Piers Morgan Uncensored - Piers Morgan Uncensored: Hostage Release, Migration Figures, Norman Finkelstein

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

On Piers Morgan Uncensored tonight, Piers discusses how Israel and Hamas have agreed a deal for the release of 50 hostages, Piers speaks to Net migration hits record levels in Britain - is this a problem? and controversial Jewish scholarNorman Finkelstein joins Piers live. Watch Piers Morgan Uncensored at 8 pm on TalkTV on Sky 522, Virgin Media 606, Freeview 237 and Freesat 217. Listen on DAB+ and the app.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tonight on a sense of net migration hits record levels in Britain. Is it time for the government to admit it can't solve the problem, or admit it's not a problem at all? We'll debate. Israel and Amas strike a deal with a release of 50 hotages kidnapped by terrorists. A four-day pause in the war starts tomorrow, are taught live to Douglas Murray in Israel. And Norman Finkelstein is one of the most controversial Jewish scholars in the world. His views on October the 7th have enraged his critics.

Thousands of viewers have called for him to be interviewed on the show. Tonight, he joins me live. Live from the News Building in London, this is Pearce Morgan Unsensored. Good evening from London, welcome to Pierce Morgan Unsensored. 13 years ago, David Cameron, as Prime Minister, promises this. Today's figures show how far we have to go to reach our goal. They show that more than ever this country needs a majority conservative government which really aims to get net migration into the tens of thousands.

Well, Cameron went on to spectacularly lose the Brexit referendum in no small part because his opponent has promised us that leaving the EU would give Britain control of its borders. But it didn't. A succession of tough-talking conservative leaders have delivered precisely the opposite result. Theresa May it replaced Cameron after promising to slash immigration with a, quote, hostile environment. Boris Johnson then promised an Australia-style point system. Richie Sunnak has made stopping the boats one of the top priorities for his government.

It's hard to remember a time, and so many powerful people were so emphatically wrong about something that matters so much to the public. Today's immigration figures show net migration is at record levels. 745,000 people last year, which was way, way higher by 130 or000 than we were originally told.

As a share of the population, more people are coming to Britain now than at any time in recorded history. and it's mostly legal. The tens of thousands of people crossing the challenge in small boats is a whole different issue. But what both things exposed

is a government that's lost control of the borders, hasn't it? Popular's leaders both here and abroad are filling the void that's credited by telling people they should be angry about something and they're not doing anything about it. Opinions like this are increasingly common as a result.

We've got that many people here and we're looking after them but we're not looking after our own. People. really, really desperate for homes and they can't afford to live, basically. And we're giving all our money to these asylum seekers.

Well, many of the people coming to Britain legally are here for perfectly good reasons. Their students paying big fees. They're medical workers in the NHS and God knows we need them. They're refugees from Ukraine. The real issue is leaders who scapegoat migrants as a problem while clearly having no idea

how they're going to solve the problem. Which comes as no surprise that angry voters are turning to right-wing populace in response. Well, I'm joined now by talk to your contributors Esther Cracker and Paula Rohn Adrian. And first, from television, the author and associate editor of the spectator

Douglas Murray. Douglas, let's start with what's going on over there with you and then we'll come to this migration story. A big day tomorrow in this war. A pause. The release of 13 hostages. We believe women and children.

what is the feeling about this? You know, many people are saying from a distance that this looks like a sort of slow form of water torture for these poor families. Drip, drip, drip, drip of people being let out. No one knows who it is until the last minute and so on. Agony for these families. Yes, it's an agonising time in Israel.

Everybody in Israel would like to see the people who were kidnapped on the 7th of October returned to their families, what remains of their families. many cases. And it's absolutely agonizing. Last night I was with many of the families in Tel Aviv, as we were waiting to hear the news of what was meant to be an exchange, a handover of some of the kidnapped people this morning. That then didn't happen. We're now waiting for it to happen tomorrow morning. We don't know if a certain it'll happen. We thought it would happen today. Now

it's meant to be tomorrow. It's agonizing for the families. One mother this evening discovered that her two children are not on the list that has been given out to some families telling them that their loved ones are going to be in the release tomorrow. And of course, there are many families when I was speaking with earlier. Their son was 21. He was at the rave and was abducted by Hamas stolen with three of his friends. He's 21. It's only people under the age of 18 that are being focused on at the moment, but many of the families feel, you know, they want to be. them all home and the problem of course that Israel is now in is a problem that Israelis know very well which is the completely unfair exchange of of the

hostages the Israeli government is talking about releasing three Palestinian prisoners that is people who have for instance been sent to prison in Israel for carrying out terrorist offenses releasing three of these people for every one child that Hamas are going to release and there's There's an added kick to this. Sirwan, the head of Hamas in Gaza, who was the person who planned and led the operation on the 7th of October that killed 1,400 Israelis and led to these Israelis being kidnapped, is a man who was himself released in just such a prisoner swap 10 years ago.

That was when Israel released more than 1,000 people from Israeli prisons, Palestinians from Israeli prisons and returned them for a single soldier, Gilad Shalit, who Israel, of course, wanted back. So there's a horrible kicker to all of this, a horrible kicker that we've seen this before these exchanges. The people being released by Israel are people who stabbed people in the streets, carried out brutal terrorist attacks. They're being returned for children.

Douglas, is there any doubt that when this hostage release a few days, is over, that Israel will go back to attacking Gaza to get at Hamas. There are some people who hope that perhaps if this goes successfully over the next few days, that it may lead to a more permanent ceasefire. But is there any appetite for that? Do you think in the Netanyahu government? Well, it really is a very, very serious conund on this, because Hamas is carrying out what you accurately describe as water torture of the Israelis.

It can drip out small numbers of the abducted Israelis, and it knows that for them, these are golden eggs. They know how much Israel cares about every citizen who was stolen from their families. They know how much they care. They know how much they can drag out international pressure on Israel to have a ceasefire. They know that they can keep on promising releases and then let them. down the families again and again. The problem that Israel has is that Benjamin Netanyahu says that he wants to destroy Hamas. Most Israelis feel, I think, understandably, they cannot live with Hamas.

And yet, of course, as long as Hamas has some hostages, has the people who've been kidnapped, it can try to stop operations going on in the Gaza to destroy Hamas. It's an incredibly ugly equation. But it's one that Hamas has performed before, as Hamas. as Islamic jihad and other terror groups in the Gaza. They are playing a game not just regionally but internationally. And, of course, the people who are suffering most are the families who have their loved ones in what state we don't know.

A small number once again promised to be returned tomorrow. Again, what state they'll be in, we do not know. But yes, it's torture for the families. I'm going to be talking to Norma Finkelstein in a few minutes. you've got strong opinions about him. I know you're going to stay and just listen to that interview and then react to that after, which I appreciate. Just before I go to the pact, just very quickly,

if you don't mind, your reaction to these migration figures in the UK, massively higher net migration last year than we've been led to believe. Very high again this year. This is all from a conservative government that promised to take back control of the borders and reduce net migration to tens of thousands. Well, obviously it's a political failure a generational political failure that's just sped up in recent years.

That it has happened, as you said, under consecutive leaders who've promised that exactly this wouldn't happen is a disaster for Britain. Quite what a disaster it is, I think we can already start to see. I remember when Georgia Maloney was described as this far-out, far-right political leader in Italy, and she's now prime minister. I remember when Gert Wilders was described as this far-out, far-right political figure who wasn't even allowed into Britain in 2000. by a Labour Home Secretary.

And now he's the main party leader in the Netherlands. So if anyone thinks that all of this just glides by endlessly without any political consequence, I'd just say, raise your eyes a little and look to the continent. Yeah, completely agree. Douglas, I'll talk to you a little later. Thank you very much. Paul, I mean, there's a hard reality here.

This migrant problem is not going away. It's getting worse. There are more and more people now coming across the continent, trying to find somewhere to go. and you're seeing a rise of very right-wing populist leaders now winning elections as voters say, you know what, we need someone to do something about this? Which is why we always have to be careful with the language that we use.

So you started with the word, the problem. There isn't a problem. We actually haven't... You don't think increasing population is a problem with the state of our NHS? I had an experience of the NHS recently, right, with a family member. And it was horrific, partly horrific and partly great.

the horrific part was an A&E. Have you been to an A&E in an NHS hospital? I have. I have. I've got three children, peers. It's like a war zone, right? And you've got people who've just had heart attacks being left on trolleys in corridors for six, seven hours. I know, because I know who it was, right?

And then you get good treatment once you get through that system. But can we take millions more people in this country? Genuine question. It's not because I don't get any objection to any individual. Can we sustain that pressure on our already creaking public service? The reason why, so there's two different questions there. It's our creaking public services and can we take more people?

The answer is we need more people. The second answer to creaking public services is we need more people because our public services are creaking. Our government, in the last 13 years, has failed to protect our public services. I think the issue here, can I. It's really important to point out. It's really important to point out because I am also worried, as Douglas Murray says, about the rise of the right. And what is happening is that we're not being told the truth about immigration. We need more people to come into this country.

Our net population is only rising at 200,000 on average over the last three years. That's it. 200,000. That's twice the population of solid. And what we are not being told is why we are unable to cope with the fact that we've got no housing, why the fact that the NHS is crumbling, why the fact that we are going to food banks, why the fact that our schools are crumbling. That is what we need to look at.

The thing is, over 50% of those people, those figures that you've just quoted of the 750,000, they're dependents. So the dependence of people coming in legally, so workers that have come in. So we're talking women and children mainly, who rely on the NHS, education, all of these things. At the end of the day, we have to admit Britain has...

That seems to be a big part of the problem. But that's the issue. Which is not the actual skilled workers that we need, which I think we totally can all agree on that. It's the number of people that come with them. Right? Family dependence is actually a very large number of people The thing is, I understand your point that we need these skilled workers, but at the end of the day, they are not coming without families and dependents

who rely on our public services. But also, we have to have a conversation about what Britain is willing to give up in exchange for slowing this migration. The reason why the Conservatives haven't tackled this issue is because big business likes mass migration. It has a downward effect on wages, so it keeps wages minimally low. We look at GDP figures, and we somehow resemble a dynamic and growing and strong economy when that's not the case. We live in a low-wage, low-productivity economy, and that's the bigger issue. At the end of the day, under the Labor government, over 13 years of a Labor government,

3.5 million people were allowed into this country, and that was scandalous, you know, Labor is out of control. About what, one million people in just two years of Tory leadership. And so that is, that is scandalous. That's horrifying. No, no, no, it's horrifying. It's not horrifying. It's what is required. It's what is needed. It's not what's needed. And let me explain to why? If we do not continue to open our door to healthy young people who are going to be able to work as an ageing population

ask our government. Don't ask me. Here's what I would say. If that's true, we need them. You say who calls it a problem. David Cameron said it would be down to tens of thousands. Completely unrealistic. That's why the public believe there's a problem. Because they hear the Prime Minister say that and now they're seeing nearly a million people come in last year. Which is where I actually... That's not tens of thousands. Which is where I actually agree with Douglas Murray.

and I've said many times before, this focus on the small boats was just a, it was a smoke screen. Well, I think there are two different issues. I think illegal immigration on the small boats has got to be better controlled. It clearly is, apart for anything else, is an insult to all those who are going through the system legally. But secondly, I just don't think you can have successive prime ministers to say, this is a big problem, this net migration, we're going to get it under 100,000, get it down to tens of thousands. And then you see figures like today where last year alone, 750 or000.

But, Piers, immigrants have always been blamed for the ills in society. I'm not blaming immigrants. I'm not saying what I'm saying is, well, I don't think it is. It is out of control. I don't think it is. And I think it will increase. And because it needs to increase. Okay, it's out of control by the yardstick set by successive prime ministers who said we have to get it under the tens of thousands.

When you say you say that repeatedly, and then you get these numbers, it looks like it's out of control. And my experience, I've got to say, of NHS recently, show me we have big problems with creatures. Public Services. Got to leave it there. Thank you both very much indeed. Unsensored. Next, he's a rock star of the pro-Palestinian movement. One of the most controversial, depending on your viewpoint, political thinkers in the world, so much that he was banned from Israel. Norman Finkelstein joins me live next. Welcome back to Pizsburg and Unsense, my next guest is one of the most influential to many controversial political scientists in the world. Most recently, he's still controversy with his ferocious criticism of Israel's attacks on Gaza. Many of you have called

for him to appear on this show with thousands of comments like this one. I wonder if Piers Morgan will be brave enough to have Norman Finkelstein on his show? Well, I'm pleased to say the answer is yes because we believe in being uncensored here and hearing from all voices. And so I'm joined now by Professor Norman Finkelstein. Professor, thank you very much indeed for joining me. I appreciate it. Like I said, a lot of people want to me to interview.

You yourself tweeted that we hadn't done it. So here we are. I'm glad about it. I think you're an influential voice. And you've obviously been very vocal about this. since it all kicked off. I want to take you back, if I may, to October the 7th, because your first reaction to what happened on October the 7th

incensed many people. You posted on Substack a piece about what had happened on the day, and it included this. For the past 20 years of people of Gaza, half of whom are children, have been immured in a concentration camp. Today they breached the camp's walls. If we honour John Brown's arm resistance to slavery, if we honour the Jews who revolted in the Warsaw ghetto,

the moral consistency commands that we honour the heroic resistance in Gaza. I, for one, will never begrudge. On the contrary, it warms every fibre of my soul. The scenes of Gaza smiling children, as their arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors, have finally been humbled. And you ended by saying, the stars above in heaven are looking kindly down.

Glory, glory, hallelujah. The souls of Gaza go marches. on. With the benefit of a few weeks now, do you regret the tone of that initial response to what happened? My initial response was to the initial news stories. You will recall, I'm sure, that initially what we were informed was that there was a breakout from Gaza concentration camp that approximately 1,500 people had broken out, and that about 50 people, that was the initial number that was given, approximately 50 Israelis were killed.

The number gradually grew, went from 50, a couple of days later, it went to 100, and I'm sure you'll remember the number didn't reach 1,400 until about 10 days later. Initially, it was reasonable, excuse me, it was reasonable to assume that people had been killed in a firefight, which was not the case, at least not fully the case. So my initial reaction was to the initial news stories. By the third or fourth day, I was clearly compelled to rethink my initial statements and try to make my initial statements. and try to make sense of what was clearly a moral quandary. And at that point, I revised my, not revised, but I considered my judgment on the basis of the new information that was available. Okay.

And my own sense, yes, go ahead. I just want to, look, I've done a timeline for my own benefit based on what happened that day. We know the attacks began at 6.30 in the morning. We know that at 1118 a.m., Israel confirmed, as you say, 40 dead, 700 injured. At 1135, Benjamin Netanyahu said we are at war. At 12.30 that day at lunchtime, I tweeted, horrifying and appalling scenes from Israel, this murderous, indiscriminate Hamas terror attack on Israeli people is shameful and indefensible. By 417, Israel,

said 100 were dead at least, 985 wounded, civilian hostages have been taken. Four o'clock, a little later than that, around the same time, footage is released of attack reporting that 3,000 bombs and firearms have been fired off by Hamas, civilians have been killed, and so on. And yet at 6.30, and then again, at 916, you were retweeting your initial substack, and you then added at 916 that you've, you've felt the hostage situation was crocodile tears. So I would take issue with your statement that you thought it was only after two or three days anyone had a clue about the scale of what had happened here.

It was very obvious during that Saturday about the mounting scale of horror. And I just don't understand why someone, as scholarly as you, as expert in this region, in this conflict as you are, why your response would be that for several days. one of glorifying in what you call heroic resistance, whereas mine, and I've always tried to be fair-minded about this conflict and reported it for CNN and tried to be fair and accurate as in when I've seen it, that I am at midday that day, I'm talking about a murderous, indiscriminate terror attack and horrifying and appalling scenes.

I just don't believe that you weren't aware, with great respect, about the scale of what was going on. Okay, Pierce, let me begin by saying, I want to have a civil conversation, and I'm going to do my darnest to remain faithful to the facts and faithful to truth. I'll do my darndest not to exaggerate. The first thing I have to say is, I don't tweet. I've never been on Twitter. I have three young tech people who I send statements to, and then they make the same. decision where to place it on substack, on Twitter, and so forth.

Okay, I just want to clear that up. I made one statement on the first day on the basis of the information that was available to me. The information was 50 people had been killed. Now, my memory is, but I won't claim my memory is infallible. The numbers didn't start to grow until the next day. As the numbers... It's just not true. Well, Professor, with respect...

It's not true. Pierce, Pierce. Yeah, but you have to listen to what I say. You want me to believe you and you say you weren't aware of the scale of this for several days. And I find that just... I'm incredulous.

You want me to believe that. Okay, Pierce. Pierce. Pierce. I'm not going to force you to believe it and I'm not going to even try to impose my will. I'm simply saying, as a factual matter, speaking for myself, I was not aware that the numbers had been beyond 50 when I made that statement. I will further state that to my knowledge, I could be mistaken, that I did not make another statement until the numbers don't.

to grow, and I admit I have said to you, it was a moral quandary for me. And I said in many interviews that it was for me a very burdened moment because I wasn't entirely confident in my moral judgment. And it was at that point that I started to look back at what the white abolitionists had to say when Nat Turner carried out a slave rebellion, and many whites were hacked to death, children were beheaded. And I wanted to see, because I was not confident of my moral judgment, I wanted to see what did the white abolitionists, those who fought against slavery, had to say. and I looked at what William Lloyd Garrison,

probably the most famous of the white abolitionists, and he said, horrible things happened during Nat Turner's rebellion, but if you read his statement, he wouldn't condemn Nat Turner or Nat Turner's confederates. All right, well, let me ask you, okay, so let me ask you, okay, I've heard you say this before, that analogy, that's fine, but let me ask you, giving you now not,

know the scale of what happened. Given you know, 1,200 people were killed, including 800 or so completely innocent civilians, we know that children were killed, that grandmothers were killed, and their deaths face time to their families. We know that over 200 people were kidnapped and taken hostage. Given you know the full scale of this attack, I've asked a lot of guests these two questions, and I'll be curious about your answer. One, would you categorize it as a terror attack? And secondly, would you condemn Hamas for what they did? My view is as follows. Number one, as far as the evidence shows now,

atrocities occurred on October 7th. The magnitude of the atrocities and the types of atrocities, for example, where children beheaded, where women raped. That remains, so far as I can tell from the evidence, an open question. However, that there were atrocities that occurred, my answer is yes. Number two, that's a factual question. Then there's a legal question was a terror attack. Well, atrocities, it seems to me, denotes a terror attack. Okay, thank you. That's what atrocities are. Thank you. Okay. So number two, that's the factual question. And then there is

the legal question. As a matter of law, it seems unquestionable that the people who perpetrated these atrocities would be prosecuted and convicted in the court of law. However, I would say on the legal question, I should think that there would be some mercy shown because those who carried out the atrocities were concentration camp inmates. Number three, which I think is the one that concerns you the most, is the moral question. And at a moral level, my view is my basic precept. We may disagree. My basic precept is that there but for the grace of God go I. That is to say, I'm very reluctant to condemn people who are in a position or in a condition such that were I in that position or condition, I'm not sure what I would do. Now, the 1,500 young men who burst the gates of Gaza, they were born into a concentration camp.

They lived for two decades in a concentration camp. They had no past, they had no present, they had no future, they had no jobs. Half of them, according to humanitarian organizations, suffered from what's called severe food insecurity. And then on top of that, as I'm sure you know, Pierce, because you keep up with the news. Periodically, Israel goes into Gaza and it mows the lawn. And you know what Moles the lawn means. It means a high-tech massacre in Gaza. In 2008-9, Operation Cast Lead, 2012 Operation Tiller of Defense, 2014 Operation Protective Edge,

and each of these high-tech massacres visited the people of Gaza, in some cases hundreds, some cases, thousands of Palestinians are killed. Okay, let me ask you... Well, let me ask you... Well, let me ask you... In light of... I want to finish your... I want to finish your...

In that period... Yes. In that period... And by the way, I've been condemnatory as some of the things you've just talked about publicly. I've tweeted my condemnation of some of these things. And I've tried to shine a light on the part of the Palestinians for many, many years.

And I feel that the oppression of the Palestinian people for many decades has been... It's really outrageous. So on that, we can completely agree. But when it comes to what you're saying here, it seems to me what you're trying to paint is a picture of some kind of moral justification for what Hamas did.

And that's where you lose me. Because I don't see why there could be anyone who can see the scale of what Hamas did on October 7th and not simply condemn it out of hand. You may also want to condemn some of the response by Israel. That's completely normal. I would say that there are serious question marks about the proportionality of what they've been doing.

But if you can't start from a basic humanity position of saying what happened on October the 7th was a disgusting terror attack worthy of condemnation, then for me I find it very hard to then respect anyone's demand for people to condemn Israel and their response. Pierce, I'm really, and I'm trying to be candid with you. Number one, I appreciate your humanity. I do.

I don't know you from Adam. I'm not a TV or a television or a social media kind of person. I'm a book person. I'm old-fashioned. However, I do recall that when that famous moment when Susan Boyle appeared on Britain's Got Talent, and I remember the camera turning to you, focusing on you. I can see it in my mind's eye. I saw your eyes narrow.

And suddenly the humanity in you came up. Here is this obscure woman whose talent had gone unrecognized. And if I can speak to that same program, for me the most poignant moment, the one I carry with me since that moment, was when Simon Cowell asked Susan Boyle, Well, why haven't you been discovered yet? And she replied, because I haven't been given a chance. And that's how I feel about the people of Gaza. That's how I feel about those young men in Gaza.

You ask me why I won't condemn them. Because those young men were born into a concentration camp. They were born into among the most dense populated places. places on God's earth. Half of the population of Gaza's children, 70% are refugees who were expelled from Israel in 1948 and their descendants. 70% of Gaza's youth have no jobs, no future, no nothing.

They are Susan Boyle times 10,000, never giving it. given a chance and as things looked the night before October 7th when the question of Gaza was disappearing from the public stage I will admit to you peers I myself have given up on Gaza in 2020 I decided it's hopeless it's pointless it's pointless I only have a finite number of years left in my life, and it's time for me to move on. And I'll tell you, that was a wrenching decision on my part,

because I knew I was abandoning the people who for 15 years I had devoted my life to chronicling every detail of the horror that had been inflicted in those people. And I gave up on them. Okay. And that meant if I gave up, they had no future because I was the last chronicler.

Okay, but what I would say... All right, but what I would... I have the only book that's been written on this subject. Let me respond. Let me respond. What I would respond, I would respond by saying that what people in Israel would say, and what Jewish people would say, particularly you live in Israel, is that they were facing a constant balance... of rockets from Hamas. Hamas won political power in 2005,

six, that they were given a huge amount of money and could have done whatever they wanted with that money, but chose to pursue a path of effectively terrorizing the Israelis over that period. And the Israelis, you're right, they responded in a, they have a far superior military, and they responded in the way that they did, and this cycle has been going on in repeat and repeat and repeat. repeat. But where you and I differ about this is that I think what happened October the 7th was

just on a different scale to anything we've seen and the way it was carried out. And I just don't think saying that people who have been oppressed, which they undoubtedly were for many years, that that justifies them committing that act of terror. But let's take a break. Let's come back after the break and discuss this more. Welcome back. I'm still with Professor Norman Finkelstein. Professor, just to round off what we've just been discussing, given that you, given that you, wrote that substick and you want me to believe and okay I'll take your word for it that you were completely

oblivious to the reality of what had happened here on the scale of it but given you're not now oblivious to that why have you not removed that substack given the language is so clearly offensive to people and you based it by your own words

on a false premise about what had happened you know peers that's a very good question and this This morning, when I was talking to some friends from the U.K., I was warned you would ask that question. I'll honestly tell you, I never fear the truth. I don't. I feel the truth is a very powerful weapon on the side of the oppressed.

I never fear it. Now, I'm going to give you the answer. Again, you can or can't disagree with me. Or believe me. I was tempted to remove it. I was tempted. to quote unquote protect myself. I didn't remove it because I thought that's intellectually dishonest.

I wrote that statement. It's part of the historical record. It's part of the documentary record. And I shouldn't do what Stalin used to do. So when he published photographs of the Bolshevik Revolution, he would take Trotsky's picture out. Okay, but let me. So you won't delete it.

So that's the image that stuck to me. All right, you haven't deleted, but do you regret it? Do I regret what? Do you regret the contents of that substact, given that you now know what really happened? Yes, if it can be misconstrued to me, that I wrote that with full knowledge of what happened. Of course I regret it.

Okay. However, it remains part of the record. And as a serious scholar, I'm not a great scholar. I'm not in the ranks of the great British historians, but I take scholarship seriously. I did not want to denature to falsify, to misrepresent the documentary record. I said that, and I will leave it there. Okay, that's fair. Listen, that's your decision.

You are the son of two people who survived the Holocaust, who were both in concentration camps. You're a Jewish man, and you know how in century, that substack has proven to be with Jewish people around the world, many of whom have felt this is the nearest thing to the Holocaust of World War II that they've endured, what your parents went through, being revisited on them in these kibbutzies on October the 7th. What do you feel about them?

I mean, how would your parents have felt about you literally on the day that this happened, talking about heroic resistance, talking about that you will never begrudge the scenes, that you, the stars in heaven are looking kindly down, glory, glory, the souls of Gaza go marching on. How would your parents have felt about that? Coming out of concentration camps, surviving the holocaust of World War II?

Well, first of all, anything I write, I have my parents looking at the screen behind me over my shoulders, in a metaphorical sense. I am very conscious. Every moment of my existence, every moment of my existence goes back to the martyrdom of my family. So it's not as if suddenly you're posing a question to me that never occurred to me. Quite the contrary, I do need even 30 years after their death. I need the moral validation that came from my parents' martyrdom and the extermination of their family. How would my parents have reacted?

My guess is if on the first day they heard that inmates in a concentration camp burst its gates, I think my parents would be very pleased at that fact. As the events became clearer, my guess, but this is pure speculation, my guess is my parents would go out with their hearts would go out to those who burst the gates of the concentration camp and whose lives were destroyed. Now, you will say to me, completely legitimately, you would say, what would your parents feel about the innocents

who were slaughtered in the atrocities on that date? So I'm going to give you as close an answer as I could give, as I'm able to. I once asked my late mother, I said to her, what was your feeling when you heard that the German cities were being terror bombed during World War II, the carpet bombing of the German cities targeting civilians. What was your feeling?

And my mother's response to me was, quote, our feeling was, if we're going to die, we're going to take some of them with us. Now, that's not the most morally elevated statement. I agree. And do I wish my mother had and my father had a heightened sensitivity to German civilian life? I suppose I would wish it. But I will tell you, peers, to the last day of my parents' life,

it was unthinkable that they would have a kind word to say about Germans. And it was unthinkable that I would ever quarrel with them on that point. Okay. I accepted that given their life experience, they had the right

to hate the people who destroyed their lives. Okay. Professor Fingleston. Have the right to hate the people who destroyed their lives. Professor Fingleston, Thank you for that answer. And I don't mean to cut you off.

We've got another guest waiting to respond to what we've been discussing. I'd like to get you back on. I feel like we've had a good conversation. I don't agree with you about some of it, obviously. That's been clear. But I respect the tone that you've adopted for the interview. And I would like to explore more of this with you another time. I want to just say one last word.

Everybody warned me. You wouldn't let me speak. That you would speak over me. You would stop me. I want everybody to know. You are eminently fair, you are decent, and you are that same human being whose eyes narrowed as Susan Boyle began to perform.

You have that humanity, and I deeply respect it. Thank you. Professor, I appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much. Well, on says the next. Douglas Murray rejoins me live from Israel. Respond to that interview with Professor Norman Finkelstein. Well, back on An Ansanse, that was Professor Norman. Norman Finkelstein, listen to all that was Douglas, your response to that interview.

Several things. I've followed the career of Norman Finkelstein for many years. He's notorious for having destroyed his career by, among other things, weaponising his parents being in the Holocaust to use his career to attack Israel in particular. I think all societies produce a type of sociopath and psychopath and psychopath. And I do think that Norman Finkelstein is just such a person. If I can give just one example. He repeatedly in that interview referred to Gaza as a concentration camp. Gaza is no such thing as a concentration camp. And Norman Finkelstein knows that very, very well. Every single Jew was removed from Gaza forcibly in 2005 by the Israeli government. In 2006, the people of Gaza had an election, and they elected Hamas.

Hamas proceeded to kill Fatah and other Palestinians who did not agree with Hamas. And if anyone is responsible for making... Gaza into a prison camp. It is Hamas that uses places like the Shifa hospital as torture chambers for Palestinians. Now, here's another oddity about it. He kept saying concentration camp about Gaza. Do you peers know anybody who got out of a concentration camp in 1945 and proceeded to go next door and behead and rape everyone they could find? I don't. But only Norman Finkelstein finds these kinds of comparisons to make and makes them willfully. And by the way, and shame on him for this, what we just heard was Holocaust denial in real time.

He pretends we don't know what happened on the 7th of October. We do know. We do know. And if he doesn't believe the reports he reads, and if he doesn't believe all of the international media, he should have come with me this morning to the pathology department here in Tel Aviv, where they are still trying to work out who the bodies are that are a right. I was standing this morning in Tel Aviv in the mortuary with the doctors who are trying to work out the identities still of the people killed that day. There is so little of some of them, peers, that they can't even extract DNA from them. There is so little of them that sometimes it turns out what was thought to be the charred remains of one person is the remains of two people.

People arrive in bags, peers. They arrive in bags with little bits of what is left of their body and maybe a bit of a mobile phone. There was the skull of what I said, that must be a child's skull. And one of the experts there in the mortuary said, actually we don't know. Because the fire in the house, the Hamas lit was so intense in its heat, it could have been a young man's skull that was warped into a smaller size by the heat. So if Norman Finkelstein, practicing his Holocaust denial is, in real time actually wants to practice any of the academic pursuit

he has spent his career not pursuing, then I would urge him to go like I did and see the body bags in the mortuary here and see what Hamas did that day. It is disgusting that Norman Finkelstein uses his late parents to defame Israel, to pretend that Israel are the Nazis in this situation. All societies produce sick individuals, but very few people who have been.

been produced who are quite as sick as Norman Finkelstein. Would you ever debate with him? I said to you, I refuse, and I refuse for one straightforward reason, is that I know very, very few people I would say I don't debate with. But Norman Finkelstein is one of them. Most people I know in academia stopped having anything to do with him many decades ago. When he wrote his book, The Holocaust Industry in 2000, claiming that the Jews were using the Holocaust to sort of make money from and so on.

Most people wanted to be nowhere near such a fetid individual. I don't think he's somebody you can debate with, because I do not want to debate with a Holocaust denier in real time any more than I would debate with a Holocaust denier who was denying the last Holocaust. This was the biggest murder of Jews since the Holocaust, and shame on Norman Finkelstein for trying to pretend that that didn't happen or happened differently in real time.

It's disgusting. Douglas, as always, thank you very much indeed for your powerful contributions. tonight. I greatly appreciate it. That's it from me. Whatever up to, keep it uncensored. Good night.