Welcome to Jerusalem Studio!
Viewers may wonder about our different studio,
but today we have a special edition on the topic of Gaza.
My expert guest is the same - Welcome, Pekka Sartola!
Last three weeks, when TV7 has been on summer vacation,
have been a bit difficult,
as we have been unable to tell our viewers
what is going on in Gaza and what methods Hamas uses.
This will be our subject today.
We often hear in the media
about the high number of civilian casualties.
It seems to be the main issue and Israel is the "bad guy".
Why so many civilians get killed and what methods does Hamas use?
Our domestic media feed is unfortunately very lopsided,
and tries to manipulate the viewers and listeners.
They only focus on events and leave out background info
and chronology.
News begin with "Israel did that, attacked this and that"
and in the end they might mention that Hamas fired some rockets.
The whole setting did not begin with the kidnapping and murder
of the three Jewish youth in June, however it was a certain catalyst.
Israel began to look for the culprits of this brutal murder.
Boys were found only three weeks after their disappearance.
In the meanwhile Israel was searching and claimed
that Hamas was behind it.
A couple of weeks earlier Hamas' leader had called
for the attacks against military and civilian objects on the West Bank
and to kidnap civilians who could be exchanged for prisoners.
That was the reason why Israel began to arrest Hamas members
and search for the culprits.
Hamas considered it revenge and began rocket fire against Israel.
It seemed in the beginning that Israel's actions were muted
but when rockets were reaching farther and farther
the situation escalated.
It is a natural reaction.
From the beginning Israel's current government
has followed a principle to protect its citizens:
If we are being fired at, we will fire back.
They have declared it publicly both to Palestinian Authority
as well as Hamas.
PA and Hamas' unity government is still limping.
Hamas has given the mandate to negotiate to Abbas
but kept its own military arsenal and execution of power,
and border guarding in Gaza.
As a result they are an independent factor
and are not interested in Abbas' negotiations on the West Bank.
They act independently based on their own goals and ideology
which is part of the charter of Muslim Brotherhood,
where Israel will never be recognized as a state,
is considered an occupier and must be destroyed.
In wider context that was the reason for the rocket fire
which Israel had to react to.
They launched air attacks from planes and helicopters
as well as artillery attacks.
Later, when the rocket fire escalated,
they had to opt for the land operation which is still ongoing.
Media keeps reporting about the growing number of casualties
among Gazans and less so among Israelis.
Very rarely do they mention
that EU and US classified Hamas as a terrorist organization.
We hear about the human shields and everyone knows its a fact.
How do they use them?
Unfortunately Hamas' tactics is to use civilians as shields
to protect their rockets.
Israel uses rockets to protect their civilians.
This is a cliché that's been circling in media for years.
Hamas is a terror organization.
Both UN, EU and US have classified it so.
Hamas does not look down on it
although they consider themselves freedom fighters.
They want to achieve their goals whatever the costs,
even using human shields.
The propaganda weapon, used also by Hezbollah in 2006,
is based on the image created by media
where mothers and fathers carry their wounded children
or bury the dead.
It is a normal result of a war
and in a densely populated area it is unavoidable.
Hamas' tactics is to use human shields on the roofs
to protect the buildings from the rockets.
According to them a dead child in his father's lap
is a much more effective weapon than a rocket at Israel.
Hamas won this media war even before it began.
Israel's tactics are much more reserved -
first they research everything thoroughly
and a few days later they make a statement about it.
Hamas usually makes statements immediately
using manipulated or authentic images.
Hamas lets reporters in, Israel does not,
trying to protect their lives as it is a war zone.
So the images are what Hamas and the reporter want it to be.
It was a surprise also for Israel that when going to look for tunnels
they found a lot more of them then expected.
What has the construction cost and what funds were used?
That was a real surprise to me and also to the intelligence circles
that Hamas has been so efficient.
According to some engineers it had to take 4 - 5 years
to construct this tunnel network.
Millions of tons of steel and cement have been used
and it has cost hundreds of millions.
It was thought that the tunnels were running only from Rafah to Egypt
who has destroyed 1700 tunnels.
The tunnels Israel is concerned about are from Gaza to Israel.
The border is around 50 km long so there's lots of room for them.
So far they have found around 30, the smallest of them a few km long,
they exhibit high quality and are 20 - 40 m below the surface.
There are rails to transport things,
and the tunnels are built from concrete blocks.
Why have they been built?
30 have been found and at least as many are still hidden.
They have but one goal - to infiltrate Israeli kibbutzes
and villages, to kill people and take civilians or soldiers hostage.
That was a great surprise for Israeli Defence Forces.
Their construction has cost a lot
and most of the funds have probably come from the West.
Of course. The West has funded lots of projects there.
Funds should have been used for apartments, hospitals,
kindergartens and infrastructure
which gets destroyed in every conflict.
I read a column by an Egyptian economic scientist
who listed interesting facts.
After each war hundreds of new millionaires emerge in Gaza.
According to him Hamas' leader Khaled Mashaal's net worth
is 2,6 billion USD.
How has he earned his money?
They are involved in all kinds of smuggling operations
and aid projects, and Hamas scrapes the profits.
The most democratic Hamas leaders get their percentage as well
and the people only get the little that is left.
They also do not respect even the ceasefires
they have proposed themselves. - True.
There have been around 5 this week
and Hamas is usually the first to violate them.
Their mentality is difficult for the West to understand.
When a ceasefire is agreed upon and it is to be kept,
for them it is a sign of weakness,
they want to be the ones to fire the last rocket.
And Israel responds when under fire.
In the beginning they restrained themselves,
but they noticed that Hamas' rocketfire did not end
so they continue to respond, ceasefire or not.
Israel cannot trust them.
There was an incident when Israel trusted in the ceasefire
and something happened. - It happens all the time.
UN schools, hospitals and aid centers
are used to store Hamas' rockets.
When they are used to fire rockets
or they are fired from their vicinity,
Israel will destroy the buildings as a direct result.
Hamas uses practices that are against international law
and are considered war crimes, but it seems allowed for Hamas.
Israel always informs civilians about attacks in advance
and urges them to leave,
but Hamas' representatives do not let them go.
They stop them even by guns.
It has been documented enough in the foreign press.
They do not let people leave in order to create more casualties.
It seems difficult for us to understand
that someone could do that but it does happen there.
You have followed Finnish media these past few weeks.
How closely have they reported on the events
and how far are they from the truth?
Finnish media seems to focus only on consequences
and leaves out the reasons.
It is mostly about Israel attacking some bases and power plants
and destroying a UN hospital.
They do not address the reasons for it.
Also reasons for the consequences should be addressed.
It is a densely populated area.
When people are forced to behave a certain way they have no choice.
There are other organizations in Gaza as well
but they all seem to be under the umbrella of Hamas.
Some of them also have ties to al-Qaeda.
However, in Gaza, everything happens under Hamas' umbrella.
There's 60 000 well-armed soldiers able to control the small enclave.
Neither Islamic Jihad nor any other group
can function without Hamas' support.
UN Secretary General
seems to aim at diplomatic talks.
Would they yield any fruit?
So far they have been quite useless.
It is great that they express their position
but UN's role is beginning to fade.
Israel does not rate them very highly
as the Arab clique of the General Assembly
can control and manipulate its decisions quite well.
UN Secretary General is just a mouthpiece expressing concern
and wishes for things to calm down
but for that to happen they should also condemn Hamas
not just what Israel does.
In June we talked about the 'two state solution'.
Hamas and Fatah will have parliamentary elections this fall
and they're supposed to be part of the same government.
How did Hamas manage to break away from it so suddenly,
leaving Abbas quite speechless.
The whole thing came like out of nowhere.
It began with the kidnapping of the three youths
which prescribed Israel's behavior.
They were forced to search for the culprits,
it ended in tragedy and launched the reaction.
The whole setting differs a bit
form any other Israeli-Arab conflict.
The whole Arab League has condemned Hamas for it
and they understand that Hamas is the main one to be blamed.
Also Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Emirates have understood
for the first time that Israel is justified in its actions.
Hamas has been condemned even among the Arabs states,
not by all of them, though, but by the main Sunni states.
When looking at the structure of the situation
then Hamas has spent recent years for arming and equipping
in order to drive Israel into the sea one day.
That is an unfortunate fact and the West has funded it.
Almost all of the UN aid that has gone in there
has been directed into Hamas' equipment circle
with the aim to destroy the Jewish State
and to fire as many rockets there as possible.
They have around 12 000 rockets of which they have used 3000
in order to pressure Israel to withdraw from Gaza borders
and give up more land.
They hope for the success of this tactic
but it will fail. Israel is able to defend itself.
Until they avoided the land operation their air attacks were more subdued
but when they have to search for the tunnels
and rocket reserves from mosques, hospitals, kindergartens and homes,
it adds a guerilla nature to the war which definitely leads to casualties.
Israel plans its attacks, can be quite precise
and even announces them in advance.
But Hamas fires at random
and Israeli citizens are not forewarned.
And they don't have many ballistic missiles,
just rockets.
And Hamas does not announce in advance about attacks.
They just fire 50 something rockets
and Iron Dome manages to intercept majority of them, but not all.
So there has been some damage as the result of the rocket fire.
The ground forces went in to destroy the tunnels.
How many more could be hidden
and how deep are Hamas' command centers?
How long could it take
until all tunnels are discovered and destroyed?
I cannot predict how many tunnels there are
but Israeli army estimates that if they have found 30
and destroyed 17 of them, there must be as many undiscovered.
There might be 50 more tunnels.
Some of them are a kilometer long, reach 20 - 40 meters underground
and a man can stand up straight in them.
They have taken lots of time and resources.
and all that in order to kill Israelis on their own soil.
The setting is absurd.
Israel is going nowhere,
even if they dug 100 tunnels and fire rockets endlessly.
Israel will respond to the attacks
and that always leads to civilian casualties.
What do you think of the proposed idea
of Gaza being demilitarized, without tunnels and arms?
That would be an ideal situation.
That was Israel's goal when they gave up Gaza in 2005.
There was no blocade around Gaza, they had free reign over there.
15 000 Israeli soldiers and 9000 civilians left Gaza
and 40 kibbutzes and villages were destroyed and left to them,
so they would live in peace with Israel.
But instead, rocket fire started.
Hamas won the elections in the following year,
felt they had achieved a victory and propagated an idea
that they managed to intimidate the Zionists away
with their violent politics.
In their mind it is a victorious tactic
which is to bring them more territories and support.
Knowing what we know now
they would probably not make the same decision again.
Most certainly not. Netanyahu left Ariel Sharon's government then,
because he was against giving up Gaza
as he knew where it would lead.
George Bush forced Sharon to give in to Hamas
for the situation to resolve.
Demilitarization is the only correct way.
All Hamas' arms reserves should be emptied
and tunnels destroyed, so that people could build homes
live in peace and go to work and not vice versa,
where they try to create a situation that inevitably leads to a new conflict.
Israel is a small country
and to the north of it is Hezbollah.
What if the ground was dug up in the north -
would we find similar tunnels there?
Southern Lebanon's mountainous terrain is a tougher area.
Hezbollah has bunkers in those mountains
with the goal to fire rockets and make commando strikes
which in 2006 led to a summer war.
Hamas would like Hezbollah to join the war
in order to open another front in the north.
Israel is very aware of it -
as there is a threat from Syria, ISIL and Lebanon.
They have not excluded the possibility of the second front.
It does not weaken their army,
they will mobilize more reservists and continue.
All this fighting is also quite expensive.
It is extremely expensive and it is so mindless.
It only feeds into Hamas' armament politics.
They have not bothered to check where do all the aid funds go
and continue to go also after the conflict
in the form of money and supplies.
Most of it will unfortunately go into the wrong hands.
I have also wondered about the media
that reports about 20 casualties in Gaza
who were perhaps human shields,
but the war in Syria has lasted for three years, and for 3 years,
approximately 200 people have been killed every day.
And that does not even make headlines anymore.
Anything about Israel always makes headlines.
170 000 - 180 000 people, mostly civilians, have died in Syria.
The country is completely in ruins
and there's no end in sight for the conflict.
ISIL's involvement is a terrible turn of events.
Not as much attention is given to that
compared to the events in Gaza.
ISIS is behind many brutalities in Iraq and also in Syria, isn't it?
Yes, they are in Syria as well,
and now they set their sights on Jordan and Golan Heights.
Israel is also ready for that.
Can you say a few words about it
since ISIL emerged as an utter surprise.
It truly was. ISIL has ties to al-Qaeda.
Its leader al-Baghdadi has declared his caliphate
based on medieval Islamic practices.
It is a very brutal, armed group.
They began in Kurdi areas
and conquered the arsenal of the whole Iraqi army in Mosul,
including lots of weapons and equipment,
some of which they were unable to use.
They emptied Mosul's bank, got at least half a billion,
and have hired mercenaries.
Radical Sunnis have joined them, as they pay well.
They plan to spread their caliphate to Syria and Iraq.
The latter is unable to resist unless other countries aid them.
ISIL is a real threat.
Israel is surrounded by threats.
The current one in Gaza is quite difficult as well.
Thank you, Pekka. Our time is up.
In three weeks we'll be back with a new program.
Thank you, dear viewers!
Please pray for Israel and Jerusalem!
There's a great need for it.
Thanks for watching!
Translation: Monika Jaaguri