Offensive: UN calls it genocide, Israel persists

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0:57Hello, and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Blore. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

1:12Last night, Donald Trump landed in London for a really, really huge state visit. Amid the pomp and pageantry, our correspondent explains what's on the agenda when the American president meets Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer. And unusually for me, for the final part of our show today, I slaved over a hot stove, trying out a life hack I'd seen on a Chinese social media video. The result was, well, rather strange.

1:49First up, though.

1:58Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. That was the finding of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry released this week. Its chair, Navi Pillay, encouraged member states to act now and seek accountability. Today we witness in real time how the promise of never again is broken and tested in the eyes of the world. The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a moral outrage and a legal emergency.

2:32Israel's ambassador to the UN rejected the commission report, branding it a libelous rant.

2:38Binyamin Netanyahu:These claims in the report rely on misleading statistics, unfounded apocalyptic projections based on weak data on the conflation of credible and unverified evidence. But it came just as Israel began a renewed assault on Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of people remain with little place else to go. This Gaza City operation is very similar to the one that was carried out 22 months ago at the beginning of the war. Angel Pfeffer is our Israel correspondent. So it's not that clear why this is taking place yet again. We'll come on to the why in a minute, but tell me what the offensive looks like.

3:23Binyamin Netanyahu:Well, there are currently two Israeli divisions very slowly, very gradually advancing towards the centre of Gaza City. Currently, they're operating mainly in the outlying townships and suburbs. They're encircling Gaza from three directions, while on the west there are exits towards the coastal roads going southwards. And this is because Israel wants the population, which at least up to a month ago was close to a million people in Gaza City, to leave. There are conflicting assessments how many have left, but somewhere between 2 ,000 to 350 ,000 do seem to have left, which leaves over half a million people at least still in Gaza.

4:11As you say, in October 2023, Israel launched an attack on Gaza City. Most of it's already destroyed. So what do you think Israel is hoping to achieve?

4:21Binyamin Netanyahu:Well, the official objective of this operation, as with all the operations in Gaza, is to destroy her masses of fighting and a governing force in Gaza. And that's been the aim since the October 7 attack. Now, what Israel's achieved against Hamas in the last 22 months is they've killed nearly all the senior leadership. They've suddenly degraded Hamas's military capabilities from, basically it was a quasi-army. Now it's a guerrilla force. But it's still there, and there are still thousands of these fighters hiding in hundreds of kilometers of tunnels under Gaza, which Israel has managed to destroy part of them, but certainly not the majority of those tunnels.

5:05Binyamin Netanyahu:And the war in its present state is unlikely to change that balance because even Hamas have already pulled out of Gaza City most of their fighters. And when we talk here about Israel fighting this war, it has to be said that this is probably the most unpopular military operation in Israeli history. A large majority of Israelis, over 70 % in the most recent polls, are against continuing the war, against this operation, want to see a ceasefire and the return of the Israeli hostages in Gaza through a ceasefire. and it's not just the majority of the Israeli public. It's also the very top level of the Israeli army who have warned repeatedly the cabinet that this kind of an operation is unlikely to achieve the objective of finally destroying Hamas as a fighting force and it jeopardizes the hostages as well and won't bring Israel much benefit.

6:02Binyamin Netanyahu:You know, I've spoken to military historians and experts and an effort to try and find another such example. But even though there are many examples of the Israeli cabinet and government being at loggerheads with the army over policy, it's nearly always been in the past. The army urging the government to launch operations while the government was restraining those operations. This time it's the opposite. And that I think is unprecedented in Israeli history. Anshul, a UN commission has found Israel's war in Gaza constitutes a genocide. Israel rejects that. But the chair of the inquiry has urged other countries to intervene.

6:45Will that happen?

6:46Binyamin Netanyahu:I don't think that yet another report will change the decision-making of the governments for which do have an influence over Israel. I think that's already happening anyway. where we are seeing, especially Western European governments, beginning to speak more about a possibility of re-examining, changing perhaps the EU's trade agreements with Israel. The EU is Israel's main trading partner. We are probably going to see in a week or two Britain and France, a number of other major countries, recognizing a Palestinian state, which is a symbolic move but could have implications further down the road.

7:24Binyamin Netanyahu:But I think for all the talk and reports and so on of genocide, I think ultimately it still boils down to the fact that if the Trump administration is continuing to support Israel in Gaza, then Daniel's going to feel he can continue with that war. And we've talked a number of times on the show about Israel restricting access to food in Gaza to the extent that there's a famine there. Has there been any improvement on the amount of aid going in or how it's being distributed? Well, there has been an increase in the amount of aid going there. Israel claims it's now around 350 trucks a day. That's not anywhere close to the amount of aid or trade which was going into Gaza before the war two years ago.

8:11Binyamin Netanyahu:And since then also Gaza's needs have increased with almost all capacity to produce food within Gaza destroyed in the war. and so many people uprooted, so the need is much greater than it was. But it is certainly more than it was going in two or three months ago. And what we've seen in the last few weeks, and the Israeli officers I'm talking to aren't trying to hide this, is that they're directing most of the supplies down south. Now, as I said, almost a million people are in Gaza City. Gaza City is relatively in the north of the Gaza Strip. The areas of the south, many of them which have been devastated, especially the city of Rafah near the Egyptian border, is where Israel has established a so-called humanitarian zone and they're trying to force most of the people down there.

8:59Binyamin Netanyahu:So the more they concentrate the network and the supplies down south, that means that whoever remains up north will still be at risk of hunger and even famine. And Anshal, do you see anything shifting Netanyahu's stance at this point? Is he going to be able to walk away from this war? We always talk about the one thing that can change Netanyahu's mind, and that is Donald Trump. We've seen some signs of Trump losing patience with Netanyahu, most recently over the Israeli attack in Doha, which Israel tried to target Hamas leaders, seems to have failed to do that, and in the process bombed an American ally in the region.

9:43Binyamin Netanyahu:But when it comes to Gaza, we've seen almost unwavering support. Even this week, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, was in Israel and spoke of the need to eliminate Hamas for there to be a better future. So in the short term, as long as Netanyahu has that support and as long as he is reliant on a far-right coalition who are holding up his majority in the Knesset, in Israel's parliament, then I don't see him walking away from this war in a way in which he can preserve his political power. So unless he's removed in the election, which is probably going to be a year from now, or Trump turns against Israel's Gaza's policies, I don't see that happening.

10:28Angel, thank you very much.

10:30Binyamin Netanyahu:Thank you for having me, Rosie.

10:50A guard of honour, dinner with the king, and, weather permitting, a flypast from the Red Arrows. These are just a few of the ceremonial elements laid on for Donald Trump's big, beautiful state visit to Britain. He'll place a wreath on the Queen's tomb, meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and, of course, eat sumptuous food in the company of royals.

11:16It's a little harder, though, to plan the reception of the British public. Last night, an image of Trump with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was projected onto Windsor Castle. Four people have been arrested. Donald, Donald, you can't hide. We charge you with genocide. Protesters chanted in the rain, not all of them entirely convincingly. Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! But for the British government, there's a lot hanging on keeping the American president happy. Donald Trump has arrived in Britain. We're seeing all the pomp and pageantry that the British state can muster.

11:55Jets, carriage rides, gun salutes, big state dinner. But underlying that is this really unusual and challenging relationship between Keir Starmer and Donald Trump. Matthew Holhouse is our British politics correspondent. Figures from two very, very different political families, two very, very different worldviews. So far, Keir Starmer has done, I think it's fair to say, an unexpectedly good job at keeping the show on the road, keeping this alliance together. The test for the next few days will be, can he continue that performance? What will Starmer and Trump be discussing behind closed doors? And what are the stakes for Starmer, the British Prime Minister?

12:38So publicly, there are two things that the British government is very keen to emphasise in this trip. One is sort of renewing the historic bond between the United Kingdom, the United States, the best of allies, all the rest of it. And they're very, very keen to stress the fact that what they call working people, ordinary British people will benefit economically, have better jobs, richer lives as a result of some inward investment coming out of this trip. So that's the public side. Starmer and Trump are going to be together at Chequers on Thursday. That's the prime minister's country house. One of the big issues they're going to be talking about there is Ukraine and Starmer's efforts to keep the United States engaged and in the game on supporting the territorial defence of Ukraine.

13:24Starmer's done surprisingly and impressively well at getting on with Trump so far how has he managed that? I think it's fair to say that a year ago there were plenty of people in the Labour Party and also sort of foreign policy folk in Washington who are really concerned about how this relationship would pan out and so far Starmer's managed to avoid some of the disasters that people feared so it's worth just running through why people were so worried you've got a president who was intent on embarking on a big, big spree of tariffs, who took a really deeply skeptical view of US support for NATO in Europe, who was talking about the idea of walking away from Ukraine.

14:05All of those three things are fiercely against the national interests of the United Kingdom as this government sees them. Combined with that was a potentially quite combustive mix of politics, whereas in the MAGA movement, you've got lots of figures who take a pretty dystopian view of the United Kingdom these days, a sort of East Germany on Thames. And you've got a left-wing prime minister leading a movement which is deeply hostile to Donald Trump and his values. So if you put the politics with the policy, you could see so much potential here for a breakdown in this alliance. And so really, if there is a semblance of normality around this visit, a feeling that actually, you know, it has passed off just like the visits of previous presidents when they met their royal family, then that in itself will be an achievement.

14:54And where does British public opinion stand? British public opinion right now is really interesting in terms of Donald Trump and the wider MAGA movement. It is fair to say that the British public at large have not warmed to Donald Trump. Only 16 % of Britain say that they approve of the president. But it's also fair to say that the ideas and sentiments behind the MAGA movement have a wider support in Britain than that. So, you know, Trumpism, if you like, is more popular than Donald Trump himself. I guess the core of what you might call pro-Trump support itself was seen in a march through the streets of London on Saturday.

15:42The figurehead at the front of it was Tommy Robinson, who's a sort of far-right agitator. There are many people there wearing some MAGA hats, placards showing the late Charlie Kirk. But looking beyond that much more widely, many of the ideas that propel Trumpism are more widespread in the UK. So you look at support for reducing migration has been growing is now a majority of the British public. If you look at the British Social Attitude Survey, which is a long running study, faith in politicians to tell the truth or put the country first is at a 40 year low. That clearly is a mirror of some of the sort of the drain the swamp sentiment, the skepticism towards Washington that repelled Trump.

16:24My colleagues who've been looking at the survey data noticed other MAGA-like sentiments, which are, even if minority positions still in the UK, are rising, like scepticism towards vaccines. Matthew, one thing we haven't mentioned is one of the big stories of the past week, the resignation stroke sacking of the British ambassadors to America. Is that something that's going to come up at the visit? The sacking of Peter Mandelson is absolutely going to overhang this visit. how big a deal it is depends really on how Trump responds. At moments when there's going to be interaction with the press, he will certainly be asked about it.

17:02People outside the United Kingdom might not realise just what a sort of dominant figure, what a big figure Peter Mandelson is in UK politics. He's one of the founding figures behind New Labour. I saw him speak actually about 10 days ago on a public platform. He is so much more sort of eloquent and kind of daring, intellectually aggressive than any member of this current government. Dean Mandelson was sacked just ahead of this visit over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender. And all these emails emerged where it turns out that the depth of that friendship was deeper than we had previously known.

17:36And most shockingly of all for Starmer, Mandelson had actually been supporting Epstein and advising him to fight the charges at a time when Epstein was being prosecuted for his crimes. Now, this has become a major headache for Keir Starmer because questions are now being asked about exactly what he knew about Mandelson, exactly how he perceived the risks, what information he had at the time of the appointment. How big a deal it is depends really on how Trump responds. At moments when there's going to be interaction with the press, he will certainly be asked about it. And it's obviously an unusual scandal in that clearly, you know, losing the British ambassador to the United States ahead of a state visit is a problem, but also because it's a scandal that has touched Donald Trump because of questions about exactly what was the nature of his relationship with Epstein, but also King Charles, who's going to be hosting this whole thing because his brother, Prince Andrew, had his own relationship with Epstein, which caused a certain amount of scandal for the royal family.

18:37Matthew, we know that Trump loves winners. Starmer is struggling. How will that affect this visit? When Starmer first met Donald Trump, one of the messages he wanted to send to Trump was, look, I'm a big winner. I've just won this massive election in the UK. You want to do business with me. One of the questions is, how does this relationship pan out? How much does Trump still want to sort of do business with Keir Starmer if, as it appears, Starmer's political power at home is going to fade? Because we know that his polling is pretty bad. We know there are internal questions within the Labour Party about how long do they want to keep Keir Starmer in the job as prime minister?

19:13How much of that Donald Trump picks up and how he responds to it is one of the open questions from this visit. Matthew, thank you so much for talking to me. Thanks very much.

19:37Okay, while I've got you, I wanted to remind you that The Economist does far more even than producing this and our other excellent podcasts. The Economist app recently got a facelift. In its new, fresh, and beautiful incarnation, you can read, listen, and watch. as well as saving stories and creating playlists to enjoy when you're offline. You also get early access to print edition articles. So download the Economist app if you haven't already, open it up and feel yourself becoming more intelligent by the moment.

20:19Now I'm quite excited about tonight's meal because I'm bringing together two of my favourite foods but they're not things that I would normally put together I have just added to my steaming bowl of delicious tomato pasta and parmesan some ice cream This is apparently what people are doing in China at the moment And this is known as a life hack So here goes, I'm going to give it a taste

20:53Wow, that is surprisingly vile Ugh, only one thing for it Time to inflict it on the family Dinner! On Chinese social media, videos tagged xie xiu have been garnering billions of views. Jihao Chen is a producer on Drum Tower, our China podcast. This word derived from martial arts literature and is often phrased as cheats that villains would use in order to gain superpowers or reach nirvana. But now it's being rebranded by Chinese youths as more creative, more efficient ways of hacking life. I've already experienced the surprising life hack, which is apparently pasta with ice cream. But just give me some more examples.

21:46Well, some of the examples are essentially rebranded life hacks like learning English through fan fiction or rendering lards using a microwave. whereas traditionally you'd have to render it in a walk and stare at it for hours on end and may risk burning it still. But some of the other ones are slightly more ridiculous. One of my favorites is reading advanced mathematics to cope with insomnia or dining in the nude to shame yourself into losing weight. Or one of my other favorites, which is if you're worried about posture and slouching. Imagine there are lasers shooting out of your nipples. Jeho, is this just performance art ridiculousness or is there something else going on here?

22:33I think to some degree it's like a wacky trending thing that's happening. But I do think the underlying message is this signals disillusionment. Young people today, they're stuck between what we call this involution fight of you needing to work harder and work more hours than everyone else in order to get ahead and lying flat, which is semi-giving up on any sense of purpose or life. And xie xiu, the heretical practice, is somewhere in between. What does all this say about China? China's economy is looking quite wobbly. The housing price is looking high. And for a lot of young people, it's not looking too bright.

23:16The last time they counted unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds was nearly 18%, which is quite high. And so a lot of people interpret this new phenomenon as a way they combat uncertainty and seek either improvement or some sort of agency to still make improvements with their lives. Perhaps not through the means that we understand it. For example, making pasta with ice cream. But it's their way of telling themselves, I still have some control. And this is my small act of rebellion against the proper way. What does the Chinese Communist Party think of this subversion? So Gua Ming Daily, which is essentially a mouthpiece for the party, recently wrote on this phenomenon of heretical practice on their public account.