the, the, there is literally no good news coming from the war and gaza. more civilians have been killed there since october 7th of 2023. that in any conflict since the 2nd world war, the stated is really goal, of course, is to destroy from us. most observers, including senior, is rarely political and military leaders. acknowledge that that's impossible from us numbers don't carry around identification cards after all. what begin for most is released as a right just more to protect themselves and to free their hostages has become myers and accusations of genocide and murder of starvation and displacement. and no, it threatens the very political future of benjamin netanyahu. the longest serving prime minister in israel's history. i'm john to reaku. welcome to the whistle

blowers the . 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 the united nations officials, humanitarian organizations, and journalists on the ground have described guys as hell on earth. there's no clean water. there isn't a single working hospital. the area is on the brink of wide spread starvation and more than a 1000000 people, half of the population are internally displaced. he's talks between the israeli government and how much come in fits and starts, but they never really seem to amount to anything. and many is really is for a long time, could not understand why and is really government that in the past has been willing to trade 500 or even a 1000 palestinian prisoners for one single is really hostage was this time willing to just let its hostages sit in limbo and how much those hands. and at the same

time, reports of leaked out of israel, of atrocities against palestinian prisoners in his really presence they are deliberately starved. for example, there's no medical care. they're not even permitted to walk and instead have to crawl everywhere on their hands and knees and many are beaten mercilessly. now we're learning that the situation may even be worse, much worse is really media led by the newspaper heartbeats have recently confirmed that the is really military had deployed. it's so called hannibal directive, which allows the military to use what it calls all necessary force to prevent the capture of soldiers, even if that force results in the depths of civilians, including is really civilians which means hostages. the directive has been around for almost 20 years, but until recently it was a closely guarded secret. now that the information is out there for. busy to see, it has led to a debate over whether these really army is actually trying to free hostages,

or merely to kill more palestinians. our guest today is the esteemed journalist richard silverstein. he writes for, keep going. all um, the foremost blog covering is really national security issues. he is also a contributor to the middle east. i jack of been magazine, the new era, and i'll just 0. his work also has appeared in the new york times. the richard, thanks so much for being with us. thanks for having me, john. great to be here. i'd like to begin with something of a broad question. richard, what makes this more different from any other war that is real, has fought against a non state actor. there have been difficult years long wars against has been love for example. why is this one so much more difficult and why is it so much more violent? this war started with this particular aspect of the ongoing decades long war

between is their own palestinians. started with a mazda attack on israel and october 7th. that was devastating. the puncture to all mess services really, and in invincibility, that broke through billions of dollars with savanna 6 technology designed to prevent just section attack resulted in the killing of $1100.00 is relays. 400 of whom were security agents and i, the soldiers this had never happened to israel before. uh, in this kind of fashion. so is the surprise attack carried out in, in broad daylight. actually, after the fact, israel discovered that several of its intelligence operatives had worn their superiors that plan how much was planning this and their, their warning was ignored. so as

a result of this shocking and his flow to these really psyche, the government decided that they had to react in a massive fashion. the one that had no proportion in terms of the damages, the actual damages did to israel. and that resulted in the genocide that we're finding here in which we're at close to $40000.00 guidance murder, a man that explains why he is really responsive. so different than all the previous invasions of whatever and on, and tax advisor and similar kinds of operations in the past. tell us what's happening inside the israeli government. this is the most right wing government. it is really history and indeed several ministers have previous criminal convictions for anti error of hate crimes. and for the most part, these are the ministers who are in charge of security is the, is it,

these ministers who are influencing prime minister netanyahu on the conduct of the war is it is really public opinion. it's guiding policy or didn't netanyahu need no outside pressure? to launch a war that has focused so heavily on civilians and has been accused by the international court of justice of, of genocide in the answer to your 1st question. i think to that it's a martin vera who's the grease minister. and the one of those said, you mentioned that who asked me to victory a believe 8 times in a different instances of anti of incitement. and it's all a smoke church who actually administered controls all of a sudden an activity on the west bank. and who when he was younger, was arrested by that sion batch and found with an explosive device in his car. this was during the withdrawal from cause i know 2004 by israel and

he planned to detonate his explosions device on the aisle on highway which is the major highways until the he was arrested and held for 3 weeks and refused to answer his interrogators and he was eventually released, so we have to really, i call him is really jewish terrace. and they are running the security operation in israel. and this is why these really police have become so vicious, not just a palestinian. so of course they've always been rich too, but they were attacking protested, they're attacking the families of the kid that the the hostages were protesting against the lack of a ceasefire. and that's, i mean i was refusing to agreed on seats fire. so if they're using whips out a recent horses with whips, and they're whipping the protesters. so this is

a violence mass violence, at least by the is really the state against the is really the citizens themselves. i think that the government is impermeable to a political grassroots action. there have been before the war started, there were weekly rallies of hundreds of thousands of his remedies, opposed to the government as rarely, sewer. choosing the remedy a certain being corrupt, any faces for indict he's indicted on 4 charges of corruption and they haven't been adjudicated. and there's no reason that nets and you don't have to pay attention to this or did pay attention this you only constituency a has just been clear and, and smoke just because they control his coalition. if they withdraw, they resign from the coalition. there's no government. and attorney, i'll ask you about elections and he will be vulnerable to the court cases,

which are for some reason it's in, i've been phrased this way, but they seem to have been put in advance while he is prime minister. so the war itself is critical to him, remaining was prime minister with no war. we referred to a status, quote, antiques and go back to the kinds of protests and unrest that happened before 17 and, and he is, is a read. this is the reason why he refuses to read is his fire is the reason why he's given the hostages short trip, which is on, which is unforgivable. busy and also unprecedented in this early history, for a leader of the government to have no concern for the opposite just course he mounts concern, but he does nothing and refuses every opportunity to negotiate a ceasefire. and by the way, present invite announced

a week or 2 ago with fanfare that her boss had softened its demands, and that there was no new promising bases for cease fire. as soon as that happened, the time jago announced 5 new dive as that from us could never be to. and this in effect has sabotaged and killed the latest attempt to cease fire. richard, let's talk about the hannibal directive. this is a story that you broke. this came out of the 1986 war against has by law and was formerly implemented about 20 years ago. it has been a secret until recently, and the bottom line is that it's significantly changes the way the public sees, the government's commitment to is really hostages. so actually, let's start with that. is the israeli government still committed to rescuing hostages? or is the prime directive now to not be taken prisoner and to just kill palestinian combatants even if it means killing is really hostages. let's talk about the animal

directive and give some background what it entails is a policy that the idea of follows in war time. this is how it originated, follows in war time to prevent the idea of soldiers from being captured by uh from us. um and this uh, i started reporting this 10 years ago during operation protective edge which was in to that of 14. and that uses the invoking of the animal dog, the doctor, and actually ended up killing to heidi of soldiers who are being carried back to gaza. or carrying away from their units and into captivity of the ideas, not only killed or 2 soldiers, but it destroyed the neighbor. and if she die, which is where the hostages were about, as the captives were about to be taken,

literally mass destruction and the entire neighborhood was destroyed. and this is similar to what happened in new sierra to about 2 weeks ago when the israel, when the idea of mounted a rescue operation there and st. 4 of the hostages in order to do that. and to prevent from us from initiating a counter attack which they were doing to stop the rescue. they basically went in and carpet palm neighborhoods and they killed nearly $300.00 a palestinian civilians in the process and succeeded in releasing or free for on those hostages. hannibal is heinous and it fits because it's the a one of the 1st episode is one of the 1st pieces of evidence i've seen of the military of the country willingly, unintentionally murdering its own soldiers. that was 2014,

bringing us up to date to 2024 on on october 7th, actually at 2.23. the worst on for 9 months time flies. but in uh on october 7, they expanded hannibal and they said that we are going to invoke it to jo is really civilians. these were civilians who were being sped and jeep stacked towards kaiser after being captured in israel during the invasion by moss. these were soldiers who had been captured on that basis in southern israel, and we're being taken back. the reeds were in another instance, an id, a general commander, the tank to fire shell point blank into a home in a few boards where they knew there were hostages is really civilians, along with some us fighters. and instead of negotiating, we're trying to figure out a way to previous railings,

they actually killed. thank you, richard. we're going to take a short break, and when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with richard silverstein, and we'll discuss new reports. that's a palestinian death toll maybe astronomically higher than what has been previously reported state to. we have a lot more coming up. 2 2 2 it's, it's almost like almost depletion in the west, but this whole idea of, with my, to the last your brain in that some truth behind it. i mean, think about it for the american, the $60000000000.00 for the reason. a package, not a lot of money. a lot of money stays within the united states in terms of the defense contracts and the like and pulled out money. that's good side by side like for along the wall. but keep russia busy. you know, this is the, ultimately, this to what the west is doing is all about you know, trying to preserve west to the hague,

him and the, the of wanted to come here since i was 121. my grandfather told me that his mom came from russia that we were, i was part russian. i didn't plan on staying this long. i was gonna look around. i was gonna see if it was for me. but then i came. and then i was like, i remember when i go home, i've never been happier in life than i am here in russell the i've only lived here a few months, but i wanted to tell you what fascinates me about russia and share the stories of other foreigners who lived here like jay who worked as a chef and now raises godes and makes cheese in the countryside series. like chad who has been granted political asylum because he's being persecuted by the f. b. i . us, embassies. and for countries that come after me it's,

it's wild like an american family that recently moved to russia with 6 children. i've never felt safer at land, higher life than living here. the welcome back to the with the blowers. i'm going through yahoo! we're speaking with journalist richard silverstein, he writes for t. kuhn along the foremost blog covering is really national security issues. he's also a contributor to the middle east di jacobin magazine, the new era, the end of june 0. and his work also has appeared in the new york times. richard, thanks again for being with us. great to be here. john. thanks again. my pleasure is mine, richard. let's talk about the guys a deaf tall and about are we is in peace in the lancet. now balinsa is the pre eminent british medical journal. as of june 19th, 2024, the guys and ministry of health had determined that 37396 palestinians had

been killed in gaza. is really military confirmed that the ministry's numbers were likely correct. the ministry further estimated that at least another $10000.00 people were likely buried under the rubble. but the lancet article goes on to say that the actual number of dead could be much, much higher as high as 186000 people. can you explain that to us? well, the last a publication, and as you said, um lets it does not publish reports like this, you know, just willy nilly it it to has a lot of data that uses and is very conservative in these sorts of situations in which there's a lot of contention there's a lot of this information, especially on the, is really side to discredit the health ministry figures. but the reason it

suggested that it could be a 186000 is that it's not just the 30, if, by the way it's, the latest figures are closer 230000 more than 30000. but it's not just the 38000. those are the ones we know or day. so we have a nearly half of the buildings in gaza are destroyed. that's not just homes that include schools, universities, power plants, and rich on reference facilities, united nations, early organization. the entire landscape of cause a is, is a ruling underneath all of those ruins or thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of buttons. there is no excavation machinery in the because of that can like in the case of earthquakes, where you can bring in massive excavators and whatever and, and take through buildings and work for bodies. and the dog shoot can sniff out the

corpses and, and try to re maria the freedom from the rubble. so there are, there's a huge number of people that have their, their desktop and count. in addition, you have, you have, uh, you have impacts that are not direct. for example, people will die of disease after the conflict. they'll die of starvation after the conflict. they'll die from medical neglect because as i think, you know, the, all the hospitals have been destroyed involves. so without medical treatment, you may not right now, but you will die later of the implications that it causes of that brought you to need the medical care in the 1st place. so the key factor here in coming to that number is they've compared cause or to other similar conflicts. and they've said that for each known victim whose die there or somewhere between $3.00 and $5.00,

the people who have died that they do not know about yet won't know that until well after the conflict ends. so if you do the multiplication there you come up with, you know, nearly 40000 times 3 or 5, you're getting up to the 186000 a year. and this, what's the genocide and i use that term very deliberately and i think we're going to talk about that in the 2nd. so this genocide puts it in the arena of the genocide in rwanda. in the genocide in east timor. and it actually is greater than many of the really well known just sites like in cost us. so we're talking about an unprecedented historic event in which no, no global, no, no criminal or regal system,

such as the international criminal court in the international court of justice. none of them, even though they've attempted to address the genocide, none of that has been able to have any impact on israel. and the reason why is that israel's allies, especially in the united states, but many european countries support the israel support weighted student and do so with the 18000000000 and the case of us congress, 18000000 in weapons had been sent to israel since october 7th. so that's the reason why there is no rule space or difference, right? what everybody likes to call it. that's the reason why the manager and effort has failed. there basically is hardly any monetary deafening causes. because israel, as, as if by killing many of the aid workers, in addition to killing the journalists themselves, were reporting on this. there's a 125 journalists who have been murdered in and use the term murder because they

deliberately targeted. not only the journalists themselves, but in some cases the families of the journalists, the entre 0 corresponding cause, not on which he died. but his wife was, was murdered. and this was done intentionally as a warning to thousands and journalists and israel does not want. this reported the only journalist who side from the gods and source strainers for various media who can go into cause the only fire in general to go install is it has to go in with. the idea has to be embedded with the idea for this use, the coverage that you'll see in world media, you will mostly be getting the is really the point of view. and that really is another factor that renders it impossible for the outside world to have much impact to stop this or, or to amount of power for protests that will,

you know, lead to the end of this and as well as you've so correctly noted. so many of these debts are a result of disease. 3rd, starvation and an utter lack of medical care even for injuries and failing to count these debts is actually a violation of international law. the international court of justice in january of 2024 required israel to quote, take effective measures to prevent the destruction and to ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of the genocide convention. and quote, has this real done that? and if yes, why are the death numbers so far off of israel has ignored every outside sector in attempting to exert some controller hold israel accountable? i'm just mentioning international criminal court. and the chief prosecutor several

months ago announced that he was going to ask a few additional panel of the i c. c to issue arrest warrants for be mentioned, no annual, and lots of defense minister. however, the panel is not announced any decision. so israel, by the way, screamed bloody murder about these global judicial forms and attacked and attacked anyone inside israel or the palace thing to collaborate with these un bodies and treated them as terrorist or an image of the state. including by the way, is really a human rights. and yes, i have been spirit and targeted as well with not just a variable with tax, but physical attacks as well. so israel has been able to completely ignore, ignore, of these it is just actually has impunity. but it

certainly is pursuing, continuing and genocide. the difficult whole continues to mount despite the fact that israel claims that it's trying to or is separating civilians from, from, from, from us fighters. and that's actually a lie. and i don't think that anyone in the world reeves it but it's not helped by the fact that you have states apartments, folks deep on the us secretary of state who ignore this who, who, when the word genocide as mentioned to them they bristol. and they claim that it isn't genocide, it can't be genocide. it's as if the word star is showing is really talking points . and it's speaking as if it is israel itself. and this is really an aspect to the american people. 60 percent of the american people disapprove not only of israel's

genocide in gaza, but they are disapprove of bind policy and approach towards it. but they will not negotiate a solution to these early pos conference. they will not accept the 2 state solution . so anyone, especially someone like present by an anti blanket who believes that they want the opposition and power because they might be able to achieve their goals of the 2 state solution if they're really serious about that, which is another question. i don't think there will be any major change and the same thing holds true by the way the us policy won't change very much in gaza or elsewhere. they'll be continuity. and um, and, and the things that we would like to see changed in u. s. foreign policy will not change the things that we might want to see changes mostly policy regarding and immigration, and such issues. those won't change either. but in this real it's, you know, it's even more critical because you have the capacity of

a regional war is real. he's on the verge, perhaps of invading, love it on and but when you're war against your boss, and if they do around his promise to uh, to, to enter on the side as well. so yeah, the situation like, you know, just before we're, we're one, we're gradually, all the major powers in the region have been drawn into one side of the other room, the conflict. so you have israel's enemies, the actual access it resistance. it's called include iran, and because the ball on the booties and iraqi, she, i militia, and syria, by the way. and so all of them could be entering the conflict on the half of the, of those more. and you will have israel in the us and its allies. so this is an extremely volatile situation, extremely dangerous situation. and we have to really,

really work hard to restore some sanity to the situation. even though it doesn't seem that's possible right now. but we have to do as much as we can to stand in the way of the struggling. i have a trade in destruction. richard, thank you so much for joining us. it's a pleasure. genocide is a tough word. what distinguishes genocide from murder and even from acts of political violence that claims as many victims is the intense genocide is the desire to make of people extinct. the idea of genocide is a crime. nelson mandela, worn the world years ago to not look the other way. it is within all of us to prevent genocide from happening. i'd like to thank our guests, richard silverstein for being with us today, and thank you to our viewers for joining us for another episode of the list of lowers. i'm john kerry, onto please follow me on subset at john to reaction. we'll see you next time.

the. 2 2 2 the, [000:00:00;00] the as western leaders recklessly talk of escalating the conflict in ukraine. european voters has sent the exact opposite message, prove war,

and meats are clearly out of step with voters. and they have been punished for the i wanted to come here since i was 121 my grandfather told me his mom came from russia, but we were, i was part russian. i didn't plan on staying as long as i was gonna look around. i was gonna see if it was for me that like it maybe i'll look at some properties come back in a few more years after i'm retired and then just finish out life in russia. but then i came and then i was like, i remember when i go home, that's how i felt about rush. i love it. i love it so much here that i don't even want to leave. i just want to travel around rush, i have no desire to go to any other country. the . 9 here