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April 18, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
56:23
20240418_view-from-tehran-piers-vs-mohammad-marandi
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
Regimes Fueling Genocide 00:14:12
The general view in the West is that Iran's attack on Israel was an abject failure.
Whether or not it was a genuine attempt to wound the Israeli state or just a billion-dollar fireworks display, it didn't work.
99% of the drones and missiles were shot down by Israel's allies and its iron dome.
Israel looks tough again.
Iran looks weak.
And after months of rebukes from its allies over the Gaza war, Israel's powerful friends have again made their allegiance clear.
So what did Iran have to gain?
Well, first things first, the Iranian regime is loathed by its own people.
Enemies mean survival.
It had to be seen to respond to the Israeli attack on its consulate in Syria.
And to those who glibly say Iran has the right to defend itself and America would respond with force, which rock have you been living under?
Iran has been poking the hornet's nest through proxies for years.
Hezbollah attacks Israel from Lebanon in the north, the Houthis in Yemen have attacked vessels in the Red Sea more than 60 times in the last six months alone.
Hamas began its diabolical war in Gaza by invading Israel with Iran's funding and full-throated support.
Fundamentally, Iran doesn't believe Israel has a right to exist.
It wants to encircle the country with paramilitary groups and ultimately dominate the region.
But like all pariah states, it profits from chaos.
And like all dictatorships, its people suffer the most.
So what should the Western world do about it?
Is this a moment for appeasement or power?
Did the attack throw Netanyahu a lifeline?
And how will the changing political winds impact the war on Gaza, where millions now face a famine?
In a moment, we'll debate those big questions with Mustafa Baghuti, Fleur Hassan Nahoum, and Francesca Fiorentini.
But first, with a view from Tehran, Professor Mohammed Morandi joins me, who was previously an advisor to Iran's nuclear negotiations team.
Well, Professor Morandi, thank you very much indeed for joining me on Uncensored.
Thank you for having me.
Obviously, I've outlined there my view about this situation.
I'm sure that you would disagree with much of it, if not all of it.
But what is the view from Tehran about what's happened here?
Yes, I think it's pretty fair to say I disagree with all of it.
The view from Tehran is quite clear.
You know quite well, I know quite well, your viewers know quite well, that the Israeli regime is carrying out genocide.
And this stems from an ethno-supremacist ideology.
It stems from apartheid.
And this is unacceptable.
And the people who lived on that land, they have been expelled.
The people in Gaza, they live in a concentration camp, now a death camp.
And the West has brought about this situation.
Whatever crimes that they've committed against Jews and Gypsies and Slavs, they have to pay for it themselves.
They can't take it out on the Palestinian people.
So the Iranians, along with almost everyone else in the world, except for people, some people in your part of the world, believe that the apartheid regime has to come to an end.
And by coming to an end, it means that all people of that land have to be able to live as equal human beings.
I know that sounds very crazy, but ethno-supremacism isn't a good thing.
But the position of the Iranian regime is that Israel shouldn't exist, right?
Well, the position of the British regime is that Israel as an apartheid state should continue to exist.
The position of the American regime is Israel.
Look, that wasn't the question I asked you, but is the position of Iran's regime.
I'm answering that Israel.
Yeah, but what is the answer to that question?
I'm getting there.
The position of the American regime is that apartheid should continue.
Iran's position on South Africa had the same gap.
There was the same gap back then.
When the British and Americans supported apartheid in South Africa and racial supremacism in the South African regions, Zimbabwe and today, and so on, back then, Iran was supporting the indigenous population.
Back then, Iran supported the ANC.
Back then, Iran supported the military wing of the ANC and Nelson.
But we're not talking about South Africa.
I'm talking about what is Iran's regime's current position in relation to Israel.
The Iranians believe that Israel does not have moral legitimacy as an apartheid regime.
And the only way that it can gain legitimacy is that if apartheid is cast aside, if ethno-supremacism is cast aside, if racial and religious discrimination in the sense that Muslims and Christians are lesser human beings and they don't have any right to the land that they've been on for hundreds of years, that should be set aside.
People who have been expelled have the right of return.
It's not very complicated.
It's not, as you say, rocket science.
Well, it may not be complicated to you, but what looks complicated to us is that what Iran has been doing in the last few years, if not decades, has been supporting via proxy groups like the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, funding and helping to train them to commit acts of war against Israel, firing endless rockets, and as we saw on October the 7th,
committing an act of heinous terrorism.
So it's not quite as simple as you're trying to picture this, is it?
Iran has had a vested interest in supporting terror against Israel for a very long time.
No, I think the regimes that have a vested interest in supporting terrorism are the ones who are giving the Israeli regime the weapons to carry out genocide.
And the genocide began long before October the 7th.
And the Gaza Strip was a concentration camp long before October the 7th.
You know as well as I that October the 7th didn't occur in a vacuum.
And the terrorism has been carried out regularly by the Israeli regime on the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip for decades.
It regularly bombed them and killed them.
And it's not just the Gaza Strip.
I think roughly 400 Palestinians have been murdered in the West Bank over the past six months.
These are regular occurrences, but it doesn't register in the West because, again, the Israelis are Europe, they are European.
It's a European colony.
They have priorities over the brown people of the land.
But it is a fact that Palestinian children, according to the statements made by senior Israeli officials, Palestinian women, according to members of the Knesset, they are lesser people.
If you look at the South African complaint, they clearly point out the views of these people and the starvation siege and the intention to starve the people of Gaza, women and children.
That is because they look at them as inferior people.
This is not about two armies.
This is about a subjugated people trying to stand up for their rights.
If it was, if you were in Germany.
Let me ask you, Professor, how would you categorize what happened on October the 7th?
Was that a terrorist attack?
No, it was a retaliation of a people who were imprisoned and who were starved and who were regularly battered and people who were imprisoned.
Do you think just to be clear, just to be clear, you think that the slaughter of 1,200 people, the raping, the maiming, the incinerating, the mass murder that went on that day by a group whose own spokesman, the Hamas spokesman,
said days after that on television, on camera, that Hamas was wedded to committing the same act again and again and again, as often as it could, which actually is the purest personification of the genocide that you're talking about.
You don't condemn that?
You're being dishonest.
There is no evidence.
No, not.
There's no evidence of rape.
And I ask your viewers.
Absolute nonsense.
It's absolute nonsense that there's systematic rape.
And if you are being dishonest intentionally, you are helping the Israeli regime continue its genocide by justifying it through dishonesty.
So that's up to you to decide.
There is no evidence of systematic rape.
And just like the beheading of the- There's been clear reported evidence of rape and sexual abuse against the people.
I refer you to the audience to the good work carried out by people at the gray zone, at the electronic intifada, based in the United States.
Many of them are people of excellent.
They're excellent reporters, and you should invite them on your show to talk about these allegations.
I've talked to top reporters who've covered this.
Well, I'm also interested, Professor, that you only want to deny that there was rape.
You don't want to deny the incineration or the beheadings or the mass murder of Holocaust survivors, the kidnapping of several hundred people, including babies.
I mean, do you condemn any of that?
Or do you think all of that is justified?
Look, Pierce, you're trying to play with words.
And that's fine, as long as you're not doing it.
Johnson, you're playing because there is no evidence of beheadings.
You're just taking the dishonest Israeli regime's account, which they have no evidence.
And people have written articles.
There was demonstrable, proven evidence that people were beheaded.
Provable evidence.
More than that, we know from Hamas's own video coverage of what they were doing in real time that they proudly broadcast to the world.
They didn't try and hide this.
I'm just curious why you, who is so incensed by what you see is Israeli genocide, why you would not be equally incensed by genocidal behavior from Hamas that day.
No, you're not being honest.
And that's where did they broadcast this footage of beheadings that Hamas to the world?
Can you send, can you put it right now where you have?
I didn't say they broadcast the beheadings.
There was evidence found of people who've been beheaded.
That was not broadcast, but what was the broadcast?
I didn't say there was footage of the beheading.
I said there was evidence found that people had been beheaded, right?
But I would also say to you that what was broadcast by Hamas, of Hamas slaughtering people and kidnapping people, I'm proudly boasting about it.
It's something you seem to be smirking about.
I'm just curious.
I'm just smirking at you.
I'm smirking at you because you are clearly being dishonest.
If there were people, innocent people anywhere, whether in Palestine or elsewhere, who were killed by a soldier, by anyone, that is, of course, unacceptable.
But these claims of systematic rape and these claims of, that is, these are dishonest claims.
People have done hard work to prove that there is no evidence for these systematic rapes and beheadings.
And these were used as propaganda to justify the beginning of this Holocaust in Gaza.
And those who continue to make these claims.
You see, you talk about me being dishonest, Professor.
You talk about me being dishonest.
Well, what you've just said is an absolutely shocking example of dishonesty.
Hamas didn't even try to hide what they did.
They made no secret of their delight, their joy, their pride in what they were doing.
Some of them rang family members back in Gaza to boast about what they'd just done to old women, to children.
And I'm just curious why you can't find yourself able to condemn this.
In the day and age, Piers, in the day and age when everyone has cameras and their cameras all over the place, show us the evidence.
Show us the evidence.
Especially in Israel, especially in Israel, which is a society which has cameras all over the place, but you don't have footage of any beheadings and you don't have any footage of any rape.
I wonder why.
Well, there were bodies found who had been beheaded.
That is a fact.
Well, okay, show them on your show that all these bodies that have been beheaded, show them on your show.
Show those pictures.
How many people do you think were killed that day?
I think roughly 1,100, between 1,100 and 1,200.
Many of them were soldiers.
So you accept there was a mass slaughter.
Does that constitute genocide to you?
Is that an attempt at genocide?
No, it's like you saying that the French resistance, which was operating against the Nazis, and they go and carry out an operation.
And during that operation, some children are sadly killed.
So you say, oh, so the whole French resistance is illegitimate and the Nazis' occupation is legitimate.
Western Narratives on Resistance 00:14:16
That's nonsense.
If, as I said, very clearly, wherever an innocent person is killed, that I condemn, everyone condemns, and I wish you would condemn because a genocide is taking place.
And you are putting forward claims without the justification to make them, without the evidence to make them.
I would refer you again to those websites and those reporters and journalists who've proven that the claims were inaccurate to say the least and dishonest most probably.
Let me turn to, well, we agree about this, so people can make their own minds up, but let me turn to the missile strikes that Iran launched against Israel, 300 of them.
It was spectacularly unsuccessful.
I mean, it caused barely any damage.
Again, you're smirking.
You can explain why.
But it was a spectacular failure, wasn't it, by Iran?
Just a load of showboating and throwing fireworks in the air with actually no result whatsoever, other than they hurt one little girl.
Of course, I'm smirking.
It's funny the way in which you always frame things where this, the other and the non-Westerner is incompetent and incapable, and your fantastic Israeli allies are on top of their game.
No, in fact, it was a major defeat for the Israelis and for the Americans.
And why?
Because the Iranians from the very beginning, well, let me tell you, first of all, the Israeli regime carried out an airstrike on an Iranian embassy.
The whole world condemned it.
Forget the West.
Forget the UK and the US.
You are marginalized.
You supported it because at the UN Security Council, your regime, the American regime, and the French regime, they prevented the condemnation of the bombing of the Iranian embassy.
So the world rallied behind Iran.
And Iran said, we're going to retaliate.
But what did Iran do?
Iran played it very smart.
They first, they played 10 days of mind games with the Israeli regime.
And then they declared that they're going to carry out the attack.
So the Israelis and the Americans and everyone mobilized everything they had.
And the Iranians sent hundreds of dirt, cheap drones, a few thousand dollars each, to fly.
And it took three hours for them to get there.
And then your Israeli allies spent, according to their own estimates, $1.35 billion to down drones that didn't cost probably $2 million for Iran.
The Iranians did not use any of their new technology.
It was all old technology.
So the Israelis gained nothing, but the Iranians gained a huge amount of information about the capabilities of the Americans and the Israelis.
And I must say that most of the things were done by the Americans, not the Israelis or the British or the French.
And then the Iranians sent a series of old missiles that they had in stock for a long time, none of it with the latest technology.
And then again, the Americans and the Israelis attacked them with very expensive missile defense systems and used all their capabilities, giving the Iranians huge amounts of information.
Again, a couple of million dollars.
No one is going to buy those old missiles.
And then Iran sent, fired a handful alongside these missiles, a handful of serious missiles that were targeted at two base bases, the two most heavily military defended military sites in the world, an airbase in the south and an intelligence gathering base, I think, in the north.
And both of them received direct hits.
So the Israelis gave, they showed their hand.
They spent a lot of money at a time when these missiles are, there's a huge shortage of them because of Ukraine.
And the Iranians gave no information about their capabilities.
Even if those missiles are...
I mean, I've got to say, that's one of the more entertaining explanations for such an abject failure that I've heard.
Should I smirk again?
And let me take you back.
Let me take you back to what Israel said they committed the bombing in Damascus for was because they discovered that the building was diplomatic in name only and being used as an Iranian military and intelligence base, hence the presence of all these generals, two of whom were killed along with all the others there.
So if it was being used as a military base and they were training Hezbollah, which is what they believe they were doing, then it was a legitimate target, wasn't it?
Well, of course, since you support the Israeli narrative and you are a friend of the people who are carrying out this Holocaust, this ongoing Holocaust, and you don't care about the people.
I don't support any narrative.
I'm just asking you, if it was being used as a military base, was it a legitimate target if they're training Hezbollah to attack Israel?
You have rather one of the most extreme narratives.
And I think you're doing a disservice to truth.
Actually, I don't at all.
I've been very critical of Israel, but I don't believe.
Whenever I interview people who can't find it in themselves to actually say what Hamas did on October the 7th, I always find it slightly incredulous then, whatever else they say.
Because we all saw what happened with our own eyes.
People are not intimidated by you.
That's the problem.
You can intimidate some of your own people, but you can't intimidate us.
I don't want to intimidate anybody.
I want to get to the.
I want to find out.
I'm just fascinated.
Okay, let me ask you this.
Let me ask you this.
I'm not trying to be intimidated.
That is a diplomatic building.
No, no, you don't ask the question.
Just like that, that is.
No, I'm answering your question.
That was a diplomatic building.
You know quite well that the Israelis had no right to touch it.
They committed a crime, and the Iranian retaliation was an act of self-defense.
And your own foreign minister humiliated himself on Sky News, which is an outlet that is sympathetic to the regime.
When he said, well, if one of our diplomatic buildings were struck, how would the response be?
So don't be silly.
The Israeli regime, they're always lying, just like the Al-Shafa hospital.
They're full of underground tunnels.
Where were the tunnels?
And then at the beginning, when they struck the Al-Hilli hospital and killed hundreds of people, they said, no, it was the resistance.
And the Western intelligence agencies said the same thing.
And then we saw them hit hospital after hospital after hospital after hospital.
So you put your faith in the narrative of these child killers who bomb hospitals and destroy the very basis of humanity, the very basic needs for ordinary people in Gaza.
Come on.
And yeah, here's the irony, Professor.
Here's the irony: is that all the attention that was falling actually on Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza and whether it was a massive overreach and whether too many civilians were being killed.
And when we saw the aid workers killed, obviously enraged people as well.
It was all heading the way that Iran would have liked, which is there was general global outrage that was fermenting about what was going on there.
Now, the narrative has changed, hasn't it?
Because what we saw were countries like Jordan racing to help Israel defend itself against Iran's missiles, the ones that you've tried to dismiss, but were actual missiles.
And how does that help Iran's narrative that Israel are the bad people in the region when you have major Arab countries like Jordan and Saudi offering airspace and so on?
How does that help your cause to try and isolate Israel?
All you did was achieve the complete opposite, didn't you?
Absolutely not.
First of all, the people of Jordan know that the Israeli regime considers the Palestinians to be Amalek.
We're not dumb, Pierce, and they're not dumb.
The government of Jordan does not represent the people.
You know this, and I know that.
But more importantly.
Well, the government of Iran doesn't represent the Iranian people, does it?
It represents the Iranian people more than your government represents the British people.
But the Iranians.
I wouldn't say that at all.
I would say that the Iranians, when they carried out the strike, and by the way, just as, well, I'll say that at the end.
When the Iranians carried out the strike, they punished the Israeli regime and they humiliated the Israeli regime.
But nothing is going to distract world public opinion from the Holocaust in Gaza.
Don't think that the Israelis can do that.
No one can do that.
The Holocaust continues as we speak today.
When the president of Brazil and other world leaders say what the Israeli regime is doing today to the people of Gaza is just like what the Nazis were doing in Germany.
No one is going to forget because the Iranians retaliated.
Okay, let me ask you this.
It's been reported.
Well, no, I want to ask you something.
It's been reported today that Israel is preparing to do a retaliatory strike against Iran in some capacity.
We don't know how yet.
And it's been said, not least by you, that if war spreads, have no doubt all American bases in the Persian Gulf region will be destroyed.
And those countries that host American bases will be guilty by association.
All those gas and oil installations will be destroyed by drones and missiles.
I mean, that's sort of strong rhetoric, but the reality is that if Israel does strike Iran, it has a far more sophisticated and powerful military capacity.
And if America was to defend it against any further retaliation of the kind that you're describing, then Iran would get wiped away, wouldn't it?
I mean, you can't possibly compete with the combined military firepower of countries like Israel and America.
Why would you pretend otherwise?
That's your wishful thinking.
The Israeli regime is vulnerable and weak, and it has shown itself to be incapable of taking a dot on the map.
They haven't been able to take Gaza after six months of genocide.
They haven't been able to take even northern Gaza after six months of genocide.
They have to withdraw at least 100 to 200,000 people from northern Israel because they cannot stand up to Hezbollah.
They cannot push Hezbollah back.
They cannot defeat them.
So you think the Israeli regime is going to defeat Iran?
Why is it that the Americans are concerned about any Israeli attack?
Because they know exactly what will happen.
Next time around, Iran won't be firing those old drones to gather intelligence and to empty the Israeli and the American missiles.
Next time, the Iranians will be sending thousands of missiles and drones that are top-notch, and the Israelis will be punished severely.
And the reason why the Americans don't want this is because they know that the balance of power has shifted.
Pierce, let me give you a word of advice.
Your media outlets, regardless of whether Russia or Ukraine is good or bad, that is another issue.
Your media outlets in the West have been misleading the people for two years now, saying Ukraine is winning, Ukraine is winning.
Suddenly, everyone is saying Ukraine is falling apart.
Dishonest narratives and reporting dishonestly to your own people ultimately hurt the people of England and Europe and the United States.
And your endless wars, based upon this nonsense and this misinformation, lead to huge waves of refugees.
And then the people of Europe feel overwhelmed by these refugees that you yourself brought upon yourself.
Yeah, I mean, I think I would return the favor here by saying to you, I think you should wake up to the relative of what your regime is doing.
Because it's pretty clear, I think, to anyone who has looked at the situation in its totality, that what Iran has been doing is a direct response to the normalization of relations with Israel, with a number of countries in the Middle East that annoys Iran intensely because they don't recognize Israel as a state.
So what Iran has been doing is funding and fueling terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis to constantly attack Israel.
Because what they want to do, particularly with October the 7th, is to dismantle and destabilize any more normalization of Arab countries with Israel, particularly Saudi Arabia, who are on the verge of doing it, which is why I think the utterly self-defeating firing of all these missiles the other day actually had the complete opposite effect.
Jordan raced to defend Israel and Saudi offered airspace and also helped defend them as well.
And when that happens, it isolates Iran, not Israel.
But anyway, we're going to leave it there.
Professor.
No, let me respond to that.
Let me respond to that.
Actually, it's the opposite.
When the West continues to support the atrocities carried out by the Israelis, when the West openly supports an ethno-supremacist regime, and when the West supports genocide, the public across the region is turning not only against the Israeli regime, but against the West.
A few families who are ruling over countries are not public opinion.
And ultimately, by pursuing this, they are creating a rage that they cannot stop in future.
And just one final point on a personal note.
I experienced what the West does to the non-Western world.
When your governments were supporting Saddam Hussein, when your governments were arming him in the 1980s, before you turned against him, your governments gave him chemical weapons.
I survived two of those chemical weapons attacks.
I survived both mustard gas and I survived nerve agents that were provided by Western government to Saddam Hussein.
Saturday Night Embarrassment 00:02:48
And many people did not survive.
The intentions of Western regimes are not benign.
Your governments have done nothing but ruin and destruction for our part of the world and for much of the rest of the world.
And now, because of the mess that you've created across the board, you're now ruining the lives of your own people.
Okay, well, just for the record, I was the editor of the Daily Mirror, which led the UK media campaign against the Iraq war in 2003.
So I know what you're saying.
I'm just saying that I did that.
And so your assessment of what I think about what has happened is that I was at the anti-war protests in London at that time, actually.
So I know what you were doing.
Right, you were probably carrying the Daily Mirror banner.
I know.
It's a complicated situation.
Professor Mirandi, I appreciate you joining me.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I'm now joined by the current Deputy Mayor for Jerusalem and Special Envoy for the Foreign Ministry for Israel, Fleur Hassan Nahoum, the founder and leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Bugatti, and for a U.S. perspective, the commentator and podcast host, Francesca Fiorentini.
Okay, well, that was a lively debate there I had.
Fleur Hassan Lahoum, what is your response to what you've just been listening to?
I mean, I think if there's something more embarrassing than what happened on Saturday night, we just saw it now with this spokesman for the Iranian regime.
He talks about, he takes all of the anti-Semitic and all of the anti-Israel tropes and he puts it all in one sentence with absolutely no truth and depth to it whatsoever, with the fact that ignoring the fact, talking about subjugation, then it is country.
If a woman has two strands of hair showing, they arrest her and they beat her up in custody.
They have been subjugating the Kurds for God knows how long.
And all in all, what we are seeing here is a civilizational war between Iran that wants to bring back the world 500 years that really doesn't believe in any of the liberal values that we all hold dear against the free world.
And what's really interesting is that Iran up until Saturday night did not show their hand.
They were always working through proxies.
They were working through Hamas, Hezbollah.
They've taken and ruined Syria.
They're working through the Houthis.
They've been attacking American assets and British assets to the Houthis.
They've taken over parts of Iraq.
But this is the first time that they've actually shown their hand.
And I think that they came out really badly from what happened on Saturday night.
So I do agree with you, Piers, on that.
Proxies and Civilized Manners 00:03:50
Well, let me bring in Mustafa Baghuti.
I mean, I found it curious the way that he tried to claim this was some great victory for Iran and that they had deliberately fired very cheap missiles and that they never expected them to work, et cetera, et cetera.
None of that seemed very plausible to me.
It seemed much more plausible that they fired off 300 missiles that got taken down not just by Israel's Iron Dome, but also by some neighboring Arab countries.
And what it did do was massively distract world attention from the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which I would not think is a good thing for you or for what you're trying to get the world to pay attention to.
Well, who started this terrible situation?
It's Netanyahu.
No, no, no.
Wait, it's Netanyahu who tried to distract the attention from the massacres he's committing in Gaza and the genocide that has taken the lives of 41,000 Palestinian, mostly civilians.
70% of them are civilians, women and children.
15,000 children slaughtered by Netanyahu and more than 10,000 women.
You speak about women's rights.
You don't care about the fact that Netanyahu killed 10,000 women, Palestinian women.
And Netanyahu provoked Iran to have a retaliation.
Shut up, please, and let me finish.
Shut up.
No, you are.
You can shut up to a woman that's a very miserable person.
If you interrupt me, I will not talk.
You will shut up and let me finish.
You're being very misogynistic.
No, no, no.
You can't have the right to speak and not allow me to speak.
Can you shut up?
And because these are figures that are confirmed by the United Nations, and you cannot tolerate the truth and reality.
Shut your mouth up and let me finish, please.
I did not interrupt you.
If you interrupt me, I will not say.
Mr. Pierce, you have to be fair and run the show properly.
Do you want to do that or should you?
Don't lie.
Don't lie about numbers.
Please don't let me know.
I don't want to leave the show.
Hang on, can't you?
Nobody can hear anything.
Let me please.
I'm going to decide to keep interrupting me.
No, but I would say for the rest of the day, can I finish my response?
I don't think repeatedly shouting shut up.
Let me finish my question.
Okay, you may finish your point, yes.
Okay, but it's not because she's a woman, it's because she's interrupting me.
Can you ask them not to interrupt me?
My condition to participate in your show is that I will not be interrupted and I will be treated in a civilized manner.
Will you provide you in a civilization?
It's up to you.
I will treat you in a civilized manner.
I think what she was doing, Mr. Pierce, you are the one who's running the show.
You are the one who's running the show.
You are nice to Israelis.
I know that.
You are pro-Israelis.
I know that.
I don't care about this.
I am ready for any of your questions, but don't let me guess.
Don't let your guests interrupt.
It's my duty.
As you know, as you know, I have given up to more pro-Palestinians, to more pro-Palestinian guests, than any other show in the world.
So I don't know.
But I haven't taken a side.
I don't take sides.
You are allowing this lady.
You are allowing me to interrupt me.
She should not interrupt you.
No, I've asked her not to.
This situation was initiated.
Israel's Visceral National Desire 00:15:56
This situation, this situation was initiated because Netanyahu wanted to provoke Iran.
He wants to prolong this war as long as he can so that he can continue the slaughter of the Palestinian people.
He knows very well that the first day of the end of this war, the last day of this war, will be the first day of the end of his political career.
He knows he will go to jail because of four cases of corruption against him.
He knows he will be investigated for the fact that he failed on the 7th of October and now he's failing in this war.
And this man wants to drag the whole Middle East into a terrible fight.
He wants to provoke Iran so that exactly what happened will happen, which is to provoke the United States to go into a war with Iran, like the United States was provoked to go into a war with Iraq.
That is the reality.
And so this whole situation was provoked by an unacceptable attack on a diplomatic mission.
Even in wars, countries don't attack diplomatic missions of others.
And in this case, Israel violated that law.
He provoked also the war by attacking seven and killing seven international aid workers, and he continues the genocide against Palestinians.
The figures are correct, because that's what the United Nations say.
41,000 Palestinians killed, including 7,000 under the rebel, including 15,000 children, including 10,000 women at least, and there are 76,000 other Palestinians injured.
Israel is conducting three war crimes at the same time.
The war crime of genocide, the war crime of ethnic cleansing, and the war crime of collective punishment.
And that's why you have about 700,000 people now starving in the north, including 350,000 children.
That is the reality.
You spoke about terrorism.
Who is the terrorist here?
Is it the people who are struggling to get their freedom from the longest occupation in modern history?
The people who are trying to get out of the system of apartheid?
Or is it those who are oppressing them?
Let me tell you, the same European mind, the same mind that allowed the horrible Holocaust against Jewish people is the same mind that is allowing now a Holocaust against Palestinian people.
And these people don't care about Jews, don't care about Palestinians, don't care about Arabs.
They only care about their interest, about their economic gains, and about a continuation of a settler colonial project that is subjecting Palestinians to oppression and subjecting into a very dangerous path.
That is the reality.
Okay, I've given you a...
Okay, I gave you a long time to speak there.
Let me bring in Francesca.
You were nodding to a lot of what you were just hearing there from the staff of Barghouti.
Do you broadly agree with him?
I do.
And if Mr. Barghuti ever told me to shut up, Dr. Barghouti, I would shut up because I've greatly admired his work over these many years.
Look, I'm coming at this as an American.
I'm coming at this as someone who just paid their taxes far too much, if you ask me.
I'm not a billionaire.
They pay next to nothing.
And my tax money went to funding what I believe is a genocide.
And what 57% of Biden voters say is a genocide.
That just came out, whether you like it or not.
And I also come at this as a mom.
All right.
I have an 18-month-old daughter, and there are 10,000 women in Gaza who were killed, and 6,000 of them were mothers.
There are 19,000 orphans in Gaza right now, and 60,000 pregnant women who are giving birth in abject conditions, who are struggling to eat, to feed themselves, to feed their unborn children, and mothers who are struggling to even nurse because you need so many calories when you're a nursing mom, right?
And they are starving.
So that's where I'm coming at this from.
Why?
I'm asking President Biden, why are we continuing to fund this?
And thankfully, in response to the Iranian attack, right, which whether or not you believe it was performative or real, whatever it was, Biden has actually, for the first time, hallelujah, argued for some amount of restraint, saying we're not going to go there in an offensive against Iran, depending on what Israel does.
Now, that's fine, but also, I'm going to just point out.
We're still funding them with billions of dollars of weapons.
None of that money, none of that aid has been cut off as up in arms and upset as some Israeli officials are.
And final point.
It's very funny to be lectured about...
Just it's funny to be lectured about human rights.
Go on, finish your point.
Final point.
It's funny to be lectured about human rights.
Oh, Iran doesn't have human rights.
Look, I'm no fan of the Iranian regime.
I don't come on here to stump for the Iranian regime.
I don't stump for the American regime.
I stump for humans and human rights.
But it is funny that Israel, which has basically controlled its population and occupies an entire people in order to not make them citizens, in order to deny them fundamental human rights by design, that they are then lecturing other countries about what they do to their own people.
Give me a break.
We all see through this.
Okay.
As a matter of fact, how do you feel about one-year-old Kafir Bibas, who is currently in a dungeon, who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists, a one-year-old?
How do you feel about that as a mom?
A one-year-old baby, gingerbaby.
That is terrible.
That is one-year-old.
Do you think your government to go and save your baby?
Would you want your government to go and save your baby?
Just a question.
I'm a mom.
Tell the Israeli government.
Do you want to go to the moment?
Maybe you want to be a save your baby.
So yes.
So two years ago, two days ago, Hamas rejected another deal for a ceasefire, a very generous deal for a ceasefire so we can bring back our babies like your 18-month-old baby.
What do you say to that?
A ceasefire.
They rejected a ceasefire.
Yeah, no, I'm sure you're right.
You don't know your fights.
I don't know who you are.
I don't know what gives you credibility to come on this show.
But I'm asking you as a mother, two days ago, we could have already seen a ceasefire.
And Hamas said no.
They have a one-year-old baby and his family.
Excuse me, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.
I know that Israel is planning on an invasion of Rajah.
And then Maria.
All right, don't all talk at once.
As a mother, how do you feel about Hamas rejecting the peace?
Let me take this up, please.
Let me please take up the conversation.
I want to ask Francesca this question.
I completely agree that the plight of innocent Palestinians is horrific.
The death toll of innocent Palestinian women and children in particular has appalled everybody.
However, I also understand that after October the 7th, Israel felt a visceral national desire to go after the people that perpetrated that horrific terror attack.
And my question for you would be, going back to October the 7th, what should Israel have done, given that the people who perpetrated this, Hamas, do embed themselves amongst the civilians in the way that we now know through the tunnel system and everything else based around hospitals and schools and so on.
Given that that's how they exist in Gaza, given they perpetrated this heinous terror attack, what should Israel have done?
So here's what I would have liked my government to have done.
You know, if my government is one of the most advanced militaries in the world, if it has a map of every man, woman, and child in an area that they actually control, the airspace, the land, the sea to, I would expect them to know exactly where the so-called terrorists are.
But that's not actually what Israel has been doing.
Israel has been using an AI technology that deliberately targets suspected militants, but they're only suspected, meaning they were on a group chat with the third.
It's unfounded.
Israeli journalists have covered this.
And they target them when?
As soon as they enter where?
Their homes, where their families are, where it will maximize the amount of civilian casualties.
So what I can tell you, what I would want my government to do, and what the United States government has asked Israel to do, although of course with a little whimper, please, right, is to be precise, to take a step back, to not just collectively punish the people of Gaza for the crimes of a select small few, many of whom were not even born when Hamas came into power.
How can you call this also a war, Piers?
Let's stop calling this a war.
A war is when two equal sides actually fight.
There's battle lines, there's this and that.
I see IDF soldiers parading around with women's lingerie in the homes that they have raided, mocking them, mocking the trinkets, the items, the loved things that the Palestinian people will never be able to hold ever again.
That is not a war.
This is a genocide.
This is a mockery of what should be a so-called war.
Well, I certainly think Hamas knew exactly what they were doing when they did what they did on October the 7th, and they knew the scale of response would be what it was.
I think Hamas has...
What are we going to do?
But what are we going to do?
Willful.
Well, hang on.
I just want to say, I think Hamas has shown a willful and wanton disregard for the lives of Palestinian people.
You can argue that Israel has two.
What about the idea?
But you cannot argue.
Well, I said you can argue that Israel has two, but you can certainly, I think, it's pretty clear and obvious that Hamas knew what the reaction was going to be and didn't care.
Let me bring back Aflur Hassan Lahoum.
I mean, it seems to me that Israeli people, they support at the moment Netanyahu and his war cabinet in their mission to eradicate Hamas.
All the polls show that, but they don't support Netanyahu himself.
It seems to me the only way we're ever going to get peace in this region now is that Netanyahu will have to go, along with the more right-wing members of his cabinet, some of whose rhetoric has been absolutely genocidal.
I think they have to go.
I think that Hamas has to go.
And we need clear leadership which can actually forge peace of the kind that we eventually got in Northern Ireland after many decades of terrorism and struggles.
Well, here's the thing, Pierce.
Everybody wants to blame Netanyahu and this government for something that we've been dealing with for 100 years.
We've had a lot of attempts at trying to make peace with the Palestinians.
It started in the 1930s when the Peel Commission gave Israel about 15%, 20% of what we have today.
And the Palestinian leadership at the time said no.
In 1947, the UN wanted to split the country in a Palestinian state and an Israeli state.
The Palestinians said no.
We had all of the Oslo process.
We had a very, very generous offer by Ahud Barak in 2001, another one by Ahud Omar in 2019.
At every single juncture where the Palestinian leadership could have done the right thing for their people and create a state to give people the potential to have good neighborly relationships with Israel, to be an incredible superpower, they've always opted for destruction and war and terrorism rather than peace.
Everybody in Israel wants peace.
We send our children to war.
I'm a mother of four.
I have two children in the army.
Nobody wants to send their kids to harm's way.
But everything Israel does and everything it's ever done has been defensive.
We want to live in peace.
And you know what the proof of that is?
That every single Arab country that has wanted peace with Israel has got peace with Israel.
We have peace with Egypt.
We have peace with Jordan.
We've had peace with the UAE.
We have peace with Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and please God, very soon with Saudi Arabia.
And why do these countries want peace with Israel?
Because they understand that the region is split into two.
The countries that want peace and prosperity and the countries that want destruction and death run by Iran.
And the problem with the Palestinian leadership is that they've always fallen pawns to that game.
Do you think the Iranians care about the Palestinian?
The Palestinians, they just know that it plays well on the Muslim streets.
They don't care.
They want sheer control of the regions.
They want America out of the region and they want a new world order.
And unfortunately, the Palestinians have been plagued with bad leaders who have always opted for themselves for a kleptocratic regime or a genocidal regime.
Mr. Baghruti works for a regime that pays pensions to terrorists, that teaches children in their educational system to hate Israel.
And one day, all the Jews will go in the sea.
This is part of their education authority.
And Mr. Bagrouti knows better than anybody that Hamas killed his own people in 2006 when Israel left.
Okay, let me bring up.
Gaza is not occupied.
Gaza is not occupied.
Israel left in 2005 and killed Mr. Bagrouti's friends and colleagues for being in power up until that time.
But you're not going to hear Mr. Bagruti criticizing Hamas, even though Hamas hates him more than they hate me.
Okay, well, let me give the final word to Mustafa Baguio.
You know it is.
Well, listen, don't interrupt me.
Please let me answer.
I did not interrupt you at all.
Okay.
The presentation that was made as if Israel is a very peaceful country, Israel did not conduct more than 15 wars during the last 70 years.
Israel was established by the destruction of 520 Palestinian communities.
Don't interrupt me, I told you.
Who started the war?
Israel was established by committing 52 massacres in 1948.
Avish Laim, a very highly respected Israeli academic and historian working at Oxford University, did a thorough research in which he could not find a single evidence that Israel accepted the partition plan in 1947.
But they claim they did, which is a big lie.
And in my opinion, you asked Mr. What should Israel have done?
I tell you what should Israel have done.
Israel should have declared that it will end its illegal occupation of Palestinian land, which has lasted now for 76 years of ethnic cleansing and 56 years of illegal military occupation.
Israel should have declared that it is ready to end the system of apartheid so that we can have peace.
We can have peace only through two ways.
Either Israel would end its occupation of Palestinian land, remove its illegal settlers who are attacking us, terrorist settlers everywhere, remove them from the occupied territories, allow Palestinians to have a state of their own without occupation, without control, without hegemony, without apartheid, or let's live together in one democratic state with equal rights.
Ending Illegal Occupation 00:05:17
Where?
Where you do not impose on us a law that says that the right of self-determination is for Jewish people only.
When you interrupt me psychologically, you are trying to impose on me.
Even occupying my rights, even occupying my right to speak.
This is what you are trying to do.
And it is unacceptable.
And I don't want to tell you to shut up again, but you deserve more than shut up, actually.
So please let me finish.
In my opinion, this way of presenting Israel as if it's a country of peace is incorrect.
The reality is it's a country of war.
You have dragged your people into one crime after the other, and you claim lies.
Continue to say lies about decapitation of children, about rape of women.
You claim that Hamas is oppressing me without allowing me to say that this is not true.
By which law are you doing that?
And let me tell you, I am against the Palestinian Israeli or any child anywhere.
But you claim that 30 Israeli children were killed on the 7th of October.
Tell me 10 names.
No names.
Do you believe in a two-state solution?
It was not a problem.
Only according to CNN.
According to CNN and Western media...
I believe in a two-state solution.
The youngest person who was killed on the 17th.
Wait, wait.
That was one person, one young person who was only 14 years old that was killed on the 7th of October.
And you claim 30 were killed.
Give me their names.
And I'm telling you.
Killing 30 children does not justify even killing 15,000 children.
With their mothers.
The blood of these children is on your hands and on your brain.
And the world will not allow this to happen.
I believe at the end of the day.
I believe that.
I believe in Palestinian self-determination.
I'm asking you to...
Can you interrupt me?
I want a debate.
I want a dialogue.
I want a dialogue with you.
I want a dialogue.
I'm asking you a question.
Do you want a dialogue?
So let me say that.
How can I have dialogue interrupting me?
I'm asking the question.
Do you agree?
Do you accept to end occupation?
Do you accept to end occupation?
I believe in the Palestinian self-determination.
I believe in finding a resolution.
Where I can be running to be your prime minister, for instance, in a democracy.
Would you accept that?
We have Arabic.
Would you accept that I have the same right as you?
You don't.
Because you say that Palestine is for Jewish people.
You know who we were.
We have Arab members.
That is Jewish supremacy.
That is the kind of Arab doctors.
We have Arab members of Knesset.
You are lying.
You are confusing people.
You are not.
Can you please be silent and let me finish the homeland?
You don't believe in the people.
There's no point talking over each other because you cannot even.
We don't have any rights in our ancestral homeland.
That's your problem.
And that's how you lie to your people.
You cannot tell them that you are talking, Madame.
But let me tell you something.
We're never leaving.
So the only way forward is to find a peaceful resolution.
The only way forward is to find a peaceful resolution.
Because we're not leaving.
The stuff about you just told me that.
Can I just finish my sentence, please?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
What you have just seen is a very good example of the Israeli behavior.
An supremacist approach where they cannot even want to allow us to express our opinion.
It's an oppressive approach where this lady cannot even tolerate to hear my opinion.
I'm asking for equality.
I'm asking for respect of human rights for everybody.
I'm asking, and you are not only lying, you are a criminal.
You are a participant in a war crime against Palestinian people.
And because you feel guilty deep down, or maybe you don't feel guilty because you are used to committing crimes against Palestinians of my country.
But I'm telling you, you and your government and your regime will not suppress our rights not only to struggle for our freedom, but also to say freely what we believe in.
Your approach is a reflection of the behavior of an occupier who cannot tolerate the topic.
You have to, because the truth is, I have to leave it there.
You have to log into the state of the world.
I have to leave it there.
I have to leave it there.
I want to thank all three of you very much.
And the answer to all problems like this is to keep talking.
However difficult it may seem and however fractious it gets, I believe in the power of discourse.
And I will keep having everyone on to debate this.
And hopefully, eventually, we can get to resolution or points of agreement.
Seems a long way off at the moment.
But thank you all for joining me.
Appreciate it.
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