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May 1, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
49:11
20240501_mehdi-hasan-returns-idf-spokesman-reacts
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Rafah Road to Hostages 00:04:55
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will press ahead with this offensive in Rafah regardless of whether the war is paused in a temporary ceasefire with Hamas.
That's despite the threat of international arrest warrants and warnings of President Biden.
The fate of 2.2 million Palestinian civilians hangs in the balance and the Israeli Defence Forces are once again facing criticism for the way its soldiers are prosecuting the war.
Well, in a moment, I'll discuss this with Mehdi Hassan.
But first, I'm joined from Tel Aviv by Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, the British Israeli spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces.
Colonel Lerner, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
A lot of big developments in the last few days in the war, not least this latest potential truce deal.
Can you just at the start just articulate exactly what that deal on the table currently looks like?
Pierce, there are two ways to bring hostages home, either through negotiations or through operational action on the ground.
Currently, the operations are taking front seat, which is a good thing.
Obviously, I can't go into specifics or the details, but we are doing everything in order to bring home hostages that are being held by Hamas for almost seven months now.
This is what we are obligated to do, and this is what the government is instructing us to do.
It's been reported that there might be a 40-day truce in return for the release of a significant number of hostages.
Is that accurate?
Well, if we've learned anything from the previous hostage release in November, so at that time, we held our fire for as long as it lasted.
Unfortunately, Hamas chose after seven days to resume action against us by firing more rockets at Israel rather than releasing more hostages.
So the government will instruct us.
They will give us their instructions of what they expect us to do.
And of course, as any military would do, we will adhere to the instructions by the government.
If Hamas suddenly released every hostage that's still alive and you were satisfied that that was the case, would that be the end of the war?
Pierce, there are three known knowns about this war.
First of all, 133 hostages need to be brought home.
Secondly, Hamas has to go.
They can't be trusted with the powers of government.
And thirdly, we need a new security reality, which improves the security situation for everybody in the region.
So the short answer is no, Hamas have to go.
They can't be trusted with the powers of government.
With the powers of government, they built the terrorist army that came into Israel on the 7th of October.
That's a reality we can't allow to ever happen again.
And we're set out in order to do that.
We have shifted our operations from a high-intensity conflict, high-intensity war down to a low-intensity, which is much more limited in its scope.
We have a limited amount of forces on the ground.
But as you rightly pointed out in the opening, we are preparing ourselves for operations in Rafah area.
We know that there are hostages there.
We know that Hamas's four battalions, one brigade, remain fully intact there.
And therefore, that is, if there is any way of implementing our goals of bringing home the hostages and ridding us of Hamas once and for all, the road to that goal goes through Rafah.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said that this invasion of Rafah will happen regardless of any truce talks with Hamas, which does beg the question: well, why should Hamas entertain any truce talks if it's going to make no difference to what Israel does in terms of invading Rafah?
What's the incentive for them?
I'm responsible for the Israel Defense Forces.
I speak on behalf of the IDF, and I would say our goal is to bring home the hostages.
They can do it either through negotiations or through military operations.
The choice is there.
They could quite easily at this moment unconditionally surrender and let the hostages home.
And then they would have to decide whether they continue to exist in the Gaza Strip as an organization, but they can't be trusted to govern Gaza.
We've seen, you know, we had a standoffish relationship over the course of the last 16 years with Hamas, where they were allowed to govern the Gaza Strip and they built the tunnels.
They built their weapon arsenal.
They built the ability to infiltrate into Israel on the 7th of October.
They financed it, funded it, and executed that action against us.
So it just goes to prove that they can't be allowed to survive this war.
They can't be allowed and they can't be trusted.
But if they all surrendered, that would be sufficient for you.
If they unconditionally surrendered and released the hostages, then there would be definitely a new security reality on the ground.
And that's something that needs to be determined in the aftermath of this war.
Why Hamas Cannot Survive 00:06:28
How will the Gaza Strip be run?
Israel doesn't want to run the Gaza Strip, but we know that it can't be run by Hamas or the likes of this terrorist organization.
They abused the power of government.
They didn't do anything for the benefit of the people of the Gaza Strip.
They just basically abused it in order to build their terrorist capabilities.
The Palestinian Health Authority, which is run by Hamas, has reported that 34,535 Palestinians have been killed, 77,704 more wounded.
I spoke to a British doctor yesterday, just got back from one of the few remaining hospitals near Rafah, who described a scene, a sort of apocalyptic scenes of 500 people being brought in every day.
And let's take a little listen to what he had to say.
So they have complex wounds.
Their wounds are not healing.
And they're getting complications due to that, malnourished.
Everyone is malnourished.
And children you see, kind of, you know, they are not growing.
And like literally, like children are the worst at the head.
You can see them and you can see the hunger in their eyes, kind of, you know.
And when they see something, kind of, you know, you can tell from someone that how many days this child has been hungry.
Did you get many babies being brought in?
Yes.
There is no facility in there for a pediatric ICU.
So they are brought to the European hospital as well.
So to captain the preterm incubators and things like that.
So there is the volume of the pediatric workload on this hospital is huge and they do not have enough facilities to cope with that.
What is your reaction to that, Colonel Lerner?
Because in that interview, it was horrific, what he was telling me.
And he talked to 500 people a day, many women, many children, babies being brought in every single day.
They've run out of a lot of medication.
They've run out of most anesthesia.
There was a 10-year-old boy he had to amputate his leg without anesthetic.
There's a constant, constant barrage of drones, that people are coming in with wounds from gunshots, from bombs, and so on.
And this is relentless and incessant.
And Israel is about to go into Rafah, where one and a half million people are currently there because they've been driven there by what happened in the north of Gaza.
And the vast majority of those people are not Hamas terrorists.
They are civilians.
And many of them are going to die if you do this.
How do you morally justify that?
I understand the desire to get rid of every last Hamas terrorist.
But how do you morally justify what may now happen in Rafah, given the enormous civilian death toll that is likely to go with it?
I watched the entire interview you did with the doctor that broadcasted yesterday.
And I agree, what is going on in Gaza is indeed horrific.
The tragedy that has unfolded in the course of this war, the human tragedy, is really unbelievable.
And in these times where we are and continue to be war averse, as societies, we look at the images and hear the stories of families torn to pieces, of communities that are broken down, and societies that are suffering.
And I absolutely agree with the understanding that war is a tragedy, and there is no such thing as a war that does not result in a humanitarian crisis.
But the alternative of fighting Hamas is in action.
Inaction would imply raising a white flag to Hamas so that they do it again and again and again.
Now, I would say we have to do everything in our power in order to limit the civilian casualties.
And I would say that based on everything that the IDF is conducting, unprecedented precautions in order to limit civilian casualties.
But there is no modern war that has been fought without civilian casualties.
And I don't accept the Hamas numbers that they're telling, but every single one of the civilians have been impacted, whether Palestinian or Israeli, by this war, is truly a tragedy.
The IDF is currently involved in an extensive humanitarian operation in order to increase the amount of supplies, whether it's medical supplies, food supplies across the Gaza.
But there is nowhere near enough, as you know, there is nowhere near enough going in to help these people.
And I'm talking about the innocent people in Gaza, the women, the children, half the population is under 18.
And hearing this doctor talk about amputating a 10-year-old boy's leg with no anesthetic sent a shudder down my spine and is only going to get immeasurably worse if you invade Rafah.
And I would also say to you, Colonel, you know, you're sounding very somber and serious when you talk about what's been going on, which is the correct response, I would argue, from anyone involved in this war.
But I want to play a little montage of IDF forces not taking it quite so seriously.
Let's take a look.
Now, there's a lot more of that.
And the only reason we have access to it is it's been put onto platforms where it's then been picked up on social media.
You were in the IDF for 25 years.
Do you condemn that kind of trivializing of what is going on, given the enormous death toll of civilians?
So the last segment we saw there is actually a piece of footage that the IDF put out where Hamas had hid rocket launchers in a scout clubhouse.
So other than that, of course, everything that, and the images and the videos that are distributed by young soldiers doing boisterous things needs to be deplored.
And I can say disciplined as well.
Genocidal Attitude Explained 00:13:59
And that is what we're doing.
And I would also add, in this day and age where everything is on social media, we need to be extremely cautious and we need to deal with it.
And I would add, we need to do better because war is not fun and games.
It is a challenging reality and a reality.
We need to express not only the humanity in fighting, because there is humanity in fighting, because as I said, there is a humanitarian operation that goes hand in hand with the operational actions.
Relating to the comment you said just a bit earlier about not nearly enough goods going in, just yesterday, 366 truckloads went into Gaza.
Inside Gaza, only 160 or so were distributed.
So there is a huge amount of supplies that are going in.
We are increasing those supplies daily.
We expect it to be up to 500 truckloads per day.
That works hand in hand with the United States Central Command effort that will be deploying their port, the joint logistics over the shore, which is being built as we speak, including ongoing airdrops.
It's all getting in, Colonel Lerner.
Why are so many people there suffering symptoms of famine?
I mean, that's indispensable.
I mean, I literally spoke to a senior doctor.
As you know, you watched the interview.
He said they're all coming in looking malnourished.
They're not getting enough food.
Basically, people are beginning to starve to death.
It's a humanitarian crisis.
So whatever's going in, it is nowhere near enough.
And I would have a wider question for you, which is, I've always understood Israel's need to respond to that terror attack and to need to respond with force.
I've always understood that and defended Israel's right to defend itself.
But what I can't understand now about this desire to finish off every last member of Hamas, regardless of civilian casualties, is that the scale of civilian casualties, passing 100,000 people now who've been either killed or wounded, the scale of that says to me that when this is over, why would you assume that the radicalization of Palestinians, which has led to what Hamas has been doing,
why would you assume that would not be increased rather than decreased, given the number of children and women who've been killed in this war so far?
Why do you think that victory actually ends the problem rather makes it worse?
Pierce, I don't agree with the premise.
I would argue that the IDF's conduct in any comparable situation in modern warfare has been outstanding and setting a standard that most armies cannot live up to.
Don't take it from me.
Look at the voices coming out of West Point, voices coming out of former officers from Sandhurst that are all telling that the IDF is conducting operations in precautions in order to limit civilian casualties.
But that doesn't change the reality that people are suffering.
And it relates to specifically to your question.
And I would argue, absolutely, we would hope that the Palestinians of Gaza would definitely choose a destiny of coexistence side by side by Israel.
But as long as Hamas are in control there, that can't happen.
We know that.
We understand that Hamas won't let that happen.
Yeah, but don't you accept that there's a real danger here?
You may kill Hamas, but you don't kill the Hamas ideology.
If anything, you cement it for many people in Palestine.
You think that actually what you've been doing, I mean, northern Gaza, from all the pictures I've seen, all the imagery, the videos and so on, has been pretty much flattened.
You've just gone in there and you've barreled that place to the ground.
And again, I understand the desire to take out Hamas, especially given their repeated assertion that they're going to keep trying to do this.
I get that.
But the devastation to human life and to property and to land has been on a scale we have rarely seen in modern times.
And I'm not sure what happens after all this.
You might claim victory.
You might go into Rafah, take out the remaining Hamas terrorists, but kill many thousands more civilians in the meantime.
And at the end of it, what are you left with?
A destroyed Gaza, a decimated people, and probably a lot of revenge in the air, where people gravitate to radicals who want to then exact revenge for the scale of what you've done.
And I agree that there is a huge challenge in the reality of this.
But the question we have to ask ourselves is, what are the alternatives?
What are the real alternatives?
What would you do?
What would you expect?
Now, the IDF is conducting a war not against the ideology of Hamas.
I don't think we've never set our goal out, but our goal is to dismantle them as a governing authority, as a terrorist entity, as a terrorist army that came in and conducted the atrocities of the 7th of October.
And that is what we are currently trying to do while bringing back the hostages.
What really is the alternatives when we look at Hezbollah since the 8th of October has been firing over 3,500 rockets at Israel and just this morning fired more rockets?
So we face a very, very challenging region where there are still many, many people bent on our destruction.
We can't just roll over and hope they don't do it.
Hamas have been preparing this war for the last 16 years.
There is no quick fix.
There is no magic prescription just to hope that they go away.
If there is a magic wand that we could do to make Hamas disappear, of course we would wave that magic wand.
But there isn't.
It can only be done by two ways.
Either they surrender or we use our military force.
Now, we need to use our military force in a way which is in accordance to the laws of armed conflict.
And we maintain that we are doing that and then some.
Will there be mistakes?
Of course, the fog of war is a real thing.
Can there be mistakes?
Can there be mistaken identity?
No, we identified our forces on the ground, identified three soldiers, three hostages, and killed them mistakenly.
We conducted a strike against the WCK, the World Central Kitchen, by mistake.
And we need to be very, very cautious when we make these mistakes.
We need to learn from them and improve.
But to go back to your point, indeed, the ideology is going to be there.
There needs to be a lack of will to fight us, a realization that it's not worth it.
And those that conducted the atrocities of the 7th of October need to be held accountable for their actions, their inhumane actions.
That is what we're out to do.
I don't think, you know, even as we see the progress of the war, as we're dismantling the battalion by battalion, their ability to operate as an organized force, as a military force against us, is being diminished day by day.
I would say, even in the low intensity stage that we are in currently, as we take out their leaders, their operations centers, wherever they are.
But when we look forward, what are we trying to achieve?
We are trying to restore safety and security to the people of Israel.
If we are expected not to fight Hamas and hope they don't do it again, I think that's not a real expectation.
It's not a real, no civilian in Israel could accept that as the reality.
Now, how do we move forward from here?
And as I said, ideally, the people of Gaza need to determine their destiny.
It needs to be a destiny without terrorism.
They can't be managed by a fundamentalist organization that has only terrorism on its mind.
Think about the amount of cement that went into the building, the tunnels of the terrorist organization Hamas.
The amount of buildings that went down beneath ground in some states, in some ways.
If I may just jump in, this all strikes me as another failure by the Israeli government, who pumped billions into propping up Hamas because it suited them politically to have the Palestinians split between Palestinian authority and Hamas.
Billions and billions went to Hamas and was used to do all this stuff.
And it seems to have all been going on without any of you guys knowing, despite repeatedly boasting to the world, you have the best security and intelligence services in the world.
So not only did you not know that they were spending all the money coming in actually at Israel's instigation in this way, but nor did you have a clue what was going to happen on October the 7th.
And that's why many Israelis feel, yes, we want to get rid of Hamas, but we actually, at the end of all this, we want to get rid of Netanyahu too.
Pierce, I was a reservist recruited into service on the 9th of October.
What I did on the first day of the war, when I saw it breaking out in the early hours of the 7th of October, while I was scrolling through my social media, I sat down and I wrote an op-ed about the failures of the IDF on that day.
So of course, there are many failures, both strategic and tactical and operational, that will be addressed.
And the IDF is currently investigating exactly its levels.
And of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that when this is over, he will have answers.
Everybody will have to answer the failures that they've led to.
I think we expect at the stage we are now, we need to understand that there is no quick fix.
It needs to be on that.
On that, we can end on a point of agreement.
This is a hell of a mess.
Colonel Peter Lerner, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
I appreciate it.
Good day, Piers.
Returning to Uncensored now, I'm joined by Mehdi Hassan, the editor-in-chief and CEO of New Media Company, Zateo News.
Well, Mehdi, great to see you.
You've been listening patiently to that interview with the Israeli spokesman, Colonel Peter Lerner.
First of all, your response to him.
My response to it is that the Israelis are very clever when they put up people like Peter Lerner to speak for them because he's a smart guy, he's eloquent.
He, as you pointed out, strikes the right tone, somber, serious, says we're going to look into these allegations.
We're going to punish soldiers who post these TikToks.
We're a very humane army.
We want to, you know, look into our faults.
The reality is, he may be the spokesperson for the IDF, but he doesn't speak for the Israeli government.
The Israeli government is filled with self-confessed fascists and racists who just this week, Piers, have been saying more genocidal stuff.
Itmar Ben-Gavir said the other day, according to Israeli media, why can't we kill some more Palestinians?
Why are we arresting so many of them?
Bizalil Smotrich, the finance minister, said, I think yesterday, we need a total annihilation of Gaza.
Those folks don't come on your show and say it so bluntly.
They put Peter Lerner up to say, yes, yes, we understand it.
Listen, I think on that, you're absolutely right.
I think Netanyahu's problem from the very start of all this is he packed his cabinet with right-wing headbangers who share very inflammatory views, which are all on the record, and that they have been forcing his every move.
And he's done that because the only chance he has, in his eyes, of actually surviving in power is if he wins this war, as he would see it.
I'm just not sure what victory really looks like for them.
I agree with you.
He wants to prolong this war for his own personal and political reasons.
Don't forget, Piers, it's not just a political situation for him staying in government, avoiding elections, leading a coalition.
He's also trying to avoid legal troubles like Donald Trump.
He's been indicted on multiple things.
He was in the middle of a trial before he became prime minister.
So all of this, dragging this out, is great for him.
He also, Piers, don't forget, is counting down the days till a Trump presidency because they believe, the Israeli far right, rightly believe they'll get an even better deal than they got from Joe Biden with Donald J. Trump.
So that is a fundamental problem.
But, you know, they're worried about ICC arrest warrants possibly coming out.
We're hearing rumors about that.
I'll believe that when I see it.
But they should be worried.
And he is going to drag this out as long as he can.
And this is a guy who doesn't care about the hostages.
I just want to go back to the central point here.
Peter Lerner began his interview with you, Piers, talking about the hostages.
We just learned, I don't know if your viewers are aware of this, but the Israeli press has reported that the spokesman for the families of the hostages, the guy who just quit being spokesman for the past six months, Chaim Rubinstein, came out and said, hey, we were told there was a deal on the table on 8th or 9th of October to get the hostages back.
Netanyahu blocked it.
He says that the families believe that Netanyahu is the obstacle to a hostage deal.
You didn't hear that from Colonel Lerner, of course.
No, I mean, I did see that report, and I think that probably they didn't believe it in the time.
I mean, my question about for you, I think, about what Lerner said is at the heart of this, and I've said this to you before, I think, I've always had a slight moral quandary about how to view all this in totality, because there's no doubt that what happened on October the 7th was one of the most heinous terrorist attacks of modern times.
Israel was always going to respond.
Hamas knew it was going to respond with unprecedented force to an unprecedented attack on Israel.
And then we had immediately afterwards, we had the Hamas spokesman brazenly saying on camera, we're going to keep doing this again and again and again.
That actually is the epitome of a genocidal attitude to another country.
So given that, clearly, I can understand that Israel feels it cannot continue to have any Hamas terrorists in existence unless they surrender.
Now, do you think they should?
Do you think there's any future here that doesn't involve Hamas?
Or do you think that Hamas should now be left to continue to exist in smaller numbers, maybe to regroup and maybe to plot more attacks on Israel?
It's a genuine, interesting question, isn't it?
It is an interesting question.
Let me respond in two ways.
Outrage Over ISIS Crimes 00:02:23
Number one, your point about October 7th.
Look, October 7th was an atrocity.
You and I agree on that.
We've discussed this before.
I do think the moral quandary line you use is a little bit outdated.
We are now nearly seven months out from October the 7th.
On Monday, Piers, they dropped a bomb on Rafah and killed 22 people, 11 women and children, six women, five children.
One of the children was a five-day-old baby, according to the Associated Press.
I see stuff like that, and you cannot just knee-jerk say October 7th to me.
Those people had nothing to do with October the 7th.
That baby was not even born on October the 7th.
So we cannot just throw around October 7th the same way George Bush and Dick Cheney threw 9-11 around to justify every crime, every atrocity.
That just doesn't work.
So I understand that you would say that in October or even November, but we are now in May.
But people, just to jump in on that.
Genocide.
Yeah, but hang on.
But people didn't use that argument as vociferously when, for example, the Americans and Allied forces went after ISIS in places like Iraq and Syria and others.
I didn't hear that argument being used so loudly.
And yet there were actually military people that the collateral damage of civilian deaths in those areas, Mosul and so on, was actually significantly worse than it's been in Gaza.
I'm not a military expert.
I'm just taking what they've told me.
But my point being, why the double standard?
Why when people went, let me finish the question.
Why when people went after ISIS, who were a terror group, and they killed lots of civilians, including women and children, in the process, was there not the outrage we've seen when Israel has gone after people it perceives to be terrorists?
So there's a lot there.
You asked me a question earlier that I didn't finish, and now this one.
Let me try and do apologize quickly.
On ISIS, on ISIS, Piers, it doesn't really work that question on me because I was very critical of the Obama campaign in Iraq in Mosul.
I wasn't one of those people who justified it by pointing to ISIS crimes.
I've been very consistent with that.
No, I wasn't pointing it at you.
I'm saying generally, the outrage wasn't big.
But I don't think, I don't think, well, first of all, the average wasn't big because the American army and the U.S. military, and I'm a big critic of the U.S. military in the Middle East, didn't do what the Israelis have done in Gaza.
Phil Clay, who served in Iraq in Mosul, award-winning novelist, wrote a big piece for the Atlantic.
Your viewers can go read it.
And he points out that in Mosul, when they had to kill a terrorist, if there were eight civilians or more around, they had to run it up the entire chain of command right to the head of central command.
Two-State Solution Matters 00:08:55
In Gaza, that doesn't happen.
A local colonel or officer on the ground can kill whoever they like.
Look what happened to Wells Central Kitchen, which, by the way, Colonel Lerner lied about.
That wasn't a mistake.
It was deliberately targeted, but we know that because they hit them in one car, then another car, then a third car.
That is not a mistake.
And on your question about Hamas, look, Hamas are part of whatever you want to call it, a part of this equation, right?
They're not going away.
Israel has tried to destroy them or tried to militarily wipe them out.
It hasn't worked.
It's killed tens of thousands of people.
But Hamas, by the way.
Well, it might have been recently.
It might have been pretty successful in killing Hamas.
I mean, if you take their numbers, then they have wiped out a lot of Hamas.
So, you know, listen, I don't necessarily believe as point out, but if you assume they're taking out a lot of Hamas, and most of the rest of Hamas are in the Rafah.
No, because as you've pointed out just now with Lerner, and I've pointed out non-stop for six months, just killing Hamas people doesn't end them because you'll get more people joining up because you've seen what's happened to their families.
So it's a short-term solution, not a long-term solution.
But look, what is a long-term solution is peace, is freedom, is an end to persecution and occupation.
Hamas, for all their many sins and crimes, came out recently and said in Istanbul to the Associated Press, we will put down our weapons, do a five-year truce, become a political party if we get a two-state solution on 1967 lines.
Isn't it crazy, Piers?
We live in a world where Hamas are more moderate, quote unquote, when it comes to a two-state solution than the Israeli government, which says, no way, Netanyahu is not going to be able to do it.
Hang on.
How could anybody trust?
If you're on the Israeli government or if you live in Israel, you don't have to.
Why on earth?
Why on earth could you choose to do it?
Can you trust them?
Yeah, but why would you believe that?
Clare bluff.
Piers, call their bluff.
Have a two-state solution.
Then they've got no argument, right?
Reagan said, don't trust, verify, right?
Do it.
Have a two-state solution because it's the right thing to do because it undercuts the entire Hamas resistance argument.
Have some sort of solution where Palestinians are free, whether that's two states, one equal state, whatever it is.
End the occupation.
The root cause of this, Piers, as you and I both know, is the lack of freedom for the Palestinian people, which has been going on for decades.
That is the root cause.
And right now, the issue you said earlier, you said a word, double standards.
I mean, I would be critical of your double standards, Piers.
You constantly criticize Hamas for genocidal goals.
And I just pointed out to you that the Israeli finance minister said this week he wanted the total annihilation of Gaza.
Do you agree that's genocide?
Listen, I definitely think some of the members of that cabinet have used rhetoric which I think borders on genocidal, no question.
But it's not as blunt.
Why not just genocidal, Piers?
Why borders?
Well, okay.
Look, you say it's genocidal.
It's the annihilation of Gaza.
Yeah, I would say is deeply inflammatory rhetoric, but it's not quite the same as the Hamas spokesman saying on camera after October the 7th, we are going to keep doing this again and again and again.
That's difficult.
It's much worse.
That is the same thing.
Because these Israelis are literally doing it as we say.
And they have a charter to get it.
It's much worse, Piers.
They have a charter elimination.
It's tens of thousands of people.
Why?
You and I have many.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, Piers.
So does the Liquid Party.
So does the Liquid Party.
1977 Liquid Party Charter.
What does it say?
Between the sea and the Jordan, there will only be Israeli sovereignty.
River to the sea.
That's the liquid charter, Piers.
I haven't heard you criticize the Liquid Charter.
Well, I personally agree with you.
There should be a two-state solution.
Where I don't agree with you is I don't think Hamas should play any role in anything to do with the Palestinian cause going forward because I think they have revealed themselves to be a bunch of barbaric terrorists.
And my problem with what you're saying is it seems to be that what you would like, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but you would prefer, as I would prefer, that Israel does not go into Rafah.
I think it's going to be absolutely devastating if they do this.
They have forced one and a half million people into there.
I was reading today a report, which I don't know if it's been substantial or not, that they may have all men of working age are going to be hived off from the women and children and made to stay there.
We've seen this in Sremonica and other places before and how devastating the consequences of that were.
So I absolutely share your concern about that.
And I absolutely share your aspiration that we should try and move to a two-state solution and peace.
Where I cannot agree with you is the suggestion that any Hamas should be left there to be involved in any of this because I think they've just revealed themselves to be medieval terrorists.
So how do you get to where you want to get to if you leave a bunch of terrorists in charge?
Piers, the problem is what you and I want is irrelevant.
We have to live in the world as it is, not as the world as we want it to be.
And the world as it is is there is Hamas.
Israel has failed to destroy it.
The ideology of Hamas, especially the resistance part of it, is popular amongst people who are living under persecution and occupation.
And therefore, if you're going to do a deal, what do you do?
You negotiate with your enemies.
You don't negotiate with your friends.
And that's, you know, we have the war on terror, Piers, 20 years of failure.
It gave us more war, more terror, didn't get rid of all the terrorist groups, didn't get rid of the Taliban, didn't get rid of al-Qaeda, didn't get rid of, you know, that's the reality.
In fact, at parts over the last two decades, we made things worse.
And I think in Palestine, in Gaza, in the West Bank, the reality is that these people have support because the people are under occupation.
I can show you polls, Piers, from early in 2023 in Gaza, where Hamas were not popular at all.
They're way more popular now than they were in 2023.
What does that tell you about the success?
Well, it tells me that the ideology, which is basically one of revenge and Israel hating and wanting Israel destroyed, has been fermented, not removed by what's been going on.
That's what it says to me.
But I come back to our clear difference of opinion here.
I don't see how you can have any future for Palestinians in Palestine, in Gaza, that involves Hamas having any role.
And so if you take my view about this, then I can understand why Israel wants to remove the Hamas threat in its entirety.
I don't agree with the way they're going to go about this.
But you say that they failed to get rid of Hamas.
I think it's quite likely.
It's quite likely that if they do that.
That's all that matters.
Well, hang on.
It's quite likely, isn't it?
If they do what they say they're going to do and invade Rafah, yes, they will kill a lot of civilians.
And I think that's wrong.
And they shouldn't be doing this.
But it's also quite likely, given what's happened so far, that they will effectively eliminate the current version of Hamas.
Now, you're right, I think, in sharing my view that the ideology will live on, but it may not live on as Hamas.
And I don't see how any Israel government could ever possibly do a deal with Hamas.
Well, you know, the American government did a deal with the Taliban.
I don't think anyone believed that would happen in 2001, too.
I think things change, unfortunately.
That's the world we live in.
I would just respond to your Hamas point, which is the reality is that all that matters is what happens.
You keep saying, I wish they wouldn't do it this way.
Well, they are doing it this way.
That's all that matters, Piers.
You either support it or you don't support it.
You can say, I wish we got rid of Hamas.
And I wish we, the reality is they're going to go into Rafah.
They're going to kill innocent people.
Are you and I, as people who speak to our audiences, try and tell the truth about what's happening in the world, are we going to call that out?
Are we going to hold that to account?
Are we going to scrutinize that?
Are we going to condemn it?
I am.
That's what matters.
And by the way, on the whole, getting rid of Hamas, again, you're too generous towards the Israeli government.
If it was just about Hamas in Gaza, they wouldn't have killed a record number of people and a record number of children in the West Bank where Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah are in control.
And Mehmoud Abbas came out again the other day and said, we respect Israel's rights to exist.
We want to state alongside it.
They won't do a deal with Mahmoud Abbas.
This is not about Hamas, Piers.
Hamas could disappear tomorrow.
Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies would come up with another reason not to allow the Palestinians to be able to get it.
Would you be genuinely comfortable, Mehdi?
Just last point on this, but would you be genuinely comfortable at the end of all this, after October the 7th, for Hamas, who perpetrated that atrocity, to actually hold any power in Gaza?
No, I wouldn't.
I don't live in Gaza.
I don't think they've done a good job running Gaza.
I'm not a fan of Hamas.
I've been condemning them since I was 16 years old.
But again, it's not in my control, right?
Do I think Hamas should run Gaza?
No.
Do I think Benjamin Netanyahu should run Israel?
No.
Do I think Israelis can do a deal with Hamas?
Probably not right now.
Do I think Palestinians can do a deal with Netanyahu, who's just killed 33,000 people minimum, if probably tens of thousands more under the rubble?
No.
But that's the world we live in, right?
You do deals, you negotiate with your enemies, not your friends.
If we want peace, if those of us who are not Israeli-Palestinian from the outside want to help that place get to peace, we have to urge people to sit down, talk, negotiate, get some kind of agreement where everyone is treated as equals, whether that's one state where everyone lives equally side by side, which is my preference, but it's not my choice, or two states where they live side by side.
Whatever gives the Palestinians their freedom.
Let me ask you about something else.
Campus Violence and Charges 00:12:27
The pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in particular, we saw the police moving in overnight after the students have broken into a historic building and used violence to do that.
You've been very critical of people who are trying to suppress these protests at all, to which I would say I absolutely believe in the right to protest peacefully.
I believe in free speech emphatically as you do.
I think we're in agreement on that.
But if people are going to do things like chant about an intifada, and I know you picked me up on X earlier about do I know the meaning of intifada?
Well, here's what I know.
There have been two intifadas involving the Israel-Palestine conflict.
And they led to many thousands of deaths.
But both were driven by violence.
I mean, they weren't peaceful intifadas.
By very definition, these uprisings were violent and involved extreme violence, particularly the second one, which involved blatant acts of terrorism.
So that is my understanding of an intifada.
There have also been many other things in the last 30 years in the world, which have been dubbed intifadas.
And the one common denominator is they've all involved violent uprisings.
In fact, I can't think of, unless you can correct me, when was the last entirely peaceful intifada?
So in 2011, in the Arab Spring, the Tunisians rose up peacefully.
I'm sure you supported them.
I did.
Against their dictator, Ben Ali.
The Egyptians rose up in Tehran Square.
I think you supported them.
I certainly did.
Against Mubarak, against these dictators that we in the West have been supporting.
Those were referred to.
You can go back and look at the Arabic press.
You can look at the BBC Arabic coverage as intifadas.
We can go back further.
In fact, we can go back to a violent uprising that we all supported.
The Warsaw Ghetto, Piers.
The Warsaw Ghetto, right?
Polish Jews standing up against the Nazis.
Do you know how the US Holocaust Memorial Museum describes the Warsaw Ghetto on its Arabic page?
It calls it the Warsaw Ghetto.
Okay, but you wouldn't categorize it.
Hold on, let me finish my point.
Let me finish my point.
Let me finish my point.
And then you come back in.
The Warsaw Intifada.
We're not calling the Jews in Poland who stood up against the Nazis as terrorists.
So no, I don't believe that Intifada in and of itself is a terroristic or violent phrase.
And the first Intifada was largely non-violent for the first year.
Palestinians were killed at a rate of 27 times the number of Israelis who were killed.
Rabin, do you remember Rabin, Nobel Peace Laureate?
He said, break their bones.
The violence came largely from the Israeli side in the first intifada.
So just to be clear, that's what intifada means, uprising.
These students are not calling for violence.
They're not.
If they wanted to, they'd call for violence.
They'd call for battle.
They're calling for an uprising, Piers.
Yeah, but they're calling for an intifada.
They're chanting about intifada.
And the two you and I have a different definition of it.
I'm not an Arab, so with the...
Intifada is used for peaceful uprisings as well.
Hang on, just to narrow the debate onto this, there have been two intifadas in this conflict, and they've both been violent.
And I just told you.
The very first one was largely non-violent.
Well, it was only non-violent for the first time.
The violence from Israel.
It was actually only non-violent for the first few months.
The violence was from Israel.
Well, it became increasingly violent and there were many.
And Israelis would live ammo.
Well, there were many deaths.
Yes, and I would too.
If I was doing...
Okay, but here's my point.
They were both violent.
So when those protesters chant about intifada, if you are a Jewish student on that campus and you see people chanting in a mob intifada, you know what that means.
Those people want to do you physical violent.
No harm.
That's the problem.
Let's break this down then, Piers.
I know you're in the UK.
You haven't been in the US recently or on campus.
I was there two weeks ago.
I've been to campus.
I was actually there two weeks ago walking.
Well, hang on.
I was there two weeks ago.
But you weren't on any of these campuses while this has been going on for seven days.
I know where Columbia is.
I was in New York.
But I'm just saying.
Agreed.
And there was no violence when you walked past it.
So seven days ago, that's when it kicked off when the police arrested 108 students, many of them Jewish.
Let's just talk about Jewish students.
I've actually spoken to Jewish students, Jewish professors.
Columbia's Jewish professors have come out to condemn media coverage of what's going on and saying this isn't anti-Semitic.
This isn't violent.
People like Bruce Robbins.
Many have.
Keith Gesson, Bruce Robbins, Joseph Howley, whose grandfather fled the Nazis.
You say it's not violent.
We saw them.
They were breaking into a building, smashing windows and being violent.
That was last night.
Okay, I'll come back to that, Piers.
Let me finish a sentence and I will.
They've all said that these protests are not violent.
They're not anti-Semitic.
These slogans are anti-Semitic.
There are Jews in the encampment.
Ziteo, my new media company, went and asked a Jewish student on campus who's part of these protests to write a piece for us.
And Jonathan Ben Menarkam, people could go read it.
And he said the real threat is coming not from Palestinian protesters, but from the police who are assaulting and arresting Jewish students on campus.
We Jewish students are in the encampment.
We're praying.
We're not going to be able to do that.
But I've seen video of Jewish students being harassed.
Jewish students not being allowed to go onto their campus.
I've seen other Jewish students absolutely terrified about what's happening.
I've seen other Jewish professors who will be able to do it.
This is the problem watching it all.
Other Jewish professors not allowed to go in and teach.
I've seen the Columbia say, oh, everyone has to stay at home.
Come on.
Piers, okay, let's just break this down.
You just mentioned Shai Davidai, the Columbia business professor who's become a big martyr on the right.
This is a guy who referred to his fellow Jewish professors as Kapos.
I don't think you agree with that language, Piers.
I don't think you think you should call Jewish professors Kappas.
That's the kind of language he does.
He's been targeting Muslim students on campus.
He demonized Muslims preying on Columbia campus.
I'm assuming you don't agree with that.
And I would just say this, just on the campuses.
Last night in UCLA, there was massive violence.
It was carried out by pro-Israel protesters.
It's on camera.
The LA Times reported that.
Well, there was violence on encampments.
No, no, read the LA Times reporting, Piers.
They attacked.
Counter-protests turned up late at night in front of us on tape.
They attacked Palestinian protests.
They attacked the encampment.
They threw fireworks into the encampment.
And on Sunday, by the way, at UCLA, one Israel counter-protester went up to a black Palestinian student and called in the N-word and spat on him.
I watched the video.
We're going to play videos.
I watched that video.
You didn't mention that in your New York Post column in which you condemned Columbia students.
You didn't mention the guy at UPenn, pro-Israel protesters, who turned up with a knife in his belt.
You didn't mention the three Palestinian students who were shot earlier this year while wearing kafayas.
One of them is now disabled.
Right?
None of that gets any mention.
We just cherry-pick some of the things that you're talking about.
So you're trying to paint a picture of it.
This works both ways, Meddy.
I've made them more picture than you're doing.
I haven't seen you quoting any of the Jewish students who've been everywhere on the airwaves, saying they feel saying they feel harassed.
Well, you're wrong.
Piers, you're wrong.
Really?
You're wrong, Piers.
In this interview.
Well, you're wrong.
I have.
I have.
In this interview?
No, in this interview.
You said, have I?
No, I meant in this interview.
In this interview.
In this interview, if you look at the marketing.
You said you didn't see me in my New York page.
Let me get back to my point.
Okay.
Yeah, I genuinely feel.
I didn't know.
I've seen many, many Jewish students.
Hang on, let me finish.
I've seen many Jewish students talking about how intimidated they've been feeling, how harassed they've been feeling.
I've seen video footage that supports their reasons for feeling that way.
I've seen the mob chanting intifada, the mob chanting from the river to the sea.
Now, we can argue about the subtle nuances of these words and phrases.
We are going to argue about that.
But if you're a Jewish student and you're not allowed to go in and study because you're being harassed by a mob chanting into fader.
I think that crosses a line.
Well, first of all, neither of us are Jewish and you don't get to speak for all Jews.
I'm telling you, there are many Jews disproportionately represented in the pro- I'm not.
I'm telling you not to speak for all Jews.
I never spoke for all Jews.
I don't think there are Jewish students.
I'm saying there were many Jews on the airwaves talking about this.
And I'm saying there are many Jews who said the opposite, including for Zatayo, including on CNN on Friday Zakari on Sunday.
So we can have the argument.
I'm saying, what about the pro-Palestinian students who've also been doxxed, harassed, assaulted?
You don't mention them.
You didn't mention them in a very long New York piece.
You didn't write a piece about three Palestinian students who got shot.
Shot.
Thank God no Jewish students have been shot.
They got shot.
One is now disabled earlier this year.
In fact, this week, a guy turned up at your tent with a knife in his belt.
I think that's much worse than shouting Intifada, which, as we've just discussed, is not an anti-Semitic phrase.
So we can argue all day long.
What's happening on campuses is bad.
The way we de-escalate, like with the Middle East, is we sit down and talk.
We don't go with violence.
It's funny that you mentioned Intifada and saying it was violent the first time around.
Well, it wasn't.
It started peacefully and the Israelis cracked down.
Same thing happened in New York.
It started peacefully.
The police have cracked down.
Did you see the images last night, Piers, of police pushing protesters downstairs?
Surely you don't agree with that.
I saw one of the protesters making a speech in which she demanded humanitarian aid because they were all hungry.
That's what I asked, Piers.
Nice deflection.
Did you see the student being thrown downstairs?
Did you see the hurry being assaulted by the police?
I've not seen the piece of footage you're talking about.
I did see the police forcefully throw them all out.
And I think it was long overdue.
Yeah.
When students break into a building, when they commit vandalism.
Hang on.
When they commit vandalism, trespass, they hold people against their wishes, right?
They're going to face potential criminal charges.
They're not going to protest throughout history, Piers.
Well, hold on.
They may well face civil rights protests.
They may well face criminal protests.
They might face criminal protests.
This show is called uncensored.
Yes.
Maybe you should rename it Piers Morgan censored if you're in favor of cracking down on protests.
Listen, I do believe in uncensored.
That's why I let you come on and abuse me, Betty.
That's half of fun.
But I would also...
No, but on a serious point, as someone who supports free speech and the right to protest, I followed this very closely.
And I've not written anything before now.
But when I saw the scenes in the last 48 to 72 hours, I did think it crossed a line.
And I do think if you're a Jewish student and you're feeling harassed and intimidated and being refused entry by a mob chanting Intifada and from the river to the sea, I think that crosses a line.
Can I say two brief things before we finish?
Yeah.
Very quickly.
One is, I hope you do write a column about what's happening to pro-Palestinian students, including Jewish students, the violence that's been meted out to them at places like UCLA, Emory.
I don't know if you've seen the scenes from UT Austin where Governor Greg Abbott has basically sent in a fascist paramilitary looking police force to crack heads.
I hope you'll condemn that in the interest of free speech.
And number two, look, we can argue all day about broken windows at Columbia University.
I don't support violence.
I don't support property damage.
That's my own personal thing.
But I know there's a history of doing that in good causes.
But the reality is some broken glass at Columbia University by people who are protesting a war in which every single one of Gaza's 12 universities have been destroyed or damaged.
More than 200 educators in Gaza killed, more than 4,000 students killed.
Yeah.
Here's the point, though.
This has been a massive distraction from the war.
And that's my other problem with it, is you've got a bunch of students in New York causing merry hell, distracting everyone's attention from what is actual, genuine merry hell for people in Gaza.
Actually, it's not merry hell.
That's a right-wing media take on what's being going on.
I'm not right wing.
I've got a core depiction of it.
I'm not right-wing.
I've been to the, I didn't say you.
I didn't say you were.
I said that's the right-wing media depiction of it.
I've never been to college campuses where this is going on.
Well, I was at a college campus on Saturday, Piers.
Were you?
There was no violence.
There was no Merry Hell.
So that's a smear.
Last 48 hours, there has been Merry Hell there.
Yeah, there has.
Not at the college campus I was at.
There's dozens of campuses all over the country.
And at Columbia, the hell is from the police.
There are lots of universities, Piers, where this is not kicking off because the university administrators have been smart.
They've talked to students.
They've listened to their demands.
Their demands, by the way, is not interfer.
Their demand is for divestment from companies profiting off of Israel, a reasonable demand.
In other places like MIT, Brandeis, other universities, they've actually talked to students.
It's in Columbia where this insane president who should quit decided to call in the police outrageously.
Mehdi, on a positive note, I've been following your new media venture, Zataya, with great interest, and I think you're really killing it.
I think it's been great.
Very lively, very provocative.
Thank you so much.
Lots of good names.
And I salute you for showing, as I think we do here, a different way of doing things in the media landscape now.
So congratulations on a great start.
Thank you so much.
We will, both of us, continue to do different things going forward.
That's the future.
And you can always be a guest on Uncensored and be as uncensored as you like.
Thank you very much.
Take care, Mehdi.
All the best.
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