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BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Dana Lewis is a veteran World Affairs Correspondent. He's been everywhere. From global war zones to the streets of London where he is based.
He has been based in Jerusalem, and Moscow.
And he loves talking to people about whats behind the headlines. Award winning. "A real in the trenches reporter". Great interviewing skills and easy to listen to.
BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Terror in Israel, War in Gaza
Have you ever wondered how it feels to lose your loved ones to senseless violence?
Ilan Troin, a grieving father who lost his daughter and stepson to the ongoing conflict in Israel, shares his heart-wrenching story. The devastating cost of a well planned shocking and inhuman attack by the terror group Hamas.
Beyond personal stories, we delve into the geopolitical factors behind the conflict. Ibrahim Hazboun, a seasoned journalist and analyst on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, guides us through the intricate maze of issues leading to the explosion in violence. He details the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza, its ensuing rounds of conflict with Israel, and the chilling tactic of civilian targeting. We strive to understand this stalemate, the revulsion it sparks, and the loss of innocent lives.
On Back Story host Dana Lewis discusses an uncertain future between Israeli's and Palestinian's. We explore the disillusionment felt by the people of Gaza and the political stagnation caused by the right-wing Israeli government. We dissect how the media has failed to adequately cover the struggles of Gazan's and the shock of a generation who have known nothing but war.
We were audio witnesses to everything that took place, like tens of thousands of other Israelis. It was awful, so we could hear. She said she explained that they were under attack and after she said that she didn't say anything until sometime later when her son wrote him, who survived thanks to her throwing her body on top of him and buffeting the bullet that went through her and only slightly pierced him, and he said hey, Mehto, they're dead.
Speaker 2:But this time is different. It's a new level of violence, a new level of confrontation, and there are a lot of elements involved in it. And there are also civilians who are victims that going into Gaza would cost them a lot. And the big question after removing the mass, what are you going to do?
Speaker 3:Hi everyone and welcome to this edition of Backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. It has been a breathtaking, shocking week in Israel as Israeli warplanes drop bombs on the Gaza Strip. Inside Israel, the grisly discoveries, the human aftermath of Hamas's bloody rampage through Israeli towns and villages has continued. Hundreds killed in their homes, women, children, fathers, mothers murdered in front of their children by Hamas terrorists. Over 1200 dead in direct murders and the rocket attacks. And in Gaza, 1,000 Palestinians have died in the bombing so far. The killing of civilians, the kidnapping of elderly and children back into Gaza more than 100 people have been taken to Gaza and held hostage. The mass killings of more than 250 Israelis at an outdoor music concert near Gaza, the rapes of women and parading them through Gaza held as some kind of human trophies it just all adds up to terror. It's inhuman and it doesn't matter what you think of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Killing innocent people on this scale is gruesome.
Speaker 3:Terrorism by Hamas that has washed itself in blood and somehow considers the attack on Israel a victory. I covered bus bombings carried out by Hamas in the 90s. I have interviewed some of its former members in the Gaza Strip. They are always embracing, killing and blaming Israel. It started as a charitable Islamic organization. It developed its arm wing and eventually attacked its own people, driving out Erafat's Fatah party and taking over Gaza, where 2.3 million people now live under its rule, whether they like it or not. They have been able to hijack peace efforts by Israelis and Palestinians.
Speaker 3:The violence by Hamas has led to the ceiling of the Gaza Strip. It has paralyzed the Palestinian Authority's ability to unify Palestinians and pursue any kind of peace. Backed by Iran, hamas won't accept any peace and is only dedicated to destroying Israel. Israel has moved some 300,000 reservists to the Gaza border. A ground invasion is looming. Where does that lead? I don't think anybody can be sure. And now there is an emergency coalition government formed in Israel, a national unity government to unify the country and make war on Hamas.
Speaker 3:On backstory, we talk to Ilan Troin. He's a father who lost his daughter and stepson in the violence and his grandson narrowly survived the bullet wound, the bullet slowed by his mother's body, which took the force of the gunshot. And from Jerusalem, palestinian Mid-East analyst Ibrahim Hasbun on how did this happen and possibly what comes next. All right, professor Ilan Troin taught at Brandeis University and he was at Ben-Gurion University and, tragically, over the weekend his daughter and son-in-law were murdered by gunmen from Gaza on Saturday Debbie Shahar, troin Matthias and her husband Shlomi Matthias Ilan. Thank you for speaking to me. Not at all. Thank you, my heartfelt sympathy.
Speaker 3:I just cannot imagine experiencing what you are going through right now, and may you never experience it. What happened? I mean? What do you know?
Speaker 1:Yes, what I know is that it was a pogrom, a classic pogrom. This was not a military campaign. What it was is an act, an event that was well rehearsed, well funded, practiced over a considerable period of time, with the object of attacking civilians. It was not military against military, and what distinguished those civilians is that they are of a different faith and identity. That is the classic kind of pogrom that drove my four bearers from Eastern Europe to the United States and Jews everywhere and other peoples to other places when they were attacked for who they happened to have been.
Speaker 3:And I don't think anybody with any heart and any sense and any morality can understand any of this when there are innocent people, so many in the hundreds that were targeted by Hamas and, as you say, these are not military targets. Can you tell me what happened to Debbie? Where was she? She?
Speaker 1:was in her home. She had chosen to live in a beautiful bucala community, and it is a community. It is a keyboard that is right on the border with Gaza. To get it in a mental map, the Gaza Strip goes down to Egypt. It is one settlement above the border with Egypt, gaza and Israel, and they turned what used to be a desert into a veritable garden of orchards, green fields and agriculture and some manufacturing, a community of several hundred people and who expected to live their lives well Now. They knew there was danger, but they couldn't help but believe that somehow accommodation could be made and they could live there safely and bring up their children in peace.
Speaker 3:What occurred? What do you know?
Speaker 1:What I know is that at 6.30 in the morning we began getting pings. This is my cell phone. On my cell phone, like most people in Israel, I have an app that lets me know if missiles are being fired at Israel. At 6.30 in the morning on Saturday, it started going ping, ping, ping, ping, ping and then shortly thereafter we got a call a telephone call from Deborah saying is that I can hear Arabic around. They're shooting in my section of the keyboards and I hear glass breaking. What they did was try to secure the doors, including the door to their safe, so-called safe room, but those who came to attack them were very well prepared and were very well rehearsed, and they came with explosives to blow open doors, and so their safe room didn't provide the kind of security they anticipated or wanted. And in came the terrorists.
Speaker 1:And we were on, on, on, on communications. What you have to understand is this is not a traditional, historic war of soldiers against soldiers, and in the modern period everybody has a cell phone. We were audio witnesses to everything that took place, like tens of thousands of other Israelis. It was awful, so we could hear she said, she explained that they were under attack and after she said that she didn't say anything until some time later, when her son wrote them, who survived thanks to her throwing her body on top of top of him and bumping the bullet that went through her and only slightly pierced him, and he said hey, mate, they're dead. Stop for a second, Stop for a second.
Speaker 1:And then we were in touch with him, together with a chat that was built with all the family, from the southern part of the Israel, of Israel, to the Galilee, and people with different skills offered different kinds of advice. At one time there was a physician online with him explaining you know that he was going to be okay. There was a trauma specialist his aunt, who had dealt with the victims of terror in the past, and post trauma individuals who gave him advice how to breathe. He was told where and how to hide. Voice communications ended after the first one and everything was done by texting because he was told not to use his voice. The day ended when he had 4% left in his battery and that's when he was rescued by the Israeli army.
Speaker 3:They were Rotem. Was there waiting how many hours for help About?
Speaker 1:12 hours. He spent the day in hiding and bleeding somewhat, and initially under the blood of his parents.
Speaker 3:Why would these gunmen? And it may seem like an obvious answer, but why would these gunmen shoot Debbie?
Speaker 1:Because she is Jewish, because she is Israeli and because she lives proximate to the Gaza border. She is an accessible target and she is of the wrong identity. How do you come to terms with this? Another reason, I'd be happy to know it. What other reason could there be? They don't know her. They could have some could have known her. She made it a point, she and her husband, shlomi, who happened to be peace activists. They sent their children to an Arab Jewish school where the learning was in Arabic and in Hebrew, where they celebrated each other's festivals, out of a belief that better understanding can foster accommodation and maybe, eventually, peace. There is no direct correlation between one's actions or justice and the outcomes. It's a phenomenon of our times, maybe of all times.
Speaker 3:There are many. There are many. Israelis Excuse me there are many Israelis who have supported peace, who want to come to some kind of peaceful terms with Palestinians. But surely even the most modern, liberal Israeli at this point, at this moment, must have a hard time thinking that they can reach anything conciliatory levels with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 1:Yes or no. We're living also in the age when, against the traditions of many Muslims, sadat came to Jerusalem and came in peace and for which he lost his life. We're Hussein, has a peace treaty with Israel. Where there, the Abraham Accords, where we? At my university, ben Gurion University, large numbers of Arab students, 50% of the pharmacists in Israel are Arabs. 20 something percent of the students of the Technion are Arabs.
Speaker 1:They doesn't necessarily have to be enmity, one has to work at it. It has to come from both sides. But there is no kind of deterministic at least in my understanding and in my life experience deterministic opposition between Arabs and Jews. Are people of any faith. I imagine that there are even Jews living in York these days. Things can change. Each and every great tradition, monotheistic tradition, has within it multiple strands what we're dealing with in the leadership of Gaza, who belong to a particularly noxious and deviant variant within the richness of Islamic civilization. Jews have done very well if discriminated against and held as dimmies, as secondary people within the Islamic world. For 14 centuries we never we Zionists never imagined that we would have any borders with, that there would be walls between us and our neighbors. We came back to live in the world from which we had come. Most of Jewish history, most of the Jews in the world until the 16th century, lived around the Mediterranean, and particularly in the Arab speaking world.
Speaker 3:You speak of Hamas as being this strand, this deviant strand. Do you have a wish now in terms of what should happen, I mean what the Israeli government should do to fix this?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I think the choices. That's why I'm only a professor and a historian. I write about the past. I'm not a policy person, but I know it's very difficult. And it's very difficult because what they did do was take hostages infants, children and people who are older than I am, denying them their rights, older people without medications, without visitation rights, being publicly humiliated and public People who talk and if they talk about human rights, contravention of human rights as we know them, they came to do this consciously, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:They're clearly using their population as a human shield, not just us, but they assume that we will not put their population in risk. I don't know to what extent that will be valid, because there comes a point what do you sacrifice in terms of your own safety at the cost of actually doing injury to another? That's a question I'm not prepared to talk about today, because I don't want to speak out of anger and I can't speak out of knowledge. I imagine that due care will be given and whatever due means out of due care, but something will be done, injury will take place and it is unavoidable.
Speaker 3:You feel let down by the Israeli intelligence community because your daughter wasn't protected and your son-in-law wasn't. In the end, they weren't protected and nobody knew this was coming and they should have.
Speaker 1:They should have. I can remember at one time when visiting with them they only live 40-something minutes 50 minutes away from us that we came to visit and kind of jokingly says you know, we hear scratching underneath the ground. It was the period when Hamas was building tunnels, which we developed machinery for identifying methods of inhibiting, stopping structuring. But I don't know, I don't know what can be done. But something will be done Right now is to punish the whole population. Will that have an effect? I can only hope so.
Speaker 3:Can I leave you with one last question? Sure, what was Debbie like? Did you ever ask her to move from there? What was she like? Why did she want to stay there?
Speaker 1:No, all my children have served in the army. I moved to Israel when I and having six children in the state of Israel, not wanting to support six orphans, gave me an exception I volunteered for the army. This is the risk, this is part of the deal. If you live here, you pay your taxes, you go to work, you vote not necessarily for the government and you do your duties as a citizen. When all of my children and all of my grandchildren come of age and there are several now, indeed, around Gaza, with the forces that have assembled there is you do what you have to do, and what we have to do is defend this state.
Speaker 1:It's a very precious entity for all, sometimes of its inadequate and failing leadership, who do make mistakes, wrong calculations, as in this case. It's still our leadership. It's our country and we feel very, very, very tied to it. That's why she chose to live on the land, not in Tel Aviv, as a musician and as an artist. Her husband was a terrific artist, a wonderful singer, but they wanted to live on the land and not in London, not in Mayfair, but they wanted to live way out in the country and be part of the people who've come to settle and make their lives here. So she has no regrets, I am sure, and I have to say I say this with heartbreak Mitha Dua.
Speaker 3:Yilan, Trohan Yilan, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me and very best to your 16-year-old grandson. I hope his recovery goes exceptionally well and he will have to live with this, but I know he's got the guidance of a grandfather who seems pretty wise and can help him hold on and think about the best thing in his parents. Thank you so much. Thank you. Ibrahim Hasbun is a journalist, a TV producer, who I've known for many years. He's covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for 25 years or so in his career and he holds a PhD from Hebrew University in Communication and Conflict Studies. His research on the media landscape escape and coverage in conflict zones, Ibrahim welcome. Thank you, Dana, for having me. Before any of that, I count you as a friend and somebody who I think is balanced and neutral and knows this story so well. Can I just get your first reaction to the last few days? What has happened?
Speaker 2:Actually, I am covering this conflict, as you said, for the past 25 years, but this time is different. It's a new level of violence, a new level of confrontation, and there are a lot of elements involved in it, and there are also civilians who are victims, in Israel and in Gaza as well. So we should look into the picture from the whole perspective. As a result of many years of conflicts between the sides and as a thing that many people and many countries in the past several years didn't care about, and they are not looking to solve it at all. They are keeping it as is.
Speaker 3:What would drive Hamas to target civilians the way they have inside Israel in ways that I mean? I have never seen the killing of innocents, whether they be women and children, and kidnapping and rapes, and the killing of people at a music festival, but over 200 people. What brought us to this?
Speaker 2:Actually, let's start from the beginning. Hamas took over Gaza back in 2007. And since then it went with Israel for several rounds of conflicts, at war from 2008-9 until the last one in May 2021. Hamas was trying all that way to fight Israel because that's part of their ideology and stuff. What happened recently is a new tactic of Hamas to go inside Israel and try to kidnap people as much as they can, as they said, in order to cut Palestinian prisoners free, and for them, this is a big source of success because their supporters will really cheer for that.
Speaker 3:Are the supporters and sorry to jump in, you know I'm going to do that Are their supporters? Do you include Palestinians in the West Bank?
Speaker 2:Actually, it's not a secret that Hamas has supporters in the West Bank and supporters outside the Palestinian territories, in neighboring countries and around the world. It's not a secret they know they have. Even their leadership now is based outside of the Gaza Strip, including their main leader, ismail Hania, who was watching on TV on Saturday what was happening on the streets around Gaza Strip. So Hamas has supporters everywhere. That doesn't mean that the whole Palestinians agree on the way that things is happening. That's one thing. But they agree on one thing the whole Palestinians that they need to live free under an independent state, whether in Gaza or the West Bank and they are not in any way right now are managing to get that goal of living in an independent state.
Speaker 3:I understand historically the conflict. I mean, we all understand historically this never ending conflict that to a large degree Israel's current Prime Minister bears a lot of weight in historical terms for undermining what was a peace process and what could have been a light at the end of the tunnel where the two sides could be separated and two state solution. I mean, we understand that, but this is a just from a human point of view. Is there not revulsion and I'm not trying to get you to, you know, take a step too far if you're uncomfortable with it but is there not a level of revulsion, even amongst Palestinians, perhaps in Gaza, but certainly in the West Bank, that the killing of people in these settlements just went too far?
Speaker 2:Actually let's talk about. Let's talk about Gaza and what's happening. You started with the Israeli Prime Minister, benjamin Netanyahu. He made it clear that he doesn't have a partner among the Palestinians. There wasn't any high ranking meeting on a political issue between the Palestinians and Israeli since 2014. And lately, with his right wing government having two right wing ministers, he had no intention to go in any peace deal with the Palestinians. So the Palestinians in general has no hope. That's on one side On Gaza.
Speaker 2:You know the kids that were born in the early 2000s and now they are like about 22, 20 years, 23 years old. They never saw anything in Gaza, more than the wars in that happens between 2008 and 2021. So they don't know anything more. They are living in a space in a very poor situation, so they don't have much to know.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, the media did not cover anything about what's happening in Gaza since like, like, only they come during the conflict escalation and then they disappear. For example, like, gaza has no hope. There was a lot of their people, young people, who tried in the past year or so we are talking about hundreds to take the sea and emigrate to Europe and other places. Many of them was, was killed actually during these trouble, and you know this was a big shock. So people in Gaza were looking for a hope but they never found it. So so they are living in a situation was like really doesn't encourage any hope any, any any future looking events that could encourage people to look for alternative. So, in general, the people are sitting and waiting for something to happen.
Speaker 2:I don't think any of the.
Speaker 3:I don't think any of that justifies what happened over the weekend and the shocking things that we've seen. And I don't think you meant it that way either. But why now? Why you can't help but think that all of this was launched in the wake of images of Israelis meeting in Saudi Arabia and the possible normalization of relations with with the Saudis and and the fact that other Arab states were willing just to leave the Palestinians behind at a certain point and say, okay, that conflict is never going to be resolved. We will carry forward relations with Israel and just get on economically with life in the Middle East with Israel.
Speaker 2:Actually, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to the UN in September and had the map of the New Middle East and having Israel as one united land, ignoring the West Bank and Gaza, and that shows that many Palestinian were not happy with that and that had killed hope for them as well.
Speaker 2:That's one thing. And actually many Palestinians, many, many Palestinians through the years were against killing civilians and they believe that their struggle with Israel, for them, is a political struggle that depends on building and establishing their own state. So you know, the killing of civilians in the conflict is not a new thing. There was the bombings in the 90s, there was the bombings in the early 2000s and, by the way, this area, or this period, has changed the mentality even among Israelis, and Ariel Sharon, the former Prime Minister of Israel at that time, was thinking differently. Even he was the father of settlements and he made the pull out from Gaza, from the settlements on parts of the West Bank, and how he was trying to do something different from Israeli point of view doesn't mean it's a favor of the Palestinians, but there was a change and they hope that difficult difficult big families on both sides can change it today.
Speaker 3:So was Yitzhak Rabin, you know, the father of the Oslo.
Speaker 3:Accords and the belief that if we separate and land for peace that eventually we can live together somehow. But I think that's far away in the dust now and that Israel in the dust, but perhaps necessary to return to it at some point, but right now it's probably the last thing on the minds of Israelis and Palestinians. But this we've just seen. You have, galant on the Gaza border, the Israeli Defense Minister talking to Israeli troops. We are fighting human beasts. He says the Islamic State of Gaza.
Speaker 3:Thanks to your heroic action, as he's talking to the troops in this defense mission, you will have the honor of changing the reality here. You saw the cost. You witnessed the turnaround Hamas wanted to change in Gaza. It will change 180 degrees from what they thought. They will regret this moment. Gaza will not return to what it was Now. Reading through that and then the IDF spokesman's interview two days ago, when I heard him talk about the fact that cabinet has directed that they disarm Hamas so that they can never launch any military attack again and that they remove Hamas from the leadership of Gaza. Remove Hamas. Is any of this possible when the Israelis are now contemplating and seeing bent on a ground incursion into this maze of the Gaza Strip where 2.3 million people live?
Speaker 2:First of all, this, like a new talk from the Defense Minister of Israel and the IDF spokesman, is not new. The same goals were set in 2009 and 2012 of disarming Hamas and removing Hamas. But among Israelis and cabinet members and analysts, among the Israeli society, said that going into Gaza would cost them a lot. And the big question after removing Hamas, what are you going to do in Gaza and what will the future? Are you going to remove the people? No, that's one side. The second side, you know.
Speaker 2:Yesterday I was talking to like an Israeli analyst who said to me that the pictures of the victims of Gaza, the kids, killed the strength to go out into the media. Still, the media is not catching what's happening and this is going to be difficult for Israel to explain later on. If they go into the ground operation, what will happen? We'll see thousands of people came. We already saw, according to the UN report, that over 700 people, 700,000 people, has already started to moving, part of them into UN schools in order to take shelter. So if Israel goes in, there will be a human catastrophe. So what's the end of result? Nobody knows and these goals were set in the past. It's such an important question.
Speaker 3:It's such an important question that you're raising, Even if which and I don't understand how, because you can't move armor in there you and I have walked those little alleyways and narrow streets and there's a network of tunnels under there. Hamas, that's Hamas's home. I mean, they own the turf and they have the upper hand in many ways. Even if you could remove the Israelis, could remove Hamas, who do you hand the keys to the next day in the Gaza Strip?
Speaker 2:That's a big question. Actually, in the past, sharon tried himself when Mubarak, the Egyptian president the former Egyptian president was on power and told him come and take Gaza. And Mubarak said no, I can't deal with these two millions people, I can't. I'm not sure today anyone is ready to take the keys. Gaza, it's owned by the residents right now, the Palestinians there, and I'm not sure there will be another solution rather than going and talking to the Palestinian directly. So it's a problem, and they hope that there will not be a lot of bloodshed before understanding once again that there is other side that you should talk to and reach a solution. I think if a ground operation happened in the near future, there will be a lot of victims, probably in the both sides, and that will lead to no more, to lead to less hope and more hatred, and we saw what the hatred is bringing into the conflict.
Speaker 3:You saw, and we both covered when Fatah was removed. Yasser Arafat's Fatah was removed from the Gaza Strip violently I mean, it was Palestinians killing Palestinians and Hamas came to power. Is there any notion that Fatah would ever regain power in the Gaza Strip and remove Hamas or step into a vacuum if Hamas was removed?
Speaker 2:Well, there is no talk about right now because the Palestinians are one united against Israel from the point of view that they are destroying homes of civilians right now. So that's one thing. Fatih has a lot of problems in the West Bank. There are many Palestinians who lost trust in Fatih and even like Abou Mazen vision that was talking about we are not going to fight an armed conflict with Israel. It's not getting a lot of trust because they don't trust.
Speaker 2:Israel is clearly wants to reach peace the last year with the two Israeli ministers of the right wing government. There are clear talk about Palestinians and the West Bank and the settlements and removing Palestinians and even putting the rights of life of Israelis in front of Palestinians, even in the West Bank. That made the Palestinians very mad and they don't see any hope. So who will replace who? Right now it's a big question. It's not clear. I'm not sure yet that Israelis will take the full decision and go all the way to remove Hamas. They may do anything else. It's still very early to know, but if they go to Gaza it's going to be a bloodshed again. I'm saying that it's unfortunately. That's what we'll see and that's why my Israeli analyst yesterday, with my talk to him told me it's going to be difficult for Israel to explain what will happen. If it will take days or weeks, then going to be a disaster. So we are back to the same circle of a vicious violence where a lot of victims, mostly from civilians.
Speaker 3:What about Netanyahu? I mean, you know, mr Security, he now, historically, has been the leader in one of the greatest intelligence and security failures in Israel's history. He is seeking a national unity government. The members of the Israeli opposition are very hesitant just to walk into his cabinet and sign up and sign on. The Israeli government looks like it's in massive upheaval, and do you think that it's possible they will get a more moderate cabinet? Or, more likely than that, they will just get a war cabinet?
Speaker 2:Yes, that was my word, dana. It's a war cabinet and I think there is a lot of consultation with the Americans, according to all the reports and the sources, and the Americans want a like United Cabinet to face what's happening right now on the ground and to end this war with Israel winning it. That's the atmosphere in Israel, but changing Netanyahu and changing whatever he's doing. You know, the past year was very difficult with Netanyahu. He's accusing him of being looking about himself. He could pay any price to survive as a prime minister.
Speaker 2:Actually, they believe that he ignored what was happening in Gaza. He was depending on the money that was coming from Qatar. That he thinks that you know Hamas getting money and the people under they are silent. The $100 for each family. It's not going to give hope to people. It's like a painkiller. This lasts for a little while and then it disappear because they never solved the real problem in Gaza. He ignored it. He focused on his voters, settlers in the West Bank, and that's it Today. It's like a situation. He's forced. He wants to cover what happened. He's going to this war cabinet, maybe still today.
Speaker 2:There was a meeting between Gantz, one of the main opposition leaders, and himself. They are talking about the possibility real possibility, of making up such a cabinet, with all the reservations that the opposition have on the right wing elements of the Taniyya's government, but they are going into it. By the way, what's happening in the North today? A little escalation from Hezbollah. Nobody knows where it is going forward from there. Still, it's very minimal, that's not exaggerate, but no one knows what the coming events will fuel.
Speaker 3:You've studied media and coverage of the conflict? You're the perfect person to ask this. If you continue to see these pictures rolling out of the Gaza Strip in the Arab world, and obviously more than what's happening in Israel or in the settlements, all you see now is the horrendous destruction in the Gaza Strip. Can Arab leaders in Arab states stay quiet, or for their own survival, in terms of Jordan and its large Palestinian population? In terms of Syria, in terms of to the North, with the Hezbollah in Lebanon, can the Hezbollah sit quietly or does it come a point where they are going to have to take action? And don't forget, iran is somewhere in the back, pushing different buttons as we speak.
Speaker 2:Actually, let's start from Hezbollah. Let's make it clear Hezbollah from my long years of experience and coverage, including the war in 2006, this group does not operate on emotions. They are tactic and they think and they decide according to their interests, according to their supporters' interests, including Iran. These people are not emotional at all and they think they are now calculating every step they are doing, especially with the movement of the Americans into the Eastern Mediterranean with all the ships and the big barrage. It's a threat only for now, but they are calculating that and Iran is also calculating what's the outcome that they will have. So that's on one side. About Gaza, as in the past, these pictures of today there was start to have these and unfortunate pictures of dead kids in Gaza. If it continues, it's going to be bigger, so it will grab emotions. We know that from the past experience that the Arab world has been through this. So it needs to have a little bit. Maybe, maybe it has to be bigger. Maybe if there will be Palestinian displacement and they cross the border to Egypt with big bars of people crossing crazily and dead bodies and stuff like that, there will be a move which will force, and they think the Americans understand that and they talk to the Jordanians and they are very clear. So there will be a point in the conflict, but when they will stop? So the idea of what the Israeli media are talking, how to do, an operation that will cause them less difficulties, like these one, having the people to rush away, that's not clear.
Speaker 2:What is happening? Last word about the media coverage. The media coverage so far is like running like doing the story. Missal Rekhot. Here they are on the ground, we see in the back somebody's like. They are not going into the. We are in the fifth day of the war. They are still running into the shelters. They are still going on the ground. They are not reporting. They are like detailing what's happening, like from numbers and showing that the reporter is under danger. And they were doing that for a long time. During my years of work, I try all the time to change that perspective, to get into the deeds.
Speaker 3:What you were talking about, because you and I skip over this stuff pretty quickly because we work in that business. But the new generation of reporter has to be under fire. They have to be jumping in a ditch, they have to be dodging a bullet, or there's an air raid or a rocket above them and that's what's going to bring them cable ratings. And unfortunately it becomes a self-promoting drama in some cases, rather than solid, sober coverage of a very important story.
Speaker 2:Yes, you are right and we know that, but some of what I saw in the past two days are very veteran journalists and reporters who've been here many times. Some of them is like based here. They're showing the same story, the same thing, the same perspective about the story. They are not really looking ahead Like our interview today is looking ahead of what will happen in the future in the conflict that was caused by the latest attack of Hamas on all these places along the border with the Gaza Strip. So we are advancing.
Speaker 2:I still don't see this in the international media. I don't see this. I still see that international media reacting to news, reacting to what's happening. I'm not really trying to go advanced and see what. If this happens, if Israel go into Gaza, what will happen? How's the reactions, the losses of people, the victims, the picture? We've been there. We've been there. Hamas, israel went twice into Gaza, even very limited, but there was a lot of casualties. So it is very difficult. But we are trying always to push for a better coverage so people around the world understand what's really going on here, not only see the surface and not go into the actual things happening.
Speaker 3:You're speaking from Jerusalem. I wanna let you go because I've taken a lot of your time. But the last question to you do you run out of hope or do you hold hope that maybe these bad events lead us to something better?
Speaker 2:I hold hope. If I lose hope, I lost it a long time ago. No, I hold hope. My father holds hope, my grandfather holds hope. My friends hold hope. We hope.
Speaker 2:We saw in the past that bad events led to some good things. In the 70s, 80s and the 90s, the situation here was too bad. Then, in the beginning of the last, we had hope for peace deal between Israeli Palestinians. There was a change. I witnessed that in the first hand as a young guy. I started to work in the media in Jerusalem and in the Middle East, so it was a little hope. Then it disappeared on political things, on a lake of compromising one to another, and today we are living actually in a situation of hatred and calls of revenge. So I hold hope that this could change and people around the world understand that it's not good to ignore what's happening here. It's gonna reflect on all of you. So it's good now to step in and try to see how to get hope to the people of Gaza and how to get to hope to the civilians inside Israel. Life continues. Let's change. So this tragic and all these pictures of pain for both sides will end and forever.
Speaker 3:Ibrahim, thank you so much. I couldn't help but be moved this morning when I was listening to a human rights person who was operating out of Gaza and they were doing an interview and he said you know, for kids that are caught under the bombing and the shelling and the constant sound of insecurity and explosions, all they can say is make it stop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they should make it stop immediately. And immediately means now. They should and do whatever they can need to minimize the losses among people and not only Step in. Really don't let it go after if this war ends. Don't let it go. Try to invest in it. It will change the things in the Middle East and will reflect very positively on the whole world, including Europe and the US.
Speaker 3:Ibrahim has been a long time TV producer, journalist and a really terrific analyst on the Middle East and certainly you know you can't talk to anybody better on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ibrahim, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, dana, for this very rich conversation. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3:And that's our backstory on the slaughter by Hamas of Israelis, the largest number of Jews killed in a single day since the Holocaust. The destructive counterattack on Gaza by the Israeli military is a crisis only beginning to unfold and we'll have more on backstory in the coming weeks. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again soon.
