187. The Left and Israel

27:52I think things shifted though after the 67 war and the early 70s. Hold on, let me give you another one. 1980, Tony Ben writing in his diary, I am against PLO recognition, not because I am anti -Palestinian, but because the annihilation of Israel is the PLO's objective and they are associated with terrorism. Yeah, no, it's not as simple. By the early 80s though, the French recognized the PLO, didn't they? The French left recognized the PLO. So, Alessons, let me talk to you a little bit about Tony Blair, because this is a very interesting thing. So my sense is that what we're looking at now in the Israel attack on Gaza is very similar in its international consequences to the Israel attack on Lebanon in 1982, which was a big, big defining feature that really shook even some of the traditional, more right wing support for Israel.

28:43And actually famously Ronald Reagan was so horrified by some of the images he was seeing. He pushed very hard for Israel to cease the Lebanon attacks in 1982. So, Labour went through this long evolution and one of the things that changed, I think, just before we come to Tony Blair, that made the situation more complicated for the left was the emergence of Islamist groups of which Hamas is the most prominent because traditionally Palestine and that movement in the 70s and early 80s was secular. It wasn't associated with radical Islam. In fact, it was very much something supported by the non -aligned movement by communist countries.

29:18It was seen as part of a general sort of socialist movement and anti -colonial. And then of course, it became confused with the question of Islam and the war on terror at the points at which Tony Blair took over. And so, did tell us a little bit about Tony Blair's evolving views on Israel. And I wanted also whether we should get him back on the podcast because he was the Middle East. And boy, wasn't he? He was deeply embedded in this for many, many years. He was. And I think that that was a period of his life that I think he was incredibly motivated and unbelievably frustrated. I remember he's constantly complaining as the wrong word, but sort of lamenting the nature of the negotiations, the nature of the discussions that he was involved in.

30:00If you look at his own his own account of this and his own his own autobiography journey, he does describe the Israel -Lebanan War in 2006. He says this, that event and my reaction to it probably did me more damage than anything since Iraq. What was his reaction? Well, his reaction was basically it was very, very on the side of the Israelis. He was very pro -Israel. And that is something that I think was pretty hardwired into him. I think a little bit like David Cameron, he had a real sense that he understood the Israeli perspective and he gave it far more sympathy than a lot of people on the left, perhaps do.

30:39But he then did say this, this was perhaps the more self -reflective pieces of the book in a way. He said, it showed how hard I had swung from the mainstream of conventional Western media wisdom and from my own people. But also he said, how set open brackets stuck question marks close brackets. In my own mode of thinking I had become. It unpacked that a bit. So it talks about his own people in his own mode of thinking. I mean, there's a lot going on there. Well, I can remember talking to Sally Morgan who was obviously one of the kind of central team around Tony, as it were before during and after.

31:18I remember she and I having conversations about how worried we were about how Tony was so far out on the issue where the Labour Party was not in the same place and he just had to adapt a bit. And he wasn't really up for that because he felt so strongly that there had to be voices standing up for Israel. And we're seeing something similar now where at the start, and this is something you and I talked about from day one. And this was my worry from the Labour Party's perspective from day one is that of course you've got to go absolutely out and be very, very firmly on the side of Israel when they're being attacked in this vicious manner as they were not to over the seventh.

31:58But how quickly things can move in terms of if you like the body politic, where opinion is. So I think what Tony was saying there was that everything in him felt that the position he held was the right position to hold. And he's not an opinion for me. He's a leader in this in this context. And yet he could sense the body of politics had moved, moved away from him. So I think within the Labour Party there are clearly different traditions. And Kirsta Amar, I think in his leadership run, had a video with Palestinian flags being waived and was very much drawing on some of that part of the traditions of the Labour Party.

32:35And then since he's come in, he's very much defined himself by challenging Jeremy Corbyn's anti -Semitism. And that's a complicated issue as we've discussed in the past because there's a fine line between the question of genuine anti -Semites. And people like Jeremy Corbyn who would argue, and I'm quite sympathetic to him on this, that fundamentally what drives him is sympathy for the Palestinian cause. I think it's always driven a lot of the tensions within Labour in recent days has been the sense that in this Twitter world where everything's black and white and you just have one strong view, that the view that is emanated from the Labour leadership has been as with the government so strongly supportive of Israel's right to defend itself, that the other side of the argument, the justice of the Palestinian causes it were, is not being heard.

33:26And I think that's what in part, what Kirsta Amar's, we're recording this Tuesday morning and Kirsta Amar's making a speech later today, setting out the whole picture from the Labour perspective. Just to expand on that. So Andy McDonald's, Middlesbury MP, made a speech referring with using this phrase from the river to the sea, which is very much associated with Palestinian demands essentially to take over the whole of Israel. Ian Leverian John McDonald came out in favour of him, 13 junior shadow ministers attacked the Labour leadership for refusing to endorse the ceasefire. This is one of the big, big debates and cross -world weather, or not, you should be later, Cedique Khan and Asawa, your friend who we saw in Scotland, Andy Burnham, our friend who we interviewed on Manchester, all talking about the need for ceasefire.

34:17And Shabbana Mark Mood, who's the shadow justice secretary, accusing Israel of imposing collective punishment. So this is a difficult moment for Kirsta Amar, isn't it? It is, it is because we've come through the party conferences and Rishi Sunak's conference, really not going well for the Tories, Kirsta Amar's conference went very well for Labour. And then along comes this issue and suddenly it looks like the Labour party, which was very united, is not quite united after all. And I think that's why people should take a good look at Kirsta Amar's speech today. I think it, that I've had no part in the right of it already, but because I knew that we'd be recording before the speech, but the episode wouldn't go out until afterwards.

35:03I did sort of ask a friendly contact there, whether I could have a little look at one of the drafts. And the first of all, he makes a very important point, which is very hard for politicians to make. He says that we should not overestimate Britain's capacity influence, what's going on, but we should do what we can. I think that is an important point because there's a danger that once you end up with the debate on, well, should you call for a ceasefire, shouldn't you call for a ceasefire? As if Benjamin Netanyahu sitting around there saying, I wonder what, you know, Hampstead and Highgate's CLP is going to say.

35:37The problem is in a political speech of this sort, it can sound a little bit like making an excuse. So it can sound like a preface to saying, well, it doesn't really matter what I think, because Britain doesn't have much influence anywhere. It's an excuse for not really coming down clearly on one side or the other. No, but it's interesting. When I read the speech, I had little echoes in my head of Macron. Remember when Macron was in his on -mem -ton face? Yes. When everything he said was, you know, well, on one hand, but on -mem -ton, on the other hand. There's a little bit like that. So, for example, he talks about the events of October 7th being terrorism on a scale and brutality that few countries have ever experienced, certainly not this one.

36:19And then saying, that is an imutable fact that must drive our response to these events, as must the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which again is playing out on a previously unimaginable scale. And similarly, every stage he says, my approach is driven by the need to respond to both these strategies, to stand by the right, to self -defense of any nation which suffers terrorism like this, alongside the basic human rights of innocent Palestinians. So that is very much kind of on -mem -ton. Let's see if he pulls it off, because I think Macron's on -mem -ton is very much part of his brand, isn't it?

36:53And it's a pretty peculiar thing. And generally speaking, in politics, on the one hand, on the other, is not usually what we associate with clarity from political leaders. But I think the thing he'll be hit on. I mean, I think he can make a good speech. But if you look at those figures of the rebellions and people have come out, is he going to join the Labour leader in Scotland, the Labour Mayor of Manchester in calling for a ceasefire or not? No, he's not. He actually is very, very clear. He says, while I understand calls for a permanent ceasefire at this stage, I do not believe that is the correct position now.

37:24And he goes on to explain, a permanent ceasefire would freeze the conflict in the state where it currently lies. He does say in the draft I saw right at the end of the speech, that we live in this black and white world where everybody has to have sort of strong views this way, strong views that way. But actually, the only way we're going to get to settlement that this is through a particular process. Now, I think what's really, what was quite impressive in its own way. I mean, Keir Starmer is getting a lot of flack at the moment. People just want him to stand up and essentially be the commentator.

37:55So there should be a ceasefire. Well, there isn't going to be a ceasefire. You know, that's, I think, why he was admitting. Now, can I come in on this? Because we keep going. Why doesn't he just say it? What's the problem with saying it? The problem with saying it is that it makes him a commentator rather than a political leader. And I think part of his mindset is thinking, he's a political leader because he's the mayor of Manchester and he's not the guy who most people think he's going to the Prime Minister quite soon. If he's the Prime Minister, then one of the most important relationships he's going to have immediately is with the President of the United States.

38:28If he suddenly finds that that relationship is defined by him coming out, essentially criticizing the approach of the United States on this last fire. Joe Biden, I think, is absolutely adamant. No ceasefire. Israel's right to defend itself. And meanwhile, back behind the scenes is saying, heaven say, baby, just, you know, watch the way you're working on this. And I think, and the other, the other alliance, which is going to be there, whether it's Netanyahu, whether it's another leader, in terms of coming to terms with the consequences of this war that's going on now, the consequences of this are going to be with us for decades.

39:00And Keir's time is thinking, I'm not just the leader of the opposition on this right now, I'm the guy that these people are expecting to be the Prime Minister. So I think part of what he's trying to do with his speech today, and it will get a lot of attention. It will probably live on the news channels, unless Dominic Cummings is sort of, you know, blathering away. He'll be wanting people to look at him and think, well, I may wish he says this and wish he said that. But actually part of the thing is, can I imagine this guy as the Prime Minister in years time? But France, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia, Luxembourg, have all gone further than him, haven't they?

39:34And it's that because they're less worried about their relationship with the US. Has Macron come out and call for a cease? They fall back the idea of a humanitarian pause, which Starmad still hasn't done. No, he has done. He has done. This is the thing. He's backed the idea of humanitarian pause as plural. This was the debate. Let's share this. But if you look at the Guardian reports on this stuff, clearly the census, and he needs to get out and make this very clear, if this is true, the sense amongst journalists is that the EU is ahead of Starmad on the stuff and is taking a bold opposition. If that's not true, he needs to clarify that he's in line with the EU position.

40:09I was in France last week and I was following the German media quite closely on the European summit. The European Union is in a very, very strange position on this because there's a very big divided going on between Ursula von the Lion who's ahead of the Commission and Charles Michelle, who's essentially the President of the Council as it were. And the reason this thing became so important is and they appear to be odds. They're usually quite close on things but they do appear to be odds. And there's no doubt there is a range of opinion across the European Union. But I think Kirstaum is clearly saying there should be humanitarian pauses.

40:45I love your ass that keeps coming in. It is the ass because of pause. Right, which is what the EU wants. They want a pause. No, they want pauses. They agreed on pauses in the end because they had several countries who wouldn't side up to pause. Let's keep watching this. We've barely talked in our discussions in this about the current Palestinian leadership because Mamoula Bass, the leader of the Palestinian authorities, he barely figures in these conversations now. And that's the other problem in this, which of course the Israeli's have been exploiting of Hamas and Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

41:22Because the other voice is very strong in terms of our primalists. David Cameron was very, very pro -Israel. He made very strong statements in favor of Israel whenever they got into these situations. I think the conservatives have a very complicated tradition around this. This is right, people should, if you have the time listen to side -awacis interview with us on leading. Because on the one hand you have side -awacis saying that Muhammad was a conservative and that she's very proud of someone to be a conservative. On the other hand, she's acknowledging that David Cameron very much supported Michael Goves very passionately pro -Israeli position within his cabinet.

42:00Can I make one final point on the kind of linking the domestic to the international? The first thing I got when I got back home last night, I turned on the news. The first thing I saw was Suala Braveman calling these marches and these demonstrations that have been marches of hate. I mean, that woman, honestly, at least what Kirstal was trying to do today, she celebrates the fact that actually, yes, has been a rise in Islamophobia, yes, has been a rise in antisemitism, but actually it's almost, we are, we are pretty good at living together as the United Kingdom and we shouldn't lose that. And yet she seems to want to turn these things into, to call it marches of hate as if every single person on those marches wants to sort of eradicate Israel from the face of the map.

42:45It's I'm afraid this horrible exploitation of problems rather than trying to fix them. And I think at least what I saw in Kirstal's speech today was a serious analysis of a British opposition leader rather than a British politician trying to exploit it. Let's see how this plays out. My prediction is that he's in trouble and he's in trouble with the left to the Labour Party and he'll be in trouble with a lot of the Muslim community in Britain, but we'll see whether the speech manages to address that. Rory, there's no doubt, I've talked to some MPs who are in seats with large Muslim population and they say that they are under real pressure, real pressure, genuine political pressure.

43:21And of course, you know, the Lib Dems are moving in pretty hard to say, well, that's because Labour this and Labour that and we're the only people you can trust. So it's for some MPs, this is particularly very difficult, but I think here Stammer has made the decision ultimately, this is about him being tested as a leader and standing up for things that are difficult as well as things that are easy. Very good. Okay, time for a break. This isn't ad from BetterHelp. At the moment, we're getting advice from everywhere. You just have to go on TikTok. Could be Alice's cold plunges. Could be my attempts to meditate or the digital detox that I'm doing in Colombia.

44:00But of course, one of the things that we know is that it can be incredibly valuable to talk to another human being, somebody who's actually been trained as a therapist to work through these ideas, calmly, objectively and professionally. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a very diverse variety of expertise. They've got over 5 ,000 therapists in the UK. They've helped more than five million people globally and you can join a session literally at the click of a button. Change therapists anytime. So it's not about fixing you, but it's about hearing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time.

44:38So talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % of their first month at BetterHelp .com slash rest politics. That's better H -E -L -P .com slash rest politics.

44:55Welcome back to the Rests as Politics with me, Roris Jyord. And me, Elastak Abel. And we are talking now at the launch of a very, very interesting initiative, which is Rishisunak is hosting a huge international AI summit at Bletchley Park. Bletchley, of course, being the place where all the code breaking took place during the Second World War. So big iconic nod to British security and technology. And it is a big deal. It's a really, really big deal. And he'll be very pleased with it. It's not perfect. I mean, he's got the Vice President of the United States, not the President. He's got the President's European Commission, but not Macron.

45:31But as I think you mentioned at the beginning, he's got Elon Musk flying over. Reid Hoffman, who we interviewed a couple of weeks ago, is flying over today and an enormous number of the most significant AI minds in the world are gathering. And that's quite a thing for Britain to pull off. And Reid was joking with me yesterday that Biden is sufficiently competitive about this, to have rushed out an executive order on Monday on AI to try to preempt the British summit, because they're all deeply, deeply competitive on who makes the first moves on AI. All the world leaders are desperate to be seen as being ahead of the game.

46:07And there are many, many things that we've talked about, which are Rishisunak's weaknesses. But this is something which I think, given all the criticisms and all the things that we're acknowledging and given the fact that I think he's almost certainly not going to be Prime Minister again in a year's time. If he's remembered for things positively, if in 1520, his time, he becomes a national treasure, a kind of John Major that we put on leading. It'll be because of this sort of stuff. I'm glad to see that you've moved from everybody in the number 10 tells, but Rishisunak is the grown -up to one day he might be a national treasure.

46:47If he is an astronaut, I think it'll be something where he has a natural interest. He studied at Stanford. He's very interested in technology. He knows how to talk to these people. And I think that genuine intellectual interest comes across. And it's quite an achievement for Britain, given all that we talk about, given how many problems were in that they've managed to pull this together since June. And that this may be the beginning of a real proper annual process. He wants it to be like the International Climate Change Committee, but something that really could become not just the US putting out legislation, but international legislation.

47:22Well, I see that one of the things that is going to come out of it, I saw in something I read about it was that there will be an agreement about where the next international AI gathering should be. So it could well become an annual thing, and that would be a good thing. And look, I agree with you here. You and I have both been saying for months that there seems to be no sense of political momentum behind getting a grip of some of these issues. And when we talk with Reid Hoffman, he was very strongly of the view. He was very critical, for example, of the European Union, trying to sort of, you know, regulate this stuff.

47:54He says, no great technology has been regulated until it's been fully formed. But the trouble with this stuff is it's so powerful and so complicated and so potentially dangerous. We did admit that. And Mustafa Salim and his colleague and friend admitted it even more. That I think politicians are negligent if they don't get on top of this. And Joe Biden, the executive order that he rushed out on Monday, it's pretty big stuff because he's basically saying to all developers of AI systems that they have to, before they release anything to the public, there has to be an analysis of risk, the national security, the economy, public health or safety, and that all the tests, results of tests that they do have to be shared with the US government.

48:39So that's quite a big thing. And Elon Musk, this is a risk that Sunate is taking. He's doing, I mean, I've kind of lost it with Elon Musk for all sorts of reasons, but really Sunate is doing a live chat on Twitter or X, whatever it's called. And you know, I think that they were sort of panting breathlessly about it on the radio this morning, but it's quite a risk because I think Musk is so unpredictable in these circumstances. Haven't those what he's going to say? Yeah, that's right. Well, just on Biden's executive order, I think one thing that's great about it is that the US are going to be red teaming, which is something the US does very well.

49:13And I wish we did more of them Britain, which is that one of the best ways of stress testing something is to set up a team of very bright people and get them as it were to be devil's advocates and really work out how to work through the worst case scenario. But you know, I always felt we should have done more of that in Afghanistan, have people red teaming as it were playing the Taliban against us. And the US will really put money behind this. Seriously smart people trying to work out how what the very worst case could be on a new AI release. The other thing is watermarking. And this is about deep fakes.

49:47One of the things that's changed just in the last few days, I think, on this UKI summit is initially the threats they were focused on, understandably, were things like biosecurity. So, you know, the fact that AI could pretty quickly allow someone even like you and me without an advanced doctrine biochemistry to begin putting together some pretty nasty biological weapons. I mean, as I think as you've all said, we need to think in terms of maybe it's somebody with a bit more scientific training than you and me, but anyway, it enabling somebody as it were to put together COVID and Ebola together.

50:18So, bi risks. Just on the point about the watermarking, the IAS were briefing that one of the reasons Biden was getting more exercised about this issue is because he'd been given a presentation about some of the fake stuff that was circulating about himself and about the US as a voice. Which you've talked about, haven't you? You've seen some of that stuff. Yeah. So, this summit will now has now inserted a session on deep fakes and elections. I mean, next year is, as I think we've talked before, a really big year for international politics, because next year is going to be the UK election, the US election, the Indian election, the EU elections, almost certainly the Pakistani elections.

51:01So, I think this question of how deep fakes are going to be used by AI and the way in which you try to, so watermarking obviously is there to try to allow you to distinguish between something that's genuine and something that isn't. And of course, the only way you can do that is as it were by using AI against AI. So, there's this sort of element of arms race and all of this. Couple more things quickly. I mean, so this is obviously something that Rishi Suna is desperate for the UK to be relevant to AI. It's really difficult to do because the sums of money involved are completely eye watering. Microsoft, for example, which I think had over a hundred billion dollars of cash in the bank, is now in a situation where for the first time, certainly in my memory, they're actually moving into a technical deficit this year.

51:49And quite a lot of that is their enormous investment in computing capacity to get into the right position on AI. Because the next iteration of chat GBT, these large language models, will be spending 10 times as much on training the model. But then you need this immense banks of computers, electricity, et cetera, to simply run and power these models. And these Titanic fights between these companies like Google and Microsoft that can spend tens of millions of dollars against each other. The UK is deciding to go for a particular niche. So they've committed $900 million in AI funding. A lot of that is going to a super computer facility in Bristol, where I think they're going to put 400 million into chips.

52:32And they've just got, there's also big investment genetics database. And we should talk about this a bit more. I mean, there's both a risk and a potential here for the UK. So the NHS is obviously the most extraordinary database in the world because we have data going back, universal healthcare going back to the mid -1940s, covering every part of British society with incredibly rich information in a way that countries like the US simply don't have because they've got fragmented private systems. So in theory, if you could safely get into those databases, you could find the most amazing medical insults through AI.

53:10You could find correlations between, I don't know, people's eye color and their diabetes or correlations between their heights at the age of 10 and their development to cancer at the age of 50 or goodness knows what, right? The problem on the other hand, of course, is an volunteer, which is an extraordinary computer company, with initially links to the US intelligence services and to Peter Teal, who's this very bright, very right -wing former friend of Reid Hoffman that we were talking about in the leading interview 10 days ago, has now got the contract to do an enormous amount of the data analysis for the NHS.

53:45But of course, privacy campaigns are very, very worried because they're saying this is letting people in on our data. And a lot of the potential around technology, its ability to develop these amazing productivity benefits. You know, people are talking about 55 .8 % productivity improvements. Depends on whether or not we're actually prepared to allow AI to do this stuff and in particular access private data. Yeah, and I think this goes back to the point about, we're talking about such big stuff here, that the politicians do have to get on top of this sooner rather than later because the technology developing so quickly, that there is a risk that these guys just outwit the politicians.

54:24I mean, I noticed in some of the business responses to Joe Biden's order, for example, it was very much just sort of, you know, well, we know better how this stuff works and the politicians do and people won't want to share all the data that they have. I agree with you, I think that Sunak is to be commended for trying to make this issue and to try to bring all these people together. One of the issues soon getting on top of this, in a sense, project himself as a guy who understands the future, I think it does sit rather badly with the continuing attempt to turn the net zero and the future of the planet into what he calls a wedge issue, which I see, according to the papers, he's going to be using the King's speech to do in terms of actually focusing on this as a political issue rather than as actually something that really matters for the future of humanity.

55:15So I'd be more convinced of Sunak, the modern leader, addressing these modern issues if he wasn't backtracking the way that he is on his commitment on the environment. Yeah, there's a huge amount to talk about there. I mean, I think one of the things that remains a massive international scandal is the way that international development finance. So the money that we lend to other countries at cheap rates continues to support coal oil and gas. So $41 billion a year, five times the support of clean energy going into coal oil and gas 2018 to 2020. And this is something that when I was a different minister, I tried to stop.

55:54I tried to say it's ridiculous that we're using British development money or concessional loans to build heavy oil plants or coal plants in Africa. But it remains a huge issue, even within the EU, fossil fuel subsidies have increased from 56 billion to 122 billion during 2022 party because the response to the Russia crisis. So yeah, I mean, I'm actually later today going to be speaking a net zero conference. And part of the speech I've written was driven by the response to something that you said on the podcast a while about when we were talking about the environment. The problem is that we'd kind of got the low hanging fruit.

56:35And now it was it was focusing much more on cost, you know, the cost of heating your home, the cost of cars, et cetera. And I got a wonderful email. I should forward it to you actually from Karine Soars, who's a she co -authored a very good book called Supercharge Me, net zero faster. And she was she was making the point actually that the low hanging fruit is going to get lower and lower and pointing to the impact of the inflation reduction act in America. And I dug into this a bit and credit suites, for example, describe the inflation reduction act as the most ambitious comprehensive legislative action ever taken on addressing climate change.

57:15And this goes back to a point that Mustafa Suleiman made when we talked to him that the more that stuff gets used, the cheaper that it becomes, whereas with with fossil fuels, that is not the case. Fossil fuels, when you take account in inflation into account, coal roughly is getting sold at the same kind of prices it always was. Whereas the new technologies get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper the more that they get used. So the point she was making about America, for example, is that transport and energy is already getting cheaper. And the more that we can persuade people to go down the clean technology route, ultimately, the more we're going to save for ourselves and the more we're going to save for the economy as a whole.

57:52Good. Well, lots more to talk about in the environment. But thank you. And I think we're maybe coming to the end of the pot. We didn't cover the COVID inquiry, but maybe we can do that in in question time. Yeah, let's do let's do COVID inquiry in question time tomorrow. All the best. Bye bye.