EverydaySpy Podcast - Exclusive Report: Israel Intel Failure in Hamas Attack | EverydaySpy Podcast Ep. 27

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

After a long travel project on the road, Andy is back in the studio just in time to talk about breaking news that points to a potential Intelligence Failure by Israel that could have prevented the surprise attack from Hamas on Oct 7, 2023. With the Gaza cease-fire agreement extended and more hostages being released, the whole world is wondering what happens next. Find your Spy Superpower: https://everydayspy.com/spyquiz Learn more from Andy: https://everydayspy.com/ Join the SpyTribe: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverydaySpy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayspy/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EverydaySpy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Essentially, the story broke on the Financial Times first. There's a number of anonymous sources that come from the Israeli IDF that not only was there information about the October 7th attack, weeks before the October 7th attack, but the capability, the strategy, the key players, all of it was actively known. Hamas since 1987 has existed with one purpose to destroy the state of Israel and replace it with the state of Palestine. To think that they would ever just stop making that their goal takes a pretty incredible amount of hubris and ego.

You introduced this concept that was absolutely hilarious to me, and I think that we should actually seriously talk about it. You talked about having a no day. Yeah. Which I think is hilarious because I think it was last year, Netflix came out. Was it Netflix that came out with a movie called Yes Day? We watched it on Netflix.

Yeah, I don't know who made it. But the kids love the idea, obviously. Everybody loves the idea of a yes day. Do they? Yes, because a yes day is like, it's got this awesome, this romantic notion to it. It's like, yes to ice cream at breakfast and yes to go into the theme park and yes to buying a puppy and yes to all the things that everybody says no to. Yes is like this awesome, exciting, romantic. idea. But what I found so interesting about your point, outside of the fact that you're just,

you know, Debbie Downer, is that no for some people is even more exciting than yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think I told you what my no date would be like, are you going to get out of bed? No. Are you going to make me some breakfast? No. Are you going to do anything today? Nope. That is, I feel like that's very much the the mom spouse like that's the internal sacrifacer in you who's like I just want a day where I don't have to sacrifice for other people. Yeah. And I think, you know, just like you said, it's normally attributed to moms, but I mean there's. I didn't say it was normally. I'm not generalizing moms. There are plenty of moms out there who love being moms. I'm just saying that it's the personality type, right? Your personality type does not lend itself

willingly to all of the sacrifices of motherhood. Yeah, and I think that we raise our kids trying hard not to say no. And so I live this life of nobody feels like it's a yes day, but I'm trying really hard to make it a yes day, right? I'm trying really hard not to say no to your friends coming in the house and running around screaming for two hours. It's like I'm trying really hard not to say no to my daughter wanting to play spa day with me. Right?

So I'm trying to say yes and it's so energy intensive that I really just want a day where I can say no to everything. So yeah, what you're really saying is you want to be able to say no to all the things that you have to try to do. Because so many things take such intense. effort. You kind of want to say no to all the extra effort. Yeah. I want to say yes to me. A me yes day. What does mom want to do? But I think this is I think this is really relevant because you mentioned it early on. What you're talking about is your personality. Yeah. Every personality is different. So some personalities find creativity and innovation and like ingenuity and change. Very exciting. Yes. Some personalities find innovation and change and creativity very daunting, very intimidating,

very discouraging, right? So not people are not all cut from the same cloth. And what's fascinating is the people that we are when we're 10, 12, 15, we're not really that different when we're 25, 30, 35 having children. Yeah. And I think that's funny is, you're, You and our daughter are very similar where you like spontaneity, you like new experiences. So the idea of a yes day where every new idea, let's do it, is actually really exciting and energizing for you. Our son is very much like me. And I think what's really funny about that.

He doesn't even want to say yes to anything other than grilled cheese for lunch. Yeah. So I think what's funny about him is he gets excited about the idea of a yes day. when it comes down to practical application of it, he still wants, for example, I made pumpkin pie recently, just trying out a new recipe. He loves pumpkin pie. He still wants his daily ice cream. Like even if you introduce something new, he's literally like, oh, was the pie dessert?

Because I didn't get my ice cream. And every day he has a serving of ice cream and a popsicle, like a fruit juice popsicle. every single day. So he's excited by the idea, but he still wants the routine. And I'm just old enough now where I am no longer excited about the idea. Because I already know, I have enough experience now or I know what that's going to mean. It's so funny. Because you're right, Sina, our son, is always like open to the idea of change, but he wants to be able to control the change. Yeah. And then when the moment comes, that things have to change. he's kind of like, maybe we can do it tomorrow.

Yes. So the next, the yes day for Sina is always tomorrow. Yeah. Because today should be the same as yesterday. Yeah. Tomorrow can be a yes day. Until tomorrow comes. Then he's like, today can be the same as yesterday.

And tomorrow can be the yes day. Yeah, it's the idea of it. I think we were talking about it recently when we were potty training him. And we initially motivated him with chocolate milk. But the thing is he doesn't like milk. So he would never actually drink it. It was just the idea of, oh, I use the potty. I get chocolate milk.

And then we would give it to him and he wouldn't touch it. He'd be like, I don't want this. So it's just the idea, right, of something new, something exciting. That's so funny. Yeah. And, you know, so you mentioned how, you know, a lie, our daughter and I are the same. And you and Sina are the same. Really, I would argue that our kids are strange, almost perfect combinations of both of us.

Yeah. If anything, I would almost say that our son, Sina, kind of got the perfect mix of all of our weakest elements. And Alai got the perfect mix of all of our strongest elements. Oh, explain that. So I feel like our son suffers from the challenges of wanting exact, like, routine like you're talking about, which is not something you're very proud of in yourself. and he's also so sensitive, which is exactly what I was like as a kid too.

Well, every negative comment, every negative criticism, everything that can be perceived as negative about you is what you perceive and attribute the highest value to. So he not only feels like he's constantly being criticized, even when he's being complimented, he still hears the criticism in the compliment, right? So he's very sensitive to that. and he's also very sensitive to changes in the routine. So now when there's a change in the routine, he sees it as it being his fault.

Yeah. So it's like, hey, we're not going to go to the grocery store today because we ran out of time. He's like, well, I must be a bad boy because I must have done something wrong to make it so that we ran out of time. So it's like the worst element in you and the worst element in me and he's got to deal with both of them. Interesting. Meanwhile, Eli, another example for our daughter. Yeah. She's taken like these strong elements.

So she's got my like brazen, almost reckless risk tolerance. So she'll just run off a cliff and have confidence that it's going to work out on the other side. She'll ask you first, though. But she won't really ask. Well, get a heads up. She'll go through the process of like advising you that this is what she's going to do. And she'll make it sound like you have a say, but you don't really have a say, which comes from you. Because you will 100% tell people what you're going to do and you'll make it feel.

like they have an opinion when they really don't have an opinion because you know that you're the ultimate final authority. I deny this. So like, but you can see how the two kids, they have these multiple places where they're a mix of elements that we as adults have come to either try to hold ourselves back in some areas to better fit into society or we've pushed ourselves past certain behaviors, but they've adopted them naturally as children. So we see that in them.

Yeah. And to your point about, you know, Sina being motivated by the idea of something, he really did learn how to potty train because he wanted chocolate milk. But he didn't want chocolate milk because he liked chocolate milk. He wanted chocolate milk because all the TV shows and cartoons that we were watching were all talking about chocolate milk. Yeah. The kids in daycare were talking about chocolate milk. So he was like, I want chocolate milk. And all I got to do is go potty.

And no kidding. That kid learned how to go potty. Yeah. He didn't want the M&Ms. No. wasn't motivated by Eminem's. We tried the whole Cheerios and the toilet bowl thing. He wasn't motivated by that.

We tried reading to him on the potty. We tried everything. Music on the potty. It wasn't until chocolate milk that he would actually like get up and run to the potty and tell us from the potty that he needed chocolate milk. That was the catalyst for sure. That was it, right? And I was just talking, we were talking about it because last night, our daughter,

Eli, who's six, is going through this regression and sleep where she wants company to fall asleep. So she wants to cuddle to fall asleep. At least with me, I don't know what it's like with you. When she calls me back to cuddle, it is not a cuddle. It's not even close to a cuddle. When I cuddle next to her, she pushes me away and she tells me don't touch her and sit on the other side of the bed.

And she usually tells me to put blankets or stuffed animals between us. So I don't have any idea how this is cut. But she still says, I want Daddy to cuddle. with me before I fall asleep. Yeah. But she really only wants me in the room present on the other side of the bed for like two or three minutes. That's all she really wants.

Yeah. And it's the same for me. She tells me, please go lay over there. And then she actually says, why don't you read your book? And then I can look over as she likes to count the lines in my book or whatever. But yeah, it's definitely not. She just wants the company there. She wants the comfort.

And I would say, you know, it's funny because, you know, you use the words strength and weakness, you know, which I would argue. you isn't completely accurate because, you know, for example, the sensitivity that our son has, I think lends itself to this natural empathy that he shows towards people. Our son knows immediately when I am upset and, and addresses it where her daughter completely just, she is the one that makes me upset and she has zero idea. You know, part of that can be age, but I do think that part of that is their personality traits that they have inherited from us. And I think what's great is that us being able to see ourselves reflected in them in different ways,

we are better able to address, you know, things that we wish we had known when we were kids. We wished that we had been treated a different way when we were kids. And now we're able to try to implement those things. It's, you know, our great parenting experiment and, you know, see if we can do a better job. or, you know, prepare them better for life. It's true. I mean, the only thing harder than marriage that I have seen is parenthood. Yes.

Yeah. And then the fact that you have like parenthood and marriage. At the same time. Who thought that was a good idea? Oh, my gosh. It's like, it's just a, it's a constant daily kick in the balls is what that is. Like, it's just horrible. Well, and you know, what's interesting is I have read, and my mind always goes back to,

because you travel now. And in my mind always goes back to, you know, the whole concept of it takes a village to raise a child. There's a reason that statement exists. And I've been reading these articles about, you know, studies of hunter-gatherer societies and the way that children are raised in those societies. And it's never just the mom raising the kids. There's this whole, like, support network of the mom, the grandma, the aunts, the neighbor,

the cousins. everybody helps raise the children, which offloads the pressure on being a spouse, offloads the pressure on being a parent. And it's just our modern-day Western society has moved away from that. And I think that's part of what... I would say there's multiple things going on there. Right. But I do think that's part of it.

I wouldn't want to over-dramatize the value of a hunter-gather society since we don't have to hunt or gather our food right now. There's certain benefits to come with the grocery store. And I know from where I sit, having to raise your own children in order to use a grocery store doesn't sound like that bad of a tradeoff. What I do wonder is when you're in something like a hunter-gatherer society or when you live in a culture where the grandparents are really heavily involved, how much change happens, how much parenting evolution happens in raising the children, vice. what we have where we are fairly separated. And we are able to radically, you know, change our parenting style because there is no other influence.

So is there an actual benefit? There might be more stress, but is there an actual benefit in the human evolution having parents be able to really forge their own path? Yeah, absolutely. There's a benefit there. I mean, I don't think there's any doubt there. What's interesting to me is that I feel like, to your point,

the great Western society that we live in is in part driven by the fact that every new generation of parents wants to be able to raise their kids on their own. Yeah. We don't want to raise our kids the way we were raised. Very rarely have I met an adult who has good things to say about how they were raised. Yeah, there's always some things. Well, I mean, not only is there always some things, but the vast majority of people that I've met, the vast majority of educated, you know, intelligent, hardworking, successful people that we've met

distinctly want to raise their kids differently than the way they were raised. Interesting. Like almost holistically, like almost completely want to change the way. They'll still say, oh, I loved how my mom was always there for me when I got hurt. Or I loved how my dad always came to my, you know, dance or recital or my piano event. So I want to do that for my kids. Yeah. But otherwise, I want to give them more attention.

I want to give them more resources. I want to, you know, give them more opportunities. I want to not drink as much as my parents drank. I want to not smoke as much as my parents smoked. I want to be gone less than my parents were gone. Most of the people that we've met in our world, which, again, you have to be cognizant of the fact that in our world, we are not dealing with people who are of a different socioeconomic status than us.

That's fair. Right? We don't spend a lot of time with people who make $35,000 a year. We spend a great deal of time with people who make more than $150,000 a year. So we have a social bias as well. Yeah. But in that bias that we've seen, that group of people who are fiscally and career success stories, almost across the board, they do not want to raise their kids the same way they were raised. Oftentimes it's because they are also significantly more successful than their parents were.

Yeah. And that's certainly the case for us too, right? Like there's certain things that you love about how you were raised. There are a few things, a very few things I enjoyed about the way I was raised. But we are also hands and feet more successful than our parents were, which was exactly what our parents wanted for us in the first place. Right. So I don't begrudge my family at all for how they raised us. They raised us the way that they had to raise us.

Right. As a family of five living through the 1980s and 90s. 90s on two parents who I think, I think I made more money than my dad made when I graduated college. My first job in the military was earning more money than what he was making at his job that he was retiring from within five years of me graduating college. And that's mind-boggling. So we started off on completely different pathways anyways.

Yeah. But it is really interesting to me because I'm willing to bet that the majority of you listening right now are probably also. sitting there nodding your head saying, yeah, I want to raise my kids completely different than the way I was raised, which is why we put so much care and effort into picking the daycares that they go to, the schools districts that we belong to, the private schools that we enroll them in, we are actively involved in knowing who their teachers are and what their teachers are teaching them. We care about their friends. We care about the parents of their friends, right?

Like if anything, there's an element of us going, I mean, I'm not going to, I'm not going to say it's too far, but I've certainly heard people criticize that parents nowadays go too far into controlling the entire experience of their child. The reason I don't agree with that is because I absolutely want to be heavily engaged in cultivating the entire experience for our children. Because when they're adults, they will then be at a place cognitively where they can make their own choices rationally, emotionally, you know, with the full suite of cognitive skills. Yeah.

At 10 years old, they don't have that. Yeah. At 10 years old, they need someone to help them process through things. And that's not going to happen with some of the friends that they've made. And that's not going to happen in some of the school districts that exist here in Florida. So we've made our own choices. Hey, you're just giving me such little hope for... For what?

There's tons of hope. You were... You just said, everybody wants to raise their children different than the way they were raised. I did not say everybody. I said the majority of the people who are listening to our conversations are going to agree with that. One day our children are going to have a podcast and they're going to have the same conversation. Our kids are going to watch this podcast and get mad at me someday.

Oh my gosh. Our son has already talked about watching the podcast. Yeah. He's already been like, oh, because I travel. I'm gone so much for this TV. show shoot and he's like oh dad don't worry about it i'll just watch the podcast someday i'll watch you on youtube because youtube's here forever oh my god i don't know i know it's so wild yeah it's so well but anyways so thank you very much for voicing your desire for a no day yeah one day one day i would

love to be the i would love to be the husband that can give you a day where all you have to do is say other people. I think that my no day should be your yes day. No, two totally different things. No? Just take a second. Think about the kind of things I would ask you to do on a yes day. Oh no, no. It's my no day. That's exactly my no point. My no day. My no day, your yes day. You one on two with the kids saying yes to everything. You were going to come out looking so good with the makeup and the same day, you get to say no to everything. Yes, I'm going to just hide in my room. Wow.

Just think about it. That's my offer. Okay, we'll do. So speaking of kicks to the balls, we are getting our first bits of information that the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7th may be an intelligence failure, that there may have actually been information, there may have been intelligence reporting, to point to that event that was either overlooked,

misdirected, or incorrectly analyzed. Yeah, it's not a surprise. So you say it's not a surprise. I think it's kind of a surprise. Why do you think it is not a surprise? Considering the fact that Shinbet and Mossad are two of the most sophisticated, best trained and most well-funded intelligence services

in the world, how is it not a surprise to you that they would have made a mistake? So I think that we can look to the past and see other huge intelligence failures. So it's not unheard of to have something like this happen. You're not necessarily talking about Israel. You mean across the globe. Oh, yeah. I mean, 9-11, for example. Well-funded intelligence organizations.

I mean, how we, Afghanistan was a massive intelligence failure. We didn't expect that to turn out. the way it turned out. Right. The invasion of Ukraine, the counter attacks in Ukraine. We didn't expect those things to it. Yeah. There have been lots of very big public intelligence failures.

And so it's not a surprise to me that this happened. It's also, you know, some, right now, some of the, you know, anonymous sources are saying that there was information that was passed up. And that is not surprising to me. surprising to me because there's in my minds when I heard about the attack I was like there's zero probability in my mind that nobody knew anything about it nothing is actually secret right I mean it's so especially something so large you know it's it's really difficult to hide I mean that's why you know when Russia started amassing troops on the on the border of Ukraine like they weren't you can't hide that they were just using propaganda and their you know their usual

if you say it enough times, if you deny it enough. People believe it. Or people aren't going to feel comfortable pointing out that you're lying. Right. Right. So it's really difficult when it comes to something as large as that to hide it. Even the attackers of 9-11, which was a relatively small team of people to do an operation that had a giant impact, even that, there was intel on those movements, right?

So the fact that it existed isn't a surprise at all. So where's the two questions for you? So first, if the fact that secrets exist is not the hard part, what is the hard part? That's my first question. So the hard part, I think, you know, I always try to remind people, especially conspiracy theorists. A conspiracy theory makes the assumption. that you have these individuals who have this master plan and have the foresight and the follow through to make something big happen.

And the funding. And the funding, right? You know, but the truth of the matter is, for the most part, you know, mistakes, and a mistake is much more likely than a conspiracy, right? For the, you know, for the most part, these are human beings sitting in a government role. they either get cocky and don't believe it or they get cocky and they don't want to communicate with the other services. Information just gets buried.

Information gets buried, right? There's, I mean, the people collecting, you know, the people collecting are at the lower levels. The people they're reporting to who have the power to take action are at higher levels. So it has to go all the way up the chain. And then the person at the higher level has to deem that information credible enough. to take action. And if they don't, for whatever reason, you know, they just, it's going to, that information gets lost and then things happen. So for people who haven't heard yet about this kind of breakthrough information, essentially the story broke on the Financial Times first.

There's a number of anonymous sources that come from the Israeli IDF specifically that have spoken or leaked anonymously to the financial times that not only was there information about the October 7th attack weeks before the October 7th attack but the the capability the strategy the key players all of it was actively known right there were yeah I have not seen anything that says that they knew October 7th would be the day right but the fact that they had a buildup of troops, a buildup of commanders, a buildup of capabilities, actual dress rehearsals of the attack, all leading up to October 7th, speaks to that kind of the confidence they had in that intel.

Right. So can you briefly run through what is the story? What are the information bits that are coming through financial times as a single source so far? Correct. That are telling us about what happened in the lead up to October 7. Right. So right now it's just anonymous sources, you know, providing information.

What kind of information? And talking about, you know, they were the intelligence officers who were on the border, were able to, who monitored the border, were seeing movements, just like you said, they were seeing known, you know, a known Hamas leader overseeing rehearsals of an attack overseeing rehearsals of practiced kidnappings, for example. They had intelligence that, you know, what actually happened where they, you know, they would distract with rockets and while they, you know, had troops on the ground. So there were a number of details that were observed by the lower level, the border, you know,

the border intelligence officers that were put into a report and then sent up the chain. and with that much detail, at least, like you said, that the date, it's really, it's actually really difficult to know the date and attack is going to happen. Usually, you know, even when you look at American terrorist cases, usually they know something as imminent is the word, but nobody, you know, to know an actual date, I mean, those are usually people on the ground and it's really hit or miss whether or not you're going to be able to actually stop an attack. So I'm not saying that the information would have stopped an attack.

Right. Right. But if somebody had taken it, taken the information as credible and they could have at least prepared, right, actionable, they could have prepared better or at least looked more into it to verify. It's really difficult because intelligence agencies are government agencies. There is a clear hierarchy. There's a process. There's a process. There's a bureaucracy. Exactly. And you have to take into

consideration the egos of the people involved. Just like I said, they're all human beings. The people who are at the top have confidence. If you are the leader of the CIA, you're the leader of the IDF. You're the leader of MSS. You have confidence that your country is awesome. Right? None of those people are sitting in those seats thinking, oh, wow, we're really vulnerable to a terrorist attack right now. Nobody's sitting up there thinking that. So when they have a report, that comes up and says, hey guys, we're, this is, this way it looks like this is going to happen. Maybe we should do something about it. They're like, you know, who are these people? So I'm going to get in the weeds a little bit on this one, right? Because, because first,

I don't think the average person understands what an intelligence report looks like, not necessarily like how it's formatted, but what are the steps that go into making an intelligence report? Because it's not like, it's not like a school book report. where you just write your opinions down and then the teacher gets it. It's not that simple. Right. And I do think that the process of creating an intelligence report, the vulnerability in that process is part of what happened here. But then second, I also want you to be able to explain what happened? Like, what are you reading? What have you researched that says intelligence was gathered,

but then it wasn't disseminated. So what was the process that led to it not being disseminated? or what was the process that led to it not being deemed credible? Right. So it was disseminated. So the general process with intelligence collection is there's a number of sources. And of course, I'm not part of the IDF. But in general, there are a number of sources. They gather the information.

The analyst takes all of that information. They don't just give it up raw. They take the information. So, for example, they might have the – they said they had the – the Hamas leader. So they identified him by, they had video of the practice session going on and they identified that leader by running his face through a database. Right. So there's all this background work because they, when they push it up, when they push that Intel report up, they have to be certain, right? Or at least they have to know, they have to be able to tell the higher ups the level of

probability of what they think they are seeing, right? That's what analysis is, is assessing, you know, taking all the information and assessing the level of probability of this is happening. And because we see these things happening, we assess that this is a likely scenario that's going to happen or likely probability, you know, a likely outcome. That's probable. And then they put it in a nice, easy to read package, and it goes, especially when it's really high up, and it goes up, and it's usually briefed by a person when you're that high of a level. A person briefs the actual, you know, here's bottom line up top, here are the most important points, you know, here's the most important details, and then if they want more, they can read more, they can ask more questions.

More intelligence reports will be written. And more intelligence reports will be written. So what happened here? They could have done more intelligence reports had somebody taken the initial report seriously. So what happened here? Because you haven't told us what happened. I'm sorry. You keep talking about the outcome without telling us what happened. It's like the worst part of a movie.

What's being. So what the Financial Times has reported so far is that the lead commander that this intelligence report was briefed to decided that Hamas, that there was no way that this could be. real, that this was a completely imaginary scenario, that there's no way Hamas actually has the capability or the inclination. That's what's so fascinating to me, that the commander actually, actually decided, actually felt that Hamas didn't have the inclination to attack because everybody knew what the outcome of the attack would be. So I've talked about this before, understanding the mind of your opponent, right? When we, it's so important in intelligence, when we, you know, go up against China or Russia or anybody who's, I mean, even if they're not a complete adversary,

we go, you know, we're working with the French, we're working with the Canadians, you have to understand what they want. Their mindset and their motivations, because how in the world could you think that Hamas wouldn't be desperate enough to cause this, to trigger this chain reaction? Yeah. Right. I mean, how much humorous and ego would that man have had? You know, and I'm not Israeli. So, right?

So I have to put myself into, you know, just the same way, right? Put yourself into the, you know, Palestinian mindset. Put yourself into the Israeli mindset, right? And you can see when you do that, how those perspectives can. exist. But from an outside perspective, having watched the scenario unfold over the years, I just think to myself, I mean, what a shame, right? What a shame that maybe it couldn't have been prevented, but maybe it could have been mitigated, you know, maybe the attack would have happened anyways, but less people would have died or it would have ended sooner. I mean,

not even that it's necessarily over now. But. So I also want to make sure that we're we're driving home the fact that what we're talking about right now is questionably credible. Yeah. The idea that this is an intelligence failure is not on its own even credible yet. Right. And because it's so soon after the fact anyways. Well, not only that, but we're talking about one news source. Yes.

Only the Financial Times has broken this story. Yeah. All of their witnesses are anonymous. Right. They're talking to anonymous border patrol. They're claiming that they are talking to anonymous people who are knowledgeable of border patrol activity and closed circuit television monitoring efforts. So we have no idea even what type of source they're talking to. We don't know if they're talking to somebody inside the IDF.

We don't know if they're talking to somebody who's a brother of somebody inside the IDF. there's no source chain of acquisition here that we can use to even call the reports credible. And the fact that they're only coming from one place, one new source is, so it calls everything in a question. But my point is, if there is validity to it, then it's going to make for a very difficult conversation moving forward. Because now we start asking ourselves the questions. Did the intelligence services know this was coming?

If so, which intelligence service knew it? Massad or Shinbet? Right. Because Shinbet, if Shinbet knew that there was actually, Shinbet being the internal law enforcement, national security arm of national security for Israel, if Shinbet knew and simply rejected it, that's a bad day. If Mossad knew, they don't really have charge for protecting the homeland inside the homeland. Their job is just to communicate it to Shinbet.

Yeah. But then there's also a third group. the military intelligence wing that falls under the IDF, if they knew it, what does that mean? And who's the one making the decisions and how's the hierarchy working? And you're right. The hubris is significant, but I mean, all the Hamas since 1987 has existed with one purpose to destroy the state of Israel and replace it with the state of Palestine. That's been their goal. Right.

To think that they would ever just stop making that their goal. Yeah. Takes a pretty incredible amount of hubris and ego. Yeah. But at the same time, Hamas has been under a very specific disinformation operation for the last, I think they said, five years, where they have been trying to placate the right-wing fundamentalists in Israel to make them believe that they are totally satisfied to be ruling. to be ruling in Gaza as long as they're getting aid and food and fuel and that the West Bank

is the real problem. And now for the last year and a half, all resources have been focused on the West Bank and nobody's been paying attention to Gaza. Yeah. And which I think is very smart of them and I think is fascinating because it's very tactical, very tactical of the Hamas strategists. Right. And it's been used before in other places in the world. It's not like this is a, of course, completely unheard of strategy. You know, it's, yeah, it's interesting to me. And I think that just like you said, when you can't fully verify a source, it's important to just take that information as one data point in your ongoing assessments, right?

You can't say, oh my gosh, I read this article, this is true, this is the way it is. It's one data point. And you keep it as a part of the conversation, but you have to remember that it's one data point in this larger ongoing assessment that you will continue to read the news and read the updates because it's going to take a long time for the truth of it to come out. And the important thing I think to do now is to start really looking at what happened to try to understand so those mistakes aren't made again. And on the other side of that coin, they really need to figure out what to do because the Israel-Palasin situation is absolutely unsustainable.

and you can't something has to be radically changed moving forward they need to figure it out because like I said this wasn't a surprise to me this could have been avoided years ago if they had just you know unfortunately the whole world agrees with you yeah when you say the words they need to figure this out the Israelis and the Palestinians everybody sees it as their problem And anybody who wants to help them. No, I'm not, I'm just saying the truth of it is, even as we sit here, we have an opinion, everybody has an opinion. Yeah.

But when it comes down to where the rubber meets the road for the vast majority of people, they push that problem off. And they say it's your problem, you figure it out. And when you push that problem to Israel and Palestine, what you're actually doing is you're pushing that problem to the third richest country in Asia, basically. and the poorest subjected group of refugees anywhere in the area. Yeah, and when you tell them, they have to figure it out together. Yeah.

It's kind of a, as fits a foregone conclusion. Yeah, and issues involving land and resources are always the most complex. Yep, and they're always going to go to the person with the most money and the most guns. Yeah. And it's just, that's just the way it is for now until, unfortunately. until some sort of disaster forces it to be different. I mean, I'm hoping that this is the disaster, and then it improves from here.

You and I, you and I often have conversations about your hopes. You keep hoping for that no day, too. Keep hoping for that no day, babe. Whatever, I'll keep hoping for world peace. World peace and no days. No days for moms and world peace for all. I wish I lived in your world. That would be such a, I mean, do you just eat?

One day, maybe you will. I mean, for real, do you eat candy corn for breakfast every day? Ew, gross. Candy corn. Sorry to all the people who like candy corn, but all three of you. So the last thing I want to do is I had a podcast recently, a podcast interview where somebody invited me to come talk. And they asked such an awesome question at the end of the podcast.

And I had to bring it over here and I had to share it with you because. very rarely do I feel fully stumped by a question, like where I really didn't, I wasn't able to process and answer very quickly and I had to like ask for a few seconds. Normally I just pop off in the mouth. But this person asked a question I thought was so great. So I want to get your reaction. So here is my question to you by way of Anthony Moe, former Titans football player. Okay.

asked me the question, how do you pick a good spouse? And that is my question to you, by the way of Anthony, how do you pick a good spouse? Did I pick a good spouse? That was my, that was exactly what went through my head. I was like, I'm pretty sure I did a good job, but my wife really sucked at that one. She took a bullet to the face. But it's such, how do you do it? So what are your thoughts?

I mean, I want to, how do you pick a good spouse? For everybody out there trying to pick a spouse or pick a new spouse, how do you do it? You know, it's so funny because I was just talking to a friend about relationships the other day. And I really, it's, I give the most horrible advice. That's a great way to answer. Start this answer right there. Because part of, you know, part of how I choose is because I want to feel that fire, right? because she was dating a guy who she was like,

he checks every single box, but we're doing long distance. And when I think about having to make time to talk to him every day on the phone, she's like, I'm kind of not inspired to do it. And I was like, well, like he doesn't sound like the guy. Even if he's the most perfect guy, I feel, so I feel like this is a horrible answer. But for me, in part, I have to feel the fire. I have to feel the chemistry.

Like, I want to spend all of my moments with you. Even when I want to be alone, I'm at least thinking about you and how I want to be with you once I'm done recharging. Right? Like, I, like, for me, that's really important. And then... Chemistry. The chemistry of it, because... What about all the girls that have tons of chemistry?

And then the dude's a dirt bag? Because you've had plenty of... I don't think that's real chemistry. But it still feels like chemistry. So how do you know that? difference. Yeah, so I think, you know, I think I've talked to you about this, how I feel like we should have some kind of like pre-marriage boot camp where you, like, force people into these situations where you see if they suck or not. You mean partners? You mean partners? Yes, partners.

You speak so generally sometimes. I'm like, do you mean we're going to put people through boot camp so we can see if they suck? No, so they can see if their partners sucks. Because, you know, you spend the week with somebody and there's so much chemistry and they're so hot and we're so perfect together, but then you throw in a scenario where like, who's going to stay up with the baby all night? Well, the other one has, you know, like all these things that happen like, you know, you're somebody close to you dies. How does your partner support you, right? You lose your job. Your whole life changes. You have kids. You lose a child. I mean, all these things that happen in life that, you know, how is your partner going to change with you? Because that's something I absolutely

didn't fully conceptualize when we got married is how much people people talk about change but I couldn't really conceptualize until it started to happen. So how will that partner change with you and grow with you and support you in the times that you need? And then do you want to do those same things for them? Right? Like when they need you, are you going to drop everything to go beat with them. You know, if they lose their job, are you going to support them when they're moping around the house for three months? You know, it's funny because I'm pretty sure that there are, I'm certain. I just don't know how prevalent it is. There are schools that are sponsored by churches. Yeah. That put pastors through this kind of training. Yes. Like a pastor that's being prepared to go out and

start a new church, especially if they're a young, newly married pastor, they actually will go through some kind of boot camp where, just like you said, it's like a simulation of five days or seven days or 14 days where the wife and the family get to experience what it's like to have a father or a husband or a spouse or vice versa if the female is the pastor. That's truly at the beck and call of the church. Yeah. So he gets called away to go pray over a sick person. Yeah. And then a phone call comes in and the wife is needed to go oversee some sort of other disaster

that's happening because she's the wife of the pastor, right? Yeah. And then what do you do with the kids? I know the kids have to come with us. And then you're all, the whole family's up until 3 a.m. Supporting the church. And then you come back together and you think you're going to sleep. And then something else happens.

There's a financial disaster that happens. And one of your big donors bails on you and you have to come up with a half million dollars for next quarter. Yeah. So there are schools that put people through that. And it's really interesting because I remember talking to one of the pastors that we went to. And he was explaining that process. And he was saying that it had a huge washout rate.

Yeah. That something like three out of every five pastors that have been tapped on the shoulder to seat a new church don't make it. Wow. Because they just can't like they realize the household, the marriage itself isn't strong enough to support a house. and a church. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting.

So I still don't know the answer to your question, the answer to your answer to the question. I hear you say chemistry. So I think chemistry is important. But then it's the how do you know it's real chemistry part that I'm still foggy on. I think part of that maybe it comes down to, because I'm trying to think of what has helped us through. And I think part of it is. It's not what's helped us through.

It's how did we pick each other. That's what I found so interesting about the question. So I think it's the same thing for me. Unless maybe we didn't know we were going to be good spouses when we first met. Well, I mean, when we got engaged, we promised each other we would never divorce. I mean, this was a one-time deal for us, right? You've regretted that choice, at least three times in the last 13 years. Maybe a little bit.

But then I got over that hump. But I do think that from the beginning, I have loved the way that you have communicated. You don't communicate like anybody in my family does. you are always open and honest and you want to have the conversation. And I find that, I find that to be really powerful and important because as you go through all the difficulties, if all the difficulties in life, as you go through all the changes in life, if you can't openly and honestly communicate about it, I mean, I literally just had a conversation with you where you were like, what do you want to do? And I was like, I, my heart, I want to be a princess. I want

you to work and I want to be home and take care of the house and I just kind of want you to take of me in my heart, which is so embarrassing to me to ever admit to anybody, right? But I, you know, we're at a point where I know I can say these things to you because I've said lots of things to you, you know, over the years that we've been together. And I know that you will always weather whatever I have to say, you know, you will always talk to me about it and, you know, explore the wise with me and think of options for us. So I know that no matter what happens, and I knew that in the beginning. I knew when we were dating on top of the chemistry, I knew in the beginning that you would always talk to me about things. There would never be secrets. That was a

big one for me. I remember that. No secrets. No lies. Which is hilarious considering where we met. I know. That's part of why it was so important, you know, because we knew people who wives never knew, her spouses never knew us. We still know people like that. We still know people who, that was their agreement as spouses. Yes, yes. Where, like, one spouse is like, you'll do all of this. I don't even want to know about it.

I'll do all of that. Don't even ask me about it. Yeah. And you're like. And you know what? That brings up a really interesting point, too, because for me, the communication is huge. But maybe what's the better indicator is the covenant that you make with a partner. because I feel like I try not to judge other people's relationships because I feel like as long as the covenant itself, the promise you've made to each other.

Whatever that promise is, the arrangement that you have with each other, you have both openly and honestly agreed to, that is your relationship. That's how you feel most comfortable and how you want to be with your partner. So maybe that's how you pick a good spouse. Maybe that's how you pick a good spouse is the spouse that when you make your promises to each other, taking into consideration forever, is that these the promises that you're willing to do forever. That's interesting. Not surprisingly, I had a completely different answer than you.

Yeah, tell me your answer. And also not surprisingly, I hear your answer and I'm like, what kind of like? I just know you're not a face guy, so you tell me. But your answer is all wiggly. I'm like, you make promises, but promises change? Like, what if I promised you that I'd give you vanilla ice cream, but then you're lactose intolerant 10 years into our marriage. Am I the one breaking my promise?

Like, I don't, this is all too nebulous for me. Verbal processing. So my answer, what I landed on after my, you know, extended pause of let me think about this. Yeah. is I think that the way you pick a good spouse is by making sure that you can have hard conversations before you ever commit to marriage. Yeah. Because kind of like what you were talking about with being prepared for the worst.

Yes. If you can be prepared for the worst, those are hard conversations you need to have. I will never forget. Oh, yeah. I will never, ever in my life forget the conversation that you and I had in your second trimester with our first child where we literally wrote down on a piece of paper the next five actions I would take if you died or not if you died if the doctor said I had to pick between saving you or saving the baby. I will never forget that day. It was it was just to have that conversation

with you to literally pull out a sheet of paper and then to write down the first five things I would do. it was strangely like terrifying and and empowering at the same time because at least in my mind's eye I was like well at least now I don't have to think yeah when you don't have to wonder when that moment comes I don't have to wonder what you would want I don't have to wonder what I would do I don't have to think about it I just can just I can just sit there awestruck yeah and pull the piece of paper out of my breast pocket and give it to the doctor yeah but that's a hard conversation yeah The thing is, though, that's what hard conversations look like when you're pregnant, getting ready to have children. Yeah.

But hard conversations when you're newlywed look totally different. Hard conversations when you're engaged look totally different. They're still just as hard. Yeah. They just look very different, right? Who's going to sit next to who and who's not going to get invited to the anniversary party and, you know, whose nephews and nieces aren't welcome at the house for whatever else? Like those are just as difficult to have, even though they may sound like they have less stake. Right.

They're just as difficult to have at different phases of your relationship. And then how do you navigate those conversations? Correct. So if you navigate them well together, then that's a good sign. Right. Even now we're still having hard conversations. But now we have hard conversations like two co-owners of a successful business with two young kids that are homeschooled, you know, living in Florida, preparing for a move. Yeah.

That's how our hard conversations are now. Yeah. But we still get to have them. And the thing that is always shocking to me is when, like, again, I can't help but look at my own family. My family is rife, like riddled with divorce. And time and time again, even multiple marriages and multiple divorces through my family, I have seen that my family does not like to have hard conversations. They would rather just push it off, ignore it,

It isn't there. Let it go away. It doesn't go away. Well, let's just cut this thing off and be done with it. My family's the opposite. We don't have divorce, but still nobody has that hard conversation. They just push it off and push it off. Everybody's just angry. Maybe drink it away and, you know. Yeah. Everybody in your, well, not everybody. There are people in your family that constantly talk about divorce. I'm going to leave him. I'm going to leave her. This is going to end. This can't last forever. And yet it just keeps. Yeah, and the conversation never happens. It keeps lasting. Yeah. To fix whatever's going on. So that's my thought is if you want to pick the right spouse, you've got to pre-qualify them, test them in advance with having hard conversations.

And then on top of that, if you still feel the fire and the chemistry is good, then you have a good spouse. Yeah. I like your thoughts there, girl. Thanks. Thank you so much for joining us, folks. We would love to hear your thoughts. Let us know what you think about, gee, he's no-day idea. and if you would like to have a no day yourself,

or if you're more of a yes day person like me and you want all the opportunities and all the fun that comes from having a yes day where nobody says no to you. And then, of course, if you haven't found the articles yet by the Financial Times, go ahead and take a look at the Financial Times,

recent history, recent news, talking about whether or not there may have been information in advance of the October 7th attack that Hamas launched against Israel and Gaza and see for yourself what some of the reporting is. And it's going to be really interesting to watch how that story spread

over multiple news platforms and whether or not it's verified in the next few weeks. And then lastly, if you are in the business of being married, in the business of getting married, or in the business of wanting to one day be married, I hope that our insights gave you something to look forward to. And if you yourself have a good answer, I really genuinely want to know, how do you pick a good spouse? I absolutely want to know your answer because that was one of the hardest questions I've ever had to answer. Thank you so much for joining us. Can't wait to see you next time, visit us at Everydayspy.com and share us with a friend. Take care.