The New World Order and the Challenge Facing Western Democracies

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, what’s going on in the Middle East? With us today is one of my old friends, Ambassador Ido Aharoni. And now he’s the Israeli chairman of the American-Israel Friendship League. And he’s advocating for truth, justice, and, well, the way for all honest people. Ambassador, it was good to see you at the Blue Dream Gala a few weeks ago.

0:31 Give us an update. What the heck is going on? You know, oil is over $ 100 a barrel. A lot of the enemies of President Trump and maybe Israel too are stirring the pot so that way the November 3rd election might be affected. And you tell us.

0:55 Speaker 2 Correct, correct. So there are lots of moving parts.

0:58 Speaker 3 And by the way, before I say anything, I wanted to thank you for your incredible contribution, not only to the Greek American community, but also to New York in general. And I’m always at awe when I see how involved you are in communal.

1:14 Speaker 2 Life and the kind of leadership that you demonstrate. So thank you for that. Regarding your question, There are lots of moving parts.

1:22 Speaker 3 You mentioned the midterms coming up here, but we also have national elections in Israel about a week earlier, October 27th, which is also a big factor. So this is what happens when you’re trying to introduce a new world order.

1:34 Speaker 2 It’s the first time that it’s being done since 1945.

1:37 Speaker 3 I’m setting aside the question of whether this new world order will be successful or not.

1:42 Speaker 2 Is it a good or bad thing? It’s irrelevant. It’s happening. And it’s happening because the United.

1:47 Speaker 3 States wants to reconfigure, readjust, recalibrate its global presence in order to be in a better position to deal with its number one challenge, which is called China. Now, energy plays a very major role in that Cold War, if you may, the second Cold War, which is now with China, very different than the Cold War that we had with

2:08 the Soviet Union.

2:09 Speaker 2 So this is really the story. It’s about energy.

2:13 Speaker 3 If you want to understand Iran, if you want to understand Venezuela, even if you want to understand the whole conversation about Canada and Greenland.

2:21 Speaker 2 It’s all about energy at the end of the day, and it’s a very delicate dance.

2:26 Speaker 3 You want, on the one hand, to present a new world order. On the other hand, you don’t want the price of energy to go through the roof. It’s a very delicate dance, and there’s a great deal of uncertainty and ambiguity attached to it.

2:43 Speaker 1 Now, who has that much power to affect the price of oil, to get it up to over $ 100 a barrel? And where does the hate come from, in your opinion? See, I say in your opinion because you can’t get sued if it’s only your opinion, sir. In your opinion, and And then the feds raise interest rates because oil is

3:13 so high, even though the president says it’s a temporary situation.

3:19 Speaker 3 You know, so it’s never just one factor that determines it. So we have the powers of the market, of course, supply and demand. We have the issue of the supply chain, right? We’ve seen that there’s a bottleneck both in the Straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb. In both cases, you have on the one hand Iran. On the other hand, you

3:38 have the Houthis in Yemen. So you have rogue regimes and terrorist organizations operating. non-state actors like the Houthis that are.

3:48 Speaker 2 Presenting a global challenge.

3:50 Speaker 3 Because every person who’s listening to our conversation now should realize that the Houthis are costing us a lot of money, not just because of the price of energy, but because of the burden that they impose on supply chain in general.

4:07 And so the damage that the Houthis are inflicting on global trade is far beyond what the average person even begins to understand. And so there are lots of factors like that that are affecting the bottom line. And the bottom line is that right now the price of energy is extremely high.

4:30 Speaker 1 Understood. And it is extremely high, but because of what the axis of power, which I spoke to a previous guest, or whether it’s China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, stirring up the pot with war, then that’s going to raise the price.

4:52 Speaker 3 Well, currently what we are seeing is a very moment of, I would say a dramatic moment of weakness that is induced by a merciless social media algorithm in the Western world, especially.

5:08 Speaker 2 In open democratic and pluralistic societies where.

5:12 Speaker 3 People simply fail to understand that their way of life Western civilization, in particular the American system, is under severe attack by the forces that oppose America’s dominance. And America is dominant. It’s not only dominant economically, it’s dominant economically.

5:34 in terms of its ability to produce the knowledge that matters, the knowledge that moves the world forward, the knowledge that gives us more life expectancy, the knowledge that gives us more medical breakthroughs. And I can go on and on and on and give you examples. I show my students the list of the top 100 strongest brand names.

5:56 Speaker 2 Every year, the list is being updated.

5:58 Speaker 3 For the last 30 years, 70 to 80% of the world’s leading brand names are American brands.

6:04 Speaker 2 Now that’s dominance.

6:06 Speaker 3 And that’s what bothers America’s enemies, America’s adversaries, the American dominance, and they’re trying to undermine it. The atrocities of October 7th are part of it. There’s no question about it.

6:17 Speaker 2 9-11 was about this. There’s no question about it.

6:21 Speaker 3 And unfortunately and sadly and tragically, you have people in the United States, you have people in New York that are buying into this narrative that says America is the source of all evil in the world, and they basically support anti-American forces.

6:39 Speaker 2 It’s tragic. It’s sad. Let’s hope that it will change.

6:43 Speaker 1 Now, give us the pulse of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s election on the week before November 3rd.

6:55 Speaker 3 So my assessment is that on the one hand, you don’t want to underestimate Mr. Netanyahu. He’s the most experienced political campaigner in Israel’s history, the most skilled campaigner. And when you look at all the other contenders next to Mr. Netanyahu, you know, they don’t really have that kind of political experience and political skill, although they have lots of good intentions.

7:18 Speaker 2 On the other hand, if to judge by... the tendency of the.

7:25 Speaker 3 Israeli public post 10-7 and the fact that Mr. Netanyahu is holding two positions that are indefensible. The first is his opposition to the mandatory military conscription to include the ultra-Orthodox, and the second thing is his ongoing refusal to assume responsibility for what happened on 10-7 and to independently allow the investigation of what happened on 10-7. These two positions

7:50 are viewed by the vast majority of Israelis, Jews and non-Jews alike, as indefensible, unacceptable positions.

7:57 Speaker 2 As a result, I don’t see how Mr.

8:00 Speaker 3 Netanyahu will be able to form another narrow coalition like the one he has now. That leaves you with one of two options. Either there’s going to be a narrow coalition on the other side that right now looks like will include some Arab parties, or the party that wins the most votes will offer Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud. to join

8:24 the coalition with or without Mr. Netanyahu that remains to be seen, probably without Mr. Netanyahu showing him the way out. I think this is the more likely scenario, a national unity government that will try to leave him out of the picture, although it’s not going to be so easy for his opponents.

8:46 Speaker 1 Understood. And do you think, you know, you’ve been in America a long time. Give us your pulse. Do you think the American people realize that what’s happening is that America is under attack and that people from around the world are doing this to weaken Washington?

9:12 Speaker 3 So one of my biggest frustrations being an outsider, you know, I live in Israel and I spend a lot of time here teaching and lecturing and so on. And one of my biggest frustrations is that Americans are fully unaware, oblivious.

9:31 Speaker 2 Even, to the fact that they’re under attack.

9:34 Speaker 3 And the attack is not necessarily military. You know, thank God since 9-11 we haven’t had such a, such an event of such magnitude taking place on American soil.

9:48 Speaker 2 And that’s a good thing.

9:48 Speaker 3 And that goes to the credit of American intelligence and law enforcement and military.

9:56 Speaker 2 But there is, you are American. in a state of war.

10:02 Speaker 3 It’s a cyber war. It’s happening every day. American institutions, American infrastructure is under attack. The attack is coming from, again, the anti-American axis.

10:12 Speaker 2 And we all know who the culprits are.

10:16 Speaker 3 It baffles me that America is not fighting back.

10:21 Speaker 2 I’m not talking about the public. I’m talking about as.

10:24 Speaker 3 A geopolitical analyst, we look at the situation and we really don’t see a lot of evidence to massive American counterattack. Talking about cyber warfare, influence campaigns, and so on and so forth. I’m sure that some things are being done, but we don’t see the results. The other side is extremely vulnerable to influence campaigns, by the way, extremely.

10:49 Speaker 2 Vulnerable to influence campaigns.

10:51 Speaker 3 And I hope that something is being done, although I have not seen lots of evidence.

10:57 Speaker 1 Well, anything else you want to tell the American people?

11:01 Speaker 3 Well, I can tell you that all Israelis are grateful for the support of the American people. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the And to the critics, they are anti-American first before they’re anti-Israel. And let’s never forget that.

11:18 Speaker 1 Ambassador Ido Aharani, thank you for everything you do for keeping the free world free. And we’ll talk again real soon.

11:31 Speaker 2 Thank you so much, John. Thank you so much.