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Oct. 24, 2023 - Jim Fetzer

01:32:22

‘Inhumanity On Parade in The Holy Land’ - The Sunday wire with Patrick Henningsen and Freddie Ponton

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	The views expressed on this program by its guests do not necessarily reflect the views or beliefs of the host or radio network.
	This program's sole intent is to help educate, foster critical debate, and help raise and discuss political and social issues which already exist in the public domain.
	Thank you.
	Enjoy the program.
	All right.
	Welcome.
	Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
	Welcome to this week's edition of the Sunday Wire.
	I'm your host Patrick Henningsen.
	We're streaming out live on the Alternate Current Radio Network and also at 21stCenturyWire.com.
	This is episode 484 of this weekly Omnibus News and Analysis radio program, again brought to you here on ACR.
	Really great to have you guys with us.
	I appreciate your listenership.
	Everybody in the Sunday Wire 21st Century Wide chat room, also in our ACR chat communities there, whether it's on the Discord server or the other forums, welcome to the program.
	We really appreciate you guys too.
	Now, we're going to do a little bit of a different format today.
	We're going to have a discussion with a guest who you are all very familiar with.
	He's also a contributor at 21stCenturyWire.com.
	He's an independent journalist.
	His name is Freddy Ponton.
	Before I introduce Freddy, I'll also tell you that in the second segment, we're going to invite Basil Valentine.
	And also Brian McLean aka Hesher, host of the Boiler Room, on for a roundtable discussion and I think hopefully between the four of us we'll be able to field a few questions.
	Freddie might also take some questions from Hesher and also Basil on this important issue where you know what the topic is going to be everybody.
	This is the big story right now.
	Certainly it leads to other stories and we can expand the conversation out a little bit.
	But we have a problem in the world which is that we are watching real-time a live ethnic cleansing and genocide.
	There's no other way to cut it.
	We can talk around the issue.
	We can do one about ism We can say yes, but this that and I'm us and who the horror of the terror acts on October 7th And I can debunk and deconstruct those arguments and we might do that maybe but we've also done that in the past already what what's really important now is where is the situation as it stands today and And look at the humanitarian toll that is being exacted on the Palestinian people.
	It's just something on a level of horror to watch it real time on TV, to witness it on the media, to know that we're all calling, some of us anyway, I feel a little bit alone, not in present company on this program, of course, and not with you the listeners, but just in the general population.
	And why are more people, more world leaders, not calling for a ceasefire, not calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities in order for, A, the killing to stop, and B, for aid to come through?
	So this is a big question.
	Where is it now?
	Where is the situation now?
	And where is it heading?
	Where is it heading in the coming days, in the coming weeks, in the coming months?
	Do we have a good outlook here or do we have a bad outlook?
	And I don't mean to blackpill our audience.
	I really don't.
	But a lot of you are blackpilled already, actually.
	But I don't mean to intentionally blackpill you, but the signs that we're seeing right now are not good signs.
	So it's going to take either divine intervention or an extreme act of bravery by some world leaders
	to either do a U-turn to do a hard pivot on this issue or for people to rise up in whatever way that is most productive and we're not advocating for mass social unrest or violence or anything like that but you know people will do what people do when faced with no choice but either to sit there and watch the abject horror or to get up and do something about it and I think you're starting to see
	Those types of uprisings are already happening in the Middle East and multiple countries like Jordan, Iraq, also there's protests in Lebanon, the American Embassy, the entrance set fire, you see protests in Turkey, you're seeing massive demonstrations across Europe, in European countries, even countries that tried to ban pro-Palestinian
	If you can believe that, you're seeing also huge demonstrations over in the United States and really all across the world.
	So it seems to me, it's clear to me that the people are with the Palestinian people.
	The people of the world are with the Palestinian people.
	But, you know, in truth, they always have been, at least in terms of mass mobilization of protest and in the vein of anti-apartheid protests in support of liberation of people in South Africa.
	The Palestinian issue has always been joined to issues like that traditionally and more ostensibly with the political left, of course.
	That's without saying.
	We all know that.
	But in recent years, because of propaganda, censorship, pressure from social media companies to suppress this issue in support of the Palestinian cause.
	The resistance of occupation, as it's defined by the United Nations resolutions and various human rights organizations, as it's recognized widely and internationally for decades.
	This has all been mothballed in recent years.
	And we're seeing a level of inhumanity.
	And that's why the title of this program is very important, Inhumanity on Parade.
	Inhumanity on Parade in the Holy Land, of all places.
	In the Holy Land.
	We just witnessed the third oldest church in the world, Orthodox Church, basically targeted and turned to rubble in Gaza.
	Oh, did any Americans, am I, did I catch you off guard?
	There are Christians in Palestine.
	There's lots of them.
	And unfortunately, in this case, Christians in that community and people, and also Muslim residents, took shelter inside the Orthodox Church.
	And they died inside the Orthodox Church.
	That happened this week.
	Forget we can talk about the hospital bombing which was massive and it's there's a whole propaganda counter-propaganda campaign trying to you know either support or debunk the the accusation that Israel bombed that hospital the Allahi Baptist Hospital in Gaza killing I don't know how many people 500 plus okay we put that argument off to the side for a moment Israel is targeting churches hospitals residential homes
	This is a level of horror that is difficult for people to stand idly and stay quiet and say nothing, at least people of good conscience.
	So what are our politicians then if they're not people of good conscience?
	Why are they in leadership positions if they can't speak up and say enough, stop?
	Some people did and we'll talk about that with our next guest.
	I want to welcome to the program Freddie Ponton from France, independent journalist, researcher.
	Freddie, I appreciate you joining us for this conversation on the Sunday Wire this week.
	So I wanted to hand over to you.
	What is your assessment of the current situation?
	You know, give us your thoughts and your insights on this.
	Yes, Patrick, obviously this is a very, these are very, very dangerous time for civilization.
	I think we are experimenting some extremely, extremely worrisome moments with regards to the future of the people of Palestine.
	And I think the last past two weeks has taught us a lot about how our civilization has regressed rather than progressed.
	Let me explain myself here.
	You know, we are meant to believe that since the invasion of the American continent and the obviously the destruction of the American native living on the American continent.
	We have not made any progress.
	We are meant to believe that it's okay to come onto a land into an area and basically remove people from force against their will and it's okay to colonize and it's okay after the apartheid of South Africa and the lessons that we've learned that it's still okay to die To mistreat, to psychology torture, to psychology literally disturb a complete ethnic group, a racial group, known as the Palestinians.
	And for me, what I'm looking at the television, on social media, on internet, wherever you're getting your news from, it doesn't matter.
	There are some facts that are undeniable and that needs to be addressed.
	And what's happening currently in the Strip of Gaza, in the Kill Box of Gaza, that's probably the more appropriate term, then of course we must ask ourselves some serious questions.
	I was very interested in the conversation you had with the Russian representative, UN ambassador for Russia, Dmitry.
	And it's very important that we understand exactly what's going on and we can actually put a name on it.
	And it's very also important to not, you know, miss the elephant in the room.
	Because I think that a lot of people are spending a lot of time and energy discussing about how many bombs, or how many people are killed, or how many this, or how many that.
	So it sort of goes down to figures, and is it an acceptable figures, and everybody's gonna try to defend their own camp, you know?
	I support Palestine and I support Palestine for a very simple reason.
	It's because Israel has been declared by the United Nations, not by me, by the United Nations Security Council and part of their report that we issued in June 2022, it is clearly defined as an occupation force.
	If you're occupying a place and you are based The action and process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area, you are basically guilty of colonization.
	If you take that into consideration that the Convention of Geneva, the Fourth Convention of Geneva to be precise, this is considered as a war crime.
	There's nothing else to describe, there's nothing else to discuss.
	We are dealing with a state of Israel that is clearly in direct infraction of international law.
	And by the action of appropriating a place or domain for one's own news, which is they use the settlers use, not the Palestinians use, is also part of what is called colonization.
	Now, this is and I'm very blind today, because I think we need to really address the elephant in the room.
	The idea that it's okay to come to an area, not to talk about a state, a country, just an area where the indigenous people are living and it's okay to displace millions of people, to give them a status as independent displaced people.
	That's the status on the United Nations charts which the Palestinians have.
	And if you are to translate how these people have been removed from their abode, from their lands, it is by force, because the United Nations tells us that this is an occupying force, which means they're removing people by force.
	So all that makes it a war crime.
	All that makes it a targeted crime against humanity.
	And of course, all this makes it a crime Which soon will become a genocide because it's targeted to a particular ethnic race or a group, ethnic group or race group if you will.
	So all that, when you put it together and you put the dots together, you would want to believe that in the 21st century, in 2023, with the institutions, with the entire, basically, international law and all the legal tools internationally that are available, whether it's to the ICC, whether it's to the United Nations, whether it's to our own governments, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, United States.
	We have the tools to intervene to make sure that we are not going to witness what we are witnessing on our television at this moment in time.
	And yet it's happening.
	So that is the question we need to address.
	Why today the Gaza Strip has been literally turned into a kill box where it's okay for the entire world to witness basically the decimation The constant bombarding of a civilian population on the basis that a terror group is living amongst them.
	Is it legal?
	Is it legal in front of the law?
	Is it legal in front of the international institution, which basically are the foundations of our democracy?
	That is the question we need to ask ourselves.
	Now, in my country, in France, if a kid young man threw a stone at a law enforcement officer, it is likely that he will be punished for it.
	He might even do a week or two, a month in jail perhaps.
	But he's not going to be killed for it.
	And that's for me really, really important because we are the Western world and we are basically going out there in the Middle East, in West Asia, around the world, promoting democracy.
	So if we are to apply and we are to be the guarantor of democracy and human rights, we need to apply them. - Yeah.
	Now, what I've just described, colonization, war crime, crime against humanity, and so on, the list is pretty long.
	Well, there's something that happens when you are actually suspected of having committed this crime.
	And what happens is, normally you lose a certain numbers of privilege.
	And the first privilege you do lose is your freedom of movement, because you are behind bars awaiting for trial.
	So when I hear Israel saying along and along with the United States and the European Union that is entitled to defend itself, well, my response to that is yes, they are entitled, but entitled to a fair trial.
	That's about the only thing they're entitled to right now.
	So that's my observation.
	I think it's you understand my position because we're going around the pot.
	And I think to die, we need to look for solutions.
	And we need to hold responsible for those that allow these crimes to happen in front of the world for the world to witness it.
	It's just not acceptable.
	Yes, Freddy.
	Yeah.
	And that's the big problem that we're facing.
	That's the big problem that we're facing.
	And we did hold a space on the X-Platform, formerly known as Twitter, with the permanent representative from the Russian Federation of the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky.
	We did that on Friday.
	It was fairly well attended.
	I think many people have listened to it already on the replay.
	And some really important issues came up.
	Some really important issues came up and they were fundamental issues to do with policy and this whole conversation started, Freddie, with why was the ceasefire vetoed by the United States at the UN Security Council by Ambassador Thomas Greenfield, last name hyphen Thomas Greenfield, she's the appointee of Joe Biden,
	One of a long list of unimpressive and really just horrible UN ambassadors from the United States, but I digress.
	But that was the main point, you know, what would the United States have against a ceasefire?
	Especially with so many civilians and what you called a kill box, Freddy.
	When you use the term kill box, you know, that's a US military term.
	It's a very kind of cold, sanitized, I would say somewhat sadistic, Use in military language but in this case it's being used for civilians and and and quite unabashedly I would I would add by the Israeli side who view all these Palestinian civilians as collateral damage and you brought up a good point Freddie.
	You brought up a good point Freddie and that point is is the collective punishment aspect.
	And before October 7th, the idea that you would withhold water, food, fuel, electricity, communications from an entire population in the most densely populated city that's hemmed in through security zones and walls in what is described and accepted by many as the world's largest open-air prison,
	The fact that you would do that, you put that collective pressure, you'd put that many people under siege and then not allow them even to have aid come in or for those who are in need to get out through the one place they could get out or allowed to get out.
	And then on top of that, You launch massive airstrikes and we spoke earlier in the week, Freddie, you brought up the statistics and maybe you could just reiterate some of that.
	You made some great points that the bombing campaign that the Israeli occupation forces have done in the last two weeks in terms of tonnage is the equivalent or more of the Dresden bombing.
	In 1945, the infamous Dresden bombing by the British and the Americans, the firebombing of Dresden, you know, the wanton targeting of a civilian population.
	It's not trivial.
	The numbers we're talking about now, this week, are not trivial in terms of deaths, injured and missing.
	Your thoughts on that side of things, Freddie?
	It's a serious, dire situation.
	Go ahead.
	Yes, it is a dire situation and you probably could add to the list, you know, with Dresden in Germany, you could add probably Tokyo, you could add even Afghanistan.
	I mean, in two weeks they've managed to drop more bombs on Gaza than they've for one year in Afghanistan war.
	So that's just very, very telling.
	And the technicality, of course, is what the investigators, the so-called UN war crime investigators are supposed to establish, you know, is what we are saying qualified as a war crime and why is it allowed to happen.
	And that is very important because this is not new.
	I think people are awakened to this crisis with the Palestinians.
	Some people are new to the subject, to the topic.
	Some people kind of had an idea that something wrong was going on there, but they never really do the homework.
	When it happens on the other side of the world, somehow it has less importance.
	I'm not saying everybody's like that.
	A lot of people care and trying to understand exactly what happened and hold their, you know, their politicians accountable.
	The problem is with this supranational power.
	It seems that, you know, the power to make a decision to revert this injustice lies in the hand of very few people.
	And if Geneva, if La Hague, if the ICC, if all these institutions are not going to do their job and have the power to reverse that, to condemn, like they did, for example, with Russia, with Vladimir Putin, the ICC issued a very quick arrest for warrant.
	How much investigation went into that?
	We don't know.
	The reports have not been made public really, but they came to a conclusion that there was an arrest for warrants for Vladimir Putin.
	Why is there no arrest for warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu?
	I think it is quite clear today for me, for my own personal, and this is my opinion of course, if you have the former head of Mossad, Tamir Pardoe, clearly telling you that the State of Israel Is an apartheid state, right?
	Because the Palestinians and Israelis are not equal in front of the law.
	So that's mean to die.
	We have absolutely no issues.
	And I think it's really not a, you know, a big scoop to say that Palestine and Israel, the way this entire kind of conflict has been resolved is by creating an apartheid and basically to forward and to displace an entire population into an upper sky concentration camp.
	It's not a prison.
	They're not guilty of anything.
	It's a concentration camp.
	This is to put them out of sight, out of mind, and to keep them under the bare minimum so that they don't die because it will look really bad in front of the international press.
	So we give them, you know, this kind of 250 calories a day so that they survive, but they don't leave.
	Right?
	And what people want, and I think it's quite clear, around the world.
	Yeah.
	Go ahead.
	Go ahead, Freddy.
	Sorry.
	Yeah.
	What we are seeing around the world, in New York City, in France, in Holland, in everywhere around the world, not only in the Arab world, but around the Western world, people on the street, in London, massive, massive, huge march where people, what these people are asking, it's always the same things they're asking. what these people are asking, it's always the same things They're asking for freedom for the people of Palestine.
	This means that these people can actually have the right, which is absolutely a universal right for them to decide and to be able to control their future.
	That's what we need to give them back, and that's what Palestinians are entitled by international law.
	They're entitled to that.
	They're entitled to dignity.
	They're entitled to decency.
	They're entitled to water.
	They're entitled to electricity and fuel.
	They're entitled to feel safe in their own home.
	And that has been, basically, they've been deprived of.
	And when, as I said, you say, when Mossad executive, very well known, tough guys, even him say, this is a state of apartheid.
	If you listen to Danny Yatom, Danny Yatom, former head of Mossad, he's on national television 48 hours ago saying that, oh, we need to destroy the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
	And he says that it doesn't matter, you know, if we kill people, it doesn't matter.
	It's irrelevant at this stage.
	We just need to destroy flat out this hospital if we believe that there is a Hamas cell at this particular hospital.
	But this is a person which was in France four years ago telling the French journalists that Netanyahu regime was a dictatorship and not a democracy.
	So you see, there seems to be a double kind of language, you know, from these people.
	It seems that when they're in Israel, it's an open bar.
	You can just literally flat out guess that it's justified because Israel has the right to defend itself.
	No, I don't agree with that.
	I think Israel has the right to a fair trial.
	That's what I agree because that's what our Western institution and international law is saying.
	If you are in apartheid states, if you are responsible for war crime, genocide, crime against humanity, and on and on, and it's clearly now in front of, for everyone to see, there is a moment where we need to draw the line and do what the international law dictates, which is to put these people under a state of there is a moment where we need to draw the line and do what the international law dictates, which is to put these people under a state of arrest, have an arrest warrant issued to these people, whether they're military
	And if the Hamas is responsible for war crime, let's be it, and let's define what the Hamas is.
	Let's understand if there are terrorists or simply people that are trying to resist an oppression.
	My family, I'll just give you a quick example.
	My family is from Lyon.
	We have a huge history of resistance.
	My uncles, my grandparents, all that, they all were resistance.
	They are resistance under the Vichy regime.
	The Vichy regime and the Reich, the German Reich, declared them as terrorists.
	Jean Moulin was a terrorist.
	If you look into the archive of the French resistance, they are described as terrorists.
	Our land, our family, and for our right to be French and our right to not have to speak German in 100 years time, but to remain French as we are.
	And today, because we resisted, because we were guilty of terrorism against the German and the Vichy regime, we have a country that is known as a democracy and as a republic.
	So, again, we need to redefine what is a terrorist.
	Is it just another kind of a marketing strap line that seems to fit them all, you know, that fits any kind of narrative, as long as it describes these people as just terrorists?
	Are they just really pure evil?
	Because one day they've decided to say enough is enough.
	I don't know.
	I don't have these answers.
	This is not for me, as a journalist, to say Hamas is a terrorist group.
	Oh, it's not.
	It's for the international institution responsible to apply international law to describe and decide whether, actually, Palestine has a right to defend itself.
	That is the question we should ask ourselves.
	And I think that it's been preempted by the Israelis, which say, oh, we have the right to defend ourselves.
	What about the Palestinian right to defend themselves?
	Are they in their right, legally, to defend themselves?
	That's the answers we need also the ICC and the United Nations to state upon it.
	We need these legal entities to do their job.
	And they're not.
	They're not doing their job.
	I'm afraid.
	They are good people.
	They are good war investigators.
	Very genuine people.
	They work for the army.
	They work for the United Nations.
	They work for peacekeeping missions.
	Some of these people, I've met them during my career.
	They're fantastic people.
	They're very good people.
	But it's not about the people, it's about the mandate.
	And that goes for the United Nations.
	Is the mandate appropriate?
	Have they been given the tools?
	Is the organizations working?
	Because we can have all the tribunal, all this international call.
	If they're not working, and if not doing their job, then this is what's happening.
	We get to see a genocide on live television.
	Something needs to change, and it needs to change fast, because This is not going to remain unpunished.
	And I can see very quickly this, this, this conflict escalating because human rights have been deprived from the Palestinians.
	And I think that nobody can stand for that any longer.
	No, you're right, Freddie, because the world's looking on and saying, if Israel can never be held accountable for any of its war crimes, even the ones that have been censured for, it's been recognized, it's etched into UN resolutions, etc.
	If they can't even be held accountable for that, even that which is committed on camera in full view of the world, If they can never be held account to these crimes, then what use is these pieces of paper?
	They call them international law, they call them war crimes, treaties, etc.
	They just become, they're important pieces of paper.
	These pieces of paper hold the world system together in different ways, but they're also flouted, ignored, dismissed, and, you know, just completely Torn to shreds by powerful countries throughout history.
	And of course, this is always an ongoing debate.
	This is an ongoing problem.
	But I think just getting back to the core point, you know, it's important that this is framed in its correct historical context.
	And you're right, it's not your job as a journalist to say who's a terrorist, who's not.
	You could say they're proscribed as a terrorist by this institution and that institution or that country, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are a terrorist or you can still argue about what is a terrorist group because that is a subjective label applied and often applied politically.
	I'll give you an example.
	I think the example you gave was fantastic, Freddy.
	The under-German occupation, the French Resistance, were regarded as terrorists by the occupiers.
	Okay?
	German occupiers.
	So the French Resistance, which is recognized historically as a legitimate resistance against an aggressive occupation.
	So there's no debate there how history looks back at that, but look at the foundation of the State of Israel.
	Ergon, Haganon.
	The Stern Gang.
	These are listed as terrorist groups even after the creation of Israel.
	Listed as terrorist groups, but to the Israelis, these are the heroes of the nation.
	These are the founding fathers of the modern state of Israel.
	They're terrorists.
	They did terroristic acts, they mass-murdered, they killed, they stole land at gunpoint.
	Okay?
	They're terrorists.
	By anyone's definition, but not by Israel's definition.
	But by other people's definitions.
	And now you have Hamas, which is the governing body elected in Gaza.
	Which has different aspects of things they're responsible for in managing civil life in Gaza.
	They also have, you could say, a military wing or a security wing.
	And you have various other brigades that fight alongside Hamas, a part of a collection of resistance factions in Gaza that are resisting the occupation by the Israeli entity in the occupied territories.
	So, you know, the IRA, armed, regarded as terrorists by the British, by the American Irish, regarded as freedom fighters.
	Then they became legitimized through Sinn Féin and they're into politics and holding seats in Parliament on both sides of the border in Ireland.
	Who else?
	Hezbollah, another one regarded by the U.S. and Israel as terrorists, but hold massive parliamentary seats in Lebanon.
	They also have a militia wing that's separate from the political wing, but still very much intertwined in the wider organization.
	Many people believe they liberated South Lebanon from an illegal Israeli occupation.
	The Americans will say, no, they're terrorists.
	We can't talk to them and we're going to sanction them and so forth.
	Same with Hamas.
	So this isn't a black and white conversation, but making it a black and white conversation is what is justifying the war crimes that we're seeing right now in Gaza.
	Because they are punishing or calling Gazan residents, they're being collectively punished, they're calling them collateral damage.
	And then they're calling them human shields used by Gaza.
	And what they are not telling you in the West is that these people are defiant against the occupation, that these are the people of Palestine.
	They're not members of Hamas, they're not part of the government officials of Hamas, but they resist the Israeli occupation.
	In that sense, they support the cause of Hamas, which is resisting the illegal occupation and oppression.
	But if the world is going to say that's terrorism, then they're going to label all of those residents who do not want to leave their homes as terrorists.
	So this doesn't work on any level.
	Like, it's not logical the way this conversation is being conducted by Israel and the United States and their allies, Freddie.
	They have a way to do that and it's really absolutely appalling.
	What I see on television, journalists all across Europe and certainly the United States as well, the first thing they do when they invite a guest to talk about these conflicts, the first question that comes out is, do you condemn Hamas?
	Now a true journalist will never ask this question because that person You know, is it a moral question?
	Are you condemning Hamas on a moral ground?
	Or are you condemning them by saying that what they're doing is illegal?
	That's mean that resisting to an oppression is illegal.
	You know, it has to be very precise when you're a journalist and when you invite a guest and the first thing you do is you're trying to corner him and telling him, well, you know, do you condemn what the Hamas has done in Israel?
	Well, if you ask that to a guest, it's really, you know, not the way to start a conversation.
	It's not the job of any person that is invited on the television platform to condemn anyone.
	Their job is to say, this is what I see.
	This is how my views are about, you know, and my interpretation of what I'm able to see and gather.
	But you don't condemn people.
	This is not your job.
	Your job is to say we have a system because we're supposed to be a civilization that have progressed since, you know, genocide that took place in a previous history of humankind.
	So in order to avoid that, we've put together in place these institutions to condemn what is condemnable By the international law standards.
	And that's the only people that should be asked these questions.
	These questions are part of a trial.
	These people, these questions are belonging to courts.
	It doesn't belong on a television platform.
	I think really what is asked right now is for transparency.
	And more importantly, it is for the United Nations to do their job, which is to promote peace.
	And if we today can see in the Gaza Strip that it's okay to bombard a UN school, a United Nations infrastructure, without any condemnation, without any repercussion, then we should be very worried.
	We should be very, very worried.
	You see, I was listening to this, the French pilot is actually a NATO pilot who's trained in the United States.
	And he made a very, very, very good point.
	Recently, he was talking about how actually an airstrike operation works.
	And what you should expect from a pilot.
	And, and the pilots are very, very much aware of the terms called BDA.
	And the BDA terms, it's about basically for a good pilot to do what is known as bombing of battle damage assessment.
	It's a military term in the Air Force, but it's also a military term on the ground.
	Why is that?
	Because when you are basically dropping your mission as a target, and the target is a particular infrastructure, So before obviously going on the mission, you log obviously the GPS coordinates if you're using GDAM or some kind of bomb which use GPS coordinates that can be programmed.
	And then you drop that bomb.
	When that bomb is dropped, the pilot's going to go around, do a circle, come back and check that the target has been reached.
	But the real assessment, what is known as BDA, Battle Damage Assessment, is done on the ground by special forces which come after the bombing to assess that indeed, at this particular site which was bombed, there was actually a terrorist cell that was taken out.
	And this particular data is very important because that was established, you know, a successful mission or a failed mission.
	And that's very important for war crime investigators to understand that after the bombing, there was a BDA taking place, you know, an assessment of exactly what was destroyed.
	And indeed, the target was legitimate.
	It was a military target.
	And there was some collateral damage and few civilians died.
	When you hear hundreds, 400, 500 civilians dying in a hospital which has been bombed a few days before, which has been warned that it's going to be bombed and we're told that it's okay to bomb it, it is okay to attack a UN infrastructure, then I've got a problem with that because there's something that really I think we need to be precise about it and we need to also understand it is
	How is it that the IDF has not yet invaded or kind of started their incursion into the Gaza Strip?
	Nobody has really been able to explain that.
	But one thing is sure is that what I describe as a kill box is actually a massive crime scene.
	And like any crime scene, it needs to be preserved.
	And we must expect the United Nations war crime investigators to want to get in as soon as possible.
	We want to expect that the Gaza police and the Gaza legitimate authorities are able to actually take pictures and retrieve, you know, elements which will be used during the investigation as evidence.
	But if you have an incursion from the IDF, which means that boots on the ground is going to come into Gaza, then that crime scene is simply going to be violated.
	It's going to be violated.
	That means that everything that will be there for the investigator to decide whether there was a war crime committed or not is going to simply disappear.
	And nobody's going to be held responsible.
	And that is why it is of the utmost importance for the international community to mobilize and to force our institution to have a ceasefire so that actually inspection can take place.
	Because there's enough, there's more than 4,000 people that died.
	This is four times the amount of the people that were killed by the Hamas.
	There is over 10,000 people injured.
	And I have all the numbers actually, funny enough, OTSHA, the United Nations Agency, earlier today, yesterday, sorry, revealed the numbers.
	So we have actually the numbers.
	So for everybody to really understand What we're talking about here, because I think it's important, and I'm going to take this opportunity to give you the latest data, if that's okay with you, Patrick?
	Absolutely.
	The latest data from the United Nations OSHA, which is responsible for the internally displaced population, They're telling us the following numbers.
	They say that 11 mosques were destroyed, 7 churches damaged, 59 attacks on healthcare, including 17 hospitals damaged, 178 educational facilities have been hit, including at least 20 UNRWA schools, including at least 20 UNRWA schools, 140 Palestinian Authority PA schools, and one university damaged.
	At least 30% of all housing units in the Gaza Strip have been either destroyed, we have 12,845 buildings that have been destroyed, we have 9,055 habitations that have been rendered inhabitable or uninhabitable. habitations that have been rendered inhabitable or uninhabitable.
	and We have 121,000 that are damaged and that's the report from the United Nations.
	Now that's enough for the United Nations to come in.
	The peacekeeping mission to come in and say enough is enough now.
	We're not going to let any more of this happen and we're going to go investigate and we're going to draw a report and we're going to make a swift conclusion as to see whether this conflict Has any aim at all but to destroy a complete population, a complete ethnic group, and whether this conflict is about erasing the Palestinian population.
	Because if you tell them to move from the north of Gaza to go further south and you bound south and you're not letting these people coming out in any way, even on the Israeli territory, occupied territory, let's be precise, Then you are committing, basically, a crime against humanity.
	And I think that is the reason why we're going to see an incursion very quickly from the Israelis, because they're going to try to erase every single evidence of what happened and the crimes that are being committed in this jailbox, Patrick.
	That's my concern.
	So your concern is that, what you're saying here, is that The reason Israel is not allowing any journalists to go into the area because they don't want journalists from the global media to record the war crimes, that's number one.
	I think that's pretty clear.
	It seems to me obvious.
	And that Israel has a motivation not to allow them or international observers or UN investigators to go in and survey the damage, to record the damage, to confirm the loss of life, to speak with local health ministry authorities in Gaza, to confirm the casualty numbers and all of the stats that you just said.
	There's a motivation on their part to avoid being held accountable in any kind of future proceedings to destroy that evidence.
	So go ahead.
	I'll just bring a small correction, but it's very important.
	It's not the United Nations that doesn't want to send anybody.
	United Nations always work with the host country, in this case Israel, and they also will work with the Palestinian authorities.
	But at this moment in time, I believe the situation is so dangerous, it's so life-threatening, The United Nations is very cautious about sending any troop unless they can get a guarantee, an agreement of a ceasefire, which will allow these investigators to come in, which will allow the humanitarian relief to happen.
	Not 20 trucks, but 400 trucks every day, right?
	This is what Gaza needs in order to come back to a level of sanity at all levels.
	So the corrections that I'm making is only happen with the green light of Israel.
	If Israel said no, nobody's coming until we're done with the Palestinians, then nobody's coming in.
	And that's really where the problem is, because the ceasefire will bring exactly that.
	During the ceasefire, there's a guarantee and engagement from the Israeli side not to bombard the Gaza Strip.
	Exactly.
	That means that at this moment in time, the UN can send their investigators.
	That means journalists can start now to go there because it's a ceasefire.
	And we have that in previous war in Iraq, in Afghanistan.
	You don't go there when the bombs are falling.
	It's just simply too dangerous.
	We saw how many journalists have already been killed.
	So, uh, I think people will be very cautious about sending anyone with authorities in a place where literally your life expectancy is very, is very short.
	You know, saying now is that this is a crime sin in the kill box.
	There's many crime sins.
	And they need to be frozen.
	That means they need to be protected so that people can come and investigate.
	That Palestinian will be acceptable for the international community or for Israel to say, OK, we might just pose now because we might have gone a little bit too far.
	And we need to bring that into a context that is still, you know, within the frame of international law.
	That's what's important.
	But yet we don't get any ceasefire.
	And we have the United States vetoing basically a humanitarian pose.
	So that's telling you something.
	And the message is that we don't want anybody to come.
	Yeah, that's my translation.
	Let me give you the counter-argument, because this is what the IDF are saying.
	This is what the Israeli government is saying.
	They're saying that all the reports of civilian deaths, of injuries, people maimed and whatnot, this is to discount any of this, as well as the imagery, because most of it is Hamas propaganda.
	That is the official I know, because I was at the press conference.
	It was the that is the official IDF line is you can't trust any claims of civilian deaths or anything coming out of Gaza because it's all Hamas propaganda.
	Hamas has infiltrated the Gaza Health Ministry and etc.
	They can't be true.
	Nothing can be trusted coming from the Palestinian side.
	Okay, so if that's the case, If that's the case, if Israel has the greatest intelligence apparatus in the world, which we're constantly being told for, you know, forever, for decades, this is a well-worn trope.
	If they have such a great intelligence apparatus, and they say, well, we know where all the hideouts are, we know where all the tunnels are, and we're doing this targeted bombing campaign, because we have intelligence.
	Okay, so then they should be able to, they should be able to, Freddie, Tell you, out of all the, what are the civilian deaths and casualties, because they should know, they have such great intelligence, they know where everybody lives, they know how many people live in each building, they know who lives in what, where Hamas is.
	What is the percent, tell us how many have died, how many are injured on the Palestine side, and of those, what percentage are Hamas?
	Certainly they must have a rough idea if they're so all wise and, you know, omnipotent.
	And knowledgeable.
	The Israeli intelligence apparatus, right?
	Yeah, the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian authorities have given a very precise number.
	We know, we know, yesterday, I've got the numbers, 4,651 people died, 1,873 children, 1,023 women, 187 elderly people, and 14,245 wounded.
	That's the official numbers from the Palestinians.
	And that is without counting those that are still under the rubble, which is probably in the thousands.
	In tens of thousands, perhaps, by the time it's all said and done, like we discovered with Mosul, right?
	The initial numbers that they quoted were not the real numbers.
	The real numbers were much, much higher and they're being suppressed by the United States because they didn't want to take the blame for killing 30,000 people in Mosul to flush out 400 ISIS fighters, right?
	Well, we have the numbers, Patrick.
	Sorry to interject, but yeah, we have the numbers.
	I mean, Dresden during the Second World War is very clear.
	3,900 tons were basically dropped on top of the city of Dresden in Germany.
	Result, 25,000 people died.
	And the level of concentration, as far as population concerned, was not even half of the density that you will find in the Gaza Strip.
	So, as I said, the numbers are staggering.
	We just haven't discovered yet the level of damage.
	But this is what it's important to have a ceasefire.
	We cannot just awaken in three months time and discover that 100,000 people have been killed, which is just not acceptable, not any longer.
	And that is the reason why we should expect, as I say, the IDF, as I say, cannot conduct BDI.
	They cannot They cannot conduct and they have not conducted any battle damage assessment, which means that they are in no position to tell you whether the target was legitimate or not.
	And it's just based on them telling something and you to believe it.
	That has no standing in a court of law.
	You've got to provide evidence of your intelligence and provide clear intelligence.
	It's not because there's a tunnel nearby a hospital that is a legitimate target.
	in front of a court that this was actually an operation that was manufacturing, that was harboring terrorists, and they were manufacturing bombs and all that.
	You know, this is not just a tunnel and infrastructure that legitimize any kind of strikes to kill hundreds of civilians where people are living peacefully in their building watching television.
	I mean, come on.
	This is just simply not acceptable.
	And that will never, never stand in the court of law.
	But the BDA is there for that.
	It's there to provide evidence.
	And the Crime Scene Investigation is there to provide the evidence so that when it goes to court, people can actually assess with evidence at hand what happened.
	and whether you know there was any right and legitimate military target in that instance and that is going to be very questionable because there's not be any BDA on the ground there's no no boots on the ground in Gaza no absolutely absolutely so and so there's who in the international community is calling for a ceasefire this is the question who who's a of asking for a ceasefire.
	Now we asked this question to the permanent representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, during our conference on ex-Twitter on Friday, which I hosted.
	I know Freddie was listening and a number of people spoke.
	We had some good journalists asking some very good questions to the ambassador.
	I'm going to play a clip which you posted on your ex-Twitter feed, Freddie, and this is me asking this fundamental question, where does Russia stand?
	A lot of people don't know.
	Where does Russia stand on the rights of Palestinians?
	Because the veto, among other reasons, the United States vetoed this on the basis that Israel has the right to defend itself, and they didn't find the language was suitable in the UN Security Council resolution, and then the other text that was drafted didn't condemn Hamas, and Russia's and then the other text that was drafted didn't condemn Hamas, and Russia's position was, it's not our job to condemn Hamas as That's not our job.
	We're here to negotiate a ceasefire at the UN, so the U.S. has...
	held it all up and basically shot it all down because of political language and not because of humanitarian reasons, but on that issue of Palestine.
	But here is my question to the higher representative.
	This idea that Israel has a right to self-defense is a technical problem with this statement in terms of Palestine's true situation, which is recognized as their territories being occupied by Israel.
	So just clarify that issue again, because I think this is a really important foundational point.
	Yes, Patrick, you're absolutely right.
	And strictly speaking, from the legal point of view, Israel does not have the right to self-defense because it's an occupying power.
	And the territory that is being occupied has all the rights to defend itself against the occupation.
	That's the position of Manifest.
	Majority of international community.
	I think that the US has always been very vague on this and sometimes Even saying things like Linda Thomas Greenfield was saying that Israel has the right self-defense I don't think that she studied this issue too deep and again, we know how United States Deal with international law they try to substitute it with the rules based international order where they set the rules and maybe according to the rules and
	That they want to set for everybody.
	Israel has some exceptional right for self-defense, even being an occupational power.
	So I think that it's the only plausible explanation of what she was saying.
	So Freddie, basically Russia's position is that they do recognize that Israel is occupying Palestinian territory.
	You know, that is the UN position.
	So Israel doesn't actually have a right to defend itself within the occupied territories.
	They don't.
	They do not, Israel, I repeat, Israel does not have a right to defend itself.
	In fact, it's the opposite.
	Palestine has the right to defend itself in the occupied territories, the territories which Israel, the entity, is occupying.
	That's why Israel doesn't declare its borders, because it wants to gain more territory.
	It doesn't want to draw borders because that will preclude its future real estate acquisitions, right?
	But go ahead, Freddie.
	Yes, you're absolutely right.
	You see the thing, and I hear a lot from Israeli television and all the pro-Israeli hosts or guests in the United States and in Europe, talking about the rights of Israel to defend itself, but never talking about the rights of Palestinians to defend themselves.
	And one thing that they always seem to use, and it seems that's something that they've learned or they've been told, is always to say that there's no such a thing as the State of Palestine, therefore they have no right.
	You know, what they need to understand is the definition of colonization, you know, in the international law is very clear.
	And I say it again, this is the action of process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area, not a state, not a country, an area.
	It is the action of appropriating a place or domain for one's own use.
	That's it.
	That's the definition of colonization.
	If you've done that, you're guilty of war crimes.
	And when you're guilty of war crime or suspected of committed war crimes, you have no more rights.
	When you're a criminal in the Western world where we live, if you're highly suspected, you were going to be brought in for questioning.
	And if there is enough evidence that shows that you might have been committing a crime, but more importantly, that leaving you outside will allow you to commit more crime, then they're going to put you behind bar until such a time where a date for your trial will be announced.
	And that's exactly where we are today.
	We know that Israel is a state of apartheid.
	We know that Israel has basically got involved with colonization and we know they're involved in illegal displacement of population using force because those that are doing are military, the people that are wearing weapons.
	We know that settlers are also using weapons to kill Palestinian children, kids.
	So all that is there.
	You can't deny it.
	Let me add to that.
	5,000 Palestinians, many of them children, being held in arbitrary detention, secret prisons, tried by military courts, by the Israeli military courts, okay?
	And let me add this.
	This is the UN's definition of genocide.
	A coordinated plan to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, religious, or racial group by killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, preventing births within a group, removing children from a group, and inflicting life conditions designed to bring about destruction and desperation of a people.
	Okay, that's among many very similar widely recognized definitions for genocide.
	And nothing ticks the boxes as good on the planet today for genocide than what the Israelis are doing to the native Palestinian populations.
	There's no debate about it.
	This is not hyperbole.
	This is not me editorializing.
	I'm literally reading it from international treaties that have been ratified by all of these countries on the planet, probably except for Israel.
	What's important here, Patrick, in that particular definition, which I have in front of me as well, it's the intent.
	In a court of justice, there is always the concept of intent.
	Was it done deliberately?
	Was it intentional?
	Was the aim was to destroy the nation or a particular group of people?
	or ethnic group.
	And that's really what it's all about here.
	The aim when you talk about genocide is that from the perpetrator, its aim is to destroy the nation or this particular ethnic group or racial group.
	And that is absolutely 100% what is happening with the Palestinians.
	They've been basically ethnically cleansed.
	by the Israeli and I think we have the demonstration.
	I mean, it's so many militaries have been caught on Israeli television literally saying that we don't care about Hamas or anything like that.
	We just want to wipe Gaza out of the map.
	We just want to get on with it and be done with it.
	And that is just accepted.
	Go ahead, Freddie.
	Yeah, it's unbelievable that people are not even hiding the fact that they're telling you and they're telling the world.
	Perhaps on their network, not everyone speaks Hebrew or Yiddish, but it's not easy to obviously understand.
	But even though some of them are translated pretty well, And it's quite clear that they're not hiding.
	I think there is a sense of revenge, a sense that an Israeli life is not, you know, the same that the value that you could attach to a Palestinian life.
	We have videos of a woman within the Israeli Parliament clearly stating that there is no symmetry, you know, there's nothing such as symmetry.
	in their politics.
	You cannot compare the life of Israeli children to the life of the Palestinian children.
	There is no symmetry.
	And for me, as far as I'm concerned, when you start to speak that way, you're committing and you're presenting yourself as someone that is completely in agreement with genocide.
	So that's your intent, is that you basically, in an apartheid state, is to say that not only you don't have the same right as we do, but your life has less value than ours.
	That's, you know, for me, which half of my family from South Africa, you know, I sat down hours with my wife, grandmother, you know, and she showed me pictures.
	She told me for hours about how they were displaced.
	They were also IDPs, internally displaced population.
	Because they were the wrong color.
	And that happened.
	And if you talk about Gaza, she would have a lot to say about it and Palestine.
	And you have a lot to say about what it is to be living under a state of apartheid.
	And Crime that I describes and the situation and the posturing we're getting from these Israeli politicians and military is far beyond even sometimes that what I've heard from direct people that have lived through the apartheid in South Africa.
	That's what worries me because they've pushed the boundaries and the envelopes so far That we even pass beyond the understanding of what apartheid was.
	We should even create another word, you know, that really describes what these guys are doing.
	And their set of folks, you know, it's... It's hard, it's really hard for you to watch.
	You know, in South Africa, you know, at least, at least, we want to compare the two situations as bad and systematic and over a long period of time as the South African apartheid system was, And was rightly dismantled, okay?
	And with the assistance and help of the apartheid regime itself.
	So, where are the...
	You know, where are these peacemakers?
	Where are these reasonable human beings on the Israeli side?
	We haven't seen them yet.
	Where are the deklerks of the world on the Israeli side?
	We don't know.
	But at least, did the South African government use American F-16s to create a kill box in Soweto Township?
	And to my knowledge, the answer is no.
	I'm sure they did a lot of horrible things, but they didn't do that.
	And this is what we're witnessing now in the 21st century.
	And this is unprecedented to watch it in real time.
	And then the worst part about it, Freddie, is that nobody is interested in calling it out.
	Nobody's calling for a ceasefire.
	There's governments like Canada, the British government, Rishi Sunak.
	They're all flying in.
	Ursula van der Linde flying in to Tel Aviv to give the ringing endorsement to this war criminal, this savage Benjamin Netanyahu, this barbarian.
	This is the only way to describe the mentality.
	That we're seeing.
	So in terms of war crime, any, by international law, any parliamentarian in any Western country or any political leader who is endorsing the war crimes, who's made it government policy to support the war crimes, they then can be arrested in their own country and charges can be brought against them in their home country according to their own laws.
	So an arrest warrant can be raised in any of these countries for von der Leyen, Justin Trudeau, Sunak, Biden, any of them.
	And that includes, you know, congressmen, senators, that includes local government officials that are out making virtue signal statements.
	Freddie, we have local, like, school board heads in America.
	Everybody is gushing and falling over themselves to show their undying love for Israel.
	And basically endorsing what is, you know, genocide and ethnic cleansing and war crimes.
	So they can be brought up on charges as well for, especially of higher weight political positions, can be brought up on charges.
	And this was explained by a human rights lawyer on our space as well on Friday, which is a recorded space.
	It's up on my Twitter feed, by the way.
	Very instructive.
	We'll probably get that human rights lawyer on the program, hopefully, to discuss this issue in the future, Freddie.
	I'm just giving a broader scope here.
	And again, we're just basically giving you more reasons why it is in Israel's interest not to have a ceasefire, not to allow UN investigators in to find out what happened to their staff, why so many have been killed and their schools have been hit, and international organizations to find out what happened to these churches, these mosques, All these civilians who have died.
	Israel does not want to allow any of them in.
	They want to steamroll over the site, the crime scene, so that nobody can bring charges against them in the future or make a case against them in the future.
	This is a level of criminality that has exceeded anything that we have witnessed in our lifetimes.
	I am not exaggerating.
	The wanton disregard For human rights, for decency, for international norms, by the United States, by the British government, and especially by this government in Israel.
	This so-called government in Israel that is running an illegal occupation now going on 80 years.
	Okay?
	What they are attempting to do in broad daylight here is unprecedented.
	And their partners in crime, the people endorsing it, supporting it, I really I really don't know what more to say on this.
	You know, who are the terrorists in this story?
	Really?
	That is the fair questions.
	I think these are really fair questions.
	As I say, and it's really for, I mean, what's the point of international equality?
	What's the point of human rights and conventions and treaty which are there to regulate this kind of conflict if they cannot actually operate, if they can actually not use the instruments which they have in their possession to stop the killing?
	I mean, the whole idea for the United Nations, it's a peace mission.
	It's about bringing the peace when the conflict is not diplomatically Resolved.
	It's really about being this kind of neutral.
	The very sense of the United Nation is that neutrality.
	The status of the United Nation is neutrality.
	That is the reason why the UN infrastructures is off target.
	You cannot target the UN building.
	It doesn't matter whatever.
	Anything that resides in a UN camp, in a UN refugee camp, in a UN infrastructure, It's off target.
	You cannot target because there's deflection principle which means that in exchange to provide a GPS coordinate and it's quite clear.
	We know that.
	We know even the institution because this is something that is done.
	We know for example the UNRWA which runs a lot of schools in Gaza They have twice daily communication with Israeli coordinators and the government activities in the territories.
	It's actually known as COGAT, C-O-G-A-T.
	And there is a coordination and liaison administration called the CLA, which informed them of the global positioning systems coordinates, of their promises, their school, and what they've been currently being used as designated emergency shelters.
	Okay.
	So if you say to the RIDF, every day you're telling them, look, we have 4,000 people here in this particular shelters.
	Do not bomb us because we are the United Nations and we are neutral.
	So we're off target.
	And yet, the next following day, or 12 hours later, bombs take out the entire school.
	There is a problem.
	There's a massive problem.
	And I believe the constant bombardments will go as far and again, this is my opinion.
	I hope I'm wrong.
	But my opinion at the moment is that the constant bombarding is really to actually not allow the people of Palestine, the Palestinian people to breathe so that they cannot organize themselves when there's so much chaos.
	What's maybe appear evident, obvious to us might not appear as a priority to them because the priority to them is to feel safe, is to be able to eat, is to be able to have something to treat their patient, to have light so that it can operate in hospital.
	You see that the level of priorities has changed.
	When we're outside, perhaps For us, a priority would be able to preserve this crime scene so that to make sure that when the UN investigators, the war crime investigators comes in, they can actually, you know, really come onto a frozen crime scene and do their job and come up with a reasonable, very fact-based evidence so we don't have to get all this nonsense, you know, coming out of all walk of life and platforms, you know.
	Let's get the institution, do their job.
	Let's preserve this crime scene.
	Let's find out exactly how many people have already been killed.
	Let's get a ceasefire, okay?
	That's what Duterte should be doing at all times.
	Humanitarian pose, aid, it's really way below.
	It's important.
	It needs to happen right now, and it has to be adequate.
	The humanitarian response has to be adequate, and the Israeli government needs to allow this aid to come into Gaza because we have a humanitarian crisis.
	We have a health crisis because when you have so little level of water, people are drinking basically not water from a tap.
	They're drinking dirty waters.
	People are just simply in terrible conditions and doctors are not able to do their job because the conditions are appalling.
	How long before we have a major, major humanitarian crisis?
	We have 2.3 million.
	We cannot allow these people to be exposed to so much atrocity.
	It's not even in the name of revenge.
	Revenge does not exist.
	You're not allowed in the Western world to go to someone kill a member of my family.
	I'm not allowed to go there and kill 10 of his family.
	I'll go to jail for the rest of my life.
	Yep.
	Even though I have a case, even though I have a case, I have a case.
	I have the right to be angry.
	I have the right to be furious, infuriated.
	And but I get in the democratic world, in democracy, you get your right in a court of law, not by more bloodshed.
	So if you declare yourself as a country, and as a democracy, then I think Israel should show the example and lead the way, but they're not, they're completely the opposite.
	And, and I'm sorry to say it, but I deplore what happened to To these Israeli people, these settlers were killed by the Hamas.
	This is not good news.
	I hate any kind of, you know, loss of life.
	And I expose them because I'm a journalist.
	But this is not for me to trial them.
	It's for a court to do that.
	What your job is, and what our job is, is to provide context.
	So when someone says to me, do you condemn Hamas?
	Well, that's not my job to condemn Hamas.
	What I'm there is to describe what happened.
	What I'm here to do is to show you what Hamas is, to explain the context in which they exist.
	And then they say, well, do you condemn the horrific acts of October 7th?
	And I say, well, if there are any horrific acts to be proven against non-combatants, then yes, I condemn all of them.
	However, however, then I have to say, do you condemn all of the Israeli war crimes that preceded that, that caused this retaliation?
	And I can list them off and then I get out my thousand page book of And I start flipping pages and showing you all the war crimes and all the breaches of international law, human rights, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, illegal detention, torture, going back decades.
	And we can, if you want to play that contest of who's worse, we can certainly play that contest.
	But this is a waste of time because it should be seen as self-evident at this point.
	So, but in terms of I'm going to make this last point because it's important.
	In terms of the so-called horrific acts of Hamas on October 7th, when they breached Israeli defense barriers and so forth.
	Firstly, we have to question the facts.
	That's number one.
	I will always question the facts that are, if there are any claims, I want to be more precise about them, whether it's this music festival, that I have yet to see any really hard facts in terms of forensic investigation.
	I see a lot of hyperbole, a lot of panic, a lot of big numbers being thrown out initially, and very little receipts on the back end of that.
	So that's my job as a journalist, okay?
	So my job is not to run away with the emotion of the images and the claims and then use that to justify a carpet bombing campaign.
	That's not my job as a journalist.
	Let me be clear.
	And I think I speak to most, you know, legitimate sort of journalists and truth seekers out there, okay?
	So then once I have been satisfied with my investigation, I then can acknowledge certain things that have happened.
	I can also acknowledge by the same token why if there was a reaction or retaliation or this attack as they call it by Hamas then I can acknowledge why that happened okay and understand why it happened.
	That's just as important because if you don't understand the chain of cause and effect in any of these stories, whether it's this one or Ukraine or Syria or anything, if you don't understand the cause and effect, the chain of events, Then you are basically running around with blinders on and literally people have erased history behind you and they're saying don't look back behind you at what happened and why it happened.
	Just look forward because we're shining the light forward on our narrative.
	So history begins on October 7th.
	You're not allowed to speak of, acknowledge or consider anything that happened before October 7th.
	That is Orwellian gaslighting.
	By the state, by the media, and even by institutions that are censoring people having an opinion on this.
	They did the same thing with Ukraine.
	Do you condemn Putin's unprovoked war?
	Do you condemn Hamas's unprovoked attack?
	On both cases, these are not unprovoked actions.
	That's factually proven.
	It's acknowledged.
	It's known by many.
	But yet, it's being tried.
	The narrative line's trying to be enforced by Western governments and mainstream media and censorship organs.
	Okay, so I push back against all of that because this is the death of critical thinking.
	This is the death of the Enlightenment.
	This is a death of rationality and civilization in the West as we know it.
	It is literally the death of civilization.
	If you allow these people to engage in thought police that you can't even think certain things because speech suppression is thought suppression.
	Okay, then we cannot have justice.
	We cannot have rights.
	We cannot have any.
	It all goes away.
	That's why this is so important.
	That's why we're here.
	This is why we do what we do.
	I'd rather be doing many other things probably in life.
	I wouldn't be doing this for the last, you know, 15 or 20 years.
	There's plenty of things I could be doing that other people do I know that are having a great life.
	But I've recognized, as my colleagues do as well, my many esteemed colleagues, that we have to protect these principles because if not we lose civilization.
	And you're seeing the fraying of civilization now.
	You're seeing the fraying of behavior, morals, norms, even lip service to international law.
	I'll take that.
	But just discarding it, ignoring it altogether.
	You can't have any political solution or way forward.
	Then you just have basically barbarism.
	And Israel is setting the standard for barbarism.
	The United States is setting the standard for barbarism.
	In their actions.
	And then they're turning it and trying to blame it on Russia.
	Or to blame it on the Palestinians.
	Or to blame it on the Iranians.
	And we're seeing this pattern just repeating itself.
	And when will it end?
	It ends when people get smart and people stop being ignorant.
	Pull your head out of the sand.
	Understand how and where you're being gaslit and propagandized.
	And stop being afraid to speak up and speak truth to power and also speak truth to your neighbors that are spouting out absolute nonsense about all sorts of stuff.
	Judeo-Christian values and we stand with Israel.
	It's all nonsense.
	It's all BS.
	Go ahead, Freddy.
	Sorry about that.
	No, it's fantastic.
	I mean, you said it so right.
	I don't think people really understand how hard it is for us.
	We're not like kind of victims or anything.
	Nobody pushed us in doing what we do, but we do it because it's like a call.
	I suppose if you want to be a monk and go to the church or you want to be a cleric, You know, it doesn't matter what you want to do.
	If you have a call of faith, you're going to go to church, in a mosque, in a synagogue, and you're going to be part of that, you know, because that's a call.
	And I think it's the same for journalists.
	There is a call which, you know, forces us, despite sometimes we would love to do something else, to provide a fair kind of a expose of what we are able to To find out about the situations and trying to make sure that all aspects, you know, the before and the after the events are covered so that we provide this context.
	And it's very painful.
	It's very hard every day to wake up and to go and do that because there's much more entertaining and more fun to do in life than what we're doing.
	But if we don't do it, who's going to do it?
	Who's going to provide that blanket which is going to basically force the institutions to look at themselves and The people within the seat of powers to eventually take a position because that's what we're asking them to do.
	We're asking them to take a position.
	This is not really something extraordinary.
	We're just asking them to do their job.
	That's what they have a job at the ICC.
	I mean, Kareem Khan, not one word.
	Not one word.
	The Chief Prosecutors of the International Criminal Courts were the East's predecessors who worked for four and a half years investigating the crime against humanity and genocide and war crimes taking place in Israel.
	And the evidence was very, very, very clear because you cannot open any investigation or inquiry at the ICC unless you have a serious case.
	So the case was open because the evidence and of course we're in line with what is described within the Treaty of Rome.
	And then the second thing in 2019 it was clearly established that the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the eastern part of Jerusalem was basically was a territory that is within the reach of the ICC.
	Okay?
	So there is a territorial competency from the ICC so they should be able to come up with a statement even if it's a preliminary statement but actually takes a position because they have an important role to play.
	They are here to say that's too much, this has gone too far and we need to take action in line with what the Charters, the Treaties, the Fourth Convention of Geneva.
	There is enough documents which are referenced and adopted by most of these countries and Israel is not beyond rich because the territorial competency happened within the State of Israel.
	So there's absolutely no problem as far as territorial competency for the IIC.
	The International Criminal Court, yeah.
	So there were charges brought in, I think, individual countries against Tipney Litvi, this real hardcore SNO nationalist from Israel, former minister, Ariel Sharon, Augusto Pinochet from Chile.
	So there have been warrants whereby they couldn't Come to the UK, for instance, or Spain, because there are warrants in those countries.
	As far as the ICC goes, whether that can be enforced and how it can be enforced, that's another matter.
	But it's the message it sends to the international community that this is acknowledged as a problem by an official body.
	It's a very important step.
	They should be able to do that.
	They're not doing that.
	But here's the thing on the ICC, Freddie.
	It's on record and previously this isn't this is documented Hamas offered to go all of its officials any militants that they wanted to indict they said they are willing to go to the Hague for trial on one condition that the IDF Would also send their heads and their generals and their people who are also documented and accused of war crimes.
	Hamas said if you do that, we will go.
	And we will accept any sentence that is rendered.
	But they said only if you bring our counterpart, the Israelis, in the idea.
	And guess what?
	The, of course, rejected by, you know, well, certainly by the Israelis.
	So then there was a, it was an on starter in terms of that voluntary cooperation with the ICC on the part of Hamas in Gaza.
	So, so there, that really says it all, doesn't it, Freddie, is that there's a lot of talk of international justice, but not all countries really want to be held to that standard.
	Absolutely.
	Israel is not party of the ICC.
	They do not recognize the Treaty of Rome and they're not members of the ICC.
	Therefore, they think they are beyond rich, which is a complete nonsense from a legal perspective.
	And it's the intent.
	Again, if you're transparent, you have nothing to reproach yourself.
	You know you're clean.
	You know everything you've done is within respect.
	...in respect of international law, you should be a member of the ICC.
	You see, there shouldn't be any reason for you not being there, especially when, you know, literally on national televisions around the world, we can see crime being committed.
	You should be able to say, we're going to be transparent, we're going to come and we're going to be held accountable because we have no problem being held accountable.
	It's about transparency and it's about showing that you are a true democracy...
	And what you are projecting in the Middle East, in this part of the world, it's about promoting democracy.
	And if you want to get that badge, that pins, you know, democracy, then you need to own it.
	And if you own it, that means you're gonna basically subject yourself to examination.
	That's really the intent for Israel.
	We need to see them willing to be subjected to examination by an international court.
	They have to do it by themselves.
	They shouldn't be forced to do it.
	They should be by themselves saying, we have a case, we're strong, we're confident that we are in line with international law and we'll come and explain ourselves and provide all the evidence that proves exactly what we just said.
	This is not happening.
	Okay, so you can't just say we're democratic, we are legal, we are all this, all that, if by yourself you're not subjecting yourself to examination or cross-examination.
	And that is for me just very, very, very clear that they know exactly what would happen if they were to be subjected to an international court.
	I think that will be a massive trial and obviously the elephant in the room and the historical context of this entire Palestine and Israel, a conflict will have to be discussed.
	Okay.
	And that they don't want.
	They don't want this discussion to happen.
	It's easier to say to let's lock it at the 7th of October.
	And let's say that the entire conflict between Israel and Palestine started on the October of seven, and we were attacked by the Hamas.
	Therefore, we have the right to defend ourselves.
	That is the storyline.
	And unfortunately, this is not the whole story.
	So any countries, starting with Israel, but also the United States, Britain, France, Germany, who's shipping arms to Israel, who are using them to commit crimes against humanity.
	They all come under the jurisdiction.
	They all come under the layer of accountability on this issue.
	They can't escape.
	The problem is we're losing trust in our governments because they're flouting decency.
	Morality, human rights, international norms.
	They're not just flouting it, they're avoiding it completely.
	Okay, so we have this problem.
	Lack of faith in institutions.
	We have Antonio Gutierrez, the Secretary General of the United Nations, couldn't bring himself to call for a ceasefire until just a couple of days ago.
	After he's been browbeaten by a whole bunch of people out here in the unsilent majority, okay?
	We have the Pope not calling for a ceasefire.
	Everybody, the First Minister of Scotland making these brash statements about opening aid corridors and we're going to take Palestinian refugees to Scotland and they're going to be the new Ukrainians and, you know, so we have all of this but nobody wants to see a cessation of hostilities because they're scared.
	They're scared of being branded Hamas sympathizers, or they're scared of saying that they're not loyal to Israel, okay?
	So the alternative to this madness that we are witnessing now, the alternative to this madness, if you support this, then you're going to get war.
	You're gonna get a bigger war, you're gonna get more war, you're gonna get World War 3, and then World War 4, and it will never end.
	Okay?
	That's the alternative that humanity has.
	So, it could end immediately.
	Just like the war in Ukraine can end immediately.
	If, if, if, there is the political will to do so, by the most powerful countries in the international system, then it ends.
	But the political will, Freddie, it's not there.
	That's why it's not ending.
	This is why the suffering continues.
	This is why these cycles keep repeating themselves over and over again.
	It's as simple as that.
	The people have the will, but the leadership does not.
	So we might face ourselves down the road with a situation where we have to Decide what to do with the leadership that wants war, that wants suffering, that wants to besmirch the human race in such a craven way, as they're doing right now, in broad daylight.
	And, you know, smolting with each other on these high-profile press events, talking about it like this is the UEFA Cup.
	Okay?
	It's not the UEFA Cup.
	This is this is real.
	We're going to wrap this segment up and go to the roundtable discussion after the break.
	But Freddy, I'm going to give you the floor for your final statement.
	Go ahead.
	I think my final word would be basically to share my opinion with regards to what we just said.
	And my views on the current situation in Israel and Palestine is that we are at the end of the rope.
	It's the end of the rope.
	There is no after.
	It's whether Palestine is entitled and the Palestinian people are entitled to justice, fair trials, they are entitled to live in peace on their lands, they're entitled to recoup their border, to recover their territories, and it is the time where whether we're going to see
	This will be the outcome where we're going to see eventually the Palestinians being able to live free, not fearing for their lives.
	And or we will see the worst scenario which is the annihilation and cancellation of a complete ethnic group with the world watching and witnessing this.
	This is my main concern and it's gonna go one way or the others but there's no third alternative right now.
	It's whether they just stop the fighting and people take their responsibility and hold accountable Or whether it's going to go one way or the other, which I've just described.
	It's the end of the rope for both Israel and Palestine.
	The outcome will be a major regional war or whether it be Israel will come to its senses and realize that there's no way forward with the way they're acting and the way they've been acting since 1948.
	This is the time now for justice.
	and the people around the world asking for justice for the Palestinian people and also for those Israelis that have been killed there, entitled to justice.
	Let's see what the international court has to say about that.
	Let's the court decide what is legal and what is not.
	Certainly.
	We need to have that forum.
	We need to have that forum, or at the very least, at the very least, a pause and a cessation of hostilities.
	We need to save those lives that are being lost as we speak right now.
	Stop the bloodshed.
	That's something I hope we can all agree on.
	Thank you, Freddie.
	This was a good conversation.
	I think we've gone a long way to elucidate some very important points here.
	In a lot of noise and confusion, there's a lot of emotion.
	It's a very polarized issue.
	I think we both realize that, as do our listeners.
	They understand that.
	And what we're trying to do is just open up the discussion to a sort of a sane path forward on this.
	And that that's all we're trying to do here.
	I think we're I think we're succeeding.
	We just need more more traction.
	We need more traction.
	I think some things are happening.
	I'm very positive about what's happening, but we need more.
	Let's take a break here.

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