Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/18/24: Bibi Says War Until 2025, Biden Failure As Houthi Attacks Increase, And Israel Uses Gaza As Weapons Testing Ground

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Bibi saying Gaza war until 2025, Biden failure as Houthi attacks increase, and Antony Loewenstein joins to discuss how Israel uses Gaza and the West Bank as a weapons testing ground.   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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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. All right, let's go ahead and move on to a lot that is unfolding in Israel right now. I can put this up on the screen. We have Bibi once again, and to get back to U.S. humiliation, snubbing the U.S., which has claimed to want them to wrap up their assault on Gaza kind of soon, and say, you know what, actually, this war against Hamas, it's set to continue at least into 2025. He reportedly told local council chiefs from communities near Gaza on Tuesday he anticipates the war against Hamas extending into 2025. According to an unsourced Channel 12 report on the meeting, which was held

at the IDF's Southern Command headquarters and attended by other security cabinet ministers, Netanyahu told the council chiefs that according to the current assessment, the war may continue into next year. I'm gonna get in a moment into the psychology of not only Bibi, who we focused on before, his incentives in keeping this thing going forever and potentially expanding this thing even more aggressively into at least a northern front, potentially drawing in Iran as well. But if you look at the entirety of the war cabinet and the defense establishment, they all have a lot of interest in keeping this war going. So I don't want anybody to get it into their head that it's just like one bad apple who

wants this to go on forever and has incentives, personal political incentives tied to his own ambitions to hold on to his power that has an interest in keeping this thing going. Basically, all of the leadership share very similar interests in that regard. At the same time, Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken were at the World Economic Forum in Davos, spinning their version of what they would like to see, supposedly, in the quote-unquote day after in Gaza. And they continue to push for a two-state solution, something I certainly support. I think the only resolution to this conflict is not a military resolution. It is a diplomatic resolution to this conflict is not a military

resolution. It is a diplomatic resolution that results in Palestinians having actual statehood and actual rights and dignity. They claim to support that. Let's take a listen to what they had to say. We seek to stop the spread of conflict and to create the conditions for de-escalation. Our approach is and remains focused on moving towards greater integration and stability in the region. Long before October 7th, the United States was deeply engaged in an effort to secure a political horizon for the Palestinian people, with Israel's security guaranteed as part of that. So listen, that's all well and good, except, I mean, he's lying when he says that we were doing anything to try to push for Palestinian statehood before October 7th. We'd completely thrown them under the bus in this attempted

normalization with Saudi Arabia. But the other problem, Sagar, is this is utter and complete fantasy. The only way you're going to have any sort of a two-state solution at this point is if the U.S. basically forces it, like is really actually willing, and I think we could theoretically do this, to use our muscle and to use the points of leverage that we have to force this outcome in spite of the fact that this is not what the Israelis want. And I'm not just talking about Netanyahu, who is out there bragging about how he has thwarted a two-state solution for years now and that he is your guy to guarantee there will never be a Palestinian state. But Israelis are, by and large, the population not interested in a two-state solution. Put this up on the screen. This was

prior to October 7th. The numbers that I've seen post-October 7th are actually very similar to where this stands, which is only 32% of Jewish Israelis and 35% of the Israeli public overall believe that you could have an independent Palestine that could coexist peacefully. And that's why you hear Netanyahu out there campaigning effectively to keep his job based on a promise that he will guarantee this never, ever happens. So it would be one thing, Sagar, if the U.S. had shown any willingness to use the points of leverage they had to obtain this outcome. But if you're just going to go out there at Davos and pretend like there's some fantasy

world out there that exists that doesn't actually exist, and you are not willing to use any sort of power to try to create that reality you claim to support, like you're just a liar and a fraud at that point. The problem I think that they really have here is that everyone in the international system is pretending otherwise. So I was reading earlier today, the Saudi Arabians and the UAE are like, we must have Palestinian statehood. And it's like, okay, well, like, what are you going to do about it? And then the Israelis are like, well, we don't really want Palestinian statehood. And America is like, well, we do want Palestinian statehood, but we're not necessarily going to do anything. I, like you said, I think we may be able to force them, but honestly,

I don't know. I, their political system is so screwed up and their democratic incentives are such that they may honestly favor either a break of relations or like really daring us to actually break off. And I think they would win in a standoff crystal, like in a standoff with our political system, as in do Americans would break first in terms of like, no, Israel, like, don't go. We're not really going to do anything. We promise. Whereas I think the Israelis, I mean, at least for where their population is and all of that, they, they could certainly walk considering where things are trending in that direction. That's obviously true because there's not even willingness to even try. So even if we did, I think they would win.

There's no way. I mean, we're not even willing to even try. This is all fantasy. These people are smart or not. Like Jake Sullivan is not an idiot for all of the issues I have with him. Tony Blinken. Also, these are not stupid people. They know the reality of who, not only Netanyahu, but the entire, you know, the war cabinet and where Israeli public have been. They know all of this. They know that the settlements that have been allowed to expand under every single Israeli prime minister, not just Benjamin Netanyahu, every single one, okay? Those settlements make it almost impossible, and that's the goal of the settlements, to have any sort of a two-state solution. They know that Netanyahu made this cynical deal of, I'm going to prop up Hamas because

they're a useful foil for me, and I'm going to keep the West Bank and the Gaza Strip separated, and I'm going to use Hamas to say, look, we don't have a partner. They know all of this, but they are willing to go out there and lie and create some fantasy situation and potential solution that they are not in any way willing to actually back up and push for. You know, to get back to what I was saying about Bibi and his interest in forever war, which is shared by the war cabinet. This was a fantastic piece that laid out the calculus here from Haaretz. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. The headline is why Israel's political and military leaders want a perpetual war. Many of the country's decision makers appear enamored of a situation in which the Israel war, Hamas war,

continues with no end in sight. This is why it could benefit them. And he goes through piece by piece, member by member, and says this is their calculus. This is why it's in their interest to keep this thing going forever. He starts with this quote. Keep this up on the screen because we've got the quote there. The war has become the objective. Think about that. Just the war itself has become the goal.

Former Shin Bet security agency director Ami Ailen told me in a recent Haaretz interview the statement attracted wide attention in Israel and around the world. Because think of what an omission that is. No, we're not trying to take on Hamas. No, we're not really trying to accomplish security for our people. All we want is war. That's the whole goal, is war, to keep the war going forever. Not because it serves the interests of certainly not the Palestinians, certainly not the Israeli public, because it serves their own political interest to keep this thing going. So as one example here to see the way that this thinking plays out, Benny Gantz, who is supposedly

oppositional to Netanyahu, who joined the war cabinet as a show of unity in the wake of October 7th, he writes, Gant seems to be basking in success in the polls, concerned he would lose his high rating in the polls if he quits the government. From that perspective, there's little difference between him and Netanyahu and their management of the war. The decisions of both are motivated by personal and political considerations. In addition, keep in mind, it's not just Netanyahu and his policy that failed on October 7th. It was also the entire defense security intel establishment. So people like Yoav Galant, who again had been at odds with Netanyahu over the judicial

coup situation, he shares in that failure on October 7th of preventing and then responding to those attacks. So he also has an interest in keeping this thing going as long as possible to avoid the questions and the scrutiny that will come of what the hell happened that enabled this all to unfold. They also believe that the more fighting they do, decimate Gaza, okay, then we'll move on to Hezbollah and wherever else beyond, that they can then bring home more supposed victories to people and maybe that'll bolster their political standing. And let's be honest for them also, it's not like what's happened in Gaza has gone all that well

for them. They have not destroyed Hamas. They have not come even close to destroying Hamas. They have not destroyed the tunnel system. They haven't even been able to, they have not been able to free the hostages. The only time hostages were being freed was from, through a ceasefire, which they all oppose because they want this thing to go on forever. They killed three of their own hostages. That's more than they were able to rescue. And top Hamas leadership remains at large within the Gaza Strip. So they have not accomplished anything close to the impossible goals that they sent out at the beginning of this, which were never really the real goals, and have every interest in keeping this thing going and expanding it even further. Well, the expansion actually, you know, one of the things that we've been looking and wanted to flag for all of you.

Can we put D6, please, up on the screen? It's about the Wall Street Journal. They say Israel's war in Gaza is entering its most perilous phase yet. Military is aiming to take control of the maze of tunnels under Khan Yunus as refugees crowd into the south and international outcry grows over the death toll. The reason that they put it that way is that, A, obviously there's no more shelter in Gaza, so it's not like you can tell people to leave. that is in the tunnel network from the Egyptian border is the one that the Israelis had the least amount of visibility in and brings them not only in contact with the vast majority of whatever's left of the civilian populace, but more and more likely of a mistake

and a perilous step over the border with Egypt because Egypt has their military all right there at the Rafah Crossing. They're very sensitive and have been previously to any military incursion or any change to the Egyptian status quo. It all goes back to the, you know, the peace agreements already. Both are technically in violation of some of the Sinai agreements, but this could make it so that if the Israelis do cross the border, if there's one, you know, wrong strike or which we've previously seen in the past dramatically escalate tensions,

not to mention the civilian problems. And also because RAFA is the main way which humanitarian aid has been going through, which we know that there's a new deal on, but this could even imperil that because if you destroy the infrastructure, there's nowhere to even move anything through. Yeah, well, Egypt is extremely pissed at Israel for a variety of reasons, but in particular because Israel tried to throw them under the bus at the International Court of Justice and claimed they were the reason that Palestinians were not receiving anywhere close to sufficient aid and why half of the population of the Gaza Strip is starving right now and disease spreading rampantly and no wildly inadequate medical supplies, amputations happening on children without anesthetic.

They tried to blame Egypt for that. Egypt was so pissed off that they're now submitting their own filings, disputing that Israeli report to the ICJ to rebut those scurrilous claims that were made. And so at the same time, as you have all of this interest in the direction of forever war, Israel is really making themselves into a global pariah to the extent that, of course, they had charges filed against them at the ICJ claiming that they violated the Genocide Convention.

And the very latest that we can show you with regard to that, they claim, you know, oh, we didn't bomb any hospitals. That's part of what the claims that they made at the ICJ. Well, we have another hospital. Reportedly, you put this up on the screen. Al-Nasr Hospital. This is in southern Gaza, I believe near Khan Yunis, that multiple news organizations have reported is now under attack.

You can see there were thousands of Palestinians who had been displaced who were sheltering there. Not to mention that many of the hospitals across the Gaza Strip are now completely, wholly, or partially incapacitated. So this is one of the few places that still remained and was treating patients to the best of their ability, given the woeful inadequacy of medical supplies. So you see people fleeing now from that hospital. And the toll here is unbelievable. You referenced, Sagar, there was a deal, we can put the D7 up on the screen here. There was some sort of a deal that was struck for additional medical aid in particular. This was in Hamas, in Qatar,

they say Hamas and Israeli forces have negotiated an agreement to bring aid to Gaza. The Qatari Foreign Ministry said the deal arranged in cooperation with France will see medicine and other humanitarian aid delivered to civilians in the most affected and vulnerable areas of Gaza, I think northern Gaza in particular. In exchange, this is why the Israelis agreed to it, for the delivery of medication to Israeli captives held in Gaza. The ministry spokesperson said that the medication aid would leave Doha on Wednesday to Egypt before being transported into Gaza. This has actually sparked also a whole domestic dispute within Israel because there was question

over whether the Israelis were going to inspect this aid before it goes in or not. It seemed like the agreement said no, and then Netanyahu claimed yes. And in any case, there was a whole additional divide over this. But the fact that you need additional aid going in is kind of an admission that what has been going in has been wildly inadequate to the extent that, you know, the hostages who the Hamas has every interest in keeping alive and keeping well, we're not getting sufficient care. Yeah, it's really interesting just to look at this whole thing because, you know, it's like things are moving in a bunch of different directions. You've got the hostage situation, which remains completely unresolved, the humanitarian situation, the military one on top of that, and then Israeli domestic politics. So we have this we can put up there on the screen. The Israeli Labor Party actually issued a no confidence vote, which kind of calls into question the current coalition, which is governing Israel. That was a no-confidence vote against

Netanyahu challenging his approach. Now, this would be like if the Labour Party in Britain during the coalition wartime government of Winston Churchill had a no-confidence vote against his leadership, which really called into the entire idea of a bipartisan war and that. Now, let's be clear. It's not like the Labor Party is against the war per se, but they are very much against Netanyahu. I mean, in my opinion, it wouldn't be a bad outcome for them to be a new prime minister just to give them some better legitimacy in terms of their own – I mean, they need to have an election so they can decide what they want to do because right now you're being ruled by the guy who was – basically all of this is his fault, and every incentive he has as you laid out is keep this thing going on as long

as possible. Now, if the Israelis want war with Lebanon, okay, you know, go for it. You guys can sign up. Hopefully you'll pay for it and you can do all of it yourself. But you know, it's like, you should have some sort of say and vote over that. I'm kind of shocked there isn't more of a pressure inside society. Maybe the hostage thing it just takes. I'm not there. You know, this is very difficult to figure out what the political sentiment is. So on the Labor Party no confidence vote, let's be clear about how irrelevant the Labor Party is at this point in Israeli politics. They have four out of 120 seats in the Knesset. What they have said about the reason that they are doing this is they tweeted,

our daughters and sons have been held captive by Hamas for 103 days, 103 days that the state of Israel is torn between Israel and Gaza. And the government doesn't care at all, echoing some of the criticism from the hostages who were released and also the families of those hostages and those who still remain in Gaza. In another post, the party said, they don't have time. We do not have time. And there is no trust in the government that does not do everything to return them. There is no trust in a government that does not put the kidnapped as a priority, a government that cares about its own corrupt interests and not those who give their lives for it. And they ended by saying, this is a government that cannot be trusted. It should be overthrown. So listen, the Labor Party has become fairly irrelevant in Israeli politics, but the sentiment

they're expressing here is extremely common in Israeli politics. And you can see this in the incredibly low ratings for Netanyahu in particular right now. I mean, the last one we saw, he had like a 6% approval rating. So he's been able to forestall any political consequences by saying, yes, I hear you. We're going to talk about it after the war. And then he says, but by the way, the war is going to go on forever. So, you know, their theory, his and Yoav Galant and the rest, apparently, of the war cabinet's

theory of the way to secure the hostage release is by continuing to bomb the hell out of the Gaza Strip. That's the way to secure the hostage release. And even many of the hostages who came back, who were furious, who thought they were going to be killed, and some of whom, by the way, were killed by Israeli forces, they said, you have no idea what you're doing here. The only time hostages were released was through a ceasefire deal, the polar opposite of the strategy that they claim to be employing here. So, you know, their strategy for obtaining the hostage, getting the hostages back has clearly failed at this point.

But of course, they're not going to acknowledge that because to acknowledge that would to acknowledge that there needs to be some sort of a diplomatic solution. And that would create some sort of an opportunity for a reckoning on their own failed leadership. And of course, they don't want any of that. 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.

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of our lives. My favorite line on there was my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they, like, rap along now? Yeah, because i bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important. And that's what stands out

is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide. Listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger.

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We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Houthis have, surprise, surprise, continued to attack U.S. ships and other commercial vessels in the Red Sea, even after we struck and actually we conducted additional strikes in Yemen, illegal strikes in Yemen against their facilities and their weapons capacity.

It clearly hasn't slowed them down one bit. Let's put this up on the screen. The Houthis hit a U.S. ship. This was after the U.S. took this additional step, which I think the Houthis probably rightly see as like fairly meaningless as designating them as a terror organization. The Houthi group said they hit the Jenko-Picardy bolt carrier with missiles, which resulted in a direct hit. U.S. military says the vessel was hit by a drone on Wednesday evening. Washington's new designation

of the Houthis will require U.S. financial institutions to freeze Houthi funds and its members will be banned from the U.S. Put the next one up on the screen. This comes on the heels of a different Houthi attack. They launched another attack on merchant shipping on Tuesday, just hours after the U. the US preemptively struck missiles in Yemen that were prepared to launch, according to a statement from US CENTCOM. US CENTCOM, by the way, said there were no injuries reported from the merchant ship. And CounterPoint's covered this yesterday, but just to underscore how stupid and counterproductive

this whole strategy has been, Shell has suspended Red Sea shipments amid fears of more Houthi attacks. We'll have to see whether this becomes a longer standing issue, that CEO told the Wall Street Journal in Davos. So congratulations, you haven't slowed them down one bit. There was reporting, what was that, the New York Times that said you really haven't degraded their offensive capabilities really one bit because they are very mobile. They're very agile. They're very used to being bombed to hell all the time. So you haven't degraded their capacity. You certainly haven't degraded the will of the Yemeni people who overwhelmingly back them. And all these commercial vessels are like, okay, this is an active war zone now. There's no way that we're shipping through the Red Sea.

So commercial shipping has only gone in the opposite direction of what you wanted. Yeah, it's actually pretty terrifying to just realize how delicate, you know, we talked about Taiwan and all this with how delicate and asymmetric you can have an impact on the global economy with some of these choke points. I mean, actually, it's more surprising that it hasn't happened up until now. probably a function of just technology, which is these Houthis are spending 40 grand on a drone, and we have to spend $100 million to destroy maybe 15% of their offensive capability. Even, you know, if you just read the CENTCOM statement out this morning about the 14 new strikes, they say that they destroyed 14 missiles in their launchers as Houthis were preparing to fire them. Two U.S. officials said that the strikes were carried out with Tomahawk cruise missiles. I mean, these are 400 grand a pop every time we fire one of these. Fired by Navy vessels.

Local news outlets in Yemen said that they had struck Houthi-controlled territory. They're still doing battle damage assessment. What's the coalition doing here, Saugers? What are they doing for us? Yeah, that's a great point. Every U.S. coalition ends up just being us dropping the bombs. It's kind of crazy. And paying for it, by the way.

Occasionally in the U.K. we'll do some little something. Yeah, but we sell them the weapons, so it's not even real. Because it's like if you use our bomb to bomb somebody, then whatever. That's a whole other conversation. Let's put up the final part here because it just demonstrates about the precarity of this and this is kind of the function of this segment in looking at the Israel situation. The chief of staff of the IDF currently says that, quote, the likelihood of war in the north is higher than before. Made the remarks during

actually visit to reserve forces in the north on Wednesday, a mere growing fears of a war with Hezbollah. You, as pointed out, this Crystal Gallant, the defense minister, also apparently said something very similar. We saw some remarks that came out from Ben Gavir, the right-wing politician inside of Israel. They really, really want, you know, they want war with Israel. Or sorry, they want war with Hezbollah. It's clear. The military wants it. The defense establishment wants it. Netanyahu definitely wants it. The only people who don't want it is America. Now, it's relatively unclear whether Hezbollah wants it or not. They've been pretty, you know, they've stayed out of it. They've had some tit for tat strikes. They've taken some casualties. The Israelis have taken some casualties. Both seem to realize how devastating

and horrible the conflict would be. But it is clear to me that this is kind of like an Afghanistan, Iraq situation. Even when we were at war in Afghanistan, our defense establishment and top leaders, army and others, they really wanted to invade Iraq. It took two years to build the political case and all that. Obviously, we're on an accelerated timeline in all this. But if the political will is there at the top of the government, if they want to do this, then we should take it really, really seriously. There's only really one check that could have happened in the US, which would have been like genuine small D democratic, you know, revolt. I don't know how the Israeli public feels about something like this. I will give them credit for at least this because they have mandatory,

they have mandatory enlistment. They are not stupid. They all watched 2006. It wasn't that long ago. Their sons and daughters had to fight with Hezbollah. So they could have some, you know, at least input or try to campaign or something like against us because they know too, they're a country that reads a lot of the news. They would know that thousands and thousands of them would die in a conflict like this, not to mention a lot more civilians, Israeli civilians would die in this than probably any October 7th because of the sheer capability of Hezbollah from missiles and all that. On the other side, maybe they think of it as like a last stand. They're like, listen, you know, October 7th was our 9-11. Now we have to do something, you know, just to make, we have to make sure that this never happens again. And you can use the

extension from Hamas to Hezbollah. I could see the Israeli public signing up for that and be like, sure, you know, we're going to risk tens of thousands, but they'll ensure our security in the future. I could see it going both ways, but I mean, it's pretty terrifying because from a reserve perspective and military perspective, Israel's not doing very well right now. They had to pull a lot of their troops out of Gaza. A lot of their reserves, they're sending them back to the economy. If you get into war with Hezbollah, you're going to have to call every single one of those guys, not just back up, but they're in forever. They're in for a long time, for a long haul.

This is not Hamas, you know, a couple of month deployment. We're talking 15, 20 months or something like that. The U.S. really, in a sense, went mad after 9-11. And that was exploited, right, by, you know, neocons who had a longstanding agenda that they wanted to pursue. And it took them a very little, small amount of time to push for a war in Iraq that made absolutely no sense and a, you know, indefinite war in Afghanistan that, you know, initially, okay, go in and get bin Laden, that part made sense. But then whatever the hell we were doing after that, even the people who were in military

leadership couldn't explain what we were doing, what the goals were, what counted as success, etc. So we went mad after 9-11. I think the Israeli public has gone mad after October 7th. And I think Netanyahu and co are using that in very similar way that the neocons use it to further their own ends and agenda, to further their own ends and agenda. The real response to what happened on October 7th was, listen, this idea that you can imprison people forever, that you can indefinitely thwart their like basic rights to self-determination, control what's happening in their own territory, that you can have,

you know, this massive security established and all this high tech and that that's going to keep you safe. You're going to be able to, quote unquote, control the flames. Well, after the horror and humiliation of October 7th, that fell apart. So the real response is, okay, there is no military solution to this. There is no occupying force solution to this. The only actual solution to this is a diplomatic one. But of course, no one wants to hear that when they're in the midst of rage and fury and disgust and horror and pain and loss and suffering and all of that. So instead, the direction is not in favor of diplomacy. The direction is in favor of we're going to do war even harder.

We're going to crush Hamas. And by the way, those of you in northern Israel, we're going to crush Hezbollah too. So you don't have to worry about them either. That was our mistake is that we didn't crush them and their ambitions and their spirit hard enough. in northern Israel. We're going to crush Hezbollah too, so you don't have to worry about them either. That was our mistake, is that we didn't crush them and their ambitions and their spirit hard enough. That we weren't big enough assholes in the region to deter everyone from ever messing with us. So we have to launch this insanely brutal, and I certainly would say in the ICJ South Africa case would agree, genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip. That's what we have to do to make sure no one messes with us ever again. And that's the logic that has taken hold with at least

it appears based on the polling, a majority of the Israeli public. And that's why these politicians think it's in their cynical best interest to continue the war going indefinitely and bring home as many horrible military prizes as they possibly can? It's a big question. I mean, we just don't know, right? Because it's like the U.S. public went along with it until they didn't go along with it. That took a long time, though. It took four years.

Yeah, a lot of people died in the interim. I'm not saying it was a good thing, but it's not like— It was actually kind of rapid sometimes if you think about it. By 2004, 2005 or so, people were at least beginning to have the conversation. We wanted to spare them. Everybody told them. We reelected George W. Bush. Biden literally went over there and he's like, you really should not make the same mistakes as 9-11. And they didn't want to listen. So this is their problem. Unfortunately, to the extent that

we cover a lot of this conflict, it's also about, it's our problem because we're the ones bombing the Houthis, not the Israelis. We're the ones who are bearing the vast majority of the cost, not the Israelis. And so they have always had this tremendous ability to outsource the vast majority of the cost, not the Israelis. And so they have always had this tremendous ability to outsource the vast majority of their problems, but that they get to keep all of the benefits to their overall security. Very, very unbalanced relationship. And they very much risk, I think, balancing it definitely in the wrong way in the long term, not necessarily in the short, when you can see so much of the domestic political situation shifting here. But why don't we get to our guests, other great guests? Yeah, we have a great guest standing by to talk about some of the other sick incentives that constantly push us all towards

more war and more conflict. Let's get to it. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too.

So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that i'm really happy or my family in general let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or

wherever you get your podcast this is your girl t.s. Madison and I'm coming to you loud, live and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? Let's do a show with all my exes.

X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen,

make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named

the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us.

And I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon.

Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our next guest has been shining a light on a really undercovered part of Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip. Anthony Lowenstein is an independent journalist and author of The Palestine Laboratory, who was based in East Jerusalem between 2016 and 2020. And he joins us now. Great to see you, Anthony.

Welcome. Good to see you, man. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about the book and how it relates to what we're seeing right now. The book essentially is a multi-year investigation looking at how Israel's occupation of Palestine is the longest in modern times. And over those decades, it's more than half a century, Israel has developed huge amounts of tools and technologies to maintain that occupation. So in the modern age, we're talking about drones, spyware, biometric tools,

all these different methods that Israel uses to control Palestinians 24-7. That's bad enough. But what Israel's been doing for decades, pretty much since the 1950s, so very soon after Israel's birth, is promoting and selling and marketing those tools and technologies as so-called battle-tested in Palestine on Palestinians to the world. And essentially what that means practically is that I calculated at least 140 countries, so the majority of countries on the planet, have bought some form of this technology in the last decades.

How that relates to what's happening now, since October 7, is really clear, is that Israel has been live testing both the government and private companies, live testing new weapons in Gaza. And that's not just for a domestic Israeli audience, who obviously are mostly supporting the war, but for a global market that in months and years to come are likely going to buy those tools and technologies in their own wars. Yeah, Anthony, I remember that Israeli drones made a big appearance in Azerbaijan. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, because I know that those drones were kind of the forefront of the technology, and they'd made a couple of appearances in being sold into that. And they

actually made quite a bit of a difference, if you could tell us about that. Yeah, well, those drones were suicide drones, mostly. And Israel is a really key provider and developer of those tools. Now, that's obviously a conflict that, as you say, hasn't got a lot of international attention, but should, because Israel's pretty much on arguably the wrong side there, the very repressive side. And one of the things I think that shows in that Azerbaijan conflict is that, and this is not on one level massively different to say the US, the US is the world's biggest arms dealer, sells about 40, 45% of the world's weapons. Israel's 10th. And there's not really any moral qualms to sell to anybody, literally anybody. I mean, at the moment, as far as wherever Israel does not sell to Syria, South Korea or Iran,

but the majority of other nations in the world, they will. And the reason so many other nations want these tools is because they're tested in Palestine on Palestinians. Like literally to the point, I show this in the book and it's appeared in other shows that I've talked about on film, is that Israel routinely will document these testing in Palestine and they show those videos to clients. So in the last year, some of the most notorious examples, obviously, is Pegasus, the phone hacking tool

that has been appearing in countless countries countries from India to Bangladesh to others. And those tools were originally tested in Palestine. And in fact, they're still being used in Palestine and other countries around the world. So the Azerbaijan conflict was one, and there are so many others that I think don't get enough attention, but they should. Haaretz took a look at a related topic here. Let's put this up on the screen. The headline here is Shark Tanks. With Gaza as testing ground, Israeli defense startups flourish. Suicide drones and AI systems, strict regulations and the dominance of the major defense firms mean few small defense startups are found in Israel each year. They are looking at new opportunities amid geopolitical tensions, rising military budgets, and the Gaza war. Can you just talk to us about how the profit motive incentivizes war and conflict?

Well, it's key, isn't it? Because the global arms trade is now over $2 trillion annually, not just in Israel, but globally. And of course, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February a couple of years ago, huge amounts of European nations were begging the US and Israel for new missile defence shields and other kind of equipment which they claim would protect them against potential attack by Russia if that ever happened. What Israel, I think, is doing, and that article you quote is interesting, which also mirrors what I'm hearing from my sources, is that

a lot of American Silicon Valley venture capital companies and others are looking to Israel since October 7. It started before then, of course, but particularly since October 7. And they see opportunity. They see huge amounts of possibilities of not just weapons, but also economic opportunities, investing. And a lot of those companies are live testing the weapons in Gaza to the point where they're often putting that on social media live which is then promoted and sold to other nations across the globe so the arms industry is booming and it's interesting the latest figures we have from Israel is 2022 it was 12 and a half billion US which is the biggest by far. 24% of that were Arab autocracies, the so-called Abraham Accords that Trump began and Biden has continued. And so these are nations

like Saudi and UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and others. They're buying all this surveillance equipment because they're petrified of the next Arab Spring, basically. And Israel is the key provider of that. So that's, I think, a context that people often don't remember that Israel, to me, and I say this as someone who's Jewish myself, is that Israel in some ways is exporting the occupation globally. What's happening in Palestine is not staying there. Yeah, Anthony, give us some more examples of some of the things that you've seen just from your sources and others in this current war. Traditionally, they've relied currently on nothing particularly new, at least for now.

We've seen like 2,000-pound bombs. We've seen some infantry. But we've also, as you said, we've had suicide drones. And those have also proliferated, been copied. The Houthis have been using them in some cases. So what is the current conflict? What are some of the technologies and others that you see that we're going to be seeing in other conflicts sometime soon? Some of it's surveillance tech. So after October 7, when Hamas took in large numbers of hostages, around 240, there was a lot of those

surveillance Israeli companies that were used by the government to try to find those people in Gaza. Now, arguably not very successfully. Of course, there are still now around 130, 140 stuck in Gaza. And the intelligence that's actually being provided to Israel to find that out is not just coming from Israel, it's actually also coming from other sources, the US particularly, and in fact also Australia. So one of the advances that Israel is testing, yes, surveillance equipment also, particularly sophisticated surveillance drones, suicide drones, and also I think the idea of not just sort of night goggles, but very sophisticated kind of night goggles, because what Israel is facing in Gaza is a deeply problematic enemy from their perspective, where Israel has gone into Gaza all guns blazing, and they're actually

having a problem, because four months in, Hamas is still standing, bloodied to be sure, but it's still standing and arguably is never going to be fully defeated. So I think we're talking about surveillance tech, drones, and various other forms like that, which is a set of being tested in real time, which we'll see in other conflicts around the world in the coming months and years. To that point, has there been any loss of confidence in this high tech? Because one of the things that we saw on October 7th is the first thing that Hamas did is they took these very low tech, basically like off the shelf drones and disabled a lot of this incredibly expensive high tech equipment that the Israelis had. They took a bulldozer and took down the multi-million

dollar border wall. And as you pointed out, for all of the high-tech surveillance equipment that the Israelis have, they clearly haven't been able to locate or certainly effectively extract their own hostages to the point that they actually killed three of their own hostages because they thought that they were Palestinians. So has there been any reassessment or even any sort of leveling of the playing field in this era of guerrilla warfare between the incredible high tech that the US and Israel and a lot of other modern countries rely on and what these sort of ragtag guerrilla army type insurgencies are able to cobble together? Amongst the Israeli public, the answer is undeniably yes. I mean, the Israeli public, and I'm generalizing here, of course, there are always

exceptions, have spent years and years and years with the deluded belief, frankly, that you can occupy people indefinitely in the West Bank and Gaza and get so-called security. Now, obviously, October 7 shattered that. So many of Israeli Jews in Israel do not feel safe anymore. If you ask me about how the Israeli defence sector and military feel, their response has been hubris. So on the one hand, they are trying to make up for what they clearly failed miserably on on October 7, and that's this overwhelming force, massive amounts of war crimes and completely insane amounts of violence against not just Gazans,

in people themselves, but also infrastructure and Gazans' way of life. But I think what I'm seeing actually is hubris in the Israeli defence sector. They very much see it akin to 9-11 in the US. And 9-11 was obviously a massive intelligence failure in America, but that in fact bolstered America's defence sector massively. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan that in fact bolstered America's defense sector massively. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. You're going to see a very similar situation in Israel where, yes, October 7 was a catastrophic failure, clearly, but there's no indication that I've seen thus far at all that those defense companies, which failed miserably, are holding themselves account or they're actually being held

account by the Israeli government yet at all. Yeah, they're actually making more money probably than ever. Anthony, thank you so much. It was fantastic to talk to you and really recommend that people check out the book. It's incredibly revelatory. Yeah, we'll have a link down in the description. Thank you very much, Anthony. Thanks so much, guys. Yeah, pleasure. Thanks for watching, guys. We appreciate it. We will have some extra content for you over the weekend. Otherwise, we'll see you all on Monday. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone,

I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Helen Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves.

We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov.

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