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- [00:01]
Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
And when you sign up you you'll get the trip members deal completely free ad free listening, early access to Question Time, bonus episodes and pre sale tickets to our live shows.
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Alistair Campbell
So while your car recharges, your podcast feed gets a power boost too.
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Rory Stewart
Just head to getfuse.com politics download the app and use the code politics smart.
- [01:14]
Alistair Campbell
Tariff swift Installation no white papers, green papers or red tape required. Foreign welcome to the Racist Politics with.
- [01:29]
Rory Stewart
Me, Alistair Campbell and with me Rory Stewart.
- [01:31]
Alistair Campbell
And Rory I feel we're going to get quite heavy today. We're going to do Israel first half, Ukraine second half, right? And do them in in some depth. I think we decided on Israel first, even before last night, where we had the remarkable spectacle, I would say, of a dinner in the White House where Bibi Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, presents across the table a bit like Keir Starmer with his letter for the King, presents to Donald Trump the letter that he, Netanyahu, an indicted alleged war criminal, says, this is the letter I've written to the Nobel Peace Prize committee nominating you, Mr. President, for the Nobel Peace Prize.
- [02:10]
Rory Stewart
And as listeners will remember, this is part of a pattern. The Pakistan chief of the army staff went for lunch at the White House and the Pakistan military has nominated Donald Trump for a peace prize. The government of the Congo has nominated Donald Trump for a peace prize.
- [02:24]
Alistair Campbell
And if you think he really wants.
- [02:25]
Rory Stewart
A Nobel Peace Prize, you would think so. And of course it also sits with Mark Rutter, the head of NATO, sending these amazing, oleaginous creepy notes to him saying you're the best president ever. Nobody could do this except you. So essentially, before we get onto Israel, I mean, Donald Trump has bent the world to turn international leaders into a cringing court of obsequious people kneeling at his feet, flattering him in the most monstrous way.
- [02:52]
Alistair Campbell
But the thing that both Trump and Netanyahu are very, very good at is deflection and distraction. A few days ago, Donald Trump was saying there will be a ceasefire within days. And of course, what he was trying to do was engineer it so that when Netanyahu got to the White House, it's his third visit since Trump's second term began, that there would be a great ceasefire. Well, there is no ceasefire. Little sign of a ceasefire. In fact, the overnight news actually is this unbelievable, frankly insane plan to put 600,000 Palestinians into the ruins of Rafah and during a 60 day ceasefire which doesn't yet exist, build what they're calling a humanitarian city. Only catch future residents of the humanitarian city. Once you're in, you're not allowed out. Yeah, I don't know how you describe that.
- [03:36]
Rory Stewart
Yes, well, how do you describe something that you can't leave normally?
- [03:39]
Alistair Campbell
You describe it as a prison camp.
- [03:40]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. And this is the Defence Minister of Israel's now announces we'll get into the depths of this, but somewhere right at the very heart of this is a very strong commitment from bits of the Israeli government and possibly most of the Israeli government now, towards the idea of driving Palestinians out of Gaza, putting unbearable pressure on, in a dream scenario for them, opening the Egyptian border and just relying on the relentless suffering and horror to drive people across the border to Egypt. Or if not that, what the Defence Minister has now announced, which is moving them into a small perimeter imprisoned holding camp, potentially as a prelude to then push them across the border. But the whole thing amounts to this idea which we keep coming back to, in which it seems as though that although they've been denying it, but there's been some good investigation from the Times, the Tony Blair Institute had a couple of people consulting on a plan that seems to be financed by some wealthy business people fleshing out Donald Trump's dream of an empty Riviera, which is then reinforced by the Finance Minister, Bazal Smotrich of Israel saying that he absolutely wants settlements back there. And of course Ben Gevir, the Security Minister and his party, who keep making it absolutely clear that every last person should leave.
- [04:59]
Alistair Campbell
Just for the record, I'm no longer Tony Blair spokesman, but I have seen the line to take that was put out by them and they said they denied the Financial Times story insofar as they are not part of this Boston Consulting Group plan. It was all over the ft. I have no idea. That's all I've got to say.
- [05:15]
Rory Stewart
It's quite interesting people should read the ft, because I think it's a good bit of reporting, because actually, what the FT does is go from a denial that was made a few days earlier, then look into it in more detail, identify who the TBI people were. And essentially the FT story is saying TBI are not being as honest as they should be about this.
- [05:31]
Alistair Campbell
And the big point from that story, which you and I said right from the word go, when you try to replace United nations and reputable charitable organizations that have been delivering humanitarian aid in really difficult circumstances for decades, and you try to replace them with something ludicrously called the Humanitarian Fund, the Gaza Humanitarian Fund. And I'll tell you something, we're going to. I know we're going to talk about the BBC later in relation to the documentary that we both watched about the Gaza doctors under fire, about the sort of, what seems like systematic destruction of the health service. There is something about the way they use language. So they're calling this the Humanitarian City. Trump seems to have moved away from the idea that it's going to be a great beach resort. The Humanitarian City, the Humanitarian Fund. And what that does, I think, alongside a media that is sort of just gets bored and moves on, plus they can't get in, to be fair to people like Jeremy Bowen and all the sort of decent journalists who try and get in.
- [06:29]
Rory Stewart
Because the Australian government won't allow journalists to report.
- [06:31]
Alistair Campbell
Exactly. And a lot of the journalists who are in there are Palestinians, many of whom live there, who are now. Many of whom are now dead. So the point I was going to make is that where we are on the language is that unless you challenge this language all the time, it just becomes a given. So it becomes the Humanitarian Fund, the Humanitarian City.
- [06:49]
Rory Stewart
Who knows which of these insane, cruel fantasies actually come to pass? The Riviera, the Humanitarian City. But there is a glimpse of what this Humanitarian City idea, which is being sold, would look like, because I've seen it in Lebanon. The Palestinians in Lebanon who were driven out of their homes in Palestine, in Israel, into Lebanon, live in what are described as refugee camps, but are, in fact, enormous, shabby, skyscraper cities surrounded by fences which are then controlled. And it feels like. I don't know whether you ever saw these cities in Hong Kong and the New Territories which had sprung up in the 60s or 70s. I mean, these are things which are terrifying. I mean, you walk around, the buildings look like they're on the verge of collapse. There is absolutely no green space. And there are generations of Palestinians, in the case of southern Lebanon, growing up radicalized, dreaming of return, trapped in something that is like something out of a sort of dystopian.
- [07:53]
Alistair Campbell
Well, we drove past some of them, didn't we, when we went to the.
- [07:56]
Rory Stewart
Yes, well, those are more tented camps. But this humanitarian city sounds more like that Lebanon thing.
- [08:01]
Alistair Campbell
But the idea that. Let's just look at how the difficulty of building any major infrastructure project, first of all, where are they going to get the money from? Secondly, where are they going to get the contractors from? And, okay, let's say those problems are surmountable. Are they seriously saying in 60 days they're going to build a place to house in conditions better than the ones that they're currently in? 600,000 people. And it's very, very hard to escape the conclusion when you listen to people like Netanyahu. So last night he was, if people want to stay, they can stay. If they want to leave, they can leave.
- [08:30]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. The phrase is voluntary repatriation.
- [08:32]
Alistair Campbell
Voluntary repatriation. Whereas Ben GVIR and Smotrich, as you say, essentially their argument is that no, until every last one has gone. This is what I did see from Tony Blair's Institute saying that they always assumed that the future of Gaza has to be for the Gazans to stay in Gaza. But what Ben GVIR and Smotrich are very clear about is that is not the future that they want. They want other countries to take them. Why should other countries take them? The other countries will be saying, so this is gaslighting on a monumental scale, and yet doesn't seem to be getting challenged in the way that it should be.
- [09:03]
Rory Stewart
We often talk about Ben GVIR and Smotrich, and we just use them, these names, the Security minister and the finance minister, as a sort of shorthand for the extremities of the Israeli government. I'd like to just take a minute to try to explain how radical and extreme this is. These are. Are people whose parties were very, very close to terrorist extremists who quite literally were murdering Palestinians who Netanyahu's bodyguard from his first term points out. They were basically trying to protect Netanyahu in the early 90s from people like Ben Gvir, and they are now in the government. Security minister, finance minister. Okay, so these are not.
- [09:47]
Alistair Campbell
They're not fringe.
- [09:48]
Rory Stewart
These are not fringe. Okay. Imagine if you have in your government, as your government backbenchers, people saying this. So this for example, is Zvivka Fogel. There shouldn't be a single Palestinian left in Gaza at the end of the war. It's one of them. Here's another government backbencher. Crozier calls for the deaths of all residents. The Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip should be flattened. There should be one sentence for everyone there. Death. We have to wipe the Gaza Strip off the map. There are no innocents there. Right. Third of its MPs and we'll get to this in a second. Demonstrated led the demonstration, essentially going into the black site to try to stop the Israelis investigating abuse.
- [10:28]
Alistair Campbell
These are the black sites, are the places where they take Palestinians and no real oversight of them.
- [10:33]
Rory Stewart
And this finally is the heritage Minister. This is actually a minister in the government talking about Gaza's population. They can go to Ireland or deserts. The monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves. We wouldn't hand the Nazis humanitarian aid. There are no uninvolved civilians in Gaza. Anyone waving the Palestinian flag shouldn't continue living in the face of the earth. Now these, this is a minister in.
- [10:55]
Alistair Campbell
The government and just on this. So they're people that maybe most of our listeners and viewers won't have heard of. They do know Itamar Ben gvir, almost certainly. And he said this weekend, just gone, the only way to secure the return of the hostages was the, quote, full conquest of the Gaza Strip, a complete halt to so called humanitarian aid and the encouragement of emigration of the Palestinian population. That's the same thing. It's slightly more polite, but not much. So I think we're at a point now where, and you know, it was very interesting, we talked about this last week in the context of the Glastonbury and the BBC documentary and the loss of perspective and the fact that kids were being killed and nobody was talking about it. And we've been holding back right from the word go since October 7th. I think we've been trying to be fair, trying to say there's arguments on both sides, but I think it's impossible now to argue that this is anything other than genocide. And I think that that will provoke the usual. We had it last week actually, to be fair, most of the comments we had last week were supportive, but the exceptions were Israeli government people and people who passionately support Israel and including this government and some of the arguments. It's really interesting you mentioned in one of those quotes Ireland, the extent to which they now identify Ireland as this sort of Great opponent.
- [12:11]
Rory Stewart
Okay, but let me stop you saying. Because you've just said something very, very significant. Okay. You, you've, you've called this genocide. What do you mean by that?
- [12:20]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I've read the genocide convention. Okay. And I think the reason why we've been maybe holding back is because we've wanted to hope and believe that quotes the famed international community would be able to use the horror of October 7th to get to a place where actually we get back on track to a two state solution. But what you read out is a succession of people who, and I think these include Netanyahu. The last thing in the world that they want is a two state solution. And because we're living in this world of frankly of impunity, where Trump, there's Netanyahu, as I say, who's wanted on war crimes. One of the ironies, of course, of him saying you should get a Nobel Peace Prize. If he did, Netanyahu wouldn't be able to go to Oslo for the ceremony because the Norwegians would have to arrest him because they're secretaries to the icc. Similarly, Putin can't be in Brazil for the brics because the same would happen to him. But if you go through the key articles of the Genocide Convention are Articles 2 and 3. Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Do you think there's a tick applied to that one?
- [13:33]
Rory Stewart
I suppose so. Let's just pause on that for. Just so that I can understand this. So we normally think about genocide in terms of what the Nazis did during the Holocaust to the Jews, which is to try to kill every last, eradicate the race. In this case, you're saying it could be in part because clearly what they're not doing is dropping a nuclear bomb on the site. They're not killing every last person. What they seem to be doing from the outside seems to me to be making it completely uninhabitable. Killing tens of thousands of people and trying to drive millions out.
- [14:03]
Alistair Campbell
Right. Well, that's why it's important to go then onto the ABCDE. So that's the Article 2. Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group as such a killing members of the group. Well, that is being done. I don't think anybody can argue about that. They can claim that they always take care to avoid civilian death and civilian casualty. I think it's very, very hard to make that claim. And even though I think we tried at the start to say that maybe they were, B causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. C, and this is where I think the BBC documentary comes in. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. D, less relev. Maybe imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. E, this one does apply to Russia, by the way. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Article 3 defines the crimes that can be punished under the Convention as A genocide. B conspiracy to commit genocide. C Direct and public incitement to commit genocide. I would argue the quotes that you just read out do that. D attempt to commit genocide. E, complicity in genocide. That can apply to other countries, by.
- [15:13]
Rory Stewart
The way, look, what's happening is so disturbing that getting into these legal arguments, a bit distasteful. But I suppose there is genocide, there's crimes against humanity, there's ethnic cleansing. There's a whole international legal conversation here. International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice. There are UK lawyers who have been advising this court. Helena Kennedy, for example, has been advising in subsequent.
- [15:41]
Alistair Campbell
She's been a bit reluctant to go. She actually does say, she's on the record of saying that definitely crimes against humanity being committed, but genocide ultimately is a matter for the international court.
- [15:50]
Rory Stewart
Take a step back for the moment. Presumably we can agree that in the end this has to be a decision made by the international courts that what brought peace to Bosnia was international courts going without favor against Serbs, Croats, Bosnians. I think over 160 war criminals put on trial recognizing Srebrenica as genocide. And actually that's one of the keys to getting a multi ethnic Bosnia rebuilt. So international justice helps.
- [16:21]
Alistair Campbell
And that was only, I think I might say there are three that have been identified in that way since the creation of the Convention. One was Cambodia, the second was Rwanda and the third was Bosnia, Srebrenica. It was defined as genocide. Now there. So they didn't kill every single Bosnian, Bosnian, Bosnian that they were targeting. They killed, I think about eight or nine thousand men and boys. And by the way, just that your point of. You're absolutely right about the importance of the Holocaust in all this, but the other genocide that was quoted in all the. In the development of the Convention was the Armenian genocide in the first World War. And I think one of the arguments that I think has been, I find most repellent about the way that we get the pushback on this. And this is why they keep going for The Irish. And I saw President Higgins coming back again at it this week.
- [17:07]
Rory Stewart
I'd love you just to look at one thing which I think is key to the whole sensitivity, which is that for many people in the Israeli government, and indeed many, many people sympathetic towards Israel, the problem with using the word genocide is that the Jews suffered this genocide, suffered a holocaust that killed well over 6 million people. And therefore, to accuse the Israeli government of committing genocide feels as though it's turning everything on its head and it's sort of trivializing the Holocaust by equating the two. Is that part of the issue here?
- [17:40]
Alistair Campbell
I think I would turn that on its head. So the Holocaust. Uniquely evil is the phrase often used. Uniquely evil. And yet what I think the Israeli government and their supporters around the world have tried to do since October 7th is essentially to make that equation, you know, from day one, this is the worst attack upon the Jewish people since the Holocaust. And since then, I saw an interview with Naomi Klein the other day, Canadian, Jewish, and she was making the point that they now seem absolutely determined essentially to give people the idea that the war started on October 7. And by equating it in the way that I think often they do with the Holocaust, identify the enemy in this, the Palestinians, as on a par with the Nazis, to be wiped out, to be dehumanized in the way that I think they have been dehumanized. And so, you know, some of the feed pushback we got last week, I got a message from a, a former mp. I won't say who it was, but I will if he keeps coming at me. And, and essentially part of the argument is how can you possibly imagine that the Israeli government would want to commit genocide, an act of genocide against Palestinians, against the Gazan people, when the entire state of Israel was born out of the worst act of genocide in all of human history. But I think that that equivalence is now being weaponized. And the reason why I think I'll always speak up for old President Higgins. And I mean, the Irish, as you know, has got a history on this issue and they're very, very. But he made the point last week that every time now this is what's happening. We're getting blowback in this as well. Every time you today criticize the actions or the words of the Israeli government, you're accused of being anti Semitic. And I think some of the most passionate people against what the Israeli government are doing are Israelis and are Jews. But they're being. I'm not pretending, by the way, Netanyahu's got more support now than he had at the start of this. This war, not least because of Iran, but everybody who criticizes Israel. Being labeled anti Semitic, I think, has become part of the problem that stops proper debate about this. I know a lot of Jewish people, I work with a lot of Jewish people. I've spoken out against anti Semitism all of my life. Fiona, my partner, she resigned from the Labour Party and she actually sat down with Keir Starmer before he became leader and said, unless Corbyn sorts this out, I am leaving the Labour Party. And she did. And yet we just. For saying what I said last week, you have a very small minority of our listeners and viewers coming on and say, I cannot believe that you're quotes anti Semitic in the way that you talk about Israel. I'm talking about the Israeli government and its current policy, which I think is indefensible.
- [20:25]
Rory Stewart
Maybe we should. We should get onto the documentaries as a way into this sort of. This was the documentary that was commissioned by the BBC, and it's a documentary that describes the attacks on the healthcare system, on hospitals and doctors in Gaza over the last 18 months. BBC, in the end, didn't show it and it was shown on Channel four. And you can. You can watch it. Anyone listening can watch it.
- [20:46]
Alistair Campbell
And anybody sees Mehdi Hasan's site, Zetio, they're showing it.
- [20:52]
Rory Stewart
Just a quick summary of the. Of the documentary, the documentary he watched over the weekend. Yep. Documentary shows that every single One of the 32 hospitals in Gaza has been targeted again and again and again. An incredible disproportionate number of doctors have been killed and a disproportionate number of doctors have been arrested and taken to prisons and even to black sites, to informal prisons. The argument from the Israeli government is that the reason why this has happened is that these hospitals had Hamas locations underneath and that these doctors knew about the whereabouts of hostages or were themselves Hamas sympathisers. The description, though, of the extremity of what's happened, though, makes it very difficult to believe that the actions are proportional or that what the Israeli army is doing here is purely about trying to find Hamas. Repeatedly. The pattern is that the hospital is surrounded, essentially cut off. The Israeli army then moves in, often with tanks. Often imagery is released. Al Shifa, for example, imagery is released of incredibly 3D imagery of what appeared to be almost like a video game of layers of Hamas bunkers and command centres underneath the ground. When the Israeli government arrives, that isn't what they found at all. Turned out that intelligence presumably wasn't validated. They did find some weapons which they showed in an image. And then what seems to happen is the entire hospital is then destroyed because when you see the imagery of the hospital later, the whole thing is essentially a wreck and patients are killed in bombardments, etc. We then had a very, very detailed description of two things which I think are again are impossible to explain. One of them is this incident that we covered in March where an ambulance with its lights on was attacked, the occupants killed outside the ambulances and buried in shallow graves. And then a doctor whose apartment was attacked, his brothers and uncles who were also doctors were killed. And when he took his wife and his small child, who I think was six, outside, they were then struck with a drone, killing his wife and his 6 year old out in the open. These things are very, very closely related to what other governments do. Syria would be an example where regimes deliberately target that infrastructure in order to drive populations out. The easiest way to get rid of a population is to completely destroy their healthcare infrastructure because you can't live then if you're bombed, you can't get any medicine, you can't get any operations, you can't get any surgery. This is what the court is looking at now. And I wonder what you thought about that documentary.
- [23:33]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I thought it was really powerful and I imagined when I watched it that they had adapted it and changed it from what was going to be on the BBC to what they put out. And I've spoken to some of the people who are involved in the making, they say that's not the case, that actually they got the go ahead from the BBC, the commissioner, senior commissioner, senior executives, they got the go ahead, this was going to go on the BBC and they then got this succession of what they call changing stories about why it wasn't going to happen. First of all, it had nothing to do with the other documentary where there was this documentary where it turned out that one of the people profile was related to a Hammers member and it wasn't made public at all. The documentary, there was an inquiry into that review, they were told it was nothing to do with that. But then part of the later delay they were told actually yes it is to do. They wouldn't wait for the review, etc, etc. The guy in charge of the film making the film was then asked to sign a gagging clause, basically saying he wouldn't criticize the BBC, he wouldn't say that the BBC had agreed to broadcast it and he wouldn't say that all this, this sort of Obfuscation had gone on.
- [24:38]
Rory Stewart
Why would the BBC do that? Is that normal?
- [24:39]
Alistair Campbell
I don't know, but it's backfired because he refused to do it.
- [24:42]
Rory Stewart
Right. And why wouldn't. Sorry, just get to basis the BBC show this documentary.
- [24:47]
Alistair Campbell
His argument is that senior people within the BBC, right up to and including the top, decided it was not to be shown.
- [24:56]
Rory Stewart
And why not?
- [24:57]
Alistair Campbell
Well, their argument is that what the BBC says is that they were worried that it would lead to claims of partiality.
- [25:06]
Rory Stewart
And have they pointed to things in the film that they. Have they given detailed examples from the film of what they think is impartial?
- [25:11]
Alistair Campbell
They haven't. And of course, what they presumably know is that there are people within the BBC who had agreed that this was a perfectly good film to show. Now, it comes from a certain perspective because virtually everybody who's interviewed in the film is a Palestinian doctor or nurse or patient or family of somebody who's been killed. They keep putting the points that are being made that regularly know the Israeli Defense Force refused to comment or the Israeli Defense Force said, blah, blah, blah.
- [25:36]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [25:36]
Alistair Campbell
So I think it's hard to escape the conclusion that there are. You know, I've always said my problem with the BBC is that they do allow themselves to be pushed around by governments, by lobbies, by different people pushing different arguments. And I think they've been pushed around on this and pushed around, not least because, as we saw with the Glastonbury thing, the line of attack at the BBC all the time is that they're anti Israel.
- [26:03]
Rory Stewart
Okay, well, let me come to the final thing. Given that what's happening on the ground is. Is so horrifying, and I'm, I guess, don't know whether we should be calling it crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, genocide.
- [26:16]
Alistair Campbell
You've called it ethnic cleansing before.
- [26:17]
Rory Stewart
Right.
- [26:18]
Alistair Campbell
Which is a crime against humanity.
- [26:19]
Rory Stewart
And from my point of view, you only need to see what Gaza looks like. You only need to see 95% of the buildings destroyed, all the hospitals destroyed, to know that tens of thousands of people have been killed. I mean, one of the problems is that this endless fight on social media about fake news and this video, and that video is just taking away from the big picture, which is that this is the most horrendous infliction of suffering on a population imaginable. So why is the British government not doing more? And let me put it in absolutely kind of brutal way, David Lammy, our Foreign Secretary, made a blistering speech in May in which he absolutely explicitly stood up and talked about the horror. And yet we continue to train IDF soldiers, RAF planes continue to fly over Gaza. No comment has been made by the British government about the fact that the Americans are sanctioning British citizens who help the International Criminal Court. British citizens who provided advice are now having to move their money to protect themselves and the British government isn't speaking up for them. What on earth is is wrong? How is it possible for David Lammy on the one hand to describe this horror, and on the other hand the government to continue to providing military assistance, training flights and not standing up for our own lawyers?
- [27:44]
Alistair Campbell
The other thing that's worth pointing out on that is there was a sort of rather horrible irony last week and David Lammy met the guy that we met a while back, President Al Shara. So he's now the president of Syria, ex head of Al Qaeda. And David Lamy met him at a time when the labor government is prescribing Palestine action as a terrorist organization. Now, I don't think Palestine action remotely in the same league as Al Qaeda were. I think what David Lamy would say is that he has put sanctions on, for example, Ben Gurion, Smoritz sanction, they have come cut back on some of the arms sales, etc. But I don't know the answer, to be absolutely frank. I think it's. If you go through all the countries in the world and it's quite hard to get an exact position, but roughly 95 UN member states have now effectively said that they think this is genocide. Roughly 6% of countries have given the sense that they don't think it is. And that's us, uk, Germany.
- [28:42]
Rory Stewart
That's very strange again, because we're run by our Prime Minister who's an international lawyer. Why is he not waiting for the International Criminal Court to come to a ruling rather than coming out and saying it's not genocide before the court is.
- [28:55]
Alistair Campbell
Ruled or just all they, I think need to do is constantly to be saying, as they should have done from the start. They keep saying Israel has a right to defend itself, which is true, it does. But that does not mean they have a right to do whatever they want without regard to international law, civilian life and the future of, of Gaza. And I think if only they said that every time that these things happen. But I think the other thing, sorry to go back to the BBC, but I think the fact that partly because I suspect of this row, there's been very, very little coverage of this stuff of these kids being killed in the queue for food on the Today program, On the main 10 o' clock news. It's a pretty low level story and I think that of itself kind of puts less pressure on the politicians to come out and say what? And by the way, I said, I can't remember who was here or on the BBC last week, but I made the point. I think one of the reasons for Labour's current standing is actually the point you just made. Why are they not speaking up more for human rights for Palestinian people and calling out the absolute horror of what's going on? And I feel a bit, to be honest, I think we've taken too long. I've taken too long to come to this point because I think we've tried to be fair, but I find it impossible. I find it impossible to watch what's going on. It's impossible to defend this.
- [30:22]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, and I agree. Netanyahu's been at the White House. This documentary has now shown in real careful forensic detail the shattering of the health system. The Israeli Defense Minister has now announced that he's trying to create a. Essentially a prison camp, 600,000 people on the Rafah camp in Gaza. The Security Minister and the Finance Minister continue to call for the expulsion of the people. And international processes against Israel are frozen because the UN won't cooperate. It's sanctioning people working for the International Criminal Court and our own media is finding it very, very difficult to deal with this. I think we should return to this in a section also in Question Time, because I'd like to talk also about what's happening in the Conservative Party and what they are doing or failing to do around this issue in Britain. But let's take a quick break.
- [31:15]
Alistair Campbell
Okay? We'll take a quick break and then come back and talk about another seemingly intractable, difficult international problem. That's Russia, Ukraine. This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
- [31:32]
Rory Stewart
Well, what used to be a complex civil liberties issue is now just standard user agreement.
- [31:37]
Alistair Campbell
So think about this. Most of us would not share our location search history and passwords with strangers, but that's effectively what we do if we're on unsecured WI fi.
- [31:48]
Rory Stewart
And that's one of the many reasons I am a great NORDVPN fan. Because what it does is it encrypts your Internet, it hides your IP address and it blocks trackers, all the while just running quietly in the background.
- [32:01]
Alistair Campbell
So you should make it part of your routine. You get fewer ads, smoother browsing, and the quiet confidence that your data isn't up for grabs.
- [32:08]
Rory Stewart
And it even is a little hack trick for you. It can even help actually with dynamic pricing. So if you're browsing from a hidden location, the flights hotel subscriptions are less likely to spike and the Threat Protection Pro blocks malicious ads scans downloads before they reach your device.
- [32:26]
Alistair Campbell
So there you go. What's not to love? To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com restispolitics the link will give you four extra months on the two year plan. There is a 30 day money back guarantee and the link is in the description.
- [32:44]
Rory Stewart
This is an advertisement from BetterHelp. Workplace stress is becoming one of the biggest mental health issues of our time. In fact, 61% of the global workforce say they're feeling more stress than ever. To battle stress, most of us can't wave goodbye to work, but we can start small and focus on the things that we can do to help. For me, it's a walk in the garden, but therapy, importantly, can play a very big role in helping to navigate whatever challenges the work day or any day might bring. For me, therapy's played a big part in helping manage my mental health over the years. Helps build resilience, stay on top of life's pressures and with over 5,000 therapists in the UK, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient too. You can join a session with a UK therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life, plus switch therapists at any time. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com RestPolitics that's better. H E L p.com RestPolitics this episode is brought to you by Penguin Audiobooks.
- [33:59]
Alistair Campbell
And this is a treat for audiobook obsessives among you. And that does include me when I'm traveling, and Rory pretty much all the time.
- [34:09]
Rory Stewart
So we've teamed up with Penguin and we've got now the rest is Politics Audiobook Club, where we're going to recommend titles. We spent real time with those that gripped us, stirred us, or echoed long after they ended. Big ideas brilliantly told.
- [34:21]
Alistair Campbell
So I am. I'm going to start with a book that I mentioned on the podcast when I first read it. It is called the Nazi Mind by Lawrence Rees, and it is an incredible account of how ideology can warp entire societies.
- [34:36]
Rory Stewart
My recommendation would be Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which recasts your entire understanding of history and philosophy.
- [34:45]
Alistair Campbell
So these are not books that you're going to flick through absentmindedly. They're books that you will enjoy more by having them read to you properly, by voices that understand weight, rhythm and the power of a well timed pause. Just.
- [35:01]
Rory Stewart
You're beautiful. I'm going to get you to read my next audiobook. Visit penguin.co.uk Tripp to browse more of our audiobook recommendations or find a link in our next newsletter. And start listening today on Spotify or any audiobook retailer. More recommendations to come.
- [35:21]
Alistair Campbell
Welcome back to the Rest of the.
- [35:22]
Rory Stewart
Politics with me, Aleister Campbell and with me, Rory Stewart. Now, we haven't covered Russia, Ukraine for a long time and it's one of these stories because it's been going now for two and a half years where people lose focus. So quick summary. There was a big uptick in Russian attacks in the autumn. That was a really, really intense period. It then dropped down somewhat after Trump came in and it's massively upticked again. There's been a huge increase in Russian attacks. And there are two things really going on on the ground. One of them is the Russians have got much more aggressive about targeting Ukrainian UAV pilots, drone pilots and hunting and isolating their logistics. And the second thing is that the American government is not providing Patriot missile interceptors. So these are the surface to air missiles that you need to take out Russian ballistic missiles, in particular the Iskander systems. And without the Patriot defense, Ukraine is terribly, terribly vulnerable. And that means that Russia is steadily pushing forward. Okay, over to you.
- [36:26]
Alistair Campbell
We talked a lot about Israel in the first half and I think another reason why it is utterly absurd for Donald Trump even to be considered as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the guy who said as a campaign shtick, I can end this war in 24 hours. And it's getting worse and worse and worse. And just he hasn't used his power and leverage that he had with Nihoun. He certainly hasn't used his power and leverage with Putin. I mean, actually there's a different way of looking at Russia, Ukraine at the moment, and that is given the unbelievably difficult circumstances in which they've been fighting this war from the beginning, but particular, I would argue now they are doing an amazing job. And I read an extraordinary thing the other day. I can't remember where I saw it, but it was essentially about how when this war is over, Ukraine is going to have the most Advanced, best developed armed forces, particularly the use of modern warfare. So we hear a lot about the Russian drones and we see the Russian drones as they're sort of, you know, flying into buildings, apartment blocks in Ukraine. But the Ukrainians are developing this drone technology at an extraordinary rate. So I think, again, we have to look, you were sort of quite critical in the first half of the UK and other governments. Have they done enough to call our score in Israel? I think there is the case to be made that for all the words of support that have been given from the US under Biden, the US under Trump and the big European governments, I think the Ukrainians are entitled to make the case that both on military support and on sanctions, they kind of haven't had all that they could have had.
- [37:57]
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. And the Ukrainians are showing again and again that the most pessimistic scenarios are, which is that they would collapse immediately when America began to wobble, which is what people were hoping around Putin hasn't been true. They are absolutely determined to keep fighting again. I was very lucky to talk to Jack Watling from rusi, who very kindly called me from a plane when he just was leaving Ukraine. He points out that on your optimistic scenario that if Ukraine can hold through to next year, Russia is of course not in a very strong position because the oil price is well done and the oil price is really what keeps that economy going. But this is really where the question is. If you really wanted to have an impact on Russia, what you would do is you would go after these shadow fleets. And in particular what you'd do is you would pull full EU sanctions on any country that's moving Russian oil and you would close the Straits to Denmark. Right. You'd stop the ships going through. 60% of Russian oil is going through the Straits of Denmark. To do that, you would need the European Union, you'd need the Danish navy, you'd need the British navy and everybody else to come together. You could do it without the us, but you'd have to get the Europeans together, together, and you'd close the Straits of Denmark and you would have to plan for Russian response. You'd have to manage that escalation. You can do that. I don't think that this is the edge of a third World war, which is what people will imply, but Russia will definitely bark and respond as you begin to shut down those shadow fleets. But if you do it in a reasonable way, measured, have everything thought out, Europe could really inflict serious damage on the Russian economy and put pressure on them to Stop this war. So will they do it?
- [39:36]
Alistair Campbell
I remember right at the start of this war was this Foreign secretary when the whole thing was starting. I think she was. And I can remember her saying, I don't know why this just popped into my head. I can remember her saying that they won't be stupid enough to invade and if they do, we are ready with the toughest sanctions that have ever been imposed on another country. Okay, good talk. Made for headlines, which, as you've constantly told us, is what she cares about. I check this out. There are several hundred banks in Russia. How many of those banks were targeted when we were going after the so called Swift Systems? Seven. Seven.
- [40:14]
Rory Stewart
Out of several hundred.
- [40:15]
Alistair Campbell
Out of several hundred banks. So you go after them, you get the headlines and then the money just gets moved around. We've talked before about how the oil getting cleaned in different parts of the world and India's a big, big importer.
- [40:28]
Rory Stewart
China, massive support, and Europe itself continues to buy oil.
- [40:32]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. And this is also difficult with Trump. Sorry to keep going about Trump, but I think, you know, he is such a consequential figure in all of these, these disputes and there's this really strange pattern going on. So like I said in relation to Netanyahu, a few days before they met, we, you know, we're days away from a ceasefire. We're going to get a ceasefire. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be marvelous. And he's got a cycle with, with Putin that goes like this. I get, I've got a great relationship with him and I think he wants peace. He then has a phone call with him and literally immediately after the phone call they had last week, they had the biggest drone attack in the history of this conflict so far. And then he goes straight into, I'm not happy with him. And then he goes round the cycle to, this is all Joe Biden's fault.
- [41:15]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. So as you've pointed out, there's an amazing cycle because it's the same cycle that he follows with Israel. So remember he said, I'm in the middle of the, of peace negotiations with Iran. Don't attack them. Netanyahu then orders an attack. Trump says, terrific, wonderful attack. And now it's peace. I've spoken to him on the phone, we're calling it off. And then Israel continues to strike. And he then says, I'm very, very angry with Israel. Turn your bombers back. You mustn't do this. And then Netanyahu turns up in the White House with a letter saying, you've Got a Nobel Peace Prize and Trump is happy again.
- [41:48]
Alistair Campbell
It even says, wow, that means a lot coming from you.
- [41:52]
Rory Stewart
Wow, that means a lot coming from you. And one of the things that I think Russia senses and Netanyahu's government senses that in the end they can do almost whatever they want because Trump is never actually going to sanction them and he's never really going to withhold the support that he provides for Israel. Almost impunity.
- [42:10]
Alistair Campbell
Impunity, yeah. We talked before the Trump second term how we felt that Putin and Netanyahu were basically waiting for Trump because we thought it's been shown that he'd be more sympathetic to them than Biden or Kamala Harris. But I don't think any of us imagined it would be quite this level of impunity. And the other thing, just for European leaders, how long have we been talking about this? I think it's $300 billion or euros now of frozen Russian assets that are held in the jurisdictions of the West. And we're still talking about whether this can be used, used to help Ukraine. And there's argument, well, let's save it for reconstruction. But, you know, I, I just, I, I just think I was talking to, you know, I was talking to Ukrainian. That's why, probably why I've sort of speaking these terms. But they, I think they do feel that they've, they're tight, their hands have been pretty tied behind their backs. And if you think that when J.D. vance was saying, you don't have any of the cards, you've got no cards left to play. And Trump and Vance were picking up bullying Zelenskyy in the White House, in a sense, that's because the west has been taking the cars off them.
- [43:19]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the extraordinary horror of what Trump and Vance are doing. I mean, what they're doing systematically is weakening and impoverishing their allies. You can look at it in the way that Trump and Vance present it, which is, we're just asking European countries to pay their own way. But what is the consequence of forcing European countries to spend 5% on GDP? And we can get into this. I'd like to do a proper episode on this, maybe next week. It basically means that countries whose economies are underwater and aren't growing are going to have to cut their health spending and all their other welfare spending.
- [43:54]
Alistair Campbell
Are you shifting your view on defence?
- [43:55]
Rory Stewart
I'm beginning to shift my view on defence.
- [43:57]
Alistair Campbell
What's happening when we're spending too much?
- [43:59]
Rory Stewart
I think that we are now in danger of spending Too much? Yes. And I'll try to develop that next week.
- [44:04]
Alistair Campbell
Okay.
- [44:05]
Rory Stewart
Second thing, what happens When Trump announces 25% tariffs on Japan, 25% tariffs on South Korea, which he's just done in the last few hours? He's impoverishing and bankrupting America's allies around the world. And this idea that it's just about America first, he is making the world a worse place by targeting the most stable liberal democracies around the world, undermining their finances, making them poorer, and somehow not caring. Final point. We talk about strategic autonomy. Europe being independent from the US the fact is we do not have any systems that actually allow us to fire surface to air missiles to really deal with ballistic missile threats. We're completely dependent on the U.S. it's true for many of our weapons systems, where most of the components come from the U.S. but these things in particular, it's extraordinary. They were developed first in the 1980s. They are very, very complicated bits of kit because what they have to do is increasingly deal with hypersonic missiles which are traveling at 2000 meters a second. They have to intersect with their warheads. They have to decouple from your radar system and trigger in. They have to be tested on these incredible ranges where the US Are firing them in the desert in California or they're firing them into the sea. And despite 30 or 40 years of this technology, Europe has simply not stepped up to deal with it. So that our major enemy in Europe, which is Russia, have Iskander missiles, which we have no way of dealing with. We are completely over a barrel. We talk about the strategic autonomy stuff, but it's not just Ukraine that can't get its hands on the weapons it needs to defend itself. Europe isn't going to be able to get them. And for two reasons. I mean, one of them is, is Trump not wanting to provide them. The second thing is the Department of Defense, in particular, a guy called Elbridge Colby who's advising hesitation on this, which is we want to keep our Patriot missiles for China, so we're not going to give them to Europe.
- [46:02]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. He is clearly a very, very powerful person within this debate and is regularly portrayed as being one of the forces pulling Trump away from Ukraine towards Russia. Just one other thing you mentioned about the missiles getting sent, returned, as it were, getting sent back for the third time. Hexuth, the Secretary of State for Defence, has ordered the return of weapons that have already in the process of being delivered. And then there was one line that really struck, jumped out at me. And I think this was From Peskov, my old sparring partner, Dmitry Peskov, who's still Putin's press secretary. And he said of the phone call, they did not broach the subject of the paused weapons deliveries. Why not? Why is that not a.
- [46:51]
Rory Stewart
Why is that not something to speak about?
- [46:52]
Alistair Campbell
I guess what Mark Rutter, who you were giving a very hard time to last week because of his obsequiousness, I guess what he and other European leaders might say is that they can see where this is going, but because they have allowed Europe to fall behind, they're going to need time to fill this massive gap. And the most important thing is to keep Trump as on board as they possibly can during that period. But it's a pretty hopeless situation to be in. My final point, Roy, before we close on what has been a pretty heavy session, who do you think are the five most important people in the world to Donald Trump right now?
- [47:27]
Rory Stewart
5 most important people to Donald Trump and the world. So I think what he cares about. This is a trick question, obviously.
- [47:34]
Alistair Campbell
Obviously.
- [47:34]
Rory Stewart
But I believe on the basis of talking to Michael Wolff and the Mooch and others. So what does he really care about? He cares about fame and money. So the five most important things in the world, people in the world who are people who are going to make him famous and rich.
- [47:48]
Alistair Campbell
Okay. The five most, I think are as follows. Jurgen Vatna Friedness. As Latoya Anne Inger, Christine Clement and Grie Larson.
- [47:59]
Rory Stewart
Are they footballers?
- [48:01]
Alistair Campbell
They are the current members of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. They will decide and I've got great faith in Norwegians.
- [48:11]
Rory Stewart
That's.
- [48:11]
Alistair Campbell
That's to do the right thing.
- [48:13]
Rory Stewart
That's the fame bit, isn't it? That's the fame. But those are the five people who are going to give him the fame that he wants.
- [48:17]
Alistair Campbell
Absolutely. I mean, this is. It's. I always think. I remember when I worked in number 10, I always. People who would sidle up to me. Remember Simon Hart, the former Chief Whip? He said he thought about calling his book about my knighthood. Yeah. I always had a rule. Anybody who came in trying to use me directly lobby to lobby for them to get a night to it, I would do everything I could to make sure they didn't. And I think we should apply that to the Nobel Peace Prize. If you want one, you don't get it.
- [48:43]
Rory Stewart
It's good, isn't it? Even if you get letters from the head of the Pakistan army staff, from Netanyahu and the President of Congo.
- [48:50]
Alistair Campbell
No, no, not going to work. We have to find a better contender next week.
- [48:54]
Rory Stewart
It's amazing, isn't it, actually, how much President Trump's ego is now bound up with this international statesman thing. It's one of the things that I was most interested in when we were working together on this miniseries that we've just done on jdv, which is the way in which JD Vance really establishes himself through that staged mad confrontation with Zelenskyy in the White House. So maybe something just to finish on for a second, which is thinking back on the well, what do you think we learned about J.D. vance? What was surprising about J.D. vance?
- [49:24]
Alistair Campbell
I've got to be honest, I think the thing that most surprised me looking at his early life, in a sense, was just how impressive the story is. You cannot take away the fact that he's clearly come from an unbelievably difficult, chaotic background. There's an argument as to whether he overstates it, but on any reading, he is a pretty impressive person to have turned himself into the figure that he became. But then I think because of this constant changing of his circumstances, I think he is capable of changing personality. I also think with most people, they're not really capable of changing personality, but I think he is and whether that makes him a good actor. So when you talk about the meeting with Zelenskyy, looking back at that, I think he provoked that way more than Trump. And I think he did it because he was in that mode. One, he doesn't believe in forever wars and he wants to get Ukraine out of their hair. But two, I think at that moment that's what he thought he had to do most to impress Trump, which right now is one of the big things he wants to do.
- [50:21]
Rory Stewart
I thought that was fascinating. And I think this, this sense of him as a chameleon, endlessly changing, adapting, is right at the heart of that, that miniseries. So encourage people to listen.
- [50:30]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. So we've got episode four. We're on episode four this Friday of this miniseries. And then after that we're going to be doing a Q and A to see what the those who've listened to have thought about it. And you can hear the first three episodes in full right now. Get up to speed before episode four. Just head to the restlesspodies.com join the rest is politics plus. And that will give you access to go on Ru. What does it give you access to?
- [50:54]
Rory Stewart
Gives you access to ad free listening if you get annoyed by ads. Gives you early access to tickets for our live shows, which we're about to do at the end of the year gives us access to miniseries and interviews that we do only on the wrestlers, Politics plus and other offers too.
- [51:09]
Alistair Campbell
Great. Well, it takes two minutes to sign up. New episodes of the series will drop every Friday. If you haven't heard episode three, here's a taster.
- [51:17]
Rory Stewart
The price of getting Trump's support is you have to say the election was stolen or you have to say that Trump won the election and Biden is.
- [51:24]
Alistair Campbell
Not the president, which he doesn't believe. The shift has been so profound.
- [51:29]
Rory Stewart
We're seeing migrants kidnap our dogs and cats and what I worry about is the threat from within. Have you said thank you once to.
- [51:37]
Alistair Campbell
Accommodate Trump to be alongside Trump to be the vice president and hopefully set himself up to be president.
- [51:43]
Rory Stewart
He showed so much character getting from point A to where I knew him that you thought that it never occurred.
- [51:49]
Alistair Campbell
To me that character would be the defect actually that was the deficit quality. There is some talk that the Vance's favored idea for the next election ticket is Vance Trump Vance with Donald J.
- [52:01]
Rory Stewart
Is his running mate.
- [52:02]
Alistair Campbell
Correct. How better to keep Trump senior on board than to have Trump the name still on the ballot? Okay. Hope you enjoyed the taster. And if you want to hear more of that one and episode one and episode two, all you've got to do is sign up to trip.
- [52:19]
Rory Stewart
So it's super easy to sign up. All you need to do is go to therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com we'll see you soon for Question Time where I think we're going to be talking about new parties. Elon Musky, party Corbyn's potentially new party. Special education needs in British schools, Texas floods. What's happening in the Balkans with dodec. We're going to touch a little bit on Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor and we're going to finish with a few lighter questions.
- [52:45]
Alistair Campbell
Cool. See you then. Right, well done everybody who's still listening because that means you've listened to right to the end of the episode. Thank you. Very impressive. But can I ask you something? Did you hear an advert on today's episode and did you think, you know what? I'm sure the listeners would rather hear about my brand rather than all these other things they're promoting. Well, you could be right. But there's only one way to find out.
- [53:15]
Rory Stewart
That's right. You could be the next NordVPN or betterhelp put your brand in front of millions of like minded listeners by advertising on the Restless Politics and other shows across the goal hanger network. Work. So who are Gohanger? Well, they're the company behind this very show. And if you're in the market to increase the value of your brand, they want to hear from you. You can register your or your company's interests by going to goalhanger. Com. Right now. That's goal. H A N G E R Com. See you there.