Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 1: So we've got a new report from New York Times
Speaker 1: that confirms something we had covered earlier and also confirms
Speaker 1: an Israeli government direct connection for an influence up that
Speaker 1: they were running directly on American lawmakers. Let's put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen headline here, Israel secretly targets US
Speaker 1: lawmakers with influence campaign on Gaza war. Israel organized and
Speaker 1: paid for an influence campaign last year, targeting US lawmakers
Speaker 1: and the American public with pro Israel messaging as it
Speaker 1: aimed to foster support for its actions in the war
Speaker 1: with Gaza. That covert campaign was commissioned by Israel's Ministry
Speaker 1: of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around
Speaker 1: the world with the.
Speaker 4: State of Israel for as Really.
Speaker 1: Officials said that Ministry allocated about two million dollars to
Speaker 1: the operation and hired a Stoic, a political marketing firm
Speaker 1: in Tel Aviv, to carry it out.
Speaker 4: According to the officials and the.
Speaker 1: Documents, chat GPT was used apparently to generate a lot
Speaker 1: of the posts. In addition to they would like reply
Speaker 1: to members of Congress in particular, they seem to target
Speaker 1: African American members of Congress. Specifically, they would post links
Speaker 1: to these three fake news websites that they set up
Speaker 1: with you know, pro Israel propaganda. Some of it real
Speaker 1: drawn from you know, other news reports, some of it
Speaker 1: less accurate. Let's just say, including some of the you know,
Speaker 1: October seventh reporting that was ultimately debunked or suggestions by
Speaker 1: US officials that was ultimately debunked by Israeli outlests, including Haretz.
Speaker 1: Just to give you a sense of what this looked
Speaker 1: like in real time, let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: We've got some quotes from the piece. Dozens of Israeli
Speaker 1: tech startups received emails and whats App messages that month
Speaker 1: inviting them to join urgent meetings to become digital soldiers
Speaker 1: for Israel during the war. Cording to messages viewed by
Speaker 1: the Times, some of the emails and messages were sent
Speaker 1: from Israeli government officials. Others came from Steck tech startups
Speaker 1: and incubators. We can put the next piece up.
Speaker 4: On the screen.
Speaker 1: Some of the fake accounts responded to post by Richie
Speaker 1: Torres who else. I don't know why they felt like
Speaker 1: Richie torrested to be even more pro isn't really. They
Speaker 1: just wanted to rigem in his pre existing direction. I
Speaker 1: guess they would comment on anti Semitism on college campuses
Speaker 1: and major US cities. In response to December eighth post
Speaker 1: on X mister Torres about fire safety, one fake account
Speaker 1: replied Hamas is perpetrating in the conflict, referring to the
Speaker 1: Islam's militant group. The posts included a hashtag that said
Speaker 1: Jews were being persecuted. We've got another one here, they said.
Speaker 1: The campaign also created three fake news sites That's what
Speaker 1: I was talking about, names like non Agenda and Unfold Magazine.
Speaker 1: Non Agenda in the opposite of what it was, which
Speaker 1: stole and rewrote material from outlets including CNN and The
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal to promote Israel's stance during the war.
Speaker 1: According to fake Reporter's analysis, that was the original news
Speaker 1: site that broke this story. Fake accounts on Reddit then
Speaker 1: linked to the articles on the so called news sites
Speaker 1: to help promote them, and it was apparently pretty sloppy.
Speaker 1: This whole effort was not like well done. I don't
Speaker 1: expect that it really had a lot of impact on
Speaker 1: the American political conversation. But in any case, they say,
Speaker 1: in at least two instances, accounts with profile photos of
Speaker 1: black men posted about being middle aged Jewish women. On
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighteen posts in which the fake accounts
Speaker 1: here pro Israel articles, the same sentence appeared quote I
Speaker 1: got to reevaluate my opinions due to this new information,
Speaker 1: so I saw.
Speaker 4: I remember when a.
Speaker 1: Fake reporter originally did this analysis, they brought up also
Speaker 1: these posts that would be profile picture of a black
Speaker 1: man and would say like, as a middle aged Jewish woman,
Speaker 1: I feel blah blah blah. So sloppy effort. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it really changed a discourse, but Sager, you remember
Speaker 1: the level of continued, of course freak ount about some
Speaker 1: Russian birdie bro memes on Facebook or whatever like that,
Speaker 1: was determinative in the twenty sixteen election, and we still
Speaker 1: are living with the political, domestic and foreign affairs ramifications.
Speaker 4: Of that whole entire freak out.
Speaker 1: And on this we have confirmed an American ally directly
Speaker 1: running an influence up on our own population and elected officials.
Speaker 3: Cricket.
Speaker 2: And in fact, the dollar amount here is more than
Speaker 2: the amount that was spent on those so called Russian memes.
Speaker 3: Which amazing, and this is the difference.
Speaker 2: At the time, we were like, yeah, this obviously didn't
Speaker 2: swing the election, like okay, and then here around two
Speaker 2: this is actually terrible as usual. It's not even particularly
Speaker 2: well done. No one is even claiming Richie Torrez needed
Speaker 2: a meme to turn him more pro Israel.
Speaker 4: The APAC money is probably it's probably all of a lot.
Speaker 2: More actually impactful or even just like genuine belief. I
Speaker 2: don't know what, you know, who he is. He just craven.
Speaker 2: He just wants to get reelected, all right, So let's
Speaker 2: put that to the side. But considering what all these
Speaker 2: people said, including one MSNBC at the time, Matt Miller
Speaker 2: said about Russian propaganda, it's a little bit different now
Speaker 2: that he's in the State Department briefing and the reporters
Speaker 2: are asking him about it. The Intercepts prem talker who
Speaker 2: we had here on the show, pressed him on it.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: A little over two months ago, the US announce sanctions
Speaker 5: on Russians for creating false websites and then using fake
Speaker 5: social media accounts to amplify the misleading content. So similar
Speaker 5: to what the government of Israel is reportedly carried out.
Speaker 5: And of course the US has taken similar stances in
Speaker 5: the past few years. So I'm wondering. I know that
Speaker 5: you said the US has laws you expect compliance. Will
Speaker 5: US take similar action here?
Speaker 6: So, as I said in response to not a question
Speaker 6: right now, we have a US report. It's not US
Speaker 6: government information, so I'm not going to speak to it specifically,
Speaker 6: but I think I'll leave it at that. And as
Speaker 6: I said, though, we do have laws that we vigorously
Speaker 6: enforce and we expect people to comply with them.
Speaker 5: If you know, the US does find that this reporting
Speaker 5: does bear out, and this is not meant to be
Speaker 5: like a hypothetical, This is meant to be more of
Speaker 5: a commitment towards the norms. Will you know the US
Speaker 5: act in accordance with how it has before it has
Speaker 5: with Russia.
Speaker 6: So it is somewhat of hypothetical only because you have
Speaker 6: to actually look at the facts of every case and
Speaker 6: see what the appropriate response is. But as is always
Speaker 6: the case, we look at violations of our law, A
Speaker 6: lot of that is carried out by other agencies within
Speaker 6: the United States government and developed the appropriate response. But
Speaker 6: I just I can't respond with any level of detail
Speaker 6: here because it is always very fact specific.
Speaker 2: Mmm, it's always very fact specific. It actually was the
Speaker 2: opposite of facts specific whenever it came to Russia and
Speaker 2: we had some BS report up from what was it
Speaker 2: from the O d n I that we conclude Russia
Speaker 2: our chart or something no election. And before even that,
Speaker 2: Matt Miller was on MSNBC and all this talking about
Speaker 2: how this is a complete catastrophe and a violation of sovereignties.
Speaker 3: So either they were lying at that time or they
Speaker 3: believed it then. But it's okay for Israel. But of course,
Speaker 3: as usual, there's an exception here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, State Department, they've never seen the reports. They never know,
Speaker 1: they'll always get back to us, They're going to look
Speaker 1: into it. They can't really say, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: really know what's a war crime. They don't know if
Speaker 1: the details are correct. I mean, they just obviously you're
Speaker 1: never going to get a straight answer out of this guy.
Speaker 1: But it's very inconvenient for them, the fact of all
Speaker 1: the rhetoric surrounding Russia when it was the context of
Speaker 1: you know, their influence up and their invasion of Ukraine
Speaker 1: and their war crimes, all that rhetoric that just unfolded
Speaker 1: from the State and continues to flow from the State Department,
Speaker 1: from Tony Blincoln, etc. And then you ask about the
Speaker 1: same or worse atrocities when it comes to Israel, and
Speaker 1: suddenly they don't know, They can't say they haven't seen,
Speaker 1: they haven't read the reports.
Speaker 4: They'll get back to you, and of course they never do.
Speaker 1: So no surprise there that the hypocrisy looms incredibly large.
Speaker 4: But it's also just I mean, it's also just.
Speaker 1: An extraordinary look at how important Israel thinks these lawmakers' position.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And you know the fact that again this is this
Speaker 1: is supposedly a top ally, someone that we ship billions
Speaker 1: of dollars to every single year, this war or any
Speaker 1: other year notwithstanding, and you know, they're here meddling in
Speaker 1: our elections and messing with our lawmakers, and we don't
Speaker 1: have the self respect to like even stand up for
Speaker 1: ourselves and say, hey, maybe you don't do that.
Speaker 4: I wish you wouldn't interfere.
Speaker 1: And they have the goal anytime any of our lawmakers
Speaker 1: weighs in on their actions, to say, hey, we're a
Speaker 1: sovereign country. How dare you, how dare you interfere?
Speaker 4: It's just the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Is preposter Let's just respect each other's sovereignty, shall we.
Speaker 2: I'd be fine with that, I really would, but apparently
Speaker 2: that's not on the cards.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, we have some horrific news coming out the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Israeli airstrike on a school where thousands were sheltering has
Speaker 1: killed dozens of people. The numbers I saw were somewhere
Speaker 1: around forty five people. Many more who were injured, including
Speaker 1: women and children. This comes in the context of, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, just massive annihilation of the Gaza Strip and
Speaker 1: also these ongoing ceasefire talks. We don't know where things
Speaker 1: stand with all of that. After Biden gave his speech
Speaker 1: and you know, tried to apply some rhetorical pressure at
Speaker 1: least to these Raelis into Hamas as well, to come
Speaker 1: to some sort of a ceasefire deal. Very unclear where
Speaker 1: all of that stands. And obviously this is just the
Speaker 1: latest horror and what is an almost incalculable level of destruction.
Speaker 1: This was the latest attempt that I saw for people
Speaker 1: to try to wrap their heads around what has been
Speaker 1: done in a very short period of time to the
Speaker 1: Gaza strip by the Israelis.
Speaker 4: Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Seventy tons of bombs have been dropped on Gaza since October,
Speaker 1: far surpassing the combined total for Dresden, Hamburg and London
Speaker 1: all put together during World War Two. So you know,
Speaker 1: you guys have seen the images of all of these
Speaker 1: cities reduced to rubble, you know, communists Gaza City now
Speaker 1: targeting Rafa. You've seen the way schools, hospitals, any sort
Speaker 1: of civilian building, universities, mosques, churches, et cetera, have been
Speaker 1: completely decimated. And you really can't even wrap your head
Speaker 1: around this level of destruction and that amount of tonnage
Speaker 1: of bombs being dropped on what is again a very
Speaker 1: very small territory soccer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it is. It is shocking. It is a
Speaker 2: reminder too of just modern warfare. How quickly you can
Speaker 2: surpass that There was a single Vietnamese operation in Vietnam
Speaker 2: which surpassed all the.
Speaker 3: That have been dropped in World War Two.
Speaker 2: And it's just a good example that I bring up
Speaker 2: from Vietnam and that my I guess I'm the contemporary
Speaker 2: of the people of who brought this up at the time.
Speaker 2: They're like, hey, guys, if this was just simply an
Speaker 2: air power problem, we could bomb our way out of this,
Speaker 2: then we would have won this war a long long
Speaker 2: time ago. But that's not what's happening here. We're fighting
Speaker 2: a very different war, a very similar war actually in
Speaker 2: this particular case, where you're watching airpower and in fact
Speaker 2: turn the population even further and further against you, very
Speaker 2: different en counter to the goals that you allegedly set
Speaker 2: out to accomplish. And that misalignment between the US what
Speaker 2: it supposedly wants, between what the Israelis want and then
Speaker 2: what the Palestindians, at least allegedly everyone is working to
Speaker 2: try and get to a different state. That's what's causing
Speaker 2: both of tremendous amount of death and some bad strategy.
Speaker 3: So put it all together.
Speaker 2: On top of some of the domestic stuff is going
Speaker 2: on in Israel and things are not trending in a
Speaker 2: good direction.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of that domestic stuff so we
Speaker 1: can put this up on the screen. You had a
Speaker 1: huge number of our right wing Jewish Israelis who were
Speaker 1: marauding through the Old City in Jerusalem for the Muslim
Speaker 1: quarter in particular. And as part of that, and this
Speaker 1: is this sort of an annual affair, it's called Flag Day.
Speaker 1: I'll get into some of the specifics in a moment,
Speaker 1: but as part of that, and this is what's really significant,
Speaker 1: Israeli Cabinet minister Ben Gevere has said it's his policy
Speaker 1: to let Jews pray.
Speaker 4: On the Temple Mount.
Speaker 1: You have a very significant religious site that is significant
Speaker 1: both to Jews and to Muslims. For Muslims it's the
Speaker 1: alak Samusk. For Jews, they call it the Temple. There's
Speaker 1: the Temple Mount and an apparent breach of the long
Speaker 1: standing status quo. He said that it is his policy.
Speaker 1: And again this is a government cabinet minister who has
Speaker 1: power over such things to allow Jewish prayer at that
Speaker 1: contested Jerusalem holy site. He said, and I quote, I
Speaker 1: am also happy that Jews went up to the Temple
Speaker 1: Mount and prayed there today. It is very important. My
Speaker 1: policy is very clear on this matter. Jews can be
Speaker 1: anywhere in Jerusalem, pray anywhere. Acid prayers are not conducted
Speaker 1: only informally in a whisper. Ben Gaverer said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no one whispered. Jews prayed on the Temple Mount. That's
Speaker 1: the ministerial position. And Jews pray on the Temple Mount,
Speaker 1: and that is a good thing. So that is an
Speaker 1: extraordinary provocation. He also talked about how this is meant
Speaker 1: to intentionally be a provocation. He said that Muslims hang
Speaker 1: pictures of the Temple Mount and pictures of Jerusalem, and
Speaker 1: we tell them our Jerusalem, our novelist gate, our Temple Mount. Today,
Speaker 1: according to my policy, Jews entered the Old City freely,
Speaker 1: and on the Temple Mount, Jews prayed freely. We say,
Speaker 1: in the simplest way, it's hours, okay. He also went
Speaker 1: to this parade, which again I say, it's an annual
Speaker 1: affair of Jewish right wing Israelis. A lot of settlers
Speaker 1: are involved incredibly provocative.
Speaker 4: There were numerous assaults.
Speaker 1: There were chants by many individuals there of death to
Speaker 1: Arabs and other genocidal eliminationist chants. As part of this
Speaker 1: quote unquote parade, we can put Ben Gavier up on
Speaker 1: the screen.
Speaker 4: So here he.
Speaker 1: Is at this at this parade, at this march, where
Speaker 1: he says, Jerusalem is ours, Damascus Gate is ours, the
Speaker 1: Temple Mount is ours.
Speaker 4: Today in accordance.
Speaker 1: With my policy, Jews prayed freely on the Temple Mount.
Speaker 1: We say, in the simplest way, it's ours. We also
Speaker 1: have put this next piece up on the screen. We
Speaker 1: have some of the images from this, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of marauding bands going.
Speaker 4: Through the streets. You can see what the scene was.
Speaker 1: Here we have Ben Gavie again, this more imagery of him.
Speaker 4: We have you can.
Speaker 1: See very young, very young children here who are assaulting.
Speaker 1: I believe this was a Palestinian member of the press
Speaker 1: that you can see who's being assaulted.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: We have some extraordinary images as well of that assault.
Speaker 1: You can see him being surrounded in a press vest
Speaker 1: by all of these young you know, many of them settlers,
Speaker 1: certainly Jewish extremists. You see here a Haretz, Israeli Jewish
Speaker 1: member of the press who also was assaulted by this
Speaker 1: group attempting to protect I think we have one more
Speaker 1: image there that was really going around attempting to protect
Speaker 1: this Palestinian press member. You know, you had all sorts
Speaker 1: of reports of hateful chants, like I said, death to Arabs,
Speaker 1: made their villages burn, I think was another one of them.
Speaker 1: You had various assaults, you had them going into Palestinian shops,
Speaker 1: and you had the police clearing any Palestinians from the
Speaker 1: area because they you know, couldn't or wouldn't protect them,
Speaker 1: and you know, forcing the amount of their own shops,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 4: So that was what was going on yesterday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the reason why this stuff is so important,
Speaker 2: I know it seems tedious, remember that the entire Second
Speaker 2: Intifado was sparked by a real Sharon visiting the Temple Mount.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is why it's so it's I mean,
Speaker 2: it's kind of crazy that we even got to the
Speaker 2: point where this barely even notes a mention in the
Speaker 2: US Press. The visit to the Temple Mount in what
Speaker 2: was a September of two thousand was basically the beginning
Speaker 2: of the collapse of Oslo, of the Middle East Peace
Speaker 2: Summit and the Second Intafada, and the stated purpose at
Speaker 2: the time, by the way, Aerol Sharon was the head
Speaker 2: of the Lacud Party. You know, he's to assert the
Speaker 2: right of all Israelis to visit the Temple mount. This
Speaker 2: sets off like a whole Palestindian condemnation, Things develop into riots.
Speaker 2: It's a huge, very important event in the history of
Speaker 2: so called like peace activists because it basically broke a
Speaker 2: lot of the peace consensus on the Palaestini and on
Speaker 2: the Israeli side, there were suicide bombs or riots. It
Speaker 2: led to like the modern basically establishment of the Lacud Party.
Speaker 2: So for them to just like continue doing this is
Speaker 2: also both a shove in the face of anybody who
Speaker 2: still like even tried to pretend to be a part
Speaker 2: of the peace movement, but just shows like how far
Speaker 2: things have moved in a different direction.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: At the same time, there's a real risk of continued escalation,
Speaker 1: especially with regard to Lebanon and has Below.
Speaker 4: Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Israeli leaders have threatened to take quote unquote more intense
Speaker 1: action against Hesbel after an escalation and cross border fire,
Speaker 1: increasing tensions in the prospect of all out war with
Speaker 1: the Lebanese militant group. You'll recall northern Israel has largely
Speaker 1: been evacuated since October seventh, so you have quite a
Speaker 1: number of Israelis who have been evacuated from that area.
Speaker 1: You've had this cross border fire ongoing, and net Yahoo commented,
Speaker 1: he said, yesterday the earth was on fire here, but
Speaker 1: it was also on fire in Lebanon. Whoever thinks that
Speaker 1: they can hurt us and that we will sit idly
Speaker 1: by is making.
Speaker 4: A big mistake.
Speaker 1: We are prepared for very intense action in the north.
Speaker 1: One way or another, we will restore security to the North,
Speaker 1: so you know, and all kinds of threats towards Lebanon previously.
Speaker 4: We also have new reports.
Speaker 1: Once again of more Israeli use of white phosphorus being
Speaker 1: dropped directly on residential areas that is in direct contradiction
Speaker 1: of international law. So yet another war crime being documented
Speaker 1: by human rights organizations that are on the ground. And
Speaker 1: one possibility here if there is enough pressure applied that
Speaker 1: there's some sort of even a temporary cease fire in
Speaker 1: terms of Gaza, you could see this escalation occurring as
Speaker 1: a way again for BB to continue to justify his
Speaker 1: grip on power and his avoidance too of the criminal
Speaker 1: charges that could possibly land him in prison once the
Speaker 1: war is over. This could be another avenue for him
Speaker 1: to claim some sort of victory over what has by
Speaker 1: all accounts been really a complete failure for the Israeli
Speaker 1: government and the Israeli military in terms of their offensive enda.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what they want. They want to cont
Speaker 2: in you this. The only question is whether the actual
Speaker 2: world can constrain it.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have no idea whether we're going to
Speaker 2: be able to We've successfully done so so far. I
Speaker 2: would say that's maybe one piece of successful diplomacy. But
Speaker 2: clearly they want the action, and Hesbullet too has not
Speaker 2: been afraid, you know, to hit back. They've there's been
Speaker 2: several IDF soldiers who've been killed and cross border fires.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you saw some of the images
Speaker 3: of northern.
Speaker 2: Israel crazy a couple of days ago, which showed the bombs,
Speaker 2: the White Phosphorus, the hills were all on fire. Both
Speaker 2: sides are rearing and ready to go. So this could
Speaker 2: easily be a major expansion and would be ten times.
Speaker 3: More deadly than anything we've seen in Gaza. For the Israelies,
Speaker 3: they should be afraid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we should be really, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: directly tied like Hezbulla didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 1: October seventh, five days.
Speaker 3: According to the Israelies, not us, Like that's what even
Speaker 3: Israel says.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, yeah, I mean everyone is unanimous and that
Speaker 1: no one is even arguing that that is the case.
Speaker 1: And so the you know, action with regard to to
Speaker 1: Hesla is directly tied to what Israel is doing in
Speaker 1: God's Strip. Hesbla feels, you know, that they need to
Speaker 1: show that they're defending the Palestinian people. So you really
Speaker 1: don't have a resolution to that conflagration, which could potentially
Speaker 1: escalate in a very damaging way for both Israeli and
Speaker 1: Lebanese civilians. You don't have any even possibility of a
Speaker 1: resolution there until you have a cessation of the you know,
Speaker 1: Israeli assault on Gaza. So something else that we have
Speaker 1: our eye on. At the same time, there have been
Speaker 1: a lot of developments with regard to media censorship and
Speaker 1: one sided crackdowns in terms of American politics and crackdowns
Speaker 1: on pro Palestinian protest, which we have a fantastic gas
Speaker 1: standing by to help us understand what exactly is going
Speaker 1: on there.
Speaker 4: Let's get to it.
Speaker 1: So you guys, I'm sure recall we had a whole
Speaker 1: national conversation about quote unquote anti Semitism on campus and
Speaker 1: Jewish students potentially being made to feel or reality being
Speaker 1: unsafe in connection with pro Palestine protests and encampments. That's
Speaker 1: brung up on a variety of college campuses. One of
Speaker 1: those was that UCLA, where after the fact it was
Speaker 1: documented pretty clearly that all the violence was very one sided,
Speaker 1: was on the side of the pro Israeli counter protesters.
Speaker 1: Numerous journalistic organizations, including the LA Times documented that pretty closely,
Speaker 1: and video evidence bore that out as well. CNN also
Speaker 1: did extraordinary coverage there. We have joining us this morning
Speaker 1: extraordinary guest Salam al Mariati, who's president of the Muslim
Speaker 1: Public Affairs Council, who met with a variety of public
Speaker 1: officials in the wake of those violent counter protests to
Speaker 1: find out where the concern la if they were going
Speaker 1: to conduct investigations, and he joins us now, great to
Speaker 1: have you.
Speaker 7: Sir, good Caezer, thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, so talk to us about your interest
Speaker 1: in what unfolded at UCLA and some of the meetings.
Speaker 4: You were able to have.
Speaker 7: I attended the encampment. It was peaceful. I met a
Speaker 7: lot of students, a lot of Jewish students, Muslim students,
Speaker 7: a lot of non religious students. It was an array
Speaker 7: that you saw there, and I was inspired by it,
Speaker 7: and it was peaceful. And in fact, a Princeton study
Speaker 7: Bridging the Divide initiative showed that ninety five percent of
Speaker 7: the encampments are peaceful of the thousand that they assessed.
Speaker 7: And so when I met with officials and they're concerned
Speaker 7: about violence from these encampments, I said, these are peaceful gatherings.
Speaker 7: They're protesting in the great student tradition. When I met
Speaker 7: with Eric Holders some years back, he said he occupied
Speaker 7: a building when he was in college. So what was
Speaker 7: different though, of course not the situation, right, And so
Speaker 7: we see the double standards. And then I have attended
Speaker 7: college football games, and if you're concerned about disorderly conduct
Speaker 7: and vandalism and harassment, well are we going to be
Speaker 7: canceling football games because of our concern, of course not.
Speaker 7: So that's how ridiculous this argument is that there's concern
Speaker 7: about violence. And if there was violence, as you said,
Speaker 7: it was the violence against the students, it was the
Speaker 7: violence by bringing in the police to dismantle the encampments.
Speaker 7: And so we talked to officials about that, and when
Speaker 7: I met with the Attorney General and the FBI director,
Speaker 7: the concern there was, you know, they're looking at violent
Speaker 7: extremism and how foreign actors can use these public gatherings
Speaker 7: to attack Americans. And I said, it already happened. It
Speaker 7: happened on the night of April thirtieth against the student protesters,
Speaker 7: against the pro Palestinian student encampment, and what are you
Speaker 7: doing about that? So they promised that they would look
Speaker 7: into it, that there should be an investigation. Why did
Speaker 7: law enforcement step back and stand by watching the assault
Speaker 7: on the pro Palestinian protest.
Speaker 1: And so this was Attorney General Meyrick Garland that you
Speaker 1: were speaking to, and you're talking about the kind of
Speaker 1: protest at UCLA, which you know, again documented there were
Speaker 1: hours that these assaults were occurring in which the police
Speaker 1: did absolutely nothing. The next day, the police come in
Speaker 1: and they arrest the largely peaceful pro Palestinian side. And
Speaker 1: so what was the response from Garland when you press
Speaker 1: for an investigation into what had occurred?
Speaker 7: He said he would look into it. The FBI director
Speaker 7: said he would look into it. We receive communications from
Speaker 7: their offices that there might be an investigation happening, but
Speaker 7: nothing is official, of course, and we just have to
Speaker 7: keep pressing the issue. In fact, I'm meeting today with
Speaker 7: the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Christian Clerk, on
Speaker 7: the same matter. So we're going to get a report
Speaker 7: from them and to see where we are with the situation.
Speaker 7: But we just have to keep pressing. Just like we
Speaker 7: have to keep pressing for prosecution of the January sixth
Speaker 7: coup against our country at the US capital, we have
Speaker 7: to press here for an investigation of law enforcement and
Speaker 7: exactly who these culports were that instigated violence against the students.
Speaker 7: And right now, as of now, there's only been one arrest,
Speaker 7: and even with Los Angeles Police Department said they didn't
Speaker 7: have enough resources to investigate, and we called that nonsense.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so tell us about you were talking previously
Speaker 2: with us about some of the meetings you've had with
Speaker 2: public officials. I'm curious from your end, what is it like,
Speaker 2: how much can you see very clearly that there is
Speaker 2: external pressure on these individuals to not let's say, they
Speaker 2: definitely would have acted differently as you said, let's say
Speaker 2: the January sixth investigation or any of that in response
Speaker 2: to some of this protest violence that we saw, a
Speaker 2: violence against the protesters. How has their difference in tone
Speaker 2: and all that come through to you and the evidence
Speaker 2: of external pressure on them.
Speaker 7: Well, I can't tell you exactly what evidence there is,
Speaker 7: but we know it's there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've been doing that, but you can
Speaker 2: see it in the you know, in the response and
Speaker 2: there tell us about that.
Speaker 7: In their tone, and they're sort of trying to console
Speaker 7: us that yes, it was terrible what happened, And we said,
Speaker 7: we don't need sympathy, we need action. We need you
Speaker 7: to look into what's happening here. You know, you've had
Speaker 7: Los Angeles Police Department officers go to Israel and pose
Speaker 7: with IDF forces next to the bombs that were going
Speaker 7: to go kill Palestinians. And we said, what kind of
Speaker 7: infiltration or influence is there within our law enforcement by
Speaker 7: the Israeli defense forces? We need you to investigate that
Speaker 7: as well, and so we've called on the LAPD Commission
Speaker 7: Police Commission to look into that, and I hope that
Speaker 7: something will come out of it. But again, we just
Speaker 7: have to keep pressing and keep advocating. I've been doing
Speaker 7: this for forty years. When I started, way before your time.
Speaker 7: The first case that I was involved in was called
Speaker 7: the LA eight and what happened was was the agency
Speaker 7: at that time was called the Immigration Naturalization Service instead
Speaker 7: of DHS, and they were looking at Palestinians who were
Speaker 7: distributing communist literature using a McCarthy era law, the mccaren
Speaker 7: Walter Act, And of course it was ridiculous. It took
Speaker 7: twenty years to vindic those individuals. But this kind of
Speaker 7: McCarthyism is coming back, and it's coming back with a force.
Speaker 7: I think the pro Israel groups, the hardliners from that side,
Speaker 7: are using everything to pressure those officials that you're referring
Speaker 7: to Zagar and really si silence in them. And while
Speaker 7: they come to us with sympathy, they really can't do
Speaker 7: anything because they know that the other side is ready
Speaker 7: to clabber them if they do take action. So it
Speaker 7: is a bit of a political game, unfortunately, but we
Speaker 7: feel that there's there's more, there's a growing support. In fact,
Speaker 7: for the first time an LA City councilwoman Nathia Rahman,
Speaker 7: finally sponsored a resolution for a ceasefire in the La
Speaker 7: City Council. So we'll see where that goes. And they
Speaker 7: also passed a resolution fifteen to nothing in La City
Speaker 7: to investigate LAPD for what happened on April Thirtyeth got it.
Speaker 4: So the mayor of La now as Karen Bass. You
Speaker 4: met with her as well.
Speaker 1: I mean she's positioned herself as relatively progressive Democrat.
Speaker 4: What was that meaning like?
Speaker 1: And how much is your sense that we talk a
Speaker 1: lot about APAC and the influence that their money and
Speaker 1: their lobbying has on all sorts of races. They've threatened,
Speaker 1: I think one hundred million dollars in their war chest
Speaker 1: to defeat candidates that, in their view are insufficiently pro Israel.
Speaker 1: How much does that loom over these conversations that you're
Speaker 1: having with politicians.
Speaker 7: Like I said, we know it exists. It doesn't come
Speaker 7: out in these conversations, of course, but the main concern
Speaker 7: is that they're worried about the reaction that they're going
Speaker 7: to get if they come out and support of these students,
Speaker 7: and the school officials say the same thing that they
Speaker 7: come to us and say, you know, it's not our fault.
Speaker 7: It's really the Department of Education that's being influenced to
Speaker 7: come in and every time there's a pro Palestinian event
Speaker 7: happening on campus, they call for an investigation. Then I
Speaker 7: go to the Department of Education and say, hey, the
Speaker 7: school officials are complaining about you, and they said, it
Speaker 7: has nothing to do with us. It's the school officials
Speaker 7: that are being pressure by the pro Israel group. So
Speaker 7: everybody is pointing the finger to everybody else right now.
Speaker 7: And we know that game. We've been around the block
Speaker 7: a couple of times. But as I said, it's really
Speaker 7: about continuing our advocacy and we really appreciate shows like
Speaker 7: this that for the first time, the public is seeing
Speaker 7: the truth.
Speaker 2: That was my question too, is you've obviously been involved
Speaker 2: in this for a long time, presumably been meeting with
Speaker 2: democratic lawmakers. This may be like, what has this been
Speaker 2: experience been like for you to watch them change a
Speaker 2: lot of their tune that you previously may have seen sympathy,
Speaker 2: and you know, whenever it was Republicans doing it, they
Speaker 2: were willing to decry it. But this time and now
Speaker 2: that they're in power, what has it been like to
Speaker 2: watch some of these people, who you presumably know well,
Speaker 2: even meetings with them for a long time, just completely shift,
Speaker 2: you know a post October seven.
Speaker 7: Well, it starts with the president himself. I mean, I
Speaker 7: couldn't believe it when he says that I'm a Zionist
Speaker 7: and I said, well, then how can you be our president?
Speaker 7: You don't represent us. Then so he met with Alstinians,
Speaker 7: he changed his tone. I believe that the protests are
Speaker 7: forcing him to change his rhetoric. It hasn't changed any
Speaker 7: action yet with other lawmakers that we've met. We met
Speaker 7: with for example Rohanna yesterday he came to our conference
Speaker 7: and spoke. It is a change because twenty years ago
Speaker 7: we didn't see thirty lawmakers say we are supporting a ceasefire.
Speaker 7: Now we're finally seeing that. The last time I saw
Speaker 7: a lawmaker actually call out Israel was Bob Dole in
Speaker 7: the eighties when he said, oh, we should stop sending
Speaker 7: on as for Israel over that right. That was the
Speaker 7: last time. And in between that, nothing there was pure silence.
Speaker 7: So now we're finally coming back to some lawmakers having
Speaker 7: some backbone and saying if we care about American national
Speaker 7: security interests, this is not helping. This is hurting. And
Speaker 7: so we see these thirty I hope that it grows.
Speaker 7: We even see some Republicans now beginning to question what's
Speaker 7: happening in Gusin and blind support for this issue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, their few libertarian voices out there.
Speaker 1: Bob dol vindicated though, Glad we wanted to get your
Speaker 1: thoughts to on another news event that I thought you
Speaker 1: would find interesting.
Speaker 4: Lists put this up on the screen. This is really wild.
Speaker 1: So this is from the ap After publishing an article
Speaker 1: critical of Israel, Columbia Law Reviews website is shut down
Speaker 1: by the board. Let me read a little bit of
Speaker 1: those student editors at the Columbia Law Reviews say they
Speaker 1: were pressured by the journal's board of directors to halt
Speaker 1: publication of an academic article written by a Palestinian human
Speaker 1: rights lawyer that accuses Israel of committing genocide and gaza
Speaker 1: and upholding and apartheid regime. When editors refuse the request
Speaker 1: and publish that peace Monday morning, anyway, the board, which
Speaker 1: is made up of faculty and alumni from Columbia University's
Speaker 1: Law school, shut down. The Law Reviews website entirely remained
Speaker 1: offline Tuesday evening is static homepage informing visitors the domain
Speaker 1: is under maintenance. Of course, that irony here is probably
Speaker 1: no one would have really paid attention to this article.
Speaker 1: The student to published it separately at a permanent link
Speaker 1: that couldn't be taken down, and it's probably gotten way
Speaker 1: more attention than it ever would have if they just
Speaker 1: let it be published. But what do you make of
Speaker 1: this extraordinary effort at censorship of a pro Palestinian view.
Speaker 7: Well, it's like what they tried to do with Esna
Speaker 7: tabeslom at USC. They canceled her speech, so instead of talking, it.
Speaker 1: Was the valedictoria, it was a mental speech, and then
Speaker 1: they canceled the whole commencement, right.
Speaker 7: Canceled the whole thing. And so with Esna, now instead
Speaker 7: of speaking to sixty thousand people, she's speaking to millions
Speaker 7: of people. And now this article which basically saying that
Speaker 7: we need a new legal construct for Palestinians. It's not
Speaker 7: just about apartheid or occupation. That doesn't fit. Let us
Speaker 7: look to what's called the Nekba, the catastrophe that happened
Speaker 7: in nineteen forty eight and has continued to this day
Speaker 7: as a legal construct. Right. And so by shutting this
Speaker 7: down by this kind of censorship, now this is going
Speaker 7: to get more traction and more people will go and
Speaker 7: read it and look to not only why their censorship,
Speaker 7: but what is this all about? You know, I've been
Speaker 7: involved with groups, not involved with but people have monitored
Speaker 7: students by groups called campus Watch. It's their form of
Speaker 7: lawfare against these students. And campus Watch is a pro
Speaker 7: Israel website that says that these students are anti Semitic.
Speaker 7: I was called anti semitic. You know. I was appointed
Speaker 7: to the Congressional Commission for Terrorism in nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 7: by Richard Geppart. The ADL, the American Jewish Committee, the
Speaker 7: Conference of Jewish Presidents all lobbied to rescind the nomination.
Speaker 7: The New York Times headline of that was get part
Speaker 7: bows to Jews, anger for that. And so we know
Speaker 7: that this is happening is going to continue to happen
Speaker 7: until the establishment gets the message. And the establishment still
Speaker 7: has not received that message that this is this is
Speaker 7: a violation of our First Amendment. So we have we're
Speaker 7: now coming out with the Bureau for Academic Freedom to
Speaker 7: organize around this issue, to defend the First Amendment rights
Speaker 7: of our students, to defend the First Amendment of our country.
Speaker 7: We're the ones now that are at the center of
Speaker 7: this issue, and so it will help these students and
Speaker 7: really say, if we're really about the Constitution and the
Speaker 7: Bill of Rights, then the censorship has got to stop,
Speaker 7: especially in public universities.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to point out too that
Speaker 1: even as this particular article, because it got a headline,
Speaker 1: I got a lot of attention, I got a lot
Speaker 1: of eyeballs that the censorship effort didn't work. But you
Speaker 1: will have many people who don't speak out, who don't
Speaker 1: write the articles that they would have, who don't publish
Speaker 1: the articles that they would have, because they don't have
Speaker 1: the stomach for it right, they don't want to be
Speaker 1: under screwty, they don't want to have a truck driving
Speaker 1: around their college campus with their face on it, etc. So,
Speaker 1: while this individual effort maybe failed, backfired stries and effect,
Speaker 1: the overall chilling effect is still incredibly important. So what
Speaker 1: are some of the work that you'll be doing at
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Academic Freedom, and where can people find
Speaker 1: out more about what you're up to.
Speaker 7: You go to our website, Muslim Public Affairs Council NPAC
Speaker 7: dot org and we're going to launch it this week
Speaker 7: or within the next week. And the main issue is
Speaker 7: to expose this kind of chilling effect, this kind of censorship,
Speaker 7: this kind of intimidation against our students, and to provide
Speaker 7: support for them, whether it's legal support, political support, community support.
Speaker 7: We need to we need to be there at the
Speaker 7: forefront and to show that this is what these student
Speaker 7: protesters are doing is part of an American campus tradition.
Speaker 7: We saw that in Vietnam, we saw that for civil rights,
Speaker 7: we saw that against apartheid. This is nothing new in
Speaker 7: terms of the student tradition where students are leading us
Speaker 7: because everybody else is politically shackled in Washington from peking out.
Speaker 7: They're speaking the conscience of our country and we have
Speaker 7: to support them. So the Beeer of Academic Freedom is
Speaker 7: objective is to end this intimidation. It's going to be
Speaker 7: a long battle. I've been doing this you know now
Speaker 7: going on thirty six years, and it may take more
Speaker 7: decades for us to see a resolution to this conflict.
Speaker 7: But the beeer of academic freedom is aimed to resolving
Speaker 7: this and really defend the First Amendment.
Speaker 4: So thank you so much for your time today. It's
Speaker 4: a pleasure to meet.
Speaker 2: You, sir.
Speaker 7: Thank you for coming. Thank you so much. I appreciate
Speaker 7: the time.
Speaker 3: Thank you, all right, we'll see you guys later.