Biden & McConnell Fail to Get $60B More for Ukraine. Is Biden Risking Re-election Over Israel? Plus: Israeli Knesset Member Ofer Cassif, Staunch War Critic
Timestamps:
Intro (0:00)
Congress Denies $60Bn for Ukraine (10:48)
Biden Risks Re-election Over Israel (26:08)
ICJ Trial on Israel-Gaza (40:46)
Carnage Continues in Gaza (45:04)
Interview with Ofer Cassif (54:58)
Ending (1:43:00)
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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, two political figures in Washington have been united in a desperate effort to obtain another $60 million in American resources For Ukraine, those two figures are the Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The two of them have been the most fanatical supporters of Ukraine from the start, and yet have now encountered a very serious problem in getting Ukraine the tens of billions more that they want.
Namely, Trump and his Republican House supporters, along with increasing numbers of American citizens, are vehemently opposed to sending further aid to Ukraine.
And while they seemed willing at first, Republicans did, to provide that money in exchange for meaningful concessions from the Biden White House to fortify border security, that was supposed to be the deal.
You give us meaningful border security measures of the kind that you were calling fascist two years ago, and in exchange, we'll give you money for Ukraine.
It now appears that such a deal cannot be reached.
Seriously jeopardizing Biden and McConnell's push for more Ukraine aid.
Now, there are some really fascinating and revealing dynamics at play here.
As we said, we have watched politics extremely closely for the last two decades and rarely, if ever, does the military-industrial complex not get what it wants.
We'll see whether or not if that's the case here, but we will review all the dynamics at play.
Then, The premise of the Democratic Party and their allies in the corporate media, the core overarching premise, is that literally nothing is more vital than defeating Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
After all, they say his victory poses a grave and existential threat to American democracy and all things decent.
If you really believe that, you would do everything and anything to ensure that you're maximizing the chances that you will win and he will lose.
And yet, poll after poll has revealed that On top of all of the other unavoidable, serious vulnerabilities that Joe Biden has in his re-election bid, from perceptions that he's far too old and affirmed to complete a second term, to widespread dissatisfaction with his management of the economy and inflation and the border crisis,
One of Biden's most important policies is now producing a very serious risk of infuriating and permanently alienating his own base voters to the point that they are vowing, I think with increasing credibility, that they will simply never vote for him, no matter how much they are convinced to fear a second term of Donald Trump.
That policy that has enraged many of Biden's key voting constituencies is his steadfast, unlimited and ongoing support for Israel, both generally and in its destruction of Gaza.
Extraordinarily high percentages of young voters and liberal left voters and Arab Muslim voters believe not merely that Biden's career long defense of Israel is wrong, but that it now constitutes support for genocide.
And once someone believes that about an incumbent president, Not that they have bad policies or even immoral policies, but that they are guilty of enabling and arming and protecting a genocide.
It is going to be very difficult to convince those same people to go and vote for the very same person they have spent months now accusing of genocide.
Biden officials are now finally recognizing the seriousness of this political danger to their re-election bid and the question is whether it is too late.
Now on some level one might say there's something admirable about all this, namely that Joe Biden really has, and I know a lot of people don't accept this, but it is absolutely true that Joe Biden has been one of Israel's most ardent and steadfast defenders of Israel
For his entire adult career for so long that he seems genuinely willing to follow through on his convictions about the importance of arming Israel and financing Israel's wars even if it risks costing him votes that he desperately needs for his re-election.
In the age of Donald Trump, the one thing Democrats have been able to count on is the blind and unstinting loyalty of all types of Democratic voters to at least at the last minute fall into line behind the Democratic Party in the name of stopping Trump.
The question here though is whether Biden's extreme and ongoing support for Israel and his financing and arming of its war in Gaza is really something that could risk permanently alienating his core voting base and causing at least enough of them to stay at home to cause Biden to lose critical swing states without which he cannot win the 2024 election.
It is a definite possibility and we will take a look at that.
Finally, Ofer Kasif is, at least for now, an elected member of the Israeli Knesset.
He was on our show just a couple of weeks after the October 7th Hamas attack on his country, which he vehemently denounced, but he also warned at the time that Israel was preparing to unleash a level of destruction and violence against Gaza and its civilian life that would be virtually unparalleled in modern warfare and would be, in his view, morally grotesque and criminal.
In that interview that he did with us several months ago back in October, he also issued very grave warnings about the rapid erosion of core civil liberties in Israel, with critics of Netanyahu and his war, such as Kassif himself, facing various types of reprisals and threats.
Three months later, we sat down with him for an interview that we recorded just yesterday to explore how the war has progressed, the serious threats he now faces to be removed from his elected position in the Knesset as a result of his support for South Africa's charge of genocide against Israel.
What the perception is in Israel of Joe Biden's support for the Israeli war effort and much more.
Whatever you think of him, he is an extremely thoughtful and smart and insightful analyst of his country's politics.
And as a prelude to that interview, we'll fill you in on some of the latest developments in this war, including a preliminary decision issued just today by the International Court of Justice on the case brought by South Africa.
As well as a truly harrowing video that shows the murder of Palestinian civilians in front of a British news crew that underscores exactly what the U.S.
has been supporting in Gaza.
Now, as always, we know, we're very well aware that there are very differing views among our audience about this war.
But given that this is now as much of an American war as it is an Israeli war, the U.S.
is not only financing and arming the war, but paying an increasingly higher price for it, including the inability to have its ships be able to pass safely through the Red Sea.
We regard it as a journalistic duty and a journalistic value to continue to present views and facts that are not readily available elsewhere.
So that you, the viewer, can make up your own mind about how you feel about U.S.
financing and support for this war.
A war that has not only already escalated in the Middle East, but is a war that really has no end in sight.
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As a final reminder, a final programming note, on Tuesday of next week, starting at 7 p.m. Eastern, so our regular scheduled time, I will be doing a one-on-one debate with the YouTuber Destiny.
Some of you probably watched the three-on-three debate.
I did a couple of weeks ago about January 6th, whether it was an insurrection, the extent to which the FBI was involved.
I was partnered there with Alex Jones and Darren Beatty on one side.
Destiny was partnered with the Krasnstein brothers on the other.
It was watched by a huge number of people, more than half a million on our channel, another half a million on Destiny's channel, several hundred thousand people on various other channels, including Zero Hedge, that had organized the debate.
More than half a million on our channel, another half a million on Destiny's channel, several hundred thousand people on various other channels, including Zero Hedge, that had organized the debate.
And so Destiny reached out and asked to do a one-on-one debate to try and kind of focus even more on the issues that I think could develop and that we could all value from some greater elaboration.
We had originally scheduled it for Tuesday night.
As you know, I canceled the show because of a flu that I was feeling.
So we rescheduled it for next week, Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern on a regular time on Lumba.
We will have that one-on-one debate that will be moderated by someone who reached out to offer to moderate.
So I'm really looking forward to that.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update starting right now.
The central fact of foreign policy in the United States that is often overlooked is the extent to which the establishment wings of both political parties, which were always told cannot agree on anything, are always at each other's throats, are so irreconcilable, are incapable of getting along, in fact agree on virtually are so irreconcilable, are incapable of getting along, in fact agree
And if you look at the signature foreign policies of Joe Biden's first term, the one that will shape his presidency, certainly from a foreign policy perspective, the Republican Party overwhelmingly has supported every one of those key policies.
They have overwhelmingly supported Biden's insistence that the United States finance and arm Ukraine's war against Russia.
The Republicans have overwhelmingly, even more so, supported Biden's insistence that the United States finance and arm Israel's war in Gaza.
Republicans have supported Biden's escalation of the war in the Middle East to bomb Yemen and bomb Iraq and bomb Syria, even without congressional approval.
And the Republicans have supported Biden's uniquely antagonistic posture to China, to Beijing.
Remember, Biden is the first president in decades To come out and explicitly say that the United States would in fact go to war in order to defend the sovereignty of Taiwan, something that no American president has been willing to say in many decades.
So the overlap in foreign policy between Joe Biden on the one hand and the Republican Party, their establishment wing, on the other really can't be overstated.
If you have a Nikki Haley nomination, there could be no foreign policy debate practically.
That's how extensive the agreement is.
And one of the ways we see that is that the two most vocal and vociferous supporters of further aid to Ukraine, the United States has already spent $120 billion to keep the war in Ukraine funded.
And now Joe Biden wants another $60 billion that he requested three or four months ago.
His number one ally on Capitol Hill and trying to do everything possible to get this money is not the Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer or the Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
It is the Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Who has made funding for Ukraine his top priority.
Now, it's so ironic because in the Trump years, Democrats and their media allies like Rachel Maddow went around calling Mitch McConnell Moscow Mitch in order to imply that he was a Kremlin agent, that his allegiances were to Russia over his own country.
And yet he spent the last two years with his top legislative priority.
Remember, he represents the state of Kentucky.
Mitch McConnell does.
Think about all the problems and deprivations the people of his state face.
And he decided to make his top priority trying to find every way possible to transfer billions upon billions upon billions of dollars from the U.S.
Treasury to the coffers of Kiev to keep the war in Ukraine going for whatever his reasons are.
And he continues to have that be his top priority.
And so as Biden struggles for a way to get this $60 billion more for Ukraine through the Republican-controlled House, his primary ally has been Mitch McConnell.
And the way in which this was going to be done, and it looked like they were headed toward this, was that the view of Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, and various Republican senators was, look, we're willing to give you the $60 billion, and the reality is most Republicans actually want to do it,
But they said, we'll be able to convince the populace and the Republican Party who don't want more money to go to Ukraine to vote for $60 billion more for Ukraine, as long as you, the Biden White House, give us very serious concessions on shutting down the border and making it much more difficult for people seeking asylum and undocumented migrants to enter the border, as they've been doing in massive numbers.
And they've been negotiating a deal for the last several months and you know I've been very skeptical of the idea that the Pentagon wouldn't get what it wants because in the last 20 years I've almost never seen the Pentagon not get what it wants in Washington when it comes to war.
That's why the United States continues to be an endless war.
And yet something quite amazing has happened which is that Mitch McConnell had Negotiated a deal with the Biden White House that he was convinced would satisfy enough House Republicans who were opposed to Ukraine funding that the deal that they got to increase border security was so good that it was worth giving 60 billion dollars to Ukraine.
The problem for Mitch McConnell is that Donald Trump took one look at this bill and said, this bill is a joke.
It provides symbolic improvements in border security at most, but it does absolutely nothing to really cure the fundamental problems.
And when Trump came out and opposed the bill, Now that Trump is essentially the acclimated leader of the Republican Party on his way to becoming the nominee, it made the bill dead on arrival in the House.
No House Republicans, very few, were willing to vote for a border security bill that Donald Trump is mocking as woefully inadequate and insufficient.
And as a result, it now seems And I don't want to be too optimistic about it because like I said, I won't believe that the war machine loses until I see them lose.
But it now seems very possible that they will actually suffer a defeat.
And I wanted to show you some amazing aspects and kind of the official narrative about what is happening here to give you a sense for how deeply corrupted Washington is in a way that often cannot be described.
So here's the New York Times account of all of this.
The New York Times, of course, is as vehement of a supporter of sending tens of billions of dollars more to Ukraine, even as they warn Americans to face and prepare themselves for necessary cuts in their retirement benefits and Social Security and Medicare.
And of course, they're blaming Donald Trump for all of this.
There you see the headline, Trump strengthens grip on Capitol Hill as he presses toward nomination.
The former president's opposition has all but killed the prospects for a bipartisan border deal, reflecting how his influence in Congress has grown as he gains ground in the Republican primary.
Quote, for months Senate Republicans have been working with Democrats on a deal they have described as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a conservative border security bill, and for weeks they have hinted they are tantalizingly close to an agreement.
But their timing could not be worse.
As former President Donald J. Trump moves closer to becoming his party's presidential nominee and Republican lawmakers consolidate behind him, he is wielding a heavier hand than any time since leaving office over his party's agenda in Congress.
His vocal opposition to the emerging border compromise has all but killed the measure's chances in a divided Congress as he puts his own hardline immigration policies once again at the center of his presidential campaign.
His quote, America first approach to foreign policy already helped to sap Republican support for sending aid to Ukraine for its war against Russian aggression, placing the fate of that money in doubt.
That led Republicans to demand a border crackdown in exchange for any further funding for Kiev, a compromise that Mr. Trump has now repudiated.
Now you see here the Republicans in the Senate who hate Trump so much, like Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, who today said she will not support Donald Trump even if he's the nominee.
What they're trying to do is to say that Trump is opposed to this border security deal, even though it's so great, so conservative.
Because he wants to run on a platform of accusing Biden of leaving the border open and he's sacrificing the interest of the country for his own political gain.
The argument of Donald Trump and his allies, however, is that the border security bill is a joke.
That Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney and Susan Collins and all of these senators have negotiated this and are trying to present it as some grave conservative win Never cared and still do not care about border security.
In fact, the Republican Party of George Bush and Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney and John McCain has always been one that wants greater amounts of immigration because they're serving their corporate donor base and large corporations want an influx of immigrants because it drives down wages.
That's the reason Until it was declared racist to do so, much of the left and labor unions always opposed greater amounts of immigration.
When I started writing about politics, greater amounts of immigration was a conservative Republican view.
It was what the Chamber of Commerce wanted.
It was what Dick Cheney wanted.
And people like Bernie Sanders and labor unions were opposed to it on the grounds that it would And that's why corporatists who don't care about nationalism or any of these other issues, like Mitch McConnell, don't give the slightest concern for border security.
And they negotiated a deal that Trump took one look at and said, this is not a real border security bill, but a joke.
Now, Mitch McConnell's priority is very explicit and very clear because he's admitted what it is.
And this is the part of the story I find most amazing.
Listen to this.
On Wednesday, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, And a champion of the emerging bipartisan deal acknowledged as much.
He told Republicans privately that Mr. Trump's growing influence has complicated the politics of the border, dividing Republicans against one another on an issue that once united the party.
Republicans are, quote, in a quandary, Mr. McConnell said in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, according to lawmakers who attended what was supposed to be the sweetener for conservatives opposed to sending tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine I just want to emphasize this.
I find this miraculous that he would say this.
Mr. McConnell himself regards the border deal as less important than sending military aid to Ukraine.
I just want to emphasize this.
I find this miraculous that he would say this.
Mitch McConnell, who has basically run the Republican Party in the Senate for decades now, admits explicitly that he regards a deal to make the border more secure, to be less important, less important to be less important, less important than sending military aid to Ukraine.
Thank you.
So he represents a political party, Mitch McConnell does, that has made itself abundantly clear They don't care about sending more aid to Ukraine.
What they care about is protecting their communities from more and more migrants that they can't afford to accommodate or assimilate.
Even blue state mayors and governors, now overrun by large numbers of immigrants, are saying, we also can't accommodate these any longer.
And yet Mitch McConnell is saying, I don't really care about the priorities of the Republican Party voting base.
I don't care about border issues.
What I care about is making sure that we continue to fund the war in Ukraine.
That is my top priority.
This is why the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are so united and so pathological in the same way.
This is why, no matter what you tell Republican voters about Donald Trump, or even a lot of independents, he's a fascist, he's a racist, he's a criminal, he's an insurrectionist, he's a dictator, whatever you want to call him.
They understand that the people who are running Washington and who hate Donald Trump absolutely do not have their interests in mind.
In what conceivable way is it more beneficial to the American people to send $60 billion more to continue this fruitless war in Ukraine than it is to close up the border?
The left liberal African American political commentator Charlemagne was recently speaking on, I believe, CNN or on his own show, and he was saying that the people with whom he's speaking, ordinary voters, black voters, are more concerned than ever about this immigration issue.
The New York Times columnist, who now just spits out left-wing Democratic Party dogma, Jamal Bowie, wrote an article a decade ago in the American Prospect, a left-liberal journal, where he warned Democrats, you better not be too permissive about opening the border because African-American voters, on whom you rely, are the ones most skeptical of opening the border because they're the ones who end up paying first with their jobs.
They're the ones who know that the people who are going to take their jobs are newly arrived immigrants and who will drive down wages.
And so what you're seeing now are ordinary people, not just Republicans, but polls show now all kinds of people who are starting to perceive that the enormous flow of migrants into the country is a threat to their well-being.
And here you have Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden saying, We are willing to sacrifice that in order to spend another 60 billion dollars in Ukraine.
And at the same time, you have Joe Biden, who ran on a campaign of accusing Trump of being a white nationalist because of his pledges to close the border, now being willing to tell his own supporters, these immigration activists, Latino groups, I know I promised you that I would fight against
Tighter border controls, but given how important sending more money to Ukraine is, I'm willing to tell you that I'm now going to implement the policies that I spent years condemning as racist when Trump was advocating them.
Do you see what Washington's priority is?
It is to feed the endless war machine, to take American taxpayer dollars and pour them into the coffers of the arms industry that funds their campaigns, to keep the war in Ukraine going for as long as possible, while Americans continue to suffer at home.
And you can have all the media propaganda you want, you can have all the criminal trials you want against Donald Trump, And there's just no way to blind the American people any longer about the sleazy realities of bipartisan Washington.
That's why they're marching behind Donald Trump, because they perceive this establishment that they know is arrayed against him as being worse than any conceivable alternative.
And when you see things like this, you can't really deny that they have a very valid argument.
Speaking of Joe Biden's political priorities, it is extremely odd to hear Democrats on the one hand say that there is no greater priority in the world than making sure Trump doesn't return to power.
If he returns to power, he's going to implement a white supremacist dictatorship.
He's going to end all American democracy.
He's going to be a Hitler figure.
You would think anyone who really believes that would be willing to do anything and everything to make sure they win this 2024 election.
Now they are willing to do a lot of things.
They're pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a preposterous candidate called Nikki Haley.
They are trying to strike Trump from the ballot to prevent people from voting for him.
They're trying to imprison Trump, all the things we've gone through.
But one of the things that is really endangering Joe Biden's political prospects is the fact that huge numbers of people in his own party, on whom he is relying,
Not only to be willing to vote for him but to get up and be passionate and go to the polls and vote for him without whom he has no chance for re-election aren't just opposed to his policy of supporting Israel but are so vehemently opposed to it that they are saying over and over now That they will not vote for Joe Biden because they believe that what he's doing in Gaza and in Israel by supporting Israel and arming and funding it constitutes genocide.
And once you reach that conclusion, it is very difficult to say, well, I believe Biden is guilty of genocide, but I'm still going to vote for him on a lesser of two evils rationale.
What is actually the lesser evil once you accuse somebody of genocide?
And you could see this coming from a mile away.
You've had Arab and Muslim voters in key swing states like Michigan saying now for months we are not voting for Joe Biden.
And you've had left-wing voters and young voters who are horrified by Biden's steadfast support for Israel who are saying the same thing.
And I think there was a time for a month or so when The Biden White House did not take seriously the claim that these voters wouldn't snap into line because, understandably, it's true that left-wing voters in the United States have a very strong tendency to snap into line and do what they're told and go vote for the Democrats when they're told to, no matter how angry they are along the way.
But this seems to be reaching a point of sustained rage, the kind of anger that Democrats had to Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War that forced Lyndon Johnson not to seek reelection.
It really is starting to reach that level of sustained protest.
Everywhere Democratic Party officeholders go, they're interrupted by protesters, angry protesters, accusing them of genocide.
Leave aside for the moment whatever your views are on the war and whether you support Biden's arming and financing of Israel.
I'm just saying, politically, this has become a serious risk.
Here from the Wall Street Journal today, the headline, Biden aides fret that support for Israel will hurt his re-election prospects.
The president is seeing routine pro-Palestinian protests at his campaign event.
Some of President Biden's senior aides are becoming increasingly worried that his support for Israel's war in Gaza risks damaging his re-election prospects amid cratering support from young voters.
Biden advisers are divided on the seriousness of the political threat.
Some see a real risk that disillusioned young voters will stay home because of the Israel issue and because of other concerns about the president.
Other aides are confident that most of those voters will end up giving priority to other issues above Israel and that they will vote for Biden rather than risk another Trump administration.
Pro-Palestinian protests aimed at the president are getting increasingly loud.
Activists opposing Israel's military offensive in Gaza interrupted Biden during a rally Wednesday with autoworkers a day after they heckled him at a campaign speech back-to-back outbursts that represent the loudest protest movement Biden has faced since taking office.
I don't think there's going to be anywhere that Biden goes during this campaign where he won't be disrupted or where there won't be dissent, said Sandra Tamari, the executive director of the Abala Justice Project, a U.S.-based organization that advocates for Palestinian rights, and has participated in some of the protests.
Now, the thing about it is you don't actually need huge amounts of people being willing to stay home.
You're going to have a very coordinated Campaign on the part of all these left-wing YouTubers and Twitch streamers who love to posture as rebels of the Democratic Party and critics of the Democratic Party who keep their access and their respectability among Democratic voters by always at the end of the day saying, look, I know you're mad at Democrats.
I'm mad at Democrats.
But our duty is to go and vote for Biden, no matter how angry we are at him, because Trump is this once-in-a-lifetime monster.
That's become the role of Bernie Sanders and AOC, to say to these kinds of people, oh, look, we're like you.
We're just as angry about this as you are, but we're staying in the Democratic Party because we know that Trump is so much worse, and therefore you should do that.
It's just that I don't think it's going to work.
This time, at least, and again, you only need a small number of people, given how closely contested these key swing states are in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania, in order to swing the state in one direction or another.
Look at this polling data.
It's kind of amazing.
From The Guardian, just this week, there's the headline.
More than one-third of Americans believe Israel is committing genocide, poll shows.
A poll released Wednesday shows divisions by age in political lines, with 35% of Americans overall saying that the campaign against Palestinians is genocide.
Now, just to underscore how remarkable it is, I don't think there is a single person Who has any kind of a prominent platform in corporate media, meaning who writes on an opinion page for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or who hosts a news show on Sunday or a cable show, who even gets near that opinion, who even gets near saying that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide.
I think anyone who did that would probably lose their job.
In fact, the three harshest critics of Israel on MSNBC were removed from their own shows following the October 7th attack, and then Mehdi Hassan, probably the most vocal critic of Israel, is now no longer with MSNBC because they took away his show.
And yet, 35% of Americans have concluded, with no real media representation, in the corporate media at least, That Israel is committing genocide.
And obviously, if you think that, you know that it's the Biden administration feeding Israel the arms and the money to commit this genocide.
And that just has to have a very significant effect on whether or not you're willing to go and vote for Joe Biden.
If this were the case that this was 2021 and the election were three years away, Then maybe you could have confidence that, look, a lot's going to happen between now and then.
The war is going to end.
People are going to forget about their anger.
This war is not ending anytime soon.
We're already in 2024.
The election is only nine months away.
The gamble that they're going to be able to somehow divert the rage that people have at Joe Biden for supporting Israel so steadfastly in everything that it's doing is a very high gamble.
The article goes on, quote, according to The Economist and You've Got Poll, roughly equal numbers of adults believe Israel's military campaign against Palestinians Which is estimated to have killed more than 25,000 people since 7th of October amounts to genocide.
35% say it is, 36% say it isn't with 29% undecided.
Among younger Americans and along political lines, divisions are more prominent.
About half of those surveyed aged 18 to 29.
49% say Israel is committing genocide with 24% disagreeing.
The figures are broadly similar for registered Democrats, who believe 49-21% in the genocide characterization, while 30% are undecided.
Republicans are far more supportive of Israel's actions, with 57% of respondents saying there is no genocide, only 18% saying there is.
Now, that's the problem.
Joe Biden's policy is supported overwhelmingly by Republican voters in Israel.
And Republican voters are not going to vote for Joe Biden simply because he supports Israel, because they're very confident that whoever the Republican nominee is will as well.
The danger for Biden is that there's not many votes that he can attract through the support for Israel.
The danger is that he can lose a lot by continuing to not just support Israel, but support Israel in a way that no other government, no other country on this planet is doing.
Here from AP is a report on what happened when he visited Michigan yesterday.
Biden re-election campaign team travels to Michigan but is shunned by some Arab American leaders.
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, head of Biden's re-election campaign, led a group of advisors to the Dearborn area where some Arab American leaders declined to sit down with them, citing continued anger over the president being too supportive of Israel in its war with Hamas.
Other activists went further as hundreds attended an event urging voters to quote, abandon Biden ahead of November that was timed to coincide with the visit.
A meeting between Rodriguez and Arab American and Muslim leaders was canceled after pushback within the community.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hamad took to X, formerly Twitter, to sarcastically note Rodriguez's travel while criticizing Biden for urging congressional leaders to quickly approve a $20 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.
Quote, little bit of advice.
If you're planning on sending campaign officials to convince the Arab American community on why they should vote for your candidate, don't do it on the same day you announced selling fighter jets to the tyrants murdering our family members, he wrote.
You're not just playing here with political debate.
You're playing here with deeply held convictions that are religious and cultural and nationalistic in nature.
And that's why I'm far from convinced that they're going to be able to Scare these people out of this simply by waving around the boogeyman of Trump because from this perspective, from people who see things this way, it's hard to get worse.
Here from the Detroit News from today as well, quote, not welcome here.
Arab leaders canceled Dearborn meeting with Biden campaign manager, quote, Arab leaders from the Muslim and Christian communities had intended to share firsthand the quote sentiments of the community and estimated that many who supported Biden in 2020 likely will not do so in November, citing 26,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza and thousands of others displaced or facing famine.
Quote, unless something drastic happens, you have lost the Arab-American and Muslim community.
At this point, from what I can see, there's no winning them over.
That was the idea of a meeting.
Until there's a ceasefire, the overall consensus in the community is they're not welcome here, essentially.
Now, this has been going on for a while, and one of the amazing things that I've noticed is that there are a lot of Democratic partisans, hardcore partisans, who only care about electing Democrats.
They don't care about any other policy issue.
And every time there's some prominent Arab spokesperson or prominent Muslim activist who says we're not voting for Joe Biden because he supports the war on genocide, you will never see a level of racism and bitterness and resentment and condescension The way these Democratic Partisans, some of them are African American Democrats, some of them are white ladies who are liberal and resistance Mad Hatter watchers and Pelosi lovers.
The way they talk to these people who are Muslim is something that's really amazing to watch.
Here's just a couple of examples.
This woman, Connie C. Keyes.
Senate response to this Muslim activist, quote, so who are they going to vote for?
The Muslim ban guy?
And then you have this other comment saying, I'll be waving goodbye when they're all shipped out back to their mother country.
Good riddance.
I mean, that kind of sentiment.
I can't wait till all these Muslims are booted back to their own countries.
We're talking about American citizens, voters.
These Democrats are so angry at these Muslims for saying, we're not going to vote for Biden because we don't agree with what he's doing with Israel, that they just let that inner it out, that kind of racial condescension and hatred that Democrats love to pretend that they don't have for minority groups as long as they're obedient and they stay in line.
The minute they start stepping out of line, this is the sort of vitriol they get.
Elaine Bennett said, when Trump gets re-elected and these people get shuttled into death camps, let's all stay home and enjoy our dinners.
That's the kind of punishment that they're intending to dole out to Muslim and Arab Americans for even contemplating The possibility that they might not do what they're told and vote for the Democratic Party candidate.
You get the real face of what these Democratic voters are like, what these American liberals are like.
If you're a member of a minority group, a marginalized group in their words, that they think they own, the minute you step out of line you will never see hatred and bigotry.
Unleashed on you of the kind that American liberals unleash the minute any one of these groups Start saying that they might not vote for Democrats.
I mean, these are not cherry-picked Responses, these are the kinds of responses I see by the hundreds and thousands every time a Muslim American or an Arab American says I might not vote for Joe Biden because for me his support for Israel is simply a bridge too far.
All right, for our final topic, we have this interview with the anti-war member of the Israeli Knesset who had previously been on our show.
And before we get to that, we just want to give you a couple of updates that give context to the discussion that we had with him yesterday.
First of all, the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling today That did not rule definitively one way or the other on the South African accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
That ruling probably won't come for a very long time.
This court operates very slowly.
But it did issue a provisional set of orders to Israel which implicitly recognizes that there is at least a reasonable validity to the accusation that they are committing genocide.
Otherwise, there'd be nothing for this court to do.
Here's the New York Times framing of it quote the UN Court orders Israel to prevent genocide But does not command a stop to the war quote the court ruled that Israel must prevent genocidal acts by their forces Later, the UN agency that aids Palestinians said it was investigating charges that some workers were involved in the October 7th attack on Israel.
Israel has strongly denied the genocide charge, and on Friday, its officials lashed out at the court.
Mr. Netanyahu said it was, quote, outrageous for the judges even to hear the case, while Defense Minister Yoav Galant whose words the judges noted when discussing whether Israeli officials had made statements that constituted incitement to genocide.
Remember, he's the defense official who said, we're going to block all food, water, electricity, medication, and food from entering Gaza.
He said his country did not need, quote, to be lectured on morality.
So it was a kind of mixed ruling.
The court did not go as far as a lot of advocates of the Palestinians wanted.
But certainly the court also did not dismiss the case.
It issued a set of orders to the Israelis that they have to let humanitarian aid in, that they have to avoid the kinds of allegations that South Africans and others have alleged they've been engaged in.
And Israeli officials understood the seriousness of the ruling.
In order to, and as a result, started lashing out at the court and needless to say, I know this will shock you, accused the judges on the court of being, you'll never guess, anti-Semitic.
Now, the White House came out today and despite this report, this judicial ruling, and let's remember that the entire Western unity in supporting the war in Ukraine,
was based on the claim that there's nothing more sacrosanct and important than upholding the international rules-based order of the kind that would be issued by a court of international justice.
And yet, despite the court saying there is ample evidence for this proceeding to continue, The Jerusalem Post reported that the White House still affirmed its prior view that the genocide allegations are, quote, completely unfounded.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, quote, right.
The right number of civilian casualties is zero, but there is no indication that we've seen that validates a claim of genocidal intent or action by the Israeli defense forces.
I think sometimes it's really underappreciated just how Steadfast and absolute, the Biden administration's defense of Israel has been.
If you're on the pro-Israel right, if you're a stalwart supporter of Israel, I really believe you owe the Biden administration a lot of gratitude.
They are supporting Israel and defending Israel in an absolute way, paying for its war, sending its weapons in a way that no other government on the planet is doing.
You can say whatever you want about Joe Biden, but there's no denying that he is one of the most pro-Israel politicians in Washington over the course of many decades and continues to be.
Now, all of that is happening as a couple of pieces of evidence of serious abuse by the Israelis in Gaza continue to emerge.
Hear from the New York Times this week.
The article is stripped, beaten, or vanished.
Israel's treatment of Gaza detainees raises alarm.
A UN office said Israel's detention and treatment of detainees might amount to torture.
It estimated thousands had been detained and held in horrific conditions.
Some detainees were freed wearing only diapers.
Palestinian detainees from Gaza have been stripped, beaten, interrogated, and held incommunicado over the past three months, according to accounts by nearly a dozen of the detainees or their relatives interviewed by the New York Times.
Organizations representing Palestinian prisoners and detainees gave similar accounts in a report Accusing Israel of both indiscriminate detention of civilians and demeaning treatment of detainees.
Israeli forces who invaded Gaza after the October 7th Hamas-led attack have detained men, women, and children by the thousands.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Hisham Mahana, said his organization received daily reports from families in Gaza about detained family members.
The organization is working on some 4,000 cases of Palestinians from Gaza who had been vanished, nearly half believed to be detained by the Israeli military.
Photos and videos taken by Israeli soldiers and Israeli journalists embedded with the military have shown Palestinians with hands bound behind their backs, sometimes blindfolded and in underwear, kneeling outdoor in winter.
In one video taken at a stadium in Gaza City, dozens of males wearing only underwear are lined up or marched across the field surrounded by Israeli soldiers.
Some of the young men were, some of the men were gray-haired and several were young boys.
Now, this is part of what happened after 9-11.
The United States abused detainees in mass numbers, and these laws of wars were implemented in the wake of the Second World War to avoid exactly these kinds of abuses.
You can take prisoners of war and war, but you owe them a standard of care and dignity that is clearly, woefully falling short when it comes to the Israeli detention of Palestinians.
By the way, the Israelis have been Imprisoning Palestinians in the West Bank, a place that the entire world regards as them illegally occupying, for years, with no charges of any kind, simply on military detention.
And when these people get out, through prisoner exchanges and the like, they are so physically and psychologically destroyed, that there is no question that they were subjected to torture.
You just watch them.
They don't know their names.
They don't know where they are.
They stare into space.
They can't orient themselves.
They walk as though they're 100 years old.
This is the truth.
The truth of how the Israelis treat the Palestinians in a land that the entire world recognizes as the Israelis illegally occupying it.
And now the Israeli treatment of detainees in Gaza falls radically short of what the laws of war require in terms of the treatment of detainees.
This is one of the things that motivated me to get into politics and write about journalism in the first place was the abuse of detainees on a mass scale by the United States in the wake of 9-11.
You cannot claim that you are a civilized country fighting for civilized values If you do not adhere to minimal standards of civilized decency, especially when it comes to helpless detainees already disarmed and in your custody.
Here is a video of a kind of incident that has been happening every day in Gaza.
It just so happened that a British television crew interviewed the victim And then right when the interview was done, the Israeli military shot and tried to kill as many of the people they had just interviewed as possible.
And they were having their arms in the air, waving a white flag.
There were only four of them or five of them explaining why they wanted to go to the end of the block to get their two relatives who had not been allowed out.
The British television crew went over and interviewed them and they explained that and the minute the interview was done the Israelis opened fire on these five unarmed people standing there with a white flag and their hands in the air and killed one of them while women and children just a few feet away were terrorized.
Take a look.
Just watch what happened.
These pictures were filmed by a cameraman working for ITV News in Gaza.
As he moved forwards, towards the combat zone, he noticed this group of men doing their utmost to appear non-threatening, trying to proceed with care.
They wanted to reach two other family members and get them out of harm's way.
I had my mother and brother in there, with around 50 or 70 displaced people in another house.
The Israelis came to us and told us to evacuate, but they didn't let my brother out.
We want to go and try to get them out, God willing.
The interview complete, our cameraman walked away.
And then this happened.
The interviewee had been shot and fatally wounded.
You can see them place their flag on his chest.
As he was carried away, the white flag was turning red.
Carry him!
They've killed him, yells this youth.
Then suddenly, more gunfire.
Look at that little boy there.
Right here.
I think I can't do the graphics for a video.
Just watch this scene here.
Just watch this scene here.
There's a little boy.
He is probably about, I would say, 10 to 12 years old, witnessing all of this.
In the middle of having the Israelis shoot at him, seeing this person who was just shot, you watch them with their arms in the air doing absolutely nothing threatening, unarmed, having just spoken to a British television crew about what they were trying to do and get their brother. - Sir?
How are any of these people, who are seeing this on a daily basis, while US provided fighter jets fly overhead dropping bombs on them and destroying 80% of residential infrastructure in Gaza.
Ever going to have anything resembling a stable or normal or healthy life?
Where are these 2.2 million people go or whatever the number is left by the time the Israelis are done?
How are they ever going to live in a Any semblance of a civilized society when you have these children who are living through the most horrific traumas imaginable.
And if you want to justify the Israeli attack on Hamas, at least recognize the realities of what's going on.
You can see it on video every single day.
That there are innocent people and women and children who make up the vast majority of people who are being killed and the ones not being killed are being routinely subjected to these sorts of unimaginably and indescribably traumatic experiences.
Let's watch the rest of this.
They scream at a child telling him to find cover.
By this stage, the man's wife, his widow, has heard what happened.
And as she rushes to the scene, she meets the party, carrying away the body on a makeshift stretcher.
When they're satisfied they're a safe distance away, they stop.
And the mourning starts.
These tragic scenes have been repeated time and time again since this war began.
This war is not producing anything good unless you're somebody who sees the world as some sort of a neocon kind of post 9-11 civilization battle where on the one side you have the enlightened, elevated, advanced
People of real value, namely white Westerners and their allies, and then on the other side you have the primitive, dangerous Muslim hordes.
That was the primary neocon view after 9-11, that they tried to convince Americans that all of Israel's enemies in the region, Muslims and Arabs, were our enemies, were the enemies of the West, and therefore we should be happy when they're killed.
Absent that view, that neocon central defining neocon view, it is impossible to look at this and say that there is anything good taking place here, even from the Israeli perspective.
Now, we are very happy to have Oprah Kassif, who is an elected member of the Knesset.
He is a longtime critic of the Netanyahu government.
He is a critic of the Palestinian mistreatment at the hands of his own government.
You may not agree with him, but it takes an incredible amount of courage to be a dissident in your country, particularly at a time of war.
He is almost certain to lose his seat in the Knesset.
He has been under all kinds of threats of reprisals and physical attacks.
There are people in Israel who are being arrested for liking social media posts that do nothing more than express empathy.
For the people of Palestine and Gaza and their children who are experiencing this sort of thing.
Civil liberties are under attack in Israel and he gives a very insightful picture of the political dynamics of his country and what is happening.
And again, you don't have to agree with him.
But he's rarely included in mainstream American media coverage.
We spent about 40 minutes with him yesterday covering a wide range of issues.
He is a very articulate and thoughtful proponent of the ideas that he represents.
He could not have been more emphatic and vehement in that first interview I conducted with him and in the interview I conducted with him yesterday.
In expressing his contempt and disgust for the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel.
So don't think about implying that he's some sort of Hamas supporter.
It's just not true.
He just does not see this war as being in anyone's interest.
He sees it as being a violation of humanitarian obligations and as something that will forever subvert and undermine the security of his country and not advance it.
I think he's really worth listening to and we are honored to have had him sit down with us for the second time.
I have a lot of respect for the moral courage he is exhibiting.
I found this interview enlightening and I think you will as well.
Here it is.
So, thank you so much for taking the time to join us again.
We talked to you a few months ago and it is great to have you back.
Thank you for having me.
My pleasure.
So when we spoke to you the last time it was shortly after the October 7th attack maybe a couple of weeks and you were obviously already quite critical of what your government was doing in Gaza and there were a lot of things you were concerned about that ended up being true including the risks of regional escalation which we're now seeing in a more dangerous way than ever and the To put it mildly, excessive use of force to destroy civilian life in Gaza.
I'm wondering though whether looking back over the last three months, as critical as you were at the start, whether there has been anything that has really surprised you about how this has all unfolded, what the behavior of Israel has been, or anything else about the war that you didn't expect?
No, actually I cannot say that I was surprised by one thing or another.
As you said yourself, for me it was very clear, not because I'm a prophet or something like that, surely I'm not, but because I know the political system and I know the actors who act there.
I know Netanyahu and I know the bigots around him in the government, so unfortunately Everything that I thought they were going to do, they did.
And I'm still very afraid of the future because, look, the disaster is already there.
I'm talking about belief.
First and foremost, the death toll.
There's nothing more valuable, in my view, than human lives.
And when we look at the terrible death toll, we are talking about more than 30,000 Palestinians who were killed, mostly innocent civilian children, women, etc., elderly.
We are talking about the terrible destruction, you know, wreckage, and no medicine, no water, starvation.
And we also, of course, talk about the Israeli hostages who are held.
by the Hamas for more than 100 days in terrible conditions.
They are dying there, literally.
No medicine, no food, old people, baby, little children, injured people.
They are tortured by the Hamas.
as there, and physically, as mentally, and emotionally.
And also Israeli soldiers who died there almost on a daily basis.
And only for what?
That's not for the security of the Israelis.
That's only for the security of the government.
The only reason that the war goes on, with all the consequences that I mentioned partly, is for the survival of Netanyahu out of prison and his government.
And that's terrible, to say the least.
So that should be stopped.
Let's talk about that a little bit, because people, I think, have forgotten that prior to the October 7th attack, there was civil disunity inside Israel, unlike anything the country really has seen
In a long time, maybe even ever, I mean you could talk almost about the country being on the brink of some sort of genuine civil conflict over things like Netanyahu's corruption trial, but especially the attempt to eliminate the ability for the Supreme Court to have any kind of review over what the Knesset can do, what the government can do.
You saw reservists and people in the military.
Major figures in Israel threatening to withdraw their service from protecting the country if this continued.
Massive marches and the like.
When you say that the ongoing war in Gaza is necessary for Netanyahu's survival, what do you mean by that?
What risk does he face if this war comes to an end?
It's very obvious, you know, and again, my comrades and myself, we said that almost from day one that this is, and some other people even gave a name to this war, the Netanyahu survival war, some people call it.
So it was very clear for us from day one that Netanyahu and the bigots around him are interested in their own survival.
That's the only thing they care about.
And they knew that after the terrible fiasco of the government that enabled this terrible massacre committed by Hamas to occur, And this is a fiasco, not only a military one, but first and foremost of the government and the prime minister, an ongoing fiasco.
The belief, the stupid belief that the occupation, the ongoing occupation can be managed and not solved, which paved the way to this terrible carnage of 7th of October.
They had, after they failed so miserably, and the public in Israel, including majority of their own supporters, understood and still understand that the responsibility for this terrible carnage of 7th of October is the government's one.
So in order to, you know, divert the attention from their responsibility, they needed to do something to create a false unity, as it were, And to just push aside the criticism towards the government.
And that's the war.
The war has nothing to do with the security of Israelis and the state of Israel.
Nothing at all.
Quite the contrary.
The only way to achieve security is peace.
It's by political means, not by military means.
But Netanyahu is not interested in that, let alone the bigots around him.
This continuous assault on Gaza with all the price that everybody pays, Palestinians and Israelis, is because Netanyahu is interested in his own well-being and good, and that's it.
And we said that from the start.
Now more and more people, including from the so-called mainstream, begin to say that, including journalists in different, you know, in different newspapers and the TV channels begin to say that explicitly, what they were afraid or perhaps didn't think so and didn't say that before.
Now more and more people begin to understand.
And by the way, the families of the hostages, of the Israeli hostages, who are dying there, as I said before, and people must understand the situation, the dire situation, more and more families of the hostages lost patience and begin to be more more and more families of the hostages lost patience and begin to be more assertive in their
In the week, a few days ago, three or four days ago or less, a bunch of some families, some relatives of hostages, interrupted the discussion in one of the committees of the Knesset and And they required that the hostages will be released immediately.
And I'm with them totally.
They are right.
The only reason Netanyahu doesn't do that is for his own good.
And we must understand that and do whatever we can to get rid of this terrible, bloody government.
One of the things that people talked a lot about in the weeks or the really the days following the Hamas attack was the shock about how is it possible that the Israeli government that is probably the most advanced government, certainly one of the most advanced governments when it comes to surveillance,
And you have Gaza, probably the most surveilled place on the planet, could possibly have launched an attack that Gaza did against Israel without Israeli intelligence detecting it, without the Israeli military being prepared for it.
It was very baffling to, I think, a lot of people about how this could even be possible And what I'd like to know is whether now that we have several more months of developments in this war, whether there has been any more clarity on that question, or is the idea we'll investigate that only once the war is over?
Look, again, Netanyahu, especially, is terrified of the investigation because it's quite clear that the investigation will reveal some things that he doesn't want the public to know.
And mainly Netanyahu, but not only him, some ministers as well.
But I think that to answer your question, first of all, I'd like to rule out any sense of conspiracy theory.
I've never believed in conspiracy theories, and I guess that I'll never will.
So I want to rule it out.
What I do think is that if I have to summarize it in one word, I would say arrogance.
Israel, and the government of Israel to be more precise, is an arrogant one.
that believed, including mainly the prime minister, but not only him, that Israel is omnipotent, that can do whatever he can, whatever it likes,
that there's no risk for anyone, that the Palestinians that there's no risk for anyone, that the Palestinians are just people, not only with material ability, but even some other abilities and capabilities, and that because of that, Israel can control them for good.
That goes back to what I said before, managing the occupation rather than solving it.
So, Netanyahu, time and time again in the last few years, repeatedly said to the public, when he talked to the public, normally he doesn't, that there's no reason to be worried from the Hamas or from the Palestinians.
They don't have the capabilities to do anything.
This is arrogance of a typical colonialist versus the indigenous colonized.
So I think that's the main thing that led to this disaster on 7th of October.
On top of that, of course, and part of that is also not only the arrogance of the government and the prime minister, which again, in my view, this is the main issue, but also the military.
The military didn't give enough attention to what was going on in Gaza.
And by the way, we know now, it's not classified, it was published many times in the last few months, in the last two or three months, that there were some hints about what was going to happen.
And some people, some professionals within the military, especially, by the way, women soldiers that were, because of their specific positions on the border looking into what was going on in Gaza, actually warned a few times their superiors that something fishy was going on there, but they didn't want to listen.
And it was published also that one woman, a soldier woman, was even threatened by one of her superiors, one officer, that if she was going on with nagging the officers about her suspicions of what was going on in Gaza, she was going to be tried and going to prison.
So there were, across the board, there were so many failures.
The main failure is by no means for sure the failure of the Prime Minister, of Netanyahu.
Let's not forget, and I think that I said that in the last interview with you, that Netanyahu said explicitly in 2019 that anyone Who objects the idea of a Palestinian independent state must weaken the Palestinian Authority and strengthen Hamas.
Now this did not boil down only to words, but also to activities and deeds, because we all know that's not a secret.
It's a well-known fact that Netanyahu continuously throughout the years as Prime Minister, he allowed a huge amount of money, billions of dollars I guess, to be transferred by Qatar to the Gaza Strip, not into the hands of the poor Palestinian people who suffer there from poverty, from hunger, etc., but to Hamas.
So eventually, the main A person that financed Hamas in digging the tunnels, for instance, in being equipped with weapons, etc., is Netanyahu.
Because he passed the money.
Exactly.
You know, I think it's interesting because you said... That's a huge... Absolutely.
I mean, you said you wanted to rule out conspiracy theories, and I know by that you mean arguments that suggest that Netanyahu purposely allowed the October 7th attack to happen for his own benefit, or even that the Israeli government might have engineered it.
Right.
And I know that's what you mean.
And it is interesting, though, that the claim that Netanyahu really supported Hamas and financed it to a lot of people who don't pay a lot of attention.
Sounds like it might be a conspiracy theory, but it's so well documented.
And even in the mainstream Israeli press...
It is documented that nobody...
It is well known, you know, and Netanyahu actually said so.
As I said, I quoted him in 2019 in a meeting of the Likud party.
He actually said more or less what I just said, that he preferred Hamas over the Palestinian Authority because that's the way.
By the way, Bezalel Smotrich, one of the worst bigots in this government, and there's a great competition with wars, by the way, but definitely one of the worst, if not the worst.
In 2015, he said, and I quote word by word, Palestinian authority is a burden, Hamas is an asset.
Those are the specific words he used, and he explained.
We explained there are two dimensions to this lunatic, crazy, insane, criminal perception of the right wing in Israel, Netanyahu and Smotrych specifically.
And this insanity consists of two things.
First, divide and rule.
If Hamas rules Gaza, The Palestinian Authority rules the West Bank, so there is no one Palestinian authority or entity with which one could deliberate, etc.
So there's no need to, or no possibility as it were, to speak about a Palestinian people that deserves its own state under a specific one authority.
This is one thing.
The other thing is by creating the monstrous entity of Hamas in Gaza as a government, it created a situation in which the more fanatic is dominant, is more powerful it created a situation in which the more fanatic is dominant, is more And it can be used and was used as an excuse not to deliberate with anyone.
That's exactly what they wanted.
And it exploded, unfortunately, literally, as metaphorically, on our face.
Yeah.
And we paid the price with blood of our people.
Yeah, I mean, you know, and in the central propaganda claim for decades in the U.S.
when it came to Israel was, oh, it's the Israelis that want a two-state solution, the Palestinians who have been rejecting it, and Netanyahu finally came out and actually boasted that he was the one who had been impeding a two-state solution and that he was very proud of it.
Let me move to a topic that has caused you to be in the news over the last couple of weeks, even more so than you usually are, which is your decision to support and join in the suit brought by the country of South Africa at the International Court of Justice that accuses Israel of various war crimes, including genocide.
I want to ask you about the substance of that claim, those accusations, and why you support it.
But before I do, I want to ask you about the reaction by many of your colleagues in the Knesset, essentially announcing that they intend to try to remove you from your elected position in the Knesset as a result of your decision to support the South African claim.
Where does that stand?
Is that a realistic possibility that you will be removed as a result of that decision?
Unfortunately, there's no realistic scenario in which I will not be expelled, because they do have the majority.
Look, in 2016, the expulsion of impeachment law was enacted, and it was under a huge criticism, and justly so.
It was entitled by many as an undemocratic law, because it allows the tyranny of the majority, literally.
you know, classic tyranny of the majority, because if the majority don't like a specific member of the Knesset, they can get rid of him, although one was, you know, elected.
So, unfortunately, they use it for the first time now.
And just to, you know, to briefly explain what is the procedure, a member of the Knesset may initiate a motion for the expulsion or impeachment, if you like, of a member of the Knesset.
If one succeeds in collecting 70 members of the Knesset to sign that motion, then it goes to the Knesset committee, in which 75 percent of the members of the committee, which stands at in which 75 percent of the members of the committee, which stands at the moment on 17, vote So then it goes on to the plenum, to the assembly.
And if 90 out of 120 members of the Knesset vote for the expulsion, so that's the end of the story and the member of the Knesset is impeached.
Of course, may appeal to the Supreme Court, which may uphold it or revoke it.
But that's the procedure.
Now, there are three.
Three bases upon which such a motion can be initiated in the first place.
And that is, those are, first, if a member of the Knesset supports terrorism.
Second, if a member of the Knesset supports an armed struggle against Israel.
And third, if a member of the Knesset supports racism.
Now, I've been accused that in signing This petition, and a petition that was initiated by Israelis, and almost 1,000 Israelis signed on it, a petition that expresses solely a support for the lawsuit of South Africans.
So I am accused as if I support armed struggle against Israel because I signed this petition.
This is outrageous.
And this is crazy.
Even George Orwell could not think about such, you know, a motion that turns everything upside down.
Because, you know, I signed on a petition that calls for ceasefire, ending the war and sparing lives.
And I'm accused in supporting armed struggle.
And just to be clear, I just want to interject here, because I remember when you were on my show the last time, It was only a couple weeks after October 7th, and you were very emphatic, very, very clear that you regarded the October 7th attack as morally unjustifiable and horrific.
So this idea that somehow you implicitly support an armed struggle against Israel because you're objecting to the use of force in Gaza, when you very explicitly and clearly went, not just on my show, but all over the media, denouncing the Hamas attack, It's obviously just a lie.
I mean, there's no way to sustain that allegation.
She lied.
The problem is, Glenn, is that it's not only that I am accused by someone who belongs to the far-right party, you know, to say the least, so I'm not very surprised, but I wouldn't like to say that I'm surprised, but I'm, should I put it, disappointed?
It's not a personal issue.
I think that the most dangerous thing is that some members of the so-called center-left parties at the Knesset joined forces and signed this motion to impeach me.
This is a clear-cut wage of war against specific beliefs.
It's not against me as a person, as an author.
It is against Those who oppose the occupation, those who oppose the war, those who want to stop the bloodshed of everyone, of course, we are under attack.
We are persecuted.
It's not only me.
And if you remember, when we talked last time, I told you, I think, about so many hundreds of Israeli citizens, especially Arabs, but not only, who were arrested and interrogated, suspended from the studies at the universities, fired from the workplaces only because they expressed disdain at the war or sympathy for the children of Gaza.
So this is another layer of this very same infection that spreads in the Israeli society.
And I lamented and I'm terrified, not for my future, for the future of this society, for the future of the state of Israel, if you like, because that puts us, the Israeli society in Israel, is at risk.
In the hands of a crazy government that persecutes everyone who thinks differently with the support of members of the Knesset from the center and even so-called left.
Absolutely.
You know, it's so, you know, central to the attempt to sell Israel to the United States.
And of course, the United States pays for Israel, for the Israeli military and for Israel's wars, the bombs Israel is dropping come from the United States.
The central sales pitch has always been, oh look, Israel is the only democracy in the region.
And so to watch elected officials being threatened with removal because of their political views, to watch people being arrested because they like certain social media posts that, as you say, don't call for armed conflict against Israel, but simply express concern for or empathy with the children of Gaza for being killed, is the obvious opposite of democracy.
As for the complaint itself brought by South Africa, I understand why a lot of Israelis find it threatening.
After all, South Africa has a very storied history as a country that had to overcome apartheid at the very same time that the United States and Israel both supported the apartheid government back in the 1980s.
And at the same time, genocide is something that, in the storied history of Jewish people and the state of Israel, was something that was done Why do you think that's a valid claim?
to the narrative of Israel about why Israel needs to be able to do everything it does because Jews were the victim of genocide, which, of course, is true during World War II.
So now you have this lawsuit, this formal accusation in an international court alleging that now Israel is not the victims of genocide but the perpetrators of it.
Why do you think that's a valid claim?
Why are you willing to risk your career in the Knesset, maybe even your freedom ultimately in order to support and join in?
Look, my political career, specifically being a member of the Knesset, is not an entity itself.
It's a means.
It's a means to pursue what I think is just And in favor of Israelis as well.
I mean, me being a member of the Knesset, I see it as a mission, and a mission for justice.
And justice for all means justice for Israelis and for Palestinians.
And if I cannot do that, so there's no reason for me to be there.
You know, so it's not an end in itself.
Now, answering your question about this genocide case, This petition, which I joined, expressed support for the lawsuit because mainly this should be investigated.
I don't say categorically that the government of Israel, and I want to say that this is a law motion, not against--a lawsuit not against Israel.
It is against the government of Israel.
And of course, we have to distinguish between the two.
So in my view, I don't claim that categorically that the government of Israel is guilty in genocide.
I do say that it must be investigated.
And I think this is an Israeli interest as well, because the Israeli interest is not only to have bombs and rifles and weapons and arms from the United States or otherwise, to say the least.
The real interest of Israel and the Israelis And in that sense, I consider myself to be one who struggles for the interest of the Israelis and Israeli society.
Our interest is to be moral.
Being moral, being just, is an interest.
And that's my main struggle.
And if my government behaves in an unjust or immoral manner, my obligation, not only is to expose it and to amend it.
Now, the government of Israel cannot investigate itself like any other government.
It's not unique to the Israeli government.
It is as if we were saying that a criminal or a suspect in a robbery has to investigate oneself.
That's crazy.
The states or governments must be investigated by as impartial institutions as possible.
And the ICJ is definitely more impartial than the government of Israel or any kind of branch That's one of the main things in this support.
Israel is part of the Convention on Genocide.
I want to remind everyone that Israel was one of the first states that after the Holocaust, the Jewish Holocaust, the extermination of millions of Jews in Europe, Afterwards, when the Convention of Genocide accepted, Israel, not surprisingly, because of the terrible lot of Jews, was one of the first ones who joined the convention.
So it cannot complain now that the ICJ is not impartial.
You accepted the ICJ.
You were part of it.
And definitely the ICJ, even if there are some shortcomings, let us assume hypothetically, it is definitely more impartial than the government of Israel itself.
So that means that the ICJ is better to investigate what's going on in Gaza than the Israeli government itself.
It's so simple and clear.
And I lament it that so many in the Israeli parliament and public don't want to understand that.
The motive or the goal that was given by the Israeli government at the start of the war was a very clear and simple one.
We're out to destroy Hamas.
Not to weaken it, not to erode it, but to destroy Hamas.
Now looking back at everything that has happened over the last several months and I realize that you believe that one of the motives is to prolong the war to protect the Netanyahu government, but beyond that What greater clarity is there now about what the real motive is in this ongoing operation in Gaza?
What is the ultimate aim, do you think?
And I'm sure different people have different motives, but in terms of the dominant faction of the government that's making the decisions, what do you really believe their objective is?
First of all, in the beginning of this war, as you said correctly, Netanyahu and the government in general said that the only motivation or the only end of the attack on Gaza is to eradicate Hamas.
Just a few days later, Netanyahu added the release of the hostages because he felt that the public opinion in Israel supports immensely, and just so, the release of the hostages.
We said from the beginning, including myself, publicly, that those two ends are mutually exclusive.
They are contradictory.
The longer the war goes on, The chances of releasing the hostages, you know, get lower and vice versa.
So I think that throughout those terrible months, as I said before, the survival of the government, a sense of revenge, a sense of revenge was there and still there.
But painfully, I must say that you hear more and more
Components in the coalition, including within the Likud party, which is Netanyahu's party, you hear more and more messianic lunatics who argue that because the land of Israel is ordered for the Jews by God, they have to resettle Gaza Strip by Jewish settlers at the expense of Palestinians.
So many of them, and by the way, the lawsuit by South Africa quoted Prime Minister Netanyahu, ministers, members of the Knesset, even the President of Israel.
They quoted them in order to say that it was the intent of genocide.
Again, I'm not saying it's true or not.
I'm not saying this was the intent.
I'm just saying that they were quoted.
in saying terrible things, including that Israel, as it were, has the intention or the plan to rebuild Jewish settlements and to transfer to a forcibly deport has the intention or the plan to rebuild Jewish settlements and to transfer to a forcibly deport Palestinians or even dead Palestinians from
I remind you and the viewers that the Minister of Intelligence in Israel and the ministry, the office, published an unclassified document about two months ago which specified the plan to transfer, to deport
The Palestinians from Gaza Strip to Sinai, which is under the control of Egypt, and the plan was to reestablish Jewish settlements there.
Unfortunately, there are so many messianic lunatics in this government that actually want that, and they support that, including ministers.
So I'm afraid that some of them, although it's not a formal policy of the government yet, But I'm afraid that too many ministers strongly believe that that's the thing that should be done.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
I mean, it's going to drown us all in rivers of blood.
And that should be stopped.
Unfortunately, the international community, especially Biden's administration, do exactly the opposite.
So let me ask you, when you had mentioned the first time we talked, and this is one of the things that stuck with me, was the concern you had about the kind of reprisals that were going to be launched against anyone criticizing the government.
Not just the kind of legal reactions that we just have already gone over, but even these kinds of Almost like you could describe them as right-wing militias, people who have been heavily armed that seem to operate under the control of one or two of the most extremist ministers.
And the question obviously was that there was a possibility that you, as an outspoken critic of the war from early on, could be the target of these reprisals.
You were formally indicted for assaulting a police officer that is from an event that took place in the West Bank back in 2022.
Now suddenly you are formally indicted.
There's the Times of Israel report on this case.
How do you see this case and I assume you see it as a clear attempt to retaliate against you for the positions that you have been taken, but given how much this has been in the media, what is your version of these events?
It was, as you said, about two years ago, we went to demonstrate.
We were hundreds of leftist Israelis, internationals, Palestinians.
We went together to support the communities of Mesafer Yata, which stands in front of a deportation from the lands.
We are talking about more than 1,000 people, Palestinian people, who by decree of the Supreme Court as well are going to be deported from the lands.
We're talking about poor people who partly live in caves, you know, and they are deported only in order, I mean, not formally, but practically in order to give the land to Jewish settlers.
So we went there to demonstrate.
We were blocked in the middle of the road on our way.
there because it was declared as a closed military zone.
They do it very commonly, you know, it's very frequent.
They do it systematically every time that we want to demonstrate there.
The settlers are free to pass, by the way, but we cannot.
And so we began our demonstration on our way.
I wanted to pass with my car, which my immunity as a member of the Knesset allows me, and they didn't allow me.
So we began a fast.
There was a fast there.
One police officer actually threatened to shoot me.
And another one afterwards, you know, just put his hand, hit my face.
And when I tried to remove it, to move his hand, so I hit him accidentally.
And now they make this, you know, thing as if I was attacking him.
And I wonder about the timing.
Why it was published now, more or less the same time that I'm going to be expelled from the parliament?
I think it's not a coincidence.
And I think that this is also part of a general persecution, not only of me, but all, but the persecution of people who has, have specific beliefs against the occupation, against the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, et cetera, against the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, et cetera, against the assault on Gaza, et cetera.
So that's Raises some doubts about the integrity of the system in general.
Right.
I just have time for a couple other questions.
I actually have a bunch that I'd love to ask you, and we'll have you back on so we can continue.
But you mentioned earlier the Biden administration, and there have been several times over the past three months when the Biden administration has said to the Israelis publicly and then privately, and they leaked it, we want you to stop doing this.
And every time the Israelis have basically said, we don't care what you want.
We're going to continue to do it anyway.
The most recent example is when Israeli officials a couple months ago started leaking that they wanted to take some Gaza land to create a buffer, a bigger buffer between Gaza.
In the Israeli border.
And the Biden administration came out and said, absolutely unacceptable.
We will not accept a single inch in reduction of Gazan land.
Now you just have this big explosion where over 20 Israeli troops were killed when a building that they were trying to blow up as part of creating this buffer zone, exactly what the Americans said they didn't want, they're now doing.
And now the Biden administration comes out and says, well, maybe we can live with this as long as it's temporary.
Is there any respect at all in Israel for the idea that the United States government, the Biden administration, might actually impose real limits on what Israel is doing?
Or is there a recognition that the Americans are just kind of publicly posturing, but at the end of the day will never really use leverage against Israel to stop them from what they want to do?
Look, there is a huge difference between the rhetoric and the deeds.
As far as the Biden administration is concerned, on the one hand, there is a rhetoric against the buffer zone and against the death toll of civilians.
But on the other hand, practically, the administration supports Israel.
One thing, the deals are exactly the opposite.
You can see that it was just published a few hours ago that there's a new trade of arms sent from the United States to Israel.
Just a couple of hours ago, I read about it on the media, that there's a new delivery of arms, including airplanes, to Israel.
So if Biden's administration says stop, but at the same time, literally at the same time, sends airplanes and arms, etc., to Israel, so what should the government understand from that?
I mean, that's a simple question.
So you cannot contradict yourself in such a terrible manner.
You know, you're saying one thing and do the other.
You know, that reminds me of a, you know, of a parent that on the one hand says to, you know, one of the kids, one's kids, I love you so much.
I care about you so much.
And at the same time, just eat him.
you know, time and time again.
I mean, that cannot go together.
So this hypocrisy drives me crazy.
I mean, that's unbelievable.
Yeah, I mean, it seems clear that the Biden administration is concerned with the anger of a lot of their voters heading into an election about Biden's support for Israel.
A lot of these statements seem designed to assuage that anger.
But there's no attempt at all to use any American leverage to influence the Israelis in any way.
All right.
Last question.
And you alluded to this a little bit.
If I may, Justin, you said supporting Israel.
In my view, Biden's administration does not support Israel.
It supports the government of Israel at the expense of Israel.
Okay, that's actually a perfect segue into what I wanted to ask you.
That's a great way to go about this because obviously after October 7th, I think every media report from Israel I think you yourself acknowledge that there was a lot of unity in Israel.
Like, we have to go and get the people who did this.
It was very similar to what happened in the United States after the 9-11 attacks.
When you have an attack like that, people unify behind the government.
They're angry.
They want vengeance.
Very normal reaction.
And then as time goes on, people start questioning, well, is this really the right thing that we're doing?
Do we actually trust this government that happened, you know, within a matter of months or then a couple of years in the United States?
How is public opinion, not just toward Netanyahu, but toward this ongoing war in Gaza?
Is there any real kind of change in the willingness of the Israeli citizenry to continue to just close their eyes and blindly support whatever the government is doing?
Or is there starting to be more meaningful questioning and criticism of how this war is being conducted?
I think there is a shift you can see.
And, you know, in the beginning you could see a gap between two perceptions in the Israeli public.
On the one hand, the majority of the public dislikes, to say the least, the government in general and Netanyahu personally in particular.
Want to see this government in power, but at the same time they supported the war that the government carried out.
Now you can see that more and more people don't want this government to stay.
There is a campaign, a huge campaign, calling for elections now or expulsion of the government now.
especially of Netanyahu.
You can see, I think the vast majority, more than 70%, if not 80, are there.
But you can see also that more and more people say that the war should be stopped in order to release the hostages.
So I'm against the war for different reasons, for stopping the bloodshed in general.
I don't want the Palestinians to be killed.
I don't want Israelis to be killed.
But the majority of Israel, I guess, who are against the war care much more about the, not so much about the Palestinians, but about the hostages and perhaps the soldiers.
But in the bottom line, I think that more and more people in Israel begin to understand that this war is useless.
It's not for the sake of Israelis.
It's not for the sake of the hostages.
It's definitely not for the sake of the soldiers.
And it's also only, as I said before, for the sake of the government and the Prime Minister.
And because of that, I think the last poll I saw Said that 47% of the Israelis support an immediate end to the war in order to release the hostages.
And perhaps now it's even more, so you can see a shift.
Well, Ofer, one of the most difficult things to be, I think, is a dissident in your own country.
To be that in the middle of a war, especially when there's a crackdown on dissent, is not just courageous, but also very important.
So I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing.
I have a lot of admiration for it.
And whenever you come on, it really helps us understand better what's taking place in Israel.
So thanks so much for coming on, and we would love to talk to you again.
Thank you very much.
Absolutely.
Take it easy.
Have a good night.
So that concludes our show for this evening.
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