Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
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Speaker 3: Good morning, everybody, it is Thursday. We have a great
Speaker 3: show for everyone today. What do we have for sal.
Speaker 4: Indeed we do.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden facing a protester calling for a ceasefire. We
Speaker 1: will tell you his response. He made some news with that.
Speaker 1: We'll get into that and also additional American response. We
Speaker 1: also have a bit of a focus on what is
Speaker 1: going on in the West Bank. Of course, we know
Speaker 1: about the brutality in Gaza, but also violence escalating there
Speaker 1: as well, so we'll break that down for you what
Speaker 1: it could mean for the future of this conflict going forward.
Speaker 4: Also a lot going on with regard to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Yes, Toms, both in terms of US public opinion, but
Speaker 1: also really the wheels kind of coming off internally and
Speaker 1: some signs of growing discontent from some people close to Zelensky.
Speaker 4: We will bring you all of that.
Speaker 1: Also, some really interesting general election polls RFK Junior getting
Speaker 1: like twenty two percent of the vote. This is massive,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like this is dramatically undercover at
Speaker 1: this point for a third party candidate to be polling
Speaker 1: this high. So we'll show you that breakdown of you know,
Speaker 1: who is helping, who's hurting, what it all means. Really
Speaker 1: fascinating there. We also have our first pull in the
Speaker 1: Democratic primary with new challengers janke Yuger.
Speaker 4: And Dean Phillips, so that is interesting note as well.
Speaker 1: And in the wake of the UAW scoring those big
Speaker 1: victories with regard to the Big Three, those tentative agreements,
Speaker 1: you already have reportedly Toyota, which of course is non union,
Speaker 1: responding to the pressure by upping the wages for their workers,
Speaker 1: and you have new union pressure being put on Tesla,
Speaker 1: So really interesting developments. They're also excited to be joined
Speaker 1: by James Zogby to talk about the dramatic, truly stunning
Speaker 1: fall in Arab American support for Biden's re elect Really
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff to get into that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm excited to talk to him.
Speaker 2: In particular, thanks to everybody who's been helping us out
Speaker 2: with premium subscription really helps us and supports us. We're
Speaker 2: all working overtime here with Israel Palistier making sure that
Speaker 2: we are bringing you the absolute best and most accurate
Speaker 2: news possible.
Speaker 3: So we want to start with that. This happened late
Speaker 3: last night.
Speaker 2: President Joe Biden was at a fundraiser in Minneapolis when
Speaker 2: he was confronted by a member who said that she
Speaker 2: was a rabbi and asked him to call for a
Speaker 2: cease fire.
Speaker 3: He made some major news in his response. Let's take
Speaker 3: a listen.
Speaker 5: I'm a rabbi. I need you to call for a
Speaker 5: seafire right now.
Speaker 2: There you can see the rabbi asked him for a ceasefire.
Speaker 2: Here is what he said, quote, I think that we
Speaker 2: need a pause. A pause means give time to get
Speaker 2: the prisoners out. Continuing quote, I am the guy that
Speaker 2: convinced BB to call for a ceasefire to let.
Speaker 3: The prisoners out.
Speaker 4: I don't even know what he wut with that.
Speaker 2: I'm the guy that talked to CC to convince him
Speaker 2: to open the door. Assuming he means the raw foot
Speaker 2: crossing the Heckler was then escorted out by security who
Speaker 2: was singing cease fire now on Gaza. He continued, quote,
Speaker 2: I understand the emotion. This is an incredibly complicated for
Speaker 2: the Israelis. It's incredibly complicated for the Muslim world as well.
Speaker 2: I supported a two state solution, I have from the beginning.
Speaker 2: The fact is the matter is that Hamasa a terrorist organization,
Speaker 2: a flat out terrorist organization. Look, the big news out
Speaker 2: of that is when he said I support a pause
Speaker 2: or a humanitarian pause. I believe that's previous language that
Speaker 2: the administration has used, but is still I mean, the
Speaker 2: problem with Biden is is this an official change of
Speaker 2: US policy? Is this going to come from the State Department?
Speaker 2: Or is this off the cuff at a fund.
Speaker 4: It just trying to placate the person who's in there exactly.
Speaker 2: This man has made so many pronouncements. I mean, I
Speaker 2: feel recall remember whenever he said that we were on
Speaker 2: the brink of nuclear armageddon and closer than nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: during Ukraine, again at a fundraiser with no camera.
Speaker 3: The only reason we even know about this lady.
Speaker 2: In the protester is because somebody happened to be filming it,
Speaker 2: which you're not even supposed to do at one of
Speaker 2: these fundraisers, is completely behind the veil we find out,
Speaker 2: you know, in these offhanded like transcripted I've been that
Speaker 2: person before. I can't imagine being her, having to sit
Speaker 2: there and transcribe the president's remarks on your phone and
Speaker 2: making sure that you're one hundred percent get it right
Speaker 2: before we send it out for every.
Speaker 3: Word rest of the world.
Speaker 2: That's why, you know, mister President, if you believe that,
Speaker 2: then give a damn press conference and say it on
Speaker 2: the cameras. We're making sure that we don't misquote you
Speaker 2: or anything. Yeah, haphazard nature that Joe Biden, regardless, that
Speaker 2: is a still massive change in US policy. If it
Speaker 2: is a change in US policy.
Speaker 4: I have a lot to say about this.
Speaker 1: So, first of all, it looks like the group that
Speaker 1: organized this protest, and by the way, Biden faced a
Speaker 1: variety of protest while he was in Minnesota. In Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: which of course is you know, one of the hubs
Speaker 1: actually of Muslim life in America.
Speaker 4: With Jewish Voice for Peace.
Speaker 1: So they're the people who posted the video of Rabbi
Speaker 1: Jessica Rosenberg interrupting Biden calling for the ceasefire, and they
Speaker 1: were part of the groups that were staging protests all
Speaker 1: around Minneapolis to coincide with his trip.
Speaker 4: That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two very noteworthy that while Biden was in Minneapolis, which,
Speaker 1: as I just said, major hub of Muslim American life,
Speaker 1: huge Muslim community there, he did not meet with a
Speaker 1: single Muslim leader, and they took note of that. In Minnesota,
Speaker 1: a swing state. Of course, there's also a large and
Speaker 1: significant Muslim population in Michigan as well. So we'll get
Speaker 1: into some war of this with James Agby on the
Speaker 1: politics of how all this is going for Biden. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's one piece. Another pieces, this whole humanitarian pause
Speaker 1: thing is such utter and complete made up bullshit, like
Speaker 1: have you ever heard this phrase? But for no, never,
Speaker 1: this is not a thing that like exists that you know, Oh,
Speaker 1: of course you call for the humanitarian pause. It's total
Speaker 1: vague liberal ass covering. So they have something to say
Speaker 1: when faced with the fact that, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you've got two point three million people facing a medieval
Speaker 1: siege and you have more babies children killed in this
Speaker 1: three weeks of the conflict than you have had in
Speaker 1: every international conflict in all of the twenty twenties. So
Speaker 1: this is what Bernie Sanders has decided he's going to say.
Speaker 4: This is what.
Speaker 1: Tony Blinken had already made some noise about this. There
Speaker 1: was already some indication that this was the new Biden
Speaker 1: administration line. And so now you have Biden here, you know,
Speaker 1: with this vague like we need a pause to get
Speaker 1: the prisoners out, whatever that means.
Speaker 4: It really is completely utterly.
Speaker 1: Meaningless, especially when you aren't applying any of the considerable
Speaker 1: pressure and leverage that we have to achieve this undefined pause,
Speaker 1: Like how long is the pause?
Speaker 4: What is the pause for?
Speaker 1: Does that mean after you know, okay, stop bombing for
Speaker 1: half a day and then we go back to giving
Speaker 1: them money to bomb the people at palsying Like that
Speaker 1: is basically completely an utterly meaningless and like I said,
Speaker 1: was probably drafted on some zoom call here in DC
Speaker 1: by some sort of think tank to give liberals some
Speaker 1: way that they can pretend like they actually care about
Speaker 1: the bloodshed that's going on here.
Speaker 2: I think that everybody understands exactly what we're talking about here,
Speaker 2: and or everybody understands that they're trying to have it
Speaker 2: like multiple twisted different ways, and it sounds just as
Speaker 2: tortured as it actually is. So is it an official
Speaker 2: change in US policy. We'll see, as Trump used to say.
Speaker 2: What we do know though, is that there are some
Speaker 2: serious and very troubling discussions going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: So this was a I guess trial balloon that has
Speaker 2: been floated and leaked out where there is some plan
Speaker 2: that is currently being discussed at least at a pretty
Speaker 2: high level between the United States, Israel, and the rest
Speaker 2: of the world, where they are weighing peace peacekeepers for
Speaker 2: the Gaza strip after Hamas is destroyed in this in
Speaker 2: this hypothetical world, well, these multinational forces would incclude American,
Speaker 2: UK and French troops AK NATO, and another option would
Speaker 2: quote put Gaza under the United Nations oversight. And again
Speaker 2: this is a joint possibility that is being discussed at
Speaker 2: the highest level of the United States and in Israel
Speaker 2: to put American forces on the ground in Gaza as peacekeepers.
Speaker 2: So I can first of all just say hell no
Speaker 2: to that. This is Israel's problem. Israel breaks it, they
Speaker 2: can buy it, and they can occupy it for as
Speaker 2: long as they want to take all the attenuated casualties,
Speaker 2: because we don't need anything the hell to do with
Speaker 2: this un peacekeepers. I mean, come on, name a single
Speaker 2: situation with that has actually worked out, just completely ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Then basically they're turning to the P five plus one.
Speaker 2: They're looking at US, UK, Germany and France. I mean,
Speaker 2: and where are the Arab troops in all of this?
Speaker 2: So there's so many levels to this insane plan. But
Speaker 2: the TLDR of it is Israel wants to you know, what,
Speaker 2: how many? What percent of Gaza has already gone a
Speaker 2: quarter last time I checked, So to New York Times
Speaker 2: analysis based on satellite imagery that just came out yesterday,
Speaker 2: they destroyed already a quarter of all of Gaza. So
Speaker 2: let's say at the end of this, what do we
Speaker 2: got at best fifty percent? It's like you deal with it.
Speaker 2: We are not stepping in to clean up your mess
Speaker 2: and have thousands of our troops who are stationed there.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't even imagine the four the amount
Speaker 2: of forces that it would take to secure two point
Speaker 2: three million people. I don't remember off the top of
Speaker 2: my head what the population of Iraq was. But at
Speaker 2: the time, the calculation for what it should have taken
Speaker 2: was half a million American soldiers. That would have been
Speaker 2: How on the ground if we were to properly occupy
Speaker 2: quote unquote that country and have some sort of have
Speaker 2: actual peace and store security. We had one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty thousand, and we all we know we failed miserably
Speaker 2: on the initial invasion. So this thing, and what shocks
Speaker 2: me crystal is the lack of attention and outrage that
Speaker 2: it has not garnered in official Washington. These are American
Speaker 2: US UK forces. First of all, we have way.
Speaker 3: Better things to do than occupy Gaza.
Speaker 2: But I don't think anyone has taken seriously what it
Speaker 2: would actually take to do this. Now we are responsible
Speaker 2: for restoring security in this place insanity.
Speaker 1: Well not to mention like you can frame them as
Speaker 1: quote unquote peacekeepers. How are the Palestinians and Gaza going
Speaker 1: to view that force? That's what I'm talking And then
Speaker 1: we're the occupiers directly. I mean, it's bad enough it's
Speaker 1: our bombs that are hitting them. Okay, that's horrifying enough.
Speaker 1: And we're funding the occupying force now directly US troops
Speaker 1: are going to be on the ground as the occupying force.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't care about the morality, think of
Speaker 1: how that impacts.
Speaker 4: Our security situation.
Speaker 3: That's wrong.
Speaker 4: Then I mean that we become direct target.
Speaker 1: Then you know, all these people who are very you know,
Speaker 1: really stretching the truth about what Hamas's aims are and
Speaker 1: how it's a risk to us, et cetera. Like, then yeah,
Speaker 1: we are directly at risk. We are directly the subject
Speaker 1: of their ares, you know, as if we aren't already
Speaker 1: putting ourselves in that position by how strongly we're backing
Speaker 1: Israel and all.
Speaker 4: Of this to begin with.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the fact that this is being floated, the
Speaker 1: things that are being floated behind the scenes, and these
Speaker 1: little trial balloons that are being put out there, like
Speaker 1: the other one that we reported on the other day,
Speaker 1: and we have some updates on of like maybe we
Speaker 1: just go ahead and do the whole ethnic cleansing and
Speaker 1: push all the Palestinians out into the Sinai desert into
Speaker 1: tense cities.
Speaker 4: What do you guys think.
Speaker 1: Let's put it down to the population, see how it goes,
Speaker 1: See how the Americans feel about it. See if we
Speaker 1: can pressure Egypt through their debt status to try to
Speaker 1: go along with all of this. This is why, you know,
Speaker 1: how we feel about what Israel is entitled to do.
Speaker 1: How are we feel about watching this horrific carnage unfold.
Speaker 1: You have to keep in mind that israel stated aims
Speaker 1: here number one make no sense. Okay, if you actually
Speaker 1: are trying to go after Hamas Hamas leadership, most of
Speaker 1: Hamas's leadership is sitting in Qatar, like, do a deal
Speaker 1: with guitar and go arrest their asses. Go do that
Speaker 1: instead of bombing multiple times the same refuge g camp
Speaker 1: and massacring probably hundreds of Palestinians just in that one instance.
Speaker 1: We don't have casualty numbers, just to be totally clear.
Speaker 1: Instead of that, like, if you actually care about Hamas leadership,
Speaker 1: this is not the way you go about it.
Speaker 4: This is just about revenge.
Speaker 1: Let me inflict brutality because that is you know, in
Speaker 1: the wake of this horrific October seventh attack, that's what
Speaker 1: the public's calling for. Net you Yeaho's desperate to hold
Speaker 1: on do his power. That's what they're doing, and there
Speaker 1: is no thought about what comes after, and the thoughts
Speaker 1: that are have been developed and formulated about what's comes
Speaker 1: after are horrifying.
Speaker 4: So that's where we are.
Speaker 1: And you know the fact that this just is this
Speaker 1: little note in Bloomberg and no one really pays attention
Speaker 1: to it is insane to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, completely insane. It's not just Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: I mean this was all leaked at the highest levels
Speaker 2: the Israeli press of Bloomberg. I know the reporters behind this.
Speaker 2: These are incredibly well sourced people. They're at the White House,
Speaker 2: they know what they are doing. This is a well
Speaker 2: sanctioned leak. This is not and also let's speak clear.
Speaker 2: It wasn't denied by the White House or the State
Speaker 2: Department or the Pentagon. So plans are being drawn up
Speaker 2: and we can talk counterinsurgency, we could talk removal of
Speaker 2: hamas and all of that, but we only need to
Speaker 2: make it very very clear we are not getting involved
Speaker 2: in this period boots on the ground inside of Gadza.
Speaker 2: We had well enough experience in Iraq and we I
Speaker 2: think all of us have had plenty enough. And this
Speaker 2: is where it's like red, absolute red line in the
Speaker 2: sand that needs to be drawn. I'm not delusional. I
Speaker 2: know that you know that will never happen. Our American
Speaker 2: political leadership doesn't have the courage to say any of
Speaker 2: these things at this moment, which is, you know, it's
Speaker 2: shocking and ridiculous and troubling even and of itself. But
Speaker 2: let's give people an idea of what they're alread planning.
Speaker 2: We'll put this up there on the screen. This is
Speaker 2: from Haratz again in Israeli organization. Guys, please keep this up.
Speaker 2: This is a map that just shows you the amount
Speaker 2: of US military equipment that is currently in the Middle
Speaker 2: East right now. We are talking about the twenty six
Speaker 2: Marine Expeditionary Unit, two thousand, five hundred marines, three ships.
Speaker 2: We're talking about multiple destroyers, two carrier strike groups. We've
Speaker 2: got two aircraft carriers, guided missile ships that surround them,
Speaker 2: multiple US Air Force heavy lifters, fifty civilian cargo planes.
Speaker 2: We've got evacuation preparation flight sitting in Lebanon.
Speaker 3: We've got multiple.
Speaker 2: Air assets which are again as I described, the P
Speaker 2: five plus one powers in addition to some other Europeans,
Speaker 2: on top of the Patriot and the THAD missile defense systems,
Speaker 2: on top of multiple other air units that we have
Speaker 2: all spread acrout across the region.
Speaker 3: This is like the last time we had this.
Speaker 2: Amount of force that was masked in this we invaded Iraq.
Speaker 2: Just look very clearly at what they're prepping for. I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is, Okay, you know we haven't
Speaker 2: seen the second front materialize yet in Lebanon. You know,
Speaker 2: hopefully it never happens, but they're ready certainly if it does.
Speaker 2: But if you put these pieces of news together, you
Speaker 2: can begin to see they're preparing for something far more
Speaker 2: significant than Hamas.
Speaker 3: You don't need F sixteens.
Speaker 2: And aerial refueling tankers and carrier strike groups to go
Speaker 2: after Hamas.
Speaker 3: You don't even need that to go after Hezbolad. You
Speaker 3: know who you need it. You need to go after Iran.
Speaker 2: You need to go after conventional military forces, and clearly
Speaker 2: they are very worried about it. I also would be
Speaker 2: remiss if I didn't mention. I think Counterpoints covered this
Speaker 2: yesterday as well, where the Egyptians came out yesterday and
Speaker 2: they said, we will quote sacrifice millions to make sure
Speaker 2: that nobody comes out on our territories. We're talking about
Speaker 2: the return of a conflict between Israel and between Egypt.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is This is very troubling rhetoric. When
Speaker 2: an Egyptian dictators come in out and saying We're going
Speaker 2: to sacrifice millions of our people to protect our sovereignty
Speaker 2: in our territory. You should pay attention considering that they
Speaker 2: fought multiple wars against Israel in the past, and that
Speaker 2: all US foreign policy for the last five decades has
Speaker 2: been centered around let's make sure that never ever happens again.
Speaker 2: And instead we're going in the opposite direction. We're going
Speaker 2: in the opposite treamer.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the reason why we give Egypt
Speaker 1: and Israel so freaking much aid. That was the whole idea,
Speaker 1: The whole idea of the amount of aid we give
Speaker 1: Israel is supposed to be peace for security. Where's the
Speaker 1: peace part of that? That part just got left to
Speaker 1: the side. And again it's really important to keep in mind,
Speaker 1: like the Natanyahu government, they make no bones about it,
Speaker 1: they do not want a Palestinian state. They will go
Speaker 1: to great lengths, including propping up a muss which they
Speaker 1: have been doing, to avoid the even possibility of a
Speaker 1: Palestinian state. In that report, that analysis that was leaked
Speaker 1: from an Israeli government Ministry of possible solutions, solutions after
Speaker 1: their war on Gaza. One of them was the one
Speaker 1: they said was the most ideal, was to push everybody
Speaker 1: out into the Sinai Desert. They evaluated the idea of
Speaker 1: having Palestinian authority come in and take over Gaza, which
Speaker 1: has a whole lot of issues, which we'll get into
Speaker 1: too in a minute when we talk more about the
Speaker 1: West Bank. But they said this is an ideal because
Speaker 1: then that opens up the possibility of Palestinian statehood. So
Speaker 1: they would rather have Hamas in place than the possibility
Speaker 1: of Palestinian statehood. So just keep that in mind in
Speaker 1: terms of where we are with this Israeli government and
Speaker 1: really all of society. I mean, there barely is a
Speaker 1: left or a liberal Israeli political force left, certainly within
Speaker 1: the Kanesset when you look at that map. I'm no
Speaker 1: military expert, but this is the analysis from Haratz. The
Speaker 1: breadth of deployment attests to multiple considered scenarios, a multidirectional
Speaker 1: missile attack on Israel, a second northern front between Israel
Speaker 1: and hesbla escalation into a regional war, and finally, consideration
Speaker 1: of the need to evacuate thousands of Western citizens, and
Speaker 1: I would presume that's in the event that you do
Speaker 1: have this escalation into this. To call it a regional war,
Speaker 1: I think is to undersell it a bit, because if
Speaker 1: you're talking about all of these countries, some of whom
Speaker 1: have really considerable militaries, getting into a war and the
Speaker 1: alliances that they already have in place, we're really not
Speaker 1: talking about a regional war there. We're talking about something
Speaker 1: much larger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about a massive war. And Secretary of
Speaker 2: blinkoln made some troubled comments also yesterday. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2: This is what he said before Congress.
Speaker 6: Let's do a thought experiment. Hamas, at some point in
Speaker 6: the future is disabled. I think eliminating is a rhetorical
Speaker 6: flourish that puts us in a position where we will
Speaker 6: never stop fighting against some offshoots, some first cousin of
Speaker 6: Hamas someplace on the planet. So let's stipulate that the
Speaker 6: objective is to disable them to the point where they
Speaker 6: cannot pose a threat. Who runs Gaza?
Speaker 7: I think we have a two shoals, if you will.
Speaker 7: One is we can't have a reversion of the status
Speaker 7: quo with Hamas running Gaza. We also can't have and
Speaker 7: the Israelis start with this proposition themselves, Israel running or
Speaker 7: controlling Gaza. That's not their intent, that's what they want
Speaker 7: to do, and it's not something that would be be supported.
Speaker 7: So in between those shoals are a variety of possible
Speaker 7: permutations that we're looking at very closely now, as are
Speaker 7: other countries. At some point let me let me be
Speaker 7: more precise sure, at some point, what would make the
Speaker 7: most sense would be for a.
Speaker 8: Effective and.
Speaker 7: Revitalized Palestinian authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility
Speaker 7: for Gaza. Whether you can get there in one step
Speaker 7: is a big question that we have to look at.
Speaker 7: And if you can't, then there are are other temporary
Speaker 7: arrangements that may involve a number of other countries in
Speaker 7: the region. It may involve international agencies that would help
Speaker 7: provide for both security and governance. Ultimately, though, beyond that
Speaker 7: is what we come back to what this administration believes,
Speaker 7: which is the imperative of getting to two states for
Speaker 7: two people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking about nation building. Let's just be very
Speaker 3: real about this.
Speaker 2: Regime change, regime change and nation building, all of this
Speaker 2: name one time the United States has been able to
Speaker 2: do this successfully in the last thirty years. Don't throw
Speaker 2: Germany in Japan at me. Okay, it's been a long time.
Speaker 2: And also I don't think you want to look at
Speaker 2: the price tag.
Speaker 4: I was going to say, we're.
Speaker 1: Going to talk about Marshall Plan, how much money we
Speaker 1: spent or rebuild those guys.
Speaker 2: You know what's interesting, we actually spent more inflation adjusted
Speaker 2: on Ukraine than we did on the Marshall Plan.
Speaker 3: But that's a whole other conversation. But I've got a
Speaker 3: lot of comments on that.
Speaker 2: But point being, we are talking about nation building, fake
Speaker 2: international coalition. First, the UN can't even agree on what
Speaker 2: the hell to do. But right now on a ceasefire,
Speaker 2: you think we're gonna agree on how to administer Gaza
Speaker 2: get out of here, and then it becomes a question
Speaker 2: of like who are these entities? Who is now responsible
Speaker 2: for this mess? It's very simple. What's gonna happen is
Speaker 2: Israel is gonna blow if they accomplish this. Gaza as
Speaker 2: we know it is, as we already know, is gone,
Speaker 2: but it's gonna be even more gone by the time
Speaker 2: that we get to this stage. And then they're gonna
Speaker 2: pull out and be like, hey, international community, come fix this.
Speaker 2: And the plan right now is only the Americans, the
Speaker 2: UK and the French are dumb enough to be like,
Speaker 2: you know what, we'll do it, even though we would
Speaker 2: be the occupying force.
Speaker 3: And then what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: We're going to start taking all the same incoming that
Speaker 2: we used to take in Afghanistan when we were doing this,
Speaker 2: and we'll send in these USAID idiots and we'll be like,
Speaker 2: we'll build you a well as long as you love us,
Speaker 2: and they're like, yeah, totally, just give us the money
Speaker 2: and then we'll shoot at you on your way out
Speaker 2: and then thirty years later we'll be a billion dollars
Speaker 2: trillion dollars or whatever in the hole. And the Israelis
Speaker 2: are sitting there laughing because we're dumb enough to do this, Like,
Speaker 2: absolutely not from the get go. It should be a
Speaker 2: demand and red line should be drawn. They're like, we're
Speaker 2: not doing this. You are responsible, and by that you
Speaker 2: can get your ass on a plane and go to
Speaker 2: Riod and to you know where, Tehran, wherever you need
Speaker 2: to go, Jordan, Aman, and you guys can figure this out.
Speaker 3: Because this is a regional problem.
Speaker 2: The US will help you, but we are not going
Speaker 2: to be backstopping and security guaranteeing all this stuff for Gaza.
Speaker 2: And you know, all of this is it almost seems
Speaker 2: fanciful because, as we were just talking about while the
Speaker 2: clip was playing, the idea that they could truly rid
Speaker 2: Gaza of Hamas just seems ludicrous at this point. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's possible, it's certainly possible. Does Israel really want to
Speaker 2: take you know, fifty thousand.
Speaker 3: Casualties in Gaza?
Speaker 2: I'm honestly dubious that that is even politically sustainable or
Speaker 2: possible or not even that in terms of Israel and
Speaker 2: in Gaza. I'm doing is whether the international community doesn't
Speaker 2: escalate to a much broader level at that point. So
Speaker 2: maybe all of this is a moot conversation, but we
Speaker 2: are all of the crumbs. The crumbs for the disaster
Speaker 2: in Iraq were laid well before we ever invaded. In fact,
Speaker 2: many smart people predicted exactly what was going to happen
Speaker 2: far before the invasion. We are at the same point
Speaker 2: where we need to read all the tea leaves for
Speaker 2: what the plans are and all that. And you know,
Speaker 2: a year two years from now, when all this stuff
Speaker 2: starts materializing in these possible scenarios, and we like, see
Speaker 2: they told us years before, they told us.
Speaker 1: Put a eight up on the screen, guys, because this
Speaker 1: speaks to the other possibility, which is the one that
Speaker 1: Israel has really been pushing, which is and this was
Speaker 1: laid out by a think tank aligned with the government,
Speaker 1: is also laid out in the government ministry report that
Speaker 1: we brought to you before. Where the idea is you
Speaker 1: basically first, and this.
Speaker 4: Goes in phases.
Speaker 1: Phase number one is you push everybody out of northern Gaza.
Speaker 1: That's already happened. I mean, there are still people there
Speaker 1: who couldn't flee and who are sheltering in hospitals, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But evacuation order has already come down, even though they're
Speaker 1: still bombing southern Gaza.
Speaker 4: Okay, then you do the ground vane.
Speaker 1: Then you push everybody out of southern Gaza, and you
Speaker 1: pressure Egypt and use the US to help pressure Egypt
Speaker 1: to take in all of the Palestinians and completely displace
Speaker 1: them from the Gaza strip. These are the detendants of
Speaker 1: refugees who went through the original Nakma, so the full
Speaker 1: like second Nakba is their ideal plan now one way. Now,
Speaker 1: you may think, and this is something we talked about before.
Speaker 1: Egypt and CECI have already said hell no, absolutely not
Speaker 1: off the table. CEC told this to blink Intua his face,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Well, here's the.
Speaker 1: Leverage they want to use, which is really gross. They're
Speaker 1: proposing writing off a significant chunk of Egypt's considerable international
Speaker 1: debts through the world to entice the cash strapped government
Speaker 1: to open its doors for displaced Palestinians. That's the point
Speaker 1: of leverage, reportedly that they want to use. And they
Speaker 1: even have said in some of these documents like listen, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: right now they're saying, no way, we don't want you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want these refugees, and we're not going to
Speaker 1: deal with it, and you know, we're not going to
Speaker 1: be part of this full ethnic cleansing of the Gaza strip,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. But you know, you come a
Speaker 1: year down the road and the pressure is mounting over
Speaker 1: these debts and the other scenarios, as we've just been
Speaker 1: laying out, are sort of preposterous and ridiculous. They are
Speaker 1: betting on people's minds changing and this becoming, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially a FATA complee where there is no other real
Speaker 1: option available. And I think that is a very real
Speaker 1: possibility as well. So that's what they're really banking on,
Speaker 1: you know, the US, I don't know if they're I
Speaker 1: don't I can't believe they're this stupid, but they're sort
Speaker 1: of floating and pushing behind the scenes, like maybe the
Speaker 1: ideal thing is for the Palestinian Authority to men in
Speaker 1: rule Gaza. Palestonine authority has been so neutered in the
Speaker 1: West Bank it has no credibility if there is no
Speaker 1: way that it is in a position to govern Gazai,
Speaker 1: not a chance. And as I mentioned before, the net
Speaker 1: Nahoo government and not just net Yahoo by the way,
Speaker 1: like Vaswass of the Kanesset, have no interest in having
Speaker 1: any sort of unity between the West Bank and between
Speaker 1: the Gaza strip. Why because that creates the possibility of
Speaker 1: a Palestinian statehood and that is something they are so
Speaker 1: opposed to that they were willing to backome Us and
Speaker 1: risk exactly the type of atrocity that ended up unfolding.
Speaker 1: So to them it's completely off the table. And again
Speaker 1: it's fanciful to think that the PA would even be
Speaker 1: capable of pulling this off to start with. So there
Speaker 1: are there are really zero good options here for what
Speaker 1: comes after. And then you raised an important point Socergn.
Speaker 1: It reminds me so much of this just reminds me
Speaker 1: of the way all of the War on Terror stuff unfolded.
Speaker 1: War on Terror, well, that is an incredibly squishy concept,
Speaker 1: and we've seen the way that the powers we gave
Speaker 1: our government during that time have been now used to
Speaker 1: like wage war wherever they want, whatever they want without
Speaker 1: consulting us all over the world. Hamas is also a
Speaker 1: very squishy concept. I would like to hear someone in
Speaker 1: the Israeli government define exactly what they mean when they
Speaker 1: talk about quote unquote hamas, because then we're going to
Speaker 1: get to this in a minute. You know, you have
Speaker 1: quite a number of Israeli government officials at this point
Speaker 1: defining hamas as literally everyone in Gaza. You have a
Speaker 1: Republican member of Congress who seems to be defining hamas
Speaker 1: in that same way. So when we're talking about eliminating hamas,
Speaker 1: what exactly does that even mean based on their words?
Speaker 1: You know, it's a pretty scary possibility of what they're
Speaker 1: laying out here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an important point, and it actually takes us
Speaker 2: back just you know, we're talking about Iraq.
Speaker 3: We're talking about lessons. One of the things that America
Speaker 3: probably the single biggest mistake.
Speaker 2: Other than invading in the first place, that we made
Speaker 2: in Iraq, is that we went in and anybody who
Speaker 2: belonged to the Bath Party aka the Saddam regime, We're like, no,
Speaker 2: you're done. It's called it's called debath of acasion. And
Speaker 2: you know that's on paper. You're like, oh, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: The bad guys also, they're like, oh wait, all the
Speaker 2: teachers are gone, Oh wait, the police are gone, oh wait,
Speaker 2: we're disbanding the everybody who knows how to do literally anything,
Speaker 2: and all of civil society. And then three months later,
Speaker 2: lo and behold, all these guys start to become terrorists
Speaker 2: and shoot at American soldiers like, oh, shocking, it's absolutely shocking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we took her job.
Speaker 1: They're still armed and equipped and trained, and what do
Speaker 1: you think is going to happen?
Speaker 2: Thank you, mister President Bush. These are some lessons that
Speaker 2: we should really not forget. It wasn't that long ago, guys,
Speaker 2: It was only twenty years, and yet we're repeating all
Speaker 2: the same same mistakes and it's just, you know, ridiculous.
Speaker 3: But let's move on.
Speaker 2: There's another important point of news here that we don't
Speaker 2: want to forget that's part of all this, which is
Speaker 2: Americans who are currently inside of Gaza. Initially we talked
Speaker 2: a little bit about it. It's been more than three
Speaker 2: weeks now at this point and they're still not out
Speaker 2: of Gaza, which bears so many questions about why and
Speaker 2: how and why does this take me so long? Only
Speaker 2: just yesterday we can go and put this up there
Speaker 2: on the screen. The Rafa crossing from Gaza into the
Speaker 2: Sinai Peninsula in Egypt opened for the first time. You
Speaker 2: can see some of the crowds here of people being
Speaker 2: allowed out into the Rafa crossing. These are mostly foreign
Speaker 2: passport holders, but there's a lot of questions crystal as
Speaker 2: to why no American passport holders were allowed to pass through.
Speaker 2: Nobody still actually is aware. It appears that the Americans
Speaker 2: are The Americans are telling them that the passing will
Speaker 2: come soon. Can we put a nine please up there
Speaker 2: on the screen, just so people can say that US
Speaker 2: citizens were excluded from the list of approved foreign nationals.
Speaker 2: The attorney for the Massachusetts family tells a news They
Speaker 2: say that nationals permitted to cross were from Japan, Austria, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Jordan, Australia,
Speaker 2: the Czech Republic, and Finland. So it's an open question
Speaker 2: here of whether these people are being held hostage or not.
Speaker 2: Now President Biden is claiming that we expect American citizens
Speaker 2: to depart today, but he said that yesterday, and as
Speaker 2: of now the shooting of our show, it's morning time,
Speaker 2: which means this afternoon or sometime in Israel or in
Speaker 2: Gaza right now, from what we can see, that has
Speaker 2: not yet happened. So there is an open question as
Speaker 2: to the success even of this so called deal that
Speaker 2: they've had Crystal to get these people out. On top
Speaker 2: of that, there were some seventy six critically injured Palestinians
Speaker 2: that were allowed to go through to go to a hospital.
Speaker 2: But the vast majority and pretty much the only people
Speaker 2: who are going to be coming through that crossing are
Speaker 2: very very critically injured people and foreign passport holders period.
Speaker 3: But our citizens remain inside of this country.
Speaker 2: And again so the hypocrisy of the press, just like
Speaker 2: everybody cared about all these American citizens in Afghanistan, like
Speaker 2: Joe Biden left them behind all this. These are our
Speaker 2: citizens sitting in God, there's five hundred of them. Where
Speaker 2: are they? We have no clue. You know, they could
Speaker 2: be dead for all we know at this point.
Speaker 4: That's fairy true.
Speaker 1: According to State Department spokesperson, yesterday, Matthew Millery said an
Speaker 1: initial group of foreign nationals, including some US citizens, departed
Speaker 1: Gaza through Rafa Dei said today that was yesterday, so
Speaker 1: they claimed some Americans went through, but the reporting suggests
Speaker 1: the bulk of Americans still remain in Gaza. The reporter
Speaker 1: goes on to note doesn't say if they were dual
Speaker 1: nationals using other passports. That's a possibility, is that you
Speaker 1: know they were what were the lists Japanese and American
Speaker 1: passport holders, and so they were able to get out
Speaker 1: because they were Japanese passport We don't know. Yeah, does
Speaker 1: not answer a question whether it was a handful or more.
Speaker 1: And again the Biden administration saying that the bulk of
Speaker 1: them will be allowed to leave today. We'll see if
Speaker 1: that ultimately unfolds. And some of the reporting also suggested
Speaker 1: that it was kind of intentional from the US that
Speaker 1: they wanted to wait and see how this crossing went,
Speaker 1: whether it was safe, whether it was actually possible to achieve.
Speaker 1: So definitely something that we want to keep our eye on.
Speaker 1: You can understand from Israel's perspective, they have a lot
Speaker 1: of incentive to want this crossing to occur because obviously,
Speaker 1: for you know, their big ally, the United States of America,
Speaker 1: this was a really point of pressure here and on discomfort.
Speaker 1: I mean, the number of Americans who are at risk
Speaker 1: of dying in these bombings is relatively significant, so that's
Speaker 1: what's going on there, you know. I also want to
Speaker 1: you mentioned the the number of dozens of injured, critically
Speaker 1: injured Palestinians who were allowed out to these field hospitals
Speaker 1: in the Sinai Desert in Egypt. And I am glad
Speaker 1: that they were able to get out and get treatment
Speaker 1: because most many of the hospitals in Gaza have already
Speaker 1: shut down at this point, the very latest. But this
Speaker 1: a ten up on the screen. This hospital, which was
Speaker 1: the only place, the Turkish Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza,
Speaker 1: this was the only hospital remaining that performs cancer treatments.
Speaker 1: This has now shut down We're now at a place
Speaker 1: where sixteen of the Gaza Strip's thirty five hospitals are
Speaker 1: already out of service, as are more than fifty of
Speaker 1: Gaza's seventy two primary healthcare clinics. This is all just
Speaker 1: to underscore the seventy some critically injured who were able
Speaker 1: to go to this Egyptian field hospital. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is less than a drop.
Speaker 4: In the bugget it. Really.
Speaker 1: It's really in line with, you know, the liberal ass
Speaker 1: covering of the Oh, we quote unquote want a humanitarian pause,
Speaker 1: We're not going to do anything to achieve it, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't really mean anything even if we did, but
Speaker 1: that's what we want. Or we really hope that Israel
Speaker 1: follows international law, even as we already know from the jump,
Speaker 1: the minute they announced we're going to do a complete
Speaker 1: like medieval siegure, we know they're not following international law.
Speaker 1: But still three weeks later, we're still hand ringing with
Speaker 1: Warren sending on twists. G I hope, I really hope
Speaker 1: they'll follow international law. This, you know, Egyptian Field Hospital
Speaker 1: appears to be the same level of bullshit, minimal ass
Speaker 1: covering something you can point to or the other one
Speaker 1: I would put in this saga is like, oh, we
Speaker 1: increase the number of aid trucks from making these numbers up,
Speaker 1: but they're pathetically small numbers from like twenty to twenty five.
Speaker 1: Aren't we so amazing? Look at how humanitarian we are. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the UN is like they need one hundred trucks of
Speaker 1: aid every single day if you're going to be even
Speaker 1: close to providing sufficient resources for a population that is
Speaker 1: being starved and dehydrated and has no fuel as we speak.
Speaker 1: So just keep that in mind when you see and
Speaker 1: I saw that, you know, New York Times and watch
Speaker 1: they were all in on this, like, oh, seventy people
Speaker 1: got treatment in the Egyptian desert. Compare that to the
Speaker 1: number of people injured, let alone killed. It is it
Speaker 1: is pathetically insufficient, pathetically insufficient.
Speaker 2: And you know, it also comes after I know that
Speaker 2: Ryan and Emily did job talking about some of this yesterday. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got some of this that we can put, you know,
Speaker 2: up there on the screen that just shows you some
Speaker 2: of the damage that continues inside of Gaza, and this
Speaker 2: is the daily reality now at this point, it almost
Speaker 2: you know, it's difficult because it just shows you that
Speaker 2: we are slow walking ourselves to a point of something.
Speaker 3: You know, this is an unsustainable situation.
Speaker 2: Where we've got air strikes that are dropping international outcry.
Speaker 2: After this refugee camp was bombed, the Israelis say that
Speaker 2: there was a Hamas terrorists that was inside of the
Speaker 2: refugee camp. But I think, really what this highlights, as
Speaker 2: you were talking, you know, with the Rafa crossing, with
Speaker 2: this US peacekeeper plan and more, is someone has got
Speaker 2: to deal with this and we are either going to
Speaker 2: get to that final point. You know, it's very unlikely
Speaker 2: in my opinion, without it just breaking into an open,
Speaker 2: full scale international crisis, and the war drums are beating,
Speaker 2: the tension is high, the international situation. I mean, things
Speaker 2: are crumbling in a way that most Americans don't really
Speaker 2: seem to comprehend. The Jordanians, their neighbor kicked out the
Speaker 2: Israeli ambassador, they said, get the hell out of here.
Speaker 3: I just checked.
Speaker 2: The Bahrain just did the exact same thing, where a
Speaker 2: budget US troops are just so you know, Yemen, whatever
Speaker 2: the Hoothy government or whatever, has officially.
Speaker 3: Declared war on Israel, whatever that means.
Speaker 2: Turkey, we have freaking aridiwan out there in Turkish being like, hey,
Speaker 2: maybe we'll go to war with Israel. The Egyptians are
Speaker 2: telling us we're willing to lose millions of people to
Speaker 2: keep people off of our soil. It's like every single actor, Nucerella,
Speaker 2: by the way, the leader of Hezbola, he is expected
Speaker 2: to make an appearance in a statement sometime soon. It
Speaker 2: could either be today or tomorrow. That's what some of
Speaker 2: the reporting coming out of Lebanon is. The Iranians, the
Speaker 2: foreign minister. You know, they've made several We've got multiple
Speaker 2: US troops now who've got TBIs traumatic brain injuries, We've
Speaker 2: had evacuated positions, and then on top of that, we've
Speaker 2: got all this firepower which is in the region.
Speaker 3: The stage is set. You know, things don't just happen
Speaker 3: all at once.
Speaker 2: They build up. But if you can read carefully what's happening,
Speaker 2: all of the you know, all of the ingredients in
Speaker 2: the powder keg have been assembled.
Speaker 3: It just takes the match. Who knows what that is.
Speaker 3: Nobody ever knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you learn from history, but it's like all it
Speaker 2: takes is the assemblage, and then the possibility now starts
Speaker 2: to reach like ten thirty forty fifty.
Speaker 3: We're rapidly approaching the coin toss.
Speaker 4: The match may already have been lit for all we do.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 1: I mean, they hit that that refugee camp where they
Speaker 1: claimed there was one Hamas guy that they initially claimed, oh,
Speaker 1: we got him, and then they proceeded to bomb the
Speaker 1: same refugee camp two more times. That was enough of
Speaker 1: a like clear atrocity that even Wolf Blitzer, who used
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 4: With Apak, Yeah, I read that was you guys.
Speaker 1: I'm sure probably watch that on Counterpoints or somewhere else
Speaker 1: yesterday as well. Even he was like, you knew there
Speaker 1: were women and children there and you still bombed it.
Speaker 1: And the IDF guy was like, eh, it's the cost
Speaker 1: of war.
Speaker 3: Cost of war.
Speaker 1: It's just just imagine, just imagine if we were talking
Speaker 1: about Israeli citizens, and would.
Speaker 4: You bomb an entire neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Of tens of thousands of people to get one Hamaskay
Speaker 1: if those were Israeli citizens, Not a chance. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: this the powder keg is lit. We have already stated clearly,
Speaker 1: all of Biden's like oh, humanitarian pause or whatever nonsense aside.
Speaker 1: The most clear state we made is we've given Israel
Speaker 1: no red lines, and that's very clear. And even if
Speaker 1: you do not care about the Palestinians who are being massacred,
Speaker 1: that is extraordinarily dangerous for the world and for our
Speaker 1: own security as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, I mean, I'll be honest, that's mostly the framework
Speaker 2: that I take. I don't really I mean, I care
Speaker 2: about all people. I care about our people the most,
Speaker 2: just from a political perspective in terms of what we
Speaker 2: have a responsibility to. And I got to be all
Speaker 2: I got to say this too for all of the veterans.
Speaker 2: And know a lot of veterans watched this show. The
Speaker 2: United States military, we had a lot of bad things
Speaker 2: that we did, mostly in the Drone War whenever it
Speaker 2: came to this, but the way that we behaved in Iraq,
Speaker 2: I feel so validated in so many of our troops
Speaker 2: who went out of their way. Now I'm not saying
Speaker 2: that there weren't many atrocities, but many of our troops
Speaker 2: the official rules of engagement, especially two thousand and five
Speaker 2: and all that onward, they put their lives on the
Speaker 2: line to try and protect the civilian populace in Iraq
Speaker 2: and more and more, I'm watching g Watt veterans, people
Speaker 2: who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are honestly shocked
Speaker 2: at the way that some of these Raelies are conducting themselves.
Speaker 2: They're like, we would never do never, we would never
Speaker 2: conduct ourselves this way in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Again,
Speaker 2: there have been problems, and a lot of it actually
Speaker 2: was the drone war, when we didn't have troops on
Speaker 2: the ground and.
Speaker 3: Or targets, remote controls the hotel.
Speaker 2: Nobody really knows what's going on. Those were some of
Speaker 2: the bigger mistakes. So a lot I think a lot
Speaker 2: of veterans out there should be proud of the way
Speaker 2: that they conducted themselves whenever they were actually engaged in
Speaker 2: a full scale operation.
Speaker 3: Because watching this, I'm like.
Speaker 2: There's no way the United States military this is anathema,
Speaker 2: and I think a lot of people know that in
Speaker 2: terms of the way that we fought.
Speaker 4: I'll take it one further.
Speaker 1: The brutality we've seen in the short period of time
Speaker 1: puts Russia to shane and their atrocious conduct in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: like the level of total disregard for civilian life, the
Speaker 1: willingness to level an entire refugee camp where you know
Speaker 1: there are so many children, so many women, the proportion
Speaker 1: of Hamas fighters of actual combatants that they're killing versus civilians.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is it's astonished. It is truly shocking,
Speaker 1: and that's why you see liberals getting uncomfortable. They want
Speaker 1: to have, you know, they want to have this language
Speaker 1: about a humanitarian pause or whatever, because it's Undeniaed saw
Speaker 1: Chris van Holland yesterday, like he personally knows a family
Speaker 1: who have lost loved ones in this conflict. They weren't Hamas, they.
Speaker 4: Weren't terrorists, they were just regular people.
Speaker 1: And so I mean, the horror of this is shocking
Speaker 1: and again for the whole world, extremely dangerous. Let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and transition into what's going on in the West Bank.
Speaker 1: Counterpoints talked about some of this yesterday. This is really
Speaker 1: important and we hadn't gone into it. So I want
Speaker 1: to make sure people understand what's going on here as well.
Speaker 1: The West Bank is absolutely also a powder keg right now,
Speaker 1: and you have had even before the October seventh massacre
Speaker 1: from Hamas, even before then, you had a huge increase
Speaker 1: in violence settler attacks on residents of the West Bank.
Speaker 1: And basically the idea here is that you know, the
Speaker 1: net Nowhoo government, they don't want a Palestinian state. And
Speaker 1: so over decades and long before the net Yahoo government too,
Speaker 1: by the way.
Speaker 4: They slowly, slowly, slowly.
Speaker 1: Encroach on Palestinian land, build more settlements, build more illegal settlements,
Speaker 1: build more illegal settlements, and they really want to push
Speaker 1: all of the Palestinians out of this area they call
Speaker 1: Area See and leave them with like basically a quarter
Speaker 1: of the West Bank, the most densely populated areas.
Speaker 4: And they use a variety of mechanisms to achieve this.
Speaker 1: Partly they use this like bureaucratic process of technical laws
Speaker 1: and jargon. That's like they don't give Palestinians any building
Speaker 1: permits and then they'll like condemn their buildings and push
Speaker 1: them off their land that way. And that's this like slow,
Speaker 1: bloodless but still horrifying process of pushing Palestinians off of
Speaker 1: their land. And then they also enabled by the state
Speaker 1: directly by IDF soldiers, these Jewish settler extremists will go
Speaker 1: in and using violence directly push people off of their land.
Speaker 1: And that is the piece that has dramatically, dramatically accelerated,
Speaker 1: especially during this conflict. But all years this has been developing.
Speaker 1: This is enough of a concern that even our State
Speaker 1: Department is starting to warn about what's going on here.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller
Speaker 1: talking about the violence of the West Bank.
Speaker 9: We consistently and unequivocally condemn all acts of terrorism and
Speaker 9: violence and the target of civilians, including the recent attacks
Speaker 9: by Israeli extremist settlers in the West Bank. Israel must
Speaker 9: take measures to protect Palestinians from such attacks and to
Speaker 9: hold accountable any settlers who carry out attacks, as well
Speaker 9: as any members of the Israeli defense forces who stand
Speaker 9: by or fail to intervene when these attacks occur. And
Speaker 9: I will just say that we have made clear privately
Speaker 9: to the Israeli government and publicly that these attacks are unacceptable,
Speaker 9: they need to stop, and those responsible need to be
Speaker 9: held accountable.
Speaker 1: If we could go to a four, just so I
Speaker 1: can show you the numbers of what's going on here.
Speaker 1: We've had one hundred and fifteen Palestinians in the occupy
Speaker 1: West Bank killed, more than two thousand injured, nearly one
Speaker 1: thousand others forcibly displaced from their homes just since October seventh,
Speaker 1: These are not Hamas numbers, These are not PA numbers.
Speaker 1: This is according to the UN. So in this short
Speaker 1: several week period of time, one hundred and fifteen killed.
Speaker 1: Among the dead are thirty three children. And I want
Speaker 1: you to understand when we're talking about Jewish settler violence,
Speaker 1: and you know, these threats that sometimes you know, result
Speaker 1: directly in murders, sometimes just result just quote unquote in
Speaker 1: Palestinians being pushed off the land. Sometimes it's land that
Speaker 1: they've farmed for, you know, hundreds of years them and
Speaker 1: their ancestors. A majority of these attacks by Jewish settlers,
Speaker 1: again according to the UN, are directly backed and protected
Speaker 1: by the Israeli military. So IDF soldiers are they're they're
Speaker 1: enabling this. Ben Gavie actually at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: hostilities on October seventh, he distributed rifles mostly to the
Speaker 1: Jewish settlers. You can imagine what they're going to use
Speaker 1: them for. And so this is a process that has
Speaker 1: dramatically accelerated that it's horrifying that the US is very
Speaker 1: concerned about. And you know, we say, like, oh, we
Speaker 1: hope this is Raeli government will do something about the
Speaker 1: Israeli government is like actively backing this. This is not
Speaker 1: a surprise to them. They are involved in this process
Speaker 1: and long have been involved directly in pushing this process.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the second element in this block. We
Speaker 1: talk some about, you know, the idea of the Palestinian
Speaker 1: Authority coming in and being able to take.
Speaker 4: Over Gaza, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: This was an important report for the LA time, so
Speaker 1: people can understand some of the nuance here. Sager of
Speaker 1: how Palestinians feel about the PA in the West Bank,
Speaker 1: and they freaking hate them. And the reason they hate
Speaker 1: them is because they feel like they are just collaborating
Speaker 1: with the occupying force. And they also feel like and
Speaker 1: I don't think this is just a feeling. I think
Speaker 1: this is reality that as these rampages have been occurring,
Speaker 1: the Palestinia authority does nothing about it. You know, they
Speaker 1: have no one. There is no one there that will
Speaker 1: protect them. There is no authority they can go to.
Speaker 1: There's no police department they can go to. There is
Speaker 1: no judge they can go to. There is no institution
Speaker 1: that they can go to that is going to say
Speaker 1: we're going to protect you from having these extremists come
Speaker 1: with guns and push you off your land.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The problem for the Palestinian authority is, like you said,
Speaker 2: they don't have any authority.
Speaker 3: They haven't.
Speaker 2: I mean the last time they were elected was two
Speaker 2: thousand and five.
Speaker 3: And the Old War, and now they you.
Speaker 2: Know, they keep scheduling elections and then they don't happen.
Speaker 2: They're effectively looked at from the Palestinian people, either fairly
Speaker 2: or unfairly. You can decide as a prop by the
Speaker 2: West and by Israel as some sort of legitimate authority
Speaker 2: that you can just put in front of the UN
Speaker 2: and be like, see we got Palisin.
Speaker 4: We're working with the Palestini.
Speaker 3: See President Biden is a meeting with them.
Speaker 2: And look, some of these people they have a long
Speaker 2: time like they're caught in a rocking hard place because
Speaker 2: they at least they get representation, right Like they can
Speaker 2: sit in front of the President of the United States
Speaker 2: and they can deal with them, but they don't have
Speaker 2: increasing democratic legitimacy. The reason why I think that we
Speaker 2: are spending time on this is because we want people
Speaker 2: to understand that the more violence that occurs here, the
Speaker 2: more the people in the West Bank are going to
Speaker 2: look away from the PA as a legitimate authority on
Speaker 2: their behalf, and they are going to turn to Hamas.
Speaker 3: I brought this up previously. Hamas has a very high
Speaker 3: approval rating.
Speaker 2: The last time that there was a poll in the
Speaker 2: West Bank that was pre the conflict in Gaza. Just
Speaker 2: to be totally honest, I mean that does validate them.
Speaker 2: Is really talking points, but I do think it is true.
Speaker 2: The reason why is because they're seen as these people
Speaker 2: will fight, you know, these people will do this on
Speaker 2: our behalf.
Speaker 3: We've tried decades.
Speaker 2: Now at this point, almost fifteen seventeen years with people
Speaker 2: who are nonviolent and listen, I want it to be
Speaker 2: non violent and I want it to be good. But
Speaker 2: the unfortunate reality is that from their perspective, they are
Speaker 2: clearly losing legitimacy, especially the more that they face violence.
Speaker 2: I think that's what makes it such a powder kick,
Speaker 2: because imagine this crystal. We have a whole plan predicated
Speaker 2: on the PA that's going to take over Gaza. But
Speaker 2: what if the PA falls in the West Bank in
Speaker 2: the interim, we could see Actually, you know, Israel, I've
Speaker 2: talked about this before. They fear two front war. They
Speaker 2: actually could end up one. But it doesn't have with Hesboala,
Speaker 2: they could have a full blown, like a spark like this, we're.
Speaker 3: Inches away from that.
Speaker 2: That's part of the reason why I think even the
Speaker 2: US and the West have have not been silent at
Speaker 2: all whenever it comes to the settler violence is because
Speaker 2: they know very clearly that this could easily derail the
Speaker 2: only in their eyes, legitimate political actor in the entire
Speaker 2: region that supposedly speaks for Palestindians. And then we truly
Speaker 2: are We're we're set back decades.
Speaker 3: Right, that happens.
Speaker 1: Well, it also we also should keep in mind the
Speaker 1: PA being incredibly weak and discredited and having you know,
Speaker 1: much more traction with Hamas like that is actually the
Speaker 1: outcome the is Raelly government wanted to and helped to
Speaker 1: affect you. So let's be like clear also about this
Speaker 1: is exactly the scenario they wanted because if you have
Speaker 1: a strong PA that Palestinians actually feel like, oh they
Speaker 1: actually represent us, they actually protect us, they actually are
Speaker 1: fighting for us.
Speaker 4: If they are.
Speaker 1: Able to, you know, then gain control in the in
Speaker 1: the Gaza strip, then you have a unified Then they're
Speaker 1: talking point about, well, there's no.
Speaker 4: One we can negotiate with. So what are we going
Speaker 4: to do? What are we going to do?
Speaker 1: We you know, we of course we'd love for there
Speaker 1: to be a Palatine, but we can't talk about a
Speaker 1: Palestine in state until we have someone to negotiate with. Well,
Speaker 1: then you lose that talking point, and they don't want
Speaker 1: to lose that talking point. So this is exactly the
Speaker 1: outcome that they desired and helped I'm not saying it's
Speaker 1: one hundred percent them, but helped to engineer. I want
Speaker 1: to show you also, just in terms of what this
Speaker 1: looks like, because it sounds very abstract when we talk
Speaker 1: about these settlers coming and pushing people off the land.
Speaker 4: Put this up. This on the screen.
Speaker 1: This is all It's an Arabic so I'll read the subtitles,
Speaker 1: but you can see these are Palestinians who are being
Speaker 1: pushed off the land. This man says, I was born
Speaker 1: in this community. My mother gave birth to me here.
Speaker 1: I don't know how our difficulty began when the settler
Speaker 1: arrived and they're packing up their things. You can see
Speaker 1: in the truck. Since the third day of the war,
Speaker 1: he hasn't let us sleep a single night. Every day
Speaker 1: he comes with the army. He attacked us and our
Speaker 1: children more than once, he goes on to say, and
Speaker 1: you can see them packing up.
Speaker 4: About four days ago.
Speaker 1: He came and smashed the windows, they drained the water
Speaker 1: tanks and attacked us with stones. And you've had a
Speaker 1: huge number of people just in this past three weeks
Speaker 1: pushed off of their land in exactly the same way.
Speaker 1: So to go back to the way that the Palestinians
Speaker 1: are viewing the actions of the Israeli government, you not
Speaker 1: only have these plans being released released leaked by a
Speaker 1: government ministry of like what we really want to do
Speaker 1: is push you into the Sinai, and then you have
Speaker 1: this acceleration of pushing Palestinians off the land in the
Speaker 1: West Bank. I mean, they are not wrong to see
Speaker 1: this as a coordinated plan to completely quote unquote solve
Speaker 1: their Palestinian problem for good, which again is not a
Speaker 1: new position for net Yahou and his party. This is
Speaker 1: what they have long wanted and this crisis they are
Speaker 1: hoping is going to be the spark that enables them
Speaker 1: to achieve their longtime goals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: To give you a sense also of just how you know,
Speaker 1: when we're talking about we use this language. I got
Speaker 1: the most extreme government history, et cetera, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: also when we're talking about the West Bank and what
Speaker 1: a powder keg it is and what an untenable situation,
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen, this guy that they
Speaker 1: just picked to head the subcommittee on the West Bank.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's too far to say that he was,
Speaker 1: at least at one time basically an accused terrorist Jewish
Speaker 1: certainly Jewish extremist. Let me read you this report from Haretz.
Speaker 1: Far right Israeli Knesset member Zvisukote to head subcommittee on
Speaker 1: the West Bank.
Speaker 4: A long time target of the Shouldn't.
Speaker 1: Bet Secure service, the Cote has been arrested numerous times.
Speaker 1: In twenty eleven, he was questioned on suspicion of involvement
Speaker 1: in setting fire to a police commander's car against the
Speaker 1: backdrop of demolition of structures by Israeli authorities at an
Speaker 1: unauthorized West Bank Jewish outpost. He was never charged. During
Speaker 1: the same period, restraining orders were issued against someone on
Speaker 1: several occasions, barring him from the West Bank. The last
Speaker 1: of the restraining orders was issued in twenty twelve following
Speaker 1: intelligence he was leading what was described as covert and
Speaker 1: violent activity against Palestinians. So this is the guy that
Speaker 1: they just put in charge of the West Bank subcommittee.
Speaker 1: I thought this was an interesting comment from a peace
Speaker 1: activist group called Peace Now. They called the appointment testament
Speaker 1: to quote the national irresponsibility of a dangerous messianic government
Speaker 1: which is doing everything to open a third war front
Speaker 1: in the West Bank. And the reason I thought that
Speaker 1: was noteworthy Sagre is we've sort of assumed maybe that
Speaker 1: Israel didn't really want another front in the war, but
Speaker 1: this group is like, no, they actually want it, which
Speaker 1: would be the logic of sort of like Zelenski like
Speaker 1: for him, you know, opening up the broader war would
Speaker 1: bring us in fully.
Speaker 4: On their side.
Speaker 1: And there's a possibility that the similar calculus is going
Speaker 1: on here with the nat Yahoo government.
Speaker 2: Israel is a coalition with a lot of different people
Speaker 2: and a lot of different interest groups. Some people want
Speaker 2: to heighten the contradictions, they want to take it all out,
Speaker 2: and they'll be like, look, let's go, let's take Aza
Speaker 2: and let's take the West Bank. There's a huge portion
Speaker 2: of the of the Israeli current coalition who absolutely believes
Speaker 2: that they would eat what does the term it's like
Speaker 2: Judea and Samaria. That's how they would defer to the
Speaker 2: two regions.
Speaker 1: So it's very part of that because they believe that
Speaker 1: Jews are like entitled by birthright.
Speaker 3: To do something about the Bible. I'm not the person as.
Speaker 2: The point, I guess just being that these are traveling developments.
Speaker 3: It can explode.
Speaker 2: And the reason the US and the entire Western world
Speaker 2: really it feels very comfortable talking about this, and not
Speaker 2: even just Kaza, it's because they understand very clearly if
Speaker 2: the PA falls in the West Bank, it will be
Speaker 2: a Titanic event. There will be no quote unquote legitimate
Speaker 2: a Now we're talking about elections, we're talking about a
Speaker 2: full blown you know terrorism. It is the It is
Speaker 2: already and probably was on its last legs in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one. This every day that goes on and erodes
Speaker 2: its type of support. And if they fall, or if
Speaker 2: there's some sort of coup or uprising or something like that,
Speaker 2: it will be a highly significant, highly significant event that
Speaker 2: will dramatically impact all of the events to come.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's that.
Speaker 1: And it's also Hamas doesn't run the West Bank, so
Speaker 1: there's no cover of like, oh, well, they're killing civilians,
Speaker 1: but you know, I know they're really trying to get
Speaker 1: it humas here. There's no cover here, so it makes
Speaker 1: them look bad when innocent Palestinians are just getting murdered
Speaker 1: to get pushed off their land. So it's also part
Speaker 1: of their ass covering projects. So that's what the liberals
Speaker 1: are up to in terms of their rhetorical spin of
Speaker 1: how they're justifying what's going on here. We had a
Speaker 1: pretty stunning example of what at least one Republican in
Speaker 1: the house, Brian Mass. This is the dude who wore
Speaker 1: his IDF uniform Yes to work one day, you can
Speaker 1: forget yes. Indeed, this is his take on why what
Speaker 1: Israel is doing is completely fine and justified.
Speaker 4: Take a listen.
Speaker 10: I would encourage the other side to not so lightly
Speaker 10: throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians as is
Speaker 10: frequently said. I don't think we would so lightly throw
Speaker 10: around the term innocent Nazi civilians during World War Two.
Speaker 1: So the Republican, this Republican, Brian mast his response to
Speaker 1: the fact that the killing of so many women and
Speaker 1: children is undeniable at this point is to say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe they're not so innocent after all. I mean, this
Speaker 1: really echoes Sagar the language of supposedly moderate Israeli President
Speaker 1: Isaac Hertzog, who said similarly that there were really no
Speaker 1: innocent civilians here. I don't have to tell you. This
Speaker 1: is the kind of language that throughout history has been
Speaker 1: used to justify genocides. It was the sort of language
Speaker 1: that Osama bin Laden used to justify.
Speaker 4: Nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: Is the sort of language that Hamas would use to
Speaker 1: justify the massacre of innocent Israeli citizens. They'd say, hey,
Speaker 1: they all voted, they elected Netanyahu, they support these policies.
Speaker 1: They're not innocent. That's the sort of logic they would use.
Speaker 1: So this is now the direction that a number of
Speaker 1: individuals are moving in on the right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, and you know this is psychotic.
Speaker 2: It also is one of those where it's so funny
Speaker 2: because these guys don't know anything. Nazi has become something
Speaker 2: that is almost meaningless at this point. If you go
Speaker 2: back to World War Two, we took extraordinary steps rhetorically
Speaker 2: to always be like, we want the surrender of the
Speaker 2: Nazi regime, end of Hitler. Our beef is not with
Speaker 2: the German people. We always said that for what reason.
Speaker 2: We knew we were going to have to occupy and rebuild,
Speaker 2: and we wanted to have some credibility with the German
Speaker 2: people at that time. We also would often say we
Speaker 2: were like, look, they're not fully representative. There's a reason
Speaker 2: we treated the SS very differently than the regular German
Speaker 2: army even after the war. This is one of those
Speaker 2: where he's like, well, we would never say that there
Speaker 2: were innocent German civilians and times that's not even true.
Speaker 2: That's not what we said, that's not what anybody said
Speaker 2: at that time. Now, of course, you know, it didn't
Speaker 2: stop the bombing of Dresden or some of these other activities,
Speaker 2: but at the least ostensibly that was to win.
Speaker 3: The war against the Nazis.
Speaker 2: At the civilians, even at that time, were considered collateral damage,
Speaker 2: but they were not considered to actually be targets that
Speaker 2: are justified in themselves. Yeah, so this guy's taking it
Speaker 2: to like the most extreme. I mean, that's basically what
Speaker 2: Hitler said about Jews. Just so people are clear, he
Speaker 2: was like, there's no such thing as innocent one. They're
Speaker 2: all the same, they like work to the same end.
Speaker 2: So no, it's crazy it's totally crazy and it just
Speaker 2: like goes with the breeze or something like that to
Speaker 2: say these things. Also, who you know, why is a
Speaker 2: US congressman wearing the uniform of a foreign military in
Speaker 2: the hall?
Speaker 3: Can anyone explain that to me? Does anyone want to
Speaker 3: tell me about that?
Speaker 2: Because that's pretty crazy if you ask me, play well,
Speaker 2: he's actually not Jewish.
Speaker 3: No, And that's the craziest part.
Speaker 1: It just lay into some anti Semitic tropes about like
Speaker 1: dual loyalty, et cetera, et cetera. Gun put B nine
Speaker 1: up on the screen because what representative Mass is basically
Speaker 1: echoing here is effectively the position of the Israeli government
Speaker 1: as articulated to US officials. This is a quote that
Speaker 1: was caught from a New York Times article. Let me
Speaker 1: read this in full. They say it became evident to
Speaker 1: US officials that Israeli leaders believed mass civilian casualties were
Speaker 1: an acceptable price in the military campaign. In private conversations
Speaker 1: with American counterparts, Israeli officials referred to how the US
Speaker 1: and other Allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany
Speaker 1: and Japan during World War Two, including the dropping of
Speaker 1: the two atomic warheads in Eroshima and Nagasaki to try
Speaker 1: to defeat those countries. So they're literally talking about drop it,
Speaker 1: like comparing this situation not only to World War Two,
Speaker 1: not only the Nazis, but like, hey, you drop nukes,
Speaker 1: So any amount of civilian death is totally fine here.
Speaker 1: So that's effectively what representative mass is echoing there. And
Speaker 1: then you know, just to give another example of an
Speaker 1: official in the Israeli government, one of the members of
Speaker 1: the Kanesset who is in the Lacud party, which is
Speaker 1: Netanyahuo's party, put this up on the screen.
Speaker 4: Gallet distals.
Speaker 1: She also was the Minister of Information in this government,
Speaker 1: so like a you know, a real like cabinet official
Speaker 1: until just a couple weeks ago. This is what she
Speaker 1: wrote on Twitter. This is the translation. Just so we're clear,
Speaker 1: hate the enemy, hate the monsters. Any vestige of internal bickening,
Speaker 1: bickering is a mating, maddeningly stupid waste of energy. Invest
Speaker 1: this energy in one thing, erasing all of Gaza from
Speaker 1: the face of the earth. That the Gazzen monsters will
Speaker 1: fly to the southern fence and try to enter Egyptian territory.
Speaker 1: Where they will die, and their death is evil. Gaza
Speaker 1: should be erased and fire and smoke on the heads
Speaker 1: of the Nazis in Judae and Samaria, that's the West Bank.
Speaker 1: Haran is also a Jew who will shake the earth
Speaker 1: of the world. I don't know what that reference is,
Speaker 1: some biblical thing. I guess evengeful and cruel idf is
Speaker 1: needed here. Anything less is a moral just unethical. So
Speaker 1: Gaza should be erased. The Gaza monsters will fly to
Speaker 1: the southern fence.
Speaker 4: And try to enter Egyptian territory.
Speaker 1: So you have here not only the total just like
Speaker 1: there are no innocent civilians white Gaza out off the map.
Speaker 4: Punish them all.
Speaker 1: We need a cruel idf but also the desire to
Speaker 1: have the you know, complete fullness of the ethnic cleansing
Speaker 1: program that was laid down in that government report. And
Speaker 1: again this isn't some just like random nobody. This is
Speaker 1: someone who was directly in the government and who is
Speaker 1: a the code member of the kanesse as we speak.
Speaker 1: This is the sort of thing, the rhetoric that is
Speaker 1: just like flying within Israeli society right now.
Speaker 2: And look, we wanted to make sure just to show
Speaker 2: everyone It's like we're not cherry picking, you know, just
Speaker 2: to show Israel. It's like part of the problem is
Speaker 2: that we are in a doom loop basically at this
Speaker 2: point where the top representatives of both sides are effectively
Speaker 2: calling for genociding each other. Here we have a video
Speaker 2: we can play. This is the head of Hamas. This
Speaker 2: is just just a couple of days ago. He says,
Speaker 2: we must remove that country. It constitutes a security, military,
Speaker 2: and political catastrophe to the Arab and to the Islamic
Speaker 2: nation must be finished. We are not ashamed to say
Speaker 2: this with full force. We must teach Israel a lesson.
Speaker 2: We will do this again and again. The Aloxa flood
Speaker 2: is the first time, in the second time because we
Speaker 2: have the determination, that resolve and the capabilities to fight.
Speaker 3: So just to be clear, we.
Speaker 2: Can come out of this, guys, now is He says,
Speaker 2: we will do October seven over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: And I see this shared around all the time. You know,
Speaker 2: we don't see some of these realist ones. But we're
Speaker 2: trying to put everybody together a portrait the top. You know,
Speaker 2: this is the leader of Hamas. He says, We're gonna
Speaker 2: just keep doing it over and over again. It's like, okay, dude,
Speaker 2: well you are inviting pain and suffering on your own
Speaker 2: people because at this point, like.
Speaker 1: He says, I don't care at the rice, we're ready
Speaker 1: to sacrifice martyrs.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is the this is the fundamental jihadist belief.
Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, we may. I mean Zarkawi used to say,
Speaker 2: be asked about that all the time. He's like, you
Speaker 2: are killing Muslims. He's like, yeah, but we're killing invaders
Speaker 2: too and infidels at the same time.
Speaker 3: I don't care. This is this is the we've we've
Speaker 3: fought and seen people just like this.
Speaker 2: And the Israelis are responding basically with calls now for
Speaker 2: complete ethnic cleansing and for just you know, getting rid
Speaker 2: and quote unquote solving the problem. Now they've got a
Speaker 2: US congressman who is parroting this nonsense on the floor
Speaker 2: of the House of.
Speaker 1: Representaive well and Lindsay Graham said something very similar. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was asked point like, okay, how many innocent civilians
Speaker 1: is too many? Is there is there a numbories like no, no, no, okay,
Speaker 1: then do you really consider them innocent civilians then? And
Speaker 1: would you apply I mean, he maybe would apply that
Speaker 1: situation in a lot of different circumstances, but it is
Speaker 1: so disturbing to me to watch how quickly the descent
Speaker 1: into outright justification of genocide has happened here. And it's
Speaker 1: happened on both sides, let's be clear about it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the Israeli government is the one that our
Speaker 1: taxpayer dollars are going to, and it's our bombs that
Speaker 1: are being dropped on this population by and by a
Speaker 1: government that has outright genocidal intent and language. So it's
Speaker 1: incumbent on us to pay really close attention to what's
Speaker 1: going on there at the very least. You know, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I'll just say as a side point,
Speaker 1: and Cyber maybe you can answer this.
Speaker 4: I don't understand.
Speaker 1: So if your goal is to eliminate Hamas, like they
Speaker 1: know where this this guy's like in Lebanon, I think
Speaker 1: in somewhere he's going to a TV stude, Like if
Speaker 1: you're trying to get most of Hama's leadership is in Qatar,
Speaker 1: If you're trying to take out Hamas, why are there no.
Speaker 4: Efforts to get these people? Like what's going on with that?
Speaker 1: Because you know, that seems a lot more effective to
Speaker 1: me than bombing an entire freaking refugee camp and massacring
Speaker 1: how many people they massacred, their majority women and children, Like,
Speaker 1: where's the effort to get this political leadership?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question. That's a question for the
Speaker 2: Katari government. It also is a question for the Israelis
Speaker 2: as to like, hey, you know, the whole point of
Speaker 2: the Abraham Accords and others was to restore relations with
Speaker 2: the golf are of states, So maybe ask for their
Speaker 2: expulsion that could be would be very clear and a
Speaker 2: simple one. It's actually what some people are talking about.
Speaker 1: Or they don't actually care about the stated goal.
Speaker 3: I meant the state of goal.
Speaker 1: I mean, because the stated goal is impossible to achieve,
Speaker 1: as we said, and so really what the actual operation
Speaker 1: that they are pursuing right now has no other strategic
Speaker 1: and than punishment. It doesn't make them safer. It's not
Speaker 1: act being very effective at taking out Hamas. It's just
Speaker 1: like massacring and brutalizing and tormenting millions of Palestinian civilians.
Speaker 3: It's listening.
Speaker 2: I mean, I also find it very odd that the
Speaker 2: political leadership of a full blown terrorist organization effectively is
Speaker 2: like untouched at the same time. Time, though, if I
Speaker 2: had to expect the main reason is we got to
Speaker 2: negotiate with these people, you know, like we could still
Speaker 2: got us citizens inside of Gaza, like you got to
Speaker 2: have somebody to talk to. So unfortunately, that's probably the
Speaker 2: most likely thing, is that they want to preserve the
Speaker 2: political leadership because they need somebody that they can meet
Speaker 2: with for the hostage situation, for our American citizens and
Speaker 2: for other things as well. So it just shows you
Speaker 2: how gross the entire thing is. Let's move on now
Speaker 2: to Ukraine. There's some major news out of Ukraine. First,
Speaker 2: we wanted to start with some absolutely shocking allegations being
Speaker 2: made by a former advisor to Zelenski. Let's go and
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen. This is a
Speaker 2: translation of something that to put out and include some
Speaker 2: of the quotes of that extraordinary Time magazine piece of Zelensky.
Speaker 2: He says, someone behaves like a dictator and instead of
Speaker 2: following the normal path of accelerated development, he chooses stagnation.
Speaker 2: Then someone breeds massive corruption, Then someone breeds hatred for
Speaker 2: any opinion different from their own, and then a year
Speaker 2: and a half later autumn comes both in relations with
Speaker 2: the and with our own people. No matter how much
Speaker 2: you deny reality, it doesn't go away. One of the
Speaker 2: stages of denial of this reality is an attempt to
Speaker 2: blame the damned Shusters for everything. He's talking about the
Speaker 2: reporter who wrote the Time magazine piece instead of looking
Speaker 2: yourself in the eye, quote Simon Schuster as an artist
Speaker 2: who perfectly senses the moment of truth. The Time magazine
Speaker 2: article reflects an unpleasant and vaguely familiar image, and really
Speaker 2: what he points to is that it's a dictator abandoned
Speaker 2: by everyone, wandering through the backstreets of a bunker, unwilling
Speaker 2: to face reality, hysterically exclaiming about quick victory which is
Speaker 2: unable to achieve, an authoritarian leader to whom those around
Speaker 2: him are afraid to tell the truth. I think that
Speaker 2: that fits very neatly, actually, with the portrait of a
Speaker 2: delusional Zelenski inside of his military bunker, where his own
Speaker 2: advisors are telling a Time Magazine reporter on background openly
Speaker 2: that they are corrupt as hell, stealing everything that's not
Speaker 2: nailed to the ground like there's no tomorrow. They say
Speaker 2: that Zelenski cannot be reasoned with that even though their
Speaker 2: battlefield victory is completely and totally unachievable and unrealistic, that
Speaker 2: they are continuing to say that publicly. But let's overlay
Speaker 2: that with some also breaking news that we want to
Speaker 2: say thank you to Gallop for providing us so that
Speaker 2: we could prepare all these elements with how the American
Speaker 2: people feel about this. Let's go and put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. Please, this is an extraordinary statistic.
Speaker 2: This is a question for Americans. Do you think the
Speaker 2: United States is doing too much to help Ukraine?
Speaker 3: Not enough or the right amount?
Speaker 2: Forty one percent now say too much, twenty five percent
Speaker 2: say not enough, thirty three percent say the right amount.
Speaker 2: The extraordinary part is not that the plurality say too much,
Speaker 2: but that just a few months ago, Crystal, in June
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty three, it was twenty nine percent who
Speaker 2: said too much and forty three percent who said the
Speaker 2: right amount. The too much figure is rapidly accelerating. Now
Speaker 2: let's go to the next one in there, please, because
Speaker 2: this is another very important development. Would you prefer the
Speaker 2: United States and the conflict asap or support Ukraine in
Speaker 2: recapturing territory? No, answer is three percent. Support reclaim is
Speaker 2: fifty four percent, so it's still like extreme majority. But
Speaker 2: end quickly is forty three percent, again though rapidly changing
Speaker 2: in that direction. June of twenty twenty three, it was
Speaker 2: only thirty six percent who wanted to rapidly end the conflict,
Speaker 2: so things are again accelerating. And then finally, let's put
Speaker 2: this one up there on the screen. Please, should the
Speaker 2: US maintain its financial support to Ukraine or should there
Speaker 2: be a time limit on that support? Thirty seven percent
Speaker 2: say indefinitely. Sixty one percent now say it should be limited.
Speaker 2: And again from the previous way that that has been asked,
Speaker 2: that is an overall increase. So the one which again
Speaker 2: just shows you why at the end of the day
Speaker 2: you can't help but just trust Americans who is currently
Speaker 2: winning the Ukraine Russia war.
Speaker 3: If you're going to ask the media, they were going
Speaker 3: to say Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Twenty percent say Ukraine, fourteen percent say Russia neither side
Speaker 2: sixty four percent.
Speaker 3: Americans are smart as usual. They in the what is it?
Speaker 2: On a long enough timeline, they will eventually come to
Speaker 2: the right answer. And even though they're being propagandized to
Speaker 2: all hell and being bombarded with all these fake offenses
Speaker 2: and all that they know reality. They're like, we gave
Speaker 2: these people fifty billion, they didn't move an inch, and
Speaker 2: a bunch of people died in the interim. Doesn't seem
Speaker 2: fun to me, doesn't seem like something that we should
Speaker 2: just keep continuing with the blank check And it fits
Speaker 2: completely with also a new interview that we can put
Speaker 2: there please up on the screen that underscores this that
Speaker 2: in a new interview with the Economists, the Commander in
Speaker 2: chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces says, quote, just like
Speaker 2: in the First World War, we have reached the level
Speaker 2: of technology that puts us into a stalemate. So when
Speaker 2: the head of the actual Ukrainian I mean imagine the
Speaker 2: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or something like that equivalent
Speaker 2: when America is in the middle of the war, just
Speaker 2: coming out and saying on the record, we are in
Speaker 2: the middle of a stalemate.
Speaker 3: That's what's just happened.
Speaker 2: So you would be called a Russian propagandist if you
Speaker 2: said this on MSNBC. But I guess anybody who wants
Speaker 2: to in the future crystal can it just say I'm quoting.
Speaker 3: The head of the Ukrainian General staff. Yes, it's not difficult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And he goes on to say he thinks
Speaker 1: it would take some sort of a massive technological break.
Speaker 3: People would read the interviews.
Speaker 1: It actually is remarkably honest, because he talks about like, Okay,
Speaker 1: at first, I was like, maybe it's the commanders, Maybe
Speaker 1: it's the soldiers themselves, maybe it's this, maybe it's that.
Speaker 1: And then he started reading this book about World War
Speaker 1: One and was like, shit, this is exactly what's happening
Speaker 1: with us right now. And he says that although he
Speaker 1: hopes that there would be some massive, unforeseen technological leap
Speaker 1: to break the deadlock, quote, there will most likely be
Speaker 1: no deep and beautiful breakthrough. Think of that admission from
Speaker 1: this man. So the American people agree with the guy
Speaker 1: who's running the Ukrainian military, and I think, what I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so much to say about this. Between this and
Speaker 1: that time article and then this former Zelenski aid, just
Speaker 1: putting him on full blast.
Speaker 4: You can see.
Speaker 1: That, you know, there is a sense of real impending
Speaker 1: doom setting in and a realization they're not stupid. They
Speaker 1: can see these polls, they can see the way that
Speaker 1: what's going on in Israel has taken the spotlight off
Speaker 1: of them. They can see the way that like constant
Speaker 1: attention on Ukraine has already long fallen off, that they
Speaker 1: really needed that to have any sort of a prayer here.
Speaker 1: They can see the huge disappointment in terms of the
Speaker 1: counter offensive. They don't know what to tell their own
Speaker 1: people about this and what the failure was, and how
Speaker 1: things are ever.
Speaker 4: Going to change and be different in the future.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, when you've got a losing team
Speaker 1: effectively at this point, not to use a you know,
Speaker 1: a sort of trite sports analogy, but suddenly you get
Speaker 1: a lot of people complaining, you get a lot of
Speaker 1: people fighting, you get a lot of score settling, you
Speaker 1: get a little bit of truth that starts to come out,
Speaker 1: and Sager, I know, I say this over and over again,
Speaker 1: but I cannot stop going back to that original possibility
Speaker 1: of a peace deal being negotiated in Turkey, that we said,
Speaker 1: we said, no, we don't want a deal, we don't
Speaker 1: want a settlement, We want you to fight. And we
Speaker 1: sent these people into the meat grinder. We did it,
Speaker 1: Our government pushed them in the meat grinder. And guess
Speaker 1: what now if they decided all right, we're going to
Speaker 1: try to go to the table now and negotiate.
Speaker 4: They won't be able to get the deal that.
Speaker 1: They could have gotten back then, because back then they
Speaker 1: had momentum, they had caught you know, the Russians were
Speaker 1: not doing well. They had dramatically underperformed. The Ukrainians were
Speaker 1: dramatically overperformed. They had a lot more leverage in that
Speaker 1: negotiation at that time. So all this time of war
Speaker 1: and death and misery and suffering and all of that
Speaker 1: for what to be in a worse negotiating position than
Speaker 1: they were at that time when, along with the Brits
Speaker 1: scuttled those negotiations.
Speaker 3: Well, let's look.
Speaker 2: I mean, I gotta say, I am enraged that we
Speaker 2: have funding a military. He's like, yeah, I finally picked
Speaker 2: up a book on World War One. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 2: what you eventually, in the middle of the conflict decided
Speaker 2: It's like this is your job, freaking amateur people from
Speaker 2: the very beginning.
Speaker 3: You can go back and roll the tape.
Speaker 2: We've been talking about it for two years now at
Speaker 2: this point, specifically the World War One analogy, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's very similar. The average age of the Ukrainian military,
Speaker 2: right now is forty three years old. Yeah, and again average,
Speaker 2: So what does that mean on the outer bound of that,
Speaker 2: what does the tail end we're talking about like sixty
Speaker 2: five year olds. That's what the Army of Northern Virginia
Speaker 2: look like whenever capitulated in eighteen sixty five. They even
Speaker 2: remarked on it, They're like, we got teenagers and old men.
Speaker 2: Who are the people in the trenches who are up
Speaker 2: against us. So, just like in the First World War
Speaker 2: of the flowery youth, some of the greatest men who
Speaker 2: ever lived were thrown into the trunch and are dead.
Speaker 2: And people at that time they knew that, they underst
Speaker 2: stood that some of the best people, truly some of
Speaker 2: the bravest citizens, specifically from the UK.
Speaker 3: You know, they didn't even need a draft for.
Speaker 2: Two years because people were so enthusiastic and they believed
Speaker 2: in the war, and they were crunched and they were
Speaker 2: killed almost immediately when they were thrown into that war.
Speaker 2: And also this is the true lesson think about why
Speaker 2: World War One ended. World War One did not end
Speaker 2: just because of a military breakthrough. It ended because the
Speaker 2: German regime collapsed politically and no longer was able to
Speaker 2: sustain the war effort because its civilian population revolted against
Speaker 2: the Kaiser. Ukraine is setting itself up for a similar situation.
Speaker 2: You can hang on till the end if you want.
Speaker 2: You're not going to do it with our money, at
Speaker 2: least hopefully, And what will happen is that years and
Speaker 2: years will go by, people will start to starve, They're
Speaker 2: going to start to question. You're gonna get violently overthrown,
Speaker 2: and that brings you to just like what happened to
Speaker 2: the Czar or just like what happened to the German Kaiser,
Speaker 2: if you you don't capitulate, or if you don't sign
Speaker 2: a negotiation, because it's very clear that if they don't
Speaker 2: do it to preserve their current political regime, the Russians
Speaker 2: are going to win. Time is on their side. Russia's
Speaker 2: war machine is doing better than ever. Sure they've lost
Speaker 2: a couple hundred thousand people, but they've got millions.
Speaker 3: They don't care.
Speaker 2: They've got you know, their economy is basically sanctioned proof
Speaker 2: at this point. I was just talking with Bridge Colby yesterday.
Speaker 2: They're selling oil at twenty dollars above the price cap.
Speaker 2: They're fine. They're not doing well. But they're doing fine.
Speaker 2: Ukraine is not doing fine. They're really on their last legs.
Speaker 2: And when you are in that situation, Russia is probably
Speaker 2: least likely to negotiate now at this point, and the
Speaker 2: Ukrainians are the ones who have put themselves in that situation.
Speaker 2: But ultimately we are the ones who We're the ones
Speaker 2: to blame more than anything.
Speaker 3: We killed the peace deals. We let them think.
Speaker 2: Incorrectly that we would be there forever, and you know,
Speaker 2: now we're basically pulling the rug out from under them.
Speaker 2: So in a sense, I even understand some of the outrage,
Speaker 2: but I mean, we always knew it was politically sustainable
Speaker 2: from the very beginning. The correct thing to do would
Speaker 2: have been to try and strike something. They decided not
Speaker 2: to do it. Hundreds of thousands of people are now dead,
Speaker 2: billions of dollars have been wasted completely. I guess a
Speaker 2: bunch of weapons manufacturers got very wealthy and very rich.
Speaker 2: But that's the end result and the end state of this,
Speaker 2: as it almost always is.
Speaker 1: And you know what, the people who say, like, actually
Speaker 1: we should have given them the long range mississ right away,
Speaker 1: like they actually have a point.
Speaker 4: If we were going to give them any way. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're right, if we were going to eventually.
Speaker 1: Do it, They're actually correct that, you know, they might
Speaker 1: have had a better shot if they'd had everything that
Speaker 1: we were planning on eventually giving them from the beginning,
Speaker 1: and so instead, you know, they've they're in a very
Speaker 1: difficult position, and it's starting to become very clear, it's
Speaker 1: starting to become very public at a moment when US
Speaker 1: support is absolutely faltering. So what the future holds, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: regrets for our missed opportunities to achieve a piece that
Speaker 1: would have avoided so many lost lives and so much devastation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's talk a little bit about the way
Speaker 1: the general election is shaping up, which you know, there's
Speaker 1: very little drama at this point within the Democratic primary.
Speaker 1: There's very little drama at this point within the Republican primary.
Speaker 1: But the general election is shaping up to be one
Speaker 1: of the most unusual, odd, historic, whatever word you want
Speaker 1: to put on it that you can imagine. Put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. I cannot understand why this has
Speaker 1: not gotten more coverage.
Speaker 4: Take a look.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'll go through all of these It's a
Speaker 1: new national general election poll. So if it's head to head,
Speaker 1: they've gotten this is Quinnipiac. They've got Biden and Trump
Speaker 1: basically tied. Biden's got a one point edge. Then you
Speaker 1: throw RFK Junior onto the ballot and the Biden lead
Speaker 1: edges up a bit. Biden thirty nine, Trump thirty six,
Speaker 1: Kennedy twenty two. I mean that is a lot, guys,
Speaker 1: that is really really significant. And then they also did
Speaker 1: one if you add Cornell West into the mix, then
Speaker 1: you go back to Biden with a one point lead
Speaker 1: thirty six, Trump thirty five, Kennedy nineteen, Cornell West at six.
Speaker 1: Now you know, I don't know how many ballots Cornell
Speaker 1: West is going to be able to get on. He's
Speaker 1: changed what party he's affiliated with a couple of times,
Speaker 1: so I think there's a lot of questions about whether
Speaker 1: people are going to even really have the option of
Speaker 1: Cornell West on their ballot, but whether or not he
Speaker 1: is there RFK Junior. I don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: intel into how well organized his campaigns, etc. But I
Speaker 1: know he's got a lot of money, so I think
Speaker 1: it is very feasible that he ends up on the
Speaker 1: ballot in most if not all states, and right now
Speaker 1: he's full in twenty two percent.
Speaker 4: Now, I'll put out the caveat that I always do with.
Speaker 1: Regarded third parties, Usually their support is higher initially then
Speaker 1: later on. He also within the Democratic primary, he suffered
Speaker 1: the more.
Speaker 4: People got to know his positions and see him out there.
Speaker 1: That's possible that that happens with the general electorate as well.
Speaker 1: You know the numbers of who he takes from that
Speaker 1: at all shifts, et cetera, et cetera. But that he's
Speaker 1: clocking twenty plus percent right on at the gates, and
Speaker 1: he's Kennedy, and he's got a lot of money.
Speaker 4: People ought to be taking notice.
Speaker 3: Let me read this direct quote.
Speaker 2: Actually, let's put the please up on the screen from
Speaker 2: Quinnipiac that they say quote with minority and younger voters
Speaker 2: seeming intrigued, Kennedy for now enjoys the kind of demographic
Speaker 2: support his charismatic father and uncles generated decades ago. Aka,
Speaker 2: it is disaffected minorities, and it is younger voters who
Speaker 2: usually skew left, who want at least some sort of
Speaker 2: different option, who are going RFK for now.
Speaker 3: Now, listen, it's possible that things could change.
Speaker 2: My advice for RFK honestly would just be keep doing
Speaker 2: what we're doing.
Speaker 3: Keep a low profile.
Speaker 2: The less people really honestly know about you, the better
Speaker 2: because then they can just project seriously, they can just
Speaker 2: project whatever they.
Speaker 3: Want on too you. They're like, oh, he's a Kennedy
Speaker 3: and he doesn't like the two party system.
Speaker 4: He's not Biden or Cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean that's a great pitch, just so people
Speaker 3: are aware.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because even a lot of his communications
Speaker 2: that I'm looking at, I'm like, this is brilliant because
Speaker 2: most of it. Yeah, for example, this is an infographic
Speaker 2: half the electorate no longer identifies with any political party,
Speaker 2: sixty three percent of Americans when an independent run for president?
Speaker 2: What is politics going to look like when it's no
Speaker 2: longer us versus them?
Speaker 3: Are f K Junior? I love it? And it's got
Speaker 3: a picture of him looking yoked in a western shirt
Speaker 3: and wearing jeans in the sun.
Speaker 2: That's all you need is just you keep things at
Speaker 2: a level where it's like it's not even a bit
Speaker 2: really what you're running on.
Speaker 3: It's you're running against the two party system.
Speaker 2: It's like the it's like negative partisanship but weaponized against both,
Speaker 2: which is a brilliant pitch. And to put it in
Speaker 2: historical perspective, Ross Perot, I'm probably the most successful third
Speaker 2: party candidate of our time, one nineteen percent of the vote,
Speaker 2: so including Cornell West in the general election ballot, which
Speaker 2: in my opinion is not really fair because if Cornell
Speaker 2: does not get all fifty, but RFK is on all
Speaker 2: fifty states and actually does have the ballot operation, and
Speaker 2: it will really just be between the three of them.
Speaker 2: He could be the most successful third party candidate in
Speaker 2: I mean decades since maybe George Wallace Ross Parrot, I mean,
Speaker 2: his name would be all the way up there. And
Speaker 2: then it becomes a very open question of how much
Speaker 2: is this going to affect the race? I mean, in
Speaker 2: terms of the numbers, it does look like he draws
Speaker 2: a little bit more away from Trump than he does
Speaker 2: from Biden, but he does also draw devistent amount from Biden.
Speaker 2: And it's one of those where look, even Arab Americans,
Speaker 2: you know, we're going to talk with James Oxby soon.
Speaker 2: I'm curious to hear what he thinks. I know RFK
Speaker 2: is supportive of Israel, but again, most people probably don't
Speaker 2: even know what he thinks about Israel, so they might
Speaker 2: just vote for him as a protest candidate. And I
Speaker 2: could easily see that with younger people, with Arab Americans.
Speaker 2: I mean, it could just be one of those like
Speaker 2: hail Mary, screw it type of things, and you never know.
Speaker 3: I mean, he could win a state or two. It's
Speaker 3: very possible if that happened.
Speaker 1: I want to see some state level polling, you know,
Speaker 1: swing state level polling, Like what do Pennsylvanians think about you?
Speaker 1: What does Michigan think about you? Michiganders, isn't that what
Speaker 1: they are? What a Minnesotans think about you? Like, I
Speaker 1: want to see some of that swing state polling and
Speaker 1: where the strength is. It'd be interesting to see where
Speaker 1: the strength is regionally as well. I mean I've been
Speaker 1: pitching internally here that we need to do a focus
Speaker 1: g We're doing it RFK voters because there is so
Speaker 1: little analysis so far of like who are they, what
Speaker 1: draws them to him, what do they know about, how
Speaker 1: engaged are they? What sort of media are they consuming.
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely fascinated by who this group is. And you're right,
Speaker 1: like on Israel, he is what locks up he's probably
Speaker 1: more hawkish than Biden on Israel. I mean, it seems
Speaker 1: very like personal and ideological and whatever he's all in.
Speaker 1: So it's not like there's any real daylight between him
Speaker 1: and Biden or Trump for that matter, on the issue.
Speaker 1: But people don't really know, like they don't follow it
Speaker 1: that closely. So if they just have this vague feeling
Speaker 1: of like, oh, he's a Kennedy and he's different, Like, sure,
Speaker 1: he's not Biden.
Speaker 4: I don't like Biden. He's not Trump. I don't like Trump.
Speaker 1: Why not there was a political analysis to the point
Speaker 1: of who he's drawing from currently? This guy really, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's very likely he ends up being the
Speaker 1: deciding factor how his campaign goes, ends up deciding who
Speaker 1: the next president is. So he's collecting Czechs, Politico says
Speaker 1: from past Donald Trump donors at a much higher rate
Speaker 1: than former Biden contributors, a sign he may be pulling
Speaker 1: more from the Republican electorate the Democratic voters. But he
Speaker 1: also is being financed in terms of contributions by huge
Speaker 1: numbers of people who have never given politically before.
Speaker 4: Which also makes sense.
Speaker 1: People who are responding to his anti Democrat, anti Republican
Speaker 1: message and are activated by that. And that's not only
Speaker 1: a very difficult group to get engaged, it's also a
Speaker 1: very difficult group to pull. So that tend to be
Speaker 1: the ones that sort of fall out of traditional survey.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that is very fascinating. There was also just
Speaker 1: as a note, in that same poll, they tested the
Speaker 1: Democratic primary race, now that you have the addition of
Speaker 1: Dean Phillips that Minnesota like moderate representative, and Jank Yuger,
Speaker 1: and they find I mean, this isn't all that surprising.
Speaker 1: So seventy seven percent support Biden, Marion gets eight percent,
Speaker 1: Dean Phillips gets six percent, and Jank gets two percent.
Speaker 1: So I mean it basically looks like Jank and Marianne
Speaker 1: are pulling from the same pool of like ten percent
Speaker 1: of voters, and then Dean Phillips is getting six percent.
Speaker 4: Is kind of tracks with what I was expecting.
Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, that's that's not necessarily a surprise. I think RFK,
Speaker 2: as you said, he is now the absolute deciding factor
Speaker 2: where how he runs his campaign, who he appeals to,
Speaker 2: and if he can get more than them. He's starting now,
Speaker 2: I mean basically starting at nineteen to twenty two percent
Speaker 2: something like that, and he hasn't even really campaigned, So
Speaker 2: the more people hear about him, the more people pay attention.
Speaker 3: He's got a choice.
Speaker 2: My thing is, you just keep leaning into that anti
Speaker 2: two party message. I mean, who knows we could go
Speaker 2: triple triple, Like if we go thirty three percent.
Speaker 3: Thirty, it's only gotten.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have a you know that far away and
Speaker 2: then next thing you know, he could be in a
Speaker 2: head to head race. It would be absolutely shocking. Truly,
Speaker 2: I have no idea, but honestly, it's kind of fun.
Speaker 2: This will be a nice shock to the point.
Speaker 3: The ministry people.
Speaker 4: Need some intrigue.
Speaker 1: All right, this we also wanted to update on, so
Speaker 1: we brought you that the UAW was able to reach
Speaker 1: tentative agreements with all of the Big three at this point,
Speaker 1: huge win for them. The members of course have to
Speaker 1: approve it, but some major gains that they were made
Speaker 1: that they were able to achieve in terms of wages,
Speaker 1: and it looks like the other non union automakers are
Speaker 1: really taking notice and they are very concerned about their
Speaker 1: own workforces potentially unionizing, and they realize they have to
Speaker 1: compete with these increased wages that Big Three workers were
Speaker 1: able to achieve. So put this up on the screen
Speaker 1: from Toyota. They are saying that they are This is
Speaker 1: a report hasn't been totally confirmed yet, but this is
Speaker 1: from labor notes. Toyota is saying that they are immediately
Speaker 1: raising the wages of their non union factory workers. This
Speaker 1: of course comes on the heels of those agreements, and
Speaker 1: what sort of leaked memo indicated is that they're raising
Speaker 1: their top pay to thirty two dollars per hour. This
Speaker 1: would not be a surprise, not only because they're workers
Speaker 1: I'm sure are following like, oh, the person who does
Speaker 1: my exact same job, this is what they're getting. Why
Speaker 1: am I so dramatically underpaid? So Toyota's feeling that pressure.
Speaker 1: They don't want to have to, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: want to face a union drive, so they're trying to
Speaker 1: short circuit that Tesla actually had already. You pointed out, yes,
Speaker 1: given raises in the context of these negotiations going on,
Speaker 1: so you know, this is something we've talked about with
Speaker 1: the labor movement. Is yes, obviously directly benefits workers who
Speaker 1: are in a union, but it can really have ripple
Speaker 1: effects across the economy and across industries as well. Additional
Speaker 1: context on this. Put this up on the screen from
Speaker 1: the UAW. They are making some real noises here, Sager,
Speaker 1: basically about a potential general strike in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: They say, we invite unions around the country to align
Speaker 1: your contract expirations with our our own, so that together
Speaker 1: we can begin to flex our collective muscles. They go
Speaker 1: on to say, if we're going to truly take on
Speaker 1: the billionaire class and rebuild the economy so it starts
Speaker 1: to work for the benefit of the many and not
Speaker 1: the few, that it's important we not only strike, but
Speaker 1: that we strike together. When we return to the bargaining
Speaker 1: table in twenty twenty eight, it won't be just with
Speaker 1: the Big three, but with the.
Speaker 4: Big five or Big six.
Speaker 1: So real warning shot there to all of the non
Speaker 1: union automakers out there, that would include Tesla. And apparently
Speaker 1: there's already some stuff union stuff going on at Tesla.
Speaker 1: Put us up on the screen. Bloomberg reporting Monday. This
Speaker 1: is written up in this publication in the Street that
Speaker 1: Tesla's twenty thousand worker plan in Fremont, California is currently
Speaker 1: playing host to a UAW Organizing Committee. The group, according
Speaker 1: to a source, is talking to Tesla workers about the
Speaker 1: value of collective bargaining and as reportedly committed to funding
Speaker 1: any such campaign. UAW did not respond to the Street's
Speaker 1: request for comment. This effort to active like span the
Speaker 1: uaw's membership in a threat to Elon Musk and Tesla,
Speaker 1: is you know, is very noteworthy And earlier in October,
Speaker 1: Fane referred to workers at Tesla and other non union
Speaker 1: automakers including Toyota and Honda Honda as quote the UAW
Speaker 1: members of the future. So pretty extraordinary how quickly things
Speaker 1: appear to be moving here after the major wins that
Speaker 1: they were able to achieve. And I think the fact
Speaker 1: that Faine did it in such a public fashion is
Speaker 1: also really noteworthy and was very intentional, because.
Speaker 4: Previous UAW leadership was, by the way.
Speaker 1: Extraordinarily corrupt, totally in bed with you know, they were
Speaker 1: takes given. I mean, it was it was a mess,
Speaker 1: you know, And they elected this new leadership in Sean Fain,
Speaker 1: and they had also conducted a lot of the negotiations
Speaker 1: like behind the scenes in secret, not drawing a lot
Speaker 1: of attention to it, and they were taking major concessions
Speaker 1: in terms of the deals that they were striking. So
Speaker 1: this is a dramatic shift in the way things have
Speaker 1: been going previously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's actually really interesting.
Speaker 2: On the Toyota piece, you know, they say that the
Speaker 2: increase of two dollars and ninety four cents to the
Speaker 2: maximum of thirty four dollars per thirty four dollars and
Speaker 2: eighty cents per hour for the production workers and at
Speaker 2: a three seventy rays to forty three do dollars per
Speaker 2: hour for skilled trades employees. I mean, that's pretty significant
Speaker 2: raise up to forty three dollars per hour, and it
Speaker 2: does show you also where labor pressure comes from. It
Speaker 2: makes sense too because it think about the overall environment
Speaker 2: for minimum wage workers. I mean, prior to the pandemic,
Speaker 2: people were getting away with eleven and twelve. Then as
Speaker 2: we have a labor shortage and we have more labor
Speaker 2: activism all throughout twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: we're at almost a minimum floor at this point for
Speaker 2: a lot of major brands between fifteen to twenty bucks
Speaker 2: an hour. I'm even seeing that, you know, in terms
Speaker 2: of the pressure on the consumers and consumer prices where
Speaker 2: people are expecting a down quarter for the fourth quarter,
Speaker 2: and yet Walmarts and others are still paying some twenty
Speaker 2: something dollars per hour even seasonal holiday wages. So the
Speaker 2: wages are higher honestly in some cases they've ever been before. Now,
Speaker 2: to be clear, has not kept up with inflation, and
Speaker 2: I think that's really bad. But this does show you
Speaker 2: where the pressure comes from and how it will all
Speaker 2: look like it Also, you know, people were like, oh,
Speaker 2: but no GM cars and all that are going to
Speaker 2: be too expensive.
Speaker 3: We'll see.
Speaker 2: Actually I'm still I still want to know, but it
Speaker 2: does show you too, like with the pressure that will
Speaker 2: be lifting, it's not like it's going to be restricted
Speaker 2: just to the American auto workers or auto companies. It's
Speaker 2: going to be all of the auto sector because they're
Speaker 2: at the end of the day pulling from the same
Speaker 2: labor pool.
Speaker 3: So it's an overall positive development.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And you know, very interesting to me the
Speaker 1: way that Sean finn is calling for other unions to
Speaker 1: align their contracts with theirs so that they can have
Speaker 1: an even larger you know, just not just in the
Speaker 1: auto industry, but much larger impact on the economy. So
Speaker 1: something to watch there. He's the one that I wish
Speaker 1: would run for president.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he probably would win.
Speaker 4: Would you would do quite well?
Speaker 3: You do well?
Speaker 1: All right, guys, very excited to have James Abby here.
Speaker 1: He's the founder and president of the American Arab Institute
Speaker 1: Arab American Institute and get that right. And he also
Speaker 1: is an alumni of both the Jesse Jackson campaigns in
Speaker 1: eighty four and eighty eight and both Bernie Sanders campaign
Speaker 1: So this man has a lot of political insight. We're
Speaker 1: lucky to have him join us. Now, let's get to it.
Speaker 1: James Avvi, so great to have you.
Speaker 3: Welcome, sir, you're caesar, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: So it caught our attention the absolute plummeting support of
Speaker 1: Arab Americans for Joe Biden's reelect.
Speaker 4: Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: This was the first national poll you're actually quoted, I
Speaker 1: believe in this article of Arab Americans since the war
Speaker 1: in Gaza began. Shows how deep that sense of betrayal goes.
Speaker 1: They say, with only seventeen percent of Arab American voters
Speaker 1: saying they will vote for Biden in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: that is a staggering drop from fifty nine percent in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: Your reaction to those poll numbers.
Speaker 5: James, Well, I mean, we expected there to be a
Speaker 5: reaction to the community in the community. I didn't expect
Speaker 5: it to be this way, much larger than anything I'd
Speaker 5: ever seen it. There was a similar drop in support
Speaker 5: for Republicans and Bush, but it took six years to accumulate.
Speaker 5: There was a very immediate reaction after Obama to Trump,
Speaker 5: but that again took over a year. This was like
Speaker 5: a four week drop in support. And while to some
Speaker 5: extent there had been a decline in favorable ratings as
Speaker 5: the national numbers went, this drop was not only significant
Speaker 5: in terms of support for the president. But look, I've
Speaker 5: been on the DNC for thirty years, and when we'd
Speaker 5: had an almost two to one Democratic ID as opposed
Speaker 5: to Republican ID and now it's like twenty three percent
Speaker 5: say they identify as Democrat and thirty two percent Republicans,
Speaker 5: the first time in twenty seven years of polling that
Speaker 5: Democrats are in the minority. That was really striking, kind
Speaker 5: of a frustration and interesting. It was across the board,
Speaker 5: the first second generation born here versus the immigrant all
Speaker 5: the different religious subgroups, country of origin. People are just
Speaker 5: traumatized by what he is and is not doing this
Speaker 5: on this situation.
Speaker 2: James, what states in particular? Everyone talks about Michigan. Perhaps
Speaker 2: there are others that you can highlight where this is
Speaker 2: going to be a particular problem for Joe Biden. Should
Speaker 2: this continue, should his actions continue, and we get to
Speaker 2: election day, well.
Speaker 5: The states, I think that we won't most focus on
Speaker 5: the ones that the Biden campaign focused on with us
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty. They put a lot of energy into
Speaker 5: getting us out and giving us support in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Speaker 8: That's going to be a tough lift. It's going to
Speaker 8: be a difficult one this time. We have important numbers.
Speaker 5: In Virginia, but Virginia is the margin in Virginia was
Speaker 5: larger than the Pennsylvania Michigan numbers margins. And we have
Speaker 5: lots of people in California, but again that's the state
Speaker 5: where the number is overall, I mean almost a half
Speaker 5: million Arab Americans in California, but the number of Californians
Speaker 5: is so large that the fraction isn't as great.
Speaker 8: As it is in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5: Those two states are the ones I think are the
Speaker 5: most concerning right now.
Speaker 1: So what the Biden team is telling reporters is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we know they're not happy, but it's a long way
Speaker 1: till election day. Number one and number two. The opponent's
Speaker 1: going to be Donald Trump, and Trump is out there
Speaker 1: floating Muslim band. He was the best friend of bb
Speaker 1: net and Yahoo gave him everything he wanted when he's
Speaker 1: in office. So they're betting that the visceral rawness of
Speaker 1: the emotion right now fades over time, and that also
Speaker 1: with the greater evil of Trump hanging out here, that
Speaker 1: that will be enough to get people back in the
Speaker 1: Democratic camp. What's your response to that theory of the case.
Speaker 5: I don't want to alienate myself for the community from
Speaker 5: for the Biden White House, but that's rude and condescending. Basically,
Speaker 5: it's like, you guys don't matter, and screw you. You
Speaker 5: don't have a choice, so you'll come back.
Speaker 8: That's not the.
Speaker 5: Case I saw in twenty twenty people's frustration. I worked
Speaker 5: on the Gore I was a senior advisor of the
Speaker 5: Gore campaign. Thirteen and a half percent voted for Nader.
Speaker 5: They just weren't going to do it. They did the
Speaker 5: same with Hillary in twenty sixteen. They stayed away. The
Speaker 5: question is I personally, myself DNC member for thirty years,
Speaker 5: I'll vote for Joe Biden.
Speaker 8: I mean, because I know what the alternative is.
Speaker 5: But can I go having built credibility with my community
Speaker 5: over the last fifty years of doing this work, forty
Speaker 5: of them full time, can I go to them in
Speaker 5: Michigan and say I need you to blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: I don't know if I'm willing to risk forty fifty
Speaker 5: years of credibility and organizing a community to get booed
Speaker 5: out of the room. And so they have to be
Speaker 5: a little sensitive to the fact that if Jewish votes matter,
Speaker 5: Arab votes matter, Latino votes matter, Black votes, we all matter.
Speaker 8: And you got to give us something.
Speaker 5: You just spent three years telling us that Palestinians and
Speaker 5: Israelis deserve equal measures of blah blah blah, and did
Speaker 5: nothing in those three years to show you meant it.
Speaker 5: And now we're seeing the consequences of that and enabled
Speaker 5: Israel An abused Palestinian population, and you're telling us, oh,
Speaker 5: you'll forget about it in a year.
Speaker 8: Sorry, probably won't, right, Yeah, probably won't.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I want to come back to something that you
Speaker 2: said about the rapid decline. You're talking about the decline,
Speaker 2: how it took several years for this materialize against the
Speaker 2: Bush administration, how it took a while for this materialize
Speaker 2: against Trump. You also spoke there about increased Republican identification.
Speaker 2: Have you talked or thought a little bit about why
Speaker 2: that is? Is it just Israel Gaza? Is there attempts
Speaker 2: by our successful efforts by republic instort an increase Arab
Speaker 2: American Republican identification?
Speaker 3: What are some of the issues that so you see behind.
Speaker 5: That number one, it's not an actual increase in Republican identification.
Speaker 8: The Republican numbers have been fairly stable.
Speaker 5: They've dropped points over years, but they've been in the
Speaker 5: high twenties thirty percent range, and that's where they've been. That's,
Speaker 5: you know, look, in every life, a little rain must fall.
Speaker 5: We've got about thirty something percent Republicans in the Arab community.
Speaker 8: What can I do? That's where they are.
Speaker 5: Even in the years of Obama, when the it was
Speaker 5: two to one Democrat Republican, it was fifty four percent Democrat,
Speaker 5: twenty seven percent Republican.
Speaker 8: They were hardcore even in.
Speaker 5: Trump they were where they were in the high twenties.
Speaker 5: The question is the precipitous drop in Democrats. Do I
Speaker 5: think that they will stay non Democrat? Do I think
Speaker 5: that they'll vote for Trump?
Speaker 8: I don't.
Speaker 5: They may stay home, they may find a third candidate
Speaker 5: to Right now, they're in the independent or not sure,
Speaker 5: which means they're parking there waiting to figure out what
Speaker 5: they do. Will they go back as the White House suggests,
Speaker 5: just because they don't have a choice.
Speaker 8: More likely they just won't vote.
Speaker 5: And I've you know, we've had hold your nose elections before,
Speaker 5: and you've got to give people a reason to go.
Speaker 8: And frankly, at this point, they're not seeing it. And
Speaker 8: I'll tell.
Speaker 5: You just one last point here is that when I
Speaker 5: said that was across the board with almost every subgroup
Speaker 5: in the community. The issue of Palestine is different than Iracke,
Speaker 5: it's different than Muslim band, it's different than civil liberty
Speaker 5: issues and stuff. It's the wound in the heart that
Speaker 5: doesn't heal. And so even though your second third generation Egyptian,
Speaker 5: when Palestinians are getting massacred the way they are, it
Speaker 5: strikes a chord and it says, why is this happening?
Speaker 8: This should not be happening to these people.
Speaker 5: And it three years of doing nothing except enabling Israel
Speaker 5: to do whatever it wanted to do in the West Bank,
Speaker 5: and now this and people have had enough and they're
Speaker 5: and they're they're they're demonstrating it, and I think it
Speaker 5: needs to be paid attention to. I don't want it
Speaker 5: to stay this way, but something has to give. They
Speaker 5: have to do something to change direction here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what does that something look like in your opinion?
Speaker 1: You know, I took note of the fact that Biden
Speaker 1: was in Minnesota, and Minneapolis obviously there's a sizeable Muslim
Speaker 1: community there and he didn't have on to schedule a
Speaker 1: single meeting with a Muslim leader. So it doesn't even
Speaker 1: appear like they're taking you know, they're taking the issue
Speaker 1: seriously in terms of outreach either to Arab Americans or
Speaker 1: to Muslims.
Speaker 8: And let's distinguished between Muslim and Arab that they are.
Speaker 5: Distincties here of course, Yeah, community in Michigan is a
Speaker 5: significant number of Somali's that Ilhan is from that community,
Speaker 5: and African American Keith Ellison is a part of that community.
Speaker 5: And he's heard from both of them and they've they've
Speaker 5: not been happy. But I think that Michigan is largely
Speaker 5: air of American. That's a different story. And you say,
Speaker 5: what can he do meeting with him right now?
Speaker 8: That's it.
Speaker 5: He hasn't had a meeting with Air of Americans period,
Speaker 5: right That's that goes without saying the issue though, is
Speaker 5: that something dramatic? I mean, look, could he say no
Speaker 5: to Benjamin En now and say stop it now?
Speaker 8: He could? He could do that, that would help. I mean,
Speaker 8: why there's no ceasefire. I don't understand why.
Speaker 5: There's They talk about Palestinian self determination.
Speaker 8: What are they going to do to get there?
Speaker 5: What are they going to do to stop the rampaging
Speaker 5: of They say we're concerned about settlers rampaging in the
Speaker 5: West Bank. Dozens of villages have been evacuated of Palestinians
Speaker 5: afraid for their lives because they're out of control.
Speaker 8: In the West Bank.
Speaker 5: The settlers are just rampaging through and scaring people, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, from their homes. What is he going to do?
Speaker 5: The only thing that would make a difference is if
Speaker 5: he said to stop it now and then made an
Speaker 5: impact that would actually happen. We've never told Israel stop. No,
Speaker 5: if you don't do it, you're not going to get
Speaker 5: that damn fourteen billion dollars. And you may not get
Speaker 5: it anyway. Because Palestini has needed to rebuild Gaza. There
Speaker 5: are things he can do concretely, he just hasn't done them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a very good point that at this
Speaker 1: point it's not enough to have this sort of handrail.
Speaker 1: Oh maybe I want a humanitarian pause. There needs to
Speaker 1: be some sort of real concrete action using the leverage
Speaker 1: and the tools that the United States has in droves. James,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to speak
Speaker 1: with us today. It's so great to have your analysis
Speaker 1: on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, appreciate you, James, thank you. Thank you guys for
Speaker 2: watching and really appreciate it. We'll have breaking coverage if
Speaker 2: needed over the weekend. You can probably expect at least
Speaker 2: something otherwise. We will see you all on Monday.