Piers Morgan - “Israel Has Gone Too Far”

23:11Piers Morgan:All they say is, A, we're giving them loads of food. So why are thousands of people stampeding for food if they're so overfed. And secondly, they say, well, we just fired warning shots. Well, we had a couple of people threaten us. We've launched an inquiry. We're doing an investigation. It's a familiar pattern. I got all the answers to all of these incidents at the aid queues. And it was very damning when I read it out to one of the pro-Israeli guests I had. So I think that you should believe people when they say what their intent is. Smodrich in the Israeli government, incredibly far right, along with Ben Givir.

23:51Piers Morgan:And I think Netanyahu's gone this way too. He's been influenced by them in a very, very damaging way. I think that he said about three weeks ago that the plan was to cleanse Gaza of all Palestinians, right? That's clearly what they're trying to do now. That's a war crime. That's ethnic cleansing. So yeah, I absolutely support Israel at the start of this with their, not just right, but their duty to defend Israelis from any further attacks by Hamas. Unquestionably. What happened on October 7th, one of the worst things I've ever had to report on in my life as a journalist. But that does not give them the license now, where we are right now, to just continue slaughtering so many children in particular on a daily basis as they go after, I don't know how many Hamas are left.

24:41Piers Morgan:I mean, the American intelligence says for every one they're killing, there are five more coming through with the same ideology. How could it not be that? I mean, given the scale of carnage in Gaza right now, how do they think Israel, the government, the government, not the people, but how does the Israeli government think this is going to make anything safer for Israelis? It's not. Is it going to make life safer for Jews around the world? It's not. It's going to make it more dangerous. Have they got the hostages out? No. Is the indiscriminate bombing that's going on day after day after day after day, is that likely to end up with other hostages of the remaining hostages who are alive?

25:19Piers Morgan:And of course they should be released. We're dealing with a terrorist group. But are they going to be more at risk from this relentless bombing that's going on or not? I would say they are. So I just put it altogether. I can't defend this. And I've noticed we're having more and more trouble getting pro-Israeli voices on who are prepared to actually unreservedly defend this. There are some, but a lot of the ones that were very vocal to start with no longer want to do it. And I just wonder what the average Israeli thinks about what is happening in their name. Because if this was happening here, I can assure you that the British people would not put up with it.

26:00Piers Morgan:They just would not accept this being done in their name. It is unconscionable, the scale of what's going on there. They are destroying the whole of Gaza, and they want to displace every Palestinian into neighbouring Arab countries. I mean, I don't know what you two think of that, but are you comfortable with them doing that? Well, I'm not comfortable with the scale of the casualties that are happening. I don't think anybody is comfortable with that, Pierce. It's obviously awful. I guess the question, my question to you is, what should Israel do in this instance? Because you have Hamas, who are a terrorist organization, who are fundamentalists in their nature, who will not capitulate, who will not surrender, who are very happy and delighted, let's be honest, to put their own civilians and their own family members, in fact, in the way of fire.

26:49So you have an enemy that will not surrender at any point, who will always remain a direct threat to you. So what should Israel do in that instance? Well, look at what they did with Hezbollah.

27:00Piers Morgan:Very similar ideology to Hamas. What did they do with Hezbollah? They planned meticulously one of the most brilliant strategic military campaigns against a terror group ever seen, where for many years they formulated a plan to get pages into their hands and other devices which exploded at a signal. and they took out 3 ,000 of them. Right? Unbelievably surgical in its precision. Look at what they did with Iran. Right? They didn't just indiscriminately start bombing Tehran. They, again, had a very well-planned-out campaign, short, in Iran, against the nuclear scientists, against the nuclear program, against nuclear science.

27:41Piers Morgan:They persuaded the Americans to come in. It was all over in 10 days. Everyone was presuming it would be like apocalyptic World War III. Never happened. So Israel has unbelievable resources, militarily, intelligence through Mossad and others. No one can tell me that any of this makes sense. And I'll go back further to the start of all this. 2005-6, when Hamas are given power in Gaza and Israel pulls out. From that moment on, Israel, through Netanyahu, funneled billions of dollars to Hamas, right? They used most of that money to build a very sophisticated underground tunnel system for 20 years. Then 3 ,000 of them on October 7th pour over the border in three waves over a number of hours.

28:34Piers Morgan:They kill 1 ,200. They wound nearly 7 ,000. They kidnap over 250. How did Mossad not know any of this was going to happen? These are the people that can put 3 ,000 pages into Hezbollah's hands. These are the people that can be so precise in Iran. So no one can tell me that this makes any sense. So, Piv, what are you implying? What I'm implying is I think what you're seeing in Gaza is a rage-fuelled revenge for October the 7th. And I think that's exactly what Hamas wanted Israel to do. I think they lured Israel's government, knowing there were a bunch of very far-right hotheads on that government, Ben Gavir, Smodrich and others.

29:17Piers Morgan:I think they deliberately lured them into a trap, knowing that their own fighters could hide in the tunnels. Quite happy, as you said, despicable terror group to let the civilians get killed in the slaughter, which they knew would bring global opprobrium against Israel's government. But they lured them in with the scale of what they did. And Israel, to me, this Israeli government has fallen absolutely into the trap of responding in an over-emotional, rage-fueled manner, which has now led to indiscriminate, endless, ongoing carnage, which is making Israel more and more hated around the world. None of this, to me, makes any strategic sense in terms of how they could have responded to October the 7th and should have responded.

30:04Piers Morgan:Now, I don't have all the answers. I've had lots of other people who floated solutions and answers. But I do know that there's a lot of will on the part of countries like Saudi Arabia who want to do normalisation of relations with the Abrahamic cause with countries like Israel, but they can't do it when this is going on. This is putting back everything. And for what? What are they actually trying to achieve? And then it comes down to, are they actually trying to achieve the original aims they set out? I would argue, as I have done, that that's no longer a plausible argument. And I think we should take them at what they're saying.

30:39Piers Morgan:Smodrich is a finance minister. He's not some insignificant member of the government. He's a leading driving force. He was on camera three weeks ago. We want to cleanse Gaza of all Palestinians. And if that happens, it will be one of the most grotesque war crimes of modern times. So the question for all of us is, what do we do about this? Do you stay silent and watch this happen? and literally watch Palestinians, two million of them, expelled from Gaza, never to come back. I mean, once you're gone, you're never coming back. And Israel to then take over that land? Is anybody happy with that? I'm not.

31:17The reason I ask you what you're implying is I don't understand the point you're making when you... I've heard a lot of people say this, but I don't understand what you mean when you say how come the Mossad didn't know... How did they not know? But what are you saying? I don't understand.

31:29Piers Morgan:I'm just asking the question. How could the most sophisticated intelligence operation in the world, reputedly, and I think that's as we've seen from Iran and Hezbollah, clearly. But those are proactive things. Actually, they're very pre-planned things. Yeah, that's fair. No, I'm just trying to understand what you're saying. Well, I'm not saying anything. I'm just asking a question, right? I'm not saying that they knew anything. Okay. I'm actually saying that for some inexplicable reason, they missed this. And one of the reasons that Netanyahu is continuing to prosecute this war, in my opinion, is because he knows the day of reckoning for him is coming when it's over, not just for allowing this to happen on his watch, but also for him personally with the corruption charges he's facing in a criminal courtroom.

32:19Piers Morgan:So there is no incentive for Netanyahu to end this. If anything, his popularity with a lot of right-wing Israelis, his popularity has risen with sections of Israeli community because of the constant warfare. But that in itself is an extremely unhealthy drug. So I'm not saying for a moment, as some conspiracy theorists do, or Mossad knew anything, I'm not saying that for a moment. But what a spectacular dropping of the ball right on their doorstep. And it's inexplicable. They have to explain how they didn't know anything about the tunnel systems or if they did, why they didn't realise what the plan was.

32:56Piers Morgan:There are literally people, it's a bit like when 9-11 happened, There were people working at the Pentagon who had one job, to think the unthinkable about terror attacks. All they had to do, right? Was it that unthinkable that if you knew Hamas were building tunnels, they must have done. 20 years they were building hundreds of miles of tunnels. If you knew they were building tunnels, that nobody thought, well, I wonder what they're planning, and tried to find out. Because that's what Mossad are supposed to do. So I simply asked the question, how did you not know? No, I think it's a very important question, obviously, and I'm sure it will be asked in Israel when the war is over.

33:33And I think we just had Andrew Fox in here, who's a pro-Israel guy, saying this war should have ended a few months ago.

33:39Piers Morgan:I think there's a growing sentiment. I agree with you. I agree that there's a growing sentiment. But I also think that your point about 9-11 kind of makes the point that the intelligence operations, they only have to be wrong once, and then a great disaster happens, and we've seen them happen all over the place, and they do happen. So I don't think it's as unimaginable as you're saying. The other thing I wanted to ask you is, and it's just we're exploring the arguments. You've used the phrase indiscriminate bombing repeatedly. Why do you say it's indiscriminate? I'll give an example. Say they get information there's one Hamas terrorist.

34:14Piers Morgan:I saw Dave Smith use this analogy, so let me give him the credit for it. If somebody murdered one of your family, okay? Horrible hypothetical. Let's assume this has happened. And you get told that one of the people who was responsible is living in a tower block with 150 people in it. Do you think it's justified to go and blow up the whole tower block and kill 149 innocent people as you kill one person who is responsible for the loss you suffered? There's a calculation in the laws of war where there has got to be some proportionality. There's got to be some taking of account. Do you think there's been any proportionality now in Israel's response?

34:55Well, what I'm asking...

34:55Piers Morgan:1 ,200 people got killed. What I'm asking you... 1 ,200. We're now up to maybe as many as 100 ,000. But, Pierce, with all respect, that's a terrible argument. Is it? Yeah. That's a terrible argument. I don't think it is. It is, because way more Germans were killed at the end of World War II than British people were killed, and yet we bombed Germany into the ground because we were defeating them, right? I think that is a terrible argument, but I'm trying to find out why you say it's indiscriminate. Indiscriminate means they don't care. if they're just bombing a civilian building, they're just trying to flatten Gaza?

35:24Is that what you think is happening?

35:25Piers Morgan:70 % of Gaza has been flattened. In what way would you not think that suggests a degree of indiscriminate bombing? The reason that people would challenge the idea of it being indiscriminate, for example, Andrew Fox, as I mentioned, who has a very nuanced view of this, as we found out, he was saying that when he was in Gaza, what he saw was that Hamas adapted their tactics as the war went on. and when they realized that the Israeli IDF was going house to house, they then did the evacuation themselves. They pulled the civilians out and then booby-trapped every single building. So the destruction of a lot of buildings is evidence of the fact that a lot of them are booby-trapped, and that's why they're being destroyed.

36:05I'm sure some of them were. He made the point that more bombs have been dropped on Gaza than the number of people who've been killed in Gaza, which kind of tells you that it's his argument, not indiscriminate. So that's the only reason I'm asking, and I'm genuinely just wondering.

36:18Piers Morgan:I've read some of the five, six times as many bombs have been dropped in totality than the total power of the two nuclear bombs dropped in Japan. I mean, you know, what is indiscriminate? To me, you can argue that indiscriminate means you don't care at all. I wouldn't go as far as that. Okay. But I would say that the way they have gone about targeting sometimes individual members of Hamas that they believe are in a cafe and they just blow the whole cafe to pieces. That shows, in my opinion, a reckless disregard for civilian life that is around that one person. And again, I come back to the Hezbollah thing.

36:57Piers Morgan:Why is it that they can target Hezbollah and dismantle Hezbollah in such a brilliantly sophisticated surgical strike manner, which does not involve destroying Lebanon or wiping out 100 ,000 Lebanese people, you know, killing 20 ,000 Lebanese children? Why is it they're capable of that there, but they're completely incapable of any other war strategy here when most people believe, who know Hamas, that this was all part of Hamas's plan, that they knew when they did what they did, this is what would happen? Being sleep deprived messes with everything. Reaction time, memory, decision making, even your emotions.

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40:31So it's almost impossible to be able to target them.

40:35Piers Morgan:But if Hamas is showing such a spectacular disregard for its own civilian life, then I would argue that you should always, if you're in Israel's position as the only democracy in the region, and you've got the biggest military in the region, it's even more incumbent on you not to be as reckless with civilian life as the people that you're going after, right? And no one can say to me that this has been a successful strategy it's made israel more and more hated right this is indisputable i don't hate israel and i certainly don't hate israeli people and i certainly don't hate jewish people one of the problems with this whole debate is every time you criticize the israeli government which is probably the most far-right government in totality in israel's history by the way is that somehow that makes you anti-semitic people really need You have to stop doing that.

41:28It's so stupid. It's really counterproductive and very unwise. It really is.

41:33Piers Morgan:And actually, it's completely self-defeating because no one now believes it anyway. So I just think you've got to have grown up discussions about this. And like I say, as you know, for a long, long time, I was getting attacked by the pro-Palestinian side for supporting Israel's right to defend itself. I make no apology for that. And I've been attacked by extremists on both sides relentlessly. But I can't be both things that they say. I can't be a Zionist, genocidal, supporting monster and at the same time be an anti-Semitic Jew-hater. Welcome to the internet, Piers. But yeah, look, we're in agreement over that.

42:13Look, one of the things that I find really interesting is you using the term far right to describe the Israeli government. Why do you use that term?

42:21Piers Morgan:Because even people that I think are pretty right-wing who come on my show now distance themselves from Smodrich and Ben-Gavir. They're too right-wing even for the right-wingers who come on who I think are pretty right-wing. And that's the honest truth. And when that happens, there are very few Israelis now who will say they support Ben-Gavir and Smodrich. What they try and do, they try and diminish their involvement. They say they're not part of the war cabinet. It's meaningless. They're senior members of his government. The only reason Netanyahu is prime minister this time round, the only way he got power back was to get into bed with people which ideologically and politically he had never been in bed with before.

43:06Piers Morgan:Real hard right extremist headbangers. Let's not shoot. The issue there is that even if it's true what people say, and I think it is true that they're not involved in the day-to-day decision-making of how the war goes. The problem is, if Netanyahu doesn't get rid of them, that shows a tacit acceptance of their statements. And it's very worrying, even for people who are very pro-Israel. Of course, listen, most Israelis now distance themselves from that. But these two senior members of the cabinet, it would be like saying, if we were at war, it would be like saying, well, you know, we can't listen to what, you know, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves says, because she's only the Chancellor.

43:43Piers Morgan:She's not in the war cabinet. Nonsense. yeah um it's interesting because as you know i'm someone who's always been uh look i've never even described myself as pro-israel because i i'm not i'm not pro-israel i just generally think you know you said earlier we in britain wouldn't tolerate this i don't know about that piers i wonder if we'd been attacked the way israel attacked what would you be going on tv and saying would you be calling for us to bomb the shit out of whoever did it i think so let's let's go so well let's go back and i might be too well hang on let's go back to the illegal invasion of iraq that's different we were not attacked oh hang on our allies were and our main ally not by iraq well no that's the point so i was editor of a daily mirror at the time i led the media campaign in this country against the iraq war i did not think they have produced the evidence of weapons of mass destruction i did not think saddam hussein was responsible for 9-11 it was obviously al-qaeda which had originated from bin laden in saudi and so on so i wasn't buying any of it and i turned out I was completely right.

44:43Piers Morgan:I'm not trying to win awards for prescience. I'm just saying... We were against the war. Before, during that, I campaigned very hard against it, even though my own brother was fighting in the war for the British Army. It was complicated for my family, to put it mildly. And I felt very aggrieved for my brother that ultimately the reasons he thought he was fighting it turned out to be just bullshit. but the reason I think there are parallels there is you have the British people marched through central London right out here, 1.7 million of them the reason I know that number is because many of them are carrying Daily Mirror no war placards it was the biggest peacetime march ever against this war and the British government went against it and Tony Blair's legacy never recovered from that decision But we did that because the people here recognized, I think in large numbers, that the government was not being honest with them about why we were doing this on behalf of America.

45:41Piers Morgan:And we ended up attacking and invading a sovereign democratic country. No, not democratic. A sovereign country, not democratic. A sovereign Middle Eastern country. and the repercussions reverberated ever since with the ISIS and everything else that followed. So I think that you say the British people wouldn't I'm saying something completely different. Let me paint a picture and then you tell me. Give me a picture. Okay, fine. IRA. No, not IRA. Let's say there is a... Why not the IRA? Because it's different. Why? Because the IRA were not invading in their thousands and great people. They were indiscriminately killing civilians.

46:21Yes, they were. But we didn't go and bomb Amar, did we? Terrorist attack. We didn't. No, I agree with you. I think a terrorist attack where a pub gets blown up and lots of people tragically get killed is very different to what happened in Israel on October the 7th. And the point I'm trying to make to you is if bands of foreign terrorists from an identifiable nearby location had invaded our country, killed over a thousand people, wounded over 7000, had dragged off women and grandparents and babies. and held them in cages over the border, would you not be demanding that Keir Starmer or whoever is the prime minister at that time do everything possible to get those people back, to destroy the people who did this, wouldn't you?

47:05Piers Morgan:Sure. And then when, you know, two years later, nearly, they hadn't got the hostages back. They had killed up to 100 ,000 people, including two-thirds of those at least being civilians, 20 ,000 plus children. And we had destroyed 70 % of the country where these terrorists came from. What do you think the British people would have responded with? I don't know. Remember, we attacked Afghanistan. We know how the British people responded. They didn't like it. They didn't like Iraq. The British people do not respond to what they think is unfairness. Americans liked Afghanistan. They did. Not so much anymore.

47:43Of course, 20 years later. My point is, when you are in that situation... You can whip your people into thinking anything. Well, I don't think Afghanistan and people, I don't necessarily think it was done in the right way. I'm just saying, when you are attacked in the way that America was attacked on 9-11.

47:59Piers Morgan:It's a perfectly reasonable question. I think we would have been okay with it. I don't think two years later the British public would be remotely happy with what is happening. I really don't. I really don't. And I do buy into the explanation that some Israelis have put to me, that the country is still in trauma. and that when people are feeling traumatized, they can often react in an irrational way to how they would normally. So I do think what you're seeing is a massively over... How would you best categorize it? I don't want to offend people's sensibilities about the way I term this. I just think the reaction is massively disproportionate and it's fueled by rage and revenge.

48:40Piers Morgan:And I think that that has played into the deliberate Hamas trap, which is this is what they wanted Israel to do. It's counterproductive. I think ultimately it's been counterproductive. Whether you support the right to do it, the right to continue doing it or not, no one can argue that it's worked. So if it hasn't worked, at some point you have to stop. Otherwise you just carry on just killing people and making your country more and more isolated and loathed. And I don't want that for the Israeli people. Piz, would you describe this as being a genocide now? What I've said on that is certainly a lot of people like Smodrich talk in genocidal language.

49:22Piers Morgan:Certainly an unbelievable number of innocent people have been killed as they've gone after Hamas. Is it a genocide? We can't be sure until the international media are allowed in to see what's actually happened, is my argument. I'm not prepared to declare something a genocide based on what I see on TikTok. It is scandalous that the Israeli government continues to ban Western international journalists from going in. It's scandalous. It's unprecedented. We've never seen this. And what happened immediately after October the 7th? The Israeli government invited the world's media to the kibbutzes to see the mayhem.

49:58But there is a slight difference. There isn't. Because when you invite people into the kibbutz, you're not putting journalists in physical danger.

50:06Piers Morgan:They don't care about journalists' safety. They've already killed 250-plus Palestinian journalists in Gaza. There's no way anyone can argue to me that the Israeli government cares about the health and safety of journalists. No, they don't care about the health and safety. They don't want to be blamed for them being killed. Ukraine doesn't allow journalists on the front line. Well, they don't care about being blamed for killing 250 Palestinian journalists. That's different. They're already there. Well, it's fine, but there's no other war zone where you've had a complete blanket back. In Ukraine, you can't go on the front line if you're a journalist.

50:32It's front line. And all of Gaza is a front line.

50:35Piers Morgan:Well, it is. It starts. It is. Of course it isn't. What do you mean? All of Gaza is not a front line. It's a tiny layer. Unless you pretend it's a front line. Tell me more. Maybe I'm misinformed. I'll tell you what. No, you're misinformed. But I think that all the world correspondents I've talked to say this is unprecedented, right? They all say that there's only one reason the Israeli government doesn't want journalists into Gaza. Because it doesn't want the world to see what it's been doing. That's kind of, I mean. There's a lot of people who are wrong. Hold on, Piers. but the world is seeing what's happening in Gaza.

51:08It isn't exactly the way you said. Everyone's got a camera phone now. They have, but that, to me, is not easily verified. Every day, if you want to know what's happening in Gaza, there's no shortage of videos.

51:17Piers Morgan:No, no, you can see what people are claiming is happening. You can't be sure about the veracity of this stuff. So you need proper international journalists with great experience of war zones to go in and do their jobs. It will be the job of their own employers to decide about the risk assessment. They'll go with their own security teams. doing else. The idea the only journalists allowed in are pro-Israeli government journalists who go in bed with the IDF for a few hours and say, nothing to see here, Gav, is ridiculous. If you've nothing to hide, let them in. Let them do their job. Do you not think that they are terrified of the idea that, you know, a member of CNN gets killed and then certainly they've lost even more?

51:56Piers Morgan:I don't think they give a rat's shit. No, I don't think they care about the journalists necessarily. I think they care about the PR. More journalists have been killed in Gaza. The PR consequences. Hold on. Than any other war in modern times. I hear you. But those are Palestinian people who are already there. They're not going to be journalists. Right. You're not hearing me. Just answer my. I'm not trying to argue with you for the sake of arguing. I'm genuinely interested in your perspective. Do you not think that what Israel really cares about is the potential PR disaster that happens, A, if a member of CNN or the Daily Mirror or whoever gets killed in an airstrike because they happen to be standing next to something?

52:32Or, as is also, I think you'd agree, likely Hamas orchestrates some kind of event where that journalist is killed and that is a PR disaster for Israel and that's why they don't want journalists. No, I don't. Why not? I just don't

52:44Piers Morgan:think that's remotely... Do you not think that's a rational explanation? No, for the simple reason they've already killed 250 Palestinian journalists. They don't care about journalists. They just don't want journalists... But that's not a PR disaster. They don't want the journalists to see what they're doing. So the big question then becomes why? Why doesn't Netanyahu want journalists in Gaza to verify all these stories of starving Palestinians stampeding for fragments of food and getting shot dead on a daily basis. A thousand plus now, according to almost every official body, have been killed in these food lines, right?

53:20Piers Morgan:And the belief is it's the IDF killing them. Well, there's one way to verify this. Let the journalists go and investigate and do their job. I think we're going to uncover, in answer to your point, I think we're going to uncover a lot of war crimes at the end of this, which will be a stain that Israel, because of its government's actions, may find extremely hard to ever wash away. And I think that's a tragedy for Israel, who had everyone's support, not everyone's support, let me clarify that, who had broad support internationally after October the 7th with, you know, unfortunately, a lot of appalling.

53:54Piers Morgan:I mean, I remember walking down Kainstead and High Street near the Israeli embassy a day after, and there were large numbers of people in the street, you know, cheering and all this. Celebrating. They were celebrating. It was sickening, right? So it brought out a lot of anti-Semitism, which was disgusting. It made Jewish people's lives less safe, which was disgusting. But I would argue now that the actions of the Israeli government, the longer this goes on, are having the same effect. I think they are leading to a rise in anti-Semitism and they are leading to a rise in less safety for Jewish people around the world.

54:31Piers Morgan:So, again, I think they've played into Hamas's trap. And I think that's a great shame. and they should stop it. This war should just be stopped and they should just politically end this. No one thinks Hamas can come back. I mean, no Palestinian guest I've had thinks Hamas will ever govern again in any way. So that's all been agreed by the Arab countries. So for God's sake, stop the killing, get everyone together, get Arab pressure now to help sort this. But this idea that Israel can simply kick every Palestinian out of Gaza and take it over, that should send a shudder down everyone's spine. Well, I can't imagine the international community would allow that to happen, Piers.

55:14It's not doing a lot to stop it.

55:19So where we are now, there will be a lot of people who say, Piers, and maybe I got this wrong, but the last ceasefire was broken by Hamas, was it not?

55:29Piers Morgan:According to Israel. And the last offer of a ceasefire was not accepted by Hamas. I don't really believe much that either Hamas or the Israeli government now say, if I'm honest. They all blame each other all the time for absolutely everything. The IDF says that every single atrocity that happens is Hamas's fault. Hamas say that everything that happens is bad is the IDF's fault. So again, if there is a way to get through this, let independent journalists come in and find out. That's the way that you get through the lies and the bullshit on both sides. But what about the ceasefire, though? Because people are trying to get a ceasefire together and Hamas is not accepting it.

56:08By the reports of those people.

56:10Piers Morgan:Says the Israeli government. No, says the Americans. Well, there was a report recently that Smodrich last year, a year ago, made it clear to Netanyahu if he did the ceasefire deal then that was on the table, which is a big, significant one, with a view to ending the war, then he would resign and bring down the government. So they didn't do it. Now, that was well sourced. If that's what happened, it's disgraceful, right? These guys, Smodrich and Ben-Gavir, don't want this war over. They want to cleanse Gaza of the Palestinians. Do you think Netanyahu wants it to be over? No, I don't. Have you tried to invite him on your show?

56:44Piers Morgan:Yeah. Yeah, I interviewed him a few months before October the 7th, when he came to London, and it was when he was taking on the Supreme Court and trying to reduce their power in Israel. And there were mass protests from Israeli people then. He was very unpopular. and I did about a 30-40 minute interview with him. One of his ministers resigned while we were doing it. So he was in big political trouble. And I'm afraid the cynic in me would suggest that Netanyahu has seen a poll boost from warfare, whether it's against Hezbollah, against Iran, whether it's been against Hamas. I think he's become a war-mongering prime minister who thinks that there's no real upside to him in ending this anytime soon, because when he does, he will be held accountable for October the 7th, and he will end up in a criminal court for corruption.

57:37Piers Morgan:None of that is good if it's Benjamin Netanyahu. There's no obvious incentive to end this war. There is going to be war fatigue. There is going to be a time when the Israeli people go no more. There's no actual sign of that. And that's what's really baffling and concerning to me. And I do wonder about, I said this on my show last night, what media do they watch in Israel? Because Israelis I meet here are pretty horrified by what's happening. And even the ones who were very supportive to start with have moved. I don't really meet many Israelis outside of Israel. I'm going to New York end of this week.

58:10Piers Morgan:It'd be interesting there. Obviously, there's more Jews in New York than any other place than Tel Aviv, right? It'd be interesting there what the feeling is on the streets there. But again, I'm hearing from Jewish friends in New York. They don't like this. They just don't see an end to it or what the point of all this is anymore. That's really the issue is it's becoming quite difficult to see what the point is at this point. Unless it is what Smodric says it is. Or unless it's what you say about the leadership, which is them wanting to prolong this as far as possible. Particularly, see, the argument always was that Iran is behind all of this.

58:48And until Iran's dealt with, then this is all going to go on. Well, the rant, as much as possible, has been dealt with. So it just doesn't feel particularly productive to keep going. And it was very eye-opening for us having Andrew Fox in your chair, who's otherwise very pro-Israel, saying this should have ended a few months ago because they're not actually achieving their objectives. I mean, you've interviewed a lot of people and hosted a lot of debates on this, obviously. Have you heard a credible solution to all of this?

59:17Piers Morgan:Only political, which is the way all these things get resolved in the end. Such as? Well, let me give an example. It's not an exact parallel, but in Northern Ireland for seven decades, they had the Northern Irish Troubles. You know, I'd found me do tours in Northern Ireland. The loyalists were often just as bad as the IRA, right? And you had endless terrorism on both sides from extremists for a long period of time. And then in the 90s, you finally had new leadership. You had Bill Clinton in America take over as president. You had Tony Blair take over as president here, but actually John Major, to his credit.

59:52Piers Morgan:just before that had been instrumental in this too. You had Senator George Mitchell, who was brilliant at the same time. A whole new set of fresh eyes look at this problem. And they managed to barrel their way somehow through to peace. And they ended up bringing in people like Martin McGuinness, former Chief of Staff for the IRA, to become credible politicians with Sinn Féin, who are now the number one political party in the country. And they've got it, and they have relative peace here now in northern ireland you know like they've never experienced in the whole time of the trouble so it can be done and there you had you know it's not massively dissimilar you've got you know not a massive land area and you've got warring factions of similar people you know people forget there's over a million arab israelis right so it can be done i remember getting a uh my first trip to jerusalem to interview netanyahu for cnn back in 2011 12 and i went with my Jewish producer and he deliberately stopped me at a cafe on route from the airport to Jerusalem.

1:00:54Piers Morgan:And I looked around, I thought, it's a bit weird. I said, am I missing something? He said, what? He was laughing. I said, not half the people in here are Arabs and half Jewish. He went, yeah. I said, isn't like three miles away, just like this would be completely unthinkable. He went, yeah. It was very eye-opening. You haven't been. It was that eye-opening. It was like, wow. okay so why can't this get resolved so i think it can get resolved but never one netanyahu is leading the israel and never you've got to remember how far back it goes with him i've been in his office when he pointed to a picture of his brother who died in the raid on entebbe he was a captain in the israeli special forces and uh he's teared up looking at that right his dad was a massive hardliner you know it's in his blood it's in his family they've all suffered a lot of loss as a lot of people in Northern Ireland.

1:01:48Piers Morgan:But I do think the parallel with Northern Ireland is that fresh eyes came in, fresh determination, fresh will. This only gets resolved when there's a two-state solution. And does anyone seriously think Netanyahu will ever allow that? No. There is no one who believes in a two-state solution anymore. Genuinely. All right, but there were periods when nobody thought you could ever get peace in Northern Ireland. That's fair. And I just think that it needs new leadership on the Palestinian side, new government in Israel, and you have to have a new collective will helped by other Arab countries, who I think many of them have been putting their fingers in their ears, head in the sand, hoping this all goes away.

1:02:26Piers Morgan:That has to stop too. You've got to have a different way of looking at this. But ultimately, as I say to all my Israeli guests, give me one good reason why a Palestinian should have less human rights than you. Just give me one. Give me one good reason why it's right that Israel, whether you want to call yourselves occupiers or not had the ability the moment this war started to turn off the electricity supplies the water supplies the food supplies because you do in a way occupy gaza you may not want to admit you do but you do because you have the levers of power over everything and again why is that right would we put up with that in england if the french had that power over us talking about your bringing it home here something like that happened here would we accept that here would we accept another country an open border mate well we do but we don't accept another country having to leave as a power over basic essentials it's more complicated well for i'll give you an example yeah give an example so the ukraine controls the supply of water to the to crimea to the crimean peninsula which they cut off immediately when the war started right but i i take your point i take your point and um i i guess i'm just curious Because whether you've heard, see, the Northern Ireland example, I think, is a very apt one.

1:03:42And I really think you're right about the power of new leadership and a different perspective to approach things in a new way. And you saw that with Abraham Accords, by the way. Jared Kushner went around the Middle East, approached things from the ground up. He did great. And did a great job, right? But have you heard, forget the historical analogies, have you heard a proposal of how to deal with this current situation? that you are persuaded by?

1:04:08Piers Morgan:Well, I've heard a proposal that the Americans would lead the rebuilding of Gaza, that you would have a new Palestinian election at some point, but that Hamas would not be able to field anyone, right? So they're done politically. So they can have no political power or governmental power. They're not going to vote for Lib Dems, I imagine. They're not, but the Palestinian people ultimately need to lead the Palestinian, led by Palestinians. We can all agree on that, right? Yeah, of course. So I think, you know, we haven't even touched on what's happened on the West Bank with the extremist settlers just grabbing any land they can, which is disgusting.

1:04:42Piers Morgan:Again, these are war crimes, right? So I see war crimes on both sides here. And so ultimately, how do you resolve this? A lot of the extremists on both sides believe they have a God-given right to the land they're on, right? So you're dealing with a fundamentalist view on both sides. I don't see any real ideological difference about if one side or the other sees this as their God-given land. So that's what you're dealing with. It makes it a much deeper problem than you could just solve in the normal kind of geographic, political, territorial manner, if you like. I think the Ukraine-Russia thing is a much easier thing to resolve ultimately than this, because it's not based on a holy war, which makes things, as we know historically, immeasurably more complicated.

1:05:27Piers Morgan:So, look, what's the answer? Ultimately, you need new Palestinian leadership that genuinely is determined to not allow the extremists like Hamas to rise again. Not easy. Easier said than done. Particularly when you've just had Israel killing 70 ,000 to 100 ,000 people. That will cause a lot of rage, I'm sure, which I believe will come back and haunt them. I hope I'm wrong. you need the Arab leaders particularly in Saudi Arabia Qatar, Dubai and others, Egypt, Jordan you need them all to get involved and to work out a way that you can create a two state solution where the Israelis do not feel like their lives are constantly in peril and where the Palestinians feel that they have the same human rights as their neighbours and I don't think that's unachievable but what it needs is really strong leadership.

1:06:26Piers Morgan:I mean, let's take the other parallel of Nelson Mandela when he came out of prison. He could have gone one of two ways, right? 27 years living in a six by six cell, he could have come out and led the mother of all revenges, couldn't he? But he went the other way. He chose a much different route than the one that a lot of black South Africans wanted him to do. They wanted him to go and kill all the white oppressors and he went, no, I'm not doing that. We're going to unify the country. There's a spirit there which should be adopted too. If Israel had played this differently from the start, I think things could have been extremely different and their reputation around the world would have been extremely different now.

1:07:06Piers Morgan:I think they have massively, massively overreacted in such a shockingly disproportionate manner that is ongoing that they're losing all their friends. They're losing all their support. when even when even the american ambassador to israel who is about as pro-israeli as you could possibly get when even he is condemning them for criminal acts and attacking the catholic church where pope francis used to call every night famously and for attacking christians and killing americans you know when even that's happening right there's a wind of change here I think one of the things that I take your point what you were saying and the historical precedence and the example that's fair enough but also we need to acknowledge as well the Islamic fundamentalism that lies at the heart of all of this that is a cancer that is going to be very very difficult to get rid of particularly the more this war goes on the more people become radicalised how do you get rid of that type of ideology listen to what you just said I accept that point you're actually agreeing with my pretext.

1:08:16Francis' point is there's a difference between Northern Ireland and this because in Northern Ireland people were not putting their own children in front of bombs because they thought they were all going to go to paradise. Well they were killing other people's children. Yes but they weren't putting their own children in front of bombs because they thought they were going to paradise. I understand. That's a big difference.

1:08:31Piers Morgan:It's why I've always been absolutely certain Putin would never use nuclear weapons because he's a materialistic dictator who has built one of the richest fortunes in the world and enjoys the spoils of material goods. He's not going to kill himself, right? I just think his logic says he's not going to do that, which he knows he would do if he pressed a button. So you're dealing with a different ideology, I agree. Although when it comes to fundamentalist extremism, I see a lot of that on the really hardcore right side of Israel now, right? They sound like extremist fundamentalists. You know, I interviewed one last week, absolute crazy woman, right?

1:09:11Piers Morgan:I kept trying to say to do you feel any empathy for the all the children who died in palestine nothing there's nothing there at all not a semblance of humanity wants them all out all gone doesn't care i was unashamed about it unashamed about that's a form of of extremism i agree but i also think that the islamic fundamentalism is a heightened form of even that type of extremism but i don't look to be clear i don't like any fundamental no no i'll be saying that you do but my point is is if you were willing to put your own children and family in the way of bullets purely for your own ideology then that is something that we really haven't seen that many times before and how do you deal with that well we saw it with isis and they got pretty well dismantled we saw it with al-qaeda they got pretty well dismantled you know it's not like the world is short of ideas of how to go after terror groups, right?

1:10:06Piers Morgan:There's plenty of history to suggest there are ways to do it, right? But I just don't know what Israel's government thinks it's now achieving. That really is the fundamental question. What are they achieving other than making Israel a more unpopular country globally and making its people more unsafe? Those are the two things I think are happening now on an increasing rate on a daily basis. So I simply say to Netanyahu, how does that work? How does that work for you? And if your actual plan is to get all Palestinians out of Gaza, say it and be judged accordingly. And then the world can wake up to what I think is the plan, which is the one that Smodrich has been openly talking about, which is they want to cleanse Palestine and Gazas.

1:10:53That's ethnic cleansing on a scale we haven't seen in modern times. Piers, we're going to ask you some spicy questions from our audience on Substack in a second. They've we do, as you know, we always end with the same one in the main interview itself, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be. Before Piers answers the final question, at the end of the interview, make sure to head over to our sub stack. The link is in the description where you'll be able to see this. Does Piers ever find it a challenge to balance entertainment, clickbait value versus expertise, insight and civility?

1:11:25There were many, many questions about Natasha House, though, for a lot of people feel that you were disrespectful. You often make the claim that Israel doesn't allow Western journalists into Gaza as they are hiding the truth. Yet, he says, journalists can enter Syria and report on the slaughter of the Druze, yet they choose not to. Why is that? What's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?

1:11:45Piers Morgan:Well, Arsenal's new striker, obviously. Big Tagorez. I mean, I'm amazed. There's a change of gears. I'm amazed you ever raised this earlier. Now, look, I mean, the thing is, I go through a lot of stress in my day job like you guys do. But ultimately, you talk about fundamentalism. I am an Arsenal fundamentalist and we have not had a proper striker for years. And it now looks like we're going to get Victor Jokeres, who is the highest scorer in European football in the last 12 months. In the Portuguese league. And let's be fair, a lot of strikers from the Portuguese league have come and failed. He scored a hat-trick against Manchester City and he's been banging them in the Champions this is the pathway to glory.

1:12:28Piers Morgan:Arsenal will now win trophies this season. Make you sound like a fucking fundamentalist. I'm telling you. I did say that to start with, but that's what we're not talking about, which I'm just surprised about. Because as Bill Shankly once said, football's not a matter of life or death. It's way more important than that. There we go. Head on over to Substack where we ask Piers your questions. After your experience of what turned out to be fake news of UK soldiers abusing Iraqis, why are you so quick to repeat news on Gaza and criticize Israel when the info comes from Hamas and Hamas sympathizers?