 is changing all right, and it really is. This is Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. We talked about Israel's three-dimensional war against Hamas with Rupemati Kandakar, who joins us from New York. Welcome to the show, Rupemati. As always, thank you for being here. Aloha, Jay. Thank you for having me, and it's all my pleasure. So I guess the question is, how many dimensions does this war actually have? As we counted multi-dimensional, but I don't think that three is enough dimensions. What do you think? Yeah, Jay, multi-dimensional, multi-pronged, and multi-factor war we are fighting. I think dimensions, let's count them out, land, sea, air, and... land, sea, air, water. Don't forget water. Oh, you got sea, land, sea, or land, and then tunnels. That's another dimension. Those tunnels are like 30 meters below the ground. So that's four. We got four. Keep going. And diplomatic and social media, Jay. How can you forget social media? Because that is a big dimension that we live in today's world, the virtual world, like we call it, AI and all. We are fighting it out in the social world. Also, we have people who will watch our show and feel that we are not sympathetic and all that, but we are talking straight facts. People like to call it a war of Israel and Palestine. We like to call it straight and say it is Israel versus terrorism. Israel versus a terrorist organization known as Hamas. So it can't get clearer than that. And as much as you put out in the social media, you will have naysayers who will say that, you know, be sympathetic, but you have to be sympathetic towards the oppressed and the attack, not the oppressor and the, you know, murderers. So we have to be clear about that, that this campaign or movement is a movement against terrorism and to tackle terrorism. It's not a war that Israel is fighting. It's a reaction that Israel gave to October 7th. So war is right. Israel is having a very difficult task ahead. And in the next 48 hours, they will move into the tunnels of Gaza to see what kind of network. We know that 1.5 times of Gaza is the dimensions of the network of tunnels that are built under Gaza city. So to reiki that and to get inside and destroy this network is going to be a big task there. We have to prepare for a long drawn battle. It's not going to be easy and conveniently everybody has forgotten that our hostages are still not free. Everybody got angry during Munich, during the plane, everything. But this is actually on record that hostages are with Hamas and they want to use it as a bargaining point, but they did not expect that the retaliation would be such that they would not have space for this negotiation. Otherwise it was going to be, we'll give you these 324, you give us 6000 terrorists of Palestine back. That was the initial line that they were going to draw. The bargaining was going to be that, but they didn't expect Israel to come inside Gaza city. And Jay, the suggestions that you gave during the tunnel episode, I think the Israeli defense forces have heard it about flooding the tunnel, about smoking the tunnel. So I think they're watching us. Well, they have their hands full. There's a couple of things that have come out in the last day or so. And that is that they're finding the access points to the tunnels and they're finding some basic techniques that Hamas has used over years and especially now. Hamas has put the access points in school yards, in playgrounds, in kids' ball fields, swimming pools, all the kinds of places that if you attack them, Hamas uses that against you and uses the kids as human shields. And that's their technique. And one Israeli said, that's about as cynical as you can get because they're forcing the Israelis to use force on the openings to the tunnels, but they're putting virtually all of those openings in places where kids are at hospitals. That was the plan from the beginning, Jay, to use civilian shields for their military purposes. And I think a couple of days back, the Israelis targeted a solar panel on a hospital because you see they have a lot of dependence on internet, on this electricity, which is not used for the hospital purposes, but rather these militants for their survival. They are trying to choke them out so that they come out and leave the civilians alone. But if you're going to use civilian shields, it's going to be a difficult task. Then you count the toll and then you compare. So that becomes unfair on the Israelis when they're fighting this because that dimension cannot be calculated. It is a made up shield that they use, Hamas uses, to cover up their terrorist activities. So children are being used one-sided, Jay. Children of Israel who died are not being virtually ignored. And you have these martyrdoms which are celebrated and put out. There was a clip, if you have seen it, I don't know, that they were showing on screens in the middle of Gaza, the way the terrorists had come into Israel on October 7th. And there was cheering and applause and everything going on. Now when you are literally in the midst of a war, the civilians should understand this is the reason why they are suffering and move out. But they are watching the footage of hostages taking people being murdered and they're celebrating and whistling calling. So I mean, that mentality, we cannot fight any dimension we go. That mentality of seeing Israel suffer is very real, Jay. And it's not spoken about. I mean, you display this on screens. On the other hand, you have Israel who refuses, so many families refuse to show footage of people suffering. And then you have this side where they celebrate terrorist atrocities on screens in the middle of the street. Oh, well, that, you know, it's really horrible. And the Israelis are reluctant to show pictures of body parts and people who have been beheaded and burned alive. It's just to describe it is very disturbing, but they don't like to show it. Lately, however, lately the Israelis have, I think they realize that they really have to get into the public relations, you know, the PR war. So they've been doing interviews of the families, the brothers, the sisters, the parents, the children, the friends, relatives who have lost somebody or the ones who actually escaped, not many of those. And they have had them interviewed and they talk about what happened. And so if you go on the YouTube, which is where it is, YouTube, YouTube, may I say, is serving a tremendous benefit here because that's where you get the latest news. Sometimes minutes old. And you see all these interviews, and it's like the Israelis now realize that they have to show what happened to them. Up to this point, you know, the, all of the public, the propaganda has been on the part of Hamas, who, as you say, planned it out in advance. This is part of their war. Again, very, very cynical. By the way, it is a war crime to use a school or a, you know, a playing court or a hospital, a place where children or people who are sick are supposed to be located as human shields. That's a war crime right there. And I don't think the Israelis have a choice but to take those places down. On the other hand, I don't think they've made it clear that's one of the big factors for them. They cannot let Hamas continue this because Hamas is sworn to destroy the state of Israel from the river. And that means the, nobody in American college campuses knows what river it is. But I'll tell you, it's the Jordan River from the Jordan River to the sea. And that's the whole state of Israel. And these guys want to destroy the entire state and kill all the Jews and, and force them into the sea, drown them, murder them. And Israel is intimately acquainted with that possibility from the Holocaust. There are those people who would like to kill every single Jew for reasons that are really elusive. But that's what they want to do. It's, it's the anti-Semitism that we haven't seen since World War II. So anyway, so you have, you have the land war where some 300, as of my last count on I-24, 348 Israeli soldiers have been casualties so far. And there will be more. And you have a situation where you, you go into one tunnel, but the guy, the other, the other access to the other tunnels is right behind you. And they pop up like, walk them all and shoot you. So you have, it's a 360 degree war. Everywhere you go, you have to be looking in all directions. And if you're not, they shoot you. And, and the, finally in the tunnels, there are these explosive devices and booby traps and whatnot make it very hard. On the other hand, I think that the the Israelis are prepared for that. They're going to keep on pushing. As you say, they will take over Gaza city pretty soon. And when they do, they're going to work those tunnels. They're going to go down in those tunnels and destroy them and destroy anything, any Hamas equipment and Hamas fighters they find there. They're determined to do it. And they know the only way they can dismantle Hamas is to do that. It's very, as you've stated, dangerous and costly. Do that. And here we are on day 31 of the war. And we still have a long way to go. Correct. Correct. I mean, this war crime that you said, it's not mentioned anywhere. Nobody's telling that the access of the tunnels is in humanitarian places. Nobody's saying that this war is against those 7,000 terrorists who entered Israel on the morning and shot innocent people. Nobody's saying that, you know, these tunnels were used for housing these terrorists, for militarizing the movement of anti-Israel. And Jay, when we see protesters like we've always mentioned, students who get into an issue without understanding the history behind it, they yell from the river to the sea. But they don't understand this is racism at its worst. They're talking of wiping out an entire race. And the numbers of Jews is not something to be fooled around with. Every life is valued. And they are fighting a guerrilla warfare with organization or with people who literally use lives as suicide bombing. So you have such an imbalanced war. One side is protecting each life. Every Olympic player was valued. Here you have dozens of people who will send people as suicide bombers and call it martyrdom and misuse the word martyrdom. Martyrdom is for country for some, you know, valid reason. Just killing them for the sake of shields, civilian shields. They have the option of leaving Gaza because there is a valid operation that is going on of removing the tunnels which can be used as future, you know, this will never stop. If Israel leaves the tunnels at this point of time, it will never stop. It will again be used as refuge and a reinforcing point to come back with a stronger attack. And I don't think Israel can afford it. Well, that's what they've said. The leader of us had said that in so many words. We're going to continue to do what we did on October 7th. We're going to continue to attack Israel and kill as many Israelis as we possibly can kill as many Jews as we possibly can. It'll happen once, twice, three times. And he counted and counted and counted all the times he planned to do that. So what choice does Israel have? Well, you know, they could they could stop attacking Hamas, but that's what they're going to get. The other thing is that, you know, this this this thing with the genocide, it's a word that is totally misused. And now we know that in the Holocaust, the Jews were subjected to a genocide. That was that word came up. I mean, it was it was appropriate to what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust. But now the Palestinians say, no, they're doing a genocide on us. Really? Are they? Because the population, the Palestinian population has doubled in the last, what, 10 years. And everybody says, Oh, Hamas and the Gaza is very heavily populated. It's one of the most heavily populated places in the world. Okay. And also that that fully half of the people in Gaza are what children below the age of I don't know what it is, teenagers. And you say, wait a minute, if this is genocide, how come there are so many people there? How come there are so many people being born every day? What kind of genocide is that? The Israeli births, you know, fertility numbers are way less than what's going on. Yeah, I'm very troubled. Yeah, it forms part of a reason why we can study or look at Islamophobia, right? They come in numbers and they come in numbers and then they use those numbers to come with swords. And then they try foul, they try words like genocide, ethnic cleansing. These are words which are not come from any other religion other than Islam, Islam, you know, I mean, it's very harsh. It's very not every terrorist is Islamic, you know, but that that is a majority religion that reflects in everything. And now I'll tell you public memory short, we will think of Israel versus Palestine, but it's Israel versus Hamas and Hamas has taken such a confidence booster in this point that they could enter Israel and kill. Yeah, that we feel that maybe they are disturbed. No, they must their confidence level must be at such a high. They don't value the numbers. They don't feel the pinch of lives. They are just happy that they could, you know, defeat Israeli intelligence or they could enter Israeli territory. Israel was on the waiting side. Israel attack, we would have had a different program today. We would have spoken of both ways. Why? Because we have a balancing perspective in mind. But I told you univocal condemnation of Hamas by Islam is missing J big time. You know, you have the brotherhood coming and shielding the terrorist activities unnecessarily. If it's wrong, it's wrong. If you're killing people and you're trying to bring out, you put out a race, entire race, and, you know, trying wolf that your race, you know, these war crime words on yourself when in fact, they are the ones who are committing these war crimes and ethnic cleansing and genocide and all that. That is the intention. And let's be frank about it. If Israel did not have the kind of support that they want to coexist, they don't want to dominate and destroy, but they want to coexist. Today, six countries are just waiting to finish off Israel. So we have this kind of warfare that is waiting, but the deterrent is that the world supports Israel. Every leader has come and said that Israel should win the war. Humanitarian policies and everything is okay, but nobody will tell Israel that you get defeated by Hamas or you fall prey to Hamas, except for the countries who don't understand that this is a country who is facing terrorist attacks on a daily basis. Well, they're still sending rockets. Hamas is still sending rockets at Tel Aviv. Long range rockets right now today. It's that pop-up thing, that guacamole thing. What happens is at the tunnel access point, they pop up with a rocket and they fire it somewhere in the middle of Israel. And thank goodness that the iron dome stops most of them, but not all of them. And then they fire another one. And it's, I don't remember the numbers, but it's dozens or hundreds or maybe thousands of rockets are still being fired by Hamas. So what you have is, A, they're still fighting. And they're shooting the Israeli soldiers in the back usually. And B, they still have the hostages. And C, they're still firing the rockets into Israel. So, you know, if you were a rational organization, you would say, okay, okay, let's make a piece on this. Let's stop doing those things. Let's release the hostages. Let's stop using human shields anyway. Let's stop firing rockets. Let's stop fighting. Here's a white flag. We give up because we don't want any more Palestinians to die. If they were rational, they would simply hold up the white flag in order to save the lives of the Palestinians. Instead, they say to the Palestinians, no, don't go south. Stay here. Keep using the hospital, even though it is a target, it must be a target for Israel. And we want your complete loyalty or else. We're in charge of what you do. And we want you to die for the Hamas cause. And that's really not giving up. It's only leading people to die. So I find it extraordinary, as you say, that the world does not recognize this obvious pattern, this obvious strategy by Hamas. They have no interest in making peace, zero. And instead, they want six, seven, eight thousand Hamas prisoners released from Israeli jails. Really? Why would the Israelis do that? It leads exactly to the same place. More massacres. It's existential. True, Jay. I mean, we have said this line before that if Israel drops the arms, there will be no Israel. But if Palestine drops the arms, there will be ceasefire. So this kind of imbalance in the situation is very uncalled for because Israel is just fighting a war for survival. And Jay, a number of Jews that they kill compared to the Jew population is something that needs to be respected. And you know, hold on to each Jew is important because very few Jews and you know, the kind of onslaught that they face and vulnerability that the Jews have means in every public place you have people who come up and think that it's their right to thrash with words like genocide, you're killing and you're doing this, but they don't understand that it is retaliation that is being done by Israelis. That's self-defense, really. You have to see it that way because if they were to do nothing, stop the bombardment, stop the incursion into Gaza, they would have it all over again. So this is all self-defense. I don't know how else you could look at it. If they don't do these things, they will be destroyed. So I want to go into one other thing with you though. And that is the bombardment. They always do a knock on the roof thing and they warn people, including by leaflets, to move south. And yet there are still hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza exposing themselves to the bombardment, which Israel feels it has to do to destroy the tunnel openings. And that has to be because Hamas is telling them they have to stay in place. And if you ask them, they say, no, I'm not moving. This is my country, my land, and I support Hamas and I'm not going south. It's like suicide. It's like suicide on a mass scale. So the bombardment continues and maybe they want the world to hold Israel up and tell them no more bombardment. But that's not the way to solve the problem. The way to solve the problem is to have the Palestinians go south, just the way Israel has asked them to go south. I mean, I just don't think people understand this. It's not getting out. And those people who went to Washington and on these various college campuses, they do not understand that this is an existential war for Israel. And all Israel is doing is doing a kind of defense. And I don't understand why that is. It's perverse. Meanwhile, you have all these other factors. You have the social media, which is going out and having some effect obviously on the college campuses and in various, in all Arab countries that have Palestinians, because it's political for them. But I wanted to cover with you, Rootmati, the United Nations, because the United Nations has been, I don't think anybody will disagree. The United Nations has been useless in not only in the Security Council, which is hampered by the presence of Russia, who supports Hamas, and China, who supports Hamas, but also the General Assembly. And the Israelis have made some powerful, passionate speeches to those guys. And what's wrong with you? How come you want to call for peace, but you never had a resolution here that would condemn the massacre? Your thoughts about the effect of the United Nations? United Nations is standing as a redundant organization in these two wars that we are seeing in between Ukraine and Russia, and now Hamas and Israel. And when it's Hamas and Israel, they're refusing to put the word Hamas into the resolution that describes the war. So how can you go ahead? The Secretary General himself calls Israel occupation. It's biased. And as an international organization, they have to be neutral. As the sole intergovernmental organization, they have to put the resources to bring about peace. If you're not going to acknowledge what is terrorism, and this is a terrorist attack on a sovereign nation, on the only democracy in the Middle East, these are words, these are, these are very small words, but they have big implications because Jay, a democracy surviving in an antagonistic environment, which is out to wipe it off the map and facing terrorist attacks every day, the United Nations should have come in and given a very fair resolution to this. They have the option of responsibility to protect like we had discussed where the coalition of countries will come together and broke a peace. But there is no interest in that. It is just discussion, putting it out on the table and forgetting it. The action is missing in this organization because infrastructure is available, but action is missing. And Jay, at the end of the day, we have to understand that public opinion. These international organizations will not win the war and will never protect. Now, instead of waiting for the same conferences and meetings and memorials in such places like United Nations, there are hundreds of conferences on the Holocaust. You are actually seeing a live attempt at a Holocaust. Again, 2023, Holocaust 2.0, but they're not doing anything. Are they waiting for the conferences in the future? It's wrong Jay. The action has to be today so that there's no Holocaust too. It is very clear there is no two ways about this, but United Nations with its discussion panels and everything. They do not even have a definition of terrorism in the world, Jay. This one man's will is another man's freedom or something like that is the motto that they keep in, but no definition of terrorism. They have definition of genocide, ethnic cleansing, everything. And they put it on labels on everybody, but they don't have definition of terrorism waking up in the morning to seeing terrorists in your city and killing your loved ones is the highest form of terrorism that a country can face. And leaving that is implying that tomorrow you can come back. Still hostages are there. How many times you've seen the UN push for hostages? How many times you've seen the UN say that all countries should come together and hold Hamas responsible for this? They refuse the word Hamas. Now, what can you say to this? The Israeli diplomat was not allowed to enter the premise. He was asked for an ID check. I mean, that is bias, Jay. And if you have 240 countries who voted for the resolution, how much do they contribute to the working or how much do they know about what is happening in Israel? That is a big point because they went in a group this if majority and I really thank you for this in this case, because if this was about majority and minority, always it's been against Israel and US. And what is the hatred? What is the target? And the phobia has to be the other way. But this is for people who are protecting human rights, who are asking for existence and who are asking for non-terrorist activities to take this. When the Israelis allow, Palestinians and Israelis can coexist. But Palestine people will never allow Israel to coexist with them. Just twist it and see Palestinians were in power in place of the Israelis. Would they have allowed funding into Gaza? Would they have allowed schools, colleges to be built in Gaza? Would they have allowed Palestinians to come and work in Israeli territory? No, they would not have. They don't have tolerance. The ultimate goal that suicide is martyrdom. So they look forward to suicide. Now, how can army or people fight against such a mindset? This mentality is one dimension that Israel is fighting in this war. This mentality of suicide and self-demolition for the sake of freedom that they believe that they will go to paradise is something that you know every Israeli soldier is valued. But how many ever kill, they say that they will, if my brother dies, I will send my friend because they will all go to heaven. That kind of mindset is difficult to fight in this war. So, I mean, it's very straightforward. But one religion is promoting martyrdom to go to paradise. Well, it's promoting hatred first. Yes, yes, yes. So you have hatred, you know, that is an abiding experience for the people in Gaza, especially the Hamas, but also a lot of Palestinians. They're raised in hatred. And what's interesting, I was telling you that the Jewish I-24 has all these interviews of Israeli family members and brothers, sisters, what have you, and fellow soldiers, all the people around them, those who were killed. And one thing pervades in all of these dozens and dozens of interviews that you can find on YouTube is that they were all into family. And they were all loving. They all had a sort of a lust for life. They had plans and promises and prospects where they wanted to live a better life and their family was primary and Israel was primary. It's such a different approach. And they don't say that, you know, that they're built out of hatred. As far as they go is, hey, we got to dismantle Hamas because they're going to do this again and again. But the mindset, as you said, the mindset completely different than what you see. You know, when you see the footage, and I think some have been staged, coming out of Gaza, you see them saying, we must kill all the Jews. And the footage coming out of Israel is completely different. One is full of hate, one is full of love. Yes. They look at life on earth before they look at heaven. Here it is, forget life on earth and let's go to paradise. So two different aims. You're trying to make a better life over here. You're trying to go to the promised land. You're trying to coexist. Okay, you are also there. I'm also there. Let us coexist. For them it is you will not exist and I will not exist and I will go to heaven. So it's very difficult. I mean, guerrilla warfare, this kind of mindset, you have an Israeli unit of soldiers entering the tunnel. You see one suicide bomber walking towards the Israeli to blow himself up. What are your guns going to do? So that is the exact mindset that the IDF is fighting. And everybody in general, and Jay, don't forget the immigration that is happening. This war is going to move to Europe next. Oh, yeah. Netanyahu was addressing a bunch of European officials and that's what he said. And this is within the last day and it's hard to deny that because all those European countries have immigrants who are often engaged in violence in terror. And if Hamas gets away with this, you'll see the same kind of thing that happened in southern Israel happen in a variety of countries. It's what they do. But let me go to a kind of conclusion here. That is this. We have identified, and I should say that it's more than five. It's six. It's mindset. This is the last one you talked about. It's diplomacy, which is not working very well. And it's public relations and social media. This is another dimension, so to speak, of the war. And there is land, sea, air, and tunnels. Okay. And what did I miss there? Anyway, it's a six or seven. Lots of dimensions. And I suggest to you that Hamas sees all these dimensions and operates under all these dimensions. Israel is not so multi-dimensional oriented. They're just focused on saving themselves, protecting themselves. So the question is, what is the priority? What are the priorities in these dimensions? What should we, you and me, and the Israelis focus on in terms of dealing with these various dimensions in order to get to some solution? They believe in the fact that it will always be good, which presides over evil. That is the ultimate goal that we find. It has to be intolerance towards terrorism that Israel will, you know, Israel is going to win this war against terrorism. I told you, if it was Israel versus Palestine, you would have had a different discussion. We are not biased. We are not, like you always say, it's an existential war. It's for Israel to exist. And a person who is a terrorist organization, which is looking forward to destroying Israel. So it is clear cut a battle between a war between, you know, survival. And saying yes to terrorism, tolerating terrorism is going to bring about such a wave for humanity in the future. If Israel loses this war, humanity will lose at such a big level. We again have conquering by sword. So is it the shooting war that's the priority? Is it the ideal war, you know, in terms of social media and public relations? A footnote to that, by the way, as you mentioned, the term occupied that Guterres used at the UN, that Israel occupies. That is such a misnomer. Israel doesn't occupy Gaza. Gaza controls its own self. Gaza is self-ruled. Israel hasn't occupied Gaza since it left 20 years ago. I don't know why people use that term. It's really offensive because it's a lie. And so the thing about misinformation and disinformation, it's a big factor. It's a big dimension in all of this. When you see these numbers flashing, 10,000 dead, 10,000 dead, J, we have 3,000 finished in Israel. But that has stopped because now the terrorist forces are not entering. So that number is not going to move. It's logical. But you are seeing this number increase. How many of them were terrorists? How many of them were civilian shields? Everything has to be sorted out. You can't just say 10,000 today to 11,000 tomorrow. Why is that happening? Because innocent civilians were killed in their homes and that should not happen in the future. So there is offensive against a terrorist organization. I mean, public memories are short. They just look at the numbers and they are saying humanity was destroyed on October 7th. Well, if you look at Hamas, which did things that were completely immoral, I can't think of the words that are bad enough to describe it. And then Hamas comes out with some statement, they want you to believe like the number of people who were killed. How can you believe them when they just got back from doing the most immoral acts that we have seen in 70 years? How can you believe them when they when they speak to you and ask you to believe them? You've got to be crazy. You've got to be crazy to believe somebody like that. It's not a one time act. It has potential for a next onslaught which will be bigger, deadlier and more confident. If the confidence is not dented or they're not finished, it will come back again. And Israel cannot afford this. I mean, come what may, J, Holocaust 2.0 cannot happen. There you go. You have to stand with Israel because it's a war for justice. Yes. Thank you, Rupati. We will continue to follow it. I think it's important that you and I, you know, we're a circle back and check out the events to follow. It's certainly not over 31 days and it's certainly not over. So thank you very much. Yes. Yes. Thank you very much for this discussion, Rupati. Aloha.