Piers Morgan Uncensored - Rafah Invasion Latest: Norman Finkelstein vs Yishai Fleisher

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Piers Morgan continues his coverage of the war in Gaza between Palestine and Israel by talking to Dr Mosab Nasser of FAJR Scientific, a not-for-profit organisation that delivers surgical care to under-served patients around the world. Dr Nasser doesn’t hold back, saying his team doesn’t have access to basic medical supplies or anywhere safe to stay. Piers then moves on to a debate between Professor Norman Finkelstein and Hebron spokesman Yishai Fleisher. Norman says that an IDF invasion into Rafah will mean ‘mega-deaths’, but Yishai maintains that Israel must prosecute the war to the end. After a furious argument, Norman forcefully dubs Yishai a ‘war criminal’ and says he "should be prosecuted under international law." Piers Morgan Uncensored is the global arena for fearless debate, bold opinions and major interviews. Subscribe for all-new and exclusive daily content.  YouTube: @PiersMorganUncensored X: @PiersUncensored TikTok: @piersmorganuncensored Insta: @piersmorganuncensored Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've seen crushed buddies, children with broken skulls. I just cannot describe the horror honestly that we have seen so far. October 7th is an opportunity to clean house and to make sure this doesn't come back again. The goal right now is not just to mow the lawn in Gaza, but to extirpate, pull out from the roots every blade of grass in Gaza. What is we're a tiny Jewish state within the Arab Muslim world? And if we don't defend ourselves, then we're an ethnic minority. Do you believe then you should also be entitled to the whole of Gaza?

Absolutely. You're a war criminal because you are illegally settling in occupied Palestinian territory. What right does Israel have to just take over Gaza? You're not talking today to one of the liberal Jews. You're not talking to a government spokesman. Clearly. You're talking to one of the settlers. This is where we're from.

This is where we're going to stay. nothing is going to get us out. But the problem is you are sounding genocidal in the sense that you want to get rid of... Don't put silly words in my mouth. Well, Dr Mossad Nasser is the CEO of the American Medical Charity, Fagile Scientific, who is currently working in the European hospital between Khan Yunis and Rafa.

And Dr. Nasser joins me now. Thank you very much indeed for taking time from what I know is a very, very busy, pressurized time for you there. Can you just tell me? You've come from the United States, I know. Obviously, when you look at these scenes from afar, they look horrific. What is the reality like on the ground? Thank you, peers, for having me.

The reality, I would say, is very different from the shots you see on TV. It is a million times worse. The way I like to describe it to people is like you just had a hurricane, because I'm from Texas, I can talk about hurricanes. Imagine a hurricane hit a city and then a major. earthquake, hit it again, followed by at tsunami. This is the reality on the ground in Gaza. If you visit Khan Yunus, like how we did in the past couple of days,

actually we are in Kanunis, I'm between Kanunis and Rapa. We went and visited Khan Yunus and it's just unbelievable. I just, while looking at the destroyed buildings, I kept asking myself, how can you create and make such destruction in such a record time? It's just unbelievable. And in terms of the civilian casualties that you're seeing on a daily basis, what kind of scale are we talking and what kind of injuries? Everything you can think of. But the thing that's more heartbreaking is not just civilians, it's families. So when we talk about civilians, it can be one person from a different family and one here and one there.

But what we've witnessed our entire families wipe out. Just a couple of days ago, we had a family. of seven brought to the European hospital in Gaza here, that the federal scientific team worked very hard in trying to treat them and resisted one of them. Three of them actually came to the hospital in a state of, I would say two were dead, one in a state of death effectively. Our team spent about 45 minutes trying to bring someone back to life and unfortunately fail. one of them came with the head and the entire torso effectively completely crushed like an 18-wheeler just drove on top of him.

Another one came completely dead with the face completely burnt, and the mother was following them screaming, and I asked her, what's going on? Why? What happened? She said, look, we live east of Khan Yunus, and we heard the bombing happening close to us in Rafah. So we decided to evacuate. Even though she said the area where we live is not considered the red zone, it's not a war zone, relatively safe. She said, we decided to leave.

We packed our stuff on the back of a car. And I told my son, as soon as we were ready, I told him to go upstairs, just make sure all the doors are locked before we leave the house. And suddenly I see a tank rolling close to the house. I thought it's just, you know, we'll be safe. By the time my son went down, the tank hit the house, and several people were killed. She said, we didn't have cars because there's no gas in Gaza. So they have one car with gas that she could carry the three, four bodies with her and bring them to the hospital. Three of them actually died, and the other three were seriously injured.

So this is the reality. We've seen burns. We've seen broken bones. We've seen crushed buddies, children with broken skulls. I mean, I just cannot describe the horror honestly that we have seen so far. And it's quite likely to get immeasurably worse if there's a full-scale invasion of Raffa. I know that you were in a safe house with many of your team in Rafa, but you had to evacuate.

Why was that? We call it the safe house that's no longer safe. We spent about a week in that house, and we were operating at the European hospital, a kind of business as usual dealing with the casualties and treating people with acute injuries and so on. But then one week into our stay at that house, we heard that the eastern part of Raffa was under evacuation. Our house fortunately happened to be in Block 6 in Raffa, and it was. was not in the area that was required to evacuate. So we thought we are relatively safe.

And this house is considered deconflicted. So we are known, our position is known to the Israeli Army and to the organizations that we have come with, primarily the WHO. It's a de-conflicted house. So we decided to stay. But in the middle of the night, the bombings that took place within less than 500 meters radius was unbelievable. The sound, the shaking of the building like literally in an unbelievable way just scared the hell out of it. I mean, the level of terror at night was unbearable for any member

of my team. I have 12 Americans, three Brits, one from Egypt and one from Oman, and we've all decided collectively that we're not going to spend the time any nights in this house anymore, even though we did not receive any evacuation orders. And we all basically came to the European hospital, and that's where we're staying since then. Israel insists that it's getting humanitarian aid through, including medical supplies. What is your experience of that? Are you getting these medical supplies? Unfortunately not.

I can tell you my team at times feels useless. Honestly, I have the best of the best in terms of expertise between surgeons, primary care physicians, nurses, wound care specialists. but sometimes you have an injury coming to the emergency room and you look for basic supplies, as simple as anesthesia of medications. You don't have them. Blood, you don't have it. Basic, basic wound care supplies.

You don't have it. And one thing fears that really struck everybody on the team is that the Palestinians seem to operate at a frequency that's different from the emergency teams in the in the west it's uh it's basically basically a rationing of resources sometimes you have a an injury that coming to this coming to the hospital and they say we can do anything about it the way we think the way in america thinks like let's do whatever we can to save their life or or his or her life um and we've seen this multiple times we try our best we we we basically use consume resources for them it's a waste because he is dead, just don't spend time.

So this reminds me of COVID time, right? Even though he still has a chance of survival, they decide not to work much on him or her because that's a waste of resources. As I said, this reminds me of COVID time when people at the hospitals in America and Europe and around the world were saying, this patient has the right or the chance of survival.

So let's put him on a or her no ventilator, and that one does not let him kind of die slowly and humanely. That's kind of where we are in Gaza because there are no medical supplies. There barely any medical supplies. A lot of people die here. There are injuries of people that could in the West, by the Western standards, could be saved. But here they cannot be saved because they have to go on a priority list, which is really, really hard-pricing. If there is a full-scale invasion of Rafa, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has indicated there will be, what do you fear may happen? Disaster.

Absolute disaster. Last, yesterday night, actually, yesterday evening, I went and drove into Al-Mawesi area, west of Khan Yunus. I wish if I could share these pictures with you, literally all the way to the horizon, tents everywhere, any direction you look. You see hundreds and thousands and thousands of tents everywhere with families left stranded without water, without proper shelter. And peers, let me kind of tell you how reality is really on the ground at these camps. A lot of people in the West in America, like where I come from, think that when Israel says, we've evacuated Eastern Raffa, the first thing that comes to mind, you know, you give them warnings and you send them, you know, air-conditioned buses,

they board the buses, and they go into these evacuation areas in El Mawasi. and by the time you get there, you have these beautiful tents lined up with sanitary facilities waiting for you. That's not true. I mean, what we have, we had to run from our safe house that's no longer safe, literally under the bombardment of the Israeli army. We just gathered our stuff and ran out of this house, which is a typical Palestinian experience. We did it twice. Our presence in our stay here in Gaza, the Palestinians have done it more than seven or eight times in the past seven months. And when they get to Al Mawasi, it's a desert.

It's really a sandy land, empty land, where people carry their belongings on the back of a car or a truck or a donkey. They just dump it there and they start figuring out what's next. First, no water. You don't have tents because the supplies are not allowed in. And so they have to figure out how to create a shelter. And the problem is if to buy a tent in Gaza today costs more than $1,000 to $2,000 because you can't find it, you know, no organization gives you 10.

There are some in the past, but currently none. So you go with your family of five, six, ten children, and your wife in the middle of absolutely nowhere. You don't know where the water is. And I've seen it with my own eyes, and I'm more than happy to shake. I actually see it on our Instagram page on, federal scientific, that we posted or will be posted very soon. What people do, they dig a hole in the ground because they are near the beach. So the water table is very shallow, just about two meters deep, and then water comes out. So people collect that water and use it for drinking, washing, for everything.

But the water is brown. It's not, it's brackish water. And for them to go get fresh water, they have sometimes to walk to two to three miles to find it. And if they find it, sometimes they have to pay for it. And it's very expensive. So things have done 10 and 15 times in price, almost in everything in Gaza. Just to give you a simple example, for my team, for us to fill our cars with gasoline, with gas. One gallon of gas in Gaza cost $100.

This is what we pay as an organization, $100 per gallon of gas. Apply this to everything. It is a, I don't like to describe. this as a war, I like to describe it as madness, absolute madness. And have you seen any evidence of Hamas, either in Rafa or Khan Yunus? I hope you believe me, if I tell you, I haven't even seen a police in Gaza, which is also another shocking experience, because you would expect in such circumstances, in the absence of police, that you'll see chaos. People are, you know, killing each other. But the crime rate in Gaza remains very low,

because people support each other and they kind of go through this tough experience together. We've been in Gaza, this is our second mission. So several weeks now in Gaza, personally, this is my second week. I have not seen, and none of my medical team members have seen any form of militants either at the hospital or otherwise. All what we receive at the hospital are injured and killed civilians. And when I say civilians, I like to stress that they are families, a mother, a father, their children, injuries.

One of the latest cases that we had to work on a young man in his 20s came in still breathing, but in a state of a shock. So the team tried to residitate him, but then they failed, and they decided to actually crack his chest open. And I'm sorry about the graphic description of the situation. and then they could not actually save him. So heartbreak and absolutely horrific. I mean, honestly, I, you know, I've seen so many things in my life. I was there looking after five minutes. I personally felt dizzy.

I just could not handle. Let me ask you, John,za, just finally, I mean, it takes a lot of courage to go to somewhere like that, knowing what may be coming imminently. What is it? motivates you to risk your own life to be there? I think we are at unprecedented time in history, peers. And every member of my team would like to be part of it.

That's something we will talk to our children and grandchildren about what happened in Gaza. It feels like a day of judgment to men. For the Palestinians, it's an endless, endless suffering for absolutely a crime that they have not committed. 1.25 million people, almost 2.2 million people are put in inhumane conditions like no other, maybe the history has ever seen and will ever see. And this madness has to stop. Dr. Massa Nasser, thank you very much indeed for taking the time from that incredibly busy environment you're operating in. I really do appreciate it. I want to wish you and your team all the very best and stay as safe as you can, given how dangerous it clearly is.

But I thank you, on behalf of everyone, watching this for the service that you're doing for the people there. Thank you, Bruce. Well, to debate, I'm joined from New York by Professor Norman Finkelstein, political scientist and pro-Palestine activist, and from Efrat and the West Bank

by Eshai Flaisha, the spokesman the Jewish community of Hebron, and Minister Ben Gavir's former advisor for international affairs. Well, welcome to both of you. Dr. Fingleston, let me start with you, I may. We are on the verge, it seems, of an inevitable full-scale invasion of Rafa. Prime Minister Netanyahu has made that clear. It's also clear that America, Israel's biggest,

most powerful ally, is extremely concerned about this. In fact, Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, has said not only does I think it's a big mistake to Israel to do this, but he believes that the war on Hamas is not really working, that Hamas is now regrouping in the north anyway. And so on every level from the American assessment, this is something that shouldn't be happening. What's your response? Well, I can't speak to the military situation because I have no professional knowledge of it. I can't speak to the humanitarian situation. The international crisis group, a very respected mainstream organization, put out a report about three weeks ago, in which it says there is no middle ground.

If there is an invasion of Rafa, there's going to be mass starvation in at least northern Gaza and perhaps elsewhere. And they were emphatic about the fact that you have to make a choice. Either suspend the invasion or accept that you're going to cost the lives of thousands and perhaps more than thousands of civilians in Gaza. The second point I would make is that, at least as of the last few days,

the Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, has said that no aid is coming through to Gaza anymore, that Rafa has been shut down, that Karam Shalom has been shut down, and that Gaza, it's now in a position where it was a few weeks ago when Israel was effectively not omitting any humanitarian aid to Gaza. So at a humanitarian level, should there be a full scale, there is an invasion

right now in large numbers of people. I guess the current estimate is 300,000. Large numbers of people have been displaced. Displaced where is unclear because it's unclear where to go. But if there's a full-scale invasion touching the core of the refugee population, then one can, at least according to the international crisis group, expect mega deaths. Ishaar, I watched Dr. Phil's interview with Prime Minister Netanyahu last night, and he was emphatic Netanyahu that there would be no stopping Israel going into Rafah and that they had to do this because Hamas had to be eliminated. But it would seem from American intelligence

that Hamas is already regrouping in the north of Gaza, which surely should be of significant concern to Israel, shouldn't it? If the strategy is simply not working and Hamas is regrouping now in areas that were thought to have been places where Hamas had been removed, doesn't that suggest this military strategy is not working? First thing, Pierce, I want to thank you so much for having me on the show. And I also want to use this opportunity to wish Israel a happy 76th Independence Day. Tonight we celebrate that.

Israel is the most exciting project of the Jewish people in 2,000 years. So this is a big deal for us. Today was Memorial Day. Now it's Independence Day. And so, you know, I really appreciate the chance to speak about these things with you today on your important show. With regarding to Gaza and the Hamas War, okay, so we're going to have to fight them in Rafah. and if we have to fight them in the north, we'll do that as well. We're in a war.

We're in a war. We're not here to just give it up right now just because it's not working here or there. We're at a war with people who have dug tunnels 15 stories deep, people who want to destroy the state of Israel. That is their charter. It's a religious charter. They say that they want to get rid of all of Israel, starting with Gaza. And if we have to pivot to the north, we'll do that.

The Jewish people are used to conflict. We've been through a lot of conflicts throughout a history, 3,000 years of conflicts, but we're still here. So if we have to go north, we'll go north. What follows from your question is not that we should just give up and not attack in the South. It just means that we'll have to move on our attack north. And we're going to deal with this thing

because we have no other option. And I want to remind you, appears, that it's a proxy war as well. If we lose this thing, we're going to lose it to the Iranians who just declared that they have a nuclear bomb. We have to fight this. We have to prosecute this. war to the end and send a signal to the Middle East that we're not joking around.

Okay, let me play you, Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State, what he had to say on the weekend shows in America. We're seeing parts of Gaza that Israel has cleared of Hamas, where Hamas is coming back, including in the north, including in Khan Yunus. As we look at Rafa, they may go in and have some initial success, but potentially at an incredibly high cost to civilians, but one that is not durable, one that's not sustainable. And they will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency because a lot of armed Hamas will be left, no matter what they do in Rafah. Or if they leave and get out of Gaza,

as we believe they need to do, then you're going to have a vacuum and a vacuum that's likely to be filled by chaos, by anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again. Now, Isha-Flesha, the problem is, America is, as I said, America is, is, we're Israel's biggest ally by far. Also, biggest supplier of military hardware, which President Biden's already said, he's going to stop a lot of that going to Israel if they go into Rafah.

But to have the Secretary of State of the United States expressing such concern about the military strategy, surely that has to concern you, doesn't it? Because ultimately, if you kill all these innocent civilians in the process of getting rid of a man, but you end up not getting rid of Hamas. That is a failed war, isn't it? Okay, so first thing with regarding to civilians,

we have to remember that civilian deaths is actually part of Hamas's strategy against us. They want Israel to kill a lot of civilians so that Pierce Morgan can ask, hey, what's going on with the civilians, so that the Anthony Blinkins can give Israel a hard time? So that is in their interests. They are actually going against

the Geneva Convention's stated laws that you're not supposed to put in civilians in front of an incoming army. Israel is also killing thousands of civilians. You accept that. Yes, yes, we are because we're in a war. Right. We're in a war. And we basically, it's like this, Pierce. If we don't do it, then basically we are sending the war onto the next generation. We're just passing the buck. We're kicking the can down the road.

It means that my children are going to have to prosecute the next war. We've already seen that. We've already had many wars with Gaza. This is like war number what, like five? So if we don't take care of this business, they're going to come stronger at us. They're going to declare victory. We can't have that. We can't have Iran be victorious in Gaza as it has been in Yemen, as it has been in Iraq, as it has been in South Lebanon.

We can't have that. So this time, October 7th is an opportunity to clean house and to make sure this doesn't come back again. Now, people on the more right-wing part of the spectrum believe that, that Israel should actually hold on to Gaza and have minimally military presence there, if not more. Because if we just back out of there, what happens is the next Hamas or the next evolution of Hamas will take over.

So yeah, Pierce, bottom line is it's a war, and we've got to fight it. Right, Norman Finkelstein, Ishaa Flaas has said this. I wonder if I can, I can briefly respond to that. Yes, you can, yeah. Thank you so much. I think there's a bit of a misnomer here by designating what Israel's aim is to simply defeat, impose a major military defeat on Hamas. I have no doubt that that's correct. However, I do believe that what you're describing, quoting Anthony Blinken, as a failed strategy is only half correct because Israel has another goal.

The goal is to finally solve the Gaza question for once and for all. As the other person said, there have been many high-tech Israeli massacres in Gaza. It's actually quite a large number more than five, but I won't bother with a figure. And the goal right now is not just to mow the lawn in Gaza, but to extirpate, pull out from the roots, every blade of grass in Gaza. That is to say, to make Gaza unlivable. And in terms of that goal, which is separate and discreet from the goal of inflicting a military defeat on Hamas, that goal is coming close to achievement. They have made the north of Gaza, and they have made central Gaza, unlivable. Those landscapes can now be described as a howling wilderness.

The only area of Gaza, which is not physically unlivable, that is the only area that has not been completely reduced to rubble, the only area is Rafa. And so when Prime Minister Netanyahu says he wants to finish the job in Rafa. That, in my opinion, yes, it does include a component of trying to defeat Hamas, but the bigger goal, in my opinion, judging from what the Israelis have said, their bigger goal is to make a Gaza an unlivable place. And so the people of Gaza, in the words of Israel's former head of the National Security Council, Ghiara Island, the only choice that will be

left of the people of Gaza will be either to stay and starve or to leave. You know, Lindsay Graham, the American Senator, gave an interview also at the weekend. I want to play a clip from that, Norman, and come back to you for your response to this, because he raises an interesting point. Well, why is it okay? Well, can I say this? Why is it okay for America to not to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war?

Why was it okay for us to do that? I thought it was okay. To Israel do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state? Senator, again, military officials say technology has changed, but let me ask you about how all of this can impact. Let me ask you something. Are full of crap. I mean, strong words there.

Now, I think it's been misinterpreted as him saying that he wants Israel to use nuclear weapons. He didn't say that. What he was saying was if it was deemed morally acceptable, as many felt it was, albeit horrendous death toll, but to end the war morally defensible for America to deploy nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then why is it not morally defensible for Israel to do whatever it needs to do to eliminate the threat of Hamas, given that Hamas is on record after October the 7th, they're saying they wish to do the same thing again and again and again and have a charter which, when it was

first written said their obligation was to get rid of all the Jews. I think there are a couple of aspects to that question. The first aspect is I don't think there is a broad consensus outside the United States, leaving the U.S. apart. I don't think there is a broad consensus that it was morally acceptable to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In particular, you could say that the Hiroshima question, is debatable, but I don't believe anybody seriously argues that Nagasaki was morally or morally

defensible or military. Let's talk about our situation now. Yes, that's fine. We've got some serious things to deal with right now. That's fine. Let's get to it. Right. I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be responsive.

I understand, but like, let's get to it. The bottom line is that Israel is a tiny country. And, you know, if you look at the map, you'll see, we are a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny Jewish state within, that's right, but we've got to get to it. And not talk about Nagasaki or Hiroshima, what's the difference? The point is, we're a tiny Jewish state within the Arab Muslim world. And if we don't defend ourselves, then we're an ethnic minority. We're an armed ethnic minority. Let Norman Finkelstein respond. Piers, you have to decide whether you're the moderator or he's the moderator. No, I'm the moderator. You ask me a question. Okay, well, then I'm

trying to be responsive to your question. Yeah, I understand. So now on the question of Israel and Gaza, either you do or you don't accept the laws of war, what's called international humanitarian law. If you do accept the laws of war, then Israel has to abide by those laws of war, and the fundamental law of war is called the principles of war.

principle of distinction. You have to distinguish between targeting civilians and targeting combatants. So I don't believe Lindsay Graham is correct, except in his opinion, he said Israel has to do what it has to do. That's his essential argument. But that means, as I understand him, Israel doesn't have any obligation to obey the laws of war. Well, okay. Let me just be fair. Let me just say on that, Norman. On that, just to clarify, he wasn't advocating that Israel should break international law. He didn't say that. And I would throw it back at you, I guess, this point, which is, do you know, or maybe you have always done, but do you accept that Hamas broke international law, given it was the governing body of Gaza at the time, that when it committed the act of atrocity with his terror attack on October the 7th, that was a breach of international law.

You accept that? I would say there are two aspects to that question. Under international law, there is no law on preventing people living under an occupation from resisting that occupation using armed force. Under international law, it is neutral. However. He's on record stating that he was jovial at that. Hishai, I will let you respond.

Just let him finish the point. I'll come to you. All right. Let's get to it. However, however, in the course of its armed resistance to the illegal Israeli occupation of Gaza, it broke the laws of war to the extent that it targeted civilians, and the evidence thus far indicates that massive atrocities occurred on October 7th. However, we have to distinguish that, which was clearly a breach,

international law from the right of a people under occupation to use armed force to end the occupation. Okay, let me go to Eishai, a fly show. I mean, on that point, do you agree with Norman Finkelstein's assessment of what happened there? First thing, October 7th was a horrific massacre. There's no international law that's going to back that, but we know, and you had this on your show, we know that Norman Finkelstein celebrated the murder of Jews. He's on record. You tested him. You saw that he was not telling you the whole truth. You know, he said, I, for one, will never be grudge. It warms every fiber of my soul.

The scenes of Gaza smiling children as the arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors have finally been humbled. So forget international law. He's happy that Jews were murdered. You know, there was some soldiers that they were murdered. Their male members were cut off and put in their mouth. And then the terrorists took out the phones and sent pictures of that to their mothers. All right, what are we talking about here? Let's get back to common sense.

We have a war here against an intractable enemy that we. wants to destroy Israel. Even President Biden, who's not a big fan of this war, has already said that Israel has not done atrocities, is not committing a genocide. It's already, that's already pass-A. Even Norman Finkelstein's beloved ICJ basically did not go into saying that Israel is doing atrocities. They kind of, they kind of, you know, bunted and said, you know, please be careful in the future. That's it. So now we're fighting an intractable enemy. As I said before, it's a proxy war as well. And it's, it's not an occupation. Very sadly, my nation, Israel in 2005, gave away land. We lived, I was there. I was there with Arabs. I was there with Arabs and Jews in Gaza in 2005

when my army came, the Israeli army came and took us out of there. The Arabs there begged us. Begged us. I still remember their hands through the fences like this. They said, don't leave. You don't understand who's going to take over. Now, what does? Norman Finkelstein is going to tell you is that all day long Israel's committing atrocities. If you go to telegram, you could see the videos of Hamas shooting civilians and women yelling, you have destroyed our lives, you have destroyed our land, you have killed our children. Hamas is a cynical organization. Its leaders are billionaires. Its whole thing is to make Israel look bad. It has no care for its own civilians. It steals the food that comes there. There's been

thousands of tons of food that has come there. Okay, but they steal it. They keep it for themselves. So what are we talking about? Let's just get back to common sense. We have a terrorist organization. It's controlling a piece of land. We're fighting them trying to minimize civilian casualties. But, yeah, it is war. It is war.

And we're fighting it. Yes, they're putting their children in front of our munitions on purpose. And that is a very sad situation. But we cannot stop prosecuting this war. For us, it's existential. We are a tiny ethnic minority in this region. We are armed ethnic minority. Okay, you're tiny in geographical size.

you are enormously powerful actually in terms of military power and in terms of political power. And yet you see what happened. And you have your number one ally, the United States of America, which is the most powerful superpower in the world. In January this year, your former boss, Ben-Givir, argued the departure of Palestinians

and re-establishment of Israeli settlements is a correct, just, moral, and humane solution to this war. I mean, that cannot be right, surely. I mean, the solution to long-term, peace is not going to come down surely to Israel filling Gaza with Israelis. I mean, that would surely cross a line which nobody would think could be remotely achievable in terms of a sustained peace. This is a big question, Pierce, and a good one, an important one, which is really a much

bigger question about how do we move forward? First thing is, we have a war with a jihad. We don't have a war with Arabs. We don't have a war with Palestinians. We have a war with jihadists. Jihadists, they control the landscape because they're very violent. Mostly they're violent against their own people.

I know this firsthand from Hebron. I cannot tell you how many examples I have of Arabs that want to make peace and relations with Hebron. I have excellent relations with many Arabs and Hebron, and yet they are persecuted by the Palestinian authority in Gaza by Hamas. Why? Because they want to move forward in normalization with Israel.

Israel wants to normalize in this region. At the end, we are not very different than the Arabs. We have a similar DNA. We have a similar language. We have a similar religion. We're the children of Abraham. And some people are recognizing that that's the way forward. That's the Abraham Accords.

Okay? That's the UAE in Morocco, maybe even Saudi Arabia in the future, in the near future, I hope. We have a way forward. And the way forward is a way of peace. What is peace? A strong Israel on its land, on its ancestral homeland, surrounded by Arab states on their lands. And those states together working together to be,

working together to make the Abrahamic region successful and thriving. But there are elements that are jihadist elements. These elements want to undermine that. They want to destroy normalization. They're against Israel. They're also against moderate Arabs. They're against Christian Arabs, Arameans. When I speak to non-Jewish residents and citizens of Israel, like Druze, like Cherkesi,

like Arameans, like Bedouins, like pro-Israel Muslims, they all say the same thing to me. have to be strong against the jihad. You got to crush it or else it's going to take over. It first and foremost crushes the average Arab, the average decent person who wants to normalize with Israel. So the answer is like this. Fight with the jihad. Be bad to the jihad so that you could be good to the good people. That's the way forward. It's not to be wishy-washy, to back up. Let me go. Okay. Let me go to Norman Fingersstein. Your response to that proposal? I'm not sure what the proposal is. What I hear is a lot of statements. that seem to be completely detached from reality, at least as I understand it.

Let's start with one of his earlier statements. He said in 2005, when Israel was redeploying its troops from inside Gaza to the periphery of Gaza, the people of Gaza were begging the settlers to stay. There were approximately 8,000 settlers in Gaza at that point, and they controlled about 30 percent of the local. land. The two million Palestinians in Gaza were given about 70% of the land at that particular moment. Number two, at that time, the head of Israel's national... I was there. They talked to me.

Sir, sir. I was there. You really have to act as peers, many of these Israelis think the whole world is the West Bank in Gaza where they get to control everything. So you really have to remind you that this is a civil conversation. Want to want Israel to stay and be strong. Don't change the topic. It's very simple. I just said to you, I was there.

I saw them with my own eyes. They talked to me. They said, don't give up this land. And the same thing that Elbeiroin said, don't give up the sign to the Egyptians. Let's control. Because he listened to you. Okay.

Norman did let you speak and then responded afterwards. Afford him the same courtesy. You got it. So at the point where, according to the other speaker, the people of Gaza were begging the Israelis to stay, according to the head of the National Security Council at the time, Giora Island, and this is March 2004, he described Gaza as, quote, a huge concentration camp. So I find it a little bit far-fetched to believe that the inventing one Israeli, because I keep in a Please don't interrupt.

Do you read anybody else? Like one guy, that's the guy? He should let him finish. Please let him finish. Sorry. Sure. No more. So I find it a little bit far-fetched that the inmates of a concentration camp would be begging for the guards to stay in the camp.

That to me is an unusual. It's an unusual scenario. Now, this talk about the people, Israelis establishing. reestablishing illegal settlements in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip. That to me, there is a problem there. I was reading an interview yesterday with an expert on the subject. Israel has deposited, as of now, there are about 37 million tons, 37 million tons of destruction.

about 37 million tons in Gaza right now, which means it would take, according to this expert, it would take about 10 years to clear the rubble in Gaza before you can even begin. We will clean it up, no, don't worry, we're going to clean up Gaza because we want it. It's beautiful. We're going to make it beautiful again.

Okay. Make Gaza beautiful again. That's the slogan. Don't worry about it. We'll take care of it. Thank you very much. you'll probably ask the international community. We live here. This is for us. The international community.

Yeah. Well, actually, on the subject of living there, I did spend quite a lot of time between 1987 and 1993 in Al-Halil, which is sometimes called Hebron. And it's again rather far-fetched to believe. It lasts like 4,000 years. Yeah. Right. Well, it's Al-Hahili.

It's okay, go ahead. It was very far-fetched. It came about about 1,400 years ago. It's been Chavron for 4,000 years. Jews have been living there for 36, 3,000, 7,000 years. You see, you have a problem, sir. The problem is you want to discard what the international community has to say in the subject. I don't have a problem.

I am very, very, very, to plug it in. There's many people in international community that are with us. with us, if it's if it's Heart-Vilders in Amsterdam, if it's President Trump who who recognize the legality of Jewish presence in Judean Samaria, certainly in Hebron, we've been there for three and a half thousand years. I think somewhere in international law they could figure out our rights in this ancestral city. Right, under international law, the whole of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza, are occupied Palestinian territories. So under international

It's our ancestral land. Or I should say under the and nothing is going to stop us. Under the international criminal court Rome statutes, sir, you're a war criminal because you are illegally settling

in occupied Palestinian territory. You should be prosecuted under international law as a war criminal. That is, well, many people disagree with that, many legal scholars disagree with that. That is not the law. That is not the law. That is not.

not the law. That's a law according to... Actually, actually, sir. As Benny Morris said about you, Finkelstein is a notorious distorter of facts and of my work, not a serious or honest historian, right? It's on your Wikipedia page. So do me a favor. You're not going to tell me exactly what the laws. You're not even a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. And it happens to be that we have every right to live in our ancestral homeland. We, excuse me, we won that land in defense of wars, which is an international law principle. We purchased the land, which is the simplest principle of free markets. We bought it from Arabs. The three religions all recognize the Jewish people as living in this land. If it's the Koran, the Christian New Testament, the Torah, they all recognize this is from this land.

But what nobody are, the Isha, if I may jump in, what people are not accepting are the continuing attempts by Israelis to expand the settlements. Almost nobody I speak to thinks that that is anything but a deeply inflammatory thing to be doing. Can I remind you again, Pierce, Pierce, this is our little white thing. You don't need to because when I went, okay, listen, let me explain. It's our ancestral land fears. Let me explain. When I went to Jerusalem about 12 years ago, an interview Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem,

he showed me a very similar map that was hanging behind his desk. And he put his thumb on Israel and he put his hand on all the much larger Arab countries. I get it. I get it. But what it doesn't show is the reality that Israel is the most powerful country in that region in terms of its military. and certainly in terms of its support from the United States. So this idea but it's a tiny, impoverished little part of land is a mischaracterization.

But my question to you again, Isha, is this. Pierce, it's not a mischaracter. How does it help? I never said it in class. Hang on, let me finish. I never said that. Let me ask you the question again. Go ahead.

Which is how do you justify the expansion of settlements given that almost nobody I spoke until on this show thinks that this is anything but inflammatory? Oh my gosh. Pierce for God's like. First thing I never said the word impoverished. We're a powerful little country. Great. But look what happens when we drop our guard for one minute. They cream us. Let's be real about what happened. We got creamed. And now we're fighting a war to fix that wrong that happened. Okay, that's number one. Number two is

Judean Samaria, the West Bank, so called, is the heartland of the Jewish people. It's where we're from. Our whole DNA, everything, our language is based on these places. We're from these places. This was called the Jewish state, 25 hundred years ago by the Persian empire. It's called Yehud Medina der Yudenzstadt, the Jewish state. This is the heart of our land. Yes, Israel has not formally annexed Judean Samaria, but it holds onto it as territories. There's 500,000 Jews, so-called settlers like myself, who proudly live in the ancestral homeland. This is where we're from. This is where we're going to stay. Nothing is going to get us out. And no amount of international law mumbo-jumbo, no amount of academic gobbledygook is going to get

rid of simple play in history. And many people, including the Trump administration, recognized our rights. So we're talking about big America. You've said to me now on the show three times, said to me, you know, America is against this war. There's many Americas. Right now, it's a Biden America. Tomorrow it might be a Trump America. A Trump America recognizes our right. So we're going to be patient, as we have been for 3,000 years. We're going to be strong, continue to build our third Commonwealth, which is celebrating 76 years of independence today, Mazaltov, Mazeltov, we say, and we're going to keep going. So don't give me this stuff about that. We're not going to live in Hebron. Hebron is where we're from. Our forefathers and mothers are buried there. That's where we're

going. Before I go to Norman for response to that, do you believe then that a natural extension of your logic is that you should also be entitled to the whole of Gaza going forward? Is that your belief that actually, that is all, do you believe that is all Israeli land? Absolutely. Pierce, I was one of the people. Okay, wait, wait, let me finish. You got you asked a big question. That's a massive question.

You asked a big question. It needs a real answer. That's right. And it's a fair question. You're right. And the answer is simple. 2005 disengagement was an awful mistake. We should control that land and govern it. Again, it's a tiny piece of our tiny land.

And, of course, pro-Israel, non-jihadist Arabs and others, Palestinians, Muslims, whatever they want to be, that don't hate Israel should live there and be successful there. Sorry, I'm sorry, but listen. But what right does Israel have to just take over Gaza, having obliterated it? We're not taking it over. There was never a Palestine there. Listen, you can defend yourself against a terror attack.

This surely is exactly the kind of occupation that Norman was talking about only on a massively bigger scale. You're unashamed about it. You want to occupy Gaza. You're not talking today, you're not talking today to one of the. liberal Jews, you're not talking to a government spokesman. Clearly. You're talking to one of the settlers. Right. I am talking to you about what we think is right. Right. But we think makes sense also in terms of how to manage this region. Yes, but the problem is, Isha, if you give up your land to the jihad, they attack you. Yes, but the problem is you are sounding genocidal in the sense that you

want to get rid of- No, what? Well, you want to get-inicidal. Did you not hear me say, Pierce, Pierce, I respect you tremendously. So don't put silly words in my mouth. You know, really, truthfully, I watch you, and I love your work, and you open things up for a lot of people. Don't say silly things. That was very silly. I never said anything about genocide. Holding on to a piece of land, holding out to minorities, every power in this world has minorities inside of it.

Every country that's a big country has other minorities, other people's inside of it. Did I say we should genocide the Arabs? We have a fight with the jihad. I said, and it's on tape, I hope you play it, I said that minorities that are non-jihadists, that are pro-Israel are going to be successful in this land. I want them to be successful, just like the Druze and the Cherkessim of the Iranians. Genocide. What right?

Isha, what right does Israel have to occupy Gaza after this? I don't think you have that right. It is our historic homeland. Look it up in Wikipedia. You'll see what is the Jewish story in this place. It was ours 3,000 years ago, it was ours 2,000 years ago. Herod built whole cities in Gaza. One of the most ancient mosques in Gaza was before that ancient synagogue gets our ancestral land.

Let me go to Norman. Norman, you'd be waiting patiently. Your response to this where, you know, Ishais made it absolutely crystal clear, he believes that there should be a complete occupation of Gaza by Israel. No, not an occupation, a sovereignty in Israeli sovereignty. Well, well. It's the same thing. It's certainly first the military one at first step. Norman.

I would say that he, I would say he has one thing correct. And that is, I agree with the Israeli information center. for Human Rights in the Occupy Territories, the organization known as Vetzelam, which stated about a year ago that actually de facto, there is only one state. There's only one state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, and that one state is based on the principle of Jewish, and that one state is based on the principle of Jewish supremacy. And what Betelma wrote in that report was, That what Batsalam appears, as I said, there are some Israelis who get confused and think the whole world is the West Bank in Gaza. I wish you would remind him that we're having a civil conversation here, and I have the right to respond.

Yes, you do. You do. Thank you so much. So within that one state, namely between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, as Betteleum said, it's a very important. effectively in apartheid state, where the Jews have, in that state, Jews have privileges and rights which are denied the Palestinians. In the case of Israel, they're second-class citizens. In the case of the West Bank, they have no rights whatsoever apart from those that they're given under international law, but say they don't have the right, the essential right, to vote. In the case of Gaza, since roughly, you can say 1991, they've been immured in a, effectively, as Giora Island put it, they've been amurred in a concentration camp. And now the question is, how do you resolve that situation?

And there are three possibilities. You can try to just subordinate that Palestinian population forever. That's one possibility. A second possibility is you can make Gaza and the West Bank uninhabitable and hope the people by hook or by crook leave. And the third possibility, as you put it, was genocide or as Prime Minister Netanyahu put it, remember Amalek. Is that what you're telling me? No, I think...

You hear how ridiculous that stuff is? Arabs cannot live in Israel? That's it? Like, the only answer is genocide? You can't have... We have two million Arab citizens in Israel. It's only genocide. It's the only option.

That is just hot air. It's just... There's no truth of the matter. It's just TV bluster. That's no reality on the ground. That's the single point. So if it's... If your other guest is saying

that he would accept the slogan in South Africa, one person, one vote, if that's his position, I think that's a reasonable position, but he should be clear about that since half the population between the Mediterranean and the Jordan is Palestinian Arab. And likely, given current birth rates, the majority between the Mediterranean and the Jordan will be Palestinian Arabs. Is your other guest stating, and this would be useful for your audience, is your other guest stating that he's supposed to be. reports one person, one vote between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, and he accepts that the majority over time will be Palestinian Arab. Does he accept that?

Okay. Isha? Fabulous. Thank you very much. First thing, Norman, again, my name is Ishai. It's easy to remember. But in any case, I remember your name. Isn't that nice? I want to tell you that finally you got to something serious because you now say there is an obvious. other than genocide to actually become citizens of the state of Israel? Okay, we can talk about it. I wrote an article in New York Times called A Settlers' Vision for the Future of Israel. I outlined five alternatives to the two-state solution. I talked about pathway to citizenship. I talked about residency.

I talked about Israeli Arabs or so-called Palestinians having a right to vote in the next door Palestinian state called Jordan, remaining here as residents, but actually voting in their country, Jordan right next door. Jordan right next door. I laid out a lot of options. And those options are to be discussed absolutely. As I understand it. The point is I was very happy, hold on. I was very happy, Norman, that you were able to reach a conclusion that there's an option other than genocide and that Arabs can actually live within Israel. But I want to ask you, Norman, just remind me, how many Arab democracies are there in this world? Remind me? I don't ask for the right to vote in Canada. I'm an American citizen. I don't ask for the right to vote next door in elections in Canada. I was asking you in. Okay, we can discuss it.

That's why I wrote an article with options. Do you accept the smoking in South Africa of one person, one vote for the entire population between the Mediterranean and the Jordan? That seems to me the democratic solution. I accept that that is something to discuss. And that is at least, at least, you know, I'll tell you with the truth, Norman. That one I accept as being a reasonable proposal. I don't like that proposal.

But I accept that at least being a starting point as opposed to the farce that you said before, which is that there's only general. The Jewish people are going to live here, Pierce. Given it's taken us about 45... Listen, it's taken us 45 minutes, but we finally got to a place where there was at least a tiny fragment of agreement, which seems to me a sensible place to leave this debate. But thank you both very much indeed,

for as always giving both sides in a strident way, and I think the viewers will learn a lot from that, and I appreciate you both joining me. Thank you. Thank you, Pierce.