by EIR staff
The 130th consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition took place on November 28. Schiller Institute Founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the meeting with a survey of turmoil in the world, listing the conflict zones including Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, and the emerging conflict between Japan and China. She noted that retired German General Harald Kujat has called on the UK, France and Germany to endorse the recently leaked 28 point proposal for a resolution of the war in Ukraine. President Trump’s administration is divided, with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff favoring diplomacy, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio adamantly opposing the peace proposal. Those betting on a regime change in Russia “should think twice,” she said, because Putin enjoys the support of the Russian population and “Putin is an unbelievably patient and diplomatically-oriented person” whom we should prefer as a negotiating partner.
On the Gaza question, she observed that US policy continues to be terrible, although eleven US senators are now calling for an investigation into Israeli war crimes.
Zepp-LaRouche took note of some recent acts by President Trump, including his statement that he intends to”permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” following the shootings of two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., and Trump’s unfounded remarks about Whites being persecuted in South Africa, asserting that the country would not be invited to the 2026 G20 summit in Miami, which the United States is set to host. Trump has also revoked the visa for former South African International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor, who has spoken at IPC and Schiller Institute events.
On the hopeful side, she cited President Putin’s initiative for a new strategic architecture, which he has framed not as a challenge to the West but as a blueprint for a polycentric world order grounded in balance, anchored in organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS. She said that President Putin’s formulation is essentially the same as her own proposal for a new strategic architecture, as well as Xi Jinping’s Global Security and Global Governance Initiatives.
Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2008 to 2014, began by saying that Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s remarks were “very much in keeping with my own world-view.” He reported on the activities of the Gaza People’s Tribunal, which he called “an important civil society initiative” in response to the failure of the UN and international organizations to enforce the rulings of the International Court of Justice. He explained that these international organizations are unable to take on the “winners of World War II,” leading to a paralysis of the UN and kindred organizations. Veto power gives the most powerful states in the world an exemption from international law, which he said has “really made a mockery of the ‘never again’ pledge after the Holocaust.” The UNSC resolution on Gaza displayed a shocking disregard for what has been done to the Palestinians, and represents “a deception of hard-power geopolitics.” He expressed similar disdain for Trump’s purported “peace plan” for Gaza.
H.E. Amb. Abdullah Shawesh, of the Embassy of the Palestinian State to New Delhi, declared that sympathy for the Palestinians is fine, but we must “change the reality on the ground… everyone in the world can be a game-changer.” One practical measure which he endorsed was that individuals can back the boycott of Israeli businesses and institutions.
Zepp-LaRouche responded that we will continue to fight for the Oasis Plan, and create an international audience for it. To move people we must present a hopeful vision of the future. All of the crises we are discussing are “only symptoms of the collapsing order of the last 500 years,” and regional crises cannot be solved without a new strategic architecture.
John Steinbach, coordinator of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Committee of the of the National Capital Area praised Richard Falk for his role in history. He added that the neocons have urged the use of tactical nuclear weapons, an insanely reckless policy. Steinbach echoed Falk’s opposition to Trump’s so-called peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a plan which he described as “isolated concentration camps within a large concentration camp.” Israeli policy is run by the followers of Meir Kahane and Baruch Goldstein, Steinbach said.
In response to Steinbach and Zepp-LaRouche, Falk concurred that we need a “new framework to manage global security,” a “new architecture.”
EIR Ibero-American Editor Dennis Small offered good news, which is that there exists a “clear economic pathway to resolve the underlying problems.” The answer, he said, was to return to the 1933 Glass-Steagall standard. In the US today, four major banks hold the bulk of financial derivatives. The Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing bails this out, and does not rescue useful banking activity. Deposits from the Fed vastly outstrip the loans issued by banks, and the few loans that are actually going out are not for productive lending, but rather for more derivatives speculation. He described how Mexico’s banking system is run by Wall Street and the City of London, and how the Chicago Board of Trade is the global nerve center for derivatives trading. Compare China, he said, where the government regulates finance to ensure that almost all credit goes to actual production. He concluded by asserting that to save our banking system, we must write off over $2 quadrillion in derivatives.
Alberto Vizcarra of Mexico, adviser of the National Front for Saving Mexican Agriculture, analyzed the effects of financial speculation on Mexico’s agricultural sector. Protests and activism, such as the blocking of major highways in 17 states across Mexico, have begun to move the Mexican government to change the mechanisms which are oppressing Mexico’s farmers. The BRICS alliance is proposing international cooperation by producers to combat the influence of the Chicago Board of Trade.
Discussion
A Nigerian asked Zepp-LaRouche how to combat the smuggling of materials in Africa that are related to nuclear weapons production, as well as posing a more general question about how to solve the global crisis. Zepp-LaRouche, on the question of smuggling, said that this is up to governments, and that perhaps a regional security agreement could be reached to deal with the problem. On the broader issue, she reiterated that we are in a transition from the collapsing old order to something different, and that “we need a lot more discussion of the principles of the new order.”
Dennis Small returned to the question of how to envision and create a brighter future, utilizing human creativity which coheres with the natural progression toward higher ordering principles; “Optimism is the law of the universe,” he said, referencing Lyndon LaRouche’s Four Laws.A way out of the present turmoil exists; our job is to guide our fellow citizens to take advantage of it.
