TRIGGERnometry - War Expert Debunks Gaza Lies

00:00:00.000 I'm fine if people are anti-war I'm not fine if people are anti-fact nobody's ever built 300 miles

00:00:09.480 of tunnels underneath their civilians for the sole purpose of using their civilians as a shield and

00:00:15.420 as a sacrifice every individual in Gaza could fit in Hamas's tunnels with ease why is it that Israel

00:00:23.400 is held to not one double standard but a whole list of double standards in war that no other

00:00:29.240 nation in history has ever been held to what is the goal now by pursuing this conflict in this way

00:00:36.500 alienates a whole generation of future western decision makers and that is a reality that

00:00:42.120 Israeli politicians have to reckon with surely relax relax this is not an ad I just wanted to

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00:01:35.160 and so welcome to trigonometry well thanks for having me long time viewer long time fan well appreciate

00:01:40.520 that um i you're one of the world's leading experts on urban combat and urban warfare which is why we

00:01:46.580 wanted to have you on in the context of what's happening in gaza obviously you messaged me somewhat

00:01:52.580 irate after our last couple of interviews on israel with pierce morgan and andrew fox you had a lot of

00:01:59.220 disagreements before we get into all of that and your perspective on what's happening and perhaps

00:02:04.020 answering some of the questions of those two guests raised that we as non-experts are not able to address

00:02:09.720 uh tell everybody a little about your background and what gives you the ability to talk about these

00:02:15.300 issues with some authority sure so my name is john spencer i'm the chair of urban warfare studies

00:02:21.020 at the madacy policy forum also executive director of the urban warfare institute i spent 25 years

00:02:28.480 active duty u.s army as an infantry soldier and then officer two combat tours to iraq did the invasion

00:02:35.220 and then i was there during the height of the sectarian violence in 2008 in baghdad to include the battle of

00:02:41.220 sadr city i don't rest on my own experiences though i've been studying urban warfare for over a decade

00:02:48.100 i started in the pentagon actually in a research group and advisory role to our top four-star general

00:02:54.700 of the u.s army in the pentagon after that tour where we were looking at large cities like mega cities

00:03:00.260 i i moved to west point uh the united states military academy where i was teaching strategy leadership

00:03:05.680 military tactics in echelon but really that strategy class has helped me a lot since then

00:03:11.300 i started a research center called the modern war institute i was the co-founder of that

00:03:16.260 and started writing a lot about urban warfare now i have three books i started a podcast although i

00:03:23.040 don't consider myself a podcaster not that's a bad thing uh i've been doing it for over six years

00:03:28.060 interviewing top commanders of past battles technical experts veterans um i've started in research role

00:03:36.840 though since 2018 really i've been traveling the world going into combat zones

00:03:43.860 using different research methodologies like ethnographic you know basically getting on the ground in

00:03:50.580 combat areas and recording what's happening and then the lessons that other people can take from it

00:03:55.660 so i write case studies on past wars so i've covered most urban battles of the past from stalingrad

00:04:00.860 to most of the battles of urban of war ii actual walking the ground of battlegrounds i went into

00:04:06.880 ukraine weeks after russia withdrew from kiev and been into ukraine four times azerbaijan to study their

00:04:15.300 wars india and then israel of course so i've been to israel now five times four times in bed with the idea

00:04:21.960 actually with the commanders with the division commanders and others i've interviewed the prime

00:04:28.320 minister three times the defense minister the head of the idea the chief of staff multiple numerous

00:04:35.260 commanders observed them in the field and and i didn't start studying war on october 7th and that's

00:04:41.500 unique in some aspects and to other people who we call who have opinions i didn't start studying

00:04:47.320 israel on october 7th and i surely heck didn't start studying war i had been going in and out of israel

00:04:53.120 for years writing case studies writing research reports on their past urban battles from the 1973

00:05:00.060 battle of suez city the first intifada second intifada ancient jerusalem battle etc so i consider

00:05:08.580 myself knowledgeable in urban warfare but to be honest in order to understand gaza you have to

00:05:15.300 understand a little bit of history on what's come before and i've studied a lot of urban battles and i can

00:05:19.220 help provide people like it's really weird what you're saying about israel here and all the double

00:05:23.460 standards but you also have to have an understanding of things like civilian harm mitigation which are

00:05:28.260 the steps that militaries have taken even over the last 20 or 30 years to protect civilians and i've been

00:05:34.180 arguing with groups in the united nations i've spoken multiple times at the united nations and with

00:05:40.120 u.n humanitarian groups about how do you help protect civilians in urban warfare but also the law so then you

00:05:47.780 have that part where you have to understand the the full nature of the laws of war from what is the

00:05:52.140 humanitarian requirements of the attacker to like what what munitions can you and can you not use

00:05:58.360 and i've been writing podcasting and researching all of those topics so i think i have some information

00:06:05.380 to share about what's going on in gaza but also to give people the framework because we have a lot of

00:06:11.620 people that say things either that are just wrong and and we can talk about some of those people or

00:06:16.760 just that are not informed by an actually research methodology well it's great to have you on the

00:06:22.260 show because of your knowledge and expertise i was going to say i'm surprised how much hair you have

00:06:26.800 given that you've probably been tearing a lot of it out with the way that this conflict's been covered

00:06:31.920 um so broad perspective big picture in your opinion what is the correct frame and way of looking at

00:06:41.640 what's happening in gaza and israel's war in gaza that people who don't understand military conflict

00:06:49.060 particularly urban warfare probably don't understand absolutely this is an amazing first question is to

00:06:55.740 the framework is war right so although hamas is a non-state actor the law of war actually

00:07:02.500 covers an internationally armed conflict or a non-internationally armed conflict and i know you had

00:07:06.620 um natasha holsdorf to to try to explain the framework of the legal the what the world has

00:07:14.360 been doing though has been applying a counter-terrorism counter-insurgency framework to hamas

00:07:19.340 because there is a heuristic of you know this is what people know this is whether they understand

00:07:24.340 iraq afghanistan the battles against isis they keep considering hamas a terrorist fight a counter-terrorism

00:07:31.680 fight and that's not the framework that's not in any way the framework on october 7th the terror army

00:07:38.000 that was hamas's military and other terrorist groups and a whole lot of civilians from gaza

00:07:43.860 invaded southern israel israel waged war in accordance with the framework of nations against hamas as the

00:07:52.020 political and military apparatus of the area of gaza although it's not a nation so this isn't a nation

00:07:57.660 on nation conflict it's a nation against a non-state actor but also very unique in the context

00:08:03.440 of it unlike others right all these other frameworks that people talk about and i and this is really

00:08:08.920 where i've been playing whack-a-mole to people's analogies people's comparisons is like why are you

00:08:13.900 comparing this to iraq battles why are you comparing this to isis battles i mean those are all insurgencies

00:08:21.040 within nations where the u.s or others are helping even a host nation fight an insurgency

00:08:27.760 it's the wrong framework so at the at the very top is war you have to frame it in in the way of war

00:08:35.860 now what how do people compare it and i can give you all kinds of comparisons that you probably haven't

00:08:41.780 heard of that are more applicable to gaza than anybody else is using and it's crazy and i've tried to

00:08:48.980 help people understand that from the size of the military the terrain of gaza there are some very

00:08:55.640 unprecedented aspects of this where there is no comparison and i can make really bold claims i'm

00:09:01.580 sure we'll talk about them like this has never happened in war before so explain all of this john

00:09:06.220 what are you talking about uh what makes this conflict unique what are some of the particular

00:09:12.000 challenges that the the israeli defense force faces what are some of the contentious issues that

00:09:19.560 people keep claiming that you don't agree with well i don't know if we have enough time to go through

00:09:23.540 all the contentious issues right uh so the the number one things let's talk about the things that are

00:09:29.300 unique in war gaza gaza is a very unique situation hamas so unlike any other comparison gaza is a small

00:09:39.820 area relatively it's 25 miles long and sorry i don't do the kilometers 25 miles long five to seven

00:09:45.900 miles wide it's a really relatively small area but it actually has 24 cities it has multiple cities of

00:09:52.760 over 600 000 if not a million talking about gaza city it's not a battle it's a war but i can't find

00:10:00.420 any other situation again because i've studied urban warfare for over a decade and i have a little

00:10:04.920 military service myself where the enemy defender has prepared the ground for 20 years for that battle

00:10:11.640 most urban battles from stalingrad to akin to huay all of these things are meeting engagements where

00:10:19.920 the enemy gets inside the urban area or is there and then for a short amount of time prepares it for a

00:10:24.740 battle and we can talk about some of the numbers of previous battles but the fact that hamas spent

00:10:30.600 billions of dollars and prepared every bit of gaza for war is unique and that means if you're an

00:10:37.560 attacker again if you just take the word israel out of this and give the context of the war there is no

00:10:42.920 parallel there is no parallel to the 300 to 400 miles of tunnels underneath every urban area in gaza

00:10:51.500 and connecting them all there are tunnels around the world and i've studied the vietnam war from you know

00:10:56.320 the tunnels of kuji to the tunnels currently in north korea and china nobody's ever built 300 miles

00:11:02.680 of tunnels underneath their civilians for the sole purpose of using their civilians as a shield and as

00:11:08.900 a sacrifice that's their strategy i know other people have told talk to you about that is that

00:11:13.220 hamas wants its population to be killed that's also unique the nazis didn't do that the japanese didn't

00:11:19.640 do that even isis didn't say look my strategy is to get my people killed and then hope that the

00:11:25.360 international world community stops israel short of victory the aspect of the size of the enemy

00:11:31.360 right i can hopefully we'll talk about a couple of the previous battles that people use to do some

00:11:36.080 type of comparison hamas was estimated to be 30 to 40 000 fighters on october 8th that's just hamas

00:11:43.420 as you have heard as well there are other combatants that joined the fight in other terrorist

00:11:49.060 organizations in gaza you have the palestinian islamic jihad you have lion's den you have like 14 other

00:11:54.620 terrorist groups and this is where a major contentious thing i have is people calling

00:12:00.080 combatants and civilians in my world and in the law of war there's combatants and there's non-combatants

00:12:05.940 a non-combatant can turn themselves into a combatant and more easily than people think you

00:12:11.920 don't just have to shoot at the idf or whoever to become a combatant if you hold hostages if you report

00:12:18.120 on intelligence if you carry ammunition whole list of reasons but just the size of the enemy in gaza

00:12:24.120 in a 20 year prepared defense is what it is is very unique and was going to make the idf challenge

00:12:30.540 astronomically hard to even get to the enemy the other aspect um i would would have liked to save

00:12:39.920 it till the end is that there's never been a war and you've challenged people on this where the

00:12:45.280 civilian population is forced to stay inside of the main combat areas the fact that egypt on october 8th

00:12:52.580 said not one person comes out of gaza towards the sinai desert just from a military analysis let

00:13:00.100 alone a political analysis i can't find that ever happening right you know in ukraine which i've

00:13:05.140 been there three three to five million people left areas massive civilian displacement in areas that

00:13:12.120 russia invaded even still today syria every war every war civilians get out of harm's way

00:13:19.560 so that the militaries can have their fight and there be safeguarded or even moved to humanitarian

00:13:25.600 areas those just the variables that before the war even actually starts before the ground invasion

00:13:32.840 starts before the bombing starts every aspect of the war against tamas and gaza is unique and there is no

00:13:39.600 no parallel hopefully we'll talk about the double standards but i can keep going because that's the

00:13:45.020 other uniqueness as i've studied again i'm currently studying other wars there's no other war where

00:13:51.680 israel if you put the word israel in it then there's a whole different standard in what can be done the

00:13:58.500 way they assess the war the this day you know the the false claims of war crime genocide all these

00:14:06.180 things contrary to what israel does this is all very unique but war is a contest of will so you have to

00:14:13.960 get into okay fine but how do you defeat hamas even that standard right so the idea that israel was

00:14:20.720 supposed to have a day after plan in gaza in october of 2023 like what okay fine but what's your plan

00:14:26.920 that would be like saying okay you know you started against japan and your goal is to defeat japan but

00:14:33.300 what's your day after plan no you have to defeat the enemy you have to take his power and then you start

00:14:39.460 to work on post-conflict operations every aspect the number one thing that i've been fighting since

00:14:46.740 october 8th though has been this this counting obsession it's all a version of which is a great

00:14:53.640 book lies damn lies statistics where the goal is to make any number as a big as a number to make it as

00:15:01.080 big as a problem and for this war it's been a global problem and it's just repeating the number

00:15:06.580 that comes from a terrorist organization as somebody who studies war for a living there's

00:15:11.940 never been a single battle in history not a war but a battle in which there is a running daily count

00:15:19.300 of how many civilians are dying down to the single digit coming from the enemy with inside the battle

00:15:25.320 coming from hamas and the reason that is is because it's impossible to know how many civilians are dying

00:15:31.760 in all these other battles i can tell you about week years later that they still don't know how

00:15:36.960 many civilians died but the ideal inside of gaza and there's all kinds of these nefarious actors who

00:15:43.120 are trying to invent ways to validate hamas's casualty numbers if not say no hamas is not right it's

00:15:49.380 actually more it's crazy that this statistical war that this is how many civilians are dying and how

00:15:56.620 many combatants are dying there's never been a military in history in any war who's ever been

00:16:01.740 asked look i know your your war is just your goals are just but what's your civilian to combatant ratio

00:16:06.760 because that's not the way the law works that's not the way war works and you would actually give

00:16:11.680 people every terrorist organization around the world a recipe for success i'll just make the number as high

00:16:17.280 as you can and it wasn't like this is the first time again if you started studying war on october 7th

00:16:22.020 you could probably imagine like all kinds of stuff this is the worst i've ever seen okay have you

00:16:26.860 studied any other war have you ever studied any other humanitarian aid operations no okay then i can

00:16:32.800 show you other times when it's worse and and worse and worse in the numbers in the chaos even though

00:16:39.920 the context of gaza is so unique that the world won't even acknowledge it right so the fact that going

00:16:46.160 back to egypt and i just interviewed the minister of defense again to validate that in the last 21

00:16:52.900 months not one delegation not one nation especially the uk have ever brought up the target the topic of

00:17:00.000 what about egypt couldn't we move the civilians out of harm's way couldn't we get them out of the

00:17:05.780 hamas hands and and set up a humanitarian area in the sinai not one delegation brought that up so you

00:17:12.040 have to ask the question why is that why is it that israel is held to not one double standard but a

00:17:18.440 whole list of double standards in war that no other nation in history has ever been held to or would be

00:17:25.740 if it happened to them but john there's a lot to unpack in what you're saying but on the egypt thing

00:17:30.300 uh i would imagine what the the pro-palestine people so to speak would say is uh what israel really

00:17:36.960 wants i mean piers morgan said this on our show what israel really wants is to displace the

00:17:41.880 civilians uh from gaza is to get rid of the palestinian arabs who live there therefore they

00:17:47.900 would love nothing more than for those people to flee to other countries and the reason that the

00:17:52.320 neighboring countries don't want that to happen a they already have hundreds of thousands of

00:17:56.760 palestinians uh from previous eruptions of this conflict uh we know that in many countries to which

00:18:03.620 those groups of people have fled that has caused a lot of instability egypt is a poor country with its

00:18:09.100 own security problems and so they don't want to play into israel's hands and facilitate israeli

00:18:15.320 quote unquote ethnic cleansing on the one hand and on the other hand they do not want to

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00:20:28.440 suvw german engineered for all yeah so there's there's two things here one i can't help people that have

00:20:36.700 bds so not the boycott the vest sanction awful thing that happens against israel but if you have bb

00:20:43.280 derangement syndrome and you believe that he's just an you know the nefarious actor that's guiding all

00:20:48.480 this or if you have tds trump derangement syndrome i would point like you did recently to somebody

00:20:54.020 going well wait a minute during world war ii there's massive population displacement in every war

00:21:00.080 actually and you could talk 2020 war of nagarna-karabakh 23 war of nagarna-karabakh ukraine syria yemen

00:21:06.140 population displacement is historically exactly what happens to get civilians out of harm's way now if

00:21:13.360 you're i'm not you know people want to put me in a bucket of pro-israel or put other people in the in

00:21:18.440 the in the bucket of pro-palestine i think that's not the right framework i'm pro-truth and some people

00:21:24.540 are anti-israel that becomes a fact they actually don't care about palestinians or the cause so if

00:21:30.060 somebody's so adamant that israel just wants to eradicate people it's been you don't listen to the

00:21:35.680 words of actually israeli leaders like minister dermer who's the minister of strategic affairs who has said

00:21:41.000 like in the beginning like absolutely you'll pass a u.n security council resolution saying that the

00:21:46.240 people can come back after hamas is defeated but mainly i would say and i hope you can put it in a

00:21:51.700 picture take out a map look at where gaza is and look at where the sinai desert is and then look at

00:21:58.780 where egypt is there's a massive area so i think it's bullocks that that's the excuse that people give

00:22:05.240 and one historically it's never been the case and they're actually prolonging the war they're

00:22:12.280 actually causing civilian death all you would have to do on october 2023 right afterwards egypt launched

00:22:19.920 a armor brigade and many other troops to the border to make sure no civilians got out they built a new

00:22:26.980 wall there's actually three walls they built a new wall to make sure that nobody got out now if you're

00:22:32.260 so adamant that you think that israel and there is this in a lot of these positions there's just

00:22:37.280 nefarious israeli theory underneath it like oh they're not they're trying to do things sneakily

00:22:42.900 they can't do it in the open so they have these ulterior motives like look i look at it as a war

00:22:48.300 objectively as possible the fact that you say israel because you think they're nefarious can't move the

00:22:54.680 civilians out of the harm's way you're not even you're united nations and you want to create a

00:23:00.500 humanitarian area where there won't be chaos where hamas won't cause the chaos you could build

00:23:08.060 a humanitarian area and we're talking two million people i fought in a neighborhood of baghdad that's

00:23:13.800 two million people it isn't the scale that's the problem it's the fact that this is israel so of

00:23:19.140 course you can't create a even if you want to create a fenced-in area in the sinai desert where

00:23:23.220 every international agency every even international militaries or security forces could help provide

00:23:29.420 security of that area well no no this it's not an option because we believe israel has nefarious

00:23:34.960 goals but i'll i'll go to the double standard in war if somebody starts a war and and there is a

00:23:41.780 response to that war absolutely there is population displacement until the end of the war and then if

00:23:48.140 somebody's saying well the border shouldn't change either right so this everything should be the exact

00:23:52.760 same as october 6th before hamas the government of gaza and its military invaded israel people don't

00:24:01.400 understand the second and third order effects of trying to create this standard because it's israel

00:24:06.760 because you believe you know the israel palestine history which most people don't or they're what we

00:24:12.240 call revisionist history where they try to invent the history of things that happened it's because it's

00:24:18.060 israel so i say that that that argument right i don't attack people i attack their veracity of

00:24:23.680 their statements and that that just you know as one of the president said that dog don't hunt

00:24:28.420 like your facts are not right that israel can't do this and that the trump plan to call the trump

00:24:35.560 plan ethnic cleansing is insanity it is straight tds that the movement of people to allow people to

00:24:45.280 voluntarily leave somewhere where there is suffering combat awful things happening but no no because

00:24:52.200 it's palace palestinians you've got to stay in there that's insanity and it needs to stop because

00:24:58.240 if not and what i write about a lot as well is like if you say this about israel are you just saying

00:25:03.800 well this won't apply to us you know uk france whatever this won't happen to us so we won't have

00:25:09.780 to follow these rules this is just we just want israel to follow these rules let me give you something

00:25:14.620 that nobody i've ever seen on your show do is what would happen if this happened to the united states

00:25:19.720 you know i could talk britain as well what would the united states do if an october 7 style attacks

00:25:26.000 not even have to do the comparative numbers right the fact that it's like 40 000 civilians dead and

00:25:30.960 thousands taken hostages the united states military would respond immediately with overwhelming force

00:25:38.240 and and i have to give people a class on what is portionality in war like what is to push disproportionate

00:25:44.780 the united states would have responded to october 7th with amazing military force because we have

00:25:50.620 10 active divisions we had the ability to dominate the sky we would have made sure not a single rocket

00:25:57.840 came out of enemy areas headed towards our cities like los angeles if you talk about the southern border

00:26:02.660 there were 4 000 rockets launched by hamas on the morning of october 7th and then there were about

00:26:08.620 8 000 more launched since then the u.s military would immediately invaded that territory to retrieve our

00:26:14.960 hostages it would have encouraged other countries and used all of our forms of national power to encourage

00:26:22.320 them to allow people to get out of harm's way and we would have tried to end it as quickly as possible

00:26:27.560 and i think that's where people misunderstand we would also have done the same things israel is doing

00:26:33.280 to try to protect civilians and i have boldly said and and i challenge anybody prove me wrong that israel

00:26:39.500 has done more to protect civilians as in the measures that any military has ever created in history

00:26:45.140 and because people don't know these they don't have they haven't studied these they're called civilian

00:26:49.800 harm mitigation measures israel has done more than any nation in history to include any western nation

00:26:56.220 what they have done to protect civilians we would have done some of those but we would have

00:27:00.960 immediately responded with overwhelming that's the goal in war is to use overwhelming military force to

00:27:08.600 convince your enemy to do your will as in to either give back the hostages surrender or or you take

00:27:15.520 what it values most which is his population centers in his land that's war that's why the framework of this

00:27:22.320 is all wrong john i'm really glad that we're having this conversation because the old adage says the

00:27:28.800 first thing the first casualty of war is the truth and one of the difficulties that has been for me when

00:27:34.400 i've been following this because we've been conducting these interviews and i'm sure everybody is working

00:27:39.820 out what is true and what isn't so let's talk about the casualties how do we know that these casualties

00:27:47.060 are the stats are accurate or as accurate as they possibly can be they say women and children killed

00:27:52.920 what do they mean by children does that mean up to the age of 18 21 women could these women be

00:27:58.440 combatants as well explain a little bit more for us sure one i've already explained that nobody in the

00:28:04.520 history of wars everyone asks but what's your civilian to combatant ratio nobody's ever taken the enemy's

00:28:09.340 word on the casualty count but fine even if you took the enemy's casualty count so hamas the gaza health

00:28:16.480 ministry one if you believe that there's a number or a story or a photo that leaves gaza without the

00:28:22.180 permission of hamas then you're just you're biased so of the casualty counts and i i know i heard

00:28:28.760 pierce morgan say there's been 20 000 kids killed in gaza which is a lie not i i really find it weird

00:28:35.440 that um people that are just anti-israel will say numbers that even hamas doesn't say you're absolutely

00:28:41.280 right if we talk about children right because that's where they go to like john i don't i don't care that

00:28:45.900 you say israel has done more they're not effective like that's not true either the hamas gaza health

00:28:53.100 ministry numbers are have been shown to be methodologically and statistically even data

00:28:59.600 centrically wrong full of errors full of double names um have you ever asked any of these people

00:29:07.180 that use these numbers have you seen the gaza health ministry list of people who have died by natural

00:29:11.900 causes no it doesn't exist so 20 000 kids supposedly you're right the united nations puts kids at 18

00:29:19.500 so that's a list of people anybody below the age of 18 i joined the military at 17 i would have been

00:29:25.260 on that list the fact that hamas has radicalized the entire population and deploys child soldiers

00:29:31.440 they don't care nobody cares but what about the the babies john i'm like okay i absolutely agree

00:29:37.600 and this is the insanity of you want perfection in war you want a bloodless war the laws of war account

00:29:45.120 for civilian death and say you have to take everything reasonable and feasible to prevent it

00:29:50.080 and israel has done that but back to the numbers there is no way and and this is again you have people

00:29:57.440 insane people and i'm sorry that they're in the uk um who say they've figured out a way to figure out

00:30:03.380 how many casualties have died so they won't even take hamas's numbers right which again every statistic

00:30:09.380 that has spread around the world has been shown to be false that's not what hamas says you know the

00:30:15.060 majority women majority children false false the fact that they try to say well this many innocent

00:30:21.620 civilians and this is where i really as a as an analyst of multiple wars is that we believe not me but

00:30:28.260 other people that there is somebody in gaza who can point to a body even if it's an adult male

00:30:33.220 and say well that person was a combatant and that person was not a combatant they weren't partaking

00:30:38.580 in the hostilities is there civilian death in gaza absolutely it's a war and hamas wants hamas kills

00:30:46.180 people themselves i mean over 20 of hamas's rockets so over 13 000 rockets they've launched at israel

00:30:52.260 have landed inside of gaza killing gazans they go on the list really anybody who's died for any reason

00:30:57.620 goes on the list if you were a hamas terrorist across the border into israel to kill slaughter

00:31:03.300 rape and maim and died you're on the list the the list is insane but and i and other people have

00:31:10.340 picked it apart from a data perspective i think it's insane that it's there's a fascination on the list

00:31:16.500 when the actual question for any military other than israel is is that military following the laws of war

00:31:23.620 in distinction necessity proportionality and overwhelming it is yes there's actually not

00:31:29.860 been a single case to be shown that israel has targeted civilians has been collateral damage yes

00:31:35.860 but here's some numbers in case people are so fascinated with the numbers which i think is really

00:31:40.660 problematic because again when you have a combatant a non-state actor like hamas who purposely doesn't

00:31:47.060 wear a uniform doesn't distinguish itself just that i mean i in ukraine millions of civilians

00:31:53.460 joined the fight to against the russian invasion and they wrapped the yellow or blue tape around

00:31:57.620 their arm i don't know where they got all this tape but they immediately distinguished themselves

00:32:02.580 even if they're carrying ammunition or whatever as partaking in the hostilities but let's talk about

00:32:09.540 numbers right so everybody i was getting the number early in the war like 10 000 people killed i'm like

00:32:15.460 okay it's a war that nobody's seen in modern history all those variables the size of the combatant

00:32:22.660 the dense urban areas but there's only one battle in american history i can't find one in british

00:32:29.060 history that has any of the parallels as in the density of the urban terrain the presence of civilians

00:32:35.300 a vicious enemy and that's the 1945 battle of manila i don't know if you know it in 1945 after the

00:32:42.340 u.s military was defeated in the philippines we returned and there were roughly three to four thousand

00:32:48.260 pow's and internees so hostages men women and children being held in the city of manila

00:32:53.700 a city of about 1.1 million there were 17 000 japanese defenders the u.s military

00:33:01.140 attacked to retrieve our hostages and liberate the city with about 35 000 come so this even the scale is

00:33:07.380 not correct in that battle we retrieved our hostages but again 35 000 american and other

00:33:14.980 attacking the city of 17 000 japanese defenders there were a hundred thousand civilians that died

00:33:20.100 in that battle and nobody made a new york times op-ed that was on the cover of the saying too many

00:33:26.900 civilians died in this war why was that well because it's war because the japanese were the ones who were

00:33:32.980 slaughtering the civilians in that war or let me give you one other one again this fascination with the

00:33:39.940 numbers is crazy but john can i just interrupt you there i know you were saying this fascination

00:33:45.700 with numbers is crazy i do understand and from an academic perspective i agree with you but let's also

00:33:51.700 be honest you know this is a war that has not just been fought on the battlefield it's not just been

00:33:56.900 fought diplomatically it's also been fought in the modern day arena of social media and there are

00:34:03.620 millions of people all over the world particularly in the west who are having horrific images

00:34:09.780 but shown on their phones of horrendous suffering of civilians so i know what you're saying but also

00:34:18.340 as well i do understand the fascination because if you've just seen a baby blown up then that's going

00:34:23.220 to be at the forefront of your mind surely absolutely and again if you started studying war on october 7th

00:34:29.300 you wouldn't realize that this that is a uniqueness as well right the fact that this a war of this scale

00:34:34.100 and of this viciousness is aired on the phones the algorithm actually drives it to their phones every

00:34:41.940 awful thing that's happened in war gets driven to the the uninformed minds of massive populations

00:34:49.380 that is unique and this is where you know if we would have had tick tock during even the korean war

00:34:54.820 right in the korean war 50 000 over 2 million civilians died in the korean war it's a 37 month war that's

00:35:01.780 50 000 civilians dying a month for the every month of the war for 37 months had we had tick tock during

00:35:10.180 that of course there would be something different had this not been israel there would be something

00:35:16.340 different because they start with the image and like that's awful israel did this on purpose and they

00:35:20.740 don't want to listen to anybody with any contradictory information about why is this happening and and the

00:35:27.380 ideal that well of course it's it's awful look what's happening and there are innocent civilians

00:35:32.340 who are dying but that's not the intention which we could get to this baseless claim of genocidal intent

00:35:39.620 that is not the intention of the idea in any way shape or form it is actually the intention of hamas do

00:35:46.820 you realize that every individual in gaza could fit in hamas's tunnels with ease there's over 400 miles of

00:35:53.860 tunnels all 2.2 million civilians could fit in those tunnels but you've never seen an image of a

00:35:58.820 single civilian in those and i again i do war around the world in ukraine the civilians sought refuge

00:36:04.340 because russia didn't give notice in the tunnels and they still do in the subways and all that to escape

00:36:11.140 the awful attacks of russia so yes you're right absolutely there is a fascination again with israel

00:36:17.540 because i haven't seen protests about the awful things and i don't do what about isms but it's just

00:36:22.500 and your actual veracity of comment where are you on the atrocities that are happening in

00:36:29.220 yemen and sudan and all these other areas even in humanitarian aid distribution during the somalia

00:36:37.220 war 200 to 300 000 people had died of starvation and then the united nations and others tried to get aid

00:36:44.660 to the population and failed because the clans took it they killed humanitarian aid workers i'm fine if

00:36:51.300 people are anti-war i'm not fine if people are anti-fact on what is happening in gaza let me

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00:38:41.460 so and i'm glad we talked about the aid situation because again explode any myths i've been reading

00:38:47.220 about this i this may be completely incorrect was there a three-month aid and food blockade by the idf

00:38:55.940 preventing food and aid entering gaza no so there was an 11 week is that three months

00:39:02.900 no that's two that's two and a half months an 11 week pause but again even the people that you've

00:39:08.980 had on who so-called are informed about it don't give you the full picture so during the last ceasefire

00:39:15.300 which was right before this pause of the humanitarian game going in it was 42 days of ceases there were 25,000

00:39:23.300 trucks of age that went in during those 42 days and then there was a pause in more aid going in while

00:39:31.940 israel and the united states enacted the gaza humanitarian foundation in southern gaza mostly

00:39:38.020 three sites in southern gaza one in northern gaza nobody talks about where did that 25,000 trucks of

00:39:44.660 aid go and how long would that last while israel developed a plan to continue the war but also

00:39:50.420 move civilians into southern gaza and increase the aid there they never said they wanted to stop

00:39:55.700 una they said they wanted to phase it out because of the fact not only was hamas gathering and i saw

00:40:01.620 some you know recently in the of course there was a humanitarian crisis happening but of all the

00:40:08.180 people to be blamed it was only israel being blamed right and this is the you know the thousand

00:40:13.140 trucks of the united nations because people won't give you the timeline and i love long-form

00:40:17.700 podcast because let's talk about it let's talk about the ceasefire right so not only did 25,000

00:40:24.660 trucks of aid go in hamas insisted and would not give hostages back unless israel allowed

00:40:30.900 one million palestinians to move back into northern gaza on top of rubble minefields everything so that

00:40:38.180 it would be really hard for israel to continue the war and provide humanitarian aid which was centered

00:40:44.260 on the south of gaza for some reason that escapes people that the fact that there was this massive

00:40:51.460 population displacement back into northern gaza for hamas's strategy and what israel was trying to do

00:40:58.580 was concentrate the aid distribution into southern gaza people don't also reckon recognize that there's been

00:41:06.340 the statistic of how much does flour cost right so there is some really good analysis about the price of

00:41:12.740 flour going up in northern gaza okay who's selling the flour that's actually not just hamas but

00:41:21.140 there's not a production of any aid going in gaza it's a war zone so that's aid that's been delivered that

00:41:27.380 hamas and gaza civilians take and then sell back to civilians it it's a war zone you know the idea that you're

00:41:35.460 making gazans walk through combat areas to get to the aid in southern gaza the entire gaza strip is a

00:41:43.140 war zone what what are you people talking about israel tried to create a mechanism to get the aid to

00:41:50.420 directly to the people and it was successful but then let's talk about how hamas tried to make it

00:41:55.780 unsuccessful before the gaza humanitarian foundation gave out one box of food hamas put out written guidance

00:42:02.020 and oral like they put it on their x fees they put it out everywhere if you take a single meal

00:42:07.620 from the from this initiative you will face severe consequences and then they went out and attacked

00:42:14.420 the humanitarian zone and yes it was chaos is it the most chaos that's ever been seen in war no that's

00:42:20.420 absolutely ridiculous it was chaos because hamas was causing it and the idf adjusted their operations

00:42:27.140 in securing the outer zones and no i'm not a fan of warning shots what i'm not a fan of more though

00:42:33.620 is people that selectively take the facts and paint the story with that nefarious you know bad israeli

00:42:41.300 intention here is that they were trying to starve the population absolutely not right this is the idea

00:42:46.340 of how much aid not just food medical supplies field hospitals new water pipes that israel has done

00:42:54.020 to try to try to get to the people and we have to talk about even the people being a part of this

00:43:00.900 in war if you get the notice to evacuate then those civilians should evacuate but because of hamas and

00:43:07.140 other reasons you see civilians not evacuating areas that when evacuation notices because they have been told

00:43:14.180 to evacuate and then hamas pushed them back and now they're being asked to be moved again

00:43:18.820 it the insanity here is the nefarious israel was trying to starve the population as a mechanism of

00:43:26.260 warfare and that's not true just if you just lay out all the facts what happened from the last ceasefire

00:43:32.100 until today which israel has flooded now you have flooding of aid going in not just from the gaza

00:43:39.300 humanitarian foundation the u.n decided to start picking up the trucks again because of why they said they

00:43:44.260 were stopping you have airdrops you have many mechanisms i don't see that being the cover of

00:43:49.140 anybody's news though israel floods gaza with aid well i haven't seen that john uh you let even if

00:43:56.580 people accept all of that uh which of course many people dispute but let's say it's all true even

00:44:00.900 many people who are uh supportive of israel's campaign to destroy hamas including andrew fox who

00:44:07.860 we had on the show recently as you know um yeah feel that not much is being achieved anymore like

00:44:14.020 what is what is the goal now like i i know there's 25 hostages left but is is what is happening now the

00:44:21.700 continued destruction of gaza the killing of thousands of people is that really worth and also of course the

00:44:28.820 damage to israel's reputation because you can you can talk about the realities on the ground the fact is that

00:44:34.420 if there is one war that israel is definitely definitely not winning it's the pr war right

00:44:38.820 that's just a fact and by the way i have to say we've tried to have the prime minister of israel

00:44:43.620 in our show many times we've invited him on because i believe it's very important for the world to hear

00:44:48.660 from them as well and we're just we you don't seem to get anywhere and they don't seem to do many

00:44:54.420 interviews with even fair-minded people like us so it just feels like their side is not really putting

00:45:00.500 out their message in the way that you might be but my question to you is which is what i'd like to ask

00:45:05.060 them really is what is now being achieved by continuing this war what is the rationale here

00:45:10.100 i don't attack people i attack brashy of statements uh has israel been successful at achieving its goals

00:45:15.860 in the last 21 months one we have a fascination with short wars the ideal if you take accept which

00:45:21.860 again if people everybody can have their own opinions about the war but they can't have their own

00:45:28.020 facts okay they can have their own facts about what israel has done and what hamas has done okay

00:45:31.940 well let's talk about the facts what are israel's war goals and then we can assess whether they've

00:45:37.060 achieved them and also whether continuing the war helps to achieve more of them right so if you study

00:45:41.860 war then this is why i wanted to interview the prime minister the minister of defense and the head

00:45:47.940 of the idea just that chain is how you know somebody recently said on your show that this is just for

00:45:53.940 political reasons and like okay war by definition is the pursuit of political goals israel's three

00:46:00.100 goals have not changed since october 8th and if you listen to the prime minister minister dermer

00:46:07.700 everybody in israel's political military apparatus the goals have not changed number one return the

00:46:13.700 hostages israel has returned through the use of many forms of national power both military and political

00:46:20.420 over 200 of the 250 hostages in less than 21 months against a irrational actor who will only give up

00:46:27.460 hostages if they think they need to in order to pursue their strategy of surviving the war so number one

00:46:33.460 goal number two goal was to dismantle hamas's military and remove them from power in gaza hamas no longer

00:46:41.380 has a military on october 8th it had a vast military of over five brigades 24 battalions 40 000 fighters

00:46:49.940 20 000 rockets the ability to defend ground that was arrayed across the gaza strip it no longer has as

00:46:56.260 a military does it have a guerrilla force yes does it have a lot of radicalized people who are willing

00:47:02.420 to continue to fight absolutely that's not the measure of effectiveness though is israel been successful

00:47:08.260 at destroying hamas's military that's that's a fact they absolutely have and they are continuing that

00:47:14.900 operation the fact that the average age of a new hamas recruit is 16 seems to escape people

00:47:21.060 yes there are new hamas recruits the other one is to remove hamas from power right hamas was the

00:47:27.780 political apparatus that invaded and ordered its military its terror army to invade southern gaza israel

00:47:34.740 has attrited hamas's governing capabilities you have clans rising up they're the writing op-eds in

00:47:42.900 the wall street journal about i am not hamas i am controlling southern parts of gaza israel has been

00:47:48.980 successful at taking the power from gaza yes it made missteps in the trying to rest that main source

00:47:56.820 of power and there's new statistics out just yesterday about how much money hamas has made

00:48:01.780 since october 7th to pay its fighters by taking the aid and then lastly so three goals if i'm not being

00:48:08.580 clear return to hostages dismantle hamas's military remove them from power and ensure that gaza never

00:48:14.740 threatens israel again and israel has continued to establish a border area and expand that very

00:48:24.180 difficult situation that was the border between gaza and israel since october 7th so if somebody says

00:48:29.860 there's nothing being achieved here or there's nothing been that has been achieved they're just not

00:48:35.300 right that the idea that you should have stopped the war right so you know i heard somebody say you

00:48:40.500 know after the death of yaya sinwar you should just ended it there was no successes being made and you

00:48:45.220 were you were hurting israel's reputation on the international stage and you could talk about this

00:48:50.260 ridiculous stuff about a two-state solution and threatening israel to stop the war again take out

00:48:56.740 the word israel and take out the word palestine and just if we were just to do this on paper this is what

00:49:02.420 happened on you know a country is invaded by a terror force all these things happen the other country

00:49:07.060 waged war with these goals we wouldn't be having this question of they're not achieving anything in

00:49:14.340 this war and the idea that you could do this in 21 months again that you could do this quickly under

00:49:20.500 the constraints right again united states and no other nation would have done it this way because

00:49:26.260 they wouldn't have been forced to write six months of don't go to don't go into rafa you gave the

00:49:32.340 enemy a safe haven now the enemy still has safe havens in gaza city where they have never evacuated they

00:49:38.660 have in dirabla and in the humanitarian zone that was forced to be made absolutely israel has the right

00:49:45.700 to continue the operation and all these double standards that is being held to it's still fulfilling even

00:49:52.740 though they're not right so where does this go israel has to remove hamas from power not just for the

00:49:59.540 safety of israel but for the safety of the gazan people to not be used as human sacrifices in the

00:50:06.660 overall goal of hamas which has never changed which is the destruction of israel i don't know if you saw

00:50:12.020 recently how it thanked keir starmer about his threat to israel and said look look britain thank you for

00:50:20.340 threatening israel to recognize palestine as a state in september but make sure we're clear we

00:50:27.540 want jerusalem to be the capital of that palestinian state and we don't want israel to exist in it john

00:50:34.420 there are people who are going to say look by continuing this war you're effectively playing

00:50:39.860 into hamas's hands what hamas wants is to delegitimize israel on the world stage to make

00:50:47.540 themselves look like the victims they don't care how many people die how many civilians die in fact

00:50:53.780 for them the more that die the better because the stronger it makes their position and all israel is

00:50:59.460 doing by continuing this war is ultimately strengthening hamas plus the civilians that are

00:51:06.820 in that area are going to be ever more likely to be radicalized the more their friends and their

00:51:13.940 families die yeah it's a great question and i heard you know the great military theorist dave smith

00:51:20.260 try to invoke insurgency math in this war right so you know the ideal again counterinsurgency theory

00:51:26.420 where you have to protect the population because there's a small amount of enemy that are using the

00:51:31.140 protection of being hidden within the population and you need the population support all of this that

00:51:36.820 you're creating more terrorists than you're killing if if somebody was to apply that math to war

00:51:42.980 then world war one world war two korean war there would be no war fault if you have to take in the

00:51:50.100 the opinion of the enemy's population towards its support right if you look at japan

00:51:57.620 if you would have pulled the japanese population during war ii a hundred percent would say continue the war

00:52:02.820 the emperor is a deity we will die for him in war against your enemies military and political apparatus

00:52:11.060 you are vicious against them you deal with the radicalization of the population after you have

00:52:17.140 achieved victory and again i go back to if you're saying you know it's the cost have been too much this

00:52:23.700 makes israel look too bad despite the facts you should just stop then you're saying that anybody who repeats

00:52:30.100 this sequence of the numbers game the information operations campaign you know the demonization of

00:52:37.220 the military doing everything physically possible to protect civilians then you're saying that one you

00:52:43.300 want hamas to stay in power in gaza and it is hamas not last year today that says thank you and we want

00:52:52.100 we will rebuild and we will continue to do october 7th attacks over and over and over again that's a fact

00:52:58.340 that's what people are saying if you say stop the war now now other people will say like oh agree we

00:53:02.740 agree hamas can't stay in power then what's your ideal of how to do this differently and this is again

00:53:08.500 you know the this is the even the people the last few people you've had like i don't know how to do

00:53:14.260 this but not this way like well i'm i can show you how this has been done in any other war step one

00:53:20.820 remove the civilian population out of harm's way for there should be a globe where's the protest

00:53:27.140 for egypt for egypt to allow the civilians to get out of harm's way so that the killing of civilians

00:53:33.620 that hamas is putting in the way stops none not one i really push back at this idea of israel is only

00:53:40.660 damaging itself by continuing the war we wouldn't say that about anybody else in any other similar

00:53:46.500 situation yeah but there's a big difference here forgive me for interrupting there's a massive

00:53:50.500 difference which is israel is a small country that relies on the support of its western allies to be

00:53:56.340 able to survive and function in a way that the united states doesn't have to reckon with the reality

00:54:02.420 you can you can think that this is a public perception game which doesn't matter to you as a

00:54:06.340 military analyst and i understand that perspective but the reality is if israel by pursuing this

00:54:12.420 conflict in this way alienates a whole generation of future western decision makers that will affect

00:54:18.740 its survival over the long term and i would argue that israel is losing the pr battle in the west and

00:54:24.740 you are going to see people who are in their 20s and 30s today who are going to be making decisions about

00:54:31.460 military aid to israel 10 15 years from now who are being radicalized to an anti-israel position

00:54:38.260 by what they're seeing and that is a reality that israeli politicians have to reckon with surely

00:54:43.220 absolutely and this is i i will not deny that israel hasn't lost a pr war it never fought a pr

00:54:49.380 right it's it's horrible at pr um and i'm again i'm pro-truth so i'm telling you what i've learned

00:54:56.100 from studying the war firsthand and interviewing these people or how it compares to other situations

00:55:01.940 which is this you know comparative analysis is a a research methodology but here's where i'll draw

00:55:07.940 that line about it should matter absolutely you can win every battle but lose a war that's you know

00:55:13.860 vietnam you name it that's that is absolutely the fact that i want to i'm a military analyst because i

00:55:20.500 study war which means i factor in what is the political goal and what is the political context

00:55:26.260 of the war again the bb derangement syndrome is that it's just him you know he has a lifelong history of

00:55:32.500 or or goal to strike iran which is which is rubbish i mean that that's insane hyperbole and not true

00:55:39.300 the damage to the pr work right so if you think that because israel is continuing the war in gaza it is

00:55:46.500 detrimentally hurting his status as a nation okay let's talk about what it did to hezbollah which is

00:55:54.180 ridiculous of pierce morgan to say well if it can do this to hezbollah why can't it do that to hamas

00:55:59.940 like that's just showing your ignorance on the complete context well give us that context explain

00:56:04.500 the difference it's what's it's not a short answer right that's why these these these hosts want your

00:56:09.380 30 second talking you've got time here not explain it to us as long as you need not you okay

00:56:14.420 not you right so hezbollah in southern lebanon was a terror army with a nation right it had political

00:56:23.940 power had military power but it was focused on southern lebanon in it had over a hundred thousand

00:56:30.500 fighters over a hundred thousand mid to long range or short to mid-range rockets it was a vast enemy that

00:56:37.620 israel was focused on and you could talk about yes it made it not focus on the threat of hamas and

00:56:43.060 all that information that was going on israel was successful because it had infiltrated hamas

00:56:49.860 intelligence and hezbollah yeah hezbollah it infiltrated hezbollah just from a demographic

00:56:56.580 situation if you just as a analyst give the variables of what all i told you about what

00:57:01.940 hamas had built hezbollah and i had built could not build that in southern lebanon hezbollah is a

00:57:07.940 a segment of lebanon's population it's a very diverse society that isn't fully radicalized

00:57:14.260 towards hezbollah's goals of destroying israel which is the islamic regime in iran's goal so

00:57:20.340 israel was able to infiltrate hezbollah's supply chain its intelligence even to be able to know where

00:57:27.220 every single rocket launching location was because it's not underground in most cases and step one like

00:57:34.900 i said in a war is remove the civilian population and what did israel do when it started operations

00:57:40.020 against hezbollah give notification and the entire population of southern lebanon left nobody talks

00:57:46.100 about what are the civilian casualty counts in israel's war against hezbollah because it's so low

00:57:50.900 it doesn't make for news against israel they were very successful because they were able to infiltrate

00:57:57.540 this terror army within a society that's a lot different than the context of the urban terrain

00:58:04.820 the radicalization the diversity of of the society that was hamas or even the goals i mean nasrallah

00:58:12.580 pulled back hezbollah when israel started his operation it didn't fully fight so there's so many reasons

00:58:19.380 why israel was able to defang hezbollah it didn't defeat hezbollah it wasn't its goal right so

00:58:25.540 like will you acknowledge the fact that the goal in gaza is the removal of hamas from power and its

00:58:31.380 complete military capability that's not what the goal was the hezbollah the goal with hezbollah was to

00:58:36.500 to cheer them to stop launching rockets at israel and that was achieved same thing with the islamic

00:58:42.900 regime in iran what was the goal so going back to is israel weaker today because it's continuing

00:58:48.260 it defanged hezbollah it deterred iran and had the united states join in its efforts to prevent iran from

00:58:54.980 getting a nuclear weapon not a single one of the arab the abraham accords deals fell apart

00:59:02.260 you had arab nations defending israel during this war in 1948 there were five arab armies that

00:59:09.060 attacked israel in 1967 there were three arab armies in 1973 there was two arab armies now you have

00:59:15.940 arab nations protecting israel in the middle east you had the new syrian government which is a former

00:59:22.500 terrorist organization knocking drones out of the sky that were headed towards israel jordan was

00:59:29.140 helping other nations was helping the idea that you somebody would say israel is is secluded on the

00:59:34.500 global stage it's done generational damage to its reputation is not true based on the facts israel in

00:59:41.620 since october 7th has fought an eight front war seven fronts of seven different military organizations

00:59:48.420 and the eighth front which is the information war which is you're right it's losing it's horrible at

00:59:52.580 it it needs to do better but the idea that it is weaker as a nation and the threats to it are higher

00:59:58.820 is not true but what we do have is spineless global leaders we have spineless global leaders who have

01:00:05.460 listened to the disinformation and it matters in a democracy that the population is believing the junk

01:00:12.420 but you've had others who have stood up as leaders not just the united states and president trump saying

01:00:16.820 what are you talking about of course israel has the right to continue operations in gaza and how

01:00:21.220 about somebody stand up and help let's talk about who else has ever been attacked in history and what

01:00:27.940 nation has come to their aid what nation has come to israel's aid i'm still waiting to hear or what

01:00:35.540 nation has offered to help of course the united states has helped in every way possible to include allowing

01:00:42.820 the the arms that israel has purchased to be delivered although we were threatening since october 7th to

01:00:49.140 not only not send munitions which we could talk about this i understood where the you can't use large

01:00:55.540 bombs in an urban area was coming from because again i've been studying this for a while but at one

01:00:59.940 point the united states was threatening to or stop the delivery of bulldozer parts and to somebody who

01:01:04.900 doesn't study war like oh that's nothing you don't understand that the only way you enter

01:01:09.380 portions of gaza is with leading with a a bulldozer an armorized bulldozer so when the united states

01:01:17.060 administration said we're not going to send you replacement parts they were buying into the the

01:01:22.260 junk it's just not true and if it was true that israel has a just goal but hamas has created a strategy

01:01:30.740 that has worked then you will see more hamas around the world as in more hamas strategy you'll see the

01:01:38.500 practice of hostage taking you have a practice of this multimedia scripted disinformation command

01:01:46.180 campaign picked up by mindless influencers you will see more violence if somebody wants peace

01:01:52.820 they should get on the same sheet of music that hamas has to be destroyed and here are ideals to help

01:01:58.740 destroy hamas and remove hamas from power so the gaza people can actually be free

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01:03:20.340 save your seat now but john is it i can't believe i'm asking this question but is it actually possible

01:03:28.340 to defeat an enemy that refuses to say that it's defeated so this again this goes to the you can't

01:03:35.780 defeat an idea like you can't fight this is that counter-terrorism theory that you can't you can't defeat an

01:03:42.820 idea this way who says that anybody's trying to defeat the hamas ideology at this moment you have a

01:03:49.300 nation who is trying to remove a government from power and destroy its military capabilities

01:03:56.260 you deal with the radicalization of the ideal that has been there and fueled i don't know if people

01:04:02.900 have seen the you know the palestinian sesame street have seen the unruh school books of hamas

01:04:08.900 so that ideal which i understand like this has been like well you can't do it this way like okay

01:04:13.940 tell me historically how any enemy of any similarity has been defeated by by what giving them something

01:04:23.060 no you have to move forward and take away their will to believe that they can achieve victory there

01:04:28.020 are lots of ideals that are still around nazism you know isis all these people they don't have a

01:04:35.860 autonomous region that they call their nation they don't have armies and they definitely don't have the

01:04:40.820 ability to launch attacks against another nation at this moment depending on what group we're talking

01:04:45.700 about so uh if you're advising the israeli government about what they ought to do from here

01:04:50.420 how how should how will this conflict and how should it and how should they proceed from here in your

01:04:55.620 opinion sure so again if you study war i get this be a forecaster for us how how long is this going to

01:05:02.180 take how will this end look if you study war you you know that there is no prediction it's uncertain

01:05:09.460 it's political and it's human i don't do i don't give recommendations to nations i i have definitely

01:05:14.340 helped people with understanding the context and in the baseless arguments it ends with the defeat of

01:05:21.220 hamas as the political power in gaza that can happen in many ways yes the the population in gaza can

01:05:27.700 rise up and that there are portions that are doing that you can have other powers in gaza palestinian

01:05:34.420 powers that could rise up and seize power you could have the complete unilateral surrender of hamas it

01:05:41.460 might be unlikely but hamas has the hamas fighters and again success you just last week had hamas fighters

01:05:49.940 surrendering in large amounts because israel was at their doors and this is the the sanctuary part that

01:05:56.980 israel has left partial portions of gaza untouched 25 not touched once out of concern for these

01:06:04.740 hostages and the difficulty of moving the civilians out of those areas like western gaza city and in

01:06:12.180 other areas or eastern gaza but the ideal so what's the recommendation of course israel cannot not fight

01:06:20.740 the narratives right when you have a hashtag that's going viral and you have these influencers talking

01:06:26.420 stupid the only way you fight stupid is with actual credible information although some people won't

01:06:32.340 be as credible if i if somebody was doing this different again take israel out of the equation

01:06:38.100 and i've seen this even in india pakistan recently in other wars that are very recent you have to

01:06:44.100 communicate daily what's going on and what you're what you're doing you have to have a military person

01:06:51.060 communicating every day this is what our military is doing this is the goal you have to have a political

01:06:56.340 apparatus right so the you know israel right you know right criticism doesn't have a spokesman

01:07:02.020 or the israeli government who is daily giving the communication i was telling somebody recently about

01:07:06.660 kogat right kogat is the idf arm that has been facilitating all the aid the water the medicine

01:07:13.460 they didn't even know what the organization was let alone that it puts out daily information about

01:07:18.740 all the things that israel is doing to help the civilians so israel in order to continue this war and

01:07:25.060 they're in debate as we're talking about deciding to go into that last 25 percent to move the

01:07:31.540 civilians into the south under this crazy constraints that they have to fight the war and then you have

01:07:36.340 a united nations session in later in september that's going to of course say a lot of awful things

01:07:43.460 i would hope israel changes its pr strategy communicates more on a day-to-day basis and you can't wait until

01:07:50.820 after something has gone viral and after nefarious actors start putting pictures of children trying

01:07:57.460 to make stories about what israel is intending to do rather than what it's actually saying and actually

01:08:04.100 doing in gaza and then i would hope again if you were to move the entire population of two million people

01:08:11.380 into a a area that hamas can't get to them you could end this war relatively quickly i wouldn't say

01:08:18.900 very quickly because hamas would have would have lost its center of gravity which is the use of the

01:08:24.900 population not just as a shield but the humanitarian suffering in every aspect that they're doing but

01:08:31.700 if you're asking me for a prediction of how this war will go i cannot give you that and absolutely again

01:08:36.900 this isn't bb the prime minister of israel if you understand the politics of israel he has to maintain

01:08:45.460 a coalition it isn't like our system where he can be president for four years and just make all these

01:08:50.500 decisions over the military all these things he has to face votes of no confidence regularly and has

01:08:56.500 to keep a coalition but the israeli society could decide very soon that look the costs are too much

01:09:02.180 i know that we have the the the just goals that we have but we don't want to pay the price

01:09:09.620 in the loss of soldiers and the hostages what they're doing to the hostages which is awful

01:09:14.580 that's what a democracy does it makes that decision so there is nobody who can tell you how this is going

01:09:20.820 i as a john spencer with just my personal opinion think it's insane that you should say israel should

01:09:27.460 have stopped it's not achieving its goals because that's not true and if you're saying that about

01:09:31.940 israel every democracy that ever fights a war especially for its actual defense of its nation

01:09:39.140 on its borders will not be able to going forward well this is why i say that i i'm just shocked that

01:09:46.340 the the pr approach from the israeli leadership because no offense john but you saying these things

01:09:53.620 doesn't really cut through the same way as if president prime minister netanyahu was sitting there

01:09:58.740 and making these same arguments to our audience like i'm just shocked at the fact that they're not

01:10:04.180 pursuing a communication strategy of actually telling people what it is that they're doing and why because

01:10:10.660 in in that vacuum you are getting all of these narratives that you talk about being perpetrated with no

01:10:17.940 pushback and it just it creates a media conversation about this that i think is completely divorced from

01:10:23.940 reality but i have to say i put the blame on that for the people whose job it is to communicate about

01:10:29.620 it that's a fair criticism although you know i like to say that you know some of these people that you

01:10:35.060 talk to again i'm as pro-truth i bleed red white and blue i'm an american i am pro-truth because i i

01:10:43.700 understand why it matters for the rest of the world every other democracy and criticism is absolutely but

01:10:49.540 when you try to balance criticism with like yeah but they're doing all these things wrong like

01:10:53.780 demanding perfection so even in its information operations when it has communicated and nobody is

01:10:59.620 reporting on those communications when it reports kogat again daily gives out what they're doing to

01:11:05.700 alleviate civilian harm nobody cares the prime minister absolutely has communicated the goals repeatedly

01:11:13.060 has communicated that their war is not what the people have got us repeatedly but you have people like

01:11:18.340 well i don't care about that they're this is what they're doing this is the effects of their

01:11:22.900 operations which is insane or even i think one of the greatest spokesmen that israel has is minister

01:11:29.780 of strategic affairs dermer who was the us and you know the israeli ambassador to the us he has

01:11:36.180 communicated on multiple podcasts and multiple interviews this is what our goal is this is what our goal is

01:11:41.380 not this is of course we have the right you know we are trying to alleviate the harm

01:11:48.260 to civilians all these things you need to do better than that of course but there's also people who

01:11:53.140 don't want to hear right the who they invite on their shows yes you i know you would love to have

01:11:58.660 some of these interviews and i hope that they happen but there are people who aren't listening

01:12:02.020 to even the things that are being said and this is what i have a problem with is like you say because

01:12:06.980 israel in the beginning of the war said that he wanted to destroy hamas that hamas are animals that he wanted to

01:12:12.740 not do anything to help hamas and want to destroy hamas that that's genocidal intent

01:12:17.620 that's insane let alone what militaries say about the other military they're fighting but then you

01:12:24.260 want to rule out everything that israeli leadership has said about not wanting to harm the people of

01:12:30.100 gaza not wanting to starve the people of gaza and then you take the radical political figures and say

01:12:35.860 yeah but this guy said it smoltridge said this when gavir said that like i don't know about the uk system

01:12:41.700 but that's like taking marjorie taylor green statements or some other crazy so some other

01:12:47.220 people statements and saying like that's the policy of the united states that again that's a double

01:12:52.980 standard that's trying to demonize the entire nation of israel um and then this is the you know the

01:12:59.940 whole double standards game that that is a part of this i mean i guess let's push back on that so i

01:13:04.980 take your point there john but they would say well look the the finance minister has said these awful

01:13:10.420 things right if netanyahu doesn't do anything about it he's effectively condoning it why has he not

01:13:17.860 come out and said this is unacceptable the minister has been forced to resign we were at war but we do

01:13:23.300 not use this type of language or rhetoric and marjorie taylor green i think a you were right to describe

01:13:28.660 her as crazy you didn't need to correct yourself but b she's not in the cabinet right yeah there's a big

01:13:33.220 difference not so same thing with small church is not in the war cabinet he has not been the person

01:13:39.540 who's been making the decision so you want to i agree with you i i would have approached people

01:13:45.300 making statements very differently in a wartime situation when you are israel but you want to

01:13:50.260 criticize the political leaders of israel for being political so this is again we try to apply our

01:13:59.220 political framework on another nation like israel which is a a vibrant democracy with a vibrant left

01:14:05.940 and a vibrant right and that the fact that israel does have to keep a coalition and the prime minister

01:14:12.020 visual does i'm i'm sure and i think that's a correct inference to say he does want to maintain a

01:14:18.660 coalition and manage the government of israel because he believes it's in the best interest of

01:14:23.780 the security of the nations now when you impose personal motives on somebody without data and what

01:14:31.300 i say is in god i trust all others bring data so yes it's the right criticism you should come out

01:14:37.140 against that minister whoever it is for saying that thing although it's not what he said it's how

01:14:44.180 what he said can be framed so i absolutely support somebody saying i want to destroy all members of

01:14:50.500 hamas i want to take over the control of gaza like that's what militaries do when they're invaded and

01:14:59.300 attack into a different territory you take the power from the other government it's how it's being

01:15:04.500 any statement because there are a few statements coming out are framed it doesn't matter what they

01:15:08.660 say after that it's just i'm going to take that that little tidbit yes you would think you'd learn

01:15:13.060 like stop saying keep your mouth shut but if you want to criticize israel's political leaders for

01:15:18.740 being political as in trying to keep a coalition separate of the just reasonable what every other

01:15:26.980 nation would do for the goals of the war then i i have a little bit of pushback on that on if you

01:15:33.140 understand that the prime minister of israel has to maintain a coalition and or if not the government

01:15:38.740 falls and then you have you have to have an opposition leader all these things then that's just not

01:15:45.140 being reasonably an objective but when you put ulterior motives on people's intent then i have

01:15:51.540 a problem with that before john answers the final question at the end of the interview make sure to head

01:15:56.180 over to our sub stack the link is in the description where you'll be able to see this

01:16:01.060 despite israel's best efforts to avoid civilian casualties it is still being accused widely of genocide

01:16:07.780 what impact do you believe this war will have on the public's view of future wars and what impact will

01:16:13.140 it have on the strategy employed by the militarily weaker side rebecca asks what's the greatest

01:16:18.580 misunderstanding about modern warfare that you want eliminated question from daniel who said you

01:16:23.940 mentioned uh the term double standard a number of times uh if this double standard exists why do you

01:16:29.780 think it does because it's israel john uh thank you for coming and giving us your perspective on this

01:16:36.260 really appreciate it uh we're gonna go to questions from our audience which uh we've got a number of

01:16:42.340 great ones lined up for you before we do though the last question in all our interviews as you well know

01:16:47.780 is what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that we really should be i think

01:16:54.020 we're not talking about the complete reforming of the middle east that has happened since october 7th

01:17:00.740 um not just what was happening in the abraham accords but the dismantling of the islamic regime's ring

01:17:07.700 of fire which had been allowed to grow for decades under lots of people's leadership that the islamic

01:17:14.580 regime isn't close to a nuclear weapon that even the united states has created multiple trade agreements

01:17:22.660 that are about peace and prosperity in the middle east it seems to be again if it leads if it bleeds it

01:17:30.100 leads and for some reason if it makes the jews look bad then it leads as well nobody's talking about

01:17:35.780 the actual peace and prosperity the fall of the asad regime the all of these things that are happening

01:17:42.580 that are of a positive note in the middle east and it's actually a complete generational change

01:17:48.340 for the middle east the things that are happening the weakening of the islamic regime's hold on the

01:17:53.300 middle east the the strengthening of the ties with saudi arabia to kuwait all these other individuals

01:18:00.420 nobody's talking about that all right john thank you very much follow us on over to

01:18:04.500 substack at triggerpot.co.uk where we ask john spencer your questions

01:18:10.340 wiki leaks showed us the sense of irritation and fatigue the arab league has with hamas could

01:18:15.620 the recent pressure from the arab league calling for hamas to disband and disarm

01:18:19.700 perhaps change the mindset and the charter of hamas

01:18:36.180 getting ready for a game means being ready for anything like packing a spare stick i like to be

01:18:50.340 prepared that's why i remember 988 canada suicide crisis helpline it's good to know just in case anyone

01:18:57.620 can call or text for free confidential support from a trained responder anytime 988 suicide crisis helpline

01:19:04.580 is funded by the government of canada

01:19:15.060 you

TRIGGERnometry - August 17, 2025

War Expert Debunks Gaza Lies - John Spencer

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