Will Trump Split From Israel Over the Gaza Genocide? Israeli Journalist on Netanyahu’s War Crimes

# GIDEON, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR JOINING US.

For Americans who are distracted by what's happening in Iran and with the US economy and by so many other things, can you bring us up to date on what is happening right now in Gaza, the West Bank, Judea Samaria, and Lebanon?

It's a war with some interruptions. It's a roller coaster. You go to sleep in Tel Aviv with a ceasefire. You wake up in the morning with ballistic missiles over your head.

Gaza is leading and totally forgotten. I guess we'll have the opportunity to talk more about Gaza, which is very dear to my heart.

In Lebanon, Israel is fighting for nothing, without any purpose. People are killed, villages, all villages are being destroyed systematically—very similar to Gaza. Israeli soldiers are killed on a daily basis almost and the whole thing seems like an ongoing war without any purpose, without any justification and above all without any endgames, any real goals.

What will stop it except this desire to fight and to fight and to fight and to kill? What is the point?

>> You say there's no point to it, but it clearly is part of a larger strategy. I would assume. I mean, it's got to be. What do you think the bigger point of this is?

>> So, first of all, Israel was brought to believe that it is doomed to live on its sword. That the only language that we can talk in this region—as we are the fish in the jungle, so to say—the only language that we can use here is the language of military power and as brutal as possible. This was before Netanyahu. Many things, by the way, were before Netanyahu. Netanyahu intensified those things, and today the only language clearly that Israel is speaking is the language of war.

Anything can be solved only by war. Nothing can be solved by any other way like diplomacy, compromises, etc. And here we are involved in so many fronts.

You know, Taka, there are around six million people in the Middle East who were expelled from their homes, who are uprooted. Part of them will never see their homes again. Two million in Gaza, one million in Lebanon. For a while there were also two million in Iran. Not anymore. But think about this: all of them because of wars of choice. All of them because of a very violent policy of Israel, which might here and there have the justification like after the 7th of October.

Another thing that I think we'll get into—but the proportion, the scale, and where are we aiming? Where are we aiming for God's sake? Is Israel today a better place? Is it a safer place than 2023? Is it more popular in the world? What did we gain out of all those wars?

And unfortunately, Taka, those questions are hardly being discussed in Israel. And this in many ways depresses me almost more than the wars itself. The fact that a whole people—ten million people—very intelligent, very ideological and with very clear views go to all those wars blindly and automatically without asking ourselves why, what for, what do we gain? Put aside the moral side. Let's say morality is for, you know, spoiled Gideon Levys or leftist self-hating Jews. Practically, are we living in a better place? The answer is unfortunately not.

You can add to it obviously, Taka, the all the personal motivations of Benjamin Netanyahu, which in my view are not exclusive. They are not the only ones. There are those, my friends, who think that he does everything only for his career, only in order to stay in power. I give him more credit because I think he has an ideology—a very dangerous one—but he has an ideology which motivates him as well.

But no doubt that those last wars serve first of all his personal interest. He's doing very badly in the polls and here he comes with another war, war after war.

I want to ask: why did we have this lead to bomb in Beirut two days ago? What did we achieve by this bombardment? Israel achieved anything out of it except provoking Iran and then we got this sleepless night last night with dozens of ballistic missiles over our heads. No one talks about it. No one asks it. And it's quite depressive to live in a society in which the main issues are not discussed. We discuss the wife of the prime minister. We discuss all kind of gossips. We don't touch the core of the issue.

>> I live in a country very much like that. So I know the feeling.

Well, um, but just to stay on the point that you made about the practical effects of this—leaving aside the moral stain, whether it's the right decision ethically or not—but as a practical matter, you have to wonder how many wars a country as small as Israel, just physically small, with a population that small and an economy that small, just a little country, how many can you fight before you risk, you know, real retaliation, risk your own existence? I mean, how dangerous is this?

>> Fortunately or unfortunately, Israel is a regional superpower from the military point of view. And no other country in the Middle East can beat Israel. They just can't. If they could, maybe they would. But Israel has still a very, very strong army with devices, technology, ammunition and arms that your country was kind enough or too kind to supply Israel blindly and almost without conditions or limits.

And Israel has the military answer almost for any challenge. And this is on one hand obviously very good because we are safer. On the other hand, it corrupts also a country because it let Israel go wild, to go to all kind of military adventures knowing that by the end of the day we are not endangering the existence or all real assets. But because we are always stronger and we won all the wars militarily, we lost them all politically.

>> Is there a concern that the United States in the next, I don't know, five or ten years might begin to withdraw its unconditional support for Israel?

>> You say five, ten years and I would say five to ten months.

>> Yes, I agree with you.

>> It's happening right now. I think that we are reaching a stage in which we will face a major shift in US policy toward Israel. Biden was the last Zionist, so to say, president. Donald Trump was the last one who accepted almost all the ideas, the craziness of Israel. And until now, we still have time to see, but until now, he went along with the Israeli psyche.

But the next president, whether he be Democrat or Republican? One thing is sure: those relations will be challenged more or less, but they will not go anymore automatically and blindly. Maybe the aid will continue, but at least it will be conditioned.

The problem is that it's—you know what, you want to supply Israel. You think that Israel is the country that is in need more than any other country in the world and you want to supply it with everything like any country in the world. Fair enough. Put some conditions, put some conditions according to the American interest.

Israel is not following neither the international law nor the American advances for many many years.

United States is speaking about the two-state solution for decades and Israel is just ignoring doing anything possible to sabotage this idea.

I think this is over and it's question of months not of years maybe still in Donald Trump's time maybe the next president and then Israel will be in a real problem because without the United States in its current position this will be a challenge that Israel never faced before in my view much more dangerous and existentially dangerous than the nuclear of Iran.

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I agree with that. Do others in Israel see that coming? And what do they think of it? What is the view of the United States and Donald Trump in Israel?

So Donald Trump, as you know, is more popular in Israel than in the United States.

Yes.

Actually he's more popular in Israel than any other place in the world. It can change obviously if he will change his attitude and the problem is again that the Israeli discourse does not touch those questions. We don't speak about the occupation. We don't speak about the apartheid. We don't speak about our relations and our dependence on the United States. You know, we are now in a stage of dependence which we never faced before. I don't think Israel ever faced such dependence on the United States because all the rest of the world, you know how is treating Israel and what do the majority of the people in the world, what do they think about Israel? Polls show what a pariah state is and in many ways rightly so. And here comes the United States and if the United States will change its policy, what will Israel do? How will it go on even military, not to speak votes, politically in the international arena.

Europe is just waiting to get a green light from the United States to change its policy toward Israel. Europe is paralyzed because of the fear of Donald Trump and the United States. Once the United States will shift its policy, I'm sure that you will see big major shifts also in Europe because the public opinion is by far more hostile toward Israel than the governments in Europe. This will have to be expressed by policies, by real measures, not only by articles in newspaper.

So we are facing a really horrible challenge in the coming months not in the coming years and there is no one to deal with it. We still think that we can do whatever we want. And this sort took such a boost after the 7th of October. Israelis tend to believe that after the 7th of October we have the right to do whatever we want and this is very dangerous.

Yes.

That it's interesting. Everything you said is very clear from here. Um it matches my perceptions exactly. But you say no one is saying this out loud in Israel?

And if he says nobody would listen.

Yeah. No. Look, major principal issues are not discussed in the last three years. You cannot express it. We are still victimizing ourselves about the 7th of October. We are still victimizing ourselves as the David against the Goliaths. The whole Arab world wants to exterminate us to push us to the ocean and we still believe that we are the chosen people.

Yes.

If you will scratch under the skin of every Israeli I believe secularists and religious, you will hear again and again. No, no, we are better. We know better. We are better. Take for example the international law. Israel is very much in favor of the international law. It was brought to the world after the Holocaust, after World War II. Israel is very much in favor of it, but it is not a Bible about Israel because we are a special case. And therefore, the international law cannot be applied to Israel. And if you dare to apply it to Israel, you'll be labeled as an anti-semite. How dare you? We are a special case, Tucker.

And this way of thinking must bring Israel to very dark alleys, to very dark corners which I don't know how we'll get out of them. And I'm sorry that I'm so pessimistic but the last three years we went too far. Too far.

Yes.

Well, you see this with individuals and not just countries. It's called hubris in English. And it usually doesn't end until there's a lot of suffering and people wake up from their delusions. I mean I think it happens to every man. It's happened to me and but it happens at the scale of a nation too. It's sad.

So let me ask you about Gaza. What is the point of Gaza in the US? Our media says the point is to dismantle Hamas which is a terror organization, effectively illegal in the United States to say nice things about Hamas. What is Hamas from your perspective? And is the war in Gaza or the military bombardment of Gaza designed to end Hamas? Is that true?

No, Tucker.

And this is a conclusion that I came to just recently. It's very clear for me that the war in Gaza is a war to crush the Palestinian society in Gaza and finally also to make them leave.

Now, how do I know it? The matter of fact is that Israel is opposing any kind of deal about Gaza. It's not that they don't want Hamas, but they don't want also the PA. They don't want an international force. They don't want nothing. They want the people of Gaza, over 2 million people, both of them living now in tents. I have some old age friends who are living now two and a half years in a tent without electricity. Close friends. One of them is after a stroke lying on the ground on the sand for two and a half years now without his medicines. I mean I can't describe you his agony, his suffering. Israel wants to crush the society.

You know, to make them, you know, a bunch of handicapped, wounded, traumatized society without leadership, without any functional society, any functional institutions. Why are we opposing that? Hamas will run the civil life in Gaza. They are the only one who can do it right there. There is no one else. Why can't they be the teachers? Why can't they be the lawyers, the judges, the street cleaners, the policemen?

No, we say no because we don't want all this to exist.

We want anarchy there.

And then will come the real wet dream of some Israelis—not all of them—to get to the real... I don't want to use the word final solution, but to get to a real solution which will last, namely to push them to the south and then from the south to try to find them another place on earth which they will never find.

But you cannot explain otherwise the attitude of Israel towards solving the problem of Gaza.

Israel would have really liked to get a solution. She would have had to come up with an idea of how to make Gaza a livable, viable place and society. Israel is doing all the opposite that it can—crashing the society. And I'm afraid that the next stage will be the West Bank, crashing the Palestinian people, and not only militarily, making it a non-society because many Israelis truly believe that it's either us or them. And I believe it is us and them, but I'm very lonely in Israel now.

If the government of Israel were to succeed in expelling almost 2 million Palestinians from Gaza and then took it over, does anyone believe that is itself a solution? I mean, it's obviously a crime, but the long-term repercussions from that will destroy Israel. It would seem to me that just as a practical matter, that seems insane.

>> Why?

It worked very well in 1948. The first Nakba—the first Nakba was a hell of a success. We expelled over 600,000 Palestinians. We destroyed all the villages. We didn't leave anything except some mosques and some graves. All the rest totally destroyed. Covered it up with trees and nice parks. And it worked. And me, as a child growing up in this place, born here, growing up here, you know, the first time I heard the word Nakba was when I was 20, 25. I never asked myself, what are those ruins around me here and there in Tel Aviv, in other places? Never thought that maybe someone owns it. Maybe someone is living now in a refugee camp instead of his home. Those things were totally oppressed and were not legitimate. Until now they're not legitimate. So the first Nakba was a head of a success. Why not to continue?

I mean, for those people, I don't say the majority of Israelis want this to happen. The majority of Israelis have another disease, namely being apathetic and indifferent. But the right-wingers for sure they want it to happen, and they are the only decisive part of the society. The settlers, the right-wingers, the fascists, they are the most powerful and most active. They have at least a plan. What plan do the leftists in Israel have? The Zionist left. What do they suggest as the alternative? Now the opposition—what is their idea? What is their plan for God's sake? They are opposing a two-state solution. The others say—they say the head of the opposition yes—say that not in the coming 10 years, another 10 years, which it's not coming. And meanwhile, I believe that the two-state solution died long time ago. We missed this trade. But in any case, what do you suggest? What are we suggesting to 7 and 12 million Palestinians who live between the river and the sea, together with 7.5 million Jews who are living between the river and the sea? What are we offering them? Apartheid forever. The right wing at least claim, yeah, we'll expel them one day.

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Where do they imagine millions of Palestinians will go if they're expelled? That's the weak part of their fantasy because they don't believe they will find the place they were looking for. As you know, even in recent months they looked in Somalia and Eritrea and God knows where—Africa, all kind of places. We give them money and we'll send the person. It didn't work and it will never work. I mean, no country in the world will accept millions of Palestinians. No way. Egypt doesn't want to get them. Obviously, and rightly so. Jordan had enough with the refugees of 1948. Lebanon had enough from the refugees of 1948. They have no place to go.

But the fact that this idea is motivating the present is by itself very dangerous. Maybe finally it will end up like the Native Americans, you know, totally forgotten, be in all kind of reserves living without any heritage, without anything in common. A bunch of people who lost their identity. Maybe this will be the end of most of the Palestinian people if it will go on like this.

>> Is the United States government doing anything to restrain Israel in these plans that you can tell?

>> I think the United States is a full partner. Look, we cannot think that what Israel is doing, knowing the dependence of Israel on the United States—we cannot say that the United States is opposing it. You know, all the big liberal presidents, above all Barack Obama, with his wonderful, wonderful speeches and ideas. I had tears in my eyes when he was elected. What did he do? Did he stop Israel? His military aid was bigger than any other president, unconditioned. So the United States is a partner for everything. If we talk about genocide in Gaza, the United States is a partner, if you like it or not. It's not the main partner. Our accountability above all, but you know, they supply, they support, and they could do differently. It's not like you say some country in Africa who wants to stop a genocide but it can't do anything. United States has the skills, has the leverage to stop, and he never, never did—not the settlements. When did the Americans stop the settlements, which is much more innocent than genocide?

>> What did they really do to stop the settlement project?

They could in one form put an end to it.

One phone call in which they would say "I'm oversimplifying it," obviously. One phone call saying, "Listen, if you build one more settlement in the occupied territories, there's no aid to Israel, period." And in those days, the settlement movement would have died. But there was no president to do so. So the United States—if you speak about the settlements, United States is a partner. If you speak about the war in Gaza, you may agree with me that it was genocide or not, it doesn't matter. The United States is a partner, a major partner with moral responsibility.

Yes.

Everything you're saying is true and provably true. These are not opinions. These are facts. What is up for debate is: why has every US president since Harry Truman in 1948 gone along with this? Why has there been no meaningful condition attached to any of this aid, military and economic? Like, what is this? I think it's up to you to answer, Ter.

For me, it's a big mystery, really. There were years in which I really felt that we don't know who is the superpower between the two. Yes, there were those years that Israel really put the United States in its small pocket, as we say in Hebrew. Totally ignoring—you know, totally ignoring advice, condemnations, threats—totally ignoring it, doing whatever it wants without any restraint. And I asked myself: how come, with all this money and political aid, the United States is paying a hell of a price for the support to Israel? And again, please continue to support, but put some conditions to this. I have no answer. It's a mystery.

You know, to say that it is the Jewish lobby will be oversimplification, because it cannot be that one minority is so powerful. Not only is it anti-semitic, but I don't think it can be the full answer. Yes, the Jewish lobby was very powerful for many years—not enough. The United States does not share the guilt feelings of Europe. There, the guilt feelings about the Holocaust are very influential and stay in the back of the mind of any politician in Europe. In the United States, you don't share any guilt feelings toward Israel. I don't know. You should answer this.

>> For me, it's a mystery.

>> I don't have an answer myself. Um, and I agree with you. AIPAC is very powerful. AIPAC is disgusting from my perspective, but they're not powerful enough to do what we're seeing now. So I agree. Um, I only have theories, no real answers, but it is a question that we should be thinking about, I think. Um, what is the plan for peace, do you think, in Gaza?

>> Yes. The president has announced this international board that's going to run Gaza to redevelop it as a real estate project and put in casinos and make this beautiful new world. Um, he has said—but I think most Americans are confused as to what this actually is. Do you have any idea?

>> No, and there is no idea. There were very nice ceremonies. As the president—like, did they renovate one house in Gaza? We are now almost three years. One house was renovated. One institution. One person in Gaza can say that he lives a human life now—one in the entire Gaza street. I don't know what they do, but I know one thing: as long as we will not see facts on the ground, it's meaningless.

There were so many so-called peace councils before. With any attack of Israel, any major attack on Gaza, there was always a huge conference somewhere in Europe or the United States with—I say—a lot of promises to rehabilitate Gaza, to bring a lot of investors to Gaza, to rebuild Gaza. I myself, personally, I was once—I will never forget this day—invited to a launching of a new hotel in Gaza, which was supposed to be like a resort place for Israelis. Two weeks later started another war, and the place was totally destroyed.

So all the talking about rebooting Gaza is not valid, even if the money is there. And the money is also not coming there because there is no political plan for Gaza. It's very nice, your good intention to build casinos there, but first of all: who is going to run Gaza? Will Gaza be a free place? This is the first question, not the last question. First of all, guarantee the freedom of Gaza. It is impossible that 2.5 million people will not even have citizenship. Tell me, Ter, which people in the world live without citizenship of any country? The most oppressed people live with citizenship. Those people in Gaza have no citizenship, no passport of any country. Is it sustainable? Is it acceptable? We are in 2026, and this phenomenon will continue again. It's not only that they don't have it—there's no plan for the future, no vision, nothing. So I cannot take it seriously.

By the way, like also, this horrible aid organization that the American had before—as you know, I saw your unbelievable conversation with Dr. Minard, the British surgeon from Oxford, which you talked with in my view, and really a shaking conversation. I was so shaken by this conversation of you and him. Listen to what he has to say about this organization that was supposed to bring food to Gaza. How many people lost their lives on the lines to this food from America Initiative? So this will not be the solution. You first of all have to make Gaza a free place, and then you have to find a way to let Gazans run it by themselves. They are human beings like any other human being. Let them build their own institutions. They deserve it.

By the way, I agree so much with Dr. Milard because he described in your conversation how much he loves the people of Gaza. If there is one place in the world in which I would love to be one more time in my life, it is Gaza. I mean, I know that for most of the Israelis, this sounds insane. But I wish more Israelis would have met the people of Gaza, the courage of Gaza, the sense of humor of Gaza. But you know, if I say it in Israel, they think they'll hospitalize me.

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Is there a sense within Israel of what's happening in Gaza? How many people have died in Gaza?

>> No sense and no interest.

It's very interesting because Israel, as you know, has a free media, a free press, most of it privately owned.

And we are free to write whatever we want. I'm the best example. I have total freedom of speech.

The problem is that because of commercial considerations, they want to please their viewers, their readers, and not to bother them. This goes on for many years.