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hello, welcome to the spotlight. i'm. the u.s. israely genocidal war has passed the grim milestone of over 20,00 deaths, yet the us is postponing a un session for a possible ceasefire over semantics. this is what the israeli prime minister has threatened again that the genocidal war will not stop until hamas is eliminated. now in this edition of the spotlight we will look at where this war is heading, whether the us is worried that israel's loss will reflect negatively actually its own power in the face of the resistance groups in west asia such as hezballah. first let me introduce our guests. paula rudy co-founder of the free palestine movement joins us from berkeley. also joining

us is eve zangler, author and political activist from montreal. welcome to you both, paul and rudy, i'll first start with you. we're looking at the third time that the us has rejected this resolution. uh, the last time i checked uh, thursday has started in new york, uh, i don't know what time it is where you are, but i think it's where new york has to get together and for them to actually go through this. i'm looking at how every minute counts when it comes to this genocidal war. at the same time we're looking at semantics here. i think it's over. sensation that is the problem for the us, they are opting for suspension. do you think how do you view assess the way that the us is positioning itself here when it comes to the un, which could result maybe in a possible cease fire? temporary one at that? well, i'm not sure it's just about the semantics, it's also i think from what i've heard about the question. of distribution and who supervises

it and who controls it, and it the the the ones who proposed this, the uae and the other nations that are involved in drafting it, want the united nations to be responsible for this, and i suspect that israel wants more control over where the aid goes. and specifically they don't want it to uh to go to northern gaza uh whereas whereas the drafters of the resolution and the palestinians are saying no, it must be open to all of gaza, so that that there may be more to it than than we know, we're not, we can't possibly be told everything about the negotiations that are happening behind happening behind the scenes, well from uh the statements that are... coming from uh israel,

it may somewhat be confusing uh because we have for example isaac was said that uh they are ready and prepared for another ceasefire, but at the same time uh the israeli prime minister netanyahu is that the war would not end while hamas controls gaza and there's no uh talk of reducing the intensity, at least not in the coming weeks. what is your view about uh first of all this uh even the notion of a ceasefire given that is... last time around once it ended killed so many palestinians and this time around based on the way that we're seeing that for for it to have not happened already, but the way the prime minister is talking about it. yeah, well i would presume that israel is is being preparing itself or preparing to try a similar type quote unquote cease fire or humanitarian pause or whatever we want to call. what happened few weeks ago um and

they're under lot of pressure internally to uh get more of the hostages uh back uh and uh a are also under pressure internationally to allow uh humanitarian aid in and also to to slow down in the in the killing uh so that's what i think the israelis you know are sort of preparing for and they're trying to of course get the best deal they can make with you giving up giving up as few palestinians as they've they've kidnapped uh in exchange for those uh that uh hamas has in gaza. but i think the broader issue here is is that or what netan yahoo is speaking to is that uh the the the murderous forces in in charge of israel want to be able to keep killing palestinians so whether whether that stops for a week and then continues for many months

after or uh some or just continues on without stopping uh for you even a couple days um that's clearly what netanyahu wants. "it's all framed as you know ending hamas or or destroying hamas, um, that may be, i think they would probably like that in some sort of theoretical sense of obviously killing as many hamas officials and getting as many high high officials of hamas as possible, but really this is this is about um, this is about destroying uh palestinian life in in gaza, and uh and hamas is is just a sort of justification for..." this effort at uh destroying palestinian life in gaza, hopefully from the zinanis perspective, ethnically cleansing palestinians and um and they know of course that this the level of killing that they're doing is is just making palestinians even more um angry and hateful

towards israel, and so the you even if they were to destroy hamas uh there's going to be much more uh uh hostile uh resistance that's going to develop uh over the over the coming years? well, i mean, we we're looking at about 75 days of this uh war to have transpired so far, paul rudy, if you were to take a look at the accomplishments on the israeli side when it comes to the battlefield, i'm not too sure what they can show for it, one of the things that stands out obviously at the top of the list, which is not an accomplishment, is the fact that uh 20,00 plus palestinians have been murdered, so if it if the purpose is to defeat hamas, it this this is going to take a long time, i mean i'm no... military analyst, but is that, i think israel knows that that's not going to happen, but it's still selling that notion, who are the buyers? um, very few people, i think by the idea that they're fighting hamas, they're fighting the palestinian people, and they want to see the palestinian

people disappear as eve has alluded to, and they are, they want to see them disappear at least from the the l where they are, if they go to other countries, that's fine with with the israelis, but actually i think the they would prefer to see them disappear from the face of the earth. this is genocide, this is ethnic cleansing, and i think that actually the the death toll is far greater than what is commonly broadcast, it's much more than uh 20,00, there may be between 5 and 10,00... that are not counted because they don't have the names. uh, hamas, the hamas government in gaza, the the health ministry is keeping names of all all them so that they can show that the they are in fact 20,00 of them, but there are so many for whom they don't have

the names because they're buried underneath the the rubble, and they they were children were trapped underneath the rebel, maybe maybe staying alive for a while, but then then ' dying in in terror and and pain, and and we don't hear about those, but what about also the ones that are dying as a result of the sealing of of the borders and the lack of food and the lack of uh medication and the disease that's happening because of uh his real fax, we don't even get statistics on on people who are dying of diseases and starvation that we - we we don't see, so the the the numbers are much greater than that, and and it it will be become much greater if they don't get food and medical care. you know, jake sullivan, the national security advisor of the us, visited israel recently of

zangal, i'm sure you're well aware of that. one of the things that he said is the fact that israel's israel needs to transition uh from high intensity to low intensity. um, which uh is uh quite startling given the fact that uh both intail israeli, i'm sorry, palestinians to be killed and murdered, but another thing that he said based on an israeli official, uh is that uh sullivan uh said there was no pressure from sullivan to end the fighting, but that he he was concerned about the displacement of palestinians and civilian casualties, so that does really show that the us wants this war to continue uh, but why do you think the us is so keen on that? well the us is whether they say whatever they say to some extent doesn't matter much considering they continue provide the... weapons, you new shipments of weapons a almost sort of multi-day basis to

to israel, so if they want to restrict the killing, it's pretty simple to just stop either giving or selling weapons to israel, so um, yes, us is absolutely completely complicit in in in this genocide. um, now what explains the u.s. policy on this, i think that's a bit complicated in terms of, i mean, i think there's everything from the u.s. arms industry loves killing and love wars, that just is that's market, and this has been a market for their weapons and and so that from that standpoint, i think the us obviously sees israel as geostrategic ally in the region. that divides the region and you bombs syria regularly and bombs other

countries in the region. i i also think there's a very powerful israel lobby in within the us, there's a a christian zionist element to it, and then there's a a well-organized jewish pro israel network. joe biden has long close connections uh to the israel lobby. so i think that that's the um the you know the explanation is is that this mix of arms industry, geostrategic thinking and and this powerful lobby uh pushes the us government to to basically support israel uh almost almost no matter what uh we need to figure out if you can help us pauly as to what it is that will uh spell out an end game here now what uh the us has said again out in the open is uh not what israel wants, the us

wants what it calls a recalibrated, reformed pa, i'm not too sure what a recalibrated or reformed pa would look like, but for that is what the option the us seems to be leaning on, because that's what they're envisioning, where the israel is saying we want to handle the security, um, what what do you think it is that either are going to, i guess on because they both seem to, well both israel obviously has a say and uh us is putting its two cents in there uh and i'm saying that taking into account that hamas cannot be defeated as we spoke earlier about that, so if you can put that into the equation for us and explain to us what's what may happen? yes, this is not about an agreement, if you're talking about how to end the the fighting and the resistance, it's not... about an agreement between the united states and and israel or between uh israel, the

united states and the rest of the world, it's about the palestinians, the palestinians must must have a their voice, they must be satisfied, they are not going to go back to a uh the the situation as it was before, hamas has clearly declared that and it seems to... me that they are doing very very well in pursuing their strategy and they can probably hold out for a very very long time. i'm not sure that israel can hold out for very long time, their economy is is in the trash, and a half million israelis have already left the country, a large percentage of their population is not living in the places. where they used to live in the south and in the north uh and they're very dissatisfied with

what the government is doing, i don't think israel can last that long, and and hamas is is is counting on that, so it's about hamas and they will not go back to the situation where they are living in a an open air concentration camp and where their government, their existing government. is taken away from them and and some - you know slave government is is is put in place to control them? so that the israelis have total more control in the future than they they've had until now, that's not going to happen, so if you want looking for an end of it, the end of it coincides with the end of thesignist state, where there's one state for for for everyone with equal rights, that's it, that's that's the only peace terms that that is

going to end this situation, well one thing that is uh definitely i guess propelling and increasing the chances of israel's economy uh taking a even larger hit is uh a front perhaps that was not anticipated e zangler uh and that is the one with yemen of which we have seen what they have done when it comes to the uh maritime transit in the red sea where at this point any israelly linked vessel i'm sure you're well aware of it is being targeted uh we just had in our news what was confirmed uh 80 to 85% of the port of alat uh has seized to function in terms of uh the little amount that they did, at the same time, some are reporting that there's really no chance of any type of vessel going there, and there are other countries that are suffering as a result of this, and the militarization of this red sea area by the us and its so-called coalition is adding more

worry economically, do you think that this uh angle or part of this uh us genus? lot of the global capitalist world, there's major um shipping companies that have said they don't they won't be taking israeli products, there's others that have decided to take different routes, which cost lot more, the us is clearly very scared, my government,

the canadian government has has formally joined this coalition, that's basically countries that are not, from the region uh militarily intervening i guess they have bahrain as a little bit of cover um but uh but this is this is definitely um one of the things the us was trying to avoid when it when it you know green lit the uh the just genocidal policies in gaza back in mid-october uh that's why the us was sending more naval vessels was trying to pressure any other forces in the region. to not um to not to you know defend uh defend palestinians um where this all could go, obviously this has the possibility of of escalating um even further and drawing in other other other countries and and and a wider war um but this is it's it's the the demand that the general

assembly made uh the vast majority general assembly for a cease fire i mean that's the way go uh to you israel has to stop its killing and uh and then uh that will lead to uh less problems with regards to shipping um but of course the us is going to do everything it can to uh make sure that there's you know not there isn't that type of pressure on israel both um both economically within israel and kind of more broadly uh that flows from the uh disruption of uh of shipping, so when we talk about other fronts, there's one that has been escalating, albeit a controlled manner, but it's still increasing in its uh intensity, and that is the one with lebanon. what is going on there do you think, what will happen pauly? we know um, well here again we're looking at two different scenarios that's put out there uh, one uh israel saying no, we don't want this

to uh expand with the hisbollah, but then... have other officials saying no, we need to go after hesbollah, we need to purge that area out. the us says it does not want to uh also have this to elevate into that phase. what is the deal there? what do you think uh they want from that? well, hezball has also said that they um don't want escalate it in any further, but both sides are saying that they're willing escalate it. think escalation would be... a bigger problem for for israel than it would be for hisballah. will face some problem internal problems in lebanon as result of. but they can do it and with the proper provocation from israel which israel

seems willing to give them, then they can justify it to the to the rest of lebanon, so nobody really knows, the israelis don't know the the lebanes don't know where where this is leading, but it could definitely lead to an expansion. and we don't know how big an expansion even beyond the borders of lebanon and israel, and my final question goes to you, here we're taking a look at the uh way that israel standing has pretty much been decimated uh not to mention the us that has israel has brought the us down with it in this genocidal war, has israel lost legitimacy on the world stage when it comes to the way that countries are going to be dealing with israel, whether it's through trade? or through diplomatic means certainly in terms of popular opinion um popular

opinion around the world it's pretty clear is it's very hostile to what what israel is doing even in a country like canada that's the case um but uh whether it leads to long-term ramifications on trade and stuff like that um is still very powerful, nato is still very powerful, they back israel uh, it's going to, this has clearly been very damaging for uh us uh standing within the middle east, and uh, and i think more generally, i mean, you keep the statements coming from south african leader about this being a genocide, so probably large shows of africa as well, an extent in latin america, but whether this leads to... long-term effects on um trade and things like that, i think that comes back to, you know, whether there are um, the the forces that you know

care about human beings and oppose genocide uh in the in europe, in the middle east, in north america, whether those forces keep mobilizing and keep uh uh denouncing uh what israel's done uh, even months after the the worst of the killing ends, um... so you israel's powerful country, let's not, let's be clear about that, it is powerful country, it has its own internal uh divisions and and i think when all is said and done those divisions in the current phase of killing, i think those divisions are going to be worse, they're going to be further exacerbated within within israel, um, but uh, how that plays out in the uh kind of medium term, um, i don't know, it's clear that that israel has lost - here in north america in the belly of the beast, israel has lost uh the younger generation, that's absolutely clear, public opinion has turned overwhelmingly, and public

opinion in the middle east was always hostiled israel and it's just become much more hostile, it's going to be harder for the different governments to normalize, but you know the longer term ramifications, i don't know at this point. all right, we'll leave it there, thank you, eve zengler, author and political activist from montreal, paulo rudy, a pleasure, co-founder. palestine movement from berkeley, with that we come to an end for this edition of the spotlight fromway and the team, it's goodbye.

هدول اثنين هدول اثنين اثنين يا رقيف من اوله ضلش ولا محل والله الرهيب الله

the sun shown to announce the beginning of new day. it was the 13th day of the war on the gaza's rap. look at the missile. what did we do to deserve being hit by this? the army bombed the children on the beach and

destroyed our houses. they kill children, men, women, and old men. i have other place to go, so now my children and i are homeless. it is the israel's habit from ages, they say the children fire rockets.

the headlines this hour, the death doll air and artillery strikes in the gaza strip exceeds 20,000 with at least 8,00 children among the victims. siren sound and explosions are heard in tel aviv as resistance forces carry out retaliatory rocket attacks on israeli cities. "and the operations by emity resistance fighters to disrupt israel's naval trade with retze have caused the halt to activities in the israely port of alat."