Some More News - Gaza Hospital Tragedy, Biden's Half-Assed Doublespeak, and War Crime Copypasta

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

Hi. Katie Goldin is on today's episode with Katy and Cody to discuss the ongoing ethnic cleansing going on in Gaza, the finger-pointing over the massacre at Al-Ahli Hospital, and Joe Biden pretending to care about Palestinians while continuing to support dropping bombs on them. Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews Get hardware that fits your business. Take payments by smartphone, transform your tablet into a point-of-sale system, or use Shopify’s POS Go mobile device. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at https://shopify.com/morenews (all lowercase)

Hello and welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name is Katie Stoll. My name is different. It's Cody Johnston. The name. Hi. That's the name of you. That's the name of me. That's the name of you. That's the name of me.

That's the name of the show. All that remains is to announce the name of our guest and this week we have podcast host and some more news writer Katie Golden. I almost said Katie Stolt. That's you. I'm different and a separate human being from you.

You're both different. We're definitely distinct entities. For one thing, you live in Italy. That's true. That's kind of the only difference between us. Only difference. Yeah. And also you spell your name different. Yeah. It sounds the same, but it is actually very different. Got two Z's

a few umlauts. Yeah. Does anybody ever accidentally spell it K-A-T-Y? Yeah. All the time. Really? Yeah. Really? Because I always people default to K-A-T-I-E with me, and it's so interesting. I got all the people who can spell your name, and you've got all the people who can spell my name. We need to exchange. You got to trade people.

Got to trade people. So real quick, we're going to talk about some holidays. I think they dovetail nicely into this. October 19th, evaluate your life day. Jesus. Encourage everyone to check and see if they're really headed where they want to be. I feel like Wellcat is putting me specifically on blast, and I don't know how I feel about it. Dang.

Evaluate your life day? Holy shit. It's really heavy. Heavy for a holiday. Yeah, it's because Wellcat, you make fake stupid holidays. Evaluate your life. What are you talking about? Yeah.

But also, I get what they're saying. It's a bad name for the holiday. It's fine to check in with yourself. Like, am I on the right track? Like, how am I doing? How am I doing? But saying, like, evaluate your life is a little extreme. A little.

Yeah. It's like intrinsically judgy. Yeah. How about calling it goal setting day? Yeah. Like also if I'm not doing that every day, like wondering, am I doing things right? Yeah. Anyway, thanks for that.

Yeah. They've clearly never met millennials and under. Yeah. Like what we do best. really never met millennials and under yeah like what we do best uh october 20th office chocolate day bring some joy to your office with a selection of decadent chocolate bring trays of chocolate baked chocolate goodies or whatever else you like might i suggest this is me going off the cuff here ice cream that's not chocolate because not everybody loves chocolate i guess it's office chocolate treats will go well with the vanilla ice cream.

I know. You didn't say vanilla. You said not chocolate. But you know me well enough to know that I love me some vanilla ice cream. It doesn't. Some people don't. Some people don't. Some people don't.

And I don't understand those people. And they're wrong to do that. They're wrong for that. Like they're pretending like vanilla is not a flavor. It's a flavor. It's absolutely a flavor. What? It's a mild, delicious, refreshing flavor that goes well with everything. It's

literally a flavor because it's not intrinsic to the cream. Vanilla is an addition to the iced cream. Mm-hmm. If it was not vanilla, it would just be iced cream with some sugar in it. Plain. Plain sugar. Plain cold cream.

That sounds not good, but I would still eat it. I take a bit of issue with this Office Chocolate Day suggestion of bring trays of chocolates. Trays? What? That's a lot of chocolate. Trays? How big is this office? Will we be having several trays of chocolate in the office tomorrow?

No. That we all go to? No. The cyber office. Our common office space area. I'll send you pictures of chocolates. Sure. Will you?

Yeah. I'll eat a chocolate in solidarity. As I'm eating the chocolate, I'll think about each and every one of your smiling faces. Aw. Yeah. This does also seem like a bad timing for Office Chocolate Day. It's like 11 days before Halloween. Yeah. This does also seem like a bad timing for Office Chocolate Day. It's like 11 days before Halloween. Yeah. Do you not have do you not have a bunch of candy in the office for Halloween? What are we doing? I know we're doing which is not having an office so we don't have to deal with this. I mean but the only candy that you get on Halloween is candy corn. That's the only one. There are laws surrounding that, that you're only allowed to pass out candy corn. I support them. And popcorn balls.

What if you gave a kid a tray of chocolate in his little pumpkin pouch for Halloween? Shove the whole tray in. Every house has like a tray of chocolate for every trick-or-treater. Sounds cost-effective. And like that parent will love you very much. Yeah, yeah.

Sounds like a good idea. What even constitutes a tray? A box of chocolate is one thing. A tray? A tray is wild. I can't believe they suggested that. Disgusted. I got a lovingly made hand-baked good

for Halloween once, and that went directly in the trash. Yeah. They should know better. Did you throw it away, or did your parents? Oh, I threw it away. Oh, no, We weren't worried about razor blades. I just rejected anything

that was not corporate candy. It's a principle. Like, if it doesn't have a brand on it, it's not going in my mouth. Yeah, I get it. That was my policy. Like, look, there's plenty of time for baked goods in the holiday season. You got Thanksgiving, you got Christmas, all those days between, Hanukkah, all the different celebrations

and Halloween is not about that. Halloween's about the brands. It's about corporate endorsed candy. It's not about the baked goods. It's about the logos. Well, I do feel like we've just about mined this for all it's worth. And it's time to move on. Katie, how are you doing?

Well, you know, I'm fine. Yeah, good. Oh. Yeah. All right. End of conversation. Look, you know, I'm doing all right. Playing a lot of Baldur's Gate.

Reading the news. The two best things to do. And then decompressing from the news with the balder's gate yeah like i i think if it wasn't for balder's gate right now i would be on twitter and reading the news like 24 7 which is probably not good for me right now definitely not good so it's like 18 7 is you're on the news and then like 6 7 you're on boulders gate i don't know oh according to my steam logs it's more than six times the fact that they measure how many hours you play a game is cruel i hate that i hate that you've played 175 hours of this dork game you dweeb it's incredibly

rude it's so mean. Well, they're not taking into consideration the fact that there are huge crises happening all over the world with far-reaching implications that can feel unbearable, and we need an escape. So don't let the game shame you.

That's my perspective. I won't. Don't hate the game. Hate the player. Speaking of horrific world events, I guess it's time. Oof. It's been bad out there, folks. Yeah.

We're going to start with some Palestine updates. It's just very difficult online to parse out what information is real and what is not and who to trust and who to not trust. And we're going to unpack some of that right now. Jonathan, why don't you walk us through some of this week just to set the stage for our conversation, which I'm sure is going to change the trajectory of this war, our conversation specifically. So the single incident that people have been talking about the most this week was an explosion at the Al-Ali Arab Hospital on Tuesday, where it appears that hundreds of Palestinians died. Immediately,

Gaza authorities said it was an Israeli airstrike, and Israel said it was a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket. There has been a lot of attention going into what exactly happened there the answer officially is that we don't know um i don't know if you want me to go through all of the little bits of evidence here and there that have been well yeah i mean it it is interesting because obviously i well i know everybody on this call and I'm assuming most of our listeners have also been following this. And it was definitely a whirlwind, 24 hours of outrage and confusion and posts that may or may not be from the IDF or from a fake account. And then videos that may or may not be true and people saying this doesn't sound right there's so much different information and it's very difficult to unpack it all so yeah let's

walk through some of it i guess sure uh so the explosion was in the parking lot of the hospital there are available photos and videos that show burnt cars and bodies in the parking lot but not a ton of damage to buildings which a a lot of independent analysts have said also, along with the small size of a crater, would be inconsistent with an Israeli airstrike. However, that doesn't mean that what Israel says is true, that it was a failed Hamas rocket launch, since a lot of that doesn't make sense either with where Israel said the launch would have taken off from. And to believe that, you also have to believe that it was just terrible luck that Hamas was launching a rocket and then it failed and then it happened to light a bunch of fuel in the exact area where all these people were. So there's other theories that it could have been an air

burst munition from Israel that caused a lot of the damage. And then, of course, we also have the fact that they had fired warning shots at that area before killing civilians, and that they had called the hospital on Sunday telling people to evacuate. So you have to kind of believe a lot to accept that Israel had nothing to do with it but the idea that it's an airstrike doesn't seem to follow from the photos and videos we've seen yeah and this is where we're going to keep going through some of this stuff but I do want to interject and highlight how confusing it is to parse information because none of us know what we're talking about specifically in terms of what kind of ammunition causes what kind of destruction.

We don't know what the area looks like. We don't know what the hospital looks like. Now, and, you know, part of the reason that we don't know this stuff is that journalists are blocked from the area. Like there is a blockade. Israel has enforced a blockade. blockade. Israel has enforced a blockade. So journalists from other countries cannot get in to conduct any kind of investigation, to do any kind of in-person reporting. So if you really want to get to the bottom of this, I think there should be an investigation, but I think it should be done by third parties. I do not think we should trust the IDF to do the investigation because, I mean, obviously also the Palestinian health ministry and Hamas, like they're going to have their political agendas as well.

But like the IDF is not just like a neutral, trustworthy source, right? Like they have a history of lying about killing people. Like the, I mean, the famous one is that the IDF soldiers seemed to, I mean, we don't know, obviously, and investigations into this are difficult to conduct, but seemed to have aimed at, shot, and killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. So, you know, and they lied about it, said it was actually crossfire from Palestinian militants.

And that turned out not to be true. So I think it is actually, I don't blame people for not taking the idea and Israel's government at their word. I don't blame people for not taking the idea and Israel's government at their word. In fact, I think it is it's exercising, you know, due caution to not take them at their word. It doesn't mean they're always not there, that they're never telling the truth. It's just that, you know, you need to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, right.

And it's really important part of this conversation. I mean, especially since before the story became, it looks like it's a failed rocket from Hamas. Before that, there was information and videos shared claiming to suggest it was Hamas, but it wasn't even from this year. Why would you do that? Why would they release that? And it's everything is moving so fast and so quickly, it's hard to stop and say, wait, wait, wait, remember all of these facts. Remember that the IDF isn't something you can trust. But also same with Hamas, you know, can't always just immediately trust information coming from there either. Of course not. I mean, obviously, it's kind of hard to find any

humor in this because it's horrible. But I had this thought of like what if the israeli government idf is so used to concocting evidence you know constructing fake evidence that in this case like what if they're they actually didn't do it but they're so used to getting away with just creating evidence that they just created some like fake stuff right because they're like oh this will shut them up for now obviously i'm not like a freaking arms analyst so i don't know but to me based on like all the kind of circumstantial evidence it seems the most likely that it was israel but it would be really i don't know darkly darkly ironic if it's just like no they actually didn't do it but they're so used to just like creating evidence and having people buy it that they just did that in the immediate aftermath to like get people off their backs. Right. Because all the series of events and the statements and the evidence and then retracted evidence is just a series of like, why would you share that?

Right. Why would you do that? Why would you do that? Yeah. It doesn't speak to their credibility. No. No. Like they would do this audio recording. Oh, right, the audio recording. Well, everyone from the area, everyone who's an expert who listened to this audio recording that the IDF released,

which purports to show two Hamas operative discussing, oh, it's the missile, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. We did it, and here's how. Yeah, exactly. They say, well well the dialect is off the accent is off the syntax is not what people would sound like there yeah the tone everything about it is weird even without like that analysis which i think is good it's like just listening to it or looking at the subtitles it is a very weird conversation if this is a real

conversation it's super weird and stilted. The whole thing of like, yeah, like we fired it from the graveyard. You know, the one behind the hospital. Wait, which one? Yes, the one behind the hospital. It's questionable. It's questionable, right? Like I think like people are like, oh, you know, don't rush to conclude.

Like everyone's rushing to conclusions, which, okay, yes. But I think it is correct to question this stuff i think that it is reasonable to not trust this and then to be suspicious based on this very weird wonky evidence yeah and i also maybe this is i don't know i've i've seen people like sort of like also frame this as like so like if it turns out there was a misfired Hamas rocket are you gonna condemn them as much as you've been condemning Israel for this and it's a weird way to frame this whole thing because right first of all like just like the what your team you're this this this is just I don't know it's bothersome but also like I mean I'm still gonna be just as devastated that so many people died like I, I'm not going to be like.

There are people in a parking lot like like trying to like. Yeah, it's it's horrific no matter what. Yeah, I think it's important just to mention that those people in the parking lot were there because their homes were destroyed. And people were there. It's a safe zone. This is a spot for us so it's like but also if in one scenario israel bombed the parking lot in a hospital and kill these people uh in another one a rocket misfired right um which is a tragedy but that's not them bombing the hospital on purpose.

Right. So like it's not even the same like scenario. I have seen that suggestion, though. Like this is who Hamas is. They're going to blow up their own people on purpose to make it seem like it's Israel. I guess. But like, do they need to do that when Israel is saying like abandon hospitals and like leave?

It's also framing this as the pivotal thing. Like, well, if we prove Israel innocent on this, then you have to admit like there are no war crimes. It's like, no, I mean, yeah, this is a particularly bad incident. And I think that's why it's captured so many people's attention. But Israel's bombed other hospitals and there's been like important. There's been airstrikes on what Israel told Gazans were was a safe passage. Yes. Have been bomb strikes, airstrikes on cutting off water, electricity. Like, yeah, they cut off their water and electricity.

Southern Gaza, where they're telling people to go to be safe in the West Bank. But I also want to real quick not to blow past that because that is a good point, Jonathan, or like that's something that people have said. It is. We don't know. I also don't want to dismiss anything like, yes, that is a possibility. I don't believe it is the answer or what happened. I think it's more likely it would have been a mistake, a misfired rocket.

Or like an intercepted rocket or something like that. Not even the IDF is saying that they did it on purpose, you know. But sure, within the realm of possibility of war, of us not understanding, like perhaps that is a thing. But I don't think it's likely. It is important to know what happened because it's important to know what happens uh right these situations that it is important to know it doesn't change anything right all of our focus should not be on this right whatever the result is it doesn't change anything of this situation it's like there's still active ethnic cleansing and genocidal behavior going on on the part of the israeli government and the idf

and it doesn't really change that, right? You know, it's, I mean, it's the same thing when people like point to, well, Hamas did this horrible atrocity, killed these Israeli civilians. Doesn't that change your mind? And it's like, well, no, I mean, it just makes me think they're horrible

and they committed a war crime, right? Like some other party doing a war crime does not absolve a second party from doing war crimes and retaliation. And it's like you hear Biden talking about the other team. And it's so weird and gross to look at this as a team sport thing is like, well, if you don't want Palestinians to be killed, you're on Team Hamas. And it's like, no, actually, like, I just generally don't like it when civilians are killed and hurt and suffering is inflicted upon them.

I think that's wrong. I think ethnic cleansings are wrong. And, you know, I don't know. I'm just team don't do war crimes. Is that a team? Can I be on that team? Yeah, that's team Hamas, apparently. Yes.

Oh, OK. But that's the thing is, like, regardless of the outcome here, that's what we're left with is the civilian deaths, the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, the greatest single loss of Palestinian life in a single incident in this conflict going back decades. So that's where we're at. Everyone loses. Right. And this idea of like collective punishment, right, that somehow civilians should pay the price for their government or a ruling body to meet. Like, if you're an American and you're in favor of collective punishment,

I got bad news for you about our government and the war crimes that our government has committed. Vietnam, right? And the world finds out that our soldiers have been committing mass killings of innocent civilians. Yeah, whoa,? Yeah. Whoa. Shocker. Hey. And, you know, other atrocities in Vietnam. And the response was like, well, we should just shut off all the water and power and food to all U.S. citizens and start bombing them.

Start bombing like, you know, schools, residences, just in case military is hiding there. I mean, that would be insane. Like, I do not believe in collective punishment for anyone. I don't believe in it for any nation. I don't believe in it for Israelis. I don't believe in it for Palestinians, just as I don't think Palestinians should all be punished for their government. I mean, they don't really have a exact government, but, you know, they should not be punished for the actions of Hamas. And I don't believe that Israeli citizens should be collectively punished for the actions of their government. But, you know, I mean, this is not like a equal kind of issue, right? Because the entire world, maybe not the

entire world, but the major institutions, the major governments of the world, you know, our president, like the full bulk of the U.S. sort of government is basically saying that it is OK to exact collective punishment, which is a war crime, on Palestinians for the actions of Hamas. And that is ghoulish and disgusting. I don't know. I'm probably not being super coherent because, frankly, I've never been more disgusted in the kind of collective will of major governmental institutions. Yeah.

Sort of callous, sort of bloodthirsty approach to. Yeah. Not sort of. Well, I know. Yeah. It's very. And the Democratic Party be like. And the Democratic Party.

Exactly. Yeah. That's a good opportunity for us to talk about Biden's visit. Yeah. Or no. No. Yeah. It's just like this and

we've talked about this a little bit before uh probably last week but just this like supporting unquestionably this collective punishment and these actions but also on the side of your mouth being like we need to uh respect you know palestinians it's a humanitarian crisis and so on but also we support everything that's happening he's both saying that we stand with and support all these actions that are happening, but also the crisis that's creating is a problem. And it's just this tension and conflicting comments that make it all kind of meaningless. Yeah. Yeah. Like there was a tweet recently from Joe Biden that said the vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. That's correct.

Then why are we doing collective punishment? Right. And I've seen this argument that, oh, well, Palestinians voted for Hamas and that the population in Gaza there is so young that like somewhere like almost half of the population is too young to have even voted in that election, which happened. You guys know how long ago that? In 2007. Yeah.

There hasn't been another election since. There was movement to have one, but it got canceled. I think that the Palestinian Authority was worried that they would win again is what I've heard, but I don't know. All I know is that there hasn't been another election since 2007. Right. And I think it's really important that you brought this up. Also, they didn't win with a majority.

They won with a plurality. Yes, plurality. Right. And also, even if they did vote for them again, like we voted. Exactly. People vote for governments that do fucked up shit all the time. Should we do collective punishment on people? Probably not.

Right. But I think it's important to note Palestine is in disarray, has been. Right. They have been punished over and over and over again. There are so many things fundamentally wrong with this that they haven't even had the opportunity to get on their feet in such a way. And who is providing food and resources and shelter? Who is providing protection? Whether or not you agree with the ultimate goal of Hamas, at the of the day in these situations we can't even begin

to wrap our minds around the the calculations that go into how you navigate daily life in this environment so it's like should be disqualifying of that conversation altogether to me when people are like but they voted for Hamas yeah that to me sets off a spark of rage of like you have absolute you're not understanding context at all yeah the context is it's not like they're like having just like great lives and just decided to vote for hamas because they just are bad people who want to like yeah kill stuff that is yeah it is now 2023 right that's a fundamentally racist point of view, I think, because it's like these points of view are very dehumanizing because it's like, well, OK, so if they have this organization leading them in this sort of role, that just means that they of Palestinians over many, many years. The Nakba, the ethnic cleansing that happened in the 1940s.

You know, it's just, it's like thinking that they just voted for Hamas in 2007 because they're bad people. This happened in a vacuum. And it's like, you're just so willing to believe that Palestinians are just inherently less human such that they would be bad people right right i mean it's like what if people applied that to say americans or israelis like well you voted for bush you're just inherently bad people i mean that's the kind of logic right that like terrorists use that's the kind of logic behind the 9-11 attacks it's like

right americans voted for these governments that did terrible shit in the middle east therefore they're collectively responsible and that's an that is an insane bloodthirsty kind of position to take it's also not like a lot of this stuff is implicit like and implied in like a lot of rhetoric but this specific thing like many other things actually are explicit from explicitly said from from israeli officials yeah and like the prime minister like they've said that exactly what you just said that like they all don't count oh yeah all of them all of them deserve this i don't have the exact quote up oh i i do or like the what the children of darkness

thing like this is the language that they adopt because that's what they want people to buy into and believe and justify these things. You're talking about that post that was posted and deleted? Yeah, I actually do. I actually have that. I printed it out just so I can read it and rage at it every other minute.

I'm joking. I'm not that far gone. Sure, sure, sure. No, but yeah, the quote was from the prime minister of Israel Twitter account, which is, of course, Netanyahu. And the tweet was her ex or whatever the fuck it's called now is this. This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle. So this was tweeted and then deleted.

And of course, that's clearly dehumanizing and genocidal. But that's not the only thing. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said, we are fighting human animals. We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed. So that's another, fuel everything will be closed so that's another you know genocidal rhetoric and a now deleted tweet from uh ariel kalner who's a member of the likud party and a member of the um legislature said uh right now one goal nakba a nakba that don't know, the Nakba was the forcible removal of Palestinians from their homes in the 1940s. And that is ethnic cleansing. And so, I mean, imagine someone's like a pogrom, a pogrom to end all pogroms. You know, that is a disgusting statement.

I got, I think, one more if you have the stomach for it. Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, in terms of talking about civilians being innocents, he said, it's not true this rhetoric about civilians being not aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime

which took over Gaza and Akut. Risen up with fucking what? what yeah, but with fucking rocks Like what do you mean risen up like Americans are armed to the fucking teeth and Americans? Can't rise up against their own government. Like what are you talking about? It's so wrong because they're furious at people who just held Israeliraeli citizens to the same standard which is a wrong standard exactly it's it's terrorism it's a it's a terrorist yeah and you know i i guess you know it's important to reiterate the point like what hamas did in attacking innocent israeli civilians is wrong it's a fucking war crime there's no no defense for that. Now, of course, you know, you can say like, look, Gaza is in this terrible state and it's been attacked by the Israeli government and so on.

And it's like, yes, of course. But I think that in that case, like, sure, they have a right to fight back, but not against civilians. Right. Like, I think that it is it is such an important standard to rightfully condemn attacking civilians as a war crime. There's a reason we have these standards in terms of waging war. Yeah. And then, of course, to respond to that atrocity with like, well, we're going to do tenfold do that atrocity. That is. Yeah. That's like

righteous, bloodthirsty vengeance is not the answer. I don't know, man. It breaks my brain. And I want to this is something that has we've talked about in meetings this week, and I have seen some people talk about it publicly. There was no time to grieve. The horrific attack that started this whole recent conflict, not obviously the whole thing, but, and they've overshadowed that tenfold with their response. And like for, you know, especially for Israeli citizens, a horrific reality to face of not having time to even get through and process what has happened. And now everything is overshadowed by all of this other stuff.

So I just want to highlight that. Yeah, it's tragedy upon tragedy. It's piled it up. tragedy it's piled it up it's like and in the aftermath of 9-11 when you know our government used that as an excuse to attack go on a war and kill so many innocents and it's just like disgusting to me to use the deaths of people to go and cause more deaths of more innocent people it's it's horrendous i am bemused by people pointing to 9-11 as like, well, we wouldn't have told America to exercise restraint after 9-11. It's like, well, we did. A lot of people did.

A lot of people did. And they didn't exercise restraint. And now we think they fucking should have because. Yeah. I mentioned that on the last week's episode. It just blows my mind of yeah wait do you want to look back in 20 years with deep regret for and remorse over your actions do you want to spend the next forever unpacking this and never getting out of a conflict well i think the

answer for some people is yeah it's just blows my mind that it just goes out the window. Hey there, it's me, Cody, from later on with a really awkward and possibly tonally off-putting transition to the ads that we have to play. But we'll be back soon, so here are those ads. We'll be back soon. So here are those ads. Hey there, sport. Nice business you got going over there, selling your wares and whatnot. Maybe you got some rings or potions or something.

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So, sign up for a one dollar per month trial period at shopify.com slash more news all lowercase go to shopify.com slash more news to take your retail business to the next level today shopify.com slash more news so we got slightly sidetracked when we started talking about biden's visit and that's fine um but i think it's it's part of this it's part of this anger is because we are so complicit in this and we are um you know backing it yeah man we're directly funding it with our tax dollars and we're directly funding it and i want to start with this news it's hard to understand what goes on behind the scenes with our government especially in times like this but

a state department official resigned specifically over biden's handling of this and he's been a part the state department for 11 years and this is his way of protesting what we're doing and i think that that's important like to kick this off i we're doing and i think that that's important like to kick this off i'm like i yeah i mean that says it all to me yeah it's one of the it's some of the stuff and like some of the statements and little like reportings of people like unhappy with how things are going and so on it really makes you because like i mean katie golden you read off a bunch of really horrific quotes um that were statements. I remember that. You remember that. And so stuff like this just makes,

really makes you wonder like, what is being said behind the scenes? That's even worse than that. Cause there's this public facing stuff that is horrific, but then you have to imagine that it's even worse in private, in these, in these talks. And it is Katieie you're right important to at least

mention that this is having an effect on people inside yeah and it's interesting because you know you do see biden now trying to toe some line but not really you know we've mentioned this you know we stand in solidarity with israel but palestinians do have the right to self-determination and we're gonna send aid but also why do they need the aid yeah but like also unless it ends up in hamas's hands and that i don't know that gives me a little pause because how do you it's very easy to be like that's hamas what there's no i mean like whenever there's a pretense of like well we'll do this stuff we'll we'll only target hamas i'm sorry it's impossible like that's a pretense of like, well, we'll do this stuff. We'll only target Hamas. I'm sorry, it's impossible. Like, that's a fantasy that you can like somehow specifically prevent Hamas from getting access to aid. How would you do that? I mean, it's if you could have some kind of like

magic thing, right, that the aid does not get to Hamas. Great, but it's impossible. So you have to make a decision. Like, are you okay with like civilians suffering or is it much better to like prevent Hamas from getting some, I don't know, band-aids and water? I don't know. It's so ridiculous. Yeah. But it's always been this case. Again, it's that tension with like various statements, but actual actions.

Yes, exactly. And you can't be talking about this, you know, humanitarian crisis, this, this, this, but then also veto the UN trying to call for a humanitarian pause in the in the conflict right and i think the u.s has vetoed like 53 of these over the years it is uh steadfast in the lone voice being like nah it's all good actually and again that tension of saying like we urge uh israel to handle this within the confines of international law. They already aren't. Right.

They bombed. They're illegal. Like there was a. The settlements are illegal. They're recognized as being illegal except by us. Yeah. Like it's just this. In the West Bank.

OK, so the West Bank is geographically separate from Gaza. And there where you have a population of Palestinians and then settlers who are like stealing their homes. of Palestinians and then settlers who are like stealing their homes. And like they've been armed or at least the far right national security minister, Idamar Ben-Gabir, said that his ministry purchased 10,000 assault rifles and gave them to settlers plus helmets and body armor. And reportedly there's been at least 50 Palestinians killed in the West Bank. It's hard to know like how accurate these numbers are. Palestinians killed in the West Bank. It's hard to know how accurate these numbers are. But like,

we do know that this national security minister said he armed the settlers and that there has been some video of some Palestinians being shot. And so it's just like... Just in the West Bank? In the West Bank. And then also a UN refugee school was hit during Israeli airstrikes, despite having made their coordinates public, like, hey, we are in a UN refugee school. Don't hit us. And then they were hit during an Israeli airstrike. Yeah, it really does not seem like the end goal is just Hamas. And again, they said, especially they said as much. Well, it's more that the way American politicians are processing it, like we're going to focus on it this way. But if you're looking at what people are actually saying and what the actions are, again, we've said this earlier, but.

Yeah, it's. If you want to move, if you want to get out of town, go to southern Gaza. But now without any warning, they're getting rained down. And it's so like, I feel like I'm losing my mind that them telling Palestinians to relocate under the threat of bombing. Over a million Palestinians living in northern Gaza. Half of them being children. Half of them being children.

It's like telling them, hey, you have to move or we'll fucking bomb you. Like that is humanitarian. And then bombing the place that they're moved to. Well, yes, that too, obviously. But it's in bombing like the safe, the safe like routes that they were told. But even without that, like say they didn't do that, which they did.

They definitely did. Like forcibly forcing a million people out of their homes under threat of violence is disgusting. It's not a humane thing to do. It's not like, oh, it's so nice of them to give some warning. It's like, you know, this thing of like, well, at least they warned the hospitals before they started doing airstrikes. Yeah. You know, it's. I feel like I'm losing my mind that like you hear this rhetoric of like, well, at least they were warned. It's like to me, this warning is just like it's like say your goodbyes. Yeah. Or like anyone who's left behind, we can just assume is Hamas or deserves it because they didn't obey our warning. Right. If Hamas warned about their attack, would they be?

Right. Well, also, I want to just obviously can't speak for anybody, but I have seen videos of people saying, you want me to leave my home? Right. When I know you won't let me return to it? Yeah. Where, I don't know, where am I going to, am I going to be safe there? No, I'll stay here and I'll die in my home if that's what you're making me choose, because I already know you won't let me come back to it.

Yeah. Yeah. And that is unfathomable, an unfathomable calculation. Some of them are old. Some of them are sick, like to say like, oh, just they gave them 24 hours to do this. Right. And I don't even think they gave them 24 hours. They said that. And then I think they already started doing stuff within that time. You know, I mean, it's just like logistically speaking, evacuating a million people from their homes in 24 hours. That's a joke.

That is that is not a thing. That is not like a reasonable, realistic, like safety procedure. It's so such a bald faced, ridiculous thing that it's like, how can you not look at that as right? It's like we're going to do an ethnic cleansing and we're going to blame you if you get caught up. Right. But you're doing it with like a can you not look at that as right just like we're gonna do an ethnic cleansing and we're gonna blame you if you get caught up in right but you're doing it with like a polite smile right right it's like that like southern hospitality like oh bless your heart yeah okay and speaking to this a bit and i don't mean to continue to veer us off i'll talk about biden's visit but there's this post that has now been deleted from sarah silverman which i'm not i don't want to put her her specifically on blast necessarily i mean you should a little a little bit that's i know and uh

her excuses that she was like stoned and angry or something like that okay um which is okay that's legit that's like we've all been stoned and accidentally condoned war crimes now and again you know just a little little toped a little too much and you're like hey maybe what if we did collective punishment and I want to read I'll just read I guess I'll read the post at the top PSA which I don't know if you know it stands for public service announcement so this public service

announcement is a very strange thing happening many are saying that it's inhumane that Israel is cutting off water electricity to Gaza Israel made it pretty simple release the hostages and we will turn it back on. Also, I think Hamas has said several times, if you do a ceasefire, we will release hostages. But regardless, continuing with the post,

instead of pleading with Hamas to release civilian hostages, which includes babies and toddlers, there are politicians, cough, cough, AOC, calling Israel inhumane. If that isn't enough for you, all caps, Israel does not need to supply Gaza with these resources, which they do for free. If Hamas didn't spend billions of dollars on terrorism, they would be able to build the infrastructure to support themselves. So many things about this.

First of all, if you are concerned about the children, you know turning off water and electricity affects children, too. Yeah. Again, with the Hamas did this horrible thing and therefore more horrible things are justified is insane logic. Also, that's ignoring the realities of the situation, which is that they can't build their own infrastructure. Well, so yeah, so here's the thing. They're not allowed.

This is like this wild because if they're saying Israel doesn't need to supply Gaza with these resources, which is so like infantilizing and weird and like it's a prison. It's a prison. It's like they're this been in like Israel's this benevolent thing of like, well, these savages don't even know how to make their own water infrastructure. And Israel just is benevolent, like overseer who is giving them free water and electricity. And there is literally military order. Military order 158.

158. Yes. Yes. Military order 158. 158. Yes. Yes. They need to get permits from the Israeli military to do anything with water.

Any new, like wells. They can't dig wells without getting permits from the Israeli military. Yes. Which I'm going to say, it's probably very hard to get those permits. It is. According to Amnesty International, it's almost impossible to get these permits. And this has been the case since 1967. They don't have access to the Jordan River. They don't have like it is there's laws.

There is a military blockade against them getting supplies in. So so like, yeah, it's just like seeing that is just so weird. The ignorance. Yeah. And just like you're just like assuming like Hamas happened in a vacuum. There was nothing that happened before Hamas did this atrocity. Right. Like.

And then out of the kindness of their heart, they're allowing them to have water. I mean, it's like having a prisoner. Right. And be like, well, at least I give you free food and water. Yes. Right. You know, like it's it's disgusting. And if you shut off that water to those prisoners.

Right. That's. Right. We don't think that's good right right like you don't like punish there's a reason you don't like allow people to punish prisoners by not giving them food or at least that's sort of you know yeah it's supposed to not happen but that is considered inhumane and we're talking about prisoners in terms of like people who have committed crimes like we have standards for people who've committed

crimes which is that we should not be unnecessarily cruel towards them i mean of course we are like we are right i'm not saying the u.s prison system actually holds but that's what we say that's what we say right so i'm gonna bring this back to this topic that we started with of sarah silverman once being confronted with it uh you know she deleted it and says oh fuck yeah i took that down i put it in stories from someone realized it was a mistake to post in the stone fury of wondering where the hostages are and all this madness nasa gave sally ride 100 tampons accountability we love to see it wait huh she added that as well nasa gave which is in reference to the person who posted it who she's replying to, has like a comedy bit and I believe a song about Sally Ride.

Yes, I understand. But it's like a lighthearted way to end this apology. Like, oopsie poopsie, accidentally condoned war crimes. And still at the same time bringing back Tara into wondering where the hostages are and all this madness. We do know they're in Gaza, which Israel is indiscriminately bombing. So that's one thing. We know they're in Gaza. Yeah. And like Cody just mentioned, I mean, it's

hard to verify everything, but I also agree that I've heard this like we will release the hostages with a ceasefire. And maybe they won't. And maybe they won't. But I'm saying it. Obviously, it's not actually being explored. Right.

And this kind of to put a bow on this whole conversation is part of what's so frustrating. Not part. It is. It's a hellhole. Twitter is devolved into something that you can't get any information from. This was an Instagram story, but it's all feeding the same ecosystem of information sharing and with the way the wrong things get hold and cause a mania and get reshared by celebrities. And then they get reshared over and over again.

And it's just a wildfire right now. Right. And I don't have an answer to it except for take Twitter back from Elon Musk. I don't know. Fix the algorithm and just to reiterate what you were saying earlier than what I've seen a lot of is like here we are talking about all these new war crimes instead of talking about the thing that happened that was horrific and tragic and grieving for that and taking care of the victims of that and it like, I don't know, for me, it's just like, so you have all these innocent civilians being killed. And then it's like, now a whole bunch of other innocent civilians are killed, even more. And what's the difference between them? I mean, nationality, right?

And so, like, that's just adding to that feeling of grief, right? Like, it's just, it's making it worse and worse and worse. Because it's, these are all human beings. It's making it worse and worse and worse because these are all human beings. And I don't understand why we should grieve one nationality of people who are killed, but not grieve this other nationality of people that were killed. There's something wrong with that. There's something deeply wrong that we have this weird, grisly, gruesome calculation of how many Palestinian lives are worth one life of like an israeli person that that's it's it is a yeah twisted calculus it is twisted uh it's because i mean ultimately it's because like i mean racism obviously yes and they're poor and they have no power yeah so

they don't matter to the powers that be at all and that trickles down a lot and um yeah the whole thing's just deep deeply twisted deeply twisted oh well we um talked about all that we did not talk about a house speaker but i'm fine with that because we don't have one and maybe it'll just be whomever the fuck is the temp guy patrick mchenry yeah that's a conversation for another time would be nice to have a house speaker, though, during this time. Probably. Wouldn't it? Do we need one now? The government's about to not be funded.

Well, clearly we don't if their entire energy is consumed with fighting about who should be it instead of doing anything while they have the majority. I think we can take a tiny bit of comfort from the fact that Jim Jordan got fewer votes on his second attempt than on his first and then decided not to do a third attempt because he would probably have even fewer votes. That's super funny. We're proud of him. That's super funny. That's his podcast spinoff for Mars, even less votes.

I don't know. That was a reach. Katie, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today especially from italy where it's late i thought i thought i didn't know where that sentence was going like i thought you're gonna say like especially from italy i know how hard things are there it's like uh it's actually fine here i know how hard it is in italy yeah thank you for having me on I'm sorry for like yelling a lot but saw not saw saw not saw sorry not sorry yeah yeah thank you for having me on

that was a reference to a conversation we had before we were recording you guys will never know to include in a public podcast we call that a callback for us a callback for us personally not for you the inside callback right which is we, not for you, the listener. It's an inside callback.

Right, which is... We can put it on a t-shirt, but it's just for us, not for anyone else. This is for us, not for you. Okay, yeah, that's it. We're done for today. Cool. Yeah. I'm forgetting something.

I'm forgetting something that I always say at the end of the show. It's just that I'm so caught up with... We love you. The emotion of the moment. I think you're not forgetting anything. And I think that's so... Oh! I love you very much.

No, wait. We love you very much. We love you very much. Have you ever heard that story that Napoleon used the Egyptian sphinx for target practice and shot its nose off? Or maybe you ever heard that story that Napoleon used the Egyptian Sphinx for target practice and shot its nose off? Or maybe you've heard that a French astrologer named Nostradamus correctly predicted nearly 500 years of human history. Or maybe someone told you that the legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads in Mississippi.

These stories are what I like to call historical myths. Great little tales that may or may not have any basis in historical fact. On Our Fake History, we explore these historical myths and try to determine what's fact, what's fiction, and what is such a good story, it simply must be told. If you dig stories about death-obsessed emperors, lost civilizations, desperate sieges, voodoo black magic, and famous historical figures you thought you knew, then Our Fake History might just be your new favorite podcast. If you dig it, then subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.