Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened today’s 72nd consecutive weekly online meeting of the International Peace Coalition, emphasizing that with the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the escalation of war is looming in Southwest Asia, contrary to the proclamations of some U.S. leaders. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to attack Iran; Russia has warned Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran has received advanced missile systems from Russia which require Russian specialists to help operate them, while 100 American troops are in Israel to help operate the new THAAD missile system there. This could become a direct U.S./Russia confrontation. Meanwhile, the ethnic cleansing continues in Palestine, with Israel declaring 400,000 civilians in northern Gaza to be “combatants.”
In Ukraine, “there is no chance in the world that Ukraine could win against Russia.” Nonetheless, acting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who “has no concern for reality at all,” demands that Ukraine be immediately admitted to NATO, or be given nuclear weapons. Either scenario leads to World War III.
Zepp-LaRouche said she was encouraged that the Director-General of China’s Department of Arms Control of the Foreign Ministry Sun Xiaobo has made a call similar to Zepp-LaRouche’s call for a new Security and Development Architecture. Because the existing security structures are not adequate to prevent nuclear war, we have to catapult our proposal in the tradition of the Treaty of Westphalia onto the international agenda.
Mossi Raz, a former member of Israel’s Knesset, former director general of Peace Now, and a former IDF paratrooper, said: “It’s really clear that there is a conflict here that is not only between two partners…. This has become global war, which we must bring to an end.” Peace activists in both Palestine and Israel are saying the same thing: release hostages on both sides and end hostilities, and go toward a two-state solution. Raz reported positively on the Oct. 17 discussion at the Vatican between Pope Francis, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa, on an Israel-Palestine peace proposal.
Graham Fuller, former U.S. CIA official, senior political scientist and Islamic scholar, warned that Israel’s actions in the broader Middle East are the key accelerator of the crisis throughout the region. He decried the “stunning Western inaction.” He said he was encouraged by student action in the U.S., and that foreign policy is now beginning to play a small role in the presidential race.
Israel, Fuller said, is no longer simply seeking revenge for Oct. 7; it’s an excuse for broader ethnic cleansing and Israeli expansionism. Other states in the region are putting their differences aside in a way that was unthinkable even one year ago. “The geopolitical center of gravity is shifting away from the West.”
Zepp-LaRouche responded, saying that we need to stop the drive for “Eretz Israel” (Greater Israel) and move to policies in the mutual interest of everyone in the region.
She also addressed the Vatican meeting as hopeful, but not enough. This led to a very fruitful exchange between her and Mossi Raz. She said, “These partial solutions are very, very important if they are embedded in an overall new security architecture as was accomplished with the Peace of Westphalia.” Today that includes Russia, China, the U.S. and the BRICS. Raz responded, “I fully agree.” The Nasser Al-Kidwa and Ehud Olmert proposal are important, and offer hope, especially from people of their experience and stature. That proposal, along with the Arab League proposal, can work in the context of the Schiller Institute’s broader Oasis Plan for the region.
LaRouche independent Congressional candidate in the Bronx Jose Vega (CD15) read from newly published letters of the late Leah Rabin, widow of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who negotiated the Oslo Accords and was assassinated 29 years ago on Nov. 4, 1995. He asked for a response from Raz, who said that he agrees with Leah Rabin. However, the problem is not only Netanyahu, just as with Hamas, it’s not only Sinwar. The majority of Israelis support the war. If we have leaders who will mobilize us for a peace agreement, maybe we can win.
An excerpt was shown of a video interview of Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, American economist and public policy analyst and a professor at Columbia University, speaking with Mike Billington. Sachs described the arrest of students calling for peace in Palestine, with university administrators bullied by Congress. Universities forgot that they are universities. On the upcoming Oct. 26 Sare-Vega peace concert and rally, which will include Classical music, Sachs recalled that he attended a concert with leaders of G20 and saw how they were touched by a performance of the finale of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. There is a deeper problem than the Israel-Palestine conflict. It was started soon after the close of World War II by the U.S. Deep State—the Security State—but went into “hyperdrive” during this century; the “extraordinary claim that it’s the sole superpower” has to be reexamined.
Diane Sare, LaRouche independent candidate for U.S. Senate in New York, said, “We have to somehow change the trajectory of the United States…. The adversaries of civilization truly have a misunderstanding of power,” because they think it emanates from the use of force. Martin Luther King had a different and better understanding. “Judging from the candidates other than myself and Jose [Vega], the election is not going to solve our problems.”
During the discussion period, video coverage of an antiwar demonstration in Germany was presented. Zepp-LaRouche emphasized that the Russians did not cause the conflict with Ukraine. In response to a question about a dialogue among cultures, Zepp-LaRouche said that when people from various cultures assemble informally and meet face to face, they get along amicably. That is because people are basically good. The conflict and misery are created by powerful interests that have their own motives. She went on to endorse a proposal from a participant who suggested an event be organized where children from around the world would present cultural contributions from their respective nations in the interests of peace.
When Zepp-LaRouche was asked to comment on the role of the British, she asked: Who is always egging the United States on? This comes from the old British Empire idea of divide and conquer, “always sowing mistrust to manipulate.” She reminded the participants of the 1955 Bandung Conference, in which leaders of the Global South reminded the U.S. that the American Revolution was the first anti-colonialist revolution. The British Empire still exists in a camouflaged form, and the U.S. has regrettably been persuaded to use it as a model for foreign policy. She described the international “Green” movement as an expression of the British Empire’s Malthusian doctrine.
In her concluding remarks, Zepp-LaRouche mentioned that there have been heavy-handed attempts to destabilize the BRICS nations, and in one case, Argentina, they were able to reverse that nation’s decision to join. She added, “Many of the leaders of the BRICS are incredibly wise and mature statesmen.” At one time we had statesmen in Europe like Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle, but today we have leaders who have a “stature like dwarves.” We must overcome geopolitics, because the present effort to divide the world into two blocs is the source of the war danger.
