State Dept Issues Global Travel Warning Over "Increased Tension" Following Biden’s Israel Trip. PLUS: Interview w/ Israeli Lawmaker—Ofer Cassif—Just Suspended for Denouncing War on Gaza | SYSTEM UPDATE #166
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, Less than 24 hours after Joe Biden appeared at the side of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pledged full-scale and unlimited support for the Israeli war effort in Gaza, similar to what the United States pledged for the war effort in Ukraine, the State Department earlier today issued what it called a quote, worldwide caution for all Americans traveling anywhere abroad.
Citing, quote, the potential risk for terrorist attacks and, quote, violent actions against U.S.
citizens, the warning urged Americans overseas to, quote, exercise increased tension, exercise increased attention.
On last night's episode of System Update, we pose these two questions.
One, is full-scale U.S.
support for the Israeli war in Gaza more likely to strengthen the security for American citizens or more likely to undermine it?
And two, when deciding whether the U.S.
should fund and arm a foreign country, and specifically whether to fund and arm Israel, is that metric, the security of American citizens, even a relevant metric at all, let alone the overarching one?
As is true for the debate over whether to involve the U.S.
in the war in Ukraine, it appears that the security of American citizens is the least important consideration that's evaluated, if it even ranks at all as something to consider.
Other events over the past 24 hours, including several attacks on U.S.
troops in the Middle East and the resignation of a longtime State Department official on the ground that arming and funding Israel in this war runs counter to the interests of the American people, Makes it more urgent than ever to ask whether, as was true for the war in Ukraine, Biden's war policies are benefiting several groups of people, none of whom is the ordinary American citizen, whose interests are likely to be far more harmed than promoted by American involvement in this new war.
Then, a member of the Israeli Knesset, Ofer Qasif, joins us tonight for our interview segment.
Dr. Qasif is a vocal and longtime critic of the Netanyahu government from his position as a member of the Knesset and has spoken out in opposition as well to various components of the Israeli response in Gaza to Hamas' attack on Israel on October 8th.
In fact, he was just suspended by the Knesset.
For 45 days from performing his duties or attending parliamentary committees, following particularly harsh criticism he expressed over the last week.
While not all of Dr. Cassie's views are shared by a majority of Israelis, he most definitely speaks for many Israelis with views that are often overlooked or actively suppressed in the Western media.
We think it's vital that Americans understand that Israelis are no more monolithic than any other group and that those in the United States who seem fond of anointing themselves spokesperson for all Jews or for all Israelis are, in fact, speaking only for themselves.
We have no doubt that hearing from him will prove enlightening and will broaden the scope of our understanding of how Israelis are debating Netanyahu's competence and the key questions driving Israel's new war.
As a few programming notes, we are encouraging our viewers here on the show to download the Rumble app, which works both on your smart TV and your phone.
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It really helps the platform as well as our program.
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Each episode posts 12 hours after their first broadcast live here on Rumble to Spotify, Apple, and all other major podcasting platforms.
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Finally, as a last reminder, being that this is Thursday night, every Tuesday and Thursday night, once we're done with This show we move to our live interactive show on The Locals, which is part of the Rumble platform, and that is an interactive after show where we take your questions, respond to your feedback, hear your critiques.
That show is available only for our local subscribers to become a member of our Locals community, which also gives you access, not just to that twice a week after show, but the daily transcripts we publish of each show here as well as original journalism that we produce and just in general it helps support the independent journalism that we do here simply click the join button right below the video page and it will take you to the locals platform and that will give you access to the interactive show
as we have been saying we are trying different ways to interact a lot more with the live chat that we have on this program I've been attempting on a few occasions right before the show starts to spend a few minutes interacting with that chat.
You'll know it's me, there's sometimes impersonators, because I have the verified check mark, the rumble check mark, right after my name.
I spent some time talking today to viewers who were trying to guess what my outfit would be, as well as to get some input about whether people think There is too much coverage on this show of this war.
It's basically been the primary focal point of our coverage ever since last Monday, so it's almost two full weeks now of covering this war.
On the one hand, we understand that there are other issues taking place.
On the other, the U.S.
media coverage of Israel in general, and certainly now, tends to be so monolithic that we feel that some kind of counter coverage for balance Is necessary.
But as I said in the chat, we do intend to start diversifying, once again, the kind of topics and the range of subjects we cover, providing there's no major new escalations or developments in this war.
But this is now an American war, and we think it is vital to pay attention to it.
That's a little taste of the kind of chat we just had in the live chat, and we're hoping to integrate the live chat even more into our show.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
The first part of last night's show was devoted to trying to raise the question, one that amazingly is almost entirely absent from mainstream political and media discourse, one that amazingly is almost entirely absent from mainstream political and media discourse, of whether Joe Biden's decision to fly to Israel to stand by Prime Minister Netanyahu's side and to pledge full-fledged and unlimited
Giving them all the weapons and all the money they need, he said, until this war is won.
Very similar to the kind of maximalist, unlimited pledge he gave to Kiev, saying we will arm you and fund you as well until the end of your war.
Whether that decision, that policy, is going to have any effect on the security of American citizens and on the United States, it seems to me
That the question of whether a policy will increase or subvert the security of American citizens not ought to be one, but the primary question that drives discussion of foreign policy in general and the question of whether we should involve ourselves in a war in particular.
And yet, it seems as though people are very excited about this war, they're very animated by the need for the United States to side with Israel, and yet there's no discussion at all about what seem to be the very obvious and glaring potential risks to the security of American citizens, which again, protecting that ought to be the primary goal of US foreign policy.
I don't think anyone can make a case that Hamas Which has always confined itself to questions involving the Palestinian state and Israeli conflicts with Israel over control over that land.
Is a threat to the United States?
I don't think anyone can legitimately make that case.
But you certainly can make a case that having the United States be the primary sponsor and be perceived as the primary sponsor of a war that currently involves blockading water and food and medicine and other humanitarian necessities entering Gaza while Gaza is bombed aggressively.
More bombs dropped on Gaza in a week than the United States in some years dropped on all of Afghanistan, even though Gaza is a much more densely populated area, whether that might generate some anti-American sentiments around the world that can in turn result in attacks on American citizens or violence against them or terrorist attacks plotted on major American institutions.
It seems clear From having lived through the war on terror in 9-11, that that is at least a potential or likely outcome.
And yet there's almost no discussion about that.
We have over the last 24 hours, since we raised that question on last night's program, some important evidence about the very real risk that Joe Biden's policy toward Israel can be posing for American citizens.
So earlier today, the State Department Issued a worldwide travel advisory.
The State Department issues travel advisories, usually warning Americans about travel to a particular country because of political unrest there or intelligence of a potential terrorist attack.
This is a worldwide advisory to American citizens.
And what it says is, quote, due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstration or violent actions against US citizens and interests, the Department of State advises American citizens overseas to exercise increased caution.
This was the phrase that really caught my attention.
Violent actions against American citizens and interests overseas.
Meaning that if you're an American citizen and you are traveling somewhere in the world for business, for pleasure, for whatever reason, there is now, as a result of Joe Biden's policy of involving the United States in the war in Israel, an increased risk that you will be targeted with violent attacks.
That seems like a pretty significant cost to me.
For the United States to make Israel's war our war.
Now, maybe on balance, the security of American citizens is still being enhanced.
Maybe there are big benefits to our national security from getting involved in this war.
Or maybe somehow there are threats to the security of Americans from not helping the Israelis in their war in Gaza against Hamas.
But I don't hear those harms.
I don't hear those risks.
But I do see these risks.
And now the State Department has formalized them.
They're advising that American citizens overseas should, quote, stay alert in locations frequented by tourists.
So that's a pretty clear risk that there may be people in parts of the world who are extremely enraged by what the Israelis are doing in Gaza and see Americans tied at the hip to Israel, knowing that the bombs they're watching are provided by the United States.
That the blockade of humanitarian assistance was enabled by the United States veto of a resolution that got 12 out of 15 votes on the Security Council to allow humanitarian assistance to enter.
And there is now a risk of increased violence against American citizens.
I would think that's a major consideration.
Now, in addition to that, here from Reuters, you see the headline, U.S. troops are attacked in Iraq, Syria, and on alert for more strikes.
So in that region, there are already violent attacks aimed at American troops in retaliation for the involvement of the United States in this war in Gaza by Israel, quote.
Quote, U.S.
troops have been repeatedly attacked in Iraq and Syria in recent days, U.S.
officials said on Thursday, as Washington is on heightened alert for activity by Iran-backed groups with regional tensions soaring during the Israel-Hamas war.
There has been an uptick in attacks on U.S.
forces since the conflict in Israel broke out on October 7th, when Palestinian militants from Hamas attacked southern Israel.
On Wednesday, a drone hit U.S.
forces in Syria, resulting in minor injuries while another one was brought down.
Now, there is this independent question, by the way, of why are U.S.
forces still in Syria?
We spent years unsuccessfully trying with a CIA covert operation under President Obama to dislodge Bashar al-Assad from power in a regime change operation that ended up destroying Syria that caused us to fight on the side of Al Qaeda who was also trying to remove Bashar al-Assad and yet it didn't work and yet U.S.
troops are still in Syria.
We're not at war in Syria.
The argument is we're there to protect our Kurdish allies, but U.S.
troops are stationed in Syria.
This is not normal or common for almost every country on earth to have U.S.
forces and U.S.
bases parked all over the world.
Most countries don't ever have this, putting their troops in other countries without the permission or invitation of the government of that country, and yet the U.S.
does it all the time.
The only time we even remember that we have US forces there is when they're vulnerable to attack, as they have been over the last week because of anti-American anger and the recognition in that region, at least, that we're responsible for this war.
Why is that worth it?
Maybe there are benefits to these harms to American citizens and American soldiers, but they should be stated what those are.
Now it's not just in Iraq and Syria.
Here from CNN, U.S.
Navy warship near Yemen intercepts multiple missiles, U.S.
officials say.
So there was a Navy warship near Yemen that apparently was attacked by missiles and the Navy warship was able to intercept it.
Now, this idea that the United States supporting Israel, providing Israel with the arms it uses against its enemies, creates risk to American security and to the security of American citizens is by far not new.
It's not something that I'm a pioneer in pointing out.
In fact, it has been a Debate for a long time.
Here's just the paragraph on what happened in Syria.
You see, the incident was one of a series in recent days with U.S.
bases being targeted by drones in Syria and Iraq amid tensions increasing in the region as the war between Israel and Hamas continues.
But this idea that the United States provokes rest To its national security and to the security of its own citizens by constantly arming and standing at the side of Israel and its wars is something that a lot of people, including people who are senior in the U.S.
security state, have been trying to point out for many years.
And it's one of the most taboo points you can make.
People have had their careers ruined by pointing that out.
They've had to apologize.
They've been condemned by the ADL when they've tried to say it.
People who have spent their lives inside the State Department or the military who are saying one of the major vulnerabilities we have in the Middle East is that we support Israel so fanatically that it makes people in that region who are angry at Israel direct their anger at us and want to do violence against us.
We went over all the historical examples including 9-11.
And many other times where that was cited as a reason why people want to bring violence to the United States.
Here, just today, is a New York Times article on a State Department official.
He posted a letter to LinkedIn announcing his resignation from the State Department due to his Protest of, or objections to, the massive amount of weapons we're now transferring to Israel for this war.
Quote, Josh Paul spent more than 11 years as the Director of Congressional and Public Affairs at the Bureau that oversees arms transfers to foreign nation.
And yet, he resigned today, and part of what his letter said was the following, quote, There isn't any significant pushback likely from Congress, there isn't any other oversight mechanism, there isn't any other forum for debate, and that's part of what got into my decision making, he said in this resignation letter.
He went on, quote, continuing to give Israel, this is the New York Times description, continuing to give Israel what he described as carte blanche to kill a generation of enemies only to create a new one does not ultimately serve the United States' interests, Mr. Paul said.
What it leads to is its desire to sort of impose security at any cost, including in cost of the Palestinian civilian population.
And that ultimately does not lead, and that doesn't ultimately lead to security.
Now, again, I'm sure there are people in the United States with such an attachment to and affinity for Israel that they believe the United States government should support Israel even if it means risking the lives or risking the security of I'm sure there are people in the United States with such an That they believe the United States government should support Israel even if it means risking the lives or risking the security of American citizens.
That's how important it is to them.
But shouldn't it be so self-evident that it doesn't require debate that the primary The responsibility of American policymakers in Washington, especially on foreign policy and deciding whether or not to involve America in a new war, is what effect it has not on the lives and interests of foreign governments like Ukrainians or Israelis, but on the lives of American citizens.
And if it actually renders American citizens more vulnerable to risk to their security and safety, that would seem like a pretty good reason Not to do it, or at least a strong reason that militates against doing it.
Now, people, as I said, have pointed this out over the years, including General David Petraeus, who was the commander of U.S.
forces in Iraq and then Afghanistan, and then ran the CIA for President Obama.
And in 2010, he pointed out that one of the main risks to the United States and the Middle East, one of the main reasons why our forces are vulnerable to attack is because of our support for Israel.
And this created a gigantic storm.
Here in 2010, Jeffrey Goldberg, the neocon and hawk, Who has a long history of defending Israel, published an article in the Atlantic entitled, General Petraeus is Right.
And it was about this controversy.
Here's what General, or here's what Jeffrey Goldberg wrote.
Who, by the way, Jeffrey Goldberg actually served in the Israeli Defense Forces as an American citizen.
He went and volunteered there.
He worked in a prison that imprisoned Palestinians.
So, his commitment to Israel really can't be questioned.
He went and served in that government's military.
And here's what he wrote, quote, General David Petraeus caused a bit of a storm recently when he linked the impasse in the Middle East peacemaking.
Impasse might be too soft a word, actually, to various difficulties America faces in the Muslim world.
Quote, Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large scale armed confrontations.
The confrontations foment anti-American sentiment due to a perception of US favoritism for Israel.
Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S.
partnerships with governments and peoples in the region and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world.
So David Petraeus was trying to warn, and he got attacked by the ADL and other groups, that our constant, unyielding support for Israeli wars Jeopardizes severely our interest in security in the Middle East.
Here is the New York Times in 2009 on a different security official, Charles Freeman, who was nominated in the Obama administration for a fairly high-level intelligence position, and he had to drop out, or he did drop out because of massive amounts of controversy, including from Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the Senate's most vocal Israel supporters.
Who essentially tried to argue that he was unqualified for this position because, echoing David Petraeus, Charles Friedman had also in the past warned of the cost to the United States and to its security and the security of its citizens from doing things like what Joe Biden is doing now, namely arming and funding the Israeli wars.
Quote, Mr. Friedman has long been critical of Israel with the bluntness that American officials rarely voice in public.
About the staunch American ally.
In 2006, he warned that, quote, left to its own devices, the Israeli establishment will make decisions that harm Israelis, threaten all associated with them, and enrage those who are not.
He did not soften his tone even on Wednesday when he was forced to drop out, saying in an interview that, quote, Israel is driving itself toward a cliff and it is irresponsible not to question Israeli policy and to decide what is best for the American people.
Now again, this was turned into a taboo point, but as the United States is about to lend its full-fledged support, as Joe Biden says, to this new war in Israel, one that is provoking all kinds of rage and even violence in the Middle East, not just against Israel, but now against American citizens, to the point the State Department issued a global warning.
It is imperative not to let that be a taboo, but instead to raise the question.
Whether the United States' decision to involve itself in this Israeli war, once again, is helpful to or harmful to the national security of the United States and the physical security of the American citizens, and therefore whether or not it ought to be done.
Now, we have a guest who is going to be very helpful in answering those questions and exploring the Israeli view about this war and about a lot of those questions.
And right after this, we're going to have our interview segment.
So for our interview segment tonight, we will speak to Ofrak Asif, who is an elected member of the Israeli Knesset with the Hadash Party.
Dr. Kasif is an outspoken critic of the Netanyahu government for multiple reasons, including the Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinians, treatment that he and his allies had warned for quite a while Would result in attacks of the kind Israel suffered at the hands of Hamas last Saturday.
For that reason and others, Dr. Kasif is a polarizing and quite controversial figure in Israel.
He was just suspended for 45 days by the Knesset in the wake of his criticism of his government's response.
But he also represents the views of a non-trivial yet often overworked faction in Israeli politics.
And whatever one thinks of his views, He is an informed and forceful proponent of them.
And for that reason, we are delighted to welcome him to System Update at a time of highly consequential decisions facing not only the Israeli government, but its American allies in Washington as well.
We are delighted to speak to him.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
Hope you're having a good evening.
Thank you very much.
I hope everybody will very soon have a good evening.
I hope so.
I hope so.
So let me begin by asking you about the political situation in Israel.
As an American, a lot of our frame of reference is what happened after the 9-11 attack, which a lot of people are comparing, not necessarily in scope, but in kind of tenor to the Hamas attack last Saturday.
And in the United States, for sure, there was this kind of rally around the flag.
Reaction where Americans united in support of government policy but also united in support of President Bush.
His approval rating skyrocketed.
People were willing to give him a lot of benefit of the doubt.
What is the situation like in regards to that with Israelis?
Are they also similarly rallying around not just the flag but also Prime Minister Netanyahu?
First of all, of course, I have to be very clear in condemning totally the massacre, the slaughter that was carried out by Hamas against innocent civilians in the south of Israel.
And at the same time, I also want to be very clear in my objection to the massacre that Israel carries out against Gaza.
And that has to be very clear because ...doctored by Israel are mainly innocent, and not the Hamas terrorists.
is a terrorist group as was proven in this slaughter that took place last week or two weeks.
... weeks ago actually.
... represent our four, justice.
They are not anti-Israeli.
They are normally biased politicians and others.
They are for justice.
And justice is for the benefit of all Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Now, what's going on now in Israel, unfortunately, following the really terrible, horrific massacre that took place in the south, is that the vast majority of the people in Israel seek revenge.
And the government, which has always been a populist government, a rightist populist government, Doesn't really assault Gaza in order to deliver security for the Israelis.
I want the Israelis to live in peace and security, obviously.
My family, friends are there.
I'm normally there.
But this is not a personal thing, of course.
A political and moral and ideological one.
So of course I want the Israelis to live in peace and security.
I want the same for the Palestinians.
It must be very clear to everybody that there is a symbiosis between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
If one side lives without security and peace, necessarily the other one lives without security and peace, and vice versa.
It's not a game, it's exactly the opposite.
Now, as I began to say, it's very unfortunate that given the massacre and following it, the government of Israel, a terrible assault on the people, the Palestinian people in Gaza.
And by the way, in the West Bank, the situation is very dire as well, if we have the time, I can explain in length.
And the vast majority, as I said, of Israelis, because they seek revenge, because they are, you know, in rage and pain, and justly so.
So instead of really thinking in the long run what's going to happen in the long run, instead of thinking and planning how to get rid of this bloodshed, how to end this terrible bloodshed of Palestinians and Israelis alike, They think, or if ever thinking, if thinking is the term to use, they feel, I would say, including the government, that they must seek revenge.
And the government is also embarrassed because what led to the massacre in the South, militarily speaking at the moment, is a huge fiasco by the government.
And they are embarrassed, especially Netanyahu, who is, of course, full responsible for this fiasco.
So because of that, we see not only a criminal assault on Gaza, criminal to the extent that it entails war crimes against innocent people.
Again, that's not to say that Hamas didn't commit war crimes.
Of course, he did.
Anyway, so on top of that, on top of the immoral assault on Gaza, it's also damaging the Israeli interests and the Israeli security as well, let alone of the Palestinians.
So my criticism is in all those dimensions, the moral, the political, the security issue.
But you can see something very interesting in regards specifically to Netanyahu and his government, specifically Netanyahu.
On the one hand, as I just tried to explain, because everybody or most of the people seeks revenge, and I have to say most of the people, there is a peace movement in Israel of Jews and Arabs together.
And they want to go to the streets and demonstrate, but just at the moment it's forbidden.
Part of being the only democracy in the Middle East is the fact that at the moment in Israel it's forbidden to demonstrate against the war and express sympathy for the children who are killed in Gaza.
Everybody who tries, anyone who tries to do so is arrested, interrogated, and if it's in a demonstration in the street, will probably be beaten by the police.
That's happened yesterday and today a few times.
So in that sense, as I said, on the one hand, people seek revenge, and because of that they support what the government do.
On the other hand, people, including people who are surrounding Netanyahu, knows that the fiasco is his.
So at the same time what Israel has been doing the last week and a half in Gaza, They also were talking at the same time about the day after in which Netanyahu must be gone and must resign or must be fired or whatever.
So that's kind of, I would say, a dialectical aspect.
Attitude towards Netanyahu and his government, that is to say, a combination of two contradictions.
On the one hand, support for the activities or for the assault that the government of Israel carries out against Gaza.
On the other hand, we wish him well and go home.
So let me ask you this just to raise again the 9-11 comparison because I did think it was interesting.
On that Saturday and Sunday when people in the West woke up and it was Saturday morning when people started to see the videos and hear the reports and then by Sunday the full scope of Hamas's massacre became clear.
Almost everybody, I would say, other than a few small exceptions, reacted to the Hamas attack with disgust and horror and rage.
Almost everybody condemned it, including longtime critics of the Israeli government and the Israeli occupation.
That was just a given.
It wasn't just a unity in Israel, but also in the U.S.
and in the West.
And that's exactly what happened after the 9-11 attack as well, was people united and thought what Al Qaeda had done to the United States was morally disgusting and indefensible, attacking civilians.
And the lesson That we learned, I think, and our reaction was just because we were right to be enraged doesn't mean that everything we did in response or everything that we did in the name of punishing the people who did it, a lot of that ended up being counterproductive or shameful.
So you're saying that the Israelis and many Israeli leaders, many Israeli citizens are acting with vengeance and I can understand that.
But Naftali Bennett had an essay in The Economist, the former Israeli Prime Minister, where he said, no, we have a strategy in what we're doing in cutting off food and water and medicine and embalming as much as we can in Gaza.
Our strategy is to put fear Look, that's a very infantile point of view, what Mr. Bennett said.
afraid that they give up and surrender in submission and will never attack us again.
Is that part of the strategy?
And if so, what do you think of that?
Look, that's a very infantile point of view, what Mr. Bennett said.
I'm not very sure that he believes in himself in what he said, because it's very clear from history it's not only a theoretical issue.
But from history, it's well known that the people who live under oppression, it may be a national oppression, it may be a religious oppression, it may be gender oppression.
But if we just narrow it to people under national occupation, it's very clear that when there is hope for liberation, then the fanatics turn quite weaker.
Because when people have hope, they don't do normally crazy and fanatic things.
On the other hand, when people feel that there's nothing to lose, that reminds me of a very famous A saying by Karl Marx, who said that the worker has nothing to lose but his chains.
So when people feel that they have nothing to lose but their chains, they do crazy, fanatic things.
And that's exactly the opposite of what Mr. Bennett said.
And again, that's an historical issue that can be proved in a theoretical abstract one.
So, if the Palestinians had hope that the occupation is going to be over soon, that there is a real inclination in Israel to make or to reach a just peace accords treaty, and that they are going to enjoy their own independent sovereign state,
In the old territories that Israel occupied in June 1967, that is to say, the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.
If people would have known or believed that such a thing is more or less around the corner, they would have endorsed not fanatic and crazy alternatives and bigots, exactly the opposite.
...those fanatic alternatives and endorsed the peaceful ones.
And by the way, that's exactly what happened just after the Oslo Accords.
Without getting into the content of the Oslo Accords, into the political point of view, whether good or bad, right or wrong, but as a matter of fact,
When the negotiations between the PLO and the government of Israel, of the late assassinated Prime Minister Rabin and the late Yasser Arafat, the president, and before that the chairperson of the PLO, when the negotiations were explicit, when they were public and there was a hope among the Palestinians, as among the Israelis,
That peace is around the corner and the Palestinians are going to be liberated.
You could see that Hamas was very, very weak.
I think that since its establishment, the point in time that the Hamas was weak was in that point of the hope given the Oslo Accords and vice versa.
When the Hamas got stronger and got the peak of Hamas power, when was it, or alas, is it, when there is no hope, when there is a sense, if I paraphrase Marx again, when there is a sense that the Palestinians have nothing to lose but their chains, then the Hamas is stronger.
So the more Israel attacks and kills and destroys, the more The less there is hope, and the more there is support for bigots.
So it's exactly the opposite.
I emphasize, again, the moral issue.
I'm talking now about the political, the strategic issue.
And so it must be exactly the opposite.
Now, one thing that everybody should understand, too.
The Palestinians are not the Hamas, and the Hamas is not the Palestinians.
There must be a distinction.
Israel now, the government of Israel, and the public, the dominant or hegemonic public discourse at the moment in Israel, and I say at the moment because I know for sure that it will change.
The question is when.
So they don't want to make this distinction.
They want to say that the Palestinians who are butchered now in Gaza, Including babies and little kids, elderly women and others, because the majority are innocent civilians, not Hamas terrorists, who are targeted practically.
So Israel, the government of Israel, spokespersons for Israel, and the majority in the public discourse in Israel at the moment, Don't make the distinction and argue that there is no distinction, that the people in Gaza, if not all Palestinians, are more or less like the Hamas, which is, of course, nonsense.
It's like saying that the vast majority of Israelis support the fascist party of the so-called religious Zionism of Ben-Gvir and Smotrych.
It is actually Smotrych, Ben-Gvir's so-called Jewish power.
The vast majority, of course, do not support that the Israelis and Jewish power, this fascist, if not worse, party, does not represent the majority of Israelis.
So the same there.
The problem is that, again, if there's no hope, so there is a public inclination to go with the fanatics.
If there is, it's exactly the other way around.
So the interest, again, on top of justice and morality.
Which is, of course, which demands us, of course, to reject any assault or harm to innocent civilians.
And, of course, ending the occupation, reaching a peaceful, just solution, etc.
On top of the moral issue, even strategically, the interest of both Palestinians and Israelis is to reach immediate ceasefire.
Of course, exchange of prisoners and the abducted.
That's something that should have been done in the first second after the massacre.
I'm very worried about the apparently 200 Israelis who are under the Hamas in Gaza.
Some of them I know, and at least one of them is our supporter and a friend.
And by the way, I lost a few acquaintances and friends in this massacre by Hamas.
So that is the interest of Israel, not only morality.
The interest of Israel is a ceasefire exchange of hostages, kidnapped and prisoners, and the beginning to move towards a serious peace treaty in which the occupation will be ended and Palestinian Israelis could live in peace and security.
And since this is the interest of the Israelis, too.
If the United States, I heard what you were talking before, if the United States and Biden's administration are really interested in the well-being of the Israelis and of Palestinians, they should object to what Israel is doing at the moment, not assisting it.
That's the real interest of Israel.
That's not anti-Israeli.
That's pro-Israelis.
Can I just ask you about that because just to focus in on for a minute the issue of the solution.
I think for a long time Americans and American Jews in particular were led to believe and kind of convinced themselves that the reason it was Morally justified to continue to support Israel even through this denial of statehood to the Palestinians was that we were all working toward this ideal outcome which was a two-state solution where two states would live side by side in peace.
And I think a lot of people have come to the recognition that as a result of Israeli settlements and their constant expansion into the West Bank, That any effort to create a real Palestinian state is now really in effect impossible because it would require the removal of a lot of West Bank settlers who are heavily armed and not going to go anywhere without some kind of civil war.
So do you see a two-state solution as still realistic?
And if not, what other alternatives are there for how to get to that point that you're describing?
First of all, I think the two-state solution is the only realistic solution.
Because if there are two alternatives at the moment, either two-state solution or one-state apartheid solution, quote-unquote, at the moment there's no realistic chance to have one democratic state.
The reality at the moment is more or less one state, but in the form, more or less, that was in South Africa throughout the apartheid years.
There's no way to turn this reality into a one-state democratic reality.
This is simply unrealistic.
Now, I and my friends, we do not have any ideological opposition to one state.
We are simply realistic and pragmatic.
We know that that's impossible.
The difficulties in evacuating the settlements, which are, by the way, according to the international law, altogether illegal, the possibility of evacuating them and withdrawing the Palestinian-occupied territories of the possibility of evacuating them and withdrawing the Palestinian-occupied territories of '67, it's not easy, perhaps, but it's the
The possibility of turning Israel into a one democratic state, that's more, much more difficult.
And that possibility hardly exists.
So perhaps we have to choose between two, you know, bad, mild solutions.
But we have to choose the less one.
And I have to say something, since you mentioned civil war.
We are now on the brink of a civil war, and here I have to address the American people in public as well.
We are on the brink of a civil war within Israel, which I'm very afraid of, for a very simple reason.
The bigots, the fascist militias, close to Ben-Gvir and the Kahana ones, are getting stronger.
And if that's not enough, they are now armed because the minister of so-called national security, who is Ben Kvir, a disciple of Ka'ana, someone who supported and even had the poster of Baruch Golshin, the mass murderer someone who supported and even had the poster of Baruch Golshin, the mass murderer in El Khalil in Hebron, who butchered 29 Palestinians while they were praying in Hebron 30 years ago, he's the
And And that minister, who became a partner to Netanyahu, not because he changed his mind, but because Netanyahu got closer to him, politically speaking, So, he actually issued a decree a few days ago that makes it easier on everyone, provided they are Jews, to get arms.
And so, those who got arms in the last few days are those who are politically and ideologically very close to Kahana and Ben-Gvir.
And they are also trained.
They are training.
There are also targets published in WhatsApp groups and on the social media.
Names and addresses of Palestinians, as well as of progressive Jews.
So there are three combined elements that pose a serious risk to civil war.
People who are already targeted, bigots who are already trained, and Armed and green light from the government.
Now, that's the risk of civil war, not the evacuation of the settlements.
And then I have to say another thing that I don't know how much people are familiar with.
In the last few days, Israel has turned very rapidly into a dictatorship within the borders of proper Israel as well.
It is now forbidden to demonstrate.
I mentioned it before.
It is forbidden to demonstrate.
Not in support of Hamas.
Not at all.
Nobody is going to support Hamas.
Definitely not me or my companions and comrades.
We are totally against it.
Against Hamas.
We all know who actually strengthened Hamas and gave them money and support throughout the years.
That was Netanyahu himself, who explicitly said that he wants Hamas to be strong and the Palestinian Authority to be weak.
He's responsible for Hamas, personally.
But the demonstrations, which are now forbidden, and people are arrested and beaten viciously by police if they try to demonstrate, are peaceful protesters who want to oppose the war.
Because they want peace, not because they want the Hamas to win.
They want peace to prevail.
So they cannot demonstrate against the world.
They cannot even express sympathy or empathy for the children of Gaza.
Not only demonstrations, because they are forbidden, they are beaten.
But also people, some of whom I know personally, were fired from their workplace because they wrote something on the social media.
Again, not in favor of Hamas, perish the thought, but in favor of peace and empathy for the victims of violence on both sides.
They were arrested.
houses because they wrote something like that in the social media.
Some of them were fired from the workplace.
Students were suspended from the universities for that.
And that's exactly, that's what Biden wants to support.
That's good.
When I was trying to interrupt that, I was going to ask you about these reports that I've been seeing in the past couple of days, including from people in Israel I've been talking to, that it isn't just a ban on demonstrations, but they're monitoring social media activity, including people just liking certain content that they deem including people just liking certain content that they deem to be subversive in somehow.
And it does seem quite grave.
And that's what I kind of wanted to get a sense for you.
Let me just, before I, I want to delve into that a little bit more, but I want to ask you first.
You mentioned earlier the concern or the risk that Netanyahu has because at the end of the day, this attack happened under his watch.
There was no detection of it.
There was no rapid effort to stop it.
And this is something I'm honestly having a hard time trying to understand.
Because the Israelis are renowned for their high expertise with surveillance technology.
I've always viewed Gaza as probably the most surveilled place on earth.
I've never seen anybody be able to get near that fence before, let alone do what they did in going through it.
And then on top of that, there were hours that it took for the military and the police to arrive in that part of Southern Israel.
What explains that?
I mean, I've seen some theories that it may be due to this civil strife that you mentioned with the attempt to eliminate judicial independence and reservists on strike.
Maybe it was the fixation on the West Bank and the way that the Israeli military assets are in the West Bank.
But what do you see as the reasons why a failure of this magnitude could happen?
Look, ironically, Just a couple of days before the massacre by Hamas, we commemorated in Israel the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war in which Israel was attacked by Egypt and Syria by surprise.
And I say ironically because it seems that history, you know, repeated itself.
Again, if I quote Marx, he said that I think you can guess what my political opinions are.
Mark said in one of his writings that history repeats itself twice, once as a tragedy and the second time as a farce.
So unfortunately I would never refer to the massacre by Hamas as a farce, because that's a tragedy as well.
But look, first of all, I mentioned the 1973 war because one of the conclusions after that we deal with about it a lot in the Israeli public discourse ever since is the arrogance.
The arrogance that the government of Israel was affected by in 1973.
I would say that this is part of the current situation as well, arrogance.
But it's too easy to say that that's the only, or even the main thing.
So I have to refer to three points.
I'll try to be as brief as possible.
First, an Egyptian minister said a few days ago, a week ago perhaps, and it was published, perhaps you are even familiar with it, that he passed information A few weeks before the slaughter in the south, that the Hamas is planning something big.
So Netanyahu was informed by the Egyptians, by a minister, that the Hamas is planning something big.
He preferred to ignore it.
And the minister, that minister, that Egyptian minister, He also said that he was in shock that Netanyahu just ignored and just expressed a sort of apathy to the warnings that Egypt posed.
This may be arrogance.
This may be something else.
I leave it for you to think.
So that's one thing.
Secondly, it was published yesterday in one of the newspapers, as well as in the social media, that some soldiers Close to the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, where soldiers who are sitting, you know, in shifts and watching what's going on within the Gaza Strip, as you mentioned before, it is watched carefully, or at least it's supposed to be watched carefully.
And some soldiers warned the officers that they see something in the last few days before the massacre.
That they see special strange movement within the Gaza Strip.
So there was another warning that was ignored.
And of course, if we attach it or if we add it to the fiasco by the Shin Bet and the Israeli intelligence, so we could see that there is a systematic fiasco, so we could see that there is a systematic fiasco, a systematic failure that led to that.
But another thing, it's not only that Netanyahu ignored the warnings of the Egypt, as this minister indicated, but Netanyahu himself moved some of the units that were consistently, continuously on the border between Gaza and Israel. continuously on the border between Gaza and Israel.
He moved those units to the West Bank in order to assist the settlers there to continue with their pogroms against the Palestinians.
So he actually left the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip almost empty.
One of the Hamas terrorists that was in his interrogation, one of them that was caught and interrogated, said it was published.
Everything that I'm saying is published.
It's not from my crazy mind, you know.
He said that when they passed the fence between Gaza and Israel, they were in shock and surprised that no one was waiting there.
There was nobody there.
It was totally neglected.
A good friend of mine, originally American from Minnesota, by the way, a very good friend, who I care dearly, For her.
She wrote to me a WhatsApp message that she and her husband are in the security room in one of the kibbutzim by the Gaza Strip for four hours and nobody comes.
Eventually she was murdered with her husband by the Hamas.
And she was there for hours, perhaps more.
I know about some people that waited much more hours, many more hours, much more time, and nobody came.
Those, the heroes that saved some of them, were citizens themselves, or people armed, but not in service mostly.
Some of them, of course, were.
There were others.
But basically, Again, apart from all the political issue and the moral issue, etc., militaristically, there was a huge bailout, and the main responsible is, of course, the Prime Minister.
He should have gone home.
If he was a decent person, he would have gone home on the same day.
He would have announced that he was staying in order to deal with this disaster.
But would have declared that he knew he was responsible and that he was going home after everything is over.
But he's not a decent person.
In terms of the motives of this violence and this reprisal, we talked a little bit about the motives of the Israelis, whether it's just vengeance, whether it's this Naftali Bennett theory of trying to put fear in the minds of the enemy so that they submit, which I've never seen work before in history either.
One of the theories I've heard and I've read, and I mean this is kind of based on the fact that we've been hearing for quite some time, that a lot of people with whom Prime Minister Netanyahu has partnered, part of his coalition, are more extremist than ever before, and a lot of them simply don't see the West Bank and Gaza as being Palestinian land at all.
They kind of see it as part of greater Israel.
Is there any validity?
They say that explicitly, exactly.
Is there any concern or any validity to the possibility that by trying to make northern Gaza uninhabitable, and they've already ordered northern people in northern Gaza to evacuate to southern Gaza, but now with the attempt to try and open up the border with Egypt Is there an attempt to kind of drive the people out of northern Gaza or Gaza entirely into the Sinai so that the Israelis can then retake control of Gaza and make it their own kind of annex it?
How much time do I have?
Because if you want the full answer, I need 10 minutes.
Take it.
That's great.
So let's start with the end of your question, or with the beginning and the end, because you made a kind of closure there.
There are many fanatic activists that are associated with some of the parties that constitute the coalition and the government in Israel, who explicitly have been saying in the last few days As blood still flows.
They said that that's the time to reoccupy Gaza Strip, to drive the Palestinians out one way or another, and to rebuild the settlements that were there before.
People said that explicitly.
It's not a secret.
and they don't try to hide who they are.
And some people within the coalition, they try to be more cautious, especially the ministers.
But it's very clear, everybody knows, that some of the ministers are lunatic, and they believe the same, and they want the same thing to us.
So perhaps, as I said, most of them do not say that explicitly at the moment.
Indeed, they did say that in the past.
One, her name is Orit Struk, a fanatic bigot.
She said a few months ago, a few years ago, and I do not have it in front of me, but I remember more or less even the exact words.
She said that the land of Israel is acquired by suffering.
And she said that the Israelis, and she referred to the Jews, must probably suffer in order to get Gaza back, but it's more important.
In order to get Gaza back, Jews must be, will be suffering, but that's a divine decree that should be followed.
She said so.
So a few months ago, she hasn't changed her mind.
She simply would have not said that now, given that she is a minister.
But she still believes in that.
So the amount of lunatic bigots in this coalition and government that actually aspire to achieve that is unbelievable.
Is unbelievable.
And again, I must say, because we are in an American program, I mean to the American public.
Look who your administration now supports.
This is not a support for Israel.
This is not a support for the people of Israel.
This is support for a bunch of lunatics and fanatics who do everything that harm Israel.
It is against the interests of Israel and, of course, of Palestinians.
But I want to put it in a wider context.
In 2017, Smotrich, who is now the Minister of Finance and Minister in the Ministry of Defense, and then he was a A relatively marginal, weirdo member of the Knesset.
He published a plan that is called, normally it is translated as the subjugation plan.
I understand that in some other translations it appears as a decisive plan.
Doesn't matter.
I think subjugation is more accurate as a translation.
And this plan consists of three basic elements.
One is that Israel must annex the old Palestinian occupied territories, primarily West Bank and later, if possible, the Gaza Strip.
It is a plan of 2017.
And without granting rights to the Palestinians who are there, that means a full-fledged official apartheid regime.
The second point that he mentions is that those Palestinians who are not going to accept their status as subjects without rights are going to be expelled from their homeland, which he, of course, does not recognize as their homeland because he denies that there is a Palestinian does not recognize as their homeland because he denies that there is a
And the third point, although we mentioned it implicitly but it's very clear, is that those Palestinians who are going to resist their status as subjects are going to be killed.
In my view, this government, since its very establishment, decided to realize the subjugation plan of Smotriches, if not in full, at least partly.
The coup d'etat, which is sometimes wrongly regarded or entitled as the judicial reform that the government of Netanyahu has tried to pursue and carry out, as you remember, in the last In the last few months, we should decide that that is not a judicial reform.
That was a coup d'etat, because the idea there was to change totally the government and the regime of Israel into a full-fledged fascist dictator.
And the main ingredient of this coup d'etat was the elimination of the independence of the judicial system, so as the government will to control it.
That means that the government would have been, had they succeeded in this plan, the government would have been the sole...
because the government already controls the parliament.
It's the parliamentary system is different, of course, from the American one.
So that would have meant, of course, a dictatorship.
They failed.
They failed in doing so because, and thanks to the millions of citizens in Israel that went to the streets to protest against this coup d'etat.
So they needed an alternative because, and by the way, it means that the coup d'etat was not the end.
It was the means, and the end always was the subjugation plan of Smotiches.
And as they failed, they needed an alternative path.
Or alternative means to realize this fascist, racist plan.
What can be the alternative in general, and specifically in Israel?
A little war.
Now, what I want to say, and I said that, is that the government of Israel was interested in tension and confrontation.
I want to emphasize and be very clear.
I have no intention whatsoever to imply that the government of Israel was interested in the carnage or massacre that we saw in the south of Israel.
Absolutely not.
As I said, I know that this government consists of lunatics and bigots.
But I don't believe that anyone is so crazy as to endorse and be interested in such a terrible slaughter like it was in the South.
So I have no intention, and I do not imply, let alone say, that the government of Israel was interested in the disaster that happened in the South.
I do say that the government of Israel, and not for the first time in Israeli history, in the world history, that the government is interested in a sort of a confrontation.
Because once there is a confrontation, you can use it as a, you can use a smokescreen to pursue other plans.
So what I want to say is that although the government of Israel did not do, or is not guilty, of course, in the carnage that occurred by Hamas, that was carried out by Hamas in the South.
And I must emphasize it.
It is not the guilt, of course, of the Israeli government.
But once it happened, the Israeli government could use it as an excuse to pursue with this subjugation.
And that's what they've been doing.
So there is one strategy, and here is the answer to your question.
One strategy is vis-a-vis Gaza.
Assaulting Gaza.
Bombarding Gaza.
Just destroy it.
And perhaps drive people out for fear and others.
And that's part of the subjugation plan.
And some people are very explicit, including in the coalition and members of the Knesset, There is a group that signed a letter calling Netanyahu to conquer Gaza Strip and drive out, or at least to the south, the Palestinians and accommodate Jews there, even from within the Knesset and from the Likud party as well, Netanyahu's party.
There are some members of the Knesset, not all of them, but some of them that actually called Netanyahu to do so.
So that risk exists.
There is another strategy in the West Bank, and I advise anyone not to turn once back on the West Bank, because the situation there is on a continuous deterioration, and it's going from bad to worse on an hourly basis, not a daily basis.
For many months now, before the massacre, there have been pogroms by settlers under the auspices of the Israeli occupation forces, and of course encouraged by the government.
There are pogroms of settlers against Palestinians, torching fields, cutting trees off, set fire into houses.
Very often, as the people are inside, here and there, some assassinations of Palestinians.
Talking about innocent civilians, mainly pastors and farmers.
And I warned the Minister of Defense in 10 different letters, official letters that I sent him as a member of the Knesset in the last eight or nine months.
I warned him against the pogroms.
And I said that, first of all, of course, these are, to say the least, are immoral, are criminal.
Those are war crimes that should be dealt with.
Stopped, and the criminals should be prosecuted and arrested.
And I also add on those letters that it will lead to explosion on top of the ongoing 16-year-old siege on Gaza that turned it into a volcano waiting to erupt.
And I warned the minister.
I haven't got one reply from him, not even a laconic one saying, got it.
Nothing.
So now it's even worse, because under the smokescreen of the war, settlers are not only setting fire and cutting trees as before, they're actually just marching freely throughout the West Bank, entering villages and kill people.
A few days ago, they entered the Palestinian village of Kusra in the West Bank, shot all around them, killed four innocent civilians and went off.
Just without any... No one stopped them.
No police, no army, no nothing.
They did what they want.
Masters.
This is the KKK kingdom.
And the day after, at the funeral of those four, they came again and shot.
At the funeral!
And killed another two, a father and son.
As far as I know, perhaps I'm wrong, so I want to be very cautious.
As far as I know, since The massacre in the south and the assault on Gaza.
In the West Bank, there are about 70 or 80 Palestinians who were killed, either by settlers or by the occupation forces.
And that means ethnic cleansing.
I visited two weeks ago, about two, three weeks ago, just before, a few days before the massacre.
I visited the communities of pastors in that area and realized that four communities were already driven out, forcibly expelled by those bigots.
Now we are talking about six.
And we are not talking about small communities with two tents.
We are talking about the size of double of Tel Aviv.
It was ethnically cleansed in the West Bank.
Where's the international community here?
And the amazing thing is too is you know for all this attempt now to focus everything on Hamas in light of course this massacre that as I said provoked a lot of revulsion There is no Hamas in the West Bank.
Whatever Israel is doing in the West Bank and the violence against Palestinians can't be justified by Hamas because Hamas doesn't govern the West Bank.
Let me just ask you as a final question, and there's so much I wish I could talk to you about, and I'm going to harass you to come back on our show, especially as this war continues as it looks like it will.
But just as the last question, as horrible as everything is now in Gaza, and it was in Israel on last Saturday, it could be a lot worse, meaning that this war could expand to include Hezbollah, to include various other parts of the Arab world.
Iran is capable of doing a lot of mischief.
And the concern I think beyond just their desire to do that is at some point the populations of these countries will force their leaders to do something because they can't just sit by and watch the bombing and killing of people in Gaza for all this time and not do nothing.
What do you think is the likelihood or the possibility or probability of further regional conflict and escalation?
I'm afraid of two scenarios.
I think, and I'm afraid, I'm worried about two possible scenarios which are combined.
First, a civil war within Israel, because I mentioned just a second ago two strategies to realize the small-scale subjugation plan in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
There is a third strategy which applies to the Palestinians.
20% of the citizens in Israel are Palestinians.
And as I mentioned before, there's a very serious limitation, persecution of Palestinians mainly, although of democratic and progressive Jews as well within Israel.
And as I said before, there are militias.
And by the way, the Israeli police turned to be a private militia of the minister.
So there are militias waiting for the green light, for the command, for the D-Day to attack within Israel.
So there's a serious risk of civil war within Israel with rivers of blood.
That's a very serious risk for the Israelis, for the very existence of Israel.
And that's why those who accuse me of being anti-Israeli, I'm trying to explain not in an apologetic manner, but simply because it's important for me, you know, as far as my values are concerned.
And I'm afraid for the future of my country and for the future of my co-patriots, because they are under a risk of civil warfare.
And I don't want that to happen, to say the least.
In addition to my worries about the Palestinians, who of course have their own rights, which I support.
So that's one danger.
The other, as you mentioned, is a regional war, which may easily spread into a world And everything is connected because if there is a civil war within Israel, and obviously the targets will be primarily those 20% Palestinian citizens within Israel.
Listen to what's going on in Gaza and the West Bank.
So as you very accurately said, the publics in the neighboring countries will not shut up.
They will go to the streets in their masses, forcing their governments to do something.
So that's going to ignite the whole region.
This is in addition to, of course, the risk that Hezbollah will not forever just sit without doing nothing.
We've seen in the last few days that Hezbollah here and there began to shoot at Israel and do some military operations, or at least to try to.
And perhaps even Iran is going to get into the scene.
And we know that the United States already sent battleships and many soldiers to there as if they were preparing to such a scenario.
This is a disaster.
This is a disaster.
We are on a brink on addition, in addition to what's already going on there, the rivers of blood that are spilled in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and were spilled in the south of Israel.
And the continuous risk for Israelis and Palestinians.
And the dangers that I mentioned On top of that, there is a serious danger, an immediate one, that this war is going to turn into a regional, very deadly one.
That may destroy Israel as a whole, and I'm terrified of that.
I'm terrified.
And may lead to a world war.
Just imagine what happens if Iran gets into the scene, and Russia, and China, and the States.
What are the things that will happen?
That it will end?
The time to end is now, before it's too late.
It's not now.
It was supposed to be a week ago.
But since we cannot turn the wheel back, let's do it now.
Sears Fire is a must!
Is the interest of everyone involved or not involved yet?
It's the interest of the Palestinians.
It's the interest of the Israelis.
It's the interest of the region.
It's the interest of the United States.
It's the interest of the whole world to cease fire, exchange prisoners, kidnapped, and hostages now and beginning A move toward Palestinian liberation and peace between the two states and peoples.
If we don't do it now, it's going to be too late.
And we are going to regret.
Everything is going to explode in fire and blood.
And I'm warning everyone.
I'm warning everyone.
I hope that call will reach the ears of your administration and politicians.
And I hope that if it does, They also listen, not only hear.
We are on the brink of a terrible massacre and bloodshed that the world hasn't seen for ages.
We have to stop it now.
That's not anti-Israeli, that's not anti-Palestinian, that's not anti-American.
It's for the sake of human beings everywhere.
Well, I think you have delivered that message very effectively.
I know that things in Israel in particular must be extremely tense.
So I really appreciate your taking the time to come on and lay things out so clearly.
I would love to have you back on the show as this war, as I said, inevitably will.
So I really appreciate your taking the time and I hope you have a great evening.
I thank you so much.
Have a nice evening.
Bye bye.
So that concludes our show for this evening.
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