00:00We can now bring in Gershon Baskin, Middle East Director at the International Communities
00:06Organization and a former hostage negotiator. Thank you so much for joining us on the program
00:11today. This cabinet meeting, which is underway in Israel, is taking place at a time when the
00:16Army Chief of Staff is publicly vowing to express the military stance without fear.
00:21What does a total siege of Gaza look like and why is the army against it?
00:25A total siege of Gaza or total occupation of Gaza is a disaster. First, for the people
00:33of Gaza, who have already experienced more than 60,000 deaths, most of them noncombatants,
00:39women and children, elderly people. There are more than 2 million homeless people in Gaza.
00:43There's no food. There's no water for most of the people in Gaza. The surrounding and the
00:48conquering of the city of Gaza and the southern enclaves, which have been humanitarian zones,
00:54is called by Israel, will lead to many more deaths. It will lead to the deaths of Israeli soldiers,
00:58and it will probably lead to the death of the remaining living Israeli hostages. This is a plan
01:04for a disaster, and the army is against it because they know what it will involve. They know that it
01:09will wear the army to the point where it's too thin to be dependent upon to defend Israel's other
01:14borders. The army is already exhausted. Most of the soldiers and the reserve duty officers and
01:21soldiers have been 300, 400 days in duty now in Gaza and in other places in Israel. It is just too
01:28much for us to handle, and it is also the continuation of the committing of war crimes in
01:34Gaza. And Israel is suffering already from the beginning of being related to as a prior state in the
01:40rest of the world, and this will only get worse for Israel.
01:42I want to talk about Israel standing in just a second. But Gershon, just two days ago, I interviewed
01:48a resident in central Gaza, Baha Zakut, and he is in Deir al-Bala, and he has two children. And I spoke to
01:57him and asked him if he had a plan in place, if Israel's government does, as Netanyahu is indicating,
02:04he wants to take over all of Gaza. And take a listen to what he said to me.
02:09For the 11th time, every time we lose something, we lose part of our dignity, we lose part of our
02:16comfort. So I think that we are fed up from continuous displacement and movement. And I think
02:25that this will even affect my children at the psychological level, because they keep moving
02:33constantly. But the worst thing is that even if I decided to move, where should I go? Because Mawasi
02:42is the only safe place, or so-called safe place. But still, there is no one single meter in Mawasi
02:52is empty and can accommodate even at 10. Gershon, so it was a very difficult conversation,
02:59as you can imagine, to speak to a young father who has two children. And he's saying, I'm going to
03:05stay put. I've moved 11 times. Because if Israel does go ahead and take control of Gaza, where are
03:11the people in central Gaza supposed to go? There is no place for them to go. As Baha said, there are no
03:17safe places in Gaza for Palestinians. Every place will be surrounded by the Israeli
03:22occupying army. And we know what the results of that will be. This has to be stopped. It is the
03:30obligation of the entire world to stop this now. The Israeli government has gone haywire. Prime
03:36Minister Netanyahu is no longer a logical or strategic in terms of protecting the interest
03:42of Israel. This war should have ended many months ago. Hamas has been defeated. It can no longer
03:48govern Gaza. Hamas is ready for a deal that will release all the Israeli hostages in 24 hours,
03:54I have been told, by them. But they want Israel to end the war and withdraw from Gaza. They don't
03:59want to continue the fighting. They're willing to give up governance. Netanyahu needs to continue the
04:04war for his own political survival. This is an Israeli war for the survival of the Israeli coalition
04:09government and the survival of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It has to end now.
04:15But is that why the ceasefire failed just a couple of weeks ago because Israel wanted to continue
04:23to have a presence within Gaza? Is that why? Because from what you're saying, Hamas said it's
04:28ready to give up governance in the enclave. That's right. For sure. There's no question about it. The
04:33the ceasefire that came into effect on the day before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office was
04:41supposed to include talks on a permanent ceasefire starting day 15 and concluding by day 30. Those
04:47talks never convened. And in March, Israel broke the ceasefire and went back to war. And the war's
04:53continuation is nothing about military strategy. It's nothing about removing Hamas from power. Removing
05:00Hamas from power is something that can be done through the agreement to end the war. And then
05:05the transference of the governance in Gaza to a responsible, viable Palestinian governing body that
05:10will control Gaza until the Palestinians can hold national elections. This is what needs to happen.
05:17Gaza is Palestinian. It was Palestinian. It will remain Palestinian. And the Israelis have nothing to
05:23do there. They need to retreat to their border and defend the border from the Israeli side of the
05:28border. They can set up a no entry zone where anyone enters will be shot in order to protect the
05:34border communities that were attacked on October 7th. But there is no reason for Israel to spend another
05:40hour in Gaza. Because as you said, it seems that Netanyahu is hellbent on doing what Netanyahu wants to do.
05:48Because just a couple of days ago, we had top former Israeli security officials who signed an open letter
05:54calling on the U.S. president to pressure their own prime minister to end the war. They wrote that
06:00Hamas no longer posed a threat to Israel, adding the war was no longer just. So essentially, Netanyahu just
06:08doesn't care what everyone else has to say. Netanyahu only listens to one person in the world other than
06:15his wife and his son, who are also a bit not stable. And that's President Trump. But Trump
06:23yesterday said that Israel will do what Israel wants to do. He's given a green light to Netanyahu
06:28to continue this war. So I ask, where is Trump, the peacemaker? Trump who said that he will end wars
06:33and not make wars. Donald Trump, the President of the United States who believes that he deserves a Nobel
06:37Peace Prize, by allowing Israel to continue this war, removes him from the possibility of ever being
06:43considered for a Nobel Peace Prize. His job is to tell Netanyahu to end the war now.
06:51In the past few weeks, there were hopes that a ceasefire could be clinched,
06:55that we could improve the humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza. That ceasefire seems
07:01a way off. But today we had hostage families who actually sailed off the coast of Gaza. And what was
07:07really touching is they use loudspeakers to try and communicate with their loved ones who are held by
07:12Hamas. Where is Israeli public opinion on the possibility of the Prime Minister expanding
07:20the military operation once again in Gaza?
07:23The overwhelming majority of Israelis want this war to end and want the hostages brought home.
07:30But Israeli society is exhausted and is still traumatized from October 7th.
07:36You hardly find an Israeli who doesn't think about October 7th.
07:39Every single day we're reminded in the press and the media all the time of October 7th.
07:45So there are demonstrations that are taking place all over the country, but they're small and people
07:49are exhausted. I was at a demonstration myself last night. It was very disappointing by the low turnout.
07:55But the polls show us that up to 80% of Israelis want this war over and they want Netanyahu to end it.
08:00It's complex because Israelis still think that the war is justified, even until today,
08:06and they don't think that there are innocent people in Gaza. And this is part of the trauma that they've
08:10been to. But we need to understand, we Israelis need to understand that what's happening in Gaza
08:14should never happen. That these are crimes against humanity and war crimes that are being committed by
08:20Israel, by the Jewish people who have experienced these kinds of things in our own past.
08:24And we should be the first ones to calling on our government to end it.
08:29You spoke about Israel's standing on the world stage.
08:37Here in Paris, even, I go out and talk to people. If you meet Israelis, they're reluctant to tell you
08:43where they're from for fear of how you're going to judge them. Earlier today, we had the exterior of the
08:49offices of Israel's national airline, El Al. Somebody had spray painted it, used red paint to write El Al,
08:57Genocide Airline, and wrote Free Palestine. I know you said that Israel's Prime Minister only listens to
09:05two people, his wife and Donald Trump. But when it comes to international pressure, what can the
09:12international community do besides saying, yes, they're going to recognize Palestine at the UN
09:18General Assembly in September, which I asked that resident who I spoke to in Gaza the other day,
09:24if that's going to change anything for him? And he said, no, it won't. Stopping the war is going to
09:29change something. Recognizing Palestine, we can we can figure that out at a later date.
09:33He's 100 percent correct. Nonetheless, Europe, France and other countries need to do the right
09:41thing. And the right thing is to recognize the state of Palestine, because they supported two
09:44states solution and have only recognized one of them until now. But the person is correct.
09:49Europe needs to use the power that Europe has vis-à-vis Israel. And that's primarily in the
09:54economic sphere. But it's also on the side of free entry to the European Union for Israeli citizens,
10:00including 700,000 Israelis who don't live in the state of Israel. They live in occupied
10:05Palestinian territories. I know today if you are a non-American citizen, you have to fill out an
10:10online form before you enter into the United States, even if your visa-free entry is guaranteed
10:17to the United States. You need to be cleared first. The same thing for the state of Israel today.
10:21If you're not an Israeli, you have to fill an online form to enter the state of Israel. I suggest
10:26that the European Union use that as a first stage in pressuring Israel, that Israelis should be
10:33required to fill an online form. And if your address is in the occupied territories,
10:37in the occupied Palestinian territories, you will not be granted visa-free entry into Europe.
10:41There are other things, settlement products that enter Europe freely. These are contraband
10:46made in illegal settlements according to European law. What the Europeans need to understand is that
10:53Israel, regardless of what you do and say, will call any criticism against Israel as anti-Semitic,
10:59and any actions taken against Israel will be called anti-Semitic actions. They are not.
11:05There is legitimate criticism of Israel. It may be anti-Semitic by some part, but I know that France,
11:11which strongly supports the state of Israel's right to defend itself, the state of Israel's right to exist,
11:17must also take action in accordance with international law and not allow Israel to continue to do what it's
11:23doing in Gaza.
11:25Should Benjamin Netanyahu be sanctioned by individual European member states?
11:31Well, you know, he is wanted by the International Court, the criminal court in The Hague. There was a
11:36warrant for his arrest. And when he travels abroad, he's very careful not to fly over territories that could
11:41demand the plane to land and to take him into custody. This is going to be the case for many,
11:47many Israelis, for officers in the army, for other members of the Israeli government. Israel is going
11:53to be a pariah state and Israelis are going to find that their world is shrinking. There are going to be
11:59very few places in the world where Israelis are made to feel welcome.
12:03Gershon Baskin, thank you so much for joining us on the program today. I always appreciate your analysis.
12:09Gershon Baskin, thank you.
