Call Your Senator: Sen. Gillibrand on Israel-Hamas War

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now our monthly Call Your Senator segment with New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand. If you're from New York and she's your senator or even if you're not your questions are welcome at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. Text your questions for Senator Gillibrand. Of course, we'll be talking about US policy toward the Middle East, but also touch on a few other things. 212-433-9692 for yours. Senator, always good of you to do this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: President Biden has announced that he is going to Israel tomorrow. Do you support him going and what would you describe as the purpose?

Kirsten Gillibrand: I do support him going. He is going to reaffirm the United States' solidarity with Israel and our ironclad commitment to its security. He will also make sure that there is a crystal clear message that this war should not escalate and that Lebanon, Hezbollah, and other actors should not engage. He's going to focus laser-like on the hostage release and how we can move forward on getting hostages released by Hamas. I think he also will talk to Netanyahu about how best to minimize civilian casualties and how to enable humanitarian assistance to flow into Gaza for civilians that does not benefit Hamas. I think he will work on how we can limit the loss of life.

Brian Lehrer: How would you say Netanyahu is doing at that so far?

Kirsten Gillibrand: Well, I don't think they've begun to implement their plan of attack against Hamas. I think right now they are focused on a strategy to protect Israel from more rocket attacks. The first aid that the United States has been sending is two more Iron Dome batteries, more missile interceptors, which are the missiles and munitions that Iron Dome needs. Rockets are still coming across. There are still incursions in the north from Hezbollah. He's desperately just trying to protect Israelis from death and destruction from this terrorist attack.

The fact that President Biden is going there, in my opinion, creates more time to share lessons learned from what it was like to fight ISIS, what it was like to fight al-Qaeda in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and how hard it is to effectively root out terrorism in cities and how difficult it is to protect innocent life during that effort. It is essential that Israel do whatever it can to stop these attacks and stop these rockets. It has a duty to protect its citizens. I think for Israelis, they see this as very much their 9/11. We have a chance to give them the guidance and just knowledge of how hard it is to defeat terrorism, but Israel has to, because right now Israeli citizens are still under grave attack and there are countless hostages being held whose lives are still deeply at risk.

Brian Lehrer: Are you suggesting though, or you're trying not to suggest, that Israel is doing after their 9/11, as you and many others have described it, what the US did after ours, which is to say a military overreaction that's going to hurt it in the long run as arguably the war in Iraq at very least and maybe Afghanistan too has hurt the US.

Kirsten Gillibrand: I think it's important for our military to inform their military about what works, what doesn't work, and what was effective in rooting out terrorism and what wasn't effective. I think this is a very intensely emotional time for Israeli citizens. I think it is deeply troubling for the defense forces because they didn't see this attack coming and so many innocent lives were destroyed.

The fact that Hamas was able to infiltrate Israel and come in and slaughter babies and children and disabled individuals and seniors and destroy and slaughter an entire group of people who are just enjoying a concert just a few miles from Gaza is really what they're undergoing right now. Thoughtfulness at this time is really important. I think the way America can be the strongest ally to Israel is to inform them about the challenges of defeating terrorism when it is an absolute essential thing to do to protect their citizens.

Brian Lehrer: To this topic that we've been discussing and the way we've been discussing it, Janet in Pine Bush, New York, you're on WNYC with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Hello. Oh, she dropped off. Let me try. Joe Wade, a cab driver in Manhattan, who I think is going to be on this too. Joe Wade, can you hear me? You're on WNYC.

Joe Wade: Yes, I can Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. You're on with the senator.

Joe Wade: Okay. Brian, my question to the Senator is as a Muslim American, first of all I voted for her, and why do we have a different standard with the Palestinians compared to the Ukrainians what they are fighting for the same cause? Why are the Palestinians treated differently compared to the Ukrainians?

Kirsten Gillibrand: Well, right now Israel did not invade Gaza. Gaza militants invaded Israel and are attacking Israel. Hamas militant are attacking Israel. You've got it flipped but I do understand your concern. Your concern is how do we make sure that innocent lives aren't lost? How do we make sure there's humanitarian relief, water, medicine, and aid reaching innocent people? That is a goal that the United States shares. It's a goal that President Biden shares and it's one that Israel has made an agreement with our Secretary of State that it will allow aid to come in through the southern Gaza border and figure out how to get that aid to humanitarian relief efforts and not fund Hamas. We will protect innocent life as best we can, and we will try to stop this terrorist attack as quickly as we can.

Brian Lehrer: Joe Wade, thank you. Further to that, I want to play a clip of Avril Benoit, executive director of the US chapter of Doctors Without Borders. You talked about President Biden's trip being in part to encourage certain kinds of restraint on the part of Netanyahu regarding what they're going to do. This is about what they're already doing. This is from Andrea Mitchell reports on MSNBC yesterday. It's one minute long, describing some of the effects of the cutoff of supplies, food, water, electricity, to the civilian population.

Avril Benoit: There's one hospital where we had harrowing stories. They have run out of painkillers. The patients are screaming in pain. There is nothing to alleviate their suffering. To bring in the humanitarian supplies, obviously water is a huge issue as well. Our colleagues are reporting that the water people are drinking is salty, it's brackish, it needs to be treated and you need fuel to be able to run the water treatment plant. You need fuel to be able to run the generators, to power the incubators where we've got neonatal cases, infants, newborns who are at risk of dying, if not from a lack of electricity, then from a lack of water.

We're just in a terrible situation where many people are going to die, not from the direct consequences of the war and the bombardment, but from all the other issues that are surrounding them and making life untenable.

Brian Lehrer: Avril Benoit, executive director of U.S. Doctors Without Borders on MSNBC yesterday. Senator, is that what US policy should stand 100% behind?

Kirsten Gillibrand: This is the hell that has been wrought by Hamas. Hamas is using hospitals, are using individuals, are using civilian locations to create human shields for their terrorist attacks and for their constant launching of rocket attacks into Israel. This is what terrorism does to a country, it destroys it. Hamas does not care at all about the loss of life of the people in that hospital. They don't care about the loss of life of anyone in Gaza, and they don't care about Palestinian life. That is a fact.

We are working now with Israelis to get humanitarian supplies to those hospitals and to Gaza, specifically medicines and water, food, and any other humanitarian relief that's needed. We are on the ground to help. There are trucks literally lined up at the southern border of Gaza trying to get in, and the United States is pushing Egypt to let them in but who else is also blocking this is Hamas. They are not allowing that southern gate to open. They do not want Palestinians to leave.

They want to see more suffering because if they see more suffering they can blame Israel. That is what terrorism is about and that is the problem where terrorism in any country is allowed to fester and is allowed to take power and destroy opportunity for the citizens of the country that they are occupying, but that is what Hamas has done to the Palestinian people and in Gaza, specifically.

Brian Lehrer: Even given the truth of everything you just said about Hamas, does that justify nonetheless, the cut off of all power, water, and food to hospitals and everything else in Gaza?

Kirsten Gillibrand: Israel authority said that water will flow and we are going to make sure that that happens. That's why we want to help with the humanitarian relief. The challenge with fuel is that Hamas is using the fuel and stealing the fuel. We have evidence that Hamas has been stealing fuel from hospitals, stealing fuel from humanitarian relief, stealing fuel from not-for-profits that are trying to protect people and that is the challenge. When you have a country that is infiltrated by a terrorist organization and is literally being controlled by a terrorist organization, they will take whatever resources are available to meet their terrorist ends, and unfortunately, they will take it from hospitals.

We're going to do whatever we can to help and to get food and resources in and medicine in, but we do want people to evacuate and to make it possible for at some point, Israeli troops to go in to try to defeat Hamas. That is why they have asked citizens to go south to get to safer areas so that they can protect it. It's very hard. How do you evacuate a hospital? It's very difficult. When Hamas uses that hospital as a human shield and puts hostages in all buildings and in tunnels so that they can be used as human shields, the horror and the terror that is taking place in Gaza is happening because of Hamas's decisions and how they are controlling that country.

Brian Lehrer: How do you evacuate a hospital with very sick people, even if Hamas is not using it that way, which Israel has ordered?

Kirsten Gillibrand: The best that a hospital can do is use whatever ambulances they have to move south, evacuate as many people as possible, and hope that Hamas isn't using it as a place to launch rockets because that's what they have been doing.

Brian Lehrer: Joy in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hello, Joy.

Joy: Good morning. I just wanted to say, I feel like if we're saying this is all Hamas's fault, then obviously what they did is atrocious, but if it's all their fault, seems to me our history is about two weeks old, and doesn't go back to 1947 at least. If Biden wants to go visit Israel, I'd suggest he visit Gaza as well and I'll take any response off there.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Senator.

Kirsten Gillibrand: I think our history is really important. We suffered through World War II and six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis, and the world decided that Israel needed a country and that's what the world decided. If you disagree with that decision, that's a disagreement with US history and world history, and what atrocities were committed during World War II.

You can go back to history as far as you want and there's so many different conflicts that you would go and look at and point fingers at who was wrong and where, but the truth is, Hamas has no legal basis to behead and children and babies and kill people at a concert and invade a country and send rockets, thousands of rockets, they have thousands more to launch, they have no basis to do that. If Gaza wanted a stronger government and wanted a path to peace, that is what they have to fight for in their own political environment. They've been unable to do that because Hamas has refused to allow elections since they were elected in the government over a dozen years ago.

That is the reality of what it's like to live in Gaza today. You don't have a government that represents you, that cares about people, that puts food and fuel and health care and education first, and not even allow for a democratically elected legislature. That is the challenge in these places that don't have rule of law, and they don't have democracies, but it does not give a justification to slaughter innocent people in your neighboring country.

Brian Lehrer: Has the US taken its foot off the gas too much in pushing Israel toward a two-state solution, which Netanyahu is not in favor of? Mainstream news articles earlier this year actually warned about an increasing risk of violent attacks by Palestinians. It's spooky now that this happened for me to go back and read some things that were in the Washington Post and elsewhere, where people were warning about with no prospects for a two-state solution anymore in the Netanyahu government. Ongoing settlements in the West Bank and the weakening of the Supreme Court would sometimes uphold Palestinian rights and not much pressure from the United States.

With respect to those things, has US policy taken its foot off the gas too much with respect to trying to be a meaningful broker toward a two-state solution?

Kirsten Gillibrand: There's a couple of things there. First of all, the Israeli people themselves have been fighting against the policies of this administration in Israel, with regard to the judiciary. They have been protesting, and they have been using their democratic values and voices to show who they are what they believe and that has been inspiring. The Israelites themselves have not wanted many of these judicial reforms.

More importantly, we have been working on this path to peace, because America does believe in a two-state solution. We believe in peace in the Middle East and the path to peace we've been working on has been through the Abraham Accords. Unfortunately, Brian, my greatest fear is that this attack and the viciousness of this attack, and the brutality of this attack was planned specifically to derail those negotiations.

What this would look like is it would have been a collaboration between Israel and the Arab world of the United States, to create a long-term security agreement between these countries against Iran and Iranian proxies and terrorism, in favor of economic investment, and growth. What the United States was asking from the Arab countries was to invest in the Palestinians, what they were asking for each of these countries was to invest in their education, their food security, their water security, their energy security, to rebuild the country, to have a Palestinian state that actually had democratic values and could have security and peace.

That's the whole vision of what this Abraham accords could look like and that was going to be our ask of the Arab world because what we were giving to the Arab world and to Israel, was the means by which to have a regional defense agreement, and much more economic investment and ties between these many nations. That is a challenge now because of what has happened, but I think that was the terrorist's intent to derail a path for peace that I believe strongly in, and that I was most hopeful for, recently than I've ever been in the Middle East. It was the first time that every country in the region had a plan for how to create stability, a two-state solution, and peace.

Brian Lehrer: Well, but was that aiming toward a two-state solution or only stability and peace as you describe it within the context of the occupation, because many things that I've seen in the last week, say that under Trump, but also under Biden, this Abraham Accords approach encouraging normalization of relations by Arab states with Israel, with coming without a real solution to the Palestinian statehood question.

When Saudi Arabia was on the verge of doing it, recently, such a big, important country, many analysts are saying that was actually one of the triggers for this attack, not to say Hamas isn't a rejectionist organization that doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state anyway, but that any leverage the Palestinians had in the international order for their aspirations was being drained away by that US campaign by Biden, as well as Trump, how would you respond to that?

Kirsten Gillibrand: I would say it's absolutely not true. Gaza has not been occupied for the most recent past. In fact, what Saudi Arabia was asking me about is how do we plan for a two-state solution? When I went and visited each of these countries that have already signed on to the Abraham Accords, Bahrain, UAE, Morocco, and Israel, I asked each of the leaders of those countries, would you in exchange for this agreement, invest in the Palestinians and take one thing that you will do and guarantee over the next decade to build, whether it was water infrastructure, or food and agriculture, or electric infrastructure, or education systems?

Every country said, "Yes, they would." Then when I met with the Palestinians, and I met with their Prime Minister, I asked specifically, would you accept billions of dollars of aid and work by these Arab neighbors and by these Arab partners to rebuild Palestinian communities? He said, "Yes." This was the deal that we were talking about and hoping for, and it was a path to peace, and it would strengthen the Palestinians.

It would call for elections. It would call for the rebuilding of the Palestinian territories. It would give them the security and the stability that they need and to be free from terrorist groups like Hamas and other terrorist groups that have embodied and lived in both Gaza and the West Bank. I believe these attacks are intended to derail that, and that was the greatest hope for a Palestinian state. The greatest hope I've seen in the 15 years I've been involved in public policy in the Senate and in the House.

Brian Lehrer: A few more minutes in our monthly Call Your Senator segment with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. On another topic altogether, Mishiyoki in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hello Mishiyoki.

Mishiyoki: Hi Brian. Long time. First time. Love the show. Sorry, I'm a little bit nervous. Hi, Senator Gillibrand. Thank you for doing this regular segment. I really appreciate the openness. I'm calling about the Kids Online Safety Act, which I believe has the potential to be weaponized against trans and queer people. My understanding is that it may enable State Attorney Generals to target LGBT content online.

I'm sorry to take away the attention from Israel and Gaza, but I learned about this a while ago. The chief sponsor of the Bill, Senator Blackburn, said on camera that, "It would be used to protect minor children from the transgender in our culture." I think we have to listen to the right wing when they say the quiet part out loud. I'm just asking that you please work with your colleagues to explicitly ensure that this will not be used to target trans and queer content online. I'll take the response off there. Thank you for taking the call.

Brian Lehrer: Mishiyoki, thank you very much. Call us again. Senator, are you familiar with that Bill?

Kirsten Gillibrand: I'm not familiar with the bill, but I have been looking at it because, obviously, we don't actually do anything to protect citizens from social media at all. It's a huge concern I have, but I will assure you, I will not support anything that is going to be able to target and harm our LGBTQ community. I think we have to be extremely mindful of the way algorithms can be used to harm different groups and can create biases and that we have to hold platforms accountable for using of people's privacy and their personal data against them in creating these algorithms to target them.

It's led to, obviously, children going down rabbit holes and becoming anorexic and bulimic, children going down rabbit holes and becoming shooters. We've seen the destruction of these platforms for our youth in their self-esteem and in their mental health. I do think we need a data protection agency, which would be the first step in defining what a privacy harm is, and then actually regulating and creating accountability and transparency for platforms and what level of data and information they can steal from people and use against them. I share your concern and I will make sure that we look at that bill specifically for the harm that you've mentioned. I'll make sure I speak to my colleagues on those potential harms. I share your concerns. I'll be vigilant on that.

Brian Lehrer: Yet another issue altogether. Joe on Staten Island, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hello, Joe.

Joe: Hello. Yes. Like the other call, I'm sorry to take attention away from the world issues, but I have two meat and potato issues that are important to New Yorkers, the SAFER Banking Act and the SALT deductions. Will the SAFER Banking Act pass and when will we get some relief from the SALT deductions, which are now capped at $10,000? I believe that you and Senator Schumer talked about this a few years ago, but I've seen no action.

Brian Lehrer: That's the state tax as tax deductible on your federal income taxes. Which hurts a lot of New Yorkers disproportionately compared to other states. Go ahead, Senator.

Kirsten Gillibrand: On SALT certainly, Senator Schumer and I have been trying to get those deductions restored continuously since President Trump really decided that they was going to disadvantage New Yorkers and people from California and really harm our middle-class and harm our communities. We've been living with this double taxation, which has been brutal. It expires in 2025.

We've been unable to get it in any of the must-pass bills. We have Democrats and Republicans who don't want to restore the deduction, so it's been difficult for us. I think the quickest is going to be 2025 when it expires. It doesn't mean that we won't try to get it included in any must-pass appropriations bill this year or next year. Given what I know and how difficult it's been, it's probably going to be 2025.

Then the second question, the SAFER Banking Act. That's about cannabis it's about the fact that we've legalized cannabis in our state, but the people who are growers, the people who are producers, the people who are sellers still don't have access to bank accounts and don't have access to any protections from our financial services industry. They also didn't have access to the markets. They can't create capital to invest in their businesses.

If you live in New York City, I'm sure you're quite aware that four out of five of cannabis businesses are illegal and are being funded by unknown networks that are taking advantage of this ambiguity. The banking committee in the Senate passed it out of committee in September. We are hopeful that we will get a vote on this by the end of the year. Certainly, by the end of the Congress.

I'm hoping to add an amendment to also expand access to the markets because we need market access for US businesses to compete with Canadian businesses and for New York businesses to compete at all because you won't get early-stage investors, you won't get venture capital or angel investors or even private equity investors if they can't see how they will make money over a 5 to 10 year time period. You need access to the markets to show that you can make money over a 5 to 10-year period. That's the reality. We're trying to get both SAFER passed so they can get access to banks and also access to markets.

The third thing that I've been pushing the Biden administration for a long time on, is just deschedule marijuana. If we descheduled it, it wouldn't be a Schedule 1 drug. You have access to banking and the markets, it would be a really fast way to do it is just deschedule. So far, the administration seems to be focused on perhaps rescheduling it to Schedule 3.

That does make some technical benefits to businesses. For example, you can get insurance, but it does not solve all the problems.

Really, descheduling would be the solution. I'm trying to make the case to the Biden administration that this allows for equity investments, which has been the whole goal in cannabis to make sure Black and brown communities that were disproportionately harmed by the prosecution of cannabis laws could actually be owners and have equity stakes in this industry. Descheduling would be the best way to do that and the president could do that all by himself. I'm really pushing the administration to be the leader on this.

Brian Lehrer: Joe, thank you for your call. Before you go, Senator, I want to ask you about one other aspect of the crisis in Israel that I got a note about from a constituent, a New Yorker who is in Israel right now and has been on this show. This is about the repatriation program as it's called Trying To Get Americans In Israel Out Safely. This person writes, "Looks good on paper, but it's chaotic and you got to read the fine print.

You have to sign a promissory note to repay the government for the flight, but there's no indication as to the actual cost or the terms of payment. Like they mentioned with interest, but they don't mention the interest rate. Then they say, my congressman forwarded to me his press release advising US citizens and residents wishing to leave Israel to register with the State Department, among other things, that stated that I should expect to hear from an individual State Department employee via email within hours and on the same day after filling out the crisis intake form. This was decidedly not my experience."

One more thing from this email they sent. "We're supposed to bring a completed form 55, 28 promissory note promising to pay back the cost of the flight in order to board. Great that there's a link to the form, but it's not a fillable PDF. It's an actual form that must be printed out, completed in ink, and signed. I don't know about you, but I'm not traveling with a printer." This goes on and I bring this up not for the sake of this individual who I believe has a flight now scheduled but because they say as a policy-oriented person that this is looking like something that's much worse than advertised for the Americans in Israel in general who are trying to get out. Are you aware of it?

Kirsten Gillibrand: Yes. My office has been working to help American citizens with travel assistance since the conflict began. Just for people who are on the call, if they have loved ones in Israel who want to come to America, they can email casework@gillibrand.senate.gov. They can also call the State Department directly. For example, if you can't print out the form, what do you do? 1-833-890-9595.

Our team is communicating with the State Department 24/7 on behalf of US citizens. We were among those who were advocating to get these flights moving immediately, which is helpful. There's at least I think four flights a day now, and there was none previously. I don't think the cost is going to be exorbitant. It's pegged to the cost of a flight before the conflict started. It's just a reimbursement and people should not feel like that's an impediment.

In the meantime, if you cannot get on one of those flights, please email my office or call the State Department directly so that you can get assistance. I've talked to the State Department and they are making sure that once you fill out the form online, if you can access the computer or the internet through a smartphone, that you are automatically going to get on one of those manifests to get to fly from Israel to the United States.

We are doing everything we can to repatriate American citizens who need to be. We are also working on helping American citizens that are in Gaza. That's why we're working overtime to get that border opened from Gaza to-

Brian Lehrer: Egypt.

Kirsten Gillibrand: -Egypt and why we're focusing the Egyptian Government on letting the humanitarian aid trucks through. As I said earlier, Hamas is blocking those trucks from coming in. That is another problem when Hamas is controlling Gaza.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, our monthly Call Your Senator segment. We always appreciate that you come on and answer questions. Thank you, Senator.

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