På engelsk:
HARLEY SCHLANGER: Welcome to today’s weekly webcast with Schiller Institute founder and chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche. This is Wednesday, September 17, 2025; I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host. You can send your questions and comments to Helga via email, at questions@schillerinstitute.org, or you can post them on the chat page.
Helga, the title of today’s dialogue is, “Will Humanity Pass the Test of Morality?” This question was often posed by your late husband Lyndon LaRouche, asking the question, do people who speak of the loss of morality in society at large, have the courage to act when human civilization is at stake? This is especially relevant now, when the UN General Assembly will be meeting tomorrow to discuss putting an end to the genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinians, to come up with some ideas for how to deal with that? A UN Commission of Inquiry released a report yesterday which concluded that Israel {is} committing genocide. What can people do to make sure the United Nations member states act to uphold morality and international law?
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well there are many organizations, both from Israeli background, but also Palestinian background, humanitarian organizations, the Schiller Institute, the International Peace Coalition, and may others, that are presently insisting that given the fact that the UN Security Council has not acted—and it would be their responsibility to do something about something which has been established as genocide for a very long time, by the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court—that the decision-making be transferred to the UN General Assembly. There is a provision for that, which is called “Uniting for Peace”: It’s a UN Resolution 377, which basically says, that if for whatever reason, the UN Security Council is blocked, that power of decision-making can go over to the UN General Assembly by a vote of two-thirds, a two-thirds majority.
Now, it is not clear if a two-thirds majority would come about, but it is not to be excluded either, given the fact that the whole world is in an uproar. You had the combined meeting of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which is I think somewhere around 70 countries already right there, and they decided on a whole bunch of measures, in which the most obvious one is an immediate ceasefire, the immediate opening of all gates for humanitarian aid, but also more drastic measures, like sanctions against Israel, like the expulsion of Israel from the United Nations for the time of the ongoing crime. And I think such a decision must be made, and the nations of the world are called upon to intervene. Because, it’s sometimes almost impossible to still find words to describe what’s going on: You have since quite some days, the IDF assault on Gaza City which is 1 million people, the bombing of high-rise buildings, and you see the photos on the internet and TV, with high-rise buildings crumbling, burying entire families and people underneath the rubble. And then people are told to leave, but there’s no place to go to! This is 1 million people in Gaza City! The horror is just unbelievable, and there must be an urgent stop to that, because I think that we are sitting on a complete powderkeg in the Middle East.
You know now, Türkiye and others are basically saying, it’s not just what’s going on in Gaza and the West Bank, but they claim that Israel has expansionist intention for the entire region. They want part of Türkiye. Türkiye is getting rambunctious about that. They’re still depending a new strike, possibly against Iran, where we had a couple of weeks, the expert Ted Postol warning that we have two undeclared nuclear powers in the Middle East, which could trigger a global catastrophe. So, I think an action is immediately more than urgent, because I think a long-term and short-term effect of all of that Israel is making so many enemies that it is almost impossible how it should ever get an exit out of that. So Netanyahu appropriately warned the population, saying they have to be prepared for a long period of isolation, that Israel has to become like Sparta and Athens together, meaning basically autarky. And Egyptian President el-Sisi talked for the first time about Israel as “the enemy.”
Now, these are all extremely worrisome signs, and therefore, what people should do is, you should call your elected officials, or call the embassies of the countries of the Middle East, but also other countries, that they must act. Because this UN General Assembly is probably the last opportunity to avoid a complete catastrophe. I mean, I should not say this, because it is already a complete catastrophe, but to avoid that this conflict should explode into something which could become a global Armageddon.
SCHLANGER: You referenced Netanyahu talking about Israel as isolated, and therefore having to go it alone, and choosing Sparta as a model. I brought that up on the Daily Update today, and someone wrote to me and said: “Perhaps someone should read Schiller’s {Legislation of Lycurgus and Solon}, in Israel, so they can see what Netanyahu is actually planning to do to the population there.”
Now, we have a lot to cover. One week ago, on Sept. 10, a leading Republican activists, Charlie Kirk, of Turning Point USA, was killed while speaking at a college in Utah. {EIR} has described this as part of the strategy of tension. So I received an email from a contact in Columbus, Ohio, who said: “What do you mean by ‘strategy of tension’?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, that is actually a method, how governments, especially oligarchical governments, use terrorism, assassinations, destabilizations, large-scale, instigated demonstrations—I mean, all kinds of such measures essentially to divert attention from what is the real issue. And right now, I think the situation is so out of control internationally, because you have—I think if you look beyond all of the confetti, of what seems to be happening on a daily basis, the real issue right now is that there are forces in the so-called “West,” who are completely freaked out about the fact that they are suffering a self-inflicted crisis, caused by the rise of China, caused by the fact that the Global Majority, meaning the countries of the Global South, the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and many other organizations, like ASEAN, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and CELAC; many of these organizations are moving very clearly in the direction of building a new system. And I’m saying “self-inflicted” because they’re not doing that as an anti-Western move, not anti-American, not anti-European, but they’re doing it in self-defense. Because they don’t want to be bullied around any longer. They want to have access to credit conditions like everybody else, they don’t want to be deprived from economic development. So they’re moving towards the creation of a new economic system, based on the sovereignty of all nations, based on the respect for the different social system, according to their respective traditions. So this is all going on.
And there are some people who have married their self-interest to the quick profit of Wall Street, of the City of London, of Silicon Valley, and similar finance places, that think if they don’t control the conditions of money-lending, of trade, that they will lose their privileges. And naturally, the military-industrial complex on both sides of the Atlantic, has a big part in it.
So they are regarding this rise of the countries of the Global South as a mortal enemy, and the “strategy of tension” in that context is being deployed, in many countries, in order to prevent an orderly realignment of the countries of the Global South, and especially for them, the United States, of aligning with such a formation. And they got completely worried (“worried” is a too mild expression), they got completely freaked out after President Trump met with President Putin in Alaska, and found positive words for Putin, rolled out the red carpet, was riding in a car with him, having a private conversation—and they want to make sure that, rather chaos and tumult reigns, rather than the United States finding a way of normalizing relations with Russia—what Trump has promised many times. And now he wants to meet with President Xi on the telephone on Friday. And I think that there are centers that are completely freaked out about any positive alignment of President Trump with these forces. That’s, for sure, one dimension of what’s going on.
SCHLANGER: There’s one other question on the Kirk assassination. A contact wrote: “I don’t believe what police or officials say about these things, but all I see is people blaming each other, they’re talking about violence, even a civil war. Do you think something like that is possible? And who would benefit from something like that?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, obviously, this assassination of Charlie Kirk, who was close to J.D. Vance, who was a leading person in the MAGA for the student movement. I mean, obviously, this is a very, very serious affair. Unfortunately, President Trump immediately blamed the Democrats, he blamed the left, and in that way, inadvertently or not, he contributed to the polarization in the country. And you see a similar polarization even in Europe: This morning, there was a Bundestag debate, where the leader of the opposition, Alice Weidel [AfD] accused Chancellor Merz that he didn’t even mention this.
In any case, this incident or this murder, is being used to increase the tension, according to the Strategy of Tension MO. And I think it is extremely important that people recognize that this is going on, and that they don’t fall for that. But they stick to the idea of having a rational discussion with people who have a different political outlook, and keep to the idea that conflict resolution can only occur through dialogue, diplomacy, talking to the other side, and not by giving in to this polarization. Because I think it is a serious danger, because we are sitting on powder keg, internationally! I think that if there is not a rise to reason, and more people who basically have a sense of where society should go and come to the fore, that we are in a mortal danger of a civilizational collapse. I think it’s not inevitable, but I think the danger is clearly there, and therefore I think people of reason are called upon to act and intervene. Because I think every individual can do a lot in their immediate environment to establish a level of reason, when the emotions are flying high.
SCHLANGER: You mentioned that President Trump will be speaking by phone with President Xi of China. Of course, Xi has just had a successful series of events to pull together the Global South. And the question that comes in from someone who writes as an advocate of the BRICS, is: “What are the likely topics that Xi and Trump will cover? And do you think that Xi will discuss with Trump his misconception about the BRICS policy being anti-U.S. and anti-dollar?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I’m almost 100% certain that he will do that. I mean, obviously, they will discuss the tariffs. I think President Trump has made clear in the past that when there is a direct communication with a leader like Xi Jinping, that he can snap back into a reasonable approach on the matter. Because obviously, the tariffs between the two economies are hurting both sides, and potentially could trigger a whole collapse internationally, if these punitive tariffs verdicts are continuing to really weaken the world economy.
But I’m pretty sure that President Xi will also bring up something else, because you know, the Global Majority, which is now aligned with China, with India, with Brazil, with Russia, they had for the last several years, actually, two-three years, the discussion and implementation of three global initiatives of President Xi Jinping: the Global Security, Global Development, and Global Civilizational Initiative. And these are all part of a framework of diplomacy, how to put the whole international system of governance on a harmonious basis, based essentially on the UN Charter, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and just in the last several weeks, I think around the big military parade on the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, President Xi proposed a fourth initiative, called the Global Governance Initiative. And I think this is a document of the utmost importance. I read the whole thing, and it is a very elaborated, concrete proposal, how to improve international relations, to create an international framework of creating a new system of governance, based on sovereignty, equality, you know, that small countries have as much of a voice as big countries; that no conflict can be decided upon over the head of any country—many, many such things. And when I read this, I said: “Oh! This is exactly fitting with what the Schiller Institute has been calling for, for the last more than three years, namely, a new global security and development architecture, which I always insisted must take into account the interest of every single country on the planet, or it does not work.
And this GGI is actually, you can take it as a complementary set of ideas, also fitting my Ten Principles, which I wrote for how such a security and development architecture could look like. And if you take these three documents together—our proposal for the global security and development architecture; the Ten Principles; and then, very concrete and elaborated proposal by President Xi Jinping for a new Global Governance Initiative—this is actually a very concrete blueprint for the establishment of what President Xi Jinping always calls the “Shared Community for the Future of Mankind”: Which is a beautiful idea. It is the idea that we have reached, in the history of mankind, a point where we either start to move to think the one humanity first, before we think about any national interest, or regional interest, or group interest. Because only if we make this jump, which is an evolutionary jump, where you start to really give up on the idea of geopolitics and the idea of chauvinism, and the idea that you have a legitimate right you can enforce, even by force on other countries, that idea has to go! All you have to do, is look at the chaos in the world! Look at the chaos in the Middle East, look at the chaos inside the United States, look at the chaos in Europe which is not any better off, and you can see that a continuation of the present bullying policies will only lead to a global catastrophe.
And I have said the whole time, that it means, we have to change the axioms of our thinking. And that change, just to give you a pedagogical example for how to imagine such a change, just think how people were thinking in the Middle Ages, in the 14th century, for example: You had the Black Death, you had superstition, you had the Aristotelian idea that anything has to be based on the contradiction that “A is not B.” You had the scholastics, who were debating how many angels can sit on the head of a pin, and superstition, and witchcraft, and all these crazy ideas. And then came the beautiful Italian Renaissance, which was a Renaissance of the ancient Greek philosophy of Platonism, the Greek delegation who participated in the Council of Florence: they brought the entire works of Plato, which had been forgotten in Europe, because of the Roman Empire and the decline of the Greek model; Plato had been basically forgotten for about 1300 or even 1700 years. And there was a Renaissance, because there was a translation of the entire works of Plato, you had the writings of Nikolaus of Cusa; you had a revival of the humanist traditions of Dante, of Petrarca, incredible breakthroughs in architecture and painting. And what happened in that 15th century, which is called the “Golden Renaissance of Italy,” everything, every assumption, every axiom of thinking changed about what is an individual? What is the role of the universe? What is the relation between the individual and the laws of the universe? What is the role of science and technology in the improvement of the living standard of the population? You had an increase in urban life.
So, if you compare the 14th century and the 15th century, in Italy especially, but also in other parts of Europe, it was like a completely new thinking. And I’m using that as an example, to show that if we, today, can mobilize the intellectual and moral resources to say, that if we continue with this geopolitical confrontation, the idea that you always need an enemy to make progress: That’s a rotten idea! We should get rid of it, and we should move to the idea that once you start to think about the interests of the one humanity first, and then align whatever specific interest you have as a nation, or as a group, with that one humanity, you can solve all the problems, if it is based on the development of all.
So, that’s a mental exercise, but it’s not just academic, because the Global South is already moving in that direction, because they want to get rid of being the victims of colonialism, and therefore, they have found a new way of cooperating in an harmonious way. And I would even think that the influence of China is very big, but not in the way some of the Western geopoliticians are trying to tell you: It is the influence of Confucius. Confucius, who is, for sure, the greatest philosopher of China, who had this idea of a harmonious development, which is the same idea that you have in Leibniz, you have it in Nikolaus of Cusa, who had the idea that harmony in the macrocosm can only exist if you have a development of all microcosms. And I think that that is sort of the epochal, ontological shift, you know, the jump we have to make in our thinking.
SCHLANGER: Now, on the diplomatic front…
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: And I’m sure that President Xi Jinping will bring all of these things up in his way—not the way I said it—but I’m sure he will bring up this Global Governance Initiative to President Trump. Because remember, that President Xi already had made a similar proposal—much less developed, but a similar—to President Obama, where he had proposed a special model of a great power relationship, which was based on the same ideas as they’re now contained in the Global Governance Initiative. And therefore, I’m 100% sure that President Xi will bring the same concept, in an enlarged way, up with President Trump.
SCHLANGER: Well, it will be interesting to see how President Trump responds, as he’s been saying, he’s really looking forward to an opportunity to meet with President Xi.
Now, we have another, I guess it’s a diplomatic meeting: Trump is now in London, hosted by King Charles III. We have from the chat room, from someone dreaming of a better day, asking: “What do you think the royal family and Trump are talking about?” But let me bring up a specific question on that: Do you think Trump will bring up the role of the United Kingdom intelligence services in setting up Russiagate? And also the role of Starmer in the E3, which seems to be defying Trump’s desire for peace in Ukraine?
Is it possible—and this is a question from one of our contacts in London—”Is it possible this visit is about reaffirming the special relationship?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, obviously! I mean, I’m not optimistic about what will come out of this meeting, because, I think Starmer invited President Trump to this trip, with the clear intention to lure President Trump into this “special relationship,” by papering over the British role in Russiagate, the British role in the E3 effort to sabotage the peace in Ukraine. And I’m not so optimistic that President Trump is inoculated against such efforts. Because, I mean, I always hope for the better, but he said that he’s so proud that he’s the only head of state who has been invited twice to such a state visit. He expressed at various occasions that he is a friend of Prince Charles—King Charles by now. How can you be a friend of King Charles? I mean—[laughter] it’s completely unimaginable, such an idea. Then, also Trump is quoted already that he says that the Windsor Castle is much better than Buckingham Palace. I mean, these are all this pomp of an outdated British monarchy! I mean, the British monarchy is outdated, the latest since the American Revolution, and I hope President Trump remembers that! That the American war against Great Britain was the War of Independence, and the creation of the American republic.
Now, I’m not so hopeful that he can avoid be cornered and lured into, really, this operatic world of the 18th century, or some museum of the 18th century. What do you need monarchies for, in the modern times? The idea of monarchy is based on a racial inequality, by the assumption that there are some people who have not red blood, but blue blood, and that they are something better! If you want to know why I’m so upset about monarchies, read the {Letters of Joseph de Maistre to a Russian Prince.} This is a very famous piece of literature, where he describes in great detail why monarchs and high nobility are so much superior to the ordinary folk. And it’s the same—it’s really terrible! And I can only hope that somehow, President Trump manages to get out of there without losing his mind completely to this pomp.
So, I’m really concerned. I don’t think this is for any good thing. If they want to have big business, already there are headlines that big AI firms are planning to invest bigtime in Great Britain. I think they’re trying to use all tricks to reinforce this special relationship: I think that’s what the name of the game is.
SCHLANGER: And one of the areas where the British are very keen on getting more cooperation, is on cyber-security, on surveillance, and, of course, that fits in with the whole question of the strategy of tension.
Now, to conclude: It would be a Zepp-LaRouche webcast without a few questions on Germany, and I can tell you, Helga, Americans are very interested in your thoughts on this.
Now, the first one is that the question came from someone who actually is an American, who read that the former head of the Munich Security Conference Heusgen warned that Germany could be found complicit in genocide, if weapons supplied by Germany to Israel are used to kill. And he asks: “Is this a sign that there are some in Germany who are rethinking their support for Ukraine and Israel?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think this is very important, because Mr. Heusgen is not exactly a peacenik. He was the adviser of Merkel at the time when Merkel was declaring that the security of Israel is the {raison d’être} for Germany: which is what people always recall when they went into this unlimited support for Israel, no matter what the present government was doing. And if this same person, who is in all likelihood the architect of that notion, that the security of Israel is the {raison d’être} for Germany, is now warning that, given the fact that the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, already much more than a year ago, found the likelihood that Israel is committing genocide, which in the meantime has been reasserted by a UN commission being absolutely 100% certain on that assertion; so, obviously, when Heusgen now says that if Merz sticks to his policy to invite Netanyahu to Germany, despite the fact that there is an arrest warrant by these UN courts, that Germany could be accused juridically of aiding and abetting genocide.
Now, that’s a very serious argument, especially in Germany, given the history of the Holocaust, you now, this topic of genocide and Holocaust, all of that is more emotionally charged in Germany, for the obvious reasons than in any other place in the world. So Heusgen was German ambassador to the UN. In any case, he’s very well briefed, and he has a good sense of where things are: He would not put out such a warning, if he would not see a serious reason that this might happen, and he says, this would be devastating. And it obviously would.
So I can only hope that at this present UN General Assembly, that Germany—I can only hope that Merz is listening to Heusgen; I don’t see much hope for Merz, but hopefully he listens to that warning.
SCHLANGER: Now, the other question on Germany is about actually what’s going on the EU generally, where all this talk about “democracy” is subverted by the fact that they’re ruling against the will of the people. You have in Romania, [former right-wing presidential candidate] Calin Georgescu is not only denied the chance to be the President, but was not even allowed to run. Marine Le Pen has been excluded from the next French election. And meanwhile, you have the collapse of the French government. But it looks as though there are still people seriously trying to ban the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) from participating in elections, even though the vote, or probably because the vote they got in North Rhine-Westphalia was three times larger than it was just a few years ago. Do you really think that the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats would join forces to try to ban a political party in Germany?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, it is ridiculous, because the AfD in some states, like I think Saxon-Anhalt, is leading in the polls, and the Greens, which has 3% of the vote are talking about banning the AfD! Which shows you what democratic sense they have.
I think, if they would do that, it would really explode the country. I think, given the fact that people are really, absolutely feel that the present government—you go from a bad, I mean, Merkel was already bad! Because it was a stagnation of 16 years of nothing moved forward in a positive way; she did a lot of bad things, like the exit from nuclear energy without an alternative, and so forth and so on. But it went downhill from there! And now, the “streetlight coalition” [SPD, CDU, Greens] was voted out, because they were completely hated. But everybody is now saying, after only three months of the new so-called “Grand Coalition,” which is not so grand at all, that they’re worse than the streetlight coalition.
The people have in the country, profoundly, the idea that they have no place to go! The government has something like 20, 22% approval rating, which is nothing! It’s terrible.
So I think the idea to ban the AfD would really explode the country, and the recent communal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, where the SPD was the big loser, and the whole discussion was that, that means their role in the Grand Coalition would now be diminished, they have to follow what Merz [CDU] is saying, and Merz will go for brutal cuts in the social field. And if the SPD is accepting their role as a junior partner in the Grand Coalition, meaning that the CDU/CSU will basically give direction where it’s going and especially in the social field, the SPD will vanish! The Social Democracy will become the single-digit party or less. Because they have already lost their traditional voters.
And I think the campaign, what we are doing with the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity [BüSo] and the Schiller Institute, where we campaign to completely change the course of Germany and basically say that the {only} way {all of Europe} can get out of this present existential crisis, is that we change direction, and join with the countries of the Global Majority. We should stop the idea that we have to somehow, geopolitically balance ourselves against the other great powers, Russia, China and the United States. That policy has failed! And all of Europe is in a complete disarray, and there are many commentators in the international press, India, in China, in Russia, in Africa, that Europe is a lost model, that they have completely failed, and they have become marginalized and become completely unimportant. That the center of politics has already shifted to Asia. Asia is where the growth rates are. Europe is where the collapse rates are.
I mean, there are commentators in the international media saying that they think Europe will continue to collapse, until you have a generational change, and the present cast of so-called leaders is replaced by a new generation. Now, that could take a long time, and you could have the destruction of Europe, which I think would be devastating, because, you know, Europe may have bad leadership right now, but Europe has a cultural heritage, which {must} play an important role in any future world community! What a shame if the beautiful compositions of Bach, and Beethoven and Shakespeare and Schiller and Dante, all of this would be lost! We really have to fight to bring back the best traditions of Europe, and hopefully, that we can inspire people to take up the offer of cooperation with the Global Majority. Because then, all problems could be solved, very, very easily.
SCHLANGER: Well, we’ve come to the end. I have to ask you about the IPC meeting on Friday. The Schiller Institute and the International Peace Coalition have been very active at the UN, with rallies, with the [beautiful concert on Sept. 14](https://www.sinycchorus.com/cherubini_requiem_for_the_victims_of_war) which you can see on Schiller Institute NYC Chorus website. But what you do you have in store for the International Peace Coalition Zoom call on Friday [Sept. 19]?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: We will have several speakers from the Global South, from India, from Africa; then naturally, the Middle East situation, given the ongoing explosion there. That will be a topic, and we will have speakers as usual from Israel and from Palestine. And naturally, from Latin America.
You should absolutely join us, because the need to unify the peace movement has never been greater! And I think that distinguishes the International Peace Coalition from other elements of the peace movement, is that we are not only opposing war and genocide, but that we are actively discussing how to get to the root causes of these difficulties or problems, by creating solutions: Like creating a new economic system, where everybody can participate: the Oasis Plan, the building of the Bering Strait connection between the Americas and the Eurasian continent, as part of the World Land-Bridge. So these conceptions are extremely important, because I think we really need to think of remedying the causes for the war, and not just be against war.
SCHLANGER: I should have mentioned it earlier, that you have on the Schiller Institute website, the [Ten Principles](https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2022/11/30/ten-principles-of-a-new-international-security-and-development-architecture/) that you wrote, that should govern relations, and should at least be a discussion topic; and then secondly, the [leaflet and the call](https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/join_the_new_emerging_economic_order) for the West to join with the new economic architecture.
So, Helga, thanks for taking the time to join us today, and we’ll see you later this week and again this time next week.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Hopefully on Friday. Till then!