Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, it's James. We just wanted to let you
Speaker 2: know that some new shit has come to light since
Speaker 2: since we recorded this. Specifically, a former staff of was
Speaker 2: A Your Kitchen who resigned, who was of Palestinian descent,
Speaker 2: wrote an op ed, I guess in mund Weis, which
Speaker 2: is a publication that covers Israel than Palestine and the
Speaker 2: United States role there, and it's given us some more
Speaker 2: information about what's the two kitchen that we didn't know
Speaker 2: when we first recorded this, and so we are going
Speaker 2: to address out at the end. So after the second
Speaker 2: ad break, Charles will go Sherean and I will come
Speaker 2: back and we're going to address some stuff that we
Speaker 2: found in that op ed. We will also link it
Speaker 2: in the description to this podcast.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a really good article. I recommend you guys
Speaker 3: give it a full read. But yeah, we will be
Speaker 3: talking all about it at the end, so please listen
Speaker 3: to the whole episode. Hello, everybody, Welcome to it could
Speaker 3: happen here today. I am joined by my illustrious colleague James.
Speaker 4: Hi James, Hi, Serene.
Speaker 3: And my now friend Charles McBrien. Hi, Charles, welcome back
Speaker 3: to the show.
Speaker 4: Hi know friends, Sharen it's wonderful to be here and
Speaker 4: to know that you're a real person, not a.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fun fact. I have met Charles in person, but
Speaker 3: I have not met James in person, and I think
Speaker 3: that's pretty funny.
Speaker 2: That's why I got colleague and Charles colfriends. I think
Speaker 2: we're not taking by.
Speaker 1: To it to that.
Speaker 3: Don't read it too that.
Speaker 4: Okay, we have.
Speaker 3: We're talking about World Central Kitchen and the tragedy that
Speaker 3: happened last week in which seven AID workers were killed.
Speaker 3: Both of these gentlemen have personal experience with the organization,
Speaker 3: so I thought it would be good to talk about.
Speaker 3: But James take it.
Speaker 2: Away, Okay, So yeah, I think I think we should
Speaker 2: maybe start off Charles, you and I have both seen
Speaker 2: World Central Kitchen in different places. Like my longest experience
Speaker 2: with them was starting in twenty eighteen and Tijuana, right
Speaker 2: when we were trying to feed people who were part
Speaker 2: of a caravan of migrant to It arrived to write
Speaker 2: before the midterms, and what was a relatively normal thing
Speaker 2: became a really big political sort of football, which resulted
Speaker 2: in the people, remember, like people being tear gassed in
Speaker 2: Mexico from inside the United States, people being held first
Speaker 2: in a baseball stadium and then in an old strip club,
Speaker 2: which was really gross. And they're being essentially no NGO
Speaker 2: presence at first, and then Mutual Aid presence and then
Speaker 2: World Center Kitchen. Were one of the first people to
Speaker 2: show up and cook for people, and like at this
Speaker 2: point there was a really dying of need for food.
Speaker 2: Like I have this vivid memory of three of my
Speaker 2: friends and I are riding in a bed of a
Speaker 2: pickup truck into this refugee camp and people just mobbing
Speaker 2: for food and water, and like people would get about
Speaker 2: like not stamping on children once once we stopped, but
Speaker 2: like I was really worried there was going to be
Speaker 2: a crash. People were very hungry and very thirsty, and
Speaker 2: I had just had massive respect for people showing up
Speaker 2: and just being like, we are people who cook food.
Speaker 2: What we hate to do is cook food, and these
Speaker 2: people hungryes who are going to give it to them?
Speaker 2: And so I've always been admiring of their work since then.
Speaker 2: And I went to Childs, like what your sort of
Speaker 2: initial experience was with them, and if you could describe
Speaker 2: like sort of what sort of work you've seen them doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So first experience that I had with World Central
Speaker 4: Kitchen was actually hands off. It was when my friends
Speaker 4: and I we created this thing four years ago called
Speaker 4: the Farm Link Project, which is a food rescue organization.
Speaker 4: It basically finds food that's going to waste on farms
Speaker 4: and are pays the wages of the truckers and the
Speaker 4: drivers to transport the food to food banks that are overworked.
Speaker 4: We sort of tagged in with World Central Kitchen in
Speaker 4: the beginning of COVID and talked with them a little bit,
Speaker 4: but there was never any official partnership. Some of their
Speaker 4: comms people gave us advice, some of their fundraising people
Speaker 4: with advice. First time I ever saw them in operation
Speaker 4: was coming into the Jimish train station week two of
Speaker 4: the Ukraine War, and they were the organization feeding all
Speaker 4: the refugees coming in a bunch of people in the
Speaker 4: World Central Kitchen, and the thing I noticed was none
Speaker 4: of them were speaking English. They were all speaking Polish
Speaker 4: and Ukrainian or Russian. And I started to realize, this
Speaker 4: is an organization that knows how to mobilize a local
Speaker 4: population in a local response as a part of the thing.
Speaker 4: And that's something I really noticed when almost a year later,
Speaker 4: I flew from Ukraine to Turkey when a seven point
Speaker 4: five Magetude earthquake went through southeastern Turkey Kardastan, and I
Speaker 4: flew into Adnanna and then basically linked up with the
Speaker 4: World Central Kitchen people in the in the city of Osmania.
Speaker 4: And one of the things I notice was how quickly
Speaker 4: they were able to get into Syria when nobody else
Speaker 4: was getting into Syria. And the reason is because it's
Speaker 4: just chefs. It's just using chefs in restaurants in places
Speaker 4: where they already exist. Every place in the world has
Speaker 4: chefs and restaurants. And Jose Andres has this amazing quote
Speaker 4: that I really like. He says, everyone already works for
Speaker 4: World Central Kitchen, they just don't know it yet. And
Speaker 4: I saw that in action. I saw all these kitchens
Speaker 4: transformed into you know, shelters and food distribution sites, and
Speaker 4: I got to work alongside their team. So my project,
Speaker 4: I was trying to fundraise for heaters and blankets to
Speaker 4: heat the AFAD tents in the affected regions in Kurdistan
Speaker 4: and in the Kurdish villages on the on the border
Speaker 4: with Syria, because there was it was still very cold
Speaker 4: at that time and there was not, you know, adequate
Speaker 4: attention paid to that. Obviously, AFAD and its cronies is
Speaker 4: part of the whole reason that that incident was as
Speaker 4: bad as it was. But World Central Kitchen stepped up
Speaker 4: in a big way in Turkey, and I was really
Speaker 4: impressed with kind of their outfit. We were working out
Speaker 4: of the same distribution center, you know. I got to
Speaker 4: a company, Jose Andres on a couple of his deliveries,
Speaker 4: and we went in to Hate and walked around and
Speaker 4: saw the extent of the devastation and visited all the
Speaker 4: World Central Kitchen feeding sites and it was just it
Speaker 4: was all Turkish people and Gurtish people who were there
Speaker 4: working from World Central Kitchen. They had been mobilized by
Speaker 4: this entity. So there's this decentralized element to World Central
Speaker 4: Kitchen that I found really impressive. It didn't feel like
Speaker 4: the top down, bureaucratic thing I kept running into in
Speaker 4: my humanitarian work with these big NGOs. It was much
Speaker 4: more grassroots, much more bottom up. So it gained a
Speaker 4: lot of respect for me in that sense. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: think that's a really good point to make that they
Speaker 4: do have a different model. It allows them to be
Speaker 4: flexible it allowed them to be places where other people aren't.
Speaker 4: Like I think a lot of people, prehaps like are
Speaker 4: not as familiar with the NGO world as you and
Speaker 4: I might be. Like, NGOs often present themselves in places
Speaker 4: where people need help. But it's like, you know, they
Speaker 4: have large office buildings in white Land cruises, and they
Speaker 4: have one way of doing things, and it's their way,
Speaker 4: and sometimes that doesn't work well. I can recount countless
Speaker 4: examples of this, right, NGOs that exist to do things
Speaker 4: in a certain way and don't adapt to a local
Speaker 4: situation or culture. And that's something the World Central Kitchen
Speaker 4: have done really well in my experience, all over the world. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they graft themselves on to a local response and every
Speaker 4: everywhere that they go, it takes on a local flavor.
Speaker 4: And I think it's that's why this happened, is because
Speaker 4: they inserted themselves into a highly volatile situation and because
Speaker 4: they are so decentralized, and because they are so on
Speaker 4: the ground, they also expose themselves to the realities of
Speaker 4: what Palestinians have been facing in Gaza and lost members
Speaker 4: of their team, you know, as a result. And I
Speaker 4: think that is part of that is there's a lot
Speaker 4: of people who won't even go into Gaza, you know,
Speaker 4: if they had the opportunity, like you said, these big nngos.
Speaker 4: I think last time I was on the podcast Sharen,
Speaker 4: I talked about, you know, seeing these big UN advertisements
Speaker 4: in the Copenhagen airport saying save Ukrainian children when I
Speaker 4: first when I was going over there, and then as
Speaker 4: soon as I got there, I mean, the minute you
Speaker 4: go east to Leviv, You're not going to see a
Speaker 4: UN truck anywhere. And it was it was that way
Speaker 4: for nine months, you know, INBA it was just a
Speaker 4: bunch of people with like brand new white Land cruise
Speaker 4: or prados sipping cocktails in Leviv while subcontracting with actual
Speaker 4: humanitarians working closer to the front line. World Central Kitchen
Speaker 4: was not that way. They were all the way out,
Speaker 4: all the way on the east. Everywhere I went there
Speaker 4: was World Central Kitchen cars even deep into Donyetsk. And
Speaker 4: that was really impressive.
Speaker 1: It just fit.
Speaker 4: It was so it felt antithetical to the whole nonprofit
Speaker 4: industrial complex model that I'd become familiar with, and I
Speaker 4: was impressed by that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so perhaps we should to speak about exactly what
Speaker 2: they were doing in Gaza, because I think people are
Speaker 2: practical a little confused. There's been a lot of like
Speaker 2: misinformation from all kinds of angles about what they were
Speaker 2: doing in Gaza, So do you have a good handle
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 4: I mean, World Central Kitchen positioned itself. They engage in
Speaker 4: slightly more activist humanitarianism than most organizations, which is why
Speaker 4: I mean jose Andres went big on Ukraine. He was there,
Speaker 4: he brought the whole team. I mean, they put they
Speaker 4: dedicated so many resources to Ukraine, and for him it
Speaker 4: was unequivocal. Ukrainians are the good guys, Russians are the
Speaker 4: bad guys. We're helping the victims of this conflict, and
Speaker 4: you know, we're on the side of the Angels in
Speaker 4: this And that was the positioning, and I think it
Speaker 4: was a bit of a wake up call when after
Speaker 4: October seventh he did the same thing in Israel and
Speaker 4: went and you know, gave food to the to the
Speaker 4: to the different Kibut seam that were affected by the
Speaker 4: October seventh attacks, and at first very much positioned himself
Speaker 4: as like, we're here to help relieve the affected Israelis,
Speaker 4: which again, for like polite liberals in the humanitarian world.
Speaker 4: You know, Israel Ukraine both aligned with Western interests, Western
Speaker 4: values theoretically, and I think and then you know, suddenly
Speaker 4: the war focus goes from what happened in the Kibut
Speaker 4: sim to what's happening in Gaza. And so they went
Speaker 4: to Egypt and they started helping the refugees, and then
Speaker 4: they tried to get into Gaza. Then they did get
Speaker 4: into Gaza and they set up, you know, an effective
Speaker 4: system of of food aid. And I started to notice
Speaker 4: while that was happening that the perspectives of a lot
Speaker 4: of the people that I was working with in the
Speaker 4: AD community were starting to s on this whole thing.
Speaker 4: People who didn't have a political interest in supporting the
Speaker 4: Palestinians and we're just kind of supporting Israel because of
Speaker 4: the default. When they actually went to Gaza, they started
Speaker 4: to really change their tune. And you see this a
Speaker 4: little bit with Jose Andres as well. I think Jose
Speaker 4: Andres was, yeah, I mean this in terms of his
Speaker 4: personal views on Israel, they seem to have very clearly evolved.
Speaker 4: You can see very soon after October seventh, he is
Speaker 4: calling out the Spanish Prime Minister on calling what's happening
Speaker 4: in Palestine and genocide. He's saying that Israel has the
Speaker 4: right to defend itself, and then he spends a bunch
Speaker 4: of time in Gaza, and now he's greeting everyone in Arabic,
Speaker 4: and then this thing happens and he immediately points the
Speaker 4: finger at ISRAELI says, you guys targeted my team, you
Speaker 4: killed them deliberately, and you made sure the job was finished,
Speaker 4: and that is just so reproachable. And in doing so,
Speaker 4: he became one of the only really big celebrity voices
Speaker 4: to make what appeared to be something of a one
Speaker 4: to eighty turn on that conflict. And pretty much everyone
Speaker 4: that I've worked with in the humanitarian or journalism space
Speaker 4: has also done the same thing in regard to Gaza.
Speaker 4: I'd say most people thought my views on this were
Speaker 4: too extreme after October seventh, when I began immediately criticizing Israel,
Speaker 4: and now the ones who have actually been there pretty
Speaker 4: much on equivocally say they're the bad actor in this region.
Speaker 4: And I think you saw that shift happen in real
Speaker 4: time with sort of the attitude that World Central Kitchen
Speaker 4: took to Gaza. All of that stuff is available from
Speaker 4: public statements, And I don't want to share private sentiments
Speaker 4: that have been shared with me by members of World
Speaker 4: Central Kitchen staff. Those are their own and they don't
Speaker 4: represent the organization. But I think even just watching the
Speaker 4: yo yo of Jose Andres's perspective on this change has
Speaker 4: been enlightening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, like it's easy to be critical
Speaker 2: of someone having opinions which like have not aids well, right, Like,
Speaker 2: and sometimes that's okay. Sometimes some since we need to
Speaker 2: do that. Sometimes people say shit which is unforgivable. But
Speaker 2: like I think in this instance, like we can be
Speaker 2: critical at a point, but I don't think now it's
Speaker 2: a time for that. Like I think now it's a
Speaker 2: time for like everyone who wants the starving and killing
Speaker 2: of innocent people in Gaza to stop is on our
Speaker 2: side right now, and we need to welcome that. And like,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people in this country right
Speaker 2: who we need to do that same one eighty and
Speaker 2: giving examples of people doing that is good, like they
Speaker 2: and there are a lot of people who don't see
Speaker 2: themselves when they see dead people in Gaza, and that's
Speaker 2: a problem, right, And that's some shit that they need
Speaker 2: to examine. And because there's a lot of bigotry there.
Speaker 2: But if they see themselves in those aid workers, or
Speaker 2: they see themselves in Jose Andres and look, fucking when
Speaker 2: I saw the bodies of those aid workers, right you
Speaker 2: have a tall, skinny British guy with long hair in
Speaker 2: a plate carrier with a badge on like that, That's
Speaker 2: what I look like to ninety nine percent of the world,
Speaker 2: and it's hard not to feel like, oh shit, like
Speaker 2: that could be me, and I have well, I feel
Speaker 2: like I have a lot of empathy for people in guards,
Speaker 2: are friends in guards that we speak to them on
Speaker 2: the podcast Shearing and I spoke to them last week.
Speaker 2: But whatever it takes for those people to change their
Speaker 2: opinions right now is what we need, and we can
Speaker 2: we can dissect how we got here later, but like
Speaker 2: every minute that this continues, more innocent people die. And
Speaker 2: if we can stop this one minute sooner than there's
Speaker 2: important lives that we can save. And I think it's
Speaker 2: really important to focus on where we are, not like
Speaker 2: how how we got here right now if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: As far as global conflicts go, I believe it's like
Speaker 3: two hundred and twenty four aid workers have died in Gaza,
Speaker 3: which is not a normal number in any kind of war.
Speaker 3: So that's according to the UN.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred journalists, right, like every there is one
Speaker 2: person I can think of who has worked with in
Speaker 2: Gaza who is still alive. Everyone I know has lot
Speaker 2: of family members And that's just my tiny slice, you know,
Speaker 2: and by no means as affected by this as most people.
Speaker 2: But yeah, three times as many children have died since
Speaker 2: October in Gaza as are normally killed in conflicts in
Speaker 2: a year worldwide. It's fucking horrific. And yeah, we will
Speaker 2: do well to put aside our differences and make it stop.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree, opposition to genocide and wanting to end
Speaker 4: it should be a very big tent. And the fact
Speaker 4: that some people on the internet are trying to make
Speaker 4: it a smaller one doesn't make a lot of sense
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it promotes infighting, which is not helpful
Speaker 3: right now. Yeah, it is helpful to not call it
Speaker 3: a war and continue can't get a genocide because that's
Speaker 3: what it is. So yeah, just continuing to change all
Speaker 3: the rhetoric around this genocide I think is important. This
Speaker 3: is also not the first time that Israel has directly
Speaker 3: targeted aid workers that are clearly labeled as aid workers.
Speaker 3: In two thousand and six and Lebanon, Israel struck a
Speaker 3: red cross ambulance right in the center of the logo,
Speaker 3: right on top of the truck. There was or the
Speaker 3: van was a red cross, a clear red cross, and
Speaker 3: it struck right in the center. I think that image
Speaker 3: is now going around again from two thousand and six again,
Speaker 3: I thought the first time that Israel has directly targeted
Speaker 3: aid workers, and I think it's really appalling seeing leadership
Speaker 3: in Israel just kind of apologize half hardly, being like
Speaker 3: this was a mistake, and then they just move on.
Speaker 3: It's if this was the red line for people one,
Speaker 3: I find that frustrating. But if it's finally the red
Speaker 3: line for people, I just hope it continues and people
Speaker 3: don't let it go.
Speaker 2: That story there was absolutely fucking heartbreaking, right of that
Speaker 2: young girl who is trapped in her car and she
Speaker 2: called the ambulance, and the ambulance came and they bombed
Speaker 2: the ambulance. Fight they killed her, and they kill the
Speaker 2: ambulance drivers. Like those two ambulance drivers were Palestinian. They
Speaker 2: were working for the Palestinian recrest, and they deserve every
Speaker 2: bit as much outrage as to what Centralkitchen people do.
Speaker 2: What they did with every bit as admirable. But like,
Speaker 2: if this is what it takes for people to change,
Speaker 2: then like I hope that they will also acknowledge that
Speaker 2: everything else that happened before was an a trustee too.
Speaker 2: Talking of like a trustees, we have an advertising break now.
Speaker 3: That was good James, good job, and we're back. Charles.
Speaker 3: You recently got some online attention for a video that
Speaker 3: you posted that was highlighting the vast imbalance of attention
Speaker 3: that the targeted assassination of the AID workers got in
Speaker 3: comparison to the murder and genocide of Palestinians. Specifically, people
Speaker 3: were talking about how there was also a Palestinian driver
Speaker 3: who was murdered along with the AID workers and his
Speaker 3: name was not getting mentioned. His name is safe, Isam Abudaha.
Speaker 3: And just a reminder of how frustrating it is that
Speaker 3: this had to be the red line for people. There
Speaker 3: are over thirty three thousand people in Gaza who have
Speaker 3: been murdered, nearly half of which are children. There are
Speaker 3: probably thousands more who are trapped under the Rubble and
Speaker 3: other thousands that are just unaccounted for because of the
Speaker 3: bobbing of hospitals and the lack of records. So to
Speaker 3: have the killing of six aid workers be a red
Speaker 3: line for people, That's what I mean by saying it's
Speaker 3: frustrating because it is a tragedy. But tragedy has been
Speaker 3: taking place for the past six months and also the
Speaker 3: past seventy six years. So yes, the video that Charles
Speaker 3: made got some well deserved attention, and I'd love for
Speaker 3: you to talk about it a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this was like a strange convergence of things for
Speaker 4: me because I had been keeping up with the WCK
Speaker 4: team as they went into Gaza. I'd actually even been
Speaker 4: in conversations with some of them about potentially going there,
Speaker 4: but I hadn't. I mean, like these were just buddies
Speaker 4: from a humanitarian trip. I mean, you know, like James
Speaker 4: probably knows, you make friends really fast when you're connected,
Speaker 4: when you're in these sorts of scenarios, And you know,
Speaker 4: I had, I made friendships while I was in Turkey
Speaker 4: that I've I've maintained, and but then my my Palestinian
Speaker 4: advocacy was separate. You know, I'm over here educating and everything,
Speaker 4: and then suddenly there's this convergence of like former you know,
Speaker 4: co workers on this team dying and then it being
Speaker 4: the fault of this regime that I've spent the last
Speaker 4: six months trying to educate people on why it's bad.
Speaker 4: And I posted a video which was my tribute to
Speaker 4: the fallen WCK employees, who were very close friends of
Speaker 4: people that I got really close to on that project,
Speaker 4: and it was a tribute to them and also a
Speaker 4: way of pointing out how their martyrdom has has overshadowed
Speaker 4: the martyrdom of so many Palestinians who will never get
Speaker 4: the kind of press and attention that they did, and
Speaker 4: I think it achieved that effect. The video went very,
Speaker 4: very viral. It's exceeded a million views on TikTok, It's
Speaker 4: around a quarter of a million on Instagram, and more
Speaker 4: than that on the accounts that have reposted and shared it,
Speaker 4: sometimes without the context that I am not a World
Speaker 4: Central Kitchen employee, nor do I represent the opinions of
Speaker 4: the organization. And one of the things that I think
Speaker 4: made that story go viral is that I did shift
Speaker 4: the attention to I said, this is a genocide, and
Speaker 4: I said, as grieved as I am at the loss
Speaker 4: of these people that I have this connection with, I
Speaker 4: do want to point out that it is overshadowing the
Speaker 4: horrendous loss of life of Palestinians, and I think that
Speaker 4: resonated with a lot of people. It also resonated with
Speaker 4: my former my friends at w CK, who reached out
Speaker 4: to say, we appreciate you using your platform to talk
Speaker 4: about this, especially considering the fact that w CK employees
Speaker 4: do not typically are not really supposed to be making
Speaker 4: statements online about this, so they have a little more
Speaker 4: leeway with that concerning the fact that the head of
Speaker 4: the organization has explicitly now condemned Israel for this strike.
Speaker 4: But I've had some very interesting conversations with friends of
Speaker 4: mine that either still work or connected to the organization.
Speaker 4: And that's a slightly complicated thing because World Central Kitchen
Speaker 4: subcontracts with so many different people, so at any given point,
Speaker 4: there are people who are connected to World Central Kitchen
Speaker 4: who are not representatives of the organization or technically employees,
Speaker 4: So you know, you can't say definitively this is what
Speaker 4: the majority of people in WCK f about Gaza or
Speaker 4: Israel or anything. You know, different people have different opinions
Speaker 4: about that whole situation.
Speaker 2: I think what you tried to do was obviously not
Speaker 2: to represent them, and it would be Disingenuousony want suggest
Speaker 2: you did, but the internet does that. I want to
Speaker 2: talk about one more, talking of disingenuous things on the Internet.
Speaker 2: I guess there was this thing that went around immediately
Speaker 2: in the aftermath of the photos coming out of the
Speaker 2: different people's corpses that like it seemed to be mostly
Speaker 2: like tankies or perhaps people who still believe that they
Speaker 2: can generate revenue from FEUs on Twitter saying that like
Speaker 2: because these people had a security team, the security team
Speaker 2: was somehow spies, and the evidence they were working for
Speaker 2: its right, Like, and you can speak to your experience, Charles,
Speaker 2: like I've worked with security teams and seeing people working
Speaker 2: with security teams all over the fucking world because war
Speaker 2: is dangerous and you have the thing that everyone needs.
Speaker 2: If you have the misfortune of being a veteran of
Speaker 2: the global War on Terror, you have very few outlets
Speaker 2: for your skill set. One of those is providing security
Speaker 2: for humanitarian actors and journalists, and that is one of
Speaker 2: the most pro social applications of your skill set. Yeah,
Speaker 2: things to do with those skills, believe me.
Speaker 4: Right. So I have encountered a lot of people in
Speaker 4: my time in Ukraine and elsewhere who have decided to
Speaker 4: turn their sort of military intelligence background experience into you know, well, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm good at this. I'm familiar with these types of scenarios.
Speaker 4: And if there's one thing I'm decent at, it's well
Speaker 4: at least trying to keep people safe and give them intelligence.
Speaker 4: And that is a that's never a guarantee. But in
Speaker 4: all the people I've met who actually are legit, you know,
Speaker 4: security consultants or just veterans who have applied their skills
Speaker 4: towards a pro social, humanitarian proper are pretty good guys.
Speaker 4: And while I'm sure you know there are some of
Speaker 4: them who are connected to various you are still connected
Speaker 4: to sort of the intelligence services of their various countries.
Speaker 4: I think that's definitely a possibility. A lot of them
Speaker 4: are not. They're just veterans who are trying to help
Speaker 4: and they this is a way that they can make
Speaker 4: a living and while doing something that has a low
Speaker 4: moral hazard. So yeah, I dismissed that stuff. There's a
Speaker 4: lot of conspiracies. The problem is, I mean, in the
Speaker 4: vacuum of the sort of post manufacturing consent world where
Speaker 4: none of us trust the Western liberal media, a lot
Speaker 4: of people trust stuff that's even dumber, including just like
Speaker 4: takes on the Internet that somebody pulled out of their ass.
Speaker 4: And a lot of it is if you have set
Speaker 4: yourself up against everything that comes out of the West,
Speaker 4: then every everything that looks like a fingerprint of an
Speaker 4: intelligence agency or anything is going to ring your ow
Speaker 4: arm bells, obviously, you know, James. I feel like Ukraine
Speaker 4: is a great example of this. The fact that the
Speaker 4: United States supports Ukraine means that Ukraine must be the villain,
Speaker 4: and that the entire thing must be a CIA si
Speaker 4: OP and their spies everywhere. And I'm a spy for
Speaker 4: going to Ukraine and helping grandmothers get their insulin. All
Speaker 4: of those things have been said about Ukraine, about me,
Speaker 4: about you know, that sort of thing, and we know,
Speaker 4: we know it's not true. It's just that people. I mean, these,
Speaker 4: as far as I know, these were guys who were
Speaker 4: security consultants very similar to I work with a lot
Speaker 4: of British veterans of the Global War on tear basically
Speaker 4: on various different projects, some of it having to do
Speaker 4: with PTSD, others having to do with environmental conservation, some
Speaker 4: of whom have worked in Palestine and been in the
Speaker 4: West Bank. And I think Brits by and large have
Speaker 4: a more sane perspective on Palestine than people in the
Speaker 4: US do. I've just noticed that they are like fewer
Speaker 4: ultra zionist Brits than Americans.
Speaker 2: I think our politics is lift nominated by that perspective.
Speaker 2: There are ultra zionist British people, but yeah, it's also
Speaker 2: just I think a little bit harder to live a
Speaker 2: life in Britain where you don't know, it's not Palestinian people,
Speaker 2: Arab people and and Muslim people, right, and that complete
Speaker 2: demonization and dehumanization of Muslim people that the Western media
Speaker 2: did for twenty years to manufacture consent for war that
Speaker 2: wasn't about weapons of master attraction or women in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: It doesn't stick the landing quite so well when like,
Speaker 2: you have friends and you can kind of see through
Speaker 2: the nonsense.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, well, also I think the percentage of like
Speaker 3: evangelical Christians was probably much less.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, one's breeding a fucking Red Cow in England to
Speaker 2: take it to this third temple that I know of.
Speaker 4: That was one of the things I was going to
Speaker 4: point out is I don't think you even have to
Speaker 4: know like to be a Zionist, you don't even have
Speaker 4: to know Jewish people in the US. I was raised
Speaker 4: an ultra Zionist without knowing a single Jewish family, because
Speaker 4: I came from an Evangelic community in South Carolina that
Speaker 4: was very Christo nationalist, very kind of culturally dispensationalist. Even
Speaker 4: though my family wasn't dispensationalist. It was all about in
Speaker 4: times you support Israel because that's where you know, that's
Speaker 4: where Jesus is going to come back. So yeah, I remember,
Speaker 4: I mean I I even had like fake Passover ceremonies
Speaker 4: in our church. God, this is bringing up some interesting.
Speaker 2: Into the trillma bugs.
Speaker 4: But truly, I mean one of my one of my
Speaker 4: early sort of I would say I was I was
Speaker 4: completely anti Zionist before I was even a leftist. And
Speaker 4: part of that reason was because I got to know
Speaker 4: a Palestinian friend in Washington, d C. While sharing a
Speaker 4: desk with an Israeli conservative and a liberal Zionist, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, joke like these people walk into a bar. Yeah,
Speaker 3: trio of people.
Speaker 4: So I like, I think I had kind of I
Speaker 4: got pilled on Palestine. Part of it was because, like
Speaker 4: I was a history major in college, so I learned historiography.
Speaker 4: I just never applied historiography to the Israel Palestine conflict.
Speaker 4: And then having these two voices in my ear while
Speaker 4: like living and working in DC, I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I need to actually look into this, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean I would say even before I was like
Speaker 4: a leftist, I was down on Israel. I figured they
Speaker 4: were not the good guys. And then I think reading
Speaker 4: The Fateful Triangle by nome Chromsky really solidified that. And
Speaker 4: obviously Ilan Pope kind of was the nail on the
Speaker 4: coffin for me. So and speaking of like, you know
Speaker 4: what happens in DC, and you know, American's opinions on
Speaker 4: the Middle East, most of them are dog shit opinions
Speaker 4: because most people do not have some sort of strong
Speaker 4: point of reference to this zone. But it goes back
Speaker 4: to what we were saying about how being against genocides
Speaker 4: should be a very big tent and we should resist
Speaker 4: efforts to make it smaller. Because I'm reading through the
Speaker 4: hundred years War on Palestine now Rashid Khaldi, and one
Speaker 4: of the things that he said is how the war
Speaker 4: is fought in the United States in Congress because we
Speaker 4: hold the keys. So as much as it's as painful
Speaker 4: as it is to try and change the minds of
Speaker 4: dumb Americans with no geopolitical understanding, it's absolutely essential to
Speaker 4: holding Israel to account. It is actually one of the
Speaker 4: best things that you can do. And when someone who
Speaker 4: has the international appeal of Chef Jose Andres points the
Speaker 4: finger at Israel and said, you killed my employees deliberately
Speaker 4: and you're starving Gosans, that goes a long way towards
Speaker 4: shifting the opinions of the people who actually hold the
Speaker 4: keys to everything Israel does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a very good point. And like
Speaker 2: that's what we need to do, right I's to up
Speaker 2: stop them getting bombs to kill people, not argue you
Speaker 2: on Twitter or you know, Instagram or what have you. Like,
Speaker 2: we need to make the killing stop. I wonder like
Speaker 2: you spoke a childs but knowing people I know, World's
Speaker 2: Central Kitchen are no longer working in Gaza for the
Speaker 2: time being. From when is that's still correct.
Speaker 4: They they've publicly announced that they're scaling back their efforts. Yes,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if they're going to totally close down
Speaker 4: their operation. I think right now they're probably trying to
Speaker 4: reconsider their security protocols before making another step.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't really know what as there
Speaker 2: are things, of course, but like they did attempt to
Speaker 2: deconflict I guess, and they were using a road which
Speaker 2: is designated for the use that they were using it for.
Speaker 3: And Israel knew where they were, Like it's they have
Speaker 3: to report where they are. So I mean, it would
Speaker 3: be fucking crazy if Israel attacked workers again right now,
Speaker 3: but also it's Israel. I mean, I need done crazier things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but can we like dwell on that for a second.
Speaker 4: Like Israel constantly boasts about its ISR capabilities in IR's intelligence,
Speaker 4: surveillance and reconnaissance. So like Israel is constantly reassuring people
Speaker 4: that it is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties,
Speaker 4: it talks about its chain of command for approval. And
Speaker 4: in light of that, none of the things that they've
Speaker 4: said about this make any sense whatsoever, Because if they're
Speaker 4: protocols because they're either it's like they can't decide what
Speaker 4: they're trying to gaslight the world into believing. Every claim
Speaker 4: that they're making is muddling what they're trying to get
Speaker 4: the world to believe about them, and it just gives
Speaker 4: everyone the distinct impression that they're recklessly incompetent, lying, evil,
Speaker 4: or potentially all three.
Speaker 2: Right, even if you look, I was because I don't
Speaker 2: know why this is the thing that I do. I
Speaker 2: was looking at like trying to work out what munition
Speaker 2: Israel had used, right to destroy those vehicles, and Israel
Speaker 2: has they have a number of different sort of musus
Speaker 2: that they could have used. But one of the things
Speaker 2: that they do in the US does it too. But
Speaker 2: it's a bigger thing with Israel is if they have
Speaker 2: inert or low yield health fire ammunitions, so guided munitions
Speaker 2: at a five from a helicopter or a drone, and
Speaker 2: they use them to do a thing that they call
Speaker 2: roof knocking, right, which sounds maybe like you're like knocking
Speaker 2: on someone's reof what you're doing is sending a missile
Speaker 2: through somebody's roof, and that is the means by which
Speaker 2: you alert them to evacuate the building because you're planning
Speaker 2: a larger strike that in itself. Yeah, we have this
Speaker 2: great ISR capability, and what do we do with it?
Speaker 2: We launch missiles into the homes of civilians and then
Speaker 2: hopefully they will run away in fear for their lives
Speaker 2: so that more of them don't die when we blow
Speaker 2: up that block ten minutes later. Like, it's just, you know,
Speaker 2: you have to look at what's happening, not what's being said.
Speaker 2: I guess, but.
Speaker 4: No, they're absolutely allergic to accountability, and I think you
Speaker 4: can see just how far they've been able to they're
Speaker 4: scrambling now because they've been able to get away with
Speaker 4: so much for so long, and their excuses are falling
Speaker 4: apart because they're alternatively depicting themselves as a highly disciplined
Speaker 4: and professional army or that they're just making mistakes because
Speaker 4: it's war and that people should get off their back
Speaker 4: because no one holds anyone else to the same standard
Speaker 4: that they hold Israel. So it's like, which is it?
Speaker 4: Like what are you trying to get the world to believe?
Speaker 4: Are you either this like crack discipline unit with a
Speaker 4: very sophisticated chain of command in an AI software that
Speaker 4: you're really proud of for targeting or are you? Is
Speaker 4: this the fog of war and you're just making mistakes
Speaker 4: and everyone makes mistakes and we should get off your
Speaker 4: back for it because you can't have it both ways. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the civilian casualties are too high for you to have
Speaker 4: it both ways. So either you are making mistakes and
Speaker 4: too many people are getting killed and you're violating the
Speaker 4: laws of rule, or you're doing it deliberately, which is worse. Yeah,
Speaker 4: make up there in minds, I guess Charles.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us today. I really
Speaker 3: respect all the work you do and I am grateful
Speaker 3: that you have shared your voice with our audience once again.
Speaker 3: Where can people find you on the internet if you
Speaker 3: want to be found, thank.
Speaker 2: You, Shrian.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just you can find me pretty much everywhere except
Speaker 4: Twitter with Charles McBride and that's McBride with a Y
Speaker 4: rather than an I. It's on Substack, Instagram, TikTok, and
Speaker 4: my website Charles McBride dot com will be live at
Speaker 4: this point nice when this episode drops. So if you
Speaker 4: want to support the humanitarian work I've been involved in
Speaker 4: in Ukraine, you can support Mission Harkive on Instagram, it's
Speaker 4: Mission dot harkive and their website is missionharkive dot com.
Speaker 4: And if you're looking for an org that is already
Speaker 4: working in Gaza to provide life saving aid in the
Speaker 4: wake of you know, unrubbing gone, World Central Kitchen now
Speaker 4: pulling out, Era pulling out, Global Empowerment Mission is still
Speaker 4: there and still fulfilling a lot of the same functions
Speaker 4: that those organizations were doing.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Charles Scheren and James from the
Speaker 3: future here giving you an update about the article that
Speaker 3: we mentioned at the top of the episode. So the
Speaker 3: title itself is I resigned from World Central Kitchen because
Speaker 3: they refuse to tell the truth about the Israeli genocide
Speaker 3: and Gaza. The ex staffer is Ramsey Tatami. The article
Speaker 3: itself has some really damning information about WCK, so we're
Speaker 3: going to get into it. He says. For months, World
Speaker 3: Central Kitchen leadership censored material coming out of its Gaza
Speaker 3: operation and refuse to honor staff concerns about their work there.
Speaker 3: And even though they're finally taking a stand after its
Speaker 3: personnel have been murdered, it is much too late. So
Speaker 3: he resigned in early March of this year, and at
Speaker 3: the time he was the only staff member of Palestinian
Speaker 3: descent at WCK, and there is an amendment there. He
Speaker 3: says that while WCK hired many Palestinian contractors in Gaza
Speaker 3: in Egypt, he was the only Palestinian with staff status
Speaker 3: following the departure of one other longtime employee, and he
Speaker 3: resigned in protest of the extensive unexplained censorship regarding Gaza
Speaker 3: at the organization. They talk about how in December seventh
Speaker 3: of last year, they sent a letter to wck's executive team,
Speaker 3: and that letter called for WCK to join other regionally
Speaker 3: active NGOs in calling for a ceasefire and condemning Israel's blockade,
Speaker 3: as well as conforming its language and coverage of Gaza
Speaker 3: to the standard that was set by the coverage of Ukraine,
Speaker 3: as well as stopping meal service in Israel. It got
Speaker 3: forty three signatures, and the WCK executive team declined to
Speaker 3: meet up with the people that signed the letter, and
Speaker 3: they failed to respond to any inquiries, and they also
Speaker 3: actively still served the meals in Israel well the second
Speaker 3: day of the ICJ genocide. Hearing what's happening in January.
Speaker 2: There's one paragraph that I want to dialet as well,
Speaker 2: just because I think it's very crucial when we're discussing
Speaker 2: the fact that these people died working for a cetera kitchen,
Speaker 2: And that's this paragraph that I'll pick up halfway through.
Speaker 2: In another instance, a video of a WCK kitchen caught
Speaker 2: in an IDF bombing was put on hold entirely. It
Speaker 2: appears to this incident, as well as the fact that
Speaker 2: WCK personnel were a boarder un convoy that was bombed,
Speaker 2: have not been mentioned anywhere externally. Like, I think that's
Speaker 2: a really crucial getting off point. You can have shit politics,
Speaker 2: but if you're not saying stuff when your people are
Speaker 2: getting bombed, like until they're getting killed, A, I don't
Speaker 2: know what's wrong with you, and B if you didn't
Speaker 2: change things, and I don't know they didn't change things, right,
Speaker 2: that's not detailed here, but like you have to change
Speaker 2: things if your people are being bombed, Like if I
Speaker 2: I'm working somewhere where that's sol likelihood, you know, like
Speaker 2: if if we get bomb once and we're lucky enough
Speaker 2: to be okay, we do not continue doing the same shit.
Speaker 2: And I'm not entirely sure that they did I don't
Speaker 2: want to for a moment suggest that like this, the
Speaker 2: people who died were in like complicit right, That's not
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. It's not what you're in saying. I
Speaker 2: very much understand the desire to go to places where
Speaker 2: dangerous things are happening and help the people who did
Speaker 2: nothing to deserve this, And I think the people who
Speaker 2: did that deserve are an ending gratitude and respect. I'm
Speaker 2: not for a minute saying that that's not true. I'm
Speaker 2: saying that this organization needs to really think about how
Speaker 2: it does shit if it wants to continue operating.
Speaker 3: And yeah, the blame is on the executives of this organization.
Speaker 3: The article also talks about how the character of w
Speaker 3: CK's relief response to Gaza it was like revealed very
Speaker 3: early on after October seventh, the chief communications officer, Linda Roth,
Speaker 3: she had put out a statement without the communications team's input,
Speaker 3: which is apparently breaking precedent, and it was about how
Speaker 3: Hamas attacked Israel with no mention of the Palestinian lives
Speaker 3: that were lost. And then three days later, Jose Andres
Speaker 3: posted a video to wck's Instagram where he only makes
Speaker 3: reference to the October seventh attack with no mention of
Speaker 3: the climbing Palestinian death till at the time or the blockades,
Speaker 3: and then on social media, Charles mentioned this of the episode.
Speaker 3: On October sixteenth, he tweeted at the Spanish Prime Minister
Speaker 3: to be removed for her protest of the Israeli tactics,
Speaker 3: and at the same time, WCK continued to work closely
Speaker 3: with the IDF over the course of the relief response.
Speaker 3: The initial statement as well as Andre's video were decisions
Speaker 3: that were made by leadership against the concerns of the
Speaker 3: WCK personnel. There's this paragraph that I want to read
Speaker 3: just verbatim. Much of the work in a genocide is
Speaker 3: not pulling the trigger, but instead minimizing and denying that
Speaker 3: a genocide is going on. Genocide is a phenomenon of
Speaker 3: gradual boundary pushing. Each increment must be accepted by the
Speaker 3: parties with agency for the next to be reached. Under
Speaker 3: the direction of CEO Aaron Gore, Linda Roth and quote
Speaker 3: Chief Feeding Officer Jose Andres, World Central Kitchen recklessly endangered
Speaker 3: its personnel. Sheelflessly exploited the situation for its own benefit
Speaker 3: and actively participated in the normalization of an ongoing genocide.
Speaker 2: I think what I want to say more broadly here,
Speaker 2: it's my stance. I guess maybe other people share it. Man,
Speaker 2: they don't. This situation is not going to be solved
Speaker 2: by NGOs, and it's certainly not going to be solved
Speaker 2: by NGOs which have this very explicitly neoliberal political agenda. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: at best they can plug a hole in a leaky bucket,
Speaker 2: and it's good when they do that. Right, if one
Speaker 2: less person starves, that's good. It doesn't mean they don't
Speaker 2: have to be perfect to help, but they don't get
Speaker 2: to be exemptive from criticism because they're helping, right Like, well,
Speaker 2: Central Kitchen didn't want to help us at the border
Speaker 2: in Hucumber. My friends reached out. They didn't want to
Speaker 2: do that. Yeah, I don't think you should expect endios
Speaker 2: to share your your radical politics. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: they can't do harm reduction, and it doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: when they are doing harm reduction, they sometimes need your money.
Speaker 2: And in the such situations where this is happening, you
Speaker 2: should give it to them if you can't help more directly, right,
Speaker 2: But like you know, if we look at their communications,
Speaker 2: we do see them calling for a cease fire, which
Speaker 2: is about what you can expect from an NGO. You know,
Speaker 2: we'd actually it appears that we see Hosse Andrews calling
Speaker 2: for a ceasefire, and we see World Central Kitchen saying
Speaker 2: Josse Andrews called for a ceasefire, which I don't quite
Speaker 2: know why they don't just say we are calling for
Speaker 2: a cease fire. They didn't sign that document with the
Speaker 2: other endo. It's like, I don't know if they're trying
Speaker 2: to play like have it both ways. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't I'm not privy to those conversations. Right, they
Speaker 2: didn't sort of wholeheartedly say this is the genocide but
Speaker 2: they have to get permission for Israel to do stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, now they're saying it, but after the a
Speaker 2: Trustee that happened, the whole world is watching, right, not
Speaker 2: that the whole world shouldn't have been watching from the start.
Speaker 2: But I don't think Enjoys are ever going to be
Speaker 2: you know, it's radical that there's people on the internet
Speaker 2: want them before they're also they're doing stuff and people
Speaker 2: on the internet aren't, so you know, we have to
Speaker 2: respect that. And I don't want any of this to
Speaker 2: take away from the fact that some people from all
Speaker 2: over the world, right from Europe, from Australia, from the
Speaker 2: United States, have died feeding people who need to be fed,
Speaker 2: because that's the most any of us can give, is
Speaker 2: our lives, right, And so I don't for a minute
Speaker 2: want any of this to detract from the sacrifice they made,
Speaker 2: nor should their sacrifice be held in any higher regard
Speaker 2: than the sacrifice made by hundreds, if not thousands of
Speaker 2: Palestinian aid workers right, people working for the Palestinian Red Crescent,
Speaker 2: a Palestinian even that the Palestinian people working for National
Speaker 2: NGOs right, or the United Nations people who have been killed, right,
Speaker 2: None of the sacrifices it should be ignored or under
Speaker 2: mind because if people have certainly given a lot more
Speaker 2: than I have, I don't have any right to say
Speaker 2: that I think, yeah this or it changes communications, right.
Speaker 2: I think they've obviously realized that there is no nicely
Speaker 2: nicely about this, like you have to call a spade
Speaker 2: a space when it comes to what's happening in Gaza,
Speaker 2: which is a deliberate and targeted campt to kill civilians
Speaker 2: thousands and tens of thousands of children even, and I
Speaker 2: think until we move the conversation on to one where
Speaker 2: that is being called by its name, that it's to
Speaker 2: say genocide, then I don't think we'll see that the
Speaker 2: reactions that we need, and I think they appear to
Speaker 2: have reflected on that. I wish they've got there sooner,
Speaker 2: but they're there now, and I'm sorry that it took
Speaker 2: these people's lives to get there. But what I see
Speaker 2: from them is what I see from other endeos. They're
Speaker 2: not certainly not uniquely bad. In fact, they are better
Speaker 2: than very many indios. And they were there when other
Speaker 2: people weren't, and they're delivering food when other people weren't,
Speaker 2: so I don't want to I don't want to distract
Speaker 2: from that. But yeah, they're this messaging, this internal conduct,
Speaker 2: like there's some of these internal messages they are traveling
Speaker 2: and like it. Again, it's just what i'd expect from
Speaker 2: any other NGO, Whereas I've seen these guys do things
Speaker 2: in many ways sort of better than other angios, but
Speaker 2: none if that messaging takes away from these people giving
Speaker 2: their lives, and I don't want to suggest that.
Speaker 3: I think the most telling thing is that they're making
Speaker 3: the biases of their the top people that work for
Speaker 3: this company very evident. And the article goes into Linda
Speaker 3: Roth's background and her pro Israeli stances in the past,
Speaker 3: and the fact that in all the outwardly facing materials
Speaker 3: about Gaza, it was very typical to change the word
Speaker 3: siege to conflict or to question the blockades. It talks
Speaker 3: about how the people at the very top, their biases
Speaker 3: just seeped through and the people that were actually working
Speaker 3: for the organization were in disagreement with this. I think
Speaker 3: the last thing I want to read from this art
Speaker 3: goal just really highlights that WCK did not protect the
Speaker 3: people that worked for them. It says, save the possibility
Speaker 3: of genuine and competence, the WCK leadership's decisions were not
Speaker 3: made to maintain neutrality, did not increase effectiveness, and, as
Speaker 3: April first demonstrated, did not protect personnel. The leadership's failure
Speaker 3: to honestly portray the dire reality in Gaza and lack
Speaker 3: of an attempt to influence the genocide in Gaza via
Speaker 3: its status and close ties to the Biden administration means
Speaker 3: that they bear responsibility for its outcomes. Let no one
Speaker 3: say they did everything they could and this is obviously
Speaker 3: talking about the leadership versus the personnel. And then he
Speaker 3: goes on to close the article saying that his experience
Speaker 3: is one experience and when he resigned there was a palpable,
Speaker 3: widespread atmosphere of disappointment among the staff and employees, and
Speaker 3: he ends with just calling on current and former WCK employees, contractors,
Speaker 3: and volunteers to publicly share their stories as well in
Speaker 3: order to force account of ability and change.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, if you work for a central kitchen, you
Speaker 2: can message us hate to hear your stories that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we wanted to make sure that this perspective
Speaker 3: was shared. And again the article will be in the description,
Speaker 3: so please give it a good read. But yeah, that
Speaker 3: is the episode. Thanks for listening, Freebol's Done.
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