In this episode, Gideon Avigayil talks about the ongoing Israeli war in the Mideast, and why it is not being discussed in the Israeli society. He also talks about why Israel continues to engage in wars without a clear endgame, and what is the point of them?
00:03:56.180What did we gain out of all those costs?
00:03:59.380And unfortunately, Tucker, those questions are hardly being discussed in Israel.
00:04:04.800And this, in many ways, depresses me almost more than the wars itself.
00:04:11.080The fact that a whole people, 10 million people, very intelligent, very ideological and with very clear views go to all those wars blindly and automatically without asking ourselves why, what for, what do we gain?
00:04:58.260They are not the only, there are those among my friends who think that he does everything only for his career, only in order to stay in power.
00:05:07.800I give him more credit because I think he has an ideology, a very dangerous one, but he has an ideology which motivates him as well.
00:05:17.200But no doubt that those last wars serve, first of all, his personal interest.
00:05:23.220He has a trial. He's doing very badly in the Poles.
00:05:28.000And here he comes with another war, war after war.0.64
00:05:30.680I want to ask, why did we have this need to bomb in Beirut two days ago?
00:05:36.820What did we achieve by this bombardment?0.59
00:05:40.360Israel achieved anything out of it except of provoking Iran.0.56
00:05:45.400And then we got this sleepless night last night with dozens of ballistic missiles over our heads.
00:07:04.580But Israel has still a very, very strong army with devices, technology, ammunition, and arms that your country was kind enough or too kind to supply Israel blindly and almost without conditions or limits.0.83
00:07:22.560And Israel has the military answer almost for any challenge.0.71
00:07:26.160And this is, on one hand, obviously very good because we are safer.0.87
00:07:31.900On the other hand, it corrupts also a country because it lets Israel to go wild, to go to all kinds of military adventures, knowing that by the end of the day, we are not endangering the existence or real assets.0.90
00:07:48.740But because we are always stronger and we won all the wars, military, politically, we lost them all.0.76
00:07:54.480is there a concern that the united states in the next i don't know five or ten years
00:08:01.580might begin to withdraw its unconditional support for israel you say five ten years and i would say
00:08:09.760five to ten months yes i agree with that it's happening right now i think that we are reaching
00:08:16.880a stage in which we will face a major shift in u.s policy toward israel
00:08:23.260When Biden was the last Zionist, so to say, president, Donald Trump was the last one who0.92
00:08:31.400accepted almost all the ideas, the craziness of Israel, and until now, we still have time0.89
00:08:39.960to see, but until now, he went along the Israeli cycle, but the next president, would0.74
00:08:47.460he be democrat or republic one thing is sure those relations will be challenged more or less
00:08:56.420but they will not go anymore automatically and blindly maybe the aid will continue but at least
00:09:03.420it will be conditioned the problem is that it's you know what you want to supply israel you think
00:09:09.700that the israel israel is the most the country that it is at need more than any other country
00:09:16.620in the world. And you want to supply it with everything like any country in the world. Fair
00:09:22.140enough. Put some conditions. Put some conditions according to the American interest. Israel is not
00:09:29.540following neither the international law nor the American advances for many, many years.
00:09:35.560The United States is speaking about the two-state solution for decades, and Israel is just ignoring
00:09:40.960making it and doing anything possible to sabotage this idea.
00:14:54.160We are still victimizing ourselves about the 7th of October.0.97
00:14:58.900However, we are still victimizing ourselves as the David against the Goliaths, the whole Arab world wants to exterminate us, to push us to the ocean, and we still believe that we are the chosen people.0.55
00:15:14.240Yes, if you will scratch under the skin of every Israeli, I believe, secularist and religious, you will hear again and again, no, no, we are better, we know better, we are better.0.93
00:15:27.580Take, for example, the international law.
00:15:30.480Israel is very much in favor of the international law.0.93
00:15:33.400It was brought to the world after the Holocaust, after World War II.
00:16:54.000From your perspective, and is the war in Gaza or the military bombardment of Gaza designed to end Hamas? Is that true?
00:17:04.120No, Taker. And this is a conclusion that I came to just recently. It's very clear for me that the war in Gaza is a war to crash the Palestinian society in Gaza and finally also to make them leave.
00:23:00.700The other half, he's always an afterthought, pushed aside, left to figure out it alone,
00:23:05.680or told that his feelings don't really matter.
00:23:08.300But think about what that actually feels like.
00:23:11.020You want to step up, you want to do the right thing, but you're terrified.
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00:26:01.200Is the United States government doing anything0.55
00:26:03.620to restrain Israel in these plans that you can tell?
00:26:08.260I think the United States is a full partner.
00:26:10.960Look, we cannot think that what Israel is doing, knowing the dependence of Israel on the United States, we can't say that the United States is opposing it.
00:26:24.260You know, all the big liberal presidents, above all Barack Obama, with his wonderful, wonderful speeches and ideas.
00:26:32.540I had tears in my eyes when he was elected.
00:27:19.280When did the Americans stop the settlements, which is much more innocent than a genocide?
00:27:25.760What did they really do to stop the settlement project?0.75
00:27:29.100They could, in one phone call, put an end to it, one phone call in which they would say, I'm oversimplifying it, obviously, one phone call saying, listen, if you build one more terrace in the occupied territories, there is no aid to Israel, period.0.66
00:27:46.300And in this day, the settlement movement would have died, but there was no president to do so.
00:27:51.820so the united states if you speak about the settlement united says he's a partner if you
00:27:58.660speak about the war in gaza you may agree with me that it was a genocide or not it doesn't matter
00:28:03.740the united states is a partner a manager with moral responsibility yes
00:28:11.560everything you're saying is true and provably true these are not opinions these are facts
00:28:17.540what what is up for debate is why why has a succession every u.s president since harry
00:28:25.600truman in 1948 gone along with this why has there been no meaningful condition attached to any of
00:28:34.720this aid military and economic like what is this i think it's up to you to answer taker for me it's
00:31:21.400I don't know what they do, but I know one thing,1.00
00:31:24.780that as long as we will not see facts on the ground, it's meaningless.
00:31:30.360There were so many so-called peace councils before with all the
00:31:36.660After each attack of Israel, major attack on Gaza, there was always a huge conference somewhere in Europe or the United States with a lot of surprises to rehabilitate Gaza, to bring a lot of investors to Gaza, to rebuild Gaza.
00:31:56.300Now, me personally, I was once, I will never forget this day, invited to a launching of a new hotel in Gaza, which was supposed to be like a resort place for Israelis.
00:32:09.660Two weeks later, started another war and the place was totally destroyed.0.58
00:32:14.900So all the talking about rebuilding Gaza are not valid, even if the money is there.
00:32:21.140and the money is also not coming there because there is no political plan for Gaza.
00:32:27.320It's very nice, your good intention to build casinos there.
00:32:32.220First of all, who is going to run Gaza?
00:43:31.660Israel could do things that no other country in the world could do.
00:43:37.180But when the public opinion in the United States, like elsewhere, started to shift, it was immediately labeled as anti-Semitic, as you know personally.
00:48:39.300He found the opportunity of his life to try, once and for all, a military campaign against Iran.0.76
00:48:49.140And maybe he believed that he can achieve the goals, namely regime change, dismantling the nuclear capability, dismantling the ballistic missiles, and also he had the dream to disconnect between Iran and the proxies.
00:51:33.500The fact is that even the bombarding of Lebanon is in a way also a tool to sabotage any agreement with Iran, between the United States and Iran.
00:51:48.840And he will do anything possible to prevent an agreement still because either he doesn't believe in anything else or he's not courageous enough to stand in front of the mirror and say,
00:53:59.940The mindset is of living on the sword and only living on the sword and not believing in anything else, not believing that the Arabs are human beings like us, not believing in any agreements with them.1.00
00:57:40.060I'm very attached to his place, and this makes the whole thing much more painful because I'm attached so much to Israel.
00:57:48.800Because I feel that all those things are being done in my behalf, because I feel that I was cheated as a child, telling me all kinds of stories about the beginning of the state, which were not the full truth.
00:58:02.780So I feel cheated. I feel ashamed in many cases. I feel guilty, deep guilt over the Palestinian people from the beginning, not from what's going on now, for all 48. But, but, you know, for the bad and for the good, it is my place. I will never leave as long as I can stay here. No, that's my language.
01:01:33.900What they do now in the West Bank, I'm every week in the West Bank.
01:01:37.100What they do now in the West Bank is exactly what the first scientists did in 48.
01:01:41.640The thing is that then there was, and now we have this regional superpower and still we want more and still for more real estate and more land.
01:01:55.240So, you know, those things are very hard to change.
01:02:00.620So I don't think that Israel changed so much.
01:02:04.260Yes, Smotrich, Ben Gavir, and above all, Netanyahu, who legitimized them, did a big shift, mainly by legitimizing.
01:02:13.680You know, we had this Rabbi Emmanuel Kahana, who you Americans were kind enough to export him to us, and we are very grateful for this.
01:02:25.460I really, if you should have any guilt feelings, it's for exporting Ben Gavir to Israel.
01:02:32.360Yes, from Brooklyn to Israel, I remember it.0.86