← What Really Matters with Walter Russell Mead
What Really Matters with Walter Russell Mead
Bondi Beach and the Nihilism of Palestinian Strategy
00:34:24
Loading summary
Transcript19 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:10]
B
Like what you're listening to. Want more Tablet podcasts? Of course you do. So support Tablet with an end of year gift before 2025 ends. Visit tabletmag.com donate and give today.
- [00:34]
A
Welcome back everybody, to what really Matters. I'm Jeremy Stern with you in Los Angeles. I'm here as always with Walter Russell Mead of tablet, the Wall Street Journal, Hudson Institute, and the Hamilton center at the University of Florida. Let's start with this week's news. First story of the week, the Trump administration said it approved $11 billion in arms sales packages for Taiwan, a show of support from Washington. As president, Trump has focused on trade deals and displayed a SO US Stance toward China. The approved weapon sales announced late Wednesday are intended to support Taipei's efforts to, quote, modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability. The approvals riled Beijing, which has vehemently opposed any arms sales to Taipei. The White House has played down ideological differences with Beijing, putting economics and trade as a priority in the relationship. In its 2025 National Security Strategy, which we discussed last week, that document represented a break from years in which China was singled out as posing the greatest challenge to the US but with this latest arms approval, Trump addressed some concerns in Washington that he could give China a pass to pursue an increasingly aggressive stand toward Taiwan. The approval by the U.S. executive branch announced this week initiates a 30 day period for Congress to review and potentially object to the sales. But the overall process can sometimes take up to a few years to complete. Walter, that last sentence seems particularly relevant. So is this news or faux news?
- [01:59]
B
On the whole, it is in fact news. It is, put it this other way, if he had blocked the sale, that would be a major historical development since he didn't and is actually going forward with a pretty significant sale that clearly states that all of the talk about a change in the US Policy toward China is way overdone. What we see and, and I that shouldn't be a surprise to people who've closely followed administration policy as opposed to administration rhetoric. But first of all, when it's Trump, almost everybody is so distracted by the rhetoric they have a hard time looking at the policy. But also what you can see is a kind of pattern of Trump wants to, you know, is looking experimentally, what can I get with China from China? What do I need to give China? How do we make it work? But he sees the maintenance of Taiwan's security as a really important part of the overall architecture of the relationship. And one can say not just with China, but with Japan, a very important move in terms of U.S. japan relations. So it's news, and I would say also good news. Now, delays and stuff. We'll see. But Congress claims these days to be very pro Taiwan. And so I would think that there might be, you know, there may be a couple of contentious issues that drag on, but the bulk of this should be settled sooner rather than later.
- [03:30]
A
Just one follow up on that last point about the delays. I mean, two things we've heard a lot about in the last few years have been, you know, it was, I remember, really, really painful for the US to get it together to send a few dozen Abrams tanks to Ukraine, which were rendered, you know, somewhat irrelevant on the battlefield pretty quickly. And I think also a lot of communications equipment that the Russians were able to jam quickly. And then also with regard to Taiwan and Japan, I think the US has been years behind schedule on delivery of XYZ weapon systems. How do you think that kind of combination affects China's strategy with regard to Taiwan? By approving more arms sales. That may take us a while. Do you think it accelerates their window in Taiwan? Does it deter them? What do you think?
- [04:15]
B
Well, I think it. It probably reflects, in part an administration view that as long as Xi keeps purging all of his senior officers, he must think there are still some gaps in his preparations for Taiwan. And I'm seeing some signs that the purge in the Navy may be accelerating. So that would be a good sign that this might be a good time to go ahead with the arms sales to Taiwan. And it is amazing. It's so interesting to remember those days when Abraham tanks were the super weapon that was going to win the war. You know, it's a little, you know, and turned out to be, like, about as bad as Polish cavalry charging the machine guns. Abrams tanks against drones equals Polish cavalry against machine guns. It's just not. And it's a very important lesson for all of us, and I hope it reverberates deeply in the defense world. So the delivery thing is obviously going to be an issue because like some of the worst idiots in the history of mankind, the American political establishment has let our defense industrial base gradually wither away. A stunning display of incompetence, shortsightedness, greed, and lots of other things that, believe me, future generations will not forget. Not forget. But you know what? If I see that there's an $11 billion order that needs to be fulfilled as if I'm a company, I think, okay, well, maybe I'm going to tool up my production a little bit maybe there's a good reason to justify this, and we are. I mean, it's, overall, it's really bad that the global arms race is accelerating. That really is a sign that we're getting closer to war. Nevertheless, when you're worried about procurement and supply, the fact that it is now an extremely intelligent move to invest in arms capability means, I think, that over time, we can see these bottlenecks loosen up a bit.
- [06:13]
A
All right, our second story, also from Wednesday evening. President Trump attempted to take control of the narrative around the rising cost of living in the US During a triumphant address from the White House in which he blamed the Biden administration for leaving him with a, quote, mess, and cited several ways his administration has improved the economy. While the president was correct that many prices increased during the Biden administration and several categories have come down this year, according to a report in National Review, the president did inflate several of the figures he cited. Trump's speech came just one month after Democrats had a strong showing on Election Day in several states thanks to voter concerns over the cost of living. Roughly 3/4 of Americans say their incomes are not keeping pace with inflation, and just 32% say the condition of the economy is good. Trump aimed to rewrite a more positive narrative about the country's financial state this week. Walter, was this news or fo news?
- [07:04]
B
Well, fo news in this, I don't know if it's going to have any impact on what people are thinking. Probably also phone news that Trump really thought this speech would turn it around. Traditional Oval Office addresses are never the ways Trump has impacted public opinion, and this would be no exception. Trump's core problem, and it was his problem in 2020, is that when you are the incumbent, people blame you for what they don't like. That's just life. You know, we're having a drought. The crops aren't growing. The king must have offended the gods. Let's kill the king and get a new one. Maybe the gods will be happy then. In many ways, human political sentiment has not moved beyond the ancient world. So Trump is now the incumbent, and his whole political stance is built around being the insurgent. He's the guy that, he's the little boy in the crowd that says the emperor has no clothes. He's not the emperor strutting around in his beautiful new outfits to be admired by the world. So it's, there's a basic discomfort that you can see in Trump's politics now. This is wanting to have a ghost incumbent. The Biden administration, the Biden administration. The problem with that is a long further. The Biden administration fades into memory. And believe me, the Biden administration is fading fast into memory. It's not a very memorable administration and most people would like to forget it. So it is, you know, it's less and less of a problem presence in some ways. It'll, it would help Trump if at least one house of Congress went to the Democrats in the midterms because then the Democrats will start doing passing crazy resolutions and doing the kinds of things that make everybody remember, oh, yeah, that's why I hate the Democrats right now. They can only think about, ah, this is Trump. You're driving me crazy. Why are you doing this? And life is expensive. Who is president? Oh, yes, Trump is president. So in some ways, it's a no win situation. Being the incumbent right now, and Trump has to. The way he could make a dent in this is not 18 minute or even 20 minute addresses from the Oval Office. It is developing a narrative around where the country is and where it's going that resonates with the actual experience that, that people have and also gives them confidence things are going to get better.
- [09:32]
A
All right, final story of the week. European leaders committed to lend Ukraine 90 billion euros, equivalent to around $105 billion, to help the country keep fighting Moscow's invasion, but failed to agree on a plan to use frozen Russian assets for the loan. The vow to loan Ukraine money amounts to a financial lifeline at a crucial moment. But the EU's inability to agree on handing Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in Russian funds underlines divisions in the bloc over the extent to which they are prepared to confront Russia. Europe hopes that its continued funding of Ukraine and its control over the fate of the Russian assets will win a seat at the negotiation table on ending the war, a top goal of President Trump. So far, the Trump administration and the Kremlin have largely sidelined Europe. Now it is increasingly unlikely Europe will ever agree on deploying up to $300 billion in Russian assets for Ukraine. European leaders, however, presented the decision as a win. EU officials have said the loan will show the Kremlin that it can't outlast Western support for Ukraine. Walter, is this news or faux news?
- [10:30]
B
It's news and it's good news. Again, I actually kind of, I think the article that you were citing was kind of analytically confused in a few spots. I'm not sure it makes it less likely that Europe would agree to use the $300 billion. It's more like what they've shown is that even if they can't, they're still willing to put some money on the table. And that's, That's a good thing for Ukraine, it's a bad thing for Putin. Putin really hoped that Ukraine was on the ropes right now, that it was running out of money. The Americans were pushing for a ceasefire. The Europeans seemed deadlocked. Interestingly, by the way, it was Hungary that gave the majority so that this money could be lent right away. Now, you can certainly say of Orban, well, it's no skin off his nose. He doesn't actually have to lend the money, but nevertheless, he was giving the Germans permission to lend their own money in other countries, to lend their own money, not to lend his. I'm actually, Jeremy, I'm willing to vote to let you lend a lot of money to Ukraine. Anytime you need me to do that, you just call me up. Nevertheless, it was kind of, you know, an interesting moment, shows either that Putin is very worried about actually what might happen if they start using the frozen assets in this way, or that Orban was taking an opportunity to create a little space for himself. Who knows? Who knows? You know, it means Putin has to rethink some things if the. If Ukraine isn't going to run out of money in April, Ukraine is unlikely to offer a kind of a peace pack disguised as a surrender that Putin would. Could accept. On the other hand, Putin may have. When Putin thinks, I've got two more years of this war, minimum, then Putin's thoughts, you know, like, how long does he want the war to go on? What are. What's his best option at a given time? It could. It could open a new chapter in this, in this conflict. I don't think it's good news for Trump's ceasefire plans. Just because it put some spine in the, in the Ukrainian position would make it harder for Zelensky now to say to his countrymen, we fought a good war, we've done everything we could, and we're not going to get anything better than this. And so, with a heavy heart, my fellow countrymen, it's harder to do that when you're getting $90 billion.
- [13:04]
A
All right, that does it for the news this week. Let's have the big conversation. So much less good news, Walter. This is our first time talking since the terrorist mass shooting at Sydney's Bondi beach, where two men fired at crowds of Jews celebrating the first night of Hanukkah. Fifteen people, including a child, were murdered and another 27 were taken to the hospital. Police and Australian intelligence agencies have declared the terrorist attack linked to ISIS, the Islamic State. But you wrote this week about how the nastiest anti Semites these days are sometimes or often secular people of Western origins. And that Muslims will not be the only targets of a mass reaction to a possible wider terror campaign in the west in ostensible support of the Palestinians or against Israel. And that if the axis of far leftists, far right racist post liberals and radicalized Muslims come closer to their dream of a universal war against the Jews, meaning including Jews living in diaspora, then public attitudes and policies will drastically change and in America may drive a response as intense and potentially as repressive as the measures against enemy aliens and suspected sympathizers in earlier American conflicts. So if you would draw out those historical parallels for us and tell us why you think they're relevant to incidents like what happened at Bondi, violence against Jews around the world.
- [14:39]
B
Well, let's start with what I think of as the profound strategic error that the Palestinian movement has repeatedly made. You know, triggers military confrontations that it cannot win. And it then, when failing, when it loses a war or loses a kind of conventional contest, it moves into kind of escalating levels of terror attacks against civilians, attacks against soft targets. You can't destroy the idf, you know, but you can blow up a school bus. You can't destroy Mossad, but you can set off a bomb in a disco, something like that. And I wonder if Kip still used the word disco to describe a place of amusement. Anyway, and the result of this has been 100 plus years of escalating Palestinian failure and defeat. It just, it doesn't work. It's driven in part by this deep, deep conviction that the Jews are not a nation and can't really have a state. And that it's not simply that a Zionist state shouldn't exist, but that it can't. It's a violation in some way of the laws of politics and the laws of nature that the Jews are scattered around. They're not a single people. They, they're not a people who can be sort of directly strong in the way and united in the ways that a state needs to be. And so there's, you know, there's always this idea that if, that there's, you know, so that a couple of blows, you can break the illusion of power. And this, you know, 1948-1956-1967-1973, and on to, to, you know, the, the latest. The Gaza war doesn't work. You can see it now. I mean, there are people giving Their lives, there's of their passion. If we could just separate American evangelicals from Israel, then America would separate from Israel. And without its superpower protector, Israel falls flat. It has nothing. So, you know, I read the latest Gallup poll, and if Palestinian support is rising in the United States, the hour of Israel's death is close.
- [17:12]
A
Right?
- [17:12]
B
This crazy, foolish illusion that has grabbed the imagination of people for various reasons leads over and over again into strategic error and catastrophe for the Palestinian people above all. Not great for the Jews, not great for the Israelis. But the last hundred years of war, horrible as they've been in Israel, as many people have died, have been infinitely worse for the Palestinians and are like, it's likely to continue in that way. So now what we have is this notion of globalize the intifada. Okay, fine. We have been unable to overthrow Israel through, you know, there was that point where the Palestinian suicide bomber was the Palestinian hydrogen bomb. You know, the, you know, the Israelis will never be able to stop the hydrogen bomb. Ah, we finally found the weapon. All right, but the intifada failed on the ground against the Israelis, every intifada failed. But now the idea, okay, we'll globalize the intifada. We will kill Jews in Sydney beach, we will. We will kill Jews. Who knows, we don't know the motives, but maybe at Brown, we will kill Jews in France, we will kill. We'll have a universal war against the Jews, who are softer targets than the Jews in Israel and on the West Bank. But this will lead to the triumph. You know, it'll break the Israelis, it'll break the other countries. They see all this horror. They realize it's the Jews that are causing us all this horror. And so the global intifada will somehow make that Zionist entity disappear. And so you can't quite call it a rational calculation, but let's call it a strategic calculation that makes people think this is the way to resist and to change things. It won't work. You know, it's not going to make the Palestinian cause more popular in the United States if random gunmen fill the streets with blood, not all of which will be Jewish, and all of which will be innocent of any direct participation in any crime any Israeli may or may not have committed. Just in the same way that, you know, hijacking it forced the west to have TSA and all that ridiculous security theater and airlines and the long lines were all waiting. And yes, the terrorists did force us to do that, but it didn't force us to give up to terrorist demands. And if the Global Intifada ideology were to so triumph that people perceived pro Palestinian left wing, right wing groups, Islamic migrants and others as carriers of this basilis. All right, the reaction would not be oops, we're going to withdraw from Israel, the state collapses and nirvana takes place for Palestinians from the river to the sea. No, what will happen is the equivalent of TSA and worse will be developed to protect us from these attacks and from the people who even might carry them out. And so I think it's important to, you know, hopefully it will actually make a few people reconsider the plausibility of this kind of case. So part of who I'm trying to give this message to is to people whose sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians might lead them to think this was somehow a good, worthy, noble action. It's not. It deepens the trap of the Palestinians. Fact, I've even seen a couple of things on that. The sort of ever fruitful Internet with its many, many wonderful ideas and conspiracy theories. There are people saying, look, you know, really when you think about it, that Bondi beach operation, it's false flag. It's the Israelis trying trying to gain sympathy, trying to reverse the, the world's tide of sympathy. You know what, when you're in it, when you're, when people think that your move is a false flag by the other side, you should maybe try to think about what you're doing. So, and by the way, I would say that while I am, I'm one of these ridiculous like old fashioned believers in free speech and human rights and all of this just ridiculous old fashioned nonsense, right? And I think, you know, Joe McCarthy, while, yes, there were communists in the government, it was a problem went so far over the top, you know, that it was terrible and really tragic and wrong. And so I don't want any of this to happen. But I really can see the point where absolutely you would see a crackdown and not just, you know, not just by people on, on a kind of one tiny segment of the political spectrum, but that public opinion as a whole would demand that we protect ourselves by marginalizing, deporting, refusing entry to denying all kinds of employment, to purging out of the media of all of these things that, you know, that's what, that's what a society of people does when it is frightened. So I, I really, I mean, I don't want any of this to kind of overcome, sort of displace the concerns for the real victims here, the people at Bondi beach, their families, Australian Jews, many of whom I'VE known, I've traveled a lot in Australia, spoken with many leaders of the Jewish community in Australia and you know, my sympathy for them and my worry for them and concern, concern for them is, is enormous and much, much greater than my sympathy for those who might be tempted to, to emulate the Bondi Beach Killers. And this is, you know, it's a horrifying shock for really a fabulous community. Australia is so lucky to have the Jewish community that it has intelligent patriotic pillars of their communities in all kinds of different ways. Anyway. Kind of a rambling answer, Jeremy, but obviously this is a, this is a big problem.
- [24:03]
A
What explains the persistence of the, you know, the failed strategy and the failed idea of what you described? You know, starting a war that you cannot win and then moving on to soft targets that you think are going to dissolve the coalition against you but ends up strengthening it or, or whatever, you know, it. What explains how this kind of Palestinian national strategy is like, you know, I don't know, communism or rent control or just these ideas that just regardless of how many times they're proven to be bad over how many decades, still just kind of never die.
- [24:36]
B
The real resistance has never yet been tried. Yeah, well, I mean, part of it is that, you know, just because an idea is bad doesn't mean that human beings won't embrace it. People talk about man as a reasoning animal. I think of us as often more of a rationalizing animal where we have an emotional conviction or end that we want to get to and we just use reason to come up with plausible sounding arguments for why what I desire is what will actually happen. A lot of human mental activity is exactly this. And so Palestinians and Palestinian sympathizers are no different from other people in that respect that, that an attractive bad idea remains attractive. And you can say, I think, should say that, you know, old saying that people have in the 12 step rooms that, you know, repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result is one definition of insanity. But that, you know, that compulsive repetition of a failing behavior is really something that on the individual and group level you see a lot of in the world. And I think we, we also have to talk about, you know, I'm not talking specifically about Palestinians. You can be, as I am, someone who is very glad that the Jewish state exists and believe it is a legitimate state and has a legitimate right to exist and, and still also say, but it's kind of tough on the Palestinians. And in fact, history in the 20th century gave the Palestinian people a series of absolutely savage Blows where their national consciousness is maybe just beginning to take shape. Ottoman Empire collapses, the British sweep in the migration of Jews increases dramatically within a generation. You have the formation of Israel, you have the, the catastrophic defeat of the Palestinians. You then have a sort of life, half life in refugee camps, clients of unra, the United Nations. You have all of these outside actors, countries, the Soviet Union, others, who seek to use your national movement, you know, manipulate it, control its development for their own purposes. It's, you know, just a series of blows coming so quickly that your kind of national political under self understanding, you know, you, you, it's happening too fast to process. And this is because of that. You get into this doom loop where the inner, you know, just the overwhelming nature of the challenge today drives you to adopt a strategy that won't work tomorrow, but emotionally works for people. And then you get deeper into a hole, you provoke a new disaster which then brings a new shock. And I think that is part of the problem, part of the problem. And of course let's not forget that there are many people in Israel, you've got the sort of ideologues and religious Zionists who think the job isn't done till we get all the land, at least to the Jordan River. And then I look at my Bible. Where did Ephraim and Manasseh? They were on the other side of the Jordan. So there is an expansionist wing of Israeli political culture. And as the conflict with the Palestinians has deepened and the Israeli conviction that the Palestinians are for the foreseeable future utterly locked into a failing but dangerous strategy of violent resistance and terror, a deep determination to push your boundaries out because you know, really this is bad news and you don't want it close to home. So that again, the Palestinian resistance movement strengthens the forces in Israel that want to further annex seized territory, reduces the number of Israelis who want a territorial compromise roughly along the 1967. So it's politically counterproductive in, in that sense, but people continue. It's, it's a, it's so that there's this kind of weird thing in which the Israeli far right and the most radical elements of the Palestinian resistance movement have a kind of a symbiotic relationship. They feed each other and that again in. On the Israeli side you at least have a national state and national security establishments try to resist the more suicidal aspects of this ideological tug. They gradually have drifted some degree because of the law, but nevertheless, but on the Palestinian side you don't have institutions, you don't have structures that can exert that kind of stabilizing impact on, on political actors. And again, you have the unscrupulous outside powers, the Irans today, I think perhaps the Turkeys tomorrow, others that will, you know, see a political advantage in keeping Palestinian movement incoherent, radicalized, essentially hopeless in terms of achieving any Palestinian gains, but, you know, quite useful for Iranian gains. It is a tragedy and lots of people have been caught up in it and had their lives have transformed by it in ways that are just profoundly traumatic and that further undermine the ability of Palestinian society to shift to some approach to their national tragedy and their national crisis that that has a greater possibility of a constructive outcome for them.
- [31:08]
A
All right, that does it for the big conversation. Let's end on the tip of the week. We'll be back next week with our final episode of 2026. Walter but until then, give us your Christmas book recommendations. What do you think makes for the best reading this time of year?
- [31:30]
B
Well, I mean you could certainly do worse than the four gospels and read, read the Christmas story. And my Yule blog will be coming up again on this. I've always liked John Milton's Nativity Ode is a, is a terrific poem. You know, it's, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is actually a fun play and it's, it's, I think people would find it surprisingly topical now that sort of censorious Puritans, the gender ambiguity. I mean, come on, it's, you know, the sort of gender studies movement really wrapped it on. They'd be demanding mass reading of Shakespeare. You read the classics turn it, you know, that's and you know, what is it? A girl described disguised as a boy. Boy disguised as a girl. Evil steward or stupid steward? Woman who finds true love. It's a foolish duke. It's a great story and a wonderful way to celebrate the holidays. Go see Twelfth Night if you can, but read it anyway.
- [32:41]
A
All right, there you have it. Thanks to our producer Josh Cross, thanks to Alex Fatana of AT Hudson and my co host Walter Russell Mead. I'm Jeremy Stern. We'll see you next week. And until then, please go rate and review us. This helps other people find the show.