Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/12/24 Israel Special: US Attacks Yemen Houthis, Israel's Presents ICJ Genocide Defense, Norm Finkelstein On ICJ Hearings, And US Directly Aids Israel Strikes In Gaza

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

Full Israel roundup including Saagar's breakdown on US attacks against the Houthis, Krystal on Israel's ICJ defense, Norm Finkelstein on the ICJ case, and Ken Klippenstein on the US directly aiding in Israel's airstrikes on Gaza.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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U.S and British military have officially launched massive retaliatory strikes against the Iranian backed Houthis in Yemen striking approximately a dozen sites all across the country of Yemen on the Iranian-backed Militia which has launched several missiles and attacks on ships in the Red Sea. So this is obviously a breaking news situation, so we don't have a full amount of the details. What we do know are that the militaries and the governments that were involved, while it was just the United States and the U.K., it was, quote, with support from Australia, the Netherlands, Bahrain, Canada, all these joint airstrikes. These strikes involved U.S. aircraft, U.S. ships, and submarines, as well as whatever the Brits

were able to bring to the table. We have a little bit of the video. I want this to just play while I'm talking a little bit about this. We can put that up there right now. Yemeni sources have confirmed that the strikes actually occurred, all of this within the last 30 or 40 minutes or so. Series of ballistic missiles apparently launched from Yemen towards targets in the Red Sea, possibly in retaliation. Now, we have a very short reaction from the Houthi group, a statement they put out on Telegram. They say, quote, we are with Palestine. We will not back down from our position and we will respond to any aggression against us. To reiterate here, the Houthis, the Iranian backed group,

this has been the 27 now attacks that they have mounted since November 19th, where they decided to begin attacking both ships moving through the Red Sea that were going towards Israel. And it later began basically a full-scale operation that has mounted now major response from the United States, from the UK, and a so-called coalition, which eventually fell apart. Of course, the reason why the Red Sea is so important is that it is one of the major thoroughfares of traffic for global shipping. It has caused hundreds of billions of dollars already to be lost because many ships have had to divert their traffic around the Horn of Africa,

particularly hurting European markets, Israelis, ports as well, specifically their ships, which had been targeted by Houthi suicide drones and others. This has frankly just been a long time coming now. The United States has been engaged not only with anti-ballistic, anti-ship missiles that they've had to shoot down from the U.S.-guided missile destroyers. We've also had multiple other instances. The latest, last one, it appears to be the quote-unquote straw that books the camels back just yesterday, 2 a.m. Yemen time with an anti-ship ballistic missile. But there previously had been instances where you had boats that were literally shot from U.S. military helicopters. Now, all of this obviously has happened after the war in Gaza, the Israeli bombing specifically. Now, the Houthis, Iranian-backed group, say that they are

doing this in response to Israeli military action. They claim that they will stop their strikes if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. And there was diminished activity whenever a ceasefire had previously occurred. Now, this is clearly the United States decided that's not something they're going to push for. And the Israelis certainly aren't as well. So now the U.S., the U.K. are the ones who are militarily involved. This is especially significant. This is the first United States military strike on the territory of Yemen since 2016. So it's been quite a long time.

And just to take people a little bit back for the context, the Houthis have been involved in a brutal civil war inside of Yemen now for years. They were actually the target of a nine-year bombing campaign from Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis, the UAE, largely because they are Iranian-backed and these are regional rivalries between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE for control of Yemen, which is in a very strategic position, as we can all see, as for why this happened. Now, the problem and the question mark here is going to be if this U.S. response, which the United States in an initial statement said was, quote-unquote, proportional, whether this will deter action. Now, previously, we had a statement from the Houthis that said that if there was any action

against them, quote, any American aggression will never remain without a response. That response will not be at the level of the operation that was recently carried out in targeting the American at sea with more than 24 aircraft and a number of missiles. The response is greater than that. Again, that's according to the Houthis. This attack seems to have been coordinated with some of the other powers in the region. President Sisi of Egypt apparently received a call earlier today from the prime minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak, who telegraphed quite a bit, given they had a full meeting of their cabinet and others who were notified. And there was quite a bit of advanced knowledge that the strike was going to occur.

Nonetheless, I mean, the strike is still significant just for the main reason that this is the first expansion and direct intervention now at the behest of the United States, the UK, to NATO allies into this situation and to this war. It really does raise a lot of questions about where this goes. The Houthis, they are not Hamas. They are much more on par with Hezbollah. Their military capability is pretty big. I mean, they've got ballistic missiles. They've had the capacity now to shut down shipping in the Red Sea. They've got a decent amount of military capability that they've been supplied from Iran for almost a decade now. Who knows how many strongholds that they have. As I said, you know, previously on our show, the main concern about knocking out, quote unquote, Houthi infrastructure and all of that is that they're very well equipped to sustain

bombing, as they showed us in the situation with Saudi Arabia and with the UAE and their bombing campaign. There's also currently an international peace negotiation that was previously going on inside of Yemen. And this could turn this even to more of a catastrophe. Don't forget, before the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Yemen was one of the worst humanitarian situations in the world. And there was even bipartisan outrage here in the United States about the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen. So we can't forget that this is a volatile situation. It very much could lead to an expanded American presence inside of the war. And it's one of those where, you know, this this leads to all kinds of possible scenarios with the Houthis very

unlikely to just simply stop as a result of this. Who knows if the United States did really carry out the strikes on significant military targets. We know what they say. We'll see. Right now, it's literally in the middle of the night Yemen time, so I think we'll get a little bit of video and others in the morning that we'll be able to assess whether we were able to do some damage. But the big question mark is that like i said at the beginning there's been some initial reports now that there were a huthi response retaliatory attacks now we don't know uh their night vision capabilities what their radar systems and all that look like whether they're still functional after the site but uh when we wake up in the morning, we certainly could see continued

retaliatory strikes as the Houthis have mounted daytime and nighttime attacks now in the past. But overall, that's what we know so far from the U.S., the U.K. It's been confirmed from the Pentagon. President Biden originally was supposed to make a statement, according to the U.K. media, but he did not do so. You know, like I said, recording here now at 7.30 approximately Eastern time, just checking to make sure that we haven't seen anything. Oh, actually, here we go. Literally just came flashed across the wire. Statement from President Biden, quote,

These strikes are in direct response to an unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea, including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history. These attacks have endangered U.S. personnel, civilian mariners and our partners, jeopardizing trade and threatened freedom of navigation. More than 50 nations have now been affected in 27 attacks on international commercial shipping. Crews from more than 20 countries have been threatened or taken hostage in acts of piracy. And so in that basically in that statement, giving a lengthy, pretty long justification for the reason that the strikes did occur. So that's the initial response confirmation there from the White House.

We will see whether we're going to get any more detail and color uh we will bring all of you the news of that in the morning but just wanted to give you uh a little bit of um a little bit you know just of an initial reaction the breaking news that situation here i have the full now white house statement that i'm looking here and it just says uh the ending says today's defensive action follows this extensive diplomatic campaign and Houthi rebels escalating attacks against our commercial vessels. These targeted strikes are a clear message. The United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world's most commercial shipping

routes. I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary. So there you go. That's everything that we've got right now so far. As we said, probably going to see initial and more battle damage assessments and all that whenever we wake up in the morning. Wishing you all a good night and I hope you can sleep. Unfortunately, though, it does appear that the prospect of regional war probably um probably higher than it's been in a long time and uh a fearful moment now almost 100 days into the war in gaza so there we go and like i said we will have more information for all of you tomorrow shout out to our premium members who make all of these possible our crew

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call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, as you know, the International Court of Justice

has been hearing this week South Africa's case against Israel. South Africa alleges that Israel is committing genocide and that they are also failing to prevent genocide. And they are seeking right now not a complete finding on the merits, but simply a temporary injunction.

That finding would basically be that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide and thus immediate measures need to be taken in order to protect the rights of Palestinian civilians. So yesterday on the show, we broke down for you some of what South Africa had to say in their statements in presenting their case. And this morning, I took a listen to what the Israeli defense was. So I wanted to spend some time breaking that down for you. Before I jump into the arguments that they are making, of course, they are necessarily responding to the allegations that South Africa laid out.

And so I wanted to start by putting some of the context of kind of the high level view of the core of South Africa's arguments on the merits. And I'll talk a little bit later about some of the like legal technical issues that are also in dispute. And we can discuss, you know, those and what the South Africans are saying and what the Israelis are saying as well. But this is the overall context that Israel has to respond to and that they attempted to respond to in their response in front of the International Court of Justice today. So South Africa spent a lot of time, understandably, since they're alleging genocide

on the mass death that Israel has caused in the Gaza Strip and the large, vast amount of destruction of civilian infrastructure. Euromed Monitor has been tracking this. Now, the South Africans used a lot of UN assessments. Euromed Monitor, you know, both uses UN assessments and also their own analysis. So the numbers are not exactly the same, but this is just to give you a sense of the top level case the South Africans were making yesterday. So this is an article for Euromed Monitor. They say in the fourth month of Israeli genocide, 4% of Gaza's population is dead, missing or injured. 70% of the Strip's infrastructure is

destroyed. They go on to reiterate these numbers and they also talk about the number of injured clear Israeli aim of implementing collective punishment against the entire population and making the Strip, which has been under siege for over 17 years, uninhabitable. Israel is pushing hundreds of thousands of civilians towards mass force displacement. According to their estimates, 30,676 Palestinians have been killed. That includes those who have been declared killed and also those who have are buried under the rubble and presumed dead. Their assessment is that that includes 28,201 civilians, so overwhelming number of civilians, and includes 12,040 children, 6,103 women, 241 health workers, and 105 journalists. An additional 58,960 individuals have been injured,

hundreds of whom are currently in serious condition. So that is the context of the mass death and the extent of the destruction that has been inflicted both on the civilian population, also on all the civilian infrastructure, on aid workers, hospital workers, women, children. That was a major focus of South Africa's case presented yesterday. The other piece that we've talked a lot about and that they, you know, spent a good bit of time on yesterday was establishing what they claim to be genocidal intent. And this is not an easy task. Normally, you don't have political officials and military officials walking around saying, hey, guys, we're doing a genocide. And so they had

a list and also some video evidence of officials up to and including Bibi Netanyahu, who were talking about the destruction of the Palestinian people, the destruction of Gaza, etc. And so just as a reminder of some of what they really focused on, because I think they anticipated that Israel would say, oh, well, a lot of these people, you know, the minister of antiquities or whatever, they don't really have any governing authority. They're not the ones in charge. So what matters is the people at the top and the policy that they're setting. So in light of anticipating that argument from the Israelis, which they did make a version of today, they spent some time on comments from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who no one could argue doesn't have some influence here and isn't in control of what's going on,

and then connected those to comments that were being made by rank and file soldiers on the ground who clearly took those comments seriously and were then implementing them in the way that they were going about, you know, the historic biblical foe of the Jewish people, which, you know, the Bible tells them to destroy the seed of Amalek, the camel, the sheep, the suckling, the oxen, everything. Here is what he had to say very early on in the war about their aims. Take a listen. You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember and we are fighting our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel are joining this chain of Jewish heroes. Amalek, and then I can also show you the response from the soldiers on the ground.

This part is in Hebrew, so I will read you the subtitles as well. Here we go. This is soldiers who are cheering and singing this song where they talk about Amalek, and they also showed another one where they echoed the words of President Isaac Herzog saying there are no uninvolved civilians.

Here is that portion of South Africa's presentation. OK, so this was part of their attempt to establish intent, of course, as we've covered extensively on breaking points. And I did as well in my original video breaking down the South African filing to the ICJ. That was a preview to the arguments that they laid out yesterday. They had numerous pages of Israeli, top Israeli officials, of top military officials, people who are in a position to influence government policy, you know, per their filing and the comments that they made. Things like, you know, we want Nakba 2023. We're fighting human animals. They should be treated as such. We're instituting a complete siege. That was Yoav Galant, the defense minister. So those were the two sort of primary components on the merits. Like I said, there were some other legal technical issues, but those were the major

claims that Israel was then tasked with responding with today. So let me go ahead and play for you a little bit of how they approach that. Those of you who have been listening to Israeli rhetoric, even just, you know, since October 7th, a lot of these arguments won't be surprising to you. The first thing that they did was to try to establish that the context that South Africa put before the court, that that was not the right way to think about this conflict, that they first started by saying, listen, we understand better than anyone what this genocide convention is about because of the horrors of the Holocaust. They went on to say that effectively this is was presented by South Africa as this one-sided

assault. In reality, this is a war between two actors. You know, I would say left down of the Israeli analysis is the fact that one of these actors is a state power funded and equipped with the by the world's superpower and with incredible offensive capabilities. And the other is a non-state actor with very limited capabilities, very limited ability to inflict damage on the 7th. They also talked, obviously, aside from October 7th, where they were able to inflict absolute horrors on many Israeli people. They also talked a lot about October 7th and that that context was missing from the South African complaint. I don't think that's particularly fair because the atrocities that were committed on October 7th, South Africa doesn't dispute that. Their argument is simply, which is true according to international law, that even if you were subject to atrocities, it does not then justify you turning around and also committing atrocities. And it certainly doesn't justify genocide.

So they also abhor the violence and attacks on civilians that were committed on October 7th. But their argument is, you know, this is essentially irrelevant, given the acts that Israelis have committed the IDF at the behest of top Israeli officials that are being committed on the ground against Gazans. So in addition, and this is the part that I'll go ahead and play for you so you can get a sense of some of these arguments. They basically argue that, listen, if anyone is committing genocide here, it is Hamas. So let's take a listen to that argument. I appreciate three core aspects of the present proceedings, which the applicant has obscured from view. First, that if there have been acts that may be characterized as genocidal, then they have been perpetrated against Israel.

If there is a concern about the obligations of states under the Genocide Convention, then it is in relation to their responsibilities to act against Hamas's proudly declared agenda of annihilation, which is not a secret and is not in doubt. The annihilicist language of Hamas's chapter is repeated regularly by its leaders with the goal, in the words of one member of Hamas's political bureau of the cleansing of Palestine of the filth of the Jews.

It is expressed no less chillingly in the words of senior Hamas member Razi Hamad to Lebanese television on October 24th, 2023, who refers to the October 7th attacks, what Hamas calls the Al-aqsa flood as follows In the continuation of this interview, Hamas is asked, Hamad is asked, does that mean the annihilation of Israel? Yes, of course, he says. The existence of Israel is illogical. And then he says, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7th, October 10th, October 1 millionth, everything we do is justified." End quote. Given that on October 7th, before any military response by Israel, South Africa issued an official

statement blaming Israel for, quote, the recent conflagration, essentially blaming Israel for the murder of its own citizens. One wonders whether the applicant agrees. So a few things of note there. I mean, you could very glibly describe this portion of their defense as but Hamas. And, you know, legally, again, South Africa does not dispute that horrors and likely atrocities were committed by Hamas on October 7th. That does not justify or allow for genocide then to occur. You can also hear at the end there, there's some very strong insinuations made about South Africa, that South Africa is basically in league with Hamas. This is a portion of their defense that they previewed going into today's hearing in stronger and less diplomatic words that were said for consumption for the public. They said something like, you know, they're in league with Hamas's rape regime or something of that nature. So effectively trying to cast aspersions on the character of the South African leadership

and effectively say, you know what, they're basically Hamas as well. In addition, they spent some time casting some doubt on the overall numbers of deaths, saying, you know, these are numbers that come from Hamas themselves. So how can you trust them? And this is something that, you know, they've said repeatedly from the beginning. Now, one way you could alleviate that concern over the veracity of the numbers is if you allowed in international observers who could independently assess what the actual death toll is, that has not been allowed. We can also say that in previous conflicts after when international observers were able

to check out what the Haldmas led health ministry was producing in the way of death toll, that it ended up being quite accurate. In addition, they also called into question how many civilians were actually being killed. So there was an effort to say, OK, these numbers, yeah, it sounds bad, but it's not really clear that these are even accurate numbers. And then you will also be unsurprised to learn if you've been listening to Israelis during this conflict. And previously, they also spent a lot of time saying, well, listen, of course we abhor any violence against civilians. But the real reason that this is occurring is because of Hamas using them as human shields, being under their hospitals,

being under their schools. There were pictures showed, I believe, of like a child's bedroom of Hamas using a residential house. And so they say, yes, there is a lot of destruction in the Gaza Strip. But this is because Hamas is using the civilian infrastructure for military purposes. And so even though we really regret it, we have to go in and destroy this. And it's because of Hamas that we have to do this. Now, you know, you might say on the other side, I might say on the other side, Israel has used an amount of firepower and created a level of destruction. This is something South Africa pointed to yesterday that is nearly unprecedented. I mean, this has in a short period of time already surpassed years of allied bombing of Dresden, for example.

The entirety of the Gaza Strip is effectively already rendered uninhabitable. Hospitals have been, you know, hospitals have been attacked and rendered unusable. This is another thing that South Africa talked about yesterday. And so Israel's response to that is basically to say, yes, maybe there's a lot of civilian infrastructure that has been destroyed, but it is really because of Hamas. They are the ones to blame for this. There was also a discussion about whether Israel does, in fact, have a right to defend themselves. One of the arguments made by South Africa yesterday, which is backed up by some scholars, is that since they are an occupying force,

they don't actually have the right to defend themselves. So they spent some time on that as well. In addition, to try to explain the very high civilian death toll and to try to show that the reason there are so many civilians who have been killed in their bombardment is not because of their actions, but in spite of their actions to try to, you know, Russian aid and to take these extraordinary measures to protect civilians so they they spent a lot of time making the case that they are in fact going to extraordinary lengths to try to protect the civilian population in the gaza strip let me play for you a bit of that argument in the time allotted i have been able to describe only some of israel's efforts

to mitigate civilian harm and to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. But even this mere fraction is enough to demonstrate how tendentious and partial the applicants' presentations of these facts is, and certainly enough to conclude that the allegation of intent to commit genocide is baseless. If Israel had such intent, would it delay a ground maneuver for weeks, urging civilians to seek safer space and in doing so, sacrificing operational advantage? Would it invest massive resources to provide civilians details about where to go, when to go, how to go, to leave areas of fighting? Would it maintain a dedicated unit staffed with experts whose sole role is to facilitate aid and who continue to do so despite having their staff killed and kidnapped?

When a population is ruled by a terrorist organization that cares more about wiping out its neighbor than about protecting its own civilians, there are acute challenges in protecting the civilian population. Those challenges are exacerbated by the dynamic and evolving nature of intense hostilities in an urban area where the enemy exploits hospitals, shelters, and critical infrastructure. Would Israel work continuously with international organizations and states, even reaching out to them on its own initiative to find solutions to these challenges if it were seeking to destroy the population Israel's efforts to mitigate the ravages of this war on civilians are the very

opposite of intent to destroy them under these circumstances far from being the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from Israel's pattern of conduct, intent to commit genocide is not even a plausible inference. That language there very specifically chosen because the legal standard that South Africa is attempting to meet here and seeking a temporary injunction is it's plausible that there is a genocide being committed right now by Israel. So she cites there things that we hear from Israelis a lot about, listen, we do everything we can. We leaflet, we publish this whole map that shows people where they can go and where they can be safe. And we gave them time to leave the northern Gaza Strip. This is over a million people who were displaced from the northern part of the Gaza Strip. We gave them time to leave the northern Gaza Strip. This is over a million people who were displaced from the northern part of the Gaza Strip. We gave them time to leave.

We protected their safe corridors. This flies in the face of the testimony from South Africa yesterday and what we've seen reported out during this war, that even the places that they told people to flee to were not safe, came under heavy bombardment, that there was massive civilian death in those places that had been declared, quote unquote, safe. You'll recall people were told to flee to the south. They fled to Khan Yunus. Khan Yunus came under massive bombardment. They fled to Rafah.

Rafah is now the center of hostilities. And even the little area that they told people to flee to, claiming that there were provisions, aid provisions there that didn't even exist. It's just basically a desert wasteland. Even that area wasn't safe. South Africa also talked about that people came under fire and under bombardment, even as they were fleeing along these so-called safe corridors. On the aid provision piece, she argues that, listen, we're working with humanitarian organizations. We've increased the amount of aid that is going into the strip. This is counter to the original comments in the war that they were implementing a complete siege,

no medicine, no food, no fuel, no water, et cetera. And inconveniently for her argument, I'll mention two things. First of all, we just had actually two Democratic U.S. senators, Chris Manahal, and I keep forgetting who the other one is. I'm just like standard issue Democratic senator, who were just in the region saying that Israel has created a process that is impossible, that is blocking the provisioning of aid and severely limiting what is able to come into the Strip. And, you know, that is borne out by the evidence of the suffering that Gazans are going through on the ground. This is a U.N. report. And again, the ICJ being a U.N. body, it's significant. This comes from the U.N., of course.

This isn't like, you know, the Hamas-led health ministry says. This is per the U.N. Half of Gazans are right now at risk of starving. According to the UN, more than 90% of Palestinians in the territory say they have regularly gone without food for a whole day, according to the United Nations. I'll just read you a little bit of this report because as much as the visuals of the bombing and the bullets are horrifying and shocking. Even potentially more deadly in the end will be the hunger and the disease that is running rampant through the Gaza Strip. So they start with this,

speaking with a father here, voila, Zaytars, four children have been hungry for weeks, but she's, sorry, a mother here, but she can barely find them food. They ask for sandwiches, fruit juice, homemade Palestinian dishes like she used to cook before the war began. In a fleeting moment of internet access, she said she once caught the children huddled around her phone to watch a YouTube video of someone eating French fries. The most they can hope for these days,

she said in a recent telephone interview, is a can of peas, some cheese, and an energy bar distributed as a family's rations by the UN once a week in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where they fled to in early December to escape Israeli bombardment farther north, is not nearly enough to feed her family of seven. It is a daily struggle, said Ms. Zater, 37, whose children range in age from nine months to 13 years. You feel you are under pressure and hopeless and you cannot provide anything. And here again are the numbers. Israel's war in Gaza has created a humanitarian catastrophe with half of the population of about 2.2 million at risk of starvation and 90 percent saying that they regularly go without food for a whole day.

The U.N. said in a recent report. Now, in an attempt to further rebut those numbers, the UN numbers that 50% are on the verge of starvation, other experts have said that they have not seen this level of famine and certainly how quickly it set in that this has already surpassed the horrible famine that Yemen has grappled with during Saudi bombardment that we also were complicit with, by the way. So in order to attempt to rebut that, the Israelis also showed videos of Hamas militants taking control of aid trucks coming in and, according to them, commandeering the aid supplies for their own fighters. That is very possible that there is some of that going on. I don't doubt it whatsoever. But we can go back to the overall numbers,

which aid agencies have repeatedly sounded the alarm on and said this is nowhere near sufficient for what needs to come into the Gaza Strip, especially given the fact that all of the agricultural, not I shouldn't say all, but some significant amount of the agricultural land in the Gaza Strip has been razed. There is no ability for Gazans to produce their own food at this moment. All but one of the World Health Organization's or the World Food Program's affiliated bakeries had been shut down. So there are unbelievably difficult situations unfolding on the ground, not to mention disaster in terms of famine and spread of communicable diseases, incidents of diarrhea in children.

These sorts of things have wildly surged because of the attacks on civilian infrastructure, because of the blocking of sufficient aid to come into the Gaza Strip. I also thought this was another interesting thing I wanted to highlight for you guys. We covered on Breaking Points how the day before South Africa was set to mount their case, Bibi Netanyahu came out and made the statement that was like, we are not at war with the Palestinian citizens. We are only at war with Hamas and also repudiating the idea that they had any interest in ethnic cleansing. He didn't use those words, but in pushing Gazans out of the Gaza Strip, this in direct odds, not only with the statements of extremist ministers Ben-Kafir and Smotrich, but also with reporting about Netanyahu's own comments and own goals. So he very notably put this out the day before South Africa begins their case at the ICJ. And in fact, those very comments were cited by Israel

in their case today to say, yeah, he said that thing about Amalek. But what you really need to listen to is what he said two days ago, where he said, no, we're not at war with the Palestinian civilians. And they said, you know, yes, you have these ministers who are popping off. They're very upset about what happened on October 7th, very understandably. But the people who actually set power, they are the ones that, you know, are much more cool and even headed. And take a look at these other comments that they've said there are at odds with those that can be construed as having genocidal intent. I also in that same vein, intensity of Israel's operations have been decreasing and claims that Israel's repeated pledges to observe international law are enough to make provisional

to block provisional measures. And the reason I found that noteworthy as well as we did, and I believe we covered this on the show, too. Yeah, we did. There have been recent comments from Defense Minister Yoav Golan and others that they are moving into another phase. It's going to be more targeted. It's going to be less, you know, massive bombardment as the early phases were. And so the fact that they raised this in this case raised a couple of questions for me. I mean, first, we got to see it before we believe it. The civilian death toll has continued to be very high. So we need to see evidence of this first. That's number one. Number two, it made me wonder if those comments about the new phase of war were actually that they were

pressured into making those to try to bolster their case at the ICJ, basically saying like, look, yeah, the first part, it was really brutal. It's really horrifying. Lots of civilian infrastructure destroyed. People were hungry. People were being killed. But that's all over now already. We're moving into another phase. So why would you issue this temporary injunction when we already are done with that part? We're already moving into this other phase. So that was noteworthy to me that they cited both Bibi's comments that he literally made the day before this all started to say, look, what are you talking about? Bibi's saying very reasonable things here, at odds with many other things that he has said and that all of the various cabinet ministers have said as well.

And also that they are citing this purported shift to another phase of war. A lot of the media reporting had been that this change in tone from the Israelis was because of Biden administration pressure. I never really bought that. This could be more accurately what was going on is that they felt pressured by this case, which, again, is very interesting to me because my initial reaction when South Africa filed this petition was good for them. But I doubt it will matter. The fact that the Israelis have responded in such a vociferous way and in such a, I think you can accurately say panicked way, sort of demonstrated to me that perhaps there is more to this than I initially assumed.

Let me talk just briefly about a couple of the legal technical matters, which I am, of course, in not an ideal position to analyze because I'm not a lawyer. But South Africa argued effectively that, listen, you have to establish that there is an actual dispute between two countries to have standing to bring this case to the ICJ. South Africa yesterday laid out, hey, we reached out to them here. We reached out to them there. We issued a statement. They didn't respond. They didn't change. And so there is very clearly a dispute here with Merritt. And that's why we have standing to bring this case. Israel disagreed with that. They said there wasn't that much time given. It wasn't a serious engagement. It was just more of a perfunctory box checking in terms of establishing this standing and that there is actually weigh in on the mass death and starvation and bombing of civilian infrastructure and hospitals, et cetera, gives them that little technical legal

loophole to get out of having to deal with any of that. That's possible. Just don't know. In addition, the argument for South Africa is that we need a temporary injunction. And I'm using that language because that's how we talk about in the American court system. They use a different word in terms of the ICJ court system, but the idea is the same.

We need a temporary injunction to stop the Israeli government from impinging on the rights of Palestinians. Effectively, we need a ceasefire now while this case is being tried on the merits to figure out whether there is a violation on the merits to figure out whether there is a violation of the Genocide Convention. So our interest is in protecting the rights of Palestinians.

The Israeli argument was, well, if you do that, you're not protecting the rights of Palestinians because anyway, by the way, we've shifted to this other phase now anyway. But you will be infringing on our rights to self-defense. So those are the rights that you really need to focus on protecting here is our right to defend ourselves in the wake of October 7th. The last thing I'll show you is after Israel concluded their presentation, there was a bit of a response from South Africa. And I thought this part was particularly poignant, relevant, etc. It's a good point. South Africa's legal team basically said, listen, if Israel's right, if they're right, I'm adding this part, they're right about the their intent provisioning of aid, they're right about that, you know, these various things are

Hamas's fault. If they're right that the death estimates are overestimated, that there's far less civilian death, far fewer children who have been murdered here, if they're right about those things, then they would have allowed international investigation teams to enter Gaza. And I think that's a very good point. Because on a lot of this, you just have to take Israel's word, to take their word that they're really working hard to try to avoid civilian casualties. You have to take their word about the various supplies that they claim that they are shipping in and providing and the responses that they are enabling. And so without having international observers in to actually see those things, you can't prove or disprove what Israel is claiming in their own defense. So I think that is an incredibly valid point.

And effectively, you know, the fact that Israel does not allow that to occur means we have to rely on things like the, as the media loves to put it, Hamas-led health ministry for data about what is actually happening because no one else can really get in to assess what is happening. But we certainly know, you know, based on the UN's report, the level of hunger, the threat of starvation, the threat of a famine, and, you know, the horrors that civilians have been subjected to. Israel doesn't really dispute that. They don't really dispute that this has been horrendous for civilians, that there has been massive pain and suffering as a result of these hostilities. anyone is uh is should be accused of genocide it's Hamas not us and um that was the the sort of bulk of their presentation to the International Court of Justice I spoke for Crystal Con friends with Norm Finkelstein yesterday and he had originally which we played on the show we asked him uh or Katie Helper had actually asked him what do you think is going to happen here? And he went through the list of the judges

and what countries they're affiliated with because even though we're talking a lot about the merits, a lot of this ends up being quite political. And he felt very pessimistic in that interview with Katie Halper that South Africa would prevail. When we talked to him yesterday, Kyle and I, he was somewhat more optimistic that based on the merits and based on the fact that much of the data that is relied on in the South African case comes from the UN and the ICJ's UN body,

he felt a bit more optimistic. Now, he didn't think that it was open and shut. There was no guarantees, but he was a bit more hopeful that they might prevail. As for me, you know, I'm new to really understanding the workings of this process. I have no idea where things go from here. They could find some legal technicality, like I said, to try to sort of find a loophole to get out of really weighing in. They could find it is plausible Israel is committing a genocide and order an injunction and then it just is ignored and it doesn't really mean anything. Or they could actually, you know, find on behalf of South Africa that it is plausible Israel is engaging in a genocide and it could actually sting, especially given the number of countries that have signed on to this

and countries like France that have said they'll abide by the ruling. We just don't know. So that's the latest, guys. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder.

I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter.

She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's what I've got for you, and I'll see you guys soon. I watched some of South Africa's presentation this morning. We're recording this on Thursday, just so everybody knows. I understand you were able to watch most but not all of it. I just wanted to play.

Yeah, and that's very, I wanted to just say that's very unusual for me. I usually watch or read everything twice, and I want to apologize for that. It's a part of my, so to speak, scholarly bona fides. I had misunderstood it to be that their presentation would last two hours. In fact, according to the screen, it lasts four hours. I got through three hours before I had to do your interview for which we were scheduled. And immediately after this, because I have a whole lot of interviews scheduled today, I'm going to go back, go through the end to the end. And then tonight I'll watch it again.

So the portion that I was able to watch this morning lay down what I would describe as a pretty compelling case, once again relying on a lot of U.N. official statements and analyses, also relying on the statements of various Israeli officials up to and including Bibi Netanyahu himself, who of course is prime minister. I wanted to play for people just a snippet of part of the presentation talking about the level of mass death that has been inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza. Let's take a listen to that. In the first three weeks alone, following 7 October, Israel deployed 6,000 bombs per week. At least 200 times it has deployed 2,000 pound bombs in southern areas of Palestine designated as safe.

These bombs have also decimated the north, including refugee camps. 2,000 pound bombs are some of the biggest and most destructive bombs available. They are dropped by lethal fighter jets that are used to strike targets on the ground by one of the world's most resourced armies. Israel has killed an unparalleled and unprecedented number of civilians with the full knowledge of how many civilian lives each bomb will take. Dr. Finkelstein, what were some of the major takeaways for you from the portion of the South Africa presentation you were able to hear today? There were many reactions. There were personal reactions. And then there were professional scholarly reactions.

I can leave the personal reactions for later. If you care to hear them, you may want to focus on the scholarly side. First of all, we have to begin with the fact that South Africa was at a serious disadvantage in this case. The disadvantage is this. South Africa presented an 84-page complaint or brief to the ICJ, so we knew exactly what they were going to argue. And the presentations were elaborations on or reiterations of what was in that brief. But they don't know what Israel is going to argue

because Israel did not present a brief. And so they had to speculate. If this is going to be your argument, then we say this. If that's going to be your argument, then we say that. So in effect, they had to squander a large amount of time trying to anticipate and preempt the argument, which in fact Israel may not make tomorrow. We don't know what, so they'll have the full time to make their case, whereas South Africa had to expend or squander a large amount of time trying to figure out what their argument might be and trying to respond to it. So in my opinion, that was a significant disadvantage for South Africa. And I'm surprised. I don't know the protocol of the court.

I was surprised to learn that you're not obliged to submit a written complaint in advance, that you can just spring whatever arguments you want the next day. So having said that, I would say my prediction, because I did a program with my close friend and comrade Louine Rabani, my prediction last night was more or less borne out. Everybody likes to claim they were right, and I have to be careful of that kind of hubris, but it was more or less borne out. South Africa had two possible approaches. One approach would be to focus on the law and to say legally this is a genocide. And if you look at this text and that text and that text, it meets the textual requirement of a genocide.

Another strategy was to pile on one layer after another layer after another layer after another layer of the horrors that Israel has inflicted on Gaza, such that whether it is or not technically a genocide and whether it squeezes into that definition or not, it puts the court into a completely impossible position of saying, well, yes, what you describe is horrible, what you describe is terrible, what you describe is awful, what you describe is ghastly, what you describe is horrendous, but it's not a genocide. So I would say if you look at the bulk of the proceedings, there were two lawyers, John Dugard and a second fellow whose name I can't quite now

remember. They focused on the legal issues. And the legal issues are essentially, number one, it'll sound very technical to listeners, whether this constitutes a dispute under international law, under the protocols of the ICJ. That is to say, whether you have standing to bring this case before the ICJ. And it's a very technical question, what constitutes a dispute? So John Dugard, who I think it's fair to say is the most eminent, also the eldest of the representatives in South Africa, he handled the question of dispute because he anticipated that Israel might argue that this does not qualify as a dispute under the protocols of the ICJ and therefore they should dismiss it out of hand. That's called a jurisdictional question.

Does the court have jurisdiction over this particular issue? And another lawyer focused on the legal question. You have to prove that since they're bringing the case under the Genocide Convention, you have to prove that since they're bringing the case under the genocide convention, you have to prove that Israel's actions can only be traceable back to a genocidal intent. So let's say all of these actions are horrible, terrible, awful, horrendous. However, the intent wasn't genocidal. Let's say the intent was to defeat the enemy, not to destroy in whole or in part a national, religious, racial or ethnic group. You have to prove that the intent was genocidal.

And there are several issues there. First of all, this is only a preliminary case. So all South Africa has to, I don't want to say all, although that term was constantly used. I think it did harm to the South African case. You have to prove there's a plausible case for genocide. You don't have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. At this point in the proceedings, what you have to prove is a plausible case. So he argued on that ground that we just have to, he said, we merely have to make a plausible case. And the other argument is that you can commit war crimes, crimes against humanity,

all sorts of crimes. They may not be genocide, but the crimes in the real world often overlap with genocide. So the fact that these might be war crimes, crimes against humanity and so forth, doesn't preclude that simultaneously they also might be genocide. So if Israel were to argue, okay, we don't agree, but we're not going to dispute your claim. We're not going to dispute your claim that war crimes were committed. That's still not genocide. And the South African argument was, well, the fact that there were war crimes or crimes against humanity doesn't preclude that they were simultaneously acts of genocide or genocide. So those were the two legal, the main legal briefs. Oh, and there's the third. The third was by Vaughn Lowe. I have to say, you know, I know a lot of these personalities through correspondence. I know John Dugard personally. Vaughn Lowe, he argued another case before the ICJ pertaining to Israel, namely the wall that Israel was building in the West Bank. That was in July 2004. And I was in correspondence with Vaughn Lowell back then. And he had some really very kind words to say about something I wrote.

And I had written extensively on the Wall case. And it was, you know, for me, here are two people who I had, who were very kind to me. I'll just hold on for one half moment. So John Dugard, who's the, as I say, the most eminent and also the oldest of the representatives, for one of my books, oh yeah, the Gaza book, he wrote, Norman Finkelstein, probably the most serious scholar on the conflict in the Middle East, has written an excellent book. So to be told by John Dugard that the most, let's see, the most serious scholar on the whole subject was a compliment. And Juan Lo was equally generous in his praise. Now, you might think this is me tooting my own horn, but it's so rare that I get praised by professional scholars.

I get praised by people like yourself, but people from within the academic world, it's a very rare event, you know, sort of like spotting a dodo bird. You've more than earned it. So I take a certain amount of pride in it. So Von Lowe also, he stressed the legal side and he made a very, you know, he made a very strong point. He says, however horrendous October 7th might have been, and South Africa has acknowledged the horrendousness of October 7th, he made a point that nothing under international law can justify

a genocide. So if you're going to come along and say how horrible, how terrible, how awful October 7th was, how it shocked and how it traumatized Israel, then we're not disputing that. But that can't justify a genocide. So I want to just stress again, as you could see from what I've already just said, they didn't know what the arguments are going to be by Israel. So they were trying to cover every possible contingency. Now Israel may not make any of these arguments. And then the other presentations were, and with no attempt at disparagement at all. But you could say the other presentations,

there were I think about seven presentations. The other presentations were, the other four were overwhelmingly emotive. But emotive in the sense of, you know, it is a crime that shocks humanity. You know, that's how these crimes are described, a crime that shocks humanity. And shock is an emotive feeling. Shock is not a reasoned response.

It's a response of your whole being, of your viscera and of your mind and of your soul and of your conscience. So there's soul, conscience, mind, which are emotive. They go to feelings. And of course, that's completely, in my view, it's legitimate. And they did exactly what I expected they would do and what anyone would expect they would do. They simply layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of the horrors that have been inflicted on the people of Gaza. One gentleman, he quoted a, I guess it was either, I think it was either one of the major humanitarian organizations. He said in all of his life's experience, he had never seen something like this.

And he said it has three characteristics. Size, the speed, and the size, speed, and ill-company. It was three words that began with S. Scope. Size, what? Maybe scope. Yeah, I don't think it was scope. Size, speed, and severity. In terms of size, size would be scope, but yours is a better word than size.

I wish you had used scope. Size, speed speed and severity he said in his whole life he had never experienced it and then one of the other uh lawyers said there are people this these organizations that go back to the killing fields in cambodia they go back 1979 you know I'm old enough to go back that far. I remember it quite vividly. And he said, there are people who go back to the killing fields of Cambodia and they've never seen anything like this. And another person, one of the earlier presenters who went through intent, where he started to quote all the statements by the government officials, he made a perfectly valid point.

He said, no country ever admits to genocide. They're always very cautious about what they say in public. And even if you read the Nazi statements during the genocide, there were kinds of what you might call allusions to what's happening. But remember, the Nazi genocide occurred in the dark. Technically, the German people weren't supposed to know what's going on, let alone the world. And you will remember that when the first reports start to come out of the genocide, when the first reports of the Jewish genocide start to come out, there were some people who leaked out information, some emissaries who leaked out information. Most people didn't believe it. Even Jews couldn't believe what they were being told, which is another way of saying the genocide wasn't in the open.

And as the person said, most of the time government leaders are very cautious about what they say. Even before there were the conventions, you know, making this illegal, you didn't say that. And he made the point that the Israelis have said it at every level. He made the point every level of government, every level of society and throughout the military. So he says, Prime Minister Netanyahu makes a statement about Amalek. So then you could say, well, maybe he was just being figurative. Maybe he was just being biblical. But then in one of those rare moments in the hearings, they showed video footage. And they showed video footage of the soldiers repeating what Netanyahu said and saying, this is Amalek, we're going to kill all of them, and they're dancing and

they're very cheerful. That particular footage was targeting not Hamas, but Hezbollah. So I assume that was footage from the North Front. But the general idea that the soldiers had internalized what the senior government officials were saying, so you can't detach the statements at the upper tier from the actions at the lower tier, there's a straight arrow line. It wasn't very. I found that really significant, too. And they also showed the soldiers talking about uninvolved. There are no uninvolved civilians, which is something I believe

President Herzog had said. And this is, again, an anticipation of Israel. Oh, we didn't mean those things. They're just sounding off. This is just populist rhetoric. Multiple politicians. That's one of the theories of their defense. Multiple politicians threatened nuking Gaza. That's on the record, too. There was one, a junior member of the cabinet.

He's the person in charge of the cabinet minister for antiquities. He said let's nuke Gaza. And again they were anticipating because then he was demoted. And so they had to anticipate again. They said well he's still a standing member in the Knesset. They had to figure out every possible defense that was going to be made and then try to respond to it. But that presentation, you know, it's a allow me just a brief bit of history. Israel during its previous operations in the past was very free with its language. It said stuff like they're saying now. However, after Operation Cast Lead, those statements came back to haunt them with what

was called the Richard Goldstone Report. Richard Goldstone was also a South African, but unlike those represented here today, he was Jewish and he was a self-identified, I'm not using the term to disparage him, he was a self-identified Zionist. And he was appointed by the Human Rights Council to investigate crimes committed during

Operation Cast Lead. Well, he composed this 400-page report, and it was full of those statements made by the Israeli government. After that, Israel learned a lesson. Don't make those statements, because it might come back to you, to haunt you, in a legal proceeding. So in their next mowings of the lawn, Operation Pillar of Defense, Operation Protective Edge, they didn't make those statements. At least they didn't make it in the numerical quantity as this time. So what happened October 7th that allowed for this explosion of statements?

I mean, now, no exaggeration. There are about a half dozen people who have composed these huge compendiums of just the statements made. One, I think the most exhaustive is by my two young colleagues, Jamie Sternweiner and Yaniv Kogan. Jamie Sternweiner is half, he's Jewish and half Israeli. Yaniv Kogan is Israeli. And they produce, it's called Fighting Amalek in Gaza, this huge compendium.

But there are several others, you know, people send me and send me and send me, can you post my compendium and can you post my compendium? And they're all very excellent. So the question is, what happened? They had that warning already and they had stopped. And now it just went berserk. I think it was basically because they had gone mad. They had gone, you know, it was like the id coming out of them.

There was no longer any control over that suppressed id, the hatred, the loathing of the people of Gaza. And that loathing and hatred was escalated by two factors in October 7. Number one, no question, the magnitude of the crime. Don't find me diminishing it. No question, the magnitude of the crime. Don't find me diminishing it. No question the magnitude of the crime. But the other thing was this vermin in Gaza, this human refuse in Gaza, they had outwitted the Israeli ubermenschen, the supermen. They had outsmarted them. Israel, with its vaunted intelligence capacities,

it was a kind of what you might call, or the image it projected was a James Bond writ large. That was the image it projected. And then along comes this vermin in Gaza, these intermenschen, outwitted them, and reduced them to a state of humiliation. And what's even worse from the Israeli point of view, had significantly contracted the image it projected to the world. Because everyone thought, believed Israel is invincible. You don't have a military option against Israel. The only ones who disagreed were the Hezbollah, in particular the head of Hezbollah, Sayyid Nasrallah.

He kept saying, no, they're not so strong. Don't fool yourself. where the Hezbollah, in particular the head of Hezbollah, Sayyid Nasrallah, he kept saying, no, they're not so strong. Don't fool yourself. And then he began to ridicule them. And he said, Israel's like a spider's web. You just blow on it and it disintegrates. And nobody knew whether to take that literally or not. But suddenly on October 7th, because I've talked to many,

obviously I've talked to many Arabs, many Palestinians, many Muslims, and the thought has suddenly sunk in. Maybe it's not as strong as... I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one

visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser

Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It is made out to be. All right. We are joined now again by my colleague over at The Intercept, Ken Klippenstein.

Ken, thanks for being here today. Good to be with you guys. You've got a big story today, and we can put this element up. This is his scoop over at The Intercept. Walk us through what you found. So in November, there was a document produced by the US Air Force's Middle East combatant command. And what it was essentially was a deployment order for intelligence officers to be sent

to Israel and to help with the provision of intelligence to the Israelis. Now I interviewed someone who was the exact same type of intelligence officer that they are sending to Israel, and he said this has to be about targeting, providing satellite intelligence to the Israelis who have very good granular satellite information, but no one can hold a candle to the kind of satellite intelligence that the US government has for kind of big picture stuff that can help inform their picture of the battlefield in Gaza. Now, why is this a problem? The Biden administration never disclosed this. And if you look at what the Biden administration has said publicly about support for Israel,

they're in a very awkward position where they have to signal, we love the Israelis, we support them entirely in this conflict, but they don't want to say how. And experts that we interviewed said that the reason for that is because it opens up the US government to not just political liability, but legal exposure as well. So I've reported on this with The Intercept in the past.

The specific weapon systems we provided are not publicly disclosed, unlike the war in Ukraine where the administration is very proud. I'll tell you down in the bullets what we're sending over there. Literally, yeah, you can go online and find it right now. They don't do that for the Israelis. They don't talk about the quantities of weapons.

White House spokesperson John Kirby has said in the past, the reason for all of this is operational security. But again, compare this to the Ukrainians. Where is the operational security with that? Nobody cared. Everyone disclosed it. They were fine. It didn't hurt the Ukrainians to do so. So there's really this double standard between those two conflicts,

and it's quite telling when you look at the administration's posture between the two. Can you tell us a little bit more about the scale of this operation as you've reported it? What exactly? How big is this? The specific intelligence team that they sent is known for having a light footprint, the idea being that it's not going to create bureaucratic waves, not going to leak. When I spoke, I interviewed on the record in the story someone who served in one of these units and he described having provided intelligence to the Iraqis. I think it was as the war became quite unpopular in 2007, 2008, around that time.

The idea is that these teams are so small and are so agile that it's not going to create the kinds of discord within the agencies that sending a larger team might. But what's critical about all this is that when you look at the war in Gaza, it's an unusual war. The vast majority of it is being fought long distance with artillery, air power, and that's exactly the kind of things that satellite intelligence, other sort of these Air Force intelligence officers would specialize in providing the Israelis, are going to be able to give them. Now, it certainly doesn't look like there's been a whole lot of precision targeting,

and we keep seeing stories about 2,000-pound dumb bombs and other dumb bombs getting dropped on Gaza. Is it possible that the U.S. sent these units over there and the IDF told them, pound sand, we're good? We don't actually need your help? Like, can we definitively link them here? Or do we have circumstantial evidence that they were ordered to head over there and you would just assume that, you know, if you have this capacity at your disposal as the IDF that you would take advantage of it.

Well, these intelligence teams are kind of bilateral in nature. So they provide intelligence, but they're also getting intelligence too. And that's how they worked with regards to Iraq. How much we know about what the Israelis accepted, I mean, the admin has been very open about that. Yes, we are providing intelligence, but they've been very careful to say, but it's only about hostage rescue.

And so that's where the story moves the needle, away from hostage rescue to where, I mean, when you're talking targeting, that's a very different kind of operation. That's something the administration has never acknowledged. So certainly the Israelis are accepting some form of help in terms of the hostage response. There was a crash, I think, of an Osprey in... Off the coast of Turkey or something? Yeah, that's right. And

that revealed that we had a SEAL team in country working on the hostage rescue response. So there's a big kind of secret squirrel presence within country that we only have some hints of. In another case, the White House posted a picture where they forgot to redact the faces of the JSOC operators. So now we know JSOC is there too. So certainly there's a footprint and document. The story is based on a FOIA document. These kind of provide us some glimpse into what exactly is going on because, again, the administration is not being forthcoming about it. And the other question I have is if you could talk a little bit more about the legal liabilities. We did learn, I mean, unsurprisingly, something about this in Ukraine as well, you know, like six months into the war, something that we had a similar kind of footprint of people,

light footprint of people in Kiev. So the legal liability is there, but then there's also the idea of the political liability. If somebody is killed in action, that creates, if an American and a member of the American military, American intelligence community is harmed, that can also completely change the dynamic of a hot conflict like this. Yeah, the administration's kind of boxed itself in because from the beginning, Biden has said, we do not have boots on the ground. He's tried to adhere to that. But the problem is intelligence, since it doesn't operate under the same legal classification as does traditional boots on the ground, you can technically accurately say that intelligence is not.

It operates under a different title authority. Because they're not operating in Gaza. Could this even be happening from the United States? We know that they are. The Air Force is conducting operating in Gaza. Like, could this even be happening from the United States? We know that they are. The Air Force is conducting drones in Gaza. You're right that they're not. As far as we know, they're not on the ground. I mean, JSOC and some of these special operations units may well be.

Oh, right, I was inserting it. I'm asking, like. Oh, right. No, definitely we have a footprint in Gaza. And what's interesting about that, that drone presence that probably also is working with the Air Force, that is the first time the U.S. military has ever operated in Gaza. So this is a huge sea change from past conduct.

And the units themselves, are they working both in the United States and over in – do they have to travel to Israel to do this coordination? It was literally a travel order describing where the lodgings are going to be. I think it was in Tel Aviv. So they're physically in Israel. In addition to that, one very telling part of the FOIA document was do not wear your uniform on the plane, or in civilian like. What if you want to board first though?

I mean, come on. Kind of gives away your cover. They said don't wear your uniform on your way over to Tel Aviv. Yeah, because you're sitting in the airport and your flight is bound for Tel Aviv. And you look over and you see a bunch of active duty, you know, military person, U.S. military personnel. It's reflective of how it's a very subtle operation. And it's so ironic because they have to go out and say, I'm overflowing with love for Israel and we support them and everything.

And it's like, but we can't say anything about how, you know? Yeah. Fascinating stuff. Thank you. Good reporting. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you, Ken. Thanks, guys.

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