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January 21, 2025 14 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining us from from here, not quite in our same
time zone, but almost.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ruthie, as you know, she's.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
A frequent guest on the show and listeners always truly
love when Ruthie's on the show.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
She is a columnist and a pundit with.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
JNS JNS dot org, and she was an advisor to
the net Yahoo administration in Israel as well, and just
one of my favorite people to talk about because it's
you know, no punch is pulled and no holds barred.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
When it comes to, you know, talking about what's going
on in the Middle East with Ruthie.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
So Hi, Ruthie, it's it's good to see you, and
and and welcome to the US for a little while.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, thank you, and what a great introduction. We can
end right there.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
So over the weekend, three young women, Emily Damari, romy
Goenen and Doron Steinbrecker were released from Hamas captivity. Israel
released about ninety Palestinian criminals who were who were in prison.
This was the beginning of whatever this so called first

(01:00):
phase looks like. Could you kind of paint that picture
a little bit more for us right now, you know,
theoretically and then maybe actually like what is the current situation.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
The current situation is that everybody is very, very thrilled
to see those three young women returned and in relatively
good condition, although Emily had two fingers shut off on
October seventh during the massacre and her abduction. When I
say in relatively good shape, what I mean is there,

(01:33):
we're walking. They walked into the Red Cross van. They
are on their feet, they were communicative. But you know,
the medical tests have to go on for several days,
and more importantly, the psychological tests. This can you imagine
a year and three months in captivity with the worst

(01:56):
barbarians who torture, rape, taunt, do the worst things you
can imagine. So you know, it's not likely that they're
just find those women.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
So now in context of the greater deal, if that's
what you want to know.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
It's a disastrous, horrible deal.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
I have nothing good to say about it, other than
watching with tears in my own eyes, as everybody else,
watching those three women, whom we've all gotten to know
in Israel, especially since their parents were on television and
the posters.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
We've gotten to know these hostages very.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Intimately, even those of us who never met them personally,
and so the only good thing about it is seeing
them and hopefully seeing a few more next.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
Week and a few more after that.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
But what's disastrous, you see, is that for six weeks,
in the course of six weeks, only thirty three will
be released in exchange for more than a thousand Palestinian
terrorists who avowed.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
You know, to do this again and again.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
And by the way, every time Israel has released Palestinian
terrorists in an exchange what they call in exchange innocent
people for terrorists exchange, they recommit offenses. They got returned
to commit terrorist acts, and we know that eighty two
percent of them do it. So that's one thing. It

(03:23):
endangers all Israelis. The rest of the Israelis who were
not affected by October seventh. Now, I would like to
also point out every Israeli was affected by October seventh,
because either they were directly affected, or have relatives there,
or have children in the army searching for the hostages
and fighting Hamas. There is nobody untouched even directly by

(03:47):
this atrocity. Now, it's also was very disappointing that the
person who sealed the deal, so to speak, was Trump's envoy.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Steve and why is that disappointing.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Because this deal was on the table before and Hamas
kept rejecting it, and Biden was pressuring n'itaniello the whole time,
even though he acknowledged that it was Hamas preventing the deal.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
So enter Trump.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Trump threatened that all hell would break loose in them
att least if the hostages aren't released by the time
he's inaugurated, and then Steve Witkoff went over there and
Hamas then agreed. So what we could say is Hamas
was frightened by Trump's threat, But the trouble is not
great A great threat if all we saw.

Speaker 4 (04:37):
Were three young women released and we have to take
six weeks to see.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Who's dead, who's alive, who's returning, And you know, Hamas
is capable and has done it in the past of
you know, saying, oh, yeah, we're supposed to release four
on Saturday, but maybe we won't.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
So it's it's terrible.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
So it also seems that in addition to Hamas perhaps
being afraid of Trump, and I don't know, I guess
they'd be a little bit of afraid to me, it
had a similar kind of vibe to the Iranian hostages
being released on the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration. But

(05:16):
there had also been some rumblings that Trump pressured Netnyahuo.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
To go along with the deal. Do you think that's true, Well,
I do.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
I mean, we saw that Steve Whitcoff was quite harsh
with Nathaniel. But the caveat to that is that Nathaniel
was agreeing to such a deal. He's been agreeing to
it for months. So I mean, on one end, you
could say it's Witcoff's fault and Nathaniel succumbed, but actually
Nathaniel was agreeing to that. Don't forget there's tons of

(05:47):
pressure inside Israel. There has been for fifteen and a
half months to end the world altogether. And this was
also by Israel's top generals, certainly by a hostage fan
Emily's and the war that their fantasy was that Hamas
would just release all the terrorists, excuse me, all the

(06:09):
hostages if Israel ended the war. Now, there was never
such a deal on the table. Hamas never agreed to
such a thing. Nor is it in Hamas's interests to
return all the terror.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
The hostages, because.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Because that's their leverage there's you know, that's their ransom
is they up the ante all the time. So I
would like to blame Whitkoff for this, but the fact
that is Natanielle was actually willing to sign a deal
has been for a while, and it was Hamas rejecting it.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
We're talking with Ruthy Bloom.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
She is a columnist and pundit at JNS JNS dot
org and a former advisor in the NETNYA who administration
in Israel. So you and I usually agree on things.
I'm not sure if you're going to agree with my
take on this. I really am curious. My take is

(07:06):
it's a bad deal and Israel didn't have any choice.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
They had to do it.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
I do agree with that, But the not having any choice,
it depends whom you're blaming. Okay, I agree it was
a terrible deal and Israel had no choice.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
And I would say they had no choice.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Really was a mixture of pressure from inside, pressure from outside,
and nitaniel and his government's understanding that no matter what happens,
that we still have to defeat Hamas. But but after all,
we were unable to rescue those hostages. We did rescue

(07:48):
a few, and we did make a deal to release
several about one hundred. But but we were not managing
to rescue them without killing them. You see, I mean
one of the iss for being so careful and Gaza
had to do with that. And Israeli society will not
heal without those hostages returned. So it was a kind

(08:11):
of you know a combination of pressure from outside, pressure
from inside, and maybe Nataniel's understanding that there's just so
much you can do at the moment, with the understanding
by the way that Israel can, will, can, and will
return to Gaza to finish the job and defeat Hamas.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
There was a very interesting piece put out by the
Associated Press yesterday. The headline is, after fifteen months of war,
Hamas still rules over what remains of Gaza.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
And they were talking about.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Like when those three female hostages were handed over, you know,
they were surrounded by Hamas members in fatigues wearing bellaclovas
over their faces and greed headbands, and and they talk
about how you know in here, like they talk about
how Hamas is really in charge.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
I'll read you one other.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
The scenes elsewhere in Gaza were even more remarkable. Thousands
of Hamas run police in uniform re emerged, making their
presence known even in the most heavily destroyed areas. They
quoted a civilian there, the police have been here the
whole time, but they were not wearing their uniforms. And
then this guy actually goes on to credit the low

(09:28):
levels of crime in the displaced people camps in Gaza
to the presence of these police. I have no idea
if that's right or not, but the bottom line is
there's still a lot of Hamas.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
How is this all going to play out?

Speaker 1 (09:42):
I mean, I know they helpfully wear green headbands that
make it very easy to target their heads, but.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
How is this all going to play out?

Speaker 4 (09:51):
Okay, so, first of all.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
They don't all wear green headbands because it's in Hamas's
interests for civilians so called civilians to be killed or
others were terrorists to be listed as civilians by the
Gaza Health Ministry.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
All right, but here's the other problem.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
The humanitarian aid trucks that have been going in and
in Gaza. And don't believe a word that the international
community has said about Israel withholding humanitarian aid.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
That's nonsense. Some of the aid didn't even was.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Sitting waiting at the border for aid organizations to pick
it up, and it was rotting at the border.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
But the ones that did get.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
In Hamas stole and sold at exorbitant prices to Gazans
who needed it.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
And just to show you, a pack of cigarettes.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Was being sold for eighteen hundred dollars.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
Okay, one pack of cigarettes.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
It would be interesting to know which Gazans have eighteen
hundred dollars to spend on cigarettes, But there you go.
The trouble is that Hamas was selling that and using
the money to recruit new terrorists to replace the ones
Israel had eliminated. So that explains a whole new slew
of terrorists. But another very important thing that's being missed

(11:10):
is that Israel a couple of months ago started to
offer money to any gossen who has information on where
a hostage is being held, and even way more money
to anyone responsible for the return or rescue of a hostage.
Now five million dollars per hostage. Now think of gozzins
in the strip where it's being demolished and all that.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
The fact that nobody.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Came through with that would indicate that Hamas is still
in power and that they're afraid because I don't care
how loyal you are to Hamas for a gozen five
million dollars, it's like for you and me five trillion dollars, Okay.
So the fact that nobody offered UH to take that

(11:57):
money indicates that they are still afraid now and Sinoar's
brother is still alive. So you know, there's still a
lot of work to do in Gaza, There's no question
about it. And we have very little, very little hope
that in the second phase of this disgusting deal, Hamas

(12:17):
will agree to surrender and put down its weapons, you know,
demilitarize Gaza, and therefore we're.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
Going to have to go back in there and continue
the war.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
The good news from the Trump administration is that though
Steve Whitkoff may be talking like a Biden official, the
Secretary of State who was just confirmed and that is
Marco Rubio, and also Mike Walls, the National Security Advisor,
and I'm leaving somebody out on my living out. Defense

(12:49):
Secretary Peters, if he is Defense Secretary, have all said,
Israel will do what it has to do, and we
will back Israel no matter what, and we will unfree
any weapons withheld by the Biden administration.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
So that's the good news here.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
I find it hard to believe that President Trump will
prevent Israel from going back into Gaza when necessary.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
All right, last question for you.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
If you were a betting woman, would you bet that
by the end of six weeks, Gaza will have released
approximately thirty three hostages.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
If I were a betting woman, I would say one
of two things. First, I would say no, I would
not bet on that. I would bet that they're going
to violate the deal beforehand. Or we'll be seeing way
more dead bodies than live live hostages return in that
six weeks.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
We'll see how this all plays out.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Ruthie and I are at least in agreement that it's
a bad deal, but they had very little choice.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
And then you know, the argument is about why they
had very not argument. The conversation is about why they
had very little choice. We'll see how it all plays out.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
It's the beginning of a quote unquote agreement with a
party who you can't trust to honor any agreement. You
can read Ruthie's writing and also see some of her
great videos where she does interviews with people at JNS
dot org.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Ruthie Bloom that's Blum.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Thanks so much for your time as always, and we'll
talk again.

Speaker 4 (14:26):
Soon and thanks to your ass as always. Bye bye
bye

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