September 17, 2025 • 49 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews Andrew Fox. Andrew is a foreign affairs expert and former British airborne army officer. He discusses the recent Jerusalem attacks, the UN, and the future of the Middle East. With extensive experience in Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine, he shares insights on modern warfare, disinformation, and the shifting dynamics of global conflict. His PhD research explores how technology and asymmetric strategies shape today’s battles. Andrew warns that Western recognition of Palestine without clear frameworks risks emboldening Hamas and driving Israel to extremes, undermining peace efforts. He stresses the dangers of rising global anti-Semitism fueled by false genocide narratives and calls for stronger societal resilience.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good easy and everyone, and welcome to the Brian Cromby
Radio War. I've got a really interesting gentleman to introduce
you tonight to talk about the Middle East and what's
going on. Andrew Fox is a former British Airborne Army officer.
He spent considerable time on the ground in Israel and
gazap throughout the current conflict. He's an expert in Middle
Eastern politics and the psychology of disinformation. Andrew Fox, Welcome
(00:40):
to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Thank you very much, great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So tell me what were you doing as a British
Airborne Army officer and why were you spending considerable time
in both Israel and Gaza.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
I say, my job now is a researcher for a
think tank in London and to distill it down to
the call, my job is to go to war zones
and then writes about So I've been on the front
lines in Ukraine and I've been in the front lines
in Gaza and Lebanon whilst that was still going on.
As well, so because of my background, foreign armies seem
happy to take me where they wouldn't take anyone else
(01:14):
because they know I've got experience and can handle myself.
And so I take full advantage of that to get
an insight into two conflicts that perhaps most people don't get.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And so you're reading this for the think tank or
for public dissemination, or for popular articles or media outlets
or what.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
It's a little bit of everything. I do write for
some journalistic outlets. A number of papers have been published
by the Henry Jackson Society in London. And I'm also
a doctoral student, so it's making up my PhD PhD
dissertation as well.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And what's your PhD in?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It's about the future of warfare and what Ukraine and
Gaza can teach us about it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
The future of warfare.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yeah, in the twenty first century, we're seeing wars that
of a kind that really haven't been fought before. Information
is a key component and how the development of new
technology is happening faster than ever before. And one is
a conventional war in Ukraine, one is an asymmetric war
in Gaza.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And so if we bring all of them together, it
teaches us.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
I think a lot about what war is going to
look like as we go into the twenty first century
and onwards.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So this is what drones and robots.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Drones, robots, AI, the ability to make equipments cheaply at scale.
You know, take an F thirty five, which costs billions,
you can destroy that on the ground with a two
hundred dollars drone if you fire enough of them at
the airfield. You know, there's all kinds of new things
here that haven't really been seen before. And then we
have information warfare, which is where your enemy will try
(02:39):
and attack essentially the will and cohesion of your own
people and your allies and your alliances to try and
defeat you without firing around. So we're in a whole
new space now that the Internet has opened up, and
I don't think doctrine has yet captured it. So I'm
having a go at doing that.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So this expert in psychology of disinformation, that's interesting tell
us a little about that.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Well.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
So I had the opportunity to do a fully sponsored
master's degree in anything I wanted to. I already had
a master's in war studies, but I figured that wars
are fought by people, and if you can understand the
people better, then you'll understand the war better. So I
did a master's in psychology as well.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Fascinating And do we have a lot more disinperation today?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I think we do.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I think we have a ce of it, and it's
simply for the reason that there are more channels to
carry it. You know, social media is an incredible thing.
But you know, we're seeing from even events in America
that you know, with Charlie Kirk, that the Internet can
have some terrible, horrible.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Effects as well.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
And we have now a multiplicity of foreign enemies who
were trying to undermine our societal cohesion by pushing fake narratives,
by emphasizing the cracks in our societies. And so I
think it, you know, it's important and we study this
and work out how our enemies are attacking us, and
only then can we work out what to do about it.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Do you think there's a lot of in the Internet
and a Facebook and social media?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Yeah, astonishing amounts, astonishing amounts. There's a wonderful aim called Siabra.
They've done some incredible studies on the disinformation that's been
swirling around the Israel Gaza Lebanon conflict. They found within
a twenty sorry forty eight hour period, one particular hashtag
had a reach of over three hundred and fifty million
social media users and that was a disinformation line they
(04:25):
were pushing. So the reach and scale of this is
absolutely mind blown.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Let's talk about Israel, Palestine, gas, et cetera. You know,
several Western countries, including Canada, have signaled it or have
stated that they intend to recognize Palestine as a independent state.
What do you think about that? What's the impact of
that on Palestine, on Israel, on Canada, on the world.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I mean, look to me, it feels incredibly short sighted
because you're essentially going unilateral and you're removing Israel from
the conversation. We don't know what borders this state of
Palestine have. We don't know what its currency is, we
don't know who it's uh you know who its leader
will be, We don't know who as head of state
will be. We don't know what you know, what banking
system it's going to use. You know, it has none
(05:13):
of the features yet of a state. And if a
two state solution is something you genuinely believe in, then
you need to bring Israel into the conversation somehow, and unfortunately,
the disinformation swirling around the Gaza war has effectively created
a pariah status for Israel on the world stage. Uh.
And that's that's that's actually going to make peace less
(05:33):
likely than more likely, because at the moment, the two
incumbents in the two areas of what will be Palestine,
Gaza and the West Bank.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
The incumbent government in Gaza is Hamas.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
The incumbent government in the West Bank is the Palestine
Unit Authority under Futah, and neither of them except the
existence of the State of Israel or have shown any
desire to come to a two state conclusion. So this
is this is a really complex issue, and I think
by applying a very simplistic solution to it, you're actually
making it less likely to have a peaceful outcome.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Do you think two state solution is a solution, Well,
what's the alternative.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
The alternative to a two state solution is a one
state solution where you effectively get rid of the world's
only Jewish state because they will have a majority Arab
population and an Arab population who hate them and wants
to kill them.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So that's not an option on.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
The table, or you remove all the Arabs from the
land and you have a one state solution that is
purely Israeli. Neither of those I think are good option.
So whilst we're probably further from a two state solution
than ever before, it still remains the least worst option
on the table.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
How is this recognition or the intended recognition of Palestine
and a Palestine state do you think impacting this war
between Hamas and Israel.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Well, I think it's having two effects. The first effect
is that it's encouraging Hamas fighting because whilst the rhetoric
is that the state can't take place with Hamass presence,
the fact remains they are present, and if you look
at the polling in the West Bank, they're polling at
seventy eighty percent approval. If there are an election in
the West Bank tomorrow, Hamas would win a landslide. So
(07:18):
it's very naive to say that this is only going
to happen if har Massa removed from the equation, because
we're not seeing any pathway to that right now. So
her Maass are emboldened because they're getting what they want,
so they have no reason to cease fire to release
the hostages to spare gazas civilians from ongoing horrors of war.
And then on the Israeli side, of course, we have
(07:39):
an extremely right wing government and by backing them into
a corner, you're inspiring them to take unsavory things like
threatening to annex the entirety.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Of the West Bank.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
So what this is doing is effectively pouring fuel on
the fire rather than making a pathway to a peaceful solution.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Tell me a little bit more about the impact of
these announcements in Israel. You're saying that, actually, this isn't
forcing the Israeli government to become reasonable, it's what creating
a catalyst for them becoming and at least the right
wing portion of that government to become more unreasonable. Is
that what you're.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Saying, Yeah, I think so. You know, it's no coincidence
that mister I think it was Bengevia. It might have
been Smotrich, one of the two crazies, you know. In
the immediate aftermath of this announcement from France, Canada, UK
and other countries immediately announced his plan to annex huge
tranches of the West West Bank and reduce the Palestinian
(08:34):
areas to tiny little bubbles of the towns, the towns
they have there. So you know, these these are not
reasonable people. They are extremists and if you back them
into a corner, I suspect the only solution is they
will become more extreme.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
What do you think the impact on Jewish people in
the UK and Canada and the United States is?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
You know, I have many Jewish friends who I.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
And the storm of disinformation that we've seen over the
last two years, nearly since of October twenty three, has
caused a raging storm of anti Semitism where people have
conflated the Jewish populations in the diaspora with the actions
of the State of Israel. And you know, in London
(09:22):
we're seeing we had an arrest yesterday for a guy
who went around eight different synagogues smearing feces on the
door handles. We're seeing people chiseling mezusas off Jewish families
front doors. We're seeing Jews scared to wear their Stars
of David in public.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You know, that's nothing to do with the State of Israel.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
That is pure anti semitism, And unfortunately, we are experiencing
a spike in anti Semitism like nothing We've seen since
the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
You know, some people would criticize the State of Israel
for going too far and in Gaza, is that the
problem or is it just pure anti Semitism.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Look, there is legitimate criticism of what Israel the way
as well as conducting the conflict in Gaza. Personally, I
think they achieved everything militarily that they reasonably could months ago,
and I suspect there is a political aspect to why
they're still fighting in Gaza, in that mister Netnia, who
wants to keep his coalition together, has to keep the
(10:19):
far right on side so that they don't leave the
coalition and collapse the government.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So there's an aspect of that.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
But there is also, in parallel with that legitimate criticism,
a completely false narrative of genocide which demonizes the Israeli
state and makes accusations that are completely untrue. And yet
that is the dominant r narrative worldwide. Now, I've been
to Gaza multiple times during the war. If I thought
there was genuinely a genocide, I would say, so, I
(10:46):
have no dog in this fight. I'm not Jewish, I'm
not Israeli, I'm not I'm not a cheerleader for one
side or the other. I've been to the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation sites and I was very critical when I came
back in the articles I write. But the fact is
that this false genocide narrative has created an enormous storm
of anti Semitism, and it's given a facade of civility
(11:08):
to it. You know, I'm just anti Zionists, I'm not
anti Semitic, But clearly there are multiple instances of this
crossing the line from fair criticism of Israel into the
naked due hatred.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Tell me about this claim of genocide. I guess South
Africa is the one that's taken it to the International
Criminal Court or whatever it is. What's the argument that
they're making for genocide and why do you believe it's
not a fair argument.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
So for the first part, they made the argument that
some Israeli politicians came out with a few very punchy
lines in the aftermath of seventh of October that they
are alleging constitutes genocidal intent. Now, if you then go
back and look at those speeches in full, it was
very clear that people like President Herzog promised and and
you who Defense Minister jov Galant were talking about Hamas.
(12:03):
When you put the lines they've cherry picked back into context,
it's very clear that this is not genocidal. Now, you
do also have lunatics, as I've mentioned, to do say
stupidly genocidal things and seem to be determined to lose
the war on the International Court of Opinion single handedly.
But they're not people who had decision making power over
(12:23):
the IDF and over the war effort. So that's a
very important distinction to make. And then when we look
at the conduct of the war in Gaza, what's been
deleted from the global conversation is Hamas. They have put
up a very stiff fighting resistance against the IDF. The
IDF have incurred over six hundred killed in action and
over three thousand very seriously injured soldiers in Gaza. This
(12:45):
is not a cakewalk. They didn't get injured, you know,
shaving in the morning. It's not These aren't shaving cuts.
These These are the serious amputations, life changing injuries to
IDF soldiers. It's a proper war. Hamas have very success
ucessfully weaponized the suffering of gods of civilians, which is
very real and nobody should minimize that. It's the only
(13:06):
war zone in the world where civilians have been forbidden
from fleeing the war zone by Egypt, who, rather than
open their doors to the poor Palestinians, they reinforced their
border fence in the aftermath of seventh of October. And
with genocide, it cannot be anything else under law. It's
something called dolus specialists. So if you or I committed
(13:27):
a crime and went to court, the burden of proof
would be beyond reasonable doubt. If we went to civil courts,
it would be on balance of probabilities, which is the
sort of fifty one percent likelihood Dolus specialists. It's well
above that, it's one hundred percent. It cannot be anything
but genocide. For it to be a genocidal intent, there
is more than enough evidence to suggest that this is
(13:47):
a war. People might not like how it's been fought,
people might not like seeing the suffering of people in
a war zone, and these are quite reasonable positions to hold,
but genocide it is not.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Is the Canadian, French, British government's declarations a win for
Hamas I think so?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I think so.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
I mean they're saying it's not and they're desperate to
portray that it's not. But I think they're partially domestically motivated.
Certainly in the UK, the Labor Party is running scared
of a very highly mobilized Islamic vote. They lost five
seats at the last general election to Gaza parties Gaza
Gaza candidates, So it's it's domestically motivated. They say it
(14:29):
doesn't reward her Mass, but effectively it gives them absolutely
no incentive to surrender and end this war because they're
getting everything they wants. Israel's being demonized on the world stage,
a Palestinian state is getting recognized. Why would you stop
now when everything is going as well as you want?
And if you get killed by Israel, that's fine because
you want that anyway, because you're a nihilistic jihadist. So
(14:49):
if you're her Mass, you're in a great place right now.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
You're very happy.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Best case scenario, you get a state. Worst case scenario
you go to Janati or Virgins. You know it's a
win win for them.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Right now, what a terrible situation we're in. We're going
to take a break for some messages, will be back
in just two minutes. With Andrew Fox talking about the
Middle East and what he thinks about the Canadian, the British,
the French declaration that we're gonna declare Palestine a state.
Stay with us, everyone back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA A.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Welcome back everyone to the Bran fromby Radio hor I've
got Andrew Fox with us tonight. Andrew Fox is a
former British Airborne Army officer. He spent considerable time on
the ground in Israel and Gaza throughout the current conflict.
I guess, analyzing, writing, experiencing, and coming back and reporting
on it for a think tank out of the UK.
He's also an expert in Middle Eastern politics and the
(15:58):
psychology of disinformation. I understand you're doing a doctorate on
that topic now, and so good luck and congratulations in
that regard. Let me tell you. Let me ask you,
what's it like on the ground, if you've actually been
to to Gaza, if you've been to Israel, what does
it feel like? You know, you're you're a former army officer,
(16:20):
and so therefore it's going to be less strange for you,
I guess then for other people. But describe if you
could what it feels like on the ground.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Well, the strangest thing was not having a weapon. Every
time we stopped and disembarked from the vehicles, I kind
of instinctively reach out for a rifle that wasn't there, So.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
That was kind of strange. But the devastation is every.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Bit as bad in Gaza as you you have read
about or maybe have seen. You know, the scale of
destruction is huge, and the first time I saw it,
you know, I confess it took my breath away. I
thought in Afghanistan, I did three tours, you know, I
was done Nick Kanda with the Canadian at one point,
so you know, I saw the Canadian army in action.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
And nothing we did there.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Neither the British, the American nor the Canadian compares to
the tempo and scale of the war that Israel is
fighting in Gaza. But it's really important I think that
you understand the reason for the destruction and the reason
for the destruction, particularly in Rafa down in the south.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
It's because there was a four month pause between.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
January and April twenty twenty four imposed by the Americans
so that Raffa could be evacuated Prior to the Israeli assault,
and Hamas took that four month opportunity to essentially ied
improvised explosive device, so booby trap the entire place. And
if you're the IDF advancing through Raffa, you don't really
have a great deal of choice but to destroy those
(17:44):
IDs in place, which of course destroys the building. You know,
they could do what we did in Afghanistan, which is
you go firm, you call for your explosive ordinance disposal,
you wait for them to get there, you wait for
them to diffuse the bomb.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
But that wasn't really an option for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
First of all, because there were so many they wouldn't
have got anywhere if they tried to diffuse every single one.
And secondly, they actually had cameras linked up to the tunnels,
so they had remote control cameras on cables and they
were live watching the IDF enter houses. And the IDF
did lose a number of troops in the early days
in Rafa. As troops would enter a house, a mass
would see it on camera, so they detonate the booby trap.
(18:23):
And it's very hard to defuse a bomb like that
because they're they're not victim operated.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
They're remote control operated. So you know that that is
why the obscene damage is as bad as it is.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I think I should also talk about the people of Gaza,
especially in the did you know the famine allegations they
are going around now. I've been to the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation sites. I was the first international observer to watch
a distribution and be allowed to film it. There was
no restriction on what I could film, and that footage
actually went global and it was a sea of humanity
(18:57):
descending towards these boxes of aid and like locusts, just
you know, taking every bit of wood, every bit of cardboard,
because everything has value, you know, when you're in a
full on barter collapse of society situation. And it was
it was you know, these people weren't weren't once in
the best condition.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
They weren't. They weren't by Afra famine.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
You couldn't see the ribs, you couldn't see that kind
of you know, famine sort of skull like face that
we you know, we saw in the eighties nineties from
famines in Africa. But they were clearly hungry, and you know,
but the the most interesting thing for me was the
smiles quite frankly, the guys of Humanitarian Foundation, guys that
builds a real rapport with the people, and the little
kids were dancing. They were they were bringing children in
(19:42):
and binding their feet and treating any wounds and injuries
they had. They were pregnant women that were looked after,
and the women were all delighted because they were They
had a special a delivery just for them, so they
were guaranteed to get some food that day. So it
was it was an impressively resilient bunch of peace all
but yeah, Gaza is going to take a lot of
(20:04):
money and a lot of time to rebuild from where
it is today.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
So it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
You know, you're suggesting that some of this was caused,
some of the devastation was caused by this ceasefire or
the hold off effectively of the attack. You know, what
we've heard is that hospitals are used as protection for
hamas headquarters and munitions, areas schools, the same thing. What's
(20:32):
your sense are they are they using the residents of
Gaza as defense?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Absolutely, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
And if you go to the Henry Jackson Society website
Henry Jackson Soociety dot org.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
You can find my paper on.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Her Massa's human shield strategy, which is twenty thousand words
and I think two hundred and sixty four individual pieces
of evidence, including Hamas's own words saying we're having a
human shield strategy. It details you know, hospitals, schools, children's bedrooms,
you name it, it's all in there. It's a really
it's a comprehensive paper that I wrote with Salo Aisenberg.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
So that's that's where I would point to you.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
But it is beyond question that the damage in Gaza
is because Hamas have weaponized every inch of civil infrastructure
and civil society in the Gaza strip, and they are
absolutely committing war crimes by hiding behind civilians. And just
this week we've seen a huge campaign to try and
stop people leaving Gaza City prior to the upcoming assault
(21:35):
by the idea if they're desperately trying to keep their
human shields in place by physical threats and by trying
to scare them into staying.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
But if Hamas was the cause of this in you know,
two years ago in October, with what they did attacking
Israel and are using the populace as human shields why
are they still supported.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Well, Interestingly, if you look at the way the poles
are going, they're supporting in Gaza is dropping. If you
go on guards and telegram groups and read what they're saying,
there's a lot of hatred for harm As there. But
first of all, Hamas still has the physical means to
control people. They still have things like the arrow units
which can go around and be there, essentially discipline in forces.
(22:21):
You know, we've got videos of them shooting gardens and
breaking their legs for taking aid, that kind of thing.
So they have the physical ability to retain influence within
the Gaza strip. And on top of that, you know,
it's been it's been a situation where just because they
the gardens don't like CAMSS, it doesn't necessarily translate into
(22:45):
any affection for Israel or you know, any any desire
for a two state solution, as as we were talking
about earlier. So there's two there's two key themes that
come out from polling it. That's the Harmass has got
declining support. Secondly, people are still scared of them. Thirdly,
Garzians clearly have no love for Israel or the yahooed
as they call them.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
In Arabic meaning the Jews.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
The support for Hamas where it is booming is the
West Bank, because they're not living with the consequences of
Hamas's decision to launch their rape and murder rampage on.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Some of the October What's what's the role of hostages?
You know, this does seem like it's different than you know,
the almost any other war.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
It was.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Really to hold up Israel for ransom. You know, tell
me what you think that the role of hostages has
played in this in this war, and.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I think we can say fairly categorically that without the hostages,
this war would have been over in three months. There
would have been nothing to stop Israel taking out every
Hamas target they could find. And the reason that there
are places like Lahya and Gardza City where there are
still Hamas troops active is because that's where the hostages
are or were, and that the IDF won't strike when
(23:59):
they know this potentially hostages in the area. So they've
had a huge effect. They also give ha Mass the
ability to conduct psychological warfare by releasing those appalling videos
deliberately designed as a dagger at the heart of the
Israeli people to try and make them lose support for
the war and to just be cruel and wicked and
(24:20):
show that Hamas still has power over them in some ways.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
And it also gives the.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Ability to negotiate in a way that they perhaps wouldn't
have done had they not taken hostages. I think there
would have been a sort of no mercy, you'll get
taken out pretty rapidly. It's kind of approach from the
IDEAF had there not been hostages. Having hostages has forced
Israel to these negotiations and make huge concessions, including releasing
hundreds and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are
(24:48):
deeply unpleasant people.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So you say that you're doing doctoral work on the
future of war, do you think that the lesson from
this situation and one of the things in the future
of war is going to be taking hostages?
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Potentially it's harder to do when you don't have that border.
You know, it was very easy for her mass to
get through that fence. If you've ever been to that
guards a periphery area, places like kibbutzbaer eare less than
a kilometer from the fence line, so you can do
that in a truck.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Really really quickly.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
It's obviously less of a threat should we end up with,
for example, in NATO deployment in the Baltics. Just hypothetically, however,
we did see isis you know twenty sort of fourteen onwards.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
They were very big on hostage taking.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
So in the Islamic world certainly it's not without precedence,
but her mass have done it in guards are on
a scale that I don't think we'll see again.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
What happened on a trip of seventh What went wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
A number of things.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
First of all, it was a Jewish national holiday US
or in Israeli national holiday. It was a Jewish religious festival,
and Southern commands stood down far too many of their
troops and effectively took them off the ball. The next
thing is a huge amount of intelligence was disregarded. It
was very similar to nine to eleven in that sense.
All the pieces of the puzzle were there, it's just
(26:09):
nobody put them together in time to realize the attack
was happening.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
So that was a huge failure.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
And then the idea suffered a degree of paralysis in
the early hours of the assault because their command and
control were taken out. The reim Army base is where
the command was, and that got smashed, so they were
they were temporarily sort of blinded, and they lost commander control,
and it took a good long while for people to
actually get any kind of cohesion. It was you know,
(26:36):
everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,
as Mike Tyson says. And really the Israelis were punched
harder in the mouth, and I thought they ever know,
they ever thought they would be and it really caught
them on the back foot today.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Even though as you say, Israel, Israel might be seen
as a prior internationally, it has from a military standpoint,
done incredibly well and it's probably in a stronger military
position in regards to you know, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and
Gaza than it ever has been in the past. So
isn't this actually, you know, terrible but positive.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Look, they've made the best of a bad situation. I
think I think they would all prefer that, you know,
this hadn't happened and all these hundreds of thousands of
people hadn't been so terribly affected by war.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
But look, as you say, they've.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
They've the Lebanon operation was remarkable, genuinely impressive, military effort,
and it shows what happens when Israel doesn't take its
life the ball. You know they were they were absolutely
not focused on Gaza at all on sixth of October
twenty three. They were entirely focused on Lebanon. They were
ready to repel an attack from Lebanon, and the swift,
(27:47):
you know, decisive military action they took in Lebanon shows
the level of preparation they had. The kind of the
sort of strategically drifting, slightly jerky response they had in
Gods that shows the lack of preparedness they had for
that war. And likewise, the way they absolutely dominated the
Iranians shows that if Israel's ready and has the plans
(28:08):
in place, they are a very impressive military and not
one that you want to take on lightly.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
What do you think about Donald Trump's idea about moving
all the people in Gaza somewhere else and turning Gaza
into beachfront to resort community.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Look, I crunched the figures for this the other day.
In terms of cost, I don't think it's practicable. But
on top of that, what you're effectively doing is relegating
the people of Palestine to being the bottom rung of
the social ladder. You know, the hotels will come in,
the big tech companies will come in, and all these people,
none of them will be Palestinian. And then even if
(28:45):
the Palestinians are allowed home, you know, how do you
sort land issues. You know, there was a commission in
Bosnia that took years to do this, and it's not
you know, it's not something you can do easily or
quickly when you're trying to apportion land that people have
walked away from and are coming back to. But the
bigger thing is that, you know, any Palestinians returning home,
they won't be qualified to work in you know, high
(29:06):
end hotel industry. They won't be qualified to be tech gurus.
They'll be making coffee and you know cleaners in their
own country, whilst a lot of other people make an
awful lot of money. So with Trump's plan, you know,
if it happens the Palestinians leave and go home, I
give it maybe maybe hours, maybe a day before their
first hotel exploits.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
I just don't see it as workable.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
The infrastructure that is needed to sort of rebuild Palestine,
to rebuild Gaz, it has got to be unbelievably expensive,
immense the devastation that we see. You've been there, so
I don't know if it's real, but it certainly looks unbelievable.
Like what is the solution to remove all the rubble
(29:49):
and rebuild? Like what is the potentiality of building a country?
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah, and you know there are people in New York
I know right now who are working on this as
part of the SIE project for the United Nations. There
is an awful lot of intellectual horsepower on the Israeli
side being put to this. You know, they're best academics,
do I know. Well, they're decent, good people who want
a good life for both Israel and Palestinians. They're putting
a plan together on how you might go about doing this.
(30:17):
But as you say, the devastation is massive, you know,
just even down to the amounts of unexploded ordinance, they
will be down to the amount of toxins that will
be released from various bits of industrial damage. You know,
there is a huge amount of repair to do. It's
going to be deeply, deeply challenging for the Palestinian Guardsan
people whilst the rebuild goes on. But again, there's no
(30:39):
quick or easy answer here, unfortunately, and your position on
the war for a listener, I suppose we'll go down
to whether you think Amas needed to be destroyed or not.
And if you think they did, there's not really any
other way Israel could have done this.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
What's your personal point of view? Did hell Us need
to be destroyed?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
They certainly need to be defeated.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
In the military circles, we give mission verbs and effects
verbs that have very specific meanings. And defeated I think
means taken back to Hamas one point, not where they
were in two thousand and four, without the rocket capability,
without the ability to strategically strike into Israel, And then
I think there are other means than war that you
(31:21):
can use to try and defang them. I think there
had to be an aspect of war fighting, and I
think up to the clearance of RAFA, I think those
things needed to happen. It's the subsequent peace that I'm
slightly more skeptical about. But we are still seeing tactical
gains on the ground for the IDF, and all war
(31:42):
is politics by other means, and we'll see what the
political solution looks like, and only then can we decide
whether the war was a success or a failure.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Many people, or at least some people, have said that
every military objective was accomplished several months ago and that
there was no need to continue on other than the
politics of the Israeli situation. What's your answer to that?
Speaker 4 (32:04):
No, that's my position as well, quite honestly. You know,
Yeo of Gallants is the former former Defense minister. He
wrote a great piece on Substack this week saying, you know,
we should prioritize getting the hostages out, just get any
deal over the line, and then we can always go
back and finish off our mass later on, which I
think is correct. And I think Israeli strategy has really
(32:25):
struggled since Gallant left office and BB centralized control of
the war in the Prime Minister's office. It's been very
noticeably less well organized and run since then.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
So no, I have sympathy to that position.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back and I'm going to ask our guest about
anti semitism in Canada and the UK around the world,
and how you know this declaration of making it Palestine
an independent state and recognizing it has impacted anti semitism
how the war has impacted anti Semitism and as ask
(32:58):
our guest if he thinks it's really stay with us.
Everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Minutes, No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA
ninety sixty am DoD C.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
A Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crommey Radio or
I've Got Andrew Fox. Andrew Fox is a former British
Airborne Army officer. He's spent some considerable time on the
ground in Israel and Gaza throughout the current conflict. He's
(33:33):
also an expert in Middle Eastern politics and the psychology
of disinformation. He's been working on behalf of a think
tank actually understanding what's going on in the Middle East
and Israel and Gaza and writing about it, studying it
and reporting on it, speaking about it. And he's also
doing a doctorate on the future of war and information.
(33:55):
And of this declaration by Canada, UK, France some others
to recognize Palestine as an independent state. It's sort of
consistent historically with its desire for a two state solution.
But you think it's raised anti semitism, Is that true?
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
I think it's dual track. It's dual track. With anti Semitism.
You know, the there is this incredible information campaign coming
out of Gaza where they have weaponized the images of
suffering from more They've live streamed it onto people's phones
and they've told them it's something it's not, namely genocide.
That has generated a huge amount of public support for
(34:38):
the Palestinians on the one hand and against the Aspera
Jewish populations on the other. So it's a dual stream,
dual track thing with the same with the same origin.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
So do you think that there is more anti Semitism
today because of the declarations of Palestine as independent state.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
No.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
I think anti anti Semitism is the same symptom of
the same disease as the declarations to the unilaterally recognized Palestine.
Both of these things come from Hamas and their ability
to run a global pr campaign on their own behalf.
(35:20):
And as I said, you know, I think the support
for Palestine is not necessarily from a place of anti Semitism.
It's simply from a place of horror at images of
war and an acceptance of a false narrative of colonialization
and all that sort of kind of very left wing
political theory. At the same time that pr campaign has
(35:44):
been very specifically trying to generate anti semitism as well,
by accusing the only Jewish state of the world's most
heinous crime. In effect, they are kind of at the
same time accusing the world's diaspora Jewish population of the
same thing. And so we're seeing, as a result of
all this massive disinformation campaign, we're seeing governments recognizing Palestine unilatterally,
(36:08):
we're seeing people feeling emboldened to be anti Semitic, and
we're seeing Jewish populations feeling under siege.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
You mentioned someone a false narrative of colonialization. Can you
explain that please?
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Yeah, there's an idea that somehow the Israelis are colonizers
on Palestinian land. There was never a country of Palestine.
Before nineteen forty eight, there was a mandate for Palestine,
and before that there was the Ottoman Empire. Palestine has
never in modern history been an independent country that somehow
a bunch of Europeans have just come in and taken
over and kicked out the original inhabitants. That's just not
(36:46):
a fair reflection of what happened between nineteen forty five
and nineteen forty.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Eight, but it is the dominant one. It comes from
the Assarafat.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
In the nineteen sixties nineteen sixty four, Arafat was heavily
USSR funded. He was able to bring the full might
of the Soviet Union's propaganda machine behind him, and he
changed the meaning of Palestinian. A Palestinian was just anyone
from the region. Prior to nineteen sixty did the Palestine
football team wore during the Mandate War a Star of
(37:17):
David because it was a Jewish staffed team. A Palestinian.
You could be a Palestinian Israeli, a Palestinian jew, a
Palestinian Arab. In nineteen sixty four, Arafat rewroke the book,
so Palestinian became its own bespoke identity, and this mythology
was created that somehow Israelis were colonizers who'd kicked Palestinians
(37:38):
off their land. And if you go to Israel, the
idea that they're all white Europeans is laughable. Of course
there are some, but there are equally a huge portion
of the population that come from Arab countries where they'd
been kicked out, like Iraq, Iran, Yemen. So Israels diverse society,
(38:01):
So the idea it's somehow colonized a country that never
existed is just a false narrative.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Are Palestinians of people?
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I mean they are now? I mean I think they've
been around long enough. I mean Palaestinian, Arabs, Palestinians, whatever
you want.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
To call them.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
They are an ethnic group that's sitting very clearly delineated
geographical areas. So you can call them a group, and
you know, I don't have a problem with that person.
We have to adapt as history moves on. Just because
our fat invented this and gave it a new name
doesn't mean they weren't. You know, they weren't a people
before that.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
So what's the solution.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
It's a great question, and it's one that I've wrestled with,
you know, I've written about it on my substack at length.
I've put together the Future of Them Red Least series,
which was nearly eighty thousand words. And I think the
answer is it's kind of a salami slice approach. There's
(38:58):
no one overarching solution to any of this. What you
need is lots of little solutions that eventually build up
to being a whole. And I'll give you an example.
So very recently it didn't really come to anything, I
don't think. But the Ame Am of Hebron was talking
about potentially declaring independence from the broader West Bank in
Palestinian authority and signing the Abraham of Courts.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Stuff like that is a great idea.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
If you can find small pockets of Palestinians who are
willing to work with Israel and say yet, we accept
you as a state, we would like to trade with you,
we'd like to be partners with you, and they suddenly
start reaping economic rewards from that.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
People will then.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
See that they're improving their lives by living peacefully and
trading rather than devoting their entire existence to trying to
delete the state of Israel. And then maybe eventually, once
that kind of ripple effect has taken hold over twenty
to thirty years, they might even be in a place
where these independent little groups can come together and make
a country called Palestine out of it. But I don't
(39:57):
think there is a big muscle move here. There's no
big lever you can pull that just fixes the problem.
It's so diverse, it's so historically routed, it's so fraught
with both regional and local problems that you need to
to chip away at the problem in small chunks, rather
than try and create a two state solution and present
that as a as the first step in the process.
(40:19):
That's the last step for me.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Some people have said that the settlements in the West
Bank are a real problem and that that effectively there's
apartheid in the West Bank. What do you say to that.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I agree there were a problem, I would disagree with
the apartheid. I think it's an unhelpful term. That's that's
was designed to describe a very clear phenomena and government
policy in South Africa. It's very different in Israel. Personally.
I'm you know, I don't approve the the violent settlers.
There's there's no requirement for it, and Israel should not
(40:52):
be encouraging this and should be clamping down on it.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
I think that's just basic law and order.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
So, you know, there are two sides to every story
when it comes to this kind of aparthep thing. The
wall was built because the Palestinians kept launching into fardas
against Israel and murdering Israeli citizens and setting off bombs
in pizza restaurants and killing children. So the Israelis took
security measures to counter that, which were then described as apartheid.
(41:18):
So as with the war in Gaza, the Palatinians are
experts deleting themselves from the conversation here.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
You know, actions have consequences.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
What would you expect your government to do if you had,
you know, a group on your boarders who were murdering women,
children and elderly, you'd expect them to do something about it.
And well, Israel's no different. The difference is Israel's enemy has
a great pr machine.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Can there be peace? Can there be a solution with
the current leadership, both in Israel as well as in
the West Bank and Gaza?
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I don't think so.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
I think there has to be a change in government
in Israel before there's a chance for any long term peace.
I don't think you can bring peace by the sword,
as the right wingers want to do in Israel right now,
and you're in danger of creating a wasteland and calling
it peace, to quote the old phrase. That is not
something I think anyone moderate or reasonable wants to see. Likewise,
(42:14):
I don't see the Palestinian authority being a fair interlocutor
when it comes to a two state solution. Fatah and
Abu Mazen Mohammed Abbas. You know, they are one step
down from Hamas in terms of due hating rhetoric. You know,
they have a weekly sermon that goes out that inevitably
(42:36):
ends up dragging up all the worst anti Semitic tropes
from history. You know, these are not people who are
prepared to make peace with Israel. So there needs to
be serious changes, and maybe removing Hamas from power in
Gaza is the best step to do that. Otherwise we're
back to where we were on sixth of October. The
question is whether that's even achievable. I have my doubts,
(42:59):
you know, I think the most likely option is the
sixth of October one, But we will see.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Is there any organization, Is there any political leader? Is
there anyone in in in Gaza or the West Bank
that you can look to for future political leadership that's
more moderate, that's more reasonable.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
I don't know about moderate or reasonable.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
I mean there is you know, a large number of
decades of hatred on both sides there, so you have
to kind of bridge that divide.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
First.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
What we have seen in Gaza is certain clan grouping.
So Gaza is a very clan based society. Some clan
leaders who are opposed to Hamas have been seizing control
of certain areas, have been trying to drive Hams out
from their own their own sort of clan or tribal
sections of Gaza. That doesn't necessarily translate into them loving.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
The State of Israel.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
However, could they be financially persuaded that cooperating with Israel
is the best option for them and their people after
two years of war?
Speaker 3 (43:59):
I think potentially yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yes. So again, as I said, there are Salami slices
that we can carve off in order to make progress
towards towards having a peaceful solution. But I think it
looks like these small pockets being empowered finding alternatives to
the Palestinian authority or amass and eventually, over time, showing
(44:22):
people that living co existing peacefully is far better than
trying to drive the State of Israel off the land
it currently sits on.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
You said you spent some time in Afghanistan. Is there
a lesson, either a positive one or a negative one
in regards to Afghanistan? Did did the wests of the
United States departure from Afghanistan create peace? It would appear
that the Taliban is in control and just as bad,
but maybe they're not, you know, supporting global terrorism. So
(44:56):
you know, is there a is there an example in Afghanistan?
Who is an example in South Africa where you know,
the world's opposition to apartheid ultimately one, is there an
example in history that you know of of how to
solve this problem?
Speaker 4 (45:15):
I mean, the defeat of ISIS probably comes close, but
even then that just spread the problem abroad and into
Africa and down into the Sahel. You also have ISIS
in Afghanistan as well, and you know, there's no indication
that the current incarnation of the Taliban are any better
than the old one. You know, there are Afghan terrorists
being arrested in Europe on a near daily basis. The
(45:36):
big lesson for me is the importance of strategy. What
are you trying to achieve? What is the political end
state you're after? And more importantly, is it something that's
realistically achievable? In Afghanistan it wasn't at all. You were
never going to build a state to a country where
one didn't really exist before. Afghan's loyalties were first to
their family, second to their tribes. Thirdly to their Klan,
(45:58):
and then fourth lead to Islam, and then fifthly to
Afghanistan if it suits them financially. This was not a
country that had a functioning demos, to use the ancient
Greek term, it didn't have a polity that supported the
idea of governance from kabal and yet we try to
force Western ideas of statehood onto that massive centuries old
(46:22):
Afghan chaos.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
That was never going to work. So we set.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Ourselves impossible strategic goals. And that's I think the trap
that Israel might be falling into in Gaza. They've set
themselves an impossible, unachievable goal of removing Hamass completely from
the conversation, and there are a variety of factors, not
least the hostages, that are likely to avoid that outcome.
So I think that's the big lesson from Afghanistan is
(46:46):
set yourself a clear achievable goal and know what your
end state, what end state your soldiers are working towards.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Last question, if you had a chance this week to
sit down with the Prime Minister of the UK krstamar
Or or the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Kearney, what
would you tell them?
Speaker 4 (47:04):
I would tell them that they're making a foolish mistake
for domestic reasons. The actions they're taking are not going
to bring peace to the Middle East. They're not going
to bring about a two state solution. In fact, what
they're doing is emboldening her mass, backing Israel into a corner,
and giving the far right an opportunity to be even
more extreme than they already were. It's a counter and
(47:26):
productive decision made for domestic reasons, not proper international reasons,
and it's not going to work.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Andrew Fox, thank you so much for joining us and
chatting with us. If people want to follow your writing substack,
is that the best place to go.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Yeah, mister Andrew Fox dot subsack dot com.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Really appreciate you joining us and telling us a little
bit about what's going on and about your very strong views.
And you know, you've got an incredible unique experience being
an army officer and being on the ground in Israel
and Gaza, and so thank you very much for what
you've written and what you've shared today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Thank you for having me bro on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, Thank you for joining.
I remind you. I'm on every Monday through Friday at
six o'clock on nine to sixty am. You can stream
me online even from England at Triple W Saga nine
sixty am dot CA. On my podcasts and videos go
up on my website Briancromby dot com, on YouTube, on
podcast servers and on social media as soon as the
radio show goes to air. Thanks for joining Andrew. This
(48:28):
has been a difficult conversation, but a really good one
and I think something that Keir Starmer, Mark Kearney a
whole bunch of other people need to hear and think
very seriously about, because the last thing we want to
do is embolden Hamas same time, we don't want to encourage,
you know, the right wing politicians in Israel too much either,
(48:49):
and so it's a difficult situation. So thank you for
sharing some of your insight.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Really appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
We must Life at Saga nine sixty am dot Ca.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good easy and everyone, and welcome to the Brian Cromby
Radio War. I've got a really interesting gentleman to introduce
you tonight to talk about the Middle East and what's
going on. Andrew Fox is a former British Airborne Army officer.
He spent considerable time on the ground in Israel and
gazap throughout the current conflict. He's an expert in Middle
Eastern politics and the psychology of disinformation. Andrew Fox, Welcome
(00:40):
to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Thank you very much, great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So tell me what were you doing as a British
Airborne Army officer and why were you spending considerable time
in both Israel and Gaza.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
I say, my job now is a researcher for a
think tank in London and to distill it down to
the call, my job is to go to war zones
and then writes about So I've been on the front
lines in Ukraine and I've been in the front lines
in Gaza and Lebanon whilst that was still going on.
As well, so because of my background, foreign armies seem
happy to take me where they wouldn't take anyone else
(01:14):
because they know I've got experience and can handle myself.
And so I take full advantage of that to get
an insight into two conflicts that perhaps most people don't get.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And so you're reading this for the think tank or
for public dissemination, or for popular articles or media outlets
or what.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
It's a little bit of everything. I do write for
some journalistic outlets. A number of papers have been published
by the Henry Jackson Society in London. And I'm also
a doctoral student, so it's making up my PhD PhD
dissertation as well.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And what's your PhD in?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It's about the future of warfare and what Ukraine and
Gaza can teach us about it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
The future of warfare.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yeah, in the twenty first century, we're seeing wars that
of a kind that really haven't been fought before. Information
is a key component and how the development of new
technology is happening faster than ever before. And one is
a conventional war in Ukraine, one is an asymmetric war
in Gaza.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And so if we bring all of them together, it
teaches us.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
I think a lot about what war is going to
look like as we go into the twenty first century
and onwards.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So this is what drones and robots.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Drones, robots, AI, the ability to make equipments cheaply at scale.
You know, take an F thirty five, which costs billions,
you can destroy that on the ground with a two
hundred dollars drone if you fire enough of them at
the airfield. You know, there's all kinds of new things
here that haven't really been seen before. And then we
have information warfare, which is where your enemy will try
(02:39):
and attack essentially the will and cohesion of your own
people and your allies and your alliances to try and
defeat you without firing around. So we're in a whole
new space now that the Internet has opened up, and
I don't think doctrine has yet captured it. So I'm
having a go at doing that.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So this expert in psychology of disinformation, that's interesting tell
us a little about that.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Well.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
So I had the opportunity to do a fully sponsored
master's degree in anything I wanted to. I already had
a master's in war studies, but I figured that wars
are fought by people, and if you can understand the
people better, then you'll understand the war better. So I
did a master's in psychology as well.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Fascinating And do we have a lot more disinperation today?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I think we do.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I think we have a ce of it, and it's
simply for the reason that there are more channels to
carry it. You know, social media is an incredible thing.
But you know, we're seeing from even events in America
that you know, with Charlie Kirk, that the Internet can
have some terrible, horrible.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Effects as well.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
And we have now a multiplicity of foreign enemies who
were trying to undermine our societal cohesion by pushing fake narratives,
by emphasizing the cracks in our societies. And so I
think it, you know, it's important and we study this
and work out how our enemies are attacking us, and
only then can we work out what to do about it.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Do you think there's a lot of in the Internet
and a Facebook and social media?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Yeah, astonishing amounts, astonishing amounts. There's a wonderful aim called Siabra.
They've done some incredible studies on the disinformation that's been
swirling around the Israel Gaza Lebanon conflict. They found within
a twenty sorry forty eight hour period, one particular hashtag
had a reach of over three hundred and fifty million
social media users and that was a disinformation line they
(04:25):
were pushing. So the reach and scale of this is
absolutely mind blown.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Let's talk about Israel, Palestine, gas, et cetera. You know,
several Western countries, including Canada, have signaled it or have
stated that they intend to recognize Palestine as a independent state.
What do you think about that? What's the impact of
that on Palestine, on Israel, on Canada, on the world.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I mean, look to me, it feels incredibly short sighted
because you're essentially going unilateral and you're removing Israel from
the conversation. We don't know what borders this state of
Palestine have. We don't know what its currency is, we
don't know who it's uh you know who its leader
will be, We don't know who as head of state
will be. We don't know what you know, what banking
system it's going to use. You know, it has none
(05:13):
of the features yet of a state. And if a
two state solution is something you genuinely believe in, then
you need to bring Israel into the conversation somehow, and unfortunately,
the disinformation swirling around the Gaza war has effectively created
a pariah status for Israel on the world stage. Uh.
And that's that's that's actually going to make peace less
(05:33):
likely than more likely, because at the moment, the two
incumbents in the two areas of what will be Palestine,
Gaza and the West Bank.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
The incumbent government in Gaza is Hamas.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
The incumbent government in the West Bank is the Palestine
Unit Authority under Futah, and neither of them except the
existence of the State of Israel or have shown any
desire to come to a two state conclusion. So this
is this is a really complex issue, and I think
by applying a very simplistic solution to it, you're actually
making it less likely to have a peaceful outcome.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Do you think two state solution is a solution, Well,
what's the alternative.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
The alternative to a two state solution is a one
state solution where you effectively get rid of the world's
only Jewish state because they will have a majority Arab
population and an Arab population who hate them and wants
to kill them.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So that's not an option on.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
The table, or you remove all the Arabs from the
land and you have a one state solution that is
purely Israeli. Neither of those I think are good option.
So whilst we're probably further from a two state solution
than ever before, it still remains the least worst option
on the table.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
How is this recognition or the intended recognition of Palestine
and a Palestine state do you think impacting this war
between Hamas and Israel.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Well, I think it's having two effects. The first effect
is that it's encouraging Hamas fighting because whilst the rhetoric
is that the state can't take place with Hamass presence,
the fact remains they are present, and if you look
at the polling in the West Bank, they're polling at
seventy eighty percent approval. If there are an election in
the West Bank tomorrow, Hamas would win a landslide. So
(07:18):
it's very naive to say that this is only going
to happen if har Massa removed from the equation, because
we're not seeing any pathway to that right now. So
her Maass are emboldened because they're getting what they want,
so they have no reason to cease fire to release
the hostages to spare gazas civilians from ongoing horrors of war.
And then on the Israeli side, of course, we have
(07:39):
an extremely right wing government and by backing them into
a corner, you're inspiring them to take unsavory things like
threatening to annex the entirety.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Of the West Bank.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
So what this is doing is effectively pouring fuel on
the fire rather than making a pathway to a peaceful solution.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Tell me a little bit more about the impact of
these announcements in Israel. You're saying that, actually, this isn't
forcing the Israeli government to become reasonable, it's what creating
a catalyst for them becoming and at least the right
wing portion of that government to become more unreasonable. Is
that what you're.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Saying, Yeah, I think so. You know, it's no coincidence
that mister I think it was Bengevia. It might have
been Smotrich, one of the two crazies, you know. In
the immediate aftermath of this announcement from France, Canada, UK
and other countries immediately announced his plan to annex huge
tranches of the West West Bank and reduce the Palestinian
(08:34):
areas to tiny little bubbles of the towns, the towns
they have there. So you know, these these are not
reasonable people. They are extremists and if you back them
into a corner, I suspect the only solution is they
will become more extreme.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
What do you think the impact on Jewish people in
the UK and Canada and the United States is?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
You know, I have many Jewish friends who I.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
And the storm of disinformation that we've seen over the
last two years, nearly since of October twenty three, has
caused a raging storm of anti Semitism where people have
conflated the Jewish populations in the diaspora with the actions
of the State of Israel. And you know, in London
(09:22):
we're seeing we had an arrest yesterday for a guy
who went around eight different synagogues smearing feces on the
door handles. We're seeing people chiseling mezusas off Jewish families
front doors. We're seeing Jews scared to wear their Stars
of David in public.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You know, that's nothing to do with the State of Israel.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
That is pure anti semitism, And unfortunately, we are experiencing
a spike in anti Semitism like nothing We've seen since
the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
You know, some people would criticize the State of Israel
for going too far and in Gaza, is that the
problem or is it just pure anti Semitism.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Look, there is legitimate criticism of what Israel the way
as well as conducting the conflict in Gaza. Personally, I
think they achieved everything militarily that they reasonably could months ago,
and I suspect there is a political aspect to why
they're still fighting in Gaza, in that mister Netnia, who
wants to keep his coalition together, has to keep the
(10:19):
far right on side so that they don't leave the
coalition and collapse the government.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So there's an aspect of that.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
But there is also, in parallel with that legitimate criticism,
a completely false narrative of genocide which demonizes the Israeli
state and makes accusations that are completely untrue. And yet
that is the dominant r narrative worldwide. Now, I've been
to Gaza multiple times during the war. If I thought
there was genuinely a genocide, I would say, so, I
(10:46):
have no dog in this fight. I'm not Jewish, I'm
not Israeli, I'm not I'm not a cheerleader for one
side or the other. I've been to the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation sites and I was very critical when I came
back in the articles I write. But the fact is
that this false genocide narrative has created an enormous storm
of anti Semitism, and it's given a facade of civility
(11:08):
to it. You know, I'm just anti Zionists, I'm not
anti Semitic, But clearly there are multiple instances of this
crossing the line from fair criticism of Israel into the
naked due hatred.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Tell me about this claim of genocide. I guess South
Africa is the one that's taken it to the International
Criminal Court or whatever it is. What's the argument that
they're making for genocide and why do you believe it's
not a fair argument.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
So for the first part, they made the argument that
some Israeli politicians came out with a few very punchy
lines in the aftermath of seventh of October that they
are alleging constitutes genocidal intent. Now, if you then go
back and look at those speeches in full, it was
very clear that people like President Herzog promised and and
you who Defense Minister jov Galant were talking about Hamas.
(12:03):
When you put the lines they've cherry picked back into context,
it's very clear that this is not genocidal. Now, you
do also have lunatics, as I've mentioned, to do say
stupidly genocidal things and seem to be determined to lose
the war on the International Court of Opinion single handedly.
But they're not people who had decision making power over
(12:23):
the IDF and over the war effort. So that's a
very important distinction to make. And then when we look
at the conduct of the war in Gaza, what's been
deleted from the global conversation is Hamas. They have put
up a very stiff fighting resistance against the IDF. The
IDF have incurred over six hundred killed in action and
over three thousand very seriously injured soldiers in Gaza. This
(12:45):
is not a cakewalk. They didn't get injured, you know,
shaving in the morning. It's not These aren't shaving cuts.
These These are the serious amputations, life changing injuries to
IDF soldiers. It's a proper war. Hamas have very success
ucessfully weaponized the suffering of gods of civilians, which is
very real and nobody should minimize that. It's the only
(13:06):
war zone in the world where civilians have been forbidden
from fleeing the war zone by Egypt, who, rather than
open their doors to the poor Palestinians, they reinforced their
border fence in the aftermath of seventh of October. And
with genocide, it cannot be anything else under law. It's
something called dolus specialists. So if you or I committed
(13:27):
a crime and went to court, the burden of proof
would be beyond reasonable doubt. If we went to civil courts,
it would be on balance of probabilities, which is the
sort of fifty one percent likelihood Dolus specialists. It's well
above that, it's one hundred percent. It cannot be anything
but genocide. For it to be a genocidal intent, there
is more than enough evidence to suggest that this is
(13:47):
a war. People might not like how it's been fought,
people might not like seeing the suffering of people in
a war zone, and these are quite reasonable positions to hold,
but genocide it is not.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Is the Canadian, French, British government's declarations a win for
Hamas I think so?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I think so.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
I mean they're saying it's not and they're desperate to
portray that it's not. But I think they're partially domestically motivated.
Certainly in the UK, the Labor Party is running scared
of a very highly mobilized Islamic vote. They lost five
seats at the last general election to Gaza parties Gaza
Gaza candidates, So it's it's domestically motivated. They say it
(14:29):
doesn't reward her Mass, but effectively it gives them absolutely
no incentive to surrender and end this war because they're
getting everything they wants. Israel's being demonized on the world stage,
a Palestinian state is getting recognized. Why would you stop
now when everything is going as well as you want?
And if you get killed by Israel, that's fine because
you want that anyway, because you're a nihilistic jihadist. So
(14:49):
if you're her Mass, you're in a great place right now.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
You're very happy.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Best case scenario, you get a state. Worst case scenario
you go to Janati or Virgins. You know it's a
win win for them.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Right now, what a terrible situation we're in. We're going
to take a break for some messages, will be back
in just two minutes. With Andrew Fox talking about the
Middle East and what he thinks about the Canadian, the British,
the French declaration that we're gonna declare Palestine a state.
Stay with us, everyone back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA A.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Welcome back everyone to the Bran fromby Radio hor I've
got Andrew Fox with us tonight. Andrew Fox is a
former British Airborne Army officer. He spent considerable time on
the ground in Israel and Gaza throughout the current conflict.
I guess, analyzing, writing, experiencing, and coming back and reporting
on it for a think tank out of the UK.
He's also an expert in Middle Eastern politics and the
(15:58):
psychology of disinformation. I understand you're doing a doctorate on
that topic now, and so good luck and congratulations in
that regard. Let me tell you. Let me ask you,
what's it like on the ground, if you've actually been
to to Gaza, if you've been to Israel, what does
it feel like? You know, you're you're a former army officer,
(16:20):
and so therefore it's going to be less strange for you,
I guess then for other people. But describe if you
could what it feels like on the ground.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Well, the strangest thing was not having a weapon. Every
time we stopped and disembarked from the vehicles, I kind
of instinctively reach out for a rifle that wasn't there, So.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
That was kind of strange. But the devastation is every.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Bit as bad in Gaza as you you have read
about or maybe have seen. You know, the scale of
destruction is huge, and the first time I saw it,
you know, I confess it took my breath away. I
thought in Afghanistan, I did three tours, you know, I
was done Nick Kanda with the Canadian at one point,
so you know, I saw the Canadian army in action.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
And nothing we did there.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Neither the British, the American nor the Canadian compares to
the tempo and scale of the war that Israel is
fighting in Gaza. But it's really important I think that
you understand the reason for the destruction and the reason
for the destruction, particularly in Rafa down in the south.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
It's because there was a four month pause between.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
January and April twenty twenty four imposed by the Americans
so that Raffa could be evacuated Prior to the Israeli assault,
and Hamas took that four month opportunity to essentially ied
improvised explosive device, so booby trap the entire place. And
if you're the IDF advancing through Raffa, you don't really
have a great deal of choice but to destroy those
(17:44):
IDs in place, which of course destroys the building. You know,
they could do what we did in Afghanistan, which is
you go firm, you call for your explosive ordinance disposal,
you wait for them to get there, you wait for
them to diffuse the bomb.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
But that wasn't really an option for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
First of all, because there were so many they wouldn't
have got anywhere if they tried to diffuse every single one.
And secondly, they actually had cameras linked up to the tunnels,
so they had remote control cameras on cables and they
were live watching the IDF enter houses. And the IDF
did lose a number of troops in the early days
in Rafa. As troops would enter a house, a mass
would see it on camera, so they detonate the booby trap.
(18:23):
And it's very hard to defuse a bomb like that
because they're they're not victim operated.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
They're remote control operated. So you know that that is
why the obscene damage is as bad as it is.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I think I should also talk about the people of Gaza,
especially in the did you know the famine allegations they
are going around now. I've been to the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation sites. I was the first international observer to watch
a distribution and be allowed to film it. There was
no restriction on what I could film, and that footage
actually went global and it was a sea of humanity
(18:57):
descending towards these boxes of aid and like locusts, just
you know, taking every bit of wood, every bit of cardboard,
because everything has value, you know, when you're in a
full on barter collapse of society situation. And it was
it was you know, these people weren't weren't once in
the best condition.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
They weren't. They weren't by Afra famine.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
You couldn't see the ribs, you couldn't see that kind
of you know, famine sort of skull like face that
we you know, we saw in the eighties nineties from
famines in Africa. But they were clearly hungry, and you know,
but the the most interesting thing for me was the
smiles quite frankly, the guys of Humanitarian Foundation, guys that
builds a real rapport with the people, and the little
kids were dancing. They were they were bringing children in
(19:42):
and binding their feet and treating any wounds and injuries
they had. They were pregnant women that were looked after,
and the women were all delighted because they were They
had a special a delivery just for them, so they
were guaranteed to get some food that day. So it
was it was an impressively resilient bunch of peace all
but yeah, Gaza is going to take a lot of
(20:04):
money and a lot of time to rebuild from where
it is today.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
So it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
You know, you're suggesting that some of this was caused,
some of the devastation was caused by this ceasefire or
the hold off effectively of the attack. You know, what
we've heard is that hospitals are used as protection for
hamas headquarters and munitions, areas schools, the same thing. What's
(20:32):
your sense are they are they using the residents of
Gaza as defense?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Absolutely, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
And if you go to the Henry Jackson Society website
Henry Jackson Soociety dot org.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
You can find my paper on.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Her Massa's human shield strategy, which is twenty thousand words
and I think two hundred and sixty four individual pieces
of evidence, including Hamas's own words saying we're having a
human shield strategy. It details you know, hospitals, schools, children's bedrooms,
you name it, it's all in there. It's a really
it's a comprehensive paper that I wrote with Salo Aisenberg.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
So that's that's where I would point to you.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
But it is beyond question that the damage in Gaza
is because Hamas have weaponized every inch of civil infrastructure
and civil society in the Gaza strip, and they are
absolutely committing war crimes by hiding behind civilians. And just
this week we've seen a huge campaign to try and
stop people leaving Gaza City prior to the upcoming assault
(21:35):
by the idea if they're desperately trying to keep their
human shields in place by physical threats and by trying
to scare them into staying.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
But if Hamas was the cause of this in you know,
two years ago in October, with what they did attacking
Israel and are using the populace as human shields why
are they still supported.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Well, Interestingly, if you look at the way the poles
are going, they're supporting in Gaza is dropping. If you
go on guards and telegram groups and read what they're saying,
there's a lot of hatred for harm As there. But
first of all, Hamas still has the physical means to
control people. They still have things like the arrow units
which can go around and be there, essentially discipline in forces.
(22:21):
You know, we've got videos of them shooting gardens and
breaking their legs for taking aid, that kind of thing.
So they have the physical ability to retain influence within
the Gaza strip. And on top of that, you know,
it's been it's been a situation where just because they
the gardens don't like CAMSS, it doesn't necessarily translate into
(22:45):
any affection for Israel or you know, any any desire
for a two state solution, as as we were talking
about earlier. So there's two there's two key themes that
come out from polling it. That's the Harmass has got
declining support. Secondly, people are still scared of them. Thirdly,
Garzians clearly have no love for Israel or the yahooed
as they call them.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
In Arabic meaning the Jews.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
The support for Hamas where it is booming is the
West Bank, because they're not living with the consequences of
Hamas's decision to launch their rape and murder rampage on.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Some of the October What's what's the role of hostages?
You know, this does seem like it's different than you know,
the almost any other war.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
It was.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Really to hold up Israel for ransom. You know, tell
me what you think that the role of hostages has
played in this in this war, and.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I think we can say fairly categorically that without the hostages,
this war would have been over in three months. There
would have been nothing to stop Israel taking out every
Hamas target they could find. And the reason that there
are places like Lahya and Gardza City where there are
still Hamas troops active is because that's where the hostages
are or were, and that the IDF won't strike when
(23:59):
they know this potentially hostages in the area. So they've
had a huge effect. They also give ha Mass the
ability to conduct psychological warfare by releasing those appalling videos
deliberately designed as a dagger at the heart of the
Israeli people to try and make them lose support for
the war and to just be cruel and wicked and
(24:20):
show that Hamas still has power over them in some ways.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
And it also gives the.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Ability to negotiate in a way that they perhaps wouldn't
have done had they not taken hostages. I think there
would have been a sort of no mercy, you'll get
taken out pretty rapidly. It's kind of approach from the
IDEAF had there not been hostages. Having hostages has forced
Israel to these negotiations and make huge concessions, including releasing
hundreds and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are
(24:48):
deeply unpleasant people.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So you say that you're doing doctoral work on the
future of war, do you think that the lesson from
this situation and one of the things in the future
of war is going to be taking hostages?
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Potentially it's harder to do when you don't have that border.
You know, it was very easy for her mass to
get through that fence. If you've ever been to that
guards a periphery area, places like kibbutzbaer eare less than
a kilometer from the fence line, so you can do
that in a truck.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Really really quickly.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
It's obviously less of a threat should we end up with,
for example, in NATO deployment in the Baltics. Just hypothetically, however,
we did see isis you know twenty sort of fourteen onwards.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
They were very big on hostage taking.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
So in the Islamic world certainly it's not without precedence,
but her mass have done it in guards are on
a scale that I don't think we'll see again.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
What happened on a trip of seventh What went wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
A number of things.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
First of all, it was a Jewish national holiday US
or in Israeli national holiday. It was a Jewish religious festival,
and Southern commands stood down far too many of their
troops and effectively took them off the ball. The next
thing is a huge amount of intelligence was disregarded. It
was very similar to nine to eleven in that sense.
All the pieces of the puzzle were there, it's just
(26:09):
nobody put them together in time to realize the attack
was happening.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
So that was a huge failure.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
And then the idea suffered a degree of paralysis in
the early hours of the assault because their command and
control were taken out. The reim Army base is where
the command was, and that got smashed, so they were
they were temporarily sort of blinded, and they lost commander control,
and it took a good long while for people to
actually get any kind of cohesion. It was you know,
(26:36):
everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,
as Mike Tyson says. And really the Israelis were punched
harder in the mouth, and I thought they ever know,
they ever thought they would be and it really caught
them on the back foot today.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Even though as you say, Israel, Israel might be seen
as a prior internationally, it has from a military standpoint,
done incredibly well and it's probably in a stronger military
position in regards to you know, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and
Gaza than it ever has been in the past. So
isn't this actually, you know, terrible but positive.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Look, they've made the best of a bad situation. I
think I think they would all prefer that, you know,
this hadn't happened and all these hundreds of thousands of
people hadn't been so terribly affected by war.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
But look, as you say, they've.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
They've the Lebanon operation was remarkable, genuinely impressive, military effort,
and it shows what happens when Israel doesn't take its
life the ball. You know they were they were absolutely
not focused on Gaza at all on sixth of October
twenty three. They were entirely focused on Lebanon. They were
ready to repel an attack from Lebanon, and the swift,
(27:47):
you know, decisive military action they took in Lebanon shows
the level of preparation they had. The kind of the
sort of strategically drifting, slightly jerky response they had in
Gods that shows the lack of preparedness they had for
that war. And likewise, the way they absolutely dominated the
Iranians shows that if Israel's ready and has the plans
(28:08):
in place, they are a very impressive military and not
one that you want to take on lightly.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
What do you think about Donald Trump's idea about moving
all the people in Gaza somewhere else and turning Gaza
into beachfront to resort community.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Look, I crunched the figures for this the other day.
In terms of cost, I don't think it's practicable. But
on top of that, what you're effectively doing is relegating
the people of Palestine to being the bottom rung of
the social ladder. You know, the hotels will come in,
the big tech companies will come in, and all these people,
none of them will be Palestinian. And then even if
(28:45):
the Palestinians are allowed home, you know, how do you
sort land issues. You know, there was a commission in
Bosnia that took years to do this, and it's not
you know, it's not something you can do easily or
quickly when you're trying to apportion land that people have
walked away from and are coming back to. But the
bigger thing is that, you know, any Palestinians returning home,
they won't be qualified to work in you know, high
(29:06):
end hotel industry. They won't be qualified to be tech gurus.
They'll be making coffee and you know cleaners in their
own country, whilst a lot of other people make an
awful lot of money. So with Trump's plan, you know,
if it happens the Palestinians leave and go home, I
give it maybe maybe hours, maybe a day before their
first hotel exploits.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
I just don't see it as workable.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
The infrastructure that is needed to sort of rebuild Palestine,
to rebuild Gaz, it has got to be unbelievably expensive,
immense the devastation that we see. You've been there, so
I don't know if it's real, but it certainly looks unbelievable.
Like what is the solution to remove all the rubble
(29:49):
and rebuild? Like what is the potentiality of building a country?
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah, and you know there are people in New York
I know right now who are working on this as
part of the SIE project for the United Nations. There
is an awful lot of intellectual horsepower on the Israeli
side being put to this. You know, they're best academics,
do I know. Well, they're decent, good people who want
a good life for both Israel and Palestinians. They're putting
a plan together on how you might go about doing this.
(30:17):
But as you say, the devastation is massive, you know,
just even down to the amounts of unexploded ordinance, they
will be down to the amount of toxins that will
be released from various bits of industrial damage. You know,
there is a huge amount of repair to do. It's
going to be deeply, deeply challenging for the Palestinian Guardsan
people whilst the rebuild goes on. But again, there's no
(30:39):
quick or easy answer here, unfortunately, and your position on
the war for a listener, I suppose we'll go down
to whether you think Amas needed to be destroyed or not.
And if you think they did, there's not really any
other way Israel could have done this.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
What's your personal point of view? Did hell Us need
to be destroyed?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
They certainly need to be defeated.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
In the military circles, we give mission verbs and effects
verbs that have very specific meanings. And defeated I think
means taken back to Hamas one point, not where they
were in two thousand and four, without the rocket capability,
without the ability to strategically strike into Israel, And then
I think there are other means than war that you
(31:21):
can use to try and defang them. I think there
had to be an aspect of war fighting, and I
think up to the clearance of RAFA, I think those
things needed to happen. It's the subsequent peace that I'm
slightly more skeptical about. But we are still seeing tactical
gains on the ground for the IDF, and all war
(31:42):
is politics by other means, and we'll see what the
political solution looks like, and only then can we decide
whether the war was a success or a failure.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Many people, or at least some people, have said that
every military objective was accomplished several months ago and that
there was no need to continue on other than the
politics of the Israeli situation. What's your answer to that?
Speaker 4 (32:04):
No, that's my position as well, quite honestly. You know,
Yeo of Gallants is the former former Defense minister. He
wrote a great piece on Substack this week saying, you know,
we should prioritize getting the hostages out, just get any
deal over the line, and then we can always go
back and finish off our mass later on, which I
think is correct. And I think Israeli strategy has really
(32:25):
struggled since Gallant left office and BB centralized control of
the war in the Prime Minister's office. It's been very
noticeably less well organized and run since then.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
So no, I have sympathy to that position.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back and I'm going to ask our guest about
anti semitism in Canada and the UK around the world,
and how you know this declaration of making it Palestine
an independent state and recognizing it has impacted anti semitism
how the war has impacted anti Semitism and as ask
(32:58):
our guest if he thinks it's really stay with us.
Everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Minutes, No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA
ninety sixty am DoD C.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
A Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crommey Radio or
I've Got Andrew Fox. Andrew Fox is a former British
Airborne Army officer. He's spent some considerable time on the
ground in Israel and Gaza throughout the current conflict. He's
(33:33):
also an expert in Middle Eastern politics and the psychology
of disinformation. He's been working on behalf of a think
tank actually understanding what's going on in the Middle East
and Israel and Gaza and writing about it, studying it
and reporting on it, speaking about it. And he's also
doing a doctorate on the future of war and information.
(33:55):
And of this declaration by Canada, UK, France some others
to recognize Palestine as an independent state. It's sort of
consistent historically with its desire for a two state solution.
But you think it's raised anti semitism, Is that true?
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
I think it's dual track. It's dual track. With anti Semitism.
You know, the there is this incredible information campaign coming
out of Gaza where they have weaponized the images of
suffering from more They've live streamed it onto people's phones
and they've told them it's something it's not, namely genocide.
That has generated a huge amount of public support for
(34:38):
the Palestinians on the one hand and against the Aspera
Jewish populations on the other. So it's a dual stream,
dual track thing with the same with the same origin.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
So do you think that there is more anti Semitism
today because of the declarations of Palestine as independent state.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
No.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
I think anti anti Semitism is the same symptom of
the same disease as the declarations to the unilaterally recognized Palestine.
Both of these things come from Hamas and their ability
to run a global pr campaign on their own behalf.
(35:20):
And as I said, you know, I think the support
for Palestine is not necessarily from a place of anti Semitism.
It's simply from a place of horror at images of
war and an acceptance of a false narrative of colonialization
and all that sort of kind of very left wing
political theory. At the same time that pr campaign has
(35:44):
been very specifically trying to generate anti semitism as well,
by accusing the only Jewish state of the world's most
heinous crime. In effect, they are kind of at the
same time accusing the world's diaspora Jewish population of the
same thing. And so we're seeing, as a result of
all this massive disinformation campaign, we're seeing governments recognizing Palestine unilatterally,
(36:08):
we're seeing people feeling emboldened to be anti Semitic, and
we're seeing Jewish populations feeling under siege.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
You mentioned someone a false narrative of colonialization. Can you
explain that please?
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Yeah, there's an idea that somehow the Israelis are colonizers
on Palestinian land. There was never a country of Palestine.
Before nineteen forty eight, there was a mandate for Palestine,
and before that there was the Ottoman Empire. Palestine has
never in modern history been an independent country that somehow
a bunch of Europeans have just come in and taken
over and kicked out the original inhabitants. That's just not
(36:46):
a fair reflection of what happened between nineteen forty five
and nineteen forty.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Eight, but it is the dominant one. It comes from
the Assarafat.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
In the nineteen sixties nineteen sixty four, Arafat was heavily
USSR funded. He was able to bring the full might
of the Soviet Union's propaganda machine behind him, and he
changed the meaning of Palestinian. A Palestinian was just anyone
from the region. Prior to nineteen sixty did the Palestine
football team wore during the Mandate War a Star of
(37:17):
David because it was a Jewish staffed team. A Palestinian.
You could be a Palestinian Israeli, a Palestinian jew, a
Palestinian Arab. In nineteen sixty four, Arafat rewroke the book,
so Palestinian became its own bespoke identity, and this mythology
was created that somehow Israelis were colonizers who'd kicked Palestinians
(37:38):
off their land. And if you go to Israel, the
idea that they're all white Europeans is laughable. Of course
there are some, but there are equally a huge portion
of the population that come from Arab countries where they'd
been kicked out, like Iraq, Iran, Yemen. So Israels diverse society,
(38:01):
So the idea it's somehow colonized a country that never
existed is just a false narrative.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Are Palestinians of people?
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I mean they are now? I mean I think they've
been around long enough. I mean Palaestinian, Arabs, Palestinians, whatever
you want.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
To call them.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
They are an ethnic group that's sitting very clearly delineated
geographical areas. So you can call them a group, and
you know, I don't have a problem with that person.
We have to adapt as history moves on. Just because
our fat invented this and gave it a new name
doesn't mean they weren't. You know, they weren't a people
before that.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
So what's the solution.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
It's a great question, and it's one that I've wrestled with,
you know, I've written about it on my substack at length.
I've put together the Future of Them Red Least series,
which was nearly eighty thousand words. And I think the
answer is it's kind of a salami slice approach. There's
(38:58):
no one overarching solution to any of this. What you
need is lots of little solutions that eventually build up
to being a whole. And I'll give you an example.
So very recently it didn't really come to anything, I
don't think. But the Ame Am of Hebron was talking
about potentially declaring independence from the broader West Bank in
Palestinian authority and signing the Abraham of Courts.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Stuff like that is a great idea.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
If you can find small pockets of Palestinians who are
willing to work with Israel and say yet, we accept
you as a state, we would like to trade with you,
we'd like to be partners with you, and they suddenly
start reaping economic rewards from that.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
People will then.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
See that they're improving their lives by living peacefully and
trading rather than devoting their entire existence to trying to
delete the state of Israel. And then maybe eventually, once
that kind of ripple effect has taken hold over twenty
to thirty years, they might even be in a place
where these independent little groups can come together and make
a country called Palestine out of it. But I don't
(39:57):
think there is a big muscle move here. There's no
big lever you can pull that just fixes the problem.
It's so diverse, it's so historically routed, it's so fraught
with both regional and local problems that you need to
to chip away at the problem in small chunks, rather
than try and create a two state solution and present
that as a as the first step in the process.
(40:19):
That's the last step for me.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Some people have said that the settlements in the West
Bank are a real problem and that that effectively there's
apartheid in the West Bank. What do you say to that.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I agree there were a problem, I would disagree with
the apartheid. I think it's an unhelpful term. That's that's
was designed to describe a very clear phenomena and government
policy in South Africa. It's very different in Israel. Personally.
I'm you know, I don't approve the the violent settlers.
There's there's no requirement for it, and Israel should not
(40:52):
be encouraging this and should be clamping down on it.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
I think that's just basic law and order.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
So, you know, there are two sides to every story
when it comes to this kind of aparthep thing. The
wall was built because the Palestinians kept launching into fardas
against Israel and murdering Israeli citizens and setting off bombs
in pizza restaurants and killing children. So the Israelis took
security measures to counter that, which were then described as apartheid.
(41:18):
So as with the war in Gaza, the Palatinians are
experts deleting themselves from the conversation here.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
You know, actions have consequences.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
What would you expect your government to do if you had,
you know, a group on your boarders who were murdering women,
children and elderly, you'd expect them to do something about it.
And well, Israel's no different. The difference is Israel's enemy has
a great pr machine.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Can there be peace? Can there be a solution with
the current leadership, both in Israel as well as in
the West Bank and Gaza?
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I don't think so.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
I think there has to be a change in government
in Israel before there's a chance for any long term peace.
I don't think you can bring peace by the sword,
as the right wingers want to do in Israel right now,
and you're in danger of creating a wasteland and calling
it peace, to quote the old phrase. That is not
something I think anyone moderate or reasonable wants to see. Likewise,
(42:14):
I don't see the Palestinian authority being a fair interlocutor
when it comes to a two state solution. Fatah and
Abu Mazen Mohammed Abbas. You know, they are one step
down from Hamas in terms of due hating rhetoric. You know,
they have a weekly sermon that goes out that inevitably
(42:36):
ends up dragging up all the worst anti Semitic tropes
from history. You know, these are not people who are
prepared to make peace with Israel. So there needs to
be serious changes, and maybe removing Hamas from power in
Gaza is the best step to do that. Otherwise we're
back to where we were on sixth of October. The
question is whether that's even achievable. I have my doubts,
(42:59):
you know, I think the most likely option is the
sixth of October one, But we will see.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Is there any organization, Is there any political leader? Is
there anyone in in in Gaza or the West Bank
that you can look to for future political leadership that's
more moderate, that's more reasonable.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
I don't know about moderate or reasonable.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
I mean there is you know, a large number of
decades of hatred on both sides there, so you have
to kind of bridge that divide.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
First.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
What we have seen in Gaza is certain clan grouping.
So Gaza is a very clan based society. Some clan
leaders who are opposed to Hamas have been seizing control
of certain areas, have been trying to drive Hams out
from their own their own sort of clan or tribal
sections of Gaza. That doesn't necessarily translate into them loving.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
The State of Israel.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
However, could they be financially persuaded that cooperating with Israel
is the best option for them and their people after
two years of war?
Speaker 3 (43:59):
I think potentially yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yes. So again, as I said, there are Salami slices
that we can carve off in order to make progress
towards towards having a peaceful solution. But I think it
looks like these small pockets being empowered finding alternatives to
the Palestinian authority or amass and eventually, over time, showing
(44:22):
people that living co existing peacefully is far better than
trying to drive the State of Israel off the land
it currently sits on.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
You said you spent some time in Afghanistan. Is there
a lesson, either a positive one or a negative one
in regards to Afghanistan? Did did the wests of the
United States departure from Afghanistan create peace? It would appear
that the Taliban is in control and just as bad,
but maybe they're not, you know, supporting global terrorism. So
(44:56):
you know, is there a is there an example in Afghanistan?
Who is an example in South Africa where you know,
the world's opposition to apartheid ultimately one, is there an
example in history that you know of of how to
solve this problem?
Speaker 4 (45:15):
I mean, the defeat of ISIS probably comes close, but
even then that just spread the problem abroad and into
Africa and down into the Sahel. You also have ISIS
in Afghanistan as well, and you know, there's no indication
that the current incarnation of the Taliban are any better
than the old one. You know, there are Afghan terrorists
being arrested in Europe on a near daily basis. The
(45:36):
big lesson for me is the importance of strategy. What
are you trying to achieve? What is the political end
state you're after? And more importantly, is it something that's
realistically achievable? In Afghanistan it wasn't at all. You were
never going to build a state to a country where
one didn't really exist before. Afghan's loyalties were first to
their family, second to their tribes. Thirdly to their Klan,
(45:58):
and then fourth lead to Islam, and then fifthly to
Afghanistan if it suits them financially. This was not a
country that had a functioning demos, to use the ancient
Greek term, it didn't have a polity that supported the
idea of governance from kabal and yet we try to
force Western ideas of statehood onto that massive centuries old
(46:22):
Afghan chaos.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
That was never going to work. So we set.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Ourselves impossible strategic goals. And that's I think the trap
that Israel might be falling into in Gaza. They've set
themselves an impossible, unachievable goal of removing Hamass completely from
the conversation, and there are a variety of factors, not
least the hostages, that are likely to avoid that outcome.
So I think that's the big lesson from Afghanistan is
(46:46):
set yourself a clear achievable goal and know what your
end state, what end state your soldiers are working towards.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Last question, if you had a chance this week to
sit down with the Prime Minister of the UK krstamar
Or or the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Kearney, what
would you tell them?
Speaker 4 (47:04):
I would tell them that they're making a foolish mistake
for domestic reasons. The actions they're taking are not going
to bring peace to the Middle East. They're not going
to bring about a two state solution. In fact, what
they're doing is emboldening her mass, backing Israel into a corner,
and giving the far right an opportunity to be even
more extreme than they already were. It's a counter and
(47:26):
productive decision made for domestic reasons, not proper international reasons,
and it's not going to work.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Andrew Fox, thank you so much for joining us and
chatting with us. If people want to follow your writing substack,
is that the best place to go.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Yeah, mister Andrew Fox dot subsack dot com.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Really appreciate you joining us and telling us a little
bit about what's going on and about your very strong views.
And you know, you've got an incredible unique experience being
an army officer and being on the ground in Israel
and Gaza, and so thank you very much for what
you've written and what you've shared today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Thank you for having me bro on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, Thank you for joining.
I remind you. I'm on every Monday through Friday at
six o'clock on nine to sixty am. You can stream
me online even from England at Triple W Saga nine
sixty am dot CA. On my podcasts and videos go
up on my website Briancromby dot com, on YouTube, on
podcast servers and on social media as soon as the
radio show goes to air. Thanks for joining Andrew. This
(48:28):
has been a difficult conversation, but a really good one
and I think something that Keir Starmer, Mark Kearney a
whole bunch of other people need to hear and think
very seriously about, because the last thing we want to
do is embolden Hamas same time, we don't want to encourage,
you know, the right wing politicians in Israel too much either,
(48:49):
and so it's a difficult situation. So thank you for
sharing some of your insight.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Really appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
We must Life at Saga nine sixty am dot Ca.
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