President Donald Trump landed in Israel today as the last 20 living Israeli hostages were finally released from two years of Hamas captivity. Relatives and supporters held an emotional vigil in Hostage Square all weekend, heckling any mention of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s name - but cheering raucously for the US president, who was given a standing ovation at the Israeli Parliament earlier today. Gaza has been utterly decimated - and so has Israel’s reputation across the world. Is it time for Netanyahu to face the consequences? On Piers Morgan’s panel to discuss the ceasefire and what comes next is The Young Turks’ Ana Kasparian, PragerU commentator Shabbos Kestenbaum, former US assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, General Mark Kimmitt and The Grayzone commentator Aaron Maté.Piers also speaks to Palestinian foreign minister Varsen Shahin, former Israeli prime minister and IDF general, Ehud Barak and Ofer Cassif, who represents the communist Hadash party in the Knesset and was ejected for interrupting Trump. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent and supported by: Birch Gold: Visit https://birchgold.com/piers to get your free info kit on gold. Tax Network USA: Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit https://TNUSA.com/PIERS to meet with a strategist today for FREE 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. 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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End of an Age00:10:55
This is the end of an age of terror and death.
This is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.
Hamas, today they released a 24-year-old musician and pianist.
In exchange, Israel has released Nabil Abu Hadir, who murdered his own sister for suspecting she was an Israeli agent.
Hamas today released Elkhane Buchat, a 32-year-old party producer and musician.
In exchange, Israel has released Bahar Badari, who in 2004 was responsible for a suicide terrorist attack.
You want to talk about the IDF protecting innocent human life?
Why don't we talk about the Hannibal Directive?
The IDF has committed atrocities that I never thought I would ever see in my lifetime.
I wish Hamas had been more tactful.
It's not a question of being them not being tested ill enough.
They committed one of the worst terror attacks of modern times.
We've seen this show before.
We know what's going to happen.
President Trump landed in Israel today for what can justifiably be called a hero's welcome.
The last 20 living Israeli hostages have finally been released from two years of Hamas captivity.
Many of their relatives and supporters held an emotional vigil in hostage square all weekend.
They heckled any mention of Prime Minister Netanyahu's name, but cheered raucously for the U.S. president, who was given a standing ovation at the Israeli parliament earlier today.
This is not only the end of a war.
This is the end of a age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God.
It's the start of a grand concord and lasting harmony for Israel and all the nations of what will soon be a truly magnificent region.
I believe that so strongly.
This is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.
Well, Netanyahu's stated aims for this war were crystal clear.
Israel would destroy Hamas, permanently ending his threat, return all displaced citizens, and bring his hostages home.
Nothing less than total victory would suffice.
Now, whether Israel's really achieved those aims and at what cost is still far from clear.
And so too is what happens next.
Hamas can play no role in governing Gaza, that much is obvious.
But as the scale of Israel's destruction becomes ever clearer in the coming days and weeks, there'll be serious questions about Netanyahu's future too.
Gaza has been utterly decimated.
And so has Israel's reputation across the world.
Netanyahu bears responsibility for both and should now face consequences.
Well, joining me to debate all this is the host and executive producer of the Young Tugs, Anna Kasperin, the Pre-GU commentator, Shabbos Kestenbaum, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs, General Mark Kimmett, and the journalist with the Grey Zone, Aaron Marte.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Anna Kasperin, I mean, I was watching it all from early this morning in London, and I've got to say, I felt a sense of great relief and joy.
Joy at watching the hostages freed and reunited with their families.
Incredibly moving scenes there.
Joy for the Palestinian people, the innocent Palestinian people caught up in two years of hellish war.
And of course, the release of several thousand Palestinians from Israeli prisons as well.
You know, overall, the feeling today was extremely joyous and I would argue hopeful.
What's your thought?
Cautious, very cautious optimism, especially given some of the statements that we've heard from the Israelis over the weekend.
You know, Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech to the Americans that made it appear as though he believed in the ceasefire and was going to follow through with it.
Remember, they've only agreed to the first stage of the ceasefire, and the rest of it is still incredibly murky.
But then on Israeli television, he spoke in Hebrew and talked about how the military operation isn't over yet.
Then you have Israel cats talking about how, as soon as we secure the release of all the hostages, we're going to go back in and destroy the tunnels.
So there are some signs that make me a little uneasy, but I will say this.
I was happy to see the hostages released.
The videos of them reunited with their family members are incredibly moving.
The innocent Palestinians you're referring to, though, are going home to raised communities, raised neighborhoods.
They have no home to go back to.
So I'm concerned about them and their well-being.
That being said, it does appear that there's some humanitarian aid being allowed into the Gaza Strip.
It remains to be seen if it's enough in order to help people who have been intentionally starved for months.
Do you give Donald Trump full credit for making this happen?
Well, no, I don't, because this is the same ceasefire that could have been agreed upon over a year ago and it wasn't.
So the real question is, what changed?
Why did Donald Trump, you know, basically put his foot down finally after tens of thousands of innocent people were killed?
After, you know, obviously there was the ground invasion in Gaza City, which has also been leveled.
You know, it's laughable to hear him talk about deserving a Nobel Peace Prize as he's ramping up a war with Venezuela under false pretenses.
So look, I just, I'm not going to give Trump credit because, again, he could have done this a year ago or at the beginning of his administration, I should say, and he refused to do it.
By the way, the same for Biden.
It's the same ceasefire agreement that Biden rejected that we're now learning thanks to reporting from Israel, by the way.
So it is what it is.
All right.
Shamos, Kestimum.
I mean, I give Trump enormous credit here.
I think he's done something which I don't think any other American president at this moment could have done.
He's brought Netanyahu to heel.
I think the catalyst for it actually was the incredibly ill-advised attack by Israel on Doha when they tried to take out the Hamas negotiators, which was a failed mission.
They didn't kill the negotiators.
They killed a member of the Qatari security forces.
They killed some other people who were totally unconnected with Hamas.
A complete debacle.
And when I read that Donald Trump had made Netanyahu literally get on the phone and apologize to the Prime Minister of Qatar for that, I thought, wow, things have changed.
And sure enough, here we are, not long after that catastrophic error of judgment by Netanyahu with him seemingly brought to heel.
And I think that is what's happened.
Yeah, I think that's a pretty accurate characterization.
First of all, it's good to see you.
It's been a while.
I miss getting yelled at at seven in the morning, so good to be back.
The fact that Donald Trump did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize is a damning indictment on the State of the Nobel Peace Committee, but I digress.
You're absolutely right.
Amit Segel was the one who said that the strike in Doha is the most successful failed assassination attempt.
I would agree with you.
It was ill-advised, but inadvertently, it actually brought Hamas to the negotiating table because one of the differences between the ceasefire now and the ceasefire of a year ago is for the first time, Hamas was pressured by Qatar, who's hosting them, by Egypt, by Syria, by Turkey.
That is not the status quo of a year ago.
That is a direct result of peace through strength.
As President Teddy Roosevelt said, you know, you talk softly, but you carry a big stick.
So while it is true Israel was trying to negotiate with Hamas for the better part of two years, it is also true that they had a really good incentive, Hamas that is, for negotiating, meaning they will no longer be accustomed to living in the four seasons in Doha and they will be forced to be given a negotiation.
And I think this is what all the far left, this is what the campus activists, this is what the cultural elites have been saying for two years.
We need a ceasefire now.
We need to end the war.
This is literally what happened.
And it's quite a testament to the fact that they are not celebrating in the streets, which I think underscores it was never about a ceasefire or peace.
It was always about the actual genocide against the Jewish state, which occurred on October 7th.
If it wasn't about that, then how come all these peace-loving activists aren't encouraging Hamas to surrender immediately?
I kind of agree with Anna.
This deal could have been done on October 8th had Hamas simply surrendered and released the hostages.
Unfortunately, through human agency, they decided not to.
General Kimmet, from a military perspective, it seemed to me that the Doha attack backfired spectacularly for Israel, and it also enraged all the leaders of neighboring Arab countries.
And I think they were all on the phone to President Trump and telling him this has crossed a line.
And at that point, Trump, I think, got very serious with Netanyahu.
I mean, listen, I might be wrong.
It's just my gut feeling.
Got on the phone to Netanyahu and said, enough, this has to end.
What is your reading of why things have come to a head seemingly so quickly after that attack?
Well, I think Chabas was right.
In many ways, it was the most successful failed attempt around.
But the fact still remains that they did get on the phone.
They did call Trump.
Trump also turned to them and said, okay, if you want Netanyahu to knock this off, then you guys have got to be part of this process.
And if you don't want Israel attacking Hamas wherever they are, in Doha or Turkey or some of the Muslim Brotherhood organizations in Egypt, you need to get on the bandwagon.
You need to start pressuring Hamas.
So he's right.
This was the most successful, unsuccessful attack because I think what it did, it not only pressured Israel, but it also pressured the Arab leaders to start clamping down on Hamas and get them to the negotiating table.
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The Disarmament Debate00:10:04
Everybody seems to agree, General Kimmet, that Hamas will have no role in any government going forward.
Where there is a serious point of disagreement is over whether Hamas disarms.
This has been part of the Trump plan, the 21-point plan, but Hamas has said they're not intending to disarm.
The ideology that fuels Hamas is still clearly there in a number of people.
Hamas have clearly not been completely destroyed.
We know that because they're still operating.
What happens now?
I mean, how likely is it that Hamas will disarm?
Well, it's even worse than that right now.
The fact remains that their spokesmen are saying that Hamas will not disarm and in fact will be the core of any future Palestinian army.
In fact, what we're saying is that whatever organization takes over inside of Gaza, whatever form of government, whether it's the PLO or some other organization, they will be the militia that defends them.
And any notion of Hamas somehow taking off their Hamas uniforms and putting on police uniforms is just a recipe for failure.
So what happens here?
I mean, how do you get to peace, proper peace?
How do you get to the potential of the start of a process for a genuine two-state solution if the terrorists that committed the atrocities on October the 7th stay around, stay armed, and say, we're going to be the militia for whoever governs this place?
Well, I think you've answered your own question.
The fact remains is that cannot happen as long as you have a radical terrorist organization devoted to the destruction of Israel, somehow representing themselves as a national defense force.
They will just turn into another Hezbollah and turn the next Gaza into southern Lebanon.
So it won't work.
So what happens?
Well, I think we know, we've seen this show before.
We know what's going to happen.
Go on.
You sure do.
Well, I think we're going to see a continuation of military operations, special operations, until Hamas does, in fact, either disarm or, as has so often happened in the past, get on a boat and go to Tunisia or somewhere like that.
There is no room inside of Gaza as part of a future two-state solution where they represent the military for that country.
Aaron Marte, I saw Tony Blair, who's a contentious name at the moment, because he wants to be part of the interim government, if you like, or administrative body looking over Gaza until they have a new government.
And Donald Trump has said, I don't know if he's popular enough to be involved, so we'll see how that plays out.
But he was talking about the parallels with Northern Ireland, where he did forge peace with Bill Clinton, with Senator Mitchell and others.
And he was talking about that, you know, ultimately, these things go one of two ways.
When you have neighboring people who've been in long-time conflict with each other, they either continue to be a long-time conflict or they get to a point of genuinely wanting peace.
And as part of that peace process, the IRA did disarm.
So there is a parallel here for terror groups, as the IRA were, for disarming in the cause of peace.
But is it likely that Hamas is ever going to want to see it like that?
They seem a very nihilistic group who have been wedded publicly to destroying Israel.
They said it after October the 7th through their spokesman on camera.
We want to keep doing this.
Is there any likelihood, you think, of this following the similar path that we saw in Northern Ireland?
Well, first of all, my problem with Tony Blair putting aside his record as a war criminal with this analogy to Ireland is in the case of Ireland, you don't have a dispute about the recognition of people's right to self-determination.
That sort of underpins the conflict.
There's an awareness there in Ireland that the people of Northern Ireland are a people who have certain rights.
In the case of Palestine, as we're discussing here, what I'm hearing from Mark and Shabbos is a complete lack of awareness.
The Palestinians are living under a brutal military occupation.
Either you recognize that or you don't.
If you don't recognize that, you're going to have continued disaster for the entire region and continued misery foremost for the Palestinian people.
If you recognize as most of the world does, pretty much the entire world, with the exception of the U.S. and Israel, the Palestinians have been living under one of the most brutal, longest military occupations in the world and have been denied their basic rights.
If you don't recognize that, you're not going to solve the problem.
And Trump's so-called peace plan does nothing to address that.
When it comes to the issue of Palestinian self-determination and Palestinian statehood, there's one line.
It says we recognize Palestine self-determination and statehood as the aspiration. of the Palestinian people.
If you recognize something as an aspiration but not as a right, you have no obligation to grant it.
And the message from Israel, if you listen to Netanyahu, is that there will be no recognition.
And he has the full backing of the U.S. in that.
And that's not just a Trump thing.
This has been bipartisan U.S. Policy for decades to reject.
The one thing that could solve all this is grant Palestinians their minimal right to freedom, and so, in that context, people want to make this about Hamas and how they have no right to be there.
This isn't about Hamas.
Even if Palestinians were the most pragmatic, docile people in the world, Israel would still insist, as they always have, on their self-declared right to steal their land because it's a Jewish supremacist state.
Until that's resolved, you're going to have perpetual conflict.
And just one correction on the issue of whether there could have been a deal, after October 7th, Hamas offered Israel to release all the civilian captives in exchange for Israel not attacking Gaza.
Israel had no interest in that, because October 7th gave them the opportunity to take care of the Gaza problem, as Norman Finkelstein has talked about on your show, before destroying Gaza, expelling as many people as possible.
That's why Israel abandoned its own captives and that's why and Anna was correct to say there was a deal on the table.
Well over a year ago, Israeli negotiator Gershin Baskin was years of contacts with Hamas.
He's confirmed this.
Hamas accepted the exact same deal that was just accepted now, but the truth I mean you talk about a brutal occupation, and I don't disagree, but there's also been a brutal occupation of the Palestinian people by Hamas themselves.
They were given governance in 2006.
They won the election, but for the next 20 years, rather than try and bring any kind of change or prosperity to its people, it built one of the biggest underground tunnel networks in the the world has ever seen frankly, in modern times, and planned an outrageous terror attack on a horrific scale, with 3,000 of them pouring over the border and indiscriminately murdering and kidnapping anyone get their hands on.
Now that that you know, if you look at the way they're treating Palestinian people throughout the last 20 years, if you look at the way they have sacrificed Palestinian lives so brazenly and callously as they themselves ran to hide in their tunnels, leaving civilians to be murdered and to be killed, then you could argue, the brutal occupation has worked with both.
You could say yeah, the Israelis have had a brutal form of occupation over the Palestinians, but so has Hamas.
I see things differently, peers.
Hamas won the elections, you're correct.
What happened immediately?
Israel put Gaza under a complete siege, to the point where Israel was counting the calories inside Gaza, Gaza, that it would let every Palestinian in Gaza consume without having a full-blown starvation crisis.
The idea was basically to punish the Palestinian people for voting the wrong way, for electing Hamas.
And why did they elect Hamas?
Because the alternative was the Palestinian Authority, which is corrupt, and had become a collaborator with Israel in the farce of the so-called peace process, which was simply just an excuse for Israel to steal more Palestinian land.
So in that context, Palestinians elected Hamas.
Israel responded by putting Gaza under a complete siege where Gaza had absolutely no hope to rebuild.
Israel was in control of everything that came in and out, even banning things like chocolate.
Hamas tried to actually moderate its position.
And people laugh at this, but you can look at the record.
It's true.
And someone like Gershon Baskin, who's an Israeli negotiator, can confirm all this.
Hamas leaders started talking about accepting a long-term truce with Israel.
Then they started even saying we'd accept a Palestinian state in a very historic compromise.
We'll accept a Palestinian state in just 22% of our historic homeland, the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem.
So Hamas was far more moderate on the two-state solution than any Israeli leader, because unlike Israeli leaders, Palestinians were saying we'll accept a state within the internationally recognized borders of Israel pre-June 1967.
What did Netanyahu say?
He said there'll never be a Palestinian state because Israel insists on keeping these major West Bank settlement blocks full of fanatical settlers from Brooklyn, where I am, who terrorize Palestinians and steal their land and water.
So Hamas also tried nonviolent protests with the Great March of Return.
That was a massive march of people who went to protest nonviolently, as all people around the world told Palestinians to do.
What did Israel do?
They gunned people down with U.S.-made weapons, maiming people, killing journalists, killing nurses, killing disabled people, maiming people, and telling Palestinians, no matter what you do, we're going to control you and make your lives impossible.
That's the context in which October 7th happened.
Path to Sovereignty00:11:16
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Okay, just hang fire for a moment, my panel.
I'm going to be joined now by the Palestinian Foreign Minister, Varsan Shaheem.
Welcome to you, Minister.
Thank you very much indeed for joining me.
How do you feel today on a human level?
What are your feelings?
I have mixed feelings.
I have cautious optimism.
I am happy.
I am sad.
I'm fearful.
There's a lot of uncertainty.
So all of that is going through my head.
And I'm trying to find a way to say that I want to look at this positively and I would like to take it as an opportunity so that we can move forward and make the best out of it in the path of a genuine peace for the entirety of occupied state of Palestine, whereby at the end of the game, we get our independence and the occupation is over with, because that's the end game.
This is just a prelude to something that is bigger.
And that needs to be reinstated right now from the very beginning with an end goal in mind, and that is end of occupation.
And do you accept that Hamas can play no part in any government over the people in Gaza going forward?
Yes, and Hamas had said that very clearly.
They said we want no part in the governance of Gaza in the day after.
And that's one of the rules that was put and made very clear in the letter of commitment sent by President Abbas to the world leaders.
Hamas knows about it.
Hamas approves of it.
And we need to move as such.
But what about this idea that Hamas are putting forward that they will not lay down their arms, that they will become the military arm of any governing power in Gaza?
It's very clear there's a consensus about the day after for Hamas.
There's a Palestinian consensus, there's an Arab consensus, there's an Islamic consensus and the worldwide consensus that if Hamas wants to be a part of the Palestinian political spectrum, it needs to respect the PLO's mandate.
It needs to respect the agreement signed by the PLO.
It needs to respect the vision that the PLO has for what Palestine would look like in the future.
And that would entail one government, one administration, one constitution, one law, and one weapon.
And as such, it can become a political party, but a non-militarized political party, because political factions are non-militarized and they can be around the table, whether in the middle, in the left, in the right, they can be anywhere in that political spectrum.
But it has to be one weapon.
Tony Blair has been put forward as somebody who may be part of this interim administration authority in Gaza.
Donald Trump, Donald Air Force One, seemed to cast some doubts over that.
He said he would assess how popular Tony Blair is with the people in the region.
What do you think about any involvement by Tony Blair?
Well, Tony Blair is not the most popular in the region.
And the issue is not just about the personalities, it's about the mandate.
The mandate has to be very clear.
The framework has to be very clear.
It has to be time bound.
And we need to have a monitoring mechanism that would ensure that whoever is overseeing this process goes by whatever the mandate says and what the milestones say.
That's the most important thing now.
How much credit do you give Donald Trump personally for getting us to this place today?
I believe Donald Trump had a lot to do with this, but he could have done it earlier.
I mean, this war could have been stopped much earlier.
And I would have liked President Trump to have intervened much earlier, but better now than never.
So the credit goes to Donald Trump because he could do something others could not do.
but the work starts now.
It's not just about getting the signature around the agreement.
The devil is in the details and today we need to air out all the details that would take us closer to independence and the sovereign state of Palestine.
I mean, Donald Trump made some interesting observations today, one of which is that this unrest in the Middle East is nothing new.
It's been going on for centuries in different forms.
And that there's a real chance now out of the horror of the last two years, which is unprecedented in the region, that out of this two years of appalling warfare and terrible loss of life on both sides, that ultimately it could compel people to actually move to a place of genuine peace and prosperity.
And he's got a picture of Gaza that people laugh at, of down the line, it becomes a beach resort, you know, and is prosperous and economically viable and has its own, you know, kind of not like Dubai, but you know what I mean.
It becomes something very different to what it is now.
I mean, people laughed when he said it, but is that not an aspiration which people should take a bit more seriously?
I mean, wouldn't Gazans like one day to have that kind of life?
Yes, of course.
We would like Gaza and the whole of the occupied Palestinian territory to become a place that we would all love to live in rather than die in.
And that would need a lot of work from the Palestinians, the international community.
It would need a lot of technical assistance, a lot of funding.
Everything today in Gaza is in shambles and the situation is also alarming on the West Bank.
So if we want to think about the occupied territory and the occupied state of Palestine today and aspire for a better future, we need to look at it as one integral part, not divorced from each other.
And the plans should start today.
We cannot wait much longer.
After all this devastation for the past two years and for decades under oppression, Palestinians deserve a much better life.
Farsan Shaheen, I really appreciate you joining me.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Let's go back to the panel.
Shabbos, let me just get your reaction to that first off.
You know, ultimately, whatever you want to call it, brutal occupation, you know, Israel, you know, doing what it's been doing for security reasons, whatever, however you want to phrase what's happened, what is indisputable is that the Palestinian people in Gaza have lived in a way which does not afford them the same human rights as its immediate neighbors in Israel.
First, do you accept that?
And second, do you accept that to ever get to proper peace?
The Palestinians are going to have to have exactly the same human rights that you enjoy and I enjoy.
Absolutely.
And I think I speak on behalf of the overwhelming majority of the Jewish people and the overwhelming majority of the people of Israel, where we say we want there to be a two-state solution.
We want Palestinians to have freedom of movement, freedom of expression.
The problem is Palestinians, like all human beings on planet Earth, possess moral agency.
They can make choices in life.
And unfortunately, way too many Palestinians made the choice in 2006 to elect Hamas.
Unfortunately, not a single Palestinian to this day, even in the face of a $5 million reward, decided to reveal where a single hostage was being held.
I wish that that was not true, but unfortunately, it is true.
I wish the Palestinian school system did not teach their kids that one of the greatest ideals you can do as a person is not become a lawyer or a doctor or a profession, but rather to kill Jews and take back an historic homeland that was never actually yours to begin with.
I want there to be a two-state solution, which is why it bothers me to no end that in 2020, the Palestinians rejected their own state.
It bothers me in 2008 that the Palestinians rejected their own state.
It bothers me that in 2003, the Palestinians rejected their own state, the Oslo Accords.
Go all the way back to the 1937 Peel Commission, the 1948 partition plan.
It bothers me to no end.
So, I want there to be a state for the Palestinian people, but it is also true that it is the responsibility of any head of a nation state to ensure the protection, safety, and security of their own populace, their own society.
Bibenetsan Yahoo, or whoever the prime minister of Israel will be in the future, has one responsibility, and that is the protection of their own people in the same way that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza have one priority, and that is the protection of their own people.
Which, again, it bothers me that Hamas, given the fact that they were given $50 billion in international aid since 2000, they were given more aid per capita than the Germans were given under the Marshall Plan.
They have not built a single bomb shelter, they have not built a single school that is free of political and religious indoctrination.
That bothers me to no end.
But still, the Jewish people, as we pray three times a day in synagogue, we pray for peace, we pray for there to be a two-state solution.
I know Anna does not like when I speak for too long because she thinks I filibust her.
So, I'll close by saying 20 more sentences today.
Today, wait, I'll say this: Hamas today they released a lone hell.
I wrote this down so I wouldn't forget, a 24-year-old musician and pianist.
In exchange, Israel has released Nabil Abu Hadir, who murdered his own sister for suspecting she was an Israeli agent.
Hamas today released El Khanna Buchat, a 32-year-old party producer and musician, a married and father of a four-year-old boy.
In exchange, Israel has released Bahar Badari, who in 2004 was responsible for a suicide terrorist attack, which killed 11 Israelis, including two Muslims.
So, I wish that that was not the case.
I wish the Palestinian people would rise up against the Islamic dictatorial regime of Hamas.
Unfortunately, that has not happened, but nevertheless, Israel puts a priority of life over death, something that Muhammad Def, one of the commanders of Hamas, used to say was one of our weaknesses: that we loved life, whereas he loved death.
But nevertheless, we will continue to fight for peace in all the ways that we can.
And that's why I'm so proud to be Jewish.
I'm so proud to honor the 950 Muslim and Christian and Jewish soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces who, in the midst of unprecedented adversity, have taken as many means as possible, more unprecedented means than any other Western country to defend innocent life, both in Israel and in Gaza.
New Leadership Needed00:14:39
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Well, Anna, can I first of all commend you?
Oh my God.
Commend you.
Are you really going to let him?
They leveled Gaza.
They have, they literally have 10,000 people missing in Gaza right now as we speak, presumed dead, trapped under the rubble.
Over the weekend, they recovered over 200 bodies.
You want to talk about the IDF protecting innocent human life?
Why don't we talk about the Hannibal Directive and how many Israelis the IDF shot and killed on October 7th?
This is something that Yoav Galant, the former military minister for Israel, foreign defense minister, came out and said that, yeah, that did happen.
We would rather not allow Hamas to take these hostages and use them as leverage.
By the way, that's the same Yoav Galant, who after October 7th said that the Israelis should not negotiate for the release of the hostages and instead engage in a military operation in Gaza, which is what they did.
They've leveled the Gaza Strip.
There's nothing for these Palestinian people to go home to.
And you want to talk about how the Palestinians and Hamas have rejected offers for a two-state solution after the Clean Break memo, after Netanyahu made abundantly clear that he would not allow for the formation of a Palestinian state, after the fact that every effort at creating a two-state solution was undermined by the Israelis.
They don't want a two-state solution.
The Likud's founding charter pursues the Greater Israel project.
They want that land.
They're going to pursue that land.
They're going to steal that land.
And look, I am hoping that there will be lasting peace.
But I'm also smart enough to pay close attention to what's going on in Israeli media.
And based on what's being said in Israeli media, it does not appear as though there's going to be a lasting ceasefire.
And I'm worried about that.
So look, Chavos can sit here and lie about how, oh, it's all Hamas's fault and the wonderful, precious, innocent Israeli government has only done the right thing and only the right thing.
But that's just not true.
They have committed war crimes.
The IDF has committed atrocities that I never thought I would ever see in my lifetime.
I thought humans had evolved past that kind of disgusting war crime behavior.
So to talk about how, like, oh, everything is so great.
And Israel, we're going to go ahead and launder their reputation after the atrocities that they committed, after the genocide they carried out.
And by the way, the continued atrocities that are currently taking place in the West Bank, I'm not going to sit here and stand for that.
It's disgusting.
Okay.
Well, joining me now is the former Israeli Prime Minister and IDF general, Ehu Barak.
Thank you very much indeed for rejoining me on Uncensor.
First of all, your reaction, Ehu Barak, to these extraordinarily historic scenes that we've witnessed today in Israel.
No, this day was the best one for Israel, I believe, for the Jewish people in the last two years.
That's for sure.
And the first four points of the Trump plan had been on the way to be implemented.
Namely, the hostages, the live hostages came back.
The Palestinian prisoners released.
The bringing back of the dead ones will take some time.
We have probably more information than many other players about where to look for them, but there is a need to go there and to find them.
Sometimes it's to remove the rubbish of a building where they are buried under this.
And it might take some time.
And the war formally we announced to be over.
Now, the next 16 points are not that simple, as everyone understands.
I think the major element that dictated the success of the stage until now was the determination of Trump to make it happen without diving into all of the detail because the contour was clear.
He basically bent Netanyahu like a rubber door.
He dictated to Netanyahu everything.
There is a show and hugs and compliments on.
But basically, Netanyahu cannot stand his pressure.
In the past, he used to defy Obama or Biden because he has the option of entering into American politics and start to raise tensions there with the Republicans.
That's not there anymore.
The Democrats are very angry at him and key opinion leaders among Republicans.
Think of Steve Bennon or Tucker Carlson or Joe Rogan are criticizing Netanyahu very falsely.
So Netanyahu has no choice but to follow.
The other success of Trump is bringing Turkey.
So Hamas doesn't have room for maneuver.
They have the Egyptians, the Egyptians don't like them, the Emiratis don't like them, so they don't like them.
By the have to accept their role, the Emiratis will finance the reconstruction, the Egyptians holding the oxygen pipe of the Gaza Strip.
So, and now that they have both Qatar and Turkey, they have nowhere to go, so they agreed.
But the reality is that they agreed for a long time.
For a year ago, they already said, We understand we cannot stay in power in Gaza after the war.
The reality is the 7th of October 23 created a compelling imperative to Israel to make sure at whatever price that Hamas will never wane over the Gaza Strip and can threaten Israel.
But the solution is exactly the one which is now we start to emerge: namely, an inter-Arab slash Muslim force entering, taking control in the streets, a technocrat government, Palestinian bureaucracy with affiliation to Ramallah, to the Palestinian Authority, financing of construction by Saudis and Emiratis, and this force,
the inter-Arab force creating gradually over a year opportune a new Palestinian security force that can get the weapons, the light weapons, or part of them, it will never be fully cleaned from weapons, but part of them from the Hamas.
And Israel should have only two conditions.
Number one, not a single individual who participates in this massacre in the military wing of Hamas can take part at any organ of the new entity.
And number two, the final withdrawal, the final step toward the border will be implemented only when all the pre-agreed security kind of milestones will be met.
That's the vision.
The vision, wider vision of Trump is quite inspiring to use this, the kind of cunning of history.
The last two years were a big drama for both sides, very painful.
And in history, we have seen more than once the cases where it turned into an opening to change the whole paradigm by which publics and mainly leaders on both sides think.
So there is certainly inspiring option here, but devil is in the details.
If the inter-arm force will be organized along the next two quarters, it won't work.
It should be completed in a few weeks and enter into the before a new dynamic where Hamas become happy once again with his military control, make it more obstinate.
It should be immediate.
I think that the idea to bring Tony Blair on the top of some advisory board made of foreigners with certain authorities and the tailwind from the international community is a very good idea.
He understands the area, probably not the ideal people in the eyes of Palestinians, but the Palestinians doesn't have a lot of room here.
They basically enjoy the grace of the rest of the world to give them an opportunity to join.
And if it goes with the basically with the termination of an attention of Trump, that might get blurred a little bit after the recent decision.
But I hope that in the Israeli parliament, he heard twice that in Israel, we believe that the right way is to recommend him for next year.
Let's complete the whole job and get him the Nobel Prize.
He highly admired now in Israel.
And Netanyahu tries to widen this wave of satisfaction among Israelis and make a U-turn from the one who, you know, disagreement.
Even the president, kind of a blad definition, go head on with his promises.
You know, there is a path to Palestinian state.
Hamash leaders can remain in Gaza by just making a verbal statement that they turn to peaceful behavior or something like this.
And the very fact that there will be no Jewish settlements, nothing like taking over permanently, reigning over Israeli military, it's all over.
So it's a tough moment for Netanyahu.
I hope that he will be replaced, I argue, for many months, to both Jews and Gentiles, so people of the free world and the leaders to realize that Netanyahu and Israel are not the same.
And the behavior of the Netanyahu government and the security and strategic interests of Israel are not the same.
You can be a devoted supporter, answers that of Israel, or kind of reasonable critics of its behavior without accepting the policies of Netanyahu.
Fascinating, Ehu Barak.
I didn't want to stop you or interrupt because actually given all your experience of running the country, I thought that was a fascinating overview of where we are.
And I'm grateful to you for coming on our sensor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Go back to the panel.
General Kimmett, I mean, I really found that really interesting to hear that from Ehu Barak, particularly at the end when he said that there should be new leadership in Israel, that Netanyahu is not the right guy to get to a proper peace here.
What did you make of that?
Well, I mean, that's a decision for the people of Israel to make.
I'm often reminded of Winston Churchill, who was thrown out of office after helping win the Second World War.
So there comes a time when every leader of every nation has proved his usefulness.
And not only does the country want to move on, they want to move on with new leadership.
I mean, look, they're saying the same thing about Trump.
You can say whatever you want about President Trump, but the fact remains, his critics, if President Trump pulled a drowning baby out of the ocean, his critics would accuse him of starving the sharks.
There comes a time when the leaders are.
You know what?
People will laugh at that, but that is so true.
I point, I mean, I took on Bernie Sanders yesterday because I looked at his feed on X. He's a very active poster.
And in the last seven days, he's posted 16 anti-Trump sentiments, right?
But he hasn't mentioned what may turn out to be one of the most consequential deals in Middle East modern history.
He hasn't mentioned it.
It's like it has to happen.
And the reason he hasn't mentioned it, General Kimmett, is he cannot bring himself to say anything positive about Donald Trump.
And so he'd rather ignore this extraordinary global event unfurling on everyone's television screens.
He'd rather just pretend it isn't happening because he would feel compelled to say something nice about Trump.
And that is how ridiculous the Trump hysteria and derangement syndrome has got with people.
Well, right.
And then there's this other group who makes this fatuous argument about, well, this should have happened long ago, but President Trump didn't want to do it long ago.
It's ridiculous.
Having been involved in diplomatic negotiations when I was in government, sometimes, sometimes it is simply that the moment is not there.
All the pieces need to fall in place, whether two years ago, a year ago, Hamas.
Put more children first or Israel was not ready or the international community was, the pieces have all got to come together before you can come up with an agreement.
And this retrospective fantasy argument, it's great to say because it's unprovable.
Oh, this could have happened two years ago.
Again, is, you know, again, blaming Donald Trump for starving the sharks.
It's a ridiculous argument, and it's an easy argument because are you saying that an Israeli negotiator who was part of the negotiations is just making it up?
Is that what you're saying?
So the Israeli negotiator who was in on these negotiations, are you saying that he's making it up?
What I'm saying is, I'm not sure Hamas agreed with him, but the fact remains is it's an unprovable assertion.
And one thing that I'm thinking of your argument.
Even during the Biden administration.
Repudiating the Past00:15:38
Okay.
I hope that makes you think that.
No, but tell me, do you, I just want to know, it doesn't make me feel better, actually.
I just want to know, do you think the Israeli who Aaron Mate referenced earlier, who said that Hamas had accepted the ceasefire deal, even under Biden?
Thank you.
Thank you, Aaron.
Under Biden, even Biden rejected it.
The biggest obstacle to that ceasefire, which could have been achieved literally over a year and a half ago, okay, was Israel.
They did not want to stop the war in Gaza.
And in fact, they continue raiding terror on Palestinians in the West Bank.
Like, do we live in a fantasy world?
Like, what are we doing here?
Can we at least acknowledge reality?
And if you love Trump, you love Trump.
Go ahead and love Trump as much as you want.
I don't really care.
But I want the facts to remain.
I want the facts to be aired on this broadcast instead of pretending as though Trump has been like this great peacemaker.
By the way, as Israel continues fighting a seven-front war, as Trump himself with his administration plans for ground operations in Venezuela as we speak, like what are we doing here?
Well, what we're doing, surely.
Anna, you don't have the diplomatic record to stand behind your assertions.
I'll leave it at that.
Do you have a diplomatic record?
What's your diplomatic record?
This isn't a violation.
Tell me.
Among other things, among other things, I negotiated the end of piracy operations off the coast of Somalia, which saved hundreds of innocent people.
Okay.
Can I say something?
None of our records have any bearing on the...
None of our records as individuals have any bearing on the actual record of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.
And as myself and Anna have been pointing out, you can listen to people like Gersh and Baskin, an Israeli negotiator, who pointed out that more than a year ago, Hamas accepted the exact same terms that were just accepted now.
That's just a fact, no matter our own individual background.
And you also had, and I said this earlier, according to the families of Israeli hostages, a spokesperson for the family said this very early on.
Within a few days, Hamas offered to release all the civilian captives that they took on October 7th if Israel did not attack Gaza.
But Israel's higher priority was not its own people.
It's not peace.
It was Jewish supremacy.
I don't think there's any country in the world that would not have attacked a neighbor who had launched that scale of terrorist attack on its people.
I mean, as people keep reminding everyone, statistically, it was the equivalent of somebody murdering 40,000 people in the United States, right?
The idea the United States, if one of their neighbors did that, would not have launched a ground attack very quickly is for the birds, as it would be if it was England and France or Germany or Spain, whichever one it is.
Any country that had that kind of scale of terror attack was always going to attack back with tremendous force.
If for no other reason than the people who perpetrated it within days were on camera saying, we're going to keep doing this.
So there is no country that would not have attacked.
So this idea that what Israel should have done was simply go, oh, okay, if you just release the civilians, but keep all the military people you've kidnapped, fine, then we won't invade.
That was never going to happen.
And I think it's very naive to suggest that this is anything different to what any other country would do.
My issue with Israel is what went on this year in particular, that the starvation, the blockade, the invasion of Gaza City, the relentless attacks on already decimated areas, and the fact that so many innocent children were being killed because of the uniquely under 18 makeup of 50% of the population.
You know, it became completely intolerable to most right-minded people in the world, the scale of what was going on.
But to go back and suggest that within days or weeks of October the 7th, what Israel should have done to an enemy wedded to its destruction, who has repeatedly, since the attacks, and we're going to keep doing this, would not have attacked with great force.
Everyone would have done that.
And if they wouldn't have done that, their people would have drummed them out of office.
Isabella Brown.
Isabel Brown.
Isabel Brown.
The wait is almost over.
She's joining Daily Wire Plus with the Isabel Brown show.
Cannot wait for you guys to see how hard we've been working.
I could not be more excited for this new adventure.
You can expect larger than life guests, deeper questions to the nerds.
Meeting the President of the United States and the Vice President and now meeting our new American Pope.
This is crazy.
Let's jump in.
Join me every weekday for the Isabel Brown Show on Daily Wire Plus or wherever you get your podcasts.
Here's my problem with your argument is that you're presuming two things I think are false.
One is that Israel is a normal country like other states.
And two, that there's parity here.
Israel is not a country living in peace with its neighbors and the Palestinians just disrupted all that on October 7th.
Israel was waging on October 6th, one of the most brutal and longest running military occupations in the world, which it refused to end, which had multiple opportunities to do.
And contrary to the revisionism we've heard in this interview from people like Shabbos that the Palestinians were offered this great peace deal and they turned it down.
No, Israel's never risen to the level of offering Palestinians the absolute minimum, which is a contiguous state in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, which, by the way, as I pointed out, Hamas has accepted.
Hamas previously.
Arafat was offered it.
Arafat was offered.
Arafat was offered an unbelievably good deal.
Historically, people will say that was the moment.
Bill Clinton, I've interviewed Bill Clinton several times about this, and he's absolutely clear.
As are the Israelis, that that deal was on the table and Arafat walked away.
Piers, listen, we can go into that record.
There's a great new book by Robert Malley I have here.
He worked for Bill Clinton.
He was his negotiator.
And he points out that what Bill Clinton said is just not true.
Palestinians were never offered that.
That's why Shlomo Ben Ami, who was Ehud Barak's foreign minister, who you spoke to earlier, who was at Camp David when that so-called generous offer was made, Shomo Ben-Ami said, if I were Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David as well.
Because contrary to all the spin, including from people like Bill Clinton, Palestinians were never offered a contiguous state in the West Bank and Gaza.
They were offered a Bantustan state where they could live in little cantons surrounded by major Israeli settlement blocks that make Palestinian life impossible.
And even Hamas, if you look at their charter, they revised their charter.
I wish they had been even more forthcoming than they were.
But the fact is they were more accommodating on the issue of the two-state solution than any Israeli across the spectrum.
And by the way, on the issue of Netanyahu, Ehud Barak said earlier that Israel is not Netanyahu.
Okay, it's a nice message.
Look at the polls.
Most Israelis support ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
But if you look at Israeli, most Israelis have been able to...
The booing he got the other day, that was pretty loud and clear message from many of the Israeli people.
Let's take a look.
I mean, this is Netanyahu being booed by his own people.
To Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Okay.
Okay.
To Prime Minister Benjamin Yahoo.
Okay.
Let me just finish my thought.
I mean, Steve Witkoff could barely speak.
The Boeing was so deafening.
That is not a populace that is at one with its prime minister.
Quite the opposite.
No, but why are they booing?
They're booing because he abandoned the captives and he sold them out because he wanted to continue his destruction of Gaza.
The majority of Israelis, if you look at polls, are fine with actually Netanyahu destroying Gaza.
You know, there was polls showing that most people are not bothered by the reports of famine.
Most Israelis support ethnic cleansing.
And that's why we have a problem here is because this is a fanatical society that embraces Jewish supremacy.
And so Shabba is saying before he's proud to be Jewish right now.
I'm upset to be Jewish right now.
I'm upset that in my name, a genocide was perpetrated.
An entire people have been under occupation for decades with no end in sight to their suffering.
And here in the U.S., you have people being censored, constantly canceled because supporters of Israel claim to feel unsafe by merely people protesting genocide.
And you also have in Israel, and this is the most important thing, Benny Gantz, the former defense minister, who's now in Netanyahu's opposition, he recently wrote that there's a national consensus inside Israel that there will be no Palestinian state.
That's the real Israel that we're dealing with.
And until that is rectified, and that is the actual extremism that has to be addressed.
Whatever you think of Hamas, and my friends in Gaza are not fans of Hamas.
But in terms of who's the problem here, it's the radicals in power with the support of...
Well, actually, I would say it's the radicals on both sides.
One of the most pleasing aspects of the Trump peace plan is that it was a direct repudiation of a lot of what the more right-wing headbangers in Netanyahu's government had been advocating.
They wanted Palestinians expelled.
They wanted to take the land in Gaza and the West Bank.
And Trump has made it absolutely clear, no annexing of the West Bank, and the Palestinian people will be allowed to return to their albeit destroyed at the moment homes in Gaza.
And we're seeing already many, many hundreds, if not thousands of Gazans going back to the rubble of where their homes were to try and now rebuild their lives.
That is a repudiation of the aspiration of people like Smodrich and Ben Gavir, whose rhetoric has been increasingly one of kick all the Palestinians out and take the land.
So, you know, I am cautiously optimistic about the fact that that is happening, because that is going against what the more extreme Israelis would like to happen.
And I think there are extreme people on the Palestinian side, like Hamas, for which peace will be the last thing they want as well.
Well, except they have no power.
And I'll just make this quick because I've spoken a lot now.
Yes, it's a repudiation of the ultra-extremists, but that doesn't make it not extreme because are Palestinians offered any path to self-determination in this plan?
No.
All it says is we recognize this as your aspiration, which is like telling a starving person, I recognize that you're hungry and you aspire to have some food.
We're not going to actually offer you any.
And that's what this plan is.
That sounds extreme to me.
It sounds extreme to put people under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world and longest running and say, you have no path to your own freedom.
And that has been the premise of all this.
And so just going back to your original point to me, in terms of what Israel should have done on October 7th, again, we're not talking about a normal situation of neighbors living side by side and one person attacks another.
You're talking about an occupied people desperate, under siege forever.
They've tried nonviolent protest.
They've tried to accept the two-state solution.
Nothing works.
October 7th was an act of desperation.
It was a disaster for the Palestinians, especially, because it gave Israel the opportunity to do what it's always wanted to do, which is destroy Gaza and push out as many Palestinians as possible.
In terms of what Israel should have done, Israel didn't have the right to fire a single bullet into Gaza.
It had the obligation to end the occupation and the siege and then negotiate a peace that recognizes Palestinians.
Yeah, but that's where we disagree, because what you're ignoring there is that it was literally in Hamas's original founding charter.
Which they changed.
Which they changed.
Okay, but their original statement.
Their stated aim was to destroy Israel and their clear stated intention on October the 7th was to kill or kidnap as many innocent Israelis as they could get their hands on.
So you're dealing with a nihilistic terror group who created a tunnel system for 20 years to hide in, to sacrifice their own people when the shooting started.
So, you know, I don't deny for a moment that there was an occupation of the Gazan people.
It should never have been happening.
But I also don't deny for a moment that Hamas wanted to destroy Israel and everything it stood for.
And so, you know, this is a more, it's a more nuanced picture than I think you want to give it credit for.
But look, I want to bring in a very quick response to that.
In the charter of Netanyahu's party, Likud, which is from 1977, it's also in their charter that from the river to the sea, there will only be Jewish sovereignty.
Okay.
Has anybody asked Netanyahu to change his party's charter?
The difference is his party has power.
They're one of the most sophisticated and powerful armies in the world, backed by the world's top hegemon.
Palestinians living under occupation, besiegement, have no power at all in this equation.
I wish Hamas had been more tactful.
I wish the Palestinians could have come together and have a unified position.
I wish their leaders.
I wish their leaders.
It's not a question of being, them not being taxed.
Yes, it is enough.
They committed one of the worst terror attacks of modern times.
What's tax got to do with it?
They chose to start a fight that they couldn't win.
And I wish they had recognized that personally, because this was always what Israel wanted.
They give Israel a huge opportunity.
But again, if you have no options, Piers, if you're living in a concentration camp, if your occupier says it doesn't matter what you do, whether you protest nonviolently or not, whether you change your charter.
Well, they were given many billions of dollars, and they had a choice to make as to what to do with that money.
Now, Netanyahu's hands are all over the way that money was funneled to them, and he'll be held accountable for that, I'm sure.
But the reality is that Hamas took those billions and they squandered it in the most self-interested and anti-the Palestinian people manner imaginable.
They built a tunnel system where they would hide themselves and save their own lives when the troubles that they were about to start started.
And the Palestinian civilians and kids would be blown to pieces in the inevitable retribution that would come from Israel.
It was a very deliberate, a very deliberate tactic, which, you know, maybe it backfired, maybe it didn't.
If you're Hamas, you probably think mission accomplished, right?
You goaded Israel into the most extreme overreaction, which has made them despised by much of the world.
You might think if you're a Hamas commander with their nihilistic view, that this is mission accomplished.
But the idea that they should have been more tactful, I think, is to really massively downplay what they did that day.
It was a grotesque terror attack.
Anna?
Pierre, since you brought up the issue of Netanyahu facilitating the funding of Hamas, are you at all concerned about what's currently going down in Gaza with the militias that Netanyahu confessed to also facilitating the funding of?
Well, I'm concerned by all of it.
Just to be clear, I think Netanyahu was operating a deliberate divide and rule strategy between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Blaming Netanyahu00:12:01
And he thought he could manage that.
That's right.
He propped up Hamas intentionally.
I think he wanted to have Gaza and the West Bank separated politically by two groups and try and foment a distrust and hatred between the two groups.
And that was his plan all along, which backfired spectacularly.
Look, the reason I think Netanyahu is going to face a massive tornado of accountability, not just has he got a criminal corruption case to face, but he also has to be made accountable for allowing this to happen on his watch.
You know, the Mostad is supposed to be the most intelligent intelligence agency in the world, but didn't know 3,000 members of Hamas were about to charge over their border and attack their people.
They didn't seem to know they had this world's biggest tunnel system and so on.
There is so much inexplicable stuff that's happened here that Netanyahu will be held accountable for.
And I suspect the Israeli people will hold him accountable at the ballot box and they'll vote him out of office.
We shall see.
I'm going to take a short break.
I'll come back to the panel.
Not everyone was happy to see President Trump today.
The historic speech was disrupted by two far-left politicians.
And here's what happened.
Sorry for that, Mr. President.
Thank you.
Please.
That was very efficient.
Well, joining me now is Offer Kassif, who represents the Communist Hadash party.
It was one of the protesters ejected from Knesset.
Welcome to Mr. Kersi.
Why did you do what you did today?
Because President Trump was a part and parcel complicit in the ongoing genocide that Israel pursued in the Gaza Strip.
And today, to refer to him as if he was the savior of the Palestinians and mainly of the Israeli hostages, that's simply a sheer lie.
I couldn't really tolerate this cult of personality that was going on today in the Knesset to both Trump and Netanyahu, when we all know that they are responsible for the fact that the terrible genocide and the sacrifice of the Israeli hostages didn't stop almost one year ago, or as far as Trump is concerned, when he came to office.
That could be prevented, but he didn't want to.
And so we had to say something about it.
This is a day of joy, I must say.
This is a day of joy.
We supported the families of the hostages when we wanted and we struggled for the hostages, as well as to end the genocide.
But this joy is mixed with pain and sadness, to which Trump is responsible too.
We cannot ignore that.
Well, President Trump came to office.
The inauguration was in the third week of January this year.
And by the end of September into early October, he has managed to secure the release of all remaining hostages and he's ended the war.
You know, many would look at that historically and say that actually that's an extraordinary achievement, that the failure, if you want to call it that, came on Joe Biden's watch when there was no containment at all of Netanyahu in terms of what he was doing in Gaza.
Donald Trump appears to have correctly, in my opinion, but forcefully brought Netanyahu to heel and made him finally stop the bombardment of Gaza and has got the hostages released and 20 of them are still alive.
That is a remarkable achievement.
But you seem to prefer to sully the achievement and sully the moment and the joy of the moment by blaming him, Donald Trump, for the actions of your own prime minister.
No, I do not blame him for the actions of the prime minister of Israel.
I blame him or say that he's responsible to a great extent that the prime minister of Israel and the government of Israel could pursue and could violate the agreement.
Let's not forget, first of all, let me say that I totally agree with you about what you said about Biden's administration.
No doubt about that.
But we must again pay attention to what really was.
We cannot deform reality and the truth just because it's easy today.
I do not say that about you.
I said that about many members of the Knesset who participated in this, forgive me, orgy of cult of personality, which I really cannot accept, whoever the person is.
But again, there was an agreement already.
The agreement consisted of a few stages, and the second stage could send free many of the hostages and to stop the carnage in Gaza.
The government of Israel, led by Netanyahu, decided one-sidedly to violate the agreement and they got their back saved by Trump.
We cannot ignore that.
So he is responsible.
To say thank you to Trump today, if it wasn't so tragic to both Israelis and Palestinians, it would have been a joke.
Because it's like saying, it's like that I, you know, pushed you, Paris the thought, from the upstairs, you know, push you down and run very fast downstairs to catch you.
And then I say I sent you.
That's exactly the metaphor for what was going on here with Trump.
He's responsible for the continuation of the sacrifice of the hostages, as well as the genocide in Gaza since March up till now.
Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza died because of that.
And who knows how many hostages and Israeli soldiers also were killed because of that?
They could have been saved.
We should never forget that.
Ofika Saef, I appreciate it, Jonathan.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
What's the next?
Go back to the panel.
Shabbos, he makes some points there, which is certainly worth considering.
Well, I think the greatest point to make is that Israel mirrors America in the sense that it is actually a democracy.
Can you think of any other country in the Middle East whereby you can interrupt in an actual proceedings with a prime minister of your sovereign nation and the president of the United States and start interrupting him and it does not lead to anything other than death?
I mean, try doing that in the streets of Tehran, although they did try, and many of them were decapitated, mostly for showing their hair outside of a hijab.
So this underscores that Israel is a thriving democracy.
In terms of the substance of his argument, and I think the argument that my other panelists have been making is just simply not true.
I mean, Anna brought the conversation of Israel Katz, the minister, talking about how they're going to have to bomb Gaza, and that's clearly an affront to the peace accord itself.
So, unlike Anna, I actually do speak Hebrew, and I read the original tweet in Hebrew, and he explicitly states that we will continue, if necessary, to dismantle the quote, Hamas terror tunnels, which is not only Israel's prerogative to do, that is literally part of the Trump 20-point peace plan.
It is literally part of the deal that brought the hostages home today that Hamas would have to dismantle.
That was not, that was not part of the peace plan offered by Joe Biden.
It was not part of the peace plan offered in January of 2025.
So, qualitatively speaking, we are talking about a very different peace deal.
The other point I want to mention, again, it's not specific to what the member of Knesset was saying, which is the idea of choices.
And I think, Piers, you quite accurately attested to this, which is you can sort of create assumptions or motives behind Israel.
But at the end of the day, Ehud Olmer in 2007, 2008, who is no friend of Bibi Netanyahu, who does not like the Likud party, he offered 97% of the West Bank to the Palestinian people, and they literally said no.
And you can shake your head and say, I'm wrong, but if they said yes, then why isn't there a Palestinian state today?
I believe that there should be a state for the Palestinian people.
I believe that there should be harmony and coexistence, but you can't do that when you have individuals like, for example, Isma'el-Haniya, who would repeatedly state that we would do October 7th again and again and again when you have individuals like Yahweh Sinwar who repeatedly state that food that comes into Gaza should first and foremost be given to fighters in the tunnels.
And if need be, women and children should be sacrificed at the altar of our glorious martyrs.
You cannot do that when you are living next to a Muslim Hania.
Hang on, like Isma'el, try not to interrupt.
I know it's hard, but do your best.
You can't do that when you have people like Hassan Asrallah, who had stated for years it would be great for all the Jews to move to Israel, because in his own words, it would be so much more convenient to kill you in one location than having to hunt you down country to country.
So, yes, I believe in peace.
I also believe in reality.
And when you, Aaron, when you talk about how Israel is not a normal country that is not living side by side with its neighbors, Israel signed a peace deal with Egypt in 1979.
They have not been at war with Egypt since.
Mind you, Egypt also bombed Rafa and in the early 2000s, but I digress.
And I wish that one day the Palestinians will elect leaders who believe in peace, as Golden Ma'ir said, who love their own children more than they hate ours.
That does not reflect the majority of the Palestinian people.
I believe the majority of the Palestinian people are good people who want to live in peace.
Unfortunately, their elected government do not reflect that at all.
So, you can talk about the motives or the assumptions of Bibi Netanyahu, but at the end of the day, it was Hamas that attacked a sovereign nation that shot its dogs, that burnt down its homes, that kidnapped babies like Fira Beebas, that held as hostage three-year-old girls like Abigail Edon.
That is not something that Israel forced them to do.
That is a choice, a really bad choice that they decided to make, and they are living with its consequences.
Of course, unfortunately, Gaza has been destroyed.
So too, Fallujah was destroyed.
So too, Mosa was destroyed.
So too, Berlin was destroyed.
Does that mean the Allies were wrong to have fought the Nazis?
Of course not.
Even though they were more German than the Americans, what it does mean is there are consequences to actions.
All right.
I want to give the final word briefly to Anna because we've got to wrap up.
Anna.
I just want to say, you know, even with all of the various individuals that Shabos listed off, whether it's Yahya Sinwar or anyone else, they're all dead.
Yet you still have Israel talking about Hamas and what a threat Hamas poses.
And it's because of the fact that Israel carried out these military operations in Gaza, destroyed the Gaza Strip, which what do you think that does?
That multiplies Hamas militants.
That radicalizes people.
Because let me tell you something.
If every single member of my family were killed by a government, if my neighborhood was raised by a foreign military, that would radicalize me too.
It's common sense.
But you know what?
I almost feel like that's the whole game that Israel is playing as we speak.
Because at the end of the day, it's an expansionist project.
They want to steal the land.
And I guarantee you, this isn't over.
They're going to continue pursuing land theft, not just in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.
That's currently happening right now as we speak, while everyone is giving, you know, Netanyahu and Trump plaudits for their peace deal.
There is no peace as long as we continue supporting the terroristic welfare state of Israel.
Expansionist Project00:00:54
Period.
Israel is trying to expand it.
We run out of time.
I would simply say that I think we need new leadership on both sides.
Israelis and the Palestinians.
New, fresh leadership with fresh thoughts who are actually wedded to a peaceful solution and not wedded to just hating each other and being at war with each other.
But, you know, we'll see what happens.
Thank you, my panel.
Excellent debate.
I really appreciate it.
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