Chapo Trap House - 779 - The Rude Dozen feat. Derek Davison (11/6/23)

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Chief Foreign Policy correspondent Derek Davison returns to the show for updates on Palestine, including discussion of recent videos of Palestinian arms and tactics, the Biden administration’s response to the war, the potential for further regional conflict, and where the new American focus on Israel leaves Ukraine. Find Derek’s podcast American Prestige at: Americanprestigepod.com And find Derek’s newsletter Foreign Exchanges at: Foreignexchanges.new fx.substack.com

Music Greetings friends, it's Chappell back again on this Monday, November 6th. I'm just going to get right into it today. Felix and I are joined by a long time friend of the show Derek Davison. Derek, welcome back. Thanks for having me guys. I'm always happy to do it. Wish it was under different circumstances, but yeah get ready for a fun episode. I guess Derek, Derek, I'd like to do that at the beginning here.

And you're a guy who's, you know, in your career of observing empire and foreign policy. I just want to ask you to start thinking of, have you ever seen anything like what we're seeing now in terms of a U.S. and its ally doing something like what Israel is doing to Gaza right now? I mean, the answer I have to say is no. Obviously, we've seen the U.S. do some terrible things. terrible things, the US and its allies did terrible things in the 1980s. I mean, I am an old, so I go back that far, but I was a kid, so give me some slack. But it's a combination of things.

It's not just the brutality of what Israel is doing and the complete, and we could talk about, I think we're going to talk about this later, and the complete, and we could talk about, I think we're going to talk about this later, but the complete, just disinterest in using any of the considerable leverage that the US has to try and minimize the brutality, let alone, you know, to stop it or give it a pause or anything like that. It's also the fact that everybody's like thrown in the towel on even trying to plausibly explain any of this to people. They're just like, yeah, this is what's happening.

The efforts that like covering up or obfuscating or creating a justification for all of this are so bad, it just feels like everybody's not even trying, which I think that in itself is something that I'm not familiar with. I mean, to go back to the post 9-11 period, there was a lot more effort going into, like, suckering people into supporting the shit that we did after 9-11. Right now, it's almost,

it's own kind of grimness that we've kind of thrown in the towel on that end. Yeah, with afternoon 11 in Afghanistan, we all remember things like, oh my God, we are gonna teach the women of Afghanistan how to have careers. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna spread our way of life to all these countries.

Like that, you know, it was a bullshit rationale, but it was some attempt. It was some branch to liberals or center-right people to go, hey, this isn't just mind-less revenge, though. There also is that. And also, with those wars, it was like, we're gonna capture and kill Bin Laden and all these El-Katakans. With this, Israel themselves are just saying the same thing they've said the last four fucking times. We're gonna dismantle Hamas, and you know, we're gonna show them

they can't do this, which, you know, whether they are capable of dismantling Hamas or not is the whole other can of worms. But not like now, it just seems like every time a hospital is blown up or a bakery for that matter, it's just, I guess it's in some sort of like emotional manipulation tactic where they go, how would you feel if someone like kidnapped your blah, blah, blah? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, the human, the, the, the hostages and the human shields is so insane to me because in no other circumstance would you conclude that well, the right thing to do is to blow everybody up. Like, you know, these analogies like imagine if somebody took your kid hostage or they took a group of children hostage in a school and they were holding out in there, you would not destroy the school. Like you would not blow it up to smithereens. You would not blow it to smithereens and think, well, you know, we were justified in doing

that. Like, you just wouldn't. That logic would not be even entering your mind. Right, right. Like, if I had to pick one thing that they've decided for their sales job to everyone else and that's been picked up by their fans in America be they official or not official,

it's that bring them home then. It's putting up posters of all the hostages. It's highlighting every individual instance where someone who rips down the posters. And it's sort of like trying to depoliticize it in some aspect where they're like, they're just missing posters. They're just missing posters for these hostages.

Why would you take them down? Right, like ignoring the incitement part of it. Yeah, right. The incitement aspect and the fact that like, okay, well, I don't think you're going to find them in the upper west side. Yeah. And the fact that like Israel is probably killed all of them at this point. I mean, yeah, I mean, Hamas, you know, and you can take it for what it's worth,

but they say they're killed like 60 of them in airstrike so far. And that's out of 240, I think 240 was the last count I saw. So you're talking about one out of every four has now been killed potentially in airstrike. So it's not terribly effective. The sign thing is part and parcel of this like weird fixation that people have, like three weeks into this when the death toll was already, you know, six thousand or whatever. And I still, you still saw people online,

like, did you see the DSA statement from the two weeks ago about this? Yeah, yeah. Can you believe, and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about this stuff? We're like, you know, there's, why is that the front of your mind in this particular moment?

Yeah, it did when they're not talking about hostages. And they're talking about hostages like, I don't know, it's a bank robbery going wrong, just divorced of anything. But if they're not talking about them, they're talking about college campuses, even sketch shows in Israel. Everything they're doing is about how gay college students are and how they love them us. Hi everyone, we are live in YouTube with Columbia Unites,

Semity News, where everyone is welcome, LGBTQH. H? Hamas. Yeah, I totally simped Hamas. It's so trending right now. Columbia, you know, sim, sim, sim, simatism. I was a, I was a, I was a far, that was, you know, it's great.

That was, uh, yeah. Um, Derek, I want to, I want to return to what you said though about how like in, it seemed like in the first week of this slaughter, there was some pretense made at justification or explanation for what we all saw happening right in front of our eyes. There was some pretense made at justification or explanation for what we all saw happening right in front of our eyes.

And that's been totally abandoned. And by way of that, you remember the first hospital they bombed and everyone was like, damn, can you believe Israel bombed that hospital? And then there was a week of fucking debate about Ocent and fucking audio recordings. And it was a misfired rocket. Actually, it was a rocket that was intercepted and then dumped its payload on a parking lot full of people and it was just like okay that was a week ago.

They just blew up a pediatric oncology word today and like they've blown up like there's no I'm not seeing any more hospital sets that I'm not seeing any osent being offered about any of these strikes of refugee camps, bakeries, ambulances, fishing boats, like run down the list here, and like there's just, there is no effort, just, oh, they're the bad guys were there. Now they, I mean, they just on Friday attacked a convoy of ambulances outside of that same hospital, the Schiffa hospital, and acknowledged it and said, well, Hamas was riding around in the ambulances. This is the group that has hundreds of kilometers of tunnels

under every square inch of Gaza, which makes every square inch of Gaza a legitimate military target according to the idea of. They have all these places that they can travel safely underground, but they like to get in ambulances with the sirens blaring in the middle of an air strike, I guess, just because that's a little bit of excitement in their day.

And so we had to blow up this convoy of ambulances that was, according to everybody else, the Red Crescent, the UN, like everybody else, literally in the humanitarian community, was carrying patients to evacuate them from Gaza to get them out through the South into Egypt. And that one was just like, yeah, we did that. And it was Hamas, who cares, you know, fuck you.

It strikes me if there was a coin flip. Okay, either this is Hamas guys who are, you know, they're doing what we've all wanted to do. There's a crisis going on, no one's paying attention to the ambulances. They're gonna get in them and turn the cherries on. They're like, all right, once in a lifetime opportunity. I've always wanted to do this.

I'm an ambulance. I'm an ambulance. I'm gonna run so many red lights. You know, they're like, I know we're supposed to be in the tunnels. I know, like, I know I'm supposed to get the fucking RPG 29 or the coordinates and like blow up these tanks, but I want to draw the ambulance It's either that or it's a child who was crushed by rubble If it's a coin flip between those like I feel like anyone would be like let's not shoot a fuck

Let's not bomb it with F-16s. Let's just let that one go, even though it's like me. Yeah, let it play out, right? Let's just see what's going on there. And this all happening because, I mean, none of this would be happening if the US did not completely sanction every single inch of it. And like we've already said, there are no red lines

for the Israeli military. There's nothing we'll do to condition. Our military aid let alone cut it off. The best they can do is like, bleed out some limp demand for a humanitarian pause. So everyone can like, you know, hit the showers before they get killed. But like, I guess they're like, I think I'm just so struck with here is like the position of the United States government, which is now isolated itself from the world in a way that like, I don't think I've ever experienced, but not just the world. The United States government,

and particularly the Democratic Party has profoundly alienated itself from its own voters. Like, the weight of public opinion is so opposed to like what is, again, very obviously happening, a deeply immoral thing to put it kindly that the US is a party too. That really is the only reason this thing is taking place in the first place. And I just like the thing that I keep coming back to over and over again is like the most powerful superpower in the world. And we're doing this all in the we're just like, in a murder suicide pact with our closest ally that is a basket case rogue state armed with nuclear weapons and run from top to bottom by terrorists and criminals.

I mean, like this just, I really feels like we're in a murder suicide pact with Israel right now. Every time I turn on the TV and it is another horror that I just can't even fathom. It's just like, we are isolating ourselves so badly from the world and it's just like is this the behavior of a world superpower? I mean, I suppose it is. I suppose this is exactly what empires do. But not when they're not in the, not in the, you know, the the salad days of empire. This is a bad, bad sign of things to come. No, I mean the salad days of empire was the the Suez crisis when we told the Israelis and the British and the French to knock at the fuck off, where we're going to be held to pay. But I mean, the counterargument, and again, this is like, to me, it's just like mailing

it in. The counterargument, as well, do you think Donald Trump would be handling this any better? And like, no, but could he be handling it any worse? Like, what would be going on if Donald Trump was president that isn't going on now? And they're so desperate to grab on to any straw and say like look we did this we made it better We made it a little bit better and there was a quote from an exchange in the White House press briefing today from John Kirby who's the ghoul who's the spokesperson for the National Security Council from John Kirby who's the goal, who's the spokesperson for the National Security Council,

who said, like talking reporters and trying to claim a victory for the Biden administration said that Israel wasn't gonna allow, the Israeli government wasn't gonna allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza. So the fact that like a trickle of it is getting in, is a huge victory and it's a sign that the Biden, you know, Biden's doing the right thing, he's able to put pressure on these guys.

This is like sadism. I mean, this is a government that Immediately when the attacks happened on October 7th didn't just start bombing but announced this total siege no food no water no electricity nothing medicine none of it was gonna get into Gaza and still apparently Medicine, none of it was going to get into Gaza. And still, apparently, three weeks later or whatever was still on this, we're going to starve these people to death, 2.3, 2.4 million people. And it took, I guess, every ounce of diplomatic leverage that the US had just to get 20 trucks a day or 25 trucks a day of aid into Gaza.

And I'll get the Israelis to agree to that. We're giving these people $4 billion a year in weapons, and we've asked for another 14 billion, and these are the people we're giving it to, the people who want to starve this population to death and have no concern about letting aid in. That's just incredible to me. And like, I mean, I want to just,

they're watching him post today, I'm watching him post from yesterday, a headline headline White House frustrated by Israel's onslaught, but sees few options. First paragraph, as Israel's ground invasion of Gaza escalates, the Biden administration finds itself in a precarious position. Administration officials say Israel's counterattack against Hamas has been too severe, too costly and civilian casualties, and lacking a coherent endgame. But they are unable to exert significant influence on America's closest ally in the Middle East to change course. We're unable to exert any influence on this client state that owes us an assistance to our

large-ass and charity. Right. So, the strategy that, like, the Biden administration administration took which I mean I think everyone can agree at this point is the single worst series of choices anyone could have made in this situation it's like you know charitably described by his defenders as the bear hug strategy right yeah get like get really close to Israel offer offer them tons of support, both rhetorical and material as if they could be offered more material support.

And doing that, we'll be able to convince them to, you know, not make this look too bad. You know, we'll have some leverage over them, which, you know, A's turned out, we somehow don't have leverage apparently over a country that cannot exist without tons of outside support, mainly arts, like pull the plug and it is withering and dying, but I feel like it was predicated on a very old idea. I think this is one of those things where Biden's extreme age shows. I feel like part of the calculation was, okay,

these are the guys that win wars in like 42 minutes. They're incredibly effective and brave and competent and also, look, Arabs can't think strategically or you know do an actual insurgency campaign. They're not the Vietcong. So look this thing is going to look ugly. It's going to look bad but only for like a week and then they're going to get it done and then we're on with business. And of course that's a calculation you make with the Israeli military from 30 fucking years ago that Biden was probably thinking of as

opposed to today which is They might be losing tanks for years. I mean Felix I want to talk about that the idea that like they were I think you're totally right and taken off guard and how bad this looks. And the thing is they're now back themselves, because maybe they thought what this would only last a week or something, they'll kill a few thousand people and then it'll just go back to status quo as usual. And the thing is Israel had done that.

I think they probably would have gotten away with it. I think everyone would have been happy to go back and you know, just forget about it. But the thing is like they back themselves into a situation now with what the Israeli goal is here, which is just, like, genocide. Like, I think it's pretty clear that they've backed themselves into a situation where our closest ally is aware of the fact that to pursue its goals effectively, they basically have to kill every single Palestinian. Yeah.

And then, like, so, I mean, that's the only way that they can credibly win this war. But by doing that, like it will seal Israel's fate completely in this country. And like, that's what I mean by a murder suicide pack is like that they have back that they bullshit themselves so far into a corner that like, there's nothing Israel can do this point that they can get out of. Right. Like, they can pretend is something other, but they're just committed to it now.

So it's just, it's gonna look, if it doesn't look bad now, it's going to, if somehow if this is even imaginable, it's going to look worse and worse and worse. Right, and you can't reasonably look at what's going on now and say that it's anything but, trying to kill as many and make as many leave and, you know, create total vacancy in Gaza. So it can be turned into, I don't know, the

world's biggest EDM theme park. Yeah. Because like, okay, the goals to stop Hamas, well, they're releasing 40 videos every day where they're like, it looks like Metal Gear Solid gameplay where they're just fucking drilling mercabas. So that didn't do anything. I mean, and you want to talk about, you want to talk about like as a US taxpayer, like, how does it feel to know that like our billions of dollars in military aid to prop up this absolute basket case client state Cannot save the lives of a single person at a rave or living on a kaboots But I mean it can

Annihilate a pediatric oncology unit, but like all the money we're giving to the Israeli army Like they're getting no scopes right now firing like RPGs of probably costs like I don't know And which is an RPG cost Derek like in one of those round one of those musicians. Oh, you're you're gonna make me Google this because this is not an area but it isn't in the millions of dollars. It's quite a bit less than the tank that you're destroying. Let's put it that way. Yeah, so yeah, you're talking about a thousand bucks maybe a couple thousand bucks and then the rockets are another You know couple a hundred so yeah a little bit more cost effective than the tank that's being this being blown up

Can I just point out that the RPGs that we've seen them shoot? I mean we've seen videos with Cordads, which are They didn't have those before 2018 apparently and they're pretty cool You know it's state-of-the-art stuff. But the RPGs they have, they're RPG 29's that are made in Gaza. So like, just made like, you were playing the game rust. Like, literally with just like, things you found outside. Yeah, I just, I don't think the Israelis were prepared, maybe, for Hamas to be able to mount a defense.

I mean, you've had them under blockade for 17 years, and I guess the thinking was that that blockade is working. Clearly, it was not. They've, I mean, it's worked in the sense that they've kept the civilians in Gaza in misery. I mean, they've denied them any chance to build a functioning economy or have a decent standard of living, but clearly it hasn't done much to limit the capabilities of Hamas to fight this kind of asymmetric, irregular conflict, which they seem to be doing fairly

well at. I mean, I hesitate to pronounce anything, but it does seem like they're holding their own, at least. Yeah, Derek, I feel like a huge factor in both Hamas' success, at least on the ground versus tanks, versus whenever the infantry sometimes wants to leave the tank and leave the Mercava entertainment console in Hawks their episode of fucking yellow stone. Oh my god, I'll just see you out now on free me. Season two. That was amazing. That was fucking amazing. They literally have a fucking

Roku in that thing. Like what the fuck? But like, okay, that and like, you know, 10-7 itself and like all of this shit, it seems like at this point, the catastrophic racism of the Israeli intelligence services and military literally got them killed because they legitimately do not believe that like Arabs can think strategically and like, you know, fool them and, you know and be brave or innovative or any of these things in battle or like, yeah, use deception. They just thought of them as like just animologically sprinting at them, wearing a suicide vest and that it's very much not the case. I think it's an element of institutional capture because you've had the politics of Israel

shifting further and further to the right as the settler extremist community becomes more and more politically powerful. To the point where now they're in control of the government effectively, I mean, you know, ostensibly this is a Benjamin Netanyahu led government and he's not of that community but he's beholden to them for keeping him in office and keeping him out of prison. So they have a good deal of leverage. Now, you know, they're reliant on him to have an entree into power, but still it's very much a mutual dependency. And that crowd was more interested in diverting military resources to the West Bank to support this slow-moving annexation, to support these settler mob attacks on Palestinian villages and depopulating them to give people more homes to move into. Then it was in monitoring what was going on in Gaza or maintaining a presence

at the security barrier that could have, if not stop this before it got to those kibbut scene, then at least have responded in a relatively expedient way, which they clearly did not. Like in terms of the propaganda videos that we're seeing from the Kassam purgains that we've alluded to, like Felix said, like this sort of the metal gear solid quality of like these guys popping out of tunnels and just no scoping tanks, like point blank range, more or less.

I'm wondering Derek, like as the so-called ground war begins, I've seen a lot of commentary on the fact of like, isn't it totally suicidal to send armored divisions, like armor into these dense urban guerrilla war environments without any infantry cover? What explains the fact that there is no infantry cover of IDF soldiers like boots on the ground, shall we say? It's like boots inside a tank, but then like these RPGs turn it into a fucking, like go through it like a fucking soda can.

So like, what do you think accounts for the Israeli ground war strategy so far? So yeah, it is, it is suicidal to send a tank or a column even of tanks into an environment like Gaza without any infantry support because as you see in those videos, some guy can just pop up behind them with an anti-tank missile and that's it. That's lights out. And if there's no infantry around to see that guy or take him out before he fires the anti-tank rocket or whatever, then you're screwed. I don't have a great explanation for why they're doing this. I mean, you would think the Israeli military would know better, except if it's a sense of squeamishness about taking casualties, which I could

certainly understand. This is like the US military. The Israeli military has come to be dependent on electronic warfare, airstrikes, drones, not just unmanned aerial vehicles, but all over on the ground. They've got these, they supposedly had these unmanned machine gun towers around the Gaza fence, which were defeated, obviously on October 7th. But they've come to be very dependent on these kinds of things. And that, I think, is part of not wanting to bring home any stories of mass casualties and feeling like the public can't sustain that. It's not part of the narrative that we're trying

to tell in the U.S. case to tell in the US case, we've tried to assure, our government has tried to assure the US public that we can manage empire, it doesn't have to touch your life, you're not going to be at risk. Nothing has to change for you, just let us in our all-volunteer military, which increasingly is again based on these unmanned systems rather than any human risking any human lives. For the Israelis, the narrative was, the occupation doesn't matter to you. It shouldn't matter to you. Let us deal with that.

We can ignore the Palestinians. We can make peace deals with Bahrain and the UAE and potentially the Saudis, which is where things were going before all this. And you don't have to worry about it anymore. Just put it out in your mind. Don't make it a political issue. Just let us deal with it. And we'll deal with it in the lowest cost, lowest risk way.

And I think now they're gun shy about, you know, there was an article or something I read maybe yesterday about how they're not going to go into any of the tunnels. All these tunnels that Hamas has, that they're supposedly going to have to go in and smoke them out to finish the job and dismantle this organization. They're not sending any soldiers into the tunnels because they're afraid that they will take heavy casualties if they do. And so I just think it's a squeamishness about puncturing that narrative of, you know, this is all hands off. It's not anything that will affect your life.

And if you start to see a lot of bodies come home, then, then, you know, it is all hands off. It's not anything that will affect your life. And if you start to see a lot of bodies come home, then, then, you know, it's hard to keep up that facade. I mean, leaving aside the, the, the morality of either side or the justice of any cause worth killing or dying for, I mean, like in the Israeli versus Hamas propaganda war, I mean, like, one cannot help but know, like, I know I should feel like this, but like to counter the dozens of videos of guys literally like, we're running up to a tank reciting the Quran, placing a munition on the side of it

and running away as it explodes. They really countered that with a video of a dog, they put a GoPro on a dog and had it run in a tunnel. And it was a training video, it turned out to be a fucking training video. It wasn't even a real thing. Even if it wasn't a training video, that as a response. Like videos of, I'm the homo side,

but the, because some of the coolest shit we've ever seen. Like I hope everyone can admit that, you know, no matter what side. Like, even if they don't care. It's like, you gotta look at these videos and go, that was awesome what that guy did. That was so fucking cool. The one where the guy pops out of the fucking tunnel and just drills the tank from 30 meters

away. These are incredible videos. They serve an incredible prop and a purpose, but their response to that to the destruction of accumulant billions of dollars of equipment destroyed, officers killed, morale tanked is our dog bit this guy. Even if it was real, what the fuck are you doing? Even if it was real, what the fuck are you doing?

I mean, I don't know if they released, if they did that, there is this like Western, I think, deep Orientalist belief that like Arabs are afraid of dogs or something, or there's like Muslims and dogs that they're scared of. It's the same thing. It's like when a terrorist incident pops off and the West or something happens and you get some guy who throws a pig's head at a mosque.

Like that's gonna make everybody in the mosque like melt into a pools of liquid because they looked at a pig's head. Like it's just, it's, you know, this fucked up kind of orientalizing thing, I think, on some level. Well, you know, a memo to the Orientalists out there, the Muslims, they are faux to dogs,

but friends to cats who can never be defeated. Yeah, it will never be defeated, or walk on a sharan. Yeah, I like the idea of one of those guys trying to like project the Beethoven movies on the idea of one of those guys trying to like project the Beethoven movies on the side of the film to moralize them. Look at this, you bastards. I guess we've talked before about the potential for this to spiral into a much larger regional conflict.

And I'm wondering, Derek, do you see the thing today about how the Houthis hit like, launch drones strikes against Israel today? And like, set drones across Saudi Arabia to hit airports and military bases in Israel. Like, first of all, like, how credible are those reports? And like, what do you make of the Houthis seeming to, you know, jump both feet forward into this conflict? Yeah, I mean, I've just sort of,

I just sort of glanced at them. I haven't had a chance to really digest what they're saying. But is it plausible? Yes, it's plausible. It depends on a lot of things. You have to wonder if the Saudis knew that they were doing this or detected them and said, it's not our problem. Nothing we have to worry about because of course they've launched drones and missiles, you know,

kind of up the red sea previously. And the US at one point, you know, was a little missile barrage, the US shot it, shot them down, the Israelis have used their air defenses in the red sea. And so it's interesting, they went over Saudi and does that mean that there was some level of like, let's look the other way, nothing to see here and let this happen or did the Saudis just not know that they were doing? That's one question that I would ask

and I would also then follow that up by saying that's a concern for the war in Yemen getting started again. I mean, this is a war that's been dormant since last April. They were in ceasefire, then the ceasefire expired, but they still haven't started, you know, resumed fighting it. If there's a miscalculation, if the Houthis do something like that,

and there's some miscalculation, you could really have that war kind of kicking off again, which I don't think anybody wants. So yeah, it's interesting that it's an interesting development. I think the Hoothies are, I saw some video where one of the Hoothie senior commanders was like, we asked the Saudis to let us like march through Saudi Arabia to get to Israel and like carry out the fight and they said no, but we're really excited. That's a tough march.

That's a tough march to do too. Yeah, it would be a tough March. Yeah. So, I think it's the regional, I mean, still the biggest concern I would have in terms of a regional, regionalization of the conflict is Lebanon and Hezbollah. And that was put somewhat to rest on Friday when Hassan Nasrallah gave his first speech about the situation in Gaza since it started and kind of kind of punted, kind of said, you know, we're doing our part. We're, you know, kind of keeping them occupied here on the border, but we're not going to escalate at this point.

We could still at some point, but it was clear that I think like the 10th comments are basically like we're 100% ready for like an Israeli and US like you know like attack on Lebanon and Hezbollah, but like we're basically keeping things buttoned up. Right. We're going to keep doing things. You're going to keep it at the level that we're keeping it out now, which you know, but I think he did reserve the right for you know to escalate if the situation in Gaza gets worse.

But he's you know, they've laid out a couple of times a sort of red line, there was a ground invasion was supposed to be a red line. And I don't think they have a lot of latitude because of how just completely fucked up Lebanon is. I don't know that they have a lot of latitude to operate here without being provoked into something. So I guess I'd like to talk a little bit about blasphemous as it may be, like domestic politics and like how this factors in you,

you know, like everyday politics here in this country. And like, I can't, I mean, I'm not the only one, but like, I can't help but be struck by the comparisons between Lyndon Johnson and Joe Biden at this moment, except Lyndon Johnson, Felix, as you put it out, had the great society, and Biden just has kind of the meh society. at this moment, except the New Johnson, Felix, as you put it out, had the great society, and Biden just has kind of the meh society. But, yeah, I mean, just like the image of probably a quarter million overwhelmingly, I would

say 99% of the Biden voters marching in DC against a war or being prosecuted by a democratic president, going into the election as a year from today. And it just, once again, like murder, suicide, packed here, what do the people in charge of the Democratic Party think? Like, what do they think their prospects are? When 80% of their own party is profoundly morally opposed to what the president is doing right now.

Like, I just am at the point right now where it's like, Biden has got to go. I said that years ago, but at this point, their DNC staffers breaking ranks, their members of the State Department, I mean, like, it just, it astonishes me that they think that they can keep this going. I mean, the State Department guy who was part of his job was authorizing weapons sales was like, yeah, this is too much for me. Like, damn, you know, that's a pretty profound statement. Yeah, I think, I mean, the LBJ comparison is like,

you know, we got Medicare and Medicaid out of LBJ, this time around we got like a slightly improved child tax credit for a year before they took it away. It's a bit of a difference. Yeah, I don't know what they're thinking, except that they might still be thinking like, orange man, bad, everybody will come back. They're going to get over this if it's not. I saw Paul yesterday that said that it's not going to matter. Biden is trailing in every swing state and that like an unnamed generic Democrat

would completely reverse that phenomenon. Yeah. Like the overall poll was like Biden minus five in all the like background states combined cumulatively. But if you replace him with unnamed Democrat, which of course, any unnamed Democrat is better than any actual Democrat. So it's got a whole better, but it was like plus eight. I mean, it was like a 13 point swing in favor of the Democrats in that scenario. Yeah, it was a massive swing that began entirely with this. It was like a 10 point swing in some cases.

It was fucking incredible. I mean, I really have to say, I never expected to see a swing like that in presidential politics based off a foreign policy event that wasn't like, you know, the Afghanistan stuff, right? Something where American voters take in actual Disgust to something that one of our allies is doing. I mean, this has really been a year full of things I never expected to see, but it just, he's at a point now, just, you know,

Bush after Katrina, Carter after he tried to explain Christopher Lash to America, like just all these, all these definitive collapses in various administrations. And what is he going to do to claw back? What does he have left? I mean, what is invading Tel Aviv? Whoops, I was wrong. Yeah, I mean, that's why I think the tenor of their public comments has changed so much

over the last week and a half or so. I mean, you know, what was it two weeks ago you had Kirby doing, you know, press conferences where, you know, they were asking, what do you, you know, is the administration concerned about the high level of civilian casualties and his response was, hey, look, man, this is what happens in war. Like, fuck it, what do we, you know, what do we, and also, and also, we don't have any reason to live with it. The numbers. Yeah, and also that, I mean, that felt like the low point. I mean, I feel like that started something

in the administration where they were like, holy shit, like people have really mad at us for this. We have to like come out more forcefully in favor of this invented half measure that we've come up with of the humanitarian pause instead of the ceasefire, but we have to really lay into it, lean into it and say, we're exerting all the pressure we can, and we just can't, gosh, where our hands are tied, where one of the victims here, just like the Palestinians, I do think that they, on some level, realize

that this is costing them, but they don't know how to pull out of it now, and maybe they can't because they've already... I think they know they can't. They know they can't, and they know that they're not gonna do the thing that would actually assuage people's anger over this, which has changed chorus,

or bring the Israeli state to heal, tell them to stop doing this, or I don't know, maybe enforce no fly zone over Gaza. But like I think it's just it's their shock at how how none of this is working. And like to go back to the propaganda war for a second, all of the arguing over the videos we've seen over the last couple of weeks of people ripping down missing posters in New York City, to me is like a microcosm of everyone's surprise that like this doesn't work on anyone anymore. Cause I, I mean, this is another thing

that's hard for me to imagine. Like 10, 15 years ago, I would imagine like the moral shaming of like how dare you, these are, these are people. I have family in Israel, like, you know, how could you be so callous or whatever? I think people would have sort of count under to that because they think, well, gee, I'm not a bad person or whatever.

But now, these videos are counter propaganda for Israel because all they show is just regular normal people, like a halal card vendor, just grinning ear to ear and giving the double thumbs up as some guy attempts to berate and shame him. It's like, no one gives a shit, no one cares. Doesn't work, yeah, it a shit. No one cares. Doesn't work. Yeah, it does not work on people anymore.

They, yeah, people can see everything with their own two eyes. But something with the Israeli PR effort that I think is underrated so far as it, you know, they've completely bricked is there's a schizophrenic tone to it like okay after 10 7 specifically Pretty much for like half the month of October the line was like most deaths of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust Horrible how could the left support? You know the Holocaust how How could you support this? Do you stand by, you know, families being killed and all this? Like the usual stuff, right?

But then also it will be, though, is from Israel account, will post a picture of like Stewie Griffin being like, I hate that vile woman, Lois, but she's nothing compared to Hamas. Yeah. It doesn't seem like they're taking their own self seriously. Right.

It's like, okay, do you take this seriously? Should I? Like, what the fuck are you saying here? I think it gets harder. I mean, it gets harder and harder to say, you know, how can you say, how can you criticize us after what happened on October 7th when you've killed now 10,000 people, 4,000 of them children in your blind rage over what happened on October 7th? It's hard to continue shaming people and make that stick for like somehow ignoring the horrible thing

that happened to start this, when your response has been so violent and killed, you know, cost so many lives, you just, you know, it loses its potency, I think. Yeah, I mean, in the past, the only way people could digest these events was through cable news and cable news had an existing protocol for how they frame air strikes. Like I think for a very long time people legitimately believe that air strikes at least by Western or in Israel's case a self-proclaimed Western style country and all the implications that carries in style country and all the implications that carries, that they're precise. They're high tech. A lot of, they went through a lot of trouble to note how, you know, state of the art, the

technology behind the airstrikes was. And now, you know, you can talk about that as much as you want, but when you're looking at like the object-fucking human misery and mass death and crying children, you know, you know that no matter what computers are on board the F-16, this is the result. They're leveling this place. Right, and there is this effort to define away the idea of civilian casualties. And the Israelis have done this in past conflicts. They're doing it now when they issued that evacuation order a few weeks ago and they've repeated it since then and they've tried to clear everybody out or they say they're

trying to clear everybody out of North Gaza and get them into the south where they're still bombing, but they're not invading at least. It's part of the rationale behind that is because if you say it enough and especially say it loud enough in English for an English language Western audience, you can eventually say, well, look, we've warned these people, you know, 40 times to get out of here. And if they haven't by now, they must be Hamas or they must be Hamas sympathizers. So it's okay if they die. And I think they've tried to do that, but that's not working either because you see these images of cratered out refugee camps with kids being pulled out of the rubble, the bodies of kids being pulled out of the

rubble, it just doesn't work. And it's also, you talked about cable news, the script on cable news in the past, every time one of these conflicts has happened or one of these these you know massacres has happened has been you have Mo all you know 80% maybe more of the guests you bring on to talk about it have to tell the Israeli US line and then that remaining 10 15% 20% maybe who you bring on for balance who are usually Palestinians or Arabs. When they come on, you put them through the litany first, you make them denounce Hamas, you make them denounce all this stuff, you put them through their paces before they're allowed to speak. And I don't think that works on people anymore

either. Because of, because there are other ways to get information, you don't have to go through that filter. Yeah. I don't think I'll say on the, the death toll, like, I've seen 10,000, I'm sure the actual death toll is much higher than that. Yeah, it's almost certainly is. The Israeli media though, and like their running counter of their like KD ratio, has it at 20,000 terrorists killed so far in their war. And were that true?

There would be not a single person left in Hamas. There would be a single person firing rockets at these tanks. You would think that if they were all terrorists, the three-year-old terrorists or the ones you got to really watch out for. Well, I mean, like, Derek, we're at the point now where I'm seeing like, uh, surrogates for the Israeli military and government go on TV and say, can you really say that all children are unarmed combatants? Can you really say that? Yeah, I've seen that. That Nick, you word weren't, wasn't in some way complicit in the acts of October 7th?

Yeah, I mean, I've seen that on, you know, there's been some really wonderful work on this on Twitter. Some really just complete, morally bankrupt people talking about, you know, well, the child deaths. I mean, you know, you put child in quotes. But that's what I mean is like us recruits. Yeah. Two weeks ago, they were saying we are killing any children or civilians. Right. And this is all propaganda. And the death toll is, is, you know, fraudulent in some way. Now they've doubled the death toll in their own count of it. And we're just saying that there are no civilians. They're not even trying to deny what they're doing.

Yeah, Brian Mast, who he's the representative, who he served in a unit of the IDF. He's not even Jewish by the way. I want to point that out. He served in this unit of the IDF that Strictly exists for middle-aged men who are usually evangelicals Who are off brigade? Basically, basically. Well, even worse. Okay. It's for middle-aged men who are entranced by IDF baves Like the kind of got the kind of guys who, you know, when they look at an extremely pixelated meme on like Uncle Sam's pissed off warriors on Facebook, you know, see a picture of in Israeli,

Instagram babes go, you're a deadly enchantress. You'd be the last thing a Muslim ever sees and he'd be lucky. For those guys, they can join the unit. Oh, because 72 versions that look like you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

They join this unit where all they do because their fucking middle age men is like donkey work. They just carry around supplies and load them in the trucks and shit. Yeah, yeah. And every once in a while, the IDF babes will like wrap to fill in around them, even though they're Gentiles, you know, you're you're helping defend Israel. I will be saying happy holidays from now on to honor your people. And they like Brian Mass was in this unit of just, you know, IDF interns, I guess. I don't know what the fuck this is. But he has the uniform from his service doing this and wears it to fucking wears wore it.

Where's the uniform of a foreign army on this floor of Congress? I just see like something I personally give a shit about, but I can imagine someone else making a concern out of it. I feel like for an army at least for what he did is stretch it like I full of UPS for an auxiliary. Okay so yeah he wore that dumb shit to a session and he made a fucking speech on the floor of the house and said, all this talk about Palestinian civilians and children, would we say Nazi civilians? And it's like, no, it's not German civilians. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah.

And that is like, if I, you know, believed in institutions and shit, I would say that's absolutely like grounds for expulsion. That's like an insane fucking racist awful thing to say. On the floor of the fucking house, like just that these people are like biologically terrorists. But no, no one gives a shit. I mean, that hasn't gotten like, you know,

one one millionth of the coverage of representatives to Leib's from the River to the Sea, you know, endorsement, you know, so like, I'm gonna put another, another good example of where things are at. In the media, but again, I just need to underscore that none of this is working. A quarter million of Biden's voters are protested. The largest anti-war movement since George W. Bush

was in office. And it's the Democrats holding this fucking bag right now. And as long as we're talking about them, I have to bring up that like Biden, like I think on some level, it is not just cynicism. I think on a real level, he genuinely does like and believe in Israel, which is not an excuse by any stretch of the imagination, but it's legible for a man of

his age and who's been in the US government as long as he is. Barack Obama, on the other hand, and I got to say in a week of nauseating media spectacle, his comments to the pod save America boys took the cake for me in terms of the most morally reprehensible thing statement made by public figure thing is obama we know for a fact doesn't particularly like or care about israel at all and if anything is it was sympathetic to the palestinian cause and he's aware of all this and just

doesn't care and has this attitude what he said to the pod junctions that we're all complicit in this in some way and so if you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth. And you then have to admit nobody's hands are clean that all of us are complicit to some degree. Yeah, really? I was president for eight years.

Like I was president for eight years. Like, you know, I mean, there's a little blood on all our hands. Yeah, do he live in a condom? I think we're all to blame. Yeah, okay. Sure, sure. Yeah, so, I mean, just the, the bookie. He wrote about this in his books.

He wrote about it. This is what's so flabbergassing to me. He wrote about this, his books. He wrote about it. This is what's so flabbergassing to me. He wrote about this, should he? He wrote about the empire. He wrote about all of the stuff that we talk about. So somewhere in there, he knows this shit. And yet he chooses to do to be this institutional just kind of like, hey, check me out on Spotify.

Like, I don't want to say anything. I don't want to say anything. Yeah, I'd love to hear your music recommendations Obama. Like, in between you saying that like, on social media, you can only tell one part of the truth. And not the whole truth is that we're all complicit in the massacre of Palestinians. And then like, they're just sagely nodding, going,

wow, what a, what a, what a brave, difficult thing to say. It's just like, no, you underwrote all of this. Like, I simply have to stress again, Israel would not exist, nor would it be behaving in the way it is now, without 100% US support from both parties. Can I just say that Obama, he, you know, not only wrote about this when Obama was state senator In Illinois the state senator representing Hyde Park. He Went to conferences on Palestine. He spoke there. He knew a lot of people in the movement It is not just that he knows better. He at least at one point knew a lot about this conflict. He knew a lot of the things that Israel did. He knew way more than most people, most elected officials. So his presidency

and his posture now is just like a specially stomach journey, like it's sort of like the Reverend Wright thing in a way. He took these, he took these dances or had these associations that they were useful to him at a time. They portrayed to whatever set of voters who's trying to impress, you know, a certain broad set of left-wing sympathies or you know an awareness of something that other electives would not have and then when he wanted to jump up a level to the next the next smattering of voters he would very publicly shift the last person he wanted to be seen with he's just one of the most shockingly cynical

people that we've had in office in the last fifty years this is not a shame and uh... as i was talking about my favorite uh... my favorite media hits of this week i have to give a special shout out to a guy that you know i don't really we never really do beating series about him because he's just to boring a writer and thinker but i really do have to give a shout out a special like Hall of Fame Hall of Fame performance this week from Jonathan Shade

who in the space of two days wrote one column about how George, sorry, one column George Bush got Freddie and slip again. He already wrote that column. He wrote a column for New York magazine about how Joe Biden is behaving as Joe Biden is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most moral person I've ever met. And he was saying Joe Biden is a as Joe Biden is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most moral person I've ever met. And he was saying Joe Biden is a decent man in impossible circumstances. And then the next day to commemorate Bobby Nightdying, I don't know how to call him about how Bobby Night

is an immoral monster. And he's just like, congratulations, John. What a brave fucking stand. Bobby Night is an asshole that's like, oh, wow. Thanks. Felix, as you pointed out in the Bobby Knight column he at one of the one of the checks against the moral legacy of a basketball coach is that he legitimized Donald Trump by supporting him for president. That that that was amazing. He literally says he he gave Donald Trump

legitimacy by a door like there were there was someone who was like, yeah, I don't know, you know, it's like, I voted her Bush in 2000, sometimes I vote Republican, but like this Muslim ban stuff and like some of the stuff he says, it just, I can't support it. It just, and he doesn't seem serious. Wait, the guy who throws chairs and like, chokes players, he likes him.

All right. Sorry. I'm on the train. Yeah, that's it. I got it. You know, it's, I mean, it's, it was wild that he wrote that column. It's like, you know, look, I know killing, you know, 9,000, 10,000 people is bad. But if you ever taken three technical files in a game against Illinois, and got thrown out, Like, you don't know what monster he is until you see. Yeah. Oh, man. I wonder what are the things in that article is he brags about starting a chant at one of the games he went to.

From the public to see Indiana University will be free. I mean, fuck about a life filled with accomplishment. I'm sick of fucking tired of an eating-can record. I'm fucking tired of losing a produce. I'm not here, fuck around this week. And it's not so much that all of the same clowns who supported the Iraq war are back to tell you about how morally Israel is conducting itself right now. But it's just like, forget the opinion people. It's just the headlines that you see in the New York Times

with like blast that occurred near hospital, kills dozens, Hamas says. It's just like, everything is just this, is like a game of color. But one this week was explosion that gauze and say was an airstrike hits refugee camp or something like that. I'm like, what is if I can do any lower of American journalists? Like it's bad enough that they're giving cover to this genocide.

But like a feature of this genocide is the outright targeting of Arab journalists and their families. Like the conduct of the American media right now is just giving a green light to their colleague, is green lighting their colleagues and their families as a legitimate conductive war. I mean, it's staggering. I mean, it is staggering the whole pattern whether they think of them as colleagues, frankly, I mean, you know, at least at the level of like the elite newspaper writers and cable news

guys. Like, did they really view this guy at Al Jazeera or this guy is reporting for Palestinians? Well, I can't imagine how that lever is seen in the last five weeks. I can't imagine how that can ever backfire. I mean, like, I mean, like with our own state department, now green lighting journalists as combatants and war and then also hospitals, schools, churches, whatever. I mean, like, if we ever have to fight a war against a reasonable opponent, I really hope that this doesn't come back to hold us.

Yeah, you have to, I'm sure it's fine. I mean, we're protected. We're untouchable. That's the attitude anyway. I thought that we had seen know, we had seen, you know, the most disgusting word this after the Shireen Abu-Abba killing where it was like, they did the same dance that we saw with the hospital, with everything where it's like- And analyze this video and to conclude that the angle could only have become from the

binder. Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Wow, and the impact point looks like a 7-6-2 round. That's it. That's all that shit. And then of course, of course. Like weeks later, after it's not dominating the new cycle,

they're like, we might have actually done this. We are bad. And then. Yeah, I mean, it was like, you know, maybe it was us, but we decided that we didn't do it intentionally. So, you know, what do you want to, what do you want from us? We're not gonna, yeah.

Nobody's gonna get, get, get in trouble for it. And if that was like, and then they set police to beat this shit out of mourners at the funeral while they were carrying her, literally, often flopped her, had riot police flopped her at her funeral. Yeah, just like like picture any other country in the world doing this.

You know, like any other country in the world doing any of this. Like a country in the span of a month, hands out assault rifles to racial terror mobs that are backed by the state and guarded assault. US provided, assault rifle. US provided sends people to the funeral to racial terror mobs that are backed by the state and guarded us provided us all are you as provided sends people to the funeral of a journalist they killed

to beat the shit out of mourners and tear gas them and arrest them her just no cause yet to shoot the journalist in the back of the fucking head any other country in the in the world doing this, any of them. It's incredible, it's fucking incredible. I don't believe have the language or emotional bandwidth to process how much of a coward and a simple art to support Israel right now.

Like, there aren't words for the shame that that should bring to you. If you have even a half way decent thing to say about Israel, or if you feel any sympathy for them, I really, I don't know what to say. I mean, like they are, I mean like a murder suicide pack, that's all I'll say again.

Yeah, and it's, I mean, you know, it's sucking attention away from our other wars. So, well Derek, I wanted to ask you that. That was the thing I wanted to close out this conversation with because like if, leaving aside like the horrors of the war itself, but in the geopolitical grand game of things, is there a bigger loser in all of this than the Ukrainians and Zelensky?

So, I was thinking about this. I don't think so. I think they stand to lose the most. And I don't want to say that the shift that's happening there, and I think people haven't seen it. There was a big NBC News splash last week about the US and some other European leaders are sort of starting to have some tough talks with their Ukrainian counterparts about maybe having to come to grips with doing a peace deal with Russia and giving something up in the process.

It's not just this war. I mean, there are a bunch of factors going on here. The war in Ukraine is a stalemate, even the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military said that last week that they're stuck in it. There's very little movement, and there's not likely to be very much movement anytime soon. So they're in a stalemate. That big counteroffensive didn't work the way that the Ukrainians and the US company were hoping. And there was no, there was obviously no planning

for like what if this doesn't work? That they were putting all their eggs in that basket and it failed. The political situation in the US, as we've seen, is veering between dysfunctional and hostility toward continuing to arm Ukraine and the House. You've got on the rare occasions when they actually have a speaker, the speakers have to promise not to send more weapons to Ukraine. So that's gravy train is starting to run out. You've got changes in European politics.

There was a window there where Poland, which has been one of the most kind of on the Ukraine, you know, on team Ukraine, countries in Europe, they like had a complete falling out. Now that Polish government is probably going away and they'll be replaced with a more Western oriented government that will probably, you know, go back to army of the Ukrainians.

But still, it wakes you up to the fact that there are these political changes that can happen on a dime in the West. And it happened in Slovakia, which is not a huge player in this, but again, just reinforcing the idea that all it takes is one election or one thing to go in a different direction and Ukraine is suddenly going to be

vulnerable and that's why maybe it's time to wrap things up. And it has definitely been amazing to watch the instant that this started in Gaza, Zelensky start jumping up and down, waving his arms. I'm still here, I'm still here. Like everybody don't forget about us. But I think, yeah, this among, this is one of many things that has been and even let him visit the country. They told him to go fuck himself.

Right. You gotta feel bad for the guy in that aspect because he's been like, in his position, he has to, you know, he has to just say, like everything Israel's doing is good. I support them 100%. It's this, my fight with Russia, it's the same as Israel's fight with birth rates.

You know? Yeah. And like, when he went to Israel, do you remember that? They fucking hated him. Yeah. They were like, it's about a really, you know, challenging relationship for him.

Yeah. Like they were like, first of all, put on a fucking suit. Exactly. Well, second of all, fuck you. And he like, yeah, no, his time in the sun is over. And like, again, it does all the people who who scream like last year,

like, no, there should never be negotiations. We need to push this as far as it can fucking go. Like, okay, what about now? I mean, it's the terms of the deal being offered now. I probably, it may probably a little worse than the terms being offered in 2022. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. You have to you have to think so. I mean that the the terms of a deal that you could have gotten last year after like the Ukrainians had taken back all you know all like all the entire northeast of the country and like had driven the Russians all the way back almost to the to the original Donbass segment that they were controlled. If you had struck at that point and said, what kind of deal can we make right now?

You have to believe that the terms would have been more favorable than whatever they're going to get at this point when Russia is really... If there is an edge here, it's on Russia's side because they can survive a stalemate a hell of a lot longer than the Ukrainians do. They have more men, they have more material. There's no question that in a conflict that's just frozen like this and kind of everybody's groping for an inch here and there, the Russians can outlast the Ukrainians in that contest. So they've got the leverage now. Yeah, like, the Russians also the advantage of like

not having to depend on like, who's speaker or who's president. And like, God, just like, think about all the people who have died since that point in 2022 when they get negotiated for nothing. Nothing. And look, I mean, it's not like any stock, dude. And it's not like it's any like endorsement of Vladimir Putin. And another conduct of this war is very different than the one taking place in Gaza. But the fact that the Israeli military has already killed more civilians than Russia

has in the entire conflict in the span of less than a month is sobering. And it's certainly like, it puts into light the moral commitments of the United States government. And I guess like Zelensky and Ukraine, I mean, could provide here like, this is a bit of a warning to Israel and our other client states who get gassed up on our diplomatic and military cover,

is that anything we give you is a poison chowel it's to drink from. And like, whether it's the state of Israel,, if it's entirely contingent on US support, well, I got news for you. It's not going to be there forever the way things are going. And I said, I think they're aware of that. And I think they know that their only option aside from, I don't know, not killing people and living peaceably with their neighbors is to kill everyone possible.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's to kill or at least put them someplace else, put them in Egypt, put them wherever, but not to have them in Gaza. I think that's clearly one of the options on the table that's being kicked around, despite the fact that there's a lot of opposition to that outside of Israel. I just don't, I mean, they themselves,

I don't think know how they want this to end. And that's definitely one of many possible scenarios. Yeah, and in the event that it is like, okay, this is it, we're going to kill, is kill as many as possible and expel more with the goal of like, you're gone, this is it, final solution. How does that like, not turn into a regional war? That really forces everyone else's hand, because if you don't intervene then, if you're Hezbollah or if you're Iran, then you're never going to do it. You lose all legitimacy.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. There's a point where you push this to the point where the Iranians who are ultimately the threat that everybody's talking about feel like their credibility as protectors of the Palestinians, as kind of the anti-colonial, anti-Western force in that region is gonna be gone if they don't do something. Yeah, and that is especially horrifying.

If a regional, large regional war wasn't scary enough, Israel's policy, if they experience a devastating enough military defeat, is the equivalent of punching your monitor after losing a CSGO game. They will just randomly nuke a country in the vicinity. Like just drag everyone down with them. That is their fault. I mean, I think the Samsung doctrine is a very, like, it's not a, I wouldn't say, I mean, I'm not going to predict it, but like I would say the Samsung option is when I've been thinking about as I ponder the death spiral of both Israel and America right now,

because they're quite clear on that, if they can't have their toy, then they're just gonna break it, and no one else will have it. I mean, there was an actual cabinet minister, their minister of heritage, I think, who said in a cabinet meeting that, you know, Nukin Gaza is on the table,

and Netanyahu kicked him out of the cabinet and like, sitting's not allowed to, you're not allowed to be in the cabinet until the end of the war, like shut the fuck up. But it's out there. I mean, it's clearly something that people are talking about. Yeah, how, the idea that it's like,

how are we gonna get the $14 billion to them after? I don't care if he was kicked out of the cabinet. Like, how are we giving them money after that? It's all of this. How are you giving them money after they said, we're not going to let these people have water. Yeah. How are you giving them weapons after that?

How are you? How is your approach to this conflict? On the one hand, we're going to give them an extra $14 billion in weapons. While at the same time, we try desperately with every ounce of persuasion in us to convince them not to slaughter everybody. How do these two things coexist in somebody's brain? If you have to go to those lengths to stop a complete massacre, then you shouldn't be arming them. Look what the fuck? All of it, the entire thing with it is, yeah, obviously that for most, but also is Israel's problem that they don't have enough military resources.

That's always what struck me about that. Like, is that the problem here? I mean, and their response every time a US politician or a, you know, a pundit or somebody suggests that maybe we should condition eight on, you know, creating a Palestinian state or human rights or something. Their response is always like yeah yeah go ahead we don't need it anyway you know go ahead we'll just be free to do whatever we want that and like okay at least at least i won't be back at least i'm not going to be underwriting it any more i mean is there any politician who's willing to fill the void of finding out what happens when we

when we do cut them off and like is willing to reap any potential political benefit in this country for doing so. I mean, like I said, like, you know, if you or your relatives are like partisan Democrats and you're really interested in their not being a second Trump presidency, then like the most important thing you can do right now is be protesting against this war and be demanding that Biden resign. Because like, I mean, like, there's no turning back for Biden. Like, at this point, like, the only honorable thing for him to do is resign. Like, it being change course, but resigned because like, he can no longer be the leader of

this country or the, or much let alone a party that represents, supposedly represents progressive or liberal values. Like, only thing that Biden could possibly do would be like to send, to send like a detachment of Marines into Israel to disable all their nukes. That would be the only way he could like separate himself from this policy. And you know, I'll say like, I mean,

fuck the election. I mean, I think if you're listening to this show, you're probably no more out on that. But it's just like, if'll say like, I mean, fuck the election. I mean, I think if you listen to this show, you're probably no word out on that. But it's just like, if you would like to, I don't like protest the save lives in Gaza. If you're in the West, like in America or Europe, but like, protest because you could be saving your own life at some point in the future. If we don't end this shit now. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's out of control. I mean, this is going to be down back on us in some big way. At some point, we're not even going to know how or when, but you don't get away with this kind of shit without some kind of backlash. No, and like, the thing is like, we get away with so much shit. We get away with so much murder and horror, but this is categorically on another level. And it's happening in front of the entire world's eyes, and there is really no turning back from it at this point. I mean,

no, we, I mean, like, look, we can turn back from it anytime if we wanted to. But like, what we've done so far, we're not like, we're never washing that away. Even if we did a 180 right now, and that wouldn't involve the resignation of Biden in this entire cabinet. Yeah, I don't, I don't have anything else to add.. Yeah, I don't have anything else to add. Yeah, I guess I don't have anything else to say on the rest of the show as well. Let's wrap it up there. Derek, thanks for joining us for another fun episode.

Another happy episode. Yeah, another happy hour. We're doing on Mondays now. But Derek, obviously American prestige is going, people want more Derek gave us in, where should they go? What should they do? Yeah, American prestige, American prestige pod.com,

foreign exchanges is my newsletter, foreign exchanges, one word dot news, or fx.substac.com if you're still using that. I guess, you know, substac, it's all a rich tapestry, but still. I'm still there. So, you know, the newsletter is still great. And I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to make sense of what's going on in the world.

Often in parts of the world that don't make the headlines. Before we sign off, can I just say like a quick, I know we've talked about a lot today. We've had some laughs, but this is still, this is a sad day. I want to say rest in peace to my friend. All our friend, really, this guy was a friend of the show. Captain Yai Yer, Yid you do netanyahu aka he was called

but but he was you know called by his underlings captain netanyahu but his friends called him dangerous sniper yeah dangerous so what what a fucking nickname man. I mean that is dangerous. We are Netanyahu's nephew is called dangerous sniper. I mean American sniper was already taken. Yeah I don't know I It actually I don't know spot nix the only place that saying he was killed so like who knows but Dangerous sniper is so fucking funny. That's his nickname. What the fuck? Like maybe they do this with everybody. Like the guy who's on the radio is like, good calm, good radio man. Yeah, that's how they do nicknames in these trailers.

Yeah, as we've seen from their from their number one base a number one satire show satire based show in Israel there. They're pinched for nicknames and humor it leaves a lot to be lacking leaves a lot to be desired. Oh my god. All right. Our RIP good sniper and thank you again to Derek Davison for joining us. Condolences to my best. Thanks, guys. Condolences to his best friend, Good Gunman. So, Gmail is involved with the Israeli business. The demolitions expert, big explosion man. I mean, they're all the guys in the unit. It seems great.

Thank you, Derek. Thanks, guys. I'm we're going to screenplay a battle these guys called the Rude Doesn't. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Alright, till next time everybody, bye bye.

Bye. Boo! you