 which is global correlations. Let's look at the plight of the hostages. That's what we're doing today with Rubani Kandekar. Welcome to the show, Rubani. Hello, Ajay. Thank you for having me. And as we continue our Israel terrorist attack series, I think we are in a good place right now to talk about the hostages, which have been like the most vulnerable point of this entire ordeal that Israel is going through. Yeah, you know, it just strikes me funny that, well, first I'd like to give you the definition of cynicism, because I think Hamas is being very cynical, and I've heard that word so much in the press. I wanted to get a definition of it. Cynicism is an attitude characterized by a general distrust of the motives of others. A cynic may have a general lack of faith or hope in people motivated by ambition, desire, greed, gratification, materialism, goals and opinions that a cynic perceives as vain, unattainable, or ultimately meaningless. I think we're actually expanding the definition of cynicism here in Gaza during this war. And there's so many cynical things happening by Hamas. And one of them is the hostages. And let me just offer the thought that keeps bouncing around in my mind. If they release the hostages, they could probably negotiate for some kind of truce. But they're not releasing ones. And they dribble them out one at a time or two at a time. That's not really releasing. And there's still hundreds involved under the hospitals and buildings and in the tunnels and so forth. So what is striking about it is they still have pretty much all of the hostages. And furthermore, and this is part of the cynicism, they're still firing rockets. They're firing rockets into the center of Israel into Tel Aviv and into Haifa. And they're firing them from Hezbollah, is firing them from the north. And people are dying and being wounded from those rockets. And this keeps on going on. It's the ultimate cynicism. And they claim that she, you know, Israel is being, not being humanitarian. But they still are fighting and shooting at the troops. They're still, you know, using those, what do you call it, anti-tank missiles on the Israeli equipment. So, you know, what I get is what kind of a legitimate, genuine effort are they making to a peace? Nothing. They still have the hostages. They're still firing the rockets. There's no shooting at the Israelis. What kind of effort is that? They haven't given up in any way. So let's talk about the plight of the hostages. Why haven't they been released aside from that cynicism I spoke about? So what do we know about the hostages? You were looking into that group body. Yeah, Jay. See, now this hostage situation that happened after the terrorist attack of October 7 was not something that it was stumbled upon. These Hamas terrorists, they had handbooks on how to take people hostage. So while they were massacring and slaughtering Israeli people point blank, they were also taking hostages. Now hostage situation plays on vulnerability and stakes. So when you see that these militants had these handbooks on how to take hostages, where to take them, capture them alive. These are the things, the women and the children, you know, this is the weaker section of society and war. So they know what to do, even under the influence of drugs like we discussed in our previous program, they were still following the handbook. And the mission aim of theirs was very clear cut. They wanted hostages. Because as we spoke about earlier, in 2006, when Gajdat was taken hostage, for one soldier, Israel released 1000 Palestine prisoners. Many of them were murderers, so this kind of uneven bargaining that they are targeting. And we had the issue of Iran taking six hostages and taking billions of dollars from America. That is the background that the Hamas playing on. And we have to be sure about one fact that October 7 terrorist attack into Israel was to provoke retaliation. They knew Israel is going to retaliate. This was not just an attack to destroy. It was an attack to provoke and then evoke a reaction. So they wanted Israel to retaliate, come to the negotiating table. How do you get Israel to come to the negotiating table? What is stopping the entire blockade of Gaza, the hostages? And this vulnerability point is what keeps the offensive a little bit muted. They would have had no word in negotiations if they did not have the hostages. Now we know the hostage situation is negotiable because in a normal situation, but Israel is on fighting a terrorist attack. It cannot have softness in negotiation. It's not negotiable. It has to have a straight on head on attitude towards this. I know it's a bit harsh. It's a hard liner, this that we take, but it's also a hard liner to have 200 people who are terrified every moment, some of whom are wounded or sick or don't have medicines, some of whom are babes in arms. Talk about hard. That's hard. Yes. And Jay, they don't have, where have they been kept? Like we discussed, you told me about the soldier under the same in the same tunnel network that we speak about. And many of them need medical aid. Are they being provided the medical aid, the babies separated from the parents who have been slaughtered? I mean, this is a brutal situation that Hamas has created. Jay, where is the protest for the hostages? We see it's people tearing down posters of the hostages. We have no sympathy for these hostages or no bringing down Hamas and telling them that you have to release the hostages. There's no international pressure on Hamas to release the hostages. There's no campaign to release the hostages. It is just stop Israel from attacking Gaza. No, release the hostages should be the main point because it's been over. How many days now? Two months? 38 days. So they are the second month. And these people are going through trauma, like you said, in the Hamas heartlet. And they have officers, militant officers who are in charge of torturing the hostages. And the state point for each hostage is a thousand soldiers, a thousand terrorists. They wanted to take 200, give us 6,000, all the Palestine prisoners. I mean, it doesn't make sense, isn't it? Well, I was telling you that the number of hostages, we have to get the number of hostages from Hamas. And by the way, the Islamic Jihad has some hostages too. I don't remember or I never knew how many they had, but apparently the hostages have been either taken by both organizations, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You remember them, they were the ones who fired that rocket and then it misfired and it fell on the parking lot in the hospital. That's the Islamic Jihad. But they're coordinated with Hamas. They have some of the hostages and it makes you wonder if the hostages are being passed around between Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which makes it all the more, which they want to make it all the more difficult for the Israelis to release, to find and release the hostages. Anyway, the thing is that you never know from day to day how many are there exactly. You never know from day to day what's the makeup. You never know from day to day what's the groupings and who's from Israel and who's not from Israel. The Israelis can't be sure because here's the thing, Hamas doesn't tell them. They don't give names. They don't release that. They keep it a big secret. You don't know how many are still alive. It's all trying to make everybody worry. It's terrorism. As worried as you can possibly make them. Yes, it is making Israel bargain from a weak front. Right now, what the campaign needs is a military stronghold. Jay, we know domestic politics plays a very big role. Benjamin Netanyahu, who is now, he has appointed, I think, who's a retired general for just focusing on the hostages. So why, why has he done this? Because the families of the people who are held hostage are going to naturally ask him about what is he doing about the hostage situation rather than asking about the military campaign. So that is a point which will hold back the military setup. Now they ask for a Gaza ceasefire. Israel agreed for a four hour ceasefire every day and allow, to allow passing of the Palestine people through the south border. They should have released some hostages if, but Jay, we are dealing with an enemy who does not have, who does not want to negotiate. They want to just destroy and hurt and continue this campaign of mass propaganda. Can you, can you imagine what they have done with this hostage situation? It would have created a parole all over the world that 200 plus hostages are captured. What do we hear on the pages? The pseudo liberals just speak about how, you know, Palestinians are being massed. What about the hostages? It's so interesting and we get the numbers of how many Palestinians have been wounded. And some of them are Hamas, I think, and I remember the hostages were being paraded through the streets. They were naked, paraded through the streets of Gaza City, and there were huge crowds all around them. Those were not crowds of Hamas or Islamic jihad. Those were crowds of regular Palestinian people who were cheering them on. So it's not as pure as it may seem. They're not just witnessing this. They're not just victims of this. You can say they're human shields all day long, but they were there on the streets cheering it on. And that's that you don't have to do that. You can stay home too. You can stay away from the crowd, but they didn't do that. Anyway, you're right. They took the hostages and immediately began their Palestinian movement propaganda. So what happened in a matter of hours after this massacre is the propaganda all shifted to the poor Palestinians? I think it was, as you said, they were prepared for an Israeli reaction and they planned their propaganda campaign in, you know, in that thought. So they were ready to go as soon as the massacre took place. And if you look back over the last month, more than a month now, you find that there were zero or to none of these pro-Israel protests. There was really very little protest against the massacre. But almost immediately, we had all these protests against the Israelis. I find that a master work of propaganda. So it's been going like that ever since. And it's taken root. It's really a remarkable job in propaganda, social media. There was an article in the paper this morning to the fact that the aides in Congress, you know, the young people who helped the elected officials, whether they be House or Senate, are out in front of the Capitol and they are parading around protesting against Israel. Those people never, ever protested against the massacre. Not a word, not a sound. And we here in Hawaii, we have protests today over the weekend, you know, against the Israelis. But those people who show up against the Israelis never showed up to protest the massacre. I find that a remarkable example of confusion, of social media, of misinformation, disinformation and ignorance. But there you have a very effective propaganda campaign, which is still happening. And if we didn't focus on the hostages, I think people would forget them entirely. Absolutely, Jay, I call these people pseudo liberals, you know, they they fake it out to be sympathetic. But are you sympathetic to a terrorist cause? I mean, none of them have the answers, Jay. Anti-Semitism is a fashion thing right now. I mean, they don't understand. Nobody knows the issues that are involved. Nobody understands what lives are involved. Nobody understands the aim of the organization. The aim of the organization, Hamas that they're supporting, is just to eliminate Israel, to eliminate Jews. Out of 10 million Jews worldwide, you want to have another massacre. It's not possible. Nobody will, I mean, I'm telling you, let the world be on one side. If you can get, you can keep your aim of preserving each Israeli life, that is going to be carrying out this campaign. And that is our weak point in dealing with these hostages. So this was a kind of offensive. Yes, it's part of the war. This is a hybrid war. Part of it is provocation. Part of it is a shooting war in Gaza now. And the tunnels and all that. And part of it is propaganda. And they all happen at the same time. It's well planned. And, you know, propaganda war seems to be working very well because they're using social media and people believe what they read on social media. There's really no moderation. So, you know, you get these two sides and a story thing. But in fact, only one side did that massacre. Israel would just like to be left in peace, but it can't with people doing massacres like that. This is all part of defense. Anyway, so my thing, my point to you is that there are talks going on in Qatar because the Hamas leadership lives in Qatar, which is thousands miles away. And Qatar is trying to be very helpful and allow on its watch negotiations, which would allow for the release of the hostages. But they're lingering. And I think the article in the paper about this was aspirational rather than real. Everybody's hustling off to Qatar to see if they can't make it make it work, but it's not working yet. And I think I think, you know, more research would be necessary. But I think the reason it's never going to work is because Hamas is asking for the release of six, seven, eight thousand terrorists from Israeli jails who have been involved in terror. And boy, that would be an interesting turn of events if they all got released. Now we have a huge force of terrorists back on the street. The Israelis will never see peace with that. So I think it's hung up on that. And Hamas doesn't want to or Islamic Jihad is also there. They don't want to release any of these people except on a grab basis where they can be used in the propaganda war. Yeah, the negotiation point is all for all. It is not how much all for all all 200 hostages for 8,000, 10,000 prisoners. Jay Hamas, Gaza citizens are playing such a big role in this human shield thing that we don't know where the hostages are kept, whether they are kept with civilians. You know, where are they being kept in tunnels? The exact location is dispersed across Gaza. So it makes the military campaign more, you know, sure. We have always talked about the hospital, right? The hospitals is more than one involved. I say to myself, why don't the Israelis just knock on the front door and say, could we please inspect your basement? Because we have reason to believe that Hamas lives there. And apparently in one hospital that happened, they went and inspected the basement and they took footage. We can show the footage because it's just being distributed today about an Israeli an Israeli officer is leading, you know, the guy with the camera around there taking pictures of places where the hostages were kept, where Hamas was had its offices and his meeting rooms and its bedrooms and its its planning rooms right there under the hospital. And there's footage of that. Well, we knew that really was the case. There are people who denied that. There are people who denied that the hostages. Are you ready? People who denied the hostages were ever taken in the first place or the the attack ever occurred. It's like denying the Holocaust, you know. So anyway, despite these denials, there's proof in this footage which has been released. Bottom line is under the hospitals is one really good place where the hostages have been kept and they've been moved around and they've been photographed. But you're right. We don't know whether they've been offered their medicines. Some of them are senior. We don't know about those children who let's see the clip of the children. This is a couple of weeks ago and this is Hamas holding toddlers and small children. And these look at how small these children are. These are hostage children. Can you imagine how traumatic that is? God, it's just sickening. They've been imprisoned as hostages by these guys. These guys are same people who murdered their parents and their brothers and sisters and trapped heads off and did the most brutal things imaginable or unimaginable. And now they have these children, these toddlers, babes in arms. Would you trust them to take care of those babes? They're seeing the guns. Babies were seeing guns. He's rocking him across a gun. I mean, that is how vulnerable the children are right now. And nothing of this in the media chain, nothing of this. I mean, each life is important. There have been negotiations where Israel has negotiated for remains of an Israeli soldier. So that is how much you value a body. Leave alone a living life. That is what is holding back the Gaza fronthold. And see the babies, I mean, to release a propaganda video like this, he has to say Bismillah before he drinks the water. This is promoting your own religion at the cost of promoting another's religion. Religion always has respect for the other. If he's drinking his food and wine without taking the name of your God, doesn't mean it makes him less of a believer in God. So this kind of imposing, this is a very small thing, but this kind of imposing of one religion on violence that the child is petrified, he will drink, he will say whatever the captor is saying. This is the same thing with adults. When they are talking on videos, release us and they're treating us very well. It is a pressure. It is pressure of violence that the captors are putting. And you say this for us. The child said Bismillah. So the adults are going to say whatever Gaza is, Hamas is treating us very well. On October 28th, when those two women were released, they said we were treated very well. Meanwhile, they're still in captivity and they're not being cared for by their parents. They're being cared for by these animals who have killed their parents and beheaded their brothers and sisters. Unbelievable. So can you imagine all the hostages not staying alive in this period? I am sure that a lot of them have died without medicine, without health care, without food or water. Who knows what being moved around, pushed around. I mean, Hamas hates them. I mean, it's an abiding hatred. If there's no reason, but there you go. And so I can't imagine the original number still being alive. We don't know. We may never find out how many were taken and how many died in the process in some ways. We know some of them were wounded and bleeding. I don't imagine that Hamas gave them any medical care. And Jay, we know the numbers from our side. We know the prisoners who are there. But like you said, we don't know the numbers from the other side. How many hostages they have and the timing that they keep for the hostages, for the negotiations, they will send into American hostages out. They have other countries also, isn't it? 20 countries involved. So it makes all the more complication in such a situation. So this kind of holding back that they're doing of the hostages is very dangerous for future. This has happened. This is happening. This is an event which has taken place and it is a catastrophic event. But if they get into this habit, can you imagine the vulnerability at airports? Like we spoke about the last time they had stormed a plane. If they had taken those you're going to sit and negotiate for each person. It's going to play in every street. It's going to play in every school. Suppose there's a school and people come in and take hostages. How do you negotiate with these hostages, with these captors? So if this becomes a habit, it's going to bring in a dangerous precedent in because this is one of, I think, I think one of the largest number of hostages taken ever in a terrorist attack. Yeah. Yeah. But let me add a thought though that just occurred to me that some of them we know were humiliated and raped. Yes. And we saw actually photos of women who looked like they've been bleeding and humiliated and raped and then paraded naked in the streets of Gaza City. Okay. And then you can imagine that there were further rapes in those tunnels in that tunnel under the hospital, for example, that passage room under the hospital or kill or kill in view of others. One of these days, the hostages will ultimately be released, I hope. Oh, yes. And the ones who have been witnessed to these rapes and all of the torture that we've heard about and the killings in the tunnels, they're going to be able to tell their story. Now, if you were Hamas, would you want that particular hostage to be released? Because that will infuriate, that will be a propaganda point for the Israelis and it will make Hamas look like the monsters they are. So I'm thinking that if I'm Hamas and I know that a certain person or persons have been involved in these rapes, these tortures, or observing killings of others, they're a terrible story to tell. They can't leave. I can't let them go back. They must disappear. They must be killed because that story is so powerful. What do you think? Yeah, Jay, it is the videos, footage that we see every day. They are telling audience of this and Hamas is a shameless organization. When they have no respect for life, how can we expect them to have respect for women? They don't have basic respect for life. They have thought about age. They have not thought about gender. They have not thought about sex. They have not thought about anything. Just brutal killing was the aim. Terror, spreading terror in Israel was the aim. And the ultimate goal is to eliminate this. So this mistreatment of women is just a point in the campaign. Just a point. And coming out with these audios, I mean, it's going to fall on more death fears in the world than people who are going to respond to it. Because people who are supporting Hamas in the face of the October 7 terrorist attack are plenty more than the ones who are not. And it's, I told you, they are pseudo liberals. It's fashionable to support the poor Palestine people, rather than the butchered Israeli people they're not thinking about. And imagine now we spoke about the negotiations happening in Qatar. Israel is surrounded by antagonistic enemies. And to survive in that with the limited population, we don't have unlimited population which will engage in Jihad or anything. There is a 10 million population which has to be preserved. It has to be valued. And these people play on that point. I told you, two sides of the coin. One is prone, happy to suicide and go to heaven. One is trying to preserve each life, respect each remain of each life. They even negotiate for bodies. Israel negotiates for bodies of prisoners to be laid to a respectful place. So you see the difference in the mindset that is going to make all the difference in this hostage situation. And I mean, the situation that the Hamas people are bringing on these hostages, I don't think we'll be able to document it too. No, I agree with you. It's very, very hard to document and people will deny it ever happened. It's like those people who pull the posters off the wall. What are they saying? They're denying it ever happened. That's what they're saying. And that the posters are false. They're fake posters. They're fake hostages. This is really awful. Israel recently, not at the beginning, but over the last week or 10 days, trying to combat that with having the families of these hostages get up on the media and tell you about the awful experience they had and how they worry about them. It's really awful to listen to them. But I think it's a good reason for Israel to do that. I don't think Israel would like to do that because the culture is a sensibility about that. But they are doing it now. So my more difficult question for you, Rupati, okay, is how is this all going to play out? Do we have an idea? You mentioned a minute ago is we'll never know what happened in those tunnels. We'll never know what happened in those rooms they were holding, have been holding the hostages. We'll never know who died and disappeared or who was made to disappear because they'd seen too much. But how will this play out? Does anybody know? Do you have any guesses, speculations, prognostications? You know, my one point for this entire ordeal is that this has happened. We are dealing with such a brutal enemy. This should not happen in the future again because we cannot afford something like this to happen in the future again. So the dealing of this thing is going to be brutal. It's going to be very hard liner and it's going to invite so much criticism all over at one point of time when they go into Gaza, they're going to have these hostages who are going to be used as human shields. You can't come in and that time I think Israel will have to make a decision whether to go ahead or to wait or whatever. But this is for the future of Israel. And it is any hostage situation is hard liner when at that one moment you decide whether the captor to be destroyed is important or the hostage to be saved is important. So this is a balance which is so precarious and with the number share number 200 plus hostages and we don't know how many more it is very soft point that Israel is caught into. But we know it has to be hard to defend for future for existential crisis of Israel is happening right now and hostages are but now sadly a part of it and it can't be the whole country. It's a military game and status. Well this is turning into a war of attrition. It's going to last a long time. The economy of the state of Israel cannot tolerate having 300, 400,000 soldiers in the field like this. Very questionable as to whether the United States Congress is going to abide by the moral position expressed by the administration. There's all kinds of arguments going on in Congress especially in the House and they you know they're not even funding the government much less supporting Israel. So it's really it doesn't look very good but I would throw one possibility at you because it's a war of attrition. Hamas and Hezbollah and the Iranians and the Russians they're involved. They would like to keep this off balance for a long time. Those causes want to keep it off balance for a long time and they probably know that the return of the hostages will shorten that time. So if they want to make it a long term war of attrition they won't give it back or they'll give back very small numbers drips and grabs at the best and we won't know or realize how many of them have died in captivity. We won't know and when that happens it'll be after such a long period of time that it won't mean as much as it would mean right now. So I think it's a tremendous global tragedy happening right now and Israel cannot be deterred by that. They have to factor that in and their primary mission has to be to stop this from ever happening again. Your thoughts? Right on point Jay. Right on point. I mean these these people have taken for one hostage they waited for five years. So they are in a position to they're in a long term mindset. They want to keep this going and geopolitics benefits from disturbances in the international system and that is exactly what is happening and this is less about Israel Palestine and like you said it's more about the broader picture and in that the hostages are somehow get disappearing the point of the hostages existing is disappearing Negotiating about hostages is disappearing right now. Funding is the most important thing for the campaign. So I mean the retaliation that we are seeing against the terrorist attack is what has taken the forefront rather than negotiations for the hostages. So it's so true. Oh it's so sad. Okay we'll follow with some more Rupati. Thank you very much for analyzing and reporting on this to us. It's a very important issue and I don't think we can forget it ever and not now or ever. Take care. Talk soon.