Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/5/24 ISRAEL SPECIAL: Biden Bombs 3 Countries Insisting No Wider War, Israeli Gov Calls Biden Settler Sanctions Antisemitic, Media Smears Dearborn As Jihad Capital, And Major AIPAC Donors Revealed

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Biden bombs 3 countries in one day insisting there is no wider war, Israeli government calls Biden sanctions antisemitic, media smears Dearborn as 'Jihad Capital', and major AIPAC donors revealed.   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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But enough with that. Let's get to the show. So in response to three of our service members being killed in Jordan, the U.S. has now launched strikes in two different countries. This, of course, comes on top of the strikes we had already launched in Yemen. So we are now bombing three different countries. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan did a little media tour this weekend to try to explain how we got here and what the plans are going forward. He says we are not finished with these strikes yet. Let's take a listen. Well, George, part of the purpose of the strikes, the central purpose of the strikes has been to take away capabilities from the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria that are attacking our forces and from

the Houthis that continue to threaten Red Sea shipping. And we believe they had good effect in reducing, degrading the capabilities of the militias and of the Houthis. And we believe they had good effect in reducing, degrading the capabilities of the militias and of the Houthis. And as necessary, we will continue to take action. So do you expect more retaliation for the strike against U.S. forces in Jordan earlier this week? Well, the first thing that I would say, and you noted it at the top of your program, is that this was the beginning of our response. There will be more steps. Some of those steps will be seen. Some may not be seen. But there will be more action taken to respond to the tragic death of the three brave U.S. service members. And we cannot rule out that there will be further attacks from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and

Syria or from the Houthis. We have to be clear-eyed about that. And The president, in being clear-eyed about that, has told his military commanders that they need to be positioned to respond to further attacks as well. So he says this is the beginning of our response. He also says, hey, we can't rule out that our people are going to continue to be attacked. We've had something like over 160 attacks, attempted attacks on our service members in the region, which raises a whole host of questions. One of those questions being aimed at Jake Sullivan by Kristen Welker. Hey, you guys said you didn't want a wider war. Now here you are bombing three different countries. Aren't we kind of in that wider war situation yet? Let's take a listen to his response. Is the United States already in a wider war in the Middle East, Jake? What the United States is doing is responding to threats

as we see them with significant but proportionate force. But has the war expanded in the region, Jake? Well, first, we don't accept that what's happening in the Red Sea, for example, Kristen, is entirely tied to the war in Gaza, because the Houthis are attacking shipping that has absolutely nothing to do with Israel. So there are connections among these things, to be sure, but these are distinct threats as well that we need to deal with on their own basis. So in the Red Sea, we need to deal with the threat to commercial shipping. And we are doing so with the coalition of countries. In Iraq and Syria, we need to deal with threats to our troops. And we are doing so, including with the strikes the president ordered Friday night. I, Sagar, am not sure I've ever seen someone look

so incredibly dead inside because he knows what he's saying is total nonsense. This idea that, oh, with the Houthi zero, this has nothing to do with Israel. Please, first of all, take them at their word. Like they're telling you this is about Israel. Not to mention, we know, as I've said many times, as pointed out by many analysts during the period when there was a brief six day ceasefire, guess what? Their attacks almost completely stopped, and the attacks on our service members from these other regional militias completely stopped. So this is all about what Israel is doing in Gaza,

and then, I don't know how you, you bombed three countries. Not to mention what's happening in the Red Sea, not to mention Israel and Lebanon, not to mention even what's unfolding in the West Bank, and you're going to pretend like, oh no, it's all contained. It's all fine. There's no wider war here. Like how stupid do you think that we are? One thing that really bothers me about this, can we put the map please up on the screen just to show everybody where the three countries and all of the strikes that were conducted. This was in Iraq and in Syria. It excludes the strikes that happened in Yemen. What you can see, Crystal, is that it took about a week for us to respond and to bomb these supposed IRGC command headquarters of these militias that are tied to Iran.

By all accounts, it just seems like some command huts and others were bombed and some low-level militants were killed. Okay, great in terms of a response. But here's the thing. By their own accounts on the ground, everybody knew that the response was coming. And so the high-level commanders and others, the people who were responsible for launching the drone on American service members, they're long gone. They're back in Iran. But guess what? Our people have nowhere to go. They're still stuck on the same damn base. So they all moved. We telegraphed what was going to happen.

The people responsible and all of that long ago absconded or went underground or whatever as we continue our response. And our troops are still in the same base, in the same barracks, with the same air defense systems, which failed, you know, whenever that drone attack happened on American service members, or the same bases where missiles were able to get through, they remain sitting ducks. I mean, that's why we can't obscure all this in terms of the response and the tit for tat nature. It's not a game. Already, three Americans are dead. And it's like,

well, they know exactly where we are. We don't have the luxury to go underground or to go elsewhere. Our presidents, our leaders, and everybody else is just like, well, you know, you got to have this base in Syria in case ISIS, which has been dead for several years, comes back. And it's like, what? What are you talking about? Why don't we just leave? Why don't we go back? These guys were army reservists. Why were they there in the first place? Anyone want to tell them that? Like anyone would tell any of those family members would ask me like, hey, what the hell was my daughter doing in Jordan? What we should support it for what reason? Can anyone justify this to me? No, no, that's the problem. They can't even explain to the American people what actually is the purpose of these

people being in the region other than to serve as sitting ducks and, you know, potentially demanding some sort of escalatory response? I mean, it's always like, you know, this lack of agency over the U.S., like, oh, we're just getting pulled in like we have no other choice. We're just getting pulled into this escalation. Yeah. Number one, you don't have to be there. Number two, you have complete control over what your response is. And number three, you even have U.S. officials admitting they know the whole source of this conflict and the escalation is what's going on in Gaza. But rather than dealing with what is very clear, the core of the issue where there is no de-escalation until that problem is solved. I mean, that is the bottom line. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. What they told the Israelis is like, this is just the beginning of the response. We're going to do more because, of course, the Israelis want us to

get into some hot regional war and get dragged in completely. So we're telling them, don't worry, we're going to do so much more. We're giving, which this, I mean, I support trying to avoid an escalatory response from Iran. That's the reason why there was a lag, as you point out, to allow them to get sort of their critical leaders out of the way so that we can just show our strength through our bombs. But. And that's the thing. I mean, and that was completely revealed. And it's the same logic applies here. Completely revealed when Biden was asked, so are the strikes against the Houthis working? Yeah. And he says, and I quote, are they working? No. Are they going to continue? Yes. They know this isn't going to degrade their

capabilities or deescalate or do anything of the sort. They just have this foreign policy blob mindset where it's like they hit us. So we've got to show we're strong and hit back, even though, you know, it's not going to end the conflict. It's not going to deescalate the conflict. It's only going to put our service members more at risk. And so it's complete insanity. To your point, let's put up the latest. There were more strikes targeted at the Houthis just in the past days. The U.S. and Britain carried out large-scale military strikes on Saturday against multiple sites in Yemen controlled by Houthi militants, according to a statement from those two countries. Those attacks against 36 Houthi targets at 13 sites in northern Yemen came barely 24 hours after the U.S. carried out a series of military strikes against Iranian forces

and the militias they support at seven sites in Syria and Iraq. There were 85 targets in Syria and Iraq that were struck on Friday, as the map that we just showed demonstrated. So the policy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And so you increasingly have, I mean, hardly a day goes by where you don't have some soundbite from some U.S. dead-eyed U.S. official like Jake Sullivan trying to deny what is absolutely obvious before anyone's eyes that this has already spread into a wider war. And some of these, it's like, we're just doing this to feel good. Like you said, we gave them enough time that all the people were, look, we either kill them or we don't. It's like, what is the point? Also, you know, I don't know if you know this. We use B-1 bombers

actually in these strikes. They cost $60,000 an hour to fly, $ one thousand dollars. And they flew all the way from America to Iraq and back. That's like a 30 some hour round trip. This single strike cost millions of taxpayer dollars. For what reason? And it's like I can never just get around the fact that we just seem to be playing like risk for the purpose of it. Like it's a game. As if we're like, well, we got to show them we're strong here. And it's like, there are real people whose lives were, I mean, they were ended. There were still people in critical condition in hospitals who were injured by this. Okay. So then we have a decision to make. We either are going to kill the people who are responsible and actually kill them, or we're going to go down the diplomatic road. I personally,

I'm going down the diplomatic road because I don't want to put more of these people in danger. But instead we don't kill the people who are responsible. We kill like their deputies, deputies, deputies, brother or whatever happens, the last idiot who was on the base after a week. And our people are still there and remain in danger. How can you possibly say you're doing this to support the American service members, to defend, avenge them, whatever, or to ensure that more death will not occur. All of this, as you said, though, Crystal, is downstream of a ceasefire. And I'm curious your thoughts on the latest updates, because I'm personally confused on what is happening. Yeah. So as we've been reporting, there have been ongoing ceasefire talks being mediated by the U.S., Qatar is involved. It was happening for a while in Paris.

And we got conflicting reports yesterday. Originally, there was a report that Hamas had rejected the terms of the temporary ceasefire because they wanted a complete ceasefire in exchange for release of all the hostages that they're holding and some number of Palestinian hostages being held by the Israelis would also be released. Put this up on the screen. Then Hamas came out and said, no, no, no, we have not rejected the terms of the ceasefire. This is C9 guys, if you can put this up on the screen. Yeah. Hamas denies rejection of the hostage ceasefire deal, says they will deliver answers soon. According to the report, the terror organization is set to demand an increase in the number of Palestinian terrorists released from Israeli prisons. So some of the reporting I've seen is that there is a split between the Hamas leadership in Gaza

and the Hamas political leadership outside of Gaza, where the political leadership is willing to accept what would be roughly a two-month temporary ceasefire, whereas the military leadership on the ground wants to be more hardline and say, no, we don't accept this unless there is a commitment to a complete ceasefire. That's what's being reported. On the Israeli side, there's also huge questions, and we'll get into a little bit more of the dynamics with Netanyahu and then these psychos. I mean, they're all psycho, but they're, you know, extra psycho, Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, like actual, you know, terrorists that are part of this government who are saying they're willing to blow up his government coalition if he accepts any sort of a hostage exchange deal

that would lead to significant release of Palestinian prisoners that are being held. Netanyahu has at times signaled openness to this deal, at times poured cold water on it. So it's also really an open question what's going to go on on the Israeli side. But, you know, if the U.S. actually wants to avoid further escalation into an even hotter, even broader war than what we're seeing, some sort of ceasefire agreement is what we need to be aggressively pushing and what we need to be using our sway and influence with the Israelis in order to achieve. That is the real way. And they know this, by the way. That is the real way to achieve security for our service members, to stop the bloodshed in Gaza and be able to get in some significant

humanitarian aid so people are no longer starving to death and dying of communicable diseases, etc. It's also in the interest of Israeli security because long term, the longer this horrific bombing and humanitarian situation unfolds on the ground in Gaza, there is no doubt that you are birthing more and more and more people who are committed to hating you and violent resistance. So the crazy thing, Sagar, is that it's not like U.S. officials don't know this. Tony Blinken even said he knows there's no military solution to Hamas. So it's like, what are we doing here? Biden admits he knows these strikes aren't working. Jake Sullivan is, you know, at pains to try to explain how this

policy makes any damn sense. Like they all know that the policy is insane. It's not going to accomplish the things that they claim to want to accomplish. And yet it's like they can't help themselves, but to continue down the same path. It seems though that they at least behind the scenes are trying to push forward. So apparently Secretary Blinken, this just happened moments ago, just landed in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia to try and to push for the peace framework in Gaza for the ceasefire. It remains unclear to me, though, how much influence Riyadh actually even has over the ceasefire in terms of pressure on Hamas. I believe Qatar is the one, you know, where a lot of this

is happening. As you said, I guess we're just in a wait and see period. Yeah. I mean, listen, it ties into U.S. domestic politics, too, because we may cover this tomorrow. You know, the House is putting forward just like Israel aid with no certainly no conditions, but also even no payfors to the tune of 14 billion dollars. The Senate has a separate package that they're pushing. It would be very easy for the White House to say, no, you're not getting any of it unless you all are serious about the ceasefire. And Netanyahu right now, all of his interests are in the direction of being swayed by the, you know, the extremists who don't want any sort of ceasefire ever, who want to ethnically cleanse Gaza, who want to resettle the entire Gaza Strip, I mean, are out there actively talking about it. All of his political

incentives lie in that direction. So if the U.S. isn't willing to come in with some sort of force and apply some sort of pressure that, you know, we have plenty of given our financial support for this country over a long period of time, then it is more likely that you're not going to be able to come to some sort of ceasefire deal, that the conflict is not going to end and that our service members are going to continue to be at risk. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution.

But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. 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. 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. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying.

This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At the same time, Biden, I'm interested in Sagar's reaction to this. There's a big debate over whether this is meaningful at all.

Put this up on the screen. Biden just, on the day that he was traveling to Michigan, a state with a significant Arab-American population, issued an executive order sanctioning four Israeli settlers over West Bank violence. He says that violence in the West Bank has reached, quote, intolerable levels. The sanctions, I'm reading from this article from the BBC, block the individuals from accessing all U.S. property assets in the American financial system. Violence in the West Bank has spiked since Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7th. Some 370 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since then, in the West Bank, guys, according to the UN. The majority of those have been killed by Israeli forces, but at least eight of them have been killed by Israeli settlers, the UN said.

And as I mentioned, no accident that this, what I would consider a sort of like symbolic gesture of caring about the rule of law and violence against Palestinians comes on a day when Biden was traveling to Michigan. The Arab American Institute quoted in this article of pointing out that support by Arab Americans for the Democratic Party has plummeted from 59 percent. That was in 2020, to just 17%. These sanctions can't be applied to American citizens, although some of them are thought to be involved in the violence. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the U.S. does believe the sanctions will have an impact on these four individuals and expects Israel to do more to hold accountable those responsible for settler violence. What do you think about this move, Sagar? I mean, it just seems, look, it seems rather toothless. At the same time, it is having a, it's two things. Obviously, it is the correct decision, I think, if that is going to be

the stated U.S. policy of saying that we are a pro-two-state solution, then you can't be endorsing or not having sanctions on the West Bank, especially because, I don't know if people know this, there are American citizens who are inside the West Bank who are currently being prevented from actually passing into Israel, which is a Israeli violation of the U.S. visa law that we currently have with them because we have, anyway, in terms of our citizenship, much of this is downstream of the overall settler policy. Now, the actual sanctions that have been put into place, as you said, are only on four people. Clearly, they should probably be extended to a much larger group of people who are involved in the overall action because it is a direct contravention of stated U.S. State Department policy going back at least two decades. The thing is, is that even with the four, as you said, it is still receiving like

maximalist pushback inside of Israel because it is being denounced as anti-Semitic. But it does actually show you the extension of the power of the US empire because they can cry all they want. Their banks are still complying with the order right now because if you want to do business with America and you are in violation of OFAC, you will get your ass handed to you in the global financial system. Yeah. And so a few things about the specifics of this executive order, and I think your points are all really well taken there. I mean, first of all, let's just keep in mind, every one of these settlements is illegal under international law and in contravention of US state, longstanding US state department policy. Let's just stick with U.S. policy. It is against U.S.

policy. It is against U.S. policy. It also is considered, you know, a blanket around the globe, illegal, according to international law. So both of those things are true. So when you have a policy that's just aimed at for people who, you know, were involved, were directly violent and inciting violence against Palestinians. It's almost like a tacit, like, oh, well, the settlements themselves are OK, but there's just a few bad apples that we want to go after. That's number one. Number two, I think it's very telling that of the 370 Palestinians who've been killed in the West Bank since October 7th, eight of them were killed by Israeli settlers. Now, there's been massive violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, and that has ramped up

post-October 7th. Even before October 7th, this was one of the most violent years on record in terms of settlers, settler violence against Palestinians. But the overwhelming majority of Palestinians are being killed by the government. So there's a sort of faint here or an idea here that, you know, the government's official policy isn't these settlers and isn't being pursued, the government's ends aren't being pursued by the settlers who are continuing to violently push Palestinians off of their land, when in fact, for decades, under both right-wing and supposedly liberal prime ministers, the settlements have continued to expand. And this has been official government policy of the Israeli government. And oftentimes,

when settlers are engaging in violence against Palestinians, they are being backed up by the IDF. In fact, Sagar, you'll recall that part of why they were caught so unawares on October 7th and the response was such shit to protect their own Israeli citizens on October 7th was because the IDF had been moved from that part of Israel near Gaza to the West Bank in order to protect these settlers. So but but to your point, it doesn't mean the fact that it's like toothless and doesn't really do anything and it's just sort of a symbolic, like pathetic gesture doesn't stop the Israelis from completely freaking out about it. Netanyahu responded. Israel takes action against all lawbreakers everywhere. What a bunch of bullshit that is. And therefore, there is no need for unusual measures on the issue. That's from Netanyahu's office. Put this next one up on the screen. Ben-Gavir reacted, urging U.S. officials to rethink President Biden's wrong about the citizens of the state of Israel and the heroic settlers. Those who are attacked, those who are pelted with stones and attempt to hurt and murder them are the heroic settlers in

Judea and Samaria. They're named for the West Bank. But this one, keep this up on the screen, is really incredible. Smoczich is basically calling Biden anti-Semitic. He says the settler violence campaign is an anti-Semitic lie that enemies of Israel disseminate to smear the pioneering settlers and the settlement enterprise and harm them and thus smear the entire state of Israel. So, you know, the fact that this is like policy is sort of pathetic ass covering some sort of, you know, the fact that this is like policy is sort of pathetic ass covering some sort of, you know, stop to attempt to win back some portion of the Arab American population, which certainly is not going to happen so long as we're, you know, backing the Netanyahu government in every other way. That doesn't mean that the Israelis aren't going to completely freak out

about it because they're not used to being checked by this administration in any way whatsoever. Well, I think they're not really used to getting checked by the US government. That's right. It does demonstrate again to me that the arm of the empire is long. And like I said, just because you can bitch and moan, but your banks are going to have to cut your ass off if you want to do business with us. And this is where I have to come back to. This is Israel. It's not Russia. It's not China. Russia's got a lot of oil. It's got a military base. China is the same thing. I mean, they may not have as much oil, but they have a lot of industry. They can build their own things. This is a tiny little strip of land which relies predominantly on

exports and imports in order to keep their economy functioning. So when you're in that situation, you need to maintain ties with the global financial system, with everybody, with you need the Red Sea to be functioning and all these things to have the basics of the modern Israeli way of life, which is like a first world European standard. It costs a lot to bring all these things in. And in that, then you need the support of the European Union, the United States, Russia, and China. And you're beginning to lose support with all of these actors. Even here for America to put sanctions on the West Bank, it may be, as you said, a couple of people. It's still pretty extraordinary. It doesn't happen all that much in modern history. So for us to be in a part where this is being imposed and the standards and all that are being set, the overall showdown is going to happen at some point. Because at a

certain point, let's say with the ceasefire, we're going to have a two-month ceasefire. Let's say that happens and the Israelis are torn about whether to restart or not. It's still going to come down to the fact that the United States policy and the Arab policy as well is to demand a two-state solution. And then the question will come to America and others, are we going to impose sanctions on people who are in direct violation of overall American policy? Under Biden, the answer may not be yes, but the answer may be yes sometime in the future. And as we have seen now, we have the Clinton administration who dealt with this problem and forward. This is the Carter administration,

the generation before them. This is not going away. And so when you open these types of things as policies, for them as a country, it is genuinely existential. There was a remarkable interview with Inamar Ben-Gavir by the Wall Street Journal, which had a lot of pieces which are quite noteworthy. Now, as I've been pointing out, he and Smotrich are willing to throw their weight around. Netanyahu has, you know, is barely holding on to power by his fingertips. And it's becoming increasingly impossible to keep this coalition together. Israelis overwhelmingly want Netanyahu gone, and he basically is just there as long as the war goes on, which is why he wants the war to go on indefinitely. But put this up on the screen. They lay out in this Wall Street Journal piece, the headline is the Israeli firebrand driving Netanyahu further to the right.

And Ammar Ben-Gavir spells on his plan for resettling Gaza. That would be a cleansing during a rare interview and says Trump would be better for Israel than President Biden. I mean, that shows you how crazy these people are, is that he doesn't think that Biden has gone far enough when this man has given unconditional support, rushed weapons there, circumvented U.S. policy in order to do so, et cetera, et cetera. But he thinks Trump would even provide them an even freer hand. It wouldn't even do the little symbolic hand-wringing that Biden does, basically. But what they write here is Ben-Gavir told the Wall Street Journal, Netanyahu is, quote, at a crossroads, and he has to choose in what direction he will go. He's got enough support, Ben-Gavir does, in the ruling coalition to undermine Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rule, and he says he is willing to use it.

In his first interview with a foreign news organization since joining the government, Ben-Gavir warned he would oppose any deal with Hamas that would free thousands of Palestinians held for terrorism or end the war before Hamas was fully defeated. Well, Hamas, there is no military solution to Hamas, as our own policymakers have said. This has probably only strengthened Hamas for the long term. An increasing portion of Israelis, they write, especially on the right, instead view the October 7th attack as a chance to start a new course for Israel by resettling the battle-scarred enclave Ben-Gavir laid on his own plan for Gaza, which would repopulate the devastated coastal strip with Israeli settlements, while Palestinians would be offered financial incentives to leave. That was part of what was outlined at that ethnic cleansing resettlement conference that I covered recently, that we covered here on the show recently as well. Ben-Gavir also said he thought the Biden administration was

hampering Israel's war effort and said he believed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would give Israel a freer hand to quash Hamas coalition if any sort of a ceasefire is agreed to, which is why it's so important that you have the U.S. willing on the other side to use some sort of leverage and actual power in order to secure an end to this because, I mean, this is a disaster for Palestinians, a disaster for Israelis, it's a disaster for us, for our interest in the region, for our service members, et cetera. Yeah, we're just got to wait and see what happens. And that's why we're highlighting that interview is because if we do have a ceasefire, he very much could move and he could blow up the government. And then who the hell knows what comes next? Truly have no idea. Yeah, that's right. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running

weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. 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. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough. Someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her,

is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying? This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At the same time, the media continuing to cover themselves in glory in their coverage of this conflict.

And some truly shocking pieces were published over the weekend that we had to take note of. This first one is just, I genuinely can't believe they published this. Put this up on the screen. Wall Street Journal, welcome to Dearborn, America's jihad capital. Imams and politicians in the Michigan city side with Hamas against Israel and Iran against the U.S. This whole piece is insane. I mean, they smear this American city, which has a majority Arab American population outside of Detroit, as being full of terrorists and jihadists. Of course, there have not been any terror attacks or incidents in the city of Dearborn. Furthermore, they smeared this entire city, of course, based on the actions or words

of a few. They also use things like protest chants to try to claim they're supporting Hamas or supporting terrorism, etc. Here's a line from it. They say, open support for Hamas is spreading since October 7th, similar protests have occurred in major American cities featuring pro-jihadist imagery, chants, and slogans. Rallies are now also expressing support for the Iran-backed Houthis who are lobbying missiles at Israel and trying to sink commercial vessels in the Red Sea. What's happening in Dearborn, they say, isn't simply a political problem for Democrats. It's potentially a national security issue affecting all Americans. Counterterrorism agencies at all levels should pay close attention. So Sagar,

as if it's not enough to, you know, level this racist smear against an entire city, they also want to call in the, you know, FBI and CIA to make sure to investigate and surveil the residents of the city as well. Yeah, the thing is, is if you're going to say it's an America's jihad capital, that you got to provide evidence that the vast majority of the people in the city actually support terrorism. And as usual in this conflict, like when you actually look at it, they are people who are supporting a Palestinian state or who are protesting against the Israeli military campaign. It's the exact inverse of saying like any criticism of Israel

is anti-Semitic because it's conflating religion with a conflict over land. It's like, that's what actually drives me the craziest about this entire thing. I mean, and I know I'm dispassionate because I don't particularly care who controls the land or whatever. And you can look at it through more for our, you know, in terms of interests. But the conflation religiously with land over a century-old conflict, which is far less old than the actual religions themselves, does nobody any good. And whenever he cites, you know, supposed evidence or any of these within there. He highlights like a few leaders or imams or others and doesn't talk about the actual population. We spoke to the mayor who was popularly elected. He says, I'm concerned about civilian casualties in Gaza. Yeah. And that's why I may not support

Biden. OK, that's not terrorism. You can agree or disagree. Again, it is a totally legitimate position, I think, to hold in U.S. politics. And so, yeah, it's a smear. There's no other way to say it. And you could flip it and just say, I mean, what if I, you know, I live in a neighborhood with a lot of Jews, a lot of people who are very pro-Israel. I sent you a picture of the gay pride flag with the Israeli flag superimposed on it. What if you were to say that these people are all dual nationals and are not real American citizens? You cannot say that. You know, like, yeah, they support it. Okay, that's fine. You know, whatever. You're very Jewish. But you cannot smear them without actually knowing their character and what they call for. Now, accusations of dual loyalty are, I think, legitimate if we're talking about individual actors who have in the past said

that they have a direct allegiance to a foreign country. Fine. But you cannot say that to an overall group of people, especially when you do not have evidence to back that up. I mean, it's absolutely outrageous. The mayor did respond and put this up on the screen. He said, it's 2024 and the Wall Street Journal is still pushing out this type of garbage. Reckless, bigoted, Islamophobic. Dearborn is one of the greatest American cities in our nation. Fastest growing city in Michigan. Home to the number one travel destination in Michigan.

That's the Greenfield Village Henry Ford Museum. Home of the Ford Motor Company. Coffee, food, culture capital of Michigan. And among the most diverse cities in Michigan. This was so egregious that even President Biden was like, all right, I got to say something about this one, especially as he was heading to Michigan and is at least somewhat aware that this has become a massive issue, potentially terminal issue for his presidential campaign. Put that up on the screen, he issued

this sort of weak need, no place for hate thing. Americans know that blaming a group of people based on the words of a small few is wrong. That's exactly what can lead to Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate. And it shouldn't happen to the residents of Dearborn or any American town. We must continue to condemn hate in all forms. And there's also an element of this saga, I think that's quite central to this. I mean, it really is such a post-2001 flashback. There's the use of fear to try to, you know, bolster the national security state. There's the, you know, just smearing of entire groups of people. There's the conflating of free speech and political dissent with terrorism and support for terrorism, which is completely, you know, outrageous and insane. So just absolutely disgusting and wild that this was able to make it to the pages of a prominent

newspaper. I mean, I looked into it. It's from the Middle East Research Memory, which is an organization here. And this is all like goes back to some of the some of the jihad watch days of early 2000. So it's not actually all that surprising whenever we consider it. Yeah. Anyway. This kind of crap was used to justify an expansion of the surveillance and security capabilities of the state that will never be rolled back and only get expanded further. So that's the main concern. If you read it, he's like, oh, national security, FBI and all these other people should take advantage. I'm like, listen, we watched it all happen.

The post-9-11 security state pivoted after the Iraq war and after the so-called terrorism and using entrapment and all this. How do you think that Whitmer kidnapping case or whatever you want to call it actually came to occur? They got a lot of practice in ensnaring and entrapping a lot of people. Now, this is my personal favorite. I've always hated Thomas Friedman because he's like- There's a lot of good reasons for that. Somebody, you know the Big Bang Theory, that show? It's very popular. And somebody said, this is a dumb person's idea of what a smart person would talk. So that's kind of how I think of Thomas Friedman. He is a dumb person's idea of what a foreign policy intellectual would look

like. And his most recent column highlights that. Let's put this up there on the screen. He says, understanding the Middle East through the animal kingdom. Oh, that's going to go well. Now, keep in mind that this is the man who has often talked about his excitement and insight into Middle Eastern politics by talking to taxi drivers while he's abroad. Notoriously, of course, the best people to tell you about what's going on. Let's go to the next part here. To explain the situation, he says, the US is like an old lion. We are still the king of the Middle East jungle, more powerful than any of us to

factor, but we are a tired lion. That's why other predators are no longer afraid to test us. Iran is like a parasitoid wasp is to nature. Now, is there a better description of Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq today? They are the caterpillars. The IRGC is the wasp. The Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Khatab, Hezbollah are all the eggs that hatch inside of the host, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, and eat it out from the inside out. We have no counter strategy that safely and efficiently kills the wasp without setting fire from the inside out. We have no counter strategy that safely and efficiently kills the wasp without setting fire to the whole jungle. Now, look, I get what he's going for, I guess. That said, I would generally avoid animal metaphors whenever we're talking about people and

others. But the other thing is, this doesn't even make any sense. This idea of parasitoid wasp, old lions, first of all, those don't exist in the same place. But second, I mean, why can't you just describe the situation for what it is? Why do we have to use the animal kingdom metaphor at all? Why are we like, well, the US is a preeminent hegemon in the region, a regional power. It has diminishing influence. Iran is a rising hegemon, which has satellite states, much like Russia does in the post-Soviet Union. It's not a difficult concept for people to understand. And I would actually say that I would come away from this if I knew nothing even more confused about the situation. So it's not even a particularly helpful explainer. Yeah. Not to mention, not a great idea to compare human beings to insects and vermin at a time when

the ICJ and the U.S. court just plausibly found that Israel is committing genocide. Just going to throw that out there. Not really a great idea. He closed that column by saying, sometimes I contemplate the Middle East by watching CNN. Other times, I prefer Animal Planet. Okay. Imagine you said that about Africa. Yeah, well. How would people, it should be the exact same reaction.

I think Ryan tweeted like, first of all, it seems like he was like on shrooms or something when he wrote this. And second of all, how the hell did any editor not look at this and be like, you can't compare human beings to animals, let alone insects and think that this is going to be okay. Not to mention on top of like outside of the,

the racism and the dehumanization, this doesn't make any goddamn sense. How was there no one at the New York times, which supposedly cares about racism. How did no one look at this and say, you know what? Maybe let's cut this one out and try for a different a different draft that doesn't compare human beings to watching the animal planet. Not that watching CNN is a better choice in terms of understanding the Middle East. I actually think that's worse.

It does appear to have been deleted, but they haven't. So I'm on his byline. It is no longer there. It was available yesterday. That's why we had those screenshots. So maybe they did take it down after the pushback. So I think when I looked it up yesterday, it was hard to find, but it was still there. They sort of like buried it under a bunch of other columns. It is no longer there under his byline. And it was yesterday whenever we were preparing for this segment. At the same time, CNN's own staffers are calling them out for what they describe as journalistic malpractice.

This is according to a report from The Guardian. We can put this up on the screen. This is pretty wild. So CNN staff says networks pro-Israel slant amounts to journalistic malpractice. The majority of news, this is according to one staffer that they interviewed, since the war began, regardless of how accurate the initial reporting has been skewed by a systemic and institutional bias within the network towards Israel, ultimately CNN's coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice. According to accounts from six CNN staffers in multiple newsrooms and more than a dozen internal memos and emails obtained by The Guardian, daily news decisions are shaped by a flow of directives from the CNN headquarters in Atlanta that have set strict guidelines on coverage. They include tight restrictions on courting Hamas and reporting other

Palestinian perspectives, while Israeli government statements are taken at face value. In addition, every story on the conflict must be cleared by the Jerusalem Bureau before broadcast or publication. The Guardian here basically confirming the reporting of Daniel Bogoslaw at The Intercept, which we covered at the time, that CNN has made a conscious choice to root all of their Israel coverage and Gaza coverage through the Jerusalem Bureau, which is subject to this IDF censorship regime. And so every story that goes in comes down on the other side with the, you know, language downplayed and Palestinians dehumanized. And of course, Israeli government statements are immediately greenlit and included Palestinian perspectives downplayed or erased altogether. There was a piece in here because, you know, we've covered there have been like last week, I covered the how Jeremy Diamond, one of CNN's reporters, stumbled on. They actually drove him through a desecrated cemetery.

And he was like, hey, what the hell is going on with this? And caught them in a complete lie. So I don't want to say they haven't done any valuable reporting. But apparently those on the ground reports, which have at times been fairly solid, are vastly downplayed on the U.S. version of CNN. And, you know, everything else that gets rooted through this Jerusalem bureau is just, you know, classic, like the language for Israelis is very evocative. It's very visceral. The language for Palestinians is, you know, killed in a blast, no blame assignment, et cetera, et cetera, as we've shown before. So really confirming what The Intercept showed before. Yeah. I mean, look,

once again, it's one of those where we show Israeli statements and Palestinian statements all the time. I don't see why it's all that difficult. You can just parse both and be skeptical and just be like, okay, here's what one side said, and here's what the other side said. And they just decide that they don't want to do that. The thing is for them, I think this in general, is they're in a place where if you're going to have people sign off from the Jerusalem Bureau, then what's the point even in speaking out or whatever? It's like, clearly, they have committed themselves to narrative, to access, and to all that. To a certain extent, I understand because how they'll probably just kick you out of the country, but you need to have a lot more

disclosure, which is what I appreciated in the past when they would air some of these things, as opposed to some of the silent things. They were like, listen, in order to film inside Gaza, we had to provide to the CIDF, and they straight up censor whatever they want. But the silent censorship that goes through on the back end that they don't disclose, that's actually what I think is the most pernicious. It's very pernicious. It's really pernicious. And there have been multiple analyses. I think also some of these were by The Intercept as as well at the language that's used to describe Palestinians versus the language that's used to describe Israelis, how much Israeli deaths are covered versus actually is the Palestinian death toll rose. They got covered less. So these do represent, you know, not a one-off, you know, Oh, this particular story,

maybe shouldn't have compared the Middle East to the animal kingdom. It really does represent a systematic bias at CNN in particular. But the truth of the matter is a similar bias has been proven by that type of analysis at basically every Western media outlet. But I have to say to have your own journalists saying that what you're doing amounts to journalistic malpractice is pretty extraordinary. Yeah. All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Another day, another hefty load of evidence for the Hague against Israel. The IDF has been forced to admit that they have been running a propaganda channel on Telegram aimed at Israeli citizens that featured snuff films of Palestinians being murdered, dehumanized as insects, and vermin,

their bodies desecrated, and the destruction of Gaza glorified. Here are the details. The channel named 72 Virgins Uncensored celebrated everything from a Palestinian being repeatedly run over to a mother grieving over her son to the destruction of places of worship and reduction of Gaza City to rubble. The existence of the channel has been known for some time. It was created on October 9th. Haaretz was the first mainstream outlet to cover its existence in early December of last year. Now, in that first report, they were able to cite a senior military official who anonymously confirmed that the IDF was in fact directing the

channel. At the time, however, the IDF denied those claims. Now, in a follow-up, the IDF has been forced to admit that their own propaganda unit was behind 72 virgins the whole time. Here is Haaretz with that reporting, quote, reversing an earlier denial, Israeli military officials have admitted that the Telegram channel 72 virgins uncensored was operated by members of a department of the Israeli Defense Forces Operations Directorate. The admission comes after Haaretz published an expose on the channel last month, which led to an internal investigation into the matter. The probe, conducted by Major General Oded Basiak, head of the Operations Directorate, found that the information that led to the original denial that the channel was operated by or on behalf of the army was incorrect and relied on misinformation relayed by members of the influencing department.

In the wake of these findings, the unit's wartime commander is to end his military service. So now the IDF claims that the influencing department was in fact running the channel, but they were just freelancing, doing so without authorization. You can make your own judgments about how accurate this new version of the story is. Haaretz also documented some of the genocidal language, gore, and war crimes that were celebrated on this channel. Quote, an October 11th post read, burning their mother, you won't believe the video we got. You can hear their bones crunch. We'll post it right away. Get ready. Photos of Palestinian men captured by the IDF in the strip and the bodies of what they describe as the IDF in the strip and the bodies

of what they describe as terrorists were captioned, exterminating the roaches, exterminating the Hamas rats, share this beauty. A video of a soldier allegedly dipping machine gun bullets in pork fat is captioned, what a man, greases bullets with lard. You won't get your virgins. Another caption was garbage juice, another dead terrorist. You have to watch it with the sound. You'll die laughing. Analyst Nox Bilal has been tracking the content on the channel as well. According to Bilal, on 72 virgins, you could find this video of buildings in Gaza being demolished. Each time one is reduced to rubble, the twirling menorah on the screen gets another candle. The caption reads, luxury real estate, Gaza, six rooms, 360 degree view, spacious roof, street with lots of parking

exclusively for sale. For those interested, a pool can be added. LOL. Many commentators have been shocked by the willingness of IDF soldiers to publish TikToks advertising their war crimes and atrocities to the world. Incredibly, the shock was often at their willingness to publish these crimes rather than the commission of the crimes themselves. But here we have the propaganda unit of the IDF itself running a snuff aggregation channel. It makes several things really quite clear. First, far from being ashamed of their war crimes, the IDF and the Israeli government want Jewish Israelis to know just how brutal they are actually being, how complete the destruction and annihilation and suffering. After all, remember, the polls found only 1.8% of Israeli Jews thought the IDF were

using too much firepower. Nearly 60% thought they were not using enough. And since the IDF can't actually accomplish any of their supposed military objectives, brutality is meant to substitute for success. After all, Hamas is not destroyed. The IDF has killed more of their own hostages than they have rescued. The tunnel system is largely intact and far from creating a shock in the population that would lead them to abandon their fight. The Israelis have only strengthened the logic of violent resistance among Palestinians. Domestically, Israel is suffering a tremendous economic blow and inching closer to outright global pariah status, having already been found to be plausibly committing genocide. Even the pathetic and genocide-abetting Biden administration,

alongside the pathetic and genocide-abetting Sunak UK government, are considering unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state. Hamas is likely strengthened, and the security of the Israeli people has only been further compromised. So gore, horror, and incitement to genocide are proffered as a way to cover for the abject systematic failure to accomplish any of the supposed goals of this operation. The IDF atrocity TikToks are not a bug,

but a feature of this system. Not just allowed, but encouraged. After all, this entire 72 virgins channel was sustained and populated with multiple posts daily, including confidential operational details for months by the very unit dedicated to putting out the version of the war and the messaging on the war that the official powers that be want to see propagated. I'm reminded of Haaretz's recent report from the Ethnic Cleansing Conference just held in Israel, attended by more than a dozen government ministers. According to their

journalists there on the ground, the most rapturous response was reserved for exactly this type of content. Quote, the biggest response came for videos of soldiers in Gaza calling for the strip to be resettled, shouting out that there are no innocents, or photographing themselves with banners for the Katif block that is the former settlements in the Gaza Strip. So stop being puzzled by the mystery of IDF soldiers filming their atrocities. These same TikToks, which spark revulsion around the globe,

are met with awe and admiration by the domestic population on whom Netanyahu and co depend on for their grip on power. The soldiers committing those crimes, they're celebrated as heroes. Now, it is cold comfort for the Palestinians who are being subjected to torture, starvation, mass killings, and complete annihilation of their civil society. But every one of these incidents makes it that much more difficult for the Israeli government to wriggle their way out of those ICJ genocide charges. How can you argue that Bibi's calls to destroy Analek or President Herzog's declaration

that there are no innocent civilians or Defense Secretary Gallant's comment that they are fighting human animals be taken as anything other than official government policy when the IDF is running a channel to glorify actions entirely consistent with these genocidal comments. How can you possibly view these comments and actions as fringe when they're being pushed as the official face of the war by the IDF propaganda unit? The genocidal snuff films broadcast by 72 virgins are official government policy. And Sagar, I think it's important for people to recognize- And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.

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Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right?

And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Lever was able to get their hands on some internal documents from AIPAC, a tremendous force in U.S. politics, revealing some of their top donors. We can go ahead and put this up on the screen. Headline here, inside the Israel lobbies new $90 million war chest internal APAC materials reveal huge gifts from moguls and the strategies lobbyists used to score the cash.

Joining us now in order to break down that bombshell report is senior enterprise reporter for the Lever, Amos Barshad. Great to have you, Amos, welcome. Thank you, great to be here. Yeah, of course. Just tell us a little bit to start with about what you found here. Yeah. So basically, we were able to, through the course of our reporting, learn a good amount about internal AIPAC information, namely donors. These are not donors that are public under election disclosure laws. And also specifically the amount of money that has come in kind of at the end of 2023. And then from there also some of the manners in which they were able to solicit the donations, the actual kind of

talking points and effectively the way that Apex speaks to its own donors, which is despite the Apex long and well-covered history as far as being a political player, this is not stuff that has previously been covered at length. So tell us about some of the people that you were able to uncover, Amos. Yes, a lot of finance, private equity individuals, a good amount of kind of well-known founders of companies, from companies like Zumba, the at least the company may be well known, is the owner of OnlyFans, the internet platform that's kind of well known for the adult content. Leonid Rydvinsky, we should say that he denied being a donor, but there was some information specifically, a wire transfer from his wife to APAC,

which we weren't able to get comment on from him. Amos, I actually have that part of the report, if I could just read it, because it's kind of entertaining. You say that three individuals named on the list denied being donors. That includes Leonid Radvinsky, the billionaire owner of OnlyFans. According to the internal documents, Radvinsky and his wife pledged $11 million to APAC, the most of anyone listed. Quote,

I didn't donate or pledge $11 million, Radvinsky wrote in an email, and this applies to me, my foundation, my family. When the lover asked Radvinsky why APAC had listed him as a donor, he replied, I don't know. When the lover asked Radvinsky to comment on internal APAC documentation showing a wire transfer from his wife to APAC, Radvinsky stopped responding. So once you showed him the actual documentation, suddenly he didn't have any more to say. We asked him to comment. Just to specify, we didn't share the actual documentation. We asked him to comment on that. Yeah, the whole experience of reporting this was very interesting and at times colorful and intense. Yeah, basically cold calling billionaires.

And they don't like that. But yeah, you know, I think at the same time, you know, some of the people that I spoke to were happy to explain why they were donors. And I think that was illuminating, as well as, you know, hearing some of the talking points directly from APAC. Yeah, I think there was a lot to learn as far as the internal narrative, the internal conversations that are happening, I guess you could say, like within the APAC community community. So Amos, why did AIPAC solicit this money from these donors? What are they asking the money for? To what purpose? For a campaign? For intervening in primaries? Give us an insight into the pitch and why people were willing to donate that money.

Yeah, absolutely. So the through line, the headline is always, you know, to strengthen the Israeli-U.S. relationship. You know, the idea is that both countries are better off for it. And then specifically, this is kind of, you know, it gets kind of into the nitty-gritty, but AIPAC is a social welfare organization. So legally, their primary purpose can't be politics. So this money can't necessarily be spent on politics. Within that, there's a wide range of ways in which it can ultimately affect the political process. But that's why it's not beholden to federal election disclosure laws. So when they are asking for the money, they don't ask for it for any specific purposes

like that. It's really always about, you know, Israel is at war, it needs us, you know, through your support for Israel. Right now, you too are part of this greater effort. You know, one of the speakers through one of the events that we reviewed, you you know was speaking and suggesting that uh the supporters of aipac are now mobilized in the war effort you know literally part of the war effort um uh in this in this dramatic and and kind of uh i guess you could

say a bit over the top way and you know i think i think i think it's interesting because you know there's not a lot of conversation about the overall impact in Gaza. There was a good amount of conversation about civilian casualties, but only so far as to say that the IDF is doing its best to minimize the civilian casualties. And then the pitch is always, you know, this community, the through line of the pitch is often, you know, this community is coming together, you know, solidarity. You know, they need us. They need you, they need your support financially. And it becomes, you know, a way to have impact beyond just giving money, right? It's like you're helping people in this grand and dramatic way.

Yeah. Interesting. A few of the other names that you have on this list that people may find noteworthy, longtime sort of infamous pollster Mark Penn, Les Wexner, famously very close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, and Congressman David Trone, which gets to the, even though this is technically not a directly electoral politics organization, how impactful they are in terms of American politics. And to further underscore that, I was reminded of the fact that AIPAC leadership actually was granted a meeting with Netanyahu just a few months back. But in what ways, talk about the significance of Representative Trone, who's now running for Senate in Maryland, of his donation and the way that they're already deploying some of this money in order to shape American politics? Yeah, so Trone is interestingly rare. His campaign, he's running for Senate, was happy to confirm this because he's actually discussed his support for Israel and his support for AIPAC in the past.

And so, you know, fundamentally as part of the reporting process, this was helpful for us to confirm the, you know, veracity of the list and the information that we got in general. And then with him specifically, he's getting money back through the APAC PAC, which is a, they recently in the 2022 election cycle formed two groups, a super PAC and a PAC. So through the APAC PAC, they can earmark contributions from donors directly to him. Um, and so that's, what's been going on recently with him. Uh, and so, yeah, so it's basically, you know, uh, the idea that he, uh, that he himself is donating and then in a way kind of getting the money back, uh, I guess you could see it that way, but, you know, kind of more generally speaking, he clearly has stated where he is in the political spectrum. You know, he is a proud AIPAC supporter.

Interestingly, he has recently expressed support for a ceasefire. as this war is continuing, some of the traditional hardline support may be wavering in certain ways. I guess we'll see. I guess we'll learn as this continues. And then, yeah, and then more generally, what we saw in 2022 through their APEX, through their more newly formed organizations, effectively spending money in democratic primaries.

And so going after any one that is deemed to be critical of Israel. And they also did so not by spending money on Israel, but actually spending money on the other campaign issues in any given number of those primaries. So it's just a way of spending money in what proved to be a very effective way. I think basically the majority of the primaries that they enter, that they spend money and they were successful in getting their preferred candidate over the line.

Yeah, well, and there were also instances, as Ryan Grimm reported in his book, where just the possibility of them getting involved in a primary was enough to win over the unconditional support of John Fetterman, apparently, in the state of Pennsylvania. And we've seen how the way that that has all played out. Amos, thank you so much. This report is incredibly important. I think people need at the very least to understand where the money is coming from and the groups that are influencing our politics and why we see some of the dynamics unfolding that we have. So thank you so much for joining us today to unpack some of that. Thanks, Amos. Thank you, guys. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching. As we said, we've got the RFK Junior Focus Group that is coming out or actually happening today. It'll be coming out soon. Thanks to our premium

subscribers. You can watch it early, breakingpoints.com. Otherwise, we'll see you all tomorrow. We'll be right back. Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7 because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What up, y'all? This your main man, Memphis Bleak, right here, host of Rock Solid Podcast. June is Black Music Month, so what better way to celebrate than listening to my exclusive conversation with my bro, Ja Rule. The one thing that can't stop you or take away from you is knowledge. So whatever I went through while I was down in prison for two years, through that process, learn. Learn from me.

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