Hillel Neuer appeared on Fox News with Trey Gowdy to discuss Israel’s counterterrorism operations and the despicable support in the West for atrocities committed by Hamas.
Trey Gowdy: Joining us is the Executive Director of the UN Watch, Hillel Neuer. Welcome, sir. Iran sent missiles into Israel. The U.S. seems reluctant to do anything inside Iran—Israel is not. So, what happens next?
Hillel Neuer: Look, Israel is facing a seven front war. The past year they were, as you said, invaded on October 7th, a year ago tomorrow. They suffered the equivalent of something like 10 times what Americans suffered in September 11th, 2001. In a very small country of about 9 million people, 1200 people were massacred, raped, and mutilated.
On October 8th, Hezbollah opened the second front. They attacked Israel again, unprovoked. They launched 10,000 missiles, rockets and suicide drones since then. So where we are now is that Israel has finally begun to strike back against Hezbollah in the north. Because of Hezbollah, many northern towns have been empty. There are some 70,000 Israelis who have been displaced or who are living as refugees within Israel.
Finally, Israel began to strike back, carrying out extraordinary operations. We saw the beepers—1000s of beepers went off on the Hezbollah commanders who were carrying the beepers. They exploded in their hands. So, this was the most pinpoint, precise counterterrorism operation, perhaps in military history.
Then Nasrallah, the arch terrorist of Hezbollah, was eliminated, along with other leaders, and Iran decided that if you attack our terror proxy in Lebanon, then we will strike back. And they attacked Israel with some 200 missiles, again, one of the largest missile barrages ever fired against any country, and now we’re waiting for Israel’s response. And will the response come tomorrow on the anniversary of October 7th? It would be a fitting time, if so.
Trey Gowdy: I don’t ever want to forget about the fact that there are hostages that remain in captivity held by Hamas. So, what exactly is Hamas asking for in return for those that may happen to still be alive that are in their captivity?
Hillel Neuer: You’re quite right. You know, a year ago, Hamas took some 250 innocent people from Israel, dragged them into Gaza, and put them in dungeons. Today, there’s estimated about 100 or so that remain. We don’t know how many are living, or how many are dead. Hamas says that they want Israel to leave Gaza entirely and basically to let Hamas remain in power. That’s basically the deal.
First of all, Hamas has not indicated who’s alive. We don’t know who’s alive or who’s dead. They haven’t really been negotiating in the past several months with any seriousness at all. No one knows where Yahya Sinwar is. Even our supposed ally Qatar, which is a sponsor of the Taliban, a sponsor of Hamas, and a supposed U.S. ally—they’re not helping. They say they don’t know where Sinwar is. In fact, Qatar was giving their hospitality to the leaders of Hamas. It was only when the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, went to Iran that Israel felt able to strike in a country that’s not a supposed major U.S. ally.
So, it’s not really clear what Hamas wants but certainly they want to remain in power. They want Israel entirely to leave and of course, given what happened on October 7th, Israel is not going to return to a situation where a terrorist army is sitting there with thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli towns, with thousands of terrorists ready to go in tunnels to invade Israeli towns and slaughter families, one child in front of their parents and so forth. These kinds of sadistic atrocities is what took place a year ago, and Hamas only promises that they want to do it again.
And the sick thing, Trey, what I’d say is the most despicable thing, is that in our own cities in the West, in New York City, in London, in Montreal, you have mobs saying that they want to celebrate October 7th. That they want to celebrate attacks on Israelis, against colonialism and all the other ideological nonsense. And I can’t think of anything more despicable that here in the West, in democracies, there are people openly supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, both of them evil, barbaric terrorist groups which are openly antisemitic, openly call to destroy Israel, and openly endorse the slaughter of families. And in the streets and the campuses of America, you have students who are embracing this. It’s really despicable.
Trey Gowdy: Hillel Neuer, thank you so much for joining us on a Sunday night.
Hillel Neuer: Thank you for having me.
