Nov 17, 2023
Netanyahu Adviser Refuses To Admit IDF Attacks Have Killed Children
A Netanyahu adviser refuses to admit that IDF attacks have killed children in Gaza.
- 16 minutes
I have seen lots of children
with my own lying eyes being pulled
from the rubble because the pictures
Hamas wants you to see.
Exactly my point. Because they're dead.
There, the pictures come out.
There are also people
that your government has killed.
You accept that, right?
You've killed children.
Or do you deny that?
No, I do not.
Last night, Mehdi Hassan spoke
to Netanyahu adviser Mark Regev,
[00:00:17]
who refused to accept that the IDF had
killed any children in Gaza during their
month and a half long assault on Gaza.
Now, here's more of Regev questioning
the validity of reports coming out of Gaza
[00:00:33]
and flat out denying the reality
of what the IDF is doing.
Hamas.
Until now, we're destroying
their military machine, and with that,
we're eroding their control.
But up until now, they've been
in control of the Gaza Strip.
And as a result, they control
all the images coming out of Gaza.
[00:00:49]
Have you seen one picture of a single dead
Hamas terrorist in the fighting in Gaza?
Not one.
Is that by accident, or is that Hamas can
control Hamas can control the information.
You ask me a question
and you said you would be brief.
I have, I haven't. You're right.
But I have seen lots of children
with my own lying eyes being pulled
[00:01:06]
from the rubble because the pictures
Hamas wants you to see.
Exactly.
Because they're dead.
The pictures come out.
They're also people.
Your government is killed.
You accept that, right?
You've killed children.
Or do you deny that?
No, I do not, I do not, I do not.
First of all, you don't know
how those people died.
Those.
Well, first of all, we don't want
to see a single child killed.
[00:01:24]
You don't know how those children died.
As if the buildings are just
crumbling around them randomly.
Just absolutely despicable.
Now, I said that he is denying
the reality of what's happening.
So let's take a minute
to talk about what that reality is.
[00:01:41]
Now, Reuters reported that Israel
has pounded Gaza with airstrikes
and cut off food and fuel.
Gaza health authorities, deemed reliable
by the United Nations, say more than
11,000 people have been confirmed killed.
More than 40 or 40% of them children,
with many more feared trapped
[00:01:58]
under rubble of bombed out homes.
Although, according to Regev,
we don't know how they died.
Absurd.
Now that's over 4600 children,
which surpasses the number of children
[00:02:13]
killed in conflict zones around the world
each year since 2019.
From Washington Post the United Nations,
which has lost more than 100 of its
employees, has called the conditions
horrific, describing Gaza as a living
[00:02:29]
nightmare and a graveyard for children.
I've been reading firsthand accounts
of people in Gaza who describe the smell
of blood filling the air, that they can't
walk through their neighborhoods without
[00:02:44]
seeing body parts strewn in the streets,
and that their neighborhoods themselves
are entirely unrecognizable because of
the relentless bombing campaign of Israel.
But let's talk about these children, who
Regev refuses to admit the IDF has killed.
[00:03:02]
Let's give you some of the statistics
and compare it to other conflicts
you know, of various durations.
Here's a graph that shows
that more than 4000 children
have been killed in one month in Gaza.
In Yemen, slightly fewer children have
been killed in a seven plus year conflict,
[00:03:21]
and fewer children
were killed in Iraq over 15 years.
And Jenk, I know that this man's job
is to do propaganda on behalf of the State
of Israel, but to sit there
with a straight face and to not admit
[00:03:37]
that even one child that Israel has killed
even one child is so beyond the pale.
And we've covered a lot of the propaganda
that that Israel that the IDF has been
pushing, particularly towards, you know,
a Western audience.
[00:03:53]
That is just absurd.
But for me, you know,
this just takes the cake that anyone
could watch that and believe it.
- It's sickening to see.
- Yeah.
So let's talk about propaganda.
So his job his job is
to do Israeli propaganda.
[00:04:08]
That's why he goes on television.
And so and I don't begrudge it I get it.
He's arguing for his side.
He's not very good at it
because he said things that are so absurd
that it makes his side look laughable
and ridiculous and disgusting.
So he says the pictures are the ones
that Hamas wants you to see.
[00:04:26]
Well, then why did you help Hamas?
If you hadn't killed the kids, then
Hamas wouldn't have any dead kids to show,
and then you would have vanquished
their propaganda brilliantly.
In fact, you would have had
the moral high ground.
You did have the moral high ground
when Hamas attacked you.
So first time Israel's had the moral high
ground in a long time, because of course,
[00:04:43]
they've kept 5 million Palestinians
as hostages for over 56 years,
saying, we're not going to let them go.
We're not there in open air prisons,
and there are prisoners, and they will be
for long for apparently forever, because.
[00:04:59]
Palestinians cannot govern themselves
because they're too violent.
Well, that's just racist ideology,
unabashed racism.
To say that the Palestinians are the only
people on earth who cannot govern
themselves because they're too violent.
But we just saw you kill ten times
as many civilians as Hamas did.
[00:05:19]
So who's too violent now?
Any any discussion of race
or religion is absurd.
These are just ridiculous labels
that people put on each other.
Israelis and Palestinians are identical.
They are human beings.
So but don't come here telling
us about propaganda
[00:05:36]
when you're doing wall to wall propaganda.
And the reason Israel is like,
livid right now is because they're like,
we used to control all of the media.
And I don't mean in terms of Jews don't
put that crazy stuff out of your head.
There's tons of Irish people,
Christians, Muslims
that run all sorts of different media.
[00:05:52]
I don't mean it that way.
I mean that when Israel asked
the US government for help
and you would have wall to wall.
Israel is always right.
The Palestinians don't matter.
They don't count as human beings.
We're not even going to cover their side.
[00:06:08]
But that has broken, by the way, for all
the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, then
why has US media in this case been fair?
The blockade is over.
The US media is showing the dead kids,
showing dead Palestinians aggressively
questioning the Israeli government.
[00:06:23]
You see, they don't control all the media.
But when you're an ally of the United
States, you get a massive advantage.
Same is true of Saudi Arabia.
In Yemen, we didn't show any of
the dead kids in Yemen, even though there
were tons and tons of dead kids in Yemen.
Because Saudi Arabia is an ally,
Israel is an ally.
[00:06:40]
That's how propaganda works.
So that's what they did there.
And what difference does it make?
Guys, this is the talking point
that they're using all over media.
Well those those are Hamas numbers.
Now first of all,
it's Palestinian health ministry.
The doctors that run the health ministry
are not Hamas terrorists.
[00:06:59]
Okay.
Number two, but much more importantly,
the United Nations
has verified those numbers.
But even if that weren't true,
let's say it's not 11,400.
What do you want the number to be, 10,800
because some of them are Hamas fighters.
What difference does it make
if it's not 4600 kids?
[00:07:15]
Only 4400 kids?
What difference does it make?
So he is this is the most egregious,
ridiculous and honestly buffoonish
propaganda I've ever seen where they say,
don't believe your lying eyes,
we haven't killed any kids
and everything is Hamas's fault.
[00:07:32]
No one believes you anymore. The media.
The minute that the media blockade was
over, which is happened in this conflict,
instantly 68% of Americans say cease fire.
80% of Democratic voters say cease fire.
This is ridiculous.
You've got to stop killing those kids.
[00:07:48]
And they seem totally unrepentant
at this point.
Absolutely.
And I think I think a big part of this
is the rhetorical and political strategy
that Israel has been taking, which I don't
think is any longer working, at least in
terms of the broader public, in terms of
the broader ways people around the planet
[00:08:05]
actually feel about what's going on,
to basically use dehumanizing, subhuman
discourse to make all of this about Hamas.
Hamas is sort of the boogeyman.
You can't talk about the conflict.
You can't talk about
the history of this conflict.
You can't talk about Gaza.
[00:08:22]
You can't even talk about the West Bank
and all the things that are going on.
Everything has to be about Hamas
and Hamas as a as a subhuman, a sort of,
you know, not even worth reckoning with
and whose lives should be taken out
no matter what the collateral damage is.
[00:08:39]
But I think the cracks
are really starting to form.
And I think that people I mean, look at
the Bay bridge being flooded by protesters
yesterday, protests all around the planet.
I was telling you earlier,
like I've been on a kind of crazy
travels over the last week.
[00:08:54]
I've been in India, I've been in Dubai,
I've been in Portugal,
and there are people enraged
about what's going on right now there.
And that's because, honestly,
the Israeli propaganda machine, which has
has nothing to do with Judaism whatsoever.
Zionism and Judaism are totally different
from one another on every level at all.
[00:09:12]
Is is now coming
unglued in many different ways.
But there is no end game, and that's
part of why it's coming unglued.
It's not clear to any of us
what the end game is.
First it was let's do airstrikes.
That's the best thing to do now.
Now the Israeli state is saying,
well, our ground operations are actually
[00:09:30]
much more effective than airstrikes.
Then why did you do
all these airstrikes then?
We're hearing about,
well, we're not seeing any dead Hamas,
you know, yet at the same time, then
why would you go to the Al-Shifa hospital
and claim that that was a Hamas
operating center if Hamas is not dead?
[00:09:48]
So, and I think the major point of all
is that for every so-called Hamas person
being targeted by the IDF, around 100
or so civilians are getting killed.
We don't really know. What's going on?
Still, I'm so glad that images and stories
and accounts are coming out,
[00:10:04]
but I think at the end of the day, the
biggest question is what is the end game?
I know we've we've
talked about this before.
Like what?
What is the Israeli government
want out of all of this?
And to say Hamas controls Gaza
and we don't is just the most
absurd position when you've erected
an open air prison over Hamas.
[00:10:22]
And keep in mind what we aren't
talking about through all of this
is the overall Palestinian situation,
including in the West Bank,
where somebody like me can wander around
far more freely than an actual
Palestinian who comes from that land.
Somebody like me has way more
political rights,
[00:10:38]
rights of mobility, rights of speech
than a Palestinian person themselves.
And we're knowing that settlers
are brutalizing children there as well.
And then last major point is,
you know, we talked about this before,
Ray and Genk, most of these poor people,
[00:10:53]
it's really heartbreaking in Gaza are,
well, average age 18 years old.
Many of them have never known,
never seen a world where they
didn't live in an open air prison.
And to think that those people
can be argued as collateral damage.
[00:11:10]
And you can decontextualize all of history
by making this all about Hamas
and just the events of October,
I think all of it is is falling apart.
But at the same time, those
who do have power, both in our nation
and in the Israeli state, seem
to be doubling down in a way that's really
[00:11:27]
at odds with how most of the rest of us
feel about this at this point.
So look, I'll say the last couple
of things here, half the homes in Gaza
have been destroyed.
So is Israeli propagandists like Regev
pretending that Hamas did that?
[00:11:44]
Are they pretending
that they didn't drop 7000 bombs?
Or are they pretending
that Hamas was in all those homes?
No, this is so.
The last piece of the propaganda
is that has fallen, which is, oh, no,
we had all the best intent in the world.
[00:12:00]
And we were unlike those brutal
Hamas guys, and they are brutal.
We intended amazing things and golly gee,
we just missed all the time, all the time.
And we happened to accidentally
hit half the houses in Gaza.
[00:12:16]
And and now we happen to have
4600 dead children.
Oops.
I mean, golly gee,
I was trying to hit 1 or 2 Hamas guys.
I didn't intend for any civilian deaths.
They just happen to be collateral damage.
Well, that's an obvious lie now.
[00:12:31]
Obvious indiscriminate
killing of civilians.
Totally, utterly indiscriminate.
And so don't kid yourself
about any illusions that they were
actually targeting Hamas when they
wiped out northern Gaza completely.
[00:12:47]
And look at the outrageous lies
of the IDF.
Al-Shifa hospital after devastating it.
Oh, there's this incredible
Hamas headquarters underneath it.
They got in the building 48 hours ago.
Where is it?
There's no headquarters at all.
It was always a lie.
[00:13:02]
And they showed a couple of flak
jackets and a pair of boots.
In other words, there was nothing there.
Nothing.
- It was a lie all along.
- Yeah.
And Regev. What?
His comments are actually at odds
with what even Netanyahu is saying.
And Netanyahu is now saying, oh, we
actually have killed some kids by mistake.
[00:13:19]
Regev is like saying
something completely different.
But then I think the bigger question is
what creates movements like Hamas?
And don't you think that this brutal
assault on these people
is going to create more and more Hamas?
So an existential angst
and fear of collective annihilation,
[00:13:36]
an annihilation can create
more collective annihilation, right?
That's what happened
to our Jewish brothers and sisters.
And I'm really concerned that
the same thing is happening
to the Palestinian peoples now.
And I'll just sorry, I'll double
down on one last thing that Ramesh said,
[00:13:52]
which is what's the end game here?
They say, oh, why doesn't Hamas give up?
Then we'll stop killing the civilians.
I mean, that's ridiculous.
It's like saying, oh, it's all Saddam
Hussein's fault for not giving up.
That's why we had to kill hundreds
of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
No, we invaded that country in that
particular case for absolutely no reason.
[00:14:09]
And whether some dictator or some
terrorist gives up or not has nothing
to do with why you're killing civilians.
And so the idea that Hamas is going
to surrender, or that there's going
to be a clear point where Hamas has lost,
and hence now Israel can say,
[00:14:25]
oh, now you're we're going to leave Gaza.
No, there is no such thing.
It's purposely an impossible standard
that will never be met.
And right now, Israeli cabinet officials
have talked about basically taking Gaza
and saying, you know what?
[00:14:42]
So since Hamas has not been eradicated,
a standard that is literally impossible,
we will just now keep a lot of this land.
It was ours anyway.
And if they do that, they have no idea
the dangers they will have unleashed,
[00:14:58]
not just for the.
Themselves, not just for the Palestinians,
but for the whole world,
because there's no way in the world that
that the Muslim world is going to stand by
and let Israel take Gaza.
You can't walk back from all of this.
And at the end of the day, I just want to
invite every single person who sees this
[00:15:14]
to just think about the moral calculus
around the sacredness of all life, right?
Like any life, innocent life that's
being murdered, we should always stand up
against Jewish life, Muslim life,
Hamas life, kid's life, everyone's lives.
[00:15:30]
Right?
Settler lives, everyone's lives,
whether we like them or not.
And so I just ask all of us
who are watching this and are part of our
progressive movement, but just everybody,
anywhere to just deplore, decry and stand
up against any murder of innocent life.
[00:15:46]
Super last thing
to back up what Ramesh is saying.
The Israeli Defense Forces,
a lot of them are kids too.
I don't want to see them die.
So the issue isn't with those particular
people, the issues with the leaders.
We have to find leaders
that have something called empathy
[00:16:03]
and stop electing warmongers who profit
from war personally through from their
career and in some cases, financially.
So we've got to do better.
All of us Americans,
Israelis, Palestinians.
Let's please pick elected leaders
that are for peace and that understand
[00:16:24]
that we're all human beings,
and stop electing warmongers who only want
to commit more and more war crimes
and atrocities like Benjamin Netanyahu.
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