| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Overwhelming Evidence of Genocide
00:07:04
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| The evidence out there is overwhelming. | |
| 45,000 people have been killed. | |
| Starvation has been used as a tool of war. | |
| It would be good for the Israeli authorities to hand over Netanyahu and Galant. | |
| That's unlikely to happen. | |
| Israel has killed 250 Palestinians per day. | |
| From the beginning, 70% of those killed have been women and children. | |
| It's about time to draw a red line. | |
| She manifests and personifies everything that's wrong with the United Nations. | |
| She said so many things that were now debating what she says. | |
| With respect. | |
| If you just actually answer my question, we've just eaten up four minutes talking about whether you're going to have enough time. | |
| To be honest, if you're listening to Alan, it's like the ravings of a madman. | |
| We're 14 months into a genocide, which is the most documented genocide in history. | |
| You only can speak over people with which your arguments have no validity. | |
| Shame on you. | |
| I have family who died in the Holocaust. | |
| I find it disgusting that people like you weaponize anti-Semitism and weaponize Jewish suffering. | |
| If you weren't so rude, maybe we could get somewhere. | |
| A few months before the Hamas war began, I interviewed the Israeli Prime Minister on an official visit to London. | |
| Before his audience with me, Benjamin Netanyahu met the British Prime Minister at number 10 Downing Street and held talks with the Home Secretary on Iran's nuclear threat. | |
| If Netanyahu made that same journey tomorrow morning, he would likely be arrested. | |
| Staggering but true. | |
| The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu himself, the SAC Defense Minister Yaav Galant, and the Hamas commander Mohammad Daif, who may well be dead. | |
| All three men, it says, could bear criminal responsibility for war crimes. | |
| Netanyahu is furious. | |
| Israel will not recognize the validity of this decision. | |
| The decision to issue an arrest warrant against me, the democratically elected prime minister of the state of Israel and our former defense minister, was made by a rogue prosecutor who's trying to extricate himself from sexual harassment charges and by biased judges who are motivated by anti-Semitic sentiments against the one and only Jewish state. | |
| The truth is simple. | |
| No war is more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza after Hamas attacked us unprovoked. | |
| Well, the ICC's warrant is close to unprecedented. | |
| Netanyahu joins the now deposed president of Sudan and Vladimir Putin on a very short list of sitting world leaders to face these measures. | |
| U.S. President Joe Biden called it outrageous and said there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas. | |
| Israel's supporters are enraged by what they see as a political attempt to intervene in an ongoing conflict. | |
| On the other hand, what if the court is right? | |
| The ICC says it has reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Galant used starvation as a method of warfare by choking off aid and targeting civilians in Gaza. | |
| If a world leader is guilty of that, ally or not, shouldn't we use the full weight of international law to make it stop? | |
| Well, join me now in the studio as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese. | |
| Welcome to you. | |
| Thank you very much for coming in today. | |
| First of all, your reaction to the ICC's statement that they now believe that Netanyahu and Galant are potentially guilty of war crimes. | |
| First of all, thank you for having me, Pierre. | |
| So I appreciate it, especially at such a delicate moment. | |
| How do I see these ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Galant and Dave? | |
| As necessary, as timely, as long due. | |
| Because again, I might criticize the delay the court took in fully getting into the investigation of the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, which has been pending since 2014. | |
| And I might also criticize the fact that there is no investigation over the colonies, which are a war crime, and there are 300 colonies in the West Bank. | |
| Even if we look at the narrow scope that investigation takes, the evidence out there is overwhelming. | |
| The facts that 45,000 people have been killed, starvation has been used as a tool of war, and it cannot be justified by any possible circumstance. | |
| But however, Netanyahu and Galand have received arrest warrants for both war crimes and crimes against humanity, meaning that the court has identified the attacks against the civilian population as systemic and widespread. | |
| So it's not just violations of the rule of war, it's attacks against the civilian population as such. | |
| Given the United States and Israel do not recognize the International Criminal Court, how meaningful is this? | |
| It's very meaningful because, first of all, there is an obligation to prevent war crimes, crimes against humanity, and a crime as serious as genocide. | |
| But also, there are state parties to the Rome State. | |
| Most, I mean, all Western countries except the United States and the rest of the global south. | |
| So this is going to be binding on so many states, which means that, first of all, the obligation is on Israeli authorities, even if they are not parties to the Rome State. | |
| It would be good for the Israeli authorities to hand over Netanyahu and Galand to the ISIS. | |
| That's unlikely to happen. | |
| If they travel to any country which is a state party to the Rome Statute, they will have to be arrested. | |
| Yes, but your suggestion that maybe Israel itself might turn them over, that's not going to happen, is it? | |
| Look, if they had nothing, nothing to fear, they would stand justice. | |
| They would just defend themselves in front of the International Criminal Court, which is the highest judicial organ when it comes to international crimes. | |
| What they have to fear, if they did nothing wrong, well, the court will assess them. | |
| You said that the UN should consider suspending Israel as a member state during its continuing, as you put it, genocide against the Palestinians, saying that no other country has defied so many UN resolutions for so long. | |
| What is the mood at the UN? | |
| Is there any likelihood that that could happen? | |
| Well, the likelihood depends on a number of factors, including the political will, because international law is as strong and as effective as the political will of member states to enforce it. | |
| But again, the question is, while no member state is completely, I mean, in full compliance with international law, no other state as Israel has violated international law and violated the inviolability of the UN as Israel, which has accused every organ and entity of the United Nations, like the Secretary General, the ICC, the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, members of the Security Council, | |
| UN organizations of being anti-Semitic to support terrorism and other insults. | |
|
Justifying Violence Beyond Borders
00:12:32
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| And it also, I mean, Israel this year alone has killed 240 UN staff members. | |
| It has fired UN peacekeepers. | |
| It has destroyed 70% of UN premises, including clinics, including schools in Gaza alone. | |
| This is unprecedented and it shouldn't be condoned because it might be seen as a precedent for other catastrophic situations. | |
| So this is why it's about time to draw a red line. | |
| You on December the 28th, 2023, tweeted what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, especially in Gaza, is, quote, the monstrosity of our century. | |
| But two months before that, October the 7th, on the day of the terror attack by Hamas, you tweeted, today's violence must be put in context. | |
| almost six decades of hostile military rule over an entire civilian population, incomprehensibly ignored by too many official statements and media outlets, are in themselves an aggression and the recipe for more insecurity for all. | |
| People took that to be almost a justification for what Hamas did that day. | |
| Yeah, they were wrong. | |
| They were wrong and they were very simplistic because there is nothing about justifying crimes. | |
| I've said it and I've been adamant. | |
| Civilians must be protected under all circumstances. | |
| Doesn't matter their nationality or their ethnicity, what they've done before, if they've been soldiers or combatants, civilians must be protected from attacks, injury, killing, taking hostages, kidnapping. | |
| So I've condemned Hamas attacks to the extent. | |
| Was it a terrorist attack? | |
| I mean, spreading... | |
| Terror is a method in situation of armed conflict. | |
| So, I mean, we could qualify it as terrorism. | |
| The discomfort I have in using the terrorism framework is that it doesn't exist in international law. | |
| There is no definition of what constitutes terrorism under international law that is agreed among member states. | |
| So this is why I am uncomfortable. | |
| Other than that, yes, let's call it terrorism. | |
| But the fact that we qualify this as terrorism doesn't justify what Israel has done as of October the 9th. | |
| You see what I mean? | |
| So on that point, so this is where I would question you. | |
| You say October the 9th. | |
| So you think it was wrong that two days after this, Israel launched an attack back at the people who perpetrated an appalling terrorist attack, which killed 1,200 people. | |
| It wounded nearly 7,000 more. | |
| One of the worst terror attacks of modern times. | |
| What else was Israel supposed to do on October the 9th? | |
| Sit there and wait for another attack? | |
| Hmm. | |
| Okay, can I unpack it? | |
| But you let me give me a couple of minutes to, because it's quite a sensitive point, but I appreciate the question. | |
| So Israel, the day Israel was attacked, it had all the rights to defend itself, to protect its citizens, its terror territory, and therefore to repel the attack with all necessary and proportional measures, which means using force, including lethal force, arresting, detaining all persons involved and found on its territory, which happened between the 7th, 8th and the 9th of October. | |
| Some, including in Israeli sources, accused Israel of having used excessive use of force, but this is beyond the point. | |
| The point is that Israel didn't have the right to wage a war against the Palestinians in Gaza. | |
| It didn't, Pierce. | |
| It didn't? | |
| Well, hang on. | |
| Again, can I question that? | |
| Israel absolutely had a right to go after the terrorists who committed this, surely. | |
| I mean, if you have 3,000 terrorists pouring over your border, murdering in a most brutal manner, women, children, innocent civilians, all the things you've said that they've been doing to Palestinians, and we'll come to that. | |
| But I'm just interested about your mindset in the aftermath of October the 7th. | |
| Absolutely, Israel had a right to go after Hamas, surely. | |
| It doesn't stop. | |
| It's very careful. | |
| It doesn't stop at the border, does it? | |
| Pierce, I would be very careful because mutantes, mutandis, this I4NI logic would justify what has happened on October 7. | |
| And I totally refuse to go there. | |
| Because if we take your argument that the violence suffered by the Israelis on October 7 justifies what has been happening as October 9, this might lead to justify what has happened. | |
| What did they do? | |
| Well, hang on. | |
| What did they do on October the 9th? | |
| You think? | |
| Self-defense, and please bear with me, because self-defense has a meaning in international law, and it's a term of art that doesn't correspond to the common parlance. | |
| Self-defense is not the right to protect itself, which Israel has within its own borders. | |
| So if you ask me the question, what would Israel, what would have Israel done to be in line with international law? | |
| Israel had to do what I said in line, I mean, so repelling the attack and trying to get the hostages back. | |
| Waging a war was not either proportional, was neither proportional. | |
| How do you get them back? | |
| Negotiating. | |
| With Hamas? | |
| Excuse me, what has been doing? | |
| And what Israel has been doing is trying to get the hostages back, both through negotiation and killing civilians. | |
| Okay, but how do you think? | |
| 25,000 people killed later. | |
| 155 people either killed, maimed, the entire, or 2 million people starving and traumatized. | |
| How has this liberated the hostages? | |
| Do we realize how they're not? | |
| Well, that's nothing. | |
| That's a different point. | |
| And I don't disagree with you. | |
| And I also think the proportionate response of Israel has gone way beyond what I think is acceptable, just to be clear. | |
| But we're going to come to that, because that's now many months later, over a year later. | |
| I'm just curious about your mindset about what Israel, what you think they had a right to do, because the International Criminal Court hasn't come after Netanyahu and Gallant for attacking Hamas in Gaza. | |
| They've gone after them, but they haven't said that that was wrong. | |
| They haven't said that actually attacking Hamas in Gaza was a crime. | |
| They've said that the crime is starvation and other issues surrounding this. | |
| In other words, what Israel would call the collateral damage. | |
| I don't agree it's collateral damage. | |
| I think it's moved into something far worse. | |
| But just to be clear, if the ICC thought they didn't have a right to do it, why have they not charged them with that crime as you see it? | |
| And this goes back to the question I raised at the very beginning. | |
| Why I'm, when you asked me what was my reaction to these arrest warrants, I've criticized since the beginning the narrow focus that the prosecutor chose. | |
| The court has simply responded on the basis of the arrest warrants demanded by the prosecutor. | |
| So the prosecutor, for example, chose the extermination only in connection with starvation. | |
| And I don't think, I don't agree with you with the fact that the ICC has only chosen to focus on given war crimes like starvation. | |
| And also there is the crime against humanity of murder and the crimes against humanity of persecution. | |
| Yes, but what they haven't done. | |
| They have committed. | |
| Let me say this, please. | |
| Please, please. | |
| The court has also said, and this is incredible, has said that Israel is creating the conditions of life that might lead to the concept of destruction of the people, which is calculated to bring about destruction of the people. | |
| This is the language that already resonates with genocide. | |
| I hear you. | |
| And they're very serious allegations. | |
| I completely agree with you. | |
| And there's a lot to be said for them. | |
| We're going to debate that later. | |
| But I come back to the point that on October the 9th, I believe absolutely Israel had the right to go after Hamas past their own border because Hamas had gone back into Gaza. | |
| The people who perpetrated the terror attack, thousands of them, came in, did it, and then went back, including 250 hostages. | |
| Absolutely, Israel had the right to do that. | |
| And the ICC hasn't said they didn't have the right to do that. | |
| So it's interesting to me that you, you know, you're on the US. | |
| The ICC does this. | |
| But you seem to think, I mean, look, I wouldn't accuse you of being naive. | |
| However, the idea that they could have brought Hamas to the negotiating table over the hostages without going after them in a very aggressive manner in the way that they did in the first few months. | |
| The idea that Hamas would just be having cozy meetings in Qatar and would just say, here you go. | |
| That's for the birds. | |
| Pierce, let's move forward because we're stuck. | |
| Now, 14 months later, let me tell you, first of all, let's go back to the 9th of October. | |
| What has happened between the... | |
| In the first weeks after the 9th of October, Israel has killed 250 Palestinians per day. | |
| From the beginning, 70% of those killed have been women and children. | |
| Israel has used in few weeks artillery and weapons amounting to two nuclear bombs in an area of 350 or 360 square kilometers, hosting 2.3 million people, half of whom are children under 18. | |
| So, 250 people a day. | |
| Let's assume, let's, look, I even want to give you the chance to argue that Israel had the right to then it has violated the rules of war because it has caused disproportionate, unnecessary, and deliberate damage to the civilian population to the point. | |
| But that's a different argument, Francesca. | |
| It's a different argument. | |
| No, it's not different. | |
| It's an additional argument because, again, they can only define that. | |
| The point of view that the International Court of Justice has said in 2004 and in 2004 and in 2024 that Israel didn't have the right to defend itself. | |
| This is not a right that can be invoked under Article 51. | |
| So you and I are no one in the face of the ICJ saying that. | |
| Full stop. | |
| Okay. | |
| Here's what I would say to you, is that I have a lot of sympathy and indeed agreement in large parts of what you're saying about what's happened since. | |
| I think it's been a disproportionate response. | |
| Too many civilians have been killed. | |
| Too many children have been killed. | |
| Too many people have been displaced with their homes destroyed. | |
| And now all the rhetoric coming out of this Israeli government is bordering on genocidal rhetoric from some of them. | |
| There's no question. | |
| And it's quite clear that some of them would be quite happy if all Palestinians left Gaza permanently. | |
| And I'm very concerned about that. | |
| And I think Palestinians have a right to be concerned about that. | |
| But the point of argument is simply what they had a right to do to start with. | |
| And where I take issue with you is this thing about October the 9th when they decided to go past their own border to exact vengeance and to go after the people who perpetrated this and stop doing it again. | |
| I think they had a right to do that. | |
| The question is, how you do it? | |
| I have another issue because I have another argument that I didn't have the chance to make because you asked me what did they have the right to do. | |
| In line with international law, Israel had to do what they have not done in 57 years. | |
| And what the court, International Court of Justice has reminded all member states as of July this year, Israel needs to withdraw the occupation in whole or in part because the occupation has caused the conditions for violence to fester in the occupied Palestinian territory. | |
| And the court has been very specific, has said that Israel needs to withdraw the troops, dismantle the settlements, which are war crimes, and including the control over the resources, the natural resources. | |
| Israel has continued to expand in the occupied territory and it continues to do that even now as it commits a genocide. | |
| I do think the expansion of settlements on the West Bank, I do think that is probably a war. | |
| It's a key, but this is outrageous. | |
| It's key to understand because Israel, the whole purpose of advancing the occupation is to continue to take Palestinian land. | |
| So my question to you is, what do Palestinians have to do? | |
| Because they have tried armed resistance, they have renounced armed resistance, they have gone to the International Court of Justice, to the ICC, they have tried the plea doyé, the advocacy with all member states and member states have continued to kick the can in the air because during the peace process, Piers, Israel has tripled the number of colonies for a triple the number of settlers. | |
|
Lobby Influence and Barbarism
00:14:35
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| So again, it has been such a farce, such a pantomime. | |
| Let me ask you about something else. | |
| October the 11th last year, you said on X, Hamas' crimes, including rape, have not been confirmed. | |
| And you said that divulging information about the perpetration of rape by Hamas risks to escalate tensions and endanger lives in a volatile context. | |
| Now, a report from the UN in March of this year said there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred across multiple locations of Israel and the Gaza periphery during the attacks on 7th of October. | |
| Do you now accept that they happened? | |
| I prefer to rely on the two reports issued this year by the Commission of Inquiry. | |
| Because unlike the Patel's report, the Special Representative of the Secretary General went to Israel, didn't interview any victims, made very controversial statements. | |
| I respect her, but at the same time, I respect the findings of a fact-finding body whose job is to collect evidence. | |
| And while I do not have any element, because I've not investigated allegations of rape, I have no elements to say rape didn't occur. | |
| So if rape occurred, it should have been investigated, prosecuted, and the responsible people. | |
| But the UN says it did. | |
| It did happen. | |
| No, the point is. | |
| No, the Prime Minister said, no, the UN is that there are political appointees and then human rights appointees. | |
| And the Commission of Inquiry concluded that there was no, in June, that there was no evidence to support the claims of gang rape. | |
| But let's assume, I don't want to say anything that I've not investigated. | |
| So let's assume that rape occurred. | |
| So does it justify what Israel has done? | |
| The reason why. | |
| I'm curious why, as a woman who works at the United Nations, why you would even want to have a specter of doubt about it. | |
| I've read so many things. | |
| Because of the beheaded babies, because of the claim of beheaded babies, how many journalists, sorry, Piers, including yourself, have amplified this news and used this argument of the beheaded babies. | |
| What do you think I said? | |
| Well, you have asked the people, do you condemn Hamas? | |
| And you have mentioned the beheaded babies. | |
| What do you think I said? | |
| What do you mean what I think you said? | |
| Quote back to me what you think I said about babies. | |
| Beheaded babies. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Did you say that or not? | |
| All I've seen ever since. | |
| Did you say that or not? | |
| I'm about to answer you. | |
| All I've seen ever since is that I apparently said that up to 40 babies have been beheaded. | |
| I never said that. | |
| It's completely untrue. | |
| You said, no, no, no. | |
| Look, you have referred to, I don't know if 40, you have referred to the beheaded babies or to the babies. | |
| I've talked about the babies being killed, people being beheaded, which they were, because you know how we know that? | |
| Because Hamas broadcast it on their GoPro cameras. | |
| How does, look, I'm not going to justify or to condone any crimes that were committed on October 7th. | |
| My question is, what purpose does it serve? | |
| Because the only animus I had when I tweeted what you read, what you just read, is let's try to diffuse the tension because this language, this evocation of the barbarism of the Palestinians represented and represented. | |
| What about the rape that is documented against hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jail? | |
| Can we talk about it? | |
| Here's the thing. | |
| Because do we have evidence of this? | |
| Here's what I would say to you. | |
| I actually resent anybody who tries to downplay or mitigate the barbarism of what Hamas did that day because it was utterly barbaric. | |
| It was medieval in its barbarism. | |
| And the reason we know that beyond any doubt is they were proudly broadcasting it to the world. | |
| I don't know if you've seen the film that's being made. | |
| I have. | |
| I mean, utterly horrific. | |
| The thing is that I find utter Pierce, I find utterly horrific any crime against any civilian body or collective. | |
| I do not distinguish people because of the, the color of the skin, because of their ethnicity, religion. | |
| This doesn't matter to me. | |
| For me, civil of civilians is sacred and this is why i'm so horrified by. | |
| Years and years i've spent documenting and reporting on the violations of Palestinians and i'm someone who has produced scholarship on Palestinian forced displacement. | |
| So, 76 years and even more, since the Brit, since British colonialism in Palestine, for 100 years, these people have been tormented. | |
| So nothing, no one right. | |
| Two wrongs don't make it right. | |
| This is the only thing I can say. | |
| You were accused by Hillel Newer, who was the ex-director of Unwatch. | |
| Uh, Hillel Neura, who was the executive director of Unwatch sorry, not ex, but executive director of Unwatch. | |
| Do you know Hillel Neura? | |
| I know you and what the I think? | |
| I think I know yeah, called you whoever it was. | |
| Who's the executive director of your work? | |
| Called you out on x for what they said were Anti-semitic remarks. | |
| Uh, said that. | |
| Well, directly accused you of being anti-semitic. | |
| What you've heard that before? | |
| What do you say to people who think you're anti-semitic? | |
| Well, I think that the point is that uh, there are two different things. | |
| One of the issues that is often used to to uh argue this is that 10 years ago, I used the term Jewish lobby. | |
| Now well, let me read exactly what you said, just to remind people who haven't seen it said, America and Europe one of them America, subjugated by the Jewish lobby and the other by the sense of guilt about the holocaust remain on the sidelines. | |
| Previously, you dismissed Israel security concerns as paranoia. | |
| You talked of Israel greed, compared Israel's actions to that of the Nazis and, it says, legitimized terrorist actions by Hamas. | |
| Well, you've made it clear that you condemn those. | |
| But on on the language that you were using, about Jewish lobby and comparing Israel's actions to that of the Nazis, oh no, but you're quoting. | |
| You're quoting. | |
| You're not quoting me. | |
| Jewish lobby is something i've said and I will explain then. | |
| You are quoting someone else and i'm responsible for what I say, not what other people, whomever they are, do with the. | |
| You've never compared Israel's actions to the Nazis. | |
| I've never done this comparison, absolutely not. | |
| It's an it's. | |
| It's a bit of an unsophisticated reductionism. | |
| But let me go to Jewish lobby, because this is the. | |
| The thing is that it's often used in Israeli media and in Israel and i've lived for three years in Palestine, so we had just moved to the? | |
| U.s. | |
| So what I had in mind is, in fact, Pro-Israel groups having a strong influence on on and again I mean APAC brags about the influence they have on in the American political landscape, and I was absolutely wrong in use the term, in using the term Jewish lobby. | |
| But when I learned about that and understand, and now understand how people, especially Jewish people, feel offended by that, I realized it. | |
| I distanced myself from those infelicitous words and they've not used it Anymore. | |
| So actually, this was an opportunity for me to educate myself, to understand better the kind of language that should be used and I moved on. | |
| By the way, it happened 10 years ago, not during my mandate as a statement. | |
| Yes, I understand that. | |
| What do you feel about President Trump getting re-elected in America? | |
| Because many people think that's going to be bad for Palestinians, that he's going to side with Netanyahu, let him do what he wants. | |
| Look, what is not bad coming from the American political establishment for Palestine? | |
| We just come out of 14 months of democratic leadership, literally providing more. | |
| I mean, never before there has been such a military, economic, financial, political support for Israel as of the past 14 months. | |
| And this is the Democratic Party. | |
| And it is as bad as it has ever been for the Palestinians. | |
| So like many others, I brace for more, but I also hope, and I see that there is this brewing movement, co-cientization that starts, including among young Jewish people, which is critical, to question the support to Israel. | |
| Again, I understand, as a European, Pierce, I understand why Jewish people has this deep attachment to the state of Israel. | |
| And this shouldn't be questioned. | |
| What I question is third state responsibility. | |
| So how member states act vis-à-vis a state that is committing genocide, that it has maintained for 57 years an unlawful occupation and it commits apartheid. | |
| Once we resolve this issue, I have no question whatsoever with the state of Israel. | |
| And I do think that now we are at the turning point in history where there is the opportunity to step away from this precipice and do the right thing. | |
| But it might not come from the American leadership. | |
| Francesca Albanese, it's great to meet you. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| I appreciate you coming all the way and sitting in. | |
| And look, I think we want the same thing. | |
| We want this to be resolved and for the war to be over, don't we? | |
| I agree. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| Thank you, Violet. | |
| Nice to see you. | |
| Well, the White House issued a brief but definitive response to the International Criminal Court's warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Gallant saying it fundamentally rejects the decision and that there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas. | |
| Here is White House Press Secretary Corine Jean-Pierre. | |
| We fundamentally reject the court's decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israel officials. | |
| We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutors' rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision. | |
| The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter. | |
| You've heard us say this before. | |
| Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no evidence, none, between Israel and Hamas. | |
| There's just none. | |
| Well, to be all this, I'm joined by the journalist and author of The Racket, Matt Kennard, a former IDF spokesperson, Jonathan Conrickus, U.S. defense lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, and the host of the Katie Halper Show and a Jew for a ceasefire now, Katie Halper. | |
| Well, welcome to all of you. | |
| Let me start with you, if I may, Alan Dershowitz. | |
| Just from a legal point of view, a lot of people are making very bold and definitive statements about what this ICC ruling means. | |
| But given that the United States and Israel do not recognize the court, does it actually have any meaningful impact other than if Netanyahu and Galant go to one of the countries that does recognize it, they may get arrested? | |
| Well, first of all, I want to thank you for having that reporteur on. | |
| She manifests and personifies everything that's wrong with the United Nations. | |
| She is totally biased. | |
| She can't see anything except through the prism of her anti-Israel bias. | |
| But you had her on for half an hour. | |
| And so I challenge you to put her on and me on at the same time. | |
| Let us have a debate. | |
| She said so many things that were now debating what she said. | |
| So that's what you're here for. | |
| We're debating what she said precisely for that reason. | |
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| And I want to make a point. | |
| I recently published a pamphlet, a million copies, going to college students all over the world, in which I refute each of the things she said. | |
| It's called the 10 Big Anti-Israel Lies and How to Refute Them. | |
| So I think that, Pierce, you have an obligation to your viewers to allow me or others to come on and have an equivalent amount of time to refute everything she said. | |
| Now, let me go to your next question. | |
| With respect. | |
| Alan, you are on precisely for that reason. | |
| And we have a lot of time to debate with you. | |
| But I don't. | |
| Okay, I hope we have a lot of time because I have to answer all of the things she said. | |
| Well, if you look, I love you. | |
| I love you, Alan. | |
| But if you just decision. | |
| If you just actually answer my question, we've just eaten up four minutes talking about whether you're going to have enough time. | |
| I want to please, thank you. | |
| That's a good point. | |
| I want to get to the point. | |
| Obviously, the decision of the International Criminal Court does more damage to the court than it does to Israel, but it does an enormous amount of damage to Israel. | |
| It means that Netanyahu can't go to Canada, he can't go to many countries in the world to make the case for Israel and to be able to present two-sided issues. | |
| There are now issues about sanctioning Israel. | |
| Remember, too, that the International Criminal Court prosecutor, I know I dealt with him about this. | |
| He was supposed to go to Israel to look at both sides of the issue. | |
| And then, when he was accused of sexual harassment, he canceled that visit to Israel because he wanted to issue the arrest warrants very, very quickly. | |
| Look, what this report to her said would mean that the United States presidents would be arrested as well, because everything she said Israel has done in terms of responding to the kind of October 7th attack the United States did after 9-11. | |
| She would argue that after 9-11, the United States had no right to go after the Taliban, no right to go into Afghanistan, no right to go into Iraq. | |
| So, the implications of what she says for the United States are very grave, which is why President Biden and why virtually all Americans agree that the International Criminal Court should not be allowed to do these kinds of arrest warrants. | |
| I've now put together a group of American lawyers headed by two former attorneys general, Solicitor General, major, major academics who will stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel against this unlawful attack on Israel. | |
| Remember, too, that the International Criminal Court has its part of its jurisdictional mandate, complementarity, which means that if you go after people from a country that has a legitimate legal system, and remember, Israel has a system that is so good that it put its former prime minister Ehud Omrit in prison to be guarded by an Arab guard. | |
| It put its former president in prison, and he was imprisoned and sentenced by an Arab judge. | |
| There's no country in the Middle East that has a more effective judicial system under the Charter of Rome, which enables this, they have no jurisdiction. | |
| Okay, but you're a lawyer, right? | |
| You've been very high-profile law in America for a very long time. | |
|
Journalists Denied Access
00:13:06
|
|
| What if you're wrong? | |
| You know, one of my big problems with Israel and the IDF is they haven't let journalists go in and verify anything that they're doing, right? | |
| It's still almost impossible for journalists to get on the ground over in Gaza, right? | |
| So we have no real independent idea of what they've been up to. | |
| What if you're just wrong, Alan? | |
| What if actually war crimes have been committed on quite a wholesale basis? | |
| You seem to be absolutely certain, certain, that there's no war crime that's been committed. | |
| But how can you be certain? | |
| No one's been allowed to go in there and see what's been going on. | |
| You can be certain by just looking at the statistics that are issued by Hamas themselves. | |
| If you take every single statistic issued, Israel has the lowest ratio of civilian to combatant deaths of any country, any country in modern warfare, the United States, Great Britain, NATO. | |
| That statistic alone, maybe 1 or 2% of the entire civilian population of Gaza, by the way, they count as civilians, 18-year-old soldiers who they call children, or women who are carrying bombs, who they call women. | |
| If you take just those statistics, you will see that Israel has done better than any country faced with comparable threats. | |
| And yet, look, Israel. | |
| Okay, look, I'm going to move. | |
| I'm going to move. | |
| They should allow journalists in. | |
| Wait a minute. | |
| Let's agree on that. | |
| You and I, you and I, you and I go to Israel together and let's look at what happened. | |
| I agree with you. | |
| There should be more visibility and more transparency. | |
| And I welcome a visit with you. | |
| I offered that to the head of the prosecutor's staff, and they turned it down. | |
| They refused to go to Israel. | |
| Let me bring in the other panelists. | |
| Okay. | |
| On that, we agree. | |
| I think it's outrageous that the media have been banned from going in. | |
| And of course, when you don't let people in, it makes it look like you've got something to hide. | |
| Matt Kennon, let me come to you. | |
| Look, that's the case for Israel. | |
| Alan makes no pretense that he's obviously completely on that side of the fence on this debate. | |
| Where do you sit with this? | |
| Well, I mean, to be honest with you, listening to Alan, it's like the ravings of a madman. | |
| We're 14 months into a genocide, which has been documented, the most documented genocide in history. | |
| You have the ICC asking for... | |
| More than Nazi Germany. | |
| Wait a minute. | |
| More than Nazi Germany? | |
| The most documented genocide in Israel? | |
| Documented. | |
| More documented, i.e. people can see it. | |
| I didn't say the amount of people. | |
| I was doing on television. | |
| If you didn't say the amount of documented genocide than the Nazi Holocaust. | |
| That wasn't documented as it was happening in the same way. | |
| That wasn't documented in the same way while it was happening. | |
| You should listen. | |
| Nobody should listen to you. | |
| Why don't you let me speak? | |
| You only can speak over people who are saying that your arguments have no validity. | |
| There isn't a West Raw. | |
| Shame on you. | |
| Shame on you. | |
| Shame on you for defending a genocide. | |
| And using the memory of the people who died in a Holocaust to justify that genocide. | |
| It's disgusting. | |
| And I had family who died in a Holocaust. | |
| I find it disgusting that people like you weaponized anti-Semitism and weaponized Jewish suffering to justify another genocide which is happening in Albania. | |
| But let me answer the question. | |
| If you weren't so rude, maybe we could get somewhere. | |
| But I think partly the reason you argue like this is because you know you have no valid points. | |
| Let me go back to the issue at hand. | |
| The genocide is the most documented genocide in history. | |
| We've been watching on our phones for 14 months. | |
| Just be quiet for a minute. | |
| Do you know how to do that? | |
| I didn't interrupt you. | |
| No, you can't make it. | |
| Hey, fucking person. | |
| Behavioral. | |
| Alan's worst. | |
| Let's at least explain the point he's making. | |
| Sorry. | |
| Alan, he's talking about the use of mobile phones. | |
| Clearly, they didn't exist in World War II. | |
| Exactly. | |
| So let him make his point in totality. | |
| Then we can query the Nazis themselves. | |
| Alan finishes point. | |
| Okay, so the Lancet, an independent medical journal, recently published a piece that claimed that 186,000 people have been killed in Gaza. | |
| 70% of those women and children. | |
| You're talking about a genocide. | |
| And to be honest with you, we have the evidence is in. | |
| Joab Gallant, one of the ministers, well, the defense minister that's now sacked, that is one of the recipients of an AWS run from the ICC. | |
| He went on TV early in the genocide and he said, we are dealing with human animals and we will withdraw all water, food and electricity from 2.3 million people, half of them children. | |
| Let me finish. | |
| That is genocidal rhetoric and they carried it out. | |
| They've been launching an extermination campaign in northern Gaza in Jabalia camp, wiping out whole scores of people. | |
| There's been massacres every day. | |
| Hundred people often die every single day. | |
| It's clear to the whole world. | |
| You are in the minority and the walls are closing in. | |
| The walls are closing in. | |
| 125 countries, if Netanyahu and Yoab Galant, who are wanted war criminals, step in, they will be arrested. | |
| And thankfully, the ICC saved the reputation of international law because one of the disgraceful things about the ICC arrest warrants is it took so long. | |
| The whole world has been watching this. | |
| We all know what's going on. | |
| You are the minority. | |
| The whole world is appalled by what we are supporting. | |
| Can I make one more point? | |
| Sorry, quickly. | |
| One thing you said was correct. | |
| One thing you said was correct. | |
| This is not just Israeli war criminals we're talking about. | |
| We're talking about war criminals in London and Washington too. | |
| I'm in London now. | |
| I want to talk about the participation, not complicity, participation of my own government. | |
| And do you agree that you agree that Palestinians have committed war crimes too in the past? | |
| Yes. | |
| You do. | |
| Yes, but the point about the ICC arrest warrants, which is why Alan Dershowitz is having a fit, is because the ICC has always been used against official enemies. | |
| It's been a tool of imperialism. | |
| For the first time, we are seeing justice done for Western war criminals and their allies. | |
| Can I just make one more point? | |
| You, Piers Morgan, were very, very good in 2003. | |
| You made the Daily Mirror into something we could be proud of in the British society because of your opposition to the war in Iraq. | |
| Bush and Blair should also have had arrest warrants for that illegal invasion, which killed up to a million people and destroyed a whole country. | |
| So we are in new territory in this. | |
| Well, we are. | |
| The difference I would make, people have asked me about that before. | |
| I did lead the media campaign in this country against the Iraq war, but because the Iraq war was enacted as a revenge for something that Iraq had nothing to do with. | |
| And I just thought that was completely outrageous and should never have happened, which is now really what the perceived wisdom about that war is. | |
| So they're two different things. | |
| This is a little hang against the United States. | |
| Hang on, Alan. | |
| Let me bring in Jonathan, who's been waiting patiently. | |
| Jonathan, you're a former IDF spokesperson. | |
| I've had you on the show many times. | |
| Do you mind if I call you spokesman, by the way? | |
| Because I can't stand all this people person crap. | |
| So I'm going to call you spokesman if that's all right. | |
| You identify as a man, do you? | |
| I mean, I just have to check that. | |
| I think you look like a man to me, Jonathan. | |
| In this day and age, we do have to check. | |
| But yes, I'm comfortable being a man and he, yes. | |
| Okay, good. | |
| Look, whatever you think of this decision by the ICC, it is, as Matt just said, it's a highly significant moment that they have chosen to do this. | |
| Do you accept that? | |
| Yeah, I think it is. | |
| And I think it's sad. | |
| And I think that, you know, terror supporters and Israel haters all over the world, they're having their moment of joy and enjoying the sun and enjoying seeing Israel suffering. | |
| They're enjoying seeing this tremendous travesty, this injustice, this perversion of the international judicial system by the hands of a very suspicious and I would say controversial prosecutor who I don't know what his motives are, but I don't think that his motives are correct and clean motives. | |
| And I think that the process has been a totally flawed one. | |
| I think that all of the allegations are based on false and partial information. | |
| And I think that there is substantial proof, credible proof, even verified by non-Israeli sources that totally contradict all of the allegations. | |
| But that's the problem again, Jonathan. | |
| Jonathan. | |
| Hang on, Jonathan. | |
| Jonathan. | |
| Just as people, the problem is that you say that, but you say that. | |
| But again, we come back. | |
| We come back to the media being dealt with from going in there. | |
| If you don't let the media in, then I'm afraid as a journalist, I'm like, what are they hiding? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah, yeah. | |
| You know, and we've had this conversation in the past, Piers, and I said that the same thing that I'm going to say to you now: that I think that you have a point. | |
| And I've recommended for the IDF to and the Israeli government to allow more media in. | |
| But there's a reason they're not doing that. | |
| I agree. | |
| Well, I'm sure that there are reasons, A, that it's messy, B, that it's quite a logistical responsibility. | |
| Sorry, but that doesn't apply to other lawsuits. | |
| That didn't apply in Iraq. | |
| It didn't apply in Afghanistan. | |
| It hasn't applied in any modern war zone that I can think of. | |
| The IDF has completely controlled. | |
| And by not letting the media in, I'm afraid the longer it goes on, where the IDF don't let media in from around the world to actually verify what they claim is happening there, then the more that people are going to think there is no smoke without fire. | |
| And when you get the ICC now launching these charges, they're going to put those two things together and Israel is going to be suffering as it is. | |
| So my question again, as someone who represented the IDF, is it is an act of self-harm unless they are literally covering up war crimes. | |
| Can I just add one thing quickly? | |
| They've killed 188 Palestinian journalists in the United States. | |
| They have killed a lot of Palestinian reasons. | |
| They're covering up the genocide. | |
| That's why they won't let them in. | |
| That's why they can't. | |
| I'll bring you back in. | |
| If viewers are wondering where Katie's gone, we've lost the connection. | |
| We're going to get her back. | |
| So it is two people from both sides. | |
| We're not trying to overload against Matt here, but Matt, until Katie's back, I'll come back to you afterwards. | |
| And you just asked him to defend how 188 is going to be. | |
| Well, it is certainly true. | |
| It's certainly true. | |
| It's relevant to that. | |
| Yeah, but Jonathan, it's relevant to the media debate part of this that nearly 200 Palestinian. | |
| I'll just answer the question. | |
| Hang on, I will. | |
| I will. | |
| But on that point, I'm just saying, on the media point, nearly 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed, targeted, and killed. | |
| Oh, let's speak about so-called Palestinian journalists. | |
| Let's speak about the outrage of international journalists and international media when it comes to so-called Palestinian journalists. | |
| Let's speak about the cooperation, the intense and systemic cooperation between so-called Palestinian photo and otherwise journalists and Hamas. | |
| Let's speak about the ties between them. | |
| Let's speak about how they have been working for Hamas, providing them with either information or being on their payroll or being silenced by them or being told by Hamas what to say and what to do for years. | |
| I know this for a fact because I've seen it happen in real time, where international stringers or Palestinians that have been working for international media organizations in Gaza, instead of doing their job of reporting about the horrible war crimes that Hamas has been perpetrating, of hiding behind civilians, of using civilians as human shields, of firing rockets from within densely populated civilian areas, or digging tunnels underneath houses, or using mosques or UN facilities. | |
| All of this, by the way, documented and clear, but it hasn't been reported because Palestinian media hasn't been allowed to report. | |
| Hang on, hang on, Jonathan, because Hamas has been hang on. | |
| It also hasn't been reported because the IDF won't let international media in. | |
| So I'm afraid it's not as simple as saying Palestinians won't report it. | |
| No. | |
| I can go in tomorrow. | |
| Is that correct? | |
| Can I go in tomorrow? | |
| No. | |
| No, I can't. | |
| First of all, yes, I would personally take you in, Piers, even though I'm no longer in the unit. | |
| I would make sure that you would be able to go in and tour as much as you want. | |
| You'll let me go anywhere I want in Gaza, will you? | |
| I would put whatever ability I have and whatever influence I have remaining in the IDF on making sure that you would get wherever you want to go. | |
| How many international journalists wanted to? | |
| But how many international journalists, and I know many of them, how many of them are currently in Gaza who want to be? | |
| I don't know how many are in Gaza. | |
| I can tell you. | |
| None. | |
| None of them are. | |
| Well, have you read a report live from a Western journalist in Gaza? | |
| No. | |
| They're not allowed in. | |
| You can. | |
| And many have. | |
| Many have done stories. | |
| Many have done stories from inside Gaza. | |
| Many have reported. | |
| Many have been. | |
| The only people who've done a report is really driven. | |
| Literally with the IDF at all times. | |
| In other words, a completely different environment. | |
| Not at all. | |
| Can I just come back once you're in the middle of the day? | |
| Do you support then the targeted assassination of 188 Palestinian journalists? | |
| Do you support that? | |
|
Lies Obscuring War Crimes
00:06:32
|
|
| Because it sounds like... | |
| Well, we don't. | |
| Hang on. | |
| To be clear, we don't know they were deliberately told. | |
| Well, there is clear suggestive evidence. | |
| The other day, the IDF put up a wanted poster for journalists in northern Gaza saying they were all affiliated with Hamas, basically echoing the same rhetoric, which is genocidal rhetoric and rhetoric which gets journalists killed. | |
| And you've basically, so I wanted to ask you, do you support? | |
| No, no, no. | |
| I'll ask a question. | |
| I will come back to that. | |
| We've been rejoined by Katie. | |
| Kate, I'm sorry we lost you there. | |
| We had a technical failure. | |
| You're back. | |
| I'm pleased to see. | |
| Katie, what do you want to say about this? | |
| We are, where are we? | |
| A year and a month into this war. | |
| Passionate. | |
| I think that the claim that any criticism, any and all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic is a total obvious weaponization of anti-Semitism. | |
| It's pathetic. | |
| It's dangerous. | |
| It harms Jews like me. | |
| Nobody ever. | |
| Excuse me, Alan. | |
| You always interrupt people because you're a bully. | |
| Please be quiet. | |
| And what I want to ask you, what I want to ask you, Alan, is Theodore Meron an anti-Semite, the Holocaust survivor who was on the committee advising the arrest warrants. | |
| Is he an anti-Semite who used to be an ambassador for Israel? | |
| Okay, so he's wrong. | |
| And I've never said that. | |
| You're making it up. | |
| You're just... | |
| He's wrong when he advises. | |
| You can be wrong without being an anti-Semite. | |
| He's wrong. | |
| He's wrong. | |
| He's not an anti-Semite. | |
| Please use logic. | |
| Don't just use. | |
| Oh, my God. | |
| You're so condescending and you're so disingenuous and you weaponize anti-Semitism all the time. | |
| So let me just finish. | |
| I'm going to finish. | |
| Okay. | |
| So the other thing is that, of course, you don't want to hear that Israel's committing war crimes. | |
| And you bring up the fact that under the ICC arrest warrants, by that logic, the U.S. could be tried for committing war crimes. | |
| Well, guess what? | |
| They should be. | |
| Because of course they committed war crimes. | |
| Of course they committed war crimes in Iraq. | |
| That's the point. | |
| You brought it up yourself. | |
| This is an attack against America. | |
| As if that's disqualifying. | |
| Yeah. | |
| No, it's not an attack against America. | |
| It's to make sure Western leaders are held to the same standards that we hold other leaders to. | |
| And you hate that because the whole legal international legal system is based on the fact that you can go wrong and do what you want. | |
| People who are official enemies are not. | |
| Don't talk over each other because nobody can hear them. | |
| That is the single reason. | |
| There's no other reason. | |
| Please don't talk over each other because if you do, sorry, time out. | |
| Time out. | |
| If everybody talks over each other, no one can hear a word anyone is saying. | |
| So Casey, finish your point. | |
| Then I go to Alan. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Okay, okay. | |
| But also, Alan's numbers about civilians, and I apologize if you already covered this one. | |
| I was disconnected, but his numbers about civilians are totally made up. | |
| There's no evidence of this. | |
| 90% of the victims of Israel's crimes against humanity have been women and children. | |
| And Jonathan, you are shaking your head, but you should be upset. | |
| I would be upset. | |
| I would be upset if I were you because you've been implicated in war crimes yourself. | |
| You lied about Al-Shisha Hospital. | |
| You claimed it was a Hamad stronghold. | |
| You were debunked by the BBC, Fox News, and the Washington Post, all of which they did not provide. | |
| I stand by it. | |
| Not only do I claim it, I stand by it. | |
| The weapons had been there. | |
| And the difference between you is that. | |
| Can you let me finish, please? | |
| I know you guys are bullies for you. | |
| Okay, Jonathan, I'll let you respond after she's finished. | |
| I need to finish. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| Okay. | |
| So you've been implicated in two war crimes. | |
| One is you defended Yo of Balan starvation order on October 9th when you went on a Twitter live and you defended it and you called them beasts. | |
| You called Palestinians beasts. | |
| The other thing is you lied about Al-Shifa Hospital and what happened then? | |
| First of all, you lied. | |
| But second of all, I'm going to be charitable and say you didn't lie. | |
| Let's say everything you found, even though we know you edited the video and we know this because the BBC, Fox News, and Washington Post all said that. | |
| But even if the things that you had found had been there, it would have been a war crime. | |
| Why? | |
| Because in order to justify the exception to violating a hospital, you have to prove that it's an active terrorist center, which you didn't prove, even with the fake evidence you provided. | |
| The other thing is you have to use proportionality no matter what, or else it's a war crime. | |
| You absolutely did not use proportionality when you killed hundreds to thousands of people. | |
| You executed them. | |
| You turned off premature babies and condemned them to death. | |
| Executed. | |
| Okay, don't talk over each other. | |
| That's what you're talking about. | |
| Okay. | |
| Here's what I'll do. | |
| Katie, hold fire. | |
| Jonathan, please stop all talking over each other. | |
| I don't even know more than I do. | |
| Katie, Jonathan, I'll let Jonathan respond. | |
| I'll like to respond to these. | |
| I'll let Jonathan respond to the allegations that were made against you, because that's fair. | |
| Jonathan. | |
| Yeah, I mean, it is just preposterous. | |
| I don't know what you base yourself on. | |
| I don't know where you get what you base your opinions on, but I continue unequivocally, unequivocally, that you are so wrong, you don't even have a clue. | |
| When you start by saying as if it's a popcorn, as if it's a snack, and as if it's happening on the ground, you can say on the ground, you can say it a hundred times, you can say it a thousand times. | |
| That doesn't make it into reality. | |
| There is a case at the World Court, the highest court in the world. | |
| Israel is being investigated at the highest court in the world for what they call a plausible genocide. | |
| So it's not popular. | |
| No, that's disgusting to say that. | |
| Do you have no respect for international law? | |
| That is a case. | |
| Nobody can hear you guys. | |
| Okay, but look, it's important you don't. | |
| Take your time to speak. | |
| Somebody finish, then go in. | |
| Otherwise, nobody can hear you. | |
| It's offensive to the people, to the hundreds of thousands of people that have been killed in Gaza to the corner. | |
| Listen, honestly, we get nowhere when everyone just shouts. | |
| Alan, you've got your hand up, which just for the sheer fact you're asking politely, you can go. | |
| But Piers, I'd like to say that. | |
| I'll come back to you, Jonathan. | |
| No one was shouting. | |
| Is that point? | |
| I'll come back to you. | |
| Alan. | |
| Pierce, it is so good that you are putting on these two people and the rapporteur to make the case against Israel. | |
| It's so important that the public see what kind of people and the kind of lies. | |
| It starts out with somebody who says this is the worst documented genocide in history, which includes, obviously, the non-communicated documented genocide while it was happening. | |
|
Double Standards in Debate
00:06:17
|
|
| Yeah. | |
| I didn't say it was the worst documented genocide. | |
| 6 million people were killed in the Holocaust. | |
| No, no, he did say while it was happening. | |
| I said while it was happening. | |
| So you're trying to. | |
| This is a loyalty thing to try and obscure the facts. | |
| Let's talk about facts. | |
| You edit that later. | |
| You're not going to let me finish. | |
| Alan is the same. | |
| Wait, wait, please. | |
| Alan, you can finish, but just to be clear, I'm sitting next to Matt here in London. | |
| And to be clear, he did say while it was going on, and he specifically cited the use of mobile phones, that people are watching all this happening in real time. | |
| So it wasn't how you categorize what he said. | |
| Let's assume you're right. | |
| I don't think you are. | |
| I assume you're right. | |
| While it was happening, the Nazis documented every single killing of virtually four million Jews. | |
| We didn't see it in real time. | |
| They documented it. | |
| Exactly. | |
| That's the important point. | |
| Why is it matters? | |
| But anyway, we're kind of spinning heads, right? | |
| I mean, we're talking two different things. | |
| We're talking about a war that was conducted while there are mobile phones and one where there wasn't. | |
| Alan, let me just ask you this, Alan. | |
| There's no question about that. | |
| Hang on, stop shouting, everybody. | |
| Katie, why? | |
| I can't get my points across. | |
| No, hang on. | |
| Everyone wants to stop talking. | |
| If everyone talks one at a time, we'll have a debate. | |
| Alan, I want to ask you this. | |
| The re-election of Donald Trump, other than an astonishing comeback, critically for him, is going to have, I think, very significant ramifications for this war. | |
| My guess is that, being the deal maker he is, he's going to try and do a deal to bring this war to an end. | |
| Do you agree with that? | |
| And do you think that the big picture here moving forward is that countries like Saudi Arabia, who have very good relationships with Trump, the Crown Prince in particular with Trump personally, that Saudi Arabia will still want to continue the road they were on to forge normalization with Israel at the end of all this. | |
| So how significant is all Trump's re-election going to be, do you think, here? | |
| I think it's very significant, number one. | |
| Number two, I think I'm right that one word that hasn't been mentioned on this whole show is the cause of all of these problems, namely Iran. | |
| Iran hasn't been mentioned. | |
| The ICC hasn't issued warrants against the leaders of Iran for engaging in obvious genocide, murder of their own people, rapes, you name it. | |
| They haven't done that. | |
| And that shows the double standard. | |
| I think that Trump will be tough on Iran. | |
| And if Iran is disarmed and unable to send its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, we can see real peace in the region with Saudi Arabia as well. | |
| Now, Israel today announced that it has accepted generally the terms of a ceasefire with Hezbollah. | |
| Also, Jake Sullivan, the head of our national security, announced the other day that the only barrier to a ceasefire in Gaza has been Hamas, not Israel. | |
| Israel has accepted these ceasefires. | |
| So I'm hoping that we can see peace. | |
| I'm hoping for a two-state solution. | |
| I bet you that many of the people who support the Palestinian cause aren't in favor of a two-state solution because they don't favor the state of Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people, continuing to exist. | |
| The terms of peace have to include the recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. | |
| It has to include a complete end of belligerency against Israel. | |
| All disputes have to be submitted to resolution and negotiation. | |
| And armed conflict, the use of terrorism, which has been the main instrument of Iran through Hezbollah and Gaza, has to stop. | |
| Without that, this will continue. | |
| There will be more and more people killed. | |
| And I have to make one other point. | |
| It is the most sexist thing to include women and say because women have been killed, therefore they're civilians. | |
| We know that Hamas uses women. | |
| We know it uses 19-year-olds, 18-year-olds, 17, 16, 15. | |
| So when you list the children and the women and assume that they are all non-combatants, you're making sexist and ageist and improper arguments. | |
| Well, you're also making an assumption. | |
| Hang on, hang on. | |
| You're also making an assumption there, Alan, which I don't think you have. | |
| I'm not hearing you. | |
| Well, you can hear me? | |
| Not hearing. | |
| Okay, we'll fix that. | |
| Let me come to Matt. | |
| Let me come to Matt. | |
| Matt, what's going to happen here? | |
| Trump winning obviously is being perceived as good for Netanyahu and Israel, not good for the Palestinians. | |
| I'm not so sure. | |
| I mean, Trump is a pragmatist at heart. | |
| He doesn't like war. | |
| He thinks it's bad business. | |
| Never mind anything else. | |
| They'll want to try and bring this to an end. | |
| But you'll also want peace in the region ultimately here. | |
| What do you think is going to happen? | |
| No, I think Trump is a disaster for the Palestinian cause. | |
| His new cabinet is just Israel's first cabinet. | |
| And you saw during his previous presidency in 2018, the Palestinians in Gaza did the Great March of Return, where they peacefully went to the gates of their prison that they've been put in by Israel to demonstrate and they were massacred by Israeli snipers. | |
| That all happened under Trump and it happened while he moved the embassy of the US to Jerusalem illegally. | |
| It's one of the only countries in the world that did that. | |
| So he has complete Israel's interest at heart. | |
| And that goes to the heart of this issue. | |
| There was no one that the US population could vote for in the recent election that was anti-genocide. | |
| You had Biden and Kamala Harris who had overseen a year of genocide, sent more weapons, regurgitated all the Israeli propaganda. | |
| And you had Trump who was even worse on the other side. | |
| And that goes to the heart of the issue. | |
| We don't have a proper democracy in the United States. | |
| We don't have one here in the UK because the same thing happened with Keir Starmer. | |
| He's participated in the genocide in the same way as Rishi Sunak did. | |
| So we need to understand that our democracy does not allow us to vote against genocide. | |
| And that is a major crisis for all of us. | |
| And we need to understand as well that the ICC arrest warrants are a turning point in world history. | |
| Okay. | |
| Can I just say why? | |
| Because there's a reason that Joe Biden is so against the arrest warrants. | |
| There's a reason why Keir Starmer took ages to come and say that he'd complied because they are also participants in this genocide and they should be sweating. | |
|
Democracy Failing Against Genocide
00:06:06
|
|
| Not just them. | |
| Their ministers. | |
| John Healy's. | |
| No, no, no, let me finish that. | |
| I let you talk all the rubbish you talk. | |
| I let you talk all the time. | |
| Let me talk. | |
| He wants to have a new system. | |
| Whoever puts their hand on peacefully gets to respond to the system. | |
| All right, can I finish my point? | |
| I'm talking about ministers like Foreign Secretary David Lamy, Defense Minister John Healy, Prime Minister Kierstama, Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken, all of them, all of them should be investigated. | |
| All right, you made your point. | |
| Because the participation has been military and intelligent. | |
| I understand. | |
| You made your point. | |
| Jonathan, Jonathan, you respond to that. | |
| All right, Jonathan respond. | |
| Alan, hold on for a second. | |
| Hang on, Jonathan will respond now. | |
| Please, quiet. | |
| Everybody else. | |
| I can't reflect on this. | |
| Yes, we are, unfortunately. | |
| That's what remains here. | |
| And I really try to be civil throughout this debate here and not to interrupt others. | |
| But what I would want to reflect on is this. | |
| The fact that someone in a studio somewhere around the world keeps on repeating the word genocide does not make it true. | |
| There is no genocide of Palestinians happening. | |
| It is not supported by any facts or any data. | |
| Israel has no genocidal intent. | |
| Israel has not been executing any genocidal plans. | |
| And the only genocidal intent that exists in this area is that of Hamas, who has it written explicitly in their charter where they want to kill all the Jews in what they call Palestine and eradicate the state of Israel. | |
| And that is what they tried to do on October 7. | |
| And sadly, they were able, based on our failure, to kill 1,200 Israelis. | |
| And they would have done more and more as they say themselves. | |
| They will do October 7 again and again if they're able to do so. | |
| So to say that there is a genocide of Palestinians going on and to repeat that falsehood, that lie, in order to shape that narrative is nothing but propaganda and nonsense. | |
| Food is coming in. | |
| Thousands of trucks of food have 1,100 tons of food has been brought into Gaza. | |
| The gates are open. | |
| There's more crossings of humanitarian aid coming in. | |
| And there's a tremendous flood of international aid coming into Gaza. | |
| And to claim that there is starvation and famine and genocide and all of these very loaded terms is just nothing more than propaganda. | |
| And it couldn't be forgetful, Jonathan. | |
| And repeating it doesn't make it true. | |
| But at the risk of also repeating something, which is true, the best way to prove what you're saying to the world is to let the journalists in, which at the moment the IDF doesn't want to do, which I'm afraid for me is extremely. | |
| I don't agree with that. | |
| Yeah, I know, but it's a very significant thing to keep. | |
| You agree with Pierce. | |
| Because they said at the moment, the trouble is, Jonathan, at the moment, we only have the IDS word for this stuff. | |
| And that's the problem with this whole thing isn't accurate, then you know it. | |
| I'm not saying what you're saying is wrong. | |
| I'm just saying I would like to see it independently verified by independent journalists from outside. | |
| Anyway, stop killing Palestinian journalists as well. | |
| Let me bring in Katie. | |
| Let me bring in Katie now. | |
| Jonathan, let me bring in Katie. | |
| Let me bring in Katie. | |
| What I don't say, don't listen to me as an authority on genocide. | |
| Listen to the genocide experts who have said that this is a genocide. | |
| People like Ira Nair, the human rights lawyer who's on the right. | |
| Many top lawyers say it isn't. | |
| He says what? | |
| Many top lawyers have also said it isn't genocide. | |
| Well, most genocide scholars have said it was. | |
| I don't think most is an accurate thing. | |
| I don't think it's most true. | |
| I've seen it very split. | |
| I've seen it very split. | |
| Okay, we'll get the numbers in there later, but we can talk by the second. | |
| But I think it's also rich to hear Alan Dershowitz try to lecture anyone about sexism when you're Epstein's lawyer and friend. | |
| So that's one thing. | |
| Hey, I'm a fan of the person. | |
| And being Epstein's lawyer doesn't mean he's a sexist. | |
| I'm proud to be Bill Clinton's lawyer. | |
| I'm proud to be everybody's lawyer. | |
| Don't attack me for being a lawyer. | |
| Lawyers do represent people. | |
| It doesn't mean that they're lawyers. | |
| Don't attack me for being a lawyer. | |
| Pure rape. | |
| That's pure McCarthyism. | |
| Pure McCarthyism. | |
| That's your lane. | |
| Pure McCarthyism. | |
| So I wanted to say, it's like Tourette's syndrome. | |
| But I also wanted to say that the fact that Jonathan keeps saying it's not genocide, of course, you're literally, you've been a spokesperson for the IDF. | |
| And Alan brought up rape. | |
| And I want to bring something up because I know, Pierce, you brought up rape a lot on this show. | |
| And something that has never been brought up on mainstream television is the fact that Israel has committed rape. | |
| Israeli soldiers, the IDF, the IDF that you were part of, Jonathan, and that you were a spokesperson for, has raped people. | |
| And not only have they raped people, it's been documented by the Israeli media. | |
| There's video of it from State Amon that was leaked from State to Monday. | |
| You see a man who was basically gang raped. | |
| And what happened? | |
| He was then hospitalized. | |
| An Israeli doctor had said as much. | |
| He was hospitalized by the people. | |
| We actually have talked about this a lot on the show, just to be clear. | |
| Okay. | |
| Yeah, we haven't talked about it. | |
| I talked about it when Jonathan. | |
| But I want to bring it up from Jonathan. | |
| And then what happens? | |
| You must have missed that. | |
| You missed most of the facts related to the conflict in Gaza. | |
| That's a good one. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Okay. | |
| So then you have people who are rape. | |
| And what happens when they arrest you? | |
| I invite you to leave the comforts of wherever you are broadcasting. | |
| And actually come here and speak with Israel. | |
| I think that's the same thing. | |
| And speak with victims of this. | |
| There are a bunch of rape. | |
| Then police try to arrest the rape. | |
| Then your fellow countrymen have protests in defense of the right to rape. | |
| Then a member of the Knesset says it's, quote, legitimate to insert sticks into people's rectums. | |
| So tell me about how your army is the most moral army in the world and your Knesset is so moral. | |
| Like he literally said that. | |
| Just to be clear, just to be clear, Katie, you didn't see this debate before. | |
| We have debated this very point multiple times on the show, including which one. | |
| Jonathan debated it? | |
| Yes, he did. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So I don't want to go over that again. | |
|
Rogue Regimes and Terror
00:06:15
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|
| Yes, let me just round things up now very quickly. | |
| Let me round things up here. | |
| What do you have to say about the memory? | |
| We've debated this. | |
| I'm not going to do it again. | |
| Let me bring in Matt. | |
| Matt, I would say that. | |
| I want to bring you a lot of people. | |
| Katie, please finish. | |
| We've done this. | |
| It's boring to regular viewers who keep doing the same thing. | |
| Let me ask Matt this quickly, which is... | |
| Take me forward two, three years. | |
| What is going to happen here? | |
| I mean, you've got millions of people being displaced, many tens of thousands being killed. | |
| You know, I've always had two big questions for Israel, which is, what is the end game here? | |
| And why would you expect that killing so many people in Gaza in the way that you've done it? | |
| And I'm not disputing that Israel had a right to go after Hamas. | |
| I'm just talking about the proportionate scale of what they've done. | |
| Why would that kill and not fuel the ideology that led to what Hamas did in the first place? | |
| So just on those two people. | |
| It didn't in Japan. | |
| That's true. | |
| Well, at peace with Germany and Japan, after millions of people were killed, all Hamas has to do is drop its arms, free the hostages. | |
| Alan, he wasn't asking you the question. | |
| Peace with Saudi Arabia. | |
| He wasn't asking you the question. | |
| Okay, Matt. | |
| Thank you. | |
| I'm not asking you. | |
| Well, I think it's important to say we're dealing with a rogue terrorist regime which operates completely outside of international law. | |
| Oh, Hamas? | |
| Israel. | |
| What about Hamas? | |
| Well, I'm not talking about Hamas. | |
| You just asked me a question. | |
| Let me ask you. | |
| No, no, no, you're talking about a rogue terrorist regime. | |
| Exactly. | |
| It's called Israel. | |
| What about Hamas? | |
| You didn't ask me about that. | |
| But you just said what? | |
| You just said what? | |
| I'll let you continue, Matt. | |
| But just to be clear, do you also view Hamas as a rogue terrorist regime? | |
| It doesn't have a government anymore. | |
| Well, they are still the government of the country. | |
| Abet Iran. | |
| They've been confused with the government. | |
| Abet Iran. | |
| But they're still officially the government of Gaza. | |
| Are they a rogue terrorist regime? | |
| Well, define what terrorist means. | |
| You just tell me what you think what they did was terrorists. | |
| What is Iran's meaning? | |
| Well, October 7th, October 7th, there were atrocities committed. | |
| Was it a terrorist attack? | |
| Well, it's a difficult one to answer. | |
| Not really. | |
| Under international... | |
| No, no, it is. | |
| There was a UN General Assembly resolution in 1982 that gives the right of occupied people to the right to armed resistance. | |
| I'm not saying that gives you the right to contravene the Geneva Conventions, but actually it is more complicated than just using these terms, which you've just used that exact term. | |
| Yeah, because it's much more clear-cut with Israel. | |
| Because they are the colonial power and they are. | |
| I've got to say, it's pretty clear-cut to me that Hamas are colon terrorists. | |
| But anyway, Israel was anti-colonial. | |
| It's not a rapist by combatants. | |
| If they're an occupied people, not civilian, but combatants. | |
| Do you know that, Piers, that it is legal under international for armed resistance to colonial power? | |
| And what we saw on October 7th was terrorism. | |
| Yeah, but behavior. | |
| That's not what I'm debating. | |
| Anyone who ever disputes with the people. | |
| I've just accepted that atrocities were committed. | |
| Whether you call it terrorism or whatever, I don't mind. | |
| Look at how many civilians Israel has done. | |
| But the terrorism is used as a propaganda term. | |
| That's why I'm saying it covers up a much more nuanced debate that we could have about the rights and wrongs of violence in each situation. | |
| But there's no doubt about this. | |
| Israel is a rogue terrorist regime that is backed by the most powerful countries in the world, principally the United States. | |
| And what it's done in Gaza and is now doing in Lebanon is creating a new world. | |
| It's creating a law of the jungle. | |
| And this is why I worry, to go to your point about what do we see in the future. | |
| We are creating the conditions for an absolute obliteration of the global order, which was created after the Second World War. | |
| And what has happened in Gaza? | |
| What Israel is doing in Syria, Lebanon, Iran? | |
| It won't stay in the Middle East. | |
| The idea that this... | |
| What about the other? | |
| What about hang on? | |
| Let me deal with this plate. | |
| Let me answer. | |
| What about the other side of that coin? | |
| Which is actually that Iran has been using its power to supply weapons and money to the Houthis, to Hamas, to Hezbollah, all of whom are wedded with an ideology of the destruction and elimination of all things Israel. | |
| I mean, it works both ways, doesn't it? | |
| Well, Lister, how many people have those organizations killed as opposed to Israel? | |
| So it only matters about numbers. | |
| Well, it's quite important. | |
| We're not talking about a genocide is happening. | |
| They have one of the most sophisticated militaries in human history. | |
| Well, let me get Alan in the United States. | |
| There's not a few of F16 and F-16. | |
| Hang on. | |
| They're wiping out apartment blocks in Lebanon and Gaza. | |
| They've killed 200,000 people. | |
| You made your point. | |
| Let me go to Alan to respond to that, please. | |
| Okay. | |
| Well, first of all, Israel has killed far, far fewer people than Syria and Iran, and the international community hasn't really focused on the leaders of Iran. | |
| And Syria, Syria has killed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of its own civilians and its own citizens, in addition to Israelis. | |
| Iran has killed gays and transgenders and women without any concern. | |
| No warrant is ever issued against the evil leaders of the and these are countries, Iran, and Iran is the central figure. | |
| It's the octopus that has its arms extended. | |
| If Iran were to have regime change and would be turned into a democratic country that didn't have Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houdis, there would be peace in the Middle East. | |
| That worked out well in Iraq. | |
| This is the same rhetoric you heard about Iraq. | |
| And look what happened in Iraq. | |
| Iraq has taken over by Iran. | |
| Iraq has been taken over by Iran. | |
| I'm talking about peace now. | |
| I'm talking about bringing down their arms. | |
| Israel's a democracy. | |
| No, it's not a democracy. | |
| There will be regime changes. | |
| It's not democracy. | |
| There's nothing democratic about Israel. | |
| It's not. | |
| It's a tyranny. | |
| You're comparing Israel and Iran now. | |
| You've compared Israel with Nazi Germany. | |
| Now you're comparing it to Iran. | |
| Again, Pierce. | |
| No, I didn't compare it to Nazi Germany. | |
| Again, you're inventing things. | |
| No, this show. | |
| It's very serious. | |
| No, no, Charlotte. | |
| Thank you for having these people on your show. | |
| No, no, because you're making stuff up. | |
| You don't like it. | |
| Okay, you know what? | |
| Alan has very kindly thanked me for having everybody on the show. | |
| I would also like to thank you all for being on the show. | |
| We've run out of time. | |
| It was what I thought it would be, a passionate and lively debate. | |
| Thank you all very much. | |