Sachs on Gaza, Israel, Epstein, Europe and Russia

By Thomas Neuburger

Breaking Points, my favorite morning show, broadcast a recent interview with Jeffrey Sachs that rounded a number of bases, including some that surprised me.

The interview is above. The interviewers are Ryan Grim and Krystal Ball. The questions were to the point, as were the answers. I offer this for your weekend listening. A guide to the primary points appears below. (Pay special attention to the Mossad-CIA part. This is new information, at least to me.)

Blair, Kushner and Trump on Post-War Gaza

This section contains an excellent discussion between Ryan Grim and Sachs about where the solution to the current genocide could come from.

Question (at 2:00): When is the world going to do anything about what's happening in Gaza? ... Is there no countervailing force?

Sachs is very categorical — meaning he breaks the options into categories — and discusses them each. They are 1) the battlefield, 2) diplomacy, 3) other measures, like suspension from the UN, breaks in diplomatic relations, ending the Abraham Accords, and so on.

There are options. The answer starts at 3:05.

Israel, Epstein and the CIA

The next questions probes his thoughts on American politics and the influence of AIPAC, etc. The answer goes quite a bit wider.

Question (7:06): 77% of Democratic voters say this is a genocide. Yet only a handful of Democrats are willing to say it. What keeps these politicians tied to status quo with regard to Israel?

Sachs answers with fascinating assertions about the CIA’s role in U.S. foreign policy, connections between the Mossad and the CIA, and Epstein’s role in all that. A taste:

It starts with the fact that in foreign policy, public opinion plays almost no role in the United States in general. That's true across wars. That's true across almost all of the issues that we have foreign policy. This is a executive branch, largely covert, it's very heavily CIA and national security driven rather than any publicly driven decision-making.

And this (emphasis mine):

Epstein was a Mossad uagent and there's no doubt that there's blackmail involved in this in some way or another that we don't fully know. The CIA-Mossad relationship dates back many many decades. Mossad does murders on behalf of the CIA. They deeply share intelligence. The CIA is the single most powerful agent of our foreign policy. So this is not only the Israel lobby because after all, the Jewish community is profoundly unhappy with what's happening.

Palantir also comes up. The full answer starts at 8:21. It’s a doozy.

Europe and Russia, Napoleon to the Present

At 12:28, Grim asks Sachs to discuss an article he wrote for Horizons magazine that looks at the historical relationship between Europe and Russia, and envisions a path out “that doesn't involve Europe constantly invading Russia and then at the same time having this uh fear uh that Russia is going to invade them.”

Fascinating perspective. Again, a taste:

The western idea going back absolutely to Napoleon in his invasion in 1812; going to Palmerston and Napoleon III in their invasion of Russia in 1853; going to Germany’s attack and war on Russia in August 1914; going to Hitler’s invasion in 1941; and then going to the creation of this military machine of Germany after World War II — there’s never been an honest moment of discussion about what a real security arrangement in Europe would be that respects Russia's security as well as Europe's Western Europe's security.

He also discusses the effect of the U.S. abandonment of the ABM treaty in 2002 (at 17:58), a move with momentous consequences.

The Risk to Israeli Survival

Finally he’s asked (at 20:50) about what happens if the world does nothing to stop the Israeli genocide. He brings up the doomsday clock, how close to midnight we are as a result of this public crime:

We have no rules of the road right now. We have no clarity. We have no consistency of policy, and Western values has been exposed to mean open genocide.

He thinks the danger to Israel is just as great.

Israel banks entirely on the United States for its survival because virtually every other country in the world is aghast at the crimes that Israel is committing. And because, as you pointed out, the American people are also aghast, it’s a pretty slender and fragile thing to depend on the United States when public opinion is against you as your sole source for survival. So I think Israel has put itself at absolutely mortal risk. Of course, it’s mass murdering the Palestinians. So I'm not expressing that in sympathy. I'm just stating a fact that this is wildly against Israel’s security interests.

I have to agree.