What Next in Palestine – Who Wins – With George Galloway

Tell me what you think of my three scenarios that I outlined at the beginning, Muhammad. One is that

notwithstanding all the bombing that the up close and personal man to man combat in the alleyways in the rubble, begins to prove too expensive to the Israeli armed forces and pressure on Netanyahu get him to call off. Second scenario, that becomes a wider war, with all out war between Israel and other Arab countries, principally Lebanon, but Syria would undoubtedly, quickly become subsumed in that with the possibility that faraway countries like Iran would then be drawn in. And the third scenario is that Netanyahu wins. In the absence of any countervailing force. He does smash open the gates of Rafa and he does create an exodus into the Sinai desert of millions of people whether Egypt

likes it or not.

How do you weigh those three possibilities?

Right. So that's a really good question. So this is what this is what I think I think the third scenario that you just laid out is very, very unlikely.

I've been watching very closely the Egyptian news and and looking at the bottom micro expressions in the body language and psychology

of the addition politicians, and it does not seem the case that they will

open up that border, because I think doing that would for them, it would complete create complete instability for their regimes. And that is something I don't think they can be bribed

into changing their opinion on the US unless they're blackmailed, or there's military action, that's a different situation. I think that's what it would take. And it sounds are the first and second scenarios look, I mean, in terms of winning first and winning a war. What does it mean to win awards, or winning Martel mentions that, and this is I think, in the international relations literature, the most, probably the most respected or the most prominent definition that are winning a war is effectively leaving your political objectives. The political objectives that Israel has set for itself right now is to destroy and nullify and annihilate Hamas. Now, the problem with that

objective is that Hamas is not just a group of people, 30 or 50,000 fighters, Hamas is effectively an ideology. And Elon Musk said it correctly when he said that when you kill one Hamas, you create another. And as you see, you know, people that are that have seen their own children, as we've started off this discussion by saying, or they're on siblings being killed are more likely to join Hamas, according to all theories of this kind of political theories and psychological theories than ever before. So I think the objective that they've set for themselves should have been thought more closely about because now they've made it impossible for themselves a beating Hamas is almost an

impossible, like catching a ghost effectively, which is ironically, what they were taught what they said when they were fighting Hamas on the ground, which is the second thing is that the ground incursion, and I've been following, following that closely, as well, especially on Al Jazeera Arabic, and there is a particular analyst in the Arabic language called Face of Doherty, who is brilliant, and he's been analyzing what's happening. It doesn't seem that they're advancing. In fact, I mean, that we've just looked at the I'm looking at Israeli figures. Now, if you look at the Israeli figures, not even the Hamas figures or the anything else, just looking at Israeli figures,

the IDF recently came on, actually, as reported by The Guardian, and said that, quote, unquote, dozens of Hamas fighters have been killed. Now, just to think about that for a second, according to their own figures, from from the seventh of October,

almost 400 IDF people have been killed, almost 400 of them,

and 340 of them by Hamas. Now, what does that mean? It means that pound for pound, there have been more IDF that have been killed by Hamas than Hamas by IDF by the admission of by the numbers of the IDF. So that's pretty shocking statistics considering that the ratio of civilian or combatant to non combatant death that IDF has subjected the population to is exactly 100 to one or more than that, in fact, because there's 10,000 People that have been killed and if we are liberal with our estimate, we say 100 People from Hamas are killed according to the IDF, then that's literally 1% which is 100 to one ratio, which is no longer collateral damage. It cannot be 100 to one ratio, civilian to two

combatant ratio cannot be said to be collateral damage anymore. So having said all these things, I don't think that the Israeli forces are that good on the ground. And you've you know this very well, because you, and I was watching closely when I was still a boy in school, but you covered very well, and very strongly, very diligently, very accurately, the conflict in 2006, with Lebanon. And then I remember you very closely saying, because it was such a memorable

thing that you said to the news anchor, that they're being whipped on the ground, or they're being beaten on the ground. And that was by Hezbollah, in 2006. And they were being beaten by two guys. And if you if you consider that military record of Israel, of seven wars, at least three of them could be said to be defeated two of them

in recent times on the ground in 2016, one of them and in 2000, when they left southern Lebanon, after the resistance as well there, that could be said to be a defeat, because they did not fulfill their military objectives. And they had to leave a particular place where they were. So if you consider Israel's record, like a MMA fighter or a boxer, if you consider their record, on the ground, they have a very poor record on the ground. And, and so it doesn't seem, I think, on weight of all that, we've just said that based on the historical precedent. And what we know, it seems that the following is going to happen, that they're going to continue this going to be very expensive for

them, either, as normal Finkelstein said that they're going to take the northern part of Gaza and they create a Security Council there, that's a possibility. And then that can be set to be some kind of a victory for them, which it would be to some extent, because some of the objectives have been met, but would be a complete victory compared to what they were as per what they wanted it to be. Or they could their biggest victory, which I think would be a victory for them would be if the border opened and the complete Nakba. And there is no more Gaza and everyone leaves and they remove or ethnically cleanse or do whatever they want with the Gaza population, that would be for them.

Probably the greatest victory they can imagine. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think that the international community can allow that to happen,

or would allow that to happen or even that America would allow them to do that. On balance of probabilities either that they're going to take the north of Gaza, a lot of which is uninhabitable land, what they call an Arab Manteca,

literally a place where it's uninhabited on arable land and people aren't using it, or that they're going to be repelled. I think these are the two possibilities and that they'll probably cap it off at 20,000 civilians because I at this point, there is there is reason to believe that the intention of the IDF obviously, is to kill as many civilians as possible as per what they've said themselves, like Daniel had Gary got live. And one of the guys who got suspended, I forget his name. But he said nuking the place. There's clear intention there that's coming out. So for them, I think in their mind killing civilians, a victory killing children, for them to victory, they've got exactly the

terrorist mentality on this matter. So that wouldn't be a victory. But it could be enough to placate kind of like some members or some aspects or some segments of the Israeli populace. These are two biggest possibilities, either that the north part of Gaza will be taken as Finkelstein says, As a Security Council or that there'll be repelled altogether, which would be one of the biggest losses actually.

In in modern times. Well, it probably in their history, if that happens.

Well, the only I think that's a masterful summary. The only thing I'd say nobody ever lost money, betting on what the international community would stand up for. So let's hope that we don't see Tony Blair,

riding on his white child jar in Sinai as the humanitarian coordinator of a new Gaza in the desert Muhammad day job. You're a gentleman and definitely a scholar. Thank you for joining us on the mother of angsana