Tangle - The first anniversary of Oct. 7

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

Monday marks one year since Hamas’s attack on Israel, in which the U.S.-designated terrorist group killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, 97 of whomremain captive. The anniversary comes amid weeks of escalating violence in the Middle East as Israel continues to fight Hamas in Gaza while beginning a ground operation in Lebanon against Hezbollah and preparing for a potential war with Iran. Ad-free podcasts are here!For the last few years, we've been publishing a daily podcast similar to our newsletter and bonus content exclusively for our podcast channel. Many listeners (who also read this newsletter) have been asking for an ad-free version that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it today. You can go to tanglemedia.supercast.com to sign up and get 17% off during our launch week special!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.Check out our latest YouTube video on misinformation about North Carolina here.Check out Episode 6 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Help share Tangle.I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it. Email Tangle to a friend here, share Tangle on X/Twitter here, or share Tangle on Facebook here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police

procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul,

this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the October 7th anniversary. For those of you who have been listening since last October 7th, you know that this story carries quite a bit of emotional weight for me and that some of our coverage really penetrated the conversation and the discourse way back in October. So I'm here

today to revisit this story with the latest in the conflict in Israel and the surrounding region and what has happened in the year since. This is probably not going to be a very uplifting podcast, so I encourage you to buckle up, I guess, for that. Before we do jump in, though, I want to give a quick heads up and reminder that on Friday, speaking of uplifting podcasts, we published a rundown of capital punishment, the death penalty, where I broke down the history. of capital punishment, the death penalty, where I broke down the history and then I made the case that we should stop using it as a means to deter or punish heinous crimes. This was our first paywalled podcast that we've ever published. As many of you know, we are trying to start turning our Friday editions that are paywalled in the newsletter on our website into podcasts that our podcast listeners can access as premium ad-free podcasts. So that is done.

That happened. It's up. We broke the glass ceiling. And if you want to go listen to it, you can find a preview of it in our podcast feed. And you can also go to tanglemedia.supercast.com to become a premium subscriber. Or if you are already a newsletter subscriber,

you can check your email for a note from me last week that includes a discount code and a way to bundle your newsletter and podcast subscription. All right, with that out of the way, I'm going to pass it over to John for today's main story, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, the U.S. economy added 254,000 jobs in September, exceeding economists' expectations, and previous month's reports were revised up. The month-over-month unemployment rate fell from 4.2% to 4.1%. Number two, dock workers on the East and Gulf Coasts ended their strike after three days, agreeing to extend their prior contract through January 15, 2025, while continuing to negotiate on port automation for the next six-year contract.

Number three, Hurricane Milton strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane and is expected to make landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast on Wednesday or Thursday. Number four, the Supreme Court begins its new term on Monday with major cases on guns, transgender rights, online pornography, and workplace discrimination on the docket. Separately, the Supreme Court declined a request from the Biden administration to enforce in Texas a federal guideline requiring hospitals to perform an abortion in emergency situations. And number five, former President Donald Trump hosted a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania at the site where he was nearly assassinated in July. Elon Musk made his first appearance alongside Trump at one of his rallies. This morning, Israelis commemorated the moment a year ago when several thousand Hamas gunmen broke out of Gaza and went on a killing and kidnapping rampage across southern Israel.

Nearly a year later, and the fighting between Israel and Hamas hasn't stopped with more death imminent. More than 1,200 have been killed in Israel since Hamas attacked on October 7th. And in Palestine, a soaring death toll of more than 40,000. Monday marks one year since Hamas' attack on Israel, in which the U.S.-designated terrorist group killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, 97 of whom remained captive. The anniversary comes amid weeks of escalating violence in the Middle East, as Israel continues to fight Hamas in Gaza while beginning a ground operation in Lebanon against Hezbollah and preparing for a potential war with Iran.

We covered the aftermath of the October 7th attacks. You can find coverage from the last year of the ensuing war in Gaza and the response in the U.S. with links in today's episode description. Immediately after the attack, Israel declared war on Hamas and began a siege of Gaza. On October 8th, Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Later that month, Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza, targeting Hamas outposts and infrastructure. Additionally, a protracted Israeli bombing campaign has destroyed an estimated 60% of

the buildings in Gaza, while displacing 90% of Gaza's population, according to the UN. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reports approximately 42,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, a figure that includes Hamas fighters. Based on the health ministry's data, an estimated 56% of the dead are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 Hamas militants. The anniversary of Hamas' attack has prompted memorials across the world, as well as pro- and anti-Israel protests in response to the war in Gaza. Many remembrances have focused on the remaining hostages in Gaza, while others have called for peace in the region. Meanwhile, supporters of Palestinians in Gaza from across the globe have protested Israel's actions in the past year. In the U.S., President Joe Biden has maintained his support for Israel's war against Hamas while urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to show greater restraint and concern for civilian life.

The broadening of the conflict in recent weeks has also called into question the White House's influence over Israeli policy and its ability to prevent a wider war in the Middle East. Since late August, Israel has launched airstrikes against hundreds of Hezbollah positions, carried out a coordinated attack against Hezbollah members using communication devices, killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other members of Hezbollah's leadership, and begun ground operations in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, Israel has defended against missile attacks from Iran and Hezbollah, including a rocket strike that injured nine people in Haifa on Monday. You can read the history of the Israel and Lebanon conflict with the link in today's episode description. On Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel is currently defending itself on seven fronts. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, terrorists in the West Bank, the Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, and Iran. Netanyahu also vowed to respond with force to last week's missile attack by Iran,

potentially targeting Iranian nuclear sites. Just before Iran's attack, a shooter in Israel killed one person and wounded 10 others. Israel said it is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism. Today, we'll share reflections on the October 7th anniversary from the left and the right, as well as from some Israeli and Palestinian writers. And then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web,

his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. All right, first up, let's start with what the left is saying.

The left says the year since October 7th has upended the balance of power in the Middle East while maintaining the status quo in certain areas. Some argue Biden's policies on the war have been a failure. When Hamas terrorists burst through the Gaza fence at 7.43 a.m. on October 7th, 2023, they turned the Middle East upside down. a.m. on October 7, 2023, they turned the Middle East upside down. The vaunted Israeli military was unprepared and vulnerable as Hamas stormed through Israeli settlements and military bases, butchering people at will. The Israeli superman seemed to have lost his cape, Ignatius said. A year later, the shape of the Middle East is indeed different, but not in the way most observers would have predicted. The military power of Hamas is hobbled, and its remaining fighters hide in an underground lair that increasingly resembles a dungeon.

Israel regained its footing over the past year by waging a relentless campaign of retaliation for the horror and shame of October 7th. If there was one consistent theme other than the resilience of Israel's military and intelligence services, it was the lack of clear Israeli thinking about what would come next, Ignatius wrote. Perhaps Israel's sword of vengeance has broken the power of Iran in its boldest proxies, as Netanyahu and his supporters seem to hope, but this is the Middle East. A more likely outcome is that, at a cost of so many thousands of dead, this war has restored the old paradigm of a strong Israel that can crush its enemies until the next round. In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof said Biden sought peace but facilitated war. A year after the October 7th

terror attacks, Biden's Middle East policy appears to be a practical and moral failure. It could be a political failure as well, potentially hurting Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan and everywhere if a war with Iran lifts gas prices at the pump, Kristof wrote. It wasn't a failure of vision nor of hard work. Biden concocted a grand plan for a multi-part deal that would deliver a ceasefire in Gaza, normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations, a path to a Palestinian state, and a stronger Saudi-American relationship that would freeze China out of the region. But Biden was unwilling to forcefully use his leverage to get there,

so Netanyahu ran rings around the president. Gaza has become the albatross around Biden's neck, staining his legacy, but it keeps getting worse. Among American hawks, there is dreamy talk about building a new Lebanon and reshaping the Middle East. It's indeed possible that the devastation of Hezbollah will buy Israel safety for a time, but all that grandiosity reminds me of lofty talk a year ago about how Israel was going to destroy

Hamas in a few months. It likewise reminds me of the ebullient predictions 21 years ago that invading Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein would usher in a new age of democracy and tranquility. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right says Israel deserves the same level of support from the U.S. now as it did after October 7th. Some say anti-Semitism in America and abroad has returned to the forefront since the attacks. In the Daily Caller, Morin Murphy argued, let Israel win the war. A year ago, on October 7, 2023, the world's only Jewish state suffered the worst systematic exterminations of Jews since the Holocaust. The surprising attack by Hamas displayed human behavior at its worst, Murphy wrote. attack by Hamas displayed human behavior at its worst, Murphy wrote. It took a year, but Israel found its footing in the past three weeks and is showing the United States and Europe how to handle

the genocidal mullahs in Iran and their proxies in Gaza and Lebanon. The hard truth remains. Deterrence only works when your enemies believe you will act. Israel understands this. They know, as Israel's fourth prime minister, Golda Meir, once said, that they have no place else to go. They fight not just for land, but for existence, Murphy said. Indeed, Israel is at war with a different strain of the same mind virus that inspired September 11th, which makes it all the more revolting

that the Biden-Harris administration is trying to thread a political needle. Instead of staunchly backing one of our most loyal allies, the Democrats say Israel has a right to defend itself and in the same breath, call for a ceasefire. In the New York Times, Brett Stevens wrote about the year American Jews woke up. American Jews were aware, before the pogrom of October 7, 2023, that anti-Semitism was once again a problem in our collective life. elective life. We were aware, if we belonged to a synagogue or worked at a local Jewish community center or sent children to Jewish day schools, that squad cars were often present outside and that the security procedures and budgets of Jewish institutions kept growing, Stevens said.

We were aware, but unless we had directly been affected by it, the anti-Semitism didn't feel personal. After October 7th, though, it became personal. It happened in innumerable ways, large and small. The home of an impeccably progressive Jewish director of a prominent art museum was vandalized with red spray paint and a sign accusing her of being a white supremacist Zionist. A storied literary magazine endured mass resignations from its staff members for the sin of publishing the work of a left-wing Israeli, Stevens wrote. This isn't going to end anytime soon. It won't end because anti-Zionism has a self-righteous fervor that will attract followers and inspire militancy. It won't end because politics in America are moving forward towards forms of illiberalism. And it won't end because

most Jews will not forsake what it means to be Jewish, so that we may be more acceptable to those who despise us. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to what some Israeli and Palestinian writers are saying. Israeli writers mourn the victims of the attack, but note that it created an opportunity for Israel to deal with its enemies head-on. Palestinian writers suggest Israel is overextending itself in its quest for revenge. In the New York Post, Israeli diplomat Ofer Okunis said, On October 7th anniversary, standing with Israel means the free world's salvation. There are rare moments when history illuminates the conflicts of our age and gives us a chance to choose good over evil. October 7th, 2023 was this moment for our lifetime, Okunis wrote.

Since then, Israel has been fighting for survival and for justice. There are still tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes in the country's north. Hamas is still holding 101 innocent Israelis, Americans, and citizens of over 20 countries hostage in horrifying conditions. Even as we do everything to achieve peace on our borders and bring our people home, Iran and its proxies have turned the massacre of October 7th into a year-long attempt to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Yet developments over the past few weeks have made it irrevocably clear. The tide is shifting. If October 7th reminded us that we have no choice but to take genocidal anti-Semitism seriously, Israel's categorical response has taught us something too. Betting against Israel is a losing wager.

Indeed, Israel is on the front lines of the Western world's self-defense against tyrannical, illiberal, jihadist assault, Akuna said. It will take work. But one year after the darkest day of our lives, we have a singular chance. To honor the memory of the fallen and guide our fractured world toward peace, justice, and healing. In the Middle East Eye, Dutch-Palestinian analyst Mohen Rabani wrote, One year after genocide, why Israel's belligerence may be its undoing.

Israel's initial response was to unleash a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. Motivated by revenge and bloodlust, it was designed to not only kill and destroy on a massive scale, but to make the Gaza Strip unfit for human habitation, Rabbani said. Each successive Israeli obliteration of yet another red line—the bombing and destruction of hospitals, schools, and refugee centers, the indiscriminate transformation of communication devices into hand grenades, and the killing and wounding of hundreds to rescue four captives—was justified as a legitimate act of self-defense. In the process, the world has been transformed into a much more dangerous place for all of us on the altar of

Israel's impunity. As has been clear from the outset, Israel's ultimate aim is regime change in Iran, on the mistaken assumption that an Iranian government disengaged from the conflict with Israel and transformed the Palestinians and Arabs more generally into powerless sheep, Roubani wrote. Yet Lebanon has repeatedly proved to be the graveyard of Israel and American hubris. The coming weeks will determine whether Israel can once again resume unilaterally resolving the Palestinian question on its own terms and with it to seal the fate of the Palestinian people, or whether October 7th will go down in history as the moment the Zionist project in Palestine began to unravel.

All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, as well as some views from abroad, which brings us to my take. So we don't spend all of our time on 9-11 talking about the Iraq war. And on days like today, it is worth leading with some memorializing. 1,200 people were killed on this day a year ago, one of the most traumatic events in Israel's history and attack that has perhaps permanently changed the psyche of the country. Nearly every person that I know in Israel knows someone who was wounded, killed, or witnessed to an attack on October 7th. These people were innocents.

They died for no crime or action of their own. In a tragic twist of irony, many were the kinds of left-wing, kibbutz-living, peace-seeking Jews whom critics of Israel point to as the solution to this conflict. Yet they were murdered in their homes, some in front of their kids, kidnapped and abused by a group who took great joy in their killing. Their deaths should not be celebrated, not valorized, and certainly not divorced from what has happened in the 12 months since. Today, this one singular day on the calendar is and should be about the human act of mourning and memorializing those people, Israelis, Arabs, Americans, people from all over the world, first, before discussing what has happened since.

But what has happened since carries a great deal of political significance, and in this political podcast, it is my job to talk about the conflict. So, while I mourn privately, I will do my best to analyze the conflict honestly. In a lot of ways, this anniversary is jarring. The year has passed quickly, as years often do, and I'm surprised that more supporters of Israel don't define the last year as an unmitigated disaster. To me, it feels like the goalposts are ever-shifting, the war never-ending. Consider if I had told you on October 8th, 2023, that one year from now, Israel would be immersed in an open war three times longer than any other since its 1948 War of Independence,

that Iran has directly attacked Israel for the first and second times ever, that Israel has begun a ground invasion in Lebanon, that more than 60,000 civilians in northern Israel would still be displaced, that Israel would be returning to northern Gaza where it started for more operations, that Israel would be facing international charges of genocide, that global antisemitism is on the rise, that Israel's economy is teetering on the edge of disaster,

that the nation is still variantly divided with regular civil unrest, and that the nation is still variantly divided with regular civil unrest, and that the West Bank was rife with violence and instability, all while less than half of the hostages taken by Hamas have come home safely, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains in power after overseeing the greatest security failure in the country's history. If I told you that a year ago, I think we'd all have defined whatever happened in the time between now and then as a failure. Yet many don't. Many continue to see Israeli successes and some light at the end of the tunnel. I don't see that light, and I don't

see how continuing along the war path will bring us lasting peace. However, I understand how events from the last year bolster this narrative. Hamas has been so degraded that Israel believes it can no longer function as an organized military force. The IDF has found and destroyed numerous tunnels and weapon caches throughout Gaza, both confirming Israel's fears and justifying its ground invasion. Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas's Mohamed D. for dead, throwing the organizations they lead into chaos and degrading their ability to fire mid- and long-range missiles into Israel. The White House even sees an opening to push for a presidential election in Lebanon, where there

has not been a president for two years. Two attacks from Iran have caused limited damage. Israel's defenses seem strong, and its military tactics, like the Pager attacks, have been wildly successful at targeting operatives and causing mass paranoia and distress among its enemies. But even through the narrow lens of supporting Israel, I have a hard time celebrating any of those events as victories. Here's how Israeli colonist Amir Tobin described what's missing from Israel's military victories. These achievements, all of them the result of military and intelligence advantages that Israel has built over many years, still can't compensate for the lack of a strategy to achieve two of the war's main goals, replace Hamas's rule in Gaza with a more favorable entity that Israel can live next to and bring back our

hostages alive, end quote. As Netanyahu himself has said, Israel is now fighting a war on seven fronts. Israel is less safe today than it was on October 8th when Netanyahu pledged to restore security to Israel. This reality is produced in part by the nations and leaders who want the end of Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and so on, but also through failed U.S. and Israeli diplomacy,

failed military actions, and failed imagination. Zoom out to 30,000 feet here with me for a moment. Put aside the tit-for-tat details of who started what and the whole arching narrative of religion and consider what you see. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 and 1982. It then occupied Lebanon until 2000, invaded again in 2006, and it is now beginning a new ground invasion in 2024. Israel occupied Gaza from 1976 to 2005,

withdrew, and then invaded again in 2014, and is now continuing a ground invasion in 2024 that it started in 2023. There is nothing new here. Either side can point to any number of provocations or attacks, but the reality is that both sides are perpetuating the same cycles over and over again, but expecting different results. There is no imagination and no new vision for the future. It's just more response in the name of more security, with no progress toward anything that resembles peace or peace of mind. And at what cost? Whatever you believe to be the exact number of dead in Gaza is at this point hardly relevant. The toll has been indisputably horrific. Conservatively, tens of thousands of civilians are dead, including many thousands of

women and children. Reasonable estimates are that 60% of Gaza's infrastructure has been destroyed, 65% of its farmland damaged or ruined, schools, hospitals, mosques, homes, and restaurants leveled. It will take decades and billions of dollars to rebuild, and it will require generations to mend the minds of anyone who survived it. Here in the U.S., Americans are left watching the bizarre spectacle of our tax dollars funding the destruction and will likely watch them fund the rebuilding. In Lebanon alone, in less than two weeks,

at least 2,000 Lebanese have been killed. Israel says it is targeting Hamas and Hezbollah military leaders and the Lebanese health ministry, like Gaza's, does not distinguish between combatants and civilians among its dead. Yet it's worth noting that this is already more than the entire number of people killed in Israel on October 7th. What do we suppose this might do to the psyche of that country? 1.2 million people are already displaced in Lebanon, a number nearly equal to the entire population of my home city of Philadelphia. On the first anniversary of a war Israel is still fighting, it enters into a new one.

I want to have hope. I want to believe that what Israelis experienced on this day one year ago and what Palestinians, Israelis, and the Lebanese have experienced since would break something in this cycle, bend the dimensions, change the. Illuminate a path forward from the one we've been on. Can't Hamas and Hezbollah see their agency? Can't they see what the theocrats of Iran have done to their future? Can Israelis see their country being radicalized in real time by its right-wing factions? Can't they see that violent shows of force and prolonged wars have only succeeded in turning a single front war into a seven front one? Can't anyone build a movement to find an off-ramp that unifies these factions? I want to have hope, but I'm struggling. One year ago, I ended my take with a passage in this podcast that I'll share again today with some despair. Solutions, you ask. I can't say

I have any. If you've come here for that i'm sorry the two-state solution looks dead to me a three-state solution makes some sense but feels out of the view of almost all the people who matter and can make it happen i wish a one-state solution felt realistic a world of israelis and arabs and muslims and jews living side by side with equal rights fully integrated and diffused of their hate, it is a vision of Israel that I would adore. But it seems less and less realistic with every new act of violence.

Am I pro-Israel or pro-Palestine? I have no idea. I'm pro-not killing civilians. I'm pro-not trapping millions of people in open-air prisons. I'm pro-not shooting grandmas in the back of the head. I'm pro-not flattening apartment complexes. I'm pro-not raping women and taking hostages. We'll be right back after this quick break. I want none of it. We'll be right back after this quick break.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first

cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. All right, that is it for my take today. And before I get out of here, I do want to answer a question from Jake in Kansas City. Jake said, if somebody was being introduced to Tangle, what five pieces written by you or the Tangle team would you want people to read? I very much appreciate this question.

We've gotten a lot of new readers and listeners over the past few months. So it's an opportunity to put together a fun answer. When I reflect on what makes a great Tangle podcast or a great Tangle newsletter, I think it comes with a couple characteristics, a controversial topic, an over-the-top partisan divide, and a my take where we can really find the kernel of truth

within the issue we're covering. On the other hand, part of our success comes from our ability to vary our format as we see fit, along with less structured Friday pieces like the podcast we published this past Friday. So with that said, here are five Tangle articles that our team picked out that we think really exemplify the spectrum of what Tangle does. Number one, a piece called Seeing Ghost, where I talk about all the different ways we are seeing ourselves as victims today. Number two, Trump being barred from the Colorado ballot.

Number three, three things I was wrong about where I just revisited three things I got wrong recently. Number four, the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. And number five, the whole point of Tangle in which I responded to a bunch of people unsubscribing to a newsletter. All five of those are linked in today's episode description if you wanna go click on them or give them a read or scroll back in our podcast feed to find them. Thanks for asking.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for listening. I'm going to send it back to John and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under the radar story for today, folks. On Friday, the Biden administration announced it would not renew a temporary immigration parole program that allowed roughly 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela into the United States on humanitarian grounds. The program allowed migrants with U.S.-based sponsors to enter the country legally and remain for a two-year term, but the Department of Homeland Security said the initiative was not intended to last longer. Homeland Security said the initiative was not intended to last longer. While migrants from all four countries have options to extend their stay, including applying for temporary protected status or making an asylum claim, the DHS said those without authorization to remain in the U.S. would be deported at the end of their parole period.

Reuters has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The estimated number of Palestinians in Gaza displaced by the war is 1.9 million. The estimated number of Israelis displaced by Hamas's attack at their peak is 58,000. The estimated cost of the damage in Gaza from the war's first three months is 18.5 billion. The percentage of U.S. adults who say Hamas, Israel, and Iran, respectively, are at least somewhat responsible for the continuation of the war in Gaza is 76%, 75%, and 73%, according to an October 2024 poll from the Pearson Institute APNORC. The percentage of U.S. adults who sympathize more with Israelis than Palestinians in the conflict is 25%. The percentage of U.S. adults who sympathize more with Palestinians

than Israelis in the conflict is 15%. The percentage of Israelis who said they approved of U.S. leadership in 2023 is 81%, according to Gallup. The percentage of Israelis who said they approve of U.S. leadership in 2024 is 63%. The percentage of Israelis who said they approve of U.S. leadership in 2024 is 63%. The percentage of Israelis who said they did not have confidence in their government in 2023 is 49%. And the percentage of Israelis who said they do not have confidence in their government in 2024 is 53%. And last but not least, our have a nice day story. In 2020, Professor Zhugan Yang of Cranfield University began developing a test designed to identify the presence of COVID-19 and influenza earlier and cheaper than existing methods. Unlike other common tests like the polymerase chain reaction test or PCR tests, Yang's proposed test would not require a lab with trained technicians to complete. Since then, Yang has developed a test of origami paper sensors

that uses biomarkers in waterways to detect infectious diseases. It is as least as accurate as other tests and much more cost-effective, costing around a dollar per test. Good News Network has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it

for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to readtangle.com and sign up for a membership. You can also now sign up for a premium podcast subscription, which will get you the daily podcast and all podcasts ad-free, as well as brand new exclusive Friday editions, interviews, bonus content, and so much more. Head over to tanglemedia.supercast.com. There's also a link

in today's episode description and sign up for a membership. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul,

and edited and engineered by Duke Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. The music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.

And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go check out our website at readtangle.com. That's readtangle.com.