With the Israel-Hamas conflict being the current global talking point, everyone has formed opinions, taken sides, and spoken their minds on the burning issue, which, despite being a standoff between two polities, can affect the whole globe. While on the one hand, people are sympathetic to the ‘freedom for Palestine’ cause, on the other, Israel is being supported for their fight against terrorism and the barbarity of the Hamas terrorists which has been faced by innocent Israelis in the wake of the ‘surprise’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Forming opinions and discussing them sitting in a different country is quite simple, but in order to know the conflict inside out, it is important to understand what someone has to say being on ground-zero. Therefore, in order to delve deeper into the issue, and what the Israelis have been facing, Sonakshi Datta of GoaChronicle posed a few important questions to Mati Tuchfeld, the senior political correspondent of Israel Hayom, Israel’s most widely read daily-newspaper.
What chink in the armour of Israel’s intelligence do you think paved the way for a ‘surprise’ attack by Hamas?
Everybody knows that something went wrong in the intelligence and the army’s reaction to the attack carried out last Saturday. It is not only a fact that more than 2000 terrorists went into Israel, breached the border, and went inside without any interruption, but also stayed inside Israel for hours at a stretch, and then most of them came back with hostages, and all this time, the army did not wake up. It is something that, after the war, I believe, will be investigated, as to how such a thing could happen.
It is not the army we know, not the one we trusted. We have a very strong and a very smart army, and whatever happened was very unlikely, and after the war, this will be investigated for sure.
With Hamas asking for truce talks with Israel, what will be the next step on your country’s part? What are Israel’s military options?
Hamas is a terror organization that in its Constitution, has a specific line which states. ‘Destroy Israel’. Despite this fact, Israel thought that it could deal with them, and also did not want the innocent civilians of Gaza to die. So, for the last 20 years or so, there was cooperation between Israel and Hamas. Now what has happened is that Hamas decided that the motive behind its existence will be to kill as many Israelis as possible.
Hence, now, the Israeli government and the Opposition opine that Hamas should be destroyed, because the organization has killed 1300 Israeli Jews in the present, and growing bigger, it can further kill as many Jews as it can. Therefore, just like the western countries think about ISIS, Israel believes that Hamas needs to be destroyed completely. Hamas is going to pay for what it did, and in a few weeks, it will not exist anymore.
How does Israel deal with the international media spinning narratives to whitewash the crimes of Hamas?
The international media and dealing with it is always a big challenge for Israel because Hamas uses children and women to protect itself. Look at what has happened right now, Israel has told the people of Gaza to leave the northern part of Gaza, and Hamas asked them not to, because it wants videos and pictures of ‘Israel killing children and women’. Hamas uses the population as a human shield.
When such pictures and videos are shared, it creates a major problem for Israel. But now, I think the international media is with Israel, because the pictures and videos of Hamas killing and torturing our men, women, and children have come to the fore, and are being shared widely. Still, dealing with the media will continue to be a problem during the course of the war.
Mati Tuchfeld, Senior political correspondent, Israel Hayom
Do you think the Hamas threat got overlooked somewhere because of the political instability in Israel for the last few years?
This may be a factor for Hamas to have thought that this was the best time for it to attack Israel, because as a matter of fact, the last few months in Israel have been very fragile, as far as the country’s political situation is concerned. Protests had been carried out all the week, and that showcased as the Israeli society falling apart and very weak.
The second thing is the peace deal process with Saudi Arabia, just two weeks ago. Netanyahu had gone to New York and met with President Biden, and both of them spoke very clearly about the peace they plan to have with Saudi Arabia. Hence, I think, Iran, which is the real leader of Hamas, now understands that the world will get divided into two sides- the first being that of Iran with Russia, Syria, and China, and on the other hand, the USA, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
Sensing this, Iran must have thought that now is the time to attack Israel and that is why they did so with Hamas. If they want, they can do the same with the Hezbollah in the north, in Lebanon. Understanding this, Biden decided to send two ships and two aircraft carriers in the region, in order to threaten Iran and Hezbollah, which can attack Israel from the north.
What do you think is the role of countries like Qatar, Egypt, and Iran in the conflict situation?
Qatar, is of course, the friend of Iran, which in turn controls Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria. Egypt is another story, as they do not help Hamas or the Palestinians who live in Gaza. Gaza and Egypt share a border, and when Hamas and the UN scream, blaming Israel for cutting the power and water supply to Gaza, or for not letting the people out and get jobs, they conveniently forget that there is a border Gaza shares with Egypt as well, and they do not say the same thing to Egypt.
They should, being Arab Muslims, like the population of Gaza, provide Gaza with electricity and water, and the opportunity to move out, but the Egyptians do not. Right now, as the war is going on, Egypt has totally blocked the border it shares with Gaza, as they do not care much about Hamas or the people of Palestine.
How do you see the USA’s stance in the conflict?
The USA has a very important role to play in what is going on currently. I do not remember the USA getting involved in any of the Israeli wars like how Biden is. He is his sending soldiers, aircraft, and also sent his secretary of state to Israel to support us from here itself. This is very unusual. The USA has always been a friend of Israel’s, but this kind of an involvement has never been seen before.
This is a very important message that the USA has sent to the region, to Iran, to Saudi Arabia, an all the players in the area, as to on which side the USA stands.
Why did Israel decide, back in 2006, to let the Palestinian authority govern the Gaza strip?
There is something we must tell very clearly and surely, the conflict between Israel and Palestine is not about land. Israel occupied Gaza with the Sinai desert, which is twice the size of Israel. This happened in the war of 1967. Before that, the Palestinians living in Gaza asked Egypt to recognize them as an Egyptian state, which Egypt did not. On the other hand, the western bank belonged to Jordan, but the Palestinians living there never put the same demand to Jordan. They simply lived there, without any rights or government.
But only after Israel occupied these territories- Gaza, the Sinai desert, and the western bank, the Palestinians suddenly started saying that they were a nation and wanted self-dependence. Prior to this, they never thought about themselves as a separate people or a separate nation, and never had their own flag, government, or institutions.
Back in 2005, Israel left Gaza and the Jewish settlements there, and the army left as well, and the territory was left to the Palestinians, they could do whatever they wanted with it. And they decided to fight Israel.
Hamas literally won the elections, it was not an armed revolution, they did not take over Gaza by force. The people of Gaza were totally by themselves, without a single Israeli soldier or Israeli people present in their territory. The people of Gaza decided to vote for a terrorist organization which wants to destroy Israel. They want to destroy Israel because they want to kill Jews. It is not a war of territory, but a war against the Jewish people.
Luckily, they are not very strong and the Israeli army is much mightier. But it was a huge mistake on the part of the Israeli government to leave Gaza in 2005, and for it to remove its army as well. This resulted to the terrorist activities gaining strong ground in Gaza. The IDF should be deployed in Gaza for all times.
