In this episode of Family Matters, Simon O’Connor engages in a detailed discussion with His Excellency, Alon Roth-Snir, the Israeli Ambassador to New Zealand, about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza. The conversation covers the tense atmosphere in Israel, the dual political and personal burdens faced by both the nation and Roth as a diplomat and family man.
Roth sheds light on the emotional and practical challenges of maintaining normalcy while confronting existential threats from groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Emphasizing Israel’s democratic values, he defends the nation’s military actions as necessary for survival and criticizes the media for biased and inaccurate coverage.
Simon and Alon also discuss the implications of antisemitism in New Zealand and the broader geopolitical stakes of the conflict. The Ambassador underscores the importance of looking beyond immediate hostilities towards longer-term peace solutions, such as the Abraham Accords.
The discussion aims to provide a nuanced view of Israel’s position and the complexities involved in the conflict.
Please note, this podcast was recorded on the 17th of September.
Show script auto-generated by Descript app:
Simon O’Connor: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Family Matters. We’re talking actually, Israel, we’re talking the conflict between Israel and Gaza. It’s on everyone’s minds. It’s being talked about constantly in media, and I thought actually, if we’re going to be talking about Israel there is no one better than to have the Israeli ambassador to New Zealand come along.
So to His Excellency, Alon Roth-Snir, welcome to the show.
Alon Roth-Snir: Good morning, Simon. Thank you for inviting me.
Simon O’Connor: Alon, thank you. If I might be informal, I should say to viewers, I know Alon we’ve talked a few times and invited them to come along to talk from the Israeli perspective, and of course, Alon, your role here in New Zealand.
Just quickly, how long have you been, I know the answer, but how long have you been the ambassador of Israel to New Zealand?
Alon Roth-Snir: For the last seven months, very interesting, seven months. Very hectic, as you can imagine. So many people travelled a lot around this very lengthy and very interesting and diverse country of yours.
Simon O’Connor: It’s great to have you here. As you say it’s an interesting seven months. You’ve been thrown right in the deep end, and I can imagine many conversations with our politicians and foreign service people here. There’s so much going on, but if we might start what’s the mood in Israel at the moment?
Like I, I know you’re here in New Zealand and you can’t speak for 10 million people, but we get so much. Coverage and commentary down here. I would say particularly on Gaza itself and Garzas I’m interested in what are Israelis thinking? What’s the mood there?
Alon Roth-Snir: I thank you very much for your question because I do think that this is an issue that is not yet enough discuss here in New Zealand, Israel itself.
The burden that Israel has is a democracy that is fighting for its survival against very vicious enemies. And I’m a diplomat, but still I’m a father. I’m a grandfather. I have my grandchildren and children in Israel itself. So I feel both the. Let’s say, let’s call it the political serious burden and the personal burden.
And I think that many Israelis feel it as well, trying to hold normal life that are benefiting themselves, the country, sometimes the world by innovation and other stuff, and on the same time have to defend themselves against very vicious and existential threats upon us. We see it on a daily basis.
Simon O’Connor: We obviously had the horrendous events of October 7th, and we should delve into that a little bit, but you’ve used the phrase existential threat. And I think probably, I’ve been to Israel recently. In fact, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel very kindly had me come across and really important to stress too, to viewers as I have on various media interviews, I have my own independent thoughts and minds. And actually while we were welcomed by your Foreign Ministry Alon, I was quite taken by the scope and freedom I had, which I shouldn’t be surprised about. As you say, you are a democracy, but there are these existential threats. And they didn’t just start on October 7th, did they?
Alon Roth-Snir: No. I’ll take the example of Iran. Iran is talking about an inhalation no less than that of the state of Israel already for years, for dozens of years. And it’s not ending by there. Chama as well is calling for the destruction of the state of Israel, and it’s tried to do it on the 7th of October.
So this notion of existential threat is something that every Israeli feel I’m not a young boy anymore and I can’t remember one year of my life in which I didn’t feel this burden, which is not just, your own personal security. It is. The security of the state, something that I totally understand how difficult it is to understand in such a calm, far away country like yours, a beautiful country in which you can just dwell into your personal life.
This is something as I said before, that we are trying to do in parallel mitigating this existential threat, fighting for our survival, and on the same time being normal people. This is very difficult. It’s not easy at all. It’s a very difficult burden, especially when it is not being portrayed outside.
Unfortunately, by medias the way I portrayed it now, we are a full democratic society with full freedoms that is situated in a region in which tyranny and barbarism are still the matters of the day. So these are the true feelings of the Israeli nowadays, the Israelis nowadays.
Simon O’Connor: I’m pleased you mentioned the normality and the democratic nature.
I obviously read and know a lot about Israel through the books, but actually being there alone and seeing firstly the great diversity of people of the Israeli population, Jews, Arabs Jews and others. But also it was that normality freedom of the press a society in many ways that I think New Zealanders would recognise.
But you’ve touched a little bit on it, but why do you think there is such a disconnect for the likes of New Zealanders and others, particularly in the West who seem to demonize Israel without understanding it and also, almost turn into saints, the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah and the regime running around.
It seems very incongruous to me.
Alon Roth-Snir: You are touching a very important point, and I can assure you I ask myself this question twice a day. At least I ask myself beyond the actual I would say. This or that pointed issue that you can, we can discuss. I’m asking in general, how is it possible that people do not recognize that there is a functioning democracy here that is trying to defend itself again against.
That have nothing to do with our values, with our democracy, with our freedom of speech, with freedom of everything. I’m coming from Haifa. My city of Haifa is an emblem of life between Jews and Christians and Muslims and Bahais and open life, very free ones. And people, instead of seeing it as I don’t want to say miracle, but a very shiny example in the Middle East, that in which you can’t find this calmness and this kind of freedoms. Everywhere. And still they support ideas and they support I would say efforts and of that are coming from very vicious forces that again, have nothing to do with the values that the Israeli society and the Israeli people are still guarding even after two years of very tough times.
Simon O’Connor: The attacks have, of course, continued. I’m not just talking Gaza here, but we had attacks recently in Jerusalem, I have to say, amazing footage of a taxi driver who even under fire was helping a, an older lady out of the taxi. Calmly. I was very struck by that heroism. But these attacks and threats continue and it all goes back to ultimately regimes like that in Iran, obviously.
What drives Hezbollah? Hamas? The Houthis? It’s a philosophy, is it not? Or a, even a religious belief that I think, I’m going to phrase it as a statement, but it’s as much a question, it’s a philosophy which is just so antithetical to democracy and to the freedoms which we here in New Zealand, and you and Israel enjoy.
Alon Roth-Snir: I think that you’re totally right and I’ll go even beyond that. I will say that we see here a fight between death cults embedded an emblem today by Hamas, for example, and by Iran to and two regimes. So whatever you will call them that have nothing to do with the values of life, of creation that you will find in Israel.
And those are not just empty words. Look what’s happening with Israeli innovation, for example, even during the war. I mean in health, in agriculture, in water management, in cyber, everywhere you see how we in our society, by the way, Israelis are Jews and Muslims and Christians, and as I said, others as well, and they are all participate in this effort of life, of creation, of achieving something that will take humanity.
A bit further. And in the other side the death cult that is not just harming Israelis, that is harming their own peoples that is seeing suffering as something that is useful, something that should be done because it’s useful. In Israel we see totally different as you say, our norms, our values are the same values that you will find here in New Zealand and under very tough circumstances, not in the calmness that you have here.
So I see it as a clash. I don’t want to use words like clash of civilizations. I don’t know exactly what does this mean, but clash of ideas, clash of perceptions, clash of life and death. And this is something that is very vividly seen in Israel, felt by us Israelis, and I am I’m sure that when you visited Israel, you saw it with your own eyes, and you heard it with your own ears.
Just walking in the streets of Tel Aviv and seeing this culture of let’s do something good. Let’s do something happy, let’s live and not let’s die is a very strong notion of the state of Israel and the people of Israel even nowadays.
Simon O’Connor: Yeah, it was one of the bigger takeaways, again, meeting quite a diverse range of Israelis and in those conversations as to say that the desire to just live, to have life.
But I contrast, and I’m pleased you used the phrase death cult. My, my cards are clearly on the table on this issue. I see the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah and others as a death cult. The takeaway. I’ve struggled time and time again along to explain this to New Zealanders, and I think it’s actually via Douglas Murray who says their lust for death or their desire for death is just as strong as our want for life.
And I think a lot of people just can’t conceptualize even after the horrors of October 7th. What drives these terrorists and these zealots and fundamentalists? Another takeaway was had they had more time on October 7th, they wouldn’t have stopped. Killing this wasn’t a limited action. They would’ve just kept going.
And I just, I suppose I’m churning on this because I just don’t think people can conceptualize it here. And I think it leads to their misrepresentation of what Israel’s doing and how the campaign has been fought.
Alon Roth-Snir: I agree, and I think that people here, I totally understand why people living far, not just in Wellington or in Auckland, less I would say in the smaller areas or the rural areas, or even in the big cities, living life of freedom, which looks very natural, which looks almost automatic, which, doesn’t enable you or makes it very difficult to understand how it is to live other kind of life with other peoples that have, as I said before, the world values is very important. Totally different values value of human life, value of freedoms. Look around. You don’t have to ask the Israeli ambassador for this.
You can see what’s happening in many countries in the Middle East. Look on the problems that are in Yemen and in Libya and in Syria and in Lebanon and everywhere. Iraq problematics everywhere. Now. I’m not here in order to talk about them or defend them, I’m just saying this is the place where we live.
Above all that you see the Hamas and Hamas has come on the 7th of October, not just with the attack on Israel, I’m saying it’s not just the attack itself, it’s the ferocious ferocity. It’s the barbarism that we saw there, burning whole families with kids in their homes, raping women. And I will not continue with the descriptions killing innocent people just because they are.
People, it doesn’t matter if they are a baby in three days baby or old Holocaust survivor, they killed everyone. And they said, we are going to kill everyone and we intend to do it. And just clearly they said, we will do 1000 more 7th of October. This is the reality in which we live, and I don’t ask people to try and to understand it.
It’s very difficult. I’m just asking them to recognize that in the world there are other places, other regions that behave differently and we live in such a place and we have to defend our lives by fighting. Not happily, we are not happy to do this. Believe me, I would’ve preferred my kids and my grandchildren to do other things rather than having to sometimes fight and like them thousands of young Israelis.
I think that this is difficult to understand, but people have to understand that some parts of the world behave differently and this is why they see what they see. And permit me to add one more phrase to it. I’m afraid that the way this is being seen on the media, both the electronic media, television, radio internet, of course social media and printed media even here in New Zealand, is a bit falsified, is not the real truth.
He’s not showing both sides. He’s not showing the Israeli side. He’s showing only accusations against the democracy that is trying to defend itself. And this creates a totally distorted picture of what is happening there. And this is very unfortunate and I think that, if my, if I can humbly give an advice, people should ask themselves, how is it possible that the democracy is being blamed the whole time?
A functioning democracy with very powerful rule of law with the democratically elected parliament and government. We are being blamed the whole time and accused the whole time. And the other side is being left at. That’s okay, they’re terrorists, so we don’t expect. This is unacceptable. Unacceptable.
And I think this at least should be recognised as a thing that gives a very distorted view on what is happening right now in Israel, in the Palestinian Territories, in Gaza and elsewhere.
Simon O’Connor: It resonates with me because I met a rabbi, actually I met several rabbis, but when I was at the Western or the Wailing Wall a rabbi noticed me as a bit of a foreigner, particularly through my accent, but he said, we feel abandoned. And he was quite confused in terms of why democratic nations would, in a sense, disengaged so much. He wasn’t suggesting that people shouldn’t question Israel’s conduct. I know Israelis themselves question the nature of the war and the intents and so forth.
But yeah, I was just really struck by that of how many, not all, but many in the West seem to have hitched their wagon to a terrorist organisation and it does – look, I’m happy to say it, not happy to say it, I’m sad to report it, but the media here I think are very biased, I’d almost go as far along, and again, it is a question, they almost seem obsessed with Israel and it’s through the UN as well. You can’t really do anything in Israel without absolute scrutiny. And yet there’s near silence on what’s been happening in Syria. You mentioned Libya. I’m thinking of the moment there’s attacks in Nigeria and Congo and there’s no coverage, but everything that Israel does gets a hyper focus.
And that surely must frustrate Israelis.
Alon Roth-Snir: Very much as I said before, you cannot understand it even if you don’t analyse just a point here, a point there, and we have good answers for everything. But I am always saying, just take a step backwards and ask yourself, the viewer, the listener, ask yourself how is it possible that you hear horrible things, accusations.
On every possible, from every possible angle, only on the Jewish state, on the democratic state, on the state that is functioning on a state that is holding the same values as you do the Jewish state and you don’t hear anything else about what is happening. Anywhere, there are horrible things that are happening in other corners of the world.
Even if we go out of the Middle East horrible, massacres, horrible things that are resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of people. I don’t want to name them. Everyone knows them and still they’re not being dealt with. You hardly see the United Nations dealing with them. You hardly hear politicians talking about them.
You hardly hear human rights. Organization dealing with them operationally, but you hear him, them the whole time attacking Israel. I think that part of it is this old demon that is haunting last four thousands of years already, which is called antisemitism. I don’t think it’s only that. I think that sometimes there are very, I would say cynical political calculations as well, but I think that at least the viewers, the intelligent viewers themselves questions and should ask themselves, how is it possible, as the rabbi asked you, ‘we don’t understand it’. I must admit, I don’t understand it as well unless I’m adding to it a bit of cynicism, a bit of political calculations, and not a bit of antisemitism, because it seems as if only the Jewish, Israeli state is singled out, is suffering from double standards sometimes.
Heavier than that is accused the whole time and the other parts of the world or the Middle East in which horrible things are happening are not even mentioned.
Simon O’Connor: Now, I’m often struck by what is not reported, so for me it’s not just the lack of balance, it’s what’s not being reported as you say, if you will.
Similar conflicts or challenges to human rights in other parts of the world. But it’s also the, I’ll push the boat out, it’s the falsifications that happened. So was it a couple of weeks ago the supposed Genocide Oversight Group made some claims around the nature of what they believe is genocide happening in Gaza, but after some quick investigations by some proper journalists sorry, I should back up the horse. There mainstream media outlets, including here in New Zealand ran those stories about the accusations, but it turned out it was an open group as in anyone could join this expert panel of genocide experts making – a very awkward sentence there. People from Iraq, all sorts of weird names. I think they only had to pay $30 or something, and yet, once that was discovered, if you will, the fraudulent nature the story went silent and just moved on, and I just find it extraordinary. It’s so frustrating. Even if we back off from Israel, Gaza, to say, surely we can expect more of our media.
Alon Roth-Snir: I am afraid. I agree. I’m a foreign diplomat. I’m a guest in your country. So it’s not for me to decide how the media covers or not, but permit me humbly to say, again, as a foreigner, but someone who resides here and who represents the state of Israel here that I’m sometimes shocked by. The non-verification effects and data in numbers and numbers of casualties that are falsified by a inter organisation and are copied without verification, without effort to check them by the media.
And as you said. Once those falsified information is being revealed and that those are just lies. The media doesn’t correct itself, and if it corrects itself in a very minute, minor way, that is not stinged by anyone. I can give you the examples of the emaciated children, these photos that are really tearing the heart of each one of us.
The, we are family members, we are fathers. I’m a father. As I said, I have children. I don’t like to see this kind of photos. I don’t think that, but when you hear that those photos are being used in order to accuse Israel of starvation, when we show time and again that these poor children are suffering from very severe maladies, and that their siblings sitting ne nearby are not starving at all.
And when you show it to the media is. Listening and doing nothing, and the photos are still there. Worse than this, I can tell you that I saw examples here in which photos are being cropped in order to leave the emaciated. Pictures or emaciated human beings, the children in this regard, in this case and the others that are proving that there is no salvation are cropped out.
So when you show this again to the media is not doing anything with this, and this is very sad.
Simon O’Connor: Oh, I saw it the other week actually, that, that same photo as you say it, it rings the heart. But it was being put forward, I think it might’ve been the New York Times and republished in the New Zealand Herald.
It was like the top 12 photos so far this year. And it was the one of the mother holding the emaciated child and from a photographic standpoint it’s got its quality for want of a better word, but no context was included again the misrepresentation of this, because I think the child actually had cerebral palsy.
No, actually I won’t, it was another melody, as you say, another major underlying condition, but that context was left out. And it’s happening time and time again. But we’ve touched on values as you are saying, there’s a lot of alignment of values. What would you say then to, new Zealanders who go, gosh we don’t like what we’re seeing happening in Gaza.
Those who say how can our values align when there is this war? And there are casualties, there are. It’s war. What do you say to those people who go, I don’t see how my values can align with what is happening at the moment.
Alon Roth-Snir: I suggest everyone, just to remember the 7th of October, this is the main issue that began the war.
Israel is defending itself. Israel is not attacking. And the value of saving your life is a very I would say, important one. And more than that, they should see, and this is where the media doesn’t show the story, unfortunately, how Israel is trying its best to make sure that civilians number, the number of civilians harmed in Gaza is as low as possible.
We do things that no other army in the world is doing, and this is value. We, for example, send SMS’s to millions, say millions of SMS’s trying to explain to people where to go to in order to be far away from harm’s way. As much as possible food programs, whether the GHF from the United States that has distributed hundreds of millions of food r and meals and the un dozens of thousands of trucks full of food coming into Gaza in full war, a war that we didn’t begin, a war that is continued by horrible organisation.
The value of life is not just for us Israelis. We are trying to keep the other side, as I would say, far away from harm’s way as possible. And I want to answer this question of values from one more point that we discussed before. Israel sees every casualty as a tragedy. We are not trying, we’re not fighting the Palestinian people.
This is not a value for us. The value for us is not fighting the Palestinian people, but fighting the terror organisation. Unfortunately, the value of the other side is to have as many casualties as possible because then they can portray to the world as a wrongdoing by Israel and then they can. Claim.
The claim of Israel doesn’t hold your values, which is totally untrue. They use tragedies and we are trying to avoid tragedies. We are, as I said, we are a cult of life. They’re a cult of death for us. Loss of life in Gaza is something that is very sad, but we are not responsible for this. Those who embed themselves in hospitals and schools and shoot the rockets from civilian areas.
They are the ones that don’t have their values that you and I share. We are trying to avoid them as much as possible, but in the end, this death cult called Hamas is using our values in order to fight us, and their values are totally different.
Simon O’Connor: I was talking to some military people recently who had talked actually around how Hamas has changed its strategy as any combatants do during warfare.
But they were mentioning just how they’re moving their own people out of buildings, putting in IEDs and so forth so that every house is becoming a potential trap for the Israeli Defense Forces and they were making the argument, I think it’s been on some other podcasts too, it’s one of the reasons we are seeing such a destruction of infrastructure.
I mean it is, when we do see the photos, Gaza is almost flattened. They seem to be suggesting that this is just a consequence of how one has to fight and react to Hamas versus it just being bulldozed for the sake of it. But to the extent that we can talk things militarily. It is a proportionate or disproportionate response would maybe be the question? People are often saying it’s just too disproportionate, but it does seem that this is a IDF reaction to how Hamas itself is fighting on the ground.
Alon Roth-Snir: Of course this is the answer. And when people are talking about proportions, I ask myself, what is the proportion of the massacre of the 7th of October?
Do we have to do the same things as they did? And this will be proportional? Answer. The proportion here has nothing to do. No war in no war. You ask yourself, what is the proportion? When the free world fought in World War II, no one spoke about proportions, and I think that Kiwi soldiers were fighting there as well.
I think that the answer is different. As I said, it’s a question of values, and it’s a question of what are you fighting for? And the question here is that Israel is fighting today for the whole free world. If Hamas will win and if Hamas will stay in power, it’s not just the Middle East, which is going to suffer.
And Hamas is designated by countries in the Middle East as well. Arab countries as well. So it’s the whole world that is going to suffer. This is because many other organisations are looking at Hamas and are trying to see whether it’s beneficial. Maybe this kind of indiscriminate terrorism and barbarism is beneficial for them, is useful for them, and if Hamas will stay in power there, if Hamas will be part of the future, if Hamas will be victorious, at least in their eyes, the whole world is going to suffer. So Israel is fighting, therefore, the whole world right now for at least for the whole free world. And permit me to say one more thing concerning your previous question. And I think it, it is connected to the question you’ve asked.
Now, when Israel, for example, is facilitating food to Gaza in the middle of the war, in the midst of war, Israel is facilitating food because we don’t want to see starvation in Gaza and Hamas is stealing this food. Hamas is taking this food to their store houses, to their warehouses. Hama is looting the food and is selling the food. This is again, a question of value and these values, and this is a question that is relevant to who should win that war. Is it the party that is using its own population as human shields is stealing the food, et cetera, or is it the party that is fighting for its life and is trying to defend itself with trying to keep even lives of civilians in the other side.
Simon O’Connor: One of the things that strikes me often as I discuss and debate with people who, those that are very much attending the likes of the pro-Palestine or pro-Hamas marches they very much against the war believe all the casualty tallies and so forth. But I often put to those, I’m debating and discussing with is what is the alternative?
War or conflict as I prefer to call this, I try to make a distinction along. War for me is something between, if you will, two recognisable states. When you’re fighting a terrorist regime, it becomes in my mind a conflict, excuse me, playing with words, but war or conflict is ghastly and awful.
But what is the alternative is the question I often put to these people if Israel was not to fight back. And to put to you it is a hypothetical, but what would be the alternative if Israel did not fight this war? What would be the alternative if actually Gaza was recognized as a state?
Yeah, what are the alternatives? I’m not saying by the way that these should be the alternatives, but if again, people who protest and talk about this, who rage against what’s happening, but they don’t, in my opinion, seem to understand what the alternatives look like.
Alon Roth-Snir: The question is if you want to reward a terrorist organisation, if you want to reward atrocities like the ones committed on the 7th of October, if you want to reward an entity that for 20 years, took your good money, your donations, and built instead of hospitals and schools and high tech and agriculture built killing tunnels and rockets and armament. If you want to reward them, then you recognize them as a state. This is the equation. The equation is as simple as that, and we think that this would be a horrible mistake, not just for Gaza, not just for the Palestinian people, not just for the Middle East. It’ll be echoing beyond because as I said before, if you give them the ability to win and if you reward them with a state instead of just. Making sure that they’re not there anymore and they’re not governing anymore.
And Gaza is demilitarised and Gaza is under another civilian, I would say civilian administration, whatever will be decided upon if you reward them with the state. You have done the ultimate mistake here because as I said, it’ll be seen and it’ll be echoing beyond the Middle East.
Simon O’Connor: And of course it again, it’s my, in my opinion, but I suspect it’s a line because it’s coming from a lot of Israelis that I met, but doing nothing to deal with Hamas, to not fight would just mean that they would regrow their strength and just attack again. I think that was one of the great fears talking to Israelis on the ground, is that given the chance Hamas would do this all over. Again, that’s one of the alternatives.
There is no easy, simple way out of this is what I’m probably saying.
Alon Roth-Snir: First of all, you are right. You don’t hear to, you don’t need to hear us. Israel is saying it you. You can listen to Hamas. Hamas is saying it openly. We’ll commit 1000 times more, the 7th of October. The leaders are saying that, so they intend to do it.
As I said, this is the cult of death. The thing that once you understand this, you understand what is happening there. But permit me to add one more point here, which I think is very crucial and very important. It goes beyond Gaza. As I said, there is a death cult and there is a peaceful life cult or normal life cult.
And I think that we should look a bit further away and we should look on what happened in the Middle East in the last few years. We saw, for example, the Abraham Accords. You asked me what can be done, what should be done. The Abraham Accords and the other peace agreements that Israel has with other Arab countries are the thing that should be done.
This peaceful perception of how we are going to live together, how we are going as neighbours to benefit from each other is the right thing to do and is the future. A solution to what’s happening in the Middle East. Not with Hamas. Not with Hamas. This is a organisation that showed it its colours. But yes, this is the thing that should be raining there.
And I always say that in Hebrew, most of the songs that we have are talking about peace. Shalom, you will hear the word shalom everywhere in Israel, and it’s not just like that. There is a reason for that. And as I said, as a child, I studied, not war songs, but peace songs, shalom songs, and I think that this is the alternative that we should think about and we should fought for.
So to get rid of these terrorism and barbarism, and then to work on shalom on peace as we were trying to do, I think quite successfully in the Abraham Accord and with the peace agreements we had before and I do hope that in this troubled world of today the Middle East will know how to reach this place, but right now it looks a bit, at least in the Gaza case, it looks a bit far away.
Simon O’Connor: It’s my impression too, obviously I’m down here in New Zealand and not an expert, but it does seem far away, but it’s something that we have to keep working towards and you would think I’d hope that most people could see that actually the likes of Israel or New Zealand, Australia, the UK, US want peace.
Whereas as you, we keep coming back to, and I think it’s an important theme I’m trying to get across to viewers, is the likes of Hamas don’t want peace and they don’t want life. And it’s, deeply embedded, unfortunate they’ve embedded themselves into this area, which makes it therefore very hard for the state of Israel to fight back and defend itself.
So before we wrap up, there’s obviously, and you know this because you pick up the newspapers and social media like I do. And you’ll know where the question’s going because we hear so much about accusations of genocide, of famine, and we’ve gently touched on or lightly touched on those. To those New Zealanders viewing and listening this who are believing the newspapers, that there is a genocide, that there is a famine.
What do you say to them?
Alon Roth-Snir: First of all, I say that the ones who are now starving are the 48 Israeli hostages that are still being held in those death tunnels of Hamas. I hope that at least 20 of them, as is being said, are alive and they’re starved. And I would suggest the, those Kiwis that are thinking that Israel is doing these things to think vice versa to see the numbers, to see the real numbers, the numbers of dozens of thousands of trucks full of food, going to Gaza. Then the numbers of meals that are being distributed in Gaza. The fact that, I just heard a few days ago that the prices of food in Gaza are going down. What does it mean? It means that there is lots of food flooding the markets in a Gaza city.
And to think again that Israel is a democracy. Israel is a country that doesn’t do starvation that doesn’t connect anyhow to genocide. The Jewish people is the people that passed the genocide. We don’t commit genocide, and unfortunately, the only ones that committed genocide and then talk about genocide the whole time is the Hamas terrorists, not us.
We never had the intent of committing genocide. And this is part of the, I would say the. The word genocide is based on the idea of intent. Do you intend to annihilate a people? Israel never intended to do such a thing. Israel is doing everything while fighting vicious war in Gaza against terrorists that are harbouring themselves, that are using human shields. Israel is trying to do it utmost in order not to hit civilians. And the question of starvation is far away when you see the numbers of food rations, of food trucks, of food meals that are being distributed in Gaza. Israel will do it utmost in order to make sure that there is no starvation in Gaza.
And I do hope that the media will begin to show it, because until now, unfortunately, we see only falsified facts that coming from the other side. And by the way, I want just to add last word on this. When Western armies were fighting in Afghanistan and Syria and in Iraq terror organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
I don’t think that anyone would’ve accepted that numbers and figures and facts in the media will be coming out of these terrorist organisations. And unfortunately, from Hamas the stories totally different and their numbers and facts and figures and accusations are being accepted by the media.
Unverified and I, as I said before, I wish that people will. Ask themselves and the media, why isn’t this number verified, numbers verified? Why isn’t the other side able to put its point of views on the media? And then people will understand that there is a very one-sided, biased, distorted picture that is being shown that results in these accusations.
Simon O’Connor: I won’t go down this rabbit hole or tangent too long for the sake of time, but I am struck along by the double standards and I’m pleased you mentioned the conflicts that the West was involved with and the likes of Afghanistan and Iraq because, talking, because I got to visit there years ago and I remember talking to various tick American military leaders and commanders who would talk about when they hit resistance in a hamlet or a village.
They didn’t send their troops in to try and clear house by house. They basically called in airstrikes. Similar is happening in Gaza and there’s always little technicalities and nuances, but similar is happening in Gaza. So we find a western media hammering Israel, but forgetting exactly how our militaries, western militaries operated.
In a similar way in those areas. So I’m just glad we touched on that. Before we finish, it’s just to draw us back to New Zealand and I know you represent the state of Israel here in New Zealand, but you of course engage a lot with our Israeli and Jewish communities. What are they feeling?
What sort of the conversations that have been had by our Israeli and Jewish New Zealanders with you?
Alon Roth-Snir: I’m afraid that today, at least the Jewish community which of course the Israeli community is part of the Jewish community here mainly is feeling, I would say the burden of this antisemitism, this old beast that is haunting us again, and I’m very sorry to see it in such in such a country that is should be so open.
And so I would say free. This old vicious beast and I do hope that New Zealand will find, and again, I’m not here in order to dictate or to say, or to advise, but I do hope. That New Zealand will find the right way to fight antisemitism, to make sure that people who live here that are from my religion the Jewish religion and other Israelis that are from other religions will feel.
As secure here as they should. And I do hope that as I said, this beast that is haunting us again, at least will not be evident here. And clearly seen in New Zealand nowadays.
Simon O’Connor: Thank you for sharing that because I think, even though the conflict at one level seems very far away geographically we do have Jewish and Israeli New Zealanders here.
And I think it’s important to as you have done and thank you, to acknowledge what they’re saying and experiencing. It certainly accords with what I’m hearing as I’ve talked to. Various friends in the community, Alon. I’m exceptionally grateful for your time. As I said at the start, I’m very aware this is a very busy time for you and very fluid every day is bringing new news and happening.
So again, my thanks for coming on the podcast and sharing your thoughts. We could literally talk for hours but we don’t have that luxury. But I’m very grateful for your time.
Alon Roth-Snir: I want to thank you for really letting me putting the Israeli point of view on the table. And as we said before, I will hope that our next conversation will be about innovation and peace and this kind of things, but for the time being, we are what we are and we do what we do, and thank you very much for this opportunity.
