Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
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Speaker 4: Do lots to get to this morning.
Speaker 1: We're going to start with fears of a broader war
Speaker 1: escalating out of Israel's war on Gaza. Also some images
Speaker 1: emerging that people are comparing to Abu Grabe two point
Speaker 1: zero and could have a similarly radicalizing impact. So we'll
Speaker 1: break all of that down for you. So a major
Speaker 1: free speech controversy, a university president out at pen We
Speaker 1: will get into all of that and really enraging me anyway,
Speaker 1: We'll give.
Speaker 4: You all those details.
Speaker 1: More dire numbers for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton jumping
Speaker 1: into the fray. We also want to break down for
Speaker 1: you a major abortion case unfolding in the state of
Speaker 1: Texas with the potential to royal politics there and across
Speaker 1: the country.
Speaker 4: I'm taking a look at.
Speaker 1: The life of a poet who was killed in by
Speaker 1: the Israelis over last week. And we also have an
Speaker 1: Israeli poster who's going to join us to talk about
Speaker 1: what is going on in terms of domestic politics with
Speaker 1: regard to bb Net and Yahoo. But before we get
Speaker 1: to any of that, this is the last week to
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Speaker 1: All right, let's go ahead and get to the latest
Speaker 1: out of Israel and start with those fears of a
Speaker 1: broader war, escalation possibilities on multiple fronts. Let's put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. Huffin and Post actually has been
Speaker 1: doing a good job with some of their reporting during
Speaker 1: this conflict, and they had a major piece breaking down
Speaker 1: some of the risks and with sources inside the administration
Speaker 1: raising alarm bells. What they say here is Gaza may
Speaker 1: soon become a bigger war. They've got the highlights.
Speaker 4: They say.
Speaker 1: US officials fear Israel wants weapons to fight in Lebanon.
Speaker 1: Israel will not share plans with the Biden administration or Congress.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of Ukraine. There, top officials discuss a
Speaker 1: Rock and Syria escalation. AID organizations are ringing alarm bells
Speaker 1: more than.
Speaker 4: They ever have.
Speaker 1: We give you a few of the details from within
Speaker 1: this piece that are really crucial to understanding where we
Speaker 1: are and what the risks are. They write, one week
Speaker 1: into the resumed Israeli military campaign in Gaza, US officials
Speaker 1: and foreign policy experts are increasingly afraid that Israel's operation
Speaker 1: will fuel a broader conflict, drawing in Lebanon and expanding
Speaker 1: throughout the Middle East, potentially forcing American troops into the fight.
Speaker 1: One of the key pieces here that I found really
Speaker 1: noteworthy is you have Biden administration officials who are worried
Speaker 1: that the weapons that Israel is requesting from the United
Speaker 1: States right now, which by the way, we've been approving
Speaker 1: with no qualms whatsoever, they won't tell us what they
Speaker 1: actually want to use those weapons for, and that has
Speaker 1: raised grave fears from the White House and the Biden
Speaker 1: administration that those weapons are intended to be used in
Speaker 1: Lebanon against the Lebanese militia Hezblah. They have a senior
Speaker 1: fellow at a Middle East Institute think tank quoted as
Speaker 1: saying this last week, the level of concern in DC
Speaker 1: about a potential war on the israel Lebanon front has
Speaker 1: gone up three or four notches. You also have despite
Speaker 1: repeated calls for Israeli restraint, US intelligence assesses the IDF
Speaker 1: are committed to quote business as usual, with only limited
Speaker 1: concern about civilian casualties. According to a US official and
Speaker 1: their suspicions, the renewed campaign is actually bloodier than the
Speaker 1: previous offensive in northern Gaza. And of course the longer
Speaker 1: that this war continues, the more brutal and bloody the
Speaker 1: conduct of this war, the more possibility of escalation across
Speaker 1: the region from the Huthis, from Hesbalah and from other
Speaker 1: actors who will feel compelled to stand up for Palestinians,
Speaker 1: and you will obviously inflame tensions, not to mention, of course,
Speaker 1: the human carnage that all of that will will create.
Speaker 1: So that's effectively where we are. But it's it seems
Speaker 1: like the biggest concerns right now, Sager, are on the
Speaker 1: Lebanese front.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, a couple of different places, because some multiple
Speaker 2: things could escalate all at the same time and each
Speaker 2: could create like a poly crisis, if you will. So
Speaker 2: let's go and put this up there on the screen
Speaker 2: for what people can see. The Huthis are now warning
Speaker 2: that they will target every single ship which is headed
Speaker 2: to Israel. Now we've broken it down before, but the
Speaker 2: Red Sea remains one of the most strategic choke points
Speaker 2: in the entire world, and the Houthis have already shown
Speaker 2: at least a limited capability at the very least in
Speaker 2: disrupting global shipping, skyrocketing insurance rates and targeting Israeli flagged vessels,
Speaker 2: as well as shooting at the very least that uk
Speaker 2: flagged and other places with US guided missile destroyers engaging
Speaker 2: drones and other things. So the war on the Sea
Speaker 2: actually could have this most significant impact on the global economy.
Speaker 2: But from oil shipping to weapons production, food, the same
Speaker 2: thing that happened in the Black Sea after Ukraine is
Speaker 2: the same thing that we could be seeing here. And
Speaker 2: imagine two major global conflagrations in two of the most
Speaker 2: strategic choke points in the entire world. For thee that's
Speaker 2: a massive job for the US Navy and one that
Speaker 2: would significantly heighten tensions. But you're also right, let's go
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen in terms
Speaker 2: of what we see from the bide from the Netanyahu
Speaker 2: administration currently telling Biden behind the scenes quote, Israel will
Speaker 2: act militarily against the Yemen's Huthies if the US won't.
Speaker 2: Of course, Yemen and Israel are not all that close together,
Speaker 2: which would mean a significant increase not only in the
Speaker 2: air war, but likely the use of strategic missiles, you know,
Speaker 2: medium range missiles as well as well as missile defense systems,
Speaker 2: and this conflict crystal. I have no doubt the Hasbolo one,
Speaker 2: I think would also be a conflagration. But I think
Speaker 2: the Yemen one is the single biggest threat to embroiling
Speaker 2: the United States in a broader war, simply because we
Speaker 2: have already shown a willingness to shoot down multiple missiles
Speaker 2: fired from Yemen with our guided missile destroyer. Our missile
Speaker 2: destroyers also have stepped up as the protection role in
Speaker 2: the Red Sea for the UK flag ship vessels and
Speaker 2: all that. So it's only a matter of time, and
Speaker 2: it only takes and these look the Houthis. They may
Speaker 2: have better technology than than Hezbolah and or the Hummas
Speaker 2: inside of Gaza, but this is still you know, rinky dank.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, it only takes a
Speaker 2: single missile to go off course and to kill a
Speaker 2: US sailor and that's it.
Speaker 3: It's game on.
Speaker 2: And I don't think people have understood the strategic importance
Speaker 2: of what that will look like. On top of the
Speaker 2: Hezbolah situation, which threatens to also bring Syrian militias into
Speaker 2: the war. Remember, they can escalate against our troops there already.
Speaker 2: The ground force commanders in Iraq are sounding the alarm.
Speaker 2: But like we are sitting ducks here for all of
Speaker 2: the you know, equipment and missile defense and all that
Speaker 2: stuff we have here pitidly little rockets that come in
Speaker 2: and out. You can ask US forces it's served in Iraq.
Speaker 2: Eventually one's going to hit somebody. Yeah, and that, you know,
Speaker 2: takes things to another level. So we're in We're not
Speaker 2: in a good place right now in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: So that's the danger with regard to the houthis the
Speaker 1: other thing. I mean, they're effectively waging and economic war
Speaker 1: on Israel because they're saying no ship that is headed
Speaker 1: for Israel is going to get through here. Specifically, they say,
Speaker 1: if Gaza does not receive the food medicine and needs
Speaker 1: all ships in the Red Seat bound for Israeli portse
Speaker 1: regardless of their nationality will become a target for our
Speaker 1: armed forces. Now that obviously creates risks and dangers for
Speaker 1: those ships in the region. But the other thing it
Speaker 1: does is it massively spikes the insurance rates for any
Speaker 1: Israeli ship and any Israeli flagship or any ship that
Speaker 1: is heading to Israel that is going to have a
Speaker 1: major economic impact globally but in particular on Israel. So
Speaker 1: that is the leverage that they are planning to use
Speaker 1: in this conflict. And it's not just a thread at
Speaker 1: this point. I mean, they already obviously have taken clear action,
Speaker 1: and now you have Israel effectively saying, hey us, you're
Speaker 1: not doing enough. Which listen, they can find their own business.
Speaker 1: They can find their own business on that front. But
Speaker 1: they're saying, if you don't take more action, we're going
Speaker 1: to get more involved. But that's not the only place.
Speaker 1: As I was saying before with regard to Lebanon, put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. They are also directly threatening Hesbla.
Speaker 1: This is from the Times of Israel. The headline here
Speaker 1: reads national Security Advisor. This is the Israeli National Security
Speaker 1: Advisor indicates war against Hesbela likely once Hamas is defeated.
Speaker 1: So they are saying pretty clearly here that they don't
Speaker 1: really want the second front in the war right now,
Speaker 1: but they are very much testing the waters for potential
Speaker 1: war against Hesbela after they wrap up their war on Gaza.
Speaker 1: The quote here is we can no longer accept Hesbela's
Speaker 1: Radwan force sitting on the border. We can no longer
Speaker 1: accept Resolution seventeen oh one not being implemented. That refers
Speaker 1: to a UN Security Council resolution from two thousand and
Speaker 1: six that barred any Hesbela presence from within almost thirty
Speaker 1: kilometers of the border with Israel as directly if there
Speaker 1: would be a war in the north. This national security
Speaker 1: advisor said, the situation in the North must be changed,
Speaker 1: and it will if Hesbola agrees to change things via diplomacy,
Speaker 1: very good, but I don't believe it will. He goes
Speaker 1: on to say, therefore, when the day comes, Israel will
Speaker 1: have to act ensure that residents of the North are
Speaker 1: no longer displaced in their land and to guarantee for
Speaker 1: them that the situation in the North has changed. She
Speaker 1: said Israel doesn't want to fight simultaneously on two fronts,
Speaker 1: indicated it would therefore tackle Hesbla after Hamas has defeated.
Speaker 1: He said, Israel has been quote making clear to the
Speaker 1: Americans we are not interested in war in the North,
Speaker 1: but that we will have no alternative but to impose
Speaker 1: a new reality if Hesbela remains a threat, And that
Speaker 1: part about that UN resolution peace is being read effectively
Speaker 1: as like a trial balloon for justification for some sort
Speaker 1: of like international justification is basically like the cover that
Speaker 1: they would use to justify to the US why they
Speaker 1: have to then wage this war on Hesbela.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's reminds me of whenever we invaded Iraq because
Speaker 2: Saddamis wasn't complying with these UN resolutions. Right, that'll totally
Speaker 2: be a proper justification. I actually read this as a
Speaker 2: way for Netan Yaho to be able to wind down
Speaker 2: things in Gaza but remain in the state of war
Speaker 2: for Israel, so that he can stay in power as
Speaker 2: long as possible. The longer that we more that we
Speaker 2: get away from October seventh, the less the questions of hey,
Speaker 2: so what did you do on October sixth exactly, and
Speaker 2: why did all of these people just simply ignore these
Speaker 2: intelligence warnings? The more that we can make the situation
Speaker 2: about what's going on with external threats to the State
Speaker 2: of Israel. The better it is from Neta Yah, who
Speaker 2: every day that the war goes on is better for
Speaker 2: him and for the Israelis. They're telegraphing they're going to
Speaker 2: need about two more months or so inside of Gaza.
Speaker 2: That's a long time for the people in Gaza. It's
Speaker 2: not a long time for nata Yahu. So what's the
Speaker 2: better way to do that? You escalate the war with
Speaker 2: Hezbolah and then it's a lot like what happened with Iraq.
Speaker 2: By two thousand and four, the national debate in this
Speaker 2: country had nothing to do with Bin Laden and al
Speaker 2: Qaeda and had everything to do with the security situation
Speaker 2: in the country, which had nothing to do with nine
Speaker 2: to eleven in the first place.
Speaker 3: It's a great distraction strategy and.
Speaker 2: It's what helped win Bush his second term in two
Speaker 2: thousand and four. I'm the one who's going to keep
Speaker 2: us safe by continuing the war in Iraq and not
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan. So I think Natanya, who's you know, watched
Speaker 2: this entire thing play out in many ways. He played
Speaker 2: an integral role in some of the events that were
Speaker 2: happening at that time.
Speaker 3: That's his best strategy for reelection.
Speaker 1: Well, and this is something we can talk to Dahlia,
Speaker 1: our Israeli polster about today. She was just interviewed in
Speaker 1: The New Yorker and she was pointing out that almost
Speaker 1: everybody wants Netanyahu gon his very little support left.
Speaker 4: The expectation is that as soon.
Speaker 1: As the war is over, he's basically going to be
Speaker 1: forced down or have to resign. But if you ask people, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want him to go right now, it's only
Speaker 1: about a quarter of people who want him to go
Speaker 1: right now. The remainder say, after the war is over,
Speaker 1: then we want you to go. But you know, the
Speaker 1: sense is like, we can't have this change in this
Speaker 1: chaos in the midst of this conflict, so we need
Speaker 1: to keep him there.
Speaker 4: Until the war is over.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he has every incentive in the world to
Speaker 1: drag this thing out as long as possible. And I
Speaker 1: mean this is classic politics, one on one. We see
Speaker 1: it here all the time. We saw it, you know,
Speaker 1: it came to mind. It was a very different situation.
Speaker 1: It's not analogous, but after what happened in East Palestine
Speaker 1: and Ohio, and there was all these calls for increased
Speaker 1: rail safety, and of course the rail companies didn't want
Speaker 1: that whatsoever, and so their whole strategy was, well, let's
Speaker 1: just let's do a study, let's push it out, let's
Speaker 1: delay it and let the heat die down. It's the
Speaker 1: same strategy that's being deployed here. He's hoping that people
Speaker 1: forget how up set they are, how disappointed they are,
Speaker 1: how much he failed, how much his doctrine which he
Speaker 1: has bet on to keep his power, which was effectively
Speaker 1: to block any hope of a Palestinian statehood, to promise
Speaker 1: he could control the height of the flames, to promise
Speaker 1: he was mister Security and no one had to worry
Speaker 1: about anything, and you could just maintain the status quo indefinitely.
Speaker 4: That was his whole doctrine that.
Speaker 1: Completely failed on October seventh, not to mention the incredible
Speaker 1: intelligence and security failures that led them to fail in
Speaker 1: anticipating and in responding to those massacres and those atrocities
Speaker 1: that Hamas committed on October seventh. So he's hoping that
Speaker 1: over time people will forget that, and the rawness of
Speaker 1: that emotion will go away. And so saga. I think
Speaker 1: you make a fantastic point about why they're saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: after this war is over and after you know, whatever
Speaker 1: the US decides, we're actually done watching us commit these
Speaker 1: atrocities in Gaza and force us to stop there. This
Speaker 1: is the next front in the war that we're going
Speaker 1: to open up, and this UN resolution is the fig
Speaker 1: leaf of justification that we're going to use for continuing there.
Speaker 3: Good luck.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's one of the this like for Gaza,
Speaker 2: for all the fear of escalation, at least for now,
Speaker 2: it's been about two months or so that military operations
Speaker 2: have continued in the Strip, and we haven't seen mass mobilization,
Speaker 2: but it's still very young in the conflict and the
Speaker 2: fear of escalation and the way.
Speaker 3: Things can go in Yemen and in Hesbolah.
Speaker 2: Also, don't forget about Syria, don't forget about our roles
Speaker 2: there and all of our other allies that we have
Speaker 2: across the world. This could significantly cause a massive conflagration,
Speaker 2: and it can happen very very quickly. As I laid out,
Speaker 2: all it takes is a single US sailor one missile
Speaker 2: that goes the wrong way.
Speaker 3: Same with the Israelis.
Speaker 2: We've already seen misfires from the Israelis, if you'll remember
Speaker 2: Crystal that accidentally fired into Egypt. These are very very
Speaker 2: confusing situations when things go hot like this, so we
Speaker 2: never know, and it's clearly in the direct interest of
Speaker 2: the Nets and Yahu government to continue this as long
Speaker 2: as possible. Hesbola would be the perfect excuse. I think
Speaker 2: though that given the way things are going in Gaza,
Speaker 2: and we'll talk about this in a military that would
Speaker 2: be look Hesbola, as we've always laid out as significantly
Speaker 2: more militarily capable as low as well as the Houthis
Speaker 2: in Yemen, and it would cause a hell of a
Speaker 2: lot more idea of casualties and even what they've seen
Speaker 2: in Gaza right now, so the population would also, you know,
Speaker 2: it would give them a reason, I think, to rebel possibly.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure you know what the political situation would remain,
Speaker 2: but you start seeing hundreds and hundreds of killed in
Speaker 2: action and thought tens of thousands of people who are wounded.
Speaker 3: It's a small country.
Speaker 2: You don't have that many young men who are capable,
Speaker 2: right and got three hundred thousand in total strength.
Speaker 1: And there's been a huge economic impact as well, and
Speaker 1: will probably cover this tomorrow, but Haret's actually uncovered that
Speaker 1: the IDF was lying about their casualty figures by.
Speaker 4: An astonishing amount.
Speaker 1: So we'll get into some more of that tomorrow and
Speaker 1: what we can glean of what the casualty numbers actually are,
Speaker 1: and they are much higher than what the Israelis have
Speaker 1: been presenting. Also unfolding this morning, the IDF has been
Speaker 1: forced to apologize after shocking photos emerged of Palestinians who
Speaker 1: had been detained, men military aged men who had been detained,
Speaker 1: and these humiliating photos came out that many people were called.
Speaker 1: You know, it was like Abu Grabe two point zero
Speaker 1: the nature of these They were stripped down to their underwear, blindfolded,
Speaker 1: hands bound, forced to kneel. And initially so the IDF
Speaker 1: is claiming, hey, we weren't the ones that released these photos. Well,
Speaker 1: someone among your ranks obviously were the ones that released
Speaker 1: these photos. Initially they were saying, oh, these are all
Speaker 1: Hamas militants who surrendered. Now they're admitting that according to
Speaker 1: their numbers, which take this with a million grains of salt,
Speaker 1: they say it was only ten to fifteen percent of
Speaker 1: these men were actually Hamas militants, and they said that
Speaker 1: although it had been necessary to strip them to ensure
Speaker 1: they weren't carrying explosives, showing the photos was needless and humiliating.
Speaker 1: After a global outcry, let's go ahead and put these
Speaker 1: photos up on the screen so you can see what
Speaker 1: we're talking about. For those of you who are just listening,
Speaker 1: this is a video that you can see here of
Speaker 1: these men stripped down to their underwear on the ground.
Speaker 1: These individuals are being forced to kneel, also in their underwear,
Speaker 1: with their hands bound. These are being transported in trucks,
Speaker 1: and again the original story we're getting as oh, these
Speaker 1: are all Hamas militants who are surrendering. You can see
Speaker 1: this man who is carrying a gun and he is
Speaker 1: coming forward and laying it down. One of the immediate
Speaker 1: questions that emerged here is you're about to see another
Speaker 1: version of this same video, and Al Jazeera and others
Speaker 1: reporting that it appears they made this man do this
Speaker 1: twice for their little propaganda video that they're filming here.
Speaker 4: And this man has.
Speaker 1: Been identified as a small business owner, by the way,
Speaker 1: with no known ties to Hamas, so that's where we are.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on
Speaker 1: the screen. The Israeli military originally sat on Thursday at
Speaker 1: appo hundred hundreds of people suspected of terrorism. Of course,
Speaker 1: now they are walking all of that back, and NBC
Speaker 1: reported on who these men actually were, so even before
Speaker 1: Israel admitted that many of these men were civilians. You
Speaker 1: can see this individual who's circled here. This is a journalist.
Speaker 1: This is a journalist for at the New.
Speaker 4: Arab's Arabic Service.
Speaker 1: Others are relatives of a DC based fundraiser for a
Speaker 1: UN agency. So people were able to spot civilians in
Speaker 1: this picture. In these pictures. Mainstream outlets actually, you know,
Speaker 1: did journalism and exposed that these were not, in fact
Speaker 1: all Hamas militants, and I think that's what pressured the
Speaker 1: IDF to actually come out and have to apologize and
Speaker 1: acknowledge that these were They claim some of them were
Speaker 1: Hamas militants.
Speaker 4: You can take that with a grain of salt, but.
Speaker 1: It's important to remember also what they were originally saying
Speaker 1: when they were originally pressed on these photos, which spread
Speaker 1: like wildfire and can have tremendously radicalizing impacts. Not to
Speaker 1: mention just you know, the amoral nature of humiliating these
Speaker 1: men who, most of whom did nothing wrong. Mark Regev,
Speaker 1: who's a senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister and Netnyahuo,
Speaker 1: was questioned by Sky News on why they did this
Speaker 1: and what exactly was going on here.
Speaker 4: Just listen to his response.
Speaker 5: What was the purpose of the exercise that was going
Speaker 5: on at that point in that part of Gaza.
Speaker 6: First, I will remember it's the Middle East and it's
Speaker 6: warmer here, and especially during the day when it's sunny,
Speaker 6: it's to be asked to take off your shirt. It
Speaker 6: might not be pleasant, but it's not the end of
Speaker 6: the world.
Speaker 5: But the fact that some of those were taken in
Speaker 5: that particular incident have now been released suggests that they
Speaker 5: were not members of Hamas. And whilst you were entitled
Speaker 5: to rind people up in that manner, what the IDF
Speaker 5: is not entitled to do under the Geneva Convention is
Speaker 5: breached the Third Convention, which you did, didn't you when
Speaker 5: you filmed them in those positions.
Speaker 6: So once again, I don't think we're talking about formal
Speaker 6: material that was released, and we have to look to
Speaker 6: have the video deal.
Speaker 5: If it proves to be filmed by the IDF, that's
Speaker 5: neither here nor there. Neither is the temperature in the
Speaker 5: Middle East.
Speaker 6: Understand, I understand, But I think the important thing he
Speaker 6: is to remember these are military aged men who were
Speaker 6: arrested in a combat zone, and as you've reported, people
Speaker 6: have already been released. We have no intention of keeping
Speaker 6: innocent people in custody.
Speaker 5: Which I agree with it, but I'm sorry to press
Speaker 5: you on this point. But if people have been released
Speaker 5: because they're not members of Hamas, if this was filmed
Speaker 5: by the IDEF, it is a clear breach of the
Speaker 5: Geneva Convention, is it not?
Speaker 6: So once again we have to look into where the
Speaker 6: video came from. It's not official video that was released
Speaker 6: by the State of Israel.
Speaker 5: If it were filmed by the IDF, as I just said,
Speaker 5: it would be a breach of the Geneva Convention, would
Speaker 5: it not.
Speaker 6: So I'm not familiar with that level of international law.
Speaker 1: It's the Middle East, it's warm, and I don't really
Speaker 1: understand internation is.
Speaker 3: The other problem? Well, then here's the other thing.
Speaker 2: And take all your soldiers' phones away, because who else
Speaker 2: is behind a machine gun which is an idea of
Speaker 2: convo was taking pictures of these guys and spreading it
Speaker 2: on social media. That's something that you as soldiers have
Speaker 2: learned a long time ago, and turking their phones away
Speaker 2: from these people because by the road, we shouldn't be
Speaker 2: trusted twenty two year olds with them.
Speaker 1: And by the way, listen, the IDF was also bragging
Speaker 1: about how they were rounding up militants. So I don't
Speaker 1: totally take them at face value either when they say
Speaker 1: they're so unhappy with these photos things.
Speaker 2: So let's actually just get to the crux of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's a reasonable question. I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: there's a justification here about the visual check for suicide
Speaker 2: bomber and first suicide vest.
Speaker 3: I think that's entirely reasonable.
Speaker 2: Actually, I look though, to people who actually served in
Speaker 2: the US military during Iraq, especially at the time two
Speaker 2: thousand and four and onward, when we had to deal
Speaker 2: with a very similar situation. And actually one of the
Speaker 2: generals who was in charge of that time, major General
Speaker 2: Charlie Herbert, who's now retired, let's go and put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. He was part of the
Speaker 2: coalition inside of Iraq, and this was the analysis he gave.
Speaker 2: He says, quote, I don't question the need for visual
Speaker 2: checks for suicide vests, that standard standard operating procedure when
Speaker 2: dealing with the suspected bomber. But in thirty four years
Speaker 2: of challenging infantry soldiering, I have never once seen scenes
Speaker 2: like this in the idea of photos, not once do
Speaker 2: a cursory online search and trying to find equivalents. Isis
Speaker 2: maybe abu grabe, but you will not find many photos
Speaker 2: of soldiers in democratically elected nation treating suspects like that.
Speaker 3: Don't suggest that it is a standard practice.
Speaker 2: It looks far more to me like a determined, deliberate
Speaker 2: effort to humiliate the great and to humanize. It is
Speaker 2: not one million as bad as what Hamas did on
Speaker 2: October seventh.
Speaker 3: But that's not the point, is it.
Speaker 2: So I really look to the people who professionally were
Speaker 2: in charge at that situation. And one of the things
Speaker 2: that has also come out, and I went back and
Speaker 2: checked as well, is that the FDF initial release at SDF,
Speaker 2: which were the Syrian Democratic Forces, which were the US
Speaker 2: backed coalition against Isis, whenever they would round up literal
Speaker 2: ISIS fighters who let's all remember, those are the guys
Speaker 2: who are responsible for enslaving and raping their wives. And
Speaker 2: even they did not strip them, and they would line
Speaker 2: them up and make sure that they were to make
Speaker 2: sure that they didn't have their arms.
Speaker 3: They would separate women and children.
Speaker 2: But even amongst the men, they're largely I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: they're treated humanly per se, but they were not treated
Speaker 2: in a similar fashion. And that was people who I
Speaker 2: think have the best justification for just shooting all these
Speaker 2: people in the head. And that's the problem I think
Speaker 2: for Israel is that from a recruiting level, this is
Speaker 2: going to be a real problem, and it's already spread
Speaker 2: across WhatsApp, across the entire Arab world, which is far
Speaker 2: more online today.
Speaker 3: And they were in two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: You can ask any person who was in command in
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, two thousand and five in Iraq,
Speaker 2: the Al Qaeda in Iraq and all of the Islamic propagandists,
Speaker 2: Abu Grabe was the number one recruiting tool that they had,
Speaker 2: those photos that they published and spread everywhere, and which
Speaker 2: US commanders eventually, at least, I guess to our credit,
Speaker 2: we apologized for it, and we were like, look, this
Speaker 2: is totally against everything that we stand for. I forget
Speaker 2: what that woman's name was, Lindsay or whatever she was.
Speaker 2: I believe they were court martialed and they were brought
Speaker 2: before military justice. The US commander in Iraq, I think
Speaker 2: is Ricardo Sanchez at that time, even was reamed out
Speaker 2: by President Bush and others said this is not what
Speaker 2: we're all about.
Speaker 3: So I think the IDF has got a problem on
Speaker 3: their hands.
Speaker 2: And it also just is one of those where when
Speaker 2: you only have ten to fifteen percent, that's a propaganda disaster.
Speaker 2: If you know, they didn't find a suicide vest, and
Speaker 2: then people were like, well, why did they have weapons
Speaker 2: in the first place. Another lesson that we all learned
Speaker 2: in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Syria. A lot of
Speaker 2: people in these places have guns. A lot of normal
Speaker 2: citizens just like we do. They've got rifles and other things,
Speaker 2: and not only protect their own property. It's actually a
Speaker 2: deep part of Arab culture now at this point. So
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of a lot of their explanations
Speaker 2: just do not really rise to what they initially put
Speaker 2: out there. And some of their propagandists here in the
Speaker 2: West who were like, well, this is exactly how America
Speaker 2: dealt with POW's in Iraq. It's like, no, we actually
Speaker 2: did not do that very intentionally. And then ask ask
Speaker 2: anybody who served five oh six, you know, and all
Speaker 2: the way throughout, unless you were a Guantanamo type detainee,
Speaker 2: you were not seeing something like this.
Speaker 1: It is sort of remarkable to see the just like
Speaker 1: reflexive pro Israel voices online just auto defend these photos
Speaker 1: and cheer them, also cheer them say oh, this is
Speaker 1: Hamas surrendering and this is great, this is fantastic, this
Speaker 1: is fully justified. And then even the IDF having to
Speaker 1: come out and apologize for these images and distance themselves
Speaker 1: all this was not we had nothing to do with this.
Speaker 4: With this, okay, then who was it who released.
Speaker 1: The photos, Who was it who took the photos, Who
Speaker 1: was it who took these multiple videos that ultimately emerged.
Speaker 1: And you know, the first thing that came to mind
Speaker 1: for me was actually there was a deeply researched piece
Speaker 1: about how the FBI so intentionally radicalized this young muscle man.
Speaker 1: This was classic War on Terror era tactics, you know,
Speaker 1: to effectively radicalize these young men and then entrap them
Speaker 1: in some sort of a plot so that they could
Speaker 1: be oh, look at us, we're disrupting terrorism, we're keeping
Speaker 1: people safe, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Et cetera.
Speaker 1: Of course, these plots never would have been hatched if
Speaker 1: the FBI wasn't pushing them in that direction anyway. But
Speaker 1: in one of these instances, I believe it was for
Speaker 1: this man who supposedly was gonna bomb Harold Square, it
Speaker 1: was the images of Abu Grave that they used to
Speaker 1: try to get him on the path to radicalization. This
Speaker 1: was the most effective propaganda tool for our own FBI
Speaker 1: in radicalizing people, and obviously for is Miss Jihattist to
Speaker 1: radicalize young men and to their cause. So when you
Speaker 1: think about the supposedly the core goal here, which I
Speaker 1: think is total bullshit for reasons that we've discussed previously,
Speaker 1: but the idea that we're going to eradicate hamas, you
Speaker 1: are creating more militants. You are radicalizing people far more
Speaker 1: effectively than you are. You're certainly not deradicalizing anyone, and
Speaker 1: you're doing it far more effectively radicalizing people than you
Speaker 1: are at actually identifying and capturing hamas militants or killing
Speaker 1: them on the battlefield. So let's also be clear, you know,
Speaker 1: put this next piece up on the screen. This is
Speaker 1: putting us at risk because around the world it is
Speaker 1: very clear that we are one hundred percent behind Israel's action.
Speaker 1: So when things like this emerge, it's not just the
Speaker 1: Israelis who are taking the blowback here, it's also US.
Speaker 1: Case in point here, the US stood alone in the
Speaker 1: world to veto this UN resolution that not only demanded
Speaker 1: an immediate ceasefire, but also call for the release of
Speaker 1: all the hostages. So you can't even pretend this is
Speaker 1: like about the hostages. We have to get the hostage. No,
Speaker 1: this resolution called for the release of the hostages. This
Speaker 1: is you know, the fifteen member Security Council. The vote
Speaker 1: was thirteen to one. We were the one, by the way,
Speaker 1: with the UK abstaining it. Says in this article the
Speaker 1: US is isolated. Stand reflected a growing fracture between Washington
Speaker 1: and some of it's closest allies over Israel's months long
Speaker 1: bombardment of Gaza. France and Japan were among those supporting
Speaker 1: the call for a ceasefire. We also enabled the Russians
Speaker 1: to grand stand here, saying that history will judge Washington's
Speaker 1: actions in the face of what the Russian deputy UN
Speaker 1: ambassador called a merciless Israeli bloodbath.
Speaker 3: So all of.
Speaker 4: These talk right, exactly, absolutely right.
Speaker 1: But as these images emerge, as we learn more about
Speaker 1: the atrocities being committed on the ground, keep in mind
Speaker 1: those are US made bombs. No, everyone sees through Biden's
Speaker 1: little leak into the process of oh, We're so concerned
Speaker 1: or Tony blinkin coming out. Too many innocent civilians have
Speaker 1: been killed. Everyone sees through that. Everyone knows Washington has
Speaker 1: greenlit all of these actions. We stand behind Israel, we
Speaker 1: say there's no red lines. We have done nothing other
Speaker 1: than leak to the press, how morally concerned we are
Speaker 1: to actually stop any of this from happening. So it's
Speaker 1: not just people being radicalized against Israel, it's them being
Speaker 1: radicalized against us too. So keep that in mind when
Speaker 1: you see any of these images emerging here.
Speaker 3: I am very worried about it, I really am.
Speaker 2: And I just think I'm going to apply the same
Speaker 2: logic that I did to Ukraine, is Israel and Ali.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is it worth the level of blowback? And now
Speaker 3: just think about this too.
Speaker 2: It's been two straight months, even on this show and
Speaker 2: every other show, this is the number one topic of
Speaker 2: conversation for a faraway third world ethnic conflict, which is
Speaker 2: what it is at the end of the day. Does
Speaker 2: it really bear the total obsession of the global elite?
Speaker 2: And then think about this about all the people in
Speaker 2: the region and about our support in the same way
Speaker 2: that we had everybody turned against us after Iraq, even
Speaker 2: though everybody was with us after nine to eleven. I'm
Speaker 2: really worried about what And Glenn Greenwall's been making this
Speaker 2: point as well, about polarizing the rest of the world
Speaker 2: against us. First, we did it on Ukraine, a conflict
Speaker 2: which again has no bearing on any of us. You
Speaker 2: could actually make a better argument, I think for why
Speaker 2: it is. The situation in Ukraine has more effect on
Speaker 2: US national security than you can for Israel. And yet
Speaker 2: that is what our elites and all this stuff decided
Speaker 2: is the number one, single most important thing. I think
Speaker 2: it's literal madness. And we're exerting all this foreign policy
Speaker 2: and bleeding all of this soft power and capital abroad
Speaker 2: for what. And we very rarely have gotten very much
Speaker 2: out of this deal. But they're powerful political constituencies here
Speaker 2: in America who this is their soul. This is what
Speaker 2: they have worked for seventy five years, and they've been very,
Speaker 2: very successful at doing it. So I guess congratulations to
Speaker 2: all of them. That's actually a perfect segue to our
Speaker 2: next segment about the campus canceled culture her madness that
Speaker 2: is going on right now. BRA got everybody an update
Speaker 2: over the weekend where the Penn Wharton Board called for
Speaker 2: the resignation of then president of UPenn Liz McGill, even
Speaker 2: after a hostage video that she put out in which
Speaker 2: she apologized for her quote unquote appalling remarks and to
Speaker 2: try to make and set the record clear. It wasn't enough,
Speaker 2: but we still never played the video for you, so
Speaker 2: we wanted to give people a taste.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: There was a moment during yesterday's Congressional hearing on anti
Speaker 7: Semitism when I was asked if a call for the
Speaker 7: genocide of Jewish people on our campus would violate our policies.
Speaker 7: In that moment, I was focused on our university's long
Speaker 7: standing policies aligned with the US Constitution, which say that
Speaker 7: speech alone is not punishable. I was not focused on
Speaker 7: but I should have been the irrefutable fact that a
Speaker 7: call for genocide Jewish people is a call for some
Speaker 7: of the most terrible violence.
Speaker 8: Human beings can perpetrate. It's evil.
Speaker 7: We are seeing signs of hate proliferating across our campus
Speaker 7: and our world in a way not seen in years.
Speaker 7: These policies need to be clarified and evaluated.
Speaker 3: Clarified and evaluated.
Speaker 2: And so even though she basically caved in video and
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, guys, I'll just make our speech policies
Speaker 2: on campus even more draconian and stupid, wasn't enough for
Speaker 2: the donors and for the board. Let's go and put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. The president, Liz McGill,
Speaker 2: has officially now resigned amid the quote unquote controversy over
Speaker 2: anti Semitism.
Speaker 3: And at least they're honest.
Speaker 2: Here after leaving from intense pressure from donors, politicians, and alumni.
Speaker 2: I think donors and the politicians going to be the
Speaker 2: number one and number two forces you and everybody from
Speaker 2: the freaking governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren,
Speaker 2: even you know, all these so called like people who
Speaker 2: stand for liberal values and all of this, who came
Speaker 2: out on top of the billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman,
Speaker 2: who has been the ringleader, and multiple other billionaires, including
Speaker 2: one who said he would withhold a one hundred million
Speaker 2: dollar donation from the University of Pennsylvania. But a lot
Speaker 2: of this is about long standing tensions about policies on campus. So,
Speaker 2: for example, donors have pressured McGill repeatedly prior to her
Speaker 2: testimony to try and to cancel Palestinian literary events that
Speaker 2: happened in the summer. So this is even pre Crystal
Speaker 2: October seventh Palestinian events that were happening on campus, where
Speaker 2: this was a huge and facilitating part of the reason
Speaker 2: that she was ultimately told to resign. Now, I think
Speaker 2: let's lay out a couple of things, because the number
Speaker 2: one critique is like, look, we're just giving him a
Speaker 2: taste to our own medicine.
Speaker 3: Okay, congratulations.
Speaker 2: You know why, because the new policy that is being
Speaker 2: set forth by the University of Pennsylvania is ten times worse.
Speaker 2: And if you think you're on the right and you
Speaker 2: are going to escape this, you are delusional. Putting this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen, this is the new policy
Speaker 2: that is being floated. The Wharton Board of Advisors has
Speaker 2: proposed this resolution that will punish any student or faculty
Speaker 2: member that quote uses hate speech.
Speaker 3: Or celebrates murder or genocide.
Speaker 2: Students will not celebrate or advocate for the murder, killing, genocide,
Speaker 2: or annihilation of any individual, classmate, quote, or any group
Speaker 2: of individuals in our community. Students, faculty, and employees will
Speaker 2: not engage in hate speech, whether veiled or explicit, that
Speaker 2: incites violence. Students will not use language that threatens the
Speaker 2: physical safety of community members. Students will who violate the
Speaker 2: above standards will be subject to immediate discipline. And I
Speaker 2: laid this out over the weekend, Christal, I want you
Speaker 2: to weigh in here as well. The initial value of
Speaker 2: the judgment was this, anybody who calls for a harm
Speaker 2: to another group of people should be immediately expelled.
Speaker 3: Well, what the hell does that mean?
Speaker 2: We've now lived through a decade of safetiest language, where
Speaker 2: writing op eds is considered violence against black people, where
Speaker 2: believing in like sex, believing in like sex at birth
Speaker 2: is considered genocide against trans people. Who do you think
Speaker 2: that this is going to be used against this type
Speaker 2: of language? And yeah, would they have immediately called for
Speaker 2: expulsion on that. Yes, Okay, they're hypocrites. So what the
Speaker 2: point is is that what we have here is clearly
Speaker 2: a policy which will be used to wield expulsion against
Speaker 2: anybody who just goes against whatever the quote unquote current
Speaker 2: thing is. And sure that might be Israel today, but
Speaker 2: in my opinion, this new anti anti Semitism thing, this
Speaker 2: is the new BLM, This is the new like anti racism.
Speaker 2: And to be honest, it might even be more powerful.
Speaker 4: Oh in terms of there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: Look how they capitulated, instantly capitulated, Like no one has
Speaker 1: been more effective at fighting free speech and ensuring and
Speaker 1: enshrining censorship than this movement right now. So effective, instant capitulation,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. I mean, reading this resolution, students will not
Speaker 1: engage in hate speech.
Speaker 4: Whether veiled or explicit.
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 4: And that's the other.
Speaker 1: Piece of this is there is not like you would think,
Speaker 1: seeing this whole freak out, which is one hundred percent
Speaker 1: completely manufactured to distract from the horrific images coming out
Speaker 1: of Gaza, you would think from this freak out that
Speaker 1: there's some epidemic of college students just out there like
Speaker 1: I want to genocide the Jews. No, they're talking about
Speaker 1: chance like from the River to the Sea, which many
Speaker 1: people when they say it mean one state with equal rights,
Speaker 1: that's not a genocide, okay, Or things like globalize the
Speaker 1: into fada Intofada is for many people. Yes, both intofadas
Speaker 1: contained some violence, but it is also just a means
Speaker 1: of calling for resistance. So you're going to leave it
Speaker 1: to these university administrators to decide what is hate speech
Speaker 1: and what isn't you know, many people feel right now
Speaker 1: that Israel is conducting at cleansing and on their way
Speaker 1: to a genocide. Is showing the Israeli flag tantamount to
Speaker 1: hate speech, tantamount to calling for genocide and violence against
Speaker 1: groups of people on university campuses. It could be construed
Speaker 1: that way, should it be, of course not. It's insane
Speaker 1: when these university presidents were asked the question. Yes, it
Speaker 1: was awkward, of course, when someone's like, do you condemn genocide?
Speaker 4: Is it against the policy?
Speaker 1: If you're trying to, you know, actually lay out your
Speaker 1: policy in a way that's nuanced, it's gonna sound kind
Speaker 1: of bad. But they had the right position of listen,
Speaker 1: if it's directly bullying and harassing student, of course, but
Speaker 1: if it's just speech, then no, that's free speech. So
Speaker 1: the two pieces, the three pieces of this that drive
Speaker 1: me insane is Number one is completely manufactured. No one
Speaker 1: ever gives the actual statements that students are making. I've
Speaker 1: never seen anyone offer an example. Maybe there's one out there,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen anyone offer an example where students
Speaker 1: are directly like, let's genocide the Jews. Okay, that's number one,
Speaker 1: completely obviously manufactured. Number two the hypocrisy of these people
Speaker 1: who three seconds ago were free speech absolutists, anti cancel culture, etc.
Speaker 1: Flip on the dime and are more effective at getting
Speaker 1: censorship enshrined than anyone has been.
Speaker 4: That's number two.
Speaker 1: And number three the fact that this is being so
Speaker 1: dishonestly portrayed of what is actually unfolding on these college campuses.
Speaker 1: You know, this is what the ADL, for example, wants.
Speaker 1: They want any criticism of the state of Israel, any
Speaker 1: criticism of Zionism, which is a political project, to be
Speaker 1: construed as anti Semitic and quote unquote violence against Jewish people.
Speaker 1: And it is utter and complete nonsense, complete nonsense. And
Speaker 1: by the way, one thing that does make Jewish people
Speaker 1: less safe is by tying every Jewish person to a
Speaker 1: state that is right now committing horrific atrocities and making
Speaker 1: it so you can't critique that. I mean, this just
Speaker 1: to me is like the definition of insanity. And I
Speaker 1: think when we look back at this period and we're
Speaker 1: really able to take in the thousands of kids that
Speaker 1: have been killed, the journalists who have been massacred, the
Speaker 1: utter destruction of Gaza on a level greater than even
Speaker 1: the bombings that we were doing in World War Two
Speaker 1: of Dresden and other German cities, When we really take
Speaker 1: that in and we realize the bulk of our national
Speaker 1: conversation was focused on invented, like not even real calls
Speaker 1: for genocide on college campuses that didn't even happen, we're
Speaker 1: gonna think this was utterly and completely insane. But right now,
Speaker 1: so many people are just caught up in the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is now, this is what they do. It's
Speaker 2: pretty amazing. Let's go and put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen too, so you can see this. So we've
Speaker 2: got actresses like Noah tishbe Amy Schumer, Deborah Messing who
Speaker 2: are now calling for the FBI to investigate these groups
Speaker 2: on campuses and for quote universities to ban them everywhere.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, this is.
Speaker 4: For Glenn greenwaal, Yeah, probably already is mitigating.
Speaker 3: By the way of it, they almost certainly are.
Speaker 2: And then I actually appreciate this one the most because
Speaker 2: this person just came out and put it all in
Speaker 2: the open. Let's put this next piece up on the screen.
Speaker 2: I actually want to read some of it to you.
Speaker 2: To fight anti Semitism on campuses, we must restrict speech.
Speaker 2: This is Professor Claire Finkelstein, a Briddle Professor of Law
Speaker 2: and Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also
Speaker 2: a member of the school's Open Expression Committee and chair
Speaker 2: of the Committee on Academic Freedom. Can you believe that
Speaker 2: this is the law school chair of academic Freedom and
Speaker 2: Expression committee who says that we must restrict speech. And
Speaker 2: she lays it out on completely and entirely in a
Speaker 2: way that you can't even make up. She just says
Speaker 2: university presidence should resist a conclusion of free speech rather
Speaker 2: than confront the conflict. Conflict between the commitment to free
Speaker 2: speech and the commitment to eliminating the hostile environment facing
Speaker 2: Jewish students on campus. People affirm their commitment to both,
Speaker 2: but by time, by setting up task courses to problem
Speaker 2: started the problem. Some have attempted to split this difference.
Speaker 2: Countering speech with more speech might just mean adding to
Speaker 2: hateful rhetoric on campus and would not solve the problem.
Speaker 2: Universities can set up all the task forces that they
Speaker 2: want while war and groups are busy calling for each
Speaker 2: other's violent demise. She then lays out a multifaceted case
Speaker 2: as to why, actually, under the Civil Rights Act and
Speaker 2: Title seven, that they must ensure campuses don't descend into
Speaker 2: hostile environments, that public universities should not be bound by
Speaker 2: the First Amendment, and even private ones like pen, Harvard
Speaker 2: and MIT, and then ultimately just says this, though expression
Speaker 2: and academic freedom are critically important values in higher education,
Speaker 2: there are other values that universities must promote as well,
Speaker 2: like encouraging civil dialogue, cultivating critical listening, and developing the
Speaker 2: skills to build community relationships. So there's basically everything you
Speaker 2: want for a censorship minded person in here. And this
Speaker 2: is safetyism. This is just pure safetyism in a nutshell.
Speaker 2: It's what I've fought against, from BLM to this trans nonsense,
Speaker 2: to now this, they're all the exact same in terms
Speaker 2: of the way that they phrase their red Everything is genocidal,
Speaker 2: everything is calling for elimination. Maybe the other side has
Speaker 2: a point, as you said, calling for global into paduct.
Speaker 3: Maybe you should ask somebody what they mean by that.
Speaker 2: You should ask somebody about the phrase or whatever from
Speaker 2: the river to the sea. Some people might mean wiping
Speaker 2: off the face of Israel. Maybe some people mean another thing.
Speaker 2: And I'll even say something even more controversial. I believe
Speaker 2: in the First Amendment, and I believe in for a
Speaker 2: complete First Amendment guidance. Even if you were calling for genocide,
Speaker 2: I don't think you should be expelled. I'll say it
Speaker 2: same on Kanye he tweeted out the swastika. Fine, sorry,
Speaker 2: it's a free country. You can do that in this country,
Speaker 2: and I think you should be able to do so.
Speaker 2: There's no Hitler was right exception to the First Amendment.
Speaker 2: You can think it's abhorrent, which I do, but that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that you should ever crack down on those
Speaker 2: people's ability to talk. And this is their a creating
Speaker 2: something out of nothing, but also setting the precedent for
Speaker 2: something I think is genuinely very dangerous all of this
Speaker 2: like harm and safety ism and all that.
Speaker 3: And I've laid it out before, but I'll just say
Speaker 3: it again.
Speaker 2: What most American Jews who are behind this, they're just
Speaker 2: mad they're not considered marginalized within the Dei regime. But
Speaker 2: the thing is, the de I regime itself is bad.
Speaker 2: The de I regime itself is how we got to
Speaker 2: the point where you're constantly morally equivocaing.
Speaker 3: Why should these universities take positions on this shit anyway?
Speaker 3: They shouldn't. These academic professors and all these people should
Speaker 3: have a very simple guideline, ma'am.
Speaker 2: Whenever on our college campus, we have the First Amendment
Speaker 2: as our guiding principle. If you violate that by explicitly
Speaker 2: turning into action against another student.
Speaker 3: You will be expelled.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Period, That's it. Everybody else can do whatever they want.
Speaker 1: And also, let me just say too, I don't want
Speaker 1: to put this on all Jewish people. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of Jewish students out there who think this is nonsense.
Speaker 1: So who are by away by the way, protesting alongside
Speaker 1: those who are calling for you know, for peace and
Speaker 1: a ceasefire, and who may even be saying things like
Speaker 1: globalize the Intifada or from the River to the Sea. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is, you know, an elite effort to quash
Speaker 1: any sort of pro Palestinian speech. This is something that
Speaker 1: has been waged for many years. This is one of
Speaker 1: the primary reasons why I have always said, even if
Speaker 1: you are not principled on this issue, which you should be,
Speaker 1: you should just support for free speech, whether it benefits
Speaker 1: your side or the other side. This has always been
Speaker 1: the most fraught cancel culture issue. So while it was
Speaker 1: the right that was claiming the mantle of free speech,
Speaker 1: absolutism and anti cancel culture, etc. It was always that,
Speaker 1: you know, any critique of Israel that was the fastest
Speaker 1: way to get you canceled or lose your job, or
Speaker 1: be shamed online, etc. So these things cut really quickly
Speaker 1: in both directions, which is why you should just have
Speaker 1: a principled stance on the issue. There was one line
Speaker 1: in that op ed that you were reading from that
Speaker 1: just made my mind completely explode. She writes privileging free
Speaker 1: speech on campus relative to other values, emphasizes skill that
Speaker 1: pose the greatest challenge to our democracy, and fails to
Speaker 1: cultivate the skills democratic societies most need. What So being
Speaker 1: for free speech is bad for democracy. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is insanity. This goes against you know, the entire like
Speaker 1: idealized American democratic project. And I just think it comes
Speaker 1: from You've got a lot of cynical actors here who
Speaker 1: just you know, they want to weaponize it when it's
Speaker 1: convenient for them.
Speaker 4: That's very clear.
Speaker 1: But I also think that this whole safetyism instinct and
Speaker 1: this whole quote unquote pushback against free speech comes from
Speaker 1: an America that is really lacking in confidence, from people
Speaker 1: who don't trust each other, have been told that, you know,
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the country is evil, and so they
Speaker 1: have to be contained and they have to be controlled,
Speaker 1: and it is the first step to you know, increased
Speaker 1: authoritarianism in this sort of police state attitude that is
Speaker 1: anathema to an actual vibrant, functioning democracy. So to read
Speaker 1: this in the Washington Post and really wrap your heat
Speaker 1: around what this person is arguing, it just makes you
Speaker 1: completely crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah it makes me crazy too, But I also know
Speaker 2: that this will be the prevailing ideology.
Speaker 3: And let's go to the next part here. Let's go
Speaker 3: ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: So this is one where we just can't look away
Speaker 2: because the flip on a dime from saying things like
Speaker 2: affirmative action is bad to now instituting straight up Jewish
Speaker 2: quotas has now taken a mere twenty four hours. Here's Pallenteer.
Speaker 2: This is a company that has security software. They license
Speaker 2: the CIA to a lot of other financial institutions, and
Speaker 2: all that, they say, we Palenteer, have been committed and
Speaker 2: let's please leave this up to defending the principles that
Speaker 2: make democratic rule possible. Since our founding two decades ago,
Speaker 2: our software embodies our values and commitments. We believe these
Speaker 2: values must be backed up by actions. So they say
Speaker 2: students on campuses are terrified and have been instructed by
Speaker 2: administrators to hide their judaism. I do not believe that
Speaker 2: that has literally ever happened. They say, we are launching
Speaker 2: an initiative for students who, because of anti Semitism, fear
Speaker 2: for their safety on campus and need to seek refuge
Speaker 2: outside traditional establishments of higher education. They are welcome to
Speaker 2: join Palenteer, and we are setting aside one hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty positions for them immediately. More details to follow. So
Speaker 2: there's a lot going on here. One is that this
Speaker 2: is a straight up quota. There's no other way to
Speaker 2: describe it. This is a quota for Jews at an
Speaker 2: American company. Someone might want to tell them that that
Speaker 2: violates the most basic practices of hiring and of discrimination,
Speaker 2: regardless of whether it's applied to blacks or whether it's
Speaker 2: applied to Jews. And I've definitely criticized it whenever I've
Speaker 2: seen it in that direction, and they I probably look,
Speaker 2: I don't know all the people behind Palenteer. I only
Speaker 2: want to point one person. He is somebody who I
Speaker 2: have heard rail against racial admissions preferences.
Speaker 3: And it's like, what happened? Man.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to drop names, but it's like one
Speaker 2: of those where that's not what you do whenever you're
Speaker 2: friends with somebody. But it's outrageous. And you know, you
Speaker 2: see too, a guy like Ben Shapiro, who has been
Speaker 2: against this type of stuff for and again, has made
Speaker 2: millions of dollars preaching against it, and now immediately put
Speaker 2: this up there.
Speaker 3: He says, love this, love this, Yeah, we.
Speaker 4: Love it, and then love racial quota, as Glenn.
Speaker 2: Pointed out hours later, he followed up and said, but
Speaker 2: they should open it.
Speaker 3: Up to everyone, regardless of whether they fear anti Semitism
Speaker 3: or not.
Speaker 2: Time to take the talent pool of the entire college
Speaker 2: and university scam and hire them away. And look, I
Speaker 2: have respect for Ben on some levels, mostly at a
Speaker 2: business perspective, but for me to watch somebody like this
Speaker 2: who so clearly just abandoned so much of what they
Speaker 2: stood for, to directly get and self involved in a conflict,
Speaker 2: and then to cheer on things happening again in the
Speaker 2: United States saying, you know, the direct quota systems for
Speaker 2: saying and allegedly make up shit like people have been
Speaker 2: told to tie to their Judaism on campus. Show me
Speaker 2: one example of that. And same with these students. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna keep calling these people. I hate doing it because
Speaker 2: I hate targeting individual ones, but they're the ones who
Speaker 2: put themselves in the discussion.
Speaker 3: One of them claims that one of their.
Speaker 2: Professors called them a dirty Jew, and it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: name him, then name him, because if you can't, then
Speaker 2: I don't believe you. My Smallet rule is, I don't
Speaker 2: believe you if you're gonna make an allegation like this
Speaker 2: unless you've got literal proof on video or and they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: we feel unsafe because we have to walk past posters
Speaker 2: who have written I walk past.
Speaker 3: Annoying posters here in Washington.
Speaker 2: All the time. Try to live in here during BLM.
Speaker 2: It's annoying as hell. Guess what, that's life. I could
Speaker 2: also have the freedom to get up and leave the
Speaker 2: city any time that I want.
Speaker 3: That's the whole point.
Speaker 2: Or all of these rbg's a hero ones, which I
Speaker 2: would hope at least piste us both off Crystal.
Speaker 3: About how she's a feminist here.
Speaker 2: I mean I can't, or all of the what are
Speaker 2: those dumb ass signs like in this house we believe,
Speaker 2: you know whatever.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, everything your life, man, Just you know.
Speaker 2: I sent you a photo just yesterday one of my
Speaker 2: neighbors who has got a gay Pride flag with the
Speaker 2: Israeli star in the middle of it.
Speaker 4: And you know that's a whole I just walked past.
Speaker 2: It's right next to the Slava Ukraine, and I just
Speaker 2: keep walking my.
Speaker 3: Dog even though it annoys me, because that's a free compry.
Speaker 1: This is the rough and tumble of democracy, friend, this
Speaker 1: is how it is. And yeah, so that those press
Speaker 1: conferences that Republicans are organizing where they have these like
Speaker 1: privileged Ivy League students come out and be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I saw a poster.
Speaker 4: I had to walk.
Speaker 1: Protest well, and not only that, Okay, if it was
Speaker 1: the other way, if it was Democrats organizing these press conferences,
Speaker 1: and it was transactivists, or it was black students or
Speaker 1: any other marginalized minority, Ben Shapiro will be first in
Speaker 1: line to mock the hell out of them as being
Speaker 1: little privileged snowflakes crying about having to see you for imposters, okay,
Speaker 1: and now like that turn on a dime and seemingly
Speaker 1: zero self awareness, and with the Palanti your thing in particular,
Speaker 1: I mean, this isn't even affirmative.
Speaker 3: Action, right, Oh yeah, it's worse. This is straight up quotas.
Speaker 1: Which very few people on the left or liberals or
Speaker 1: whatever even call for an American life, you know when
Speaker 1: it comes to minorities who have suffered vast discriminations around
Speaker 1: our history. So you're just instantly like, yeah, quotas, I'm
Speaker 1: good for it. If they're you know, if they've experienced
Speaker 1: anti semitism on campus, quotas.
Speaker 4: We're ready for it.
Speaker 1: It's wild to watch how few people have any sort
Speaker 1: of consistency when it's a group that they have an
Speaker 1: affinity for, when it's a group that they see themselves
Speaker 1: either as part of or as an ally of. And
Speaker 1: this has been it hasn't been across the board. There
Speaker 1: have been some people who have been like, you know what,
Speaker 1: like the bag give them credit here, right, He's he's
Speaker 1: been consistent, And there have been a few people on
Speaker 1: the left who have tried to be consistent even when
Speaker 1: it was more you know, the right that was.
Speaker 4: Pushing for free speech.
Speaker 1: I would just really please everyone, regardless of whose side
Speaker 1: you feel like benefits in this particular moment, please try
Speaker 1: to have some shred of dignity and some shred of
Speaker 1: a principle that is consistently applied here, because otherwise you're
Speaker 1: going to end up endorsing things that make you look
Speaker 1: absolutely ridiculous and should not be tolerated in any sort
Speaker 1: of situation.
Speaker 3: Would not agree more.
Speaker 2: At the same time, here, for domestic politics, things have
Speaker 2: probably never looked worse for President Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton has now stepped up as quote a key
Speaker 2: player in Biden's reelection. Clinton ad posted a one million
Speaker 2: dollar fundraiser at her Georgetown home. That ought to do
Speaker 2: it because money is what she was lacking in the
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen campaign.
Speaker 3: That's not necessarily a good sign. They say.
Speaker 2: Clinton's re emergence is emblematic of the larger Democratic effort
Speaker 2: to fully deploy high profile allies in Biden's re election fight.
Speaker 2: While Obama has appeared in fundraising, some Democrats would actually
Speaker 2: like to see him even more visible on the campaign trail.
Speaker 2: You're very eager to get our surrogates engage, one of
Speaker 2: the Biden campaign people said, pointing to the Clintons and
Speaker 2: the former first couple Barack and Michelle Obama.
Speaker 3: So that obviously is going to do it.
Speaker 2: And just in a sign of why Hillary is getting involved,
Speaker 2: is just how bad things are going for President Biden.
Speaker 3: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: He now has the lowest approval of any president ever
Speaker 2: in the history of presidential polling at this point in
Speaker 2: his presidency. That includes Jimmy Carter in nineteen in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies.
Speaker 4: So most of these aren't even close.
Speaker 3: Thee most of these are not even close.
Speaker 4: Trump is actually, I guess maybe the closest one.
Speaker 2: Well, the thing is with Trump is that he was
Speaker 2: always low, but he was just consistently low. And for
Speaker 2: him that forty one percent, it never necessarily went above that,
Speaker 2: but enough people were willing to vote for him even
Speaker 2: though they didn't like him, that it would end up
Speaker 2: saving him.
Speaker 3: Biden does not have nearly that same.
Speaker 2: Level a floor of people who would fall crawl over
Speaker 2: broken glass to make sure that he's voted for. And
Speaker 2: because even though he is polarizing against Republicans, he's not
Speaker 2: animating in the same way for his Democratic base. And
Speaker 2: so if they don't want to come out and to
Speaker 2: vote for him, then he's in very, very serious trouble.
Speaker 2: And it's not just on approval rating, which is not
Speaker 2: necessarily is I just laid out with Trump indicative On
Speaker 2: the economy, things are absolutely brutal for Biden. Please put
Speaker 2: this up there. This is just polling from yesterday. The
Speaker 2: standard of living is worse than their parents was age
Speaker 2: eighteen to twenty nine. Thirty nine percent say yes. The
Speaker 2: majority say yes. In the millennial demographic most difficult economic
Speaker 2: time for the US, multiple people say it is ways
Speaker 2: that you tell how the economy is doing their own experiences.
Speaker 2: People that you know professionally, is your income keeping up
Speaker 2: with inflation?
Speaker 3: Only twenty four percent say yes it is.
Speaker 2: The vast majority seventy six percent say that it is
Speaker 2: not so on almost every every economic metric, Crystal, it
Speaker 2: is not working for the American people. And on a
Speaker 2: polling front, things remain absolutely brutal. And the Trump evidence
Speaker 2: of his strength is crystal clear. Put this up there too,
Speaker 2: from the Wall Street Journal. They have now officially shown
Speaker 2: Trump with a commanding lead forty seven percent for the
Speaker 2: election if it was held today say they would vote
Speaker 2: for him. Only forty three percent say Joe Biden. And
Speaker 2: a huge part of that, crystal is specifically because of
Speaker 2: people who voted for Joe Biden and are going to
Speaker 2: stay home in twenty twenty four. And that's the critical block.
Speaker 2: It's not even that Trump has necessarily picked up a
Speaker 2: lot more votes. It's just that ninety five percent of
Speaker 2: the people who voted for him last time around say
Speaker 2: that they will do so again, and only sixty or
Speaker 2: eight seventy percent of the people who say that they
Speaker 2: did in twenty twenty would vote for him again in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: They also found they did measure it with the third
Speaker 1: party candidates in and they found that when you include everybody,
Speaker 1: it widens the lead for Trump. But RFK Junior in particular,
Speaker 1: he's the only one of the canon's that does in
Speaker 1: their poll anyway take more from Trump than he does
Speaker 1: from Biden. So in any case, take that for what
Speaker 1: it's worth, because obviously there's a lot of challenges and
Speaker 1: hurdles for all of their third party candidates to be
Speaker 1: able to get on the ballot, So who knows who's
Speaker 1: going to be on the ballot where. But overall, the
Speaker 1: addition of third party candidate to this mix is probably
Speaker 1: only more trouble for Joe Piden, which is I guess
Speaker 1: did why they're desperately and foolishly pulling the Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: lever thinking that is going to somehow save them in
Speaker 1: any way.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The economic stuff is very interesting. There's a whole debate
Speaker 1: raging on econ and political Twitter about whether the economic
Speaker 1: woes that the American people are reporting are imagined. Are
Speaker 1: they in their head, are they just persuaded by TikTok
Speaker 1: disinformation and negative media reports, or are people.
Speaker 4: Really going through it?
Speaker 1: And one of the things that this poll asks people
Speaker 1: is like, hey, are you saying these things about the
Speaker 1: economy because of what you've heard is happening with other people?
Speaker 1: Or are you talking about your own personal financial situation?
Speaker 1: And overwhelmingly, guess what, guys, they said, it's about me
Speaker 1: and what I'm experience in my life. And we have
Speaker 1: that number up there before of how many people overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: they say, no, my wages are not keeping up with inflation.
Speaker 1: As we've discussed here as well. Remember the story of
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is a story not only of inflation,
Speaker 1: but also if all the covid eras social safety net
Speaker 1: programs being stripped away. We have tracked here repeatedly the
Speaker 1: way that high interest rates have screwed the housing market
Speaker 1: and made housing more affordable than at almost any time
Speaker 1: in history. We've tracked here how people are increasingly maxing
Speaker 1: out their credit cards. So when you look at these
Speaker 1: consumer spending numbers and you're like, oh, if everybody seems
Speaker 1: all right, they're spending normal amounts of money, or they've
Speaker 1: even increased the amount of money that they're spending, guess what.
Speaker 1: They're racking up massive amounts of debt to do that.
Speaker 1: We've tracked also how you know these new like installment
Speaker 1: pavement companies that you can use online or even at
Speaker 1: the grocery store sometimes, how they have seen a massive
Speaker 1: increase in business where people are using installment plans even
Speaker 1: to pay for basic things like groceries. So, if you
Speaker 1: know where to look, the signs are all over the
Speaker 1: place that things are going poorly, and you can't just
Speaker 1: look at the unemployment rate. You certainly can't just look
Speaker 1: at the stock market. You have to look at this
Speaker 1: combination of factors and soccer. One other thing that we
Speaker 1: had talked about before is there's also a huge age
Speaker 1: divide here. If you are older and you have savings,
Speaker 1: the higher interest rates may be good for If you
Speaker 1: already have a home and you have savings, the high
Speaker 1: interest rates might be good for you. If you're young
Speaker 1: and you're trying to buy a house and you're looking
Speaker 1: at these mortgage rates and the housing prices that continue
Speaker 1: to go up have not gone down at all, you
Speaker 1: are going to feel like I have no hope of
Speaker 1: ever becoming a homeowner and having some sort of a
Speaker 1: stable life and having you know, being able to move
Speaker 1: past this phase of procarity that I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: always going to exist in So it's no wonder why
Speaker 1: you also see a generational divide about how people feel
Speaker 1: the economy is doing.
Speaker 2: No question at all, especially with those young voters. That's
Speaker 2: a big constituency for Biden whenever it comes to who
Speaker 2: he needs to rely on. And they actually did some
Speaker 2: math on this. For every like one or two percent,
Speaker 2: that equates to about ten thousand votes, And that is
Speaker 2: the margin of victory for exactly what you see in
Speaker 2: Georgia and in Michigan previously, Pennsylvania, Arizona and all these
Speaker 2: other must win states that Biden has the headwinds in
Speaker 2: Biden is currently facing because I don't think people understand
Speaker 2: just how miraculous, honestly, by the margins that he won
Speaker 2: in the electoral College. It looks like Georgia and Arizona
Speaker 2: just flipped. No, they were so razor thin for the
Speaker 2: margin of victory that it even if he was just
Speaker 2: a few points lower in his approval than when he
Speaker 2: was elected, he would be facing trouble to be double
Speaker 2: digits down by I mean, what fifteen to twenty percent
Speaker 2: in terms of his approval margin since he took office.
Speaker 3: That's a disaster.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just one of those where we have
Speaker 2: not seen this like since Jimmy Carter. And I think
Speaker 2: that he has given Carter a run for his money
Speaker 2: in terms of the global crisis situation, the same thing
Speaker 2: that happened under Carter. The belief that he is handling
Speaker 2: of the economy is a disaster. And with Trump, Trump
Speaker 2: is almost Reagan Esque in this one respect, where you
Speaker 2: can project whatever the hell you want. You know, for
Speaker 2: a lot of people who are voting for Trump, it's
Speaker 2: just like last ditch because he pisses off the left.
Speaker 2: Some are small business Republicans who would vote for a
Speaker 2: Republican anyway, and then some are At this point, Trump
Speaker 2: is going to get the anti Biden vote in the
Speaker 2: same way that many of the people voted for Reagan
Speaker 2: did solely because its screw you to Jimmy Carter. So
Speaker 2: I think that Trump is in a very beneficial position.
Speaker 2: But also he is his own worst enemy.
Speaker 4: We can't lie about that, very true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the more that he is like in the
Speaker 1: news and in the headlines and as his trials unfoldless
Speaker 1: and who knows, there's a new CNN poll out this
Speaker 1: morning of Georgia and Michigan. Georgia has Trump up by
Speaker 1: five forty nine.
Speaker 4: Forty four.
Speaker 1: Michigan, where of course there is a large Arab American population, has.
Speaker 4: Trump up by ten fifty to forty. It has him
Speaker 4: up by ten.
Speaker 1: So there's just no spinning that Biden is dramatically behind
Speaker 1: in terms of his reelect. Now, if you dig into
Speaker 1: this Wall Street Journal poll, they try to pull out
Speaker 1: a few things of like, well, this could be a
Speaker 1: decent sign for Biden. The issues that he's ahead on
Speaker 1: are handling abortion, which we're going to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about in the next block. If that continues
Speaker 1: to be a major focus of American politics, maybe that
Speaker 1: rescues him. You also have voters who are undecided suggest
Speaker 1: they could be persuaded to back Biden nearly a year
Speaker 1: from now. So you have some people who are kind
Speaker 1: of on the fence who seem like maybe they're a
Speaker 1: little bit tilted towards Biden over Trump, but that's far
Speaker 1: from a sure thing.
Speaker 4: They also talk.
Speaker 1: About how when voters talk about personal qualities, they still
Speaker 1: view Biden in a more favorable light than Trump. So
Speaker 1: voters say the word corrupt applies more to trum than
Speaker 1: to Biden. Biden is seen by more voters as honest.
Speaker 1: A felony conviction for Trump, who faces ninety one charges
Speaker 1: and for criminal prosecutions, would shift the head to head
Speaker 1: Pellett to give Biden a slight one point lead.
Speaker 4: That's kind of amazing to me.
Speaker 1: So even if this dude is found guilty, if he's
Speaker 1: convicted of one of these felony charges, that only gives
Speaker 1: Biden a one point lead, which is obviously within the
Speaker 1: margin of error. And also, who knows how people are
Speaker 1: actually going to react to those things versus how they
Speaker 1: think they're going to react to those things, But that's
Speaker 1: their spin is effectively like, if this ends up being
Speaker 1: more of a contest of values versus issues, then Biden
Speaker 1: potentially has a possibility of pulling things from behind. And
Speaker 1: then abortion is the thing that Democrats are really betting on.
Speaker 1: There was just a peace out about how they're going
Speaker 1: to stake a lot of Biden's reelection on the issue
Speaker 1: of abortion, not even promising to do anything affirmative to
Speaker 1: reclaim the rights that have been lost, but just to
Speaker 1: serviceable work against for the deterioration of women's rights.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that abortion remains probably the
Speaker 2: single biggest flashing red light, and I think it is
Speaker 2: actually the only hope that Biden has left. And the
Speaker 2: reason though, is it's potent, it is actually relevant, and
Speaker 2: it's especially the most relevant in all the states that
Speaker 2: needs to win, like Michigan where you had a huge
Speaker 2: win for abortion on the ballot, Georgia. I mean, we
Speaker 2: haven't seen it tested yet, but it certainly is one
Speaker 2: where it could activate the suburban constituency who Biden needs
Speaker 2: to drag out.
Speaker 3: Arizona the same thing.
Speaker 2: So really, in the states where Biden most needs turn
Speaker 2: out to go up, he's got abortion there. The only
Speaker 2: question is how Trump is going to navigate it. But
Speaker 2: Trump hasn't been all that successful. He's trying to distance
Speaker 2: himself from it at the same time take credit for it.
Speaker 2: So it's one of those where he could lose evangelical
Speaker 2: votes in the same process.
Speaker 1: I don't think he can really effectively distance himself from it,
Speaker 1: not only because I mean, listen, you're the guy who
Speaker 1: put these people on the Supreme Court, number one, so
Speaker 1: you're just going to have a hard time making the
Speaker 1: argument that this isn't on you to begin with. And
Speaker 1: also just because of party affiliation. I think it'll be
Speaker 1: very hard for him to dodge. But this is actually
Speaker 1: a great segue to the next piece because the issue
Speaker 1: of abortion does continue to loom large, and I think
Speaker 1: will continue to loom large because you have cases still unfolding,
Speaker 1: challenging the laws, some of the more draconian laws that
Speaker 1: have been passed in states across the country. The latest
Speaker 1: comes down of Texas put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So the Texas Supreme Court has now paused a judge
Speaker 1: decision that would have allowed a woman to terminate a
Speaker 1: pregnancy in which her fetus has a fatal diagnosis. So
Speaker 1: this woman's name is Kate Cox. She lives in Dallas.
Speaker 1: She's a mother of two. You know, she would love
Speaker 1: to have this healthy baby girl, but her fetus has
Speaker 1: been diagnosed with a deadly genetic condition which will allowed
Speaker 1: only to live for potentially a few days out of
Speaker 1: the womb. There's no doctor who was saying that this
Speaker 1: fetus could survive, and yet in the state of Texas,
Speaker 1: she is has been banned from being able to have
Speaker 1: an abortion. This is having huge physical health costs on
Speaker 1: her her She's had to be admitted to the hospital
Speaker 1: with horrific pains and cramping because of the problems with
Speaker 1: this pregnancy. A lower court had ruled that she could
Speaker 1: go forward with the abortion, and now the Texas Supreme
Speaker 1: Court has stepped in and halted that judge's order, although.
Speaker 4: The case is still ongoing.
Speaker 1: What the Texas Attorney General had argued is that the
Speaker 1: state would suffer a quote irreparable loss should Kate Cox
Speaker 1: be allowed to terminate her pregnancy. He writes, because the
Speaker 1: life of an unborn child is at state, the court
Speaker 1: should require a faithful application of Texas statutes prior to
Speaker 1: determining that an abortion is permitted. And that is the
Speaker 1: side that this Texas judge sided with. Let's go and
Speaker 1: listen to Kate spoke to NBC News about how painful
Speaker 1: this has been for her, how painful this has been
Speaker 1: for her family.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to what she had to say.
Speaker 10: It's a hard it's a hard time, you know, even
Speaker 10: with you know, being helpful with the decision that came
Speaker 10: from the hearing this morning, there's there's still we're going
Speaker 10: through the loss of a child. There's no outcome here
Speaker 10: that I take home my healthy baby girl, you know.
Speaker 10: So it's hard, you know, just uh, you know, grief.
Speaker 10: But I think that you know, joy and grief can
Speaker 10: co exist, and there's you know more, there's moments of joy.
Speaker 10: So I'm really grateful for my wonderful two children that
Speaker 10: I have and my wonderful family. And you know, it's
Speaker 10: a moment of sadness that we really have a wonderful
Speaker 10: life here in our in our home state. And so,
Speaker 10: you know, I just try to count my blessings.
Speaker 1: And as if that wasn't enough, Sager put this last
Speaker 1: piece up on the screen, Ken Paxton Again, the Texas
Speaker 1: ag has threatened to prosecute any doctors, to file criminal
Speaker 1: charges against any doctors who did perform the abortion on
Speaker 1: this woman.
Speaker 4: This was after.
Speaker 1: The lower court judge had ruled that they may do So,
Speaker 1: how do you think this, polls, guys, forcing this woman
Speaker 1: to deliver to term this baby who has no prayer
Speaker 1: of surviving going through all of the tortuous trauma and
Speaker 1: physical pain that is involved in this, the state forcing
Speaker 1: you to do that, and criminalizing any doctor who would
Speaker 1: you do the right thing and perform this procedure for
Speaker 1: this poor woman who is clearly suffering. It's pure insanity
Speaker 1: and you know when Republicans try to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: let's shift the subject and let's talk about Democrats and
Speaker 1: their extremism on this issue. These are the stories that
Speaker 1: are actually unfolding, that people are witnessing and seeing the
Speaker 1: extremism and the fringe views in action. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: it's even a majority of Texans who support this direction
Speaker 1: of their own elected leadership here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and actually, this is the one thing.
Speaker 2: This is actually a faithful interpretation of a lot of
Speaker 2: the evangelical view on this issue, which is why I
Speaker 2: think it's such a loser politically, because what they would
Speaker 2: say is, look, there's always a chance, and yeah, if
Speaker 2: it perishes after it's born, even though the median survival
Speaker 2: is like two point five to fourteen point five days
Speaker 2: and a ninety to ninety five percent chance that it
Speaker 2: won't survive even a single year, that that would set
Speaker 2: the preconditions for that would basically set the preconditions for
Speaker 2: using it as for a eugenics like policy for down
Speaker 2: syndrome and for all of oodes. And I fully understand that,
Speaker 2: and I agree it's actually a massive moral quandary and
Speaker 2: all that, but we also do live in a democratic
Speaker 2: in a democratic country, and it's very clear through the
Speaker 2: way that the American people previously supported the row versus
Speaker 2: weighed consensus was such that dealing with these types of issues,
Speaker 2: dealing also with you know, rape incests, you know, exceptions
Speaker 2: to the life of the mother and severe health trauma
Speaker 2: and all that was a decision that Americans are broadly
Speaker 2: comfortable allowing their citizens to make for themselves. And I
Speaker 2: think most people can listen, you know, to this, and
Speaker 2: it does fly in the face too, of a lot
Speaker 2: of their abortion messaging for the Republicans, as you were
Speaker 2: talking about, with late term abortions. This is not like
Speaker 2: a Lena Dunnam woman who is like.
Speaker 3: I wish I had had an abortion.
Speaker 2: She's like, I've had two kids, Like I'm dealing with
Speaker 2: trauma myself, Like he was a situation. She's like, I
Speaker 2: wish this wasn't a situation that I'm in. And I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people too can really sympathize just
Speaker 2: with the basic idea of like, I cannot believe that
Speaker 2: the state is telling me to they can make the
Speaker 2: decision for me at the level of not only criminalizing it,
Speaker 2: but ordering it from a judge. So that's one where
Speaker 2: it look. You know, this is this is Biden's only chance.
Speaker 2: I think it's his only chance. We talked previously about Kentucky.
Speaker 2: Abortion was a huge driver of the Democratic vote in Kentucky,
Speaker 2: and that ve ad that was run against Daniel Daniel
Speaker 2: Cameron was a woman who'd been raped by her stepfather
Speaker 2: when she was twelve years old, and she just looks
Speaker 2: directly into the Cameron She's like, Daniel Cameron would force
Speaker 2: me to have to carry his I mean, these are brutal.
Speaker 2: This is just a place where electorally the results are
Speaker 2: in and all the pro life cope around how this
Speaker 2: wasn't going to materialize an.
Speaker 3: Electoral blowback is just it's absurd.
Speaker 2: Now at this point, I think a story like this
Speaker 2: is animating enough that it could have significant electoral impact.
Speaker 2: I really believe if Biden has a chance, and it's
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I still say fifty to fifty,
Speaker 2: it's because of abortion. I don't think he's got a
Speaker 2: prayer on anything else, but it's potent enough that it
Speaker 2: really could.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't think Hillary Clinton is going to rescue him. No,
Speaker 1: but the Kentucky example is a great one because listen,
Speaker 1: Democrats have been getting their ass is kicked on abortion
Speaker 1: in state of Kentucky for years, and that turned like
Speaker 1: this the minute that Roe was overturned by the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and that ad with that young woman straight to camera
Speaker 1: talking about her experience and against Daniel Cameron, that was
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful ads in that entire election
Speaker 1: and helped secure a Democratic victory for Andy Basher in
Speaker 1: a state that is very red in terms of Kentucky.
Speaker 1: So when you think about these stories like Kate Cox's
Speaker 1: playing out across the country, the type of, you know,
Speaker 1: very evocative stories that Americans just instinctively find this horrifying
Speaker 1: that the government could force this woman to carry this
Speaker 1: baby to term. Trump's going to be getting asked questions
Speaker 1: about this. You know, what is he going to say?
Speaker 1: I genuinely don't know what he would say in reaction
Speaker 1: to this.
Speaker 4: It's hard to.
Speaker 1: Know because I mean, he's obviously very uncomfortable on the issue.
Speaker 1: He had the instant reaction of like, this is going
Speaker 1: to be bad for Republicans, and he's right, But he's
Speaker 1: the one who put these Supreme Court justices on the bench.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was the key promise that honestly got
Speaker 1: them elected back in twenty sixteen and kept evangelicals in line,
Speaker 1: who are now, you know, his most fervent based of supporters.
Speaker 1: So I do think that this is, you know, the
Speaker 1: one big issue that hangs over the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 1: That and the Trump criminal charges are the two things
Speaker 1: that could potentially flip things and third parties. So there
Speaker 1: are a lot of wild cards here. But you know,
Speaker 1: the trauma that these women are facing is I think
Speaker 1: going to be a central component of how things.
Speaker 4: Are unfold.
Speaker 3: Crystal, what are you taking a look at?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: A global outcry has erupted over the death of poet,
Speaker 1: academic and activists Rafought all Arrear at the hands of
Speaker 1: the Israeli government. Now, ra Fought was not only a
Speaker 1: beloved intellectual in Gaza. He was a window to Americans
Speaker 1: and to the English speaking world into the Palestinian struggle,
Speaker 1: regularly giving interviews, posting updates that allowed us all to
Speaker 1: see the reality of life inside of Gaza, forcing us
Speaker 1: to reckon with the pain, the peril, the hopes, the
Speaker 1: dreams and the nightmares of the Palestinian people.
Speaker 11: We know that it's very bleak, it's very dark. There's
Speaker 11: no way out if there's no autor there is no
Speaker 11: way out Gaza, what should we do? Like drown, like
Speaker 11: commit mass suicide? Is this what is it I want?
Speaker 11: And we're not going to do that? And I was
Speaker 11: telling somebody, some friend the other data. I'm an academic.
Speaker 11: Probably the toughest thing I have a tone is an
Speaker 11: expo marker. But if this really is invade, if the
Speaker 11: project has charged us open door to door to massacres,
Speaker 11: I'm going to use that markers throw it at the soldiers,
Speaker 11: even if that is the last thing that I would
Speaker 11: be able to do. And this is the feeling of everybody.
Speaker 11: We are helpless, We have nothing to lose.
Speaker 1: In the wake of his killing, people from around the
Speaker 1: world shared this poem. Author by Refought, translating it into
Speaker 1: at least dozens of languages in order to share his
Speaker 1: powerful testimony to the world. That poem reads, if I
Speaker 1: my sty you must live, to tell my story, to
Speaker 1: sell my things, to buy a piece of cloth and
Speaker 1: some strings, so that a child somewhere in Gaza, while
Speaker 1: looking heaven in the eye, awaiting his dad who left
Speaker 1: in a blaze, and bid no one farewell, not even
Speaker 1: to his flesh, not even to himself, seize the kite,
Speaker 1: my kite you made ying up above, and thinks for
Speaker 1: a moment that an angel is there bringing back love.
Speaker 4: If I must die.
Speaker 1: The mourning of this beloved figure, an outpouring of humanity,
Speaker 1: was met with a truly repulsive inhuman response. As justification
Speaker 1: for the murder of this man, people shared a tweet
Speaker 1: that Rafot had sent mocking one of the more absurd
Speaker 1: claims made about the Hamas atrocities committed on October seventh,
Speaker 1: the claim that a baby was found burned in the oven.
Speaker 1: That lie, like many others, has now been debunked by
Speaker 1: the Israeli outlet Heretes. In other words, Rafot was right
Speaker 1: to mock this claim, and of course that no tweet,
Speaker 1: no matter how good or bad, should mark someone for
Speaker 1: assassination should go without saying. But unfortunately, far too many
Speaker 1: have bought the genocidal perspective that there are no innocent Palestinians.
Speaker 1: These tweets were enough to convict him as guilty in
Speaker 1: their minds and justify his death sentence. And make no mistake,
Speaker 1: Rafat was sentenced to death. He was assassinated by terrorist
Speaker 1: government that decided they wanted him dead. That is the
Speaker 1: conclusion of human rights organization Euromed Monitor. They write, the
Speaker 1: Israeli airstrike that killed Professor Rafat Ala Reir was apparently deliberate,
Speaker 1: that is the conclusion of Euromed Monitor. On Friday, the
Speaker 1: apartment where Rafat and his family were sheltering was surgically
Speaker 1: bombed out of the entire building where it's located. According
Speaker 1: to corroborated eyewitness and family accounts, This came after weeks
Speaker 1: of death threats that Rafot received online and by phone
Speaker 1: from Israeli accounts. Now, it is probably too simplistic to
Speaker 1: say that Rafat was targeted for assassination because of his tweets,
Speaker 1: even though prominent accounts like Barry Weiss had used those
Speaker 1: tweets to vilify him not long before the Israeli government.
Speaker 4: Did mark him for death.
Speaker 1: But Rafat was already well known to Israeli authorities, not
Speaker 1: new to outspoken activism. In fact, this wasn't even the
Speaker 1: first time Israel tried to kill him. In twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: they bombed his house. He survived. More than thirty members
Speaker 1: of his family, however, were killed. The bigger question to
Speaker 1: me isn't whether we're fought was targeted.
Speaker 4: He clearly was.
Speaker 1: It's whether his assassination was part of larger programming program
Speaker 1: targeting intellectuals. Is Israel systematically eliminating peaceful thought leaders, calculating
Speaker 1: that their very existence and ability to humanize Palestinians and
Speaker 1: draw attention to the Palestinian cause constitutes a threat to
Speaker 1: Israel's criminal apartheid regime. After all, every day the list
Speaker 1: of doctors, journalists, and aid workers who have been killed
Speaker 1: grows longer. Seventy six journalists have already been killed by Israel.
Speaker 1: That's more than any other conflict in at least thirty years,
Speaker 1: and at least some of these killings we know now
Speaker 1: have been intentional. Reuter's AFP, Amnesty International, and Human Rights
Speaker 1: Watch all assessed that an Israeli attack which killed a
Speaker 1: Reuters videographer and injured six other journalists was in fact
Speaker 1: a deliberate targeted attack Targeting journalists.
Speaker 4: Of course, is war crime. But it's not just journalists.
Speaker 1: Declassified UK has tracked extensive list of Palestine intellectuals and
Speaker 1: thought leaders who have all been killed by the Israeli government.
Speaker 4: Take a listen.
Speaker 9: There's a clear pattern that Israel is targeting the best
Speaker 9: and brightest of Gaza. They are going, as you said,
Speaker 9: they're going after everyone who might provide a way of
Speaker 9: living a human life in Gaza. So they're going after lawyers,
Speaker 9: they're going after medics, they're going after teachers and journalists. Yes,
Speaker 9: well very I mean one of the most. I mean,
Speaker 9: it's also horrific. Is beyond words. But the Al Jazeero
Speaker 9: was shut down in Israel and then the day after
Speaker 9: they bombed and killed the family of the Al Jazeera
Speaker 9: correspondent in Gaza. So that was a statement. It was saying,
Speaker 9: we will kill your family. They didn't even kill him,
Speaker 9: they killed his family. So I just want to I
Speaker 9: think this is part of what needs to change, is
Speaker 9: the narrative is that this is not none of these
Speaker 9: a mistakes, that they're targeting the best and brighters to
Speaker 9: Gaza because they want to destroy any remnants of human
Speaker 9: life in Gods that they want to make it unable
Speaker 9: to do. So, I just wanted you guys to talk
Speaker 9: about what you think Israel's goal is.
Speaker 12: Well, actually they also target the peace activists and it's shocking,
Speaker 12: even those who called for beast they are targeting them.
Speaker 12: For example, they targeted my friend Ahmadabortima, the founder of
Speaker 12: the A Good Much of Return. He is my best
Speaker 12: friend and he has always been one of the most
Speaker 12: vocal voices for the peace for resistance.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded also of what one official told nine seventeen
Speaker 1: magazine of how Israel is conducting its bombing campaign.
Speaker 4: Quote nothing happens by accident.
Speaker 1: When a three year old girl is killed in a
Speaker 1: home in Gaza, it's because someone in the army decided
Speaker 1: it wasn't a big deal for her to be killed.
Speaker 1: The follows then, that when a doctor, or journalist or
Speaker 1: a scholar is killed, it's because the Israeli government wanted
Speaker 1: them gone. Targeting makes on another level. There may be
Speaker 1: no state in the world which so clearly understands the
Speaker 1: power of words and stories, and by extension, those who
Speaker 1: wield those words and stories, as the state of Israel.
Speaker 1: How else, after algi you convince a diaspora of people
Speaker 1: with different languages and cultures living or all over the
Speaker 1: world that there are actually one people that they should
Speaker 1: get behind what must have seemed a preposterous project at
Speaker 1: the time to settle and colonize historic Palestine. How else
Speaker 1: do you provide moral cover for the world's superpower to
Speaker 1: fund and arm you and provide you diplomatic cover even
Speaker 1: as you systematically violate international law through legal settlements in
Speaker 1: a legal blockade, an official policy of apartheid. How do
Speaker 1: you kill thousands of children and then go on CNN
Speaker 1: with a straight face and claim you're doing all you
Speaker 1: can to protect civilians?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: The Israeli government understands the power of propaganda, how essential
Speaker 1: it is, how dangerous those who can pierce their own
Speaker 1: veil of propaganda really are. They also understand how essential
Speaker 1: it is that they block any educated moderates who might
Speaker 1: represent a quote partner for peace. NETANYAHUO, of course, has
Speaker 1: long sought to thwart the establishment of a power Palestinian
Speaker 1: state by elevating extremists like Hamas.
Speaker 4: Wouldn't it be convenient to use this moment when the
Speaker 4: US has.
Speaker 1: Officially given you carte blanche to command any atrocities that
Speaker 1: you like to wipe out any alternative Palestinian leadership class.
Speaker 1: So while Rafat didn't wield a weapon, he was nevertheless
Speaker 1: armed and dangerous, as are the truly heroic journalists risking
Speaker 1: their lives to show us these horrors. The doctors who
Speaker 1: are sacrificing everything to provide the best care and comfort
Speaker 1: that they possibly can in impossible circumstances. All of these
Speaker 1: individuals are uniquely dangerous for a simple reason. They force
Speaker 1: us and the world to reckon with the basic humanity
Speaker 1: of Palestinians, to sit with what it must be to
Speaker 1: be trapped in a prison your whole life, to watch
Speaker 1: the whole world abandon you, to be subjected to daily
Speaker 1: indignities and periodic horror. These heroes are vastly more dangerous
Speaker 1: to the Israeli regime than Hamas because the instant the
Speaker 1: world truly recognizes the full humanity of Palestinians is the
Speaker 1: instant that the Israeli project of dehumanization ends forever. And
Speaker 1: so Sager, people were really shocked because and if.
Speaker 2: You want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become
Speaker 2: a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 1: For more in depth understanding of the Israeli domestic political situation.
Speaker 1: We are fortunate to be joined this morning by Dalia Shindlen.
Speaker 1: She is a political scientist and Israeli polster. She's also
Speaker 1: a policy fellow at the Century Foundation and a calmnist
Speaker 1: for Awratz. Welcome, Dahlia, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 13: I'd like to also just put in there that I
Speaker 13: have a new book out called The Crooked Timber of
Speaker 13: Democracy in Israel.
Speaker 3: Promise I'm fulfilled fantastic link in the description.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, thank you for letting us know about that. So
Speaker 1: first of all, let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: You were recently interviewed by Isaac Chotner in the New Yorker.
Speaker 1: The headline here is what October seventh did and didn't
Speaker 1: change about Israeli politics, And I'd love for you to
Speaker 1: start with an assessment of how people feel about Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Benjamin Netanya, who we all know he's tremendously unpopular,
Speaker 1: that huge majorities want him gone, either not now or
Speaker 1: after the war is concluded. But give us a little
Speaker 1: bit of depth on the nature of the critique of him.
Speaker 1: What are people really frustrated with and how much has
Speaker 1: that shifted since October seventh.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think the.
Speaker 13: First thing you have to understand is that attitudes towards
Speaker 13: Prime Minister Nasaanya who have shifted since November one, twenty
Speaker 13: twenty two.
Speaker 8: In other words, he was already doing poorly.
Speaker 13: His government was doing poorly his coalition partners and other
Speaker 13: ministers because of the government's plans to overhaul the Israeli
Speaker 13: Judiciary and essentially eviscerate the independence of the Israeli judiciary.
Speaker 8: And there was an enormous backlash all year.
Speaker 13: I'm sure people know that there were protests every single week,
Speaker 13: and already the ratings had been dropping.
Speaker 8: Now nevertheless, Ntagne, who was essentially still for the.
Speaker 13: Most part during the year considered the most credible leader
Speaker 13: in the country, still sort of had the best ratings
Speaker 13: in terms of question about who's most suitable to be
Speaker 13: prime minister, simply because people weren't really shining a light
Speaker 13: on anybody else. But after October seventh, I think it
Speaker 13: was a final straw for many people in Israel, including
Speaker 13: a great number of the people who had voted for
Speaker 13: the parties of the current coalition and for Ninitaanyahu's party
Speaker 13: back in November. And what we saw is over forty percent,
Speaker 13: close to half, but let's say over forty percent of
Speaker 13: people who voted for Lekud, who are longtimely could voters
Speaker 13: and quite devoted to mister Nintania, who felt like this
Speaker 13: was a breach that they simply could not overcome in
Speaker 13: the sense of, you know, the state had failed to
Speaker 13: protect its own citizens, those people who were still voting
Speaker 13: for Nittaia, who had forgiven an awful lot, including four
Speaker 13: active corruption cases, sorry, three active corruption cases, and you know,
Speaker 13: this government that had been doing things that they absolutely
Speaker 13: don't like, and they had stuck with in tan Yahoo.
Speaker 13: But the idea that the state was unable to protect
Speaker 13: its citizens, the fact that the state seemed to have
Speaker 13: been seemed to seem to have been unable to follow
Speaker 13: the intelligence to correctly assess what was going on, led
Speaker 13: to much deeper questions about the competence of.
Speaker 8: The government overall in a much longer term sense. And
Speaker 8: I remember, and it's now who has been.
Speaker 13: Prime minister almost consecutively since two thousand and nine, with
Speaker 13: just about a year and a half break, and so
Speaker 13: for many people that was a final straw. His ratings
Speaker 13: have plunged, his government's ratings have plunged, his party ratings
Speaker 13: have plunged. The question of trust and government has plunged.
Speaker 13: But I would be cautious about assuming that that means
Speaker 13: people are moving away from the broader political ideology of
Speaker 13: the right wing.
Speaker 8: And that's something we can discuss.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think it's very important and actually something I
Speaker 2: took away from your interview, But I also wanted to
Speaker 2: dig into something you flagged. Just because he's very unpopular
Speaker 2: and most people think you should go, they don't think
Speaker 2: that he should go right now. Can you tell us
Speaker 2: about how people are reconciling that. They're like, well, as
Speaker 2: long as the war is in place, we should have
Speaker 2: him there, even though we don't think that he's fit
Speaker 2: to hold office.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Well, keep in mind that by most surveys we have
Speaker 13: this question, the total number of people who want him
Speaker 13: to go, either now, in the middle of the war,
Speaker 13: or after the war is between seventy and seventy five percent.
Speaker 13: It's a huge majority. That's the first thing to keep
Speaker 13: in mind. No incumbent wants to see that kind of number.
Speaker 13: And I would you know, again, in most of the
Speaker 13: surveys that we have, about a quarter of the respondents
Speaker 13: would like him to go right now, which is a minority,
Speaker 13: but it's not nothing in the middle of wartime. And
Speaker 13: I think that the you know, the overriding sentiment. Honestly,
Speaker 13: isn't that hard to explain. People were absolutely shocked by
Speaker 13: what happened in October seventh. It was something that Israelis
Speaker 13: not only couldn't have predicted, they couldn't have even imagined it,
Speaker 13: with maybe the small exception of a very few people
Speaker 13: who are monitoring those border outposts, you know, in army
Speaker 13: and Army intelligence and you know, and Israeli intelligent services,
Speaker 13: but who weren't taken seriously enough. But the vast majority
Speaker 13: of the population couldn't even conceive of something like this,
Speaker 13: so that you have to realize the shock of uncertainty
Speaker 13: and instability was added to, of course the national trauma
Speaker 13: of so many people being killed, slaughtered, atrocities, kidnapped, et cetera,
Speaker 13: and then immediately.
Speaker 8: Launching into war.
Speaker 13: And I think that at a time like that, it
Speaker 13: makes sense that people don't immediately want to go into
Speaker 13: something like an election cycle or a major government shakeup,
Speaker 13: especially because it's not clear even if you avoided elections
Speaker 13: and simply had a coalition shakeup, and you know, re
Speaker 13: re established a new coalition with a different leader, or
Speaker 13: you know, or somehow the couldward to decide that antenna
Speaker 13: who's out is That leads to tremendous instability, and I
Speaker 13: think most people couldn't really conceive of that, with the exception,
Speaker 13: as I said, of about a quarter of the population
Speaker 13: who believe that every day he's still in power actively
Speaker 13: either you know, endangers the war effort and really diminishes
Speaker 13: the country's prospect for getting through it, and they feel
Speaker 13: like he really is a danger as long as he's
Speaker 13: in power despite the war. But yes, you know, more
Speaker 13: than about close to twice as many would prefer that
Speaker 13: he leave after the war effort is over. I would
Speaker 13: also point out that there's a problem with that because
Speaker 13: there's no.
Speaker 8: Clear end date for this war.
Speaker 13: The kinds of goals and aims that the government has
Speaker 13: set for the most part, other than bringing the hostages back,
Speaker 13: which is a beast objective, the idea that Hamas can
Speaker 13: be destroyed militarily and as a governing power is not
Speaker 13: something that's very easily measurable, or at least the government
Speaker 13: has not explained how it plans to measure that, And
Speaker 13: so when people say we want him gone when the
Speaker 13: war is over, that is a pretty amorphous future aim.
Speaker 4: So Dahlia.
Speaker 1: One of the things that October seventh represented was the
Speaker 1: stunning failure of the net Yahoo doctrine. The idea that
Speaker 1: you could sort of maintain this brutal status quo for Palestinians,
Speaker 1: that you could thwart the establishment of any sort of
Speaker 1: Palestinian state or any sort of justin lasting peace, and
Speaker 1: that he could quote unquote control the height of the flames.
Speaker 1: So how are Israelis processing the failure of that doctrine.
Speaker 1: Does it lead them more in the direction of questioning
Speaker 1: that maintenance of the brutal status quo and more in
Speaker 1: the direction of, hey, maybe we need to after this
Speaker 1: is over, try to figure out some sort of a
Speaker 1: lasting and just piece, or does it lead in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction of No, we need to do the security
Speaker 1: state harder, we need more machine guns mounted at the border,
Speaker 1: we need a more right wing and militaristic leader in
Speaker 1: charge here.
Speaker 8: Well, this is exactly, you know, the most complicated question
Speaker 8: that I.
Speaker 13: Think those Israelis who believe that there should be some
Speaker 13: sort of negotiated political resolution are struggling with to figure out.
Speaker 13: And I think the reason is that Israelis right now
Speaker 13: are focused very much on the short term and the
Speaker 13: immediate aim of dealing with the war and just coping
Speaker 13: day to day. I mean, I don't want to get
Speaker 13: into the comparison because what Gosins are coping with day
Speaker 13: to day is intolerable. But from Israeli experienced, people are
Speaker 13: dealing with what they know about, which is, you know,
Speaker 13: two hundred thousand people who've been evacuated and who are displaced,
Speaker 13: you know, sirens and rockets falling all over the country,
Speaker 13: and the scent from the center to the south and
Speaker 13: also in the north. So people are thinking very short
Speaker 13: term about immediate dilemmas, you know, should there be a
Speaker 13: cease fire in exchange for hostage release or immediate dilemmas
Speaker 13: like that, And I think that the question of the
Speaker 13: long term do people analyze Natanyahu's doctrine as a policy?
Speaker 8: Right now?
Speaker 13: They're thinking very immediately about his failures, about how they
Speaker 13: many feel like he's betrayed the country's security, as I
Speaker 13: mentioned before. But I have to say that with all
Speaker 13: the polls that have been done, and there have been
Speaker 13: at least twenty five polls that I know about, it's
Speaker 13: very hard to get at this longer term sense of
Speaker 13: whether Israelis are analyzing his policy as a doctrine.
Speaker 8: There's been lots of articles about it.
Speaker 13: Of course, there was a major one in the New
Speaker 13: York Times yesterday exposing in great detail the decisions made
Speaker 13: over the course of the last decade to supply Hamas
Speaker 13: with lots of money through Katar. That's being widely covered
Speaker 13: in the Israeli press, but ultimately Israelis knew about it anyway,
Speaker 13: even before in the New York Times expose, which was excellent,
Speaker 13: But they knew about it, and I think that they're
Speaker 13: just not quite at the level of analyzing the specific policy.
Speaker 8: Having said that, I am keeping a very close.
Speaker 13: Eye on what I would have expected to have, and
Speaker 13: which is that over time, over a few months to
Speaker 13: maybe the next year, Israelis are likely to become more hardline.
Speaker 13: And I say that based on how Israelis have responded
Speaker 13: over the course of you know, half a year to
Speaker 13: a number of years following other phases of wars and escalations,
Speaker 13: particularly when they involve major violence against Israeli civilians. When
Speaker 13: that happens, Israelis tend to self identify more as right wing,
Speaker 13: which is a very clear statement of the kinds of
Speaker 13: positions they espouse, you know, supporting more militarist solutions, opposing
Speaker 13: concessions as Israelis see concessions, and more than anything, voting
Speaker 13: for right wing parties who will not make concessions or
Speaker 13: undertake political negotiation towards a two state solution. So I
Speaker 13: think we have to understand that when people say their
Speaker 13: right wing, it involves the policies they support and very
Speaker 13: clearly predicts which kinds of parties they will elect in
Speaker 13: the next elections. The last thing I'll say about where
Speaker 13: israelis are going. You know where I expected them to
Speaker 13: go and where they so far show that they're going,
Speaker 13: which everything must be taken with a grain of salt.
Speaker 13: But for the most part, in most in every single survey,
Speaker 13: we see the parties that are benefiting from the loss
Speaker 13: of trust and the government and the Coalition Parties is
Speaker 13: a sort of right wing but considered centrist, pragmatic right
Speaker 13: wing party headed by former Chief of Staff Benny Gantz,
Speaker 13: who has joined the War Coalition. Which is interesting primarily
Speaker 13: in that the votes that we don't see people flocking
Speaker 13: to the further right ultranationalist, extremist, theocratic, Jewish supremacist parties
Speaker 13: are presented called religiosignism or Jewish Power. And it's interesting
Speaker 13: because those were the parties that had a kind of
Speaker 13: surprisingly good result in the November elections, but they have
Speaker 13: not been doing particularly well. We're seeing all of the
Speaker 13: runoff votes going to a more what Israeli's view as
Speaker 13: a more moderate right wing party.
Speaker 8: If that holds, it'll it.
Speaker 13: Means that Israelis may turn to the right, but maybe
Speaker 13: not to the far extreme right.
Speaker 1: Very interesting Zgan scene is sort of like a more
Speaker 1: competent version of Netanyahu.
Speaker 4: Is that the idea.
Speaker 13: Honestly, he's certainly seen as having you know, a great
Speaker 13: deal of security creed credentials because he's at an entire
Speaker 13: career in the military, which is obviously the most you know,
Speaker 13: what Israelis really want right now during the war. But
Speaker 13: I think the main thing, if I had to conjure
Speaker 13: what Israelis generally think about Gans is that he's not
Speaker 13: compromised by having the particular kinds of personal political, personal
Speaker 13: and political interest that Tanyahu has. Because he's facing those
Speaker 13: corruption cases, there aren't many parties that would agree to
Speaker 13: go into a coalition with him. He is therefore kind
Speaker 13: of slavishly beholden to those extremist, you know, ultranationalist far
Speaker 13: right parties and of course the ultra orthodox parties, which
Speaker 13: frankly between you know, leaving the kudaside and Tanyaga's parties.
Speaker 13: All those other parties together represent only a minority of
Speaker 13: Israeli society. The ultra nationalist religious Jewish parties and the
Speaker 13: ultra Orthodox parties. They only represent a minority, which means
Speaker 13: that this government is is alienating the majority of citizens.
Speaker 13: And so I I think that they see the Natanya
Speaker 13: who is in a compromised position, and he cannot represent
Speaker 13: either the people's general orientation as we saw, that's why
Speaker 13: the protests against the government policies were so sweeping all year.
Speaker 13: But they also see that he's neglected basic competence of
Speaker 13: running you know, the state functions and the ministries and
Speaker 13: even to the point of neglecting Israeli security. And I
Speaker 13: don't think they see gans as being compromised in a
Speaker 13: way that would lead to those failures.
Speaker 8: Even though I have to say that Gains is seen
Speaker 8: as kind of a blank slate. Nobody really knows what
Speaker 8: he stands for other than day to day pragmatic gotcha,
Speaker 8: no management.
Speaker 4: He's not a visionary Dahlia.
Speaker 1: I know that you said that many Israelis are just
Speaker 1: focused on kind of like the day to day getting
Speaker 1: through whatever is next, and we'll think more about the
Speaker 1: long term in the future. But you know, the Ntnaho
Speaker 1: government has very much rejected the Biden administration's ideas for
Speaker 1: what Gaza could look like after this war is concluded.
Speaker 1: You know, they floated the Palestinian authority Netna, who says
Speaker 1: that's completely off the table. They have floated plans that they,
Speaker 1: you know, seem to prefer of pushing all or many
Speaker 1: of the Palestinians out of the Gaza strip into Egypt
Speaker 1: and other surrounding countries. What is your sense of what
Speaker 1: the Israeli people actually want, I mean, what is the
Speaker 1: interest in any sort of a resolutionist to go back
Speaker 1: to the status quo?
Speaker 4: Is it to quote thin out the population?
Speaker 1: As Netnyahu has asked one of his top aids to
Speaker 1: come up with plans for What do they actually envision
Speaker 1: for the future.
Speaker 8: That's a very tough question.
Speaker 13: I have to tell you that all the survey research
Speaker 13: I had done up until October seven showed that already
Speaker 13: Israeli's you know, were deeply despairing of anything like a
Speaker 13: negotiated two state solution. That was, by the way, a
Speaker 13: mirror image on the Palestinian side, because I do conduct
Speaker 13: a joint Israeli Palestinian research, and both sides showed only
Speaker 13: a minority about thirty five percent roughly thirty five to
Speaker 13: forty percent, who supported a negotiated two state solution before
Speaker 13: October seventh. Now, interestingly, after October seven, the numbers have declined,
Speaker 13: but not a huge amount. The lowest I've seen was
Speaker 13: about twenty nine percent, But I've also seen surveys showing
Speaker 13: about thirty five percent, So it still seems like that
Speaker 13: is a solution that is more credible than any other solutions.
Speaker 13: Certainly in terms of other options for democratic based negotiated
Speaker 13: political frameworks for resolution, there's nothing else that comes close.
Speaker 13: But that is only a minority. It doesn't bode well
Speaker 13: for the future, and I think that Israelis are having
Speaker 13: a very hard time in envisioning, partly because they're not
Speaker 13: getting leadership on the issue. The Israeli government has not
Speaker 13: proposed certain not since October seventh, but frankly not before
Speaker 13: October seven, for a very long time, for at least
Speaker 13: a decade, since the last serious negotiations under Secretary of
Speaker 13: State John Kerry in twenty thirteen fourteen. For about a
Speaker 13: decade Israelis have not even heard their leaders talk about
Speaker 13: something like a diplomatic resolution to the Israel Palestinian conflict. Now,
Speaker 13: I don't really think it's fair to say that all
Speaker 13: of Israel wants to expel all Palestinians, but let's face it,
Speaker 13: Israelis are feeling very emotional right now, extremely traumatized and angry.
Speaker 8: I don't want to pretend that those sentiments don't exist.
Speaker 13: I will say, we all know the document that was
Speaker 13: circulated as in not very almost a sham ministry, But
Speaker 13: I don't want to understate the value of that, you know,
Speaker 13: the importance of that either because people in the government
Speaker 13: are talking about those kinds of plans, and we see
Speaker 13: what's going on on the ground with Palestinians being systematically
Speaker 13: dislocated from you know, major parts of Gaza, especially Gaza City,
Speaker 13: being practically destroyed, uninhabitable, it won't be inhabitable for years
Speaker 13: to come. You know, we're seeing you know, herting together
Speaker 13: the Palestinian population in the south and conditions that are
Speaker 13: frankly unlivable.
Speaker 8: At this moment.
Speaker 13: It very much looks like there are forces that maybe
Speaker 13: don't want to say it explicitly, but that they hope
Speaker 13: lots of cousins would leave. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 13: I have to acknowledge that I'm sure that that sentiment
Speaker 13: does exist in Israeli society. We've seen it in earlier
Speaker 13: years as well in survey research. But I'd like to
Speaker 13: hope that if there's a pragmatic leadership, that they would
Speaker 13: start leading, rather than only following a public that is feeling,
Speaker 13: you know, really not at its finest moment, understandably, but
Speaker 13: that leadership would say these are not things that any
Speaker 13: you know, country should be considering, you know, expelling the population,
Speaker 13: nor assuming that you can in any way control of
Speaker 13: Palestinians militarily forever. I think the only possible approach that
Speaker 13: is both morally, legally and politically correct is to achieve
Speaker 13: and negotiated political resolution of some sort.
Speaker 8: But I have to say that for those of us
Speaker 8: who've been working on that issue for so.
Speaker 13: Many years, I'd say I think I've reached up to decades.
Speaker 13: At this point, it looks frankly more hopeless than ever.
Speaker 13: It doesn't mean that doesn't mean we'll stop trying, but
Speaker 13: it is a very hard sell in Israel right now.
Speaker 4: I have to remember that Dahlia.
Speaker 1: One last question for you, which is I saw a
Speaker 1: whole come out of Israeli Jews, and fifty eight percent,
Speaker 1: I believe was the number who felt that the IDF
Speaker 1: wasn't doing enough, wasn't aggressive enough in terms of their
Speaker 1: bombing campaign in Gaza and the ground invasion. Of course,
Speaker 1: we're watching the images here. We've seen the thousands of
Speaker 1: children killed, as you said, Gaza city rendered uninhabitable, et cetera,
Speaker 1: one point eight million, dousands displaced, and it was only
Speaker 1: I believe one point eight percent of Israeli Jews who
Speaker 1: felt the IDF had gone too far in this campaign.
Speaker 4: Wonder if you can help us make sense of that.
Speaker 1: You know, are Israelis seeing the images coming out? Are
Speaker 1: they aware of the mass civilian death toll, which you
Speaker 1: know is at least sixty percent civilians and probably much higher.
Speaker 4: You know, just help us understand this.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think that you know. Of First of all,
Speaker 8: I'm not going to try to excuse it.
Speaker 13: I just think that if we're going to try to
Speaker 13: explain it to some extent, Israelis aren't confronted with the
Speaker 13: visuals as much as anybody.
Speaker 8: For example, watching Elgazero.
Speaker 13: Would be even watching Elga zero English, which I often do,
Speaker 13: gives you a much much more up close, you know,
Speaker 13: sense of exactly how vast the devastation is and how
Speaker 13: apocalyptic it is. And most ra Asraeli as we're watching
Speaker 13: Israeli news, so they're not getting quite the same level
Speaker 13: of visual imagery.
Speaker 8: But having said that, my personal theory and I.
Speaker 13: Don't really have survey data on this, is that Israelis
Speaker 13: do essentially know at a bigger level. You really can't
Speaker 13: avoid the broads, you know, the broad contours of what's
Speaker 13: happening and the information in this day and age people
Speaker 13: are on social media, you know, and even the israel
Speaker 13: It's not like the Israeli media is exactly hiding it either.
Speaker 8: Of course, there's much more focus on the Israeli experience.
Speaker 13: So I think that when I hear that kind of thing,
Speaker 13: a they're not you know, it's not as they're not
Speaker 13: as emotionally or viscerally connected to the level of en
Speaker 13: scope of devastation in Gaza. Even if they know the numbers,
Speaker 13: they don't feel it and see it, you know, in
Speaker 13: their bones when they when they you know, encounter the
Speaker 13: news media.
Speaker 8: And I think the other aspect if I had to
Speaker 8: try to.
Speaker 13: This is quite speculation, but I think that there may
Speaker 13: be a sense that the more, you know, the tougher
Speaker 13: Israel is right now, and the more aggressive the campaign is,
Speaker 13: the faster this will come to an end.
Speaker 8: Now, I'm not pretending that again, like, let's not pretty
Speaker 8: any of this up.
Speaker 13: You know, the Israeli public is feeling aggressive right now,
Speaker 13: but I also think that people are really devastated living
Speaker 13: through this war. I mean, the country feels very much
Speaker 13: on you know, partly shut down. Everybody's depressed and running
Speaker 13: into shelters all the time, and I think that from
Speaker 13: the Israeli perspective, nobody really wants this to go on.
Speaker 8: People often don't even want to ask each other how
Speaker 8: they're doing.
Speaker 13: Because they're afraid to get the answer of how terrible
Speaker 13: everybody feels. And everybody's losing people all the time. So
Speaker 13: I think that part of it is, you know, there's
Speaker 13: certainly elements of you know, fury and vengeance. There's also
Speaker 13: elements of there's nothing else Israel can do because again
Speaker 13: Israeli public hasn't been told to think about diplomatic options
Speaker 13: in a very long time, and the sense that maybe
Speaker 13: if we just you know, if Israel just goes in
Speaker 13: very aggressively in part that it eventually will you know,
Speaker 13: achieve that aim of destroying from US as governing and
Speaker 13: military power and bring.
Speaker 8: This to an end.
Speaker 13: Add to all that the sheer kind of confusion and
Speaker 13: frustration about how Israelis are supposed to expect a hostage release,
Speaker 13: knowing that the government that the more aggressive the attack,
Speaker 13: the armed military campaign is, the less likely they are
Speaker 13: to get the hostages back, and it leads to a
Speaker 13: lot of I think mixed feelings behind the numbers.
Speaker 3: Wow, this has been incredibly insightful.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate you taking the time and we would
Speaker 2: hope to have you back on sometime soon and we'll
Speaker 2: have a link to your description.
Speaker 3: So thank you, thank so much.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: All right, we'll see you guys later.
Speaker 10: M hmm