The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3539 - Israel Bombs Damascus, Tariff Induced Inflation Starts to Rise w/ Meron Rapaport

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Despite Emma's absence, it's hump day Wednesday and there's a lot to talk about. Inflation is slowly starting to rise to its highest number since February. The effects of these tariffs will be rearing their head eventually. Award winning Israeli journalist, Meron Rapaport joins us for a discussion on Gaza and the West bank and Israel's attempt to alienate and expel Arab Knesset members. Hakeem Jeffries is still refusing to endorse Zohran Mandani even though he won Hakeem's district decisively. In the Fun Half we open with a real time twitter feud between Matt and a journalist from The Free Beacon or something. Matt cooks him. Trump turns on his own base over the Epstein files. This story is not going anywhere anytime soon. Meanwhile, despite all of the tragic SCOTUS rulings, the horrible budget bill, the mass firings of federal employees, the dismantling of the Department of Education, according to CNN the Democrats are in a worse position for the midterms than at this same point in 2017 or 2005. All that and more plus phone calls. Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com: https://fans.fm/majority/join Follow us on TikTok here!: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here!: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here!: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here!: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the ESVN YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/esvnshow Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors NUTRAFOL: Get $10 off your first month’s subscription + free shipping at Nutrafol.com when you use promo code TMR10 BLUELAND: Get 15% off your first order by going to Blueland.com/majority SUNSET LAKE: Head on over to SunsetlakeCBD.com and use code NewSticks to treat your aches and pains to some much-deserved relief. This sale ends July 20th at midnight Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech Check out Matt’s show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon’s show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza’s music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/ The Majority Report with Sam Seder – https://majorityreportradio.com/

You are listening to a free version of The Majority Report. Support this show at join the Majority Report.com and get an extra hour of content daily. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Wednesday. July 16th, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live.

steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, as Israel bombs Damascus cuts off water and electricity to UNRWA in Gaza,

attempts to expel an Arab member of Knesset, Barone Rappaport, award-winning Israeli journalist and editor of the local call contributor to 972 mag also on the program today trump to bondi release the epstein stuff that doesn't include me also on the program today's senate moves ahead with its nine

billion dollar rescission more cuts trump tells texas to do a rare mid-decade gerrymander ostensibly to pick up five Republican seats in the House. Meanwhile, a Trump-appointed Texas judge overrules a Biden-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule to remove medical debt from credit reports. Florida, lawyers still denied access to their clients in DeSantis' Gulag. Dem leadership okays Democratic votes for Republican crypto bills, but suggests they don't. Amid Trump's tariff threat and trade investigation, Lula approval rating rises in Brazil. And the Pentagon safely withdraws 2,000 American troops from the city of Los Angeles.

Trump releases more Trump meme coins adding $100 million to his wallet and Josh Hawley supposedly wants to repeal the Medicaid cuts that Josh Hawley just voted in favor of all this and more on today's majority report welcome ladies and gentlemen thanks so much of joining us Emma Viglin out today.

However, it still remains humpday. More on that as we proceed. A lot to talk about today, as per usual. I mean, I say that every day now. But there was a time where I wouldn't say there's that much to talk about. We got new inflation numbers yesterday, and some today. the wholesale inflation numbers are somewhat muted. However, it is clear that we're starting to get dribs and drabs of the tariff inflation.

However, if you were to listen to someone say like Larry Cudlow, I think Larry Cudlow shows us that if we do enough day drinking, we really barely can see anything. I'm sorry That hits All right So let me ask you about this Energy was up a little In this report Well no no I gotta go back

Go back Sorry once I go back That clip start And the end of it here it is Tariff inflation Okay So bear with me Yes

Some items Are affected by tariffs And the prices have gone up Okay Household furnishing being one Computers being another But Sean Here's what fell

In this report and no one's reporting this okay use cars down new cars down airline fares down they all follow their prices pause it positive okay uh snacks down hotel and motel prices down this is um should just say got to go back here uh but there's a reason why airline fairs are down and that is because tourism is down dramatically Tourism is down dramatically. And you have international travelers not coming to the States. It's starting to feel, they're starting to feel it in places like Vegas, in Florida, New York, California, all across the country. Especially in a place like it's Canadian travelers, like Maine, I've seen a lot of reports.

And that's not going to impact necessarily flights. Right, right. But flights are down. And so prices come down. The other thing that's happening is our economy is contracting. So demand is starting to soften for some of these things. But go back. We're still getting the inflation from the things that would be impacted by tariffs.

And we haven't even seen nothing yet. Go ahead. But fell in this report. And no one's reporting this, okay? Use cars down, new cars down, airline fair. down they all fell their prices eggs down okay eggs are not snacks down

hotel and motel prices down milk down butter down cereals down I mean come on there's no tariff inflation here I'm sorry that hits all right so let me ask you about this energy was up a little in this report

okay gas prices at the low okay so there you have it and this is probably a functioning to the extent that these things have have fallen some of them uh you know we have less of a bird flu issue with the with the cattle and that's probably uh why we're seeing some of those prices down but utility inflation 14 percent car insurance 6 percent electricity 5.8 percent Meat and eggs. Eggs are not down, ladies and gentlemen, 5.6%. Car repairs. In other words, people are not in the market to buy cars as much as they are going and getting their cars fixed. Homeowner inflation up by 4%. Hospital services inflation. Rent, almost 4%. Food away from home, 3.8%. And here is Justin Wolfers, who are going to have on the

program next week in anticipation of August 1st, which may or may not be a firm or sort of firm or slightly firm, maybe a somewhat flaccid deadline for Donald Trump in his retaliatory tariffs. But here's Justin Wilfers explaining why we're not seeing as much tariff inflation as anticipated on Liberation Day, which, remember, Liberation Day was postponed. We're not quite liberated yet. We may be, again, in August, but that's not a firm liberation. It's a somewhat limp liberation. But here's Justin Wilfers. Are the tariffs raising prices here at home? A little bit for now and a lot more in the future. So just to explain that to viewers,

at home. The first of the tariffs, the first of big tariffs, came in in April. They didn't apply to goods that were already on ships. It takes about a month for a ship to get from China to the US. Then they have to get through customs. So that takes us from April to May and then May to June. And so this was the June data. So we're just starting to see it in things like apparel, appliances and the like. But given that the big tariffs actually weren't even on back in April, there is that two-month delay. And then stores have to decide whether or not they want to change their prices. This is, you are extremely accurate in saying this is going to play out a little slower than

I think a lot of the news media are ready for. So we don't know when that's going to hit, because we don't know what's going to happen with these tariffs in August. But inflation's coming. There's no doubt about it. Donald Trump is now, it is being reported as of just an hour ago, maybe a little bit less. he has supposedly made the decision to fire Jerome Powell. That's not the way it usually works.

And presumably he's going to do so for a Fed chair who will come in and cut rates, I would imagine aggressively. That doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of the Fed board will go along with it, we'll see. But in the event that the tariff inflated, hits at a time where they start to lower interest rates, that could be quite a problem heading into 2026 at least in the midterms for the Republicans, but they've got a couple of plans and the polling doesn't look as good as one might hope at this juncture. We will talk about that

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We will put the links to those products in the podcast and YouTube subscription. Now we're going to take a quick break when we come back, Morone Rappaport, Israeli journalist, editor of the local call, contributor 972 mag, lots, obviously, to talk about what's going on in Israel and its slaughter in Gaza, and increasingly its attempts to expel Palestinians

and the violence that's taking place there in the West Bank, not to mention the bombing of Syria, We'll be right back. Thank you. I don't know. Thank you. We are back, Sam Cedar on the Majority Report, Emma Vigland out today. I want to welcome back to the program, Marone Rappaport. He's an award-winning Israeli journalist.

editor of the local call, contributor to a 972 magazine. Marone, it's been some time since we spoke in just, I don't know, a couple hours ago, Israel, a bomb Damascus. I wanted to get your sense of this. From my perspective, it seems that the new regime and leadership in Syria has really been doing everything akin to disincentivize or to I guess appease Israel

and yet the bombing happened today. What's your sense of what that's about? It's a little bit hard to say but I think it's true that the Syrian regime

or it's not clear what is this regime still Ashara is trying to appease Israel that's the sense he's giving public statement

and otherwise at the same time it seems that Syria is not really under his control it's not very clear if these are soldiers of the government

if these are that are attacking the Druze in Syria are they some kind of militia that Ashara does not control. It does not seem to have

full control over Syria maybe around Damascus and Aleppo but not in other parts of Syria, certainly not in the north where the Kurds are and maybe not in the west where the

aloes are and not in Drew's area to the south. so it's not very clear and Israel is pushed by two things one is the sort of commitment to the Druze in Israel who are serving in the army

and are pushing very hard to an intervention and secondly I think Israel has developed since for at least a year or even more a sense that it is the hegemonic force

in the middle East and it will decide who will govern where and how in the Middle East. How much, I mean, my sense is that over the course of the past year plus, we have seen Israel wage a campaign against Hezbollah, obviously Hamas, but also obviously the people in Gaza, civilians in Gaza and the Houthis, and that seemed to be a predicate to attacking Iran by making sure that any potential Iranian proxies or those might be sympathetic for Iran or an attack on Iran might open up other opportunities for others to attack Israel. Is it your sense that this is in any way a predicate to resuming a bombing of Iran in any way?

I'm not sure about Iran, but I think the whole proxy theory is quite not too strong, I think. Yes, Isbalah was certainly a proxy theory. of Iran and so the Assad regime to a certain extent or to a large extent. Hamas is not, it's not really a proxy of Iran. It did not decide to attack Israel because Iran told it to do so. It's quite clear now. And certainly now the current regime in Syria is anti-Iran, has more or less allowed. Israel to attack Iran during the 12 days war. So it is certainly when it is attacking

Damascus, it is not attacking a proxy of Iran. It is attacking a force that does not obey Israel orders. That's more or less, I think, if you look at it in this way, then you can understand it better. All right, let's turn to Gaza. It's unclear to me what the status of any type of ceasefire talks are, other than to say broadly, it does not feel like the Israeli government has any interest at the end of the day of any type of ceasefire that goes beyond its own sort of, I guess, its own timetable, there's increasing talk of attempting to ghettoize, I guess to shrink the size of the ghetto that Palestinians are in. And just yesterday, the power and electricity was cut off to UNRWA, trying to provide at least

some aid. We had I think 28 aid seekers killed yesterday. I'm curious from your perspective, the appetite for the Israeli population, is there any forces? It's certainly not coming from the United States as far as I can tell, but are there any influences that may change the direction of what Israel is doing in Gaza? We are in a very strange situation at the moment. According to the polls, there was a recent poll, I think, on Friday on Channel 12th, the biggest, the most popular one, and the most credible one, at least in the Israeli public's eye, saying that 82% of Israelis want to ceasefire,

want an end to the war in return to releasing the hostages, and only 12% wants the war to go on. This is huge. I cannot think of any so-called democratic state in modern history, where we have seen such numbers. I'm not that familiar with a Vietnam War, but I'm sure that in no stage it was 82 against 12. This is, I think, unprecedented in any democratic country, and you ask yourself, how can a government can continue a war where the huge majority of its population, of its citizens are against it.

And then you reach the conclusion that this is really, Israel is governed today by a very small group of very extreme right wings that are in. government are not going to give up. And all the demonstration that were held in the last two years did not achieve anything, no matter how big they were. I think in a paradoxal way, I think the only, and Trump who came in with great promises that he will stop the war in a week or no time at all is the you know he is proving himself that he

if there was one thing he does not know is the art of the deal he cannot he does not know how to make a deal not in Ukraine and not in Israel-Palestine so there's no real pressure from Trump I think strangely enough

the only force that can stop the war now is the army itself, is the Israeli army itself. There are signs that, first of all, the army is very, the soldiers, are very, very fed up, tired, people don't show up to the reserve, even among the regular army, people are not willing to come in. And there's a lot of, you know,

I see it from the, the amount of soldiers that are talking to the press. What we didn't see in the beginning, that nobody spoke to the press. Now it's a wave of soldiers talking about what they do in Gaza and how they oppose it and so forth. But above it, I think, the army itself, even the chief of staff, is hinting that it has more or less fulfilled its task in Gaza. It cannot go further. The talk, it's not a talk. The Minister of Defense, Israel, Katz,

and Prime Minister Netanyahu are talking openly about building a humanitarian city in the south of Gaza Strip, which is practically a concentration camp because people would be allowed in but not out. And I think the army itself understand that these are crimes against humanity, and they are quite hesitant to go that far.

The government wants the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. This is what Netanyahu wants. This is what Israel Katz wants. This is what Bezal Smotrich wants, Itamabangvir, all these people. They openly say that they want the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. I think the army is a little bit hesitant. If the army will say no, I think then there is. a problem.

How did you reconcile? I'm curious because that 82% poll and you'd have a better sense of I than whether that's an outlier poll.

We've seen polls that you know, something like that go in the other direction. We've seen polls that have suggested there are no innocence in Gaza.

I'm curious as to like what what has been the trajectory what was there a a particular inciting event recently that that turned things there or is it just simply some form of attrition is it your sense that it's coming out of a a sympathy for or a repulsion of what's happening in Gaza or rather an exhaustion it is certainly there is a repulsion of what israel is that is doing it's more than than we have seen in the last 21 months since the beginning of the war we've we are hearing more and more voices even from the mainstream uh the ex-prim minister erud olmer coming from the right wing is is almost doing a campaign likewise bogia alone ex-minister of defense and the ex-Chief of staff and ex-lican member and not to speak about soldiers and other voices that are growing up. But this is not the main force that's pushing for a ceasefire.

I think it's attrition. And I think, again, after the war in the end of the war in Iran, that is still conceived of a victory in Israel. I think the Israeli population is asking itself, okay, if we have won over Iran, this mighty power that can destroy us or was supposed to have the ability to wipe Israel off the map, can we, is it impossible to have a ceasefire with Hamas

completely broken, have very little arms that can really hit Israel. Is it really impossible to have a ceasefire with them, to have the same arrangement even that we have with Iran? There's no formal ceasefire with Iran. Israel stopped bombing and Iran stopped bombing. Is it not possible to do the same with Hamas? And, of course, 21 months, the hostages, the attrition, the soldiers that are being killed almost, you know, almost every two days there's one soldier killed at least. So all this, I think, is a mounting, the pressure is mounting.

But as I said, I think Netanyahu does not heed this pressure, the coming with popular pressure. It doesn't really care because he has a majority. But you have to add here one thing. I think Netanyahu, and we have seen now the problem in the coalition, he has lost the majority in the parliament. Just today, Shas Party, another ultra-religious party has withdrew from. the government and it has, now it's a minority government at the moment. So I think that he has a weak government and I think Netanyahu is considering maybe for the first time

really having a ceasefire and ending the war and releasing all the hostages and go to an early election with claiming that he won over Iran, he won over Hezbollah, he toppled Assad, he crushed Hamas, he destroyed Gaza, and Gaza is no longer a threat. And in this way, he can go to an early election and maybe have a chance to win, because according to the polls now, he's lagging behind and with the hostages at its side are Sarah Netanyahu, his wife and him, you know, having the photo with the hostages. I think he may consider that this is a chance to win the election that are already not that far away anyhow. We will have an election anyhow in a year's time, in a year or three months time.

So he may be considering. I think he's still afraid. He's afraid, first of all, that his government will fall more quickly than he wants. But I think there is a, and I think I said it before, I think for Netanyahu, he is really hesitant,

really hates to see the war ends because I think Netanyahu is afraid that once the war end, some path towards negotiation with the Palestinian, on some kind of a Palestinian state, under pressure by the Gulf State and others and the Europe and other, he really is afraid that the end of the war may lead to at least a beginning of such a process. And the Teniao heritage, he came into place. politics 30 years ago in order to prevent a Palestinian state. That's his goal in life, that's the heritage he wants to live behind. And if he will finish the war and will see

the beginning of a process towards a Palestinian state that will mean that all what he did in his early politics in the last 30 years has failed. And I think this is why Netanyahu is so hesitant, although he sees now a reason to end the war politically for political gains. And how much, I mean, I know that, how much does the potential charges against him also continue to play a role in his decision making? I tend to think that less. there are many commentators that think that this is the main thing. I think less

I think he sees that he if there is an attrition it's the judges the attrition is in the court he is not winning the trial but he's not losing

the trial may go on for years it may go on for at least two years So I'm not sure that this is the main thing. Yes, of course, if he will not be prime minister, then the pace of the trial will certainly will be, you know, it will be more quick and maybe also the sentence. But I'm not sure that this is really the main fear of Netanyahu.

Let's talk about what's happening in the West, Bank. One of the things that was reported in the run-up to the U.S. election was that Muriel Madelson was leveraging her $120-some-odd million outside expenditure on behalf of Donald Trump for, in return, for U.S. recognition of the annexation of the West Bank. And there's some, you know, past performance is no guarantee of future results. results, but Miriam Adelson got what she wanted last time in the form of the embassy in Jerusalem, or I should see the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, and as a bonus, I guess she got the annexation of the Golan Heights. What is, you've written a piece about militias in the West Bank. And this should, I should also say,

and I don't know that this, you would have a better sense, obviously, than I, the U.S. lifted its sanctions on violent settlers in the West Bank. I'm sure that's not the only green light that they were getting at all, but I guess it makes that green more vibrant, perhaps. Tell us what's been going on there, because we've had some discussion over the past couple of weeks here about the plan to begin to sort of create facts on the ground to pay. pave the way for annexation, what have you found in your report? I think annexation is one thing, and the action of the settlers in the West Bank is another. There are interrelated, but not necessarily the same thing.

There's certainly, if we have talked about militia before, I think now it's almost an army. the settlers are acting as an army they have central command it does seem I'm talking about what is called the youth the hills on the youth on the hills

health of youth I think this is now it's not some sporadic local action these are planned geographically they first of all pushed to most of the

Palestinian communities in the east part, eastern part of the West Bank. Now they are moving westward towards Ramallah and Nablus, trying to push attacking regularly Palestinian villages and towns. This is very organized. The idea is really to cleanse this area and from Palestinian. and widened settlement and the settlers' control. This is very clear. At the same time, they do declare that they want annexation.

I think what there are more aiming is ethnic cleansing. I think they see what's going on in Gaza. They want to imitate what is being done in Gaza, either in destroying the central the refugee camps in the West Bank this is being done in Jenin and Tulcarem and elsewhere and putting a lot of pressure

on the population and they want to imitate and they want that the army will do the same thing that he's doing in Gaza start to push the politicians population. And so annexation, I think certainly Bitzan Smotrich and

Etamar Bengh and others in the Ikud Party also are very keen on annexation. I think Netanyahu is more hesitant there. I think he understands, or at least he is afraid, that annexation

will be a first step towards a binational state. Maybe not now, but over the years. If Israel will annex the West Bank, then the way towards a binational state is quite open. Yes, at the beginning it will be an apartheid state, formal apartheid state, but at the end, as we've seen in South Africa, it will lead to a binational state. And Netanyahu prefers to leave things as they are, that there is some kind of Palestinian authority

that is responsible for running the lives of the Palestinian in the West Bank, that he has someone to blame, and that they are not part of Israel as such, that there is some kind of an illusion that this is not a final status. I think Netanyahu prefers it. Smotrich, who is Messianic, does not think in these realistic terms, I think that there is an historic opportunity, maybe it's right, to annex, and it's not clear who will have the upper hand.

But for the time being, what is being done is using this army, this militia army of the settlers. They're not, they don't need great numbers because they are aided by the army to really attack systematically the Palestinian now on the eastern part and slowly moving towards the central part of the West Bank. You're right too that recently they have begun attacking the Israeli soldiers. What is the sense of your average Israeli citizen as to what is going on there? I mean, I would imagine the attacks on the Israeli soldiers is influencing

their perspective on the settlers, but prior to that, distinct of that, because it also seems to me that as the settlers, you know, are doing this ethnic cleansing, they are in their minds paving the way for an easier annexation that would be less likely to end up as a binational state. But where is the Israeli population on what has been going on in the West Bank? Is there been an increase in an awareness of what's going on there? Or is there been just a determination not to know or what? The settlers and are not popular, are even extremely not popular. I think Smotrich, who is the strong man of the government.

In the government currently is the strongest person. Seems like the strongest person maybe sometimes stronger than Netanyahu. does not pass the threshold in order to enter the next parliament. He is below the 3.25% needed to enter the parliament. So he is not popular. The settlers are not popular in the Israel. And certainly, such attacks on soldiers only, you know, affect their popularity even in there.

worse, make the popularity even worse. But they are in power. They have a very strong symbiotic relation with the army in the West Bank. Many of the commanders in the West Bank are settlers themselves. So there is, you know, even when they attack, they attack the soldiers, the soldiers themselves, or at least their commanders, then they try to say, no,

the settlers were not that violent, it's not their fault, there was misunderstanding, things like that. We have to remember, of course, that Benavir controls the police. He is the Minister of Internal Security, so he controls the police.

The police are supposed to do these inquiries, not the army. So these inquiries are not being done. And the Israeli public is aware, to a certain extent, of course, not out of sympathy to the Palestinian, but Israel, you know, calling Smotrich and Ben-Vir Messianic became very common in the protest against the government. So they're not popular, but they have the power, they have the army, they have arms, and the Palestinian cannot really resist, because every time they try to resist, the army comes in and kill them.

I want to just turn to the piece that you wrote just a couple of days ago about the attempt to oust Aiman O'Dah, a member of Haddad, a an Israeli Knesset member, an Arab-Israeli Knesset member, that effort failed yesterday. But, and I have to say that I read your piece, we had it translated into English from Hebrew, so it's, you know, some of the nuance may be gone. but your sense is that this is an attempt to change the I guess the national character from a nation state into a tribe and you know I mean to some extent it feels from the outside like that's that you're already there but but uh Tell us more about that. Yes, I think it's a piece I wrote with Mir Fahuri, who himself as a Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Yes, I think, yeah, to a certain extent, Israel from the beginning is some kind of an ethnocratic state where the Jews are the dominant and Jewish state. So it exists from the early, days of Israel but I think what's happening now it's not only it was not only an attack on

Ayman Orde as a parliamentarian and an attack on the Palestinian minority and trying to dissuade them from going to the polls to vote when there are election I think what we have

wrote in our peace is that there is an attack also on the Palestinian citizens of Israel, also in the civil side, meaning there was an attack on the, as maybe you don't know, but something like 40% of the personnel in the health services are Palestinian, are Palestinian citizens of Israel, something like 40%. doctors, nurses and medical staff so there was an attack on this trying to prevent them

a member of the Knesset from Likud attacked them and said that they should not go to be doctors and things like that this is really one of the biggest gains let's say of the Arab minority in Israel in terms of prestige that everyone goes to a hospital and sees Arab doctors

but also in terms of economic success because the Arab middle class there is some kind of an Arab middle class in Israel and it is based to a large extent on doctors, lawyers, etc. So there is an attack on this also. And I think really that the whole notion of how Israel is fighting in Gaza is really fighting

as a tribe. It does not represent no more a state. You know, soldiers are chanting Am Israel high. The people of Israel is alive. Long live, the people of Israel. This is something that, of course exists always, but now really it seems that Israel is acting as more and more in a tribe. But we have to say that this has failed, and this is quite interesting and maybe a little bit encouraging, in the sense that at the beginning, when this move against Simon Oeder began, many in the center left joined in Yair Lappe, the head of the opposition joined in and said, yes, he taught, and maybe others in the central left, thought that going against the Palestinian minority will gain them votes and they will

look patriotic and then gain votes. But what happened is that the protest movement that is very strong now in Israel declared quite openly that any leader that will support EIMON order demies expulsion of EIMAN order from the Knesset, from the parliament, will not be allowed to approach these manifestations. And there was a pressure, a mounting pressure, coming from this manifestation movement against these leaders, a representative of the center left, and they had to withdrew. And they didn't vote against his removal, but they abstained or didn't go to vote. So the 90 votes needed were not obtained.

And it's interesting that still within the center left, the people of the center left are more, let's say, progressive than their leaders. I think we have that dynamic to some extent here. But what has turned in that? I mean, we spoke a couple of years ago now about the protests against the attempts to change to make the judiciary less independent. And at that time, I remember your sense that there was a hope but you did not see much of that developing that people protesting against the authoritarianism that those provisions represented might understand that it is the same dynamic

that is being basically, I mean, imported, it's not that far of a distance, but imported from the way that Israel has been controlled, controlling Palestinians in the West Bank, and, you know, this was prior to October 7th and in Gaza, and that there was a hope that this protest movement would sort of begin to see the similarities and perhaps increase empathy and solidarity. Has that dynamic changed me? because as far as I can tell, you did not feel like it was happening at that time. Has that dynamic changed in some way, or is it more of this post-Iranian war sense of, like, what's the end game here?

It's interesting. I think prior to October 7, this realization that the repression of the Palestinian and the West, Bank has something to do with the repression or with the efforts to make Israel, inside Israel, against the Jews in Israel, to establish a more authoritarian regime inside Israel, that these are related, the repression of the Palestinian and the repression of democracy inside Israel. It has been growing up in the demonstration. You almost saw it by the week. that every week there was more and more realization that these are interconnected. This, of course, collapsed on October 7, once the war began, and of course, the massacre by Palestinian, you know, made all the issue very far away.

And, of course, the feeling of revenge and the feeling that all Palestinian wants are, the Jews to be exterminated, and this was very strong. Now, I think, yes, it has not come back in this sense, but the attrition and the feeling, the strong feeling, that Netanyahu is continuing the war for political aims, for, yes, maintaining, government, but also maintaining this approach that an everlasting war, that this is almost the Sparta like that Netanyahu is not talking about openly, about Israel being a modern

Sparta. And what we've seen in Syria is part of that, of course. I think this is something that people are quite wary of. it's not only the war in Gaza they are wary of this eternal war that there's no future people talking about emigrating from Israel I don't know the numbers

maybe are not that huge but certainly the discourse exists you know you hear it everywhere in every cafe in every small talk in the buses everywhere you can hear people talking about wanting to go away.

And what we've seen with Ayman Ode is interesting in this sense that the protest movement itself almost from bottom up without any leader, political leader telling them, listen, you have to enlist in order to stop this attempt to oust. I'm an order, it came from below from the protesters themselves. I think maybe there's more realization of this

interconnectivity than we might imagine because it has very little space in politics among the political leaders. It has very little space in the mainstream media,

but maybe the undercurrents here are stronger than we imagine. Maybe that's my take, I think, from the fact that the move to Outs-Iman-Oder failed quite. You know, they needed 90 votes. They had only 73, meaning only more, you know, the coalition has 68 members in Parliament, so they have only 73, meaning that they gained only five votes from the opposition. It's far below what they expected the coalition, and maybe it's a positive sign that such an awareness exists more than we may think.

Does the Israeli Jewish, the Israeli Jewish population, are they, is there a sense that the amongst them that the country is becoming more isolated internationally? Is there a sense that the economy is suffering from what's going on? I'm curious as to like the, where the average Israeli Jew. sees themselves in the world and how they, if they see themselves, you know, reflected differently than maybe two years ago or five years ago? The isolation plays a part, plays, I think, an important part. I think this is one of when we're talking about the attrition. I think this is also the fact that Israel is feeling more and more isolated,

that we hear voices concerning, for example, this humanitarian city, we hear even from more mainstream pundits saying, no, this will lead to complete isolation of Israel, of Israel being regarded completely as a war criminal. This plays a part, I think. This plays a part also in the will of people to run away from here. As for the economy, I think maybe this is one of the main issues why Netanyahu's government did not fall earlier. The economy, considering that we are in war for 21 months, is doing quite well.

The stock market is skyrocketing. the situation is not that bad yes maybe there are some difficulties but it's not dramatic you would have imagined that after such a long war and such huge expenses on military the situation would be much worse

it is not the streets of Tel Aviv are quite full the cafe the bars the restaurants are quite full there's no sense that we are in a crisis in a sense strangely enough people are being paid quite nicely

for going to the reserve people are almost competing on going to the reserve not to act not to go into Gaza but doing rear in the rear doing jobs in the

in the reserve is quite, you gain quite a lot of money. So there are almost ads that people are being asked, we have a job opportunity in the reserve. You have it a lot on Facebook, you see it a lot on social media. So I think the situation, the economic situation, and smart rich who is also the finance minister, is bragging about it, certainly during the war in Iraq, every morning he used to have, you know, himself photographs that in a, on, you know, on the background,

there are the graphs of the stock market coming up and saying, this is a miracle. Israel is very strong, although we are going to war where the economy is doing very well. I think this is maybe the weakest point of the process movement, let's say, that the prediction that Israel will collapse economically did not materialize. Interesting. Marone Rappaport, we will put a link to your work at Local Call and 972 Mag and the various pieces that you've had over the past couple of days. I really appreciate you coming on the program, and congratulations on the investigation of the year award that you won, I guess it was last month or so, for, I think we spoke to you. I think about that piece on Israel's covert war on the International Criminal Court, which appears to have been at least somewhat successful. and if not ongoing.

Maroon Rappaport, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, folks. That does it for the first hour of the program. We're going to move into the fun half. Try and get to your calls a little earlier today.

We've got plenty of fun things. to discuss on the on today's fun half just a reminder it's your support that makes this show possible you can support this program by going to join the majority report.com when you do you only get the free show free of commercials

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yeah left reckoning last night we had Brian Goldstone on talking about his book there is no place for us which I think uh is a It's an exceptional book on how unfair society is to people that are just scraping to get by and stay in, say, shelter, alongside, say, Barbara Aaron Rake's nickel and dined. I think it's an instant classic. Everyone should read the book. We had Brian on last night talking about all the different companies that are set up to monetize homelessness instead of treating it like extended stay Americas and all that sort of stuff.

So check that out. Patreon.com slash left reckoning. We also talked about Jeremy Corbyn's new party. already polling even with labor who expelled him several years ago and now they're complaining about splitting the party

I'd say if you don't want the party to be split don't cleave off the popular parts and that would be a good message for Democrats domestically as well that feels like a sort of a really incredibly obvious thing

you don't want to split the party what you should start by doing is not literally splitting the party exactly don't split them off with a meat cleaver and then be like hey why aren't you unified with us uh so uh we talked about that a little bit patreon dot com slash left reckoning all right folks see you in the fun half three months from now six months from now nine months from now and i don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now and i don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now

but I think around 18 months out we're going to look back and go like wow what is that going on it's nuts wait a second hold on for hold on for a second Emma welcome to the program hey man brew fun what is up everyone no mckeen you did it Let's go Brandon. On. Bradley, you want to say hello?

Sorry to disappointment. Everyone, I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Women is... Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.

Where is this coming from, dude? But, dude, you want to smoke his... Seven and eight? Yes. Hi, me. Is this safe? Yes. Is this me?

Is it me? It is you. Um, is this me? I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind?

We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to go to life. Who libertarians? They're so stupid though. Common sense says, of course. Gobbled e gook. We fucking nailed him. So what's 79 plus 21?

challenge met. I'm positively quivering. I believe 96, I want to say. 857. 210. 35. 501. One half. Three-eighth. 9-11, for instance. $3,400, $1,900. $6.5,4, $3 trillion sold.

It's a zero-sum game. Actually, you're making think less. But let me say this. Hoop. You're going to call it satire. Sam goes to satire. On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every day, all day. Everything you do it.

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we've seen you. All right, folks. Folks. Folks. It's just the week being weeded out, obviously. Yeah, sundown guns out. I don't know.

But you should know. People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled folks I love it I do love that I got a jump

I gotta be quick I get a jump I'm losing it bro Two o'clock We're already late And the guy's being a dick So screw him Sent to a gulaw

Outrageous Like what is wrong with you Love you Love you Bye bye I don't know.