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 un facilities. why? well, we'll look at this. and lot more on

this spotlight. you like to welcome my guests to this program? said mohammad, university professor and political analyst out of tehran. and scott, former weapons inspector in iraq 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 in the eyes of many former south african political act. of

experience jail under apartide south africa, it's much worse than apartite, and we've seen for years regime leaders speak about palestinians as being subhuman after october the 7th we've seen that sort of language intensified, the regime is also, i think 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, 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 an 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 god. to get rid of the palestinian people and to use october the 7th 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 god's 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 um 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 tamas, there's other way to articulate what happened that day. hamas executed what was perhaps the the the greatest military raid of 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.

say, 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 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 of 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, um, said mohammed, do you think that israel is in reality, destroying itself by acting, with the type of arrogance. 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, in my opinion, on october the 7th, it was an enormous defeat for the israeli regime, and lot of the accusations that the israels made against hamas, i think uh, basically they were made to have an excuse to carry out this gent. side, such as the 40 beheaded babies, the raped women, more recently, the uh, the scandals surrounding the hospital and so-called hamas command and control center and the tunnels, all of these lies, they have been exposed, and of course

the deaths of the of israelies at the hands the israeli armed forces, which initially they accused hamas 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 the 7th or even the resistance that's being put up today by the palestinian group. 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 of them, and so and then western media has also been discredited because they've been trying to uh

help the israeli regime uh make its case and to justify these atrocities, but what they've done basically is the media 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 major victories on october the 7th, as scott has pointed out, the resistance over the past few weeks has been 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... 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 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 uh hezbullah. this time around fast forward we have, as said muhammad 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 palestine. people, well of course, my esteemed colleague is 100% correct, war is an extension of politics by other means and if we if we view this conflict purely in military terms were missing uh the forest for the trees. israel has suffered 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. the media, the compliant western media that has for so long been willing to parret 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, cnn, hundreds of thousands of viewers, but uh, if this broadcast goes viral, we can have millions of viewers, um, 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 uh against israel on behalf of the palestinian people, and i don't mean to be too um too. but i will be extraordinarily critical of the islamic world, of the arab world. palestine had been

abandoned, had been abandoned by people 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 hamas on october 7th, the ongoing resistance of hamas in the palestinian people since then to wake the world up, but now the world has been awoken. largely because the truth cannot be suppressed, uh 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 uh in 2006, today it's the only thing we're talking about. hm, interesting point, what about the? said mohammed, 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 yemeni military yesterday took an 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 nas said 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. or lot of them 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 the battles rage and the more gazons are are massacred, the more pressure there will be on countries like turkey to make move, so far the turkish government has not closed the embassy, 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 continued to have relations as usual, those those that had relations. only countries that have moved against the israeli regime in a big way are 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, i think are important, but i think at the moment they more. more of deterrent, there are 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 "if countries of the region were to move against israele 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 anything 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 alluding earlier, the antagonism 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 uh extraordinarily detrimental to to the interest 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 uh, this is not really sustainable for this global empire, which is has already, is already collapsing, and i think this is just going to 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. i mean, we have seen some unbelievable scenes in this month and a half uh coming out of gaza, and especially around hospitals, like the rnx hellfire missile used in the courtyard of the alshafa hospital, 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 in using these type of weapons, but of course this was made in the usa, um, i mean if both of 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 you know 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 uh, and media, um, but the inconsistency, what's what makes this easier is the inconsistency of american policy, you know, "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 um in

the conduct of war crimes, normally what would happen when a nation abused." 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, i point out what happened in 1974, 75, when turkey invaded cyprus, turkey and nato all, 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 we to be in um not in compliance with international law. here we have israel literally executing a military strategy, founded on the principle of collective punishment. the dahya principle or doctrine named after a west beirot 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 a strategy, the 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, fishing expedition to try and find something after the fact, only underscores 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, you're talking about how criminal it was, but at the same time in the middle of all this, the 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 - esteemed guest can also say so. it says that we're a criminal regime, that we are collable in all the crimes carried out by israel and we will be condemned to 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 this spotlight, said mohammad marandi, university professor in political analysts out of tehran, scott ridder, 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.