Boobytraps, Bombs & Blowback
Ralph welcomes Middle East expert and executive VP of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Trita Parsi, to fill us in on the consequences of Israel boobytrapping pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon and how those tactics have the potential to blow back on us in the United States. Then we welcome back surgeon and humanitarian, Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who has worked in Gaza during the Israeli assault, to update us on his efforts to get the Biden Administration to convince Israel to stop the killing. Trita Parsi is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and the co-founder and former President of the National Iranian American Council. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and the geopolitics of the Middle East, and has worked for the Swedish Permanent Mission to the UN, where he served in the Security Council, handling the affairs of Afghanistan, Iraq, Tajikistan, and Western Sahara, and in the General Assembly’s Third Committee, addressing human rights in Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Iraq. He has authored three books on US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel— Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States, A Single Roll of the Dice – Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran, and Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy. We're in a very sad situation in which we have a president who has been sitting on the front lines of American foreign policy for one-fifth of America's history, who thinks that he knows everything best, and clearly doesn't seem to be listening to anyone. And there's plenty of discontent inside the Biden administration itself—and people appear to have just given up and are waiting for the elections—but there's no clear signs yet that there won't necessarily be much of a change even after that. Trita Parsi Let's first remember that if any other entity had done this to Israel—or to us—we would not have hesitated for a second. We would have called it an act of terrorism, and we would have called it an act of war. Trita Parsi Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is a trauma and critical care surgeon as well as a Northern California Veterans Affairs general surgeon, and he is Associate Professor of Surgery at the California Northstate University College of Medicine. Dr. Sidhwa served at the European Hospital in Khan Younis in March and April of this year, and he has done prior humanitarian work in Haiti, the West Bank, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe. Dr. Sidhwa and 45 other American doctors and nurses who have served in Gaza recently sent a letter exhorting President Biden, VP Harris, and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden to effect an immediate ceasefire. It's hard to appreciate, but really literally everything in Gaza that makes a place a society has been destroyed. I think of it in three levels— at the very base is agriculture, food production, and housing, at the level above that is healthcare, and at the level above that is things that are for a higher level of society, education, arts, industry, whatever. That top level is gone. Literally every university in Gaza has been obliterated, physically destroyed…The hospital system is almost completely useless right now…the functionality of the hospitals is very little more than a four walled space in which people can walk into and ask for a doctor to put bandages on them. And then even the lowest level…something like 85 or 90 % of the water sanitation and hygiene infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa This is just outrageous. I mean, why are we doing this even to ourselves? Is it worth corrupting the entire executive department of the United States so that we can murder more children? Is that what Americans want? I don't think so. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa Let's talk about Lebanon itself, not just Hezbollah. This is war on Lebanon—that has a dysfunctional government, to be sure— but it is a state that th
