The Young Turks - Gaza Hospital Bombing

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

Hundreds killed in bombing of Gaza hospital. Around 2,000 U.S. troops were told to prepare for deployment in response to the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas releases first video of a hostage taken to Gaza HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! Welcome to the best show on the planet. Jake Ugar, Anna Kasparian with you guys.

You know, we have international news. It's not great. I hear you on that. We'll cover it. We'll be all right. And then we'll get on to Trump's comedy show. The amusing fascist. Okay, so we've got all that coming on, but first Anna.

Yeah, I just wanted to look, it seems petty to even bring this up given the gravity of the news today, which we will get to in just a moment. But I wanted to be clear about something with our audience, because following the interview that we had with Vivek Ramoswamy, in which, by the way, I invited him to come on this show, there were a few people who felt that I was too aggressive. Okay, I want to be clear that this is who I am. This is how I conduct the show, and I'm not going to change. I'm not going to have anyone come on this show, either a Democrat, Republican, don't get progressive, self-identified progressive, come on this show and use our platform to say a whole lot of nothing. So when I'm asking about what differentiates Vivek Ramoswamy from Donald Trump, I want to know because we need to know what his motivations are for running in the first place.

If you are not going to attack your political opponent in a Republican primary, then why the hell would anyone vote for you? And that was the point of those questions, which I wasn't even going to get to Trump until way later in that interview. But he's the one who brought up Trump first. Go back, roll the tape, watch it. And he decided to immediately defend Trump's behavior and potential criminal behavior. Yeah. So look, I'm glad we did the interview. I think that where he jumped the shark was when Anna asked him about the meeting that he had

with people within Trump circles. With Trump. And Trump himself before he launched his campaign. He didn't like that. Yeah, that's where he got real touchy. Yeah, he got touchy and that's because he's obviously not running against Trump. We asked him many different ways and he refuses to criticize Trump and he says he's the greatest president of the 21st century and but he's running against him because he's running against him because

he's slightly younger. That's not a real reason. This is the whole thing is fake, right? So that's my sense of it, but I, but the important part is for you guys to get a sense of who he is and what he's going for. And he's in parts of smooth talker, but I think that his situation is relatively obvious. Look, you know, I've now had conversations with about a dozen different conservative talk show hosts online because of the book, right? And what's interesting is that a lot of them are genuine, right? Now these are not some of the bigger players, although some of them are. But they have real conservative positions, they might have real positions that we can't stand, right?

But overall, they're having a real conversation with it. You don't get that sense with Vivek. So when you, you know, if he were to say, hey, listen, man, I think they're bought and paid for. As I said like a couple times on the show, I actually totally agree with that. That would be an interesting candidate from the Republican side. But then he waffles on it, but he did say yesterday that he thinks that the people like Nikki Haley are circus monkeys. That's a hell of a thing to say, right?

And so, okay, now you know that. He seemed to indicate, I mean, the only critique he had of Trump other than age was, he seemed to indicate that Trump was lying on the 2020 election. That's interesting. So look, that you bring people on no matter how much they filibuster and evade, et cetera, to try to get interesting nuggets out of him. And I think we did and I hope you guys got something out of it. But are we going to be aggressive interviewers?

Of course, that's what we do. We do it with Democrats, we do it with Republicans, we do it with everybody. That's why a lot of people are reluctant to come on the show. To which I say, good. You gotta know what you're getting yourself into. We ask real questions and we ask them aggressively. We don't play patty cakes. There's tons of shows for patty cakes if you want.

Yeah, paddy cakes is not jank style. It's obviously not my style. And after that interview yesterday, I felt I let people get in my head and make me feel guilty for who I am because who I am is not some agreeable sweet, you know, woman who's gonna come on the show and let people run circles around her. That's just not my style. So if you're watching the show and for some reason it goes against your sensibilities to watch a woman challenge a guy who's literally running for president.

Don't watch the show. Yeah. Because again, I'm not gonna change my style and I'm never gonna be bullied into saying things I don't believe just to appeal to any group of people, including members of our audience. Love you guys, but you guys are always gonna get the raw, honest truth. You're gonna get who I am as an actual human being who isn't playing a role or acting on this show. And I'm just, I'm done with it.

I'm done having to explain myself, I'm done trying to pretend that I'm something I'm not. This is who I am. This is how I do interviews. You don't like it, that's totally fine. Yeah, last thing here, guys, because I don't want anybody to get the misimpression that most people thought that way. Most people did not think that way. Tons of people just wrote it in like a million people just instantly wrote it.

I'll just give you two. Sexy Speed Ranger says, anybody who thinks that Anna was too aggressive with Rama Swampy last night is obviously a paid troll. I think that there was pretty much 99% trolls, but we're dressing it anyway. And Mountain Chaos wrote it, Anna, you were perfect, loved you, you putting him on the spot and making him do the Washington double talk. And there's about 200 other comments along similar lines. And guys, don't get us wrong. We know where you guys are, right?

The overwhelming majority of the audience appreciated it. And that's why you guys come to the show, because we actually challenge people in power and people running for president. And that's what all journalists are supposed to do, but here we actually do it. Yeah, all right, now that's out of the way. Let's get to the news, which is horrific to say the least. We begin with a developing story about a hospital that was targeted in Gaza. Let's talk about it.

Very, very significant damage in the courtyard area of this hospital. It's called Baptist Hospital. It's in the center of Gaza City. The Palestinian president, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, has declared three days of mourning. He says all flags will be lowered to have. staff because of the scale of the loss of life. The Al-Ali Baptist Hospital in Gaza City has been struck by an airstrike,

killing anywhere between 200 to 500 people. Now, this was a hospital where injured Palestinians were recovering, but it was also a hospital that many other Palestinians were seeking refuge and shelter, thinking that it would not be targeted in any kind of attack. Now, the story is still developing, and there are conflicting narratives about what actually transpired. And out of an abundance of caution, I will note that we should wait for an independent party to conduct an investigation, and we should not just believe what the IDF says, considering

their track record of literally lying about certain instances of killing innocent people, including a Palestinian-American journalist named Shireen Abu Ackle. But nonetheless, the IDF refuses to take responsibility for this, claiming that they did quick analysis just right away, determining that it was actually a misfired rocket coming from not Hamas, but from the Islamic jihad, which is what they believe another terrorist organization operating out of the Gaza Strip. Now, an IDF spokesperson by the name of Jonathan Cornicus spoke to CNN, claiming that they had conducted an investigation showing that they are not, in fact, responsible for this.

But I thought one of the follow-up questions asked by the CNN host here was a fascinating one to say the least. I want to be clear that they have not released any evidence, clearing them of doing an airstrike. But with that said, let's take a look at what this IDF spokesperson had to say on CNN. We are aware of a barrage of rockets that was fired by terrorists from Gaza towards Israel and that passed in close proximity to that hospital in Gaza at the time that it was hit. The intelligence that we have from multiple sources is, it indicates that the Islamic Jihad, another terrorist organization in Gaza, is responsible for a failed rocket launch that struck

the hospital in Gaza. Hundreds of people were killed. There is going to be enormous scrutiny on who was behind this. strike, are you willing to share the intelligence, the actual raw data with the world that indicates what you're saying, that this was Islamic jihad and not the IDF? We're in the progress of declassifying. I cannot promise yet that we will, but maybe because of the importance and because of what is at stake here, that may happen. If it's believing the idea for believing Hamas, I think it should be clear for anybody involved that

They should believe the IDF. No, I want to be clear that we have condemned Hamas and their terror attacks on Israeli civilians on this show. I have no problem doing so. And I wouldn't take what Hamas has to say at face value either. However, I think it would be a mistake to just take what the IDF has to say at face value, considering, again, they have a track record of lying about the attacks that they have conducted in the Gaza Strip. I want to remind you one more time of what happened to. to Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Ackle, who was killed by an Israeli sniper.

They denied that that was the case and multiple investigations did in fact place the blame on the IDF despite their denials of that assassination essentially. But Shank, what are your thoughts on what's currently transpiring here? So let me be clear, I don't believe the IDF. Oh, wow, what a big scandalous thing to say. In the old days in America, you couldn't say things like that. You couldn't even say when we first started the young trucey, you don't believe the Pentagon. We would say that on air, and people would be outraged.

So why don't I believe the idea? First of all, IDF has a history of hitting civilian targets, a lot of them, and always saying that it was an accident, or it wasn't us, it was someone else. And so when you have a track record of doing it, that's relevant to the consideration. I also, that is what almost all of the government, different governments do when, either when they make a mistake or they do something horrible, including our government. I've seen the Pentagon do this exact kind of lie dozens of times and we've shown it to you on the show.

One that I remember very distinctly was when we bombed a wedding in Afghanistan. And the Pentagon comes out and says, no, we didn't, we didn't bomb it. Are you saying do you trust the Taliban over the... American government, right? Yeah, no, in that case, it's not about trusting the Taliban, it's about, no, you bombed the wedding. And later, of course, everybody confirmed that we bombed the wedding. You see, the reason the Pentagon, the IDF, and all the governments in the world lie to you in the beginning is to, is to create, to basically neutralize how damaging that news story is. They do overwhelming propaganda, and they send out their spokespeople and go, are you, do you believe the terrorists?

I've seen that trick 2,000 times over. That doesn't mean I don't have an open mind. Of course I have an open mind. If they prove that it was someone else, then we'll come out back here and tell you, oh, it turns out that mystery was solved, and it was Islamic jihad or something else. But for the moment being, it looks very much like it's IDF. And by the way, well played on the propaganda, because it gets at least everyone, including us, to go, maybe it wasn't the IDF.

Congratulations on propaganda, well done. But we're gonna look at all the facts and give you all the facts. I've got more reasons why I think it was idea, but go ahead, Anna. So one of the other excuses that we often see from the Israeli government and the Israeli defense forces is, well, you know, we had to do the strike against the school that had civilians or the hospital that had civilians because Hamas is using Palestinians as human shields. They'll use that as a justification. And, Jake, you mentioned the Pentagon, which is an interesting thing for you to mention,

especially since there is now a video going around on social media. Featuring the Pentagon spokeswoman, her name is Sabrina Singh, and she is saying, and I quote verbatim, Hamas is the one putting Palestinians, those in Gaza, at great risk. They are putting command and control units inside hospitals. How about don't bomb the hospitals? How about you, you just admitted that you did bomb the hospital, and yeah, you're saying, well, they made us bomb the hospital. So make up your mind, America and Israel, the governments of those, not the civilians,

but the governments of those countries. Do you have an excuse for why you bombed the hospital, or you didn't bomb the hospital? Which one is it? Because it's not both. It's not both. Why did you go out there and telling everybody, no, no, it's okay to bomb the hospital? It's okay. Are you saying it was okay for Islamic jihad to accidentally bomb the hospital?

to make up your mind, make up which lie and propaganda you're going to go with? So I've been following the story very closely since it broke this morning. And I noticed how it kind of played out on social media and how the reactions to the story by, you know, allies of Israel and members of the IDF, like how their reaction to a change throughout the day. So at first, there seemed to be a lot of excuses in regard to Israel, allegedly, conducting this a lot of claims similar to what you heard from the Pentagon spokeswoman, saying that, well, Hamas likes to use these areas in these places where you have a large number of Palestinian civilians and they use them as human shields, justifying the attack.

But the media response to it was incredibly critical, so much so that I think that maybe this is my read of it. I could be wrong. I wanna be clear about what we know in terms of the facts and what we're speculating on. This is what I'm speculating on. I'm speculating that once Israeli officials saw that the reaction and response to a possible Israeli airstrike on a hospital was a very negative one, all of a sudden tweets got deleted and the narrative changed, all of a sudden immediately, the IDF, which apparently did not have the intelligence necessary to prevent a Hamas terrorist attack a little over a week ago, had all

of the information necessary to determine that they were clear of any wrongdoing. Interesting. Okay. I want to share some of the tweets that I'm referring to. So these are two tweets that have been deleted. One of them features an appointed, a Netanyahu appointed digital spokesperson who tweeted the following after the hospital suffered this strike. Breaking, Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza, a multiple number of, of terrorists are dead, it's heartbreaking that Hamas is launching rockets from hospitals, mosques, schools, and using civilians as human shields. Hmm, sounds like Israel bombed a hospital until it was inconvenient. And then all of a sudden,

no, we didn't, no we didn't. It was the other dastardly Islamic jihad that popped out of nowhere. Okay. So that tweet was deleted. I was even going to bring it up on the show because I needed confirmation that this person actually did tweet this. There's a lot of misinformation. information going around. We have to be very careful, right? However, someone asked this individual, why did you delete this tweet? And he did not deny deleting the tweet. He said, instead he deflected saying, how about your friends in Al Jazeera that also deleted their tweet of accusing Israel? Al Jazeera published this tweet saying the IDF warned people. The IDF spokesperson called them out as liars and they deleted their tweet. In other words, you did delete the tweet and

you're trying to distract people with a rando comment about Al Jazeera. Who cares what Al Jazeera? Zero said. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, also deleted a tweet. I want to be clear that this tweet is from yesterday. You can see the date on it. It's, you know, October 16th. Today is the 17th. I say that because it's important to know this wasn't something that he tweeted out after the hospital was hit, but it gives you a sense of where Netanyahu's mind is. And it also gives you a sense of why he deleted it. Okay, so he wrote, this is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness between humanity and the law of the jungle. Prince of Darkness said, get out of here.

So this guy who's up on corruption charges, tried to ruin Israeli democracy, didn't do his job, let Israel get bombed. Hamas today is saying they were surprised at their success. They didn't want a broader war. You take Hamas also with the biggest boulder of salt that you could imagine. Don't get us twisted. We're not doing propaganda for either side. Unfortunately, like some media, but some of the media actually has been pretty good.

here. So I don't take Hamas at face value at all, okay, at all. Their leaders are at least as much liars as any government in the world. But Hamas is saying now, at least, we don't want a broader. We're easy to say after you did your killings and now you're being attacked. I understand all of that. But having said that, they said they were surprised that how weak the Israeli defenses were, they were just going in to take hostages, they didn't know that they were going to be able to overwhelm Israeli defenses. Again, take it with a grain of salt, okay? But Netanyahu didn't do his job. He did not. Okay, they were not at all ready. They didn't have the intelligence. The military was not in a position to defend. Going on the

offense is easy. You drop bombs on hospitals. They don't have Iron Dome. You do. You drop bombs on buildings, no one's disputing that they're dropping bombs on residential buildings. That part is easy, okay? Defending your people is hard, and he didn't do his job, and all he ever does is cause more and more conflict and war. When is Israel going to realize, and maybe the answer is soon, that the actual prince of darkness is Netanyahu. And it's that is in the context of if you want safety for Israel, let alone if you care about

being decent and humane to Palestinians. That's exactly right. And look, I really want to emphasize that there's a lot of attention being paid to what happened to this hospital, considering the high death toll. And it's just jarring, it's shocking, but I would not put it past the Israeli government under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, a far right prime minister to carry out an attack like this, given the brutality that Palestinian civilians have been facing in Gaza since the beginning of this latest war.

So just to provide the receipts in regard to residential buildings being targeted, an air strike in Dear Al-Bala reduced a house, a house, a house to rubble, killing a man and 11 women and children inside and in a neighboring house, some of whom had evacuated from Gaza City. Witnesses said there was no warning before the strike. Also shelling from Israeli tanks hit a UN school in central Gaza, where 4,000 Palestinians had taken refuge, killing six people and wounding dozens. The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency said, at least 24 United Nations installations have been hit in the past week,

killing at least 14 of the agency staff. There is no precision. There is... One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off.

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with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Indiscriminate, there are indiscriminate air strikes taking place. The fact that there is a humanitarian blockade without any chance of food or water entering, you know, the Gaza Strip, I mean, tells you everything you need to know about the lack of concern for human life, innocent civilians. You can't live without water. Water is life.

They know that, and they are continuing with the blockade anyway. Yeah. So look, guys, we'll sort out. I don't want people walking away thinking that we know with 100% certain. We don't. We just told you. We just told you. And here I'll add two more things, and then I'll summarize, okay?

Look, Mahmoud Abbas desperately wants to meet with Joe Biden to make his case. He's the leader of the Palestinians in the West Bank, not the Gaza Strip, okay? And Biden is going to Israel. But a boss pulled out from that meeting because of how outraged he was about the hospital strike. If he thought there was some percent a chance that it was not Israel, he wants that meeting with Biden badly. So it's possible he's wrong. It's possible that he's responding to local pressure, et cetera. But that is another sign.

Third sign is usually they blame each other back and forth, but there's some reasons why Hamas things can be verified. The fact that they said it's Islamic jihad instead of Hamas, it could be true, like we don't know with 100% certainty, right? But to me, that's another sign of, well, if we say it's Hamas, it could be verified that it wasn't. So we'll pick a rando group and pretend that it's them. Again, this is the propaganda that all governments do when they do something wrong. And they especially do it in the first two days because they want you to only remember the cloudy, I can't tell who did it. And then once it's passed out of the news cycle, then they can come back later and say, oh, yeah, mistakes were made, who cares, et cetera, right?

So I'd be shocked if the IDF released evidence. But if they do, again, we'll come back out here and tell you, okay, and we'll make sure to do that. But okay, so. But even so I want to be clear that it's important to have an independent third party conducted investigation. Of course. I wouldn't believe it if the Islamic jihad came out and said, no, no, we are not responsible for this. It's like you need an independent party to come out and do the investigation and figure out what's really transpiring.

By the way, there are all sorts of videos floating around the internet indicating that Israel has released footage showing that it was in fact a rocket from the Islamic jihad. We don't know what time that video was taken. We don't know which part of Gaza that video was taken in. There's a lot of information that is missing from those posts. So just be very careful with what you believe. By though, there's also videos that show a sound. that only the Israeli war planes make, but I don't know that's true either.

I mean, just seeing a video on Twitter doesn't prove anything. So all right, now last thing, guys, there's already 3,000 civilians dead and over 10,000 injured. So does it make it better? Let's say if the IDF killed the other 3,000, but somehow the hospital wasn't them, does that make it way better? I don't think it does. And they hit a bus, they hit a school, and they're threatening to hit a lot. lot more targets. And at what point does it stop becoming an accident?

3,000 accidents? What if 10,000 were killed? What if 100,000 were killed? When is it stopped being an accident and be intentional killing of civilians? So, and then finally, the moral culpability here of the occupation, I think should be stated every time. So not, except for when Hamas, that their initial brutal attack wasn't necessarily the time to talk about that. And it's not a justification for that attack. That attack was brutal and awful and barbaric. But when you're talking about the big picture of what is going wrong in this region, there is one overwhelming answer.

Millions of people are occupied in open-air prisons, and they've been occupied for over 50 brutal years. You cannot justify that under any circumstance. You can't come and tell me no, all Palestinians are savages, all Palestinians are anti-Semites. I don't like who they picked as their leader. They should pick the guy I want as their leader. And otherwise, I'm going to keep them under lock and key and with no rights, no nothing. And I'm going to bomb their civilians whenever I want.

And I'm going to justify it. And then I'm going to cut off their water and electricity. If you think, and there's so many disingenuous people online now, oh, it's not really an occupation. Oh, they let it go in 2005, six, seven, oh, and then they had the election in seven. So it's not an occupation. Oh, you're kidding. You know you're occupied when you don't control your own water and electricity. That's the most obvious thing in the world, let alone your own borders, let alone having your own state.

Israel, at some point, you have to let them go. If you don't, they're not. You're sorry, but that makes you the bad guys. So I, like, that doesn't mean vis-a-vis Hamas. It just means, period, period. When we invaded Iraq, America did, we were the bad guys. We invaded a country that did not attack us and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians died.

That's on us, okay? when you do a brutal occupation of millions of people for 56 long, horrible years. That's on you. So stop making excuses and end the goddamn occupation. All right, we've got more details about the ongoing war. Would we come back from the break, including updates on Biden's visit to the Middle East? All right back on TY Chink Anna Chet Lake, Caroline Brown, Galey McDougall, S.Moto, Shelley Hoffman, Meredith Smith, Shelby, and Nemo.

All those folks just became Young Turks members, and hence do this show with us. We appreciate you, you get all of our content, and we, fight forward, giving you honest news, and fighting for positive change in the world. So hit the join button below the video or t.com slash join and come join TYT Nation and help us do those things. Casper. Well, there are concerns that the war between Israel and Gaza will expand into a much larger war involving other countries, including Lebanon and Syria.

We should be concerned about that. Let's talk about why. U.S. troops are now on a heightened alert to be ready to deploy to the region and a support, not combat role. They'd provide intelligence, logistics, and communication support, and some would beef up security at U.S. installations throughout the region. The safety of hostages missing Americans and civilians in Gaza very much on the mind of the president and his team. Clashes with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon have been intensifying on Israel's northern border, leading to growing concerns and fears that the war in Gaza will trigger a wider

Middle East war. Now, we'll get to the details about the U.S. troops who are facing deployment in the region in just a moment. But before we do an update on Gaza and the fate of the Palestinians, now, Palestinian authorities say that the death toll has already reached 3,000 Palestinians. Just today, a hospital was struck with lots of argument about which airstrike led to that hospital being struck. The death toll is still increasing. We don't know exactly how many people have died as a result of that. It's anywhere between 200 at the lowest estimate and 500 at one of the highest estimates that we've seen in the press so far. But nonetheless, the situation is so bad that now Iran,

is saying, listen, we had nothing to do with the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, but we're about to get involved if this war and this brutal treatment of Palestinians continues. And the fears intensified late Monday with a warning from the Iranian foreign minister, Hussein, Amir Abdulahin, that Iran's militia allies in what it called the resistance front against Israel could take unspecified preemptive action to deter an Israeli assault on Gaza. Now, the likelihood that the war will spread to other fronts is approaching an unavoidable stage, he wrote on Monday, on X, formerly known as Twitter. As Israel announced, it had ordered the evacuation of 28 communities on its northern border. Now, over the past decade,

Iran has built militias and proxies in countries including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. In addition to Hamas, and all or any of them could be called on to open up new fronts. So there is a lot of concern, again, that if Israel continues the brutal treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, this could encourage other countries to get involved. groups in Iraq have warned that they will attack American interests in the country if the United States gets involved, and the Houthis in Yemen, another of Tehran's allies, have also made threats. Iranian back fighters in Syria, including Hezbollah forces there, would almost certainly join in. There have already been exchanges of fire along the Syrian border,

and activists report that Iranian allied fighters have been relocating to southern Syria, from the east of the country. This is no joke. This could quickly devolve into a much larger war, and we should absolutely be concerned about it. I know the Biden administration is concerned about it, and they've taken some actions to try to deter that from happening. But I should be clear in noting that there is no indication

that the American government has demanded a ceasefire or demanded Benjamin Netanyahu calm the situation down rather than continue escalating war with the Palestinians in Gaza. Well, there's one indication. Biden is going to Israel, and the reporting says that he wants relief to be brought in. And if you think about it, he doesn't want to go there and come away empty-handed in terms of some sort of diplomacy to calm the situation down. So they're going to have to give Biden something, and that presumably some sort of relief for the Palestinians.

Especially given that Biden has been so strongly in favor of Israel so far and is looking to increase funding to Israel, they're going to want to make some sort of concession. And so, and the reporting is indicating that the administration is asking for at least a small concession to get relief to the Palestinian civilians there, and that's good. That's a positive note by the administration. Yes. So now I want to talk about Iran's conundrum here and whether they were involved in the first place.

So here's one piece of evidence that they were not. Intelligence officials are saying, if they were trying to antagonize Israel by planning this with Hamas, then when Israel counterstruck with ferocity, that's when Iran would have triggered a series of militia attacks to try to get to a larger war and to suck Israel into that war, even if Israel doesn't want it. But they have not done that. So intelligence officials are telling reporters, it looks like Iran was caught a little off guard here and they don't want the wider war. So that's why they're trying to be careful here. But there's a reason why they might have to respond in their way of thinking, not in our way of thinking. I'll get to that in a second. Yeah, in fact, let me shed more light on the allegations that Iran was involved in the terror attacks that Hamas carried out against Israeli civilians a little over a week ago.

So basically, the one source that had reported that was the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal put out a new story indicating that Iran was planning that attack with Hamas, but that report was not corroborated, and in fact, semaphore recently reported that there are some conflicts happening amongst Wall Street journalists over the decision to publish that report, knowing that the details were murky to say the least. Some are calling this the Wall Street Journal's Judith Miller moment, and I think those are some strong words. And I would definitely agree with it. We just need a little more evidence and then I'd feel comfortable.

For those who are unfamiliar with Judith Miller and her role in rallying support for the preemptive war in Iraq, Jank, I remember you doing excellent coverage on that. Tell us about that. Yeah. So she was a New York Times reporter and they kept feeding her fake intelligence. And since she was getting scoops from the U.S. government, she felt really proud and it helped her career. And the New York Times, to me, was way more culpable as an organization than just Judith Miller. Any rando reporter can get leaks from the government.

It's your job as editors and publishers to be more careful. But they printed that stuff on the front page day after day after day. And it made it seem like Iraq was part had something to do with attacking us on 9-11, had weapons of mass destruction, all these things. And everything that was by actual intelligence sources with real intelligence was buried in A-17, 8-20. in the back of the paper, and that is why when we attacked Iraq, 69% of Americans, 7 out of 10 Americans thought that Saddam Hussein had personally attacked us on 9-11. That's why they were in favor of the war, because they thought Iraq attacked us. When they found out that Iraq had not attacked us many, many, many years later,

then public opinion changed. That's why these reporters are so important oftentimes. So now you've got BS leaks, it appears going to the Wall Street Journal. And by the way, I said this when I was on with Ben Glee, a couple of days later, Wall Street Journal began to walk that back saying some people say this is what happened, right? So you have to be very careful with these leaks because every leak has some agenda that they're trying to push. And sometimes it's getting out the truth as a whistleblower. And sometimes it's just making your own political case with a reporter who wants to get famous. and in publication like Wall Street Journal owned by Rupert Murdoch, who was pushed for the Iraq war,

pushed for now seemingly pushing for the war against Iran, there isn't a war that Rupert Murdoch didn't want to make love to. So it's the least surprising thing on earth that a Murdoch paper would give you questionable intelligence, pushing you further into ridiculous, absurd, disastrous wars. Now, if Iran backed Hezbollah enters this war, I really, want everyone to understand just how disastrous that would be, especially for civilians in the region. Hezbollah has amassed between 130,000 and 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel, some of which could reach deep into Israeli cities or be used to deliver precision strikes against Israeli military facilities, such as air bases, curtailing Israel's fighting

capabilities. Again, just really want to emphasize how Benjamin Netanyahu's action and his orders for the IDF in the Gaza Strip are not only brutal toward Palestinian civilians, it's brutal in regard to the future safety of Israeli citizens, because it is goading others to join this war. A full-scale war with Lebanon could turn Gaza into a sideshow, says Farras Maksad, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, bringing a level of destruction and bloodshed to Israeli civilians unseen. In all of the country's wars, what Hezbollah has in military hardware and capability dwarfs Hamas in Gaza. Now, the Biden administration is doing what it can to de-escalate the situation and essentially implement deterrence in order to deter Iran and Hezbollah from joining this war.

So that happened in the, in the, that's partially happening with the deployment of 2,000 U.S. troops. I want to be clear that these are not combat troops. That's really important to keep in mind. These are troops who are going to be sent to the region to provide assistance. That does worry me to some extent, but there are also aircraft carriers that have been deployed to the region as well as a deterrent to discourage both Hezbollah and Iran from joining this war. With that said, the Israeli government says that they refuse to allow in any humanitarian

aid to the Gaza Strip until Hamas release the hostages. And what's really interesting is that NBC and other news outlets are reporting that Hamas is now ready and willing to release the hostages, but they have some conditions in place. So let's take a look at the first video about that, and then we'll explain the conditions that they're demanding. So yesterday, the top spokesman for the military wing of Hamas made an offer, a dangle. He said that the group is willing to hand over all foreign hostages if the airstrikes.

Well, what he said specifically is he said they were willing to hand over all foreign hostages if the conditions on the field are right, if the conditions are appropriate. So I spoke to a short while ago, a senior Hamas official inside Gaza, And I asked for clarification. I said, are you still willing to release foreign hostages? And what do you mean that you would do it if the field conditions are right? And he said that not only are they willing to release all foreign hostages, meaning even Israelis who have second passports, but also all Israeli civilians, if the bombing stop.

So Hamas is saying if the bombing stops, we will release the hostages. Israel is saying, no, we're gonna keep going until you release the hostages. So to me, it really does seem as though the hostages are no longer, or never really were a priority, they kind of come in second when it comes to rooting out Hamas in their minds. Yeah, so I have a nuanced opinion on that. I think that Israel's in a really tough spot with the hostage situation, because you're gonna to take Hamas's word for it, where you're gonna stop bombing for how long, when do they turn over the hostages? So you'd have to really get in there and negotiate and be a lot more

clear on the order of things. All right, give me half the hostages and I'll stop bombing. And then if I stop bombing for a week or whatever, you give me the other half. Well, some sort of deal where both sides can verify, right? So you can't just take somebody's word for it because you heard it on a news story that Hamas is promising maybe to release. the hostages. So I have sympathy for Israel there. That's a top spot to be in. On the other hand, as we've said from day one of the counterattack, I don't see how bombing the buildings helps the hostages. I don't see how cutting off water and electricity helps the hostages. If anything, all three of those things could really hurt the hostages. It might even kill

the hostages because they don't really know where they are at all. So I think it's incredibly hard to find those hostages. I mean, you would have to lose so many lives, both IDF soldiers, Hamas for whatever that's worth, but Palestinian civilians to be able to find, and how are you gonna find, maybe you find 10 of them, 20 of them, 199 of them dispersed throughout Gaza, even though Gaza's still a small place, that is very, very, very difficult. So they got them, my point is at the end of the day, they have to make a deal. And they, and I get it. that they need to verify the deal, they need to have leverage for the deal, I understand all those realities on the ground. But at some point, both sides have to make a deal on the

hostages at a minimum. So when we come back from the break, we're going to focus solely on the hostage situation. There is an expert who has negotiated hostage situations with Israel in the past, and he has an interesting perspective on all of this. So we'll share that story and more with you when we return. Don't miss it. All right back on Young Turks, Jane Canana with you guys, but also Anton Rourke, Bruce Salazar, and Zane Posma. Every member does the show with us, so we appreciate you guys. You could do likewise. by hitting the join button below the video on YouTube or t-y-t.com slash join. And guys, next segment, I'm going to read more of your comments asking us to have more

Palestinian voices on. So I see you. We'll get to that later in the show. Go ahead, Anna. All right. Well, we have an update on the hostage situation in Gaza. So let's talk a little bit about what we know about one of the hostages who has been recorded on film and released to the public.

Tonight, the first video of a hostage held inside Gaza, released by Hamas. In it, 21-year-old Maya Shem asked to be brought home as soon as possible and says she's being given medical care. It's unclear if she's being forced to make the statement. Shem was one of the Israelis who was kidnapped at the Nova Festival near the Gaza Strip after Hamas fighters launched a terror. attack on October 7th, that so far killed at least 1,400 Israelis. Now here's more on Shem and the video released by Hamas. For the first time, video of one of the 199 hostages taken into Gaza. Hamas, the militant group behind the brazen attack on October 7th, releasing video of

21-year-old French Israeli citizen Mia Shem. Her family giving us permission to show these images, she was killed. kidnapped with many others from the music festival. I just ask that you'll bring me home as soon as possible to my family, she says, to my parents, to my brothers, please get us out of here as soon as possible. Overnight, her family speaking out. I saw my baby on television. I saw she's alive.

I didn't know she's dead or alive until yesterday. All I knew is that she might be. kidnapped. I'm begging the world to bring my baby back home. Now that was her mother, Karen. She said that she had heard all sorts of rumors about what had happened to her daughter ahead of time. She's told CNN, quote, I heard before rumors that she was shot in the shoulder or in the leg so I can see she was shot in her shoulder. I see she had an operation. She looks very terrified. She looks like she is in big pain and I can see that she says what they tell her to say.

Now there are serious concerns about the hostages who are held captive in the Gaza Strip. There are estimated to be anywhere between 199 and now new reports indicate that there are as many as 250 Israeli hostages, well hostages, not all of them are Israeli, some of them are actually foreign hostages who happen to be in Israel at the time of this attack. But there are some serious concerns that Israel might not be prioritized. the hostages at the moment considering the humanitarian blockade, the blockade from any water entering the area, which obviously not only impacts the Palestinian civilians, but it impacts

the hostages who are in the Gaza Strip at the moment. And there was an interesting comment made by an expert who has been tasked with negotiating hostage situations. He had a perspective here that I think is worth sharing with you all. So let's take a look. To start a dialogue with Hamas, we have to understand who can do it. And the ones who can do it are the countries that have influence over Hamas, which are Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt, and Iran. Baskin says there's a small window of opportunity to make a deal to release hostages.

It's a matter of days, probably a week before the Israeli ground forces going to Gaza. That's when the window for negotiation closes. But that means that hostages are sacrificed. It means that hostages are going to be tried to be freed and they might be sacrificed. My sense of the pulse of the Israeli public right now, the government and the military is that the primary objective today is to remove Hamas from its ability to govern. And that means that hostages may be sacrificed. This hurts me so much to say that the hostages might be considered additional casualties of the war for Israel's survival. Obviously, that's devastating.

And keep in mind that many of those hostages are in need of medical attention. That's according to officials who have more information about who these individual hostages are, including a nine month old baby who clearly doesn't have access to formula and other individuals, elderly people who are suffering from kidney disease and knee dialysis. It's just absolutely devastating. So the governments of the world. take advantage sometimes of media's inability to state something clearly. So we talked about that earlier in the hour in regards to the hospital bombing in Gaza.

But there was an excellent example of it from the first clip that we showed you from Lester Holt. If you notice at the end, he said about the hostage video, quote, unclear if she's being forced to make that statement. No, Lester, it's perfectly clear. Of course, she's being forced to make that statement. She's a hostage of Hamas. There is, like, you don't have to bother saying there's a 0.000% chance that maybe she voluntarily made a video. She's like, oh, Hamas, can I make a video? And she wanted to make a video and the fact that she's a hostage didn't play a role.

It's absurd. Yes, of course she was forced to make it. So just please, just you don't, you can state things clearly from time to time. All right. So now back to the main issue, look, there's this, what I view to be an insane line of thinking that unfortunately, apparently the Israeli government thinks is possible, and I've seen people saying it as if it's possible, we're going to keep hitting Gaza until we eliminate Hamas's ability to govern.

What does that mean? What do you think they're just going to give up? Like David, we all call them a terrorist group. They, after they won that one election, they didn't allow any more elections and then ruled in a tutorial way. I mean, that's the nature of not having elections. So you think that those guys, the guys who just did the barbaric attack on Israel, are going to turn around and go, oh, you're right. We can't govern anymore.

We just, we'll let someone else do it. You think that there's going to be a random uprising of moderate Palestinians that are somehow going to get enough military goods from who to fight back against Hamas in the streets and then govern the Palestinians? Has anybody thought about this for one second? There's no chance that's going to happen. That's an absurd thing to say. The only reason you'd say that is just to say, well, I don't want an end date on this.

I don't want a real objective. I just want to punish them. Collective punishment? Hell yeah. And to all we're going to teach them a lesson. All they understand is violence. That's the real objective. And the fact that they're, I mean, you can't just take that one guess opinion for it. But there is a legitimate school thought that he represents that says that apparently some in the Israeli government are saying, forget the hostages. Let's just punish them. Punish the Palestinians so they don't do it again. The idea that a real military objective is that Hamas cannot govern anymore is not a thing.

It's just made up. It has no logical connection to reality and has, and there is no pathway to get there. And no one can define when we'll get there. Okay, go ahead. Netanyahu's government. Tell me, when have you, when can you determine that Hamas no longer has the ability to govern? That's such an absurdly vague statement anyway. It's not even provable.

So this is just vengeance and I get the desire for vengeance, but that's not what governments should do and that's not what governments we support should do, especially against civilians and mainly against civilians. And that's what's happening here. We got to take a break. When we come back for the second hour, we're going to talk about other news, including the ongoing, embarrassing speakership fight among Republicans and the House of Representatives. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.