During an interview on Friday, tech billionaire Elon Musk shared his thoughts on the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel, offering a strange tactic he thinks Israel should take.
The comments from Musk came while speaking with podcast host Lex Fridman, as the Tesla CEO and founder suggested that Israel should offer help to the people of Gaza instead of seeking to stomp out Hamas.
Musk explained that the goal of Hamas was to turn the global opinion of Israel, and because of the nation’s response, the terrorist group is succeeding.
“[Hamas] really wanted to commit the worst atrocities that they could in order to provoke the most aggressive response possible from Israel and then leverage that aggressive response to rally Muslims worldwide for the cause of Gaza and Palestine,” Musk said. “Which they have succeeded in doing.”
So when it comes to how Musk would combat this, he says that Israel should flip the script on their all-out assault on Hamas.
“So the counterintuitive thing here, the thing that I think should be done, even though it’s very difficult, is that I would recommend that Israel engage in the most conspicuous acts of kindness possible ever,” Musk said. “That is the actual thing that would thwart the goal of Hamas.”
Despite the call for kindness, Musk explained that he is still in favor of killing or jailing Hamas members when necessary. However, he says humanitarian initiatives in Gaza would end any support for the terrorist group.
“There’s some talk of establishing, for example, a mobile hospital,” Musk said. “I recommend doing that. Just making sure that, you know, there’s food, water, medical necessities.”
Later in the podcast episode, Musk went on to suggest that Israel’s efforts to eliminate Hamas, through its airstrikes and now ground assault, may only make things worse.
“For every Hamas member you kill, how many do you create?” he said. “If you kill somebody’s child in Gaza, you’ve made at least a few Hamas members.”
Amid global pressure, Israel has agreed to conduct four-hour pauses in fighting so aid can be delivered to civilians.
With the world watching in anticipation of what may happen next, Musk says that he thinks the situation could grow worse if not addressed properly, going as far as to say it could launch “World War III.”