There are conversations you have that feel like they cut through the fog of propaganda, the noise of politics, and the theater of media spin. My conversation with Richard Sanders, an award-winning journalist who has reported on the frontlines of global conflict for decades, was one of them.
Sanders did not hold back — on Israel, on Britain, on the collapse of international law, and on the complicity of Western elites who remain deaf to their own citizens.
“There’s been no other story I’ve covered in my life,” Sanders told me, “where you’ve just felt such an enormous disconnect between the political media elite and the general population.”
That disconnect is now impossible to ignore. The streets across Britain and beyond are filled with hundreds of thousands demanding an end to arms sales, an end to unconditional support for Israel’s slaughter. Yet the UK government parrots Washington, waiting “by the phone until the Americans tell us what to do,” as Sanders put it, calling it humiliating as a British citizen.
The Collapse of the “Rules-Based Order”
Perhaps most chilling was Sanders’ blunt assessment of what Israel’s impunity reveals:
“The rules-based order or the international legal system has actually collapsed under the weight of empire fully backing Israel, as it, in a rogue sort of sense, is committing genocide in broad daylight.”
This is not the language of fringe activists. This is a veteran British journalist describing the reality that so many in power still refuse to name. Sanders said it plainly: no one can say they didn’t know. Israel has made it explicit for years that its project is one of ethnic cleansing.
Racist Gaslighting and the Big Lie
What makes this moment even more grotesque is how Palestinians are smeared when they demand the most basic of rights.
“You have this enormous historic injustice,” Sanders explained, “where the absolutely conventional Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination is crammed entirely artificially into the paradigm of European antisemitism. Palestinians say: we want civil, political, human rights. The response? Ah, you don’t like Jews, do you? It’s racist gaslighting. Let’s call it out for what it is.”
This deliberate inversion — turning the oppressed into the accused — is not just dishonest. It is, as Sanders insists, disgusting. And yet it remains the dominant script in Westminster and Washington, where aging elites cling to myths even as the ground beneath them shifts.
The Naked Face of Fascism
Sanders didn’t mince words:
“The Israelis look like the Nazis in terms of their rhetoric, their behavior.”
That comparison will provoke outrage from the usual quarters. But it forces us to confront a moral truth: a state founded in the shadow of the Holocaust is now perpetrating mass atrocity under the banner of “security.”
For Sanders, this hubris may prove Israel’s undoing.
“They’ve overplayed their hand,” he said. “There’s going to be a tipping moment, an emperor’s new clothes moment, where everyone wakes up and says, hang on, why are we all enthralled to this horrible, racist ethno-state?”
Repression at Home, Complicity Abroad
As Israel escalates, Britain criminalizes dissent. Peaceful activists with Palestine Action are arrested under counter-terror laws. Elderly pensioners are hauled off for holding placards.
“Two images dominate here,” Sanders observed, “starving children in Gaza and pensioners being arrested for supporting Palestine.”
That grotesque juxtaposition tells the story: the violence abroad is mirrored by repression at home. The same laws used to justify endless wars abroad are now used to silence those who resist them here.
“Vote for People Who Are Not Genocidal”
When I asked Sanders what ordinary people can do, his answer was as stark as it was simple:
“Don’t vote for genocidal political parties. Vote for people who are not genocidal.”
It shouldn’t be a radical statement. Yet in this moment, it feels like one. Sanders reminded me that we still live in democracies, and that leaders care about their jobs. Public opinion — if organized — is the only counterweight to the entrenched impunity of empire.
Palestine Frees Us All
Perhaps the most provocative and hopeful line of our conversation came when Sanders reflected on the deeper meaning of this struggle:
“Palestine frees us all. Because in order to push forward the Palestinian case, we have to get rid of the buggers who are the problem.”
That is the challenge before us. Not only to free Palestine, but to free ourselves from the corrupt, racist, and violent structures that keep this nightmare alive.
Sanders is right. The tide is turning. People are waking up. Israel’s brutality has exposed itself. The question is whether we will act with the urgency history demands — or whether we will allow silence and complicity to finish the work of genocide.
As Sanders warned:
“If you don’t have faith in human nature, you might as well give up and go home.”
I, for one, refuse to give up. If you refuse to give up, please share this conversation, comment, and subscribe to my podcast on YouTube for more conversations that cut through the noise and help us challenge the status quo together.
I have really enjoyed all your interviews-this one with Richard Sanders was just a perfect analysis of the events so far. I particularly enjoy the emotional aspect and questions you had asked Gabor Maté and Richard Sanders, in terms of the hope we can find for both the Palestinians and us. Thank you.
Richard Sanders is always great to listen to! Thanks for having him on your show. Very insightful