In short
Episode topic: Debate over why the Israel-Iran war is happening now, and whether it’s driven by religious ideology (Christian Zionism, Jewish messianism, Islamic Shi’ite fundamentalism) versus strategic threats; also arguments about Gaza/West Bank information warfare and media access.
Guests and backgrounds
- Avraham Burg: former interim Israeli president and former Knesset speaker; writes against the war, argues it’s driven by opportunism and religious fundamentalism.
- Josh Hammer: Newsweek senior editor at large; host of The Josh Hammer Show; argues the war is justified to neutralize Iran’s threat and disputes claims about West Bank/Gaza abuses being fabricated.
- Reverend Franklin Graham: evangelical leader, president of Samaritan’s Purse; close ally of Trump; argues “just wars” can be biblical and prays for regime change in Iran.
Key claims
- Burg: goals/endgame are unclear; US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal enabled escalation; war is “religious fundamentalism” and will not improve outcomes.
- Hammer: Trump/Netanyahu share long-standing Iran hostility; US objectives are to neutralize Iran; denies “religious war” framing; says West Bank violence claims lack “concrete proof.”
- Graham: God supports “just wars” (King David); Iran is an “evil government” responsible for regional deaths; supports regime change; disputes Pope’s view that God rejects prayers of war-wagers.
Notable examples
Ayatollah Khomeini’s death; Trump’s past actions (tore up Iran nuclear deal, killed Qasem Soleimani); 2005 Gaza withdrawal as a precursor to October 7 (Hammer); Gaza media restrictions; Pope’s statement about God rejecting prayers; CPAC/Trump-re-election remarks; biblical land promises cited by Christian Zionists.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Religious Justification for Land
0:30 to 2:18
Explore how religious beliefs influence views on land and war in Israel.
“Christian Zionists believe that Jesus Christ's second coming cannot occur until the Jewish people are gathered in their ancestral home.”
US and Israeli Support for the War
2:18 to 3:18
Discuss the contrasting public support for military action in Israel and the US.
“And how else can you explain such a deeply religious society is tolerant and even supportive of the scenes we've all seen in Gaza and the current bombardment in Lebanon?”
Perspectives on the War's Justification
3:18 to 7:43
Hear from Avram Burg and Josh Hammer as they debate the rationale behind the war.
“So, Josh Hammer, why is this war happening and why is it happening now?”
Critique of Religious Fundamentalism in Wars
12:19 to 14:01
Discuss the implications of framing modern conflicts as religious wars.
“Hammer's lecture and teaching and preaching.”
American Intervention in the Middle East
14:01 to 16:40
Discusses the effectiveness of American intervention in various regions and implications for Iran.
“Didn't work for the Americans with this great philosophy in Iraq.”
Debate on Israeli Settlers and Violence
16:40 to 22:40
A heated debate over the actions of Israeli settlers and the evidence of violence against Palestinians.
“Naftali Bennett formed a government with the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
22:40 to 26:51
Explores the moral and ethical complexities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including perspectives on peace and violence.
“Can you name a single biblical commandment that you believe commands to kill?”
God's Role in War and Global Conflicts
27:10 to 28:04
Franklin Graham discusses the theological perspectives on war, God's involvement in conflicts, and the dangers posed by Iran.
“We've just had in his Palm Sunday homily the Pope, an American obviously, declaring that God rejects the prayers of those who wage war.”
The Threat of Iran and Justification for War
28:04 to 29:48
Discussion on the dangers posed by Iran and the justification for military action against evil regimes.
“And so to fight that evil, I believe it was the right thing to do and to destroy and bring the Nazis to an end and also the Japanese regime.”
The Role of Prayer and Faith in Warfare
29:50 to 31:28
Exploration of how personal beliefs and biblical references influence views on warfare and prayer.
“So what is your message then to Pope Leo?”
Show all 24 chapters
Franklin Graham's Perspectives on Trump and Salvation
31:28 to 33:58
Insights into Franklin Graham's views on Donald Trump’s spiritual journey and the path to salvation.
“He shared a personal letter from you from last October after he publicly said he wasn't sure he would make it to heaven.”
Christian Zionism and Its Controversies
33:58 to 36:28
Discussion on the beliefs surrounding Christian Zionism and its implications in the context of Israel.
“Wow, but you're sort of hinting that he has confessed to sins.”
Fulfillment of Prophecy and Secular Governance in Israel
36:28 to 37:54
Examination of the belief in Israel's return as a fulfillment of prophecy amid a secular government.
“And a lot of people think that's no different from the religious fundamentalism of something like the Islamic regime in its nature.”
Challenges Faced in Gaza and Humanitarian Efforts
37:54 to 39:50
Discussion on the humanitarian challenges in Gaza and the efforts to provide aid amidst danger.
“And to that specific point that Jesus Christ's second coming cannot occur until Jewish people are gathered in their ancestral homeland, what would you say to that?”
Critique of Religious and Political Alliances
42:00 to 43:37
The speaker expresses disdain for religious figures who support violence and emphasizes self-defense over reliance on divine intervention.
“And for my shame, the betrayal of rabbis in Israel who do not stand up against all of these crimes and support the blood and support the bloodshed and the warmongering.”
Historical Context of Peace and War in Israel
43:37 to 45:34
The debate centers on the consequences of peace negotiations and military strategies, particularly relating to Gaza and past Israeli decisions.
“I do not know even one person who died because of peace.”
U.S. Foreign Policy and the Iranian Regime
45:34 to 46:58
Discussion on the implications of U.S. foreign policy regarding Iran and the historical context of conflicts involving the U.S. and Israel.
“The prophets, you mentioned the prophets, the prophets speak of peace all the time.”
Debate on Regime Change and Its Consequences
47:55 to 52:52
Varoufakis discusses the implications of foreign intervention in Iran and the complexities of regime change.
“And then we can get to the bigger picture.”
Nuclear Proliferation and Regional Stability
52:52 to 56:00
The conversation shifts to the risks of nuclear weapons in Iran and Israel's nuclear capabilities, emphasizing verification and trust.
“Well, look, I am a very fierce opponent of nuclear weapons.”
Historical Context of Iran's Defense
56:00 to 56:40
Explore Iran's historical invasions and their implications.
“And the Germans were really very, very gung-ho about it, including Angela Merkel, the chancellor of the time.”
Debating Terrorism: Perspectives on Hamas and Hezbollah
56:40 to 58:20
Discuss differing views on terrorist labels for Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Chemical weapons were used with the acknowledgement of support or turning a blind eye of the West.”
International Law and War Crimes
58:20 to 1:00:00
Examine the definitions of war crimes and their relevance in modern conflicts.
“Why would you not categorise Hamas, at the very least, post-October 7th, as terrorists?”
The Current War Dynamics and Future Projections
1:00:00 to 1:02:50
Analyze the ongoing war dynamics and potential future scenarios.
“You know, I recognize the right of Ukrainians to kill Russians when Russians are invading Ukraine.”
Trump's Strategy and Regional Consequences
1:02:50 to 1:07:20
Critique Donald Trump's war strategy and its implications for the region.
“They've been preparing for this now for a very long time.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Hey sweetie, your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm gonna give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check. Anyway, Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya. So good, you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Christian Zionists believe that Jesus Christ's second coming cannot occur until the Jewish people are gathered in their ancestral home.
0:39God gives them the land to go in and take the land. He didn't give it to the Presbyterians out of Scotland. He didn't give it to the German Lutherans. He gave it to the Jewish people. You want redemption, you want second coming of God, you of Messiah, keep out of my political scenario. But in order to get peace, sometimes it is wholly necessary to prepare for war. That is a quintessential biblical message. Can we agree that the death of Ayatollah Khomeini is a good thing for the people of Iran and the world? No, actually I don't. Given that he's not sure, Donald Trump, that he'll make it to heaven, what should he be doing?
1:23A clear majority of American voters oppose the Iran war from its outset, making it uniquely unpopular in a country which typically rallies behind military action. The situation in Israel couldn't be more different. Polls repeatedly show that over 80 % of Israelis back the war. Support from Jewish Israelis is verging on the kind of numbers that could make Kim Jong-un blush. A lot of energy and debate is expended on the extent to which Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel cajoled Trump to join the war. Not so much attention is paid to how and why America's closest ally in the region now exists in a state of permanent zeal for conflict.
1:56One view is that Israelis have been conditioned for decades to view Iran as an existential threat. They've been warned over and over that Israel can never be safe until Iran is eradicated in its current form. Another is that October 7th changed everything. Many now believe that attack is the only defence. Dissenting views must be silenced. Avram Berg, a former interim Israeli president, called it a collective trauma in his op-ed opposing the war. And how else can you explain such a deeply religious society is tolerant and even supportive of the scenes we've all seen in Gaza and the current bombardment in Lebanon?
2:29There's a surprising religious bent to the support for war in the US too. Some troops complained that their commanders said the war is all part of God's divine plan. Senator Lindsey Graham called it a religious war that will shape the Middle East for a thousand years and wished holy hell on Tehran. One of Trump's pastors, Franklin Graham, called for prayers to end Iran's evil empire. The Pope, for his part in all of this, is not impressed. He said on Sunday that God rejects the prayers of those who wage war. So with the political and military objectives unclear and with God off limits, I return to the question many of us have been asking since the beginning.
3:04Why is this war happening and why is it happening now? Joining me to discuss Avram Berg, the former interim president of Israel and speaker of the Israeli parliament, and Josh Hammer, senior editor at large for Newsweek and host of The Josh Hammer Show. Well, welcome to both of you. So, Josh Hammer, why is this war happening and why is it happening now? Let me just ask you those two questions straight off the top. Yeah, sure. So, Piers, the reporting indicates that Trump and Netanyahu jointly finalized their decision to commence this military conduct at their December 29th, December 30th Mar-a-Lago meeting towards the end of last year.
3:42Donald Trump has been consistent, Piers, on the issue of Iran literally for nearly 50 years. And in fact, I was speaking at CPAC in Texas this past week, and I said that with the exception of tariffs, there's perhaps no other single issue on which Trump has been more consistent over the decades. He literally has a clip where he is criticizing Jimmy Carter back on Danny for not using military force to try to rescue the American hostages there at the embassy and to do damage to the Iranian moles in general. In 1988, he told The Guardian, the British newspaper, that he would take Karg Island by force and seize it there.
4:12He tore up the Iranian nuclear deal in 2018, took out Qasem Soleimani. He has been so consistent on this issue over the years. Obviously, Netanyahu has been very consistent on the issue of Iran, too. So the two men are very much of like mind on this. As far as why they decided exactly in this late December 2020, I mean, to commence operation over the next few months or so. I think that remains something to be determined there. Clearly, they thought that the threat was getting increasingly to the point where no country could possibly deal with it. They thought they were going to cross some threshold, whether that is in terms of nuclear capability, whether it's in terms of ballistic missiles there.
4:46But there was some measure that indicated to them that at this point, there is increasingly going to be a point of no return there. But I think zooming out is the more important point to make here, which is that they have both view this, Piers, for decades and decades and decades as a threat. They are of like mind on the issue of Iran. Okay, Avram Boe, that is the position for the defense of the war. What is your response to that?
5:10I simply cannot know why did it go to war now, because I have no clue what are the goals of the war. I mean, every other day I hear a new target, a new goal, a new end. One time it's the Hormor, one time is toppling the regime, one time is the uranium, one time is the ballistic missiles. It's not very clear. So the only thing I know is that it's a war of two opportunists that had an opportunity. All of a sudden, they realized there is an opportunity because the high echelon of the Iranians got together. Let's wipe them off. And unfortunately, the reality in which we got to such a conflictual situation is a result of the United States of America withdrawing from the 2015 agreement with the Iranians, which was not perfect, but was much better than the situation today.
6:05And therefore, because the Americans under the spell of the Israeli prime minister withdrew from this agreement, engaged both countries in this war, which is the first war of religious fundamentalism, Jewish and Christian fundamentalism on one hand and Muslim fundamentalism, Shiite fundamentalism on the other hand. And when they will end the war that nobody knows when and who will be whimsical at which morning, by the end of it, the situation will not be better than day one. So why did they go to war? I have no clue. What they want to achieve, they have no clue. What will be the outcome? The same bad thing.
6:49Yeah, I mean, Josh Hammer, I've got to say, I am very mystified, the longer this goes on, about what America in particular... I think Israel's intentions under Netanyahu were pretty clear. He's wanted to do his 40 years. I'm at a loss to understand why Donald Trump thought this would not be anything but incredibly difficult and ultimately could be very self-harming. And the reason I say that is, for all the reasons that Avram Burr just went through. The goalposts have changed so often that it makes me think that Donald Trump has been wrestling desperately for some kind of endgame where he can claim victory and get their head out of here.
7:29Because he knows that what the Iranians have done is they've waged an economic war, using the strait to form us and their activity against the neighbouring Gulf states, to attack with military, but economically. And that has proved incredibly effective to date. Now, I'm not a soothsayer. I don't know how this is all going to play out. But it fills me with dread when I see that we may have a ground invasion of some sort. Does he not fill you with the same dread? I mean, this is a president who campaigned. He would never do this. And now he's on the verge, apparently, of getting thousands of ground troops involved.
8:09All right. There's a logical impact here. The first thing I think that has to be responded to is the comical farcical notion advanced by Abraham Byrd that this is the first war of religious fundamentalism. Abraham has a lot of books sitting behind him. He probably should actually open one, assuming that one is a decent history book. He might learn a thing or two about a thing called the Crusades that happened like a thousand years ago between Christendom and Islam. He might learn a thing or two about all the various intra-Christianity wars, the wars between Catholics and Protestants, such as the Thirty Years' War in the 1600s that literally tore apart the European continent, leading to the Treaty of Westphalia and the modern Westphalian nation-state system there.
8:43So this is just utterly preposterous there. Obviously, the premise that this is a fundamentally religious war is ludicrous in and of itself, as if one has to be a quote-unquote fundamentalist Christian to think that a nuclear Iran, or at least an intercontinental ballistic missile-capable Iran, is a threat to the United States. That is a preposterous, a preposterous assertion. Donald Trump is many things. He is not an evangelical or a quote-unquote fundamentalist Christian. This is a guy who was campaigning in the Iowa caucuses back in 2016 who couldn't even say second kings correctly. He called it two kings, okay?
9:18This is not a guy who necessarily is found in church pews every Sunday, a guy who actually follows American politics and doesn't just nosedive in to basically crap all over his own country like Abraham Berg is doing, would actually probably know a thing or two about that. But more to the point, Pierce, here is what I will say. I have actually been somewhat critical on my own show, The Josh Hammer Show, of President Trump, for not in those first 48 to 72 hours of the war, for not actually articulating in very clear, clear language. I did say he should sit down, Oval Office, look into the camera, tell the American people, what are we doing here?
9:49And to this day, I actually think that would be an overdue but not too late thing to do. The American people are owed a very clear delineation of what our objectives are. From my vantage point there as an American, I think our goals actually are pretty straightforward. I think that the goal here is to neutralize the Islamic Republic of Iran as a threat to the United States and our interests. And they've been a threat literally since the very first act of the revolutionaries in 1979. The very first act. Literally the first thing they did was storm the U.S. Embassy, commencing a 444-day hostage crisis that ultimately toppled the Jimmy Carter presidency.
10:22Those hostages were freed within the first few minutes of the Ronald Reagan presidency on January 20th, 1981. Iran has been a threat for a very, very, very long time. And you're right, Piers, that Donald Trump has campaigns against ending forever wars. But what he is doing here, again, take us back to 79 and 1983, Beirut Barracks, all the IED roadside bombs in Fallujah, etc., 05, 06, under Dave Petraeus there. What Trump is doing is he is not starting a new forever war. He is ending the Mullah's 47-year forever war there. What the actual result will be, I think, is to be determined. I am actually not predicting that there will be full-scale, quote-unquote, regime change.
10:59There's not going to be the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue, the de-Bathification. None of that's happening there. If there will be boots on the ground, if there will be, I think it's an open question whether there can or, frankly, even should be, it will be a very, very limited thing to seize Kargile and try to secure these straightforward moves there. You are not going to see American troops, or certainly not Israeli, Saudi, et cetera, troops, marching from the Persian Gulf all the way to Iran. That is simply not going to happen. It's preposterous. It's not going to happen. You know, it's funny when you say something's not going to happen so emphatically and say it's preposterous, the notion of it, when almost everything on day one of this war that we thought might be preposterous are not going to happen.
11:35It's pretty well happened. Avron Berg, a lot of personal attack coming your way there, sort of suggesting you in some form you were unpatriotic. What's your response? It's tax season and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers. But here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control.
12:17Terms apply. I'm very humbled. I'm very humbled by Mr. Hammer's lecture and teaching and preaching. To the best of my recollection, but correct me if I'm wrong, there was no Christian Zionists during the Crusades of the 11th, 12th century, and I'm not at all sure that Zionism was already born in the settler movement that their fundamentalist messianic eschatological rabbi were in power at the time. But maybe I'm wrong. I'm not at all sure. OK, nonetheless, I must say the follows. The way I see this situation nowadays is the president is not a Christian evangelist. He's not a Zionist. The president is in a journey on his own and he is a tool in the hands of his what is called in American term, his base.
13:10The prime minister of Israel is also abducted by his own political base. And you have here a coalition of religious, eschatological, messianic elements, a Christian one and a Jewish one, the settlers and the Christian Zionists, with supports of Mr. Hammer-like individuals as a kind of a Jewish fig leaf for whatever they need there, in order to promote an agenda that, according to my point of view, is a departure, a divorce from classical Judaism, incitement towards more aggression, more violence, more bloodshed at a time in which the region is not necessarily responding very well to any kind of this kind of American intervention.
14:02Didn't work for the Americans with this great philosophy in Iraq. didn't work in Afghanistan, didn't work in Lebanon, didn't work in so many other places. Why would it work with the resilient Iranian people? Why would it work with such a devoted Shiite regime? This is not the way to intervene. It's patronizing, it's childish, it's superficial, and it's mainly going alongside with a deep ignorance and lack of no understanding what the region is all about and what American intervention now is doing, not just for the region, but for the world position of America itself. Make America great again? My feeling is that this war might make America smaller once more.
14:52Josh Hammond, specifically about what's happening on the West Bank at the moment, surely you would be able to freely condemn the appalling scenes that we're seeing of these astonishingly aggressive settlers. What are the appalling scenes, Pierce? I genuinely ask that question there. Virtually all of what I've seen are information operations. If you have actual clear footage... Do you think it's all invented? Most of what I've seen is manufactured from NGOs and various other anti-war organisations there. So you don't think there are any Israeli settlers... We saw this throughout... Hang on, just to be clear, then, And you don't believe there are any Israeli settlers running around terrorizing Palestinians on the West Bank?
15:34Not what I said. Literally not what I said. So you think there is? I'm saying if you can show me concrete proof of innocent Arabs who are being attacked by Jews in Judea and Samaria for no reason whatsoever, other than the fact they are Arabs, I will be the first person in the world to condemn that. So you don't think there is any evidence of any attempt at new settlements going on on the West Bank? Now you're completely changing the conversation. Well, tell me whether you do or not. Now you're asking a separate conversation. Now you're asking there is the Israeli government building new Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria.
16:07You just totally changed the question. Are Israeli settlers committing acts of violence against Palestinians on the West Bank to take their land? Yes or no? I have seen zero concrete evidence of an innocent Arab being attacked by a Jew in Judea and Samaria. There are a lot of... Have you told Neftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister, because I had him on the show last Wednesday, I think it was. If you want to play a clip right now and provide me context there and show... No, no, I'm simply saying that if Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister who wants to be prime minister again...
16:40Naftali Bennett formed a government with the Muslim Brotherhood. He is the last person in the world who would ever expect to defend his people. So you see no evidence, you don't believe Naftali Bennett, you don't believe Avran Berg. It's kind of convenient. This reminds me a little bit of the attitude towards what happened in Gaza, where the Israeli government under Netanyahu, well, hang on, let me finish. The Israeli government under Netanyahu... Well, you don't let me finish. What I said is that if you can actually show me an instance, a single instance of a Jewish man or woman, I suppose, just attacking an Arab for no reason whatsoever, I will be the first to condemn it.
17:11I am telling you that since this happened there, there was the lie that Israel deliberately bombed the Catholic Church in Gaza. There was the lie that the Church of Ta 'bad, it was a whole information operation. Tony Bedron wrote an entire 3 ,000-word takedown for Tablet magazine. It didn't happen. There was a fire next to an old church building in Taba there in the heart of the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria. The church was not touched. Most of this is completely fabricated. There are false images. Now there's AI. It is spread like wildfire throughout social media. How convenient. If there are actual instances of Arabs being attacked, I will be condemned.
17:45I have seen literal videos of it happening, which have been verified. If it's happening, I condemn it. You don't know it's happening because you don't want to see it happening. because you don't want to believe it's happening. That's not true. To finish my point before you interrupted me, my point about Gaza is that international journalists are still banned by the Israeli government from operating freely in Gaza, and we all know why that must be. Al Jazeera terrorists are banned. People who are in bed with Al Jazeera or Hamas. All international media are currently still banned from operating freely in Gaza, despite there having been a ceasefire of sorts for many months.
18:23Why do you think the Israeli government doesn't want war correspondents from around the world on the ground in Gaza, do you think? Pierce, I don't work for the Israeli government. I'm an American. Well, it hasn't a guess. You're a smart guy. Frankly, the United States currently controls all the situation in Gaza through the Board of Peace. You probably should ask Donald Trump that question. Could it be they've been doing things which they don't want the world to know? Okay. All this has been... I know facts are very hard to come by on Piers Morgan and Censor these days, But unfortunately, facts don't correspond to your particular narrative.
18:55John Spencer, who is the head of urban warfare, has crunched all of the relevant numbers and has shown time and time again that the civilian-to-combatant ratio in Gaza since the war started on October 7, 2023... So why don't you let the journalists in there? If it's been the activities of the most moral army in history, as I keep hearing, if the IDF has done nothing wrong, been completely blameless, been like at the top end of morality in what they did in Gaza, fine. Fine, OK. let the journalists in from around the world... Why don't you go? Like, literally, why don't you go? To properly investigate what has actually happened there.
19:28If you care about Mr. Cover, why don't you personally fly in there and try to cross the border? There is a reason the Israeli government has banned the world's media from going into Gaza. And I think that you should personally challenge that. Frankly, the use of your time, there would be a better use of your time on this show. I have done that repeatedly. I'm wondering whether you would condemn it. I don't particularly care, to be honest with you. You don't care that journalists should be allowed to investigate what may have happened in a war zone? I care about right pursuing over wrong. I don't think you do, though, Josh, do you?
19:54You just care about your side. You don't care about the truth. No, I do. Pierce, I care about team civilization defeating team barbarism. That is the moral dichotomy of the 21st century. It's been the moral dichotomy of black versus light, of good versus evil for millennia there. I know that the moral obfuscation on this show on a day and day basis tends to rot brains and minds, make people think that is the only thing that motivates me on a day. Why are you here? To present the team. You're now doing the Ben Shapiro playbook. You know, anyone that criticizes the Israeli government must be anti-Semitic, must be rotting brains.
20:33This is Jerry Springer. This is a circus. I've got you on to debate this. I didn't call you anti-Semitic. No, but it's coming because it's the Ben Shapiro playbook. It is not that Ben Shapiro has not called you anti-Semitic. Ben Shapiro has called you dumb and stupid or some variation thereof, okay? I mean, like, he has called your show Jerry Springer. He has not called you anti-Semitic. He has not done that because he has no reason, I have no reason for thinking that you are. Good. Well, I'm glad we can cross that bridge. I'm glad that you come on a show that you think rots people's brains because why would you do that?
21:08I don't get it. It's a fair question, to be honest. Yeah, well, why don't you just leave? I could, but I'm here to engage with you. What are you doing here? If you think it rots your brain, why would you risk rotting your brain? Every so often you have a guest who makes a modicum sense, and I thought this would be a good opportunity. You mean someone that agrees with you and doesn't want to criticise the Israeli government? I get it. Let me go back to Avram Berg. See, this is my problem, Avram, with all of it, is that if you attempt to be fair-minded, to be balanced about the coverage, as my show has been, you invite guests on who all have different views from both sides and we have passionate debate, is that unfortunately, increasingly, there is an utter intransigence on behalf of the pro-Israeli government, people I have on, as we're seeing now with Josh Hammer, where there's nothing to see here.
21:58He's not seen evidence of anything going wrong on the West Bank. Therefore, it can't be happening. He doesn't care. You want to show it to me? I'm happy to condemn. He doesn't care that journalists aren't allowed into Gaza to do their work. He doesn't care about that. None of it suits his agenda. That's my problem with it. Avram. Well, I'm sorry that you stopped talking with him. I'm ready to give you all the time needed. I mean, he needs much more rope in order to hang a lot there because there is a heavy weight to hang. I would say intellectually blind people cannot see real realities. But since I'm not sitting in Washington, I'm living here, next door neighbor to the settlements, with my families unfortunately living there, I would like to address some of the things that you discussed between you two.
22:43The first is the framework of the situation is not just the atrocities that now settlers are doing on behalf of whatever biblical commandments supported by members of Knesset, members of cabinet and spiritual leaders, chaplains, rabbis, etc. It's a larger one. Can you name a single biblical commandment that you believe commands to kill? I will be more than happy. I will be. There is not one. It will make me very, very happy if you hear what I have to say because you know what you think, but you have no idea what I have in mind. You're speaking of biblical injunctions to kill innocent human beings.
23:27That is a lie. Somebody once said, Mr. Hammer, Mr. Hammer, Mr. Hammer, somebody once said to somebody like you, you listen only when your mouth is open. Unfortunately, I'm not well trained in this kind of communication. So just make up your mind how you want to communicate. Yeah, you're well trained in gas sliding in line. And apparently desecrating your own purported religion. Are you done? Are you done or you need some more time? You okay? Relax? Okay. October 7th is a watershed. At what sense? everything that Israel done to the Palestinians in 100 years of a conflict, atrocities and wrongdoings does not justify the first measure of atrocities that Hamas performed and exercised against innocent Israeli civilians.
24:25And at the same time, whatever Hamas did, crimes against humanity, that awful, dreadful day does not justify the immoral crimes against humanity and war crimes that Israel performed in Gaza ever since. None of the two above, the two criminal sets that do not balance each other, do not annihilate each other, justify the crimes done under the supervision and open eye of the government, its cabinets, and its members of Knesset in the occupied territories with the very passive presence of the IDF. This is the reality. Now, from my point of view, I'm not never automatically support and justify the unjustifiable tribe.
25:13For me, it's not the Jewish automatic collective versus the automatic Palestinian collective, all of us versus all of them. Oh, no. It is some of us who believe in peace, believe in equality, believe in respect the other, even when the other is the enemy. And some of them, Jews and Palestinians alike, who believe in religious fundamentalism, eschatological missions and commandments, that the Palestinians are their reincarnation of the Amalekites or whatever it is. And therefore, some of the Jews in the occupied territories are my enemies. And some of the Palestinians all over the place, Middle East, West Jerusalem, occupied territories in Gaza who still believe in peace are my partners.
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26:03Because my partition line are not bloodlines, are not tribal lines, are not collective lines, but value system lines. Whomever is for peace and equality is my partner. whomever is for the annihilation of the other, be it a Jew who wants to annihilate them or be it a Palestinian who wants to annihilate us, is my enemy. And therefore, my attitude to what the settlers are doing in the occupied territories, these are crimes. The government that supports them is a criminal government, though I'm a democratic citizen who votes for it and want to bring it down. Just hold your response to that, Josh Hammer, because I'm just going to have a little break before we come back to you guys, because it's been a fascinating debate.
26:51I want to keep it going, don't get me wrong. But as we've been hearing, there are claims that Christian Zionism is a driving force behind the Iran war, exploiting divisions between Protestant and Catholic leaders. And I'm joined now by the Reverend Franklin Graham, President of Samaritan's Purse and close ally of President Trump. Franklin, welcome back to Uncensored. Thank you for having me. We've just had in his Palm Sunday homily the Pope, an American obviously, declaring that God rejects the prayers of those who wage war. Would you agree with it? Oh, I don't know. So, you know, David, King David, he prayed that God would train his hands how to fight his enemies.
27:39We know that God does take sides in history. Certainly as it relates to biblical history in the Bible, God gave great favor to David and wisdom to David every time he went into battle. So we know that there are what I believe appears to be just wars. And you take the Second World War, Hitler, there's close to 70 million people died during the Second World War. And so to fight that evil, I believe it was the right thing to do and to destroy and bring the Nazis to an end and also the Japanese regime. And I think today with the Iranians, they are a danger to the whole world, not just the Middle East, but the whole world.
28:33And I know you've been talking about Gaza, but all of this comes down, the 70-some thousand Palestinians that have died in Gaza, this is a result of Iran. The thousands of people that have died in Lebanon is a result of Iran. The people have died in Yemen, are a result of Iran. And the Iranians don't care one thing about the Palestinian people, in my opinion. They just want to kill the Jews. And they don't care about the Lebanese people. They just want to kill the Jews. Same thing about the Houthis. They don't care about the Houthis. They just want to use them to kill the Jews. And so this regime, there needs to be a regime change, in my opinion.
29:17And I hope that and pray that that will take place. And the fastest growing church in the world is in Iran. They say there's between a million to three million new Christians a year in Iran. So the church is growing there. And so God is working in Iran. And I want peace. I don't want war. I don't support war. But I do believe at times there is justification. when you're fighting evil. And I believe the Islamic Republic of Iran, I believe, is an evil government. And so I hope there is a regime change. I really do. So what is your message then to Pope Leo? Because he couldn't have been clearer. God rejects the prayers of those who wage war.
30:04That's a strong statement. And he is the first American pope.
30:11Well, I'm not Catholic. Look, so I know that I certainly have respect for them. You worship the same job, though, don't you? We also have differences. Well, we do, but we certainly come from different perspectives, Piers, as an evangelical. Yeah, listen, I'm personally a Catholic. I'm just curious that on that specific point, for the Holy Father, Pope Leo, to say emphatically that God rejects the prayers of those who wage war, it seems, and I'm going to put words in your mouth, but that you couldn't disagree more, that you believe that, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you believe that God does not reject the prayers of those who wage war.
30:58Well, he didn't reject David's prayers, that's for sure. And so I think that Pope Leo, So maybe he's putting that in a modern context, but if you take it from a biblical context, no question. God heard the prayers of King David as he went against his enemies, and God gave him wisdom and guided him and directed him in his hands of war. We've recently had an interesting revelation from President Trump on Sunday. He shared a personal letter from you from last October after he publicly said he wasn't sure he would make it to heaven. And in it, you congratulated him on the Israel Hamas ceasefire and return of the Israeli hostages, called his leadership historic and praised the developments as an answer to much prayer.
31:49You then turned to spiritual matters and told Trump that no amount of good works, prominent success could secure a place in heaven and that the only way was through faith in Jesus Christ. So given that he's not sure, Donald Trump, that he'll make it to heaven, what should he be doing? Well, I think, first of all, I think he might have said that in jest a little bit, because I've talked to some other people that were close to him, and they thought that may have been in jest, but just in case it wasn't in jest, I want to make sure he understood that Jesus Christ came to this earth to save us from our sins, that Christ took our sins, He shed his blood on a cross.
32:31He died. He was buried. But on the third day, God raised him to life. And God will forgive our sins if we're willing to accept the price that Christ paid for our sins when he died on the cross. We have to accept that by faith. And it's through Christ and him alone. There's not many ways to God. There's only one way to God, and that's through Jesus Christ and him alone. And so I just wanted to make sure that he understood that and knew that, that he could be confident that he was bound for heaven. if we confess our sins and repent and by faith believe on the name of Jesus Christ. We can have that confidence knowing that we will be received by God one day in his presence.
33:07But it's not because we've done anything good, Pierce. It's because what Jesus Christ did. He took Franklin Graham's sins and he died for me on that cross. He shed his own blood for me. So I wouldn't have to die. I wouldn't have to shed my blood. He's a God who died for me. I don't have to die for God. He died for me. But have you ever heard... All I have to do is believe it and accept it by faith. How long have you known Donald Trump?
33:35Oh, maybe 15 years or more. Yeah, so I'm 20 years now. Have you ever heard him confess to a sin or even come close to confessing to any sin or even any wrongdoing or even admitting a mistake?
33:52I've had some private conversations with him, Pierce, and it wouldn't be proper for me to reveal those private conversations. I just don't do those kinds of things. Wow, but you're sort of hinting that he has confessed to sins. Well, again, I've had some private conversations with him and I'll just leave it there. Fascinating. Let's just turn back briefly to the Iran war. What are the more controversial explanations for it, which many American Christian Zionists, as they've been labelled, have commented on. Somehow this is part of God's divine plan. Senator Lindsey Graham said in March, this is a religious war and we will determine the cause of the Middle East for 1 ,000 years.
34:40Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, has recently stated the US is fighting religious fanatics who seek a nuclear capability in order for some religious Armageddon. And during a Pentagon prayer service, as he reportedly called for overwhelming violence in the name of Jesus Christ. And most notoriously, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, when asked if it would be acceptable for Israel to control the entire Middle East region based on Genesis 15, he replied, it would be fine if they took it all. And then said this about Israel to Tucker Carlson. Let's take a look. Here's the point. We're talking about Christian Zionism.
35:19The idea that as a Christian, I believe in both the Old and the New Testament. Why wouldn't I? I'm a person of the book. There are 80 million evangelical Christians in the United States. What makes us who we are is our adherence to the scripture, our belief that the Bible, all of it, not part of it, but all of it, is the word of the living God. So if I believe in the Old and the New Testament, I do believe that there is a very specific call to the Jewish people that started with Abraham, and he called them out of what is now modern-day Iraq, said, come where I send you. He came. This is the land.
35:56Genesis 12, 3. He says, I will bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you. In Genesis 17, he looks out of the world. He says, look, and this is where I'm giving you the land. And since that time, there have been people living in this land. I'll get your response to that in a moment. But just to clarify this, Christian Zionists believe that Jesus Christ's second coming cannot occur until the Jewish people are gathered in their ancestral homeland. And a lot of people think that's no different from the religious fundamentalism of something like the Islamic regime in its nature. What is your response to what Mike Huckabee said?
36:39And what do you feel about this Christian Zionist belief? Well, you know, there's, I'm not quite sure when we talk about Christian Zionism, but let's just go back to what Mike Huckabee was saying to God gave the land to Abraham. And that promise went through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jacob to his 12 sons. And that's where you get the 12 tribes. And they go to Egypt and then come out of Egypt, several million people, 400 years later. And God gives them the land to go in and take the land. And so that has been, that was given to them by God. He didn't give it to the Presbyterians out of Scotland.
37:19He didn't give it to the German Lutherans. He gave it to the Jewish people. And that's their land. So I don't question that. And I believe they're coming back to the land as a fulfillment of prophecy. In 1948, when the nation of Israel was reborn. So I just believe that is a fulfillment of prophecy. But that does not mean that the government of Israel is doing the work of God or anything like that. I don't believe that. Oh, it's a secular government. Most of them in government don't believe in God. So it's a secular country, but it's still a fulfillment of prophecy. And I believe as we get to in later days, there will be many people in Israel who will come to know the Messiah, and that is Jesus Christ.
38:06I believe that will come one day. And to that specific point that Jesus Christ's second coming cannot occur until Jewish people are gathered in their ancestral homeland, what would you say to that? Well, I don't see that in the Bible. It doesn't say that he's not going to come back to their ancestral homeland. I'm not sure where that thought comes from. It certainly doesn't come out of the Bible. Just finally, Franklin Graham, you told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC on Thursday, that it's important that we do everything we can to get President Trump re-elected, which caused a bit of an earthquake because everyone assumed he's two terms undone, like every other president.
38:51Do you know something we don't? Is this one of the sins he's confessed to you in private?
38:58That was a slip on my part. I meant to talk about we need to get in the midterms, people that support President Trump, we need to get to help them to get elected because otherwise he's going to be hamstrung. If he doesn't have Washington, the politicians there support him and backing his policies. I don't agree with everything that happens in Washington, but President Trump is the greatest president in my lifetime. And I thank God for him. And I pray for him. And I would hope everybody who's watching your program right now, Piers, we'll pray for the president and pray for you. You've got a great voice.
39:35You influence a lot of people, Piers, and we just thank God for your position and the debate that you bring to the process. You know, you talk about Gaza. We've been working in Gaza, and it is difficult. It is a toughest place we've ever had to work, Piers. It's so dangerous. And I know the Israelis keep the media out of there, and I don't understand all of that, but they keep a lot of us that do relief work out of there as well. But we've got partners inside of Gaza that we're able to give aid to, and they redistribute it. But it's been very difficult, very tough. And the people of Gaza have suffered probably more.
40:12Right now, there's more suffering in Gaza maybe than any place in the world. And my heart goes out to them, and I pray for them. And it's just tragic that this happened. But it's still a very dangerous place. Even for us that do relief work, we have to be very careful. We get a lot of threats. Reverend Graham, always good to have you on Uncensored, and I appreciate your offer of prayers. I'll take all the prayers I can get, frankly. But thank you very much indeed for joining me. Thank you. God bless you, sir. Well, let's go back to Josh Hammer and Avram Berg. I'll just ask you quickly, Avram, because I can see you shaking your head there.
40:51What was your response to what you heard from Reverend Graham? I mean, And the longer it lasted, I have more responses. First, I cannot tolerate shallowness. He spoke about King David. King David, yes, was a warrior, but he was not explicitly in the Bible, was not granted to build the temple for the good Lord because, as the prophet said, your hands are full of blood. bloody warriors are not entitled to build the house of God, the house of peace. This is the real King David, not all of these Disneyland images of him. The second is, I heard Pope Leo, and my heart went for him, not because the religion, not because Catholicism, because he took the position of Nathan the prophet, who stood against power and spoke against it and said, you cannot do it this way.
41:54It is not accepted. It's unethical. It goes against the meaning and the essence and the substance of being a spiritual person. And for my shame, the betrayal of rabbis in Israel who do not stand up against all of these crimes and support the blood and support the bloodshed and the warmongering. That's a shame on Judaism. And last but not least, do me a favor. Do me a favor. You want redemption. You want second coming of God, of Messiah. Everything is good. keep out of my political scenario. I do not want to die in your Magadan. I do not want your kids to be sacrificed on the folly wars of Israeli corrupt prime minister.
42:49I do not need your protection. Not this kind of protection. Who asked you to sacrifice me? who volunteered to be the blood on the altar of your future redemption. I don't want this alignment with you. I want you to divorce from us. I want you out of our life. Stick to your president, sanctify him, make him a saint. Do not interfere with Jewish faith. We shall defend ourselves, we shall protect ourselves, and the best protection and the best ever proven shield against all of this hatred is to have agreements, negotiation, as tough as they are. They are much better than wars. I do not know even one person who died because of peace.
43:44I know so many people who were killed, friends of mine, family members of mine who were killed because of holy wars. So don't impose them on us. Go away from our land. Go away from our Bible. Go away from our faith. Okay. Let me go to Josh Hammond because you've been pulling faces in the last few seconds. So you clearly don't agree with what you're hearing. Yeah. It's like talking to a naive kindergartner who has literally lived a collective five to six years of existence there. I mean, my interlocutor has a shirt on that he is wearing that says peace And he is saying that a fixation with peace, without having to prepare for war, as indeed King David did.
44:25We know that from the opening line of Psalms, chapter 144. He's saying that this fixation on peace has never led to war. And he really ought to look at the situation in Gaza. Gaza is the quintessential example of an over-fixation on peace at all costs, any and all costs, of just giving up land and let them build the Singapore right there on the Mediterranean there, They're leaving the greenhouses in place. They're tearing out the Jewish cemeteries, this, that, that, this. This entire debate was had in Avraham's country, not in my country, 25 years ago. And it was the most catastrophic single decision in the entire history, in the entire modern post-1948 history of the state of Israel.
45:03Pulling out of Gaza, this fixation on peace at all costs, without having to prepare for the sober reality of living in the real world. And he mentioned Disneyland, if not this Disneyland, magical kingdom, quixotic, utopian world. Dealing with what happened there back then is what led to October 7. Directly, directly, there is an unavoidable line, an ineluctable, inescapable line from the Ariel Sharon withdrawal in 2005 to October 7, 2020. And that is a result of this over-obsession with peace. Peace is always, always the end goal. Always. The prophets, you mentioned the prophets, the prophets speak of peace all the time.
45:39It is always the end goal, and God willing, eventually, we will see peace truly in our time there. But in order to get peace, sometimes it is wholly necessary to prepare for war, which is exactly what Franklin Graham was saying there. That is a quintessential biblical message, and it is a fundamentally correct message there. And that is exactly what Donald Trump and Vianna Sian, who are doing right now, when it comes to a regime that has been chanting death to America and death to Israel for 47 years. Again, taking Abraham's country out of the equation for a second here, and just focusing on my own country.
46:10I think it's important to emphasize yet again, Pierce, literally the first thing the revolutionaries did was storm the U.S. embassy. This entire regime for 47 years has been predicated arguably even more so than their obsession with the Jews and with Israel, arguably even more so, has been obsessed with the United States as what they call the great Satan, as the font of all that they seek to oppose, seek to subjugate, seek to destroy. Their entire existence has been predicated on trying to destroy and kill Americans for decades and decades and decades. Donald Trump, again, is not starting a new forever war.
46:41He's attempting. He's attempting. And I would like a little more clarity exactly as to what exactly are the objectives, what are the next steps. I've been calling for that pretty openly, actually, on my show. I am very happy to call it Donald Trump, but I don't agree with what he says and does there. But fundamentally, what he's seeking to do here is totally just, which is to end this 47-year forever war that the mulls of Iran started in 1979. Okay, we're going to leave it there. I appreciate you both coming on. I hope your brain has survived the rotting that it's experienced, Josh Hammer. I guess we'll have to see.
47:11Fears are growing amongst my audience for your rotten brain, but I have every confidence that you'll be even sharper for your experience on Uncensored. Thank you both very much. Thank you, Piers. Well, joining me now is the economics professor and former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who says that the current hot conflict could be a part of a new Cold War. Yanis, welcome to Uncensored. Thank you, Piers. Thank you very much. I've got three. We probably agree, I think, about the big picture here, which is, from what I'm looking at, this looks increasingly like a massive miscalculation by the United States, almost certainly pushed into it by Israel, who have a different agenda here, I think.
47:54But notwithstanding that, it's interesting, when I've been listening to the various debates between the various factions, there are some sort of fundamental questions which are just worth asking you. And then we can get to the bigger picture. And they're these. Can we agree that the death of Ayatollah Khomeini is a good thing for the people of Iran and the world? No, actually, I don't. Given that it was a result of an assassination from the air by Israel and by the United States. Let me put it this way. Take it from the perspective of people in Iran who were opposing the Ayatollah, who were opposing the regime, who were protesting for years, since remember 2018, even before that, the brutality that was practiced, especially against women, what happened was essentially the regime was given a major boost, a major morale boost.
48:54It became far more legitimate. Because, you know, Pierce, you and I have different backgrounds. in the sense that I grew up in a very right-wing dictatorship. My father was abducted in the middle of the night by the secret police. My mother's brother was court-martialed. You know, people I know were tortured. Back then, we hated the regime in Athens in the 1960s and 70s. But I tell you that if any foreign power, Soviet Union, Britain, you know, whoever, if they bombed us and killed the person we loved, who happened to be ruling the land at the time, you know, we would have felt just awfully conflicted.
49:37Firstly, because we would be upset that the government, which we opposed, was given the legitimacy that goes hand in hand with any government that is being taken out by a foreign leader unlawfully. And secondly, because, you know, the supporters of the regime, and they were supporters of the regime when I was growing up, you know, felt justified, morally justified to suppress us. So, no, I don't think it, you know... You know, it's really interesting, Yanis, you say that, because I was mentioning last week on the show that I had a guy in a local cafe I go to in London who was Kosovin, and he had a couple of...
50:16It was his cafe, and he had a couple of Iranians come in who are not supporters of the regime. but mirrored almost exactly what you've just said, that the moment that their leader was taken out, that the country was attacked, that American-Israeli bombs rained down all over Iran, that they found themselves instinctively wanting to rally behind their country. And he said he remembered the same phenomenon happening in Kosovo with Milozovic, that not obviously, not everyone, there were a lot of people that hated him before, during and after his life, But there were certainly a constituent of Kosovans who were very anti-Milozovich.
50:56But once NATO attacked, they found themselves rallying behind the country and therefore the leader as well. Which I think is really playing to what you've just articulated. Yes, and indeed, if you think of it now, suppose you are a progressive, even somebody who's left-wing and who opposes the government of the new Khamenei, Khamenei Jr. What is your choice really now as the bombs are raining down on you? Really, I mean realistically. The choice is either this government, this regime, a system that actually works. Not very well, but it works. I mean it's not Libya, it's not Syria, it's not a failed state.
51:42And Libya or Syria. You know, the alternative now is not some functioning liberal Western democracy or some kind of socialist paradise, which is, you know, my side of politics would have liked. It's a choice between a functioning government and Iran, which is torn apart like Iraq was after the George W. Bush invasion. So, you know, let's cut to the chase. an illegal war that is brought by a foreign power, which, by the way, has absolutely no moral authority to talk about democracy in Iran. Because it was in 1953 that the CIA and the United States overthrew the only functioning liberal democracy that Iran ever knew.
52:29So if you take into consideration, firstly, who it is that is supposedly bringing democracy by bombing the place into smithereens, and secondly, what we just discussed, the answer to your question is, No, it wasn't a good thing. The second question people say is, is it important, do you think, that a theocratic, fundamentalist Iran isn't allowed to have a nuclear weapon for the sake of the region and the world? Well, look, I am a very fierce opponent of nuclear weapons. I was, you know, back in the time when I lived in Britain, I was a paid-up member of CND. So I'm never going to support anyone's right to own or to develop a nuclear weapon.
53:13But we live in a world where, you know, the West is so complicit and so duplicitous. On the one hand, you have Israel that has violated every nuclear proliferation or anti-proliferation treaty there is. Nobody's talking about the nuclear weapons that Israel has. Well, they don't even admit having them, do they? Indeed. So they've broken every rule and regulation. Nobody's talking about it. Now, Piers, I don't think that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapon. I mean the previous Khomeini, the elder, the late Khomeini I should say, took out a fatwa. I believe it was genuine. My understanding of what the Iranian government wants is they want to maintain their sovereign right to enrich uranium so that if needs be they can have a bomb.
54:03But they don't want to have a bomb because they've seen what happened. Isn't that a large leap of faith, though, in a regime which, I mean, at best, this is a regime. It may well be a functioning regime, but it's unbelievably repressive to its own people. I think it's undeniable that it has funded and provided arms to Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to Hamas over the last two decades more. This is a very unpleasant regime which has promoted terrorism around the world and terrorised its own people. I mean, let's not get too ahead of ourselves, surely, in sort of saying, well, actually, they're not that bad.
54:44So therefore, we should trust them about the enriched uranium, which they're enriching at quite a rate. We should trust them about other areas of how they go about their business. Should we? well let me answer in uh two points with the points the first one is you should never trust anyone especially when it comes to nuclear weapons we should trust and verify but uh i remember the short stint i had in government i also had the uh the honor of having a brief discussion with barack obama in the white house and this was in april 2015 i want to talk to him about greece's debt disaster and our awful economic crisis.
55:28He didn't want to talk to me about that. He wanted to talk to me about how proud he was of his deal with Iran and with the European Union, because that deal, you will recall, included extremely arduous verification processes. All the Iranian facilities would have been open for inspection by international inspectors. There would be cameras, there would be sensors, there would be everything that is necessary in order to trust and verify. So that's the first part of the question. Ironically, isn't it terribly ironic that if you think about it, the best that Donald Trump can get now is something like that agreement that Obama had already struck with the Iranians and the Europeans.
56:09And the Germans were really very, very gung-ho about it, including Angela Merkel, the chancellor of the time. and which then Donald Trump, the moment he was elected, not because he had any strong opinions about this, he just wanted to bring down anything that Obama had done and it was a direct request by Israel. But the second thing I want to say, allow me, I need to say that, Iran is the only country that has not invaded any of its neighbours. It was invaded brutally by Iraq. That invasion saw 500 ,000, 600 ,000 people die in Iran. Chemical weapons were used with the acknowledgement of support or turning a blind eye of the West.
56:57The Houthis, the Hamas, the Hezbollah, partisans, guerrillas, call them terrorists, call them whatever you want. I don't call them terrorists. that Iran did support where they are, how shall I put it, they are movements that sprang out of many years of mishandling of the Middle East, let's put it very mildly, by the West. I mean, Hezbollah. Hezbollah would never have happened. It would never have existed if Israel had not brutally invaded Lebanon in 1982. And then the Iranians supported them and funded them. Now, do you consider Hezbollah to be terrorists? Well, if you come from the Israeli side, yes.
57:40If you come from the Shiite population of South Lebanon, you consider them to be a lifeline. So, you know, let's be nuanced about that. But when you say... OK, but, Janice, when you say that Hamas are not terrorists, I mean, what we all witnessed on October 7th was 3 ,000 people charging over a border and committing heinous acts of terror against any civilians they could get their hands on. and some military, but predominantly civilians. They were kidnapping babies, they kidnapped Holocaust survivors, they slaughtered young people at a music festival, they were bombing, setting fire to things, and so on.
58:18This is surely the most blatant act of terrorism imaginable. Why would you not categorise Hamas, at the very least, post-October 7th, as terrorists? I consider those to be hideous and heinous war crimes. and there's no two way about that. Any, any... Why not terrorism? Well, because, you see, I have a problem with terrorism because, you know, the IRA used to be terrorist until we had a Good Friday agreement and then they became partners in peace. You know, Nelson Mandela was admonished as a terrorist when I lived in England. Margaret Thatcher, I remember calling him a terrorist. And then he became one of the greatest statesmen in the world.
58:55So I have a problem with the word terror because you see the whole point about the hideousness of human endeavors when it comes to defeating one another is to terrorize one another. But, you know, I do believe in international law. International law is very clear. What happened, what you described were war crimes. And I have no problem condemning them as war crimes. What I do not condemn, however, is an attempt by anyone, not just Palestinians, by anyone, to escape an illegal fence around an open-air prison concentration camp that has been erected in order to deny them the human dignity. The whole existence of Gaza.
59:37Gaza is not a country. Remember that. When they say, I remember when everybody was talking about the war between Israel and Gaza. Gaza is not a country. It was an open prison camp or a concentration camp that was effectively utilized in order to propagate ethnic cleansing and slow genocide. So, of course, these are extremely delicate distinctions to make, but they are very important distinctions to make. You know, I recognize the right of Ukrainians to kill Russians when Russians are invading Ukraine. Right. I do not recognize the right of Ukrainians to kill Russian civilians intentionally. So we have to stick to the great success of the human spirit in 1945 of introducing international law, whereby we have very clear definitions of what is allowed in war.
1:00:25You know, when is the people allowed to rebel against their incarceration, their ethnic cleansing, their abolition from the face of the earth? When is a war crime turning into genocide? And so, you know, remarkable scholars, and most of them Jewish, did a lot of great work defining those limits. And we have to... That has it. The third question people raise is now the war is at the stage it's at, a month in. Is it not essential for the future of the region, of the wider world, that Israel and the United States win that war? What do you say to people that argue that? In other words, the lesser of two evils.
1:01:11Well, I'm sorry, that's the greatest of the two evils. Here you have an unlawful war started by Israel and by the United States. It's a criminal war. Anybody who tells me that the right solution to that is for the United States and Israel to win is essentially telling me that they have no concern at all about international law, and they would like to see the violators of international law be the victors. I can't see that. What do you think is going to happen here, Yanis? Because, like I said at the start, I think Trump has made a big miscalculation. I think he was urged into doing this by Benjamin Netanyahu, who told him the people will rise up once we decapitate the leadership.
1:01:51We've got them all in our sights. We can take out the Ayatollah and then the rest will follow. And he just hasn't followed that way. And, in fact, the Iranians have been waging a kind of asymmetrical war, which has not meant meeting might with might, but has been meeting might with a very cunning strategy of closing the Straits of Hormuz and also targeting the neighbouring Gulf states in a way that has kept people away from going there, which has severely damaged the energy output and so on. This has been, from a tactical point of view, very cunning by the Iranians, and it has proved to be a very effective so far way of responding to far superior military firepower.
1:02:34Where does it go with this war? Well, I want to preface my answer by saying that the fact that Donald Trump didn't have a plan B, possibly because he was rushed into it by Israel, as you said, is inexcusable. The fact that he didn't even have a plan A is lamentable, because I can't see what his plan A was. And finally, the manner in which he's flip-flopping from calling for negotiations to promising total destruction, as if this is going to create some kind of constructive ambiguity that will threaten the government of Iran. It won't. They've been preparing for this now for a very long time. Everything that you described as their retaliation for the attack on their country has been utterly predictable.
1:03:19Of course they would shut down the states of Hormuz. I mean, who couldn't... I can't believe that in the Pentagon There were people who didn't foresee this. So it's all a big puzzle. Now, you're asking me for a prediction. Allow me to indulge in a little bit of wishful thinking. I would like to imagine that like the Roman emperors of the late Roman Empire, who sent legions to what is today Germany and got their backsides beaten by the Goths. You know, those Roman emperors would declare victory and hold the triumph in Rome. I hope that he does that. I hope that he gives us a long speech, two-hour speech, on why he won everything when he has won nothing and retreats.
1:04:01But I very much fear that the escalation ladder is becoming an escalator now. And if he puts boots on the ground, even with a limited mission of taking, let's say, an island or two, in order to start bargaining after that with the Iranian government, I very much fear that the escalation ladder is going to be climbed by the Iranians who will use the hoofs in order to block Suez. And then we will go from a major crisis when it comes to the oil market and generally our economies to catastrophe. Well, the problem is that they've realised in the last month that if you strangle the global supply of oil and gas and fertiliser, you can wield enormous, devastating economic power in a way that carries with it actually a lot of political power.
1:04:58But didn't we know that? Didn't we all know that? Well, look, clearly there has been... I mean, I would have thought these were obvious things. We're told that obviously that the administrations say from America and Israel they knew this would happen. They were surprised by the scale of it. I'm not sure why you would be. You know, I'm honestly, I'm completely mystified how this now, why it started, how it plays out. The mission statements have changed every 10 seconds. I'm no longer even sure they know what their goal is or what victory looks like. And I do fear we are tripping into in the same way it happened with Iraq and with Vietnam and all these other places that you start with a few hundred troops go in.
1:05:46and before you know it, it's a full-scale hellhole. And it's very hard to extricate from that. And that's what worries me about where we are now because I just don't think Donald Trump quite knows what to do. And that's a pretty scary reality for the President of the United States. It's clear that he's clutching at straws, trying to find some way of de-escalating and getting out. And I hope he finds one. And if he can't find one, just do it anyway. But the only explanation I can have, because I'm equally puzzled, is that, well, Netanyahu has a single-minded commitment to never-ending war, to permanent war, because it's his way of staying in power and it's his way of continuing the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.
1:06:28That's the only thing he cares. So while you and I and everybody else, we're talking about Iran or Greenland or South Lebanon, he can continue his dirty deed in East Jerusalem, in West Bank, and stay in power, keep clinging on power in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. We know that that's what he wants. And I have no doubt that he tried to convince Donald Trump that, look, if you join us in bombing Tehran and we get rid of the leadership of Iran in the same way that Israel got rid of the leadership of Hezbollah or of Hamas, then, you know, there will be a revolution, a popular revolution. And you just need to sit back in your armchair in the White House and watch the Iranian government collapse.
1:07:09That is the only thing that makes sense to me. it's not particularly sensible that he accepted that, Donald Trump. We don't know what other leverage Benjamin Netanyahu had on him. We will never know for another 10, 20 years. But it is a very sad state of affairs that the rest of the world depends on these little games played between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Well, we shall see how it plays out, but I share your sense of foreboding. Yanis, thank you very much indeed for joining me. Well, thank you, Piers.
1:08:11Thank you.
From the publisher
A clear majority of American voters opposed the Iran War from its outset, making it uniquely unpopular in a country which typically rallies behind military action.
The situation in Israel could not be more different, with polls repeatedly showing that 80 per cent of Israelis back the war.
A lot of energy and debate is expended on the extent to which Netanyahu and Israel cajoled Trump to join the war. Not so much attention is paid to how - and why - America’s closest ally in the region now exists in a state of permanent zeal for conflict.
Joining Piers Morgan to debate is former interim Israeli president, Avraham Burg, and senior editor-at-large for Newsweek and host of ‘The Josh Hammer Show’, Josh Hammer.
Piers also speaks to economics professor and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Samritan’s Purse President, Reverend Franklin Graham.
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