Here is the transcript of Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Oct. 7 interview with Pakistan TV’s [“World This Morning” broadcast](https://youtu.be/PmFfbqxJB2o?t=1468. The anchors interviewing Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche were Eesha Rehan and with her co-anchor Shahzad Khan.
Host: We’re going to move on to a more serious segment regarding the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. A 20-point peace accord is being discussed, and all eyes are on Cairo, where mediators from the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt are signaling a possible breakthrough between Israel and Hamas. Can these talks achieve a truce?
To speak more about this issue, we actually have a very informative guest we will be talking to today. She happens to be Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and president of the Schiller Institute. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Let us hop on to our first question regarding how delegations from Israel and Hamas, and the United States are joined by mediators from Qatar and Egypt, and are holding a meeting. We see global protests and outrage regarding the Gaza issue, continuing and increasing diplomatic pressure for a ceasefire. Do you think this will end up being conducted into a ceasefire that ends the genocide, wrapping it up and concluding it finally?
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I would definitely hope so, and I think many countries and nations and people around the world are hoping that. Because what has happened in the last two years is just so beyond the imagination of what these Palestinian people have had to endure. I can only hope that President Trump’s plan will succeed. Naturally there is a big worry, but I think there is also a lot at stake for Israel. If I would be an Israeli citizen, I would also be concerned to have a future; to have a future which is not only always threatened with attacks and continuous terrorism. I think Israel has to not want that situation, because if this thing fails then I think the mood in the Arab and Islamic populations of the neighbor states would be very much aggravated. I think Israel has to be concerned about its own future. You cannot have neighbors who hate you so much that you will threaten your own existence.
I would really hope that the growing peace movement inside Israel—there were many people in the streets in Israel itself demanding the end to the war, not only the release of the hostages, but now increasingly demanding an end to this atrocity. I would hope that that has an impact. I know the situation in the Cabinet is very difficult, but I can only hope that the reasonable part of Israel prevails.
Host: Exactly. In addition to this, where you mention about the flotilla activists; this is something I’m going to bring to your attention as well, and I want you to kind of speak about it. All 171 of the detained activists have actually now been deported. The activists themselves have stated the horrible and harsh conditions that they were held in. How do you view the approaches or the actions, especially as someone who advocates for peace and dialogue through the Schiller Institute?
Zepp-LaRouche: Well, it is not really a surprise, because if you have an army which has been trained to not regard certain people—because of their racial identity—as not being human, it dehumanizes the army. I think that the people in the Freedom Flotilla had to suffer exactly the same attitude.
Host: Thank you for highlighting that. Speaking about this issue, Egypt’s President has highlighted how real peace in the Middle East can only be achieved if the Palestinian state is recognized as an independent state, and we need to move on to a path to a ceasefire. But considering the global climate and the global geopolitical state, do you think a ceasefire can be achieved?
Zepp-LaRouche: Well, that will be very difficult if you leave it at the level of the discussion right now; because there are strong forces—including Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, who has practically excluded a Palestinian state. And there are even more radical elements than he. I think we need to have an additional approach very urgently. The Schiller Institute has been promoting something which we call the Oasis Plan. That is an economic development program not only for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, but to actually develop the entire region economically by the development of lots of fresh new water through the building of a system of canals. One canal between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, another canal between those canals and then branching out so you eventually create artificial new rivers; have desalination of large amounts of ocean water; greening the desert.
My vision of this is that, in a few years, you could have the entire region from India to the Mediterranean, from the Caucasus to the Gulf States, become green. Now, it’s all desert. I once flew in a plane from Khartoum to Amman, and for three and a half hours you only see brown, brown, yellow, brown. There is no oasis. I think if you want to change the dynamic in the region, you need a vision for the future where all the young people in particular have a reason to become scientists and engineers, to grow a family, to just have the idea that this horror show of the last not just two years—this has been going on for much longer—that that eventually stops and that a future for all the countries in the region can be built.
I think this is eminently possible, because China has just announced that they have completed the largest water-management project in history. We had a conference of the Schiller Institute, at which Professor Zhang Weiwei said that China has the ability to help implement the Oasis Plan. So, if all the neighbors, all the countries—with the United States, Russia, China, India, and other neighbors—would all say now is the time to really develop the region and create a peaceful future for everybody, I think that’s the only way you can change the dynamic. That’s why I think we should really do everything we can to put the Oasis Plan on the table right now.
Host: Exactly. And while we speak of it, and how the pressure is being built as well, and how the international policy comes into play, we have seen that there has been a lot of retaliation. Imagine the 250,000 who came out in Amsterdam; people in Turkey came out with slogans and placards saying that “starvation is a weapon of war” and “Gaza is the biggest graveyard of children.” So, it’s evident that Israel’s war crimes have created unimaginable living conditions. Do you believe that the global outcry will still continue to influence the world powers to act appropriately when we speak about the ceasefire?
Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I definitely think so. For example in Italy, there were more than a million people in the streets, and they have called a general strike, which basically shut down the entire economy. I think that we are seeing right now an earthquake; it takes many forms. It’s really the test of morality of mankind, because if we cannot as a human species stop horrible atrocities like that, then I think we have lost the fitness to survive ourselves as a species. Somehow people are beginning to experience that as a fundamental feeling for themselves. So, I am absolutely sure that the whole world community has been politicized in ways I have never seen in my life so far.
Host: And what we’re seeing right now is unfortunately how the ultra-nationalist Zionist parties in Israel want to continue the war. They’re being led by the Finance Minister and the National Security Minister who have actually warned that if the government does not achieve “total victory” in Gaza, they will bring down the government. Do you think there is a chance Prime Minister Netanyahu will derail all these peace agreements once the hostages are exchanged and restart the war?
Zepp-LaRouche: Well, there were at least two cabinet ministers who threatened to resign; the opposition leader may join the government. I don’t know exactly what will happen in Israel itself. But I think the answer to that is what I said in the first place; that Israel has to think about its own long-term survival in an environment where you cannot continue to live with the expectation that the United States is going to back you up, and all your neighbors are hostile. Because inside the United States there are also changes; the mood in the American population is shifting rapidly. There are many people now who used to be hard-core Zionist, Christian fundamentalists, totally in support of Israel. That is breaking away, so that naturally has an impact on how Trump has to maneuver. So, I think Israel would do much better if they would just go in the direction of the Oasis Plan. The Trump plan has elements of that; I think it doesn’t go far enough, but the danger is there that they will do that. But I think that there are also many thinking people who may consider that this is not a fight of one day, but that you have to think of how the future will be in the long term, and you cannot risk the existence of Israel by creating such a horror that all Hell will break loose.
Also, in respect now to a different topic; but would Israel be able to have another war with Iran? I don’t think so, because there has been a tremendous shift since the strikes against Iran in June. There are now many more supporters of Iran, like Russia and China. So, the situation is very complex, and you cannot continue a policy of confrontation which eventually puts your own existence at risk.
Host: Thank you so much, Madame Zepp-LaRouche, for being with us. We’ve been speaking with the founder and president of the Schiller Institute in Germany in regard to the ceasefire talks.
