00:00Hello and welcome this is me Ansh Pandey on One India English and right now when we are talking
00:05a massive development has taken place inside right now in the Israel Gaza war. Ismail Haniyeh,
00:12the leader of Hamas's political wing has been declared dead. The incident took place at around
00:192 a.m in midnight local time in Iran and after that the social media is filled with responses
00:25right now that Haniyeh is dead and various political meetings are taking place. Iran
00:30right now Khamenei has issued a statement, ILGC has issued a statement talking of Netanyahu right
00:35now he's going to take a cabinet meeting and he's probably also going to address the nation on the
00:40development. But is Haniyeh really dead? For that to talk and to understand why did it matter we
00:49have got Mr. Alexander Greenberg from the JISS institute with us to talk on the issue. He's a
00:56famous renowned Iranian expert on the issue. Mr. Greenberg welcome to the show. Thank you for
01:03inviting me. Yes it's a big event of course I think that he's dead as long as we don't hear
01:12any opposite and judging by the fact that most Arab channels do refer to him as the shaheed,
01:20the martyr Haniyeh, so he's dead and Iran condemned the treacherous Cezanne strike etc etc so
01:28I believe he's dead and it was very important because he was a Haniyeh as other Hamas leadership
01:35were certain to be safe in Tehran. No it's not safe and of course it's a clear message to anyone
01:44within Iranian leadership that had it been decided otherwise by Israeli leadership any other person
01:54among Iran leaders could have been the crosshairs of Israeli missiles and I must say I saw a lot of
02:02joy of Iranian people who use the hashtag cutlet meaning kebab or like a meatball to refer to all
02:13the victims terrorist victims of Israeli or American airstrikes. Okay now okay I mean sir
02:22if this has happened indeed it is a big development sir given Ismail Haniyeh's influential position as
02:28a leader definitely he was the leader of Hamas's political wing so why do you think has Iran if
02:36Iran has targeted why is it so specifically only him and what was the exact reason that his
02:42elimination was a priority for Israel? Well I don't know the details because I has never been
02:51a fly on the in the cup or on the wall of what's going on inside Tehran but in principle the
02:58operations of this kind are always prepared in function of feasibility and possibility. I cannot
03:05say that Haniyeh is the main target Sinwar who is still alive who still withholds our hostages he
03:12is the main priority but once in general across the world the ones say you have a possibility to
03:19do that so so do that and of course it is important that each one of this criminal coterie
03:27knows that even after many years no matter where they are who they are they will be found and they
03:35will pay for their crimes and of course again it's very important for Iranian people because
03:43the regime clearly realizes that most Iranian people despise their regime and the criminals
03:51he hosts in general to suppose that Iran would sacrifice anything for the Palestinians and the
03:59Arabs given the the disdain for the Arabs from the part of the Iranians so it's a I think it's
04:08far-fetched but of course we everyone must be vigilant and not to not to delve into nonchalance
04:17and indifference. Definitely Mr. Alexander what is the most shocking thing in all this development
04:25is one thing that Haniyeh is assassinated or what we say killed on Iranian soil now it is a known
04:32thing that Haniyeh has had close connections with Iranian leadership be it the supreme leader be it
04:38the former president but this specific assassination is also raising question on Iranians
04:45why do I say so? So definitely because if we see for the last few months if you also remember just
04:52a few months ago it wasn't Israel directly attacked Iran and then after that Iran also
04:58retaliated for that and now this attack if Israel has carried out does this also raise this question
05:03on the internal security of Iran that how did they let this happen? Yes look there it proves
05:11again first of all the highest skills of Israeli intelligence it will say as far as I know it was
05:19technically conducted through missiles and planes without implicating human agents on
05:27in Tehran but I believe in general to find a target you must have human agents it's again
05:35another message for the regime because the regime what does it mean? It means that
05:40many Iranians are ready to work with the Mossad with say with I don't know with whom just to get
05:47rid of their own oppressors and again the regime is vulnerable Iran is in love with its own
05:59Iranian regime not the Iranian people is in love with its own regime that they are like their
06:05super original superpower but in fact their rotten regime whose only might is confined to asymmetrical
06:14warfare terrorism and missiles and drones by this reason I think they despise the Pakistanis
06:21but they forget that the Pakistanis studied at Oxford and Cambridge and they have a bomb
06:27and the Iranians studied at the Shahid Bhd University with all due respect it's not
06:33Oaksbridge to manufacture nukes. Definitely sir just one more question I think we also need to
06:44talk about that so there's actually a very unusual aspect right here. Haniyeh has been declared dead
06:49some reports are claiming that it was a missile strike some are claiming that it was a raid
06:54at his hotel room where he was staying but despite all this sir there is still no social
07:01there are no visuals on social media till now so does this raise any sort of suspicion
07:07at least in your mind that could it be a camouflage of some sort of something or
07:12Iran is simply choosing not to highlight this issue because it is definitely going to highlight
07:18its failure across the world. I think yes you're right look the Iranians are very smart and
07:26rational the last thing you can say about this regime but they're crazy or irrational they're not
07:31and of course yes the more you circulate the issue the more you threaten someone the more you block
07:39yourself because la noblesse oblige and you are obligated to so I don't think they want to
07:46to to cabal themselves with obligations to to take revenge because it is
07:54Palestinians who are not their priority. Hezbollah may be something different but again
08:01the assessment says that Hezbollah and Iran don't want a major escalation but again I
08:11say it with with some reservations I of course I'm not a prophet I don't say I know they won't
08:17do that they don't know but it seems that judging by the events they are not interested in further
08:23escalation. So just one last question so do you see now another chapter now breaking out
08:31in the Israel-Gaza conflict after this war after this attack specifically now this clearly also
08:37means that Israel is now probably all set now they can also attack Yahya after this
08:44even I think even after Hassan Nasrallah is also not safe if we go by this so do you see the
08:51resistance movement whether it's Yemen whether it's Lebanon whether it's Iraq for the matter
08:57do you see now they also changing their strategy owing to this development?
09:02I think one shouldn't distinguish between Hezbollah which is a diamond in the crown of the
09:08axis of resistance so Iranians won't sacrifice it easily so they know the Israel is also Israel
09:16leadership fears a major war but again the war the war is ongoing it's not that we're a we should
09:23never forget that it's not that if we were not in the war now there is war and they will people in
09:31the north the displaced people in Israel will never be ready to get back to their homes
09:39if the normalcy means seeing again Hezbollah on the border it's impossible but I don't know how
09:44one can achieve that without the war on the other side Houthis are nothing for Iran they pay
09:53them a very little money and the Iranians don't care if thousands of Yemenites die and the the
10:01fact is that neither America and the UK and Israel cannot stop the Houthi attacks of
10:09course they're not as strategic as Hezbollah but we prefer for the moment to deal with the
10:17errand boy and not with a big boss so it will continue I believe. Okay so as per your assessment
10:27what I see is that Hezbollah may not go to the extent of retaliating so big if any sort of that
10:34thing happens is that so? Yes I would fear Iranian terrorist attacks against Jewish and Israeli
10:42targets across the world as they used to do so there is a noteworthy the terrible bombing of
10:51Australian embassy in Buenos Aires in 92 and also the AMIA Jewish community building also in Buenos
10:57Aires in 94 under all their terrorist attacks that they may conduct through the networks of
11:05Hezbollah in Africa and South America this is always possible but again Iran if you do something
11:13immediately for example tomorrow they bomb Israeli embassy somewhere so this link will be too obvious
11:21Iranians also prefer to hide the tracks so that it is not so like as obvious as it is not
11:29you know just as the three of you may compare like the Indian example so your country also
11:35suffers the terrorism so we all know that Lashkar-e-Tarifa is founded and guided by
11:41ISI by Pakistan but they don't do it overtly. Okay Mr. Alexander firstly a big big thank you
11:52for your precious time on this interview. Thank you. There were some very major questions that
11:57were being asked on social media and I thought that actually our team also thought that no one
12:02can be more better expert than you to talk on this matter so yeah once again sir a very very
12:07big thank you for this interview and I believe the more this situation get developed we will
12:12talk even more in the future regarding these developments so yeah once again sir a big big
12:17thank you for this interview. Thank you sir. Don't miss out follow One India for real-time updates.
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