 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections. Today, we're going to talk about the role of the United States in helping Israel and how well it is doing, how well the United States is doing so far with our old friend Dr. Rupamati Kandaka. And I have my plus cap on today, Rupamati, because I want to give you some news. Just in case the cable and network news doesn't mention it, and they often don't mention it when they should, I want to just report the news. If you haven't heard it and you should hear it every day, Hamas butchered 1,400 men, women, children, babies, and seniors and grievously wounded thousands of other Israelis on October 7th. That should be repeated every day. This is the worst violence against Jews since the Holocaust. To be clear, they cut unborn babies out of pregnant mothers, beheaded the babies, then beheaded the mothers. They still hold more than 230 terrified hostages in their tunnels. Jews don't do that kind of thing, but the reaction in the Arab communities has been to celebrate in support of Hamas and what it has done. We actually have the same reaction, believe it or not, in the United States and especially on college campuses, where students pull down and destroy posters of the 230 hostages, students who presumably study history and who are blatantly and increasingly anti-Semitic, sad commentary on the state of higher education in this country. Israel continues to try to eliminate Hamas because Hamas tries to eliminate Jews and the state of Israel at every moment, just like Iran. Hamas continues with support and weapons from Iran to fight against Israel and ultimately destroy the state of Israel and to use everyone in Gaza as a human shield and to use humanitarian structures and supplies in Gaza to assist them in continuing to fire rockets into Israel as far north as Tel Aviv and to blame Israel for Hamas' attempts to eliminate Israel. This is really, and it's attempts to use human shields throughout Gaza. So that's the news. There's other news, of course. One, Israeli was actually rescued today, but the basic news is what I read and that should always be top of mind. Don't you agree, Rootmati? Aloha, Jay. And to hear such unbiased news is a rarity right now. Anti-Semitism is fashion and they're doing this. They're not understanding. They're playing with lives. They don't understand that they're promoting terrorism. They don't understand that Hamas is a terrorist organization out to eliminate Israel from the map. And it was a terror attack, Jay. I mean the kind of shielding that is going on and calling for humanitarian pauses and humanitarian aid. How do you expect Israel to not defend its people? What do they want to say that they want to self-sacrifice Israeli people? What should the government do if it doesn't act in this way? And after acting in self-defense, Jay, self-defense against a terrorist attack is being portrayed as atrocities against the vulnerable. Hamas is a terrorist organization, cannot be repeated less, Jay. I mean the atrocities that they have done are really savage. Even animals have a heart, but these people have shown no heart and the time that Israel is taking to defend its people. It's not a war between countries. It's not a fight for land. It's a fight to save own lives, Jay. And this is the problem in the media. When you have put your press cap on, it feels it is reporting done, which is straight. But you will have pictures platter of Palestine, hospitals and people, but you don't understand. There are tunnels of Hamas which are opening there. There are Hamas operatives going on in civilian encounters. How can you expect the Israel army to differentiate between civilian and Hamas territory when they have, they are using their own people as shields to carry out the operations or defend themselves. Israel has done the right thing by saying civilians come out. We want to carry out an operation to eliminate Hamas. And today we saw Prime Minister Netanyahu said that just as the Pearl Harbor, US would not stop. Israel will not stop till the aim of the counter offensive of eliminating Hamas is not done. So it's a very clear-cut objective. Before that, if you want to cry and make a hue and this about Hamas using civilian shields and portraying that as atrocities, that is not going to be the case, Jay, because leaving Hamas now would be meaning to have a foreseeable attack in the future. So that cannot be afforded. The title of our show is, you know, what's the role of the United States here? You know, we have a couple of carriers and number of destroyers that have come on the Mediterranean side and the Red Sea side and maybe the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. I'm not sure exactly where they are, but they've entered the area. And they've been attacked in Syria, I think, and they've responded to that. I'm not sure how serious those attacks are for those responses, but they actually have responded. The question is really, what is Joe Biden doing here? He's brought at least the possibility of American military power into the region, but his rhetoric and his rhetoric has been, you know, we will stand with Israel, although it seems like because there's a growing chorus in this country and other countries in the Middle East that the Israelis should stop their attack on Gaza. He is increasingly telling Israel to cool it and not to attack Gaza. And so, you know, you really start wondering, what is Joe up to? What is he doing? How does he see his role? And in fact, how is his role playing out in this war? Any thoughts? Yeah, Jay. Now, let's go a little bit deeper. See, U.S. and Israel go back a long, long way from 1948 when U.S. was the first country to acknowledge Israel as soon as it was formed within moments, right? And we go down, different presidents, when President Nixon in 1973 went to Israel about the Egypt war, President Biden was part of the, as a part of the entourage as a senator who visited Egypt and Middle East. So his story starts about Middle East from 1973. And as we know, he was part of the Obama administration and Obama used to call Israel occupation of West Bank. So you kind of, that was the phase that he was in under the Obama. And when Trump came in, we saw the Abraham Accords where Trump wanted Israel to be friend, Bahrain, Morocco, UAE. And when Trump, when Biden came into power, he has continued, he disagrees with Trump on everything, but he has continued this Abraham Accords and tried to maintain friendly ties with Saudi Arabia also. So this kind of history that Biden has in the Middle East is not within one year or two years of his presidency. It's since 1973. He understands Middle East politics. And that is the reason, as soon as this terrorist attack was announced and it was shocked, he came as a friend, he held Israel's back and he sent in, not one, now there are seven of US carriers, the best carrier, most sophisticated aircraft carrier was sent, the Gerald Ford and 35, 15, F10, all these were sent. So this kind of backup that Israel has helps it to carry out, defend its property when you have US. Why do we need US? It's a very logical and very straightforward answer to that because six countries are always waiting to pounce on Israel, whether Israel is wrong, whether Israel is right. Their aim is through their rhetoric. When Iran says, I want to wipe Israel out of the map. I mean, this is not a small threat. It is when they say, racism, they want to finish off an entire race. They want to wipe the country off the map. This is the kind of environment that Israel has to live in. And if US was not there to back Israel today, these six countries would have jumped in and long before Gaza, West Bank, you know, you have anything Israel would have not been there. I mean, that is, that is coexisting, which is happening, but you can't coexist with terrorism. When your civilian population is threatened every day, every hour and every, without any consideration of age, sex, and what is that race that becomes difficult to survive. And Israel's battle of self survival is only strengthened by the US. Now, the United States gives Israel a qualitative military edge. Now that means that Israel has access to US military before any of the neighboring antagonistic nations that gives Israel an edge. Now Israel has developed the iron dome, as we know it, that is for short range, but with, and that was developed by Israel itself. But the munitions that come in, they were reinforced by US for this war as soon as this happened, then they're developing the David sling, which is called longer range missiles, then they have the arrow series, arrow one, arrow two, arrow three, which is for short term, long term and medium range, respectively. So these kind of collaborations are not just for fun. They are for security purposes for strategic purposes, because when you are an ally, and when you have ties that bind you together, and you are facing antagonistic enemy who's out there to wipe you out, that becomes very necessary to have friendships. And strategic friendships are so important in geopolitics too. So that's the reason why US is an important ally of Israel and always. But Joe Biden also is telling them, has told them from the beginning not to make an incursion, to hold back on the incursion they said they were going to make, to limit it, to avoid things that might be treated as, you know, against humanitarian causes. And he is increasing that rhetoric also. What effect does that have? Yeah, JC, now international pressure building up and social media and bias and news reporting telling us that Israel is doing a bad thing. That doesn't work because Israel has to enter a catacomb of tunnels. He didn't under civilian territory. We discussed it in our last program that civilian shields that they have used now. And everybody makes a very big UN cry that Israel has to follow international humanitarian law. And to follow international humanitarian law means Israel has to take up the task of differentiating between civilian and military targets. Did the Hamas terrorists do that? Did they just attack military establishments? They went from house to house. If Israel wanted to not consider humanitarian law, they could have sent the aircraft and carpet bomb the entire Gaza Strip. You have to take into account that they have given warnings, please civilians have to vacate on their own. They've given voluntary vacation because they need to bomb and plug in these access points of these tunnels because there are weapons, there are there are more Hamas terrorists inside and they are making a bet that they would escape it by wiling away the time, staying put in their places so that this kind of media offensive on Israel makes it bow down to pressure. But I'm I'm think that when Netanyahu speaks in that he would not bow down to pressure like this and it's like the same thing what U.S. would have done in the Pearl Harbor or with the 9-11 terrorist attacks is the same thing that Israel would do. So, aim is very clear. Offensive is very targeted. They are trying to minimize civilian casualties. But Hamas is a relentless enemy J. We don't have to make mistake about that. That if you leave them today, they would come back again. And I don't think Israel can afford another October 7th. No, I agree for many reasons. So, what about the United Nations and its fellow Guterres is every day constantly telling Israel they should they should not attack, they should make peace. And I mean, that's really interesting given the fact that the United Nations really hasn't done anything, you know, in this matter, the only resolution that was suggested was that they should make peace. But the United Nations does not condemn the atrocities, which is really extraordinary was my news piece at the beginning. The United Nations has never condemned these atrocities. And yet it is telling the Israelis to not attack, not attack Hamas. Your thoughts about the participation of the United Nations and how that affects Joe Biden's approach. Yeah, just like we always discussed, one of the resolutions that of Gaza, which had 144 in support, 44 against 20 abstaining. So this kind of resolution, I'm glad to say that there's a veto in the hands of the US. Otherwise, we would have had something like this. The UN should be part of the solution. Today, it is becoming part of the problem that is human. They want access to open up humanitarian aid. When you have Antonio Guterres saying that there is occupation of Palestine, that becomes a biased statement, don't you agree? It has to be neutral. It has to have both sides of the part. If you don't mention Hamas in the resolution, how do you expect a terrorist attack to be involved in it? You just delete Hamas, it's not right. In the plenaries where we discussed which word to put in the drafting, they have to put the word Hamas. Hamas has caused the terrorist attack on Israel. And if you conveniently remove Hamas, how effective of an organization are going to you going to be? How can you get a coalition of countries to help anybody when you yourself are not clear of what the problem is and what the solution is? Humanitarian access to Gaza when Israel is trying to vet the militants out of Gaza is not right. They should have been that you provide a passage to the civilians, go for that, not pushing it. Now, you know, the UN warehouses were looted if they were so, what is that, sufficient in distribution of the funds and of the stuff that comes in to the civilians. I don't think the civilians would have gone and looted the warehouses. So there is a kind of setback in the UN system, not only the warehouse level at the headquarter level too. I'm glad you mentioned that, Rootmati. I think it's extraordinary that UN, with all this international pressure and pressure from Guterres, it delivers all this humanitarian aid and then the aid gets looted. Who is watching the store or not? Where is the United Nations? They have a warehouse that gets looted and so people take what they want. This is perfectly Gaza. I just have trouble understanding that. The other thing is the International Court in the Hague. There was an application made for investigation of war crimes. That is the war crime, the Hamas war crimes against Israel. It has been ignored. But applications have been made for the war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza and apparently they're taking that up. What's wrong with the International Court? This is the same court that didn't do anything yet, not a thing about Ukraine. To me, it's just another example of the same failure by the United Nations and its accessory branches. I find that extraordinary that on the one hand you have an investigation and on the other you don't. But let me go to the extraordinary airport scene. You read about that in southern Russia where the people all of a sudden are waiting to attack Jews off an air plane from Tel Aviv by the thousands. I find that interesting. I'd be interested in your comments about it. This is in fact Russia. In Russia, if you want to make a protest, any kind of protest or at least a protest against Mr. Putin, you will be arrested in a matter of seconds and thrown into jail in a matter of seconds. But for some reason, this big protest at the airport against Israel, there were no police to stop it. Nobody of any consequence. I mean, later they did stuff, but initially and until it hit the global news, they didn't do anything. So I find that is really hypocritical on Russia's part. Your thoughts? Now, Jay, this happened. This extraordinary word is right. Airport scenes were Dagestan. Dagestan is a province in Russia where 83% are Muslim. Now Islamophobia is a real thing because you see real attack. Now suppose the plane was filled with Jews. They are saying, where are the Jews? You know, how racist or how targeted can you get? If suppose there was a plane full of Jews that mob mentality of harming would not have spared anyone. Jay. And just imagine now this kind of hatred is going to spread to roads, to vehicles, to public places. This is not right. Till you get a befitting counteroffensive, they want to make take it to crusades. It's going to be difficult for them because when they take out rallies supporting Hamas, not now, maybe in a few days, you will have Jews coming on the streets, Christians coming on the streets, Hindus coming on the streets to support Israel. Because this kind of one-sided support or one-sided offensive against Jews and support for Hamas, I told you in the first time there should have been a univocal condemnation of the terrorist attacks. That didn't happen. It became taking sides. How can you take sides on a terrorist attack? Did on 9-11, was there a survey made? Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of the terrorist or are you on the side of America? It was a terrorist attack and it was condemned. Same way, October 7 was a terrorist attack. Hamas should be condemned by all nations irrespective of religion. If you bring in religion as the bargaining counter and say, because of religion, I support Hamas, that becomes totally wrong. It's uncalled for and it doesn't serve any religion, any good, because no religion endorses killing of innocent. Never. But you know those countries, the Arab countries, the Muslim countries in the Middle East, they all have this kind of disruption and it's organized and I'm sure they use social media and somebody is panning the flames, probably Iran, probably Russia, maybe Turkey. Turkey is involved. Everyone's involved. The support actively support Hamas. So what you have is sort of a global, the world's on fire, at least half of it anyway, maybe more. And this affects Biden, it affects Joe Biden. I think it affects his decision process because, for example, the Times reported today that Israel had determined it would continue the attack, which seems to some extent successful so far. But Joe Biden is warning Israel again, not to press it. And I'm saying why is that happening a few days ago? His rhetoric was much stronger in favor of Israel. And I don't understand and accept to say that all this tumult in the Middle East is affecting his decision process. He doesn't want to be on the wrong side of the Muslim countries for diplomacy and geopolitics. Do you agree? Yes, yes. Because see, now Russia is busy with the Ukraine war. Otherwise you would have had a head on head confrontation with US and Russia. Like it happened with Syria, they were supporting Syria wholeheartedly. And I'm sure they would have jumped into this also. But right now put in a bit busy, so it's a bit of balance. And China, who has come in with six fleets, makes Joe Biden's process a little bit difficult because he was the one who was trying to foster good relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia so that you could have the economic road from India to Europe. And there were a lot of progress in this area of friendly relations. But now, because of this, you have a little bit of imbalance in foreign relations from the perspective of Joe Biden. Because he was trying to prepare, like we say, the Abraham Accord of Trump, he was accentuating it in such a way that it would include Saudi Arabia and UAE also in that. So Joe Biden has got a difficult task, but I'm sure when he made the decision of sending troops, now in public, in media, he has to say this that there has to be humanitarian pause. And it's absolutely okay. Even Israel has not said that we would offend civilians. Even Israel is agreeing to the humanitarian pause. Even Israel is agreeing to humanitarian aid. But after they finished Gaza. Now, Jay, we know that when they made, after they finished Hamas, we know that they made in Gaza a place and there was funding allowed into Gaza. A lot of funding, we know a thousand billion dollars coming. One billion dollars comes in aid. The cost of the tunnels is how much? 1.5 billion. So the funds that came into Gaza did not go for a civilian development. It went for building tunnels and strengthening the Hamas outfit. So Israel didn't make a mistake that time. Humanitarian aid was allowed. Finance was allowed. Everything was allowed. What happened about? Now is the time that they're acting in self-defense and they're saying, no, we want to clear it. So this time, humanitarian aid is stopped temporarily because it was not used for the right reasons. Well, I've got to be careful about sending many more money. That's for sure. And if you're going to have humanitarian aid, you've got to be sure that it goes the right place. One thing, it's ever clear that no Arab country wants the Palestinians. No Arab country, not Egypt, not Jordan, not Syria. Nobody wants the Palestinians because they're effectively dangerous. They don't build an economy. They operate out of hate. They teach their kids hate. Nobody wants to get educated or a job even. And they're a burden. They're a burden and they're a risk. And Egypt does not want them for all those reasons. But isn't it part of Joe Biden's role here to say to Egypt, hey, come on, can't you provide a place for them? They shouldn't be in Gaza because Gaza has Hamas and we can't afford to have Hamas. And Israelis can't afford it and we can't afford it. What about building some kind of encampment? You'll have the Sinai, which is a huge area. Why can't you give them some space in the Sinai? I guess he's afraid that they'll want to establish a separate country in the Sinai. And Egypt will never get them out of there. But Prairie, why doesn't Joe do something about finding a place for them? Joe Biden has a very daunting task in front of him because like you said, none of them are ready to take them in. You have Queen Reina of Jordan giving a very heartfelt speech. But when the time comes for Jordan to take in refugees, they shut their doors on them. And Jordan, Egypt, Syria, they refused to take their own brothers' breath in. Why not? Take them in, give them shelter, give them humanitarian aid, like Israel was doing for such a long time. Why have double standards, Jay? Why should this Israel suffer? You also helped in taking these terrorists in. See how Pakistan is one country which has bred terrorists to attack India and now the terrorist problem eats themselves. They bomb the country, Pakistan itself. Same thing will happen with these Palestinians when they take them inside the terrorist organization. Like you say, they inculcate children to be terrorists. So over a period of time, they will form this terrorist outfit in Egypt also, in Palestine also, Jordan also. You can change a person, but you can't change his mentality. The aptitude never changes. You know, a person's habits may change, but what is within him will never change. If a person is good, he will remain good. So that's the same thing with Hamas. It is a terrorist organization and it's inculcated to be that since birth. It's on their mother board. It can't be deleted. So these countries are refusing to take, and I think Joe Biden not interfering and not like, I mean, Joe Biden is allowing the world to see that sympathy is from a distance. Sympathy is not concrete for them. Egypt, Iran, Iran also can afford to take, but they refuse to take. They just supply them with suicide material and you do the suicide, but in another country, not in that country. Yeah, and they use the Palestinians. They use them too much. They're just being used. And what's interesting is that in the past, Israel would include Palestinians in its daily life, doctors, lawyers, college professors all over Israel. And they had jobs they could come into the body of Israel, the economy of Israel and work and make a living and support their family. You think that's going to happen now? No. You know, 20,000 a day had jobs from Hamas to the Kibbutz meme just north of Gaza. And then they reported on the Israelis and they told Hamas where they were, their names, their places, the names of their pets for God's sake, right down to who can be killed. They spied on the Israelis. That was the payback. You give them a job, you give them a possibility of participating in the Israeli economy, and they do that to you. You think Israel do that again? I wouldn't. But anyway, let's go to my last question, Rupamati, because we've got to move on. We don't have any more time. And you have to give me just a beginning answer, because this is a big subject. What can Joe Biden do with all these college kids? And for that matter, universities, including the administrators of these large universities, respected universities, who are pulling posters of the hostages down and making protests visibly in favor of Hamas, supporting the atrocities here in these United States. What can Joe Biden do about that? And is he doing it? Jay, when we saw educational institutes come out immediately in favor of Hamas, we understand at one glance that reasoning is absent in these educational institutions. They don't have reasoning power. They don't have logic. They don't have, you know, the senseless arguments that they're putting out the tearing of the posters of kidnapped people. Do you know the trauma that the families are going through, that you are sitting in another country and tearing down posters? Maybe that poster will not help you in any way. But have a sympathetic heart. And if you are at student level, if you are this, imagine at decision-making level, what will your heart be? Or what will your attitude towards the decision-making be? There is a big role that your mindset, your EQ plays in decision-making. And if the EQ and IQ of these students at this level, I think tomorrow is a very hard day for all of us. And Joe Biden has to take in that educational institutions which promote terrorist activities are bought to task Jay. I mean, it's as simple as that. Cut the funding, bring down the people who are supporting Hamas as a terrorist organization to task. I mean, you bring them to ask them questions, put inquiries on them, and the funding that they receive from governments is not justified. The loans that they get, the student scholarships that they get, the prestige of the institution that you're studying in, they have no value for you. When you don't have sympathy for human life, I don't think you can study or you can open a book. And Joe Biden, right now I think, Jay, this entire ordeal of the Israel Hamas saga has brought in that Joe Biden has been an effective leader in the sense that he sent help immediately backed up Israel when it was needed. And now, taking care of domestic, I think it's going to be difficult for him because it is ingrained in our society. And bringing these people out to task is such a thing because we have this curtailment of freedom of liberty. But under the guise of freedom of liberty, they are doing freedom of speech. They're saying anything and support for a terrorist organization makes you partly a terrorist. Thank you, I think you're right on, right on with all of your comments. It's so helpful to have your clarity here and think, thank you so much. Rupemati Kandekar, we'll be back in a few days with more from Rupemati about these hot spots in the world, not only including Israel, but also including Ukraine. Thank you so much, Rupemati. Thank you for having me, Jay. My pleasure.