 The Israeli amassed deadly in Broglio and sexual harassment of female students. I am Gola Oba and this is plus politics. The brazing attack by Palestinian militant group Amaz on Israel that began on Saturday will be seen as a turning point in the Palestinian Israeli conflict with flourishing repercussions. The multi-pronged attack saw as many as 1000 assilants infiltrate Israeli territory, kill hundreds of soldiers and civilians and take dozens of hostages back into Gaza. It was like nothing Israel had seen since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Israel pledged revenge with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Amaz said it was prepared for all scenarios. Joining me to discuss this is Collins Unweike Global Affairs Analyst. Hello Collins. Yes, Gola is fantastic to be with you again after more than 18 years. The last live interview we did was in London, England when you guested on a live show. What an irony. You literally flew from Brussels to London to be interviewed. Now you are virtually potting into the live studio in Lagos. Good to see you. It's a pleasure. Thank you for the invitation and I'm so glad to do with it. Collins, the situation in Israel, indeed specifically in the Gaza Strip is very, very disturbing. No human being could have seen what took place on Saturday in Israel and feel comfortable. And yet no reasonable human being can afford to see the degree of devastation that is being inflicted now on the Gaza Strip and be comfortable. What is your opening remark on this unfortunate deadly embryo unfolding now in Israel? My immediate reflex, Gola, is the fact that nothing that has happened so far, well, not really so far in the first few days after the Hamas horrific attack would surprise anybody. Because Israel, just like any country on the surface of the Earth, has the right to defend itself. However, like the analogy goes in cases of torture, there is this thought about the involvement of somebody closely linked to my kids. One of my two kids or two of my kids are being held somewhere and then they nabbed the kidnapper and then the interrogators then relied on me to give them a clue as to how they should treat the kidnapper. Now in cases of torture, you don't do that because the person involved is actually not in the right state of mind to make an objective assessment in terms of how to best treat the kidnapper. So that is left for the rest of the world. In the case of Israel and Hamas, the rest of the world are the ones that are supposed to have the straight head to be able to calm things down rather than taking a specific side and actually booing Israel, gingering them all to go acrossing the line into genocide that some people have actually described it, but at least there are indications of violations of international law. Now it looks like the western nations are actually in competition on who will condemn Hamas the most and actually encourage Israel to unleash as much mayhem as possible, forgetting that there are civilian casualties in the mayhem that has been unleashed on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. So my immediate thought is that the world has got to take a twisted backwards. Now I have no blame at all for Israel for reacting in the manner that they are doing because if you were in their shoes, you will really feel that their need to respond in a very well coordinated and brutal way. Israel, justifiably so, should respond to a brazen act of terror that was inflicted on innocent civilians. But I haven't said that Israel ought to realize that it is a nation state and that it is a signatory to some international conventions on human rights and that the all of the Gaza Strip is not literally made up of Hamas. So the idea of telling a whole population about 1.3 million people to literally vacate the territory where you have kept them in an open prison for more than 16 years, may seem to some people like is an act of state terrorism, quote on quote. How do you respond to that? Well, that's exactly the point I was trying to make but illustrating it with the example of the involvement of an emotionally made in person who was kidnapped. So yes, you have actually restated my thoughts in a clearer manner. And you see, like I said earlier, Israel could hardly be blamed for responding in the manner that it did. The rest of the world, having stood by Israel ab initio, should now begin to re-activate and begin to see things from a perspective that Israel is not in a position to see right now By calling for de-escalation, by calling for restraint, by calling for people to begin to now think of how to come back to the negotiating table and the subject of that negotiation, let us not forget where all of this started from, is a two state solution where Israel and Israel are living in your side by side each other. Now to interject, if the Israeli government, especially the administrations that have been led by Benjamin Netanyahu, if those administrations up until the incumbent one is led until the day before yesterday before the government of national unity with which they are prosecuting this ongoing furory if those administrations have been serious about the two state solution, we probably wouldn't have seen the madness that we are seeing now. It was the snob, the utter snob of Benjamin Netanyahu is flirtation with ultra-rightist Israeli partisans and the conceit that is the administration, the last administration we had until the day before yesterday before the government of national unity came into being it was the conceit that they had the Palestinians under control of arms and that they could go around perfecting the Abraham Accord which was launched by Trump they had signed agreement with Morocco, they have signed agreement diplomatic relations with Sudan, they have signed United Arab Emirates, they have signed with Bahrain, they are even up until about a week ago Israeli Minister of Tourism visited Saudi Arabia, they thought they had the Arab world under their hands and they could snob a functional and mutually beneficial solution with the Palestinians look where we are now, how would you respond to that? well how I respond to that is that with all of these examples that you have given and that is quite a bit of examples you will find it difficult to justify its actions in terms of those who want to believe that Israel has never been serious about the two state solution and that Israel is actually the serious to wiping Palestinians out of the surface of the earth now on the other hand people also say that Hamas has exactly the same ambition that they do not want to recognize the right of existence of Israel but you see the point is that an eye for an eye actually will leave everybody blind and that is exactly what we see play out here let me quickly point this out in so much as Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled Israel or has been the prime minister of Israel for 12 out of the last 14 years they are pronounced opinions too and indeed some partisans in Israel will believe organically, operationally in the two state solution but it does seem that Benjamin Netanyahu although he had openly professed his belief in the two state solution he however has acted inconsistently with the professed position of being inclined to two state solution so even within Israel there are people who support or are against and also on the Palestinian side you have father that constitutes the Palestinian administration that seems to support the two state solution but technically has been snapped by Benjamin Netanyahu Hamas like Riley said does not even believe in the existence of the state of Israel Hamas at one point got Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate for the remains of the captured Israeli soldier look at how the scenario now has gone gaga what will be your closing remark on the mess that is presently unfolding and how the world could have to arrest this madness to either genocide or something that will be very unfortunate they want to believe that we are drawing closer to where the point when the key authorities and transatlantic partners so-called the western nations that they will realize that obliterating Hamas and actually unleashing untold mayhem on the Palestinian as a whole will simply not solve the problem in the wrong plan yes it might provide a bit of a suko both to the government and you know some segment of the Israeli government but ultimately what that will result in is a virtual circle of another group springing up when Hamas is no longer there so sustainable solution means going back to the drawing but and I was happy to hear the African Union makes some very very poignant you know remarks in that regards in terms of actually encouraging people to de-escalate following up on that Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa has actually volunteered to be immediate or drawing from his experience you know in the apartheid post-apartheid era so these are opportunities that the world should not let to slip through his fingers to now begin to come Israel down having showed good faith to them in the first instance by supporting them because they are right of increasing Israel's capacity to defend itself still preventing genocide from happening from respect of human rights that's where the priority should be and they should have to call the humanitarian crisis that is already building in Gaza Strip and the West Bank Israel now seems to be between the rock and the Red Sea and why am I using that rich metaphor because as it is now apart from the situation of Hamas that Israel has to manage in the Gaza Strip Izbollah is also throwing some bombs in the northern part of Israel we really don't the world is suspicious that Iran may through Izbollah be orchestrating some mischief as Syria is as it is a legend that Israel the Israeli Air Force has bombed some of its some of its airports in Aleppo and another part of Syria I am wondering can Israel not withstand its seeming omnipotence or historical omnipotence in that neighbor who can Israel afford to fight on two, three or more fronts at the same time I am ordinarily the straightforward answer to that is no but you see Israel is actually being empowered being given strength by its western allies I mean remember that the United States of America has as a foreign policy trust the support for Israel come what may and so the combined force or forces of United States Israel and some other western countries as a matter of fact generally has joined the free and you know a few other countries say France and so on and so forth so the combined force will actually is that until the political pressure on the rest of the world I mean on the other side so Israel alone that would be difficult but Israel is not standing alone here and so that leverage the little gravity with both hands and use it to the benefit of our country and that takes me to the geopolitical the geopolitical situation of the world that the world itself is now playing up to as it is Russia, Iran have seemingly supported the moderate acts of a mass like rightly stated United States of America have not only sent a warship to that neighborhood as we speak the American Secretary of State who is the foreign minister of America is literally now hoping from one capital to the other in that neighborhood so we are thought that the situation in Russia and Ukraine is bad enough and may trigger a global kilometers military situation but it's looking more like this is only a mass in Broglie may be a bad icing or a sour icing on a bad cake what's the take of that? my think is that indeed if the rest of the world decide not to take a deep breath and still overt or covert support for either of the two sides the calamitous situation that you Russia of course we know that Russia is very much bent on reinventing itself following the war in Ukraine and the way that they have divided the world and then actually losing support by the day from the rest of the world they are looking for as much relevance as they can and of course this gives them the opportunity to actually gain or attempt to gain some relevance the point is if I have a second the point is that nobody no reasonable country in this world should be in the business of supporting the Hamas or supporting Israel yes Israel has the right to defend itself against the atrocious attack by Hamas but we should watch you dig deeper to the root cause and begin to deal with it rather than just crashing the surface colleagues I must ask you this particularly because you live in Brussels you are a local politician in Brussels and I know by the virtue of your antecedents and how you function you relate with some of these diplomats from other parts of Europe who function in Brussels it does seems that our leaders of countries like United Kingdom like France, like Germany have openly expressed support for Israel but it does seem that there is an undergrowth undergrowth of resentment in Europe by some politicians we have seen pictures or pictures from the EU assembly and from some parliaments where European politicians are lambasting the unease support of their governments for Israel what is your take what is your reading of how Europe is taking this well in politics of course you have the official position just like in diplomacy as well you have the official position which you have to defend what may as the representative of the country as the diplomat but you also have your personal views that you express privately now my friends and associates within the diplomatic corps they are obliged of course to respect the foreign policy of their country because that is their job that is what they are meant to do privately of course they are human beings and they have different thoughts now coming closer and I will leave it as just one example Jeremy Colben a former leader of the level party who almost became the prime minister is on record as of a few hours ago lambasting Israel not necessarily supporting Hamas for what they did by saying that they have to call a halt at this moment so I think those are very reasonable positions as we speak I have received numerous invitations to attend all sorts of protests and demonstrations in support of well not really supporting Hamas but actually condemning the attack that is being meted on them by Israel as response to Hamas this is where we have to leave it time has not been very very kind to a very engaging session I am having with you I really want to say thank you for piping in yourself all the way from Brussels and that out time flies that unlike 18 years ago when you literally had to fly into London you are just doing this virtually pleasure having you but it is great and let's do this again as soon as we can thank you enjoy your weekends we go for a short break back with the second segment