Piers Morgan - “Israel Has Gone Too Far”

I'm afraid the cynic in me would suggest that Netanyahu has seen a poll boost from warfare. Do you think there's been any proportionality now in Israel's response? I mean, 1,200 people got killed. What I'm asking you... We're now up to...

maybe as many as 100,000 people. But, Piers, with all respect, that's a terrible argument. Is it? Yeah, because way more Germans were killed at the end of World War II than British people were killed, and yet we bombed Germany into the ground. 70% of Gaza has been flat. Yes. In what way would you... do not think that suggests a degree of indiscriminate bombing.

Why doesn't Netanyahu want journalists in Gaza to verify all these stories? There's no other war zone where you've had a complete blanket back. In Ukraine, you can't go on the front line if you're a journalist. Front line. And all of Gaza is a front line. It is. It's not. It is. Of course it isn't.

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from the people who actually thought it through at the beginning, I highly recommend checking it out. Watch it all now for free at hillsdale.edu slash trigger. That's hillsdale.edu slash trigger. Piers Morgan, welcome back to Trigonometry. I said I never could be back with you. Like Al Pacino and Godfather 3, you sucked me back in. We sucked you back in. And look, there's a lot to talk about. We want to talk about Israel and Gaza in a second because it's important.

been doing a lot of coverage hosting, a lot of discussions. You're one of the biggest platforms that is really giving that issue a lot of attention in the Western media. But first, there's something happening in the UK. I don't know if you feel this as we're sitting here recording. This might not go out for a week or so, so we might all...

be proven out to be wrong. But one after another, we're seeing protests in Britain, small at the moment, outside of migrant hotels, often because one of the people in those hotels has committed some kind of sexual abuse of a local... Girl, child often. Yesterday, and this shocked me, there was a protest.

outside a hotel in Canary Wharf. For people who don't know what Canary Wharf is, the only people who live there are basically bankers and foreign students. And the Daily Mirror. And I'm not sure the Daily Mirror is outside a migrant hotel protest. thing.

And Angela Rayner now, it's been, I think, leaked or revealed, said in a cabinet meeting, if we don't address people's concerns, we're going to have real problems. And I think a lot of people are thinking about what happened last summer. Are you concerned that the UK may be on its way to more riots this summer? Yeah, I am. And look, I absolutely believe in people's right to protest if they protest without violence. So let's just put that on the table. But it does feel to me...

Like, this government's come in, they've had many years to think about what they would do about this particular issue, particularly the small boats coming over from France. Keir Starmer was big on, we're going to smash the gangs. Here we are a year later. No gangs have been smashed. The numbers of people coming in on the small boats has increased. And a lot of them have been put up when they get here in these rather nice hotels.

with their costs being paid for at a time when many people in Britain are suffering from acute financial difficulties. That's obviously going to cause resentment. You know, this whole issue of immigration, I look at what's happened with Trump in America. He campaigned very loudly, a bit like Keir Starmer did with Smash the Gangs, on I'm going to shut the problem down at the southern border. Nearly 10, maybe 12 million people came on illegally.

in the four years of the Biden administration, absolutely shocking numbers. Trump's got it down to, I think, 6,000 a month now, almost like there's no one coming in. So it can be done. You know, I keep asking myself, what would Trump do about the small boats? He'd probably say to Macron, OK.

1,000% tariffs on all French imports until you stop this, because it can only stop at the French end. Once they're at sea, as we can see, it's incredibly difficult to stop it. So there's a lot of resentment that's been building up about this, because people in Britain...

A lot of them are suffering acute financial difficulty and they're seeing what they perceive to be, for better or worse, people coming in illegally into the country, being put up in asylum hotels, whatever you want to call them, migrant hotels, being treated very well. having a lifestyle that may be significantly better, actually, than a lot of English people who are here completely legally because they're citizens.

It's going to cause resentment. And this, I think, will be way beyond the stage where if you raise concerns about this, you should be worried about being called a racist. It's nothing to do with that.

It's just everything to do with managing a border. Ronald Reagan, as he once said, if you don't have a secure border, you don't have a country. And we don't have one. And then you add the ridiculously... huge number of people we've allowed to come in legally, escalating to nearly a million people a couple of years ago in one year, net migration to a country which is already seeing incredible infrastructure problems.

with the NHS, with education and so on. It is not surprising that people are getting angry. The question is, what do we do about that? How do you stop? How do you stop protests getting out of hand? And the answer is the government has to get a grip of this problem.

They have to secure our border and they have to have a better immigration system, which means we get people coming in in a more regulated manner and we're not putting enormous extra pressure onto our public services, which they cannot. currently sustain.

And I think you make a good point about the economic realities, which is the economy is basically stagnated since the financial crisis on a per capita basis. Things are not getting better for people. But I think we're beyond that now, Piers, because my sense of it is.

It's not just the sense of, you know, the government's giving people who have come here illegally a better deal than us. They're getting paid for that. That's obviously frustrating. There's also a safety issue now that's rising increasingly. People feel... that their children are not safe in their own community. And when that happens, we saw at one of these protests a woman who was holding up a sign saying, I'm not far right, I just care about my children or something along those lines.

And that's why I'm really, really concerned about the direction of travel, because I don't think it's people who care about illegal immigration anymore who are protesting. It's the ordinary person. Yeah, well, I said, look, crime has been... a massive rising problem in britain now for a number of years london feels increasingly lawless the number of friends of mine who

known people who'd been sitting in cafes literally a friend of mine her sister was in a cafe back from Dubai for three hours sitting in a cafe in central London and one of these bike thieves just rampaged through got off the bike, ran in, grabbed her phone off in the cafe.

and took it off right now anyone who tried to report a phone theft to the police knows nothing happens even when you have the tracker on it and you can tell them exactly where your phone is the police do not have the resource or the inclination to go and do anything about

And it reminds me of when Rudy Giuliani became mayor of New York, where he went a bit bonkers. But he had the broken windows policy, which was a very good policy. It means if there's a broken window, you fix it because you sent a message, we care about the little stuff. when it comes to crime. I think we've lost that in many parts of the country, and in particular in London. It just feels dangerous. You know, I walk around a lot of other cities. I was in Riyadh.

I was in Qatar. I was in Dubai. I've been in even New York. I would say that it feels here, it feels more to me unsafe than it does even in New York City. I don't know how that's happened. But we have to get a grip of this. And Keir Starmer talks a big game about crime, talks a big game about the games. But, you know, we're seeing pictures of these boats where maybe 30, 40...

people are on board. And the bleeding heart liberals, the sort of woke left, will say, well, they're all mothers and children. And you look at the pictures, and actually, 98% tend to be men aged between about 18 and 35 who are clearly coming here in the main as economic migrants. Now, I have nothing wrong with economic migrants.

but you should come in legally. When I go to America, where I have a home, I had to go through a process of getting a visa to live and work in America. It's hard. They make it deliberately difficult, right? So I resent the fact that under Biden, 10 million people just wandered in. illegally over the border without doing any of that. And we should have a tougher system here. But yeah, I think it is a number of things that are concerning people. One is

They think like the asylum seekers, migrants, and I think most of them are economic migrants, I have to be honest. I don't think many of them now are asylum seekers. Some are. And this country was built on a very proud policy of taking care of genuine asylum seekers, particularly, in my view, in the last 30 years from war zones where we may have started illegal wars.

like Iraq, for example, which I oppose as editors for the mirror. So I'm completely in favour of a well-regulated asylum system. But it's so snail-paced slow.

Right. If you want to have an asylum system, which the public will accept and respect, you've got to speed all this up. You can't just leave people in very nice hotels for. months maybe years on end without processing their application when you've got so many people who can barely afford to feed their kids it's obviously going to create resentment and then if some of them then commit crimes

Then you have the element that you're talking about, which is people then start to feel like their kids aren't safe if they live near these hotels. And some of that may be unfair. Some of it, as we know before from the Stockport riots, a lot of misinformation swirling around. This is an illegal immigrant coming over on a boat. None of that was true. But the damage was done in a flash.

That's a separate issue about social media, promoting that kind of stuff. But yeah, look, they've got to get a grip of this. You can't talk about, we're going to smash the gangs. and then actually see the numbers rise. Well, and this speaks to another point, Piers, which I think is another thing that has been fanning these flames. And we did see, in my opinion, a lot of this last year, where there is the perception at the very least...

of the fact that a lot of these things are not being properly policed. They're being policed in very dodgy ways. So we saw in Epping most recently, the police have now admitted that they escorted people who were counter protesters, some of them masked.

to this protest, which then of course became violent. And then of course, who did they arrest? the people who were there protesting originally. So I think there's another risk here. By the way, the third element of this, which we're not mentioning, but needs to be recorded, is what does this do with the far right, the genuine far right?

It's going to enable them, obviously. It's going to not only enable them, it will encourage them. And it will probably encourage support for them. You know, I watch someone like Tommy Robinson. He's out there absolutely lapping all this up. this kind of chaos because it plays right into his narrative that the country is being overtaken in his view by Muslims and do something about this and by asylum seekers and by illegal immigrants. And I don't like that part of this story either.

where people like him get increasing support because people feel that the authorities, the government, the police and others who are charged. by the electorate with sorting these things out, in the case of the politicians, and with the police, they're paid to do a job to protect us, are failing in their job.

What's your issue with Tommy Robinson, Pierce? Because obviously he's not well liked in the media ecosystem of London. And he's a controversial figure for, you know, he's been involved in street violence and lots of other things.

But a lot of people are now saying, and I don't hesitate to say this anymore, a lot of people are now saying he's been proven right about a hell of a lot of things, Piers. Well, he's certainly not been proven wrong about the grooming gangs. I mean, he was one of the more vocal people about that. There's no question.

He's not, as he puts it, the only one that was doing it. There was a very courageous journalist at the Times who recently died, sadly, who led the way with the mainstream media. So it's not true the mainstream media ignored that story, but there was a collective failure.

of government, of police, and a lot of the media to actually properly go after that scandal. One of the worst scandals of modern times. So that is clear. And Robinson was right about that. I'm not saying he's wrong about everything. But this guy is not... the little Mother Teresa walking around in mother boots that you'd like everyone in America to believe. And so many of them have fallen for this mythology about Tommy Robinson. His name isn't Tommy Robinson.

Probably should send the first alarm bell. But he's a convicted football hooligan, convicted fraudster. He's been in jail recently, not because he was being silenced from telling the truth about anything, but because he continues. to promote and propagate lies about a young Syrian boy, right? And so I watch the way he gets lauded in America and I think, well, this is ridiculous.

I've challenged him to come on Uncensored again. We had a fiery debate on Good Morning Britain many years ago in which he came on and waved the Quran, which I thought was pathetic and told himself to his face. So far, he's ducked me. And I think it's because he knows I see through a lot of it. And if he wants to come on and he wants to have a proper sit down with me, then we can get into exactly why he's just been in prison. Because it's got nothing to do with what he says he's been a victim of.

which is the establishment trying to silence him. No, you lied. You got caught lying. You were told if you lied again, you go to prison for contempt of court. You lied again. You made a film. You promoted it. You came over and promoted it. And...

you therefore were found guilty of contempt to court, my sunshine. So that's what actually happened. I can see you trying to wind them up to come on your show. If Tommy Robinson has the guts, or Stephen Yaxley, as I prefer to call him, because that was a name he actually was given when he was born, then, okay, let's sit on with each other, Tommy, me and you.

you're not Tommy, but Tommy, me and you, and we can have a proper frank debate, because I would actually be quite happy to say to him, on this I think you're right, on that you're right, and on this you're wholly wrong. And I do think that a lot of his view of the Muslim population in this country is driven by genuine Islamophobia. I think he hates Muslims. If he wants to come on and persuade me he doesn't, absolutely no problem. But I'll remind him of all the things he's said and done.

He's coming on the show shortly. On yours? Yes. Your little bottle job. That's about interview number six. Tommy Robertson, you've done. Since you said, yeah, let's do it, Piers. Yeah, I'm waiting. I'm still waiting, sir. Not to rub it in, but anyway. Still waiting. Okay.

Look, when we're talking about the migrant hotels, there's one question that repeatedly comes to my mind. This is a lightning rod issue. And the reason it's a lightning rod issue is because it sums up a lot of people's anger and frustration with the country and the way the country is run. So here's the question. Why hasn't it been sorted out? Well, government. All roads lead to government. I remember when Tony Blair's government swept into power in 1997, and they said things can only get better.

And they did, right? I mean, for the first term, it was incredibly successful. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and a very competent cabinet actually, really did hit the ground running. They had many years in the wilderness to prepare for it, and they had many plans, and they hit the ground running. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Things got better. It's why Tony Blair got re-elected two more times. Keir Starmer?

got into power after, again, a long period in the wilderness for Labour. And rather than tell us things are going to get better, he actually said things are going to get worse. Now, I personally... He was right. You can't blame him for accuracy. But it was hardly the most encouraging message.

give the people which is we know it's been really rough for a long time under the Tories 14 years of hell blah blah blah so the good news is we're going to make it worse before it gets any better terrible messaging Then you had all the things which I think smack of politics of envy, right? Putting VAT on private schools with the assumption that everyone that sends their kid to a private school is rich. I went to a prep school till I was 13. And then my parents only...

had enough money really at any time to send two of the four kids to private system. And the other times we had to do state system. So we all did both. What that showed me was that there are a lot of people like my parents who scrimped and say they work seven days a week running a country pub and put all their spare money into giving their kids the best education.

that they could afford. And I applaud them for that. And I applaud all parents like that. This idea that everyone who sends their kids to a prep school or a public school is stinking rich is bullshit. And that creates what I call it. It's the politics of envy. And it creates a lot of resentment. It also, as Greece discovered when they tried to do this, after about six months, they did a complete reversal because two things happened. One, a lot of the private schools shut down.

because they simply couldn't afford the extra burden of this taxation. And the parents were putting their kids out. And all the kids were then put into the state system, which swapped the state system. So on every level, it failed. That will happen here. We're already seeing.

Private schools shut down. We're already seeing some of the state schools getting swamped by people who no longer have their ability or funds to go to private school. So I hate that stuff. I also hate the U-turns and the constant pledges which never get met, right? To make so many U-turns in your first year, almost unprecedented for this government, what does that send? It sends a message of a ship where the captain isn't sure where he's sailing. So if you say, right, that's our course.

The leaders I most admire in history, here, America, wherever, they set their course, they thought about it, they set their course, they stick to their course, even through choppy waters. Maggie Thatcher was a good example of that. But with Keir Starmer...

Again, I like him personally. I think he's a smart guy. You know, he's risen to the top of two incredible professions, both in Director of Public Prosecutions and Prime Minister. Amazing from where he came, such humble background to get what he's done. Amazing achievements. But I saw him at a party recently. I just said, you know, you've got to stop the U-turns. You've got to work out what you're going to do and you've got to stick with it. And you can't be brushed off.

off by media criticism or anything else or by the hard left in your party holding you to ransom. And I said, and stop the pledges. I mean, there are about 13 pledges now, Labour, most of which are either so ridiculously easy that obviously they're going to be able to achieve them or they're obviously not going to be able to achieve them in most cases.

Does anyone think Labour are going to actually build one and a half million new homes in this term? No, they don't believe that. It's bullshit. And I told them, I called them out on question time when they first said it.

I said to West Street, I'll bet you now, a thousand quid to charity, or 10,000, whatever you want to do. I said, you're not going to achieve that. So why pledge it? So I think that when you have a government that comes in with a massive majority, and all they do in their first year is u-turns and make pledges we know they can't keep that does not do anything but reduce confidence and when you have reduced confidence

Everything flows from that in a negative way. I quite agree with you. And it's also, you look at the way that they've been dealing with the French. We give them over half a billion quid a year to sort this problem out. I don't see the French doing a great deal, if I'm being honest. They're doing... the square root of fuck all, right? Let's be clear. This small boats problem can be fixed by the French. It can only be fixed by the French.

There are all sorts of maritime laws. And once these boats get into the sea, it's incredibly difficult there. But at the French side, that's where they're getting on them. That's where the gangs are. So you've got to get tough with Macron, way tougher than we'll be. You've got to say to him, I mean, again, what would Trump do? He would tariff the hell out of them until they sorted it. And they would sort it. Yeah. You've got to treat him like projectors. Yeah. Give him a good slap.

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What's been very interesting watching your journey, Piers, as we move on to talk about Israel, is when October 7th happened, you were a defender of Israel's rights to... defend itself and the war in Gaza. And your position has changed the longer the war has been conducted. Why is that? Because I think what's going on now in Gaza is utterly unconscionable. I think it has nothing to do with the original war aims that they stated.

which were to get the hostages back and to eliminate Hamas. Neither of those things have happened. Neither of those things are looking likely to happen. What is happening? Gaza is being completely destroyed. I mean, 70% has already been destroyed. The population has been crammed into various small areas now. And even as they queue for food on a daily basis, they're getting shot dead.

And the IDF, every time, is 20, 30, 40 people queuing desperately for food. All they say is, A, we're giving them loads of food. So why are thousands of people stampeding for food if they're so overfed? And secondly... They say, well, we just fired warning shots. Well, we had a couple of people threaten us. We launched an inquiry. We're doing an investigation.

It's a familiar pattern. I got all the answers to all of these incidents at the aid queues. And it was very damning when I read it out to one of the pro-Israeli guests I had. I think that you should believe people when they say what their intent is. Smodrich in the Israeli government, incredibly far right, along with Ben Gavir. And I think Netanyahu's gone this way too. He's been influenced by them in a very, very damaging way.

I think that he said about three weeks ago that the plan was to cleanse Gaza of all Palestinians. Right. That's clearly what they're trying to do now. That's a war crime. That's ethnic cleansing. So, yeah, I absolutely support Israel. at the start of this with their, not just right, but their duty to defend Israelis from any further attacks by Hamas.

unquestionably. What happened on October 7th, one of the worst things I've ever had to report on in my life as a journalist. But that does not give them the license now, where we are right now. to just continue slaughtering so many children in particular on a daily basis as they go after... I don't know how many Hamas are left. I mean, the American intelligence says for every one they're killing, there are five more.

coming through with the same ideology. How could it not be that? I mean, given the scale of carnage in Gaza right now, how do they think Israel, the government, the government, not the people? But how does the Israeli government think this is going to make anything safer for Israelis? It's not. Is it going to make life safer for Jews around the world? It's not. It's going to make it more dangerous. Have they got the hostages out? No. It's the indiscriminate bombing.

that's going on day after day after day after day, is that likely to end up with other hostages of the remaining hostages who are alive? And of course they should be released, but we're dealing with a terrorist group. But are they going to be more at risk from this?

relentless bombing that's going on or not. I would say they are. So I just put it all together and I can't defend this. And I noticed we're having more and more trouble getting... pro-Israeli voices on who are prepared to actually unreservedly defend this. There are some, but a lot of the ones that were very vocal to start with no longer want to do it. And I just wonder what the average Israeli thinks about what is happening in their name. Because if this was happening here, I can assure you...

But the British people would not put up with it. They just would not accept this being done in their name. It is unconscionable, the scale of what's going on there. They are destroying the whole of Gaza. and they want to displace every Palestinian into neighbouring Arab countries. I mean, I don't know what you two think of that, but are you comfortable with them doing that? Well, I'm not comfortable with the scale of the...

the casualties that are happening. I don't think anybody is comfortable with that, Pierce. It's obviously awful. I guess the question, my question to you is, what should Israel do in this instance? Because you have Hamas. who are a terrorist organization, who are fundamentalist in their nature, who will not capitulate, who will not surrender, who are very happy and delighted, let's be honest, to put their own civilians...

and their own family members, in fact, in the way of fire. So you have an enemy that will not surrender at any point, who will always remain a direct threat to you. So what should Israel do in that instance? Well, look at what they did with Hezbollah. Very similar ideology to Hamas. What did they do with Hezbollah? They planned meticulously one of the most brilliant strategic military campaigns against a terror group ever seen, where for many years they formulated a plan to...

get pages into their hands and other devices which exploded at a signal. And they took out 3,000 of them. Unbelievably surgical in its precision. Look at what they did with Iran. right they didn't just indiscriminately start bombing tehran they again had a very well planned out campaign short in iran against the nuclear scientists, against the nuclear program, against nuclear science. They persuaded the Americans to come in.

It was all over in 10 days. Everyone was presuming it would be like apocalyptic World War III. Never happened. So Israel has unbelievable resources, militarily, intelligence, through Mossad and others. No one can tell me. that any of this makes sense. And I'll go back further to the start of all this. 2005, 2006, when Hamas are given power in Gaza and Israel pulls out. From that moment on...

Israel, through Netanyahu, funneled billions of dollars to Hamas, right? They used most of that money to build a very sophisticated underground tunnel system for 20 years. Then 3,000 of them on October the 7th pour over the border in three waves over a number of hours. They kill 1,200. They wound nearly 7,000. They kidnap over 250.

How did Mossad not know anything was going to happen? These are the people that can put 3,000 pages into Hezbollah ads. These are the people that can be so precise in Iran. So no one can tell me that this makes any sense. So, Piers, what are you implying? What I'm implying is I think what you're seeing in Gaza is a rage-fuelled revenge.

for October the 7th. And I think that's exactly what Hamas wanted Israel to do. I think they lured Israel's government, knowing there were a bunch of very far-right hotheads on that government, Ben-Gavir, Smodrich, and others. I think they delivered deliberately lured them into a trap knowing that their own fighters could hide in the tunnels

Quite happy, as you said, despicable terror group to let the civilians get killed in the slaughter, which they knew would bring global opprobrium against Israel's government. But they lured them in with the scale of what they did. And Israel, to me... This Israeli government has fallen absolutely into the trap of responding in an over-emotional, rage-fueled manner.

which has now led to indiscriminate, endless, ongoing carnage, which is making Israel more and more hated around the world. None of this, to me, makes any strategic sense. in terms of how they could have responded to October the 7th and should have responded. Now, I don't have all the answers. I've had lots of other people who floated solutions and answers. But I do know that...

There's a lot of will on the part of countries like Saudi Arabia who want to do normalisation of relations with the Abrahamic cause with countries like Israel, but they can't do it when this is going on. This is putting back everything. And for what? What are they actually trying to achieve? And then it comes down to, are they actually trying to achieve the original aims they set out? I would argue, as I have done, that that's no longer a plausible argument.

And I think we should take them at what they're saying. Smodrich is a finance minister. He's not some insignificant member of the government. He's a leading driving force. He was on camera three weeks ago. We want to cleanse Gaza of all Palestinians. And if that happens, it will be one of the most grotesque war crimes of modern times. So the question for all of us is, what do we do about this? Do you stay silent and watch this happen and literally watch?

Palestinians, two million of them, expelled from Gaza, never to come back. I mean, once you're gone, you're never coming back. And Israel to then take over that land? Is anybody happy with that? I'm not.

Piers, the reason I ask you what you're implying is I don't understand the point you're making when you... I've heard a lot of people say this, but I don't understand what you mean when you say, how come the Mossad didn't know... How did they not know? But what are you saying? I don't understand. I'm just asking the question. How could the most sophisticated intelligence operation in the world, reputedly, and I think that's as we've seen from Iran and Hezbollah, clearly.

But those are proactive things. Actually, they're very pre-planned things. Yeah, that's fair. No, I'm just trying to understand what you're saying. Well, I'm not saying anything. I'm just asking a question, right? I'm not saying... that they knew anything. I'm actually saying that for some inexplicable reason, they missed this. And one of the reasons that Netanyahu is continuing to prosecute this war, in my opinion, is because he knows the day of reckoning for him is coming when it's over.

not just for allowing this to happen on his watch, but also for him personally with the corruption charges he's facing in a criminal courtroom. So there is no incentive for Netanyahu to end this. If anything, his popularity with a lot of, you know...

there's a lot of right-wing Israelis, that his popularity has risen with sections of Israeli community because of all the constant warfare. But that in itself is an extremely unhealthy drug, right? So I'm not saying for a moment, as some conspiracy theorists do, or Mossad knew anything, I'm not saying that for a moment. But what a spectacular dropping of the ball right on their doorstep. And it's inexplicable. They have to explain how they didn't know.

anything about the tunnel systems, or if they did, why they didn't realise what the plan was. You know, there are literally people, it's a bit like when 9-11 happened, there were people working at the Pentagon who had one job, to think the unthinkable about terror attacks.

All they had to do, right? Was it that unthinkable that if you knew Hamas were building tunnels, they must have done. For 20 years they were building hundreds of miles of tunnels. If you knew they were building tunnels that nobody thought... Well, I wonder what they're planning and try to find out because that's what Mossad are supposed to do. So I simply ask the question.

How did you not know? No, I think it's a very important question, obviously, and I'm sure it will be asked in Israel when the war is over. And I think we just had Andrew Fox in here, who's a pro-Israel guy, saying this war should have ended a few months ago. I think there's a growing sentiment. I agree with you. I agree that there's a growing sentiment. But I also think that your point about 9-11 kind of makes the point that the intelligence

they only have to be wrong once, and then a great disaster happens, and we've seen them happen all over the place, and they do happen. So I don't think it's as unimaginable as you're saying. The other thing I wanted to ask you is, and I'm... It's just we're exploring the arguments. You've used the phrase indiscriminate bombing repeatedly. Why do you say it's indiscriminate? I'll give you an example. Say they get information there's one Hamas terrorist.

I saw Dave Smith use this analogy, so let me give him the credit for it. If somebody murdered one of your family, okay? Horrible hypothetical. Let's assume this has happened. And you get told that one of the people who was responsible... is living in a tower block with 150 people in it. Do you think it's justified to go and blow up the whole tower block and kill 149 innocent people as you kill... the one person who is responsible for the loss you suffered.

There's a calculation in the laws of war where there has got to be some proportionality, there's got to be some taking of account. Do you think there's been any proportionality now in Israel's response? I mean, 1,200 people got killed. What I'm asking you... We're now up to...

maybe as many as 100,000 killed. But, Piers, with all respect, that's a terrible argument. Is it? Yeah, that's a terrible argument. I don't think it is. It is, because way more Germans were killed at the end of World War II than British people were killed, and yet we bombed Germany into the ground because we were defeating them, right? I think that is a terrible argument, but I'm trying to find out why you say it's indiscriminate.

Indiscriminate means they don't care if they're just bombing a civilian building. They're just trying to flatten Gaza. Is that what you think is happening? 70% of Gaza has been flattened. Yes. In what way would you not think that? suggests a degree of indiscriminate bombing. The reason that people would challenge the idea of it being indiscriminate, for example, Andrew Fox, as I mentioned, who has a very nuanced view of this, as we found out, he was saying that when he was...

in Gaza, what he saw was that Hamas adapted their tactics as the war went on. And when they realized that the Israeli IDF was going house to house, they then... did the evacuation themselves, they pulled the civilians out, and then booby-trapped every single building. So the destruction of a lot of buildings is evidence of the fact that a lot of them are booby-trapped, and that's why they're being destroyed. I'm sure some of them were. He made the point that...

more bombs have been dropped on Gaza than the number of people who've been killed in Gaza, which kind of tells you that it's his argument, not indiscriminate. So that's the only reason I'm asking. I've read some of the five, six times as many... bombs have been dropped in totality than the total power of the two nuclear bombs dropped in Japan. What is indiscriminate? To me, you can argue that indiscriminate means you don't care at all.

I wouldn't go as far as that. I would say that the way they have gone about targeting sometimes individual members of Hamas that they believe are in a cafe, and they just... blow the whole cafe to pieces that shows a in my opinion a reckless disregard for civilian life that is around that one person and again i come back to the hezbollah thing why is it that they can

target Hezbollah and dismantle Hezbollah in such a brilliantly sophisticated surgical strike manner, which does not involve destroying Lebanon or wiping out a hundred thousand. Lebanese people, you know, killing 20,000 Lebanese children. Why is it they're capable of that there, but they're completely incapable of any other war strategy here when most people believe, who know Hamas,

that this was all part of Hamas's plan, that they knew when they did what they did, this is what would happen. Being sleep deprived messes with everything. Reaction time, memory, decision making, even your emotions. It's like walking around legally drunk. And the long-term effects? Just as bad as smoking. Most people reach for melatonin. But here's the problem. Melatonin is a hormone.

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But if you look at Gaza, it's very, very densely populated and Hamas are physically embedded within that. They have consciously embedded themselves as we... as we all know, within the civilians. So it's almost impossible to be able to target them. But Hamas is showing such a spectacular disregard for its own civilian life. then I would argue that you should always, if you're in Israel's position as the only democracy in the region,

and you've got the biggest military in the region, it's even more incumbent on you not to be as reckless with civilian life as the people that you're going after, right? And no one can say to me, that this has been a successful strategy. It's made Israel more and more hated.

Right? This is indisputable. No, it's true. I don't hate Israel, and I certainly don't hate Israeli people, and I certainly don't hate Jewish people. One of the problems with this whole debate is every time you criticise the Israeli government, which is probably the most...

far-right government in totality in Israel's history, by the way, is that somehow that makes you anti-Semitic. Yeah, people really need to stop doing that. It's so stupid. It's really counterproductive and very unwise. It really is. It's completely self-defeating because no one now believes it anyway. So I just think you've got to have grown-up discussions about this. And like I say, as you know...

For a long, long time, I was getting attacked by the pro-Palestinian side for supporting Israel's right to defend itself. I make no apology for that. And I've been attacked by extremists on both sides relentlessly. But I can't be both things that they say. I can't be a Zionist, genocidal, supporting monster, and at the same time be an anti-Semitic Jew-hater. Welcome to the internet, Peter.

But yeah, look, we're in agreement over that. Look, one of the things that I find really interesting is you using the term far right to describe the Israeli government. Why do you use that term? Because even people that I think are...

Pretty right wing who come on my show now, distance themselves from Smodrich and Ben Givir. They're too right wing, even for the right wingers who come on, who I think are pretty right wing. And that's the honest truth. And when that happens, there are very few Israelis now who will say they support Ben Gavir and Smodrich. What they try and do, they try and diminish their...

involvement. They say they're not part of the war cabinet. It's meaningless. They're senior members of this government. The only reason Netanyahu is prime minister. This time round, the only way he got power back was to get into bed with people which, ideologically and politically, he had never been in bed with before. Real hard right extremist.

The issue there is that even if it's true what people say, and I think it is true, that they're not involved in the day-to-day decision-making of how the war goes. The problem is, if Netanyahu doesn't get rid of them, that shows a tacit...

acceptance of their statements. And it's very worrying, even for people who are very pro-Israel. Of course, listen, most Israelis now distance themselves from that. But these two are two senior members of the cabinet. It would be like saying, if we were at war... It would be like saying, well, you know, we can't listen to what, you know, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves says because she's only the Chancellor. She's not in the War Cabinet. Nonsense. Yeah.

It's interesting because, as you know, I'm someone who's always been... Look, I've never even described myself as pro-isual because I'm not pro-isual. I just generally think, you know, you said earlier, we in Britain wouldn't tolerate this. I don't know about that, Piers. I wonder if we'd been attacked the way Israel attacked, what would you be going on TV and saying?

Would you be calling for us to bomb the shit out of whoever did it? I think so. I think so. Well, let's go back to... And I might be too. Well, hang on. Let's go back to the illegal invasion of Iraq. That's different. We were not attacked. Oh, hang on. Our allies were. And our main ally, America. Not by Iraq. Well, no, that's the point. So I was editor of the Daily Mirror at the time. I led the media campaign in this country against the Iraq war.

I did not think they had produced the evidence of weapons of mass destruction. I did not think Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11. It was obviously Al-Qaeda, which had originated from bin Laden in Saudi and so on. So I wasn't buying any of it.

It turned out I was completely right. I'm not trying to win awards for prescience. I'm just saying... We were against the war. Before, during that, I campaigned very hard against it, even though my own brother was fighting in the war for the British Army. It was complicated for my family to put it mildly. And I felt very grieved for my brother that ultimately the reasons he thought he was fighting it turned out to be just bullshit. But the reason I think there are parallels there is you have...

The British people marched through central London, right out here, 1.7 million of them. The reason I know that number is because many of them were carrying Daily Mirror no-war placards. It was the biggest peacetime. march ever against this war and the british government went against it and tony blair's legacy never recovered from that decision but we did that because the people here recognized

I think in large numbers, that the government was not being honest with them about why we were doing this on behalf of America. And we ended up attacking and invading a sovereign democratic country. Well, not democratic. A sovereign country, not democratic. A sovereign Middle Eastern country. And the repercussions reverberated ever since, you know, with the ISIS and everything else that followed. So I think that...

You say the British people wouldn't. I'm saying something completely different. Let me paint a picture and then you tell me. Give me a picture. Okay, fine. IRA. No, not IRA. Let's say there is a... Why not the IRA? Because it's different. Why? Because the IRA were not invading in their thousands and raping people. They were indiscriminately killing civilians. Yes, they were, but he was... We didn't go and bomb Amar, did we? We didn't.

No, I agree with you. I think a terrorist attack where a pub gets blown up and lots of people tragically get killed is very different to what happened in Israel on October the 7th. And the point I'm trying to make to you is if bands of foreign terrorists from a country... unidentifiable nearby location, had invaded our country, killed over a thousand people, wounded over 7,000, had dragged off women and grandparents and babies and held them in cages.

over the border, would you not be demanding that Keir Starmer, or whoever is the prime minister at that time, do everything possible to get those people back, to destroy the people who did this, wouldn't you? Sure. And then when, you know, two years later, nearly, they hadn't got the hostages back. They had killed up to 100,000 people, including two-thirds of those at least being civilians. 20,000 plus.

children, and we had destroyed 70% of the country where these terrorists came from, right? What do you think the British people would have responded with? I don't know. Remember, we attacked Afghanistan. We know how the British people responded. They didn't like it. They didn't like Iraq, right? The British people do not respond to what they think is unfairness. Americans liked Afghanistan. They did. Not so much anymore. Of course, 20 years later. My point is...

When you are in that situation... You can whip your people into thinking anything. Well, I don't think Afghanistan and people... I don't necessarily think it was done in the right way. I'm just saying... When you are attacked in the way that America was attacked on 9-11. It's a perfectly reasonable question. I think we would have been okay with it. I don't think two years later the British public would be remotely happy with what is happening. I really don't. I really don't.

I do buy into the explanation that some Israelis have put to me, that the country is still in trauma. And when people are feeling traumatized, they can often react in an irrational way to how they would normally. So I do think what you're seeing is a massively over... How would you best categorize it?

I don't want to offend people's sensibilities about the way I term this. I just think the reaction is massively disproportionate and it's fuelled by rage and revenge. And I think that that has played into the deliberate Hamas trap.

which is this is what they wanted Israel to do. It's counterproductive. I think ultimately it's been counterproductive. Whether you support the right to do it, the right to continue doing it or not, no one can argue that it's worked. So if it hasn't worked, at some point you have to stop. Otherwise, you just carry on just killing people and making your country more and more isolated and loathed. And I don't want that for the Israeli people. Piers, would you describe this as being a genocide now?

What I've said on that is certainly a lot of people like Smodrich talk in genocidal language. Certainly an unbelievable number of innocent people have been killed as they've gone after Hamas. Is it a genocide? We can't be sure until the international media are allowed in to see what's actually happened, is my argument.

I'm not prepared to declare something a genocide based on what I see on TikTok. It is scandalous that the Israeli government continues to ban Western international journalists from going in. It's scandalous. It's unprecedented. We've never seen this. And what happened immediately after October the 7th? The Israeli government invited the world's media to the kibbutzes to see the mayhem. But there is a slight difference. There isn't.

Because when you invite people into the kibbutz, you're not putting journalists in physical danger. They don't care about journalists' safety. They've already killed 250-plus Palestinian journalists in Gaza. There's no way anyone can argue to me that the Israeli government cares.

the health and safety of journalists. They don't care about the health and safety. They don't want to be blamed for them being killed. Ukraine doesn't allow journalists. They don't care about being blamed for killing 250 Palestinian journalists. That's different. They're already there. It's fine, but there's no other war zone where you've had a complete...

blanket back. In Ukraine, you can't go on the front line if you're a journalist. Front line. And all of Gaza is a front line. It is. It's not. It is. Of course it isn't. What do you mean? All of Gaza is not a front line. It's a tiny layer. Unless you pretend it's a front line.

Tell me more, maybe I'm misinformed. No, you're not misinformed, but I think that all the war correspondents I've talked to say this is unprecedented, right? They all say that there's only one reason the Israeli government doesn't want... journalists into Gaza because it doesn't want the world to see what it's been doing. There's one way to prove it wrong. Hold on, Piers, but the world is seeing what's happening in Gaza. It isn't exactly the way that you said. Everyone's got a camera phone now.

They have, but that, to me, is not easily verified. Every day, if you want to know what's happening in Gaza, there's no shortage of videos. No, no, you can see what people are claiming is happening. You can't be sure about the veracity of this stuff. So you need proper... international journalists with great experience of war zones to go in and do their jobs. It will be the job of their own employers to decide about the risk assessment.

They'll go with their own security teams. The idea the only journalists allowed in are pro-Israeli government journalists who go in bed with the IDF for a few hours and say, nothing to see here, Gav, is ridiculous. If you've nothing to hide, let them in. Let them do their job. Do you not think that they are

terrified of the idea that, you know, a member of CNN gets killed and then they've lost even more. I don't think they give a rat's shit. No, I don't think they care about the journalists necessarily. I think they care about the PR. More journalists have been killed in the PR consequences. Hold on.

other war in modern times. I hear you. But those are Palestinian people who are already there. They're not going to be... They're journalists. Right. You're not hearing me. Just answer my... I'm not trying to argue with you for the sake of arguing. I'm genuinely interested in your perspective. Do you not think that what Israel really cares about is the potential PR disaster that happens, A, if a member of CNN or the Daily Mirror or whoever gets killed in a...

airstrike because they happen to be standing next to something, or, as is also, I think you'd agree, likely, Hamas orchestrates some kind of event where that journalist is killed, and that is a PR disaster for Israel, and that's why they don't want journalists. No, I don't. Why not?

I just don't think that's remotely... You don't think that's a rational explanation? No, for the simple reason they've already killed 250 Palestinian journalists. They don't care about journalists. They just don't want journalists... But that's not a PR disaster. They don't want the journalists to see what they're doing.

So the big question then becomes, why? Why doesn't Netanyahu want journalists in Gaza to verify all these stories of starving Palestinians stampeding for fragments of food and getting shot dead? on a daily basis, a thousand plus now, according to almost every official body, have been killed in these food lines, right? And the belief is it's the IDF killing them.

Well, there's one way to verify this. Let the journalists go and investigate and do their job. I think we're going to uncover, in answer to your point, I think we're going to uncover a lot of war crimes at the end of this, which will be a stain that Israel... because of its government's actions, may find extremely hard to ever wash away. And I think that's a tragedy for Israel.

who had everyone's support, not everyone's support, let me clarify that, who had broad support internationally after October the 7th with, you know, unfortunately, a lot of appalling. I mean, I remember walking down Kensington High Street near...

the Israeli embassy a day after, and there were large numbers of people in the street, you know, cheering and all. Celebrating. They were celebrating. It was sickening, right? It brought out a lot of anti-Semitism, which was disgusting. It made Jewish people's lives less safe, which was disgusting.

But I would argue now that the actions of Israeli government, the longer this goes on, are having the same effect. I think they are leading to a rise in anti-Semitism and they are leading to a rise in less safety for Jewish people around the world. Again, I think they've played into Hamas's trap. And I think that's a great shame. And they should stop it. This war should just be stopped. And they should just...

politically end this. No one thinks Hamas can come back. I mean, no Palestinian guest I've had thinks Hamas will ever govern again in any way. So that's all been agreed by the Arab countries. So for God's sake, stop the killing, get everyone together, get Arab pressure now to help.

sort this. But this idea that Israel can simply kick every Palestinian out of Gaza and take it over, that should send a shudder down everyone's spine. Well, I can't imagine the international community would allow that to happen, Piers. It's not doing a lot to stop it. So where we are now, there will be a lot of people who say, Piers, and maybe I got this wrong, but the last ceasefire was broken by Hamas, was it not? According to Israel.

And the last offer of a ceasefire was not accepted by Hamas. I don't really believe much that either Hamas or the Israeli government now say, if I'm honest. They all blame each other all the time for absolutely everything. The IDF says every single atrocity that happens... is Hamas's fault. Hamas say that everything that happens as bad is the IDS fault. So again, there is a way to get through this. Let independent journalists come in and find out.

That's the way that you get through the lies and the bullshit on both sides. But what about the ceasefire, though? Because people are trying to get a ceasefire together and Hamas is not accepting it by the reports of those people. Says the Israeli government. No, says the Americans. Well, there was a report recently that Smodrich last year, a year ago, made it clear to Netanyahu if he did the ceasefire.

deal then that was on the on the table which is a big significant one with a view to ending the war then he would resign and bring down the government so they didn't do it now that was well sourced if that's what happened it's disgraceful right These guys, Smodrich and Ben Gavir, don't want this war over. They want to cleanse Gaza of the Palestinians. Do you think Netanyahu wants it to be over? No, I don't. Have you tried to invite him on your show? Yeah. Yeah, I interviewed him.

A few months before October the 7th, when he came to London, And it was when he was taking on the Supreme Court and trying to reduce their power in Israel. And there were mass protests from Israeli people then. He was very unpopular. And I did about a 30, 40-minute interview with him. One of his ministers resigned while we were doing it. So he was in big political trouble. And I'm afraid the cynic in me would suggest that Netanyahu has seen a poll boost from warfare.

whether it's against Hezbollah, against Iran, whether it's been against Hamas. I think he's become a war. mongering prime minister who thinks that there's no real upside to him in ending this anytime soon because when he does he will be held accountable for october the seventh and he will

end up in a criminal court for corruption. None of that is good if you're Benjamin Netanyahu. There's no obvious incentive to end this war. There is going to be war fatigue. There is going to be a time when the Israeli people go no more. There's no actual sign of that. And that's what's really baffling and concerning to me. And I do wonder about, I said this on my show last night, what media do they watch in Israel? Because Israelis I meet here are pretty horrified by what's happening.

And even the ones who were very supportive to start with have moved. I don't really meet many Israelis outside of Israel. Now, I'm going to New York end of this week. It'll be interesting. There's obviously more Jews in New York than any other place than Tel Aviv, right?

It'd be interesting there what the feeling is on the streets there. But again, I'm hearing from Jewish friends in New York, they don't like this. They just don't see an end to it or what the point of all this is anymore. That's really the issue is it's becoming... quite difficult to see what the point is at this point. Unless it is what Smodry says it is. Or unless it's what you say about the leadership, which is them wanting to prolong this as far as possible. Particularly, see...

The argument always was that Iran is behind all of this, and until Iran's dealt with, then this is all going to go on. as much as possible has been dealt with. So it just doesn't feel particularly productive to keep going. And it was very eye-opening for us having Andrew Fox in your chair, who's otherwise very pro-Israel, saying this should have ended a few months ago because they're not actually achieving their objective.

I mean, you've interviewed a lot of people and hosted a lot of debates on this, obviously. Have you heard a credible solution to all of this? Only political, which is the way all these things get resolved in the end. Such as? Well, let me give an example. it's not an exact parallel but in northern ireland for seven decades they had the northern irish troubles um you know i'd found me do tools in northern ireland the loyalists were often just as bad as the ira right

And you had endless terrorism on both sides from extremists for a long period of time. And then in the 90s... You finally had new leadership. You had Bill Clinton in America take over as president. You had Tony Blair take over as president here, but actually John Major, to his credit, just before that had been instrumental in this too. You had Senator George Mitchell.

who was brilliant at the same time. A whole new set of fresh eyes look at this problem. And they managed to barrel their way somehow through to peace. And they ended up bringing in people like Martin McGuinness, former chief of the staff of the IRA, to become credible politicians with Sinn Féin, who are now the number one political party in the country. And they've got it and they have relative peace here now.

in Northern Ireland, you know, like they've never experienced in the whole time of the Troubles. So it can be done. And there you had, you know, it's not massively dissimilar. You've got, you know, not a massive land area and you've got warring factions of similar people. You know, people forget there's over a million Arab Israelis, right? So it can be done. I remember getting my first trip to Jerusalem to interview Netanyahu for CNN back in 2011-12, and I went with my Jewish producer.

And he deliberately stopped me at a cafe en route from the airport to Jerusalem. And I looked around. I thought, it's a bit weird. I said, am I missing something? He said, what? He was laughing. I said. Not half the people in here are Arabs and half Jewish. He went, yeah. I said, it isn't like three miles away, just like this would be completely unthinkable. He went, yeah. It was very, like, you haven't been. It was that.

It's like, wow. Okay, so why can't this get resolved? So I think it can get resolved, but never while Netanyahu is leading Israel. And never, you've got to remember how far back it goes with him. I've been in his office when he pointed to a picture of his brother who died in the raid on Entebbe. He was a captain in the Israeli Special Forces. And he teared up looking at that.

His dad was a massive hardliner. It's in his blood. It's in his family. They've all suffered a lot of loss, as did a lot of people in Northern Ireland. But I do think the parallel with Northern Ireland is that... Fresh eyes came in, fresh determination, fresh will. This only gets resolved when there's a two-state solution. And does anyone seriously think Netanyahu will ever allow that?

No. There is no one who believes in a two-state solution anymore. Genuinely. All right, but there were periods when nobody thought you could ever get peace in Northern Ireland. That's fair. And I just think that it needs new leadership on the Palestinian side.

new government in Israel, and you have to have a new collective will, helped by other Arab countries, who I think many of them have been putting their fingers in their ears, head in the sand, hoping this all goes away. That has to stop too. You've got to have a different way of looking at this. But ultimately, as I say to all my Israeli guests, give me one good reason why a Palestinian should have less human rights than you.

Just give me one. Give me one good reason why it's right that Israel, whether you want to call yourselves occupiers or not, had the ability the moment this war started to turn off the... electricity supplies the water supplies the food supplies because you do in a way occupy gaza you may not want to admit you do but you do because you have the levers of power over everything and

Again, why is that right? Would we put up with that in England if the French had that power over us? Talking about your bringing it home here or something like that happened here. Would we accept that here?

Would we accept another country? We seem to accept an open border, mate. Well, we do, but we don't accept another country having to leave as a power over basic essentials like water. It's more complicated than that. Well, I'll give you an example. Yeah. Give you an example. So Ukraine controls the supply of water to Ukraine. to the Crimean Peninsula, which they cut off immediately when the war started, right? But I take your point. I take your point.

I guess I'm just curious whether you've heard. See, the Northern Ireland example, I think, is very apt one. And I really think you're right about the power of new leadership and a different perspective to approach things in a new way. And you saw that with Abram Accords. By the way, Jared Kushner went around the Middle East, approached things from the ground up. He did great. And did a great job, right? But have you heard...

Forget the historical analogies. Have you heard a proposal of how to deal with this current situation that you are persuaded by? Well, I've heard a proposal that the Americans would lead the rebuilding of Gaza, that you would have... a new Palestinian election at some point, but Hamas would not be able to field anyone, right? So they're done.

So they can have no political power or governmental power. They're not going to vote for Lib Dems, I imagine. They're not. But the Palestinian people ultimately need to lead the Palestinian, led by Palestinians. We can all agree on that. Yeah, of course. I think we haven't even touched on what's happened on the West Bank with the extremist settlers just grabbing any land they can, which is disgusting. Again, these are war crimes, right? So...

I see war crimes on both sides here. And so ultimately, how do you resolve this? A lot of the extremists on both sides believe they have a God-given right to the land they're on, right? So you're dealing with a fundamentalist view on both sides. I don't see any real ideological difference about if one side or the other sees this as their God-given land. So that's what you're dealing with. It makes it a much deeper problem.

then you could just solve in the normal kind of geographic, political, territorial manner, if you like. I think the Ukraine-Russia thing is a much easier thing to resolve ultimately than this, because it's not based on a holy war. which makes things, as we know, historically, immeasurably more complicated. So, look, what's the answer? Ultimately, you need new Palestinian leadership that genuinely is determined to not allow...

the extremists like Hamas to rise again. Not easy. Easier said than done. Particularly when you've just had Israel killing 70 to 100,000 people. That will cause a lot of rage, I'm sure. which I believe will come back and haunt them. I hope I'm wrong. You need the Arab leaders around, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Dubai and others, Egypt, Jordan. You need them all to get involved.

and to work out a way that you can create a two-state solution where the Israelis do not feel like their lives are constantly in peril.

and where the Palestinians feel that they have the same human rights as their neighbours. And I don't think that's unachievable. But what it needs is really strong leadership. I mean, let's take the other parallel of Nelson Mandela when he came out of prison. He could have gone one of two ways.

Right? 27 years living in a 6x6 cell, he could have come out and led the mother of all revenges, couldn't he? But he went the other way. He chose a much different route than the one that a lot of black South Africans wanted him to do. They wanted him to go and kill all the white oppressors. And he went, no, I'm not doing that. We're going to unify the country. There's a spirit there which should be adopted too. If Israel had played this differently...

From the start, I think things could have been extremely different and their reputation around the world would have been extremely different now. I think they have massively...

massively overreacted in such a shockingly disproportionate manner that is ongoing that they're losing all their friends. They're losing all their support. When even the American ambassador... to Israel, who is about as pro-Israeli as you could possibly get, when even he is condemning them for criminal acts and attacking the Catholic Church there, where Pope Francis used to call every night.

famously, and for attacking Christians and killing Americans. You know, when even that's happening, right? There's a wind of change here. I think one of the things that will... I take your point, what you were saying, and...

The historical precedence and the example, that's fair enough. But also we need to acknowledge as well the Islamic fundamentalism that lies at the heart of all of this. That is a cancer that is going to be very, very difficult to get rid of, particularly the more this war goes on. the more people become radicalized. How do you get rid of that type of ideology? Listen to what you just said. No.

But I accept that point. You're actually agreeing with my pretext. Francis's point is there's a difference between Northern Ireland and this, because in Northern Ireland, people were not putting their own children in front of bombs because they thought they were all going to go to paradise. Yes, but they weren't putting their own children in front of bombs because they thought they were going to paradise. I understand.

That's a big difference. It's why I've always been absolutely certain Putin would never use nuclear weapons, because he's a materialistic dictator who has built one of the richest fortunes in the world and enjoys the spoils of material goods. He's not going to kill himself, right? I just think his logic says he's not going to do that, which he knows he would do if he pressed a button. So you're dealing with a different ideology, I agree. Although...

When it comes to fundamentalist extremism, I see a lot of that on the really hardcore right side of Israel now, right? They sound like extremist fundamentalists. I interviewed one last week, absolute crazy woman. I kept trying to say to her, do you feel any empathy for all the children who died in Palestine? Nothing. There's nothing there at all. Not a semblance of humanity. wants them all out, all gone, doesn't care. I was unashamed about it.

Unashamed about it. That's a form of extremism. I agree, but I also think that the Islamic fundamentalism is a heightened form of even that type of extremism. Look, to be clear, I don't like any fundamentalism. No, no, nobody's saying that you do, but my point is... If you were willing to put your own children and family in the way of bullets purely for your own ideology...

then that is something that we really haven't seen that many times before. And how do you deal with that? Well, we saw it with ISIS and they got pretty well dismantled. We saw it with Al-Qaeda. They got pretty well dismantled. You know, it's not like the world is short of ideas of how to go after terror groups. There's plenty of history to suggest there are ways to do it. But I just don't know what Israel's government thinks it's now achieving.

That really is the fundamental question. What are they achieving other than making Israel a more unpopular country globally and making its people more unsafe? Those are the two things I think are happening now on an increasing rate on a daily basis. So I simply say to Netanyahu, how does that work? How does that work for you? And if your actual plan...

is to get all Palestinians out of Gaza to say it and be judged accordingly. And then the world can wake up to what I think is the plan, which is the one that Smodrich has been openly talking about, which is they want to cleanse Palestine and Gazas. That's ethnic cleansing.

on a scale we haven't seen in modern times? Piers, we're going to ask you some spicy questions from our audience on Substack in a second. They've sent in a bunch. Before we do, as you know, we always end with the same one in the main interview itself, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be? Before Piers answers the final question at the end of the interview, make sure to head over to our sub stack. The link is in the description where you'll be able to see this.

Does Piers ever find it a challenge to balance entertainment, clickbait value versus expertise, insight and civility? There were many, many questions about Natasha Hausdorff. A lot of people feel that you were disrespectful. You often make the claim that Israel doesn't allow Western journalists into Gaza as they are hiding the truth.

Yet, he says, journalists can enter Syria and report on the slaughter of the Druze, yet they choose not to. Why is that? What's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be? Well, Arsenal's new striker, obviously. Victor Gorka, I mean, I'm amazed. There's a change of gears. I'm amazed you haven't raised this earlier. Now, look, I mean, the thing is...

I go through a lot of stress in my day job like you guys do. But ultimately, you talk about fundamentalism. I am an Arsenal fundamentalist. And we have not had a proper striker for years. And it now looks like... we're going to get Victor Jacarez, who is the highest scorer in European football.

in the last 12 months. In the Portuguese league. And let's be fair, a lot of strikers from the Portuguese league have come and failed. And he scored a hat-trick against Manchester City and he's been banging them in the Champions League. This is the pathway to glory. Arsenal will now win trophies this season. Make you sound like a fucking fundamentalist. I'm telling you. I did say that to start with. But that's what we're not talking about, which I'm just surprised about.

As Bill Shankly once said, football's not a matter of life or death. It's way more important than that. There we go. Head on over to Substack where we ask Piers your questions. After your experience of what turned out to be fake news of UK soldiers abusing Iraqis, why are you so quick to repeat news on Gaza and criticize Israel when the info comes from Hamas and Hamas sympathizers?

Francis, I want to take a minute to give a special mention to one of the best podcast interviewers out there. Okay, be quick though, mate. Who is it? It's me. No, it's a certain someone who's funny and smart. Oh, yeah? He's got an incredible knack for creating honest conversations with fans.

fascinating people. Go on. Do you know who I'm talking about? Is it me? What? No, it's Jordan Harbinger. Oh. The Jordan Harbinger Show is a perfect complement to trigonometry and we recommend you add it to your podcast rotation. Yes, just like trigonometry. Jordan hosts weekly mind-broadening conversations with some of the most fascinating people in the world. But a key difference that I'm a big fan of is that Jordan is focused on pulling actionable, growth-oriented advice from his guests.

Jordan's show ago today. Search for The Jordan Harbinger Show. That's H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.