Uncensored - Piers Morgan - 20240923_all-out-war-israel-attacks-lebanon-rania-khalek-x-
Aired: 2024-09-23
Duration: 42:07


=== Defending Against Hezbollah Missiles (06:55) ===

[00:00:00]  So far you said nothing on the merits.
[00:00:02]  It's just been a personal attack which is shame done.
[00:00:05]  I'm very upset right now because Israel has just murdered 300 of my fellow countrymen in Lebanon in an indiscriminate carpet bombing campaign under Israeli bombardment.
[00:00:15]  And it's just an act.
[00:00:17]  Stop firing rockets and it will end.
[00:00:19]  After the 7th of October, we have the right to do whatever we want and nobody will tell you name now is Hezbollah.
[00:00:25]  Shedela Krino says, okay, always, always, always.
[00:00:30]  If you can live in peace, yes, if you can live in peace with officially, Israel denies any involvement in the Pager attack, which killed 32 people, including two children.
[00:00:41]  But just about nobody believes that.
[00:00:43]  Those defending Israel says it was an audacious precision strike against Hezbollah terrorists.
[00:00:48]  Critics call it psychological warfare and even an act of terrorism itself.
[00:00:53]  Whichever side you're on, this now looks like an all-out war on a second front for Israel in Lebanon.
[00:00:58]  That at least 274 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon, a response to the barrage of rockets aimed at Israel this weekend.
[00:01:07]  Hezbollah says that a battle without limits has begun.
[00:01:10]  In a few minutes, we'll debate all this with our panel.
[00:01:12]  The first from New York, Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Dannon, joining me now.
[00:01:18]  Thank you very much, Sambas, for joining me.
[00:01:20]  Let me ask you first of all about something John Kirby, the US National Security Council spokesperson, said.
[00:01:25]  He said, we're saying this directly to our Israeli counterparts.
[00:01:29]  We don't believe that escalating this military conflict is in their best interest.
[00:01:34]  And he's talking, of course, about potential all-out war with Lebanon.
[00:01:38]  What is your reaction to what Mr. Kirby said?
[00:01:43]  First, thank you for having me, Perth.
[00:01:45]  You know, I agree.
[00:01:46]  I agree.
[00:01:46]  We don't want to see escalation, but I don't think we see any other solution.
[00:01:52]  For 11 months, we have been so patient, waiting for diplomacy to bring results.
[00:01:58]  And what we saw is only rockets and missiles.
[00:02:01]  More than 240 Israelis were killed.
[00:02:04]  And we have to remind the viewers, it all started on October 8th when we were under attack from the south, from Hamas.
[00:02:13]  And Hezbollah wanted to show solidarity.
[00:02:15]  And that's why they're sending those rockets and missiles.
[00:02:18]  So I think the time is now to push back Hezbollah from the fence.
[00:02:22]  And it will be done either with diplomacy, which is not working, unfortunately, or with sending a clear message to Hezbollah, stop it.
[00:02:31]  We don't want to see full war.
[00:02:33]  We don't want to see escalation.
[00:02:34]  But we are determined to allow the Israelis who fled their homes to come back to their communities.
[00:02:41]  I mean, in the last few days, we've seen over 30 people killed by the exploding pages and walkie-talkies and other devices.
[00:02:50]  There is a raging debate, as you know, about the legality of that because of the proximity to many of the expressing devices of civilians.
[00:02:59]  You know, booby traps, if they target areas or people which have civilians around them, even if the initial target is deemed to be a military combatant, a booby trap in that scenario would be deemed illegal.
[00:03:13]  Are you confident that what Israel did in exploding all those devices, which wasn't extraordinary from an operational point of view, extraordinary success, but it did include the deaths of a number of civilians, including children?
[00:03:27]  Are you confident that what you did there was legal?
[00:03:33]  So we are not commenting about this specific attack, but I will tell you that when you look at what we are doing, we are targeting terrorists, period.
[00:03:42]  We use advanced technology to attack those who are involved with terror.
[00:03:47]  You know, sometimes when they hide behind civilians or they function in civilian areas, you have a casualties, but we try to minimize them and according to international law.
[00:03:57]  But you know, that's hypocrisy, because what you have just brought up, I heard it at the UN also in the last few days, but where were all those experts when we had hundreds of rockets and missiles that were targeting Israelis?
[00:04:09]  I want to remind you that it was children playing soccer.
[00:04:13]  So, you know, we're doing the opposite.
[00:04:15]  We don't intend to attack civilians.
[00:04:17]  And if it happens, we regret that.
[00:04:19]  But our intention is to kill the terrorists.
[00:04:22]  And I think we have proven that we are capable of using the technology to kill the bad guys.
[00:04:28]  Exactly like the attack we killed Akil, you know, a notorious terrorist who was in charge of the killing of more than 200 American soldiers.
[00:04:39]  So yes, it was in a place where you had maybe civilians in the area, but it was a precise missile that got exactly to the place where those terrorists were plotting another attack against Israel.
[00:04:52]  I mean, Volker Turk, who's the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday, and I'm quoting him directly, weaponizing ordinary communication devices represents a new development in warfare.
[00:05:06]  Targeting thousands of Lebanese people using pages, two-way radios and electronic equipment without their knowledge is a violation of international human rights law.
[00:05:16]  So you have there the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights directly saying that what happened is a war crime.
[00:05:25]  Well, I sat next to him last Friday and I was shocked because for him, when Jews are being killed, that's okay.
[00:05:32]  It's legitimate for Hezbollah for 11 months to attack us, to send rockets to a civilian population.
[00:05:38]  But when we actually take measures against terrorists, all of a sudden he speaks about human rights.
[00:05:44]  You know, Perth, the days when Jews were massacred without consequences, are over now.
[00:05:50]  We are fed up.
[00:05:51]  Enough.
[00:05:51]  Now we are protecting ourselves.
[00:05:53]  After what happened to us on October 7th and the brutality of the attacks from Hezbollah, we will not sit idly by and wait for human rights experts of the UN to tell us what we can do or what we cannot do.
[00:06:06]  We are defending ourselves, period.
[00:06:08]  The attack on October 7th was unprovoked.
[00:06:11]  The attacks of Hezbollah against us, there was no provocation from our side.
[00:06:15]  And I think the pressure should be on the Lebanese government to take action now against Hezbollah and to reach some kind of agreement that will push them back from our border.
[00:06:26]  It's been reported that 274 people, I think, so far, and that total has been rising fast in the last few hours, have been killed today alone from Israeli airstrikes into Lebanon.
[00:06:37]  That's a lot of people.
[00:06:40]  Are you confident again that these are all Hezbollah terrorists?
[00:06:44]  Or could there be a large number of civilians who've been killed in this series of airstrikes?
[00:06:52]  We are targeting terrorists.
[00:06:53]  We have good intelligence.

=== Media Access in Disputed Zones (06:58) ===

[00:06:55]  But let me be clear.
[00:06:56]  If somebody today in Lebanon is watching our show now and he knows that he has a rocket launcher in his basement, he should take his belonging and move to the north.
[00:07:06]  He shouldn't stay next to the rocket launcher because we will attack those launchers.
[00:07:11]  So in many places that we know that Hezbollah is placing the ammunition next to civilians or even inside the homes of civilians, we encourage those civilians not to stay there.
[00:07:23]  We are not targeting civilians.
[00:07:25]  We are targeting military targets of Hezbollah.
[00:07:27]  But as we all know, they are hiding them next to UN facilities, next to schools, next to hospitals.
[00:07:34]  They know that it will be harder for us.
[00:07:36]  But we are committed to neutralize the threat of Hezbollah.
[00:07:40]  And we will do it according to international law.
[00:07:45]  But we have to realize that the civilians, if they have the chance, they should move away from this region.
[00:07:52]  The weekend saw Israeli forces raiding the offices of the news broadcaster Al Jazeera in Ramallah and ordering it to close for an initial period of 45 days.
[00:08:02]  This follows the fact that for the last year, it's been almost impossible for foreign journalists to get into Gaza.
[00:08:09]  The IDF have stopped them doing that.
[00:08:12]  Why is Israel so keen to stop media reporting on what is happening?
[00:08:19]  We are not stopping the media from reporting.
[00:08:22]  You know, I want to remind you that Gaza had a very long border with Egypt for all over the years.
[00:08:29]  And I never heard anyone from the media complaining in Cairo why we cannot go enter Gaza from Egypt.
[00:08:36]  They always come to us.
[00:08:38]  Maybe it's easier for them to come to Tel Aviv rather than go to Cairo.
[00:08:42]  But now Gaza is a war zone.
[00:08:44]  We are fighting in Gaza and we allow media to come in when they coordinate it with the military, when we know that we can protect them.
[00:08:52]  We don't want them to be traveling all over.
[00:08:55]  Then God forbid somebody will be hurt.
[00:08:57]  And you can imagine the headlines if somebody from the media will be forbidden will be killed.
[00:09:03]  Well yeah, but the point is, Ambassador, these journalists, they're foreign correspondents.
[00:09:07]  I know many of them myself.
[00:09:09]  They're extremely experienced.
[00:09:10]  They've covered many war zones.
[00:09:12]  They're perfectly prepared to take that risk to their own lives to report what's happening there.
[00:09:17]  But it's the fact that Israel has gone to such strenuous lengths to stop international journalists covering the war on the ground in Gaza has led many people to believe that the reason you don't want them there is that you don't want them to see what's really going on.
[00:09:33]  So my response to you would be, well, if you're comfortable about letting journalists go in, let them in.
[00:09:38]  Let them do their jobs and let people on the outside see what's really happening and make their own minds up.
[00:09:46]  Peirce, let's be realistic and honest about it.
[00:09:49]  Everybody knows exactly what's happening in Gaza.
[00:09:52]  All the major networks, they have locals that are reporting every day from Gaza and they send the material to all the networks.
[00:10:01]  Yes, you know, I'm sure there are sub-reporters who want to go by themselves, but today we are not in a position of allowing reporters and officials.
[00:10:09]  You know, even President Abbas said he wants to go to Gaza.
[00:10:12]  We are not starting to coordinate visits of groups into Gaza today.
[00:10:16]  We are fighting terrorists.
[00:10:17]  We are moving ahead.
[00:10:18]  We are close to achieving the goals of the war.
[00:10:21]  Why have you shut down Al Jazeera's studio in Ramallah on the West Bank?
[00:10:25]  That's not in Gaza.
[00:10:26]  Why have you shut that down?
[00:10:28]  So we gathered the intelligence about the incitement and now there will be an evaluation period of 45 days to see what actually happens there.
[00:10:38]  There will be an inquiry.
[00:10:39]  But once we gathered enough intelligence and our legal experts told us, yes, there is a base for incitement, we decided that during time of war, we should not allow that incitement to continue.
[00:10:49]  But with all respect, Ambassador, what gives Israel the right to do that?
[00:10:55]  It's the West Bank.
[00:10:56]  This is not in the middle of Israel.
[00:10:59]  What gives you the right to decide whether Al Jazeera operates from Ramallah or not?
[00:11:06]  So according to international law, we are standing there.
[00:11:10]  Even those who are against us can agree that it's a disputed area.
[00:11:14]  And when we are fighting terrorists, and today Iran trying to flood Judea and Samaria with explosives and weapons.
[00:11:21]  So if you have somebody who is promoting terror and attacks against Jews, I don't think we should sit and wait to see what happened.
[00:11:29]  You know, we did it maybe before October 7th, but not anymore.
[00:11:33]  Now when we see a threat, we will take the right measures to protect ourselves.
[00:11:39]  Some would say that when you say that Al Jazeera is inciting, that actually what is really happening is they are reporting uncomfortable information for Israel that you would rather suppress.
[00:11:51]  And again, it comes back to the apparent keenness of Israel to suppress press freedom and media freedom to operate freely without being controlled in this way.
[00:12:03]  I'm not sure that you should have that right to shut down television networks.
[00:12:10]  I hear so many people who care about freedom of speech, but you know, I'm proud of the freedoms that you have in Israel.
[00:12:16]  We are the strongest democracy in the Middle East for sure.
[00:12:19]  And we can compete with many other democracies also all around the world.
[00:12:23]  And according to all the indexes, you know, we're in a good place of freedom of speech and democracy, and it will continue to be that case.
[00:12:30]  But sometimes you have a line, and the line is between reporting and inciting.
[00:12:35]  And if you have reporters who actually incite against the Jewish community in Judea and Samaria, or against our troops who are defending those communities, that's a line we should not allow to be crossed.
[00:12:47]  And that's exactly what we are doing.
[00:12:49]  There is freedom of speech.
[00:12:50]  You have many outlets.
[00:12:52]  But once we feel that there is incitement, we are now examining it.
[00:12:56]  And maybe, maybe in 45 days, it will be released or reopened or not.
[00:13:04]  There is a belief that Prime Minister Netanyahu is just continuing not just with the war in Gaza, but also now planning a major new war in Lebanon because it suits him politically.
[00:13:20]  That he knows when this is over, all the polls suggest he'll be out of a job.
[00:13:26]  He's also facing personal corruption charges.
[00:13:29]  What can you say to reassure people that there is not another agenda going on here where Benjamin Netanyahu and some very right-wing members of his cabinet are just engaged in what seems to be endless warfare with no apparent end game?
[00:13:47]  You know, you've leveled Gaza.
[00:13:49]  No one seems to know what on earth happens after that when this is over.

=== Legal Standards for Self-Defense (15:33) ===

[00:13:53]  You're now threatening to level large swathes of Lebanon as well to get rid of Hezbollah.
[00:13:59]  Where does this end?
[00:14:01]  And how does it make Israel a more secure country by doing what you're doing?
[00:14:08]  Well, I think it's a baseless assumption.
[00:14:12]  Even if you had a different prime minister today or a different government, you would have looked at the facts.
[00:14:17]  And the facts are that in Gaza today, we have 101 hostages.
[00:14:22]  We are committed to bring them back home.
[00:14:24]  You know, I'm meeting the families today during the high-level week.
[00:14:26]  We're going to see dignitaries.
[00:14:28]  You know, I don't expect those European leaders to actually bring the hostages back.
[00:14:34]  It will not happen.
[00:14:35]  We will have to do it ourselves.
[00:14:37]  So I think it's the moral responsibility of the Israeli government to finish the job, eliminate Hamas, and bring the hostages.
[00:14:45]  And same with Lebanon.
[00:14:46]  You have 60,000, 70,000,000 immigrants, not immigrants, refugees within their own country that left their communities.
[00:14:56]  What you will tell them after a year?
[00:14:58]  You cannot go back to Kiryach Mona.
[00:15:00]  You cannot go back to your communities because Hezbollah, they are not allowing you to come back.
[00:15:06]  So I think it has nothing to do with the prime minister or the government.
[00:15:10]  It's about our enemies who are trying to isolate us, destroy us, and we have to fight back.
[00:15:16]  You know, we wish that we will be able to celebrate the Jewish holidays peacefully.
[00:15:21]  No one wants to send, and I can tell you from personal experience, his son to the military to fight those wars.
[00:15:28]  But we understand we have no other choice.
[00:15:31]  We are being under attack.
[00:15:32]  And all those who are now blaming us for what's happening, that's pure hypocrisy.
[00:15:38]  Ambassador Danal, I really appreciate you taking time out of what I know is a very, very busy schedule for you in New York to talk to uncensored.
[00:15:44]  Thank you very much.
[00:15:46]  Thank you very much, Pius.
[00:15:49]  Well, joining me now are the Lebanese American journalist Rani Akalik, the Israeli columnist, a Haratz Gideon Livy, the legal scholar and author of War Against the Jews, Alan Dershowitz.
[00:15:59]  Let me start with you, Alan Dershowitz, if I may.
[00:16:02]  On the legality issue of what happened in the last few days with the deliberate explosion of thousands of pages, two-way radios, electronic equipment, and so on.
[00:16:16]  I've seen eminent legal brains on this arguing quite vehemently that this has entered the realm of illegal booby trapping, endangering the lives and taking the lives, as it turned out, of civilians.
[00:16:31]  What is your view about the legality of this mass targeting of electronic devices?
[00:16:38]  It's not even a close question.
[00:16:40]  There are two issues of international law, distinguishing between civilians and combatants and proportionality.
[00:16:46]  So a combatant is somebody who gets a communication device from a terrorist organization.
[00:16:52]  So everyone who had that communication device is a combatant.
[00:16:56]  And then the question is proportionality.
[00:16:58]  You know that some civilians will be killed.
[00:17:00]  The general ratio that's been acceptable around the world is about four to one.
[00:17:04]  That is four civilians killed for every combatant.
[00:17:07]  That was the rule in Iraq.
[00:17:09]  That was the rule in Afghanistan.
[00:17:11]  That's what America did.
[00:17:12]  That's what Israel did.
[00:17:14]  In Gaza, it's been approximately two to one, the best ratio of any country fighting urban war where civilians are used as human shields.
[00:17:23]  When it comes to the devices, the ratio is far, far better.
[00:17:27]  A tiny percentage of the people killed were civilians.
[00:17:30]  The vast, vast majority were combatants.
[00:17:33]  So this is probably the best example in modern warfare history of proportionality and of fewer civilians being killed in comparison to the combatants.
[00:17:44]  So Israel should be praised from a legal point of view, from a moral point of view, and from a tactical point of view.
[00:17:51]  And the attacks on Israel are all a reflection of a double standard weaponization of the legal system that hurts the rule of law because it makes it clear that the rule of law is just being used selectively against the nation state of the Jewish people.
[00:18:07]  This is not even a close question.
[00:18:10]  Anybody who says that Israel violated the rules of law with these explosive devices simply is being discriminatory and wrong.
[00:18:20]  It's not a close question legally.
[00:18:22]  Okay, before I go to Rani here, just a question that sprung to my mind as you were talking there.
[00:18:28]  If Israel has the capability to do this in the way that they did it in Lebanon, why couldn't they have gone after Hamas in the same way in Gaza?
[00:18:40]  Well, because the Gazans, the Hamas doesn't use the same kind of communication devices.
[00:18:45]  I wish they could.
[00:18:46]  If they had gotten Sinoa on a telephone, that would have been the end of the war.
[00:18:51]  The war would be over.
[00:18:52]  Remember that as soon as Sinois surrenders, as soon as Gaza lays down its arms, as soon as Hamas lays down his arms, the war is over.
[00:18:59]  As soon as Hezbollah starts firing rockets, the war is over.
[00:19:03]  Israel cannot do anything to stop the war.
[00:19:07]  All it can do is lay down its arms and open itself up to a repeat of October 7th, which Hamas has pledged to do, or a repeat of October 8th, which Hezbollah has pledged to do.
[00:19:19]  Let's apply the same standard to Israel as the United States applied after 9-11, as the Allies in NATO applied.
[00:19:28]  And as long as you apply a single standard to Israel, you'll see that it's been doing the right thing.
[00:19:34]  I wish that Israel could have done that in Gaza and the war would be over, but technologically, it's not been possible.
[00:19:41]  Israel has used every possible technology to try to get Sinoa, but Sinois surrounds himself with hostages.
[00:19:47]  As soon as Israel got close to rescuing an American citizen and five other hostages, the Hamas put bullets in the back of their head and killed them.
[00:19:56]  That's the kind of enemy that Israel is dealing with.
[00:19:59]  And I would hope the world realizes that if it's allowed to continue in Israel, if Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran are allowed to continue their terrorism in Israel, it's coming to a theater near you.
[00:20:12]  Iran will not stop at Israel.
[00:20:14]  They want to continue.
[00:20:16]  What they've done to Iraq, to Lebanon, to Yemen, and bring it to Europe and bring it to the United States.
[00:20:22]  Israel is fighting for all Western democracies, not just for the defense of its people.
[00:20:27]  Let me bring in Ron.
[00:20:28]  He's been waiting patiently.
[00:20:30]  What's your response to Alan Dershowitz?
[00:20:34]  Well, you know, Alan Dershowitz has spent his entire career justifying Israel murdering Arab children.
[00:20:41]  That's when he's not busy defending pedophiles and rapists like Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein.
[00:20:45]  So I'm not surprised.
[00:20:45]  So we're going to get into personal attacks.
[00:20:47]  Defend terrorist attacks.
[00:20:48]  Let me finish, Alan.
[00:20:49]  Let's go.
[00:20:50]  Let me finish, Alan.
[00:20:51]  Let me finish, Alan.
[00:20:52]  And get to the merits.
[00:20:53]  You're not going to attack me personally for being a defense lawyer.
[00:20:57]  I defend Arabs.
[00:20:58]  I defend Muslims.
[00:20:59]  I have defended communists.
[00:21:01]  I've defend Nazis.
[00:21:02]  I'm a defense lawyer.
[00:21:03]  And please stop making personal attacks on me and get to the merits.
[00:21:08]  If you have anything to say on the merits, so far you've said nothing on the merits.
[00:21:12]  It's just been a personal attack, which is not ashamed of.
[00:21:16]  All right.
[00:21:17]  I'm not ashamed of saying what I just said.
[00:21:19]  It's objectively true.
[00:21:20]  That said, you did just justify what Leon Panetta, the former CIA director, called an act of terrorism, Israel blowing up cellular devices.
[00:21:27]  And we should all be concerned with that standard Israel set.
[00:21:30]  Because by your logic, Alan, does that make it okay to blow up the cellular devices of Israeli soldiers who are off-duty, far from any battlefield, going about their daily lives with their kids in grocery stores, in hospitals?
[00:21:43]  That is what Israel did to Lebanon last week.
[00:21:46]  Wow, because we know that that would be called a terrorist.
[00:21:48]  Exactly.
[00:21:50]  And then let me just say, I am very upset right now.
[00:21:53]  I am very upset right now because Israel has just murdered 300 of my fellow countrymen in Lebanon in an indiscriminate carpet bombing campaign based on lies.
[00:22:03]  I have people calling me, telling me the horrors they're experiencing at this very moment under Israeli bombardment.
[00:22:10]  Stop firing rockets.
[00:22:11]  It's just an act.
[00:22:12]  Stop firing rockets and it will end.
[00:22:15]  That's all.
[00:22:15]  Just stop firing at Israeli communities and civilians and it will end.
[00:22:22]  I mean, Rania, let me ask you.
[00:22:26]  Hang on.
[00:22:26]  Let me ask you thousands of people.
[00:22:28]  Let me ask a question.
[00:22:29]  Rania, let me ask you a question.
[00:22:30]  You don't dispute, presumably, that Hezbollah has spent the last year firing rockets into Israel, do you?
[00:22:37]  You don't dispute.
[00:22:37]  Of course she disputes it.
[00:22:39]  Of course she disputes it.
[00:22:40]  Let me ask you the truth from the family.
[00:22:42]  Let me ask you directly.
[00:22:43]  Do you see?
[00:22:43]  Okay, I came on here to talk about Lebanon.
[00:22:46]  If Alan's going to continue to interrupt me and not let me speak to you.
[00:22:48]  No, no, I'll just ask you a question.
[00:22:50]  Would you like me to answer your question or are we going to let Alan talk about it?
[00:22:52]  No, no, I've asked you a question.
[00:22:53]  You respond to me.
[00:22:56]  On October 8th, Hezbollah started firing at Israel in solidarity with Palestinians.
[00:23:01]  And since then, we've heard from Hezbollah repeatedly say they will stop firing when Israel stops its aggression on Gaza.
[00:23:08]  Israel has repeatedly refused to stop its aggression on Gaza, and things have escalated in the north.
[00:23:13]  And I'll also say that, and this is according to the BBC, 80% of the cross-border attacks have actually gone from Israel to Lebanon.
[00:23:21]  This is a two-way fight taking place.
[00:23:23]  Okay, but let me ask you.
[00:23:24]  Okay, after what you just said, hang on.
[00:23:26]  What you just said was interesting.
[00:23:28]  So you concede that Hezbollah on October the 8th, the day after Israel suffers its most horrific attack on its people since the Holocaust, something which if you extrapolated it to the population of America is like 30 or 40 9-11s, that the very next day Hezbollah decides to launch a rocket attack on Israel.
[00:23:50]  In what possible world is that something that you would not expect Israel to defend extremely aggressively, given they've just endured this appalling terrorist attack?
[00:24:04]  I mean, Piers, I can't believe you just called it a Holocaust.
[00:24:08]  That's actually offensive to Hebrews.
[00:24:09]  I didn't call it a Holocaust.
[00:24:11]  We can talk about it.
[00:24:13]  It's not the worst attack since the Holocaust.
[00:24:14]  That's offensive to the Holocaust.
[00:24:16]  I said it was the worst attack on people of Jewish faith since the Holocaust of the Second World War.
[00:24:23]  That's why.
[00:24:24]  She defends it.
[00:24:24]  She defends it.
[00:24:25]  That's what I said, just to be clear.
[00:24:27]  That was what I said.
[00:24:28]  So my point, though, is you accept that Hezbollah launched these rockets literally hours after Israel has suffered this heinous terrorist attack.
[00:24:37]  You know, of course they're going to defend themselves.
[00:24:39]  Why wouldn't they?
[00:24:40]  Any country in the world in that situation would defend itself.
[00:24:44]  And it wasn't an attack.
[00:24:45]  Well, I'd like to ask you, at what point do Arabs get the right to defend themselves?
[00:24:51]  At what point does our security matter?
[00:24:53]  Israel has spent the last almost 12 months carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
[00:24:57]  They've killed over 41,000 people, and we all know that's a huge underestimate.
[00:25:01]  Over 16,000 people did that one.
[00:25:03]  Just today, Israel has killed 300 Lebanese people, including 21 Lebanese children.
[00:25:10]  At what point do we get to defend ourselves?
[00:25:12]  And Alan, come on.
[00:25:14]  Israel's been massacring and occupying and terrorizing its neighbors for the past 76 years.
[00:25:20]  Israel needs to stop terrorizing its neighbors.
[00:25:23]  Stop being an apartheid settler colony.
[00:25:25]  And maybe its neighbors won't fire at it because neighbors are defending themselves against an invasion.
[00:25:33]  Let me bring in Gideon to be waiting very patiently, Gideon Levy from Haritz.
[00:25:37]  Gideon, you've heard both sides here expressed very forcefully.
[00:25:42]  What is your overview of where we are now?
[00:25:45]  Because it seems from where we are, I'm currently in London, but it seems to the outside world that Israel is basically ramping up for a full-fledged war with Hezbollah in Lebanon at the same time that it's still conducting a full-fledged war with Hamas in Gaza.
[00:26:05]  Absolutely.
[00:26:06]  You see, the main problem is that under the excuse or under the umbrella of self-defense, which in many cases is justified, Israel thinks that it has the right to do whatever it wants.
[00:26:23]  The 7th of October enabled Israel to go wild in Gaza, to cross any possible legal or moral border, and to kill 41,000 people.
[00:26:34]  Why?
[00:26:35]  Because of the 7th of October.
[00:26:37]  After the 7th of October, we have the right to do whatever we want, and nobody will tell you you heard the propaganda of the ambassador.
[00:26:44]  Same now with Hezbollah.
[00:26:46]  Hezbollah launched rockets on Israel.
[00:26:48]  We have to defend itself.
[00:26:50]  Until here, very well.
[00:26:52]  But because we are defending ourselves, we have the right to do whatever we want.
[00:26:58]  For example, the devices.
[00:27:00]  For example, to kill today almost 300 people in one day.
[00:27:05]  Is there a limit?
[00:27:07]  I would like just to ask you one thing, Piers, and please answer with honesty.
[00:27:12]  If Hezbollah would have spread those devices in Israel to soldiers and hundreds of people would have got blind out of it, how would the world react after it?
[00:27:27]  What would you say about those terrorists, about those monsters who do such things?
[00:27:33]  Why, what Israel is doing, it's always justified.
[00:27:37]  Whatever it does, it's always justified by self-defense.
[00:27:44]  Well, let me give my response, Alan.
[00:27:46]  I mean, my response to that would be, as I said to the ambassador, there are very serious concerns about whether that was legal, first of all.
[00:27:53]  But secondly, as we just heard from Rania, When Hezbollah chose on October the 8th, when Israel was on its knees from this appalling, monstrous terror attack on its people with 1,200 people slaughtered, nearly 7,000 more wounded, many of them irreparably for the rest of their lives with terrible injuries.
[00:28:15]  When Hezbollah decided their response to that, before Israel had done anything, was to fire a lot of rockets in solidarity with these terrorists into Israel.
[00:28:25]  Then in that moment, they made a calculation.
[00:28:28]  And Israel was always going to respond, as Hamas knew it would respond to what they did on October the 7th.
[00:28:34]  And the question for me has always been proportionality.
[00:28:37]  You know, what is proportional?
[00:28:39]  I don't have the answer, but I've asked everybody I can that question because it seems to me that is at the heart of this.
[00:28:47]  Israel has a right to defend itself.
[00:28:49]  But at what level?
[00:28:50]  So just, Alan, I'll come to you in a second.
[00:28:52]  But Gideon, you know, that is my honest answer.
[00:28:55]  You know, I think you raise a very good point, which I'll put to Alan in a moment.
[00:28:58]  But if this had been an attack on 3,000 people in Israel, or say 95% of IDF, blinding and wounding and killing a lot of them, I think there would have been a lot of global outrage.
[00:29:10]  Yes, I do.
[00:29:11]  But that depends how you categorize Hezbollah against the IDF.
[00:29:17]  And maybe I can come to Alan for that.
[00:29:19]  I mean, Alan, it's a good question from Gideon, isn't it?
[00:29:21]  I mean, if it was the other way around, what would you have said?

=== Proportionality and Occupation Ends (08:19) ===

[00:29:26]  Well, first, the legal issue is clear.
[00:29:29]  You are allowed to attack an Israeli soldier while he's sleeping or while he's shopping, as long as it doesn't create a disproportionate impact on civilian populations.
[00:29:40]  So you would have found that it's important, Alan.
[00:29:42]  It's legal.
[00:29:43]  Legally.
[00:29:44]  To be clear, to be clear.
[00:29:45]  Legally.
[00:29:46]  From a legal point of view, you would have had no argument if Hezbollah had done that to 3,000 members of the IDF in Israel.
[00:29:54]  Israeli soldiers, yes.
[00:29:55]  Now, to get one soldier, you can't kill three children.
[00:29:59]  To get a commander, you can kill two or three civilians.
[00:30:02]  There is an answer to the proportionality.
[00:30:04]  We look at history.
[00:30:05]  We look at what America did in Afghanistan and Iraq.
[00:30:08]  We look at what Great Britain did, what France did.
[00:30:11]  And we have a history of proportionality.
[00:30:13]  And so, yes, the answer is that if a person is a combatant, it doesn't matter whether they're sleeping, whether they're cooks, or whether they're machine gun operators.
[00:30:21]  If they're a combatant, they're a target.
[00:30:23]  Once they are a target, you have to make sure that when you kill them or wound them, you're not creating disproportionate impact on civilians.
[00:30:32]  What happened with the events a couple of weeks last week is that many, many, many combatants were killed and a teeny, teeny, teeny number of non-combatants were killed.
[00:30:43]  It was the best example of proportionality in Israel.
[00:30:48]  Why is it, Alan?
[00:30:49]  Why is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights saying the war was not?
[00:30:53]  It's very simple.
[00:30:54]  What happened was a war crime.
[00:30:57]  Because Aba Eben said many years ago, if the United Nations introduced a resolution that the earth was flat and that Israel would flatten it, it would win 144 to 22 with 43 abstentions.
[00:31:10]  That's been the history of the United Nations.
[00:31:12]  It's been the history of left-wing academics.
[00:31:15]  It's the history of your Lebanese person here who says the original sin of Israel that it can never be forgiven for is creating a Jewish state in the midst of an Arab country.
[00:31:26]  It's 1948 that she is complaining about.
[00:31:30]  She says the original crime was 1948.
[00:31:34]  I'm going to branley back in a moment.
[00:31:35]  Gideon is acceptable.
[00:31:36]  Let me get Gideon's response to what Alan just said, please.
[00:31:39]  Yeah.
[00:31:39]  Thank you.
[00:31:40]  I really feel an overdose of propaganda.
[00:31:44]  First, the ambassador and then Ellen.
[00:31:48]  You see, Israel will always stick to the fact that it is the victim.
[00:31:55]  Whatever happens, Israel is the victim.
[00:31:57]  41,000 people killed in Gaza, and this is the same.
[00:32:01]  How many of them are combat?
[00:32:04]  Justice.
[00:32:05]  How many of the 41,000 are civilians?
[00:32:08]  How many are competitive?
[00:32:09]  I'll tell you exactly.
[00:32:10]  You haven't mentioned.
[00:32:11]  Yeah, I'll tell you exactly.
[00:32:13]  I'll tell you.
[00:32:14]  I'll tell you.
[00:32:15]  No, but let me first ask you.
[00:32:16]  Don't say 41.
[00:32:17]  17,000 of them.
[00:32:20]  17,000 of them were children.
[00:32:22]  Children are innocent.
[00:32:24]  Always, always, always.
[00:32:26]  If you can live in peace, if you can live in peace.
[00:32:30]  No, no, let me finish now.
[00:32:32]  I didn't interrupt you.
[00:32:33]  If you can live in peace with...
[00:32:36]  No, let me finish.
[00:32:38]  I didn't interrupt you.
[00:32:39]  Let others talk.
[00:32:41]  If you can live in peace with 17,000 children, you have a problem.
[00:32:46]  I cannot live in peace with 17,000 children killed.
[00:32:50]  You cannot live with it in peace.
[00:32:51]  But let me finish.
[00:32:53]  No, no, no, no.
[00:32:54]  17,000 people.
[00:32:57]  17,000 people.
[00:32:58]  17,000 children.
[00:33:00]  Isn't the point?
[00:33:00]  Okay, let me interrupt you.
[00:33:02]  Let's talk about Finish.
[00:33:05]  Don't talk over each other.
[00:33:06]  Let me finish.
[00:33:06]  Here's the point I would make, Gideon.
[00:33:08]  I would like...
[00:33:09]  Finish your point, Gideon.
[00:33:11]  Take it.
[00:33:12]  Yes.
[00:33:14]  Finish your point.
[00:33:15]  Take it.
[00:33:16]  Yes.
[00:33:17]  I want just to raise another point because it is important.
[00:33:21]  We are after one year in Gaza, which was a catastrophe for all parties.
[00:33:26]  Israel achieved nothing in this war.
[00:33:29]  Israel's position today in any parameter is much worse than before this war.
[00:33:35]  You name it.
[00:33:36]  What security, economically.
[00:33:38]  What should they have done?
[00:33:39]  It's a pariah.
[00:33:40]  They should lay down their arms.
[00:33:41]  What should they have done?
[00:33:42]  Let me finish.
[00:33:44]  Now Israel.
[00:33:47]  Now Israel is aiming to do the very same thing in Lebanon, not learning one lesson.
[00:33:54]  But Israel is a very important thing.
[00:33:57]  Gideon, Israel's response would be that no, actually, we have managed to massively dismantle Hamas's ability to operate as terrorists.
[00:34:06]  We've destroyed many of the people.
[00:34:09]  Let's meet in two years and we'll see.
[00:34:13]  We'll meet in two years.
[00:34:14]  I'm saying what their arguments are.
[00:34:15]  I'm saying what their arguments are.
[00:34:17]  And what we created.
[00:34:18]  I'm saying what their arguments go.
[00:34:20]  What their argument would be.
[00:34:21]  Brony, over to you.
[00:34:23]  Yeah, but I will answer to this argument.
[00:34:26]  Let's meet in two years.
[00:34:27]  Okay, we'll do that.
[00:34:28]  Ronnie?
[00:34:29]  Well, I just want to answer to what Piers just said about Israel dismantling.
[00:34:34]  When you talk about these groups that you call terrorist organizations, you call Hamas terrorists, Hezbollah terrorists.
[00:34:39]  Alan says Israel is just surrounded from everywhere.
[00:34:41]  Everybody hates them and they're always throwing rockets at them.
[00:34:44]  Where do these groups come from?
[00:34:46]  Take Hezbollah, for example.
[00:34:47]  You don't think they're coming from the city.
[00:34:48]  Okay, Alan, seriously, you make it so impossible to come on this program.
[00:34:51]  Let me finish my point.
[00:34:52]  You get to talk five minutes uninterrupted, and let me have my moment to talk, and then you can accuse me of all kinds of things, okay?
[00:34:59]  Let's talk about where Hezbollah comes from.
[00:35:01]  Hezbollah emerged, it's Lebanese people, who emerged in the mid-1980s because Israel viciously invaded and occupied Lebanon.
[00:35:09]  I mean, that invasion and occupation was so horrific.
[00:35:12]  Ronald Reagan called up the Israeli Prime Minister Menachem at the time and told him and told him to stop carrying out what Ronald Reagan referred to as a Holocaust on Beirut.
[00:35:23]  That is how vicious the Israeli invasion and occupation was.
[00:35:26]  And under those conditions, emerged a group of Lebanese people who picked up arms to defend their homes and land from occupation, and that's how you get Hezbollah.
[00:35:35]  And they kicked the Israelis out in 2000.
[00:35:37]  And since then, they have been seen by many Lebanese.
[00:35:39]  You don't have to agree with it.
[00:35:40]  I'm telling you the reality of the situation.
[00:35:42]  I live in Lebanon.
[00:35:43]  I know.
[00:35:44]  Since then, they have been seen by many Lebanese as a force of protection against further Israeli invasions of Lebanon.
[00:35:51]  And I'll also remind you that Hezbollah has never invaded Israel.
[00:35:54]  Israel has repeatedly invaded Lebanon.
[00:35:57]  The same goes for Hamas, by the way.
[00:35:58]  Where did Hamas go?
[00:36:00]  Hamas is a group of Palestinians who picked up arms to defend their people against Israeli aggression.
[00:36:06]  So if you want the aggression against Israel to stop, if you can even call it aggression, if you want that to stop, Israel needs to stop invading, occupying, and massacring its neighbors.
[00:36:17]  People in your neighborhood are not going to like you if you continue to kill their families and steal their homes and land.
[00:36:23]  It's really basic.
[00:36:24]  So let's turn to Gaza.
[00:36:26]  Let's turn to Gaza.
[00:36:28]  In 2005, every single Israeli, dead and alive, they actually dug up the bodies.
[00:36:35]  Every single Israeli left Gaza.
[00:36:37]  Gaza could have become the Singapore of the Mediterranean.
[00:36:41]  There was not an occupation.
[00:36:44]  There was not a single soldier.
[00:36:46]  And then Hamas took over and fired 6,000 rockets in a very short period of time.
[00:36:53]  If Gaza had just decided to use all the money they got from Europe and built a beautiful port, there could be peace.
[00:37:01]  But Hamas decided to invade Israel, attack Israel, culminating in October 7th.
[00:37:07]  But for years, there were tens, thousands of rockets that came in.
[00:37:11]  Of course, Israel is going to defend itself.
[00:37:13]  You say Hezbollah has never invaded Israel.
[00:37:15]  Thousands of rockets, they have 100,000 rockets aimed at Israel's mid-section.
[00:37:21]  An invasion doesn't require a troop, it requires a rocket.
[00:37:25]  So Israel has been defending itself from the day it came into existence in 1948.
[00:37:31]  There could have been a wonderful Palestinian state and a tiny little Israeli state, and all the Arab countries decided to conduct a genocidal war to destroy the nation-state of the Jewish people.
[00:37:43]  And Israel has been fighting for its very survival ever since.

=== Journalistic Trust Amidst Spectacle (04:21) ===

[00:37:46]  So let's get real here.
[00:37:48]  If Israel laid down his arms, there would be genocide.
[00:37:51]  If the Arabs laid down their arms, there would be peace.
[00:37:54]  Okay, let me just ask Gideon before we bring this to a close.
[00:37:58]  Gideon, on this issue of Al Jazeera's studio in Ramallah being closed down by Israel, I want to show a clip of what happened here with IDF soldiers raiding the studio based on the USA.
[00:38:09]  I agree with you on this one.
[00:38:10]  I agree with you on this one.
[00:38:12]  You'd be surprised.
[00:38:13]  I'll come to Gideon just for reaction to this, and then you, Alamo.
[00:39:01]  So, Gideon, I mean, quite an extraordinary spectacle there.
[00:39:04]  I've got to say, as a journalist, I feel extremely uncomfortable about what has happened.
[00:39:08]  It's the kind of stuff you expect from a banana republic, isn't it?
[00:39:14]  It's one of those moments, both as a journalist and as an Israeli, that I feel ashamed to see soldiers coming to any kind of media organization and to shut it down with guns in a democracy.
[00:39:32]  Are you serious?
[00:39:33]  But it's much deeper than this because it starts there and it will get much farther.
[00:39:39]  Yesterday, El Jazeera, tomorrow are Arets.
[00:39:42]  Trust those people who stand behind it.
[00:39:45]  Trust this government.
[00:39:46]  Trust those Israelis who are so indifferent to what's happening.
[00:39:51]  El Jazeera is the only media outlet which is present in Gaza.
[00:39:56]  And that's the crime of Al Jazeera because they are the only ones who are there.
[00:40:01]  And they are the only one who tell the full truth about the West Bank.
[00:40:05]  And so many times we Israeli journalists need Al Jazeera.
[00:40:09]  It was just a few weeks ago when they were the first one to expose the terrible fact that Israel is sending Palestinians handicapped to the tunnels with cameras.
[00:40:22]  Later on, Arets did a big story about it.
[00:40:25]  Israel does not want those scenes to be seen.
[00:40:27]  Okay, let me close.
[00:40:29]  I just want to run Al Jazeera.
[00:40:31]  I want to get a reaction, Alan.
[00:40:32]  I want to get a reaction specifically to the closure of Al Jazeera studios in Ramallah, because you said that you agree with what I said about that.
[00:40:41]  It's wrong.
[00:40:41]  Yeah, I think it's wrong.
[00:40:42]  They should never, never close down Al Jazeera.
[00:40:45]  Al Jazeera is a propaganda mill.
[00:40:47]  It's not a reasonable journalistic issue.
[00:40:50]  It's funded by Qatar and it's very one-sided.
[00:40:54]  Israel will never be just the question.
[00:41:00]  Israel has much more.
[00:41:04]  Just the question is a very independent newspaper.
[00:41:08]  It publishes you.
[00:41:11]  The Israeli TV writers.
[00:41:13]  Yes, Israel has the question.
[00:41:15]  Israel has the most.
[00:41:20]  We're talking over each other.
[00:41:21]  I think, Alan, look, we've got to wrap it up.
[00:41:24]  To be honest with you, I preferred it when Alan said I agree because it was the only moment of consensus we've had in the entire debate.
[00:41:31]  I do agree.
[00:41:31]  It should not be closed.
[00:41:33]  But I do tell you that Israel internally has the most vibrant press, including Arets, which is always critical of Israel.
[00:41:41]  It will never shut it down.
[00:41:42]  It should not shut down Al Jazeera.
[00:41:45]  It should allow journalists to go into Gaza and report.
[00:41:47]  Israel has nothing to hide.
[00:41:49]  The truth about everything, if it's reported fairly, will always be on the street.
[00:41:54]  I agree.
[00:41:55]  But to allow the truth to be exposed, you have to let the media do their jobs.
[00:42:00]  I agree.
[00:42:00]  I've got to leave it there.
[00:42:01]  I'm glad we reached a point of agreement.
[00:42:02]  It's important to reach some points of consensus here.
[00:42:04]  But thank you all very much indeed for joining me.
[00:42:07]  Appreciate it.