Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 4: Well, good morning, welcome to Breaking Points. I kind of
Speaker 4: Crystal wanted to whisper it as a sort of as
Speaker 4: an attribute to Soger, but in a way that I
Speaker 4: know it would really annoy him because he's screamed he's
Speaker 4: good morning. So if I whisper it, I think maybe
Speaker 4: I'll get understood.
Speaker 1: He's had a little more of a somber opening in
Speaker 1: recent weeks, given the somber nature of news, and there
Speaker 1: is a lot to get into this morning. So we
Speaker 1: have a potential potential deal on hostages, a little disputed
Speaker 1: sort of how close they are to closing brokering that
Speaker 1: deal would include a quote unquote humanitarian pozzle.
Speaker 5: Break that down for you.
Speaker 1: We also have new details Israel revealing what they claim
Speaker 1: to be additional evidence of Hamas's use of Al Shifa
Speaker 1: Hospital that they say justified that attack on that hospital.
Speaker 1: So we will break that down for you as well.
Speaker 1: We also have a whole situation regarding Osama bin Laden
Speaker 1: and TikTok and zoomers and a lot of questions there
Speaker 1: a lot of freak out about what young people are
Speaker 1: doing on TikTok these days.
Speaker 5: That should be a fun conversation.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of doings with regards to Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: anti Semitism, the ADL banning certain speech on Twitter as well.
Speaker 1: Sam Altman, one of the founders of open ai, was
Speaker 1: kicked out of that organization and now has just been
Speaker 1: snatched up by Microsoft that open Ai had a business
Speaker 1: relationship with and also a.
Speaker 5: Funder relationship with. This is huge.
Speaker 1: News in the AI world, so we'll break out of
Speaker 1: that down for you. We've also got some major CNN
Speaker 1: missus in terms of their Israel coverage that we want
Speaker 1: to show you as well. And we've got a Democratic
Speaker 1: candidate for Senate who is going to join us for
Speaker 1: the state of Michigan who is calling on Joe Biden
Speaker 1: to step aside because he says he cannot win in
Speaker 1: the state of Michigan, especially given his stance on Israel
Speaker 1: and Gaza.
Speaker 5: So a lot to get into.
Speaker 1: Very quickly before we jump into the news here this morning,
Speaker 1: we have a little bit of Breaking Points news, which
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Speaker 1: the way, let's go ahead and jump into the latest
Speaker 1: on the news. So we do have reports of a
Speaker 1: potential hostage deal. In fact, originally the Washington Post reported
Speaker 1: this deal was done and dusted, and then they had
Speaker 1: to kind of walk it back and say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we're still working out the details. Let's put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. From the Washington Post, the headline here
Speaker 1: US close to deal with Israel and Hamasta pause conflict,
Speaker 1: free some hostages. They had to change that headline after
Speaker 1: the US push back on the idea that this had
Speaker 1: already been completed. So here are the details of what's
Speaker 1: being reported in the Post. They say there is a detailed,
Speaker 1: six page set of written terms that would require all
Speaker 1: parties to the conflict to freeze combat operations for at
Speaker 1: least five days, while an initial fifty or more hostages
Speaker 1: are released in smaller batches every twenty four hours. Not
Speaker 1: immediately clear how many of the two hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: nine people believed to be in captivity in Gaza would
Speaker 1: be released under the deal. Also not clear, by the way,
Speaker 1: whether the US citizens who are being held would be
Speaker 1: part of that deal. They say that overhead surveillance would
Speaker 1: monitor movement on the ground to police the pause. The
Speaker 1: stop and fighting is also intended to allow a significant
Speaker 1: increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance, including fuel, to
Speaker 1: enter the besieged enclave from Egypt. After this article was
Speaker 1: initially published, and this is what I was referring to
Speaker 1: before National Security Council spokesperson Adrian Watson tweeted that there
Speaker 1: was no deal yet, but we continue to work hard
Speaker 1: to get a deal. And by the way, this is interesting, Emily.
Speaker 1: So in terms of the domestic politics in Israel, you
Speaker 1: have very i guess you would say competing pressures on Netanyahu, who,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, you have the families of hostages
Speaker 1: and you have huge public sentiment in terms of doing
Speaker 1: whatever you can to return these hostages, especially the civilian
Speaker 1: hostages who are being held right now by Hamas.
Speaker 5: On the other hand, you have.
Speaker 1: Hard right parts of his coalition who are opposed to
Speaker 1: any sort of pause in the fighting and in the
Speaker 1: bombing campaign. So, you know, and that would be a
Speaker 1: non starter in terms of any hostage deal if they're
Speaker 1: just going to continue bombing. So the way that he is,
Speaker 1: the way he is framing this is, you know, for
Speaker 1: any international support to continue, humanitarian aid is essential. Because
Speaker 1: of that, we accept the recommendation to bring fuel into Gaza,
Speaker 1: speaking about a smaller fuel deal that they've already made.
Speaker 1: But this is kind of the framing of you know,
Speaker 1: in order for us to continue the bombing campaign, we've
Speaker 1: got to maintain international legitimacy, and this kind of deal
Speaker 1: would be part of that.
Speaker 4: Right, which brings us to what treata PARSI of our
Speaker 4: friends with our friends at the Quincy Institute tweeted yesterday.
Speaker 4: I think he tweeted this yesterday. I'm sorry, this was
Speaker 4: from Friday. We have the element of treatise tweet here.
Speaker 4: He's saying a diplomat from a key US ally has
Speaker 4: told him that Net and Yahoo is blocking the release
Speaker 4: of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Biden is well aware, but
Speaker 4: refuses to pressure not in Yahoo publicly. The diplomat says
Speaker 4: Biden's unconditional support for Israel has made Net and Yahoo. Actually,
Speaker 4: this part's really interesting, Crystal more obstinate and inflexible. So
Speaker 4: Biden's unconditional support for Israel, according to this diplomat from
Speaker 4: a key US ally conveyed this to Treatah, has actually
Speaker 4: made Net and Yahoo more obstinate and inflexible. Also has
Speaker 4: these immense, almost i mean untenable pressures at home, as
Speaker 4: you said, to not do one thing and to really
Speaker 4: do the other thing. I mean, it's an impossible position
Speaker 4: to be in, and he's not navigating it well.
Speaker 5: I would say no.
Speaker 1: And this is what doctor Parci's tweeting here is also
Speaker 1: sort of publicly known. There was reporting recently, I believe
Speaker 1: in the last week that there actually was a deal
Speaker 1: that was you know, basically already crafted that they were
Speaker 1: ready to implement to return the hostages, which of course
Speaker 1: is you know, a high priority, should be a high
Speaker 1: priority for absolutely everyone, especially as I said, the civilians,
Speaker 1: who you know, should be left out of this entirely.
Speaker 5: They should be released immediately.
Speaker 1: And that deal was short circuited by the ground invasion
Speaker 1: that occurred.
Speaker 5: So again, you know, there's been.
Speaker 1: I would say, and demonstrated from the beginning a real
Speaker 1: lack of care and concern from net Yahoo with regard
Speaker 1: to these hostages. The hostage families Emily took him forever
Speaker 1: meet with them. There was this crazy report that in
Speaker 1: one of the meetings with all the hostage families they
Speaker 1: actually had like a plant infiltrator who was an activist
Speaker 1: net Nyahu's supporter come in and be like whatever, net Yah,
Speaker 1: who says, that's what we're on board with and they
Speaker 1: need to just go for it and continue the fighting.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind, you know, as this bombing campaign
Speaker 1: which has completely obliterated at this point Gaza City and
Speaker 1: is now we're going to talk about this now. They're
Speaker 1: moving into South Gaza, very place where they told everyone
Speaker 1: to flee to. They're now ramping up the bombing campaign
Speaker 1: there as well. Well, it's not only Palestinians who are
Speaker 1: at risk there, these hostages are also at grave risk
Speaker 1: the longer that this bombing campaign goes on. This deal
Speaker 1: was apparently mediated by Qatar and is being crafted you know,
Speaker 1: Qatars kind of the go between between Israel and Hamas
Speaker 1: in terms of these negotiations. So yet to be seen
Speaker 1: how close they actually are to striking this deal, but
Speaker 1: I think it has become increasingly clear that the biggest
Speaker 1: obstacle and the biggest barrier to having some kind of
Speaker 1: a deal to release at least the women and the
Speaker 1: children from this group of hostages has become you know,
Speaker 1: net Yahoo in terms of their agreement on a potential
Speaker 1: short term five.
Speaker 5: Day roughly ceasefire. So that's where we are.
Speaker 1: We also had a biden op ed that he published
Speaker 1: in the last several days, and there was one noteworthy
Speaker 1: part that people picked up on go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. He is saying, as we
Speaker 1: strive for peace Gaza in the West Bank should be
Speaker 1: reunited under a single GOVERNMENTCE structure, ultimately under a revitalized
Speaker 1: Palestinian authority as we all work toward a two state solution.
Speaker 1: I've been emphatic with Israel's leaders that extremist violence against
Speaker 1: Palestinians in the West Bank must stop and that those
Speaker 1: committing the violence must be held accountable. And this is
Speaker 1: the part people really picked up on. The US is
Speaker 1: prepared to take our own steps, including issuing visa bands
Speaker 1: against extremist attacking civilians in the West Bank. And Barack Revied,
Speaker 1: who as a reporter with Axios, his commentary on this
Speaker 1: is he said, this matters, this is a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's the first time the US is publicly considering individual
Speaker 1: sanctions against settlers and Emily. Just to lay out for people,
Speaker 1: part of why this is such a critical piece is
Speaker 1: the whole settlement movement, this illegal settlement movement under international law.
Speaker 1: The entire goal of it is to make a two
Speaker 1: state solution impossible. And already you have had and this
Speaker 1: has been occurring over decades.
Speaker 5: This is nothing new.
Speaker 1: It has ramped up under the net Yahoo administration, and
Speaker 1: it has further accelerated during this war on Gaza as
Speaker 1: you have. You know, this was already before October seventh,
Speaker 1: the most violent year that Palestinians in the West Bank
Speaker 1: had faced, perhaps ever, and now that violence has only escalated.
Speaker 1: You have settlers coming in and attacking Palestinians, pushing them
Speaker 1: off their land. And oftentimes it's not like they're just
Speaker 1: out there freelancing. In half of these instances over the years,
Speaker 1: the idea is actively involved. So this has been This
Speaker 1: isn't again some extremist grow freelancing.
Speaker 5: This has been an.
Speaker 1: Official policy of the Israeli government in an attempt to
Speaker 1: make a two state solution completely unviable because they have
Speaker 1: built out so many of these settlements within the West
Speaker 1: Bank territory. The whole thing is basically like Swiss cheese
Speaker 1: at this point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and this is It was also the
Speaker 4: deadliest year for Israelis before October seventh as well, because
Speaker 4: the violence had been so bad in the West Bank.
Speaker 3: The tensions were so strong in the West Bank.
Speaker 4: And that's important context for all of this, because it
Speaker 4: wasn't just like out of the blue, it was there
Speaker 4: were all of these clashes happening in the West Bank.
Speaker 4: Because you have a very far right government that has
Speaker 4: actually settlers in the administration, that's right Yahoo administration, and
Speaker 4: so obviously it was going in this direction, you know,
Speaker 4: it was going in a to a really bad place
Speaker 4: really quickly of the course the last year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and part of what people in Israel, who by
Speaker 1: the way, are not happy with the net Yahoo government
Speaker 1: means some like eighty percent blame him in part for
Speaker 1: what happened on October seventh. There was a recent poll
Speaker 1: that showed that support for his party, Lacud party, had
Speaker 1: absolutely collapsed. Because this guy was supposed to be he
Speaker 1: called himself mister Security, that's.
Speaker 5: What his supporters called him.
Speaker 1: And then to have this dramatic failure happen on your
Speaker 1: watch obviously has caused a massive loss of political support.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that we identified in those
Speaker 1: early days was the fact that, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of security forces and IDF troops had been moved from
Speaker 1: the area that was ultimately attacked by Hamas to guard
Speaker 1: these settlers in the West Bank and help them with
Speaker 1: these incursions and in pushing Palestinians off of their land.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of pressure from his right
Speaker 1: wing coalition partners to move those security forces to help
Speaker 1: the settlers and to protect the settlers, and that's part
Speaker 1: of why they were caught with their pants down on
Speaker 1: October seventh. And you know, the political leanings of that
Speaker 1: that air that was attacked by hamas Be or the
Speaker 1: Gaza Strip tends to be more liberal, tends to be
Speaker 1: more left. You've got these kibbutsum and people who are
Speaker 1: peace activists. I mean, it's absolutely tragic that those were
Speaker 1: the people who were attacked, you know, the most aggressively
Speaker 1: and the most horrifically in what happened on October seventh.
Speaker 1: But that's part of the domestic rub of the failures
Speaker 1: that happened with this net Yahoo administration, as they were
Speaker 1: so so obsessed with pushing forward and settlements that they
Speaker 1: left this other group of their citizens exposed to these
Speaker 1: attacks on October seventh, which is actually a good transition
Speaker 1: to you know, we're learning more details about what unfolded
Speaker 1: on that day. Mehdi Hassan had an interview with an
Speaker 1: IDF spokesperson where he was pressing him on you know,
Speaker 1: some of the falsehoods that have now been proven to
Speaker 1: have come from the Israeli government, and there was a
Speaker 1: bit of a revelation here that was rather interesting. Let's
Speaker 1: take a listen to how this all went out.
Speaker 6: Those numbers are provided by Hamast, there's no independent And secondly,
Speaker 6: more importantly, you have no idea how many of them
Speaker 6: are Commas terrorists, combatants and how many of civilians come us?
Speaker 6: What have you believed that they're all civilians, that they're
Speaker 6: all children? And here we have to say something that
Speaker 6: isn't said enough Commas until now we're destroying their military
Speaker 6: machine and with that we're eroding their control. But up
Speaker 6: until now they've been in control of the Gaza strip
Speaker 6: and as a result, they control all the images coming
Speaker 6: out of Gaza. Have you seen one picture of a
Speaker 6: single dead CAMAS terrorist in the fighting in Gaza?
Speaker 7: Not one?
Speaker 6: Is that that Commas can control Commas can control the information.
Speaker 3: And you said you would be brief.
Speaker 8: I have haven't. You're right, but I have.
Speaker 6: Seen lots of children with my own lying eyes being
Speaker 6: pulled from the robbers because there the pictures come. US
Speaker 6: wants you to see exactly the pictures. Also, people your
Speaker 6: government has killed.
Speaker 3: You accept that right, you've killed children? Or do you deny?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I do not, I do not.
Speaker 9: I do not.
Speaker 6: First of all, you don't know how those people died.
Speaker 10: Those two.
Speaker 6: First of all, we don't want to see are killed. Okay,
Speaker 6: he don't want to see a single I agree with you.
Speaker 1: So you have two pieces there that are very noworthy.
Speaker 1: Number One, he won't admit that children have been killed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's no reason to do that.
Speaker 5: What kind of a fantasy land do you think we're all?
Speaker 11: Like?
Speaker 1: How stupid do you think that we are? How many
Speaker 1: of these horrifying images have we seen? We know that
Speaker 1: the population of Gaza is nearly fifty percent children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we know that the death toll is I think roughly
Speaker 1: forty percent children. So to deny they've killed any kids,
Speaker 1: that is another level. By the way, I want to
Speaker 1: crack myself, I said an idfspokesurce and this is actually
Speaker 1: senior advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Nett Yahoo.
Speaker 1: The other part, though, that was really noteworthy here is
Speaker 1: you'll recall the original death count on October seventh was
Speaker 1: roughly fourteen hundred, and then they revised it down to
Speaker 1: twelve hundred, and he says that that's because some of
Speaker 1: the bodies that were burned beyond recognition that they had
Speaker 1: assumed were Israeli citizens were actually Hamas militants.
Speaker 5: So that was.
Speaker 1: Another important revelation there, And just in the interest of
Speaker 1: accuracy and what actually unfolded on October seventh raises a
Speaker 1: lot of questions too about exactly what the response was
Speaker 1: and what that looked like.
Speaker 4: And to that point, there's just absolutely no reason to
Speaker 4: not answer the question about children. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 4: It doesn't make any sense from the line that Israel used,
Speaker 4: and I think, by the way, rightfully show that in
Speaker 4: so many senses, Hamas put children in this situation, that
Speaker 4: Hamas knew exactly what was going to happen after October seventh,
Speaker 4: So you can't have to be true. At the same time,
Speaker 4: you can't say Hamas is putting their own people in
Speaker 4: this awful situation, but also that these children are not
Speaker 4: in an awful situation. There's absolutely no reason to take
Speaker 4: the first line when first of all, the entire world
Speaker 4: and by the way, I was talking about this with
Speaker 4: Ryan last week. It's really frustrating because there's no like
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about this in the next segment,
Speaker 4: but we need to. Western journalists are not in Gaza
Speaker 4: journalists who are in Gaza are in grave danger, and
Speaker 4: that means over here on the side of the world,
Speaker 4: we have to take what the Israeli government is saying seriously.
Speaker 3: They are making that very difficult, and they have been
Speaker 3: doing that for years.
Speaker 4: But in a situation like this, when you cannot even
Speaker 4: concede that children have been killed, the trust that you
Speaker 4: desperately need to build with American audiences, with Western audiences,
Speaker 4: with British audiences, with everyone around the world that is
Speaker 4: not in Gaza right now is severely damaged. And there's
Speaker 4: no it's it's a totally unforced air.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, listen, I think Israel has decided because
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this. Their propaganda is so sloppy,
Speaker 1: it's been bad. It's actually astonishing to me. You know,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk later about that CNN report where
Speaker 1: they were with you know, the IDF guy, and he's
Speaker 1: showing them what he purports to be evidence that this
Speaker 1: other hospital, not Alshiva, a different hospital I think it
Speaker 1: is called, I don't remember the name of it, the
Speaker 1: children's hospital, that it was used by Hamas militants, and
Speaker 1: you know, his' point into like baby bottles and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a children's hospital where people starre seeking refuge. But
Speaker 1: the real crowning moment is when he reveals this Arabic
Speaker 1: list that he says is where the terrorists were recording
Speaker 1: their names of when they were watching the hostages. And
Speaker 1: immediately people who actually speak Arabic look at this and
Speaker 1: are like, it's literally just a calendar. And again, I
Speaker 1: am quite sure that the IDF has plenty of Arabic
Speaker 1: speakers available to them. I'm also quite sure by the
Speaker 1: way that CNN has plenty of Arabic speakers available to them.
Speaker 1: So to have the level of propaganda be that incredibly
Speaker 1: sloppy is just to me completely absurd. It's one of
Speaker 1: the things that many presses him on. But I think
Speaker 1: that they, really, number one, are just so used to
Speaker 1: all of this is for a US audience, right, They
Speaker 1: know that international opinion, They don't really care about international opinion,
Speaker 1: They just care about a US audience. I think there's
Speaker 1: been such lockstep support for Israel across both parties for
Speaker 1: so long that they ever felt the need to have
Speaker 1: the propaganda be actually very good, and now really they're
Speaker 1: only pitching it to Joe Biden and Joe Biden seems
Speaker 1: to be buying it all hook line and Singer, So
Speaker 1: I guess they don't feel the need to up their
Speaker 1: game in terms of the propaganda efforts here because the
Speaker 1: one guy that they need to keep on their side
Speaker 1: that they seem to be doing the job just fine.
Speaker 5: On that.
Speaker 1: I saw some people commenting on Twitter that basically, like,
Speaker 1: the one person who believes all of this is Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: but that's the only person they need to believe all
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 5: So I guess there you go.
Speaker 4: Although as we were just talking about, they're not it
Speaker 4: seems entirely happy with the US pushing so hard for
Speaker 4: a hostage deal, and they don't seem entirely happy with
Speaker 4: the Biden administrations call for humanitarian ceasefire that seems to have,
Speaker 4: you know, obviously been a point of tension. But I
Speaker 4: also think, and this is a really interesting point actually
Speaker 4: that you just brought up the intense level of propaganda
Speaker 4: that any country would engage in. But the sloppiness and
Speaker 4: the propaganda I also think is partially because they're doing
Speaker 4: so much of it.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've noticed.
Speaker 4: It's like, obviously we're in the social media era, So
Speaker 4: they're trying to be completely aggressive so that when something
Speaker 4: gets posted on X and all of the journalists are
Speaker 4: there and narratives start getting crafted, that they're on top
Speaker 4: of it. They're in front of it. But it's been
Speaker 4: very sloppy. It's a really strange thing to watch happen
Speaker 4: in real time on social media, and I think that's
Speaker 4: where some of this has has just looked so ham fisted,
Speaker 4: is that they're trying so hard in the middle of
Speaker 4: a war to be winning the propaganda race, and it's
Speaker 4: just so it's very odd to watch happen.
Speaker 1: The other thing is, I think, frankly, that their actions
Speaker 1: in Gaza, where you have this overwhelming civilian death toll,
Speaker 1: where you have so many children being massacred, where you
Speaker 1: have daily attacks on I mean, we can't even keep
Speaker 1: track on schools, refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, you name it,
Speaker 1: civilian infrastructure, and it's been destroyed. Like they know that
Speaker 1: that on its face is not actually defensible, and so
Speaker 1: that's how you end up with this preposterous attempt to
Speaker 1: be like, I don't really know that we killed on
Speaker 1: any kids. You can't prove that we killed on any kids,
Speaker 1: and that's also the reason why they've so aggressively cut
Speaker 1: off communications and also, by the way, why they've targeted journalists.
Speaker 1: I think the number is fifty now journalists in Gaza.
Speaker 5: Who have been killed.
Speaker 1: And by the way, there's been, you know, virtual silence
Speaker 1: from the American press, which claim during the Trump administration
Speaker 1: cares so much about freedom of the press and protecting journalists,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Pretty much total silence when it comes to
Speaker 1: the fact that so many journalists have been killed, more
Speaker 1: than any other conflicts that we've seen. There's another interesting
Speaker 1: new detail, and I'll phrase this very delicately, about October seventh,
Speaker 1: that also came out. This was from a Haaretz report,
Speaker 1: and let's go ahead and put this up on the
Speaker 1: screen from our own Ryan Grimm, sort of summarizing.
Speaker 5: What came out here.
Speaker 1: This was from Just to be clear, it was from
Speaker 1: the Hebrew version of the paper. This is a translation
Speaker 1: from Google Translate, so it maybe a little imprecise, and
Speaker 1: I'll get to that in a minute. But the bottom
Speaker 1: line here is, you know, one of the greatest scenes
Speaker 1: of horror and atrocities was that Rave of Music festival,
Speaker 1: and this Haretz investigation found that number one. Organizers originally
Speaker 1: planned to end the event on Friday, but got permission
Speaker 1: to extend it midweek from the Army. And this goes
Speaker 1: to the idea that actually Hamas didn't even know this
Speaker 1: festival was going on. They just sort of happened upon
Speaker 1: it and then of course killed a lot of civilians
Speaker 1: and unleashed horrors there. Hamas did not know about the
Speaker 1: music festival, only learning about it after breaching Israeli territory.
Speaker 1: This assessment is backed up by a body cam footage
Speaker 1: of a terrorist asking a captured civilian where the bad
Speaker 1: guys are?
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: That part, in particular seems to be a poor translation.
Speaker 1: Apparently the Hebrew word for bad guys and the Hebrew
Speaker 1: word for one of the kibbuts that they did plan
Speaker 1: to attack and did in fact attack, is very similar.
Speaker 1: So the Hebrew language speakers that I saw said, no,
Speaker 1: this was actually not asking where the bad guys are,
Speaker 1: They were asking for directions to this kibbutz. But this
Speaker 1: last one is really key and has got a lot
Speaker 1: of people's attention. It is rarely attack. Helicopter fired on
Speaker 1: terrorists and also killed some of the partygoers, which opens
Speaker 1: up a real question Emily of you know, how many
Speaker 1: of the civilians who were horribly massacred on October seventh,
Speaker 1: how much of that was friendly fire. It's a question
Speaker 1: that a lot of people have been asking from the
Speaker 1: beginning and were completely shut down like this was off
Speaker 1: the table. But you know, in the interest of accuracy
Speaker 1: and understanding the events that unfolded on this horrific and
Speaker 1: fateful day, it's important to know exactly what the response was,
Speaker 1: what the death toll was, and how all of this unfolded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it absolutely is.
Speaker 4: And again that's why you know, the Israeli government, the IDF,
Speaker 4: whatever side you take in this conflict.
Speaker 3: Obviously it's no it's.
Speaker 4: No easy task to be in the middle of a
Speaker 4: war right now and to also be managing you know,
Speaker 4: the international press and the international community and all of that.
Speaker 4: But the Israeli government has done itself absolutely no absolutely
Speaker 4: no favors by saying things like That's why the children
Speaker 4: point on Medi's show is such an unforced error, because
Speaker 4: when you have situations like this, and you know, the
Speaker 4: Haretz account is so far the only account we have
Speaker 4: of the helicopters and the civilians, that doesn't mean it
Speaker 4: won't be verified. It very well could be verified, in fact,
Speaker 4: because as some of Israel's defenders were saying last night
Speaker 4: on x it's pretty believable, right when you're in the
Speaker 4: middle of this insane attack that sadly there's going to
Speaker 4: be people caught in the crossfire. I can't it's hard
Speaker 4: to even talk about those sorts of things. But if
Speaker 4: that's the case, you your trust with the public, in
Speaker 4: your trust with you know, American benefactors, the people who
Speaker 4: are sending military assistants, the people who are you know,
Speaker 4: in the UN, whatever it is, your trust should be ironclad.
Speaker 4: And when you are caught in the middle of just
Speaker 4: ridiculous talking points, you are doing yourself no favors whatsoever.
Speaker 4: And this isn't to say that we should all just
Speaker 4: be able to blindly trust the Israeli government. It is
Speaker 4: to say that the Israeli government should be doing absolutely
Speaker 4: everything in its power to ensure that that trust is
Speaker 4: coming from a serious place and to give the public
Speaker 4: reason to trust their lawmakers who are saying that they
Speaker 4: trust the Israeli government. Biden last week saying that as
Speaker 4: it pertains to the hospital, he really believes the intelligence,
Speaker 4: but he won't say what it is that this is
Speaker 4: a Hummas central command site. Well, if he's saying that
Speaker 4: he has intelligence, that the Israeli government has intelligence, and
Speaker 4: the public then has to trust that while the Israeli
Speaker 4: government is saying it is taking such ridiculous lines. Yeah,
Speaker 4: in the public that is incredibly deleterious to the cause
Speaker 4: that Israel wants to promote.
Speaker 1: I mean, I trust the Israeli government as much as
Speaker 1: I trust Moss, which is to say not at all.
Speaker 1: And so it makes it impossible to really know what's
Speaker 1: happening on the ground. Have to trust, you know, the
Speaker 1: doctors at the hospital and take the word of the
Speaker 1: ordinary civilians who are there and the few remaining journalists
Speaker 1: who have not been killed who remain in the Gaza strip.
Speaker 1: But you know, one final point on why this music
Speaker 1: festival piece matters, because I can see people being like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, friendly fire, what does it matter. Obviously Hamas
Speaker 1: came and massacred people. We know that, and no one
Speaker 1: is denying that here. But let me just say that
Speaker 1: part of what has been used, in fact, the entirety
Speaker 1: of the case that has been used to justify the
Speaker 1: indiscriminate bombing campaign, the complete leveling of Gaza city, now
Speaker 1: moving into the south where they told everyone to flee,
Speaker 1: the very high civilian death rate, higher by the way
Speaker 1: than even the civilian death rate that Hamas inflicted on
Speaker 1: October seventh. What has been used to justify that is
Speaker 1: the details of the horrors and atrocities that were committed
Speaker 1: on October seventh, and so it's important we know those
Speaker 1: details and we know what is actually true and what
Speaker 1: is actually false, because that's how that is the emotional
Speaker 1: case that they're making to justify committing essentially like daily
Speaker 1: war crimes in their prosecution of this war on Gaza.
Speaker 1: So that's why getting these details, you know, and apart
Speaker 1: from just knowing the historical record and having an accurate picture,
Speaker 1: that is the additional layer of why it matters to
Speaker 1: get these things straight. And that report from how Rotz
Speaker 1: it came from a police, an Israeli police investigation, so
Speaker 1: it has a high level of credibility here. And also
Speaker 1: now as people point out, it does make sense in
Speaker 1: terms of the response and also in terms of some
Speaker 1: of the images that came out of the extent of
Speaker 1: the destruction, which it seems unlikely Hamas would have been
Speaker 1: able to execute on their own. All right, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead to speaking of propaganda. We have some updates about
Speaker 1: Al Chifa Hospital, which was at Central Hospital in Gaza.
Speaker 1: You know, the Israeli government built for weeks a case
Speaker 1: that this was Hamas's headquarters, that they had this elaborate
Speaker 1: tunnel system underneath. They sent out multiple images that they
Speaker 1: said showed where the entrances to these tunnels were. They
Speaker 1: had graphics that showed all of these elaborate infrastructure that
Speaker 1: they claimed was underneath the buildings. They had their famous
Speaker 1: computer animation of hamaskran Central underneath of the hospital. In
Speaker 1: the first days after they raided Al Shifa at great
Speaker 1: cost to civilian life there, they put out very limited
Speaker 1: evidence of certainly nothing approaching what they had originally claimed.
Speaker 1: There were something like ten guns laid down on a table.
Speaker 1: CNN and other Western outlets caught them like moving these
Speaker 1: guns around and manipulating the evidence. Something I covered over
Speaker 1: the weekend. There was a box of dates that was involved.
Speaker 1: It was limited, okay in terms of what they were showing.
Speaker 1: Now they have a new video that they released that
Speaker 1: they claim shows a much larger tunnel. Let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen and you can
Speaker 1: see the operational tunnel shaft. This goes on for a
Speaker 1: little bit of time, but I just want to make sure,
Speaker 1: you know, in the interest of you know, everybody seeing
Speaker 1: the full nature of the evidence that they're providing here,
Speaker 1: I want to put it out there. They say in
Speaker 1: their tweet that revealed this video that they found a
Speaker 1: significant fifty five meter long terrorist tunnel ten meters underneath
Speaker 1: the Shifa Hospital complex during an intelligence based operation. The
Speaker 1: tunnel entrance contains various defense mechanisms, such as a blastproof
Speaker 1: door in a firing hole in an attempt by Hamasa
Speaker 1: block Israeli forces from entering. For weeks, we've been telling
Speaker 1: the world about hamasas cynical use of the residence of
Speaker 1: Gaza and patients of Sheifa Hospital as human shields.
Speaker 5: Here is more proof.
Speaker 1: So you know, a lot of people I think will
Speaker 1: be skeptical of this video to begin with, because of
Speaker 1: all the issues with Israeli government propaganda, as we've just
Speaker 1: been saying. But Emily, even if you take this at
Speaker 1: face value, that this you know generally is a tunnel,
Speaker 1: which is very believable given the fact we know. Put
Speaker 1: this next piece up on the screen that Israel themselves
Speaker 1: had built buggers and underneath of this hospital back in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three when Israel still ruled Gaza. So it's
Speaker 1: certainly totally believable that there are tunnels underneath of Al Chief.
Speaker 5: I don't think anyone should deny that.
Speaker 1: But this is a far from the original presentation of
Speaker 1: why rating this hospital was justified something that you know,
Speaker 1: under international law, hospitals are generally off limits. It requires
Speaker 1: absolutely exceptional circumstances to justify a raid and seizure embombing
Speaker 1: of a hospital as what occurred here. As I mentioned,
Speaker 1: there was tremendous loss of human life. You know, dozens
Speaker 1: of people died because of this raid at this hospital,
Speaker 1: and you know, still and even Western media outlets saying
Speaker 1: this nothing approaching what they initially claimed has been proved here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is what was really again interesting to watch
Speaker 4: the IDF and the Israeli government over the weekend on
Speaker 4: social media use social media to sort of win the
Speaker 4: propaganda war on this question of the hospital. The World
Speaker 4: Health Organization, which the Israeli government has sort of accused
Speaker 4: of being complicit in October seventh and complicit in the
Speaker 4: UN in general sort of being aware of what Hamas
Speaker 4: was doing, but not being you know, publicly sort of
Speaker 4: raising red flag, et cetera, et cetera. They put out
Speaker 4: a report on Saturday saying they went in on Saturday.
Speaker 4: There are twenty five health workers and two hundred and
Speaker 4: ninety one patients remaining in Al Shifa, which with several
Speaker 4: patient deaths having occurred over the previous two to three
Speaker 4: days due to the shutting down of medical services. Patients
Speaker 4: include thirty two babies in extremely critical condition, two people
Speaker 4: in intensive care without ventilation, and twenty two dialysis patients
Speaker 4: whose access to life saving treatment has been severely compromised.
Speaker 4: So at least as of Saturday, that's sort of the
Speaker 4: state of affairs and where everything stands.
Speaker 3: But in addition that that was from Tablet.
Speaker 4: If people just saw that up on their screen about
Speaker 4: the Israeli tunnels from back in the nineteen eighties, that
Speaker 4: was from Tablet pros rule publications. So, I mean, finding
Speaker 4: the tunnels probably wasn't the hard part for the Israeli government.
Speaker 3: It was probably more like accessing the tunnels in a
Speaker 3: way that you know, there weren't booby trapped, that they
Speaker 3: felt was the safest way that they possibly could.
Speaker 4: But this is the state of affairs. These are the tunnels,
Speaker 4: and they are giving CNN interviews, they're giving Fox News
Speaker 4: interviews where they're actually, you know, there are additional guns.
Speaker 4: As you talked about, there's additional guns in one of
Speaker 4: the scenes. They said it's because they found more guns,
Speaker 4: not that they moved the guns there. They're saying, you know,
Speaker 4: this was going to be the grand you mentioned this
Speaker 4: central command center. They're like central nervous system of Hamas
Speaker 4: was going to be under here. So they're spending the
Speaker 4: weekend pushing out image after image after image, and you
Speaker 4: just have to trust them that this is what it
Speaker 4: says it is when you also are finding out that
Speaker 4: things aren't what they say it, they are right again.
Speaker 4: So if we hypothetically, say, hypothetically give them the total
Speaker 4: benefit of the doubts, say everything they're saying is correct.
Speaker 4: They are going about it so poorly because nobody has
Speaker 4: any reason to believe it. When you make missteps like
Speaker 4: this time and again and again, and the cynical person,
Speaker 4: of course will say, well, it's not a misstep, it's
Speaker 4: an intentional propaganda campaign, which people that's what everyone does
Speaker 4: in war, but it's just when you have a hospital involved.
Speaker 4: When Ryan and I were talking about it last week,
Speaker 4: it was like, this is a situation that really is
Speaker 4: reflective of so many of the different tensions in the conflict,
Speaker 4: like this one is almost symbolic of the conflict.
Speaker 3: As a whole.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's right, and that's part of why they
Speaker 1: have been so aggressively trying to prove their case. And also,
Speaker 1: at the same time they're trying to prove the case,
Speaker 1: they're also rapidly moving the goalposts, which we'll get to
Speaker 1: you in a moment. But to your point, Emily about
Speaker 1: the skepticism from the Western press put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. I mean, you had basically every major media
Speaker 1: outlet nicely, very diplomatically, like Kamanyo, you said, this was
Speaker 1: a oscar in Central and we've seen nothing like a
Speaker 1: oscar in Central. You've got CNN with that analysis video
Speaker 1: suggests IDF might have rearranged weaponry at Alshifa prior to.
Speaker 5: News crew visits.
Speaker 1: There is also a BBC report that I played over
Speaker 1: the weekend to the same effect. The economist asking was
Speaker 1: Israel's attack on Al Shifa Hospital justified if you read
Speaker 1: the column, the suggested answer is very much know the
Speaker 1: Washington Post Israeli troops scour Gaza's Al Shifa Hospital for
Speaker 1: evidence of Hamas, and again the narrative beforehand was this
Speaker 1: is Hamasa's headquarters. That's why listen, we hate it. We
Speaker 1: hate that it's a civilian. We have no beef of civilians,
Speaker 1: but we have to go in because this is Hamas's headquarters.
Speaker 1: Here's our commuter animation that shows you we know exactly
Speaker 1: where these things are and this is what we're going
Speaker 1: to find. And the presentation of media outlets of like
Speaker 1: this is where the tunnels are. We've got in pinpoint
Speaker 1: and we know where to go. The US government the
Speaker 1: day before, coming out John Kirby, NSC spokesperson saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have intelligence as well that backs this up. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's an accent. That's the very next day
Speaker 1: that this rate occurs and still nothing approaching what they
Speaker 1: originally claimed has panned out. I also don't think it's
Speaker 1: an accident that now, because of the loss of international
Speaker 1: legitimacy surrounding this raid of this hospital and also know
Speaker 1: what they've been doing overall in Gaza. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's an accident that that has pushed them closer to
Speaker 1: accepting some sort of a hostage sheeld and some sort
Speaker 1: of a five day cease fire because the Biden administration
Speaker 1: has been pathetic and they're pushed back. The most important
Speaker 1: thing that they said is that there are absolutely no
Speaker 1: red lines for Israel.
Speaker 5: But you can.
Speaker 1: See Biden putting out this op ed saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: We're actually going to maybe sanction these illegal settlers, increasing
Speaker 1: pressure behind the scenes, et cetera, et cetera, that Israel
Speaker 1: is feeling at least some pressure because their public case
Speaker 1: has so clearly fallen apart. And you know, the last piece,
Speaker 1: let's put this up on the screen from the World
Speaker 1: Health Organization. I only read some of this report. They
Speaker 1: said due to time loans, I think there were only
Speaker 1: allowed inside. Yeah, they said for one hour inside the hospital,
Speaker 1: which they described as a death zone and the situation
Speaker 1: as desperate. Signs of shelling and gunfire inside this hospital
Speaker 1: were evident. The team saw a mass grave at the
Speaker 1: entrance of the hospital and was told that more than
Speaker 1: eighty people were buried there. So there's no doubt that
Speaker 1: absolute horrors unfolded here. We know that und I think
Speaker 1: four of the premature babies that had to be removed
Speaker 1: from the incubators because they ran on fuel died. We
Speaker 1: know everyone in the intensive care unit died. We know
Speaker 1: that there were patients who were effectively forced to evacuate,
Speaker 1: who were in no condition to travel, who were moving
Speaker 1: by foot. We know the horrific conditions that doctors were
Speaker 1: facing as they were trying their best to care for patients.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's Israel scrambling to try to prove
Speaker 1: that this was all worth it and making a case
Speaker 1: that I think very few people are believing at this point.
Speaker 4: The word scrambling I think is really accurate because actually
Speaker 4: over the weekend they released video of hostages being brought
Speaker 4: into El Shifa on October seventh. Yeah, and again a
Speaker 4: lot of people said, again like, look, this proves this
Speaker 4: is some last central command. They're taking the hostages to
Speaker 4: a hospital. It's also the largest, most advanced hospital in Gaza.
Speaker 4: So again I'm not sure that that proves it. And
Speaker 4: at one point someone from the IDEF, maybe even the
Speaker 4: IDEA of itself, said the video is on our side.
Speaker 4: Think they told media that the video and they weren't
Speaker 4: talking just about that particular video they were talking about
Speaker 4: all the video in general.
Speaker 3: They're saying the video is on our side.
Speaker 4: That quote to me again, I actually don't dismiss the
Speaker 4: possibility that Al Shifa, given the fact that it had
Speaker 4: tunnels that have been there since the nineteen eighties, may
Speaker 4: have been used as HAMAS headquarters. I don't think that's impossible.
Speaker 4: But even if you take that, even if you agree
Speaker 4: with me that you know this is it's not impossible
Speaker 4: that this is HAMAS headquarters. Obviously Hamas is operating underground.
Speaker 4: Obviously Hamas planned what happened on October seventh somewhere. So
Speaker 4: even if you you sort of say, yes, this is
Speaker 4: possible that this is a HAMAS central command, here's actually
Speaker 4: the word that the idf used quote well hidden terrorist
Speaker 4: infrastructure in the complex. Well hidden terrorist infrastructure in the complex. Okay,
Speaker 4: So if you even if you do that, what they
Speaker 4: have produced so far is not what you would expect
Speaker 4: if you said that there was a well hidden terrorist
Speaker 4: infrastructure in the complex. That's just not what we've seen
Speaker 4: so far, which is why they're coming out now and
Speaker 4: getting ahead of it and saying things like the video
Speaker 4: is on our side.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also and this we can transition to the
Speaker 1: next part here rapidly moving the goalpost. So they're no
Speaker 1: longer saying this was Hamas HQ. Now they're saying, oh,
Speaker 1: actually Hamas HQ is really in the south, and Hamas
Speaker 1: all you know, the Hamas leaders all fled to the south.
Speaker 1: That's why even they acknowledge they haven't been able to
Speaker 1: get that many of top Hamas leadership. So now they're saying, okay, Communists,
Speaker 1: that's the real place where Hamas HQ is. So the
Speaker 1: story has dramatically shifted. And you'll recall, of course Palestinians
Speaker 1: were told to flee northern Gaza. There was a you know,
Speaker 1: line that was established you must go to southern Gaza
Speaker 1: otherwise you're going to be deemed a terrorist you you know,
Speaker 1: will feel free to attack, you, bomb your home, whatever,
Speaker 1: which they did quite dramatically in the north of Gaza.
Speaker 1: So now you have effectively, i mean very close to
Speaker 1: all of two million residents of Gaza who are in
Speaker 1: southern Gaza. Communists is one of the places that people
Speaker 1: have fled to because that's where they were told to
Speaker 1: go under the assumption that they would be safe. Now
Speaker 1: the bombing of southern Gaza has actually ramped up after
Speaker 1: those evacuation orders. It's not like it's ever really been
Speaker 1: a safe place, but Israel is now signaling okay, since
Speaker 1: amas HQ wasn't an Ashifa, it's actually in Conunison.
Speaker 5: That's where Hamas leadership fled.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to start this more aggressive bombing campaign
Speaker 1: in the south. US Deputy National Security Advisor John Feiner
Speaker 1: was on the Sunday shows doing his duty, looking very
Speaker 1: uncomfortable by the way in this role. But anyway, we'll
Speaker 1: put that aside. Raising alarms and concerns that the US
Speaker 1: government has with this ramped up attack in the South.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
Speaker 12: We have been quite clear that Israel has every right
Speaker 12: to defend itself against the threat that it faces. That includes,
Speaker 12: by the way, the right to go after Hamas leadership,
Speaker 12: who they say now have fled to the southern part
Speaker 12: of Gaza and have sought refuge there. So in the
Speaker 12: event that we believe that Israel is likely to embark
Speaker 12: on combat operation, including in the South, we believe both
Speaker 12: that they have the right to do that, but that
Speaker 12: there is a real concern because hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 12: residents of Gaza have fled now from the north to
Speaker 12: the south at Israel's request, and we think that their
Speaker 12: operations should not go forward until those people, those additional civilians,
Speaker 12: have been accounted for in their military planning, and so
Speaker 12: we will be conveying that directly to them, and have
Speaker 12: been conveying that directly to them. They should draw lessons
Speaker 12: from how the operation proceeded in the north, including lessons
Speaker 12: that lead to greater and enhanced protections for civilian life,
Speaker 12: things like narrowing the area of active combat, clarifying where
Speaker 12: civilians can seek refuge from the fighting.
Speaker 1: So I mean, very diplomatically, he's saying, listen, you bombed
Speaker 1: a hell on of northern Gaza. You killed thousands upon
Speaker 1: thousands of civilians, thousands upon thousands of children. Maybe take
Speaker 1: some lessons from that as you move into southern Gaza.
Speaker 4: Well, and to your point, this is where the Biden
Speaker 4: administration is really under the crunch with the Israeli government.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously, again this is part of their messaging
Speaker 4: campaign in the media. You know, this is this is
Speaker 4: part of how the Biden administration is negotiating with Israels
Speaker 4: what they're saying publicly on shows exactly like this, and you.
Speaker 3: Know, it's crystal.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a very interesting state of affairs as
Speaker 4: of right now, because again we were just talking about
Speaker 4: the hospital.
Speaker 3: Some of this stuff is fully believable.
Speaker 4: We don't know that it's true, but it's entirely possible again,
Speaker 4: that Alshifa was being used as a Hamas headquarters. It's
Speaker 4: entirely possible that Hamas knowing you know, the ground invasion
Speaker 4: obviously was delayed and delayed and delayed as people were
Speaker 4: waiting for it, that Hamas cleared places and went to
Speaker 4: the south. But again, this has been happening over the
Speaker 4: last few weeks. Even if the Israeli government says that
Speaker 4: it is doing absolutely everything it can to protect civilians
Speaker 4: within reasonable boundaries, and then people in the south, in
Speaker 4: the South aren't safe, that it is an incredible problem
Speaker 4: for the Israeli government. It's an incredible problem for the
Speaker 4: United States government, especially given where public opinion is heading
Speaker 4: in the United States. And I think that's what the
Speaker 4: Biden administration understands, and it's why Reuters is reporting.
Speaker 3: I think clearly from.
Speaker 4: Katari sources that any obstacles to this piece deal that
Speaker 4: we talked about earlier in the show are minor. I
Speaker 4: think is the term that the Katari sources quote very minor,
Speaker 4: because the Biden administration has to answer questions exactly like this.
Speaker 4: And if Israel starts turning towards an operation more heavily
Speaker 4: in the South, they've already had problems with civilians being
Speaker 4: put in danger in the South. If they start turning
Speaker 4: in that direction, it's a huge problem, not just for
Speaker 4: the Israelis, but for the American government as well.
Speaker 1: The Israelis caret yahoo. Let me say not. I don't
Speaker 1: like to speak in those blanket terms, and when I
Speaker 1: say Israelis always mean the Israeli government cares about one thing,
Speaker 1: which is keeping Joe Biden on their side.
Speaker 5: And all of these little you know.
Speaker 1: There's all these leaks to the press about like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're really concerned. Behind the scenes, they're having these tough conversations,
Speaker 1: and you know, they send this dude out who I've
Speaker 1: actually never heard of before to be like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: worried about the South, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 5: I think it's.
Speaker 1: Already very clear that until there is a US willingness
Speaker 1: to say You're not getting our money unless you stop
Speaker 1: bombing schools, bombing hospitals, indiscriminately bombing and killing civilians. Nothing's
Speaker 1: going to change until the US, you know, actually starts
Speaker 1: letting some things, some votes.
Speaker 5: Go through the UN.
Speaker 1: And you did actually have them let one thing go through,
Speaker 1: which is about these quote unquote humanitarian pauses.
Speaker 5: But we know from what.
Speaker 3: The settlement leak. I mean, that's the Biden saying he
Speaker 3: might sanction.
Speaker 1: Settlers settlers, So I mean that's like a little little
Speaker 1: like maybe I'll do that, And that's very minimal in
Speaker 1: terms of what we could do with the incredible leverage
Speaker 1: that we have, the amount of money that we routinely
Speaker 1: send Israel, and the escalating fourteen billion dollars that we're
Speaker 1: planning to send right now, the huge list of weapons
Speaker 1: that they tried to keep secret, by the way, from
Speaker 1: the American public, of what exactly is being sent to Israel,
Speaker 1: and Ken Klippenstein and others were able to get their
Speaker 1: hands on specifically that list and reveal what has already
Speaker 1: been sent. So until the US government is actually inclined
Speaker 1: to use any of that considerable leverage, Israel's going to
Speaker 1: do what they want. And you know, the population is traumatized.
Speaker 1: By October seventh, they are convinced this is an existential threat.
Speaker 1: And so the polling shows some eighty percent don't really
Speaker 1: care that much about Palestinian civilian life. So I think again,
Speaker 1: there's not going to be any change in the approach
Speaker 1: from the Israeli government until the US does more than
Speaker 1: like leak to the Washington posts that oh, we're so
Speaker 1: concerned and we really wish they would stop. And I
Speaker 1: was going to mention, you know, with the regard to
Speaker 1: this humanitarian pauses, we know from what Secretary blink And
Speaker 1: reportedly told Netnyahu when he was there, it's not about
Speaker 1: actually bringing an end to the conflict. It's about buying
Speaker 1: time internationally and saving face so that the bombing campaign
Speaker 1: can continue for a lengthier period of time. I referred
Speaker 1: before to the moving of the goalposts in terms of
Speaker 1: where Hamas HQ actually has put this up on the
Speaker 1: screen from the Financial Times, this is one of the
Speaker 1: things that people were pointing to Israel signals operations in
Speaker 1: southern Gaza after hospital rate. Israel now believe several Hamas
Speaker 1: leaders have moved south, with some in conunis. The largest
Speaker 1: city in southern Gaza. According to several Western officials, some
Speaker 1: of Israel's allies have asked them to be cautious in
Speaker 1: their operations in the south, where nearly one million palace
Speaker 1: I needs have fled, after being assured it would be
Speaker 1: safer than the north. Now, first of all, we are
Speaker 1: seeing strikes in the south, they added, and second, operations
Speaker 1: in conunits can be incredibly difficult and destructive. Western officials
Speaker 1: said the scale and intensity of Israel's growing ground invasion
Speaker 1: of Gaza has caused concerns, despite consistent support for the
Speaker 1: country's right to quote defend itself. I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: meant that this requires ground operations of such a scope.
Speaker 1: And they've already started this bombing campaign Emily and already
Speaker 1: very clear large death toll and large civilian death tolls,
Speaker 1: because this is where everyone is now, this is where
Speaker 1: everyone was told to flee to, and this is where
Speaker 1: they fled to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again this is we were just talking about this.
Speaker 4: It's an increasingly big problem for the US government, which
Speaker 4: public opinion is very going to be a very very
Speaker 4: tough pressure on Biden. In fact, we're going to talk
Speaker 4: about that with a guest today in all kinds of
Speaker 4: ways that you know, maybe even people didn't originally expect
Speaker 4: the political pressures that would fall on Joe Biden over this.
Speaker 3: I agree with you.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, until there's completely foundationally different conversations
Speaker 4: about US AID, which actually Tablet magazine over the summer,
Speaker 4: very pariseral magazine had a fascinating piece about how US
Speaker 4: aid to Israel in some ways is bad for both
Speaker 4: the US and Israel.
Speaker 3: It's a really interesting piece. I recommend people check it out.
Speaker 4: Until some of those foundational conversations start happening. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't see how anything you know, dramatically changes. I
Speaker 4: do think the Biden administration is very aware of public
Speaker 4: opinion and you know, talking to these government about different
Speaker 4: things like this, and is probably.
Speaker 3: Applying some pressure. But you know, short of immense pressure,
Speaker 3: short of sort of foundational conversations about the nature of
Speaker 3: the support. Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's there's Without having conversations about the
Speaker 4: fundational questions, you don't get foundational change.
Speaker 1: And you actually had a report Bertie Sanders, who has
Speaker 1: not called for a ceasefire, notably he came out and
Speaker 1: called for conditioning aid to Israel. And there was also
Speaker 1: a report that a number of I think all Democratic
Speaker 1: senators have begun that conversation. So that has started to happen,
Speaker 1: you know, at least within the Senate, but with Joe
Speaker 1: Biden the support has been more or less locked up.
Speaker 1: The other question here that has always been is okay,
Speaker 1: so you completely flatten Gaza City. Now you're moving to
Speaker 1: the south to base, probably completely flatten southern Gaza as well.
Speaker 1: What the hell are you going to do after this
Speaker 1: mission accomplished moment?
Speaker 3: That makes your people safer?
Speaker 1: That's right, Yes, that makes your peoples, that makes it
Speaker 1: any sort of you know sense, that has any sort
Speaker 1: of reasonable humanitarian potentially situation for Palestinians.
Speaker 5: Put this up on the screen. This was really eyebrow raising.
Speaker 1: This is from a health monitor inside Israel's three day
Speaker 1: after options for Gaza amid government split. So I've got
Speaker 1: a short list here. Number one a role for Egypt.
Speaker 1: First option, which joins the greatest support among Israeli decision makers,
Speaker 1: is for Egypt to basically take control of the enclave
Speaker 1: in return for complete forgiveness of its massive foreign debt.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is very adjacent to the ethnic.
Speaker 1: Cleansing plan that was strategically released from the Israeli government
Speaker 1: and that many members of the far right Israeli cabinet
Speaker 1: have been pushing for. Next one is from Ramala to
Speaker 1: Gaza City. Second option, this is what the US has
Speaker 1: been pushing for, is the Palestinian authorities return to Gaza,
Speaker 1: which several Israeli decision makers regard as a bad idea.
Speaker 1: Simply put, it would torpedo the government's ultimate goal of
Speaker 1: severing all ties between itself and Gaza. And also it
Speaker 1: would make it so that there was one unified leadership
Speaker 1: between the West Bank and Gaza, which would take off
Speaker 1: the table, you know, their talking point of like, oh,
Speaker 1: we have no one to negotiate with in terms of
Speaker 1: a two state solution. So it would make a two
Speaker 1: state solution more possible and more viable, so that they
Speaker 1: don't want that, even though that's what the US has
Speaker 1: been pushing. There are other problems, by the way, I'll
Speaker 1: get into a minute with the idea that the PA
Speaker 1: could take over Gaza, and the last one is an
Speaker 1: international coalition. The third option is handing the keys to
Speaker 1: an international coalition consisting of Arab countries and Ornato.
Speaker 5: The EU or the UN.
Speaker 1: We also have been floated as part of this international coalition,
Speaker 1: to which I would certainly say hell no.
Speaker 4: Which by the way, is basically how the West Bank
Speaker 4: and Jerusalem in particular is run. Right now, it's under
Speaker 4: control of Jordan, but there's also international cooperation with how
Speaker 4: it works, and so we kind of have a test
Speaker 4: case of how well it works, and the answer is.
Speaker 3: Not very Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well so in the PA, you know that theoretically is
Speaker 1: the governing body in the West Bank has zero legitimacy.
Speaker 1: And this is sort of intentional again from the Israeli
Speaker 1: government has zero legitimacy within the West Bank. They are accurately,
Speaker 1: i would say, seen as effectively collaborators with the Israeli
Speaker 1: security establishment.
Speaker 5: And so that's why I say.
Speaker 1: There's you know, there's a lot of issues with the
Speaker 1: idea that you're just going to nation build and install
Speaker 1: your chosen ruler of you know, Makmudabas and the PA
Speaker 1: in the Gaza strip, where they have zero you know,
Speaker 1: popular support, legitimate legitimacy, they already have no support also
Speaker 1: or legitimacy really in the West Bank.
Speaker 5: Either within that international coalition.
Speaker 1: Hard though one of the things they float here as
Speaker 1: an idea that people are talking about is completely insane.
Speaker 1: They want to construct a huge artificial island off the
Speaker 1: coast of Gaza.
Speaker 5: Quote.
Speaker 1: It will be cheaper and faster than rebuilding the Gaza
Speaker 1: strip itself. A very senior former security official told this
Speaker 1: paper seeing and promote his brainchild. There is technology, means
Speaker 1: in money. Abu Dhabi in dubai I have huge numbers
Speaker 1: of such artificial islands which you become hubs of tourism, commerce,
Speaker 1: housing and infrastructure. It's relatively easy, it's cheap that will
Speaker 1: allow everyone to turn over.
Speaker 5: A new leaf.
Speaker 1: The Gazmins will receive new land with efficient infrastructure that
Speaker 1: will no longer be a land border between Israel and Gaza.
Speaker 5: The source warrant.
Speaker 1: Any attempt to rebuild Gaza is doomed given the massive
Speaker 1: underground tunnel network into which everything could collapse. The underground
Speaker 1: city will suck up what is above it. Disaster is
Speaker 1: yet to come. The former security official set the island
Speaker 1: could be a pretty good solution. So they're like pitching
Speaker 1: this like it's some resort destination and like it'll be
Speaker 1: great for everyone. The whole nature of this conflict, which
Speaker 1: often gets framed in religious terms, but it's really a
Speaker 1: land dispute, and so what you're talking about here is
Speaker 1: completely pushing them off of the land that they are
Speaker 1: claiming and entitled to by the way, And it's also
Speaker 1: very revealing about the extent of the utter devastation and
Speaker 1: destruction which has already been unleashed in the Gaza strip
Speaker 1: that they're like, there's nothing to go back to, we
Speaker 1: can't even rebuild it. It'd be easier to build a
Speaker 1: whole separate island where we can then keep you for
Speaker 1: in prison than to try to rebuild Gadza City, which
Speaker 1: is uninhabitable.
Speaker 4: Now, this is the most Western Galaxy brain solution that
Speaker 4: you could possibly joke about it, I mean that would
Speaker 4: come up with it's satire because again, to your point,
Speaker 4: this is a land conflict, and the land conflict obviously,
Speaker 4: whoever came up with the solution whenever security officials talking
Speaker 4: to the media and floating the solution, understands that fundamentally
Speaker 4: this is a land conflict. But they have this end
Speaker 4: of history Western Galaxy brain idea that it just needs
Speaker 4: more land, that people will be satisfied if you just
Speaker 4: give them a brand new hunk of fabricated land in
Speaker 4: the middle of the ocean, as opposed to the land
Speaker 4: is important to them because there are holy sites on
Speaker 4: the land.
Speaker 3: The land is important to them.
Speaker 4: They're fighting, they're spilling blood over the land because of
Speaker 4: that particular land and its connection to their families, to
Speaker 4: their faiths, to their sense.
Speaker 3: Of honor and dignity.
Speaker 4: And so this idea that we'll just create new land
Speaker 4: and everyone will be happy with it is again like
Speaker 4: it is so perfectly representative of this like end of history,
Speaker 4: a Western idea about how to solve conflicts. And we
Speaker 4: have a really hard time understanding here in the United States,
Speaker 4: in our sort of comfortable world, why people would fight
Speaker 4: that bitterly over their land. It's hard for people to
Speaker 4: wrap their brains around. But there are holy sites in Gaza.
Speaker 4: It's not just the West Bank. There are holy sites
Speaker 4: in Gaza that matter a lot to people.
Speaker 1: I think it actually sort of reminds me of the
Speaker 1: thinking of some like libertarians and also a lot of liberals.
Speaker 1: That's like or neoliberals, I should say, that's like, oh,
Speaker 1: your factory town in the US is destroyed, just moved
Speaker 1: to New York or just moved to like San Francisco
Speaker 1: and learned to code. And it's like I say, this
Speaker 1: is someone who still lives in the hometown where I.
Speaker 5: Was born and raised. Place is important to people.
Speaker 1: You know, this is no La or San Francisco or
Speaker 1: whatever is not my home. This is my home and
Speaker 1: that matters to me. So yeah, I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: I guess what I'll say finally on all of this
Speaker 1: is all of these options are bad. All of them
Speaker 1: are horrific. You know, you have a situation now where,
Speaker 1: in the name of quote unquote eradicating Hamas, which is
Speaker 1: an impossible goal, you've killed thousands upon thousands at the
Speaker 1: number I saw this, between twelve and sixteen thousand civilians
Speaker 1: killed at this point, you know, a huge number of
Speaker 1: children killed, huge number of children orphaned. And for every
Speaker 1: Hamas person that you have taken out, how many more radicals.
Speaker 5: Have you created with this destruction?
Speaker 1: So you know, one of the things we keep talking
Speaker 1: about is the lessons that should have been learned after
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. And there is no doubt that the
Speaker 1: actions we took after nine to eleven actually made us
Speaker 1: less safe. And I think that's incredibly clear here as well,
Speaker 1: And it becomes even clearer when you look at the
Speaker 1: preposterous ideas that are being floated for the post war scenario,
Speaker 1: everything from you know, outright ethnic cleansing, pushing people completely
Speaker 1: off of the land into the desert in Egypt and
Speaker 1: basically using Egypt's debt load to force their compliance in Israel.
Speaker 1: That's there is I don't think there's any doubt at
Speaker 1: this point that that is their top choice. The only
Speaker 1: question is whether the US, Egypt and other players are cold,
Speaker 1: you know, cajoled and convinced to go along.
Speaker 4: With it, and whether that makes anyone more safe, because
Speaker 4: one of the reasons Egypt doesn't want that is they
Speaker 4: think it will actually advance the Muslim Brotherhood's cause because
Speaker 4: you have a bunch of radicalized people who just watched
Speaker 4: their land again turned into a quote parking lot to
Speaker 4: quote Max Miller, and are now in a new country
Speaker 4: where there are sort of even the embers of the
Speaker 4: Muslim Brotherhood and you can easily come back in and
Speaker 4: imagine how that makes Israel significantly less safe.
Speaker 5: Again, Yeah, that's true too.
Speaker 1: And then you know everything from that, from the ethnic
Speaker 1: club solution to the let's build them their own island,
Speaker 1: which also by the way pushing them off their land
Speaker 1: is you know, I would say that is still ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's where we are, that's what we know,
Speaker 1: and it is it's hideous. I mean, it's just horrendous
Speaker 1: what is happening. And you know, it's very bleak what
Speaker 1: the future could look like as well. Even after this,
Speaker 1: they had their quote unquote mission accomplish moment.
Speaker 4: Crystal, I'm fascinated to talk about this next block because
Speaker 4: it's been massively viral.
Speaker 3: But the question is why. Yeah, the question is how
Speaker 3: organic the ver.
Speaker 5: I've been excited to talk to you about this one.
Speaker 4: It's interesting for a lot of reasons. It's interesting on
Speaker 4: the sort of tech front, but it's also interesting on
Speaker 4: the kind of gen z the new sort of discussion
Speaker 4: about how people see this country, how people see their
Speaker 4: role in the world. So if people haven't heard obviously
Speaker 4: this blew up late last week, but Osama bin Laden's
Speaker 4: infamous letter to America that ended up on the internet
Speaker 4: in two thousand and two. Somehow someone got their hands
Speaker 4: on it. I think it was The Guardian that originally
Speaker 4: got their hands on it two thousand and two. It
Speaker 4: is going around the internet. Back in the day when
Speaker 4: it was a series of tubes, as al Gore would
Speaker 4: have said. But was that al Gore that said series
Speaker 4: of tubes?
Speaker 10: Christal?
Speaker 5: I think it sounds right, so I'll go with it, the.
Speaker 3: Series of tubes that made up the Internet.
Speaker 4: But this letter started to make the rounds everyone thought
Speaker 4: on TikTok over the course of the last week. It
Speaker 4: turns out that's not exactly the case. So let's put
Speaker 4: the first element up on the screen here. So yaeshar
Speaker 4: al Lee, Christal, I don't even know how to begin
Speaker 4: describing you, Charlie. If you don't know about Yashar Alie,
Speaker 4: basically a prolific user of Twitter, prolific user of x
Speaker 4: who has had quite an interesting background, you can google
Speaker 4: it because there's no reason for us to dive into
Speaker 4: the particulars of all of it. Very friendly with Kathy Griffin,
Speaker 4: although not anymore. It's all up in the air. But
Speaker 4: Charlie posts. Over the past twenty four hours, thousands of
Speaker 4: tiktoks at least have been posted where people shared just
Speaker 4: how they read bin Laden's how they just read bin
Speaker 4: Laden's quote infamous quote letter to America, in which she explained.
Speaker 3: Why he attacked the United States.
Speaker 4: Now, one particular thing to keep in mind there with
Speaker 4: what I just read is he says thousands of tiktoks
Speaker 4: at least. So then he continues and says the tiktoks
Speaker 4: are from people of all ages, racist ethnicities, and backgrounds.
Speaker 4: Many of them say that reading the letter has opened
Speaker 4: their eyes and they'll never see geopolitical matters the same way.
Speaker 3: Again. Many of them, and I've watched a lot.
Speaker 4: Ya Shark continues, say it has made them reevaluate their
Speaker 4: perspective on how what is often labeled as terrorism can
Speaker 4: be a legitimate form of resistance to hostile power. All right,
Speaker 4: let's put the next element up on the screen right here.
Speaker 4: This is actually going to be This is from if
Speaker 4: we put the next one up here, this is Oh sorry,
Speaker 4: I was like at the wrong block. This is going
Speaker 4: to be the video compilation of that. Yashar posted of
Speaker 4: people saying they've just read bin laden Letter to America
Speaker 4: and have had their eyes opened up for the first time.
Speaker 3: So take a listen to what your sharp posted this morning.
Speaker 13: I read Letter to America, which is Osama bin Laden's
Speaker 13: letter to America explaining why he attacked Americans, and I
Speaker 13: am ashamed to say that I not only have never
Speaker 13: read this letter, but I didn't even know this letter existed.
Speaker 14: And I feel the same exact way I felt when
Speaker 14: I was deconstructing Christianity. I feel a little bit just confused,
Speaker 14: like I have entered into another timeline.
Speaker 5: What is this?
Speaker 7: So I just read a letter to America and I
Speaker 7: will never look at life the same. I will never
Speaker 7: look at this country the same. In the last twenty minutes,
Speaker 7: my entire viewpoint on the entire life I have believed
Speaker 7: and I have lived, has changed.
Speaker 15: It becomes apparent to me that the actually nine to
Speaker 15: eleven and those acts committed against the USA and its
Speaker 15: people were all just the build up of our government
Speaker 15: failing other nations.
Speaker 4: All right, So let's put up how Glenn reacted to
Speaker 4: The Guardian pulling the letter down off.
Speaker 3: Of their website.
Speaker 4: So Glenn Greenwall tweets The Guardian's removal of the bin
Speaker 4: laden letter from its site after twenty one years until
Speaker 4: Americans started to read it completely backfired. The Washington Post
Speaker 4: says the removal actually spurred even more interest, and TikTok
Speaker 4: is now aggressively banning discussion of the letter, and that's
Speaker 4: the next element, we can just throw that up Immediately,
Speaker 4: TikTok comes out and says, content promoting this letter clearly
Speaker 4: violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism. We
Speaker 4: are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how
Speaker 4: it got onto our platform. Well, Chris, so the Washington
Speaker 4: Post actually started investigating this and came to some interesting
Speaker 4: conclusion that tell us so much actually about social media
Speaker 4: and the news media. The fascinating kind of pipeline from
Speaker 4: the people think of Covington Catholic. You had the snippet
Speaker 4: of a video that's going viral on Twitter at the
Speaker 4: time and suddenly ends up in the Washington Post and CNN,
Speaker 4: and people hadn't really taken the time to do their
Speaker 4: due diligence. They had just, you know, these professional reporters
Speaker 4: making lots of money here in Washington, DC and New
Speaker 4: York ran with these ridiculous stories. Well, that's actually kind
Speaker 4: of at the heart of this too, because it's a
Speaker 4: striisand effect conversation and essence which the striisand effect is basically,
Speaker 4: once you publicly complain about something, you know, saying that
Speaker 4: it's getting too much attention, it'll get much more attention
Speaker 4: that there may have not organically been that much attention
Speaker 4: on it in the first place. So if we put
Speaker 4: the next element up. Washington Post looked into the sort
Speaker 4: of source of the virality here and came to some,
Speaker 4: i mean, just fascinating conclusions, one of which was that
Speaker 4: if you look at the Google trends and this is
Speaker 4: the next element, there's a there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 4: to go through here, because the Washington Post found a
Speaker 4: lot of evidence here.
Speaker 3: This is Ryan Broderick. He runs a newsletter.
Speaker 4: He's saying if you look at the Google trends, he says,
Speaker 4: there are folks in my replies saying that Google Trends
Speaker 4: proves the bin laden letter was already going viral before
Speaker 4: it was shared on Twitter slash acts I marked below
Speaker 4: when it was tweeted. Yes, there was some interest. I
Speaker 4: never said there wasn't, but it was plateauing. After the tweet,
Speaker 4: the interest doubled. The Washington Post also talked about this
Speaker 4: Google Trends data, basically saying that that TikTok did kind
Speaker 4: of make it viral, but that wasn't the whole story.
Speaker 3: And that's right.
Speaker 4: If you look at this, people had started googling Osaba
Speaker 4: bin Laden's letter to America basically on this timeline, like
Speaker 4: roughly over the past few weeks. Then he's pinpointed right there.
Speaker 4: If you're watching this, you can see there's a little
Speaker 4: blue dot with a circle around it when the yeshar
Speaker 4: Ali tweet is posted, and it spikes right after that,
Speaker 4: So it's going up before and then spikes right after it.
Speaker 4: That would be the streis in effect illustrated here pretty
Speaker 4: gig neatly conveniently, so, Crystal, there's also, as Sager says,
Speaker 4: and this next tweet, we can put Sager up on
Speaker 4: the screen because even when he's not with us, he
Speaker 4: is always with Sager says, if you're going to read
Speaker 4: the bin Laden letter and think it's somehow profound, you
Speaker 4: should probably read to the end. Is why he says
Speaker 4: there are no such thing as innocent American civilians and
Speaker 4: why three thousand innocents deserve to die in nine to eleven.
Speaker 4: And I think the implication there, Crystal, is that it's
Speaker 4: also the argument kind of being rolled out by Israel
Speaker 4: that there's no such thing as an innocent civilian in Gaza.
Speaker 4: We've heard people in the United States make that argument
Speaker 4: as well. And this is where the power of the
Speaker 4: bin Laden letter comes from. That, you know, a TikTok
Speaker 4: banning it horrible idea, horrible idea as dumb as I
Speaker 4: think the people who are posting about it is. This
Speaker 4: is the dumbest idea ever because what you're doing is
Speaker 4: making it seem more forbidden. And the power of this
Speaker 4: history if you read this letter, which is actually a
Speaker 4: very useful piece of historical context, if you read this letter,
Speaker 4: it is so powerful to you if you're a young
Speaker 4: American who does doesn't remember nine to eleven precisely because
Speaker 4: nobody has ever told you that this is what been
Speaker 4: Laden fought, precisely, because nobody has ever told you this
Speaker 4: is how other people on the other side of the
Speaker 4: world see the United States go. And actually just did
Speaker 4: a really interesting interview on his show with David Talbot,
Speaker 4: who wrote Devil's Chessboard, about great book all of these
Speaker 4: things the CIA has been doing in other countries, especially
Speaker 4: in the Middle East, that Americans don't know about, but
Speaker 4: that loom very large in places like Syria, in places
Speaker 4: like Iran, in places like Iraq, in places like Afghanistan.
Speaker 4: That's where the power comes in from the bin laden letter.
Speaker 4: That's how that stuff goes viral.
Speaker 1: So first, let me talk about some of the content
Speaker 1: of the tiktoks, which we showed you a few of,
Speaker 1: and there were others, you know, the ones that we
Speaker 1: showed actually zero issue with because I think what people
Speaker 1: my sense of what people are reacting to and why
Speaker 1: they're like, oh my god, I feel like I've been
Speaker 1: lied to my whole life is because what sold to
Speaker 1: the American public is this very cartoonish like access of evil,
Speaker 1: good versus evil. They hate us because we're free, like
Speaker 1: you know, they just came out of nowhere and these
Speaker 1: are just bad people or the culture's bad, or the
Speaker 1: religion's bad. It's just evil. There's nothing you could do
Speaker 1: about it. And there is an element of that. And
Speaker 1: if you read the letter too, by the way, there
Speaker 1: is a lot of it that is, you know, there's
Speaker 1: like horrors in there and completely anti Semitic and anti
Speaker 1: gay and all this stuff.
Speaker 3: That's an excellment.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, we'll get yeah, and we could put that
Speaker 1: up on the screen. Emily actually flag this some of
Speaker 1: what he you know, objects to. We call you to
Speaker 1: be a people of manners, principles, honor, and purity to
Speaker 1: reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, and toxic and
Speaker 1: gambling and trading with interest. But you know, there are
Speaker 1: also things in there that are legitimate foreign policy grievances,
Speaker 1: which if you are going to be someone like bin
Speaker 1: Laden who inspires this like horrific terrorist movement that took
Speaker 1: hold among some group of people, there has to be
Speaker 1: some core grievance that is actually real well, and that's
Speaker 1: why people study, you know, what enabled the rise of Hitler?
Speaker 1: What was Hitler saying about his own justifications? What were
Speaker 1: the social and political and economic conditions that led to
Speaker 1: the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany. It's not
Speaker 1: because they support Hitler or Nazism. It's because it's important
Speaker 1: to understand the conditions that led to this result. It's
Speaker 1: part of also, you know what people are talking about
Speaker 1: with understanding the history of Israel and Palestine that you
Speaker 1: know leads to October seventh. It's not to say, oh,
Speaker 1: October seventh was justified and it was fine for them
Speaker 1: to attack civilians. It's listen, if you cage a people
Speaker 1: and you have them in this open air prison for decades, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can expect that there's going to be some horrific, violent,
Speaker 1: dangerous results. So I actually fully support people reading the
Speaker 1: Letter to America from Bin Laden to have a deeper
Speaker 1: understanding of a of a horrific and traumatizing, you know,
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways seminal moment in American histay,
Speaker 1: to have some of it's important to understand what your
Speaker 1: adversaries and enemies are saying about why they do the
Speaker 1: things that they do. And it's also ironic to me, Emily,
Speaker 1: because we showed that thing from Sager. We have probably
Speaker 1: mentioned Letter to America a number of times on this
Speaker 1: shows exactly in this context, you guys did this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's our fault. Yeah, we sparked the truth the viral trend.
Speaker 1: But exactly in this context of okay, if you are
Speaker 1: going along with the Israeli officials who are like all
Speaker 1: of the Palestinians are Nazis, Isaac Kurtzog, they're you know,
Speaker 1: supposedly like moderate president saying we need to really rethink this,
Speaker 1: this idea of innocent civilians. It's practically a quote that
Speaker 1: comes out every day that's basically like, no, they voted
Speaker 1: for Hamas, they support Hamas, therefore they're not innocent.
Speaker 5: Therefore they deserve to die, exactly what bin Lan says
Speaker 5: about us.
Speaker 1: And by the way, bin Laden has more of a
Speaker 1: point with America because we are actually democracy, we do
Speaker 1: actually elect their leadership. These people have not had an
Speaker 1: election for Hamas, most of most of the population of
Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip wasn't even alive when they had their
Speaker 1: last election.
Speaker 5: All of this is horrific.
Speaker 1: None of it justifies attacks on innocent civilians. So it's
Speaker 1: important to understand that if you're going along with the
Speaker 1: Israelis when they're saying, yeah, there's no innocent civilians because look,
Speaker 1: they like Hamas and they voted for Hamas, you are
Speaker 1: bolstering the very same argument that bin Laden made to
Speaker 1: massacre innocent civilians in America. And also, by the way,
Speaker 1: you are bolstering the very argument that Hamas would make
Speaker 1: about why there are no innocent Israelis and why it
Speaker 1: was perfectly fine and justified for Israeli civilians to be
Speaker 1: massacred on October seventh and in suicide attacks and other
Speaker 1: attacks and you know, firing rockets, et cetera.
Speaker 5: Et cetera over the years.
Speaker 1: You should reject all of that and so I actually
Speaker 1: think it's a good thing for people to be reading
Speaker 1: the letter. Now, let me also say Emily that there
Speaker 1: were also some of these tiktoks that were like bin
Speaker 1: Laden was right, no nuts, Ben Laanen was not right.
Speaker 1: All right, let's not let's this No, absolutely not. But
Speaker 1: do I think they should be banned? Do I think
Speaker 1: TikTok should pull this down because of this you know,
Speaker 1: idiotic facil and you know, immature and completely wrong take. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think they should have taken it down. I
Speaker 1: think it's absurd that the Guardian something is popular on
Speaker 1: your website and that's like a red flag to you.
Speaker 1: Isn't that the whole reason you have things on your
Speaker 1: website is for people to find them and read them
Speaker 1: and engage with them. That's insane to me. And Glenn
Speaker 1: also made a good point because it's it's mostly the
Speaker 1: right that's like, you know, these dumb zoomer TikTok kids
Speaker 1: like they love Hamas and they're evil and they hate
Speaker 1: America and now they love bin Laen, etcetera, etcetera, which
Speaker 1: is just like a fastile, preposterous rating of what's going
Speaker 1: on here. And also, you know, we showed you the
Speaker 1: data of this wasn't even that much of a thing
Speaker 1: until it got called attention to and you had a
Speaker 1: bunch of people rocketing in to be like, Oh, what
Speaker 1: are these dumb kids actually think? But you know, up
Speaker 1: until very recently, there was this whole effort to release
Speaker 1: that school shooter manifesto that was being kept Audriaill. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was being kept hidden. And the idea there wasn't
Speaker 1: we want to read her writings because we support her massacre.
Speaker 5: No, it was, hey, we want to.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was kind of like we want to
Speaker 1: own the libs and left and whatever, but it was like,
Speaker 1: we want to understand what radicalized this person. We want
Speaker 1: to read her words and her justification. And the very
Speaker 1: same principlelies.
Speaker 4: Here again, like this is powerful because we don't tell
Speaker 4: this version of history. And I actually think that the
Speaker 4: right vastly underestimates how.
Speaker 3: Powerful this is.
Speaker 4: With Generation Z and the kids that are going to
Speaker 4: be younger than them, who don't remember nine to eleven,
Speaker 4: we're learning about nine to eleven because the Internet has
Speaker 4: democratized the way we tell stories about ourselves as a country,
Speaker 4: and there are really important elements of that story that
Speaker 4: we are not honest with ourselves about there, for example,
Speaker 4: asom Bin Laden, the Taliban al Qaeda.
Speaker 3: We can go back to the Cold War and.
Speaker 4: The Musa Haden and have these really serious conversations about
Speaker 4: nuclear war policy during the Cold and how actually some
Speaker 4: of the things that we did from the perspective of
Speaker 4: a country that had just spilled blood overseas and the
Speaker 4: Pacific and had dropped a nuclear weapon for the first
Speaker 4: time ever twice in Japan, why people were utterly terrified,
Speaker 4: Why there were drills that you know, people were hiding
Speaker 4: under their desks because they were so afraid of nuclear war,
Speaker 4: and how that led us to make some really ridiculous
Speaker 4: decisions overseas. But if we're not honest about those decisions,
Speaker 4: we are going to look like we are hiding that,
Speaker 4: and we are to some extent hiding it. And it's
Speaker 4: an amazing country that you know, people like David Talbot
Speaker 4: can write the book that he did and can talk
Speaker 4: about it in the media, and that we can study
Speaker 4: these things and be honest about them. But until we
Speaker 4: sort of have a high profile confrontation with those mistakes
Speaker 4: and what they did oversea is like, this is why
Speaker 4: the fight over the sixteen nineteen project we can go
Speaker 4: back to the revolution or whatever, but like we aren't
Speaker 4: even being honest about the history the immediate history of conflicts.
Speaker 3: That we are in right now. Well, this is now.
Speaker 1: This is also why you know, we were opposed to
Speaker 1: like banning our tea during the at the you know,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the Ukraine War, when Russian invades
Speaker 1: Ukraine and all of these like Russian propaganda outlets were banned,
Speaker 1: not because we think that they're accurate and perfect all
Speaker 1: the time, but because it's important to know what your
Speaker 1: what propaganda is your enemy putting out, how are they
Speaker 1: justifying this conflict, and what are also some like potentially
Speaker 1: legitimate grievances that they had that enabled their justification of
Speaker 1: this war and this conflict. Those are really important things
Speaker 1: to understand. So and to your point, Emily, you know,
Speaker 1: the reason why, the big reason why we are so
Speaker 1: supportive of Israel since the sixties and so supportive of
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabian like these are our best buds in the region,
Speaker 1: is because we found them very useful for combating a
Speaker 1: Pan Arab movement, and we found frequently we found these
Speaker 1: sort of like Islamists, religious extremists groups like the Mujahadeen
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. Bin Laden connection there, we found them useful
Speaker 1: for our aims at the time. And so also part
Speaker 1: of understanding this complex history is not to then go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we backed bin Laden, therefore bin Laden must be good
Speaker 1: or right, or it's all our fault or whatever, but
Speaker 1: to understand the blowback and the potential consequences of some
Speaker 1: of the things that we have done in this region,
Speaker 1: and also that Israel has done in this region. NETANYAHUU
Speaker 1: is on record saying that he supported Hamas he wanted
Speaker 1: to bolster Hamas thing because they were an obstacle to
Speaker 1: a two state solution, and he didn't want a two
Speaker 1: state solution. So to say all of these things isn't
Speaker 1: to say, ergo Hamas is good or ergo it's all
Speaker 1: Israel's fault that they got their citizens massacred.
Speaker 5: It's to understand the history.
Speaker 1: So that we can try to keep people safe and
Speaker 1: avoid conflicts and avoid terrorism and avoid war in the future.
Speaker 1: And so I just find the whole, like the entire
Speaker 1: moral panic over this bin Laden letter situation, to be absurd,
Speaker 1: Like on every single level, I find it completely absurd.
Speaker 3: It's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: And the last thing we should mention is that there was,
Speaker 4: originally from people, including myself, speculation that the Beijing owned
Speaker 4: app TikTok was could be in some ways tweaking with
Speaker 4: the algorithm to make this amplify this in the United States.
Speaker 4: And actually TikTok saying that they're aggressively banning the content
Speaker 4: doesn't mean that that wasn't necessarily happening in Beijing.
Speaker 3: But I don't think it does.
Speaker 4: I don't think we actually even need TikTok, as the
Speaker 4: Google data that the Washiant and post polled shows.
Speaker 3: We don't need TikTok.
Speaker 4: We don't need Instagram like the Russian memes from twenty
Speaker 4: sixteen that they actually did put like thirty thousand dollars
Speaker 4: behind or whatever it was, to have some minimal effect.
Speaker 4: We're trying to prey on these divisions over transiteology and
Speaker 4: Black Lives Matter and all of this stuff in the US.
Speaker 4: Our foreign adversaries know that we're already completely divided along
Speaker 4: these lines, and they already know how powerful this stuff is.
Speaker 4: We actually don't need them to pour gasoline on the fire.
Speaker 4: Shouldn't allow them to pour gasoline on the fire.
Speaker 3: But even if they do the.
Speaker 4: Fires already burning, they might make the fire worse, but
Speaker 4: the fire is already burning because of plenty of the
Speaker 4: problems that we have on our own. And as of
Speaker 4: like ten years ago, people can go read this in
Speaker 4: the Washington Post. There were CIA textbooks they were made
Speaker 4: in like Missouri or Colorado, that were encouraging and writing
Speaker 4: about jihad in Afghanistan that were from Madrasas, and as
Speaker 4: of ten years ago they were still circulating. They're from
Speaker 4: like the nineteen eighties. That is still a completely There
Speaker 4: are still completely real fault lines that stem from this
Speaker 4: Cold War ideology that are driving the conflicts today right now.
Speaker 4: I mean, some of these things are still being driven
Speaker 4: by them. So we need to be honest about it.
Speaker 4: And if we aren't, people should expect the political establishment
Speaker 4: should expect a whole lot more sentiment exactly like this.
Speaker 1: And that is a great point because a lot of
Speaker 1: this does come down to cope that the younger generations
Speaker 1: have a very different view of this conflict. And I
Speaker 1: don't think you can look at the pole like none
Speaker 1: of these social media platforms are so powerful that what
Speaker 1: they serve you just like instantly brainwatches people into whatever
Speaker 1: view they're promoting. There is a genuine generational break in
Speaker 1: the way that people view this conflict between Israel Palestine,
Speaker 1: and I think that is attributed to a lot of things.
Speaker 5: Sagar and I had a conversation about this.
Speaker 1: I think part of it is that young people didn't
Speaker 1: grow up in this Cold War era where it was like,
Speaker 1: these are our friends and that's that, and this sense
Speaker 1: of like, you know, being existential, that we just back
Speaker 1: our friends against the bad guys no matter what.
Speaker 5: And I think it also is.
Speaker 1: Attributable to the fact that there is less of a
Speaker 1: lock on what people are able to see and the
Speaker 1: media that they're able to consume. There's a lot of reasons,
Speaker 1: I'm sure multifaceted, that have led to that, but it's organic.
Speaker 1: It's very clear in every single poll that comes out.
Speaker 1: And I don't know that the TikTok algorithm has a
Speaker 1: whole lot to do with it, right, No.
Speaker 3: I agree completely.
Speaker 4: Let's move on to what is roiling x dot com
Speaker 4: formerly known as Twitter over the last couple of days,
Speaker 4: which is Elon Musk firing off a couple of tweets,
Speaker 4: which it's no stranger to the advertisers on AX, so
Speaker 4: the board of over at AX or the people in
Speaker 4: the sort of c suite at ACX at this point
Speaker 4: that Elon Musk sort of doing what Elon Musk does
Speaker 4: and firing off some tweets can cause these massive explosions
Speaker 4: of controversy as it regards to their business.
Speaker 3: So let's put this first tear sheet up on the screen.
Speaker 3: This is from The Guardian.
Speaker 4: The headline is Elon Musk agrees with tweet accusing Jewish
Speaker 4: people of quote hatred against whites. This then spurred by
Speaker 4: the way he was referring to this weird tweet that
Speaker 4: said I'm going to read it actually because if you're listening,
Speaker 4: you can see it on the screen if you're watching,
Speaker 4: But if you're listening, I think it's actually helpful to
Speaker 4: see the whole thing that he was responding to. Okay,
Speaker 4: Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical
Speaker 4: hatred against whites that they can that they claim to
Speaker 4: want people to stop using against them. I'm deeply disinterested
Speaker 4: in giving the tiniest shit now about Western Jewish populations.
Speaker 4: Coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities
Speaker 4: that support flooding their country. Don't exactly like them too much.
Speaker 4: You want truth said to your.
Speaker 3: Face there it is, so Elon Musk replies, you have
Speaker 3: said the actual truth. After this, as you can.
Speaker 4: Imagine, it spurs a huge advertising pullout. So this is
Speaker 4: from Axios. They have a list of companies that have
Speaker 4: suspended their ads on X, and they posted this to X. Actually, Apple, IBM, Disney, Comcast, Slash, NBC, Universal,
Speaker 4: lions Gate Entertainment, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount. This is really
Speaker 4: something crystal that already just in the last few hours.
Speaker 4: I'm actually kind of surprised a lot of those companies
Speaker 4: were still advertizing on X, which I actually, first of all,
Speaker 4: don't imagine is that helpful to some of their business.
Speaker 3: I think it is to generating buzz.
Speaker 4: You know, you can understand why Paramount or Disney or
Speaker 4: for example, would be advertising there. But you know, I'm
Speaker 4: actually surprised, given what's been happening, when they were still
Speaker 4: on there in any significant way.
Speaker 3: But this gets really interesting, So let's put the next
Speaker 3: element up.
Speaker 4: This is from Matt Binder, who says Eli Musk is
Speaker 4: so mad about all the advertisers fleeing X. He announced
Speaker 4: he's going to sue Media Matters, and in his statement
Speaker 4: he appears to confirm the accuracy of their reports in
Speaker 4: an attempt to downplay it.
Speaker 3: Good luck with the lawsuit.
Speaker 4: So this is a Musk's tweet of a statement that
Speaker 4: he said, quote the split second court opens on Monday.
Speaker 4: Ex court will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media
Speaker 4: Matters and all those who colluded in this fraudulent attack
Speaker 4: on our company. Stephen Miller, the Attorney General also of Missouri,
Speaker 4: reply to Elon Musk and basically we're saying fraud is serious.
Speaker 4: The Age of Missouri said, we're looking into this. Stephen
Speaker 4: Miller said fraud is both a civil and criminal offense.
Speaker 4: So that they are saying Media Matters, who put together
Speaker 4: this report, They said, basically their report is what gets
Speaker 4: advertisers to flee.
Speaker 3: They've done this with Fox News before.
Speaker 4: They do this all the time and tell places like
Speaker 4: Disney and Apple that their posts are appearing next to
Speaker 4: anti Semitic posts, so that their advertising content content is
Speaker 4: appearing next to anti Semitic posts. And so Elon Musk
Speaker 4: puts out this statement that says, of the five point
Speaker 4: five billion ad impressions on x that day. This is
Speaker 4: of the Media Matters report the day they studied, less
Speaker 4: than fifty total AD impressions were served against all of
Speaker 4: the organic content featured in the Media Matters article. For
Speaker 4: one brand showcase in the article, one of its ad
Speaker 4: adjacent to a post two times, and that ad was
Speaker 4: seen in the setting by only two users, one of
Speaker 4: which was the author of the Medium Matters piece. And
Speaker 4: this is Media Matters puts together. I think these stupid reports,
Speaker 4: like sloppy reports, silly reports. But advertisers are so sensitive
Speaker 4: about these things right now, especially when you have Elon
Speaker 4: Musk tweeting things like this. They're so sensitive to the
Speaker 4: public backlash that they will respond to Media Matters like this. Also,
Speaker 4: they're sort of already sympathetic to the ideological bent of
Speaker 4: Media Matters. So it's fairly easy for Media Matters to
Speaker 4: sort of control advertisers with things like this. We saw
Speaker 4: them again do it with target Carson Show on Fox.
Speaker 3: News and other things.
Speaker 4: But Elon is accusing Media Matters of creating fraudulently like
Speaker 4: a puppet account and following accounts taking activities to tweak
Speaker 4: the out or to mess with the algorithm so that
Speaker 4: it would serve them up the worst content on X.
Speaker 4: Now there are people calling for Linda Yakarino, who's in
Speaker 4: charge of what trust and safety at.
Speaker 5: She's the CEO.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's the one who She came from NBC and
Speaker 1: the whole ones because she was the head of advertising
Speaker 1: at NBC. And the idea was that she has all
Speaker 1: these like brand relationships and she'd be able to bring
Speaker 1: the brands back over to X and make them feel
Speaker 1: comfy having their ads placed there.
Speaker 4: Right, that's right, and so Musk had said on Friday,
Speaker 4: quote as I said earlier this week, decolonization from the
Speaker 4: river to the sea and similar euphemism to necessarily imply genocide.
Speaker 4: Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of
Speaker 4: service and result in suspension. Jonathan green Blat of the
Speaker 4: Anti Defamation League responded to Elon Musk and said, this
Speaker 4: is an important and welcome moved by Elon Musk. I
Speaker 4: appreciate this leadership in fighting hate.
Speaker 3: Jakarino had also put out a statement without mentioning Musk,
Speaker 3: there's no room for anti Semitism hate on X period.
Speaker 5: Else is from the CEO, so Chrystal.
Speaker 3: These are kind of two separate things on the one hand,
Speaker 3: you have the Media Matters report. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: you have Elon Musk and what he posted.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that sort of creates the fire, but in some
Speaker 4: ways is separate because there's all of these different layers
Speaker 4: when we're just talking about the media Matters but Musk
Speaker 4: himself him expressing that sentiment. What did you make of
Speaker 4: his reply to the random post that he has no
Speaker 4: reason to replay too well?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I'm just dense because when I
Speaker 1: first read it, I just didn't understand it. Like the
Speaker 1: Dielectric electrical hatred. It wasn't a conspiracy that I was
Speaker 1: personally really familiar with.
Speaker 5: So I just didn't understand it. I mean I did.
Speaker 1: I have, like the reference to minority hordes. I was like,
Speaker 1: that sounds bad. But then Matt Iglecie has to actually
Speaker 1: explained it. It's like why this helped me? Sorry, and
Speaker 1: it didn't help me. It was like, Oh, what they're
Speaker 1: saying is that Jews, because they vote for Democrats, deserved
Speaker 1: to die basically is the idea. And so yeah, to
Speaker 1: have Elon Musk co signing that, like, ain't that the truth?
Speaker 5: Brother? It's like this is wild.
Speaker 1: And then to see On the other hand, the ADL
Speaker 1: guy who's out there calling everybody antis coming out and
Speaker 1: being like, good job on banning certain words from your platform,
Speaker 1: and I stand, you know this is great, and I
Speaker 1: support you when you you legit, just like there is
Speaker 1: no two ways around the fact what Elon mus said
Speaker 1: is like wildly anti Semitic and and like anti Muslim
Speaker 1: and problematic on all sorts of levels. So there's that
Speaker 1: piece of the story which I think speaks to something
Speaker 1: I've been tracking, which is that you know, many of
Speaker 1: the people on the right who were so against identity
Speaker 1: politics and now are sounding very much like the left
Speaker 1: used to and throwing the word anti Semitic around all
Speaker 1: the time, and you know, engaging their own form of
Speaker 1: identity politics and safetyism and whatever. It's not actually anti
Speaker 1: Semitism that they have a big problem with, it's criticism
Speaker 1: of Israel. Like that's the thing the Ben Shapiro and
Speaker 1: Candace Owens dispute. As a primary example of this, Candace
Speaker 1: said some crazy stuff about how what Hitler did was
Speaker 1: fine except he wanted to take his ambitions worldwide or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't want to miss quote, or you can go
Speaker 1: and read the quote. It was an issue at the time,
Speaker 1: and lots of people condemned her for it, that he
Speaker 1: apparently didn't have a problem with because he then hires
Speaker 1: her at the Daily Wire. But when she's critical of Israel,
Speaker 1: that's where he says, this is repugnant. I think that's
Speaker 1: the word of disgusting. Maybe is the word that he used,
Speaker 1: that this is absolutely disgraceful, disgraceful.
Speaker 5: There you go, Thank you for reminding me of the
Speaker 5: exact words that he used. There.
Speaker 1: That's where he draws the line. And it's very similar
Speaker 1: with the ADL. Jonathan green Blad has come out and
Speaker 1: said that, you know, it's very clear that anti Zionism
Speaker 1: is anti Semitism.
Speaker 5: That's insane.
Speaker 1: Zionism is a political ideology. You can critique that, and
Speaker 1: there are many Jews who are not Zionists, by the way,
Speaker 1: and there are many non Jews who are Zionists.
Speaker 5: So it's a political ideology. Of course you can critique it.
Speaker 1: Of course you can critique the Israeli government without being
Speaker 1: an anti semit So there's that piece of it. Then
Speaker 1: the Media Matters piece is Media Matter is obviously an
Speaker 1: activist organization and one of their specialties is weaponizing capitalism
Speaker 1: against companies right and Twitter. The reason all of these
Speaker 1: social media platforms have very similar content moderation policies is
Speaker 1: not because of the individual billionaire owners or words or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's because it's what the advertisers demand. So if you
Speaker 1: can show Apple that their ad was displayed next to
Speaker 1: some hitler post, and then you have the you know,
Speaker 1: the the Twitter head of Twitter dude whatever his technical
Speaker 1: title is, now being like by the way I share
Speaker 1: your antisemitic conspiracy, you can understand why they'd be like,
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to take.
Speaker 5: My ad dollars somewhere else.
Speaker 1: And obviously Twitter already in the you know, in the tank,
Speaker 1: in the toilet or whatever in terms of their revenue
Speaker 1: under Elon Musk's leaderships. So there's a lot of layers here,
Speaker 1: and all of them are kind of interesting.
Speaker 4: The funny thing to me about Media Matters is that
Speaker 4: they don't, I don't think inside Media Matters they see
Speaker 4: these little studies they do as like scientific or anything
Speaker 4: that could like withstand peer review. I mean obviously not,
Speaker 4: but like the media treats them that way. And I
Speaker 4: think that's so funny that the.
Speaker 1: Media Matters is very pro censorship, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: they are, like, I guess, sort of consistently pro censorship.
Speaker 5: I guess I would give them that.
Speaker 1: But and then elon mister free speech, then he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can't say these certain words the river to the sea, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, you when Israelis say it,
Speaker 1: and there was a who was it is reelly like
Speaker 1: minister leadership. Israeli Foreign minister recently said from the river
Speaker 1: to the sea there will be secure Yeah, there will,
Speaker 1: he said, from the Jordan to the sea, there will
Speaker 1: be security control at all times moving forward.
Speaker 5: That's fine.
Speaker 1: But when Palestinians, some of whom I'm sure do use
Speaker 1: it as like, you know, wipe them all out, and
Speaker 1: plenty of whom mean it as in we want one
Speaker 1: state with equal rights. That sound of bounds, decolonization out
Speaker 1: of bounds. But you know, listen, if you're a pro
Speaker 1: censorship dude, I guess all right, but you're supposed to
Speaker 1: be mister free speech, and you can't use these words
Speaker 1: and phrases on your site.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 4: I think the right needs to be more consistent on
Speaker 4: this period. I think free speech people needs to be
Speaker 4: more consistent on this period because this long per date's
Speaker 4: October seventh. And you know, there's a really serious problem
Speaker 4: with inflation, like definition inflation that we talk about on
Speaker 4: the right all of the time when it comes to
Speaker 4: words like racism and bigotry. Particularly one that's really obvious
Speaker 4: is white supremacy, sort of taking how a lot of
Speaker 4: people used to understand those terms and the definition that
Speaker 4: we used to sort of have consensus on, and then
Speaker 4: at least briefly, and then inflating it to include people
Speaker 4: who are acting in good faith, are decent and civil,
Speaker 4: but you just disagree with them and you weaponize the
Speaker 4: term by wrapping it into it. That happens with anti
Speaker 4: semitism on the right. That is the way that the
Speaker 4: definition is often inflated. And I think sometimes there is
Speaker 4: very much anti semitism that gets ignored in the press
Speaker 4: and that people don't talk about. But there are a
Speaker 4: whole lot of other things. Decolonization is not necessarily necessarily
Speaker 4: anti semitism.
Speaker 3: To talk, no, it's absurd. And if Elon Musk, by
Speaker 3: the way, wants to take the side.
Speaker 4: Of the Guardian in deep platforming things that are uncomfortable.
Speaker 4: When we were talking about the Islama bin Laden letter,
Speaker 4: last segment and the Guardian.
Speaker 3: Pulling it down.
Speaker 4: That is a bad move, even though it's Osama bin laden,
Speaker 4: because we need to be able to read these things.
Speaker 4: And even if you think from the River to the
Speaker 4: Sea is what Elon Musk is saying, it is even
Speaker 4: if you agree with him that you know, and I
Speaker 4: generally do think that a lot of times it is
Speaker 4: used with the sort of wink wink, you know, you
Speaker 4: kind of know what I mean. Not always, but I
Speaker 4: think sometimes it is used that way. Even if you
Speaker 4: think that's always how it's used, it should be allowed
Speaker 4: on your free speech absolutist platform because the minute you
Speaker 4: start banning things is when bad ideas metastasize in the shadows.
Speaker 4: The minute you start banning things is when people get
Speaker 4: really curious about them, and it's when you give them power.
Speaker 4: You give things power by banning them. And we should
Speaker 4: all be able to read exactly where everybody stands on this.
Speaker 4: And I understand advertisers not wanting their content on that.
Speaker 4: Then he needs to figure out another business model, which
Speaker 4: he's sort of trying to do. But this is not,
Speaker 4: I mean, this is not the sort of magic wand
Speaker 4: that fixes this free speech magic wand that makes Twitter
Speaker 4: suddenly better again. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Jim Zogbie shared a poll of when Palestinians say, you know,
Speaker 1: one state or from the river to the sea, they
Speaker 1: mean they tend to mean, and again I'm not saying
Speaker 1: in all cases, one state with equal rights for everyone.
Speaker 5: Now israelis Jewish.
Speaker 1: Israelis see that as an existential threat because they see
Speaker 1: the Jewish nature of their state as being an essential quality.
Speaker 1: And if everyone in the territory from the river to
Speaker 1: the sea had equal rights, you would no longer have
Speaker 1: that Jewish majority, and so that's why they see it
Speaker 1: as existential. But the number of genocidal posts that you
Speaker 1: see coming from Israeli ministers are like wipe them out,
Speaker 1: a race them all, who are actively arguing for displacing
Speaker 1: them all permanently out of Gaza.
Speaker 5: And that's all find and good.
Speaker 1: It makes it very difficult for me to stomach this
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, freak out over a chant
Speaker 1: that has been used for a long time and attempt
Speaker 1: to demonize a chant that many people genuinely do mean
Speaker 1: as like a call for one state with equal rights,
Speaker 1: whether you support that solution or not. But I think
Speaker 1: your point is the most important one, Emily, which is
Speaker 1: that listen, if you support free.
Speaker 5: Speech, you don't get to pick and choose.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't get to pick and choose when
Speaker 1: a speech that I don't like, and there's plenty of it, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: most of what.
Speaker 5: He says, not most, but some, you know, you don't like.
Speaker 1: Making space for speech that you find abhorrent is kind
Speaker 1: of the point of free speech. Otherwise those principles don't
Speaker 1: matter at all. So anyway, lot going on there with
Speaker 1: with Elon Musk and the things that he's saying and
Speaker 1: the things that he's doing, and the way that advertisers
Speaker 1: are responding.
Speaker 4: Sure well, perhaps the most influential AI company on the
Speaker 4: face of the earth was thrown into chaos starting on
Speaker 4: Friday when founder Sam Altman was pushed out of the company.
Speaker 4: We're going to get into the whole timeline that transpired
Speaker 4: over the weekend, but let's just start with the news
Speaker 4: after being fired on Friday, Sam Altman, we can put
Speaker 4: this first element up on the screen here. He said,
Speaker 4: I loved my time at Open Ai. It was transformative
Speaker 4: for me personally and hopefully the world a little bit.
Speaker 4: Most of why I loved working with such talented people
Speaker 4: will have more to say about what's next later.
Speaker 3: Well, actually we know what's next.
Speaker 4: After a wild weekend where he's pushed out, he's flirting
Speaker 4: actually with coming back. There's news reports that he's coming back.
Speaker 4: He's posting pictures that suggest maybe he's coming back. It
Speaker 4: turns out he's actually landed at Microsoft. We can put
Speaker 4: the next element up on the screen. He has been
Speaker 4: hired by Microsoft already, so this is just between Friday
Speaker 4: and Monday. He was hired at Microsoft. And if we
Speaker 4: put the next staurshat up on this screen, it followed
Speaker 4: just the wile this weekend I was. I was telling
Speaker 4: Crystal before we started filming this. It was like an
Speaker 4: episode of Succession. And the New York Times has to
Speaker 4: dive into it that they bill as in the headline
Speaker 4: the fear intention that led to Sam Altman's ouster at
Speaker 4: open AI. It looked from reports, especially originally because of
Speaker 4: where the fault lines are now open AIA has a
Speaker 4: really interesting structure. This is from the New York Times
Speaker 4: on Saturday. They said the conflict between fast growth and
Speaker 4: AI safety came into focus on Friday afternoon when mister
Speaker 4: Altman was pushed out of his job by four of
Speaker 4: open AI's six board members. One of the chairman of
Speaker 4: the board actually wasn't on this meeting when they ousted
Speaker 4: Sam Altman. A couple big members of the team. Their
Speaker 4: chief technology officer quit after Altman was pushed out by
Speaker 4: the board, he was asked to join this board meeting
Speaker 4: over video at New San Francisco. They're reading from a
Speaker 4: script according to The New.
Speaker 5: York Times, remote breakup one the remote breakup.
Speaker 4: And you know again, this is one of the most
Speaker 4: interesting parts of it is that they have this nonprofit board.
Speaker 4: Obviously open ai started as a nonprofit. Altman was one
Speaker 4: of the people who actually pushed He was really the
Speaker 4: person who pushed to start funneling all of this corporate
Speaker 4: money into open Ai.
Speaker 3: So their governed by a nonprofit board. I'm reading from
Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 4: Now, only a minority of its members were allowed to
Speaker 4: have a financial stake in the company at any given time.
Speaker 4: According to the company's bylaws, Altman himself had no equity
Speaker 4: in the company, further diminishing his influence with the board.
Speaker 4: This setup, as the Journal continues, allowed the board to
Speaker 4: essentially oust Altman without the consent of some of open
Speaker 4: AI's largest investors, and even though he delivered rapid financial
Speaker 4: access for the company and sent its valuation soaring, because
Speaker 4: the members of the nonprofit board don't exactly have the
Speaker 4: same I guess financial motives or interest in the financial
Speaker 4: motives that somebody like Sam Altman would. After steering all
Speaker 4: of this Microsoft cash and other corporate cash into open Ai.
Speaker 4: And now obviously Altman is going to Microsoft to work
Speaker 4: on AI. That's part of this deal. He's the head
Speaker 4: of their AI operations now, which means presumably he's going
Speaker 4: to be I mean, I would imagine he's still going
Speaker 4: to have because of the stake that Microsoft has an
Speaker 4: open Ai. Altman still apparently has very good will with
Speaker 4: people on the for profit side of open Ai. That's
Speaker 4: why this was really shocking to the AI community. He's
Speaker 4: ousted by this split.
Speaker 3: Crystal.
Speaker 4: I'm really curious to see what you think about this,
Speaker 4: this fundamental split in the AI world between people who
Speaker 4: say we need to reel this in begging for regulation,
Speaker 4: people like Tristan Harris at the Center for Humane Tech,
Speaker 4: which worked with the Biden administration on the recent executive orders.
Speaker 4: So people who are just saying we need to reel
Speaker 4: this back in. This technology is been it's a pendor's box.
Speaker 4: It's opened, and we need to kind of pull it
Speaker 4: back in as quickly as we can. And the sort
Speaker 4: of market indreasing camp that is, you know, full techno optimist,
Speaker 4: and we need to be actually on the accelerator right
Speaker 4: now because there's so much good that can be that
Speaker 4: can come from this and the more sort of profit
Speaker 4: motive and capitalist drive is involved in the process, the
Speaker 4: better it's all going to be.
Speaker 3: Altman is more on the techno optimist side of this.
Speaker 4: He's actually been pushed out by some of these same
Speaker 4: foundational dynamics that he tried to navigate and actually accommodated
Speaker 4: when he was in charge of open ai.
Speaker 1: So the history of open ai is it originally is
Speaker 1: established Altman, actually Elon Musk was involved at that time
Speaker 1: and a number of other people establish open ai as
Speaker 1: an explicitly non profit organization to try to pursue tech,
Speaker 1: including obviously AI, under a nonprofit umbrella so that all
Speaker 1: the decision making wasn't driven by just the profit motive.
Speaker 5: So that was the original I which is.
Speaker 1: A good idea by the way, which is a really
Speaker 1: good idea, and something that I fully support, because I
Speaker 1: do think that there are reasons to be concerned about
Speaker 1: what AI could unintentionally unleash, especially if you have, you know,
Speaker 1: big business controlling the decision making and driving the direction
Speaker 1: of development. Not only are you not going to pursue
Speaker 1: some of the things that actually could be really good
Speaker 1: for humanity because those things don't turn a profit, but
Speaker 1: you also run the risk of unleashing things that are
Speaker 1: really not ready to be unleashed and have inherent risk.
Speaker 5: We got a little bit of.
Speaker 1: A glimpse of this when chat GPT was rolled out,
Speaker 1: And remember there was that brief period before they sort
Speaker 1: of like lobotomized chat GPT where people are having some
Speaker 1: really wild caudles, Some real wild stuff was going on
Speaker 1: over there.
Speaker 5: And part of why you know AI is different than.
Speaker 1: Other tech is I saw someone explain that they may
Speaker 1: have even been saying, altman that explained this, but I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. But you know, like a phone, I don't
Speaker 1: know how a phone work, but I know there are
Speaker 1: people who could tell me how it works, right, who
Speaker 1: could explain, like this piece and this fits with this,
Speaker 1: and this is how like there's a functionality that.
Speaker 5: Human beings understand with large language models.
Speaker 1: It's not like that you feed in all of this
Speaker 1: insane astronomical amounts of data and you create something that
Speaker 1: is different that you can't just there's no human being
Speaker 1: on the planet who could tell you, like, if you
Speaker 1: ask the chat GPT this question or the AI this question,
Speaker 1: because of how it's programmed, you're going to get this result.
Speaker 1: That's what makes it such a that's what makes it
Speaker 1: so different, that's what makes it so frankly scary. That's
Speaker 1: what makes it something that you should approach with some
Speaker 1: caution and care and not just leave up to the
Speaker 1: whims of markets and people who want to turn a
Speaker 1: huge profit on it. So yeah, I mean that's sort
Speaker 1: of the overall state of affairs. And my eyebrows were
Speaker 1: firmly raised when open ai shifted to making this big
Speaker 1: business deal with Microsoft. I had a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about the direction that would go in. Sam was very
Speaker 1: outfront being like, no, it's fine, I totally trust them.
Speaker 5: It's going to be all good.
Speaker 1: The other cultural divide, or like philosophical divide in Silicon Valley, too,
Speaker 1: is between the effective altruists that we've covered in the
Speaker 1: context of Sam Bankman Freed, who have this philosophy that is, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the best we need to calculate the best,
Speaker 1: greatest good that our dollars can be put towards. We
Speaker 1: should do everything we can to get wealthy and then
Speaker 1: use that money in these like directed ways towards the
Speaker 1: things that we find to be the greatest threat to
Speaker 1: humanity and civilization. And put your feelings aside about whatever
Speaker 1: cause like emotionally moves you, and we'll.
Speaker 5: Just do this complex calculus. I have all sorts of
Speaker 5: issues with that. I did a monologue on it. You
Speaker 5: can listen to it.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that they identified as one
Speaker 1: of the grave risks that a lot of money should
Speaker 1: be funneled into is the threat from AI, sort of
Speaker 1: AI gone wild.
Speaker 5: I guess you would say. Another one was pandemic preparedness.
Speaker 1: That's why Sam Beakman Freed's thing was always like cloaked in,
Speaker 1: Oh sure, it's not about me getting the regulation or
Speaker 1: the non regulation I want of crypto. It's really about
Speaker 1: pandemic preparedness. Anyway, AI development was the other big cause,
Speaker 1: or one of the other big causes that they're devoting to.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of silicon valley and tech types who
Speaker 1: are do believe in the effective altruist like system, and
Speaker 1: so that is part of the split here, and the
Speaker 1: tension as well between the direction Sam was going in
Speaker 1: in the direction that the board wanted to go in.
Speaker 4: And that's again interesting about this, Like there are experts,
Speaker 4: there are people reporters who cover this really closely who
Speaker 4: say it's not necessarily we don't know definitively that the
Speaker 4: reason he was originally pushed out was because people were like,
Speaker 4: whoa Sam Altman? Uh, you know, the nonprofit board was like,
Speaker 4: we just got to pump the brakes on all of this.
Speaker 4: So much as it could have been that, or it
Speaker 4: could have been that these tensions stem from that fundamental
Speaker 4: disconnect between Altman and the nonprofit board and in other
Speaker 4: sort of then logistical, downstream ways, he ended up sort
Speaker 4: of on their chopping board. So if it's tensions that
Speaker 4: come from that initial disagreement, or it was front and
Speaker 4: center the initial disagreement itself, I'm sure we'll learn more
Speaker 4: and more about in the days to come. But this
Speaker 4: conversation about AI find so incredibly frustrating because the techno
Speaker 4: optimist side of this will point to all of these
Speaker 4: silly pessimists. They lovey tweeting that pessimist Twitter page that
Speaker 4: we're worried about the Internet, that we're worried about cell phones,
Speaker 4: that were worried about whatever else it was, We're worried
Speaker 4: about cars. They liked their horses of all of that,
Speaker 4: first of all, as a way to dismiss pessimists. Now,
Speaker 4: those pessimists made the eventual product product safer and better,
Speaker 4: So denigrating the pessimists is not helping the product. Second
Speaker 4: of all, Yes, the call for regulations that sometimes is
Speaker 4: the baptist and bootlaggers, it is the protectionist, it is
Speaker 4: crony capitalism, and it is driven sometimes by apocalyptic fears.
Speaker 4: But actually those apocalyptic fears are held by people who
Speaker 4: are not just tech outsiders who don't understand the tech
Speaker 4: like we necessarily like we don't, we can't tell you
Speaker 4: how the phone works. They're actually, as you mentioned, people
Speaker 4: who do understand how this tech works, have developed the
Speaker 4: tech are also in the camp of the pessimists, not
Speaker 4: all of them, but many of them are. So to
Speaker 4: then act as the people who don't understand the tech
Speaker 4: are only afraid because they're ignorant, is again stupid.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Speaker 4: And this conversation was just once again thrust to the
Speaker 4: forefront with the aster of Altman over the weekend. So
Speaker 4: now he's the head of Microsoft, which has tons and
Speaker 4: tons of money. Putting tons and tons of money into
Speaker 4: AI is massively powerful, Crystal. I don't think we got
Speaker 4: any step closer to say for AI over the weekend.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so. And there's two separate genres
Speaker 1: of AI concern. One of them is like the apocalyptic scenario,
Speaker 1: like the AI is going to kill us all and
Speaker 1: you know, or like unleash something that is unpredictable, et cetera.
Speaker 1: There's that one, even if you don't buy into that one.
Speaker 1: The other one, though, is that you have massive job
Speaker 1: loss triggered by rapid AI development, which is something that
Speaker 1: you know, corporate titans like they're all for So that's
Speaker 1: part of why people are concerned by this being controlled
Speaker 1: by the for profit sector of society. And as you say, Emily,
Speaker 1: you know, not just people who are outside of it
Speaker 1: and don't understand, but actually people who are intimately knowledgeable
Speaker 1: and involved with the development of AI. But I would
Speaker 1: also just say that sometimes people who have a little
Speaker 1: bit of a remove, who aren't emotionally invested in the
Speaker 1: development of extra Y or Z, but have almost like
Speaker 1: a layman's perspective on what this could mean and what
Speaker 1: it can unleash. Those views are also really valuable because
Speaker 1: you know, at times people get so into the weeds
Speaker 1: and so like in love with the technology itself that
Speaker 1: they have an incentive to downplay the risks and downplay
Speaker 1: some of the consequences. So personally, I don't I wouldn't
Speaker 1: dismiss you know, people who are sounding alarms who don't
Speaker 1: have intimate familiarity with exactly what the tech is or
Speaker 1: what it does.
Speaker 4: Let's move on to a pretty massive l from CNN
Speaker 4: over the last few days, which you know takes a
Speaker 4: lot of l's actually, but this one I think is
Speaker 4: worth discussing.
Speaker 11: Here.
Speaker 4: I'm going to play a clip. This is Anderson Cooper
Speaker 4: UH Friday. This is a guest on Anderson Cooper's show,
Speaker 4: a former is really Intelligence chief talking on CNN on
Speaker 4: Friday night.
Speaker 3: Let's just watch the clip and then Crystal and I
Speaker 3: will discuss and.
Speaker 16: In the south of several areas, we have been asking
Speaker 16: the godsen uh to move to the Mowassee area, which
Speaker 16: is the area closest to the seat Uh and this
Speaker 16: is where the big ten cities have been established. Fighting
Speaker 16: in the southern Honurnis does not mean that we're fighting
Speaker 16: in the same area. And as you've seen in the
Speaker 16: couple in the last couple of weeks, the fighting is
Speaker 16: very surgical, it is slow, it is very methodical. We
Speaker 16: are trying not to reach any of the non combatant
Speaker 16: population in the Gaza Strip, and I think that there
Speaker 16: is no way that we can eradicate the Hamas without
Speaker 16: dealing with most of its forces that have been that
Speaker 16: have fled to the south.
Speaker 10: Now again one little note. The noncombatant population in the
Speaker 10: Gaza Strip is really a non existent term because all
Speaker 10: of the Gazans have voted for the Hamas, and as
Speaker 10: we have seen on the seventh of October, most of
Speaker 10: the population in the Gaza Strip a Haamas.
Speaker 16: Nonetheless, we are treating them as non combatant, we are
Speaker 16: treating them as regular civilians, and they are spared from
Speaker 16: the fighting.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: So again the quote there the non combatant population of
Speaker 4: the Gaza Strip is really a non existent term because
Speaker 4: all of the Gazzens voted for Hamas, and as we've
Speaker 4: seen on the seventh of October, most of the population
Speaker 4: in the Gaza strip are Hamas. That's the quote from
Speaker 4: the four is really intelligence Chief. Anderson Cooper just gets
Speaker 4: piled on when this video is posted to Twitter. For
Speaker 4: Kenna does a little squint when his guests said that,
Speaker 4: but basically let it go. You can you just heard
Speaker 4: in the clip or saw on the clip. He moved
Speaker 4: on to another topic completely after that statement was made, which,
Speaker 4: of course there is pretty relevant context and the question.
Speaker 4: But first of all, even if you're on the side
Speaker 4: of that Israeli Intelligence chief, you could talk about how
Speaker 4: there were supportive demonstrations on October seventh and Gaza the
Speaker 4: people were, you know, in some sense supportive of what
Speaker 4: happened on October seventh.
Speaker 3: But that's not the same as an election.
Speaker 4: And the last election that happened, as you pointed out
Speaker 4: earlier in today's show, was before like half of the
Speaker 4: population in Gaza was alive, let alone able to vote,
Speaker 4: able to vote.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Anderson Cooper just moves on from them.
Speaker 5: Maybe Anderson Cooper had just read Bin LUN's letter to America.
Speaker 1: And was persuaded persuaded by his logic that actually there
Speaker 1: are no civilian combatants. Since you have elections, it's fair
Speaker 1: game to massa her civilians or certainly the IDF dude
Speaker 1: maybe had just let agreed with the bin laden letters.
Speaker 1: You know what, Osama's got a point. What's up with
Speaker 1: this non combatant think? No, I mean, listen, there's so
Speaker 1: much policing of like rally chance of people who are
Speaker 1: basically powerless or like the Harvard letter, which we talked
Speaker 1: about here and which I had, is like, you can't
Speaker 1: say Israel is solely responsible for what Hamas did on
Speaker 1: October seventh. Hamas also guys has some responsibility, and.
Speaker 3: What's that responsibility? By the way they want to claim
Speaker 3: the responsibility.
Speaker 1: True, but for all of the you know, policing of
Speaker 1: that rhetoric, you've got someone with actual power here on
Speaker 1: a cable news network outwardly laying out a case for
Speaker 1: Jenaside while he's like, oh, well, of course we're doing
Speaker 1: what we can about civilians, but also there's not really civilians,
Speaker 1: so eh, who really cares?
Speaker 5: And zero pushback, zero pushback.
Speaker 1: You could not imagine the same thing happening on the
Speaker 1: other side if you had somebody on there who was
Speaker 1: like making the case that well, actually, all of these
Speaker 1: Israeli civilians, like they're not really civilians because they voted
Speaker 1: for Nanna Who, and they're complicit in the apartheid and
Speaker 1: like the blockade and the occupation, so they basically use access.
Speaker 1: There's no way that that would go unchallenged, and it shouldn't.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't by the way, But here this just becomes
Speaker 1: so normalized and commonplace, and it becomes rhetoric that we
Speaker 1: hear all the time that you know, the most Anderson
Speaker 1: Cooper can muster here is like a little squinting of
Speaker 1: his eyes before he moves on to the next stop.
Speaker 3: It's the Tucker Carlson squint a little bit.
Speaker 5: He's taking his cues from Bin Laden and Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 4: Okay, wow, So CNN has taken a few l's over
Speaker 4: the course of this context. Actually one of them from
Speaker 4: the other side is when they kind of immediately like
Speaker 4: the New York Times and some other outlets ran with
Speaker 4: the hamas framing of the initial hospital. This was like
Speaker 4: right after October seventh. People kind of remember when a
Speaker 4: hospital was hit. We still don't know exactly what happened
Speaker 4: with it, but as as Israel not claims as the
Speaker 4: US now claims Hamas missile hitt A hospital. CNN took
Speaker 4: a lot of heat for sort of like The New
Speaker 4: York Times. Basically, many major news outlets ran with the
Speaker 4: information that they had. That was one of the first
Speaker 4: blunders that I think see in an experience over the
Speaker 4: course of this conflict. But from the other side, let's
Speaker 4: look at this footage they ran. This is actually like
Speaker 4: a package, as it's called in the in the biz.
Speaker 4: A package they ran from this is Al Shifa man.
Speaker 4: The HuffPost did a dive. Here's the next element on
Speaker 4: what happened. CNN quietly cut, according to the Post headline,
Speaker 4: disputed Israeli military claim from some video reports. Huff Post
Speaker 4: rights in several other broadcasts of Robertson's report, which had included.
Speaker 3: We talked about this earlier in the show. A calendar
Speaker 3: that was supposed to be like a harmas.
Speaker 1: It was a shift, yes, where Hamas militants or terrorists
Speaker 1: were recording their names for their shifts of watching the
Speaker 1: hostages right, and in reality it was a calendar.
Speaker 4: Nobody knows how this aired because CNN, first of all,
Speaker 4: obviously Israel has people who speak Arabic. The IDEAF has
Speaker 4: people who speak Arabic, and you'd think before giving CNN
Speaker 4: and other people tours of this facility and making a
Speaker 4: claim that would easily be vetable, and you would of
Speaker 4: course make sure that you met that. Why would CNN
Speaker 4: then air You know, It's one thing for a sort
Speaker 4: of government engaged in a conflict to push propaganda. It's
Speaker 4: an entirely different thing for a media outlet to sort
Speaker 4: of run with it. CNN has not, by the way,
Speaker 4: they have changed this package, as you know they have.
Speaker 4: They're being shown through this kind of battleground area around
Speaker 4: Al Shifa by the IDEF. They run a package based
Speaker 4: on that, with the Arabic calendar, with that claim that
Speaker 4: it's a hostage like shift schedule for Hamas, and then
Speaker 4: it sort of disappears as huff Post catches. They're saying
Speaker 4: in several other broadcasts as well as on the CNN
Speaker 4: YouTube page on their website, none of the false information
Speaker 4: actually was there. Instead, they say, Robertson's report skips ahead
Speaker 4: to the journalists asking Hagari from the IDF about other hospitals,
Speaker 4: and the IDF spokesperson arguing, quote, we were right to fire.
Speaker 3: Upon al Rontisi.
Speaker 4: In an email to huff Post, a CNN spokesperson acknowledged
Speaker 4: the report, which first aired on Kaitlin Collins's program, was
Speaker 4: quote cut purely for length for subsequent shows.
Speaker 5: Not for personal embarrassment and humiliation.
Speaker 4: Sure, yes, the spokesperson argued that such cuts were quote
Speaker 4: not uncommon at all, especially given the nine minute length
Speaker 4: of the original segment, and huff Post continues, CNN has
Speaker 4: seemingly provided no acknowledgment or explanation to its online readership
Speaker 4: about these scenes apparently being cut from other versions of
Speaker 4: Robertson's report. The cnn dot com page for the report
Speaker 4: includes no editor's note or clarification, nor to CNN's YouTube page.
Speaker 4: That is not common practice, even when news outlets, especially
Speaker 4: for a pretty high profile and a pretty egregious mistake
Speaker 4: like this one, where again it's a mistake. I mean,
Speaker 4: even if you give, like let's say hypothetically we just
Speaker 4: give describe the benefit the doubt to CNN say they
Speaker 4: did everything. You know, sometimes the journalists just make mistakes.
Speaker 4: Sometimes that happens. Well, when it's a mistake, that's as
Speaker 4: I think pretty obvious. You've met calendars in a foreign
Speaker 4: language before allowing a foreign government to make a claim
Speaker 4: about them.
Speaker 3: It's just a journalism one on one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so when you make a mistake, you just issue
Speaker 4: a correction again, like standard operating procedure, common practice in
Speaker 4: the news industry.
Speaker 3: That's not what happened here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is such a pretty good half post report,
Speaker 4: getting CNN even to admit that they weren't amending anything
Speaker 4: that they are claiming. It was just entirely for length,
Speaker 4: which is obviously untrue.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean Caylen Collins should have come out and you know,
Speaker 1: issue a statement on her program since this aired on
Speaker 1: her program. Absolutely, But I mean they're just this is humiliating,
Speaker 1: Like it's humiliating. And the context is that there are
Speaker 1: very few journalists left in Gaza. As we discussed before,
Speaker 1: somewhere around fifty of them have been murdered, killed.
Speaker 5: They're gone.
Speaker 1: There's no foreign journalists allowed in Western journalists unless the
Speaker 1: IDF decides to take you on one of these ride
Speaker 1: alums and then they vet the footage and you are
Speaker 1: only shown what they are willing to show you. You
Speaker 1: aren't allowed to freelance. You know, there were journalists who
Speaker 1: are allowed. I've read the New York Times was allowed
Speaker 1: onto the Alshifa Hospital grounds. They were not allowed to
Speaker 1: go and talk to the doctors, they were not allowed
Speaker 1: to go and talk to the patients. They had to
Speaker 1: be just with the Israeli military. And so you're very
Speaker 1: aware that you're being presented with the version of the
Speaker 1: facts that the Israeli military and the Israeli government wants
Speaker 1: you to show. So if anything, you should be even
Speaker 1: more vigilant and do even more fact checking about what
Speaker 1: it is that they are presenting to the world, because
Speaker 1: you are being used for their propaganda, like there's just
Speaker 1: no other way around it. Now, Listen, you may say
Speaker 1: it's worth accepting those conditions so that at least there
Speaker 1: is some picture of what is happening there, and also
Speaker 1: it's worth knowing what their version of the propaganda is,
Speaker 1: but it should always be framed in that context. So
Speaker 1: it's utterly humiliating for them that, given that state of affairs,
Speaker 1: they just run with these claims of the calendar, which
Speaker 1: is easily debunkable, which again, CNN has many Arabic speakers
Speaker 1: on their staff, and they couldn't bother to just check
Speaker 1: in with one of them to see if the claims
Speaker 1: added up and rather than doing the honorable thing admitting
Speaker 1: taken the l y admitting like, guys, we screwed up here,
Speaker 1: we should checked this, we didn't. Here's you know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a Hamas militant recording of their hostages or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's actually just an Arabic language calendar. Sorry for that,
Speaker 1: which would still not totally undo the harm because more
Speaker 1: people always see the original report than correction. But that's
Speaker 1: what you do when you screw up, You take the
Speaker 1: l you admit it. Instead, they tried to do the
Speaker 1: stealth edit and got called out and caught for it
Speaker 1: by the Huffin Post.
Speaker 4: And you know what, Chrys, this goes back to what
Speaker 4: we were talking about earlier in the show, which is,
Speaker 4: and we may disagree on this, but I think it's
Speaker 4: entirely plausible that Hamas could have been operating the tunnels,
Speaker 4: which by the way, are likely the ones built by
Speaker 4: Israel in nineteen eighty three. Is the Tablet magazine reported
Speaker 4: back in twenty fourteen that under Al Shifa these tunnels
Speaker 4: whereas really, I think it's entighly plausible that Hamas. We
Speaker 4: know they operate underground. We know that they've operated beneath hospitals.
Speaker 4: We know that we can debate the specifics, but we
Speaker 4: at least that is true.
Speaker 3: And so it's.
Speaker 4: Possible that Hamas is operating some sort of central command
Speaker 4: center out of Al Shifa or out of the tunnels
Speaker 4: beneath Al Shifa. Possible even if you're sort of you
Speaker 4: agree with me on that point. Israel and of course CNN,
Speaker 4: but definitely Israel is not doing itself any favors. There's
Speaker 4: no way in which lying about these sorts of things,
Speaker 4: or failing to vet these sorts of things are putting
Speaker 4: forward such sloppy propaganda makes any strategic sense whatsoever, because
Speaker 4: all it does is make it much harder, let alone
Speaker 4: for the gossens that want to trust you when you're
Speaker 4: telling them to evacuate to the south and they're skeptical
Speaker 4: as to whether a there'll be a to return and
Speaker 4: be they'll be safe if they're in these crowded refugee
Speaker 4: camps in the south.
Speaker 3: But the sort of western.
Speaker 4: Population where where we're going to talk about some polls
Speaker 4: with the guest next that show a lot of opposition
Speaker 4: to Biden's pro Israel policy that is not helping Israel
Speaker 4: at all.
Speaker 10: This is.
Speaker 3: This is sloppy propaganda. This is you know, I'm not
Speaker 3: begging them for you know, good proper I'm just.
Speaker 5: Saying that by their level of contempt, the strategic.
Speaker 4: Argument they're going around saying transparency, transparency, transparency, the video
Speaker 4: is on our side. Out of Al Shifa, we are
Speaker 4: being transparent. We're putting up these videos, We're giving the
Speaker 4: media tours. These are from the pure cynical strategic standpoint.
Speaker 4: These are massively unforced errors because they're losing trust with
Speaker 4: every single one of these examples. And there's no need
Speaker 4: to claim that a calendar is a hostage watch shift.
Speaker 3: If it's not.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that is all very true.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go ahead and get to Democratic Senate
Speaker 1: candidate in the state of Michigan who has some real
Speaker 1: thoughts about Biden's Israel policy.
Speaker 5: Let's get you.
Speaker 1: Excited to be joined this morning by a Democratic candidate
Speaker 1: for Senate in Michigan. Naser bay dun is a business owner.
Speaker 1: He also was the executive director of the Arab American
Speaker 1: Chamber of Commerce and chair of the Arab American Civil
Speaker 1: Rights League. And it's great to have you joined us
Speaker 1: this morning, sir.
Speaker 8: Welcome, Thank you great to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's our pleasure. So go ahead and put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. From Fox News, you had a
Speaker 1: spicy take here. You are urging Biden to drop out
Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty four race, and you are pointing
Speaker 1: in particular to what you describe as his handling of
Speaker 1: the Israel Gaza conflict, throwing his presidency into a tail spin.
Speaker 1: Just elaborate on why you're making this call and what
Speaker 1: you're seeing there in Michigan.
Speaker 11: Well, you know, being on the ground in Michigan, a
Speaker 11: lot of the people who had supported President Biden in
Speaker 11: the last election say they're unwilling to do so regardless
Speaker 11: who the Republican nominee is in the upcoming election. And
Speaker 11: I think that the Biden camp is banking on the
Speaker 11: fact that people are going to forget about the twelve
Speaker 11: thousand Palestinians killed in Gaza and Biden's inability to do
Speaker 11: anything or is not lying to call for a ceasefire
Speaker 11: and try and put an end to this conflict, and
Speaker 11: people are going to hold that against them. And I think,
Speaker 11: you know, not only in Michigan, but other very vital
Speaker 11: swing states, he's lost a lot large majority of people
Speaker 11: who supported him in the last election.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we can put these poll numbers up on the scene,
Speaker 4: up on the screen. This is from Ben Samuels, who
Speaker 4: looks at some of these quote latest troubling poll numbers
Speaker 4: for Biden on Israel, and these are from NBC News.
Speaker 4: Seventy percent of voters aged eighteen to thirty four, so
Speaker 4: a very young demographic disapprove of his policy. Fifty six
Speaker 4: percent of all voters disapproved of his policy. Fifty one
Speaker 4: percent of Democrats say Israel's gone too far for nine
Speaker 4: percent of Democrats oppose US aid to Israel. So that
Speaker 4: is really interesting, and I'm curious if it is something
Speaker 4: you're also seeing on the ground in Michigan, as you mentioned,
Speaker 4: a swing state that had been sort of a place
Speaker 4: where you had parents going against even the teachers' union
Speaker 4: in a way that caught national media attention when it
Speaker 4: came to books in schools, and people saying, maybe this
Speaker 4: is sending all of these voters to Republicans that roughly
Speaker 4: share Biden's Israel policy. I can imagine as you're traveling
Speaker 4: the state now and talking to people in your state,
Speaker 4: that's definitely not what you're seeing anymore.
Speaker 11: No, it's become a race of which is the better
Speaker 11: of two evils in terms of a lot of the
Speaker 11: people in our community. You've got to remember that Donald
Speaker 11: Trump won Michigan in twenty and sixteen by approximately ten
Speaker 11: thousand volts. Joe Biden won in twenty twenty by about
Speaker 11: one hundred and fifty thousand volts. So it's a very
Speaker 11: small margin of error, and every bolt's going to come
Speaker 11: in this upcoming election. So what's going to happen is
Speaker 11: that you're going to get people who choose not to vote,
Speaker 11: or they're going to vote but not choose anybody at
Speaker 11: the top of the ticket, or maybe go to Robert
Speaker 11: Kennedy or Cardell West as a protest vote. So I
Speaker 11: think that one, President Biden has lost his moral leadership
Speaker 11: in this upcoming election. Two, he's eighty one years old.
Speaker 11: We can see that he doesn't have the vitality to
Speaker 11: run this country for the next four years. And also
Speaker 11: when he ran in twenty twenty, he said he was
Speaker 11: going to be a transitional president. He's going to try
Speaker 11: and fix write what Trump did to this nation and
Speaker 11: lead it put it on a better footing. But now
Speaker 11: that he's in power, he's decided he wants to run
Speaker 11: when he's eighty two for four years.
Speaker 8: And also he has a vice president.
Speaker 11: But a lot of people don't you know, consider as
Speaker 11: a viable alternative to be the next president. We had
Speaker 11: a vice president that was you know, gave people confidence
Speaker 11: that it would be a different scenario.
Speaker 8: But we don't. And I think that if he chooses
Speaker 8: to run, he's going to lose.
Speaker 11: And not only is he going to lose, he's going
Speaker 11: to cost us the majority in the Senate and no
Speaker 11: chance of getting the majority in the House.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: So you put your finger on something when you said
Speaker 1: it's the lesser to evils, and what the White House
Speaker 1: is saying is number one.
Speaker 5: People get over at number two.
Speaker 1: When you're faced with the alternative, all right, it's our
Speaker 1: guy Biden or it's Trump. People are going to remember
Speaker 1: the Muslim band. They're going to remember, you know, the
Speaker 1: chaos of the Trump administration, and they're going to suck
Speaker 1: it up and they're going to go back to the
Speaker 1: polls and they're going to vote for Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: Why do you think that it'll be different this time?
Speaker 11: Well, because you got to remember that when you talk
Speaker 11: to people, they say, oh, the stock market was better
Speaker 11: under Trump.
Speaker 8: Prices were better under Trump. And Trump might have.
Speaker 11: Issued a Muslim ban, but he didn't. He wasn't complacent
Speaker 11: in the depth of twelve thousand Muslims and Gozzim. So
Speaker 11: you know, if they're betting on the fact that Trump
Speaker 11: is the worst of two evils, I think, you know,
Speaker 11: they're miscalculating how people actually feel. This issue has galvanized
Speaker 11: people all across the country. And it's not just Muslims
Speaker 11: and Arab Americans.
Speaker 9: You know, you have.
Speaker 11: Jews, you have Christians, you have anybody that's anti war
Speaker 11: seeing this president take this country and on a course
Speaker 11: that a lot of people don't want to go. And
Speaker 11: you also have to remember when Trump was president, he
Speaker 11: didn't cause any wars, he didn't attack anybody. So people
Speaker 11: are going to look at and I think that President
Speaker 11: Biden and his team are grossly miscalculating how people feel
Speaker 11: and the anger because of what Israel is doing in
Speaker 11: Gaza right.
Speaker 4: Now and a lot of college towns in Michigan in
Speaker 4: your state, nasaur So how are you seeing this dynamic
Speaker 4: translate into the primary campaign for US Senate. Obviously A
Speaker 4: Lisa Slotkin is running for US Senate in Michigan establishment
Speaker 4: Democrat figure actually former CIA, which is interesting in the
Speaker 4: context of this particular issue. So when you see young voters,
Speaker 4: as you point out, not just Arab Americans, but sort
Speaker 4: of across the board, young voters opposing the Biden administration's
Speaker 4: policy here, have you seen some of those dynamics then
Speaker 4: translate into the Democratic primary for the Senate seat in Michigan.
Speaker 11: Definitely, we've seen a lot of momentum. You know, I'm
Speaker 11: a long shot candidate. You know, I'm not your typical
Speaker 11: candidate that's going to be running for US Senate. I've
Speaker 11: never held office before. I'm an immigrant, I'm an Arab,
Speaker 11: I'm Muslim Man, so you know, but I do see
Speaker 11: that our position, our opposition to apex dominance and occupation
Speaker 11: of Congress, is really gaining traction with people. And you
Speaker 11: know you mentioned Alissa Slopkins. Well, if APAX and the
Speaker 11: CIA had a baby, it would be Alyssa Slopkins. So
Speaker 11: you know, we're you know, this is a fight that
Speaker 11: we're going to take to the people of Michigan and
Speaker 11: let them choose who they want to represent them in
Speaker 11: the next US Senate race.
Speaker 1: Lastly, Naser just to go back to the Joe Biden point,
Speaker 1: would you go so far as to say you think
Speaker 1: he's doomed in the state of Michigan based on what
Speaker 1: you're hearing seeing on the ground.
Speaker 11: I will guarantee you that he's doomed in the state
Speaker 11: of Michigan and other states that are going to be
Speaker 11: too close to call, because he has alienated so many people.
Speaker 11: And you would think a person like Joe Biden, who
Speaker 11: lost his wife and a child and then another child,
Speaker 11: would empathize with the Palestinians and the five thousand children
Speaker 11: that have been killed in Gaza in the last forty
Speaker 11: four days. But we see no empathy whatsoever. And then
Speaker 11: you know, President Biden just published a pop ed in
Speaker 11: the Washington Post I believe it was yesterday, and which
Speaker 11: he says that after this, there needs to be a
Speaker 11: Palestinian peace process and there needs to be an outcome
Speaker 11: where the Palestinians have a state.
Speaker 8: Where were you before October seven?
Speaker 11: Why were you trying to circumvent the Palestinians with the
Speaker 11: abraham Accords instead of being, you know, trying to forge
Speaker 11: a peace deal that could have prevented had the Palestinians
Speaker 11: had hope for the last twenty years.
Speaker 8: Maybe we wouldn't have had an October seven.
Speaker 11: But the US, the Arabs, the Israelis have given the
Speaker 11: Palestinians no hope and today is just a culmination of
Speaker 11: you know, their spare and their lack of hope of
Speaker 11: ever establishing what's you know, their rights and their aspirations.
Speaker 5: NASA.
Speaker 1: Lastly, just tell people where they can learn more about
Speaker 1: your campaign.
Speaker 8: Well, they can go to my website at Naser n
Speaker 8: A S S E R four M I f O
Speaker 8: R m I dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, well, good luck to you and we appreciate
Speaker 1: your time this morning and your very clear eyed analysis.
Speaker 8: Thank you, sir, thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: That's it for us today. We will be back tomorrow
Speaker 1: with all of the latest of whatever is happening in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 5: Will see that.
Speaker 9: Kept up keep shop with me up shot with