"SHOW Me The Evidence!" Israel-Iran War Debate - Trump Threatens To Quit NATO
President Trump says the war in Iran could be over within two or three weeks. The aftershocks, however, will last for years. He’s also said he is now strongly considering a move to quit NATO altogether. The biggest military alliance in human history is a “paper tiger”, he said, “and Putin knows that too.” But just about everybody also agrees that both America and Europe are significantly weaker on their own. And many across Europe are asking - why should our men and women risk their lives for a war you began without coherently explaining why? Joining Piers Morgan for a debate on this is attorney and Iranian-American activist, Elica LeBon, Iranian-Canadian activist & former MP Goldie Ghamari, The Grayzone journalist Aaron Mate , The Young Turks Ana Kasparian plus Palestinian political leader Mustafa Barghouti. 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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Trump's 12D Chess Strategy00:03:49
There's no evidence that 30,000 people were killed.
Show me the evidence that 30,000 people were killed.
I heard it from your mouth.
What are you going to do there?
Violence, and I'm going to tell you your interesting evidence.
Oh, good.
Insults, that's good.
President Trump says the war in Iran could be over within two or three weeks.
The aftershocks, however, even if that is true, will last for years.
Trump has told the Telegraph newspaper in the UK that he's now strongly considering a move to quit NATO altogether.
The biggest military alliance in human history is a paper tiger, he said.
And Putin knows that too.
In a pressed interview, this is what the former NATO Commander General Sir Richard Sheriff said to me.
That Donald Trump has pretty much single-handedly torpedoed NATO as an alliance.
Two months ago, Donald Trump threatened to attack the territory of a NATO ally, Denmark, over Greenland.
Nobody has forgotten that.
Europeans will not forget that.
That is a grotesque breach of trust.
I think the special relationship is a fantasy put about if I may say so peers by the media and politicians.
Well, just about everybody agrees that NATO and Europe have been complacent about living in the comfort of US security.
That's why at Trump's insistence, they're all ramping up spending, and so they should.
But just about everybody also agrees that both America and Europe are significantly weaker on their own.
NATO and its member countries have refused to join the Iran war for very sound reasons.
First and foremost, it's a defensive alliance.
It was created to maintain peace, not create war.
Second, by any reasonable definition, the Iran war is to many people an illegal one.
If there was evidence of an imminent threat and a right to self-defense, we've yet to be presented with it.
Many people in my country and across Europe are asking why should our men and women risk their lives for a war that you began without coherently explaining why?
The so-called paper tiger has been ready to support the United States on countless occasions.
13 countries mobilized after 9-11 and fought alongside the US for 20 years in Afghanistan.
European allies supplied 30% of the airstrikes in the fight against ISIS.
They share intelligence and assets all over the world.
They were there in the Gulf War.
They were even in the US after Hurricane Katrina.
Trump is threatening to walk away and leave the global oil supply in chaos because he says the US has plenty of its own resources.
Well, that would leave America's closest allies stranded, with the notable exception of Israel, which has no intention of ending hostilities anytime soon.
It would also leave the Iranian people stranded.
For all the talk of liberation and Trump to the rescue, they'll be living under the same regime, weakened but angrier than ever.
Joining me to debate all this, attorney and Iranian-American activist Elika Leban, Aaron Mate, the journalist with the Grey Zone, Iranian-Canadian activist and former MP Goldie Gumari, and Anakis Beryan, the host and executive producer of The Young Turks.
So welcome to all of you.
Elekhalebon, I honestly can't keep up with where we are with this war other than I read somewhere today, I think Axios reported this, that one of the Trump administration has said Trump isn't playing 3D chess, he's playing 12D chess, and that he basically throws out all these contradictory things because he wants to keep the enemy guessing.
Now, maybe that's true, but it might also be, I would offer up as an alternative theory, that he's got himself into something that he quickly has realized is not a good idea.
Not because taking out the Iranian regime is not a sound idea in principle, or that they've been an appalling repressive regime, but not a good idea because the Iranians have hit back in a way I think that they've been taken by surprise by the scale of it economically by closing the straight-hormus, by attacking the Gulf states, and that the combined effect of this has been a shuddering shock to the global economy.
Degrading Iran's Nuclear Program00:15:22
And so Trump wants out, and yet it's very difficult to see how he gets out with a convincing claim of victory.
So those are the theories.
What's your view?
I mean, at the end of the day, my view from the very beginning and still my view to this day is that this operation, whatever it is, has to be seen through to the end because the worst case scenario is that this war ends and the regime is still in power.
That's worse than if the war never happened at all.
And so, in terms of what I'm here to do, or what Goldie is here to do, is represent, you know, the sentiments of the Iranian people and how we feel about what these military strikes are doing, which are targeting an oppressive regime that, you know, has been, we all know, has been oppressing the Iranian people for 47 years.
In terms of the military strategy, that's not really within our purview.
The only thing that we can do is trust that the United States government knows what it's doing and has an effective plan to remove this regime.
Okay, but then explain this to me.
I get that.
But let me just ask you this.
Donald Trump said yesterday that the mission of making it impossible for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon had now been achieved, which seems to be where he's edging now as the sort of totality justification for the action he took.
But there's one problem: all the enriched uranium remains untouched underground in Iran.
The capacity to develop that into a nuclear weapon remains exactly as it was before this war was started.
So I don't understand how Donald Trump or anybody, frankly, can claim that they have stopped Iran from being able to develop a nuclear weapon when all the tools they need remain exactly where they were before it started.
Well, that's the question that's on everybody's mind, right?
The only thing that we've ever asked is for this war to go to completion and for this regime to be removed.
It was never in our imagination that you would stop at the point that their nuclear capabilities were decapitated.
We were told that the end of this war would be when this regime fell, that uncompromising surrender, that's the only ambition that we were ever told.
So I don't know what to tell you about this falling short at just when you're talking about.
Okay, I'm going to bring the others in.
I mean, Anna Kasperin, that's really interesting because, you know, Elika's representing there what so many people are thinking, which is the goalposts have changed so often.
You know, it was early on this was going to be regime change.
And they thought by decapitating the top of the regime and killing the Ayatollah and a lot of the top people, then naturally, and apparently this was what the Israelis told the Americans, there will be uprisings and the regime will topple.
None of that has happened.
So they've now moved, it seems to me, to a different game plan, which is actually what we've meant all along was degrading their military and stopping them building a nuke.
They've done the first.
That has to be accepted.
They've massively degraded the Iranian military, but they've come nowhere near to stopping them developing a nuclear weapon if Iran chooses to, because the uranium is still there.
Unfortunately, you have two different countries that are involved in this effort to, I guess, either topple the regime in Iran, which isn't going to happen, or, you know, degrade Iran's military capabilities and ability to build nuclear weapons.
For the Israelis, it was never, ever about nuclear weapons.
It was never about degrading Iran's military capabilities.
It was always about regime change for them.
But in order to build consent or manufacture consent among the American people for a war that we all knew was going to be a disaster, the American people were fed lies and all sorts of fear-mongering about how Iran is such a threat that we need to get involved and we need to disarm the Iranians.
Okay, how is that working out for us?
There was no strategic military plan in place.
Elica is on the propaganda wing and she's like, oh, I don't know.
It's not my job to think about the military strategy.
No, Elica, it is your job to think about military strategy because you're advocating for something that's going to get American soldiers killed.
It's going to get innocent civilians killed.
In fact, that's happening right now as we speak.
And so you should ask yourself, is there really a reliable path here, a militaristic path that's going to secure what I personally want, which is regime change?
And honestly, there isn't a path.
There isn't a path.
First of all, I don't have a path because I've analyzed the situation and realized that Iran has a disorbitable military and that you just set its own soldiers in jeopardy by taking them over there.
You're just interrupting.
And you're interrupting.
Why are you interrupting me?
Pierce, are you going to intervene?
Because she's interrupting me with the same thing.
I think that's a fair comment.
You shouldn't interrupt each other because we can't hear either of you when you do.
I appreciate it.
It is important to ask yourself as you're advocating for military action, whether or not that military action is going to secure the gains that you're advocating for.
And if you looked at the landscape, if you looked at the terrain in Iran, if you looked at what Iran is capable of doing, the fact that they control the Strait of Hormuz, you would think about all these elements before spouting off about getting the United States involved in a war that isn't going to secure what you think it's going to secure.
There isn't going to be regime change in Iran.
And by the way, I think it's disgusting that we are dragged into a war on behalf of a foreign country that does not plan to put any of their boots on the ground.
Not a single IDF soldier is going to be able to do that.
Well, that's a really, okay, that's a really interesting point.
Let me bring in Goldie Gamari.
Welcome back, John.
Because it seems to me, look, I'm not a military expert, but a lot of my family has served at a high level in the British military.
And there is only one way to get that enriched uranium and therefore be sure that you can prevent Iran in the future developing a nuclear weapon because they're very advanced as it is with this uranium.
And the only way you can do it is with ground forces.
The problem is it's incredibly dangerous for that operation because of the terrain there, because of the way you would have to do it, because of the embedded defenses that the Iranians clearly have, the drones they have, and so on.
This could very quickly, if America tried to do this, and I think it's perfectly reasonable, Anna, to point out, so far, there's no suggestion the IDF will join this, even though it's clear from Marco Rubio's own mouth that America went into this because the Israelis said we're doing it with or without you.
If it becomes a ground war, this could become very quickly disastrous.
I mean, do you accept there's that risk here?
There's always a risk in everything that happens.
But I mean, ultimately, we're dealing with the most powerful military in the world, the U.S. military.
Their intelligence is top-notch.
President Trump himself has said that the reason that he decided to begin this, as he calls it, an excursion into Iran is not because of Israel.
It's because he assessed the threats to the United States.
And, you know, obviously the commander-in-chief of the United States of America has way more intelligence information than just random podcasters on YouTube.
So, you know, I trust President Trump.
I trust his analysis.
And Pete Hegseth has also said that the vast majority of the Islamic regime's ground forces has been destroyed, their drones, their missiles, everything.
So the only thing that's really left of the Islamic regime is just their paramilitary forces.
In fact, they're so weak that they're now not only bringing militia groups from Iraq, but they're now actually conscripting 12-year-old children, which is a war crime.
So the Islamic regime is now using children to put it in the middle of the country.
Let's take for a moment your premise that they've been almost obliterated, which I keep hearing.
Okay, but from where I'm looking, the regime has not been displaced.
I mean, Donald Trump this morning put out a new post on Truth Social saying Iran's new president, much less radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a ceasefire.
We will consider when the Hamo Strait is open, free, and clear.
Until then, we're blazing Iran into oblivion, or as they say, back to the Stone Ages, his usual hyperbolic rhetoric.
But there's no, we don't know who he's talking about, by the way, because no one's come forward on the Iranian side to say, yes, that's me, and we are talking to the Americans.
And I think, and Piers, I think that's actually very funny because as far as we knew, the president was Pizishkian.
If President Trump is saying that there's a new president, does that mean Pizishkian has been obliterated?
Well, that's why I said, you know, we don't know who this guy is.
We don't know that he's much less radicalized because we've no idea who it is or that he's more intelligent than his predecessors.
It could just be Trump playing games trying to divide and rule with the IRGC.
That's highly likely, I would think.
And maybe that's an effective tactic.
Maybe that's an effective tactic.
We shall see.
You know, with all these things, once a war starts, it's very, very difficult to predict how this plays out.
But what I would say about the strength of the American military is there's been an asymmetric war going on here.
And I'll bring Aaron in here.
The asymmetric war is that you've got the American and Israeli combined, incredibly powerful military, the most powerful military we've ever seen in this planet, waging merry hell across the skies of Tehran.
But at the same time, the Iranians, like I said earlier, very skillfully and with great cunning, it has to be said, doing a very effective job in economically strangling the world through the Strait of Hormuz and also strangling the economies of the Gulf states, its neighbors, by attacking refineries, by attacking tourist areas and so on.
This has been very effective.
I think far more effective than the Americans and Israelis thought may happen.
So you've got two wars going on here.
And my guess is because of the pain that's happening at the gas station prices, food prices to come because fertilizer has been shut and so on.
You know, you're going to see a lot of fallout from this all summer.
You've got the midterm elections in America in November.
You know, Donald Trump is many things, but he's not politically stupid.
He will know that they could take an absolute beating in the midterms and render him a lame duck if he doesn't do something to resolve where he is right now.
I think he wants out, which is why he keeps talking about two to three weeks, I'm gone, and whatever.
What do you feel?
I think his foremost concern right now is calming the markets.
And that's why he keeps saying that he's having these great talks and they're getting somewhere and he's going to wrap this up really soon.
I can't divine what's in his head anymore.
I used to think he had smart political instincts, but I think going to war against Iran in a completely unjust, unprovoked fashion has blown up that impression for me.
And there's a debate going on right now that we're having about whether or not the Trump Netanyahu war in Iran is effective.
I think we're missing a more fundamental question.
Is it right?
Is it just?
And the fact that Iran is waging asymmetrical warfare underscores a really important point.
It's the weaker party militarily, which underscores it's not a threat to anyone.
Trump went to war because Iran acts as a deterrent to U.S. and Israeli hegemony in the region.
That's not a threat to anyone's security.
It's a threat to domination.
And that's why Iran is being subjected to these attacks.
And it's whether or not Trump can achieve his goals or not, it doesn't obscure the fact that it's fundamentally illegal.
Under the standards of the Nuremberg trials, aggression is the supreme international crime.
That is what Trump undertook here.
Even his own intelligence agencies affirmed a year ago, and this hasn't changed, that Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program.
It limited its missile ranges.
At best, they said it would be a good idea.
But we do know.
Okay, but hang on on that point because we do know they were clearly lying about the capacity of their missiles, right?
They fired a missile only last week, which went twice as far, a ballistic missile, twice as far as they had said that their missiles were capable of going.
It actually, it didn't actually land on its target, but the distance it traveled would mean it could potentially get to Europe.
It could get to London, to Paris, whatever.
That is in direct contradiction to the undertakings Iran are given about the distances its missiles could go.
So they've clearly been lying.
Well, not necessarily, because first of all, even NATO said we can't confirm that Iran fired that missile.
So I'm not even sure that it was Iran.
But let's say it was Iran.
If it was Iran, then it's quite possible they put on the paper.
Well, listen, I wouldn't put anything past Israel.
They carry out all sorts of nefarious acts all the time.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was a false flag.
But listen, let's assume it was Iran.
Hang on.
Hang on.
Aaron, you're expecting me to believe that.
Let's finish the point here.
You're expecting me to believe that Israel deliberately fired a ballistic missile at an American base.
Yeah, yeah, that happens.
That happens.
Believe it or not, that has happened in the past.
Yeah, Israel decades ago attacked the USS Liberty, killed a bunch of U.S. soldiers.
So actually, I wouldn't put it past them.
Listen, let's assume it was Iran.
Let's assume it was Iran.
Just hold on a second.
I'll just finish this point.
I'll finish this point.
If it was Iran, if I can finish this point, it's possible they put a smaller payload on the missile, which means it can travel further.
And regardless, look, this whole debate is skewed because Iran is defending itself against an act of unprovoked aggression, an act that is not targeting the quote-unquote regime.
It's hitting schools.
They massacred over 150 girls in the opening hours of this unprovoked war.
They're hitting pharmaceutical pools that make medicines for Iranian.
On this point, they're hitting residential buildings.
Okay, but look, I have serious misgivings about this war and have done from the start.
I do not think that Iran had an imminent capacity to have a nuclear weapon or to use one.
I think that is nonsense.
And also fires completely in the face of what we were told after the 12-day war last summer.
We were told that whole capacity had been destroyed anyway.
So none of that makes any sense to me.
But the idea that Iran had never provoked either Israel or the United States, I mean, that is also patently disingenuous because Iran for the last few decades has systematically waged a campaign of terror through the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other proxies against Israel.
Ayatollah has led the chance of death to America, death to Americans.
They have killed, I think, more Americans than any other nation in the world, right, in the last 47 years.
So this idea that this has all happened out of nowhere, you know, I just think is disingenuous.
I think the fundamental problem in the region is that you have an Israeli government that gives itself the right to displace the indigenous Palestinians, steal their land, and deny them a homeland.
And Iran, on that question, has been far more accommodating than Israel and the U.S. have in terms of accepting the international framework for the Israel-Palestine issue.
Iran has said that they would support the Arab Peace Initiative, which offered Israel full normalization if it allowed Palestinians to have a state in just 22% of historic Palestine.
Hypocrisy Over Death Toll Numbers00:15:27
Iran has cooperated with the U.S. in the past.
You mentioned earlier that Trump's turning his back on NATO and NATO helped the U.S. in Afghanistan.
So did Iran.
Iran provided critical intelligence to the U.S. that helped the U.S. capture fighters from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
And that was blown up when George W. Bush gave a speech declaring Iran to be a part of the Axis of evil.
The U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said that seriously undermined Iran's cooperation, which was very, very fruitful.
And there have been so many more diplomatic initiatives since.
Iran sent Bush a letter offering to resolve all these issues.
Bush ignored it.
There was the Iran nuclear deal, which even Trump's own administration certified that Iran was complying with.
What about the slaughter of thousands of protesters, including many completely innocent civilians on the streets of Iran in January, for example?
Because the noise from the left, I have to say, was pretty.
I'm not accusing you or Anna.
I don't know what you both said about it at the time.
You can enlighten me.
They said nothing.
But there was a definite.
Well, I'll tell you what I said.
Well, hang on.
There was a definite point.
Don't speak for me.
It didn't words in my mouth.
No, I actually remember very well.
I'm actually.
You don't know what I had to say about it.
30,000 people were killed.
I heard it from your mouth.
Okay.
There's no evidence that 30,000 people were killed.
Show me the evidence.
And I'll admit that I've read it.
How many do you think were killed?
Where is it in the evidence?
Elika.
Where's the evidence?
You want me to tell you?
You want me to tell you?
Yeah, go ahead.
I can tell you the source.
I can tell you the source because how quickly you believe a terrorist regime, but you don't know.
Just give me the source.
I don't need to.
I'm going to tell you right now.
I'm going to tell you right now.
Violence.
And I'm going to tell you every single hospital in every single city in Iran gave a tally of how many corpses were in their beds.
In total, that amounted to 36,500 people.
And that didn't include the source.
What source compiled those numbers?
The hospitals.
Every hospital.
Okay, so you yourself talked to every single hospital.
I saw the list.
I saw the list of every hospital with everyone.
You saw the list.
Google it.
Who Google is the list?
Who published it?
Everywhere.
Human rights.
Oh, it's everyone.
You should know the source.
You should memorize that.
I'm telling you.
Okay, but you know what's interesting.
Okay, hang on.
You know what's interesting, Anna?
Yeah, you're having the complete reverse.
You're having the complete reverse.
No, I'm not.
Well, I'm not.
Okay, I'm going to explain.
The New York Times just published a piece on this that I hope you read.
I have a question yet.
That I hope you read.
You haven't heard my question yet.
Right.
You care about the deaths in Palestine.
You don't care about the Iranian people.
I do care about the Iranian people.
Unfortunately, hang on.
You got utterly enraged when people questioned the number of people who've been killed in Gaza, rightly, because it turned out those numbers were broadly accurate.
They've now been admitted by Israel.
And yet, here you are doing exactly what so many Israeli guests did on this show about the deaths in Gaza.
You're just refusing to believe any of the numbers coming out of the thing.
So my question for you would be: well, if it wasn't 30,000, then how many do you think were killed?
I don't know.
I don't know.
How do you know it wasn't 30,000?
Hold on.
Sorry, hang on.
Elika.
Sorry.
If you're going to ask a question, let me answer it.
Let me answer my question.
Anna.
I know, but let me answer the question.
Point being: the very question that I used to ask all the Israeli guests who would try and cast aspersions is the same question.
Let me explain myself.
It's the same question to you, which is: if you don't know, how do you know it wasn't 30,000?
Let me explain it, okay?
You don't know.
Let me.
No, Pierce, let me explain it.
Okay, when it comes to Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry, historically, you look at the history, they have historically been accurate and very careful when they publish death tolls.
Okay, they're always confirmed.
In fact, oftentimes, they're an underestimate.
So, I know to trust the Gaza Health Ministry because of its history of publishing accurate data.
In the case of Iran, we know a few things.
We know because so many American former government officials and current government officials and the Israeli media were literally bragging about putting Mossad on the ground, arming people.
And that's why so many of the law enforcement or police officers, security forces in Iran, were also killed.
Okay, there's a lot of disinformation coming out, and there are different sources publishing different information about the death toll, which is why I don't know.
I have not found a source.
You're giving me accurate data.
No, but Anna, again, I would use the same questioning I did to people about Gaza.
How many of them were killed by Mossad operatives?
How many of them were actually killed by these governments?
No, no, no.
I'm simply saying, I'm simply saying, once you've admitted you have no idea how many were killed, I find it extraordinary that you would be so emphatic in refuting the 30,000 number.
You don't know.
You think 30,000 people are slaughtered in one week?
I think it could easily have happened for machines that I was looking at.
I don't, I don't, okay, you don't believe it.
Okay, but I don't believe it.
Given that you've admitted you don't know, you don't know.
Let me come back to let me come back to Elika.
You know, I have noticed there has been a, I think there has been a double standard here from people on the left who I respect, where they seem to care an awful lot more about Palestinians being killed in Gaza, which I also shared their care about, and the protesters killed in Tehran at the start of the year.
And it was deafening.
It was deafening.
And Hollywood was deafening by its silence too.
And I just think that that's another thing that is just wrong about this.
It's intellectually dishonest to people, right, to pick and choose which you know what's dishonest, Piers?
The fact that Iranians are getting killed right now.
Civilians are getting targeted right now.
This war began, okay, with a hundred, what, how many 175 people getting slaughtered at an elementary school?
Elika, you got anything to say about that?
Do your people think I do.
You don't live in Iran.
You've never lived in Iran.
And you haven't been anytime.
So talking many liberation of the Iranian people.
Many times they're getting killed as their hospitals are being starved, as healthcare workers are being killed.
Discuss that.
Let Elika respond.
Let Elica respond.
I'm not going to show.
You talk about.
Well, you let her respond.
You asked me to stop her interrupting you.
So I'm now saying to you, go ahead, Ella.
Let her speak.
Please go ahead.
When you talk about the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, you say their numbers have historically been accurate.
Well, did they ever separate?
Oh, good.
Insults.
That's good.
Did they ever separate civilians from combatants?
They didn't.
And in the end, we discovered that that number did include many combatants.
Okay.
The idea.
So that's the first thing actually.
We know their numbers.
That's good.
83%.
Right.
Civilians.
Are you going to interfere?
83%.
Actually, Hamas said that 50,000 of them were combatants.
Regardless, you are quick to trust the Hamas-run health ministry, which just shows who you trust, right?
Which is terrorist regimes.
Second of all, you sat there just right now and said 160, 178 school children were killed.
First of all, you said nothing about the hundreds of children that were killed on January 8th and January 9th by the regime.
And second of all, where did you get that number from?
The only people who have confirmed that number is the regime.
Is the regime.
And that just goes to show.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Are you denying that 175 people were slaughtered in that school?
Are you denying it?
Are you denying it?
Let me finish my point.
Let me finish my point.
Because you did deny.
Let me finish my point.
Are you going to let me finish my point?
There absolutely were children killed in that strike.
How many?
We don't know because the only people who have confirmed it is the regime.
But again, Elika, okay, well, no, no, let me.
Let me finish my point.
Let me finish my question.
Let me jump in there.
You're now doing exactly.
Sorry.
No, you're not.
Piers, if you let me know what you're saying, we know how many children were killed.
We know how many were on the school.
And you'll see what I'm saying.
Okay.
I'm not saying what's real and I'm not saying what's not real.
Here is the point that I'm making.
When the people, okay, tell you something, doctors, witnesses, eyewitnesses on the ground tell you something, okay?
It is questioned.
When the regime says something, it is believed.
So what I'm saying is that I'm pointing out to the hypocrisy of how easily they believe regimes, which they might be true.
It might be true.
No, the trouble is, you're both basically casting doubt over the death toll numbers.
It's not about casting doubts.
You're both casting doubt over the death toll numbers of the other side.
And that's my point about intellectual dishonesty.
I don't think it's honest to do that.
I mean, in relation to the attack on the school, it's pretty obvious to anybody what has happened there.
We know that people were killed.
And we know why.
It used to be quickly that.
Let me finish my point, please.
It used to be part of an IRGC compound.
Then it was moved out several years ago to be just outside the compound.
I suspect they clearly deliberately attacked the compound and the missile was slightly off and hit the school and killed over 160, 70 young school girls at school.
It was a disgusting thing to happen.
And what America should have done, what President Trump should have done, is just immediately had the investigation, concluded it immediately.
They know.
They know if one of their missiles hit that school or not.
They knew immediately.
And they should just say, we made a terrible mistake.
We were aiming for the compound next to it.
We hit the school.
Terrible things happened in war.
Terrible mistakes happen in war.
We are owning this mistake.
I would respect any country that says that when that kind of thing happens enormously more than I respect the obfuscating and disingenuous bullshit we've heard about the attack on that school.
Absolutely.
But Piers, that's not the point.
The point is that how quickly people run with numbers provided by a regime that historically does nothing but disseminate propaganda and how quickly they question the words of the witnesses of people who have seen this massacre on the ground, that shows you, that shows you who they defer to.
And that is what's worrying.
Okay, let's just make a point here.
Iran published, the government published a list of people that it says were killed during those protests.
If people think that that list is false, they're either alive or dead.
There has been.
You know what?
They're either alive or dead.
And it will be verified.
And my guess is that many thousands were killed.
Exactly how many thousands?
I don't know.
I'm intellectually honestly disappointed.
But because I don't know, I'm not in a position to emphatically deny any figure because I don't know.
Let's just turn.
I want to turn to another.
Hang on.
Listen, we're running out of time.
Because those numbers are ridiculous.
Those numbers are ridiculous.
I want to turn to another issue.
We've done the ridiculous numbers.
You'll end up talking, please.
I want to change the subject and bring Aaron in here.
All right.
Aaron, I want to talk about this extraordinary thing yesterday where Israel's parliament approved a law that would make the death penalty the default sentence for Palestinians convicted of what they regard as deadly terror attacks.
The legislation was pushed by the far right with Ben Gavir, the National Security Minister, its driving force.
After the vote, and I found this particularly sickening, he was seen opening bottles of champagne and celebrating, posting on X, We made history we promised we delivered.
And, you know, I just found this, I have to be honest, completely repellent.
I find Ben Gavir and Smodrich repellent anyway.
I think they are unbelievably far right.
I think they have dragged Israel into very dark places, this Israeli government.
And I think that this is indicative of what I mean by that.
The death penalty has existed but not been used in Israel for decades.
They're bringing it back only for Palestinians who they deem guilty of terrorism.
Some will have committed acts of terror.
Others are furiously disputed by the Palestinian side.
So it's an arguable point.
And we'll have to see who they decide they're going to kill.
You know, Ben Giver and others were wearing nooses as badge lapels on their suits.
It was sickening.
But also, they're saying it won't apply to Israelis, right?
You won't have Israelis being killed under this new law in Israel because, of course, they're not going to convict any of their own for any act of terrorism, even though many other people view a lot of the behavior by some of the more rogue elements of the IDF to be acts of terrorism.
So, there's a terrible double standard there, which and the way the Bengiver and others have been celebrating it is sickening for anybody, right?
Whoever you are.
What's your view of this?
Yeah, and this is the government that working-class American soldiers are being forced to die for.
Nobody signed up to defend this fanatical Jewish supremacist state, but yet this is what people are being sent off to West Asia to defend and to die on behalf of.
And as Anna pointed out, the Israeli military won't even send its own ground forces if there is a ground invasion of Iran.
This is what the Israeli government is.
People like to think there was maybe an earlier time when the Israeli government was more liberal and things have gone the wrong way.
Well, when you found your country on ethnic cleansing, when you claim that there's a divine right to steal land from somebody else, when you establish an apartheid regime that privileges one group, Jews, over another, Palestinians, this is what is going to happen.
This is the inevitable result of Zionism.
And it's what so many people around the world now are waking up to as being just incompatible with any basic standards of humanity.
But yet we're constantly told by all of our leaders that Israel is a top ally.
They share our values.
Well, these aren't my values, and these aren't the values, I think, of most decent-minded people.
So, what you're seeing now, I think, because of Israel's actions, and it's not just it goes far beyond this measure.
We've just seen more than two years of a mass murder campaign against the defenseless civilian population in Gaza, which is ongoing.
And also, you're seeing concurrent acts of terror every single day by Jewish settlers backed by Israeli soldiers and the occupied West Bank.
People are waking up against this and global opinion.
Yeah, look, I would agree with you.
I would agree with you on the settler point.
I think there's been some outrageous aggression by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the last few months.
I would take issue again just with the way you characterize the defenseless civilians in Gaza.
Of course, they're surrounded by Hamas terrorists who committed one of the worst acts of terrorism in modern times on October the 7th and are still embedded all around civilians and had been from the start of this war.
So they're not, you know, if you're being honest again about what's happening in Gaza, they're not defenseless.
I think it's gone way too far what's happened in Gaza.
I think the initial defense I made of Israel's right to defend itself, its duty to defend itself and its population, has been just desecrated by the scale of what has gone on there.
And the fact they still won't let journalists in to verify what has gone on there says everything to me.
It says they know what they've done, does not live up to their claim to be the most moral army in the world.
They've done stuff so bad, they won't let journalists in to look at it.
Israel's Apartheid System Exposed00:11:57
And so, you know, that's my view about it.
But I think the idea that no one has been there armed in Gaza, able to fire back, obviously they have.
That's what Hamas have been doing.
I didn't say they couldn't fire back.
I said they can't defend themselves from one of the most sophisticated armies in the world, dropping 2,000-pound bombs on residential areas and dispositions.
No, no, I get that.
But the truth is that war went on for a long time because actually there was a lot coming back the other way too.
Right.
So I agree with you.
I don't disagree with your overall point.
It's just language is quite important.
Let me bring in.
I agree.
Let me bring in.
I want to bring in Goldie on this point.
You know, Goldie, you can defend Israel, Israel's government, and so on.
I hate the way people conflate the actions of the government with Israeli people or Jewish people to me.
It's a ridiculous thing to do.
It's not anti-Semitic to hold the Israeli government to account this right wing and doing such terrible things.
You know, when I looked at what Ben Gavir was doing, they're right there.
You know, I think I posted this on X.
This is despicable, despicable to see a senior government minister of any supposedly civilized country cracking the champagne open at the thought of killing people.
Whatever your argument about the people that they're going to put to death, wearing looses on the thing that they've gone back hundreds of years into the wild west, you know, this is wrong, isn't it?
Can you condemn this?
I mean, my understanding of this law is that it is limited to Palestinians and Hamas terrorists who were specifically, sorry, who were specifically involved in the October 7 attacks.
So this is basically a law that's only for that particular incident.
With respect to internal Israeli politics, I mean, I don't really comment on internal politics, not really, not really my thing.
I mean, I would do for Iran.
So, yeah, because I'd be Ronnie and of course I comment on Iran.
I'd be Ronnie and why.
Okay, well, you're not American.
What is Iran trying to drag America into war that you want?
Why are they going to fight?
Why are you commenting on Iran?
You're not even coming.
Okay, then how about you leave America out of it?
You want to comment on Iran?
That's fine.
But demanding that American soldiers die on behalf of your little agenda is a little disrespectful, isn't it?
I think it's absolutely insane that you think that I have anything to do with President Trump's decision to go in and destroy the Islamic regime.
I think you're absolutely right.
I mean, he takes counsel from the likes of Lord Hooper, so you never know.
You never know.
I have nothing else to say.
I'd actually like to go back to someone who has things of substance to say.
I will come to you about this issue, but I just want to finish one point with Goldie.
It's not true that this only applies to Palestinians who were involved in October the 7th.
It doesn't.
So that's not.
If that's the case, then I mean, as a former parliamentarian, I probably wouldn't be, you know, sipping champagne and celebrating.
I think, you know, it's a very grave nation.
So, I mean, I would not applies to one ethnic group, right?
I mean, how can that be remotely acceptable to anybody?
I'd have to go look at, I mean, I'd have to go look at that legislation, but ultimately, I mean, this is what they voted for.
So it's their internal affairs and their sovereign state.
And yeah, and you know what?
We're perfectly entitled to call it.
You know, after what happened on October 7, I can see why there's a lot of passion around this situation.
Okay.
Elek has dropped off.
I don't know why.
I wish people wouldn't do that or at least say they're going to do it.
Yeah.
Oh, it's a technical issue.
All right.
I hope it was.
Anna.
May I jump in?
Final point.
Thank you, Peter.
Final point to you.
I appreciate that.
So, look, in regard to that law that just passed in Israel, it isn't just the fact that it goes along with the existing apartheid state of Israel where Palestinians are treated as subhumans.
It's also the fact that Palestinians are tried in these kangaroo courts, basically military courts, that have a 96% conviction rate.
And often these so-called admissions of guilt are secured under duress, under torture.
And so a lot of innocent people are going to be hanged.
And that's the whole point of the law that just passed.
That's why the terrorists within the Knesset, the Ben Gavirs, the Basil El Smotriches, they were celebrating specifically because of the fact that they know that they're going to have some legal path to justify the slaughter of more innocent Palestinian individuals.
That's what's going on.
And can we just have Aaron say one last thing?
Because Aaron's reporting on what happened to a toddler, a Palestinian toddler, who was detained alongside his father in central Gaza is something that people really need to know about.
Aaron, can you just briefly talk about that?
Because I want people to know about what's going on.
Hannah, you're giving me too much credit because I haven't really done anything on this, but I do know the basic fact that there was a toddler seized in central Gaza along with his father, and he came back with burn marks.
And the doctor said, the last report I saw about this, sorry, the last thing I said was that that had been, that had was erroneous, that reporting, and it was denied.
And then the verified reporting came back, I think, that it was not true.
Okay, well, I haven't seen that.
We'll look into it.
My understanding is.
Israel slaughtered thousands of Palestinian children.
The Washington Post actually.
But we're moving into a different list of shape.
This is totally different.
I wish you guys cared this much.
I don't want to move into other more general arguments about it.
I don't care.
They're getting slaughtered right now.
Right now, right now, right now.
Because of what you want.
You're disgusting.
I don't get crazy.
It shouldn't be mandatory that in the last three minutes of every uncensored debate a member of the young Turks team comes on.
You all lose your shit.
How can I not?
Well, it is possible to end on a more civilized manner and just accept it's really difficult.
Well, you have different opinions.
You know?
That's why I get what you're different.
We should never lose our innocence in civility when we debate things.
Because that way.
Anyway, it's always good to have you.
Thank you to my panel.
I appreciate it.
And to Alika, who apparently was tech issues.
Well, joining me now is the Palestinian political leader, Dr. Mustafa Alghouti.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
I just want to read what you published on X. You said the Israeli Knesset's approval of a law allowing the execution of Palestinian prisoners is a racist, fascist, and dangerous escalation that directly threatens thousands of Palestinian detainees and further entrenches Israel's apartheid system and policy of collective punishment.
And that comes along with Amnesty International, who said the law creates a dual legal system because Palestinians in the West Bank face a death penalty as a default in military courts.
Well, Israeli settlers in the same territory are tried in civilian courts, where the penalty is discretionary and harder to apply.
So there is a two-tier legal system clearly being established here.
What is your response to this?
Well, exactly.
Two different systems of laws for two people living on the same land is apartheid.
That's how you classify and identify apartheid.
But it is a much worse apartheid than the one that prevailed in South Africa.
Even in the worst time of South African apartheid system, nobody dared to say that if a black man kills a white man, he will be executed.
But if a white man kills a black man, he will not be judged.
That's exactly what this Israeli law says.
It's first of all, it's illegal by international law because Israel has no jurisdiction over occupied territories, as international law says.
Second, it is legalizing what is already going on of executing Palestinians.
You know, since October 7th, in Israeli jails in the West Bank and in Israel, 90 Palestinian detainees have already been killed, either by torture, either by starvation, or by deprivation of medical treatment.
And more than that, to prove that it is a system of discrimination, there are two very interesting figures.
99% of Palestinian cases taken to Israeli courts are convicted.
99%.
While 96% of any Israelis attacking Palestinians or conducting violence will never be convicted.
As a matter of fact, out of 10,000 cases of Israeli terrorists, settlers, gangs attacking Palestinians, out of 10,000 cases, only eight were convicted.
So clearly, this is a system of discrimination.
But more than that, I said that this law shows how far and how fast the Israeli establishment has gone in the direction of fascism.
Imagine, not only they pass such a terrible law, which is considered a war crime by international community, but more than that, they are celebrating it, drinking drinks, celebrating the passage of the law, and putting on their chests men and women, Israeli members of the parliament, putting on their chests, whether they are men or women, symbols and pins of hanged men's knots.
The rope that they will use to hang Palestinians.
It was disgusting.
Totally.
And more than that, is that the Israeli, that Israel that some Western governments say it's the only democracy in the Middle East?
Is this democracy?
Well, it's not democracy.
I think when you have a two-tier legal system, that is not democracy.
You know, I live in an actual democracy here in the UK, and everybody is treated the same way under the law.
There is no two-tier law.
If there was a law brought in specifically for one ethnic group that didn't apply to others, all hell would break loose.
And yet this seems to have been widely accepted and applauded by most of the Israeli population, according to the polls I've seen.
And that's what worries me more than anything else.
It's not just the Israeli government that has moved towards fascism.
It's not just the Israeli governing establishment, including two-thirds of the Israeli members of the Knesset, the Israeli Jewish members of the Knesset, but it's the whole society.
90% of the society supports the war now.
And the vast majority support such a terrible law.
That is dangerous.
If I was an Israeli, I would worry very much because this fascism will not only hurt Palestinians and kill Palestinians as they are doing, it will eat up the Israel from within.
And that's why some people in Israel are protesting, because fascism is never good for anybody.
And this fascism would not have grown so fast and so big if it wasn't for the world's abstention from establishing sanctions on Israel, for committing genocide, for committing collective punishment and starvation against the people of Gaza, for allowing Israeli terrorist gangs to move around and attack every day 10 to 12 communities, burning houses, burning cars, shooting people.
That's the result of the weakness of the international community and the absence of sanctions on Israel.
Piers Morgan Censored00:00:31
Mustafa Barghuti, always good to have you on our sensor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
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