Tucker Carlson Asks “Why Are We Defending Mass Murder in Gaza?”

America has one great ally in the world, its chief ally. By some calculations, maybe its only real ally, and that’s the state of Israel. And that has been the case for a long time. In fact, so long that few people question whether that’s a good idea or why exactly that is. Everyone knows our closest ally is Israel. And we have all kinds of military and economic ties to Israel. But the main way, you know, Israel is our closest ally is that really up until just the other day, there was not a scenario you could conjure in your head in which the United States would take the side of any other country over Israel. It just couldn’t happen.

So, Israel is our chief ally. Hasn’t always been this way. Of course, Israel didn’t exist until right after the Second World War. So, it’s all pretty new and it’s accelerated with every decade. We’ve become closer and closer to Israel. our commitment, not our legal commitment or publicly discussed commitment, but our in effect commitment, our on the ground commitment to Israel has become stronger every year. But there’s no reason that should stay the way it is forever. What if we decided to change it up? What if we decided to get a new closest ally in the world?

How about Qatar? What if Qatar was our closest ally? Float that one at the next dinner party you go to. People will respond strongly, especially if they’re Fox News viewers. What are you an Islamist? Qatar, the bloodthirsty Islamo-fascist state. What are you getting paid by the Qatar lobby? AQUAC. Of course, there is no actual AQUAC, but if there was a Qatar lobby, it should be called AQUAC.

And then you would be forced to explain why Qatar should be our closest ally. And of course, people would look at you like you were insane. In fact, dangerous and probably anti-American. But let’s just take Qatar out of it for a second. How do you think about if you’re the United States, who ought to be your closest ally? Who gets that job? Who do you take to the prom? And it depends on how you think about it. If you think about it through the lens of American interest, which is to say, what’s good for us? Then it’s a very different picture. What’s good for us?

Well, you would want a country that had, I don’t know, natural resources that you might want to have access to. Energy probably first and foremost, but maybe not. Minerals, too. But certainly energy, oil and gas, ’cause we need them despite what they may tell you to continue our civilization and to be strong and prosperous. So, a big energy supply would be important. A powerful military might also help. And to have a powerful military, of course, you need a big population to man the military, as Ukraine, unfortunately, is finding out now. It helps to have a lot of people. So, there are a couple of different countries you might throw out there.

If you were looking purely through the lens of what’s good for the United States, an America first perspective, the most obvious, of course, would be Russia. Russia. Why? Because it’s the biggest country in the world. It’s the biggest land mass in the world. And it has enormous mineral deposits, energy deposits. It’s got a lot of oil and gas and gold and everything else you need to run a society. And it also has a formidable military, by far the biggest on that continent, on the European continent, and huge manufacturing capacity. So like if you needed an ally to help you in a conflict or if you needed a country in which to stage a fight with some other country, a place to put air bases for example, Russia would be like the best, of course.

But we can’t be allied with Russia because Russia’s bad. They’re immoral. They’re bad. You might also say, “Well, Venezuela. Why Venezuela? Well, because they have the largest proven oil reserves in the world. They’re in our hemisphere. I don’t know. Lots of natural resources. It’s right there. Why not make them a big ally? Talk about a place for military bases and trade. And that might help us. They’ve got a lot that we might benefit from if we wanted to help our country. You can’t. They’re bad. They’re so bad. We’re going to invade them. They’re so immoral. We have to go to war with them. We cannot be allies with them. We have to fight them. That’s how immoral they are.

Okay. Well, at a certain point you get to places like, I don’t know, Equatorial Guinea, you know, probably not a beacon of democracy. Small country, tons of energy, though. And then the more obvious ones like Saudi Arabia or UAE or Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the rest of the Gulf States, like those might all be good. We don’t have their same form of government. Those are all monarchies. Six monarchies clustered next to each other. All of them have a ton of energy and they’re all pretty pro-American and they’re in an important part of the world. So, it’s not a matter of being a Qatari nationalist or trying to promote Qatar.

As you think about who should be an ally of your nation, you think about your nation. What’s good for us? How do we serve our people, our citizens, the people who voted for us who pay for all of this? Like, what’s in their interest? And Qatar just seems like an obvious one, but it doesn’t have to be the only one. And the only reason we’re choosing it tonight is because there’s so much falseness about Qatar. If you watch Fox News, you know Qatar is evil and they’re secretly running the United States. They probably don’t tell you that their owner was just in Qatar trying to raise money, which is not an attack on their owner. It’s mere merely an acknowledgement of what everyone who doesn’t watch Fox News all day knows, which is Qatar is part of the world.

And lots of people go there. We were there two days ago. So was Hillary Clinton. So was Bill Gates looking kind of cadaverous. And it’s not because we love Hillary Clinton or Bill Gates. We were there. It’s because like everyone’s there. And if you want to interview people, you should probably go to Qatar because everyone’s there. And why is everyone there? Because it’s a pretty open society because they have a lot of stuff going on and they got a lot of resources and they welcome people to talk about things in their country. That’s not bad. Those are not bad things. Why are we being told Qatar is so bad?

Well, of course, for the same reason we hear a lot of countries are bad because if we have other strong allies that might affect the interest of our really our only ally, which would be Israel. And so, just for fun, just like a little exercise, not an in Islamism, this is not an endorsement of Islamic terror. It’s kind of interesting to go through the criteria, the facts about these countries. Compare Israel to take Qatar and you decide for yourself what you think might be a more useful ally for the United States to have, maybe even a chief ally. And these are all facts as far as we know.

Of course, feel free to look them up. Check our facts against Wikipedia or whatever Graedia. Go there. By the way, you should go to Qar, wander around for a day or two. You can fly in the world’s greatest airline by the way as you get there, which I had Starlink the entire way. There’s a lot of good stuff about Qatar. Good food, nice people. But just go there. Don’t, don’t take our word for it. If you’re being told that, you know, Qatar is this hellscape with slave markets and, you know, women in burkas or whatever, spend a weekend, see for yourself.

You’re not encouraged to do that. You’re never encouraged to see anything for yourself. Don’t do your own research. Trust the science. Trust our view. Trust the two-minute clip we put on Twitter. And if you don’t agree with that, then you’re obviously Islamist, Nazi, racist, whatever. We’re going to attack your character. But for once, like, see for yourself. So, here are some of the differences between Qatar and Israel. Again, this is not an attack in Israel for sure. And it’s not promoting Qatar. It’s just trying our best to promote our country, which could use allies right about now.

So, the first is resources. And Israel has basically no resources at all. I mean, its gasoline comes from Azerbaijan. I mean it needs to import basically everything that it uses. Not everything. They’ve got a thriving tech sector but but for natural resources they are very very limited and that would include water. Qatar has well some of the largest natural gas reserves in the world in their famous North gas field and they are the I think number one LNG exporter to Europe and one of the biggest certainly to Asia. Liquefied natural gas. It’s what a lot of the world runs on. It’s also where a lot of consumer products come from because it’s converted to plastics, polyethylene, and many other things.

So, like having a lot of natural gas is not just something that makes you rich. It’s something that is really good for your country, your economy, and it can help your friends. So, that’s the first thing to know. Qatar has a ton of natural resources. Israel has no natural resources.

Okay. The second thing to know is that Qatar is a very enthusiastic investor in the United States. So that’s being spun as a bad thing. They’re trying to take over our society. Now, if you’ve been in the US recently and wandered around and noticed it becoming markedly more Qatari, send us an email and tell us where you went ’cause we haven’t noticed that. Actually, Qatar is in fact quite a socially conservative society in contrast to say Tel Aviv, which has got to be the world capital for drag queen story hours.

Qatar is the opposite of that. Yes, women are not covered and can drive and go out without an escort and all that stuff you hear about taking place in the Gulf. Doesn’t actually take place in the Gulf anymore, but it definitely doesn’t take place in Qatar, which by regional standards is very liberal, but by American, Western standards is actually pretty traditional. So, they don’t have a lot of pride parades in Qatar. Let’s see – none. Qatari diplomats, ask them. Ask anybody when they’re posted to the West, US, Canada, Great Britain, they send their kids to Christian schools, not because they’re Christian, they’re Muslims, but because they’re more socially conservative.

They don’t have government subsidized abortion on demand in Qatar as Israel does. They basically have in a lot of ways the same social values at broadly speaking, of course, they’re not Christian, they’re Muslim, but broadly speaking, very similar social values to a lot of Trump voters. There’s a big emphasis on marriage and spending time with your family. I’m not trying to talk it up too much. It’s different. It’s not my culture, but I guess the point is if Qatar was really in charge of our culture, it wouldn’t look like this at all.

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So, but they’re investing in a lot of businesses. Qatar has pledged $500 billion in investment. I think they put about 150 billion in so far. We’ll see if they make good on the other 350 billion, but 150 is a lot. You can say that’s a bad thing, but tell us how and why. Unless they’re subverting our values to make them more cutlery or whatever. Unless AQUAC has been subverting our values.

Probably not bad to have other people invest in your country, especially on the brink of a recession, maybe. How much does Israel invest in the country? Well, actually, Israel’s on the other side of the ledger. Israel is a massive, massive net cost to the United States if you’re not just the famous $3 billion. It’s only $3 billion, but the cost of defending, backstopping that country in every conflict in which it enters, which is like at this point more than half a dozen. I mean, where are they not having a war? Who’s paying for that? Well, we are. We are. every single year going back well almost 80 years every single one trillions of dollars spent prosecuting wars on Israel’s behalf or wars that we waged at the behest of Israel including the Iraq war including whatever that was in Syria including the regime change war they are pushing the United States government to have in Iran those are costs now you could argue well we need to because those wars make us safer in case you’re feeling a lot safer than you did before 9/11.

So I guess but just in pure dollar terms, one country is a huge cost to the United States Treasury and the other is a net addition. So that’s one difference. You you want allies to help you once in a while. So let’s say you have a war, especially one they asked you to get into. You’d want them to send a lot of their troops or at least a symbolic number of their troops. How about no troops ever? Really? Maybe I got that wrong. Maybe a troop or two went advisers or something, but basically no real help in any of these wars.

Hamas is not attacking Israel here, by the way. As always, they’re doing what they think is best for them, which is great. Godspeed. But if we’re going to do what’s best for us, someone’s going to have to explain why that’s best for us, ’cause it’s not obviously best for us. So then you really get to the question of values and morals. This is the conversation that’s happening right now. And the idea is that you’re not allowed to have the conversation that we’re having right now because Qatar is just so morally repulsive.

It’s like Russia or Venezuela that even to consider to talk about to throw up the possibility of having an alliance with such a country. It’ be like maybe we should go to vacation in North Korea. I mean you’re a freak. You’re some kind of outlaw. How could you want that? You defending Stalin again? They’re trying to make the possibility, the notion so far out and discredited that no one has the brass to even bring it up. And the truth is, it’s pretty hard to defend any system other than the American system at its best if you’re an American. ‘Cause it’s our system. We like our system. I like our system. I don’t want even a parliamentary system like they have in the UK or Canada. Why would you want that? I like the American system.

So, it’s not a matter of preferring somebody else’s system over ours. It’s merely a matter of batting down some of the absurd lies. So, Qatar, like every country in that region, the six Gulf monarchies, the fabled GCC, every one of those countries is an Islamic state. Islam is the official religion of the country. And so in all of those countries, it’s probably a bad idea, illegal, if not unacceptable, or some variety of the two to run around trying to convert people to say Christianity. If you show up in downtown Doha with a bullhorn and a sign that says repent and turn to Jesus, probably somebody at some point’s going to at least politely or maybe not tell you to knock it off because this is an Islamic country.

By the way, the same thing is true in Israel. Not attacking Israel. It’s a Jewish state. They don’t want you showing up in Israel and trying to convert a lot of Israelis to Christianity. They don’t, that was illegal. I don’t know if it still is or not, but it’s certainly discouraged. And the same is true in the Gulf, in Qatar, for example. But if the deeper question is where do Christians feel more comfortable in Qatar or Israel?

I mean, it’s sort of hard to know what people actually think. So maybe the best way to measure that is by where they live. So there are twice as many Christians living in Qatar as there are in Israel. Twice as many at least twice as many. Did you know that? Again, not promoting Qatar. I’m not moving there. But there are twice as many Christians living there. So if it’s like an ISIS state where people are beheaded for proclaiming the name of Jesus, why are there twice as many in Qatar as there are in Israel? And why are there so many Christian churches in Qatar? All or at least most on land granted to them by the government. Again, not promoting Qatar, just saying if you’re telling me that this is a country whose values are so far from mine that even to go there is a crime of some kind, you’re lying. Or we have very different values. Extremely different values.

So why are they telling me that? They’re telling me that because the status quo works for Israel. It works. So if there’s any other country that might displace it with whom we might form a stronger or as strong alliance, if there’s a rival for that loyalty, it’s a massive threat to them. And by the way, I understand that this is a tiny country involved in a lot of conflicts that has basically no real allies other than the United States. So I hate to use the word because it’s overused, but this is existential for Israel. This is a huge deal for them. It’s not just a matter of preference. This is like a lifeline. And so you get it. You absolutely get it. But at some point our interest, the interest of the country of 350 million do have to play a role in this calculation.

And by that measure, this is not a good deal for the United States because on the final question, this is the one that matters most, war. There is a massive difference. Israel, as noted, is involved in at least, you know, half a dozen conflicts around the world in various stages, and the United States is effectively paying for all of them. Qatar, this terror state is full-time involved in actively involved in paying for resolving a lot of those conflicts, including conflicts not even in its own region like in Eastern Europe, the Ukraine Russia conflict. Where do you think those peace talks, those especially the non-public negotiations, where do those take place? Dohaqar. Why? Because they’re willing to host them. That’s why.

And so if you have one country that’s every week it seems like is bombing someone or declaring someone else a sworn enemy for eternity and using American tax dollars to fight those conflicts. And then another country which whatever its motives almost doesn’t matter is trying to resolve conflict and just get back to commerce coexistence. Which is a better ally? Are you joking? So if you’ve gotten to this point in the video and not turned it off muttering Osama bin Laden sympathizer, are you al-Qaeda? Are you a Muslim? Nope. None of those things. Then here is the punchline.

The idea that Qatar should be our greatest ally. Donald Trump seems to agree. What? Why have I not heard that before? Because no one screaming about Qatar has any interest in telling you the truth which is that Donald Trump who was elected on a peace program and it’s been a little tougher than expected to make good on that but still means it Donald Trump has taken sides in the Qatar Israel dispute and it is actually more than a dispute it became a military conflict in September.

On September 9th Israel bombed Qatar, bombed Qatar. Qatar, by the way, is the site, in case you’re wondering if they were an ally or not, of the largest US air base in the entire region, right outside Doha. There like 10,000ish American troops who live in Qatar. They bear a lot of cost for that, by the way. It’s pretty nice thing to do. It makes you a target when you have an American military base, but they have the largest in the whole region. So, they’re a by definition close ally. Israel bombs them, kills people in downtown Doha, like walking distance from the Amir’s house, and doesn’t apologize for it. And why they do that? Because Donald Trump was working to bring peace between Iran and Israel. And Israel didn’t want that at all. And so they tried to murder the negotiators in that round of peace talks from Hamas in Doha. And then they tried to tell the world that actually Trump signed off on this. You know, Trump knew totally false. Trump did not know. Not only they do this, they tried to implicate Trump in it. And he responded a couple of weeks later with an executive order that I’m going to throw on my glasses and read this because it’s I I bet not one in a hundred people know knows this even happened.

So this was at the end of September this year. Listen to this. He signed an executive order and this is verbatim called the assuring the security of the state of Qatar. So next time you hear someone on Fox News be like the terror state of Qatar. If only Trump knew, right? Assuring the security of the state of Qatar and we’re quoting over the years the United States and the state of Qatar have been bound together by close cooperation shared interests and the close relationship between our armed forces the state of Qatar. It has hosted United States forces enabled critical security operations and stood as a steadfast ally in pursuit of peace stability and prosperity both in the Middle East and abroad including as a mediator that has assisted the United States attempts to resolve significant regional and global conflicts.

Listen to this. In recognition of this history and in light of the continuing threats to the state of Qatar posed by foreign aggression, it is the policy of the US to guarantee the security and territorial integrity of the state of Qatar against external attack. The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty or critical infrastructure of the state of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.

Oh, wait a second. What was the last act of foreign aggression against Qatar? Well, it happened that exact same month. It was a bombing by Israel. So, Israel bombs Qatar and Donald Trump issues an executive order saying if you do that again, reading by the language here, we’re going to war with you. Well, here’s a pretty obvious question that too few ask. What’s the smartest way to protect your home and your family? Is it A, waiting until a burglar smashes a window and tries to get in, or is it B, preventing that attempt in the first place? Well, obviously it’s B. The second option is way better.

And unlike most security systems, Simply Safe understands this and acts on that premise. So, Simply Safe provides proactive security. It stops criminals before they get inside your house. I mean, really, you would have thought everyone would have thought of that, but no. Simply Safe has, though. Simply Safe’s cameras spot threats early and alert live agents, actual human beings who talk directly to intruders. Hey, you’re on camera. Get out. And they either bolt, they split the scene, most of course do, or police show up fast. No long-term contracts or hidden fees, and you can cancel it whenever you want, anytime. Named best new home security by US News will report for 5 years in a row. Plus a 60-day money back guarantee. Simply Safe is the go-to for whomever needs security systems. Takes just minutes to set up and the app lets you monitor everything from anywhere. There’s no tech wizardry needed. This month, right now, get 50% off any new system. This is one of the best prices you’ll ever see for Simplysafe. Visit simplysafe simsafe.com/tucker. Again, that’s simply.com/tucker and lock in your discount. There’s no safe like simply safe. Donald Trump took the side of Qatar over and above Israel and told Israel and who knows if he’d actually do it.

Hard to believe, but it’s in the executive order. If you do this again, that’s tantamount to an attack on us. That’s a security guarantee. That’s unbelievable. So keep that in mind because there are an awful lot of Trump voters, really nice, sincere people who are still upset about 9/11. The residue is still in their mouth. That part of the world did it to us. Islam did it to us. And anyone who wants to have a normal relationship with an Islamic country is probably pro- al-Qaeda. I get it. I get it. I you know, I know those feelings. Had them. But here’s Donald Trump, the guy that you voted for, taking Qatar’s side against Israel. And why is that? Because Donald Trump is a secret Islamist. No, because Qatar is a lot better for the United States than Israel has been. A lot better by any measure. And if you disagree, what what tell me a way in which Israel has been better for the United States than Qatar.

You can say, well, what about Jerusalem? And that’s an excellent point. There’s no city in the world more important or more beautiful, more humming with spiritual energy than Jerusalem. But Jerusalem existed before the state of Israel existed. And it will, God willing, be there forever. So that’s a distinct thing, right? That’s a historical and spiritual site. Has nothing to do with the government of Israel. But the tell me how the government of Israel has been better for us than the government of Qatar.

But of course you can’t. So you you’ve got two options. A: you can scream at people and call them Islamists and say you’re not really a Christian. You must be worshiping Allah or something. You’re a suicide bomber if you go to Doha. And that, you know, that intimidates the crap out of a lot of people and they’re like, “It’s not worth it. Never mind. I’ll be quiet.” But over time that doesn’t work. Or you can drop politics and statecraft and national interest.

You can just change the terms completely of the conversation. You can stop talking about what’s best for your country because neocons are never going to win if those the terms of the debate. What’s best for our country? They’re not even contestants in that. They have no interest in what’s best for our country. Of course, but you can change the conversation to theology and you can just say it point blank. God demands that you support the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now, who would be vulgar and dumb and reckless enough to say something like that? Who would actually invoke God himself to justify a political alliance with a foreign country? Man, you’d have to be someone who’s not worried at all about the afterlife to say something like that because that is a reckless thing to say. And if you’ve already guessed Ted Cruz, you’re absolutely right.

Watch. I will tell you there is a movement among Christians, particularly young Christians. The public polling numbers of support for Israel among young Christians is plummeting. And they’re being spread lies. They’re being spread lies, isolationist lies that we should withdraw from the world because nobody wants to hurt us. But they’re also being spread theological lies. They are being taught replacement theology, which is a lie that the promises God made to Israel and the people of Israel are somehow no longer good. They are no longer valid. that when God made a promise, he didn’t mean the promise he made. And instead, it is an argument that the Christian church has replaced Israel and the Jews, and the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people. And all of the promises throughout the Bible are now a dead letter.

The church need to engage and say, “The Bible is not silent on Israel. The Bible is crystal clear on Israel.” and in the church we will stand and fight. Man, you know, it’s one thing to get all worked up at the, you know, Waco, Rotary Club about issues related to Texas, but, you know, here you have a guy who’s deep into the things that actually matter, the questions of what happens after we die and what’s true and and he has no idea what he’s talking about. Like literally no clue. And I’m not guessing. I’m not attacking the man’s faith. I’m just remembering very vividly because it was this summer.

When I asked that same guy, Ted Cruz, okay, where does where specifically does the Bible tell Christians that they have to support Israel? And he had no idea. He meant to misquote a phrase in Genesis, but he couldn’t even name the book. And by the way, most people couldn’t. And it doesn’t even mean that, but whatever. If you’re going to have a theology about it, shouldn’t you know where it is in the Bible? Shouldn’t you be fluent in it? No. Because it’s all fake. It doesn’t mean anything. But he says it anyway. And this topic actually matters because it deals not simply with the fate of nations, but the fate of humans. It’s real. So to talk like that, the Bible is crystal clear on Israel.

Okay. What is Israel as defined by the Bible? I asked him that question too. What what does the word mean? What does it refer to? Yes, there are a lot of references to Israel and to God’s love for his people, the Israelites, the Jews for sure. But in 2025, what exactly does that correspond to? Israel. And he kept looking at me. Israel, it’s Israel. Huckabe says Israel. I S U L. Okay, got it. Can you define that for me? Is it the modern secular nation state of Israel? The drag drag queen story hour in Tel Aviv state of Israel. And and what borders does that include? The West Bank, Judea, and Samaria? Does that include Gaza? Does that go all the way to Iraq? I mean, like, what are we talking about here?

Shut up. The Bible’s crystal clear. Well, it’s of course it’s not. But one thing the New Testament is crystal clear about because it’s in every book on every page is that the way to God is through Jesus. And there aren’t any caveats that I’ve seen. I’m no theology student. I’m no Ted Cruz. But in every page, it’s the same point. The way to God is through Jesus. And by the way, these are Jews speaking as the early Christians were. And they were speaking to Jews, to their fellow Jews. And they were saying the way to God, repent of what you’re doing now and turn to Jesus. That’s what they were saying. Maybe Ted Cruz has another analysis of it. But there’s an entire New Testament about this one question.

And by the way, if if that’s wrong, explain how. But of course, they never will. They never will explain how because they don’t care. And by the way, there are evangelical Christians in the United States who have a fully developed theology on this question. I don’t understand it and to the extent I do, I don’t agree with it. But I don’t hate them. I know that I said I did once. I was just frustrated and I’m sorry. And most of them are really nice people. But I think any person reading a conventional interpretation of the New Testament would conclude the central really the only unchanging command throughout the entire thing from Matthew to Revelation is believe in Jesus. Everybody. Everybody. There are no there no special deals described at all. Everybody believes in Jesus. And that’s how you get to God. And people who don’t aren’t going to live forever. And I don’t see another way.

But people like Ted Cruz, of course, are not interested in debating theology because he didn’t even know what book it was in. They’re interested in shutting down any conversation on what’s in America’s interest, making it a theological conversation. And why are they interested in doing that? Because the last justification for supporting Israel above all other countries has evaporated.

And what is that? It’s the claim that Israel is a uniquely moral nation. And that’s why Christianity and also Old Testament Judaism is so often invoked. People, the book, People of God, no one would contest that. But what does that have to do with what Benjamin Netanyahu is doing in 2025? Of course, has nothing to do with it at all.

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The unique decency of Israel is the reason they are our only real ally. And the problem is that what’s happened in Gaza over the last two years has shown that not only is that not true, it’s very close to the opposite of the truth. Now, a lot of us have spent a lot of time doing our best to ignore what’s happening in Gaza on the grounds that kind of not our fight. Yes, there are weapons. Yes, we’re paying for all of it. Yes, we’re giving them cover at the United Nations. Yes, they’re really kind of doing this in our name. BB is running around the world saying, “I’ve got Trump in my pocket. I can do whatever I want. Trump will defend me. He’s told a lot of people that I control the United States Congress. I control the White House. I control the US. He’s said that on tape. If you haven’t seen it, look it up.

But a lot of us have thought, look, got enough problems. Don’t want to get into it. But if you ever do look into what’s happened in Gaza since October 7th, it’s shocking. Now, it’s not the only atrocity on the planet. The Israeli government is not the only bad government. Tons of bad governments. I covered the Liberian civil war in ‘ 06. There are a lot of bad governments, okay? But among so-called civilized governments, no one has behaved like the Israeli government has behaved in Gaza in a very long time. 80 years at least, it’s almost unbelievable. Tens of thousands of children killed by a country with the most precise military technology in the world.

A country that somehow got explosive pagers into the pockets of Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon. These are people who are again world renowned famous for their skill and their precision. Look at the bombing attack during the 12-day war on Tehrran was precise. They didn’t take out downtown Tehran. They took out IRGC leaders. They took out specific people. They knew exactly where they were. So the idea that they’ve killed tens of thousand tens of thousands of women and children, non-combatants accidentally is a lie.

No, they murdered them. They murdered them. It’s just a fact. You can call it whatever you want. Genocide. Everyone, why? It’s genocide. Okay, it doesn’t matter what you call it. That’s murder. You’re killing people on purpose. Oh, but that always happens in the world. It certainly does. Innocents die in war. That is absolutely right. But in no modern conflict in my lifetime have this many innocents died without any apology at all.

So what sets you hope the United States government or has during most of my life apart from other governments, governments like the government of Israel is when we kill people who didn’t do anything wrong like children, we are penitent. We apologize. Sometimes we put the people who did it as in MI for example in Vietnam on trial because we don’t kill people who didn’t do anything wrong. Period. And yet for over two years, Israel has murdered tens of thousands of children on purpose and then locked the doors to Gaza, shot dozens and dozens and dozens of journalists so no one can film what’s happening and just leveled the place so they can move the people out and take it. What What’s the justification for that? What’s the excuse? Well, of course there isn’t one.

Again, Israel is not the only country that’s behaved that way in history. Far from it, but no modern country has behaved that way in my lifetime. And so, the other day, we thought for the first time we would go see what this looks like. And so, there is, maybe this one of the reasons they hate Qatar, the government of Qatar has taken in about 2,000 refugees from Gaza. they actually can’t get anymore because Israel won’t let them out. But there was a period at the beginning of the bombing campaign in Gaza where some people did get out. And the governor of Qatar said, “Okay, we’ll take in these Palestinians from Gaza and we will treat their injuries, especially the children. We’ll take the kids.” So they live in a compound in Doha and we went over there just to see it in between other things that we were doing, people were talking to, people were interviewing and just thought we should go see that.

So we didn’t bring like a regular camera. Our cameraman Kyle, who’s really talented, had his iPhone ’cause we didn’t want to, you know, stick a camera in people’s faces and like exploit the suffering of others to make a point. We were not even planning on putting this on the air. But it was so distressing. It was so shocking to see children, many of them orphaned without any family at all. All their siblings have been killed. No parents or parents have been killed or their parents are stuck in Gaza and the Israelis won’t let them out. Kids with no limbs, many with mangled faces. a child with a mangled face that there were four of us, okay?

Me, my business partner, who I’ve known my whole life, and two producers who’ve we’ve worked with for many, many years. And these are guys who’ve really been around like everywhere and seen other wars and seen a lot of injuries and, you know, kind of hard to rattle. And by the time I get out of there, it was just four middle-aged men staring at the forest trying not to cry.

Here’s part of what it looked like. Most of them are who come as a due to war. Most of them needs children with special needs or they are. How many have two parents? I my fever in my hand and also in my knee with my friends. I was 15 years old. My friends were like the same age. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you come back and inside and when inside you’re a journalist. There’s an awful lot we left out of there. Um, you know, you don’t again want to exploit the suffering of others.

I felt a little bit weird even filming anything. But in the end, we decided it was important because like what the hell? What the hell? All these kids with their limbs blown off. This little girl looked just like my goddaughter, you know, with no fingers. One hand and no fingers. Like is she in Hamas? There are tens of thousands of those. And again, look, there’s so-called collateral damage in war. I guess look at the pictures of Gaza. It’s not collateral damage. They flatten the place so they could take it. And now they’re trying to like force the people into other countries, including ours, including the United States. Not only do we have to pay for the war, but also take in all the survivors. Why do we have anything to do with this?

But what’s most shocking to me is that no one seems bothered by it. None of the people who support Israel seemed bothered by it at all. And that’s the real threat. It’s not just the crime, children whose faces are mangled by US munition. Cuz why? The real crime is the way that the supporters of this atrocity are justifying it. Not simply to the world, but to themselves. They’re justifying it by saying out loud, “Well, they’re all Hamas because they’re all in Gaza, and yeah, they’re kids, but if we let them grow up, they’d become Hamas, too.” What they’re describing is the concept of blood, guilt, and the collective punishment, and reward that naturally flows from that belief.

And the belief is God favors some but not others. And that is the enemy of western civilization. That is the opposite of what Christians believe. Christians believe that every person was created as an individual by God. That’s why anti-semitism is wrong. That’s why Gaza is wrong. Every person is created as an individual and must be judged as an individual. We don’t like what you do. We can’t blow the fingers off your daughter. That’s not allowed. But they think it is allowed. They’re celebrating it. And in the United States, we’re allowing that attitude, which is the attitude behind affirmative action, DEI, all of this, that people should be punished on the basis of how they were born or rewarded on the basis of how they were born.

We are celebrating those attitudes and never more clear than in the case of Gaza. So there is a member of Congress, a new member of Congress called Randy Fine from Florida who is a passionate Zionist Fine. But Randy Fine sent out a tweet that I want to put on the screen that I’ve kind of never gotten over. Somebody tweeted Randy Fine a picture of a child of a baby in the rubble in Gaza and said, “How can you live with yourself? How do you sleep?” Quote quite well actually. Thanks for the pick.

This is a sitting Republican member of Congress. That’s fine with me. Thanks for the pick exclamation as you’re looking at a dead child. When that came out, I called the speaker of the house, Mike Johnson. I said, “What? This is the Republican part. How can you allow this? How can you allow a member of Congress, a Republican, you’re his overseer? You’re the speaker. You’re in charge of all the House Republicans. This is the Republican party.” Will we laugh at a picture of a dead baby because Randy Fine thinks that child is infected with unholy blood or she’s not human? She’s Amalcch or something. What are we doing? This is insane. Support Israel.

Great. If you’re laughing at pictures of dead babies. Oh, well, we’re commanded to support Israel. If this what it means to support Israel, a lot of us are out. If the United States is going to have a close relationship with Israel, if they’re going to be our close or important ally or even our friend, tell me why that’s good. Stop yelling at me. And whatever you do, do not celebrate the murder of children because that reveals you as the enemy of everything that’s important to me and my country.

And the main thing that’s important is that we do not kill people who are innocent. Not simply because it’s sad, but because it’s an offense against our entire civilization, which is based on one idea. We will be judged as individuals, not groups, not communities or tribes, as people because God created every one of us. That is Western civilization. And Randy Fine doesn’t believe it. How how can we allow this? So maybe we’re being unfair to Randy Fine.

Poor Piers Morgan who’s taken a lot of probably well-deserved crap recently, but at least, you know, makes an effort to talk to people if he can. We immediately call Randy Fine. He called me a the worst anti-semite in American history. Right. No, no, I’m not the one who hates people based on how they were born. You are. But Piers Morgan somehow wrangled Randy Fine into an interview and just asked him point blank, “Do you believe this?” And he does. Watch. Randy Fine, when you said, “I don’t give a about Gazans,” were you proud of that statement? Well, I think the context there is Gaza attacked Israel on October 7th.

Of the thousands of people who streamed across the border to kill every man, woman, and child that they could, many of them, thousands of them were not quote unquote card carrying members of Hamas. And so when you start a war and you are losing the war, if you do not like what that is doing to you, then you surrender in that war. Gaza chose to be the enemy. Gaza chose to attack Western civilization. And no, I didn’t care what happened.

I’ve not had actually any guest, I have to be honest here, I’ve not had any guest who has used the phrase gazins rather than Hamas given it was specifically Hamas that perpetrated the appalling terror attacks on October the 7th. It is Hamas that has the governmental power still in Gaza. It’s not the It’s not the Gazan people. It’s not the civilian population. Why are you deliberately conflating Gazans in totality with Hamas? To try to differentiate the two attempts to imply that some small percentage of Gazins support or like Hamas. That is not what the data suggests. And we should not allow us to be say these two are completely different.

It’s hard even to know where to begin. But we made the point. You cannot practice group punishment, collective punishment. We do not believe in blood guilt. Randy Fine is the enemy, the enemy of Western civilization. That way of thinking. And by the way, where does that line of thinking lead? Well, it leads to the Nazis, among other places, among many other examples. Of course, I’m mad at this Jew, therefore I’m going to round up all Jews. That that’s where that leads. It leads to genocide and it’s led to exactly that in Gaza. And we have to just say that out loud. It not only is it not anti-semitic to say that out loud, it is the prophylactic against the defense against anti-semitism.

When you say no, no, no, not all people are responsible for the actions of people who share their name or language or physical location or religion or genetics. like no, every person is responsible for his own decisions and actions. We do not murder the children of people we don’t like. And when we’re caught murdering the children of people we don’t like, we hang our head in shame and we weep and we apologize and we ask for forgiveness. We do not go on Piers Morgan and brag about it. We do not attack anybody who calls us out on it as a hater. When we’ve been caught justifying murdering children, we do not behave that way.

And if we continue to behave that way, things will fall apart really, really fast. But unfortunately, we are behaving this way. And anyone who calls it out is treated as worse than the perpetrator of it. Oh, that’s genocide. No, you’re the criminal for saying that. Really, you want to live in a society that rewards the virtuous and punishes the criminals. You do not want to live in the opposite. And that’s exactly where we’re going really fast. So, it’s important to just say it out loud.

Our next guest has had a lot of experience with this exact principle. Franchesca Albanese is the US special raort to the Palestinian territories, which means she’s an international overseer in those territories. that would include, of course, the West Bank uh and Gaza. And not long ago, she pointed out that what Israel is doing in Gaza is indefensible. You could call it genocide. You call it mass murder. You call it the murder of innocents. It doesn’t even matter what the name is.

People who did nothing wrong are being killed by the Israeli government using American tax dollars. That’s a fact. We met some of them. And what happened to her next? Well, that tells you everything about where we are in a relationship with our closest ally, Franchesco Albanese, I hope, joins us now. Francesca, thank you so much for coming on. If and I’m going to stand back and let you talk. If you would just describe what you said about what’s happening in Gaza and then tell us what happened to you in the United States after you said it. Absolutely. Uh, thank you.

Thank you, Tucker, for having me. Um, I’ve been a special reporter for the United Nations, not the US, since uh, 2022. And in this role, I’m asked by the United Nations to document and report on the violations committed by Israel as the occupying power in the occupied Palestinian territory of which Gaza is a part, but it is also the West Bank and is Jerusalem. And um after after one year and a half after October 7, Israel started a brutal attack which was the fifth in 17 years against the Gaza Strip. And um five months later I suggested that what we are seeing could constitute genocide in a report that had the title anatomy of a genocide.

After another six months, I said I do of that this is genocide and it’s part of a colonial erasure of the Palestinian people. Israel is committing genocide because it aims to erase Palestinians presence Palestinian presence from the occupied Palestinian territory and is a long trajectory that has led us to to here. Then I looked at the in the other two reports I looked at the complicity of the private sector including many businesses many are in Europe others are in the so-called global south uh many are in the United States and the complicity that has sustained the economy of the occupation for decades and is and there are people who have profited from from this and Israel’s impunity including as this economy turned genocidal during the two years of genocide.

While many Israelis were losing their income, their their businesses, their livelihood, the Israeli stock exchange has kept has kept rocketing um increasing its uh its value of 213% and after this I get sanctioned by the United States. I get sanctioned for my work for my denouncing what the fact as I’m doing for the United Nations for free because I’m yes I’m a US I am a UN uh expert but I do that proono and um and yes instead of focusing on the crimes that I denounce um the United States treat me as a criminal.

I mean, I I’m a little confused. I mean, I I believe you and I I’ve read this, but I’m just confused by it. So, did you take up arms against anyone? Did you help any armed terror group? Like, what exactly was your crime? It sounds like you were describing crimes. Uh, Tucker, this is my only weapon. It’s a pen. It’s a pen. This is what I do. And yeah, apparently it’s apparently it’s very dangerous, but this is what I’ve done. I mean, again, I I look, I’ve I’ve had a very interesting erh discussions with US officials and Congress people until this year.

But then what the United States couldn’t process was me pointing the finger to the prophets. So, it’s okay to accuse Israel of committing crimes. No one cares apparently because this is what uh Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Palestinian human rights organizations and Israeli human rights organizations have accused Israel off. But the moment I pointed to the fact that there are businesses who are profiting from it, yes, I sanctioned. Interesting. Okay. Well, that that makes more sense.

So, it wasn’t like you were shut down or sanctioned because you criticized the state of Israel. you were shut down because you criticized all the people profiting from mass murder. Well, two months two months before uh sanctioning me um I I mean I got I got a sign of frustration in the US administration for my work which was apparently harassing uh US uh US companies which is not the case because in fact I mean I’ve gone after Brazilian uh companies, South African companies, Colombian companies I mean it’s the entire world.

I keep on saying there are 62 states who are complicit providing political uh military uh diplomatic support, economic and financial support to the state of to the state of Israel in the moment. It’s committing seriously as you said I mean I was watching what you said and what you shown before and it’s I mean call it the way you want but 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza. 50,000s have been injured many with life uh lifelasting injuries. I mean I’ve seen I visited the same premises that you have in Qatar already in February 2024 and this an abomination.

So, but yes, I there was already a distress because of because of that and uh yeah, I think that there were there were things that upset the the United States, but you said, I mean, the United States intervenes so powerfully to silence and to to reprimand so draconianly anyone who dares scrutinizing Israeli practices. I think that’s right. It’s almost like people can’t let it into their minds. I I’ve had this experience with people I know. I just talked to some Israelis I know just the other day who told me that within Israel there’s almost no discussion of what’s happening in Gaza and that any criticism of it is immediately discounted as anti-semitism.

And of course that’s happened to me in the United States. Well, you’re just anti-semite. And no matter how often you say actually I hate anti-semitism. Um they don’t believe you. And this does seem like a kind of defense mechanism where like no criticism can be true. It’s all just hate. We’re not doing anything wrong and no one can talk about it. Have you run into that attitude? Yeah, I’ve run into this attitude. I mean, what is shocking is that it doesn’t only happen inside Israel. In fact, inside Israel that there there is criticism.

There are organizations like Betelm and Physician for Human Rights who have denounced the genocide. What is bit shocking to me as a as a European as a western person is the level of denialism the vilification of the Palestinians as they go through what they go through. So Palestinians are killed, they are blamed as we have heard and they are smeared and there has been a denialism of what is happening that is is again has no precedent in recent history.

Again as a European are you are you with me? Yes, I I’m right here. Yeah. As a as a European, I’m I’ve been raised educated to what the Holocaust has been and I I know I know that the Holocaust, it’s a misrepresentation arguing that the Holocaust happened in concentration camps only. No, the Jewish people, millions of Jewish people were discriminated against for longer than than we can name. And in fact they were killed in ghettos. They were kicked out of civil life. They were they died because they were dehumanized to an extreme. And and yes there are records of the Jewish people ridiculed as they were killed and and taken to concentration camps. And it’s this level of demonization that it’s the gene of any genocide.

The genocide happens when people refuse to see the other as human as it’s happening today to the Palestinians. And and I and I think what makes this so notable is that there are cabinet ministers in the current Israeli government who say that out loud all the time. So I mean there are cabinet ministers right now wearing golden noose pins on their lapels calling for the execution of prisoners. Um, so we’re not kind of putting words in their mouths and I’ve really been trying, as I’ve said, my best to ignore it. I I haven’t wanted to engage on this question, but at a certain point, this is America. This is my country’s money. These are my tax dollars being used.

How deep was the involvement of American companies in the mass killing in Gaza? Yes, it is important. Now I want to say it’s it’s not just American companies but western companies, Americans and uh um and uh Europeans account for the majority. But let me say for those who might have not read my report an um from occupation from economy of occupation to an economy of genocide, it’s not just businesses like uh arms manufacturers or heavy machinery producers. It’s banks, pension funds, the big tech that are I I um exposed Amazon, Google, uh Microsoft, uh who have provided their services and access to data, uh Palestinian data that has allowed Israel to set up systems to mass target and mass kills.

I mean there is an application called where is daddy that allows uh the army to randomly track people and reach them when they are with their families so as to inflict the most harm. How brutal is it? And I agree with you. This is something that people must understand because this is the really this is the end of humanity. the end of the civilization that we have pretended to belong to until now. Israel has the has the most sophisticated military army in in the region and Israel is knowing exactly what he’s doing and has been knowing this for two years and this is why there are also so many soldiers now breaking down the level of suicide is in increasing among uh young Israelis who have served in the army and of course so because they are just older than teenagers and they are be they’ve been turned by indoctrination into uh the willful executioners of a genocide.

This is why I’m saying we must intervene. People who love Israel must intervene to save what remains of Israel. the the the the biggest harm is being done by those outside of Israel who keep on defending this regime that not only has imposed a military dictatorship for decades on the Palestinians in the West Bank and is Jerusalem and until 2005 in Gaza. But uh the also on the Israelis who are part of the system, you cannot brutalize the other without losing your humanity in the process. It’s exactly right. So just I I want you to clarify something.

I think I heard you say that there is uh some kind of app maybe made by an American company called Where’s Daddy that allows the Israeli government to murder men in front of their children. Did I I mean did I dream that or did you say that? No, I said basically Israel has developed it’s not an app, it’s a system. Israel has developed this this system uh automatized system to to to decide the targets through a computing system and the data has been provided by by tech companies. I mean I’ve mentioned also Palantir who makes no secret uh of its support to to Israel and I quote in my report one of the um highest figure in parliament here who’s confronted in a public debate and by someone who say you are killing my families my you are killing civilians in Gaza and he says most probably terrorists.

So you see there is there is a sort of acknowledgment of involvement in something that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people and it’s unfathomable for me. I couldn’t agree with you more. What’s so perfectly American is that you were the one who was punished for it. We had a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan a few years ago under the last president and yet no sitting US general was even reprimanded for it. The only person who went to jail was a colonel called Stu Sheller who complained about it. And this seems analogous to me. You are being punished for pointing out what other people are doing that’s criminal.

So let me just ask before I ask what happened to you exactly. It’s my understanding that the day or the day before you were sanctioned, Benjamin Netanyahu was at the White House in Washington. Do you know if that’s true? Yes, it’s true. Do you think Do you have any reason to believe that Netanyahu asked US officials to to do this to you? I don’t know. But the fact that the the US did it, it’s it’s absurd because look, Tucker, I mean, I I would like people to understand what the sanctions are because you talk to me and I don’t think you you you see a criminal here, but this is what I am for the US system.

I’m banned from travel to the US and which is something that impairs my functions because the United Nations headquarters based in in New York. I was supposed to present my last report in New York and I delivered it from South Africa because I cannot travel. But not just that I am financially censored which means that I I cannot all assets bank accounts I had in the US. Then I will explain why in the US uh everything has been shut down.

Um my, I have an American daughter. I have an American daughter who’s paying the price of having her mom telling the truth about crimes committed in another place and just as serving the United Nations. Yeah. I am the first UN person to receive this in 80 years and it’s absolutely abominable, you know. So, it’s very it’s very personal because because it touches my um my financial capacity to exist because being sanctioned by the United States means that I cannot open a bank account anywhere. I cannot have a a credit card. I cannot function. I cannot be receive payment. I cannot make payments.

My um health insurance has been suspended. Um, even rooms, hotel rooms booked in my name by someone else get cancelled because I’m in Europe because I’m sanctioned by the United States. And think of there is a deeper meaning of it which is the which is the an lay an extra layer of absurdity because I’ve also have deep ties to the United States. I live in Washington DC. I gave birth to my first child who’s an American citizen and she risked to incur into to commit felony by give offering me a present by receiving um like a breakfast from me because the the the the consequences of the sanctions are penalties up to $1 million and uh jailing up to 20 years and and my and the the thing is that if you spoke to my daughter, you wouldn’t even you wouldn’t even realize that she’s the daughter of an Italian because she’s American educated. She goes to the American school.

She’s raised according to American values, more than Italian values, I can tell you. And and and you know, this is a betrayal for us from the United States. Where is the freedom of thought? Where is freedom of expression? I’m I I’m I don’t really know how to respond to what you’re telling me. I I just want to ask you one last time. Is there anything you’re leaving out? Did you send money to Hamas? Did you shoot at the IDF? Did you Are you secretly married to Nisalla? Or like what? I I don’t understand how you could have been treated like this without actively aiding a terror group. Look, the only one who’s aiding and abetting some someone else committing crime is the United States. Yeah, let me be very clear. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to agree with you on that.

So, who did this to you exactly? And how do you get it fixed? Well, I know that the United Nations is working hard behind the scenes to have the sanctions removed. There have been tons and tons of pledges to the United States from my special reporters, independent experts of the United Nations, many states. But here’s the system. the system is uh is very weak at the moment because the yeah the United States is using its power its leverage to uh bend the arm of the system and by doing that it’s it will make everyone including American citizens less and less protected.

It doesn’t seem to be acting on behalf of its own people. I don’t know what this has to do with what’s happening in the United States. It seems like we are completely casting aside the rule of law, fairness, decency on behalf of another country. Maybe I’m missing something. Look, you know, I for a long time for a long time I’ve been thinking that Israel had the capacity to exert so much influence on the United States and I couldn’t figure out how. I don’t think it’s that in the sense there is something deeper and it’s the fact that we are fooled by the ide by this idea of states representing us.

No, eventually states are in the hands of powers, military power, uh, economic, financial power and the power of the algorithm. And this is why today the imagining states as responding serving the interest of people, it’s a fallacy. This is why I don’t I don’t feel like blaming uh all the Italian citizens for what uh their government uh or our government does. And in the same way I don’t blame all the American people also because there are so many American peoples who cannot meet ends and and I’ve seen I’ve seen this with my own eyes when I was in Washington DC.

I’ve used to uh I used to volunteer in shelters in underprivileged neighborhoods and I see the contradictions of the country. So I would expect the states to take care of this rather than investing tax taxpayers money on seeding worse and seeding hatred all around. But so I think that the it’s it’s the United States who needs Israel for its right now its imperialistic purposes. And again, it’s not the United States as a country. It’s United States as serving specific interests, which is very sad. So it sounds like the whole the way we’re thinking about this, I think you’re making a very deep point. The our framework is wrong.

We think it’s a contest between nation states and you know some unduly influence others but basically they’re separate and distinct from each other. Each we have these separate countries but you’re saying really that’s an illusion and power military power economic power the algorithm as you said is what’s controlling these states. It’s it well the fact that we have multinationals who are who have uh wealth that uh that it’s it’s it’s bigger than than states and with wealth goes control proves it. But you know while I was working on my report on economy of occupation uh from economy of occupation and economy of genocide I did real I did realize that this is nothing new.

I mean when you look at settler colonialism 500 years of history uh have been marked by settler colonialism. European forces powers moving from Latin America to North America uh to Africa for what? For resources and uh and but eventually what has driven this is private interests. We think that with the consolidation of states uh matters have changed but the reality is that we still live in system that are driven by economic and financial interest which might be okay. I mean I’m not advocating for the end of capitalism. This is not my purpose as a special reporter.

It’s just that this, today my observation in Palestine and Palestine becomes a mirror or a metaphor to understand the world is that prophets uh drive us and drives politics more than the need and the urge to stop massacring and slaughtering children. Oh, I I I get the sense from listening to you, you know what you’re talking about. Can you be more and I should have asked you this earlier more specific about why you call what’s happening in Gaza genocide. So my it’s a politically charged term of course it’s the term we use to describe what the Germans did to the Jews and the Poles. You know what it’s a term we associate with the Nazis. So of course the Israelis hate it when you use that term. I get it. But it has a specific meaning I think. What is its meaning and when did this ma this bombing campaign become genocide? Tucker, with all due respect, it’s not a politically loaded term. It’s a crime. It’s a legal term.

I know that, but what does it mean? What why is it different from just mass killing? And and excuse me. I mean the Germans the Germans before committing and before leading the genocide of the Jewish people Roman Cinti disabled pursuing this idea of a superior race had committed another genocide in Namibia in modern day Namibia the genocide of the Nama and in fact genocide is something that has has existed in history the genocide of the Armenian people in my lifetime there has been the genocide of uh of the Totsimin Rwanda of the Bosnians in former Yugoslavia and the Yazidi.

So no no genocide is not loaded is a crime and should be treated as such. So this is something that is fundamental because certain people tend to think that there is one and one only genocide right and the thing is that it’s a crime and it consists in the intentional destruction the intent to destroy a group as such an ethical national religious or um ritual group and through acts of killing uh the conditions of sorry creation the creation of conditions of life calculated to destroy the group as such or members of the group as such. Uh the infliction of severe mentally uh or bodily harm uh the prevention of birth and the transfer of children.

In Canada, there has been a genocide of the native Americans. Canada has recognized it. in uh even if there has not been a pronouncement of the international court of justice in Australia the same thing we could say the same thing of the United States and there is no acknowledgement of what has happened to the hundreds of Native Americans tribes in the United States but the fact is that this is a gen this is what constitutes genocide from a legal point of view now the thing is that there are some precursors of genocide.

And Rafael Lenin, the Jewish legal scholar who coined the term genocide, had in mind settler colonialism when he envisaged the crime because he knew exactly what the genocide of the Jews had been produced from that idea that there is one group that can dominate and erase the other. So in in the context of Gaza, I’ve been alarmed by the language. The language has been genocidal like uh they are all human animals. We will cut water, um electricity, uh food and medicine. And they’ve done it. They’ve done it.

Netanyao and others have been on record saying evoking this biblical image of the Amalecch. Go and destroy the Amalecch, the mother, the the suckling, the baby, the camel and the donkey. What is it? I mean evoking biblical language using a moment of trauma, deep trauma in the Israeli society and in young men and women who have clearly who had already uh who were already harboring a level of dehumanization against the Palestinians. Fine. It has always been like that. But the the the eventually there was already a dormant gene of of hatred toward the Palestinian that has been activated and there has been destruction.

There had been mass killing, destruction of everything that was life in Gaza. Why to destroy all the houses? Why to destroy all the universities, all the hospitals, all the schools and killing the doctors and killing the journalists who are reporting on the on the genocide. There’s been erasure of life and now Tucker I’m right now investigating something that no one has really wanted to see that I have denounced partially and so the commission inquiry on Israel Palestine which after two years has also concluded that that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Israeli organizations again like Betelm and others have spotted the the use of torture.

What has been done to Palestinians deprived of their liberty. And mind you, I’m only talking of civilians because we don’t even know where the combatants, those who have been captured as fighting in in Gaza are, but those who have been taken as civilians, medical uh personnel, journalists, teachers, and others, they have been tortured on a systemic and widespread basis. And I’ve been spending already a month interviewing people, interviewing lawyers, interviewing uh former former detainees and there’s still two months to go.

But it’s abominable. It’s it’s traumatic to even to hear what has been done to these people including children. So how I mean what else this if not again this is a textbook case of genocide destroying a people as such mentally physically culturally and and they’ll pay for it in the end and every you know every every murder uh is seen and at some point you know people who commit murder are punished for sure. So what happened to the ceasefire? Is there a ceasefire in place? There is no ceasefire. No, no, there is no cease fire.

There is just a a bubble that has been uh has has had to be uh inflated at a certain point to distract the attention from the mass protest that were taking place uh everywhere. Look in Europe, uh it’s not different than the United States, but we have many states in Europe and there has been a cons consistency of repression. Uh protests from Germany, the UK, uh Italy, France have been either prohibited or harshly repressed. Journalists have been criminalized. Activists have been criminalized and arrested because of because of opposing a a genocide.

So eventually in order to sedate this mounting uh distress in the population that doesn’t want to see the slaughter of kids anymore, the word ceasefire has been imposed by nearly 400 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire. 1/4th of of the aid that had been agreed upon has entered. And as you and I are speaking, Tucker, there are nearly two millions of survivors in Gaza resisting a winter storm in in ravaged tents, tents ravaged by the elements. and the fact that these people have been displaced five, 10, 15 times from one uh rebel camp to another wasteland for two years.

Look, again, I’ve said already one year ago, Israel is writing one of the darkest pages of modern history. It should have been stopped uh months ago, years ago. And not because I was saying that, you know, this is a critical point, Tucker. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice recognized the plausibility that Israel was committing genocide, recognized the plausible risk of irreparable harm done to the Palestinians in Gaza under the genocide convention.

And you know what does it mean beyond the convoluted formulation of the law that there was a an obligation to prevent genocide? the the obligation to prevent genocide kicked in the moment the International Court of Justice recognized the risks and ma made certain recommendations actually order certain measures to Israel and no one no one not your state not my state no one has done anything to stop Israel other than cosmetic measures in the margins because eventually what was to be done was to stop transferring weapons to Israel, to stop trading with Israel and to stop other forms of aiding and assistance, which has not happened And just the opposite actually happened. All those states, including the United States, turned against their own citizens and stripped them of their civil liberties. Lots of places in the United States made it illegal to boycott

Israel. You can’t boycott Israel. We celebrate boycotts, by the way. something called the civil rights movement as a feature of, you know, every sixth grade history lesson. And boycotts are good except when they apply to Israel, in which case they’re literally illegal. UK, Germany, big states put people in prison for complaining about Israel’s genocide. Tell me on what grounds they do that. They well several grounds, but basically what is common also to the United States. The main grounds are two. People are accused of anti-semitism and are accused of supporting terrorism and being all Hamas. I mean, how can it be Hamas to ask to stop uh uh starving children?

How can it be anti-Semitic to ask a state not to carpet bomb a population trapped in in 360 square kilometers? Come on. Look, like you, anti-semitism is repulsive. It’s horrible. I mean, as a European, the first the first thing that that I I I feel when I hear the word anti-semitism is is repulsion because this is what I’ve been I’ve been raised to recognize that hating others on the ground of religion or race or other things is just wrong. It is wrong. I’m I’m Yeah, but but may I say it’s it’s always wrong. Anti- anti-semitism is wrong.

It is no worse than hating the Palestinians for being Palestinian or hating the Italians for being Italian or black people for being black. I mean, it it’s all the same thing. But somehow only one is a crime. I I that’s not Western civilization at all. No, but it’s not even that. It’s the lack of logic. It’s the it’s really the performance of stupidity behind it because anti-semitism is hatred against the Jews because they are Jews. While I frankly I I I really it’s not I I don’t have anything against Israel’s for the religion it professes.

It could be Buddhist, it could be Muslim, it could be secular. But the point is not what Israel is, it’s what Israel does. And the other thing I mean people oppose people like me, people who stand for human rights like the the majority of European citizens who are taking the streets, they they just can’t sleep at night because of the images that pop up on their phones all the time. There are really there is a there is a level of distress that I’ve never seen including in my own country.

I mean Italy is a is not the the the most active country when it comes to global tragedies. I remember I was in the in the UK during the the um Iraq invasion and the British people have protested for years. I mean in Italy much less but this thing this genocide in Gaza it’s something that has really uh awaken awaken a sense of uh a conscience that we almost had lost and I expect no less in the in the continent that has seen already a genocide happening on its own soil.

So again, I I I’m horrified by the fact that while there is an awakening of conscience among ordinary citizens, their governments continue to uh to deny the genocide while obliterating international law. The international law that has it’s our social contract at the international level. It it’s what I mean has not benefit benefited everyone. The global north has benefited more than the global south, I would say. But this is what has kept us protected for 80 years.

And it seems to me that today it’s all going in the same direction. Rearming, rearming, in investing in in wars, preparing for wars, while schools and other services and hospitals which are in need for our taxes get poorer and poorer. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la last question. First of all, let me just say if in case I forget, I’m embarrassed by what the US government did to you, unless there’s something I don’t know. Uh it’s shocking behavior.

Um and I’m I’m again I’m ashamed of it. So I hope it’s fixed soon. Well, I like the fact that you say in case there is something I don’t know, no, there is nothing. Well, I mean it’s so unbelievable that they would pro, you know, treat you like a felon when all you did was describe what’s happening. I mean that we I don’t want to live in a country that does things like that. Even if I disagreed with everything you said, I would be opposed to your being sanctioned and treated like a criminal. It’s especially with no trial.

The whole thing is is outrageous. And sanctions themselves are wrong. They never help. I’ve never seen one time where they help. So, okay, that’s my view. This will end at some point. And tens of thousands of people have been murdered and so there will be consequences. What should those consequences be? Uh I think that the most important thing right now is to is to end the genocide and and look there is a gen an active genocide in in in Gaza. about what is happening to the rest of the territory of the occupied Palestinian territory should not be forgotten because again as you and I speak there are or um there are groups of uh fanatic settlers.

Many of them come from your country and my country and they are roaming around the West Bank terrorizing ci defenseless civilians uh killing livestock, torching orchards and uh preventing the harvest which is what Palestinians live uh out of and destroying property, beating up people. So the West Bank is also up for conquest. there is this crazy mentality that the the the Israel really runs from the river to the sea and the Palestinians should not exist uh there. So first of all we need to stop this.

There are some lunatics that are saying horrible things in the Israeli government and they in Israeli government and they must be stopped. But then of course there should be justice. Those who have ordered, architected, those who have made possible that the genocides take place, they need to be brought to justice. There are already two arrest warrants against by the International Criminal Court for Benjamin Netanyahu and um Yo Galan, the former minister of defense. And this should be h I mean this this order um these arrest warrants should be followed up on and these people should go to the H and like them others that deserve to be investigated and prosecuted.

Those who have double nationality and might have committed crimes including soldiers and settlers need to be held to account and then uh I do hope that there will be a a a a way to enforce international law to the fullest. The International Court of Justice has already said that the occupation is unlawful. So, Israel must withdraw the troops, dismantle the colonies and stop exploiting Palestinian resources. What else? So, this is what is to be done.

And then one day, my hope is that the apartheid gets dismantled because only through full decolonization of that land, it doesn’t matter the political solution, one state, two states. This is something that the people will have to decide. But meanwhile as an international community we have the obligation to make sure that the apartheid is dismantled.

This is what I I think should happen. And you see the noise around it. Peace plan the 20 point uh thought babble and all the rest. These are weapons to distract the attention from where it should be. The only way to deliver peace to the region is to respect the basic rules that we have all agreed upon over eight years of of uh of peace. Amen. Franchesco, thank you so much. I hope we’re not violating sanctions by talking to you. Um just kidding. Hope we are. Uh it’s great great to see you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. It it was a pleasure even if it’s uh 1 uh 29 a.m. for me.

So I hope and I made full sense at this time of the night. Unfortunately, you did. Thanks a lot. Okay. All the best to you. Bye, Tucker. Good night. And thank you very much. We’ll be back next Wednesday. Christmas is back and so is our merchandise shop at TCN. Visit tuckerclson.com to see what we have to offer and it’s awesome. Everyone has a long list of people they need to shop for this Christmas. Our new line can help you brighten the day with gifts they will actually love. Not the kind they’re going to throw away or thank you for, but not mean it. Actually good stuff that’s great for everybody. Ornaments, wrapping paper, Christmas sweaters for real. The TCN shop has everything you need. Dozens of new styles and designs perfect for the gift giving and spreading the Christmas spirit. That’s tucker carlson.com. We hope you have the very best Christmas.