Cease-Fire Continues; Hamas Has Made Anti-Semitic Comments
BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY. The cease-fire is holding as of now this morning between Israel and Hamas, but can lasting peace be achieved when there is so much hatred on both sides of this conflict? Recently a Hamas spokesman, Osama Hamdan, made this comment about Jewish people. He said I the following, I'll read it to you, "We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians in order to mix their blood in their holy matzah. This is not a figment of imagination or something taken from a film. It is a fact acknowledged by their own books and historical evidence." Yes, he said that. On Monday, Hamdan would not take back that comment in an interview with Wolf Blitzer. Here's just a little bit of it.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: So do you believe that Jews used to slaughter Christians and mix their blood to bake matzah?</s>OSAMA HAMDAM, SPOKESMAN FOR HAMAS: You have to ask that for the church which claims that, you know, this is the fact. You cut the words, not you, the Israelis, and memory. They cut the facts and they start this propaganda. To say that they are innocent. They want to cover the genocide which is happening in Gaza now.</s>BOLDUAN: And Wolf gave him multiple chances, pressed him multiple times and gave him multiple opportunities to deny that. He did not. Can a truce really last amid inflammatory, baseless accusations and allegations like this? Let's bring in Bobby Ghosh, managing editor of "Quartz" to discuss this and kind of the state of play. But Bobby, these are the guys that are going to be sitting down at the table together? Does this surprise you? It blew my mind.</s>BOBBY GHOSH, MANAGING EDITOR OF "QUARTZ": It is not surprising if you spend time in Palestine. The idea of blood libel is very commonly accepted by a lot of Palestinians, mainly because they don't know any better. They are taught that from when they are very young and don't have the opportunity to correct themselves. Hamdan doesn't have that excuse, he's an educated man exposed to the world outside and he certainly has had plenty of opportunities to fact check himself. The fact that he still says things - -</s>BOLDUAN: And saying it right now in the middle of all of this.</s>GHOSH: It just shows you the extent of the hate. Mind you, it cuts both ways. There are people on Palestinian sides who have been calling for -- on the Israeli side who have been calling for Palestinian mothers to be killed, for Palestinian women to be raped, for concentration camps, so the amount of people is enormous.</s>BOLDUAN: I do want to get to that, but the fact that he's bringing up the blood libel, which has such a painful history with the Jewish people. I mean, this accusation, this ridiculous thought dates back to the 12th century and has been the pretext for violence against the Jewish people forever.</s>GHOSH: It is the root of anti-semitism, it has been the root of anti- semitism in Europe, this concept of blood libel, and it's nonsense but in the Arab world and particularly in Palestine --</s>BOLDUAN: What does it get him?</s>GHOSH: Its a dog whistle to his own people. I have to assume that Hamdan knows better. I have to assume, given the exposure he's had to the world, he knows it's not true. The fact that he keeps saying things like this and not deny it when he's had an opportunity to do so has got to be a dog whistle to his own people back in Gaza. Remember, he's not in Gaza. He's outside the political leadership outside. They are out of touch with the man in the street. The only halfway rational end, its not very rational explanation I can think of, is this is his trying to make some kind of connection back to the streets in Gaza. It is completely counterproductive. As you point out this is not the way you approach the negotiating table.</s>BOLDUAN: Absolutely not. I mean, he went back to Wolf saying that he was actually speaking in response to follow this, if you will, the deputy speaker of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, writing in a Facebook post that he had called for tent encampments in Gaza. Hamdan likened it to wanting them to put concentration camps in Gaza. But regardless, one incendiary comment does not excuse another ridiculous one. Does this just tell you that long term, a long-term peace is not possible?</s>GHOSH: Well, if you want to look at the glass half full, and it's not easy, but it's better that they are exchanging incendiary comments than they're exchanging guns and bombs. At least now the cease-fire gives us an opportunity to get past the shooting and to start with the talking. Now, it -- we've seen this movie before when the talking starts. It will actually start with shouting and then the challenge for the intermediaries, for the diplomats, for John Kerry and the others is to get everyone to calm the hell down and start actually having a conversation.</s>BOLDUAN: How do you calm the hell down? What do you think is different, if anything, this time this cease-fire, because these comments, unfortunately, you have to fight them down every time because blood libel is an allegation that has come up over and over again despite how many times Jews, non-Jews, everyone alike says how ridiculous it is.</s>GHOSH: It is hard. The fact that people who know better will still say things like that.</s>BOLDUAN: That's the worst part.</s>GHOSH: That's the worst part, that is what makes it hardest of all. Hamdan has to know better. It's not possible unless he just refuses to look for the facts. He's got to know better.</s>BOLDUAN: Is this bark over bite though? Do you think - - he knows what he's doing. Let's just say it. He knows what he's doing.</s>GHOSH: He's a professional spokesman, of course he knows.</s>BOLDUAN: He knows what he's doing, but do you think they can still negotiate even though he's saying something like that?</s>GHOSH: Happily he won't be the one negotiating. He's just a mouth piece, but it begins in a spirit of hostility, and it -- it sort of shows us how deep the roots are of the anger and rage and hatred and how irrational most of the hatred is. So it gives us a window into the scale of the problem that the diplomats are now going to have to encounter. This isn't over. We have a cease-fire now. We're all keeping our fingers crossed, but this isn't over yet. The long-term solutions involve getting people to -- to drop these kinds of attitudes and that's -- that's taken centuries of trying and hasn't quite worked. Its taken more recently decades of diplomatic efforts and hasn't quite worked. I would love to say that I want to be optimistic. It's hard to be optimistic given what we've seen in the past and given attitudes like this one.</s>BOLDUAN: Difficult enough when you see what has happened in Gaza just over the past month how they are going to come to a truce, come to a sustained peace, but then when you add this into, it just sounds so difficult.</s>GHOSH: Its bad enough there is blood, and now there is blood libel as well. It's not a good combination.</s>BOLDUAN: Bobby, thanks so much.</s>GHOSH: Any time.</s>BOLDUAN: Alright, we'll talk to you soon. Chris.</s>CUOMO: And what's going on with the Christians is probably an underreported story and there's plenty of blame to go around there. Just about the top of the hour, the top story of course, the cease- fire holding between Israel and Hamas. Now it's six hours into the 72-hour truce. The longer it goes, the better chance negotiations will occur for permanent peace. After weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas, both sides are now expected in Cairo for negotiations on a longer deal. The Palestinians are there already. The Israelis say they will go if the cease-fire holds. Right now Israeli ground troops are being pulled back from Gaza after dismantling all of the Hamas terror tunnels that they targeted. CNN's Anderson Cooper has the latest from along the Israel-Gaza border this morning. Anderson, what's the situation?</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Chris, good morning. I'm in Ashkelon which is a few miles northeast of the Gaza border where it has been peaceful this day. As you say, some six hours now into this cease-fire. There have been no signs of any rockets fired from Gaza, no signs of -- of open hostilities. That obviously a huge change from what we've seen from all the previous cease-fires. As you said, Israel, they have removed all their personnel, all their troops over to the Israeli side of the border. They are maintaining what they call defensive positions. Here in Ashkelon, there were some sirens last night during nighttime hours shortly before the cease-fire, but there has been nothing since then. In fact, some people -- this is a beach community, some tourists have actually started going to the water.