 changing these days, and to keep track of so many things. What happens after the hostage deal? I mean, we have enough issues while it's going on, but what happens after the hostage deal? It's really real time, isn't it? And who is pleased with that deal? Who will benefit by that deal? How will the world change by virtue of that deal? With Rupemati, Dr. Rupemati Khandekar joins us from New York. Welcome to the show, Rupemati. Aloha, Jay, and it's lovely to be here with you, and we are speaking about this issue, which is so important in history, present, and the future. So it's a deal which will have a lot of repercussions for future. Yeah, let's talk about where we are. So we're just about finished with the four days originally agreed. There was a hiccup there about a delay a couple of days ago, and lots of commentary about whether the Hamas side reached the agreement or not, and whether their excuse for delaying it eight hours while the Israelis stood around in further terror waiting for them, and what that really meant, whether that was a power play or legitimate. And what the numbers game is, they started out with 240 hostages. They've given some back, only one American. There are nine Americans, and I don't know if these numbers are ultimately accurate or not. And what is this two-day extension that we heard about? What does that mean? How many will be transferred? How many are left? And with the stress on how many are left, have these guys complied? How has the power shifted some commentators feel that Qatar? Because of that delay, the power shifted away from them into Egypt. And Egypt was the cornerstone of making this happen. They get strange things like the high five that some Israeli, excuse me, the high five that some Hamas guy gave to the hostages that were being released a couple of days ago. What does that mean? Where does the Stockholm syndrome fall and all this? And what are we going to hear from the hostages? It's good that we know. It's good that the Israelis will make that public. But it's dangerous for the remaining hostages, isn't it? So tell us the status. Tell us what the implications are at the present moment. Jay, now this entire halabulu about the hostage situation was because Israel was getting back hostages. But Palestine was getting back prisoners, accused of doing illegal things. There's a big difference. It's not a swap of hostages. It's a swap of people, civilians who were picked up from their houses and legitimate accused prisoners who have harmed Israel and who are indoctrinated to hurt Israel in every which way. Now, Jay, I don't know how many people know about. There was that the group of 39, which was released in exchange of 13 in the first one. It had one prisoner known as, she was known as Isra Jabi Mee, you know, Jabi's. And she was the one who was accused when she was 31 to take her cylinder detonated at the Israeli checkpoint because they put her up for having a car bomb. She was driving into Israel to have a suicide bombing incident. Now these are not small things. They're welcoming them as heroes and everything. But you see the mindset is not that of a hostage. They were not troubled. They were accused of crimes taken in. Now Palestine was pushing for a one prisoner, your hostages versus our entire 6,000 prisoners. That was muted. We have to understand that there is a lot of domestic pressure on Mr. Netanyahu. And see in a prisoner in a hostage situation, the stronger your side is, the stronger you can deal with them. Now every day of this ordeal is helping Hamas to regroup, to reorder. Every day that they were extending, they had promised that 10 Israeli hostages will be released and in exchange, it's a ratio of three to one that they have agreed upon. That 30 will be released for Palestine. 30 prisoners will be released for Palestine. But Jay, we have to see that this is Hamas trying to regroup, reorder, because the onslaught or the retaliation was such that Hamas has been hurt. And that hurt is so evident and so necessary, because if they regroup, there is an impending attack. There is no denial about this, that the future holds the impending attack more deadlier than this one, if Hamas regroups and re-strengthens. Now Northern Gaza, the tunnels have been destroyed, the hostage situation is progressing. The truth is going on, but I hope the IDF and Netanyahu are firm on their mission to destroy Hamas and clean Gaza, because Gaza was allowed to function as a proper city with hospitals, schools, women, children, everything. But these prisoners who are being swapped are ones who have entered Israeli territory and harmed. And the hostages that we are swapping in are civilians who have been picked up from their home. And Jay, which country in the world has to tolerate is thoughtless to be kept as hostages for over 48 days. 38 days, it's unimaginable to talk about humanity if you don't think about the kids. Which country has to wait and give in to demands when six antagonistic nations are waiting to pounce on that country? Yeah, we're really at an inflection point here. There's so many factors and so many players involved on the stage, and it's hard to say what will prevail, whether this will be in accordance with the agreement or an extension of the agreement or not, but even the agreement, as you point out, not that great for Israel. They're only getting a fraction of the hostages back. Only one American so far, there are nine on the count of Americans. And I wonder, I have some questions, I don't know if you've been able to delve into it that deeply in the short amount of time we've had to follow this, but how are the hostages who are being returned selected from the 240 are now remaining 180 hostages? How is that selection process? During World War II in the Holocaust, there was this thing about Selexion in Germany, and it was very painful that the Selexion would be completely irrational and made only to terrify you and to give you the dilemma of choosing your own fate in some way. But now we have another selection process. How are the hostages who are being returned selected? Yeah, Jay, it was firstly Israel put its foot down upon the fact that no murderers or men would be released. So they had to come to a common point and they decided on women and elderly people. So now amongst these hostages, they had children and their mothers. So they picked up these, I think it's just 13 of them, but they have been randomly picked and the elderly who have been picked up for this. But Jay, let me point out to you that the video that Hamas made when they are returning the hostages, it is propaganda, it is a propaganda video. They're telling the hostages to wave back at them. Keep waving, they say. Another one taps on the Hamas soldier and tells him, put your hand and show that you're caring. So this is propaganda video. It is not to show how much Hamas cares for hostages. It's hostage and terrorist. Nobody's making that clear. It is not loving citizens who are sending off, giving a farewell to people who they have rescued. Terrorists are sending back people they had captured. And the propaganda video shows the sensitive side of Hamas. So I mean, give me a break. It is using virtual reality for a whole new cause. Do we know how they were treated? Have any of the released hostages been able to say as they obviously have to be debriefed and all by the Israelis? But do we know yet exactly what kind of situation they had while they were being held? Jay, firstly, it came out from all that they were held in a tunnel. It was in tunnels that they were kept in. And as the IDF is going into these tunnels, they're running out of hiding spaces too. So that is one of the reasons why they have come to this hostage situation. And the hostages were captured for this very reason, to terrorize Israel into domestic pressure, into a chaos. And when they regroup, they know what they are targeting. See, for them, the end goal is death. And they martyred them is for them is a stage of achievement. And for that, it is scary to deal with these hostages because they don't care about their own lives. They can easily wipe out these hostages. And we don't know the numbers. We don't know the people who are there just in tunnels. And like you spoke about the Stockholm syndrome that they will not remember anything. Because there's so much of pressure. There is so much of terrorization of the mind. And toddlers waiting as hostages, Jay, I mean, it's never happened in the world, in this number, in this much of time, and with so much of opposition that Israel has to face. They are the rescuers, and they are being treated as oppressors. So that is absolutely wrong. Yeah, that's incredible. I wanna ask you about that. But first, I wanna ask you about the propaganda war. So you have on the one hand, the return of the hostages or some of them, just some of them. And that sort of emphasizes the fact that there were hostages being kept against their will and that they're women and children. And poor Abigail, Abigail Eden, I think her name was, the young American, the young American Israeli girl. It just turned four a few days ago. So when you have that, you have two strains working against each other. One you can say that, you can say, and you did say that Hamas gets propaganda points because it makes videos and it tries to manipulate the propaganda, just as it has from day one. But this also shows that hostages were kept and those who would deny, and that October 7th never happened, they can't really deny it. This is living proof that it happened. So what you have is two strains. One is the propaganda war by Hamas and the other is the confirmation of the tunnels, the confirmation that the hostages were taken, women and children who were completely, as you said, completely innocent. Who wins that propaganda war? Who comes out ahead in terms of world opinion? Can you say or is it just the same as it was? Yeah, see, Jay, white is white and black is black. We have no gray area when it comes to terrorism. And pseudo liberals will say, wow, it's a swap of hostages. And they will keep on repeating it that, you know, both sides have benefited from this. But Israel is trying to negotiate for lives. And, you know, Jay, when these people, prisoners of war, prisoners were released, Palestine prisoners were released, out of those 300, majority of them 70% are from the West Bank. And when they returned back, they were given heroes' welcomes. If you've seen the videos on the back, you know, they are prisoners and they have done things which are wrong, which are going against a sovereign state, which are going against a democratic government. Now this kind of crime that they have done and they've been sentenced to eight years, there was one other lady, Nurhan Awad. She was 17 years old. She was on a stabbing spree on the street, stabbing Israeli civilians. And her brother was killed and she was sentenced for eight years. So when you're stabbing civilians in a street, you are a criminal. I mean, it's logic. Well, the thing is that it's hard to deny that these people will go back, they'll go back to Gaza, they'll go back to Hamas. And you say there were celebrations on the street. Those celebrations, I'm sure, were not limited to Hamas people. They were all the Palestinian crowd, the same crowd that watched the naked Jewish women being paraded through the streets on October 7th, October 8th. But now they go back and you know, they're gonna join Hamas again. They're heroes to Hamas. They're gonna do more terror, more stabbings, more attempted bombings, whatever it is. And it's really regrettable that they're back into the same things they were doing before and they will kill people. They will kill people. You know that that's their life mission and that they will be used for that. Hamas now has people that will be great resources for them. I don't know how you deal with that. I mean, to me, if they're caught again, even attempting this sort of thing, they have to get thrown in the darkest hole forever or killed because they are sworn terrorists. And to give sworn terrorists back, a lot of the terrorists in Hamas today were released from Israeli prisons for prior terror. So it's very regrettable that it's three to one ratio. It's very regrettable that these are not innocent people. They're criminals. They're terrorist criminals troubled by that. Anyway, so what can Israel do about it? They are indoctrinated minds, Jay. And when they are indoctrinated to kill and to get killed, that is the ultimate kind of level that they achieve. And Jay, when they're giving the heroes welcome, they think their struggle in Israel has made them so tough. Be sure each one is going to come out as a nuisance and menace for Israeli society. I mean, giving up these people outside is as good as, they're not, see, women and children released from the Palestine site were convicted criminals. Hostages released from of Israel were just taken hostages because they're Israelis. There is no crime committed. They were in the houses. They were doing the daily work and they have been picked up, veterans, women, children, men, other nationals. This is their blackmailing tactic. This is their pressure tactic on trying to bring a democracy to its knees. But this is temporary, Jay, and domestic pressure as well as international perception of Israel, it's fashionable to be anti-Semitic. Why? Because you just want to, they have these hundreds of videos showing their pity and plight, but Israelis are hiding and they don't want to go through that again and again. So that is allowed. I mean, it keeps on going to such a place that we have to understand that this doesn't work. So we have the propaganda war and you and I can evaluate how it's going or should be going. The information that's now flooded, this is a raw meat situation. We could do go the raw meat that the press was picking up was the claims of Hamas, that thousands of people were being killed and maimed and wounded in the hospitals and all that, tear your heart out, kind of raw meat stories. And the press focused on that and they didn't talk about the massacre. And I find that awful that the press has given us only the raw meat that shows up on a given day and the kind of raw meat that will interest people from a shot and throw point of view. But now we have the hostages coming back. We have a different playing field somehow because they came back and because of the swap that you described and all. So the question is, how will this hostage deal affect public opinion? And mostly I think I'm asking about the US about all those college campus kids and faculty that have made light of the massacre or ignored it or rip posters of the hostages off the wall and how they have protests favoring Hamas and against the Israelis and all that. Will these events of the last few days and the next few days, will these events change the sensibilities of all the pro Hamas protesters in this country? CJ, the propaganda videos of Hamas were fodder for these pseudo liberals. They loved it, they laughed it up. I mean, they were getting thrilled with this kind of children massacre, this, that, but they did not, they conveniently put the terrorist attack on Israel on a backstage. You know, when a person does not admit what is right, what is wrong, there is a lot of confusion in that space. And that was what was happening. And just as the Palestine kids were indoctrinated to hate Israel, you have American kids indoctrinated to see that Israel is committing atrocities. No, Israel is trying to save its own life. It is in self-defense that all this goes on. So many propaganda videos, Jay, you find the same actor doing different, different things. They're lying in a white coffin sheet and picking out of it, the Hamas terrorists who are bringing back the hostages are being told to tap on the back to hold them, to pick them up and put them into ambulances. Whether this caring when they were shooting down people in the houses, whether this caring when there were families who were hugging themselves when they were being shot. This is the kind of contradiction that they show. And people think it's a stage and it's a show performance and take it up. Israel will keep this truce going on and there will be negotiations till the hostages are there. But Jay, this time because of the intensity of October 7 and the possibility of a future attack, this time it will be different. This time there will not be a negotiation up to eternity. There will be a negotiation up to Israel's patience. And after that, without that, with that, any circumstance Hamas will be eliminated. And that is the bottom line in this war. I hope so. Let's look at the remaining 180. There are still 180 plus one or two in hostages. And as you go down, so now they talk about a two week extension of the hostage deal from more hostages. But that doesn't take you anywhere near 180. There's still a huge number of hostages being held theoretically. I believe that some of them have already been killed. Some of them were wounded and have died. Some of them have been lost. Yes. Lost in the tunnels. There was one story of a hostage who was with her mother. And part of the deal, by the way, is that Hamas was not gonna separate families, but they did separate this family. The young child was returned, but the mother disappeared. She was not returned and they got some kind of sad sack response to Hamas guy said, we couldn't find her. Really couldn't find her? She was with her daughter for 50 days, but now you couldn't find her. What kind of? Anyway, and I believe the terrible things have happened to some of the 180. The question I put to you though is, and this is really interesting question, is as we go down the track here, as we get groups, small groups of hostages for various possible extensions of the hostage deal, does it get easier? Does it get harder? Will Hamas twist further? Will the Israeli response and the response of the Jewish community in the United States to Biden? What will they do as we get with a smaller number of hostages? It seems to me that is more excruciating yet because it means these people have had to wait and we don't know, we don't know the situation and we don't know if they're alive. And so it's actually more painful going forward. Your thoughts? Yeah, Jay, at the point on you and it is difficult to understand the mindset of Hamas in this and they want to keep this blackmailing and this pressure on Israelis for a longer time. But that, like you said, we don't know the whereabouts or the well-being of these hostages. And when it comes down, you know, they have offered that we send all the hostages, you send all the 6,000 prisoners back. That was the main deal, but Israel is talking tough this time, 6,000 of them back on the street indoctrinated and after serving in Israeli camps, they're going to be stronger and harder to bring down. And this kind of setup that they are making, it is going to only last and play out till resources are, you know, not exhausted, but Israel also regroups. Now, this time it's when Hamas is regrouping, even IDF is regrouping. So it's going to be a head-on thing. And for US, Israel is not only an ally, it is geostrategically one of the most important democracies in the world for anybody. For any country, if you don't see Israel as a fully successful Middle Eastern democracy, you are missing the point. Yeah, total agree. So, you know, I think Netanyahu has been out in the field. He's been put on his flak jacket and he'd been among the troops in Gaza. And the, you know, the troops are still there in Gaza. I think they're doing maintenance things. As you say, they may be doing regrouping on their own. Well, one thing troubles me about the deal though, the deal said that the Israelis could not fly drones during the truce. I said, why not? Why not? And what, you know, this is only surveillance is all it is. I don't know why Hamas insisted on that. But anyway, they're down there and he certainly wants them to regroup. And he keeps saying, and I believe from him it's a sincere statement. He wants to begin, you know, the attack, the Israeli attack on Hamas immediately after his prison swap thing is over. So my question is, you know, right now we're in a lull. As I meant when I started, you know, introducing the subject, we're in a lull. We don't know where the inflection point will really go. Let me offer two that it ain't gonna be that easy for Netanyahu and the IDF to say, okay, boys, let's go back in now, you know, because everybody's had the sweet taste of peace for a few days. Clearly, what are his issues? What are his prospects? What are, you know, what is likely to happen at the end of the truce period? And he tells them, okay, as you were, let's go in and let's finish the job. What kind of reactions are you gonna get from his own people? That is the IDF and the people in Israel and from the, you know, the Americans and others who are seeking a permanent peace. What kind of reaction? Can he really mount the campaign again? Yeah, Jay, we must, we may not agree with his domestic policies, I've told you before, but he's a soldier of Israel. And when he, when a prime minister or when the head of the nation goes to his troops, like they do, they lead from the front. They give the morale to the soldiers that, you know, you have to keep going and Israel has to win. So that kind of motivation is not a small thing, Jay. It must seem like a visit or something, but it's a morale for soldiers to fight for the country, to defend the country. In this case, in this issue, in the October 7 attack, Israel is defending itself. Now, regrouping is very important as much as Hamas thinks it's for them. It is also important for Israel because the Reiki has been done. First thing first, the northern part of Gaza, which was the most densely populated Gaza city and, you know, those areas which were densely with the tunnels were once which were bombarded and they were finished, the tunnels which were important were done. Now this break is good for Israel also. And regrouping, Jay, we have no choice. There is no choice in regrouping and regoing inside because this was a place, you know, it could easily have been if these maniacs had a nuclear weapon. They were not responsible. They had drones, suicide drones, they've used it. They had paragliders, they used it. They had guns, they used it. Just imagine they have a weapon of mass destruction. Can you trust these people with them? So they can never go beyond basic living. I mean, it is so downright straightforward to say that development does not suit mental madness. So they deserve to start from the beginning, start from scratch, live your basic life. And if you go to, you know, this extent that you heard the development or existence of another nation, they did deserve it. I mean, I'm going all out on this. Well, you know, what happens if there is a permanent truce or a long-term truce? I mean, every war has got to come to an end somehow. It's got to be resolved somehow. Win, lose, or draw. It's got to be resolved. So at the end of that time, you know, I think Israel will be different. There'll be those who would campaign for removing Netanyahu for sure. There would be those players, you know, those countries that have attacked Israel that will keep on attacking Israel. Even if the thing with Gaza is resolved, even if the West Bank is resolved, they'll be doing it again. And finally, you know, Joe Biden is gonna try to, you know, stay in office here. And he's gonna try to be a hero, which he's tried hard to do. But query, where does he come out at the end? Republicans attack him for not being aggressive enough to deal with the, you know, Hamas. So let's assume for a moment though that we do have a long-term truce here. Because it's got to be heading ultimately to that. Whether there is a Hamas or isn't a Hamas. How can Israel prevent this from ever happening again? Obviously, one thing is to remove and eliminate Hamas and the people around Hamas, you know, who could easily join some other terror organization, by the way. Exactly, yes, Jay, yes, this is so right. Because now there are terror cells in Europe which are waiting and watching this game. How is it playing out? Are the hostages effective enough? You know, this game is going to move to Europe. And luckily for Israel, whether Republican or Democratic, America remains allies, strong steadfast friend. That is, you know, that is non-questionable and that is good. But this terror cells which will operate in Israel, now Gaza will be a restricted territory. It will not be the same again. They will not be allowed to come and settle down again because the proximity that they had, the access that they had to Israel on an early morning of a holiday, was when it was, can never be negotiated again. So that kind of keeping away is going to be done. Now, West Bank is the place where they will be concentrated on. And these prisoners who are, Gaza, it's out of the question that it will be the same again and they will be allowed to move back and relocate. Like Saudi promised that they would come to develop Gaza again. But I don't think that's the point and Gaza will forever remain a restricted, forbidden territory for all now. And it's pseudo liberals, like we said, they can never be pleased. They will keep on harping about it and you cannot wait for them to act. You cannot please them. So it's better to defend and act for yourself. And that's exactly what Israel did. And Israel has this win, lose game, draw game that we talked about, Jay. Israel has played the tolerant person. Israel has always played to survive. If Israel was the one harming and going and attacking their territories, we would have discussed this issue in a very different way. But like you always say, it's existential war that Israel is fighting. Well, Israel has some tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the land in the Palestinian and Arab world. It's really amazing how people connect all of this to a question of land. It isn't a question of land, it's a question of allowing a Jewish state to exist. That's what it is. It's ideology. But anyway, I wanted to ask you though, in the past, in times of relative peace, Hamas has been throwing rockets into Southern Israel forever every day and the sirens go off and people hide and the Israelis hide so they won't be injured or killed by these rockets that come in. It's just a reminder that Hamas is there, that Hamas does its thing. So if I were the new Israel, call it the post-Cruce Israel, I wouldn't allow one single rocket. In other words, it's just me now, but if I saw on a given day that Hamas in a time of truce was firing rockets into Southern Israel, I would let him have it. I would, for every rocket, I would blow up a building and so forth and I wouldn't be too concerned about who was hurt because they initiated the attack. I would also, I'm sad to say, I would also tell the Israelis, they cannot have Kibbutzim on the border. As much dangerous going forward, we've had the threat already and then Hamas, we try this again and if not, Hamas, somebody else. Your thoughts about the new Israeli defense, you know, defense configuration. New Israel is now hurt, smarter and more effective, Jay, in dealing with this because they have learned to just care nothing about other people when their own lives are at stake. They're dealing with proper terrorists. I told you, if Israel puts down the arms, there will be no Israel. But if Palestine puts down the arms, there is peace. We have always seen that whatever aid used to come into Palestine never was used for hospitals, schools. It was used for building tunnels and underground city, which had missiles to target Israel. So when your entire fund is going, diverting towards eliminating a nation, wiping it off the face of the earth, that nation is going to fight to survive. I mean, 100 times Israel has given the other cheek to be slapped, but I don't think it's effective for people who will stab you in the stomach when you're giving your cheek to be slapped. So it doesn't work that way. Well, the toughest and most immediate question to me is what happens is the number of hostages is reduced because I fear that, you know, getting to zero hostages, as I said before, will be very difficult and painful. And of course that means painful for the Israelis because what do you do? You know, this is like the story of Sodom. What do you do if there's only one left? What do you do? Do you keep on waiting? Do you respond to all those families? In this case, it wouldn't be as many. And keep on, you know, extending the ceasefire. What do you say? Well, we're going to have to write them off. We have to go in now. We can't wait anymore because it's, you know, it's a war of attrition and they're going to do their propaganda thing and they're going to keep, you know, delaying the ultimate release of the last hostages as long as they can to use them like as strategic tools. So my question to you, I don't know there's no answer here, but I think this question is and will be raised going forward. What does Israel do as the number of hostages gets released but it doesn't get released to zero? CJ, history will never blame Israel because Israel is a country which has negotiated for the remains of a Israeli soldier with the swap of prisoners of Palestine. Remains of a soldier. So they are ready to, you know, bring, you know, bow down to such a level that they give their prisoners for just a body. And today they are negotiating for the hostages because they care and this kind of care can never be underestimated for weakness. And when you think that that is weakness, that is the point that Israel will have to, you know, it will and it has no choice in this because they have left us no choice. They have come and attacked, a terrorist attack so brutal, never in the history has any terrorist attack been so direct. So head on and so much into each house. So when you're not protected in your house, how safe is tomorrow, Jay? So IDF, Israel, and any person at the top of the seat in Israel will fight for Israel to exist. That is true. You know, I have a friend, a long time friend who is a psychologist in Israeli psychologist. And, you know, over the years, there have been all these attacks on the Kibbutzim and she gives, you know, she gives comfort to the families and the individuals who have been affected by these in the Kibbutzim and elsewhere have been affected by these attacks. And I keep thinking, can you imagine what her job is like now? Children whose parents were killed on top of them, who bled all over them, families completely ripped apart, the most horrendous psychological trauma you could ever, ever, ever imagine. I don't think we hear enough about that. I imagine that the people who provide the mental health services that she provides must be completely over time right now, trying to save these people from going into a PTSD, kind of, you know, total funk over what happened. What do you think? Yeah, Jay, I mean, mental health, which we heard the in issue, which is spoken on global stage, you know, mental health of people who have been part of the terrorist attack, who are living in Israel today, you'll think about tomorrow, the mental health of people who have seen bodies being splattered when they did not expect it in their own homes. Music festivals, they're enjoying the music. Innocent people are enjoying a concert, you see terror, you know, militants come in and take you away, you know, mistreatment of women. This is kind of the mental trauma that is mental health has gone for a whole new toss. It is traumatic, it is distressing and it is savage behavior that, you know, okay, if it was something that it was done with and finished and it will never happen again, that would have also been accepted. But something which is an impending dagger on your neck all the time is more traumatic. And families which were ripped apart like you said, they didn't need to be do that. They really did not need to bring in this terrorist attack. Yeah, that's the one thing that I don't think we understand yet. And the press doesn't understand it either. That it's not a matter of just returning the hostages. Yes. And, you know, Biden said to Abigail, he wanted to hug her. Okay, good. But the fact is she needs a lot of hugging. And maybe all the hugging in the world won't really help her. And it just leaves a psychological stain on the families of the hostages, the hostages themselves and on the state of Israel and everyone in Israel. These psychological ramifications will last for years and years until like the Holocaust itself will last for years and years. People will remember they will be injured by it for years. Sorry, we're out of time. I always enjoy those questions and I really appreciate you reporting about things and your, you know, exchanging views with me. I hope to see you again soon. Always, Jai. I always waiting for you. Aloha.