Full Comment - Trump has already changed everything in the Middle East

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00:01:03.380 After more than 470 days, Israel began seeing some of the hostages taken on October 7th return

00:01:09.080 to them. The hostages continue to be released, and the Israeli people are now trying to make

00:01:14.360 sense of this deal. Hello and welcome to the Full Comment Podcast. My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:01:19.660 On the one hand, everyone wanted the hostages to come home, whether they were dead or alive.

00:01:24.140 The question has always been, at what price? The deal that was struck has been controversial.

00:01:29.260 You might say it was the deal that no one wanted for the result that everyone wanted. Also came

00:01:34.800 about in a very strange way. Most of it was negotiated with the Biden administration and

00:01:39.360 Israel on one side, Qatar and Egypt on the other side, acting on behalf of Hamas. But it only really

00:01:45.660 came together after the Trump administration sent their point man, Steve Wyckoff, into the talks before

00:01:51.200 Donald Trump was even sworn in. To talk about all of this and how it's playing out in Israel, I reached

00:01:56.740 out to Vivian Berkovich, your lawyer, a writer. You may have read her in the National Post or heard her

00:02:01.600 own podcast, State of Tel Aviv. She's a Canadian who now spends most of her time in Israel and from

00:02:06.560 2014 until 2016 served as Canada's ambassador to Israel, all of which gives her unique insights.

00:02:13.420 Vivian, would I be wrong in describing this as the deal nobody wanted, but the result everyone

00:02:20.920 demanded in the sense that you're getting hostages back, but at a terrible price?

00:02:27.820 Yeah, I think it's a terrible deal. It's a horrible deal. So it's the deal, as you say, that nobody

00:02:35.580 wants, but that I believe we need desperately, that Israel needs desperately. You know, I was speaking

00:02:44.140 with someone, Yossi Klein-Halevi, who's a really fantastic writer and kind of interpreter of society

00:02:50.020 here, a couple weeks ago, and he said, you know, we lost the war of October 7th, which I agree, 0.95

00:02:57.320 but we've almost won the war of October 8th. But we have to, we can't win October 8th until we go back

00:03:07.040 and finish up October 7th. And that was the day, of course, of the horrible massacre, torture, murders,

00:03:15.680 taking of hostages, and this country needs to get them back.

00:03:19.640 That was the big debate when I was in Israel with you a year ago, January 2024. People saying,

00:03:28.480 well, how big of a price? Do we bring back the hostages at any price? And in some ways,

00:03:36.380 it seems like the answer is yes. Now, it's a year later, people are more desperate. The elation,

00:03:44.680 though, among the families. What has the mood been like with the general public as the hostages come

00:03:51.940 back? And we'll separate out those two things. The mood at seeing people reunited with their families

00:03:58.000 versus the politics of it. As you know, it's very hard to kind of untangle those two things

00:04:07.200 in this crazy country. But I'll do my best. First of all, the debate that was going on when you were

00:04:16.460 here a year ago, has never ceased. Right? It's just been constant. It mutates, it takes on different

00:04:23.660 shape and urgency. And the issue of price is a very, very profound issue. The reaction of people

00:04:34.100 is so interesting. Before the first hostages came out, it'll be two weeks tomorrow, there were three

00:04:42.680 young women, civilian women, released. And there was a very strong contingent of Israeli society that

00:04:55.560 was absolutely against the deal. Under any cost. They felt they wanted to defeat Hamas, 0.56

00:05:03.360 worry about hostages later. Well, I mean, I think there were a number of things, you know,

00:05:07.280 they weren't a monolith that camp, but I would say that a significant contingent had bought into this

00:05:12.540 total victory defeat Hamas. Okay. Not sure what the total victory thing means. 0.84

00:05:18.460 Um, but my response to that would be, it's absolutely not achievable until we bring home

00:05:27.220 the hostages. And there are many reasons for that. So there's this one demographic that is like,

00:05:34.980 no, we must not, we must pulverize Hamas, which is probably a longer term goal than one year. 0.95

00:05:44.420 And I don't think many Israelis would disagree. I mean, nobody wants ISIS living on their doorstep

00:05:51.040 and in their bedrooms, literally. And that's, um, but there were also people who felt we can't release

00:06:01.220 these terrorist murderers. I mean, these are some of the most vicious, violent terrorists of the last 0.52

00:06:11.080 20, 30 years, horrific crimes. It's why it's been so frustrating for me watching so much Western

00:06:17.920 media, including here in Canada. And it's the, the usual suspects describe it as a hostage exchange.

00:06:24.740 Yeah. I'm sorry. The, these people are not hostages that they were in prison for very good reasons.

00:06:32.060 And there's also for, also understand that this, uh, so-called deal does not include the elite

00:06:40.400 Nahba Hamas soldiers who invaded Israel on October 7th. Um, and many of the, most of the people who have 1.00

00:06:48.800 been arrested or detained since October 7th. This is all for, you know, the guys and mostly guys very,

00:06:57.100 I don't think any women have been, are in, on multiple life sentences. This includes the guys

00:07:01.560 who blow up buses, blow up pizza parlors on school holidays when they're full of families. Um,

00:07:07.740 they are Islamist extremists. They believe that Israel should be annihilated and that every Jew, 0.99

00:07:14.700 not just in Israel, but anyway, in the world should be killed. And so, but the cohort that was saying, 0.99

00:07:20.720 we can't give in, we can't exchange these murderers for civilians. And, you know, about 95% of the

00:07:29.060 hostages still in detention or still in captivity, pardon me, um, in the Gaza Strip are civilians.

00:07:36.820 There may be one or two actual soldiers, male soldiers, but in their mind, they consider any

00:07:43.960 male under the age of 50, whether he's in the army or not to be a soldier. Clearly, you know, 0.75

00:07:49.620 based on who they released yesterday, they also seem to consider 80 year olds to be soldiers.

00:07:54.420 So no, there's no comparison. You're absolutely right. There's no comparison. And it's, it's a

00:07:59.080 disgusting, it's understandable why there'd be opposition though, to the deal based on who's

00:08:05.920 getting released. But what about those who are being reunited with their loved ones? The,

00:08:13.760 one of the kibbutz is that you took me to Kavarasa, um, when I posted the, an image of that kibbutz on

00:08:21.840 the day that the hostages were being released, I said, remember, this is what these people did.

00:08:26.740 Someone got back to me immediately on X and said, uh, two of the women, uh, released today lived on 1.00

00:08:34.080 that street. They didn't say they lived in that kibbutz. I posted a photo of the, the, um, uh, 0.99

00:08:40.180 the youth area on the kibbutz neighborhood. Yeah. The young generation neighborhood. And 0.98

00:08:45.960 so those two women have been reunited with their families. The, the joy that you see watching the

00:08:53.020 video is immense. Has that changed any sympathies, any view of the deal since those images came out?

00:09:01.360 Yes, absolutely. And interestingly, I just had coffee this morning with, um, someone who I met by

00:09:07.680 chance, um, who is doing reserve service, uh, in the army, a lot of it, and initially was very strongly

00:09:15.800 opposed to the deal. And the images have kind of rekindled, um, helped people, I think in Israel

00:09:24.840 reconnect with how urgent and critical this mission is. This is who we are morally. If we do not go to

00:09:34.180 the ends of the earth to bring home civilians who have been captured so brutally, to bring home 0.99

00:09:42.060 soldiers who have been captured so brutally and detained so humane, inhumanely, who's going to

00:09:49.820 send their children to fight? The grounding ethos of this country is leave no one behind. And it's more

00:09:57.560 than just a saying. We've really leave no one behind. So many soldiers who fell in Gaza died because they

00:10:05.160 were trying to rescue their injured colleagues, you know, and they walked into booby traps and ambushes

00:10:12.240 because it's just not done. And that is such important glue for this society.

00:10:20.640 A friend just got back from a trip to Israel. Uh, our, our mutual friend, Larry, uh, took another

00:10:27.340 group and, um, they went and met with the, uh, he said they were called tunnel weasels.

00:10:35.500 These are the guys that go into the tunnels and I have a friend whose son is in that unit. Yeah.

00:10:40.520 Yeah. One of them had lost his arm trying to rescue people. Um, it's, there has been an incredible

00:10:48.780 price paid. Now you had Donald Trump saying before inauguration that if the hostages weren't released,

00:10:56.700 there would be hell to pay all hell to pay, all hell to pay. Well, not all the hostages have been

00:11:02.920 released. Um, but they started before inauguration on purpose. I think Hamas was forced to take a deal,

00:11:12.980 but as I read the, uh, the reports on it, um, it looks like Trump forced a deal on Netanyahu and his government

00:11:23.800 as well. It was great writing in the guardian about how, uh, Steve Wyckoff shows up in Jerusalem during

00:11:31.040 Shabbat and says, uh, I want to see the prime minister. And they say, oh no, Mr. Netanyahu doesn't take

00:11:37.320 meetings, uh, during Shabbat. You'll have to wait a few hours. And he ordered Netanyahu out and got

00:11:44.000 the meeting and then told everyone what they were going to do and then flew to Doha and sat on

00:11:49.340 everyone. So, um, you know, allow me to use a Catholic imagery here. Everyone had to put a lot

00:11:55.560 of water into their wine. It seemed like, and that was forced by Trump. Uh, I completely agree based on

00:12:02.020 what I know and what I've heard. Absolutely. And why are people still loving Trump and Wyckoff? Like,

00:12:08.100 you know, my understanding is it, you know, driving into, uh, along the highways a week or so ago,

00:12:13.540 you would see big posters thanking Trump. Big posters along the highways. You, everybody,

00:12:19.460 this country feels and knows that without the pressure from president Trump and when he was

00:12:27.640 president-elect and without the incredible job that Steve Wyckoff has done since he was appointed

00:12:35.380 Trump's envoy to deal with this crisis, it's extraordinary. That would never have happened.

00:12:41.840 I mean, Netanyahu has been sitting on this in my view and prioritizing coalition politics

00:12:47.380 and maintaining his governing coalition intact over the return of the hostages. This deal,

00:12:56.280 everyone knows, this is not news. Basically the identical deal has been on the table since May

00:13:01.160 and it was not seen to fruition. And there is a very strong feeling here among not just the left

00:13:11.580 wing or the centrists, but the right wing too, that it is the government that has stood in the way.

00:13:18.260 Not Hamas putting on extra conditions at the last minute, which is what we've often been told.

00:13:23.980 You know, none of us have been in the room. Yes, we have been told that. And that's probably true. 1.00

00:13:29.120 But, you know, I mean, I don't think that the Netanyahu government was enthusiastic about making a

00:13:38.780 hostage deal. I think they were enthusiastic publicly about, as we talked about earlier, destroying Hamas. 0.88

00:13:46.360 You know, they openly talked about reestablishing settlements in the Gaza Strip again.

00:13:54.840 This was what they were moving towards. And it's been very open here. And one of the interesting

00:14:00.320 things is that the Religious Zionist Party, which is led by Bezalel Smotrich, and he's a very important

00:14:06.280 part of the governing coalition, and also Axis Minister of Finance. He was driving this,

00:14:14.300 we have to resettle, total victory, we can't give up, we can't let these terrorists out.

00:14:19.360 Well, you know what? You asked me right at the beginning of this conversation, well,

00:14:23.400 has public opinion shifted? Or is all the opposition that prevailed before the release,

00:14:29.180 has it changed? You're damn straight it's changed. And people see those pictures, and they see those

00:14:34.160 young female soldiers reunited with their families. And they hear, we're starting to hear more and more

00:14:41.060 of the horrors of the captivity. 60%. This was a few days ago, it's probably higher now. 60% of

00:14:48.800 Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Party, Religious Zionist Party voters support continuing with the deal

00:14:57.760 on the terms, and support continuing until every last hostage living and dead is brought home.

00:15:05.280 So what that tells you is that even what are considered to be the hard right voters

00:15:12.800 are seeing this very differently. You know, when the hostages were released, and we've now had three

00:15:19.720 releases over the last two weeks, and we have another one coming tomorrow. You know, everyone

00:15:25.240 thanks President Trump, Steve Witkoff, you should see them beaming, you know, and...

00:15:31.720 He dropped in on to see some of them when they were released the other day, right?

00:15:35.980 Only one family has thanked Prime Minister Netanyahu, and I must say grudgingly. Prime Minister Netanyahu

00:15:41.680 has not had a photo op with the families, or the hostages. Witkoff could have, but instead,

00:15:49.580 just like you just reminded me and raised, Witkoff is, you know, I was one of these two. I was a

00:15:57.280 diplomat who, you know, came from the outside and drives them crazy because you actually do things

00:16:00.820 and get things done, and that's what Witkoff is doing. So what does he do? Yesterday, we had three

00:16:06.480 hostages released. I'm sure your listeners saw the horrific scenes from the Gaza Strip,

00:16:12.160 just chaotic, and an 80-year-old and a 29-year-old slip of a woman, a tiny little thing. They really

00:16:18.960 were close to being lynched. And so Witkoff was all over the place yesterday, and I'm sure he was

00:16:26.140 also on the phone burning up the lines to Qatar in the middle of this chaotic scene saying,

00:16:30.620 you guys better fix this or else. He also, yesterday, unannounced, popped into, there's a

00:16:39.960 special family room in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, which is a very public gathering space that you

00:16:44.860 visited. Yep. Very moving. There are a number, but there's one big sort of family room where they

00:16:51.620 can just go as groups of families and be on their own and not have anyone around them. And Witkoff just

00:16:59.740 popped in. And it was on, you know, the news I watched, I think, for 12 hours straight yesterday.

00:17:05.600 I just could not stop. And he was just so incredible with families and down to earth and talking to them

00:17:12.880 like he's just talking to his next-door neighbor. And their gratitude and the force of their

00:17:22.220 gratitude and their expression, their expressions of gratitude to Witkoff were just beyond moving.

00:17:28.640 And, you know, more than one said, this would not have happened without you.

00:17:32.000 Witkoff, they say in Hebrew. Mr. Witkoff. Steve Witkoff has completely charmed this country,

00:17:38.760 left to right, upside down. And so has Trump. These guys, and he also went to see the female

00:17:45.140 hostages, the soldiers who were released and their families. I mean, and he's saying, we're going to

00:17:51.780 get them all out. Like yesterday, he was talking about, you know, yesterday was a complete sort of

00:17:57.740 bonus. It wasn't supposed to happen, but it was because of some Hamas breaches last Saturday.

00:18:03.820 So then we get these three additionals yesterday. And now there are actually eight, because five

00:18:08.660 Thai hostages also came out, Thai workers. And then on Saturday, tomorrow, there'll be three more.

00:18:14.600 And Witkoff yesterday was saying, I don't know why we're waiting. Why don't we just get them all

00:18:18.400 out like now? Yeah. This is how he's talking. And good question, Steve.

00:18:23.980 So there have been plenty of scenes of elation, but also some horrible stories told. And I remember

00:18:32.520 one of the most heartbreaking things that I heard anyone tell me was in that young person's

00:18:39.300 neighborhood of Kibbutz Kfar Asad, this woman was talking about how, so remember, the women were

00:18:48.700 taken October 7th. We were there January 2024. And this woman was saying, we have to get the female 0.99

00:18:58.380 hostages out soon before it's too late. And she was meaning before they were pregnant. We've heard

00:19:04.620 the stories of sexual abuse. That's got to be hitting people hard.

00:19:10.800 Yeah. So there's a lot that's hitting people hard. And that's one of the things I have to say

00:19:18.100 that the army and the government and the health ministry have done an extraordinary job of protecting

00:19:26.080 the people returning. It's not just the women who have been sexually abused. There's been very

00:19:32.800 violent sexual abuse of male captives as well. And they've just, they're honored, they are not

00:19:42.880 disclosing details. We know every once in a while, like over the last few days, there have been little

00:19:47.400 bits that have kind of been shared with the public, but it's on a non, it's not attributed to a

00:19:54.380 particular individual. So it's bad. We're hearing all kinds of things about the conditions in which

00:20:02.420 they were kept, and how they were treated. And you know, the world has chosen to focus on the fact that

00:20:09.360 they came out wearing these ridiculous suits that Hamas, of course, said were IDF uniforms, 0.51

00:20:16.580 which they were not. And that they looked, you know, healthy, their hair was combed back, 0.83

00:20:21.620 and they were up there on stage for the propaganda film, you know, waving. And one of the returning

00:20:27.300 female hostages, the soldiers, looked quite plump. She is plump. But we know that they feed them 0.96

00:20:36.760 a lot in the weeks leading up. They get them ready. Now, we also know the condition

00:20:43.320 that hostages who had not been fed and given additional nutrition and exposure to sunlight,

00:20:49.940 we know how starved they were, and how abused and how filthy. So there's a lot of show going on,

00:20:59.280 a lot of smoke and mirrors. There are a lot of heart, it is heartbreaking, the whole country is

00:21:05.920 braced tomorrow for, we just learned a few hours ago, the return of three men. So there are no more

00:21:12.320 surviving females, because the order was female civilians who are alive, then female soldiers who

00:21:18.560 are alive, and now males who are alive. And three men are returning tomorrow, Keith Siegel,

00:21:28.100 a 65 year old American Israeli, who's thought to be in poor health. His wife was with him until last

00:21:36.180 November, and she's been campaigning for his release ever since. And another, Erez Calderon,

00:21:44.580 another kibbutz member, who's 53 years old, and Yarden Bibas. Now, the Bibas story is very well known,

00:21:53.700 it's Shiri Bibas was, is, was maybe the wife of Yarden Bibas, early 30s couple from kibbutz near Oz,

00:22:03.300 which was absolutely slaughtered, decimated by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Okay, not Hamas, 0.98

00:22:09.860 Palestinian Islamic Jihad are worse. And Shiri was the one whose photograph became iconic, 1.00

00:22:16.580 holding those two orange haired babies. Her eldest son at the time was days away from his fourth

00:22:21.380 birthday, her youngest was nine months old. It is believed that they died in an airstrike on October

00:22:30.260 27, 2023. So three weeks after their capture. But we don't know that, for certain. Yarden was also taken

00:22:40.820 captive. He was tortured in captivity in November 23. An Israeli who spoke Arabic translated for him

00:22:52.340 under the glare of Hamas cameras. So they said, you, you're going to come in and translate and tell

00:22:58.020 him. And he told him that his wife and two children had died in this strike.

00:23:05.540 That, that is the horror. The horror. And he's coming home tomorrow. He's coming home alive.

00:23:11.700 And, and, but everyone kept holding out hope for baby Bibas. And I just thought that there is no way 0.72

00:23:17.700 that those animals have kept this baby alive. No, but they kept him alive for three weeks. They took him.

00:23:27.060 They took a three-year-old more than one, I think there were two or three without their parents. They took

00:23:32.980 three-year-old twin girls with their mom and their aunt. And then they just took one of the three-year-olds

00:23:39.620 for a few weeks. They took, and her father's still in captivity.

00:23:44.660 The savagery, the calculated cruelty.

00:23:49.380 One of the women who came out yesterday, Arbel Yehud, beautiful slip of a woman who I mentioned from 0.64

00:23:56.100 Kibbutz near Oz, the ones that Palestinian Islamic Jihad took over. She's 29 now. She and her boyfriend,

00:24:02.580 who is still in captivity, were taken. It's a family that's been ravaged, both their families.

00:24:07.780 She was kept in total isolation all this time.

00:24:12.820 Wow.

00:24:13.140 She had no contact with anyone other than Pidge captors. God knows what that woman has been through. 0.99

00:24:21.860 And they showed her right before they were released into this braying mob that wanted to lynch

00:24:29.060 them, you know, for the handover to the Red Cross. They showed her embracing 80-year-old

00:24:33.940 Gadi Moses, who was from the same Kibbutz, a bear of a man, if you see pictures of him before.

00:24:39.700 And very, very frail now. Very, very frail. A world-leading agronomist. You know, he's lectures all over the

00:24:47.300 world. He's incredible. And they see one another for the first time, and the embrace would just melt the

00:24:54.420 polar ice cap. You know, it was so moving. The two of them, our bell, we think first,

00:25:02.820 is taken through, surrounded by these thugs, these masked thugs, taken through this throng.

00:25:08.580 And they particularly wanted to get our bell. You know why? Because Israel refused to open up the 0.93

00:25:18.020 corridor to allow people back into north Gaza, until our bell was released. Because they had 1.00

00:25:24.260 intelligence about the cruelty of her captivity, and because of some lies and games that Hamas had

00:25:30.740 played in the previous week's release. So the crowd's yelling, they want our bell, they want her,

00:25:36.020 because you held back, you know, a million people from going north for one our bell.

00:25:40.740 She became this symbol that they so hated. And this you will never see, because Al Jazeera,

00:25:48.660 the propaganda arm of the Qatari government, which had exclusive access and has been doing

00:25:54.180 all the stage managing for these handovers, they lost control of what went on yesterday.

00:26:00.100 80-year-old Gadi Moses, who could not walk that far. And, you know, the Israeli press is referring

00:26:05.780 to it as the Via Dolorosa, which, you know, as a Catholic will appeal to you. This gauntlet,

00:26:13.460 they were forced to pass. Gadi Moses, this bear of a man, very diminished, was being held up on both

00:26:19.700 sides by Palestinian Islamic Jihad goons. And he fainted. They cut that out. He fainted. The stress,

00:26:30.420 this man has survived almost 16 months of captivity in barbaric conditions. And this was

00:26:38.100 almost broke him. It's just unreal. You said that that embrace would melt the polar ice caps,

00:26:43.620 but it obviously will not touch the hearts of those thugs. We need to take a quick break. And when we

00:26:49.140 come back, I want to talk about those stage managed handovers, why groups like the RRC and UNRWA need to

00:26:56.260 go. And a little bit about what Donald Trump means when he talks about changing Northern Gaza and

00:27:04.180 clearing people out back in moments. One of the reasons that the International Red Cross was

00:27:09.460 founded, why it exists, is to look after prisoners. And they did so admirably during the First World

00:27:16.820 War, the Second World War, conflicts around the world. And yet they never visited the hostages taken

00:27:24.260 on October 7th. And in fact, the first time the Red Cross saw these hostages was during a highly

00:27:29.700 stage managed handover run by the terrorist groups, either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad as

00:27:38.340 propaganda events. Vivian, how furious are people at the way that these hostages are being handed over?

00:27:48.420 I mean, it makes it look like the crowds are huge. Now, if you get a wider shot, you see that

00:27:53.940 everyone's jammed into a little spot. But you've got every, you know, all the folks around the

00:27:59.780 hostages being released with their weapons out and the green bandanas and trying to look really tough

00:28:06.980 and a show of force. How is this being allowed to happen that the handing over of hostages becomes a

00:28:14.660 propaganda moment, complete with people filming from every angle to produce propaganda videos?

00:28:22.100 How is that allowed to happen?

00:28:24.260 So first of all, I just have to comment about in World War Two, because the Red Cross

00:28:30.100 betrayed Jews during the Holocaust profoundly. And we know that there were, there was at least one,

00:28:36.260 maybe two very staged visits to Theresienstadt, which was a way station concentration camp,

00:28:43.060 primarily for German and Czech Jews on their way to Auschwitz. And the Nazis scrubbed up the camp

00:28:50.660 and brought the Red Cross in, in World War Two. And they, they said, this is great. You know,

00:28:57.140 I mean, it's a war, so maybe they're not living quite as comfortably as they're used to. But yeah,

00:29:02.100 no, no problem here. And they knew, everyone knew by that point. So Red Cross and Jewish people is,

00:29:08.580 is a bit of a kind of, it's a difficult history. With respect to the handover, there has been a lot

00:29:19.300 of criticism of the Red Cross. I have lots of criticism for them, but I'm going to actually

00:29:25.540 speak in their defense, surprisingly, in this case. The Red Cross is not negotiating these agreements.

00:29:31.940 Agreements are negotiated by Qatar and Egypt as the kind of intermediaries, and they are negotiating

00:29:37.620 with Hamas. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is not at the table. It's Hamas. And so Hamas is responsible 0.98

00:29:46.580 with Qatar and Egypt for everything that transpires on the ground. Israel is in an unfortunate position

00:29:53.460 now in which it has very little leverage in terms of demands. And even though it has made and agreed to

00:30:04.820 certain conditions with respect to the release, they've been breached from the very beginning by

00:30:12.820 Hamas. And so we can talk just a bit about how Israel has leveraged with the support of the Trump

00:30:20.580 administration. Israel would not have had that support from Biden. The Red Cross, many Israelis 0.97

00:30:26.180 sort of demean it and say, oh, they're just operating like a taxi service, you know, an Uber service.

00:30:31.060 They go pick them up, and they bring them out. They are in no position to dictate the terms.

00:30:37.380 These are unarmed civilian humanitarian workers.

00:30:40.980 Fair enough. But they're allowing themselves to be used.

00:30:46.180 Yeah, they're being used. But what are they going to do? Are they going to say to these thugs,

00:30:52.740 no, we're not signing the certificate of release? And really, are we going to leave these girls there? 0.95

00:31:00.500 Okay, fair point. That's a fair point.

00:31:04.100 I wouldn't. I'm going to do whatever you want. They make the girls stand there and hold certificates 1.00

00:31:08.820 with their souvenir bags of their time in Gaza. Should they refuse to do that and not be let out?

00:31:15.860 The Red Cross, I say go, sign the stupid certificates. It doesn't mean anything. And get them out. 1.00

00:31:23.780 If anyone watched what happened yesterday, and the Red Cross is right in the middle of that surge

00:31:29.140 in Khan Yunus, they're taking a lot of risk. And they deserve a lot of opprobium for so much 1.00

00:31:38.420 bad conduct throughout this crisis. But in terms of doing the job of getting in there,

00:31:44.820 getting them in the cars and getting them safely out, I say thank you.

00:31:49.460 Now, my understanding is that the Trump administration did intervene. Witkoff did

00:31:56.580 make demands and held back releasing the terrorist prisoners.

00:32:00.980 That happened yesterday. I mean, every time there has been an, quote, exchange,

00:32:05.140 there has been some dramatic breach on the part of Hamas. And what happened yesterday in Khan

00:32:12.500 Yunus at the handover was really dangerous and beyond chaotic, and Hamas is responsible for that. 0.99

00:32:22.580 And what Israel did was said, we're not letting the busloads of terrorists leave the security prisons in

00:32:31.540 Israel. Until Egypt and Qatar work the phones, get back to us and tell us this will not happen again. 0.55

00:32:42.660 This is completely not on. And I'm sure that the phone lines were absolutely like singed yesterday

00:32:52.740 while we were watching the spectacle on TV. The Egyptians and Qataris reportedly did come back 1.00

00:32:57.860 with assurances that Hamas understands they have to control things more effectively. And it's all staged, 0.87

00:33:06.500 you know, to make people freak out and to show the Arab world how strong Hamas is and how great Hamas is. 0.91

00:33:13.220 And of course, your listeners may or may not be aware of the fact that the only media allowed in to the

00:33:21.140 Gaza Strip to film this parody is Al Jazeera, which is the state owned propaganda slash media arm of the

00:33:32.500 government of Qatar. And they're in there, and they stage manage, they do the production, the production

00:33:38.500 values are really good, they've got great equipment, and you can see them.

00:33:43.940 How many journalists that have been killed that had all kinds of access from October 7th on,

00:33:52.900 we find out were actually members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. The idea that Al Jazeera is some beacon of

00:34:02.100 truth, some independent media is beyond ridicule. The going forward. There's a couple of things to

00:34:11.860 talk about with. At the end of this, what happens? Israel has taken the decision that

00:34:20.980 they don't want UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Middle East to be part of

00:34:26.980 the solution or the future anymore. But they can't stop them from operating in Gaza. 0.99

00:34:33.300 The whole world seems to believe that without UNRWA, Gaza would fall apart, and there would be chaos,

00:34:42.100 as opposed to what's really happened. They've been there promoting the chaos. But they did kick,

00:34:47.780 the Israeli government has kicked UNRWA out of Jerusalem. They've told them to vacate their offices

00:34:53.860 and to get out of Israel. Is there a world where the Western donors of UNRWA, like Canada,

00:35:02.500 wake up and say, you know what, this is a problem. And we've got to, you know, not only stop funding

00:35:09.540 UNRWA, but get reform at the UN. Yes. And I think we're kind of, you know, at the dawn of, I hope,

00:35:17.620 that new world. The Trump administration has made clear in the 10 or 11 days since they've come into

00:35:25.860 power that they will no longer be funding UNRWA. Now, the largest chunk of funding for UNRWA came

00:35:31.380 from the U.S. Now, in defense of Biden, they froze it. And my understanding is never released that

00:35:37.860 funding again, unlike Canada, which announced a freeze between two large payments, meaning we never froze

00:35:45.060 on risk funding. Well, actually, Canada did worse than that. Canada announced a freeze

00:35:49.700 and did a rush advance payment of the second payment. And then they made the announcement

00:35:54.900 we're freezing. That was Minister Ahmed Hussain. And so the payment wasn't due until late April,

00:36:02.980 but he rushed it out the door in December or January, right before he made the announcement.

00:36:07.300 It's never done. No one ever pays those, those fees or, you know, support the financing in advance.

00:36:15.220 It's just absurd. So first of all, yes, the U.S. is not going to continue to fund UNRWA.

00:36:24.020 Sweden, interestingly, recently announced that they are pulling all UNRWA funding. The Netherlands.

00:36:31.140 Um, hello, Nora was telling me Switzerland.

00:36:35.380 Switzerland. Yep. So we have Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and we have a Germany,

00:36:40.340 uh, sorry, we have an election coming up in Germany on February 23rd. And the likelihood is high that it

00:36:48.260 is going to be a right leaning government and it's going to probably involve the AFD party in a coalition.

00:36:56.580 And if that should transpire, I think it's highly likely that Germany will also pull UNRWA funding.

00:37:04.340 Um, Hungary, I don't know if they even fund right now, Czech Republic does like,

00:37:10.020 the dominoes are falling. UNRWA is not a humanitarian organization at all.

00:37:17.780 No, they're, they're, they're, they're evil. And I've been documenting that for 15 years.

00:37:22.740 Exactly. So, you know, but you know, Canada, I mean, look, if this government, if we have a Trudeau

00:37:28.900 government and should, um, Mark Carney prevail in an election, if they ever hold one, um, then I

00:37:37.620 expect he would probably double Canada's support or maybe triple it for UNRWA. Um, and Canada is one

00:37:44.900 of the largest funders right now, way out of whack. We don't fund NATO, but we fund UNRWA like nobody's

00:37:50.260 business. Um, I think that I will safely conjecture total speculation that should Pierre

00:37:58.420 Paulie have become the next prime minister of Canada that UNRWA funding will be pulled.

00:38:02.500 Oh, it, it'll be gone. Believe me, it will be gone. Uh, I haven't, um, I haven't spoken directly to,

00:38:09.220 uh, to Pierre about that, but knowing his thinking and knowing the thinking of those around him,

00:38:13.380 these were the guys that pulled it when Stephen Harper was in power, which was the right thing to do.

00:38:18.580 And I was ambassador to Israel at that time. And I can tell you that both prime minister Harper,

00:38:23.380 um, and I took a lot of heat from some of the same parties, all kind of backroom stuff.

00:38:30.500 And, uh, he stuck to his guns.

00:38:35.940 Donald Trump, um, made some comments the other day about clearing out the Gaza Strip.

00:38:41.700 And I'm not sure what he means by that exactly. And then he was asked again, and by the time this

00:38:49.540 is posted, I mean, he may have had five more news conferences cause he's doing about two a day

00:38:53.540 recently. Um, he was, it seems like he's talking about moving people out of Gaza and into Egypt.

00:39:02.020 Um, and he was asked, well, will they even take them? I mean, anybody that has seen the giant wall

00:39:08.340 between Egypt. I know there's tunnels underneath. I know there's all kinds of problems,

00:39:12.420 but for the general population, Egypt built a really big nasty wall that is, you know, 0.54

00:39:19.140 better defenses than anything Israel had apparently. Um, what do you think Trump is,

00:39:25.860 is looking at doing here?

00:39:27.540 So it's really interesting. He's been saying, making these comments for quite some time now,

00:39:33.300 um, maybe more frequently and more kind of vociferously in recent days. Um, I think that

00:39:41.540 what he said, a number of things consistently. One is that the population in the Gaza Strip is so

00:39:49.060 intensely radicalized. It is just, it's like the third Reich. It's like the German people. 0.97

00:39:57.780 during World War II, who had just been so, some brainwashed, some of course chose to believe it,

00:40:06.980 but education, media, propaganda, everything just constantly drove home these themes relentlessly.

00:40:18.660 And that's what has been happening in the Gaza Strip, aided and abetted of course by UNRWA and Western

00:40:24.900 funding. And this is a population. And we know this from polls. I mean, people in the West love to

00:40:31.300 say, Oh, but the civilians, Oh, but they're not all guilty. Well, you know what? It's a really

00:40:37.620 radicalized population, overwhelmingly Islamist, which means they believe that the state of Israel 0.99

00:40:45.620 is a cancer, a blight on the world, that it must be annihilated. Allah must prevail. All Jews are 1.00

00:40:56.100 rightfully killed. I mean, they keep saying it, you know, they, their ceremonies and, and all their 1.00

00:41:02.820 statements, even, you know, with the deal release, all the propaganda behind the, the hostages as

00:41:09.300 they're being released is we will liberate, you know, Al-Aqsa, we will liberate all of Palestine. 0.66

00:41:15.220 I mean, they haven't given up the dream. So number one, Trump looks at that and he says, you know what,

00:41:21.940 what are we going to do? Reconstitute this? That's insane.

00:41:27.700 Look, in our country, in Canada, and in other world capitals, we just keep hearing,

00:41:34.260 well, we need a two state solution. And my response is always, who's the other partner?

00:41:40.740 Who's the partner, the guys that want to sit across and say, okay, we want to do October 7th again. 0.99

00:41:46.420 Our opening position is Vivian and all Jews should be dead. 1.00

00:41:51.460 Exactly. And, and what people seem to have, you know, everyone in the West understood ISIS. 0.99

00:41:56.900 They just like, wow, this is really bad. This is evil. This is extreme.

00:42:00.980 They understood that with Al-Qaeda. For some reason, there's this, this desire to

00:42:07.380 romanticize Hamas as resistance fighters, you know, as they're just seeking truth,

00:42:14.660 beauty and justice. No, they're not. This is a savage culture. And so I think Trump is saying, no,

00:42:22.740 we're not, we're not repeating the same mistakes. This is insanity. Number one, this population has

00:42:30.260 to be re-educated. Number two, as a practical matter, particularly in the northern part of the

00:42:35.940 Gaza Strip, it's rubble. There is nothing left. We can get into how and why that happened. The fact is,

00:42:44.260 there's rubble, there's no infrastructure, people cannot live there. So we're going to have to

00:42:50.180 find a way for them to continue their lives elsewhere, while the Gaza Strip is restored, 0.82

00:42:58.900 but no one's going to restore it for Hamas to rule.

00:43:03.540 So no Marshall plan for Hamas. 0.67

00:43:06.660 No, exactly. Exactly. And one of the impasses, one of the many impasses is, you know, you've got Saudi 1.00

00:43:14.100 Arabia, you've got the UAE kind of salivating over this prime coastline and really very good land.

00:43:21.300 I mean, it's the same, same part of the small country that I now live in. It's very fertile. It's,

00:43:27.700 it's the breadbasket of, of Israel. But they've chosen to turn it into a bristling kind of munitions 0.96

00:43:34.020 factory in war zone. It could have been Singapore.

00:43:36.820 This is what I kept hearing when I was in Israel. Everyone's saying this could be Singapore. This

00:43:42.900 could be the next, um, Dubai.

00:43:45.540 Yeah, it could.

00:43:46.740 On the Mediterranean.

00:43:48.500 It's unbelievably beautiful. So both UAE and Saudi want to come in and develop it,

00:43:54.580 but they want to keep their, their powder dry and their hands clean. They don't want to get involved

00:43:59.060 in, it's like, really guys? No, sorry. So there's going to be some very heavy arm twisting by the

00:44:05.860 Trump administration, I expect, because Trump is saying, you know what, Egypt, you've got to take

00:44:13.140 some of these people in. Why do you expect Israel to continue to put up with this incredibly radical,

00:44:24.500 hostile death cult on its border? It's, this is just not sustainable. Well, guess what? Egypt doesn't 0.83

00:44:33.540 want them. No Muslim country wants them. There are how many 56 Muslim majority countries? 1.00

00:44:41.060 And not one, not one is stepping up to take them. You know who the four countries are who so far have

00:44:46.740 kind of put their hands up for President Trump when he said, we've got to resettle some of these people?

00:44:50.820 Albania, Indonesia, Canada, and Egypt's getting its arm twisted very hard. Albania and Indonesia,

00:45:08.420 there's money, and those are poorer countries, right? Yeah.

00:45:11.380 Yeah. In Canada, we want to pretend we're taking them for the right reasons we're not. It's politics

00:45:19.460 on Justin Trudeau's part. Yep. I really, really hope that Canadians start looking at what's going on

00:45:26.980 and what we're bringing in and how they behave. And for the most part, don't assimilate, don't respect

00:45:33.380 our national values. And we've got the hate marches on the streets every week, multiple times a week

00:45:40.020 here in Toronto, in Montreal, in Victoria. And that's without bringing in a completely radicalized

00:45:48.900 population that, what's the number, as we said, 5,000 people. 99% of those 5,000 people will believe

00:45:58.100 that October 7th was justified and should happen again. How do we assimilate in any way that kind

00:46:07.620 of a population? We don't. You cannot force assimilate. I think that all you have to do is

00:46:15.380 look at much of Western Europe, you know, countries that have the same liberal democratic values that

00:46:22.020 Canada does or did, and what has happened in those countries. I mean, even in Germany,

00:46:27.620 a country of 85 million people, Angela Merkel famously, you know, decided, and I'm actually

00:46:32.740 working my way through her autobiography, which is about as sizzling as she is. But, you know,

00:46:38.900 I'm now at the 2015 point where she very much, quite impulsively, made the decision to let in

00:46:47.580 over 1 million Muslim immigrants, asylum seekers. And this is in a country at the time of 84 million.

00:46:55.360 And she now says, that was a mistake. We now see what's going on in Germany. And that's one of

00:47:03.300 the reasons that I'm traveling to Germany next week is to really get a good handle on what we

00:47:09.100 in Canada are looking at 5, 10 years down the road, possibly sooner. Because people in Germany feel

00:47:17.180 very threatened. And they are. Because most of these asylum seekers do not want to assimilate. 1.00

00:47:26.120 They do not respect the values of the host country. They come in, they very much stick

00:47:32.460 within their own community. And their values are to promote Islam. They don't make it. 0.99

00:47:38.560 We've got a conference that's been shut down twice and coming a third time to promote the

00:47:46.040 caliphate. This is a group of people living in Canada who believe that there should be no

00:47:54.060 Canada, that there should be no secular government, that the caliphate, led by a holy Islamic ruler,

00:48:01.040 should govern everybody. That is insane. And a lot of people can't wrap their brains around 0.75

00:48:10.180 that. We're going past time. But I've got to ask you one question about the future of government

00:48:17.100 in Israel. The thing I heard time and again, left, right, and center, was, again, a year ago,

00:48:26.140 everyone was angry at Netanyahu for failing to see October 7th coming, for failing to stop it.

00:48:34.460 But left, right, and center, they all said, because, you know, as Westerners were like,

00:48:39.520 well, are you got to get rid of Netanyahu? And they were all like, no, not yet. We need to

00:48:45.380 deal with Hamas first. Has that changed? I've seen the polling. The parties that are currently part of 0.74

00:48:52.040 his coalition would lose a lot of seats if there were an election. The, you know, the other coalition

00:48:58.060 would most likely have doubled the number of seats. What do you think is going to happen? What's the

00:49:04.180 future of Netanyahu? Well, the future of Netanyahu is at some point he's going to be gone. But, you

00:49:10.280 know, I know better than to try to predict Israeli politics. But I'll just lay out a few key facts.

00:49:14.280 One is, yes, when October 7th happened, Israel rallied around the urgency of the moment,

00:49:21.840 which is what this country does best. I personally did not agree. I thought at the time that there

00:49:27.740 should be a change of, that the Prime Minister should resign. But the country did come together,

00:49:34.300 and the expectation was that the war would be three months, two to three months, and we'd have

00:49:40.340 it done. It didn't work out that way for a whole bunch of reasons. And there is today, if you fast

00:49:45.800 forward 15, 16 months later, I would say quite widespread dissatisfaction and anger with respect

00:49:53.220 to how this war has been prosecuted. We still have, you know, hundreds of thousands of people

00:50:00.700 displaced from their homes in the north and in the south. And it was very much, you know, one very

00:50:08.320 senior army officer said to me recently, it was like, we were like, it was whack-a-mole. You know,

00:50:15.400 there just seemed to be a lack of a strategic plan. For example, going into Shifa Hospital the first time,

00:50:22.640 Israel had to go in four times. Why? Like, why do you go in, do the job, and then come out and then 0.94

00:50:27.760 go back in? So there is now, I think, quite widespread dissatisfaction with the way in which

00:50:34.680 the war has been prosecuted. This government is seen to have way politicized, overly politicized,

00:50:43.440 important security decisions that have had to have been taken. And now we have ourselves

00:50:49.380 in this hostage situation. And if I was to make a prediction, I would say this, that both

00:50:55.640 Witkoff and Trump are going to lean on Netanyahu to get every last hostage out, even if it means a

00:51:04.280 full IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, other than a kind of one kilometer wide, you know, strip

00:51:10.460 within the strip along the border. And that will kill Netanyahu's coalition. There's no doubt. But I don't

00:51:18.900 think he's going to have a choice. I don't. I don't think that the Americans will support Israel going 0.55

00:51:26.840 back into Gaza without the release, repatriation of all hostages and bodies. And I frankly don't think

00:51:33.800 most of this country will any longer. I think that there's a line that was crossed. And I think that

00:51:39.580 back to our some of the things we discussed earlier, the emotional, the emotional kind of circuit

00:51:52.020 that's just surging through this country, upon seeing these hostages being released, I think has

00:51:59.080 really helped a lot of people who oppose the deal to reconnect with what is our most fundamental and

00:52:05.780 important value. You know, no one left behind. No one left behind. And many of the people who

00:52:11.200 opposed it, they said, things like, look at them, look at the streets of Gaza, they're celebrating,

00:52:17.100 we look weak, you know, that's why we shouldn't do this. And I look at them. And I say, I'm not going

00:52:22.760 to make my decisions based on what they see as being moral or powerful. We have to know what our own

00:52:30.080 morality is. And, you know, I think that that's really, really important. And I think people have

00:52:37.260 reconnected with that. President Trump, before he was elected, everyone was saying, oh, he's anti-war,

00:52:43.020 he's anti-war, he's going back to this like huge isolationist, you know, traditional kind of,

00:52:47.620 depending on the era, American position. And I wasn't hearing that. What I was hearing him say was,

00:52:52.980 I want the wars to end. Most of them are stupid, and they can be solved pretty easily. 1.00

00:52:57.080 But he was also saying, I will not shy away from using American power. Yeah, I will not shy away 1.00

00:53:04.960 from using my levers to make those wars stop. And I think that's what we're seeing in the Middle East.

00:53:12.500 You and I heard the same thing. Vivian, it's always great talking to you. We could go on.

00:53:16.360 Thank you so much, Brian. I always love coming on.

00:53:19.960 Thanks for listening today. Full Comment is a post media podcast. My name is Brian Lilly,

00:53:24.160 your host. This episode was produced by Andre Pru, theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the

00:53:29.640 executive producer. You can subscribe to Full Comment, and please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts,

00:53:35.220 on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon, wherever you get your podcasts. Help us out by leaving us a rating,

00:53:41.400 a review, and telling your friends about us. Thanks for listening. Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:53:46.040 Thank you.

Full Comment - February 03, 2025

Trump has already changed everything in the Middle East

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