Speaker unverified: belief

Transcript context

…The problem with October 7th is this, the Hamas fighters who invaded Southern Israel were sent, ordered to murder, rape, and do all the nasty things that they did, and they killed some 1,200 Israelis that day and abducted them as we know, something like 250, mostly civilians, also some soldiers, took them back to dungeons in Gaza, but they were motivated not just by the words of their current leader in the Gaza Strip, but by their ideology, which is embedded in their charter from 1988, if I remember correctly, and that charter is genocidal. It says that the Jews must be eradicated basically from the land of Israel, from Palestine. The Jews are described there as sons of apes and pigs. The Jews are a base people, killers of prophets, and they should not exist in Palestine. It doesn’t say that they necessarily should be murdered all around the world, the Hamas charter, but certainly the Jews should be eliminated from Palestine. And this is the driving ideology behind the massacre of the Jews on October 7th, which brought down on the Gaza Strip, and I think with the intention by the Hamas of the Israeli counter offensive because they knew that that counter offensive would result in many Palestinian dead because the Hamas fighters and their weaponry and so on were embedded in the population in Gaza, and they hoped to benefit from this in the eyes of world public opinion as Israel chased these Hamas people and their ammunition dumps and so on and killed lots of Palestinian civilians in the process. All of this was understood by Sinwar, by the head of the Hamas, and he strived for that, but initially he wanted to kill as many Jews as he could in the border areas around the Gaza Strip. I’ll respond directly to the points you made, and then I’ll leave it to Norm to bring in the historical context. That Hamas charter is from the ’90s, I think? 1988. 1988, so it’s from the ’80s. I think your characterization of that charter as antisemitic is indisputable. I think your characterization of that charter as genocidal is off the mark. It’s implicit. And more importantly, that charter has been superseded by a new charter. In fact, it has been… Well, there is- There is no new charter. There is an explanation, a statement [inaudible 02:11:06]- 2018, a political statement. 2000 and something. 2018. 2018, supposedly clarifying things which are in the charter, but it doesn’t actually step back from what the charter says, eliminate Israel, eliminate the Jews from the land of Israel. In 2018, the Hamas charter, if we look at the current version of the charter- It’s not called a charter. You’re calling it a charter. It wasn’t. The only thing called the charter is what was issued in 1988 by Yassin himself. Anyway, it makes a clear distinction between Jews and Zionists in 2018. Now, you can choose to dismiss it, believe it, it’s sincere, it’s insincere, whatever- Insincere is probably the right word. lf. Anyway, it makes a clear distinction between Jews and Zionists in 2018. Now, you can choose to dismiss it, believe it, it’s sincere, it’s insincere, whatever- Insincere is probably the right word. Secondly, I’m really unfamiliar with fighters who consult these kinds of documents before they go on- They’re brought up on this in their education system. In the kindergarten, they’re told, “Kill the Jews.” They practice with make-believe guns and uniforms when they’re five years old in the kindergartens of the Hamas- At the instruction of the commissioner-general of UNRWA, right? I didn’t say that. I said the Hamas has kindergartens and summer camps in which they trained to kill Jews, children aged five and six. Secondly, you keep saying Jews, to which I would respond- They use the word Jews. To which I would respond that Hamas does not have a record of deliberately targeting Jews who are not Israelis. And in fact, it also doesn’t have a record of deliberately targeting either Jews or Israelis outside Israel and Palestine, so all this talk of- Unlike the Hezbollah, which has started targeting Jews outside of Palestine. We’re talking about October 7th and Hamas. If you’d also like to speak about Hezbollah, let’s get to that separately if you don’t mind. So again, genocidal, well, if that term is going to be discussed, my first response would be let’s talk about potentially genocidal actions against Israelis rather than against Jews for the reasons that I just mentioned. And again, I find this constant conflation of Jews, Israel, Zionism, to be a bit disturbing. Secondly, I think there are quite a few indications in the factual record that raise serious questions about the accusations of the genocidal intent and genocidal practice of what happened on October 7th. And my final point would be, I don’t think I should take your word for it, I don’t think you should take my word for it. I think what we need here is a proper independent international investigation, and the reason we need that- Of what? Of genocide during this conflict, whether by Palestinians on October 7th or Israel thereafter, and the reason that we need such an investigation is because Hamas is… There won’t be any hearings on what Hamas did on October 7th at the International Court of Justice because the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide deals only with states and not with movements. I think the international criminal court, and specifically its current prosecutor, Karim Khan lacks any and all credibility. He’s been an absolute failure at his job. He’s just been sitting his backside for years on this file. And I think I would point out that Hamas has called for independent investigations of all these allegations. Israel has categorically rejected any international investigation, of course, fully supported by the United States. And I think what is required is to have credible investigations of these things because I don’t think you’re going to convince me, I don’t think I’m going to convince you, and this is two people sitting across the table from each other. ave credible investigations of these things because I don’t think you’re going to convince me, I don’t think I’m going to convince you, and this is two people sitting across the table from each other. No, there’s certain things you don’t even have to investigate. You know how many citizens, civilians died in the October 7th assault- Yes, but that’s not- You know that there are lots of allegations of rape. I don’t know how persuaded you are of those. They did find bodies without heads, which is- There were no beheadings of infants. There were some beheadings, apparently. The Israelis didn’t even claim that in the document they submitted before the ICJ. Go read what your government submitted. It never mentioned beheadings. Well, as far as I know, there were some people who were beheaded, but- We could bring it up right now. You also deny that there were rapes there. I didn’t deny. I said I’ve not seen convincing evidence that confirms it. I’ve said that from day one, and I’ll say it today, four and a half months later. Do you know that they killed eight or 900 civilians in their assault? Absolutely, that seems to me indisputable. … 900 civilians in the assault- Absolutely. That seems to me indisputable. Oh, okay. Well, I’m glad that you’re considering something- I’ve said that from day one. Well, to be clear, you haven’t. You did a debate… I don’t remember the talk show, but you seemed to imply that there was a lot of crossfire and then it might’ve been the IDF that had killed a lot of- I said that there is no question because the names were published in Haaretz. There is no question that roughly of the 1200 people killed, 800 of them were civilians- 850. 850, fine. So I never said that, but then I said, “No, we don’t know exactly how they were killed.” But 800 civilians killed, no, 850, no question there. And I also said on repeated occasions, there cannot be any doubt, in my opinion as of now with the available evidence, that Hamas was responsible for significant atrocities, and I made sure to include the plural. There’s a lot of tricky language being employed here. Do you think of the 850- There’s nothing tricky. It’s called attaching value to words and not talking like a motormouth. I am very careful about qualifying because that’s what language is about. That’s great. Then let me just ask a clarifying question, do you firmly believe that the majority of the 850 civilians were killed by Hamas? My view is, even if it were half, 400 is a huge number by any reckoning- Why- Okay, wait. You didn’t- I said even if- Wait, wait, wait- Because Benny, because Professor Morris, I don’t know. I agree with Mouin Rabbani, I’m not sure if he concedes the 400. I’ll say- Why 400? Whoever thought up the number, 400? 800 of the 850 were slaughtered by Hamas. Maybe a couple of individuals were killed in Israeli action- I don’t know. Professor Morris- You’re saying from day one, you believed this particular thing, and you clearly don’t. You clearly don’t believe this thing- I said from day one day one- You said people died. That’s not controversial- Wait. Hold on, hold on. If I may- That’s not controversial. Mr. Bonnell, I attach value to words-…

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