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Oct. 16, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
37:13
20241016_mehdi-hasan-vs-jonathan-conricus-on-israel
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
Defending Barbarism and Bias 00:13:26
Your list of nonsense that you are spewing out.
I'm not sure how Jonathan still comes on these shows and defends that kind of barbarism, slanted and biased and you know unarmed.
And I know exactly what you're doing, Jonathan.
We're in for a long battle.
I think that we're in for more fighting.
The next step is indeed Iran.
No one trusts anything Jonathan says.
Actually, many people do trust what I and my peers say.
What is it that you stand for?
What do you represent?
Human rights values that are important.
Dignity, equality.
Shameful.
It's such a nonsense talk.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
The US has ordered Israel to urgently boost aid to Gaza or face having some military assistance cut off.
It comes after reports that Benjamin Netanyahu was considering a surrender or starve plan to choke off aid to the north, leaving hundreds of thousands without food or water to flush out Hamas terrorists.
Israeli officials have told their US counterparts they won't enact that plan.
But frankly, that's what they tend to say about most of their escalations just before they happen.
In the past few days, four Israeli soldiers were killed, 58 more badly injured in a Hezbollah drone attack.
The UN, meanwhile, has condemned the large number of civilian deaths caused by Israeli strikes, including one that hit a Gazan school.
With the conflict now at its most dangerous juncture, I'm joined by two of the most accomplished advocates for their relative positions.
Jonathan Komricus is a retired lieutenant colonel, an international spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, and Mehdi Hassan is editor and CEO of Zateo News.
Well, welcome to both of you.
Should be a fascinating debate.
I hope, unlike some of my debates on this, it doesn't descend into talking over each other and ad hominem too much, because I think you're both better than that.
And I say that as a compliment, having interviewed you both multiple times.
But Mehdi, let me start with you about where you feel we are now.
It seems to me that where we are is that Benjamin Netanyahu, having been very unpopular with Israeli people, following the attacks on Hezbollah, the Pedra attacks, and then following up with the strikes on the Hezbollah leadership and so on, he's suddenly seen a massive spurt in his popularity.
And that seems to have emboldened him now to potentially go for broke with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with the Houthis, and ultimately potentially with Iran directly.
Is that your reading of this?
And how dangerous is that as a moment for the world?
Thanks, Piers.
We're in a very dangerous moment for the world.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is crazy.
I've spoken to Middle East experts who say they've covered the region for decades and they've never seen it boiling like it is now.
We could be on the verge of a much wider regional war than Israel has already created.
And yes, Benjamin Netanyahu, anyone who follows Netanyahu's career, I think is well aware of the fact that he is a self-serving cynic.
He, like Donald Trump, cares about himself more than he cares about his party or his people or his country.
And we all know that he's carried on this war, partly, not only, but partly because he wants to stay out of prison himself.
He wants to keep his far-right fascistic coalition together.
And of course, escalating and escalating as we get closer to an American election helps him because as even Joe Biden apparently has acknowledged it in private, he's trying to get Donald Trump elected.
So for Netanyahu, there's a wide variety of domestic political reasons that help him extend the war.
As you say, people tend to rally around in times of war when Iranian rockets or Hezbollah rockets are dropping on Israelis.
Israelis, of course, are going to rally around their government.
That's only natural.
That happens in every country in the world.
So of course it helps Netanyahu.
He's the ultimate cynic.
Jonathan Kimrick is, I mean, a lot of people think that.
And it's hard not to deduce that that is what's driving him, not least because at the end of all this, Benjamin Netanyahu will face a moment of reckoning with the Israeli people for what happened on October the 7th, which many still blame him for in terms of a massive security failure on his watch.
But also he's facing corruption charges, which have all been delayed pending resolution of the military conflicts.
There's not really much incentive for him to bring any of this to an end, is there?
Yeah, you know, never was a spokesperson for Netanyahu, and I certainly don't intend to be.
And I think it's a bit flat to analyze everything happening in the Middle East only from Netanyahu's perspective and then dress everything up as if it is all related in some, you know, mystical way, like the elders of Zion type of thinking.
I would offer, you know, a different military way of looking at it.
And when I see what Israel is doing, there's a lot of sense.
For the first time in 11 months, or in a year after 11 months, Israel actually started gaining success against Hezbollah.
And success leads to success.
And when you succeed on the battlefield, you want to make sure that you exploit your enemy's weakness.
That's what's happening now.
I don't think that even Mehdi and other people can blame Israel for being attacked by Iran.
Or actually, maybe Mehdi can, but I don't think that any reasonable person can say, well, Israel is at fault for Iran twice firing missiles all over Israel.
So what Israel is doing is defending itself against Iranian attacks.
First and foremost, Hamas.
And Hamas is down but not out.
And now dealing very latedly, but and after a long period of time of 70,000 Israelis being evacuated from their homes for 11 months, but dealing with Hezbollah as well.
And I think that in the coming days or maybe a little bit more than that, Israel will expand its defenses to the real destabilizing factor in the Middle East, which is Iran.
And to put everything within the Netanyahu context, I think it's a bit, I think, intellectually lazy and flat.
There's so much more to it.
And it really takes away agency and responsibility from all of the other actors that are attacking Israel.
The Gaza and Hezbollah and the Houthis and the Iranians and Iraqis and Syrians, all of these, they have no agency.
They have no responsibility.
They all are part of the Netanyahu show.
I find that a bit hard to believe.
And I think it's kind of a lazy argument to be making.
All right, Mehdi, your response to that.
Well, let's just deal with the agency issue first, a few things.
One is, a lot of those groups you mentioned have all said that their fighting with Israel is tied to what's happening in Gaza.
Many of them have offered the Houthis Iran.
And I said this to you, Piers, last time I came on the show, and you said, how can we trust them?
I said, don't trust them, but call their bluff.
They've all said you end the genocide in Gaza, you end the violence in Gaza, you get a ceasefire, and we will stop fighting with Israel.
Which genocide stopped on the seventh?
Let me let me come back to the seventh?
No, the genocide that your country is correct.
The genocide that your country is being investigated.
Can I finish a sentence?
The genocide?
The genocide that your country is being investigated.
International Court of Justice right now.
Jonathan, let me think of it.
Jonathan, I'll let you respond after Mehdi finishes his point.
Yeah.
Mehdi.
I barely started, but he doesn't want people to hear what's going on.
All of those groups have said they'll stop if Israel stops its genocide in Gaza.
NBC News reported that Israel killed Nasrallah because he said, I'm only going to do a deal with you if you do a ceasefire in Gaza.
I want to link a ceasefire in Lebanon with a ceasefire in Gaza.
And the Israelis tell NBC News, that's why we killed him.
So we know that these groups have agency.
Israel has agency.
Jonathan Konrikas wants your viewers to believe that Israel just blindly, you know, Israel was just minding its own business and Iran attacked it.
Israel attacked Iran first in Syria.
They bombed an Iranian consulate in violation of the laws of international law and international diplomatic.
Oh yeah, they killed Iranians in Iran.
They then bombed Ismail Hania in Tehran.
They bombed the Iranian capital.
And then they bombed Beirut and killed a senior Iranian general.
So actually it was Israel that's been provoking.
And when he talks about source of destabilization in the region, everyone in the region knows it's Israel that's destabilizing region.
It's Israel right now that's escalating wars in multiple countries.
Everyone around the world knows it's Israel.
That's the country that is causing the issues.
40 countries, Piers, 40 countries have just put out a statement on Saturday saying, can Israel please stop attacking UN peacekeepers, blue helmets.
So please don't give us lectures on who is stabilizing, destabilizing the region.
And final point, as for winning, the Israeli general who ran the Gaza division, Gaddi Shamni, says, Hamas is winning.
Israel is losing in a big way.
Those are his words, not my words.
Jonathan, your response.
Yeah, just out of respect for you, Piers, I didn't interrupt the second time, even though Mehdi's statement was littered with so many lies that are, in fact, quite ridiculous.
As were yours.
Israel was indeed minding its own business.
Israel was indeed minding its own business on the 6th of October when Hamas, with a genocidal intent, invaded into Israel and butchered Israeli civilians.
Israel was also minding its own business along the Lebanese border when on the 8th of October, Hezbollah started firing at Israeli civilians and military and eventually forced about 70,000 Israelis to flee their homes after many of them were killed.
Israel was also minding its own business for many years.
You've just been aware of that.
No, Mehdi.
No, no, Mehdi, let me not interrupt.
I refrained from interrupting you.
I refrained from interrupting you, even though you said so many horrible and very flat lies.
And I will continue not interrupting me.
Even if you do the same.
Right.
And by the way, speaking about the region, Mehdi, I live in the region.
My children are here.
You do not.
And I don't know how many people you know and see from both sides of these different conflicts.
I know people from both sides and I speak with them and I live here.
So I don't think that you're in a position to be lecturing anybody about what's really happening in the region.
I am the one who is running with my family to bomb shelters when Hezbollah fires missiles and when the Iranians fire missiles and when Hamas fires missiles.
I am the one who has family who has been evacuated from the north.
I am the one who has close relatives and friends who were massacred on October the 7th.
Don't lecture me about who is the source of instability.
I agree with you that a lot of countries and a lot of dark people have a problem with the Jews living in their ancestral homeland.
But that doesn't make it wrong that we're here.
We're going to continue to be here and continue to defend ourselves despite the likes of you and despite our enemies.
And I'll tell you that our history is so full of people that wanted to kill Jews and wanted to force us out of our homeland.
But we're back.
We're here and we intend to continue to stay here despite the best efforts of Iranians and Syrians and Lebanese and Gazans and others.
Many.
So I do need to respond to that.
So first of all, as for lecturing you, as I say, 40 countries put out a statement, including many of your own allies, including Hungary, one of the most pro-Israeli countries in Europe, saying stop attacking UN peacekeepers.
These are not dark anti-Semitic forces.
You can't keep playing an anti-Semitism card and undermining the very real struggle against anti-Semitism by using it to defend a government that is full of some of the most racist people, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-Christian people on the face of this planet.
You were spokesman for a government that contains people like Smotrich and Ben Gavir, open racists, prosecuted for inciting terrorism.
So we've got to talk about lectures.
You should keep your lectures to yourself and be embarrassed for the government you served.
As for you living in the region, the problem is not you living in the region.
The problem is the army you served and the country you were a spokesman for illegally occupies other people's lands in the West Bank, in Gaza, in the Golan Heights, now in Lebanon again.
You are the country that is illegally occupying other people's lands.
It's not about you living in your homes.
It's about you taking other people's homes.
It's about Israel now aiming to annex Gaza, according to Haretz this week, that Netanyahu no longer has any interest in saving the hostages, as he never did, and is eyeing annexation of Gaza, to quote the Israeli newspaper, Haretz.
And if we're going to talk about people dying on October the 7th, some of us have condemned that.
Some of us oppose that.
You only oppose attacks on Israel.
Support attacks on non-Israelis.
On Monday, let's say his name.
Let's say his name.
Shabani.
Don't put words in my life.
19 years old.
No, no, no, no.
You don't get to interrupt me.
Sorry.
You do not get to interrupt me.
You have to get taking the high ground on interruptions.
You'll come back in.
Piers will bring you back in.
I'm going to finish my point uninterrupted.
Otherwise, don't be a hypocrite, as well as someone who represents fascists.
A 19-year-old young man, Shaban Ahmed.
Was that software engineering student?
You're the one who is.
Can I finish my sentence, Piers, or is it going to be one?
Jonathan, we'll just wait, Jonathan.
I will bring you a question.
Piers, you can't tell me not to interrupt.
Otherwise, this conversation will.
No, no, Medi, finish your point.
I'll bring your students.
Please don't threaten us.
I will.
Don't worry, Piers.
I will.
So desperately.
Okay, Medi, finished your.
A 19-year-old.
You keep interrupting, Jonathan.
People can see what a hypocrite you are.
19-year-old student, Shaban Ahmed, software engineering student at Al-Azha University.
Jonathan's military destroyed his university, destroyed his house, displaced him, made him homeless five times over the past year.
On Monday, the world, we all watched him burn to death thanks to Israelis bombing the area outside the hospital that he was on an IV, on a bed, in a tent.
He burned to death.
His mother died.
Two other, maybe three other people died.
I'm not sure how Jonathan still comes on these shows and defends that kind of barbarism and open war crimes.
I'm not sure how Jonathan sleeps at night watching people burn to death thanks to the military that he served and is now being investigated both at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
Jonathan?
Yeah, speaking about serving, and then I'll address the points that you've mentioned.
War Crimes and Open Conflict 00:15:49
Speaking about serving and standing up for something, I indeed served for 24 years in the IDF and I'm a proud Israeli Zionist and I'm a proud Israeli patriot.
And I also am very proud of my service, including as a spokesperson, but also including as a combat officer in the IDF.
I know what I stand for.
I am asking, what do you stand for?
What kind of values do you stand for?
I don't stand for killing civilians like your military.
I don't stand for raping detainees like your military.
You'll get to answer.
Jonathan, did you witness rape?
You're a combat officer, Mehdi.
Did you witness the rape of detainees?
Mehdi, you will get to answer.
I'm not done.
I'm not done.
Don't ask me questions if you don't want to ask me for a country that is Mehdi.
You spoke, now I speak.
I ask, and I will ultimately would like to hear your answer to it: what values you represent?
What civilization do you represent?
Which country do you represent?
Which religion do you represent?
And what do you stand for?
What do you defend?
I know what I do.
I'm part of a democracy in the Middle East, and I stand for a military that defends its population against some of the most vile terrorists in the world, including Hamas Hezbollah, an Iranian propped-up terrorist.
And I am happy and proud to be part of that organization, as I've been over many years.
And if you and I were race car drivers, Mehdi, and each of us had a patch sewn onto our little uniforms that indicated who gives us money and who sponsors us, I would have one patch of my country and I would have one patch of my employer.
That would be it.
How many patches would you have?
How big would the Qatari patch be on your clothes?
And how big would foreign investment in whatever it is that you're doing and whatever it is that you're representing?
How much would that be of what you do?
Because you place yourself as if you are above and as if you are entitled to criticize everything that Israel does.
And I ask, what are your motives and who pays for what you do?
So it's very simple answer, as I told Jonathan Levine of the New York Post.
And I love this new talking point, Piers.
It's got around the right-wing media and the pro-Aswell people.
I run a company called Zatayo.
People can check it out.
Zatayo.com.
It's a great media organization getting very good press from the Washington Post and others.
There are no foreign investors.
They're all American investors.
I'm an American.
You asked the question.
I know you can't handle brown people being part of the West.
I'm an American.
I'm a Brit.
I was born in the UK.
I'm now an American taxpayer.
And I'm very concerned with American taxes going towards the funding of a genocide in Gaza, going towards the killing of a 19-year-old guy who's in an IV in a hospital bed, going towards the killing of children in a school, going towards the killing of 23 people from one family in Lebanon Monday in northern Lebanon.
23 people bombed by your military.
Two babies killed, Jonathan.
That is what you stand for.
You serve the IDF, the Israeli military, which, as I say, is being investigated at the ICG, ICJ, and the ICC.
You serve a military that has been credibly accused by the United Nations just last week by Israeli media, which showed videos of mass rape of Palestinian detainees.
The New York Times this week reported that your military sent children, Palestinian children, as human shields into booby-trapped tunnels and buildings.
Is that what you did, Jonathan?
Can you tell us today, did you ever send a Palestinian child as a human shield into a tunnel?
Because the New York Times is saying your military did that.
The World Food Programme is saying your military is starving the people of northern Gaza.
Did you starve people when you were in the military, Jonathan?
What do you stand for?
Starvation?
Mass rape?
Ethnic cleansing?
Genocide?
Every human rights group in the world says your military is an abuser of human rights.
I don't know how many human rights you yourself have personally abused.
I don't know if you turned a blind eye to rape on your custody.
I don't know if you killed children at cold blight, you know, at point blank range, like Israeli snipers did to people carrying white flags.
You can tell us today how many people you've killed or how many people you've talked about.
Hopefully all day.
Listen, Mehti, some people documented enough and respond to the people.
Piers are seeing people.
All right.
Let him respond.
People gunned down with white flags.
All right, Mehdi, let him respond.
It's all documented.
I'm saying your list of allegations and your list of nonsense that you are spewing out.
Everything true.
Unfounded things that the fact that someone wrote it doesn't make it true.
All of these things that you're saying.
No, no, we saw people with white flags in front of our eyes by someone.
By someone.
And everyone watching the show.
All of what you are saying is slanted and biased.
And, you know, exactly what you're doing.
Jonathan.
What you're doing is trying to.
Thank you for reading the book.
It's called Whin Everyone.
And you're losing.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, let other peoples be the judge of that.
Piers can tell us.
Piers can tell us.
Have you watched people, unarmed people, gunned down by the IDF?
Piers.
When you jump into the middle of the moment, I'll tell you what.
And clarifying.
Let me tell you what, Mehti.
I can say categorically, Mehdi, that under the circumstances that Israel finds itself under, I cannot think of any military that would behave in a more humane way.
And I say that in 100% sincerity.
The international linking.
The international criminal court.
The chief prosecutor disagrees with you.
And I will continue to say it, Mehdi.
And I will continue to say it.
Whatever makes you fight for Hamas and Hezbollah, an Iranian apologist like yourself.
And I will continue to say it and know that I see it.
Is Israel perfectly?
Don't do that.
How am I saying that Israel?
Well, you just said that Israel was the one that attacked Iraqi Jonathan when Iran was minding his own business, which is absolutely.
I care about your feelings, Jonathan.
April 2024.
Mehti, you are the one who's only trying to do things and on sad stories.
If you don't respond to the facts, this will.
This was working very powerfully when you give each other the chance to respond to each other.
Okay, you both feel very strong about it.
Let's do that from now.
You both have passionate views.
I understand that.
You disagree with each other.
I think for the audience at home watching, if you talk over each other, we lose it.
Jonathan can't stop being rape.
Jonathan, you're not harming him.
Jonathan doesn't stop many things.
He can't stop being racist.
Let Jonathan finish his relationship.
Let Jonathan finish.
And then many respond.
Jonathan, finish your point.
But I've acknowledged that.
I think that what you've said is a laundry list of some of the low-hanging fruit and the concoctions that have been made up against Israel.
Some of it may have a kernel of truth, and there may have been 10 soldiers who did something, and there may have been other soldiers who've done something else that was wrong and that they shouldn't do.
Is it common practice?
No.
Is it something that is sanctioned by the IDF?
No.
You tell us the sad story of the Palestinian who was unfortunately killed in the Israeli strike or as a by-result of an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balach yesterday.
He was killed not because he was a target.
He was killed because Hamas ammunitions that were stored by Hamas in close proximity to that location exploded.
The IDF fired two small bombs at that location and they wouldn't have exploded and caused that kind of fire had it not been for Hamas weapons there.
If you care about Palestinian civilians and as a human being, I was sad to see.
I saw his video before.
He looked like a very nice and decent human being and it's sad that he and his family were killed.
I saw the movie of burning people.
It hurt me as a human being as well.
And I wouldn't want to see it again and I wouldn't want that to be reality in Gaza.
But the reason that that happened isn't because the IDF is fighting there.
It's because Hamas is storing weapons there and they're abusing humanitarian facilities and they're using schools and mosques and whatever is left of hospitals in order to fight from.
And then the idea of targets where the Hamas is fighting from.
And unfortunately, people have gotten wounded.
I regret that.
I know for certain that that wasn't the intention of the IDF.
It's a very sad and regrettable side effect of that happened.
And I think I'm sure that the IDF will be extra careful in the next time that they attack.
But it doesn't make it deliberate.
But I think it's hypocritical of you, and I will finish.
I think it's hypocritical of you, Mehrdi, that you don't speak about the fact that why are they there in the beginning?
Why are there ammunition stored in a hospital?
Why is Hamas using hospitals to fight?
Isn't that something that should be criticized even by a high-faluting person like you?
Okay, Mehdi, your response.
So first of all, that's false.
Even the Israeli military hasn't claimed it was ammunition.
There's a debate about what the secondary explosions cause.
It could have been the gas cylinders that people are using.
But the issue is you're bombing areas of tents and hospitals.
You've bombed refugee camps, as Piers pointed out.
You've bombed schools, as I've pointed out, and you've dodged.
You bombed a Lebanese Christian town and killed 23 people from one family, including two babies.
You've bombed UN peacekeeping soldiers from Ireland and Italy who are not Hamas or Hezbollah either.
Israel is bombing people deliberately.
We don't need your word for that.
We've seen hundreds of TikToks, including my company, Zateo, that you happily mentioned earlier, put out an entire documentary interviewing Israeli soldiers and showing the TikToks of them bragging about their violence inside of Gaza and now Lebanon.
You talk about low-hanging fruit.
Let's just be clear here on the facts since people are not going to get the facts because as you've read my book, you know, there's a tactic called Gish Galloping, which is what you just did, which is to talk over all the facts without engaging with them.
Here are the facts that people can go look up for themselves.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Office, UNICEF, UNHCR, Save the Children, World Food Programme, WHO, Doctors Without Borders.
I can keep going.
Refugees International, International Rescue.
They all, CARE International, Christian Aid, Physicians for Human Rights.
They all say the Israeli military is to blame for the casualties, for the killing of innocent people, for not giving warnings, for bombing civilian targets, and for starving the people of northern Gaza.
Right now, Save the Children say that northern Gaza looks like the depths of hell.
The World Food Programme says no food has been allowed in by your government and your military since the start of October.
And by the way, one last point.
You mentioned, oh, maybe 10 soldiers did this, 10 soldiers did that.
Actually, according to the UN, this stuff is systematic.
And I would ask you, you ask me who my investors are.
I'll ask you.
You were in the Israeli military.
You proudly said you were a combatant.
Someone asked you, were you involved in the things the Israeli military has been accused of by the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor, by human rights groups, intentional killing of civilians, starving of civilians, the use of rape and sexual violence against detainees, using Palestinian children as human shields, as the New York Times reported this week.
Did you do any of that when you were in your service, Jonathan Conrig?
None of that is correct.
None of that is correct.
And I will gladly address the issue with, of course, you know very well, you know very well that we don't have time to go into a serious discussion of each and every of those flat allegations that you're rattling off as if if you say them fast, it makes it true.
And as if you wave a few questionable organizations, it may be true.
It's very slow.
No, You don't.
No, no.
Merdi, I didn't interrupt.
Let's keep it that way.
I really refrain from interrupting.
Let's keep it that way.
It makes for better discussion.
Even though I think you've said many things that are horrible and you rattled off lots of names of organizations that, frankly, most people around the world, many people around the world, have lost their faith in, think are uncredible.
You mentioned organizations that have been shown that they are full of BDS supporters and Israel haters that have two jobs in BDS organizations and in these so-called humanitarian organizations.
But you know what?
Let's not go the easy way.
Let's say I take you up on each and every one of those points and I will say very clearly.
Whenever the IDF finds out wrongdoing, it takes measures against the people who have done wrong.
And it's a very challenging thing to do when a country is fighting for its very existence on at least seven fronts, when its soldiers are being forced to fight for more than a year in order to defend their homes and their families, and then to simultaneously have these soldiers called in for disciplinary procedures and to be investigated while we are fighting.
That isn't an easy thing to do, but yet the IDF does it.
Not because the likes of you or others matter, but because this is who we are as a people who want to be able to look ourselves in the mirror and continue fighting the day after this end.
Jonathan, this will eventually end.
Jonathan, let me ask you a question.
I want to just move to a different sort of theme with this.
How does all this end?
I mean, what is Israel's plan for the end game here?
Because to many people, it looks like you're just going to war with everyone now in the region.
It could escalate massively.
And if you replicate what you've done in Gaza with what you now do in, say, the Lebanon, where does that leave everybody?
I mean, most of Gaza's been leveled.
Tens of thousands of innocent people killed in the process of going after Hamas.
If this is replicated in anything like this scale in Lebanon, you've got vast areas just destroyed.
What happens afterwards?
And why would you assume that this tactic of going so aggressively after Hamas and Hezbollah in civilian areas is not just going to fuel the ideology that led to them rising up in the way that they did in the first place?
Yeah.
Well, you know, going after an enemy aggressively, that's what war is.
When you're attacked in your home, when your women are slaughtered, when babies are killed, when women are raped, and when your civilians are burnt alive and people are taken hostage, that's called a declaration of war.
And you fight that.
You don't fight it by being nice and you don't fight it by being gentle.
You do fight it according to the laws of armed conflict and you try to adhere to those criteria.
By and large, I think that Israel is succeeding.
Sure, there have been mistakes and sure there are things that weren't 100% right.
But I think that by and large, and that's, by the way, many British and American officers have attested to that as well.
Those have been able to see the battlefield.
But where does this go from here?
Sadly, and I live here and my kids will serve in the military and I will probably do more reserves.
I think that we're in for a long battle.
I think that we're in for more fighting.
I look around and I listen.
I try to listen and I speak Arabic and I try to listen to the sounds and people that are willing to say and acknowledge that the Jews have a right to live and exist here.
I try to hear those voices amongst Palestinians, Arabs, Syrians, Lebanese, and others in the region.
And sadly, I don't hear them enough.
And I regret to say this, but I think that what is in store for sadly for Israel, and I would want for that to be totally different.
I would want for us to focus on economy and research and culture and to do many beautiful things that we do in Israel.
And we do them very well, much to the displeasure of our enemies, but nevertheless, we do them.
And I would want for us to focus on that.
But sadly, we're being forced to defend ourselves and we weren't doing anything that is similar to what's going on now on the 6th of October.
And just to end, just to finalize, just to end that, I will say that just one sentence, Piers.
The next step is indeed Iran.
And I think that we will have a conversation in a few months from now, maybe four or five months, where you can ask this question again.
After Israel will directly engage the Islamic Republic of Iran and start to shift the tide in the region.
Addressing Rape Allegations 00:07:57
We won't have Iran funding and amassing these terrorist organizations against us.
That will be the beginning of a much quieter and more peaceful Middle East.
Okay.
Mehdi, your response.
Yeah, I've got a lot to respond because a lot was said.
Let me just deal with the first point, this nonsense about October the 6th.
It was all peaceful.
Gazans were being killed on October 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd.
West bankers were being killed on October 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd.
It's a complete lie that there was some kind of peace or quiet in the neighborhood.
Maybe in Israel there was, but people were still bearing the brunt of occupation violence in both the West Bank and Gaza.
It's a total and utter lie to suggest otherwise.
It's also interesting that Jonathan responded to your question, Piers, by talking about how, and I think I'm quoting him correctly, that when you come into our homes and you kill our civilians and you rape our women and you set us on fire, that is a declaration of war, which is ironic because he's just described everything that Israel has done in Gaza and the West Bank, both in recent weeks and months and over the years of occupation.
So how come it's not a declaration of war for Palestinians when Israel does it to the Palestinians?
It's only one-way traffic.
Only one side has a right to defend itself, right?
Not the other side.
Number two, I would just say he talked again about kind of, oh, there were too many names and I speak too fast.
Let me just be clear.
I can speak very, very slowly.
One issue, rape.
He lies and tells your viewers that Israeli soldiers are held to account.
That's not true.
Anyone can go on Google right now and look at the number of Israeli soldiers, the percentage who are actually indicted or charged with any crimes.
98, 99% of Israeli soldiers are never charged with any crimes.
And that's from Betselem.
That's from Israeli human rights groups.
I'm sure Jonathan will call them anti-Semites as well.
And when we look at one single instance of rape in detention, which was well documented by the Israeli media and by human rights groups and actual Palestinian eyewitnesses, what happened?
The Israeli military police peers went to the base to try and arrest the soldiers.
The soldiers ganged together, attacked the military police, and then the parliament had a debate about whether rape should be legal or not, whether it's legal to rape Palestinian detainees.
And now we're learning this week, Piers, that the military police officers who were assaulted by the soldiers, the soldiers who were the buddies of the rapists, are too scared to give testimony against their soldiers.
Mehdi, I don't disagree with you.
Hold on, Piers.
No, but I want to ask you.
That's very important that we talk about accountability.
I know.
I've got one side of the question.
I will mention your question, but I'm going to finish my question.
I want to make a question on the issue of rape.
Okay, on that one issue of rape, though.
What I haven't heard you mention at all is the hideous sexual abuse, including rape, of so many innocent women.
Because we all condemn that.
On October the 7th.
Well, no, but I'm asking.
You haven't mentioned it.
And Jonathan's raised that several times.
You only seem fixated.
You're fixated with Israel.
Soldiers who may have committed rape.
What about the rape against Israelis?
Piers, if you want to do a debate like that, invite Jonathan Conricus and invite a Hamas spokesperson.
I'm sorry, I'm not a spokesman for Hamas.
I've condemned Hamas.
Unlike Jonathan, I condemn people who engage in human rights.
Hold on.
Well, I've done it.
Well, maybe you should pay attention, Jonathan.
Instead of reading my book, check everything I've said on the conflict.
I was condemning Hamas decades ago, and I've been attacked by certain people for condemning Hamas.
Can I finish a point?
You gave a long speech.
So far, you and Piers have both interrupted me.
You can.
I'm going to answer this point.
If you want to have a Hamas spokesman, I'll have a Hamas spokesman.
I did an entire show.
We keep mentioning Zatayo.
I'm loving the plugs, Piers.
Appreciate you.
On Zataya, people can go and watch an entire show I did with Barcelon Yousuf, another one of your guests, where I talked about on that show about how the UN report talked about gender and sexual violence on October the 7th, how that needs to be prosecuted, how it needs to be investigated.
You know what the UN said?
They said, we haven't been able to confirm instances of rape, but we want to, but the Israelis are blocking us from interviewing witnesses and coming into Israel.
So maybe Jonathan should get his government to allow UN investigators to finish the job, because I believe all rapists should be held to account.
Jonathan doesn't.
He hasn't said a word.
I've brought it up several times.
He said, oh, it's a few men here and there.
No, no, no.
They're not being prosecuted.
The Israeli parliament defended them.
The Israeli media had debates about whether rape should be legalized.
That is the military he's part of.
He earlier, in a very racist way, suggested, I have no civilization, no country, no loyalty except to Qatar and Iran.
I'm an Indian, I'm a British American of Indian descent.
I have nothing to do with Iran or Qatar.
I would say this, that Jonathan needs to deal with those human rights abuses.
And finally, the last point I'll make, you keep going on about, oh, these groups are not taken seriously.
Jonathan Conricus, Piers, wants you and your viewers to disbelieve Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, UNHCR, Refugees International, International Rescue, Christian Aid.
Disbelieve all those groups.
Disbelieve the World Food Programme run by Cindy McCain, the late widow of John McCain.
Disbelieve all of them and believe the Israeli military, which he was a spokesman for, which was caught lying about beheaded babies, about calendars on the bottom of hospitals, about Lebanese documentaries, the number of the Israeli military lies that they've had to own up to.
It's a joke.
No one trusts anything Jonathan's saying.
All right, Jonathan, final word to you.
Yeah, actually, many people do trust what I and my peers say.
And many people, I think, listen to the kind of thing, the kind of goods that you peddle, Mehdi.
And the goods that you peddle are Israel hatred.
Sometimes it's more sophisticated and more well-founded.
Sometimes it's very easy to dismantle.
And it's very clear where you stand.
I asked you before, and you conveniently didn't answer.
What is it that you stand for?
What do you represent?
What values that are?
Dignity and equality.
Right.
Not rape.
If it's human rights and dignity and equality, then I suggest that you stand equally and speak about how they're violated by the oppressive Iranian regime against the Iranian people.
Speak about what the Syrian dictator criticized Israel.
How Hamas brutalizes two million Gazans and how Hamas deals with Israel in Lebanon.
You won't be what you're saying.
The same person here, Jonathan, who won't criticize this side, Mehdi.
The problem with what you're doing, Mehdi, is that it's very easy to listen to you less, even though you speak eloquently and you have good sources.
It's easy to listen to you less and believe to you less because it's very clear what you're motivated by.
You are not something that is motivated by a true care for human beings.
You care about human beings if you want justice or something else.
If it's Palestinians killed by Palestinians, that's a non-story.
If I had Israelis would be dying, you don't have to be dying.
Israelis are dying right now.
Because of your government, if it's suffering and if it's dying on Israel, even by Israel's logic, then you don't care about it.
You only care about it if it's related to Israel and if it can serve anti-Israeli propaganda.
And that undermines your credibility.
You speak about my credibility.
I'm very easy and open, and it's very clear.
I stand for my country and I'm happy to defend it.
But what you criticize Israel for is just attacking Israel.
Of course, I can criticize, and I even do it on my Twitters.
I've said things about my Prime Minister's mass rape.
Of course, I have.
You couldn't even criticize mass rape by your fellow soldiers.
Listen, there hasn't been mass raped.
It's such a shameful, it's such a nonsense talking.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
It's such a nonsense talking point, so I won't even.
So the UN's lying.
The New York Times is lying.
It isn't saying it.
Everyone is lying.
The UN isn't saying it.
In fact, you mentioned an organization name.
Chaps, because everyone can Google it, Jonathan, and see how much.
We've descended into talking over each other.
Look, it's been, broadly speaking, it's been a very good debate between two people who care very passionately and have obviously very different views about this.
I learned a lot listening to both of you.
I'm glad you came together to debate it.
I know you haven't done that before.
I appreciate your time.
Thank you very much.
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