Conflict between Israel and Hamas

In the year since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the question of proportionality in response to October 7th has taken center stage. Both sides have reported high death tolls, the risk of famine and disease is growing, over a hundred hostages of various nationalities remain in Gaza, and ceasefire proposals are ongoing with no end in sight.

Israel has the right to defend itself

Those who support Israel’s response argue that Israel has the right to defend itself like any country under attack; it needs to do all it can to bring the hostages home and prevent Hamas from posing any future threat. However, critics of Israel’s response contend that it has led to a humanitarian crisis, failed to protect Palestinian civilians, and jeopardized long-term peace in the Middle East.

Mehdi Hasan Vs Eylon Levy

That was the question posed at the debate hosted by the organization ‘Open to Debate’ in New York on Saturday evening, in front of a live audience of more than 500 people. 

I was onstage against former Israeli government spokesperson (and gaslighter-in-chief) Eylon Levy, and I didn’t hold back, pointing out his long list of lies on Israel’s behalf. I also went through the kids killed, the ‘safe zones’ violated, the aid trucks blocked, and the torture and rape of Palestinian detainees. How could any of that be justified, I asked Levy, again and again. Unsurprisingly, he had no answer whatsoever and even insisted Israel owed no explanation to anyone for its (illegal) actions in Gaza. (At one point, he hilariously pretended not to be able to hear me.)

Mehdi Hasan Debates Eylon Levy Transcript

All right. So, ladies and gentlemen, the question, were they justified? Were the actions justified? And it would be great if you didn’t feel the need to respond to the personal attack. We’ll decide when we get there, John. Were they justified? No, obviously not. Of course not.

0:16

October the 7th, I think we can all agree, was a crime, a war crime, right? We can all agree on that. And taking hostages is a war crime. And those hostages should be released. But to destroy an entire place, an entire people in response is never justified. Never justified.

0:34

How are we still… I don’t understand how we’re debating this more than 40,000 deaths later. I don’t understand how we’re still debating this sitting in the comfort of New York, 7,000 miles away from a place that the UN Secretary General has called hell on earth. Justified?

0:50

Justified was Israel justified in carrying out one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history according to dr Robert Pape at the University of Chicago dropping 500 pound bombs 1,000 pound bombs 2,000 pound bombs on schools hospitals universities, bookstores, libraries, mosques, churches, refugee camps, apartment buildings, cemeteries, cemeteries,

1:12

destroying a higher percentage of buildings in northern Gaza than the Allies destroyed in Dresden during World War II, reducing Gaza to 42 million tons of rubble while they got people out of the way? How is that justified? Dropping a bomb, for example, on a six-story apartment building in central Gaza last October, killing more than 100 people inside,

1:32

including more than 50 children, with no Hamas target in sight according to Human Rights Watch with no explanation offered by the Israeli military. Even till today, was that justified, Elon? Was Israel justified in telling people to go to safe zones and then bombing them and killing them in those safe zones?

1:47

According to NBC, there were seven deadly airstrikes between January and April. in areas that the Israeli military had specifically designated as safe zones, killing Palestinian civilians like Sabrine Sekani, who was 30 weeks pregnant at the time. She was killed in a safe zone in April. Her little baby, newborn baby, died less than a week later.

2:06

Was that justified too, Elon? Was Israel justified in killing a record number of kids in Gaza, 16,000 children, turning Gaza into what the UN has called a graveyard for children, according to Save the Children, killing more kids in the first three weeks that were killed globally? in each of the past four years,

2:23

killing little kids like six-year-old Hind Raja and her 15-year-old sister Layan, firing 335 bullets into the car they were in, 335 bullets, and then killing the two paramedics who went to try and rescue them. Was that justified too, Elon? Was Israel justified in killing a record number of aid workers in Gaza, right? A record number, targeting,

2:43

targeting again and again, systematically, car by car, according to chef Jose Andres. a specifically explicitly marked World Central Kitchen aid convoy killing seven aid workers in the process. Was that justified? Was Israel justified in starving the people of Gaza using food and water as a weapon of war to quote both the EU and Oxfam?

3:03

Was Israel justified in blocking aid trucks from going into Gaza simply because they carry things like crutches, nail clippers, and even chocolate croissants, according to the Washington Post? Was Israel justified in raping, sodomizing Palestinian detainees who are charged with no crimes whatsoever? Putting hot rods up their rectums. Putting hot rods up their rectums.

3:25

Amputating their limbs, according to CNN and the New York Times. Was that rape and torture justified, Elon? I mean, Israel, according to their ICC chief prosecutor, who put out a statement calling for the arrest of Elon’s former boss, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel may have military goals, legitimate goals, but the way they’re carried out, killing innocent people,

3:43

starving people, is criminal, he said. Criminal, think about that. Elon Levy… is a former spokesperson for a man who the ICC chief prosecutor wants arrested for war crimes. Elon himself has produced a number of lies, sorry, John, in service of those war crimes.

3:58

He has a bunch of tweets still up tonight which say that babies were beheaded on October the 7th, babies were baked in ovens, babies were ripped from their mothers’ wombs. October 7th was bad enough, but Elon had to exaggerate it for atrocity purposes. Those tweets are still up.

4:10

Why would you trust anything this man says to you tonight? Look, he’s here. He’s here. He’s here to gaslight you, to defend the indefensible, to excuse the inexcusable, to justify the unjustifiable, but you don’t need to. Tonight, you can choose to be on the side, not of cruelty, not of criminality,

4:28

but on the side of the innocent people of Gaza who are being killed as we speak tonight, as we speak, by Elon’s former colleagues in the Israeli military on the orders of Elon’s former bosses in the Israeli government. So, yes, I choose to oppose this horrific and homicidal motion. Thank you.