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This week on SOTT Talk Radio we interviewed Israeli peace activist and author Miko Peled, discussing the latest round of atrocities in Gaza, the circumstances surrounding 'Operation Protective Edge', and Peled's insights into the horror and tragedy of the decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict - for Palestinians of course, but also, ultimately, for ordinary Israelis too.

Miko Peled was born in Jerusalem into a prominent Israeli Zionist family. His father was a famous General in the IDF, in which Miko also served his time. When Miko's niece was killed in a terrorist attack in 1997, you may have expected the family to blame the Palestinians, but surprisingly, they blamed the state of Israel.

Imbued with his father's deep knowledge of Israeli war practices, Peled authored The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, a book that lays bare the myths surrounding the situation in the Middle East. Peled now travels extensively, giving talks about his experiences to audiences across the world.

Running Time: 01:24:00

Download: MP3


Here's the transcript:

Joe: Hi and welcome to SOTT Talk Radio. I am Joe Quinn, and my co-hosts this week are Niall Bradley.

Niall: Hi there!

Joe: And Pierre Lescaudron.

Pierre: Hello.

Joe: This week, we are talking to Miko Peled. Miko is an Israeli peace activist, author and karate instructor. So the topic of our discussion is going to be, as you might imagine, the current situation in Gaza, Palestine, Israel.

Just a little bit more about Miko, Miko was born in Jerusalem into a prominent Israeli Zionist family. His father was a famous general in the IDF and Miko also served time in the IDF. Miko's niece was killed in a terrorist attack in 1997. And at that time, unlike many other people who had a family member killed as part of the conflict there, rather than blaming the 'Palestinian terrorists' Miko and his family surprisingly blamed the state of Israel.

So welcome to the show, Miko.

Miko: Thank you, it's a pleasure! Thank you for having me.

Joe: Thanks for coming in. I just want to give a shout-out to your book here. Your book is called -

Niall: The General's Son.

Joe: Yeah The General's Son.

Niall: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.

Joe: And it's an excellent book because it's kind of like an autobiography. But because of the nature of your very interesting life and where you came from and where you went to, it also charts the kind of history of the Israeli/Palestine conflict.

Niall: Yeah.

Joe: So at the same time it's giving an account of your life and your experiences, it also gives a history of that entire conflict; where it came from, where it is today and possibly where it might go. There aren't many people like you. So if this isn't too deep a question to get into right at the beginning; why are you or why do you think you are so different, in that sense, from so many of your compatriots in Israel?

Miko: Well, I think I have had several advantages. To begin with, I think I had a bit of a head start because my father, even though he was a general, he was a very pragmatic person. And he saw that, at the end of the day, there was a need for Israel and for Israelis to come to terms with the fact that they are sharing this country with another nation.

That they chose to live in a country or create a state for themselves in a country where another nation resides and there has to be recognition of that and of the rights of the people who are part of that nation - these are Palestinians. So, even though my upbringing and my life at home was very patriotic, very Zionist - as patriotic Israeli as you can get - there was an understanding of that.

I think the next step was the inspiration that I received, and many of us received, from my sister after the tragedy, the terrible tragedy of her daughter's death. Coming out very clearly, in a very principled way, without any of - for lack of a better term - the regular BS that comes up when people are faced with that kind of a tragedy. And pointing clearly to the fact that these tragedies take place because Israel is occupying and brutally oppressing another nation and there is a price to be paid. And that is the price that is paid. Civilians pay the price and children pay the price.

And then she, and her husband and her children, her other boys, have all become very dedicated to this cause.

And then the third thing that I think I was fortunate was in the United States where I live. I was exposed to a very generous Palestinian community who took me by the hand and led me through this very painful process of recognizing that there is another narrative. And then understanding that this narrative not only has merit, but it actually is the only narrative that has merit of the two narratives that I knew.

In other words the Israeli narrative - the Zionist narrative - and the Palestinian narrative and that is a very difficult and painful process. And you can only go through a process like that if you are surrounded by very, very generous people.

And the Palestinian community that I met, the friends that I had and that I have made over the years in San Diego, in the discussion group that I was a part of allowed for that. And their generosity allowed for taking those baby steps where very slowly you get rid of your fear and you allow trust to take its place.

So that was the experience that I had. In fact I am glad that I allowed myself to have the experience. But that was the experience that I had, or the experiences that I had. And I think this is what made me realize the things that I realized, do the things that I did and then come to conclusions that inevitably I reached.

Joe: You talk about it being a painful experience. I suppose you are referring there to getting over the kind of mind programming that people are subjected to about their nation and their culture?

Miko: Well, Israelis may or may not be unique in this, I don't know. But Israeli's identity, our identity as Israelis, is formed by the experience that we believe Israelis went through in 1948 when the state of Israel was established.

And it's a story of David versus Goliath, it's the story that reminds us of the Maccabees who fought great empires and fought the Greeks and all this.

And, once again, we who were just a few years before that, those who attempted to exterminate us, now we are back. And we fought harder and we defeated the evil Arabs just like we defeated other evil forces in the past. And we were able to conquer our land and, once again, establish a homeland in our ancient homeland after 2000 years.

It is so much a part of who we are as Israelis. It is like a limb, it's like to part from that experience, to part from that narrative is like losing a limb without anesthesia. And that was the process that was so painful.

And now in my case, it was perhaps even more painful because my father was an officer in the Jewish military, Zionist militia of 1948. My grandfather signed the Israeli Declaration of Independence. He was a well-known Zionist leader. My whole family was this living, breeding proof of the heroism.

So, now I am 39 years old, I am living in the US and I am sitting with these people who are Palestinians. In many ways we are sons of the same homeland. And they are telling me stories about their experience from 1948, which was not only diametrically opposed but was horrifying.

Niall: Yeah.

Miko: Meaning massacres and expulsions and ethnic cleansing. And of course right at that time Ilan Pappé and a few other Israeli historians came out with some of their books revisiting the whole story of 1948. And they were validating what the Palestinians were saying.

So that was the process and that was a very, very painful process. A very healthy one I think but a very painful one nonetheless.

Pierre: And along this shock, you also described this fear in you that you didn't expect. This fear you could feel during your first interaction with Palestinians. Can you describe this fear and do you know where it was coming from?

Miko: Yeah. My sister Nurit wrote a book about the Israeli education system in the textbooks. And she calls it a 'fear virus' with which we are injected as children because we are not born with this fear. And I think it is a very good description of what this is; where at some point we are injected with this virus of fear and we don't know when it is going to hit. We don't know.

And I never thought I had it. So suddenly I didn't think I was afraid of Arabs or anything until I found myself in a big Arab city with Arab big signs, and all the billboards are in Arabic. All the people around me are Arabs. Suddenly I am terrified. I am terrified of the people of the street, I am terrified of the signs, I am terrified to get out of the car and ask for directions.

And I have to fight this fear otherwise I'd be just sitting there in the car in the middle of a street unable to move. It's almost paralyzing. And then it happened to me several times as I was going and visiting people in Palestinian cities and driving through the West Bank on my own and so forth.

Joe: No, yeah. When you were speaking there about that fear it seems to me that it really is a good explanation of a 'fear virus' that people are injected with. And it also seems to me that the fear of the 'other' that you never have contact with can grow in a person's mind into this kind of demonic image that will allow for the justification for all sorts of violence against that 'other'?

Miko: Oh yeah. Absolutely, that's true. The enemy were these Arabs who wanted to take our land and they are terrorists.

Now it's even more. Now it's even worse because now there is this wall. Even though I think rationally Israelis know that Palestinians have never had a tank or don't have an F-16 and have no army and really never posed a threat militarily. Look at what they are doing in Gaza, and Israelis are all standing behind it and clapping and asking for more violence. Even though everybody knows there is no military threat, there is no security threat in Gaza, there has never been a security threat to Israel from the Palestinians because they have never had an armed force, they've never had a tank, and they've never had a warship yet there is this insane fear of the 'other' as the enemy because we are told that they want us dead and they want our land and they want our homes and god knows what, even though none of it is rational.

Look at what is happening now. Not 45 minutes away from me right now in Jerusalem, there is such mayhem and chaos and violence and we are sitting here. And first of all, the sense is horrible because there is a sense of helplessness. But Israelis, the media, Israelis on the street, everybody is behind it, everybody thinks this is great and they are calling for more violence. And that's exactly it, it's that fear from the 'other', it's that insane fear of the 'other'.

Pierre: And actually when discovering through your book the great friendship you have developed with Palestinians, I ended up wondering if the conflict is not between Israelis and Palestinians as depicted by the mainstream media but the conflict is between Israeli elites against the people, whether Israeli or Palestinian.

Miko: I think the conflict is between a racist, colonialist state - which is what Israel is that is founded on a racist, colonialist ideology which is what Zionism is and the people who are the natives of the land that are in the way. They are getting in the way. They are getting in the way of the narrative. They are getting in the way of the creation of a Jewish state. They are getting in the way of this promise that supposedly we have that this is our land and not anybody else's. And the only way to get over it is to kill them and try to get rid of them. That is the conflict and it is to that end that people are educated here.

Joe: Just on that point, there is a great comment in your book where you kind of quote your sister Nurit, right?

Miko: Yeah.

Joe: Where you happen to be, I think, the swimming pool at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Benjamin Netanyahu was there?

Miko: Yeah.

Joe: And so you were kind of chatting with him and he was, as you said, affable as ever or whatever. And so a friend I think asked why he had bodyguards around him.

Miko: Yeah, my son.

Joe: And your sister said that he must have done something really terrible and that he is afraid for his life.

Miko: Yeah. That was the reply to his very innocent question because he did not know who he was.

Joe: And she said that she saw it as every Israeli politician who did not end the Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians was responsible for the death of Israelis and Palestinians. And she reasoned, and she still does, that this is not a question of policy or inability to reach an agreement, but callousness, greed for land, a desire to rule and a lack of will to end the conflict.

Miko: Yeah, exactly.

Joe: A lack of will to end the conflict seems just totally anathema to supposedly what every normal human being would want. They don't want conflict. They want an end to conflict in some form or other, right? But you have these politicians who apparently don't want an end to conflict.

Miko: Well, when you have people who are at the head of this racist, colonialist regime, they have an agenda and they are out to make it happen, accomplish what they set out to do. Look we can't forget, and this is something that is often forgotten but we should not forget, Israel was created as a result of a massive act of terrorism and ethnic cleansing.

Joe: Right.

Miko: More than half of the population of Palestine was forced out. Hundreds of cities, I think more than half of the cities and towns of Palestine were destroyed. This is how Israel was established, this was beginning of Israel. So, to except anything different from an Israeli prime minister would really be quite absurd.

This is what Israel is about. This is what Israeli policy will always be about; it's what it's always been about. It's been about power, it's been about land, it's been about getting rid of the Palestinians, trying to bring the Palestinians to their knees, trying to get them to surrender. Of course, they failed miserably every single time. Even now, with all this bombing, they can't get them to do this.

And this is what it means to be the Israeli prime minister. That's what it means to be a politician in Israel. It is to work to that end with varying degrees of violence, with varying degrees of shades of grey. But within, everybody is going in the same direction.

All the Israeli politicians, right, left and center, are all and always have been completely aligned on this issue; to get rid of the Palestinians, to kill the Palestinians. Gaza has been bombed since the early 1950's. Since the Gaza strip was established, Israel has been entering and bombing and killing and terrible massacres have taken place in Gaza over the last 65 years. This is nothing new.

The excuse changes from period to period. Now they are called Hamas, 20 or 30 years ago they were called something other with a different reason. The technology is much better now so Israel can create a lot more damage with the technology that it has.

But it's always been the same, crime against the people of Gaza to stop fighting, to stop resisting, to go down and to get on their knees and surrender. It's been the name of the game. It always will be the name of the game. And as long as there is an Israel, they will kill Palestinians and as long as there is a Palestinian breathing in Gaza, Israel will find a reason to bomb.

So there is no difference here between Netanyahu, is what I am saying, and the founders of the state of Israel. They are all following the exact same path.

Joe: So what do you think their plan is, in terms of the Israeli politicians, the elite, what is their...

Niall: What's their narrative or mission?

Joe: Well, not their narrative necessarily, but what they obviously don't want is a Palestinian state because they are gobbling up more and more Palestinian land. And I don't think they are looking at a one-state solution. So is there goal to have Palestinians just completely disappear? Have them kind of another nakba. Whether exiled into other Arab countries or killed? Do they want them gone? Is that their end goal?

Miko: I think it's important to recognize that probably the three things that characterize Israel and the Israeli government are arrogance, brutality and stupidity. And those are the three elements that guides them in their actions.

Their arrogance is they think Palestinian's lives are not important. They think Palestinians are nothing which is what racist regimes think about the 'other'. Their brutality, like I said from day one, they've demonstrated horrific brutality and cruelty towards the Palestinians. And their stupidity is when you get to know them closely and you are behind the scenes, when you take a look at the details and you just take a look at the lack of their foresight, you can see just how stupid they are.

I am always reminded of the day when F. W. de Klerk stood up in front of a podium and announced that Nelson Mandela is going to be freed unconditionally, the banned political party were going to be unbanned and there was going to be a one-person one-vote election. And prior to that there was a real surge in the violence against black Africans.

I think this is where inevitably this is going to lead. I don't think that Israelis right now, even soon enough Israeli politicians and leaders understand it, I don't think they have that kind of foresight. I don't even think they have that kind of understanding of history and similar cases in history where we have seen regimes like this.

To them this is all one county. It belongs to Jewish people. They are the caretakers and they need to do everything they can in order to make sure this remains a Jewish state. Of course, you cannot have a Jewish state in an Arab country where the majority are not Jewish. The majority are Palestinian Arabs.

So you've got this combination again of arrogance, brutality and stupidity and a lack of foresight. And this is exactly where we stand right now. We're seeing all of these three in play right at this moment.

Joe: So just kind of stumbling forward without any really cohesive plan for the future?

Miko: No. For them this war is our fate, this is our destiny. We will always have to fight because Arabs hate us. They hate us because inevitably they think we took their land but, of course, we know it's our land and we know that it's our right. It's kind of a vicious circle, a catch-22 if you will. And they are willing to fight this to keep this going for another hundred years. And they don't care, they don't have any loss. They are strong and they feel that they are invincible.

Pierre: And we can see the IDF, Israel, regularly launching these operations Summer Rains, Cast Lead, etc. What triggers the decision by the Israeli elites to stop the operations? Is it the international outcry? Is it, 'okay, we killed enough Palestinians. We stop the operation until the next one'? How does it work?

Miko: I think it's rather a combination of things. I think it's how they think it's going to play out in the next elections. Bibi Netanyahu wants to win the next election and he knows that the more force that he applies, the better chances he has of looking like the strong leader that Israelis want. And so I think that's one big consideration.

I think they try to get away with as much as they can. With as much damage, as much killing, as much carnage as they can. And to a certain degree, I'm sure at some point they get a fax or notice from the U.S. or from the E.U. saying, "You know what, okay, this has really gone too far." And that's probably when they stop. Or maybe they keep going a few more days and then they stop.

But I think there is no strategy here. There is certainly no military strategy because there is no military conflict here. There is no military risk. There is no enemy here that has a military. They are killing civilians. So it has to do with local politics and maybe a kind of a wink from the West saying, "Okay, you know what, we really can't back you up any more. You need to stop."

Niall: God, Miko that is just so cynical when you strip it down like that. You kind of almost want to think they have some kind of plan. But what you are describing there the lack of foresight.

Joe: Well, it's lack of care.

Niall: The kind of reactive, 'Oh, elections coming up. Yeah, let's do this next week.'

Joe: Killing Palestinians for votes.

Niall: Yeah.

Miko: There is also another issue. The situation in Gaza and I think this is why Gaza usually suffers so badly for the last 65 years. Gaza has always been a target. This is nothing new. There are a million refugees in Gaza. Gaza represents everything that could possibly delegitimize Israel.

And this is really the problem. The problem is not a security threat. The problem is a threat to Israel's legitimacy. And no place like Gaza represents the illegitimacy of the state of Israel. You got over a million refugees who want to go home. You have got horrific economic conditions imposed upon the people of Gaza by, of course, Israeli oppression and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

And there are only two choices. You can't leave it alone because that is not an option. They are going to keep fighting and people are going to except that Israel do something. A U.N. report that came out in the summer of 2012 was saying that by 2020 there will be another half a million people in Gaza, in the Gaza strip.

So that's 2.1 million people, how are they going to live? There is already no water fit for drinking, no proper nutrition, no access to medicine, no proper infrastructure, not enough schools. How are they going to live? And Israel has no plan.

So you can do two things. You can try to solve the problem, which Israel does not want to do because that means allowing the refugees from 1948 to go back to their homes. And solving the problem and lifting the siege and releasing the prisoners and doing everything that humanely and morally is called for. And these are the things that will, of course, appease the resistance. Or you fight and you create violence and you blame the victim. And that's exactly what they are doing. They are creating more violence and they are blaming the victim.

You would think that Hamas is at least, I don't know, Rommel's army in World War II. When you see the tanks, you can see on the highway now. Last night I was driving late from a friend's house and you see these big semi-trailers carrying the tanks going down south. Why do they need tanks to begin with? And certainly why do they need, I think they call them, 40,000 reservists? This is insane! But they have to do this because the only other option is to try to solve it. And they won't solve it because this is against who they are and what they stand for. So it is very cynical, it is very sad.

Joe: If the IDF kind of invades Gaza, what kind of military resistance, if any, are they likely to meet?

Miko: Well, we can take a look at what happened in the past when they had Cast Lead. That's probably comparable to what's going on now in terms of the violence and the force of violence that Israel used. The rocket fire didn't stop for one minute. They had to negotiate in order to get the rockets to stop.

In terms of actual combat, I'm sure they've got a few kids with weapons that might try to fight if there is a ground invasion with light weapons. But that's certainly not a military threat.

So I don't think they are going to be faced with much over there. If people will come in with such force, with tanks and then thousands and thousands of infantry units, like I said, the only thing they are going to face in terms of a threat is even a greater threat to Israel's legitimacy. And an opportunity for Israeli soldiers, like Roman legions, to just march through and do as they please.

Joe: Yeah. Miko, we have a call on the line here from one of our listeners. I am just going to go ahead and take it.

Miko: Okay.

Caller: Hello!

Joe: Hi! What's your name and where are you calling from?

Caller: Hello, my name is Zoya. I am an Israeli.

Niall: Welcome!

Zoya: Yeah, yeah. Thank you! I would like to comment a bit and maybe ask Miko a couple of questions, if possible?

Niall: Sure, go ahead.

Zoya: Yeah. Well, first of all, I wanted to thank Miko for doing what you are doing because I think it's very important for everyone in Israel. I think that there are many people in Israel who also think the same but they are afraid because sometimes there can be serious repercussions, ridicule, even intimidation.

Also, in many cases, they lack knowledge. They are often brainwashed basically, mainly. They have a lot of erroneous information and they don't know how to distinguish from lies and whatever the government says to them and they integrate it, indoctrinated from their childhood all of those things.

So I think that it's very important there are people like you who stand up. Even if you have such tragedy in your family, you are still able to basically listen to your conscience and do what's right.

So thank you very much for doing it.

Joe: Are you there, Miko?

Miko: Yeah, yeah. I am listening. Thank you! Yeah, it's very kind of you. Thank you.

Zoya: So, I'll give you a little bit of background for my question. I posted yesterday an image. Basically it was posted first by Hadash Party about Hadash activist from Tel Aviv. They put anti-war posters on their lawn like, 'Stop the killing in Gaza' and such.

And I received several comments from my Israeli friend. Basically, the regular excuses of Israelis' like, for example, "Oh, you know, I am sorry these people are killed in Gaza. But what other solutions do we have? We have no choice. We can't speak to them. We can't talk to them because they fire rockets at us every day. We need to stop them."

So basically they say that Hamas is radical and it doesn't matter if you explain to them that Hamas was created by Shabak [ISA], the same as the CIA created Osama bin Laden to fight Russians in Afghanistan. So, it's all part of the whole process, the way they work conspiracies and such.

So I explained this to this person. And he told me, "Okay, you're talking conspiracy right now. Do you have any articles that can give legitimate information, mainstream information about, like for example, Hamas being created by Shabak? Do you have any knowledge of this, for example? Something we can give to Israelis?"

Joe: That's your question?

Zoya: Well, yeah. It's partly comment.

Joe: So, okay, but that's kind of your question to Miko, yeah?

Zoya: So basically what I wanted to ask is like, for example, there are all kinds of misconceptions that Israelis have about certain things. Like, for example, they say that there was never a country like Palestine.

And another friend told me that in Gaza there are no Palestinians but other Arabs from other countries. Like, for example, they chose to come from Egypt or from Syria and they don't have to stay in Gaza, they choose to stay in Gaza. They can return to their country whenever they want. So basically it's like they choose to stay inside and it's not true that basically Israel is keeping them in a large prison, stuff like this.

Joe: Okay. So what's your comment on that then, Miko?

Miko: Well, in general terms, I would say you don't have to really answer every stupid comment that is made on this issue. Because you answer one, there is going to be ten more.

Niall: Yeah.

Miko: Because the Israelis, the other side so to speak...

Pierre: Yeah.

Miko: ...have books and books and books on this and they print them out and they send them to people and they propagate this nonsense of information. I see this in America too. You go to a lecture and you see these kids who are AIPAC trained and trained by the Israeli lobby. They come in and they ask the exact same questions every single time. Exact same comments every single time and there is no point in answering them because you answer one and they have ten more. It's not really out of a real desire to engage in a conversation, it's to prove themselves right.

Niall: Yeah.

Miko: And I, quite frankly, don't think it's anybody's - it's certainly not my job - but I don't think it's the job of anybody who is on, what I consider to be, the right side of this issue to convince these people or answer their questions. The books are out there, we were educated in a certain way. If they really care, the books are out there, the information is there. The misinformation is there too. And if they choose to believe the misinformation, that's their issue.

I think what's important with the issue of Hamas is this: Hamas is a resistance organization. Hamas was created because the Islamic movement in Palestine felt they could no longer sit idle and not be part of the resistance because the occupation, the oppression, was intolerable. And the violence - this is the beginning of the First Intifada - the violence against civilians was so horrific, they felt they could no longer sit idle and they had to join the resistance.

The resistance is in response to something. If you take away that something - which is the oppression and the occupation - there is no more reason for the existence of a resistance movement. A resistance movement, by definition, is in response to oppression. So nobody likes resistance, nobody likes the rockets, nobody likes, any kind of resistance really. And the job of a resistance movement is to bother the occupier, then to wake people up, and to bother the oppressor and to remind them that, 'We are here and we are suffering and we are not going to stop until something is done!'

Even though we know that the resistance militarily, of course, is ineffective, it's kind of a cry to say, 'We are here, we are suffering and we are not going to just sit idle'. If people don't like Hamas, if people don't like what Hamas does, the answer is very simple. Lift the siege on Gaza, release the Palestinian prisoners, all five to six thousands of them. Allow the Palestinians freedom, allow them to go home. Allow them to resettle, solve the refugee problem, the answers are there!

Niall: Yeah.

Miko: I am not saying anything that wasn't said before me. This is what we do. This is how you respond to resistance. This is how you respond to Hamas. You don't like Hamas? You don't like the resistance? End the occupation, end the oppression. It's a very simple equation. Perhaps it's not a simple thing to do but it's a simple equation.

Niall: Yeah. That's definitely the response to keep bringing it back to the simple. Once you see it, it is really that black and white. Keep taking it back to fundamentals.

Joe: So, was that -

Zoya: So basically we can debate the details, who did this, who did that until the cows come home, so to say. But basically the issue here is about conscience. That Israel is doing something wrong, fundamentally wrong. And we need to do or try, in this case, and stop occupying a country that isn't ours or killing innocent civilians and doing things that basically go against humanity.

Joe: Yeah.

Zoya: So yeah, thank you very much. Because I think you are right that it doesn't matter what they say because they always have another question. Another 'Okay, give me proof, give me this, give me that' and I really think that it's really pointless.

Miko: Yeah.

Joe: Alright Zoya, thanks for your call!

Zoya: Yeah. Thank you very much!

Miko: Yeah. Thank you.

Niall: Thank you! Bye-bye.

Joe: So Miko, is it even possible, as you say, for Palestinians, for example in Gaza, to go back home? Aren't the Israeli settlements on Palestinian land kind of a fact on the ground?

Miko: Yeah, sure! Well, some of the cities are still standing; some of the neighborhoods are still standing. Many of them were turned into parks. But let me tell you this, if there were a million Jews who wanted to come and settle here tomorrow, they would find a solution for that. They would find room for them and they would find housing for them and they would make it happen.

So it's just a question of having the will to do this. Of course there is the possibility for them to return. There is a possibility for them to return, there is a possibility in some cases they can go back to their land. In some places, they can't. Perhaps they need to be compensated.

Again, I don't think we are reinventing the wheel here. I think these things have been done before but there needs to be a political will to do this. There needs to be the political will to solve the problem. And Israel would rather have Hamas and have the resistance so that they can fight them as opposed to try and solve these very, very simple and very fundamental problems.

And again, Gaza is a good example. Gaza has been fighting from the beginning. And Gaza has been a thorn in Israel's side from the very beginning. And they have been paying a heavy, heavy, horrifying price; particularly now with this brutal and unconscionable siege that has been going on.

And in this particular siege, in this particular case, the E.U. and the Americans are complicit in this horrific crime of the siege of Gaza. Like I said, it's maybe a 45 minute drive from where I am sitting. The 10 minute drive from Gaza you've got Israeli cities where you wouldn't dream of not having electricity, clean water and basic medicine. If your child has an ear infection and no antibiotics, can you imagine?

Never mind the horrific violence that is taking place there right now, but I mean on a day-to-day basis, classrooms that don't exist, schools that are falling apart. Ten minutes from Gaza there are modern Israeli cities where you would never dream of seeing such conditions. And there is no reason for people in Gaza to sit there and accept this. They want to go home and they want to live like everybody else and they should and they have a right to do so.

Pierre: Miko, you've been in Israel for many years on and off. How would you describe the attitude of the average Israeli towards the conflict against Palestine? And did you notice any evolution over the past decade, a worsening or an improvement?

Miko: There is this sense of schizophrenia sometimes. Because when they have all these polls that they ask Israelis, then they always find that there is a majority of Israelis who want to solve the Palestinian problem, make peace and have a two-state solution. But the poll, the only poll that really matters, is when Israelis vote. And the Israelis have always voted consistently, have always voted on this issue for the most violent, the most radical, and the most insane leaders they could possibly vote for. And, like I said, from the very beginning Israeli leaders have always committed horrendous crimes of violence and terrorism against the Palestinians.

Now when you talk to people it is funny - who knows what the average Israeli thinks - but we can see that by-and-large, Israelis supports what the Israeli government is doing now. And except from time to time, they think it's not enough. They are pushing for a ground invasion; they are pushing for more violence. This is maybe not really representative or anything, but it's symbolic. I took a cab the other day. I had to go so I took a cab and the cab driver was an Israeli. As soon as I get in the car we start talking. It's all about how weak the Israeli army is, how they are not doing enough, how they are not killing enough, how they are not attacking enough and so forth. On the way back, the same trip, I had a Palestinian driver just by coincidence. And the entire conversation is how do we get beyond the violence? How can we finally hold hands and live together? How can we get rid of these leaders who are only thinking of violence and show the world that as people we can get along and we can share this country?

As unrepresentative and unscientific as this really is, it is representative of what you hear when you talk to Israelis and what you hear when you talk to Palestinians.

Joe: Wow, that's amazing! The people who are being bombed and blown apart and having their houses destroyed are the ones who are appealing for accommodation and reconciliation. And the ones who are doing all the attacking want more?

Miko: Yeah.

Joe: The ones who are safe, want more death?

Miko: Yeah. It's unconscionable.

Niall: And it plays out at a political level too. Benjamin Netanyahu's stance on Hamas was, "Well, we're not going to negotiate any kind of peace settlement until X, Y and Z conditions are met." But every time they meet X, Y, Z conditions, it's, "Oh! But there are these other sub-conditions as well. In fact, having met those conditions, you have now contradicted several other ones." What can they do? Obviously in the run-up to this current operation, a fairly noteworthy event happened. Hamas and Fatah formed a unity government which has been a precondition to talks with Israel. "Oh, we can't until they have a unity government" and then they have a unity government.

Joe: Yeah.

Niall: And they renege on them and said, "No, we don't talk with terrorists."

Joe: Yeah. Netanyahu would never, or has said that he couldn't really deal with Fatah and Abbas because he has no control over...

Niall: Hamas.

Joe: Hamas. And then when they form a unity government, suddenly there is this kidnapping and the whole thing gets destroyed. But even before that, when the unity government was announced, Netanyahu turned around and said, "Well, we can't deal with either of them now because Fatah has gotten in bed with the terrorist Hamas."

It's like your sister said, Miko, there's no will to solve or stop the conflict. They appear to want the conflict to continue and that's what you have been saying for the past half hour basically. So in that situation, it's hard to see a solution with those kinds of people making the decisions and who have power. It's hard to see how it is going to end.

Miko: I think it is hard only if you expect or only if you follow the guidelines that Israel has put forth. This whole myth about the two-state solution, this whole myth of Oslo, where there is supposedly a Palestinian government and a Palestinian president. A Palestinian president, again, can't drive from one Palestinian city to the other without getting a permit from the Israeli army. He has no authority. The Palestinian Authority has no authority. It has less of an authority than the small city council.

And that was exactly the whole purpose of Oslo. The purpose of Oslo was to create this puppet state, if you will - I know it's derogatory - but puppet state, if you will, and do with it as it pleases. And that's exactly what they accomplished. So Oslo and the whole peace process were very successful because they accomplished what they were out to accomplish. On the one hand, create this image, wrong image, that there is a Palestinian entity, that there is a Palestinian state, and that there is a Palestinian leadership that's somehow responsible for things. And on the other hand, to create a reality where Israel in fact dominates the entire country, has control of the resources and control of the lives of every single person who lives here.

Now when people come up, as John Kerry did and others before him, trying to resolve this conflict based on this two-state solution, which has been failing for 20 years to achieve peace but not failing in getting Israel to become more forceful and more dominant, people are disappointed. Because they say, "Well, with this kind of leadership, who do we talk to?" Well, we don't talk to this leadership. What is needed here is not peace talks. What is needed here is a concerted anti-apartheid effort, an anti-Zionism effort, just like was done in South Africa.

The world needs to unite behind an anti-apartheid movement exactly the way the world did with the apartheid in South Africa except you replace the word apartheid with the word Zionism. Zionism is today's apartheid here in Palestine. That has to be removed and replaced with a real democracy. The one-state is here; it's not an option. This whole country is one-state, it's governed by one government, and it has one army. And that's it. All the functions of state are there as one state.

If anybody really seeks to find a just solution, then there has to be a concerted effort to change the regime and to then turn it into a democracy. To see Zionism fall just like we saw apartheid fall in South Africa and other racist and fascist regimes fall in other countries around the world. That is what is needed and that is the only thing that offers some kind of hope.

When that is accomplished, as I think it will be, then we will be able to see results but the world has to unite behind this. The Europeans have to send the Israelis ambassadors home. They have to call back their Ambassadors from Tel Aviv until the siege on Gaza is lifted, until all the Palestinian political prisoners are released and until Israel calls for free and fair one-person, one-vote election that includes everyone. Those should be the conditions.

Pierre: And another important factor is the stance of the U.S. concerning this conflict. Your father depicted the massive inflow of money and weapons from the U.S. to Israel as simply corruption because in politics nothing is free so it's not a gift.

Miko: Yeah.

Pierre: Why is the U.S. supporting the apartheid regime that has been ruling Israel for decades now?

Miko: Because it's American policy you have to support Israel. In American politics if you want to be elected you have to support Israel. Israel has a very, very strong and very, very effective lobby. And this lobby has been in action in Europe and in the U.S. since the day that my grandfather - when he would travel around the world and talk about Zionism - they have been around for 80 years.

They have been able to influence all aspects of life in America and in Europe; culture and media and history and education and certainly politics. Today in America and to a large degree in Europe too, you have to support Israel to get elected. It's not because they love Israel, it's not because there is some kind of a strategic need for the Jewish state or the Jewish democracy; this is all just propaganda, it is hyperbole, it's meaningless.

Niall: Yep.

Miko: The only reason that it exists is because there is a political reality in America which forces American politicians to say that they support Israel and they support Israel every single time. Otherwise, they won't be elected and they won't be able to do the things they want to do. It's like a tax. You have to support Israel. When this changes, again as I hope it will very soon but I am not too optimistic but I think that there are changes that we can see already, but when this changes then American politics, then American support for Israel will wane.

Joe: Do you know what the nature of that hold that the Israeli lobby has? Is it just money it has over the U.S. government essentially?

Miko: No, it's much more than just that. Well money is a part of it. Influence is a part of it. And it goes beyond the simple kind of corrupt money for politics and money for favor kind of thing that people usually would think about.

When you look at the American education system - I have three kids and they went to the American education system, they grew up in America - in the history books they learn supposedly history and there is a big debate in America about whether you should teach creationism or evolution in school. There's a big debate in America. And most people think you should teach evolution in school and creationism in church perhaps, right?

On the issue of Israel, the chapter on the ancient Hebrews is all biblical, it's all from the bible. This is in advanced history courses in high school. It's in the most simple, basic, elementary history classes, humanities classes, and junior high school. This is what they learn and it's all biblical. So by the time they become politicians, by the time they become adults, they already know that Jews have a right to live there because they are the descendants of the ancient Hebrews.

They have the anti-defamation league, which is an arm of the Israeli lobby in America, and they have these courses; they come into school and they teach tolerance and they give the school a certificate that the school is now a certified tolerant school, which is very nice of course. Tolerance is important. Part of the tolerance course teaches that criticizing Israel is racism and anti-Semitism. So these are kids in schools, these are teachers, how educated are they? They are as educated as an average person, right? No more, no less. And now they are being taught that in order to be tolerant, we should not criticize Israel. And, of course, they'd equate Palestinian resistance with the Nazis and so forth. So by the time people vote, by the time people become politicians, by the time people need to donate money to political parties and so on, they don't need to be told this stuff. They already know it because they grew up.

Niall: It becomes assumed.

Miko: That's the influence. That's the strength of the influence of the Israeli lobby.

Niall: It's almost like a shared ideology that's unspoken. It's inculcated to a kind of shared cultural ideology.

Miko: Yeah.

Niall: Although it's not expressly laid out anywhere, except to the extent that Israel will say, "Hey, remember us, because 'we are the only democracy in the Middle East'.

Miko: That's right. There is also for several decades now there has been a huge anti-Arab, anti-Islam campaign in America and everywhere else in general.

Niall: Of course.

Miko: So you combine these two together and it's a huge success for Israel.

Pierre: And part of this brainwashing is, at least in Europe, the holocaust that has become almost something holy, a religion. How is the holocaust used in the U.S. education system?

Miko: Well, the holocaust is used not only in the U.S. education system. It's used here in Israel. It's used in Europe as well.

Pierre: Yep.

Miko: And, again, most of what is taught is based on lies. The biggest myth is that Israel is the response to the holocaust and that holocaust survivors came to Israel. The vast majority of holocaust survivors did not come here. After WWII there were about 2 million Jews in internment camps in Europe. Less than 10% immigrated to Palestine, to Israel. The vast majority stayed in Europe or went to America.

So it's wrong to say that what is happening here is being done by holocaust survivors; most of the holocaust survivors didn't come. These happen to be Jews and these happen to be Jews, but they are not the same Jews. So holocaust survivors can't be blamed for what is happening to Palestinians because the vast majority of holocaust survivors didn't come. And many of the holocaust survivors who did come left for all kinds of reasons.

Niall: Huh!

Miko: And so that is one big myth that is told that has to be, I think, clarified. The other aspect is there is a need for the state of Israel because of the holocaust - that this is the answer. Well, the very Jews who suffered the holocaust and survived the holocaust chose not to come here. That means the very Jews who suffered the most, don't believe this.

And this is true of Jews who suffered in Eastern Europe before pogrom and so forth. The vast majority ended up going to America or going to parts of Western Europe where they felt safer. This is nonsense. The very Jews who suffered the most didn't come here. They went to places where there was tolerance for everyone.

The answer to the holocaust is not creating another racist, oppressive, colonialist state in an Arab country. The answer to the holocaust is making sure that there is no racism anywhere.

Pierre: Right.

Miko: That there is tolerance for all minorities, for all people. And I think Jews appreciate that and that's why they didn't come.

Niall: Wow!

Joe: I think the chances for a solution to the problem - the "Israeli/Palestinian conflict" - really took a set back after 9/11. Because obviously 9/11 was used as justification for the expansion of American kind of imperial power around the world and really put the whole 'clash of civilizations', particularly in the Middle East.

Niall: It moved it up a level.

Joe: Yeah, it put it front and center stage.

Niall: Yeah.

Joe: And especially for people in the West - in America and in Europe - that really kind of served to obviously demonize Arabs in general and this vague, amorphous kind of vision that people in the West have of Arabs or Muslims and that obviously then tarnishes Palestinians as well as Muslims and Arabs. Really, it was a boon for the Israeli politicians who want to just continue this conflict because it served as justification for it.

Miko: Yeah. I think in a way, it's a horrible thing to say, but 9/11 was the icing on the cake. Because the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment was already very strong in America before that. And that was kind of like the final icing on the cake in terms of how this was working for Israel and so forth.

But I think at the same time it's really important to put things in perspective. I was in South Africa just a couple of months ago speaking. And in 1989 nobody believed Nelson Mandela would ever see daylight, would come out of prison, certainly not that he would be president. By 1993/94, he was the president of South Africa. I think it's really important to see this conflict in that context.

There has to be, well there is I think actually, there already is kind of a global intifada, as a friend of mine uses the term, there already is a global intifada out there.

There is massive change on campuses and in churches in the U.S. The willingness to hear an anti-Zionist voice like mine and others who speak like I do is vast and is growing by the day. Divestment and boycott resolutions are being passed by churches and by universities - albeit many of them are not binding but symbolically they are there. The BDS movement, the movement that calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel is growing.

It's growing, it's getting more respect and it's also got some successes, more and more successes. And there is basically a growing recognition that there is something inherently wrong here and that the problem is Zionism. And we have to give the due respect to the Palestinian resistance, which primarily has always been unarmed and non-violent. But today we see it in the popular resistance in the marches. In the popular resistances in the West Bank where you see every Friday and every Saturday Palestinians in the towns, in the villages, marching and being met by a horrible violence by the Israeli army.

This is growing. World leaders, Peace Nobel laureates visit them and there is the recognition that their work is useful, it's productive, and it's the only way to move forward. Also that they are never going to give up. This is the kind of resistance that nobody can crush. They will never stop. They get beaten, they get arrested, they get tortured, their houses get destroyed and then the following Friday they show up and they march again. All of these are actually aspects of the Palestinian resistance. All of these aspects of this global intifada cannot be defeated. And they will never be defeated. They are principled, they are non-violent, they have a track record, and a lot of this is based on the South African experience.

And when we look at Israel itself today, Zionism itself within Israel, we see a crumbling system. They are spending millions of dollars to combat what is happening on campuses in the U.S. and in Europe for a Palestinian voice. They are spending millions of dollars to combat BDS and discredit it. They are spending millions of dollars trying to fight, every single week, every single week, to fight these non-violent marches.

You'd be shocked at how much it costs every Friday, what it takes for them to come and bring all these massive amounts of troops to fight these protests. And they are failing on every front. Israel is failing on every single front. Never mind the fact there is going to be another half million people in Gaza in five years, there is already a Palestinian majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. The world is changing and Israel, I think, is going to come down exactly the way South Africa did. But there is a lot of potential for good in this country after all.

Joe: Yeah.

Pierre: Yes, Miko one quick question. We mentioned 9/11 that obviously served the cause of Israel. And it seems that when you study the history of Israel, there is this recurring pattern of very convenient murders, rocket launching or suicide bombing.

Miko: Yeah.

Pierre: One point, maybe it's paranoia, but I started to wonder, since those acts totally discredit Palestinians and benefit tremendously the Israeli politicians, I started to wonder if there might not be some cases of false-fag operations i.e. operations that are allegedly conducted by Palestinians but that are, in reality, conducted by infiltrated Israeli agents or Israeli agents funding some Arab sales?

Miko: Yeah, that's a big question that I don't think anybody will ever be able to answer for certain. It's like what's happening here now is very convenient, these three boys were kidnapped and this whole thing was so well planned. There are so many, so many question marks about all of this. I think it will be many years before we actually find out. But there is certainly cause for questioning all of this, I agree.

Joe: But for the future you basically, as you have just said very eloquently, you see the tide turning against Israel. And basically their current apartheid racist regime where they are periodically bombing and killing Palestinians is not tenable and can't last.

Miko: Yeah, I don't think it can last. I think they are going to continue as long as they possibly can. But I think the conditions are that eventually the grass-roots movements and all the different various aspects of the resistance I described, there is going to be a point where that's it. It's like, again, in South Africa where the clerks just stood up and said, 'That's it. It's over basically.'

There's going to be an Israeli prime minister who is going to step up and has to do the exact same thing.

Joe: Alright Miko, well, we're going to let you go here. I just want to thank you very much for coming on the show and thank you for all of your work. You really are one in a million or maybe one in a billion maybe in this context. And you are to be commended for everything you have done and all of the efforts that you have made and continue to make.

And I just want to tell people that they can check you out on Facebook or on YouTube. And they should also get your book The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine. It's available on Amazon. It's an excellent read and gives a very, very good overview of the entire situation and also of Miko's life and his journey.

Miko: Thank you, I appreciate it! I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much for the show.

Joe: Okay.

Pierre: Thank you, Miko.

Niall: Thanks Miko, and stay safe.

Pierre: And your father should be very proud of you.

Miko: Thank you so much, thank you guys. Take care.

Joe: Alright. Bye-bye.

Pierre: Bye.

Miko: Bye-bye.

Joe: I was just saying about the idea of a false-flag operation behind recent events in Israel. And people are open to it, and a lot of people are open to it in Palestine, as far as I understand. A lot of people suspect that the Israelis are behind a lot of the stuff that provides justifications for Israeli attacks on Gaza and to continue the conflict, as Miko was just saying.

And a lot of people and elsewhere around the world that are the subject to Western intervention in some form or other, and I include Israel, Europe and American and that's about it these days as far as the West goes. But Israel, you know I'm sorry, but you're never just going to be part of the Western club kind-of-thing. No matter how much they try. But they are a bit of an anomaly really.

But anyway, the thing is people like Miko do a really good job in going around and they have the energy to put in to going around and bringing the home truths about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to as many people as possible. And they just keep repeating the basic facts, which is that the occupation is the problem. The occupation is obviously the problem. It's a no-brainer, it's like you don't have to be a genius to figure it out. And killing people is wrong.

You just look at the situation, look at the facts and there is a solution to it. And that's very important because that's where the answers are going to come from. If you are going to convince anybody, you're going to convince them on humanitarian grounds. The kind of thing that we tend to look into this idea of false-flags and the minutia behind it, and the more...

Niall: The puppet strings.

Joe: The puppet strings and the darker, more evil kind of events. But there's actually, in Miko's book, a story about a guy when Miko was talking about his father, who was an Israeli general and who was very heavily involved in initial efforts in the kind of 70's and 80's to develop or establish a kind of a rapprochement between the Israelis and Palestinians, he was part of several organizations that tried to do that and establish context. And he even met with members of the PLO, he met with Arafat.

There was one interesting story on that topic about Dr. Issam Sartawi, who was a high-level member of the PLO, a confidant of Yasser Arafat. And Miko's father met him in Tunisia with Arafat. So there are these ongoing communications, rapprochements between an Israeli general, who was also a member of the Knesset, and the Palestinians under Arafat and the PLO.

And then Sartawi, this guy that Miko's father had met with, he was killed in Portugal in 1983 supposedly by the Abu Nidal gang. And the Abu Nidal gang is supposedly responsible for Black September and for various supposed terrorist attacks.

Pierre: Hierarchy-based terrorist attacks.

Joe: Yeah, but strongly in favor of Palestinians causes, speaking on behalf of Palestinians.

Pierre: Yeah.

Joe: And he was supposedly going around carrying out various attacks. He was supposedly blamed for a bunch of different things like there was an aircraft hijacking in Karachi, Pakistan that he was supposedly responsible for.

But he was blamed for killing this high-level member of the PLO that Miko's father was having these connections with and trying to find a solution.

But it has since come out that Abu Nidal was very likely working in some form or other for the Israeli intelligence. He was essentially a paid informant. He was like a psychopath who'd just do anything for money. And he did stuff in the name of Palestinians, in the name of Arabs, that served Israel.

Pierre: Yeah.

Joe: It was at the behest of Israel. And it kind of ties in very closely with the idea that Miko was putting forward there that basically the Israeli elite does not want the solution to the conflict. And anybody who comes along and presents a significant enough threat to there being a solution to the conflict, that's a threat to the Israeli elite. And they will kind of take them out.

Or, in other cases, they will create situations that serve to perpetuate the conflict. This is a symptom or a tactic that has been used on many different occasions, as you can imagine, by the West, by the powers-that-be in various countries, particularly in colonial kind of powers, America, Britain, and even France.

But there was one case that I know of any way that goes back to Northern Ireland in the 1970's at the beginning of the conflict there when there was a burgeoning rapprochement or burgeoning communications set up between members of the pro-British loyalist paramilitary group and members of the official IRA. After a few weeks of these communications, the two loyalists pro-British guys were shot dead by someone. And it was never really clear who did it but it eventually came out that it was the British who did it. The British essentially shot dead two members of one side, one party to a conflict that was trying to solve the conflict. Trying to contact the other side and solve the conflict and see their commonality, the common ground they shared, and to come to a peaceable solution.

And the British state, that supposedly was threatened by this conflict, actually wanted to continue and killed the people who were trying to solve it. That's kind of pretty much official history. It's not in your textbooks but that's actually what happened. That's what they've done and they have done it probably on many other occasions. And the same is true for Israel today.

Based on what Miko says it seems to me a logical deduction or a logical next step when you see the extent to which the powers-that-be are invested in keeping a certain conflict going for lots of different reasons including that they like conflict, but they also get a lot out of it. It seems to me that when you see events happening that are kind of out of nowhere or come at a really bad time for peace and at a really good time for these people in power who want to perpetuate conflict, well, then it is reasonable to look at the possibility that they may have been behind it and to investigate the possible evidence for it.

Pierre: Yeah. It is difficult for us to accept that leaders might sacrifice their own citizens. But for psychopaths, Palestinians, Israelis, it doesn't matter, these are just humans. And humans are treated with contempt by psychopaths. So it is really not an ethical problem for a psychopathic leader to destroy tens, dozens, hundreds of lives.

I would like to add as well that it's not because there is a false-flag operation that there is not resistance. In Palestine there might be some resistance. And what I find shocking is the difference in treatment between what is going on in Palestine; the resistance that is labelled terrorist, brainless, suicidal, destructful terrorist and at the same time, if you look at like at history like in Europe during World War II the countries that were invaded by Germany, you had resistance movements. In France you had a few percent of rather courageous men who decided to fight for their country. Endanger their lives and sacrifice their lives for an ideal, for their roots, their culture, their language, their identity like some Palestinians might do today.

And they were bombing trains. They were dropping bombs here and there. They were a resistance and today, 60 years later, they are presented as heroes. And maybe it's thanks to those courageous men that those countries are not part of a Third Reich any more. So the difference in treatment is rather shocking to me.

Niall: Yeah.

Joe: I'd just like to say that there is an idea that if the Americans had not entered the Second World War, we would all be speaking German. You hear that a lot, right? It's not actually true. If the Americans had not entered the Second World War, we would all be speaking Russian.

Pierre: True. Because the Russians won the Second World War.

Niall: No, I disagree because the Russians never had any intention of staying.

Joe: No. Well, but people might have welcomed them as liberators with flowers and chocolate.

Pierre: And embraced the Russian culture.

What is shocking is, you know this landing of the U.S. troops in Normandy happened when or after most of the German armies had been destroyed along the eastern front by Russian forces. And the Russians lost 20 million lives during WWII. They landed after that against an almost non-existent German army. They bombed for hours the whole French seashore. They destroyed all the cities, killed thousands of civilians and then landed.

And I think the causalities for the U.S. troops who were doing the landing is like 1,000, if I correctly remember. Compare that to the 20 million Russians who lost their lives and did win WWII. And later on was presented as evil communists and didn't have anything to do with the victory.

Joe: American causalities were more than 1,000. There were 1,000 at that point in time.

Pierre: Yeah, yeah, during the landing.

Joe: Well, do you have anything more to say on this topic Niall?

Niall: Well, just to say that we don't know how long this assault is going to go on. The latest is that it's getting worse. Yesterday a massive air-strike, supposedly on the home of Gaza's chief of police, killed 18 people, injured 45. The latest total death toll: 157 people killed. Israel has hit homes, schools, hospitals, mosques and everything in between.

Looks like, as Miko said, they are sending tanks down there and possibly called up 40,000 troops. That could be for show. They kind of nearly did that 2 years ago in the previous operation Pillar of Defense, whatever, but then stopped at some point. It's senseless but it's a continuous, it's a perennial state of affairs. It's always there.

And yeah, I think what Miko is saying is the only solution. Not in the sense that I see it being worked out any time soon. Rather that it's the natural, obvious, in-your-face that he has a point when he says that the state structures are there. It's actually, despite it seeming like it's never going to happen, it's also very near. It could happen quickly with the political will. It won't because of the entrenched Israeli regime.

Now how fast will the U.S. fall because if and when that happens, Israel is finished.

Pierre: Yep.

Niall: Well, Israel as Israel is finished.

Joe: Yeah. I wouldn't hold my breath for the E.U. and the U.N. and the international community, in terms of the international political community, kind of any time soon coming out and demanding that Israel take action and push forward an equitable solution. I am not holding my breath for that.

So in the absence of that, I don't see any other solution with the Israelis being infected with this 'fear virus', as Miko was saying at the beginning, most of the Israeli population being for this kind of a violence response at every turn to the Palestinians. And having psychopathic leaders in power and then being chosen repeatedly by these Israelis. Well, where is the solution?

I know people want to see that it is going to end well. But given my understanding and my view of this world, I am not prepared at this point to hope for that or to expect for that or to say that that is or is most likely going to happen because I don't know. And just for me, I am open to it.

But in the meantime, we have to do everything we can to stand up for the human rights of Palestinians and to bear witness to the suffering. And not to turn away and not to pretend it isn't happening essentially.

Pierre: And that solution, I may be naïve, but I remember during Operation Cast Lead in 2008, 2009, there were major demonstrations all over the world and the mainstream media was mentioning it. This time, conveniently, the Israeli operation occurs in the middle of the summer holidays, during the World War Cup. And I thought for a while that...

Niall: The World of War Cup.

[Laughter]

Pierre: I said World War Cup.

Joe: World or War Cup, yeah.

Pierre: Yeah.

Niall: That's an interesting Freudian slip there.

Joe: That's an excellent one.

Pierre: The World War Cup and who would win. Israel, that is probably a good team.

Yeah, and I thought there was no demonstration. And it is only by searching through alternative media I realized there was a lot of demonstrations.

Joe: There are a lot of demonstrations.

Pierre: Spain, France, all over in most cities. So that's a difference compared to Operation Cast Lead. This time mainstream media are totally not mentioning what is going on.

Joe: That's the only scenario I can see that would solve the problem or force a resolution is if there were massive demonstrations by all the people. And that could happen. I am not saying it is going to happen, but that can more likely than the people in positions of political power in Western Europe and in the U.S. from having a change of heart. Most of them are a bunch of psychopaths and they can't change heart.

Niall: Because they have none.

Joe: Because they have none so the answer is unlikely to come from there or much less likely to come from there than it is from people power forcing their hand in that way, forcing them reluctantly to push for a solution.

Pierre: Yeah.

Joe: But how do you get everybody who's got their head stuck in a TV set or is just turning away or getting all of their information from the mainstream media that is lying to them all the time?

How do you get those people to wake up and to realize the situation and to find a little bit of the humanity that is left in them to stand up, like I said, and bear witness to the suffering of innocent people who are being brutally oppressed, murdered, killed, blown apart by a bunch of Israeli psychopaths?

I don't know. It's not looking good on any front at this point. But, so like I said, I'll just put it on the shelf and keep watching and keep doing what we can to bring the truth to light.

So, I think we are going to leave it there for this week folks, a little bit early. But yesterday was Caesar's birthday so we are entitled to 20 minutes or half an hour off.

Next week, we have a guest on: Nick Redfern. Nick is a British best-selling author, ufologist and cryptozoologist. He has written many books; the latest of which is called Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind: Suspicious Deaths, Mysterious Murders and Bizarre Disappearances in UFO History. Other titles that he has written are called Monster Files: A Look Inside Government Secret and Classified Documents on Bizarre Creatures and Extraordinary Animals.

And several other books, there is quite a few of them: Pyramids and the Pentagon: The Government's Top Secret Pursuit of Mystical Relics, Ancient Astronauts, Top Secret Places Governments Don't Want You To Know About.

So basically high strangeness, UFO, cryptozoology...

Pierre: Wow!

Joe: ...kind of all sorts of weird things. That's our topic next week with our guest, Nick Redfern. Check out some of his books. They are very good actually. I've read quite a few of them, they are all really fascinating. That stuff is fascinating to me anyway. It should be to everybody because it is super cool!

Pierre: [Laughter]

Niall: That sounds awesome!

Pierre: It was a good speech.

[Laughter]

Joe: I hope you will tune in for that one. And we hope you enjoyed the show. And thanks once again to Miko. Check him out on Facebook and YouTube, and check out his book, it's very good, The General's Son.

Pierre: Yeah.

Joe: Thanks to our listeners, to our chatters and to Zoya, our caller. We will be back next week, like I just said, at the same time, same place. 'Till then, have a good one!

Niall: Bye-bye.

Pierre: Have a good one! Bye.