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Matt Kennard speaks to Elon Perry, a former Israeli Commando who has since gained international media attention.
At the time of our interview on 08.08.24, we were unaware of the subsequent discussions that would emerge around Perry’s articles in Jewish Chronicle.
Respected outlets in Israel and Britain have reported on claims that Perry’s articles, particularly those concerning Hamas and the Philadelphi Corridor, may have been part of a broader Israeli government propaganda campaign related to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s negotiating position over Gaza.
In this interview, Perry defends Israel's war on Palestine, explaining the history of the conflict and rebukes the world court case for genocide.
The Racket is a series of interviews based on the book The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire by Matt Kennard. The series examines the power of the US empire around the world and its attempts to control nations via war and economic strangulation.
Throughout the series Matt Kennard and guests will investigate the violent colonial beginnings of the most powerful nation in history, the tightening of its global stronghold post World War II, the crushing of dissent via CIA interference and its various ongoing wars around the world from a range of perspectives.
“Donald Trump has assembled the most pro-Israel cabinet in the history of the United States, I’ve investigated his funders and it all makes sense”
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In this video, you will witness the incredible life story of Adnan Adrian Wood-Smith, an American who devoted his life to becoming an FBI agent and then gave up his life purpose to live an Islamic life!
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The Israeli military has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza — about two percent of the Strip’s population. It has wreaked total havoc, systematically destroying residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, and universities. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli soldiers have fought in Gaza over the past 10 months, and yet the moral debate is almost non-existent. The number of soldiers who have spoken out about their crimes or moral difficulties with serious reflection or regret, even anonymously, can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Paradoxically, the senseless and gratuitous destruction that the military is wreaking in Gaza can be seen from the hundreds of videos that Israeli soldiers have filmed and sent to friends, family, or partners out of pride in their actions. It is from their recordings that we watched troops blowing up universities in Gaza, shooting randomly at houses, and destroying a water facility in Rafah, to name just a few examples.
Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss, commander of the 98th Division, whose lengthy retirement interview was presented as an example of a commander who upholds democratic values, said: “I don’t feel sorry for the enemy … you won’t see me on the battlefield feeling sorry for the enemy. Either I kill him, or I capture him.” Not a word was said about the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed by army fire, or about the dilemmas that accompanied such slaughter.
Similarly, Lt. Col. A., commander of the 200th Squadron which operates the Israeli Air Force’s fleet of drones, gave an interview to Ynet earlier this month, in which he claimed his unit had killed “6,000 terrorists” during the war. When asked, in the context of the rescue operation to free four Israeli hostages in June, which resulted in the killing of over 270 Palestinians, “How do you identify who is a terrorist?” he answered: “We attacked on the side of the street to drive civilians away, and whoever did not flee, even if he was unarmed, as far as we were concerned, was a terrorist. Everyone we killed should have been killed.”
This dehumanization has reached new heights in recent weeks with the debate over the legitimacy of raping Palestinian prisoners. In a discussion on the mainstream TV network Channel 12, Yehuda Shlezinger, a “commentator” from the right-wing daily Israel Hayom, called for institutionalizing rape of prisoners as part of military practice. At least three Knesset members from the ruling Likud party also argued that Israeli soldiers should be allowed to do anything, including rape.
But the biggest trophy goes to Israel’s Finance Minister and Defense Ministry deputy, Bezalel Smotrich. The world “won’t let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” he lamented at an Israel Hayom conference earlier this month.
“It is me waking up and realizing that the country that my grandfathers fought for, the country that my child still in uniform, fights for and protects, is failing to protect me. That in this country, four generations on we don't matter, we don't belong.”
Former member of the British Conservative Cabinet Minister, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi shares her fears and vulnerabilites as a Muslim entrenched in politics in the UK and discusses racism, bigotry, and Islamophobia, which are the themes of her latest book, “Muslims Don’t Matter.’
The fence line is 600m away. The northern part of Gaza, where Israel is carrying out a genocide within a genocide, systematically starving 300,000 Palestinians to death, is about 2km further.
The absurdity and the obscenity of being able to be this close to 20,000 murdered children, their bodies “prophetic voices from under the rubble” as a colleague called them, is difficult to accept.
The grotesque horror of a school field trip arriving at this location from two hours away to watch the mass slaughter from an observation deck was a shock I am overwhelmed by. The first wave of boys pumped celebratory firsts and thrust middle fingers upon their sight of Gaza.
There were no warplanes or drones visible. The school kids and other audience members of a genocide who gawked and put money into a telescope left disappointed as they saw no bombs or missiles, no artillery or tank fire. There were no blast waves from controlled demolitions to wash over them, and the numbers of smoke pillars from smoldering and cratered homes and schools were in the single digits, their fires not vigorous enough to be smelled. It must have been underwhelming and a let down; not much to boast about or revel in on the school bus ride home.
It was quiet. The sounds of those buried under rubble don’t reach the observation deck. No torn and wrecked bodies could be seen, no sunlight reflected in pools of blood, and no strips of clothes snagged on exposed bones fluttered in the strong wind. We were as close as we could be but so separate and so safe from it. It was sanitary and septic, picturesque.
I felt I was a voyeur, a tourist, a spectator. I felt disgust and disbelief. And I felt an absence within me that I cannot articulate.
To be that close to the cleansing and destruction of 2.2 million people and to be centering now my words on my feelings doesn’t escape me. Perhaps a well-achieved purpose of that observation deck of genocide.
The Nietzsche-ism, stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back at you, struck me as I stood there.
Stare into Gaza and Gaza stares back is what I am left with now, comfortable in my Jerusalem hotel, just hours after looking into their genocide as if I were on a platform at a national park or on the boardwalk at the shore.
The horror of the genocide I expected but did not see. I thought I might curse and cry. I did neither. The cruel and so very human spectacle of a caged people being destroyed as a display for school children was what I encountered. I did not expect that and I don’t know how to respond.
Note: Americans partially funded this observation deck.
