Rami Muntada and panelists dissect the escalating Middle East conflict, contrasting Lebanon's "Gaza 2.0" bombardment with Israel's self-defense claims against Hezbollah and Hamas. While Muntada blames decades of occupation for driving violence, others like Fleur Hassan Nahum defend Israel against terrorist charters aiming for its eradication. The debate intensifies over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of two-state solutions, settlement expansions, and alleged genocidal strategies versus accusations of Palestinian corruption and failed Oslo accords. Ultimately, the discussion highlights the deep ideological chasm preventing peace, suggesting that neither ending occupation nor ignoring terrorist ideologies alone will resolve the crisis without addressing root causes of statelessness and security fears. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Israel's Defense vs Hezbollah00:08:07
We're talking as if Israel hadn't tried five times already to create a state.
That's how we're talking here.
So what happened in Oslo in Oslo?
That's where they have it.
Judea and Samaria.
Okay, one second.
Rape, Junior.
In Judea, Samaria.
At least 569 people, including 50 children, have reportedly been killed so far in the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon.
More than 90,000 people have been displaced.
Last night, Hezbollah tried and failed to bomb Tel Aviv in its first direct assault on Israel's biggest city.
Now many thousands of people are fleeing southern Lebanon as the UK and the US deploy additional troops to the region.
Just about everyone agrees that this looks a lot like all-out war.
Where they don't agree is on who is the main aggressor and what can now be done to prevent massive escalation.
In a moment, I'll debate that with our panel.
But first, joining me in the studio is the ambassador of Lebanon to the UK, Rami Muntada.
Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
Obviously, I appreciate how incredibly busy you must be right now.
So thank you.
Thank you.
First of all, the Saudi ambassador to the UK warned earlier this week the Middle East is the closest it has been to regional war in 50 years.
Do you agree with that?
I do.
I think he couldn't be more accurate.
What we're seeing is another episode of what looks like the Gaza 2.0 war.
We're witnessing the same Israeli turquet of error, of terror, a playbook of threats and intimidation and carpet bombing for a whole country and civilians being slaughtered.
Of course, conflicts in the region are very contagious, so the risk for a regional spillover exists.
That's why we hope at the earliest to curb this trend and reverse it and find a peaceful settlement.
There are reports, just before we started this interview, that America is pushing hard to try and get a pause in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
What do you know about that?
Is that likely, do you think?
I think there are extensive efforts being deployed, especially that the ingredients are there.
We have a Security Council resolution that is governing the situation in South Lebanon, and that worked well from 2006 up until 2023.
So we've always said that we would be ready to put this resolution at the table and discover the different tracks of this resolution and find a settlement that addresses all concerns because we also have our concerns.
We have our civilians that are displaced from South Lebanon.
And now an extra layer of complexity has been added with this terrorist blank bombing of Lebanon.
It's exactly the same playbook that was used in Gaza.
What Israel would say, I know because I've heard them say it, is that the difference here is that on October the 7th last year, Hamas launched an unprecedented terror attack on Israel, which they had to defend against.
And that Hezbollah responded within hours by launching yet more rockets towards Israel and has carried on doing that all year.
19,000 it's estimated have come over from Hezbollah at Israel.
And Israel said, what are we supposed to do?
This is a group of terrorists, as they put it, who are wedded in their initial charter to the destruction of Israel.
And they're proving that every day with the rockets they fire.
At some point, we have to do what we're now doing.
What do you say to that?
What Hezbollah tried to do on October the 8th, regardless of whether you and I or others might agree or disagree with, is to engage in skirmishes at the border in order to tilt the cost-profit equation for the Israelis and push them to accept a ceasefire or hold them back on Gaza.
There is no immoral equivalence between what Hezbollah did and carpeting a whole country and killing civilians.
Namely one single Israeli civilian does not.
Is that not more by chance?
In the sense if it wasn't for Israel's very effective Iron Dome, many of those rockets Hezbollah were firing may have got through and killed many more civilians.
It just happens that Israel has a better defense system than Hezbollah does.
Would you not accept that?
Without wanting to justify or defend this behavior, Hezbollah is very careful to target only military targets because it's clear by now no one in Lebanon, including Hezbollah, does not want a full-scale war.
They have been very calibrated, regardless of whether we agree or disagree.
Some Lebanese do, some Lebanese do not.
But we as a Lebanese government do not want this war.
We think that there is a diplomatic way to address all concerns.
But what the Israelis are doing lacks any strategy.
All their war aims, whether in Gaza and now in Lebanon, have not been met by coercion.
Where are the hostages?
What about eradicating Hamas?
And now what about through coercion bringing their civilian population to northern Israel back?
There is no way these objectives could be achieved other than by diplomatic ways.
Some people have said that what Israel did last week in letting off explosive devices on all these pages and walkie-talkies and so on, directly targeting 3,000 members of Hezbollah, albeit killing some civilians in the process, but predominantly targeting successfully members of Hezbollah with explosive devices and these devices they had.
Some people say that was a legitimate attack on enemy combatants.
Others have called it an act of terrorism.
What do you call it?
Well, there are reference authorities, and we don't live in vacuum.
There are reference authorities in the world.
I refer you to the statement by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who described it as war crime, because when you detonate an electronic device without prior knowledge at the time of the attack of who is in possession of that device and what is in its vicinity or surrounding, that's indiscriminate and simultaneous targeting of civilians and it amounts to a war crime.
So it is established and proof is we had explosives who just exploded in supermarkets and pharmacies and hospitals.
Is this a legitimate warfare tactic?
What they would say and what Israel supporters say is that if Hezbollah perpetually fires rockets at Israel and tries to kill people in a very indiscriminate way, you say targeted, they say indiscriminate.
It's only the good fortune of the success of the Iron Dome to stop so many more civilians being killed.
That if Hezbollah places its membership amongst the civilian population, you're never going to be able to avoid civilian casualties if you go after them.
But that actually the methodology they used with those explosive devices was extraordinarily precise and successful.
Then how were civilians killed and why were they killed?
And this Israeli rationale is very dangerous because it justifies killing civilians.
In international law, the utmost priority is to protect civilians and no other war aim justifies killing.
Do you know how many of those who were targeted were Hezbollah and how many was genuine civilians?
I'm not aware, but I'm aware that many civilians having nothing to do with Hezbollah and not associated with Hezbollah have lost their lives or lost their sight or were heavily wounded.
Root Causes of Violence00:14:45
So it's a war crime by all means.
And beyond that, I think it's...
Is what Hezbollah is doing with the rocket firing?
Is that a war crime then?
Well, if any civilian...
Well, I put the argument back to you.
If any civilians get hit by rocket fire from Hezbollah, does that make it a war crime?
What they're doing?
It's not about approving or disapproving this modus operanda.
I would say that.
What you disapproved of Israel.
What I'm saying is that we have to go to the root causes.
The root causes is what Israel have been doing in Gaza.
And the root causes is decade-long behavior against Lebanon that has led to what Hezbollah is today.
We have to stop dealing with the symptoms and for once start dealing with the root causes.
The root causes being Israeli occupation, the root causes being Israeli denial of statehood for the Palestinians.
The root causes being 22 years of Israeli occupation to Lebanon and continuous occupation of parts of Lebanese territory.
So we need to address that and stop scapegoating groups here and there and stop scapegoating the world.
If it's not Hezbollah, then it's Hamas.
If it's not Hamas, then it's the United Nations bashing the United Nations.
If it's not the United Nations, then bashing the UK government because the UK government enforced an arms sale ban on some arms to Israel.
This paranoiac behavior needs to stop and once for all we should address the root causes of the problems in our region which is occupation, which is the lack of implementation of Security Council resolution.
That is the roadmap.
Otherwise, we shouldn't be surprised that people are taking things in their hands.
When law is not enforced, people will start in the street.
If you don't enforce law, people will start taking things in their hands.
And that's what we're seeing.
It's not about approving or disapproving these models, but we need to understand them in order to deal with them.
Coercion and violence will lead nowhere, and violence begets violence.
And I think we have a current Israeli government which finds in its interest in putting its country in a continual state of war as a way to turn off all the risks that are inside the coalition or as a way to keep the coalition in office, because the moment they stop, they would fall.
They would start facing accountability for not being able to achieve their objective.
Where are the hostages?
What about eradicating Hamas?
What about severing Hezbollah?
Hezbollah will retaliate and we will engage in this race to the bottom.
That's why we should stop it.
We should go back to United Nations.
We have this 1701 Security Council resolution.
We have always said in the Lebanese government, we are ready to look into it and address all concerns.
But it's falling on deaf ears in Israel.
Frankly, Piers, it's a war-mongering government.
You're very condemnatory of Israel, and I understand that.
Are you as condemnatory of the violence perpetrated by Hezbollah?
Hezbollah did not start this violence, Piers.
As I said, we have to go back to the root causes.
What Hezbollah did.
But you can say they didn't start it in your argument.
No, it's a statement.
But still condemn the violence, can't you?
Well, I condemn any violence in general, but Hezbollah did not start uh, you wouldn't.
But you do condemn Hezbollah's violence.
He did not.
He did not resort to to violence.
Hezbollah is part of the Lebanon Unbelievable social fabric.
Hezboll is part of the Lebanese social fabric.
They have their modest operandi.
Some in Lebanon agree with it, some disagree.
What do you think?
Well, I think, at some point down the line, we will need to address this uh, unconventional situation.
But Israel frankly, for decades now, has not been giving us a serene moment to address these uh this, this unconventional situation.
What is your biggest fear?
If you, if you think, if Israel think that this is an anomaly?
How about having a prime minister that is accused of war crimes in charge and on our borders?
One anomaly leads to another anomaly?
If you think Hezboll is an anomaly, then well, you have to look at other anomalies.
Is your biggest fear a ground war?
Israel's army chief, as we've been talking, says latest strikes on Lebanon are in preparation for the possible entry of troops.
I hope wisdom prevails.
I hope diplomatic efforts that are being deployed now in New York and elsewhere uh, manage to diffuse the situation.
As I said, we don't want this war, but we will not shy away from defending ourselves.
But if there is a ground invasion by Israel and its forces, how bad could that get?
Very quickly?
It would be extremely bad and tragic, of course for, for Lebanon and for the whole region.
We already have on our conscience.
The world has on its conscience the Gaza.
We don't need another Gaza, and in Lebanon.
So, before it's too late, we have to curb this trend and stop the Israelis.
These wishy-washy positions do not do the job anymore.
Israel should be stopped doing what it is currently embarked in.
That's very dangerous for for for Lebanon, of course, but for the whole region and beyond.
We've all seen the repercussions of the Gaza war in London, Paris and other capitals.
We don't want this vicious cycle to keep on repeating itself, and it all has to do with the Israeli government.
Frankly, from our side and by our side I mean everybody in Lebanon we would be ready to look into a diplomatic solution and we would be ready to engage, and we need this ceasefire in Gaza.
That's of utmost importance.
But the Israelis have been trying to diffuse the pressure on them to conclude this ceasefire in Gaza through opening another front with Lebanon, and this is.
This targets American efforts when, when secretary Blinken was in the region, they launched this cyber attack against against Lebanon.
So it's clear that they're trying to undermine American efforts to conclude a ceasefire in Gaza.
Mr ambassador, thank you very much indeed.
Thank you peers, I appreciate it.
Thank you well.
Let's debate all that now with my panel, the host of Democracy-ish podcast, Waja Ali, the Israel's special envoy for trade and innovation, Fleur Hassan, the Iranian American attorney and activist, Elika Lebon, and from the Gray Zone, the journalist Aaron Marte.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Fleur Hassan Nahum, I just spoke there to the ambassador of Lebanon, extremely concerned about what is happening and in particular this breaking news from Israel's army chief that these strikes on Lebanon are in preparation for the possible entry of troops.
Is it really a sensible move by Israel to consider another ground war given what has been going on in Gaza for the past year?
Well, was it a sensible move on the 8th of October to start a war from Lebanon into Israel, evacuating 100,000 Israelis who don't live anywhere near 10 kilometers from the border?
Why did they start that?
There's no territorial claim.
What was the point of that?
Maybe, and this is what the ambassador, of course, didn't mention, and I'm sure Elika will back me up on this.
Maybe they're all really the servants of the Islamic Republic of Iran and they're doing their bidding for them.
But what's happening at the moment is actually something very curious.
And that is that the Islamic Republic of Iran is currently in a charm offensive in New York and at the same time throwing Hezbollah under the bus for a war that it probably asked them to do in order to help their friend Yeya Sinwar.
So the point is this.
Is Israel supposed to be attacked and not defend itself?
Is Israel supposed to go for a ceasefire after its people, its women have been raped, its children have been burnt and a war has started against them?
We've been in this story since 1948 when we were attacked by all the countries around Israel.
Today, that has been replaced with Islamic Republic proxies and militias.
And this is where we find ourselves.
Do we want war?
No, we want peace.
We're not in Lebanon.
He's talking about UN.
He's talking about resolutions.
It's very simple.
If he wants this all to stop, it's very, very simple.
Just comply with Resolution 1701, which says very simply this.
Hezbollah has to go behind north of the Litani River, and there's not supposed to be any armed terrorists south of the Litani River.
And it's all over.
The question is not to me.
The question is why on the 8th of October, Hezbollah decided to start throwing what is now almost 10,000 missiles into Israel.
If the UK, if in Dover, France threw 10,000 missiles from Calais, peers, what would happen?
Well, I think we would certainly robustly defend ourselves.
Let me go to Wajahad Ali for your response there to what Fleur Hassan Nahum was saying and what the ambassador was saying, because clearly there are very strong opinions on both sides here.
There have been for the last year.
What do you believe is likely to happen next?
And what do you think of what is happening?
Yeah, so I think we all agree that nothing justifies the war crimes and terrorism that was done on October 7th.
But to Israel, October 7th, it justifies committing war crimes and terrorism all around the world.
Israel sounds like Dr. Strangelove.
It sounds like a manic violent creature right now that has said, this is their quote, we want de-escalation through escalation.
That's like saying no fighting in the war room.
That's like saying we will bomb them in order to save them.
That's like saying we will find life in death.
Israel has already invaded Lebanon in 1982.
15 to 20,000 people were killed, mostly civilians.
It wanted to weaken the PLO.
You know what happened as a result of that?
The PLO was weakened, but something called Hezbollah rose.
Then Hamas rose.
2006, Israel and Lebanon had a war.
Many civilians were killed.
It was a stalemate.
Now, almost a year into the October 7th war and the Gaza war since then, 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly children, peers, in Gaza.
More children have been killed in Gaza than in all the war zones combined in the past two years.
Israel right now is bombing Lebanon.
27,000 people have been displaced, over 2,000 people injured, over 500 people killed, 50 children killed.
To Israel right now, everyone is enemy.
Everyone is Hezbollah.
Everyone is Hamas, right?
Nurses are killed.
The refugee camps are killed.
I've been talking on your show for the past year.
Each time I come on, there's a fresh new horror, right?
Israel, Palestinians go to the south.
You got Palestinians, the refugee camps, they're bombed.
Children are bombed.
Journalists are bombed.
Leon Panetta, who was the former CIA director, has said what Israel did in Lebanon, specifically booby-trapping the phones, is an act of terrorism.
That's Leon Panetta.
The United Nations Commissioner on Human Rights said that same action was a violation of international law.
I want to quote him.
He said, it is a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians, end quote.
So the question for me is, when will the world and when will the United States say enough?
It's clear, Pierce, that Benjamin Nanyahu does not care about the hostages.
Don't take my word for it.
Who are the people protesting Benjamin Nanyahu, the family members of the Israeli hostages in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?
This is a recipe for madness, Pierce, for madness.
It's a one-year anniversary.
Nanyahu wants to escape accountability.
He wants to escape the inquiry asking, how come you didn't stop the war, which by the way, you knew was going to happen.
You knew the attack was going to happen, but he was too busy with his corruption charges.
He needs to stay in power to avoid from resigning and possibly going to jail.
And also a perpetual war will help the supremacists in his cabinet, like Ben Gavir, who literally is like the member of the KKK, who now is the national security minister, and people like Smotrich who have openly said, Piers, that they have a genocidal plan.
They want everything, river to the sea, and to push out Palestinians.
So I condemn, I'll do this for you, Pierce.
I condemn the war crimes.
I condemn Hezbollah launching rockets.
That's a war crime.
I condemn Hamas launching rockets.
That's a war crime.
Do my panelists condemn the occupation, Israel's killing of civilians, and the war crimes it is committing in Gaza and in Lebanon?
I leave it to the panel.
Well, let me ask Elika Lebon.
Do you condemn that?
I condemn everything that has been caused by the jihadists.
And this is not my opinion.
This is based on causal reasoning.
You kidnap people and you take them to a different place.
What other option does a sovereign nation have but to return its citizens?
What else?
There's only two options here, right?
You either release the hostages or they have to come and be rescued.
So the fact that Hamas has stubbornly refused to return these hostages means that Israel has no other choice.
And so what you're looking at here is Hamas persistently putting the Palestinian people in a position to be slaughtered in this way.
And you know what else that's so much worse than that?
When people keep coming up with these numbers, 41,000 people killed, why?
Why are 41,000 people killed?
Okay.
Why is it not that 41,000 people in Israel have been killed despite all of these attacks?
Because Israel invests in protecting its citizens.
What does Hamas do?
Hamas starts a war and then hides in its terror tunnels.
Okay.
And leaves its civilians, its children vulnerable above the ground to be exploded like cowards hiding in tunnels.
So yes, I agree.
41,000 is an awful number.
First of all, we haven't separated the combatants, but we know that children have been killed and the children have been killed because of Hamas.
Everybody that is being killed is because of jihadists.
And there is not one fact, there is not one fact that you can make that doesn't start with the jihadists.
And when the jihadists bury themselves wherever they are, whether they're in Lebanon, whether they're in Gaza, whether they're in Iran, whether they're in Syria, they are making the people of that nation, the people they are burying themselves amongst, vulnerable to being killed in this way.
So yes, I absolutely condemn those deaths and I absolutely blame the jihadists for that.
And first of all, to go back to this claim that Hezbollah never started this war, from the 8th of October, okay, started launching, by this point, over 11,000 rockets into Israel.
96,000 people in northern Israel have been displaced.
10% of Israel's landmass has been depopulated, okay, 11 months deep.
October Threat and Control00:15:33
What is it exactly that you expect Israel to do?
At this point, civilians are out of their homes.
Children are out of their schools.
What do you expect Israel to do in the final instance where there is a precision strike on Hezbollah terrorists, okay?
Hezbollah terrorists.
The world wants to claim that this is an international war crime.
Like, what should Israel do?
Just bend over and keep accepting it.
None of these things are acceptable to you people.
Targeted strikes, unacceptable.
Pages, unacceptable.
What is acceptable to stop these terrorists from persistently and belligerently attacking Israel?
And to make the claim, first of all, to make the claim that they are doing this on behalf of the Palestinians is absolutely outrageous.
You want to say that, oh, we're fighting for the Palestinians because of the occupation in this oppressive military state.
What about Hezbollah's oppressive military state?
What about Hezbollah's state within a state that has undermined Lebanon's sovereignty?
What about the fact that Hezbollah goes to Syria and massacres people on behalf of Assad?
What about the fact that Hezbollah goes to Iran and massacres rapes innocent Iranians?
So why don't we just say that everything that Israel's doing is in behalf of the innocent Iranians, the innocent Syrians and the innocent Lebanese?
You know why you don't say that?
Because it sounds absolutely ridiculous.
It is a red herring.
It is a red herring to claim that Hezbollah is acting on behalf of Palestinians when what they're doing is exactly what they said in their charter, which the Islamic Republic created them for, which is to create a second Islamic Republic in Lebanon and to destroy Israel.
That is their goals.
It is time to be honest about that.
Okay.
Didn't hear a condemnation of Israel's war crimes there?
Oh, I absolutely did.
What I said was that the jihadists are to blame by the laws of causal reasoning.
All right.
Let me bring in Aramate.
Aaron, we are nearly a year into this war in Gaza.
It now looks increasingly likely there might be another phase of this war erupting, already has erupted, in Lebanon.
The question I have wrestled with since October the 7th is not whether Israel has a right to defend itself if it's attacked, but what is the proportionate response which should be tolerated of a nation that comes under that attack?
And that's setting aside the history of the conflict.
When you are attacked as they were on October the 7th, you obviously have to fight back hard, particularly as Hamas said, we're going to keep doing this.
If Hezbollah wants to respond to what happened on October the 7th by within hours, unleashing rockets at Israel and carrying on doing that for the next year, again, Israel has a right to defend itself.
The question is, what is proportionate?
Do you accept, first of all, Aaron, that Israel has a right, if not a duty, to its people to defend itself?
And if you accept that, then what is proportionate?
Who determines that?
Every state, including Israel, has the right to defend itself.
But let's examine what that right entails.
If we're talking about October 7th, when yes, some Hamas militants committed atrocities, they're on camera.
There was a claim before, by the way, that there was rape by Hamas.
There actually isn't evidence for a single case of rape, even one year later.
And I'm happy to be able to do that.
I'm sorry.
I've got to say that.
Paul a second.
No, no, no.
I've got to correct you there.
I have seen that.
There has been quite a lot of evidence of rape and sexual abuse against women on October 17.
There hasn't.
There actually hasn't.
We'll debate that some other time.
What about this in another time?
I'm going to finish my point.
There is not a single shred of evidence for it, but we'll debate some other time.
Listen, we're talking about October 7th.
Israel has a right on October 7th to defend its people.
Let me finish my question.
Piers, every time I come on here, I can't talk.
To be fair, to be fair, Aaron, we didn't interrupt you.
You can talk now.
You didn't interrupt anybody.
Aaron, what I would say, you say every time you come on here, this happens, but you just started with an unbelievably inflammatory and incorrect statement, which is that there was no sexual abuse of women on October the 7th.
There's no evidence that my previous issue is...
Multiple.
Multiple.
We'll debate that in other times.
No.
Okay.
There's not.
Anyway, listen.
If we're talking about October 7th.
I'm going to finish my sentences.
Let him speak, please.
Okay, I didn't interrupt you.
They said multiple inflammatory things.
I didn't interrupt them.
Thank you.
Finish your point.
If we're talking about on October 7th, yes.
Let him speak, Eleanor.
Thank you.
Thank you.
If we're talking about on October 7th, yes, Israel has the right to defend its civilians if they're being attacked.
Okay, but Israel is an occupying power, and it's been occupying power for decades.
Occupiers don't have the right to defend their occupation.
Israel doesn't have the right to fire a single bullet into Gaza.
It has obligations.
Occupiers have obligations.
And if Israel wanted peace and security, what it would do is join the entire world, join the International Court of Justice, which just ruled that Israel doesn't have the right to control a single inch of the West Bank or Gaza and end the occupation and address its decades-long attacks on Palestinians and also Lebanese, because as was previously said, Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, killed tens of thousands of people, and that's why Hezbollah was formed.
If Israel wanted genuine peace and security and it wanted to defend itself, it would stop brutalizing other people.
And this claim was made before.
What was Israel supposed to do in response to its people being kidnapped?
That's the logic of October 7th, because there are thousands of Palestinians who have been brutalized and kidnapped in Israeli dungeons.
Hamas launched October 7th to free them.
The difference between Israel and Hamas is that Hamas actually has an argument because Hamas has tried at Hamas.
I didn't interrupt you.
I did not interrupt you, please.
I wasn't.
Hamas has tried to accept the you were actually.
The Hamas has tried to accept the global consensus of a two-state solution, a big compromise for Palestinians, accepting just 22% of their homeland in the West Bank in Gaza.
Israel's refused to join the rest of the world in accepting that two-state solution.
Even Iran has voiced times support for that.
It's only Israel and the U.S. that insist on Israel's right to put Gaza under siege and steal Palestinian land on the West Bank.
And that's why you have this continued escalation.
Hezbollah intervened on October 8th because they wanted to show Israel that there were because for committing out for committing mass murder, which is what Israel has done.
And that's why Hezbollah was involved.
Hezbollah said from the start it would stop its rockets if Israel stopped committing mass murder.
Israel, unfortunately, is more committed to mass murder because it insists on the right to control that entire land and not accept Palestinians as equal human beings.
That's the fundamental problem here.
Okay.
Flo, Hassan, Nahum.
I mean.
I don't know where to start.
I really don't know where to start.
First of all, he's talking about mass murder on October 8th.
We were attacked on October 7th.
We hadn't even got in on October 8th.
So I really don't understand what you're talking about.
Secondly, he couldn't be able to.
You were waging the longest military occupation in the world.
Yes.
Well, let's go.
Now, in 2005, Israel left the Gaza Strip.
Now, at that point, the Gazans could have done one of two things.
Turn it into a wonderful pilot for a Palestinian state, which you think they want, and I don't believe they actually do.
And instead, they turned it into Mogadishu, into Beirut, as it were.
Instead of investing in his people, they invested in tunnels to attack and to use their people as human shields.
That's just a fact.
Tell me, why did they not build a beautiful place in 2005 until today?
You know why?
Because Hamas came into power, and Hamas is not interested in a state.
Hamas is interested in destroying the Jewish state.
And that is the crux of the conflict.
And you're on the wrong side of history.
One day you're going to wake up and realize this.
At the bottom line is that the conflict is not because there isn't a Palestinian state.
The conflict is because there's a Jewish state that has never been accepted.
And that's why in 1947, they didn't accept the partition plan.
And that is why after Oslo in 2000, they didn't accept the Two-State Solution.
We gave them 93% of the West Bank and the entire Gaza.
That's why in 2009, an even more generous peace deal, and they didn't accept it.
And the bottom line is this.
They don't want a state they want and they're invested emotionally, logistically, and militarily in the destruction of the state of Israel.
Israel wants to live in peace.
We don't want to rule another people.
Okay, but let me please.
But fur, let me ask you this.
By the way, hang on, hang on, please.
Hang on.
Let me ask a question.
Are Arabs?
Let me ask you a question.
You live side by side with Jews.
Here's what I don't get about what you've just said.
You talk about destruction and the threat of destruction.
And I get that.
Hamas is wedded to destroying Israel, as are Hezbollah.
It's in the charter.
Fine.
But what is Israel doing right now in Gaza?
You are destroying it.
You're destroying Gaza and you're killing tens of thousands of people.
You dismantle the terrorists in the process.
You are destroying Gaza in the most extraordinarily brutal manner.
And you're going after...
Let me finish, please.
You're going after Hamas now in the very areas where you told the civilian population to go to.
And in the process, you're killing a lot of innocent people.
How can that be justified?
Hamas went into the humanitarian corridors because that's what they do.
Exactly what Elika says.
That is their modus operandi.
They don't build tunnels under schools.
Well, if you know that, why do you send people to these specific areas?
We send them areas thinking that those areas are going to be areas we're not going to attack.
And then Hamas throws rockets at us and attack our soldiers.
Look, ultimately, we want two things.
We want the dismantlement of Hamas, who is an existential threat to the state of Israel, and we want our hostages back.
If that happens in an hour, it's over.
If Hezbollah moved north of the Litani in an hour, it's over.
And both of you are in the wrong side of history here because the Islamic Republic of Iran, who is the big puppet master of all of this, they've got much wider ambitions than Israel.
They're going to be coming everywhere.
They are the Hitler of the 1930s, and that is what we're facing.
So you two can keep deluding yourself that this is about Israel.
And what a coincidence, the only Jewish state in the world.
And somehow we're the aggressors.
You know what?
Thousands of years, we've heard the same libels that we're hearing right now.
This is just another form of it, but we will survive and we will prevail because bigger people than the Islamic Republic of Iran and bigger people than the enemies that we now face have tried to destroy us and we're still here.
Okay, why jihad?
I mean, look, I have a lot of issues with what Israel is doing in Gaza.
I have issues about the way they're rapidly escalating what they're doing in Lebanon.
But I also have a massive issue with what Hamas represent and what they represent to Israelis and what Hezbollah represents because they make no pretense.
They want to destroy Israel.
They want to get rid of Israel.
And if you are Israel and you're an Israeli living in Israel, they represent an existential threat to your existence.
What else is Israel supposed to do?
Sit back and let these people destroy them or defend themselves as best they can.
I mean, that seems to me to be at the crux of the Israeli side of this, which is what else are they supposed to do?
So the Israeli side is de-escalation through escalation, perpetual war, occupation, put the boots on their neck, mow the lawn, destroy all of our terrorists, right?
Okay, I get it.
Has it worked?
No.
They invaded Lebanon in 1982.
15 to 20,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
War crimes happened to the point where Ronald Reagan was so disgusted by what he saw, he picked up the phone and told them to stop it.
They wanted to weaken the PLO at that time.
Remember, Arab nationalism?
Okay, PLO got weakened.
What came out as a result?
Hezbollah.
What came out afterwards?
Hamas.
What will keep coming out are violent extremist groups until Israel stops its violent illegal occupation of Palestinians.
Hamas does not control the West Bank.
You know how many people have been killed in the past year on the West Bank?
No, they do.
600 people.
Violent extremist settlers have been given a freer reign to kill Palestinians.
And as you know, Pierce, we've talked about your show, Benjamin Yan-Yao has yet again crossed another red line of Biden and said, I'm going to expand settlements, which are also illegal.
Which I think, which by the way, which I think is completely disgraceful.
I think the willful, deliberate expansion of the settlements during the past year is disgusting and should not be happening.
And it's another reason for me why Netanyahu should not be leading Israel.
I think he's just.
Well, and also, if the one thing that, Pierce, the one thing for safety and security, right?
Because I think you and me, and I think some people on this panel want safety and security for Israelis, for Palestinians, for Muslims, for Christians, for the region.
The one thing Israel has never tried, it has always tried military solutions.
They've always failed.
I just gave you a brief history.
We can go back longer if we want.
Military solutions have always failed.
You know the one thing it has never tried?
Ending the occupation, giving Palestinians the right to self-determination.
If it ends on the same time, I would say, there will be a lot of people.
Hang on, don't talk, please.
Hang on.
Let me handle this.
Here's what I would say to that.
They did give Hamas the chance to show what they would do if they ran Gaza in 2005.
And Hamas, ever since then, spent billions of dollars that was given to them on building a highly sophisticated tunnel network from which they could basically operate as a terrorist organization, which is wedded from their charter to destroying Israel.
So they have had the chance of Israel.
Hang on.
I would say this.
I still believe that Israel has had a form of occupation since then over Gaza because they've had the ability, as we saw at the start of the war, to turn off the power, to turn off the water supply, to control what food goes in and out.
That is the behavior of an occupying force.
But they did give Hamas the chance to show what they would do if they were governed.
And I can't believe there is any Palestinian in Gaza that thinks that Hamas did anything but squander that opportunity in the most brazen and despicable manner, culminating in this outrageous attack last October, which was always going to goad Israel into this kind of response.
If you go and kill 1,200 people in Israel in the manner they killed them and boast about it to the world through your GoPro cameras, actually showing what you're doing to women, children, to Holocaust survivors, you kidnap over 200 people, including a newborn baby, for God's sake.
If you do all that and you wound nearly 7,000 more, many of them irreparably, then you are going to get a massive response.
Hamas knew that and they knew that the casualties would be thousands of their own people.
Why would you do that?
Why do that?
So I come back to, I have problems with everybody in this story, right?
I really do.
Because as you should.
Yeah.
As you should.
I agree with you.
But these are the issues on the Hamas Hezbollah side, which really, I just can't, I don't see the answer.
If you're ready to destroy India, terrorist groups, they're both.
Let me bring in Eleker.
Framing the Invasion History00:02:47
So the entire arguments that are being made here are based on revisionist history.
That's first things first.
The even way that you frame Hezbollah as the victim, as the non-aggressor, to where you frame Israel as escalating despite Hezbollah's repeated history of aggression, okay?
First of all, the way you even describe Hezbollah's inception is wrong.
Let's talk about Hezbollah's inception, which was after the 1979 revolution.
Let me finish.
After the 1979 revolution in Iran, Hezbollah, okay, was inspired by this.
And Assad visited Iran and asked Khomeini, what can we do for you?
Khomeini said, Give me a passage to Syria to Lebanon so I can export my radical ideologies over to Lebanon.
They did that and then they started killing the Shiite Muslims in the north of Lebanon while there was an invasion by Israel from the south.
Why was there an invasion from the south?
There was an invasion because the PLO were in southern Lebanon firing rockets into Israel after they just got expelled from Jordan because they were doing the same thing, hijacking planes, okay, landing them on revolutionary airports, blowing them up in front of international media.
Then they go to southern Lebanon and they start destroying internal political dynamics in southern Lebanon, Lebanon.
Now you have the Christian Maronites and the Muslims fighting each other in the first Lebanon civil war.
Okay, they destroyed Lebanon from within just because of the desire to launch its rockets from Lebanon into Israel.
Then it went up to Beirut and started fighting with the Christian Maronites to assert domination in Lebanon.
Why?
Because they are jihadists.
And then what happens in 1978, which is the first invasion of Israel into Lebanon, why?
Because the PLO did an attack on a bus in Israel that killed 38 people.
Israel goes in to try and take out the PLO.
And then the UN requires them to retreat and they retreat.
And then they send their UN interim forces for Lebanon, okay, to take out the PLO.
The UN runs away and the PLO comes back, continues its attack, okay?
The second invasion into Lebanon, because of the continued attacks, they go in once more.
And because the PLO doesn't leave, they have to create this occupation, right?
And then what, as soon as they remove the occupation in 2000 with Ehud Berak and Clinton, what happens is that Hezbollah advances to the border of Israel and starts attacking again.
And then comes the UN resolution 1701 requiring not only that Hezbollah stays 10 kilometers back from the northern border, okay, but also that all of these militias in Lebanon have to disband and there can only be a militarized Lebanese government.
Stolen Land and Supremacy00:02:29
Israel abided.
Who did not abide?
Hezbollah.
Then what did Hezbollah do for 18 years, for 18 years in the zone that they were not allowed to be?
They started expanding their military capacities up to 200,000 munitions and then, and then finally on October 8th, started attacking.
And then when Israel responded with that Pedro attack, why did they do that?
Why did they do that?
Because the commanders, the leaders of Hezbollah, had a plan to attack northern Galilee and do a second October 7th, kidnap hostages with a ground invasion.
Now you tell me, what should Israel do?
Okay.
I'm going to ask you.
Let Aaron Marte respond to that.
What Israel is supposed to do in that eventuality?
What Israel should do is for the first time in its history, abandon its quest for regional domination and supremacy.
Starting in 1947, just a brief tour through history.
Yes, Israel accepted partition publicly.
Palestinians didn't.
It's not nice to welcome the partition of your land, which is being stolen by foreigners.
But privately, Israeli leaders, including David Ben-Gurion, said, we won't accept partition.
We'll define for ourselves what our borders are.
And that's why they proceeded to expel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including into Lebanon, creating this crisis.
They refused to address that.
Instead of addressing their expulsion of Palestinians and theft of their land, they've stolen more.
In 1967, in 1982, the reason Israel invades Lebanon is because the PLO is there and the PLO at that time was joining the rest of the world and accepting a compromise of a Palestinian state.
Google the Arab Peace Initiative.
It's been renewed many times to Israel.
Israel's been offered by all the Arab states and the PLO, with even Iran joining them in accepting this.
Everybody recognizing Israel, everybody making peace in exchange for Israel ending its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
That's a major compromise for Palestinians.
Israel is so hell-bent on domination, occupation, and supremacy, it's refused even to accept a Palestinian compromise.
When Hamas tried to join that after 2005, when Israel withdrew, Israel still put Gaza under a complete siege, prevented any basic goods from getting in, carried out routine massacres.
Even when Hamas leaders, including Ismail Haniya, who Israel recently killed, said, We will accept a Palestinian state, Israel will not accept it because Israel wants to dominate that region.
Rejected Palestinian Compromise00:11:26
That's the fundamental problem here.
And as it was previously said, as long as Israel insists on supremacy and occupation, people are going to resist it.
People will resist it.
It's true.
Google the Arab Peace Initiative, 2002.
Google it.
What happened with the Clinton Barometers 2001?
I'll tell you what happened.
I'll tell you what happened.
You know what?
I'll tell you what happened.
I'll tell you what happened.
The former Israeli foreign minister, Shomo Ben Ami, who was there at Camp David, do you want to know what he said?
He was there at Camp David.
This is the foreign minister who made the Camp David offer.
He said, if I were a Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David as well.
You know why?
Because he recognizes that Israel insisted on keeping the major West Bank settlement blocks that make a Palestinian state impossible.
That's the fundamental problem here.
You don't see Palestinians as equal human beings and you reserve the right to steal their land.
And that's why you're interrupting me because you can't handle the troops.
That's the problem here.
Stop being a supremacist.
Stop stealing land, and you can have peace.
Let's go to 2024.
Can I just say one quick thing?
Okay, let me bring you one jihad, please.
Just one quick thing.
One quick thing.
Let's go to 2024.
Let's just go to this year.
Yes.
Who has rejected two states?
Prime Minister Benjamin Nenyahu.
Who has crossed every single one of President Biden's lines?
Net Yahoo.
Who has said he's going to continue occupying the West Bank?
Nanyahu.
Who has said he's going to continue expanding settlements?
Nanyahu.
Who has put the worst, most extreme radical right-wing members of the Jewish public in his cabinet, people like Ben Gavir and Smotrich are openly genocidal?
Prime Minister Netyahu.
Who has continued bombing civilians?
Like you mentioned, Piers, right?
Told these Palestinians to go to the south.
It's a safe zone and bomb that safe zone?
Nenyahu.
There has been a peace deal on the table.
President Biden announced it in the summer.
He said it was Israel's plan.
He said ceasefire, return of hostages, humanitarian aid.
Who has rejected it since June?
Netanyahu, the psychopaths of the United States.
Who's protesting Netanyahu, the family members of the hostages, because they realize he does not care.
He does not care.
And who is actually protesting this war in Lebanon?
The family members of the hostages, because they realize if this war, God forbid, expands, it means that their family members won't come back.
When there was a temporary ceasefire in November, 105 Israeli hostages came back.
Since then, less than 10.
And when all is said and done, Piers, most likely, Israel will have accidentally killed more of its Israeli hostages through this war than it has saved.
So the buck is right now with Netanyahu.
And as we have discussed on your show, he's a corrupt criminal who has 80% of the public against him, mass protest, and he realizes if the war ends, he will have to resign.
The government will fall apart, and he will most likely go to jail.
So, war we have de-escalation through escalation.
It's a recipe for genocidal madness.
I have a question for you.
That's actually a very important question.
You're saying that this two-state solution should be accepted, okay?
We've seen through this history of the occupation of the West Bank, first of all, the occupation has foiled at least 500 terrorist attacks in 2022.
Now, before the second intifada, there were actually no checkpoints.
Okay, there were no checkpoints.
And then after the Palestinians rejected the Camp David summit, which actually offered to remove the entire occupation, the settlements offered two states.
Okay.
That's such a lie.
Even Israeli leaders don't say that.
Even Israeli leaders don't.
You're lying through your teeth.
And there were checkpoints too by that.
You don't interrupt.
After that, after that, there was a second interfad.
There was a second intifada that killed over 1,000 Israelis in Tel Aviv, and then the checkpoints were installed.
Okay, so my question to you is that you want to end the occupation.
Everyone wants to end the occupation.
Where?
What is happening?
In fact, in fact, one of those proposals was that the PLO would help to foil terrorist attacks going into Israel.
You know why that's so important?
Because of the topography of the land, where the West Bank is on a higher plane, okay, which is strategically at an advantage to throw rockets into Israel.
And so Israel asked the PLO to collaborate with the Shinbet to prevent those terrorist attacks happening.
Now, you want a two-state solution.
Let me ask you, from the jihadist perspectives, where is their commitment to stop the terrorism if the occupation is removed?
Just like it was removed from Gaza and then instantly got and then instantly Hamas started firing rockets back into Israel.
Yeah, okay.
Okay, let me put that to Wajihad because I think it's a reasonable question.
Because even if Israel did everything you urged them to do, you're still left with Hamas and Hezbollah, two terror groups who are wedded via their charter.
It's explicitly stated in both cases that they are wedded to the eradication of Israel.
Nothing changes just because Israel decides to say, we end the occupation, we end this, we end that.
We give you everything you want.
It's not going to change the ideology of people that want to destroy them, is it?
Or is it?
Are Hamas and Hezbollah suddenly going to go, you know what?
Thanks very much.
We're now going to have peace.
Makes no sense.
It's a good question.
It's a good question.
They're living in La La La.
I'll answer.
Let Wajihad answer.
I've always tried to answer in good faith.
Ending the occupation will be the game changer.
Giving people freedom will be a game changer.
Everyone, every single person on earth that has ever been occupied has resisted the occupation.
As you have seen, look, they first went after PLO.
PLO got weakened.
Then Hezbollah came.
Suppose they destroy Hezbollah, which they won't.
Suppose they'll destroy Hamas.
It's been a year.
They won't.
It's the idea, the idea of a resistance.
And I agree with you, they're acting in a way which is terroristic and also commits war crimes.
The idea will persist as long as you keep occupying.
The one thing Israel has never done is stop the occupation.
And number two, throughout its entire history, especially even after Azul, you know what's it's increased?
Illegal settlements in the West Bank.
What's the excuse?
Hamas doesn't run the West Bank.
It is expanding the West Bank settlements.
And for those who don't know, imagine like Swiss cheese, right?
There's holes in the Swiss cheese, the holes are the settlements expanding, expanding, expanding.
What's left is this barely, you've seen this, Pierce, you know the map, this pathetic small piece of land that's left for the Palestinians.
So no matter what happens, I'm sorry to say this, Palestinians are screwed, yet still they say, fine, give us this pathetic moth-eaten ridden land because you have expanded the settlements.
We'll still take it.
Give us freedom.
At the end of the day, every single group on earth wants freedom.
And that's the one thing, the one thing Israel refuses to do.
Okay, let me bring in freedom.
Let me bring in fleur here.
Let me bring in fleur.
I want to ask you this, Fleur.
You can respond, but I want to ask you this.
Why should Palestinians not be afforded the exact same human rights as Israelis?
They want their land or do they want to be part of Israel?
That's my question to you.
I've asked you the question.
Why should they not?
Why should they not imprint?
Do they want their own state?
Why shouldn't they?
My question is...
Fleur, answer the question.
Why should they not be entitled to the same human rights that you have and that I have?
They should.
But they don't have.
They shouldn't.
Well, one second.
Let's talk about Oslo because we're talking.
We're talking as if Israel hadn't tried five times already to create a state.
That's how we're talking here.
So what happened in Oslo?
In Oslo?
Yes, because that's true.
They haven't.
Judea and Samaria.
Okay, one second, rape denial.
In Judea and Samaria, Judea and Samaria was split into area A, B, and C.
The majority of Palestinian cities where the majority of the Palestinian population live are in area A's and B.
The areas that we're talking about really about Swiss cheese and all these metaphors that you all like to use is Area C, where the least amount of Palestinians live.
Now, if they really wanted autonomy, and Tony Blair was here for about 10 years trying to create state institutions and he failed, why did he fail?
Because you either have murderous terrorist groups or you have corruption.
Why did Khania have $4 billion?
Why does Mahmoud Abbas have private jets?
Why are his sons billionaires?
Why?
Because all of the money that the West has given these entities, these government entities, to create a state, to start creating state institutions to do better for their people, to create an economy, all of that has gone into the pockets.
So what do we have?
We have a Palestinian leadership, which is either believes in the destruction of the state of Israel, or the ones who don't, they just steal.
So what are you left with?
I really want a Palestinian mandela.
I really want a Palestinian Gandhi.
I want to live in peace.
I don't want to rule another people and nobody in Israel does.
But what do we get every time we try to give a territorial compromise?
We get terror cells and murder.
What happened after the 2000 Oslo deal?
What happened?
What happened was the second intifada with thousands of people, Jews and Arabs, in the city of Jerusalem, in my city, dead on the street, terrorism in cafes and in buses.
Why did that happen?
If the terms weren't great, then why didn't Arafat continue negotiating?
And I'll tell you this, and I'll repeat it again, because the problem of this conflict is not that a Palestinian state doesn't exist.
It's that a Jewish state exists and they've never, ever ideologically accepted it.
And why do I know?
Because they keep telling me, because they have charters, because that's their constitution.
And that's the educational system.
And that's the media.
Enough with Google.
Don't you read anything else?
All right, listen.
Google Arab League Peace Initiative.
Okay, listen.
Google Arab League.
That's the Arab League offering you the location of the Arabs.
Hang on to occupation.
If you want to talk about Palestinian mandelas, if you want to talk about Palestinian mandelas, they exist.
For example, in March 2018, thousands of Palestinian mandelas marched peacefully in Gaza in the Great March of Return, calling for their basic rights.
What did Israel do?
It gunned them down with snipers, maiming people.
They were hot masks.
That's the Palestinian Mandela.
They're people of Gaza who've been besieged for decades wanting their basic rights.
Are you saying the Palestinian Mandela is in Hamas?
Have you ever been to Gaza?
Honestly, you people are talking about the people who are talking about people.
Yes, I have been to Gaza.
Yes, I have been.
Okay, sure.
I have been to Gaza, actually.
And I've had the people there.
Lucky you're not.
They've never been given the chance.
Okay, can I talk now?
No, no.
They've never been given the chance.
2005 never gave them that chance.
Stop infantilizing the Palestinian leadership on the peace.
I'm going to talk now.
I'm going to speak now.
You've had your time to spread your propaganda.
I'll say it again.
Israel has never accepted the fundamental premise that Palestinians have the right to self-determination.
That's why it rejected multiple Arab League peace offers endorsed by Iran and Hamas and members of Hamas, not all of them, but some of the leadership, including Ismail Hania, calling for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
That's a big compromise for Palestinians.
That's just 22% of the land that you stole, which they're willing to accept.
But Israel is so hell-bent on occupying and stealing land, it won't even accept the Palestinian surrender.
You don't want a Palestinian Mandela.
You want to keep subjugating Palestinians.
Refusing Peace Offers00:00:45
What are you talking about?
You're living in your own planet where Islamic fundamentalism does not exist in your planet.
Islamic fundamentalism doesn't exist in your planet.
Where are you living?
You're the fundamentalist.
Time out.
I want to talk about it.
Hang on, no, no, hang on.
We've reached a point when all four of you are trying to talk at the same time.
That probably seems to me a good moment to bring this to an end.
I have to say, I've done a lot of debates on this in the last year.
This has been one of the best because I honestly believe that all of you are coming at this from your own perspectives.
You're passionate.
You're articulate about it.
You care.
And ultimately, we all want the same thing, which is peace.
But I appreciate you all coming together today and debating it.