Useful Idiots
Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté
Yanis Varoufakis on Israel’s war crimes
Preview
0:00
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -50:39
-50:39

Yanis Varoufakis on Israel’s war crimes

Greece's former finance minister explains how the United States endorses the IDF's right to war crimes

Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

“The United States fully endorses Israel’s war crimes,” says Greece’s former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. “Because that’s what it is. When you switch off the water to two and a half million people, by the Geneva Convention that’s a war crime.”

The economist, who shares a European perspective on the war, says that “the West has conspired to ensure a generalized massacre.”

And the real question is “how much Palestinian blood is required to cleanse the hands of Europe?”

As a European, Varoufakis tells us how his continent’s mix of guilt and cowardice are keeping the war fueled. “You have a situation where the European Union simply doesn’t exist anymore as a geopolitical entity, and therefore it simply mimics whatever is coming from Washington DC.”

This wasn’t the case even twenty years ago, but today governments are too afraid to have their own positions. “Even if they secretly oppose what the United States is doing, European presidents and prime ministers are too scared to actually express these disagreements. And that is a major defeat of European democracy.”

So for now, without faith in any government to do what’s right, Yanis Varoufakis encourages the people to take the streets.

“I try to make the point that the protests in favor of Palestinians are also protests of solidarity with our Israeli and Jewish comrades who are suffering immensely under the apartheid regime of Netanyahu.”

Subscribe for the full interview where Varoufakis shares his deep disappointment in Bernie Sanders, the nefarious reasons for NATO’s existence, the disaster that is the war in Ukraine, and a look at his new book Technofeudalism, which posits that capitalism actually ended over a decade ago.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: John Kirby has no tears and no red lines for Gaza, and Norm Finkelstein destroys his debate partner.

And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.

Watch the full interview here:

Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Useful Idiots to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Useful Idiots
Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté
Useful Idiots is an informative and irreverent politics podcast with journalist Aaron Maté and podcaster/writer Katie Halper. Episodes feature on-the-road coverage of the 2020 campaign and exclusive interviews, with humor, commentary and dissection of the politics news of the week. Join Katie and Aaron as they examine important stories that have slipped through the cracks and what the media got wrong – and laugh about whatever is left to laugh about.