And our top story this morning.
Amid growing tensions over the war in Gaza,
President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are expected
to speak by phone today.
This will be their first direct communication since the Israeli
airstrike that killed 7 World Central Kitchen workers earlier this
week.
Biden expressed some of his strongest criticism of Israel to
date,
saying he was outraged and heartbroken by those deaths.
Biden and Netanyahu last spoke on March 18th,
when the president warned the Prime Minister against carrying out
a military offensive in the southern city of Rafa.
Meanwhile, World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres is calling for
an investigation into what he says was a deliberate attack
on his
organization's workers. Speaking on camera yesterday for the first time
since the airstrike,
Andres said the Israeli government claim that the blast
was accidental. He was rejected.
He rejected that
they were target systematically car by car because they were
not successful in hitting.
They keep trying. This happened over more than 1.51 point
8 kilometers. So this was not
just bad luck situation where oops,
we dropped the bomb in the wrong place or
or none. Every country obviously that nationals,
including United States that had
nationals that die on this attack.
We need to have
an investigation
that is neutral. Humanitarians and civilians
should never be paying the consequences of war.
This is a basic principle of humanity
at the at the time.
This looks like it's not a war against terrorism anymore.
Seems this is a war against humanity itself.
You know, so many investigations that need to be done,
so many investigations that are being put off,
so many investigations, you know,
why are you tracking
these trucks from an organization that you know,
is delivering tons of food of aid to Gaza to
bring desperately needed aid to Gaza?
Why? Why were they tracking them?
Why did they fire on them?
They were clearly marked. After all,
this is the same idea.
This is the same Netanyahu government that was bragging about
their pinpoint precision
and being able to kill Iranian leaders just just a
few days ago.
And here with pinpoint precision
with with their logos on the top of these vans
for the World Central Kitchen
missiles are delivered
through the middle of of of those those vans
and they're targeted.
I I mean, my God and and
so so many investigations coming after the war's over we're
told,
Benjamin Netanyahu says about those hostages now it's not the
time.
The hostages who escaped, who took their shirts off,
who raised their hands after escaping from the horror
of being a Hamas hostage,
and the IDF with their hands in the air,
with their shirts off, IDF guns them down.
Oh, that's an investigation we have to worry about later
too.
And then Netanyahu knowing for a year beforehand of Hamas
plans,
they had the plans in hand in the government doing
absolutely nothing about it,
doing absolutely nothing about the illicit funding
that Trump and Netanyahu knew about in
2018, the funding sources that kept Hamas war machine alive.
They looked the other way.
They said don't worry about it.
And of course as I've said on this show
and and and yet for some reason Netanyahu still is
not having to answer for this.
So I've said repeatedly, Netanyahu sent a representative up to
Doha 3 weeks before the attack on October the 7th.
The leaders of Qatar said,
do you guys still want us to keep sending all
this money to Hamas?
The answer Yes, of course we do.
Netanyahu was the chief sponsor
of Hamas through Qatar.
It was Netanyahu that was keeping the money flowing there.
Well, but
we can't investigate that until after the war's over.
We can't do anything until after the war is over.
We can't. We can't ask any questions about why
Benjamin Netanyahu set up a situation where Hamas had the
weapons,
the powers, the means to basically walk,
walk into Israel, walk into Israel.
An
assault. The IDF
and the famed, the famed Israeli Defense Forces
with mopeds, drugged up terrorists and paragliders
and Benjamin Netanyahu did nothing for hours
while Israeli women were beaten and raped and killed and
grandmothers were beaten and burned to death.
Babies were shot in their cribs.
Parents had to watch these.
These terrorists
like to call them something else.
These terrorists
shoot their children in front of them,
and children were forced to watch
as these terrorists shot their parents in front of them.
One hour it goes by.
Netanyahu's government does nothing. Two hours,
nothing. 3-4 The rapes continue.
Five hours, six out. Nothing.
7 hours. Not eight out.
Not 1010 hours. Some. Some places,
1213 hours. Nothing is done.
Well, what happened that day?
How in the How in the hell
did Benjamin Netanyahu's government allow that to happen?
Oh, you can't ask those questions.
We're fighting. Why
would you allow this man
to continue running your country
when he is responsible? I think they're asking that question
when he is responsible
for Hamas being able to run loose in Israel
and commit the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust.
We know the nature of Hamas.
We know their stated goal has always been
to kill Jews, to destroy Israel.
Yet not Netanyahu was funding them.
Netanyahu had their war plans.
Netanyahu did nothing. Netanyahu it he was asleep at the
switch when this happened.
I mean, Hamas, it's like scorpions.
If you had a nanny put scorpions
in your baby's crib,
would you say, well, you know,
it's a it's a tough time right now.
The baby's in the hospital.
We better keep the same nanny until the baby.
No?
In this case,
the man who is almost singularly responsible
for letting Israel's guard down because he was too interested
and fighting the rule of law in Israel.
He was too interested in dividing one Israeli against the
other.
He was too busy tending to the needs of religious
extremists,
so much so that he kind of forgot to take
care
of the secular elements of the IDF
and the Mossad and the Intel services that had kept
Israel safe since
1948. How long? How long?
Let's let's bring in Admiral Stravitas.
Admiral, I do not ask you to associate with a
single word.
I said I, I, I,
I, I do. I do though want to know how
long
I believe. It is my belief.
And if I am wrong,
please push back
the damage. The harm the Benjamin Netanyahu is inflicting on
Israel,
that he is already inflicted on Israel,
that he will inflict on Israel for years to come
because of his behavior
since and before October the 7th.
Seems to me it's so massive that we're going to
have to leave it to historians and future generations to
sum it up.
But I'm just wondering, how long does this continue the
hell that we're seeing play out in Israel and Gaza?
Let's start with the political I think that the clock
is indeed ticking on Benjamin Netanyahu for all the reasons
you articulate.
No democracy can tolerate that kind of incompetence
on display again and again and again.
That clock is ticking, and I think we're going to
hear from the center of Israeli politics,
the center left of Israeli politics,
and they're going to demand answers appropriately,
to the questions you just posed.
And I would indeed associate myself very strongly with all
of that.
I'll add that the in the center of that cabinet
is former General leader of the Israeli Defense Forces,
Benny Gantz, who is someone I've worked with consistently during
the four years I was Supreme Allied Commander,
NATO. You're seeing a photograph of him right now.
He's steady. He's deeply respected within that society and he
obviously knows the security and the international
aspects of all of this.
He gets it on how this is damaging Israel in
the longer term.
And Joe, you laid out very well all of the
internal dynamics and questions.
I'll give you a couple on the international scene,
starting with a tormented, obviously heartbroken leader in Jose Andres,
with whom I have worked on a number of different
things in my capacity as chairman of the board of
the Rockefeller Foundation.
He's passionate, emotional and appropriately furious
at the idea that this
attack on his forces could be called an accident.
It was a deliberate shot.
It was taken with bad intelligence,
obviously. But I'll close with this.
We absolutely need complete clarity,
transparency on the upcoming investigation.
And no, it can't wait until after hostilities stop,
probably months from now. It's got to happen now.