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Pro-Palestinians in Chicago try to grasp the meaning behind their chants. Download YouTube 2023-11-23 (#151) < Previous Next > At a pro-Palestinian rally in Chicago, there were calls for Intifada as the only solution. When asked, the protesters couldn't explain, had no idea what it means. Freedom? Life? Maybe the solution is education? Video Transcription: Coming soon

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East Download YouTube 2024-02-20 (300) < Previous Next > Lucy Aharish is one of the most prominent television broadcasters in Israel. But that’s not the thing that makes her exceptional. The thing that makes Lucy stand out is that she is the first Arab Muslim news presenter on mainstream, Hebrew-language Israeli television. Born and raised in a small Jewish town in Israel’s Negev desert as one of the only Arab Muslim families there, Lucy often says that she sees herself as sitting on a fence. By that she doesn’t mean she’s unwilling to take a side—as you’ll see, she is a woman of strong convictions, bravery, and moral backbone. What she means is that she has a unique lens through which to view the divisions in Israeli society, the complexity of the country’s national identity, and the Middle East more generally. That complexity was on display in 2018 when Lucy’s marriage to a Jewish Israeli actor (Tsahi Halevi of Fauda fame) sparked a nasty backlash from the country’s religious far-right. Lucy has long been a vocal critic of those peripheral far-right voices—the ones who are inclined to oppose her marriage. She’s also long been critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But she is equally critical of her fellow Arab Israelis, particularly of Arab violence and of the Arab leadership that she says condones it. An Arab. A proud Israeli. A Muslim married to a Jew. In short, Lucy Aharish is an iconoclast. I sat down with Lucy recently in Tel Aviv. We talked about the October 7 massacre and its impact on the country and her family—her husband put on his uniform and headed to the south within hours of Hamas’s invasion of the country. Left alone with her son, she contemplated “hiding him in the washing machine,” should terrorists arrive at her doorstep. Lucy also talked about the challenges she faced growing up as the only Arab Muslim kid in a traditional Jewish village, and how she was bullied for that but doesn’t view herself as a victim. We talked about the terrorist attack that she survived in Gaza as a child, which makes October 7 all the more personal to her. We discussed why she believes that Israelis and Arabs share the same destiny, the hope that she has for her Muslim-Jewish son, and the future of the country she loves—and calls home. I’ve been very lucky in my career: I’ve done many interviews that have stayed with me. But this might be the most moving of all. By Bari Weiss February 12, 2024 @thefreepress Video Transcription: When I came and started working on Channel Ten, 15 years ago, one of the anchors there told me, “Wow, Lucy, you are Arab, you are Muslim, you are a woman, you are coming from the periphery of Israel. It’s like all the ‘don’t do’ in one person. It’s like the only thing that is left is that you will be a lesbian. And that’s it. It’s like you will break every glass ceiling.” Lucy Aharish is one of the most prominent television broadcasters in Israel. Then again, it’s Israel. It’s a small country and there aren’t a ton of famous broadcasters. The thing that makes Lucy stand out is that she is the first Arab Muslim news presenter on mainstream Hebrew-language Israeli television. Born and raised in a small Jewish town in Israel’s Negev Desert as one of the only Arab Muslim families. Lucy often says that she sees herself as sitting on a fence. By that, she doesn’t mean that she’s unwilling to take a side. As you’ll see, she is a woman of strong convictions and moral backbone. What she means is that she has a unique vantage point through which to view the divisions in Israeli society, the complexity of the country’s national identity, and the Middle East more generally. That complexity was put on display in 2018 when Lucy’s marriage to Jewish Israeli actor and “Fauda” star Tsahi Halevi sparked tremendous backlash from the country’s religious far-right. Lucy’s long been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2020, immediately following her participation in an online rally protesting Bibi’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, state-run broadcaster KAN fired Lucy from her role. The network chalked up her firing to pandemic-related cutbacks. Lucy’s also been equally critical of her fellow Israeli Arabs, particularly of Arab violence and of Arab leadership that she says condones it. A Muslim and a Zionist; an Arab and an Israeli. In short, Lucy Aharish is an iconoclast. I sat down recently with Lucy in Tel Aviv. We talked about the massacre of October 7 and its impact on the country and on her family. Her husband put on his uniform and headed to the south within hours of hearing the news. We also talked about the challenges she faced growing up as the only Muslim Arab kid in a traditional Jewish village. We talked about the terrorist attack that she survived in Gaza, and about the hope that she has for her Muslim-Jewish son and the future of the country that she calls home. You’re Arab Israeli. Many people would probably think of that as an oxymoron. They’ve never sat where we’re sitting right now. But in that, you represent 20 percent of the Israeli population as Israeli Arab. I don’t know if I represent like 20 percent because a lot of people will tell you, well, she doesn’t represent us. And you’re—they say you’re— You know, I don’t pretend to represent anyone. I represent myself because I have a unique story. I didn’t live—I haven’t lived in an Arab town or an Arab village. Basically, my parents moved to Dimona, which is a very small town in the south of Israel. So basically, I lived in a Jewish town, you can say a semi-traditional Jewish town. And when you say “traditional,” for an American listener, viewer, what does that mean, traditional? It means that it’s small. It’s in the periphery of Israel. It’s more, let’s say “masorti,” we say in Hebrew, which is half religious, half secular, it’s more right-wing. I’ve lived above the Likud Center in Dimona, so you’re talking about oxymoron. And yeah, it’s been quite a ride. Like to to grow up as the only Arab family living in Dimona, being the only Arab student in school and a Muslim student in the nineties where Israel knew the worst terror attacks in its history before October 7. And it wasn’t easy. But it is my home, like Dimona will always be my home. My parents are still living there. And I grew up in a Jewish traditional atmosphere. I celebrated Jewish holidays next to my Arab Muslim holidays, being Israeli, Jewish, Arab, like Jewish, you know, living in a Jewish culture or education was like—it’s something that was totally connected to my life. I didn’t choose it. It’s like my parents, my parents’ decision. But for me, I’m, you know, not only honored, but I got a gift. And the gift was the fact that I lived with Jewish people all my life. And yes, I experienced racism and yes, I was bullied in school, especially after terror attacks. But most of the times it was, for me, it’s the best time of my life because it’s my home. And as you know, every child is going through some tough times. So you have the fat child and you have the child with the glasses and you have the kid with, you know, braces on his teeth. And I was the Arab Muslim girl. And what were the kind of—I mean, you’ve said it wasn’t easy. You’ve said before that terrible things were said to you. Give us a sense of, you know, the kind of things that were said. And then when you would go back and presumably tell your parents about it, how would they respond? I remember that—I think that the most difficult times were after a terror attack. The morning of a terror attack was like the mornings that I didn’t want to go to school. And I remember every morning saying to my parents, “I don’t want to go to school,” because I knew what I’m going to go through that day. And, you know, the day after a terror attack, you usually are not only sad, but you’re angry. You have a lot of feelings of revenge. And you need revenge because you cannot understand or digest or accept the fact that there is someone who is putting, you know, going on a bus and exploding himself in front of innocent people and killing innocent people, men, women, children. You cannot digest it. You cannot accept it, not even in the name of occupation. So I remember every morning—it was almost twice a week, I think, once a week back then. And I remember that mornings where I told my mom and dad, “I don’t want to go to school.” And my mom and dad would tell me, my dad will take me in the car and put me in front of the, in front of the school gate. And he would tell me, “You will get out right now from the car and you will face your friends and you will face reality. Because if you won’t be able to face reality now, you won’t be able to face it in the future.” And I would get in. Well, what’d they say? Would they say that you’re a terrorist? They will see me and then I will see all my friends like, you know, saying “death to Arabs. We need to kill all the Palestinians. Filthy Arabs.” And then they will look at me and they will tell me, “Well, Lucy, we don’t mean you. You know, you and your family are okay. But the rest of the Palestinians, the Arabs, we need to kill them. We need to murder them all.” And I can understand that. But like—I tried to understand that, but I was bullied and I would get back to school, like, get back from school and get back home. And I would cry my eyes out and my father will tell me “If I will ever, ever hear you say to somebody who called you ‘filthy Arab’ or ‘filthy Muslim’ that you called him ‘filthy Jew,’ I never in my life like, raised my hand and hit you. But I will do that if I will hear you saying to someone, ‘filthy Jew.’ You will never go down to this level because you’re better than them.” Lucy, we live in a—Israel’s a very different context from the States. But in the States, you could say we live in a culture of grievances, where people sort of hoard their victimhood. You have said many times in many interviews that you don’t think of yourself as a victim. No, I’m not. Most people would hear these stories and be like, “this is the ultimate victim. Listen to what she’s describing.” Why don’t you think of yourself that way? Because I’m not a victim and I’m not willing to be a victim of racism. I am not a victim of a racist government. I’m not a victim of—at a certain time, a certain time when the prime minister is going and saying on elections in 2015 that the Arabs are going on buses to vote and this is a danger to the rule of the right, this is a danger to Israel. Me being a citizen of the state of Israel, I am not, you know, a visitor in the state of Israel. I’m a citizen of the state of Israel. The state of Israel at 1948 decided that it’s giving citizenship to the 150,000 Arabs that were living here. Once you decided that you’re giving me the citizenship of this state, you need to treat me like anyone else. I’m not your slave. You’re not doing me a favor. It’s not that—it’s so complicated, what is happening here, because the Palestinian—Israeli-Palestinian conflict is directly affecting the Israeli-Arab relationship. Well, it’s strengthening it. I mean, there was a poll before the war asking Israeli Arabs if they felt a part of Israel. I think 48 percent said yes. And then postwar, same poll, something like 75, 77 percent, think that’s representative. I think that it’s representative because for the first time, October 7 proved that we share the same destiny here. Arabs and Jews are living in Israel. Citizens of the state of Israel share the same destiny, and you had the living proof for it. A living proof provided by Hamas terrorists when they got in and they filmed themselves killing and murdering and raping and burning innocent people, that they caught a guy from Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, he’s telling them, “I’m from Jerusalem, I’m from East Jerusalem,” and they told him, “Oh, you’re cooperating, cooperating with Israel,” and they killed him. They just shot him to death. So it’s got nothing to do with, you know, if I will say, [speaking Arabic] they will save me. No. They will spare my life. No, it doesn’t work like that. Growing up as little Lucy in Dimona, the only Arab in your class, did you have any sense of what you wanted to be when you grew up? An actress. Okay, so you got the next best thing, I guess, which is being a television journalist. You know, a journalist. I knew that I have a totally different story. I knew that I’m living in Dimona. I’m a Muslim from a Muslim family. I went through a terror attack in the First Intifada when I was five and a half years old, in the Gaza Strip on a Saturday morning. Tell me about that, because right now, the idea of an Israeli citizen going anywhere near Gaza—well, obviously right now, but since 2005, would have been unthinkable. Back then, it was a totally different situation. It was a totally different situation. We used to go to the Gaza Strip to, you know, to do some shopping there, like, you know, buy groceries and shop and eat fish on the beach. It was like—there were a lot of Israelis getting into the Gaza Strip. And I remember it was a Saturday morning and my uncle and his wife came to visit us with their two children. They came to visit us and my uncle said to my dad, “What do you think? Let’s take a trip to the Gaza Strip.” And my father told him “Listen.” And I understand it was 1987. It was the beginning of the Intifada, the First Intifada, really the beginning. And my father told him, “Well, I understood that the security situation is not that good. Let’s postpone it.” And to make a long story short, we decided that we’re hitting the road. It was me, my mom, my dad, my uncle, his wife, and one of his children. I always say that a lot of people in one car—have this tendency, Arabs, to squeeze into cars. It’s like another one is coming out of the car like grandmas in a bogash. And you know the word “karma,” where, like, everything shows you that you are not supposed to be in that place that day. So we went to the grocery shop and the grocery shop was closed, and then we went to the beach and the guy that sold my mom fish was sick that day. And then we took a trip to Nasser Street where there was a shop there, Un Bambino. It was a clothes shop for children, clothes and like some perfumes and stuff. And we just parked the car and the owner of the shop was just about to leave and to close shop, and my father’s telling him, “What’s going on? Everything is closed. Nobody’s on the streets.” And he told my father, “Well, you know, security situation lately is not that good. And the young people here are talking about Intifada. But you know what? You made it all the way from Dimona. I will open the shop for you.” And I remember every time that I got there, I would ask my mom for one thing. I would ask my mom, “Mom, I want red nail polish.” And she’d tell me—ed, yes. And she will tell me no, because it’s like, in Arabic, it’s not respectful to put a red nail polish for a small child, small girl. And I’d try my—and I try my luck again. And I asked her again, “Mom, can I have red nail polish?” And without even thinking, she told me, “You know, and just take it.” So I grabbed it and put it in a small brown bag, and I went outside so my mom won’t change her mind. They went back to the car and we sat down. And just when we were about to leave, the owner of the shop, just got close and said to my dad, “Just do me a favor. Until you’re leaving Gaza, just make sure that your windows are closed.” And my dad’s looking and told him, “What are you talking about?” What he told my dad is like, we are really “white.” Like, Dad is blond. That is the word he used? Yeah, no, no, no, he told him, “You look Jewish.” Like, he told him because my father is blond with blue eyes. My uncle also is with green eyes. His wife is with blue eyes. So we didn’t look like typical Arabs. So my father—“Well, what do you?—“Well, put the Quran, put a newspaper in Arabic on the dashboard so people will know that you are an Arab. And my father told him, “What?” “No. You need to understand. You have a yellow license plate. People might confuse you with being Jewish.” And my father, I looked at him and he told him, “Tawakalt Ala Allah.” Leave it to God. And we hit the road and we just were, I think it was in, in one of the main streets there, Salaheddin, if I’m not mistaken. And we really hit traffic. So the cars stopped. And it was a hot, like, Saturday morning, so my father opened the window. And everybody was, you know, laughing and joking in the car. And I was sitting right next to the window, and I started looking outside and I saw this figure coming towards the car. He was really tall. He was thin. He had some scars on his face. He had a necklace on his neck and written on it a law: God. And something about him just fascinated me and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. You’re five years old. Yeah, five and a half years old, was just before I went to, like, the first grade. I remember watching him, but I saw something in his hand, so I was, like, a little bit scared. So I started, like, scrolling down my seat and I was looking like that. And I was watching him getting closer and closer to the car. And my mom is watching me going like that. And she told me, “Lucy, sit straight.” And I didn’t even look at her. I just continued watching outside the window, looking at him getting closer and closer to the car. And my mom again: “Lucy, sit straight.” And the third time that my mom—it got—he like, really, really was next to the car. He looked me straight in the eyes. And the third time that my mom said “Lucy,” there was a huge explosion in the car. The next thing that I remember was my face hitting the ground. I was trying to lift myself up. I looked at one side. I saw my mom crying. I looked at the other side. I saw my uncle’s wife screaming to death. And I looked up and I saw my cousin going into flames. And my father’s trying to put down the fire. And at that moment I said to myself, Where is my red nail polish? I was trying to disconnect myself, from this, from everything that I saw, from the screaming of my father, “Help us. We are Arabs like you. Help us.” Nobody reached out. Nobody helped us. Everybody were watching it like it’s a really bad action movie. I think it was after 20 minutes that there was like some army forces got in and took us out. My cousin went through a lot of—a lot of surgeries and me, for me, for a long time, I hated Palestinians. And I said it out loud. I hate Palestinians. You need to kill them. You need to murder them all. And I remember at a certain point, my extended family heard me saying it, and they said to my dad, “Well, she hates us. She hates herself. She hates who she is. She hates who we are.” And my father, my very, very clever, wise dad told them, “Well, she will grow up. She will understand that life is a little bit more complicated than she thinks.” And he was right. He was right. Life were much more complicated. And it’s not black and white. This is why it was important for me on October 7 to speak out, because it was personal. And I saw the evil in the terrorist’s eyes. I saw him looking directly into my eyes before even—like when he saw a five-year-old and a three-year-old, and he saw a pair of parents sitting in a car, and he knew that he’s going to burn them alive. He knew, and he did it without even thinking. So this evil that we saw on October 7, it’s not something new. It’s not, you know, just what happened on October 7. No, it was there. Now, there are a lot of things that got in throughout the years. But it was there. You first came on my radar when you became the first Arab-Israeli Muslim broadcaster in the country. And I was like, that’s cool. It’s like, who is that woman? That’s really interesting. And then you sort of exploded, at least in certain circles in the U.S. when you got married to—well, why don’t you tell me exactly? Tsahi Halevi. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about that marriage and tell me about why that caused such a stir in this country and maybe the distinction between the public response to it and the response of your family, which I’m curious about too. Wow. The response of my family. Well, we were really, really worried about the response of our families. It wasn’t only my family; it was our families. Tsahi is also divorced with a—he was like a teenager back then. Now he is 20 years old. And we were worried about, you know—we know where we live. It’s not that common that there is an Arab Muslim woman marrying a Jewish guy. And when they are both very well-known, it’s a high-profile relationship. So for a long time, we decided that we were keeping it secret. It was secret for around four and a half years. It’s an odd thing to have a closeted straight relationship in the mid-2010. And I will tell you that first of all, you know, it’s a small country. So to keep it like a small country, small, you know, small media, and yet we were able to save it like for four and a half years. I remember that when we got married, it was like—the media knew. All the journalists knew. And we always got phone calls saying, “We know about your relationship. So we’re here.” And I tried to explain to them, to tell them, “Listen, this is not a normal relationship. There is a teenager in the midst of it. Our families, they don’t know.” It’s like—it was a secret. It was a huge blast in Israel because it was a secret until the day of the wedding. Like, my—I said to Tsahi, I said, “Well, do you want to say something?” And like maybe a week before or two weeks, I don’t know. You know, we are going like—it’s going for an explosion. At least let me control the explosion. I know that it’s going to explode, but at least when it will explode, I want it to be a very clear fact. We are married. It’s not that we will get married in one month or two weeks, and then I will have to answer a million questions about the relationship and to have discussions on TV and radio whether this is—there should be this relationship is a suitable relationship for politicians or people living in Israel. No, I want when I—when we will announce our marriage. It will be a fact. A fact in the face of all the people who have something to say about this marriage. What did people say? What they did—. Just to be clear, we’re talking about a Jewish Israeli actor who’s in the show Fauda Yeah. Yes. And he was an ex-military officer in an elite unit, undercover elite unit. So like actually Fauda. Yeah. And his father was a veteran of the Mossad. So it was like I felt like, you know, if you would have asked me like 20 years, you will marry a Jewish man who is an undercover officer in an elite unit, and his father is working in the Mossad, I will tell you [scoffs] it’s just like, really, this is a non-realistic movie and yet this is my reality. But you know, all these titles that people are giving, he’s like this and he’s like that, and his father’s like this. I fell in love with [speaking arabic]. I fell in love with a man. I’m always saying that if I was right now living in the United States, I would be a nonissue. Really. I would be a persona that is really not interesting. A regular, totally regular story. And it was funny for me that people—like it opened the Knesset the morning after, like the Knesset meeting, the parliament meeting, the day after. About your marriage. Yes. It’s like an issue of national security. Yeah. I was surprised. Like Knesset members reacted, like said that it’s a problem that this assimilation and what they are, what is the example that they’re giving people? One of the Knesset members even posted on Facebook that Tsahi took Fauda one step too forward and he needs to think, to rethink his actions and go back to the Jewish people. You’ve been in the papers a lot recently, including a big profile in a major Israeli paper for, well, frankly, for echoes of what you experienced as a child, you could argue. Tell us about what happened. I was invited to speak out last May in Megiddo. What’s Megiddo? Megiddo is a, like, small area in the center-north of Israel. In Shavuot, the eve of Shavuot. It’s a big holiday where Jews tend to study all night long. Exactly. Getting the Torah. Yeah. They maybe bring in lots of speakers. So they brought me as a speaker, not to speak Torah. I feel like— You know, to speak about my life. I wasn’t like playing it as a rabbi, coming to speak to the Jewish people and give a message to the Jewish people. I came and gave a lecture about my life. I spoke about my life, about the mutual life that I have, the coexistence that I’m living. That’s it. It was an amazing evening. We really was—we all, like, felt connected and really it was an emotional evening. I got the money they paid me and that’s it. Two weeks before, like two weeks ago, I just step out of the bathroom from the shower, and I look at my phone and I have, like, these tons of messages telling me, like, sending me an article in the whole not telling me—sorry for my language— “What is this shit? What is this?” Apparently, the Education Ministry of Israel prevented the money from Megiddo, decided not to pay Megiddo because they brought me, a woman who symbolizes assimilation, who represents assimilation, cannot speak about Jewish culture. So you cannot bring her to speak about a Jewish culture in the eve of Shavuot. And this is why we’re not giving you the money. This letter came out from the Ministry of Education of the official state of Israel, which means that the official state of Israel is basically looking at me and telling me I’m racist and I’m not ashamed of it. You know, back then, some people—people were a little bit ashamed with their racism. Now? No shame whatsoever. So Lucy, there are people, as you know, all over the world who look at Israel and say it is a racist, colonialist, apartheid state. It is no better than the Jim Crow South in America before the civil rights movement. And the kind of thing that just happened to you is proof of that. What do you say to that? Look at your countries. Look at what is happening in your countries right now. What I’m going through right now is pure racism, definitely. Apartheid? No. Look at me. It cannot work. I’m not like—I’m a presenter on a mainstream TV channel in Israel. It’s like—no. My sister is working in one of the big banks in, one of the major banks in Israel. My other sister is a VP, is the general manager of a big hotel in Eilat. This is not an apartheid country. Yes, but there is a lot of racism towards Arabs, like every country is dealing with racism, and racism should be fought. I should fight it, and I’m going to fight it. My child won’t study in the Education Ministry of the state of Israel when this education ministry is basically telling him, you don’t have a place here, and we’re telling you this. It won’t happen. And if I need to sue the Ministry of Education of Israel, I will do it. You’re gonna do that? Yes. Yes. Because for me, this is the red line. You could also look at what just happened to you and say encapsulated in that story is the fundamental tension of the identity of the state itself. It is a Jewish state and it is a democratic state, and many people look at that as a paradox at best. Other people look at that and say, those things are on a collision course and they can never be reconciled. What’s your view of it? And I will tell you something like that. This country has to be Jewish and democratic. Why? Because the Jewish people have no other option than to be democratic because of their history, because they were persecuted, because they went through the Holocaust, because six million of them were murdered because they were Jewish, because all the persecution, because of antisemitism. As a Jewish man or woman, you cannot allow yourself to be something else than Democratic. So for me, this state, it’s a natural thing that it will be Jewish and democratic. And if there are some certain parts or extremists in Israel that use democracy, use the Israeli democracy to hurt the Israeli democracy and to make it some kind of a messianic I don’t know what, I’m going to find them. If you want to call me the gatekeeper of the Israeli democracy and the Jewish people, I have no problem with that. I’m the gatekeeper. I’m going to be the person that is going to remind a lot of Jewish people and the Jewish people that it was not such a long ago that the state of Israel didn’t exist and the Jewish people almost didn’t exist. This state is a miracle on every parameter. It’s a miracle. Seventy-five years. That’s it. There are some grandparents that are older than this country. So being a democracy, you know, it’s like—it’s baby steps. We are in our baby steps, like this country is just starting to walk. Where were you on the morning of the day that changed everything about this country and maybe the world. I was at home sleeping in my bed. Tel Aviv is 10 minutes away from here. I heard the sirens at 6:30 in the morning. I, like, called Tsahi and I told him there are sirens. He told me you’re not. . . you’re dreaming. I told him no, not dreaming, there are sirens. We grabbed Adam, our son, and we went to the safe room. And I started looking at my phone to understand what is happening. Because, you know, we have these WhatsApp group—WhatsApp groups in our channel. So I started looking for something like—throughout the night, maybe something happened, maybe, so, I don’t know, we attacked Gaza, I don’t know. I’m just—and nothing. Everybody in this group were asking, “What is happening? What, what is happening? What is happening? What is happening? We hear sirens, we hear si—” And you’re one of the most prominent news stations in the country. Yes. And no one, no one understood what is happening. And then one of our journalists is sending us this image of terrorists in the Toyota— In the white pickup truck. Yeah, white pickup truck with guns. And he’s saying there is an infiltration in one of the cities in the south of Israel. That’s one of the earliest images. Was this like this pickup truck? Yeah. Six guys in Sderot. Yeah. And that seemed like the craziest thing, that— It was crazy. It’s like one of the things that you say just—how did they get there? What? What? And then you see this image and you say, okay, in like, you know, 10 minutes, it’s, it’s going to happen. But the army will be there, the police will be there. It’s going to be like, you know, this—the fucking state of Israel. And then more horror images start to come in, horror images of Israeli soldiers being dragged into—bodies being dragged into the Gaza Strip, spat on, really be—like people are attacking the bodies of these soldiers. And I was like—I watched these images because everything is on social media. I remember that I said to Tsahi, “Oh my God, his mom is watching.” That was the first sentence that came out of my mouth and I started crying. “Oh my God, his mom is watching this. She doesn’t know she’s, she’s watching, watching her child being murdered in front of her eyes.” And as I was saying the sentence Tsahi got in and when he went out, he was on his uniform. And he—as you’re watching this, he went to the bedroom, he put on his uniform, and he came out. Yeah. And he’s like standing on, like, the balcony’s door. And I told him, “Where do you think you’re going?” He told me, “I have to go out. This is not a drill.” I’m alone here. What am I supposed to do? He told me, “Close the door, get into the safe room, and every time that you will hear a siren, just do whatever you need to do. I need to go out.” What time of day was it when he put on his uniform and left? It was around 8:30, 9. So really early. Yeah, it was the first hour. Had he been called up? No. So when he said “I need to go,” what did he even mean? He’s going to serve his country. He’s going to save his family, to save this country, to save everything that he believes in. You know, you—I don’t really think that people understand what happened here on October 7. I don’t think that even we as Israelis understand what happened here on October 7. We just started, I just—I told you at the beginning you came here at a good time because the picture starts being clear and it’s a horrible picture. We—on October 7, we need to say the truth. We lost. We lost for hours and hours. People were burned and raped and murdered in their houses, in the safe—in their safest place in the haven of the Jewish people in their own country. And people waited for somebody to come and rescue them, and nobody came. And they waited and they sent text messages and they sent us—journalists—help us, direct somebody to us. We—like, there are terrorists outside our houses. Nothing. I think that the feeling that we feel in Israel, especially after October 7, is—a lot of us feel—is that that day we were orphans. You know, I always say that my country is like my parents. I love my country like I love my parents. I will do anything for my parents. I will walk the seven seas. I will walk fires. But I don’t always agree with my parents. And I say to myself, well, I will—this I will deal with a little bit differently than how my parents did with me. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t love my parents. And on October 7, we felt that we don’t have a mother, a father, that will take care of us. You know the feeling that you walk in your apartment and you say to yourself, if a terrorist will get into this building, where do I hide my child? It was like thinking, a thought that I never, ever in my life thought that I will have. Do I put him in the washing machine? Do I put him like, like, in some kind of a closet? Who the hell in the world is thinking that? Where he should hide his child? Someone think like—thinks like that in New York or Washington or San Francisco or London. In those early days, did you feel like this could be the end of the state of Israel? Yeah. You did? Yeah. I’m still afraid. I’m still afraid of politicians doing politics and thinking only about their political small interests than the big interests of the state of Israel. So when some people are saying they’re afraid, they’re thinking of not just the war with Hamas, but another front opening in the north. Of course. They’re thinking about Iran. Is that a piece of the picture for you, too? Of course. Of course. We have—Ehud Barak said once about Israel that it’s a villa in the jungle. I remember that, and it was enormously controversial when he said it. It is. Whether we like it or not, it is. Look what is happening in the Middle East. Look what is happening. Like, you know, I covered the Syrian refugee crisis. I was twice in Greece. Once I did a documentary on the Syrian refugee crisis. And the second time I went and volunteered for ten days in a school that was built by Israelis for the refugees. I heard their horrible stories. I saw the children, you know, coming. And I was like cutting an apple and I—whatever was left from it, I close it to the gar—I dropped it into the garbage, and I saw children coming to the garbage and taking it from there. And I remember going back home and I said to myself, this can’t happen in 2020. How come this is happening in 2018 or 2017? I don’t understand it. It’s like the world is so, you know—it’s 2017, in the name of God. It’s 2018, in the name of God. It’s—how come people just—their lives changed like that? How do you explain—I mean, right now there’s, I don’t know if you’d call it a jihad or what, but a total decimation of Christians in Nigeria by Islamists. If you look at what’s happening in Syria, you look all over the world and it’s people like the guy that stared at you from the window when you were five years old or the people that carried out October 7, terrorizing people, including Christians, Jews, other Muslims all over the world. And there are lots of people who look at that and say what Israel’s fighting, fundamentally, is not a war with Hamas, it is a fundamental war between Western civilization and Islam. And what do you say to that, because you are Muslim? You know, I see what these fundamentalists are doing in the name of Islam. I see what they’re doing in the name of religion, in every religion. You—I think Christianity or Judaism or Islam. If you want to do something extreme, you will find the right excuse for it. I think that we are giving up on education. We gave up on education. When I see people in the United States like this, like young people, the young generation going to elite universities saying, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” They’ve never been to Palestine, they’ve never been to Israel. They don’t understand what a Palestinian is feeling. By the way, the United Emirates, you know, Dubai, all these by countries, they understood the danger of this fundamental Islamist movement and they fight it. Ask yourself why Abdel Fattah el-Sisi doesn’t want anything to do with the Palestinian. He wants to be the, you know, moderate. “I’m willing to have—but I don’t want this problem in my country, no, no.” Why Jordan has, like, you know, a love and hate feeling with the Palestinians. Why? They don’t want this problem. Let’s explain the problem, though. Because, you know, pre–October 7, even after the Intifada, even after all the rockets on Sderot, even after after after all of these things—broadly on the Israeli left, and certainly in the United States on the left, there was a consensus view. And that consensus view was there’s two people, and the conflict is fundamentally about splitting up the land. It seems to me that that is fundamentally shifted, that idea. Because what happened on October 7 got nothing to do with the occupation. Because when you hear right now Khaled Meshaal— Being one of the heads of Hamas. Hamas. Yes. One of the heads of Hamas—being interviewed in a podcast—I’m going to say it again. Khaled Meshaal was interviewed two weeks ago in a podcast. Okay? He was like sitting in one of the, you know, prestigious hotels doing a podcast while his people are starving or, you know, going through Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip. And he’s being interviewed for a podcast and saying in that podcast, “We’re not talking about two-state solution. No, no, no. There’s only one state from the river to the sea, which means we’re eliminating the state of Israel.” So when Hamas is asking to stop the war, it’s very funny. You are declaring deep to a race. You’re saying that state of Israel, like you’re not going to just be okay with the Gaza Strip or the Palestinian territories. You’re saying that you are going to be okay with all Israel. So when you’re asking to stop the war in the same sentence, it’s a little bit funny. And at the same time, another leader of Hamas is basically laughing in the face of the international community. They’re looking at these young people marching on the streets, shouting in the name of a terror organization, and they’re laughing. So when you teach people, when you educate people to speak in a soundbite and not give—and not read, you know—I remember the guy that I fell on his, like, the day of the terror attack. There was a very old man that I fell next to him. When I fell on the ground, my face hit the ground. There was a guy that sold a small like—shoes, and he looked at everything that happened and he told them, “Yeah, well, come on.” Where will you escape from God? These are innocent people. Where will you escape from God? I think that these fundamentalists, these extremists don’t want us to ask the right questions, don’t want us to question things that are said, that are done. It’s easier to have a villain in—you know, in religion, everything is very clear. The—the good guy, the bad guy. We are the last ones. No. You said earlier to me that on October 7 Israel lost the war, but of course, the war, you know, to fight Hamas hadn’t really begun on October 7. It would take a few weeks. And now we’re almost four months into that war. Do you think it’s possible for Israel to—there’s a paradox, right? On the one hand, Israel must win the war because a democratic country cannot live with a terrorist group at its border promising to do it again and again and again. On the other hand, other people say you can’t defeat an idea, and this is an idea. So can Israel win the war? Like you said, Israel has to win. It doesn’t have another chance. It doesn’t have any other choice. And I chose the war: chance and choice. We have to win this war. You know that the reaction is going to be harsh and brutal, and you want the reaction to be harsh and brutal. Why? Because they want to kill our sense of humanity. I was angry and frustrated about this terror organization because they took from me the ability to look at the other side with compassion. At the beginning of these days, they killed compassion. The sense of compassion in me. They murdered the sense of compassion in me, of humanity, me not being able to look at someone else and say, okay, I need to look at this, too. I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to see. I’m not interested to see. And this is what Hamas wanted to do. And he was able to do it. A lot of Israelis, and you know what? On a certain level, they are right. They don’t want to even listen about the misery of the people in the Gaza Strip. They don’t want to, to have compassion towards the people of the Gaza Strip because they say to themselves, “they didn’t have any compassion when they came and burned us alive. Why should we have compassion to them?” And I understand that. But then I say to myself, we lost that day and they want us to lose this war. I’m not willing to give them this, the benefit of them looking and seeing that we lost our humanity. We are not Hamas. Israel is not Hamas. And this is why in the last few days, in the last few weeks, I started watching what is happening in the Gaza Strip. It’s horrible. It’s not easy seeing the images coming out from the Gaza Strip. And I feel sorry and painful for babies, for children, for men and women who are being killed in this war. No one should experience this. No one in this world should experience not what we experienced and what the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip are experiencing. The next generation of the people living in the Gaza Strip in 20 years, if we want them, if we want to start looking for forgiveness between Israelis and Palestinians, we need also to be part of the solution. We cannot just say it’s not our problem. These are our neighbors. We don’t have any other neighbors. You know, if somebody is sitting in Israel and thinking that one day, 3 million Palestinians from, you know, the West Bank, 1 million in the West Bank and 2 million in the Gaza Strip will just disappear, you’re living in a really, really, really bad conception. And Israel—I’m announcing as an Israeli, Muslim, Arab woman, is not going to disappear anywhere, nor the Jewish people. The Jewish state is here to stay. Now we need to be part of a solution. And to just look at the geopolitical situation, we have a great opportunity. Everybody has political interests. Everybody has interest in the Middle East. You know, we have peace agreements with Jordan. You have peace agreement with Egypt. We have the Abraham Accords. And Saudi Arabia is winking and telling us. . . . So we need to be really,really, really, you know, blind not to see the great opportunity where a lot of political interests come together for Israel and for the Palestinian people. We just need to open our eyes. Before we left the interview, we asked Lucy about her parents. We wanted to know a little bit more about what they think of her work, her life, and what she’s become. They’re really proud. They—they’re amazing, really. They sound unbelievable. I cannot be grateful enough for them, and, you know, them accepting Tsahi as they are—the day that Tsahi, on October 7, when my mom knew that he’s going to the battlefield and he’s going—she cried her eyes out. He’s like her son. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that she’s Muslim or he’s Jewish or we have a child. His name is Adam. We have, you know, I don’t want to put this, like, burden on him, but he’s the future. He’s our future. Like Adam is Adam. He’s a, you know, an empty paper. White. He’s a human being. So nobody’s going to judge him and nobody’s going—he’s the future. He’s this and that. He’s Muslim and he’s Jewish. And for me, this is my—everything that I’m doing in my life right now is for him. I want him to have a better future. I want him to be in a country where he can be proud to be Jewish and to be Muslim. And I am not willing to just sit aside while some people are trying to push him and tell him “you’re not part of this country.” His father is patriotic. As a 48-year-old man that is not supposed to do reserves is. And he is—he’s a human being. And I will fight for his right to be who he is without being judged. This is my fight. I can’t thank you enough for giving— Thanks you. I know how busy you are. Yes. So grateful. Now you have to go and vote. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

The family story of Amichai - hostages held by Hamas Download YouTube 2023-10-26 (#048) < Previous Next > Avichai Brodutsch's wife and 3 children are being held hostage in Gaza. Avichai asks the international community to help bring them home Video Transcription: Coming soon

Who is behind the Pro Palestinians protest in America? Download YouTube 2023-11-11 (#110) < Previous Next > Who is behind the pro-Palestinian rallies across the U.S.? Inestigative journalist Asran Nomani she says that there is a multi-million orchestrated campaign of Muslim organizations behind the protests. Those organizations have embedded themselves in the West and are directly linked with the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Workers' World Organization, which are far left parties. These parties which are against America, the West and Israel are backed by a multi-million dollar network of organizations with an ideology that has infiltrated the schools and created an upside down world where the victims of the October 7th massacre are depicted as the aggressors. Video Transcription: Pro Palestinian rallies popping up on the streets and on college campuses across the US. Who's behind them? NTD's Cindy Dru Kier spoke with an expert on Islamic terrorism, Asran Omani, to take a deep dive. Investigative journalist and author Asran Nomani tells NTD that behind the pro Palestinian protest in America is a multi million dollar orchestrated campaign. Muslim organizations that have now embedded themselves in the west, and they are the ones unleashing these protesters against Israel and Jews onto the streets and into the campuses. What we have is a multimillion dollar orchestrated campaign. And I'm speaking to you from the trenches of those efforts. In the streets. Nomani shows NTD posters she picked up following a pro Palestinian rally last Saturday. And you get the signs from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. But what was the chant that they said in Arabic? Philistine Al Arabia, which means Palestine is Arab from the river to the sea. So they have code. And who organized this one? The Islamist groups. U. S. Palestinian Community Network. One of the many Islamist groups that believe in political Islam. And who have they aligned with? Them. This is what's so critical. You have to see the fine print as you know, as a journalist stand with Palestine and the occupation. Right? They use these big words. Who is it that sponsored this? The Party for Socialism and Liberation. Socialism and Liberation. That's the far left. And who are they? Multimillion dollar global networks that are trying to infuse the socialist far left agenda into our nation. They are aligned. Then look at this one. We're going to break the fourth wall here. Workers World Party. The far left communist Organization. Nomani calls the protesters a woke army against America, the West and Israel, unleashed by a multi million dollar network of organizations. This ideology that has infused our schools. And what they have done is they are using the talking points of the oppression matrix, the privileged bingo. That our poor children have had to experience in our school systems, so that now it's an upside down world in which Jews are the occupiers, the colonists and the aggressors, and there is no mention of them as victims as happened in the October 7. You can watch the full interview with Nomani on NTD's International National Reporters Roundtable, a deep dive into global news with a panel of dedicated journalists and experts from around the world on Saturday at 07:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Hamas’s terrorism does not discriminate between Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin. Download YouTube 2023-12-31 (251) < Previous Next > Hamas’s terrorism does not discriminate. It targets anyone in its path including Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin, and all other identities. On October 7th, Hamas kidnapped Hamza and Yusef Ziyadne. They are Bedouin, a group of nomadic Arabs who call Israel home. Their family member Basheer explains that Yusef has diabetes and needs medical treatment. Basheer said Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people and doesn’t represent the Arab people. He just wants his family members back home now. Inshallah 🙏 Thanks @noa-tishby Video Transcription:

Douglas Murray says what others are too scared to admit about Gaza Download YouTube 2023-11-10 (#102) < Previous Next > Douglas Murray answers questions regarding a view expressed by Barack Obama about the potential radicalization of extremists as a result of the numerous civilian casualties in Gaza. He replies that, according to that view, not only shoudl Israel just sit back and do nothing, but also that there is a peaceful population in Gaza aching for a 2 state solution. This is not so, as proven by video coverage of one of the victims of rape and murder by Hamas who was subsequently paraded in the streets of Gaza. The video shows a group of ordinary Gazans spitting on her, hitting and mutilating her body further. Not one person told them to stop. Piers Morgan asks Douglas Murray if he endorses collective punishment for the actions of a few. Douglas Murray replies that there is some collective responsibility because the Gazans elected Hamas. It is routinely claimed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza but there is a constant population boom there. The comparison between Hamas and the Nazis is insufficient: the Nazis were ashamed of what they did and tried to cover their crimes, while Hamas did what they did with glee,were deeply proud and some phoned their parents at home to boast. They also said they would continue to commit such atrocities until the whole world is clear of Jews. The world should take that seriously! Video Transcription: Coming soon

Using civilians as human shields by terror organizations to manipulate the media Download YouTube 2023-10-30 (#063) < Previous Next > A retired soldier from the US Army Special Forces who fought against Islamic terror all across the Middle East refuses to report about civilian casualty numbers within the Gaza Strip because all the Jihadist groups like to use civilians for cover, aka human shields. They kidnap children and keep them close to their rockets and send those rockets from civilian structures such as schools and hospitals. Besides arming children with actual weapons, they also give fake weapons to young children, hoping that someone will shoot them. They have training camps for children from the age of 5 where they teach them to go out and hunt and kill Israelis. It's easy to look at the bodies of the dead children without looking at the total picture, and furthermore, Hamas is not a reliable source and anybody reporting numbers from inside Gaza has a very biased agenda or a distorted view of the situation. Video Transcription: Coming soon

Let's talk about the "hostage exchange" Download YouTube 2023-11-26 (#157) < Previous Next > Renny Grinshpan with a few basics about the "hostage exchange" between Israel and Hamas Thank you @heyitsrenny Video Transcription: Coming soon

The Katz family story: Hostages held by Hamas sharing the stories Download YouTube 2023-10-26 (#046) < Previous Next > The story of the Katz family. Lior Katz Natanzon tells about the 6 members of her family who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th and about the nightmare she is going through Video Transcription: Coming soon

Why Israel's Response to Hamas Was Justified by Natasha Hausdorff Download YouTube 2024-01-24 (276) < Previous Next > Natasha Hausdorff on what is a proportional response to a terrorist attack?‎ What does genocide involve?‎ And is South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice justified?‎ Presenters: Mark Oppenheimer and Jason Werbeloff Editor and Producer: Jimmy Mullen and Porter Kaufman Credits: UKLFI Charitable Trust Video Transcription: welcome to Brin and evat we are absolutely delighted to be joined by Natasha Hof who is an expert at international law and a UK barister and we're going to be talking about the current conflict between Israel and Hamas Natasha would you like to start with the events of October 7 the circumstances that that cause us to uh come together uh now three months after the 7th of October uh are unfortunate to say the least uh it was in the early hours of the 7th of October that Israel experienced an attack uh planned as we now know for at least two years by the internationally prescribed Terror organization Hamas uh an attack that began of course with uh the firing of rockets and air raid sirens and that now appears to have been a cover for Mass infiltrations through the border on a scale uh which overwhelmed uh The Limited Security Forces which were that time uh on a religious holiday um stationed around the Border area and we all know now of the atrocities that were committed by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations and by all accounts also by ordinary civilians who followed through those border breaches when I say this had been planned for a number of years it's important to understand that many people in Israel uh while they would have been shocked that such truly horrific events uh could have happened the nature of what happened uh may not have come as a surprise to many and that is because if you have followed uh the media uh and literature and educational resources uh specifically of of the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip but also across the palestin authority and and the West Bank um the nature of what was perpetrated was not surprising in fact uh it has been part of the um stated agenda certainly of Hamas but also of other Palestinian terrorist organizations uh and it is part and parcel unfortunately of an education system instituted 30 years ago through the Oslo Accords under the control of the Palestinian Authority in which uh suddenly the terrorists that crossed the border on the 7th of October had been educated from a very young age that the highest calling in life was martyrdom and uh that their their highest uh aim ought to be to slaughter as many Jews as possible 3,000 terrorists don't wake up one morning and decide that it's a good day to slaughter Jews and you do not create thousands of people who can perpetrate the kind of atrocities that we saw on the 7th of October cutting the uh belly open of a pregnant woman burning and beheading children maming them in front of their families Mass rape and Slaughter um and uh the mutilation of people uh both dead and alive that is not um conduct that I believe is natural in human beings and it has to be taught and instilled in a very uh concentrated Manner and and with a concerted effort and according to un statistics if we look at the number of children who are educated who have grown up in the unra school system un run schools three out of four of the terrorists who crossed the border on the 7th of October were educated in that school system were educated to commit those sorts of Terror atrocities there are also other factors uh that led to the ability of uh Hamas and other terrorist organizations to infiltrate into Israel to commit the atrocities of the 7th of October and when I say other Palestinian Terror organizations amongst the terrorists that committed those atrocities were pflp members uh the filiates of fata the so-called moderates in the West Bank that run the Palestinian Authority uh and there were Palestinian Islamic Jihad and it's important to remember that all of those terrorists who had previously been convicted and and some of those that planned the attack of the 7th of October were released in the gilad Shalit deal members of of Hamas and the N Force um they had been paid salaries continuously by the Palestine Authority the so-called moderates in this equation these Terror salaries under the pay for slay program which is enshrined in Palestinian law uh are paid to terrorists irrespective of what Banner they coales under and they are paid on the basis of the severity of their crimes how many many Jews they have managed to slaughter and the length of their sentences and so the incentivization of Terror and the education and indoctrination towards Terror that we have seen for a number of decades both contributed significantly to the 7th of October atrocities there is another factor that needs to be taken into account to understand the context uh of those events and that is international pressure for security concessions because was between uh January and August 2023 there were over 400,000 entrances from Gaza into Southern Israel mostly work permits uh permitting people from Gaza to come and work in the communities that lived in the South along the border with Gaza and we now know that these um entrances uh the workers that came over on these permits were Central to the planning of this attack an attack that involved uh units of terrorists spreading out across the southern communities uh with clear instructions uh paperwork that was found on them with maps detailed information house by house on a on a household by household basis how many people how many children whether there was a dog whether was a gun and what they were instructed to do to each family and when one takes into consideration that the people that lived in these Southern communities were amongst uh the most vocal proponents for coexistence for cooperation for initiatives uh for water supply uh in Gaza and uh economic initiatives uh driving Palestinian civilians of the Gaza Strip uh to hospital uh in Israel across the border when they were coming for treatment these are the people that were attacked uh these are the people that had done more than anyone else in Israel to seek to Foster positive relations with their neighbors uh and they paid for uh that with their blood uh and the security concessions one of which I've highlighted in the context of the permits that permitted people from the Gaza Strip to come into Israel on a regular basis were also unfortunately a very significant factor in the planning and the ability of Hamas to execute about what was the bloodiest day uh in Jewish history since the Holocaust thank you Natasha this it's a a difficult topic especially on a philosophy show because something that we do with all of our guests uh even if we agree with our guests which in this case I do is to present objections um that would be offered on the other side um so I'm going to try and do that even though I don't hold these objections U I don't normally have to give a caveat like that normally in flos we can play with positions but here this is a really serious topic um so one of the objections given and there's many but one of the objections given um is that the empirical data is wrong so these terrible things didn't happen or there's a minimizing so they'll so so objectives will say well there weren't any rapes there weren't um and then it's difficult to it's difficult to to argue against false accusations or false false news being propagated how false denials the case maybe false denials yeah so so so how do you go about trying to defend empirical claims um against people who try to minimize the horrors of of what happened very early in this process uh I was invited to um a debate at University College Dublin in Ireland and the very first uh contribution from the floor in terms of questions uh was where is your evidence to the 7th of October um and while it may have been surprising at the start of uh this process that immediately after those atrocities were committed um in a way we've got used to these false denials and of course that the straightforward answer to that is look at the material that Hamas themselves put out if you don't want to take the word of Israeli survivors Witnesses of the zaka team that collected these bodies and documented and gave interviews explaining uh the aftermaths of these victims of grotesque sexual assaults of gang rapes of broken pelvises of teenage girls uh that were simply left shot in the head after these violent sexual assaults had taken place if you're not prepared to take into account all of that overwhelming evidence and in the context of you know believing victims and uh the modern movement especially in relation to violence against women uh that is extraordinary in and of itself but put all over that aside and look at what Hamas have put out themselves because they haven't hidden their crimes and their atrocities on the contr they have celebrated them they have circulated footage of their atrocities with Glee and they have promised to do the 7th of October over and over again the fact that we also see schizophrenic uh changes to this you know on the one hand they say the 7th of October didn't happen and these are all Israeli lies or the atrocities were not committed or they only targeted combatants and not civilians I mean we know that's not the case because by the same token they also celebrate their crimes so um I I find that uh when dealing with false denials one really has to pick one's battle if people are not willing to engage uh with the obvious and the evidence uh that has been uh transmitted around the world and also compiled uh by the Israeli authorities uh in the sort of 42 minute long uh video of some of the atrocities captured on Hamas GoPros uh and the like um then uh then I think these are conversations that are probably not going to be productive so the Israeli response has been that in order to secure the safety of its citizens um to secure Jewish life not just in Israel but really around the world because Israel is a safe haven for all Jews that it is now imperative to eradicate amas now engaging in its War um there have been some horrible civilian casualties as I think you would find in any War can you tell us a bit about what are the requirements to fight a war that meets the international law standards of a just War uh so just War Theory and and I appreciate it on a philosophy show this is something uh that people will wish to engage in perhaps more so than any practicalities of it um is is very interesting from an academic standpoint um so far as Israel's response is concerned one doesn't need to go uh any further than a very very basic and fundamental uh aspect of customary international law if you will which is self-defense um it is not bestowed on any state this right of self-defense it is an inherent right of self-defense it is considered so fundamental it is recognized in article 51 of the UN Charter as being inherent uh and no one can take that away uh no circumstances can stop a state defending itself and critically defending its citizens that is of course any uh Democratic uh government's primary responsibility and in the context of exercising one's self-defense the rules of armed conflict govern what is lawful and what is not lawful in uh International humanitarian law the laws of war there are three key principles that govern a state's behavior in armed conflict the rule of military necessity means that a state can only undertake action which is militarily necessary to advance its military aims uh a second rule of international uh humanitarian law is the rule of Distinction which means that law- abiding states are required to distinguish between combatants and civilians and only combatants and Military objects may be targeted by strikes um and civilians and civilian objects are not permitted to be targeted uh but they may unfortunately come into a calculation of uh proportionality and the proportionality role is the third key rule in the law of armed conflict and that requires that a strike that is militarily necessary and that targets military infrastructure military targets must nonetheless also be proportionate which means that the anticipated military advantage of a strike uh must be balanced against the anticip ated likely civilian collateral damage the international law uh as a framework in armed conflict works on the Assumption the basis that civilians uh will unfortunately be killed uh in the that is a a gruesome uh deadly uh context that war is and that is perhaps the most misrepresented uh rule of customary international law and the law of armed conflict uh it's frequently suggested that proportionality is about balancing casualty figures on both sides I mean that is um grotesque it is plainly incorrect as a matter of law but also as a matter of of Common Sense uh I'd say it's objectionable uh that there needs to be a uh comparison of casualty figures it leads to the um uh ultimate conclusion that you not enough Jews have died to uh justify Israel's response and taking out uh Hamas that that is not how how uh Common Sense uh operates but it's also not how international law operates um the rule of proportionality as I was describing uh requires uh a balance between the military uh Advantage sought to be gained and the anticipated collateral damage and that is conducted uh on the basis of the information that is known to a military commander in real time it's an intention based uh Rule and Analysis it's not based on on the effects and mistakes are sometimes made especially in the in the dangerous circumstances and the fog of War but uh the real critical thing to assess is how an army uh operates how it goes about selecting strikes and applying the laws of armed conflict and in Israel's case the military Advocate General core uh which is the legal department of the IDF sits outside of the chain of command it is answerable to the Attorney General so that those officers in the mag Corp are able to tell more senior officers in the IDF chain of command yes or no with respect to uh the Striking decisions and what law says and that's critical it tells us that Israel puts adherence to international law extremely highly but I would also uh warrant that uh in Israel's case it goes above the requirements of the laws of armed conflict especially with respect to the principle of precaution which is another aspect of the laws of armed conflict but requires law abiding armies to take precautions to minimize civilian casualties Israel in fact goes over and above uh both requirements of international law and standard practice of modern uh law-abiding armies in the warnings that it issues to civilians in uh the text messages that it sends to individual householders the phone calls that it makes uh the efforts that the IDF have uh undertaken in this Exchange in Gaza as in previous rounds of conflict in the Gaza Strip are unparalleled in the history of warfare uh and uh that is I think also Testament not just to the legal adherence but also the morality the code of ethics that the IDF operates to so one of the arguments put forward is that there isn't proper proportionality here um that too many Palestinian civilians have died specifically children I think the number that's floated is 4,000 Palestinian children have died um in the conflict and the question is how do you do the calculation so suppose there's a famous terrorist or there's a bunch of class terrorist in an area where there's a whole lot of children that's it's in a school um what is the what is the calculation in in in pressing the fire button on on that missile you know at what at what point a different way to phrase the question is at what point is it is it not okay um how many children would you need in the vicinity for it not to be okay and once you reach that answer let's say it's 10 children for everyone from a spider or 100 children for everyone from the sper can't you work your way back and say well you know if it's not okay to kill 100 children surely it's not okay to kill one child so one of the arguments put forward is well ifas has embeded themselves in a civilian ation which it seems is very much a part of their their ethic or lack of Ethics um doesn't doesn't that put further constraints on Israel to do anything at all um that involves Southern in casualties if that were the case it would give Kamas and other uh likeminded terrorist organizations uh immunity so I would say that cannot be the case and it certainly isn't the case in international law when we come to the calcul ations that you've described we are hamstrung in this instance because we do not have reliable numbers of casualty figures coming out of the Gaza Strip what Hamas have been putting out through the Ministry of Health that they control in the Gaza Strip uh are figures that cannot be trusted and critically they do not make um a distinction between civilians and combatants they also do not uh identify how it is that uh these reported casualty figures uh have come about their demise it's important to remember that Hamas have been shooting uh fleeing civilians the United States have confirmed amongst others that this is the case bombing also civilian convoys in the first few weeks of this conflict uh this began uh because they are so desperate to hang on to uh their human shields uh because uh from Hamas this is a win-win situation uh if it drives up casualty figures uh purported casualty figures or real ones then there is international pressure on Israel uh to cease its lawful um objectives of uh of of annihilating Hamas and making sure that the threat against Israeli civilians is taken away uh and if it succeeds in uh dispelling Israeli attacks as it has done in many cases where Israel has had to call off proposed strikes because there were too many civilians in the vicinity then it also succeeds in um uh in its immunity uh from uh from the law otherwise lawful attack on a military uh installation Hamas stronghold or a rocket launch site um the numbers here are are as I say uh very difficult to navigate but it's important to do so in the proper context um even going according to Hamas figes uh and the Israeli figure of 9,000 combatants which it is confirmed it has killed 9,000 terrorists that is identified through intelligence that it knows that it is taken out then we are even according to the K casualty figures that we cannot trust we're looking at a potential civilian to combatant ratio that Israel has estimated of 2 to one now that sounds awful that two civilians are killed to every one combatant and it needs to be seen in its proper context because all war is awful and according to the United Nations the global average for urban Warfare such as this is a staggering nine to one civilians killed so nine civilians to one combatant sorry uh in terms of casualty ratios according uh to the Americans um their statistics for Iraq and Afghanistan are between uh 1 to three and 1 to five 5 to1 3: one so three civilians killed for every one combatant and five civilians for every one combatant respectively so in all of those respects in all of those contexts despite the Hamas tactics here despite the unparalleled and unprecedented challenges that Israel is encountering of Hamas embedding themselves in schools and Hospitals and Clinics and using ambulances to transport weapons and um and fighter and uh it seems now that the tactic that has been uh well documented is that Hamas Fighters dressed in civilian clothes move from house to house every second uh civilian residential house in Gaza it would seem has a weapons caching in it uh Hamas Fighters move between houses and civilian clothing go into a house fire from it and then leave and go on to the next weapons Casher in the next house uh thereby seeking to uh evade um uh attack by pretending to be civilians as well as embedding themselves of course amongst real civilians women and children the sick and the elderly and of course we also know amongst Israeli hostages um Israel has said it knows where yya Sina uh is and it has him in its sights but he has surrounded himself with Israeli hostages seeking to render himself immune from Attack in the context of these tactics the civilian to combatant ratio is remarkable that Israel has been able to achieve but it is Testament to the length that Israel goes to protect the civilians in the Gaza Strip uh not just from Israeli uh strikes but also from attack from Kat themselves now we're speaking on the 15th of janary and uh a couple of days ago the sou African government um put forward its case before for the international court of justice and Israel was able to respond the following day um the afrian government provided Israel with very scant opportunity to put in a defense their papers were filed on the 29th of December and they wanted a hearing within days um which is what they really got um what do you make of the case made by South Africa the South African government claims that Israel is committing genocide a particularly uh egregious thing to say about the only Jewish Nation where people really did endure a genocide um and then what do you make of Israel's response to that case well the reason that South Africa has levied this particular Canard of genocide against the Jewish state is because it provides a hook for jurisdiction at the international court of justice um let me be clear there is no validity No Merit neither the facts or the law as South Africa are seeking to advance it in its case against Israel uh and its victory in uh the application that it made uh against Israel the international court of justice as you say on Thursday last week uh was as a as a public relations exercise this was a set of submissions made the international media and in that respect uh they have um certainly been uh able to achieve a margin of success because the discussion now is as uh as Preposterous as uh as it would uh as as Preposterous as it is uh the discussion is about whether or not Israel is committing a genocide the irony of this should not be lost uh ironic because the term genocide was coined by Raphael lkin in the aftermath of the second world war to give a legal uh lexicon to the annihilation of substantial part of the Jewish people who were exterminated because of their race and so the crime of genocide is about intending to destroy a people in whole or in part because of who they are now I've talked about some of the measures that Israel has taken to protect the Palestinian civilians in Gaza much of the submission that Israel put forward on Friday of last week also evidenced the unparalleled humanitarian efforts and initiatives that Israel has been conducting in the Gaza Strip and that uh coupled with the precautions that are being taken by the IDF uh ultimately put the lie to what the South Africans were seeking to advance in terms of intention um in the context of the 84-page application that South Africa Advanced the intention aspects were covered by a series of misrepresentations of quotes of Israeli officials um where they were talking about Kamas and the South African uh legal team uh presented these quotations as though uh the Israelis were seeking to um eliminate the Palestinian people as opposed to Hamas well the intention is clear from the context of the quotations but it's also clear from the actions on the ground uh that Israel has gone above and beyond to protect the Palestinian people even though Hamas continues to subjugate abuse and uh seek to uh offer them up as um as as civilian uh sacrifices to their war effort um whether or not uh South Africa will be successful in uh what it seeks to achieve even in the immediate term which are provisional measures and this is this is why the case was heard so quickly um when you say that it didn't give Israel a chance to respond I'm afraid it's even worse than that it transpired from uh Israel's submissions on the Friday that the usual course uh which is that one state um interacts corresponds with another to establish uh whether there is a dispute if so what the nature of that dispute between the two states is before an application is brought to the Court of uh the international court of justice it transpires that that that wasn't done and it also uh was part of Israel's case that South Africa has in fact misled the court as to the correspondence that took place Between the States before uh the application was made and the reason this is significant uh is because South Africa has by all accounts jumped the gun has made this application but without following through the proper processes the accepted procedure of engaging with the state of Israel before going to the court which would mean that the court has no jurisdiction to even hear the matter um so we'll have to see what the international court of justice determines but it is of critical importance not just to Israel but to all law-abiding states upholders of the rule of law because the international court of justice is currently being abused by South Africa South Africa that seems to be championing the terrorists Hamas the internationally prescribed terrorist organization and Hamas came out to formerly thank South Africa for their good work at the international court of justice in the wake of their submissions um so the fact that uh the South African seek to promote the cause of Hamas are seeking an order or an indication from the court that Israel should immediately cease its operation in Gaza against Hamas its lawful self-defense um means that uh in very many respects I think there can be arguments that the South Africans are themselves now complicit in the genocide that Hamas began on the 7th of October and is seeking to continue and here we're talking about real genocide acts that a couple with the intent to eradicate Jews and Hamas leadership has been clear about that so in this Topsy Turvy uh World in which we live and this grotesque inversion of hamas's application um the danger of this is is not necessarily strictly for for Israel I mean if if the court um orders Israel to cease it its self-defense that is of course contrary to its inherent rights under international law and I cannot see a situation in which Israel would be able to sit on its hands while its civilians are continuing uh to be subject to bombardment by Hamas and while uh Hamas are continuing to to seek to replicate the 7th of October and while they hold over a hundred hostages that they are are doubtless continuing um to abuse so in those circumstances I cannot uh see what practical impact provisional measures ordered by the court would have other than to utterly undermine The credibility of the court and I think this much has been recognized by the United States by the United Kingdom by Germany who have all come out to condemn what they consider to be a meritless case and Germany in particular has said that it will be making submissions on Israel's behalf if this matter moves past the preliminary stage to the substantive hearings uh the reason we need to watch this space as I think lawyers uh is is not just because of uh potential ramifications for for Israel in international legal discourse but critically also for where the international court of justice is heading because if it has now also become a casualty of lawfare which is an abuse of legal processes and an abuse of legal institutions to promote a political agenda then that is a very sad day for international law and order L return to the humanitarian question um I think think your point is very well put that Israel has aided in humanitarian um efforts one of the objections put forward uh by the pro Palestinian side is that Israel has generated a humanitarian nightmare um by moving large parts of Gaza to other parts of Gaza by um undermining um their productive rights because Hospital facilities that allow for wom to to give birth safety have been undermined um how do you how do you uh weigh up those sort of claims um against against Israel's objective to to eliminate Kamas well I think the first thing is that these claims need to be called out for being false uh in terms of uh the hospitals allegation uh it's clear and there is mounting evidence of Hamas systematically using hospital and medical facilities as Terror command and control centers and as critical parts of its Terror infrastructure this is not just a a violation of the laws of armed conflict it is a grotesque violation when one considers that hospitals in particular are the most protected um buildings in the context of the laws of AR conflict even a military hospital is protected uh if it is being used solely for the purpose of of treating uh military wounded and here Hamas is is abusing the laws of AR conflict uh to further these aims and quite the contrary Israel has been very careful with respect to uh dealing with the terror infrastructure embedded in these hospitals uh in Al sheifer of course rather than bombarding the hospital it went in uh at Great danger and threat to uh to the um soldiers themselves but they went into the hospital with medics with Arabic speakers in order to try and distinguish the uh terrorist combatants from uh the legitimate sick uh and medical star and this I stress was after repeated warnings uh and requests that people Evacuate the hospital uh and that leads me on to the the first point that you uh raised which is to do with the movement of of civilians uh in Gaza let me be clear Israel cannot uh and certainly at the start of this process when it gave the civilian population 3 weeks to evacuate the north of Gaza before it began its operations there against Hamas Israel had no control or power to force civilian movements anywhere it sought to create safe corridors and safe areas humanitarian zones which in fact Hamas specifically fired at Israel from again uh abusing uh the the the very essence of of the laws of armed conflict and the principle of dis of separating between civilians and combatants Hamas does not do that um but quite apart from Israel having any ability to uh to force civilians to move anywhere what it did was was seek to uh provide safe routes for evacuation and encourage civilians to leave the central terrorist infrastructure in the north of uh the Gaza Strip in order to save their lives and for that to be so utterly inverted and used again Israel in this fashion uh is Kafkaesque uh it is um I think also probably unparalleled in in the history of international law that one has such a grotesque inversion of reality and the truth uh and uh it being used to ground allegations of of that nature so that's the first thing that we need to do is call out the falsehoods here and when it comes to balancing well you know that's all to do with the proportionality exercise uh that Israel is required to uh conduct uh and it does so and and we see the results of that um many of of the casualties uh that the IDF have suffered uh as a result of going house to house are because Israel is trying to conduct this conflict in a surgical fashion and ensure that it targets the Hamas terrorists in amongst the civilian uh population that has uh refused to comply uh that has refused to uh evacuate um and uh we're seeing on a daily basis uh the result of that unfortunate um the unfortunate consequences of that but it is a decision that Israel takes because uh it holds so highly the preservation of all civilian life so one move that's often made in these discussions is to claim that Israel has been uh unfairly targeted that the number of resolutions at the United Nations that Target Israel I think far exceeds those against all other countries in the world uh that many of those that sit on human rights councils those states are involved in horrendous human rights trusties that uh in South Africa you find that there's very little condemnation of the treatment of Muslims around the world that no one talks about the weers no one talks about who were being killed in Sudan in fact the South African government provided a safe passage to um someone who was charged with genocide Omar Al Basher um that he was um um allowed to escape um from South Africa despite South Africa signing the Rome statute which would have obliged it to hand a share off to the ICC so there's that claim and the other claim is that whenever any of these examples are brought up the claim is that it's a whataboutism that you're changing the topic in an unfair manner so how do we distinguish between those two things whether one is to provide a context and the other is to unfairly change the topic um the issue here is that it's not simply what about um it's not that you know Israel is a uh violator of international law but so are loads of others and everyone's focusing on Israel it's that um actors like the South Africans but they're certainly not alone and the references that you made to un resolutions are a case in point um they attribute to Israel uh breaches of international law which are simply not true while at the same time ignoring the real real violations of international law and the real abuses of Human Rights the disproportionate focus on Israel um would be terrible uh if Israel was just as much of a human rights violator as all of the others that were lacking in in a lens being placed upon them uh but the reason that it is uh so much worse than that is because of the Fabrications around Israel uh and the uh the human rights situation um this I think uh ultimately can only be explained by uh what has been referred to as a as an evolution of anti-Semitism um a mutating virus that anti-Semitism is it it takes on different forms in throughout the ages in fact uh the late great Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sachs um the former Chief Rabbi of of the United Kingdom uh talked about this mutating virus that began in in the Middle Ages uh with a focus on Jews as a religion and one had the ancient blood liables of Jews killing Christian children to use their blood to make M for religious rituals he explained that when science took over from religion as the order of the day the hatred of the Jews mutated into a hatred of the Jewish race and so the Cudo science of eugenics was used by the Nazis to justify their hatred of the Jewish race and Lord sax explained that in uh the modern era international law and human rights even had taken over uh from science as the order of the day and so the hatred of the Jews manifested itself as a hatred of the Jewish State and the modern blood lables are those that we see being AED against Israel at institutions like the United Nations ethnic cleansing colonialism occupation oppression apartheid illegality human rights violations War CRI crimes these are the modern blood lials and so it's important not just to point out where the real violation of The Happening which I appreciate as what you refer to as water Bouy but to call out the untruths against the only Jewish State because the blood liable in the Middle Ages was widely believed and these modern blood libl have gained traction because of this process of lawfare which has been decades in the making and because of armies of NOS that manufacture these allegations and and pseudo evidence that they uh seek to put before uh International legal organizations and uh the application that was Advanced by South Africa cited chapter and verse much of uh that false material seeking uh through its application in fact and through the consideration of the court of these reports to to receive the the judicial stamp of approval on these falsehoods that is an integral part of the lawfare process that South Africa have adopted and another important parallel track and aim uh that is uh being sought to be achieved through the through the case at the international court of justice and it's important that we we call that out not just say there is disproportionate focus on Israel but also there is utterly wrongful focus on Israel on the basis of false allegations you mentioned occupation and that seems to be one of the the the feat in this argument um that's been used since the beginning um what what is the argument um that's been put forward for Israel's occupation of Gaza that it is an occupation and has been for decades and and why is it a poor argument well the argument that's Advanced and I don't think it's taken seriously by any um International lawyers wor worth their salt is that um because uh there is a an argument that Israel control again it's it's based on F premises so it runs like this Israel controls uh the Gaza Strip because it controls the uh borders it controls the airspace it controls shipping and what goes in um now that is factually incorrect of course because if anyone looked at a map they would see that Gaza also borders Egypt as well as Israel uh but the reason that it's also uh even if that were the case it would be legally incorrect is because that is not how the occupation uh framework operates uh and that is why the the term occupation here is being used as a as a political term it is without legal basis it is an abuse of international law um under the ha regulations occupation requires effective control well you can see that Israel has not had any control over the Gaza Strip because over the last 16 years Hamas has turned it into a terror base and since Israel withdrew in 2005 and then subsequently there were elections in 2006 and Hamas uh launched a violent takeover a coup in 2007 uh Israel has not had any control of what goes on in the Gaza Strip uh and in excess of its International legal obligations it has however continued to supply um the Palestinians in Gaza uh with uh with supplies with humanitarian supplies with a portion of of its water and a portion of its electricity by no means all of it there was a great deal of factual misrepresentation that is uh that is at issue here but when we look at the concept of occupation I think we need to look at you know where it has come from and what international law says about the legal status of the territory and here where faced with a with another massive misrepresentation and and misapplication of international law there is a universal rule uh that tells us the borders of a state when it comes into existence it is a matter of customary international law it is called ostis Urus and it seems to be applied absolutely everywhere except with respect to the Jewish States so this is a rule that developed uh in the 18th 19th century it was applied in South America the withdrawal of the the Spanish it was applied in Asia in Africa uh the dissolution of the former communist federations and it was applied to all the states that emerged from mandates um the international court of justice recognized the development of this rule oset Urus in the bino Mal uh in the bikin Faso Mali case in the 1980s and it talked about why this rule had come into existence um this rule dictated that uh dictates still that a new state when it comes into existence inherit the pre-existing administrative lines that preceded it um so whatever entity was there before if a state comes in it declares itself within that territory then the lines absent any agreement to the contrary so this is a default rule those administrative lines become the new State's International borders and when the court analyzed the emergence of this rule it talked about the reasons that it had developed to provide stability and certainty and to prevent fractu cdal struggles uh and to provide clean lines well in Israel's case after uh the severance by the British of the uh trans Jordan part of the Mandate which later became the hashimite kingdom uh the eastern boundary of the British mandate in 1948 ran along the Jordan River and all the way south to the red to to the Red Sea uh so when Israel declares independence in 1948 it's the only state the only state to come into existence the Declaration of Independence doesn't make any mention of Borders or boundaries it simply refers to Israel the land of Israel butus works as a default rule it works in the absence of any agreement to the country and according to the application of this Universal rule of customary international law Israel inherited the pre-existing administrative lines of the Mandate as as its International borders now in the context of uh the eastern boundary that included the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the context of of the western boundary with Egypt that included Gaza that was part of the British mandate territory now in 1948 Israel is attacked immediately at its Declaration of Independence and Jordan occupies uh the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Egypt occupies Gaza what happens in 1967 Israel recovers that territory in in Jordan uh from Jordan uh the east east Jerusalem and West Bank that had been ethnically cleansed by the jordanians of their Jews Israel recovers that territory so what is the status of that territory if it was originally Israeli Sovereign territory and then under Jordanian occupation what happens when Israel takes it back we have a parallel example a modern one in the context of Russ Russia and Ukraine so Ukraine's borders were formed according to the rule of oset Urus and that is why it is uh generally accepted that Crimea is part of Ukraine and Russia has occupied Crimea from Ukraine in the same way that Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Israel and if Ukraine were to recover Crimea in the context of this war that Russia has waged against it would anyone accuse Ukraine of occupying Crimea from Russia of course not and yet we have an inversion of international law when it comes to Israel now it's critical to be clear that we're talking about the underlying status of the territory this doesn't presuppose what any political settlement ought to look like uh and plainly when Israel recovered that territory in the West Bank in 1967 it it instituted a temporary Administration it did not apply its law administration and sovereignty in full in the same way that it did in Jerusalem because it anticipated under the land for peace formula that it would uh inevitably provide a portion of that land to Jordan as part of the peace agreement when that peace agreement finally came around in 1994 uh the jordanians didn't want any part of it so that ship sailed and subsequently Israel has consistently sought to negotiate under that land for peace formula uh with the Palestinians and Oslo was the Oslo process was a critical part of that but that's all the politics of this if we're talking about the law and being honest about the application of international law to the status of the territory then this term occupation has no place here it is a political term it has no legal uh basis if it's the case Israel is able to eradicate Hamas what obligations does it have to the Palestinians who reside there what obligations does it have to its own citizens so what should be done going forward that's a big question um when I talked about uh the absence of occupation as a as a legitimate framework in international law um of course that is the case as of uh the 6th of October the 7th of October and suddenly through the the early period uh of Israel's war in Gaza um the situation on the ground is changing all of the time and if and when it gets to a point where Israel does in fact have effective control over some of the territory uh then the legal framework and that position will change um so that's something to be mindful of but in the context of you know what happens essentially the day after this war the day after Israel is able to successfully eradicate Hamas um that is a big question and I think the best uh proposals that I have seen uh that have been muted so far rely on uh Going Back to Basics in terms of the uh culture and the society and the societal building blocks in the Gaza Strip and ensuring that uh rather than a uh terrorist organization an extremist um prescribed group like Hamas uh which is essentially a proxy for the Iranian regime rather than importing the Palestinian Authority who support terrorism through their pay for slay program and their indoctrination program um there ought to be self-governance in the Gaza Strip and security uh and a a provision to make sure that nothing like hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip can ever happen again there are proposals for uh if you will a formulation along the lines of the Marshall Plan uh to rebuild uh German after the second world war that are being muted also uh but they have to be seen in parallel and alongside a densification process a process that grapples with uh the rotten education system the UN rum unra schools that are promoting terrorism and indoctrinating child abuse indoctrinating kindergarten children uh to want to grow up to become terrorists that has to be grappled with because there will never be a solution in which uh the Gaza Strip ceases to pose a threat to Israel while that indoctrination continues and the International Community have to take responsibility for it because it is with International funding of these textbooks and these schools and these un run programs that they have been fueling the conflict and that is something that the world needs to stand up and take responsibility for and make sure that going forward the same mistakes are not repeated well Natasha I want to thank you for an absolutely incredible conversation um you've provided so much light at a time of darkness and I just applaud the work that you continue to do um to ensure that everybody finds out what is really happening in Israel um happening with the law and uh I just wish you all of the best thank you so much it's very good to be with you and I very much hope for better times for all of us

Free Palestine! Wait what? Download YouTube 2023-11-03 (#078) < Previous Next > Free Palestine! Wait what? An argument over the meaning of the "From the River to the Sea" slogan. When you're chanting "from the river to the sea", you're actually calling for 7 million Jews to be killed and the establishment of a jihadist state. Video Transcription: Coming soon

Imagine the horror of the hostages Download YouTube 2023-10-21 (#019) < Previous Next > Bring Them Home Now. The horror stories and the suffering of the hostages. Liri Roman's brother Yarden has disappeared without trace. Eyal Nouri is the nephew of Adina and Saeed Moshe. Moshe was murdered by the terrorists and Adina, aged 72, was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. The entire family of Lior Katz Natnazon was kidnapped: her mother, Efrat Katz, is 68, her mother's boyfriend is 79, her sister Doron is 34, Doron's 2 daughters, Raz, 4 and 1/2 years old and Aviv, 2 and 1/2 years old. The relatives of the hostages tell what they know: that the victims heard the terrorists in the neighbor's house, that the terrorists set the house on fire, Moran Aloni, brother of Daniel and Sharon, and uncle of Yuli, Ema, Emilia and David was told by his sister that smoke was coming under the door and choking them. She proclaimed their love and said they probably wouldn't survive.. Lior Peri's father, Haim, and his friend together with a group of elderly, sick people were abducted. Video Transcription: Coming soon