by Michael Hudson, The Unz Review:
DANNY HAIPHONG: Welcome, everyone. Good afternoon. This is your host, Danny Haiphong. As you can see, I am joined by two very special guests, both returning guests on the program, although it’s been too long for both. We have renowned economist Michael Hudson, prolific author. You can find his website in the video description.
And we have Dr. Jill Stein, the 2024 Green Party presidential candidate, longtime activist, longtime just steward for peace. You can find the campaign website in the video description as well. Michael, Jill, thank you so much for joining me today.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
JILL STEIN: Great to be here. So I’ve supported Jill Stein in the past. I do encourage people to look into her campaign. She is one of the few, if not the only candidates in the 2024 electoral race who is not AIPAC bought and owned. And of course, definitely looking at Michael Hudson’s work.
But I wanted to get started right away because I think, you know, this is just a very urgent moment in the world, which has huge ramifications both for the United States and the future of humanity. And that is the flurry of events that have transpired in the last 48 or so hours.
We just had Ismail Hassania [Ismail Haniyeh]. He was a negotiator for Hamas, a top leader in their politburo, assassinated in Iran on July 31st. So the date of this stream.
And then before that, we had Israel just the day before bombing Beirut in reaction to a very suspicious strike on the Golan Heights, which killed 12 people, many of them young people.
Now we are also getting unconfirmed reports about a possible IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] commander, Iranian commander, killed in Damascus. Sound familiar? Back in April, something of this sort happened, which led to an Iranian operation to deter Israel from further attacking. It was an Israeli attack on the embassy in Damascus back in April of 2024. These are unconfirmed reports so far.
But Michael, maybe we can turn to you. You know, how do you see it based on your geopolitical and economic analysis? This kind of spiraling, it seems, of Israel broadening this war to a regional and global level, because, of course, we are also entering the one year point. You’re getting very close to that one year point of the overall genocidal campaign in Gaza.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, you say Israel, but it’s actually Israel in the United States. And all this has happened right after Netanyahu came to Congress and met in Washington with the Democratic Party leaders and then with Trump. So I think it’s really the policy of the neocons. They’ve worked hand in hand. And I’ve known these people for over 50 years.
I worked with Netanyahu’s advisor, Uzi Arad, for a number of years at the Hudson Institute. We made trips around the world together, arguing. And I know what their ideas and ideology are. And it really is not only apartheid, but the feeling that if Israel doesn’t kill the Palestinians, the Palestinians will kill the Israelis in retaliation for what the Israelis are doing to them. And so once you hurt the Palestinians, that makes you think very much like what America thinks with Iran.
Well, we look at what we’ve done to Iran. They must hate us. Therefore, they’re going to do something about us. Therefore, we’re going to attack them.
So I think that the neocons in Washington believe that war is going to be inevitable. America is fighting for control of the Near East because the Near East controls the oil. And American foreign policy has been based on control of food supplies from American farms and control of the oil trade, because if you can control the oil trade, you can turn off people’s electricity, their heating, and their power. And power use for workers is the root of productivity.
And the way that the military thinks—and again, I’ve worked with them for years—is the timing, that, are we in a better position now than we will be next year or not. And I think the American military realizes that Russia and China and the other Eurasian countries are getting together. The American ability to fight militarily is going down. And to the military, that means if we don’t have war now and wait till next year in the future, we’ll be less and less and less able to win.
Well, the reality is they’re going to lose wherever they go, unless there’s atomic war and the chessboard is thrown over. And I think their feeling is the Americans are doing everything they can, from Ukraine to Israel to Iran, to try to stir up a retaliation so that they can then say, ah, we’re under attack, we’re purely defending ourselves, and once you tell your population and your voters this is a war for defense, as the Nazis know, you can always get a—as Goebbels said, you can always get a population on your side if you say it’s for defense.
