 back to Think Tech, I'm Jay Fiedel. This is you from the North, and we are joined by Dr. Ken Rogers to discuss what does Canada think of the attack on Israel? Good morning, Ken. Good morning. Good afternoon here. Thank you. So, you know, this is, you know, as previous wars between Israel and Hamas and other terrorist organizations have gone. This is largely a matter of media. It's largely, and it's who wins the hearts and minds of people. And certainly that's the case here. And this morning, just an hour or two ago, another inflection point developed, and that is an explosion in a hospital in Gaza where the Arabs say that 500 people were killed. And the Israelis say that it was an errant rocket sent up to go into Israel by Islamic jihad, and it failed, and it came down on the hospital. But at the same time, you know, the Hamas people, and for that matter, the Islamic jihad people and all the Palestinians are saying, no, no, no, this had to be Israel. So you have a factual issue. The Israeli times came out with a number of data reflections and videos showing what happened, that the rocket was sent up from Gaza and went up into the sky. It failed. It came down on the hospital. But by that time, half the world, if not more, had condemned Israel. So you have a public relations crisis again. I'm so sad about this because it really does tie the hands of the Israelis until it's sorted out. Your thoughts about all that, Ken? Well, I think before the hospital exploded, it was pretty clear that the sentiment here in Canada, and obviously from the Biden administration, was that the crisis for the individuals in the Gaza Strip was really the crucial issue to be solved. That the Israelis should stand on their head to accommodate problems for the civilians in the Gaza Strip. The hospital explosion just exaggerated that problem to where the Israelis, to most Arab nations, look like they're committing genocide against the Palestinians. And a lot of these nations were ones that when Russia bombed hospitals and elementary schools in Ukraine, they didn't think anything of it. And actually voted against resolutions to condemn Russia and the General Assembly of the United Nations. So I think it's not just a propaganda war, as you described it, but here in Canada, the underlying attitude is still that the Hamas is a terrorist organization. They started this mess. And secondly, no one living in the West Bank or in Gaza are really complicit to what the existence of Hamas, the support from Iran, and the fact that terrible massacre last Saturday, they caused their terrorist attack. They are terrorists. They've been supported by the people of the West Bank. And so it's just a very unfortunate extension of the problem of the plight of the Palestinian people living in the Gaza Strip. I mean, I was surprised in looking at some of the statistics that 80% of the people in the Gaza Strip were already on international welfare. So when you're sitting where you've got 2.3 million people that are incapable of looking after themselves, where you've got the immediate neighbors, the Israelis, we're thriving. They're one of the highest standards of living in the world. And certainly they contribute greatly to the world at large where the Palestinians are just a drain. I saw a piece on cable last night. This is very interesting. This guy named Brenner has been around for a long time in international relations and advising policy and diplomatic policy and the like. And he said that when Gaza was turned over to the Palestinians, they were given a lot of money at the same time. And they have been given a lot of money by the West. It's another thing when Iran gives them money because Iran gives them money so they can attack Israel. That's Iran's program. But in the initial phase, and maybe for years after, they were given a lot of money by the West in hopes that they would develop that standard of living you were talking about. And the very interesting notion that he put out there was that people thought that Gaza would be, and I quote, the Singapore of the Mediterranean, that the Palestinians could develop their own state and they could make it bloom sort of like the way the Israelis made the desert bloom and the rest of Israel. But they haven't done that. They spent the money on terror. And you can never forget that. What a tremendous squander over decades. They could have had the Singapore of the Mediterranean. I think his name is Ian Brenner, very knowledgeable guy. Anyway, the bottom line is that it's really a substandard place to live. And all the oxygen has been drawn out, drawn off by terrorist groups who don't really care. Golder Maier said that we'll have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate Israel. And that's a statement of the focus of this community. They hate Israel. And their children hate Israel more than they love their children. She said that many years ago, and it's no true today. So I really wonder what happened with that hospital explosion. I mean, there are three logical possibilities. One is the Israeli dropped the bomb early this morning. I mean, our time. The second is that- That one just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, that's what the press here was saying initially. I haven't seen the press in the last hour or so. But certainly, that seemed to be the case. But it just doesn't make sense that they would do that, especially after Tony Blinken had negotiated with Netanyahu that they would have corridors for the Palestinian refugees. They would allow in aid. And clearly, they were going to delay their ground attack while they could set this up. I interrupted you, and you had your other two logical happenings of what might have occurred to the hospital. Well, yeah, that one is really troubling because the Israelis wouldn't do that. And they do have precision bombing technology, but they know what they're bombing. That's why they go and they bomb buildings where they believe the Hamas is there. And I think they know where they bombed. And if they tell you they didn't bomb there, you would believe them. I would believe them. Anyway, so one possibility is the Israelis bombed and it would have to be intentionally bombed, you know, this hospital. The second possibility is that- and it's an awful possibility, but it's in line with what Golda Meir said many years ago, that the Hamas bombed the building because they wanted to have a moral advantage. They wanted to make the Israelis look like monsters. And that's just not likely that they would do that, but it's a logical possibility. And the third possibility is that the Israeli statement is correct. And if you look at that, you know, the news that comes out on Google, you will see condemnation, Siddharah and Yan all over the place and Arab countries that were willing to welcome Joe Biden and Tony Blinken are no longer willing and they terminated all these meetings and what have you. But- and that's the propaganda machine you talked about. But the Israeli papers and the Israeli military has actually published videos and data showing the arc of this particular rocket. The rocket comes up from inside Gaza. It goes high into the sky and then something goes wrong. And it comes down, straight down. And it comes down on top of the hospital. It was a failed rocket, the Israelis say, from Islamic Jihad, which is a companion organization with Hamas, and it blew up the hospital. And you can see pictures of it. But you know, in the propaganda war, the non-kinetic propaganda war, what we saw about media and social media, the media has latched on to the notion that it must have been the Israelis and they don't want to hear about the technical data and the videos that the Israelis have published on this. So right now it's in contention and the world is in contention and there's information and disinformation at the end of the day, it's chaos. So as far as I'm concerned, this is an informational chaos right now. It doesn't serve the Israelis very well though because the immediate gut reaction as promulgated by Hamas and his friends immediately after the explosion, immediately after, was all this damage and destruction and it was all the Israelis fault. So it somehow changes things because in fact public opinion does change things and propaganda does change things and now we have my kind of more chaos only this time it's in the world of propaganda. I'm so sad about this because I don't understand why the Israelis haven't gone in yet. There's all these statements that they were going in and they were having special patrols and trying to root out the Hamas in the northern part of Gaza, but we haven't heard much more than that and we haven't heard any other reason, I mean any other legitimate believable reason why they haven't gone in with their land war yet and I believe that that could be a geopolitical thing. It could be that the United States is suggesting as Biden did on 60 minutes on Sunday that it wouldn't be a good idea. What he said was it wouldn't be a good idea for them to occupy Gaza. I'm not sure what that means in terms of invading Gaza, maybe there's a differentiation there. In any event this is going to last a long time it's going to be a war of attrition and I'm sad because there are 360,000 Israeli troops waiting and they're not at their jobs, they're all most of them are civilians and they're reservists and so when you see them waiting at the Gaza border they're not working. The Israeli economy is probably ground to a halt and a war of attrition would continue that and make it very difficult for the economy. Yeah. Well I tend to think that the Israelis did not do their invasion because of the United States interference and the United States push that the plight of the Palestinian civilians was too great. That is the U.S. was pushing cutting off the power, the food supply, water, etc. was having too much damage publicity-wise or just because the U.S., like Canada, would believe that that's just not humane enough. You know, just because Russia can bomb the Ukraine and think nothing of it, those of us with a conscience shouldn't do that type of thing. The rules of war should apply. The good guys should behave and the bad guys are going to do their rotten things anyhow so that I think that the delay in the invasion was really to allow some kind of humanitarian relief to try to change the general press. The Israelis weren't there just for revenge no matter how ugly the tactics are no matter who was in the way, you know, as if every single child or woman or other civilian in the Gaza Strip was a Hamas member. You know, we can never forget there are still 200-plus hostages in Gaza held by Hamas and not a one of them, not a one. Let me repeat that, not a one of them has been released and you know don't even think that if they released those hostages the need for Israeli ground war would be severely reduced, it wouldn't be necessary arguably although Israeli said it wants to, you know, terminate Hamas but it would take the heat off for sure if they released hostages. They haven't released a single one. All they do is show you these videos of people running for ambulances and suffering in hospital car and is that frankly I really wonder why the cameras are always there. The cameras are always there to catch these people who wounded. It's almost like they're making a movie for world consumption. The other aspect is, and this is spades of the 1948, you know, war of independence in Israel. So here are all these Arabs, Palestinians, bunched up on the southern border with Egypt and Egypt is not providing food or water or fuel or shelter. Egypt is not letting them cross the border. Probably my guess is because Egypt is enjoying a period of prosperity over tourism. A lot of people are going to see the pyramids for some reason these days and if you allow a million Palestinians into Egypt, A, you're going to have to take care of them. That's an expensive business and B, you don't know which ones of them are Hamas and are going to do terrorism in Egypt and connected with Muslim brotherhood and all that. And so there's a real risk for Egypt and Egypt isn't taking any risks. And then you have all the other Arab countries around there that condemn Israel and swear loyalty to the Palestinians. None of them are providing food, water, shelter, fuel. None of them are taking any of the Palestinians who are bunched up at the Israeli border. None of them. Did I mention none of them? None or one of them? So, you know, I'd say I might put an exception in there for Jordan because Jordan is loaded with Palestinian refugees from years ago, you know, and their economy has suffered because they're not good performing citizens like immigrants that come into Canada. They're just there, you know, bloodsucking the economy as far as I could see. But the your point is, you know, dead on that none of these Arab countries, even Iran that's sponsoring the terrorism, want any of these Palestinians? Yeah, there's nobody saying we'll, you know, why not allow us to bring, you know, ships to the Mediterranean or let us use an airport and we'll fly them all out to, you know, these poor people. They're just saying these poor people, but they don't let them come, are they? Well, they want them to suffer. They want them to suffer so that the world will condemn Israel as responsible for their suffering. But none of those countries, maybe Jordan is an exception in some way, but, you know, Jordan also terminated its meeting with Biden or Anthony Blinken over this, what happened today. So I'm not sure how friendly Jordan is in the long term. But here we go, you know, as all these people are not giving the Israelis any support, I'm sorry, all these people who are condemning the Israelis, not giving the Palestinians any support, they would like to see this go on and on. They would like to see those videos of the poor Palestinians suffering, suffering, and that will exacerbate the situation and make it worse. So, you know, that's what I get. And so, although I don't really think that Hamas blew the hospital up itself, I think it's what the Israelis say, and what they have shown proof of is that it was an errand missile found for Israel, maybe Tel Aviv, that fell short. It shot right up, and you can see it coming right down, right on top of the hospital. But the world doesn't accept that. They don't, they have a problem with truth. And I think it's like what's happening in this country, a problem with truth. So my question to you, Kenneth, is what, I know it's too early for you to say what the feeling is in Canada, among the people of the government and so forth. But up till now, what has the feeling been in Canada? Well, the feeling was very much like the U.S., you know, that the attack against Israel was very barbaric. You know, calling them terrorists was definitely the correct thing to do. Very strong sympathy towards Israel. Very much the feeling that Israel, like us, you know, in the sense of civilized place that tries to do good things for its people, and those that it deals with in most business cases, and that they were trying hard to expand good relations. You know, they've been, you know, with the U.S.'s help, trying to set up, you know, better relations with the United Arab Republic and Saudi Arabia and other neighbors. You know, Iran and their friends being the exceptions. But really, you know, it's kind of the one piece that I found interesting in discussions I've had in the last few days with Canadians was, what do you think would happen with the prisoners? You know, let's call it not prisoners, but rather the hostages, okay? And you really had, you know, a split feeling. Like I had about half the people I talked to said there's zero chance the hostages are going to be alive. You know, that the minute it was clear that Israel was going to do a premeditated, you know, invasion of the Gaza, and in particular where they wanted to separate the north end and Gaza city, which is where, you know, my understanding of it is where most of Hamas' underground operations are, that, you know, the typical member of Hamas, how, what are they going to do? You know, unless they're all suicide bombers, you don't care, you know, in which case the hostages are dead anyhow. But can you envisage, you know, the Israelis having invaded the northern half of the Gaza Strip, even though they told everybody, including those in the hospital, that they should evacuate the northern end because they wanted to do a search and find mission, search and find A where the, you know, if the hostages are there still, and, but also where all of the Hamas' rocketry is stored, their underground facilities and blow them up, you know, but if you eventually get some Hamas terrorist standing there with his Israeli captive, you know, what are his choices, you know, if he, you know, he can't trade the captive for his own life, you know, because if he gives up the hostage, he'll be dead anyhow. You know, you know, Israel certainly wouldn't say, we'll let you go to Iran if you give us the hostage. You know, that might work, but then you should, you know, that just seemed unlikely to everybody I talked to. They just seemed to think that there was no way that any of those hostages would live unless it was a fantastic recovery system somewhat like was done at that airport in Africa many years ago. And heavy, I think was the name. And heavy, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that kind of rescue operation just doesn't make any sense in Gaza because of all the tunnels and that sort of thing. You know, if these people have demonstrated they use civilians, Palestinians, women, children, what not, as human shields. They've been doing that for a long time. You know, this is not the first Gaza war where that strategy has been revealed. So the kind of people, Hamas terrorists, who use women and children and civilians as human shields, you know, do you think for a minute that they see value in preserving the lives of the Israeli hostages? No, they would use them as shields. They would use them as a kind of artifact to make people worry. And indeed, you know, Israelis who are related to them, families, friends, what have you, Americans that are related are beside themselves about the suffering that these people are doing. There was some report that a number of them were tortured before they were taken away. A number of them were tortured before they were killed. So it's not likely they're having a reasonable existence. Mind also that the footage that came out of some of those people held by Hamas before they were, well, before or after they were removed to Gaza were wounded and bleeding. You really think they received medical care? I think we have to write them off. It's so sad that their families in Israel and in the U.S. and elsewhere believe and wish and hope and pray that they'll be returned safely. But as you say, Ken, the chances of that are not very great. They're objects. And the Hamas is only going to use them, such as the video of a young woman that was revealed, that was published by Hamas yesterday, where she was being forced to say this at the other thing. And they want to give you proof of life for one out of 200 plus, so you should be even more concerned. But as to how many others are alive, that's really anybody's guess. Doubtful that all of them are. Doubtful that even a high percentage of them are. So suffice to say, these people are inhuman. If they're inhuman and killing Israelis at the southern end of Israel near the Gaza border, they're inhuman at treating those same people within Gaza as hostages. And I think we have to write that into our calculus of what is going to happen here. On the other hand, I think they made one very interesting move. They said, at some point, when things are right, I don't know what that means, they will separate. This is out of the Nazi era. They will separate a separation process of separating the Israelis from the non-Israelis among the hostages, and they will release the non-Israelis. And this is a way, obviously, to separate the countries that are supporting Israel and Israel. If those countries get their hostages back, it's a different program. And that's also very clever, very tricky and very inhumane. Well, one of the things with the hostages was a few years ago where the Hamas had one Israeli soldier, I think he was, but they created that one soldier for 1,000 Hamas or Palestinian prisoners. So they certainly, with good reason, believe that every single hostage is of great value. Well, the guy who's running Hamas right now was an Israeli prisoner in jail as a terrorist. And he was released, possibly in that group of 1,000 people that they released in exchange for the one Israeli soldier. By the way, took five years to conclude those negotiations, just for reference. And so, I mean, it's dangerous business. There are something in the order of 7,000 militants and terrorists in Israeli jails right now. And that's what Hamas wants. He wants all back, all of them. So we're in a bit of a problem here because there's a multi-front war going on in Hezbollah and Iran are busy at the northern frontier in Lebanon. And Lebanon is not being helpful about this. So the Israelis have a lot of trouble on their hands and they need help from the US. And this does not help. And I am concerned that this will undermine the relationship between Israel and Biden. And Biden's order about helping Israel. I hope he understands that this was not the Israelis did this. I hope he understands that the data and the video that has been published by Israel is the correct statement. But let me ask you this. I mean, it's the media. One last question, Ken. The media, very troubling. I look at all kinds of media, and I find that it's hard to put a percentage on it, but a huge percentage is all about the sense during the Palestinians. And a very small percentage now, 10 days later, 11 days later. A very small percentage is about the genocide and the brutality affected on the Israelis in those communities near Gaza. And I feel that the media is just going for the raw meat. The media is not giving us the real story here. The media is just showing us how the Palestinians are parading themselves around. What do you think? I think you're correct in the sense that the Palestinian press or whatever you have have been able to release enough videos of suffering of the citizens of the Gaza Strip, that they've got the sympathy of all the press in the world really. And the general drift has time has gone on is the kind of fiery speech that the head of Israel gave about revenge, revenge, revenge, revenge. And revenge is not a nice human quality. And it was like the Israelis were too vicious, too aggressive, too uncaring in terms of their relentless bombing, etc. And the press from within the Gaza Strip being good enough that they've been able to get out to the public and the rest of the world, every single scene that they could find of children bleeding equivalent to keep that image of Israelis or Israel's going way too far. They're very unreasonable. Basically, two wrongs do not make a right. Yeah, I've always felt that the Israelis are not really all that good at public relations. They're not really all that good at making the world understand their position and their concern. One of the things that Golda Meir said years ago was, you know, the secret weapon of the Israelis in dealing with the attacks that periodically are made against Israel is summarized in one phrase, no alternative. There's nowhere they can go. And that really tells you everything. And that's where it is now. So I am worried about the future of the state of Israel and everybody in it because I think that public opinion plays an important role in the Palestinian community, including in the campuses of this country and your country, are playing it out against Israel. Israel is not responding in the way I would respond, or you would respond in terms of managing the media. In the next few days, do you expect Hezbollah or troops from Syria, et cetera, to open them up to their front? Or do you figure they'll figure that Israel is certain enough from the press that they will stop pounding Gaza? That's an interesting question. The answer can be pretty scary. We should continue our discussion because this is going to unfold between now and the time we meet again. It definitely isn't going to get much better. No, it isn't. Well, thank you, Ken. And I certainly pray for the hostages, but I don't think they have much chance. Same here. In fact, to Ken Rogers and Kelowna, British Columbia, thank you for joining us on The View from the North. You're a think tank. Hello.