"They end up chanting in front of him "Viva Lamuete, long live death." They have their counterparts today. They are the people who who taunt Americans Westerners, Israelis, and others with lines like, ..."

"There is no Hitler, Stalin, or Mao on the world stage today. Plus, there are thousands of nuclear weapons ready to fire. Human civilization hangs in the balance. The 21st century is a new geopolitical..."

"single thing that struck me most in my visits there uh is just um the the people I've met who who are fighting for a cause which at that level is unavoidable, undeniable. So the thing that struck you ..."

"you know it's a sort of it it's not a a total standoff because intermittently each side gains territory from the others but it's it's not I mean there have been no very significant military gains by e..."

"will tire out anyone. What did you think of the blow up between Zilinski and Trump as you're uh sitting there in the dugout? Well, it is it was a very uh disturbing place to watch it from. Perhaps any..."

"what do you make of this? And um you know, one of them just said to me, well, you know, we're advised not to follow too closely the ins and outs of the politics of this, you know, and um but of course..."

"interpretation of the war that he was hearing from Washington. Uh, it was only a week after the Trump comments about Zalinski being a dictator. Um, and people in the administration implying that Ukrai..."

"wrong with that, but it it means that you get somebody who will do something like that. The problem with that interaction as I saw it was that the that guy asked that well disrespectful question and u..."

"used to use. Um, can you comment on on that? You you'd you'd you'd say, well that's a kind of disrespectful question for journalists to ask and it's a little bit um off off what needs to be gone over...."

"we're always tempted to that. But the thing is I think you mentioned Putin. I think Putin would have been able to uh respond himself to that journalist effectively and he would have done it in Russian..."

"Ukrainian flags. Therefore, the right must go the opposite. It sometimes is literally as dumb as that. Let's each pick a side and call the others dumb. I I had a a line I used recently. Um the necessi..."

"researched deeply and interacted with uh Narendra Modi. M here's somebody who has the skill of, you know, for his country for his situation, being able to somehow be friends with Putin and friends wit..."

"have to say a kind word to Trump which is like showing there's many ways of doing that but one of them is saying uh feeding the ego by acknowledging that he is one of the world's greatest negotiators ..."

"bloody, as repressive as you can be of political opposition, internal opposition. He's kleptomaniac of his country's resources. Has enriched himself as much as he could uh as he has with the cronies a..."

"popularly elected? It definitely helps a chap if he's killed all of his opponents. Something by using the term chap in that context is just uh marvelous. But, you know, I know I mean, but I mean serio..."

"why the Baltic countries are the countries that are spending highest in percentage of GDP on defense and it's because they're very worried. I I don't think they're faking it. I don't think they're fak..."

"the reasons why it's useful traveling to places and seeing things with your own eyes because I very much remember being in the country of Georgia uh after Putin tried to invade in 2008. So I just agai..."

"say that they are a realist in foreign policy. Very few people are surrealists in foreign policy. Very few people are unrealists. I would like to meet them. A surrealist foreign policy analyst. We did..."

"behind that, isn't there always a kinetic threat? Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah. I mean, you disappear some book sellers and and uh students are protesting. Of course. I just but but to go back to this. Y..."

"careful as and obviously this is one of the issues with Ukraine and has been since the '90s is, you know, are you going to set up a trip wire to start World War II? And that's not a small thing to con..."

"interviewed children who had managed to get out of the Russian occupied areas and um it's it's it's brutal for a Ukrainian to be growing up in that territory. So I when people say well obviously you k..."

"the way, what did you um learn from talking to the children, Ukrainian children from those regions? Well, I mean, it's it's it's heartbreaking because the only schooling is u Russian schooling. Uh obv..."

"everything caused the invasion of 2022 except for Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine. Yeah. There's a there's a hilarious thing that happens and I think you've actually speak about this that uh people ar..."

"Many years ago, I was at a debate in London and there was a debate about the origins of World War II and uh Pat Buchanan talking of necromancy was one of the the the the speakers and um Andrew Roberts..."

"And certainly my experience as a journalist and writer is that one of the reasons why you need to go and see things with your own eyes is because people are certain to tell you that what you've seen w..."

"tell. That he wants to bring a peace seems to me to be obvious. He stated it a lot of times. Um whether he can, we're just going to have to see. It's extremely hard to see some of the parameters of th..."

"financial pressure. Yeah, there would be uh you know, Russia needs to be friends with somebody either China or the West. Um I I think a world that's flourishing would have Russia trading and being fri..."

"possible, but the alliance they formed with this sort of rogue alliance with China to a considerable extent, North Korea, not useful. uh and Iran is um something they seem to find bearable. It's not a..."

"a famous uh what was his name? Norman Angel. He wrote this book which was a fantastic bestseller in his day where he believed that Europe would be in a period of endless cantian peace because the pros..."

"just presenting one of the tools that a leader should be using. The alternative is what military force that is an interesting one sometimes a useful one but unfortunately it has its downsides also. An..."

"World War II essentially giving nukes to Ukraine or something like this. There's like crazy stuff or a totally new military alliance with France and and and Britain and Germany and uh European nations..."

"Can you steal me on the case for and then against Zilinski as the right leader for Ukraine at this moment? Is he the right person to take it to the the the point of peace? We'll see. If if if if he ca..."

"Yes. That's a struggle. That's definitely a struggle. It's it's like asking somebody to forgive. I've seen that at a lot lot of ends of conflicts. People say, you know, the important thing is that we ..."

"seen too much suffering. But the the other side of that is yes there's children that have died but you go coming to the negotiation other children from dying. Yes, of course. And so like there is just..."

"to flourish you just ask the question okay so what is the thing I would like to see there's so many historical analogy you can give but just surely not rewarding Putin's action ictions in any way woul..."

"Uh but World War II is bad too. So after you say something is bad what's the next step? Cuz military intervention in a lot of these conflicts it'll be about deterrence. Yeah. But what's what's effecti..."

"course. No, like I I think that is the boring thing at the party. Yes, but they don't say it often enough. Not often. There has to be a frustration. There has to be a frustration. I don't understand w..."

"my own eyes. I mean, there was a batan as I was with the other week and they were hit just after I left their base and you wouldn't believe what a thermabaric bomb can do to the human body. And I shar..."

"pressure on Putin, but it's much easier to pressure Zalinski and that's one of the many things that makes it harder is that the temptation to rush for peace except accepting that peace is the most des..."

"uh is to punish Ukraine and you just have to not do it. Let's keep being the boring people of the party. Yeah. Well, nobody's going to invite us. All right, let's go from one complicated conflict to u..."

"aim of Hamas is to destroy the state of Israel and then see they're not an unusual group. Sadly, the the bit of it that is hard for some people to understand I think is that is that they really do mea..."

"some people sort of think the Hamas charter is of no significance and I often notice this slight of hand that that that people do again it goes back to what I was saying earlier um forget everything o..."

"Can you steal me on the case that Israel went too far? Well, the case that that started from very early on that that critics of Israel had was the claim that I I think I first heard it on about the 8t..."

"region and the stability and the war on terrorism. uh if that's a real thing. Uh the war in Iraq and Afghanistan did not maybe succeed in defeating terrorism or even making progress. It probably made ..."

"conversation earlier. This is a much more extreme example. I mean, Hermes really don't play by the rules. In fact, they they use the rules of war, the laws of war completely to their own advantage. Yo..."

"They do not build their underground tunnel networks for the safety of guards and civilians avoiding aerial bombardment. And you know the every difference in the world seems to me to exist between a co..."

"militaristic capabilities. Yes. Of the terrorist organization of Hamas. You have maybe you can correct me on this. um has said that the people of Gaza have some significant responsibility for the acti..."

"the state of Israel. And then on October the 7th they gave it their best shot. Uh and by the way, there is no organized collective punishment of the citizens of Gaza. Collective punishment would just ..."

"It's all celebration. And it's the same with there are a couple of cases of hostages who managed to escape from the civilian houses they were being held in who were immediately returned by the citizen..."

"Russian soldiers to their parents and they have not as intense and not as horrific but they have a similar nature to them which there is an aspect of war where you uh dehumanize the other side right s..."

"evil. The things that happened at the Nova party were especially appalling. I mean, it was all appalling, but it was especially appalling because first of all, it's a sort of party which people like y..."

"people like to say and it's true of course that that you know this didn't all start on October the 7th. Absolutely true. Uh this particular round, this particularly intense round of war started on Oct..."

"of the reasons is the number of people again who I've spoken with who employed Palestinians worked with Palestinians worked alongside Palestinians encouraged more Palestinians to be coming from Gaza i..."

"were sympathy with Hamas. I was in the middle of one such attack myself uh uh late last year um and in a town called Hideera and those things have happened but they it it's it's not that that particul..."

"pressure. There's no one else. Hamas doesn't care. Hezbollah doesn't care. The Iranian revolutionary government doesn't care. Yeah. So let's just sort of say once again the uh the obvious thing that u..."

"moment and whether he goes too far, whether he's too politically selfish in the decisions he makes, whether he's too much a wararmonger, whether he's utilizing the war uh for his own political gains a..."

"political hit for the Yamapour invasion um by Israel's Arab neighbors happening on her watch And um and I would have thought that most critics, fair-minded critics of Netanyahu inside Isra without wou..."

"there's lots of things like that. You could say that that Netanyahu was one of the people responsible for the conception. You could uh there were critics of his including critics who were in the war c..."

"Yeah. I mean, you know, there's a there's an awful lot of people to hate in the world. There's a lot of wars in the world. It's it's always of interest to me and obviously some of the one things I go ..."

"only homeland of the Jewish people and that that's his life's mission. And on that basis, I think he's been by any measure historic leader. He has warned the world about the threat from the Mullers in..."

"what Hamas did the moment Netanyahu's reputation in Israel was at a low early on because of what had happened but and there's no doubt and as I I say in the final chapter of the book I mean there's ge..."

"have been able to hold firm as Netanyahu has? I don't know. But I do know that any of them would have done something similar or would have tried to do something similar because there's no country on e..."

"one is small and um um without by any means saying this is a general rule, but um uh disproportionately highly accomplished uh in certain fields at certain times. Um uh prominent is a word I would use..."

"Um the uh the the Iranian revolutionary government accuses Israel of being a colonial power. The Iranian revolutionary government has been colonizing the Middle East throughout our lifetimes. The Turk..."

"of. Look at um the supporters of Hamas and Hamas. One of the things they say is that Israel is guilty of indiscriminate killing. Hamz hello. What were you doing on the 7th? You see there are these cra..."

"Every way you do it, it works. I do think the thing of psychological projection in the case of Israel is is is wild. I mean, it is wild. By the way there's an interesting thing on this that I try to g..."

"it. The one thing that did happen very prominently was that people came out to attack the people who' been attacked. And as I say in the opening of the book, I saw that myself down the road from here ..."

"claim that countries like the one we're sitting in are guilty of what? Colonialism. Settler colonialism, white supremacy slavery. uh genocide and a couple of others you can throw in. Probably one of t..."

"that had been set up about our societies. But I would say that since October the 7th, there has been an answer for a certain type of person, which is I am from a society where I have been told I am gu..."

"you accuse the Jews of and I'll tell you what you've been told you're guilty of." Yeah, it's an interesting kind of projection. Uh just to observe some of the uh sociological phenomena here on top of ..."

"know holocaust schmolicourse they'd say you know I got I heard enough about that and maybe those people have gone off in a direction as a result. But I don't think that's the main I think that's like ..."

"engagement. Yeah. But that's still so the pedophile ring like Epstein Island that kind of stuff. Which is very interesting. It's like great. All right cool. Let's let's get behind that conspiracy. Uh ..."

"simply that the Israelis need to give the Palestinians another state and that if they do it will solve the problems. of the region and the wider world and irrespective of the fact that the Parisian ha..."

"That confuses me because I know now it's possible I don't know the people of Iran. Sorry to make the obvious statement, but I just have a lot of friends in Iran and a lot of them, everybody I know the..."

"era. what happened there. Like you actually I have a lot of Persian friends and I had the great good fortune early in my life to have a very close late friend who had grown up in pre-revolutionary Ira..."

"subjugation since 1979. And your question of why gets to one of the really the biggest questions really that that has to be unders the answer to which has to be understood which is it's what Soljan Ni..."

"with the ultimate of brutality. And that's how they stay in power. And one other thing on that by the way which is I was I was reminded of this the other day, but you know, thinking about this sort of..."

"this and I was reminded of a book I haven't read since I was probably a teenager or something made a great impression on me then. Did you ever read the the tragic sense of life? Uh Miguel de Unimuno g..."

"add compassion to the world. But even just to add understanding is difficult in those kinds of contexts. And you know maybe it's more useful to think about from a historian perspective of how you uh n..."

"the guilty party answering to you. And I've noticed the number of people who interview people, world leaders and others who go in with a set of sort of those things and and they and and at some point ..."

"them that you call a person a liar to their face but it doesn't do anything and it actually reveals nothing if somebody is a liar and they reveal themselves to be a liar then that's that's something e..."

"always in the ranks of honor. All that can guide a man is is that if you lose sight of it, and some people do, and maybe everyone does at some point, then it's a challenge, and then you get buffeted b..."

"yeah, they're uh you can see endless possibility in their eyes and there's uh they're not like burdened by um let's say uh the cynicism that builds up. Even the cynicism though, I mean you can resist ..."