Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/13/24: Israel Freaks As Egypt Joins ICJ Genocide Case, Blinken Says Israel Committed War Crimes But It's Okay

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Israel freaks as Egypt joins ICJ genocide case, Blinken admits Israel war crimes says it's okay.   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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. are more than welcome to listen in. I knew nothing about brunch. What? She was a terrible girlfriend, but she put me on to brunch. To hear this and more, open your free iHeart app, search Good Moms, Bad Choices, and listen now. I know a lot of cops.

They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man.

We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. All right, guys, so we have a lot of big updates for you with regards to Israel. Let's put this first extraordinary development up on the screen.

So Egypt now joining South Africa's case at the ICJ, which alleges that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Senior Israeli officials are describing this, I would say, probably accurately as a new low in relations between countries, certainly in recent history, post-peace agreement. Egypt's announcement, they say, is not expected to have a material effect on the ICJ's legal process, but reflects a new low. Israeli sources fear the ICJ may issue new orders against Israel as the operation in Rafah is having a major impact on access to humanitarian aid. Reporting suggests that Egypt's really quite extraordinary decision to join South Africa in their case at the ICJ has everything to do with the Israeli assault on Rafah and the fact that they have already invaded and taken control of the Rafah crossing on the Palestinian side. We've been reporting for months how Egypt has

been raising red flag after red flag against, about that potential incursion into Rafah, talking about what a provocation that would be, what a problem it would be for Egypt. And so in their letter where they signaled they were joining on with the ICJ, they said in that statement that the move comes, quote, in view of aggravating intensity and scale of Israeli attacks against civilians in Gaza and the, quote, continued perpetration of systematic practices against Palestinians, including direct targeting of civilians and destruction of infrastructure. Egypt also called the Rafah operation a flagrant violation of international law and called on Israel to commit to the principles of international law as an occupying power. In addition, South Africa just on Friday submitted a request to the ICJ to

issue new emergency orders against Israel due to the operation in Rafah. So you've got two things. You've got South Africa coming back to the ICJ and saying, you've got to issue new injunctions. You'll recall the first injunctions did not go so far as demanding a ceasefire. So they're really pushing the envelope, pushing directly for that call for a ceasefire from the ICJ. And you have Egypt joining with Sagar. I mean, it's significant for a lot of reasons, not least of which that, I mean, Egypt is a massive recipient of U.S. aid, considered a great American ally. So the fact that they're at this point also saying, hey, Israel, we think you're committing genocide. We're signing on to this.

We're pushing for a direct injunction is really quite significant. Well, it's important for several reasons. For basically, let's say 1970 to let's say the 2010s when Iran became the major driver in the Israel relationship, All of U.S. foreign policy with respect to Israel was balancing the two great powers of Israel and Egypt, where there's a saying in Arabic, which is difficult to translate, but it roughly translates to like where Egypt goes is where the rest of the Arab world goes. The idea is that it's like a cultural heart and center. It's like the heart of the Arab street. Yeah, it's like the heart of the, exactly. Let's put it that way. It's difficult to like put into English. But the point is that

with Egypt where it is right now, we wanted to always balance the two. It's why the Camp David 1970s agreements were so important and why both of them are recipients of major military aid. Iran and Iraq basically took that off the table and changed everything. We kind of took the Egypt-Israel relationship for granted. Well, what we're all learning here is that these things can fall apart very, very quickly and that the Israeli kind of arrogance and with respect to its operations in Rafah without a lot of consideration of the Egyptians. And let's not forget, I mean, we covered it here at the time, the Egyptians warned them that it was coming. They called them in early October. They're like, there is a major terrorist attack that is going to happen and you need to listen.

They didn't listen to the Egyptians. They tried to prevent this. Now they have their own domestic politics going on, but clearly their own population is very upset about what's happening and their own government sees major fallout from Israeli policy and especially this operation in Rafah. And so for them to join onto this is a monumental event in US foreign policy. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And from the Egyptian perspective, first of all, you have a population which is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. And so you have pressure from the population. You also have deep concern from the Egyptians, which to your point, Sagar, they've been very clear about deep concern about a potential mass of refugees fleeing Gaza Strip. Because again, of course, clustered in Rafah, you have some,

probably around a million Palestinians at this point, because you've had about 300,000 who have once again been forcibly displaced from Rafah, but you still have an extraordinary concentration of population there with nowhere to go. So there's deep concern about that as well. And they are arguing quite accurately, I don't think you can really dispute this, that Israel taking control of Palestinian side of the border is a direct breach of an agreement that Egypt had with Israel with regard to that Rafah crossing and that whole area of the border region between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. So this is really noteworthy. The other thing that I'll mention here is the Israelis seem very nervous that the ICJ is going to actually issue some additional

injunctions. Now, is that going to come to pass? What is that based on? I have no idea. But the fact that you have South Africa going back, Egypt joining on, and this invasion now, which has already occurred. The U.S. administration is saying it's not a major invasion, but it's an invasion. They've taken control of the crossing. They've hit some very significant number of targets in Rafah. They've displaced already hundreds of thousands, forcibly, of Palestinians from the area. So you clearly have action with regard to Rafah and Bibi Netanyahu signaling there's no end in sight with regard to that. Those things, I think it is plausible, could combine to seeing the ICJ taking some more

aggressive and more full-throated action with regard to Israel. So we have some video we can show you of some of the things that I was just referring to in terms of the expansion. This is leafleting in Rafah. So reports are that some 300,000 Palestinians have now been once again told to move. In addition, you have new IDF actions in the northern part, again, of the Gaza Strip. This is Jabali, a refugee camp that came under massive attack again. And we'll talk more about the significance of that. Here you see civilians fleeing from Israeli firepower. Bombs are falling everywhere. They say you have additional images here from Rafah. And then this video is Israeli settlers putting rocks in the road and coming

up with new extraordinary tactics to block medicine, food, and fuel from going into the Gaza Strip. This is an effort that has been ongoing for months now that they have escalated. And finally, you can see here a map showing that people are being forced to flee north from Rafah. And they are also being told to flee south from that Jabalia area, the Jabalia refugee camp. And again, NPR, New York Times, any number of outlets that are pretty sympathetic to the Israelis have documented the fact that there is nowhere safe to go. The Al-Muassi area that they've touted as this safe zone, first of all, it has not been a safe zone. Second of all, there is nowhere near the sort of food, fuel, sanitation, water, etc. that you would need to host some million-plus Palestinians. It's already overcrowded there. So this is a horrifying situation. I wanted to mention, Sagar, the Jabalia refugee camp

bombing is really significant. You guys might remember, this is one of the places that was attacked aggressively in the early phases of the war. They killed hundreds of Palestinians using 2,000-pound bombs to allegedly potentially get one Hamas militant. But this is the area in the northern Gaza Strip which has been utterly decimated. But since, you know, after they left that area, since there was no alternative to Hamas put in place, Hamas is, you know, has not been defeated. Hamas is still coming back in, reconstituting, taking control over civilian functions, etc.

So it really underscores how much of a failure the Israeli approach here has been and how much incredible spin it requires to present what they've done and the horrors they've perpetrated in the Gaza Strip as anything approaching a win, quote unquote, for the Israeli side. It's ridiculous because what it shows also is the ineffectiveness of their military campaign. And it's funny because they haven't been engaged in a lot of military activity in the last several months, at least at like a major campaign level. So we haven't been able to talk about it. But this is the ultimate sign of failure. If you have to keep going back bombing people in the North, then your entire mission accomplished speech, which happened already, was fake. It's like, it's exact. You can roll the tape. It will predict it here. Say there's no way to do this in the way that

they are. All you're doing is just blowing the crap out of the place, destroying the rubble. You have your cartoonish children military, you know, rolling in and shooting and everything that they want. No, I even attempt to try and separate the population to build something for the next day. You will almost certainly just create an insurgency. Well, what happened? And now immediately they withdraw from the area. Rockets are being fired from there. So now they say that they have to go back in. There's no plan. There is no actual effective military strategy. And if that's the case, it's like, well, what was the entire point of all of this?

Let's put the next one, please, up on the screen. You're also watching here now 300,000 people, quote, forced to evacuate. This is from Rafa saying, quote, as you said, there is nowhere to go. The humanitarian zone is, quote, neither safe nor equipped to handle all of them, according to the United Nations. Neither safe nor humanitarian. Who runs the zone. And so then the question is, it's like, well, are you going to go in in Rafah and do the exact same thing that you did in Khan Yunus and in Gaza? Because if so, then neither of those work. This is part of what drives

me crazy about the entire thing is everyone's like, they need to go in and they need to finish Hamas. I'm like, well, they didn't finish Hamas in Gaza today. They didn't finish Hamas in Khan Yunus or in Jabali,ya refugee camp. And so what evidence do we have that you're going to be able to do that in Rafah? Basically none, you know, from a military point of view. There has been basically, you know, no acknowledgement of the fact that overall right now, this has been a strategic and tactical failure. If you were analyzing from the basis of the, you know, outset gain or the outset goals. Free the hostages, destroy the terrorists. Neither of those have happened.

That's right. You killed more hostages than you freed. That's right. That's exactly right. And there is a deal on the table right now to free all of the hostages that Bibi Netanyahu doesn't want to take. So also has completely exposed the lie you hear all the time of like, oh, well, if they just freed the hostages, the war could end tomorrow. Bullshit. They said they would free the hostages. And guess what? The Israelis said, no, we want to continue the war. No, this hasn't been about getting Hamas. It's been about revenge. It's been about destruction. It's been about, you know, the same sort of, you know, base instincts that were fed and fueled and that we saw a lot of in the aftermath of 9-11.

That's what this has been. It's a farce to imagine otherwise. And it has been from the beginning, because as we covered from the very early days, if your actual goal was we're going to get the bad guys who planned October 7th, we're going to make sure this can never happen again. The utter destruction and devastation, mass targeting of civilians, et cetera, is completely inconsistent with anything approaching those goals. And it also exposes another lie from the Israelis, which is this idea of, well, we've defeated Hamas throughout the rest of the Gaza Strip. Now we just got to go into Rafah and finish the job, right? That's what you hear all the time from Bibi and his defenders and supporters, et cetera. We got to go into Rafah. We got to finish the job. Well, what are you talking about?

Clearly, there's much more Hamas still remaining than you are portraying. Clearly, they're not all just clustered in Rafah. In fact, we got a report that even Sinwar, who is a major target of Ayer and a high-level October 7th planner, et cetera., that he is not even in Rafah anymore, that perhaps he's in conunis at this point. So the idea that, oh, we're going to finish the job when we go into Rafah, no, you're not. You're just going to slaughter more civilians. It's going to be more horror, more atrocities, more outrage with no plan in sight for any sort of peace day after. I mean, that's just never been a part of their intentions, never been part of their intentions whatsoever. I also just have to mention that New York Times headline, if we could put D3 back up

for one more second. It now says that 300,000 Gazans are forced to evacuate. This original headline said 300,000 Gazans are on the move, like so sanitized. And at least they had enough shame after backlash to change to indicate, no, no, they're not just on the move because they feel like getting up and going. They're being forced to evacuate. Many of these people, I mean, just try to put yourself in their shoes, right? Imagine you're someone who was living in Gaza City and you were told you got to get out and you went to Khan Yunus and you were told you got to get out of there and you went to Rafah. You've got no money left. You're, you know, very little food.

You've been living in a tent for seven months now. You've been displaced time and time again. And now you're looking, where do you go? Where do you go? So there are horrifying decisions that are being made here by people who just have no, are at their absolute wit's end and have no idea what to do that is going to help preserve the lives of themselves and their children and their family members. It's outrageous. It's absolutely outrageous. And to paint that as some sort of humanitarian gesture that, oh, we, you know, we are so moral because we tell these people to move. No, you forcibly displace the entire Gaza Strip, basically millions of Palestinians at this point, and there is nowhere that they can go and feel like they're going to be okay. Let's put this next piece up on the screen because this was also very noteworthy. The UN General

Assembly approved a resolution that would grant Palestine new rights and would revive its UN membership bid. This vote in the General Assembly was overwhelming. It called on the Security Council to reconsider Palestine's request to become the 194th member of the UN. The vote was 143 in favor, 9 against. You will not be surprised to learn the U.S. was one of those against, with 25 abstentions. You had a lot of U.S. allies, including France, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Australia, Estonia, Norway, who voted in favor of this resolution. It also demonstrated a growing support for the Palestinians. So there was a similar General Assembly resolution back on October 27th. That one called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. It was approved 120 to 14 with 45 abstentions.

So a more overwhelming vote here. And we can put the next piece up on the screen because Dr. Parsi laid out why this is noteworthy, because I know it's easy to be like, who cares what really happens at the UN? Fair enough. But he says that based on a draft of the resolution he'd reviewed, he thought this resolution could become a big deal. It does three important things. Reiterates a Palestinian state must be created based on the 67 borders. By that, rejects the facts on the ground that Israel's manufactured through its settlement project. Second, it expresses deep regret and concern over Biden's veto at the UN Security Council last month. And third, it appears to grant Palestine full rights and privileges of a member even if the Security Council fails to admit Palestine. This would be an unprecedented

decision designed to circumvent Biden's veto at the Security Council. He goes on to say the draft I've seen points out that this is done on an exceptional basis and without setting a precedent. This language is there in order to alleviate concerns. This could become a new tool that would be used on a regular basis to admit states such as Kosovo or Taiwan. If it passes, it will further show how isolated the U.S. is on this matter. He goes on to say U.S. law requires the U.S. defund global institutions that admit Palestine as a member. If Biden chooses to defund the U.N. as a result will only further mine the U.S. defund global institutions that admit Palestine as a member. If Biden chooses to defund the U.N. as a result will only further mine the U.S. is standing. It is truly inescapable. Biden's support for Israel is coming at a massive cost to the U.S. itself. Sagar, my understanding is that since this draft that Dr. Parsi reviewed, the one that actually passed was somewhat watered down from this to try to avoid both China and

Russia did have fears about like, oh, this could be used for Taiwan or this could be used, you know, with regard to Russia in ways that they didn't like either. And it was watered down to try to avoid the potential implication of the U.S. being forced to defund the U.N., but nevertheless, very significant and shows the isolation of the U.S. with regard to their position on Palestine. I would just put it as a symbolic vote. You know, like you said, who cares about the U.N.? I don't particularly care about the U.N. I don't think it has any enforcement. If anything, it's just important just to be like, okay, well, how does the rest of the world feel about this? Interesting. Well, America, we're a global power. We have to do trade

with everybody else. And it's very clear that our domestic politics is putting us on a different side than everybody else. Same on the issue of Ukraine. Same on the issue of like basically everything else. That's important. Very important in the long run. And it also gives a lot of power to people who are supposedly our enemies, like the Russians, because they can look at something like this, like you just said, and it could have serious consequences for them in the future. It's also an easy way for them to point out hypocrisy for US foreign policy and to win over African nations and others, which they have consistently been trying to do business with on top of the Chinese and on the Taiwan issue. So when you put all of that together, I would just

say it is further isolation of the United States of America, putting us away from the rest of the world. I don't care about the UN. I care about trade and the prosperity of Americans, which in our current global system relies on good relations with the great powers. And we don't have that right now. It's also important to point out the hypocrisy. I mean, supposedly the Biden administration wants there to be a Palestinian state, but every time there's a chance to say we want a Palestinian state, they vote against it. So you have to also look at this in terms of, okay, so you're not serious. When you're saying that, you're not serious about it because here you have a chance

to vote for it and you're opposed. There was also, I don't know if you saw, this was all over my timeline. The Israeli diplomat to the UN brought up this tiny shredder and did this whole performative shredding of the UN charter because they were so outraged by this vote, et cetera, et cetera. It's just like the theatrics are also noteworthy, I would say. 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, somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got 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. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree.

It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. High Key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account.

Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on to some very significant developments with regard to our State Department. So they were required by Congress to issue a report basically to say, hey, you know, we have this Leahy law that says you can't be supplying weapons to countries that are committing war crimes and blocking aid. It sure seems like we are supplying weapons to a country in Israel that is blocking aid and committing war crimes. So the State Department was compelled by Congress to produce this report. First, they delayed the report. Then they dropped it Friday evening. Classic move, right? And in it,

they tried to use this diplomatic speak to be like, well, they're probably maybe doing a little war crimes, but we can't be sure. So it's all fine. We're just gonna continue to ship the weapons. Here is Tony Blinken explaining the findings in this report on a Sunday talk show over the weekend. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Your national security memorandum that you signed says Israeli civilian harm mitigation efforts are, quote, inconsistent, ineffective, and inadequate. The prime minister himself said Israel assesses the IDF killed 14,000 terrorists and 16,000 civilians. Does the US share the Israeli assessment that more civilians

have been killed than actual terrorists? Yes, we do. And I think the report makes clear that while Israel has processes, procedures, rules, regulations to try to minimize civilian harm, given the impact that this operation, this war in Gaza has had on the civilian population. And yet you're still surging weapons to Israel. Those have not been applied consistently. And effectively effectively there's a gap between the stated intent and some of the results we've seen. But because it's so complicated in the midst of a war and particularly in the midst of a war where you have an enemy that hides in civilian infrastructure, hides behind civilians

to make final determinations on these individual incidents. We're looking at the totality of what's happened. We think it's reasonable to assess based on what's happened, that there have been acts that have been inconsistent with Israel's obligations under internationally managed chain law. But we haven't drawn definitive conclusions. We need to pursue these investigations, just as Israel is doing itself. Yeah, I'm sure. We really trust the results of the Israeli investigations here. Okay, but here's the best part, Crystal. It took them a matter of 20 days to determine that the Russians were committing war crimes in Ukraine. Great point.

How many U.S. observers, well, I'm sure there's plenty of CIA people who are on the ground. But in terms of people that we were trusting, we just take the Ukrainians' word for it. And we're like, yep, rubber stamp, here we go. So it's like, well, what about this? We have 10 times more documentation on this. And our weapons aren't even the ones that are being involved. We legally have the obligation to make sure that it's not happening. That's seven months now at this point. It's all literally on tape. I mean, you know, how many more could you ask for? Or this entire law is fake and we just give weapons to whoever

who we want to. Now, I'm actually fine with that. But it's the moral preening about all of this that drives me nuts. Russia's committing a genocide against Ukraine. Remember how they reacted to Bucha? Now, I'm not justifying or saying that it was a good thing, but that was like the biggest event on the planet. That doesn't even equal like a day of combat in communists or a low-level military operation by the IDF. So which is it, folks? Which are we going with? That's right.

You know, these people are so full of shit on this matter. Like, it drives me absolutely nuts because it is clear that the moral language of the U.S. means nothing. Again, I'm fine with that because I don't think it should be there. But if we are going to apply it, then it should properly and be equally applied to everyone. Instead, we have selective application, which further isolates the United States and makes it much more difficult for us to conduct foreign policy abroad as we are watching with our dwindling relationship with the entire world over this one issue with a country that is like number 50 on our trading list and is not all that important to us at all.

And instead, it's like the 51st state. I don't get it. It's important to these presidential candidates and their fundraising committees. It's important to them. And Biden in particular has an ideological, like I think you have to conclude at this point, a hardcore ideological commitment to Israel to the extent that he is actually willing to risk Trump getting reelected and losing his reelection bid in order to stand solidly by their side. But it's just so naked. Like, it's so obvious what they're doing here.

They know. We just had one of our own American aid workers who was targeted and murdered by the Israelis. And we know lots about that. We know that they triple tapped that convoy. We know they went in and drone strike the first one and then drone strike the second one when the survivors crawled to and then drone strike the third car as well. I mean, we know many things about what's going on here. And by the way, they're under an obligation in the development of these reports to also consider independent organizations that have been on the ground who have routinely assessed that war crimes are being committed as a matter of course,

the World Central Kitchen aid workers just being one among them. So it's just so clear that they know that. They know that. They're not fools. They see what's going on, but they don't want to stop shipping the weapons. So they put in this little Weasley language about, yeah, maybe something's going on. But, you know, the Israelis are, they're investigating it and they're looking into measures of accountability. And, you know And it's fog of war. We really can't say. This has been what we've seen from the beginning, Sagar, with regard to Russia, is when it was Russia, there was no fog of war. It was very clear. It was very black and white. This was a war crime. This is genocide. We know what those things mean. We're able to talk about

it from the podium. When it came to Israel, it was like, what even is a war crime and who can really say? And it's going to take months before we even know. And we'll get back to you. We're going to do an investigation into that, but we're not really going to do an investigation. We're going to pretend we're doing it. We'll get back to you. Probably never. So this is the sort of like written version of that approach of the Biden administration from the beginning of this war. There was another piece that was interesting from Tony Blinken that I wanted to bring to you, which relates to what we were talking about before with regard to Rafa and the idea that, oh, this is how we'll really finish off Hamas, et cetera. Even Tony Blinken admits that that is preposterous. Let's take a

listen. There are two things. One is that, as the president said, and as we said in many conversations over the last couple of months, there has to be a credible plan for the civilians. Have you seen a credible plan? We have not. Second, there's something else that's important. We also haven't seen a plan for what happens the day after this war in Gaza ends. Because right now, the trajectory that Israel is on is, even if it goes in and takes heavy action in Rafah, there will

still be thousands of armed Hamas left. We've seen in areas that Israel has cleared in the north, even in Khan Yunis, Hamas coming back. So the trajectory right now is that going into Rafah, even to deal with these remaining battalions, especially in the absence of a plan for civilians, risks doing terrible harm to civilians and not solving the problem, a problem that both of us want to solve. So there you go. Even the State Department saying like what the Israelis are selling is completely preposterous here in terms of their Rafah invasion. Now, will this administration actually do anything is a very open question to be generous. We've already seen, you know, similar like Weasley bullshit language from Biden.

They have already done an invasion of Rafah. They've already told 300,000 Gazans that they have to move or else they're going to be bombed and killed. So this is quite a significant military invasion already. But Biden and co. still leaning on this language of, well, it hasn't been a major invasion, so we're not going to really do anything. And another thing, Sagar, I'm sure you probably saw this too, and some of like the big New York Times propaganda piece about inside the Biden administration, blah, blah, blah. In that piece, they say even this halting of the one shipment of 2,000-pound bombs, it doesn't really matter. They have sufficient bombs to do whatever they want to do. They're still fully intending on shipping the entire, you know, $14 billion in aid that was just passed that is more symbolic than it is actually meaningful to the Israelis' war effort. So important to keep that in mind

as well. Yeah, absolutely. No, very important. This entire thing is just a complete crapshoot. And it's just ridiculous, too, because again, it's like the selective application of our own laws and the Israel exception means that all of it is fake. Let's put this up there on the screen. As we can see, the Intercept has a great headline, which is why we poked it. It says, Israel likely used U.S. supplied weapons in violation of international law. That's okay, though, the State Department says. It's a very accurate interpretation of this report. It's like, well, so what's the point of the law? And if you can just fudge things,

and words have meaning. Like, again, if Buka was a massacre where there was 400 people who were dead. Now, one of the reasons I refuse to call it a massacre at the time is because anybody who knows enough history knows that in a real war, a lot more people actually die. It was blown up as some genocidal event as to why the United States must pour every weapon that's not strapped to the ground into Ukraine to stop these Russian monsters. Turns out it's a pretty run-of-the-mill, low-grade war, even if it is the largest one in Europe. It's like, well, what does a massacre actually look like? Well, we're watching it all happen. It's part of the reason why, you know, it's so galling, the fact that we still continue to both buy into the Ukraine narrative while we're continuing to support Israel. The two don't fit at all. They're completely counter to each other. And the main

reason is because of domestic politics in this country with a powerful Israel lobby. Let's put this up there on the screen. Crystal, do you want to read the email? Oh, my God. Okay. This is a billionaire backer, a major Democratic Party, like super funder and has given tons of money to Biden. And so, you know, Biden does a little Weasley like, oh, we may stop weapons shipments if there's a major invasion of Rafah. He wrote, and you really have to see this because it looks like something that would be posted from like an unhinged commenter in a YouTube. No, literally. Section like the capitalization and punctuation, everything about it is unhinged. Anyway, let me read you this. It says, Dear President Biden, we, all caps, the U.S., as you staged numerous times, believe Hamas should

be defeated. We, the U.S., in this case, you, Mr. President, have decided to stop sending munitions to Israel to achieve the goal that we slash you have set up for Israel and ourselves. Even beyond Israel, this sends a terrible message to our allies in the region. And beyond that, we can flip from doing the right ting, you meant to say thing, to bending to political pressure. Let's not forget that there are more Jewish voters who care about Israel than Muslim voters that care about Hamas. Let that one sink in. Bad, three commas. Bad, three commas. Bad, four commas. Decision, comma, on all levels. Please, PLS, reconsider. Thank you. With respect, Haim. Okay. So there's a lot of elements of this that are important. First of all, like I said, imagine sending off this unhinged screed to the president of the United States is just

extraordinary in and of itself. Number two, that line framing like, oh, there's more Jewish supporters of Israel than there are Muslim supporters of Hamas is so gross. It's so gross on every level. Because first of all, there are, to conflate like, oh, if you're Muslim, you must support Hamas and there's no other reason why you may be concerned about this is disgusting. Second of all, obviously, as we've seen, it's the problem for Biden with regard to his policy is vastly larger than just Muslim voters, by the way. So it's not only like racist, but also completely misunderstands the political calculation. But the most important thing, Sagar, is it just shows you like the level of access. It shows you the inside game. So even though this is just one person,

his vote theoretically shouldn't matter more than mine or yours or any other ordinary person out there. Like, obviously, that's just not the case. He has so much direct line, direct connectivity. These are the types of voices that are in the ears, not just of Joe Biden, of Trump, of RFK Jr., of every single member of Congress, House and Senate. These are the type of people and the type of messaging that they're getting. And so that very skewed ecosystem and those incredibly skewed political incentives are how you end up with a policy that is so dissonant from the country at large and from the Democratic base in particular. So this guy going to the mat, throwing his weight

around as a big Democratic mega donor to try to curb even the little minimal sort of like virtue signal change in policy direction that Biden did here. It's so naked and it's so incredibly gross. Yeah, no, it's crazy. I mean, he also literally was on the national board member of the Friends of the IDF. He served in the IDF. I'm pretty sure he's an Israeli citizen. Would you tolerate this from any other dual citizen group that would be using its influence and its wealth to guide U.S. foreign policy? I've made the comparison before. I am Indian.

And if I saw a group of Indians trying to do this with respect to U.S. foreign policy, where it was clearly detrimental, I would call them out, even if it might theoretically help some of my distant relatives who are alive in India. For some reason, we have an exception here. And it's very obvious, you know, that this is a serious, serious problem and a very powerful impact on U.S. foreign policy. So this is where it all comes from. And these people, I will never underestimate their strength. I will never underestimate their ability to, you know, to not just push U.S. foreign policy.

I mean, this is a Hollywood financier, multibillionaire. You know, it's like just that's the forces that we're all up against. Right. Yeah. That's right. Very, very clear. And they can get on the phone with President Biden or any other politician in the country, possibly the world. And so when you're confused about why, not just on Israel, but on any number of other issues, why our political class seems to be so diametrically opposed to what the people actually

want, remember this email because these are the waters that they're actually swimming in. And these are the type of people who actually have the most influence on policy. Absolutely. All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate you. Like I said, please join up breakingpoints.com. You're going to be the first to hear about our major, major announcement, even bigger than CounterPoints Friday, some people are saying. It is a three-year anniversary coming up, which is crazy. So thank you to everybody who's been with us since day one, and we will see you all later. you experienced dad guilt i hate it hard and she understands but she still be pissed happy father's day the show may be called good mom's bad choices but this show isn't just for moms we keep it real about relationships and everything in between yes, men are more than welcome to listen in. I knew nothing about brunch.

She was a terrible girlfriend, but she put me on to brunch. To hear this and more, open your free iHeart app, search Good Moms, Bad Choices, and listen now. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at the recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeart Podcast.