Whatever Happens, Farage Loses

Welcome to Novara Live, coming to you from my home in Nottingham as 36 degree temperatures does not a happy studio make down at Navara Towers. However, coming up on tonight's show, voters in Clton go to the polls today as Nigel Farage risks losing his career to a talking bin. Netanyahu has rejected Donald Trump's 15-point plan for Gaza. Owen Jones takes on a cheerleader of Israel's genocide. And Caroline Levit is leaving the White House. I'm Helena, otherwise known as No Justice MTG. And tonight I am remotely joined again by Dalia Gabriel for ladies night. How are you doing, Dalia? >> Helena, I'm doing well. Um, it's getting very hot in here, but I won't be taking all my clothes off so that this video doesn't get demonetized. >> Absolutely. We need to get that sweet, sweet AdSense revenue. But obviously, the best way of supporting the channel is to go to novar.dia/support to be able to become a contributor to the channel. And as always, make sure to like the video, subscribe if you haven't already, and leave your comments in the comment section down below. After two very high-profile bi-elections already this year in Makerfield and in Gorton and Denton, tonight we'll see yet another empty seat being filled. Although this one was triggered by the resignation of one of its contestants in the form of reform UK leader Nigel Farage. He broadcast himself publicly throwing his toys out of the pram last month and standing down in his seat of Clactton, forcing a bi-election to prove he has the backing of the people versus the establishment in the wake of a parliamentary standards commission investigation into an undeclared donation from a Thai based cryptobillionaire worth5 million. The issue for Farage is that the establishment haven't turned up. All four of the main English political parties declined the invitation to participate in Farage's stunt, meaning Farage will only face down a gaggle of protest parties and meme candidates in the 34 namelong ballots getting marked today. Yes, there are 34 candidates standing in this bi-election. The ballots are very, very long. Out of those many meme candidates, only one of them has gained notoriety as the main competition to Farage, the comedy character of Camp Binface. He's been a mainstay political parody candidate for years now. Here he is immortalized in history next to now Prime Minister Andy Burnham at the result of the Makerfield bi-election earlier this year. Armed with a manifesto of joke policies such as capping 99 flakes at 99P and satirical ones such as a pledge to spend more time in Clton on Sea than Washington DC, he's been generating lots of buzz on social media, not just in the UK, but around the world, even making it as far as the news in Japan. Great. Hello. It's a pleasure to meet you. >> Pleasure to meet you, too. A >> honor. Konichiwa. >> So, you speak Japanese? I I have a smattering. I'm fluent in over 7 million forms of communication. >> I don't think this was the kind of international acclaim that Naja Farage was hoping this bi-election would draw, to be honest. Now, Farage was asked in a recent interview with the Daily Express to comment on his parody opponent, however, and also to comment on the lack of the other opposition in Clankton. >> Have you met Count Bean Faced? Do you like him? >> I've not met him. He's a he's an extreme left-wing BBC comedy writer, you know, who writes he writes the sketches for the now very unfunny Have I Got News for You. So, he's not quite the joke character that you would have thought. >> I have spoken on the phone to the the leader of the official Monster Raven Looney Party. Um I've known Allan for 20 years. >> Uh and they have had one over on the electoral system because they officially endorsed three candidates and no one's ever done that before in British politics. So they are absolutely wetting themselves with laughter. Uh one or two of the independents >> have reached out. But look, you know, I mean, when David Davis did this back in 2008, I think there were 28 candidates. Now there are 34. I will say this that in this area, the Conservatives have done themselves the most enormous damage. A lot of voters on the door say we are deeply insulted. >> There is not a conservative candidate. And I say that in the context that as recently as 2019, the Tories got 72% of the vote here. >> Yeah. >> And they're just not here at all. So long term, it's really odd. Two years in a row, the Tories tried to stop the Essex County Council elections from going ahead. >> Yeah. >> They went ahead because of a legal action that I brought. They don't want a general election and they haven't put a candidate up here. So I think longterm they've made a really bad error. The problem that Farage has is that whilst he can try and claim that the Conservative party are undermining their own voters in Clanson by refusing to stand a candidate because of course they even got lots of votes at the last general election too. The problem is is that he is the one undermining the electoral process in Clton by calling this bi-election in the first place because there could well be another bi-election sometime soon given the fact that if he wins this bi-election which you know he may not do. I mean at the current polling it looks like he's going to get about 70% to with count Ben facing around about 30% which would be a humiliation if he gets you know less than 70% it would go from being cringe to a humiliation for him but assuming he does get reelected to parliament that parliamentary standards commission investigation into that 5 million pound donation from the crypto billionaire that will restart immediately if it's found to have broken the rules and he gets suspended for more than 10 days there could be a recall petition and we be end up this whole situation all over again where there'll be another parliamentary bi-election where the conservative party will stand a candidate and far's point that these people are having their votes taken for granted or their participation in democracy taken for granted he is going to be the one who looks silly when he's got to go through the whole electoral process all over again dragging the voters of Clton all the way through the polls yet again taking their votes for granted whilst the conservatives and other political parties who have an electorate in this constituency have played their cards correctly in only standing in the one bi-election that matters, the one that Najger Farage will have been forced to stand in where his competition will be real rather than the one that he's called himself for a political stunt, which now everyone sees to be the stunt for what it is. Now, he's not the only one to try and imply that the count is some secret lefty, however, too. Here's GB News contributor Adam Brooks responding to reports alleging that the mainstream parties have been canvasing against Farage. The establishment will do anything to stop Nigel Farage. I'm disgusted at these people. They clearly don't care if the people of Clattton have a left-wing joker as MP. Traitors. I see. We've gone from calling Ben Wallace a traitor to now calling all of the political parties traitors for backing a parody candidate against a political party that they oppose. Right? You know that's how politics works, Adam. You're supposed to oppose your political opponents, right? Like you just give them a free run at reelection in all cases. I think that backing somebody who might potentially embarrass your political opponents is just part of the whole business of engaging in the acts of opposition in this case. What I will point out though is that if you're trying to market Count Binface as a joke candidate, as a parody candidate, someone who's there to undermine the whole fact that this bi-election has been called in the first place. The idea that the establishment parties would then go and back them undermines that and it helps lionize, it helps raify Nigel Farage's position and his rhetoric around it being a people versus the establishment bi-election. Like Count Benface is supposed to be this parody candidate the people are voting for to try and upend Nigel Farage for, you know, joke reasons rather than a serious candidate with the backing of the political establishment. That's what Nigel Farage wants. As for Count Benface being some kind of lefty, he's mostly just a bit of a common or garden liberal. And in terms of his political activism as a parody candidate, he's parodyied everybody. He parried Andy Burnham in Megafield. He paridied all the other political parties in previous bi-elections when he stood against prime ministers or political leaders in the past. The idea that he only goes after the right-wing as some kind of crazy left-winger when he's been very critical of people like Corbyn and Palansky is nonsensical as far as I'm concerned. Dalia, what do you make of Farage's stunt here? Do you think it'll pay off or do you think he's looking at the barrel of humiliation? >> I have to say I have really enjoyed this season of British politics where we've been watching Nigel Farage, you know, very earnestly describing this bi-election as uh him against the establishment and then it's like camera pans and the establishment is a man with a bin on his head. And I have this wonderful image of like countries all over the world like tuning in and being like what's going on in British politics seeing this fast and being like this this is the empire this was the place that colonized us like this is the empire like what's what what has happened um but I think the kind of the broader question here is you know what is to become of Nigel Farage uh there is a shift happening I can't tell you yet whether it is decisive but there is certainly um a shift you know for 18 months now uh far has felt like a completely unstoppable force uh in British politics you know and this this bi-election uh which he as you mentioned Helena has sort of engineered himself uh which was triggered to try and avoid scrutiny um over his own finances is kind of a good moment to talk about what are the actual vulnerabil ilities um in Project Farage that are kind of coming to the surface right now and coming to the surface specifically through um the the nature of the the crypto scandal and the ways in which he is being stress tested uh by the media in a way that he has not really ever been stress tested in in his career. Because for me the fundamental vulnerability in Varrage is the fact that at his core the only thing that he is more loyal to than anti-immigration politics is neoliberalism. Um so he represents the the very politics that is currently making a lot of his newly acquired base um really suffer which is you know economically insecure voters in the north and east um of England. Uh you know this barrage is a man who called Liz Truss's uh emer mini budget the best conservative budget since 1986. He absolutely believes that, you know, the free market should hold ultimate power in in governing society. And I would highly recommend reading Dan Trilling's most recent book. Um Dan Trilling has been a long-term uh journalist uh studying the far right in Britain. And he sort of talks about well where is the far right in this current moment? and he points out that Nigel Farrager's three greatest political influences are Margaret Thatcher, Keith Joseph, and Enoch Powell. And these are three of the most important architects of neoliberalism and free market fundamentalism um in this country and globally. And so that there's an irony there which is that the man who worships neoliberalism has kind of become the single biggest political beneficiary of its collapse and ultimately looking to Nigel Farage to sort of heal the wounds of neoliberalism is kind of like looking to the sun to heal your sunburn. Um because the thing that about Nigel Farage that no one really stress tests properly is that reforms coalition when when you go beneath the anti-immigration sentiment which they broadly all agree on, they don't really agree on much. You know, um a a 2025 survey found that um a quarter of reform voters are those economically insecure voters largely based in the north of east and east of England. They're strongly pro welfare. They're strongly pro pro-state. They want better wages. They're pro- workers rights. But then the other biggest chunk of his base are, you know, around a fifth are affluent voters who largely live in the south who actually want the exact opposite. They want less state spending. They want no workers rights. They want no state intervention other than state intervention that secures um the rights of the market. And so they are fundamentally deeply opposed. These two groups don't agree on anything um other than immigration. And even their their politics of immigration and their opinions on immigration are kind of rooted beyond just racism are rooted in two different things. You know, the affluent Southerner hates immigration because they think that state spending is bad. Full stop. And that immigrants are the biggest beneficiaries of state spending. if you get rid of all the immigrants, they certainly aren't going to believe that you should that the state should spend on white working-class British people. Um whereas the economically insecure northerners and easterners hate immigration because they like state spending, but they think that state spending is being disproportionately or erroneously spent on immigrants instead of them. So ultimately, Barrage has never had to yet address that contradiction and and show where his actual loyalties um lie. He's never had to choose between them because the traditional media has never really been interested in anything other than the the anti-immigration sentiment that has bound them together because the media finds that to be an exciting and interesting um and subversive story. So the question of what is going to happen to Farage going forward, you know, is this going to be just a blip in a in a broader rise to power or is this going to actually be the beginning of him being brought down is really going to rely on whether or not we can really press that contradiction because when you strip it all back, Faraj's heart has never been with that former Labour Heartland economically insecure voter in Clton or Blackpool or Heartley or wherever his heart his the consistent political core and his consistent political beliefs have always been with the affluent neoliberal anti-welfare um you know shred the state uh voter and that section of his base that's always been his actual base from the very beginning. So the question of whether this is going to be, you know, a little kind of diversion or whether this is going to begin the highlighting of that contradiction that he's always gotten away with really depends on how we as the left um decide to press on that contradiction because it is actually a weakness. Um and it's probably the only route we have to really stopping um Farage becoming the next prime minister. One thing I would say is I have noticed a real change in the media ecosystem and how they're dealing with Farage. He got a real boost from the establishment media for quite a while up until the 5 million pound donation thing kicked off and there was a perceived weakness a perceived in the armor of Niger Farage alongside what we're seeing in terms of what's happening in Trump's America. And suddenly it feels like that the boosterism of the right-wing media has moved away from Farage and towards Kem Benedok. I think what a lot of the establishment media have done and which has caused such a political crisis for Farage is that they've seen the business outcomes of what Trumpism has done to America which has overwhelmingly been bad for business which is a lot of what these establishment media companies are there to represent the interests of the business community and they've seen actually do we really want right-wing populism do we really want someone like Nar Farage in charge of the country is that going to be good for business and broadly we've seen that that's not been the case in Trump's America something similar happening here wouldn't be good for the vested interests of the media class in this country. So I think the change from what I've seen I don't know if you have the same experience Dalia of Farage boosterism towards chemiboosterism who gets precious little criticism from the mainstream media at all outside of the like the neo-Nazi stuff we covered last week. Have you have you seen that kind of shift there or am I uh putting the cart before the horse here? >> I think it's interesting what what you say. I think uh whether or not Trumpism has been good for business in the US I think is a contested question. I think it's been really good for some business and it's been not so good for other business. You know when we talk about kind of the economic elite or business interests this is not a homogeneous force. It's not a completely united force. there are contradictions and factions within it and Trumpism has certainly bolstered some of that and perhaps been a bit more tricky for for other parts. I think what's what might be um true however is that Trumpism has been bad for media in the sense that it's been you know bad for journalists. You know the journalists and the press are getting routinely humiliated and chewed up um by by Trump and we we're going to come on to the Caroline Leit story soon. Um but overall, you know, Trump has really as part of his strategy uh to look like a populist has really fermented hatred uh against the press and against journalism. Um and you know, I am no one. I'm not someone to sit here and say that, you know, the press is wonderful and the press as it currently stands must be defended at all costs. But I can imagine that like if you are a journalist or if you are an editor, you probably don't want someone to come along and just bash you over the head and and turn the people turn people against you or make the public um distrust you. So I wonder if that's kind of part of it, but I also think that it's not so much that the media areounding Farage right now. I think it's more a contrast to how soft the treatment has been thus far. you know, the the treatment, the the the endless uh sort of um puff pieces, the the ability to have, you know, host positions on key radio um like channels, the ability to be on question time constantly, even though you have been running to be a member of parliament, you ran for to be a member of parliament for 30 years before you actually managed to get elected as an MP. the the the the the kind of the the the the affability of the press and the the desire of the press to platform Farage in a way that completely outsized whatever legitimate claim he might have to representing a serious part of the British political system was so unusual and so strange that even the most basic stress testing which every political figure of significance in this country is put through seems to be like a real change. I think what we're seeing more is is a is a matter of contrast to what has been actually quite an historically unusual uh soft soft hand treatment. And the reason that they had that soft hand treatment is because Nigel Farage, much like Trump, is really good at generating stories. It's really he's really good at generating entertainment. He's really good at putting stunts, at saying things that feel like an exciting story to tell and that feels like it sells newspapers. He was kind of, you know, at a time when British politics felt, you know, it felt like there was very, very little difference between the different political parties. It was very boring. It was kind of very flatlined. There wasn't a huge amount going on. Barrage came and brought entertainment. He brought something different. He brought like he was like an interesting character. And you know, I think my theory is that a lot of journalists are kind of failed novelists who just like to sort of write good stories. And I think that alongside with the fact that his actual politics don't really threaten most vested interests in this country because as I said, he's a rampant neoliberal made for quite a fun, comfortable relationship between a mutually sort of symbiotic relationship, mutually beneficial relationship between um Farage and the press. And I think the dual threat of a Farage um prime um premiership potentially being based on sewing hatred of the press um say hatred against the press in the way that it did in with Trump and the fact that he is now undeniably a serious political um figure has led to the press to treat led the press to treat him a little bit more like a normal politician which they never really did that before. And I think another thing as well is that in the same way that Starmer got incredibly incredibly favorable press in the run-up to the 2024 election is that the press perceived him to be the air apparent and that was the case with Farage for a long time too when reformer were a 30% in the polls. There were projection showing them with 400 seats, a star style supermajority. And if they'd ever crossed him in the wrong way up until he became prime minister, suddenly they'd lose access and they'd lose access to all the stories, all the good copy. That would all go away once they engaged in some kind of hostile relationship with the prime minister to be. And so they wanted to make sure they maintained good relationships with the political parties. Now that's less assured. Now that it's a bit more up in the air who the next PM is, they're feeling a little bit more okay to be a little bit further critical of Farage and Farajism because it's not guaranteed that he's going to be the next prime minister. We'll have to wait and see. The world's attention may have moved away from Gaza, but the Israeli government certainly hasn't. And all the signs now pointing in a single conclusion. As many of us have argued since the start of the genocide nearly three years ago, Israel clearly intends to stay in Gaza. Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly rejected US President Donald Trump's 15-point peace plan. That came about after Hamas had agreed to disarm. According to the plan, Hamas's disarmament process should go hand in hand with a phased withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave. Netanyahu, however, immediately shifted the goalposts, saying the military would only withdraw after the complete disarmament of the group. And today, Israel cats, the country's defense minister, has instructed troops to prepare for a long-term stay in all three of the major territory Israel now occupies militarily, namely South Lebanon, Syria's Golden Heights, and Gaza, promising that there will be no withdrawal from any of them. For his part, Trump doesn't seem particularly bothered by Netanyahu's unilateral tanking of his plans, even if it was one of the most experts claimed would never work. Netanyahu, however, will face crucial elections in October. Recent polling conducted by The Economist shows that right now Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government is not on track to retain a majority of seats in Israel's parliament, the Knesset. Nor is any other party. Netanyahu has lost favor over various domestic policies including the cost of living because surprise surprise forever wars quite expensive. But there remains little opposition to his genocidal military strategy in Gaza with his main opponents differing only on the details and his party Lood has shown every sign of moving towards even more extreme positions on Palestinians ahead of October. On Wednesday, the party changed its rules to create a place for farright politician Al-M Cohen, who early this year said, quote, "My feeling for revenge is yet to be satisfied. I want more revenge. I want more of the blood of the enemy who slaughtered our children, raped our women, and burned our homes." He's talking about civilians there. But that is of course what the Israeli military is very good at doing, killing civilians. In an extraordinary article in Israeli newspaper Harrett, one soldier involved in that killing has claimed she was fooled by the Israeli army into killing children, saying they had told her she was only killing terrorists. The 22-year-old enlisted in the IDF in 2022 and served in both Gaza and Lebanon in what's being called the Forward Fire Command Center. That's an armored personnel carrier containing the systems used to determine targets for artillery fire. In her time in the army, she helped Israeli soldiers fire thousands of shells, only realizing that maybe, just maybe, something was off when she left the IDF. She told her this. I left the army and saw the number of children killed, and I was shocked. I started searching obsessively for information online. I looked for the neighborhoods we attacked, the villages. I saw that many innocent people were killed in these places. I saw pictures of dead children. In the army, they told us we only kill terrorists. But that's a lie. Artillery fire is imprecise. The army considers a hit within a 50 m radius to be a good hit. She also detailed the impact her murders have had on her. I have nightmares. I see inside my head dead children crying mothers. I imagine how the bodies are removed. The guilt doesn't leave me. How can it? I killed an innocent child. I was the one who fed the targets. It's on me. Well, she's not wrong. Still, killing all those kids seems to have taught her some lessons with the former soldier saying this. Before the army, I was an extreme right-winger. One who would say death to Arabs. That was the myth in school that influenced me. But after the war, I understood there's a difference between Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians who want peace, who want life. I saw the conditions in which Garzans live. I realize there must be a change, that we must strive for equality, for peace. This is the only way to save children, to save us all. Well, this genocidal sub story was published by Harats, Israel's most liberal newspaper. If that's what counters opposition to genocide in Israel, there'll be no end to the Israeli military crushing of guards of the West Bank and South Lebanon, whether by Netanyahu or a potential identificate replacement in October. And while Israeli soldiers are complaining about the lack of post genocide therapy they're getting, don't worry. Our own government have been chipping in declassified reported today on how British taxpayers have been funding therapeutic healing for Israeli soldiers after an Israeli charity was able to claim gift aid in the UK. The investigation reveals this. Emails obtained by Declassified show how the Yalom Foundation, an Israeli veterans group, tells British supporters to channel their donations via its registered partner platform in the United Kingdom. Processing your donation through them ensures you receive full tax recognition and enables gift aid, maximizing the impact of your contribution. It says 100% of your gift is rooted directly to Yahalam to support our core mission. The Yalam Foundation directs British supporters to a list of fundraising projects for the IDF veterans, claiming that donations would be eligible for the tax subsidy. The list includes funding a £5,000 therapeutic healing journey for soldiers returning from Gaza, as well as individual psychological treatments. The foundation is also raising money for £100,000 memorial hall to commemorate fallen Israeli soldiers. Now, Dalia, a couple of questions, I guess. Firstly, I want to ask you about the article in Harets involving the soldiers kind of admission of the crimes that the IDF have been doing in Gaza and all the children that they've killed. Now, of course, it's a bit of a so story talk about how it's affecting her rather than, you know, what the actual effects were on all of the children that she'd killed, but it does show just how much the ideology of the basis of the state of Israel, the ideology of Zionism, the ideology that is pushed upon the Israeli public in the way that they manufacture consent broadly for these far-right views that she'd previously held that made her join the military in the first place to engage in this mass killing, engage in this genocide. It poisons the souls of the very people that it claims to want to protect. It poisons the population of Israel. So this is why we see these polls showing very heavy support in Israel for the genocide in Gaza and what it seems to be plurality if not majority support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine both in the West Bank and in Gaza and potentially even Arab citizens of Israel as well. What did you make of her words there? I think the first thing to say really uh and I think that there is something to be said for Israelis talking about how the most unbelievable racism and hatred is engendered at multiple stages of Israeli life. um to help us understand how we get to a position like this because of course you know the the typical story that has been told now that the West has has has been told is that Palestinians are taught to hate. You know there's this idea that Palestinian children are raised uh to hate uh Jewish people and that's where this conflict comes from. And I think it's an important uh clarification to say that actually a lot of that structural engendered hatred and belief in the dehumanization of the other is actually happening um within Israel. And I think there is a broader danger here that some that I worry about um that you know if Netanyahu loses this election uh in October or loses his majority that there's a risk that the West will misread that as the kind of end of the problem because now a lot of pro-Israel voices in the West have worked very hard to make this out to be a Netanyahu problem that this is a an individual failure. of Netanyahu's leadership. That Netanyahu is uniquely bloodthirsty um in Israeli society. But that's obviously not where dissent against Netanyahu from within Israel is coming. In fact, it's actually quite the opposite. There's a lot of uh dissatisfaction with Netanyahu believing that he has not gone far enough. Um and the rest of it is kind of just fatigue. You know, Netanyahu has been prime minister forever. um and you know he spends half of his time in court fighting corruption charges. So there's that kind of very internal domestic uh frustration with Netanyahu. Um so it's not really about a reflection of a a broader sort of dissatisfaction or dissent with the actual project of the elimination of the Palestinians. That is quite a consensus um across Israeli the Israeli political spectrum. when it comes to the harets piece uh you know these soldiers describing having severe PTSD um and you know not being able to get uh adequate health care uh in in context of that the first thing I would say to that is the only way that Israeli society will be able to address that within them is by stopping and is by rep reparations. um it's not through individual psychotherapy. Um that doesn't leave you that kind of internal damage of your soul. Um but also it's it's difficult to read um when you are thinking about what it means sitting next to what is happening on the other side of the fence. You know there's there's a lot of talk here about the soldiers with PTSD, the soldiers with PTSD. I can't help but think about how psychologists working in Palestine um have been saying for a while now that the trauma in Gaza is so severe, so relentless that it has actually broken our existing clinical understanding of trauma. Um you know, Dr. Sam Jabra, who is the the chair of the mental health unit um at the Palestinian Mini Ministry of Health, um has argued that we need an entirely new framework of trauma um to explain and describe what is happening in Gaza. She calls it um CTSD, continued um traumatic stress disorder because Gaza and Palestinians in Gaza are never reaching the state of post. Um, when you have this compounding effect of living in the most severe imaginable state of abject horror, it produces something very different and something that can't be healed in the ways of of in the clinical existing clinical understandings um of trauma. You know, changes to personality, changes to belief, belief systems, to coping mechanisms at a whole population level. um you know an inability to have a baseline of safety um to to return to. And so that's why, you know, even before um October 7th, you know, in 2022, there was a a survey that found that, you know, four in five children in Gaza experience depression and grief. Um and three in five children uh are actually selfharming. And so that is in a sense has always been a kind of deeper problem with the way in which western centric understandings of trauma have existed. You know, most of our evidence-based for evidence base for trauma studies have come from veterans, you know, have come from soldiers who have gone to war, experienced horrors, conducted horrors, um, and then come back to a place of relative safety, but have been unable to shake the kind of trauma of what they've done and what they've seen. And actually very little of our understanding of trauma looks at the other side of that and looks at what what does it mean for the people who were on the receiving end of that attack and whose infrastructure and families and countries and land have been destroyed irreversibly as a result of that. So this is an ongoing problem in kind of the the way in which we just sort of don't view people um in the global south as humans in the way that we view others. humans who have interior lives, who have emotional lives. Um but it also speaks to a kind of specific uh contrast that we can see right now of the discussions happening in Israel around PTSD and you know uh shock and claims that we need to have that there needs to be more mental health help for soldiers returning from Gaza when on the other side of the fence there aren't even ICU units to treat people who are in acute health like physical health crisis like on the brink of death um let alone before we get to the question of how do you mentally heal um psychologically heal from what's what's happened which is a whole different question and and personally I would quite like my taxpayer money um to be going towards dealing with that issue and that's actually where our political and moral responsibility lies because that is an outcome of the harm that the British state has helped to perpetuate um that to me um is really the emergency here >> it's been a while since YouTuber Pierce Morgan has enlisted the services of Owen in the trenches of the online political warfare that his uncensored channel has become of late. Luckily for us, however, was back on the channel this week to debate columnist for Newsweek Josh Hammer on the subject of Israel's genocide in Gaza. And as you can imagine, just as all debates with Zionists end up, it involves Owen Jones having to debunk a whole host of lies. Let's take a look at what happened. If this had happened in, let's call it Texas. If you had thousands thousands of Sinaloa cartel commanders who who came across the border and just blindly mutilated and raped and butchered, they put babies in ovens. They executed women point blank range on their home. How would the United States respond? How would we respond? These are the kind of questions that have gotten so far removed from this debate. And no matter how many fancy words like genocide get perversely and morally incorrectly and legally incorrectly tossed around, I think it's incumbent upon all the reasonable people to ground themselves in the basic facts. And Owen Jones can can laugh his sorry ass off who he wants. No, no, no one in the right mind really ought to give a crap. >> Can I can I just respond to something you've just I'll respond if if if you let me to what you just said there. You you just said babies were put in ovens on 7th of October. Why lie like that? You know that's a lie. Why? You know that never happened. You know that never happened. You know, not not a single baby, one baby, which is quite Let me finish. You had a long spiel and now I'm going to fact correct you because you can't just come on a show like this. I know I know Pierce likes accuracy. I know he likes accuracy in these discussions. No babies were put in an oven on 7th of October. One baby was killed on October 7th, which was bad enough. That's Mila Cohen. She was 8 months old. She was shot through the door of a safe room. That's the baby who was killed on 7th of October. That's a crime in itself. If that's a crime, which I say it is, by the way, what is the how to describe a thousand babies, 1,000 infants under the age of one killed in Gaza by Israel since 7th October? >> The babies and ovens claim as a now widely debunked hoax from the first few months after the Alex on October the 7th. According to heretss, the claim had originated from the United Hatzala president Eli Beer and were completely unverified. This was alongside other well-known hoaxes such as the story of 40 supposedly beheaded babies that even Joe Biden spread without evidence. And another claim that was also debunked by the Alazer investigative unit that the bodies of burned babies were allegedly found in Kibbit's theory by the IDF. And I think what this shows is just how much of a bubble the internet creates for a lot of people, especially if you're somebody who doesn't like responding to things that counteract your narrative in so far as this guy seemed genuinely convinced. I know it's easy to believe that a lot of propagandists are just lying because they want to make sure that people stay in the dark, but a lot of people, I think, genuinely have accepted a bunch of pro-Zionist propaganda. They accepted a bunch of the atrocity propaganda on October the 7th because they wanted to be able to justify thinking of everybody who was in Palestine, all members of all different resistance groups, all of being total barbarians with no regard for humanity at all. because a it would justify all their preconceived biases against people like the Palestinians, against Arabs, against people from the global south and on top of that to be able to justify whatever reaction came from Netanyahu, from the Israeli government, from the IDF in response to what happened on the October the 7th. Again, there were lots of bad things that happened on October the 7th. You don't need to do this atrocity propaganda unless you're specifically using it to try and then post hawk or pre hawk justify other such atrocities happening in the other direction from the IDF. Now Owen then put some of Hammer's own statements to him and here's how he responded. I would just note with you because you are a supportive genocide and I will make that very clear. I am not. >> You said about the about the Palestinian population of Gaza. You said this is a radicalized population that deserves shame, scorn, and diplomatic rebuke. You weren't talking about Hamas. You talked about the Palestinian population of Gaza. That's what you said. You also said large of Gaza according to every single 23. You also called for the population transfer of the people, the survivors of Gaza into other Arab states. You want Palestinians removed from Gaza. You don't want Palestinians to remain in Gaza. That's what you called for. You also occupation. I think it's a full public in February 2025. never actually personally came out emphatically in favor of that though. That's simply not true. >> Did you Sorry. Did you Did you or did you not I'm quoting for what you said. Did you not call for the population transfer of the people of Gaza? >> No, I I I I First of all, I think it's a very reasonable option. By the way, there's there's a very long history of of American presidents going literally back to the Hoover and K administrations and actually supported that. I've actually never explicitly endorsed that myself. I have not. Donald Trump in February 2025 in the White House proposed this. By the way, you proposed this and no what I said is that I mean I listen I don't know what whether your IQ is two or three standard deviations below the mean but the way the negotiation works you you start no but you need to learn a thing or two about negotiation. You start with a far out there claim and then you arrive at a reasonable place moderation. Donald Trump did this. It was his proposal to to float the idea of popular trans there on their bingo card. No one >> if I called let me let me just make this clear. If I called for the popular if I called for the Jewish population of Israel to be removed from Israel, which I don't support. I oppose. I want the peace and security of all those who live between the river uh Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. I want all of them to have equal rights. If I called for the population transfer of Jews from Israel, you would regard that as genocidal. Do you know what? You'd be absolutely correct. You said if I said the Jewish population of Israel deserve shame, scorn, and diplomatic rebuke, you would accuse me of being genocidal. You'd be correct. You said many gullible liberal elites pretend the radical jihadist of Hamas do not represent the broader Palestinian Arab population, but that is a lie. You believe in collective guilt and you believe in collective punishment. You said that Gaza should resemble a parking lot. You got your wish, by the way. You got your wish tens of thousands of of Gaza should resemble parkland. That was literally on October 8th, 2023. THIS IS HOW THIS IS how wars work. >> It's so funny for him to sit there and say, "Well, actually, it's a perfectly reasonable solution of ethnic cleansing, but I never endorsed. I never endorsed it." Well, we're about to find out whether he endorsed it. Now, here is the direct quote from Josh Hammer on ethnic cleansing that Owen's referencing. It was tweeted out, as he said on October the 8th. Immediately evacuate as many identifiable civilians, no easy task, as possible, from Gaza. work with Egypt to take most in, ideally with diplomatic carrots and sticks, but if need be, a refugee swarm on the border fence, and forcing Egypt's hand might be inevitable. And here he is calling for vast sways of Gaza to be turned into a parking lot. Flatten and raised to the ground, anything remotely smacking of jihadist infrastructure in Gaza. Large sways of Gaza should resemble a parking lot. The extent to which the entirety of Gaza and a mass terror infrastructure, tunnels, rocket launches, etc. are synonymous cannot be overstated. They are largely one and the same with terror infrastructure embedded within civilian buildings. For good measure as well, he he is agreeing with ultra Zionist Nakman Mosvski on the use of excessive force in Gaza. Most says that the allies didn't stop Nazis and imperial Japanese with targeted strikes. They bombed the ever living out of Germany and Japan. Now it's Gaza's turn. Barbarians only understand utter destruction. to which Hammer responds. I believe the military term which the civilized world has largely forgotten since World War II is unconditional surrender. I would like to remind viewers at home that bombing the ever living out of Japan involved the use of nuclear weapons which was justified in explicit terms by Harry S. Truman as their method of achieving an unconditional surrender which is clearly from if what I'm guessing from that tweet what Josh Hammer supports there. Dalia, what was your reaction to that debate? I mean, immense frustration and and kind of boredom, you know, watching uh Josh Hammer and and Owen Jones going at it um on Piers Morgan, it it just made me feel about feel how tedious it's becoming that the press insists on relitigating who the victims are here, trying to pretend that that is still where this discussion um is at. you know, we didn't have this debate when Russia invaded Ukraine. Uh, and we don't have it in any other case that is is this clearcut. Only uh in this case have we, you know, years after the fact continue to have these tedious conversations trying to tease out and question who the aggressor and who the victim is here. Uh, and frankly, the world has has moved past that framing. I mean um you know even JD Vance uh who is not exactly known here for having pre-existing sympathies towards the Palestinians said that Trump is the only head of state in the world that is still sympathetic to the country of Israel which tells you that even you know the US government the US state uh understands that Israel is broadly isolated and throughout the world their narrative of what has been happening uh is rejected. Um you know this idea that Israel is kind of the rightful occupiers of this land and and the primary victims of a bad neighborhood that idea is collapsing in basically all four corners of of the earth. And you know I have to be very clear here that even if public opinion wasn't strong um it would still be you know morally and politically correct to be in solidarity with the Palestinians. But the fact is that is where public opinion is at and public opinion is important because it can be a factor that shapes what actually happens next. If it if it meant nothing, Israel would not have poured, you know, billions of dollars uh over the past several decades trying trying to shape it. Um, so my question is what is the function of the press continuing to act like this is a debate when in the minds of most reasonable people it is no longer a debate because it's a delay tactic. Cuz what we have to really understand here um is that as far as Israel is concerned, if you're looking at this from the perspective of the Israeli state, this war on Gaza is the final war. It is the war that is going that in their view is going to end this problem of Gaza which has been a problem for 70 years in their eyes and the resolution to that problem is elimination whether it's through genocide or through displacement or through a combination most likely of the two and the longest that this drags the longer that this drags on um in this kind of realm of discussion the close the more time they have to achieve that objective. Um, you know, the Israeli state knows that the clock is ticking. You know, the clock time is running out. Um, they know that public opinion is either turning or has already turned. They know the ICJ ruling is damning and that it's likely when it's comes in its final form is going to be even more damning. They know that politicians throughout the world uh understand that showing uncritical support for Israel is a political and electoral um liability. So the strategy here is really simple. The strategy is, you know, run out the clock. Uh get what you can done in the time that you can get it done and we'll clean it up when the problem has been solved. The problem being the existence of Palestinians um on this land. And it's very telling to me that in those tweets from Josh Hammer um he and this is something that a lot of um pro-Israel voices do, they use atrocities committed by the US um like dropping the nuclear bomb in order to legitimize Israel's right to conduct similar atrocities. you know, they'll say um basically under the the idea that it's it's it's unfair to say that, you know, the US can commit atrocities, Britain can commit atrocities, and we can't. And I think that that is actually the calculation being made here. You know, I think that that that as far as the Israeli state is concerned and and you know, a lot of people in Israel are concerned, you know, a country like the US is a state that was born out of a broadly successful genocide and you know, they got away with it. Why can't we? And then no one now questions um the US's um ability to exist. No one really talks about um the history of that genocide. Um the difference is is that the world's eyes weren't on that genocide. Um the world's eyes weren't watching and also there wasn't an international legal framework that was ostensively supposed to stop it happening again. Um does that mean that Israel definitely won't be able to get away with what a state like the US was able to get away with in the past? Not necessarily. But it does mean that Israel is operating in slightly different conditions and is why they are coming up against a level of resistance that perhap that they experience as an unfairness of double standards. >> Now, in other more encouraging news, it looks like at least one of the abilities for Israel to garner cultural capital has been kept in check. Eurovvision have announced plans to stop countries from hosting Eurovvision should they be involved in armed conflicts or sensitive geopolitical situations, meaning Israel will almost certainly be barred from hosting the competition should they win in future. Obviously, there's plenty of cultural capital to be had merely in competing in Eurovision and Tel Aviv is well aware of this fact. Israeli broadcast editor Eran Karell described Eurovision as a critical arena for Israeli advocacy and the Israeli government has spent millions on propagandizing the contest. So whilst a hosting ban doesn't go far enough in my opinion, it at least stymies the potential of the Hasbro going into overdrive should Israel win the contest in future. Adaria, an encouraging development, you think? >> Not entirely, and and I'll get on to why I think so, um, in a minute. I I've always found Israel's participation in Eurovvision really funny. Um, it kind of speaks to the heart of of Israel's identity crisis. Um, which is, you know, are we an outpost of of Western civilization, you know, fighting the barbarians in their own land, or are we indigenous to the land that the barbarians are currently um, occupying? I mean, look, like, I'm not one to kind of sit here and and police the racial borders of Europe. Um but it's curious to me given that that is normally how the borders of Europe are policed. Um but let's when we when we think about you know whether or not um eur this is really Eurovvision taking a stand. Um first of all we need to understand that Eurovvision has done this because of immense backlash. So it's not something that Eurovvision has done because of some kind of you know internal principle. you know, there was people rightly pointed out that Russia was immediately banned from the the contest, not just from hosting, but from participating. Um, and that was because Russia was credibly considered to be doing war crimes. Um, why is it not the same for Israel? And as a result, five countries boycotted um, Eurovvision as as did a lot of um, viewers. So, they've tried to get out of that in possibly the most cowardly way um, possible. Um firstly, obviously they've not actually banned Israel in the way that they did with Russia. They've, you know, so they're still giving Israel this like special treatment. Um and secondly, because when you actually look at the press release um that the EBU, which is kind of the broadcasting um company that that airs Eurovvision, um you'll see that their press release was very different to the one that they released when they banned Russia. When they banned Russia, they were very specific about who they were banning and why. It was we are banning Russia and they named Russia and we are banning them because of the incursion into Ukraine. Whereas this is a very different press release. This is a press release that doesn't name Israel does obviously doesn't name Palestine. Um it kind of just issues this kind of blanket neutral law um that says you know if you are involved in geopolitically sensitive wars which I'm going to be interested to see how they you know continue to frame that as future wars probably take place probably led by Europe um or at least heavily involved in um with European countries that if you are involved in a war or or start a war that is geopolitically sensitive then you cannot host it. That's a very different level of of language um of directness of language compared to the Russia Ukraine um instance. So they really tried to kind of appease some of the the noise that has cost them quite a lot of money and cost them some viewers and kind of made them have to deal with some of the inherently political questions of Eurovvision. um but doing the absolute minimum and the reason that this is problematic is because we actually really have to put Israel's participation in the Eurovvision contest in context here. You know, I said earlier, you know, why does Israel participate in the Eurovvision contest when it's doesn't consider itself to be in European? It considers itself to be indigenous to um the Middle East. Um the reason that it's it's very that the context of this makes the cowardice of Eurovvision sharper is because in 2007 um the Israeli government set this set up this campaign called brand Israel which was basically had this explicit aim of trying to improve the image of Israel by establishing it as this kind of cosmopolitan um progressive very westernized um country. And it did that because Israel had gotten a reputation because of what it has done of being a place of, you know, instability, of being a an unpopular place, a place that does unpopular things. People didn't think of it as like a tourist destination, for example. So, we see this very heavy marketing of Israel as as yes, a tourist destination. um specifically a queer friendly tourist destination which is something it does in opposition to the kind of homophobia of of the Middle East that we're always told about. Um we see you know the the the women of the IDF campaign which sort of shows you know sexy Israeli women soldiers um you know luring people into to to come to Israel and sort to soften the image of of the IDF. So when we say that Eurovvision have to ban Israel, it's not just to punish them. It's not just random punishment. It's actually because the ongoing participation of Israel in in in things like Eurovvision is part of Israel's strategy of getting away with occupation and genocide and war crimes. And so to allow the charade to continue without explicitly naming it is Eurovvision allowing itself to continue to be used as a tool to whitewash war crimes to whitewash genocide. participation in Eurovvision is so has been central to brand Israel um which is explicitly a distraction and a whitewashing of Israeli war crimes and Eurovvision is tacitly continuing that to to be the case by not naming and ba banning Israel and naming why Israel should be banned from a contest like this. Washington DC has just lost a true star in the satanic firmament that is the Donald Trump administration. Caroline Levit, beloved by the president for her quote machine gun lips, has announced she'll be stepping down from the role at the end of this month. Asia 27 when she got the job, she was the first member of Gen Zed to hold the position, quickly proving that yes, that generation can be evil, too. Levit, who recently had a second child, posted this on Twitter. The truth is, since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House press secretary. And that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life. Known for her bullying manner and impressive elasticity with the truth, Levver was beloved by Trump's MAGA base as she used her podium to justify illegal war, curbside street murders of American citizens by armed militias, and global tariffs that threatened to sink the United States economy. Clips of her attacks on the American press regularly went viral, as did her skillful dodges of questions related to Jeffrey Epstein. But what mattered most was that Trump loved her, declaring that no president had ever had a better press secretary than Caroline. Let's have a look at some of those hits. Have you ever paid a tariff? Because I have. >> They don't get charged on foreign companies. They get charged on the importers. >> And ultimately, when we have fair and balanced trade, which the American people have not seen in decades, as I said at the beginning, uh revenues will stay here, wages will go up, and our country will be made wealthy again. And I think think it's insulting that you are trying to test my knowledge of economics uh and the the decisions that this president has made. I'm now regret giving a question to the Associated Press. Did the president ever spend hours at Jeffrey Epstein's house with a victim? >> Uh, these emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong. Why was uh Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed? >> Are you asking me my opinion? Because an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed unjustified >> Oh, okay. So, you're a biased reporter with a leftwing opinion. >> What do you want me to do? >> Yeah, because you're a left-wing hack. You're not a reporter. You're posing in this room as a journalist and it's so clear by the premise of your question and you and the people in the media who have such biases but fake like you're a journalist. You shouldn't even be sitting in that seat. >> Did the United States air strike a girl's elementary school and kill 175 people? >> Uh not that we know of Sean and the Department of War is investigating this matter and I would just tell you very strongly the United States of America does not target civilians unlike the rogue Iranian regime. With respect to the ongoing major combat operations in Iran, Operation Epic Fury is moving ahead successfully and according to plan. Besides wrangling with the traditional press, Levit also opened up the White House press pool, reserving a seat in the briefing room for a series of new media journalists and influencers. Sounds like an innovation except all were handpicked for their MAC supporting perspective in a move the normally conservative Atlantic magazine described as straight from North Korea. Now, if you're worried that this is the last you'll see CF Caroline, stay calm posting on truth. Social Trump appeared to suggest she'd be back before long, writing this. Caroline will now be one of my topest outside advisers and an influential voice within the Republican party as we work to defy history and conclusively win the midterm elections. Caroline has been a real leader in the White House and has done a phenomenal job fighting for justice, liberty, and freedom since 2018, including our historic reelection campaign of 2024. Dalia, what do you make of the the career, the life and times of Caroline Levit? Do you think we'll find such an enigmatic press secretary again? >> I always assumed that her surname was pronounced leave it. And so whenever I heard the word Caroline, leave it, my internal like worm brain would be like, "Leave it. She ain't worth it. >> Leave it. Leave it. Leave it." >> But actually, no, she is worth it. Um, she is very much worth it to to Trump. Not because she's some kind of sort of legendary comm's operator by traditional standards. She's worth it because she and the reason Trump loved her is because she really understood the dance that Trump plays with the media. and she was really good at cornering the media into playing along or leaving them with kind of no other option um other than than to play along because Trump's sort of relationship uh with the press is not like his predecessors. You know, traditionally um presidents broadly try to keep the press on side. Um you know, mainstream approval through the press is something that you caught that previous presidents have courted. Um, you know, the whole job of a press secretary historically has been to get reporters to write favorable things about you. Um, with Trump, it's the opposite. with Trump, the media actually is there to look like an adversary um like the enemy because Trump's contract, you know, the political contract is not to actually dismantle um elite powers that, you know, have made the lives of most people in in the US worse. Um but it's to look and feel like something that is dismantling that power. to look and feel like a brick that people can throw into the sort of glass house of the establishment. Al all whilst making sure that all those vested interests are made allowed to kind of you know corporate corruption is able to continue that fundamentally sort of the flow of capital is not really um disturbed. So even though it kind of looks hostile and broken it's actually working quite well. the hostility is sort of part of the performance of of Trumpism and it need it's a performance that needs the media to kind of show up and and play its part. That's why, you know, Trump would never cancel those press briefings um even though he constantly threatens to or he constantly threatens to ban journalists from it or ban media outlets from it. He'll kind of ban them for a couple and then always bring them back in because they're actually really important. Um because those kind of staged fights um keep a signal like is how he keeps signaling you know I'm on your side um against them um all whilst you know cutting welfare allowing corporate corruption to to run rampant um dragging the US into more wars um doing things that are generally actually quite unpopular. Um so Caroline Levit um not Leave it was was really good um at playing playing that role. You know she was really good at generating these clips of herself you know um telling reporters off and and clapping back and and being rude and and seeming really bullish and on like a purely kind of like emotional like libidinal level. that felt really good to watch for a lot of people and it was really important to Trump's emotional contract um with his with his voters and I guess it kind of always put those of us who have a kind of longstanding sensible critique of the media in a really odd spot because obviously you know we don't Trump's critique of the press is not our critique. Our ours comes from wanting the media to actually interrogate um power and to for wanting a media industry that um is not incentivized to kind of pile around with the people that it's supposed to be holding to account. Whereas Trump's approach was to not see the media as something that needs to be made more critical. I mean, presidents rarely do want that. Um but to see the media as a kind of an instrument and one that he really uh knew how to play. Because what we forget about Trump is that before he's a businessman, before he's a politician, he is first and foremost a celebrity. Um, you know, that's his kind of grift. Um, and so it puts us in a difficult position because we find ourselves sort of defending, you know, these these press outlets that in most contexts we would be heavily critical of, but it's because the argument is not the press shouldn't be allowed to ask questions or if the press asks questions, it should just be responded to with this kind of theater. um our you know our argument was that the press should be more a should ask more questions and should not have its existence predicated on access which always includes a kind of quid proquo. Um so that is what Caroline Levit was was really really good um good at doing. It's why Trump really loved her. It's what the next one is probably going to do. Um, but as for whether or not we're going to see more of her, when people say, "I'm resigning from this because I want to spend more time from my family," we rarely see them actually spend more time with their family. More often than not, it's to open a new chapter of their their career. And I'm sure that Levit will will go on to do what many um press secretaries in recent history have done, which is go on to have sort of their own um career as a political commentator um of some of some kind. It's an interesting point that you made about the kind of the choreographed dance between the media and Trump to be able to raise his profile, raise his celebrity. What's interesting is I think I can tell a politician who's done a similar kind of political strategy, and it's Zach Palansky. So, I don't know if you've seen this, but Zach Pollinsky does this very frequently. He'll find negative articles about him from the media more broadly. Will post it on social media to his followers and just go like, "This is what the media is saying about me. They're not engaging in good faith. the media are trying to smear me. If you really want the politics aophobe, you can join the Green Party, for example. And it's a symbiotic relationship because the more that these articles have their profile raised and presume it leads to more hits for whatever website or whichever newspaper has published this particular article and the more that it allows them to justify more articles smearing Zack Palansky and the more it gives Zach more ammunition to go to his followers and say look establishment media still doesn't like me very much and they keep posting it and people lap it up. I think it's a really interesting dynamic there. >> Yeah. And I think the difference between Trump and Palansky is that when Trump feels like there's, you know, that a particular outlet hasn't been fair to him, he'll just kind of go on a rampage and just be like, "Oh, the failing New York Times, their ratings are low, their sales are low, they're just a bunch of losers." And Zack Clansky will call them a loser as well. But more often than not, he'll pivot it towards this is actually the issue that you should be caring about and this is actually the solution that we have to that issue and is actually able to to present an offering that actually makes sense. Whereas with Trump, it it's just theater. um you know it's it's you yes it's that same kind of using the weight of the press against you but in his case it is pure theater to cover for the fact that his actual politics don't fulfill any of the material promises that he's made to his base whereas I would hope that you know if if Palansky was was prime minister um that would not be the case >> well exactly yeah like Palansky is being attacked because he provides policies that are unhelpful to the establishment that they oppose like taxing the rich and more public investment, more nationalization in dealing with the climate crisis. Whereas Trump is promising basically very little. He is hurt by the press because it undermines his own sense of self. It undermines his ego. Whereas Palansky doesn't like the press because it's undermining a political perspectus to help the many, not the few. Thank you very much for joining me tonight, Dalia. >> Thanks for having me, Elena, on today apocalypse Thursday. >> Indeed. So indeed so. I'm off to go and sit in front of a fan for the rest of today. Thank you everyone at home for watching as well. Come back for another Navara Live from 600 p.m. tomorrow. But for now, you've been watching Navara Media. Good night.