Full Comment - Israel is invading Rafah regardless of what Trudeau says

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00:01:40.440 When Hamas struck Israel with their deadly and barbaric terrorist attacks on October 7th,

00:01:45.320 there was an outcry of support from around the world. Even countries that didn't normally back

00:01:49.720 the Jewish state offered condolences to absolutely back them in what they planned to do. But since

00:01:56.600 then, things have changed. Many nations have backed away. And of course, there has been the outpouring

00:02:02.040 of support for the Hamas side in this. We're not seeing pro-Palestinian marches in the streets of

00:02:08.360 Toronto or Vancouver or elsewhere. We're seeing pro-Hamas demonstrations. And that is what I myself have 0.99

00:02:14.040 seen. Like, on October 9th, just days after the attack.

00:02:17.480 Israel, a terrorist state! Israel, a terrorist state! Israel, a terrorist state! Israel, a terrorist state! 0.99

00:02:29.160 Well, today on the Full Comment podcast, we're going to look at how Israel is defending itself,

00:02:34.040 not in the war effort, but on the media front, in getting its story out there. Elon Levy has become

00:02:40.440 the face of Israel to the English-speaking international media since shortly after October 7th.

00:02:46.360 He's popped up on TV stations around the world. He's done radio interviews, print interviews,

00:02:52.120 and has become the person to go to for what is happening. And he agreed to take some time to speak

00:02:59.320 with us. Elon, thanks for the time today. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

00:03:03.720 You were a spokesperson in the Israeli government before, but in a much different role. What has it

00:03:13.000 been like over the past several months having to be the name, the face, the voice that defends Israel

00:03:19.640 to the international English-speaking media? It's actually my first time as a government spokesman.

00:03:25.800 I was President Herzog's international media advisor for the first two years of his presidency. But in

00:03:32.040 Israel, the president is the equivalent of the king or the governor general in Canada. He plays 0.77

00:03:37.960 a largely ceremonial role, a very different branch of government from the executive. And when the

00:03:44.040 October 7 massacre happened, I was a private citizen, not involved either with the president or with the

00:03:50.040 government of Israel. And such was the chaos in the first week of the war. Such was the civilian

00:03:56.280 mobilization when everyone scrambled to do whatever they could, understanding that we had to win this

00:04:02.520 war and bring back the hostages that in a week I found myself putting on a suit and tie. I've taken 0.99

00:04:08.920 it off because it's late here in Tel Aviv and running and suddenly getting recruited as a spokesman for the

00:04:15.560 government. Yesterday, I crossed a rather grim milestone. I've now given as many international media

00:04:22.040 interviews as hostages. Hamas took on October 7th, one for every 253 hostages. And it's been a roller

00:04:30.840 coaster. It is not easy to make the case for Israel because the media battle is not an even playing

00:04:38.040 ground I have against me. That's what I wanted to ask you because on October 7th, and at least for the

00:04:47.080 first few days after, there was a lot of sympathy for Israel. Although I can tell you here in the

00:04:51.880 streets of Toronto, I witnessed the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas protests come out immediately. I think

00:04:59.800 October 9th was the first major one that I saw. But what was the shift like in terms of both media,

00:05:08.280 but also countries? Because some countries, like Canada, started backing away.

00:05:13.080 Yeah, we had sympathy. But the massacre also set off a wave of jubilation and celebration

00:05:19.640 around the world as the anti-Semites wriggled out of their holds like termites out of woodwork. And

00:05:25.640 it's been really horrific to see how that massacre gave people excitement. And that excitement has morphed

00:05:32.600 into the protests we're seeing around the world that have been calling on Israel to essentially abandon

00:05:38.040 the hostages and leave Hamas in place after the October 7 massacre. And people are forgetting about

00:05:44.200 the massacre. I can't tell you how many interviews I've given where I'm waiting to go on air for 10

00:05:49.800 minutes. And there isn't a single mention of the fact that on October 7th, Hamas brutally massacred

00:05:57.080 1,200 people. It incinerated families alive. It committed barbaric acts of gang rape. And that's the

00:06:03.880 reason that we are in this war. We're in this war because Hamas invaded Israel by air, land and sea,

00:06:10.360 sending in death squads to murder as many people as possible, as brutally as possible. Now, for us,

00:06:16.840 it's been very clear from day one why we are fighting. We are fighting to bring the Hamas terror regime to 0.98

00:06:21.640 justice so it can never perpetrate an atrocity like that, as it tells us it wants to do again and again,

00:06:28.040 to bring back the hostages. And to us, it's obvious that we are fighting for humanity on the front lines

00:06:34.040 of humanity. And that anything short of a total Israeli victory, anything that would leave Hamas 0.97

00:06:39.960 on its feet, would be a terrible danger to the whole free world. Because the message it would send

00:06:45.400 to terrorists is you can perpetrate brutal atrocities, hide behind civilians and get away with it. So I think

00:06:52.440 we feel disappointed. We feel disappointed that certain friends and allies haven't been more

00:06:59.000 full-throated in their support of our right and obligation to defend our people. You know,

00:07:05.240 I saw, for example, the Prime Minister of Canada giving a joint statement with the Prime Ministers of

00:07:10.840 Australia and New Zealand, in which they said that Hamas must lay down its arms, release the hostages,

00:07:17.720 and there is no room for it in a post-war Gaza. But the question then is who is going to make Hamas

00:07:24.840 lay down its arms? Because it doesn't want to surrender. The option of surrender has been on

00:07:29.320 the table since the beginning, and it wants to continue fighting down to the last person. So that's

00:07:35.480 why we find ourselves having to fight to destroy Hamas, because otherwise it will do this again,

00:07:40.040 as it tells us it wants to do again and again. And we really would prefer to have more international

00:07:45.960 support as we do that. I'll ask you specifically about Justin Trudeau because there was that famous

00:07:51.240 statement and then a Twitter thread from Prime Minister Netanyahu. But I want to play a quick

00:07:58.040 clip first. And this was the one I think you told me when I mentioned Tel Aviv that this is the one that

00:08:04.680 turned you into a meme because the look on your face when you heard the woman say that obviously Israel

00:08:12.680 doesn't value the lives of Palestinian hostages because you were giving up three of them for

00:08:17.160 every one Israeli hostage you were getting back, or sorry, Palestinian prisoners. We're going to play 1.00

00:08:23.640 that clip so people can see and hear it. And then I want to ask you about that kind of media pushback.

00:08:29.160 I was speaking to a hostage negotiator this morning. He made the comparison between the 50

00:08:34.200 hostages that Hamas has promised to release as opposed to the 150 prisoners that are Palestinians

00:08:43.480 that Israel has said that it will release. And he made the comparison between the numbers and the fact

00:08:49.400 that does Israel not think that Palestinian lives are valued as highly as Israeli lives.

00:08:55.320 That is an astonishing accusation.

00:08:59.880 So, I mean, your eyes there, the look of horror on your face was quite something. You could hear the

00:09:08.200 disdain in your voice. But is that a common element with your media interviews?

00:09:14.840 Oh, absolutely. But the reason that that moment struck a nerve inside Israel and made me a celebrity in

00:09:22.200 this country overnight was that it reflected the common feeling that sometimes it doesn't matter

00:09:28.600 what we do. It doesn't matter what we say. People are always going to twist it against us and use

00:09:34.600 even the evidence of our morality to bash us with. The fact that we are willing to put three violent

00:09:41.880 criminals back on the street to get every one stolen child back somehow is evidence that we are the

00:09:49.000 immoral ones. And that's a pattern that we're finding all the time in the international media

00:09:54.440 and from international institutions, that it doesn't matter what Israel does. It's always in the wrong. 0.87

00:10:00.520 Hamas is trying to use civilians as human shields. It built a tunnel network one and a half times the

00:10:07.080 length of the London underground with tunnel shafts poking out under schools, hospitals and mosques. Now,

00:10:13.560 we want to get to those military targets. So we want civilians to get out of the way. That is what

00:10:18.840 a responsible law abiding army does. It gives civilians time to evacuate a war zone where terrorists are

00:10:26.680 trying to use them as human shields. And instead, we have a chorus of an alphabet soup of UN agencies

00:10:33.400 accusing Israel of forcible displacement for doing what it is supposed to do under international law and

00:10:40.040 give civilians warning in order to evacuate areas that are going to get dangerous because terrorists are

00:10:45.960 trying to hide behind them. And that's one of the immensely frustrating things, being a spokesman

00:10:51.640 for Israel, that sometimes it really does not matter what we do or say. People are going to perform

00:10:57.880 all sorts of intellectual somersaults to make us out to be the bad guys when we are simply exercising

00:11:04.440 our natural, inherent, inalienable right and duty to defend our people in the wake of the bloodiest massacre

00:11:11.640 of Jews since the Holocaust and the deadliest terror attack in world history after 9-11.

00:11:17.320 It was back in November, I think it was about five, six weeks after October 7th, when Justin Trudeau

00:11:24.920 made his impassioned, you know, he went full drama teacher mode and made his impassioned speech for

00:11:31.240 Israel to stop killing babies and that going after a hospital is wrong. I mean, we knew the hospital 0.69

00:11:38.280 bombing story was a hoax by then. And he should have known that the El Shifa hospital, which was under siege

00:11:44.280 then, had become a Hamas headquarters, which has since been proven. There are whole areas of the

00:11:50.200 hospital that no one could go. So the response from Netanyahu was swift. And I know sometimes

00:11:55.960 Canadians will think, well, we don't matter on the international stage, especially now under Trudeau.

00:12:00.760 But when I made a background briefing in Jerusalem with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials,

00:12:06.760 and they said that Canada does matter. And of course, Canada has the fourth largest Jewish population in

00:12:13.080 the world after Israel, the US and France. So it should matter. So what was the reaction like? I mean,

00:12:20.520 are people sadly disappointed with Canada, or at least with Prime Minister Trudeau?

00:12:25.400 Of course Canada matters. It's a prosperous liberal democracy which has historically stood by Israel's

00:12:33.320 side. And we know that we're defending ourselves against bloodthirsty terrorists who would have no

00:12:38.520 compunctions about exercising the same sort of violence on the streets of Canada, and that terrorists

00:12:44.920 will emerge emboldened and encouraged if Hamas survives this war and we don't finish the job. 0.84

00:12:51.640 And so we expect all of our allies, especially the liberal democracies, to understand that we are

00:12:58.680 doing exactly what they would do in similar circumstances if, God forbid, their people were

00:13:04.920 subjected to such barbaric atrocities. And let's remember it was in 2014 that 86 nations banded together

00:13:14.200 to destroy ISIS. They said, we can't destroy an idea, but we can remove it from power. And

00:13:21.240 the Islamic State should not control vast swathes of territory in Iraq and in Syria in order to

00:13:28.280 perpetrate attacks against the rest of the world. And by the time that that alliance of 86 nations was done

00:13:35.880 with Raqqa and with Mosul rooting out ISIS, those cities looked a lot like what Gaza looks like today. 0.86

00:13:43.080 And you were fighting not against an enemy that was firing rockets at Canadian cities,

00:13:50.120 and not against an enemy that was holding 253 Canadians hostage, and not against an enemy that

00:13:56.200 had spent 16 years embedding itself deliberately under civilian facilities in a sick strategy to

00:14:04.120 try to render its sites immune from attack. And so we know that other countries that have

00:14:10.280 participated in counter-terrorism wars understand how difficult that is and understand the unique

00:14:16.680 challenge that Israel is facing in an open battlefield that no country in the world has

00:14:22.040 ever had ever had to deal with. And we would expect more solidarity and understanding from our allies.

00:14:28.200 But know that we don't target civilians. That know that the only reason, tragically,

00:14:33.560 heartbreakingly, that people have been killed since October 7th is that Hamas launched a war.

00:14:40.440 And Hamas decided to fight that war from fortifications underneath urban areas. And that no one else needs to be 0.92

00:14:47.800 hurt if Hamas surrenders, releases the hostages, lays down its arms, and turns over its war criminals.

00:14:54.840 And that is the message that we expect to hear from our allies. The best and swiftest way to bring this

00:15:01.320 war to a conclusion is to pressure Hamas to surrender. Because a terrorist army that burns whole families alive

00:15:10.600 should not emerge unscathed, and it certainly should not do so, thinking it has the support of the

00:15:16.520 international community and of liberal democracies. Well, I'm glad that you remember that Canada

00:15:21.640 started as part of that coalition against ISIS. But sadly, under Justin Trudeau, we withdrew our planes.

00:15:28.600 We became a non-active part of that alliance. And maybe that's a sign of why he is the way he is

00:15:38.600 when it comes to Israel. He seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth. There was a lot of

00:15:42.840 eye-rolling that I'm not used to when I said I was from Canada. People would roll their eyes about Trudeau.

00:15:50.680 I don't know specifically about the prime minister, and I don't want to

00:15:54.920 try to analyze his positions, and that's not for me to do so. But I certainly understand

00:15:59.960 why people in Canada would take a very different perspective from people in Israel. Because Canada is

00:16:07.240 vast. It's enormous. It's surrounded on either side by vast ocean, in the north by the Arctic,

00:16:13.880 and in the south by the greatest superpower in the world, its close ally, the United States. And Israel

00:16:19.640 is not that. Tel Aviv is only an hour's drive away from Gaza. If you take out the West Bank, Israel is only 0.77

00:16:30.280 nine miles wide at its narrowest. It's nothing. We have a very different sense of proportion and scale and

00:16:36.760 how close the threat is. The threat is not all the way on the other side of the world. It is literally our

00:16:42.200 backyard. And therefore, the reason that we have to finish off Hamas is because we don't have a room for 0.96

00:16:47.800 maneuver. It's not like we can leave Hamas in place and then retreat to vast prairies surrounded by ocean, the 0.93

00:16:55.320 United States and the Arctic. We have to live in this region. And we need this region to be safe for

00:17:01.560 the liberal democracy that we are trying to sustain and maintain here. And our civilians who were brutally

00:17:08.360 slaughtered and abducted on October 7th cannot go back to homes that are only meters away from the

00:17:14.920 Gaza Strip, as long as the Hamas terror regime is their neighbor. And that's why if it won't lay down 0.98

00:17:21.000 its arms as Canada, Australia and New Zealand have politely asked it to do, we are going to have to

00:17:27.480 force it to do so because we have no choice. We'll take a quick break here, Ilan. And when we come back,

00:17:35.640 I want to ask you about UNRWA and about the war. Is Israel making progress? More with Ilan Levy when we

00:17:43.560 come back. UNRWA, of course, has been exposed through all of this. And Ilan is one of the most

00:17:51.160 amazing things. You know, I've been writing about UNRWA for a decade or more, saying that we shouldn't

00:17:57.160 be funding them. I pushed back against the Trudeau government when they reinstated UNRWA funding,

00:18:02.200 saying, oh, we have special assurances. Don't worry. But it was fascinating when I was in Israel to hear

00:18:09.480 from everyone how much UNRWA was a part of the problem and a bigger part than I even understood.

00:18:16.360 The fact that Hamas had a data center under the UNRWA headquarters and the head of this organization 0.80

00:18:24.360 says, we didn't know, just shows that, you know, it's either lying or sustained willful ignorance.

00:18:34.920 Where would you come down? Oh, they're lying. They're lying when they say that they only heard

00:18:41.880 about this from the media because Mr. Lazzarini was invited by Israeli authorities to tour the

00:18:48.440 Hamas sova farm underneath the UNRWA compound in Gaza City. And he ignored that letter. UNRWA is a 0.69

00:18:56.120 Hamas front. It's a Hamas front because it is an agency that exists to perpetuate the Palestinians' 1.00

00:19:03.240 demands to resettle in Israel as if they're still refugees from a war nearly 80 years ago.

00:19:08.840 It's a Hamas front because of the way that its schools indoctrinate Palestinian children. It's a 0.98

00:19:15.080 Hamas front because it hires terrorists, terrorists who took part in the October 7 massacre, because it 0.78

00:19:22.040 allows Hamas to build tunnels inside its schools and its facilities. And it is absolutely part of the 0.97

00:19:29.000 problem. Now, UNRWA says that it is investigating these allegations. But just 10 years ago, and this

00:19:36.600 is something the New York Times reported today, when UNRWA tried to investigate suspicions that some of its

00:19:44.760 members were implicated with Hamas, its legal officer in Gaza received death threats. He received the

00:19:52.520 delivery of a funeral bouquet at the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, and then he was sent a live grenade with the

00:20:00.440 pin inside it. And UNRWA had to evacuate him from Gaza to Jerusalem for his own safety. UNRWA had to

00:20:08.840 evacuate another Gaza director after he made the mistake on TV of saying that Israeli airstrikes were actually

00:20:17.160 very precise. So, look, it's quite possible that UNRWA didn't know that there was this vast server

00:20:25.160 farm underneath its headquarters. Actually, no, of course it did. Running off their electricity.

00:20:31.480 Exactly. Exactly. Because the UNRWA, the Hamas data farm in the basement, was leeching electricity 0.99

00:20:42.120 from the UNRWA facility above ground. Do you think they never checked their electricity bill,

00:20:47.800 or did they simply pass it on to Canada to pay? And the Wall Street Journal had a very telling quote

00:20:53.640 just this week about how in 2014, part of the parking lot of the UNRWA compound began to sink,

00:21:01.880 probably because of Hamas tunnels. And it says, it quotes a senior official there who says,

00:21:06.440 everyone knew why, but no one said it out loud. Now look, maybe, maybe you want to claim that UNRWA

00:21:15.080 didn't know how many of its members, how many of its staff were Hamas members, but it needs to be

00:21:21.560 honest that the reason it was never able to get to the bottom of that is that whenever someone tried

00:21:26.600 to investigate it, they received death threats and were hounded out of Gaza. And so it's covering up

00:21:32.840 for Hamas, and it's covering up the fact that it's covering up for Hamas. And so it's not surprising

00:21:39.000 that Philippe Lazzarini, his allegations and accusations against Israel have become increasingly

00:21:45.640 hysterical as he needs to cover up the mounting evidence of how his organization has been complicit

00:21:53.400 with, collaborating with, and in cahoots with the terrorist organization that perpetrated the October 7

00:22:00.760 massacre using money very kindly donated by the Canadian taxpayer.

00:22:06.600 The regular claims that, okay, well, we've paused funding for UNRWA. Unfortunately,

00:22:14.120 Canada sent advance payments and then hit the pause button. But we hear, well, aid needs to get in

00:22:20.760 through other agencies then. And Israel is throttling the aid. Aid can't get through. I can't tell you the

00:22:28.440 number of times I've seen the truck counts. And it's massive. Aid is being delivered. And just like

00:22:34.840 prior to the war, it is often being stolen by Hamas. So we give food, fuel, all these things to 0.90

00:22:43.480 the Palestinian people so that they can survive in the war. And Hamas takes them. 0.99

00:22:47.640 You asked me about the challenges of being an Israeli spokesman. I go on TV. I present facts.

00:22:55.800 I have the Palestinians, the United Nations, and a whole alphabet soup of human rights organizations

00:23:01.160 calling me a liar. And so the media end up going with the louder, stronger voice. Here are the facts.

00:23:06.760 Israel has placed no restrictions on the amount of food, water, medical equipment, or shelter

00:23:12.600 equipment that can enter the Gaza Strip. We have excess capacity at the Israeli crossings to more

00:23:18.600 than double the amount of aid if countries want to send it. The problem is the UN agencies on the

00:23:24.440 ground are struggling to distribute aid at the pace Israel is facilitating it. That's why the UN has asked

00:23:30.120 us to close the crossing on Saturdays because they still have to clear the backlog. And the reason is

00:23:37.480 that UNRWA is not an aid agency. Most of its staff are teachers. It doesn't have the experience of doing

00:23:44.920 disaster relief in emergency zones like other UN agencies. It's failing to distribute aid and it is

00:23:52.440 deflecting blame onto Israel to cover up for its own failure because the easiest thing in the world is to 0.77

00:23:58.680 scapegoat Israel. And it's worse than that. Because we know that up to 60% of the aid that is entering 0.67

00:24:05.240 Gaza is being hijacked by Hamas. And the videos of Hamas gunmen on top of aid trucks in Gaza have been

00:24:12.760 widely circulating online. Everyone in Gaza knows it. That's why you see civilians trying to loot aid trucks

00:24:19.720 because they know Hamas is going to steal the aid. And the agencies that are supposed to look out for 0.91

00:24:25.160 them are doing nothing about it. And we think it's really heartbreaking that as we are going after

00:24:31.720 the monsters who perpetrated the October 7 massacre, civilians in Gaza have been abandoned to aid agencies

00:24:38.280 that are complicit with Hamas. We think they should get the aid they need without Hamas being able to steal it. 0.86

00:24:45.400 And that's why it's time to dismantle UNRWA, to stop funding it, not only because it covers up for

00:24:51.720 terrorists, not only because it indoctrinates Palestinian children, but because it is turning 0.99

00:24:57.240 a blind eye to Hamas stealing aid. And there are other UN agencies in the world that distribute aid.

00:25:03.560 It's not like UNRWA is distributing aid in the Congo and every other disaster zone in the world.

00:25:08.600 The UN knows how to distribute aid. UNICEF, World Food Programme, etc., etc. It's time to activate

00:25:14.840 them in Gaza and ditch the aid organization, the organization that is a front for Hamas,

00:25:21.880 and has literally been covering up for Hamas, literally as in its headquarters are literally

00:25:26.760 20 meters above the nerve center of Hamas's intelligence facilities and the soha farm that 0.94

00:25:33.880 it kept underneath UNRWA's headquarters leeching electricity from UNRWA's headquarters using

00:25:39.880 the money that it received from well-meaning governments that think that they're supporting

00:25:44.520 humanitarian causes when they're simply sending electricity straight into the intelligence

00:25:49.880 infrastructure that perpetrated the October 7 massacre. I remember speaking to a retired IDF

00:25:57.160 officer who had been active in Gaza and they kept saying, well, we need more electricity and we need

00:26:05.560 more water. Well, why? And it's because everyone wanted them to turn a blind eye to the fact that

00:26:11.880 it was being pilfered by Hamas. But then I want to ask you about the journalists, because we hear journalists

00:26:18.440 killed and journalists attacked. And then we keep finding out that, well, they were riding with

00:26:24.840 Hamas soldiers or they were active. It was just a report about one of the Al Jazeera reporters. He's

00:26:34.680 active in an artillery brigade of Hamas. How many of these journalists have been uncovered?

00:26:41.320 They're legion. There's a famous list from the International Committee for the Protection of

00:26:48.520 Journalists that talks about the number of journalists killed. Just do control F and look 0.96

00:26:55.880 how many are working for Hamas-affiliated media. These are not journalists. These are Hamas content 0.62

00:27:03.080 creators. These are paid-up members of the Hamas propaganda unit. And that's not to mention the others

00:27:09.960 who aren't officially working for Hamas media, but have also been engaging in terrorist activities.

00:27:16.920 And I think some people around the world find it difficult to understand that some people in Gaza

00:27:22.600 will wear a press vest, but they're terrorists. Some people in Gaza will pass themselves off as

00:27:28.920 doctors, but they're members of the Israeldin al-Kassan brigades. That was the case in the Kamal Adwan

00:27:34.680 Hospital, where the director of the hospital admitted in interrogation that he had been recruited to Hamas

00:27:41.240 at the rank of Brigadier General. And there were over a dozen staff in the hospital who were paid-up

00:27:46.840 members of the Hamas military wing. Okay, so hiding in hospitals, hiding in schools, where are the cries

00:27:53.320 that Hamas is committing war crimes? Because I perpetually, constantly hear that Israel is

00:28:00.040 conducting war crimes. Where are the cries that Hamas is doing that?

00:28:03.400 None. None. And that is why our situation in the field of international public opinion is,

00:28:11.480 let me put it diplomatically, facing challenges. Because when the director of the World Health

00:28:16.680 Organization cannot bring himself to condemn Hamas for militarizing hospitals and converting hospitals 0.53

00:28:24.120 into military bases, he gives the impression that Israel is what, taking pot shops at hospitals for fun,

00:28:30.520 when the reality is that we are conducting targeted raids against terrorists who are

00:28:34.520 trying to hide in hospitals. And international law does not give you immunity as a terrorist just because

00:28:40.520 you are hiding in the basement of a hospital. International law is very clear that exploiting protected

00:28:47.240 facilities for military purposes can void their protected status. Unfortunately,

00:28:53.960 too many actors around the world have picked a side in this war. And it's not the side of the victims of

00:29:03.320 the October 7 massacre. When they fail to condemn Hamas's human shield strategy, they make themselves 0.90

00:29:11.560 complicit with Hamas's human shield strategy. They tell terrorists that if they hide behind enough civilians,

00:29:18.520 the world will swoop in to save them. And democratic countries have no right to defend themselves against

00:29:25.080 their atrocities. And to that extent, some of them have blood on their hands.

00:29:30.520 I want to end by asking you, I know that you're not a spokesman for the IDF, a spokesman for the

00:29:39.160 government. The government does, the IDF does report to the government. And you're also someone living through

00:29:45.080 all of this. How is the war going? Closing in on 600 soldiers dead, I believe. And it was a horrible day where more than

00:29:55.080 20 died while I was visiting when I was in Tel Aviv. Is the war going to come to an end shortly?

00:30:04.520 Is there a chance that as they get close to the southern end towards Rafa that Hamas will be taken out of power?

00:30:13.560 There's a misleading impression I see sometimes in the international media that this campaign is

00:30:20.200 failing to achieve its objectives. And the fact that we still have 136 hostages trapped in the

00:30:27.160 Hamas terror dungeons is a source of intense pain and frustration for all of us. But in terms of

00:30:33.080 destroying Hamas, the campaign has far exceeded expectations. Hamas started this war with 24 battalions.

00:30:40.360 We've now shattered 18 of them. It means there are men who are still fighting, but they're not

00:30:47.240 organized in a unified command structure like they were at the start. 18 Hamas battalions have been

00:30:53.000 smashed. Another two are on their last legs in Khan Yunis, and that leaves four in Rafa. The reason that

00:30:59.800 we are approaching a ground offensive in Rafa is that we've managed to dismantle the whole of Hamas's 1.00

00:31:05.640 military machine all the way through the Gaza Strip, right until the area of the border with Egypt.

00:31:11.480 We have killed about 12,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. We have killed, wounded or apprehended

00:31:19.640 over half of Hamas's fighting force. Its military machine is collapsing. And so we're going to be very

00:31:27.480 close to the stage of destroying Hamas and then ensuring demilitarization. And that's going to be 0.66

00:31:33.880 a challenge to make sure that they can't regroup and rebuild themselves. And that is where we will need

00:31:39.640 also support from the international community that must understand that if the destruction of Hamas

00:31:47.480 is followed by Hamas re-arming with an appetite for vengeance, the next October 7 massacre is only 0.55

00:31:55.800 going to be around the corner. And we have to make sure that the Gaza Strip is never again going to pose 0.94

00:32:01.880 a threat to the people of Israel, not as it was on October 7th, and not as it was over the previous

00:32:07.720 20 years of rocket fire. Rocket fire when in Tel Aviv we had a minute and a half to run for shelter,

00:32:14.520 that the people in the villages that were cleansed on October 7th had five, ten seconds to run for

00:32:22.440 shelter. We somehow treated that as normal because the world didn't want us to finish the job. But

00:32:29.480 we're going to finish the job now with Hamas doing everything we can to try to keep civilians safe from 0.99

00:32:35.720 Hamas. But we're going to finish the job with Hamas because enough is enough. And we cannot allow 0.99

00:32:41.800 this terror threat by this proxy of Iran to continue to menace us on our borders any longer. 1.00

00:32:49.720 It's interesting as you get closer to that southern border at Rafa with Egypt,

00:32:56.440 there is no clamoring call for Egypt to open the gates and, you know, take in thousands of refugees.

00:33:03.800 We're about to take in a thousand people from Gaza here in Canada, which has alarmed some people I know.

00:33:10.280 But the neighboring countries, I'm not hearing about Egypt or Jordan or other neighboring countries

00:33:17.080 saying, yes, we will take in refugees from Gaza. Am I missing it or is it just not happening?

00:33:21.880 No, I think the people of Gaza have been really let down and abandoned by people they thought were

00:33:31.240 their friends who seem to be suggesting that they don't have a right of asylum from a war zone where

00:33:39.000 terrorists are trying to use them as human shields. Our policy throughout the war has been that we should

00:33:44.920 evacuate them to safe zones inside the Gaza Strip. And it's important to emphasize that point. 0.99

00:33:52.840 On every occasion that the Israeli army has moved forward on a ground offensive, our troops have

00:33:58.200 secured humanitarian corridors for people to get out of the way and remain in Gaza, in areas where

00:34:04.680 terrorists cannot use them as human shields. They were let down, unfortunately, by the aid agencies that

00:34:12.600 have been resisting our efforts to get civilians to safe zones and have been funneling them into Hamas 0.96

00:34:20.360 strongholds instead. Ask yourself, why are one and a half million Gazans reportedly now in Rafah instead of the

00:34:28.440 safe zone that we designated at the start of the war? Because the foreign international aid agencies funneled

00:34:35.880 them into Hamas strongholds, where Hamas can use them as human shields. And we think they deserve much 1.00

00:34:42.280 better. And we think that the foreign aid agencies now have a choice to make, really, as we advance on

00:34:49.880 the last four Hamas battalions in Rafah. Do they want to save Hamas or save Palestinian civilians? Do they

00:34:58.120 want to resist our efforts to evacuate civilians to safety? Or do they want to work with us to get

00:35:04.600 civilians to places where Hamas cannot use them as human shields? And if they decide to resist our efforts to

00:35:12.040 get civilians to safety and to keep them in a Hamas stronghold where Hamas is using them as human 0.80

00:35:17.640 shields, then the suffering will be unnecessarily and tragically high. And that can still be avoided.

00:35:26.520 That decision rests with Hamas, whether it's going to surrender. And on the international community,

00:35:31.000 whether it is going to help civilians get to safety or try to keep them in a Hamas stronghold and play 0.52

00:35:36.440 along with Hamas is sick human shield strategy. Unreal. As you said at the start, you have a 0.96

00:35:41.880 difficult job. But I'd like to thank you for taking the time to join me and explain what Israel's doing

00:35:48.680 and why and wish you all the best in the coming days and peace eventually for everyone. Yes.

00:35:56.120 A day off to Hamas. For that to happen, Hamas has to go. Thank you very much. Thank you. 0.86

00:36:00.360 You too. Full Comment is a post media podcast. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. This episode

00:36:06.520 was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall. You can listen to the Full Comment podcast on

00:36:13.000 Apple Music, on Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasts. Make sure you hit the subscribe button,

00:36:18.680 leave a rating or a review for us, and make sure you tell your friends about us. Thanks for listening.

00:36:24.440 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

Full Comment - February 19, 2024

Israel is invading Rafah regardless of what Trudeau says

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