To illustrate the issue, the problem, I will share a cute little story, some history. Totally factual. No embellishment.

My wife and I had just landed in Washington, DC. It was the spring of 1998. We had come from the Near East, which is what the British had called it during their empire days. Actually, we made our way back to United States via Europe, southern Europe. We stayed with a friend in Ravenna. A week or so. Just to adjust to the Western life, because we had not been in Western conditions for quite some time, almost several years.

A friend of mine, a professor of religious studies at George Washington University, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Iranian philosopher and theologian, told me when I talked to him on my mobile in Washington, that I should go meet John L Esposito over at Georgetown University. Another professor, Esposito is a scholar of Islam and Islamic history. “He is the founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.” That's right, he is funded by the Al Saud family, Saudi Arabia. Seriously sponsored, we might say.

This all happened a long time ago but I still have pretty good memory of it. Nasr and I had a dialogue about religion, and he struck me as a very serious guy. Really serious. So he and I had that in common, we are both serious. We do not mess around. Nasr told me to go meet Esposito – because I had written a paper, the academic world calls it a monograph, on the Islamic world. It had become quickly influential, in the Middle East. It was in English [but I was expecting my Arab friends to translate it]. What I was doing was simply trying to distill my thinking about the Islamic faith into a treatise. I was intending it to be totally honest yet at the same time I wanted it to be relevant to the events of the day.

So I called Esposito and he agreed to meet. Over at his office at the Georgetown University campus. I kind of figured Esposito really worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. I had no idea but it seemed plausible. This was April 1998. Nasr was likely CIA as well. This is the way Washington works. Maybe they will be upset at me for saying this about them but I want the world to know how this works. Because Mr Ismail Abu Shanab, spokesman and a co-founder of Hamas, had complained about this to me.

So my wife and I went over to see Esposito. He was reasonably friendly but signaling he would be brief. That was no problem. He came out and said it, a mouthful: “Tom I have read it, it is interesting, but the Islamic world is not going to be in conflict with the Western world, with the United States. Look the Jews run this town [Washington, DC] they have total control over this town, so you cannot work for the Arabs. It is not going to happen. The Islamic world is not going to be at war with the United States, again I repeat.”

That's pretty much exactly what Esposito said to me and my wife. I was 40 years old, my wife is about 9 years younger than me. Was I amazed or shocked? Not really. Of course Ashkenazi Jews totally control Washington, meaning the United States government. What did I say to Esposito in reply? This I cannot really remember, I was reasonably polite and told him that I really had no intention of working for the Arabs. I was just telling the world what I think of the Middle East and the Islamic religion. “I do not pimp myself out to super rich dudes, wherever they might be.” Maybe that is what I basically told him.

I am sure you realize I was right about war – war was coming! And yes it was the Islamic world. 9 11 2001 was the first salvo. Now we got the second salvo – October 7 2023. The Crusader Fort called Israel – aggressive Zionism – is trying to maintain its presence in the Levant. The Ashkenazi Jews, invaders, have been hoping to make the world believe in them. It's sort of laughable. To be totally honest with all of you, my audience, Israel will be destroyed, totally destroyed. Israel is a joke, Zionism is a joke. America's financial and military support for Israel is also pretty much a joke. As the left-wing folks like to say, it is not sustainable.

The Islamic world would like to have some kind of modus vivendi with the Ashkenazi Jews but this is hard to achieve. And why? Because the Ashkenazi Jews do not appear fully cognitive. Their grasp of reality is quite dubious, actually really dubious, but try convincing them of this. They will tell you aggressively to fuck off! The minute you say this kind of thing they tell you that you are a Nazi, that you are a follower of Adoph Hitler.

So what to do? There are some men in Washington who do have a sincere wish to get good things done. They are pragmatic, they are intelligent, there is nothing wrong with them. The only thing is they often fail to realize the grim reality. The Washington “national security” bureaucracy is just that, a bureaucracy. There is not much to it. I do not recall how I ended up hooking up with Leon Panetta. He was one of my first World Affairs Monthly interviews. It was a shockingly good interview. We did nail it, the argument, right?

I had no complaints about Panetta when I talked to him, but I will say that after I published the interviews with the founders of Hamas [2003-2004] then the Washington national security elite became openly hostile to me. This was really stupid of them. I am not saying they are all incompetent but in some respects they are. Panetta was a great guy – and I assume he still is – he was really shrewd for realizing, well in advance of course, that we have a problem. I do not recall whether it was me or Panetta who called it, the crisis. I will give him the credit – he was brilliant. He could have supported me, however.

The CIA wanted World Affairs Monthly to be CIA. How realistic is that? How am I going to be independent? I would eventually be known to be CIA so this is just fucked up. So I told the Washington crowd to fuck off. A very smart decision. I think you will be impressed with Panetta but he does not talk about the Ashkenazi Jews the way I would. The reality is ignored. Maybe the war in Gaza is now coming front and center in their minds. Hamas will win, no question. It will be about 10 years. I am trying to see if I can end the war party but ending wars is difficult. How many Palestinians will Israelis kill? They appear to want to kill most of them. Ethnic cleansing. Genocide. Land seizure. Colonial enterprise, supported by Western Europe and the United States. Taking advantage of the collapsing and bankrupt Ottoman Empire.

Yes it is funny but it is definitely not very funny to the folks in Gaza, who are being massacred and starved.