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May 20, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
52:21
20240520_butcher-of-tehran-dies-in-helicopter-crash-what-ne
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Raisi Death and Middle Class 00:02:47
The president of Iran is dead.
Ibrahim Raizi was killed in a helicopter crash yesterday, along with the country's foreign minister and several others.
Raisi was a hardline cleric who was close to Iran's supreme leader.
Many believed he was even his likely successor.
Raisi was also part of the so-called death commission, which ordered the extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
His current Iranian regime stands accused of sowing chaos in the Middle East through his Triple H proxies, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas.
So is the Middle East and the world a safer place today and in significant developments elsewhere?
Could Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu face arrest for war crimes after major announcements from the International Criminal Court?
We'll debate that in a moment.
But first with a view from Iran, Professor Mohammed Morandi from the University of Tehran.
Professor, thank you for coming back and uncensored.
First of all, your reaction to the death of the president yesterday.
Obviously, everyone that I know is in mourning.
He was a very popular figure.
He was a very humble person, very different from the description that you gave.
He worked very hard for the deprived, the working class, the disenfranchised.
He traveled from city to city, from town to town.
He was constantly visiting the different provinces.
And that's why he was so popular among, especially, as I said, the more disenfranchised and middle-class, lower-middle-class Iranians.
I mean, you've painted what many would view as a ridiculous picture of a man dubbed the butcher of Tehran, somebody whose death was greeted by many women posting images of themselves celebrating his death because of the appalling suppression that he put them under.
And we know that he was responsible for the deaths of many thousands of political prisoners.
So I don't quite categorize him as the person that you're trying to describe to us.
Well, obviously, what you're saying is inaccurate, to say the least.
I would say the butchers are in London, in Washington, the people who destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen during the disgraceful genocide there, the dirty war in Syria, the destruction of Libya, the sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba.
I think that the real monsters are actually much more closer to home.
He was a part of the judiciary, and those people that you were saying were executed were, he wasn't executing people.
He was in the judiciary at the time.
And the people who you're alluding to, and the numbers are far less than what you claim, they're actually, this is something that your government should be ashamed of.
Iran's Role in Terrorism 00:04:03
These are people who fought against Iran.
They fought for Saddam Hussein as foot soldiers.
They betrayed the country.
They carried out bomb attacks in this country, killing up to 17,000 people, including president, prime minister, and head of judiciary.
A bomb explosion near my house when I was a school student and I was getting ready to go to school.
It killed nine to 11 people, including an Armenian family of four.
These are the people who you're saying they were murdered by Iranians.
No, in Iran, no one has any sympathy for the MEK terrorist organization, which today has a major base in Albania and it has offices across Europe and North America.
So it is your government that's supporting terrorism.
It is your government and your government that are really the brutal regimes that the...
You know, Professor, you came on and spun this sort of stuff last time with the same smirk that you're doing it with this time.
And the reason I find the smirk so irksome is because everybody actually outside of your office right now is looking at this thinking, is this guy for real?
Given that Iran's tentacles in terms of terrorism are very transparently flowing through the three H's, as I described them, Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas.
We know that your country, Iran, through its regime, has been responsible for horrendous terrorism now for a very long time.
Why do you expect people watching these interviews when you do them to just calmly believe you when you say that all the bad guys are everybody else and the downtrodden, oppressed, much misunderstood people are the Iranian regime that is despised by so many people in Iran itself?
No, in Iran, we'll see during the funeral ceremonies how popular President Raisi was.
Just like General Suleimani four years ago, people like you were saying the same thing about him, but we saw millions come to the street.
Just because in the West you say this sort of thing doesn't mean that that's the reality on the ground over here.
Hezbollah was a group that was created as a result of the Israeli regime's invasion of Lebanon.
They went and captured the capital in 1982.
Hezbollah was created as a result of this illegitimate and brutal occupation.
They expelled the brutal apartheid ethno-supremacist regime from Lebanon.
And Hamas and other groups in Palestine are the result of 76 years of oppression, ethnic cleansing, and brutality and apartheid from this same regime.
So when you speak about the Houthis or Ansarallah, you're talking about a decade of genocide carried out by the Saudis and the Emiratis who are your allies and your governments were supporting them.
Your government starved the people of Yemen to bring them to their knees, but you failed and you failed today as well.
So no, you cannot blame the victims.
9-11, we were told that al-Qaeda carried out the attacks on the Twin Towers.
Who was al-Qaeda?
They were working with you in Afghanistan.
And then 10 years later in Syria, in Libya, al-Qaeda was cooperating with you.
We have an email from Jake Sullivan, February the 12th, 2012, where he sent to Hillary Clinton, where he said, in Syria, al-Qaeda is on our side.
The dirty war in Syria, the dirty war in Libya is yours.
These are your crimes and you cannot escape from it.
So we are the victims and your ugly empire is guilty as it is guilty in the genocide today in Gaza.
I wonder how many people watching this around the world, and there'll be a lot, will look at the situation with the current Iranian regime and think the word victim is appropriate, particularly given that President Raisi, that you paint such an idyllic picture of as a human being, somebody who only cared about the downtrodden.
Hijab Enforcement and Women 00:07:12
This is a man, of course, ordered tighter enforcement of Iran's hijab and chastity law, restricting women's dress and behavior.
It was under those orders that 22-year-old Massa Amini was detained in September 2022 by Iran's morality police for wearing improper hijab and died three days later in hospital sparking mass unrest.
That doesn't sound like the kind of guy you're trying to describe to me.
It sounds like a guy who is trying to dictate to women how they should dress, how they should behave.
Do you understand that in the West, we look at that as reprehensible behavior?
No, in the West, you objectify women, you commodify women, and you sexualize women, and you have Epsteins and many Epsteins who can...
Or give women the freedom to dress how they wish.
Why would you decline them that freedom?
In Iran, we have women pilots, we have women scientists.
My boss at the University of Tehran, the dean of my faculty is a woman for the 21 years that I've been an academic at the University of Tehran, 17 and a half of those years, the dean of my faculty was one woman or another.
Don't misrepresent Iran.
It doesn't work anymore, Pierce.
Your Western empire is on the decline.
The whole of the global south is witnessing the crimes that are being carried out by your regimes.
And your declining regimes are now despised by your own people.
You're crushing people, students who are protesting genocide.
You're not even crushing students who are protesting your own government for something that they're doing at home.
You're crushing students for protesting genocide in another country.
But you can't tolerate that.
And your media is controlled by a bunch of a group of rich people.
They control the narrative and you call that a democracy.
Your choice is either Hillary Clinton or Biden or Trump.
And then when that decision is made, the whole of Europe, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand fall in line as good soldiers.
You don't have democracies.
So don't pretend that you are above Iran.
Out of interest, Professor.
Out of interest.
Out of interest.
Do you think women should have freedom to dress how they wish?
That is not your concern.
I'm asking you a question.
I'm asking a question.
That is not your concern.
Did you have an answer for me or not?
Women should have a freedom to dress within the cultural within the cultural context of every society.
Women and men do not have the freedom to dress any way they like in your country.
So different societies have different cultures.
Actually, I can dress how the hell I like.
Well, no, you can.
You cannot.
You can then take off your clothes right now in front of the camera.
Don't talk nonsense.
I can take my clothes off if I wanted to.
Every society has its own culture.
We don't follow.
But just to be clear, I mean, you're trying to avoid the question.
Just to be clear.
Well, just let me ask you.
Let me ask you the question again.
You're a smart guy, you're a professor, and you're full of the ills of the West.
Do you think women should be free to dress how they like?
Oh, I told you.
As I told you very clearly.
You don't agree.
Women should have the freedom to dress the way they like.
But in our culture, the sexualization, objectification, and commodification of women is unacceptable.
It is your society that drives and pushes women.
I'll get you another lecture about my society.
Just to be clear, just to be clear, what you mean is you would like women are pilots.
Most of my university students are women.
The last person who we hired in my department was a woman.
I am an affiliate in another department as well at the University of Tehran.
The last two people we hired as academics there are women too.
You cannot misrepresent Iran.
I simply asked you, Professor, if you felt women should have the freedom to dress how they wish.
And you cannot answer me because actually you don't think they should.
No, because I didn't.
They are free to, they should be free to dress as they like within the cultural and religious context.
Just to be clear, and just to be clear, just to be clear.
And just to be clear, okay, you can keep shouting or you can answer my question.
Just to be clear, that would be within the realm of Iran's hijab and chastity law, would it?
I don't know the precise law, and I'm not going to get involved in that debate.
That's it was President Raisi who tightened enforcement of that law.
So you must be aware of it.
You're a professor.
You're a very smart guy.
No, actually, I hope you're smart too.
Mr. Raisi did not tighten the law or he didn't enforce it.
You just said you don't know anything about the law.
No, I don't know that.
You either know about it or you don't.
Sounds like you're very well informed.
I know you're trying to escape the argument.
Actually, no, I'm just trying to ask you a simple question.
The truth is, this guy you're trying to paint as some kind of saint, right, was somebody who led a curious enforcement of how women in Iran dress.
And that led to a young woman who was being detained by your morality police because she was wearing an improper hijab and she died in hospital three days later, sparking mass unrest where more people got punished.
That's the reality of this utopia you paint in Iran.
It's a place that actually far from encouraging women to be these great champions, as you put it, actually wants to suppress and control them.
And that was led by President Raisi.
But anyway.
You want to keep talking.
You want to keep talking because you want to run out the clock because we know quite well, and so do you, that your regime and your governments are the ones that are destroying our part of the world.
And you're speaking about a law in Iran that most people accept and that it is part of a different culture than yours.
But you think that our society and all other societies have to behave like yours.
And that's not necessarily the case.
And you think that necessarily because a woman wears a headscarf, that that woman is somehow intellectually less or that she's oppressed.
That's your ignorance.
I didn't say that.
That is your ignorance.
No, no, why didn't we say that?
Why didn't you?
No, let me be very clear to you.
If a woman chooses to do that, if a woman chooses to do that, that's fine.
It's the idea of people like you endorsing a law that orders in a certain way, I find objectionable.
Because in the West, increasingly, women who have hijab are being sidelined, they're losing their jobs, whether it's in France, whether it's in England, and in other parts of Europe.
So don't pretend that this is not the case.
But in any case, women in Iran, whether they wear a headscarf or not, most of the university students in Iran are women.
And women in Iran know how to deal with their rights much better than you.
We don't need you, your government, and your film.
Is that why they all take to the streets to protest against the regime?
Am I imagining things again?
You will see women take to the streets during the funeral.
Betrayal of International Law 00:08:48
And then I will wonder how you're going to explain that away.
Or is it North Korea and how the evil mullahs are forcing people to come to the streets?
Not all that, yeah.
Not all that.
Yeah, I'm sure that's what I'm saying.
Absolutely there is.
Yeah.
When you have a morality police, you get told what your morals should be and how to behave.
That's the point of morality police.
Anyway, we've run down the time.
We've run down the clock because I've given you more time than I intended to.
Just one final point.
You have never been to Iran.
No.
You know nothing about Iran.
But I know many people who have.
No, you've never been to Iran.
The last time you came on this program, you tried to pretend that the regime has the widespread support of Iranian people.
It doesn't.
It doesn't.
If that is believed, as many as 80% of Iranian people loathe and despise your totalitarian regime.
In your wild dreams, that's the case, but you're the same person who gives a voice to the genocidal regime of Israel and you advocate the devil.
Okay, well we're going to have a member of the devil next on the program.
Professor, thank you very much for coming back.
Thank you.
Well joining me now in the studio is former IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conriquez.
Great to see you in person.
Your reaction first of all to that interview.
Well I think he's a very eloquent spokesperson and I give him credit for appropriating all of the right Western liberal buzzwords in order to carry and represent a very backwards, cruel, brutal regime that from my perspective as an Israeli who lives in Israel and intends on continuing to live there is really the source of most of the instability, violence, terror and bloodshed that Israeli civilians face.
And he does a good job at distorting reality.
He lies very well and he appropriates Western culture.
But I think for people that have basic knowledge of what's going on in the Middle East, definitely for Israelis who face the bullets and the terror and the bombs of Iranian proxies, that really doesn't strike a tone.
And I think he's a good spokesperson and maybe now that the Minister of Foreign Affairs died in an accident, he could represent Iran and he could do a good job of selling it to unwilling or unwitty people in the West and they may fall for that kind of rhetoric.
What is your belief about the number of people in Iran who detest the regime?
I don't know.
And it's very difficult to know.
There are people at FTD where I work, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who track the amount of protests and unrest and the way that people in Iran voice their hatred or their dissent towards this oppressive regime.
Sadly, there used to be a heat map of those protests around the country.
That heat map is today totally blank.
The regime has been very effective, very harsh in actually taking down all of those protests.
And most people are either dead or prisoned or otherwise silenced.
So they're quite effective.
But you know, the East German regime was quite effective until it wasn't.
And the Soviet regime was quite effective and cast a long shadow until it wasn't.
The Iranian regime, just like every other repressive regime, every other non-democratic regime, will go the same place, the same...
They have a place reserved in the trash bin of history.
The ilks of that professor, even though he's very eloquent, he will be alongside those same people.
And I think it will be a very good thing for the Middle East.
It will be great for stability and prosperity in the Middle East once that regime is gone.
Do you believe President Raisi died in an accident?
Or as some people believe, could it have been a deliberate?
Yeah, of course, that was obvious that people would think that it was something deliberate.
Some of the enemies of the Islamic Republic, the US-Israel, as far as I know, and I have asked Israeli officials, did Israel have any part in it?
Clear, unequivocal no.
Israel didn't, and I don't think that the US had either.
And we know from past experiences in Israel as well, helicopters do crash and people do die when they fly.
He was called the butcher of Tehran, as a justified name?
For good reason.
I've spoken with Mark Dubovitz at FTD.
He's been following Raisi and his ilk for the better part of 25 years.
The list of atrocities, of cruel hangings out in the middle of the street in order to terrorize other people to fall in line and to act in accordance with the regime, the executions, the rape, the torture.
If the professor would be sincere enough to go on Twitter and look at testimonials of Iranian men and women who are now in safety in the West telling their stories of torture and very cruel treatment of them, then the picture of who Faisi was would be much clearer.
And yes, the butcher of Tehran, I think, is a good description of who he was.
Will his death have any real consequence for the regime?
So the second sentence that the supreme leader said in an audio message was, our dear citizens of Iran, do not fear there will not be any rupture of services to of governmental services, which is translated in plain language.
Don't even think about revolting because we have this under wraps and this is not an opportunity for you to rise up.
And I don't think that it will.
I think that the Middle East will be a much better place once the Iranian regime is relegated to the dustbin of history, but I'm not sure that this is enough for that to happen.
Let's move to another breaking story today.
This is the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrants for various Hamas leaders and also for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Yahoo on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity over what has been going on in this war.
These allegations which have been put there against Netanyahu and Galant, of course the Minister of Defense of Israel, say they bear criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the state of Palestine in the Gaza Strip from October the 8th.
Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to Article 8 of the statute.
Willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health or cruel treatment as a war crime.
Willful killing contrary to Article 8-2 or murder as a war crime contrary to Article 8-2, B2, I think.
8-2?
8-2.
Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as a war crime, contrary to Articles 8-2.
Extermination and or murder, contrary to Articles 7-1-7-1, including in the context of death caused by starvation as a crime against humanity.
And persecution as a crime against humanity, contrary to Article 7-1.
These are incredibly serious charges that the International Criminal Court has laid down.
What is your response to this?
For me, this is a very sad day.
As an Israeli, as someone who believes that I believe in the international system of law and order, for me, this is a betrayal.
I see a power-drunk prosecutor overstepping his boundaries, overstepping his jurisdiction, and making a totally unfounded political biased decision against a democracy.
If Raisi was alive today, he should have been subpoenaed and indicted.
He never was.
Neither was Bashar al-Assad.
Neither was Muammar Gaddafi or many other leaders who actually did war crimes and horrible crimes against humanity were proud to do it, but they were never indicted.
And to see these kinds of allegations, and of course the criminal court has to approve of it, of Prosecutor Khan's recommendations, and I really hope that the court doesn't and upholds the last level of legitimacy of the ICC.
They have an opportunity to do that.
If they concur with the prosecutor, with the power-drunk prosecutor, I think this is a really black day in the history of the ICC.
I'm sad to see it.
I think they are morally unfounded, reprehensible, and really a prize for the ilks of the professor that spoke before, the Iranian regime, and terrorists worldwide.
They are rejoicing.
Rafah and Civilian Casualties 00:15:35
There are many people who believe the following, that what Hamas did was a shameful terror attack, which took the lives of 1,200 people and wounded nearly 7,000 more, that it was horrific and completely unacceptable and should be condemned immediately.
But who also believe that notwithstanding Israel's right, if not a duty, to protect its people, particularly given Hamas's stated intent to keep doing these kind of attacks, that the response by Israel has now gone way too far, that the civilian casualty toll in an area densely populated with so many of them being under 18, half the country under 18, that the death toll on children, which whatever figure you take, is generally accepted,
is well over 10,000 now, and women who have got nothing to do with this, obviously, that this has gone too far.
America certainly believes this and thinks that the next phase, the final phase, as Netanyahu has put it, of attacking Rafah, where there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, waiting to see what their fate may be, that all of this is too much, too far, that Israel needs to stop.
What do you say?
I think that those people, I welcome them and I want to listen to their opinion, but I welcome them to live in Israel and to be in southern Israel and to understand that a simple civilian cannot live safely within their homes in the internationally recognized borders of Israel.
47 partition plan, 48 Israel, 49 armistice, all of the lines are on our side.
Israelis cannot live safely as long as Hamas exists.
Now, it would be easier for Israel and it would be easier for Palestinians if Hamas came out and fought Israel, not hiding behind civilians.
It would make life much easier for us and it would spare a lot of civilians.
But Hamas chooses not to.
And they leave Israel with actually no choice.
It's either forfeiting the responsibility to defend sovereign Israel and to defend Israeli civilians or avoiding killing Palestinians.
And unfortunately, what Israel is left with is two hard choices.
But I think any country, any government, and whether you like Prime Minister Netanyahu or you don't, it doesn't matter.
Any government has the responsibility to protect Israel.
There is increasing evidence that the Americans are putting forward that it's simply not working, that Hamas is regrouping in the north, which has been pretty much demolished, but they're regrouping in the north, and that all you will achieve by going into Rafah and killing in the process of going after the remaining Hamas battle groups, all you will achieve is killing thousands and thousands more civilians in the process.
And that that is simply not worth going after the remaining members of Hamas, that you've made your point.
You've decimated Gaza.
You've wiped out.
That wasn't the point.
The point wasn't to decimate Gaza.
As far as I understand that.
But that point is...
No, I understand that, but that has been the consequence of the way the war has been executed.
And, you know, even for someone like me that has, you know, often to great controversial response from pro-Palestinian groups, has consistently tried to take people back to October the 7th and say, you have to start from a place of condemning this appalling terror attack and understanding Israel has a right to defend itself.
That there have to be limits.
Yeah.
You know, in terms of running the war, I believe that we could have been past taking Rafah already.
Seven months have passed.
And in terms of momentum, you know, there's a military principle of continuity and that you keep the pressure on the enemy.
We failed that.
We didn't keep the pressure on Hamas.
We were held back by Hamas dangling the hostages in front of us.
And that allowed us to be sidetracked, sadly, out of a commitment to get our hostages back, our 128 remaining hostages.
That was what delayed the invasion of Rafah.
Many people told me and others that Rafah cannot be evacuated, that there's a million point one Palestinians.
Where are they all going to go?
First of all, they already have went.
They're not where are they going to go.
They have gone.
They've gone to the Muasi and they've gone to the outskirts of Hanyur.
Who is it?
They've all just left Rafah.
800,000.
And again, I don't like quoting UNRWA, but I will quote UNRAH.
800,000 Palestinians have left Rafah as per UNRWA.
And that's three days ago.
So how many are left?
So there's maybe 200,000, maybe 300,000.
But there were said to be 1.5 million there.
And they will leave as well.
And in any area where the Israeli troops are, I would say that there's between 90 and 90%, 95% of the population has already...
What are you actually trying to achieve here?
Because you see your war cabinet of three people already splintering.
They can't agree on what happens next.
Netanyahu, driven, it seems to me by the more hard-right members of his cabinet, is being taken to a place which most people find completely unacceptable, where Israel would have kind of military occupation of Gaza in perpetuity going forward with no time limit.
Nobody wants to see that.
Nobody wants to see that.
Neither does the IDF and neither does the defense establishment.
But I think that we're in a situation where, you know, if we want to fast forward this, what's the aim?
So you don't agree with that?
What I think needs to happen, what I agree with, is that Israel has to defeat Hamas.
As clichéic as it sounds, for there to be a different future.
And what does the future look like?
For there to be a future, a different future for Gazans and a different future for Israelis, Hamas has to be defeated, but not only defeated, not like the Taliban wasn't defeated.
Hamas needs to be defeated in such a way that will inspire confidence with Palestinians to be brave enough to take a step towards a different Gaza.
How do you do that by killing all their kids?
You don't.
We try very hard not to do that.
But you are killing a lot of their kids.
Kids have been killed, but I think that there is a...
Do you know how many?
That's a good question.
What it was a question, I want to play a clip.
This is from Avi Hyman's interview I did with him, where he told me exactly how many Hamas terrorists have been killed.
When I tried to get him to say how many civilians, he said this.
So how many civilians do you believe you've killed?
We don't have exact figures.
As you know, it's the fog of war.
That's quite extraordinary.
You're an official spokesman for the Israeli government and you have no idea how many civilians you've killed.
It's not that I don't know.
I'm not authorized to give the information.
I don't have the information.
That's complete nonsense.
Why are you authorized to give me the number of terrorists you've killed, but not the number of civilians?
I don't understand.
Can you explain?
Why is it you've kept a record of one, but not the other?
I personally don't have that information to give to you.
You can ask me over and over.
I'm not going to come up with more information.
I don't know.
I mean, he didn't seem to know, but I found it extraordinary that he wanted to sound convincing that he knew exactly how many terrorists had been killed by the IDF, but he wouldn't prepare to even give me a ballpark figure of civilians.
Right.
And the Ballpark figure that I have, based on IDF and also what the Prime Minister said a few days ago in an interview in one of the American networks, is that we're talking about 18,000 civilians as opposed to 14,000 or perhaps 15,000 combatants.
Those are the numbers I know.
But, you know, we have to be fair.
How do you know?
Exactly.
We have to be fair.
Nobody really knows.
Counting dead terrorists is a very difficult thing to do.
And counting dead civilians or non-combatants sometimes is even more difficult because all of the combatants dress as civilians.
So it's...
So you don't really know, do you?
It's difficult to know.
There are assessments made in good faith by the Israeli intel, by the Israeli military, that take different sources.
UNRWA, Hamas health ministry, Hamas propaganda, and what our troops see on the ground as well.
And then they compile it together and they give an estimate.
And this has been said, that we estimate that there's such and such many people killed.
It's, I think, much better than what Hamas and the UN institutions have been doing, which is just peddling false information.
Let me take a look at legitimacy.
So you think that the Rafah invasion should happen?
I think that Israel has no choice but to defeat Hamas.
So take me through what Hamas go through Rafah.
Right.
You take out the tunnels.
You take out the tunnels, hopefully.
Yep.
Right.
Hopefully you find the hostages.
Yeah, at what point do you know you've got rid of Hamas?
Also a very good question.
And I think that's a combination of military capabilities, leaders.
We have to take symbols, either sinwa or death, or the two of them, and some type of moment where enough Hamas combatants understand that there's nothing left to fight for.
As long as the tunnels are open, Hamas knows that the moment the Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza, they will rebuild their capabilities and they will be able to come out of hiding.
How do you kill the ideology?
You don't kill the ideology, just like ISIS does.
How do you not expect that ideology which fueled October the 7th not to be equally fueled by the slaughter of so many children?
I don't think that there was what you described.
I don't think that is the case.
I think that Israel has gone to great lengths in order to minimize.
We can't dispute there's been a slaughter of children.
I mean, you wouldn't dispute that there's a lot of people.
You would argue it's justified collateral damage for going after a terror group.
Okay, that's an argument.
But you can't deny there has been a mass slaughter of children.
No, I wouldn't put it in those words.
I would say that, yes, unfortunately.
Or whatever words you want to hear.
Non-combatants have been killed.
I mean, it's regrettable.
But unfortunately.
So many children have been killed.
Children have been killed.
Women have been killed.
If you lost a child in this, why would you not gravitate to the ideology of the people who want to hit that?
I've lost friends.
I've lost friends on the 7th of October, civilian friends.
I've had friends whose bodies are held by Hamas.
I have a friend.
He's military.
But his body has been held by Hamas and his family is in grieving without a tomb to cry on.
That doesn't turn me into a raving jihadist just because my enemies are cruel to me.
That doesn't justify it.
And the issue here of intention, the intention of Israel is not to kill civilians.
We are doing a lot in order to minimize the killing civilians.
Once this war is over, and thank God please that it ends sooner rather than later, what is the next step?
I mean, who runs Gaza?
Netanyahu seems to be moving, as I said, towards a place where there's a military occupation, an Israeli military occupation, which is exactly what my next guest will almost certainly say.
That's exactly what has got us to this place in the first place.
I think that's what's missing at this current stage is a clear Israeli plan that has U.S. backing and regional buy-in that says this is the alternative to...
What do you think it should be?
I think it should be Palestinian rule based on civil society.
That's exactly why I said in the beginning that first Hamas needs to be defeated.
Until Hamas is defeated, they will be the fallback.
There will be a Hamas 2.0 if they are not roundly and decisively defeated.
Once they are, and I believe that they can be, contrary to what many people think, believe or wish against Israel, I think that Hamas can be defeated for the better for Palestinian civilians and for the better of Gaza.
So the Palestinians would run Gaza.
First of all, I think we have to talk about an interim period.
This isn't going to be democracy in an instant.
It's going to be a transition period.
There will need to be some kind of international helping hand, American, Arab, Israeli.
We will have to make sure that it doesn't become the formation of a Palestinian state.
I don't know.
I think that our...
Why shouldn't they be allowed their own state?
I think that there should eventually be a peaceful solution to Palestinian.
Why shouldn't Palestinians, which they haven't had for many decades now, why shouldn't they have exactly the same rights?
Frankly, because they've shown.
As you do.
Frankly, first of all, rights is a different matter, but what they have shown through corruption, poor leadership, and a draw towards extremism is that they aren't required to be able to do that.
Your own prime minister is facing corruption charges.
He is indeed.
What's the difference?
Well, there is a difference between the Palestinian authority between the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian.
I don't know.
You say that there's corruption on their side.
There's corruption, alleged corruption on your side.
If you ask the average Palestinian how corrupt the PA is, I think that you'll get a very decisive answer about it.
Mahmoud Abbas is in his 19th year of a four-year term.
That is something that cannot fly.
And I'm appalled by the fact that this organization is touted as the solution for the day after.
Is Benjamin Netanyahu the solution to anything here now?
Because most Israelis, from the polls I've seen, they support finishing this war, but they do not support him remaining as prime minister once it's over.
I think that's correct.
And what I think we need to do, I think that what we need in Israel is unity around a leadership that has the trust of the Zionist majority in Israel.
Who is that person?
Yet to be really established, but it definitely...
Who would be a candidate for you?
Well, there are many.
There are many that are.
Give me a good one.
Well, I think that there are...
I don't want to get into politics and give my endorsement.
I'm just curious who people like you may think could be a contender for that very crucial position going forward.
I think that what needs to happen now is for a process to start whereby the trust of the Zionist Jewish population is re-won by the leadership.
That isn't the situation today.
And of course, our enemies are benefiting from it, from the fact that there is not enough cohesion and that we're lacking in unity.
And as you said, the cabinet is struggling in providing a strategy going forward that serves Hamas, it serves the Iranians, and it serves the Palestinian Authority.
Sadly, it doesn't serve the Israeli state.
I mean, the one lesson we've learned, surely, from this millennium is don't start a war if you've got no plan for after the war ends.
Well, Israel didn't start it.
They would say on the other side that this didn't start on October the 7th.
Yes, they can go back to the Balfour Declaration, then they can go back to 1882.
Really less significant from my point of view.
Israel has offered the Palestinians four different opportunities for statehood to end the conflict.
Each and every time, Israel got a no.
And there were sincere offers with maps, land swaps, population swaps, etc.
And all of those very honest and sincere proposals got a no because no Palestinian leader until this day has been able to say, yes, I want to end the conflict.
Okay, Lieutenant Colonel, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining me.
Well, I'm joined now by the founder and leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Balghouti.
Mustafa, welcome back to Uncensored.
We had a rather fractious debate involving you last time.
So this time I'm going to give you a bit more time to say what you wish to say without being shouted at or interrupted.
So first of all, I know you caught some of that interview there with the Lieutenant Colonel who was explaining, obviously, the Israeli side of things, albeit not necessarily the view that Benjamin Netanyahu might have said to me if he gave me an interview, which he won't do.
Equating Oppressor and Oppressed 00:13:53
What was your reaction to what you were hearing?
Well, I'm afraid that Mr. Rickers, your guest, previous guest, could also be accused of committing war crime by calling for ethnic cleansing.
In the beginning of this war, I think he is the one who called for the eviction of all Palestinians in Gaza to the desert of Sinai.
I don't think it was him.
He's shaking his head.
Maybe it's not.
Well, it's a pretty serious charge to make against someone who's sitting here saying that's what Netanyahu, that's what Netanyahu said.
That's what the spokesperson of the Israeli military at the time said.
Okay, but it wasn't you, it was somebody else.
But that's exactly what they called for.
And in my opinion, the claim that Palestinians don't want peace and don't want a solution is absolutely incorrect.
If that was the case, why Israel does not offer now Palestinians a right to be free from occupation and a right to have a state of their own?
Or offer us full equal citizenship in one democratic state where we can all have equal rights and equal duties.
But none of that is acceptable to the Israeli establishment.
And I don't know, I mean by that, Netanyahu, it's also Gantz and Labid and all the others who don't want to allow Palestinians to have the right to self-determination like everybody else.
So what is their solution?
If they refuse two state solutions, refuse one state solution, their solution is ethnic cleansing.
Exactly what is happening today in Gaza.
And the solution is genocide.
Look, I don't know how the Israelis look at themselves at this moment when their government, their leader of their army and their prime minister is being accused of war crimes in the International Criminal Court and the whole of Israel is accused of genocide in the International Court of Justice.
You cannot accuse every international court in the world of being anti-Semitic or being, as was said, drunk with power.
The same man who issued this statement today, Mr. Karim Khan, was praised so highly for his charges of Putin.
Now he has become a power drunk?
I don't think so.
I think the problem is that Israel...
There are people with respect, just to jump in, there are people you've not mentioned who've also been charged with war crimes today, and that's the three leaders of Hamas.
Why have you not mentioned them?
Okay.
No, no, I'm not denying that this was another accusation, but I think any proper investigation would be...
Do you accept Hamas committed war crimes?
No, no, no, I don't accept that, but I think you don't think Ottoman 7th is war crime.
Let the investigation take place.
Let the investigation take place.
We know what we saw.
Hang on, we know what we saw.
No, no, no, wait.
We know what we saw from their own GoPro technology.
We know what Hamas wanted the world to see that they perpetrated that day.
It was indisputably a terrorist attack.
It was indisputably a war crime.
I find it extraordinary if you want to start lecturing the Israelis about committing war crimes and genocide and so on, that you would spare Hamas the charge of obvious self-admitted war crimes.
They were boasting about it.
The prosecutor general is accusing Israel of committing war crimes, accusing Netanyahu and the head of the Israeli army.
He's also accusing Hamas.
Wait, wait, let me finish.
Okay, I'm going to come to that.
Accusing them of causing starvation to the whole population and accusing some Hamas leaders of committing war crime on the 7th of October.
Okay.
Let an investigation take place.
Let the Israelis allow an international commission to come and investigate.
Let them accept the judgment of the International Criminal Court.
So just to be clear, hang on.
Do you accept that Israel then should be afforded the same respect, that you should not jump to conclusions about whether Israel has perpetrated war crimes, that Israel may not have committed genocide, as you put it.
Do you accept that if you want to spare Hamas any too preliminary conviction, you would afford the same courtesy to Israel?
Except that Hamas is not accused of genocide in the International Court of Justice.
They didn't say they perpetrated genocide.
Except that Israel now is accused of plausible genocide.
And most probably the court will come up with the fact that there was genocide.
15,000 children, Palestinian children, were killed by Israel.
More than 40, by the way, 45,000 Palestinians were killed.
If you include 10,000 that are missing now under the rubble, most of Gaza has been destroyed completely.
Who can justify that?
When people were deprived of water, you know, my medical teams, I'm a medical doctor, I'm not a gunman like the one you are inviting here.
I treat people.
I don't kill people.
Our medical teams in Gaza tell me today we have about 1 million people in Gaza suffering from terrible diseases, including the outbreak of infectious hepatitis, including depreviation because of lack of water, including parasite infestation, including skin infections.
How can you put a whole population, regardless of what happened on the 7th of October, how can you put 2.3 million people and subject them to this terrible inhumanity?
Nobody, as you would have heard, as you will have said.
I must be able to ask you questions.
I must be able to ask you questions.
Last point.
Last point, if you allow me, just one sentence.
It's time now for Israel to realize that no more impunity, neither for Netanyahu, nor for the Israeli Minister of Defense, Ghana, nor for anybody.
What about Hamas?
No more impunity.
What about Hamas?
No more impunity for anybody.
For anybody.
Everybody should be presented and let the investigation show.
I am sure it will not show that these leaders in Hamas were war criminals.
It will show that Netanyahu was the war criminal.
You don't think that what happened on October the 7th was a war crime ordered by war criminals?
No, because the history did not start on the 7th of October.
So are you saying, Mustafa, that you think that what happened that day was justified?
No, I am saying I am against, I repeated that many times on your program, and I am very clear.
I am against the killing of any civilian.
I'm against the killing of any child.
I'm against the killing.
Israel has not yet shown the names Names of the 30 children they claimed were killed, but I don't mind.
12 or 1,200 people were killed.
1,200 people were killed.
6,700 were wounded.
It's one of the worst terror attacks in modern times.
No, no.
I understand your anger towards Israel and the scale of its response.
I share some of that anger.
But what I find utterly perplexing is that when Hambas literally broadcast to the world deliberately footage of what they're doing, where they're committing war crimes against civilians, when they've kidnapped babies, when they've kidnapped Holocaust survivors, when they've raped and killed women, when they have burned people alive in their homes, when they've done all this and proudly boasted about it,
the idea that isn't an obvious prima facie war crime right in front of our eyes that the perpetrators want us to know they're doing and committing.
The only reason you wouldn't categorize that as a war crime is if you believe in some way it's justified.
No, I'm saying I'm against the killing of any child and I'm against the killing of any civilian, whoever they are, Palestinian or Israeli.
But you cannot deny the fact that nothing in the world could justify the killing of 15,000 Palestinian children.
That is the reality.
And the reality today is that...
Okay, there were many who may agree.
But what could justify the killing of 1,200 people on October the 7th?
No, no, many of them were military people in a fight.
Wasn't there?
There were 300 military people out of 1,200 people.
So you can't say 1,000 people.
900 civilians.
But there were 6,700 more people who were wounded.
In comparison to 45,000 Palestinians, 72% of whom are children and women.
Look, we can go about this for a long time comparing figures.
The question today is: who is being slaughtered at the moment?
Why this war continues?
Because Israel wants to get rid of the mass.
No.
What is the justification for Netanyahu for killing his own prisoners, which he calls hostages now by bombarding that?
Why are they being held hostages?
Why aren't the hostages?
Why isn't he?
Because Nestan Yahoo refuses to have an agreement, to release them, to have them back safe.
And was the kidnapping of those people?
Okay, Mustafa.
Was the kidnapping of those people?
Was the kidnapping of those people, over 200 of them, including the elderly, Holocaust survivors, babies, young girls?
Was the kidnapping of those people a war crime?
Kidnapping children is unacceptable?
Was it a war crime?
But was it a war crime?
You have to differentiate between soldiers and civilians.
I'm talking about civilians.
A baby, last time I said it, is a civilian.
If an Israeli soldier is captured, no, I'm talking about civilians.
No, you tell me, is he?
Is he?
Let me ask you again.
I'm talking to you about babies and elderly Holocaust survivors.
They're not sold about the fact.
You don't say anything about the fact that we do have now 14,000 Palestinian people.
I've just literally been taking my LDF guests to task.
You want the world to condemn what Israel's done by way of response, but you will not accept that the kidnapping of over 200 people, including many, many civilians, including elderly people, including young girls, including babies, that that is a war crime.
You can't accept it.
Mustafa.
You can't equate and you will not accept it.
You will not accept it.
You will not accept war crimes the other way.
You can't keep interrupting me.
Now, I have another interrupter now.
You ask a question.
Let me answer.
You cannot equate between the oppressor and the oppressed.
You cannot equate between the occupier and the occupied.
You cannot negate the fact that since 1948 we've been subjected to ethnic cleansing by Israel, where 70% of the Palestinian population became refugees.
You cannot deny the fact that we have been subjected to the longest occupation in modern history.
You cannot deny the fact that Israel conducted one million arrests against Palestinians over war.
And you cannot deny the fact that I am against any attack on any civilian whoever does.
That does not justify the war crimes that are committed against Palestinian people.
And you are not being fair.
Because if you are fair, you would say that what these war crimes that the International Court of Justice is saying should be met, should be responded to.
How can you deprive people of quarter?
A whole population, 2.3 million people, you deprive them of water, of food, and then you talk to me about humanity and you talk to me about war crimes.
The reality is very clear here.
Why don't the Israelis engage with us to have peace?
Why they don't respect us as equal human beings?
Why they don't accept the right of Palestinians to be democratic also?
Why did Israel prevent and refuse to allow free democratic elections in 2021?
Okay, had we had these elections, we would not have had this war.
Mustafa, I would say to you, Mustafa, by way of response from what I think is that I think Palestinians should absolutely be entitled to exactly the same fundamental human rights as any Israeli.
They should be a Palestinian state as much as there's a state of Israel.
I do agree with you.
And there should be a concerted international effort to make this happen.
And I think that Israel is going way too far right now with what it's doing in trying to get after the last remaining members of Hamas.
I think it will be a spectacular act of self-harm, never mind the harm it's doing to Palestinian people.
But I also believe that if you're going to be fair-minded about this, you have to call what happened on October the 7th a shameful terror attack on many thousands of Israeli people.
And that should be condemned unreservedly by absolutely everybody.
And people who refuse to condemn that want to condemn Israel for its response, I find that a very untenable position to give too much credibility towards.
You've got to condemn it where you see it.
But Mustafa, I appreciate you coming back on censor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
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