On today’s Counter Points, we interviewed Paul Biggar, the founder of two tech companies – one a so-called “unicorn,” meaning it reached a billion-dollar valuation – who published a scathing condemnation of the complicity of tech leaders in the ongoing massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. His blog post, “I Can’t Sleep,” went viral in mid-December, and yesterday, based on the response to it, he launched the organization “Tech for Palestine.”
We also covered the Israeli assassination of a top Hamas official in Beirut, which was followed by an explosion in Iran that killed at least 100 people at an event commemorating the earlier assassination, by Donald Trump, of Qasem Soleimani. This follows another recent killing by Israel of an Iranian general in Syria. It is presumed but not confirmed that Israel was responsible for the blast at the Soleimani event, hoping to draw Iran into a broader regional conflict.
Iran watcher Trita Parsi will be on the show tomorrow (and I’ll be co-hosting, so will send the show out in the morning) to talk about the dangerous geopolitics. “Thus far,” Parsi writes, “Iran has only responded indirectly to Israel, calculating that Israel wants to escalate Israel and Iran's low-level war into open warfare. But as Israel's attacks continue, Tehran's long-game strategy is coming under increasing strain as more voices in Iran argue that the absence of a strong response undermines Iran's deterrence (mirroring the argument of Washington hawks whenever the US doesn't use kinetic force). This is a very dangerous moment. A region-wide war appears more likely by the day.”
The news broke after we recorded the show, but we did a breaking clip about it here, and I explain why Israel would want to take the bewildering approach of broadening this war.
We also covered the remarkable back and forth between top Israeli and U.S. government officials, with Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir both saying explicitly they plan to depopulate Gaza of Palestinians and repopulate it with settlements. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller and U.N. ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield pushed back. “There should be no mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, and we reject the recent inflammatory statements from Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir,” said Thomas-Greenfield, in a statement mirroring one issued by Miller.
Ben-Gvir then pushed back with an extraordinary public statement, translated from the Hebrew as: “Really appreciate the United States of America but with all due respect we are not another star on the American flag. The United States is our best friend, but first of all we will do what is best for the State of Israel: the emigration of hundreds of thousands from Gaza will enable the residents of the [Gaza] envelope to return home and live in safety, and will protect the soldiers of the IDF.” The envelope is the area just outside the Gaza Strip, not inside it, so he is not specifically proposing settlement inside Gaza in that response, but is encouraging the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Still, it was a remarkable public rebuke of the American government.
We also talked about the resignation of Claudine Gay as Harvard president, a new report on congressional insider trading, the upcoming release (or not) of the names of perpetrators associated with Jeffrey Epstein.
This afternoon I’ll be at the State Department briefing, but it may be so packed, given the potential outbreak of a regional war, that it’ll be hard to get a question in. If I do, I’ll send the clip tomorrow. Here are the links to today’s show:
YouTube:
Vimeo: