Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - The Money Trail of the Terrorist Attacks in Israel

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

We continue our coverage of what’s happening in Israel with a closer look at the money trail. To help us do that, we turn to Emmy award-winning veteran journalist Mosheh Oinounou. Nicole and Mosh talk about where Hamas gets its funding, the inadvertent and intentional enablers and how the attack will affect the global economy.

One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that

I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details.

I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash, but I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your

reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. We continue our coverage of what's happening in Israel right now with a closer

look at following the money trail of it all. And to help us with that, we turn to Emmy Award winning veteran journalist and host of the Mo News podcast, Mosh Wanunu. He is my go-to guy for breaking down complicated news in a way, dare I say, you don't need a dictionary to understand. Mosh, welcome to Money Rehab. So great to be here, Nicole. So today we're going to talk about Israel and the money trail of terror. But first, can we take a step back? You've done an awesome job of explaining to those who follow you what happened in Israel over the weekend, the groups involved,

what the mission was. Can you just recap? All right. So first of all, as we speak here, it's about Tuesday afternoon in the U.S. and this is a fast developing situation. But what we know right now on Saturday, the biggest tragedy in the history of Israel took place. A massive terror attack by the group Hamas on Israel, effectively an invasion of nearly two dozen Israeli towns. They found a lack of security there. They blew holes through the wall in the border and have, at this juncture, murdered more than 1,000 Israelis, taken more than 150 hostage. This includes civilians, children, entire families, the elderly, just a massacre of epic proportions. The Israelis,

over the course of the past two days, have been able to defeat the incursion, but have launched a siege of the Gaza Strip. This is a small piece of territory, about seven miles by 25 miles on the Israeli border between Egypt and Israel. About two and a half million Palestinians live in Gaza. The Hamas terror group has been in charge there for about 16 years. They run an authoritarian Islamist government. Think Kim Jong-un. Think Iran. And they've been conducting terror attacks over the course of this last few decades since their founding in the 1980s. You know, at their core as a terror group, they believe that there should be no Israel and Israel should be destroyed.

What caught everyone by surprise this weekend was both the size of the attack, the cruelty of the attack. And I think I don't even know if cruel is the right word. I mean, ISIS-like tactics. Evil. Pure evil, torture, massacre, rape, kidnapping of innocent civilians. And so as we sit here, they're still figuring out the body count. sit here, they're still figuring out the body count. They've announced a war, the Israelis have announced a war on Gaza to defeat Hamas, but also to try to save the more than 150 hostages that are currently being held there. And what we're about to watch here could last weeks,

if not months, if not years. Again, given the pure evil we witnessed and how Israel and frankly, the entire West that has come to support Israel, you know, you're seeing the White House, you're seeing the Sydney Opera House, you're seeing the Eiffel Tower, Brandenburg Gate lit up in blue and white for Israel. A number of allies saying, Israel, you need to do what you need to do. You need to fight back against this terrorism. And that's the state of play right now. And I'd love to follow the money trail of this. It's not all money motivated, but where is Hamas money coming from? So let's back up here. When we talk about the Palestinian territories,

there's competing power groups, there's competing authorities. We've mentioned the Gaza Strip, this piece of territory where two and a half million Palestinians live. Hamas has been in charge there. They effectively won elections in 2007 and then effectively did a military coup on the Palestinian Authority and took full control of the place and have been running it for 16 years. Over in the West Bank, much larger piece of territory. It's a very scattershot situation in terms of who runs what parts. very scattershot situation in terms of who runs what parts. The Palestinian Authority, which is the government entity that actually signed a peace agreement with Israel with the hope of a permanent peace with the Palestinian state and Israeli state, they run a certain part of the West Bank. Hamas, though, growing an influence there as well as other terror groups.

Other parts of the West Bank still occupied by Israel where several hundred thousand Israelis live as settlers, and that's been hugely contentious. As far as money for Hamas, it's complicated because the world gives billions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians. Now, the Palestinian Authority runs a certain part in the West Bank. They coordinate with the Israelis, or the Israelis run certain parts in the West Bank. And then, of course, in Gaza, everything is administered by Hamas. So first and foremost, there's a lot of international aid that comes in. Gaza is one of the most impoverished parts of the world. More than half of Gazans live in a state of poverty or below. They're dependent on external aid. There has been for more than a decade, a blockade by the Israelis, but also the Egyptians, because of the

terrorism that emanates from the Gaza Strip. So that aid, that foreign aid, ostensibly goes to development, goes to education, goes to humanitarian needs, goes to construction. But in the Gaza Strip, that's all administered by Hamas, which first and foremost is a terrorist organization. So you can imagine, and you know, there's a lot of evidence of this, whether it's the UN, US, Israel, who've had to pause aid multiple times because Hamas doesn't tend to spend the aid on the things it's intended for. When they're talking about construction, the goal of Europe, the US, various countries that provide aid, they're thinking construction of schools, hospitals. When Hamas uses construction,

they're constructing tunnels, places to launch missiles, military training areas in order to train for the next mission against Israel. So they have a lot of aid. How that aid is spent is another story. What is that story? When they get the money, you said other countries, story. When they get the money, you said other countries, continents have been reacting. The EU just suspended aid to the Palestinian Authority. They did for five hours. And so the EU commissioner announced we're suspending aid. We see where this money is going. Several countries complained, I think, including Ireland and Spain and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is the European Union. There's like 30 of us. We need to vote on these things. So the revision from the European Union is we're reviewing the aid. So the aid is not suspended, but it's, quote unquote, being reviewed.

And in the United States, Biden restarted the aid when he came in. Previously, it was stopped because they paid people to kill Israelis in violation of the Taylor Force Act. Yeah, there's a law in the U.S. that came about because some of the aid money is used to pay terrorists who commit terror attacks. And so there have been many times where aid has been suspended by the U.S., including most recently during the Trump administration. Biden said, listen, the people are in dire straits. And this is the unfortunate story, one of the storylines coming out of this region. The Palestinian people and Hamas are two separate things, right?

They're being run by Hamas in Gaza. But at the same time, you have millions of Palestinians suffering, by the way, some of which totally agree with what Hamas is doing. A number of which say, this is a terrible idea. This puts us behind. We should engage with the Israelis. We need to come up with a solution here. And murdering Israeli civilians only hurts us, the Palestinian civilians who live in poverty. Biden comes in and says, you guys are in dire straits.

We're going to restart several hundred million dollars in aid. But this is hugely controversial because people after attacks like this say, where did that aid go? Where was the accountability? What did Hamas do with it? And there's a lot of question marks there. There was a recent study that found that Hamas allocates 55% of the budget, more than half of the budget of the Gaza Strip for military needs. And the share that goes towards the rehab of Gaza, this impoverished area that is in dire need of infrastructure, 5% of the budget goes towards the needs of the two and a half

million people. So there's that. of the budget goes towards the needs of the two and a half million people. So there's that. And then on top of that, Nicole, fuel comes in because people need fuel to heat their homes, to run their vehicles. Fuel aid comes in and some of that is then diverted by Hamas. They resell it on the market to make extra money. So the issue is the aid is misused. Some of the aid is then sold. And that's the challenge they have with this terrorist group that some had thought in recent years was going to become more responsible and be a, I wouldn't say partner, but at least you could have a conversation with them because they understand you're managing two and a half million people.

Do you care about your own people? And that was the hope. And it's one of the reasons probably that the Israelis, the U.S. took their eye off the ball here. They're like, well, you know, Hamas is starting to be more reasonable. Maybe they're turning a new leaf. And then this weekend happened and it reinforced everything everyone knew about the group before they sort of went quiet in the past two years and pretended like maybe we'll be a responsible entity. And during that time, it seems like there was no accountability or like following the money trail of where all of this aid was going. Very little of it. Again, there are times where it becomes so obvious that even groups like the UN, which is very sympathetic to the Palestinians.

In fact, the Palestinians are, I think, the only nationality on earth that has their own refugee organization within the UN. They were started years ago. You know, we don't have to go into the whole history there. But even the UN is like, yo, a lot of this money is getting misspent. We need to hit pause here. And that's happened a couple times. At the same time, you have Hamas saying, you know, the Palestinians are suffering. We need more aid. And you see the pictures and you feel for the people. And that is why you continue to see aid flowing in. By the way, we should note, it doesn't just come from the West. Two of the big places where money is coming in to Hamas, Iran and Qatar, the country in the Gulf, which has given more than a billion dollars to Gaza. Again, construction aid that Hamas then uses to build tunnels and military infrastructure. Iran, it's much more straightforward

there. They have their own agenda, which is the destruction of Israel. They share that with Hamas. And so not only do they give economic aid, they give military aid, weapons training, all the like to Hamas there. So this is a global thing. And at the same time, Israel basically controls most of the border there along with Egypt. And Israel has allowed this aid in because they don't want impoverished Gazans to hate Israel even more. They eventually need a partner for peace there. Now, Israel in recent years has tried to ignore the situation to a certain extent, and again, was hoping to effectively bolster Hamas for a variety of reasons. And so they allowed this aid in. They allowed the aid in with the hopes that it would go to the people, right? To build infrastructure, water, electricity, food, basics, life necessities.

Basic needs for one of the most impoverished places on earth. Yes. And by the way, there have been conversations in recent years, upwards of 20,000 Gazans had work permits as of Saturday to work inside Israel. That's increased over time. It went from 1,000 to 5,000. You know, by the way, we're still talking about a population of two and a half million. But there were active negotiations that Hamas was having about the

importance of getting more jobs in Israel. Again, leading the Israelis to think, whoa, Hamas cares about this stuff. That's great. Maybe they're becoming a responsible entity. There are enough stories over the weekend from Reuters and others saying that was all a Hamas plot to lull the Israelis into a sense of complacency and make them think that they didn't have the military ambitions that they once had. What do you think is the most common misconception of the facts between Israel and Hamas?

Where do we start? What decade, century, or millennia do you want to start in, Nicole? I think the challenge you have with this story is there's so much nuance to it. It's not simple, black and white. There's a lot of history here. There's a lot of complexity here. It's hard to isolate just one. I think for many people, every time this region lights up, which unfortunately is every year or two, you're coming in the middle of a movie.

And it's not like a short movie. It's several hours. And for many people, it's like, well, can you catch me up on the first four hours of the documentary or the first couple seasons of the show? Recap the first four seasons of Sopranos for me or Ozark or what, you know, like that's literally what we're talking about.

Like, well, then this person killed this person and this person claimed this and this person claimed this, and this person claimed this. I think that people want simplicity. Tell me who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Well, what if I told you that on the good team, there's some bad people, and on the bad team, there's some good people? It's just, there's a lot there. And even like when we describe, who are the Palestinians and where they live? Well, let me tell you, there's upwards of 20 million of them around the world. Six million live across the Middle East in places like Jordan and Lebanon. Two and a half million live in Gaza, managed by Hamas. Another four million live in the West Bank. Again, some under Israeli jurisdiction, some being managed

by the Palestinian Authority. A third section where there's a cooperative between the two. Another two million Palestinians live as citizens in Israel where they can vote. One serves on the Israeli Supreme Court. And you're like, whoa, that's really complicated. It's not as simple as I thought it was. No, it's not. And then on top of that, how do they solve this? Well, it depends on who you ask. For some people on either side, solving it involves eliminating the other people altogether. For some people, it's a peace agreement. It's a two-state solution. But how do you define that?

Well, again, it depends on who you ask. And so it's difficult for people to get their heads around because of the complexity there and because of all the various foreign involvement and the fact that, like, literally there's a religious component to it literally there's a religious component to it. There's a land component to it. There's an ethnicity component to it. And both sides, arguably through history, have been the victim and the aggressor.

And again, I'm not here to do whataboutism. I'm not here to do both sides-ism. All I'm saying is no one's clean in this. Now, there's different levels of cleanliness. But I think that's where it becomes really difficult for people to get their head around because of just the many shades of gray that we have when dealing with the situation. I think there's still a lot of confusion about Israel withdrawing from Gaza in 2005. And the internet, it's something gets posted and it's like fact and it gets spread. It's usually one of those, if you know Instagram, like one of those carousels with some cartoon

images and some quotes and some figures. And they're like, what about this? And I'm like, okay, who drew this? Who came up with this? Anybody that's trying to simplify the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a couple Instagram slides and claiming, well, this is the truth, they won't tell you, is lying to you and lacks understanding for what's going on. For example, the word occupation. In Gaza, Israel pulled out in 2005. It was like, we have no business here anymore.

Let the Palestinians have their own governmental entity here. have their own governmental entity here. Within a year and a half, unfortunately for the Palestinians who live there, a terrorist group took over the place and has been running the place like a terrorist group would for the past 16 years. The occupation is a much more complicated situation in the West Bank.

And one of the issues you have there is there's, we talked about religion. Well, there are core religious sites in the West Bank, what Israel calls Judea and Samaria, that are core to both faiths, both Abrahamic faiths. Because both, by the way, Abraham plays a role in both of them, right? Where is Abraham when we need him? We need to go back to Honest Abe, OG Honest Abe, and figure out, okay, talk to us about how you thought about Isaac and Ishmael.

Because two faiths, one with 2 billion people, one with about 14 million people. By the way, that's another thing. People are like, wait, what did you just say? There are 2 billion Muslims in the world. There are 14 million Jews with an M. 0.02% of the population. And it turns out that they share about 50 prophets in common. If you go to the Quran, which comes out about 2,000 years, almost 3,000 years after the Old Testament, maybe 4,000 years, I don't know. Depends on who, you know, what numbers you believe. What's 1,000 years among friends? Honestly, if you go to the Bible, it says that Noah, with his ark, was 1,000 years old. They

had issues with calculating age at that time. So the Quran states that Noah is a prophet, age at that time. So the Quran states that Noah is a prophet, that Abraham favored Ishmael, not Isaac. And you have Moses as a prophet in the Quran. So it turns out that these two faiths share a lot in common. And that also is unfortunate for them because all of their holiest events all took place in an area the size of New Jersey. And that's Israel and the Palestinian territories. You're talking about an area the size of New Jersey. On top of that, forget the area the size of New Jersey. An area the size of four square city blocks is the place where the Jews had the holiest temple where the 10th commandments were held twice, right? The temple mount. And Muslims believe Abraham rose to heaven

in his dream, and it's the third holiest site in Islam. The same point! Literally the Temple Mount. So, nine times out of ten when you hear sort of like a big thing happening in Jerusalem, it's usually some fight about the Temple Mount, this

little tiny site. Sorry to get too detailed here in history, but I think this is important for people to understand. Where one of the true signs, this is holy territory for us. You know, Jews can go there as tourists, but can't pray on the holiest site in Judaism. They have to be below at the Western Wall, at the wall of the Temple Mount. And so, you know, one of the things that come up,

and it came up over the weekend, you know, Hamas is like, we don't like that the Jews are going there during their holy day. And the Jews are are like but this is our holy place too anyway there's a lot there if you're getting a sense of things and having gotten to the politics or the colonial powers and their influence the six wars that were fought between 1948 and today and then all the other Arab countries the complexity there know, one thing to keep in mind, the modern iteration of conflict really started in 1948 with the creation of Israel, is you now in recent years, and this is an important factor here that gets to the answer of why. Hamas is watching, and the Palestinians are watching, is the Arab world, which has been

giving hearsay to the Palestinian cause for many years saying, you know, there are Muslim brothers, there are Arab brothers. It's like, you know what, we're dealing with reality on the ground. Israel's been here 75 years. They're an economic powerhouse. Let's have a relationship with them. So recently, you had Morocco sign a deal with Israel. You had the United Arab Emirates sign a deal with Israel. You had Bahrain sign a deal with Israel. Who was about to sign a deal with Israel? Well, in final stage negotiations, you had the Saudi Arabians and Israel. That was set to be a game changer. The home of Islam, the home of Mecca and Medina, signing a deal with the Jewish state, about to give billions in aid to the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority, the competing power to Hamas, Saudi Arabia, and Israel,

in an alliance against Iran. They might not love each other right now, but they sure as hell have something in common. They both hate Iran, and Iran views them as a threat. Who is the godfather to Hamas? Iran. So when you look at why, Hamas sees what's going on, Iran sees what's going on, they don't like it.

It's not good for them. They have to do something. They have to blow it all up, figuratively and literally. Yeah, they blew up the peace talks between Saudi Arabia. I mean, yes, you and I both wish we could go back to simpler times of Moses and Abraham. But we're not in simpler times. I don't know if you read the Old Testament, they didn't seem very simple. They didn't have crypto, which is bucking it all up.

In my reading of the Old Testament and New Testament, you're right, there was no crypto. But someone who does have crypto today is Hamas. And I think where you're going, if I can sense things, is when we talk about funding for Hamas, they're able to utilize crypto in a way that didn't exist that many years ago. And a big way to be able to curb terrorism and curb the influence,

power and money coming into terror organizations is to shut off the money coming into them. And there's a certain transparency globally. The US is able to exert a lot of power with sanctions saying, you can't do business with the biggest economic powerhouse on earth, America, if you work with the following organizations or countries. And that was very effective. It's a very effective tool in the pre-crypto era. Now, the issue being faced now is to shut off funding to Hamas. There's no transparency.

I mean, there's a certain level of transparency in crypto, but their ability to be able to get money, transfer money in and out has been, in talking to officials who work with the US Treasury Department, has been extremely frustrating. So you've had the US government looking at companies like Binance, looking for some transparency saying, do you know the amount of crimes and terrorism being committed through laundering through your company, through crypto? And so terrorists, not just in the Middle East, but all over the world, have found this as a very effective tool in order to get money in hundreds of millions, if not billions, for their causes. Yeah. Do you know about the Hawalas, how they used to transfer money from one person to the next person? Physically, you would go see a guy on a corner, and then they would give you cash, and then that person would move it. And it just

happens at lightning speed now. It's like any new technology, right? The internet can be used for good and bad. Social media can be used for good and bad. And crypto can be used for good, though having listened to your show and knowing you pretty well, Nicole, is very little in the way of good. At least a biters adding your viewpoint on crypto. But in this case, you know, this is one of the frustrations people have with crypto. Add it to the list of the many reasons that I dislike crypto. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back.

One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous

$35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC.

SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to chime.com slash disclosures for details. I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash, but I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of

high-quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it.

But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. And now for some more money rehab. What about the impact of the attack on Israel financially? What does it mean for the IDF, for Israel, for markets, for jobs, for the economy? So just to give you a little sense,

there's a huge tech sector in Israel. There's an industrial sector in Israel. And Israel also has a very large tourism economy and events economy. Now, those first two, tech and industrial, impacted less by this, except I'll put an asterisk, because Israel is a country that has a citizen military. Almost all citizens serve in the military. They've called up 300,000 reservists for potential invasion and what could be a long-term

war in Gaza. Well, those are all people who are part of the economy. And there's actually a huge number who come from the military or work as commanders in the military who go into tech and startup world. There's a book out called Startup Nation that came out a few years ago by Dan Senor. And it turns out that the way that Israel trains its soldiers young lends to the startup culture they have there.

So you do have a lot of reservists who want to defend their nation right now who are going to be leaving their jobs. So that's one of the things to watch here when it comes to the Israeli economy. Tourism was certainly impacted. You're hearing more about people trying to get out of the country right now than come into the country. And so that's going to be an issue here, depending on how long this war goes. And that's the big question, Nicole, to be able to say what economic impact this will have on Israel, which is a gangbusters economy.

If you've been to a big city there, Tel Aviv, in recent years, the growth there, the skyscrapers there, it's incredible to see the high tech bases there. I mean, there's no major name in tech in the Nasdaq that doesn't have an office in Israel. Yeah, it's the second largest representation on the NASDAQ, Israeli companies. It's incredible. And in order to have bases there, you have to be able to recruit workers there. In order to recruit workers there, you have to promise them there's not going to be a war, that they're going to be safe. And so that's one of the many challenges they're going to have. So tourism, tech, the reservists are all factors to watch here when it comes to the Israeli economy. And what about the region?

I mean, we could talk about this for hours, but if you can try to distill it, oil, how does this affect oil markets? Oil is up. The rest of markets, the rest of the world, you know, when oil does something, it affects gold. Well, we all know, I mean, the global economy revolves around energy, right? And any time there's instability in the Middle East, it'll trigger a couple dollars on the market. Like, you know, immediately oil is up when traders are like, oh, something bad is happening there.

And until they get a sense of how bad it is and how it's going to impact consumers globally, the global economy, it goes up and then it sort of chills out. it goes up, and then it sort of chills out. Now, in this case, there are a lot of question marks we still have. And one of the big ones is, how wide does this war spread? Right now, it appears to be a war between Israel and Hamas. But Hamas's godparent is Iran. Iran has said, Israel, if you step too far in Hamas, we're going to get involved. Well, Iran is a powerhouse in terms of energy, right? Natural gas, oil. Now, of course, the US has had some significant sanctions on it. But at the same time, you know, they still sell to a whole bunch of countries out there. Well, if Iran's involved in a war, that would get the US involved in the war. And now we're talking about a regional war, if not a world war, right? Now, I don't want to sit here and scare people. All I'm saying is, in order to answer that question, you have to be able to rule out

a larger war, which we can. At this moment, we're speaking at Tuesday afternoon. One of the reasons the US has moved more military equipment into the region is basically to shake their finger at Iran saying, do not take this further. Do not get involved. Iran has another terror group they sponsor, they train, they supply called Hezbollah in Lebanon. By the way, Hezbollah has several times over the amount of weapons, training, and resources that Hamas has. They've been living free, roaming free in Lebanon and Syria for years now, and they've promised to get involved if Israel invades Gaza. So that then escalates things further and creates more concern for energy traders, more

concern for the global economy, because now you're talking about a regional war. And then one other thing to watch, Nicole, is as this war progresses, Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Hamas, as a terror group, puts a lot of their weapons and shoots from civilian buildings. They co-locate their weaponry and missile launches from residential buildings. So the situation you face now, Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties, but if they're trying to target Hamas, there will be civilian casualties. How high will that civilian toll be? Unfortunately, if we're looking at history, it tends to be pretty high in Gaza. I mean, as we speak here, we're approaching 2000

people dead between the two sides, and we're four days into this war. As the casualty numbers escalate, that could stir things up across the region, which the Arabs have a lot of sympathy for the Arab street, I should say, it's called the Arab street, as in regular citizens of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, of Jordan, of Syria, etc. As they watch, you know, pictures coming out of the region, and the Palestinian death toll increase, that could increase issues across the region. And many of those countries are oil producing nations. So talk to me about what's at stake with Iran. Of course, a couple of weeks ago, did you smell some of this? I know you just had a baby girl. So you're thinking about other things. But Biden just

released $6 billion to Iran in exchange for five hostages a couple weeks ago. And was there blood in the water at that point? In hindsight, it always is, right? Yeah, in hindsight, you're like, well, they were feeling like they could get away with more. And really, Nicole, it depends on where you want to start the story. We could start the story with Iran. There was a revolution back in 79, but we don't need to go that far back. But in recent years, you've had sort of this push and pull when there's a Democratic president of the U.S. or a Republican president. Bush labeled Iran part of the axis

of evil. Obama comes in and says, they're intending to build nuclear weapons, let's negotiate with them to stop it. Whereas the Republican philosophy says, we're going to sanction the hell out of them and use intelligence services and blow certain things up in order to prevent them from nukes. Obama says, let's make a deal. And he made a deal. Trump comes in and says, this is a bad deal, rips up the deal. Biden comes in and says, let's make a deal again. I was vice president back then. Let's make a deal. I feel that the way to prevent Iran from getting nukes, and that's the concern, Iran, run by an Islamist regime, authoritarians with visions of grandeur and feeling like they might actually use nukes because of how they feel

about faith and the future and bringing on the Messiah. He says, we got to stop them from nukes by making a deal. Well, those talks fall apart, especially as we saw this protest last year, and saw Iran gunning down its own people, arresting its own demonstrators in the street. No one's making a deal with that sort of regime again. Things sort of quiet down. It happens to be that Iran is holding five Americans in prison, some going back nearly a decade. And the US strikes a deal. We're going to release prisoners for prisoners. And we're also going to release $6 billion that's in a South Korean bank because Iran sold oil to South Korea. And because of our sanctions, it's been frozen in a South Korean bank. So this was not U.S. money, but this was Iranian money that was frozen in South Korea. We'll let you have it.

That happened a couple weeks ago. Now, this Hamas operation, they didn't just come up with it in the last two weeks. They've been planning this for more than a year. But you can see where Iran feels empowered. Iran feels like it can push buttons here. You can also look at the fact, let's go back just a little bit further to 2021, the US debacle of a pullout from Afghanistan. The US basically puts its hands up and says, we're done with this region. We've done a 20-year war in Afghanistan. We've done a 20-year war in Iraq. We did ISIS. We've spent trillions of dollars.

We lost thousands of American lives. We're done. Iran says, ISIS. We've spent trillions of dollars. We lost thousands of American lives. We're done. Iran says, cool, this is our neighborhood now. We're going to continue to expand our influence. And one of the ways we do that is through one of our little buddies, Hamas. And weapons that went from that region into Hamas's hands, allegedly. Yeah. I mean, that's how Iran pushes its agenda is they have a terrorist group in Yemen,

they have Hezbollah in Lebanon, they have a terrorist group in Hamas in Gaza. We don't need to get into the faith differences. But you know, Iran is the home of Shiite Islam. Saudi Arabia is the home of Sunni Islam. Shiites have been on the downside of Islamic history for about 1000 years since they last ruled the region. Now they're on the upswing. The Shiites have a lot of control in Syria now. They have control in Lebanon through Hezbollah. The Shiites, Iran, has more influence over Iraq than it's ever had. You know, you can look back now and you can second guess, for many reasons, the U.S. strategy in Iraq. But one of the things that we did by taking out Saddam is open the door for Iran to come in. And so, Iran now has this influence going, if you look on a map, Iran into Iraq, into Syria, into Lebanon, and then encroaching into

Gaza. And so Iran's looking at a map and they're like, this is great. Talk to me about the connective tissue between what's happening now and what's going on in the markets. We touched on oil and oil being up slightly is kind of a bet by energy traders and the market that it's going to get a little bit more complicated in the region affecting oil producing nations. The market in general, like the stock market, is actually up right now. So when we talk about potentially Iran having nukes and this turning into like World War Three and again, a very unlikely scenario I just want

which is also being reiterated by the market like if we thought that the apocalypse was coming everybody would cash out of the market and go have a party and yeah despite the fact that there are people in the region who literally think that certain things need to happen for the

Messiah to come back I would say everyone take a deep breath here. If past is prologue, now again, this is unprecedented strike. What has happened in Israel, this massacre, we should know, deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. That was Saturday. It is the worst tragedy in Israeli history. They feel the need to completely eliminate Hamas. But at this juncture, this is a regional war. Hamas, by the way, is basically dependent on aid, so it doesn't have an economic impact at all. The Israeli economy will continue to go along. Will it grow like it was going to? No. But at

this juncture, when we talk about conflicts with global impact for the markets, the one to still watch is Ukraine-Russia in terms of its impact, in terms of what Ukraine has produced. Now, that's sort of cooked in at this point. The one to be really worried about is anything happens between China and Taiwan. That's a different level of impact for global economy, given China's role, given the US potential role there. So this sort of, I don't want to minimize what's happening in the Middle East, but this is sort of isolated to that. Now, people are trying to basically put up tentpoles there to ensure it doesn't expand beyond that. You know, in terms of economic impact, it's regional, and I'm sure it'll affect certain companies. As I think about it, Nicole, you know, I'd be curious to like for Teva Pharmaceuticals, which is an Israeli pharma startup, but basically has a good portion of the generic drug market in the world. And that's based there. So as we talk about drug

shortages, etc, that's worth research. And so, you know, I think it's important to look at some of the companies that are based out of there. But know that, especially when the lessons I think coming out of COVID, coming out of Ukraine, Russia, is a lot of companies have learned to build redundancy into their systems, whether supply chains, whether it's ensuring that they have resources in multiple places, and not to double down on one place, given how unstable this world, especially has been in the past couple years. Yeah, I mean, supply chain safeguards are one thing, but then talk to me about corporate warfare and what happened with 23andMe.

But then talk to me about corporate warfare and what happened with 23andMe. So you're talking about the hack. So this story sort of popped Friday afternoon, interestingly, just a few hours, actually, before the terror attack began in Israel. And essentially what we learned so far, again, as we speak here on Tuesday, is that more than a million accounts, I think it's 1.3 or 1.4 million accounts were hacked, targeting anyone of Ashkenazi Jew descent, that is a Jew of European origins. Even if you're 1%, they somehow got a hold of your information, and they hacked through people's passwords. Now, what their goals are, they're selling information on the black market.

What the nefarious goal here is still unclear because we still don't know who the culprit was. By the way, on top of those million or so accounts of Ashkenazi Jews, about several hundred thousand people of Chinese descent had their accounts hacked as well. So that's still TBD right now. But keep in mind, as we talk about warfare, we've been talking about warfare in the more conventional sense so far. Cyber warfare is a whole other story.

And that's something that the Iranians are trying to become more adept at. And one of the major things that most rogue regimes or rogue groups around the world have tried to become experts at is ransomware. And you've seen examples of that across the spectrum, whether it's hospitals where they will hack the system, shut down the computers of the hospital, threaten to reveal medical records of people in exchange for money. You saw it most recently in Vegas, the hack into the MGM and the casinos that's lasted weeks. That, again, is ransomware criminals demanding money in exchange for, you know, letting you have your system back. And in many cases, these hacks, very simple. I think the MGM one allegedly

was through a LinkedIn account, getting people to reset their password. And in the case of 23andMe, getting back to that, it turns out, Nicole, and we should suggest to everyone in the audience, I know it's annoying, but you can use things like

one password and dash. Yeah, I have dash. You need multiple passwords. So annoying, but I can use things like 1Password and Dashlane. Yeah, I have Dashlane. You need multiple passwords. So annoying, but I like having it when we have conversations like this. Yeah. You need multiple passwords because guess how they hacked many people on 23andMe? Because of other hacks and they tried a password you had on a different website. And guess what?

You use the same one. All right. So we leave our listeners with a tip they can take straight to the bank in addition to getting a fancy password system. Is there anything else that you would leave listeners with to try and protect themselves? This is a situation that you should get informed about. You should not forget the basic humanity here.

You know, some of the things we were talking, Nicole, on social media is there's no rationalizing murder. There's no rationalizing torture, rape, kidnapping, civilians. There are legitimate grievances that need to be addressed. And they go back decades. There are a number of things going back decades that have been left unaddressed, people in need of rights of their own statehood, governments that are negligent to their own people, to the people around them. And I think it's important to be informed about all of that. But as we sit here, you and I, you know, I've gotten some nice notes. I'm Jewish. It was a very painful weekend. So are you. If there's a Jew that

you know, make sure you can tell them that you're thinking about them. You know, people have actually asked me, not Jews, like, what should I say to Jews in my life? Tell them you're thinking about them. Tell them that you're watching what's going on. Tell them you're horrified by what's going on. As I mentioned earlier, there's only 14 million Jews in the world. We feel very lonely sometimes. History has not been kind to us, especially, well, frankly, going back several millennia. And times like these, we feel particularly vulnerable,

particularly alone. And when you have people rationalizing what took place against you, it's just important, again, yes, there are grievances, yes, there are political issues, but guess what? The attack over the weekend is not going to solve any of them. In fact, it's only going to reverse that. So this is slightly different advice than make sure you use different passwords on your computer. But I think becoming informed on these things, making sure that the people in your life who might be affected by this, whether they're Jewish, whether they're Palestinian, that you're thinking about them, that you're in touch with them. That's important. And I think that it's so interesting to me as a journalist covering

the world, how much attention this conflict, this region gets versus others, other issues out there. And I think some of the stuff we discussed in this podcast, the history, the religion, religious aspect, et cetera, is one of the reasons this issue gets elevated. But I think it ain't going away. And as much as the US would like as far as foreign policy, you're never quite getting out of the Middle East. There's always going to be a role for you there. There's going to be a connection there. And so you as a citizen, you as a listener, you as an informed human being, a citizen of the planet, it's important for you to, despite the fact that it does seem complex, it's important for you to, despite the fact that

it does seem complex, it does seem overwhelming, to start to learn about what's going on there. Because if it's not this time, inevitably when the next conflict pops up in the next couple years, it's important for you to kind of have a baseline grasp of what's going on. I think that's right. And I would just add that there will be time to talk about all the grievances and all the millennia. And I feel like right now that's not the time. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin.

Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.