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Kamala and Pete Are Trapped in a Cult
“God did the State of Israel a favor,” announced Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog in April 2025, “that Biden was the president during this period [2023 and 2024]. We fought [in Gaza] for over a year and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did.”
This week, two special guests return to Useful Idiots.
First up is Trita Parsi, the geopolitical analyst who has kept us updated with on-the-ground information on Trump’s war on Iran that breaks through the walls of corporate propaganda.
We asked Trita what are the most important stories coming out of the Middle East that corporate media is hiding.
Trita Parsi: Look, this could change in three days because things are changing so fast. But right now, I would point to two things, one that the media is not necessarily ignoring, but the other one they’re largely hiding.
The open one is the fact that we are now seeing increasing movement towards what I think can end up becoming uncontrollable escalation. As bad as the war has been so far, it’s been calibrated escalations by both sides.
What is happening now between the Houthis and the Saudis risks transforming into something much bigger, and the calibration can be lost, control can be lost, and that would be very dangerous for everyone.
The second thing is the manner in which the Israelis are openly discussing how their security doctrine has changed and turned into something that you certainly wouldn’t associate with what claims to be a democratic country.
What I’m referring to is the article by the head of the INSS, the big Israeli think tank, in which he described several points of the new doctrine that should really give you chills.
There’s some stuff in it that from an American perspective, I’m sure many people in Washington would not like to hear, such as treating the United States as a declining power, believing that the US is going to abandon Israel anyway, and as a result Israel itself should sever ties with the US.
But the other parts of what they’re saying as principles of this new doctrine should really make decision makers and others in America think twice about what does it mean to be a strategic ally of a country that pursues this doctrine…
Watch the episode for Trita’s full take.
Second, we speak with Israeli peace activist and founder of Palestine House of Freedom Miko Peled about the upcoming Israeli elections. Will the elections, which have the potential to oust Benjamin Netanyahu, lead to any major shift in Israel?
Spoiler alert: No.
Useful Idiots: A lot of people present Netanyahu as the unique cause of the genocide. Once they get rid of Netanyahu, it’ll be OK. What are your thoughts on that claim?
Miko Peled: It’s the most unfounded claim anybody can make. I have no idea why anybody would say something so ridiculous.
Everyone in the Knesset agrees with the genocide. Everyone rejects the idea of Palestinian self-determination. Everyone supports the nation-state law. Everyone supports settling all over Palestine. Everyone supports Israel as an apartheid state.
There’s a video where they questioned the heads of every single political party about the Palestinian state. And the worst thing a candidate can say about their opponent is that they support a Palestinian state. And that the other side is a lefty. I mean, they’re calling Netanyahu a lefty! It’s ridiculous.
So why is there any expectation that somebody else sitting in Netanyahu’s chair may do anything different? Where do they come up with this nonsense? How much more clearly do Israeli politicians and Israeli society need to be for people to believe that Netanyahu is not the issue?
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