The Daily Signal - How and Why Hamas Carried Out ‘Savage Rampage’ Against Israel

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

The attack Hamas launched on Israel Saturday was “a genocidal savage rampage by uncontrollable militants who were simply trying to destroy Jews,” says Victoria Coates, who formerly served as a deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump. Hundreds of Israelis were killed in the initial attack and the death toll, which includes at least 14 Americans, continues to rise.  Reports of Hamas torturing Israeli citizens and beheading babies are “appalling, and it shows you what these people are capable of,” says Coates, who is vice president of the Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.) Coates joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain where Hamas got the resources to launch such an attack against Israel, and why Hamas and Israel have been in conflict for so long.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. Sadly, though, we've had a lot of silence out of the White House. The president has not been forthcoming with remarks. There hasn't been much from the vice president. What we've gotten from the Secretary of State, for example, has been deeply disappointing. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, October 11th. I'm Virginia Allen.

And that was Victoria Coates, Heritage Foundation's vice president for the Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. Victoria also previously served as a deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump. Israel has declared war on Hamas after Hamas launched an unforeseen attack on Israel over the weekend. And now the question is, what happens next? And is the White House responding in the way that it should? Victoria joins us on the show today to give her analysis and to explain the history of the tension between Israel and Hamas. and how exactly Hamas gained the strength and firepower to carry out this attack against Israel. Stay tuned for our conversation after this.

As conservatives, sometimes it feels like we're constantly on defense against bad ideas, bad philosophy, revisionist history, junk science, and divisive politics. But here's something I've come to understand. When faced with bad ideas, it's not enough to just defend. If we want to save this country, then it's time to go. go on offense. Conservative principles are ideas that work, individual responsibility, strong local communities, and belief in the American dream. As a former college professor and current president of the Heritage Foundation, my life's mission is to learn, educate, and take action.

My podcast, The Kevin Roberts Show, is my opportunity to share that journey with you. I'll be diving into the critical issues that plague our nation, having deep conversations with high-profile guests, some of whom may surprise you. And I want to ensure freedom, for the next generation. Find the Kevin Roberts Show wherever you get your podcasts. It is my pleasure today to be joined by Heritage Foundation, Vice President for the Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. Victoria Coates, Victoria, also served as deputy national security advisor to former president Donald Trump. Victoria, thank you so much for being with us today. Well, thank you, Virginia. I wish it was different circumstances, but always

go to visit with you. I do too. Saturday morning, we woke up to just unbublished. news about this barrage of missiles that have been launched against Israel by Hamas. And we were just all watching in amazement in real time as we were seeing this situation unfold. What do we know so far about both the number of lives that have been lost and the number of individuals that have been taken hostage by Hamas? This is really an unprecedented and radical attack by Hamas into Israel. the first in 50 years of this scale. And of course, it took place just as Israel was marking the 50th anniversary of the Amkapur War.

So obviously timing very deliberately chosen. And it was in some ways a low-tech attack in that the terrorists used guns and knives and motorcycles. There were some paragliders. There was a water element to it as well. But for the most part, they evaded detection by the Israeli and American. intelligence services because they did go low-tech. They went to handwritten notes delivered by couriers. And so the kind of intelligence we and Israel were accustomed to having simply wasn't there. And that's how they did it. And they just swarmed in mass into southern Israel.

And the latest report I've heard, I don't know that this number is completely confirmed, but it's probably right. As 1100 were killed, tens of thousands wounded. And then you have some number of hostages that have been dragged back to Gaza. And the numbers are very soft on that because nobody really knows, but 150 seems to be the number. And Hamas has said that if Israel continues to take offensive action against Gaza, they're going to start executing these people publicly and publishing the videos of it. Well, the videos, the images that we're seeing are really disturbing that are floating around social media that are in the news. We've heard reports of Hamas beheading babies, killing civilians. What do we know about this? Yeah, it's rough. There's no way around it,

but I think folks need to see this. I mean, there's a video of a girl being set on fire and let die and they all cheer. There are photographs of children being tormented. And as you said, The beheadings seem to be a particularly choice action for the terrorists and, you know, the rapes of women beside the bodies of their husbands. It's just, there's nothing normal about this attack, Virginia. There's nothing legitimate about it. It wasn't military to military under any stretch of the imagination. This was a genocidal savage rampage by uncontrollable militants who, who, who,

were simply trying to destroy Jews, not just kill them. They weren't going to shoot them or something like that. They wanted to torture them and they wanted to humiliate them, and they wanted them to suffer before they died. It is egregious, it's appalling, and it shows you, you know, what these people are capable of. This is really historic in many ways. One of the ways that it's historic is just, you know,

with technology, we haven't previously been able to watch something this horrific play out with such vivid graphic detail available to the public. Amidst that, what is the response that we see from the American people, from young people? What are we seeing on college campuses? Well, there are basically two stories. On the one hand, you do have enormous support for Israel among the American people. That's why Congress votes year in and year out to give so much support to Israel, because the American people want it.

And that remains strong. And we were proud to, I was proud, that Heritage flew our flags at half-mast over the weekend in a sign of solidarity. And certainly there's been an outpouring from our members of Congress. You know, sadly, though, we've had a lot of silence out of the White House. The president has not been forthcoming with remarks. There hasn't been much from the vice president. What we've gotten from the Secretary of State, for example, has been deeply disappointing.

Secretary Blinken put out a statement yesterday calling for restraint and supporting Turkey's efforts at a ceasefire, which he quickly took down, but that should never have been written. And that was the same message that was the first message out of the White House, out of the Office of Palestinian Affairs, whatever that is, again saying, you know, it's minimized civilian deaths. This was before the attack was even under control. But most shamefully, as you mentioned, we have the response from academia, from college campuses. which has been a really, I think, shocking, ugly display of the anti-Semitism that is corroding and invading our institutions of higher education. We had Harvard a large number of student groups who all put out a very pro-Palestinian, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel statement that was condoned by the college.

And then the college came out and didn't say anything to counter this. they just sort of said, oh, we believe in free speech, which prompted Larry Summer, who's been one of the mainstays of Harvard's campus for 50 years. He actually went to MIT undergrad but got his master's in Ph.D. From Harvard, he's a president emeritus and a professor at the college. It is in many ways to find his life, and he came out and said, I have never felt so alienated and alone on campus and made the point that when Ukraine was invaded, There was a huge show of solidarity with Ukraine,

and the Ukrainian flags flew, and he supported it. And now this, Harvard coming out very much against Israel. Last thing on that is Thursday is supposed to be a day of solidarity with the Palestinians across multiple college campuses. I think everybody needs to be on the alert for this activity. Sure, it's their right to gather and do hateful things, but you could think about stuff like, well, we don't necessarily have to pay their funding through our tax dollars if they decide to do this, this noxious, racist type of activity.

And instead of standing with Israel, they want to stand with the terrorists who slaughtered both Israelis and Americans. Let's talk a little bit about the history here. I think it's really, really important to touch on. Explain if you would just some of the background of the conflict between Hamas and Israel. Of course, Israel has now declared war on Hamas in response to the issues. attack, why has Hamas and Israel been in conflict for so long? Well, basically, the Palestinian population of what we'd call the Holy Land has been in violent

opposition to the Jewish state for as long as they've existed. And when Israel was founded 75 years ago, they immediately attacked with the support of Arab neighbors and attacked and attacked and attacked. So you have 1948, 1967, 1973, these successive waves of attacks, which Israel quite heroically turned back. And then you have the intifadas, the uprisings in the 90s and 2000s of the Palestinians in Jerusalem primarily. Hamasks takes over the Gaza Strip in the southern part. of the country and the Fata, the Palestinian Authority, takes over West Bank, so the portion of Israel around Jerusalem that's inhabited by the Palestinians.

And it's just been a horrible relationship from the get-go because generations of Palestinians have decided that violence against Israel is more important than their children's future. They are consigning their children basically worse and worse suffering instead of the kind of prosperous existence the Palestinians could achieve if they would make up their minds to live in peace with Israel. But they haven't. And this just spectacular display of grotesque violence shows you that spirit is alive and well. There's a whole

new generation of Palestinians. They're going to be stuck in this spiral of failure. And this really ironic and profoundly sad thing is they're the ones who are ultimately going to suffer the most. Do we know how Hamas got the strength, got the resources, got the firepower to carry out such a violent and extreme attack against Israel? We know exactly how they did it. And it's the Islamic Republic of Iran. When the Trump administration was in office, we made it our business to starve Iran of resources as much as we could when ways big and small. That was our focus. Because we knew they dollar for dollar after the original Obama-era nuclear deal spent that money on military, violent mayhem, terrorist groups, and we knew they would do it again. And when the Biden

administration came in, they reversed that policy. They stopped enforcing sanctions on Iranian oil exports. And so Iran's now up to over a million barrels a day to communist China. And that is a tens of billions of dollar revenue stream for them. And they poured that money. It was in the Wall Street Journal, that they are focusing that funding on Hamas and their Lebanese group, Hezbollah, because they want to attack Israel. So, you know, Hamas was the tool here. You could say the puppet, but the puppet master was obviously Iran, and that they were the ones who trained this, equipped it, organized it, and ultimately directed it. So this is Iran attacking Israel. and so for all of those who are going out to say celebrate the Palestinians on Thursday,

they should actually, if they were honest, admit that they are celebrating the supreme leader of Iran. The Biden administration has been advocating for a nuclear deal with Iran. How does this situation leave that? I don't, I mean, it's always been a mystery to me why first the Obama and now the Biden administration were so confident they had a good faith negotiating partner in Iran. It seems to me, you know, this is a country that routinely chants death to Israel and death to America in the same breath. And, you know, they have been on, they consider themselves at a state of war with us and have been for over 40 years. And yet you think you're somehow going to be able to take their word for something as serious as a nuclear weapon in the hands of that kind of regime.

So it is very strange to me that now twice these Democrat administrations have made getting into a nuclear deal with Iran, one of their prime directives. I think they would be much better off spending that time and energy supporting the people of Iran who hate their government, who want to be friends with America. I'm old enough to remember when that was the case. It was a much nicer state of affairs. And interestingly, they don't seem particularly interested in the Palestinians. They seem much more interested in making friends with the Israelis. Victoria, I know you have to go. You've been doing media hits nonstop, Fox, CNN,

and really appreciate you taking the time today. Quickly before you go, though. I've already heard reports from, you know, some journalists indicating that there is a double standard between GOP lawmakers who have called for an end to aid to Ukraine, but who are now advocating for aid for Israel. What's your response to that? Yeah, it's very interesting.

There's a movement of foot to link additional funding for Ukraine to military support for Israel and the wake of the attacks. And I think these things are different and separate, and they need to be kept that way. Because Ukraine is, you know, in the middle of the savage invasion of Vladimir Putin. The United States has committed $113 billion. So far, they won another $24 billion that would take us up close to $150. And that's in 18 months. Over the course of Israel's 75-year history, we have given, the U.S. taxpayer has given Israel $150 billion. So that's two years versus 75 years.

So that's a huge difference there. Another difference is the historic nature of that investment in Israel, has developed Israel over time with the ingenuity of the Jewish people into one of our greatest allies. They're a huge security partner. They keep the American people safe. We help keep the Jewish people safe. You know, that is a wonderful relationship despite these events that I think it really is important that we protect and preserve. And finally, Israel actually does have some wealthy neighbors, but they're certainly not going to contribute to Israel's defense. As a matter of fact, they've pretty much said the opposite.

So unlike Utrein, which has neighbors like Germany and France and Italy, the three biggest economies in the EU, who could be doing a lot more to help Ukraine in its defense, Israel doesn't have that. It's Israel and America or it's Israel alone. Victoria Coates of the Heritage Foundation. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for your expertise. We really appreciate you being with us. All good.

Thank you, Virginia. And for all of our listeners, make sure that you're catching the latest from Victoria. ensure that you're following the Heritage Foundation and the Daily Signal across social media platforms. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. If you have not had the chance, make sure that you check out our evening show right here in this same podcast feed where we keep you up to date on the news of the day. Also take a moment to subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcast and help us to reach more listeners

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