Some More News - Palestine, Israel, Bloodlust, and Where We Go From Here

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Hi. In today's episode, Katy, Cody, and Jonathan discuss the aftermath of Hamas' attack in Israel, the violent retribution taking place in Gaza, and the scary post-9/11 vibes of it all. Here are two previous episodes of "Some More News" we reference during the podcast: Uncomplicating The "Complicated" Palestine/Israel Conflict – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INCXqWzH5vkHow To Maybe Criticize Israel? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6YD0n5z-MI 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:

Hello and welcome back to even more news the first and only news podcast I guess that's a stole that's what we say every week yeah it's correct every week especially this one hi katie i'm especially this one doesn't feel weird saying that today glib oh the not your name the intro to the show hi my name can be glib hi it's okay uh no guests this week no guests this week just us and jonathan of course jonathan of course oh we are not our usual bantery selves right now, are we? What are the holidays? Tell me some holidays. Just really jumping right into that.

We went back and forth about whether or not we should include holidays this week. We landed on none for the first time. However, Jonathan did include one last second edition because it feels appropriate. And today, October 12th, is International Moment of Frustration Scream Day. To share any or all of our frustrations, all citizens of the world will go outdoors

at 1200 hours Greenwich time and scream for 30 seconds. We will all feel better. Is it not Greenwich? It's Greenwich. I always get, I like smirk. Sorry. No, no.

I have my monitor. A ham Greenwich. We've got a lot of heavy stuff to talk about today, but I'll just explain this briefly for you guys. stuff to talk about today but i'll just explain this briefly for you guys i have a monitor that i read things off of which is to the right and the zoom is on my monitor which is in front of me so i don't always see people's faces but as i said green witch i thought that can't be right and i glanced up and yes i did see jonathan going making a face i should turn off my camera for all of these please don't we love i don't want to make faces he was throwing up on camera he was so disgusted must correct her i feel frustrated by jonathan which is perfect for international moment of frustration scream day. Anyway, that's the holiday. We did it.

We did it. Okay. So obviously this has been an incredibly horrific news week. And there is so much to say. Too much for one episode of a podcast. And it's hard to know where to begin. But I think the best course of action would just be to start it Saturday. And what happened this week when Hamas launched an attack on Israel and shocking to the world for the first unprecedented attack? attack so this this hamas attack uh according to israel at least 1200 people were killed in

the attack including 250 at an all-night music festival which was being held a few miles from the gaza border uh hamas uh as of the time we're recording apparently still has some hostages including children potentially some americans among. In response, Israel has launched a brutal assault on Gaza. They say this assault is against only Hamas, but it is a pretty terrifying bombing campaign that has hit apartment buildings, schools. People in Gaza are stuck there. There's no way for them to leave. At least 1,400 people in Gaza have been killed as of the

time we're recording, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, including 447 children. And according to the UN, more than 330,000 people in Gaza have been displaced. Israel has also cut off electricity, food, and other resources to Gaza. They say this is going to continue until Hamas releases the hostages. We're going to get to all of this. This is a form of collective punishment that would appear to most reasonable people, I think, to be a violation of international law. And there are quite a few signs because of amassing troops at the border that Israel is going to launch a

ground offensive into Gaza soon. Yeah, so this is all pretty horrific. And a lot of horrific details about the initial attack, and the response and a lot of propaganda going kind of all over the place, which makes it harder to fully discuss this and address it. I don't think that we're out of line to say that we don't support atrocities against civilians and actually would condemn atrocities against civilians. And yeah, I don't know. It's just really sad and horrifying and it is the kind of thing that is uh as jonathan sort of laid out being used to justify more violence and i find there's a there's a conversation sort of being had about like whether you stand with israel or whether you stand with palestine and if you say that you stand with palestine and like support

the liberation of palestine then that means you're actually supportive of terrorism and that you love hamas and all these sort of things and it just doesn't seem like it's possible to have like a reasonable conversation about this right and then or if you say that you stand with israel then you are a colonizer and stand with you know with that which is not or i think an accurate i mean i'm saying my experience of what this week has been like and how hard it is to find the words to articulate the complex things that we're all feeling, especially in the social media hellscape that we are all wading through. I think it's really, it's been, I've been rehearsing in my mind, thinking about all the different things that I want to say on the podcast this week. And I find that as we're sitting here with the microphones on, I'm having, I'm struggling because it's a lot. The first thing I want to say, yes,

I hope this goes without saying, but apparently it doesn't. So I'm going to say, me, myself, the people here, some more news do not stand for terrorism or, you know, of any, more news do not stand for terrorism or you know of any of any kind that is abhorrent and it's hard because we also want to acknowledge the the reality of what has been happening in this region for a very long time and that it is more complex than just the way it's laid out on social media yeah um it's also i think i don't know there's a there's a impetus there's a lot of stock sort of uh phrases used uh in events like this and i think that there's a like this sense of like i've seen a lot of tweets like it's okay to not know what to think about this it's very nuanced and complex or like you know a lot of smarter people than you than me haven't uh figured

out how to do this and i guess i just sort of like kind of reject that framing because it's not as complicated as people say that it is it's really not um and i think saying that it's like it's so nuanced and so complicated and you don't have to have an opinion on it i just don't think it's necessarily that that that's very accurate um when you're dealing with an apartheid state and this sort of very clear power dynamic from just like this, the material situation, but also from the militarization and just like what is going on there. It's not as nuanced or complicated as we've sort of been told that it has been for so long. And I guess I just i'm so i'm this might disappoint people i'm pretty uh peace loving i'm a peacenik i actually i hate violence i think it's bad and i think it's a bad response to violence um and i think that there's a there's

a sort of like sense of like oh if you uh if you understand why Palestinians or Hamas, which are not, they're not the same thing, why this happened, then that means you're justifying it. And I think that a lot of people seem to just want to use the word justify as a synonym for what's not going on um as opposed to a lot of what i've seen in the response to this is justification for horrific things you see whether it's senators or congress people or uh just very government officials or pundits or former uh officials in the u.s government whatever talking about um we you you know, we stand with Israel right to defend itself, appropriate response, and so on and so forth. But they're saying they're going to level the place, they're turning off all their resources for the open air prison that they

have been in control of. And if you're using this attack, to say that, well, then we're going to do our own war crimes. That's justifying the violence. And it's just very, you know, I don't know. I, I find it very hard with things like this. Cause even like,

I remember I'm not, I don't think it's like, I think there are a lot of some, a lot of differences around the discourse and things with like something like nine 11, but there are similarities as well. But remember even then thinking like well the response to this shouldn't be to do more violence because that will make more violence that will kill more people we're just going to perpetuate this and i find it really it's just a little bizarre to see people

like invoking the time of 9-11 oh well yeah and also supporting actions that we that i thought we learned were wrong i've seen this one post shared a bunch that was imagine if right along the lines of imagine if right after 9-11 people were like think about the terrorists in Afghanistan or no maybe not Afghanistan at that point but like you know if that was the response and I was a little taken aback by that because well first off there were people that were saying wait a minute what's the U.S.'s role in this but also we didn't have social media so So it was a completely different dynamic. But we've spent the last 20 years unpacking this and learning lessons, hard lessons and needing to reflect. And I can't just pretend like I haven't done that.

So what are you saying? Are you saying give us 20 years and we can reflect upon whatever atrocities are about to happen? And they're happening right now. They're happening right now. That are currently happening, but will continue to be happening. And I'm so taken aback by that. I also genuinely have a deep, I mean, I'm heartbroken by this. I have an empathetic and an understanding of what happens in times of tragedy and extreme grief and fear and what people can latch on to.

And that, you know, there's a lot of emotions running high. So I'm, it's confusing. It's confusing to parse through all of these different messages that, that we're getting. But to your point, Cody, about how it's not that complicated, you're right. In some, if some ways it's, it is pretty simple, especially when you lay it out like that. But I mean mean in terms of specifically instagram posts but yes twitter and the misinformation that spread so very quickly photos from different parts of the world being attributed to you know this conflict like yeah

i can't count the number of times i've seen like look at what Hamas did to Israel or whatever. And it's just a photo of like violence against Palestinians. And actual reports that are unverified that are coming through that then the president of the United States says on television. And has to roll back on and stuff. And then has to roll back. It's chaos. So when I say that it is complicated, well, then there's also just the entire history of the region, because if you want to start parsing tit for tat and you go back far enough and then further back, it is complex. And it's complex to talk about because it's so emotional and deeply rooted in people's histories.

And I think that it is also difficult for us as Westerners to even wrap our mind around that. that it is also difficult for us as westerners to even wrap our mind around that and all of this is hard to articulate effectively in this space that we've built that we share all of our information don't tweet i think if you're looking at it because i i was kind of analyzing this rift or what i saw as a rift between like the left and liberal moderate democrats i guess for lack of a better grouping phrase yeah and the the attitude from the liberal democrat appeared to be that it felt very callous and crass and glib how quickly so many people were like think about the palestinians this is going to cause so much carnage and death. And I guess I can see if you were only looking at it through this very myopic lens, that would feel like, oh, we, you know, all of these people,

all these Israeli civilians just died. And you're talking about Palestinian civilians. And I think it's for a few reasons, because the lefts, and again, I can't speak for everyone on the lefts and again i can't speak for everyone on the left certainly they haven't made me their spokesperson but the idea is that the people in the most amount of danger now and moving forward are not israeli civilians and it's very sad what has happened to 1200 israeli civilians it's horrifying no one should have to go through that but we know the recent history of what the israeli government does in these kinds of situations we

know what they are currently doing right the like the numbers i just read based on the most recent toll that of course were given by the individual authorities show that the number of palestinian casualties have already eclipsed the number of israeli casualties and that number is going to go up and so the point of view from the left that i've seen that maybe got lost in the first day or two is that there is a selective outrage when it comes to this stuff the whole world stands with israel in these moments but like when have you cared about civilians being murdered before which happens all the time which happens and it is and it is hard very hard because this is we've had these we've had these conversations on this show we have have an episode about this conflict.

Oh, there's an episode from two years ago about this. That's very timely. Also, I'm sorry. One more thing I want to add before we move on is that our tax dollars in the United States only fund one side of this. So they fund the atrocities going on now in Gaza. Right. We're funding the response to it. They fund the atrocities going on now in Gaza. Right, they're, we're funding the response to it. Right. Had they funded Hamas, had we been funneling money to Hamas to, you know, paraglide in and kill hundreds of people at a music festival, we would be very upset about that. festival we would be very upset about that we're upset about the tragedy but we're i i would argue rightfully upset about the fact that our tax dollars are going to fund this retribution and

this bloodlust that is expected like we know that's going to happen because that's a campaign that's been going on for so long and to hear the phrases of like again like i keep hearing this this refrain of israel has a right to defend itself and that goes on and on and on and on but no one ever describes what that defense looks like what does it look like how many children are going to die for that defense how many people like how many neighborhoods are going to be raised how many hospitals and schools are going to be bombed for the quote-unquote right to defend and you see you know like uh the president or all these officials like we stand with israel and we urge them to you know maintain you know uh within the the the parameters of international law but there already aren't

like the occupation is recognized except by us uh as being illegal and it has been has been for a long time a very long time already not operating within that framework and it seems like things like that are always very much ignored and waved away and excused and uh now it just seems like there's going to be this campaign that's going to kill like maybe millions of people. Maybe, you know. And does it justify the attack by Hamas? Of course not. You know, Jonathan, in our notes here, I've included the majority of of Israeli Jewish people, people in Israel blame Netanyahu, blame their government for the treatment of Hamas, for all of this for happening. I mean, I don't know. This is something. How confirmed is this about the reports from is I mean, from Egypt to Israel in the days preceding that, you know, that there was going to be an attack?

was going to be an attack it's it's worth noting that this is something that i mean it's hard to wrap your mind around them not knowing but it's not but well because also i mean they're you know we can read some of these but like there are a lot of quotes from netanyahu and various government officials basically like out like not basically like literally outright saying like we are funding and trying to like if you can support hamas that's good because it undermines the uh the goal of a palestinian state they they want hamas to exist so that these attacks can happen so then they can eventually just raise that entire area and like the blood thirstiness is very clear in the language when they talk about it and there are quotes from them saying literally like yes we we are we do support hamas because because of these reasons and israeli citizens and you know one of their

main newspapers haaretz is allowed to criticize their government and criticize netanyahu and put blame on him but if we do that in this country i won't say we're not allowed to. Of course, we're allowed to. But some people have already been fired for it. Politicians who do it get yelled at by their colleagues or called anti-Semitic. And it's something we do here, and yet they don't do it in Israel. Some of these Haaretz op-eds have been scathing against Netanyahu. We would argue rightfully so. And yet we have this different discussion in the U.S. when it comes to this. And you could make many arguments about why that is.

And then there's this post-911-ish-ness to the whole thing that we're that it seems a lot of americans can't wait to go through again oh we can't wait until it's uh september 2001 again it's wild to see some of that um although i will say one one slight maybe i mean this is anecdotal sort of personal experience uh difference i do think more people at least are aware of how this is actually bad um and not something that should be supported so that's nice to see i think yeah there's definitely it's like growing pains in terms of like oh we're actually allowed to talk about this in more terms than just the because i stand with israel suggests that you support what their government is doing right if if everyone could agree i stand with israel equals i feel bad for

the people who died of course we'd all say that right right um but it's presented as like you either stand with israel or you're a terrorist or you support terrorism. Like literally they posted that. And being unable to, you know, express grief for victims of this, but also talk about all this other stuff because things don't happen in a vacuum. And again, like pointing out that you understand why something happens doesn't mean you're justifying the actual action. that you understand why something happens doesn't mean you're justifying the actual action um and uh it's it's so easy to be like in our little cubicles or with our little laptops and stuff and talk about like oh this is this and like but understand that this is a it's a large concentration camp and the average age like what 40 40 45 percent are children life expectancy is low unemployment so low the average age is 18 years old so like half the citizens most of them most people there they were born there they were born in a concentration camp during the time since under hamas right so under this

blockade an entire life of block being blockaded and cut off from opportunities from food from just and again illegally illegally internationally recognized except for us us being us and us but like it's recognized as being illegal so like again just sort of these empty words like and we encourage them to stay within the parameters of international law they already aren't um and so you can point to terrorism and acts of terror and say that was bad but if your response is to uh just kill more civilians then i know uh yeah what do you think is going to happen now exactly yeah what what's next what do you think is going to happen what's the result of this and we know what they like a lot of the desired result is but the truth is is oh gosh there's just no winners in this in any capacity any way you slice

it i mean i'm just sitting here anti-semitism rolled this back has been so ugly and pervasive throughout the world for such a long time and it's led to unspeakable atrocities and divisions and it's part of this whole conflict, the historical context of this stuff. It does not pretend like it isn't. But this behavior, like what's happening with Israel and Palestine and all it's fueling so much hatred around the world with people and so much tension and it's reigniting so much trauma. and it's at the disservice for to everybody i'm not being very eloquent when i say this i'm just feel so heartbroken about it all and that but that's also a valid response being heartbroken by like needless death of course is a valid response

yeah i mean yeah you can be heartbroken by violence and but that's the thing you're allowed to i think you should be allowed to be heartbroken without having to list a bunch of qualifiers and condemnations and stuff and like well you can't like i've just seen so many conversations of like talking about these details and these things and and the context and like the reaction and all this sort of stuff and then just like every once in a while somebody pops in like but like condemn hamas first like do you condemn this do you condemn hamas condemn hamas and it's just like what's the and i like i keep coming back to this this like this idea of like this phrase like what now we're like okay i condemn that what now is the conversation over because you got what you wanted or can we talk about how the reaction to

this is uh horrific as well and like where what is the path to palestinian liberation now because i think and i think that this is something some people have flat out said it i've had conversations up here about it but maybe dancing around it online in you know with these posts that we keep referencing is that hamas is not palestine or palestinians are not hamas and yeah israel doesn't represent all jewish people like it's not israel doesn't like let's just divorce the government, the ruling power, whatever, from the people here. And I find that it's really hard. People have a hard time accepting that in terms of Palestine and Hamas. And that's fucked up.

That's fucked up. Yeah. And also, if you're in this again, like it's understanding it's not justifying or excusing or whatever it is. Understanding that if you're in this oppressive area and you're being victim of this brutal campaign of decades and the opposition is also pushing out more like secular like groups who could be in charge there and supporting Hamas. And they're the ones that are like, yeah, they're building schools and they're built like they're they're right. They're also like doing doing this violence, but they're also building these things and they're protecting the quote unquote, protecting people from the occupying force. What do you expect? What do you expect?

I guess is the question. It's like you can look at people like, how do you know? Or it's anecdotal. But when you start talking about groups of people broadly, you know, like obviously there are going to be some people that are legitimately radicalized under these situations and probably grew up under it. It's apartheid. It's an open air prison. There are also people because Hamas was elected in 2007 and there's been all sorts of stuff. But that's happened since then. The stuff that we are not privy to, we can walk through some of this information if we want.

But my point here is that people will vote, could have voted for Hamas back in 2007 for a variety of reasons. back in 2007 for a variety of reasons there were also a bunch i believe a bunch of uh fata candidates the more moderate candidates that like split all the vote it's not like absolutely and yeah there was a moment i mean there's just so much involvement you know there are so many things that have happened that we can't begin to unpack. And honestly, we haven't paid attention. People haven't paid attention and like are pretending to have opinions about this, that or the other during this time, during this period as to how this group has come to power. As you've said, with a lack of options, who are the people that are taking care of my most immediate needs? Does it mean that they want want to that they are supporting hamas because they

want to kill all jewish people it could just be i want food on my table for my children you know okay so real quick we're actually going to have to go to a probably very tonally jarring advertisement they didn't sign up to be on this episode but here we go for the ad that will seem a little weird and then we'll come back and the tone will shift once more so enjoy the ad hello Boy, things can sure be stressful out there. What with the fact that you can feel your bones rubbing against each other right now, just like scraping. Oh, it's so weird how you have bones in you. But you can calm down and forget all about that with CBD gummies from Next Devo Naturals.

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bad decisions i would argue it's clear from things he said we have quotes from him here that he wants hamas in charge there he likes that they're these right-wing hardliners instead of a more moderate force who'd be like oh let's let's come to the table. Should we read a quote just to underscore this? Because we're not spreading... He reportedly said this at a 2019 meeting of his political party. Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.

He wants to have an enemy that can launch an attack once in a while, that he can say, now you need me to protect you against it, and it is going to keep the Palestinians in the West Bank, and the Palestinian Authority has,-unquote control they are a more moderate body than hamas this is what he wants and what he has fostered it is why those newspapers in israel put the blame at his feet he has made a strategic blunder and it is now costing his own citizens yeah lives he had an evil idea and he did it uh and um it's just like people being able to see that there but not being able to say it here but uh yeah that is just what has happened and been said um and you have then you have these like in america all these politicians saying like

well let's actually let's reduce it to glass let's um let's destroy that place uh they are so bloodthirsty it is uh really disgusting to see in response to something like this again like i'm peacenik i guess and i uh think that um a response to uh tragedy like this and violence um i think maybe a violent response is bad and i uh i do think that it would be nice if one time one time in like the history of the world the response was just we're going to take care of and protect the victims of this and the victims families and um look inward and uh and foster like something better than just tossing bombs over because that is going to perpetuate this uh for even longer which again is what some people involved want

yeah absolutely plenty of people want that it's interesting a lot of the coverage and things that you know takeaways here like peace in the middle east no longer seems possible and i'm like not with that attitude well right i mean i understand why you feel that way i'm like but has any i mean there are so many different ways about how we could be approaching this conflict there are so many different ways this could be an avenue towards peace this could be an opportunity for us to approach a different you could actually open up humanitarian corridors you could actively get the children out you can do turn their electricity and water back on turn the electricity it does not have to be the catastrophe that they're all just have all decided that it is fine

for it to be it could not there's just it's just but it's not gonna happen and if that's your attitude is i guess the point is also like that is they're so eager for it and if you right and if you want if you do want peace uh obviously it's not as uh like visceral and like outwardly grotesque as like literal like seeing like actual violence of human on human being but like the occupation and the situation gaza that is violence that is a violent situation that has been created perpetuated it's not literally a violent attack that you can point at but the situation is violent it is inherently a violent um scenario and so you're saying you want peace but also like well we gotta keep the occupation going and keep this open-air

prison running um then that i don't know you know like it just doesn't uh doesn't add up um and uh you can see even like uh people sharing this like you can see people talking about how like, yeah, Russia shutting off access to electricity and all these things from Ukraine. That's a war crime. They say the words war crime. I don't hear that word, that term being used for this response, because, again, if you're urging them to stay within the parameters of international law, you're way too late because they already aren't. It is likely that a lot of people in the United States are learning about what it's really like in the Gaza Strip for the first time this week. And that is a way too late step, but it is a step toward ending our as moderate democrats are saying unconditional support financial support for israel i don't think people really understand

what it's like in there and it's tough because we don't see photographs we don't see until it's a an active war zone like it is this week but it's brutal you're living on i mean i don't know how much yeah no that's exactly it's it is brutal and also just the framing of it is and we've again we've talked about we we have an episode about this uh from a couple years ago it's i think it's called like uncomplicating the complicated palestine israel or something like that um and we talk about a lot of aspects of this uh i it showed up my algorithm like today um and people watching it sort of like pointing out like i thought this was about i thought this came out today because it's exactly like what's going on and it's very relevant one thing we talk about in that i think is sort of the also there's the the

obviously the brutal situation going on but also this sort of um brutal might be a good word for it still um this brutal like protection bubble that the media sort of puts on the situation um like we mentioned earlier you know um no one's ever on tv talking about palestinian civilians dying or children dying there and even now you'll see headlines uh you know um israelis killed palestinians died right that language is very purposeful and specific and it removes uh the actual actors from what actually happened yeah it's uh it's it's irresponsible and or insidious maybe it's both. Maybe it's not.

Jonathan, at one of our meetings this week, you said something. And if you are comfortable, I'd love you to share that insight again. But it was about how you growing up took the message of the Holocaust and how it's surprising to see this. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know if our listeners know this it's immaterial i'm jewish i am a secular jew and that i don't practice so it's like in my 23 and me but i don't go to synagogue every week but i heard a lot about the holocaust growing up And not just in a way to teach us you are victims, you, the Jewish person, is a victim, but to teach us this is something that can happen and we can never allow it to happen again. And it was not a message you needed to, it wasn't subtle. It was an explicit message. we don't just mean this about you we mean this

for everyone never again means never again for everyone i was in eighth grade watching schindler's list and they were saying this um teachers were saying this so it's not a hard message i don't think to understand as a Jewish person I am NOT Tempted to think well, maybe I should just side with my people over here who are committing the atrocities Like no, that's not how this works We want to stop the imbalance of power. We want to stop the violence We want to stop the what appears to be an attempted genocide right right yeah yeah from apartheid to genocide yeah and that's uh thank you for sharing i think

it's really important thank you um it's something that um yeah it's really important to hear i think and uh acknowledge that this is um the goal seems to be. I don't know if this is insensitive to talk about. It's so hard. Like, whenever, like growing up, I'm not Jewish. I've been mistaken as Jewish, which also doesn't count. But I've always, even from an early age, sort of like been confused by the situation a little bit because to me, I like, it like it's like well that's establishing

an ethno state where you are removing or attempting to remove or excluding groups of people from your quote-unquote democracy it's not really democracy it's an ethno state and it's just like the kind of thing was like i thought that's what we learned yeah it's bad i mean it's hard because i understand the impulse after like the centuries of uh of like displacement and well i mean i can't pretend to put myself in the footsteps of a jewish person post world war ii right and exactly yeah the way zionism may have been a tempting thing back then after this and feeling extremely threatened uh i've i've never been zionist but you know scared like there's so many reasons yeah right but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and my understanding of this history is a bit fuzzy, but it's my understanding that

about 2 million Jewish people left the Russian Empire, including, you know, like all my great great great grandparents in the late 19th century, you know, were leaving persecution in the Russian Empire, and about three quarters of them went to the United States, and a bunch went to Argentina, a bunch went elsewhere in Europe, and a bunch of people went to palestine like let's go to our ancestral home let's establish there's a jewish community there let's join that and like that kind of movement i guess makes sense to me i can't put myself in the right they were before you know because it was like it became a British colony of the 20s. Like, yeah, there's right. Like, I can't say that like that wouldn't have been tempting as a Jewish person coming out of the Holocaust.

From my modern lens, I can see that an ethno state is not the way to go. It's a bad idea because we believe in pluralistic democracy and all that. Well, and in the time since then, you know, Israel is established as a fairly powerful place with the protection of powerful nations and is, you know, a democracy of sorts, you know know or working towards that and if that is your goal and if you are then you that it is your responsibility to not be an ethno-satan to grow and to evolve over time is i would think an expectation however yes that was all very complicated we haven't even touched any of this and i don't necessarily think it's our place to um because it is you know a wild history with lots of that goes back so far but yeah at the time post-world war ii palestine was vying for statehood they were first they had been under ottoman rule and then they were you know a brit under british rule and they had been under Ottoman rule and then they were, you know, under British rule and they had been trying to establish their own statehood as well. And so their tensions were high, trying to advocate for themselves as well.

So the setting was not good for an easy transition here. for an easy transition here and from what i understand there were supposed to be some international help and guidance in this transition jerusalem was originally i think supposed to be international internationally governed and none of that happened none of that happened they were israel was attacked very quickly we should say that and you know it was all part of that yeah the deal they were offered is my understanding was really unpalatable to the palestinians right in 1947 israel was like oh great you're gonna give us this big stretch of land they got the biggest yeah there were more they had the institutional support in a way that would have probably been shocking to most of the world 50 years earlier.

I mean, again, I'm not a historian. I'm just like, right. And like we look at how hard it is for what should be easy social changes to become accepted under our modern lens. lens and it's wildly baffling so i think it's easy to i think we could see how how difficult this could have was probably for all for all parties involved i think it's fair to say that like the history and the demographic changes over centuries is like complicated to understand but what's happening now is not complicated yeah it's just like here's the force with all the power that's what i sort of what like meant earlier when i was talking about the complicated nature of it like yeah like history is complicated you know they're uh but like but what's now right and i'll just reiterate i agree with you completely except for what i'm about to say which is i guess a repetition of what I said earlier uh which is

that yes and I can allow that with my viewpoint my western viewpoint I'm not Jewish I'm not from Israel I'm not Palestinian I can acknowledge that I can't I don't necessarily understand those deep rooted feelings that stories from my family, my parents and grandparents. And and I so I can accept that there is a lack of understanding for me to understand that. Totally. Yeah, me too. That was a terrible sentence.

But you guys get what you're saying. A lack of understanding for me to understand that. That would take a heavy red edit pen i think nail wise it was done by the hammer for the nail that you nailed with the hammer cool yeah okay what else you guys got what do we want to talk about yeah there are there are just so many aspects of this and it's we're not gonna be able to talk about all of it and again we might do like a full some more news about this in the future but again we want to make sure we have all of the information so we don't parrot some like some tweet or some random report that gets redacted uh and then we

have to roll it back like the president of the united states recently did um we don't want to pull a president of the united states uh with uh spreading possible misinformation but um one thing uh interesting today just like the again it's sort of like this like 9-11ification of or post-9-11ification of the response and like this international like response to an act of terror which again i i recall the phrase like, don't let the terrorists win this and this and this. Like, what do you how how is your response going to be like more war and more terror if you don't want to let the terrorists win? Whatever is fine. It's not fine. I am just being dismissive because I'm trying to move on. Cody, move on with your point. Just continue talking until you get to the real point, is apparently france banned pro-palestinian

protests and um it's important to i think point out that like just how like kind of sneaky and weird this is because they didn't ban like there's no law saying we're banning pro-palestinian protests they are banning protests that may disturb or cause trouble which first of all that's what protesting is for it is to cause a disturbance and bring attention to yourself and maybe cause trouble i don't know but they're using this as a way to just ban pro-palestinian protests which i find to be odd for democracies to do um the international response of the the general like liberal democracies of the world is uh right i don't know because there's a group of people and they say we want to demonstrate in the street because all of our relatives are being

bombed right now and we want to say that's bad. And France is like, well, you're going to piss off a bunch of other counter demonstrators. And one or two of you out there might have a sign that says what goes around comes around or something like that. Right. There have been these phrases from the pro-Israel demonstration in New Yorkork and there's video of people saying some pretty uh horrible yeah there is and then there's the pro-palestinian uh demonstration where you know the times of israel got a quote of someone saying what goes around comes around or someone uh with a sign that says by any means necessary which is potentially indicative of supporting uh hamas so france is just like yeah we don't want to deal with it we know how shit can get

yeah on french streets specifically yeah it's like uh it's like you like go back to like a dress code because you just don't want to deal with like the little like ah we have to deal with this and you know what everyone wears beige actually um it's actually not like that because it's like a government uh saying don't protest about uh war crimes um so maybe it's a bad analogy it just seems like this is it's it's the fact that it's this conflict i think is just going to be make it so much harder to confront because of this like you know even again even like post 9-11 stuff like it was easier i think to just outright say you don't think we should go to war for this or like because it was more amorphous and also i think the the comparisons are are a little odd

because i think so so like nine 11, and then I'm sure there were people like talking about like, well, why did this happen? Like maybe we should like consider that sort of thing. But I do think there's a big difference between like the invisible hand of like American imperialism and militarization around the world. And all, all our little,

our little invisible fingers everywhere that, that will, you know, fund this group or give weapons to this group. And then, Oh no, they're using them on it. around the world and all all our little our little invisible fingers everywhere that uh that will you know fund this group or give weapons to this group and then oh no they're using them on it like all this all the stuff we've talked about before i think there's a difference between that and literally like two miles away there's this open-air prison it's so it's such a material physical situation that you can see and point at that right things may have been different if afghanistan was canada it was so easy post 9-11 for people to be like oh we're gonna go bomb this someplace where the bad guys live great i don't understand what they're saying over there they

look different it's easier to do that especially here i'm like encouraged that there is a anti-war movement anti-escalation you know an anti-escalation movement within a few days because post 9-11 in the united states there was very little oh it was such when we started going into iraq then there was the anti-war movement but afghanistan it was just like let's go bomb instantly yes exactly taliban al-qaeda and also uh like i don't think michael moore was asked you condemn al-qaeda right like absurd i know by the way yeah by the way uh it's just such a way to ignore the stuff that's being said i do want to is it okay if i tell that like that post 9-11 Bill Maher story? People might not know about it.

Go for it. Yeah. Well, it's like there's this vibe of like, if you're not saying this thing, then you support Hamas or, you know, it's like, right. There's this like a very like jingoistic attitude, even though we're the United States and not Israel at this moment. And it reminded me of what happened to bill maher of all people after 9 11 less than a week afterwards yeah his like show his show after 9 11 happened which was on monday

nights on abc called politically incorrect with bill maher in those days he was talking about all these statements from politicians uh that were like this cowardly act of uh hitting us with the planes these cowards who hijacked the planes and bill maher made what i think is a pretty sensible point he said we have been the cowards lobbying cruise missiles from 2 000 miles away that's cowardly staying in the airplane when it hits the building say what you want about it it's not cowardly and advertisers pulled from his show and his show was canceled he the only canceled man in america and he apologized he did a whole thing on this and it's just funny because of i mean the bill maher of now was also the bill maher of then but it is yes i think it's interesting to note the differences and that's what it reminds me of today.

The sports writer in Philadelphia who had an issue with the Philadelphia 76ers, I stand with Israel Post, and he tweeted, this post sucks. Free Palestine. And he got fired. Yeah. Wild. That's what it feels like right now. Yes. um and this is something we've even pointed out too in the past too of like in the conversation about cancel culture that so often it is this uh what we're seeing of people coming out uh like in

in support for like palestinian rights and liberation and uh losing their jobs or criticizing israel and losing their jobs it is illegal in like what 35 states to support uh like boycotting israel yeah i think 35 states so like it's just this like campaign of like you're making it illegal to peacefully protest this thing you're making it well that's not protecting against hate crimes or anti-semitism that's saying that you're not allowed to criticize a government right exactly because i was imagining people you know the justification behind this is because we you know we never again we're not going to let these things happen and anti-semitism is no place here but again that's conflating things that don't need to be so yeah illegal to uh

support boycotting this nation but it's actually legal for them to shut off the electricity and water. It seems like a weird, a weird imbalance of values. I hope everybody who's listening to this understands that we are horrified about what happened earlier and we support the israeli citizens who are terrified and unsure of what's about to happen we just also support the palestinian citizens who have been suffering for a very long time as well and we well i mean i shouldn't speak for all of us, but like I I wish for all of us to be able to look at this from with compassion for all of the victims and with the goal of eventually having peace in the region instead of just decimating people. Yeah, I mean, I've had a hard time reading posts that are completely black and white and that ignore the realities on both sides. And I don't mean to be like both sides, because obviously one of these sides has more power at their disposal. And supported the thing that happened so they can do the thing.

Yes, all of that. But there are victims on both sides. do the thing yes all of that but there are victims on both sides and there are are people in so much pain and fear and um i'm truly gutted by it but it is also important to call out the things that we have called out today and that we know is going to happen and that we know it's going to happen and some people aren't going to like the things that we've had to say and some people will think that we're not going far enough with it i'm just going to bring it back to what cody said and i agree with is that at my heart i'm a little peaceful pacifist that thinks that there are better ways to achieve goals and that this is antithetical to what the ultimate end game should be you know and i know that a lot of our listeners

are carrying a lot of pain right now you know we've got a lot of jewish listeners we've got a lot of palestinian listeners we've got a lot of people that are in also have lived through all sorts of conflicts and you know this is probably re-traumatizing to them so i i don't i don't know how to wrap this up cleanly well it's just so hard to like because of how big this news story was and how much we've been thinking about it and reading about it and writing about it we didn't talk about there's there were two huge earthquakes in afghanistan over the last week you know like a place that's been hit over and over and over with bullshit is suffering right now

and you know it's i think on weeks like this when we're talking about this kind of an issue it's just like how do we address all the suffering and like you can't the amount of suffering that goes on in the world week after week it feels very heightened this week but like i don't know i understand when i like listen to you guys talk that we don't if it was up to us no suffering right like that's that's fair it's uh um yeah and it's just like being like we have to be able to point to like the material reality of what's going on um and uh uh move towards maybe a i again like i i just feel like i'm i am like i'm naively pacifistic i think ultimately and i think some listeners are probably gonna be disappointed to hear that um and uh but uh i just think the it's gonna get worse and it's really horrific to see unfold um in ways that are easily predicted and just the callousness in talking about

like all the animal talk and things like that um it's just very clear how like all this just sort of racism popping up uh and just sort of to justify again again, this weird bloodthirsty thing that is very pervasive. And I don't like it. Jonathan, to your point, like, like observing all of this, reading about it, seeing it, talking about it, writing about it, and then just like getting to the point like, okay, now we can talk about it. Oh, what what to say um yeah that's how i felt starting this today just sitting in your thoughts and there's a million things as soon as we're done recording i'll have 10 points that i want to say and um i know that we will be able to continue talking about this it's not going to be resolved between

our next between now and the next time we record i really hope you guys are doing okay okay out there this is a lot and i know that a lot of you are just as invested in this as we are and it's exhausting and again worried about like people you know and worried about family who live there who like like i've seen so many people like i like i've lost contact with this person they shut they shut everything off i cannot contact this person the last texts i got from them were them terrified that they're going to be dead soon like it's just like it's just it's awful yeah i would encourage you to drink some water to take care of yourself um maybe think twice thrice 10 times before responding to something online try to have compassion when you read things i'm saying stuff that i've been trying to practice for myself and it's hard i'll see things and feel anger and want to engage and then i stop and i give myself 10

minutes and i can guarantee you after that 10 minutes i don't want to engage because i also know that that person is probably feeling the same way i'm feeling so i think a general good rule of thumb is to take and a breath before responding to things that you see online um when you see something shocking take a breath before reposting it see the source make sure because it might be 24 hours later that you realize that this is not even this is from a video game not from that video game it goes around all the time we just have to breathe propaganda is a weapon of war used by everybody during war so just be wary of propaganda that is uh is seen yeah and i had one more thing sorry yeah it's not it's not the thing it's not it's not the thing yeah and uh also i don't think that even if you do

engage with people you're not going to be happy about that you're not going to change their mind or convince them of anything i don't't think you get involved in these conversations. Eventually, you'll see Hardcore History's Dan Carlin talk about how Israel is right to be concerned about their demographics changing if they opened up their democracy. That's a bummer. Anyway, we're going to stop now.

We'll have more to say soon. Please take care of yourself. Do. And remember, Do. We love you very much much hiya folks if you're listening to my voice right now that means you're into learning new things like for example how to build a tiny house for at least 12 pet toads you're not content to let the world's critical insights pass you by like for example the fact that toads need You're not content to let the world's critical insights pass you by. Like, for example, the fact that toads need way, way, way more space than you would think. Yes, that's right. And I

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