Knesset Member Sharren Haskel talks about UNRWA and Israel politics

Full interview with Knesset (Parliament in Israel) Sharren Haskel from the New Hope Party. Sharren talks about the war and about UNRWA and the bill passed on October 29th. At about 32 minutes I ask about the International Committee of the Red Cross's involvement.

This interview was filmed on October 31, 2024. This Media scrum was conducted as part of a privately sponsored Canadian Media Mission to Israel comprised of independent journalists.

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[00:00] Russell: All right, folks. And we're back. Russell here with the Canadian Conservative podcast. And I'll be covering some different stuff than what I usually cover for the next little while. I'll be covering the war in Israel against Hamas and Hezbollah about some of the politics and religiosity of the area. Now, why am I covering these things? So last week I took part in a media mission to Israel. This was privately sponsored, not using government funds. And I went to Israel with some independent journalists and they toured us around, showed us some different politicians. They showed us the attack sites where Hamas attacked on October 7, 2023. And I'm what I'm hoping to do is to provide you with some information based on interviews, maybe a little bit of personal testimony from when I was there, just to give you a different perspective, maybe one that isn't shared by the mainstream media. My goal here is to present you with information, listen to it, interpret it how you'd like, and use with that information what you will. Some of the interviews I'm going to be covering are from military personnel, members of the Knesset, which is like the Israeli Parliament, some personal antidotes, as well as from survivors from the October 7th attack. Well, I'll probably do an episode solely based off my experience on the trip in the future. For the episode today, this was the interview that was done with Sharon Haskell. Sharon Haskell is a member of the New Hope Party and she is also Knesset member. So she's a member of Parliament and she's going to talk about UNWRA and why Israel decided to put basically sanctions against UNRWA. About 33 minutes in, I asked a question about the International Committee of the Red Cross Red Crescent and if they've helped out at all or what they're doing to monitor for conditions of the hostages or monitoring in Gaza. And I think this material will be interesting for some people, especially people that are interested in learning more about this conflict from a source that doesn't come from the mainstream media. So I hope you'll enjoy and if you have any feedback, you can send feedback to Canadian Conservative@tutanota.com Tutanota spelled T U T A N O T A as well. If you'd like to support my work, I have my substack page, the Canadian Conservative.com I do some blogging there as well. I do have a paid subscription option, so if you are interested in supporting the work that I'm doing, you could always purchase a paid subscription there. Every little bit helps. And with that, let's get started.

[03:25] Sharren Haskel: I was born in Toronto. When my father's Israeli, my mom's Moroccan. When they got married, my mom got an offer, a position in a school in Toronto, and they moved to Canada. My older sister was born there, and I was born there. And then my dad really missed his family and they decided to move back to Israel. And so I was raised here in Israel. When we Turn Here in Israel, 18, it's mandatory to join the army. For Jews, it's mandatory. We still have some Muslims and many Druze and Bedouins who actually serves in the idf. It's not mandatory, it's voluntary. But when I joined, it was a very tough period of time. Obviously it was mandatory, but it was important for me to serve in a position where I feel I make a difference. And it was the time of the second Intifada, where many of our friends and it was really a crazy time where, you know, buses would explode, restaurants, bar. For me, taking a bus to my school would be a game of Russian roulette. You would go down and you would go up and someone looks a bit suspicious and you go down. And I wasn't the top student of my school. One morning I was late for school. I wake up and I prepare myself, and I suddenly hear in my city, in Kosaba, a very loud explosion. That was the bus that I was meant to take to my school. So in that reality, growing up in that kind of environment, it was very important for me to be able to be in a position to defend and protect my family and my community. So I went and fought to get in to be a combat soldier. I served in the border guards here in Israel. So if you've seen the people with a dark green uniforms, I served around Jerusalem and also in the area of Ramallah. I was a commander and a sergeant as well. And for me, as a woman, I think those three years in the army is really what shaped me and really made me believe that as a woman, I'm capable of doing everything and anything that I hope to achieve. I know that I'm capable of doing that. So it was a very empowering experience for me. After my military service, I needed to take a bit of a break. I moved to the States for a year, and then I lived in Australia for six years. I volunteered in an NGO that rescues wildlife. I've studied and I worked in a veterinary hospital. As a veterinary nurse, my house would look like a zoo. I would pick up all these Australian animals and I was treating them and then releasing them back into nature. And it was Incredible. And I did that for six years until I decided to pack up everything and to come back home. And I started joining in university, different political groups. And through these political groups, I became more and more active. I didn't have a political background, my family didn't have a political background. And so I became active in the Likud Party, the party of Benjamin Netanyahu. My ideology is very classic liberal, meaning less regulation, less taxation, less government involvement. I'm a very unique voice here in the Knesset, where our politics are not being determined by those issues, but mainly about security and Israeli Palestinian conflict. That's what really dictate the Israeli politics. But I'm a very clear voice of a very ideological classic liberal. And so I became very active. And long story short, in 2015, I entered here to the Parliament under the Likud Party. I've been a very loud voice to advocate for medical cannabis and legalization of cannabis, animal rights, reduction of regulations in many, many fields, including opening the communication market, so like the TV channels here in Israel for competition and many more, like taxes, regulations to reduce it. And, you know, it's nine years that I've been here in Parliament, so there's a lot of things that I can talk about that you will even be shocked. And about three years ago, I decided to resign from the Likud Party and join Gidon Sav. He's a Parliament member who I believe should have led the right side of the Israeli map. And I resigned from the Likud and went into a very long road, three years with Gidon, and the last four years have been crazy in a sense of politics here in Israel, meaning we've went into five elections, one after the other, which is unheard of. And so we have many, many political challenges. And we were trying to defeat Netanyahu, and we managed to form some kind of a government, and then it fell down. There's a lot also to say about that. And so on 7 October, when 7 October happened, we had to put all of our political differences on many issues aside, because on the 7th of October, we were faced with the attempt of annihilation. Thousands of people from Gaza, Hamas terrorists, thousands of them just came running through the border, through the air, through the water, and massacred as many people as they could find. Women, children, babies, elderlies. Those atrocities, and I was there four days after, will never, ever leave my mind. And so my main goal now as a politician is to make sure that my country, my community, my children will forever be safe in my country. And that something like that will never happen again. And there's many things that needs to happen for that to. To. To actually happen. But we put all of our differences aside and we went into a coalition. You need to understand we were serious rivals up until that point. We've resigned from Netanyahu's part very publicly, very loudly fighting to try and change the government. And we joined the coalition, which was very difficult, but we had to do it in order to work together, because we had to defeat our enemy. This is about our survival. And ever since, there's been ups and downs. We've left the coalition about six months ago because we disagreed with the policy. Okay. Of how they were managing the war. And there's a lot about what to say about that. And we've rejoined recently about a month ago, because we understand, understood that they are willing to take a different approach. And then what. Since we've came in as well, you've seen what's happened also in the north. We started defending our north with Lebanon, and we had very successful operations. And maybe I'll stop it here so that I can also talk a little bit about unrwa. So UNWRA is very important for me because nine years ago, when I entered the Knesset, I formed the Lobby to Reform Anura. I really identified this organization as part of the foundation of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, realizing that if there is not a major change, our future Israelis and Palestinians will not be different. Every few years, there's going to be a round of violence. It's going to come down in a few years, another round of violence, it's going to come down and over and over again. And if I want a better life for my daughters, three daughters I have, my eldest one is four years old, and I have twins who are two years old. So during all of that, what I told you, try and imagine. Also, personally, it's been very difficult with three babies. So in order to really create a better future for them, I understood I need to make a difference with everyone. And it's been very difficult. No one wanted to hear about it. Okay. We had already mountain of evidence on how the UNRA education system is a radical Islamist education system that teaches hatred and violence. We had proof of people who work in unrwa, who are Hamas activists, who are Hamas commanders, and we sent it everywhere I went. For nine years, I've been going around parliaments and waking up, trying to build bridges and communication with other parliament members so that they are responsible for the funds that they're sending to this organization. Who is harming my people, you know, my communities. And I was able to form some communication in America. It got advanced really, really well. And they stopped the funding for anwar, a few other countries as well when they realized that. There were many questions that were raised in different parliaments around the world about the responsibility for the funds that are being shipped overseas. But as much as I knew how much harm it is, only after the 7th of October, I realized how this organization paved the way to the 7th of October massacre. And that created for me a mission to try and completely change that. And that legislation that just passed a couple of days ago, this is one of my legislation that actually wrote about six years ago because, and to be very honest and frank, also nine years ago when I went and tried to speak to the Foreign Ministry and to the Defense Ministry, they didn't want to hear about, they said, look, this is a fact, it's not going to change. We cannot change it. And this is how it is, you know, our hands are tied. So I try to form this legislation will force them to disconnect the relationship with UNWRA in order to try and put pressure on the international community to reform this organization. So I'll try and touch a few things and I want to start with you before the 7th of October, okay? What is UNWRA? What is this organization? Before the 7th of October, it wasn't a humanitarian aid organization. UNWRA is an organization that is meant to provide services for Palestinians. Matter of fact, your government will look after your housing, electricity, water, your local council will look after your street sweepers and medical right, Medicaid or Medicare, whatever system you have, your education system. This is what UNRWA does to the Palestinians. Prior to the 7th of October, already 70% of Palestinians in Gaza were considered refugees. Okay? 70% of the population. Now this is because the definition for a refugee under UNWRA and under UNHCR is completely different. If they would need to fall under the UNHCR definition of refugees, none of them would have been refugees, you know, what, maybe four or five thousand people, okay? But that specific definition and the main difference is that this status is inherited. Meaning, for example, if my great great grandfather, it's like three generations, my grandmother, sorry, is a refugee from Germany, she survived the Holocaust. My father would have been considered a refugee, a German refugee, I would be considered a refugee. My daughters are still considered refugees and their great great granddaughters would still be considered refugees. It doesn't matter whether you have citizenship, it doesn't matter whether you have property for Generations now where you've been living, okay? For example, just here in Jerusalem, you have an UNRWA refugee camp in Shoafat with high buildings where they give out apartments, they give the education, the healthcare, everything. It's a social package that is being offered for Palestinians and not based on real status of refugees. So if in East Jerusalem, almost all the population, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians hold Israeli residency, they do not want to apply for full citizenship because then they will lose the status at UNWRA and will not receive their compensation package, which is inherited. Okay, now try and imagine, you know, a refugee, just the Palestinians in Ramallah. If you decide to give up your status, then you need to start paying for your children, education for your children, healthcare, you need to buy your own apartment. You're going to have to pay taxes all the way to. Like I told you that there are street sweepers who are employed by unrwa. So when you understand that mechanism, you understand a matter of fact. UNRWA is sort of the governmental services for Palestinians. And that's what this agency does. Now it is okay, but if we go and we see on the Israeli Palestinian conflict 75 years, and don't take my word for it, but Ehud Almond on the left, Ehud Barak on the left, Rabin, Paris, why didn't they were able to come to an agreement, a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians? Why did Yasir Arafat said to Clinton that if he signed this agreement, he will be murdered? He said, because I cannot give up the right of return of the Palestinian refugees, meaning millions of people who live like in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, who those countries never wanted to accept. Okay, for example, even in Lebanon, when you have UNWRA refugees who for four generations, five generations were born and raised in Lebanon, Lebanon didn't want to give them a citizenship. I mean, Canada has a policy. When you come as a refugee to Canada, your children are Canadian, right? Well, the Palestinians couldn't even study in subjects. Like they couldn't become doctors, they couldn't become lawyers. They were like racist against them. Like they were, how do you call it, prejudice against them. And so would, would the problem of refugee become smaller or bigger? You can imagine 6 million people, 12 million people. In 10, 20 years it's going to be 30 and 40 million people. Where are they going to come? How are we going to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict if the problem is only growing bigger, while in any other conflict it always shrink? No matter with a Cyprus conflict, Sudan, Syria, you know, you take out refugees and slowly the problem becomes Smaller and smaller. Here it always becomes bigger and bigger because of the definition of refugee. So when I say it sits at the core of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, it is also the reason when they perpetuate that status, there will not be a solution. Israel will never be able to accept. Israel's only 9 million people. What will happen if we accept now? 7 million Palestinians. Dust to your state. Sorry, Death to the Jewish state. Yeah, I mean, how do you resolve it? So the Israeli Palestinian conflict, as long as exists under those special terms, it will only grow bigger. And that's why I said it's always going to be another few years, another round of violence. Another few years, another round of violence. Now this is one side of it. The other side is the education. Okay? Anra and Anwra's school schools. And you can imagine 70% of the Gazan citizens, in a few years, it's going to be 100% of them. I mean, with marriage and everything, you inherit that status. Okay, so take 10 years from now, Anwar will need to look after 100% of the Palestinian in Gaza for the education and all of those services. Now what do they teach them? They teach them a radical Islamist education that teaches Sharia, hatred, racism towards Jews. And to be honest, I was chairing also the Committee of Education and Culture and Sport. I'm a true believer in education. I think that through education we can change the world. But the fact is that because of that education system that UNWRA implies, it was very easy for Hamas to indoctrinate, incite and recruit terrorists from that population. There are mountains of evidence, and you don't have to take Israel's word for it. There are Dutch research centers, German research centers, Canadian research centers who study that education system. I can give you the textbook of what they're studying. They're glorifying terrorists. ANWRA pays for the school camp during the school camps. That's not like a proper education system. School camps. Those are Hamas school camps. What do you think they teach you? I have videos how they teach children as 5 years old, 4 year olds how to shoot, okay. How to train to be soldiers. And that's being paid by anwa, which Canada funds. So until we completely reform the education system, it will still be extremely easy for Hamas to continue and recruit terrorists from, from, from that kind of population. And if we speak. And I'll have to touch it because you ask. Okay, so what should be done with the education system? Should we, should they learn the Israeli education system? Look, first of all, in Israel, it's important to understand. We have three different education systems. We have the ultra orthodox education system, the regular education system and the Arab education system. I think it's far better. But I don't expect now the Gazan citizen to start studying the Israeli Arabic curriculum. But one really important point in the Abraham Accords that we've signed just a few years ago, you know, was a section that speaks about education because everybody knew that it's all about the education and was a commitment from Morocco, from Saudis, from the Emiratis and you know, the countries that signs the agreements to reform their education system and to take out any antisemitic references and to teach about tolerance, about coexistence, about mutual lives between Arabs and Jews. Okay. In Morocco, they even went to step forward and actually put a section on how Moroccan Jews actually helped throughout history to shape the Moroccan culture, which is incredible. This is building a better future. And you know what? Don't take the Israeli one, take the Emirati education system, take the Moroccan education system, take the Saudis education system, print those books and teach them that curriculum. So that's another issue about how unwilling is also sitting at the core of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. There's much more to say, but I want to go forward after the 7th of October. Obviously after the 7th of October. A few weeks later, when Israel started going into Gaza, there started a big humanitarian crisis. Many real refugees, okay, that need assistance and need help. Is the Canadian government set straight away to give services, humanitarian services, services in a natural disaster? No, needs proper agency. It needs foreign aid usually. Right. And that's the same for unwra. UNWRA was never set to give aid in war zones, in natural disasters, in serious crisis. And that's one of the reasons why it completely failed. They don't have the logistics, they don't have the experience. And I'm not even talking about how Hamas has literally taken over this organization in Gaza. Who's capable? So let's look on the more with Sudan. Sudan is a war that affected probably more than 22 million people. Okay? Now here in Gaza we're talking about two and a half million people at the max. Talking about two million. But there's different assessments. Who's treating it in Syria? Millions of people were affected. Who's was there an unwra? The Syrian government. What happens in Ukraine? There are proper united nation agencies who have the experience, the logistics, the foreign workers who actually know how to handle it. World Food Organization, unicef, Health Organization and many more. They didn't want to come here they didn't want to do it. Anwar was left alone in this scene. I mean there was a little bit of different private groups that came in and put and helped out and some of these agencies as well. But matter of fact it was Guterres interests that it will only come through unwra. Matter of fact, when the United States and United States held the funds towards unwra, the administration said to the proper agency, we want to give you that money so that you can go into Gaza and provide them with humanitarian aid. Guterres told these organization not to take a dime from the Americans so that they don't compromise unwra. So I'm not even talking about the logistics that were incapable of doing more than. More than 50% of the goods that came in through Gaza was stolen by Hamas sold in the markets. We have images and videos from the markets in Gaza. Tents who were donated by the Qatari and the Saudis were sold the Qatari for 2,000, the Saudi tent for 2,500 shekels. Who's pocketing that money? Hamas. How? Because it actually was able to. Look, most of the workers in Gaza of UNWRA in Gaza are Gazan citizens. Whoever was affiliated with Hamas is more likely to receive this position. We have numbers of thousands of workers that are either Hamas affiliated or first degree family members. Meaning the wife of the husband who's an activist. I would love to print you even out a letter. I have a letter that they seized in one of the UNRA's headquarters. I think it was in Sirat or Khan Yunis where the Hamas commander of Nusirat, okay. Is thanking the manager of the education regent of Nusirat for giving paid leave for one of their teacher to go on military training with Hamas. And that was 10 days before the 7th of October. It means that knowingly you receive a letter from Hamas. You know your teacher is doing military training with Hamas and you gave him a week of paid leave to go and train for the 7 October massacre. You can go into telegram and google. Anwar, you can go into the group in telegram of their teacher. 5,000 people are registered in that group. Okay? On the 7th of October they have celebrated publicly on their channel Hamas head commander in Lebanon knowingly. Okay? Hamas declared him as well as their chief in Lebanon was the head of the Union of Teachers of ANR receiving salaries from anwra. Now all of this was spread out given by our foreign ministry to different governments. Your government know that as well. The money that you are sending to UNRWA ends up in the pockets of Hamas leadership and Hamas activists instead of giving real humanitarian aid to Palestinians. So I'm, I'm. I'm okay for sure. Okay. Not sure.

[29:10] Speaker C: Just let's open up first.

[29:11] Sharren Haskel: Okay. So the last thing is that if an international organization operated in Ottawa, okay, if its employees would have participated in a massacre in Ottawa, it wouldn't have taken a year to cut ties with them. It would be exactly 24 hours and they would be kicked out of the country. We gave a year to the international community to come with different solution, to try and treat the problem, to address it, to reform it. They did nothing. They just buried their head in the sand and tried to cover up for the crimes, the corruption, you know, of what is happening. And you need to understand it is in Israel's best interest to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians. Because if it doesn't reach the international community, put pressure on Israel and tie our hands behind our back, we are at war against Hamas. We want to defeat Hamas. And for that we need a big, you know, no capability to maneuver within Gaza. If there is a humanitarian aid, we're restricted. Hamas interest is exactly opposite. The worse the humanitarian situation in Gaza is, the better it is for Hamas, because they know that put pressure on Israel to get out. And so they are worsening the humanitarian aid while Israel is trying to actually provide it, which is logically insane. Okay. In a situation like that. So I'll stop here.

[30:56] Speaker C: Say, I mean, there's no dispute in my mind that, you know, UNRWA is an organization that no longer can function in the Gaza Strip or in Israel, but it has to be replaced with something. And it seems to me that it's within Israel's best interest to ensure that, you know, that your nation has a leading role in establishing an education system from Palestinians. That just makes obvious sense to me. So pull up from Andronawa.

[31:27] Sharren Haskel: Okay, so my plan, what I was, I written down a few things and I actually had a few conferences also with many people who have a lot of experience and knowledge in humanitarian aid organizations, in policies and legal as well. What I think best is to create a real Palestinian organization, call it a Palestinian organization, have like a chairman conference, a chairman, like directors sitting international and a foreign one, okay? From the Abraham Accords country, from the United States, from Israel, and discuss, first of all, manage this organization. So it's parallel to unwra. But first of all, don't say it's a refugee organization, says it's a Palestinian organization. Let's resolve those problems. Okay? Let's make sure that they have a good life and then they are like self sufficient. And through these countries, first of all, manage it. Okay. Do exactly the same of what UNRWA does. I mean, UNRWA's funds come from donating countries. So those countries are going to donate instead of to unra, to this formal Palestinian organization to first provide those services and also to build Gaza again. The idea is that in Gaza it's a very like a tribal cultural kind of mentality as well. And it's been complete. It's became a huge mess during the war as well. And our aim needs to try and set humanitarian aid zone right now divided by the original neighborhoods. Okay. To bring them back into the original cultural community that they were raised and they were brought up in. Through those community, once you start building back, they'll be able to return to their proper neighborhoods. And it's not going to be a mix, because if it becomes a mix, it becomes another issue and another problem that we can also talk about. Those neighborhoods will have a local council, so each one of them will have a mayor. So you divert the main government now, which is Hamas, to local tribal community, kind of local council that are separated as well. And through them, this organization operates through those local councils. That's the idea. My idea. Okay.

[34:00] Speaker C: It's a very rational, martial land style idea, actually.

[34:05] Sharren Haskel: Absolutely.

[34:05] Speaker C: How effective has the. Is that plan moving forward or is there any.

[34:11] Sharren Haskel: Unfortunately not. And I'll say that the United Nation is not like in guterres. And the way that he addresses UNWRA refused to talk about anything else except unwra. So it's not on the cards. I don't think it's a plan that has to come from Israel. I think there needs to be a drawing from the international community. I'm working on that with a few organizations to try and bring that out. And the Israeli government, obviously everyone has a different idea about what needs to be the day after. And so politically it's very difficult for them to even start talking about it, I can tell you there's many members who brought up different ideas. This is my idea and I've been trying to work on pushing it. I think it's not the perfect, you know, but it's. It doesn't come from the two extreme sides. Okay. It's really here in the center. It looks after the next 50 years, in the hope of, of first building a different reality to the Palestinians. And if they have a different reality, we will have a different reality. And then maybe in 50, 100 years, we'll be able to live side by side. I really hope so.

[35:18] Russell: Just wondering what the commitment level from the International Committee of the Red Crescent Society has been since 1939.

[35:29] Sharren Haskel: Yeah, none really, unfortunately. And you know, bear in mind that we still have 101 hostages that are being held in Gaza and they haven't put any pressure that they could in order to try and even visit them, making sure that there's medical medications that actually arrive to those people who, some of them have acute medical issues, like really serious medical issues. So, no, you know what it really feels and you know, the international community has been biased. It's turned it back on Israel. We feel like it's really a David and a Goliath situation. I understand that through the media and through social media, it's impossible to fight it. We're only 9 million people here in Israel against, you know, billions of people. It's, it's, we're incapable of doing it. And unfortunately, public opinion is what's been pressuring and pushing government leadership and also international organization. And instead of doing the right thing, like for example, sending the proper agencies to actually give humanitarian aid, they knew that aid is being stolen, they knew that they can't do it, and yet they didn't do anything. So it's very frustrating. It's very disappointing. And you know, I hope now with this ledger, with this legislation where they can't, our governments will not be able to cooperate. Navy will put at least a little bit of pressure, try and change and reform and come into a discussion. Yeah. Actually, I have two questions. The first one is on January 26, 2024, after the Israeli government released evidence of Hamas fighters also, quote, unquote, moonlighting with unwra, our government decided to pass contribution to UNWRA for a period of time that lasted for about three to four months, then contribution to ANWAR resume. So in your opinion, why do you think that happened? Is it because as a result of active lobbying of certain groups that is affiliated with Palestinian cause in Canada, or is it because our country has sort of become a hotbed for the Kahmas Islamic fundamentalist filtration? So I'm, you know, it. I, I think maybe. I know, I, I don't know if many parliament members would say that, but as you know, I'm, I'm, I was born in Canada, my dad lives in Canada and, and, and I care about that country. I love it as well. And, but unfortunately, with what I've been seeing in Canada, especially in the last year, is very concerning and is heartbreaking. The rise of antisemitism and violence against the Jewish community is exploding and the government is not doing anything about it. I'm terrified for my father's life. You know, synagogues are being attacked, schools are being attacked, you know, local businesses, and the government is not doing anything. Radical jihadists are marching in the streets with terrorists flags in the streets of Canada, the hub of freedom and tolerance and peace. And they are marching the streets with terrorist flag, calling for jihad, calling to globalize the intifada. What does it mean to globalize the intifada? It means to bring the violence, the murder, the rape in the streets of Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and other cities. And it's heartbreaking. The, you know, the generosity of the Canadian people, of accepting so much had come to a point where people have completely crossed the red lines. And for me, it's devastating to see that. I mean, you tell me as a Canadian, when you see those protests and they are burning Canadian flags, stepping on them, and then you see the other side, the pro Israeli protest where they march proudly with a Canadian flag, you tell me not about Israel, but about Canada, your flag, where do you want to position yourself? And with the elections and everything that had happened, and I see there's a massive pressure on the government from radical voices, and they're surrendering to those voices. They're not active against fighting it. They're surrendering to those voices. And it's based only on a political decision. They want to win the elections and they want to win their voices. So they put their moral compass aside. And it's very sad. It's heartbreaking. I think we have time for one more question. So, Andrew, just briefly, if I heard you correctly, you said that the NICOT Party and Likud had some key differences on the war, on this war. Could you briefly unpack what those differences are? So in February, because of pressure from the international community, the government made a clear decision to reduce the amount of forces in Gaza and to reduce the intensity of our fighting of Hamas in Gaza. Their assumption was that it's like a wave of international pressure and in a few months it will go away. We said it's the exact opposite. We need to finish it quickly. We need to finish Hamas quickly, and then we can start talking about the day after. If you're prolonging it now, you're prolonging the war in far more time than what is needed. It means that that decision of reducing the intensity city was pulling out our troops. Hamas would go back into its positions. Our hostages are being dug Even further underground, okay? Without option to actually go and reach them. And for me, it's the cost of life of soldiers and hostages, because the quicker I can bring them back home, the less life are going to be lost. Soldiers who die because either they sit still or afterwards, when you need to go back in, then there's more fighting, we're going to lose more troops and money. War cost of money. And war cost a lot of money. And I care about our economy. So when they make a clear decision of doing that in the government, we opposed it, we tried to change it within. They won't do that. We went out to the media, we said, we cannot agree with that. We cannot back that. We want to back you. We want to be part of the decision makers in this war. But we cannot take responsibility on something that is not going to achieve the goals of the war. It's going to create more death, more suffering, and it's going to cost us more money. And so we gave an ultimatum and they still decided to do that. And so we've resigned. We said that when we will have a position and when they're going to shift what needs to be done, then we're very happy to take responsibility and to take those decisions together. And the fact is that two months later, the entire Israeli public really understood what we were saying. They didn't really understand that before we could see what is going to happen. And yeah, six months, six months of a quiet ceasefire where it cost us a lot of money. The international pressure had built dramatically more with the International court and everything that had happened. And the life, loss of life, loss of money, loss of capability were already there. We know that the hostages were in Rafah. Go in and get them. It took an extra six months to actually reach there. So that's, that's the reason why.

[43:26] Speaker C: So can I ask one really quick question to follow up to that? There is a widespread assumption in the west, particularly on the left, but not just on the left, that Netanyahu is prolonging this war in order to prolong his time in power, to avoid corruption charges, to avoid the drama because he's unpopular, to avoid the drama that about that have come about as a result of judiciary reforms, that a lot of the reason why the war is being prolonged is, has to do with domestic politics. Is there any validity to that assumption? Or is that a misunderstanding by the West?

[43:55] Sharren Haskel: So look, I'm, I can't speak on his behalf. I'm not his spokesperson. I don't know. And you obviously understand also what was My position prior to the 7th of October, and now it's very, very delicate as well. I don't think he's doing that. I think that the international community has tied his hand and he was left with no other choice. Look, he's. He's being charged in the international court. There's arrest warrants against Netanyahu personally. What do you think he's going to do? He's going to try and prevent that anyway. Okay? And obviously, so I don't think he's doing that on purpose. I think that the international community has forced us to prolong this war. Our goal is to eliminate Hamas and bring back our family members. This war could have ended on 8th October if the International community would have backed us up completely and help us with it. And so, you know, and it's the same with Lebanon. We've waited for an entire year, entire year while the international community promised they're going to bring a diplomatic solution. While tens of thousands of our people were refugees. People were murdered. Children were massacred by those rockets. Properties completely shattered and destroyed. All of our communities in the north are completely dismantled. And they didn't bring anything to the table. While they promised us, they left us no choice. And so also with the front in Lebanon, it was prolonged for a year. Not because of Netanyahu, because of the international community. If they would have done something with Lebanon, it wouldn't have happened. But we were left with no other choice. And now we need to make sure we finish the job there as well. That there was not going to be ever another threat on Israel because we know that the international community is not going to look after us. They're not going to be there when we need them. I've made discussions about unifilm four years ago in the Foreign Affair and Defense Committee. We knew that Hezbollah is not letting them coming to certain areas and it's literally controlling that. They can't do anything in Syria. Okay? The United Nation forces needed to be rescued by Israel. I mean, can we trust them? No. The future of my daughters is going to rely on our hand. We have to have the capability of defending ourselves by ourselves. And we will never, ever compromise that because we know what will happen if not. So if the international community would have acted different, this could have been finished within a few weeks.