Piers Morgan Uncensored - Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot & Ex Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Piers Morgan has made a point of amplifying both Palestinian and Israeli voices, on a devastating conflict that many believe is entirely black and white. Today’s discussion is no different. Firstly, Piers talks to Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, who recounts his heartbreaking upbringing in a refugee camp, and the horrors visited upon his family. According to Zomlot, the Palestinian people have been made to feel like “children of a lesser god” at the hands of the state of Israel. Piers then turns to Israeli Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a man who personally strove to protect his nation when it was surrounded and attacked in their 1948 war. For him, the moral responsibility for Palestinian suffering lies squarely on the shoulders of the nations that wanted to destroy Israel. He reminds Piers of the multiple missed opportunities for peace, the ‘causal chain’ of violence and that the Jewish people of Israel cannot be held responsible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Herzog came out and said there is no distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian people. So at that moment, I had to sit here in front of you and defend our people against Israeli genocidal mindset and genocidal aggression. You talk about genocide. Do you accept that the language Hamas uses about Israel is clearly indisputably genocidal? I don't know what language you're talking about. Yes, you do. But Hamas... Come on. Ambassador, you do.

I don't. I don't. I am here to speak on behalf of Palestine. I want you to put your finger on what hurts the most. That in some reason, our blood has a different color. That we are a lesser, you know, we have a lesser of a, something of a sword. That we are the children of a lesser guard. You're not lesser people to me. It is the terrorization of the people on the West Bank. This is a state-sponsored terrorism.

Do you see a future for Hamas in any political role after it? Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the chilling prospect of an all-out war with Iran have dominated news coverage for weeks. It can be easy for us to forget that the war in Gaza still rages on. The Palestinian death toll since October the 7th is now 42,000, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry. As far as we know, there's no Israeli exit strategy, and opinions on who should control Gaza after the war remain deeply divided on all sides. Ambassador Hussein's omelet was born in a refugee camp in Rafa. He's now the head of the Palestinian mission to the UK and previously held the same post in the United States.

It's been a year since our first interview and I'm glad to say he joins me in the studio now. Ambassador, great to see you again. Good to be back. What a year it's been. I just wanted to start by asking you, what has been like for you? I mean, you're Palestinian, you were born in Rafa.

I know you've lost family members in this dreadful war in the last year. You've also had to be the Palestinian ambassador to a major country. through this period, what's this been like for you? Nightmare. And until this moment, there is a feeling in me that this could not be true. I tell myself, no way. No way this could happen. No way in one year we see the normalization of mass murder, senseless, of children, of women, mass destruction of civilian structures, of hospitals, of homes. Remember, our first interview a year ago,

part of the discussion from your side was insisting that the Ahli hospital was not bombed by Israel when 500 people, innocent people, taking shelter in that hospital, died. And then since then, Israel has destroyed 90% of Gaza's hospitals. As we speak now, Israel is targeting the only remaining standing hospital in the north of Gaza, Kamal Udwan, a hospital. So at that time, I was thinking maybe that was the exception to the role targeting Al-Ahele hospital. Then it became the rule itself. Israel has destroyed, according to the UN,

78% of all of Gaza's structures, that's 70% of homes, 80% of schools, 90% of hospitals, and 100% of universities. Would have I thought that on the 21st century, this was possible? It is possible to literally murder with impunity? I wouldn't.

So still there is a small little part in me, that maybe this is a nightmare and you and I will wake up to find out that actually we have learned the lesson of the 40s and the 30s we have stuck to our international order we have made sure that we prevent wars and if wars erupts we have we make sure there are rules for wars and if these rules are violated there are consequences and that's why we build the international judicial system part of me still hoping that we haven't lost everything because what israel did in Gaza and in Palestine does not stop at the borders of it. Israel and Palestine. My fear is now for not only for my children, for all of my life, I wanted

to have a different future for my own children and the children of the Palestinian people. A future that doesn't look like the way their parents and their grandparents live. A future where they can be free on their own land, a future where they can have a government elected by them that can provide and protect them and give them the opportunities and the prosperity and the potential and all that all other nations enjoy. But now I fear for the children of the world that fears. Truly, I really do from the bottom of my heart because since when we allow for the normalization of this carnage, madness, senseless behavior. It's a powerful way to start this interview and I absolutely empathize with what you've just been saying, not least your

desire to want all Palestinians to have exactly the same human rights that I have, that Israelis have, and so on. I've been saying that from the start. As you know, I've also had a position from the start that Israel had a right to defend itself. I've had, as I've expressed many times, I've had a genuine moral quandary about what that right looks like, how you defend yourself against Hamas, what you do if you decide you're going after what they perceive to be a terror group when they live amongst civilian population. I don't have all the answers for this. I have watched the carnage with the same utter dismay that you have.

But I come back to October the 7th. It's not because I think it all started there. I know it didn't. I know this goes back many decades. But the catalyst for what we've seen in the last year began on October the 7th. I think when we last met, it was about a week after what had happened.

And I don't want to put words in. in your mouth. I can't remember exactly how you phrased it. You were certainly saying, look, to understand why this has happened, you need to understand the history, you need to understand how people have been feeling. And almost that this was not inevitable, but it can be explained by the history. Now you've had a chance to really think about that. When you go back to October the 7th, what do you feel about what happened that day? Listen, Pierce, we have been absolutely clear. with you. I have been clear with all other media outlets and in public engagements and private and our position in general as the state of Palestine, the government of the state of Palestine,

and the PLO is very clear. We do not condone in any way or shape targeting civilians from all sides. That's our strategy. That's our DNA. That's our national movement. That's our history. And look at the numbers. You will find out that our policies are backed by deeds, not just by words. So this isn't about that discussion. This was all about the world on the seventh have suffered from some sort of an amnesia where everybody just snapchat that moment or snapshot that moment. And the whole world wanted just to focus on that moment when in fact on the 6th of October the UN released a report saying that that was the deadliest year for Palestinian children ever. 23 before the 7th of October.

What we were trying to do here and say is, Hang on guys, history did not be gone there, and the 7th of October did not happen in a vacuum. And you cannot just keep in this business of blaming the victim all the time because it doesn't serve the cause of peace and the cause of clarity. Let's zoom out a little bit.

That's what we try to do. And then since then, I have to say, the world has been discovering what we have been saying. Because guess what? On the 7th of October, Israel asked you, peers, and the rest of the media in the world, and everybody, look, look at the 7th of October, look at Israel, look at Palestine, look what happened to us. And then the world did. Everybody looked at it. And guess what? Nobody in the world liked what they saw. What they saw was military occupation that is lasting for decades. What they saw was unprecedented suppression and oppression, colonization, theft of land, besiegment of Gaza, and the population of Gaza is the most,

the most densely in the world, and there are 80% of them are refugees who were forced out of their homes. And 50% under 18. And 50% are under 18. And, you know, the whole segregation system, the apartheid system that is documented by various human rights organizations, including the UK-based one, amnesty. And then the world was looking. Israel wanted the world to come in its help on the servant. But then what happened was the opposite. And you want the proof? Look at the international opinion the public opinion I mean look at the British public opinion look at the polls I mean 80% of the British people are completely pro recognition of the state of Palestine arms embargo and what have you all that because when the world

looks deeply into the issue they don't like what they see they don't like what Israel has been doing for all these decades they don't like impunity they don't want to see anybody above above the law and this brings me to the key conversation that you and I had at the time first one is the issue of this, does this whole thing happen in a vacuum? And I was telling you, this happened, did not happen in a vacuum. There was a situation of total maltreatment of the Palestinians over decades, total denial of our rights, and this is the root cause.

This is the root cause. Okay, but let me just on that point, let me just put the counter argument about some of what you said. What Israelis have been saying very forcefully is that since 2005, they moved out of Gaza. Now, I've held them to account because I believe that what they showed after October the 7th was they still have an ability to control energy supplies into Gaza, water supplies, food supplies and so on. That is indisputably a form of occupation. So they take issue with me when I say that, but I believe that is indisputable.

But they say, look, Hamas took charge in 2005. Hamas was given billions of dollars, and Hamas used that money to build a huge tunnel network amongst civilian population quite deliberately, so that if Israel ever came after them in that terrain, they knew that the collateral damage to civilians would be enormous, which is exactly what's happened. But the Hamas squandered the money and the goodwill and the political power that they were given in 2005, and that all they really did was spend all that time, building a, as Israel would say, a terror network, including tunnels, and arming themselves via Iran ready to carry out what was one of the worst terror attacks of modern times, where 3,000 of them poured over the border, killed 1,200 people, wounded nearly 7,000 more people,

and caused the kind of carnage that you're talking about in relation to what then came back the other way. Do you understand that that is a big argument on the Israeli side, that Hamas had a chance to transform Gaza and went the other way. You know, I would really ask you, appears, to be cautious about following the Israeli narrative. No, what did you think of that argument? Please, please. I think it's nonsense. And the Israelis themselves know it's nonsense.

Why? I'll tell you why. Because, number one, you don't say that I left a territory when you have besieged it from land, air, and sea, and turned the life of 2.3 million, 50% less than 18%. into hell on earth, according to many British officials here, an open-air present. And we shouldn't even call it a present because prisoners at least have gone

through some sort of a legal process. That was collective punishment for a period of 18 years. That's number one. Number two, if you think Hamas or Hezbollah, for that matter, are the cause of the conflict. Think again, they are the product of the conflict. And this is what we are trying to drive home here. This obsession with the consequences,

the obsession with the consequences, symptoms has got to end because you know the obsession with the symptoms has gotten us where we are today this what the ICJ now described as plausible genocide we have got to focus on the root cause and then okay let's imagine for the sake of the argument that you know Hamas did what they did in on the 7th of October and they killed how many you said 1,000 200 people they're wounded in 7000 okay okay Israel since then we're not imagining that, that is what happened. You don't dispute.

Well, well. Read Israeli newspapers, please. Because, you know, sometimes even some Israeli newspapers are better than British newspapers or American for them. But are you disputing that number of people? No, I'm not, I'm not, but many Israeli newspapers, very good investigative reports came out to say

that many of those people, particularly the civilians, were bombarded by their own military. Please go back to Horitz and reports, this is not the conversation here. And the conversation is not to dispute any numbers. But to make sure that we do not follow the Israeli narrative blindly because they have been wrecking and spreading propaganda and lies all along.

But on the point about Hamas, though, spending the money they got in the way that they did. Let me answer. Is that not a dereliction of their duty to their people? They received the money via Netanyahu. And if you ask Nathanielho why he did that, because he wants to break the backbone of the Palestinian people. He wants to separate the PLO from Hamas. I get it.

Okay, good, good, good, good. I understand that. Good that you understand. Good, the world understand. It suited Netanyahu to have the Palestinian vote, if you like, split in two. It suited him. Of course. To have had them at each other's throats.

Divide and rule. I have said that. So you want to look at the big brother here in this equation, the superstructure that is the cause of all this, rather than just the symptoms. You see what is conversation. And then since the seventh, okay, Israelis say 1,200. People were killed by Hamas. Some reports say they were killed, many of them killed by their own military.

Nonetheless, how many Israel has killed since then? Palestinians, 42,000, you just said in your report. By the way, Lancet and other very respected British. I've said high numbers, aren't there? 186,000 because they count also those who were killed by other means, by starvation, by lack of medicine, 180. I've seen those reports. 186,000.

Let's stick with the 42,000. Yeah. Okay. You know, of the 42,000, there are 16,900 children. And there are 11,700 women, 700-odd number, women. So the vast majority of that number are children and women. And how many would be Hamas men? Let's take a rate.

You make the calculation. Well, you know those figures. You must know how many Hamas? I don't. I really don't. All what I do. So how do you know the first two parts? Because it's the official Bureau of Statistics that have released these...

The Hamas Health Authority are not revealing then how many members of Hamas are being killed. I am the ambassador of the state of Palestine. I'm giving you the official figures of the Palestine, central bureau of statistics. I get it. I'm just curious why you don't know how many combatants have been killed. We don't know because we don't know who was a combatant. We don't, we know who was a civilian. So we can confirm.

We have the ID numbers, the photos, the stories, the names. The reason I'm pushing it is Israel said at least... Of all these people. I should not say that at least 15 to 20,000 are lying. They are lying. They're lying. Look what they're doing in Lebanon. The same playbook, the very same. I'm going to come to Lebanon. More than 2,000 have been killed in Lebanon, mostly civilians. Nonetheless, let's go back a bit.

Yeah, yeah. What's the issue here? The issue, and by the way, those who are maimed, imputed with those who are killed, are 150,000, more above 150,000 Palestinian. So if you take killed and maimed over the Israeli casual, that's a hundred and massively high yes yeah that's 150 to one if you only take those killed that's what that's that's that's 35 to 1 okay so what does that mean in and in numbers that means a life of an israeli is worth 150 Palestinians it's in percentage well it doesn't

mean that it means no no it means that what is what is what israel would say is that's not what they would say is if the enemy that you're attacking who have said, by the way, just to remind you, several weeks after October 7th, the official spokesman for Hamas said publicly on camera, if we can do this again and again, we will. So there's an existential threat to Israel, which they have to defend. Of course they will.

Okay? Of course they will. So they have to defend them. Their argument is by trying to get rid of Hamas, they've had to attack areas with civilians. They're lying. Is that not true? They're lying.

They are deliberately targeting civilians. I mean, yesterday I was on sky, and they brought this investigation about the killing of that child, and Rajab, five years old. Please look at that. I've seen it. And I was on there, and the anchor was trying to bring about some sort of admission by an Israeli spokesman.

And of course. I watched the interview. You did watch the issue. With Yadda Hakeem. Yes, and I told Yaldda, you are wasting your breath. Because they will never. Because Sky had found some documentation that showed the IDF were operating the area of time. Of course, of course.

So they will deny anything. But they targeted her car and the car of her feet. family for hours. How many bullets? I forgot like 100, 300 bullets. You tell me they were not targeting these civilians. But let me ask you. So, so so. But here's my question. No, no, I don't want to look at the argument. I want to, I want to talk about what you started a year ago in this show here. Okay. Which is the proportionality. Yes. Remember the proportionality? Okay. So if it is about proportionality, then let's let's see. Exactly if we look at only the number of people killed, Forget about maimed and imitated.

So the ratio is here, every Israeli, 2% of every Israeli is worth a Palestinian. 2%. Now, why I'm saying this, what is enough for Israel? What is enough for you, Pierce? Well, it's not about what's enough for me. 300 of Hind Rajabs for every Israeli. A thousand of Hind Rajabs for every Israeli. Let me answer you.

Or Aisha. Can I see? Where is international law? Well, let me answer. Where our values are? Ambassador, let me ask you. I think it's too much. Okay.

Okay? And I have done for a while. No, I don't think it's too much. I don't think it's too much. Not one Palestinian civilian or a child should have been killed. Not one. One is too many. Okay.

One is too many. But then you must accept them by the same criteria. No Israeli civilian should have been back. I just told you from the beginning. Civilians should not be targeted by any side. You live in the UK at the moment. Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a hypothetical.

No, no, but before you ask me. I want you to ask you some question. I want you to put your finger on what hurts the most. Yes, okay, tell me. With us. It's this. It's the logic that you started in many of your colleagues here that make us feel that our lives do not matter as much.

I understand. That in some reason, our blood has a different color. Remember the one-fifth in the U.S. vis-à-vis the black community? That we are less of a human being. That we are a lesser, you know, we have a lesser of a, something of a sort. Well, you're not to me. children of a lesser God. Right. To be clear, though.

When in fact, we are the birthplace of Christianity. Right. We are the original Christians and the birthplace of many civilizations. You're not lesser people to me. When in fact, the people of Palestine have been the pillar of the region. When in fact, wherever they go, they build these countries. And you know the statistics, we come from a very ancient, very rooted society. You know that we are one of the most, if not the most educated.

You started by saying, I was born in a refugee camp. And here I am. I hold a PhD from your country here from the University of London. I was teaching at Harvard University because my society invested so much in me. I want you and the rest of the world see us from that present. Dehumanization. Hamas, Hezbollah, this and that. This is a people struggle for 100 years.

And the people have been not giving up the absolute right for freedom. I get you. Let me ask you a question. It's going to be the same question I asked you. before, do you not believe that Hamas squandered the chance they had? By spending all that money on a tunnel system from which they could then launch an attack and then hide in the tunnels, did they not act as a dereliction of duty to their own people? They knew when they did what they did October the 7th. They knew what Israel would do. They were immediately sentencing

to death thousands of their own people. Now, I look at it as dispassionate than I can. I say, why would you do that? Why would you immediately condemn to death, thousands if not 10 to thousands of your own people by launching a terror attack on such a scale that Israel would have felt it had no choice. And they knew that. So Hamas to me, Hamas to me from 2005 onwards have squandered the money they got, they squandered the opportunity they had. They did nothing to enhance the lives of Palestinian people. Would you agree with that? You know, you asked me about the official position of the state of Palestine. Hamas is a militant group. Would you agree what I just said?

you all about our plans and how our plans are being... You won't comment about Hamas? Hamas. Are being quashed. No, about Hamas. Hamas is part of the Palestinian... Am I wrong? It's really my point.

It's part of the Palestinian people. And at one point, and now, today in Cairo, there is a dialogue between Fatih and Hamas. These are the main political... Am I wrong, Ambassador, in what I say? I was in Gaza two weeks before the 7th of October. I was born in Gaza. I went to visit family. And at that time, I saw that number one, people think that Gaza

is just left for one group. No, the Palestinian government was spending hundreds of millions of dollars every month. So there is the Palestinian government. There is the international community. The honor war that Israel is trying to shut down that has extensive.

So Gaza was serviced in a way despite the very adverse situation by our government and the UN. But did Hamas fail? And there has to be a moment of revision at one point. That the Palestinian people have to, and they have the right to ask of groups

from them, what the cost benefit. Of course. But for the time being, Natanyahu, his government, Israel, the military did not allow us to breathe. On the day one, on the seventh, Natanyahu came out and said, I am going to be after the Palestinian people. And hell he did. And then the president of Israel, who is seen to be a non-natanahu figure, Heathsog, came out and said, it's the Palestinian nation word by word. That is responsible. We are after them. There is no distinction, he said, between Hamas and the Palestinian people. So at that moment,

I had to sit here in front of you and defend our people against Israeli genocidal mindset and genocidal aggression. There is no time to discuss Hamas or anybody else. And then we go back to this whole idea of dehumanization, which is linked to this conversation. Which is linked to... You have to at some stage...

You want to keep talking about Hamas. No, no, I don't. I want to ask you... Give up your obsession. I can see you don't want to talk about Hamas, okay? And maybe you can't. I understand.

given your position. But let me ask you this. You talk about genocide a lot. But do you accept that the language Hamas uses about Israel is clearly indisputably genocidal? Well, I don't know what language you're talking about. Yes, you do. Come on. Ambassador, you do. I don't know. They are wedded to an ideology of eradicating Israel. I'm not here to speak on behalf of a group. I am here to speak on behalf of Palestine. Okay? The Palestinian people and the Palestinian... One last question on them then. National...

Do you see... But let me... I want to answer you. I'm going to ask you a bigger picture question. Do you see a future for Hamas in any political power role after this? Yes. You do? Yes. As far as they commit, adhere to the framework of the Palestinian national institutions, the PLO, and there is a dialogue right now.

and I believe we have advanced great deal. Hamas accepted the idea of a state of Palestine on the 1967 borders. In Beijing, there was a meeting. They came out with a statement. There is a lot of pressure and movement, so we agree that there is no one group that can take the Palestinian people in a direction of war or peace without consulting the National Front.

But asking about Hamas and xenocidal and exterminating the other, I haven't seen anything written, but I have read the Charter of Likud. I'm sure you did. liquid for your viewers are the ruling party of Israel, right? You know in the charter, they say the land of Israel is from the river to the sea. Complete extermination, erasure of Palestine and the Palestinians. Why don't you talk about it?

But it works both ways, I agree. Why you don't talk about it? Why the world doesn't talk? And you know what? You know what's the difference? You know what's a difference? There's no difference. There is a difference.

The difference is Israel is a state actor in the UN, so it has a set of responsibilities, while Hamas is a group. But if you ask me. Israel and say it actor. But if you ask me, what is our policy? Ask me what is our vision? What are we doing for the last year? What we have done to contain the madness of Israel?

That's the question. So Hamasi's Charter said this. Hamas's Charter, original Charter, the complete destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a theocratic state based on Islamic law. I don't know where did you get that from.

The original charter. Who sent it to you? I know we are not talking about this. or any other Palestinian faction, they must be part of our national institutions based on our acceptance as per the Palestinian national equilibrium, national consensus, that what we are after is the end of Israel's occupation that began in 1967, the establishment of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state on that land with Jerusalem as its capital, resolving the issue of Palestinian refugees in accordance with international law, respecting their right to go back to their homes.

and respecting international legality. Let me respond. Legality. Anybody who agrees with that and with our commitment is absolutely welcome. Let me respond. Leave it to us. Hamas is a Palestinian issue. Okay.

But why aren't we discussing all the Israeli Kahani's groups in the government now? Hamas is not in government. Why aren't you discussing... Can I get a word in? Can I get a word in? Ask me about Smetridge. Ambassador, I'm going to... I'm literally about to tell you that.

Ask me about behavior. Let me speak. Okay. literally about to say to you, there are many things I'm sure we find agreement on, not least the essential need out of this for a two-state solution. Palestine must have its own state. I believe that Netanyahu has to go. I believe Benghavir and Smodrich and these right-wing headbangers on his cabinet all have to go.

They have been talking in genocidal language. It's completely outrageous. And I think that Netanyahu, in his desperation to get back into power, did a deal with the devil with these guys. and we saw his attempts to thwart the power of the Supreme Court before all this, causing huge protests amongst his own people. So on all that will be an agreement. The settlement expansion on the West Bank has been appalling and outrageous, right?

On proportionality in Gaza, it's gone way too far, is my belief. But one of the things I won't agree with you about is that I think that on October the 7th, Hamas, by the scale of what they did, and the glee that they showed in the way they did it with their cameras showing everything proudly to the world, the kidnapping of over 250 people, including babies, Holocaust survivors, young women,

the appalling abuse of women, the appalling way they gunned down and set fire to families. In that moment, they abrogated their right to have any power coming out of this. And I'm surprised that you as the ambassador to the UK think that they should have some power coming out of this. Well, I told you that they are part of the Palestinian people and at one point, dialogue is happening right now.

And the dialogue has been taking a long time, so we make sure that we are in one ship. The ship has a captain. Who will run Gaza out of this? Only the Palestine liberation organization, the state of Palestine and the government of the state of Palestine, that is the PLO that has formed of late only three months ago, a new government made of technocrats,

not made of Fattah or Hamas or any technocrats, professionals who can go and do the... huge, humongous job of rebuilding Gaza, of providing recovery. And who else has to help with that process? Only, Palestinians can only be governed by Palestinians. Where will the money come from? There are so many dubious things. Who's going to help you rebuild?

We have our own money that Israel is stealing right now. And by the way, Israel is not just waging war in Gaza. It's waging war in the West Bank. You mentioned the settlements. Yes. The settlements, there is the settler terrorism. Terrorism. I think it's appalling, the settlements.

A bowling. No, no, no. But when settlers go to villages in the middle of the night and burn homes and cars and kill people. Is that terrorism? Yes. Is that terrorism? I think it is. Can you say it? Yes. It's what? I think it's terrorism. It's terrorism. So is, and who is sponsoring that settler terrorism? What's the state that is hard? I agree. Israel's allowing it to happen. So Israel is the government allowing that to happen. Excellent. And it's completely wrong. Excellent. So it is a terrorization of the people on the West Bank. So I agree.

This is a state sponsored terrorism in the West Bank. But also, there is another war happening. Israel is trying to collapse the Palestinian Authority. They have withhold funding for months. Smotrich is on an onslaught against the Palestinian institution. So is Natanyahu. And the whole idea is what you just started by describing. They don't want to see anyone central, national. But here's my point.

It's not about them. I think they have to go. No, no. Don't reduce it. We have a mindset. This has been for decades. That's a big mistake to think if Natanyahu goes. Everything will be hubbly bubbly, everything will be just.

No, I don't assume that at all. Rosie, we have a mindset to change in Israel. And that's why we have a plan. That's why we have a plan. And the plan is very clear. Number one, accountability, because we want to make sure that never, ever, this will happen again. We need to see war criminals, sorry, behind.

How do you guarantee Hamas won't do what they did again? They've already said they want to. Accountability. And what we need to do with the full force of the international law, we have courts, we establish courts together to make sure no one will get away with murder. What did you feel about, let me bring you in the... Don't block. I've only got about five more minutes.

I want to ask you about Lebanon, right, and what's been happening there with their attacks on Hezbollah, the pager attacks with the walkie-talkies, and then the subsequent attacks to take out the leadership. They would argue from October the 7th onwards, the first thing Hezbollah did was fire a bunch of rockets at Israel. They've carried on fire in them all year, and at some point, Israel, having seen 70,000 of its people displaced, is a title to defend itself. Your response? The same story. You know, Hezbollah was created in 1982. because of Israel's occupation, military invasion of Lebanon. And since then, Israel has been occupying Lebanon until 2006.

Israel left Lebanon in 2006. There were a Lebanese area according to the Lebanese Shibhafam. Still Israel occupies, and that's the context. But, you know, last time, the first time we had this conversation, you and I agreed, disagreed, disagreed almost on everything. How about... We agree. We have been.

Do you think we had been in the last five minutes? How about we agree on some foundational? Because, you know, there is a lot of distraction and what's the word, deflation. Let's agree on you. Okay. The first thing that we need to agree on is huge, unprecedented historic injustice has been befallen the Palestinian people for 100 years.

Since the Nakba, at least, of 1948, and the mass expulsion, ethnic cleansing of two threats. Okay. Then came the... Well, hang on. Then we respond. Okay. I agree.

Okay, you agree, you agree. And you agree that Britain had something to do with that? Yes. Okay, you remember the Belfar Declaration? That was a colonial arrogance where we were turned into, we were cancelled as a people. So we were turned into non-Jewish minorities, when in fact we are the original people who live there for a millennia. Then came the occupation.

I would also point out, though, that hundreds of thousands of Jewish people were also displaced at the same time. Displaced from where? From their own homes? No, no. in Arab countries. I'm talking about my country. I know, but I'm saying it wasn't.

Yeah, but you're taking it again. My father's land. I know. My father's home was taken. I understand. You're taking it in isolation. What I'm saying is in that period, and my father,

hundreds of thousands of Jews were also displaced from their home in Arab country. All refugees, all refugees have the right to go back. All of them. Just agree with that. You agree with that. I think the principle is sound. We have to be consistent here. So when I say Palestinian refugees, all refugees who have a right,

righteous claim. Now my father was born in Rafah, refugee I'm sorry I was born in Raffa refugee camp and me and my father are only 40 minutes away from his original town and we he could never go back only once he drove me there before the 90s so there were no checkpoints we could drive anywhere and he showed me his home he showed me his farm and as a child I was looking around he couldn't actually identify his home unless he found that fig tree somewhere there because he planted it and as a child I was six seven years old. The one question in my head at that moment was father why aren't we living

here it's beautiful it's nice it's green why are we in a refugee camp and all that and my father couldn't answer that question on for many years later because he wanted to shield me from that horror that he has gone through in 1940s and in the act but then came the occupation do you agree that the rest of historic Palestine the 22% the West Bank is Jerusalem and Gaza are occupied territory? I think that there is an element of occupation that has been... What do you mean element? What's element? I wouldn't describe it. Can you be half pregnant here? Well, because I've heard the arguments from the Israeli side about what they feel is the land they're entitled to and why. And some of it they make compelling arguments about.

So I do believe when Israel says there's been no occupation of Palestinian people, I think that is simply wrong. It's false. But I do understand there are territorial disputes over land. And it goes back a long period of time. And, and but, but, but, Both sides, you know, the best piece I've read about this, Ambassador, let me tell you, Jonathan Friedland, the Guardian, journalist, Jewish guy. I know him. And he read a very fair piece saying, you know, you could construct a very good argument for both sides, going back to 1948, that you could see that why both sides feel so aggrieved. And it involves displacement of people. It involves land disputes and so on.

It involves the conflict, the warfare, everything. You could construct an argument on both sides. But there are points that I would agree with you about, yes. I mean, disbelief of you not saying that there is occupied territory. This is the UK official policy, longstanding conservatives' labor. This is the international consensus. This is the UN Security Council resolutions. And by the way, that was not a Palestinian demand that this is the occupied territory and in the occupation.

It's a Palestinian constitution because for many Palestinians, our land is from the river to the sea. However, we accepted international legitimacy that the occupation only began in 1967. And this is a historic process of a colonial project. We are not going to discuss it now. But there is military occupation, right? And part of that military occupation is suppression, subjugation, apartheid, because we don't have the same rights like they do. We don't vote like they do.

They control our lives. And you should have the same rights. We don't have the rights. So within this context, I really want to allow me. You've asked me many questions. And please answer it. I've got to wrap it up. Okay, but within this context, what do you think we should do?

What should we be doing? Well, I think that... How can we react to this? How can we resist this? Well, how can we defend ourselves? Not with terrorism. Okay. With what?

Tell me. Well, not by pouring thousands of terrorists over a border and pushing everyone. I didn't say with not. With what? It's a good question. No, no, I want you to tell me. I don't know the answer. Okay.

Ask any other nation that were occupied. Ask the Algerians who in France occupy them and colonize them. Ask the South Africans. You know what I honestly believe about these things? Do we have the right to exist? Do we have the right to exist? Let me answer you like this. I remember the troubles in Northern Ireland

and people were saying it was intractable it could never be resolved, that it was too deep, it had gone generational and people had lost too many people on both sides, they would never get peace. And actually what did it in the end were people who were genuinely great leaders at the time. Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Mitchell in America,

and others came together and they just went. at it until they found peace. Good. We did that. So my point is it can be done, but I honestly believe the way it gets done is through inspirational leadership. We did that. And yes, Arafat brought all of us to a peace office. And then he walked away.

He didn't. Yes, he did. Come on, come on, come on. I'm interviewed Bill Clinton about this. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Bill Clinton said the biggest, the saddest thing of his whole tenure. He had the deal and Arafat walked away. That's not true.

A year later, an Israeli killed, it's Haq Rabin. Yes. And then he, that bullet did not just kill Shakhrab and it killed the whole peace process. And then Israel has undermined. But Arafat did walk away from the deal. But that's that's not true. That is not true. He was not offered what the minimum Palestinians would accept.

Well, Bill Clinton told me he was. And what the maximum we could offer. Clinton has capitulated by Israelis. I have to, I have to, I'm only wrapping you out because I had Ehou Barak, who was the former Prime Minister of Israel waiting, be waiting patiently. we've had, I think, 50 minutes or so, probably a much longer interview the first time. It's great to have you here. I would love to continue this conversation. I get the passion.

I get the history. I get you from Rafa. I get it's personal to you. You know a lot more about the intricacies of all this than I do, right? I'm trying to help you get to a place where Palestinian people can live in peace and security and with the same human rights as everybody else. That is absolutely what I agree with you about. But I think you're a great spokesman for them.

But think with me how we get to peace. That's the key question. And follow what we're doing. We are trying to just give an alternative path, whereby it's about the legality, the ICJ and the UN. It's about bringing political momentum with the region. It's about the antidote to Natanio and we need help right now. Yeah, I just don't think you can do it with Hamas.

But on that, we'll disagree. It's good to see you, Ambassador, again. Don't leave us so long. I enjoyed the conversation. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, 51 years ago, Ehou Barak led a covert Israeli raid into Lebanon to kill three top PLO officials. It was the first time that Lebanon became an arena for conflict between Israel and its enemies,

but very clearly not the last. Barat became the IDF's most decorated soldier in history and later Israel's Prime Minister, and he joins me now. Mr. Barak, thank you very much indeed for joining me. Thank you for having me. I was just having a fascinating conversation with the Palestinian ambassador to the UK. I'm sure you heard some of that. Ultimately, do you share his big picture,

which is there has to, in the end, out of this, be a two-state solution where Palestinian people live with the same human rights as everybody else? Sure, they have the same human rights. Every individual Palestinian who are not participating in a barbarian attack against Israel or in some terror attack, they deserve the rights of every human being.

I want to make two notes about your conversation with the Palestinian gentleman. One about the very beginning, and the second one about Camp David, which he mentioned with Clinton. So about the beginning, you know, I'm older than all of you, so I remember the 48 war. So during this war, it's true that 650,000 Palestinians left. what became Israel. But at the same time, the same war, and the two years after, 650,000 Jews, as you have mentioned, from the whole Arab world, came to Israel. We never called them refugees.

We call them brothers. We try to absorb them with many mistakes along the war. There were many sorrows and pains. But now more than half of the Israeli population is the offspring of these refugees, so to speak, who came from the Arab world. Now, I once told Arafat, Camp David, in front of Clinton, Israel and we, Israel, will never be apologetic about what happened to the Palestinian refugees. Not because we don't understand the suffering.

Of course we understand. But because of the causal chain, Ben Gurion, on behalf of the Jewish people, accepted the General Assembly resolution about making two states in former Palestine. a Jewish state side by side with an Arab state. The Jewish state was supposed to be three cantons, hardly connected to each other, without Jerusalem, without even a corridor to Jerusalem. The Palestinians rejected it and called upon Arab five armies from all around the emerging new Israel to kill the baby before it can stand on its feet.

That was the essence of 48. and we survived it. So we will never be morally kind of responsible for the tragedy. But we understand that then was suffering. We expected them to do the same, to call these refugees brother and to find a way to let them live. Another note about the recent, even recent,

the generation ago, Camp David, we, unlike the urban legends about it, Clinton and myself never told Arafa, take it or leave it. We never try to dictate it. I told him in front of Clinton, Mr. President, you can have reservation from any or all the paragraph of this document. We don't ask you to swallow it and say yes. We asked you only to take it, and it was far-reaching proposal better than anything he ever seen, covering metaphorically 90 plus percent of whatever he can think of.

We just said, take it as a basis for future negotiations. The fact that Arafat did not accept, rejected it, and turned deliberately, you know from intelligence, deliberately to terror, makes him the responsible. And that's the reason why Clinton, until these days, we'll tell you, Arafat was the one who rejected everything. Yeah, I've had the same conversation with President Clinton. I've interviewed him several times about that.

this and that's exactly how he articulated it to me. And I think that was the great opportunity, which got sadly completely squandered. Let me ask you, where do you feel we are now? Many people are extremely fearful about what has happened in the last two weeks and feel that Israel is barreling its way not just through Gaza and now through Lebanon, but also ultimately to a head-to-head direct conflict with Iran, who they believe are responsible for fueling all this anti-Israel terror hatred through Hezbollah, through the Houthis, through Hamas and so on. Are you as fearful, or is there a strategy to this that we don't quite understand? I think that basically we are more led by events than leading it.

So the Hezbollah joined the event a year ago, immediately after the 7th of October, Last year, Hezbollah joined on their own initiative and started to eat. They caused us living, recreating. You have mentioned it earlier, some 70,000 Israelis from the north, from the Lebanese border, are refugees in our country, beyond the 60,000 from the south who became refugees. So Israel had a compelling imperative to acting Gaza, to make sure that Hamas will not reign politically over Gaza anymore and cannot threaten. Israel from there. And then Hezbollah joined. And then the Houthis joined. We never had any

conflict with them. And it's always orchestrated in a way by Iran. So basically, Israel is not responsible for it. But having said that, we were stuck in Gaza for too many months. I think personally it could have been over within three months. Eight months ago, we could pull the weight to the north and hit the Hezbollah. But it happened for another reasons only right now. But in the last three weeks or in last four weeks, Israel regained both the self-confidence of Israelis in their own armed forces, intelligence, air force, whatever, even the government in a way.

Israel resumed or regained his deterrence and the respect from neighbors. And we are now on the verge of a regional war. that I'm not sure it's inevitable. I don't think that anyone really needs it, but it can happen because Israel now has a compelling need to respond to Iran. You know, neither the UK no other sovereign on earth would accept second time in half a year, having a major unprecedented anywhere else on earth of some 180, ballistic missiles landing on your small country, Israel will have to respond forcefully,

and I believe it will do it. But how does, let me ask you, how does this all end? How will it end? How does all this end? I mean, people look at it and just the endless escalation. I can tell you how it will end. It's clearly not, it's a bodes ill to all players. I think that Iran is vulnerable.

I think that Hamas exposed to be extremely vulnerable. I think that Hezbollah is vulnerable in Gaza. But it's true that Israel is the strongest power in the region, but not omnipotent. So in order to run this fully full-scale regional war, I think we better have the Americans on our side. We better have this alliance of the blessing as Netanyahu. described in the UN, backed by Europe on the United States, Israel, some like-minded countries in the rest of the world, and deployed vis-à-vis the axis of rogue state, led by Iran,

with all these proxies that you have mentioned, and backed by Russia and in a way indirectly by China. So that's the right deployment. That's the major failure of our government. The government, it leads in spite of the valor and sacrifice and devotion of fighters on the ground and heroic fighting, it doesn't work without a strategy. In Israel, basically, the grave mistake of our government, they are leading a war without any apparent strategy. Not vis-à-vis the Hamas, not vis-vis al-Hazbalah, not vis-vis Iran. Yes.

not vis-a-vis the proposal that is on the table from day one almost by President Biden to join hand with this alliance that he proposed. And Netanyahu talked about it by the UN, but did nothing to let it emerge in the last year. Yeah, you see, I completely agree. I don't see what the longer-term strategy is, either for what happens in Gaza, what happens in Lebanon, on what happens with Israel itself.

I mean, I'm not quite sure whether Netanyahu understands what he's doing, other than he's seen his own poll numbers improving the more he's gone after Hezbollah. So he's now more popular than he's been for a year in Israel because people like what he's been doing with the pages and the walkie-talkies and all the rest of it. But ultimately, I don't see an end game here. And I certainly don't see any sign of peace. Look, I don't see either a simple endgame, but in a way we are now into it. So it's not the time to discuss the very long-term horizon.

But I say Israel had to have a strategy because I'm a great believer in an old Roman saying, if you do not know which port you want to reach, no wind will take you there. And you can find the equivalent even in Alice in Wonderland. We had to define from day one what we expect in the morning after the war in Gaza against the Hamas. It would shorten the war dramatically. It would have enabled us to bring back the hostages. It would enable us eight months ago to turn to the Hezbollah and deal with them separately. I think that what the Israel government missed, probably out of self-imposed,

blindness is the fact that Sinoir is not afraid from another 10,000 Gazans, innocent Gaza being killed or from another 5,000 terrorists of his own being killed. The only thing he's afraid of is the possibility that someone will replace him in power, in Gaza. And it happens that the only someone who can be replacing and will be legitimate in the minds of international law, international community, neighboring Arab countries, those who have a good relationship with Israel and the Palestinians themselves, is the Palestinian authority. So nearly what our government missed by self-imposed blindness is the need to respond to the President Biden proposal and allow the Americans to arrange with the Arab neighbors

that an inter-Arab force will enter backed by a majority resolution of the Arab League to take control of Gaza from Israel for limited period, let's say, nine months with provision to stretch it over another nine months, during which they have to bring back what Biden called revised or strengthened Palestinian authority to control Gaza. That should have been the idea. And of course, the Israeli government did not accept it because Netanyahu is politically, had what I call the unholy alliance with extremist, racist, mezzianic Jewish supremacy, nuts in his government.

Yes. Who wants basically their vision is to ignite a full-scale clash about the temple mountain. to turn our whole conflict with the Palestinians, which is basically political and territorial, to turn it into a religious war against the whole Islam world. And basically, that's our mistake. Yeah, I completely agree. I should tell you something else that will help to clarify the picture. Several thesis, core thesis of Netanyahu collapsed on 7th October.

Number one was Hamas is an asset. Palestinians saw it is a liability. rather than the other way around. Second was you can navigate Israel in the Middle East, very tough neighborhood with Israel very different from the neighbors without ever making any tough decisions that needs courage, character, and determination. And the third one was that you can break out

to the Muslim world and to the Arab world by having normalization with Saudi Arabia without ever dealing with the big elephant in the room, the Palestinian issue. These three core concepts collapsed, and they are at the basis of this whole failure. We cannot say we have also a failure of our intelligence on terms of October, a failure of our operational forces, but the basic, the fundamental mistake is the strategic vacuum created by those wrong thesis about reality of Netanyahu, which we tried to implement.

Yeah, I completely agree. Ehou Barak, Israeli former Praneda. Thank you so much for joining me. I think you've summed it up perfectly. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.