A meeting of great minds.
Hi, Dr. Mir Shimemer. It’s a pleasure.
The first question I want to ask you was
actually about what your thoughts are
right now as we are commemorating the um
2-year anniversary. I don’t even know if
we can call it that. The two-year mark
Every day has been horrific. Right.
Today, today it’s just um they’ve ramped
up the you know the propaganda. I had
to, you know, once again, we’re we’re
having to hear these sensational
um stories that have been debunked over
and over and over of beheaded babies.
Even Netanyahu was going on talking
about, you know, Hamas burned babies and
beheaded uh men and women. I mean, it’s
just a lie. And and everybody in the
mainstream, whether it’s politicians or
media personalities, keep repeating it.
And either they know they’re lying or
they don’t read. And I don’t know which
is worse. Um, you know, this uh just
kind of this sinister macity or uh or
ignorance and and also the other lies
too. The tweet by Mamani on
on this day about Hamas killing,00
people and again it’s like get your
facts straight. I mean two years on and
they still don’t have their facts
straight. And there have been reports,
there have been studies about that day,
although there have never there has
still has never been an an
investigation, right? Despite all this
October 7th, October 7th, not a single
uh actual independent investigation has
been conducted. But what we do know is
that Israel that all of those burned out
fi those cars that they parade as as
crimes of Hamas, all of the burned out
houses, that that was all conducted by
primarily by Israeli Apache helicopters.
There were 28 of them at least that had
to reload their ammunition at least
once. Um, and I think they contain like
21,000 rounds of of of fire. and uh and
and and and we know that they killed at
least hundreds according to Harets. Um
we know that Israel initially said it
was I think the the first estimate was
2200 then they said two 2,000 and then
they downgraded it to um 1,200 and then
and then they just kind of rounded it up
to 1,200 and that had that has been the
narrative. So I can’t stand this these
factual inaccur inaccuracies which you
know upon which our genocide is
predicated. I mean these stories these
sensational stories of beheaded babies
of mass rape um and it’s just I mean
these are all these are the things that
manufactured popular consent for for for
the just want and slaughter of
Palestinians throughout Gaza. um in in
in in in a display of savagery savagery
that is and sadism that is truly
unprecedented in in human history as far
I was just curious what you kind of uh
piggybacking on what Susan just said,
what your thoughts on what we are on
what we know and what we don’t know
about what happened on October 7th and
if there’s have been any updates since
you and I spoke about this last which
Well, I think we have a pretty good
sense of what the general picture looks
like. I think everything that Susan said
uh is correct. Uh and uh I think we
don’t know the number of uh Israelis who
were killed uh by the Israeli forces.
And you want to remember it was not just
the Hannibal doctrine. The fact is that
the Israelis got caught completely by
surprise and they did not have a very
good backup plan. So what they did was
they rushed in massive firepower and
they used that firepower to attack Hamas
and the other Palestinian forces uh that
had moved uh into Israel proper. and
they killed a significant number of
people not with the Hannibal doctrine
but just with all that firepower that
was brought to bear against Hamas and
other Palestinians who were intermingled
with all sorts of Israelis.
Then there’s the whole issue of the
Hannibal doctrine because as we know the
Palestinians were bent on taking many uh
of their captured Israelis back to Gaza
and the Hannibal doctrine calls for
killing those people before they get
there. So some Israelis were killed uh
as a result of the Hannibal doctrine.
And then you want to remember on top of
all that uh it’s consistent with
international law for Hamas to try to
break out of the concentration camp and
to engage uh Israeli military forces in
combat, which means they’re going to
kill some of them. So the fact that they
killed Israeli soldiers is not a case of
murder. Now, there were clearly Israeli
civilians who were murdered. I’d be
willing to bet in the final analysis,
however, that Hamas did not murder many
of those uh Israeli civilians. But be
that it as it may, whoever murdered
those civilians murdered those civilians
and in my mind created a war crime,
committed a war crime. But I think that
uh most of the Israelis who were killed
uh were either soldiers who I think are
legitimate targets or they were
civilians who were killed by the Israeli
forces. I think you cannot underestimate
how many Israelis were killed when all
that firepower was brought to bear. Uh,
and if you look at a lot of the pictures
and you listen to what happened, uh,
it’s quite clear that those Apache
helicopters really wre havoc on
everything that was down on the ground.
And of course, that included, uh,
Israeli civilians. So, I think we have a
pretty good sense of what happened. Now,
is that reported in the Western media?
As Susan was saying before, of course it
isn’t. uh the stories that you hear in
the western media, you know, are
basically a reflection of Israeli
propaganda. I want to make one final
point about this. What’s also quite
stunning about this whole issue is that
nobody talks about why there was a
breakout. Nobody talks about the fact
that this was a concentration camp and
what was being done to the Palestinians
was abhorrent. And of course, there was
going to be a breakout from that
concentration camp at some point. The
Israelis like to portray this as if it
were a bunch of Nazis, if as if uh the
Palestinians were the second coming of
the Third Reich. And what happened uh on
October 7th is much like what happened
in the Holocaust. This is a ridiculous
argument. Uh what the Germans did to the
Jews is completely different than what
the Palestinians did to the Israelis.
The Palestinians were the victims. Uh
they’re in this concentration camp. Uh
and you had a breakout on October 7th.
Hardly surprising. Uh and this is not to
excuse the murdering of civilians that
took place at the hands of Palestinians.
um opposed to killing civilians for
sure, but again that I think is just
part of the story. You have a much more
complicated story at play here. And the
more you talk in detail about what
happened, the clearer it becomes that
Israel bears a great deal of the
responsibility for what happened that
