ABOUT THIS EPISODE
n this hard-hitting episode of Connecting the Dots, I reveal the shocking truth behind Israel’s Mossad planting deadly devices in pagers ordered by Hezbollah. Joined by lawyer and journalist Dimitry Lascaris, we expose the dangerous global implications—this isn’t just espionage, it’s terrorism and a war crime, all ignored by Western media.
We uncover the sinister connections between Zionist ideology, Christian nationalism, and neoliberal politics, showing how civilians are left to suffer while world powers look the other way. Our political system is failing, and bold, principled leadership is more urgent than ever. Don’t miss this eye-opening truth they don’t want you to know.
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Wilmer Leon (00:00):
Reuters reports. Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside as many as 5,000. Taiwan made pagers ordered by the Lebanese group Hezbollah months before they were detonated. Is anyone safe? Let's talk.
Announcer (00:27):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:34):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which most of these events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events in the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is, as I said earlier, is anyone safe? Israel's consumer tech terrorism across Lebanon signals a terrifying new threat raising urgent concerns about the security of international supply chains and the growing insecurity of civilians worldwide. For insight into this, let's turn to my guest. He's a lawyer and journalist. He's based in Montreal, Canada and Kalama Greece. In fact, he joins us from Ada Greece. Dimitry Lascaris, Dmitri, welcome to the show.
Dimitry Lascaris (01:48):
Thank you, Wilmer. It's a pleasure to be here.
Wilmer Leon (01:51):
So I thought that this most recent act of terrorism in a spate of acts of terrorism would be a great place to start the conversation. The cradle reports that this brutal attack should serve as a dire warning to the world. A stark reminder that the occupation states criminal actions, no, no limits indiscriminately targeting those who challenge its interest or those of its Western allies. Dmitri, your thoughts?
Dimitry Lascaris (02:24):
Well, for really decades, but particularly the last 11 months, the West and particularly the major Western powers, the governments of the United States, Britain, Germany, and France, have sent an unequivocal message to Israel. And that message is you can do whatever you want. There's no red line From our perspective, we will continue to shovel weapons your way, even if that involves the depletion of our own weapon stocks. We will continue to exercise vetoes or abstentions at United Nations. We will continue to repeat your lies and support you rhetorically and from a propagandistic perspective. We'll continue to give you trade benefits under free trade agreements. So-called free trade agreements between our countries and yours. We will not impose any sanctions on you, even though we've imposed sanctions on states that were far less violative of international law and human rights than you. That's the message. They got the message very loudly and clearly, and I fear, I hope I'm wrong, Wilmer, I really do.
(03:31):
But I fear that this pager, walkie talkie terrorist attack is just a harbinger of things to come. Who knows what dirty, nasty, terroristic tricks Israel has up its sleeve, and it is not used up until this point in time because frankly before the genocide began in Gaza, there was some restraint being imposed upon Israel. It wasn't much, but there was some, so occasionally you would get leaders of the United States or other western countries signaling to Israel that their appetite for the depravity of this genocidal regime was not unlimited, but that's gone away now. And so everything that Israel is capable of doing from the perspective of violence, terror, oppression, we are now going to see it's all going to come out. And I think that this is just an indication of what is coming. What we saw in Lebanon last week, and it was as the former head of the CIA Leon Panetta said to a national audience on CBS last week, it was unquestionably a form of terrorism.
Wilmer Leon (04:38):
When someone in the position and former positions such as Leon Panetta makes a statement like that, what does that signal to you? Former head of the CIA, he's from the Clinton camp and advisors advisor Conti to the biggest and the best, and I put that in quotes. What does that signal to you? He definitely went off script on that one.
Dimitry Lascaris (05:16):
Yeah, I don't think that Leon Panetta has had a come to Jesus moment. I think he's still the self-interested war monger,
(05:27):
Neoliberal that he always was. So when I saw this statement, which was startling, it was quite something to see the former head of the CIA. And by the way, this was not surprisingly, I guess picked up by the Israeli press. The Times of Israel had an article yesterday which was expressing its chagrin that Leon Panetta said this. So what's going on here? I can only hazard a guess Wilmer because I'm not in the man's mind and nor do I have any desire to be. But the first thing that popped into my head was this guy has some connection to a major technology company, and he's doing this because his boss or his benefactors in the technology industry are alarmed. They're alarmed about the fact that their business model is being threatened by Israel's latest technological terrorist gimmick. And sure enough, I didn't know this before I learned of the Panetta statement to CBS, but I discovered that he is on the board of Oracle, one of the most important, significant, powerful and influential technology companies in the world based in the United States.
(06:30):
Of course, whether this is influencing him, I can't say for sure, but the best guess that I can hazard based on the limited information available to me is that his colleagues in the technology industry are very upset about this and so should they be. If they're not, they aren't nearly the wizards and geniuses that they claim to be. If I were in their position, I'd be saying already the public has serious doubts. Thanks, for example, to the heroic revelations from Edward Snowden about the devices we sell to them, the technologies we sell to them, they already suspecting that this is a means whereby we can engage in mass surveillance, destroy their privacy, but never before have they thought that these devices that we sell to them are potentially bombs that could blind them, dismember them, kill them, or their children. Now everybody, any rational human being out there who knows about this terrorist attack has that thought in their mind, and that is a serious threat to the profitability of the Western technology industry.
Wilmer Leon (07:40):
One of the things that really, I use the word surprise, but I use it guardedly, is how little follow up there has been with Western media in terms of how horrific these actions by Israel have been. I remember reading a story, I think the young girl's name was Fatima, she was maybe five or six years old. Her father's pager was on the kitchen table. The pager goes off, she picks up the pager to take it to her father, and before she can get to him, the pager explodes. And I think the story said blowing off half of her face. And this happened all over Lebanon and it was reported on, but the context in which it was reported on was solely, solely lacking.
Dimitry Lascaris (08:38):
I am going to plug two outlets right now, and I want be clear before I do that, that I have absolutely no connection to them. None whatsoever. And they are two telegram channels. One of them is called the Military Media Channel and the other is called the Resistance News Network. These were brought to my attention a few months ago by people in Lebanon who are sympathetic to the resistance. And every single day Wilmer, I spend, I devote an hour to two hours to reviewing what they put out, not because I believe everything that they say they're engaged in a war and information is part of warfare. So I'm cognizant of that, but they're giving us, they offer to us another perspective. So one of the things that I've learned by following the military media channel and the Rise News Network is that an extraordinary number of people, and they've offered gruesome video evidence and photographic evidence to back this up in Lebanon, were blinded by these devices.
(09:42):
People lost their hands. There are people with holes in their pelvises, in their abdomens, and I'm talking about children, women, elderly men, and of course military aged men. A cross section of Lebanese society was basically maimed, wounded and killed massed by these attacks. You're not going to find this information in the Western media, nor would you find information in the western media about the retaliation that Hezbollah has engaged in since then. It's amazing the disparity of the information you see from them and what you're seeing from the Western media. All of these sources I counsel, everybody who's listening to our conversation should be approached with a healthy degree of skepticism. You should believe nothing on its face, always exercise your own independent thinking, your capacity for critical thought, but do not confine yourselves to Western media because if you do that, you're going to end up supporting a diabolical, genocidal regime. That's what's going to happen to you. You need to have access to all sources of information and think critically.
Wilmer Leon (10:48):
Another source that I go to is Laith maros free Palestine tv. For me, that's another invaluable source for getting an alternative perspective. I'm glad that you framed it in the manner in which you did, because one of the elements of the so-called analysis is October 7th. It says, though this conflict started on October 7th, ignoring the decades of oppression that Palestinians have been subjected to. When I listen to whether it's Kamala Harris, when I listen to former President Donald Trump, if they make reference to the conflict at some point in their dialogue, it's going to be October 7th. Look what Hamas did on October 7th, totally ignoring 70 years of oppression. And so how this gets framed is very, very important.
Dimitry Lascaris (12:01):
Oh, 100% Wilmer. And I think that the answer that Kamala Harris gave in the debate with Trump to the question of how to deal with the human tragedy as they call it, it's not really a human tragedy, it's much more than that. It is a genocide. In Gaza, the way she responded,
Wilmer Leon (12:21):
The earthquake in Haiti was a human tragedy. Correct.
Dimitry Lascaris (12:28):
Humans did not cause the earthquake. You're right. Absolutely.
Wilmer Leon (12:31):
Exactly. And so I made that point again because how these things get framed is incredibly, famine is a human tragedy. Floods are human. So go ahead.
Dimitry Lascaris (12:45):
So the first thing out of her mouth, and I'm sure you know this Wilmer, probably many of the people listening us know this. Kamala Harris went into that debate with extensive training from public relations professionals. And she was told, when you get the question about Israel, because she knew there, they all knew a question about Israel was coming. This is how you start your answer.
Wilmer Leon (13:09):
Wait a minute, wait minute, wait minute, wait a minute, minute, wait a minute. Lemme see if I can channel my inner Dmitri Karus. Israel has a right to defend itself.
Dimitry Lascaris (13:20):
That was actually the second thing mouth, the first thing out of her mouth. There was no question. You're absolutely right. That was going to be front and center in her answer to any question about Israel and Gaza. But the first thing out of her mouth was, let's remember when this all began. October 7th, right? A colossal lie, A stupendous lie. And of course, the moderators who in my opinion were extraordinarily biased in favor of Kamala Harris, they didn't do any fact checking of her. They said nothing at this point. It might've been the most audacious lie during the entire debate, the one that certainly has the most impact on actual human lives. This did not start on October 7th. This started decades ago when the Palestinian people were dispossessed of their land forcibly by Zionist militias in the nakba. And even before then,
(14:16):
And it has continued year after year after year, you can go and consult the casualty figures from any independent reputable source like the United Nations. And you will find that year after year after year for decades, the Palestinian people have suffered far more civilian casualties than Israelis every year. And it's a multiple. We're talking about a ratio 10 to one, 15 to 1...21. How the hell can you say in good conscience that all of this began what we're seeing today in Gaza and now in the West Bank, that this began on October 7th. It takes a colossal act of self-deception and mendacity to say such a thing. And she was prepared to say exactly that, and it was the first thing that came out of her mouth. This is the peculiar expertise that sort of the propaganda system part excellence that we have in the West is they always start history on the date that is most advantageous to their narrative always. And we always fall for this like suckers, like chumps, like as Malcolm X said many times, you're a sucker, you're a chump. That's exactly what we are when we believe this crap, that history starts on the date that's most advantageous to our government's narrative. So
Wilmer Leon (15:33):
Article 51 of additional protocol one to the Geneva Convention from 1949, it prohibits the indiscriminate attacks on civilians and Article 85 lists attacks on civilians as grave breaches, that amount to war crimes, still talking about these pagers in these walkie talkies, you have to identify who qualifies as a combatant under international humanitarian law when analyzing the pager detonations, and this is from the cradle, when analyzing the pager detonations from a legal standpoint, it becomes clear that Israel's killing spree in Lebanon lies somewhere between a war crime and an act of terrorism. And they say the classification depends on the current state of affairs. Your thoughts, because one of the things to your point about, we have to look at this in the context of October 7th, a lot of this depends on how it gets classified. But as a former prosecutor, if she does not realize when she makes the statement about October 7th, when she makes the statement about Israel has the right to defend itself based upon international law, that's just flat out wrong.
Dimitry Lascaris (17:10):
Yeah, I need to address this whole thing about a former prosecutor. Okay? And I know you're entirely right to bring this up, that that's what she is, Kamala Harris, and that's what people constantly point out about her. Let's just start by acknowledging that the US justice system is rigged. It's rigged against people of color, the poor, minorities, workers. It always has been, and it arguably is worse now that it has been at any time in the post World War II history. And so Kamala Harris, the fact that she was a prosecutor, nobody should think that that for one moment has conferred upon her any expertise in of the rule of law. Prosecutors in the United States are basically instruments of oppression, and that's what she was when she was a prosecutor. In any event, it's important to know that something can be a war crime in an act of terrorism.
(18:05):
At the same time, these concepts are not mutually exclusive and in my opinion, as a capacity as a lawyer, these fall squarely within the definition of a war crime. And within the classical conventional definition of terrorism in the West, which is the use of violence or threats of violence against civilians or civilian infrastructure in order to achieve a political objective. Clearly the political objective here is to terrorize the Lebanese population into either turning against Hezbollah or if you're already a supportive of Hezbollah, to demanding that Hezbollah stand down and allow Israel to complete the genocide without any armed resistance from outside of occupied Palestine. That's the political objective. And clearly this was going to have a massive and unknowable impact on the civilian population because nobody can know where a pager is going to be at any time. If you just think about, I don't know if you've used a pager before or some other electronic,
Wilmer Leon (19:09):
I'm old enough, I'm pre-cell phone. You can tell by the gray.
Dimitry Lascaris (19:12):
I'm pre too. In days bygone, I too used a pager. So I used many different, I used a Blackberry, I used a Motorola phone back in the nineties. And think about what you did with that device when it was in your possession. Oftentimes you put it down in the kitchen. Sometimes your children would play with it, sometimes you would leave it in your car, you'd forget it in your car, or sometimes you'd have it on you while you're driving your car. Or you might just be a civilian who is or is not sympathetic to Hezbollah like a doctor and you use this device. There is absolutely no way Wilmer, absolutely no way that the Israeli military could have made a confident assessment of who was going to be killed and maimed directly and indirectly by the explosion of these devices, by the detonation of these devices that is both a war crime and an act of terrorism.
Wilmer Leon (20:13):
A minute there's, there's another element to this as well. I believe there's a cultural element in the West, the cell phone, the pager is a very personal item. I don't give my cell phone, I don't even give my cell phone to my son. He has his own phone. I don't give my cell phone to my wife. She has her own phone. In many African countries and middle Eastern countries, there may be one cell phone in a family, and so it gets or pager, it gets distributed and used, I'll say indiscriminately within a family. It could be within a neighborhood. So you don't even really know at any given time who's going to be to your point. But I also wanted to add the cultural aspect of this. You have no idea whether the person whose name is on the contract is going to be the sole user of that device.
Dimitry Lascaris (21:24):
I think that's an excellent point. The only modification I would add to it is that I wouldn't say it's so much cultural as it is socioeconomic.
Wilmer Leon (21:34):
Okay, I got it.
Dimitry Lascaris (21:35):
But at the end of the day, it's a distinction without difference Wil. But I think what, from my perspective, why your point is so powerful is because people living in West Asia generally don't have ordinary citizens. The economic means that we have.
Wilmer Leon (21:51):
Correct, correct. Good point.
Dimitry Lascaris (21:52):
You can't have multiple devices in a family. Absolutely. That is a very important consideration. But also another consideration is that a pager, one of the reasons why we want to have our own cell phones is because there's a lot of stuff in there that's personal to us. Emails, there's text messages and so forth. The page is different. A pager just makes a noise when somebody wants to draw your attention to something.
(22:17):
So people are much more, I think, willing to share pagers with others, leave them in the possession of others. Then they might be with a cell phone, for example, or a tablet. So this is a particularly dangerous device. And if you're going to use it as an explosive for all of the reasons that you and I have been discussing, there is a very high potential that you are going to maim or kill innocent bystanders. And you have no way, no way of accurately assessing what the damage is going to be to the people in those categories.
Wilmer Leon (22:52):
And that is considered by international standards, collective punishment of civilians. And that is illegal. And I understand your point about being a prosecutor, but she was a prosecutor. And I go back to that because that's a point that her campaign and that she loves to make, that is a point of validation of her and for her. So since they want to use that point, then I'll use the point.
Dimitry Lascaris (23:24):
Totally, totally. You're absolutely right. Absolutely.
Wilmer Leon (23:28):
It's just wrong. The world isn't flat, the sun doesn't revolve around the earth, and one plus one does not equal 17. I want to go back to something else that Joe Biden has said on more than one occasion that he is a Zionist. In fact, the last maybe it wasn't the, yeah, I think it was the last time Netanyahu was at the White House, sitting next to Joe Biden, he turned to Joe Biden and said, you are a Zionist. In fact, he said, you are a Irish Zionist. That spoke volumes to me. It took me back to the Secretary of State saying, when he first got to the region in October, I'm not only here as the American secretary, Tony Blink said, I'm not only here as a Secretary of state, I'm here as a Jew. What does that say to you about the mindset and how do statements like that resonate within the region when the United States continues to try to hold itself out as some unbiased arbiter of this conflict? Is that a valid question to ask?
Dimitry Lascaris (25:01):
Well, first of all, let me say that in defense of our brothers and sisters in Ireland, most of them are not Zionists. In fact, in Europe, the Irish people, I'm not talking about the political elite Ireland, the Irish people are amongst the most principled and courageous and sympathetic when it comes to the Palestinian cause, number one. Number two, I think what Anthony Blinken said was antisemitic because he was implying that if you're a Jew, you support this genocidal regime and all of the crimes that's committed over decades. But you and I both know that all around the world, there are conscientious members of the Jewish community, people who identify as Jews and who have always identified as Jews, who are adamantly opposed to Israel with every fiber of their being. So when Anthony Blinken goes to Israel and he says, I come to you as a Jew, he's implying that if you're a Jew, you support this monstrosity.
(26:03):
That's antisemitic fundamentally, in my opinion. But at the end of the day, and I'll tell you on a personal level, Wilmer, I've had to deal with this issue in a painful way. And the painful way in which I had to deal with it was about six years ago, there were two members of the Liberal Party caucus, the governing party in Canada who are Zionist and who happened to be Jewish as well. And I'll tell you their names. Their names are Anthony HouseFather and Michael Levitt. And at the time, Michael Levitt was the chairman of the Canada Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group. And Anthony Housefather was the vice chair, and they were the two most outspoken, aggressive defenders of Israel in the governing party's caucus. And just to give you an example of how aggressive they were in supporting Israel in 2018, a friend of mine who's a Palestinian Canadian doctor, his name is Ek Banani, he was shot by an Israeli sniper in Gaza while he was wearing medical garb.
(27:10):
And he was out in the field during the great march of return tending to civilians who were being shot by Israeli snipers. He himself took a bullet to each leg. And the liberal government, Justin Trudeau, on a rare occasion, condemned Israel for this. And these two characters, Michael Levitt and Anthony Housefather put out their own statement, even though they came from the same party as Justin Trudeau, and even though their boss was Justin Trudeau and defended what Israel did, and I pointed out, in my opinion, they were showing more devotion to Israel's apartheid regime than they were to Canada, which they took an oath to defend as parliamentarians. And for this, I was accused by the Prime Minister of antisemitism. I didn't say what I said because they were Jewish. I said, what I said, because they're radical Zionists. It's as simple as that. So we have to recognize, I think today that there are people in Western politics, some of whom are Jewish, but not all of whom are Jewish by any means, who place Zionist ideology over the interests of their own country.
(28:23):
And by the way, I saw this myself when I was a child of Greek immigrants growing up in Canada. My parents told me when I was a kid, they came from Greece. They had a nationalistic orientation, and they said, you are a Greek first and a Canadian second. They told me that when I was a little boy, they were putting the homeland where their country of origin, ahead of the country, where I, myself, their child was born. So this is not a phenomenon that's peculiar to the Jewish community. It's one that you see in all kinds of the Asdas, including my own, the Greek, the Aspera. We need to be honest and say there are people in this community and other communities who put the interests of a foreign state ahead of the country that they have sworn to represent. This is absolutely the case. And Anthony Blinken is a classic example of this. I mean, my God, he's basically telling people, he telegraphed from the outset that I'm going to prioritize the agenda of the Israeli government over that of the United States. And that's exactly what he has done every single day of this conflict. That man is unfit to be the Secretary of state of the United States. He is not serving the national interest. He is undermining the national interest. People need to be honest about that.
Wilmer Leon (29:41):
When you have, I think people, because of how events have unfolded, whether it be with the Ukraine, Russia conflict, whether it be with the United States trying to pick a fight with China over Taiwan, folks need to remember that the Department of State, the Secretary of State, is supposed to be the chief diplomat in the United States. When I say chief diplomat, that means using diplomacy, not militarism to solve conflict. But you have people in the Pentagon, which used to be known as the Department of War. You have people in the Pentagon looking at Tony Blink and saying, no, no, no, no, sir, no man, no, you're you. You're traversing down the wrong road here in a number of instances saying, we don't have the capability to engage in the level of militarism that you are invoking or trying to get us into. People need to understand this man is not doing his job, even though he's following in the steps of Hillary Clinton, even though he's following in the steps of Madeline Albright, he's not doing his job.
Dimitry Lascaris (31:05):
Wilmer, I'm going to make a strong statement, and I'm going to go on a limb here. I think that pretty much every leader of every western country, every foreign minister of every Western country day, certainly the major ones, they're traitors, in my opinion, they're traitors. They are all betraying the interests of the people they have sworn to represent. This is true in Canada, the United States, Greece, where I'm currently situated, I believe this government as a moral matter. I don't know whether it's true from a legal perspective. I'm not offering a legal opinion here. I'm talking about ethics, morality, the moral matter. The Greek government is a traitor. They have sold us out to Brussels and Washington. They're looking out for the agenda of a narrow elite based in Brussels in Washington to the detriment of the Greek people. The same is happening in Canada. It's happening in France.
(31:56):
It's happening in Britain. And we as people need to rise up and put into power those who actually represent our interests right across the west. We are governed by vassals. Even the United States is governed by vassals. They're vassals of a US-based oligarchy and the military industrial complex. I cannot stress enough that incredible speech that Dwight d Eisenhower gave at the very end of his presidency. We don't talk about that enough. When he warned of the dangers of the military industrial complex, he was very clear. It was a very, very ominous warning that it was going to destroy American democracy. What happened within the next 10 years? JFK is assassinated. Malcolm X is assassinated, MLK is assassinated. Bobby Kennedy is assassinated. And from then, it's been downhill ever since,
(32:47):
Downhill, ever since. And we've moved gradually, incrementally towards fascism, an oligarchic led fascism. That's where we find ourselves today. People need to rise up. I'm not suggesting that people engage in violence. We can do this in a way that is nonviolent against the elites who claim to represent us and remove them from power as quickly as possible before we are all taken down by their depravity. Whatever you may think of the Palestinian cause, whatever you may think about Israel, this may not be something. This entire region may not be something that matters to you, but the implications of this go, they're global. They're global. If this stays out of control, we are all going to be devastated and impacted by it in a profoundly negative way. And ultimately, we may find ourselves in a nuclear Armageddon.
Wilmer Leon (33:35):
In fact, that right there, and you went down this litany of domestic assassinations, you didn't even go down the litany of African assassinations. That's a whole nother show. I just wanted to make that point. And this could also be, excuse me, a whole nother show. But I want you just to quickly, you mentioned you're in Greece. You mentioned the traitorous action of leadership. Greece has been subjected to an incredible amount of neoliberal policy and privatization, which has not, through machinations by the World Bank and the IMF and Greece has been suffering with this, I want to say it's one of the first European countries to find itself. If my memory serves me correctly involved in these practices, am I right to make that assessment? And I bring that up in validation of your point of how leadership has sold out the Greek people to oligarchs.
Dimitry Lascaris (34:47):
Oh, it's so true of this country. Wilmer starting in 2010, a financial crisis that was precipitated not by the ordinary Greek workers. It was precipitated by the fraudsters, the liars, the cheats in the banking industry in Greece and beyond Greece. And so in order to bail out the banking industry, the Greek people were made to pay ordinary workers, citizens the most vulnerable. They imposed upon Greece starting in about 2010, a neoliberal austerity program, the likes of which no country in Europe had ever seen in the post World War II period. And the country suffered an economic contraction in excess of 25%, which is I think the height of the economic contraction in the United States during the Great Depression. That's how severe it was. And it was totally engineered by Washington, Brussels and Mario Draghi, who at that time was the president of UCB, was entirely avoidable. And the unemployment rate soared to something like 27, 28%. The youth unemployment rate was nexus of 50%. The suicide rate soared, the poverty rate soared, the lifespan of Greeks fell. This was all engineered by Neoliberals and in Washington and Brussels, and I think in many ways it was an experiment and they
(36:10):
Found out that they could get away with it. And now we're seeing this transported exported to the rest of Europe. We're seeing this done in Germany. We're seeing this done in Britain, and they just elected Keir Starmer, who's supposed to be a Labor party leader, who's supposed to be prioritizing the interests of workers. And one of the first things Keir Starmer government does, it comes out and says, oh, we're going to have to deliver some very tough medicine to you. We have some real budgetary difficulties,
Wilmer Leon (36:38):
Austerity measures.
Dimitry Lascaris (36:40):
Absolutely. Absolutely. They don't represent us. This goes back to the question of treason. They do not represent us. They represent a neoliberal oligarchic elite whose appetite for wealth is insatiable. It's never enough. Wilmer, I got $500 billion. Ain't enough. I got a trillion dollars. Ain't enough. There's never enough money for these people. The Elon Musks of the world, the Jeff Bezos of the world, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett. These people have an insatiable appetite for money, and they are ruling us. They are the true rulers of our societies. I'm sorry to say, this is not a conspiracy theory. This is just reality by now. We should be able to recognize this.
Wilmer Leon (37:23):
It started in Greece in two. Who would've thought they were talking about privatizing the Parthenon. They were talking about privatizing Greek antiquity. I said, what? They were going to sell the coliseum to private interests, to raise money to pay the debt. And so you've seen it in Greece, you've seen it in Italy. You've we're seeing it now play itself out in Germany. It's playing all over Europe. It's playing itself out in France. I just wanted to quickly hit on that point. So now getting back to the conversation that all of this is inextricably linked, but wanted to get back to the point of the expansion of the conflict. You now have Hezbollah sending missiles into Israel. You have Israel increasing its attack on Southern Lebanon. Talk about how dangerous it is becoming even more dangerous if that's even imaginable, that this conflict is escalating. And what I think a lot of people are mistaking, they are mistaking restraint on behalf of the resistance for weakness.
Dimitry Lascaris (38:48):
Absolutely. And when the contrary is true, restraint is a sign of strength. When you were able to control your emotions in situations where most people would feel their passions being inflamed and would act in ways that are contrary to their own interests, that's strength. That's an inner strength that we should commend and admire, and whatever we may think of, the politics of these resistance organizations in the government that we're in that particular aspect of their conduct deserves to be commended. They have shown a tremendous amount of restraint, but that doesn't mean they aren't escalating the Islamic resistance in Lebanon. The armed wing of Hezbollah has now expanded the zone of attack well beyond the 20 kilometers or so to which they can find themselves during the first 11 months. They are now attacking areas outside of Haifa. I think they've quite consciously said, we aren't going to attack the center of Haifa, yet.
(39:45):
We are going to attack the outline areas to give the Israelis an opportunity to retreat from the precipice to which they have brought us. There are reports that they fired, that they hit areas outside of Tel Aviv. Again, not inside the heart of Tel Aviv, but outside, I think this is a message. We can hit Tel Aviv, we can hit Haifa, draw back from the precipice to which you have brought us. They have hit the Ramat David Airbase for the first time. They hit Raphael facilities, which this is a major military contractor in Israel, which produces their obviously inadequate air defense systems in its facilities. I think it's the largest production facility they have in Israel is just outside of Haifa. So they're sending a message in a very disciplined manner despite the suffering that they have incurred over the last 10 days, and really the last 11 months that civilian casualties on the Lebanese side have been much higher from day one of this war.
(40:46):
The destruction to civilian infrastructure has been much higher on the Lebanese side from day one of this war. And now the disparity between what the Israelis are suffering and what the Lebanese are suffering is growing even wider. And yet we are seeing this very calculated, measured response and let us hope that there are some adults in the room somewhere in the west who will get the message. So far, there is nobody, I mean, the speech that Biden gave, I didn't have the opportunity to watch it, but I read reports about it and I saw a couple of excerpts from it suggest to me that there is no one getting the message in Washington. No one. These people are as arrogant as ever. They're as determined as ever to support this regime until it takes down the entirety of West Asia with it.
Wilmer Leon (41:32):
Two quick points I want to get to before we get to Biden's speech, and we'll wrap up with that. One is I think when we talk about restraint, there are some practical elements of this restraint, because Iran has been very, very clear. They don't want a war. Hezbollah has been very clear. They don't want a war. The only ones that seem to be encouraging this are Ansar, Allah in Yemen. They're saying, oh, United States wants to attack us. Please, please do that. They're the only ones that really seem to be saying,
Dimitry Lascaris (42:13):
Someone's got to be the Bad cop. Wilmer. Ansar Allah is the bad cop.
Wilmer Leon (42:18):
And folks need to understand that's a fight you don't want. I don't know if you ever saw the story about Mike Tyson on the airplane coming across the top of his seat to beat up the guy that was kicking his seat behind him, but imagine Mike Tyson coming across the top of his seat in an airplane. You don't want that smoke quickly, though I think this is another very important aspect of this that doesn't get a whole lot of articulation or explanation. The impact that Christian nationalism is a lot of people are just attributing this to mistakenly Judaism, Zionism. They're trying to conflate the two. They are not anywhere near being the same, but Christian nationalism gets left out of this analysis.
Dimitry Lascaris (43:09):
Oh, that's so true, and it's so important. The first time I went to Israel or occupied Palestine, as I prefer to call it, was when I was 21 years old. So this would've been back in the eighties. And at that point, I was basically incapable of seeing through the propaganda narrative about Israel, I believed it was assigning island of democracy in the sea of barbarism, and we had shared values, and the Israelis were just trying to live their lives in peace. But there were people in the region who were determined to destroy them for antisemitic reasons. I believed all of that. I went to Jerusalem, and I don't even remember how I found out about it, but there was this huge gathering of evangelical Christians from the United States in an outdoor stadium to which Shiman Perez, who I think at the time he was the prime minister of Israel, I think delivered the most really, it was a tremendously racist, anti-Arab racist propagandistic speech about the Zionist agenda, and they were wildly supportive of him. I saw a level of fanaticism I'd never experienced in my life sitting that Audience.
Wilmer Leon (44:32):
Wow, okay.
Dimitry Lascaris (44:32):
These were American evangelical Christians, thousands upon thousands of them. It only was later in life that I realized as I came to study this conflict more closely that there are lots of reasons to believe that the most fanatical Zionists in the world are, in fact, Christian. Some of them are not even Christian or Jewish. They're secular. They described to this ideology for reasons that are completely non-religious.
Wilmer Leon (44:58):
Wasn't Theodore Herzl an atheist.
Dimitry Lascaris (45:00):
I believe he was. That's my understanding. Absolutely. Yeah.
(45:04):
So this is a non religious ideology. It is an ideology of imperialism and colonialism and racism, and we shouldn't be shy about saying that, and never ever conflate that ideology with any particular religion or ethnic group, whether it be Judaism or Christianity, or of course there are many wonderful Christians who are adamantly opposed to what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people. There's a segment of self-professed Christians. I dispute whether they're Christians at all, just as I dispute whether Jewish Zionists are actually Jews. I have serious doubts about that. But they call themselves Jews. They call themselves Christians. They do not represent the Christian community. They do not represent the Jewish community. They represent an ideology that is racist and colonial.
Wilmer Leon (45:50):
In fact, to that point, Benjamin Netanyahu, his last name, his family last name isn't really Netanyahu. It's like WojaKowski, Mil Mil Milakowski, Milakowski. His grandfather immigrated from Poland to the region in 1920 and Arabis the family last. And there are a number of those who now are proclaiming their rights to that land, when in fact they are European immigrants. That that's hence the whole thing in terms of it's a settler colonial project. And people and settler colonial projects don't go nicely. They don't go quietly when you invade somebody else's land. The people that are there, the indigenous population usually wants to resist. But I make the point that so many of these people that are proclaiming a heritage to the space are actually parts of a settler colonial project.
Dimitry Lascaris (47:13):
Absolutely, and you reminded me. So it's something I got. It's a be on my mind. And I got to say, does everybody notice when Netanyahu speaks? He sounds like he comes from the streets of New York because
Wilmer Leon (47:23):
He does, or Philly.
Dimitry Lascaris (47:25):
Philly, yeah. Or Philly. Sure. I lived in New York for six years, and if I ran into that dude in the street and didn't know who he was, I'd say he was in New York or he is a Philly. He's from the northeast of the United States. Why does he speak that way? Because fundamentally, he is an American and he's speaking to an American audience. He's not from the region, he's not indigenous the region. I mean, come on, man. Benjamin Netanyahu, that man is indigenous to the region of West Asia. He's an alien in the region of West Asia, and he's treating people in the region like he's an alien. And why does he speak that way? He speaks that way because ultimately the very existence of Israel depends upon the sport of the United States people, the Society of the United States. Without that support, Israel would not exist in its current form. Impossible.
Wilmer Leon (48:15):
Final point here, and you mentioned Joe Biden's speech at the un. I want to read two short excerpts, which I think speak volumes from a couple of perspectives. The Washington Post reported Biden points to the relative success of his administration's efforts to rally western support for Ukraine, coordinating a robust response with European partners to the Russian invasion and reinvigorating the transatlantic alliance. He stressed, he didn't want to see a full scale war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. He called for the war to end. Innocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell. Thousands and thousands killed including aid workers. Too many families dislocated crowding into tents facing a dire humanitarian situation. They didn't ask for this war. Hamas started.
(49:16):
So a couple of things. One, I'm looking at what he said, and I'm looking at how the Washington Post has reported. I go back to the question we talked about earlier. When we hear Vice President Harris, secretary of State, Blinken Biden and others say that Israel has the right to defend itself, then you hear Biden say, this war has to stop. Well, the conflict in Ukraine started under his administration, and the United States started the conflict again, talking about restraint being mistaken for weakness. And in terms of what he sees in Gaza, if he truly wants it to stop, all he has to do is pick up the phone. Tell Netanyahu you don't get another artillery shell. You don't get another tank, you don't get another dime, and the war stops in two days. Is that too simplistic, Dmitri Karus?
Dimitry Lascaris (50:23):
No, there's absolutely not. It is absolutely the reality, and I'm as hostile to the Israel lobby as anybody, so please don't mistake me as an apologist for the Israel lobby. But I think that people like John Meir shier, for example, all my respect a lot are grossly overestimating the power of the Israel lobby. I don't think that, sure, the Israel lobby can take out people who don't have a lot of power.
(50:56):
They can take out like Val Bowman, they can take out Cori Bush, and maybe people are somewhat more powerful, but the president of the United States states, the sitting president of the United States, what are they going to remove him from office? No, they're not going to be able to remove him from office. If he wanted to actually stop the war in Gaza, he could stop the war in Gaza with a phone call. It is that simple. He doesn't do it because as he told us, he's a Zionist. I mean, he told us, and he's also said repeatedly, Wilmer, as I'm sure you know, if Israel didn't exist, we would have to invent it in order to protect America's, what he calls, not really, but what he calls America's strategic interest in the region. What that really means is the interest of the US oligarchy, not the American.
(51:39):
The unsinkable aircraft carrier in the region.
(51:44):
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So all of this is Kabuki theater. Joe Biden wants Israel to achieve the agenda that Netanyahu is set for it, which is to destroy by any and all means necessary any resistance to Western slash Israeli hegemony in West Asia. He wants them to achieve that objective. That should be our operating assumption. And just because from time to time, he or Blinken or anonymous sources go to the press and say, oh, we're frustrated with Benjamin Netanyahu and we really want to cease fire, and man, we feel so terrible about what's happening to those civilians, too many are dying. Nobody should buy any of this crap. Watch what they do. Don't listen to what they say, watch what they do. And what they're doing is enabling a genocide that is unequivocal.
Wilmer Leon (52:37):
And you mentioned the power of APAC, and we will wrap up with this. And folks, those of you that are listening to this, that are rolling your eyes and saying, oh, this is propaganda. Look it up. I mean, there's hardly anything that's been said here that you can't research and find to be true. APAC boasted back, I want to say it was in April in the New York Times, you mentioned Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush. They touted, they bragged in the New York Times and the Washington Post that they were going to spend $100 million in the US election to unseat Democrats that they deemed to be anti Zionist. And Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush were victims of that. And I put that in quotes because at the time that that story was released, I didn't hear anybody in the Democratic Party come out and challenge APAC for making that statement.
(53:46):
It was only after Cori Bush lost that. She then came out and said, APAC, I'm coming after your village. Well, if you'd have said that on the front end, you'd probably still be in office because that could have been used as a rallying point. If they're going to spend a hundred million dollars, we need a hundred million votes. That to me, would've been the line that would've made the difference. And Kamala Harris finds herself in the same position. When you look at the data, over 70% of Americans want this thing ended and they want it ended. Now, she would gain votes outside of the money she would lose from APAC funding. If she were truly looking at this from an electoral politics perspective, she would gain votes. The race wouldn't even be close if she erred on the side of Wright. And on the right side of history with that, Dimitri Lascaris, I'll let you take us home, what you got,
Dimitry Lascaris (55:02):
You can get elected in the United States, despite all the obstacles by running as a principled candidate committed to the wishes and the priorities of the people, you can absolutely get elected. The problem Wilmer is that the system is constructed in such a way as to squash anybody who actually has a commitment to justice and to representing the wishes of the people. There are a series of filters that have been set up. So for example, you're seeing now, I'm actually working on Jill Stein's campaign.
(55:33):
They're waging, and I don't think any candidate is perfect, and I don't have an expectation that Jill is going to win. I certainly would love for that to happen. But the Democratic Party is waging war against the Green Party candidacy in every single state, a legal warfare. And they have enormous resources at their disposal to do that because the oligarchy is funneling massive amounts of money to them, to squash candidates like Jill Stein. If we had a system where it was a level playing field, so people who were truly committed to the wishes of the people and were able to, they were given an equal amount of airtime to other candidates who favored the wealthy, for example, you would see principled, honorable, decent people being elected to public office over and over and over again. But we have a political system throughout the west. This is not peculiar to the us, although I think the US is a bit of an extreme case. It's also true in Canada, it's also true in Western European countries, a series of filters that have been established to squash candidates before they get an opportunity to present their case to the people. If we could get them before the people on an equal playing field, the best candidates would win time and again, the problem is the system is designed to defeat them before they even get out of the gate.
Wilmer Leon (56:55):
And to that, I say, dare to be moral, dare to stand on the side of right. Dare to be on the right side of history. With that, let me say Dimitri Lascaris, I want to thank you so much for giving me the time that you've given me today. I greatly, greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining the show.
Dimitry Lascaris (57:16):
Great pleasure, Wilmer. As always. We've had opportunity to speak before and it's the first time we had to meet today, and I love what you do and keep doing it.
Wilmer Leon (57:25):
Well, thank you. Thank you. Without guests like you, I'd just be sitting here talking to myself. Folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace and blessings. I'm out
Announcer (58:10):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
