The Daily Signal - A Cease-Fire Is Not a Real Option for Israel, According to Expert

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

The U.N. General Assembly called Friday for a “humanitarian truce” between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, but a cease-fire isn't an option for the Jewish nation, activist Boris Zilberman says.�� If the Israel-Hamas war is put on pause, Zilberman says, Hamas terrorists will use the time “to retool.”  Zilberman, director of public policy and strategy at Christians United for Israel Action Fund since 2019, says Hamas still has “239 hostages, as young as 8 or 9 months old to ladies in their 70s and 80s. But Hamas won't succeed in using the hostages or the Palestinian people as human shields in the Gaza Strip, he says.  Zilberman joins this episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss where the Israel-Hamas war stands after three weeks and how new House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to lead Congress in supporting Israel.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, October 31st. I'm Virginia Allen. Israel has been at war with Hamas for just over three weeks now. And the Israel Defense Force has entered Gaza as part of its ground offensive. Today, I am pleased to welcome to the show, Christians United for Israel Action Fund Director of Public Policy and Strategy, Boris Zilberman. We're discussing both what is happening right now on the ground in Israel and how our leaders here in Washington, D.C. can be backing the nation of Israel. both in terms of funding and strategy and support. So stay tuned for my conversation with Boris Zilberman after this. We get it. With big media bias, it's hard to find accurate, honest news. That's why we've put together the Morning Bell newsletter, a compilation of the top stories and conservative commentary. To subscribe, just head to DailySignal.com slash morning bell subscription.

Or visit DailySignal.com and click on the connect button. at the top of the page. It's my pleasure today to be joined by Christians United for Israel Action Fund Director for Public Policy and Strategy. Boris Zilberman, thank you so much for being with us today. Thanks for Virginia. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me on. Go ahead and just as we start, talk a little bit about what Christians United for Israel does and specifically what the Action Fund does. Christians United for Israel is the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States or in the world. That's about 11 million strong, and that's Christian's added for Israel. The Action Fund, where I work, is really the policy and legislative arm.

We're the C-4, where we are really on the hill, talking to diplomats, talking to staffers to figure all the bucket of issues that we work on, which is strengthening the U.S. Israel relationship, global threats that we see right now, where there's Iran and their proxies. Frenemones at best, if you look at Turkey and Qatar, and see their state sponsorship of Hamas. And so we work on a kind of range of issues, really informing Christian Zionists around the country and the world about what's going on on the Hill and how they can help to make sure that pro-Israel policies and pro-United States policies because Israel is the key ally for the United States and the region. We're stronger together. And so what folks can do when they talk to the legislature, when they're back home or if they come up to D.C., really makes a big difference. Yeah. I have to imagine that the past three weeks have been pretty intense and pretty wild for Christians United for Israel's Action Fund. As you guys are on the hill, you're talking to lawmakers. What have some of those meetings looked like over the past three weeks as you guys have been going and speaking to our lawmakers about strengthening that relationship with Israel?

No, so it's a lot of, especially in the immediate aftermath of the horrific massacre on October 7th of over 1,400 Israelis, women, children, babies, just the most barbaric and gruesome images and videos that one could see. And a lot of it is, this is what happened. Because what we're fighting, and not just in an international arena, but also on campuses, we have a coupie on campus as well, is Holocaust and I are in real time. And thankfully, with the exception of a few members, pro-Hamas members, you have the Hill kind of yearning for information what's happening. And certainly in the aftermath, what was going on. And certainly right now, as far as what's happening in Gaza, what could be happening in the north, there's a simmering conflict that's happening there now between Hezboa and Hamas forces

with Israeli forces on the northern border, obviously U.S. deployments to the region in the form of two carrier groups. So really, here's what's happening. And I guess we're moving now to the next phase of here's how you can help, obviously, with the aid package to Israel that's going to work its way through Congress over the next few weeks. So a lot of it's educational. Here's what's happening. And here are the threats that we need to be aware of. Yeah.

So critical. Okay. You mentioned a lot there. So I want to unpack some of this. You talked about the conflict in the north. Just explain a little bit right now where are we seeing the major pockets of conflict. And what are we seeing as it relates to action from the U.S.? So in the north, what we're seeing is terror groups,

whether Hamas and Hezbollah, Hamas has the dominant player. And Lebanon, they, for all intents the purposes, control Lebanon. They are the political and military power there. They've got about 160,000 rockets and missiles pointed at Israel, an elaborate network of tunnels. I've been in some of the tunnels a couple years ago when I was in Israel, that they built into solid kind of bedrock. And so what you're seeing is UAV attacks, rocket attacks, anti-tank,

attacks that killed one American Israeli from the D.C. area last week, unfortunately. And so you're seeing this kind of trickle of attacks and Israel responding to the sorts of those attacks. Okay. All right. And in relation to what we know about the movement of U.S. troops, U.S. resources, what do we know in that regard right now? That's public. This public is the U.S. has moved to carrier groups into the region, which is meant to really try to deter the Iranians. The Iranians so far haven't been particularly deterred. Obviously, we haven't seen a massive attack from Hezbollah yet. To that degree, maybe it's giving them some pause. But as far as Iranian proxy attacks on U.S. bases in Syria in Iraq, those have been ramping up. We saw the U.S. kind of take out our Iranian warehouse, basically, a facility in Syria. Syria. So the U.S. has moved fighter jets and other aircraft and assets into the region to try to deter the Iranians. So far, it does not seem to be having them push back. Yeah. Yeah. In relation to Congress and Congress's action on this, of course, last week, now Speaker Mike Johnson was elected Speaker of the House. And one of or the first piece of legislation to clear the House under Speaker Johnson was a resolution backing Israel and condemning Hamas. How do you think, that Johnson is going to lead the House of Representatives as it relates to support for Israel.

Look, he has got a big job on all fronts, but on this issue, it's safe to categorize him as a Christian Zionist, somebody that I think believes in Genesis 12, Genesis 123, that those who bless Israel will be blessed, basically. It obviously says a little more than that. But I think he's a Christian Zionist. He's been Israel. One of his first actions was to speak with the prime ministry in Israel a couple nights ago. and they're moving forward on a package, obviously. How it gets done and dealing with the Senate and so on, how they come to a final package is to be seen yet.

But he's somebody that is, in his time in Congress, has been a strong supporter of Israel. At the last moment, obviously, with his new job, went to the RJC Convention in Las Vegas, which was a big convention or a Republican Jewish coalition, had most of all the presidential candidates. he came on last minute notice, which was important. So I think his heart is there, and I think his actions are there as well. It's just how does this process work out and how does the sausage

get made on Capitol Hill? It's not always pretty. Sure, sure. Do you know much about his track record on Israel as a Louisiana lawmaker? Was this an issue that he has been pretty vocal about in the past before becoming speaker? He will be. Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned the process going forward what we might see this week. Do you have any thoughts on timing legislation, what it look like, financial support, what are the bones right now that Congress is working with and what might that end product be? So you've got obviously the Senate is working. The Senate has a hearing tomorrow. Senate appropriations to figure out what their package looks like. Some group of Senate Republicans have introduced an emergency supplemental that for the 14 billionaires that the

administration worked out with Israelis of what they actually need more high. Iron dome, iron beam, which is a laser anti-rocket system, other items that they're going to need armaments, mortars, rockets, bombs, things like they're going to need to fight this war and stave off, hopefully, a multi-front war. Yeah. By showing this strength and having a strong bipartisan vote is going to be important not just in the actual getting the funds there and getting the armaments there, but also showing the world that, hey, we're united and backing Israel. So this is not a time to show weakness, basically. So we really need to make sure that these are strong belts that the message is sent, that not only we're sending this equipment to Israel and giving them the wherewithal to fight this war, but also that the enemies of Israel and the enemies of the United States know that we're not flinching on this.

So that's important. And in the house they're working on, I've heard multiple things now as far as what the package is going to look like. But I think as these things go, it danger doesn't start very, very pretty. And the process will work itself out. And I think they'll end up getting to a place where they can ensure that Israel is supported. Yeah. Speaking of Congress, I do want to get your thoughts on the comments and remarks that we've seen from some squad members.

And they've been pretty vocal in support of Palestine and in opposition to Israel, to the point that even Senator Tim Scott called for the removal of members who are. backing, who are backing really Hamas and who are opposing Israel. What are your thoughts on this? It's giving credence to have members of Congress like this who are basically backing what Hamas has done gives fire to what we're seeing in the streets. When these protesters, or Lynch mob is basically what you saw in Tulane say globalized and defada or from the river to the sea. From the river to the sea, that means the destruction of the state of Israel. And when people on the streets say globalized in the fatta, that means attack Jews. And we saw that in Dagestan and Russia over the weekend

where pogrom, which is back to very gooder days of the 1800s in the pale of settlements in Eastern Europe, where Jews were attacked and killed in Tsarist Russia to what we see now. A lynch mob tried, attempted to do a program and kill folks that were coming back from Israel. I think largely not Jewish, but they were coming back from Israel. From my understanding, there were kids and families that went there for medical treatment and they were coming back. And you see what's going on in college campuses. And so when you have members of Congress that deny, basically engage in modern-day Holocaust and Al-Nal that said these things didn't happen or don't condemn them and basically say that what Hamas is doing is legitimate,

it gives wind to these kind of movements that we see all across the country in D.C. as well with these protests. And we just have to be very clear what's happening here. and they're calling for the extermination of the state of Israel and also calling for attacks on Jews. Yeah. What have you made of President Joe Biden's response and comments? Because honestly, I think a lot of conservatives have been pleasantly surprised to see that he has been pretty clear that America backs Israel. But what have your thoughts been on the president's stance? Look, I think he said a lot of the right things moving U.S. forces in the region. But the fact is over his time and office and certain back to his time, as a vice president for the Obama administration, it's been too much appeasement of the Iranians. We're seeing this kind of come home to roost where this is a regime in Tehran that is hell-bent on destroying Israel. And when people say they want to kill you, we should believe them.

And when they keep day after day, year after year, through their proxies themselves, work towards that goal. We need to confront it and not necessarily try to appease it or see if we can make a deal, send them $6 billion this time around or the pilots of cash during the Obama administration. They're not using that to build hospitals. They're not using that to build roads. They're using it to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, other proxy groups that are not attacking U.S. forces. So words are good, but actions are better is I think my kind of summation of the Biden approach. Yeah.

What would you like to see from the president moving forward? So working with Congress to make sure this is worked out. This does not get stuck in the kind of DC mud that often happens when there's challenging issues. And things just get held up. They're using some leadership on that. More leadership on what's happening in the United States. I think it's really this kind of globalized and defata what we're seeing is very concerning. Kids are scared on campuses.

Just this weekend at Cornell there at the shutdown, a kosher food hall, because on one of their internal messaging systems for the university, there were gruesome death threats against Jews. So everything that's happening, so more leadership there and more definitive leadership on what's happening here to secure Jewish communities here to be very clear without any kind of meandering of what we're trying to do. But in the region, and I think at some point you have to show credible force that you are actually, you're not going to let Iran run roughshod over the region. I think for you may not be interested in radical Islam, but radical Islam is interested in you. and I know that both Obama administration or Biden administration, I've tried to pull out of the Middle East and try to get back. And that would be great. That would be great if the Middle East became Switzerland. But it's not, and it spills over.

You see how this is spilling over, whether it's in Europe or in the United States. So those things that happen there don't stay there. Looking at this from a global perspective and response from nations around the world, we've seen calls from the UN for a ceasefire in the name of considering humanitarian and protecting civilian lives, is a ceasefire a real option for Israel? For Israel, I don't think it's a real option. You even had Hillary Clinton this weekend with Noro O'Donnell, I think. I'd say it's not an option, which is interesting. Because look, what they're going to use that pause, whatever pause is given, is a time for Hamas to retool. They still have 229 or 239. It got revised this weekend, 239 hostages, as young as 8 or 9 months old,

to ladies in their 70s and 80s. And so you still have these hostages. It gives them time to retool. And I think the question for their national community, the UN is, why isn't Hamas is the one holding folks there? They're not letting them leave. Egypt is not letting people leave. And the question for the quote-unquote international community is,

why is nobody interested in Palestinian refugees and taking them in? Why are they interested in keeping them there? And that's to act as a human shield for Hamas. And that's what you're seeing happened there. And unfortunately, what October 7th show, the Israelis is there's no, you can't negotiate with them. You can't hope that if they're enriched somehow, they'll put down their guns and put away their covenant, which they were founded with the covenant of the destruction of Israel, and they'll somehow be happy playing Sim City and building out Gaza to be what it could be. If they were under a normal government and a normal system could be a nice functional.

They've got beaches. If you look, they've got malls. They've got, they have the capability to be a normal place. But now when you're run by a terrorist organization that is not interested in Palestinians. They're the most anti-Palestinian people around. They're interested only in the destruction of Israel. And unfortunately, that means that Israel has to go in there and clean them out and try to limit civilian deaths and so on. But it's very difficult when they're hiding in kindergartens. They're hiding under hospitals, as the idea of showed, where Hamas headquarters are under the major hospital in the area. And so it makes things very difficult in the U.N. and the international community are basically okay with it, okay with Palestinian suffering because they're not really doing anything to root out the problem, which is Hamas. That's interesting what you just said. You said Hamas is anti-Palestine, essentially. That's a pretty bold statement. And I think for many people, especially those that were seeing protests on campuses in support of Palestine, that might confuse them a little bit.

Yeah. Now, if you are for the Palestinian cause, October 7th was the worst possible thing that could ever happen, right? There's no, you're showing that there's no, and the fact that everybody's supporting it, right? The folks that are quote unquote pro-Palestinian are supporting Hamas's actions show that how are you going to negotiate? Who are you talking with if the person sitting across the table from you is purely only

interested in your death? put it in any other contexts. Were there calls for us to negotiate with al-Qaeda and Taliban after 9-11 to see if we can work it out? It's laughable, right? But there's this double standard with Israel where it's like, well, why don't you guys work it out with Hamas? It's not really. It's not always possible for the Israelis when we saw what they did. Yeah.

Yeah. Last question before I let you go. Israel, of course, the Israel Defense Force, they have launched their ground invasion into Gaza. what is Israel's end game in entering Gaza? Look, so I think part of it is get the hostages back. They've done a pretty good job of eliminating a lot of the leadership there, but they definitely haven't gotten the top folks that are based out of Gaza. Obviously, they've got some political leadership and other militants,

terrorists that are based out of Qatar and Turkey. But their goal there is to destroy the infrastructure of Hamas and make sure they can't come back. And so that's what they're in the process of. and obviously taking out. They're still firing rockets and missiles into Israel weeks after. They fired close to 8,000 rockets. And it's taking apart that infrastructure and making sure that attacks like October 7 can't happen are the goals. Yeah. Yeah. Christians United for Israel, Action Fund Director for Public Policy and Strategy, Boris Zilberman. Thank you so much for your time today. Encourage all of our listeners to check out the work you all are doing at your website. You can find it at C-U-F-I. by Actionfund.org. Boris, thanks for your time today.

I really appreciate it. Thank you, Virginia. I appreciate you having me out. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for being with us here on the Daily Signal podcast. If you've not had the chance to check out our evening show, make sure you do so.

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