The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - A Deeper Look into the Hamas Prisoner Amputations Story - With Haaretz Reporter Michael Hauser Tov

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Haaretz Reporter Michael Hauser Tov analyzes and explains what has gone wrong that has led to injuries and amputations of prisoners at an Israeli field hospital. Also covered are the "Hannibal Directive" and other issues relating to the conflict.

So, good evening everybody. I'm doing a special one-on-one interview with Michael Hauser-Tov, Mikhail Hauser-Tov, correct? Whatever you prefer. Mikhail Hauser-Tov is the chief political correspondent of Haaretz newspaper and a senior political analyst. He is the youngest to be appointed for the prestigious position. Mikhail leads the political coverage in the Hebrew and the English editions of Haaretz. Mikael is also a permanent panelist in the morning and afternoon shows on the most influential Israeli TV channels. Previously, Mikael worked and served in GLZ radio, mostly as a political reporter. He is a Forbes 30 under 30 graduate. Welcome to Live from the Table, Mikael. Hey, Nam.

Thank you for having me. I had no idea when I contacted you that you were such a big shot. I really appreciate you doing the show. Thank you. I really appreciate your invitation. Anyway, so let me just tell the listeners. So I don't know if you checked out the podcast. I'm a pretty strong defender of Israel.

And most people like me, I think, shy away from dealing with the bad news. I sent this article around to people, and the answers were what you'd expect. Well, you know, at least we have a free press and who knows what goes over what they're doing. All true, but not in my opinion a sufficient answer. And I've been for a long time now just forcing myself as a moral challenge to deal with the truth wherever it is in my life. And if you don't go after the truth, the truth will eventually come after you.

So this story in Haaretz is about a horrifying treatment of prisoners. And why don't you want to give an overview of the story first, and then I can ask you my questions about it. Sure. So generally, the story is based on a letter, a letter written by a doctor, a military doctor who served in a camp called Sde Teiman. If I will try to translate it to English, it's like Yemen's field. And in this specific camp, who built just after October 7th, because of the need of new prison and more space for terrorists who were captured by Israel, in this specific camp there is a specific place for the injured terrorists who were captured by by Israeli military,

mostly in Gaza Strip, not mostly, I mean, just in October 7, they were kept in Israel, and after October 7, only in Gaza Strip, who need to get a medical treatment. And this doctor said that during the last six months, there were few violence of the Israeli law about this specific camp and about the treatment that those terrorists got. Mainly about handcuffs, that they use handcuffs on those prisoners 24-7 because of many reasons. In the past, many prisoners tried to attack doctors, so there are many reasons why they use the handcuffs, but at the end of the day they used those handcuffs and some of the prisoners who were

handcuffed for many, many days got got imputated by legs or hands because they injured from those kind of handcuffs. Except that there are a few more violations of the Israeli law. It's mainly about the way that they get a treatment. They use their diaries because they cannot go to toilets. They use the straw to feed them because they cannot eat by themselves. And there are a few things there who are against the Israeli law. By the way, who just created after October 7th and made specifically to this facility and to this Sdetayman camp.

So most of the information based on this letter of the highly doctor served during Sdetayman. Now, let me ask you about that. Did you see the letter yourself? Yes, I did. How come the entire letter is not published for us to see? The doctor asked us to not publish the whole letter. I can say that the doctor is not the source of the letter. He didn't want it leaked.

He sent it to all the most important people in Israel, to the Minister of Defense, to the Minister of Health, and to the Israeli GA. And he wanted the system will fix themselves, but he didn't want the letter to be published all around. Is there anything else in the letter that a reader would consider relevant to the story? No, no. I can guarantee that all the main,

all the information in the letter published. Okay. Now, there's one thing in the story I want to ask you about because it seemed, I don't want to use the word inconsistency, but I wasn't sure how to match them up. So he says that these amputations were routine, I think he uses the word. And you don't have a number you can put on that, right? You don't know how many amputations were routine, I think he uses the word.

And you don't have a number you can put on that, right? You don't know how many amputations. He talked about two, two prisoners. And I know about another one, but at the end of the day, some of them lead to the amputated. And this is what he tried to say, I think, but I don't have the specific number, no. All right, because that was what I was getting at. So later in the story, you say three other sources told Haaretz that at the start of the war, a detainee, meaning a single-day detainee, whose hands were injured because they were in plastic handcuffs for a prolonged period of time, had one hand amputated and that those handcuffs are no longer used. Do you know that that's a – well, two questions. Do you know that that's a different prisoner than what is referred to in the letter?

And did the three people you spoke to not confirm that there was more than one? It's a difficult question. I don't have the exact answer because I don't know which kind of prisoners and which kind of handcuffs the doctor talked about. So I cannot guarantee it. But as far as I know, a lot of things changed during the few months in the camp. They changed the specific handcuffs that they used. I don't know what to say about those specific prisoners, because I don't know which prisoners and which exact handcuffs the doctor exactly talked about it. I knew from the letter about two persons, two prisoners, and I know from another source about another one, which happened a few months ago. So I do believe those are quite two different systems. But at the end of the day, and I think

this is very important to say, this is a difficult situation and this is a bad situation of course no one wants to hear and no one wants to anyone do such a thing like that and even though those are a terrorist and those are prisoners of course we don't want any of those things and but at the end of the day as I told you at the beginning of our conversation it's happened because of past accidents between the prisoners and the doctors. In the past, there were more than one, two, and ten prisoners who attacked doctors. So IDF and the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Health considered what they can do to avoid these attacks by the terrorists to get medical treatment. And at the end of the day, they found the handcuff solution, which, of course, it's not a perfect solution and probably it's a bad solution because look what happened.

But I think things became better. All right. They changed the kind of the handcuffs they used to a different kind, which is probably, I really, I'm not an expert about it, but probably it's better handcuffed than the other one and leads to less injured. And I do believe that they rechanged it again after this letter. So I think they tried to find a solution, a difficult solution for a difficult situation. And this is something we all should remember. Basically, there were many

attacks of injured terrorists who tried to kill Israeli doctors that gave them the treatment. They are not real soldiers. They are recruited by the Israeli military, but they are regular doctors from regular hospitals. Yeah. Well, you know, I looked at just to say, I looked into these stories to see if there were similar stories in American prisons. And I was able to find that the straws, feeding through the straws and the diapers, as horrific as it sounds, is what's done with dangerous prisoners. I was only able to find one case of an injury that led to an amputation. So that's out of the ordinary.

And, of course, you know, in a certain way, when I first read the story, I was more horrified by this than I am by the tragic death of those aid workers, because I can understand the total breakdown in logistics and information that can lead to a tragic accident. I run an organization. It's a restaurant. It's a nightclub. But the things that go on are ridiculous and although those mistakes are are ending of life and my mistakes are you know nothing compared to that you know um humans are the same you know what i mean like every day people behind the wheel of a car drive headfirst into their death because they're because they're not careful so so i i can understand that. And I can understand one injury that leads to an amputation.

But when he said they were routine, at that point, I said, no, this cannot be excused. Once you're on notice, then you have a responsibility to make sure it happens no more. And if it happens again, that's bad enough. If it becomes routine,

this is a moral failure. And that it happens again, that's bad enough. If it becomes routine, this is a moral failure. And that's why this so disturbed me. I know people think that an attack on the aid workers is worse, but I believe this kind of thing, if it's really routine, if they're really turning a blind eye to it, I actually think this is worse. I don't think it's a competition. We don't need to think what is better than the other, what is less bad than the other bad thing. But you understand my point. You understand. I don't mean it to be a competition.

Yeah, I do. I do. But I think at the end of the day, this is quite difficult to compare between Israel and America, Israel and the United States, because of the fact that this is not a prison. This is not a prisoner, this is not a real facility, this is like a temporary field base that's built from nothing during a few days because of the big numbers of terrorists who attacked Israel during October 7th and during the fact that we had 2,000 terrorists on Israel land during October 7th, that we need to put somewhere, and we didn't have enough space in the prisoners. So if you take

Guantanamo, okay, which is probably the most terrible American prison, you cannot compare Guantanamo, which is a real prison, a proper prison, to a base to a temporary field base that's built by the army without any facilities and without any logistics of a real prison. So of course this handcuff, it's not a regular handcuff, it's like the plastic handcuffs, very temporary, it's not supposed to be used as a handcuff and of course this is a very bad thing and as I said

they already changed it they changed the material of the handcuffs because of the imputations and they want to change it again so they do try to find a solution but I think you're right they need to do it better, They need to do it faster. They need to work about it because this is something that is – this is against the Israeli law.

It's not about the morality. It's about the Israeli law. It's against the Israeli law. Let me ask you a question. This is turning out to be more interesting than I even thought because of where I see that you're coming from. We in America read Haaretz, and the people who hate Israel most, they read it every day and they look for stories like this because this becomes their weapon.

Bread and butter. In their bread and butter. And I somehow assumed that you would be an Israeli who was kind of coming from an animus to the state, as I know people like that. But as I'm hearing you, that's not the case at all.

You're actually defending the state in a certain way against, and that doesn't come through in the article. And now that I'm hearing that, I'm wondering how many other articles have I read in Haaretz where the reporter, maybe because he thinks he's speaking to his own people

and some of this stuff is unnecessary, kind of disclaimers that everybody knows, is not fully aware of how this is going to be weaponized by the enemies of Israel. If you, like, would you write it differently if you were expecting an American audience? No, actually, no.

I tell you, I'm a journalist and I need to write about facts. And I write about facts. If I were in America, I would write about facts, whether if I would be a Republican and this is anti-Republican story, whether if I will be a Democrat and this is an anti-Democrat story. Let me just say, let me just stop you there. I don't mean about leaving out facts, God forbid, but I mean the context which you're giving now about how many prisoners had, people had attacked doctors, how dangerous it was,

how they've changed it and changed it again. The various things which you're... But Norm, it's all... No, how they've changed it and changed it again. The various things. No, I'm sorry, because it's all there. It's not my problem. It's the reader's problem. Or let me be rude, OK? It's not the Israeli problem. It's the American's problem.

Because your people read the article and just take a look about the handcuff and about the imputations and all those things. But all the information I mentioned in our conversation were written in the story. It's written that they changed the material of the handcuff and it's written that the prisoners attacked the doctors. So it's all there. But you know, people like to see everything very clear, very simple. They don't like sophisticate. They don't want to see the both side of the story. So of course, this is an important story and this is a bad thing. But of course, there is a background why the Israeli military did such a thing like that. And people don't want to see the full story.

People don't want to see the two sides of the story. So it's all there. But even you, that you are very curious and very fair, and you ask me those questions, even you didn't really pay attention to these specific details who put the whole story. No, well, I... Well, I saw the details,

but somehow when I took it in, I felt that they were mentioned, but I didn't get from them... I didn't get from it that you took them to be as important to the story as you clearly do from the interview. That's because...

Because this is... I completely accept it and maybe I need to put more attention, but at the end of the day our conversation is more about analysis and the story is about facts. So it's two different things.

It's not really comparable those two things. I can put any light, I can put the light about anything that I want in this story, but when I write a story to my readers, I need to write it as a news piece and not as an analysis piece. No, you're in a tough spot. I mean, I go through this.

I run an organization where, and I know my place, but I spend a lot of time every day trying to make sure that every customer is treated properly, that everything's followed up on, that everybody's polite, that everything is better than anybody could ever imagine.

And yet, every frigging week, someone who works for me does something that angers me, and sometimes outrageous things have happened, right? So when I'm representing myself to the outside world, I say with full truthfulness that we are as about a well-intentioned organization as there can ever be. And yet internally, you did this wrong. you did this wrong, this customer was up. And if someone who wanted to criticize me could hear my internal conversations, they would say, aha, look at him, he's terrible here, he's terrible there.

He admitted it. So there's two channels going on at the same time. And when the people you're dealing with are not listening in good faith or they just have their confirmation bias, you as a journalist are in a very tough situation because you have to report the truth. And by the way, by reporting the truth, you are protecting the state of Israel because this would go on more and more. The free press is not because Jewish people are born bad or good. The free press is what keeps people bad or good. It's everything. So I don't mean to criticize you.

I admire what you're doing, and I admire you even more now that I hear your vibe and where you're coming from. So while I got you, let me just ask you a few other questions. Sure. Do you know, this came up recently, do you know anything about the Hannibal Directive?

What is the story with the Hannibal Directive? This is another thing that a lot of enemies of Israel keep pointing to now. Hannibal Directive was supposedly this policy that essentially if someone's going to be kidnapped or taken prisoners, the IDF should not allow it, even if it means killing them. Even if it means killing them. Okay, okay. You mean Hannibal. Hannibal. I'm sorry. Hannibal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry. I didn't understand it. Don't worry.

It's fine. Yeah. Well, Hannibal, in Hebrew, it's Hannibal. So this kind of, I don't know exactly how to call it. It's kind of an order, a Hannibal order that the commander used to give at a past. It's not been used anymore for many years. It did use during October 7th. It means that in a worst crisis that you can ever imagine, number one priority is to protect the state of Israel,

even if it says that Israeli citizens will be killed by an airstrike attack or heavy military attacks. During October 7th, while hundreds of hundreds of hundreds of terrorists were passing the border between Gaza Strip to Israel, Israeli air forces bombed the border while it was very clear that there might be Israeli citizens inside of the terrorist cars and terrorist tenders and in the border area. The reason they do it is because of the crisis that happened during October 7th and they absolutely necessarily to kill those terrorists who were murdered so many Israeli civilians inside of the kibbutzim,

inside of the kibbutzim, the cities of the south of Israel. So during October 7th, the Israeli Air Force attacked, once again, it was mostly cars, tenders of terrorists, and there were Israeli citizens inside of those tenders. We don't know how many. Just last week it's been published that one Israeli citizen was killed by this attack for sure. But this is the only one that we know for sure that were killed during October 7th under this Hannibal Act. acts. And, you know, there's a very important political theorist, John Mearsheimer

in America, and he called it murder. He said Israel is a murderous state because of this directive. Do you agree with that? No, absolutely no. Once again, it's not a directive anymore. Just to be fair, I'm sorry,

he didn't call it murder. Somebody said that's murder. And he said, I guess you could call it that. So just to be fair, go ahead. Sorry. Okay. So same answer. I don't think this is a murder or Israeli is a murdered country because of the that we don't use it. It's been prohibited for many, many, many years and it's been used during this specific situation only because of the very, very unique situation that's been made during October 7th. But at the end of the day, even if it's quite difficult, the cost of letting those terrorists to get in and out of Israel without attacking them were being cost for many, many more lives than probably being taken by this Hannibal Act during October 7th. So it's like the last option. This is the last option. And if we didn't act like

that, probably there were a few more of hundreds of killed of Israeli citizens who were murdered during October 7th. So it's only about bad options. When you have only bad options, you need to pick one of those bad options. Yeah, that was my feeling as well. Now, this is from your article, but it pertains to other things. In the article, it says, officials who have seen the doctor's letter say they are treating it with great seriousness and that they have not yet been able to either confirm or refute its allegations. However, an investigation into the facility is expected. Very often when something happens in Israel, like with the aid, the WCK, we hear that they're investigating. There's going to be an investigation.

And we never know, is that investigation serious? Is it in good faith? Can we trust the output of that investigation? Tell me about that. Sorry to be rude, but I think you are absolutely wrong about it. I think most of the tragedy that happened during this war and generally happened in Israel, investigated very, very careful and very, very, very serious. IDF investigated himself constantly. Every after attack, IDF forces investigate themselves once again and again and again. And this whole story, it's a fact, and it means a lot about the Israeli DNA, okay? The Israeli DNA is to put the truth on the table. And if it was not the DNA, so I would never tell this story in Israel. But the fact that the Israeli people wants to hear the truth,

the fact that the Israeli people wants to be better. And this is very important. After all big accidents and after all the big steps in the war, there was a specific team to investigate everything that happened. And I know that it's not the best situation that same organization investigating itself, but this is part of the way the military used to. It's not only the Israeli military, it's the U.S. military as well, and any other military forces around the globe. So yes, I do believe that this is very serious investigations, and I do believe that Israel do much more investigate than any other army would do in the same situation as we? Well, I'm very happy to hear that answer.

You know, I thought three times before I did the interview because I didn't know what you would say. And I have to be honest, you know, to disseminate to the world even more ammunition, I know I would get a lot of flack for that. But actually, this conversation is remarkable to me. And I just didn't expect that. And I admire you a great deal. I see where you're coming from. I see that you're unaf. I see the that you're unafraid of the truth wherever it leads you

and really, I can't say enough. I think it's very important because war, it's a bad situation, okay? And we, the Israeli the state of Israel

and the Israeli military did not only good things. And this is important to say, it's very clear. But at the end of the day, our meanings are peaceful meanings. Our wishes are only well wishes, only good wishes. We don't want to do any bad things or any inappropriate or unhumanitarian or unhumanitary any acts against the Palestinians even after October 7th. But I think that number one thing that all of us have to remember is that this is very difficult situation and this is a very difficult situation, and this is a very difficult story without any easy answers. All right. So now just I guess we can wrap it up almost.

But today there was an article, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, and it referenced what seems to be happening, the pulling out of the troops and the kind of backing into some sort of ceasefire, even without the hostages being released. And there was a line there that says that, to the author, I think it was Barton Swain, Hamas can kill, rape and maim Israelis and remain a legitimate political entity. Is that where this is going? I hope no. I do believe that most of the country around the world sees Hamas as a terrorist organization

and not as a political movement. The United States exists Hamas as a terrorist organization. Most of the countries in Europe declare Hamas as a terrorist organization. And I think that most of the world, most of the governments in the Western world sees Hamas as a bunch of terrorists and not as a political movement. But once again, the situation is quite different.

A lot of people see Hamas as a movement, as a freedom movement or as a peace movement who wants to free Palestine, and wants to get them their own country. And this is a big mistake, because at the end of the day, yes, Hamas did all those terrible things, unhumanity things, during October 7th, and during all the years that they fired those rockets to Israeli cities and to Israeli citizens. But at the end of the day, I think that most of the government do look Hamas as a terrorist

organization. I really hope that everyone understands or everyone will understand that an end of this war has to be part of the end of the war has to be an act of bringing back all the hostages from Gaza Strip back to Israel, because this is number one committed of any country around the world to their citizens. I think that the United States will do anything that the United States can do if your country will be in a similar situation. And of course, to bring back all the hostages is the number one priority for the Israelis. Do you think that the hostages might have come back more quickly if America and Israel had presented a more united front in terms of the psychological projection that the people in Hamas would know that if we don't release these hostages and take a boat to Tunisia or something, they're going to kill us. It is a certainty. We're not going to survive this unless we submit.

That's what I think. I really want to say yes, but the true answer is that I don't know. Because Yigit Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, is a psychopath. You cannot know how he will react to anything. He is a truly psychopath. Look, we deal with leaders, true leaders around the world, and we know that they might be like a little bit unexpected or a little bit, I don't know, in a certain sense. Let's take, I don't know, President Putin as an example, but at the end of the day, they are true leaders with something between their shoulders.

Yigit Sinwar is a complete psychopath. You cannot expect anything that he does. You cannot expect any react of Hamas led by Ichia Sinwar. So because of that, I really don't know what will be the answer. I don't know if President Biden put more pressure about Hamas, if something were changed. I really don't know. One thing seems to me for sure, then I'll have one more question and that'll be it. For the last two or three months already, if I was Sinwar i would say to myself it's working it's working i see the cracks are forming they're widening why in the

hell would i think about giving in now when it's clear to me that it's working i don't i don't see any way around that you're right actually you're right uh right. This is a very difficult situation and this is the only reason why we've been to a huge military act in Gaza Strip for the last six months. This is the only pressure that we can put on Hamas, the military pressure. This is the only pressure that we can use. There is nothing else. Last question. So I asked a guy I know who works with CNN. He's a data journalist. I heard that there was 150 to 200,000 Israelis internally displaced right now. And I asked him to calculate. I tried to think of a border city, San Diego. Is that as big as San Diego? And he says, it's as big as New York City. And I made an argument to a friend. I said, if there was not a single death, but New York City had to be evacuated indefinitely, America would go to war and do exactly what it had to do.

And he said, well, you can't really compare the scale that way. I said, OK, Cincinnati is about the same size. America would go to war for Cincinnati. America is not going to forfeit a city, even if not a single person dies. Is that a silly argument or is it just silly that the world doesn't accept it? Look at that, at 9-11. This is quite a good compare, I think. You went to army after 9-11 and there were less American citizens killed during the terrorist attack on 9-11 than Israel killed in October 7th.

And once again, in America, you have much more citizens than our 9 million citizens in Israel. So at the end of the day, this is a huge catastrophe for the state of Israel. And we went to this war because of what happened. in Israel. So at the end of the day, this is a huge catastrophe for the state of Israel. And we went to this war because of what happened. I think that any other reasonable country, any other reasonable leader would lead to the same war and even bigger war. And we saw it during the last 20 years that America was deep in the field in Iraq after 9-11? Oh, I said last question, but I actually thought something else because I'm really enjoying speaking to you. My thought was that deterrence has failed, right?

For a long time, the assumption was Hamas would never do anything terrible because they know we destroy them. But now it's clear that deterrence, that was a pipe dream. Deterrence is not sufficient to deter these fanatics. So my next thought is, well, then if they could get their hands on a chemical agent, on gas, on enriched uranium, now Israel has to assume that they would use it. And Hezbollah as well, unless there's some difference in their ideology. And that to me says they have to go. Is that wrong? No, but it's not news.

It's not new. Israeli working under the assumption that Hezbollah, Hamas is less relevant because Hamas cannot get any strong weapons. But they can get chemicals. If they can sneak in what they're sneaking in, you never know what they could sneak in the tunnel. That's right, but it's much more difficult. Let's say that during the last few years, Israel has put a lot of energy to make sure that Hezbollah doesn't get any strong weapons, any chemical weapons or any... Yeah, Hezbollah in the north.

You know, the newspapers around the world say that Israel attacks Iranian weapons cars who lead some weapons to Lebanon every few days during the last 10 years. So this is exactly what we're talking about. Those attacks against Iranian weapons who they try to deliver to Hezbollah, this is exactly the assumption that we work. As if Hezbollah gets anything strong enough, he will use it. Nasrallah will use these kind of weapons. So we work constantly during the last decade to avoid Hezbollah any strong weapons that can critically change the situation in Israel. Okay, well, listen, I'm so happy. I'm really so happy that I met you today.

Do you have any ambition to go into politics someday? I'm good in journalists. I think you do well in politics. Alright, do you ever get to New York? I'll definitely do it in the next few months. I would love to host you at the Comedy Cellar

if you would like to. I will be more than happy. But I think you have a really price problem in your city. The price increased like crazy during the last few months. Everything becomes so expensive in New York. Don't worry. I got you. You're comped in my place, so you can save money. All right. I'm going to press stop.