you're still tuned into the conversation, your weekly alternative probe of political events and current affairs around ireland. i'm joined by our special guests, dr. mark humfries from ireland, israel alants, along with hamza tortis from the sapient institute. do you see, mark i ask, do you see the impact that it's had on jews? of course i do, i'm i look, i, i, i consider myself empathic, the the impact it has has had, of course it's

going to be traumatic, if that's how they perceive things, i'm not denying the impact whether it's propaganda or not, so i do empathize from that perspective, but at the end of the day, i already said, there's been five equillaven and october the 7th since 2008 from number's perspective, from killing innocent human beings, from killing palestinians, why the moral asymmetry, why do you believe israeli blood is more is worth more than palestinian blood, because you haven't even, you're not even bothered to address. no you hold on, you not even bother to address that reality, there are five equivalent october the 7ths inflicted on the palestinians before october, you're talking uh, no, no, first of all, just just be honest, you don't care about palestinian, first, i just care, you don't care, what i want for palestinians, you're racist or ignorant, one of those, you want them to be impressed, and you want them to respond to the oppression in the way that you want, no, no, i've been, i've been clear, i've been clear my whole life, what i want for palestinians. is i want them to live in peace

and prosperity and hold on for me illegal occupation hold on for me the things that the the the fundamental thing that is stopping palestinians and has been stopping them since before they were called palestinians which they a name this emerge in the 60s uh that's not true okay well anyway what the the the thing that is stopping palestinians from living in peace and prosperity is their own ideas. the ideas that are in their heads, now that makes this potentially the opinions, the whole of the palestinians, you know all of the ideas? yeah, let me, let me, let me just try to make the point, which is in some conflicts in the world uh, you just have to fight, you have to keep up the struggle, you've no chance at all, you're being brutalized by some neighboring dictator, the struggle is, perhaps desamaging your country, but if you give up the struggle, you'll you'll just be decimaged even more by the by the dictator. whatever there are there are

many, perhaps most wars in history are like that, you just have to fight whoever whoever is up against you. um, the israel war, i believe is not and never has been like that, the the war between israel and the arabs and then israel and the palestinians is a war where if the palestinians modified their ideas, everybody could live in peace and prosperity, and it's harder to see on the west bank where there is no agreed definite. territory, it was unbelievably easy to see in gaza from 2005 to 2023, all the gazans had to do a stop, and they had a solution, it was right there waiting for them for 18 years, but they wouldn't take it in, instead they wanted to continue the war, they fired rockets at israel, which inevitably brought israel back to to attack hamas, to do aerial bombing because sending in troops on the ground means dead israelis, so they did aerial bombing, they did send in troops, i've

met some of the troops who went in on the ground uh, but they very few went in until 2023, because they cows this way, well because well first, hold on, yeah, no, calm, right, first of all, i'm calm, i said they were nappies, it's a fact, first of all, um, if they go in on the ground, they die, right, uh, any troops that go in the ground die, but also combat on the ground is also very dangerous for local civilians, they die as well too, it just escalates, so so how does this actually present case - you've mentioned some some untruth there, but how does this go against my presentation? we've shown intent and we've shown the actions that support the intent, there's no intent, there's no intent, they said the ministers, people of positions of power, we have over 100 statements including the idf, a general, okay, the people of significant power, think tanks, having genocidal statements and the dumb bombs around 50%. of of of the bombs are not

even laser guided right, just to annihilate everything. okay, well let me let me say few things. okay, let mark just let me say few things of the corbus right? i don't agree with. statmen talking about the malekites and stuff like that, i understand anger and hers and fury on the israeli side, i mean i can feel it and i'm not israeli uh, i can understand that anger, but i don't agree with amalikaish type statements or anything like that, so the the the what you have to look at is what's actually happening right, so what's actually happening compared to those statements, so for example one one of the first things that that that uh then happened was announcement for civilians to get out. i've only mentioned that northern northern gaza right and get into southern gaza and then you just bombed when they're evacuating, you kill them when they're evacuating analysis has proven that, we give the figures for which your uh med have given the swiss uh

monitoring group and they have given the figures of almost 30,000 uh palestinians killed now to to go back to that point uh the boming of northern gaza how can it be said that it was precision bombing when there were that many zivinions killed, i just want to, i just want to get to the core of that, do you believe that's just collateral damage or do israel just believe that's collateral domains or how do we square that circle? okay, so israel says itself the job of destroying the destroying a group uh that controls all the gaza essentially hamas, so so it's an unbelievably ambitious uh job which is is never attempted before to taken in entire territory and wipe out the the uh militant terrorist uh group that's that's in charge of it. now the probably every fact i say hamser is going to challenge but uh you're providing no citations, no evidence, nothing, gaza,

gaza north and south uh is um gaza north and south is is practically an armed camp in the sense that the... the the uh there's a tunnel system of several hundred kilometers, presumably you agree that exists, the tunnel system is going underneath apartment blocks, is going underneath mosks, they found openings to the tunnels in in mosks and schools and in private houses, there was a report there that the idf said that every single mask they had searched so far on the ground, and every single school that they had searched on the ground had either weapons uh or... tunnel underneath it, now you may not believe any of this uh, i certainly believe that's true because that is the way uh hamas would fight, it is the kind of moralogy that hamas would believe in, the tactics that they would use, so it's an incredibly hard job to

to clear out gaza, which is why they've started doing it sector by sector, they wanted to move the population uh uh down to the south, now they're dropping. leaflets, they've divided the south up into zones and the leaflets are saying things like here in this red sector we are going to be, there's going to be fighting and bombing in this red sector today, move along this road into these green sectors, so now it's not very nice for people to live there to be told with the message from the the enemy from the sky, get out of your house and you may never see it again, move down the road, but why are they doing this is the point, if their aim is genocide, and show me any army that would do this in in the history. the word, but this is this is a red herring, this is totally irrelevant, the point is okay, so no, you, why would the gazans believe the idf, when the idf have told them to move, and when they've moved they've been bombed, they haven't bombed them, they have the aero analysis has been shown by independent entities, they bombed hamas fighters, no they

have, well women, children, they children, they both is a child hamas fighter, well is a child a hamas fighter, well if you were saying are 11,00 children hamas fighters, well hold on, genocidal language, dehumanizing language, our children fighting for hamas, our children hamas fighters, and i the are they are they guilty, should they be bombed, should we kill children? is that what you believe? if we know nothing other than it's a child's then they're not a hamas fighter, if they're under 10 years olds, they're not a hamas fighter, if they're over 10 years olds, are over 10 year olds being used by hamas, because i've seen plenty of evidence that they are as spotters, as runners, as carry. of ammunition so basically that language is basically blowing the boundary between a combat language, i'm talking about so you're basically saying it's okay because of that we should kill everybody is that what you're saying well if i was saying that wouldn't i say it rather than you i don't know you've said lot of things without any basis rather than you having to say oh you look let's think about your

framing this is very important the way you're framing it as if there are two state actors that are fighting each other this is this is an this actually it's not symmetrical there's an asymmetry when you're talking about gaza that was left alone in 2005, it's it's still known under international law as an occupied territory. secondly, they control even the daily calories. have called it perverse, degrading and unlivable in many places, so from that perspective, the way you're framing it, you're framing it as if there are two state actors and there's a war, it's not a war, in actual fact israel under international law has no right to defend itself, why? because it's already in israel has no right to defend itself, yeah according to international law, let me explain why after 7th of october can explain should do nothing, i'm not saying that, listen to what i'm saying, listen to they should stop the apartment they stop the illegal settlements, they should stop uh oppressing the palestinians, they should stop killing

children, they should stop forcing prison children, the list goes on and on and on, that's what they should do, you want peace, don't be an oppressor, if you want peace, don't have a party, there are 65 laws that discriminate against arab, israelis and palestinians, we're okay, we're onto new topic every two seconds, are you happy with the partide, hold on, my problem with this, my problem with this debate is there a new topic that we not directly answering my questions, that's i think we out to dig into some topics and go bit slower. i'm happy to discuss all these topics by the way, but new topic every two seconds is a bit hard to cop with. no, i'm just challenging do i think we need to, we need to stick with the the the topic, you're i'm challenging the misfraaming. we need to stick to the topic with which the reasons why you're here, i think we need to stick that. so go ahead mark make your so so look uh uh the there's about 100 trucks a day going into. uh in aid going into in food answering the question, hold on, going into gaza right now, the the the issue,

sorry if we're back to the issue of genocidal intent, well the question is why are these leaflets being dropped from the sky, not just sash, but phone calls as well, there's been several million text messages, many thousands of phone calls because they they're much more humanintensive, there are um accounts from gasens, one one of them was the caretaker of an apartment he said israelis w on the phone with him for two hours explaining who they were attacking, when, why his people had to get out of the apartment abock and when it was safe to go back. now my point is not that absolutely everything israel ever does in a war is going to be perfect and the that can be justified, that that wouldn't be true for any war in in human history, people make errors and people get enthusiastic and people misidentify and people do commit crimes as well, but my... point is that there are too many things that don't fit in with your

simple claim that israel just wants to kill everybody and we start off with all the warnings i didn't actually say that i said genocide is is killing every killing everyone in the territory no but well like for example you you you believe in the armenian genocide right you believe that the ottomans committed armenian genocide is that true uh yeah sure okay but i i don't think we should talk about that 10 minutes maybe inconsistent principles here, because there is no proof of intent for genocide there, yet you believe it's a genocide, also the the other armenians towards the east were untouched, so genocide doesn't mean even according to your own perspective, the risk of discussing it, they drive them to the desert, you're missing the point though, but they want to drive the gazans and they've been starving the gazans too, i'm just showing, i'm showing the inconsistency, it's related to the point about genocide, you believe in a genocide but you can't prove in of a genocide, the point is you have an entity, the gaza strip that

that the israelis have full control over the water, the electricity and the food to the degree that they said they can be only at this many calories per day according to academics, so my point here is how is how is that now a an independent state and your framing of that there is like you know a symmetrical war going on, well well how come and that's my point, so how come how come before 2023 if israel was so evil they were providing electricity and water to gaza how come well yeah if they're so evil but they're controlling it but if they're so evil why didn't they just cut it off before 2023 what wait hold a second providing electricity to gaza yeah but if gaza had its own and that just proves my point so you you you you've actually proved my point which is gaza doesn't have control gaza if israel's providing water and of course, control of gaza, so how can they flourish when they don't have control? gaza before, hold on,

gaza before 2023, of course it didn't a full control of its own territory, i never claimed it did, what i claimed was that there was a ruse for them to peace, prosperity, for example, israel was providing, hold on, hold on, they weren't occupied, israel, no, international law, gaza is considered an occupied entity, even post 2005, hold on, israel, do you believe? international law just not new topic, yeah, it's not new topic, you're making a statement that's making things up, as to say hamza, it's a new topic every two seconds, we no, it's related actually. "they are related, but we'd be, let's let's spend a bit of time in the topic and then go on next, what i'm saying is that fighting an enemy like hamas is unbelievably difficult, no, but your framing, okay, let me explain why this framing is all wrong, number one, i said, i want to justify the point i mention mentioned earlier, this is international law, according to v interpretations of an international law, israel is already an aggressive position

because it's an illegal occupier, and by virtue of that they have no right, the the idea i have a right to defend myself is, well you're already in..." aggressive stance right, so therefore they an aggressive posture, so and from that perspective, legally they have no right, now you could talk about the moral question, that's fine, but leegy they don't have any right to defend themselves because they're an illegal occupier, and you're just framing as is just hamas, not withstanding hamas and islamic jihad, they prescribed terrorist groups according to united kingdom, there are other factions within the resistance that are legal and they using the international right according to according to the geneva convention and and international law to actually resist an occupying force, they actually allowed to resist an occupying force, so my point is my universe, so not in your universe, this is international law, yeah, look, tell you what, yeah, what is it international or are you allowed to resist an occupying force? here, here's here's a question, gas is not occupied, it is

occupied, no, no, no, it is occupied according to international. even because it because israel had control of resources going to be occupied now for decades, listen, this is rhetoric, listen, no it's not, according according to international law, even bec even not withstanding the fact that the israeli settlers left, illegal settlers may add, because israel had control of the population to a degree, electricity, water and so on and so forth, it's still considered as an occupy force according to international. so you can't say it's not occupied because it's still considered occupied, this is why there is a resistance movement, this is why there are valid legal factions resistance movement, there of course there is, it's not just hamas and islamic jihad, there are other factions that are trying to resist to occupy issues since 2005 are all self-inflicted, what gasens could have done was they could have

chosen a different path after 2005, they could have said, well our brothers in the west bank can deal with their own lives, going to pursue our life here, there's a border and that's the way so let's stay occupied right? okay guys, so in all that's been said and to conclude, how do we see, how do we not see? and i'm going to ask you first mark, how do we now see the two state solution and how do we move forward? okay, um, i think the two state solution is dead as a dodo at the moment, um, i say at the moment, the dodo. is not coming back, but dead as a dodo probably for the next couple of decades uh, it was already in severe trouble um in in um the uh second interfader, i think the second interfada really killed off the idea, the idea of two states solution is that some border could be agreed that israel would exist and some palestinian state would exist and that by doing that by

defining borders there would be less war, not more war, now "israelis fundamentally now believe that any such border, no matter what it was, would lead to more war, would lead to herrific war, so let's say some deal was agreed and some israeli government is stupid enough to sign up to uh for some border on the west bank and maybe some settlements were kept and some were closed - and there's some border, the problem is most israelis, i think uh would now feel that that would be another gap" that then heavy weapons would be brought in, perhaps artillery into the west bank, rockets would be coming through 24/7, and everybody would be, all the all the terrorists and jihadists would be gathering in the west bank for the final destruction, the final war to destroy israel, it should be gaza times times 10, gaza was a try run for the two the two state solution, it was it was

a trial run gazans could have ignored israel, they could have lived in peace and prosperity, they could... enjoyed their lives, they rejected that, and uh palestinians of the west bank would probably rejected too, so um uh the two state solution is dead, um, what uh, what happens now, nobody really knows, i i had optimism before, not much optimism, but at least bish before 7th of october, i've no optimism now, um, i had a plan that could be followed that i believed in, and i think many israely... people did or pro israel people, but i don't think we do now, i don't think israel knows what it's going to do when it if and probably when uh later this year it actually destroys hamas, um, it's not going to solve its problems on the northern border in the west bank, it's going to lead to a whole load of new problems in gaza, you are they're going

to be able to stop new terrorist group uh taken over, maybe rebrandish uh, so i don't think israel has some kind of answer as to what it's doing, what what israel has is it's an absolute shock that hamas was able to do this attack on the 7th of october. "it's absolutely determined that hamas will now no longer exist, except maybe in a hotel in qatar, uh, but it will no longer exist in gaza, and as i think i said earlier, whatever we say, that's that's really its plan, but i'm afraid i've no hope really to bring uh, the only hope in this conflict, which i did mention earlier on, is the palestinians change their ideas about the future and about what they want, um, but unfortunately..." "i really see almost no sign of that, and i see almost no sign that their allies, like like hamza in in their allies in the west and around the world are even interested in

getting them to do that, so uh, so i'm afraid there's nothing i can say, the the problem can be easily solved if palestinians decide, we'll just compromise, we'll lose some of our territory, we'll have some kind of state, we live in peace, uh, war with the jews was a bad idea, we we'll put it all behind us like germans in the..." 1950s, but there's no sign of that happening, maybe it'll happen among the gazons, that could be the only possible thing, maybe after the terrible loss of their war, that they'll be like germans in the 1950s and they won't want to to pursue the struggle anymore, in in 2025 going forward, but that's a tiny little crum of hope, i'm afraid i've no hope to give you, i think, yeah, so it's interesting that we have othering language which leads to dehumanization and dehumanization leads to genocide, the palestinians change the ideas, as if we know all of the ideas of the muslim, christian palestinians, the kind of othering

that is happening in your language, and also the citity between war against israel, now war against the jews, is these satuties, these kind of propaganda techniques which are quite in in in fact quite devilish, and you're atheist, so don't take it personally because you don't believe in the devil, but the point is it's a devilish ploy, because well known that the palestinians, muslims as well in general, have never wanted to fight the jews. in actual fact, islam preserved the jewish community. phillip mansel's book, constantinople has a primary source of a jewish rabbi that was expelled from spain because of the inquisition. he said, "come to the land of the turks, rich are the fruits of the earth, we live in peace and freedom." amen cohan, a jewish historian, he's got a book called world within, it's a two volume book, he collects 1ous. records of the judicial records, the sigil records and he concludes that although the jews had the freedom to go to the rabinocal courts, the majority of them or a substantial number of

them wanted to go to the islamic judge because the new justice lived under the islamic principles, he even goes to the manusai and he says women would complain of naf meaning maintenance of of of from their husband to the islamic judge and i could go on and on and zohar you could talk about jihad, true jihad is liberation of people. zain zohar, another jewish historian, he talks about the iberian peninsula, he says, thus, when the muslims crossed the straights of jibralta in the iberian peninsula, the jews saw the muslims as liberators from christian persecution, and if you look at the treaty of the prophet muhammad, upon he peace himself, he had a treaty with the jews, with the jewish tribes and he said they should not be harmed, and they they act as one body. this is unprecedented in history, we're not. fighting the jews, we're fighting zionism. our job is take care of all human beings, to give them dignity, and that's extremely important. if you want peace, they don't have

a partide. you can never have, haven't we learned from south africa? south africa had to dismantle the apartite state in order for peace to exist. you cannot have peace with injustice, you cannot have harmony with injustice, you cannot have peace with apartide, so remove the apartite system. number two, stop. legally occupying someone else's land, stop growing this the the settlements, for example, the academic glenn e robinson in the death of the two state solution, israel, the palestinians and the arab world and the age of netanyahu says the following: the most important reason for the defeat of the palestinian national state building project has been israel's settlements in the west bank and east jerusalem which have strongly promoted been strongly promoted by netanyahu since 2009, the proclusion of any serious future withdrawal from the west bank was the reason why the liquid party put the settlement project on steroids after its 1977 election

victory, the liquids, the liquids. settlement drive was designed to keep the west bank under permanent israel israeli control and had both political and strategic dimensions, the israelis, the government never wanted peace, and it's clear from their actions. also, with regards to the two state solutions, none of the two-state solutions were truly two-state solutions, it was always a subjugated palestinian people always as edward side famously said that it was instrument of palestinian surrender, a... versails, the palestinians have effect in effect discounted the unilateral and international acknowledged claim to the west bank and gaza, and this he was referring to the famous oslo accords that was basically, you know, famously they thought this was a great achievement from the israelis, but in actual fact it was just further subjugating the palestinian people, and they had to basically surrender most of their land that belonged to them. and on that, i want to thank both you gentlemen for coming in today,

mark. hamsa, thank you, and i think there's a lot for us to on pack moving forward. thank you very much. thank you, thanks shaw. and that does it for another week. we'd love for you to join the conversation by sharing the link to the day's program to help us grow our audience across all our social media platforms. i like to once again thank our special guest, dr. mark humpries and hamsa tortis. in the meantime, the conversation will be back next week with more investigations and analysis. i'm sean murray. bye for now.

your headlines on press tv: the israeli prime minister has approved plans to invade the city of rafa and the gaza strip, rejecting new cse5 proposal by hamas. german says it is expanding its operations against israel link vessels in support to the people of palestine and russians head to the polling stations across the country in a three-day presidential election.