'The same way the West eliminated ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Israel will eliminate Hamas from Gaza.'
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres openly criticised Israel by stating that Hamas's attack on October 7 'did not happen in a vacuum'.
Though he clarified later that he condemned Hamas's terror, the damage was done.
Israel is now asking for the Guterres' resignation, saying he was being partisan whereas he has to be a neutral umpire.
Ever since Hamas attacked Israel killing 1,400 of its civilians on October 7 and taking more than 200 hostages, life has not been the same for Israelis.
The nation is in grief and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to eliminate Hamas from Gaza.
But even as Israeli planes bomb Gaza to target Hamas, there has been collateral damage of thousands of civilian deaths which is causing outrage against Israel in many countries.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com spoke to Emmanuel Navon, CEO of ELNET (the European Leadership Network, an Israeli NGO dedicated to strengthening Europe-Israel relations), scholar and practitioner of diplomacy and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, to understand the Israeli viewpoint.
The UN secretary-general's statement that Hamas did not attack in a vacuum as Palestinians have been subjected to 56 years of occupation was one of the strongest statements against Israel.
Why is the world seeing more of Israeli atrocities against people in Gaza and not Hamas who dragged Israel into this conflict on October 7?
Is Israel failing the propaganda war?
The statement from UN Secretary-General Guterres is scandalous. He should either apologise or resign.
But it is not entirely surprising because the United Nations has been morally bankrupt for many years.
You have the UN Human Rights Council which has the world's worst human rights violators represented there.
The UN secretary general made a comment which is totally wrong. And when he says the Hamas attack did not come out of a vacuum, in a way he is right.
It is an outcome of an ideology of Hamas and the Iranian regime. And this ideology tells them to annihilate the Jews and kill them wherever they are.
This ideology has got nothing to do with the policy of this or that Israeli government.
To suggest that the policy of Israel has produced this genocidal ideology is wrong and scandalous, and therefore Israel is demanding the UN secretary-general's resignation.
The entire focus of this war has shifted to Gaza where Israel is bombarding civilians. Hospitals in Gaza have no medicines as Israel has imposed a blockade.
Don't you feel Israel must do something about this?
Israel is trying to limit as much as possible the number of civilian casualties.
Hamas uses civilians as a human shield and they do rocket launches which damage mosques and hospitals. Collateral damage is inevitable.
In the same way NATO forces made up of democratic countries like the USA, Canada and other European nations when they attacked Islamic State, civilian casualties took place in places like Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa in Syria.
These bombings of NATO forces were not intentional, but inevitable side-effects of the war against a terrorist organisation. This is what is happening in Gaza now.
How will it help Israel by not issuing visas to UN officials after the UN chief's statement?
The UN secretary-general has to understand that the UN cannot get away by making such an outrageous statement.
The UN today is a morally bankrupt organisation dominated by the world's worst human right violators.
Dominated in the sense numerically when you look at the makeup of the General Assembly, the free world today is a minority in this organisation.
The UN was an organisation created by the free world after World War II, but has been hijacked and dominated by corrupt and undemocratic regimes.
The United Nations declared Lashkar e Tayiba a terrorist organisation for the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, but the UN never calls Hamas a terrorist group.
Why has Israel failed to convince the UN to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation?
There is no such thing called as a world. Some countries are democratic and some are not. The free world and democratic world are supporting Israel.
This includes countries like the USA, Australia, Japan and other democratic countries.
And look at the countries which are not supporting Israel. They are Russia, China and Iran.
They are regressive autocracies. They are on the wrong side of history and therefore they are not on Israel's side.
I have spoken to Palestinian political analysts and they say the root cause of violence is that the current Israeli leadership has stopped believing in the two-State solution to the Israel-Palestine problem and they do not abide by any international peace agreements.
This resulted in the attack on Israel. How far is that true?
This is a well-known lie which Palestinians keep repeating all the time.
The Palestinian leadership has always rejected the two-State solution for the Israel-Palestine problem systematically since it was first proposed by the Peel commission in 1937.
The partition plan of Palestine was always accepted by the Jewish leadership and rejected by the Arab leadership.
The same thing was repeated at the United Nations in 1947.
The same thing Palestinians repeated after the Camp David summit in 1979 and in July 2000.
In December 2000, (then US president Bill) Clinton tried to bring about a solution, but again the Palestinian leadership did not accept it.
(Then) Prime minister of Israel Ehud Olmert too brought a proposal in 2008 and then (then US secretary of state) John Kerry brought a proposal in 2014.
There are endless examples of two-State solutions proposed by the US and UN which were accepted by Israel and rejected by the Palestinian leadership.
This is a historical fact. Palestinian leaders keep lying about a two-State solution and Israel is getting tired of these lies.
Maybe one day the Palestinians will have a realistic and courageous leadership but until now it has not happened.
But Israel has been expanding its settlements more and more in the West Bank which is a Palestine area; it is Israel which is forcing Palestinians out of their homeland.
The Israel-Palestine conflict did not start in 1967 when Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza strip and started building settlements there.
Even before that the Arab world and Palestinians rejected Israel's right to exist and two-State solutions.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip. It dismantled every single settlement from Gaza but did they get peace? The answer is not at all.
The territory was taken over by Hamas and this terrorist organisation did not speak of a two-State solution but the destruction of Israel.
When we withdrew our settlement, Palestinians became more radical and started attacking us.
This is why I said earlier, Palestinians keep repeating their lie and keep their propaganda on.
There are always two sides to a story but you cannot deny the fact that Israel is running an apartheid government which discriminates against Palestinians, a fact which is well documented.
Are these all lies?
Yes, it is also a lie. The Arab States run apartheid regimes. They do not give same rights to Arabs and non-Arabs.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs are free.
We have Arabs who are judges of the supreme court. We have Arabs who are members of parliament. What apartheid? It is a lie.
Israel is the only country where Arabs enjoy freedom in the Middle East.
The Arab States on the other hand practise apartheid against non-Arabs and non-Muslims.
Where do you see the war heading in Gaza? Will Israel go for a ground offensive?
First of all, the same way the West eliminated ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Israel will eliminate Hamas from Gaza.
The only difference is that Hamas is next door whereas ISIS was far away from the USA and Europe.
There is no way you can have peace with a terrorist organisation dedicated to your destruction.
After Hamas is destroyed in Gaza, then there can be a possibility of reconstruction and pacification.
Peace became possible in Europe only after the destruction of Nazi Germany and de-Nazification of Germany.
In the same way, we will have to de-Nazify the Gaza strip of Hamas because they act like the Nazis.
Will it be easy for Israeli forces to enter Gaza because Hamas must have a well thought out war strategy before they attacked Israel on October 7?
It won't be easy, but we have to do it and Israel will do it.
What went wrong in the last 50 years that the mighty Israeli army is being targeted by the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah?
There is no doubt this attack on October 7 is a huge setback for Israel and for its intelligence.
But the Israeli army and Israeli public are getting back together now.
We will respond and Hamas and its backers around the world are about to be taught a lesson that they and the world will never forget.
Palestinians say Gaza is an open prison where electricity, education, medicine and even travel is controlled by Israel.
What do common Israelis feel about Gaza?
What is their perception about Palestinians living in Gaza?
If Gaza is a prison, then the master of the prison is Hamas. If Gaza is a prison, then it is because of Hamas, not because of Israel.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. It does not control Gaza.
They only enable a military embargo which is perfectly legal under international law to prevent the entry of weaponry in Gaza.
It is also imposed by Egypt. Do Palestinians accuse Egypt of this embargo? The answer is no as they make this accusation only against Israel.
It is another lie from Palestinian propagandists.
When Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas could have made it like Singapore, but instead of investing money in infrastructure, Hamas invested all its money in warfare and military.
If Gaza is miserable, then it is because of Hamas and not because of Israel.
Where does Hamas get these many weapons from when it is under a military blockade from Israel and Egypt? Are the underground tunnels working so well for them?
They get support from Iran mostly and you are right in stating that despite the military blockade Hamas has been able to bring in weapons by tunnels and other means.
And to say it mildly, a military blockade is not working 100 percent.
It is said this is not Israel's war, but Netanyahu's war.
If he had acted responsibly as a leader by not encouraging illegal settlements in the West Bank, this would not have happened. Do you agree?
There are so many lies that are coming out of Palestinian propaganda and one cannot believe how many lies they can produce. Hamas is a genocidal Islamic organisation.
It wants to eliminate Israel and kill Jews. It was formed in 1987 and started ruling Gaza in 2007.
Since 2007 they are firing thousands of rockets at Israel whether Israel was ruled or not ruled by Netanyahu, a right wing government or left wing government.
Hamas is a genocidal organisation and they have been firing thousands of rockets at Israeli citizens, be there a Netanyahu government in Israel or no Netanyahu government.
It is said Hamas was promoted by Israel because it wanted to weaken the Palestinian Authority which was more popular among Palestinians?
There is no doubt that this was a mistake of Netanyahu who allowed Hamas to continue and rule the Gaza strip. It was a terrible mistake.
What about Israeli citizens? What do they feel about Netanyahu now?
Israeli society is extremely united and motivated at this moment.
All reservists have joined the units and there is a lot of unity in the country.
The whole country is ready to fight and we will win. Hamas does not understand the mistake it made and it does not understand Israel.
Israel after October 7 is not the same Israel.
What about the Israeli hostages with Hamas? What is the Israeli government doing about freeing them?
We are trying our best to bring them home. This is another war crime by Hamas as they have captured women, children and elderly people as hostages.
We are trying our best to bring them back. And nothing will stop us from destroying Hamas's military infrastructure.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
