October 12, 2023 • 50 mins
Have you ever wondered how it feels to lose your loved ones to senseless violence?
Ilan Troin, a grieving father who lost his daughter and stepson to the ongoing conflict in Israel, shares his heart-wrenching story. The devastating cost of a well planned shocking and inhuman attack by the terror group Hamas.
Beyond personal stories, we delve into the geopolitical factors behind the conflict. Ibrahim Hazboun, a seasoned journalist and analyst on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, guides us through the intricate maze of issues leading to the explosion in violence. He details the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza, its ensuing rounds of conflict with Israel, and the chilling tactic of civilian targeting. We strive to understand this stalemate, the revulsion it sparks, and the loss of innocent lives.
On Back Story host Dana Lewis discusses an uncertain future between Israeli's and Palestinian's. We explore the disillusionment felt by the people of Gaza and the political stagnation caused by the right-wing Israeli government. We dissect how the media has failed to adequately cover the struggles of Gazan's and the shock of a generation who have known nothing but war.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We were audio witnesses to everything that
took place, like tens ofthousands of other Israelis.
It was awful, so we could hear.
She said she explained thatthey were under attack and after
she said that she didn't sayanything until sometime later
(00:20):
when her son wrote him, whosurvived thanks to her throwing
her body on top of him andbuffeting the bullet that went
through her and only slightlypierced him, and he said hey,
Mehto, they're dead.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But this time is different.
It's a new level of violence, anew level of confrontation, and
there are a lot of elementsinvolved in it.
And there are also civilianswho are victims that going into
Gaza would cost them a lot.
And the big question afterremoving the mass, what are you
(00:56):
going to do?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hi everyone and welcome to this edition of
Backstory.
I'm Dana Lewis.
It has been a breathtaking,shocking week in Israel as
Israeli warplanes drop bombs onthe Gaza Strip.
Inside Israel, the grislydiscoveries, the human aftermath
of Hamas's bloody rampagethrough Israeli towns and
villages has continued.
Hundreds killed in their homes,women, children, fathers,
(01:24):
mothers murdered in front oftheir children by Hamas
terrorists.
Over 1200 dead in directmurders and the rocket attacks.
And in Gaza, 1,000 Palestinianshave died in the bombing so far
.
The killing of civilians, thekidnapping of elderly and
children back into Gaza morethan 100 people have been taken
(01:46):
to Gaza and held hostage.
The mass killings of more than250 Israelis at an outdoor music
concert near Gaza, the rapes ofwomen and parading them through
Gaza held as some kind of humantrophies it just all adds up to
terror.
It's inhuman and it doesn'tmatter what you think of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
(02:06):
Killing innocent people on thisscale is gruesome.
Terrorism by Hamas that haswashed itself in blood and
somehow considers the attack onIsrael a victory.
I covered bus bombings carriedout by Hamas in the 90s.
I have interviewed some of itsformer members in the Gaza Strip
.
They are always embracing,killing and blaming Israel.
(02:29):
It started as a charitableIslamic organization.
It developed its arm wing andeventually attacked its own
people, driving out Erafat'sFatah party and taking over Gaza
, where 2.3 million people nowlive under its rule, whether
they like it or not.
They have been able to hijackpeace efforts by Israelis and
(02:49):
Palestinians.
The violence by Hamas has led tothe ceiling of the Gaza Strip.
It has paralyzed thePalestinian Authority's ability
to unify Palestinians and pursueany kind of peace.
Backed by Iran, hamas won'taccept any peace and is only
dedicated to destroying Israel.
Israel has moved some 300,000reservists to the Gaza border.
(03:13):
A ground invasion is looming.
Where does that lead?
I don't think anybody can besure.
And now there is an emergencycoalition government formed in
Israel, a national unitygovernment to unify the country
and make war on Hamas.
On backstory, we talk to IlanTroin.
He's a father who lost hisdaughter and stepson in the
(03:35):
violence and his grandsonnarrowly survived the bullet
wound, the bullet slowed by hismother's body, which took the
force of the gunshot.
And from Jerusalem, palestinianMid-East analyst Ibrahim Hasbun
on how did this happen andpossibly what comes next.
All right, professor Ilan Trointaught at Brandeis University
(04:04):
and he was at Ben-GurionUniversity and, tragically, over
the weekend his daughter andson-in-law were murdered by
gunmen from Gaza on SaturdayDebbie Shahar, troin Matthias
and her husband Shlomi MatthiasIlan.
Thank you for speaking to me.
Not at all.
Thank you, my heartfeltsympathy.
(04:26):
I just cannot imagineexperiencing what you are going
through right now, and may younever experience it.
What happened?
I mean?
What do you know?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yes, what I know is that it was a pogrom, a classic
pogrom.
This was not a militarycampaign.
What it was is an act, an eventthat was well rehearsed, well
funded, practiced over aconsiderable period of time,
with the object of attackingcivilians.
(04:55):
It was not military againstmilitary, and what distinguished
those civilians is that theyare of a different faith and
identity.
That is the classic kind ofpogrom that drove my four
bearers from Eastern Europe tothe United States and Jews
everywhere and other peoples toother places when they were
(05:18):
attacked for who they happenedto have been.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And I don't think anybody with any heart and any
sense and any morality canunderstand any of this when
there are innocent people, somany in the hundreds that were
targeted by Hamas and, as yousay, these are not military
targets.
Can you tell me what happenedto Debbie?
Where was she?
She?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
was in her home.
She had chosen to live in abeautiful bucala community, and
it is a community.
It is a keyboard that is righton the border with Gaza.
To get it in a mental map, theGaza Strip goes down to Egypt.
It is one settlement above theborder with Egypt, gaza and
(06:07):
Israel, and they turned whatused to be a desert into a
veritable garden of orchards,green fields and agriculture and
some manufacturing, a communityof several hundred people and
who expected to live their liveswell Now.
They knew there was danger, butthey couldn't help but believe
(06:29):
that somehow accommodation couldbe made and they could live
there safely and bring up theirchildren in peace.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
What occurred?
What do you know?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
What I know is that at 6.30 in the morning we began
getting pings.
This is my cell phone.
On my cell phone, like mostpeople in Israel, I have an app
that lets me know if missilesare being fired at Israel.
At 6.30 in the morning onSaturday, it started going ping,
ping, ping, ping, ping and thenshortly thereafter we got a
(07:04):
call a telephone call fromDeborah saying is that I can
hear Arabic around.
They're shooting in my sectionof the keyboards and I hear
glass breaking.
What they did was try to securethe doors, including the door
to their safe, so-called saferoom, but those who came to
(07:25):
attack them were very wellprepared and were very well
rehearsed, and they came withexplosives to blow open doors,
and so their safe room didn'tprovide the kind of security
they anticipated or wanted.
And in came the terrorists.
And we were on, on, on, oncommunications.
(07:46):
What you have to understand isthis is not a traditional,
historic war of soldiers againstsoldiers, and in the modern
period everybody has a cellphone.
We were audio witnesses toeverything that took place, like
tens of thousands of otherIsraelis.
It was awful, so we could hearshe said, she explained that
(08:12):
they were under attack and aftershe said that she didn't say
anything until some time later,when her son wrote them, who
survived thanks to her throwingher body on top of top of him
and bumping the bullet that wentthrough her and only slightly
pierced him, and he said hey,mate, they're dead.
(08:33):
Stop for a second, Stop for asecond.
And then we were in touch withhim, together with a chat that
was built with all the family,from the southern part of the
Israel, of Israel, to theGalilee, and people with
different skills offereddifferent kinds of advice.
At one time there was aphysician online with him
(08:56):
explaining you know that he wasgoing to be okay.
There was a trauma specialisthis aunt, who had dealt with the
victims of terror in the past,and post trauma individuals who
gave him advice how to breathe.
He was told where and how tohide.
(09:16):
Voice communications endedafter the first one and
everything was done by textingbecause he was told not to use
his voice.
The day ended when he had 4%left in his battery and that's
when he was rescued by theIsraeli army.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
They were Rotem.
Was there waiting how manyhours for help About?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
12 hours.
He spent the day in hiding andbleeding somewhat, and initially
under the blood of his parents.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Why would these gunmen?
And it may seem like an obviousanswer, but why would these
gunmen shoot Debbie?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Because she is Jewish , because she is Israeli and
because she lives proximate tothe Gaza border.
She is an accessible target andshe is of the wrong identity.
How do you come to terms withthis?
Another reason, I'd be happy toknow it.
What other reason could therebe?
(10:27):
They don't know her.
They could have some could haveknown her.
She made it a point, she andher husband, shlomi, who
happened to be peace activists.
They sent their children to anArab Jewish school where the
learning was in Arabic and inHebrew, where they celebrated
(10:47):
each other's festivals, out of abelief that better
understanding can fosteraccommodation and maybe,
eventually, peace.
There is no direct correlationbetween one's actions or justice
and the outcomes.
(11:07):
It's a phenomenon of our times,maybe of all times.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
There are many.
There are many.
Israelis Excuse me there aremany Israelis who have supported
peace, who want to come to somekind of peaceful terms with
Palestinians.
But surely even the most modern, liberal Israeli at this point,
(11:34):
at this moment, must have ahard time thinking that they can
reach anything conciliatorylevels with Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yes or no.
We're living also in the agewhen, against the traditions of
many Muslims, sadat came toJerusalem and came in peace and
for which he lost his life.
We're Hussein, has a peacetreaty with Israel.
Where there, the AbrahamAccords, where we?
(12:12):
At my university, ben GurionUniversity, large numbers of
Arab students, 50% of thepharmacists in Israel are Arabs.
20 something percent of thestudents of the Technion are
Arabs.
They doesn't necessarily have tobe enmity, one has to work at
it.
It has to come from both sides.
(12:32):
But there is no kind ofdeterministic at least in my
understanding and in my lifeexperience deterministic
opposition between Arabs andJews.
Are people of any faith.
I imagine that there are evenJews living in York these days.
Things can change.
(12:52):
Each and every great tradition,monotheistic tradition, has
within it multiple strands whatwe're dealing with in the
leadership of Gaza, who belongto a particularly noxious and
deviant variant within therichness of Islamic civilization
.
Jews have done very well ifdiscriminated against and held
(13:17):
as dimmies, as secondary peoplewithin the Islamic world.
For 14 centuries we never weZionists never imagined that we
would have any borders with,that there would be walls
between us and our neighbors.
We came back to live in theworld from which we had come.
(13:37):
Most of Jewish history, most ofthe Jews in the world until the
16th century, lived around theMediterranean, and particularly
in the Arab speaking world.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
You speak of Hamas as being this strand, this deviant
strand.
Do you have a wish now in termsof what should happen, I mean
what the Israeli governmentshould do to fix this?
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I don't know.
I think the choices.
That's why I'm only a professorand a historian.
I write about the past.
I'm not a policy person, but Iknow it's very difficult.
And it's very difficult becausewhat they did do was take
hostages infants, children andpeople who are older than I am,
denying them their rights, olderpeople without medications,
(14:25):
without visitation rights, beingpublicly humiliated and public
People who talk and if they talkabout human rights,
contravention of human rights aswe know them, they came to do
this consciously, so I don'tknow.
They're clearly using theirpopulation as a human shield,
not just us, but they assumethat we will not put their
(14:49):
population in risk.
I don't know to what extentthat will be valid, because
there comes a point what do yousacrifice in terms of your own
safety at the cost of actuallydoing injury to another?
That's a question I'm notprepared to talk about today,
because I don't want to speakout of anger and I can't speak
(15:13):
out of knowledge.
I imagine that due care will begiven and whatever due means
out of due care, but somethingwill be done, injury will take
place and it is unavoidable.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
You feel let down by the Israeli intelligence
community because your daughterwasn't protected and your
son-in-law wasn't.
In the end, they weren'tprotected and nobody knew this
was coming and they should have.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
They should have.
I can remember at one time whenvisiting with them they only
live 40-something minutes 50minutes away from us that we
came to visit and kind ofjokingly says you know, we hear
scratching underneath the ground.
It was the period when Hamaswas building tunnels, which we
developed machinery foridentifying methods of
(16:07):
inhibiting, stopping structuring.
But I don't know, I don't knowwhat can be done.
But something will be doneRight now is to punish the whole
population.
Will that have an effect?
I can only hope so.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Can I leave you with one last question?
Sure, what was Debbie like?
Did you ever ask her to movefrom there?
What was she like?
Why did she want to stay there?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
No, all my children have served in the army.
I moved to Israel when I andhaving six children in the state
of Israel, not wanting tosupport six orphans, gave me an
exception I volunteered for thearmy.
This is the risk, this is partof the deal.
If you live here, you pay yourtaxes, you go to work, you vote
(16:56):
not necessarily for thegovernment and you do your
duties as a citizen.
When all of my children and allof my grandchildren come of age
and there are several now,indeed, around Gaza, with the
forces that have assembled thereis you do what you have to do,
and what we have to do is defendthis state.
(17:17):
It's a very precious entity forall, sometimes of its inadequate
and failing leadership, who domake mistakes, wrong
calculations, as in this case.
It's still our leadership.
It's our country and we feelvery, very, very tied to it.
That's why she chose to live onthe land, not in Tel Aviv, as a
(17:39):
musician and as an artist.
Her husband was a terrificartist, a wonderful singer, but
they wanted to live on the landand not in London, not in
Mayfair, but they wanted to liveway out in the country and be
part of the people who've cometo settle and make their lives
(18:00):
here.
So she has no regrets, I amsure, and I have to say I say
this with heartbreak Mitha Dua.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yilan, Trohan Yilan, thank you for sharing your
thoughts with me and very bestto your 16-year-old grandson.
I hope his recovery goesexceptionally well and he will
have to live with this, but Iknow he's got the guidance of a
grandfather who seems prettywise and can help him hold on
(18:35):
and think about the best thingin his parents.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Ibrahim Hasbun is a journalist,a TV producer, who I've known
for many years.
He's covered theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict for
25 years or so in his careerand he holds a PhD from Hebrew
(18:57):
University in Communication andConflict Studies.
His research on the medialandscape escape and coverage in
conflict zones, Ibrahim welcome.
Thank you, Dana, for having me.
Before any of that, I count youas a friend and somebody who I
think is balanced and neutraland knows this story so well.
(19:19):
Can I just get your firstreaction to the last few days?
What has happened?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Actually, I am covering this conflict, as you
said, for the past 25 years, butthis time is different.
It's a new level of violence, anew level of confrontation, and
there are a lot of elementsinvolved in it, and there are
also civilians who are victims,in Israel and in Gaza as well.
(19:48):
So we should look into thepicture from the whole
perspective.
As a result of many years ofconflicts between the sides and
as a thing that many people andmany countries in the past
several years didn't care about,and they are not looking to
(20:09):
solve it at all.
They are keeping it as is.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
What would drive Hamas to target civilians the
way they have inside Israel inways that I mean?
I have never seen the killingof innocents, whether they be
women and children, andkidnapping and rapes, and the
(20:37):
killing of people at a musicfestival, but over 200 people.
What brought us to this?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Actually, let's start from the beginning.
Hamas took over Gaza back in2007.
And since then it went withIsrael for several rounds of
conflicts, at war from 2008-9until the last one in May 2021.
Hamas was trying all that wayto fight Israel because that's
(21:11):
part of their ideology and stuff.
What happened recently is a newtactic of Hamas to go inside
Israel and try to kidnap peopleas much as they can, as they
said, in order to cutPalestinian prisoners free, and
for them, this is a big sourceof success because their
(21:35):
supporters will really cheer forthat.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Are the supporters and sorry to jump in, you know
I'm going to do that Are theirsupporters?
Do you include Palestinians inthe West Bank?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Actually, it's not a secret that Hamas has supporters
in the West Bank and supportersoutside the Palestinian
territories, in neighboringcountries and around the world.
It's not a secret they knowthey have.
Even their leadership now isbased outside of the Gaza Strip,
including their main leader,ismail Hania, who was watching
(22:12):
on TV on Saturday what washappening on the streets around
Gaza Strip.
So Hamas has supporterseverywhere.
That doesn't mean that thewhole Palestinians agree on the
way that things is happening.
That's one thing.
But they agree on one thing thewhole Palestinians that they
(22:33):
need to live free under anindependent state, whether in
Gaza or the West Bank and theyare not in any way right now are
managing to get that goal ofliving in an independent state.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I understand historically the conflict.
I mean, we all understandhistorically this never ending
conflict that to a large degreeIsrael's current Prime Minister
bears a lot of weight inhistorical terms for undermining
what was a peace process andwhat could have been a light at
(23:09):
the end of the tunnel where thetwo sides could be separated and
two state solution.
I mean, we understand that, butthis is a just from a human
point of view.
Is there not revulsion and I'mnot trying to get you to, you
know, take a step too far ifyou're uncomfortable with it but
is there not a level ofrevulsion, even amongst
(23:31):
Palestinians, perhaps in Gaza,but certainly in the West Bank,
that the killing of people inthese settlements just went too
far?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Actually let's talk about.
Let's talk about Gaza andwhat's happening.
You started with the IsraeliPrime Minister, benjamin
Netanyahu.
He made it clear that hedoesn't have a partner among the
Palestinians.
There wasn't any high rankingmeeting on a political issue
between the Palestinians andIsraeli since 2014.
(24:05):
And lately, with his right winggovernment having two right
wing ministers, he had nointention to go in any peace
deal with the Palestinians.
So the Palestinians in generalhas no hope.
That's on one side On Gaza.
You know the kids that were bornin the early 2000s and now they
(24:28):
are like about 22, 20 years, 23years old.
They never saw anything in Gaza, more than the wars in that
happens between 2008 and 2021.
So they don't know anythingmore.
They are living in a space in avery poor situation, so they
don't have much to know.
(24:50):
And, by the way, the media didnot cover anything about what's
happening in Gaza since like,like, only they come during the
conflict escalation and thenthey disappear.
For example, like, gaza has nohope.
There was a lot of their people, young people, who tried in the
past year or so we are talkingabout hundreds to take the sea
(25:11):
and emigrate to Europe and otherplaces.
Many of them was, was killedactually during these trouble,
and you know this was a bigshock.
So people in Gaza were lookingfor a hope but they never found
it.
So so they are living in asituation was like really
doesn't encourage any hope any,any any future looking events
(25:36):
that could encourage people tolook for alternative.
So, in general, the people aresitting and waiting for
something to happen.
I don't think any of the.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I don't think any of that justifies what happened
over the weekend and theshocking things that we've seen.
And I don't think you meant itthat way either.
But why now?
Why you can't help but thinkthat all of this was launched in
the wake of images of Israelismeeting in Saudi Arabia and the
possible normalization ofrelations with with the Saudis
(26:13):
and and the fact that other Arabstates were willing just to
leave the Palestinians behind ata certain point and say, okay,
that conflict is never going tobe resolved.
We will carry forward relationswith Israel and just get on
economically with life in theMiddle East with Israel.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Actually, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu went to the UN inSeptember and had the map of the
New Middle East and havingIsrael as one united land,
ignoring the West Bank and Gaza,and that shows that many
Palestinian were not happy withthat and that had killed hope
(26:55):
for them as well.
That's one thing.
And actually many Palestinians,many, many Palestinians through
the years were against killingcivilians and they believe that
their struggle with Israel, forthem, is a political struggle
that depends on building andestablishing their own state.
(27:16):
So you know, the killing ofcivilians in the conflict is not
a new thing.
There was the bombings in the90s, there was the bombings in
the early 2000s and, by the way,this area, or this period, has
changed the mentality even amongIsraelis, and Ariel Sharon, the
former Prime Minister of Israelat that time, was thinking
(27:37):
differently.
Even he was the father ofsettlements and he made the pull
out from Gaza, from thesettlements on parts of the West
Bank, and how he was trying todo something different from
Israeli point of view doesn'tmean it's a favor of the
Palestinians, but there was achange and they hope that
difficult difficult big familieson both sides can change it
(27:57):
today.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
So was Yitzhak Rabin, you know, the father of the
Oslo.
Accords and the belief that ifwe separate and land for peace
that eventually we can livetogether somehow.
But I think that's far away inthe dust now and that Israel in
the dust, but perhaps necessaryto return to it at some point,
(28:20):
but right now it's probably thelast thing on the minds of
Israelis and Palestinians.
But this we've just seen.
You have, galant on the Gazaborder, the Israeli Defense
Minister talking to Israelitroops.
We are fighting human beasts.
He says the Islamic State ofGaza.
Thanks to your heroic action, ashe's talking to the troops in
(28:40):
this defense mission, you willhave the honor of changing the
reality here.
You saw the cost.
You witnessed the turnaroundHamas wanted to change in Gaza.
It will change 180 degrees fromwhat they thought.
They will regret this moment.
Gaza will not return to what itwas Now.
Reading through that and thenthe IDF spokesman's interview
(29:03):
two days ago, when I heard himtalk about the fact that cabinet
has directed that they disarmHamas so that they can never
launch any military attack againand that they remove Hamas from
the leadership of Gaza.
Remove Hamas.
Is any of this possible whenthe Israelis are now
(29:24):
contemplating and seeing bent ona ground incursion into this
maze of the Gaza Strip where 2.3million people live?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
First of all, this, like a new talk from the Defense
Minister of Israel and the IDFspokesman, is not new.
The same goals were set in 2009and 2012 of disarming Hamas and
removing Hamas.
But among Israelis and cabinetmembers and analysts, among the
(29:55):
Israeli society, said that goinginto Gaza would cost them a lot
.
And the big question afterremoving Hamas, what are you
going to do in Gaza and whatwill the future?
Are you going to remove thepeople?
No, that's one side.
The second side, you know.
(30:15):
Yesterday I was talking to likean Israeli analyst who said to
me that the pictures of thevictims of Gaza, the kids,
killed the strength to go outinto the media.
Still, the media is notcatching what's happening and
this is going to be difficultfor Israel to explain later on.
If they go into the groundoperation, what will happen?
(30:35):
We'll see thousands of peoplecame.
We already saw, according tothe UN report, that over 700
people, 700,000 people, hasalready started to moving, part
of them into UN schools in orderto take shelter.
So if Israel goes in, therewill be a human catastrophe.
(30:57):
So what's the end of result?
Nobody knows and these goalswere set in the past.
It's such an important question.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
It's such an important question that you're
raising, Even if which and Idon't understand how, because
you can't move armor in thereyou and I have walked those
little alleyways and narrowstreets and there's a network of
tunnels under there.
Hamas, that's Hamas's home.
I mean, they own the turf andthey have the upper hand in many
(31:27):
ways.
Even if you could remove theIsraelis, could remove Hamas,
who do you hand the keys to thenext day in the Gaza Strip?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
That's a big question .
Actually, in the past, sharontried himself when Mubarak, the
Egyptian president the formerEgyptian president was on power
and told him come and take Gaza.
And Mubarak said no, I can'tdeal with these two millions
people, I can't.
I'm not sure today anyone isready to take the keys.
(32:03):
Gaza, it's owned by theresidents right now, the
Palestinians there, and I'm notsure there will be another
solution rather than going andtalking to the Palestinian
directly.
So it's a problem, and theyhope that there will not be a
lot of bloodshed beforeunderstanding once again that
(32:28):
there is other side that youshould talk to and reach a
solution.
I think if a ground operationhappened in the near future,
there will be a lot of victims,probably in the both sides, and
that will lead to no more, tolead to less hope and more
hatred, and we saw what thehatred is bringing into the
(32:50):
conflict.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
You saw, and we both covered when Fatah was removed.
Yasser Arafat's Fatah wasremoved from the Gaza Strip
violently I mean, it wasPalestinians killing
Palestinians and Hamas came topower.
Is there any notion that Fatahwould ever regain power in the
(33:15):
Gaza Strip and remove Hamas orstep into a vacuum if Hamas was
removed?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Well, there is no talk about right now because the
Palestinians are one unitedagainst Israel from the point of
view that they are destroyinghomes of civilians right now.
So that's one thing.
Fatih has a lot of problems inthe West Bank.
There are many Palestinians wholost trust in Fatih and even
(33:47):
like Abou Mazen vision that wastalking about we are not going
to fight an armed conflict withIsrael.
It's not getting a lot of trustbecause they don't trust.
Israel is clearly wants to reachpeace the last year with the
two Israeli ministers of theright wing government.
(34:11):
There are clear talk aboutPalestinians and the West Bank
and the settlements and removingPalestinians and even putting
the rights of life of Israelisin front of Palestinians, even
in the West Bank.
That made the Palestinians verymad and they don't see any hope
.
So who will replace who?
Right now it's a big question.
(34:33):
It's not clear.
I'm not sure yet that Israeliswill take the full decision and
go all the way to remove Hamas.
They may do anything else.
It's still very early to know,but if they go to Gaza it's
going to be a bloodshed again.
I'm saying that it'sunfortunately.
That's what we'll see andthat's why my Israeli analyst
(34:55):
yesterday, with my talk to himtold me it's going to be
difficult for Israel to explainwhat will happen.
If it will take days or weeks,then going to be a disaster.
So we are back to the samecircle of a vicious violence
where a lot of victims, mostlyfrom civilians.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
What about Netanyahu?
I mean, you know, mr Security,he now, historically, has been
the leader in one of thegreatest intelligence and
security failures in Israel'shistory.
He is seeking a national unitygovernment.
The members of the Israeliopposition are very hesitant
(35:37):
just to walk into his cabinetand sign up and sign on.
The Israeli government lookslike it's in massive upheaval,
and do you think that it'spossible they will get a more
moderate cabinet?
Or, more likely than that, theywill just get a war cabinet?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yes, that was my word , dana.
It's a war cabinet and I thinkthere is a lot of consultation
with the Americans, according toall the reports and the sources
, and the Americans want a likeUnited Cabinet to face what's
happening right now on theground and to end this war with
Israel winning it.
That's the atmosphere in Israel, but changing Netanyahu and
(36:23):
changing whatever he's doing.
You know, the past year wasvery difficult with Netanyahu.
He's accusing him of beinglooking about himself.
He could pay any price tosurvive as a prime minister.
Actually, they believe that heignored what was happening in
Gaza.
He was depending on the moneythat was coming from Qatar.
That he thinks that you knowHamas getting money and the
(36:46):
people under they are silent.
The $100 for each family.
It's not going to give hope topeople.
It's like a painkiller.
This lasts for a little whileand then it disappear because
they never solved the realproblem in Gaza.
He ignored it.
He focused on his voters,settlers in the West Bank, and
that's it Today.
It's like a situation.
(37:07):
He's forced.
He wants to cover what happened.
He's going to this war cabinet,maybe still today.
There was a meeting betweenGantz, one of the main
opposition leaders, and himself.
They are talking about thepossibility real possibility, of
making up such a cabinet, withall the reservations that the
opposition have on the rightwing elements of the Taniyya's
(37:28):
government, but they are goinginto it.
By the way, what's happening inthe North today?
A little escalation fromHezbollah.
Nobody knows where it is goingforward from there.
Still, it's very minimal,that's not exaggerate, but no
one knows what the coming eventswill fuel.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
You've studied media and coverage of the conflict?
You're the perfect person toask this.
If you continue to see thesepictures rolling out of the Gaza
Strip in the Arab world, andobviously more than what's
happening in Israel or in thesettlements, all you see now is
the horrendous destruction inthe Gaza Strip.
(38:10):
Can Arab leaders in Arab statesstay quiet, or for their own
survival, in terms of Jordan andits large Palestinian
population?
In terms of Syria, in terms ofto the North, with the Hezbollah
in Lebanon, can the Hezbollahsit quietly or does it come a
(38:34):
point where they are going tohave to take action?
And don't forget, iran issomewhere in the back, pushing
different buttons as we speak.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Actually, let's start from Hezbollah.
Let's make it clear Hezbollahfrom my long years of experience
and coverage, including the warin 2006, this group does not
operate on emotions.
They are tactic and they thinkand they decide according to
their interests, according totheir supporters' interests,
(39:08):
including Iran.
These people are not emotionalat all and they think they are
now calculating every step theyare doing, especially with the
movement of the Americans intothe Eastern Mediterranean with
all the ships and the bigbarrage.
It's a threat only for now, butthey are calculating that and
(39:29):
Iran is also calculating what'sthe outcome that they will have.
So that's on one side.
About Gaza, as in the past,these pictures of today there
was start to have these andunfortunate pictures of dead
kids in Gaza.
If it continues, it's going tobe bigger, so it will grab
(39:49):
emotions.
We know that from the pastexperience that the Arab world
has been through this.
So it needs to have a littlebit.
Maybe, maybe it has to bebigger.
Maybe if there will bePalestinian displacement and
they cross the border to Egyptwith big bars of people crossing
(40:11):
crazily and dead bodies andstuff like that, there will be a
move which will force, and theythink the Americans understand
that and they talk to theJordanians and they are very
clear.
So there will be a point in theconflict, but when they will
stop?
So the idea of what the Israelimedia are talking, how to do,
an operation that will causethem less difficulties, like
(40:37):
these one, having the people torush away, that's not clear.
What is happening?
Last word about the mediacoverage.
The media coverage so far islike running like doing the
story.
Missal Rekhot.
Here they are on the ground, wesee in the back somebody's like
.
They are not going into the.
We are in the fifth day of thewar.
(40:58):
They are still running into theshelters.
They are still going on theground.
They are not reporting.
They are like detailing what'shappening, like from numbers and
showing that the reporter isunder danger.
And they were doing that for along time.
During my years of work, I tryall the time to change that
perspective, to get into thedeeds.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
What you were talking about, because you and I skip
over this stuff pretty quicklybecause we work in that business
.
But the new generation ofreporter has to be under fire.
They have to be jumping in aditch, they have to be dodging a
bullet, or there's an air raidor a rocket above them and
that's what's going to bringthem cable ratings.
(41:39):
And unfortunately it becomes aself-promoting drama in some
cases, rather than solid, sobercoverage of a very important
story.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yes, you are right and we know that, but some of
what I saw in the past two daysare very veteran journalists and
reporters who've been here manytimes.
Some of them is like based here.
They're showing the same story,the same thing, the same
perspective about the story.
They are not really lookingahead Like our interview today
is looking ahead of what willhappen in the future in the
(42:17):
conflict that was caused by thelatest attack of Hamas on all
these places along the borderwith the Gaza Strip.
So we are advancing.
I still don't see this in theinternational media.
I don't see this.
I still see that internationalmedia reacting to news, reacting
(42:39):
to what's happening.
I'm not really trying to goadvanced and see what.
If this happens, if Israel gointo Gaza, what will happen?
How's the reactions, the lossesof people, the victims, the
picture?
We've been there.
We've been there.
Hamas, israel went twice intoGaza, even very limited, but
(43:02):
there was a lot of casualties.
So it is very difficult.
But we are trying always topush for a better coverage so
people around the worldunderstand what's really going
on here, not only see thesurface and not go into the
actual things happening.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
You're speaking from Jerusalem.
I wanna let you go because I'vetaken a lot of your time.
But the last question to you doyou run out of hope or do you
hold hope that maybe these badevents lead us to something
better?
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I hold hope.
If I lose hope, I lost it along time ago.
No, I hold hope.
My father holds hope, mygrandfather holds hope.
My friends hold hope.
We hope.
We saw in the past that badevents led to some good things.
In the 70s, 80s and the 90s,the situation here was too bad.
(44:04):
Then, in the beginning of thelast, we had hope for peace deal
between Israeli Palestinians.
There was a change.
I witnessed that in the firsthand as a young guy.
I started to work in the mediain Jerusalem and in the Middle
East, so it was a little hope.
Then it disappeared onpolitical things, on a lake of
(44:27):
compromising one to another, andtoday we are living actually in
a situation of hatred and callsof revenge.
So I hold hope that this couldchange and people around the
world understand that it's notgood to ignore what's happening
here.
It's gonna reflect on all ofyou.
(44:48):
So it's good now to step in andtry to see how to get hope to
the people of Gaza and how toget to hope to the civilians
inside Israel.
Life continues.
Let's change.
So this tragic and all thesepictures of pain for both sides
will end and forever.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Ibrahim, thank you so much.
I couldn't help but be movedthis morning when I was
listening to a human rightsperson who was operating out of
Gaza and they were doing aninterview and he said you know,
for kids that are caught underthe bombing and the shelling and
the constant sound ofinsecurity and explosions, all
(45:34):
they can say is make it stop.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yeah, they should make it stop immediately.
And immediately means now.
They should and do whateverthey can need to minimize the
losses among people and not onlyStep in.
Really don't let it go after ifthis war ends.
Don't let it go.
Try to invest in it.
It will change the things inthe Middle East and will reflect
(46:02):
very positively on the wholeworld, including Europe and the
US.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Ibrahim has been a long time TV producer,
journalist and a really terrificanalyst on the Middle East and
certainly you know you can'ttalk to anybody better on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ibrahim, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Thank you, dana, for this very rich conversation.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
And that's our backstory on the slaughter by
Hamas of Israelis, the largestnumber of Jews killed in a
single day since the Holocaust.
The destructive counterattackon Gaza by the Israeli military
is a crisis only beginning tounfold and we'll have more on
backstory in the coming weeks.
I'm Dana Lewis.
(46:44):
Thanks for listening and I'lltalk to you again soon.
We were audio witnesses to everything that
took place, like tens ofthousands of other Israelis.
It was awful, so we could hear.
She said she explained thatthey were under attack and after
she said that she didn't sayanything until sometime later
(00:20):
when her son wrote him, whosurvived thanks to her throwing
her body on top of him andbuffeting the bullet that went
through her and only slightlypierced him, and he said hey,
Mehto, they're dead.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But this time is different.
It's a new level of violence, anew level of confrontation, and
there are a lot of elementsinvolved in it.
And there are also civilianswho are victims that going into
Gaza would cost them a lot.
And the big question afterremoving the mass, what are you
(00:56):
going to do?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hi everyone and welcome to this edition of
Backstory.
I'm Dana Lewis.
It has been a breathtaking,shocking week in Israel as
Israeli warplanes drop bombs onthe Gaza Strip.
Inside Israel, the grislydiscoveries, the human aftermath
of Hamas's bloody rampagethrough Israeli towns and
villages has continued.
Hundreds killed in their homes,women, children, fathers,
(01:24):
mothers murdered in front oftheir children by Hamas
terrorists.
Over 1200 dead in directmurders and the rocket attacks.
And in Gaza, 1,000 Palestinianshave died in the bombing so far
.
The killing of civilians, thekidnapping of elderly and
children back into Gaza morethan 100 people have been taken
(01:46):
to Gaza and held hostage.
The mass killings of more than250 Israelis at an outdoor music
concert near Gaza, the rapes ofwomen and parading them through
Gaza held as some kind of humantrophies it just all adds up to
terror.
It's inhuman and it doesn'tmatter what you think of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
(02:06):
Killing innocent people on thisscale is gruesome.
Terrorism by Hamas that haswashed itself in blood and
somehow considers the attack onIsrael a victory.
I covered bus bombings carriedout by Hamas in the 90s.
I have interviewed some of itsformer members in the Gaza Strip
.
They are always embracing,killing and blaming Israel.
(02:29):
It started as a charitableIslamic organization.
It developed its arm wing andeventually attacked its own
people, driving out Erafat'sFatah party and taking over Gaza
, where 2.3 million people nowlive under its rule, whether
they like it or not.
They have been able to hijackpeace efforts by Israelis and
(02:49):
Palestinians.
The violence by Hamas has led tothe ceiling of the Gaza Strip.
It has paralyzed thePalestinian Authority's ability
to unify Palestinians and pursueany kind of peace.
Backed by Iran, hamas won'taccept any peace and is only
dedicated to destroying Israel.
Israel has moved some 300,000reservists to the Gaza border.
(03:13):
A ground invasion is looming.
Where does that lead?
I don't think anybody can besure.
And now there is an emergencycoalition government formed in
Israel, a national unitygovernment to unify the country
and make war on Hamas.
On backstory, we talk to IlanTroin.
He's a father who lost hisdaughter and stepson in the
(03:35):
violence and his grandsonnarrowly survived the bullet
wound, the bullet slowed by hismother's body, which took the
force of the gunshot.
And from Jerusalem, palestinianMid-East analyst Ibrahim Hasbun
on how did this happen andpossibly what comes next.
All right, professor Ilan Trointaught at Brandeis University
(04:04):
and he was at Ben-GurionUniversity and, tragically, over
the weekend his daughter andson-in-law were murdered by
gunmen from Gaza on SaturdayDebbie Shahar, troin Matthias
and her husband Shlomi MatthiasIlan.
Thank you for speaking to me.
Not at all.
Thank you, my heartfeltsympathy.
(04:26):
I just cannot imagineexperiencing what you are going
through right now, and may younever experience it.
What happened?
I mean?
What do you know?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yes, what I know is that it was a pogrom, a classic
pogrom.
This was not a militarycampaign.
What it was is an act, an eventthat was well rehearsed, well
funded, practiced over aconsiderable period of time,
with the object of attackingcivilians.
(04:55):
It was not military againstmilitary, and what distinguished
those civilians is that theyare of a different faith and
identity.
That is the classic kind ofpogrom that drove my four
bearers from Eastern Europe tothe United States and Jews
everywhere and other peoples toother places when they were
(05:18):
attacked for who they happenedto have been.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And I don't think anybody with any heart and any
sense and any morality canunderstand any of this when
there are innocent people, somany in the hundreds that were
targeted by Hamas and, as yousay, these are not military
targets.
Can you tell me what happenedto Debbie?
Where was she?
She?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
was in her home.
She had chosen to live in abeautiful bucala community, and
it is a community.
It is a keyboard that is righton the border with Gaza.
To get it in a mental map, theGaza Strip goes down to Egypt.
It is one settlement above theborder with Egypt, gaza and
(06:07):
Israel, and they turned whatused to be a desert into a
veritable garden of orchards,green fields and agriculture and
some manufacturing, a communityof several hundred people and
who expected to live their liveswell Now.
They knew there was danger, butthey couldn't help but believe
(06:29):
that somehow accommodation couldbe made and they could live
there safely and bring up theirchildren in peace.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
What occurred?
What do you know?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
What I know is that at 6.30 in the morning we began
getting pings.
This is my cell phone.
On my cell phone, like mostpeople in Israel, I have an app
that lets me know if missilesare being fired at Israel.
At 6.30 in the morning onSaturday, it started going ping,
ping, ping, ping, ping and thenshortly thereafter we got a
(07:04):
call a telephone call fromDeborah saying is that I can
hear Arabic around.
They're shooting in my sectionof the keyboards and I hear
glass breaking.
What they did was try to securethe doors, including the door
to their safe, so-called saferoom, but those who came to
(07:25):
attack them were very wellprepared and were very well
rehearsed, and they came withexplosives to blow open doors,
and so their safe room didn'tprovide the kind of security
they anticipated or wanted.
And in came the terrorists.
And we were on, on, on, oncommunications.
(07:46):
What you have to understand isthis is not a traditional,
historic war of soldiers againstsoldiers, and in the modern
period everybody has a cellphone.
We were audio witnesses toeverything that took place, like
tens of thousands of otherIsraelis.
It was awful, so we could hearshe said, she explained that
(08:12):
they were under attack and aftershe said that she didn't say
anything until some time later,when her son wrote them, who
survived thanks to her throwingher body on top of top of him
and bumping the bullet that wentthrough her and only slightly
pierced him, and he said hey,mate, they're dead.
(08:33):
Stop for a second, Stop for asecond.
And then we were in touch withhim, together with a chat that
was built with all the family,from the southern part of the
Israel, of Israel, to theGalilee, and people with
different skills offereddifferent kinds of advice.
At one time there was aphysician online with him
(08:56):
explaining you know that he wasgoing to be okay.
There was a trauma specialisthis aunt, who had dealt with the
victims of terror in the past,and post trauma individuals who
gave him advice how to breathe.
He was told where and how tohide.
(09:16):
Voice communications endedafter the first one and
everything was done by textingbecause he was told not to use
his voice.
The day ended when he had 4%left in his battery and that's
when he was rescued by theIsraeli army.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
They were Rotem.
Was there waiting how manyhours for help About?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
12 hours.
He spent the day in hiding andbleeding somewhat, and initially
under the blood of his parents.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Why would these gunmen?
And it may seem like an obviousanswer, but why would these
gunmen shoot Debbie?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Because she is Jewish , because she is Israeli and
because she lives proximate tothe Gaza border.
She is an accessible target andshe is of the wrong identity.
How do you come to terms withthis?
Another reason, I'd be happy toknow it.
What other reason could therebe?
(10:27):
They don't know her.
They could have some could haveknown her.
She made it a point, she andher husband, shlomi, who
happened to be peace activists.
They sent their children to anArab Jewish school where the
learning was in Arabic and inHebrew, where they celebrated
(10:47):
each other's festivals, out of abelief that better
understanding can fosteraccommodation and maybe,
eventually, peace.
There is no direct correlationbetween one's actions or justice
and the outcomes.
(11:07):
It's a phenomenon of our times,maybe of all times.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
There are many.
There are many.
Israelis Excuse me there aremany Israelis who have supported
peace, who want to come to somekind of peaceful terms with
Palestinians.
But surely even the most modern, liberal Israeli at this point,
(11:34):
at this moment, must have ahard time thinking that they can
reach anything conciliatorylevels with Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yes or no.
We're living also in the agewhen, against the traditions of
many Muslims, sadat came toJerusalem and came in peace and
for which he lost his life.
We're Hussein, has a peacetreaty with Israel.
Where there, the AbrahamAccords, where we?
(12:12):
At my university, ben GurionUniversity, large numbers of
Arab students, 50% of thepharmacists in Israel are Arabs.
20 something percent of thestudents of the Technion are
Arabs.
They doesn't necessarily have tobe enmity, one has to work at
it.
It has to come from both sides.
(12:32):
But there is no kind ofdeterministic at least in my
understanding and in my lifeexperience deterministic
opposition between Arabs andJews.
Are people of any faith.
I imagine that there are evenJews living in York these days.
Things can change.
(12:52):
Each and every great tradition,monotheistic tradition, has
within it multiple strands whatwe're dealing with in the
leadership of Gaza, who belongto a particularly noxious and
deviant variant within therichness of Islamic civilization
.
Jews have done very well ifdiscriminated against and held
(13:17):
as dimmies, as secondary peoplewithin the Islamic world.
For 14 centuries we never weZionists never imagined that we
would have any borders with,that there would be walls
between us and our neighbors.
We came back to live in theworld from which we had come.
(13:37):
Most of Jewish history, most ofthe Jews in the world until the
16th century, lived around theMediterranean, and particularly
in the Arab speaking world.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
You speak of Hamas as being this strand, this deviant
strand.
Do you have a wish now in termsof what should happen, I mean
what the Israeli governmentshould do to fix this?
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I don't know.
I think the choices.
That's why I'm only a professorand a historian.
I write about the past.
I'm not a policy person, but Iknow it's very difficult.
And it's very difficult becausewhat they did do was take
hostages infants, children andpeople who are older than I am,
denying them their rights, olderpeople without medications,
(14:25):
without visitation rights, beingpublicly humiliated and public
People who talk and if they talkabout human rights,
contravention of human rights aswe know them, they came to do
this consciously, so I don'tknow.
They're clearly using theirpopulation as a human shield,
not just us, but they assumethat we will not put their
(14:49):
population in risk.
I don't know to what extentthat will be valid, because
there comes a point what do yousacrifice in terms of your own
safety at the cost of actuallydoing injury to another?
That's a question I'm notprepared to talk about today,
because I don't want to speakout of anger and I can't speak
(15:13):
out of knowledge.
I imagine that due care will begiven and whatever due means
out of due care, but somethingwill be done, injury will take
place and it is unavoidable.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
You feel let down by the Israeli intelligence
community because your daughterwasn't protected and your
son-in-law wasn't.
In the end, they weren'tprotected and nobody knew this
was coming and they should have.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
They should have.
I can remember at one time whenvisiting with them they only
live 40-something minutes 50minutes away from us that we
came to visit and kind ofjokingly says you know, we hear
scratching underneath the ground.
It was the period when Hamaswas building tunnels, which we
developed machinery foridentifying methods of
(16:07):
inhibiting, stopping structuring.
But I don't know, I don't knowwhat can be done.
But something will be doneRight now is to punish the whole
population.
Will that have an effect?
I can only hope so.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Can I leave you with one last question?
Sure, what was Debbie like?
Did you ever ask her to movefrom there?
What was she like?
Why did she want to stay there?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
No, all my children have served in the army.
I moved to Israel when I andhaving six children in the state
of Israel, not wanting tosupport six orphans, gave me an
exception I volunteered for thearmy.
This is the risk, this is partof the deal.
If you live here, you pay yourtaxes, you go to work, you vote
(16:56):
not necessarily for thegovernment and you do your
duties as a citizen.
When all of my children and allof my grandchildren come of age
and there are several now,indeed, around Gaza, with the
forces that have assembled thereis you do what you have to do,
and what we have to do is defendthis state.
(17:17):
It's a very precious entity forall, sometimes of its inadequate
and failing leadership, who domake mistakes, wrong
calculations, as in this case.
It's still our leadership.
It's our country and we feelvery, very, very tied to it.
That's why she chose to live onthe land, not in Tel Aviv, as a
(17:39):
musician and as an artist.
Her husband was a terrificartist, a wonderful singer, but
they wanted to live on the landand not in London, not in
Mayfair, but they wanted to liveway out in the country and be
part of the people who've cometo settle and make their lives
(18:00):
here.
So she has no regrets, I amsure, and I have to say I say
this with heartbreak Mitha Dua.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yilan, Trohan Yilan, thank you for sharing your
thoughts with me and very bestto your 16-year-old grandson.
I hope his recovery goesexceptionally well and he will
have to live with this, but Iknow he's got the guidance of a
grandfather who seems prettywise and can help him hold on
(18:35):
and think about the best thingin his parents.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Ibrahim Hasbun is a journalist,a TV producer, who I've known
for many years.
He's covered theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict for
25 years or so in his careerand he holds a PhD from Hebrew
(18:57):
University in Communication andConflict Studies.
His research on the medialandscape escape and coverage in
conflict zones, Ibrahim welcome.
Thank you, Dana, for having me.
Before any of that, I count youas a friend and somebody who I
think is balanced and neutraland knows this story so well.
(19:19):
Can I just get your firstreaction to the last few days?
What has happened?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Actually, I am covering this conflict, as you
said, for the past 25 years, butthis time is different.
It's a new level of violence, anew level of confrontation, and
there are a lot of elementsinvolved in it, and there are
also civilians who are victims,in Israel and in Gaza as well.
(19:48):
So we should look into thepicture from the whole
perspective.
As a result of many years ofconflicts between the sides and
as a thing that many people andmany countries in the past
several years didn't care about,and they are not looking to
(20:09):
solve it at all.
They are keeping it as is.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
What would drive Hamas to target civilians the
way they have inside Israel inways that I mean?
I have never seen the killingof innocents, whether they be
women and children, andkidnapping and rapes, and the
(20:37):
killing of people at a musicfestival, but over 200 people.
What brought us to this?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Actually, let's start from the beginning.
Hamas took over Gaza back in2007.
And since then it went withIsrael for several rounds of
conflicts, at war from 2008-9until the last one in May 2021.
Hamas was trying all that wayto fight Israel because that's
(21:11):
part of their ideology and stuff.
What happened recently is a newtactic of Hamas to go inside
Israel and try to kidnap peopleas much as they can, as they
said, in order to cutPalestinian prisoners free, and
for them, this is a big sourceof success because their
(21:35):
supporters will really cheer forthat.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Are the supporters and sorry to jump in, you know
I'm going to do that Are theirsupporters?
Do you include Palestinians inthe West Bank?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Actually, it's not a secret that Hamas has supporters
in the West Bank and supportersoutside the Palestinian
territories, in neighboringcountries and around the world.
It's not a secret they knowthey have.
Even their leadership now isbased outside of the Gaza Strip,
including their main leader,ismail Hania, who was watching
(22:12):
on TV on Saturday what washappening on the streets around
Gaza Strip.
So Hamas has supporterseverywhere.
That doesn't mean that thewhole Palestinians agree on the
way that things is happening.
That's one thing.
But they agree on one thing thewhole Palestinians that they
(22:33):
need to live free under anindependent state, whether in
Gaza or the West Bank and theyare not in any way right now are
managing to get that goal ofliving in an independent state.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I understand historically the conflict.
I mean, we all understandhistorically this never ending
conflict that to a large degreeIsrael's current Prime Minister
bears a lot of weight inhistorical terms for undermining
what was a peace process andwhat could have been a light at
(23:09):
the end of the tunnel where thetwo sides could be separated and
two state solution.
I mean, we understand that, butthis is a just from a human
point of view.
Is there not revulsion and I'mnot trying to get you to, you
know, take a step too far ifyou're uncomfortable with it but
is there not a level ofrevulsion, even amongst
(23:31):
Palestinians, perhaps in Gaza,but certainly in the West Bank,
that the killing of people inthese settlements just went too
far?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Actually let's talk about.
Let's talk about Gaza andwhat's happening.
You started with the IsraeliPrime Minister, benjamin
Netanyahu.
He made it clear that hedoesn't have a partner among the
Palestinians.
There wasn't any high rankingmeeting on a political issue
between the Palestinians andIsraeli since 2014.
(24:05):
And lately, with his right winggovernment having two right
wing ministers, he had nointention to go in any peace
deal with the Palestinians.
So the Palestinians in generalhas no hope.
That's on one side On Gaza.
You know the kids that were bornin the early 2000s and now they
(24:28):
are like about 22, 20 years, 23years old.
They never saw anything in Gaza, more than the wars in that
happens between 2008 and 2021.
So they don't know anythingmore.
They are living in a space in avery poor situation, so they
don't have much to know.
(24:50):
And, by the way, the media didnot cover anything about what's
happening in Gaza since like,like, only they come during the
conflict escalation and thenthey disappear.
For example, like, gaza has nohope.
There was a lot of their people, young people, who tried in the
past year or so we are talkingabout hundreds to take the sea
(25:11):
and emigrate to Europe and otherplaces.
Many of them was, was killedactually during these trouble,
and you know this was a bigshock.
So people in Gaza were lookingfor a hope but they never found
it.
So so they are living in asituation was like really
doesn't encourage any hope any,any any future looking events
(25:36):
that could encourage people tolook for alternative.
So, in general, the people aresitting and waiting for
something to happen.
I don't think any of the.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I don't think any of that justifies what happened
over the weekend and theshocking things that we've seen.
And I don't think you meant itthat way either.
But why now?
Why you can't help but thinkthat all of this was launched in
the wake of images of Israelismeeting in Saudi Arabia and the
possible normalization ofrelations with with the Saudis
(26:13):
and and the fact that other Arabstates were willing just to
leave the Palestinians behind ata certain point and say, okay,
that conflict is never going tobe resolved.
We will carry forward relationswith Israel and just get on
economically with life in theMiddle East with Israel.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Actually, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu went to the UN inSeptember and had the map of the
New Middle East and havingIsrael as one united land,
ignoring the West Bank and Gaza,and that shows that many
Palestinian were not happy withthat and that had killed hope
(26:55):
for them as well.
That's one thing.
And actually many Palestinians,many, many Palestinians through
the years were against killingcivilians and they believe that
their struggle with Israel, forthem, is a political struggle
that depends on building andestablishing their own state.
(27:16):
So you know, the killing ofcivilians in the conflict is not
a new thing.
There was the bombings in the90s, there was the bombings in
the early 2000s and, by the way,this area, or this period, has
changed the mentality even amongIsraelis, and Ariel Sharon, the
former Prime Minister of Israelat that time, was thinking
(27:37):
differently.
Even he was the father ofsettlements and he made the pull
out from Gaza, from thesettlements on parts of the West
Bank, and how he was trying todo something different from
Israeli point of view doesn'tmean it's a favor of the
Palestinians, but there was achange and they hope that
difficult difficult big familieson both sides can change it
(27:57):
today.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
So was Yitzhak Rabin, you know, the father of the
Oslo.
Accords and the belief that ifwe separate and land for peace
that eventually we can livetogether somehow.
But I think that's far away inthe dust now and that Israel in
the dust, but perhaps necessaryto return to it at some point,
(28:20):
but right now it's probably thelast thing on the minds of
Israelis and Palestinians.
But this we've just seen.
You have, galant on the Gazaborder, the Israeli Defense
Minister talking to Israelitroops.
We are fighting human beasts.
He says the Islamic State ofGaza.
Thanks to your heroic action, ashe's talking to the troops in
(28:40):
this defense mission, you willhave the honor of changing the
reality here.
You saw the cost.
You witnessed the turnaroundHamas wanted to change in Gaza.
It will change 180 degrees fromwhat they thought.
They will regret this moment.
Gaza will not return to what itwas Now.
Reading through that and thenthe IDF spokesman's interview
(29:03):
two days ago, when I heard himtalk about the fact that cabinet
has directed that they disarmHamas so that they can never
launch any military attack againand that they remove Hamas from
the leadership of Gaza.
Remove Hamas.
Is any of this possible whenthe Israelis are now
(29:24):
contemplating and seeing bent ona ground incursion into this
maze of the Gaza Strip where 2.3million people live?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
First of all, this, like a new talk from the Defense
Minister of Israel and the IDFspokesman, is not new.
The same goals were set in 2009and 2012 of disarming Hamas and
removing Hamas.
But among Israelis and cabinetmembers and analysts, among the
(29:55):
Israeli society, said that goinginto Gaza would cost them a lot
.
And the big question afterremoving Hamas, what are you
going to do in Gaza and whatwill the future?
Are you going to remove thepeople?
No, that's one side.
The second side, you know.
(30:15):
Yesterday I was talking to likean Israeli analyst who said to
me that the pictures of thevictims of Gaza, the kids,
killed the strength to go outinto the media.
Still, the media is notcatching what's happening and
this is going to be difficultfor Israel to explain later on.
If they go into the groundoperation, what will happen?
(30:35):
We'll see thousands of peoplecame.
We already saw, according tothe UN report, that over 700
people, 700,000 people, hasalready started to moving, part
of them into UN schools in orderto take shelter.
So if Israel goes in, therewill be a human catastrophe.
(30:57):
So what's the end of result?
Nobody knows and these goalswere set in the past.
It's such an important question.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
It's such an important question that you're
raising, Even if which and Idon't understand how, because
you can't move armor in thereyou and I have walked those
little alleyways and narrowstreets and there's a network of
tunnels under there.
Hamas, that's Hamas's home.
I mean, they own the turf andthey have the upper hand in many
(31:27):
ways.
Even if you could remove theIsraelis, could remove Hamas,
who do you hand the keys to thenext day in the Gaza Strip?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
That's a big question .
Actually, in the past, sharontried himself when Mubarak, the
Egyptian president the formerEgyptian president was on power
and told him come and take Gaza.
And Mubarak said no, I can'tdeal with these two millions
people, I can't.
I'm not sure today anyone isready to take the keys.
(32:03):
Gaza, it's owned by theresidents right now, the
Palestinians there, and I'm notsure there will be another
solution rather than going andtalking to the Palestinian
directly.
So it's a problem, and theyhope that there will not be a
lot of bloodshed beforeunderstanding once again that
(32:28):
there is other side that youshould talk to and reach a
solution.
I think if a ground operationhappened in the near future,
there will be a lot of victims,probably in the both sides, and
that will lead to no more, tolead to less hope and more
hatred, and we saw what thehatred is bringing into the
(32:50):
conflict.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
You saw, and we both covered when Fatah was removed.
Yasser Arafat's Fatah wasremoved from the Gaza Strip
violently I mean, it wasPalestinians killing
Palestinians and Hamas came topower.
Is there any notion that Fatahwould ever regain power in the
(33:15):
Gaza Strip and remove Hamas orstep into a vacuum if Hamas was
removed?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Well, there is no talk about right now because the
Palestinians are one unitedagainst Israel from the point of
view that they are destroyinghomes of civilians right now.
So that's one thing.
Fatih has a lot of problems inthe West Bank.
There are many Palestinians wholost trust in Fatih and even
(33:47):
like Abou Mazen vision that wastalking about we are not going
to fight an armed conflict withIsrael.
It's not getting a lot of trustbecause they don't trust.
Israel is clearly wants to reachpeace the last year with the
two Israeli ministers of theright wing government.
(34:11):
There are clear talk aboutPalestinians and the West Bank
and the settlements and removingPalestinians and even putting
the rights of life of Israelisin front of Palestinians, even
in the West Bank.
That made the Palestinians verymad and they don't see any hope
.
So who will replace who?
Right now it's a big question.
(34:33):
It's not clear.
I'm not sure yet that Israeliswill take the full decision and
go all the way to remove Hamas.
They may do anything else.
It's still very early to know,but if they go to Gaza it's
going to be a bloodshed again.
I'm saying that it'sunfortunately.
That's what we'll see andthat's why my Israeli analyst
(34:55):
yesterday, with my talk to himtold me it's going to be
difficult for Israel to explainwhat will happen.
If it will take days or weeks,then going to be a disaster.
So we are back to the samecircle of a vicious violence
where a lot of victims, mostlyfrom civilians.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
What about Netanyahu?
I mean, you know, mr Security,he now, historically, has been
the leader in one of thegreatest intelligence and
security failures in Israel'shistory.
He is seeking a national unitygovernment.
The members of the Israeliopposition are very hesitant
(35:37):
just to walk into his cabinetand sign up and sign on.
The Israeli government lookslike it's in massive upheaval,
and do you think that it'spossible they will get a more
moderate cabinet?
Or, more likely than that, theywill just get a war cabinet?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yes, that was my word , dana.
It's a war cabinet and I thinkthere is a lot of consultation
with the Americans, according toall the reports and the sources
, and the Americans want a likeUnited Cabinet to face what's
happening right now on theground and to end this war with
Israel winning it.
That's the atmosphere in Israel, but changing Netanyahu and
(36:23):
changing whatever he's doing.
You know, the past year wasvery difficult with Netanyahu.
He's accusing him of beinglooking about himself.
He could pay any price tosurvive as a prime minister.
Actually, they believe that heignored what was happening in
Gaza.
He was depending on the moneythat was coming from Qatar.
That he thinks that you knowHamas getting money and the
(36:46):
people under they are silent.
The $100 for each family.
It's not going to give hope topeople.
It's like a painkiller.
This lasts for a little whileand then it disappear because
they never solved the realproblem in Gaza.
He ignored it.
He focused on his voters,settlers in the West Bank, and
that's it Today.
It's like a situation.
(37:07):
He's forced.
He wants to cover what happened.
He's going to this war cabinet,maybe still today.
There was a meeting betweenGantz, one of the main
opposition leaders, and himself.
They are talking about thepossibility real possibility, of
making up such a cabinet, withall the reservations that the
opposition have on the rightwing elements of the Taniyya's
(37:28):
government, but they are goinginto it.
By the way, what's happening inthe North today?
A little escalation fromHezbollah.
Nobody knows where it is goingforward from there.
Still, it's very minimal,that's not exaggerate, but no
one knows what the coming eventswill fuel.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
You've studied media and coverage of the conflict?
You're the perfect person toask this.
If you continue to see thesepictures rolling out of the Gaza
Strip in the Arab world, andobviously more than what's
happening in Israel or in thesettlements, all you see now is
the horrendous destruction inthe Gaza Strip.
(38:10):
Can Arab leaders in Arab statesstay quiet, or for their own
survival, in terms of Jordan andits large Palestinian
population?
In terms of Syria, in terms ofto the North, with the Hezbollah
in Lebanon, can the Hezbollahsit quietly or does it come a
(38:34):
point where they are going tohave to take action?
And don't forget, iran issomewhere in the back, pushing
different buttons as we speak.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Actually, let's start from Hezbollah.
Let's make it clear Hezbollahfrom my long years of experience
and coverage, including the warin 2006, this group does not
operate on emotions.
They are tactic and they thinkand they decide according to
their interests, according totheir supporters' interests,
(39:08):
including Iran.
These people are not emotionalat all and they think they are
now calculating every step theyare doing, especially with the
movement of the Americans intothe Eastern Mediterranean with
all the ships and the bigbarrage.
It's a threat only for now, butthey are calculating that and
(39:29):
Iran is also calculating what'sthe outcome that they will have.
So that's on one side.
About Gaza, as in the past,these pictures of today there
was start to have these andunfortunate pictures of dead
kids in Gaza.
If it continues, it's going tobe bigger, so it will grab
(39:49):
emotions.
We know that from the pastexperience that the Arab world
has been through this.
So it needs to have a littlebit.
Maybe, maybe it has to bebigger.
Maybe if there will bePalestinian displacement and
they cross the border to Egyptwith big bars of people crossing
(40:11):
crazily and dead bodies andstuff like that, there will be a
move which will force, and theythink the Americans understand
that and they talk to theJordanians and they are very
clear.
So there will be a point in theconflict, but when they will
stop?
So the idea of what the Israelimedia are talking, how to do,
an operation that will causethem less difficulties, like
(40:37):
these one, having the people torush away, that's not clear.
What is happening?
Last word about the mediacoverage.
The media coverage so far islike running like doing the
story.
Missal Rekhot.
Here they are on the ground, wesee in the back somebody's like
.
They are not going into the.
We are in the fifth day of thewar.
(40:58):
They are still running into theshelters.
They are still going on theground.
They are not reporting.
They are like detailing what'shappening, like from numbers and
showing that the reporter isunder danger.
And they were doing that for along time.
During my years of work, I tryall the time to change that
perspective, to get into thedeeds.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
What you were talking about, because you and I skip
over this stuff pretty quicklybecause we work in that business
.
But the new generation ofreporter has to be under fire.
They have to be jumping in aditch, they have to be dodging a
bullet, or there's an air raidor a rocket above them and
that's what's going to bringthem cable ratings.
(41:39):
And unfortunately it becomes aself-promoting drama in some
cases, rather than solid, sobercoverage of a very important
story.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yes, you are right and we know that, but some of
what I saw in the past two daysare very veteran journalists and
reporters who've been here manytimes.
Some of them is like based here.
They're showing the same story,the same thing, the same
perspective about the story.
They are not really lookingahead Like our interview today
is looking ahead of what willhappen in the future in the
(42:17):
conflict that was caused by thelatest attack of Hamas on all
these places along the borderwith the Gaza Strip.
So we are advancing.
I still don't see this in theinternational media.
I don't see this.
I still see that internationalmedia reacting to news, reacting
(42:39):
to what's happening.
I'm not really trying to goadvanced and see what.
If this happens, if Israel gointo Gaza, what will happen?
How's the reactions, the lossesof people, the victims, the
picture?
We've been there.
We've been there.
Hamas, israel went twice intoGaza, even very limited, but
(43:02):
there was a lot of casualties.
So it is very difficult.
But we are trying always topush for a better coverage so
people around the worldunderstand what's really going
on here, not only see thesurface and not go into the
actual things happening.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
You're speaking from Jerusalem.
I wanna let you go because I'vetaken a lot of your time.
But the last question to you doyou run out of hope or do you
hold hope that maybe these badevents lead us to something
better?
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I hold hope.
If I lose hope, I lost it along time ago.
No, I hold hope.
My father holds hope, mygrandfather holds hope.
My friends hold hope.
We hope.
We saw in the past that badevents led to some good things.
In the 70s, 80s and the 90s,the situation here was too bad.
(44:04):
Then, in the beginning of thelast, we had hope for peace deal
between Israeli Palestinians.
There was a change.
I witnessed that in the firsthand as a young guy.
I started to work in the mediain Jerusalem and in the Middle
East, so it was a little hope.
Then it disappeared onpolitical things, on a lake of
(44:27):
compromising one to another, andtoday we are living actually in
a situation of hatred and callsof revenge.
So I hold hope that this couldchange and people around the
world understand that it's notgood to ignore what's happening
here.
It's gonna reflect on all ofyou.
(44:48):
So it's good now to step in andtry to see how to get hope to
the people of Gaza and how toget to hope to the civilians
inside Israel.
Life continues.
Let's change.
So this tragic and all thesepictures of pain for both sides
will end and forever.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Ibrahim, thank you so much.
I couldn't help but be movedthis morning when I was
listening to a human rightsperson who was operating out of
Gaza and they were doing aninterview and he said you know,
for kids that are caught underthe bombing and the shelling and
the constant sound ofinsecurity and explosions, all
(45:34):
they can say is make it stop.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yeah, they should make it stop immediately.
And immediately means now.
They should and do whateverthey can need to minimize the
losses among people and not onlyStep in.
Really don't let it go after ifthis war ends.
Don't let it go.
Try to invest in it.
It will change the things inthe Middle East and will reflect
(46:02):
very positively on the wholeworld, including Europe and the
US.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Ibrahim has been a long time TV producer,
journalist and a really terrificanalyst on the Middle East and
certainly you know you can'ttalk to anybody better on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ibrahim, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Thank you, dana, for this very rich conversation.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
And that's our backstory on the slaughter by
Hamas of Israelis, the largestnumber of Jews killed in a
single day since the Holocaust.
The destructive counterattackon Gaza by the Israeli military
is a crisis only beginning tounfold and we'll have more on
backstory in the coming weeks.
I'm Dana Lewis.
(46:44):
Thanks for listening and I'lltalk to you again soon.
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