Full Comment - It’s now thinkable that Carney and co. don’t want Israel to win

00:00:00.000 The first casualty of war is the truth. That's the old saying, and in the case of Israel's war

00:00:07.860 with Hamas, that saying is especially true. Hello and welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:00:12.720 My name is Brian Lilly, your host, and today we try and push back the fog of war by turning to

00:00:17.860 two experts on the subject, specifically experts in urban warfare, the kind that we're witnessing

00:00:23.580 in Gaza City right now. Colonel Richard Kemp is a retired British Army officer who served in the

00:00:28.780 Gulf War, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, and more. He's researched and written

00:00:33.620 extensively on issues surrounding war in general, but urban warfare in particular. Also joining the

00:00:39.620 program is Colonel John Spencer, a retired American Army officer who saw action in Iraq. He now studies

00:00:45.680 urban warfare and is considered one of the world's leading experts on the subject, so much so that

00:00:51.220 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited his work during his speech at the United Nations.

00:00:56.460 Colonel John Spencer, he's perhaps the world's greatest expert on urban warfare, and he says,

00:01:02.120 Israel is applying more measures to minimize civilian casualties than any military in history.

00:01:09.840 And because we're doing that, the ratio of non-combatant to combatant casualties is less

00:01:15.660 than two to one in Gaza. That's an astoundingly low ratio, lower than NATO's wars in Afghanistan

00:01:23.120 and Iraq, especially when you consider that Gaza is one of the most densely populated urban areas

00:01:29.680 on Earth. Here is my conversation with Richard Kemp and John Spencer. I hope it brings you some truth.

00:01:35.720 Well, gentlemen, let me start with the simple question, and it's one that continues to be debated,

00:01:45.240 and I know you've written on recently, John. The issue of genocide. This is the claim that is being used

00:01:53.120 over and over again to vilify Israel. You've both been there. You both have thoughts. Before we get into

00:01:59.380 details on how urban warfare is taking place, I just want to talk about that and some of the political moves,

00:02:06.540 like Canada deciding to recognize a Palestinian state. What are your thoughts on genocide?

00:02:11.780 Age before beauty, Richard. Yeah, okay, I'll speak. I think, I mean, what I would say,

00:02:20.380 maybe I'll let John speak more about the accusations of genocide against Israel. What I would say is that

00:02:27.840 the accusations of genocide should be leveled against Hamas. Hamas is the genocidal entity

00:02:35.340 in this particular conflict. They have, by the definition of their charter, which requires them

00:02:43.200 to kill not just the Jews in Israel, but Jews everywhere. By that definition, they are genocidal

00:02:50.720 terrorists. By their actions on the 7th of October, which itself was an act of genocide. By their words

00:02:58.680 since the 7th of October, in which they promised to repeat the 7th of October again and again and

00:03:05.020 again, those are genocidal words. Now, they're not going to succeed in their genocide, but they

00:03:10.520 certainly will have the best possible try they can. So they, in fact, are the genocidal players here

00:03:16.340 in every possible respect. And the accusation against Israel is simply an obscenity. I'll let John

00:03:25.620 speak perhaps more about that. Yeah, Brian, for me, you know, I'm an advocate for the law of armed

00:03:32.840 conflict, for the rule of law, for all parties in an armed conflict to adhere to the law of armed

00:03:38.800 conflict. What I'm not an advocate for is the political nature of accusations. Without actual

00:03:47.920 veracity of the claim of the three crimes in the law of armed conflict, war crimes, crimes against

00:03:54.240 humanity and genocide. Genocide being, of course, the most egregious human thing that could ever be

00:03:59.820 done. And it has very specific definitions. Words have meaning. You know, like, I don't mind as much

00:04:07.900 the useful idiots, the sheer ignorance of the man or woman on the street wearing a Hamas headband and

00:04:15.620 advocating for Hamas. But I do mind when governments joined the bandwagon, despite the case that's been

00:04:22.980 laid out against Israel, despite the reality on the ground, even if you don't go to Gaza, like Richard

00:04:29.440 and I have multiple times, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to say, okay, what's the accusation?

00:04:35.740 Or what is the what is the evidence information even because there is no evidence information that

00:04:40.980 you're using to wage this libel against Israel, like genocidal specific intent? Oh, you have these

00:04:48.580 statements. But what's the what's the full statement? What's the what does that person say that statement

00:04:53.720 means? Why do you rule out any information like in genocide? So for the intent where they might say

00:05:00.920 prime minister of Israel said, remember Amalek in the opening days after October 7, which is a very

00:05:07.380 famous term that's on the Holocaust memorial in The Hague and in Israel, which means remember those that

00:05:13.240 are rising up to destroy you. But then they won't use the speech he gives a day later saying our war

00:05:20.260 is against Hamas, not the people of Gaza. Same thing for all other statements. And then the evidence,

00:05:26.680 if they can't prove intent, is the numbers, which is just any form of lies, damn lies, statistics,

00:05:32.580 whether it's the starvation claim, which is false, and they want to rule out everything Israel has done

00:05:38.480 to feed the enemy's population, to vaccinate everybody in Gaza. All of the information is like,

00:05:44.900 it's an assault on critical thinking in my even as a not if I wasn't a war researcher, it's just an

00:05:51.920 assault on critical thinking. Like, how could you say these statements? And of course, I know that

00:05:56.900 every country that said it is is really advocating for the domestic politics position because they feel

00:06:03.620 the pressure and you need true leadership to say, this is not even in the world of reality of what's

00:06:10.000 going on in the ground. You mentioned the food situation, John. Both of you are veterans of war.

00:06:18.560 Have you ever fought in a war where you had to feed your enemy, provide them clean drinking water

00:06:23.400 and electricity? Because I don't think a lot of people know that, that Israel has been providing

00:06:31.320 the power and the water and, and then the food and then told, well, you're not giving them enough

00:06:35.580 food, you're committing genocide. I don't know how you commit genocide against a people that you

00:06:40.540 were feeding and, and, and watering. The Israelis have been facilitating, sometimes by direct

00:06:50.780 assistance, they've been facilitating significantly more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip than is

00:06:58.120 required by the population of the Gaza Strip significantly more. Um, and I think I'm right

00:07:03.980 in saying that certainly in my knowledge and my experience, this is the first time in history that

00:07:11.100 any army, any armed force or any opposing power has facilitated the delivery of aid to the enemy

00:07:19.300 population at the same time as they're fighting that enemy. Yeah, we've got examples from history of,

00:07:26.040 you know, one side wins a conflict and it provides aid in various forms to the power that it has

00:07:33.660 defeated. But never, never to my knowledge, while this conflict has been going on. But that's what

00:07:40.160 we've been seeing. Exactly. Normally you, you lay siege to a place, you cut off the access to food

00:07:47.200 and water as a way to try and get them to surrender. Here, they're actively delivering more aid than the

00:07:53.300 U.N. will pick up at times. Absolutely. And, and, and we've seen stockpiles of aid waiting inside Gaza

00:08:01.180 that have been permitted in by the IDF have been checked, searched, allowed in, and then they're

00:08:05.740 waiting. It's waiting there because the U.N. have a completely inefficient distribution system.

00:08:12.520 And the U.N. itself has admitted that the vast majority of the aid that it has brought into Gaza

00:08:19.320 has been hijacked and taken over by Hamas and used for Hamas's purposes. And of course, that's what Hamas

00:08:25.920 is trying to do with aid. Hamas aren't interested in the population being fed. In fact, they'd rather the

00:08:31.580 population weren't fed that so they can perpetrate their own lies about starvation. What Hamas want,

00:08:38.160 they want to control the population through distribution of aid, which is often sold, free aid given by

00:08:43.720 U.S. taxpayers' dollars, free aid. They want to, they want to sell that. They've been selling that

00:08:49.340 at vastly inflated prices to those that can afford it. They've been keeping their own aid. They've

00:08:55.140 been keeping a lot of the aid back for their obese terrorists that have been hiding in their tunnels.

00:09:00.820 And so they've been raising funds and controlling the population by it. And this is why, this is one of

00:09:07.300 the main reasons why they have opposed so strongly the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been the

00:09:13.740 most effective organization, a U.S. initiative supported by Israel as well, mainly made up of

00:09:19.240 former American soldiers, been distributing aid directly to the Gazans, bypassing Hamas, so Hamas

00:09:25.920 don't get control of it and don't use it to raise funds or control the population. And that's why they

00:09:31.580 oppose it. And another obscenity, I mentioned genocide as obscenity, another obscenity in this

00:09:36.760 propaganda war against Israel is that the United Nations and other NGOs or NGOs that are supposed

00:09:45.040 to be responsible for food distribution, they themselves are as strong an opposer of the Gaza

00:09:51.040 Humanitarian Fund as Hamas are. So you've got the United Nations, organizations like Amnesty

00:09:58.320 International, Human Rights Watch, various aid organizations working hand in hand with Hamas

00:10:05.920 against Israel and against Israel and against the population of Gaza.

00:10:09.880 What should listeners make of the claims that Israel has used, and I think it was specific to the aid

00:10:18.240 being distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, that they have used that as a lure to get people to show

00:10:23.840 up so they can shoot and kill them?

00:10:25.300 I mean, it's as false as all the other claims. It doesn't stand up against evidence. And it rules

00:10:36.300 out any information from anybody but Hamas. So those claims are Hamas claims, then Hamas

00:10:43.820 casualty numbers. And people won't even listen to what Israel says. Okay, fine. You think that Israel is lying,

00:10:50.180 but they won't use what the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, not Israelis, mostly American but other

00:10:56.140 country veterans who are on the ground. And no matter how many videos they say, this is not true. This is

00:11:01.400 what happened on this day. This is what happened on that day. This is how Hamas knocked a grenade into

00:11:06.280 the line with people trying to get food or whatever. It's just not true. And no matter how far they reach

00:11:13.800 for an allegation or I got you to Israel doing something wrong, they won't listen to any like

00:11:21.120 just basic information that conflicts with that Hamas information because where they're getting

00:11:27.100 the information is unequivocally from Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry. They'll put different names on

00:11:35.160 it, but most of the international organizations like UN at this point won't even name Hamas when armed

00:11:41.280 militia is grab all 90% of the aid or something. So it's another false claim with very little

00:11:48.140 evidence. Has there been chaos in the initial phases of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation? Although

00:11:53.220 if you go to people that are there now, like this week, it's a very finely run humanitarian operation

00:12:00.580 in the midst of war. And this is where people will say like, I've never seen such chaos. I'm like,

00:12:05.580 well, have you ever seen humanitarian aid delivery in war like the Somalian war when we tried to do it

00:12:10.840 in other locations? Actually, what the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation should be applauded,

00:12:15.480 should be awarded for what they're doing to feed despite Hamas and these lies like thousands of

00:12:22.220 people get shot. Like it's just not factual. I can tell you from a media perspective,

00:12:29.080 making sure that it is labeled information from Hamas is quite difficult because like every media

00:12:37.180 organization, Post Media, National Post, Toronto Sun, we all rely on wire services. Everybody,

00:12:44.240 you know, you either subscribe to AP or Reuters or, and they have just taken to putting in Gaza Health

00:12:51.920 Ministry without pointing out that that is Hamas. And so you're fighting against this misinformation

00:12:59.320 constantly or trying to correct it. It is incredibly difficult. But the food situation on the ground

00:13:08.740 now, you said it's a lot calmer now, although still chaotic because it's a war zone.

00:13:15.660 Has Hamas effectively weaponized food in this war as another front? You know, because I would say,

00:13:25.480 well, Hamas is not winning the war militarily, they appear to be winning on the PR side. They get a lot

00:13:31.460 of great PR. To me, it feels like they really weaponized this food issue to turn hearts and minds

00:13:39.760 even as they're losing in the battlefield. That's exactly what they've done. And one of the means of

00:13:46.040 doing that is, okay, it may not be a major contributor, but it certainly influences people.

00:13:53.160 And one of the means of doing that is to have made up films and Bollywood or Pallywood as it's

00:14:00.220 known is a longstanding Palestinian, particularly Hamas tradition of making up films and, you know,

00:14:10.660 getting people to pretend they're dead when they're not, getting people to be seriously wounded when

00:14:14.980 they're not, all of that sort of stuff going on on an industrial scale, actually, in Gaza,

00:14:18.920 since this war began and long before that. And you see examples, some of the most outstanding

00:14:24.820 examples in the media of famine, starvation, etc., have been proven to be people who are not starving.

00:14:34.720 They've been proven in some cases to be unfortunate children who are suffering from pre-existing

00:14:39.860 skeletal, pre-existing diseases, which give them a skeletal type appearance.

00:14:45.240 I think you're talking about the New York Times front page.

00:14:48.600 Right. The New York Times front page and many, many other front pages on the internet and in

00:14:54.380 print of the media, including the BBC, which is one of the worst offenders, I might say.

00:14:59.460 Now, if they need to do that, if they need to falsify it to that extent, that tells you something,

00:15:04.420 I think, that's quite important, which is why aren't they just using the real evidence of it,

00:15:09.380 if there is real evidence? Well, the reality is there isn't real evidence. I'm not saying there

00:15:13.700 isn't hunger in Gaza. I'm sure there is hunger in Gaza, largely brought about by Hamas. But I've

00:15:19.680 seen a lot of people in Gaza I've met. I've spoken directly to at least 100 Gazans, civilians. Not one

00:15:26.660 of them that I saw showed any sign of starvation. Yeah, some of them are a bit thinner than normal,

00:15:31.980 but that's probably actually more healthy than many people in the West are. But there was no sign

00:15:37.140 of starvation. And the people I saw were active, were moving around, were happy to be receiving for

00:15:42.340 the first ever time free aid since the war began. And that came from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

00:15:48.820 So these are just some of the examples of the way that Hamas have been manipulating, weaponizing

00:15:55.080 food and starvation against Israel. And it's been swallowed up by a gullible media and obviously

00:16:01.520 people who don't know any better who watch that media. So Brian, I'd like to come in on this because

00:16:08.740 to say that Hamas has weaponized the food that's gone into Gaza since October 7th is almost putting

00:16:15.460 it lightly. As I said in the beginning, I'm an advocate for the law of armed conflict at both sides.

00:16:20.800 But for some reason in this war, Hamas gets a pass on any atrocity they commit or any violation of the

00:16:26.600 law of armed conflict, using the hospitals, using the humanitarian zones. Where was Mohammed

00:16:31.520 death killed? Right next to the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone. Just the sheer human sacrifice

00:16:37.620 strategy that they use. The fact that the civilians aren't allowed in their tunnels. The fact that every

00:16:42.340 sack of flour, every grain of rice that's entered Gaza is under Hamas's control. They grab it and hoard

00:16:51.060 it for themselves. They tax it and have civilians sell it to other civilians. And that's how they pay their

00:16:55.780 fighters to keep fighting. I mean, it's just the hypocrisy is that the international media though

00:17:01.340 reporting only on Israel and saying everything that's awful in this war is Israel's fault. And

00:17:08.400 they don't even mention Hamas in their reporting. And you can be as objective as possible and say,

00:17:12.980 I'm not on anybody's side. Then at least report the information of like what's going in and not just

00:17:19.800 food, but water, medical services, the patients that are coming out that Israel facilitates

00:17:25.020 Gazans to go get medical aid. It's to say that it's just the Hamas weaponizes the food, everything

00:17:32.320 they do to include killing civilians who have tried to get to aid, who are actually hungry and trying to

00:17:37.840 get food for their people. And they see the whole warehouse full of sugar, flour, Nutella, you name it.

00:17:45.020 It's just hypocrisy. But their tactics have worked. And we saw that this week at the United Nations

00:17:53.040 with Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, I believe Portugal as well, all saying we're going

00:17:59.720 to recognize a Palestinian state. Without the weaponization of the food, the Paliwood that you

00:18:07.220 mentioned, Richard, without all of that, they don't get that recognition. Now they've said it's a fruit of

00:18:13.700 October 7th. In this instance, I believe Hamas, our leaders have tried to say, no, that's not the

00:18:20.660 case. This is not a reward for terrorism. I disagree on that front. But one of the things that

00:18:28.000 Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that I think is incredibly naive is that Canada's

00:18:37.000 recognition, which we've already given, is predicated on Hamas having no role in the governance of Gaza or

00:18:48.240 the Palestinian state going forward, and that they be disarmed. I think Israel is in the middle of trying

00:18:55.500 to disarm them. And, you know, they're being told to stop. Can Hamas be disarmed without a military

00:19:06.300 victory by Israel?

00:19:08.400 Well, the answer to that question is obviously no, it can't. And it won't be without the military

00:19:14.300 victory by Israel. And if Prime Minister Carney, or indeed his fellow recognizers like Prime Minister

00:19:23.700 Starmer in England, if they think that them laying down the condition for, you know, a two-state solution,

00:19:34.300 which actually is not even slightly on the cards at the moment, and probably not in the future,

00:19:40.360 if they think they can lay down a condition for that, as being that Hamas are disarmed, or Hamas

00:19:47.420 don't form any part of the government, then what levers do they have to do that? What power do they

00:19:51.960 have to do that? They have none. What they're saying is not serious statements. But in fact, recognition

00:19:58.860 of a so-called state of Palestine is not a serious thing either. And they're not doing it because they

00:20:08.640 think it is. I'm certainly I'm speaking as far as Britain's concerned and France as well. I'm sure

00:20:13.060 the same applies to Canada. What the reason that they're doing this is because of not because they

00:20:20.040 think it's going to make any difference whatsoever to anything in the Middle East, but because they're

00:20:24.620 under severe pressure from their anti-Israel electorates. And I'm not saying that there's a

00:20:29.920 majority of anti-Israel electorates in either of those three countries, but there are certainly a

00:20:34.520 significant wedge of it. Pressure from their anti-Israel electorates to take this action. And

00:20:42.040 certainly in the case of Starmer in the UK, he's in a very weak position politically, and he is

00:20:48.440 dependent on an alliance of his hard left and Islamic supporters in Parliament and in the electorate

00:20:55.640 to take this sort of action against Israel, plus his earlier action of a partial arms embargo on

00:21:02.140 Israel. So that's the reason they're doing it. It's purely political expediency on their part. And

00:21:08.180 they don't seem to recognise that not only is it going to have no effect in terms of the conflict in

00:21:16.680 the Middle East, and there isn't going to be a two-state solution, what they don't recognise is

00:21:20.100 something that's even more dangerous, which is that it is certainly a reward for terrorism, and it

00:21:25.500 certainly will encourage terrorism, and it certainly will encourage international jihadists in their own

00:21:30.900 countries. And we've got a big problem in Britain, France, as other European countries have as well,

00:21:36.360 of jihadism in our countries, which has been shown by numerous attacks in the past. These people are

00:21:41.960 still there, they're still planning attacks, and they're going to be encouraged by this craven

00:21:46.520 bowing and genuflecting to terrorists. And I would say if Israel doesn't succeed in defeating

00:21:55.220 Hamas, which I believe it will, but if it didn't succeed in that, and if Carney and Starmer and

00:22:00.980 co had their way, it wouldn't, then that is a major encouragement for terrorism everywhere.

00:22:08.420 You've both been in Gaza. How do you disarm Hamas without defeating them? The tunnels, the hidden

00:22:17.080 weapons caches. That's serious work. And what's Carney talking about? He just wants Israel to end the

00:22:26.360 war. He wants to make it sound like a Blue Beret unit going in and doing peacekeeping, like it's

00:22:33.760 walking the Green Line in Cyprus in 1964. Give me a break. Yeah, this is where I'm glad that the,

00:22:41.920 you know, I don't do politics, I'll do, I do war, which is politics by other means. I understand the

00:22:46.320 politics. I'm glad the American leadership hasn't dropped it, hasn't drank this insanity Kool-Aid.

00:22:53.420 You know, criticism is fine, and I'm all about criticism, but criticism without solutions is just

00:22:57.740 noise, and that's the point where you're at. The fact that you would say these things, but not have

00:23:02.800 any solution to getting to a point where any entity other than the IDF could survive in Gaza

00:23:09.120 at the point of Hamas's power right now, not addressing the radicalization, right? So this is the

00:23:15.240 ideal that why Hamas started October 7th has nothing to do with the two-state solution.

00:23:20.980 What even the Palestinian Authority wants Gaza for has nothing to do with living in coexistence

00:23:27.240 and to, you know, give up terrorism. All these things that all politicians before these weak leaders

00:23:35.280 have tried to address the Palestinian pursuit for a state in all of the terms of where is the border,

00:23:44.080 what are the conditions, do you recognize, do you give up terrorism? They don't want to address any

00:23:49.140 of that, and they've actually made it harder. And this is where I say there are some with blood on

00:23:54.360 their hands. And to be clear, the people who have made it harder to defeat Hamas, every one of these

00:24:01.160 statements has hardened Hamas's positions because you can win a war without killing every individual in

00:24:07.160 main opposite military. War is a contest of will. They have to lose the will to believe they can win

00:24:14.100 the war. Right now, thanks to Canada, UK, all these people, Hamas is hard in this position. Like,

00:24:20.100 oh, we have a chance here. We have a chance to win.

00:24:22.220 They walked away from the negotiating table on a ceasefire when our countries all said,

00:24:29.320 yes, we'll recognize the state. I mean, so you're absolutely right, John. They were at the table,

00:24:37.900 the Americans, Qataris, Egyptians, all trying to get them to come to a ceasefire agreement.

00:24:43.220 Oh, wait, we're going to get recognized? We don't need to be here anymore.

00:24:46.360 Well, you mentioned Egypt, and I can't go with that interview without saying every country of

00:24:52.300 the world, all of these countries, all those United Nations countries that made their useless

00:24:57.380 statements, not one of them will point out that all of the suffering, every single aspect of the

00:25:03.980 human suffering happening in Gaza because of Hamas could be alleviated tomorrow by opening the gate

00:25:09.700 to Egypt and creating a humanitarian zone just a few kilometers outside of Hamas's reaches.

00:25:15.120 But not a single one of these people mention it. Like, this is a historical. This has never

00:25:19.300 happened in war before where a single country closes this gate and puts up a new wall saying,

00:25:25.000 look, have your war, but not a single civilian. I'm not going to help a single civilian.

00:25:29.300 That's the insanity of these political statements is that there is a solution that would help

00:25:34.320 everybody get to the solution of Hamas being disarmed and removed from power. It's get them,

00:25:40.000 their human shields, their human sacrifice out of their hands, and this would go very quickly.

00:25:45.120 I don't need to say this. I was going to say John is right, but I don't need to say that because

00:25:50.500 John is, of course, always right. But the other question to add to that is why have Western countries

00:26:00.800 and why have all these mighty humanitarian organizations of the United Nations, why have

00:26:07.480 they not pressured Egypt into opening its borders? Why have they not done that? And they haven't.

00:26:14.320 All they need to do is pay. They'd pay. Egypt is in dire financial situation. Egypt could be

00:26:19.900 pressured and paid to do this, in my view. Now, I can understand in a way why Egypt doesn't want to

00:26:25.280 do it. I get Egypt's perspective on it, but I don't understand why the West won't force them to do so.

00:26:31.480 Well, I do understand it, actually, and I'm going to explain that, which is that I believe that Western

00:26:36.620 countries like the UK and like other European countries and probably Canada as well, just as

00:26:43.740 Hamas want to use guards and civilians as human shields, I believe that our countries also want to

00:26:51.500 use guards and civilians as human shields in a slightly different way as human shields against

00:26:56.900 an Israeli victory. They do not want Israel to beat Hamas. And maintaining the presence of those

00:27:04.120 civilians inside Gaza helps them in that cause. So they are happier. They would be happier, I think,

00:27:10.340 to see, although they wouldn't admit it, and they probably wouldn't even admit it themselves.

00:27:14.640 But for their own political purposes, they'd be happy to see those Gaza civilians die than seeing

00:27:20.020 them escape out of Gaza into Egypt. And you hear this talk, you hear constant talk,

00:27:25.540 Egypt isn't, Gaza is an open prison. Gaza is a concentration camp. But they say, these politicians

00:27:33.960 say, but the prisoners and the inmates in those camps must stay there. They must stay there.

00:27:38.820 They mustn't be allowed to leave. This is absolutely diabolical. And John said the words blood is on

00:27:45.040 their hands a short while ago. These people have blood on their hands, without a doubt, the blood

00:27:49.320 of both innocent Gazan civilians and also of Israeli soldiers and Israeli hostages.

00:27:55.480 All right, we need to take a quick break for a moment, a few ads. But when we come back, I do want to

00:28:00.220 talk about the offensive in Gaza City. What makes that so dangerous? Can they get the hostages back?

00:28:08.640 And I know both of you have looked at civilian casualty rates, something that most in the media

00:28:13.100 won't talk about. We'll get into that back in moments. This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada

00:28:18.480 Did What? Where we unpack the biggest, weirdest and wildest political moments in Canadian history

00:28:24.000 you thought you knew and tell you what really happened. Stick around at the end of the episode

00:28:29.220 to hear a sample of one of our favorite episodes. If you don't want to stick around, make sure you

00:28:34.460 subscribe to Canada Did What? everywhere you get podcasts. Israel's offensive into Gaza City is getting

00:28:41.200 a lot of attention now, gentlemen. And I'd like to get your thoughts. You know, I had a colleague say,

00:28:48.840 why are they just going into Gaza now? My guess is they have gone in and out of Gaza City over the

00:28:54.180 course of this war, but it is a particular offensive right now. Are they just trying to clear out

00:28:59.400 remnants of Hamas? Is that what they're trying to do at the moment, Richard? Well, I would say that

00:29:05.040 Gaza City may not be the final stronghold of Hamas, but it's certainly now, I think, the largest

00:29:10.860 concentration of Hamas terrorists inside Gaza, although I'm sure many of them have left or

00:29:16.080 tried to leave. But nevertheless, there's still a significant presence there. And of course,

00:29:20.960 without taking Gaza City, without destroying Hamas inside Gaza City, then you don't destroy

00:29:26.920 Hamas at all. So very clearly, they've got to deal with Gaza City. And that is a tough problem.

00:29:33.780 It's a tough nut to crack. And it's a tough nut to crack. It wouldn't be so tough if it wasn't for

00:29:38.380 the civilian presence there. I think there was an estimate of something like two million civilians

00:29:43.600 inside Gaza City at the beginning of the IDF operation there a couple of weeks ago. I don't

00:29:49.440 know if that's accurate or not. It's probably exaggerated, but it could be around the truth.

00:29:54.300 But the IDF, I think, are estimating now that around five, seven hundred, maybe even up to nine

00:30:02.480 hundred thousand Gazans have left Gaza City. And the IDF have been warning them by leaflet drops and

00:30:10.220 by other means, numerous other means, to get out to safety and telling them where they can go to

00:30:14.760 safety. In other words, to the south along designated routes. And a large number have been doing that.

00:30:20.280 But of course, meanwhile, Hamas have been doing their best to prevent them from getting out of Gaza City

00:30:25.780 because they want them there as human shields. They want as many guards and civilians to die

00:30:30.720 inside Gaza City as they possibly can. So that's what makes it a more difficult problem that otherwise

00:30:36.960 would have been. Another complexity, of course, is the presence there of the hostages. And I believe

00:30:41.860 the IDF, but understand that there are at least some of the hostages inside Gaza City and Hamas

00:30:48.300 themselves have said that they've threatened to kill all the hostages if Israel continues the operation.

00:30:53.960 They've also threatened to put the hostages right in front between the Hamas fighters and Israeli

00:31:00.160 attackers so that they die as well in that process. On top of all that, you then have the massive

00:31:07.940 complexity of the IDF have encountered everywhere else they've been inside Gaza, which is the massive

00:31:14.660 tunnel system underneath Gaza City. The booby traps of very many of the buildings, obviously a large number

00:31:23.020 of the buildings have been taken over by Hamas to be used for military, as military positions,

00:31:29.220 to command operations, to attack the IDF for numerous other purposes. That, of course, includes

00:31:36.860 hospitals, mosques, apartment buildings, schools, and all the rest of the stuff we've seen in Gaza City,

00:31:43.320 all of which, or many of which are going to be... All of the violations of the laws of war.

00:31:47.700 All war crimes. And in many cases, buildings booby-trapped. The booby traps concealed in the

00:31:55.700 walls, in the ceilings, in the floors, in the pavements outside, in the roads. Many of the booby traps

00:32:01.500 covered by covert cameras to enable the booby traps to be triggered when IDF soldiers approach. All of

00:32:07.980 these things. And actually, I'll just... I could go on and on about this, but I want John to say

00:32:12.720 something more wise than I am. And I would say that the booby-trapping is something that people

00:32:21.620 don't really fully understand. I've been involved in operations, particularly in Northern Ireland,

00:32:27.260 but also elsewhere, where booby traps were used extensively in urban areas. And in one case that

00:32:32.380 I recall, we had to almost completely destroy a building, which was absolutely laced with IRA booby traps.

00:32:38.800 And that, I think, explains the devastation of a lot of buildings in Gaza City, which have been hit from

00:32:45.720 the air, from the ground, using, obviously, tanks, using various different forms of explosives to blow the

00:32:54.120 buildings up. Because there's so many traps and hidden weapons within them.

00:32:59.620 There are so many booby traps. And if the IDF need to clear an area, let's say, of terrorists or of

00:33:05.200 weapons stashes or whatever, then the last thing you want to do, if you can avoid it, is send in

00:33:11.140 soldiers who are going to get killed by these booby traps. We shouldn't forget one thing that is often

00:33:17.800 forgotten, that is that an IDF soldier's life is worth no less than the life of anyone else. And also,

00:33:24.040 the IDF need to conserve their combat power, because they've got a use of fighting Hamas, they can't

00:33:29.740 afford to throw them away, just in the interest of keeping a building intact. So, you know, that's

00:33:35.560 that, I think, the huge devastation in Gaza, and what we're seeing now in Gaza City as well, is explained to an

00:33:42.660 extent by that.

00:33:43.420 So, Brian, I'd only add to that, that really good assessment is that, you said, you know, basically,

00:33:53.200 IDF have gone in, but you're right, they've, they've, they've left Gaza City pretty much untouched

00:33:59.260 outside of some very targeted raids, like Al-Shifa Hospital that Hamas was using, not once, but every

00:34:04.960 time that the IDF cleared out of the area. But this is a very concentrated, the densest area of Gaza City

00:34:12.220 that the IDF has been touched, for many reasons, especially the hostage, the hostages, but also

00:34:17.840 the complexity of the challenge that it would take to enter a city of this density. And from the

00:34:23.880 beginning of the war, I've kind of been like the urban warfare guy, with all these case studies of

00:34:28.360 every urban battle that's come before going, stop comparing the Gaza war to a single battle. There's so

00:34:35.400 many nuances, but in Gaza City, so the battle of Gaza City that we're seeing now, there is no parallel

00:34:41.400 where an enemy has prepared the environment for 20 years. All the other meeting, you know, basically

00:34:48.120 major urban battles of history are very short amount of time that the defenders got, you know,

00:34:53.020 from Stalingrad to Aachen to the biggest war battle since World War II, the battle of Mosul, where the

00:35:00.140 enemy had two years to prepare it. They didn't have 20 years. So just the difficulty of the task,

00:35:06.020 but the hostages present, and Richard Wright, Hamas has actually moved hostages into Gaza City

00:35:11.440 to use them as shields. Hamas has actually put out written guidance because the biggest challenge,

00:35:16.940 and I agree with Richard, in any urban warfare is the presence of civilians because once you enter

00:35:22.480 the urban environment, there is the most restriction on the use of force. And this is where I'm very

00:35:27.280 vocal and I'll stand by this fact that Israel has done more to prevent civilian harm in urban warfare

00:35:33.960 than any military in history. And we see that every day in Gaza City where Israel is dropping the flyers,

00:35:40.500 the phone messages, the voicemails, the drones with speakers, the daily pauses to the creation of

00:35:49.220 new humanity. Can you just explain that a bit more, John? Because I think that's lost on people,

00:35:53.980 that they don't know or understand the extent to which Israel alerts the local population,

00:36:01.740 you should leave. Yeah, I mean, that's really one aspect, and I've laid out like 10 aspects of

00:36:08.060 what Israel does to prevent civilian harm. And since I've studied this for a long time, I know of

00:36:14.260 what we call best practices in civilian harm mitigation. So of course, a notification, as in,

00:36:20.400 tell the civilian population that you're coming, which also tells the enemy you're coming. So

00:36:26.540 recognizing that to do that, you are actually giving up some elements of surprise and that you

00:36:33.300 need in warfare. And Israel does those notification and then gets criticized for doing it. You can't move

00:36:39.100 civilians out of harm's way when that's pretty much the standard best practice is to notify the

00:36:45.780 civilians before you enter the environment. And Israel does that in spades. And the normal way to

00:36:51.340 do that is to drop these flyers that you see, and you've seen it since October 7th. But Israel does

00:36:56.500 things that no military has ever done with the calling of everybody in the environment, with the

00:37:02.020 handing out their maps, and then telling the enemy every day, look, today we're going to be in Area 801.

00:37:09.220 If you're a civilian in that area, please leave. If you're a civilian who hasn't evacuated,

00:37:13.440 please stay out of this area. The way they do tactical pauses every day. The fact that Israel

00:37:19.640 built new roads during this battle to allow civilians, despite Hamas putting out orders that

00:37:26.700 if you leave, we will kill you, and setting up roadblocks and everything. The use of certain

00:37:32.580 munitions, and like we see these videos of buildings being dropped in Gaza City right now, right? So Hamas

00:37:39.240 buildings that are used for command and control, for intelligence, for radio communications. Israel

00:37:45.400 will give all the notifications, and they still do this tactic called roof knocking, where if they

00:37:50.800 notify everybody in the building that they don't leave, then they'll drop non-penetrating explosives

00:37:55.580 on the roof and say, look, we're serious. Now what you see is that the Gazans who won't leave will set up

00:38:01.880 cameras because they know that a strike's about to happen on that building because they've been given

00:38:06.160 hours and hours and days of notification, and they just set their cameras up to get that shot.

00:38:12.800 Recognize that Israel's done all these things that no military's ever done, and recognize what Hamas

00:38:18.420 is doing, and Richard talked about what are the civilians left in Gaza City, right? Most people will

00:38:23.980 just completely wish away what Hamas did during the last temporary ceasefire, which was shove a million

00:38:30.280 civilians, forced them to leave the safety, more safety in a humanitarian zone, and go back to

00:38:37.200 northern Gaza so that the IDF would face a challenge if they ever tried to attack Hamas' sanctuary in

00:38:43.360 Gaza City, where the IDF have never gone, and that's what you're seeing. So the right thing to do is to

00:38:48.860 get all those civilians out of harm's way, like every urban battle that's ever happened really in any

00:38:55.160 similar context while Hamas is stopping them, layer on all those other challenges that Richard

00:39:02.120 talked about, that every step you take in Gaza, no matter where you are, it is more likely than not

00:39:07.940 that there's a tunnel underneath you and maybe a Hamas fighter underneath you. That's all never

00:39:13.780 happened in history where there's this city underneath the cities, and there are things in Gaza City that

00:39:20.260 even the IDF can't comprehend, don't know about, because Hamas spent billions of dollars building

00:39:27.620 layer upon layer of tunnels, like Richard said, underground bombs, tunnels with bombs in them,

00:39:34.920 entire buildings that are really bombs in themselves. Every aspect of this is a challenge that no military

00:39:41.800 has faced in really modern history, but if you can go back to history ever, and layer on top of,

00:39:47.740 no matter what the IDF does, they're criticized, right? This is November of 2023 when the IDF gave

00:39:53.860 notification after October 7 saying, we're going to northern Gaza, civilians please evacuate, and the

00:40:00.380 entire United Nations and Red Cross, everybody says, you can't evacuate civilians, you can't do that, like

00:40:06.760 that's the insanity, even when Israel balances the humanitarian concerns above what the law of war,

00:40:14.800 even anything that anybody's ever done before, Israel goes above in that, and then they get

00:40:19.780 criticized. So the other challenge that the IDF faced today, of course, is that no matter what they do,

00:40:25.520 somebody will twist it as in something nefarious and evil when they're just trying to achieve a goal

00:40:34.120 in war that is legitimate by every measure. One thing I'd add to that about the way in which

00:40:40.480 the IDF have been trying to minimize civilian casualties is that the military commanders,

00:40:47.700 I'm talking about very senior military commanders from armed forces in the West and in the Middle East,

00:40:54.000 whose countries have been accusing Israel of war crimes, their military commanders, their chief of

00:40:58.540 staff, have been into Israel, and they've been consulting with Israelis to find out how the Israelis

00:41:05.200 achieve such extraordinary success at minimizing civilian casualties. So while their political leaders

00:41:11.960 are accusing Israel of being careless of the lives of innocent civilians, their command, the military

00:41:17.620 commanders have been there trying to find out how they should do it themselves if they get the chance.

00:41:22.300 In fact, I visited Israel a couple of years ago with a military group, actually longer than that,

00:41:28.340 before this war began, with a military group examining a previous conflict. And unanimously,

00:41:34.380 these are retired generals from countries around the world, including in Europe, unanimously,

00:41:40.640 as they said, the biggest challenge their armies would face in trying to deal with a situation like

00:41:46.580 this is achieving the success Israel has had in minimizing civilian casualties. They simply didn't think

00:41:53.640 they'd be able to do it.

00:41:55.260 So, as you were talking, gents, I was pulling up on my phone, what's the death toll? Because we're constantly

00:42:02.980 hearing what the death toll is, and the narrative that is repeated over and over again would go against

00:42:09.580 what you're saying, that civilian deaths are minimized. So, Al Jazeera, one million in harm's way in Gaza City

00:42:18.440 is Israel escalates attacks. They also say 65,000 people have been killed, 167,000 injured. PBS, 60,000

00:42:28.200 Palestinians have died. And where else? Oh, UNICEF, 50,000 children have been killed. So, 65,000 people are

00:42:39.640 dead, and 50,000 of them are children, according to a United Nations organization that clearly doesn't have

00:42:47.600 the facts. So, when you've looked at civilian deaths in this war as compared to others, what have you

00:42:57.360 found?

00:42:57.600 The first thing I would say is, I don't think anybody knows how many civilians have died inside

00:43:03.120 Gaza. I certainly don't. You hear these 65,000 figure or 100,000, wherever it might be.

00:43:09.520 And as John pointed out earlier on, these figures all come from Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry or

00:43:18.960 whatever. And they're all regurgitated from those Hamas figures. And some people quote the UN's figures

00:43:25.360 say, yes, follow it. But the UN's figures come from Hamas. Everyone's figures come from Hamas.

00:43:29.840 So, we don't know the reality. What we do know is that a large number of civilians have died,

00:43:37.040 or a large number of people, shall we say, have died inside Gaza. And some of those are civilians.

00:43:43.840 The IDF have estimated at various points, they've estimated the number of

00:43:49.440 terrorist fighters that they've killed inside Gaza. There's not a kind of,

00:43:54.640 I haven't seen a figure recently from the IDF, but occasionally they will say they estimate the

00:44:02.160 following have been killed. But the reality is, on the basis of the IDF figures I've seen,

00:44:07.120 if you take the Hamas figures as being something like the truth, and I'm not saying they are,

00:44:14.160 because they're probably not, they're probably grossly exaggerated, then you have to deduct from

00:44:19.360 those figures, the total figures they give you, you have to deduct the number of

00:44:23.040 fighters that have been killed. Because obviously, IDF are going to have killed a lot of fighters,

00:44:27.200 they've been targeting the fighters, not the civilians, and many fighters will have died.

00:44:33.040 When they put out these figures, they're counting all the fighters as civilians, aren't they?

00:44:38.880 Well, yeah. I mean, Hamas are counting everybody in that equation. They don't differentiate between

00:44:46.720 fighters and combatants, sorry, fighters and civilians. They just give an overall figure. Nor do they say how

00:44:52.960 many people have died from natural causes. And in a population of 2 million or whatever it is that

00:44:58.320 Gaza is supposed to have had at the beginning of the conflict, I don't know how many, but a large

00:45:05.120 number are going to have died of natural causes, old age, heart attacks, cancer, some kind of condition

00:45:10.800 unconnected with the war. Now, that's all included in the overall equation. But as a very rough rule of

00:45:17.760 thumb, from what I can work out, and I'm not suggesting for a moment, this is accurate. And

00:45:22.080 I don't think anyone has an accurate figure. I would guess that the number of civilians that have

00:45:29.280 been killed in this conflict to probably fewer than 50% of the overall total. So you're probably

00:45:35.680 talking about a ratio, maybe one to one civilian to combatants killed, which sounds terrible. It does

00:45:42.240 sound terrible when you're talking about a war that's aimed to kill combatants only. But is that normal?

00:45:47.760 Right. Well, I was going to say, if you compare it to other conflicts, I think the Americans in

00:45:52.400 Afghanistan estimated they killed something in the region of five civilians to one combatant,

00:45:57.920 and in Iraq, something like three civilians to one combatant. So when you're fighting it among

00:46:04.160 a civilian population, civilians, tragically and unfortunately, they're going to die. There's no

00:46:09.520 way around it. Some of them are going to die. And more of them are going to die in this kind of

00:46:14.000 conflict when Hamas actually wants them to die. I don't think in Afghanistan and Iraq,

00:46:19.440 maybe with some exceptions, or other combat zones, that the people supposedly fighting

00:46:26.480 against the Americans or whatever, actually wanted their own civilians to die. Particularly,

00:46:32.080 some couldn't care less. But in Hamas's case, they want the civilians to die. It's one of their key

00:46:38.480 operational strategies is to want those civilians to die. And if I'm right, and Israel has achieved

00:46:44.080 something like a one to one ratio, maybe a bit different to that. But if I'm right, then that is,

00:46:50.080 you know, probably a historic low in a conflict of this sort. And I, before John jumps in on me,

00:46:55.760 and has a go, I would say as well, that there is no, there has been no conflict of this sort before.

00:47:01.760 So it's not really comparable to other theaters. So Brian, I could go on for a very long time,

00:47:08.160 and somehow I became like a numbers guy about this ratio. I can say with strong conviction that

00:47:14.800 that question, what is your civilian to combatant ratio, has never been raised in any war against

00:47:20.320 any nation, defending themselves or not. You don't say that about any war that's going on right now.

00:47:27.040 Can I give you all the numbers in the comparison? Sure. But there's three types of lies in my work.

00:47:32.320 And I've been doing this for a long time. And I actually write case studies where I search for

00:47:35.600 the number. And there's three types of lies in my work, lies, damn lies, the statistics.

00:47:40.880 Just on what the stickers you gave, of course, we can ask the question of like,

00:47:44.080 it doesn't even say combatants or Hamas. It just says this number of Palestinians have died.

00:47:49.200 And until they give me the list of died of natural causes, I'm going to start questioning

00:47:54.320 the number. As a war researcher, I can tell you there's never been a battle.

00:47:58.720 And there's a big difference between a battle and a war where somebody had a daily running number

00:48:04.880 of the people who have died, period, let alone combatants, non-combatants,

00:48:08.880 a daily running number of who's dying day to day down to the single digit like Hamas can magically do.

00:48:16.240 It just never happened for a whole list of reasons on, let alone who's counting the body.

00:48:22.160 I was like, okay, that body, that was a Hamas guy. It was an innocent civilian. Or what Hamas was

00:48:29.040 doing, which was taking social media posts of people missing that their families couldn't find.

00:48:33.760 They opened a Google share drive where you could put somebody's name on it. They go to the list.

00:48:38.800 I want people to get out of this numbers game. It's not how war works. The number one question

00:48:43.760 that if I was a politician looking at these numbers would say, okay, this is awful. What is Israel

00:48:49.120 doing to prevent civilian death? Okay. More than anybody else in history. Okay.

00:48:53.440 Has, is there any evidence of Israel violating the laws of war and targeting civilians? As in,

00:48:58.480 that's their objective. That's where they shot at. The answer is no. Okay. Let's look at the

00:49:03.360 legitimate targets that they're engaging. And then what measures did they take to limit civilian deaths?

00:49:08.800 Yes, Brian, I can give you all the statistics that you want. Like the Korean War, where 2 million

00:49:14.320 civilians die in less than a hundred thousand combatants, 2 million civilians, that's 54,000

00:49:20.080 civilians dying a month, every month of the Korean War. If we did the numbers that way, but it's not

00:49:26.560 how it works. These numbers, you know, even the aggregating of the numbers, and that's what they're

00:49:33.360 doing in Gaza, right? So if I took the battle of Rafa, right? The whole, all eyes on Rafa. Don't go to

00:49:39.040 Rafa where Israel did all the same civilian harm mitigation measures that they have since October

00:49:44.800 7th. If you look at just those numbers, it would be a hundred combatants to one civilian death. The

00:49:51.760 numbers are so low of civilian deaths in Rafa that nobody wants to talk about it. They just want to

00:49:56.720 aggregate all the numbers from October 7th because they're counting Palestinian terrorists who died in

00:50:03.760 Israel on October 7th in their list. They just aggregate the number and say, look at this number.

00:50:09.920 Of course, it's awful. And then they'll do the kids thing, right? Because this is where I get

00:50:13.520 the arguments of John, 20,000 children. I'm like, one, if you take itemized Hamas's list, it doesn't

00:50:20.720 have that many children by your definition of children, which is 18 and below. And look, I joined

00:50:26.480 the military. I know Richard did a long, long, long time ago. At a very young age, when I was 17,

00:50:32.960 I would have been on the list had I died in this war. It's just, you know, it disregards all facts

00:50:39.360 and takes a number and tries to make that the social problem. You know, irrelevant of, you know,

00:50:44.720 200,000 to die in the Iraq war, the 400,000 Yemen, like all these other numbers, but the comparisons

00:50:52.280 don't work, right? Because they're war versus battle. You know, what Hamas is doing, Hamas has killed

00:50:58.240 thousands of civilians. 20% of the 14,000, 15,000 rockets that Hamas has launched have landed

00:51:04.880 inside of Gaza, killing Gazan civilians who go on the list. Everybody just blames Israel for this

00:51:12.440 number. It's not true. The number's not true. It could be more. It could be less. I can tell you

00:51:18.160 that I don't mourn the death of Hamas combatants. I don't. Israel views every civilian casualty as

00:51:24.180 tragic, as like awful. Hamas views it as their strategy, and they state they want the death.

00:51:32.660 They don't state that they don't want it. They want the death of every child,

00:51:37.240 elderly person, everything, so they can achieve their goal in the afterlife.

00:51:40.940 I'll just tell you a brief story from a previous conflict.

00:51:43.900 I think it was the 2014 Gaza war when Hamas put out figures. Similar, okay, obviously on a much

00:51:53.300 smaller scale, but they put out the figures. And effectively, their figures were that all the

00:51:58.760 people that Israel had killed had been civilians. And there was then an uproar after the conflict

00:52:04.160 was finished. There was an uproar among the Gaza population. We thought Hamas was there to protect

00:52:10.000 us, but Hamas didn't lose any fighters in this war. It was all civilians. And Hamas then put out

00:52:15.780 a revised version, admitting that they had lost quite a large number of their fighters and reducing

00:52:21.140 the civilian death toll. So this is the kind of thing that we're having to deal with. It's really

00:52:25.540 anything that comes out of Hamas, whatever it says, I think, really ought to be just ignored.

00:52:31.980 October 17, 2023, Gaza officials say 500 killed an Israeli airstrike on hospital.

00:52:40.000 That was a Palestinian jihad rocket that missed its target. And by the way, 500 people still didn't

00:52:48.580 die. It landed in a parking lot. I'm not sure if anybody died in that strike, but the whole world

00:52:54.380 was told that 500 had died. Our then foreign affairs minister, Melanie Jolie, denounced that. And

00:53:01.120 it's still up on her X feed. She has never taken that down. There's a bunch of politicians in Canada

00:53:06.460 who denounced Israel for a war crime and killing 500 people who never died.

00:53:11.720 Yeah. And if you remember that event, I remember it very vividly. It wasn't just Hamas, like the

00:53:17.140 Gaza Health Ministry spokesman unit that said that. The actual doctors of that hospital, the Ahali

00:53:23.520 hospital, held a news conference that night before the world could see the explosion, which was a pothole

00:53:29.640 in the parking lot. They held a news conference where they emptied the morgue of anybody dead and

00:53:35.220 had men holding babies in front of them as they gave a news conference talking about the hundreds

00:53:41.140 that had just been killed in the strike that hit the hospital. But then, of course, everything that

00:53:46.440 comes out of anybody in Gaza is taking over the word of reality, even satellite images on that case.

00:53:55.180 But I remember vividly this this emotional news conference that the doctors gave with

00:54:00.740 men holding babies at the base of the thing. Who does that? Who does that?

00:54:06.400 The doctor's word is the law. The doctor's is often quoted. If a doctor says this, it's got to be you've

00:54:12.620 got to be right. It's almost like a religious leader. Well, we shouldn't forget that the second

00:54:18.600 leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawwakari, was a surgeon. We shouldn't forget that a few years back,

00:54:24.380 there was a terrorist attacking Glasgow airport, which was conducted by a doctor who tried to

00:54:30.660 blow up Glasgow airport. We shouldn't also forget that the family of a doctor was holding at least

00:54:35.920 one doctor was holding Israeli hostages inside Gaza. So I don't believe a doctor any more than

00:54:43.140 I believe Hamas. You've talked a lot about the mitigation measures. And as I've listened to each

00:54:49.700 of you, it kind of sounds like Israel's fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. And they're

00:54:55.100 doing that to try and make sure that civilians don't die because of the increased scrutiny they

00:55:01.020 face. But in some ways, isn't this prolonging the war and a lot of the suffering that's going on?

00:55:06.540 I think it has prolonged the war. And there are two major, well, three things that have prolonged

00:55:12.960 the war. And I would say the first one is the presence of civilians inside Gaza. As you said,

00:55:22.440 that basically, it has such a big impact on the way that the war is conducted. Without them,

00:55:30.280 if they had been moved, as John suggested, to Egypt, or many of them moved to Egypt,

00:55:34.040 the war, I think, would have been over long before now. Secondly, of course, the Israeli hostages are

00:55:39.960 present. And their presence has also severely restricted or severely controlled the way that

00:55:48.220 the IDF had to fight, equally as much as the civilians have. And then thirdly has been, I think,

00:55:54.660 international politics. And the only key player, really, in this war outside of Israel and Israel's

00:56:03.140 enemies is the United States of America. Whatever, with all due respect to Canada and Britain and

00:56:11.200 France, et cetera, what their leaders say doesn't really make much difference to anything. But the

00:56:16.120 U.S. does. And unfortunately, President Biden, when he was running the U.S., he caused some pretty

00:56:22.760 severe delays to the prosecution of the war, including, as John mentioned, what went on down

00:56:28.580 in Rafa in the South. Fortunately, we now have, and I know that President Trump has mixed reviews in

00:56:35.420 Canada, but fortunately, President Trump, I think, is taking a far more robust, strong line in support of

00:56:43.640 Israel on this. And so that constraint's been gone. But I think, yeah, without the hostages,

00:56:49.500 without the civilian population, I think this war would have been pretty much done long, long before

00:56:54.160 that. Yeah, I think history would validate that, what Richard says. I mean, from anybody who studies

00:57:00.260 war, they would know that any other country would have done this differently, but no other country

00:57:05.300 would be forced to do it this way, with that hand tied behind their back, with the door closed for

00:57:10.180 civilian. The fact that the hostages is a big part of this, and every time that Israel has actually

00:57:16.120 shown immense military movement, then there's a pause because Hamas will try to negotiate for more

00:57:23.480 time and set the conditions for its strategy to include this propaganda war. But you have to account

00:57:29.320 for other factors, like the Hamas leadership in Qatar, the billionaires who are running the show,

00:57:35.340 being given sanctuary in Qatar, and being the negotiators for all of these terms. Then you have to

00:57:41.940 factor in the other existential threats to Israel since October 7th that they've had to fight and

00:57:49.660 succeed against during this war. Israel thinks that, although it's this small country, the world

00:57:56.620 thinks Israel is all this all-powerful military that can do space lasers and just get the job done.

00:58:03.680 As it had to fight Hezbollah, this massive military of 100,000 rockets, 100,000 soldiers,

00:58:11.940 and then another nation state, much, much larger, launching historic level of cruise missiles on

00:58:18.060 top of them. Israel, there's so many factors that have protracted the actual removal of Hamas from

00:58:25.280 power and the demilitarizing of the Gaza Strip. Of course, the international aspect, even the United

00:58:30.220 Nations at that time, or the United States saying the correct number of civilian casualties in Gaza is

00:58:34.840 zero. A U.S. official said that, and that was ridiculous. That means, based on the domestic politics

00:58:41.340 right now, we need you to not to stop. Just stop everything. That's the crazy aspect, but there's

00:58:47.360 so many elements here that have protracted this war, the humanitarian aid thing that, you know,

00:58:52.880 when the UN stopped picking up trucks for its own reasons, there's so many people you can point the

00:58:57.880 finger at, but there's only one finger pointed at Israel, who's this small little nation trying to

00:59:03.660 get its hostages back and survive attack, like a legitimate attack. And I think that's one of the most

00:59:09.660 ridiculous things that I've seen that the United Nations put their name on was this so-called

00:59:15.180 unbiased commissions that said that October 7th wasn't an existential threat and didn't warrant

00:59:21.440 a large-scale combat operation in response. Like, that's one of the worst things I've heard of since

00:59:28.000 I've ever studied war, the invasion of Israel, the attack of Hamas, the attack that Hezbollah joined

00:59:35.960 wasn't an existential threat and didn't warrant a military self-defense response, is insanity.

00:59:42.340 I was going to wrap it there, gents, but John, you mentioned Qatar. So quick comment from both of you.

00:59:48.740 Israel being denounced for trying to take out leadership hiding in Qatar. Now, they didn't get

00:59:54.940 the people that they wanted to. They didn't take out all the billionaires that you mentioned, but

01:00:00.920 is there legitimacy in what they did? Or was that a violation of international order or laws of war?

01:00:08.980 I think it's absolutely legitimate. And these people were involved in directing the war in Gaza.

01:00:17.720 They were involved in ordering the war in Gaza. And they were playing a direct function in combat. And

01:00:25.020 therefore, wherever they were in the world, I mean, I think the only question you could raise is,

01:00:32.220 given that they're in a different sovereign country, would be, maybe you could make representations on

01:00:41.380 that sovereign country to hand over those people, which obviously Qatar wouldn't do. But assuming that

01:00:48.140 wasn't going to happen, I don't know if Israel made an attempt to do that, but assuming that wasn't

01:00:51.920 going to happen, this operation was entirely legitimate. And I don't know exactly who it

01:00:57.780 killed and didn't kill at the moment. No doubt we'll find that out at some point. But the reality

01:01:03.880 is it terrified the Hamas leadership. And Hamas now know that there's nowhere in the world they can go

01:01:09.760 where they're going to be safe, the Hamas leadership. And that has had a significant impact on

01:01:14.140 the way Hamas will fight in the future. And not only that, but also Hamas inside Gaza,

01:01:21.660 they will be feeling even more isolated than they felt before. Yes, of course, people like

01:01:26.800 Prime Minister Kani and Prime Minister Starmer and Macron have done their best to make them feel not

01:01:33.640 isolated anymore. But they are isolated. They've had their one of their primary sponsors, Iran,

01:01:39.340 severely damaged by Israel's 12-day war against Iran. They've now seen their leadership in Qatar

01:01:46.120 hit by a series of attacks. And so that must have an impact on their fighting morale, which is

01:01:53.880 extremely important, I think. And the final thing I'd say on that subject is that it's a lesson that I

01:02:00.540 think benefits all of us, because jihadists everywhere, they are going to fight. They're not just going to

01:02:06.900 fight against countries like ours from within our country. They're going to have sponsors outside.

01:02:11.960 They're going to use support outside. And they do need to know that there is the likelihood or at

01:02:18.240 least the possibility, certainly if Israel's involved, that they're not going to be safe wherever they

01:02:22.740 might be. Brian, I've spent a lot of time recently having to give people war one-on-one classes. And if

01:02:29.780 somebody in the Canadian government needs it, let me know. The idea that this strike would be illegal in

01:02:35.840 some way or a violation of the law of armed conflict is just false, you don't even have to

01:02:41.480 look post-9-11. Just two weeks ago, or last week, the United States took out a ISIS leader in Syria

01:02:47.840 by airstrike. The idea that it is illegal under the law of armed conflict, and I wrote the article

01:02:54.580 recently explaining it for people that need to see it in print, it's just crazy that you think that

01:03:00.540 targeting an enemy commander who happens to be in somebody else's country is some type of law of

01:03:06.540 war violation is not true in any of the sense, let alone recent history where it's been done

01:03:12.580 many, many times. It was absolutely legitimate and a long past due, in my opinion.

01:03:20.860 Gentlemen, we could go on and on, I'm sure, but it's been a pleasure speaking with both of you

01:03:25.920 and look forward to perhaps doing it again, but hopefully with the war being over. Thanks so

01:03:32.220 much. Thank you, my pleasure. Thank you, Mark. Full Comment is a post-media podcast. My name's

01:03:37.060 Brian Lilly, your host. This episode was produced by Andre Proulx, theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin

01:03:42.580 Libin is the executive producer. Please remember to hit the subscribe button and share this with your

01:03:47.860 friends on social media, wherever you can. Help us out by leaving us a review or a recommendation.

01:03:53.400 Thanks for listening. Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

01:04:23.400 Good evening. It was a metric mix-up. Air Canada has confirmed the plane that landed at Gimli,

01:04:29.940 Manitoba last Saturday ran out of gas because of an error in metric conversion.

01:04:35.200 I regret to inform you that you're inside the Gimli Glider, one of history's only incidents of a

01:04:41.520 civilian airliner running out of gas in the middle of the sky. And this happened because someone didn't

01:04:48.180 know how to properly measure out enough jet fuel. Now, I mentioned the Gimli Glider only to note that

01:04:54.140 systems of measure are not just numbers on a page. They're cultural objects. They might not be on par

01:05:00.620 with language or religion, but they're ways of understanding the world around us. And if you

01:05:06.240 screw with them, even with the best of intentions, you might get the occasional airliner falling out of

01:05:12.140 the sky. Fortunately, in this instance, it miraculously worked out fine. The pilots in control

01:05:19.140 of this particular Air Canada flight just happened to be two of the only people on Earth perfectly

01:05:24.900 suited to safely bring down a crippled full-size airliner in the middle of Manitoba. One of them

01:05:31.800 was an experienced glider pilot. The other one was a former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot who just

01:05:37.960 happened to have served at a Manitoba airbase that was now directly underneath them.

Full Comment - September 29, 2025

It’s now thinkable that Carney and co. don’t want Israel to win

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