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hello and welcome to press tv spotlight, i'm harzia hashimi, thanks so much for being with us. day 45 has come and gone in gaza, more babies, more journalists and more hospitals have been targeted by the inhumane israeli regime, as cameras are rolling, broadcasting live images of genocide, the regime has actually up the anti by targeting more hospitals, schools and you and... facilities,

why? well we'll look at this and lot more on this spotlight. i'd like to welcome my guests to this program. said mohammad, university professor and political analysts and out of tehron, and scott rither, former un weapons inspector and irak out of bethlehem, new york. well, thank you both for being with. me, like to start this off in tehran. said muhammad, how is it that the israeli regime not only does not care about the growing calls for a ceasfire around the world, but has actually increased its attacks on hospitals, schools and un entities? i think it's a combination of number of things. first of all, it is racist, supremacist regime. it's uh in the eyes of... many former south

african political activists who experienced jail under apartite south africa, it's much worse than apartite, and we've seen for years regime leaders speak about palestinians as of being subhuman after october the 7th we've seen that sort of language intensified, the uh regime is also, i think uh, has lost its mind collectively as a result of october, the defeat on october the 7th, it's sort of like the united states post 911 where they suddenly went and sought out enemies and invaded afghanistan and iraq, and regret it, of they came, i think, i believe that at least the american people, felt that both were

highly regretful, but the israeli regime continues to believe that it can take advantage of this situation as well, i think um they see this as as a historic opportunity, which for netanyahu is of particular importance because he wants to remain in power, if he is removed from power, he may go to jail, let me just jump in here, let me just jump in here, you said they see it as a historic opportunity, an historic opportunity to do what, ethnically cleanse ghaza to get rid of the palestinian people, and to use oc with the seventh as uh an excuse to uh annihilate the palestinian people. well, scott, i mean, when a military has been labeled as a one of the best in the world, but then resorts uh to what we're seeing take place in gaza, dropping bombs on

the heads of civilians, attacking medical facilities. i mean in actuality, isn't the israeli regime showing its weakness, and actually that it does not have. lot of military problems, i mean, how do you see this? well, first of all, let's not just focus on what happened, today and what's happened for the last 45 days. let's start with october 7th. the israeli army was defeated in a stand-up fight against hamas. there's other way to articulate what happened that day. hamas executed what was perhaps the the the greatest military raid uh this century. and this was a military raid, it was not an act of terrorism, it was a well planned out, well executed military assault on an israeli defense establishment, and they defeated the israelis in a stand-up fight, they accomplished their missions, they

humiliated the israelis and what's taken place since then by israel is not a military operation persay, but an act of revenge, israel is not the most moral army in the world as they like to proclaim, they are the most immoral army in the world, the very foundation of their strategic approach towards resolving this issue, the notion of collective punishment is in and of itself a war crime, and everything israel has done to execute this collective punishment uh, is a war crime as well, targeting hospitals, schools, civilian uh targets, this has underscored the fact. that the israeli military, the myth of israeli invincibility, which by the way was shattered in 2006 against hezbolah, and is being shattered again with the ongoing fighting up north against hezbollah, but this is a myth that has been dispelled, no one views the israeli

military as invincible, they have lot of very good technology, lot of very deadly weapons, but the military itself has been disgraced. well, said mohammed, do you think that israel is in reality, destroying itself by acting, with the type of arrogance and this total disregard uh for palestinian lives and and and at least there's supposed to be certain rules of war. yes, and i agree with what scott said, uh, in my opinion, on october the 7th, it was an enormous defeat for the israeli regime, and lot of the accusations at the israelis made against hamas, i think uh, basically they were made to have an excuse to carry out this genocide, such as the 40 beheaded babies, the raped women, more recently, the uh, the scandal surrounding the hospital and the so-called hamas command and

control center and the tunnels, all of these lies uh, they have been exposed, and of course the deaths of the... of israelis at the hands of the israeli armed forces which initially they accused hamas of carrying out all of these i think have uh contributed to uh the israeli regime becoming um more becoming a dimininished army in the eyes of the international community. i think the greatest defeat as was not actually october. seventh or even the resistance that's being put up today by the palestinian groups, i think the greatest defeat for the regime is the fact that they've been carrying out genocide and that they've been lying in a very unprofessional way, they've their lies are so very easily exposed, i mentioned few

them, and so and then western media has also been discredited because they've been trying to uh help them israeli. regime uh make its case and to justify these atrocities, but what they've done basically is the media is discredited itself, the israeli regime has become illegitimate in the... eyes of many who thought it was legitimate, and um, i think even more important than the regime itself, and the western media is that the west has discredited itself, it has diminished its stature in the eyes of the global south and in the eyes of its youth by supporting these atrocities and by repeating these lies that have turned out to be completely false, so the hamas and its allies, islamic jihad have scored victories on october the 7th as scott has pointed out, the resistance over the past few weeks has

been uh extraordinary impressive on on the battlefield, but i think the major punishment, the major defeat that the israelis have had to face has come as a result of their own atrocities, and those atrocities being carried out live in front of a global audience. yeah, well what about that, scott, because you you mentioned. earlier that actually when we talk about the um israeli military and how it was always uh shown as being invencible, but that was proven uh false back in 2006, but 2006 different situation as far as social media, different situation as far as the media, and of course that same mainstream media uh tried not to point out the uh the failure by the israeli regime against of course hezbollah. this time around fast forward we have as said mohammed just mentioned with the social media

um and the failure as he also pointed out not only with the israeli regime and being exposed but also um western media and the western regimes themselves your your thoughts on that and the effects that this is going to have way beyond gaza and the palestinian people of course my esteememed colleague in teran is 100% correct, war is an extension of politics by other means, and if we if we view this conflict purely in military terms, we're missing uh the forest for the trees, israel has suffered a horrific political defeat, it's a debackle for israel, um, and one of the reasons why is they cannot control the narrative, the narrative has escaped them, uh, the media, the... pliant western media that has for so long been willing to parent whatever israel says, whatever the united

states says about what israel wants the world to believe about israel, has been confronted by the inconsistencies and outright lies of the israeli narrative, but more importantly uh we have alternative media, social media that has a far greater reach than anything the mainstream media could hope for, i mean in here in the united states stage cnn, hundreds of thousands of viewers, but if this broadcast goes viral, we can have millions of viewers, seeing this, seeing an alternative point of view, the point is the truth can no longer be suppressed, the truth can no longer be uh hidden, disguised, the truth is out there for people who are looking for the truth to find it, and as a result uh we have millions of people in the streets of cities around the world protesting against israel on behalf of the palestinian people, and i don't

mean to be too, too critical, but i will be extraordinarily critical of the islamic world, of the arab world. palestine had been abandoned, had been abandoned by people who proclaimed to be pro-palestinian. on october 6th, no one was talking the way they are today about a palestinian state, it took the action of. on october 7th, the ongoing resistance of hamas and the palestinian people since then to wake the world up, but now the world has been awoken largely because the truth cannot be suppressed, social media has overtaken mainstream media, and now there's a new narrative out there, and the islamic world, the arab world can't ignore the absolute necessity of a palestinian state, if we are going to be talking about any potential of peace going forward, this was impossible to talk about um in 2006,

today it's the only thing we're talking about, hm, interesting point, what about that said, muhammad, i mean um, when we look at some of the islamic or muslim nations, um, we don't see a whole lot of response in general from the majority of them, but of course as we know, um, the yemeny military yesterday took and israeli um uh cargo ship and also uh got some of the individuals on board and said it was response to the continual um atrocities taking place in gaza and also we know that hezbullah um has been extremely uh effective with their continuous attacks on the israeli regime since uh as said hasan nasir since october the 8th but in the middle we have other um islamic nations that we don't see lot do you think that we're going to see a change in that or because we do have

the people on the ground even in these nation nations or lot of them that. that are calling for more actions by their governments. do you see any type of backlash on these countries? well, i think the more the longer this uh, this the battles rage and the more gazans are are massacred, the more pressure there will be on countries like turkey to make move, so far the turkish government has not close the embasty, they continue to do enormous amounts of trade with israeli regime and they also allow oil from baku to get to israel through their territory, and of course arab governments across the region continue to

have relations as usual, those those that had relations, the only countries that have... moved against the israeli regime in a big way or are yemen as you pointed out of course iran what we see in gaza today is obviously a result of the relationship between iran and the resistance organizations and iran will continue to support those groups and there's iraq of course as well, the attacks on the american basis in syria uh i think are important, but i think at the moment they're more of deterrent the... a sort of reminder to the americans that they should not escalate, they should not get involved, in other words, it's a means to contain the americans, but uh, if countries of the region were to move against israeli regime, if turkey was to make move, or the emirates, if they these countries just stop doing trade and cut off ties, that would be an enormous

blow to the regime, i don't see that happening, unfortunately, i don't see mr. erdogan doing any. substantial, but then again if the pressure mounts, if there is some sort of outrage, of course every day we have multiple outrages, but if something big happens, which is quite possible in the days ahead, it could put the sort of pressure on the turkish government that would force it to make move, but in general the the antagonism towards and this is something that i was alloding earlier, the anta towards the israeli regime is becoming global and the antagonism towards the western political establishment or the collective west is growing and this i think is extraordinarily detrimental to to the interests of the united states, so the longer this lasts, the worse it is for the west, and we have to remember, while all this is happening, the west is

still fighting a war in ukraine, and this is not really sustainable for this global empire, which is... has already is already collapsing and i think this is just going to uh make it much worse and bring the collapse uh closer and uh it is, i think it's destroyed the west soft power. well scott, just getting back to what is happening on the ground, mean we have seen some unbelievable scenes in this month and a half uh coming out of ghaza and especially around hospitals and like the rnx fire missile used in the courtyard of the al-shifha hospital uh, which as you know didn't explode, but instead cut people to pieces. i mean, what is this saying, not only about the israeli regime and using these type of weapons, but of course this was made in the usa, um, i mean if both the regimes, do you think that this is also

helping to wake people up, the depravity of it all? it seems that way, i mean we're headed in that direction, there's still remember the um, the control that the united states and israel had over the mainstream media and the influence that the mainstream media has on um, shaping public opinion in the united states, europe, um, the collective west, is is still quite powerful, it's uh, it's very difficult to uh, to to try and change the narrative. that's been put out by governments and and media, but the inconsistency, what's what makes this easier is the inconsistency of american policy, we're supposed to be nation of norms and values, i know people uh can shake their head and tist tisk at me because the theory has not been manifested in reality, at least not

of late, but theoretically when we provide nation with weaponry, that weaponry should be used only for their legitimate self-defense, and it can never be used in the conduct of war crimes, normally what would happen when a nation abused. used uh the military relationship they have with the united states in such manner, we would freeze military shipments, um, we could even ask for the return of military assets, you point out what happened in 1974 when turkey invaded cyprus, turkey and nato ally was sanctioned by the united states and we stopped selling turkey uh weapons and we put restrictions in the place because turkey had done something that deem to be in um you not in compliance with international law. here we have israel literally executing the military strategy,

founded on the principle of collective punishment. the dahya principle or doctrine named after a west beirout suburb that was leveled by israel in 2006 is part of their collective punishment approach uh towards punishing the lebanese people because israel could not defeat hesball on the battlefield. this has become the strategy that doctrine of israel, everybody knows it, israel writes papers about this, and yet they're executing it today to the letter, and nobody says anything, it is a literal war crime, the same thing with targeting hospitals, israel can talk until it's blue in the face about the hospitals being a military object, but it's interesting because the moment israel invokes the laws of war, international humanitarian law, they expose their crimes, because you can't just say we think there's a tunnel network, we think there's a command post underneath, the issue of distinction under international law, the law of war, requires

you to know with absolute certainty before you take action, and if you don't know, then you must assume that the object is purely civilian nature. now that we have israel carrying out this desperate of you know fishing expedition to try and find something after the fact only underscore. how criminal their action was in targeting the al shifa hospital but let me just jump in here scott because we're almost out of time and you're talking about how criminal it was, but at the same time in the middle of all this united states has given israel more money um more military equipment um and it's still supporting it 100%. so what does it say about washington itself and its overall goals one minute scott sorry we don't have that much time i'll keep it short so - esteememed guest can also say so it says. that we're a criminal regime, that we are culpable in all the crimes carried out by israel, and we will be condemned as such. this is why the world has turned against america and israel, because america and israel have been exposed

as criminal regimes when it comes to what's happening to the people of palestine. and on that note, i thank both of you for being with me on the spotlight, said mohammed marandi, university professor and political analysts out of tehran, scott rider, former un weapons inspector in iraq out of new york. thank you, and thank you viewers for being with us, on another spotlight, i'm marsia hashimi, signing out for myself and other group right here in tehran, hope to see you right here next time, goodbye, this is while israel's occupation forces are perpetrating genocide in gaza, the zinish propaganda machine has gone into overdrive, on the one hand, people see every day children, babies being dragged from the rouble dead and dying or having limbs amputated. on the other hand, israali

leaders and zionist leaders have uh made huge list of genocidal statements, the human animals, the unhuman animals, we must wipe them all out, there are no civilians in gaza, all of these are patently genocidal statements, we talk a lot about hostages, that israel had five. hostages before october 7th, they've now stolen kidnapped another 5,000, so they're over 10,000 palestinians imprisoned actual in in jails, not just the open air prison of gaza, لا اله الا الله لا اله الا الله لا اله الا الله لا اله الا الله والشاهد حبيب الله والشاهد حبيب الله الله اكبر الله اكبر وحده

الله لا اله الا الله لا اله الا الله لا اله الا الله لا اله الا الله حمالات حمالات يا عم بدون حمالات بدون حمالات

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headlines of press tv, day 45 of the israeli war on gaza, some 13,000 palestinians have been killed in relentless attacks on the besieged territory. in retaliation for israeli crimes in gaza, hez bullah hits israeli military. positions including a command base inside the occupied territories and hamas praises the recent seazure of an israeli vessel by the yemeni navy as victory for palestinians.