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May 12, 2021 - Dennis Prager Show
08:13
Former Israeli Ambassador to U.S. on the Hamas Rocket Attacks
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...haters on Israel, but if I could choose just one, it would be Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, as well as a renowned historian, and now novelist.
To all who call in truth.
I assume that's from the Psalms, to all who call you in truth, right?
You know, Dennis, you're probably the first person to actually get that reference.
Including a lot of my very Orthodox Jewish friends.
That's interesting.
Do you say that prayer one more time?
Yes.
I don't get it.
I'm so impressed.
Oh, thank you.
Look, if I impressed Michael Oren, that's a notch in my belt.
Listen, this is really—I'm thinking about what you're saying.
This is really—there are so many significant things.
The part about the Israeli Arab is the one that is most painful to me, as it is to you.
So let me ask some other questions about what is going on.
What does Hamas believe it is gaining by raining the rockets on Israel and then having the retaliation?
In other words, do they think, from what I inferred from you earlier, they are...
Trying to get more votes from the Palestinians should there ever be an election.
Do they think that they're gaining in any other way?
Are they gaining with Iran?
Are they gaining at the UN? What is in it for them?
So much is in it.
And almost everything you said and more, if you can believe it.
Because they gain by shooting rockets at us, and they gain by us firing back at them.
The first thing they gain is prestige and stature in the Palestinian street.
Whether it's going to be election or whether Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are going to be overthrown by Hamas, as happened in the Gaza Strip in 2006, they're building up that power base.
And Hamas won this round.
They won the battle for the Temple Mount.
They won the battle for Al-Aqsa Mas.
They won the battle for Damascus Gate.
And then they fired rockets at Jerusalem.
So to liberate Jerusalem, they fired rockets at that.
You know, weird universe.
So they gain through all of that.
Then they gain by having us shoot back at them.
And they hide behind their own civilians.
So we have to, unfortunately, have to hurt civilians in order to get at Hamas leaders, even though we try our best not to.
And so, A, we get condemned in the Palestinian and the Arab street.
Hamas gets more prestige.
We get condemned in the U.N. We get condemned in The Hague.
So we get delegitimized.
And in a way, how much use is Iron Dome against this?
I'm very proud.
I helped bring Iron Dome to Israel when I was ambassador.
But it's a double-edged sword, Dennis.
You know why?
Because on our side, we have relatively few casualties.
On the Palestinian side, a lot of casualties because they don't have a single bombshell.
They don't have a single air raid siren.
And that creates disproportionality.
And what you're already hearing from the Europeans is the D word.
Disproportional, disproportionate.
And that's going to end up being a condemnation in the U.N. Security Council.
It's going to end up being a court case against us in the Hague.
Just watch.
So they gain in all these different ways.
And we don't care how many people get killed on their side.
their side, don't so many houses get blown up, as long as their leaders are not touched.
And that's what these are trying to do now.
The only way we can deny victory to them is by killing their leaders.
And it's difficult because their leaders are hiding under hospitals.
But they did, I assume you're aware, I assume you're aware, because I just became aware of one of the Hamas top rocket people got killed.
Are you familiar with what I'm saying?
No.
Yes, they've taken care of several of them.
We're finding them.
It's not easy.
Yeah.
Because, again, they're hiding.
They're hiding behind their own families.
Right.
And we want to avoid inflicting civilian casualties to the greatest degree possible.
We warn them in advance that we're going to attack.
By the way, that costs us tactically.
We lose the element of surprise.
But we're willing to do that, willing to pay that price.
But for us, we're threading a very narrow needle because we can't carpet bomb them.
I mean, the IDF could destroy Hatho Gaza in a minute, but we don't do that.
So we have to be very surgical, very pinpoint, and going after these leaders, that's the only way we can deny Hamas the victory.
What about the claims that the ultimate origins of this particular battle, war, whatever you want to say, are with regard to some housing issue in East Jerusalem? - are with regard to some housing issue in East Jerusalem?
Again, we almost need an hour just to talk about the housing issue.
This relates to several houses in one neighborhood in Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah.
These houses are on Jewish-owned property.
And the Arabs who were living on this property illegally, without paying rent, turned down an Israeli court compromise that enabled them to remain on the property if they did pay rent.
But they didn't.
And what happened to tenants that don't pay rent?
Well, guess what?
They're going to have to leave.
And so this is a small number of families, and there's just no way.
You could maybe say, oh, this isn't fair.
Maybe this doesn't look good.
But then how do you justify?
How can you possibly use that as a justification for firing hundreds and potentially thousands of rockets at an unarmed civilian population with the singular goal of murdering the maximum number?
We're talking about something that is genocidal.
And they have to fall in completely, completely different categories.
I mean, I have my own opinion about Sheikh Jarrah.
And it's a little controversial.
So I've got to think, especially if you're going to agree with me on this one.
And that is, you know, it's very rare in history when two people in two countries go to war for one country to seek the absolute destruction and annihilation of the other.
World War II and the United States went to war against Japan and Germany, not to wipe Germany and Japan off the map, but to destroy their government.
But the Palestinian Arabs went to war against the Jewish people in the land of Israel not once, but twice, not to change our leadership.
They went to war twice to annihilate us, giant genocidal wars.
And twice they were defeated.
In wars that they started, they were defeated.
And it seems to me that when you start two genocidal wars, there's got to be a price to be paid.
And a few houses in a neighborhood in Jerusalem is not a particularly steep price to pay.
Especially if they don't pay rent.
Even obviously let them stay and pay rent.
It's almost absurd, the entire thing.
Well, look, this is why I wrote a book on antisemitism a long time ago.
The uniqueness is, antisemitism is exterminationist.
No other ethnic bigotry is exterminationist.
That's a big deal.
And that's what they want to do to Israel.
You're really hard-pressed to find another war in history that were wars of total annihilation.
Let me ask you one other thing that has nothing to do with this.
I have no idea what you'll answer.
I'm only asking out of respect for you.
I have been on the side of the questioners of the lockdown all over the world.
I have looked to Sweden as the only sane model.
I thought Israel wildly overreacted.
And when we come back, I just want to get your opinion.
Period.
Whatever you say, I will respect.
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