Thomas Hand and guests dissect the Gaza conflict, debating whether Israel's actions constitute genocide or a response to Hamas's October 7 attacks while addressing the fate of 100 hostages. The discussion critiques Iran's alleged role, challenges chemical weapons claims against Syria, and warns that regime change could spark regional war. Thomas supports Trump's threat to launch a massive campaign by January 20th to force hostage releases, arguing harsh tactics are necessary despite the destruction in Gaza and the tragic loss of life. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Occupation and Apartheid00:14:53
The problem is occupation.
The problem is apartheid.
The way out of this is only by accepting us Palestinians as equal human beings.
There's still 100 hostages in Gaza.
Whenever we try and rescue them, they shoot them in the back, execution style.
Please, on both sides, make the bail.
How can you possibly have a full accounting of the death toll when Gaza Strip has been decimated by Israeli bombardment and so many people are still buried under the rubber?
They've stolen their land and that's not enough.
Now they want to wipe them out for good.
Only when the Palestinians understand that they have to take their future into their hands and start building their country.
Then maybe there will be a chance for peace.
Now they're talking about Trump being assassinated by Iran.
Iran has nothing to do with assassination.
And now we hear you say that with a straight face.
Seriously.
Why didn't you just come to Iran?
And then maybe you'll find out that we're not Mordor and you don't live in the Shire.
And I promise you we won't take you hostage.
The Middle East has undergone a dramatic and dangerous transformation in 2024.
But in one specific sense, we end the year as it began.
Israel remains at war with Hamas.
96 hostages now remain in Gaza, dead or alive.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says he called President Trump this weekend to reiterate the need for complete victory.
But the messaging about retaliation and defense has gone.
This sounded more like mission accomplished.
Well, Israel has pounded Syria with airstrikes since the shock downfall of President Assad.
It seized control of a buffer zone on Syrian land and ordered troops to remain there for the whole of the winter.
The so-called Shia Crescent, the ark of Iranian proxies that surrounds Israel, has been decimated.
So Israel looks stronger and arguably safer than it did a year ago.
But what about the Middle East and the rest of the world?
How will Iran fight back if indeed it can?
And is Palestinian death now in danger of being normalized in a game of geopolitical chess?
The Netanyahu clearly is beginning to win.
After the next hour, we'll hear insights from all angles of the Middle East crisis, including a view from Tehran.
But we'll begin with the West Bank and the president of the Palestinian National Institute, Mustafa Baghuti.
Mr. Barghuti, welcome back to Uncensored.
It's very hard to escape the conclusion that however he's managed to get there, Prime Minister Netanyahu is now winning on multiple fronts in the Middle East.
What is your reading of the situation?
Well, if you consider describing him as a war criminal as a success, then he is successful.
He has been called for by the International Criminal Court, which accused him of war crimes.
He has committed terrible genocide in Gaza, killing at least 50,000 Palestinians, 55,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, women and children, and injured more than 106,000, many of whom will die because of his destruction of medical facilities, of all hospitals.
He is a war criminal.
So if you consider that a success, fair enough.
But on the other hand, he is behaving as a head of an imperial power.
He is dreaming of controlling the whole Middle East.
His behavior and attacks on Lebanon and now on Syria, destroying all the defense abilities of Syria is unprecedented.
We didn't see anything like that except when Hitler started invading all countries around him.
It's a very bad future, not only for Palestinians and the region, but also for Israelis.
Look at the issue also of the Israeli prisoners who they call hostages.
He doesn't care about them.
He continues bombarding people and places, even where these prisoners are.
He doesn't care if they are killed, all of them.
He cares only about himself, about his reputation, and about his aggressive plans in the Middle East.
Are you pleased that Bashar al-Assad has been deposed?
Yes.
But on the other hand, I don't think any regime that is dictatorial towards its people will ever be sustainable.
And we don't accept any leader anywhere in the world to oppress their people or torture them.
That's for sure.
But on the other hand, the question is who gave Israel the law?
Who allowed Israel to get into Syria and invade Syria and occupy more territories of Syria to the level that they are about 12 kilometers away from Damascus, the capital of Syria?
By which law they have the right to interfere in this manner and continue even bombarding Syria when they know that there is no Syrian army to respond to them.
In my opinion, things are changing, of course, in the Middle East, and people want to be free and want to have democracy, that's for sure.
But at the same time, Israel is exaggerating its main problem, which is occupying other people and occupying and oppressing the Palestinian people and now occupying parts of Lebanon and additional parts of Syria.
That is not a recipe for solution.
That is a recipe for complicating the situation, for making the situation even more dangerous, and it will not bring peace.
I mean, the counter argument, of course, from Israel would be that we have for many years been on the receiving end of terrorist attacks from the Houthis, from Hezbollah, from Hamas, all fueled by Iran, who've also had their tentacles all over Syria, supported by Russia, and that now they've got these terrorists on the run, and they're going to finish them off and decapitate them in a way that means they cannot present an ongoing threat to the security of Israel.
That, as you know, is what the Israelis would say in response.
What do you say to that argument?
I ask you a question.
Are the 17,000 Palestinian children who were killed by Israeli bombardment terrorists?
Are the civilians, the women, 12,000 women who were also killed in these bombardments terrorists?
Of course not.
This is not an attack on Hamas, as you said in your introduction.
It's not a war on Hamas.
It's a war on the Palestinian people.
And the issue of Iran that they keep mentioning all the time is not the root problem.
The root problem is that we, the Palestinian people, have been subjected to ethnic cleansing by Israel since 76 years.
70% of our people were forced to become refugees and are not allowed to come back to the places they were displaced from.
I see the world celebrating the fact that Syrian refugees could come home, but nobody says that Palestinian refugees should come home.
Add to that that Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza since 57 years, making it the longest occupation in modern history.
And now it is conducting unocide, collective punishment, including starving people in Gaza, and also practicing ethnic cleansing.
I saw today images of Jabalia, Betlahia.
Imagine whole cities where more than 250,000 people lived are irregular to the ground and people are ethnically cleansed.
What is that if it is not genocide?
That is the problem.
The problem is not Iran.
Israel always tries to avoid the main core issue, which is the Palestinian issue.
And the right of the Palestinian people to be free, the right of the Palestinian people to have self-determination, the right of the Palestinian people to practice democracy.
They ignore that and always search for some external country or force to justify their oppression of the Palestinian people.
At one point, it was the Soviet Union, then it was Egypt, then it was Syria, then it was Iraq.
Now it's Iran.
If they solve their problem with Iran tomorrow, maybe they will be speaking about Azerbaijan.
I don't know.
But the reality is the root issue is not Syria.
It's not Iran.
The root issue is the Palestinian issue.
As long as Israel refuses to accept the right of the Palestinian people to be free, the right of the Palestinian people to end occupation, the right of the Palestinian people to live in liberty and freedom and not in a system of apartheid, this problem will continue.
And Israel will be stuck with that.
I mean, look, I agree with some of what you just said, but the idea that Iran is some kind of irrelevance to this big picture, I think is for the birds.
Iran has clearly been supporting and resourcing and funding Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas.
And also the idea that somehow it's only a war on the Palestinian people and not a war on Hamas.
I don't think that is something that is credible either, because 3,000 members of Hamas poured over the border and indiscriminately attacked anyone that they could.
And they killed young and old, male, female, children.
They kidnapped people.
They beheaded people.
They raped people.
They committed an act of such heinous terrorism that, of course, Israel was going to respond in force.
And this idea that only responding to Palestinian civilians is clearly not true.
Now, I think it's gone way too far.
I genuinely do.
I think it has to stop.
I think the amount of children and women being killed is now getting unconscionable.
But I don't think you can fairly say that the only people that they've been targeting Israel are the Palestinian people.
They have been targeting Hamas, albeit in a way that I think has become increasingly indiscriminate.
And therefore, the number of civilians being killed is getting more and more disproportionate to the original attack on them over a year ago.
I have the three responses to what you said.
First of all, we all know, and we've described that on your program before, this situation did not start on the 7th of October.
7th of October was not a cause.
It was a result.
It was a result of oppression, a result of discrimination, a result of the fact that the whole Gazan population were put under terrible siege, depriving them from electricity, from clean water, from everything for 17 years.
It was the result of the ethnic cleansing we spoke about, of the occupation we spoke about.
So you can't say that the history started on the 7th of October.
Second, the Houthis and Hezbollah were not going to attack Israel or get involved in this situation if Israel did not continue the war on Gaza.
The problem was the war on Gaza, not the war in Lebanon.
And now the war in Lebanon stopped, but they continue the attacks on Gaza.
So the core problem one more time is the issue of Palestine.
Third, no, it's not an attack on Hamas only.
It's an attack on all Palestinians.
Otherwise, as you have admitted yourself, who could justify the killing of more than 17,000 children and so many women?
Who can justify destruction of 80% of all houses and shelters in Gaza?
Who can justify the fact that I lost 1,080 doctors, nurses, and health professionals who are our colleagues?
Who can justify the fact?
Tell me, what is the justification for Israel not allowing a single foreign journalist to enter Gaza?
And then they've killed up till this moment 197 Palestinian journalists.
This is not an attack on Hamas.
It's an attack on every Palestinian.
And what can justify the attacks on us now in the West Bank?
By Israeli illegal settlers and by the Israeli army?
What can justify the fact that we are under 720 military checkpoints dividing the West Bank in 224 small ghettos and depriving us of the ability even to have economic proper system?
No, this is the problem is occupation.
The problem is apartheid.
The way out of this is only by accepting us Palestinians as equal human beings.
As long as Israel does not accept a Palestinian as equal human being to an Israeli, this problem will continue.
And that is the core issue.
If the problem with Palestinians is solved, there will be no place for any Iranian intervention.
It's very clear.
Mustafa Barghouti, it's always good to talk to you.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you.
Well, to debate all this, I'm joined by the Grey Zone journalist and co-host of Useful Idiots Podcast, Aaron Marte, and by the former IDF spokesman, Jonathan Komrikis.
Jonathan and Aaron, welcome back to Ansatza for both of you.
Jonathan, you know, whenever I speak to Mustafa Barghouti, he always presents a very compelling case for the other side.
Does any part of what he said give you pause for thought?
Yeah, thank you for having me.
And to begin, I will start by committing not to interrupt anybody, even though I am sure that I will hear things that I don't agree with, and I'm sure that I will hear things that are going to be factually incorrect.
But I'm not going to interrupt unless I am interrupted.
And I hope we can have a meaningful exchange of points of view and hopefully ground ourselves in fact and not hyperbole.
You know, I heard lots and lots of very rich and colorful language by Barghouti, which I think he makes a, he lies well, but I think it's very rich to hear a representative of the Palestinian authority educate anybody about democracy and to speak and say as if all of the problems in the Middle East are related to Palestinians.
Undermined Peace Deals00:14:28
He conveniently omitted that the Palestinians were offered four different peace solutions, land for peace and an end to the conflict.
He omitted that Israel is the one that has been providing those peace solutions and he omitted that he and his leaders, two former Palestinian dictators, and I use the word dictators because they were not elected and I don't think that anybody could argue that Mahmoud Abbas is a democratically elected leader because he is in his 19th or 20th year in a four-year term.
So to hear any lecture about democracy from a representative of a corrupt and horribly, horribly unpopular Palestinian authority for me is vile.
And I would suggest a different point of view.
And actually, you made some of the, what you call the Israeli claims.
But, you know, if the situation in Israel was so horrible, and if all of the propaganda that we hear against Israel, all of these fantastic terms that are being thrown around as if they're weightless, atrocities and war crimes and apartheid and genocide and all of the other nonsense that isn't substantiated by any facts on the ground, and I can challenge anybody that dares to say otherwise.
If the situation was so horrible, then why are Syrian nationals, thousands of Syrian nationals, going on the record and asking Israel to come and help them and to actually take control over Syrian territory because they fear for their lives what Sunni jihadists will do against them?
If any of all of the nonsense that we hear against Israel was true, then why are Arabs or Druze in Syria asking for Israeli protection?
Clearly, the situation isn't as it is portrayed in Arab and international media.
And Piers, you made a reference here to the amount of casualties.
I would like to refer you to a recent study by the Henry Jackson Society by Andrew Fox, one of the researchers there, who simply took apart step by step all of the Hamas figures from the so-called health ministry.
Not 44,000, not most of them were civilians, and definitely not indiscriminate killing by the IDF.
There are so many inconsistencies in the Hamas numbers, and I really suggest that you and everybody else go have a long, hard read at the document that was just released yesterday, reflected and reported upon in the Telegraph.
And last point, you know what worries me the most in that same study?
It says that 95%, they did a sample study of mainstream American, Australian, and British media.
They did almost 1,500 pieces of or items, news items.
Out of those, 95% of the news sources, they cited Hamas, and the majority of the citations don't even question what Hamas put forward.
And they only used 5% information from Israel.
And when they did so, they questioned it most of the times.
And I think that is really the responsibility of international media, parroting Hamas talking points, parroting Hamas lies and misleading people around the world into believing that the difficult and sad situation in Gaza is anything than just a war.
It is a sad situation.
And perhaps the only thing that I agree with Barghuti is that yes, Palestinians are suffering in Gaza and the situation there is not a good one from a humanitarian perspective.
I agree with that.
But that is not because Israel wanted it to be like that.
That is because Hamas started a war and Israel is fighting against it.
I need to move on to it, otherwise we're going to run out of time.
Aaron Marta, I mean, what I would say about the Palestinian Health Authority numbers is that historically, their numbers have later been borne out to be remarkably accurate in independent studies of the numbers they've been given.
It may be different here, and we'll have to see, but that's certainly historically, they've turned out to be accurate, which is why people take them seriously.
Aaron Martin, your response to Jonathan Komrik is.
Yes, on the issue of the death toll in Gaza, the State Department has long relied on the figures supplied by the health ministry.
The only people who do not are people who are seeking to justify one of the worst crimes in human history, which is Israel's mass murder campaign in Gaza.
If anything, the Gaza Health Ministry's figures are too low.
Because how can you possibly have a full accounting of the death toll when Gaza Strip has been decimated by Israeli bombardment and so many people are still buried under the rubble?
So personally, I feel that even to debate this issue is to lose one's humanity, just as it would be to debate the death toll by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
I want to address some other falsehoods.
Jonathan said that Palestinians have walked away from all these generous peace offers submitted by Israel.
Israel has never accepted the fundamental premise, accepted by the entire world, except for the US, that Palestinians have the right to a state in the West Bank in Gaza, 22% of their historic homeland.
The rest was stolen by Israel.
That's why, for example, just take one famous case.
Palestinians are often blamed for walking away from a so-called generous peace offer at Camp David in July 2000.
That's the peace offer that everyone likes to cite for why Palestinians have turned down this prospect of a state.
Well, even the Israeli prime minister, even the Israeli foreign minister, excuse me, who transmitted that offer, Shlomo Ben-Ami, he later said, if I were Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David as well.
That's because he recognized that the Israeli offer would have kept all of Israel's major West Bank settlement blocks that make a Palestinian state impossible without offering Palestinians an equal land swap inside Israel.
So Israel's never given Palestinians an offer that even someone willing to make a massive compromise, accepting just 22% of their historic homeland, could take.
So this idea that Palestinians have walked away from a peace deal, it's just used to justify mass murder and aggression.
And that's why during the years of the so-called peace process, the years of the Oslo Accords, Israeli settlements doubled in the occupied territories.
How is it you're going to claim you're offering Palestinians peace while meanwhile building up the illegal settlements that make a Palestinian state in just 22% of their homeland impossible?
That's a contradiction that no one can ever answer for because this claim that Palestinians have been offered a contiguous state is simply a lie.
All right, Jonathan, let me ask you a different way into this.
When you listen to Aaron there, and you listen to him many times before, I've listened to both of you many times before.
What I would love to see is that there is an appreciation between you of some points of common ground, some basic things that you could find yourselves able to agree to.
Because it seems sometimes that both sides are so intransigent, there's no give of anything.
And so as I'm trying to get my head around how any of this gets resolved, you've got to start somewhere, right?
Where do you start when you're trying to resolve this after this mayhem and this horrendous war with all the death toll on both sides?
When you get to the other side, where are the points of agreement that you sense might be there that you can build some kind of settlement on?
Yes, I wish we would be able to see that going forward.
And just to correct one thing without going into too many details, the Camp David proposal was for either 96 or 98% of Judea and Samaria.
And I think it's very interesting to listen to former President Clinton, much to the dismay of Free Gentlemen in the Democratic Party.
He told the story and he really goes back and tells what happened at Camp David and why that was such a travesty, why that was such a tremendous historical miss.
Another opportunity for Palestinians.
And as the saying goes, they're excellent at missing opportunities.
And it's sad.
It's sad for them.
And it's sad for me and my people who live here who have to continue to live alongside them.
Listen, the bottom line is Palestinian rejectionism.
There is no other ethnic minority anywhere around the world that has fought against another ethnic minority, fought and lost, fought and lost, and has been given chance after chance after chance, resuscitated and artificially supported by most of or many organizations and countries around the world in order to keep their so-called struggle alive.
And I think that's the real sad part.
If Palestinians were treated like any other minority or any other ethnic group in global history, then we would have solved this conflict long time ago.
Israel has offered peace, has been rejected four times.
And again, for some reason, Israel is being blamed for not wanting to do peace with the Palestinians.
And by the way, you know, we speak about democracy.
It's again, I think it's absurd.
What's preventing the Palestinians from exercising democracy now?
Why hasn't the Palestinian Authority had elections in the last, I think, 19 or 20 years?
Why?
Because they are corrupt, because they're hated.
And what would happen is that Hamas would be elected.
So maybe it's a good thing that they don't have democracy, but to lecture us about not wanting to end the conflict and not being serious in ending it, I think that's very wrong.
I think it's false.
And I think at the end of the day, it doesn't promote anything.
Only when the Palestinians understand that they have to take their future into their hands and start building their country instead of trying to ruin ours, then when they will focus on their future, then maybe there will be a chance for peace because the time goes by, we will continue to build our country.
We'll continue to grow stronger and stronger despite what so many of our haters and detractors think and want.
It's not going to happen.
And I'm sorry to disappoint so many people.
Actually, I'm not sorry to disappoint, but this is how it's going to go.
Israel is going to continue to exist in this rough neighborhood.
We will continue to defend ourselves.
We will continue to hold on to our land and to fight and defend ourselves despite being in a very rough neighborhood.
And people may like it and they may not like it and they may throw allegations at us.
At the end of the day, we will continue to be here and to defend ourselves against Iranians and Syrians and Lebanese and Palestinians and whoever tries to attack us because we are defending our home.
Okay, Aaron, I mean, I noticed that Jonathan didn't really answer my question.
Can you answer the same question in a way that at least gives people watching this hope that they can be at least a building block to some kind of settlement?
I mean, are there points where you would say, you know what, the Israelis have a point?
Piers, we actually did find some common ground there and then answer it because I agree with Jonathan that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt and hated.
Now, we'll disagree, though, on why they're corrupt and hated.
They're hated in the West Bank and Gaza because they collaborate with the Israeli occupation, as we're actually seeing right now, with the Palestinian Authority Security Services attacking Palestinians basically on Israel's behalf.
And this is important because this, from Israel's point of view, was the reason why it undertook the so-called peace process.
Itak Rabin, shortly before he was assassinated, he pointed out that it's a lot cheaper for Israel to basically use a collaborationist authority in Palestine, the Palestinian Authority, to do the policing for them, to crack down on Palestinians as Israel proceeds to expand its settlements and take the West Bank land that it wants.
And on the point about Camp David, this might seem for some people like a historical aside, but it's very important because it shows the lie that Palestinians have ever been offered a meaningful opportunity for their own state.
Yes, Bill Clinton did say that Palestinians were offered this generous deal.
Bill Clinton, though, has lied many times, including most infamously with his personal Monica Lewinsky scandal.
But Bill Clinton has also said before he would take a bullet for Israel.
He would go volunteer in the army and die in a ditch for Israel, even though he's a draft dodger when he was called to serve in Vietnam.
So that speaks to Bill Clinton's bias here.
And you don't have to listen to me.
Robert Malley, who served under Bill Clinton, who was there at Camp David, he said the Palestinian position was simply having a contiguous state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel never offered them that.
And that's why I'll say it again.
Shlomo Ben Ami, the Israeli foreign minister who transmitted the Camp David offer, he said, if I were Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David as well.
That applies to all so-called Israeli offers because they've never given Palestinians the chance to have a state, even in just 22% of their historic homeland.
Israel instead insists on building up these massive West Bank settlement blocks that make a Palestinian state impossible, that make Palestinian life impossible, that swallow up all the valuable land, all the water, while not offering Palestinians even a recognition of their right to return to their homes from which they were expelled in 1948.
To find agreement, Palestinians have found it already.
They've accepted a huge compromise.
They accepted in 1988 Israel within its pre-1967 borders.
That's the historic compromise you're looking for, Piers.
It's Israel by insisting on its self-proclaimed right to settle what it calls Judea and Samaria, which is the West Bank.
It's them that have undermined any opportunity for a peace deal.
And to enforce that, that's why they're now carrying out mass murder in Gaza, to wipe out any resistance to Israel, to actually build up new settlements inside Gaza, if we believe some Israeli officials, because they don't see Palestinians as equal human beings.
They've stolen their land and that's not enough.
Now they want to wipe them out for good and displace as many people as possible.
And you cannot make peace with a state that has that mentality.
For there to be peace, Israel will have to fundamentally rethink its foundational commitment to occupation and supremacy.
Okay, just hold fire you two for a moment.
Israel inspired for Jonathan.
Jonathan, hang on.
Jonathan, hang on.
I will come back to you, but I'm just going to take a little break and bring in another guest briefly and then get your reaction, both of you, to this guest.
I'm joined now by the Iranian academic Mohammed Morandi.
Professor, thank you for joining me again on Uncensored.
States Acting in Self-Interest00:15:45
You must be feeling in Iran pretty twitchy about the way things are going, aren't you?
Because all your proxies have come under relentless attack by Israel.
You've now seen in Syria the Russians fleeing and with them taking Assad.
That's another potential power base that's been wrestled away from you.
Where does this leave Iran other than, according to Donald Trump, very weakened?
No, Palestinians are not proxies.
They are living under occupation.
And Hezbollah are not proxies.
They were fighting to stop the genocide in Gaza and so was Ansaro Lan.
So they continue to do so.
The fall of Syria, I think Professor Mearsheimer said it quite well.
The U.S. used ISIS and al-Qaeda operatives and won.
If that's a good thing, fine.
You should be very happy.
7-7 in London, the bombings, fine if that's what you like.
If the Manchester bombings, the bombing in Manchester was fine for you, then I guess that's your choice.
If 9-11 was fine for you, then that's fine.
If al-Qaeda is okay, then that's your choice.
We don't think it's a good idea for Syria.
Donald Trump is about to be inaugurated as president again.
He's been very critical already about Iran.
Reports today from America suggesting he's going to massively intensify sanctions and other financial measures against your country.
You've got to be concerned, haven't you, that Donald Trump feels that the Biden administration was way too weak with you as a country, and he intends to be a lot stronger.
Well, the world has changed in the last eight years, Pierce.
And Iran is much stronger.
China, Russia, much more assertive.
The global south is different.
And the United States has many challenges.
It would be smart for the new president-elect to rethink his policies.
I saw a Wall Street Journal article which said that people around Trump are thinking about strikes on Iran.
That would be catastrophic for the world.
And I say this as the most anti-war person you can meet.
I've survived chemical attacks.
I've survived a gunshot wound.
I have a shrapnel wound in the war.
The chemical weapons, of course, given by the Europeans to Saddam Hussein.
If there is an attack on Iran, quick question to you.
If the world changed and Germany had bases in France and then Germany attacked the UK, what would the UK response be?
Well, look, with respect, I'm asking the questions.
I don't want to get down to that.
No, I'm not going to get into your normal, you know, you often do is you turn it on to questioning me, but I'm questioning you because you're the professor from Iran.
So I don't want to get into hypotheticals about what may or may not be happening.
I'd rather focus on what is I would imagine.
No, no, no, hang on, hang on, no, hang on, hang on.
I mean, I could give you another allergy and say, well, if I was in the UK and we had terror groups in France and Germany and Spain and Belgium all constantly raining rockets and trying to attack us all the time, what would my response be to that if I knew that it was another country that was promoting and sponsoring it all?
So we can all get into hypotheticals.
I don't think it's very helpful.
I think what's more pertinent, if you don't mind me saying, Professor, is just your suggestion, which has been repeated by the Ayatollah Khomeini, that Iran is strong and powerful, will become even stronger.
Nobody else is seeing it like that.
And they're certainly seeing what's happened in Syria and the deposing of a dictator in Assad and the way that Russia just basically keeled over and then fled with him in tow.
This is a sign that actually there is a shifting power in the Middle East, but it's not in the favor of Iran at all.
In fact, quite the opposite.
Well, I tend to think that people in the region have and the world have recognized what is happening in Palestine and that those who are carrying out this genocide have been exposed to the world.
And I think that is the most damaging thing to the West that supported this genocide.
But to go back to what I was saying, the Iranian response would be what the UK response would have been.
And that would lead to regional war.
And because the United States has bases across our region, across the Persian Gulf and all these small countries that produce oil and gas.
So a regional war in the Persian Gulf would lead to oil and a crisis in the oil market.
It would bring down the region, but it would bring down the global economy.
And that would cause massive upheaval across the world.
And the refugee crisis as a result of Iraq and Syria and Libya.
And by the way, these were wars that were advocated by Netanyahu.
That refugee crisis would be nothing compared to what we would have if we had such a catastrophic war.
So my advice to you is to stand up against these sort of threats to war.
I remember the false flag operations of past.
I remember in 1991, in Kuwait when they spoke about the incubators, or in 2002, when they spoke about al-Qaeda and Iraq and chemical weapons, or in the Viagra in Libya, or the beheadings and the rape in Gaza, the fake beheadings.
All of these were to justify war and genocide.
And now they're talking about Trump being assassinated by Iran.
What nonsense.
They themselves assassinated Trump.
And I promise you that if Trump is assassinated, they'll pin it on Iran, but they're the ones who are going to do it.
All Trump supporters should know this.
Iran has nothing to do with assassination.
And now we hear...
Oh, please come off it.
Professor, come on.
Come on.
Now we hear.
How do you say that with Australian fairy?
Seriously.
Iran has never had anything to do with assassination.
Do me a favor.
No, no, no.
Look at the accusations made against.
The Iranian regime has never ever killed anyone.
I'm talking about Trump.
I'm talking about...
About one person assassination.
I'm talking about they tried to assassinate Trump twice and now they're trying to say Iran wants to do it.
Well, no.
What they said was there were credible threats, which they believe were credible, that Iran was plotting to kill him in response to the death of or the killing, deliberate killing by the American military of a senior Iranian commander, as you know.
I'm surprised at you because you were so skeptical about chemical weapons, but you can go down that line, but I'm down that road.
But I'm telling Trump supporters.
Would you know out of interest?
I mean, just to be to be respectful, would you know?
I mean, if your military were planning an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, why would they tell you with all due respect?
I read the Justice Department statement.
Go and take a look and see how ridiculous it is.
Take a look at it yourself and then discuss it tomorrow night.
But just one other thing.
Just one other thing.
The person who wrote this New York Times, this Wall Street Journal article, one of the two, actually, when I was in Vienna three years ago, during the nuclear negotiations, I was a media advisor and I was speaking to him, the guy who said that the Trump team is thinking about waging an attack on Iran, which would be an act of war.
And as I said, it would be catastrophic for the world.
I told him that in the 1990s, it was the spring of Europe, the EU.
And the 2020s is going to be the winter of Europe.
You know how the European economy has been after the war in Ukraine.
And I told him then that the Europeans should come to an agreement with Iran.
Not that I sympathize with the European position on Ukraine.
I think NATO moving eastward and the coup in Ukraine, all of these were provocations.
But in any case, I said that an agreement with Iran is something that Europe needs right now.
So be more flexible.
And I said this will be a decade of winter for Europe.
And I also said that if Europe works with Iran, then you can invest in Iran's oil and gas.
And right now, it's been three years.
Europe could have had a much better economic situation than what it has now.
There was almost an agreement.
The negotiations after weeks led to a text given by the EU to the different teams.
The Iranians took it back to Tehran.
They changed two or three words.
They gave it back to Joseph Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief.
He said that the Iranian demands were reasonable.
And what happened?
The United States balked.
No agreement.
And so now look what happened to Europe.
They have sanctioned Russia.
They could not benefit from an agreement with Iran.
They lose.
And the United States under Biden has wrecked the European economy.
We could have had an agreement.
Iran negotiated with Europeans.
Joseph Borrell said the Iranian demands were fine.
This unreasonable behavior in Washington, if it continues under Trump, it'll be a dead end.
Let me ask you this.
I mean, let me ask you this.
We've just seen a massive uprising in Syria that has deposed one of the longer lasting dictators in the region.
Are you not concerned that the same may happen in Iran?
That the people of Iran may look at what happened in Syria, saw how easy it turned out to be to actually take down a regime that they hated, and that they may decide to do exactly the same thing in Iran.
Yes, two things.
One is that what happened in Syria was as a result of the brutal sanctions and the U.S. occupation and the theft of the country's oil and bringing the people to its knees.
And then you know that Jake Sullivan on February the 12th, 2012 said in Syria, al-Qaeda is on our side.
So as I said, as Professor Mearsheimer rightly said, the US used ISIS and al-Qaeda operatives in one.
Fine.
We think that al-Qaeda is worse than what Syria had before.
But that aside, no, I don't think that Iran is under any threat.
Iran has a high degree of legitimacy.
And I would advite you to come to Iran.
Why don't you just come to Iran?
And then maybe you'll find out that we're not Mordor and you don't live in the Shire.
And I promise you we won't take you hostage.
Yeah, you know what?
With all due respect to your promises about that kind of thing, I don't think I'll take the chance.
Thank you, Professor.
Okay, but...
Well, I appreciate the invitation.
I'm sure you would be very hospitable.
Some of your friends, not so much.
Well, I promise you that no one is going to pay your ransom.
And I bet your producers would probably demand something to take you back.
But in any case, the offer still stands.
Very kind of you.
Professor Morano, thank you very much.
Well, let's go back to the panel.
I've been listening patiently there.
I mean, Jonathan Comrick is, when you listen to Iran, particularly people like Professor Morandi, very eloquent.
There's nothing to see here.
They don't assassinate people.
They're very welcoming.
Don't know what the problem is.
Your thoughts?
Yeah, he is indeed eloquent and he usually puts on a good performance on your show.
What I smell is fear.
What I hear is fear.
What he was trying to say to European listeners and to Americans and to everybody was that, oh, it'll be very, very bad if anybody takes on the Iranians and he tried to push all the panic buttons, refugees, oil, prices, regional turmoil.
Listen, the region has been in a regional war since Iran attacked Israel via Hamas, Hezbollah, the Khouthis, their proxies in Syria, their proxies in Iraq, and from Iran itself.
What's happening now is that it's coming home to roost.
And I think that what I heard, he didn't say it, but what I hear from his words is a lot of fear because many people in the region are coming to the understanding that A, the Iranian regime and their military, their vaunted security forces, the IRGC and the Quds force, are not as strong as people thought that they are.
And second, that yes, dictatorships, they fall.
The only thing I don't agree with you, Piers, about what you said, that it was easy in Syria, it wasn't.
There was first six or seven years of a bloody, horrible war.
Yeah, in the end, it was easier than people thought it would ever be.
Yes, but it was first half a million of Syrians being butchered by Iranians, by Hezbollah, by Russians and by Syrians.
And by the way, when Israel killed Hassan Asrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, they had days of celebrations in many parts of Syria because they were happier than we were at the killing of Hassan Asala because he was the butcher of so many Sunnis in Syria.
And the level of animosity towards Hezbollah, towards the Iranians and the Russians, who did actual genocide and actual war crimes, not the ones, the silly allegations that we hear about Israel, but really did horrible things, carpet bombing civilian cities, using chemical weapons and all of the other atrocities that they did.
For that, they were hated by Hezbollah, and so are the Iranians.
And to summarize, I think it's interesting times in the Middle East.
And I think that Israel, by standing up and fighting, is showing that the emperor has no clothes, that the Iranian regime is not as well dressed as maybe they would like to think that they are, and that they would like people to think that they are.
And Iran, the regime is exposed.
And I don't think that it is a work of fiction or imagination to say that in the not so distant future, that regime as well will fall.
The brave Iranian people will rise up against that oppressive regime.
And there will be another free country in the Middle East.
And hopefully that country too will go towards democracy, towards civil liberties and civil rights.
And then it would be interesting to hear all of the Israel haters and naysayers speak about how this was an American collusion and Israel doing this and that.
At the end of the day, once the Iranian people will rise up against the Iranian regime, it will be a beautiful and positive thing.
And I don't think that any of the doomsday prophecies that the professor tried to dislead us with are going to happen.
Okay.
Aaron, I mean, what's interesting to me is if you've gone back six months ago, Netanyahu's position was extremely weak.
And it looked like the moment this war was over, he'd be straight out of office.
That looks very different now.
And one of the reasons for that is that the people of Israel have looked at what he's been doing against Hezbollah, against Hamas.
They've looked at what's happened in Syria, very quick reaction to deposing of Assad and going after the military bases and so on.
And they see, for better or worse, and I understand that you won't agree with their perception of him, they see a strong leader who is doing what they want him to do.
Scrutinizing War Justifications00:04:04
Iran in all this, I mean, do you look at Iran in your general worldview as a force for good here, as Professor Morandi would like us to believe?
Or do you think that they are?
Whatever you think of the whole situation, that Iran's main purpose over the last 20 years or so has been to stir up as much aggravation as they possibly can through their proxy groups against Israel?
I don't see any state as a force for good.
I see states acting in their own interests and responding to events or initiating them.
In the case of the Middle East, I don't see Iran as being the main malign actor.
I give that distinction to the U.S. and its proxy, Israel, who have been terrorizing the region to advance their own supremacy.
Just look at the Iraq war.
That was done at the behest of people like Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised that there would be freedom and democracy in the Middle East if the U.S. took out Saddam Hussein.
We all know what happened there.
In the case of Iran and Israel, look, Iran is on record a few years ago.
They supported a resolution from a group of Islamic states endorsing what we were discussing before, the two-state solution, where Israel gets to keep the land that it stole, except for 22% of Palestine, which is the West Bank and Gaza.
Iran endorsed that.
Israel has never accepted that because Israel wants to steal as much Palestinian land as it wants.
So on that issue right there of a two-state solution, it's Iran that is actually more accommodating than Israel is.
That's just a fact.
In Syria, Mohammed Morandi, I didn't hear fear.
I heard him say a lot of facts, including he pointed out that the U.S. knew from the start that the insurgency it was supporting was dominated by al-Qaeda.
That's why Jake Sullivan wrote to Hillary Clinton, Al-Qaeda is on our side in Syria.
They're also on the side of Israel, which arms some of these anti-government insurgents and treated them in their hospitals.
Now, Syria is a very divisive issue and it's divided people who support Palestinians.
There are many people who cheered on the overthrow of Assad because of his authoritarianism.
We have to think, though, people also cheered the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but look at the means through which that was achieved-an illegal war that set off catastrophe in the Middle East.
And in Syria, there are similar fears.
The people who overthrew Assad, the leader, is the founder of al-Qaeda in Syria, of al-Qaeda in Syria, and a former deputy to the leader of ISIS, al-Baghdadi.
His name is Muhammad Al-Jalani.
And under his reign, forces, insurgent forces in Syria committed atrocities against minorities in Syria.
So minorities in Syria are living in fear.
And just one correction: Jonathan said that Syria, it's a given fact that they use chemical weapons.
Those allegations, I know they're very widespread, they've been challenged, including by whistleblowers from the OPCW, the top chemical weapons watchdog, which investigated the last major case in Syria, the allegation of Syria chemical weapons use in Douma.
Their investigation was actually censored from above, which undermined the allegations lodged against Syria.
That's just one example that these allegations, which are used to justify warfare and sanctions, need to be scrutinized, just as they were in Iraq when it turned out that Saddam Hussein, yes, like Bashr al-Assad, was a brutal leader, a bad guy, corrupt, but the claim that he used that he had weapons of mass destruction was a lie to justifying war and sanctions.
And the same thing in Syria with these chemical weapons allegations.
If we cared about them, we listened to the OPCW whistleblowers and the leaks that came from the OPCW and scrutinized these allegations that are always used to justify warfare and horrible things and have helped contribute to the carnage now we're seeing inside Syria.
Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's important to note that if you look at what happened in Iran, in Libya, in Iraq, you know, Afghanistan, you look at endless places where the phrase, be careful what you wish for, often springs to mind.
It's like these things take time to settle down, and then we'll see whether the Syrian rebels are indeed, as they claim, reformed characters or not.
And it is concerning to me that you have a former al-Qaeda commander who's now running Syria.
But if he's a genuinely reformed person, okay.
The Right Tactical Response00:03:41
I'll let everyone prove it, but let's just wait.
I think it'd be very, very imprudent to rush in too quickly with believing everything we're being told right now.
Thank you both very much.
I appreciate it.
And I'll thank you for coming on a few times this year.
And if I don't see you again before the end of the year, thank you to Jonathan and to Aaron.
Thank you.
I'm joined now by the father of the former hostage, Emily Hand, Thomas Hand.
Thomas, great to catch up with you again.
Great to see you.
It was just over a year ago, of course, that your daughter Emily was freed from being a hostage, which was a moment of utter joy for you and for everybody else that saw that.
As I'm talking to you, Donald Trump has come out again.
But I will comment on Bibi.
We had a very good talk.
We discussed what is going to happen.
And I'll be very available on January 20th.
And we'll see.
As you know, I gave warning that if these hostages aren't back home by that date, all hell is going to break out.
What do you think of Trump's rhetoric here?
He's being very clear.
If these hostages, we believe there are 96 people who may or may not still be alive, but 96 unaccounted for, that if they are not released before the inauguration, Trump is going to order all hell to break out.
A, what do you think he means by that?
And B, do you think this is the right tactic for guaranteeing as many of those 96 get out as possible?
Hi, Piers.
Thanks for having me again.
Yeah, it's a great threat to the to the whole area.
That is the only concern at the moment.
We want our hostages back.
We cannot go forward in life without our loved ones back.
I've still got many friends still in Gaza, civilians.
I hope the threat of him coming into power will get our hostages back.
Yeah.
Do you think the tactic is more or less likely to lead to more hostages getting out safely?
That's really the key question.
In other words, if you take the blunt instrument approach that Trump is doing, do you approve of that strategy?
Do you think it's better than a bit of soft power rhetoric?
Oh, absolutely.
The only reason that we got the initial release of hostages was by harsh tactics on Hamas.
And now they're even weaker and they are now more ready to make a deal with Israel.
Yeah, it's not that one day the Hamas are going to go, oh, do you know what?
We'll give you back your hostages.
They're not going to make that deal.
Only under force they will capitulate and say, yes, we want to do a deal, because they do not want to be wiped out.
The Hamas do not want to be wiped out.
They want to survive and build again and rule Gaza again.
When you see what has happened in the years since Emily was released, do you have any qualms at all about the scale of Israel's response?
Many people feel now it's gone too far, that too many children in Gaza have been killed now.
Ireland's Anti-Israel Stance00:05:25
This has to end.
There's too much destruction both to life and to buildings and so on.
What do you feel about that?
Absolutely.
The destruction on both sides is horrendous.
And in any war, there is civilian casualties.
We didn't start this war, but we are sure going to end this war.
We're actually ending the wars in Lebanon and Syria.
We're actually...
What we've done somehow has weakened the Iranian puppetry.
We've weakened the puppet master.
Syria has a chance for peace.
Lebanon has a chance for peace.
Thanks to Israel, believe it or not.
If they go the right way, if they go the right way, we can all be very, very good neighbours.
And that is just through military force, unfortunately.
Diplomacy has failed for too many years.
Only the strength of Israel will bring peace to this area.
You're somebody who is part Irish.
It's been announced that Israel's government's planning to close its embassy.
You're fully Irish.
Oh, you're fully Irish.
My apologies.
You're somebody who's Irish then.
No, my full lineage is fully Irish.
My mothers, my grandfathers on both sides.
Okay, so you're as Irish as it gets.
Israel's going to close its embassy in Ireland over what it calls extreme anti-Israel policies.
Do you agree with that?
I mean, have you been aware of that, of what they're saying is extreme anti-Israel policy?
It's a shame because once you cut off diplomatic talking, I'm not an intellectual guy, but once you cut off diplomacy, it's not great.
But I understand at the same hand, Israel is making a point that what Ireland is doing is so, so anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, that you just have to cut off relations.
Okay, they've said they want a Palestinian state.
Okay, let's try and make a Palestinian state.
We gave them Gaza in 2005.
What did that do for us?
How can we grab the concept of a half of Israel, let's say, like in 1948, how can we grasp that concept that we give the Arabs half of Israel?
They're just going to make a military state and attack us.
They've proved it.
We gave them Gaza in 2005 and what did they do?
They just made it a complete military state.
No chance of peace.
I mean, have you been aware of anti-Semitic attitudes in Ireland?
Have you picked up on that from family members, from friends out there?
Yeah, all the people that I know there are very scared.
It's one of the countries of Europe.
Most of the Israelis are very, very scared.
Most of the Jews are very, very scared.
But more than that, it's insipidus.
People that actually want to speak out about in favor of Israel are scared to because they might have a Molotov cocktail thrown through their window.
They're afraid.
I have loads of friends on Facebook and whatever since childhood, and I'm always posting about what's really going on, and nobody responds because they're literally afraid for their lives that a Molotov cocktail will come in through their window.
Their kids will be attacked on a bus going to school.
It's a fear that they instill.
Now, if you can imagine, anyone can say anything anywhere in the world pro-Palestine, pro-Hamas, pro-Iran.
They can say anything they want, but my God, dare you say anything in support of Israel.
Best Chance for Peace00:06:01
You could have a very major incident in your house.
And that's completely different from an Israeli or Jewish stance.
It's a freedom of speech is fine in its concept, but when you're under threat of what you say, you will be dealt with by Iran or any Palestinian supporter.
It's a different concept.
Thomas, let me just end by talking about Emily.
How is she doing?
She's doing pretty well.
Yeah, she's doing very, very well, thank God.
She doesn't whisper anymore.
She's more confident.
She's going out in the world.
But every now and then there are things where it worries me.
It doesn't worry her so much.
I won't tell you where she is tonight, but last night, where she's going to, there was a terrorist incident.
And that's just down.
That's normal for us.
Yeah.
Jerusalem.
And she was there or she wasn't there?
She wasn't there last night, but she wanted to go tonight for a special event.
I won't say it because it will pinpoint her.
That's how scared we have to be when we talk.
A Palestinian or an Arab wouldn't have to be worried about what they say on camera.
I have to be actually very careful about what I say, where she is, what she's doing.
Yeah, she's doing good.
She's doing good.
We're doing good.
We're in a new location.
We'll be here for the next three, four, five years until we actually get back to our home in Beri.
You've obviously understood better than anyone could imagine who's not been in that position, the hell of when a loved one is kidnapped, taken hostage.
So you know better than anybody what the remaining families are going through.
And it's been over a year now, 14 months for them.
What do you say to them?
Obviously, you're a symbol of great hope after the hell that you went through because you got your little girl back.
But what do you say to the families?
I presume you talk to quite a few of them quite regularly.
What do you say to try and keep their spirits up, Thomas?
Well, like you say, the fact that we got Emily back and another, it was about 100 hostages that they released under pressure.
It can happen.
Hopefully, most of them are alive and we will get them back.
But it's not going to be something that they will just say one day, here, here's your hostages back.
Let's make peace.
No, it's purely the pressure from Israel that will force them to make a deal.
And God, we hope that there will be a deal.
We hope there will be peace.
We hope there will be peace in Lebanon, in Syria.
Now is the best chance for peace in this area.
Thankfully, because of what Russia is doing to Ukraine, that weakens Iran.
There are so many factors in this.
I would need an hour.
I would need an hour.
It's very complicated, but also interwoven.
And I completely get where you're coming from.
I've been talking about that.
It's a lot going on.
A lot of moving parts, but a lot of them are connected.
Thomas, it's great to talk to you.
It really is.
And I feel so happy for you that you've got your girl back and that she's getting her life back and she's not whispering anymore and all that.
I've got a girl of 13.
I just often think about you guys.
And it's great to have that update and to have a bit of good news as we run into Christmas and hope that all the hostages get released.
That would be a wonderful thing.
Thomas, thank you very much.
It's great.
I don't know if you can see my t-shirt.
Yes, I can.
This was a whole family almost wiped out.
She was my best friend.
She was my absolute best friend, Leanne Shirabi.
Okay, she was in the house with her two daughters and her husband.
They came in.
They murdered her.
They shot her and her two daughters who were just about teenagers.
They took her husband.
They took her husband's brother, Yossi.
Yossi was killed in Gaza.
Ellie is still there.
He is one of three just from Bere.
There's still 100 hostages in Gaza.
Whenever we try and rescue them, they shoot them in the back of the head, execution style, on your knees, hands behind your back, and they execute them, shot in the back of the head.
We're hoping that that doesn't happen to the remaining 100.