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April 17, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
40:31
20240417_irans-attack-on-israel-the-latest
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Israel's Defense Against Missiles 00:14:49
Well, welcome to a special Piers Morgan uncensored debate about the ongoing situation with Iran and Israel and of course what's still going on in Gaza.
Passions are running high on both sides so I've brought people from both sides together today to have a free and frank and fearless conversation about exactly what is going on right now.
So I've been joined by the comedian and podcaster Dave Smith, first time we met in public, in person.
Great to see you, Dave.
Very nice.
Thank you.
The conservative commentator Deborah Lee, great to see you.
The Palestinian American activist Nadine Kizwani, good to see you back, Nadine.
And joining us remotely from Los Angeles is Elika Labon, who's an Iranian, British, American activist and lawyer, and it's the front page of the New York Post today after a very powerful video that you put on social media, which has really captured people's attention, in which you lambast people for only now waking up to what has been going on in Iran.
So welcome to all of you.
Dave, let me start with you.
A lot of stuff has been going on in the last few days.
And at the center of it is the fact that Israel attacked a consulate that belongs to Iran in Syria, killing some military leaders from Iran.
And Iran, having signaled it would do this, responded with tremendous force, but also uniquely, directly at Israel from Iran, which we haven't seen before.
Some people think this was just theater, that they warned people deliberately so that this would just be something that would be for maybe for the domestic audience at home.
Others think it actually signals a real escalation here.
And we might be teetering if we're not careful on a major war in the region.
What's your take on this?
Well, okay, there's no question that there is a threat of a wider war in the region.
And that's been true long before these missiles went off.
That's really been true since October 7th.
You have a lot of dynamics with the Houthis, Hezbollah, and of course Iran.
This was clearly theater.
I mean, they gave 72 hours warning.
This was very similar to after Trump assassinated Soleimani and they sent that missile at the American base.
Didn't kill anybody.
It did not seem like they were trying to.
Iran has even come out and said after this, we're done.
We responded.
They felt, I think, they needed to to save face to their own domestic population.
And one of the best things that Donald Trump ever did in his presidency was after that response from Iran, he said, fine, you can have the last word.
We took out the person we wanted to take out.
We didn't lose any of our people.
Biden clearly has signaled that he doesn't want Israel to respond to this.
Israel would be insane to respond to Iran as they've claimed they're going to do.
Why would they be insane?
Because listen, at this point, Israel has lost much of the world over this war, and they'd basically be waving the finger at the U.S. to do this.
They'd be risking a wider war.
Joe Biden has signaled that they'd have to go at it alone, that he's not going to back them up on any offensive attack against Iran.
You know, every pro-Israeli person that I've ever met has always talked about the peril of Israel, that we're this tiny little country surrounded by all of these hostile nations, and there's so much anti-Semitism in the world.
If that's the case, why would you intentionally try to make this a broader regional war?
Okay, Deborah, why?
I think that it's extremely important for a sovereign country to defend themselves, 300 ballistic missiles.
If that was sent to any other country, the United States, where I'm a resident and I'm a citizen, only a citizen of the United States.
If we receive 300 ballistic missiles overnight, even if it took 10 hours, three days to get here, that country would cease to exist.
And it's only a question of sovereignty when it comes to Israel, which in and of itself is an anti-Israel ideology that, oh, why should Israel be able to defend themselves?
I do not want a bigger war.
I do not want it to get bigger.
Don't want more people dying.
I want this war to come to an end as fast as possible.
But I think that this can't be the norm that, oh, you can just send ballistic missiles at Israel, hundreds, and nothing happens.
You can just get away with it.
I think deterrence is the most powerful tool we have in the Middle East, and that terror groups only listen to force.
They don't listen to peaceful energy.
Some would argue that the ultimate deterrent here was that Iran fired off 300 missiles and absolutely nothing apart from one or two apparently landed anywhere near Israel.
One little girl was badly injured, which is appalling.
But in terms of what they were trying to do, perhaps with these missiles and what actually happened, it was a failure.
So wasn't it proof that actually, unlike October the 7th, Israel's defenses held up very well?
And wasn't it also extremely pertinent to this?
That you had Jordan racing to help them, you had Saudi Arabia racing to help them.
You had the UK, you had France and other countries.
I mean, there was a big coalition immediately helping Israel to repel these missiles.
Isn't that in itself a pretty clear deterrent that you can try, but you don't want to get anywhere?
I mean, I think it was great to see the countries come together in defense of Israel, but this is more of a testament to the Iron Dome than anything else.
Thank God for the Iron Dome and it is amazing technology.
It protected millions of lives.
If this did not exist, these rockets could have fallen.
They don't know if it's falling on an Arab family, a Jewish family, a Druze family.
They just want to kill people.
And thank God that Israel was able to defend themselves.
What do you think Israel should do?
I mean, right now, I think they need to do something.
I'm not a military advisor, but I think something along the lines.
It says, you cannot mess with us.
We are a sovereign country.
You can't send 300 ballistic missiles to the military.
So what does that look like, though?
I think that would either be a threat of force, or I think threatening is rightfully so right now.
That would be the first step saying, hey, you do this again, or we're going to weaponize, we're going to get ready to come for you.
You don't touch us.
We will destroy you.
We will blow your regime off the map.
Can you understand that?
I mean, if we're talking about the principle of a sovereign country, is Iran a sovereign country?
Is Syria a sovereign country?
Because Israel bombs Syria every couple months with impunity.
Okay, that in and of itself is not true.
But Israel, we've seen that.
No, I mean, that's a fact.
Israel bombs Syria whenever they feel like it.
They're not a sensor of terrorism.
They support it.
So they're not a...
They support Hamas.
They support Israel.
No evidence.
No evidence that they supported October 7th.
That has nothing to do with their sovereign.
Listen, it is a separate...
Okay, but you brought up the issue of a sovereign country.
And then as soon as I ask the question, we're pivoting to other things.
First of all, our CIA has said that they believe the Iranians were shocked on October 7th.
So there's no evidence has been provided.
Iranians support Israel.
It's the Islamic regime and the Islamic Republic that does not.
Well, the Islamic, that's part of it, but the Islamic Republic has made life a living hell for Iranians.
For many years, Iranian Jews lived there.
There was a close-up of the USA.
Oh, okay.
I'm sorry.
I understand.
I understand what you're saying.
I'm not arguing that Iran is not a repressive government.
That's not my argument.
But you're making the case that the argument is a sovereign country.
And so that's why Israel is in defense of this.
I'm just saying, is Syria a sovereign country?
Because as you noted, Pierce, that's where this started.
Let me bring in Nadine here.
We've had some fiery debates before about what's happening in Gaza.
But on this, do you have any defense for what is happening in terms of what Iran did?
I mean, I agree with your framing.
I think that the ultimate message of deterrence was sent by Iran.
It was ultimately their embassy, their sovereignty that was attacked at first.
They actually had two people that were killed by these missiles that Israel sent, and they didn't kill anyone.
You know, just as the Yemeni people who have been seizing these ships are sending a message that, you know, let in humanitarian aid and we'll let these ships pass through.
It's not about killing people.
It's about the same thing.
Why should Israel just accept people firing rockets at them?
Well, why should anyone accept Israel firing rockets?
Well, we'll come to that part of the debate in a minute, but why should Israel ever accept people firing rockets at them?
Whether it's the Houthis, whether it's Hezbollah, whether it's Hamas, whether it's Iran, why should they just in principle, they are, I mean, you put it right there, they are a tiny country surrounded by, I mean, I once interviewed Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and he took me to a map behind his desk, and it was quite a powerful thing he did.
Performative, but powerful.
He said, watch, and he put his hand on Saudi Arabia, he put his hand on Iran, his hand on Egypt.
He went round all the big countries bordering Israel.
And then he took his thumb and he went, watch.
And he put his little thumb where Israel was, surrounded by these huge handprint countries.
People in Israel feel pretty vulnerable because of that.
And they feel vulnerable because they're constantly being attacked.
Now, I will come to the other part of that, which is how they responded to October the 7th.
I will do that with you.
But just on this alone, if a country like Iran decides to fire 300 missiles at you, what are you supposed to do as a country?
I mean, the Israelis are clearly trying to bring in the U.S. to a regional, a broader regional war.
This is what their MO was from the beginning.
That wasn't the question I asked you.
I think that's what they were trying to do there.
No, no, I'm asking you, what should Israel do in response to what happened to them?
What's the correct response for any country if you're hit with 300 missiles?
I think they need to understand that the world is growing tired, angry, and frustrated with the countless deaths that we're seeing happening in Gaza.
Tens and tens of thousands of people, so many children.
People are starving to death.
People are freezing to death.
They need to understand that the world is angry and they need to put an end to that.
That had nothing to do with why Iran launched 300 missiles at Israel.
It was nothing to do with what happened in Gaza, except that Israel would say they attacked the consulate in Syria as an attack on people that they believed were collaborating with Hamas over October the 7th.
So it does have to do with it.
It does, but the main focus was a revenge attack for what happened at the consulate.
It wasn't about actually what's going on in Gaza.
You know, I don't think that there is really anything left to debate here aside from the fact that there is a genocide going on.
It's been going on for six months.
Israel is a rogue state, just as Nazi Germany, just as apartheid South Africa was.
And it needs to be arranged.
Just be honest.
You want us to take it.
You want us to all die to these missiles.
That's the honest answer that you're avoiding here.
If you can't say it is wrong for a country to send 300 ballistic missiles to innocent civilians, I could say that there are people.
Do you say it was wrong for Israel to put Gaza under siege and blockade for the better part of the last two decades for them to murder 40,000 people?
For them to murder 14,000 children?
Okay, your numbers are coming from Hamas.
What about 1948?
750,000 followed by Hamas.
Why is it not on Hamas to the Palestinian people?
Let me bring in Elika who's trying to get in here.
Eleka, you are the only actual Iranian amongst us.
You were born there.
So what is your response to what you've heard so far?
Well, I'm just, I'm really frustrated with the complete distortion of the narrative.
Like you're discussing, you're talking about these strikes in Syria, first of all, not being on an Iranian embassy.
So let's just get our facts straight.
It was on a military base that was next to the embassy.
Why is the military base there?
Why is the Islamic Republic making Syria vulnerable to these attacks?
You want to talk about bombs on Syria?
Guess who's doing that?
Guess who's doing that?
It's the Islamic Republic by using other countries as a base.
So it makes Syrian people vulnerable to that.
So let's not just act like there's strikes on there for no reason.
Second of all, you talk about civilians, but people were actually killed in that strike, which targeted senior IRGC leaders who were meeting with Hezbollah, meeting with Hezbollah to do what exactly?
Because let's just talk about what's been happening for the past six months, much less the past four decades, which is that we have seen October 7th, okay, which was an act of war.
Let's be clear.
Let's dispel this narrative that there's no evidence that the Islamic Republic supported that.
It's been reported over and again.
It was reported in the Wall Street Journal.
It was asserted in the Wall Street.
No, let me finish.
I'm not done.
What do you think that the Islamic Republic is training, sponsoring, funding its proxies for?
What do you think they are funding its proxies for in Israel, sorry, in Gaza, in Yemen, in Lebanon?
And all of that, all of that to strike Israel.
on October 7th, every single day since October 7th, firing rockets into Israel.
And then when there is a strike on IRGC leaders planning a meeting with Hezbollah to further attack Israel, you want to turn around and say, oh, people were killed.
Guess who was killed?
The people that were killed are the people when the Islamic Republic struck Israeli embassies in different countries, actual civilians, okay?
Not military senior personnel.
And guess who else would have been killed if it wasn't for the Iron Dome?
300 rockets?
You're talking about hundreds and thousands of deaths.
So you're relying on the fact that there was an iron dome to protect the fact like, oh, well, nothing really happened.
A lot happened and a lot would have happened if Israel didn't have to invest so much into protecting its civilians.
And you can't rely on that as a defense.
And not only that, let's go back to talk about when you talk about that, that the strike on Soleimani and you say, oh, well, nothing really happened.
They just did a small retaliatory whatever.
That's not the case.
They actually, let's talk about Flight 752 when they shot down a plane from Tehran going to Ukraine, killing many, many, many innocent people on that plane.
Because you know what the Islamic Republic does?
It takes it out on its own people.
That's what they do.
And that's what they're doing right now.
They're cracking down on Iranian women in the streets to show that they're the big bad wolf because they know that they don't want any smoke with Israel, but they want to remind you who they are.
And guess who they're taking it out on?
On the Iranian people.
And this is where we draw the line.
We draw the line at this vocal support for the Islamic Republic being framed as the victim in this story that they have been orchestrating for decades, orchestrating terrorism, regional stability for decades.
You want to talk about the Houthis that are fighting for freedom.
How dare you?
How dare you not acknowledge what the Houthis are doing in Yemen?
Do you listen to Yemenis and their voices and what they have to say?
They are being terrorized.
They are being starved.
They are being killed.
A young Arabic woman is on death row right now in Yemen for criticizing the Houthis.
Are you speaking about their rights when you talk about Yemeni people fighting for freedom in the Red Sea?
How are you going to call freedom takers freedom fighters?
Okay, that's a good point.
Let me just jump in.
I want to bring in the others because you've raised some very interesting.
Dave, you were bristling at some of it, though.
What?
Well, look, I just think we have to have one standard here.
And this is kind of the point I was getting to with national sovereignty.
Yemeni Voices and Whataboutism 00:02:30
Like, if we're going to talk about things, let's have one standard.
If our concern is over what's been happening to the people in Yemen, as you said, what the Houthis are doing to them, do you know what's been happening to the people of Yemen over the last eight years?
It's been the number one humanitarian crisis in the world in the war that Saudi Arabia launched on them with full backing from the United States of America.
Both Obama and Trump through every day of his administration, we were refueling their fighter jets, okay?
We were very implicated in that war.
So, okay, if you care about horrible things happening to the people of Yemen, then you better be criticizing Saudi Arabia and the United States of America.
This war just ended over in the last year.
The eight years previous to that were devastating.
That's a Whataboutism.
No, it's not.
No, What about?
Okay, how about, hold on.
I'm not finished.
No, no, no, no.
You said you weren't finished.
No, you said you weren't finished before.
I'm not finished now.
Whataboutism is a word that people yell when you call them out on their hypocrisy?
I'm saying let's have one standard.
You know, I can explain to you why it's a whataboutism.
What about issues?
What do we teenagers?
What does this word even mean?
I'm putting this into historical context.
So that you understand, okay?
A whataboutism deflects from the issue that was presented.
The issue that I presented to you, okay, it's a logical fallacy.
What I presented to you was the fact that the Yemeni people do not support the Houthis.
And you brought up, well, what about the fact that they don't support this and this?
I didn't grasp it.
That's falling a light.
By the way, I didn't.
No, let me hear you.
No, let me explain so you understand.
I'm not saying that.
Let me finish my sentence.
Okay, go ahead.
What I told you is that the Yemeni people have been vocal.
If you would listen to their voices, you don't listen to their voices because the radical and extremist voices are the ones that are propped up, okay, by the algorithm, by the media, and the people on the ground that are telling you they don't support the Houthis, that's the support of Israel.
Listen, I'm not, certainly, I don't know exactly.
I'm open to the idea that there are a lot of people in Yemen who do not support the Houthis.
I'm not defending the way the Houthis treat their people.
I'm not defending the way the Iranian government treats their people.
What I'm saying is that if we're going to not be hypocrites here and we're criticizing them because we're concerned about how the people of Yemen are treated, where is this criticism for the much bigger disaster that's been caused in that country over the last eight years?
And if you want to talk in terms of how the people feel, it is as close to unanimous as you're going to get across the Muslim world that they are opposed to what Israel is doing to God.
Global Alienation of Israel 00:02:32
And the idea that they wouldn't want the Houthis standing up to the Israelis.
There are some games.
Hang on a sec, on what Iran has done here, it's actually achieved what many think was almost impossible, is it's made people gravitate back to Israel.
It has brought people together with Israel because they thought, well, actually, look at this.
The 300 rockets launched from Iran are clearly presenting a massive threat to the people of Israel.
Right at the moment when you're right, global support for Israel was beginning to fade away pretty quickly.
Well, I don't.
So I don't.
So I would argue that what Iran has done here is a very self-defeating thing.
If the desire was to try and continue to isolate Israel for what it's been doing in Gaza, this is the worst thing that Iran could have done.
Listen, there might be something to that, and I'm not saying that this necessarily was a great strategic decision, but I don't think you're right about that.
I mean, look, when you say that united people were pushed back toward Israel, I think what you're thinking about is the fact that all of these countries that you just pointed out all helped Israel defend themselves.
But the truth is that it's not actually that shocking that Jordan and Saudi Arabia and look, the Sunni Gulf states, or Jordan's not a Gulf state, but these Sunni states here, they're American sock puppets.
We buy them off for billions and billions of dollars and prop themselves.
They do, but what the wider world sees, Dave, they just see Israel coming under attack from Iran, and we see two major Arab countries, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, racing to support their defense at a time when much of the Arab world is in rage about what has been happening in Gaza in terms of how Israel has executed its attack on Hamas in response to October the 7th.
So, you know, I would agree with you.
There's no doubt that support for Israel had been dissipating fast.
But when I saw the reaction to what happened here, I was struck by two major Arab countries going, well, we know this is unpopular, what's happening in Gaza, but this is something we're going to support Israel on.
But I think you might be conflating the actions of governments with popularity amongst the people.
I mean, I'm open to evidence on this, but I do not see any real realignment happening here.
Look, Israel has, by the way they've been conducting this war and the brutality of it, they have been alienating more of the world than I've ever seen them alienate in my lifetime, to the point where 50% of Democratic voters believe this is a genocide.
This is a major problem for Joe Biden's re-election campaign, and this is just however you feel about it.
Chanting Death to America 00:09:13
No, I show you that.
There's no doubt.
There's no doubt that they have turned much of the world away from them.
And I'm just not seeing any evidence that because they're shot down change.
They're so pro-Israel before October 7th.
Well, yeah, but that's also a part of an argument.
Let me ask you that everyone.
More so.
The scenes that we've been seeing in America in the last 48 hours, these concerted protests on major bridges around America, right through New York and Washington and so on.
We've been seeing people in Michigan chanting death to America, you know, pro-Hamas slogans being chanted and so on.
What do you make of this?
I think it's absolutely hurting.
One, I think it's just obviously disgusting to harm regular everyday civilians.
The people that are on the bridge just trying to get to work to the airport, their kids to doctor's appointments.
They have nothing to do with the war that's going on in the Middle East.
They have no way to affect it.
You're not going to change their mind by making them miss a flight or anything like that.
And I think it's really hurting their cause, that they're inconveniencing people.
We've seen this for months.
The Christmas tree lighting, the Thanksgiving Day parade, anything that would bring joy to Americans, it seems like they want to protest to disrupt it.
And that's not going to make Americans more favorable.
And personally, I live in Manhattan.
I've heard many of, I've seen many of the protests, and I've heard them chanting, we want another intifada, even claiming things like that.
That's not getting anybody to support you.
That is not helping you separate yourselves from people you accuse of committing a genocide, which is a lie in and of itself.
I think that it's really harming their cause.
And Americans, at least the people in New York, are very fed up with this.
Stop making our lives inconvenient.
You have a freedom to protest.
You don't have a freedom to block traffic and ruin people's lives that are just trying to get on the way.
Okay, Nadine, you've been on a lot of these protests.
Hang on one sec, Eleka, I'll come to you.
But Nadine, you've been on these protests, including yesterday.
When I hear people chanting death to America in the heart of America, that sends a shudder down my spine.
I'm not even American.
And we're seeing similar things happening in the United Kingdom.
I believe passionately in peaceful protests, no doubt about that at all.
But when I see what's been going on with sections, and they're sections, it's not the whole protest crowds, it's unnerving to see this kind of hatred for America from people living here.
Well, I'd just like to start off by saying that the protests have still been peaceful.
You know, phrases and actions that have been taken at the protest haven't actually been violent.
They haven't harmed anyone.
And I don't think we should fully...
What do you think about people chanting death to America as they did in one video clip was?
I think that that's just a phrase maybe said by an individual.
Well, no, the whole crowd began joining in.
I didn't see that.
Yeah, yeah.
So this guy said it, and then the whole crowd began chanting it.
Would you condemn that?
I'm here to talk about the entire...
You're here to answer my questions, actually.
Would you condemn what they were chanting, death to America?
I think we should condemn Palestinians actually being killed.
Okay.
I think that and...
That's not the question I'm asking you.
So I will ask you about Gaza.
But on the question I asked you, would you condemn people in America chanting death to America?
What do you say?
I don't condemn how people choose to express their rage verbally.
I don't condemn that because at the end of the day, the reason they're saying that is because the U.S. is sending the tax dollars and the weapons that are actually creating a lot of people.
Do you support them chanting death to America?
I don't chant that myself, so I don't know why.
Do you support that?
I'm asking you to condemn it.
You don't want to.
So I'm asking, do you therefore, should I assume you support them chanting?
Those aren't the chants that I would personally go myself.
Hang on, sorry.
I just want to pin you on this.
You must surely either condemn it or support it.
No, you don't need to.
You're neutral and not up to America.
It's terrifying.
How would anyone do, do you think, if they went to Gaza and chanted death to Palestine with Hamas terrorists nearby?
I don't understand these hypotheticals.
There's actual context that you're not moving.
I'm going to explain the context.
They are doing this in a country where they're very fortunate, where freedom of speech is not just tolerated, but encouraged.
Exactly.
If you tried to do death to Palestine as a chant with a crowd in the middle of Gaza with Hamas people nearby, I suspect you would be killed pretty quickly.
Are you saying that people who chant Death to America should be killed in the U.S. or should they be able to express their freedom of speech?
I'm saying First Amendment rights.
I don't think saying death to America is a free speech.
It is freedom of speech.
Eleka, I'll come to you one second.
I'll be very quick with this, but I'm just going to say I hate to jump over to the other side of this issue now.
But I've just seen this so many times on your show.
When you have someone who I agree with, by the way, I'm totally against this war by Israel.
I think they should just stop it.
By Israel, by Hamas.
Okay.
Anyway, the fact is Israel is doing this to Gaza right now, and that's what I'm saying.
I'm literally trying to agree with you about something.
I'm going to get facts straight.
Just stay.
All right, let's finish.
I'm telling what October 7th happened.
I'm saying right now.
Right now, Israel is fighting this war.
I think their treatment of the Palestinians since before the state of Israel has been totally inexcusable.
But I see this on your show all the time, where you'll be asking someone who I agree with, like you broadly on this topic, do you condemn this?
And everybody's always running away from it.
And I think it just makes their argument so much weaker.
I completely agree with you.
Absolutely.
Stop chanting death to America.
Stop blocking streets.
Stop referring to Hamas as freedom fighters.
You are doing such a disservice to the people you're trying to do.
I totally agree.
Sometimes I'm like, these people are not going to be able to do that.
People always say that.
With respect to you, but you always say things like, you're trying to trap me.
No, I'm not.
I'm just literally asking you to do it.
What happens if you're not going to condemn something that any normal, rational, humane person instinctively just condemns.
It is freedom of speech.
I mean, in America, you have the right to say whatever you want.
But it's a stupid thing to say.
It's a wrong thing to say.
You can condemn October 7th.
You can condemn Hamburg.
You can condemn these excesses and still say, I think what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people is wrong and they ought to stop.
I have plenty.
I have plenty that I'm worried.
Yes, I'm happy to condemn plenty of things on both sides of it.
Let me bring in Elika.
You've been trying to get in.
First of all, when we talk about freedom of speech in this country, per the constitution, we know that there's not absolute freedom of speech.
Okay, there are nine discrete pockets of exceptions to freedom of speech.
One of them being incitement of violence.
Okay, so let's not act like it's just willy-nilly that you can go out there and say death to America.
Second of all, incitement of violence is a very specific instance.
This does not cover this.
Let me finish.
This is full intellectualism.
You're using your legal background to try to stop temple people's First Amendment freedom of speech rights.
It's a waste of time.
You've been speaking, and I have something to say about this.
When you say death to America, okay, it is with blithe insensitivity about the fact that we are living in a nation of immigrants.
Do you understand that?
We are living in a nation of immigrants where people come here to escape from the people.
Would it make you all happy for me to distance myself?
Hang on.
I'm happy to distance myself from slogans like Death to America.
Yes, but I think it's important to understand that the context of condemning Palestinian resistance, condemning the people in Ghaza, paves the way for this genocide to be carried out.
And that's exactly what we need to do.
You need to let me finish.
Eleka, finish your point.
But that was a significant concession there by Nadine.
If we wanted to distance herself, she will.
And she has.
So, okay.
I accept that.
When you talk about death to America, you are talking about death to a democratic nation.
Okay, we moved on from this point.
And I understand what I'm saying.
No, you cannot keep interrupting me.
You cannot keep interrupting me.
That's extremely disrespectful.
You're talking about death to a nation that is designed to protect a nation of immigrants with the rights and the privileges afforded to them from the constitution who have escaped countries that were killed for exercising those rights to free speech.
Okay, this is not a perfect system.
Don't get me wrong.
This is not a perfect system, but it's a system that we are working on.
It is a system that I've worked in, the criminal justice system, for this exact reason, okay, to improve this system that I've been working on for the past 12 years.
But at no point am I going to turn around and say death to a nation that is the only place that we have for this type of progress, for this type of protection of minority communities, this type of protection for immigrants, okay?
And it's not a perfect democracy.
And when it fails, we take to the streets.
When it failed for Rodney King, what did we do?
We took to the streets and the DOJ got involved and we made it happen.
What would happen if you took to the streets in Iran to protest the lynchings that they're doing, the many evil style lynchings that they're doing every day?
You would be killed.
So you do not have the nerve to say death to America.
This is not a sum-zero game.
You absolutely can support the people of Palestine.
You absolutely can stand up for their rights, their right to statehood, their right to freedom, their right to sovereignty, as I do.
But you do not have the right to cross those lines and corrode our democratic society that protects us.
Yeah, I agree with you.
Okay, let's just finally end with just moving just to Gaza because obviously it's been slightly put to one side while we've been having this ongoing thing with Iran.
Israel's position has been very clear on this from the start.
Hamas Ideology vs Terrorists 00:10:21
They want to eliminate Hamas.
Hamas is dedicated to getting rid of Israel.
We know that because after October the 7th, their spokesman went on television and brazenly said if we can do it again and again and again, we will.
That represents a clear public existential threat to Israel and to everyone living there.
How does Israel get rid of Hamas, who want to eliminate them, in any different way to the way they're doing it, albeit with the catastrophic death toll, with the appalling humanitarian crisis and everything?
When you have a terrorist organization embedded amongst a civilian population with all the tunneling that's now been found and so on, is there any other way they could do this?
So if you accept that they have a justification in getting rid of a terror group that wants to destroy them, is there a different way to do this?
Well, the short answer is no.
I don't think there is.
I think, look, you have to understand what creates the environment where you have this type of death cult like Hamas, these terrorists.
And look, this is not, again, this is stuff that the CIA talks about.
It was General McChrystal, right?
Okay, you just complained about interrupting, right?
So anyway, it was General McChrystal.
No, my page froze.
All right.
Sorry.
I apologize.
That was friendly fire.
It was friendly fire.
Well, look, General McChrystal, this was not like an anti-war dove, right?
This was the guy who was running the war in Afghanistan, a serious general.
He was the one who coined the term insurgent math, right?
What's 10 minus two?
20.
Because when you kill two of the insurgents, they all had brothers, they had fathers, they had friends, and they all join up.
And so what Israel is doing here is guaranteeing that there will be more Hamas or Hamas-like groups.
Look, here's the truth, okay?
Israel, and this has been widely reported in the Times of Israel, in Horetz, in the New York Times, all over the place, in the Jerusalem Post.
Benjamin Netanyahu embarked on a strategy of propping up Hamas.
It was a very cynical strategy.
No, I don't think that's even disputable.
And why?
But the most important thing is...
Well, because he wanted to split the Palestinians into two groups.
And why?
Palestinian authority in Hamas because he felt that it would be better for Israel's security.
No, no, listen.
Well, that's really what he was saying.
In his own words, so that we never have to give them a state.
He propped up hostilities.
Listen, I don't think Netanyahu is ever one of the two-state solutions.
No, he's not.
I don't think actually for the last 10 years he's even shown any desire to have peace.
But I just want to say this is where the Israeli justification completely falls apart.
Because they're saying, well, look, we got this terrorist group, Hamas.
They're hiding in these tunnels.
And sure, it is awful that we got to kill all these babies in order to get them, but we just have to do it.
But when you know that you actually propped up this group so that those babies would never get their freedom to begin with, then I'm sorry.
You lose that experience.
Okay, Deborah, I think it's quite a powerful argument.
I do.
I think Netanyahu at the end of all this, he's got to go, right?
Because what's clear from Israelis is that they support what he's doing with the war, but they don't support him for what happened on October the 7th.
They think he should be held accountable.
They want him out.
Yeah, I think just addressing your argument that the framework of everything matters, Israel's not just going in and killing babies.
Kamas hides among civilians, makes it even harder.
And Israel's an online family.
What about the Where's Daddy?
Hang on.
I'll come to you at the end of it.
Excuse me?
Watch yourself.
Israel needs to get their hostages back.
They have 180 plus, a little bit less now, who are still sitting there.
And it's crazy that we have Americans there and Joe Biden's doing nothing.
But as far as Bibi Netanyahu goes, I think there's two different sides here.
There are people who are pro-Israel who want to see him step down, and there are people who are pro-Palestine who want to see him step down.
The pro-Israel side, for me, if it was my children that were being held hostage for over six months, nobody could stop me from going in there and getting them back.
You know, I don't have children, so I think it's a little easier to say that now, given the circumstances, but I just cannot imagine what these families are doing.
But do you think Israel should finish the job?
Absolutely.
I think Israel should do anything.
Even if that means attacking Rafah, where there are one and a half million people, many of whom are refugees.
Listen, I get your point, and I do have children, so I can put myself in that situation.
If I had children who were being held hostage or children who were killed on October 7th, I'm sure I would just want to kill everybody.
All I'm asking people to do is just also put themselves in the other shoe.
Those people in Gaza, they also have children, and their children have been dying for many, many years.
I also think Dave made hostages.
Right, which is completely right, but I think they made a good point about the ideology that you can kill as many Hamas terrorists as you like, but you won't kill the ideology.
In fact, what you might be doing, this has been a big fear of mine in the last few months, is what Israel may be doing in its desire to get rid of Hamas with all the collateral damage of all the innocent civilians, particularly children because of the makeup of Gaza, being 50% children.
That actually what they're going to do is fuel the ideology which drove Hamas in the first place.
Exactly.
And who's killing and starving the hostages?
Hang on, Eleka.
It's Israel that's killing its own hostages.
It's Israel that's starving its own hostages.
And even the World Central Kitchen Workers that the world was rightly outraged about.
But where's that outrage when it comes to 40,000 Palestinians?
And I think ultimately, as long as there is oppression, there will be resistance to it.
And I said this on your show before.
In order to truly kill Palestinian resistance, they're going to have to kill every single person in Ghaza.
So how does this end?
You know, and I also wanted to mention something just generally about what was spoken before.
You know, the Where's Daddy AI program where they literally follow people from Hamas until they get home and then bomb them with their families inside of their home.
So the idea that Hamas is using human shields is absolutely ridiculous, and I need to refute that.
And by the way, there's no doubt that Hamas has built tunnels around hospitals, around daycare centers, children's centers, schools, and so on.
There's no doubt they've done that.
They don't even make a pretense of it.
So I just don't think that's an arguable point anymore.
And when it comes to killing people who are around their families, Hamas showed absolutely zero care at all in who they indiscriminately brutally murdered.
Many of those people murdered were brutally murdered by the Israeli army itself.
The missiles that caused us to risk our eyes.
Listen, the truth is there were people who were killed in crossfire, but that's still on Hamas.
I mean, you still can't take the blame off of them.
The truth is that Hamas does not mind Palestinians dying.
What Hamas was trying to provoke, this is what terrorism always is, right?
Osama bin Laden hit us on 9-11.
He said this in his own words.
It's not because he thought that would take down the United States of America.
He wanted to lure us into a war in Afghanistan like he did to the Soviets to bankrupt us.
And what does Hamas want in this case?
They want Israel to do what they know Israel was going to do.
Well, actually, this is where I think, look, I don't have all the hard evidence for this, but it seems to me what might be very likely that's going on here is that Iran's tentacles are behind a lot of this, that they helped Hamas do what they did in terms of arming them and giving them money and so on, and that they wanted something that would draw Israel into what they would see as a massive over-response.
And the same with the rocket firing into Israel is they're trying to goad Israel and potentially United States into what they would see as an over-response, which might play into their head.
Well, maybe you're right.
I haven't seen evidence to say that that's true.
I'll come to you for the final word.
Yeah, let Dave finish his point.
Listen, I haven't seen evidence to suggest that.
It wouldn't shatter my worldview if I did.
But if that's the case, what's the answer then, right?
It's like, what do we do to fight Osama bin Laden?
You don't get bogged down in a 20-year regime change war.
Fight them with special operations, just like Israel always did before Netanyahu.
They never treated the terrorism problem as a military problem.
It was always assassination campaigns, special ops.
You don't just recklessly kill innocent people in this way because then you turn global opinion against yourself.
I listen the way.
I think you make a good point.
Eleka, let's come to you because you are front page of the New York Post today.
Your rhetoric about this has really resonated with people.
Let me give the final word to you.
And I think this is the thing that I struggle with.
It's just there's always such a distortion of the narrative that it's really frustrating and hard to correct.
Look, all of us here should be on the same page.
This is not a zero-sum game.
We should all be in alignment in these things.
We don't need to be in opposition.
You know, we all agree that Netanyahu isn't going to be in favor of a two-state solution.
We all agree that we need statehood and sovereignty for both of these nations.
We all agree that we want peace between Israel, Palestine, and Iran.
Some of these things are really inappropriately phased.
When you say things like, you know, when you kill Palestinians, you're just creating a new generation of terrorists.
This is extremely racist.
Would you ever say that about American kids that were orphaned?
Would you say, oh, these will probably grow up to be terrorists?
That is the bigotry of low expectations.
Let's talk about what it really is.
Let's talk about what is always omitted from the conversation, which is that you have a group of empowered fundamentalists and terrorists who take child soldiers and they say, look what happened to you.
You know, you're suffering, your oppression.
That was caused by this.
And the only way to resolve that is for you to become a martyr.
It's just like any child trafficking ring.
That is at the core of what creates this fundamentalist, extremist ideology, you know?
And so, yes, of course, you can say that anyone who's oppressed is going to resist, but this is not resistance.
Going into a different country and slaughtering 1,200 innocent civilians by no stretch is resistance.
And so if you want to talk about, you know, what's going to happen to this next generation of extremely traumatized kids in Gaza, I think we can all acknowledge that.
Just all of the tragedies that we've witnessed, the answer is that let's guide them out of these extremist fundamentalist trafficking.
When they try to turn into it, they're Mo'dan.
When they try to protest, they're Mo Dan.
When they go on hunger strike, nobody cares.
Every single avenue, diplomatic or otherwise, political, social, that Palestinians have taken in order to achieve our freedom have either been ignored, people have become imprisoned for it.
So what option is left for Palestinian people?
Do you know what?
I think I said this to you before.
Remember I've got to wrap it up, Elika.
Here's what I would say, Piers.
Well, we've run out of time.
We've run out of time, but here's what I would say.
I just think that I remember.
It's a different situation, but in some ways there were lots of parallels.
Options for Palestinian People 00:01:02
The Northern Ireland wars, which went on for many decades and everyone thought were completely unsolvable intractable, because you had two completely different sets of ideologies and they did eventually get to peace and they.
They got there by having leaders who actually came with a desire for peace, and at the moment, I don't see that with anyone in the Hamas leadership, I don't see it with anyone in the Netanyahu government.
And what you need?
You need to have completely fresh leadership on both sides that actually has a genuine desire to forge peace, and I hope and pray that the one thing that comes out of this is that that you get the right leaders with the right mentality, because Northern Ireland now is a pretty peaceful place to be and it was a place where, when I grew up, they were bombing British mainland left, right and center, and I never thought that would be possible in my lifetime, but it was so.
Thank you listen.
Good to see you, Nadine.
Good to see you Deborah, good to see you Dave, good to see you, Alicia.
I really appreciate the debate and hope we can do it again.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
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