Piers Morgan's Coverage of Israel-Palestine - Two Years On From October 7
Almost two years on from Hamas' attack on October 7, the war in Gaza rages on, with tens of thousands killed, hostages still in captivity and starvation blighting the strip - here's a reminder of how Piers Morgan has been covering it all. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent and supported by: Pique: Get 20% off your order plus a FREE frother & glass beaker with this exclusive link: https://piquelife.com/PIERS Oxford Natural: To watch their full stories, scan the QR code on your screen or visit https://oxfordnatural.com/piers/ to get 70% off your first order when you use code PIERS. Beam: Visit https://shopbeam.com/PIERS and use code PIERS to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Stopping the Holocaust00:11:11
Almost two years on from Hamas's devastating attack on October the 7th, the war in Gaza rages on with tens of thousands killed, hostages still in captivity, and starvation spreading across the strip.
Conflicts in Israel and its neighbors, Iran, Lebanon and Syria, have narrowly avoided escalation so far, but the region remains on a knife edge.
Here's how we've been covering it.
We'll begin by talking to Daniela Weiss, the leader of the settler group, Nahala.
Well, welcome to you, Daniela Weiss.
Thank you for joining me on our senses.
Let me start by asking you, Mrs. Weiss, you're known as the godmother of the Israeli settler movement.
Is your ultimate ambition for all Palestinians to be removed from the West Bank and Gaza?
You ask if it's my, it's what I want.
It's not ambition.
Ambition I put into positive things.
I mean, when people have to move from one place to another, it's not a question of ambition.
I think there is no choice now, especially after the massacre of the 7th of October.
The Gazans finished their chapter of history in Gaza, and the terrorists themselves will be killed in the attacks of the Israeli army, of Tzahal, and those who support them will have to go to emigrate to other countries.
And I think as far as people want to live normal life, I think the option to go to other countries and the world is a good option.
But it's not a question of ambition.
I have an ambition to settle Jews all over the vast areas of the land that was given by God to the Jewish nation.
So this is my ambition.
Okay, but if I suggest that we carve out an area of Israel to put the Palestinians, we just slice off.
No.
No, let me finish.
Let me finish.
We slice off an area of Israel and all the Israelis who currently live there have to leave and go and live in another country.
Are you happy about that?
Would you be happy with that?
You have some psychological need to slice pieces of the tiny state of Israel.
No, no, I'm just saying.
What's this need?
Listen, Gaza, as you know.
Gaza, as you know.
Well, hang on, let me finish.
Gaza, as you know, is a very small territory.
I'm talking about a similar size territory.
Is what?
Gaza is what?
I'm talking about...
It's a very small territory.
Gaza is what?
Gaza is very small.
I know.
So I'm talking about taking Indonesia.
Hang on.
I'm talking about taking.
Let me finish.
I'm talking about taking the Gazan people, the innocent Gazan people, not Hamas, but innocent Gazan people.
And I'm talking about taking a piece of Israel and removing all the Israelis who currently live there and sending them off to other countries.
And then you put the Palestinian people in that space in Israel.
How would you feel about that?
It's not a question of feel.
It's not going to happen.
Why would that be wrong?
Why would that be wrong, Mrs. Weiss?
Why would that be wrong?
Because it failed.
We left Gaza in 2005 and we were promised that Gaza will be Singapore.
And I didn't believe in it, but many Israelis did believe in it.
And it turned into hell.
Upper hell, lower hell, hell.
And I think no more experiments.
We are not a laboratory.
We are a nation that wants to live in the land that was given to us, to the Jews, by God.
But you actually, but you, the Arabs, the Gazans don't want it.
I don't want to be an experiment, a laboratory with experiments on the Jewish people.
I just wonder, obviously, you're outraged by the idea of Palestinian people taking the place of Israelis in Israel.
And I understand that.
But what gives you the right to then tell Palestinian people, innocent people, children who've had nothing to do with Hamas, what gives you the right to ask them...
Because they attacked Palestine.
Let me finish.
To uproot those people from their homes and expel them in what would be ethnic cleansing, which is a war crime, as you know.
They attacked, attacked, attacked Israel on the 7th of October.
They massacred Jews on the 7th of October after we evacuated Gaza for their benefit.
What is not clear in what I say?
If there is anything in what is so openly exposed that can be considered illegal.
Well, you're committing war crimes.
What is illegal in what I do?
You're committing war crimes.
Why?
So you are speaking to me now.
You're giving so much time in your program to a person who commits war crimes.
Why do you do it?
I'm holding you to account.
I'm holding you to account for your war crimes.
I'm telling you, you should stop the war crimes.
I'm telling you, you have absolutely you have no right to displace millions of Palestinians and kick them out of their homes.
You don't have that right.
Morgan, you hope that through your program, you will enhance the chance that I will be put to trial?
Is this why you give me so much time in your program?
Yeah, I think ultimately you should face a trial, yeah.
You just interviewed a terrorist, and she's one of the most vicious terrorists of my lifetime.
These settlers are lunatic religious fundamentalists that believe in murdering Palestinians for God.
It's an absurd interpretation of any religious document.
The overwhelming majority of Jews, by the way, do not agree with them.
They don't think that you have to murder Palestinians for God.
And so when you asked her that last question, it was actually very interesting what her answer was.
You said, do you mind 20,000 children being killed?
And she said, as long as they're teaching their children to hate Jews, she seemed to be justifying that we have to kill their children.
So think about the absurd logic of that.
Since they teach them to hate us, we murdered their children.
Gee, I wonder why they hate you.
Piers is absolutely right.
We passed those Geneva Convention laws so that we could prevent crimes against humanity, not just what the Germans did to the Jews, the Poles, the Roma, etc., but also what the Allies did in indiscriminate carpet bombing of civilian populations.
So we tried to learn from the Holocaust.
We tried to learn from World War II.
And we all said never again.
These laws should not be broken because it leads to terrible situations.
Israel then said, no, we're above the law.
We get to break any law we like.
And now, and in the case of the Germans, they were killing 6 million Jews.
They killed 13 million overall.
We were trying to stop a Holocaust.
In this case, Israel is the one doing the genocide and saying, well, I mean, why are you trying to stop us from killing innocent Palestinians and taking their land?
Because in that analogy, you're the Germans.
So the Palestinians...
I'm the German.
Those innocent children didn't do anything, dude.
You just called me a Nazi.
If you're supporting Israel.
I'm a Nazi.
So look, they did a Holocaust, which is the terrorist state of Israel.
You just called me a Nazi?
Hey, Rabbi, can I...
This is a sad day for you, Shank.
Shank, this is a sad day for you.
Just for your credibility, take it back.
I'm begging you.
Can I say that?
For your own credibility, just take it back.
I'm not going to take it.
This is a sad day for you.
I'm not going to take it.
This is a sad day of credibility.
To compare me to the SS as a Nazi.
This is a sad day for you to take your credibility from Jeng.
I want to invite the view of what you just said.
I'll never recover.
Can I answer, Pierce?
Can I finish the sentence?
Someone has been called the Nazi.
Can I respond, Pierce?
May I respond?
No, no, no, because I haven't finished the goddamn sentence.
You think you own everything.
You don't own everything, Rabbi Shmuly.
You don't own the American government.
You don't own the American people.
By the way, when is America going to get it?
It's $300 billion back.
We gave it to a bunch of criminals to murder children.
Okay, you murder children with our money.
Every day you take money out of my taxes.
I go to work every day and Israel takes money out of it to murder Palestinian children.
You've murdered 20,000 children already.
You're the aggressors.
Israel has already killed more babies than Hamas has killed civilians overall.
Israel has killed a stadium full of women and children.
And you are surprised that we compare you to the Germans.
Omar Bartov, an Israeli-American Holocaust expert, just wrote an article in the New York Times saying that now the Israelis are doing the type of genocide that makes saying never again absurd, absurd.
Why are they doing the thing that was done to them?
The world had tremendous sympathy for all Jews.
And I do, all decent human beings do.
But what Israel is doing is lighting that sympathy on fire and saying, we get to murder, we get to kill, and you can't call us any names.
We get to call all Muslims who fight back against us terrorists.
We get to attack all of our neighbors.
They attack Syria again today.
We get to break all the laws.
We get to commit war crimes.
And I'm telling you right now, just like the Germans, you do not have the right to commit war crimes, to commit a genocide, to kill all those children, and then hide, hide, and use as a shield.
Oh, everybody's an anti-Semite, an anti-Semite.
You're canceled.
You don't get to save.
You've ruined your credibility.
No, Israel has ruined its credibility.
Israel is now one of the most monstrous states I have ever seen in my lifetime.
They commit endless terrorism.
They rob the American people of our money to rob Palestinians of their land.
That is actually a stone-cold fact.
And I was right.
Israel is now occupying 75% of Gaza.
It was always to steal their land.
Gold and Human Rights00:11:23
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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, you know, the first time going in there, you know, 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, you know, 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 sea, 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 come 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.
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?
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, you know.
So it didn't start on October the 7th.
What do I think about October 7th?
Horrific.
You know, 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, you know, 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 raining 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.
You want the same human rights.
I just want the same human rights.
Well, joining me now is Mike Golan, the Minister for Social Equality in Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Welcome to you, Ms. Goddam.
You were listening to that, but you were grimacing and pulling faces.
What was your issue with what you heard?
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, is that 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.
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 of the horrors that have been happening one second.
One second.
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, you're not going to be able to do it.
You must have mischaracterized it.
The point he was making, and he's an extremely courageous doctor who risked 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 70,008 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.
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 interviewer 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 would you do?
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 while we eliminate the terror of Hamas?
Would England accept them?
Well, let me read you.
Killing Innocent Children00:08:10
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?
Against Hamas, absolutely.
Absolutely.
We want to eliminate every terrorist of Hamas.
Let me tell you that.
Hang on, I'm finishing.
I haven't finished.
Sorry, I have to say.
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 could go on reading you stuff, you've had.
So my point is, you say that Smodric and Ben Givir, 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.
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.
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Well, I'm joined by Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Zippy Hotaveli.
Ambassador, welcome back to Uncensored.
Good evening, Pierce.
Incredibly damning comments from two former prime ministers of Israel and a former deputy chief of staff of the Israeli army.
When you hear what they have to say, surely it gives you pause for thought, doesn't it?
Well, it's quite obvious for someone like you that understands politics that those people are coming from the opposition.
Their job, in their opinion, is to fight whatever the government is doing.
I think it's very anti-patriotic not to support Israel's war when we are fighting the most justified war in the world against a terror group that committed the worst atrocities at the 7th of October.
Just today, we remember 600 days that we still have 58 hostages in captivity.
And I'm afraid to say, nowadays in Israel, you can't find even one leader that will say he's willing to live with Hamas on its doorstep.
So if those people have any criticism, they should offer a plan how Hamas will be removed from the Gaza Strip from controlling the doorstep of Israel, not committing the 7th of October again.
I didn't get to hear that not from European leaders that are criticizing Israel and not from those opposition former leaders.
So I must say that in the end of the day, Israel has a serious threat on its security.
You will agree with that.
No one wants to see people being massacred in their homes like we've seen at the 7th of October.
And in order to do that, the aims of the war are still relevant.
We want to bring back our hostages and we want to make sure Hamas won control of the Gaza Street.
Every leader in the world, in the Western world, agrees on those two aims.
With respect to Ambassador, you clearly don't achieve it with the way that you're trying to achieve it.
All you're achieving at the moment is making Israel more and more of a global pariah.
When only a few days ago, you have two doctors in Gaza who have 10 children and nine of them are killed in a bombardment by your forces.
That doesn't make people feel, oh, this is all going great.
It makes people think that you're waging a systematic destruction, not just of property and of land, but also of children.
And that's what's happening.
The percentage of children, the percentage of children that you're killing compared to the percentage of you're killing of Hamas terrorists.
What is it?
Do you know?
Do you know how many children you've killed?
Answer me that one question.
Do you know how many Hamas terrorists you've killed and how many children you've killed?
You know there's two numbers.
I know the numbers that came from the IDF.
I know the numbers that came from a very, very astounding.
Give me the two numbers.
Wait a second.
We killed 30,000.
Give me the two numbers.
We killed 30,000 terrorists in phase one of the war.
Since the war is back, I don't have the numbers.
But let me tell you one thing.
We never target civilians.
So this question is irrelevant.
How many children have you killed?
Piers, Israel is not killing children.
Israel is not killing children.
Hamas is using them.
Israel is killing children every single day.
Pierce, this is a blood label you're putting on Israel.
No, it's not true.
No, it's not, actually.
And what you're trying to do is be very weasel with your words.
No, I'm not.
The truth is, the truth is, you are killing a lot of children.
You would argue you're not.
Hang on, let me finish.
Hamas is using them as human shields.
Let me finish.
My question to you.
You are killing a lot of children on a daily basis.
That is indisputable.
My interesting question for you is, how come you know exactly how many Hamas terrorists you've killed, but you have no idea how many children you've killed?
Piers, I will give you the answer because when you're accusing a country of killing children, it sounds to all the people that are listening to us as if Israel wakes up in the morning and says, ooh, let's kill Israel.
Let's kill innocent people now.
This is not what Israel is doing.
Israel.
But you are killing a lot of children.
And my question is, how come you yes.
Can I ask you something?
Are you familiar with international law?
Are you familiar with that at all?
Because the international humanitarian law says very clearly, as long as you're targeting civilian targets, you're allowed to attack hospitals to kill their terrorists.
No, but you're not answering my question.
Israel is not deliberately killing children.
And this accusation is a fake thing that you keep on saying again and again when you know we're a democratic country cares about yourself.
I just ask you a simple question.
And at the same time, Hamas is deliberately using the children as human beings.
And you know, I don't deny anything you say about Hamas.
They're everything you say they are, probably worse.
I despise Hamas.
They are a despicable terrorist organization.
So help us win this war if you're so despising Hamas.
You're offering to surrender.
You're not offering to win.
I'm asking you.
Okay, I'm asking you this question for a purpose.
I'm curious why you know, you say you know, exactly how many Hamas terrorists have been killed, but you have no idea how many children have been killed.
Why is it you know one number, but not the other?
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Journalists vs Blood Libels00:14:49
You have come to the conclusion that what Israel's doing is indefensible.
And I thought it was fascinating and shocking watching you grill the Israeli ambassador who simply cannot tell you or even ballpark how many kids they have killed in this whole thing.
Yeah, look, I mean, I think what Israel, you know, to your broader question of where does this all end up going, there's almost two kind of simultaneous wars, in a sense, that are going on.
There's the actual, you know, control of power, in which case Israel's done phenomenally well over the last couple of years.
I mean, Israel still has the support of the most powerful governments in the world, damn near unconditionally, if not purely unconditionally.
They've been very successful in terms of taking out Hezbollah leaders.
They've been very successful in terms of destroying the Gaza Strip.
They've been successful in getting the regime change that they've wanted for many years in Syria.
However, simultaneously, while that's going on, global opinion has drastically changed of Israel to a degree that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
And despite whatever arguments might be made for whether this meets a genocide or doesn't meet a genocide, or whether, you know, as two former Israeli prime ministers who have come out recently and said that war crimes are being committed, wherever you fall on that, the fact is that the debate is now over whether Israel is committing a genocide or not.
And that is something that all of us should take a step back and appreciate how profound it is, especially amongst young people.
In the future, I don't believe Israel will ever be viewed the same as it was by my parents' generation.
And so what does that mean?
You know, as you mentioned earlier, Piers, that's right.
This is a big part of how wars end is when public support evaporates.
We will see where all of this goes, but it is a very dangerous situation.
And it is certainly profound to the degree that it has changed the impression of Israel on the global stage.
Nobody understands what Israel's goal is here, other than flattening Gaza and kicking off.
Well, hang on.
As Smodrich has said, it is to take over and clear out Gaza of all the Palestinians.
That is genocide, isn't it?
And that's, I mean, you're a lawyer.
You tell me.
Israel's war aims have been clear from the outset, which is the destruction of Hamas.
They haven't done the return of the hostages.
Well, because the war's not over yet.
You haven't done either of those things.
All you're doing is killing more and more civilians.
And you've been starving them.
Well, who's you?
Forgive me.
I'm here as a lawyer.
The Israeli government, and you're here to defend it, right?
No, I'm here to defend the rule of law and the weaponization of international law, which has been consistent throughout this process.
The propaganda that we're discussing right now, which is clearly what has shifted your position and perspective on this.
It's very dangerous.
Calling Israel a committer of genocide or saying that it is starving to the people.
Well, actually, the people alleging that Israel is committing war crimes are two former Israeli prime ministers.
They have their own political agendas here.
Let's see.
How convenient is that?
The two former prime ministers of the country have said that you are committing as a government, not you, but the government is committing war crimes.
And you dismiss it as just a bit of internal politics.
Well, no, it's a very serious matter that the misinformation that I would like to be able to come on to address is now also being propagated by two very sore individuals, Prime Minister Olmert, because he also served a prison sentence and has had his entire proposed peace framework, that of essentially creating a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, turned upside down by the realization.
And he hasn't had, unfortunately, the temerity after the 7th of October to recognize the risk that he would have put Israel to in light of the Hamas taking.
And when you see, as we saw, when you see, Natasha.
I was answering the previous question.
Okay, let me just on the point.
It's productive.
On the point of legality.
Actually, it's very productive.
On the point of legality, only last week, the Israeli government announced new settlements, 22 settlements.
Well, no, can we pause?
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
On the West Bank, 22 settlements, which the international community views as illegal.
They announced 22 new settlements.
As a lawyer, given your adherence to the point of law, presumably you would condemn that.
Well, this is exactly why we need to be clear about how international law applies and why the notion of these so-called illegal settlements is a misconception.
You don't think they are?
It's not a legal term.
It's a political term, and it is part and parcel of a misapplication of international law to the status of a territory.
These blood libels, occupation, ethnic cleansing, do you think the settlements and genocide are all part and parcel of the propaganda which I would like to be able to come onto because all of the evidence goes in completely the opposite direction in terms of Israel's compliance with the laws of armed conflict and its amount of steps that Israel takes, unprecedented in the history of armed conflict and military.
Actually, that's just a load of bullshit.
I'm sorry, it just is.
Which other army war in recent times have you had half the population is under 18 and you've killed 20,000 kids in those figures figures that you are.
Give me an example of where this morality has been played out elsewhere.
I was explaining earlier that the Hamas figures are inflated, that there are internal inclusions.
How convenient for you?
You don't know what the figures are, so how do you know?
Because there have been independent states.
How do you know how many figures are inflated or otherwise?
You don't know how many have been killed.
You don't know Hamas lies.
It is an internationally prescribed terrorist organization.
Some might think you're lying because you say on one hand, I don't know how many children have been killed, but on the other hand, and there's a blood libel if you say we've killed any of them, but on the other hand...
That's not what I said.
No.
But on the other hand, you know all about the ratios and you know how humane Israeli forces are being killing.
Because even on Hamas figures, which we know to be false, which do not make distinctions between the two people, you don't know they're false.
We do because they're...
How do you know they're false?
You don't know how many have been killed.
Because Hamas has even itself revised those figures down and acknowledged that they are false.
And the UN is still touting.
So how many children has Israel killed?
If we go back to the question.
If you go back to the ratio.
No, but I can tell you the ratio, even on the basis of Hamas figures.
You can tell me the ratio without...
But how do you know if you don't know how many people?
You can tell me the ratio even on the basis of the false Hamas figure.
You've no idea how many have been killed, but you can tell me the ratio.
I can tell you the ratio.
You're a smart lawyer.
Do you not understand how ridiculous that is?
If we were in a courtroom now, you would be demolished by a fellow lawyer.
They would say, what are you talking about?
Piers, this is not how courtroom etiquette is conducted, I'm afraid.
I would be permitted to...
Actually, some of my favourite lawyers conduct something exactly like that.
I would be permitted to finish a sentence.
The reason we can say that the ratio before the ceasefire was one to one or 1.15 to 1 is on the basis even of Hamas figures.
1 to 1 or 5 to 1.
Which one was it?
1 to 1 to 1.5 to 1 at different points in that period.
What right does the IDF have to restrict journalists doing their job?
In every other war I've ever been involved in, including sending my Daily Mirror journalists to cover the Iraq war in Baghdad, where they rang me at midnight to ask if they should leave or stay in a hotel, the Baghdad Hilton, I think it was called, before shock and awe arrived.
So huge responsibility on my shoulders then about the lives of my journalists, but they were prepared to risk them to report the truth to the wider world.
Israel has decided no journalists from outside can go in and make that assessment themselves.
Yes.
What right does Israel have to do that?
For three reasons.
Will you allow me to finish?
Well, there are no reasons.
But it's none of your business whether the journalists view their safety as being at risk.
I'm sorry, you haven't heard the reasons yet.
The first, of course, is the safety of the journalists, and I appreciate you don't accept that.
I think it's a load of nonsense.
The second is the safety.
The idea you're doing is some quaint concern for the safety of journalists is bullshit.
That was reason number one.
Reason number two is the ability to IDF soldiers to be able to conduct this war against Hamas without the journalists getting in the way.
No, without actually, by the way, they've killed more journalists in Palestinian journalists than in any war.
Hamas members wearing press vests are not journalists.
And reason number three...
So none of them are journalists.
And reason number three.
So just to be clear, none of the Palestinian journalists who've been killed are actually journalists.
I said Hamas members.
Those that are.
Every single dead Palestinian journalist is a member of Hamas.
Is that your position?
Melissa, I appreciate Piers's.
That is also bullshit.
But risk factors.
No, I'm not saying bullshit.
Well, joining me now in the studio is Hussam Zomlet.
He's the Palestinian ambassador to the UK.
I've been a regular guest on Uncensored.
Welcome back to you, Ambassador.
From day one, we said very clearly that we wholeheartedly reject the targeting of civilians.
But we added from all sides.
We have civilians.
Our civilians have been killed all along for 77 years and not only killed, oppressed, rounded without trial or charge, their land being stolen, their houses being demolished.
They live under complete apartheid regime as per international reports and assessments, whereby you are not born unless Israel agrees.
You are not dead unless Israel issues your death certificate.
You cannot love or marry unless Israel agrees.
Complete and utter system of segregation whereby you are treated under martial law while an Israeli illegal settler from Brooklyn will come and be under the Israeli civil law.
What we try to say is balance it here.
And the 7th of October was one day in the history of the conflict.
But the preceding 400 days has really dented our humanity.
And the previous 77 years has also been as atrocious on the Palestinian people.
What we try to do and say at that moment, yes, what happened on the 7th of October should be subjected to also Palestinian-Palestinian discussion.
We also need to discuss.
We realize that a people under occupation, as per international law, it is our right to resist via military arms.
Military means, I mean armed resistance.
International law gives you that option, of course, targeting only military targets.
It gives you...
But even then...
But that wasn't resistance.
But even then...
Hang on, hang on.
But even then...
Hang on one second.
What we saw on October 7th was not resistance.
That was a mass terror attack on civilian populations.
And any targeting of civilians...
Well, let's be clear about that.
3,000 Hamas terrorists came over the border in wave after wave, and they attacked and murdered and did other terrible things to as many civilians as they could get their hands on.
They kidnapped babies.
I hear you.
Holocaust survivors.
I hear you.
They murdered hundreds of people at a music festival.
In other words, nothing that they did that day can be categorized as legitimate resistance to military action.
I hear you.
Do you agree?
I hear you, but you need to hear me.
Would you agree with me?
That's the 7th of October.
But you agree with me?
Targeting civilians is absolutely, utterly rejected.
And we, the Palestinian people, must always, always return the moral high grounds.
Our issue, the heart of our cause, is that we as civilians, defenseless, have been targeted for 100 years.
So we better not do it ourselves.
And we better stick to the one thing that we're calling for, which is international law.
But on the 6th of October, Piers, the UN and other international organizations declared it was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank, not even in Gaza.
You didn't bring me here.
The world was not all over the place to discuss the murder of Palestinian children.
That's true.
In the West Bank.
I accept that.
That is our issue.
That's number one.
I accept that.
That is our issue.
And since the 7th of October, you have, you've been wanting me to condemn.
And we have no issues with condemnation.
We have been doing that all along.
But the Israeli ambassador was sitting here, Piers, last week.
And all that conversation, still, you did not ask her to condemn.
So what is it about Palestinians?
Do you or the mainstream media see Israeli Jewish life to be more of value than Palestinian lives?
That's a question.
And that's why I, as a representative of the Palestinian people, my people, I refuse wholeheartedly that our children is less of a human being than the husband.
I agree.
And I know that one Palestinian child for us, one Palestinian child for us, is worth the world.
When it comes to the hostages, even if you don't believe. Netanyahu, that it makes any difference.
In other words, his bigger plan for Gaza is not related to the hostages.
Even if you believe that, why not call his bluff?
Why not just demand and have every other Palestinian leader demand that Hamas release all remaining hostages tomorrow and call their bluff?
Even if you don't believe it will make any difference, why not do that?
At least show the humanity you say that you're not getting from Israel.
Let those remaining hostages go home.
Today, the Security Council, the 10 non-permanent members, proposed a Security Council resolution that includes the calling for two things.
The immediate and permanent cessation of hostilities, cessation of the genocide, the mass murder, destruction, permanent ceasefire, and the release of all hostages.
We go for that.
Do you think Netanyahu will accept it?
And read my lips.
The U.S. will veto this.
They are not interested, Piers.
This isn't about the hostages.
Ask the families of the hostages.
They are only taking all this as a pretext, including the hostages.
They saw in that an opportunity to annihilate Gaza.
Listen to me, Anna.
My grandfather and father was born in a village, beautiful one, called Simpson.
Simpson.
In what Israel has become in 48 Palestine.
It was completely and utterly demolished, decimated, Simpson.
And they grew some trees so we don't even relate to or discover where our homes was.
My generation, that's my grandfather and father, myself, I was born in Rafah.
Rafah, a huge city in Gaza, a city home to 172,000 people.
I was born there.
I lived there all of my life.
It's where I love and I grew up.
It's my city.
It's gone.
Decimated.
Trump's Gaza Deal00:09:53
The only hope I have now is that my children are not going to face the same faith.
This is Israel's DNA, Piers.
Israel's DNA, since it was established, is to annihilate us, wherever we are.
So we left our original homes.
We were unable, not allowed to return to our original homes and farms and towns.
And even the place of refugeeship we took like Rafah is destroyed.
My kids, I'm fearing now.
And I want to discuss with you the future more than the past.
The past is dreadful.
And the present is more dreadful.
We should spend some time discussing the future, discussing what kind of Palestine we're after, what kind of a state we are going to build.
What is the relationship between this state and all of its neighbors and the rest of the world?
But my biggest fear now is that my three children will face the same faith.
They will also go, perhaps live in a West Bank city, say Jenin or Turkarim or El Khalil, and they will be faced with the same faith.
Three generations on.
That city will be destroyed again, decimated again.
And guess what?
It is happening in the West Bank.
50,000 people have been displaced from Jenin until Hey.
It's happening.
Not just in Gaza.
By the way, discussing with me, Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, is not in the West Bank.
I know.
Trump's literally ignited a ferocious firestorm of debate with this Gaza-Riviera plan.
As with so many things that Trump does, the immediate response I would have is, well, what does he really want here?
And I suspect what he really wants is for the leaders of Arab countries in the Middle East to step up and come up with a workable plan that actually gets things sorted because Trump's right.
Nothing else has worked.
Yeah, Trump is not right about one thing here.
His plan is obviously asinine.
We all can acknowledge that.
It has no chance of success.
It's ridiculous.
But more importantly, why is he doing it?
Can we be honest here?
I know in mainstream media and cable news, you can't say this.
Can we say this here?
It's honestly because of his donors, right?
I mean, Miriam Adelson gave him that Edelson family over three elections gave him $337 million.
Heretz reported that she wanted portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strips annexed.
So why is Trump saying we're going to own it?
He's trying to trick MAGA into thinking after we let the Israelis slaughter more Palestinians as they try to push 2 million people out of their homes and their homeland.
And after we finance that slaughter, which we're definitely going to finance because Trump, and to be fair to Trump, almost all the Democrats, all Washington is owned by Israel.
Netanyahu, who dogwalked Trump around the park, made him look like a waiter as he was putting his chair in.
So we're going to pay for all that slaughter.
And then Trump goes, oh, don't worry, because we're going to own it later.
We're not going to own anything.
You think Israel is going to give it back to us?
No, they're going to steal that land.
This was never about self-defense.
We were right all along.
It was always about the theft of Palestinian land.
We told you so.
All right.
Batia, your response.
I think that there's a really important point to be made here, which is that no Palestinians have been allowed to flee this war zone because, of course, Israel was not going to let in civilians from Gaza who may have Hamas members hiding amongst them.
But also Egypt did not allow almost a single Palestinian to exit the Gaza Strip.
Trump has been very clear that what he imagines here, rightly or wrongly, is the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza.
Now, I know a lot of Palestinians who would rather live in the rubble than leave their homeland, and I respect that.
But 40% of Gazans before this war were either employed by Hamas, by the public sector, or by UNRWA, or by jobs in Israel.
None of those streams of revenue are going to exist now.
And so the question I think we need to be asking is this.
Does the international community owe it to the people of Gaza to continue subsidizing their living in Gaza under Hamas rule?
Because that is essentially what has been happening until now.
Now, of course, I do not support any sort of forceful removal of anybody from their homeland, but I don't think that's what Trump is imagining.
It was very clear from the press conference that there's going to be this meeting in Riyadh between the Saudis, between the Jordanians, and between the Egyptians, all of whom have done nothing to help the Palestinians forever.
And so I think this question becomes who owes who what?
And that's really what Trump is trying to introduce here is a new path forward.
I'm tired of Israel first, Israel first, give them $300 billion, pay for their genocides, get out of there, America first, and let these poor people, Palestinians, go.
The problem is Israel and their infinite greed for land, land, land, and slaughter.
So just to be clear.
Just to be clear, Chen, because you're going a bit further than you have before.
To be clear, you think October the 7th was an inevitable consequence of the way the Palestinian people have been treated.
Guys, I hate October 7th.
When Hamas does violence, they do so much damage to the Palestinians and the Muslims.
But two things can be true at the same time.
You could have something awful, and then you could use your brain to figure out, hey, why did that happen?
And does anyone think that any American wouldn't fight back if they were occupied and humiliated and their land stolen and their families bullied and harassed and humiliated for 57 straight years?
Of course we would fight back.
Of course, any set of human beings would fight back.
But when Israel oppresses them and uses their might of their giant military to crush them, that's not terrorism.
But if Palestinians fight back, terrorists, it's absurd.
It's propaganda.
It's both terrorism.
So yes, Hamas doing terrorism is despicable.
And when Israel does 60 times the terrorism of Hamas, we should call them what they are, a terrorist state, and we should stop funding them.
Don't send our taxpayer money to go fund terrorist government of Israel.
All right, Batsy, your response.
I just want to talk about this idea of Israel owning the United States government because it seems to me that people who make that argument want to have it both ways.
On the one hand, we give Israel exorbitant amounts of money.
And on the other hand, somehow they control us through the money that we give them.
And it's never been clear to me, like, what do they use for that control?
So people will say APEC, but APEC spends about $3 million on local races in America, on congressional races.
It's not a lot of money.
Number one donor.
They actually the power that the Israel lobbyist is the number one donor.
They're literally among the American people is the fact that Americans are supportive of Israel.
It's like the way that the NRA was popular when it was because Americans like their guns.
These lobbyists are, they are powerful to the extent that they reflect views that the American people already have.
And I think that's a really important point to point out here because you cannot take an unpopular view and just use money in order to push it.
And nothing has proven that like this last election cycle.
Take Nikki Haley.
Nikki Haley outspent Donald Trump two to one.
Kamala Harris outsput spent Donald Trump two to one.
Money in politics has been revealed to be nothing compared to the will of the American people.
This is an amazing thing.
I mean, I was, as a lefty, I was really against Citizens United.
And it turns out, actually, the American electorate has a very clear idea of what it wants.
If you look at Donald Trump's cabinet, every single person in that cabinet, which is, by the way, the most diverse ideological cabinet in American history, they all have a very similar view of what it means to be America first.
There's only one thing that they all share, and they all seem to think that having a pro-Israel point of view is very much inherent in the America First ideology because Israel is a good ally.
Israel brings a lot to the table.
We get a lot more bang for our butt.
In fact, I think Israel should stop taking aid from the United States because I think Israel has paid a much higher price for that aid in terms of its sovereignty.
It has been bad for Israel to take all this money because it means that the Americans can tell them what to do.
And they shouldn't accept that.
They should be sovereign nations.
I'll just make one more quick point.
Sovereignty is not something you can give somebody.
It's not a gift you can give to another nation.
I feel for the Palestinian people, but the idea that somehow Israel, which won its sovereignty through winning wars, owes them something in the form of a sovereign state.
This is just ridiculous.
Like, this doesn't actually make any sense.
Shank, you said who should rebuild Gaza.
You said the Arab nations should rebuild Gaza in exchange for the two-state solution.
But what Trump is about to do is get a deal in which they rebuild Gaza without actually having to have a two-state solution.
So he's actually sort of a little bit ahead of the game in the way that he often turns out to be.
Sovereignty Is Not a Gift00:01:29
Okay, let me bring in.
No, you know how unrealistic that is.
You think Saudi Arabia is going to pay for Israel to occupy Gaza?
Nobody's going to pay.
No, no, no.
I don't think Israel wants to occupy Gaza at all.
They wouldn't be.
If Israel wanted to occupy Gaza, it would be occupying Gaza right now.
None of them will.
Clearly doesn't want to be occupying Gaza.
Yeah, none of them will.
Why, Shank, according to you, why is Israel not currently occupying Gaza if they want it so badly?
Because they're waiting for America to give them permission.
They were waiting for this election.
That's why they supported Trump.
So Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were terrible on this issue.
They gave Israel everything they wanted, but they but Netanyahu made a deal with Trump, and it became obvious to me that the reason for that was just Trump was going to give them even more, which is just to let them grab this land in Gaza, which is going to cause a massive conflict.
And guess who's going to pay for it?
We're all going to pay for it.
Okay, let me bring in.
Come on, you know the donors control things.
The drug companies are deeply unpopular and they win every time in Congress.
All right, let me bring in.
Buy our Congress, and so does Israel.
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