- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by Holy Name.

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The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Making a difference.

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Operating Engineers, Local 825.

The New Jersey Education Association.

And by Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Promotional support provided by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

And by Insider NJ.

[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

Yes, we are based in New Jersey, but what goes on in the country and the world matters to those of us in New Jersey and the region and frankly, everyone watching right now.

And we're joined by Dr. Joseph Huddleston, Associate Professor at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at our higher ed partner at Seton Hall University.

Doctor, good to see you.

- Good to be here, thank you.

- So we're taping on October the 17th.

The graphic will come up many times.

Why?

Because we're not the news, we are not here to talk about the current state of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

But this is an ongoing issue, thousands of years, and God knows how long it is going to continue to go on.

Let me ask you, at the core, for those who say, hey, wait a minute.

This is a horrible thing, obviously, a horrible event that happened, the war that happened, the conflict, the atrocities in Israel, the bombing that followed up Israel toward Hamas and the Gaza Strip.

But beyond the day-to-day reporting on the conflict slash war, why is this situation so important to all of us?

- The situation is important to everyone because it represents one of the most intractable, ongoing human rights catastrophes that repeats itself over and over again.

And we see that in both the victimization of Israeli civilians by the act of terrorism by Hamas, and then the bombardment of the Gaza Strip that follows, that has killed just as many, if not more people, at the time of this recording.

And the fact that it still doesn't have a political solution means that we won't see an end to these kinds of outbursts until the parties at conflict find a political solution to it.

- Is Hamas, in your view, as an expert on diplomacy and international relations, a terrorist organization?

- Hamas is an organization that uses terrorism.

Hamas, as an organization- - Are we gonna get into semantics?

- Here's the thing about the word terrorism, is that as a term, it has one meaning in the media, one meaning with sort of popular language, but in terms of analyzing dynamics in a conflict, it has a very specific meaning, right?

So terrorism as a tactic is common in many kinds of conflicts, especially when you have an organization fighting a state, right, trying to sort of break away, make territorial claims, but it's a very common tactic.

So I will leave it to policymakers to sort of define that, but what I will say is that what we saw was an act of terrorism.

- So there's hundreds, thousands of young people in their 20s beyond and some teens who were at a concert.

And again, we're not doing the news, but that is obviously a seminal event in this whole most current iteration of this conflict.

That had nothing to do with policy.

That had nothing to do with Israel's policies as it relates to those in the Gaza Strip.

Did it?

Because those were not policymakers.

Those were concert goers.

- True, true.

And it might be useful to just talk a little bit about why groups use terrorism.

Very often the point of terrorism by a group like Hamas or the Islamic State or many other groups in conflicts around the world is to spoil peaceful processes that are ongoing.

It is to provoke strong repressive reactions from a state against their own constituencies, right?

And it is to try to rally support of a base, right?

So they victimize innocent people in order to cause further victimization of more innocent people, right?

That is, it's the sowing of fear to make everyone in a conflict like this feel like they have no choice but to turn to violence.

- So I'm gonna ask in a moment about the history of Israel and Israel government and military policy, policies plural as it relates to the Gaza Strip and Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip.

But if I were to say, because we've been debating if we were gonna even put a graphic underneath this, you know, the Israeli-blank conflict.

Is it the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Is it the Israeli-Hamas conflict?

Or is Palestine Hamas and Hamas Palestine?

Please, Professor.

- Absolutely.

Very good question.

Probably one of the most important questions in understanding this.

Hamas cannot be taken to be equivalent to the Palestinian cause.

In fact, the existence, the tactics used by Hamas is probably one of the most harmful things to the Palestinian cause that could be.

And this is a subject of much confusion for people on either side of sort of trying to understand this conflict.

So I would say Israel's stated purpose is to eliminate Hamas.

They never say anything like that about the Palestinian people.

I'm not convinced that they want to take over the Gaza Strip.

What they want is to end an organization whose founding charter calls for their destruction, right?

So that is not what most Palestinians want, right?

Most people in both Palestine and Israel proper want a peaceful political solution to this decades-long conflict.

The problem is that you always, in any political actor, any sort of group, you always have people who want to take a hard line, use violence, make no compromises, and people who want to use politics, peaceful negotiations, and accept and even seek compromise, right?

So what we have to look at is what does this moment, what does this horrendous act, who does it empower in those societies, right?

The problem is that with this kind of violence, it tends to make the hardliners on either side kind of gain more relevance as a sort of spokesperson, right?

So that's part of why we see violence escalate in a spiral.

- You're talking about an extraordinary kind of leadership, a very rare kind of leadership.

That being said, please put in perspective, we're talking to Professor Dr. Joseph Huddleston, Associate Professor of the School of Diplomacy, excuse me, in International Relations at Seton Hall University, one of our longtime hired partners.

Put in perspective for us, Professor, the history of Israeli government-slash-military policy as it relates to the Gaza Strip.

- Do you mind if I go a little further back in history to kind of think about this?

- I'm trying to learn along with everyone else, please.

- Of course, and it's a very confusing conflict.

I think if I were gonna basically make two points for your viewers, it would be the following.

You cannot understand this conflict without understanding the origins of it in British colonialism, right?

What you have, when the British controlled that part of the Levant, they made a promise.

- Of the what?

- I'm sorry, the Levant, that area on the eastern bank of the Mediterranean.

So what is now Palestine?

We'll just say that.

The British had something called the Palestinian Mandate.

So this was a type of colony.

- When was this?

- This was in the early 1900s.

The early 1900s, right?

So they made a promise to Jewish people all over Europe that they wanted to have a homeland for Jews there.

Now, Jews being a stateless people for many centuries, being subject to persecution in many of the places they lived said, okay, you're the governing power there.

Of course we'll go there if this is sort of what we're being offered, right?

But in so doing, as that migration happened, it forced the displacement of the people who lived there, right?

The British colonial powers were also responsible for some of that displacement.

So what you have is a story of displacement for both- - Who was displaced?

Were they Israelis?

Were they Palestinians?

Who were they?

- Palestinians who lived in the state already were displaced from their homes.

Many Palestinians were displaced from villages.

You had an event in the 1940s when Israel was properly recognized.

You had a civil war that followed.

- Is that 1946?

- 1948 is when it became a state.

So you had immediate conflict.

Now, of course, Israel is attacked at that time by the neighboring countries.

It immediately sets off a conflict.

And who are the victims of this conflict?

Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians at the time, right?

So it's really a story of displacement for everyone involved, right?

Which is why- - Including now with Palestinians, again, we are taping on the 17th of October.

We don't know how this is gonna play out, but what we see on the news, regardless of where you watch, is thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians trying to move physically with babies.

We saw children on ventilators in hospitals.

They're supposed to move.

Again, we don't know how that policy is gonna play out, but it's constant displacement.

- Constant displacement.

That is the story.

That is the history of this place for 100 years.

Jews displaced from villages they had in Europe, moving to Israel and displacing people there.

It's a very complex dynamic.

- Well, before I let you go, doctor, tough questions.

You're talking about geopolitics and complex, longstanding conflict and displacement.

In one minute or less, could you bring it back to quote-unquote New Jersey?

We have a very large Palestinian, very large Jewish population.

Does it matter disproportionately in states like New Jersey with very large populations who have a real familiar cultural historical interest?

Please.

- Of course it matters.

I mean, what I always urge people is to check yourself and see the human suffering on every side of this conflict.

It's always there.

It is there for you to witness.

You have to see that, or else you cannot be open to the kinds of peaceful political solutions that are necessary to end a sort of repeating conflict like this.

- You optimistic about anything positive coming out of the situation?

- Currently, as we're taping, I'm not very optimistic because I see that, as I told you a few minutes ago, the goals of terrorism, most of those goals have been met.

Peaceful processes have been spoiled.

A repressive reaction has been provoked.

A base has been rallied.

The kinds of things that Hamas wanted out of an attack like this, it is getting.

So that does not make me optimistic.

But as you said, good leadership always has an opportunity to steer the ship in a new direction.

- Professor, I wanna thank you so much for joining us and let everyone watching know that this will be the first of what will likely be a series of conversations with people who understand the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and some may argue Israel slash and Palestine.

Not so black and white, but we'll continue those conversations.

Professor, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- Stay with us, we'll be right back.

To see more Think Tank with Steve Adubato programs and to listen to Think Tank with Steve Adubato the Podcast, visit us online at steveadubato.org.

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- Folks, this book about Rudy Giuliani has been on our bed stand for a long time, I've been marking it up for the last several months.

"Giuliani The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor" written by an extraordinary journalist, and observer of the political scene, Andrew Kirtzman.

Good to see you, my friend.

- Thanks for having me, nice to see you, Steve.

- We've known each other for a long time, and I've read your work, and we've been colleagues in a whole range of media situations, I am blown, I've been blown away by this book, and mostly because I'm a student of leadership, so I'm gonna start out with this.

I wrote a chapter in a previous book of mine about Rudy Giuliani post 9/11 as the quintessential leader in a crisis.

- Right.

- What the heck happened to that leader?

- Well that's the reason I wrote the book because I think when he reemerged as Donald Trump's lawyer he was almost like a different person.

And so that was kind of the genesis of my decision to write this to kind of chart this remarkable rise and fall story 'cause I think the Giuliani story is probably the most remarkable rise and fall episodes in modern history.

I mean you're talking about someone who is arguably the most famous prosecutor in the 1980's, the most famous mayor of the 1990's, an international hero after 9/11, fast forward to today, he's facing jail time, and he's almost broke.

It's an incredible story.

Right.

- And this, to be clear, this particular charge, Giuliani surrenders to Georgia authorities in 2020 election tampering rap.

I cut you off, I'm sorry, Andrew.

There's a whole range of things I wanna talk to you about, including January 6th, the speech.

- Sure.

- Trial by combat, talk about that in a second.

Giuliani's obsession with the 2020 election being stolen, and continually saying "I have evidence," we don't see the evidence.

He understands evidence, he understands how to prosecute a case.

He had, by any reasonable standard, according to dozens and dozens of court cases with judges adjudicating it, many of whom were Trump appointees that there was no case.

Did he not know he didn't have a case or was he making it up?

- There's testimony by the Speaker of the House in one of the contested states who said that he spoke with Giuliani privately who said "We don't have any evidence."

So the case being made that he knew that what he was saying had no basis in fact he said it anyway, and it's gotten him into a lot of trouble, including a defamation suit by two Georgia election workers whose reputations he completely destroyed.

- A mother and a daughter.

An African American mother and daughter who worked the polls, and he accused them of what, Andrew, that they were not guilty of in any way?

- Well he accused them of stuffing fake ballots, and there was this quote where he saw on the video tape them exchanging a thumb drive, like vials of cocaine.

It was just absolutely ludicrous, and may turn out to be defamatory in the eyes of a jury.

- I wanna be clear on this, and we don't care whether you like Trump, don't like Trump, it's irrelevant, we're talking about facts, we're trying to make sense of things.

- Right.

- But buying an election, and stooping the peaceful transition of presidential power is huge.

These are constitutional issues of democracy, which is why the graphic Democracy in Danger is coming up as we speak.

Did Rudy Giuliani help put our representative democracy in your view, Andrew Kirtzman, in serious danger, please?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely I mean you're talking about someone who was once legendary for his incorruptibility, right?

For his morality.

He was kind of, as a prosecutor, he was kind of the morality cop in the 1980's, against the Mafia and Wall Street.

- That's right.

- And political corruption at City Hall.

Fast forward and there was this kind of reckless disregard for the truth all in service with Donald Trump.

- Why?

- Because Donald Trump- - Wh-wh... Go ahead, I'm sorry, why?

- Well let me take a step back if I can.

You started by asking me what happened to Giuliani, right?

I think that plays into this situation.

- Read the book.

(laughs) - Well let me try to give you the Cliff notes here.

- Sure.

- Which is I think if you had to sum it all up in one word it's desperation.

Desperation kind of on the way up to succeed as a U.S. attorney, as a mayor, to succeed at all costs, right?

And was enormously talented, brilliant, right?

Made a brilliant prosector, a brilliant mayor.

Very flawed, arguably racist, but in terms of effectiveness, enormously effective.

I think the pivot point of the Giuliani story are a, 9/11, where he kind of reached the height of his popularity, and we could talk about that, I was with him on 9/11, and I charted every minute of his morning that made him an international hero.

So that's one pivot point, right?

Which was the fame he gathered on 9/11, and then what he did with it afterwards.

He cashed in, made 10s of millions of dollars.

And then the other pivot point is the 2008 Presidential race.

So he runs for President, trying to capitalize on all this fame, and he crashes and burns.

He loses out the Republican primary in 2008, and has to leave the contest with one delegate to his name.

- Why did he fail?

Why did he...

Seven years after 9/11- - Right.

- Why didn't he connect in the Republican primaries?

I think he only ran in Florida, if I'm not mistaken, and that was it, it was over.

- That's right.

- Well the- - There were a couple of reasons.

Number one is it was just a total mismatch.

He was pro-choice, pro-gay rights in a Republican primary.

And no Republican candidate has ever been nominated who was pro-choice and pro-gay rights.

And he felt that the laws of political gravity didn't pertain to him because he was Rudy Giuliani, the hero of 9/11, and that would kind of overcome everything 'cause he was kind of this legendary figure.

Well that didn't fly.

And the other thing was by the time he ran in 2008 terrorism had kind of receded from the top of Americans' agenda.

So he would go to the cornfields of Iowa, and talk about the threat of terrorism, and these are small towns where no one- - It didn't resonate.

- Didn't respnate at all.

So he was kind of out of his depth.

And the other thing, it was just a disastrous campaign.

His then wife, Judith Giuliani, was the subject of unflattering tabloid headlines.

There was all these kind of embarrassing side shows which caused him a lot of problems.

- Fast forward.

Again, we're part of a public broadcasting community, and we don't engage in salacious rumors and talk that are personal in nature in the eyes of some, but there has been testimony, people sworn under oath who talked about election night, Rudy Giuliani drinking, potentially drinking heavily, and telling then President Trump in 2020, quote, just say you won.

- That's right.

That's right.

- So is the issue of Rudy Giuliani and alcohol irresponsible for me to bring up right now?

- No, I think it's intrinsic to the Giuliani story.

After he flamed out in 2008 he started drinking.

There was this kind of desperate effort to reclaim the relevance and the glory he once had as the hero of 9/11, and he was really kind of cast out into the wilderness until Donald Trump came along, and they kind of needed each other in 2016.

- Did Trump respect Rudy?

- Yes, very much, very much.

Giuliani was kind of, I would say in some ways Trump's role model for the presidency 'cause he had watched the Giuliani mayoralty in real time.

And Trump was not a kind of political animal, he was a developer, but it was Giuliani who made such an impression upon him that the White House aids I spoke with used to say that Trump would talk about Giuliani with a reverent that he would reserve to almost no one else.

So you're talking about this incredibly tight bond.

Trump was Giuliani's ticket back to relevance, right?

He brought him back to Washington.

He made him his lawyer.

He made him the head of the effort to turn around the election results.

Trump was his meal ticket.

And so Giuliani was basically desperate to win this thing at all costs, and meanwhile he has a drinking problem, and so all of Trump's advisors are just absolutely panicked that they're trying to make a case that there was fraud in the election by kind of more conventional means, and there's Giuliani just saying "Just claim we won.

"Just claim you won."

- Andrew, I'm sorry for interupting, Chris Christie, bring it back, we're a New Jersey-based operation, as you all know, Chris Christie who had known Rudy for years, how was Christie... What was Christie telling Trump when Giuliani's telling Trump just say you won?

- I think that Christie played kind of both sides of the fence throughout that election.

On one hand he was kind of coaching Trump during the debate, and trying to kind of play the hero, the key role.

And then when things kind of got too hot he kind of played the other side of this thing.

So I don't know that Christie played any kind of heroic role one way or another.

- This is Andrew Kirtzman, the book is "Giuliani The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor."

Andrew Kirtzman, a terrific journalist and a longtime political observer.

Thank you so much, Andrew, I appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- You got it.

Folks, I'm Steve Adubato, that's Andrew Kirtzman, read his book.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Holy Name.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

NJ Best, New Jersey'’s five-two-nine college savings plan.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

New Brunswick Development Corporation.

PSE&G, Operating Engineers, Local 825.

The New Jersey Education Association.

And by Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Promotional support provided by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

And by Insider NJ.

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It's the result of parents, educators and communities working together year after year to give our students a world class education.

No matter the challenge, because parents and educators know that with a shared commitment to our public schools, our children can learn, grow and thrive.

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