlemen would not be here, including my minister of Agriculture.

[Sam Cedar]

They would not be with me.

[David Hearst]

So it will take him.

[Emma Vigeland]

President Trump, listening to their stories, to their perspective.

[Sam Cedar]

That is the answer to your question.

[David Hearst]

But, Mr. President, we have none of.

[Emma Vigeland]

That.

[David Hearst]

Thousands of stories talking about it. And we have documentaries, we have news stories. And that is Natalie here.

[Sam Cedar]

Somebody here to turn that.

[David Hearst]

I could show you.

[Emma Vigeland]

We have a PowerPoint.

[Sam Cedar]

I would.

[Emma Vigeland]

I just.

[David Hearst]

I have to. It has to be responded to. Let me see the articles, please, if you would. And turn. Excuse me.

[Sam Cedar]

Turn the lights down.

[Emma Vigeland]

Okay. All right, so we. This is him. And let's just skip ahead then to what's. What. What we're referring. What's being referred to there where later. So they set this up showing that like the. Is this the part where they show what they claim are bodies that aren't. Is this it, Russ?

[Sam Cedar]

Those are like articles that he, Trump, has printed out. Yeah, there's articles. And there was a clip shown before that in which there was a whole segment in which they show a bunch of crosses on a road, which is the one that really started this.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, yes, yes, here it is. This is the. We can just see even the freeze frame of what Trump pulls up there. I think people get that those were actual graves.

[Sam Cedar]

Those were not graves, by the way. They were.

[Emma Vigeland]

Can you, can you say what that was?

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, this was a stunt. I mean, basically, these. This is not a grave site. This is a road. There had been a protest organized by a certain group after the killing of two farmers. And what they did is they got a drone, which is. You're watching, and they set a bunch of cars up and they put a bunch of white crosses supposedly to symbolize the victims of this fake genocide. I will. I can go very firmly and state there is no genocide happening. So this is a sort of stunt that's been used to get international media coverage. It's obviously playing off the very symbolic and powerful messaging of, you know, white Cross's victims. These stories. It's part of a campaign in which really uses the Human Rights Charter and the tradition of opposing genocide, which, you know, has been tarnished in the west most recently in a.

[Emma Vigeland]

And Important to note that Israel is the or the South Africa launched the case in the ICJ accusing Israel of genocide. These claims of white genocide precede that. But it's important to note that as the west helps commit genocide, they're accusing the nation that's calling out that genocide via the International Court of Justice of doing so falsely.

[Sam Cedar]

There's no coincidence that's happening in this way. But anyway, basically just to explain the context behind this, so even the Farmers Rights Organization, the right wing organization that has been at the forefront of this and has had probably overstated but access to the insiders of the Maga world AfriForum, which claims to be a civil rights group representing Afrikaners as a persecuted minority. They don't say there's a genocide happening, they say there's a risk of genocide happening. Because I mean, by any measure there isn't enough people being killed to amount to genocide. But let's put into perspective. South Africa, unfortunately is a very, very violent country. As some of the guests from South Africa and the White House pointed out, There were about 23,000 murders in South Africa last year. There's a population of over 60 million. And that's really bad. It's one of the worst in the world. And the overwhelming number of victims are poor and black or colored as well. The most dangerous place in the country, as Johann Rupert, South Africa's richest man, actually referred to yesterday, is ruled by the opposition party. It's Cape Town, the Cape Flats, which is a majority colored area. But yeah, so there's a lot of violence in South Africa. And yes, farmers are killed, there are at times attacks, there's brutal attacks, but there is no evidence that there's anything beyond criminal attacks going on. In fact, the most recent numbers that I will bring up from last year indicated that out of these 23,000, over 23,000 murders, there were 44 killings of people within the farming community, according to the official police stats, which will be rejected, of course, by the propagandists, eight of which were farmers. The Transvaal Agricultural Union, which represents farmers, has compiled different figures which say there were 23 white people killed in farms last year. So it's important to say that farm attacks, there are many black farmers too. There are more white farmers, but some of the victims of farm attacks are black as well. And a number of the reasons that there are farm attacks, and sometimes they're incredibly brutal. This is something that can't be denied, is that farmers are vulnerable. They live in isolated areas. They are far from some security services. There's great expanses of land in South Africa and they present an attractive target. Often the farms are located quite close to urban areas. So the peri urban areas people can make their way. There used to be for instance, attacks on farmers to gain firearms. People knew that farmers had firearms and this be used in other crimes. So yes, they are real security risks to farmers. But this is criminal. And this is not in any way tantamount to an organized campaign of mass killing of white people. Furthermore, one of the other points that was repeatedly made in this press conference or theatrical show or whatever you want to call it, this farce was that there is active expropriation of white farmers land going on. That is simply not true. And even Afriforum will agree with me on this. There is not any active expropriation going on. What has happened is there is rhetoric from certain political parties and certain political figures calling for expropriation. At times they use sort of violent imagery. And second of all, there has been an amendment in American terms, well, a change to our constitution with a new piece of legislation which makes facilitates the expropriation of land for public use as exists in most countries now. This is not a government policy of expropriation. Furthermore, it was implied that somehow the sort of nightmare Zimbabwe scenario which is not happening in South Africa, that the people attacking the farmers are getting the land, that's not happening at all. There is no case of this. So I hope that clarifies things for any.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I mean it's less than 1% of the population. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a genocide by definition. But as you say, this is a few dozen white farmers that have been killed over this period.

[Sam Cedar]

This is just the last year.

[Emma Vigeland]

Just the last year, right?

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. So again, if we go over enough, we have a great. We have many more names. And again, yes, they're more likely to be attacked than say in some ways. And some people living in urban areas, as I pointed out, there's reasons for that. And secondly, again, South Africa is a violent place. But the most likely guy to get murdered in South Africa who is a black or colored man living in a working class area in Durban or cape town between 1825. And unfortunately these victims are not recorded as worthy of any international attention. And moreover, the implication between the accusation of genocide is there is an active state policy, there is a state support for this. There simply is no evidence of that.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean they're conflating. Right. The land reform with genocide. If you could expand on what the land reform is and why it's. It's basically captured the imagination of white supremacists so that they call it genocide.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, there's a few things. First of all, the land reform hasn't started yet. This bill that has happened was only passed earlier this year. I mean, I think it was last year actually. So this is one. One, a piece of legislation that's very recent. Two, it's always, you know, a radical threat that, you know, this is part of the nature of decolonization, which happens with liberation movements. There's always, you know, the act of dispossession is one of the original sins of colonialism, of the dispossession of the natives. And there needs to be land reform. And sometimes that includes, you know, in some cases, more radical versions than others. What is true is that the pace of land reform in South Africa and land reform is a very complicated issue in South Africa includes the issue of what we call traditionally held land, which is community hold land owned by traditional leaders who are often very oppressive too. But the pace of land reform in South Africa has simply been too slow. It's been one of the glaring failures of the ANC since 1994 is land reform. And okay, so with the white supremacist imagination, you have to look at what happened in other countries. It's not happened in South Africa, but they will refer to Zimbabwe, they refer to what happened in Algeria. The image of, you know, the violent sort of fake Phenonian reading of the wretched of the earth, of the natives taking back their land through violence, through collective dispossessions. Cathartic act from the Watts, which is a classic, you know, specter of the, you know, white supremacist colonial imagination. You have other versions, you know, in reconstruction, right? This is the origin of the Ku Klux Klan, the, you know, repression of, you know, the former slaves who wanted a piece of land and the right to dignity and the right to full citizenship. This is, you know, these things go together. So in South Africa, what, what they refer to is by a deliberate disinformation campaign that confuses or conflates these issues. They refer in particular to the specter of what happened in Zimbabwe where there was a violent campaign. I mean, there's debates on the exact nature of it. But there were, you know, from so called war veterans who seized these farms on behalf as part of a state supported policy of redistribution in the name of liberation. There were, the white farmers lost their land, the farms were redistributed. Often to politically connected elites. And Zimbabwe, for a variety of reasons, had one of the worst economic collapses on record. And they refer to that, which is a very different situation in a very different country to South Africa as evidence of the nightmare of land reform. But to reiterate, South Africa remains a constitutional democracy. There are laws, as pointed out, to protect property rights. There's been a very slow place of land reform, and there's nobody in power who's leading a campaign to occupy and seize people's lands. Now the other thing which I will sort of preempt but point to is most of the clips that were shown in that video were of a small opposition party called the Economic Freedom Fighters. And they did Julius Malema. Now, this party is not in power. It lost 3 or 4% of its, its votes in the last election and has never looked weaker and more isolated than it does now. So it remains to be restated this is the rhetoric of an opposition party that is not in power.

[Emma Vigeland]

Okay, so is this like a kind of version of what we've seen with Elon Musk's association with the AfD in Germany, where this is like a radical right wing party that isn't yet in power, but that you have like outsized influence by billionaires and by wealthy people in the world trying to inflate their standing or their level of importance?

[Sam Cedar]

It's complicated. Now, the eff, it's one of their ways of mobilizing support by playing into the sort of very sort of violent, performative rhetoric. It's a way of like differentiating themselves. But it's also, you know, it harkens to certain traditions within the anc. The EFF is a split from the ANC that are frustrated with the slow pace of transformation, as I say, and land reform and real problems with inequality in South Africa. But I will point to something which I think get to zoom out a bit because South African politics are very complicated. I'm also a scholar of Brazil, and it's often said that Brazil is not for beginners. But I will say South Africa, it's ready only for experts. It's a very complicated country to the minutiae and the details. But South Africa occupies particular place in the reactionary imagination today. There's no coincidence. There's a deliberate campaign to inflate, to depict South Africa as some sort of dystopian hellhole. And that's not to deny we have very real problems. But the reason for this is in many ways the transition to democracy in South Africa on 1994 moment is seen as the high point of sort of that moment of liberalism of the 90s, that moment in which there was a hope for democracy, for a spread through peaceful means of universal values. This was the high point of this. This is the, you know, the mythology about the Mandela miracle. This is the rainbow nation. This is, you know, South African miracle. This is something very close to, you know, for instance, Joe Biden always used to inflate and even lie about his connections to South Africa. But there's a reason for that.

[Emma Vigeland]

Joe Biden lied about his record. I mean, that's. I'm joking, I'm being sarcastic.

[Sam Cedar]

He claims have been stoned in South Africa or being something like that, which is. You have to look it up anyway.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, you go back to his, his plagiarism, the guy, it's, it's, it's kind of a, a thing for him.

[Sam Cedar]

But anyway, Neil Kinnock, a twice loser in the UK elections, anyway, to go back to South Africa because of the role played by South Africa and the liberal imagination, four hardcore reactionaries, both the neo variant which has emerged and those sort of more paleo who go back to people like Pat Buchanan or go back to in the Reaganite movement, which there was support for South Africa, Grover Norquist, people like that, who worked for the safari government doing propaganda campaigns. There is this connection to this. But South Africa serves as sort of like the nightmare. This is the DEI nightmare for the right Now South Africa is being portrayed as a hellhole because it's seen as the sort of culmination of the sort of DEI politics of multiculturalism. This is the nightmare. And moreover, despite it being bizarre, it's a black majority country. It is the great replacement. It's when white people are replaced by black people. That's why they're into Rhodesia, which is even more absurd. It's only like 200,000 white Rhodesians at its high points. And this is why South Africa is, you know, it's the nightmare, it's the great replacement. And this is why the Afrikaner refugees are so important, because this is connected to our vision of America. Now, it's obviously all absurd and also linked to punishing South Africa for the ICJ or a bipartisan distaste for some of our diplomatic positions because, you know, the Democrats were very angry with us too, about the way where we stood on the Ukraine, Russia war, where we've stood on the icj. But I will point. South Africa is now being portrayed by the likes of Elon and by people in these various far right Circles, particularly online in these journals, as the great replacement DEI dystopia.

[Emma Vigeland]

And they're equating reforms to help black South Africans with genocide. In like, I read some statistic that 70% of farmland in South Africa is owned by white people and white people are less than 10% of the population. Do those numbers seem right to you?

[Sam Cedar]

Yes, but reforms that haven't happened yet, which makes it even worse. There has been no active change to our land reform process, which is still based on willing buyer, willing seller, which means. Means what it says and has been very slow and pretty much is regarded as kind of a failure. It's not been happening. The, as you pointed out, the land ownership statistics haven't changed.

[David Hearst]

Yes.

[Sam Cedar]

In terms of privately owned land, that's arable, that is correct. But that also doesn't include community owned land and state owned land. So it gets a bit more confusing. And community owned land is its own. You know, that would take me like a whole history seminar to explain. But the point. But in terms of property owned, arable, farmer land, farms, that is correct. But it's also evidence that the land reform hasn't really been happening.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right. And the piece that they're hung up on is the abandoned land that could be taken by the government. Is my understanding. Is that part of it?

[Sam Cedar]

Yes, which also already existed in South African law. They just updated from a law, but like, name me a country in the world which doesn't have a public use expropriation bill. Hey, the United States is, you know, if you have the, if you have oil or minerals on your land, you get expropriated. It happens all the time.

[Emma Vigeland]

Build a border wall through people's backyards down in Texas and like, I mean, is that Texan genocide? It's just ridiculous.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, I mean, it exists because, you know, again, I mean, the U.S. you know, if you go through American literary series, you know, you always see people losing their farmland because, you know, raw materials were discovered. It's a classic story. I mean, this is hardly a unique law, but again, this is a recently passed law. Nothing has happened yet. It's the implied threat, along with the rhetoric of some figures within politics that's being used as evidence. And even when you push them on it, when you push Afriforum and Co on it, they won't say there is a genocide. They say there's a risk of genocide. Increasing risk of genocide.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, really appreciate you coming on today, Ben, and explaining this to us. Benjamin Fogel, you can check out his work over at Jacobin and Then also, Ben, you're the head of publishing at the Alameda Institute and people can look at your work over there as well. Thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, I'm glad always to represent South Africa and try explain away some of the, you know, systemic confusion about it because I mean frankly, what we saw yesterday, I hope it registered to Americans and deferred to you guys on this, that that was a absurd low point for diplomacy. And at the same time, as you pointed out, we have horrific news by the day out of Gaza. If you know, mass starvation, 10,000 children at risk of dying. And then we have like the world's most well fed and prosperous refugees arriving and very many of them being exposed as serial scammers running away from debts with the special treatments.

[Emma Vigeland]

It's insane. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it, Ben. All right, folks, with that we're going to wrap up the free part of the show, head into the fun half where we will have some fun. We probably won't take any calls. We went over a little bit and I have like a, you know, I got a jump at 2:25 ish. So we will read your IMs though, in the fun half. Matt, what's happening on your show?

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, Left Reckoning Tuesday actually had a opening of the show based on this going into Stephen Miller and big Camp of the Saints fan, which is a novel by French white supremacist about the sort of faceless hordes pouring into the white world and you know, being unable to stop it big and ultimately it's the thing that drives this white genocide sort of hysteria by Afrikaners and white supremacists in South Africa. And it also is basically the world that Israel is creating for for itself where it has for decades treated the place that the land that it's on as a place to conquer and views demographics as the imperative. So we can't have all these Palestinians here and it's the exact same sort of we can't have birth, we can't have children growing up and birth rates that are outnumbering ours. And that is a white supremacist ideology. That is the through line there. So check that out.

[Emma Vigeland]

Patreon.com leftreckoning yes, please do that. And can I do a rust plug.

[Sam Cedar]

While Matt brings in these other guys? So I before I started working here I used to do a podcast called the New Yorker Political Scene Scene where I would basically react to and sort of insert myself through the magic of editing into the New Yorkers Washington politics Roundtable. I have been a little too busy to keep up with it since I've started this job, but I just could not help myself this week because Evan Osnos, who wrote a very famous book about Joe Biden and also wrote a profile of Joe Biden that came out in March of last year, was talking to Susan Glasser and Jane Mayer about this reckoning over the way they covered Biden and his mental acuity. So you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, the New Yorker, political scene scene. I guess I'll put a link in the.

[Emma Vigeland]

Dad. Put a link in the description.

[Sam Cedar]

And I probably won't be able to do it every. Probably won't be able to do it every week, but follow the show. And when I do have time to get back to regular schedule, you will be in the loop.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right, link below to that. And hello to Brandon and Binder. What's up, guys?

[Sam Cedar]

Hey, how are you?

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm doing well. I'm. I'm. I'm very busy. I think I told you guys I'm getting married in like three weeks at this point, and I am so ready for it to be over. So sorry about no calls. I have all these appointments I have to. I have to do. I gotta go get fitted. I gotta get my hair done. I got it, like, whatever. It's just insane. So we're gonna wrap it like 225ish map into what's happening on your shows.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, just been busy too. I actually did not have a show last night. YouTube.com Matt Bender Tonight left his mafia you. I guess I'll really quickly use this opportunity. You have a wedding coming up. I'll just announce now that I have a third child on the way, so I will be a bender. So it's coming up. Everybody who knows, who needs to know, knows. I actually ran into Sam at the Zateo event a couple weeks ago. So I told him then. So if I'm absent for like a week or two, it's because of that. I don't think.

[Emma Vigeland]

I don't think I will be there. When are we talking?

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, we're talking soon. Like, literally the due date's June 13th.

[Emma Vigeland]

Wow.

[Sam Cedar]

That's what it means to be a mighty man.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right. You need a shofar. This is what you need.

[Sam Cedar]

That's a real thing.

[Emma Vigeland]

Congrats, buddy. That's on. Awesome.

[David Hearst]

Thank you.

[Sam Cedar]

I appreciate that.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right, well, Brandon, your news sucks compared to.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, I'll have you know, I haven't been too busy to stream, and so I have been. In fact, just this morning before I came on here, we were watching the incredibly bizarre press conference between the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa and Donald Trump.

[Emma Vigeland]

Trump.

[Sam Cedar]

Which we were able to use as a useful vehicle to critique the mythology of white genocide and also talk about the reality of crime and what actually causes it. Not just in South Africa, but, you know, all across the world. And I think tomorrow we're going to learn about ghosts. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm not. I don't know a lot about ghosts. I'm not like a ghost enthusiast. I'm ghost agnostic. I Now I've go to a pun there, but it wouldn't have worked. So, yeah, I'm gonna learn about ghost tomorrow. So be there or be square. Find me on YouTube. Find me on Twitch.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right, we will head into the fun half then. See you there.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay. Emma, please.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I just. I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report.

[Sam Cedar]

Wait, look. Example's unpopular.

[Emma Vigeland]

I do just reserve vacation at Disney World, so. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure.

[Sam Cedar]

To welcome Emma to the show.

[Emma Vigeland]

It is Thursday.

[Sam Cedar]

I think you need to do co for Sam. Yes, please.

[David Hearst]

No, no, no.

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm gonna pause you right there.

[David Hearst]

Wait, what?

[Sam Cedar]

You can't encourage Emma to live like this, and I'll tell you why. Who was offered a tour?

[Emma Vigeland]

Sushi and poker with boys?

[Sam Cedar]

Tour, sushi and poker with boys.

[Emma Vigeland]

Who was offered a tour?

[David Hearst]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with boys. What? Twerk, sushi and poker.

[Emma Vigeland]

Tim's upset.

[Sam Cedar]

Twerk, sushi and poker with two boys. He was offered with twerk sushi and.

[Emma Vigeland]

That'S what we call biz.

[Sam Cedar]

Twerk, sushi and bulker with two boys.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right. Torque sushi and we're gonna get demonetized.

[Sam Cedar]

I just think that what you did.

[Emma Vigeland]

To Tim pool was mean free speech.

[Sam Cedar]

That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now.

[Emma Vigeland]

You shouldn't even talk about it. I think you're responsible. I probably am in a certain way. But let's get to the meltdown here.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with boys. Oh, my God. Wow. Sushi.

[David Hearst]

I'm sorry. I'm losing my mind.

[Emma Vigeland]

Someone's offered with tour, sushi and poker with the boys.

[Sam Cedar]

Logic. Sushi and poker. I think I'm like a little kid.

[Emma Vigeland]

Think I'm like a little kid.

[Sam Cedar]

Think I'm like a kid. Twerk. I think I'm like a little kid. Think I'm like a little kid. Add this debate 7,000 times.

[David Hearst]

A little kid.

[Emma Vigeland]

I think I'm like a little kid.

[Sam Cedar]

A little kid.

[Emma Vigeland]

I think I'm like a. I'm losing my mind. Some people just don't understand.

[Sam Cedar]

So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but, like, I absolutely.

[Emma Vigeland]

Think the US should be providing me.

[Sam Cedar]

With a wife and kids.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's not what we're talking about here.

[Sam Cedar]

It's not a fun job.

[Emma Vigeland]

Twerk.

[Sam Cedar]

That's a real thing. That's got a real thing. Real thing. Willy Wonka work. That's a real thing.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's.

[Sam Cedar]

That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's real thing. Real thing. That's a real thing that's offered.

[Emma Vigeland]

Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Rogan has done it again.

[Sam Cedar]

That's a real thing. I think he might be blowing it out of proportion. Real thing that's offered. Twerk. That's a real thing. Let's go, Joey.

[Emma Vigeland]

Sushi and poker.

[Sam Cedar]

Is it going to work? Sushi and poker.

[Emma Vigeland]

Things have really gotten out of hand.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with the boys. Sushi.

[Emma Vigeland]

You don't have a clue as to what's going on. Live YouTube. Sam has twi. The weight of the world on his shoulders. Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore.

[Sam Cedar]

Anymore.

[Emma Vigeland]

It was so much easier when the majority report was just. You happy?

[Sam Cedar]

Let's change the subject. Rangers and Nick. You know.

[Emma Vigeland]

Great. Now shut up. Don't want people saying reckless things on your program.

[Sam Cedar]

That's one of the most difficult parts about this show.

[Emma Vigeland]

This is the pro Killing podcast.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury the hatchet.

[Emma Vigeland]

Left his best trump. Violet. Twerk.

[Sam Cedar]

Don't be foolish and don't tweet at me. And don't ditch the way Emma has all of these people love it.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's where my heart is. So I wrote my honors thesis about it. Thesis. I guess I should hand the main.

[Sam Cedar]

Mic to you now. You are to the right of the unfortunate policy.

[Emma Vigeland]

We already found Israel. Dude. Are you against us? That's a tougher question. I have an answer to.

[Sam Cedar]

God.

[Emma Vigeland]

Incredible theme song. I bumbler.

[Sam Cedar]

Emma Viand. Absolutely one of my favorite people.

[Emma Vigeland]

Actually. Not just in the game, like period.