How Hamas Turned Gaza into a Death Factory: Netanyahu Adviser Caroline Glick

the discussion that we've had about the war is just sort of blind to the basic realities of the situation and that to me is the ground zero of all of the problems caroline Glick is a journalist author and recently adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by showing them that the only thing that they get from being with Hamas is death and destruction and giving them an alternative which is what the Trump plan does you have this opportunity to build a life in a different place she breaks down Israel's perspective on various developments in the region from resuming wartime operations in Gaza to the situation in Syria to Trump's strikes on the Houthis in Yemen when somebody tells you that they want to kill you you have to believe them you have no choice you have to take them at their word this is American Thought Leaders and I'm Ya Kellik caroline Glick such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders oh it's a pleasure to be on your program Yan so Israel has resumed war activity in Gaza um there's different narratives around why that's happened explain to me from the perspective of Israel what's going on so the approximate cause of the re reinstatement of military operations in Gaza is that Hamas broke the ceasefire we had a ceasefire where they got respit in the sense of u a ceasefire and uh removal of Israeli forces from uh the Gaza Strip except for the perimeter around Israel and the border zone with with Egypt so that they don't control uh smuggling routes for weapons and personnel um and they were supposed to return the hostages that they're still holding you know they took 251 hostages on October 7th uh 210 live hostages uh from Israel in an act of sadism and war crimes unseen before and uh they continue to hold uh 59 uh hostages 25 of whom are alive and they refused to give them up during the course of this ceasefire we were able to secure the release of of several hostages of many hostages um in exchange for uh releasing uh hundreds of terrorists from our prisons in Israel and they were supposed to continue along with this and we were waiting and waiting uh Ambassador Witoff the uh president's uh special envoy for handling the hostages issue from the American perspective had offered a uh compromise to prolong the ceasefire where they would give us 10 more live hostages and about an equal number of of deceased hostages who they murdered uh in exchange for continue along on the ceasefire and they rejected it and still they got an extra two weeks of ceasefire sort of as a freebie because Israel was waiting for them to agree to release more hostages and they refused and so we realized that continuing the ceasefire was actually threatening the lives of the hostages that the longer that we prolonged it the longer they felt that they weren't going to have to pay any price for continuing to hold the hostages and so right now as Prime Minister Netanyahu said you know we're going to continue to conduct the hostage negotiations but under fire because doing it during a ceasefire wasn't bringing about the release of any more hostages so we're restoring our control over what's called the Netarim Corridor which sort of cuts uh Gaza in half from north to south uh to prevent the movement of terrorists and the receding of Hamas and all of the areas that uh they've seized control over again since the IDF removed its forces from Gaza at the beginning of the uh hostage deal in late January um and so uh that's where we are right now we have two goals in this war or three really but I mean two immediate goals one is the release of all of the hostages and the other is the destruction of Hamas as a military organization and as a polit political entity and um you know this is in further endance of both of them what is the third the third is to prevent Gaza from ever posing uh threat to Israel in the future and that goes along with the Trump plan for rebuilding Gaza okay that's something I I definitely want to ask you about happy to talk but going back to uh the military operations um there were reports of I think you know 400 uh Gazins who had been uh killed very quickly seems like a large number um there's concerns that you know this is too too hard of a strike i don't know this these we we hear a lot about this what what's your reaction so first of all I think it's very important to note that Israel doesn't deliberately target civilians that's what Hamas does that's why we're in this war because they deliberately targeted civilians on October 7th when they invaded Israel you know you had over 75% of the casualties that day of the,400 people that they murdered were civilians it was deliberate targeting of families of women who were subjected to mass brutal rape gang rape uh children who were murdered in front of their parents parents who were murdered in front of their children immilation burning alive of families there were over 800 civilians who were murdered out of 1,200 people who were killed and the rest were military personnel and they were mainly not engaged in combat they were in their beds they were butchered in their beds and also the female soldiers who they murdered were brutally raped um so we don't do that they do that and the numbers that we've seen by the way of the dead you know these all come from Hamas and they use these kinds of numbers which have been largely debunked by uh studies like the University of Pennsylvania put out of a study uh at the height of the combat operations last year that showed that the numbers that the Kamas uh health ministry in Gaza are putting out are faked so we've seen a lot of these things but because they remain the regime in Gaza they remain in control of the health ministry in Gaza so you keep getting these numbers and they're automatic numbers you know at the beginning of the war there were reports that a missile had fallen on Ali Hospital in uh Gaza and they claimed I don't remember what it was something like 500 dead 5 minutes after a missile fell in the parking lot of this hotel but there were already 500 dead 10 minutes later nobody knows these numbers it took us weeks and weeks and weeks to figure out how many people they killed on October 7th because they emulated the bodies they burned people alive there were bodies that took months to identify through broken uh cra bro broken uh teeth shards um and so we didn't know but they know there are 500 523 people dead within 10 minutes and it worked out it was a missile that was shot into Israel by the Islamic Jihad terrorists who work with Hamas that had fallen short of its target inside of Gaza and you know how many casualties there were who knows but in the meantime you've had three news cycles going out across the world saying that Israel is deliberately targeting sick people wounded people in this Gaza hospital it wasn't our missile nobody knows how many were killed probably very few but this was sort of the thing that happened every day um you know by their own statistics like you'd think that most of the people who were killed were non-combatants all women and children so that you can see that this is deliberately falsified information but again Israel doesn't target civilians hamas does and every act of war that they carry out against Israel because they hide behind civilians is actually under international law a war crime you can test these numbers and I understand why uh based on what you just said what would be other uh misconceptions that you deal with in your role regularly that you would like to share yeah I mean there's this very strange moral equivalence that people make between the state of Israel and Hamas terrorists and so I think that in a lot of ways this moral equivalence which is fundamentally fraudulent there is no equivalence we're fundamentally different societies were fundamentally different types of people in the way that we view the sanctity of life we view it as sacred they view death as sacred i mean this fundamental disparity between Israel and people who you know are aligned more with the Muslim Brotherhood view of jihadist Islam is is really like light and and darkness night like day and night and it's very difficult as a practical matter to be blind to that disparity and then have a rational discussion about the war so I think that when you look at sort of the grounding assumptions on which the entire discourse of the of the war is predicated uh and you realize that they're fundamentally flawed from a moral perspective and from a practical perspective and you understand that a lot of the discussion that we've had about the war itself is just sort of blind to the basic realities of the situation and that to me is the ground zero of all of the problems in the discourse about the war i mean we we we don't want to kill people you know we we don't want to be at war with our neighbors we're peace-eking people we've done you know even silly things even stupid things even irresponsible things in our ardent desire to live at peace with our neighbors it's all we ever want is peace and on the other hand they teach their children that their greatest aspiration should be the annihilation of the Jewish state and the Jewish people allahbar [Music] our soldiers in Gaza they they they come in and in the height of the war last year they were you know entering into these apartment buildings and I remember this one and and it was just it was it wasn't rare it happens every day you know you have pictures of mine comp and you know copies of mine comp you have all of this Nazi literature all of this annihilationist anti-semitic literature posters etc and they found an iPad that belonged to a teenage girl um you know in in in this apartment and they turned it on and her screen saver was Adolf Hitler i have teenage boys you know and they're interested in all kinds of you know I have one boy who loves the NFL and everything is NFL and the other one loves soccer and everything is messy messy messy who Who would think of putting Adolf Hitler as their screen saver but I mean it's indicative of the nature of of a society that's been deformed by indoctrination and constant drumbeat of annihilationist hatred of Jewish people and of Western civilization that they get everywhere in Gaza when you don't internalize that and anybody looking at what happened on October 7th really it's like how could you not see that um then the whole discussion of the war seems irrelevant to actual realities on the ground you know let me tell you how I've heard it described israel has been so dominant and so destructive and so some people have even used the term genocidal right towards the Gazin people that this that's the that's the reason that there might be a Hitler screen saver or something like that like how do you respond to that kind of fundamentally false if we're if we're genocidal we're the you know the worst pe you know conductors of genocide ever because the data speak for themselves the ual data speak for themselves and you know you have the head of urban warfare at West Point uh Colonel John Spencer who has put out you know report after report attesting to the fact that the that the casualty rate in Gaza the of uh civilians to military personnel is the lowest in recorded history the lowest i mean you've never had anything like that in a in an urban warfare situation the the the numbers are almost impossible to get your head around the lengths that Israel goes to to protect civilians in Gaza are unprecedented in the history of warfare and it and it doesn't matter because the discourse has has an intrinsic logic of moral equivalence uh look at what we're doing we're sending out leaflets leave we're going to start bombing we've made millions of phone calls to people on their cell phone saying "Leave where you are right now go to a safe area so that you're not harmed we set up humanitarian safe zones throughout Gaza we have to do that because the Egyptians block the Gazins from fleeing the war zone you know you have millions of people flee every war zone but thanks to the Egyptians the Gazins have been boxed in and not allowed to flee so Israel instead has set up you know at extraordinary cost these humanitarian safe zones for the people of Gaza so that they'll be kept out of harm's way did it before the operation in Rafa everybody said it couldn't be done 1.4 million civilians in Rafa how can you go in there well we move them out you know Prime Minister Netanyahu constantly has been showing the data in all of his statements not only to the media but also to visiting people are concerned about these kinds of things that you're talking about and yet the discourse continues a pace it the facts be damned there is no truth whatsoever to these allegations and at a certain point you have to wonder well facts don't matter people don't care people aren't looking at the actual number of dead they're not looking at the actions that Israel has taken to prevent civilian deaths and they're just asserting these these slanderous allegations time after time after time and you're wondering you know what is motivating this how can it be that you have these so-called humanitarian organizations international organizations uh media organizations that are just paring these these slanders they're just unsupported entirely by facts caroline one quick sec we're going to take a break and folks we'll be right back you may have noticed it's Shen Yun season again but I wanted to tell you a little bit personally about why I love this show and go see it every year aside from being beautiful it's actually a homegrown American dream success story all things from traditional China were under attack during the cultural revolution and have kind of really remained that way since and traditional Chinese dance was almost destroyed but parts of it actually survived so what the Shenyun people did is in upstate New York they brought together the people that actually remembered what it was all about and kind of rekindled it put it back together rebirthed it in upstate New York they started with one company in 2006 today there's eight of them touring the world a million people see it every year i mean just think about that in under 20 years pulling your boots up no government funding and they brought back traditional Chinese dance to the world so the tagline is China before communism which something speaks very deeply to me personally the Chinese Communist Party has been trying to destroy this group you know prevent them from performing all these years and over the last year the New York Times has even been going after Shen Yun using a lot of the same talking points that the Chinese Communist Party has been using and with these increased attacks I particularly feel motivated personally to invite you to see Shen Yun and actually see for yourself what it's all about how amazing it is how inspiring it is so to find out where Shen Yun is performing near you check out Showtimes at shenyun.com sen yun n.com you can use the code jan25 to get theater ticketing fees waved again that's jan25 i can't stress how highly I appreciate this show and how much I think you will love it and we're back with Caroline Glick advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maybe there's another nuance here which is that it's just quite simply you know Israel has been in control of the area for a long time and has been able to impose its will on the area at some you know in some significant manner and that is the problem right like that's that's unfair that's unreasonable well that's how it's characterized right but it's not true mhm israel hasn't been in control of Gaza or wasn't in control of Gaza since 2005 when Israel withdrew lock stock and barrel from Gaza uh we expelled 8,500 Israelis who lived in flourishing communities in Gaza in northern Gaza and along uh southern Gaza along the area that Israel currently controls to prevent smuggling um and we withdrew them we destroy the communities we withdrew all of our military forces including from the international border between Gaza and Egypt and we said "Take over here's your Palestinian state why don't you you know turn this into Singapore?" They were given billions and billions of dollars in international aid money from the United States from other Western countries and from the countries of the Middle East and rather than do what we were hoping that they would do uh rather than turning Gaza into Singapore along the lines that President Trump has sort of laid out in his plan in his vision for a post-war Gaza they turned Gaza into Afghanistan with 450 miles of subterranean tunnels that exist for the sole purpose of attacking Israel they took all of the building materials they took the money and rather than build up build Gaza up they built an underground Gaza the preconceived notion of which was to be used as the most entrenched enemy uh encampments uh and battle stations in history you're talking about a regime of of the Palestinians under Hamas that is dedicated solely not to the building of a state but to the annihilation of the Jewish state and everybody thought no not everybody so many people thought the consensus opinion of the international community led by the United States was just give them the opportunity if you leave Gaza if you give it to them say here the first time ever that Palestinians have had full sovereignty over anything there's never been a Palestinian state they had all of Gaza build you you want a state start here who knows where it will lead but here make your lives good we're going to give you all of the ability to do that billions and billions of dollars israel left it'll let you take your goods to market through Israel if if you want you can build a port in Gaza all of these things were on the table being discussed people were willing to fund them and all of this stuff they took and they built a death factory and they indoctrinated their people not to want to build a state but to want to annihilate the Jewish state is given everything you've just told me is it even possible to win this war somehow militarily yes it is um it's possible to win this war militarily by a destroying their ability to conduct war which we mainly did um but now I mean what we're seeing now in terms of Hamas's reorganization as a military organization is much more along the lines of a guerilla warfare operation than a standing army it was a standing army that invaded Israel on October 7th they had air cover with their missiles they had drones they had um and they had ground forces they had a navy that invaded Israel from the beaches and they were organized in brigade uh brigade units that were centrally commanded by uh chief of staff of their military forces Muhammad Duff so they had organized as military force and that military force was largely destroyed and now we're facing more of a guerilla organization so from that perspective uh we we conducted a military operation that destroyed their their military and now we're going after them in a in a more of a a counterterrorism offensive the question of the of the way the inshment of Hamas with the people of Gaza who share the same ideological uh sensibilities that Hamas does and seeks the same goals that Hamas does well how do you do that i mean in the same way as Prime Minister Netanyahu said repeatedly that the German people became disabused of the notion that uh Nazism was going to get them somewhere good and so by showing them that the only thing that they get from being with Hamas is death and destruction um and giving them an alternative which is what the Trump plan does which is you know you you have this opportunity to build a life in a different place gaza will be rebuilt and you know you can return if you're willing to sign on to this deal to a place that is humane that uh seeks peace that wants a different future that is building a different future if you wish and otherwise stay where you've relocated to and that's how you achieve chieve the goals of this war you have to change the internal calculation so when you have a discourse that says "Hey Israel's guilty of genocide everything that Israel does is an illegal act israel isn't even the moral equivalent of Hamas israel is worse than Hamas." What kind of incentive are you giving the people of Gaza to walk away from Hamas you're not you're incentivizing them to stay with Hamas for rewarding their bad behavior by saying that the people that they just you know carried out a a one-day holocaust against on October 7th and continue to aspire to do it over and over and over again as they repeatedly claim or proclaim um you're saying "Good for you we appreciate you we think what you're doing is fantastic and we agree with you that the Jewish state is evil." So when you when you have that kind of discourse you're not giving them any reason to walk away from this death factory well Caroline Glick it's such a pleasure to have had you on thank you thank you it's a pleasure to be here and I've been a long fan of your work Yan i think you're doing extraordinary things here and I congratulate you and Epic Times and all your colleagues thank you very much thank you thank you all for joining Caroline Glick and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders i'm your host Yana Kell [Music]