Background Briefing: January 16, 2025
An Analysis of the Israel-Hamas Ceasefire and Hostage Release Deal
We begin with the ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas due to go into effect on Sunday which has yet to be approved by Netanyahu’s cabinet in which hard-liners hold sway. Joining us to discuss the deal which both Trump and Biden are taking credit for which involves the initial release of 33 hostages is Steven Simon, who served on the National Security Council staff as senior director for Middle Eastern and North African affairs and also worked on the NSC staff on counterterrorism and Middle East security policy. These assignments followed a fifteen-year career at the U.S. Department of State and he is currently a Fellow in International Affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the co-author, among other books, of The Age of Sacred Terror, and his latest book is Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East.
Biden’s Warning of a New American Oligarchy and the Danger of a Tech-Industrial Complex
Then we examine Biden’s farewell address in which he warned of the rise of a new American oligarchy as well as a “tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers to our country.” Joining us to discuss the outsized role of Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg and other billionaires and “brologarchs” who ironically have become $1.5 trillion richer during Biden’s term is Quinn Slobodian, a Professor of International History at Boston University where he teaches histories of modern Europe, international history, social movements and the intellectual history of neoliberalism. He is the author of Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, and his forthcoming book is Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ and the Capitalism of the Far Right. We discuss his article at The New Statesman, “Elon Musk’s hostile takeover: Inside the mind of the billionaire at the heart of American power.”