"We Are TERRIFIED!" Israeli Settlers Rampage + Hamas Arms Deal | With Norman Finkelstein

26:25And I hope that everyone agrees with us because that has been our cry since Israel's retaliation, the genocidal war that happened since October 7th against the people of Gaza, which continues today.

26:40Piers Morgan:So would you unreservedly condemn what Hamas did on October 7th? When it comes to killing civilians and kidnapping children and families and going home to home and shooting or what happened in the music festivals, yes, I can't condone that as a man of faith, absolutely. But when it comes to Palestinians' right to resist their occupiers, that's what we, as Palestinians, emphasise. This is what the international law guarantees us. as long as, you know, we don't target civilians. And as I said, I'm even against violence itself.

27:19Piers Morgan:Right, but it's good to hear. I think that's what we need. We need to hear people on all sides condemning the violence when it occurs. And there's been way too much violence generally going on in that part of the world now for many, many, many years, decades. I appreciate you joining me. Thank you very much. Thank you, Piers. Thank you. Joining me to debate this is author and political scientist Norman Finkelstein and historian and Professor Benny Morris. Welcome to both of you. Norman Finkelstein, welcome back to Uncensored. This whole issue of what is going on on the West Bank, I've had Daniela Weiss saying that this is merely a case of Jewish people reclaiming their land.

28:08Piers Morgan:Nothing to see here, nothing criminal. They're not doing harm to anybody. But we just heard, obviously, from a Palestinian Christian pastor who says the complete opposite. And certainly from the news footage we've seen, it's quite clear that Israeli settlers have been waging a campaign of terror on the West Bank now for a considerable period of time, which most of the international community views as criminal. activity. What is your view of what is happening on the West Bank? My view on what's happening in the West Bank is basically this, that the expulsion of the population in the West Bank and in Gaza is deeply rooted in Zionist ideology.

28:55As Benny Morris himself wrote, the idea of transfer, which is just a euphemism for expulsion, the idea of transfer is inherent and inbuilt in the idea of Zionism. And as Benny Morris himself said, the problem with the Israelis or the problem with Ben Gorion, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, the problem with him was that, quote, he didn't complete the job. That's what Mr. Morris said. And also, Mr. Morris has written that that's a tiny spot of land and there's no room, I'm quoting him, there's no room for two peoples in that land. And that there should be only one people there, one state, a Jewish state.

29:42So all of that is not new. But as your previous guest stated, there has been an escalation since October 7th. And that was pretty predictable because, as you know the cliché, every crisis is also an opportunity. And the Israeli cabinet, not unlike, by the way, my own American government after 9-11, they shed some salty tears. Here I refer both to my government and the Israeli government. They shed some salty tears after the massacres and then rubbed their palms in glee. Here is an opportunity. In the case of my own government, the opportunity was first Afghanistan, then they thought Iraq, then they thought Syria, then they thought Iran.

30:36That was their plan, to exploit to the maximum 9-11. In the same way, Israel, since October 7th, yes, the salty tears were shed, and then they rubbed their palms in glee. Here is a unique opportunity. And the unique opportunity was first to solve the Gaza question once and for all. And the way they wanted to solve it was a massive expulsion. The means to achieve that massive expulsion was genocidal. And then they proceeded to eliminate Hezbollah, or they thought they eliminated Hezbollah. And now they're trying also in the West Bank. And of course, the big target was Iran. And there too, Benny Morris, for years, literally every couple of years, he would write an op-ed saying two things.

31:34Number one, Israel has to attack Iran. And number two, if the United States doesn't join in, Israel has no option except to use nonconventional, i.e., nuclear weapons. So the claim, the presumptions of Daniela Weiss are shared across the Israeli spectrum. Benny Morris described the Palestinians as, quote, a sick, psychotic people, quoting him. So the presumptions, the assumptions of Daniela Weiss, they may sound radical to an American viewer, but they are typical of Israeli society. FROM DANIELLA WEISS AT ONE END OF THE SPECTRUM TO BENI MARIS WHO WAS ONCE ISRAEL'S LEADING HISTORIAN AT THE OTHER END OF THE SPECTRUM.

32:38JUST ONE LAST WORD. IF YOU LOOK AT THE CURRENT U.N. REPORT ON THE DELIBERATE KILLING OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN, THEY DESCRIBE MANY SCENES OF THE SETTLERS. A group of settlers urinating on a child. A group of settlers kidnapping a four - and five-year-old child, brother and sister, and tying them to a tree. a bunch of Israeli soldiers, not settlers, soldiers attacking a 16-year-old who is hearing impaired and kicking him on the ground. And then a group of soldiers attacking a fellow, shooting him. He's on the ground pleading for help. The soldiers stand around laughing THEM, FILMING THE SCENE AND BLOCKING ANY MEDICAL AID FOR HIM.

33:44THE SOLDIERS, REMEMBER ISRAEL IS A CITIZEN ARMY. THE SOLDIERS ARE REPRESENTATIVE OF ISRAELI SOCIETY JUST LIKE DANIELA WEISS AT ONE END OF THE SPECTRUM AND BENI Morris at the other end is representative of Israeli society. It is, unfortunately, it has become a nation of child killers.

34:16Piers Morgan:Benny Morris, your response to that? Well, it sounds like a self-hating Jew, Norman Fingelstein, and the woman, Daniela Weiss, is obviously a religious messianic fanatic. I don't think either of them should represent anyone, and they certainly don't speak the truth about most Israelis, as Finkelstein would have it. The Israeli settlers in the West Bank, many of them, are behaving illegally, and the government is going along with them and protecting them in various ways, certainly not prosecuting them for committing these crimes more or less on a daily basis in the West Bank because they ultimately support eventual annexation of the West Bank, and they believe that removing small communities of shepherds serves that purpose, this annexationist purpose.

35:12And I, of course, and I think at least half of the Israelis don't agree with this. It doesn't represent the Israeli public, as Ms. Vice, who's, as I say, a fanatic, doesn't as well. I did use the phrase psychotic, and the Palestinians certainly behaved in a psychotic way during the second intifada when they exploded bombs in buses and in streets and killed over 1 ,000 Israelis during that second intifada, that rebellion in 2001, 2002, 2003. But I wouldn't call the Palestinians in general psychotic, but they have behaved very poorly. They're very poorly led. They're divided between one fanatical movement, which is misogynist, the Hamas, misogynist, homosexual, anti-homosexual, homophobic, Jew-hating, they're anti-Semitic, and they hate the West in general, much like the rest of the Islamic, Islamist world.

36:17And here we have a problem which Finkelstein doesn't seem to understand, that the war in Gaza was the first step in an Islamist, pan-Islamic war against the Jewish state, dedicated to eradicating the Jewish state. The Hamas began on October 7th. The Hezbollah of Lebanon began the next day from Lebanon. And eventually the Houthis in Yemen and the Iranians from Iran itself all attacked successively the Jewish state. And Israel is surrounded by the Islamists who want to destroy the Jewish state. The Jewish state, Israel, doesn't say it wants to destroy the Islamic world or Iran or Lebanon, but this is the way it is, and Israel has basically been defending itself.

37:09I don't like the Israeli government. I don't like the way it defends. It defends Israel. It's done so incompetently. I don't believe, incidentally, in expulsion. I've never said that the country between the river and the sea belongs only to one people. That's not my position. There are two peoples there, both with claims to the land, and it should be ideally divided between the two peoples in two states. That's the ideal solution. The Palestinians have always rejected it. Today, the Israeli government also rejects it. But most Israelis and many Israeli governments and the Zionist movements since 1937 has always agreed to partition and to two states between the river and the sea.

37:54Unfortunately, the Palestinians have always said no to this.

37:59Piers Morgan:OK, Norman Figgelstein, I want to play you a clip. This is from the Hamas spokesman, Ghazi Hamad, who came on Uncensored on Monday. Made a lot of news. Let's take a look. Hamas as a liberation organisation, we never commit crimes. We never kill civilians. We try all the time to liberate our hunger from the occupation. Well, that's complete nonsense, Mr Hamad. Sorry, Major, I have to interrupt there. When you say you don't commit crimes and you don't kill innocent civilians, we all saw what happened on October 7th in 2023. You had 3 ,000 members of your organisation, Hamas, pour over the Israeli border and commit a series of despicable crimes in which you massacred innocent civilians all over Israel.

38:50Piers Morgan:You then captured over 250 of them, including Holocaust survivors and a baby. So the idea you've not committed crimes is ridiculous. I think 100 percent. I'm confident that 100 percent. We never committed crimes against the civilians. Maybe some mistake happened, but it is not the police of Hamas. It is not the common... But there weren't mistakes. You gunned down innocent people. All the time... Norman, I mean, it is plainly ridiculous for the Hamas spokesman to try and pretend they didn't commit any crimes on October the 7th. I presume you would agree that's ridiculous. Yes, I've said on several occasions, and here I'll echo your previous speaker, Montier, I guess his name is.

39:43Is that correct, his name? I don't want to mispronounce it.

39:47Piers Morgan:Munty, yeah. I'm not sure quite how the local pronunciation is, yeah. Yeah. He said when you quoted him from his sermon right after October 7th, he said he wasn't aware of the magnitude of what happened on October 7th. And as you know, I have said the same thing. But once it was clear, or the magnitude of what happened, it was clear that crimes of a significant magnitude, war crimes, I know some human rights organizations will also say crimes against humanity, so crimes of a significant magnitude occurred on October 7th. So there, there's, as far as I could tell, no disagreement between us. I would say, however, some of the claims that were made about October 7th, for example, that Hamas had weaponized rape and sexual violence.

40:42I don't believe those claims have been borne out by the available evidence. If you allow me, Mr. Morris, you'll have your turn. They weaponized rape. They weaponized rape. Allow me. You'll have your turn, Mr. Morris. Allow me to have mine. Why are you lying? Why are you lying? Okay. OKAY, MS. PEERS, YOU 'LL HAVE TO DECIDE HOW TO LITIGATE AT THIS POINT. ALLOW ME MY TIME, HE WILL HAVE HIS TIME. SO AS I SAID, THERE WERE CRIMES OF A SIGNIFICANT MAGNITUDE. OKAY, THANK YOU SO MUCH. SO ON THAT POINT, THERE IS NO DISAGREEMENT. THE TWO ISSUES AS I SEE IT BETWEEN US, IF YOU ALLOW ME, AND YOU CAN OF COURSE DISAGREE WITH ME, because I'm interpreting you.

41:31The two issues between us are, number one, the allocation of moral responsibility. I have said repeatedly that I refuse to condemn Hamas in the same way as my own country's abolitionists, those who oppose slavery. They refuse to condemn the largest and THE BROADLY SLAVE REBELLION LED BY NAT TURNER. ON THE CONTRARY, THEY SAID, SPEAKING TO WHITE SOCIETY, THEY SAID, WE WARNED YOU, WE WARNED YOU, WE WARNED YOU. IF YOU TREAT PEOPLE THIS WAY, IF YOU DEHUMANIZE THEM, IF YOU EXPLOIT THEM, IF YOU KILL THEM, DON'T BE SURPRISED IF AT SOME POINT THERE WILL BE A BLOODY, AND THEY ACKNOWLEDGED UGLY IS THE FIRST ONE IS SIGNIFICANT WHERE WE SECONDLY DISAGREE IS THAT IS ALSO MY POSITION ON GAZA.

42:28THAT IS NUMBER ONE. THE SECOND PLACE WHERE I BELIEVE WE DISAGREE AND HERE I CONSIDER IT A SIGNIFICANT DISAGREEMENT, JUST AS THE FIRST ONE IS SIGNIFICANT, WHERE WE SECONDLY DISAGREE IS ON YOUR TERMINOLOGY. YOU DESCRIBE WHAT ISRAEL HAS DONE AS BEING DISPROPORTIONATE.

42:53THOSE ARE YOUR EXPRESSIONS. BUT IN FACT, WHAT ISRAEL HAS DONE IS VERY PROPORTIONATE. IT'S PROPORTIONATE TO ITS GOAL. IT'S GOAL IS TO ACHIEVE AN ETHNIC CLEANSING BY USE OF GENOCIDAL MEANS. IF THAT'S YOUR MEANS, THEN WHAT ISRAEL HAS EXECUTED IS PROPORTIONATE. IT'S NOT OVER THE TOP. IT WOULD BE OVER THE TOP OR DISPROPORTIONATE IF IT WERE A WAR, IF YOU WERE TRYING TO INFLICT A MILITARY DEFEAT ON THE OPPOSING ARMY. BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT'S HAPPENING IN GAZA. THAT'S NOT WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE OCTOBER 8TH. THE PRIME MINISTER WAS VERY STRAIGHTFORWARD. He said, remember Amalek, kill every man, woman, child, and other things.

43:57Or, President Herzog, there are no civilians in Gaza. Or, Defense Minister Galant, we're going to prohibit all food, fuel, water, and electricity from entering Gaza. This is pure nonsense. That's a formula for genocide. Okay. Now, allow me one last word. Okay, let me ask you, Norman.

44:20Piers Morgan:Norman, let me ask you. Last word. Okay, but Norman, I want to ask you one last thing, too. I just want to ask you, it struck me, listening to Benny Morris, who will respond in a moment, it struck me in his first response to you, that he must have said a number of things in his response, which you would, if you were being fair-minded, agree with. So what did you agree with him about in terms of his overview? Well, here's the problem. Benny Morris, I'm speaking to him not as somebody who knows him personally, though we've met. Benny Morris wears many hats. He wears one hat when he's speaking in Israel or in some of his writings.

45:02But when he's speaking to a Western audience like your program, he likes to appear to be humane, even a little bit impish, a little bit cherubic. He has a little smile and a laugh. So he is a moving target. I have asked him on several occasions. I have written more than 50 pages because I've read everything you've ever written multiple times. Just answer me in print. If I am misapprehending you, just what any scholar does, you reply. FACADE. HE SAYS HE WILL ANSWER ME. RIGHT NOW HE WILL PROBABLY SAY OF COURSE I WILL ANSWER FINKELSTEIN. BUT HE NEVER WILL. SO FINALLY YOU HAVE TO PULL DOWN THE FACADE AND EXPOSE SOMEBODY WHO ON ALL POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ISSUES IS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM DANIELA WEISS.

46:05Piers Morgan:OKAY. BENI MORRIS, RESPOND ON THE WIDER POINT IN A MOMENT. FIRST OF ALL, LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS ISSUE OF WHETHER HAMAS WEAPONIZED RAPE AND SEXUAL ABUSE. EARLIER THIS YEAR, INDEPENDENT ISRAELI INVESTIGATION PUBLISHED DETAILS OF SYSTEMATIC WIDESPREAD SEXUAL VIOLENCE BY HAMAS ON OCTOBER 7TH. THE CIVIL COMMISSION'S SILENCE NO MORE REPORT SAYS IN ADDITION TO INTERVIEWS WITH SURVIVORS, IT HAS MORE THAN 10 ,000 PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEOS FILMED BY ATTACKERS. I HAVE SEEN OTHER REPORTING BY PEOPLE LIKE CHRISTINA LAMB AT THE SUNDAY TIMES IN THE UK, WHO IS ONE OF THE BEST JOURNALISTS, I WOULD ARGUE, IN THE WORLD, AND CERTAINLY NOT A PARTISAN IN ANY SENSE, REPORTING EXTENSIVELY ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT BY HAMAS.

46:53Piers Morgan:YET THERE ARE PEOPLE LIKE NORMAN FINKELSTEIN WHO ARE ADAMANT IT never happened. What do you say to that? Well, as I said, it's nonsense like most of what Finkelstein talks and says. As you say, there were witnesses who ended up alive and saw rapes. There were lots of women who were raped and murdered and looked like they'd been raped and murdered. And there were also rapes, incidentally, of Israeli hostages, women hostages. And I think at least of one case of a male hostage raped by their Hamas captors while they were held in Gaza after October 7th. So I think this is pure nonsense. I noticed that Finkelstein said that he doesn't condemn the Hamas attack on Israel because it came after a lot of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians over the years.

47:48And incidentally, that's a point I have made myself, that the Israeli occupation since 1967, and if you like what happened in 1948, in some way explains how the Hamas did what it did on October 7th. But this doesn't justify what happened, as Finkelstein was saying and as this priest was trying to say, who incidentally, you asked him to condemn the Hamas invasion of October 7th, and he said, I don't condone it. He didn't say, I condemn it. He didn't say what you asked him. to say. I don't know if you noticed that.

48:24Piers Morgan:But that's what happened. He didn't actually condemn it. But look, Fingalstein's take is ridiculous. I don't want to get into an academic dialogue with him. I've written what I believe is true of the history. And I've also written journalistic pieces regarding various things. The use of the word genocidal may go down well with left-leaning or delusioned Western academics, but that's not what happened in the Gaza Strip. There was a war there. Hamas took the first stage, started the war, launched the war, and Israel struck back. You can say that Israel may have struck back disproportionately. That's a question which is up to, I don't know who, to decide whether it's disproportionate or not.

49:15But the Israeli counteroffensive wasn't against the population of Gaza. It was against the Hamas. The Hamas was embedded among the people there in the houses, in the residential buildings, in underground tunnels, under hospitals, under mosques, inside mosques, etc. And for the Israeli troops and air force to get at the Hamas fighters, they ended up collaterally killing the people among whom they were embedded, who incidentally supported the Hamas, who are their children and brothers and fathers, etc. They're not divorced from the general Gaza population. This is an idealized version of what goes on in the Gaza Strip.

49:56But in any case, there was a war. Israel killed tens of thousands of people in its counteroffensive, but told most of the civilians in most places, get out of this district, that district, the next district, and even individual houses, called people up in their homes and said, we're about to attack this house because it contains Hamas positions or Hamas personnel. You have an hour to get out of here. We're bombing it. And they told people to leave. This isn't what people do in a genocide. Genocidiers, what they do is they actually round up people and massacre them. Israelis didn't massacre anybody, didn't line up people on the wall and shoot them.

50:36They told the civilians, move aside. We want to get to the Hamas. And a lot of people were killed in this process because the Hamas, as I said, hid among them. The word genocide is an absurdity. I've actually studied genocide, the genocide by the... Let me add one sentence. I've actually studied thoroughly one genocide, not the Holocaust, the killing by Turks, the Turkish Muslims of the Christians in Turkey over the years 1894, 1924. I know exactly what a genocide looks like. You kill the men, you drive out the women, you kill the women, you rape the women, and you eventually kill as many people as you can.

51:17This isn't what happened in the Gaza Strip.

51:21Piers Morgan:OK, Danny Wigelstein, off the back of my interview with the Hamas spokesman... May I respond? Let me just ask you. No, I respond to that. I would like to respond to that. You can, but Norman, I also just want to conclude the debate by looking slightly forward, BECAUSE THERE IS SUPPOSEDLY A DEAL THAT'S BEEN PROPOSED BY THE AMERICANS WHERE HAMAS HAVE APPARENTLY AGREED IF THE ISRAELIS LEAVE GAZA THAT THEY WILL DEMILITARIZE. DO YOU THINK THAT IS REMOTELY LIKELY TO HAPPEN? WELL, LET'S START WITH THE BASICS. I USUALLY START WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW. And you'll forgive me if it sounds pedantic. And as international law has become more and more marginalized, fewer and fewer people are believing in it.

52:18But I still believe in its basic precepts. In July 2025, the International Court of Justice, the supreme legal body in the world, ruled that Israel's occupation of Gaza, Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza, are illegal under international law, and Israel has to leave as quickly, as rapidly as possible. That's the first precept for me, or foundation stone for me. The ICJ, the highest... He asked you about Hamas disarming. Sir, Mr. Morris, this is not the West Bank. You're not answering his question. You have to carry on in a civilized fashion. Very difficult for you, but try.

53:05Okay? Thank you. So, the bottom line is, Israel has no title to any of Gaza. Number two, under international law, there is no prohibition on a people using armed force to expel an occupying power. There is no prohibition on that. Number three, it's odd that we should discuss Hamas having to disarm. Hamas committed a crime of significant magnitude on October 7th. ISRAEL EXECUTED A GENOCIDE IN GAZA AND IT CONTINUES IN ITS AIM OF TRYING TO EXPEL THE ENTIRE POPULATION. SO WHY IS IT THAT HAMAS HAS TO DISARM ITSELF BUT ISRAEL, THE GENOCIDAL STATE, ALSO THE STATE THAT HAS BREACHED THE PRIME PRECIPT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW BY LAUNCHING AN AGGRESSION, A BRAZEN, FLAGRANT AGGRESSION, THE MOST BRAZEN, THE MOST FLAGRANT IN THE MODERN WORLD AGAINST IRAN.

54:17WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HAMAS HAVING TO DISARM? BUT THERE'S ONE LAST POINT, AND THIS IS THE CRITICAL POINT. YES, YOU 'VE SAID ENOUGH. THE CRITICAL POINT. THERE WAS NO WAR IN GAZA. HAMAS IS NOT ARMED. Piers, ask yourself a simple question. Gaza has been hermetically sealed for three years. How can it possibly have any ammunition at this point? This whole Hamas disarmament is a red herring so as to enable Israel to finish up the job. It began on October 8th. And it has at its appointment... Piers, can I say something? Nikolai Mladenov, who gives vomit a bad name.

55:11Piers Morgan:Okay, Fanny Morris, a final word to you. Israel wants Hamas disarmed because it doesn't want a repetition of what Hamas did on October 7th against Israel's civilian population in the south of the country. We don't want a repetition, and we don't want Hamas to do exactly the same thing. If you want to talk about Iran, you should mention that the Iranian regime slaughtered 30 ,000 to 40 ,000 of their own people, Muslims, Iranians, a few months ago. So I wouldn't call it a very innocent country or a very innocent regime. Israel is afraid that the Iranians are making for, are trying to get atomic weaponry, and they have said they want to destroy Israel and will use that weaponry to destroy Israel.

55:59And that's why Israel has launched its attacks against Iran last year and this year. And that's why America joined them, incidentally, because Trump, whatever his shortcomings, understands that atomic weaponry in the hands of fanatic Islamists in Tehran are a danger not just to Israel, but to the Middle East and perhaps the world itself. I agree on that point. I'm going to leave it there. Thank you both. I'm going to leave it there, Norman.

56:25Piers Morgan:I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Norman, I'm sorry. We've run out of time. I thank you both very much indeed for a very interesting debate. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, RJ. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform irritate and entertain and we'll do it all for free. Independent uncensored media has never been more critical and we couldn't do it without you.