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tv   SPOTLIGHT  PRESSTV  March 13, 2024 10:02pm-10:31pm IRST

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of "the us' israeli genocidal war is setting records in addition to dropping one of the largest volumes of bombs and munitions on the civilian population, which has been compared to the nuclear bomb that the us dropped in hiroshima. the un has said that the number of children killed during the first four months of the war has topped all those killed in four years of wars across the globe. in this edition of the program we will look at how the us and its allies are looking to give off the impression of doing a good deed with air dropping, food. delivering aid to gaza, while
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rifts between the us president joe biden and prime minister benjamin netanyahu are widening over the aggression overall. let me introduce our guests for this edition of the program. nember is a professor of political science at berset university who joins us from bermala. also joining us is sam parker, political activist who ran against medrotney for the us senate, joining us from salt lake city. welcome to you both said number first over to you, this is very shocking and grim stat uh coming from philippe lazarini, i'm sure you heard of him, the commissioner general of unra war in children, he said a war on their childhood and their future, the number of children reported killed in just over four months is higher than the number of children killed in four years of wars around the world combined, what's your impression of what he has said? good evening to you and all your viewers and ramadan karim, we... that
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what was going on in in gaza with this aggression against gaza, it's an genocide, it's not even a war like any other war, because the israeli they don't have any intelligence about what's going on in gaza underground, and since they lack of information, what they are doing is just these bombardments and definitely when you are talking about 2.2 million people living in a very small area, not more than 360... 65 square kilometers, then definitely there will be very high casuality among the civilians of and since palestinians in general, whether in gaza or in the west bank and in jerusalem, 52% of our population are under 18 years old, so we are talking about 52% of our population are children, so wherever you had, definitely half of the cajualities will be children, and definitely the others will be also ' women,
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so women and children so far are more than 70% of the casualities in this in this aggression or genocide, so because of that indefinitely the number of children, we are talking about more than 1200 so far of children were killed because of these bombardments and that that's not to mention those who were severely injured and those who became you know... icapped because of limbs being cut off or hands or legs or these kind of things in addition to the last numbers of children who are dying because of hunger uh taking a look at the stat that you just heard, i'm wondering what you think about this uh sam parker when there are two things that stand out here, just as recent as few weeks ago the us was reported to send weapons to israel amid this invasion threat in the brafa area. and this planned delivery of
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bombs and other munitions comes also on the heels of another report that came out by the washington post, if you heard about those, i guess contracts that were hidden. not revealed where again bombs and munitions were sent, which has contributed to this number of children that have been killed in the gaza strip, what do you think about the us administration and the assistance that they given to the israeli regime militarily? yeah, that's a good question, i appreciate you having me on, but absolutely, it's very duplicitous and obviously it's a lot of optics and it's a pr stunt essentially, i have picture saved on my computer that i saw few days ago that was circulating on online of of the parachute air drop of the food with bombs blowing up buildings in the background in gaza, in the same picture, us uh food pallets drifting down out of the sky and bombs falling and blowing up buildings and people, so we're the united states is engaged
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in doing both things and playing both sides, but really they're just playing one side, they're playing the israel side because they've been sending all kinds of bombs and munitions over to israel to drop on gaza and to use in this conflict, it's not a war right, it's this is not a war, people are calling it a war, but it's not a war because gaza doesn't have armed forces so to speak, it doesn't have tanks and planes and attack helicopters and armored personnel carriers and and infantry and marines and all these things, it's not a conventional war, it's mostly just 2.2 million civilians just getting bombed from here to there and everywhere by the most modern weaponry known to mankind, and the united states has been covertly sending this without the knowledge of congress, circumventing congress, without congressional approval, and now to sort of save face, to curry favor with their voter base and to not look so bad on the international stage, they're doing these
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stunts like dropping a couple truck loads worth of food that really don't amount amount to much, the first airdrop only fit only had 38,00 meals, which if you think about it, 38,00 meals "how does that begin to feed a population of 2.2 million people who are literally now starving to death? the figures, the latest figures i've heard are about 600 thousand gazens are at at catastrophic levels of starvation right now, and so a couple truck loads of of aid delivered, that's just a pr stunt, especially when as you pointed out, it's being done at the same time that we're sending bomb, just truck loads of bombs and munitions, and many of them in secret, so it's..." duplicitus, it's just a pr stunt, and i think it signals an unseriousness from the biden administration. uh, i guess talked about this food drops that that have occurred, how minimal they are. it's quite mind-boggling when you think about what he said, where you have the food drops and you have bombs in the background that are blowing
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up buildings that have civilians inside of it. i mean, one has to scratch their head and say, what can we do, what can be done? there's not a phone call that you can make because obviously this genocide continues, but then you have the other. another ally as a whole, the eu, although has critiqued israel, they have come out with the maritime food corridor, i don't, have you seen that uh barge that's carrying what is said to be 200 tons of aid, that doesn't look like even holds thousands of palestinians, why are they doing this when the such minimal amounts of food uh going to the strip in the first place, and be when you have the crossings that have trucks waiting there to go inside the strip, what's what's the deal there? well the only way i'm sorry this is for go ahead sorry about that yes do agree with you i can't see what's going on here's the question too it's for sad nember i'll get to you though okay go ahead yes i do agree with your guest from uta uh that it is a br thing
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because we know that in gaza we have five crossings for goods between israel and gaza strip we are talk about kisofiem sofa and carne apart from from rafah crossing with egypt and apart from as which is also for personal, but for goods it's there are for four other crossings between israel and and gazah strip, so if the americans and other arab countries and some european countries can drop and have the agreement of israel to drop some of the goods by air, i think they should you know force them or agree with them to open the crossings. and to get in all the goods normally as it used to be before the 7th of october, before the 7th of october we were talking about 500 trucks or or shipments coming to gaza every day, now we are talking about only 100 and only through rafah, so
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it's absolutely absurd, so it's a br thing, it's not nothing more than that, and then the american came with this brilliant idea about you know making a kind of a port in... gaza and they order the military to do it, it needs something like three months uh to be established, three months, what will happen to the people who are starting now in three months time, this is, i think also... "it is because the israeli they don't want the onorwa to be involved and this is part of the war on the onora, so now they are talking about alternative organizations to deliver the the aid to the palestinians and they want to ignore the onorwa because from their point of view the anorwa is helping the palestinan resistance which is not true at all and it's we know the aim by the israel wh the..." targeting onorwa because it is the the the organization that is keeping the um right for
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the palestinian to return uh and to their land and that's why they have this war against it and the americans are involved in that why when they just you know cut all the aid to the onorwa just lately it and during trump er era also they did that before it's targeting the honorwa yeah we could talk about the logistics and how ridiculous it sounds thinking that this is going to work better than the land routes, which un has said that, sam parker, the land routes are obviously the way to go, but we got to move to another topic of this us military assessment that came out, this intel report just - very recent, and i'm going to combine two issues into one, one, it said hamas uh on hamas, israel probably will face lingered armed resistance from hamas for years to come, and then you have uh another notes how israel regime forces uh suffering defeat on the battlefield, um, the there's plan. to lift military service exemption of these alter orthodox jews, do you think that they are losing that on the battlefield combined
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with this report? that is one thing they want to do is to keep feeding the the regime forces side of things in order to continue the genocide? well it certainly looks that way and i saw the protest from the these orthodox jews in israelted last week where they were blocking highways for several hours a time and you had you had conflict physical. conflict going on between israeli police officers and the orthodox protesters, and this this is an idea that's been building for the last month or two inside of israel, i think adamir ben gavir has been pushing for this, he hasn't wanted to make it a force of law yet, but they've absolutely been pushing this idea of drafting these people into the service who have traditionally been exempted, so that does signal that uh they are short on manpower, that they do want to prolong this conflict, and i think you know going back... the last topic of this this aid package that's coming from europe uh through the
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maritime corridor that's i guess going to be delivered onto this temporary pier that the united states is constructing it's going to take two months to build that pier minimum and so that signals right there that's a soft signal that this assault on gaz is going to last at least for another couple months even though you have benjamin netanyahu saying maybe four maybe six weeks but the united states is counting on at least two months so... do you think that's by design? i'm sorry to jump in, do you think they've designed it that way in order to have that that two months or three months maybe uh for the i don't for israel to be able to do its military maneuvers on the ground? absolutely, i think they're giving cover to israel, there's no question about it. look, benny gants, one of the leader of the opposition party, the national unity party who uh is thought of as one of the major uh, one of the major uh rivals to benjamin netanyahu made a visit to washington dc last week basically, with the coordination of the biden administration to help the biden administration politically to take heat off
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them uh, but also to signal that they still support israel, but take heat off of their relationship with benjamin netanyahu and and and put forward a positive, we're we're just against we're just against terrorism in general and we support israel, so i think there are a lot of political moves being made, this is a pr stunt, and some have even suggested that this pier will become a permanent pier that israel will use once they... take over gaza once and for all, so i do think that this is a stunt uh, because as you said, as has been said by the other guest, there's five crossings into gaza already with food trucks ready to go, doesn't make any sense. all right, this military intel report uh said there needs needs a little bit more opening up, and one of the things that has said is the fact that this distrust on netanyahu by the masses, israely masses, and that the protests are going to swall up even after the genes. war ends and they're going to demand netanyahu's resignation and that may actually force him
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to leave office. do you believe that netanyahu is on his last legs? he could be, listen, i'm sorry this for side, sorry about that. i'll get to you though, sam parker, go ahead, side nemer. okay, yeah, i think that yes, netanyahu is facing really a big problem now inside israel, last week there was a poll conducted in israel and most of the population in israel for 53. percent of those who were conducted in the poll, they said that we believe now that netanyahu is making the war now going on and on for his own personal reasons, not for the sake of... israel otherwise he should agree to the deal to release the prisoners captive by the palestinan resistance, but he's doing that for his own kind of you know personal issues, knowing that he's going after that to the you know to face the court and maybe also prison, but definitely not being a prime minister
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anymore after gance being even welcomed in in in america and that was really make make netanyahu very very angry with that, because now the americans are dealing with the gans as the next prime minister in israel, now in israel itself there are now and it's unprecedented, it's for the very first time ever in a war in israel that you you see this fragmentation in the israeli society, a part of that is the the the families of the captive prisoners in in with the in gaza. on the other hand you have people of especially the mothers and families of the soldiers killed in the in gaza and the numbers are really very high though the israel are not announcing it quite right and they are demanding that we don't want our children to be killed now in gaza anymore and also you have another pressure coming from those who were removed from north of palestine because
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of hizballah in in lebanon and those who removed from the south. of palestine because the aggression on gaza, so now you are talk about lots of problems that netanyahu is facing and all these are elements of pressure on netanyahu, so yeah i believe that he had to finish this this job by the end of the day because there is lots of pressure coming from other countries and from the americans, the problem with nathaniahu, my last sentence, the problem with netanyahu, if he go to sease fire he is admitting the defeat of israel for the second time in this aggression, interesting point you make there, sam parker, the rift between uh bb and uh biden, mean is it real, is it deep, is it as bad as uh what it uh these red lines for rafa where biden has uh put it out there, taken it back but put it out there again um that they're a collision course, mean even uh there's uh
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this again intel report that saying a senior israely official on the condition of animity revealing that the us is actually seeking to elst the prime minister benjamin netanyahu, are we looking at what is being reported to be real when it comes to the two? i, there may be rift between the administration and betanyahu or netanyahu, but i don't think that there is a fundamental rip between the us administration and israel itself and the police and its current policies and its current war mongering. i don't think there's a rip there. i don't think that the united states is going to stand in the way of what israel wants to do. now netanyahu has become immensely has is starting to become more of a political liability, look in israel, like your last, the other guest just said, he's deeply unpopular, he was already unpopular before october 7th, there were massive protests out in the streets of jerusalem, some say that israel was even on the brink of civil war, and since then they blame netanyahu for the debackle of october 7th,
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they they blame him for the death of these hostages, they're furious with him that he won't he won't negotiate to bring the... hostages home and that that and and they know that israel has killed, likely killed some of their own hostages, so he's even more unpopular than he was before, and he was deeply unpopular before, it's just that, in the middle of a war it's hard to make you know a change like that, so i don't think that there is a red line, i think that politically this is hurting the joe biden administration and it's hurting his re-election campaign, and i think that any rhetoric that seeks to diminish benjamin netanyahu. or to you know to put forth any any idea of a red line is really to serve his base that is mad at him for supporting a genocide, and so i think it's going towards his reelection campaign. i don't think it shifts a fundamental chain, i don't, i don't think it signals a fundamental shift in us policy towards helping israel do what it wants to do. look, this we just said this period is going to take two months, that
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gives that gives israel cover it needs to the cover it needs for at least the next couple or three months, so i think it's mostly rhetoric and to take. offen for his re-election campaign. well sad nimmer that the us president joe byan was very um assure and confident that uh there would be um a uh ceasefire. he even announced the day of the week monday uh few days uh prior to ramadan we saw that that didn't happened. now one of the reasons, one of the reasons was the insistence by hamas to have a permanent cease fire. it did not want a temporary one. what's wrong with that? why should that have been one of the thorny issues that many some are saying that led to the uh to the cease fire uh not to happen, yeah, well, you know, let's put it just, you know, blankly like this, what they wanted, they wanted hamas to deliver all the prisoners, to give them... back and which is the only card in their hands, hamas and then they will continue the war, so what's the purpose then? definitely hamas is not going to give all these 134
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prisoners that they have for only sease fire, and when they deliver them, israel will continue and resume the killing and the war against gaza, so definitely they will insist a sease fire, and there is a huge understanding anyway among all those who are involved in this negotiations with that and they believe that there should be cease fire. the problem here is the netanyahu himself. now for the americans, yes, i do agree with some, when we are talking about the deep state in in united states definitely they are going to back up israel and always will support israel, but sometimes you have between the administration and the government in israel some problems, and we saw that also during obama, so it it might happen like that, but it is not that... deep reft in in in the relationship, which would make biden force israel to do something they don't want to do. we know that biden can, you know, in
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half an hour order israel to stop the war and they will stop it, otherwise we won't give you anything, so if they want to do it, they can do it, but they are involved and they are still going on with israel in this war, so this pressure by biden to achieve kind of a cease fire before ramadan. failed and we failed it was netanyahu because he insisted and he withdraw his delegation from egypt in the last moment and he don't want to continue negotiations and he is blaming hamas so yeah we think it's not that much of of of negotiations anyway since they are sticking to their opinion one minute we keep hearing about how the us can pick up the phone sam parker and tell the war uh the onslot to stop we we hear that lot uh but we don't here the fact that the us, with all the military assistance it's given, has not been able to help israel win the onslot. why do you think that is? less than a minute, please. well, i
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think the goal hasn't been to quote unquote win, because i think israel wants that land and it wants to move the people off the land, it also wants to have exact retribution and revenge for what happened on october 7th, and so they're starving these people, they're collectively punishing them, they're systematically destroying all civilizational. hospitals, schools, mosks, churches, apartments, homes, everything, roads, there's nothing left in many parts of gaza, so they're not fighting a war, they're not fighting a conventional war where we're just we're trying to beat the enemy and take out its enemy force so much as that they're trying to clear out the land, ethnically cleanse them and take it over, that's been their goal, and so i think while they project the idea of winning, thank you very much, sam parker, political activist ran against brobne for the us senate, saltle city, utah, a pleasure, professor of political science, brised university from ramala. with that we come to an end with this edition of the spotlight, from the team is goodbye.
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operation took israel off guard. playing the victim, the regime called it an unprovoked attack, but did hamas really attack the regime out of the blue with no good reason? gaza stripped of life soon unpressed tv.
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press ofe headlines this hour, the un refugee agency says the anslot and gaza has killed more children than four years of wars around the world. president putin says ukraine's recent military operations intend to meddle in russia's upcoming president also the headlines, you want china and russia carry on with their joint enable drills in the indian ocean.