And so the opposition isn't great enough to
force Israel to stop immediately. So what it's
doing is it's now starving the population of
Gaza, preventing all aid from coming in. This
is where the eighth week of no aid,
no medical aid, no food aid, nothing coming
into the Gaza Strip, collective punishment.
They're now frequently every single day bombing Lebanon
as they're bombing Gaza, of course. They're running
a military operation in the Northern West Bank.
They're still discussing annexation of the West Bank.
They're ethnically cleansing people from East Jerusalem,
and, of course, they're, inside of Syria now.
They've expanded their, territorial domain, and they don't
have any evidence. He hasn't committed a crime.
He's exercising free speech.
This is something that is in shrine by
the constitution and the very being of what
America is supposed to be. Right? You have
freedom of speech. They are allowed to voice
your opinion. Even if everyone hates those opinions,
you're allowed to say it. But it doesn't
matter anymore because, again,
Israel said this guy's Hamas. They can kill
him and 20 other people next to him.
Doesn't matter if he's a journalist and they
killed, you know, women and children next to
him. They accused him of being Hamas. And
now in The United States, they accuse you
of being Hamas. They accuse you of being
an antisemite,
and suddenly then they can persecute you. They
can take you,
to court and this endlessly.
They can kick you out of the country.
They can send you to, some,
facility. And now it's getting even worse because
we have this case of, like, now Trump
talking about putting people,
you know, US citizens in El Salvador. Right.
I don't know whether that's gonna happen or
not, but it's scary because who are they
gonna come after? They're gonna come after political
dissidents.
Welcome to the last American vagabond. Joining me
today is Robert Enlakesh to discuss some of
the updates on foreign policy that, may have
been lost with all that's going on in
the world today. And just really kind of
following up on on what
has been going on in the larger I
mean, kind of as I see it, the
the Greater Israel Project, the ongoing
execution
of
invasion of territory, land grabs, destabilization
in multiple locations, you know, the ongoing genocide
as I would call it in in multinational
genocide. And now right now, what's going on
in The United States,
I I see as a very clear constitutional
crisis, a lot of
dangerous moves being made by just the government.
It's, at least in my coverage, forced us
to, you know, cover this more intently, and
a lot of what's going on in foreign
policy is at least not getting as much
coverage. So I wanted Robert to come on
to update us on, you know, the the
kind of unfortunate realities of what is going
on currently in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and everywhere
else. So, Robert, how are you today? Thanks
for joining us. Thank you for having me.
It's great to be back. Yeah, man. It's
been a minute. It's it's, and I I
wanna start by just saying that in general
that, Robert and I were just talking off
the air, you know, we will get back
to a point where Robert's gonna be doing
much more continual work for the last American
vagabond. But, of course, my opinion, that's exactly
what the entities out there trying to suppress
us, attack us, and and sue us frivolously
wanted was for the content to diminish, but
we're not gonna stop. So, you know, and
just let's let's start with this general conversation
point. And I think this is so this
is why I my mind, you know, goes
to greater Israel. I mean, you take it
wherever you want. But, I mean, it's it's
so in it's infuriating.
And in a way, it's vindicating for those
that might have been saying this, that have
been kicked back on. But the idea that
Israel now just as of, actually, I think
as of yesterday, saying that they will even
though I'm sure we could have seen these
statements in their Knesset before this, will remain
indefinitely
in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. And I I
put this out. I just said, you know,
we tried to tell you. You know? I
mean, it's it's been right on there. So
start go wherever you'd like with this. Just,
you know, my that general direction on where
Israel is playing this out.
Well, as a more general comment,
Israel is certainly
seeking to expand,
its borders.
It's openly doing that now. So, you know,
people for years,
called everyone who brought up, the Creator Israel
Project, a conspiracy theorist, and said, you know,
this is, like, not based in any, reality.
But, of course, it always has been because
there was a crisis,
in Zionism,
and a crisis in the Israeli,
overall ideology and and goal and direction of
the state.
And we saw that manifesting itself prior to,
October of twenty twenty three when the Gaza
genocide,
began.
And, of course, with the, Hamas attack,
that, preceded the genocide.
So
that sort of just opened up Pandora's box,
and the blow that was dealt to the
Israeli military,
to the sense of national security,
of the mission of the state,
were all put in,
jeopardy.
Really, this boils down to what was happening
prior, again, going back before October 7,
to the judicial,
overhaul push by Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition.
We have to remember that in less than
four years, there were five elections
that took place.
The Israelis couldn't put together a coalition,
government that would,
be sustainable.
Netanyahu
even lost power for about a year briefly
where Yair Lapid and,
Naftali Bennett took over from him.
And when he came back into power, he
had to use the settler movement, which he
had been
throwing his weight behind,
since he was first,
elected,
prime minister in 1996,
which was also a very consequential election for
the Israelis because that's when the political system
underwent a change, which took away power from
the big parties and put them into the
hands of of smaller factions,
which Netanyahu has successfully played on. We had
to think of Netanyahu
and his influence
over Israeli politics as a man that's been
there basically
on and off,
for three decades now. So he has shaped
Israeli society.
He's shaped,
the political system. And then when he grew
desperate, he used the most extremist hardline settlers,
who previously their parties like Osma
Yehudet, who
is commanded,
by,
Itamar Ben Gvir, the current security minister,
was banned in 2019.
The head of Otsumay Yehudet was banned
from,
actually running and and holding a position in,
the Knesset.
Now
these are like the,
the they are crucial to the government. So
when Netanyahu came in,
understanding the crisis that had befallen
his own,
political career, but also
the Israeli political system as a whole,
use these hard line factions and then attempt
to to change and overhaul the Israeli judicial
system. Mhmm. And the Israeli opposition, it split
the society down the middle, basically.
The opposition
and those who are on the side of
maintaining Israel's still Jewish supremacists, it's still an
apartheid regime, but what they would call a
liberal western style democracy,
right, which is
somewhat secular,
they were scared that that was going to
be taken away from them, that the system
was going to be Judaized,
that it was going to be made into
a more theocratic state. Mhmm.
Because if this judicial overhaul occurred, Netanyahu was
going to be able to change laws, right,
and change the way that Israel functions. Israel
doesn't have constitution.
So Israel based its legal system and its
basic laws on the British system, and the
British system drew from a lot of, what
was there already,
during the Ottoman period. And so there was
this crisis of what Israel is, where it's
going,
and, you know, on a strategic level in
the on in the long term, something fundamentally
had to change.
So with Netanyahu,
the second October seven happened, he started blaming
his intelligence communities. He blamed the Mossad and
the Shin Bet. He later apologized because of
the backlash, but this already caused the schism.
And then throughout
the course of the war,
as the war crimes intensified
and, Israel eventually attacked full scale launched a
full scale attack and killed 3,000 people in
Lebanon. Later, we saw them expand into Syria
as was noted here in this article. They're
they're expanding,
their territorial,
gains,
expanding their borders, which they still haven't declared.
He was eliminating all this opposition.
An emergency war cabinet was created at the
start of the war, and that factored in
people like, for instance,
Benny Gantz,
who's you know, he used to be,
the defense minister. He's a military guy. Right?
He he's actually integral to, you know, the
Israeli system. He's he's somebody important,
and experienced for them. Also, people like Gadi
Eisenkot
were included in this. Again, as well, somebody
with that military background, he
basically forced them out and, dissolved the war
cabinet.
And then we saw as time went on,
he would remove more and more and more.
This is Netanyahu with his regime. Move more
remove more and more of his opposition and
opposing voices.
Yoav Gallant, his defense minister,
he, resigned.
Later on, we would have, obviously,
these steps taken like him wanting to remove,
Ronan Barr, the head of the domestic,
intelligence services,
and he's sort of in a battle with
them at the moment,
with the combatant elements of of the security
state.
And then,
as well, even with this new,
chief of staff for the Israeli army, the
Israeli military,
he's basically reshaped
the high command,
and he removed even,
the spokesperson.
I'm forgetting his name now. The the, there
is a list guy. Mhmm. Daniel Hagari.
Yeah. Haggari.
Yeah. His name just skipped me for a
moment. He was essentially forced to resign. He
was pressured to resign because he was having
problems with Netanyahu.
So he
goes ahead and he's removing all of these
people in his way and then surrounding himself
with loyalists.
And because he's surrounding himself with these loyalists,
they'll do basically whatever he wants. This one
problem is the extremists
are too crazy for him, and they want
him to go further and further and further.
The other issue he has now is because
his army was not prepared for a long
sustained campaign on multiple fronts and has now
been severely weakened because of it. For instance,
there's a hundred thousand Israeli reservists who are
refusing to return to duty.
We've now got this letter that's signed by
at least 10,000
Israeli,
soldiers,
both active duty, mainly reservists.
It's calling on him to, do a a
ceasefire deal because the Israeli society is asking
for prisoner exchange. That's why they want a
ceasefire deal, not because they care about Gaza.
You can give a damn about Gaza according
to all of the poly data,
and, you know, just common sense looking at,
what comes out from their media or internally,
their discussions that they're having. But this is
sort of what has happened during the course
of the war, which has made it more
extreme with the collapse of Syria, and it
it enabled the Israelis to go directly into
Syria. There's really no opposition
other than some local militia forces who wanna
defend their villages
in places like Daraa. But there is no
real opposition,
to these aims. And then in Lebanon,
with the catastrophe that had befallen the country,
in particular,
Lebanese Hezbollah with the assassination of its senior
leadership, the pager attacks and everything,
Hezbollah was forced to basically,
sit back, try and recover,
and not fight a war that would just
be endless and pointless and drag Lebanon into
a situation where maybe we have twenty, thirty,
50 thousand deaths in Lebanon.
And so now they're they're not going to
do anything, for instance, Hezbollah, until they have
a plan,
that is going to be able to achieve
specific goals.
They're not just gonna fight for the sake
of fighting, and they can't fight for the
sake of fighting. It it's just a a
bad idea for them.
And then in Gaza, of course, Hamas has
never been capable alone of defeating Israel. It
just can't. It just doesn't have the military
capacity to do it. It it can fight
and it can resist
like it does. It can, you know, ambush
Israeli soldiers
when they come into the populated areas,
and
and and attack them, but, you know, with
very limited weapons, with light weapons that have
been domestically produced.
And so the opposition isn't great enough to
force Israel to stop immediately. So what it's
doing is it's now starving the population of
Gaza, preventing all aid from coming in. This
is where the eighth week of no aid,
no medical aid, no food aid, nothing coming
into the Gaza Strip, collective punishment.
They're now frequently every single day bombing Lebanon
as they're bombing Gaza, of course. They're running
a military operation in the Northern West Bank.
They're still discussing annexation of the West Bank.
They're ethnically cleansing people from East Jerusalem,
and, of course, they're, inside of Syria now.
They've expanded their, territorial domain in,
inside of Syria. And there's no hope,
like, the it seems like inside for them
to want to stop.
They have to be forced to stop,
which could happen. There could be developments which
would force them to stop.
But at the moment, they're
rampaging through multiple countries and even threatening
that they might enter Jordan or Egypt next.
Right. More likely Egypt. And and, of course,
the the US government truly wanted to make
them stop, they could. Right? I mean, then
this is the reality. So this is why
the complicity needs to be very it needs
to be seen that this is The US
and The UK and other countries that are
actively a part of this, not just, you
know, standing by and watching. There this is
a the complicity is very clear. But so
to bring that back up, the point again
is that so they are now saying they're
going to indefinitely remain in these countries. So,
I mean, there there's no legality around this
at all. Like, this is exactly what we
were talking about from before. This is illegal
occupation, and this is exactly what gives these
territories the legal right under international law to
attack whether or not they're attacked. And yet
every time they they play this kind of
cycle of where that's terrorism. So but back
back to the point about the judicial,
reform. I thought this was interesting.
So this is from 02/2018, and I pointed
this out before about where this is a
a Canadian Supreme Court justice basically saying that
if this happens, that they'll they will not
have an independent judiciary. And what's important to
me I think is important is that the
argument
of why the ICJICC
kind of
the the the like, Lindsey Graham in particular,
plenty others argue they couldn't go after Israel
is because they had an independent judiciary.
And what's interesting is this was the claim
in 02/2018 that should this happen, that then
that that wouldn't exist anymore. Now I'm as
I understand it, these have this has already
largely happened. Right? And it's even in 02/2023,
hundreds of Israeli reservists were saying they wouldn't
go to service if they did continue to
pass this. And even today, the same thing
is happening to what you're saying, even though
it's an ongoing crisis. But so where is
the reality of that, you know, judicial overhaul?
I know there's multiple aspects of this, and
I know in many cases, this has already
happened. Correct?
There were a number of bills that, were
being passed and,
throughout the course of 2023 up until October
7.
This was, like, the big thing, for the
Israelis. Like you noted, there was these massive
protests. They were weekly protests, sometimes even more
frequent than that.
Some of them, you know, garnered
over a hundred thousand people that would protest
in the streets in Tel Aviv and look
down roads.
Even the top Israeli,
labor union, the history,
had got behind an effort for a general
strike. So this was serious. And like you
noted with the, there with that article, there,
there were elements of the reserves,
who decided, you know, that they were going
to protest against this and even some people
active duty in the military. And
and this got the full backing of, the
opposition, of course,
and they passed bills, like, for instance, the
reasonableness
clause,
the reasonableness
bill, sorry, which was,
essentially,
this bill, that they were pushing through,
and it received a huge amount of backlash,
was to prevent
the Israeli Supreme Court, which basically acts, for
the Israeli political system as, like, you know,
a moderator. Like, it stops it from going
too far,
and it sort of
it creates, like, a buffer,
so that the political like, whatever government is
in in place, right, cannot just push through
an agenda if it has a majority and
completely change what Israel looks like. And so
this prevented
the Israeli
Supreme Court from jumping in
and saying,
that's extremely unreasonable
as a law. Right? It doesn't have it's
not grounded in Israeli law, and so we're
gonna challenge it. We're gonna block it.
And, of
course, this bill would enable a number of
things. You know, a lot of people, especially
on the Israeli side, were going well. This
maybe means that Netanyahu personally can pass through,
bills now,
that can benefit himself when it comes to
his corruption trial. Right. So it it had
a personal aspect there, and and people were
very much opposed,
to Netanyahu because of that.
What we saw with October 7 is that
it shifted in terms of the focus. They
were not focusing on, this judicial overhaul anymore,
because, of course, like,
what was in front of them was, more
urgent than they needed to, needed to address.
But now, funnily enough,
with the,
expulsion and the firing of Ronan Barr, the
head of the Shin Bet,
it appears that because the Supreme Court has
blocked it,
if Barr does not decide to step down
by himself, there could be now a situation
where the Israeli,
government is dragged into the judicial realm,
and we have this battle between,
again, the judiciary
and,
the Israeli,
government.
And so
we could find ourselves back in, you know,
the situation where it looks like this is
now the conversation of the day, the Supreme
Court versus Netanyahu, basically.
I was just gonna say it's very interesting
to see how many overlaps there are with
many other, I would argue, authoritarian governments in
similar ways. Even in the United States government
with the discussion with the courts and and
the
I argue the way that the system's essentially
meant to work whether or not they're politically
motivated and, essentially, abusing that to argue they
should be removed or in El Salvador where
he removed the justices and put people in
place or in Honduras where they did the
same thing before Prospero was put in place.
Very interesting how many, you know, I see
it all as kind of the same agenda.
I just wanted to point that out, the
overlap of it all. But you mentioned the
funding or the the settler aspect of that
to where and you you brought this up
many times. You've written articles about this for
TLAB. Very interesting to see that he clearly
leaned into kind of the most radical elements
to gain that power with the radical parts
of their government, which is allow you have
you you've explained well, which is kind of
why he has power today. Right? The Ben
Gavir Smotrich wet settler movement, which you were
just talking about. So what's interesting to me,
the overlap to that is
hopefully, people out there are very aware to
to, you know, today that Israel had been
funding Hamas to some degree or another, basically,
up until October 7. You can prove this
with different statements funding. You know, the nuance
there is discussed. We, you know, get into
that, but the idea is that clearly this
was not for aid for many reasons. But
the HD part of this oh, good. You
have a comment? Go ahead. I I just
dispute,
the funding that went to,
Hamas directly from Israel.
There were a few hundred thousand dollars sent,
back in I think it ended in the
early eighties,
to an organization called Mujama Al Islamiyah.
The Mujama was like the precursor organization to
Hamas. So Hamas had a cut and Muqama
and Islamiyah means the Islamic resistance movement,
was different to the Muqama. The leadership was
the same, essentially,
but what happened is they turned into an
armed group. The Muqama was strictly against violence.
It was against armed rebellion against the Israelis.
It pushed its Islamic message,
and was a social,
group, essentially. It it looked at building the
Islamic,
civil society,
sector. It,
focused on, you know, building mosques and schools,
and,
it wanted to Islamize
society. That was its goal. And it actually
opposed another group called, Islamic Jihad, Mhmm. The
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which at the time,
in the early eighties,
basically had street clashes with these Mujama activists
because they were,
essentially saying that, you know, we need to
do non violently. We can't attack the Israelis,
whereas Islamic Jihad said, no. It's our our
our mission to defeat Israel and liberate Palestine.
But when Hamas became Hamas and also in
the mid nineteen eighties, the Mujama,
started transporting weapons into the Gaza Strip and
formed what was known as,
which was a security apparatus for Hamas.
When that happened, the leaders of the Mujama,
like Ahmed Yassin and others were arrested,
put in Israeli
detention facilities.
And then
in the first intifada
in 1987,
Hamas became a thing. In 1988, it really
started operating and put out its charter. Not
to go through its entire history Mhmm. But
the financing that came through to the Gaza
Strip was not from Israel after that. It
was from Qatar. And so there was this
period where what happened is after 02/2018,
where Hamas prior to that had tried
diplomatic initiatives,
for instance, with the Palestinian authority to have
them take over the Gaza Strip. They even
signed an agreement in 2017 to do that,
but it failed because of Israeli and US
pressure to make sure that, that wouldn't happen.
It wouldn't be unifying of the territories.
And then it backed it threw its way
behind the nonviolent movement, which was created in
Gaza called the Great Return March, which started
on 03/30/2018.
And it stopped fighting Israel during that period,
by the way. Israel was bombing Gaza at
that time. It was killing hundreds of civilians,
but, it you know, shooting innocent people,
injuring tens of thousands. But Hamas stepped back,
and it didn't do anything. But the problem
was
the Palestinian authority, at the end of 02/2018,
decided to stop paying the salaries of people
in the Gaza Strip. And so the salaries
for many of these people who are aligned
with the party, which opposes Hamas,
in Gaza, this was something that was keeping
them afloat, you know, economically.
When that was starting to be withdrawn, there
was suddenly this crisis. There wasn't as much
money in the Gaza Strip.
Salaries weren't being able to be paid. There
was more restrictions. In 2017,
the Saudis,
UAE, and others
enforced a blockade on Qatar. And so Qatar
as well was being pressured not only to
stop its financing of Hamas, which historically has
done,
not in the form of these cash,
in suitcases handouts, which would come later. Right.
But it was forced to stop its its
financing of Hamas, which meant that Iran could
come in and and take over that role
more.
But also there was being pressure to even
close down Al Jazeera.
So there was this enormous amount of pressure
on Hamas. Hamas, with an a renewed leadership,
was in a very difficult position. So the
Israelis decided to do a number of things.
One of them was to allow more workers
from the Gaza Strip to obtain permits to
go on the Israeli side and work,
on the Israeli side.
Another thing that they did for instance is,
you know, they periodically open the fishing zones,
further so people could fish further. Small little
restrictions. Then the major thing that they did
were these, you know, multimillion dollar cash handouts
to
Hamas, which would come through the Erez,
crossing.
At first, they were in suitcases. That was
the way that they've just bring in suitcases
of cash. The Qatari officials would get off
the plane from Doha. They would go
straight to the Gaza Strip and hand this
over to Hamas. Right. Now the statistical breakdown,
because Israel uses this to claim that they
were taking that money and funneling I can't
remember exactly the statistic.
I think it was 6,000,000
or 4,000,000
to the Passama Brigade, which is the armed
wing of Hamas.
What really happened is all of that money,
according to all of the mainstream accounts of
what was happening to that money at the
time, was that it was not being handed
over to the armed wing. But, of course,
it was helping Hamas because because Hamas used
that money to basically subsidize this subsidized fuel,
to pay salaries, to do the things that
have been taken away. Mhmm. The reason on
the Israeli side to do that was to
stop there from being some conflict breaking out
at the time. They weren't prepared to go
to an all out conflict. There was no
reason for it. It was in a very
precarious political position.
And so Netanyahu
endorsed this strategy very, like, sort of, you
know, backdoor,
Right. Sort of a way of transferring. But
that money was from, Qatar, not not Israel.
Israel doesn't Right. Didn't, fund Hamas.
But to to just to better flush this
out, the the the argument is and thank
you for there's the nuances is important. You
know, when you're when you're make but what
we I wanted to get into when we'll
go into next was the
relevance of how often that's happened through The
US and Israel of funding radical elements. Right?
Settlers, moss, what so on. But what's to
better flush this out, what I find is
important so this is this is what the
the way I'm framing this is the is
the idea that we have things like this
where you know that they are in a
part of this process. Now I'm not saying
you can argue for what or what form
it ended up in. Right? But simply that
we know that you have examples where Israel
through Mossad is facilitating the process of some
measure of funding going to Hamas. I think
that's very relevant. So the the why and
how of it, I which I'm sure you
know more than most, I don't I think
it ends the day you don't like, for
example, the the election process in 02/2006.
I still argue I don't think it makes
sense to me that they would have allowed
an element to you know, people that they're
calling terrorists
to elect people they call terrorists. You see
what I'm saying? But, you know, but at
the end of the day, I don't know
because I feel like it makes sense that
the information
that we see shows that there was an
election, and I'm not gonna dispute that Palestinians
could have and have the right to choose
whoever they want. But it's just an interesting
kind of self fulfilling prophecy as you see
this go forward or the many examples that
I'm sure you're familiar with, like this one,
for example,
where Haaretz told us right after October 7
that he made very clear that they need
to continue to transfer money to Hamas to
make sure that they're divided. You know, things
like that that show you that there is
an element of this, at least him stating
publicly, for the getting money in the hands
of the group that they claim they're fighting
to keep them divided. You know? So things
like that. Or, I might you know, I
might as well just play the clip since
we're talking about it. Just to just brief.
No. That's, from 02/2019
just to to clarify. No. Yes. Yeah. For
the podcast, very much. I'll I'll read the
direct quote. I'm I'm just skimming over it
since I've mentioned this so many times. Anyone
who wants to thwart the establishment of Palestinian
state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring
money to Hamas. He said this to his
Likud party,
in the Knesset to in the the Knesset
party's Knesset members in March 2019. This is
part of our strategy, and he goes on
to make it clear, you know, that that's
about dividing them and, you know, in a
surreptitious manner. Then, there and I'll play this
too since we're talking about it. So you're
saying Benjamin Netanyahu deliberately boosted Hamas to try
to prevent a Palestinian state? Yeah. Sure. He
deliberately
and systematically
even even told this on record
whoever wants to avoid
the threat
of a two state solution
has to support my policy
of paying protection money to the Hamas. So
what we did, with the permission of our
prime minister is
to
let
Qatar
to transfer
a huge amount of money in cash,
probably more than $1,400,000,000
By doing it, we increase the power of
Hamas.
We
did everything in order to make sure that
Hamas will go on controlling Gaza,
and Palestinian authority
will control the West Bank so they will
fight each other.
Now, of course, these are people with their
agendas. Ibu Barak is no one that should
be trusted. Right? You know? But, nonetheless, the
point is that the overarching idea is that
money was facilitated into the hands of Hamas,
and I I think that's very relevant. Now
the nuance, people can feel free to film
it in for themselves. My point is simply
just that if we know that to some
degree, there's at least a question of to
what the intent is and whether or not
especially with all the foreknowledge and all of
the weirdness around October 7, you know, you
just the question is posed, I think, is
whether or not there's something to that. And
I go ahead. You have you have some
comments, but I I'd like to go into
the overarching point of just the general idea
of funding,
you know, your own enemy for the purposes
of manipulation in a way. But go ahead,
Warner. I look. I, I completely agree with
the assessment that this was to divide the
Palestinian territories. I think that's, an established fact
that that has been
the agenda
to divide the territories. They wanted to keep
and this has been a policy position, which
we found out,
through
WikiLeaks documents
Mhmm.
In the early twenty teens.
It was released that, the agenda was,
to keep Gaza on a diet, to keep
it basically on the barrier of poverty line,
to squeeze the population, to get them to
rebel,
against,
Hamas, basically,
but to just keep them right there,
essentially,
but not collapse the territory completely because then
that would beget armed action and armed conflict,
and and they didn't,
care to do that. And they knew through
armed conflict, they can't defeat Hamas. As we've
seen over the past eighteen months, they haven't
been able to defeat Hamas since it they
just haven't been able to do it. So
there's there's a few different elements here. Number
one is those Israeli politicians and those Israeli,
you know, former leaders in the intelligence
community and then also,
Yudhud Barak, a former prime minister.
They have an anti
Netanyahu agenda. You'll you'll hear that Ehud Barak,
he said, like, we transferred the money to
Hamas, which is obviously not accurate. Then afterwards,
now you're hearing the the former head of
the Mossad say, no. No. We allowed Qatar
to transfer the cash in this 1,300,000,000.0.
It wasn't 1,300,000,000.0.
I don't think it was that much.
But regardless, that's beside the point.
There's
an agenda to divide the two territories, for
instance. That's why, for instance, Israel is not
allowed as a political solution for the Palestinian
authority, which is incredibly
corrupt, by the way, and and works with
Israel and security coordination and does not fight
Israel,
and is financed by, you know, The United
States before The US is pulling out some
funding now. But The United States and mainly
the Europeans who finance the Palestinian authority to
be like a domestic securities service for the
Palestinians in the West Bank to take the
burden off of the occupying forces.
But they didn't want the Palestinian authority
to go into Gaza after the war as
a settlement, for the ceasefire settlement, and they
also,
didn't want it to happen in 2017. That's
why they axed it every single in 02/2014,
when Hamas and, Fatah, the Palestinian authority led,
led by Fatah came together in 02/2014. Israel
launched a military assault of a fifty one
day war,
against the Gaza Strip, trying to uproot Hamas.
Again, they failed to do that, for military
means.
And what had happened after that is their
failure to uproot Hamas completely and the armed
wing at least and to,
limit their ability to be able to launch
rockets and do things which are a nuisance,
but they don't really do that much. But
they're still a nuisance. Right? And, obviously, Hamas
has the capacity to inflict some
bat,
damage on on the Israelis. Not that much.
It's not it won't take down Israel, but
it will, you know, cause a domestic crisis.
It will cause a stir. You know? Iraq
going into Tel Aviv, it's a problem even
if it doesn't do anything. Like, Ansar Allah
now fires its missiles at Tel Aviv. They
don't normally hit anything, but, you know, it's
still a huge problem. Sirens go off, you
know, crisis. So
after,
you know, the situation where Hamas is basically
trying everything,
Everything to try and hand over, the authority
to somebody else, you know, to govern Gaza.
Do something to make the living conditions better.
Israel What year are you talking about here?
What year are we at? What you're describing?
We're at, like, 02/2018.
Okay. 02/2018 here.
Hamas had basically been put in the position
where it tried diplomacy. It amended its charter.
It tried nonviolence as a strategy even. It
even had towards nonviolence for a while. It
had tried even if you look at its
2017
charter, it talks about perhaps
accepting a two state solution. Hamas would be
able to accept it. And, obviously, they have
stipulations about what that two state solution looks
like, of course, but they had the idea
that we'd accept it. Right?
If it meant that it could be a
prolonged,
you know, ceasefire at least in truce with
the Israeli side. We don't wanna recognize Israel,
but we'll do a two state solution so
we can have a prolonged truce. I won't
go into the ins and outs of that,
but it shows a level of moderation that
they had, and they were trying to move
towards something different. And, look, the situation in
Gaza, you had to realize that by 2020,
even before that was called out by UN
officials as being unlivable.
The situation then was extremely dire.
The unemployment
rate was through the roof, one of the
highest in the world, especially amongst the youth.
There was you know, the people had nothing
to do there. Like, you know, the majority
of the population was dependent upon humanitarian
aid.
You know, 97%
of the water was undrinkable.
The situation that was horrific prior to October
7. So Hamas, being this political leadership and,
again, this goes back to something I know
this is sort of a little bit, complex,
but it's really important for the context. You
said about in 02/2006 them being allowed to
run, and that's weird that they're allowed to
run. Well,
interestingly enough,
George Bush is the one that encouraged the
election to happen. And then on top of
that as well, the m I six was
the one pushing and pushing and pushing. Hamas.
Hamas. You need to go. You need to
run. Hamas at that time had thrown its
hands up in the air and said, no.
We're just about armed struggle. We're we don't
care. But they ended up being pushed into
it. And then when they won, it was
the perfect excuse. Right. Right? Because, of course,
the Palestinian Authority was, led by Fatah.
It being taken over by Hamas, they were
never going to allow. They can say, look.
A terrorist organization took over. To be clear,
though, every single Palestinian political party other than
the mainstream branch of Fatah are considered terrorist
organizations, whether they be Islamic parties, nationalists, socialists.
It doesn't matter. Like, they're all terrorists. Whether
they are or not, to be clear. Yeah.
Yeah. But,
of course, this is this is the thing
that,
like,
it it it is quite a nuanced history.
But that two thousand six election,
instantly, there was a blockade imposed upon Gaza,
not just by the Israelis, but an economic
embargo employ
put in place, where they put sanctions on
from the European Union and from The United
States, which
squeezed Gaza. Then, of course, what was going
to happen what did they do? The Bush
administration, which we found out through Vanity Fair,
many people had their suspicions about, but we
found the details out in the Vanity Fair
article,
endorsed
basically for ferrying weapons through,
Egypt and other countries,
and and sending,
cash through to the head of the, then
preventative security, force head for the Palestinian party,
Dahan,
Mohammed Dahan,
tried to launch a coup. Hamas
saw this coming, and they purged the Palestinian
party, created what was known as Palestinian
civil war in 02/2007, and then Israel imposed
this
full scale blockade,
and then that led to all of these
wars, and it sort of led to the
position we're in today.
But the reason why this is all relevant
to the the financing
is because
when it comes to the Israelis,
their their assessment was Hamas cannot do they
can't destroy us.
They can't do significant damage alone.
And so
you've got two options. Either you can go
to war with them and you can try
and destroy them, which they knew was not
going to happen. I mean, look at eighteen
months of struggle to try and destroy Hamas,
and they haven't been able to do it
through the most horrific means
of of doing it because they're they're not
going directly and attacking Hamas in in tunnels
and stuff. They don't know where they are,
number one. And they're not trying to fight
them directly. They're trying to do it through
squeezing the population
because they know it will be very costly
to their soldiers if they try to fight
Hamas directly. So and they learned this in
02/2014
with, the catastrophe that befell their forces in
Shajaiya,
in in Gaza City. So what they've done
essentially is, like, strangle the civilian population, kill
the civilian population,
bomb all of the buildings, you know, commit
all these war crimes at genocide,
as a strategy to force Hamas out, and
they still not been able to do it.
So understanding this and and having enough intelligence
information to know that that strategy is not
very good,
up until that point, what they have been
doing
was attempting to
essentially provide that money, which before was coming
from the Palestinian authority
into the Gaza Strip for the salaries, for
instance, and were was coming in. Even Qatar
before it was still aiding
and transferring to Hamas, but allow this money
to come through
to sort of keep Hamas at bay.
And the agenda, of course, has always been
to divide the West Bank and Gaza. They
didn't want, you know, a joint entity in
both. Whether that's Hamas, it it they would
oppose completely Hamas having any role in governing
the, the West Bank. As we saw with
the legislative elections, the the free and democratic
elections that happened in 02/2006,
they they blocked that.
And they also oppose the Palestinian Authority taking
over the Gaza Strip because if the Palestinian
Authority takes over the Gaza Strip or Hamas
takes over the West Bank, then suddenly it's
a singular it's a unified Palestinian
entity
with a seat at the United Nations and
a claim to a state based on international
law, and they don't want that. So they
need to divide them. But, again, they need
to make sure that the situation in Gaza
did collapse
into a situation where Hamas would be forced
into taking some drastic military action,
because then it froze them into this situation
that they have today. Right. So that's the
reason behind why the money was allowed to
be transferred.
Okay. And then there's sort of, like, the
background
Israeli political dynamics with the opposition. And I
know I've went into this really No. No.
No. I'm I'm glad you did. I'm really
glad you did. So let let's let's unpack
it a little bit though because this is
what's so fascinating. And I didn't intend to
make this the focal point, but I I
think this is important. We've talked about this
before though, and this is so you know?
Okay. So what you just laid out there.
Yes. I and I've been
you did it's exactly as I think an
honest journalist should. Right? You knew the facts,
the nuance, you know, not jumping to conclusions,
But just just a just your opinion.
With what you just laid out there, is
it not likely that you can see that
that that that it's a arguable like, a
logical
argument that 02/2006
was, like you said, like, driven into reality
so it could be used against them? That's
not the same as saying that, like, you
could say that could exist at the same
time that Palestinians also likely wanted Hamas for
the obvious reasons that it's a powerful entity
and that it's fighting back and, you know,
whatever else. So do you think just to
your opinion, was was two thousand six driven
into reality so they could use Hamas against
them?
Oh, yeah. I think I that's, I I
would not dispute that at all. Sounds interesting
to me. Go ahead. And, obviously, what they
did is because Hamas didn't end up just
going, you know, contrary to how it's portrayed
in the Western corporate media, Hamas didn't just
end up going door to door and just
shooting people for no reason. They had to
give it a little push. Right? When it
won the legislative elections, it should have seized
power. Right? So it was ready to take
over power. But, of course, the Palestinian authority
was not going to allow that to happen
because the backing, again, of, the European Union
at the time, Britain was part of it
and The United States. And so they were
not going to allow Hamas to take power.
And that's why they launched in 02/2007
or they attempted to launch a coup against
Hamas,
in the Gaza Strip, which was,
you know, it was uncovered,
by,
the Passam Brigades,
and they defeated it. They put it down
violently,
and then it caused this civil war conflict
where, you know, for some time, people in
fact that Hamas were shooting at each other
and killing each other. You know? It's like
it was a it was a bloody conflict,
but that's what it was. Again,
it's obvious that Mhmm. It was designed to
cause this division. Right. And it was an
agenda. So that's where I'm wondering is is
you know, the the same time then going
forward,
is it not likely all of that, like,
the like, the funding is the point. So
then if they continue on, like, understanding that
it is being facilitated through Cutter and it's
possible that might not have always been their
drive. It seems like it makes sense from
that point forward that, yes, then obviously they
would continue to at least, like, put hands
money in the hands of Hamas whether they
even know it's coming from Israel in order
to keep this thing moving forward. You see
what I'm saying? Like, so the nuances have
to be that it's like Israel's writing checks
right to Hamas, but ultimately that the money
is getting in the hands of Hamas because
Israel wants to maintain
the thing we clearly agree was manufactured to
be the division factor. That's that's where I
think this all comes down to. Well, there's
also the equal,
you have to look at the point where
equally the Israelis that control, like, the tax
revenue that comes through the Palestinian Authority, for
instance. They control the money to go going
to the Palestinian Authority too, and they have
to release it to them. And so
having an occupied territory under international law, if
you're the occupier, you're supposed to be the
one providing for it. Right. And Israel said,
we're not gonna actually provide for it. Right?
And they say Hamas is the reason. But
in the in the West Bank, now with
the Palestinian Authority, they don't even release the
tax revenue. So they don't even have an
excuse from Palestinian Authority, which works together with
their security forces on security coordination.
But they they don't want this is the
thing. With the West Bank, yes, it's been
economically squeezed especially from, since October 7, but
they're still allowing money to trickle in. They're
still allowing investments and things to be built
in the Ramallah and other areas in the
West Bank. Because at the end of the
day, if the entire,
territory collapses,
they have some level of responsibility and some
political crisis that will come as a result
of a complete collapse.
So they need some sort of political entity
there to run the place,
to sort of keep it stable for them,
you know, and to do all the things
that an occupying force normally is going to
have to foot the bill for.
But they want that to be done by
somebody else. And so, for instance, with Hamas
and them being empowered there, the situation was
getting very, very, very bad in Gaza,
leading up to,
this period into this period of late two
thousand eighteen.
And they were taking very drastic measures to
try and
somehow get anything, just an easing of the
blockade. And that was the, you know, the
great return march. Obviously, they were asking for
the implementation,
implementation of,
UN resolution one nine four and others. You
know, they were asking for, like, the right
of return and stuff like this. But, really,
like, the core of the demand was we
want to at least ease, if not lift
the blockade. That was the big demand. Lift
the blockade. And, you know, they were just
trying to ease it, essentially. Like, the political
factions knew that they wouldn't they weren't just
going to lift the blockade. But they just
wanted at least to ease the blockade
just so that the situation would, you know,
at least get a little bit, better,
for the average person in Gaza, and it
would have been slowly deteriorating and deteriorating.
And the only path forward would have been
armed conflict and then complete chaos in Gaza,
which again would create this political crisis. And
without, like,
any reason for this to happen, the Israelis
would be thrown into a very, very difficult
position in front of the international community, their
own population
dealing with this, having all of these different,
crises,
with,
you know, neighboring countries because of the predicament
with the collapse of Gaza.
So they had to allow this money to
come in, and that's the money that had
been coming in before for different means. It
wasn't coming for suitcases and stuff before, whether
it be the Palestinian authority or int international
humanitarian,
efforts, for instance.
You know, and and,
you know, providing its funding for quite some
time. The money had been coming in before,
and the situation,
you know, had at least been semi stabilized.
Mhmm. And and now when we say that,
we're still talking about a territory
descending into an unlivable
condition,
even when we're talking about this. But that's
why the money went in, and the money
really was a very, very small amount for
what Gaza needed. You know? Right.
This was used primarily to subsidize fuel,
and to subsidize salaries, like, to to to
go and then provide salaries to people, and
they needed to do that. And like you
said, look,
there is that underlying agenda of they wanna
divide the territories.
But I think there's a fundamental difference between
they funded Hamas to, you know, do armed
action against them versus
they have a strategy to divide the Palestinians,
and they, like and they wanna keep them
at bay. Maybe they want them to fight
each other, but they don't really want to
endorse something that's gonna fight them unless they
could control that completely.
Yeah. And they can control the direction of
it.
And so,
that's that's where I diverge. They have their
agendas. They're not gonna let this money come
in for a reason. You know? Right.
But,
yeah. Like, the way that I sort of,
like, diverge from the view that's taken,
by many, like, it's a popular view.
And it's fruit, like, I think understanding the
nuances,
and doing a lot of reading and research
and interviews with, officials as well that come
to the position where I'm at. And I
hope I outlined that as well as I
possibly can.
You still may not agree with me, and
that's completely fine. But No. I think we're
saying the same thing, to be quite honest.
I just think what what the end of
the day, it is nuance about whether the
intention and I that's the thing is I'm
in no way arguing intention in any way.
Just really that you put money in the
hands of Hamas, they're gonna do what they
want with that money. And that very well
could be any number of things including arm
resistance. You know? So depends on how you
at the end of the day, I just
have of the mind that you can clearly
prove that they had the intention to put
money in their hands as they stated to
keep that division going, and that could mean
any number of things including what we just
saw take place. You know? So it's worth
considering all that. So I what I think
is important to note as well is that
in no way, regardless of whether every single
person in Hamas is working for Netanyahu,
does that undermine the legal act of armed
resistance of anybody, any group in in Gaza.
Right? So that's that's one point you could
push back on if people think that's, like,
a surreptitious argument to undermine
that Hamas or anybody else had the right
to act against Israel. That's and because it
is. It's the as you know, the legal
act of armed resistance for any occupied territory.
That's important to note. But I also think
sorry to linger on this point so much.
But I also think that,
often what happens is, we take the model,
for instance, of, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan,
and,
the CIA and MI six role in in
backing them,
to fight the Soviets,
and then all the way up to, you
know,
Al Qaeda
and the relationship between Osama bin Laden and,
you you know, the bin Laden family and
the Bush family and all of this history,
and and how that developed with, you know,
for instance, the Taliban and the Aida,
and these sort of groups and also The
US role in, facilitating
the rise of Daish,
with, like, Kambuka and these sort of, places
where they had these people in their detention.
I I think this history
has to be separated from Hamas because there's
an enormous amount of nuance in in the
Palestinian political arena,
which it's not as simple as, as depicting
it the way that the Mujahideen in Afghanistan
were depicted, for instance. Even that has some
nuance, of course, but it's very obvious what
The US agenda was there. It's very obvious
how it panned out and then the blowback
that resulted from it.
But trying to, I don't know, model what
happened with what has happened with Hamas
on the strategy that,
The US and The UK implemented in Afghanistan,
which obviously led to Al Qaeda and these
groups,
I think has a fundamental
flaw in in the analysis.
Mhmm. And so I just encourage,
like, you know,
to look at the nuance of the situation
because it's not as simple as that. And
it also presents Hamas in this in this
framing of things. It presents Hamas as being
similar to the or
Daesh, and these sort of groups who are,
you know,
internationalist
extremist groups. They they have an agenda to
take over, you know this is their ideology
to take over the entire world, right, and
create a system which they impose upon people,
and sort of kill anybody anybody that deposes
them. Whereas Hamas is a self described national
liberation organization Right. And it's focused inside the
borders of Palestine.
It doesn't give a damn for anything going
on really, beyond that. It might, you know,
offer its, you know, opinions on things. But
at the end of the day, it's focused
in occupied Palestine. And it's a Palestinian political
entity,
so it's not the same as, like, using
like, when we're talking about, you know, these,
power plays and and the manipulation
from the Israeli side, and it it is
a little bit more nuance than looking at,
you know, the development of of Ida or,
of one of these groups. Absolutely agree. But
I you could all you could argue that
that difference could be rooted in the fact
that Hamas just did not go the same.
You know, like, you wonder whether
after like, if there was some kind of,
like, direct influence,
control even, which people argue,
that you wonder whether that changed simply because
this is a different nationalistic focused discussion, and
all that Israel's continued to do in Gaza
has led to more people joining and younger
people coming into it, which, you know, could
drastically change the momentum of this group to
where now it is, you know, not something
that is influenced or controlled from before. You
know, the point is we don't know. The
end all we know is that the money
had been given and so on, and you're
right to highlight that it's a very different
thing than some of these groups that are
even arguably, like, even insight coming from Saudi
Arabian leadership to argue that some of the
heads of these groups don't even believe the
religious mindset that they push on everybody else.
You know? So there's a very different I'm
glad you make that point. Very different things.
But let let's let's get into the idea
of what what's going on on the ground.
Well, let let's let's finish by, you know,
Gaza, Lebanon, Syria. Give give the audience the
update on where we are right now because,
you know, it's it's actually it's actually I
mean, it's almost disgusting. It is disgusting that
how many churches have been bombed, how many
hospitals have been bombed, how many, you know,
tents and groupings where just people, like, oh,
was that the story we saw yesterday? No.
That's the that's a new one. It happens
every day. You know, it's like this nonstop
thing. It just kinda becomes background noise for
a lot of people. And I'm trying to
fight against that to be like, you know,
this is this is something that needs constant
daily attention. You know, what's going on there?
So let's start with Gaza. And, you know,
I know it's a a lot to get
into, and there's a thousand things we could
talk about, but kind of a a concise
overview of where Gaza is right now in
the context of what Israel is trying to
accomplish and their fight to stop it.
Well, Gaza is being starved. That's the policy
right now. Israel doesn't really have a coherent
military
strategy. They keep talking about this strategy and
that strategy, and gonna do this and they're
gonna do that.
They put their troops into around 65%
of the Gaza Strip, which is, like, all
of the open areas essentially away from the
built up areas where population centers, like, well,
now the the population,
is centered.
And,
you know, they're talking about remaining. They're talking
about, you know, ethnic cleansing. They're talking about
all these different strategies,
you know, taking the northward, taking the south,
and,
all of these different, strategies they have. Really,
what they're doing is they're starving Gaza.
You know, it it was calculated that these
supplies that are left in Gaza after three
months, they will completely be out.
There will there will be nothing left, and
the people will just completely starve.
And so now we're into a week eight
of nothing being allowed into the Gaza Strip.
So this is a manufacturing
of a full scale famine against the Gaza
Strip. That's basically the pressure tactic they're they're
putting in place.
Things may check change within the next few
weeks because of the political circumstance on the
Israeli side. I'm going to get into that
so much. But we're looking at a situation
that that and this is important to note.
What they do in Gaza and what they
get away with in Gaza, they are pushing,
you know,
that barrier back and back and back in
terms of what's internationally
acceptable Right. For any force to do to
a civilian population.
At the start of the conflict, you'll remember
that when, Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, came
out and said nothing's coming into Gaza. No
electricity, food, water, aid, nothing.
That created a huge stir. And even, you
know, the Biden administration
had to lie and had to obfuscate,
and and it had to, in in the
end, pressure the Israelis to let a little
bit of aid to come in to say,
no. At least we're letting something in.
Now
there's not even a need for that anymore
because they've pushed that back, that that need,
that that,
you know, legal,
basis or that,
that, you know, moral barrier that that we
collectively,
on this planet accept.
And so the same comes for these executions
of,
the medical workers that we saw,
the assassination of journalists. You know, this conflict,
it's killed more journalists
than were murdered in World War two and
the Vietnam War combined.
Right. That's how many journalists we're talking about.
Just in Gaza alone, out of Gaza's small
population, nothing compared to the populations who are
involved,
overall
in World War two and and and in
Vietnam.
Just in Gaza. Right? More journalists. What it's
it's the most, the the most deadly war
for journalists
on record, the most deadly war for medical
workers.
And this is the the issue that
we cannot see this in isolation that is
just occurring there because now, you know, with
all the horrors that we've seen inflicted on
Gaza,
we're seeing it every single day, so we're
becoming
desensitized.
Right. And then in The United States or
in The United
Kingdom or in Germany,
then, you know, the authorities can come and
crack down on you. Okay. The Israelis use
it as an justification because somebody, you know,
expressed a pro Palestine sentiment. They said something
online. Here is the evidence that this person
is Hamas now. So let's accuse this person
of Hamas and put them in a detention
center. Let's accuse this person of being Hamas,
and let's arrest them. Let's accuse this person
of being Hamas and bring a legal case
against them. Real quick. Can't miss the overlap
to what's happening in this country right now.
We don't have to get into that, but
just recognize that that's your government doing the
same thing to people, whether American citizens or
not, and saying, you're this, you're a terrorist,
going on you know, sending to a a
foreign gulag, so please continue.
And and that's exactly what it is. The
Israelis started this. At the start, you know,
again, their propaganda, even though it was all
lies, it was a bit more sophisticated.
You know, I remember writing pieces as well,
and we discussed the,
the the topics. Like, for instance, the bombing
of the Al Ahli Hospital. That was a
big one at the start where Israel bombed
the hospital. It's very obvious that they bombed
it, but they've created all this propaganda, fake
so called Hamas
phone calls and doctor videos that they put
in and all of these contradicting stories which
they put out to try and say that
Islam actually had fire a rocket and somehow
it caused this massacre in a hospital.
And so
they they tried to, like, cover it and
hide it. And, you know, everything they're doing,
oh, there's Hamas. They have a list of
this and that, and there's a here's a
machine gun that I found in the they
don't even bother doing that anymore. And the
problem here that we have is Israel
simply needs to do one thing. They just
accuse somebody of being Hamas.
Right? No evidence at all needed to be
presented.
And now the media doesn't investigate it. The
governments around the world don't question it. Nobody
says a thing. They're just like, oh, yeah.
He's Hamas. Okay. Alright. And they killed him
because Hamas it doesn't matter that this Hamas
militant was a four year old child.
Right? Or a baby in a cot.
Right? And the the father standing next to
him was, you know, somebody that was clearly
a civilian. That doesn't matter because Israel just
said it. And that's the problem now. The
media doesn't interrogate it anymore. They don't even
question it. They don't even pose a question
maybe, but we're waiting for the evidence like
they did before. They'd still try and hide
it Mhmm. That Israel did this purposefully, and
it's very obvious, but they at least try
to, like, you know,
interrogate the claim a little bit or, you
know, say, oh, we don't know a hundred
percent. We're not sure. But it needs to
be investigated. Israel's investigating itself. Well, that's not
even needed anymore. We're not even at that
point anymore. So you can imagine for The
United States now, while the Trump administration goes,
Mahmoud Khalil is a Hamas supporter.
He's Hamas. Shalom.
We're gonna take you and put you in
a detention, and we're going to, deport you
even though you have a green card and
your wife is a US citizen and you
have a baby on the way. We're gonna
get plainclothes,
ice ice officers
to come and abduct you because you're Hamas.
But you look at whether there's any evidence
that he has any affiliation with Hamas. No.
Of course, he doesn't have any. And even,
Canary Mission, which tried to do the deepest
dive I saw to try and pull out
evidence on him to try and frame him
as Hamas. Do you know the only piece
of evidence they found to frame him as
as his support of Hamas?
When I looked at, at their website,
he was in a protest
where somebody next to him was chanting from
the river to the sea, Palestine will be
free. And then they said, that is a
quote that has been used by Hamas officials
to mean the eradication of his that's the
Hamas support that they said, and they don't
have any evidence. He hasn't committed a crime.
He's exercising free speech.
This is something that is enshrined by the
constitution and the very being of what America
is supposed to be. Right? You have freedom
of speech. They are allowed to voice your
opinion. Even if everyone hates those opinions, you're
allowed to say it. But it doesn't matter
anymore because, again,
Israel said this guy's hamast, they can kill
him and 20 other people next to him.
Doesn't matter If he's a journalist and they
killed, you know, women and children next to
him, they accused him of being Hamas. And
now in The United States, they accuse you
of being Hamas. They accuse you of being
an antisemite.
And suddenly, then they can persecute you. They
can take you,
to court and this endlessly.
They can kick you out of the country.
They can send you to, some, facility. And
now it's getting even worse because we have
this case of, like, now Trump talking about
putting people,
you know, US citizens in El Salvador. Right.
I don't know whether that's gonna happen or
not, but it's scary because who are they
gonna come after? They're gonna come after political
dissidents. And, again, when the Israelis get away
with this and I'll give you an example
of how bad this is. When Israel assassinated
the secretary general of,
Hezbollah, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, they openly admitted that
they estimated 300 people were killed in that
airstrike.
I don't know if you even heard that
300 people were killed in that airstrike. Most
people, when I tell them that 300 people
were killed, they're shocked. They're the I didn't
hear about how many people were killed. Israel
openly said we estimated 300 people would be
killed. Why is this significant?
Because Joe Biden endorsed
that assassination.
He he praised
that assassination.
Let's zoom back to the early two thousands
when,
Israel assassinated
the head
of Hamas, Ahmed Yacine.
Ahmed Yacine, I believe seven civilians were killed
when Ahmed Yacine was killed. I believe it's
seven civilians. It might be a little bit
more, from my memory of seven civilians. The
Bush administration
slammed Israel. They condemned Israel because of them
killing civilians along with Ahmed Yassin. Right. Right.
And an indiscriminate bombing of a densely populated
civilian area.
Now 300 people can be incinerated in an
entire city block,
and the United States government endorses it. And
that's not Trump.
That's Joe Biden.
Trump now, with his backing from Miriam Adelson,
his number one donor, and all of these,
you know, lobby groups behind him, now is
even more extreme than Biden was. And now
we're looking at it's coming back to The
United States. You know, the the old saying
of, you know, the chicken has come home
to roost. Right.
What's happening is what you do overseas comes
back to bite you, and that is what
happening now because this has been allowed to
happen
from their side. Then it doesn't just give
The United States free reign to do this,
what, to their own citizens
or in other countries and new conflicts that
they commit. Now they can raise the bar
of how many civilians they're allowed to kill.
We're now talking about other countries can do
the same thing. What's stopping another country? Let's
say, like, Russia wants to take out a
high level target now. Right? Before, they might
go, okay. There's there's five civilians there.
No. It's not a good idea. Let's try
and get that guy
when they're not around civilians.
Now
Israel can kill 300 civilians and take down
an entire city block to kill one person.
Well Insane.
They're not gonna think about
300,
five,
kill them. That's that's the decision making process
because I'm not saying that, you know, Russia
would adopt that or China would adopt that,
but it will happen in some sense. Right.
It does enable that sort of action because
there's certain threshold that when you pass it,
it's like the use of nuclear weapons. Right.
It's the same concept with nuclear weapons.
Once you've,
passed that threshold,
there's no going
back. And that's how it's
linked
to what's going on in The United States.
And a good example is Netanyahu and and,
in fact, others, by the way, other authoritarian
despotic countries do the same because they're taking
cues. But Netanyahu more than once has said,
well, look at what you guys did in
Iraq. Now you're gonna accuse accuse me of
you know? And that's the point right there.
You you open that door. You allow that
become normal, or they, through their own actions,
drive that into becoming the thing they then
point to. You know? Either way, manufacturing it
or not, then now we're at a point
where you're like I like we were saying
in the beginning where it's just becoming like,
you know, like the Ollie Hospital, but now
there's not even a narrative anymore for why
those are happening. I was gonna say when
I I forget if it was Shefa or
no. It was one of the refugee camps,
and I'm blanking on which one. But where
and I think it might be the one
you're referencing with 300 people, where Wolf Blitzer,
live on the air, was confronted with that.
Do you remember that? Where he literally brought
it up and he couldn't swallow that. Like,
three you there civilians? Like, he couldn't and
it was just, like, this moment where you
recognized even the corporate media was having a
hard time swallowing the idea that you killed
300 innocent people to go after one person
that turned out to not even be there.
You know? That's another case of them killing
300 people. Right. I was referring to what
they did in Lebanon. Okay. Right. This is
another they've they've There you go. They've done
this so many times. And even not only
this case, and you were saying about Wolf
Blitzer. And Wolf Blitzer is an APAC guy.
Right. Right. Even for him, he's sitting there,
and in his mind, he's been a journalist
for a very long time. He's, you know,
he's he's a veteran of, you know, this
propaganda game. He knows, you know,
the rules,
of the game, and he knows the rules
of engagement for conflicts, armed conflict.
300 people
being eliminated in a single strike who had
nothing to do with the alleged
target,
and then you don't even know. And I
remember, he said, did you even get the
guy? And they said, oh, we can't confirm
that.
That's insane.
Did the strike? That was a that was
a shifting moment like you're talking about. From
that point forward, that got a little easier
for them. Right? And that's the disgusting reality
of this. And, you know, I mean, I
I think this is a good place to
leave it only because I really want what
we just discussed right there to kind of
hang with people and discuss this, and we
need to do this more every week. I'd
like to talk to you more about this
especially while the writing is is, you know,
less than it has been for. But, you
know, it's it's really chilling, the connection you
just made there, and it's not hard to
see. You know? I mean, this is I
mean, you know, you know what's interesting is
this whole argument that always gets put forward
by the neocons or, you know, the US
government, Israel, you know, that it's coming to
you next. Right? That if you don't stop
them, it's gonna be you next. It's like,
maybe that has always been a threat. You
know what I mean? The idea is that
we can literally see that actually happening. The
very things that they are doing overseas
are now here.
Not possibly, not not a, you know, theorized
idea of what some memo said, like, literally
being shoved in your face now for the
fifth time. Donald Trump has floated the idea
of sending Americans to a foreign prison
for Israel. Not my opinion. That's the stated
reality of what's happening, and I just still
can't believe we're here.
So thank thank you for being here again
today, brother. Let's do this again very soon.
You know, anything you wanna leave us with
as long as you wanna get into it.
Give me your your final thoughts here.
No. I I'd say that we're heading in
a,
unfortunately,
a a very dark direction. It will take,
you
know, the will of the people to defeat
it. You know, historically,
it it takes,
you know,
popular movements, grassroots movements that have to sort
of fight and combat these sort of things.
But, you know, at the moment, we haven't
seen a big enough opposition mounted to these
policies.
That may change,
and then there may be people who try
and co opt these movements.
But, you know, it's a very dangerous precedent
that has been set.
And what they're doing in Gaza is linked
to everything that's happening in The United States.
There's no other way of seeing it. And
it's not just Gaza. We're talking about now
their, you know, threatening war with Iran.
Well, that's going to affect you in your
pockets very deeply as well over in whatever
western country you're in. That is going to
affect you if that war blows up into
an all out conflict with Iran.
You know, and they're not stopping with Gaza
or the West Bank or even Lebanon or
even Syria.
They wanna go further. And The United States
is there backing this whole thing and then
cracking down on political dissidents, and it's not
just a crackdown
on political dissidents in United States. And it's
not just to do with Israel.
Like, let's let's make this very clear. They
obviously, it's the number one target are anti
Israel Activists. But then when they go go
into the universities, what are they doing?
They use the excuse if we're going after
DEI because they know amongst the Republican
voter base, DEI is not very popular at
all. Majority of Republican Republicans want to get
rid of it. Right? So that's their excuse.
But what do they really do? They go
into the African American studies program. They go
into the Middle East studies program. And now
we're at a point
where
the government
has control
over
university courses.
It has control over the education
to such an extent that it can go,
I don't like that. That's critical of US
foreign policy. We're not putting it in there.
I don't like that. That's that's, you know,
will encourage people to make unions. I don't
want that. You know, whatever it is that
they feel is frightening. And then, also, what
that does is for the next administration, if
you're a Republican now and you're going, oh,
yeah. But Trump is doing everything I like.
Well, what happens if
a Democratic Party administration comes in and they
now have oversight over those programs? What then?
Now it's federal oversight
over your university programs and the ability
of the donor class to those and the
federal government,
who give the money to those universities
to say, we don't like this. You're gonna
do this. You're gonna implement this program. You're
gonna teach this. You're gonna teach that. You're
gonna take this out of the syllabus.
You can't say this word. You can't do
that. And that works both ways. Now a
Republican Party administration is in. So, yes, you're
getting all the Republican Party, you know, talking
points and everything and, you know, reshaping the
edge but but what happens if a Democratic
Party administration comes in? Right. Then you don't
get what you like. And this is the
danger because both sides,
if this holds and this stands and this
attack on academic institutions
is going to continue, it's not going to
end at Donald Trump. It's going to be
pulling out all the things the Republicans don't
like and then pulling out all the things
the Democrats don't like. And then at the
end of the day, you have no education
system because you can't teach anything anymore. You
can't say anything anymore because both sides are
censoring. Both sides, they talk about snowflakes and,
oh, they're, that they like to censor and
they don't like free speech.
Both sides are like that. They just have
different angles and there's snowflakes about different things,
and they have different complaints that they want
to silence you based upon. So
and it's all coming from an elite. It's
not coming from a grassroots level. None of
this is actually about antisemitism.
Right. They couldn't give a damn about genuine
antisemitism.
You know? Like, this is not something that
the Heritage Foundation writes an entire document on
how to combat anti Semitism because it actually
is trying to combat genuine anti Semitism. Read
the document. It's all about Israel. It's all
about foreign policy.
Listen to,
Palantir CEO,
Alex Karp, and what he had to say
about the university encampments. He didn't oppose them
just because, oh, well, they're saying some things
they don't. He's saying, if we lose the
debate on the university campuses, we can never
deploy it or the US military anywhere in
the world ever again. Right. That is the
point.
So this is something that affects everyone across
the political spectrum. It's not left. It's not
right. It's not Republican. It's not Democrat. It
affects everyone at this point, and it's something
that everyone should stand up to. And it's
undeniably linked to what's happening in Gaza and
undeniably linked to what the Israelis are being
able to get away with.
So it's a sort of long note to,
end on, but I I think that that
point,
has to be brought home. You know? Like,
I think people have to understand the connection.
I think it's a very important point to
end on. And, you know, the reality being
is that that central thread, you know, the
real agenda behind the the left right paradigm
flavoring that keeps you thinking things are different.
Right? Where, you know, now you're getting a
certain push, but like you're saying, when it
swings around and Democrats are in power, well,
now you're gonna get your forced pronouns and
DEI and whatever else. But the point is
those are the those are the window dressing.
Right? The say the agenda as you're highlighting
continues behind it, the censorship, the control, the
the role you know, I like, I think
I'm glad you mentioned Karp and the rest
of the way out, Andreessen,
Kiel. You know, it's they're screaming Zionists, very
clear. They're not hiding that. But on top
of that, this weird edge to it that's
like this technocratic
kind of, like, elitist,
you know, you need the good oligarchs and
elitist to make sure you're safe. You know,
let us win out against the bad guy.
That's this big push they're putting forward right
now. And so it's weird. Like you're saying,
it all comes back to just the the
controlling structure of your life and the rest
is just, you know, it's just reactionary. And
people buy into it, you know, but the
censorship like, the joke is, you know, woke
left, woke right. Bro, snowflake, broflake. It's the
same different thing, different side, you know? But
thank you for tuning in today, brother, or
or being here today, brother. And I definitely
wanna connect with you again very soon. And
everybody out there, as always, question everything. Come
to your own conclusions. Stay vigilant.
Tom, respects it's just as bad now, the
authoritarianism,
that is coming, Gerald. I am really, really
fearful for the president of The United States
Of America to suggest as he did on
Air Force One on Sunday night,
that American citizens could be deported
for his press secretary to say, we're looking
into,
a way to see if this is legal.
We don't know if it's legal or not.
A, it's terrifying.
B, betrays such a profound ignorance of first
principles to which he is sworn. He is
sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution
and to enforce,
federal law. You mentioned that you're open to
deporting,
individuals that aren't foreign aliens but are criminals
to El Salvador. Does that in does that
include potentially US citizens fully naturalized in Ukraine?
If they're criminals and if they hit people
with baseball bats over their head that happened
to be 90 years old, and
if,
if they rape
87 year old women in Coney Island, Brooklyn,
yeah. Yeah. That includes them. What do you
think? There's special category of person? They're as
bad as anybody that comes in. We have
bad ones too. Profoundly un American, utterly unconstitutional,
and I am sorry to say
is coming.