Piers Morgan debates doctor Mohammed Mustafa and Israeli Minister Mike Goland over Gaza's war crimes, where Mustafa details horrific civilian deaths and accuses ministers Bennett and Smotrich of ethnic cleansing, while Goland defends the IDF as moral despite Haaretz reports of ordered shootings at aid centers. Panelists clash over whether the conflict remains self-defense or has shifted to genocide, with former PM Ehud Olmert's admission of "limitless killing" contrasting Kemp's dismissal of casualty claims. Ultimately, the dialogue suggests settlement expansion and inflammatory rhetoric are rendering a two-state solution impossible. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Moral Quandary Over Gaza00:01:34
I remember when I was in Gaza and I've watched some of your debates and you were saying that you were having a moral quandary over what was going on.
It's not a moral quandary for me.
I'm putting headless children and I'm handing them over to mothers and they're hugging them and they're putting them into body bags.
Smodrich and Bengavir in particular have made it clear they want to clear out Gaza of all the Palestinians.
Which is a war crime.
It's ethnic cleanser.
In support of Jewish settlements in Gaza, you said there should be another Nakba.
You also said, I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza.
You said, I don't care about Gaza.
I literally don't care at all.
You say that Smodrich and Bengivir, they're the right-wingers.
You're sounding pretty right-wing yourself.
I'm a right-winger as well.
I'm a right-winger as well.
Absolutely.
It was almost like a comedy sketch if it wasn't so serious.
There you are saying you don't believe any of the stories of the Israelis shooting at people here.
And next thing you hear is a machine gun going off.
Come on, Colonel Kemp, take your blinkers off, man.
All I can say is thank God that there was no Kiers Morgan and Sanser during World War II.
President Trump wants a ceasefire on the Israel-Hamas war and he wants it to be as soon as this week.
Well, frankly, it can't come soon enough.
Thousands of Palestinians have been killed since the last ceasefire broke down, including a series of shocking incidents at aid centers.
More than 50 hostages remain in Hamas captivity, at least 20 of them believed to be still alive.
This weekend, Israeli settlers attacked an Israeli military base in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The opposition says they're emboldened by expansionist hardliners in Netanyahu's government.
Root Cause Is Occupation00:13:36
We're coming up.
I'll talk to one of the most controversial ministers in Israel's government, and we'll debate the terms of what happens next.
But first, I'm joined by British Dr. Mohammed Mustafa, known to many of his followers as the Beast from the Middle East, who has first-hand experience in Gaza.
Welcome to you.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
You were grimacing when I read your nickname there, the Beast in the Middle East.
But that is your unofficial title, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've been called a few names in my time, but that's one that seems to have stuck around.
Why that?
What's that about?
Well, I used to play a lot of sports.
I used to play professional rugby and a couple of the lads came up with that name, and it's just kind of stuck ever since.
And then, you know, it was my Instagram handle for such a long time.
And then I started to go viral.
And I thought it was too late to change it then.
So yeah, I guess I'm the beast from the Middle East.
We're going to get to incredible stuff you've done in Gaza, but you were telling me off camera.
It's fascinating.
Tom Aspinall, the UFC guy, is a great mate of yours, and you've done lots of training with him.
You've actually sparred with Tyson Fury, too.
Well, in Thailand, I accidentally caught him, and that was really scary because when I caught him, he was such a sport about it, though, that I accidentally hit him in the face.
So fair play to him.
But yeah, I've done a lot of training around the world with MMA and Jiu-Jitsu.
And obviously, I've played professional rugby as well.
So I've done quite a bit of sports.
The relevance, I guess, is it's made you a tough guy and capable of dealing with a lot of stuff.
Had anything prepared you for what you encountered in Gaza?
Do you know, Gaza is an extremely difficult place to go into.
I've been there now multiple times since the start of this war.
I remember the first time going in there.
We arrived at about six o'clock and there was an airstrike at a residential house and we walked in to the morgue.
And I remember opening up the body bags because the other extended family were there to identify the bodies.
And when you just open up body bags and it's organs of children, missing heads, missing limbs, 80% body burns.
And, you know, there were family members coming in picking up pieces of an arm and identifying the body just by the ring.
And, you know, that was literally the first 30 minutes I was in Gaza.
And instantly, you know that this is something that you'll never be prepared for something like that.
Had you ever come across anything like this?
Not to this scale.
Not to this scale.
The level of destruction.
You know, we would drive, you know, we would drive from the European hospital to Nassau Hospital, and there would be about four buildings standing, and it was just rubble.
And people were living in and amongst this rubble.
You know, it was really, and, you know, the drones are constantly overhead.
Every day, children are coming in, injured, killed, burnt alive.
And that's constant.
And, you know, there's always the risk that you could be killed as well.
I mean, it sounds extraordinary when you say that children are coming in every day, literally all the time.
Yeah.
You know, the second time that I was there, I was there a few days into the seafare, a few days before the ceasefire broke.
And we would actually see children come in with gunshot wounds to the neck and head.
They'd been sniped neck and head.
We saw last year in June children that had been starved to death, children that coming in starving to death in June last year.
So forget about, you know, this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation now and the starvation that you see.
We were seeing that in June last year.
And, you know, to go back nine months later and still see children starving to death, that's what really hits home is when you see that how prolonged and sustained this campaign of violence and violence against children.
It's been, yeah, it's quite difficult.
You are the son of a Gaza refugee.
Your dad was a refugee.
He's now, he's here in the UK.
He's become one of the top fertility doctors in the country.
Which is an amazing story.
For any refugee, particularly one from Gaza.
What were your memories growing up with your dad?
Did he talk to you much about the conflict and the problems?
You know, my dad's one of my heroes.
You know, when he was born in Gaza, he used to wear the USAID flower bags as his trousers.
Didn't own a pair of shoes till he was about 13 years old.
You know, he lived in absolute poverty, but he built himself up.
He became a doctor.
And it was through that profession of health care and watching him every day go to work, working late to not just support our family, but to support family back home in Gaza.
And I really looked up to him.
And, you know, I was reflecting on this a lot the other day.
You know, my father has been responsible for around 20,000 children being born in this country that wouldn't have been born because of his level, high skill level in fertility medicine.
And I just think to myself, like, there's been over 20,000 children that have been killed in Gaza.
How much does he take that?
He's brought life, so much life to this country, and yet he's watching his own country be absolutely destroyed.
What does he feel about that?
You know, my father's health has declined a lot in the last two years.
I really worry about him.
He, you know, me and myself, and I don't talk about this very often, but you know, we've had dozens of family members killed during this conflict.
Dozens.
Dozens of families killed during this conflict.
We've also had, you know, dozens of family members killed generationally.
You know, I've had family members killed in 2014.
I've had family members killed 20 years ago.
I've had family members killed 30 years ago.
I've had family members that were killed in hospitals when hospitals were bombed in the 50s and the 60s in Gaza.
So this whole thing, and I don't want to put you on the spot, but I remember when I was in Gaza and I'd watch some of your debates and you were saying that you were having a moral quandary over what was going on.
And I remember just thinking to myself, it's not a moral quandary for me and it's not a moral quandary for millions of people around the world.
Like we're sat here and I'm putting headless children and I'm handing them over to mothers and they're hugging them and they're putting them into body bags.
When we have a mass casualty event, I'm stepping over children as they're bleeding out to death on the floor because I know we don't have the medical equipment to treat them.
When I'm trying to use an ultrasound machine to do a scan on someone, the cords have been cut because Israeli soldiers have cut the cords of ultrasound machines.
I've had family members who have died because the dialysis machines are filled with bullet holes.
So, you know, just to put it into context, the first 24 days of this conflict, 1,900 children were killed in the first 24 days.
That's more than any other conflict anywhere around the world in a whole year and in this tiny population of Gaza.
And I think anybody like me or any Palestinians, or anyone really that knows the situation, they knew what was coming.
And we knew what was happening when they were calling them human animals and Amalek and we're going to cut off food, water and electricity.
And 1,900 children killed in a dozen or so days.
I think we all knew what was coming.
But when you say you knew what was coming, just to be clear, my moral quandary was really that I felt after October the 7th, Israel didn't just have a right to defend itself, but a duty.
A terror attack of that scale, you know, 1,200 people killed, nearly 7,000 more wounded, 250 plus kidnapped, grandmothers, babies, I mean, Holocaust survivors.
It was on such a horrific scale.
Obviously, Israel was going to respond with force.
My quandary was simply, at what point is this a proportionate response?
And I didn't know the answer.
I do now.
You know, I've been saying for a few months now that what is happening now is beyond, to me, any kind of proportionate response.
And it seems to be never-ending.
And that's why this has to end.
But going back to October the 7th, notwithstanding, obviously you're the son of a Gaza refugee, and of course that will inform how you view things.
But none of this would be happening in the way it's been happening without what Hamas did that day.
So what do you feel about what Hamas inflicted on its own people by doing what it did?
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So look, I think the framing of that is a little bit problematic.
Like what Hamas did to its own people.
What's been going on didn't start on October the 7th.
It's been 75 years.
And I can attest to that because I was ethnically cleansed out of Gaza and so was my family.
So it didn't start on October the 7th.
What do I think about October the 7th?
Horrific.
Taking of women and children as hostages, killing innocent people.
As a Palestinian, I know how much that hurts.
So all I have is nothing but sympathy for the people who suffered on October the 7th.
But at the same time, people started this story on October the 7th.
And for me, growing up in poverty, growing up without running water in the house, growing up watching, you know, us have to give up our savings all the time to support family back in Gaza and back.
For me, it never started on October the 7th.
For me, it started every day when I was being bullied at school.
It started when I had to move from city to city because my dad never got a permanent job.
You know, those are the kind of things where, you know, I look at it and I was just, there was a lot of emotions on October the 7th, you know, as a Palestinian.
Did any part of you feel it was justified?
I've heard some people categorize what they did as resistance, which is a justification for what happened.
I don't think you can do that.
I mean, to me, it was an appalling terrorist attack.
And the reason I framed the question the way I did was that when it later turned out that Hamas had this huge tunnel system where they all hid, but the civilians were left to be under the reigning bombs from Israel, which were inevitably going to come given the scale of what Hamas did.
That's what I meant by the way I phrased the question, which is how much do Palestinian people, when they look back on that, how much do they blame Hamas for inevitably bringing this on them?
Yeah, I mean, look, before Hamas, it was the PLO.
Right.
You know, and before the PLO, it was the Egyptians.
And before then, it was somebody else.
Look, at the end of the day, the root cause is the problem.
The root cause is the occupation.
The root cause is inequality.
The root cause is that I don't have the right to return to my home.
That my father doesn't have the right to return.
That my grandfather is buried in Gaza.
My dad's never been able to go see him.
You know, when we talk about the root causes, when we talk about, you know, what Hamas did on October the 7th, this is just a cycle.
And the cycle always comes back to, instead of looking at the symptoms, I don't want to look at the symptoms.
I want to look at the causes.
The causes is inequality, is a lack of justice.
And I just want justice for the Palestinian people.
And I don't want that justice to be violence and killing of innocent Israelis.
Do you want the same human rights?
I just want the same human rights.
Do you think it's possible?
I mean, I liken it sometimes to what happened in Northern Ireland where for decades people thought this could never get resolved.
People living amongst each other, you know, loyalists and IRA.
But eventually they got there.
They got to peace.
Do you think it's possible to end up with a two-state solution where Palestinians live with the same rights as Israelis?
Well, look, I think the Israelis are making it very difficult to have a two-state solution.
You know, with the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and moving in.
Which is appalling.
Which is moving in millions of settlers.
It's making a two-state solution impossible.
Really, what's going to happen is eventually there'll be a one-state solution with equality for Muslims and Jews and anybody else living on that land.
And eventually Palestinians will have the right to return and they will return back to Palestine.
And I feel like, you know, it's kind of ironic, really, because they've avoided so much in giving the Palestinians a state and a home.
And they've tried to destroy this two-state solution that eventually what will happen is a one-state solution.
And eventually the majority that they've tried to build by ethnically cleansing, by taking up more and more land, will go away because eventually the Palestinians will return home.
And eventually, given all the Palestinian refugees all around the world, eventually the Palestinians will outnumber the Jewish population.
And that's, I think, what's worrying them.
And I think what needs to happen is there either needs to be a conversation where you need to have a proper two-state solution or it needs to be a one-state solution.
But questions need to be asked and governments need to come in and help because we can't.
Do Arab countries do enough?
It seems to me they kind of hold back and say, this is not our problem.
Well, you know, look, Jordan has taken in millions of refugees.
More than half the population are Palestinian.
Lebanon has had civil wars with Palestinian resistance fighters in there before.
You know, Syria has its own problems.
Egypt has, you know, my dad was educated in Egypt.
Egypt has taken in loads of Palestinian refugees before.
The problem isn't the Arabs.
It is problematic, you know, the lack of help and the lack of support.
But the problem is, is here, is that we have an expansionist regime which is extremely right-wing in Israel, that doesn't protect, that doesn't respect any borders, doesn't respect anyone's sovereignty.
Bring Hospital To Gaza00:05:11
And it's now talking in openly genocidal language.
I mean, Smodrich and Bengavir in particular have made it clear they want to clear out Gaza of all the Palestinians.
Yeah, exactly.
Which is a war crime.
It's ethnic cleansing.
It is.
And, you know, that's why, and, you know, the UN has been gutted as well.
It's been defunded.
It's been gutted.
It's been delegitimized.
And what I've been doing since I got back from Gaza is I've been trying to come up with solutions for what's going on.
And I've been traveling around the world trying to get support for a children's hospital into Gaza.
It's a children's hospital that we're going to build in Jordan.
So the infrastructure is there in place already ready.
We're going to build it in Jordan and drive it into Gaza and have a mobile hospital essentially.
It's a hospital on wheels.
It has an intensive care unit, wards, pathology labs, pharmacies.
It's solar panel powered.
It has running sewerage, water works.
And, you know, I've got the proposal here.
It's ready to go.
And I'm in the final stages of negotiations with the Mindaroo Foundation to get funding for this hospital.
We have a similar concept of this, a maternity and neonatal hospital, which is ready to go into Gaza as well.
The reason why I'm saying that, why I've come with solutions, I'm not just here just to talk and just rhetoric and people being unhappy and victim and this, this, and this.
I want a solution to this.
Women and children are dying.
Women and children are being funneled into cages and gunned down, hungry women and children.
You can't have an army that's on trial for genocide to be also the one that controls access to.
Do you believe the IDF are deliberately killing civilians?
Because they always say we're deliberately killing Hamas and civilians are dying in the process of us going after Hamas.
What do you say to that?
Well, I'd say that they killed their own hostages when they were waving white flags.
They have bombed hospitals with people inside them.
They left babies in incubators to rot to death.
When they executed those 15 paramedics, I was in Gaza then.
When they executed 15 paramedics and buried them alive and lied about it.
I was there when I would have children coming in with explosive injuries and they would have bread in their hand.
They were eating.
And they targeted them when they were eating.
I would pick up children as young as two years old that had been shot in the head by snipers multiple times.
So, you know, when they talk about saying that they're only going after Hamas, I mean, you said it yourself.
They've openly talked about ethnically cleansing the whole of Gaza.
They're actively expanding settlements in the West Bank.
They say Hamas are in all the hospitals.
Is that true?
Look, I've worked in all the hospitals.
It'd be a very stupid thing to have a military base in us.
But one, it's open access policy.
Everyone can walk in and out of the hospital.
Also, the hospital is full of injured women and children.
The hospital is full of media.
And also, the hospital is a base where all the international aid workers are.
And, you know, my concern when I go to Gaza is the children in Gaza.
That's my concern.
I don't want, you know, there be any military operations out of there because it puts children in danger.
But, you know, I've not heard of a doctor that's come out and said that they've actively seen fighting or rockets being fired out of a hospital.
It's not to say that something might have happened before, but again, you still can't throw the baby away with the deadly baby water.
It's a hospital.
And if you're going to bomb and destroy hospitals, which they've bombed 36 hospitals, then let me bring in my hospital.
Let me bring in this.
And what I'm trying to do with this hospital is I'm trying to make this a government-led initiative.
I want the British government on board.
I've got the Irish government on board.
You know, we met with President Michael Higgins.
We've got the Australian government talking about this.
We went to France yesterday to try and get the French government on board.
Instead of having the Israelis running the aid, I want our governments to take a more active role.
I don't want them to pay for this.
I want them just to give us the access to get this hospital in and to allow British doctors, Australian doctors, Irish doctors, Canadian doctors in to have our hospital.
This is our aid distribution centre.
You know, just last week or a couple of weeks ago, the first children of Gaza arrived here in the UK.
Two of them arrived.
That's the first time since this war started that two children have arrived.
Yep.
And, you know, they're not bringing any more in.
And I understand why the government don't want to bring more children in.
One, you know, you saw the race riots that happened in August in my town in Middlesbrough.
People were pulled out of their cars if they were Muslim.
Mosques were vandalized.
Asylum seekers' hotels were burnt down.
I know for the government, it's a touchy subject to bring in black and brown children into the UK.
Well, this is a way we avoid that.
Instead of bringing them here to be treated, let's bring a hospital here.
And, you know, it's not just the hospital that I've got.
I've also got a plan here to feed the children of Gaza with instant aid.
This is a comprehensive two-year plan that not just looks after, feeds the children, it feeds them twice a day nutrient-rich meals.
This has been designed by executives that have worked for the World Food Programme and USA Aid.
This is a pious projects hospital as well.
Like, I've got the answers here.
I've been speaking to government figures.
I just need them to listen to me.
I'm about to interview one of the Israeli government.
What would be your message for her?
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I mean, she's the equality minister, isn't she?
Look.
Why are you laughing when you say that?
Because it's kind of like a black mirror episode, you know.
Sometimes it's parody.
You know, it's a parody.
I think like everyone who's watching what's, you know, in Glastonbury, just then what's happened in Glastonbury, you know, the chants, right?
Death, death to the IDF, right?
What did you think of that?
Well, you know, what I thought of that is just like, you know, they are more concerned and more outraged by a chant than the actual crimes of the IDF.
Can't you be outraged by both?
Because I was.
Look, you can be outraged by both.
Watching thousands of people at an English music festival chanting death to the IDF.
I found that very unsettling.
And I'm not Jewish.
If I was a British Jew watching that, I would feel very, very unnerved that a British audience like that.
And the irony that, of course, Hamas had obliterated young people at a music festival on October the 7th.
I didn't like that.
And I think it's perfectly possible to think that is outrageous.
But it's also perfectly possible to criticise the Israeli government for what they're doing in Gaza.
I mean, look, you're asking the wrong person about that because I've had family members killed for generations by the IDF.
I've had my home destroyed, my village burnt down by the IDF.
I've helped children who were riddled in bullets by the IDF.
I've had to have children in a corner while their mother bled out to them on the floor and covered their own children in her blood as she died because of IDF bullets and IDF bombs.
So, you know, when you ask these questions, like, why are you asking a Palestinian who's been able to do that?
Well, I'll tell you why, because, for example, when the Iraq war happened, my brother was a serving officer, for example.
My issue was not with him.
My issue, I campaigned against him as it is a daily mirror.
My issue is with Tony Blair and the Labour government that ordered him and his colleagues into battle.
So I think blaming soldiers in war is chicken and the egg.
They're being ordered into battle to do what they do by their governments.
Look, I hear you.
I hear you.
I hear your concerns.
And look, I hear you too.
Because if I'd lost a lot of families to IDF, I would probably feel the same way you do.
What I say is this, look, I don't agree with any form of the violence and death chance.
I'm a doctor.
I try and bring life to this world right to stay in life.
I don't want anyone to die.
But when you're an IDF soldier who is wearing, putting on dead women's lingerie in Palestine, tying children's teddy bears onto tanks, when you're leaving babies to rot in incubators, when you are laughing as you're blowing up schools and hospitals, there is going to be backlash.
And what happens at these music festivals is they're reflective of how society feels, whether that's right or wrong.
I'm not here to comment on that, but I'm just saying that like if the government was more proactive, people wouldn't feel this rage.
And I don't want people to feel rage.
I don't want death, right?
Because I've had a lot of death in my family.
I've had a lot of issues in my life because of this issue.
I want there to be peace.
I want both sides to come together.
I don't want to see Jewish people suffering and dying, but I don't want to see Palestinians either suffering and dying.
And all I want is I want to bring in my hospital and I want to feed the children.
And I've, you know, I've got the solutions here.
I've got them here.
I've got to go.
Well, I hope people are watching this and listen to you.
I just need someone to listen.
Will you be going back to Gaza while the war's still on?
My forms are submitted.
I should be going back into Gaza, whether I'm allowed back in or not, considering all the noise that I've made about the...
Well, you were on the Greta Thunberg flotilla, which I was very critical of her.
Yeah.
Because I'm not a big fan of hers.
I thought it was all a bit of a virtue signaling load of twaddle, if I'm honest.
But I didn't know you, obviously.
I found you a very impressive person to interview.
But did that really achieve anything?
Or was it not just another of Greta's stunts, which really is about her, but doesn't really achieve anything?
So look, what I'll tell you to that right here is, you know, I was invited to come down to, you know, see the guys at the flotilla and have my voice there as a doctor that had been to Gaza.
Like you, you know, I'd watched Greta over the years.
I wasn't sure either, you know.
But when I was there and I saw them get onto the boat, Greta was crying.
Her mother was there.
Her family was there.
There was real concern that she could be killed here.
And there was concern by the other flotilla members.
You know, it was a very somber moment when they left because family members were hugging.
There was tears.
And there was, because I was there before they got onto the boat.
And there was all the precautionary stuff of people writing their last letters, their last messages.
I mean, this is real.
You know, the flotilla before then, three weeks ago, had been bombed by drones.
15 years ago, 10 people on the flotilla were killed.
You're talking about sailing in in a ship, an unarmed ship carrying baby formula, to go into the heart of a genocide with an army that doesn't respect international law.
I mean, to be fair to Greta right here, as much criticism as you can have, she's really brave for what she did.
And I know people might have this in there, but it's real.
They really wanted to break the siege, and they've made the whole world talk about this illegal siege because the siege has been going on for 18 years in Gaza.
And that has been locked by sea.
I just don't think anybody knew was thinking about it.
It wasn't already, was my point.
Yeah, yeah.
Breaking The Illegal Siege00:09:05
And I can respect that.
And I also just think, look, people have different ways of expressing their views.
My ways of expressing it is to try and get something done.
Other people is to perform protests like that that gain media attention.
Whatever it is, I just want the killing to stop.
And I think everybody has a role to play.
Even Greta has a role to play.
And, and this is why I'm here, even you do as well, Piers.
I know when I was a kid, because I used to watch, you know, you on TV, and I know that you were the editor of the Daily Mirror at the time.
You led the anti-war movement, or one of the main figures that led the anti-war movement.
You came under a lot of stick.
You were attacked a lot.
And I remember as a kid looking up at you, looking up to you, and as a Muslim, watching this white man, you know, say that this is wrong.
And you were challenging a media narrative.
We didn't have social media back then.
You didn't have the public support that you have now for the Palestine cause.
And you were under a lot of attack.
And your voice is so important because you were such a powerful voice in 2003 to stop the crime of the Iraq war.
And that's why we need you on our side to save these children.
I need no persuading about Gaza.
I think this has gone on way too long.
The death toll is way too high.
The number of innocent people being killed on a daily basis is completely unacceptable.
And I will be saying all this to the Israeli government minister in a moment.
But Mohammed, I'm going to leave you there.
Thank you very much for that.
Thank you.
It's been a real pleasure to meet you.
Yeah, real pleasure.
Thank you so much.
It's great.
I like the fact you've come with plans to try and help.
Thank you.
I appreciate it, Piers.
Thank you so much.
Good to see you.
Well, joining me now is Mike Goland, the Minister for Social Equality in Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Welcome to you, Ms. Golan.
You were listening to that, but you were grimacing and pulling faces.
What was your issue with what you heard?
Now, parts of, first of all, thank you for having me, Mr. Morgan.
I was hearing parts because I was talking with my staff here, but for some of the things I heard, some were just absolute lies.
The IDF is happy when he's bombing hospitals or schools, really.
A country and a nation who suffered the Holocaust and lost six million people is happy about hunger and is trying to use that as a method.
And also, I was trying, really trying so hard to listen to one word of him saying about the captives that we have, about the hostages that we have, the 50 hostages that weren't released.
I didn't hear anything, not even a word.
And I can understand the suffering.
Of course I can.
Trust me.
Mr. Morgan, no one wants to see children died, children hurt.
No one wants that, let alone the Israeli people who suffered what they did.
But for them to say that we are doing it in order to hurt specifically innocent civilians is an absolute lie.
I can tell you.
But I hear this with respect, Minister.
I hear this from a lot of Israeli government members, ambassadors, lawyers, and so on.
And my point is always the same: even if we accept that nobody in the IDF has ever deliberately targeted a child, which is contradicted by a lot of witnesses, but even if you accept that premise, you have to also agree that 20,000 children, maybe many more, that's just the ones that we believe is the number, have been killed as you've gone after Hamas.
And it's a staggering number of children, innocent kids who've been killed here.
And just on a human level, surely you must accept that this has now gone on long enough.
First of all, on a human level, I can tell you, not 100%, 1 million percent, that we take no pleasure whatsoever not in seeing anyone innocent in Gaza who died, let alone our holy and hero soldiers and our innocent people.
But let's put some things in perspective, and I would like to answer that, you know, as much as I can, that would satisfy you, because hearing the interview before, it seems like you're coming from one side, and I can't remember.
I don't take sides.
I'm not on any one side.
Listen, as you probably know, at the start of all this, for many months, I was the one being attacked by the pro-Palestinian guests who came on because they didn't like the fact that I was supporting Israel's right to defend itself and, in fact, said it had a moral duty to defend itself.
So just because I'm now criticizing the Israeli government, let's not pretend I was never on anybody's side.
I try and be an objective.
When I heard that recorded just now, that interview, you said to him specifically, no one needs to persuade me about Gaza.
So I think that when you see...
Okay, Mr. Morgan, let me answer.
When you see videos and when you see pictures, which I'm sure you get a mass of them, okay?
You have to remember those videos and pictures don't come from the moon, right?
They're coming from people who take videos there.
Everyone has mobile phones, smartphones.
So obviously, some of those videos could be reflected to one side.
I suggest, I really do suggest, you see some of the videos of the horrors that happened on October 7th.
I saw them.
Of the horrors that have been happening one second.
One second.
I saw them.
You saw the 40-minute video.
You saw the 40-minute video of the horrors.
Well, if you saw that, if you did saw that, and let me just tell you that it's just a part.
It's just a part of what we could have shown because the majority was horrible.
If you saw that, you can't stay calm in yourself and relax about what Israel and the Jewish nation have to endure for the last 75 years.
We have women that are being slaughtered and raped in the most brutal way.
I'm, as the Minister for Social Equality and the Advancement of Women, I just heard the person that you interviewed mocking about it and laughing about it.
What he was laughing at.
He was laughing and mocking.
You asked him.
No, no, no, no.
You must have mischaracterized.
You must have mischaracterized it.
The point he was making, and he's an extremely courageous doctor who risks his own life several times now to go and work in hospitals in Gaza as the bombs are dropping.
So I won't have you attacking him.
Yeah, I wish he would have told you that Israel has suggested more than 100 incubators to the Shifa hospitals and to the authorities of Hamas, and they refused it.
I wish he would have told you that many hospitals, Mr. Morgan, one second.
I wish he would have told you that many hospitals underground have facilities of terror.
I wish he would have told you that schools and places of humanitarian aid, which, by the way, we, the country that have massacred in her holiday, has been given over 70,000 eight trucks.
Do you hear that?
70,000 eight trucks.
He's talking about a hospital.
Let me respond.
What country does that?
A country that has women being chopped off into pieces and babies being chopped off into pieces, men beheaded, elderly people are being kidnapped.
Do you know what we had to watch?
He's talking about what the Gazans are being through.
But what about the Jewish nation that has been, that have buses been blowing up for the last 70 years?
Yes, okay.
Let me respond.
As I said to you, for a long time in this war, I defended Israel's right to defend itself.
But that right to self-defense has now been consumed by senior members of your government, your colleagues, Smodrich, Ben Gavir, and others, extreme right-wing members of that government, who are now talking in a very brazen and very open way about what they really want to happen, which is in their words, cleansing Gaza of all Palestinians.
That is ethnic cleansing.
That is a war crime.
So you may not say that, or maybe you will, but your colleagues are saying that, and they want to cleanse Gaza, as they put it, of all Palestinians.
That is not self-defense.
That is ethnic cleansing.
So you can play the moral argument against me about October the 7th, but it's possible.
I don't need to play the moral argument.
Well, let me explain.
Let me explain.
I have said repeatedly.
If I may finish my sentence, I have for 20 months.
I hear you in delay.
Don't get me wrong.
Can I finish my sentence?
I hear you on delay.
But don't get angry.
I hear you on delay.
You're the one getting angry.
I'm trying to get a word in.
I'm not.
Let me finish my sentence, if I may, for 20 months, as anyone who's watched my show will tell you.
And I suspect you haven't watched it much, or you wouldn't be questioning what I feel about October the 7th.
To me, it was one of the most heinous terror attacks of modern times.
An absolutely despicable assault on predominantly innocent women, children, grandmothers, grandfathers, in the most repulsive, horrific, atrocious manner.
And Hamas to me are a disgusting terrorist organization who lost any right to govern for another second in Gaza the moment they perpetrated that act of pure evil.
However, and it's an important, however, what the Israeli government has been doing in the last few months in Gaza has now, to even its closest allies, become something they cannot defend.
Clarifying Hostage Position00:15:19
And you know this.
When you do a three-month blockade of food, you boast, you all boast about how much aid you're giving them.
You blocked most aid and food for three months to an already starving implication.
Listen, Mr. Morgan, you're saying a lot of people.
And I need to remember to comment on all of them.
That is actually not the right thing to do.
That's a complete lie.
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It's not a lie.
The blockade is not a lie.
And if you let me comment, you say so much accusations.
You have to let me comment about some of them.
So there was no question.
Let's start with the Smotric.
Okay, wait, you said a lot of things.
I want to comment about all of them.
If you let me, I would be more than happy.
First of all, let's start about Smotrich and Bengville, what he said.
Now, Mr. Morgan, I don't need to explain to you, who I have been watching his show for many, many, and been watching your professional career for many years, by the way.
And do have a valuation for everything that you say and for what you believe in, which I think, I really think you are being misled.
That is why I came here on this show, not because I think anything else.
Now, I would be really happy if you let me finish some of the points I want to tell you.
First of all, regarding Smotic and Bengville, you have to know with all of your profession that there is two kinds of politicians.
One, like you interviewed, for instance, Naftali Bennett, an interview I did watch, who by accident forgot to mention that he launched a party just a month ago and forgot to tell you that he signed so many declarations before he came, before he became a prime minister and didn't held up to any of them.
And he forgot to tell you a lot of things, but in actual fact, he deceived his own people.
And just like the rest of them that you interviewed, Olmert and Barak and all those prime ministers, the one thing in common that they all have is the fact that the public doesn't vote for them anymore, so they're very bitter.
Now, regarding Smotic and Bengville, you have to remember, when you say Smotic and Bengville, you're talking about, and I don't know what they said, but I'm referring to what you said.
I'm trusting your words.
You're talking obviously about the Trump's plan.
Now, this is not Smotrotic or Bengville's plan.
No, I'm not talking about Trump's plan.
Okay, so I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know about what came out of their mouth.
They want to kill their words, cleanse Gaza of all the Palestinians.
So when you say cleanse, I can tell you that they refer to the Trump's plan.
And when we're talking about Trump's plan, I have to tell you that, first of all, Donald J. Trump, which is what I consider the best thing that God could have given us for a new middle age, his collaboration with Prime Minister Netanyahu is really what we could all wish for in order to make a new Middle East.
But I can tell you that we are not taking anything off the table in order to just protect our civilians and our children of Israel.
And if we have to look at Trump's plan, which for me, as I think, is thinking outside of the box.
And if we have to consider other things, like we have examined over the decades, we will.
But I don't see it as ethnic cleansing, let alone.
So would you like to ask you then?
Let me ask you, would you like to cleanse Gaza of all the Palestinians?
Listen, I don't use the terminology of you and your colleagues.
That is not my terminology.
No, that's the terminology of your colleague.
It's not my terminology.
Just like the settlements that you mentioned within the country.
To be clear, it's the terminology of your own cabinet colleague.
It's Smodric, your finance minister.
It's your colleague, not mine or my colleagues.
It's the language used by your finance minister only two weeks ago.
I can tell you that for the first thing, first time ever, we have a very right-wing government, as you can see.
Our views are very transparent, and everything that is held in the cabinet and in the, not in the cabinet, but in the government is being sheared outside.
No one is hiding anything.
Now, Smotic and Ben Vir are not a part of my party, but they are a part of this government.
And I'm telling you, although I'm not representing them, that they are talking about the Trump's plan, and we are considering it just like we consider any other plan in order to protect our civilians.
Now, I want to say another thing about that.
Listen, I don't know.
I heard your interviews, and I know you talk about Smotric and his things that he said, but I want to say something about Betal Smotrich, although I have nothing to do with his party.
Yes, he's a part of my government, not from my party.
I don't know that, but Smotric went to more funerals this year than you went in your entire life, okay?
His entire family.
Wait one second.
Wait one second.
You have no idea how many funerals I've been to.
And his entire friends, because I tell you, he went to hundreds and hundreds of funerals from his own community.
His heart was broken.
We are wounded.
Our ministers are wounded from the sights we saw.
I wanted to tell you before, and you stopped me.
As the Minister for Social Equality and the Advancement of Women, what I saw that women have endured, your eyes and your mind could never comprehend.
The fact is that we have children in Gaza today that the interview before was talking about that are being raised on Mein Kampf.
They are being raised of killing Jews from the second they are born.
This is what they say.
And you know what?
If you don't believe me, you can talk with the hostages that came back from captivity.
And what they're doing is what would you do with them?
The Palestinians.
With who?
The Palestinians.
What would you do with them?
Well, first of all, this is not an issue now with the Palestinians.
This is not an issue with the terror regime of Hamas.
In my opinion, I'm asking you what you would do with the Palestinian population.
What would you do with it?
I don't know.
Would you like to accept them or we eliminate the terror of Hamas?
Would England accept them?
Well, let me read you.
Let me remind you of some of the things that you've said yourself.
All right?
During an October 24 rally in support of Jewish settlements in Gaza, you said there should be another nakba, referring to the 1948 Palestinian displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
You also said, I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza and that every baby, even 80 years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did.
That was in February you said this.
You want explicit violence against Hamas and Palestinians in February 2024?
Hamas, absolutely.
Absolutely.
You want to eliminate every terrorist of Hamas.
Let me tell you that.
Hang on, I'm finished.
Sorry, I haven't finished.
You haven't finished yet.
In December 2023, you said, I don't care about Gaza.
I literally don't care at all.
I mean, and I can go on reading you stuff you've had.
So my point is, you say that Smodric and Ben Givir, they're the right wingers.
It's actually pretty right-wing yourself.
I'm a right-winger as well.
I'm a right-winger as well.
Absolutely.
Would you say you're an extreme?
That doesn't mean I take any pleasure, any pleasure of an innocent Arab man or woman or child in Gaza suffering.
But the fact is that you, for some reason, refuse to acknowledge is that Hamas is using them as human shields.
I've never denied that.
You tell me.
I want to ask you, Mr. Morgan, you think...
I know what Hamas wants.
I wanted to ask you something.
You care very much about the Gazans, right?
I want to ask you something.
You know, we had the horrifying Holocaust.
Okay, thank you.
I appreciate that.
When we had the horrifying Holocaust, do you know that we had such a thing called the righteous among the nations?
Those were Christian people who risked their own lives in order to save Jews.
Now, I'm asking you, Mr. Morgan, I'm still waiting for one Gazan person, one out of two million, to come out and say, this is where the hostages are.
This is where they hide.
Or one of them to come and say, this is where the terrorism are.
This is where they hide all of their weapons and their rockets and all of the horrible tunnels where they abuse our hostages.
Not even one.
Now, even though, even though I said that, I can tell you that right now, the IDF, which I tell you, you cannot agree, that's okay, but I tell you, IDF is the most moral army in the world.
I repeat, it's the most moral army in the world.
It's not shooting.
One second, one more sentence, Mr. Morgan, please.
He's not shooting at population.
He's not shooting an innocent population.
But you tell me, what do we need to do when Hamas terrorists are hiding behind human people, are hiding behind schools?
You know the first thing you could do?
You're going to be around of hospitals.
What do we need to do?
You know the first thing you could do?
You could lift the ban that the Israeli government has put on international journalists going into Gaza so that all the claims that you make, which always blame Hamas for absolutely everything, could be verified by independent journalists.
Why don't you do that?
Why for 20 months have you banned international media from going into Gaza?
An unprecedented ban for any modern warfare.
Why have you done this?
Well, I want to tell you that, first of all, you have to understand something.
The IDF army is not trained to shoot in bursts.
They are trained to shoot through sites in a single shot mode.
That means they are not shooting like in the movies, like you think sports.
What's that got to do with the media being banned?
I will tell you.
I will tell you right now.
So if you'll just let me finish.
So you would agree with me that if the IDF would have shot in bursts, Gaza would have been a parking lot within 12 hours.
And that would have been much more dangerous to the...
No, it's not.
You've destroyed 70% of Gaza.
And you're carrying on destroying the rest.
Gaza is a parking lot.
With all due respect, Minister, you have reduced two-thirds of Gaza to a parking lot.
Why are you pretending about it?
Mr. Morgan.
No, I'm not pretending.
I don't need to pretend.
I'm saying the reality like it is.
Do you think that's funny?
Of course.
It's funny.
It's funny when you think that I'm pretending.
I'm sitting here in front of you.
I don't have to, right?
I can live my life and don't conduct with you.
But I am sitting here because I know I'm telling the truth.
I have no reason to lie.
Now, regarding to the journalists, the IDF has declared the Gaza Strip as a very dangerous combat zone.
And there is a risk, not just for the journalists to be harmed by the terrorists or by the IDF trying to eliminate the terrorists that are hiding behind civilians, but also there is a risk for journalists to be kidnapped.
But I have to ask, Mr. Morgan, you are so worried about journalists that will eventually go into Gaza.
Don't worry about that.
But what about worrying a little bit that maybe the Red Cross would go in to visit our hostages that are drinking sewage water, that are sitting in cages of one meter, that are being abused, beaten up, that haven't been eaten, that no one knows what is going on with them.
Not like the Red Cross that is coming into our prison and visiting murderers, Arab murderers, if I may respond, I agree.
The hostages should be released.
It is disgusting they were taken in the first place.
It remains disgusting.
It is horrific that Hamas holds the families of these hostages through this unbelievably unbearable 20 months of hell.
I hope that clarifies my position of hostages.
But you talk about the IDF being the most moral army in the world.
On Friday, the Israeli publication Heratz published a story claiming the IDF are deliberately firing at Palestinians at aid distribution centers.
Soldiers from the IDF told the publication that commanders ordered troops to shoot at crowds to drive them away or disperse them, even though it was clear they posed no threat.
More than 400, maybe 500 people have been killed, apparently, in this manner.
Benjamin Netanyahu, of course, immediately said all of this was malicious falsehood designed to defame the military.
And the Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following the report.
But you see, this is the problem.
And this is why the fact there's no media there is so important.
It's not down to the IDF to decide whether journalists are at risk.
It's down to the journalists and their organizations.
And if the journalists were there, they could verify exactly who is shooting who in the food lines.
Because you just say, as you always do, everything is being done.
Every bad act in Gaza is being done by Hamas.
And everybody else says, no, actually, the IDF are doing a lot of bad things too.
But the only way to really get to the bottom of this is let the journalists...
Everybody else.
Pretty much everybody else.
Everybody else.
Pretty much everybody.
Everybody else.
The only journalists allowed to operate, of whom you've killed nearly 200, the Palestinian journalists, they, of course, are the only journalists that can actually get any reports out because they're the only ones allowed in because they're already there.
You have the United Nations.
You have allies like the UK, like France, you've got America now who wants to bring this to an end.
Pretty much everybody around you.
And here's the irony for this.
When Israel attacked Iran, I thought that was a justified thing to do, to neutralize Iran's nuclear capability.
I was glad that Israel finally did that action.
I was glad that Donald Trump joined in and specifically targeted the nuclear capacity that Iran has.
I think it would have been a disaster for the world if they were allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
But the way you went about taking on Iran, the way you went about taking on Hezbollah, there's no relation to what you've done in Gaza.
You're just obliterating Gaza.
And you don't really care how many civilians are dying in the process.
You say you do, but you don't really.
It's a lie.
You can keep saying that.
Just the fact that you...
Listen, Mr. Morgan, because if you repeat something again and again and again, it won't make it true.
That we don't want to kill innocent civilians in Gaza, period.
But I'm telling you again and again that once they hide under human population and we have to eliminate terrorists, we have to do what we have to do.
And I don't remember you asking the allies that you were talking about in World War II if they were hiding about how many Nazi, how many children died when we eliminated the Nazis.
I don't remember that.
You know what?
I don't remember in any mid-war where you count numbers, but you obviously emphasize on that.
How many of you have to do what's going on in Gaza?
Now, the difference, once you've got, wait, you asked such a long question.
Conquering And Cleansing Gaza00:15:53
You can't let me answer that.
Simple question.
How many Hamas have killed?
The difference, I will answer, let me finish.
When the difference between Iran and Hezbollah is the fact is that Gaza is the most crowded population that we need to deal with.
And 2 million people in the Gaza Strip that are so, so crowded and the terrorists are hiding in between.
You know, I can tell you, Mr. Morgan, how many Hamas have you killed?
I don't think we...
I don't think we will eliminate.
every Hamas person because we didn't eliminate.
I'm not going to, but how many Hamas have you killed?
I'm not going to go into specifics with you.
I'm not going to tell you as a government member.
I'm not going to.
We'll end this war.
We'll end this war and you'll know everything.
You'll be able to go in.
You'll be able to heal all the numbers.
You don't know how many you've killed.
How do you know how many are left to be killed?
Because I can tell, first of all, I know and I'm choosing as a government member to not tell you that because I know once you get some knowledge, you turn it.
Of course I do.
I'm a government member.
But I can tell you.
What do you mean, how many terrorists we killed?
Yes.
I can tell you that we have more.
We have many more.
And this is what.
And this is what the reason.
I will not tell you.
I will not tell you.
You know, but you won't tell.
But the reason.
Yes, exactly.
How many civilians have you killed?
The reason, the reason.
How many civilians have you killed?
Trying to eliminate as you can ask it again.
I will not answer.
How many civilians have you killed?
By the way, do you know how many civilians?
I don't know.
So you do know how many terrorists you've killed.
You've no idea how many civilians have killed.
The difference is that we have a list of terrorists that we want to eliminate.
We don't aim to kill innocent people in order.
We don't have a list of them.
But I can tell you, I can assure you that the IDF is trying to avoid as much as many innocent casualties as possible and therefore it's not doing a very good job of avoiding innocent people.
That is rude of you to not let me finish, Mr. Morgan.
Let me finish one sentence.
I can tell you that the IDF, every time it needs to eliminate a terrorist, it tells the population to go to this humanitarian corridor or to this humanitarian corridor.
They alert them in advance, unlike the terrorists who shoot at us and shoot at an innocent population, murder children and women and elderly and men and everything in their power they can.
By the way, they eliminate many, many foreigners, dozens of foreign nationalities on October 7th.
What on earth did they do to them?
So eventually, I just want to tell you that the IDF has no, no willing whatsoever to shoot at an innocent population when they want, in actual fact, to save the Gazans from the real occupations of the Hamas terrorism who abuses them.
And I wonder if you see those videos that the Hamas people are, that I'm sorry, that the Gazans are freeing in the WhatsApp and in the social medias when they're saying Hamas won't let us out.
Hamas won't let us take the humanitarian aid.
Hamas is killing us for just daring to talk.
And if you think that Hamas is a legitimate ruling, then I don't know what to say.
But if you don't, and I think you don't, I think you don't, then you should be thanking us, like the rest of the world, for freeing the Gazans from the Hamas ruling, which is a Nazi terror of our days.
I started this interview by saying Hamas should not obviously be in charge anymore.
But I also think the IDF should stop what they're doing in Gaza now because too many innocent people have been killed.
And I'm afraid I don't believe what the IDF or the Israeli government is now saying about what's happening in Gaza because you won't let the media in to verify it.
And in my experience, there's a long history of being a journalist.
When people stop journalists going into an area like Gaza during a war, it's because they don't want people to see what they're doing there.
They've got something to hide.
Anyway, I've got to leave it there.
Mike Golan, thank you very much, Indeed, for joining me.
I appreciate it.
Yay, Mike Baker here, host of the President's Daily Brief Podcast.
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Well, let me turn to my panel now who've been waiting very patiently throughout all this.
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British Army in Afghanistan, trustee of the UK Friends of the Association for the Well-Being of Israel's soldiers, Wujahat Ali, the host of the Democracy-ish podcast, and the pro-Israeli activist with PrejiU, Shabbos Kestanbaum.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Sorry for keeping you waiting there.
Let me start with you, Wajaha.
I mean, you were listening there to that interview with the Israeli government minister.
Your thoughts?
I don't have to say anything after you did a masterful job of interviewing her and the world, listening to her unhinged lunacy and genocidal comments.
I mean, I rest my case, Pierce.
That is the Minister of Social Equality in Israel.
With Ministers of Social Equality, who needs ministers of genocide?
I mean, that woman was completely racist and unhinged.
And speaking about, you know, the quotes of her colleagues, the Israeli leaders right now, I brought some receipts for you, Pierce.
This is what Smotrich has actually said, the finance minister of Israel.
Quote, we are conquering, cleansing, and remaining in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed, end quote.
Another quote by Smotrich.
We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip.
We will stop being afraid of the word occupation.
Another quote from Smotrich, within a few months, Gaza will be totally destroyed.
The Gazan citizens will be concentrated in the south.
They will be totally despairing, understanding that there's no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza.
This is what the president of Israel said.
There are no innocent civilians in Gaza.
This is what the deputy speaker of Israel's parliament said.
Israel has, quote, one common goal, erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.
For the past year and a half, Pierce, I've been on your show.
And in the past year and a half, you've asked me, do I condemn the violence done by Hamas?
What did I say, Pierce?
Yes, I do, because I'm against violent extremism, whether it's a terrorist group or whether it's state-sanctioned terrorism.
But what we've seen in the past year and a half, especially that report three days ago, is the IDF has been commanded to shoot at unarmed civilians, Palestinians who are at a food distribution site.
Pierce, any person with any morality, any decency who believes in God, like I do, how can they support the IDF shooting Palestinian civilians who are trying to get humanitarian aid?
You know how many Palestinians have been killed in the quote-unquote killing field?
That's an IDF soldiers, not mine.
570 Palestinians unarmed trying to get food.
Why is that food there through humanitarian aid?
Because Israel, like you mentioned, has done a blockade because Israel occupies Gaza.
The occupation is immoral.
The settlements are immoral.
We haven't even talked about the West Bank, Piers.
I know you've been there.
I've been there to the terrorism that has been unleashed.
The expansion of settlements on the West Bank is absolutely appalling.
It's disgusting.
And it's enough.
It's illegal and it shouldn't be happening.
Colonel Kemp, let me bring you in here.
You've just been over there.
You know, you're very supportive of Israel's government and the IDF and what they're doing.
But surely with all your military experience, even you must be looking at what's happening now in Gaza and thinking this has got to come to an end.
I think everyone's thinking it's got to come to an end.
Certainly the Israelis are thinking it's got to come to an end.
They've been fighting a vicious, brutal terrorist organization for 20 months that is embedded completely in the civilian population.
They've been doing their very best, and I've witnessed it myself inside Gaza with the IDF.
They've been doing their very best to minimize the deaths of innocent civilians.
And I think they've succeeded to a large extent in that.
I don't know what the latest figure is from Hamas, but it's something around 50,000, 60,000 or thereabouts.
That's their estimate.
And of course, we can't rely on that in any way.
But we've got nothing else to go on.
The IDF don't issue estimates of their civilians that they think they might have killed, but they have issued estimates of the number of Hamas terrorists that they think they've killed.
Obviously, not exact.
And it's something around about 25 to 30, why don't they count the civilians?
How do you do that?
I mean, how do they count the terrorists?
Because they're targeting the terrorists.
They know who they're targeting and they know when they believe they've killed them.
You can't count every single person that's coming under attack.
And the reality is that if those figures are correct, and let's assume for a moment they are, particularly, I don't trust the Hamas figures, but let's assume they're correct.
That means that it's approximately one civilian killed for every combatant killed inside Gaza in the last 20 months, which is terrible.
It's a really terrible statistic.
But if you compare it to Afghanistan, the Americans and their allies estimate they killed about five civilians for every combatant in Afghanistan and three in Iraq.
And the United Nations estimate that in combat, in urban combat since the Second World War, about nine civilians have died for every combatant.
So it shows, you know, this is not easy.
Hamas is doing their level best to make Israel kill as many of their own civilians as possible to achieve exactly what they have achieved, which is a vilification.
But Israel, see, my argument would be back to you, Colonel Kemp.
Israel is not achieving its goals.
It's not got rid of Hamas, that's clear.
It's not got the hostages released.
In fact, they've only been released during diplomatic phases of this 20-month war.
They're now talking openly through people like Smodrich, the finance minister, of ethnically cleansing the entire Gaza Strip of all Palestinians, which is a war crime if they try and do that.
They try and kick them all out.
So none of the goals which they set out to achieve have been achieved and don't look like anything near being achieved.
And at the same time, you've got 70% of Gaza has been destroyed.
You've got this moving population being moved around.
And wherever they move to, they then get bombed again.
You've got thousands of them queuing up desperately for food, despite the Israelis claiming no one there is hungry.
Well, what are they stampeding each other for to get fragments of food if that's not the case?
And then you've got this Haratz report, which of course Netanyahu has emphatically denied.
And the Haratz report coming from IDF soldiers they source saying that a lot of the people dying in these shooting incidents in the food lines are being shot dead by Israelis.
So you're pulling people.
If this is true, and it's an Israeli publication, if this is true, well, you can laugh, Colonel Kem, but why would you laugh?
I laugh because it's killing people.
It's a killing people.
The Herat's report, as far as I can see, deliberately distorted what they were told.
In the Hebrew version, the soldiers apparently said we were told to shoot in the direction of Hamas of civilians who were rioting.
No, that's not true.
No, I've read that.
I've read that.
It's simply not true.
That's a conspiracy theory, honestly.
It is a conspiracy theory because they talked about the killing fields.
They talked about lots of people dying.
570 people dying.
I read the article and I don't believe it's true.
I've been, as I said before, I've been inside Gaza with the IDF before.
I've seen the extraordinary measures they take to minimize the problem.
Even the report you gave, Colonel Kim, even the report you did had gunfire in the background at the end.
Let's take a look.
Many of the people behind me here have told me it's the first time they've ever received free aid.
So don't believe the propaganda that's been churned out by Hamas and amplified by too much of the international and national media.
It was almost like a comedy sketch if it wasn't so serious.
There you are saying you don't believe any of the stories of the Israelis shooting at people here.
And next thing you hear is a machine gun going off.
Yeah, you may find machine guns funny, but those of us who have been on Facebook.
But it flew in the face of what you literally were saying on camera.
You said it was a comedy sketch.
That machine gun.
I said it would be funny if it had been a comedy sketch, but it was actually serious.
I was in that base, in that aid distribution site, for around about two to three hours.
In that time, I heard a huge number of explosions, gunfire, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, because this is in a war zone.
And you get machine gun fire, you get explosions in a war zone.
That machine gun fire, if you looked at that video clip carefully, you would see that not one single Gazan flinched when that fire was heard because it was nowhere near the aid distribution site.
It was distant fire constantly going on.
But you can try and turn that into the idea that it's the IDF, as many people have on social media, tried to say this was the IDF shooting civilians.
Why would the IDF want to shoot at civilians at a humanitarian aid site that they support, that they help to set up, and that they want to work?
They wouldn't.
It would make no sense whatsoever.
The people that are doing the shooting are Hamas.
I spoke to many Gazan civilians, at least 50 in that area.
Why don't the journalists get in then?
Let the journalists in and that can be verified.
They have told me, why don't I let the journalists?
It's got nothing to do with me.
Why doesn't Israel let the journalists in then?
This is shameful.
This is shameful.
You'll have to ask Israel that.
We all know why they're not letting them in, Colonel Kim.
It's because they don't want the world to see what's happening.
Let me bring in Shabbos.
He's been waiting patiently.
Shabbos.
The first reason, you've asked me a question.
Let me answer it.
The first reason is because there's a very big danger if journalists went in on their own of getting kidnapped.
Okay, you say that's the risk that they should be prepared to take themselves.
You say that, but then Western journalists kidnapped inside Gaza.
How convenient.
So that's why you have a 20-month media ban.
Come on.
And the second reason, I don't know this for sure.
I'm surmising.
But the second reason, if I was in that position, I would be very hesitant to let journalists in because I've seen how many journalists distort what they see from the West, from Britain, from the United States.
Of course, well, how convenient.
Don't let the journalists in.
Only let the IDF tell the story.
How very convenient.
Let me bring in Shabos.
If you've been waiting very patiently, we haven't got as long as we would normally have because we ran over with the minister.
But Shabos, I mean, your response to this.
I would start by saying this.
Piers, you know how many Jews are living in Gaza?
It's zero.
You know how many Jews are living in Ramallah?
It's zero.
You know how many Jews are living in Nablus at zero?
You know how many Jews are living in Jenin?
It's zero.
After Egypt and half a dozen other Arab Muslim countries attacked Israel in 1967, Israel was able to conquer an area called the Sinai Peninsula that is two times as large as Israel.
And in 1979, they gave it back to Egypt unilaterally and unconditionally.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip.
They expelled every last living and dead Jew from Gaza, all in the name of peace.
The argument that Israel is experiencing or is trying to have an expansionist greater state of Israel is not corroborated by the facts or reality.
And all I can say is thank God that there was no Kiers Morgan uncensored during World War II.
Because what you would do during the bombing of Dresden, during the Battle of Berlin, is you would have German commentators talking about the civilian death toll and how terrible it is that the Allies...
Why was the Geneva Convention set up?
The Geneva Convention was set up specifically in order to deride the world of having Nazism and fascism in the future.
Actually, it was designed specifically Avoid some of the things that we saw in World War II.
That was why it was set up.
Correct.
Avoiding World War Three00:03:49
And the Geneva Convention made it clear that unfortunately war in the 20th and 21st century is a necessary evil.
It is terrible to have civilians being killed.
It is terrible when you have a civilian death toll.
But unfortunately, that is a consequence of every war ever fought in modern warfare.
I mean, do you know how many German civilians were killed during World War II?
It was two to three million.
You know how many Austro-Hungarians were killed during World War I?
It was anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million.
But if we judge the world war, we're in a war between the most powerful military in the Middle East and a 2 million strong, with half of those being under 18, population of the Gaza Strip, which has been under occupation now for decades.
That's what we're talking about.
It's not a world war.
We're not talking about a world war.
We're talking about the most sophisticated military in the Middle East relentlessly bombarding for 20 months a small area of land, the Gaza Strip, with a million people under 18.
That's what we're talking about.
Now, I agree, Hamas had to be got rid of, but it hasn't happened.
And at some point, there has to be an acknowledgement that this mission has failed.
And all that's happened is Gaza has been flattened.
More and more innocent people are being killed.
None of the mission goals are being achieved.
And now we've got members of the government openly saying, actually, what we want to do is kick all the Palestinians out.
Openly saying it.
So this mission has changed from self-defense to actually ethnic cleansing.
That's my problem with it.
These are democratic politicians who are not controlling the war.
Have you heard the prime minister?
Have you heard members of the war cabinet?
Have you heard them talking about ethnic cleansing the Gaza population?
People like Svodric and Benvić.
He's the finance minister.
He's the equivalent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for goodness sake.
He's not involved here now.
He's not involved.
Come on, Colonel Kemp.
Take your blinkers off, man.
You don't think Svodric is involved in anything that's happening?
What are ludicrous statements?
I'm sorry.
He is not involved in the world.
I'm great respect for you and your military career, but what a ridiculous statement.
Seriously.
And the other point that you made is that Israel is not achieving its objectives.
It is achieving its objectives.
It's taken a very long time.
It's been terrible.
It's taken a long time.
It's a very complex war.
It's very difficult.
They've destroyed huge elements of Hamas.
I said before, maybe around 25 to 30,000 of them, which is not far off the number they started with.
And also, they are having hostages released.
You said they've been released only through diplomatic means.
How did those diplomatic means come about?
Through military pressure.
Okay, that's how it happens.
Your final word, Leba Jahi.
Final quote: What we're doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation, indiscriminate, limitless, cruel, and criminal killing of civilians.
We're not doing this due to loss of control in any specific sector, not due to some disproportionate outbursts by some soldiers in one unit.
Rather, it's the result of government policy, knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated.
Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.
And that's a quote from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Omert.
Yeah, and I agree with that.
It is true.
And I interviewed him and he reiterated that to me.
He's wrong.
All right, I've got to leave it.
I'm sorry we didn't have more time for the debate.
We ran late with the minister who was running late herself, but I appreciate you for your patience and for the debate that we were able to have.
Thank you very much.
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