Jared Kushner: belief

Transcript context

…I think you did an excellent job of summarizing a lot of the context, but watching what’s unfolded over the last 48 hours has been truly heartbreaking to see. We’re still in the early stages of what’s developing, but seeing the images on X of militants, terrorists going door to door with machine guns gunning down innocent civilians, seeing beheaded Israeli soldiers, seeing young 20 year olds at a rave, a dance party to celebrate peace with militants flying in and then shooting machine guns to kill people indiscriminately, seeing young children captive and held prisoner, seeing 80-year old grandmothers, a Holocaust survivor also being taken captive. These are just images and actions that we have not seen in this world since 9/11. This is a terror attack on the scale of which we have not seen, and it’s been incredibly hard for a lot of people to comprehend. My heart goes out, obviously, to all of the families of the victims, to the families of those who are held in captive now and to all of Israel because one of the beautiful things about the state of Israel is that when one Israeli is hurting, the entire nation comes together. It’s a shame that it’s taking an action like this to unify the nation, but I have seen incredibly beautiful signs over the last 48 hours of a country coming together. The Jewish people have been under oppression before. The Jewish people know what it’s like, and seeing people rally together to fight for their homeland to try to reestablish safety is a very beautiful thing to watch. I wish it wasn’t something we had to watch, but it is. With that being said though, the backdrop, I’ve been speaking to friends over the last couple of days. One friend I spoke with last night who was saying that a good friend messaged him saying, I’m going in. We’re going to do some operations to try to free some of the hostages held in one of the kibbutzes. Messaged him the next morning. He was one of the first through the door to try to free these hostages, and he was killed by a Hamas militant. Sadly, we’re going to be hearing many, many more stories of brave Israeli soldiers trying to get these terrorists out of Israel, trying to free innocent civilians who unfortunately are risking their lives to do it. They’re all heroes, but some will have less good faith than others, sadly. to get these terrorists out of Israel, trying to free innocent civilians who unfortunately are risking their lives to do it. They’re all heroes, but some will have less good faith than others, sadly. It’s a very, very heartbreaking moment, and I do think that it’s very important at this moment in time for the entire world to stand behind Israel. I think that Hamas has shown the entire world who they really are. I think what their aim is, what they’re willing to do, and all of the strong security that Israel’s put in place over the last years, which in some instances was criticized, I think is now being validated, that there was a real threat that they were looking to deter. Short answer is my heart is broken, praying for peace, praying for strength, praying for Israel to do what it needs to do to avoid being in this situation again, which is either eliminating or severely degrading Hamas’ capabilities. There cannot be peace in Israel and in the Middle East, while there is a terror group that is being funded by Iran that is allowed to flourish and is allowed to plan operations that are going to aim to kill innocent civilians. As somebody who was formerly in this position, who was intimately involved with Israel with the strategies to minimize attacks from Hamas and to try to turn the region around, and I think we did do a very substantial job under President Trump. The Middle East went from one of the most chaotic regions in the world. You had ISIS in 2016, ISIS had a caliphate the size of Ohio. They’re beheading journalists. They were killing Christians. They controlled 8 million people. They were planning attacks all over the world from their caliphate. They were using the internet to radicalize people. We had the San Bernardino shooting in America. We had the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, and there was real threat. Then you had Iran, which was given $150 billion in a glide path to a nuclear weapon, and they were using their newfound riches to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, different rebels all over the region that were looking to destabilize further. Syria was in a civil war where 500,000 people were killed. Yemen was destabilized, Libya was destabilized, and it was just a mess, and all of America’s allies had felt betrayed. President Trump came into power. We rebuilt the trust and the relationships with all of our traditional allies. We were able to eliminate ISIS, the territorial caliphate, and then we’re able to project strength in the region, really go after Iran’s wallet. We were able to stop through crushing sanctions a lot of their financial resources, which they were using to fund all these terror groups. We left the Middle East with six piece deals and in a fairly peaceful world. Seeing what’s happening, I think it was completely avoidable. I think it’s horrible to see that it’s occurring, and I pray that those in power will make the right decisions to restore safety, but also to potentially create a better paradigm for peace in the future. I have a lot of questions to ask you about the journey towards this historic progress towards peace with Abraham Accords, of course. But first on this situation to step back and some of the history, is there things about the history of Hamas and Gaza that’s important to understand what is happening now? Just your comments, your thoughts, your understanding of Hamas.…

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