Egyptian Political Scientist speaks the truth on Lebanese TV - Go Figure

 

An Egyptian On Lebanese Television Tells — Amazingly —

The Truth

JAN 16, 2024 2:00 PM BY HUGH FITZGERALD

We never expect to hear an Arab analyst, political scientist, politician, or journalist speak home truths about Israel and its enemies, so that when one comes along who tells the truth about the Jewish state and the Arabs, his appearance should be given grateful attention. More on this interview with political scientist Magdi Khalil on an online Lebanese TV station can be found here: 

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Elder of Ziyon, January 11, 2024:

Spot Shot is an online Lebanese TV station that has several hundred thousand followers on YouTube and Facebook.

They had an interview with Dr. Magdi Khalil, an Egyptian political scientist, where he said things that were ….sane.

In an interview on “Spotshot” within the “Point of View” program, Khalil said: “Asymmetric wars are very complex wars and take time, and Israel has so far killed more than 8,500 Hamas fighters and destroyed all of its military structure in the north.”

Khalil sounds like British Colonel Richard Kemp in expressesing his sympathetic understanding for the IDF’s fighting a “very complex war” that “takes time” — meaning no one should expect Israel to agree to a ceasefire any time soon. He’s also up to date on, and admiring of, the IDF’s achievement in killing 8,500 (now more than 9,000) Hamas fighters, “and [having] destroyed all of its military structure in the north.”

He added, “In all wars, a large number of civilians are killed more than military personnel, especially in asymmetric wars. This is normal when an army faces a military militia in densely populated cities, where this militia lives underground and under hospitals and schools. I say this with my regret for the loss of life.”

Khalil provides the reasons why Gazan civilians have died In such numbers. “In all wars,” he notes, more civilians die than combatants. He might have added that in the Gaza War, the ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths is 95:135, or roughly 2:3. That is the lowest such ratio ever recorded in any war anywhere. And that achievement, the result of Israel’s extraordinary policy of warning civilians away from combat areas or buildings about to be targeted, one of the reasons that Colonel Richard Kemp declared that “the IDF is the most moral army in the world.” Khalil knows what it means to fight an asymmetric war in “densely populated areas,” and where, furthermore, the enemy deliberately hides in tunnels underground, some of which are under civilian structures such as schools and hospitals, that make the IDF operations against Hamas hellishly difficult.

He said that “Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah, which operates under an Iranian agenda, and Israel is ready for peace with Lebanon, but what it rejects is Hezbollah, which is using the conflict with Israel in order to control the Lebanese interior, and Iran is feeding the party [supplying weapons and money] in order to use it in its major battle.”

Magdi Khalil recognizes that Israel has no quarrel with the state of Lebanon, but it does with Hezbollah, a non-state actor and terrorist group that now controls that country. Hezbollah presents itself as the only force capable of standing up to Israel, and for that the Lebanese are supposed to be grateful, but without Hezbollah, there would be no need for anyone in Lebanon to worry about an attack from Israel. And Hezbollah, Khalil matter-of-factly admits, follows the orders of Iran. The Lebanese Shi’a who make up Hezbollah are supported with weapons and money from Iran in order that eventually, when Iran gives the signal, they will take on the IDF, fighting and dying for the Islamic Republic and yet again dragging Lebanon into a war that the Lebanese – aside from Hezbollah – do not want.

He pointed out that “Hezbollah is not authorized to negotiate with Israel. This is the task of the Lebanese state, which must first negotiate with Syria about the ownership of the Shebaa Farms, and then with Israel to close this file, but Hezbollah does not want that, and it controls the entire state politically, economically and everything else, which is the main burden on Lebanon.”

The dispute between Israel and Lebanon over who owns the Shebaa Farms could be solved without delay, Khalil complains, but Hezbollah, an Iranian puppet, wants to keep the territorial dispute between Israel and Lebanon alive, in order that the enmity between the two countries continues, and Hezbollah can present itself as the “defender of Lebanon against the Israeli aggressors.”