Piers Morgan and Bassim Yousuf clash over Gaza, debating UN Special Representative Pramila Patten's report on sexual violence versus conflicting journalist accounts from Christina Lamb and Jeffrey Gettleman. They dissect Israel's military strategy involving Apache helicopters, the disputed use of the Hannibal Directive, and whether the conflict stems from existential threats or a cycle of deception dating back to 1948. While Morgan questions the proportionality of destroying infrastructure, Yousuf argues normalization fails without ending occupation, ultimately revealing how political lobbying and selective narratives obscure the war's brutal reality. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Protective Shields and Western Media00:07:27
Oh my god, can I have a hug?
Can I have a hug?
How are you going to do it?
How are you doing, man?
Really good to see you.
You're good?
How are you?
I'm good.
You're good, you're good.
Very nice to see you.
I'm so glad you came in today.
Of course.
I mean, I want to always be in person.
It's much easier to do.
No, it's great.
It's great.
You've been critical of me saying, I only do what I do because I'm after cliques.
I never said that about you.
You did.
I know that you mean well, but you are trying to two-sided.
You're too one-sided.
We should believe that Hamas went in with AK-47 and caused that kind of damage.
What's your argument?
The Israelis did all that themselves.
A series of reports of women who were raped and abused by Hamas.
You don't believe any of you?
You think none of this happened?
No, I don't believe it.
You're trying to put a little protective shield up to what Hamas did.
And my response is, I don't know why you would do that.
Hamas being an Islamic faction, I'm not a big fan, but you should not punish our population because a militant group did some atrocities.
What else do you accept?
If you treat people like animals, they will behave like animals.
Well, all these cars were obviously blown up by Israel.
Hamas didn't do that to any of them.
Hamas didn't rape or abuse any women.
And it's all bullshit.
A year ago this week, I interviewed an exiled Egyptian comedian about the aftermath of October the 7th.
It was a time of intense anger and passion.
Basim Yousuf's jarring and satirical take became globally iconic.
A month later, we met again face to face in his adopted home city of Los Angeles.
And Basim has since become an unwitting global spokesman for the Palestinian cause.
And again, Sawyer has been reported by Western media.
Well, more than a year in, the war rages on.
There's a lot to catch up on.
For the first time ever in the uncensored studio here in London, Basim Yousaf rejoins me.
Basim, great to see you.
Great to see you.
Finally, in London, my home city, finally.
Extraordinary that it's been a year.
When you think back to that first interview that we did that 23 million people watched around the world, and I still get asked about it all the time.
Just take me back to how you were feeling then.
It was so in the immediate aftermath of October the 7th.
Israel's response was coming very hard at the time.
What was in your mind at the time when you did that interview and the way you conducted it?
I was very scared.
I was advised by my managers and agents not to do the interview because I could lose my career.
And I just took it because, and I actually, as a matter of fact, your producers asked me a couple of times and I said no.
And then I said like I had to do it.
I want to play, just for those who haven't seen it, there aren't many, but let's take a look at some of that first interview.
Those Palestinians, they're very dramatic.
Ah, Israel killing us.
But they never die.
I mean, they always come back.
Very difficult people to pill.
I know, because I'm married to one.
I tried many times, couldn't kill her.
I mean, there's a dark humor there, and I understand why.
No, it's not dark humor.
I really, I try to get to her every time, but she uses our kids as human shields.
I can never take her out.
I really applaud Israel for doing one thing that no military force in the world does.
Because I heard Ben Shapiro and I heard Ron DeSantis.
And they said, they said, Israel is the only military force in the world that warns civilians before bombing them.
I mean, how fucking cute.
That is so nice of them.
Because with this logic, if Russian troops started warning Ukrainians before bombing their houses, we're cool with Putin, right?
I mean, okay, Habibi, you have warned them, go invade.
It's fine.
You have done your job.
It was a brilliantly devastating technique you used in that interview, which took me a while to work out what you were doing and why you were doing it.
It's very powerful.
It resonated with many people very closely.
Where do you think we are with this war now?
And in fact, not just the war, obviously, in Gaza, but the wider war that's raging now in Lebanon, the threats against Iran and so on, the whole thing.
I mean, Israel is defending itself, right?
I mean, that's what the Western media is telling us.
They would say they are.
Yeah.
And I want to buy into it.
I'm trying to convince myself.
Can you buy into any of their logic that they believe they are defending themselves?
Okay.
Do you believe them, that they believe that?
Let's put that on the test.
So if Israel is defending itself, it's defending itself against an imminent danger, like an existential threat.
I don't understand if, for example, Macron would announce that he will impose an embargo in Israel's arms and then Israel goes and bombs the French oil facilities in Lebanon.
How is that defending themselves?
There is like a group of American doctors who were in Gaza and came back and they reported seeing tens of children with sniper shots in their heads and necks.
How is that defending themselves?
Just a couple of days ago, we saw a little kid being shot by a drone.
His family came to FEM to help him and then they were all killed.
How is that defending itself?
I mean, I hear it, but I just don't see it.
But do you believe that fundamentally Israel believes it is acting in self-defense?
Israel can believe whatever they want.
I'll tell you a story that actually can tell you exactly how Israel works.
I'm from Egypt, you understand that.
You all know what this is.
April 1970, there was an attack of an Egyptian school in the middle of Delta, 100 kilometers from where my parents were born.
It's called Bahr Bakr.
On that day, Israel bombed a school, killing 30 students.
Now, what was so interesting, going back in history, this was the headline of the New York Times of the day.
And it says, 30 pupils in Egypt said to die in rape, said to die, the passive voice.
Which raid?
Who did the raid?
We don't know.
And then you read it, this is Moshe Dayan.
He was the defense minister of Israel at the time.
He said the target had been a military structure that had been photographed from air both before and after the raid.
What could have happened here was irresponsibility of high orders from the Egyptians that they set aside a floor or some room for civilian purposes such as a school.
Now, do you believe that?
You don't, right?
It's ridiculous.
And the fact is that the New York Times then, same as the New York Times, they're covering for it.
But there was one thing that caught my attention.
They said no mention was made of the use of napalm in the attack.
I said, why would we have such a disclaimer?
It's because three months ago, Israel bombed a civilian metal plant, killing 70 workers with napalm.
So this, when I hear Israel defend itself, when I hear the IDF, they're liars.
And I'm sorry to say, but they are.
Do you categorize what Hamas has been doing, particularly on October the 7th, what Hezbollah did within hours of October the 7th and carried on for the next year, what the Houthis have done, a lot of it orchestrated by, doubtless, the Iranian regime.
Do you categorize that as resistance, as freedom fighting?
Or are there elements of all those groups who are genuinely terrorist in their thinking?
Well, you know, someone's a terrorist is other ones.
Yeah, but how you categorize it.
How I categorize it?
Funding Israel and Palestinian Rights00:08:03
I mean, like, I'm an American citizen.
Of course, I don't want to come back and find the FBI raiding my house.
So yes, of course, they're terrorists.
Do you believe that?
Well, at the advice of my lawyer, I would say.
Well, no, you're not terrorists.
I don't think you'd be banned from going back to America if you said they were terrified.
Do you know what happened to Scott Schritter?
He was the former UN inspector of nuclear weapon in Iraq.
He's a convicted paedophile.
But like he, when he was raided a few months ago, it was because he was talking against Israel.
Asa Wynne Stanley, he was a British journalist in London, and his house was raided just last week because he talked about Israel.
And this is actually, Pierce, what I like about you is that you are a fierce warrior against cancel culture, right?
Yeah.
If you cancel people for their opinion, we're not living in a world anymore, right?
I totally agree.
So, for example, you have Robert Saleh, who was the coach of the NFL jets.
He wore like a small Lebanese flag, and he was canceled.
I mean, I don't know.
It's interesting.
I came to America and I was so happy that I can speak about anyone I want.
And then suddenly it's like, oh, we can do whatever you want, unless if it's like.
It is, I mean, it's tangible to me when I go to America, far more than it is in the UK, for example.
The support for Israel is pretty rock solid in terms of their political class, in terms of much of the media, if not all of the media.
It's more tangible in America than it is in most other countries.
Yeah.
Including here.
Yeah.
A lot more criticism of Israel here than there is in America.
Yeah, and yet you have Israel having a crazy control on the political apparatus, whether in America or in here.
I mean, 13 out of 25 of the Labour cabinet here are funded by Israel lobbies.
126 out of 355 MPs are funded by Israel.
I mean, out of those 13 members of cabinet is the prime minister himself, his counselor, his deputy, the home secretary, the foreign secretary, and the secretary of the treasury, which who oversees the arms shipments to Israel.
So I don't understand why.
I mean, I think we should talk about that more about anything, because that is actually what gives Israel the cover for what they're doing.
I mean, my take on Israel's government is that Netanyahu, to get back into power, aligned himself with some very hard right-wing people who've spoken in a very genocidal language about what they really want to do with Gaza and the Palestinian people, and that he should go and they should go, and there should be new leadership in Israel.
But that there should also be no place in power or government going forward for a group like Hamas after what they did on October the 7th.
Would you agree with me?
Well, I'm not a Palestinian, so I cannot really.
What's your view?
Well, what's my view?
Yeah, I understand the view of...
Well, there's two things about it.
First of all, when you say that Netanyahu and Smotris and Ben Dafi should go, it's as if the rest of the Israeli political scene is peaceful.
As a matter of fact, more than 90% of Israelis in a poll said that they should do more in Gaza.
Over 70% of Israelis said that they should actually stop the aid, the humanitarian aid in Gaza.
But let's talk about how I understand the thing.
Like if you gave them a state, it would be rewarding terrorists, right?
And we understand, like, you know, I mean, I have to be fair.
I mean, I know that a lot of Arabs will hate me for saying this, but like, yeah, terrorism has been actually going in the Middle East for a very long time.
I mean, do you remember the bombing of the King David Hotel?
92 British soldiers were killed.
The bombing of the Cairo Hifa train, over 200 soldiers, British soldiers killed.
The assassination of Folket Benedotte or Lord Moyen, all done by Israeli Zionist militias.
They were the terrorists, and they were rewarded of having their own state.
So I don't understand the double standard.
As a matter of fact, one of the people who were in these terrorist attacks was Isaac Shamir, and he was on a terrorist list, English terrorists, and he couldn't come to London until he became a prime minister.
But to be fair, to be fair, the Israeli government at the time, 1949, have actually declared the Stern gang as a terrorist group, and they arrested two of them, and they gave them very, very, very, very severe sentences, eight and five years, and then they were released after a month.
Do you see any blame on your side for any of this going back to 1948?
Yeah.
Genuinely.
I mean, I'm not after a satirical response.
I mean, genuinely, when you look back at the history of this conflict, I mean, one of the most powerful pieces I read actually about all this, one that I just thought was very interesting, was a Jewish journalist called Jonathan Friedland of the Guardian.
And he wrote a column where he said he could make a very powerful argument, both for Israel and for the Palestinians, in which he could present a case that they were the more overriding victim of this whole conflict.
I'm aware of Jonathan Freeland.
What's your view of him?
Well, everybody knows he's a liberal Zionist.
He's one of the most outspoken people in defending Israel.
But my point was he said that he could construct a case for Palestinians to have a genuine right to feel aggrieved.
You know what else he said?
Can you do the same?
You know what else he said?
He said, Israel has a very difficult choice of if they continue doing it in the Gaza or not doing it in Haza.
All we can do is just acknowledge it and see it.
And this is very privileged because he can do it because he's on the stronger side.
And this is the thing.
It's like, oh, we can acknowledge it, we see it.
It's so bad.
We're killing civilians.
But what we can do?
And then we raise our hands at the end and say, like, ah, it's too bad.
It's inevitable.
War is so bad.
It's bad.
But to your point, yeah, I think the Palestinians had done a grave mistake for not accepting the settlement that they were given by the UN partition.
I mean, they were given 47% of their land.
And I mean, let's go back.
The Belfur Declaration was 1917.
At the time, there were 60,000 Jewish people living in a 700,000 population, which makes them 8%.
That number jumped from 8% to 30% after the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Now, imagine yourself being a Palestinian, you're having all of these refugees coming to you, and then they're forming gangs and stealing your land and killing you.
And then the UN said, like, I know what we can do.
I'm going to give the people who just arrived 30 years ago 53 of the land, and I'm going to give the people who are already there who formed 70% 47%.
So I would say to you, there are also hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who were displaced from their homes in Arab countries.
So was that wrong?
Well, I advise that you read Avi Schloim, who is a Jewish Iraqi, and he also, I think, is also British.
That's not the timeline.
The timeline was...
It is true, though.
Yeah, but that's not the timeline.
The timeline is important.
The timeline was the Zionist gangs, they were killed, they raped, they stole land, and then they basically evicted the people out of their land, and overnight, 750,000 Palestinians was displaced overnight.
Over the few years, of course, now Israel is now the enemy, and there was a lot of rise of nationalism.
And yes, in some countries, some countries, that happened.
But was that wrong is my point.
Of course, but like it is not the whole thing.
What I'm trying to do, and I'm not trying to trap you or trick you.
No.
I'm just trying to get you to concede that in a period since 1948, there have been things on both sides.
I'm not trying to equivocate either.
I'm just trying to get you to, I understand completely everything you've said and are going to say about Israel.
Tunnel Systems and Betrayal Accusations00:05:46
And you're very implacable about that.
You have every right to be, so I get that.
Can you find criticism of your own side in this argument going back to 48?
Proper criticism, where if things have been done differently, perhaps we wouldn't be where we are.
Okay, so if you are British and you had a million Ukrainians arriving to your home, and then over 30 years that number increased to 30% of the population, and then the UN gave you less than half of your country, wouldn't you fight?
Wouldn't you resist?
That wasn't my question.
What was your question?
Whether you can find anything to criticize.
Give me something to criticize.
I mean, there's a lot to criticize.
You know the history better than I am.
There is a lot to criticize.
Of course, there's a lot of mistakes.
I mean, the Middle East has been plagued by a lot of the military dictatorship.
Of course.
But having mistakes we should not be penalized by having our land taken away from us just because the other side is stronger, right?
Because what are you telling your kids?
If you're strong and you have enough arms and weapons, you can take whatever land you want.
That's not why the UN was formed.
That's not why the Security Council was formed.
When you heard that Sinoa, the Hamas leader, had been killed, what were your feelings about that?
Well, when I heard he was killed, of course, like, I mean, it was, this is something that was actually, I said, like, oh, wow, that's actually, he survived all of that.
But I think it was a huge mistake by the Israelis to release the footage because now he's an icon, right?
Is he?
Well, I mean, again, someone's terrorist is someone's else's hero, right?
Right.
But all he did was lob a piece of wood at them.
Yeah, well, well, I mean, he was also like, he was lost on arm, and he was there, and it took them three tanks to bring down the house.
I mean, hey, you can respect your enemy.
But when you saw the footage, for example, of Sinoa in one of the tunnels he'd helped create, spending the billions that have been given to Mazarin.
Billions?
Well, they were given billions of dollars.
And I would say Netanyahu was quite happy to do that because he wanted to create a split between Hamas and the Palestinian authorities.
So I'm not sure.
So why are we blaming Hamas?
No, I'm just saying that Hamas had an option of how to spend that money.
They were the government in power, and they chose predominantly to spend it on a tunnel system and arming themselves.
When you see Simoa walking through that tunnel safely with his wife and his kids and so on, and there's a load of money next to him, it was a huge pile of cash next to where he was supposedly sleeping.
When you see that, do you not think that he betrayed his own people?
That they weren't able to use these tunnels, the Palestinians?
He knew when he activated October the 7th and ordered it what the reaction was likely to be.
He was sentencing to death immediately thousands of his own people, none of whom were allowed apart from the Hamas elements to use the tunnel system.
I mean, is that not a sickening betrayal of his people?
Well, let's talk about the billions of dollars that was actually used.
I remember a report by Ben Shapiro, and he brought videos of Hamas digging up tubes, water pipes, and then it's like, and they're using them as weapons.
And they said, like, these are the money that was given to them by the EU, and they squandered, they took the money.
But the thing is, what Ben Shapiro didn't say that he stole that report from Al Jazeera.
He removed the narration.
And what the narration was said, that this was actually pipes that was installed by the Israelis in order to steal the money from Gaza.
So there's a lot of lying in the middle of the market.
I don't dispute this line, but what you can't dispute, Basil, is that clearly since 2005, Hamas has spent a fortune of money they could have spent differently with their people.
They spent it on this sophisticated and extensive tunnel system.
The tunnel system that is bigger than the New York subway system?
It would appear so.
450 miles?
I don't know.
Do you know how big it is?
450.
I mean, nobody...
I think if there's 450 miles underneath the tunnel, we have seen droves and droves of tunnels.
What we have seen is small rooms.
It's a very, very large.
So you don't believe that there is no...
No, I don't know.
I don't believe that.
Of course there are tons, but I don't believe that there are like 450 miles because that's ridiculous.
You want to understand.
You tell me that Hamas under siege were able to build a subway system bigger than New York in less than 15 years?
I don't think.
Did they serve their people though, with how they spent their money?
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I don't know.
The thing is, there's a lot of programming.
I don't know how much they spend on themselves.
I don't know how much they spend on the tons.
I don't know how much they spend on the people.
But the thing is, these are all side talks.
Their main talk is the daily killing that's happening all through it.
Like, I mean, yeah, they could be bad people.
They could be horrible people.
They could be corrupt people.
They could be or are.
They are.
Okay.
They are horrible.
They are vampires.
Do you believe that?
Or are you just saying that for performative reasons?
No, I'm saying that because, you know, again, I don't want to go and find the FBI at my door.
But I'd rather you're honest.
I mean, surely we're at the stage of this war now, a year on, where I can find a lot to criticize with Netanyahu and his government.
And I can find a lot to criticize with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with Iran.
I can find a lot to criticize all over the place.
And I think that's part of the problem is it's just an extraordinary mess with a lot of people who've been behaving badly.
In my opinion, betraying their people and making it almost impossible to come together for peace.
So basically, we punish the Palestinians for being betrayed by Hamas, and we punish the Palestinians again by letting them get slowly.
Well, you punish the Palestinians in the sense that you're exacting retaliation for a heinous terror attack on your people.
That's what the Israelis say.
Fine.
Okay.
Occupation Morality and Retaliation Logic00:02:35
Should they not have responded?
To Israel?
Yeah.
On October the 8th?
Should their response have been to do nothing?
Oh, it's the question of like, what would I have done, right?
Which is like one of the craziest questions ever.
Like, what would I have done?
What I've done if I magically got teleported into the body of a Senate.
What should they have done?
Again, this is asking after the fact, Piers.
But what do you think now, looking back?
What would have been a better course of action?
Their argument, Israel, is they went after Hamas.
They've just taken out the leader of Hamas, who was literally amongst people in Rafah, which was a refugee camp area.
That's where he was hiding.
And they killed him there.
They say that justifies them going into Rafah.
It's an arguable point, obviously, but you can't deny that Sinoir was hiding there.
They also say that all of what they've been doing is a response to what happened to their people and that they have to stop the group that did that from doing it again, which they're wedded to doing.
So what is their proportionate response?
Well, that's been the question I've asked for years.
Yeah, but like, you know, I don't know the answer.
That question kind of lost its validity after one month of the war.
Well, I've seen you say, for example, you've been critical of me saying, I only do what I do because I'm after clicks.
I'm after...
I never said that about you.
You did?
No.
No, you did.
When?
We found it.
When?
Let me find that clip.
Where is it?
Where is it?
Oh, I think it's a good question.
It's an interview.
Where is it?
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so you said this.
Yeah, yeah.
You said at the Arab Media Forum in June, I don't know why people care that Piers Morgan changes his opinion.
Yes.
He's a man who seeks trends and increasing viewership.
True.
As he hosts people and sits with them to raise viewership numbers.
Yes.
His opinion isn't important at all because he only cares about what is trending and what people will talk about.
So it doesn't matter that he changed his opinion.
Piers is a man who has a media platform on which we appear to convey our ideas to his viewers, nothing more.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
By the way, that's your job, actually, to get clicks and views.
No, the question I always ask is, what do you think of what you're saying?
Did he change your mind?
And I said, like, I don't care about him changing.
I understand that.
Because that's your job.
But the implication of what you were saying was that that's all I care about.
And that I don't actually care about what I genuinely care about, which is trying to work out what the world should think about this.
What is the correct proportion of response from either side to any of the things that have happened?
And it is, I think it is morally complex.
You find it morally more straightforward.
I find it complicated.
And I've wrestled with how I should think about this.
I've gone on a bit of a journey.
Now, it doesn't mean that, for example, I would find common ground with you about the way the Palestinian people have been treated for many decades.
October Barbarity and Click Chasing00:15:54
I do think it's been a form of occupation.
It's a form of?
Yeah.
Not an occupation.
Not a full-blown occupation.
As I said to Israelis when they come on, I don't know how you can argue that it's an occupation.
I know you moved out in 2005, but the reality is once this war started...
They didn't move out.
Well, once they formally moved out.
You basically...
You went out of the room and you locked the room and you basically controlled the perimeter of the opportunity.
I was about to say, after October the 8th, when they began to turn off the water supply, the food supply, the power and so on, it was quite clear they still wield power.
But that was going on since 2006.
No, I understand.
So I'm agreeing with you.
You know what?
I'm agreeing with it.
What I'm saying is, clearly that is a form of occupation.
Otherwise, it wouldn't have to be taken.
It is an occupation.
Yeah.
I mean, look.
It's like it's a form of terrorism.
Okay.
I take that point.
Let's call it an occupation.
And it has to end.
And in my view, I've always hoped and believed there should be a two-state solution.
Do you believe that is even remotely achievable now?
I don't know, because the thing is, you created a mess.
You completely destroyed all kinds of...
We say me.
What do you mean by me?
No, no, sure.
No, no, no, no, sure.
I mean, I'm like, you as a message.
Don't look at me when you say that.
I'm not creating any mess.
You created a mess as like you as the stronger part in the conflict.
The thing is, it is very disappointing to see.
I know that you mean well, but you are trying to two-sided.
Two-sided.
I found this is mistake.
But there are two sides.
Yes, but one side of the...
You're too one-sided.
And understand why.
You know, your wife has family in Gaza.
I get it, right?
You're going to be one-sided.
That's why I've asked you at the start of the interview, when you look back over since 1948, do you find anything to criticize on your side?
And your inability to articulate any response to that makes me think you are too one-sided.
Do you accept that?
If I met Mike Tyson in the streets and I kicked him and he responded by kicking me in the face, killing me.
Yes, I did, but he has a lethal weapon, his hands.
Israel is 100, 1,000 times stronger, and they have the hold of the support, all of the money.
But here's my analogy for you with the Mike Tyson thing.
If you had taken thousands of people and you'd gone to Mike Tyson's house and you committed atrocities on his extended family and friends, raping them and killing them and saving people alive.
Well, I know you don't believe there was any sexual abuse.
Well, there was sexual abuse.
We can talk about that.
Well, we will come to that, but I think it's inarguable.
It's been investigated by the United Nations to establish.
Well, I've had journalists who I respect more than any in the world.
Have you read the report?
There is indisputable evidence of sexual abuse.
Okay, let's talk about that when it comes.
We will.
And we'll agree to differ, I'm sure.
But my point is, I believe it has been established.
But putting aside that, you don't dispute people were killed.
You don't dispute people were set on fire.
You don't dispute any of the stuff that happened on October the 7th that we saw through Hamasi's own cameras, right?
Yeah, I don't know.
You don't dispute what we saw with our own.
I know what I've shown.
And of course, and as a matter of fact, I've seen many of them.
Yes, it's terrible.
Okay.
So my point is, if you did all that to Mike Tyson's family and then he's not going to be...
Well, hang on, but hang on.
It's a one-to-one man discussion.
But if you did all that and then he punished you in the face and killed you, would you feel that was justified?
No, but the thing is...
No?
Sir, sir.
You're trying to respect.
You're trying to...
Well, I'm throwing your analogy back at you.
You're trying to...
No, that's not the wrong analogy.
I'm saying me and Mike Tyson, man-to-man, is much stronger than me.
I'm not going to show up with like a thousand person.
So if you want to do the analogy, you need to modify the analogy again.
And the thing is, I think it's like we always ask what Israel should do, but we never ask what should the Palestinians do.
Because, I mean, I know that there is like really great examples.
I mean, there are some peaceful examples.
There's a beautiful boy called Mido.
He's 19 years old.
He's an exchange student in Texas.
And he was moved from one safe zone to the other, and he ended up into a safe zone.
And he was farming.
He had a beautiful, beautiful garden.
And he was farming and he was blogging about it.
His mom died because of lack of medicine, but he continued to farm.
And what happened to him?
He was killed in an airstrike.
You asked me about the Nilsen Mandela.
And there's a whole monk called Ahmed Abu Trema.
He was inspired by the civil rights movements and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.
And he toured the churches and the schools and the colleges in the United States.
And he came back and Israel hit him in an airstrike, killing five of his family, including his son, and he was injured.
If Palestinians march, they get killed.
If they throw a stone at a tank, they get killed.
If they sit at home quietly, someone will come in and take their home away and they kill them.
If someone just like picking up all of that, they will kill him.
So what would they say?
And I don't know, like, are like...
But it sounds to me like what you're doing, you're constructing.
But like I'm justifying October 7th, right?
No, no, I'm going to put words in your mouth, but it sounds to me like you're saying, what else did you expect?
Yeah, what else do you accept?
If you treat people like animals, they will behave like animals, Piers.
So you accept they behave like animals?
Yeah, some of them did, yes.
Some of them, yes.
Like yes, I mean there were 3,000 of them.
Yeah, yeah, but entering at 13 different points.
So 13,000, 3,000?
3,000 Hamas, 13 entry.
So for that, you killed 50,000 people.
Well, they killed 1,200 people.
They kidnapped over 20,000 people.
No, no, no, no.
I said like Israelis, for that, they killed 50,000 people.
Well, hang on, I'm about to give you the numbers as we now believe them.
So 1,200 people were killed, of which 400 were believed to be military.
Then you had nearly 7,000 more people who were wounded, many of them irrevocably badly.
You had over 250 people kidnapped, including a baby who's never been returned, Holocaust survivors, grandparents, and so on.
And my question is, really, I'm not sure what you would have expected Israel to do, but more impertinently, what should they have done?
Well, I don't know, Pierce, because...
So you've got to have some idea.
You can't just say what you did is wrong.
You've got to have a thing of, given what happened to them, given that huge blow to their country and to their people, given that Hamas said we're going to keep doing this to you, what should Israel have done?
So let's nuke Gaza, right?
I mean, that's like they have dropped.
They could have done.
My argument to those who say it's genocide is if they'd wanted to, Israel has the ability to blow out the whole of Gaza now.
They haven't done that.
So if you're not...
If you really are genocidal, why wouldn't you do that?
If people are still around, it's not a genocide.
If monkeys are still alive, there's no evidence.
Well, you have two million people residing in Gaza, of which over 42,000 have been killed.
Yes.
Yeah, okay.
So what's the question?
Is that genocide?
So what's the threshold?
Well, that's not.
My point is that if you're waging genocide, Israel has the capability to kill all 2 million people right now.
How about too much killing?
Is that good?
I think there has been too much killing.
How about extremely important?
It's a turn of life.
I don't think it's a genocide.
I mean, if you don't like the G-word, we can use it.
But I don't think it's a genocide, is it?
We're wasting our time in definition.
Well, we're not, because it's important, because what is genocidal is what Hamas has said they want to do to Israel.
What did they say to do that?
They want to eradicate Israel.
According to their charter?
Yes.
Which charter?
Well, their original charter said that.
And then what happened in 2013?
Well, I'd rather go forward to what happened.
No, no, but what happened?
No, no, hang on.
I know they rewrote the charter.
Yeah, but why don't you say that?
Because it's overtaken by what happened on October the 7th.
No, but because, Basin, because...
I mean, you're telling people the status code.
No, no, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying their original charter stated eradication of Israel.
And the Hamas spokesman said after October the 7th, we want to keep doing this again and again and again.
He said it on camera.
That is an existential threat to all Israel.
Well, there's a lot of horrible things that Israelis say on camera, Piers.
I agree.
But the only difference is that they're not.
But Israel acts on it and they have the power to do it.
But I've already told you that I believe that Bengavir and Smodric have used genocidal language.
It's not just them.
And you know it's not just them.
No, no, I can't.
It's a whole apparatus.
They're the two systems.
They're the two worst offenders.
But the rest of the government is terrible.
Yeah, so my question is again, and I think it's an important one, is I get that you don't think they should have done this the way they've done it, Israel.
But given they had to respond, how should they have responded?
When they responded in a more precision way, and we can come to you, I know you don't agree with me about this, but I think you criticized Bill Maher for saying that what they did with Hezbollah was a military success.
Well, indisputably, from a military perspective, it was successful.
They managed to be very precise in targeting 3,000 members of Hezbollah at the same time through pages.
As an active military strategy, it was very effective.
It did kill a lot of civilians as well.
And that is obviously...
It's too bad, of course.
No, no, it is too bad.
All civilian death is too bad.
But my point is, if they had done that strategy in Gaza, where they had gone after Hamas through pages or whatever, I still think you would have said it was wrong.
Israel is the strongest part in this, and they have unlimited supply of money and power.
And as you say, in superhero movies, with great power, there's great responsibility.
And the whole idea of how could they respond, and then we sit there discussing this while Israel is actually responding on a daily basis.
By the time we finish this interview, it's a valid question, isn't it?
It's a valid question about how you think they should have done it differently.
Or you think they should have done nothing.
No, I didn't say that.
They said nothing.
Israel has the technology and the ability to do more surgical attacks when they're this, but to decimate a whole region, displacing 100% of the population, I don't think we have to.
I think it's wrong.
Good.
I agree with you.
Good.
I do.
Good.
Now, it's not on me to decide to Israel what to do.
Maybe Israel could check with itself and see what had led to that.
Yes, what happened is terrible, but they need to discuss.
But like, you know, the thing is, there is a roadblock between us, Piers, because it seems that we are far apart of actually what happened October 7th.
And I know there's a lot of people here who came and talked about what happened October 7th.
I would like to have a chance to tell you what, with my point of view, what me and my people think.
And you can tell me what you think happened.
So there are three big things that made the world accept what is happening now in Palestine.
And they talk like what would happen now?
Three things.
The story about the decapitated babies.
That was not true.
Good.
So why didn't the Western media refute it?
Why didn't they?
Well, it was refuted very quickly.
Really?
Yes.
But how many times the Western media has used that media?
Until today, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, is still repeating it.
Until now, Benjamin Netanyahu.
That's true.
I know, I know.
But it was you.
But it has been discounted by the media.
No, not really.
It has.
Not really.
And it didn't.
And in the discounting refuting, and I think when you have an apology or a retraction, it has to be...
Yeah, but I was accused of saying it.
I never said it.
You said.
No, no, I didn't say it.
You said, you said it came to me as a revelation that I read about 40 killed, 40 murdered babies.
Some of them are decapitated.
Yeah, maybe not.
You said that.
Which were early reports.
With John Collins.
Yeah.
Right.
Which were early reports.
I understand.
Which turned out not to be true.
I know, but like this, but you understand the shock, the initial shock that made the public turn a blind eye of what's happening.
Like, I mean, if I was like a European, I was like, oh my God.
I would throw back at you, Bess and this.
I don't know if you've seen all the GoPro camera footage from Hamas that they broadcast to the world, but I have seen a lot of it.
I have them.
I've seen that.
So I think splitting hairs, which is what I would call it, over the nature of the depravity, given the way that they openly boasted and gleefully conducted so much depravity.
I just think it's a bit pointless.
It's like, what's the point?
What you're trying to say is, yes, they were barbaric.
Yes, they were disgusting.
They may not have done this precise thing, so therefore I give them a pass.
But no, but that matters.
I know what, because if I came here on your show and I told you five million children were slaughtered in Gaza, what would you tell me, Piers?
He said, no, there are only 16,000 people.
Fax matters.
Because fact matters.
Because here's the difference between...
But I told you I agree with you.
But here's the thing: the difference between killing children and decapitating babies, the image of decapitating a baby, that makes max makes sense.
But kidnapping a baby is okay.
Never.
But they kidnapped a baby.
You see, you're coming down to it.
You're coming back to like...
No, no, I'm saying, what's the difference?
No, the difference is.
You kidnap a baby and take it away from its baby.
But you decapitate 40 babies?
That's terrible, right?
I mean, the thing is, both of them are not.
You're trying to, if you don't mind me saying, what you're trying to do is say, well, they weren't quite as medievally barbaric as that, but they did do this, and that's not as bad.
And I'm saying to you, actually, it is as bad.
Yeah, one person.
One person killed one person.
And they did behead people.
Where?
On October the 7th.
When?
Multiple reports.
Most of beheadings.
Babies?
I didn't say babies.
I said they did behead people.
But is beheading an adult worse than that?
How many decapitated babies, Philistines, have you seen already on television?
Way too many.
Yes, disgusting.
Yes, I can't.
But I can say both are disgusting.
Can you?
Yes.
You do?
Of course.
So you accept people were beheaded.
But again, media.
Do you accept people were beheaded on October 7th?
I haven't seen anyone beheaded.
So no evidence of any...
I've never seen it.
What do you think happened then to all these people?
Oh, they were shot point blank.
Some of them...
Not one beheaded.
You don't believe those reports?
I don't believe them, yeah.
Come on.
But like, even in one or two, it's terrible, of course, but like, okay, you go in.
I mean, I don't understand.
My point is, Piers, is that on October 7th, there's a lot of very, very sensational reports that made people turn a blind eye to what's going on in Gaza.
One of them is the beheaded babies, right?
But that was discounted so quickly.
No.
It was, I remember.
Well, so why is Mike Johnson still doing it and saying it like that?
I've not seen him do that, but if he is, he's wrong.
Yeah, but many of them still, that is actually the narrative.
That's the narrative.
I've not seen anyone in officials.
So one thing, this is the decapitated.
The second thing, the Hannibal Directive.
Low-key sat here in my chair, and you talked to him and you said you read a piece of heart saying that investigation if the IDF ordered Hannibal directive to be used, adding that they don't know how many soldiers were killed, but it was used.
And then two minutes later, he said, like, there's a lot of documentation.
And he said, like, I just read it to you.
It's never happened.
No, it happened, Piers.
Now, in the same report that you quoted.
I did later in the interview tell him that I knew that there had been reports in Haritz that that had happened.
Yes, and there is a lot of...
But just to be clear, that's not been admitted by the Israeli government.
Yeah, well, they're liars.
Yeah, but I'm not saying it didn't happen.
I'm just saying I did say to Loki that there is reporting in Heretz, which is one of the big Israeli media publications, that it happened and that order had been given.
It has been unequivocally denied by Israel.
Yes.
That's my point.
I know, I know, okay.
My point about what Hamas did is almost all of it is indisputable because they gleefully broadcast it to the world.
These things are not up for debate.
They went house by house.
I never denied that and I'm not defending it.
So trying to equivocate with the scale of the barbarity.
No, the scale is important.
The scale is important because if you came to interview, first of all, the original number was 1,400.
It was down now to 1,200 and then down to 1,129.
That is the final official number.
One baby was killed, Mila Kohin, 10 months old.
And one kidnapped.
One kidnapped.
All right.
And 12 kids were killed between the age of 1 to 9 and 36 were killed between 9.
And you don't believe that any women were sexually abused.
Okay, let's talk about that.
But before that, I just want to just mention something about the...
Because that's important.
This is the pictures.
You know this picture, right?
Kidnapped Children and Burnt Cars00:17:26
Is this burnt out cars after October?
Yes.
This is the apparent car.
All right.
And then we should believe that Hamas went in with AK-47 and caused that kind of damage.
Have you seen the footage of them actually going car by car doing that kind of thing?
Yeah, yeah, but they didn't.
This is burned under street.
How do you know how many of they did?
Does this look like AK-47 thing?
It looks like a bunch of cars have been set on fire, yeah.
Yeah, set on fire.
Okay, this, and then a few, like I know.
What's your argument?
The Israelis did all that themselves.
This is pictures for something called the Highway of Death from Iraq.
This is the same thing.
This is Apaches.
These are Apaches, right?
So this is actually cars.
Right, but have you seen the footage of Hamas going car to car?
Yeah, killing them with machine guns.
And setting fire to the cars.
Yeah, but that is not the Apache.
Actually, that is exactly how that is.
Yeah, that is like a car of an Apache.
These are the Apaches.
It's also the look of a car that's been set on fire.
Yeah, but that doesn't cause the problem.
You're just surmising.
You're guessing.
No, I'm not guessing.
Why are you trying to excuse what Hamas did?
One of them is, well, I'm not excusing.
I'm talking about facts.
But these aren't facts.
This is just you saying that.
At least, at least.
Have you seen many burned-out cars in your life?
No, I have.
Really?
And I have two.
In the revolution, I had many.
Yeah, but that's...
And they didn't look like that?
But this is Apaches.
Or it's burnt-out cars.
So many cars were there.
Yeah, there were a lot.
They went car to car to car.
They were literally stopping cars and killing people to burn.
Interesting, yes.
Why wouldn't you believe it?
They wanted us to believe that.
They wanted to show the world that.
Well, at least there is a shred of doubt.
Well, there's not really.
What you're trying to do, Bassim, and I understand it, but what you're trying to do is you're trying to put a little protective shield up to what Hamas did.
And my response is, I don't know why you would do that, because Hamas didn't want any protective shield to what they were doing.
They were gleeful about it.
They showed the world in live streaming exactly what they were doing.
They were proud of their depravity.
You don't need to defend it.
I'm not defending it.
Or downgrading it.
Or reduce it.
I'm talking.
Well, let's talk about your claim that you don't think any women were sexually abused.
Yes.
Well, the Times of London, which is a right-leaning newspaper, talked about the UN report, and they said Pramila Patton, who confirmed Israeli authorities were unable to provide much of the evidence that political leaders had insisted existed in all the Hamas video footage Patton's team had watched and all the photographs they had seen.
There were no depictions of rape.
We hired the leading Israeli dark web researchers to look for evidence of those images, including footage deleted from public sources.
None could be found.
And Patton said the first letter that I received from the government of Israel talked about hundreds of thousands of cases of brutal sexual violence perpetrated against men, women and children.
I have not found anything of that.
That's the UN report.
Well, the same UN Special Representative, Pramila Patton, reported in March 24 that there was, quote, clear and convincing information that Israeli hostages in Gaza experienced sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.
That there are reasonable grounds to believe such abuse is ongoing.
And there was also, her quotes, reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7th of October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery, including rape and gang rape in at least three locations.
The Commission said has refused to stemming by journalists and the Israeli police.
I mean, I'm reading the same report.
It's the same woman.
And I'm reading the same woman.
March 2024.
So my point is, you're reading selectively from that report.
And you're reading selected.
Well, no, I'm reading a point which actually crystal clear that there was sexual abuse and violence both on October the 7th and indeed to hostages, which may be ongoing.
No, I have read the whole report.
And then what you're saying is...
Why haven't you read that?
I've read that.
If you read that, you would include that.
But if you read that, you'd include that too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the thing, you see what you're seeing here?
No, no, you're just not reading that out.
Well, Pierce, the thing is like...
I have great respect for you, Bassim.
If you're going to use a woman's quotes to prove your point, you've got to use the rest of the quotes where she actually proves the opposite.
Yeah, but in the same report, they said that all of this was not provided by the Israeli any forensic evidence that proved that.
It's mostly witnesses that was provided by the...
Convincing information.
Reasonable grounds to do.
So what are, but there was no...
It was written and there is.
I've also read people like Christina Lamb, one of the best war correspondents in the world, who writes for the Sunday Times, who has done some stunning journalism with victims of this abuse, female victims of the sexual abuse and rape.
I mean, are you saying she's just made that up?
Is she lying?
She's an award-winning journalist.
Why would she?
Well, also Gettelman, who's an award, Jeffrey Gettelman, who's an award-winning journalist of the New York Times, who wrote the Screams Without Voices or Screams Without Words, his article was completely panned by 60 journalists who said that that article was a shame.
No, you're saying that Christina Lamb just made her reporting out.
I don't know who's Christina Lamb.
You've never heard of her?
No.
Literally one of the top war correspondents in the world.
Renowned for her utter impartiality.
Yeah, but the thing is...
From a series of reports of women who were raped and abused by Hamas and continue to be so, the hostages.
You don't believe any of it.
You think none of it's happened?
No, I don't believe it.
You see, I find that disheartening that you wouldn't believe that.
No, I don't believe it.
It makes me think, Bassim, that, and I listen, I say to you, I have great respect for you, but it makes me think you look at it through such a partisan prism that you can't even when confronted with obviously reports.
Well, yeah, but you said I showed you had the Hannibal report.
But the point you're trying to make is, well, all these cars were obviously blown up by Israel.
Hamas didn't do that to any of them.
Hamas didn't rape or abuse any women.
And it's all bullshit.
Of course they did.
Really?
Yes.
Okay.
You know it.
In your heart, you know it.
I don't think so.
You don't want to concede an inch.
And understand why, because you think that actually the bigger picture is Israel's behaved like this for so long towards the Palestinians with their occupation, part of the Palestinian.
As a member of the people, you're not raising Palestinians on camera.
But you think it diminishes your argument if you give an inch to any of this stuff.
My point to you, it would actually, I think it would strengthen you, not diminish you, if you were able to concede these things had happened.
Rather than try and defend it or try and excuse it or pretend it didn't happen.
This particular point, Pierce, has been debated by so many people on board.
The woman you quoted, I've literally just read to you on the other side.
And I've just written some.
You didn't read out what she's actually.
And you didn't read out mine.
So that means that this is a very conflicting report at best.
All right.
And the thing is, many of those witnesses like Rhys Cohen and Shiri Mendes, they have changed their testimonies many times and they made their way all the way to Tapper, you know, on his show.
And he has been laundering the whole idea about the mass rape day after day.
And nobody, even the New York Times, they were going to make a podcast, the daily, about that article and they withdrew because there's not enough evidence.
Okay, let's say I'm wrong.
Let's say that all of that is wrong.
Isn't that at least a shade of doubt that we should investigate this further?
Because in that report, Pamera Patton said that we send five requests to the Israeli authorities and one request to the Palestinian authorities and none of our requests in the Palestinian.
As I read to you, she then goes on to say there's clear and convincing information of hostages, Israeli hostages, having sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture.
And also, the Commission was also unable to verify reports of sexualized torture and gender mutilation.
Additionally, the Commission found some specific allegations to be false, inaccurate, or contradictory with other evidence or statements and discounted these from its SSC.
But what is the central point of your argument is that Hamas is not quite as bad as we thought, Arcturia?
No, no, I don't care about Hamas.
I care about the Palestinian people killed every day.
How can you not care about that?
Even Hamas, you know what?
Hamas is terrible, man.
Is there a horror rapist?
Should Hamas.
You know what?
Hamas did everything.
Hamas did all of that.
Let me ask you.
Hamas did all of that.
Should Hamas retain any power coming out of this in Gaza?
I don't know if any of them would be left.
But should they retain power on principle?
It's up to the Palestinian people.
What do you think?
I don't know Hamas.
By the way, I told you before, I'm not a big fan of Hamas.
As a matter of fact, Hamas being an Islamic faction, I'm not a big fan of the product.
Same.
I'm not a big fan of them either.
But you should not punish a whole group of people, our population, because a militant group that is embedded within the population did some atrocities.
Israel has the absolute ability to locate and kill people through their satellite, and they have...
There is no excuse for blowing up empty universities or mosques or churches or destroying 90% of the infrastructure of a place.
No matter what they did, because the people who did it, they're horrible, they are zombies, they're crazy, they're terrorists.
You should not punish a whole people.
That's collective punishment.
So let me ask you.
I don't disagree with some of what you just said.
I do think it's been a collective punishment.
I think it's wrong.
I think it's gone way too far.
I think that Gaza has just been systematically destroyed.
And I have no idea what the plan is for Africa because the Israelis don't seem to have a plan.
And it worries me enormously now, the rhetoric about going after the Iranian regime and where that will lead because of the way that global politics is working in relation to Iran.
But these are big picture issues.
We may get time for that.
Let me ask you specifically about the Jerusalem Post.
We've accused you repeatedly of anti-Semitism.
What do you say to that?
I mean...
Everybody is an anti-Semite in the eyes of Israel.
Do you think you are or not?
What is anti-Semitism?
Somebody who has a hatred of Jewish people because of their Jewish ethnicity?
Good.
Where did I show that kind of thing?
I'm just asking you.
How do you feel about Jewish people?
I mean, should I go do the white man thing?
Like, most of my friends are Jewish.
No, no.
How do you feel about Jewish people?
Like any other people.
Like any other people.
What are you talking about?
You've been accused of.
So I've been accused of being a CIA.
I'm not saying you're guilty.
I'm just saying you've not been accused of.
No, no, no.
I've been accused of so many things.
You've been accused of so many things.
Of course, right?
And it's annoying.
And then the thing is, anti-Semitism.
If you're not that person.
Anti-Semitism has turned into, if you criticize Israel, you're anti-Semitic.
I agree.
Yeah?
So it's.
It's been used as a protective shield against criticism.
It's a way to shut down conversations.
But there are also lots of genuine anti-Semites.
Yes.
Who do hate Jewish people.
Of course.
And want to kill them.
And there is a lot of people who hate Muslims, and there's a lot of people who hate gays, and there's a lot of people who hate white people.
Right.
Yeah.
What do we do about where we are with this situation now?
What's the solution?
Solution?
Yeah.
Genuinely.
I mean, I'm not a political analyst, but again, and I'm sorry being one-sided, but there is one side who has all the power, all the money, all of the weapons.
They have been controlling the political spectrum.
This is how many people in the Congress.
So how do we get to a solution?
Do you believe in the idea of a...
Or do you believe in a two-state solution, for example?
I don't know.
I mean, it's not up to me.
Could it work?
Could you have a Palestinian state?
Side by side with the USA.
How would it work with Israel taking all of the West Bank and made it cut off?
Well, that's all again.
How could it work?
Again, I told you a quote from a book by Obama, and I'm telling it again.
The problem with the Palestinian Israeli conflict is that one side of them is very powerful and the other side is very weak.
Why would Israel concede?
But if Israel has the power, as you say, and I'm not denying they have a lot of power, if they have the power, how should that best be wielded to try and find peace through out of all this?
I mean, I remember Northern Ireland, right?
People said it was intractable.
Loyalists and Republicans wanted to kill each other all the time, living side by side in utter enmity.
And they did eventually get there.
They had pressure leadership and they got there.
The terrorists became politicians.
They worked it out.
They got peace.
There is now peace in Northern Ireland, where many people for decades didn't think there would be.
Did you see any parallels there?
Because the stronger side, which is Britain at the time, they kind of like they were reasonable.
They didn't go and assassinate the leaders of the IRA, right?
Well, they tried.
They tried, but they didn't.
They did kill a lot of IRA members, yeah.
Yeah, but there's people, there's negotiators that you don't.
Well, they didn't do was go and target and attack civilian areas with bombing to kill IRA terrorists.
That's good.
Well, they didn't do what I was doing.
So why didn't England do that?
They were like IRA targets.
Why did they go in and just like destroy Belfast?
Why didn't they do that?
Because their own side were also living in those homes.
Yeah.
They all lived amongst each other.
No, because it's different.
But in Gaza, you don't have Israelis living side by side.
So wait a minute.
So if there were Israelis living, you would protect those lives, but the Palestinians wouldn't have to do it.
Obviously, it's far more unlikely to bomb a civilian population area, even if they think Hamas are lurking inside it, if Israeli people are also living there.
Yes, because they don't.
So that's the difference between that and Northern Ireland, is my point.
Yeah, because they don't care about the Palestinians' lives.
Well, it doesn't involve Israeli lives.
The analogy with Northern Ireland would be in that circumstance, it would.
I don't know how can we move forward with one side having all the power.
I mean, like, if Israel is actually sincere about it, they should end the OTK.
I mean, they should do the mildest thing, which is like stop the settlement.
I agree.
They are not.
Somebody asked me, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK said to me, do you think what's been happening with the settlements expansions in the last year on the West Bank is that terrorism?
I said, yes, it is.
To me, it's what's true.
It's terrorism.
So Israel is committing daily terrorism every single time.
I agree.
On the West Bank, at a certain point, something had to give.
And it's terrible, but something had to give.
Again, if you treat people like animals, they behave as animals.
So how do we get...
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, like, do we expect the Palestinians to sit down as well-behaved victims while they're being killed?
Well, they should be slaughtered while not making noise.
That's impossible.
Who should bring Palestine out of this?
I don't know, because all of the Nelson Mandelas are either killed or in jail.
Should it be other Arab countries?
I don't know.
Some people talk about a calculation.
I don't have UAE, I don't have a solution.
I don't have a solution, please.
Really?
Have you not thought about it?
I'm not having a solution because the solution is very difficult and complicated when Israel is doing what it's doing and having all of the support of the Western media and the Western government.
What should America be doing?
Get off the phone and said, stop.
As easy as it is.
But they don't.
It's terrible.
Why haven't they done that, do you think?
When did they ever do it?
What has been President Biden and oh yeah, they would have like a slap on their hand every now and then and they stop and they pause the arms and then they will continue doing it again.
No.
No.
I mean they're doing it again.
And they think it's like they're using the same exact same exact thing.
You know, it's like, do you remember the one that I saw that I showed you, this one?
Similar.
This was like the kill between the Palestinians.
Yeah.
Remember that?
I remember.
Now they go into Lebanon and they're doing the same thing.
Look at that.
These are the Lebanese people.
But they're also destroying Hezbollah.
Yeah, but at what cost?
And the thing is, like if you look at the...
If you look at that, remember when I gave you what is the exchange rate?
It seems that the best investment that you can do is Israeli souls because they never depreciate Israeli souls.
Invest in Israeli souls.
They don't know Simon, right?
I don't know if they have to.
But given that Hezbollah's response on October the 8th was to start unleashing rockets at Israel, which they carried on doing all year, at what point did they not unleash it?
They didn't unleash rockets as Israel.
Maddie Hassan already told you that.
They immediately in Shabbat format.
No, he was spilling hairs.
What?
He was filling hairs.
Well, okay, but it's land that Israel's claimed to disown since 1967.
Okay, so they say it's theirs.
But they knew what they were doing.
What's the difference between Hezbollah and Israel?
Although I'm not a big fan of Hezbollah, Hezbollah always targets military bases.
That's not true.
They've killed civilians.
Yeah, how many?
Not as many as Israel.
But they've killed civilians.
They killed 42.
Yeah, but the idea they're only targeting.
They're only targeting military.
And Israel killed 1,000.
1,000 for 42.
That's like a 1 to 20.
But they've also targeted thousands of Hezbollah very precisely with these pages.
And then they killed 1,000 people.
Right.
Yeah.
So it's not really targeted.
And when you go and vaporize a whole square or a whole block, killing 200 people.
I mean, the thing is, we talk about terrorism, right?
We talk about terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, right?
But we never...
Is killing terrorists, even if you kill civilians in the process, is that in itself an act of terrorism to you?
So what's the proportionality?
You tell me?
I don't know, but it's not one to one thousand.
But if you keep saying you don't know, it's a convenient get out.
You're very smart.
You do the same thing.
I ask you, what should the Palestinians go?
I don't know.
Yeah, but your answer to whenever I say what should Israel do, you don't have one for any of them.
Stop what they're doing.
That's actually what they know.
I do know.
Well, hang on.
Yeah, but I'm not sure you do because you don't like Hamas, you don't like Hezbollah, you don't like terrorism.
You know they've been waging terrorism against Israel.
I don't know what you expect Israel to do.
Normalized Relations and Terrorism Definitions00:07:03
What do I expect Israel to do?
What do I expect the people that actually have received the occupation and the killing of Israel every day?
I mean, like, you're killing them.
I mean, should they just stay silent?
They're all resistant, all freedom fighters?
Yeah, for their people, yes.
In your mind, are they?
If I was living, if I was living in Palestine, if I was in Lebanon, I would actually cheer on those people because basically they're the bigger bully with bigger guns.
They're killing me.
So, yeah.
I mean, a lot of people who live there don't agree.
No, I don't know.
A lot of people I know in the Lebanon do not agree with that.
Yes, I understand.
They don't think Hezbollah has been a very insidious influence on that country.
Of course, but even those people who hate Hezbollah, they don't like what Israel is doing to them.
But what is it?
About 30% of people in Lebanon support Hezbollah.
70% don't.
I don't have these numbers.
Two-thirds of the country don't support them.
Yes.
They don't represent the people.
Oh, good.
So they don't represent the people, and yet you're killing people around Hezbollah, even if they don't represent them.
So why?
Well, they're killing, in their eyes, they're killing terrorists.
Well, in their eyes, they're doing whatever.
In their eyes, they were thinking that whatever school that they bombed in Egypt was inside the military basis.
Do you accept, as we've been talking, though, that it is complicated?
It's not simple.
No, it's not really complicated.
There is an occupation that should end.
If the occupation didn't happen, all of that wouldn't have happened.
This problem was...
You believe if the occupation, as you put it...
Yes.
I don't dispute the terminology.
But you believe if they just ended that tomorrow, any form of control over Palestine, there would be no more attacks or ideology of wanting to attack Israel after that.
I think it's very naive.
There would be.
These groups are wedded to the elimination of Israel.
Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian regime, they want Israel done, gone.
And surrendering any kind of control over Gaza, for example, is not going to stop that.
You keep doing it, right?
Well, no, but how do you move to a place where you no longer do it?
You don't expose your country, as they put it together.
As much as I don't like all of these groups that you have mentioned, but those people have actually were the kind of cause and effect, right?
Because again, and Mahdi hasn't told you, there was no Hezbollah in 1978, there was no Hezbollah in 1982, and there was no Hamas in 1948, and there was no Hamas in 1970s.
But the ideology existed.
Really?
Yeah, the groups weren't set up, but the ideology existed.
Where was the ideology in 1978?
Where were Hezbollah?
You don't think anyone in those places hated Israel in 1978?
Israel doesn't need an excuse to go in and occupy and kill people.
They're already talking to you.
Well, they say they deny it.
But the thing is, Pierce, you already have people in Israel talking openly about Greater Israel, about like a huge expansion of Israel.
Tomorrow they will find a Hamas in the West Bank.
They will find a had-Hezbollah in Jordan.
They will find a Houthi in Syria.
What do you think they really want to achieve, Israel?
Expansion.
Expansion.
To what end?
I don't know.
You should ask them, because they have...
I do ask them, and they deny it.
They have been...
Of course.
Well, how many times did they deny things, and how many times they denied killing UN workers?
How many times did they deny it?
And the thing is, Piers, we have, you can talk whatever you want about the Houthis and the Hezbollah and whatever, but you have liars.
You have people who are patent people.
We have liars on both sides.
Yes, but one of them has the power, and one of them is taking my tax dollars and your tax dollars to...
Iran has power, you would agree?
Yeah.
And Iran is funding and training Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
So they are exercising and wielding their own power in a proxy manner.
So is there much difference between Israel wielding its power as a state against Iran wielding its mighty power through proxies?
Okay.
I remember when you went on trigger normative, you talked about Benjamin Netanyahu being a great visualist, right?
A great visualist.
What do you mean?
Like illustrate, he was like, he saw you.
What was the word that you used?
I don't know.
Like when he started...
So he took me to the map behind the middle of the middle.
On the map, right?
With his hand up.
And he put his hands around the fountain.
It was a powerful optic.
It's not really.
It's actually, it's very deceiving.
Why?
Because most of the countries that he was measuring in the hands, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are actually with either peace treaties, so they're almost normalized.
So basically, most of the huge, bad, big countries, they're not a threat to Israel.
But shouldn't that be where the Middle East should go?
Shouldn't all the countries have normalized relations?
May I just finish my point?
The thing is, when you put it like that, you're basically giving the idea of like, oh, look at these small victim countries that they have no power.
Now, so the first thing, most of these huge countries have peace treaties with them.
The second thing, size is not everything, because with the same concept, England is very small compared to India and Pakistan.
India is very small compared to all of their colonies.
It's not really about the size, it's about the firepower.
It doesn't matter if David is half the size of Goliath, if Goliath is armed with a sword and David is armed with a machine gun.
Israel, you can talk about the proxies and the Husis, but the Republic, basically they are supported by not just America, but England and Germany.
Do you not think that after the normalization of relations with, for example, UAE and Israel and so on, that it was clear that Saudi wanted to go down that same path, almost certainly still do, that Iran saw that as a massive threat to them and their power in the region?
And that is why they helped orchestrate October the 7th to derail.
I really don't know how this would happen.
This is like a very inside information that I think politically.
Many people have reported it.
So, okay.
It makes perfect sense, right?
Maybe.
And if that's true, what's your view of how that should play out?
I mean, the thing is, even...
Wouldn't it be better if they all had normalized relations with Israel?
All those Arab countries?
Yes, I would love to have peace in the Middle East, but peace comes from justice.
And the thing is, if you get peace just because you subjugate the people, that's not peace.
Arab countries take charge then out of this of Gaza, of the Palestinian people, and shouldn't they lead the way?
One of the arguments the Israelis say is, well, the Arab countries are nowhere anywhere to be seen when this stuff blows up.
It's always left to us to handle it.
If Arab countries went in and took charge of Arab people in...
What do you mean, take charge?
What do you want them to do today?
Well, help form sustainable, peaceful governments.
And would Israel?
Well, if they had normalized relations with Israel, say it's UAE leading it, right?
Or Saudi.
And they said, look, we want to have normalized relations with Israel.
So we're going to make sure there is no more of this stuff going on in Gaza.
Okay, leave it to us.
And it was driven by Arab countries and Arab politicians.
And they worked out a way to rebuild Gaza and to give the Palestinian people a genuine future, which didn't involve reliance on terror groups.
And because of their relations with Israel, Israel could trust them to do that.
Is that not in the end the only way this is?
That's a very wishful thinking because Israel will not allow anybody to interfere.
Israel has maybe not.
But they are normalizing relations with a number of people.
Yes, but they're normalizing with Saudi, UAE, Egypt.
It doesn't matter.
Clinton Deals and Peace Accord Sabotage00:05:44
The matter is the occupation.
Again, I'm going to go back to the same thing.
I know I'm going to be able to do that.
Sorry, I'm not going to say that.
To be clear, that would also involve the end of any Israeli occupation of any kind.
Yeah, okay, if you end the occupation, if the Palestinians accept the deal.
Yes.
You know, because the thing is that there's a lot of, I'm sorry to say, and I'm not meaning you, of course, there's a lot of deception and lies about what actually happened between, because most of the urban myth is that the Palestinians have squandered their chance time after time.
Ehud Barak was on your show last week, and he told.
Arafat did walk away from what would have been the best deal.
That is not true.
It is true.
That's not true.
Bill Clinton talked me through the whole thing.
Okay.
I don't think he's a liar about sexuality.
He is a liar.
Do you know why?
Really?
Yeah, he is.
Why would he lie?
Okay, I'll tell you why.
Because in 1998, during the negotiations, Netanyahu took him aside and he told him that we destroyed the tapes.
And when he said this story toward the tapes, he's talking about Monika Lewinsky tapes.
This is actually like an article from the Times of Israel when actually this was used by Netanyahu, these tapes, as a leverage for him to release Jonathan Poland despite bonkers conspiracy theory.
Times of Israel.
Okay.
Okay, but like, can I finish?
Okay, I mean, like, you know, some.
Netanyahu destroyed Moliki.
No, no, no, he didn't destroy it.
No, no, he blackmailed the sitting president with sex tapes with Monika Lewinsky.
Do you believe that?
Yes, I believe that.
I don't believe that.
I'll tell you what happened.
By the way, I can give you that to read it.
It's the Times of Israel, not making this up.
And there's actually multiple books about it.
And then Netanyahu, then Bill Clinton went to Georgetown to release Jonathan Paul.
Jonathan Paulo was a spy who stole the nuclear secrets of America.
And then he was jailed and he was giving the Israeli citizenship in jail.
And then he went to Georgetown, Bill Clinton, and said, release Jonathan Pauler.
And it's like, I will resign if that happens.
So I don't know.
If I'm a president and I have sex tape against me by the prime minister of the Israelis, I would lie.
Because what happened.
Who do you think would be the best?
I just want to finish something about Tawa, because what happened in Tawa, there is a very interesting video on YouTube between Jos Korobo and Micah Brzezinski.
And they were hosting Mr. Giovanni Brzezinski, who's Michael's father.
And Jos Korobo said the same exact thing.
He said, like, yes, sir, Arafat worked for the best deal, Evan.
And then Brzezinski, who was the security, he was the national security advisor to Bill Clinton, he said, your information is so bad, it's embarrassing to listen to you.
Because what happened is that Arafat didn't walk away.
He said, I need some time to take this deal to the Arab leaders because the deal was very controversial.
And what happened is that Ehud Barak left Tawa.
He went back to, and he lost the elections in Israel.
So it was terminated by Ehud Barak leaving Tawa.
In India.
But that's not the way Clinton recalls.
Yeah, well, he's a liar.
Well, maybe they're all liar.
Well, Bill Clinton is a very liar.
I mean, he lied.
He lied about Monica Lewinsky and he lied.
He's a liar.
Who would be the better winner of the American presidential election in Texas?
A better?
For getting this sorted in the Middle East?
I don't know because both...
Trump or Harris.
Trump and Harris, both of them are competing over who's Israel's favorite bitch.
I mean, I don't understand.
It wouldn't make any difference.
I came to America.
I was so happy to vote in the United States.
And I was like one of those people, blue no matter who.
But then I see the Republicans and the Democrats, they fight tooth and nails about everything.
They fight on health care, about abortion, about guns.
And then when it comes to Israel, it's like, who's better serving Israel?
It doesn't make any sense.
I mean, when Netanyahu went in Congress, he was received like a rock star.
It was.
I was so sad.
And then I was watching it and I thought this is how liberty dies to a thunderstorm.
Well, it just shows that there is, from many American politicians, they will show blind support to Israel.
Yeah, but that's not right.
That is not true.
I agree.
But that's what it is.
That's terrible.
I mean, that is not right.
I mean, I don't know where that would take us.
You've done a song which I wanted to end with because it just made me chuckle.
What's the song called?
It's about Bibi.
Bibi's trial.
Bibi's trial, because he's obviously facing corruption children.
Yeah, let's take a little look at this.
All right, no need to stand up.
It's the ICC and the House.
What's up?
The sentence?
No brainer.
My mind is made up.
In my verdict, he'll go straight up to jail, BB, your touchdown.
In the case number.
Ah, wait, I don't even remember.
I lost count of all the innocent souls you daily murdered.
I sentenced you to life in prison.
That's only for starters.
It's the fastest sentence at Pan.
I mean, it may be chuckle, but the irony of this, of course, is that Netanyahu's never actually been popular, as popular as he is today since the start of all this on October 7th.
Yeah.
Because the more he goes after Hamas and Hezbollah, the more Israeli people seem to support him.
Yeah, I mean, he is a guy who have bragged many times about sabotage in the peace accords.
He is the guy who went in front of Congress and told them that you should invent Iraq, like a war that you have opposed.
Right?
And again, it brings me back to the thing.
I mean, the Gaza and the West Bank and all of that, I mean, it will happen again and again and again and again.
Piers Rapport and Tough Judgments00:02:42
I came here for the promise that I can choose people who can really represent me.
But I am basically seeing people who don't really care about their American citizens.
I've seen more tweets from American senators and congressmen standing with Israel more than I saw them standing with the victims of the hurricane in South Korean.
Even their senators would go there and support Israel.
It doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make any sense, Pierce.
And it's wrong.
And it's wrong.
And the fact that you have a British journalist living in London and then he gets raided by the counter-terrorism police because he talked about Israel, that is very alarming, Pierce.
That is more dangerous than anything.
Well, I believe, as you know, in free speech and it being protected.
You should bring ASA on your show.
I'm not trying because this is a fellow journalist who has been talking about the Israeli crimes.
And by the way, he can talk more better than me about the Hannibal directive.
Invite them on your show.
I want to end with this because you've just signed up to do Arabs Got Talent in Reagan in Saudi Arabia.
And I, of course, was a talent show.
I know, I know.
Britain and America's Got Talent.
So finally, we've reach a place of commonality.
Yes, yes.
But you're more veterans.
Any advice for me?
Well, do you think you only landed this very lucrative gig because of my help?
Sir, sir, you have all the credit.
Other words you're looking for, thank you, Piers, Bass.
I told you you have all the credit, but again, thank you, Piers.
But hey, because of me, you started a YouTube channel, so how about thank you, Besson?
Very true.
Thank you, Basa.
What I would say to you, the best advice Simon Cowell said to me when I did America's Got Talent, which was before the British one.
And he said, you can be as mean and tough as you like in your judgments.
You just have to be right 80% of the time.
Oh, because if the public are watching and they don't agree with you and you're being mean, it doesn't work.
Yeah, I'm not.
But if they agree with you, the public are merciless when it comes to bad things.
Well, you know, in 2014, you were chosen by Mirror to be the most likely celebrity for housewives to have a steamy relationship with.
That was just come out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You serve it.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's new.
Yeah, sorry.
Yeah, it's new.
Most housewives in Britain preferred, wanted to have an affair with me over Brad Pitt.
Wow, how do you feel about it?
How do you feel about that?
You know what I feel about that?
That's a crazy visual.
I feel bloody.
I cannot unsee this.
I didn't think I still had it in me.
That's it.
You've come all the way from LA for this interview.