Juno News - The barbarity of Hamas (Ft. Gerald Steinberg)

00:00:00.000 Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Rupa Subramanya show. I am Rupa Subramanya.

00:00:20.960 Now, last weekend, the terrorist group Hamas launched a vicious invasion of Israel,

00:00:26.700 killing, raping, and maiming hundreds of Israeli civilians, many of them women, children, and elders.

00:00:34.300 They rampaged through a music festival and dragged away young people, possibly hundreds or more,

00:00:40.500 according to reports, to use as human shields in the Gaza Strip. Many Israelis see this as their 9-11.

00:00:48.760 The attack took place on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, when back in 1973,

00:00:54.220 both Egypt and Syria attacked Israel simultaneously and without warning.

00:01:00.200 These are possibly the worst atrocities committed on Israeli soil since Israel came into being as a sovereign state in 1948.

00:01:08.680 The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has launched an all-out counterattack on Hamas forces

00:01:15.220 holed up in the Gaza Strip and along the border. Palestinian casualties have also been high.

00:01:21.080 It's really hard to see how this region goes back to normal when the dust settles on the present crisis,

00:01:26.780 if it ever does, that is.

00:01:28.920 My views are crystal clear. The state of Israel has every right to defend itself against these anus terrorist attacks, 0.98

00:01:36.260 where women, children, and elderly are raped, mutilated, and murdered, and even paraded on view on social media.

00:01:43.920 It's inhumane and barbaric. There is no justification for this violence.

00:01:49.920 To help me untangle about what's been going on in Israel and where we go from here,

00:01:55.080 I'm joined by Gerald Steinberg. He's a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University,

00:02:01.880 president of NGO Monitor, a think tank that analyzes what comes out of NGOs,

00:02:06.880 and a noted foreign policy and security expert. I spoke to him at his home in Jerusalem about the unfolding crisis in Israel.

00:02:15.460 Well, welcome to the show, Gerald. First of all, I want to ask you if you and your family and extended community

00:02:22.320 are safe and how this brutal Hamas attack has impacted you and your family.

00:02:30.040 I think everybody that I know knows people who were killed, were kidnapped.

00:02:37.840 Our immediate family is all safe.

00:02:40.520 We have family members that are drafted in the reserve army because this really is an unprecedented national emergency,

00:02:49.380 and there's a full call-up, and obviously that's a problem for those of us who are too old.

00:02:55.360 We're helping with grandchildren and doing also volunteer work, but it's something that the word tragedy doesn't even begin to measure.

00:03:04.520 And we know, for instance, one Canadian woman, a young woman who was very close to my wife's family from Ottawa,

00:03:13.360 who was kidnapped. Her children were let go, her young children, and she was kidnapped,

00:03:20.600 and she's somewhere lost, unknown whether she's alive even in Gaza, being held by terrorists

00:03:26.640 in what is really unhuman, brutal behavior in addition to everything else that we've seen.

00:03:32.440 So that's always on your mind.

00:03:37.060 You're in Jerusalem, right, Gerald?

00:03:39.900 Yes.

00:03:40.240 That's where, when I last met you, I was in Jerusalem.

00:03:43.620 And how, you know, was Jerusalem affected by what happened?

00:03:51.160 First information we had, first inkling we had that something terrible, not even terrible,

00:03:56.800 something strange was going on, was on Saturday morning, Jewish Sabbath, also a holiday,

00:04:02.700 at about 8 o'clock in the morning, and we heard sirens.

00:04:05.260 Now, that's been many months since we heard sirens, and we're all, well, practiced.

00:04:10.560 We went into the area that's protected in our apartment, but that was already a warning,

00:04:16.220 and then we turned on the radio, which is not something we usually do on Saturday

00:04:19.080 because we want to know what's going on, and then we heard it, started to hear slow reports

00:04:23.420 of everything coming in.

00:04:24.880 Jerusalem has been attacked by Hamas missiles, about maybe that day, probably half a dozen times,

00:04:33.200 and we had a couple yesterday also.

00:04:36.420 The main military, one of the main military cemeteries was in Jerusalem,

00:04:40.780 and terrorists in Gaza, Palestinian terrorists, were attacking, trying to aim at that cemetery

00:04:48.620 during the funerals of some of the soldiers who were murdered.

00:04:52.300 And so we're certainly affected.

00:04:54.120 There's a very somber mood.

00:04:56.460 Children are staying home from school.

00:04:58.600 There's not much going on.

00:05:00.940 Yeah.

00:05:01.100 In other words, what I was trying to ask you is, did the terrorists actually come to the city of Jerusalem?

00:05:10.600 Were any hostages taken from the city of the type that we saw in the rest of the country?

00:05:18.500 If you look at the map, the answer is no.

00:05:21.820 Israel is really right in the center of the country, and we do get hit by missiles,

00:05:26.960 or at least missiles ain't dead at us.

00:05:28.840 Most of them will fall short.

00:05:29.760 But the terrorists, and apparently there were some close to 2,000 that broke through the fence

00:05:35.600 and the barrier, the very thin barrier.

00:05:39.140 And there, the massacres, the atrocities took place with an area of maybe 20 or 30 kilometers,

00:05:46.940 maybe even less, from the border with Gaza.

00:05:50.220 And Jerusalem is considerably further away from that,

00:05:52.760 as is Tel Aviv and the main population centers.

00:05:56.520 Right.

00:05:57.140 So I want to ask you about, you know, you mentioned that they just cut through the fence, essentially.

00:06:05.340 And, you know, tensions have been simmering for many years now.

00:06:13.400 How did this happen?

00:06:15.060 I mean, everybody's initial reaction was this was a massive failure of Israel's superb intelligence and security establishment.

00:06:22.940 You know, what happened here?

00:06:25.440 How, you know, this was happening right under their nose.

00:06:28.660 You know, what are your thoughts?

00:06:30.640 What's your view?

00:06:31.240 We're going to have to see the details.

00:06:34.800 There's going to be an independent investigation.

00:06:36.960 It'll be probably conducted by judges that are not part of this political and military system.

00:06:43.860 I can tell you a little bit about what the best guesses are and also what we've seen on the videos to some degree.

00:06:49.260 I'm going to start with a lulling into a full sense of security and not imagining this type of scenario.

00:07:00.400 Israel withdrew, and I'll try not to go into too much history, but part of the history is that it's like other wars that we've seen.

00:07:08.740 It's like ISIS. 0.92

00:07:09.680 It has lots of bits and pieces put together that the terrorists in Gaza, 0.58

00:07:14.940 it's an entirely terrorist-controlled area of about 1.4, 1.2.

00:07:21.020 There's a debate how million people in a small area along the sea to the south of Israel.

00:07:26.900 It's a terrorist entity.

00:07:29.820 They've been preparing.

00:07:32.140 They've been attempting to attack Israel.

00:07:34.260 Their goal is very clearly stated. 1.00

00:07:36.660 Kill all the Jews. 1.00

00:07:37.920 Destroy Israel. 1.00

00:07:39.280 That's been the Palestinian goal since the creation of Israel in 1948.

00:07:43.160 And Hamas is the most, you know, the term militant, radical.

00:07:47.940 It doesn't even have been described in terms of Palestinian society, dedicated to that.

00:07:54.160 So Israel withdrew militarily, thinking that the international community would say,

00:07:59.880 okay, you did a great thing, and we're going to put economic assistance.

00:08:03.240 We're going to help the Palestinians build an economy there,

00:08:05.940 and that will be the basis for some sort of peace agreement.

00:08:08.820 That was in 2005.

00:08:10.360 Hamas took over, I won't go through the details, in 2007, through a military coup.

00:08:16.140 They killed the other Palestinians, the PLO people that were actually,

00:08:21.540 the political leadership of Gaza when Israel transferred, when Israel left.

00:08:28.060 So from 2007 to 2023, 16 years, Hamas, which is a terror organization, everybody agrees it's a terror organization, 0.87

00:08:39.520 including Canada and Europe, the United States, has been using billions in international aid,

00:08:46.780 diverting, siphoning off, we can go into the details, a lot of naivete.

00:08:52.240 Canada resumed funding under the current government, under the federal government,

00:08:57.140 resumed funding for this United Nations Refugee Works, or Relief Works, I think it's called, agency UNRWA,

00:09:04.200 which is, we're going to help the poor Palestinians.

00:09:08.500 What did they do with most of the money?

00:09:10.120 They built these huge networks of tunnels, concrete, so they couldn't be penetrated by bombs.

00:09:18.960 And then they started to manufacture missiles, a lot of Iranian aid. 0.74

00:09:23.300 So the first thing is that they've been working on this.

00:09:25.560 I'll try to make it short, otherwise I'll be here for an hour and a half, just doing the history.

00:09:29.180 No, no, no, please continue, no, Gerald, please continue, because, I mean, these are things that many of our viewers and listeners are not aware of,

00:09:37.120 and so it's brilliant, please continue.

00:09:39.680 Okay, I'll try to do it in headlines also, then we can do it.

00:09:43.060 But, so this was a terrorist entity that had lots of resources, ostensibly, to help humanitarian aid, help build houses,

00:09:52.940 but that was stolen for these, for this infrastructure.

00:09:55.880 And for many years, the Palestinians tried, the Hamas tried to tunnel, and they did a few times successfully, 0.72

00:10:03.800 underneath the barrier, there's a border between Gaza and Israel.

00:10:08.920 Again, there's no Israeli occupation in Gaza, nobody there.

00:10:12.160 And they tried to fly over, they tried to climb over, they tried to tunnel under.

00:10:16.780 Occasionally they would succeed.

00:10:19.260 And this happened time after time, and they built, and they then began to fire missiles.

00:10:23.060 So, in 2000, in December 2008 already, through January 2009, we had a three-week war where Israel went in to try to,

00:10:31.980 we got missiles that were fired, there was a kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, killing of others.

00:10:37.120 Israel tried to go in and respond to that, and it worked for a couple of years.

00:10:41.140 And then we had, of course, Israel was condemned by the United Nations, all sorts of other types of what we call the cult of international law and human rights,

00:10:51.900 which is another aspect of this soft-powered demonization or propaganda.

00:10:55.400 So, it happened then, it happened in 2014, another major Israeli, another Hamas attack started with this huge construction of tunnels

00:11:06.140 that Israel mostly caught and exploded, but that led to an Israeli attempt to go in and destroy that whole infrastructure in 2014.

00:11:14.880 And then again in 2021, even this year, there were some smaller skirmishes of missiles being sent, no entry into Gaza itself by ground troops.

00:11:25.780 So, we've sort of been planning what was called, there were different rounds or cycles that Israel was trying to, it was containment.

00:11:34.060 Israel, the Israeli, I'd say the entire Israeli military and political establishment, there are a few exceptions actually,

00:11:42.560 said, okay, we can control, we can control this from the outside.

00:11:45.900 We can prevent them from killing our people by occasionally responding, by destroying a few of their tunnels

00:11:53.160 and some of their missile manufacturing capabilities, and that gives us a few more years of quiet.

00:11:59.080 From what we see now, and there's a, they built this very expensive underground barrier for tunnels.

00:12:06.820 So, the Israeli perception was, they're going to try to come from the ground, and we've put an end to that.

00:12:13.060 What we saw on Saturday was the, first of all, a very quick strike on the Israeli intelligence early warning basis right next to Gaza.

00:12:25.380 There were a group of Israeli-trained Israeli intelligence officers who watched the defense and were supposed to warn and sound the alert.

00:12:36.060 They were killed instantly.

00:12:37.620 They were, what we saw was from the air, quadcopters, little drones that you buy on Amazon or wherever else you do,

00:12:46.060 and maybe manufactured by Iran that I, we haven't gotten the information, dropped rocket-propelled grenades,

00:12:54.400 small weapons that exploded and killed in a very short time.

00:12:58.260 There were also apparently hang gliders that came over, terrorists and hang gliders.

00:13:06.020 They've been practicing, but we didn't think that this was going to be put together.

00:13:09.680 Nobody thought about this being put together in a coordinated way, and nobody then expected this to happen.

00:13:16.640 There was no scenario that said, if this happens, this is what we do.

00:13:21.380 And immediately afterwards, just like ISIS, you may remember that ISIS ran through Iraq and Syria in pickup trucks,

00:13:31.860 armored pickup trucks with mags and other forms of automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank weapons.

00:13:38.760 So they drove through this fence, and in a few minutes, they were in the Israeli civilian areas, the towns, small towns that are 10 minutes,

00:13:53.020 five minutes away from the border, and they just began to kill and massacre.

00:13:58.320 And the Israeli, because the eyes and ears of the Israeli military intelligence had been killed, nobody knew what was going on.

00:14:05.180 They knew that something bad was happening, but they couldn't respond in a coherent way immediately.

00:14:12.360 And I'll just add one more aspect to this, which is going to be part of the discussion.

00:14:17.740 There were approximately 2,500 young people, mostly, at a rave, at a dance party, right in that area.

00:14:26.880 It was a Jewish holiday.

00:14:28.040 It was a Saturday.

00:14:28.680 It was a weekend.

00:14:29.200 And they were massacred.

00:14:31.660 They were just massacred.

00:14:32.920 So a significant part of the casualties are also from this.

00:14:36.740 They had no means of defense at all.

00:14:39.500 The level of brutality was unimaginable.

00:14:43.420 It maybe shouldn't have been.

00:14:44.660 We should have seen what was coming from ISIS and knew that there were these connections, but we didn't.

00:14:50.100 No, it's, I mean, this morning I woke up to the news that 40 babies had been beheaded at one of the, I think, at one of the kibbutzes.

00:15:02.860 It was just horrific.

00:15:04.600 I mean, the brutality is just, yeah, it's terrifying.

00:15:09.380 I mean, thanks for laying that out.

00:15:13.160 I mean, so basically the people who were supposed to wear the border just, you know, they were killed instantly.

00:15:20.800 But was there no mechanism in place that would have alerted other soldiers at the border that something is up, something's going on here?

00:15:29.880 How do you not anticipate these drones and things that are flying overhead?

00:15:34.480 Like, how do you not see that?

00:15:36.000 I mean, Rupa, that's the, that's the, one of the core questions that's going to have to be investigated today.

00:15:43.540 Whether there were, some people are now saying that there were early warnings, early meaning over the last few weeks and months.

00:15:50.340 The problem is that you have a warning every day, every week, and you, then you send troops immediately to deal with it.

00:15:57.640 You tell everybody to go in the shelters, and then you become basically immune.

00:16:04.620 You become overconfident, okay, it's just another one of these examples of being lulled into complacency.

00:16:12.820 So we're not going to, these people are not going to be brought back to life.

00:16:16.720 We're not going to turn back the clock.

00:16:18.300 The most we can do is learn the lessons.

00:16:20.680 One of the lessons, and maybe that's where you want to go next is where we go from here.

00:16:25.200 But one of the lessons is the dismantling of every terror capability aspect, element in Gaza.

00:16:37.020 Since 2005, every Israeli government, every Israeli military official that I know of, that we've seen on the record,

00:16:47.700 said we should not go back into Gaza.

00:16:49.800 For us, for Israelis, it's a trap that will kill off the soldiers, as they were doing before 2005, one of the time. 0.94

00:16:58.100 We don't have a good way of controlling it.

00:17:00.480 We will be accused of war crimes.

00:17:02.000 The world, including the Canadian ambassador in Israel who follows now the sort of European slogans and myths of Israel's always guilty, will condemn us.

00:17:12.440 We don't want to do that.

00:17:14.320 So we're going to back off.

00:17:15.300 I added the Canadian part, of course, that wasn't true in 2005.

00:17:18.140 But I'm just, because we're talking to a Canadian audience, something needs to be looked at more carefully,

00:17:23.800 the way this automatic condemnation, but it has its impact.

00:17:27.200 So now that's going to change.

00:17:30.000 As every Israeli official, even in the opposition, and we're going to have a unity government any day now,

00:17:36.400 has said what was before in Gaza is not going to be returning.

00:17:39.360 There's not going to be any humanitarian aid provided that doesn't get carefully checked by Israelis. 0.76

00:17:45.320 You're not going to have convoys sent by the UN, sent by all sorts of donor agencies,

00:17:50.940 where these kinds of weapons can be easily smuggled in.

00:17:54.200 And we say, oh, you checked it?

00:17:55.260 Good.

00:17:55.780 We'll believe you.

00:17:57.200 We're not going to have that type of a flow.

00:17:59.260 That's not going to be possible.

00:18:00.880 I don't know that Hamas is going to be dismantled,

00:18:03.260 but it's going to certainly suffer some very severe losses and weakening, as we're already seeing today.

00:18:08.940 But they may not survive.

00:18:11.400 And I cannot imagine any situation where Israel will allow them to have any kind of military capability.

00:18:18.540 I don't know how that's going to be done in the long term.

00:18:21.340 Yeah, given Iran and Hezbollah and all of these other unsavory characters, 1.00

00:18:29.360 you know, how, you know, I just wonder what the end game here is.

00:18:34.880 There is no end game yet.

00:18:38.820 I think it's important that you talked about Iran and Hezbollah because they're big players.

00:18:44.800 I think that's another aspect we knew and we had reports and we did studies,

00:18:50.320 and I was part of this process, of Iranian cooperation, Iranian involvement, Iranian training for Hamas.

00:18:59.860 We, of course, know that in the north, in Lebanon,

00:19:02.460 it's basically a country that's run by an Iranian terrorist proxy, Hezbollah,

00:19:08.180 which has a lot more missiles, a lot more terrorist capabilities.

00:19:15.680 But the combination of the three was now we've seen it.

00:19:21.920 And somebody recently, somebody today wrote a piece that said this is the first Israel-Iranian war.

00:19:29.120 And they may be right.

00:19:32.060 It may be an appropriate phrase.

00:19:34.020 So we're going to have to, the end game is going to have to start with Iran. 0.99

00:19:37.760 We've avoided a direct confrontation with Iran for 40 years since the Iranian revolution.

00:19:44.280 It's always done through proxies.

00:19:45.860 That may change.

00:19:47.420 We've avoided direct confrontation with Hezbollah.

00:19:51.100 That may change.

00:19:53.200 We are now having the direct confrontation with Hamas.

00:19:56.940 It's going to be costly for Israel, but we have no choice. 0.98

00:19:59.760 There's no better strategy.

00:20:01.640 And Iran, if I'm not mistaken, has nuclear capabilities, right?

00:20:05.940 I'm a little more cautious with that.

00:20:08.680 Iran is right on that. 1.00

00:20:10.960 That's also a major factor.

00:20:12.940 There's a whole Iran cloud here of issues.

00:20:17.300 Maybe that's not the right term.

00:20:20.120 Series of issues in terms of Iran's capabilities, but also Iranian vulnerability.

00:20:25.320 So on the nuclear issue, yes, the governments of the world, the United States, and Europe certainly have essentially told Iran,

00:20:37.980 well, we'll sort of close our eyes as you continue to generate uranium.

00:20:41.640 Iran has a significant amount, enough enriched uranium at a high enough level to make a bomb or two.

00:20:52.700 I'm not convinced that they can operationalize it.

00:20:55.360 That's not that easy.

00:20:56.240 And if Iran can be stopped here or even pushed back, they're not at North Korea stage at all yet. 0.52

00:21:06.520 But if we leave it alone for six months or a year, they will be.

00:21:09.780 That's something that I'm sure is part of the discussion in the Israeli government, with the American government particularly, what do we do about this?

00:21:18.120 Because what we've been doing up until now hasn't worked.

00:21:22.400 Yeah.

00:21:23.040 Well, that was going to be my next question.

00:21:25.460 The idea that Hamas can be penned up in the Gaza Strip and neutered clearly seems to have failed here.

00:21:33.600 I believe there are more than two million people who live in that area.

00:21:36.740 Even, I imagine now, even people who are not directly part of Hamas have no doubt been radicalized.

00:21:48.920 And, you know, I've seen some interviews where even the average person in the Gaza Strip expresses solidarity with Hamas.

00:21:58.960 How does one deal with that?

00:22:00.700 Where does that end?

00:22:03.200 First of all, be a little bit careful.

00:22:04.840 If you're in a terror state and somebody puts a microphone in the camera in front of you and says, what do you think about this?

00:22:12.800 Are you going to say, hey, I don't really want to identify with these brutal killers.

00:22:19.420 I don't really want to suffer the consequences.

00:22:23.180 I don't want to live in poverty because they're stealing all the aid instead of building their houses, building jobs.

00:22:29.220 I'm not saying that it's a very widespread sentiment.

00:22:31.880 There are a lot of people trying to leave Gaza, not successfully because Hamas doesn't want them to leave.

00:22:42.440 It's like a massive human shield.

00:22:44.200 The numbers that I see are about 1.4 million maybe residents and perhaps less because of significant departures through the sea, through Egypt in the last few years.

00:22:56.920 But let's say somewhere around that.

00:22:58.960 I'll settle for 1.4 or 1.5 million.

00:23:01.080 It's still a huge number.

00:23:03.620 And there have been proposals for international oversight.

00:23:08.740 I don't have any ideas about it.

00:23:11.600 Israelis have been pulling out their hair a little bit worse than that. 0.96

00:23:15.860 Look, Israel occupied Gaza from 1967 to 2005.

00:23:19.800 That didn't work.

00:23:22.780 And we're not going to be able to reimpose that type of system.

00:23:26.580 But something else has to be developed.

00:23:28.860 And maybe there'll be some, if there's an international force that can be relied upon to preserve security, I don't believe in that.

00:23:37.660 I haven't seen it.

00:23:38.440 But maybe something will be put together.

00:23:40.960 Not UN-based, but maybe a coalition of the willing.

00:23:44.640 That's a possibility.

00:23:45.640 It's a huge dilemma.

00:23:48.660 What we can't do is go back to where we were before and allow yet another ISIS-type attack, just like in Iraq and Syria. 0.89

00:23:55.380 If ISIS raises its head again, they've got to be attacked.

00:23:58.480 And that's still the policy of the United States and other countries.

00:24:02.280 And that will be the policy of Israel.

00:24:04.240 So I don't see, and I think it's premature to talk about an end state.

00:24:09.660 Maybe I'll just add one more thing.

00:24:11.020 What we hear about now, which seems to me, the framework, in rough terms, is somewhere between a two- and three-month period where, first of all, what we see now, where there's as much elimination, destruction of the terrorist infrastructure from the air as possible in Gaza.

00:24:30.060 Followed by a major ground offensive to destroy what can't be destroyed from the air, and that's mainly those concrete-lined kilometers of underground tunnels that Israel has tried to destroy from the air previously and probably needs to be done from the ground.

00:24:52.060 Plus all the missile storage areas, and perhaps also taking as many of the Hamas leadership into captivity or wars for them.

00:25:05.520 That also depends on how the hostage, whole hostage issue gets resolved, which perhaps we can talk about, too.

00:25:11.660 So, and then the third month is to establish some sort of a long-term framework where most of the Israeli troops can be withdrawn.

00:25:20.860 Maybe an alternative government in Gaza, something like that.

00:25:24.680 That's what we talked about before, maybe involving some sort of international coalition.

00:25:29.760 It's hard to see how this is going to develop, but that's the discussions that are being held in Israel.

00:25:36.080 Yeah. Critics of Israel will say, well, there's context in history going back to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and all of the various conflicts with its Arab neighbors.

00:25:51.420 They'll also point to the creation of these settlements and blockades by land, sea, and air of the Gaza Strip, not only by Israel, but also by Egypt.

00:26:03.080 You know, what do you say to people who, critics of, you know, who pin the blame on Israeli policy and that this is basically an outcome of mistakes that perhaps Netanyahu made, you know, as a prime minister?

00:26:24.540 First of all, I divide up these critics into different groups, and each one has a different approach in terms of response.

00:26:37.060 To some degree, the first group are, let's take the easy ones, or not easy, but the ones who just don't know.

00:26:42.320 They don't know the history. They don't know the details.

00:26:44.160 They see some headlines. They listen to some propagandists.

00:26:47.020 It's all Israel's fault, Netanyahu, whatever. 0.63

00:26:49.160 So you educate. You try to educate. And that's hard.

00:26:53.400 It's hard because in mainstream media, 90% CBC, Globe and Mail, New York Times, BBC, there's what we call the Palestinian victimization narrative.

00:27:10.080 What they don't tell you is that the Palestinian society, going back to 1948, supported by the United Nations, there's this organization, UNRWA, which has a budget of 1.1 or 1.2 billion U.S. dollars a year,

00:27:29.240 which teaches, they do education, and they do all sorts of other things.

00:27:33.800 Where do they educate? Because these are all defined, Palestinians are still, see themselves, and are defined by UNRWA and the UN as refugees.

00:27:43.780 From 1948, there are very few refugees still alive from 1948, from a terrible war which they started, and which they have never said, end of war.

00:27:54.540 We accept Israel. We accept Israel. We want a two-state solution. We all hear all this noise about a two-state solution that comes out of standard Canadian talking point from the Trudeau government, from the global affairs, from ambassadors.

00:28:08.840 You know, Palestinians never talk about a two-state solution. It's a myth. It's a slogan. 1.00

00:28:15.580 They don't see Palestinians as having agency. They don't listen to what they have to say, what they teach their children.

00:28:20.600 So, first thing I say is, if you can find, or Israel has to deal with a situation where you have, not just in Gaza, but in West Bank, you have a Palestinian population, 0.56

00:28:32.460 four or five million people total, who have never accepted the legitimacy of Israel, whose only goal is to erase Israel from the map, to slaughter, to kill, to evict. 0.75

00:28:44.880 And we're in a population over nine, close to 10 million people. That's not going to happen.

00:28:49.900 We had a terrible tragedy. Lost maybe 2,000 people.

00:28:55.040 But we're not going to disappear.

00:28:57.120 So, and I want to add that other point, because I think it's really important.

00:29:04.100 I've had many conversations with diplomats around, Western diplomats, including in global affairs.

00:29:08.940 And every time I go to Ottawa and the Pearson building, or I talk to the ones here, or whatever, for many of them, I accept from this list people like Norman Spector, who really do understand it,

00:29:22.040 when they just don't pay any, they don't know anything about the Palestinian society.

00:29:27.120 They don't know anything about it.

00:29:28.420 They don't say to Palestinians, look, we'd like to help you.

00:29:32.020 We are helping you, but you cannot continue to expect, demand, prepare, attack to destroy Israel.

00:29:41.560 That's not an acceptable basis for anything.

00:29:45.740 Canadians, with all due respect, are small players.

00:29:49.480 Europeans, which provide a lot more aid and are really the best friends of the Palestinians, absolutely don't want to deal with it, refuse to deal with it, refuse to recognize it.

00:29:59.620 So, it goes back to your question, I said the two groups, a few groups.

00:30:03.500 The first group is those that can be educated.

00:30:05.360 We really have to emphasize this.

00:30:07.320 Palestinians have to change. 1.00

00:30:09.100 Yes, that comes to the second group, or I'll add to this.

00:30:13.500 The constituents, Israelis see this all the time.

00:30:16.820 And that's why in Israeli elections, what's called the Israeli left, the Israeli peace camp,

00:30:21.680 after the Oslo agreements blew up on our faces, we had one that seems we were totally stunned by the fact that 1,100, 1,100 Israelis were murdered

00:30:33.680 in bus bombings and other mass bombings, what we call Arafat's war, and Palestinians call the second intifada.

00:30:41.680 And that was after the Oslo peace accords, where there were no new settlements, there was a plan to go towards,

00:30:51.040 the idea was some sort of, it wasn't formal, but a two-state solution based on this initial agreement,

00:30:57.040 establishing a Palestinian authority, bringing Arafat back to Gaza,

00:31:00.680 and then later on in Ramallah, Palestinian capital, Palestinian economy,

00:31:06.360 Israeli withdrawal from large parts of what they called Palestine.

00:31:11.660 That was all used to prepare for this other, for that terror, round of mass terror.

00:31:17.740 So, from an Israeli perspective, realistically, as much as people might want to have peace,

00:31:24.820 there's no horizon, and therefore, getting back to your question,

00:31:28.540 I'm an academic, I go around, then I'll try to come more directly,

00:31:32.920 that what happened was that the relatively small fringe Israeli settlement movement,

00:31:38.800 what's called the far right, became more, had greater influence.

00:31:44.840 So, they're a small part of the current government,

00:31:47.900 but they're necessary in order to have a majority.

00:31:50.980 It's like the NDP is in the, for the liberals.

00:31:54.840 They still have an effect.

00:31:56.260 So, yes, the Israeli settlements have not indicated an Israeli objective of a two-state solution,

00:32:05.260 but the Israelis say, well, there is no Palestinian constituency for a two-state solution,

00:32:10.880 so why should we bother?

00:32:12.260 That also has to change.

00:32:14.520 But first, or concomitantly, we have to see what we haven't seen for 75 years,

00:32:21.220 and that is a change in the Palestinian approach or understanding of Israel

00:32:30.220 and a willingness to compromise.

00:32:32.000 The second group of people I don't argue with,

00:32:34.360 and those are the people who are core Israel haters,

00:32:38.720 anti-Semites, sometimes we use that phrase,

00:32:40.780 there should be no Jewish state. 0.99

00:32:42.340 For all sorts of reasons, anti-Zionist is sometimes used.

00:32:47.460 Jews don't have a right to self-determination of any kind, 1.00

00:32:50.340 regardless of borders, in their homeland.

00:32:52.560 And I include in that the officials, organizations, and members of groups like

00:33:00.400 and supporters of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

00:33:03.320 and a whole range of people who demonstrate death to the Jews, death to Israel, 0.68

00:33:09.080 whether it's a semi-dune organized event from Vancouver or in the streets of Toronto

00:33:15.080 and other places.

00:33:16.460 I mean, there was a terrible event in Sydney with those type of slogans.

00:33:19.940 Oh, yes. 0.98

00:33:21.780 Gas the Jews. 1.00

00:33:23.600 Terrible. 1.00

00:33:24.520 Yeah.

00:33:25.300 And for those people, I don't think there's any kind of rational discussion that can be held.

00:33:30.520 They're off the charts in terms of hate.

00:33:34.080 So I invest more, and I think that's why I write, do podcasts and other things,

00:33:39.740 because I think that we have failed.

00:33:43.260 Well, I say this also to my Israeli colleagues, my friends in other countries, Canada, elsewhere.

00:33:49.200 We have failed to build an educational structure that reaches out and gets these.

00:33:54.660 We tend too much to go to the easy targets and not to the core issues and say,

00:33:59.980 okay, you want to talk about all these, but let's first talk about,

00:34:02.200 show me where the Palestinians, let's talk about Palestinian compromise as part of the basis.

00:34:08.720 How do we get the Palestinians to engage? 1.00

00:34:11.040 It was easier 10, 15 years ago.

00:34:13.220 If Palestinians would have stepped forward when Israel withdrew from Gaza, 0.98

00:34:16.740 when Israel signed the Oslo Accords, there would have been, we know, all the polls showed. 0.69

00:34:20.880 So election results, Israelis voted for governments that wanted to reach peace agreements.

00:34:26.080 But you don't have that constituency now.

00:34:28.180 Okay, long answer.

00:34:28.980 I wanted to thank you for joining us for what obviously is an incredible difficult time for you,

00:34:37.840 for all Israelis and friends of Israel all around the world,

00:34:42.620 including folks like me and other people here in Canada.

00:34:46.740 I really appreciate you coming on the show to speak to us and share your insights.

00:34:53.900 And I hope you stay safe.

00:34:56.600 And I hope to see you again in Jerusalem sometime soon.

00:35:00.660 Rupa, I was going to end with exactly that sentiment, that wish.

00:35:05.080 So hope for better times.

00:35:06.640 As we all say to each other, we pass each other on the streets or on the phone.

00:35:10.060 And, you know, hoping to see you.

00:35:13.460 Yeah.

00:35:14.020 We'll say everybody stay safe.

00:35:16.060 And I really want to bring you back again to talk about how the situation's going to evolve in the next few weeks.

00:35:23.520 So if that's okay with you, I'll reach out to you.

00:35:26.080 And I would really appreciate that for a longer conversation.

00:35:30.820 Good to talk to you again.

00:35:32.700 Okay, perfect.

00:35:33.520 Thank you.

00:35:33.880 Thank you.

00:35:40.060 Thank you.

Juno News - October 11, 2023

The barbarity of Hamas (Ft. Gerald Steinberg)

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript