In a fiery exchange, Israel’s Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely challenges Piers Morgan on Hamas, war ethics, and global hypocrisy: ‘Would you accept Hamas on your doorstep?’
UK broadcaster Piers Morgan attacked Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely, asking if she is “prepared to kill” children in the war against Hamas, since in his opinion, Israel’s strategy “is failing.”
“How many Japanese children were killed under American attacks, and how many German children were killed under UK attacks in the Second World War?” she shot back.
“If you want to play a fair game you need to understand how Western armies operated in the past. Israel is not anywhere near the American attacks in Tokyo that killed 100,000 civilians, and not anywhere near to what the UK was doing in the Second World War.”
Noting that she hears “all the people criticizing Israel today, including yourself,” she demanded: “I’m asking you this question: If Israel finishes the war today and Hamas stays on our doorstep, what kind of future do you promise my children – a future that the seventh of October will happen again and again, just like Hamas leaders promised? This is what you expect the Israelis and Israeli leadership to accept?!”
Morgan admitted, “I did not think of that,” adding that Hamas should not be allowed to even run a store after the war.
“So how do you achieve that?” Hotovely challenged. “Who’s volunteering there to demilitarize the Gaza Strip?”
“Israel doesn’t like fighting,” she stressed. “These are our sons, brothers, and husbands who are fighting this war. No one has an interest to lose his business and to fight for 600 days unless it’s a really existential threat. And Gaza has become an existential threat because of what happened, because they’re being backed up by Iran, and we are not going to let it repeat even if we lose your sympathy. And we need to win this war and Israel will do everything to make sure Hamas won’t control the Gaza Strip and I don’t get to hear from anyone, including the leaders of Europe, a better plan of how to dismantle Hamas besides fighting.”
British-Israeli diplomacy expert Eylon Levy, who served as a spokesperson in Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate earlier in the war, praised Ambassador Hotovely for her interview.
“I want to give huge credit to Israel’s Ambassador to London, Tzipi Hotovely, for agreeing to be interviewed by Piers Morgan,” he said. “She walked into the lion’s den, fully aware that the journalist would do everything in his power to portray her in the most negative light. It’s no small thing to agree to such a hostile interview and expose oneself to so much hatred online. Thank you, Tzipi.”
