'Rising voices of criticism: Hamas dealt a severe blow to the Palestinian cause'
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Transcript
00:00 Let's bring Aronik Runitsky into the conversation.
00:03 He's a researcher at the Israel Democracy Project.
00:06 Hello to you, Aronik.
00:07 Thank you for joining us here on French 24.
00:09 How should Israel be managing this conflict?
00:13 Well, this conflict with Hamas has several dimensions.
00:19 First, we need to understand that this is not what we see here from Gaza.
00:23 Of course, it's heartbreaking, but this is not the cause but the result.
00:30 Just a couple of days ago, the entire world was bitter with counting the casualties and
00:35 bodies in the Israeli side.
00:38 But I think as far as Israel is concerned, this operation has several aspects, because
00:46 we need to understand that there are hostages and kidnapped, especially civilians, in the
00:52 Gaza side of the border.
00:54 So of course, we anticipate some ground attack to begin somewhere maybe today or the next
01:02 couple of days.
01:04 But I think these ground attacks might be limited first to more ground raids in order
01:13 to gather some information or anything that would lead to understand what is the fate
01:19 of those kidnapped and hostages that are still in the hands of Hamas and some also private
01:25 jihadi people.
01:27 We've heard from the UN.
01:28 We've heard from various aid groups.
01:30 You've heard from certain world leaders that Israel should rescind this evacuation order
01:35 of northern Gaza.
01:37 What do you think?
01:40 I think that all the eyes are staring at Israel, because obviously the only responsible element
01:49 here is Israel.
01:51 We heard that Egypt has put some--has actually blocked the gates of the Egyptian part of
01:59 Rafah.
02:01 And of course, the Hamas leadership is unable to take care of its civilians living in Gaza.
02:08 And of course, Israel will have to take all these considerations into account.
02:15 This is obviously clear.
02:17 The war is a bad thing.
02:19 The war, of course, has many uninvolved, not involved civilians that are actually taking
02:25 part in this war.
02:27 It began with the Israeli side.
02:28 It continues with the Palestinian-Gazan side.
02:32 Of course, Israel will have to take this into consideration.
02:36 As Aida mentioned, I expect that the first ground measures taken by Israel militarily
02:44 would be somewhat limited to actually attack Hamas military strongholds, and also try to
02:53 gather some crucial information about the fate of the hostages, and also try to locate
02:58 if there are many more additional bodies that from Israel actually were kidnapped a week
03:04 ago and are still found somewhere in the grounds of Gaza.
03:09 Our international affairs commentator Douglas Herbert, you wanted to respond.
03:12 Yes, sir.
03:13 I'm just curious.
03:14 You know, Hamas has explicitly said it would like to see this fight move beyond just Gaza
03:22 and spill over into West Bank and to Israel itself.
03:26 You're in Tel Aviv right now.
03:28 Do you sense rising intercommunal tensions, such as we've seen in the past, in Israel
03:34 itself, between Israelis, between Arab-Israeli citizens?
03:38 Do you sense that?
03:40 Where do things stand?
03:44 I think that this is a complicated question.
03:46 I want to divide my answer into two parts.
03:48 Now, first, here in Israel, the situation is extremely tense.
03:54 Let us first focus on the internal front or the home front between Jews and Arab citizens
04:00 of Israel.
04:01 Now, I have many Arab friends that say explicitly they are afraid of going out from their homes
04:08 to do the regular shopping and work, because they are afraid of any incidents that would
04:16 actually exaggerate the tensed atmosphere that you can feel.
04:22 Almost no one is going out to the streets, and people stay at home.
04:28 Of course, they have to follow the instructions of the home front command.
04:34 But undoubtedly, the atmosphere is very tense.
04:38 Now, as far as the larger Palestinian issue is concerned--and this is interesting--I think
04:46 that there are these rising voices of criticism.
04:49 Of course, they are relatively minor right now, but these voices say that actually Hamas
04:56 gave a severe blow to the Palestinian cause.
05:00 And if this is true, this may explain why the Palestinian brethren in the West Bank--and
05:06 we hope that the West Bank front will remain calm and silent--why still they are not involved
05:14 in opening a second front against Israel.
05:18 But the issue here is quite simple.
05:21 Now, the Palestinian cause is based on the issue that this is a moral, a humanitarian
05:27 cause.
05:28 Now, in terms of moral and humanitarian point of view, how can you justify what happened
05:35 just seven days ago?
05:37 This is number one.
05:39 Number two, as far as the Muslim world is concerned--and this has to do with the efforts
05:45 by Israel to position Hamas or to make--to actually present Hamas as the Palestinian
05:54 or Gazan example of ISIS, I think that actually gave a blow to the entire Muslim world by
06:05 presenting this phase of Islam that the Muslim world, of course, is trying not to present
06:12 itself like this one.
06:13 So I think this is quite complicated.
06:16 Also, in addition to that, but just want to add this one, that, of course, the Israeli
06:23 military is, of course, all fronts are taking into account.
06:29 We hear on some incidents on the northern part of Israel, the West Bank front is somewhat
06:37 calm.
06:38 We heard about some incidents taken by Jewish extremists.
06:42 Of course, this is not--
06:44 Sir, sorry.
06:45 Yeah, I'm sorry.
06:46 I'm sorry to jump in.
06:47 We have limited time.
06:48 And I had I have one last thing I wanted to ask you, and that has to do with the fact
06:53 you are in Tel Aviv right now.
06:54 Tel Aviv, known to be a cosmopolitan, relatively progressive city, the site recently of mass
07:01 protests against Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial reforms.
07:06 Do you sense right now the population, even where you are in Tel Aviv, has really rallied
07:11 behind Benjamin Netanyahu?
07:13 Are there still people who are against the Israeli government policy, or is it really
07:18 consolidated right now?
07:19 Is it monolithic?
07:22 You know, for the past eight months, Tel Aviv and the entire country witnessed unprecedented
07:28 waves of protests against Netanyahu and his government.
07:32 This is the situation.
07:33 This is still the situation.
07:35 I would say that the entire population, not only in Tel Aviv but throughout the country,
07:40 is united and rallied after the military forces and the general cause of the inhabitants in
07:50 the Jewish settlements neighboring the Gaza Strip.
07:53 Now, there is large and fierce criticism still against Netanyahu, but I think that many in
08:00 the Jewish public understand that this is not the time to take the responsible figures,
08:06 responsible political figures, namely the government, into justice or to account.
08:12 Of course, this day will come, but this is, we are not yet at this position.
08:16 Eric, I just want to, I don't think people are questioning that.
08:20 I think the concern is that maybe the government's response could exacerbate the conflict.
08:29 The government response, I think that no one, or there are some criticism against the response
08:37 taken by the IDF against Gaza, but I think the criticism is focused on the way that if
08:49 you compare the government response in taking care of the fate of the people in the southern
08:54 part of Israel and what the civil society organization that actually was forming, what
09:02 still is forming through the past months, the response is totally different.
09:08 So I would say that the criticism is more on the civic dimensions and not on the military
09:15 aspect as far as the war against Gaza is concerned.
09:19 All right, Eric, thank you very much for your time.
09:21 Eric Gudnitsky speaking to us from Tel Aviv.