The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Ahmed Fouad Akhatib on Hamas, Israel and the Fight for Peace

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is the head of Realign For Palestine, a project of the Atlantic Council, where he is a resident senior fellow. He is a Gaza native and a political analyst who writes extensively on strategic affairs in the Middle East. Links to what was referenced in this episode:  https://x.com/trackingisrael/status/1877801096275431758 and  https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/18/jabaliya-refugee-camp-gaza-destruction-idf

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous Comedy Cellar, available wherever you get your podcasts. Available on YouTube, which is the preferred way to watch it, because you get the video, and there's a lot of video stuff, and stuff you want to see. And this is Dan Natterman, Comedy Cellar regular, although oddly enough, you know, my spots seem to be going down lately, oddly enough. I can't quite figure out why uh i'm here with noam dorman who's the owner of the comedy cellar and we do expect the new room i'm told to be finished in october october i was gonna make a joke go ahead in october in october uh but but i don't know if i was gonna say inshallah but i don't know you well first... I was going to say Inshallah, but I don't know you well enough to make that. Inshallah, yes, of course. And so maybe we'll even have a New Year's show there.

That would be nice. Periel Ashenbrand, of course, joins us. Hello. You love her or you hate her, but you're not indifferent, that's for sure, from what I read in the comments. And we have with us... That's true.

And also our special guest ahmed fuad al katib ahmed fuad al katib is the head of realign for palestine it rhymes people it's it's catchy a project of the atlantic council i'm not sure what that is but he is a resident senior fellow there and a gaza native who speaks perfect unaccented English. We'll probably ask why. And a political analyst who writes about the Middle East. Welcome, Ahmed. Thank you for having me. Delighted to be here. And I guess you went to American schools. I just spent a lot of time watching movies and playing video games. That's the secret.

First of all, can you explain to Dan or tell Dan, demonstrate to Dan how to pronounce your first name? Because he says it like Walter Matthau in the Bad News Bears. You remember that? There was a kid named Ahmed. Well, so, I mean, if you really want to get adventurous, you can try Ahmed. Ahmed. But you see, you already went there, dude.

A lot of people do the ha. No, no. Ahmed. No, Ahmed. It's a silent ha that most people aren't aware when they say it. So it's Ahmed. There's no. No, I'm not going.

No, no, exactly. So you're getting progressively better. Yeah. So Ahmed Fuad. From Gaza. Gaza. Gaza. Yes, Gaza.

Well, look. It's a Gaza. Gaza. Yes. She knows it. My pronunciation, I think, for me to try an Arabic accent, I would sound as ridiculous as Perrielle when she pronounces Brigitte Macron. Brigitte Macron.

Just get the way to Ahmed. Don't say Ahmed. Ahmed. No, but you know what, though? When I say Ahmed, because it's just I get tired of hearing the ha over time. People think I'm saying I'm Ed. I'm Ed. So I swear to God, so my default American nickname is Ed.

A lot of people just, and you know, at Starbucks, that's my American nickname. What's the name is Ed. Who are you? I'm Ed. That's very funny. This is a very lighthearted beginning to a conversation, which is about nothing more serious and weighty than the things we want to discuss. Now, you were born in Gaza. I was born in Saudi Arabia.

Born in Saudi Arabia. My dad was a doctor working in Saudi at the time. It's a very common Palestinian story for people from Gaza to be working in the Gulf as doctors, engineers, nurses, teachers. They build a nest nest and then they either take it back and invest it in Gaza or build a home for themselves and return. And my dad did ultimately return. And I did grow up in Gaza and we went back and forth in the 90s, but we actually, and we lived halfway through the 90s. We lived gaza for two years and then ultimately returned to gaza in the year 2000 right before the second intifada and when did you leave i'm asking did

you ever live uh post occupation or you well i i left in 2005 one month before the withdrawal of israeli um settlements so i experienced both the second intifada and the associated violence, but that also entailed the presence of direct Israeli military occupation, as well as the settlements that were in the Gaza Strip, which again, were vacated a month after I left. Okay. So what was your general feeling about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict up until the time that you left Gaza or even up until right prior to October 7th? Were you a one-stater, a two-stater, a wanted Israel to disappear? Where were you coming from generally in that conflict? Well, that's certainly a very broad umbrella. And I'd like to just like, please bring it to specifically to the time that I was there. And, you know, in the interest of time, I'll just

shorten it to say, Gaza was a very complex place in the sense that on the one hand, I caught the tail end of the Oslo peace process in the 90s and I experienced the hope and the optimism that that meant. Our family went from having the Egyptian travel documents to having a Palestinian passport. We had Palestinian IDs. We had a short-lived airport in Gaza. I flew into Gaza. Yasser Arafat Airport. Exactly, that Hillary and Bill Clinton opened in 1998 in November. There was the Palestinian Airlines. Can you imagine even just uttering those words,

Palestinian Airlines and the Gaza International Airport? There was the industrial zone in northern Gaza near the Erez crossing. There was discussion about an impending seaport because Gaza is actually the last territory overlooking the Mediterranean that hasn impending uh seaport because gaza is actually the last territory overlooking the mediterranean that hasn't had a seaport so i'm sorry so you with high hopes about a final settlement to this problem precisely like with gaza being the fulcrum of the development and and of nation building that could usher in a new Palestinian state. The reason I caught on that is because we had a not will fund two weeks ago and she made the case pretty compellingly.

I'd have to say, but that doesn't mean it's correct that that the Palestinian generally actually never had their hearts in the idea of a two state solution. But you're saying there was optimism about a two-state solution maybe you can reconcile those certainly so and i know in not well at a personal level and and i'm able to have so you're familiar with her position very much so and i'm able to disagree vehemently with a lot of her positions as well as have respect for what she's trying to accomplish what i will say genuinely is that the 1990s was a period of immense optimism that there could be a resolution,

that there really, there's this incessant desire by some, unfortunately, to always doubt the sincerity of the Palestinian people's desire for reconciliation and an end to the conflict. And to say this is merely a stepping stone, a temporary stepping stone, pending the acquisition of power and statehood that we will then use as a launching platform to eliminate Israel. When most of the Palestinian people deep down, the Palestinian people that I grew up with, the Palestinian people that are not monolithic, that are very diverse in their aspirations and their narratives and their descriptions of their past and their lived experiences, they know Israel is here to stay. They know Israel is a nuclear power. They know that the Jewish people are not a temporary,

you know, passing project after which they will just be magically gone. Hamas has propagated that notion with their armed resistance narrative. And so you have an element, a slice of Palestinian society that have been misled now for a generation into thinking that. But deep down, even Hamasniks themselves know that that's really not the case. And going back to the 90s, there really genuinely was, I remember the anger when Hamas would do these suicide bombings that were emboldening the right in Israel, empowering Netanyahu when he had a 30 point, you know, when he was trailing Shimon Peres by 30 points after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, Hamas's suicide bombings actually allowed Netanyahu not only to catch up to the Labor Party in the elections, but allowed him to escape a sexual misconduct scandal that almost tanked his political career. And that's when he became prime minister.

And I remember very vividly in Gaza, the discussion about how Netanyahu wanted to turn the then nascent Gaza International Airport into a football stadium. Football, not American, like soccer. Nobody calls it soccer in the rest of the world. Everybody calls it football. So this is the yin and yang. We had the Palestinian Authority under a pragmatic leadership that abandoned armed resistance, that yes, was corrupt, yes, was ineffective in a lot of different ways, but abandoned, made a courageous decision to abandon armed resistance to tell the people of Gaza and the people of the West Bank and the

Palestinian people, we're entering a new phase. The problem, unfortunately, is that Arafat, and I to this day have heard so many different narratives from different Palestinians as to why Arafat didn't accept the Camp David peace accords or peace proposal in 2000. But I'll come back to that in a second. But what I want to just go back to is just about me and Gaza at the time is that Gaza was a beautiful place that meant so much to its people. Gaza was the beach was something that before you go there, because I'm afraid you're going to go somewhere that won't get back to answering to asking you some questions about what you already said so i just forgive me okay um so what you're saying there you know i when brett stevens was here you know a year and a half ago i was talking about how the fact that much of this conflict is is a

psychological challenge to get the palest be able to agree, to accept what they might regard as a humiliation of Israel here to stay, even if they know Israel is there to stay, like a lot of things that are human, but to actually say it and to sign off on it and to have to publicly utter it as a truth is a psychologically difficult thing to do. And in my kind of maybe weaker moments or maybe more insightful moments, I had toyed with the idea like maybe Israel should just unilaterally withdraw. And yes, they say they want all of Israel. And yes, they say, but maybe kind of what you were saying, maybe the reality is that it would remove all the, like all the intensity would just leave the case.

Like they got all their territory back. And although they might still huff and puff and even engage in certain rhetoric, would they actually then move to try to continue sending rockets into Israel? And I say this in my weaker moments because I would have to say that I don't see how Israel can take that chance. After what happened in Gaza. Or even before.

Because it's not just the Palestinians, it's Iran trying to make sure that the most radical elements in the Palestinian world will be armed and can commit coups and, you know, make mischief in all kinds of ways. So I don't see how Israel could take that chance, but that doesn't mean, let's say it's a 5% chance it would end in disaster. I don't think Israel can take a 5% chance with all the marvels. But there is part of me which does feel that what you're saying might very well be true, that if we just looked past some of the rhetoric to a kind of deeper human kind of inference in what's going on here,

then maybe that would work out. I don't know how you feel about that. Well, so multiple things, that's part of the realign for Palestine philosophy, which is not just an organization. It's a framework. It's a way of thinking. It's not just what to think. It's how to think about the conflict. There's the radical pragmatism, the rejection of violence, the embrace of multiple truths, the two-nation solution. But the idea of multiple truths has been something that has truly, even before October 7th, helped me.

In my opinion, there's nothing radical about multiple things are true at the same time. But unfortunately, in today's polarized world both with regard to israel and palestine but also just with every other geopolitical issue or domestic issue look at our own political uh uh dynamics here i think it is accurate to i i acknowledge that after the experience of gaza and in 2005 and what happened with Hamas's rise to political power and the takeover, I acknowledge that there are, and how that was the crown achievement of that, achievement in quotes for listeners, it's not an achievement, it's a disaster, was October 7th, the single worst day attack, single worst day attack on the Jewish people

since the Holocaust. I get that. And this is actually a large part of why I think Hamas has been exceptionally criminal. In addition to the actual criminality, we'll talk about Hamas in a bit, is that it ultimately proved right the anti-Palestinian forces in israeli politics that said we can't i'm not saying i agree with this position because i'm going to tell you why i think it's wrong we can't end the occupation because look what they did in gaza look what they look what happens when you give them back their land um and like there's a logical component to that. all the the gush katif settlement block in the south that was this massive sprawling complex ended up being just like taken over large parts of of which hamas used as training grounds for launching rockets and for building tunnels and for practicing and for this instead of actually

training more palestinian authority security personnel instead of actually like coming up with a plan on here's the territorial plots and here's how we're going to withdraw and then you're going to come in like this could have been done differently for example it the 2006 elections that was something that was pushed for by the bush administration by condoleezza rice and then they acted the palestinian authority themselves were like we're not ready for elections. So now… It's a huge blunder, right?

Precisely, precisely that. You show that moderation pays off. You show that security coordination and collaboration between the Palestinian Authority and Israeli security forces works to stop a third intifada. You show that economic fulfillment and that we're going to reverse the settlement enterprise and we're going to actually allow, we're going to say we do, the partner that we do have have this specific partner that was willing dr salam fayyad the former palestinian prime minister is a very wonderful guy and a personal friend like instead of doing that and bolstering the moderate palestinians so that you then have a clear south korea-like model in the west bank that's a shining example of capitalism that works for the masses, not crony capitalism, security for all, for the Jewish and Palestinian people, stability, sprawling civil society, Palestinian economy, etc., a political life, and then you let Gaza become a mini North Korea. That speaks for itself. Netanyahu was like, oh, how amazing.

How wonderful. And by the way, I'm not denying Palestinian agency in this case. I'm simply saying this was very much so a nefarious 3D game, chess game that backfired horribly and gave us Hamas's entrenchment and Gaza's metro and 500 miles of tunnels and October 7th, ultimately, where it was like, oh, how wonderful. We don't have a partner. We're going to unleash our violent settlers. And I know not all settlers are the same, and some are economic settlers and some are violent settlers. The end result is the same, which is the denial of the Palestinian people, the territories that they feel is theirs, that they feel is where they can have a state where, by the way, you can actually solve, for example, the so-called right of return. That is something that's central to the Palestinian national identity.

My grandparents and parents were pushed out in 1948, like straight up pushed out. I acknowledge the injustice that took place there and there were multiple even benny morris wrote that you know there's there there there were examples where the arabs were unhelpful let's pause there because i want i want to talk about that i want to hear this again i want to let me just what you said and then let's go on to the right of return okay we'll come back to the right of return but the right of return you can solve by basically saying palestinians can have the right of return but the right of return you can solve by basically saying palestinians can have a right of return to a future palestinian state there is no right

of return of millions of descendants of palestinian refugees to mainland israel let's go back to what you say about the the um north korea south korea so one of the, you said Palestinians have agency and I, I don't know if you could take my temperature or like my, my soul yet, but I'm not here to tell you that Israel didn't do anything wrong or anything like that. I don't, I don't know the details of all that. And why would I think that some is any Israeli prime minister is imbued with some magical judgment or powers or even virtue? Like anything. But having said that, there was always something, a 30,000-foot view that I always had, is that I lived through the total change of heart in the Israeli people when Sadat spoke to the Israeli people in a certain way.

My father, I've told the story too many times in this podcast. My father, who was very skeptical, very skeptical. When Sadat came and spoke to the Knesset, he began to cry. He's like, oh, they mean it. Give them whatever they want. They mean it, you know. This is the one thing the Palestinians never did that was easy to do if they meant it and would have made all the difference, or if it wouldn't have made all the difference, would have really made Israel look very difficult to defend, is that there was never a face of the Palestinian people saying, we want to live in peace with you. We were very close in Camp David. There's a few little details, let's knock it out. We don't ever want another Palestinian or Jewish baby to die. And if the Jewish people would hear that, especially post-Second Intifada, which they

couldn't process the Second Intifada, Well, let me put it another way. Until some Palestinian would do that, it was not realistic to think that any policy was going to work. The Israeli people were not going to take a chance on moving towards anything unless they heard from the people they're moving towards words of peace. And that's why, and that is what I blame. And in that context, I can totally see Netanyahu saying, let's not, let's keep them divided. Let's do everything we can to kick this can down the road and make it possible because we are just going to get ourselves in trouble yet again. I mean, this is only a few years after the more tolerant or left-wing policy had blown up in Israel's face until, I mean, October 7th was the highest killing of Jews since the Holocaust, but it was really just, the second intifada was just a slow rolling version

of October 7th, just as brutal, just as aimed at civilians, just as difficult to comprehend, except that it seemed to be a reaction to the peace process, not to Netanyahu, right? So that's my feeling about it. I don't know if you have any comments on all this. Yes, I'll give you a quick comment of what is the, and again, I'm not, I don't claim to speak on behalf of all Palestinians, but this is a common response that you will hear to that point of view. I'll give you my thought, which is maybe not as popular and the one that I personally believe could have made things differently. why is it the Palestinian people's responsibility to basically bow down to the Israelis who are, in their view, the original aggressors, the original folks who displaced the Palestinian people, who engaged in all sorts of violent acts of what you, what would...

That's not a serious answer. Well, the Palestinian people in refugee camps would beg to differ. They would say, we are still experiencing the consequences of... and again, I'm simply reciting. I'm not going to say it's not a serious answer because all I'm saying is that if you want peace, you should say you want peace. That's all. No, no. That's not bowing down. Yes.

I'm coming to my own answer. Sadat did not bow down to Israelis. And I'm coming to my own personal Ahmed answer, which I actually believe more and more Palestinians are mobilizing toward that position. What folks would tell you is that this wasn't just Netanyahu saying, let's keep them divided. It was it when extra the extra, extra, extra mile of saying, let's use this as an opportunity to conquer more land, to steal more of the Palestinian people beyond what is legitimately the state of Israel as recognized by the international community. On the other hand, I personally have experienced over the years of my own journey of transformation that many across the Jewish and Israeli community who are a spectrum, who are not monolithic, who not, and I'm not just saying right or left, you know, center right, center left, even within the, like Zionism is a spectrum.

And you have folks who use Zionism or Zionist as a slur without actually understanding what Zionism means to different people. I aspired after October 7th, very much so, and after I lost 33 of my immediate and extended family members in Gaza, thinking that this was a little over a year ago, that maybe the war would end a little bit sooner. Maybe there would be an exit strategy sooner. Maybe there would be some outcome that is a little bit different than the disaster that we have on our hand right now. And I genuinely and sincerely floated around the idea of me going, me as just an average person, not a leader, because no Palestinian leader right now is going to do this, and normalizing, like kind of leading by example, and talking to the Israeli Knesset.

And not talking to the Knesset itself, per se, because a lot of the membership there is deeply problematic and deeply anti-Palestinian. And that's much different than it was 20 years ago. Precisely. But like really talking to the Israeli people across their diversity and doing just that. Taking your life in your hands.

Precisely. And I was willing to take that risk. I was willing to, I mean, I'm no Sadat, but what I wanted to do is I've increasingly become convinced that the majority of Israelis, and I say this with all due sincerity, despite the fact that some of them, I think, hold really problematic views. Of course they do. The majority of Israelis at the end of the day... Yeah, sorry. No, that's all good. The majority of Israelis

at the end of the day really just want recognition that they have a right to live in safety and not be subjected to endless rhetoric, threats, and the risk to lose their lives. majority of israelis want to be integrated in the region and they want to be able to be a part of the arab world and to the

for the muslim world and to be partners in this region and to be long acting you know builders along with everybody else because they have expertise it's a my point is i don't for a second believe that most israelis even know or care about the so-called greater israel project i think no they don't i think there's like a small number of people who might profess that thing in the same way that there are you know there are muslims who believe in the caliphate i mean look at isis ISIS. There are Muslims who are totally expansionist. Does that mean every Muslim deep down wants to just expand and take over the entire world? Absolutely not. So, I very much so share your, from a different angle, from a Palestinian self-interested, self-interest point of view to not like, like I've been, I've been contemplating,

I have this draft that I've literally had for eight months and I've struggled with putting it out. And literally the title of the draft is called the honor. I've never said this publicly so god help me it's called the honorable defeat and it is talking about the honorable defeat like like like basically trying to destigmatize the fact that short term with october 7th so tactically and long term basically since 1948 strategically we've basically we've lost we have lost virtually every military and diplomatic slash political engagement we've entered from a position of aggression or thinking that we're going to push for better a better bargaining position or a better negotiating position and at what point do we and part of this is ego part of this is the Arab culture that's very honor-driven.

Part of this is just this sense of those who are even some fake moderates, like Mustafa Barghouti, whom I think has revealed himself to be a complete fraud in the West Bank. Do you know who I'm talking about? I know him. You know the name? I know the name. That's fine. That's fine that's fine but like the other day he's like he was like you know he keeps he's basically like gone for like fully pro-hamas

right now and this guy is like independent and blah blah blah civil society blah blah blah all complete fraud in my opinion and he just like yells at this he was in a like discussion with someone on al jazeera and he's like so what you want us to like you want us to admit defeat you want us to be defeated you want us to declare that we we lost like as if that was the gravest most horrendous thing that the palestinians could ever do and i honestly it is hard for not this is not limited to the palestinians this is very hard for nations to do right this is why we dropped the atom bomb precisely precisely and so that like like again this is not me being a defeatist i actually think like there's an honorable like and i'm i was trying to think of like an honorable framework through which like and people are gonna some people are gonna listen

to this and be like we told you this guy is a zionist spy mossad agent whatever um apparently the mossad is paying me 30 million let's stop there because you know i don't know you i don't i'm not really familiar with your background and i and i'm wary of the fact that i will be uh criticized for having like an uncle an Uncle Muhammad on the show. Like, you know, like... Yeah, no, that's fine. I mean, that accusation is levied against me all the time. But, you know, it's like when I criticize the Israeli government and Israeli policies, the pro-Palestine people love it.

When I criticize Hamas and I criticize Palestinian failures, the pro-Israel people love it and the pro-Hamas people or the pro-Palestine people, they're like, oh my God, you are the definition of a sellout. You are the definition of this and that. This would not certainly be the first time that somebody attempts to say, well, why are you talking to an Uncle Ahmed? Yeah, Uncle Ahmed. Uncle Ed. Uncle Ed. Uncle Ed. Uncle Ahmed is better than Uncle Uncle. Uncle Ed. Uncle Ed. Uncle Ed. Uncle Ed is better than Uncle Muhammad.

So we are going to have on the man behind History Speaks, the guy who debated on the Glenn Lowry show. And he's a more typical, I think, advocate of the Palestinian cause. He's going to come on in June. He might send you an email today. But we've struggled actually to find people who would be willing to come on the show. I've not been afraid of giving a platform, as they say, to... I mean, I'd have a Hamas advocate on and speak to him.

I want to speak to... You have. His name's Norman Finkelstein. I want to speak to people like that. But I also do want to speak to people like that, but I also do want to speak to you. And now that you've said that you've lost 33, I said. Yes, of my family members and both of my childhood homes have been destroyed. And so you definitely have a right to be heard on this. And so let me ask you.

And that's awful. How do you apportion blame? How much do you blame Hamas? How much do you think Israel has been excessive? Let's go through the whole thing. Do you think there's collective punishment going on? Are they starving people? You can kind of picture the bullet points of what's out there. And just give us your take on on all the

kind of things that we hear but we don't really know we don't really know what to believe certainly certainly um and again it's like one of the things that has both been like interesting to folks about what i say is that i i don't like i don't feel the need there's a high level of enforced cohesion and forced conformity in my opinion when it comes to what it means to be pro-palestine what it means to express solidarity with the palestinian people how do you do that and and also like any condemnation of hamas or any condemnation of the palestinian people's failures is an immediate is for some is an immediate um it's just a form of treachery being a sellout or it's akin to me attacking my own people and i you know almost like once a week have to put out

a post just to make it clear you love your own people oh my god i i'm my i identify as pro palestine i want to redefine what it means as pro-palestine i want to redefine what it means to be pro-palestine i want to separate the just and urgent palestinian aspirations for freedom and liberation and and independence and self-determination from the actions of a nefarious terrorist islamist death cult but i also want to do a little bit of tough love and push my own community that, again, I love and care about deeply, deeply to engage in some introspection and reflection to learn from our past. What's challenging about this, just on a human dynamic, is that you're really the mirror image of like a Peter Beinart,, right? He says the same kind of things about, I love being Jewish.

And we hate Peter Beinart. We think he's a self-hating Jew. I mean, so, but that doesn't mean, it's just an interesting dynamic. And doesn't Peter Beinart advocate for a one-state solution? Yes, but yes, he does. But I'm saying he advocates against Israel

like Ahmed is advocating against Hamas and even the other Palestinian leadership using the same kind of arguments that actually it's because I love my people so much that I'm advocating in this way. But the truth is he can be right and Bein can be wrong it's not it's not you know and also like i respect mr biner immensely and like he's somebody who knows about me but like like he also he has a very prescriptive precise man idea of what constitutes being pro-palestine like he wouldn't

touch me with a 10-foot pole because he has amassed a certain following that would be that would turn on him for having a palestinian with a disruptive narrative come on board so that crazy stuff that part like i i'm not i'm not really down with even though he has every right to believe and say i can try to facilitate a conversation with the two of you uh i said we hate peter bernard i don't mean we hate him personally i actually like him personally i mean we hate him like what he stands for you know i'm i'm sure plenty of people hate him on a personal level too but no but he follows me like like i have no hate whatsoever for him i'm just simply saying that i one of the things that i want to do is i don't want to just talk to people who like my views and support them i want to induce behavioral change or just

plant seeds for folks to think differently including for leftist audiences including for the jvp types i mean for goodness sake i had a group of jvp activists block me from speaking at a synagogue in northern california because I'm not a real Palestinian. Like, leave it to leftist Jews to decide. Leftist Jews to decide who's a real Palestinian. That is a deeply offensive notion. This echoes like black conservatives. Like, this is a common thing.

I think a lot of Jvp people aren't even jewish that's true okay but wait can i just say one thing you were saying before that there are certain people in very high positions who don't even want to have you on because your narrative is not sensationalist enough precisely that and and and matter of fact, there are, like, for example, Hamas is regularly shooting, torturing, executing, eliminating Palestinians in the Gaza. And I'm going to come back to your point about what's happening in Gaza right now. I'm going to talk about starvation. We will get there. I promise you.

My brother is on the ground. He runs a major medical NGO. So, like, I'm not just talking about what I see on social media. He's in Gaza. He's in Gaza right now. And he is in the humanitarian community. But just, that's a really important point so i share regular evidence hamas themselves just like they did on october 7th but people say oh hamas didn't didn't commit atrocities hamas regularly shares videos of them executing people shooting people torturing people um the other day

they said they're going to start beheading people who are thieves, who are stealing food supplies or whatever. And I put this out, and all the leftists, pro-Palestine voices, who are not, some of whom are Jewish, some of whom are white, some of whom are Turks and Pakistanis and Arabs and Egyptians and whatever. Some of whom are Columbia students. Exactly. They all see it.

They follow me. They see everything I put out and they say zilch, zero, nothing, nada, ولا حاجة. Why? Because their audiences are largely pro the resistance. And they very much believe that if they were to expose their audiences to a pro-Palestine narrative that is anti-Hamas, they would lose subscriptions, they would lose audiences, they would lose follows and likes and shares. And so they have a ton of... We have the same thing on the Israeli side. I bet, I bet. It's a very human, like, yeah.

I bet. So going back to what's happening in Gaza right now, which is not static, which has gone through changes. It's almost, it's a year and a half. Where things are right now are radically different than where things were. And strictly, I'm talking, starting with the humanitarian conditions. In terms of the humanitarian conditions, you really do have genuine levels of what I would call mid-level starvation in most parts of Gaza, with some pockets of the strip,

well, before that, strike that, before that, you have unequal distribution of the remnants of the food in Gaza, whereby some parts, they'll have like some pockets of maybe central Gaza, some tiny little pockets in northern Gaza from the almost the 52 days when we had the ceasefirefire during which some hostages were released and a lot of trucks were sent in. During that time, a lot of people stockpiled supplies. Hamas stole some of those supplies. Hamas sold some of those supplies. Hamas made money off of some of those supplies. That's why Israel thought that, oh, let me cut off some of the funding from Hamas, even though we're not talking about

all supplies. We're talking about a small slice of the supplies that were just enough for Hamas to get some cash out of it. The supplies that were coming into Gaza are two types. There are humanitarian supplies, and then there are commercial goods, and that's what business people pay money to bring in, and then they turn around, and then they sell it for people. I might ask some naive questions, but I saw on Twitter yesterday some shawarma stands. Yes, there are local sources, local people that have some remnants of – of they have some livestock for example some chicken this nobody so this is what i don't understand again this might be stupid questions that's fine that's fine ask away so gaza is a pretty small place you could actually walk from one end of

gaza to the other end of the gaza in a day right yes but it's a it's not it's small it's a big small place right but it's still, it's 20 miles. Yes. So, and I'm saying if I'm starving, you know, I don't want to walk 10, not everybody's on the opposite end. I don't want to walk 10 miles to go get something to eat. But why is there not a line like down the block and around the corner for this shawarma restaurant in a country that you say is mostly starving starving like this this i'm trying to just understand i'm not i'm not i'm not questioning it understood yeah understood because i could just walk because it's gonna take you four hours yeah i'm hungry i'm gonna walk four hours a year and a half yeah of no work yeah the majority of gazans don't have any cash left

that shawarma that you saw is selling at 100 shekels per shawarma which is like 30 which is literally something that most people can't even come anywhere near having access to that shawarma was made by somebody who managed to keep a few living chickens or a couple of little lambs or something like that they have and, and that, how they have propane is amazing. The propane tanks right now are selling for something like six, 700 shekels. The, a bag of flour sold during the ceasefire, well, before the war, it was for 50 shekels, which is roughly like $10. During the ceasefire,

it sold for like 75 to 80 shekels. Right now, in some parts, it sells for 800 shekels, which is over $200. And some of those who are selling it, some of those supplies are looted. Some of those are basically warlords that are selling it some of those are hamas affiliated businessmen they're selling it mixed with soil and sand so people can't even use it 800 shekels which is well over it's like 220 dollars most people don't have any money to afford any food. So this is deceptive. These videos are deceptive. Complete. And I know the account that you're talking about.

I know who, I know personally. And yesterday, this account deleted a video after I publicly called them out. Because they said, oh, look, everybody in Gaza is chanting for Hamas. And they were literally just a small group of people that they thought the chanters were saying, and I said, no, fool. They're saying, we are Fatah.

Fatah. The other party, Fatah and Hamas. And then they were like, oh, sorry, I stand corrected. And then they deleted it. So they were chanting for Fatah, for the opposite. For Fatah, Hamas. And then they were like, oh, sorry, I stand corrected. And then they deleted it. So they were chanting for Fatah, for the opposite. For Fatah, for the opposite. Now, are they risking their lives by doing that? A little bit, yes, very much so.

You see somebody on a cell phone camera, but you recognize the guy, and you want to make a point? But, I mean, that's less risky than saying, like, down with Hamas, or go, like, screw. Like, it's a little, there's less risky than saying, like, down with Hamas or go, like, screw. Like, it's a little, there's tiers of that. But we digressed a little bit. The point is, there's been a, multiple things can be true at once. There can be pockets of people where they can have a little bit of desserts.

And by the way, those people who are selling desserts or selling the shawarma stand, they might themselves not be able to afford the shawarma, but they're part of an enterprise. They and a couple of other people are part of an enterprise that's trying to provide for their families using whatever little resources they have. But the majority of people that you see with those pans and they're desperate and they're lining over on top of each other and they're trying to get some food that is the majority of the population right now that is lining up that is getting you know carbohydrates that is getting rice or getting bits of bread and that's where the real hunger and the real starvation is happening and and um some number of children are have starved to death uh just or no medical conditions but just actually because there's not enough i mean

i have seen enough enough and and i you know where people just like they'll just lift their their their t-shirts and just show they're like i haven't had dinner um for like two nights and we're skipping meals we have you know, so like the unfortunate thing is like, yes, children are vulnerable for malnutrition. Even adults themselves are losing a bunch of weight, but you don't have to go that far. A year ago, I helped get my brother's wife and four children out of the Gaza Strip.

When I picked those four and this, my brother at the time, this wasn't even anywhere as bad as it is right now my brother is more set than others because he works for a humanitarian organization he has modestly more access to food and even these little ones they were they were they were they were totally emaciated and i spent like two or three months in the uae trying to fatten them up my point is yes it has been so horrendously obvious for everybody and the amount of denial and i understand i understand the rhetoric is sometimes unproblematic i understand that by the pro-palestine people i understand that there have been some inaccuracies i understand

some reports may have overstated may have not been entirely accurate etc but to have mass scale denial of the true scale of the horror that is taking place right now by the way i am having because i'm based in washington dc and i don't sound like an uncle muhammad to me but go ahead go ahead i'm i'm having meetings with with folks in in the israeli high command um sorry former high command people who are let me say this i'm having meetings with top former senior israeli military officials who are in touch with the high command and there is now a brewing disagreement whereby the israeli military is worried that they're going to be left holding the bag for a political decision a purely political decision it's not that the israeli military has so much love and compassion for the people of Gaza per se, but they're a professional fighting

force that is now being tasked by basically administering a policy of pressuring Hamas using starvation, using food. I mean, Hamas is broke. Hamas is out of options. They went after Senwar yesterday under the European hospital. How do you think they went after him? Because a lot of people in Hamas's periphery are providing information to the IDF because they're all broke. They haven't been paid. But you didn't need to starve two million people for that stuff. So my concern is that we're mixing two things. We are mixing the need to counter Hamas with what I believe is perpetrating one of the most horrendous, entirely avoidable humanitarian catastrophes. By the way, so that's the hunger. That's the hunger thing. You have blood pressure. You have

thyroids. You need Tylenol. You have three general categories of medications that you need in Gaza. So you have the acute medical supplies, and that's related to trauma and injuries from the war. And that's related to all the trauma care from the bombardment. And then you have just basic medical supplies. And basic doesn't just mean, like basic could be your blood pressure, your thyroid, your basic medications. So let me ask you then,

because you're painting a very dire picture. I mean, I hope no one would, you struggle with this because if you have any decency when you hear stories like this, your immediate reflex is that we have to stop that. You know, how can you be responsible for this kind of suffering? And then another part of my brain says, no, this is the way every war in history has been. If you can't stomach war, then what are you going to do? Let Hamas win? And, but, you know, I've said for a long time that, you know, we won't really be able to judge all this.

Like we really couldn't judge the Korean War and all the killing that went on there, right? Like you think this is bad, right? Except for the fact that we have the result of a thriving, free, wealthy South Korea. And you say, well, if that's what came of that war, we can live with that war rather than having the starving to death of North Korea for the entire peninsula there, right? So much of this will only be able to be judged when we see what future can it bring to these poor, suffering people. And I'm sure you've had thoughts along the lines of what I'm saying, I'm wondering where are you at? Do you think Israel should allow Hamas to stay

in charge? Do you think Israel has come Hamas to stay in charge? Do you think Israel has come this far and they should see where this goes and see if this strategy works? Such difficult questions. And nobody knows, but what's your feeling about it? Well, I would let you know that the Korean War ended in stalemate,

whereby it basically restored what was there after three years of of of the war it ended in stalemate the alternative was the north took took over and that would have been you know but but and the other thing too is that i i am familiar with that's just the first war that came to mind anyway certainly certainly but but but the theory is that in theory we have evolved as a world since world war ii and the korean war hasn't and and and and um and the vietnam war and israel is a democratic first tier first world country that should not fight at the level of hamas so how do they fight How do they fight? So my point is that

these, what is coming out of this isn't just, what's coming out of this is children with brain damage forever that's going to stunt their growth and make them very vulnerable to radicalization and to being actual terrorists, not because they want to necessarily sign on to Hamas's agenda. People in Gaza are done with Hamas. This is part of what sustains me, is that they're terrified. They can't speak out. They can't, but people on hungry stomachs can't stand up to a terror organization.

No, I am totally convinced, especially coming from you, that what's happening to these people is a humanitarian catastrophe you know forget about starving just being killed is bad enough like for some reason we said but they're starving but what about all the ones that are

dead in the rubble like what do we say about those people and I don't want a freezing of the conflict either so you said how should Israel I mean unfortunately throughout this war there have been numerous squandered opportunities. Listen, I'm no fan of the Palestinian Authority as is.

But I and security experts and David Petraeus and elements of the Israeli, Yav Galant, not the goofball Mr. Katz right now. I'm sorry, with all due respect, who's a buffoon, basically. That's Netanyahu's's guy who's the defense minister is there hexeth i mean he basically like whoa whoa more more on that more more on that like but but but the point is the palestinian authority elements of it not the not bring the palestinian authority from the west bank and boom to not bring the palestinian authority from the west bank and boom put them in in in the gaza strip but a slice of the pa which is their security services and you can train them in in jordan where there's an an academy a u.s setup academy so so is there a path

where israel could stop the war now and install i'm i'm coming up i'm just getting lay out several options here you have the palestinian a very viable credible path where the palestinian authority could have been given some security responsibilities as part of a massed force that could have then stood up a local militia to actually do the heavy lifting of fighting off Hamas and they could have they dare people that know the terrain the locals when they could have when could this have happened this could have happened any time during the war but there's an ideological decision by Netanyahu that anything resembling the Palestinian authority it irks him because it reminds him of the two-state solution and that means the Palestinians could have sovereignty

no no no no, being Smotrich and Ben-Gvir and all the far-right fascists in the Israeli government, they want voluntary migration right now. They want to make Gaza as unlivable as possible, destroy it all, make it horrendous, so that, you know, and they wanted that at the beginning of the war, but Egypt built, which I think was a horrendous decision, and I've long been critical of Egypt for doing that. They've built three Berlin Walls to ensure that Gazans could never come in. What is different about this war, this war is radically different than any modern contemporary war in that the population has not been separated from the militants.

Oh, I want to ask you about that. The population has not been allowed to leave. The population has not been placed in safe zones that allows it to access aid to not starve. I want to ask you two things. So first of all, just again, I don't know just like you do, but I'm skeptical about this Palestinian Authority militia. I just feel like it would become an insurgency and a civil war. And at some point you would have the look of Palestinian Authority people or any other Arab country, they talk about other Arab countries,

doing Israel's bidding. And this would just be untenable and would just turn into a disaster. That's my gut on it. The smotrous stuff, I tend to agree with you. They have bad intentions. I don't think Netanyahu, I mean, Netanyahu was obviously made a deal with the devil with smotrous, but he considers them the devil. It's not like nothing. Now he's actually a cautious guy. But this is my question.

It's related. I saw a video on memory, M-E-M-R-I, where I forgot the guy's name, a Hamas leader. He might be dead now, but he was one of the ones who I saw a lot six months or a year ago. but he was one of the ones who I saw a lot six months or a year ago. And he was calling upon the Palestinian Arabs to rise up and to violence in Israel. And of

course, no Israeli could hear that and say, oh, that's ridiculous. They would never. I'm sure Israel's worried about it. All of which is to say, it tied in my brain to the fact that Hamas doesn't wear uniforms and doesn't segregate their civilian casualties from their fighter categories. All of which creates the impression to me that they don't see any difference, that they regard every life as part of the resistance. We're not going to report the Dermot Smith civilians and fighters because there is no Dermot Smith civilian and fighters. And we're going to try to get the, these are not fighters. The Israeli Arabs are not fighters. We're going to try to get them to commit acts of violence.

And the children we've heard, and of course, well, they're martyrs too. And the good news is, by the sorry i'm not i'm not interrupting the good news is the majority of people of gaza recognize and say exactly what you just said there like how despicable and disgusting hamas's conduct is so like this is so that's one thought i had and then and that ties with another thought I had which is kind of like a a thought experiment and I'm imagining that um I'm in Gaza and uh you're you're the Hamas guy you're Ahmed and uh you say listen no I'm although Naeem I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna um I have an uncle name yeah I used to have a friend named Naeem. I'm going to build 300 miles of tunnel for strategic purposes.

You know, we're eventually going to have to fight Israel. We're going to build 300 miles of tunnel, and I'm going to build it under everything, under our hospitals, under our mosques, under our schools, under every major residential building. It'll be great. And I say, wait, Ahmed, but if you do that, and then a battle of some kind starts, Israel's going to be forced to destroy all of Gaza to fight us because we're purposely putting everything under the ground. That'll lead to the end of everything, Ahmed.

And Ahmed says to Naim, no, no, no, Israel can't do that. That would be immoral. We win if we do that. Let's build everything under all our major population. Because it makes Israel look bad. And it makes them look bad. And they'll actually be wrong. The world will tell you if Israel does.

But Naim, but Ahmed, but that's your strategy. Your strategy is to put everything under all these people. How could it be Israel's fault? Naim, are you listening? We win if we do this. Now that is what I'm describing is basically where the world seems to be. And I don't know, I'm trying not to be unfair about it. I'm condensing everything to a thought experiment, but I think that is accurate here that they built everything to make it impossible for Israel to fight them except by doing the things that we're seeing. And then when Israel does the things that we're seeing,

people say, no, you can't do that. And the entire notion of international law is turned on its head such that it's now being used in the service of evil. Instead of being a way to prevent evil by telling people what moral people shall do, it's being gamed by the immoral people to allow them to weaponize it so they can do the most horrible things, the very things it was designed to prevent. We will build all our strategic assets under our hospitals, mosques, schools, and population centers.

And now Israel shall do nothing because what they are doing is what we're seeing. Something has to give there. When I look at it that way, and this is where I'm kind of upset with some people who have commented glibly on this, like Ta-Nehisi Coates. I said, fine, I get it. But explain to me, engage with the heart of the matter here is that this is a strategy which is playing out. And it's not Israel's strategy. This is Hamas's strategy.

And, well, yeah, but it's not fair to the civilians. Wait, but we just established we don't really know what the civilians are. I don't want to say this ugly thing like everybody in Hamas is a fighter. Everybody's a target. I'm not saying that. I'm saying how do we know what the targets are when the people we're fighting believe every one of them is a fighter? We are supposed to be more charitable about who's a fighter than they will about their own people right certainly so so again multiple things can be true at once i hope i'm not offending you with anything i'm no no no no i i've and i've i've i've

heard this and and i've engaged in it and i agree with quite a bit of, of, of some of the framing. I think there are parts where I think we, like what Israel is doing goes far beyond the, the, what you might deem as necessary. I assume that's true. I assume it's true. But, but,

but, but, but so just bit by piece by piece, number one is Hamas. Absolutely. And, and it's in war and in intercepts that um were obtained by u.s and and arab intelligence said these are necessary sacrifices uh haniya ismail haniya who

was assassinated in tehran said we need the blood of palestinian children to like they say it out loud out in the open hamas's strategy is very much that- Israel should not oblige them or use- Thank you. And Israel should not use it as an excuse. Thank you. But the flip side is it can't be used as a checkmate to Israel. We can do this. And, you know, I'm sorry to talk so much,

but I see a similarity between the revisionist's position on Hitler, World War, you know, like Daryl Kubler, now Churchill was the bad guy, and Putin and Israel, I've come to calling them the one more chance school of thought. It all comes down to, like, yes, of course, Hitler was a bad guy,

but he could have had one more chance. You know, he could have given him Poland, and then we'd see. Yes, Putin may want to take more, reconstitute the Soviet Union, but okay, let him have Ukraine. Let's give him one more chance. And the same thing with Hamas. No matter how many ceasefires we've had, listen, okay, let's give them one more chance, right? That's really what it all comes down to. We'll let them stay in power. They're going to be a ceasefire. They're going to promise to be good boys this time.

This one more chance school of thought is enraging because it's something that people, it's a luxurious, luxuriant position that people who don't have their own children threatened can engage in. If you're an Israeli

person, you're like, no. They're all out of chances. If you're an Israeli person, you're like, no, they're all out of chances. If you're a Gazan person who has to actually deal with the destruction and the consequences and living in a tent, living in fear. Or losing 33 people in your family. Like, you're long out of chances. The Israelis have iron domes, and they have the aero system, and they have David's sling. We don't have any of that.

We don't even have a single bomb shelter. So, again, we're in agreement that Hamas, at a ruthless level, very much so, acknowledges out in the open that that is their policy. Where I think people need to be a little bit more willing to push back on the Israeli strategy is that, like, I'll give you two specific examples. In Jabalia, where my father was, he was the head of the UNRWA clinic. He passed away five years ago, but he was the head of the UNRWA clinic, and I know Jabalia very well well it's one of the most dense refugee camps in gaza and refugee camps by the way for for those who are like they started as legit refugee camps and then over time this became these like sprawling communities so they look like cities they're like mini cities exactly but but they're they're packed and they started with asbestos homes that the UN built.

And then some of them had these metal, sheet metal, whatever. Okay. So, Jabalia in the north by Gaza City and Rafah in the south, where a lot of my – half of my family was basically killed there. And for the listeners, that's on the border of Egypt. And that's where a lot of smuggling of weapons and stuff has taken place. And so the targeting of specific Hamas targets, the targeting of missile launchers, the targeting of particular terrorists, the targeting of tunnel openings, et cetera, et cetera. But in the north, there was something called the General's Plan that was initially, you know, the Israelis came out and said, absolutely not, we will never do this. And it talked about how the plan is to basically push everybody in the north

to head down south and to destroy everything in Jabalia and north. So that's Jabalia, Beit Lahiyah, Beit Hanun. That destroy everything in Jabalia and north. So that's Jabalia Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanun, that's everything in northern Gaza, and push everybody down south. Something like 80% of Jabalia's buildings, I mean, we're talking thousands of buildings, they were destroyed not by bombardment, not in response to actionable intelligence not in response to informants or a specific launching no no no no no no no they brought in the bulldozers that were run by a private company and they systematically row by row by row by row they being the idf and these private firms all right is that's that's an allegation

is there is there a source that you can provide for me that i can put with the uh jerusalem just look up the general's plan no no you you send me because when we post this i i yes i i can channel the other way what does he talk 80 so you send me that so i can put it in the in the yes yes so row by row by row by row by row by row systematic deliberate destruction that you know if you're actually looking for a tunnel shaft opening you want to like go in you don't just dump a bunch of rubble on top of it this is very specifically in service of that general's plan that was intended to make sure people don't go back to their homes and are pushed down south and when last week was in now it's i think it's been 10

days when there was an announcement that the if the hamas doesn't release all the hostages which by the way i've from day one i've stuck my neck out and been attacked by my own community by connecting with hostage families. And that's part of how Melanie and I connected. And she's now my deputy director. By connecting with released hostages, freed hostages, hostage families, by speaking, by always saying from day one, from November, when the formal calls for ceasefire were coming out, I said, we need as pro-Palestine activists to pair calls for a ceasefire with the immediate release of all hostages and at bare minimum, the release of all women and children and the elderly. That's unconditional. Don't even talk

to me about it. Just no discussion. Just immediately right now, Hamas declares it. Okay, so that's literally not about retrieving the hostages or destroying infrastructure. That is about pushing people out of northern Gaza and ensuring they never come back. There's no military utility to this. There's no service to any of the declared war objectives with how that's done. Let's move down south into Rafah. And I posted it on my Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn. Netanyahu talking to members of the Knesset. And I've had some Israeli friends say, well, like basically the Times of Israel reported on how Netanyahu said that the goal is to destroy as many homes as possible throughout Gaza, throughout eastern Gaza, and certainly in Rafah. And they have exact quotes.

They have the full links. Times of Israel. This is not leftist Haaretz. I'm not touching Haaretz. You'll find this one, Pariel, for the show notes. Go ahead. And it's the last post on my Twitter where he said to members of the Knesset that our goal is to make it

so that most people have nothing to go back to and most of them to basically choose to leave Gaza so that they have to leave. He said this recently? He said this like three days ago. He said it in public session? He said it in the Knesset, in a closed-door session

that was reported on by Times of Israel and a couple of other sources. But I picked up the Times of Israel. You think he's emboldened by Trump here? A hundred percent. But also he's desperate to try to keep his coalition because he's trying to prove to his, this is my assessment, my analysis, I think he's trying to keep his coalition together that's saying, it looks like you lost Trump. Trump is flirting with Arabs, Trump is getting this big beautiful plane from the Qataris, Trump is walking away from you, and there's been a lot of reports about the rift.

Mike Huckabee's coming out and saying, no no no we're all perfect it looks like um the the spokeswoman for for for the um white house is saying no there's no rift the jerusalem post why would the jerusalem post randomly report that trump is allegedly thinking about acknowledging a palace recognizing that i saw that was weird but but but but so and now the cognitive dissonance when i when i shared this this piece i've had big accounts the pro-israel accounts when i shared the times of israel piece and then haaretz at the beginning of the week did a profile on me so like now all of a sudden it's like okay haaretz bad they're leftist jerusalem post they suck because trump is gonna acknowledge the palestinian state uh times of israel they're

biased netanyahu couldn't possibly say that uh later today he's wonderful he's a friend of mine i love him so we can ask him about that but but but but but so you look same thing and i the videos are there i will send you the videos they're they're it's mainline headlines row after row after row after row they're private it's not the the doobie you know they call them the doobies that d9 um uh uh militarized bulldozers they're no doobies they're all these private firm uh bulldozers um they're they're they're with the the little crusher claws and they're just like six or seven of them and they're like and they're just like with the jackhammers tell me i can't that that is not that not you you but but it's a rhetorical you. Tell me that that is actually not going above and beyond the trap that Hamas attempted and thought it laid for the Israelis. this like yesterday's airstrike that targeted the european hospital uh the periphery of the

european hospital and parts of it where sin war was hiding underground they target the hospital targeted sin war well it's so so there you go they targeted sin war what folks don't understand is that in international humanitarian law what hamas is doing in schools and in hospitals and in kindergarten it actually removes the protection of the and the the the the sanctity of the hospital of the schools of the this of the that now people say so so people are like oh no this is against international law and i'm like you folks, can we please understand what international law, not because I want Israel to strike hospitals, but I want us to come out and say,

this is not how international law works so that Hamas, because Hamas listens to the PR, Hamas, believe it or not, actually cares about international public opinion. They don't care one bit about the people of Gaza. So I was like, you guys can actually stop repeating Hamas's talking point and say, oh, actually, Hamas, yeah, this isn't going to work anymore.

We're going to have to wrap it up. So we've been here over an hour. This has been really interesting. What you're saying reminds me of something that I felt early on. It was two kinds of things. First of all, is that one wonders in two ways, if the Biden administration had had a different attitude, if the war might've been finished already and that a less restrained Israeli army early on might have been more effective and in the long run killed fewer people, although it might've looked more horrible at the time.

This kind of like three quarters things kind of spread the war out over a year and a half. But, and the second thing is that Hamas is so sophisticated about world opinion that this was the ultimate mistake in my mind that the Biden administration made. They telegraphed to Hamas by constantly wringing their hands over every single thing that Israel was doing. It was very rational for Sinwar to say, just keep it up. We might just win this. The Biden administration, they haven. We might just win this. The world, the Biden administration, they haven't got the spine for this. And the world is taking its signals from that. And it was a terrible thing to see the Biden administration not have,

from my point of view, not have the courage to deny Hamas that PR victory in the way like Fetterman was doing. John Fetterman was like, I don't care, release the hostages. But they're doing this. I don't care, release the hostages. Talk to me after the hostages are released. Bah, bah, bah, bah.

That was Fetterman's attitude. There's something callous about that, but also maybe very effective for an American president to have been a little bit more, you know, close-minded in that way to signal to Hamas, maybe, listen, guys, this is not going to go well for us. You know, listen to the American president.

He doesn't give a shit about our problems. We have to find a different tactic. I don't know. i don't know i don't know well so so that assumes though that the some the initial phases of the war weren't harsh enough when in fact that's when the majority of the casualties took place what was not problematic like three months in when the when it when the biden administration or maybe soon my memory is not good it seemed like sooner as as soon as that fake, like that hostile bombing

that turned out not to actually be the one, the Christian house, Baptist house, whatever it was. Yeah, the Christian one. Yeah, even though it turned out to be fake,

I think Israel never regained its footing after that. But, well, I would actually argue, I mean, that was even before the, I would strongly disagree with that assessment because this was before the uh ground

invasion and israel was able to conduct the ground invasion that was something like two weeks into the war never got their footing i mean within like the americans attitude about israel having clean hands like so i agree with with half of so so here's where i i't personally, I am of the opinion that I actually think part of the problem is that the Biden administration was too hands-off with the Israeli government where they ended up. Show me how they actually ended up restraining Israel. They actually didn't exercise any leverage whatsoever over Israel. They didn't go to Rafah for many months. Well, because there was no end game in sight. And exactly what David Petraeus,

General David Petraeus warned of, ended up happening. He said this Israeli, I remember when the Israelis took over the entirety of the North and all the population, including my family members, were pushed down South

and my brother was pushed down south but but but like two things didn't happen in the war that i actually think the biden administration messed up and in my view they're not that they failed to pressure the the israelis the first one is that they really did not push the israelis who were partly in rage mode, partly in just like Netanyahu was like, oh, like maybe we really can take over the small churches of the world. We're like, oh, maybe we can settle. Oh, we could, instead of being like, all right, what's the, what's the actual plan? Like who governs Gaza afterwards? And it was like, well, no PA, no international forces, no Arab forces, no nothing. He just became Mr. No.

I think that was a grave mistake such that what exactly what David Petraeus. I mean, David Petraeus is not pro-Hamas. General Lloyd Austin, he's not pro-Hamas. What did Petraeus recommend? Petraeus said Israel is doomed to failure if the... Petraeus warned Israel is doomed to failure if the operation, he talked about a famous sign he had at his office that said, is the operation that I'm about to embark on going to remove more bad guys than it's going to create? And he warned, so that's number one.

Number two is he won't by its conduct but number two is he warned that the israeli strategy of clear and leave was doomed to failure he said you clear you hold you replace and then you depart so that's where you needed a sophisticated didn't want is i believe that some of the clear and leave was pressure from the americans anyway but that's that's an important point how much time we have i did have a couple of questions but can i finish just the second one super quick the second real quick point is that there was no separation of the population in true safe zones so when you when you push the population from the

north down to the south a lot of hamas guys are like okay say yeah and then you had muhammad ad-daif one of the architects of the move of the of the attack rather on october 7th he just packed up and went with the population so those two failures early on in the war i think contributed to where we're at i want to say two things things, and then I'm going to turn it over to Dan. First of all, this could sound like an excuse. It is in some way a lens that I want to put over it, which is that, although I'm no expert, I believe this to be true. been no war where you could not look at the good guys and point out easily without having to take a microscope to these things that they did that were excessive that were angry that were you know war crimes that were it's just not it's like almost almost like there's not going to be any police force that doesn't misbehave.

It's just like, it's a little, it needs, of course, it needs to always be investigated. I'm not advocating, don't look at these things. We should always try to get better and better and better. But somewhere in this discussion, people could infer that, well, yeah, Israel could have done everything right, and we could have had a pristine operating room.

No, no, no, you're not saying that. But also the lack of discipline. Israeli generals were saying, why were thousands of soldiers taking pictures with panties of Palestinian women? That's terrible. I was outraged by that. Like all just micro behaviors like that, that cumulatively pointed to a reservist army that

lacked discipline. One second. I, I 1000% agree with you. I, that made me furious. Like, as a matter of fact, I remember saying something, listen, I understand this and that, but how hard could it be to stop these fucking kids from putting on these panties? This is, this may be the stuff that's always gone on in war war but people have cell phone cameras now and you're fighting a pr war you idiots you think you think it's just about taking that apartment these panty things did more damage

than the people in the apartment could have ever done to you so i agree with you and yet and yet my point is but somehow like that's easy for me to say except the frequency with which every organized militia has these kinds of things go wrong makes me think, well, it's not as easy as it sounds to me. But I just want to say the second thing. And then I'll let Dan say that something inside of me feels like when you're dealing with an enemy who is intent on maximizing bloodshed and destruction, as you quoted Sinwar Haniya,

that they will prevail. There is no alternate timeline where Israel did everything right, exactly the way, God forbid, you had to be the commander-in-chief of the Israeli army, you would be here making excuses for that, excuses for that,

and we'd be saying, we should have done it this way, we should have done it that way, because I don't believe there is any strategy which can overcome the fact that Hamas was intent on having it to be a bloody humanitarian disaster that they could use for their PR war. That's what I feel that is the essence of truth here. That's not to excuse anything

that Israel shouldn't have done. But they would have found another way to do it because that's their war aim. And there's just something about that that I feel is just unfair. Dan, what do you think? You probably don't want to talk about realign for Palestine anyway. But I would

do have one question last is is um you had mentioned you know an hour ago or so that uh you felt israelis in their hearts the majority of them um were open to peace and um you know i didn't want continued war and bloodshed and i was wondering what you bait if you base it on interactions with Israelis or just sort of your knowledge of human nature in general? Definitely interactions with thousands and thousands of Israelis across the spectrum, especially with the center, center-right and right-wing and left and center-left. I mean, I made a point of avoiding leftists as much as I can, because I really did want to connect with mainstream Israelis, if you will, to get a sense. And

deep down, and sometimes it would be, I mean, sometimes I would just spend a good chunk of time just listening. A lot of people just had griev grievances and i was like the first or the only palestinian they had ever interacted with in many years or sometimes palestinians all the time but in israel well in it but but like from gaza in particular um and sometimes there was just some people were eager to tell me that in the 90s they really believed in hope and they really did but you know the second intifada or hamas or october 7th some people were like you guys like what happened on october 7th like that was so bad that was so terrible but and i just like just by virtue of listening to them imitate jewish whining like very very much so is what like day sir there was there was totally just

sounded like periel there for a second it was like okay but but just by listening and then sharing that actually believe it or not like i know this sounds like common sense but it was revelatory to a not um not insignificant Israelis that I spoke to, that there really are innocent people in Gaza who are not all Hamas. They were like, what? Really? Like, because I just think everybody, so not all mothers want to raise their kids to be martyrs? Wow. Okay. So, what do we do? How do we support those uh palestinian like i know again i know that sounds basic right but i'm i'm glad to humanize the palestinian people i want to say and and and what's funny is that i've had some palestinian americans and you know some pro like straight up

pro-palestine people who are like it is sorry pro-hamas people they're like no you don't you're not doing a good job don't humanize the palestinian people your frame for your framing for how you're humanizing the palestinian people is horrible because you're just saying they're not all hamas so don't shoot well what if they are hamas you know uh we should be proud to say even the ones that are Hamas are fabulous, and they're all Hamas, and we all love Hamas, and I was like, okay, so what do you think of October 7th? I think it was necessary, and I'm not going to answer your questions, and long live the resistance, and so, like, I've had this, like, like, humanizing my own people is somehow a crime, even for some of these

great, like, I tell this story man of this this literally like on i get thousands and thousands of messages on social media and there's like this in jabalia in northern gaza this israeli soldier in the back of a tank who like messaged me and he was like you know screw him ass like i want to but you the way you write the way you talk like i've helped me understand there really are innocent people in gaza and like you know and like why is that a bad thing like why is it a bad thing that a random israeli soldier saw my writings that are holding space for multiple truths for the fact that i'm anti-hamas but i'm also anti the excesses of the Israeli policy and the military. And he decided that actually, yeah, like there really are, you know,

Palestinian innocent people in Gaza. Yeah. That can't be a bad thing. I've been told that that's allegedly a bad thing, but it looks like you have another question. Well, just, you meet these Israelis, I guess, generally in America and on the web. You've never been to Israel, but you had mentioned, I assume. I have not.

I actually tried to go, believe it or not. And this is to all those who believe that I am a Zionist paid propagandist sellout. Reminds me, I've got to write you a check. What am I going to do? Well, no, I've already been paid $30 million by the Israeli government. There's a propaganda hit piece about me that says that. I'll tell you, I will tell you this. There is a dilemma, a game theory dilemma that people, definitely Jews go through, but maybe the Palestinians go through it too, which is that at a time like this,

it's very difficult to admit to, I don't want to call them molehills. It's very difficult to admit to hills, as it were, when you know the other side is ready, is poised and ready to make mountains of them. So it's difficult as a Zionist supporter to want to be outspoken admitting to Israeli misbehavior when you know that there's another side that's eager to latch onto this and even know I'm said it's true and turn it into something that obscures everything and vice versa. So it's

very difficult for, I would imagine, for well-intentioned Palestinians to hear you admitting things because they know that people like me are going to say, ah-ha, you see? Yes, that's why they stay silent. But just real briefly, I want to just quickly mention what I'm doing with Realign for Palestine.

And it's not just about the organization, but what I'm trying to do with Realign for Palestine is take it's not just about the organization, but what I'm trying to do with Realign for Palestine is take these principles of radical pragmatism, a rejection of violence, the two-nation solution, which is a different way of saying the two-state solution without getting too caught up in the borders and the political nature of it, and just stepping back and saying two separate nations, two separate national identities and and the embrace of of peace as a courageous viable evolution that's necessary um for for for for the palestinian people's survival on what remains of their land inshallah inshallah and so and and and so there are many palestinians

out there and arab and muslim allies who are ready and eager to be part of the next phase, the next generation, if you will, of advocacy that does that, that gets us in a different discourse beyond the divisive vitriol that we've been seeing. I'm sustained and this is how I keep going especially by the people in Gaza who regularly reach out to me and tell me to keep going because they cannot say this themselves. My friend Mustafa is a Palestinian Israeli I one time put it the wrong way. Well how does he put it? I'm trying to remember

exactly how you phrase it I don't want to get it wrong but anyway he's a Palestinian who's an Israeli citizen. And he says to me, he said very similar to what he said. He says, no, you know, it was just up to you and me.

We could settle this. Yes, I agree. I agree. Inshallah. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Cheers. Good night.