 back to Think Tech, this is Keeping the World Company. And the question of the day is, have we completely forgotten about Ukraine? With my co-host Tim Appichella, and our special esteemed guest, Gene Rosenfeld. Thank you for joining us, you guys. Aloha. So, let's start with you, Gene. You know, what is it about Ukraine that differentiates it from Israel? And why is the, you know, a speaker and I guess the Republican Party that follows him in the House looking to make that distinction? Well, there are two different answers. I mean, Ukraine and Israel ostensibly are not related at all. In fact, if you look at the whole picture in context, who is invading Ukraine and why they're doing it and what their target is? Those are three questions we need to think about and answer. Why did Gaza attack Israel? What is their purpose and why are we involved in it by sending warships and troops into that part of the world? And if you start answering those questions, you begin to see connections between these two activities. Number one, Russia is allied with the opposing side to our side in both conflicts. Secondly, the purpose of Hamas was to throw a spanner into the normalization process that we are invested in and pacifying the Middle East and creating peace and prosperity there. And if you look at Ukraine, Russia is throwing a spanner into the institutions of greater Europe that have developed since World War II under the aegis of American leadership and is then attempting to dismantle American leadership. So we see connections there. And then both cases are throwbacks to the kinds of war that we have not seen since World War II, where there are high civilian casualties, much collateral damage, a lot of propaganda going out by our enemies to the world to try to convert world opinion to their side. Their ultimate purpose I'm convinced exists in Putin's mind, which is his vision of what he calls Eurasianism, the re, the renaissance of Russian civilization. Russia has become in despair about its position in the world vis-à-vis the United States and Europe. They're no longer turning to Europe. They are looking to expand Russian civilization, and they are in lead with unaligned nations and trying to exercise hegemony over important parts of the world. So these two sensitive areas in Eastern Europe, which recently freed itself from the Soviet Union and Russia's grasp, and the Middle East, which has been considered a tinderbox for 80 years, are technological places for Russia to expand and try to create chaos in order to show its power of leadership and to entice unaligned nations in its quest to basically overturn the Pax Americana and to introduce Russian values to the world. Yeah. Well, you know, what's interesting is that in both cases, where the country's involved, it's existential. What I mean is if Putin has his way in Ukraine, they won't be a Ukraine. The people of Ukraine will be subjected to Russian culture, influence, power, and so forth, but we'll have to leave. There won't be a Ukraine anymore. It's reminiscent of Stalin's attempt to starve the people of Ukraine out in 1933. It won't be there anymore, and it wouldn't surprise me if Putin tried to starve him out now once he takes the geography. And the thing with Israel, and this is the subject of Thomas Friedman's article in The Times this morning, the borders of Israel are shrinking because the Jewish settlements don't want to expose their members to all of the wars in the North and South. And so where before Israel, as a matter of policy, always tried to keep settlements at the borders, now the borders, now those settlements are essentially gone. And it isn't temporary because people are really afraid. And so Israel has effectively shrunken. And that suggests at least in Friedman's mind, there'll be more shrinkage. And again, from the river, the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea may become a reality. And ultimately, if the border is shrink enough and the Jews are so intimidated by all these other countries trying to destroy it, they may want to leave. There are people who are leaving Israel for that reason right now. But you've shown, Jean, that there's a lot of connection, mainly Putin and Iran between the two wars that we have going on, Ukraine and Israel. And I want to ask him, you know, gee whiz, what's happening in Congress where that distinction can actually be made? Because it all seems so wrong to disconnect them when they are so connected. I agree with Gene wholeheartedly. I think all rivers flow to Putin in the plumbing industry. They have a term called backflow. And so all waters flow to Putin. And then the backflow is from Putin to Trump, from Trump to Mike Johnson. You have seen the support for Ukraine literally vanish, evaporate from the mega GOP side. And now it's creeping into some of the GOP, the non-mega GOP. And that's not good. That's not good for Ukraine. And that's not good for Europe. And that's really not good for the world. So the support of Ukraine is essential. And we have an influence taking hold from Putin, from Putin to Trump, from Trump to Mike Johnson, from Mike Johnson down to those GOP that, you know, want to get along, they have to go along, as Tip O'Neill used to say. Well, here we are. Time is of the essence, Tim. Unless we get some money to Ukraine, you know, a stalemate turns into a defeat. Sorry, I said that. And, you know, there won't be a turnover, even optimistically, in Congress until January of 2025. It's a long way off. It's more than a year away. And so, gee whiz, you know, what's your prediction here? Assuming, even assuming optimistically, that Democrats can take control of the House starting January 2025, between now and then, you have the unhinged running the House and Trump running them. And Trump doesn't like Ukraine because he's friendly with our friend Putin. He's always been strangely friendly with Putin. Putin has something on him. Who knows what it is someday we'll find out. But the problem is that assuming this comes from Trump and assuming it's going to stay the way it is between now and the election in November 2024, how can Ukraine survive? Well, the deadly word you mentioned was stalemate. In fact, President Zelensky had to come out this week and say he had to counter one of his top military people to say, we're not in a stalemate because that's the last thing the GOP wants to hear or even Democrats want to hear is that we're in a quagmire in Ukraine and it's a stalemate. That means this is going to be an endless flow of funds to, you know, wait out a stalemate. So Zelensky had to say, it's not a stalemate. In fact, in some cases, we're not winning. And that's also kind of dangerous rhetoric because the United States will make sure we back a winner in their initial year and a half progress of repelling the Russians and making inroads towards freeing up some of the territory that Russia has taken has really incentivized the GOP to vote for continued funding. But the word stalemate and or not winning, that jeopardizes support, I think, and Ukraine will not win. They will not win this drawn out battle if the funding starts to trickle out. Yeah, that was an interesting moment where one of his generals said that we're in a stalemate and that he corrected his general immediately because he doesn't, you're right, it's a matter of, you know, stating a position and not letting people abandon you. And so you can't use the word stalemate. Too bad that that happened. But you know what? It tells us that the reality is exactly that. It's stalemate. And you're right. I think I think that that has an effect not only on the US, but other places. And speaking of other places, Shane, what about it? What about Western Europe? What about the EU? If the United States is being so, what do you want to say, unhinged? What about Western Europe? Are they still supporting Ukraine? Why don't they step up? Well, first of all, I wouldn't quite go as far yet as Tim, and you are suggesting that Ukraine is in a stalemate. So let's just came out and said no, we're not in a stalemate. Number one. Number two, while all of this, the war is going on and everything else is happening, Ukraine is progressing in its joining of the European Union, and it's going to become part of the European Union, and maybe sooner rather than later. So when it gets to that point, then you would expect members of the European Union to solidify their support for Ukraine. Because people who live in Europe understand the importance of Ukraine to Europe. Ukraine is one of the largest countries in Europe. Whoever controls Ukraine controls a good part of the country south of that, which are also members, some of them of the European Union, and which also some of them prior to Ukraine were invaded by the Russians, by Putin's Russia. So they understand the importance of the fulcrum that Ukraine is. Thirdly, people have been floating a endgame for Ukraine for a long time. And we have people doing business in Ukraine for after the war already. So we've got some investment there that is commercial, as well as military and political. So the sense is not to lose Ukraine, but there may have to be a concession by Ukraine. Ultimately, they may have to concede the east part of Ukraine beyond the river. They would not concede Odessa. I don't think they would concede Crimea, ultimately, but they may have to temporarily give up Crimea. But they're not going to concede Odessa. So I can see the beginnings of an ending here. The other thing we need to know is that Ukraine is also employing mercenaries. There are former Colombian fighters who fought the far in Colombia, who are signing up in Ukraine and other mercenaries as well. So the use of mercenaries cuts both ways in this war because Ukraine doesn't have the population to sustain a really long war. Does it have the money? It's got the support. It has the support of Europe. And it will continue to have the support of Europe so long as they join the European Union. But that's the thing that all of Ukraine is going to be kept out of Russian Sam. To be clear, there's no Section five in the EU agreement, right? No, but there is a portion of it, which because select and membership there, since he realized that they're not going to get into NATO in time, there is a portion of it that does call for support mutual support. You know, a week ago, Timothy Snyder wrote a very interesting piece. He called it. We should be thanking Ukraine. They always thank us. We should be thanking them. And he had 10 reasons that we should be thanking him. And the one that stuck, the one he repeated only a couple of days ago, was that they're fighting our war. This is all for us. And if they weren't fighting our war, we would have to put boots on the ground. And that includes Western Europe, they would have to put boots on the ground. So is this this notion of they are fighting our war? Is this still as persuasive as it used to be? Is Western Europe thinking that thought? I feel Zelensky said this right at the outset that Russia that Russia is really aiming at the West and aiming at the United States. And I agree Putin has made very clear in speeches he's made recently in international forums and in his behavior that he he really wants to rest the control of global leadership away from the United States and put it into Russian hands. And this is a strategy called Eurasianism, what she's he's bought into for quite some time and the Russian people are behind. They elevate Russian civilization. They exaggerate their importance in world history. And they're ready to be spoilers. There are sense of values is different from the United States. And they're talking about something called multi polarity, which is double speak for the Germany by Russia and China. But very enticing their narrative is very enticing. And for this reason, too, I think that Europe is wise to this. Europe is already combating proto fascism inside of its own countries, Hungary is a case in point. And it is elected and Belarus, of course, has gone over to the dark side. And it's happening in the United States, you ask why is why are the Republicans doing this because the MAGA movement is essentially a movement much like the ones internally in Europe, which would like to introduce ultra nationalism into their countries withdraw from global engagement, except when the need is to defend themselves or to aggress some other country, and bring us back to the 1930s again. Well, that's where we've been, you know, Tim and I have been studying that for five years. And it's always the period just that way. We're bonded at the hip with Rachel Madow. So so Tim, let me let me go to the real politics side of this. And the Republicans through Mike Johnson have said, a, no money for Ukraine, no weapons for Ukraine and B, what's worse is that for Israel, they want to take the cost of defending Israel out of the budget for the Internal Revenue Service, thus improving the prospects for the 1% you know, to have an even better tax break. Is that going to change? Why should that change between now and the end of 2024? Because I think there's enough Americans that support Ukraine. I think there's a lot of Republicans, non mega. I like to call them the good old fashioned Republicans, the ones like I used to be the belong to that party. Are you but are you talking about the electorate? Are you talking about the electorate and in Congress? I think there's enough House representatives, even though Donald Trump wants to, you know, slam his fist on the table and say, you know, you vote all one way or you'll bear my wrath. I think there's enough that will stand up against Trump and Mike Johnson say, we want to support Ukraine, either by weapons or by dollars. And if that doesn't happen, guess what? President Biden could pull a Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He could pull a Len Lies program. I think he is to some extent right now. He's doing on the proclamation basis, you know, without seeking congressional approval. He's somehow doing it. Now, it's, it's, it's really a problem. But let me, let me ask you this. Biden, Biden hesitated on giving Ukraine, you know, jets. He even hesitated on giving permission to other countries who have our fighter planes from giving the fighter planes to Ukraine. He really made it hard for them to control the skies. And they still don't really control the skies. So the question is, does he look strong or weak for doing that? Does he look strong? Does he look stronger weak for for handling not only Ukraine, but Israel the way he has? And could it be that if if we lose in Ukraine, if Ukraine loses, or Israel, you know, is damaged further and doesn't have a way out? Is that the end of Biden? Let me go to the first part of that question then is I think I understand where Joe Biden's coming from on his hesitancy to send those long rain missiles to Ukraine or the latest and greatest in air weaponry. But he's worried and has been worried that Ukraine will go too far with it and do strikes within Russia, inside Russia. Isn't it already doing that? Are we doing strikes within the Russian portion of Ukraine, but not inside Russia? And the bottom line is, and Ukraine has you know, gone inside Russia, of course. And so his fears actually may be well confirmed. Obviously, he looks wise and strong to say, I want and try to avoid a World War Three. I don't want NATO involved in this this conflict. And how much easier is it to get involved in this conflict when there's going to be direct strikes using US warplanes or US long range missiles? He would have to trust Zelensky beyond a shadow of a doubt to say, take them all. Which now he's committed to. But that's his hesitancy. And I think it was well founded. You're talking about the logic. I'm talking about the politics. Okay, the country going to see him as strong or weak if he somehow loses Ukraine and or Israel. Politically, he's finished. That's my answer. What about? What about Eugene? Do you agree with that? Well, nobody. He's toast. Russia is stressing us. The purpose that the overriding purpose of the president of the United States is to do what's best for the United States to preserve national security. And I believe that's what Joe Biden is doing. There are so many other considerations that he is privy to that we are not. They cannot appear on the on the on the pages of the newspaper. Our generals have hotlined to Russian generals. Our people have hotlined our CIA head of our CIA is in cutter right now talking to Hamas. There's so much more data they have in terms of the danger. You know, we can look back historically in the Kennedy period and see how closely came to war. We couldn't do that then. So we must have come pretty close to war with this foray into Ukraine. To give the president pause, not to not not to attack the Russian bear in any way, shape or form. The other thing that I have read recently is that initially, Biden thought that Zelensky was not long for this world that he couldn't. He could, you know, he first of all, we thought Ukraine was not going to exist after four or five days, but for a lot longer than that, the United States wise guys thought that Zelensky wasn't going to survive. And Biden and Zelensky had to come to an understanding. Zelensky had to show that he was going to be there for a while. And Biden had to be sure that Zelensky wasn't a wild man. He didn't have much political experience. You remember, he's an entertainer. Basically, he had played the president, but he never been the president that he would have the wisdom not to push things too far with Russia. So now they are able to understand one another. Zelensky is still in place. I think that Zelensky is probably intransigent on negotiations with Russia, and is still saying they're not going to give up an interview crane. That of course, that in real politics doesn't mean anything more than a promise, because circumstances can change existential circumstances can change. Biden has been giving him more powerful weapons, giving him fighter jets, training them. I'm sure we have advisors in Ukraine, who are interacting with the Ukrainian military. And so Zelensky has been cleaning out his military leaders. He's been getting rid of a few of them. So we don't know the whole story as to how it looks to the people of the United States. Biden has to be able to control the narrative on the pages of our newspapers and our screens. And that will determine if there are no huge missteps, if there are no big black swans, he will prevail that you see he's fighting on two fronts. The purpose of our enemies, the enemies of the United States in Ukraine in the Middle East is to dump Joe Biden, to get rid of Joe Biden, because he's effective. He works. He gets it done. And he's got world, he's got more prestige out of the United States, outside of the United States, and he does inside the United States. And their whole purpose is to upend the United States. Now we need the Democratic Party needs to campaign on that. They need to bring this out. And they need to know that that our internal enemies are also our external enemies. Unfortunately, in the land of isolationists, people don't necessarily see those international issues. And the press has got to educate them. And the press isn't really doing that. You know, if you look at our favorite MSNBC and CNN, you know, it really doesn't do that. And you don't want to do that. Even the BBC doesn't do that. So let's let's go to Israel for a minute, Tim. Okay, you know, I think it's interesting that when you have leaders in desperate situations, you necessarily you can't necessarily trust them. They may be using weapons in ways you didn't like, didn't agree on. And they may be doing things that in terms of both the rhetoric and the strategic developments of the wars are really not in our interest or for that matter, their interest. And so, you know, we see now, under Mike Johnson, an attempt to an attempt to provide funding and weapons to Israel. But it's it's got kind of a wrinkle to it in terms of cutting the funding for the internal revenue service. And that may be a poison pill, if you will, that stops that legislation in the Senate. So with the Democrats, so query, do you think that's going to get through even as written? I personally don't think it will get through. Why do I think that is just because it just really puts a spotlight on the GOP party that they're trying to preserve and protect a favoritism of the 1%. That's not a good narrative. And it's painfully obvious to associate funding IRS collection abilities to funding Israel. And they're just they don't belong together as a package. And I think I think it'll actually would hurt GOP in 2024, if that were to succeed. Well, it leaves it leaves it open. You know, we were only a few days away from the the deep funding issue. What is the 17th? It's just a few days away. And we're not making any progress on that. And query, are we going to make any progress on funding either Israel or Ukraine? In time, in time, we always go, we always put our toes right over the edge of the cliff before a settlement's made. So I don't expect anything different this in the next, what, seven days. Yeah, one of our the nation's foot will be over half of that cliff. The other foot will be on land. And in the end, the other foot comes back onto land and we we settle up. I love when you're optimistic. Yeah, me too. Gene, one of the Thomas Friedman's points, which is you know, really profound is only way Israel will survive. And be a good partner for the US is with the end of Netanyahu. He hasn't been a good partner for Biden at all. He hasn't listened to him. And his rhetoric has been really awful. And so Friedman saying that the magic solution here is getting getting rid of Netanyahu. On the other hand, you know, you worry about getting rid of a war, war leader in the middle of the war, it doesn't sound like good policy in general. Query, one, should Israel for the benefit of Biden and itself, get rid of Netanyahu assuming that is doable. And two, what are the what are the what are the details of that? Must it be a voluntary departure? Can it will it have to be an involuntary departure? And what what kind of characterizations that the Israeli government make to the people of Israel to us and to the Arab countries to explain and and have a benefit out of the transition? Well, Netanyahu is never, I think I can say this safely now, never really been in favor of a Palestinian state. So if this is going to be a solution, if the war in Gaza is going to come to an end, there's going to have to be a Palestinian state. Because that's what every other party to this war is saying. And it also I think there's no other end game that will make sense for Israel so that they can be safe in the future. They have to do something different this time. Is everything they've done in the past has led to the same result, which is an escalation of hostilities in this low level war that's been going on for 18 years since the mosque got into power. There have been rockets falling on Israel for 18 years. People don't understand that either. So in order to make things different this time. Yes, Netanyahu will have to make a concession or Netanyahu will have to go. If not now, I mean, not quite yet. But if he can survive this war, he will be doing something that Golden Maier could never achieve when she had far less culpable in the in producing the consequences and being surprised. So I think that the Israelis right now are incredibly united. It doesn't matter what their politics are anymore. Every Israeli that I've heard speak has remarked that they are all hugging one another. And they're all they're all in the same place. They're not going to be united to get rid of their war leader right now. But in terms of who is going to put together the end game, it's not going to just be Netanyahu. And if he's the only fly in the ointment, at some point, when Israel has military superiority over Hamas, he will go. So Tim, you know, we have a real issue in the United States. It's almost like, you know, the Arab narrative has been pervaded. And there are all kinds of protests and they continue. And to some extent, they get violent. One man was killed in Los Angeles a few days ago. An old Jewish man, as it were. So what effect does that have on Joe Biden's moves on Israel's moves? Because there's an awful lot of people just complaining about Israel, complaining about the war, and denying not the latest thing is they deny the massacre took place. That's my personal favorite thing. And so what you have is misinformation. Somebody parentheses Putin, it wants to spread misinformation around this country and have people support Hamas, which some people are doing. There's a lot of confusion, misinformation, misunderstanding, ignorance happening, not only on the college campuses, but elsewhere. Mind you, by the way, let me add, that never happened, not to the same degree around Ukraine, or about the war crimes in Ukraine, never. But here we have all this protest about about Israel. What are your thoughts about how all of that in every major city in every major campus? How does that affect Biden's decisions? How does that affect the government's decisions in Congress? Well, I think it fortifies President Biden's decision to support Israel. But remember, there are a lot of Palestinian communities in some of these swing states. And there's a vow that because President Biden has supported Israel so strongly, that they will not either turn out or they'll vote against President Biden. That's a little disconcerting, because be it Michigan, where a lot of Palestinian people live that you live here in the United States, Michigan's a very important swing state, and it's needed. And if this war has detracted a lot of voters for Joe Biden, that's not exactly positive. Okay, we're almost out of time. So, Jean, could I ask you to summarize and leave your takeaway with our viewers and take a minute or two? Even though Ukraine is off the front pages of our screens and our newspapers, things are still happening with Ukraine. They still have monetary and military support. They are incorporating into their army mercenaries from other countries and sympathy with them. They are making strides and joining the European Union, which is a mutually supportive institution and joining Western Europe. And I feel that Ukraine may have to give up its eastern provinces to Russia in order to keep Odessa and perhaps maybe even Crimea. But the United States is still very invested in Ukraine as a major European country and the bread basket of Europe, if not Africa as well. So I feel that we don't need to give up on Ukraine quite yet, but I also feel that Ukraine, especially its leadership, Zelensky, is getting very tired. I mean, how can they withstand all of this for so long? Their military soldiers are getting very tired, but they are powered by the most powerful motive in human history, which is to keep their own land and their own people and their own identity. So I don't feel too pessimistic about Ukraine just because the war in Gaza has captured our attention. And so far as the war in Gaza is concerned, I think it's going to end sooner rather than later. I think that the IDF is gaining military superiority over Hamas. And now the more difficult job of what they're going to do to bring a close to this in a just way is on the plates, not only of the Israeli government, but also of world institutions and the Middle East powers that want normalization, they want to return to normalization in order to do that. They have to solve the quote Palestinian problem by figuring out how the Palestinians will achieve some degree of self determination in their own land. Wow, complicated. You wish that there could be one room where they all get in that room and settle up on both of these wars. Tim, your last comments. My last thoughts are completely agree with, excuse me, Jean, and that is Ukraine President Zelensky is going to have to concede territory to Russia. And it probably will be parts of Crimea. And I agree with her that the jewel of the Black Sea for Ukraine, that will be they won't they won't concede that over to Russia at all. That's a huge importance for export of all their products and grains. And that will, I think Zelensky will not agree to that. But President Biden at some point and other world leaders have already had these conversations with Zelensky. We're just not privy to him. And that is this isn't going to go on forever. American support is waning. And something's going to have to be done very quickly to and it's it's a compromise, both Putin and Zelensky won't like, but there'll be some sort of settlement as Jean suggested. That's my hope, because otherwise the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine will be lost. And particularly, that will be determined by the who's elected President of the United States in 2024 and then takes office in 25. And if it's Trump, all bets off. My comment is, if you go to the 100,000 foot level and you look down at all this trouble, you say, aren't these people aware that climate change is our number one priority? Why are they? Why are they doing this? And shouldn't they be working on climate change instead? How about that? All right, Gene, Gene Rosenfeld, Tim Appachel, thank you so much. We'll see you next time. Aloha. Aloha.