Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/31/23: Bibi Rejects Ceasefire, New Hostages Video, Leaked Doc Reveals Empty Gaza Strip Plan, Speaker Wants IRS Cuts For Israel Aid, Ukraine Admits Stealing, Surveillance On College Campuses, Iowans Sour On Vivek, PBD Confronts DeSantis Heels, And MORE!

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Netanyahu rejecting calls for ceasefire and resignation, Hamas puts out a new hostage video, Leaked docs reveal Israeli plan to empty Gaza strip, New Speaker puts out plan to cut IRS funding for Israel Aid, Ukraine admits to "stealing like there's no tomorrow", Biden admin to unleash surveillance on protests at college campuses, New Polls show Iowans souring on Vivek, the PBD podcast confronts DeSantis over his High Heels, and we're joined in studio by Gili Roman a brother of the Israeli hostages to talk about his story, Netanyahu, Palestinian Rights, and Peace.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hey, guys. Ready or not, 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. It is Tuesday. We have a great show for everyone today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. A lot to get into this morning. Bibi Netanyahu speaking out,

taking questions really from for the first time extensively since October 7th. So some pretty noteworthy comments there. We'll bring you all of that. This comes as a internal government document from an Israeli ministry was released, which gives some indication of what they might want to do after this Gaza offensive is finished. So we'll break all of that down for you. We'll also have new revelations about how aid may roll out. Republicans sort of making their opening bid, wanting to tie support for Israel together with cutting money from the IRS, from the agents that would go after wealthy tax cheats. So we'll talk about that and its prospects. I actually genuinely don't know what its prospects are.

We can debate all of that. We'll talk about it. We'll debate all of that. We also have some new U.S. government state-sponsored censorship efforts that we want to tell you about and break down for you, and also some global censorship as well around the issue of Israel and Palestine. New poll out of Iowa with some very good news for Donald Trump. Good news for Nikki Haley, actually. Very bad news for Vivek Ramaswamy. And Ron DeSantis confronted

over the conspiracy which has swept the internet, of which I am a true believer, which is that he is wearing secret heels within those really weird and ugly boots that he wears all the time. I will hold my commentary. I have a full analysis and investigation for you in that block. We also are very honored to have the brother of one of the Israeli citizens who was thought to have been taken hostage by Hamas. He is joining us in studio. We actually just recorded the interview. I really hope that all of you take the time to listen to what this man has to say about how he wants the hostages to remain front and center, and also about how he continues to hold on to hope for peace, which is just an extraordinary

testament to his human spirit. So I really hope you guys stick around for all of that, because it's just so important as we cover these big picture geopolitical machinations to remember the innocent human beings that are caught in the middle of this and are suffering so greatly. Yeah, he was a real reminder for that, for both of us. Probably why we're in a somber mood right now. Just please take a listen. You should watch it. He talks about his sister. He talks about some of the bigger picture stuff, and he brings it back to what's most important, which is the humanity at the all of it. So anyway, let's start with Benjamin Netanyahu finally facing some questions from the Western

press. We've picked out three separate bites that we thought were the most important. The first was about asking him about calls for ceasefire. Here's what he had to say. I want to make clear Israel's position regarding a ceasefire. Just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or after the terrorist attack of 9-11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7th. Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas,

to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen. Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible says that there is a time for peace and a time for war. This is a time for war, a war for our common future. Today we draw a line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism. It is a time for everyone to decide where they stand. Israel will stand against the forces of barbarism until victory. I hope and pray that civilized nations everywhere will back this fight.

Because Israel's fight back this fight. Because Israel's fight is your fight. Because if Hamas and Iran's axis of evil win, you will be their next target. That's why Israel's victory will be your victory. But make no mistake, regardless of who stands with Israel, Israel will fight until this battle is won. There's a lot to be said there. I would say that this is why with Netanyahu, you can honestly, at a certain point, you just need

to respect his wiliness. That is one of the most calibrated message for American audiences by a foreign leader I've ever seen. A, it's delivered in basically perfect near accentless English. Second, we talk about Pearl Harbor and 9-11. Why don't we just pluck those two events out of thin air? Access of—these are all things which the American public, and specifically the constituencies in the U.S. that are most supportive of Israel, this is purely activating for all of them. Integrating the Bible into that discussion, a nod to the evangelical supporters.

I mean, and again, we always say it's like when something's released in English, it's talked about in English, it is purely calibrated, mostly for a US audience. That's entirely how I read that, Crystal. Yeah. One of the things that I noted is they've long been making comparisons with 9-11. Yes. And that cuts in both directions because on the one hand, it's like, yes, that takes Americans very clearly, especially Americans of a certain age, back to that day, the horror they felt, the desire for revenge, and the patriotism and the nationalism that swept the country at that time. But it's a double-edged sword, too, because the way we reacted was foolish. And it just sowed more chaos, more destruction.

It did not make us safer or make anyone safer. And not to mention, you know, led to the mass killing of so many civilians. So I think that's why there's now the addition of, let's also talk about World War II and, you know, the Nazis and the attack on Pearl Harbor as a further justification. And Sagar, I was actually curious of what you make of that historical comparison because, you know, when I think about it, like, there is no diminishing the horror that Israel and Israeli citizens suffered on that day.

I mean, far be it, especially after we just talked to Gili, to diminish the suffering for those people and the horror they felt, the way that it shook them to their core. But to compare that to the extermination of millions of Jews and Nazi Germany, which was incredibly powerful versus Hamas, which is, you know, ragtag, Israel is a much more powerful position backed up by the most powerful superpower on the planet. I don't think the analogy quite holds. Well, that's where the difficulty of it and

every situation is unique. I mean, really what if I were to guess, one of the reasons why you want to bring up Pearl Harbor is because of the bombing campaigns that the US and the Western allies undertook against Nazi Germany and against Japan. However, they're not exactly looked upon the most kindly, even though they probably were necessary in order to win and to fight the war. However, you would say at that time, it's a little bit different because the Japanese empire is not like a ragtag group of dudes with rockets inside of Gaza. The Nazi regime, the Nazi colossus,

at least as it was at one point, is certainly not the same. So yeah, it's a little bit different. All of these things, as you said, come back to, you can read into it whichever one you want. You could say that, there's a lot of people who would even dispute what I said. They would say that the firebombing of Tokyo wasn't necessary, that the only thing that really capitulated the Japanese was the atomic bomb.

There's a lot of alternate historians, it might even be the mainstream view now, that the bombing of Dresden and all of that was totally unnecessary in order to win the war. And actually counterproductive is the analysis of a lot of historians. I'm not really entirely sure where I fall on that. I think some of it is hindsight and all of that. But we're not in hindsight right now. We're in today. And we get to decide how and what the way we conduct ourselves. In general, the world came together post-World War II and just said, hey, this type of response, let's just make sure that never happens again and let's outlaw it for all time. Of course, there's been many hypocrisies. But I think to your point, and this

is where I found it interesting that the Western press was able to ask Beebe about collective punishment. I could not imagine President Bush three and a half weeks into the war on terror ever being asked something like that. So to me, it was a change in that. This is where a reporter asked Beebe about it. Let's take a listen to what he said. People can't understand why so many have people, civilians, have to die in this process. You argue that Hamas is putting them up as human shields. Is that a good enough excuse? Are you inflicting here collective punishment on the people of Palestine? Not a single civilian has to die. Hamas merely has to let them go to the safe zone

that we created in southeastern Gaza Strip. There's a safe zone there. Not a single civilian has to die. But Hamas is preventing them from leaving, keeping them in the areas of conflict. So I think that you should direct your questions to Hamas. But I can tell you one thing. We're going out of our way to prevent civilian casualties.

So he says that there's a safe zone there in the south. I mean, this is where it's a bit difficult because we know that there have been multiple airstrikes that have happened on the south. It's just a blatant lie. They told people to move south, which is reignited. We'll get into some of the potential plans for Gaza after the invasion and what that might look like. But it has obviously reignited a lot of fears about a second Nakba. That southern part has not been free of bombing.

It's not like it has been a safe zone, not whatsoever. So that part is just a total lie. Is Hamas preventing them from leaving? I don't know, because you did have close to, you know, somewhere around a million people who did leave the north for the south. Yeah, they've been displaced internally. Exactly. As you said, it's very difficult to actually get a report out since there's no journalists in there, which Israel is not allowing them. But we know for sure many, you know, probably close to a million people have fled the north. Now that has left quite a number still remaining in the north. But, you know, if Hamas is trying to prevent them from leave, they're not doing a very effective job. So there's

that. There's also this, you know, question of collective punishment. And even if you buy all of the Israeli propaganda, which I don't, about how they're doing everything they can to avoid targeting civilians, etc., etc. I mean, when you look at this just mass indiscriminate bombing campaign of civilian infrastructure that's been happening for weeks now at this point telecoms and internet blackout on this population, no food, no water, no fuel, et cetera. There is no other way to define that than collective punishment. The last thing I will say here on this, you know, this question, even if you again, buy into the idea of like, oh, Hamas is using civilians as human shields, is imagine if Hamas was operating in Tel Aviv and was using Israeli citizens in a hospital, let's say, or in a school or in a marketplace as human shields. Do you think the Israeli government would think it was an appropriate

response to then just go in and blow up that hospital and say, well, to hell with those Israeli citizens because Hamas was using them as human shields. Of course they wouldn't. Of course they wouldn't. And so it really exposes the very disparate treatment and view of civilian lives, depending on whether they are Israeli lives or whether they are Palestinian lives. And I also just think, you know, this logic that he offers of, well, it's really all Hamas's fault. And any civilian who dies, it's 100% Hamas's fault. That's the equivalent of the logic that like the Harvard students used when they said it's Israel's sole responsibility that those Israeli citizens were massacred. That is completely morally bankrupt. Of course, the Israeli government bears some

responsibility and they are not supposed to be a terrorist organization. They are supposed, they're holding themselves out as this beacon of the civilized world. So act like it. Don't lower yourself to their standards. But, you know, obviously that ship has sort of sailed. Yeah, I honestly would just appreciate it if they were a little bit more honest.

And actually I look to their defenders here in America and their defenders are in America are basically like, yeah, they have to do it. That's what they should do. That's the only way in order to wipe it out. And they're like, sure, it's not in compliance with – I mean international law is fake, right? Because what is it? Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

It's like if you can do it, then is it really the law? Well, not really. I mean they're certainly exposing that international law is completely fake. No doubt about that. I've always believed that. It's part of the reason I don't often use the term. So my thing for Israel and them is that they need to just be honest about what they are doing. Part of the reason why they won't is because they're actually partied in some cases to some of the Geneva Conventions to the United Nations and

others, which would put them up for censure. But in the way that they're conducting the war, I mean, they've come under criticism by the US, by all these other organizations. And yet it does just expose like the fundamental divide of, you know, we're backing our ally, so is most of the Western world. And then we try and reverse it and turn it around on Russia and Ukraine. Everyone's like, wait, what are you talking about? And so for me, it's like, let's all just be very honest about what's going on here, about interests, about allies, about who we support and about how we don't, because that's what confuses the entire game. And honestly, it just makes a mockery whenever we try to use it against somebody else.

So the last thing that he was actually asked about, which is especially fascinating, was, are you going to take responsibility for what happened? Are you going to resign? And he had a very interesting defense. Let's take a listen. Thank you, sir. It seems that the level of support that you have amongst the Israeli public has dropped considerably. So the question is, how can you continue to lead this country effectively during a very difficult time? And have you at all considered stepping down? The only thing that I intend to have resigned is Hamas. We're going to resign them to the dustbin of history. That's my goal. That's my responsibility. That's example, even from the Wall Street Journal, Netanyahu fights for his political survival in the face of a devastating intelligence failure, the hostage

crisis, and the launch of a brutal and grinding war. The Israeli prime minister is struggling to rally the public to his side. And they just show, I mean, we've played for you, you know, videos and instances of people in the Israeli public who are shouting out his own ministers out of hospitals. In some cases, people are smearing red paint on the headquarters of the Likud party to look like blood. The message being that you have blood on your hands. And that question highlights one that Crystal, he keeps getting in Hebrew where they're like, hey, what are we going to do about this investigation? He's like, first we'll fight the war, then we'll have the investigation. And it kind of reminds me, honestly, of 9-11, where in the immediate aftermath,

we never asked the big question. We're like, how did this happen? We just reacted. By the time the 9-11 Commission report came out, we were in Iraq. It was like 9-11 was forgotten. And then we had an even more stunning intelligence failure, just to back that up. So I'm coming back to what you said, which is, let's actually remember. And honestly, you'll rarely hear me say this, something good that President Biden said, where he said, look, after 9-11, we were filled with rage. And we did a lot of things which we

eventually came to regret. And I would urge you, don't go down that same path. Because when you do, you'll find yourselves just like us, $7 trillion or whatever bankrupt, thousands of American servicemen who are dead, who knows untold millions and others who've been touched by the war or suffering PTSD, not to mention all the civilians that died in the process. But honestly, it just seems like we're going right down the same thing. And the worst part is that we have a politician here who has the incentive to keep the war going as much as possible or to keep the Supreme Commander in this case has the utmost incentive not to rally

the nation, but to preserve himself. It's a very bizarre alignment of interests. And honestly, he should resign. If you really believe in the integrity of the state of Israel, how can you have a politician with misaligned interests who is up there at the top, especially in a coalition style government, like, like in Israel with the parliamentary system. I mean, switching people in and out is not that difficult compared to like a president and, uh, yeah, compared to a president and four year election. So there's these parliamentary systems of government are actually designed to be anti-fragile and to move quickly in situations like this, as we saw during the Second World War or even the First World War in some instances in the British system.

And yeah, I mean just to see how that is for the public, it must be intolerable. I cannot imagine being in a similar situation, trying to be a citizen who wants to rally to my cause and then having a prime minister who, you know, you were sketched out about, but at this point, both is responsible, at least in some form, for the failure, but now has a direct interest, not necessarily in the same as everybody in the public, which we're going to talk about in a little bit. Yeah, I mean, he is incredibly constrained by his desire to hold on to power. Right. And there's a variety of ways that that influence operates on him. One is, even though he's formed this quote unquote unity government, et cetera, very telling that he refused the calls to push out some of his most extreme coalition partners like Ben Gavir because he still has his eyes on, I got to be able to form a coalition after this

is all over. And it's not an accident that he ended up in this coalition with these absolute extremists and true like genocidal lunatics, because it was very difficult for him to be able to form a government at all. So he was sort of forced into this position of building this coalitional government that has these incredibly extreme elements. And so the fact that even in this moment when it was necessary to form this war cabinet and this unity government, he refused those demands to push out those elements because he's thinking down the road, I got to get them back in if I'm going to hold on to power. The other piece is when you have a prime minister who even before this dramatic failure was already really unpopular, extremely divisive, under fire for corruption, under fire for his attempts to like basically take over the

judiciary to get out of his corruption troubles. That leaves you very little room to maneuver. So if there is something that is in the best interest of long-term peace that maybe the Israeli public is not super excited about because right now they understandably just want revenge, you're not going to have the bandwidth to do that. So he is under tremendous pressure and he has no room to navigate. And that really constrains and really impacts what he is doing here and the way that he is prosecuting this war. And as you already pointed out, Sagar, he also, because he put out this like, yeah, we'll all have to answer questions, including me, but not till after the war is over. Every incentive to keep this war dragging out as long as possible. You know, there was a very interesting incident that really ignited a

firestorm within Israel of controversy around him, where he put out this tweet, and this was detailed in the Wall Street Journal piece. He put out this tweet publicly blaming the security failures, not on not taking any responsibility himself, but on Israel's defense and intelligence services. He says he hadn't been warned of Hamas's intention to start a war. This has countered a lot of reporting at this point. He said that defense and intelligence officials had assessed that Hamas was deterred. There was such an uproar, he actually deleted the tweet and apologized. But this is clearly trying to plant the seeds of how he wants to try to pass the buck and try to delay until perhaps memories have faded and perhaps the rawness of emotion has faded to say, well, it really wasn't me. It was those guys. They're the ones that failed. They're the ones that led you astray.

In spite of the fact that his whole claim to power and justification for his position as prime minister, for his government, et cetera, was I am Mr. Security. I will keep you safe. So the fact that this happened on his watch, in spite of the way he had framed himself, I mean, this is incredibly politically devastating. Yeah. And just to highlight again how difficult and different, you know, public opinion in Israel may be than to how you might hear in the U.S. press put this up there on the screen. This is just from two days ago in Reuters from an internal poll. Almost half of Israelis want to hold off on any invasion of Gaza in what may indicate a

major dip in support for the plan next stage of the operation. Israel has vowed to support it. Now, from the actual breakdown, quote, asked if the military should immediately escalate to a large-scale ground offensive. Only 29% of Israelis agreed. 49% said, quote, it would be better to wait. 22% were undecided. And I think a huge reason for that is the hostages. These hostages are at the center of the minds of a lot of the Israeli public around how to respond. And then furthermore, Crystal, we have some even more polling, which is really interesting around how the actual Israeli public is feeling and also about the actual calls for Netanyahu. So we've always been trying to highlight here the Israeli voices like Haaretz, which is like a center-left publication. They published an editorial just yesterday,

put this up there please, on the screen that highlights exactly what we're talking about here. They say, this is the headline, Netanyahu's coalition must remove him immediately. The message that Netanyahu posted on his social media accounts in which in the midst of the war, he blamed those heads of the defense establishment, necessitates his immediate removal as prime minister. After this post, notwithstanding the fact that he deleted it and apologized weekly, every Israeli, the president of the state and others, once and for all, they need to continue at his fateful time is to gamble with Israel's future. So what they continue to say is, you know, this isn't just our analysis. This is quite a few people who are inside of the country. However, we do want to

make sure that people understand, you know, people in Israel are not just like kumbaya peace. It's not that they want to hold off on an invasion because they're so concerned about Palestinians or Palestinian lives. They want to hold off an invasion because they want to make sure that their citizens are safe. Understandable sentiment. We just want to be very clear about what they actually think. Let's put this up there, please, on the screen.

This is from a poll of the Israel Democracy Institute. So for example, they ask, to what extent do you trust each of the following institutions? On the government, it is 48.7%, the vast majority of people, not at all, do not trust the government. On not so much, it's 29.9%. It's interesting, too, you can look at the breakdown between Jews and Arab citizens of Israel. In terms of people who actually trust the government quite a lot in Israel, It's 13% and an additional five don't know at three. So people are very decided on the issue. That's interesting. So that does highlight Netanyahu's problem. But let's go to the next one here, please. To what extent do you think that

Israel should take into consideration the suffering of the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza when planning the next phases of the operation there? Not at all. You have 40% of the general public. However, there's a big breakdown between Jews and Arabs. 47.5% of Jews say not at all. 1.2% of Arabs. On not so much, it's an additional 35.9%. So the vast majority of Israeli Jews saying they should not take into consideration civilian population of the Palestinian people. but you do have 4% of Arabs who vehemently disagree. Now, in terms of the flip, in terms of people who say we should very much take into consideration their suffering, it's the vast majority of the Arab-Israeli population which says that they should. So there is a big, big flip there. It's basically a complete reversal. Keep this up on

the screen because I want to highlight these other poll questions as well. You can just see very clearly here the sectarian divide between these are Jews and these are Arab Israelis. So these are not people who are living in the West Bank or living in the Gaza Strip. These are Arab Israelis, their view of what's going on. And so here you see 83% of Jews saying basically like, don't really care about the civilian Palestinian population. And it's completely reversed for Arabs. 83% say, I care quite a lot, or I care very much about the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza vis-a-vis this war. Keep this up on the screen. The next question here, do you agree or disagree that when undertaking military operations, the IDF should ensure it is not breaking international laws and rules of war? So basically, like, how do you feel about

war crimes? And you've got a very large split here as well. In terms of Jewish Israelis, you have it split more or less 50-50, whether they care much about international law or rule of war. With Arabs, completely different story. Again, it's about 83% who say, yes, you should be caring about whether you're breaking international law and rules of war. And the last one we wanted to highlight here, which is very relevant both to the next conversation we're about to have and also to our conversation that we had with Gili Roman, whose sister is an Israeli hostage. In your opinion, should the state of Israel conduct negotiations with Hamas for the state of Israel conduct negotiations

with Hamas for the release of kidnapped Israelis in return for the release of Hamas prisoners from Israeli prisons? Here, there's a real divide among Jewish Israelis. You have the first response is, yes, they should do these negotiations immediately, even if it means halting the fighting. Not a lot of takers there with Jews. Overwhelmingly, that's the position with Arabs at 60%. The next response is yes, immediately, but don't stop the fighting. That's the place where the plurality of Jewish Israelis stand. And I would say, based on our conversation with Gili, that's what he thinks. Basically, 37% say continue to negotiate, but also don't stop the fighting. Only 6% of Arabs hold that view. The next position is not right now, only at the end of the fighting.

That is a relatively fringe position, even among Jewish Israelis at only 15%. And then the just flat out no, don't negotiate at all is actually pretty popular among Jewish Israelis, about 26%. So that's the most popular position. So the bulk of the public there pretty popular among Jewish Israelis, about 26%. So that's the most popular position. So the bulk of the public there in terms of Jewish Israelis say either negotiate but keep fighting or don't negotiate at all. Just fight and we'll see what happens later. Yeah. I mean, look, unfortunately, I think it mostly tracks with U.S. public opinion post 9-11. I mean, if you would ask people in the United States, should we care at all about Iraqi civilians in October of –

yeah, almost – what? 21 years ago, almost to the day at this time when we were deciding all these things, everyone, 90-some percent would have been like, absolutely not, wipe them out. I mean, I'm sure you remember too, Chris. I grew up in Texas, so I heard this one a lot. They're like, I don't care. Everything I need to know about Islam, I found out on September 11, 2001. All of these dumb refrains, which, and to be honest, and I even heard this from Daryl Cooper, who was on our podcast. He's like, a lot of the guys who I heard that from, he's like, they ended up going to serve in the military and then finding themselves just either reversed or just really hopeless and sad about how the entire situation turned out. So again, you know, history certainly does seem to rhyme

in this situation. I guess the entire point of this is just to show you that Israel is in a complex place in terms of how its people feel, in terms of what they want. But I think one thing that they all are pretty much united around is they don't trust their government. And Netanyahu is at the center of all of that. And unfortunately, I guess for us, is he is our number one negotiating partner and or messaging person to the American public around all of this. It's very dangerous, I think, for that country to have him at the helm at this time whenever he's going to be so controversial to so many people inside his own country and so many people inside of ours. Let's move on, Ben, to some just basic news around the actual invasion and one of the preeminent goals for a lot of the Israeli public, which is the return of the hostages.

Let's go and put this up there on the screen. The IDF said yesterday that a female Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped by Hamas was, quote, released during IDF ground operations. The IDF is saying that the soldier was medically checked, is doing well, and has met with their family. The details of this are a little weird, actually, because it appears that she was not being held in a tunnel. She was being held in an area very close to where some of the Israeli military operations were. Didn't have a lot of military guard around her. And this isn't just an Israeli hostage. This is an IDF soldier who was taken captive by Hamas. So I don't know, maybe it was a screw up or something like that by Hamas. Clearly they had some intelligence to that effect. They

went in and they rescued her. It came at the same time of the release of a new video of some of these hostages. Of course, let's keep this in mind before we even play it. These hostages are being held against their will and under duress. So it's not like we can take everything that they say as truth or how they are actually feeling, but we wanted to play it just to give you the, at least this is the message that Hamas wants the hostages to project to the Israeli public, which is going to have some sort of impact. So take the caveat. And now let's put this up there on the screen and I'll read some of the top subtitles. They say, Bibi Netanyahu, we are in Chevy, Chevy Hamas, 23. How many days? It's been 23 days, she says to the two people sitting next to her. Yesterday, there was a press conference with the kidnapped families. We know that there was supposed to be a ceasefire. You were supposed

to free us all. You had to free us all. And instead, we are driving in your political security, military, and political chaos. And there's nods there from some of the people who are next to her. Because of the mess that, quote, you made on the 7th of October. Because there was no army there. No one came. No one listened to us. And we, innocent citizens, citizens who pay taxes to the state of Israel,

are in Chevy, in conditions, not conditions. This one is a difficult one. You are killing us. You want to kill us all. You want to find a way to kill us all. Not enough. You killed everyone. Not enough Israeli citizens were killed. Free us. Free us now. Free their citizens. Free their prisoners. Free us. Free all of us. And give us, give us to return to our families now

really horrible situation there i can't imagine what these women are going through again i who knows whether any of that is true whether they have guns pointed at their heads but it's clear that hamas wants to exploit that message and to hammer it home something that you would talk almost immediately crystal about the divisions in the is the Israeli public around the moving of IDF soldiers from the border with Gaza to the West Bank in order to protect settlers, leaving people there feeling very exposed. Many of them are really more like Israeli leftists. They're like peace activists. In some cases, those two old ladies who were released, Ryan did a great job of kind of talking about them and their peace legacy. People haven't gone, they've been into Gaza before to provide medical services to Palestinian people. So these women, we don't know much about them, but of course they were,

they're being exploited and they're being projected here. But the message that they are trying to get across is that Hamas is desirable at this point of a ceasefire, but obviously to take advantage or at least for whatever purposes. But it also gets to the difficulty of the hostage situation and what they are then demanding. It seems that they are saying, we want the release of all of our prisoners in exchange. Now, the details of any sort of hostage swap and all of that are very nebulous in some cases. Sometimes they're saying, well, we want the release of all Hamas people who were taken on October 7th. Or actually we want all Palestinian prisoners who are being held by Israel.

Or in some cases have been held now for decades in an Israeli prison. the reports indicate that the head of the Israeli Mossad actually just traveled to, may not have met with Hamas directly, but is meeting with other representatives where Hamas has representation there as well. A group of the family members of Israelis who are being held hostage released that their position is they support a swap of all prisoners for all prisoners or all hostages for all hostages. So at least some portion of the hostage family members, like that is their position. They want to negotiate. They want to make that deal. I also want to mention the fact, because I think this is really significant as well in understanding, you know, the, this entire dynamic. There were a lot of Palestinian day laborers from Gaza who were actually in Israel

on the day of October 7th. They were there on a work permit to work. They usually work in the very difficult, dirty, low-paying industries that Israelis don't want to do. So they give Gazans work permits. This was part of the idea to sort of like placate this area and try to keep tensions and security concerns at bay. Thousands of them are missing. A number of them have been confirmed, taken, I would say, basically hostage by the Israelis as well. So when we're talking about Palestinian prisoners who could be part of some theoretical deal, which again, you have to consider you're dealing with Hamas here, so how much you take them at their word, et cetera. But when you're thinking about Palestinian prisoners, I just want people

to understand the type of people that could be involved in that. Some of them are undoubtedly hardened Hamas terrorists, no doubt about it, but some of them are also just regular Palestinian day laborers who are being held now in indefinite detention in this very sort of like Guantanamo Bay type system that Israel has set up exactly for this type of situation. So that's sort of the bigger picture of the potential swap that is being discussed here. Yeah, that's right. So that's the context for the current hostage situation in terms of the military operations. We've been checking. Military operations obviously continue. The tanks remain inside of Gaza. It appears that they are doing some sort of movement to encircle the city, Gaza City. We broke a lot of that down yesterday,

but there hasn't been anything significant that's happened in the last 24 hours. Of course, we will keep you guys all updated. Part of what we've tried to keep the focus on here from the beginning is not only what is happening right now and the horrors of it and the details of it and the geostrategic importance of it, but okay, what's the plan for after? And to make the 9-11 comparison again, I mean, going into Iraq at all was foolish, but we also went in without a real plan for after at least not one that made any damn sense. The Israeli government has been very insistent under Netanyahu that like, oh, we haven't really thought about that. First, we're going to go in and do this thing and then we'll figure it out down the road.

The U.S. has reportedly in one of these, you know, hand-wringing dispatches, very concerned about that, trying to pressure them to come up with a plan. So we are starting to get some leaks and some details about some of the plans which are being crafted and floated in what I would describe as basically like a domestic and international kind of trial balloon. Put this up on the screen from Haaretz. The Israeli intel ministry suggests relocating Gazans to Sinai after the Hamas war. So completely pushing Gazans out of the Gaza Strip and into the Egyptian Sinai desert after the Hamas war. Again, this was a leaked document that gave a number of possible suggestions, but this was the one that they felt was like the best idea. They say a draft document prepared by the Israeli intel ministry suggests an option to initially relocate Gaza's population to tent cities in northern Sinai. This is a first indication of a possible exit strategy to the war by the political leadership. Among a number of suggestions

in this new document drafted by the ministry is the possible relocation in the current war's aftermath. It suggests Israel might initially relocate them to tent cities to be followed later by the establishment of permanent communities in northern Sinai. So this is a permanent relocation is what's being floated here. Document presents two additional alternatives. One would permit the Palestinian Authority, which has partial control of the West Bank and which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007, to control

Gaza with its current residents remaining. Another option would have Israel establish local Arab rule by Gaza's residents who remain in their homes after the collapse of the Hamas regime. The prime minister's office said in response to this article, this is an initial document of the kind that can be found in dozens of iterations at all levels of the government and the security services. The issue of the day after has not been discussed at any official forum in Israel, which is now focused on eliminating Hamas's governmental and military capabilities. And, Sagar, as you know, I've long thought that it was complete bullshit, that they're like, we haven't even thought about that.

Because even before this war, they had thought about it. There had been position papers. There had been position papers. There had been articulated political positions. Netanyahu famously as a head of Likud has been totally opposed to any sort of Palestinian statehood. That's why he was interested in propping up Hamas because he knew Hamas could not be negotiated with. There would be no appetite for peace with Hamas. He also knew that keeping the residents of the West Bank versus the Gaza Strip separated was also good for thwarting Palestinian statehood. So that's why they prefer this idea of, let's be honest, what would amount to the textbook definition of an ethnic cleansing.

They prefer that because if you allow the Palestinian Authority control over Gaza, then you have this little glimmer of a possibility at Palestinian statehood. And the reason we should take this seriously, number one, the reporting is that this was intentionally leaked to a group of basically like right-wing activists to try to get it out into the press. Again, that's why I call this as sort of like trial balloon to see how the Israeli population responds to it, but more importantly, to see how we respond to it. Yes. And we also have some indications from, you'll recall, we covered Tony Blinken's discussion with President Sisi of Egypt. And one of the things that he said really stood out to me about how, you know, oh, they put off the table like any relocation of Gazans. Let's put this up on the screen from Reuters. Egypt's CC rejects transfer

of Gazans, discusses aid with Biden. And so it was a real red flag to me that that had even been seriously discussed from the U.S. secretary of state with the president of Egypt and was, again, an indication that this whole, oh, we don't know what we want to do thing was a bluff. And they actually had some ideas behind the scenes of what they wanted to do. They just didn't want to really come out and say it publicly. Yeah, I think it's, I agree that it's probably a trial balloon and it is one where the, I would even say the less important to us is how the Arab world will react to this. And I think it's interesting that Sisi, it seems, had some sort of inkling around this. I mean, let's also remember, Sisi has a pretty good intelligence some sort of inkling around this. I mean, let's also remember,

Sisi has a pretty good intelligence network. It helps whenever you are a dictator of your entire country. And they're the ones who actually warned the Israelis about October 7th, just a couple of days before, just like, just so you know, clearly he probably had some heads up that something like this was being planned. I just don't think it's honestly even feasible. They can try and trial balloon it all they want. If they were to try and forcibly relocate a million people or so into the Sinai, it would absolutely spark a regional war. There's no question. It also flies in the face of all US policy, bipartisan US policy now for multiple administrations. I believe even since the Bush administration, whenever it came to the policy of the United States government, it has been now for

almost two decades, is we believe in a two-state Palestinian solution. This is the opposite of that. Also, it flies in the face of the previous way that we thought about Sinai, about the removal of Israeli troops. I think even to this day, there are still U.S. peacekeepers, at least in the region or nearby, because I know that sometimes they had a run-in with ISIS. My point being is that this is dead on arrival for the entire international community. And it is, though, I think, dangerous, especially if it's dangerous if it came about the way that you said. It's one thing to be leaked because people are concerned about it. It's way other thing to be leaked because they're like, no, no, no, guys, let's float this and let's see what the response is. This would set up, I believe this actually would set up a complete

showdown with the Arab world, where this is the plan and this is what they actually want to commit themselves to. That's it. We're going to war. There's no question. They also include in here details about the way they would sell the international community and the Arab world and the U.S. in particular on this idea. And I mean, it's unfolding. The plan lays out some of these phases have already unfolded. So the idea is, OK, first we push them out of northern Gaza for their safety or southern Gaza, also not safe, but we'll put that aside for a moment. Then we do the ground invasion. We push them out of the strip altogether, again, for their safety. You'll remember early on with the Biden administration, there was a lot of talk of these humanitarian corridors. That was the idea of like, oh, we're going to open these humanitarian corridors so that people can flee the fighting and keep them safe with, of course, we'll let them return. And then after that, basically making the case that actually be better off for them.

And, you know, this is so destroyed now in Gaza, they can't possibly return home. So there's a whole strategy here laid out of the type of propaganda that would be used and the way it would unfold to try to effectuate this outcome. Now, I agree with you. I think the fact that Blinken made those comments publicly, that we haven't been hearing similar language about humanitarian corridors, tent cities, et cetera, from the Biden administration, I think is also another indication. But just a couple other pieces on this. So just to give you an insight into how the Netanyahu government thinks about this issue and how different it is from the U.S. typical conception of like, oh, we're in this peace process and we're working to a two-state solution, etc. The option of reinstating the Palestinian Authority rule in Gaza is described in this report as the least desirable because,

quote, the division between the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza is one of the main obstacles today preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. So again, the reason they don't like the idea of the Palestinian Authority being in Gaza is because that would open up the possibility of a potential two-state or some sort of peace solution. So just so you have an insight into how they're thinking. And one last piece that I'll put out here, which came out maybe last week, which also shows the seriousness of the thought that's being put into this plan. Very similar plan was crafted and put out publicly by an Israeli think tank that has ties into this government. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is a report from this, I actually

wasn't familiar with this New Lions magazine. It seems like sort of like a neoliberal with my vibe in terms of their ideology. The headline here is, as the Middle East reels a a new option takes shape. Expulsion, years of careful diplomacy have been overturned by the current wave of violence, forcing the major powers in the region and beyond to look for new policies, however extreme. So they go on to report, put this up on the screen, just this week, a right-wing Israeli think tank headed by the country's former national security advisor published a report on various scenarios for the future of Gaza, including a detailed plan for the expulsion of its Palestinian population to Egypt in the paper by the Jerusalem-based Miscav Institute for Zionist Strategy and National Security. Only one suggestion for a post-Hamas future is deemed viable for Israel's long-term security, the

quote, transfer of the Gaza population to Sinai or other countries. Author of the report says that Washington can play a crucial role by pressuring these countries to either contribute resources or take in displaced Palestinians themselves. Although international law says forced displacement of civilians is a war crime, the author of this report argues transferring Ghazians to Sinai could be legally justified as self-defense in a time of war. So again, just shows you this is something that's being seriously considered. I think being floated as a trial balloon, both to the Arab world, to us, to the Israeli population, and is very much part of the thought process and consideration of what the Israeli government would like to do. The last thing I'll say about that, I mean, putting aside,

I know people feel a certain way when you use these terms. I mean, if you look up the definition of ethnic cleansing, this fits the definition. So put that aside. If you don't care about the morality of it, how are you going to be more secure if you just push these people out, done a complete Nakba? They're in Egypt. Like you no longer even have your like, you know, blockade and your deep surveillance, et cetera. That's part of why I actually think that this won't fly is because I don't know that these really public even if they don't care about the civilians and any of that are gonna feel safe under this certain area I just think this is not gonna happen this might be their wildest dream and like if they had total power they could but

there's no way the international community will ever allow this thing is possible I yeah I can't totally put it off the table just because of these multiple reports coming out and this clearly being floated behind the scenes, etc. And also because it's not like any of the potential post-war strategies makes a lot of sense. Like, there are no good options. I agree with you. I mean, I've said it. Here's what I think is going to happen. I think they're going to set up some sort of DMZ. This is why they're in the

northern part of the country. That's where they're doing everything. They're going to go into Gaza City. They're basically going to level it. Then they're going to take minimal casualties as much as possible. They're going to set up some multiple kilometer demilitarized zone, which is mine to all of hell. And then they're basically going to say they dismantled Hamas, but let's be honest, like it didn't actually happen. And then they're going to pull out that you take minimal casualties. You quote unquote, send a message. Nothing actually fundamentally changes. Hamas will still remain like a quasi in power, which means that the right wing government can always be like, see, we don't have ever serious negotiating power. The problem in all of that is the hostages, of course. Um, and also the. And that's another thing where you almost want to take them at their word.

When they say it's a months-long military operation, you can read it two ways. You could be like, whoa, they're really going to go into hand-to-hand combat. But the more that I see the way that they're conducting themselves, I don't see it. I mean, they're barely getting out of these tanks. You have very special forces raids. They are very, very concerned about Israeli casualties. So if you are that concerned about it, there's no scenario where you're going to be seriously engaged in what it

would take to militarily accomplish this objective. The best thing you could do is just, like I said, set up some sort of DMZ. And you probably, unfortunately, because this was one of the best things that was really was between the two groups, they're probably just going to end the guest worker program completely and not allow Palestinians to even cross the border for anything in the future. That just seems like the most likely scenario. Think about the Israeli public. So the idea of they're going to eliminate Hamas. I mean, it's not going to happen. It's just not possible. It's not going to happen. Right. They know that. They're not fools. Right. There is no way. And

there's no other government structure in place. And, you know, I mean, there haven't been elections there in, what, 17 years or whatever. It's not like there's some thriving democratic society that can put together another government. So the idea of we're going to root out Hamas, no, you're not. Okay. So how is the Israeli public going to react even with, okay, we have this DMZ and we have these additional security procedures, et cetera, but we're going to let Hamas remain in control? I just can't imagine the Israeli public supporting that. So, like I said, the reason I don't think you can rule it out is because, number one, we've already seen them executing a number of these phases. Number two, you know, even prior to this war, this was clearly like the desire of especially certain elements of Netanyahu's coalition, if not him himself, but I think also him himself based on prior support and comments.

There is no good other option. And I just don't know. I don't know how it plays out. I don't know where it ends. I don't know what the Israeli public will accept. And I really want people to sit with the fact that according to this official government ministry report, they would actually rather keep Hamas there than let in Palestinian authority because that would open up the possibility of peace. So they would rather have Hamas in charge than have a possibility of a Palestinian state. I just want you to understand that's the ideology we're dealing with. Definitely, especially the current government. And the other possibility is the Israeli public gets sick of war. And then they're like, look,

let's actually get serious about this. If any public could do it, it would be people whose grandfathers died in the Holocaust, whose fathers had to fight in the 1967 and 1973 wars, a man whose current generation has had to live now with debilitating terror attacks. That can go two different ways. You know, you can go one way where you want complete revenge, but if that doesn't become politically sustainable, then you turn to the other. So I would hope that we can bet on that prevailing,

but of course that is not something that we can count on in the future. Well, the last thing to say on a potentially more hopeful or moderate note or whatever is, I mean, there aren't really like, there aren't real leftists left in the Knesset. Like it's, this whole society has shifted dramatically, right? Which is how Netanyahu ends up in power. But, you know, he is, and his coalition is the most extreme in history and he's hanging out into power by his fingernails. So it's not even close to clear that he and his government would be the ones coming up with and implementing whatever the strategy is for the day after. Yes, exactly right.

Let's move on to the aid part. This is kind of a fascinating conversation. There was a new plan that's been revealed. So of course, Speaker Mike Johnson, the new speaker, said his first act was passing a resolution in support of Israel. The second thing that they really wanted to do was get some Israel aid on the floor. Well, that Israel aid, as I brought you guys the news yesterday, they're breaking it apart from Ukraine aid. Now, it's going to be $14 billion. Now, instead of just paying or just, I guess, borrowing that additional 14 billion, they wanted to do an offset. And so the way they've decided to pay for it is by cutting funding for the IRS, which was included in the Inflation Reduction Act. Here's Speaker Johnson in an

interview just yesterday describing the strategy. Let's take a listen. This is a matter of good versus evil. I think what Prime Minister Netanyahu said just a couple of days ago is exactly right. It's good versus evil. It's light versus darkness. I spoke with him on the telephone, I think it was Saturday night. I've known him for some time. And we spoke in those very clear terms. And we understand what's at stake here.

And I hope that everyone will put politics aside, get that bill over the line. We're going to have pay-fors in it. We're not just going to print money and send it overseas because the other concern we have that is overriding this is our own strength as a nation, which is tied to our fiscal stability. My desire in the first draft of this bill is to take some of the money that has been set aside for the building and bulking up the IRS right now. They have about $67 billion in that fund, and we'll try to take the $14.5 necessary for this immediate and urgent need. We'll deal with the rest of that issue later.

Do you think that will drive away some Democrats in the Senate even or here in the House? It may, but my intention is to call Leader Schumer over there and have a very direct and thoughtful conversation about this. I understand their priority is to bulk up the IRS, but I think if you put this to the American people and they weigh the two needs, I think they're going to say standing with Israel and protecting the innocent over there is in our national interest and is a more immediate need than IRS agents. All right. He's setting up a showdown over the IRS. Let's put this on the screen. We got some of the bill text here just to show you guys. So as you can see, the House GOP wants to offset the 14.3 billion

Israel supplemental with IRS funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. We've got the bill text there that lays it all out. So Crystal, I know that you disagree with this on a policy level, but I got to be honest. I think it's a brilliant play because they're basically daring the Senate and Biden to choose IRS funding over funding for Israel, which at the very least is politically popular for now. IRS funding is certainly not politically popular. You could try and phrase it in different ways, but especially with no protections inside of the bill to make sure that they are not going after poorer people, it's one of those where they are setting things up, I think, for a difficult headline in the future. That said, Chuck Schumer has already

rejected the plan. Schumer says not because of the IRS thing, although it's obviously the reason he's like, well, it doesn't have Ukraine. We have to do it together. And then President Biden has rejected it out of hand for the similar reason. Neither of them doing, though, for the IRS funding. So if this is the sole thing that moves from the House floor, it will be quite a dare. And they already have a Democratic vote, at least one Democratic vote who said he would join them. Well, I don't want funding going to Israel. So if this screws that up, I'm in support of it. But can we just talk for a second about how stupid this is?

Because the money that they're talking about stripping from the IRS not only is to go after wealthy tax cheats, it's also to finance a free tax filing system for ordinary people, which is something I know even you support. It's like one of the few good things that the government is actually planning to do for us. And it's like, all right, let's make sure TurboTax can still extract their pound of flesh from every American when it comes to tax time. Way to go, GOP. But the other level that makes it so stupid is because the money you spend on IRS agents actually returns more than the money you're spending. So it's not like this is a pay-for. This would actually further increase the deficit.

So anyway, it's just obviously a political gimmick. I thought Matt Stoller had a good take. He said, so the new speaker wants to finance a foreign nation's war by cutting a free tax filing program for Americans and eliminating tax audits of the wealthy. Ladies and gentlemen, America first. How does this all play out? I really have no idea. Because, you know, Speaker Johnson is very interested in Israel funding as well. Yes. I mean, Bibi is like his buddy. He's already talked to him. He's very ideologically, he's very like personally religiously committed to Israel. So he also is extremely committed to Israel funding. You know, he has already signaled that he accepts the basic argument in favor of Ukraine funding. So I don't know how this all plays out ultimately. My guess is that, you know, the things that I would want to happen, which is no way to Ukraine or Israel are probably not going to happen. They'll probably find some way to shoehorn both of these things through. So we'll see. But this is clearly like, you know, an attempt

to, I even think the congressman who, the Democratic congressman who said that he would vote for this, he said it's like politics by political mail, or like they're trying to phrase like the way they would go after Democrats, which is precisely what is going on. Oh, it definitely is what's happening. That's why I'm like, well, honestly, I think it's kind of smart. Will it work? Again, I don't know. Let's put the next one up there on the screen, as I said, about Chuck Schumer saying that actually it's the Ukraine exemption. He says that exclusion of Ukraine and the inclusion of offsets is going to, quote, make it much harder to pass the Senate. Obviously, it's up to him on whether it comes to the floor. But Israel is a massive priority for Chuck Schumer and for a lot of Senate Democrats and for Republicans. I don't think the Senate Republicans

would have any issue. And then you only need a couple of Dems actually to join. But Schumer, of course, would have to bring it to the floor. Now, I don't know how that will come about already. The sole objection I've seen so far from Joe Manchin, Joe Manchin says, I'm fine with the IRS funding, cut, but we got to have Ukraine in there too. Susan Collins also saying effectively the same thing. It's a showdown. We'll see how it goes. The House is scheduled to vote on it at least sometime in the next week or so. Then it will make its way over to the Senate. They're going to have to decide if they outright reject it or not. And then the two bodies will come to a head. And obviously,

the president is going to be on the side of Chuck Schumer. So we'll keep you guys updated. But it is an interesting little political wrinkle that the GOP was able to get in there for their headline. Now, speaking of Ukraine aid, there was a remarkable new profile of President Zelensky in Time magazine that we just had to bring you. I found this quote, Crystal, buried 45 paragraphs in, all the way at the bottom, which is drop dropping, honestly, whenever you read it out loud. So let's please put it up there on the screen. I'm going to read it to everybody in full. This is a quote from this reporter who was embedded with President Zelensky and his team

both during their US trip and then in Kiev and also critically after the October 7th attack on Israel. Quote, amid all of the pressure to root out corruption, I assumed, perhaps naively, officials in Ukraine would think twice before taking a bribe or pocketing state funds. When I made this point to a top presidential advisor in early October, he asked me to turn off my audio recorder so he could speak more freely. Quote, Simon, you are mistaken. Simon is the profiler. He says, quote, people are stealing like there's no tomorrow. Even the firing of the defense minister did not make his officials, quote, feel any fear. He says, because the purge took so long to materialize.

The president was warned in February that corruption has grown rife inside the ministry. He dithered for more than six months, giving his allies multiple chances to deal with the problems quietly or explain them away. By the time he had acted ahead of his US visit, quote, it was too late, says another senior presidential advisor. Ukraine's Western allies are already aware of the scandal by then, and soldiers at the front have begun making off- egg scandal as something that is a standalone. There's so much more in this piece. But to me, it's just like the hubris. They think they can just admit this out loud and get another $60 billion. I mean, this is one of the most corrupt nations in the entire world ahead of this war, openly acknowledged by the Western government and by many others. We have now reports that the Biden administration held off for over a year on raising corruption to the Ukrainian government. We knew it was real. We decided not to raise it.

And what's shocking to me is that inside the regime itself, they are completely fine with it. And not only fine, they are openly stealing everything that is not nailed down to the floor because now they're like, oh, well, now the funding might dry up, so we've got to steal as much as we can. I mean these people make the Afghans look like charitable NGO operators or something. It's crazy to me that they'll just admit this. There's a lot that comes through in this piece as well in terms of like reality sort of setting in, but it's not really setting in. They have this line, they say, Zelensky, the usual sparkle of his optimism, his sense of humor, his tendency to liven up a meeting in the war room with a bit of banter, a body joke, body joke. None of that has survived into the second year of an all-out war. Now he walks in, gets the updates, gives the orders, and walks out. They have left him without the means to win the war, only the means to survive it. On the

contrary, his belief in Ukraine's ultimate victory over Russia has hardened into a form that worries some of his advisors. It is immovable, verging on the messianic. He deludes himself. One of his closest aides tells me in frustration, we are out of options. We are not winning. But try telling him that. So there's a sense like he's very aware. And this is, you know, comes through in the piece that Western support is kind of crumbling, you know, especially now with Israel has stolen the spotlight. So it's really been put on the back burner. The counteroffensive didn't go well. And there's a reckoning internally within Ukraine about like, why didn't it go well and whose heads need to roll because it didn't go well, etc. So you've got that.

They're facing another brutal winter where there are likely to be blackouts and electricity failures and, you know, potentially civilian infrastructure targeted by the Russians, et cetera. And there's this quote in here too, about like last winter, they blamed Russia this winter. They're going to blame us that we didn't get it together to try to protect them during this time. So there's an awareness of all these things, but there's no willingness to acknowledge the reality that there needs to be some sort of a deal cut. There needs to be some sort of an end in sight. And, you know, there's even, there's a lot of focus, understandably from us and from a lot of the international press about like what weapons they need and what weapon systems, et cetera. Part of what comes through in this piece is like,

weapons are one thing. We don't even have the men to fire the weapons. The average age of a Ukrainian soldier is like 45 years old. That's right. Average age. And so the reporter says, when I raised these claims with a senior military officer, that some of the units were refusing to follow orders. He said some commanders have little choice in second guessingguessing orders from the top. At one point in early October, he said the political leadership in Kyiv demanded an operation to retake a certain city, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that the Russians have held and fiercely defended for nearly a decade. The answer came back in the form of a question, with what? Retake it with what? They don't have the men or the weapons, says the officer. Where are the weapons? Where's the artillery? Where are the new recruits? So you're facing almost like mutinous conditions on the ground

and the front lines in some of these areas. Yeah. The most poignant one to me was exactly what you referenced. His own advisor saying, quote, he deludes himself. We are out of options. We are not winning. Try telling him that. These are actual Ukrainian presidential advisors. Let's underscore exactly what you just said about the actual personnel, where they say that the shortage of personnel is more dire than the deficit in arms and in ammunition. I mean, I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that when the average age is 43 years old, quote, they are grown men now and they aren't even that healthy to begin with. This is Ukraine, not Scandinavia, as they so aptly put it. They

know that they're not fighting with a full deck. And this is really sad because we have no idea what the actual number of casualties are. We know it's probably more than 100,000 that are dead. Could be more than that. What we do know, based upon, unfortunately, about the number of prosthetics that are being manufactured, is that it is now roughly equivalent to what the British Army was suffering for casualties who have lost limbs from the First World War. When you put those two things together and you consider that Ukraine is a tiny country with the amount of personnel that are available compared population-wise, will fight wise, manufacturing wise that the British Empire had at its disposal at that time, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that in a war of attrition, you're gone, you're going to lose. Your best hope is probably that things stay where they are right now, because in the long run, things are about to get very, very difficult for you. 43 years old. I mean, this is like you read about countries in their absolute last death throes, start to get 43, 50-year-olds, and then, of course, what comes next? Usually kids age 15 or some 16, sometimes 13, that get drafted or end up in auxiliary forces or

whatever behind the lines. And then they end up getting put in danger. I mean, this is, this is like existential, um, but they're not behaving as if it's existential because when you do, and I think this is why I honestly blame us more for this than anybody else. We gave him the delusions that he could be in this to win back every square inch of his territory, including Crimea. That's what the American political establishment basically told him. And then at the same time, on the corruption side, it's our fault. We're the fools.

If somebody is going to take your money and steal it, is that on them or is it on you for being so much of an idiot that you not only give them $50 billion, they give them an additional $50 billion on top of that, even when you know that they're massive criminals. That's America's fault. And even right now, I mean, it is an open question whether we're not going to send these people an additional $60 billion. If I had to bet, I would probably bet on the side of sending it to them. I think the American political establishment doesn't care about any of this. I will say, you know, this profile and all of that, it's making the rounds on Capitol Hill. I had two sitting U.S. senators who highlighted my tweet

about that. But that's two out of a body of 100. The vast majority, they're just going to ignore it. They're going to pretend like it doesn't even exist. I agree with you that it's our fault. And I actually think this line that they have in here, you know, Zelensky feels betrayed by his Western allies. They have left him without the means to win the war, only the means to survive it, is basically accurate. And it is now really quite confirmed that the U.S. and the U.K. in particular at the beginning of this war scuttled a potential peace deal that was being negotiated by Turkey. And the thought was that, you know, this would be quick and easy and Russia was falling apart and they were a mess and maybe we can get regime change. We had all these like fanciful maximalist aims. And so we scuttled this potential negotiation that could have ended this conflict and ended this, you know, total nightmare and horror of a war. And we didn't want that. Not they didn't want it. We didn't want it.

So yeah, now you're in this no man's land of keep like, keep feeding the thing, even though it's, you know, it's not going to be enough to win. And the public is, you know, has lost its interest and its appetite for continuing to be proxies in this conflict. And all the while, a very dangerous situation. It's just, it's a complete mess. And it is, you're right. It is absolutely a mess of our making because you really can't blame Zelensky. I mean, like this is his country. You can't blame him for the decisions he's made and everything that he's trying to do. But we're the ones who, you know, have really been driving the train and pushing in this direction from the beginning. And, you know, there will be

a reckoning one day. There's no doubt about it. Yeah, well, yeah, I hope that it comes sooner rather than later. It took us 20 years to wake up to the grift in Afghanistan. It's taken us about two years, but we still spent the same amount of money and arguably even more on this one. So joke really is on the U.S. taxpayer and on all of us for not listening in the first place. Speaking of Afghanistan and 9-11, the 9-11 vibes continue, and especially some of the war on terror expansion of the security state that we saw in the

wake of 9-11. We now have the White House, you know, with Karine Jean-Pierre as spokesperson here, classifying a new group of Americans as quote-unquote extremists. Let's take a listen to this exchange. Doesn't Biden think the anti-Israel protesters in this country are extremists? What I can say is what we've been very clear about this when it comes to anti-Semitism, there is no place. We have to make sure that we speak against it very loud and be very clear about that. Remember, when the president decided to run for president is what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017, when he saw neo-Nazis marching down the streets of Charlottesville

with vile, anti-Semitic just hatred. And he was very clear then, and he's very clear now. He's taken actions against this over the past two years, and he's continued clear now. He's taken actions against this over the past two years. And he's continued to be clear. There is no place, no place for this type of vile and despite this kind of rhetoric. We hear you guys, though, talk about extremists all the time. It is usually about MAGA extremists. So what about these protesters who are making Jewish students feel unsafe on college campuses?

Are they extremists? I've been very, very clear. We are calling out any form of hate, any form of hate. It is not acceptable. So basically likening their protesters to the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville. Let's take a look at some of the official government actions that are being taken here. Put this up on the screen. Biden administration unveiling new actions on Monday to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses after an alarming uptick in incidents since the Israel-Hamas war. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are partnering with campus law enforcement to track hate-related threats and provide federal resources to schools

according to the plan, which was shared exclusively with NBC News. Some of what they'll be assessing includes specific and credible threats that are flagged online. So listen, you might hear that. Everyone should be completely opposed to anti-Semitism, which is disgusting. And there is no doubt there has been a rise in anti-Semitism. There's no doubt that some of the protesters have expressed anti-Semitic sentiments. It's also very clear that, you know, the two-thirds of the American public supports a ceasefire, which is completely at odds with the White House, something they have called repugnant. You also have many Jewish protesters who are in support of a ceasefire and in support of a Palestinian statehood, etc.

So to paint with this broad brush is incredibly disturbing. And I will just say, Sagar, that, you know, you hear these things like, oh, combating anti-Semitism, like who could be against that? But we saw the way that these things were used after 9-11 and the way that, yeah, we're just, we're going after, you know, Al- Qaeda, we're going after ISIS, we're going after the terrorists. And next thing you know, you have enabled and justified this massive surveillance bureaucracy and security state expansion. And, you know, now when you're expanding to a new massive group of extremists from the White House podium, this is something that people should be very concerned about, however you feel about this conflict or those protesters specifically. Even reading the details of this Biden thing, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are

partnering with campus law enforcement to track hate-related threats and provide federal resources to school. Oh, campus law enforcement. You mean the kangaroo courts that have basically been set up across this country for the last like 15 years in the modern era of like me too? I don't think so. These are the people I trust probably least on the planet. And these are the last people that you want adjudicating what is hate speech and what is not. And I would just ask everybody to remind themselves of how they've all covered themselves in glory over the last decade or so. If you want to go look at some of these quote unquote sexual assault cases that have played out in most of these college campuses, which are completely devoid of any due process

or amendment protections and have just been handled outrageously, you would not want the White House and the government to be surging these people with even more power. And then it goes to the question of, now how are you going to handle it? Are you going to be monitoring students on campus wifi and on networks? Like, is this going to constitute expulsion? How exactly, and what does hate speech even mean? Because

if you look back to what he said, Peter Doocy, anti-Israel protest. Now listen, you can agree or disagree with what that means. There's a difference between anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. And that's a very critical decision. Israel is a nation state. That's like saying that it's hate speech to be anti-Saudi Arabia or something like that. It's like, well, there's a difference between anti-Islam and anti-Saudi Arabia.

Same thing that applies to every country, as we always would want to remind people about America. You can be against the Bush administration or the US invasion of Iraq and not be against the American people, which is what most normal people would understand across the world. It's only extremists that kind of conflate the two people like Osama bin Laden. So yeah, I'm very worried about this, especially the campus element, because this is how it all starts. And who knows? I mean, for what purpose can you repurpose this new campus surveillance network? I mean, this is like McCarthyism,

you know, back in the day. That's exactly what they used to do. Very much like McCarthyism. And your point about how do you define hate speech is a critical one because there has been a multi-decade effort to conflate any criticism of the Israeli government, of the occupation, of the blockade, of Zionism, the political project of Zionism, and to paint that as anti-Semitic, which is not accurate whatsoever. You can be critical of a government. You can be critical of, you know, Zionism as a political ideology. You can be critical of a political ideology. Biden himself, he says he's a Zionist. He's not Jewish. So you can be a Zionist and be Jewish or not be Jewish. You can be an opponent of Zionism and be Jewish or not be Jewish, et cetera.

So to conflate those things with just being against the Jewish people and being an anti-Semite is just wrong. It's just inaccurate. It's not correct. But there has been a long-term project. Actually, I just saw another clip of the guy from the ADL saying, you know, we should all see that it's very clear now that criticism of Zionism is anti-Semitism. No, I 100, I 1 million percent reject that. In fact, I mean, the beginning in the early days of Zionism, there were all kinds of competing ideological camps among the Jewish people about whether or not they supported Zionism, there were all kinds of competing ideological camps among the Jewish people about whether or not they supported Zionism, about the different types of Zionism, about the way it

should be effectuated. So there's been a long, vibrant political debate around the political ideology of Zionism. You can't take that off the table. And if you're painting people who have a critique of that as extremists or radicals or terrorists or need to be tracked by the federal government, this is incredibly terrifying. And again, really encompasses a broad swath of the American public who don't agree with the Biden administration's opposition to a ceasefire. Two thirds of Americans and 80% of Democrats support a ceasefire. So are they extremists, those two thirds of Americans that the Biden White House previously labeled as repugnant for supporting a ceasefire. So are they extremists, those two-thirds of Americans that the Biden White House previously labeled as repugnant for supporting a ceasefire? You mentioned the

McCarthyite climate. I think that is incredibly accurate. Every day, we get more and more instances. Usually, we don't cover them every day because it would just get tedious because there's so many of them. But we'll give you a couple examples here. This one flagged by our own Ryan Grim of CounterPoints and, of course, if Intercept put this up on the screen, we have a Providence City Councilman, Miguel Sanchez, who was fired from the governor's staff. So he's a councilman and he also worked for the governor where he worked in constituent services. After introducing a resolution condemning terrorism and ethnic cleansing, passed unanimously, posting about attending a pro-Palestine rally. His post also called for an immediate ceasefire and condemned

all attacks on civilians. He was fired on Friday with his public comments cited as the reason for the firing. And Sagar, just to be sure, I went back and looked at all of his public posts on Twitter. And it's very like nothing he says should, in my opinion, even be controversial, just about like protecting civilian life. And yes, he is very sympathetic to Palestinians and their humanity as well. But he's fired for his job for posting just, you know, sort of basic political statements, which, of course, as a city councilman and someone who's also a public figure, I mean, that is also part of what he is elected to do. Yeah. I mean, look, I also looked at it. I tried to make sure it's like, it didn't say anything like Harvard-esque or any of that.

Yeah. It wasn't like, it was, there was no go Hamas. He was always very careful to abhor the loss of civilian life, no matter whether it was Israeli or Palestinian. Obviously the gov can have whoever he wants on his staff, so whatever. But it's obvious also where this is coming from. And I do think it is really dumb. I, again, come back to the architecture of the post-9-11 movement. I would recommend people go watch. Glenn Greenwald had a great segment about FIRE and the First Amendment organization,

where FIRE, who really is taking up the mantle of what the ACLU used to be, has been coming out very hard against some of these, has been coming out very hard against things like this and other censorship efforts that have been proliferating. So I recommend that people go and look at some of their statements and Glenn as well, who did some work on this, because I think it's now more critical than ever, even if you disagree. I mean, some of these people, I think you people are crazy, but it doesn't matter. It's like, that's not what the point of all of this is. And I think it's very sad to watch as people are embracing all of this and really, frankly, undermining a lot of the free speech groundwork that's been laid over time.

100%. Yeah. All right, let's go ahead and move on to Iowa here. And a new poll that came out that is pretty interesting in terms of where the Republican race is at. Let's put this up on the screen from Steve Kornacki, the very latest here. Go ahead and put the poll numbers, E1, up on the screen. So Trump is basically the same, 43 percent, doing just fine and dandy there in Iowa. DeSantis, not doing so well, dropped down three points to 16%. He's now tied

with Nikki Haley, who has surged 10 points to 16%. She was the big mover in terms of this poll. Next is Tim Scott at 7%, Chris Christie, 4%, Vivek Ramaswamy, 4%, Doug Burgum, 3%, and Asa Hutchinson at 1%. But a lot of people noted, if you dig into the data, one of the things that was interesting here is while Vivek has remained static in terms of his overall percentage of support, his favorables have taken a massive hit. Put this up on the screen from Dave Weigel. He says his Iowa's fade is notable. No change in overall support since summer, but negatives way up from 20 to 37%. Biggest jump in unfavorables of any GOP candidate. And Sagar, I saw our great friend Marshall making some phenomenal points about this. So basically like the more he did podcasts and the more people

got to know him, the less they wanted to know him. I wonder how much of it is podcast. I wonder of it how much honestly came off from the debate and just the, what are the Gen Z's call it? Pick me syndrome? It's like being a pick me girl or a pick me guy. People have accused me of being a pick me guy before. I vehemently reject said analysis. But my point is that I believe, I believe that that is the way that the vernacular would apply as in trying to put yourself at the center of attention. There are a couple of mistakes. The biggest mistake I think that he made is it's clear that the second lane in the Republican party is not to be a Trump defender. It is to be like the moderate it girl, which explains Nikki Haley, which is look, the vast majority of Republicans support Trump.

The vast majority of Republicans support Trump-like policy and all that. But there's a small little percentage which doesn't, and it's clear that that small little percentage likes old GOP. So the bet by DeSantis, by Ramaswamy, and others was that this number two lane could exist where you are somehow a Trump alternative, but you're supportive of Trump. But it's just very clear that if people want Trump or anything to do with him, they're going to pick him. For people who want DeSantis, it's still going to be the vast majority of people who may feel affectionately about Trump, but want to move on from him. And then that left, whatever group is left, those are just going to be very traditional Nikki Haley style,

suburban Republican voters that very traditional, you know, a small business owner, pro Israel, mostly boomers, let's be honest. And she's like made in the lab, I think for them. So at the end of the day, I just don't think his political lane existed. I'm not even quite sure how much any of it had to do. I just think that when his unfavorables went up, it's going to be really amongst that group of who the only people who exist who are anti-Trump or even up for grabs, like that's who they are. And of course, they're going to findive in, and some people liked it, and clearly a lot of people, like, it didn't sit well with them. And he even kind of showed his hand when in the second debate he came out and was like, I know a lot of people think that I'm like a know-it-all smartass. He literally, like, gave up the game of, I got some feedback back, and y'all really didn't like that much how I was. And he tried to sort of be more subdued in that second debate. That was a tell that under the surface of the initial positive reviews, there were some problems in terms of Haley.

Just to make the case for some possible Trump alternative, which you guys know I have never really believed in. But I'll go ahead and try to make the case. You just had Mike Pence drop out. DeSantis is fading. Does he ultimately drop out? You could imagine a coalescing basically around Nikki Haley before you get to the caucuses. And Trump support is pretty solid. 63% of Trump supporters say their minds are already 100% made up and they will definitely back him. But that means 40% of Trump supporters say their minds are already 100% made up and they will definitely back him. But you know, that means 40% of them are still kind of in the market and chopping around and considering.

And if you have this huge coalescing around Nikki Haley from all of the other candidates and a lot of media outlets, who knows? Maybe I, again, I don't really see it, but you never know. That's the best case I can possibly make for her. We also though could not resist. No, we can't resist. The real news. The really important stuff today,

which is there is long, we haven't mentioned it on this show yet. To be clear, we never brought it up. It's been foisted upon us, and we just have chosen to take it. But I have been privately consuming this content. Of course, me too. There is a whole conspiracy,

which one might say it's more of like a confirmed fact at this point. But anyway, we'll call it a conspiracy. A discussion. A discussion, a debate. Yeah. Over whether Ron DeSantis is secretly wearing high heels with these like custom-made boots with like a heel lift inside. And there's so much evidence online. If you look at these pictures, you're like, no one's feet are shaped this way. Why are you walking like this? Why are you sitting like this?

Like, why do you always wear these ugly ass weird boots? So he was confronted on this allegation on the PBD podcast with Patrick, Pat David. Let's take a listen to how that went. I'm sure your marketing team points out how they're trying to troll you in the marketplace. Okay. I'm sure they're doing that. Can you bring this one clip? I know you were on, what do you call it? On, what was it?

Bill Maher. And Bill Maher talked about the boots. I've seen you walk with these boots. Go ahead and play this clip. This on TikTok went viral. It doesn't have a million views. It doesn't have 10 million views. This thing's got 1.2 million likes.

And some people are wondering. What are they? I don't even know. know, 10 million views. This thing's got 1.2 million likes. And some people are wondering. What are they? I don't even know. I haven't seen that. They have not shown this to you. Okay. What they're trying to say with this is that in your boots, you have heels. No, no, no.

That's what they're trying to say. Those are just standard off the rack Lucchese. How tall are you, Governor? 5'11". 5'11"? Okay. Why don't you wear tennis shoes and dress shoes? I do wear tennis shoes when I work out. Yeah, you do. OK, I got a gift for you. I'd love for you to wear. OK, I shop at Ferragamo. OK.

I don't accept gifts. I can't accept it. So sorry. Brutal. Your reaction. I'm on the Lucchese website. He doesn't deny it. I mean, yeah. I mean, look. The issue is that given the analysis of the walking and of the way that I've also seen his boot placed whenever he's sitting, which shows still like an elevated calf

as if he's wearing a heel. I have to come down on the side of heel lift. The only way that it is possible is I'm on the Lucchese website, and I believe I'm looking at the exact model that DeSantis has. And it does have like a semi-substantial heel lift to it. So it's like a little bit of a heel.

I mean, I'm wearing dress boots right now, for example. Just so we can put these, where are they? Okay, all right. All right, let me cut to it and I'll like, which way will it actually show, like this? Like this? There, there, there we go. All right.

All right, all right. On the desk. Right here? I think Essie Cup did this once on Reddit. All right, three, two, one. So I'm wearing dress boots, like for example, people can see. There is like a slight heel that is on there,

but when I walk, if I were to stand up right now, like you can look at my calves, and like I'm still able to stand up completely straight. Right, like a normal person. Right, so that is why, you know, even when I do, because that's what I had to test out. I said, I don't actually often wear dress boots. I just got these. So I'm like, well, maybe it's like a dress boot thing, but I don't think so.

And I've looked also, so Marshall actually at his wedding, he wore cowboy boots with his suit and he also didn't look like, and I believe they're, I don't think it's the same, I think they Tukovas. But in terms of the heel lift, whenever we were like, his gait did not appear to do the same thing. So based upon my anecdotal evidence, my own personal experience, and from the videos, I have no choice but to conclude that he is likely wearing some sort of heel lift. Yeah. So I assembled a little bit. There's tons of evidence in addition to this online, but I did assemble a little bit of my own evidence to present to the audience. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. So this is DeSantis walking. Why are you walking? Like that is a weird way to walk. So why are you walking in this strange way? All right. All right.

Go to the next video. This is a guy. The next video is of a man wearing heels who is not used to wearing heels. And it's a very similar gate. Is it not? To me, this is very persuasive and compelling evidence that there is something going on with the boots. Now, Kyle and I have been having this ongoing debate. Obviously, it's a ridiculous thing. And, Zyra, you can go through the history because we were looking at it this morning. I have it having this ongoing debate. Obviously, it's a look. It's a ridiculous thing. And sorry, you can go through the history because we're looking at it this

morning. I'm ready. There have not really been short presidents, at least in modern history. So it's not like it's an illegitimate concern. But Kyle and I have been debating, like, obviously, it's a ridiculous thing to do in the first place. But let's assume you did it. You read the stats. You're like, OK, there are no U.S. presidents who are short. I got to add at least like three inches here to my game or else there's no way I'm going to win. So you do it and you get caught. Do you just continue to lie or do you come clean? You got to lie. You take it to the grave. You maintain your 511 till the death. These people are all professional liars anyway. Who cares? You know, it's like and who's really going to ever find out about it?

And also to your point, so I've got the history and the data in front of me. It is an existential crisis for him to even be 5'11". The only president- And there is no way he is 5'11". Not a chance. The only president in the modern era to be under 5'11 and a half is Jimmy Carter. And actually, this is what's really crazy. Even in times when malnutrition in this country was rampant, we still mostly picked tall presidents. And our tallest president ever is Abraham Lincoln. Obviously, he grew up at what? The whole story of the log cabin in the 1830s. It's like you think he was getting fed well. I actually didn't even know this. George Washington was six foot one and a half. That's actually the same height as I am. People like Chester Arthur, six two. Thomas Jefferson, six foot two inches and a

half. I mean, at that time, you know, to grow that big, that is very, very atypical. But even six foot, guys like James Monroe, John Tyler, James Buchanan, James Garfield, Warren G. Harding, Gerald Ford was six foot, Joe Biden is six foot. Trump is actually our third tallest president ever. He was six foot three. LBJ, six foot three and a half. And as I said, the only president of the modern era to be below five foot 11 and a half, which was George W. Bush, to be clear, is Jimmy Carter, who came in at five foot, nine and a half. Also, that's why previously I've been talking about Mike Johnson. I was like, man, he's only five eight. This is what I'm saying. Like, look, don't hate the player. Hate the game. It's like most people who make it to the very, very top of American politics

are pretty tall. You don't don't you know, don't blame me for that. That just appears to be the way that voters respond. There's probably a lot of ingrained bias and all these other things that obviously all throughout history has applied to our politics. It's very clear. Well, there is something hopeful about this, which is that Pete Buttigieg is five foot eight, according to- Ah, there we go. It may not even be that. So that makes me hopeful. Perhaps he will never be president. So that's one glimmer on the side of the bias against short people here. But, you know, DeSantis could have owned this. He could have been a trailblazer, an icon for short men everywhere. Instead, he's, you know, decided to go in this much more shameful, humiliating, embarrassing direction. The other thing I had to note about the clip, too, of him with Patrick Fat David is,

like, there's not even a hint of a smile. Oh, yeah. Well, that's a political skill. Exactly. I mean, that's the other issue is, like, I actually think a more skillful politician could have handled this in a way that was charming, that was funny, etc. But, I mean, he doesn't crack a smile. Also, you're totally, when you say like, oh, I never saw anything about this, you are such a liar. You wanna, of course you've seen something about it. That's like, it's impossible.

It is, there is no way that you have not seen this. These people are all so self-obsessed. They're just so obviously looking at whatever's coming. Also, if you had genuinely not seen it, then you wouldn't have reacted this way. You would have been like, what? What is this?

What did they say? You know, like, what are they arguing here? That's crazy. Here's what he would have done if it was for real and he really wasn't wearing them. He would have taken off his boots live on the air

and kind of done something like, I just didn't, be like, do you see anything? Right. That actually would have settled it for all time. I also think,

well, here's, okay, let me say this just because it's a menswear thing. This is one of the reasons why it's pretty difficult, actually, to wear cowboy boots with a suit. The issue is that those cowboy boots are very tall. And unless you have like perfectly tailored, uh, perfectly tailored trousers, it's going to be difficult for you to achieve perfect fit. Even the boots that I'm wearing right now, like I have those things that are on the side, which help you kind of put them

on. These are Chelsea boots. They sometimes interfere with the pants. So actually Patrick is right. Just wear dress shoes. It's an easy way to actually solve all of this. And also just so you know, you, uh, you can get dress shoes with lifts in them, or you can get dress shoes, which have a little bit more of a heel. A lot of guys do that. He doesn't want a little bit more heels. Well, then, then that's, that's's in the he wants to add like at least three inches to what he's got going on so i i come down on the side of he is wearing uh heel lifts also for anyone who's like why are you even covering this guys we need to have some fun in our lives okay this is this is the fun that we get to we get to have uh the viral tiktoks and

all that it basically convinced me if i ever meet him i'll probably have a chance you know at least in the next year or so i'm gonna scope it out and see how tall he actually is. Yeah, definitely. You know, another thought I had is, didn't he play on the like Harvard baseball team or something? I don't know. I wonder what they listed his height at, which usually sports, sports, yeah, sports statistics are usually inflated, you know, anyway. So if they weren't even listening to him at 5'11", then you know he's like, usually they add like a couple inches to whatever they claim the height is.

Captain of the Yale baseball team. Yale, that's right. Yale, Harvard, Yale, whatever. It's all the same to me. So anyway, that would be another avenue of investigation for any sleuths out there that did occur to me, but I was too lazy to actually pursue. You heard it here first.

Okay, time to make the hardest turn in history from Ron DeSantis' heel lifts to matters of literal life and death and the human beings who are suffering in the midst of what is happening in Israel and in Gaza. Let's go ahead and get to our guest, Gilly Robin. Joining us now is Gilly Roman. He is the brother of missing Israeli citizen Yarden, his sister. He's in Washington to bring awareness about Israeli hostages and in order to make sure that we keep the spotlight on them. So Gili, we are so honored to have you here in the studio. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. So Gili, you're here in Washington. We were connected through some mutual friends and I was told that you were here in order to raise awareness about the hostages. So just tell us about why you've decided to make this trip here to Washington,

what you want people to know, and what you want people to know about your sister as well. As you say, it is about awareness. It's crucial for us that the American people will not only stay by our side, but will stand with us. And for that, it's important, even vital for me, first of all, to share the story.

Our specific human story is a representative of over 200 excruciating stories of innocent civilians being held hostage inside of Gaza by Hamas. And also to expand the explanation of why is it a shared story, why this attack is not only on us, but it's also on our shared values on the Western world.

This is something that it's important for me to lay out and explain. And this is why I've been to Berlin also. My sister is a German citizen alongside her Israeli citizenship. So we've been to Berlin and I sent this message as well over there and now I'm doing it here. Gilly, if you don't mind, can you share what unfolded that led to your sister being missing and you expect being held hostage by Hamas? Yes. So my sister and her husband, Al and my niece, her daughter Geffen, she's three and a half years old, went to visit Alon's family in Kibbutz Beri.

By the way, they lived there as a family for almost four years and they just left two months ago because Zierden was not willing to stand the routine, as we call it, of missile attacks over the heads of her and her family and her young daughter. So they just left the kibbutz, a very lovely kibbutz, a very peaceful kibbutz, except for the fact that it's being attacked every now and then. But they went to visit. We just finished a family trip in South Africa, all of us together in a small caravan.

We came back on Friday and they went to Shabbat dinner. And on Saturday morning, the alams woke all of us up in Tel Aviv in the south. And they went to the shelter. We exchanged some messages. I was very worried about her, initially the regular worries, and then it expanded when we saw pictures of terrorists inside with jeeps, armed terrorists in different cities

around the Gaza border. We understood that Derek Kibbutz might also be infiltrated. And it did, our last correspondent was at 10 a.m. And we know that around 10, 20, they were abducted from their home. Firstly, Alon's mother, Geffen's grandmother, was taken outside of their home.

We saw it because Hamas published the video of her being taken alongside with three other civilians outside of their houses. It was kind of like a calm walk. So we said, maybe they are being gathered, collected. But a few days later, we saw the continuation of this video. So it's on Instagram,

then Hamas published the four civilians dead on the ground in their own pool of blood. This is how we found out she was murdered. That was confirmed a few days afterwards by the Israeli authorities. Afterwards, his sister, Carmel, was taken, and she's also been probably held hostage in Gaza. And then Yarden,in Alon and Geffen were taken together, put inside of Mitsubishi with four armed terrorists and a driver taken towards Gaza. And what happened is they decided to escape. They decided to run away from a moving car. They seized an opportunity where the terrorists

took off the car for a few minutes leaving them with only the the driver driving towards Gaza they just jumped off Geffen was in the hands of my sister they started to run for their life then the terrorists noticed them started to run after them shooting at them and at that point Yarden realized that it's not efficient enough when she's holding Geffen and she decided to let go of the most precious thing in her life I'm sure that many people will understand and relate gave her to Alon and he was able to run faster to find a hiding spot he hide there with Geffen for over 12 hours no No food, no water, absolute silence with a three-year-old. And then through dark time, he started slowly walking in this battlefield full of terrorists,

managed to arrive in the morning to the entrance of the kibbutz where our troops were already present. And then we got a phone call for him explaining what happened because we were of course worried at home, but hoping they were, as I said, collected, maybe somebody negotiated for them. We waited for a call from Yarden and he explained to us what happened and he told us that last time he saw my sister when they diverted after she gave Geffen to him and she was stopping to hide behind the tree from the bullets.

So this is what we know for sure that happened. The other information that we have is just once I ended this conversation, I understood I have to go to Berri, to the battlefield and look for her. So I just put my uniform on. I'm an officer in reserve and got into our family car straight to the battlefield and just day after day worked with our troops on the ground,

the unit after unit because they were placed almost on a daily, half daily basis to inform them, to explain to them, to convince them to come with me to find the special unit, the special trackers that will help us. The area and the kibbutz were liberated only on Tuesday. So only on Tuesday and Wednesday we will be able to do extensive searches, not just one hour, two hour searches. So the last search was almost five hours. It was very extensive with the trackers and they came to the conclusion according to the footsteps

that they witnessed around the area of the tree because I also asked Alon to come back again and find the exact tree. Which tree? And he found it. Wow. Just imagine that he had to come back to the place where he was running from.

So they concluded that she was taken again was running from. So they concluded that she was taken again into Gaza, most probably without a fight, which is very characteristic of my sister. She is a very wise person. So I guess that when she understood that she cannot run away, she just went with them because we didn't find any signs of blood or injury or struggle. And we really hope that she is there. It's a very twisted hope, but this is the hope that we have.

Yeah, the best that we can have that she's in the hands of probably the most brutal, inhumane people on earth right now. But they have her life at their at their hands inside of gaza and we hope that she's healthy uh and relatively safe and it's more than three weeks we are we're soon going to get to four weeks without my sister without any knowledge of her without any sign of life any sign of her health um so also the sense of urgency is something that it's important for me to convey sign of life, any sign of her health. So also the sense of urgency is something that it's important for me to convey. I can't imagine. And so have you received communication from the Israeli government on this?

Have they been able to tell you anything about that? And how has that process been? I know there's been, we can only read in the English media. In Israel, there's been some, I know, some tension with that. Maybe you could speak to that firsthand. Our audience would certainly love to hear it from you. So in terms of information, specifically to our case, the information that the authority has and the military has, it's the information that we gave them. We were much more informed than them them there are some people where the idf has more information with different sources we will not elaborate not in the case of my sister and we are really hoping and looking forward to get some information um and i trust that they're doing

their utmost best i know that they invest a lot of efforts in order to get some proof, but it's extremely difficult. You need to understand that it's not the situation that everyone was, were captured together, being held together and being taken care of together. It's probably very scattered. Not all of them in the hands of Hamas. My sister is most probably in the hands of Hamas

because we know which unit, let's say, took them because they identified themselves. But this is more or less what we know. And obviously the lack of information and the helplessness is the most excruciating part of this all. Yeah, of course. Yeah. it's a nightmare that you're living right now. I can't even imagine. When you have seen, there have been a few hostages that have been released. There have been a few hostage videos

that have been released, obviously under duress from Hamas. A new one just came out yesterday, as a matter of fact. What are the emotions or what are you feeling when you're seeing these pieces of information leak out so i would say it's contradicting emotions so on the one hand i'm very happy not for me but just for them just to see people i think everybody should be happy when you see people innocent people being rescued kind of getting back to their families uh reunited i that helped me to imagine me reuniting with my sister.

And you see that it's hard for me not to smile when I'm thinking about it, thinking about her and Geffen reuniting again. Those two were almost inseparable. On the other hand, I think we are going through a continuous terror attacks since that day. And part of this terror, part of this horrific experience that we have is the manipulation made by Hamas. So I see this release, this video,

alongside with a press release and different twisted information that maybe there is an exchange, maybe there will be a humanitarian gesture, maybe today 50 people, maybe today 10 people. All of this I consider as severe manipulation that's supposed to extend the terror that we are experiencing as a family and in general as Israelis and around the Western world. So I really try not to raise hopes regarding this incident, to be glad for the people

who got the people alive, but also to remember that it doesn't say a lot about my sister. Because at the same, it does say that maybe, and this is our hope, that she's been treated as they are treated. But we also know that Hamas can treat different people in different ways. So when we imagine that maybe she has a relatively safe day and being treated like we know that some of the hostages that have been released are treated, the same chances are that she's been beaten every day, got her being raped or tortured or whatever you can. There isn't any horror. I know that we are right now on the verge of Halloween. It's a horror.

So there isn't a horror that we can imagine that is out of the question with Hamas. So for me, in terms of my hopes and what I conclude from that, I try not to conclude anything. Because this is just a twisted game that I really try and it's very hard but I'm trying to hold myself, not to play to their hands. Of course, yeah, I can't, it must be so difficult. If you, do you have confidence right now that the government is doing everything possible? When you're here in Washington, are you going to be meeting any lawmakers or any other decision makers and other things? What's your message to them about how you want this to be resolved? possible. But I'm more reassured in the last few days, at least from the side of the Israeli

government, that they invest more and they put it more in a top priority. I think it's also related to the change of government that we had a little bit. Can you explain that to our audience? What happened is that, as you probably know, we had a very right-wing government, the most right-wing government that we ever had. And also some of the ministers in that government expressed their let's say lack of I wouldn't say empathy, but lack of attention towards the hostages issue.

Putin first the need of victory, which I and dismantling of Hamas and taking out of power, which we all agree upon. I think everybody understands that it has to happen. They have to pay the utmost price for these atrocities. But there were kind of voices saying that we should not take into consideration the hostages, we'll deal with them

after the war will be over, which is completely unacceptable. And I think that now after some more moderate Knesset members, party enter the government, I feel that there is a little bit of shift, but maybe it's just the shift of time and the way that they decided to strategically conduct this issue.

So I don't know how to read into it. But I think that the Israeli government invests in more and also I've been asked a lot about the ground invasion. So I think that currently, Israel is working in a pretty calculative manner, not letting Hamas decide what should we do and when should we do, and on the other side, not doing things that are irreparable. It's hard to get back then, are too dangerous for our people.

So you're watching very closely what the military actions are. I'm watching very closely, very carefully, and I want to say that one of the things that are also reassuring is the commitment that we see by the U.S., also by Germany and some other Western actors. Very firm commitment, not only to the general issue, but specifically to the hostage issues. And for me, it's vital to be here to talk to you and to the public, but also to different officials and politicians in order to remain this issue a top priority for all of them. Not just because they are American or German citizens, just because they are human beings, people. We are talking about over 30 kids held their babies, elderly people, ill people, women, of course, mothers.

This is something that nobody should accept. And I'm saying it over and over again, this is a case study of terrorism. We are just the guinea pigs of the West at the moment. And they are watching closely what is being tolerated by the West, closely what is being tolerated by the West, what is not being tolerated by the West, what is the price tag of it,

how much the West is going to accept, fight for the release of the hostages, what will be the consequences for Hamas of this kind of behavior. And I think that every single terror organization and terrorist supporting actors in the world are currently watching all of us, not only Israel, all of us trying to see what are we gonna do?

What are we gonna accept and what aren't we gonna accept? So this is really crucial, not just for us. This is why I said earlier, it's not just staying by our side, it's staying with us. Gili, you, in addition to being the brother of yardan you've also been peace activist yes um has the experience of this horror change your political views has it changed your view of what peace would require and what it might look like so yes and no uh i would say i would start with the yes. Maybe it's easier to comprehend. I invested a lot in peace education. That was my leading role in my previous job as

the head of International Boarding School for Peace in Israel. I had a lot of Arab students, Palestinian students from the West Bank, from Gaza, from different Muslim countries alongside Israelis and internationals. I invested a lot in conversation about the conflict and resolution and reconciliation. I think it's vital. And I think that we have to seek compromise.

What these days taught me, reminded me, let's say, amplified, is the thing that cannot be compromised. And the thing that cannot be compromised is the jihadistic ambitions to eradicate certain people, certain state, by the way, it's not only our state and it's not only our people, and values. And you cannot negotiate, and we did a lot of simulation of negotiation and a lot of conversation, and I hope that we'll be able to find the ground to do it again, because the Palestinian cause for liberation, for independence, is a legitimate cause.

I have a lot to say about how complex it is, but I think we can all agree it's legitimate that they will seek for it and they will criticize Israel for some of the things that we are doing. But the cause for eradication, the killing of people, and the ambition to create another Muslim empire without Western values and without Western people, let's say, it's completely

unacceptable. And we cannot compromise on that. And that, I think, really amplified the need to be clear about this distinction, to fight very firmly against the ambition and all the actors that are supporting this ambition. And on the other side, this is the part where my views have not changed, that we have to still find a way. I honestly don't know how will it be done to find a way to build trust again, to find a way to deal honestly and patiently with the relevant issues, with the legitimate issues, with the conflict, which is very, very, very complex. But I believe that along the years can be resolved if there will be no integration, a very sick integration between the Palestinian cause and the jihadistic cause.

As long as this integration is happening, there is nothing to talk about. And the Israeli people will never feel secure and you will never feel secure. And once it will be diverted, it will be separated, I hope we'll be able to find this kind of solution. And I can say as a history teacher, in the end, conflict ends. It's just a matter of whether it's happening in your days, in your children's days, in

your grandchildren's days. No conflict lasts forever, forever. So just what is my ambition? That it will happen in our time. But this compromise will have to be a secure compromise. It will have to be a reasonable compromise for all sides. So as you say, it's a complicated answer. Well I think it's unimaginable that you are able to hold on to that hope in this time

and I think that should be a source of inspiration for everyone and just imagine that my sister gave Geffen to Alon to protect her life to protect her future she was willing to do this sacrifice and be separated from her daughter in order to secure her future so of course I'm very worried about my sister, I want her back, but also I share the same goal as she does, which is to secure the future of my niece, which is composed by these two parts that I told you, which is the eradication of the radical jihadistic ambitions and trying to find a sort of solution, a sort of path for peace. So I think for me, it makes sense.

Yeah. Geli, thank you so much. We will pray for you every day. And good luck on your trip here. I hope that people with power are listening to your message. I hope you guys are listening to this message as well. And we'll be thinking a lot about you. Thank you, Gilly. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day. And thanks to the audience.

Always. I'll just know if you need anything. We'll see you guys later. this is an iHeart podcast