tv SPOTLIGHT PRESSTV November 13, 2023 10:02pm-10:31pm IRST
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we are about to embark on the 39th day of unrelenting israeli bombardment of the bissieg gaza strip. 11,420 people have been killed, 4,630 of them children, 3,130 of them women, some 40 journalists, homes, schools and hospitals, un shelters, mosks and churches. there is no safe spot in the 360 square kilometer piece of land. 4,00 people are still missing and presumed under rubble, and yes, 2000 of them are believed to be children as well. all this with western support in terms of weapons, cash and politics, we'll discuss as many dimensions of the atrocities befolling the people of gaza today's episode of spotlight. joining us is jahang muhammad, director at the center for muslim affairs, joining us from doha, and mr. angler. and political activist joining us out
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of montreal as well. hello, gentlemen, welcome to the program to both of you. mr. johane mohammed, we're going to start with you, if that's okay. hope you're safe and doing well out there in doha, your initial thoughts on, we're going to start very uh, basically generally here, the events on the ground in gaza over the past 38 days. well, of course, um, it's a massacker and uh... um genocide, but it's it's more than that, what israel is doing is destroying all the means of livelihood for the people in gaza, which was who were living a pretty grim existence before after 17 years of siege, in terms of malnutrition, in terms of access to water, healthcare facilities, now whatever they've they have, the... state of israel is
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systematically destroying that, ensuring that they can't live in that place, and either have to leave, or when they come back there's no means for them to live, so i think you know, it's a horror that's unfolded right before the world's eyes, everybody can see it, you've just quoted all the statistics about deaths of children, journalists, un workers. uh the list goes on, it's one of the most gruesome crimes in in in recent history, and and yet, the un, which is supposed to be the international body that is supposed to stop wars, has is is not able to do anything, the western world, and particular the united states and the united kingdom are totally behind what israel is doing, they can't even utter word of condemnation or even call for a
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ceasefire um and it's it's just total double standards and brocracy which the world can see, just few just last year we had um the ukraine situation, the war that took place there and journalists were crying, they were showing and humanizing the ukrainian refugees and the the victims of of russia's invasion, and there was you know the the west was holding up a... uh itself as moral of of as bastion of morality, superior values, and now we we have gaza and all those values have disappeared, in fact they're showing totally
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different set of values. thank you, mr. muhammad, and mr. zengler, welcome to the program. now, mr. muhammed said something interesting, he said the regime. is destroying all the people's means of livelihood, why is laying siege to hospitals, wiping out civilian structure, part of the regime's war objective, to what end? i think to the end of uh of colonial master saying that we have to have 20 times more uh victims on the side of the colonized to the end of potentially uh trying to just ethnically cleanse. uh gaza uh possibly to to divide it um there there is israel's been launching these onslotts on gaza for many years they you call mowing the lawn um so israeli violence against gaza is of course nothing new uh the fact that the the besieged
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population actually put up some resistance six weeks ago or five weeks ago um that of course uh scared uh the zionist uh establishment and um they're lashing out uh i do think there are important segments that want to drive out palestinians whether they will be successful on that i don't i don't uh don't know but um this is uh clearly a uh absolut absolutely psychopathic uh regime uh netan yahoo government of of uh violent uh extremists that are uh doing what they what they know best, which is which is uh, which is killing. right, mr. muhammed, anthony blinken, time and again he said this, so as joe biden wants, blinking and said a couple more time, he said, we're very concerned for the civilian life and loss of civilian life
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in gaza. my question to you, us support for the israelis, when it was at $4 billion dollars a year, uh, okay, they use that money, the israeli regime to commit these atrocities, the $4 billion dolls a year, they they're using it to kill. and children in gaza, so when the regime, so when the the the white house gives them another $14 billion dollars, does that basically elicit a concern for civilian life? yeah, they're so concerned that they're giving israel even more bombs to reak devastation on and suffering on the palestinian people and to kill people, so i think this is typical colonial and western. supremacist or white supremacist um arrogance that we've seen time and time again throughout history, um, i may have mentioned this before, but you know during the times of indian colonialism of the british rage, the
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um the suppos or the indian soldiers would be sent on behalf of the british to ravage villages and to destroy the people and and then the british would then themselves, the britain's white officers would come and administer bandages and aid and claim they were the civilized people, it's really your own people who are the barbarians, and this reminds me of that, you know, they can't call for a ceasefire, but they want to present humanitarian front, we've seen it many times in history, we've seen it in bosnia, we've seen it in many conflicts where. on the one hand they kill, they uh, they cause mass devastation, and then on the other hand, to make themselves perhaps feel better or to convince their general public that they really are humanitarian people, then they do
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this, yet at the same time, their language, their politics, the their media, absolutely deh humanizing the palestinian people uh and muslim people, so uh, and that dehumanization is war propaganda, it's done for a purpose, which is to give israel the right to do what it is, to that there is no uh massive uh you know uh backlash that uh nobody feels guilty about what they're doing and and it's a standard we've had this throughout colonialism when the natives resist occupation whether it's the native americans or whether it's the algerians in in france the colonialists can't take it because they but believe they have suppressed these people so much that they must live out this pathetic
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existence uh and if they fight back then you know they they basically uh lash out in the same way as many algerians were slaughtered millions we had the massacres in india uh we've had them in africa you name it every colonial country um they've done the same thing and and of course um "everybody resists is either a savage or a inhuman person, beast or a terrorist, all the colonial, post colonial independent movements, the leaders were parties were described at terrorists, many of them were imprisoned, so this is nothing new, this is what the the the european uh civilizations has produced wherever it went, they want to put the palestine." like the native americans in some reservations, and then you know at some point
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in history they say, look at these native americans, look at these palestinians once, once proud civilization, let's celebrate their culture, and let's do this whilst forgetting everything that they've done to them, to eliminate their way of life. thank you, mr. jahanga, if you could, put that same question, mr. angler, i like to pretty much put that same question to you, cuz it's very perplexing, why are western leaders not addressing the loss of civilian life in gaza with kind of sense of urgency that so many millions of protesters and many other leaders have? i i don't think that nato, us or canadian, us, british, anglosphere, foreign policy cares much about civilian. any circumstance, you can see that in haiti, you can see that in iraq, you can see that in,
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list goes on, so in that sense i don't think it's anything particularly unique, um, what i do think, i mean, the fact that we can see all of this with everyone has cameras now, there's photographic evidence, proof, almost instantaneously, that that is a bit new, i think that is a bit unique in history, in terms of you go back and look at colonial'. violence throughout history, um, so that that's a new dimension. um, what are the factors that explain support for israel? i think those factors have, there's wanning and outpost in the middle east, military aircraft carrier if you like, nation state aircraft carrier that you know has played a role in destabilizing the region and helping the us control the region, there's obviously there's a whole history of christian zionism in canada, christian zionism. begins, the zianist movement begins as a christian movement, 150 years ago and whole biblical
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prophecy and tide in the british empire uh, you have the the israel, pro israel uh jewish lobbies uh that that are powerful, you have the you know sort of settler solidarity element of you know these european settler countries like canada, us, they have a sort of affinity to other settler countries. uh, you have the the the holocaust and sort of the horrors against the european jury and how that's used as a stick against palestinians and and israel, israelis are the perpetual victims even while they're a nuclear armed state, killing 6,000 palestinian children, they're still the victims and that's how it's presented in in in uh, in north american media, so there's there's many factors, they all come together and and um, and there's you know the people, people in canada, again massive demonstrations across the country uh
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yesterday in canada and other places in the world uh people are are appalled by what they're seeing uh but the but the uh power structure is such that um it there's no there's almost no room for um condemning what is so obviously uh condemnable right and mr. jongi uh muhammad. "there was over 300,0 people protesting in london, and and they embarked upon the u.s. embassy, i mean, they could have gone, their own authorities are are supporting this war, the you know in westminster in. london in in paris, there's an israeli embassy consulat, i mean, but why do they embark upon the us embassy in london, i mean we've seen a bunch of us embassies now being targeted, is america losing the social media and the media campaign, image campaign here, i think there's been a sea change, as
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my colleague on the other side has said that there's been social media, you can see things. people can uh see in real time something perhaps in history that they've not seen before, although you know these same things were happening in iraq, in afghanistan, in other places, in libya, so i think there has been a sea change, but i think everybody understands, we no longer get our news from the bbc and cnn, we get our news from around the world, we have access to global uh... news networks and people know um that the us is an active participant in this, they are supplying the weapons, they supply aid, they supply the media propaganda in in the west, on behalf of the state of israel,
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there are political lobby groups that are think tanks, christian zionists, so the whole project. is a western european project and and particularly of two states um the united kingdom uh is if you like the the mother of the state of israel the illegitimate child uh and the united states is the father so the uk they they are if you like the the unholy trinity that uh that that is waging this war. against the palestinians, um, they've never been a neutral arbiter in trying to resolve this debate, this this sorry, this uh, this horrific occupation and war, and uh, the world can see that now, and the reality is, unless the united states leaves the region of
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the middle east, there'll be no peace, and uh, as long as the united states is backing the state of israel, in with weapons, with aid, um, with all kinds of other technological support, with its warships in the region, and you now diplomatic support, political support, then israel will continue, also the the you know blocking of resolutions at the un, then it's a green light to israel uh to to do exactly what it wants. in the region and achieve its objects, so the real the reality is um the palestinians are not just struggling against the states of israel, they are struggling against the united kingdom and also uh the united states. right, and uh, mr. engler, i want to shift uh a little bit and talk about journalists, over 40 journalists um killed, i went to a
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journalist website and that seems to be a record since they started keeping records back in uh... 91 or 92 to have that many in a conflict uh basically killed my question to you we know there was an al-jazira journalist whose wife and children were bombed while they're at home while he was out in the field they were killed uh and this is a day after the us told the network to tone it down in support of so much coverage and support of gauzens my question to you with the slain journalists deliberate or accidental almost for. for sure deliberate, and and in in most cases, that's the case, israels where it's bombing, and it it knows the sites, it's obviously been trying to, i mean, it's trying to intimidate al-jazera, that's very clear, um, and that's didn't just begin after october 7th, that's been going on for a while, um, the numbers on the journalists
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killed are absolutely stunning when you compare it to other conflicts, i was reading an article that said, i think think it was over 20 years in vietnam, i think it was 67 journalists killed, and i believe during world war 2 they said 69, um, i think those were the numbers and now we're 40, 35, 40 days and already at 40 uh, um, this is you know, this is a whole, the same thing with regards to un workers, or also ukraine, i think they said 17 journalists have been killed in ukraine fighting in last 20 months. um so so the same thing goes with un workers, i think it's over 100 now un workers killed, the same thing goes with children right, it's just way higher and there's more children under the rubble. think is like four times more palestin children under rubble than have been killed by uh russia in ukraine uh over the past 20 months i mean this is just off
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the charts in terms of the utter uh horror and destruction and um you know here in canada the the uh the groups that are supposed to defend journalist's rights uh finally i think uh three or four days ago tepid statement critical uh they had a gala about a week ago and one of the... was attended was pauld that almost nothing at the gala in toronto talking about what's going on gaza let alone the journalists being uh killed um so you know and as instances they they've uh killed uh routers i think the in lebanon that israel three or four weeks ago killed a routers reporter um and even how ruuters reported on it kind of like made it obscure about who actually you know killed the their own journalist um so it's uh, it's uh, it's pretty remarkable, and you know, it's just one facet of the incredible bias in the dominant media, but of course technology
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has enabled people to have access to to uh other news than the than the major media in north america, and so this this information does does seeep through, but certainly um israel's braizen attack against journalism. is just one of the many horrors of uh of what's going on in in gaza. thank you ease, and mr. jr. muhammad, over 71 mosks bombed. you see the siege they're putting on al shifa hospital, they're doing it now to indonesian hospital. the indonesian said that we sent our own engineers over there, there are no tunnels under that hospital, it is not being used whatsoever for any kind of resistance um operation or for storage of resistance hardware or or weapon. we've heard that from the imams of the mosks, a handful of churches, what is the actual objective here, when you're going after hospitals or churches or or mosks on this disproportionate amount,
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is this attack on identity, culture, religion, what is the message the regime is trying to send out here by doing this? um, well it's it's collective punishment, and but also it's an attempt to wipe out the culture, identity uh the... places that matter uh and it she evil you know when when if somebody even thinks about mean hospitals are where you know in matters of seconds it's a life or death choice uh and you have babies you have children you have people who are sick uh if you can switch off the power if you can uh think about bombing bombing those places it's it's an act of share evil and of course they uh you know they... justify this by saying hamas have weapons underneath and whatever, which i mean you'd have to be pretty stupid to to to have tunnels and and weapons that
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could accidentally go off in you know underneath hospital or mosk and kill your own people, it's the same, it's de it's war propaganda, it's dehumanization, in other wars we saw it in bosnia where the serbs would say that the muslims bombed them. themselves or they killed uh, they fired at themselves, this is just standard dehhumanization and uh the west accepts it, the media, western media basically promotes it without any kind of critical assessment, it allows israeli and pro israeli spokes people to perpetuate this without challenge and you know it allows commentators to... it allows presenters to do it, because they're all on the same page, they've so dehhumanized the palestinian population, and particularly
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hamas, which is their enemy, that they can say anything, and the western media and and the western politicians will will repeat it and and believe it, it's sorry, thank you gentlemen, both time has gotten the better of us, appreciate both of you joining us on this extent. station here on our spotlight programgier mohammed uh director at the center for muslim affairs joining us from doha and that was eze angler author and political activist joining us out of montreal and viewers thank you for tuning in for this episode of your press tv spotlight stay safe and bye-bye for now.
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