Theology in the Raw - What's Really Going on in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran? Dave Decamp

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Dave DeCamp is an American journalist and the news editor of Antiwar.com, where he covers U.S. foreign policy, war, and international affairs. He also hosts the daily podcast Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp.Visit https://www.vom.org/TITRFoxe to request your copy of Foxe: Voices of the MartyrsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This kind of accepting of mass civilian casualties to kill like one guy that the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist. It's somehow acceptable to people. You know, we saw the U.S. do this in Yemen during the bombing campaign last year. And, you know, we see this in Iran killing scientists while they're home sleeping with their family. How is this acceptable? Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and Rahm. My guest today is my friend Dave DeKamp, who is an American journalist and the news editor of Anti-War. where he covers U.S. foreign policy, war, and international affairs.

Dave also hosts the daily podcast Anti-War News with Dave DeCamp, which I would highly recommend. It's one of my favorite news podcasts in terms of getting up to speed on what's going on with all the wars in the world. And Dave does an outstanding job with that podcast. As you'll see in this conversation, he's incredibly knowledgeable and is a very trustworthy journalist. Also, please stay tuned for the extra innings portion of this podcast where I give a personal follow-up on how Christians should respond to some of the stuff we talked about in this episode, especially the war in Iran. If you want to gain access to that extra innings portion of this podcast, head over to patreon.com forward slash theology and raw and become a member of the theology in raw community. And get access to this extra innings episode and also other extra innings episodes. from previous podcasts. Okay, please welcome back to the show, the one or only, Dave DeCamp.

Dave DeCamp, thanks so much for coming back on Thealjean Ra. As I said offline, I feel like I'm talking to a movie star because you're one of the few podcasts I listen to almost every day. And so it's kind of surreal hearing your voice talking to be live. So yeah, thanks for taking a time to do this. Well, yeah, thanks. Thanks so much for having me again. And it's great knowing that you still listen to the show because I know a lot of people get burnt out on the what is usually bad news every day you you you deal with bad news as a full-time job which uh yeah it takes a certain kind of person and um but it's it's i would imagine spreading accurate information in the midst of all the propaganda or the silence i don't know there's got to be like a a meaningfulness to that that's got to keep you going would that be accurate. Yeah, yeah, I think so.

I mean, I think the truth is important. And I think, um, especially today, like, if you go on X or Twitter, whatever you want to call it, you know, it's hard to figure out what's real, what's fake. Yeah. And I like to think that anti-war dot com and my show, we're a source, where you can go, we're like, you're trying to figure out what is what. And, you know, we're pretty, we take our job very seriously, you know, about making sure that Whatever we're reporting on covering is either confirmed or we're making it very clear, you know, what the sources are and who said what.

Because people can certainly get lost in all of the misinformation and stuff that's just being pumped everywhere. Before we get into the three wars we're going to talk about, yeah, tell us just briefly how you go about identifying what is true from what's not. because in my experience, I mean, anti-war.com, your your guys' journalism is just so thorough. I now would put, you know, drop-site news. I know you guys probably do a lot of overlap or you draw on them. They probably draw on you. But between you and Dropside and a few others, like, I just find the journalism so,

so good. What's the process? How do you cross-check the stuff you're finding out about? I mean, so, I mean, you know, like my work day, you know, I basically, I start the day, we have a link database where Margaret Griffiths who works for us. Her job is basically to kind of harvest the news stories and then I sort through them. And, you know, because a lot of my job, because, you know, we have the mainstream media sources,

the big news agencies, and they have access, you know, many more resources than we do. And, you know, the truth is in there. And, you know, you have to find it and kind of sort through what is what. So we rely a lot on that. And a lot of it is also kind of bringing attention to stories that just get no attention in U.S. media, such as the U.S. bombing campaign in Somalia, where there's literally no media coverage of it. And basically all the information that I get is what, you know, U.S. Africa command is saying and what I could figure out from Somali media and, you know, Al-Shabaab's propaganda channels. So trying to bring attention to things that otherwise people wouldn't even know are happening.

And, you know, and again, a lot of it is presenting information of, of, like, what the two sides of the war are actually saying and trying to figure out what's the closest to the truth here. And it's, you know, that's essentially it, just harvesting the news, trying to piece it together. And we do have some, you know, in some cases have some original reporting and we follow some of this stuff in Congress as well. So, yeah, it's a lot of reading the news and trying to, you know, distill it for people that, and our perspective at anti-war.com, you know, we're, we clearly have a bias, you know, we're anti-war. And, you know, we want people to know that. You know, it's not like we're hiding that. And it's essentially, you know, the news, the U.S. foreign policy news from our perspective. And you generally find that the truth is on the side of the people against the. wars, you know, and also a lot of it is just kind of pulling out the propaganda from some of the mainstream coverage of things and also putting things into proper context because that's how a lot of the lying is done is through omission. And, you know, I mean, this Trump administration,

like the war propaganda is so low effort. You know, the things that they say that they make up, it's really kind of just absurd. You know, and is it pretty disheartening that they could just say, oh, you know, we obliterated Iran's nuclear program for months. And now, oh, we got to bomb them because they're making a nuclear weapon again. Right. Like, what? They could just say that and then bomb them? It's so on the note.

It seems, I mean, Trump and I would say government leaders as a whole aren't known for being the best truth tellers. Trump is kind of, you know, pretty excels at not really telling the truth. And it's just gotten so bad. It's just gotten so blatantly liked. Does anybody really believe this? Like, come on. But I think a lot of people do. I mean, as you do your journalism, do your thorough research,

do you find that what is coming out from the U.S. government, maybe even Israeli government, is largely partially not true? I mean, is it like, I guess it depends on, yeah. I mean, as he said, you know, governments always tend to lie or, you know, misrepresent the truth or the context of what, you know, the things that they're saying. But with this current Trump administration, there's just something more brazen about it. I'm about some things that Trump says.

Like, I remember the U.S. missile strike on the elementary school in Iran that killed 120 boys and girls. When, you know, the evidence came out that it was Tomahawk missiles that hit the school. Trump says, oh, that could be Iran. They have Tomahawk missiles. It's like, no, like, that's just the most absurd claim. one of the most absurd things I've heard him say and just to kind of brazenly lie about that

about something so horrible it's just like whoa you know that that is shocking to me and not in the way that like liberals were shocked by Trump you know over the years but this is kind of just a new it's just a new kind of evil

that we're seeing not just from Trump but also from Hegsseth Marco Rubio and other very senior officials in this administration lying about what I think is, you know, when it comes down to what a U.S. federal government officials responsible for war is kind of the biggest moral issue because they have the most power when it comes to what they can do there. And the way that they so flippantly just kind of make things up and like J.D. Vance, some of the stuff that he has said.

Yeah. You know, it's just ridiculous. And so, yeah, it's just kind of a new level. you know, if you've seen the press briefings with Pete Hegseth, you know, the stuff that he's saying, it's just so out there. Yeah. It's like neocon on steroids. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's almost comical. You almost feel like you're watching like a Netflix, whatever. They're like, oh, wait, this is, this is real life. Like, this is actually happening and people are dying, you know, if, if that wasn't happening, it would almost be comical how brazen it is. But it's, there's nothing funny about it. Let's go through the three wars I want to talk to you about. And again, yeah, I mean, you've been looking at this stuff daily for a long time. Let's start with Gaza

since the quote unquote ceasefire October, what, October 12th, I believe, 2025. Can you tell us what were the terms of that ceasefire and then maybe give us a overview of how that's been going for the last eight, eight months since, since October 12th. Yeah, so before the ceasefire deal was signed, the White House put out, you know, President Trump's big plan for God's. It was like a 20-point peace plan. And what happened there was Israel, both Israel and Hamas agreed that it was a good, you know, a framework for negotiations. But it's important for people to understand that they didn't sign a deal based on those 20 points. All that they signed in the negotiations that followed was a deal established.

a ceasefire in Israeli withdrawal to a certain line and the release in the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, which are tortured dungeons, essentially, and also for Hamas to recover the bodies of the Israelis that they didn't have access to. And that was achieved. The hostage release happened. The exchange happened. All the bodies were recovered. but basically the whole time Israel has continued its attacks in Gaza.

And in the early parts of the so-called ceasefire, which is just not a real ceasefire, there were, it looked like maybe some clashes between Hamas guys that were trapped on the Israeli-occupied side of Gaza. And it looked like some things were happening there. But for the most part, you know, we just saw constant Israeli attacks enforcing what they call the so-called yellow line, which is the line that divides the Israeli-occupied side from the rest of Gaza. And this is, you know, they claim, oh, you know, a Palestinian or what they call a terrorist crossed the line and was approaching IDF troops. So, you know, we kill them. And then, you know, you learn from a Palestinian eyewitness accounts on the ground that people are getting killed beyond the yellow line, that they weren't even close to it. Or even if they were, I mean, what kind of policy is that? And there was leaked stuff from,

Israeli media that, you know, the policy is any Palestinian, whether armed or not, who crosses that line or approaches it, gets killed. And, you know, we've seen this happen to children and families, you know, in the early days of it. And, you know, the attacks, the fire never ceased. And another thing is, which is, you know, one way that Israel has violated the ceasefire deal, which, again, the deal that they actually signed says that all military operations must stop. And Israel, withdraws to this line. Well, the military operations didn't stop. They continued demolitions in the IDF occupied side. They continued strikes and things against the other side. Obviously, at a much lower scale than was happening before. But it's continued basically this whole time. And another way

that they violated the deal, which explicitly says that the area that they withdraw from, the IDF cannot go back into, unless Hamas doesn't meet the conditions of this deal. And it's a lot of, again, that deal was releasing the hostages, which they did. So, but they've also captured more territory in Gaza. And according to Netanyahu himself, you know, they controlled 53% of Gaza after the deal was first implemented. And now they control 60%. And it's not like they're just taking the territory. They're also building fortifications, military bases and things like that, really entrenching this occupation that.

Nanyahu and Israel Katz, the defense minister, have been very clear that they've been very clear that they don't have any intention of ending. Now, so the attacks continue, and there's been restrictions on aid, you know, some weeks, it's better than others, like, but they have not consistently allowed the number of aid trucks, which I believe is 600 to enter Gaza per day under the ceasefire deal. And then the continued attacks, which have escalated recently, especially since the ceasefire between the U.S., Israel, and Iran. And a lot of the attacks target the police in Gaza, because they want to kind of disrupt Hamas' control. And also, we've seen a lot of children are being killed and tents being bombed. This stuff is happening again, like a lot. So it's really horrific. And now

what's happening behind the scenes, as far as I've gathered, there's been a lot of negotiations in the last few months between the Board of Peace, which is just, I mean, I can't think of a more Orwellian name. This is the potty established by Trump in the U.S. to pay. basically governed Gaza. That was the idea of the deal. And so again, back to the 20 points that Trump released. So essentially the framework, the outline was the ceasefire would happen, hostage exchange would happen, Israel calls back.

And then like an international force of peacekeepers would deploy and replace the IDF troops. And then, you know, withdraw more as Hamas, as Gaza is demilitarized, which means as Hamas disarms. but again this was not signed there was no deal sign that said that Hamas never agreed to disarming you're saying yeah that's the important point here because now the the board I can't even say

get it out of my mouth the board of peace I'll just call it the board they've been basically so the US and Israel have been demanding you know that Hamas disarms now and again as you know we just established Hamas never actually agreed to that. Their position was, you know, we'll discuss it.

You know, if there's movement toward a Palestinian state, we're willing to give up governing Gaza, but we don't want to give up our arms. And at the same time, there was also Israel, you know, they clearly didn't want to leave Gaza. So it's like the two sides, there was terms that the two sides didn't agree to of what the White House released. And they basically punted them down the road. They said, okay, we'll sign this deal, then negotiate. But the problem, is that you have the U.S. as the so-called mediator. And we see this in Lebanon, where the U.S. is like, acts like it's some sort of neutral broker when it's clearly much more on one side than the other. And then so you end up with these so-called ceasefire deals where the terms are just completely one-sided.

And the one side actually doesn't cease fire. And so, but now that's essentially the position of what they've been telling Hamas is that you have to disarm now. And Hamas's response has been, let's actually implement the first phase of the ceasefire deal and then talk about it. Or, you know, there was a proposal from Hamas and other Palestinian factions, political factions saying like, let's give us a path to a Palestinian state. And then Hamas will disarm. But obviously, with Netanyahu, it's just, that's just not going to happen. So we're kind of in this new status quo in Gaza where it's got, it's a lot like the West Bank, but worse because it's destroyed. And people are, I mean, parts of the West Bank are destroyed. well, but people, you know, the situation in Gaza is just so awful. The people are still living

in the rubble of their homes, living in intense, infested with rats, disease, and it's just no kind of life for people. And, you know, I was of the opinion for a while that Israel was looking to restart kind of the full-scale bombing campaign, full-scale genocide. But now I think kind of as long as the escalations continue in Lebanon and there's the potential for war with Iran, I think they're happy with this status quo. And it just gets no attention. I mean, over the weekend, a six-month-old baby was killed by Israeli airstrike yesterday. We're recording this on Tuesday, May 26th. Yesterday, a six-year-old girl was killed, you know, in a bombing on a tent. And it's just, I can't believe, in May 26, you know, we're still seeing this. I'm still writing headlines about these things.

And, you know, we mentioned J.D. Bance before. I just remember, like, the shameful of this. He was at some turning point USA event and there was some hecklers there screaming about you're supporting a genocide in Gaza and he goes, uh, actually we're the administration that's solved that. You know, there's peace in Gaza now. It's just the farthest thing from the truth. So have you ever been hanging out with your dad and out of the blue he tells you the most incredible or insane stories about his childhood? You know, something that blows your mind because you've known him your whole life and somehow it's just never come up. This father's day, consider getting your dad something that won't end up in a drawer.

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If you missed the recent Exiles in Babylon Conference or you just wanted to watch it again, the entire conference, including all the breakouts, are now available on demand. Just head over to TheologyNrod.com to check it out. We had some amazing conversations and talks about AI, immigration, mental health, and a couple different dialogical debates on the historical reliability of the Bible, and another one on Christians and War. The speakers include Sandy Richter, Piedens, Shane Claiborne, Paul Copan, Dan Allender,

Chinway Williams, Rick Heels, and many others. My favorite part of the conference, I mean, it had to be all the dialogues and Q&A portions of each session where speakers had to go off script and address some challenging questions in the moment. These raw conversations are always the best. Again, if I want to get access to the conference, check it out, theology in the raw.com. Do you have some general numbers? How many people have been killed? How many are like women and children since the quote unquote ceasefire? Are those available or is it hard to tell? according to the latest numbers from the health ministry, 9606 Palestinians have been killed. I remember I saw a breakdown actually from Dropside News. I forget the exact number, but when it was like maybe around 850, it said a few hundred, you know, maybe 200 were women and children. I forget the exact number. But, you know, over 900 in seven months. I mean, is that a ceasefire? Yeah. Yeah. And when it comes to the other numbers, you know, There's still, according to Gaza civil defense, at least 8,000 Palestinians buried under the rubble.

And they can't get construction equipment to recover them. That's something that the U.S. and Israel are blocking still from entering Gaza. So it's still just a nightmare there. Yeah. I looked up, yeah, I was trying to find some numbers too. I found some through Amnesty International through February. So these are old numbers. But that was in the death toll was 630.

and they broke it down, 89 women, 202 children of the 630. So almost 40%. Yeah, that's higher than I thought. That's one source, amnesty. You know, it's hard to. But yeah, a drop site has 906. Like, yeah, I found the same thing. You did 2,700, 247, 2727 wounded.

Yeah, so that's over 3,500 Palestinian casualties. And I know, again, in the first weeks and maybe first months, four IDF soldiers were killed in Gaza. There was some reports that some of it. One of it might have been was an unexploded bomb. But there were like the Hamas guys trapped in a tunnel. And there were some clashes there. And apparently, according to all the reporting, the U.S. was trying to get Israel to let those guys to give them safe passage to the other side of Gaza. But they, Israel refused to do that.

With the ceasefire, so I mean, it is it, it seems clear, maybe not, I mean, is it clear to everyone that they have broken the ceasefire? Does Israel claim like, oh, no, we're upholding it when these things are clearly happening? Do they say we're abiding by it? Or do they care? Do they say, you know, we're not really abiding by it? Or we need to get Hamas or what's the explanation of how this can continue on? The claim from both Israel and the U.S. is, oh, Hamas is violating the deal because they're not disarming. when again, that was never put on paper and signed.

Okay. Which that wouldn't make sense. Why would one side disarm unless the other side disarms? I don't know. Of course. If you're trying to get a group like Kamaas to disarm is just bombing them every single day. When you said you would stop. Is that an effective way to do it?

I don't know any group of, I don't know any human. Nobody in Idaho where I live. If people were, if Canada came and started bombing the heck out of Boise, you think Idaho is going to give up their arm? I'm just like, no, we're going to stockpile more. We're not going to. So that doesn't even, that seems like a ridiculous expectation, unless both sides, unless, you know, the IDF dismantled and got rid of all their bombs and airplanes and gave them back to the U.S., whatever. Like, I don't understand one side demanding the other side disarmed while they're not disarming and they're still killing people.

It doesn't have any sense. And, you know, you would never know this from reading kind of the mainstream coverage, like an AP story about this. They'll say, oh, you know, the U.S. at Israel say Hamas is violating the deal by not disarming. and they won't explain that, well, they actually never agree to that. Interesting. And, yeah, as you said, like, to the Palestinians in Gaza, which side, like, just getting bonded and killed and by IDF still every day, you know, who would you want to disarm in that situation? All right.

Well, there's a lot more there, but let's go to, let's go to Lebanon. This is one that I think is getting less attention. Well, I think Gaza is actually getting not much. attention. I feel like because of the outlets I follow like yours and drop site, I get it, every day. So it seems like, oh, this is obviously still happening. But if I look at other news outlets or even social media and stuff, it's just like it seems like since October 12th last year, it seems like, oh, yeah, we're moving on to another war and not really thinking about this. But Lebanon, though, seems, yeah, I think there's probably a lot less knowledge of what's

going on there. Can you give us maybe a brief history of the last like couple years? But what's been going on between Israel and Lebanon or specifically Hezbollah? Yeah, for those who hardly even know anything, give us a real basic explanation. And then, yeah, we can dig into some of the specifics. Yeah. So I mean, you know, just for the context of what's happened over the past few years, you know, there's always been tensions on the border there between Hezbollah and Israel, you know, going back decades to Israel's invasion of the, Lebanon, which is essentially what led to the creation of Hezbollah. But kind of for the more recent history, if you go back to October 7th, you know, the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel

unleashing on Gaza, Hezbollah fired a few rockets kind of symbolically at northern Israel. And then Israel started striking Lebanon. Hezbollah fired some rockets back. It was kind of a low intensity the conflict. There were some massacres, some journalists were killed and, you know, other civilians and in other situations. But things didn't really escalate until, I think it was September 2024, when Israel kind of invaded further in and they carried out the pager attack and they killed Nassarala, the leader of Hezbollah. And it seemed like they dealt a pretty serious blow to Hezbollah. And then there was kind of, well, another fake ceasefire deal was agreed to in November 24 under the Biden administration. And according to reporting at the time, so this was a deal between Israel and Lebanon and Hezbollah was involved in the negotiations.

And there's reporting at the time that the U.S. also gave Israel a side letter that basically said Israel has the right, the freedom of action in southern Lebanon if it deems that it's, you know, facing some. sort of threat. So of course, because of that, Israel continued. They never fully withdrew from southern Lebanon. They left five military outposts there. And they, so that was a violation. They also continued attacks, you know, occasional strikes, which kind of ramped up as time went on. And essentially the deal was that Hezbollah would disarm south of the Latani River and the Lebanese government, the National Army, would confirm that. And, you know, there was progress on that even despite the Israeli strikes. And, you know, there's a few instances where they killed the members of the Lebanese military who were there to enforce, you know, the deal.

But Israel, they just kept bombing southern Lebanon. And throughout the whole time from November 2024 until March of this year, Hezbollah did not fire back at Israel once. Yeah. So there's dates What were those dates between November 2024? The ceasefire in November 2024 in March 2nd of this year.

Hezbollah did not fire at Israel once. Now is that according to Hezbollah or does that widely agree upon? Like it's just, is that? Pretty widely agreed upon. There was some rocket fire that landed like in an open area at one point and Hezbollah did not.

Okay. Said it wasn't them. Okay. And so, you know, we were kind of in the status. You know, hundreds of people were killed in Lebanon, including, you know, I know at least over 100 civilians. I believe the number is like three or 400 people killed. And so March 2nd, this is after the start of the U.S. Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. They killed the Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei, and Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in March 2nd, saying it was response to that, to the killing of Khamene.

And then that was essentially Israel used that as their, pretext to escalate. And they further invaded southern Lebanon and they really began a very heavy bombing campaign, very heavy. And which continues today and, you know, according to the numbers from Lebanon's health ministry, more than 3,100 people have been killed since March 2nd. And Lebanon is a very small country. The population is like 5.5 million. More than 1.5 million people are displaced. Israeli officials, they're openly saying that they're going to occupy Lebanon, you know, south of the Latonia River. And so after the ceasefire between the U.S., Israel, and Iran, so this is an important point here. Pakistan announced the ceasefire.

And in the announcement, it said that there would also be a ceasefire in Lebanon. And the U.S. clearly approved the statement from Pakistan beforehand. But Israel rejected that and actually escalated the bombing. they launched a new military operation in Lebanon that they named Operation Eternal Darkness, which maybe not the nicest name. And so they really escalated. And then there was supposedly a ceasefire that reached between Israel and Lebanon, the Lebanese government. Hezbollah was not part of the talks.

But as usual, despite the ceasefire, the Israeli attacks continued. And one big difference between now and the November 2024. deal is that Hezbollah is firing back at Israel. So the war never stopped. There was just simply never a ceasefire. And one thing Hezbollah has been able to do is they have these drones that are controlled fiber optically. Like they have really thin cables that they send them with. And Israel is not able to, has trouble intercepting them. And they've been getting through and killing Israeli troops. And because of that, we're now seeing more Israeli escalation in Lebanon, even as there's negotiations happening between the U.S. and Iran. And Iran is maintaining that if we want

a deal, we need a real ceasefire in Lebanon. And so, you know, there's just really no sign of this ending right now. Menyahu just announced another further escalation. So it continues. Yeah, I saw, I mean, several reports of like, you know, whole apartment buildings being just blown to pieces. And the report from Israel is, well, we're, you know, there was like a terrorist in there. It's like, you destroy a whole apartment building because there's, you think there's a terrorist in there. I mean, and we trust you to determine that there was a terrorist in there or whatever. Is that, I mean, it is, it just seems so, again, on the nose, like, how is this not, how is this even questionable? Maybe it's not questionable. I don't know.

Well, yeah, I mean, but you know, this is kind of what's been established. You know, you obviously go back to other wars that the U.S. and Israel have been involved with over the past few decades, but really kind of what's this, this kind of accepting of mass civilian casualties to kill like one guy that the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist. It's somehow acceptable to people. You know, we saw the U.S. do this in Yemen during the bombing campaign last year where they, if you remember the signal chat, did we talk about this last time I was on your show, maybe? I think we did. Yeah. We did talk about Yemen, but yeah. But the first strike was, according to Mike Walts, who was the national security advisor at the time, in a signal chat, you know, he said, oh, we just got the Houthi's top missile guy as he walked into his girlfriend's apartment building, you know, the whole building collapsed. And then Steve Wyckoff and J.D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard and all of them are like, great job, you know, sending emojis. And it turns out, I forget the exact number, but this has been confirmed by the Yemen Data Project, which they track this stuff in Yemen that I believe at least, you know, 13 civilians were killed in that first strike that they all celebrated. And, you know, we see this in Iran, you know, them killing scientists, like nuclear scientists while they're homesleeping. sleeping with their family. Like people, and they say, oh, they're involved in Iran's missile program

or, you know, nuclear energy, you know, which isn't even a weapons program, the nuclear program. You know, how, how is this acceptable? You know, you just put the shoe on the other foot. They bond, I believe it was Israel, bombed the most prestigious engineering school in Iran. And again, the claim was, oh, they're linked to their weapons industry. It's like all of the top engineering schools in the U.S. are very intertwined with the Pentagon, the military industrial complex. Would any of us ever accept a foreign country bombing one of those universities,

you know, over that? But this is the precedent that the U.S. and Israel are creating in the region and, you know, around the world. And this is really, you know, it's just, It's just the blowback is and is going to keep being severe. You can't do that and not expect people to respond, you know. I mean, it sounds similar to that program Israel had. Maybe it's still going to the daddy's home.

Remember that? And the war on Gaza where they would wait until alleged terrorists, they wait until he gets home. And that's when they kill him along with, you know, family and other people in the apartment building or whatever. I mean, it was, again, that's what it was called. It's publicly called Daddy's home. Like, wait until he gets home to kill him, which seems dark to say the least. So Lebanon, so where we're, so we're at now. So, so Israel is continuing to escalate the bombing campaign and occupation of southern Lebanon. What's the goal? Is it, is it we're trying to eradicate, is it kind of like Gaza? Like, you know, we're just trying to eradicate Hezbollah. Is that the stated goal or? Yeah, that's basically what they're saying. But, um, but, their goal, I mean, their stated goal, I believe, this was said by the defense ministers that they're going to occupy, you know, I guess he's not saying that they're going to take it over forever, like Smotrich and Ben-Gavir say, who are senior Israeli ministers, but, you know, it's basically, you know, they ordered the full evacuation of Lebanon south of the Latani River, and the goal is to occupy all of that. But they're just advancing further north into Lebanon, I believe just today, they launch an offensive. further inside. But the pretext is eliminating the threat to northern Israel from Hezbollah. And you know, it's this weird situation where the Lebanese government is backed by the U.S. and is

holding these meetings with Israel now, which are the first in decades, saying that, yeah, we wanted disarm Hezbollah, but you got to let us do it and get out. And then the U.S., again, it's clearly more on Israel's side, but the U.S. also funds the Lebanese military. And essentially it seems like they want to start a civil war in Lebanon. What's the relationship between the Lebanese military and Hezbollah? Are they not, they're at odds with each other? No, I mean, they're different entities, but they're not, it's not like they fight. Okay. You know, if going back, the Lebanese civil war was very, very, very ugly.

And Lebanon has kind of an interesting political system where all the different, you know, religious groups have, you know, their representation and everything. but there's always that possibility, you know, of detentions in Lebanon exploding into another civil war. And I can't imagine anybody knowing anything about that war and, like, wanting to potentially stoke one as the U.S. is doing here. But what we're seeing, especially in southern Lebanon, is, you know, some of the factions in Lebanon, you know, they kind of differ. But a lot of them are very anti-Hezball, a lot of the Christian factions. but Israel's killing them too. And so people, I mean, someone I know personally who is from Lebanon, very anti-Hesbalah, not as much anti-Israel, but is much more so now and is just like completely turned on the whole thing.

So that's obviously going to be happening in Lebanon when you're bombing people like this. Because, you know, sometimes you'll see in the rhetoric from other factions in Lebanon, even as Israel's bombing them, they're blaming it on Hezbollah. and so, you know, but then they kill these guys. So, you know, they killed the Lebanese forces, one of these political parties, Christian political party. They killed one of their leaders in one of the southern towns recently. And of course, you know, there's been all this scandal about the IDF soldiers desecrating and destroying a crucifix. And they've been demolishing.

They demolished a convent, a nun convent in southern Lebanon and keep seeing these attacks on the Christian villages as well. A priest, a Maronite Catholic priest was killed by the IDF. So, you know, you do wonder at some point, is Lebanon's government going to say, okay, now we're fighting against Israel too, but the way that they're intertwined with the U.S., I don't see that happening. I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, the new embassy that they've been building. It's like a fortress. It's huge. So the U.S. has a pretty serious presence and, you know, influence there. It's got Lebanon has historically the largest percentage-wise Christian population of any

Middle Eastern country. I think at one point it was 30%. I think it's dropped now with all the displacement and deaths. I'm sure it's dropped. But as from a Christian, I mean, you know are both Christians. I mean, it's, there's that added layer, you know, it's not just a political train wreck. We look at some of the most historic Christian communities in the Middle East. And, And, yeah, to see a Catholic church being desecrated and priests being killed and convents being bombed. Like that, that's just, yeah, it's, I mean, it's like, okay, we live in a, you know, a world filled with evil and stuff. But it's when, for me, the hardest thing is when you see Christians sort of supporting the governments that are doing this. Like that just doesn't, I can imagine Jesus like applauding a secular government killing

his people. Like it doesn't make any. Like it just seems so blatantly like wrong that Christians would like celebrate that. And maybe they're just ignorant of it too. I mean, I, you know, trying to try to give people the benefit of the doubt. But yeah. Yeah, it is depressing to see that. And I know myself like as a kid, one of the things that led me away.

from being a Christian was kind of seeing a hypocrisy and all the Christian leaders, you know, around me at the time, which isn't an excuse, you know, I should have stayed faithful. But, you know, I know how that affects people. You know, you see this hypocrisy is just like. So, like, I mean, the thing in Lebanon, you know, an Israeli soldier posed a picture of himself smashing the face of a crucified, a crucifix that Jesus,

the corpus on the crucifix. And lots of outrage. including from like the daily wire types and everything and saying oh they got to hopefully they rectify this and actually what happened just uh the IDF then posted a picture of a different crucifix saying oh we coordinated with the community and it's replaced and everything well it turns out that the unifil peacekeepers the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon from Italy actually replaced the crucifix and helped put it up they just like gave the town like a smaller one um and claim you know so just lied about it but you know and I see that outrage and it's warranted but also like the kids in Gaza, like, they're Christ as well, you know? Like, he's with them. And so Christians should be just as outraged about that. Yeah. You know.

Yeah, I don't mean to, yeah, that's a, yeah, I don't mean to prioritize like that the death of Christians is worse than the death of others. Yeah. It's just. But I mean, I'm a Catholic. Like, you know, it does, it is very important to me that how it is for the Catholics, Christians in the Middle East. And, you know, for kind of our, you know, like one thing I know, it's good that this gets a lot of publicity because I know people who that is what made them go,

huh? Like, wait, they're also killing the Christians. They bombed the church in Gaza. And that leads them down the path that, oh, man, this is not what I thought it was at all. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a gateway drug to being a little bit of a little bit of. anti-war than people normally are. Persecution is not new. Christians have stood firm in faith for centuries, even at great cost. John Fox's Book of the Martyrs became one of the most influential Christian books ever written because it preserved the stories of believers who gave their lives for Christ. And now the book Fox, Voices of the Borders, continues that legacy with modern accounts of persecuted Christians from around the world.

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forward slash T-I-T-R-F-O-X-E. Check it out. All right, let's, I know we're moving kind of fast, but we only have an hour. Let's go to Iran. So, I mean, this is the one probably most people are familiar with. When did, so a joint U.S.-Israeli preemptive strike,

unprovoked, right? mean on Iran, February, what, 29th? So take us back there. What was, what happened? Why did it happen? Yeah, what are your thoughts on on that? And then, yeah, we can kind of give an overview of what's going on and where the heck this thing's going to go. Yeah. So I would go back to June 2025. You know, we had the what they, what we call the 12-day war now, which was supposed to be, you know, the end of it. But the U.S. and Iran were engaged in negotiations. I think this is really important, both times before the 12-day war and before this current war. And Iran was bombed during negotiations with the U.S.

And, you know, the negotiations were over Iran's nuclear program and something that Joe Kent has made a point to say. So Joe Kent was the head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center in the Trump administration, and he resigned over his objection to the war. And one important point that he's made is that the administration has adopted basically the Israeli line that any nuclear enrichment equals a nuclear weapons program. So the U.S. demand for zero enrichment, just a total impediment toward a deal. But there was a sign before the June war last year that there was kind of a way around all this. There was a potential idea floated.

I believe, I forget if it was first floated by the Iranians, but they expressed interest of establishing kind of a nuclear consortium, regional enrichment program involving Iran in like Saudi Arabia and potentially other Gulf Arab states. And that could happen, you know, in in Iranian soil. So that way, Iran would be able to safe face and keep their enrichment program, but it would be even under more safeguards than like it could possibly be. But they were bombed before that. They were bombed by Israel. And just as the Israeli planes were getting in the air to go bomb them, President Trump put out a post on true social that said he's committed to diplomacy with Iran and he must have known that the war is about to start. The reason why I want to bring that up is because right now there's

all these reports about deals and Trump's saying all sorts of stuff about negotiations, but I mean, we've just been so deceived. There's been so many like information kind of siops about this that it's just really tough to know what's happening. But so that war happened and it ended after 12 days with a ceasefire after the U.S. bombed the nuclear facilities. And as President Trump said, many times obliterated the nuclear facilities, which, according to my understanding,

he did destroy and effectively suspend their nuclear enrichment program. And, you know, but the thing is, is that that was not really the goal of the war. That was the pretext for the war. Okay. The goal was Israel's goal is, to basically eliminate Iran as a country that can pose a threat to it and, you know, get in the way of its kind of designs for the region.

And they saw the opportunity after they took out, you know, dealt a pretty heavy blow to Hezbollah. And they're the regime change in Syria that ousted Assad was another ally of Iran. They said, this is their opportunity to hit Iran. We also had, you know, a Biden official, this guy named Amos Hoechstein recently said in an interview. view that like basically yeah say there was another Biden administration we probably would have you know bombed Iran's nuclear facilities too so this was like kind of the plan I think but one thing that happened that I don't know if the US and Israel didn't expect it to happen or if it was uh you know harder than they than they thought it would be is Iran demonstrated in the 12

day war that yes their missiles can hit Israel um they can hit targets that they want to hit. Even with the U.S. Navy trying to shoot them down and U.S. Thad interceptors in Israel, you know, they can get through. So that was why there was a ceasefire after 12 days because Israel is getting hit hard and there was just no sign that Iran was slowing down. So then there was a ceasefire and Trump declared victory. But then, you know, it became clear a few months later that Israel wanted to restart the war because they want to take out Iran, you know, forget regime change. I mean, I think they do want regime change. But when people think that. They think, oh, they want to install their guy there. But that's not necessarily what

Israel wants. They just want Iran to not be a threat to them, however it happens, whether the country's broken apart and sinks into a horrific civil war, or if they somehow put in a puppet regime, you know, either one they'll be happy with. So it became pretty clear for a while that this was going to happen again. And I was of the opinion, basically since December 2025, when Nanyahu and Mar-a-Lago that the war would start again because Trump was asked then, you know, would you back an attack on Iran if it continues its ballistic missile program? And he said yes. And it's like they're not giving up their ballistic missiles.

You know, if that becomes a demand in negotiations, there's just no way it's going to happen. And then there were negotiations. There was, of course, the big protests in Iran that started at the end of December and really raged in January. and a lot of people were killed. We don't know the exact numbers. I know the Iranian government says like 3,000. There's a human rights group that has sources in Iran that's very critical of the Iranian government and their numbers over 7,000.

And as far as I've seen, there's no evidence to back these claims from Trump that like 40,000 people were killed. Yeah, I've heard people say 40,000 and just like peaceful protesters, whereas other reports say some, the, some of the protesters were, like, violent, and that's why they were attacked. And then wasn't there all, like, didn't, isn't there clear evidence that Mossad and the U.S. like, kind of were stirring things up among the protests? Like, they were somehow involved. Can you talk about that or do you know anything about that? Yeah.

I mean, so at the time, like, Mossad and Israel, they were, like, hinting at being on the ground in Israel, sorry, in Iran. And there was, you know, the U.S., the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, took credit for those protests. starting. He said that there's sanctions over the past year, you know, hit the economy, wrecked the economy enough and started the protests at the end of December. So not taking credit for getting the people out on this, you know, arming the people or anything like that, but saying that the U.S. economic pressure led to it. So clearly it was a goal of the U.S. to provoke these protests. And, you know, Iran claimed, you know, that they seized American weapons that were bound for them. But also you had Trump say recently that, yes, we

We did send them weapons. And then he's claiming that the Kurds kept them. Right. So we don't know exactly how much. But there certainly were armed clashes as part of these protests. You know, and I don't know what percentage of the people killed. I really have no idea. Like exactly the number or how many people were peaceful protesters or were not.

But I do know that like there's, you know, Kurdish groups in Iran that were announcing attacks on, you know, IRC. bases and things in Iran and the IRGC also said that they were clashing with these Kurdish groups. So that was happening as well. But so this was, and at the time, it seemed like Trump was poised to bomb Iran in early January, if you remember that. Yeah. And then he backed off. And according to the reporting at the time, you know who convinced him not to do it was Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel.

Really? Yeah. And of course, I had my doubts that Eniahu was the reason why he didn't bomb Iran, But then it began to make sense because after that, Trump began a major buildup in the region. And the concern was that if they started bombing Iran, there just wasn't enough U.S. forces in the region to defend Israel. Oh. Because there was just reporting from the Washington Post that the U.S. used more munitions defending Israel than Israel did in the war. So they're completely reliant on this, the U.S. military being directly involved in, you know, shooting down missiles and stuff.

So anyway, after that happened and all the unrest, Trump was threatening, you know, telling them to go. And that's another thing. I mean, Trump was literally telling people to go out onto the street to seize the institutions and things. Help is coming. I remember I'm saying, yeah. Yeah, yeah, help is on the way. But, you know, it is, it's tough to parse what actually happened in Iran. There was an internet shut down. I mean, I'm basically of the opinion that there was both, you know, armed elements. It started as what looked like a completely legitimate protest about the economic situation. And then there probably were some armed elements, but I'm sure some peaceful protesters were killed as well. But we just don't really know exactly what happened.

And, you know, people act like it was just a mass slaughter of, you know, tens of thousands of armed people. And there's just no evidence for that. But, you know, at the time, after things kind of cooled down, then it was like, okay, we're back in negotiations with Iran. But I was still, you know, I still suspected that this was basically to build time, to buy time during the military buildup. And then they attacked on February 28th when another round of negotiations was scheduled. Same thing in back in June.

There was another round like that Sunday. The war started on a Thursday. That Sunday they were supposed to hold more negotiations. So, yeah, it's, uh, what do we, that? sorry, what do we know about Israel's involvement in pushing, encouraging the U.S. to get involved, like to bomb Iran? You did have, like, Marco Rubio kind of, say out loud. And I'm trying to, I can't get the exact quote. So people please fact check me. But he did say that we attacked because Israel said they were going to attack, and if they attacked, then U.S. bases would, then Iran would

respond and attack U.S. bases. So basically, we're going for this. U.S. bases are in harm's way. You can either join us or not. And then the U.S. decided, oh, well, okay, we'll do it. But I think the next day, he tried to walk it back. But I kept listening to that first clip, and it seemed pretty clear. There wasn't much to walk back. I didn't really, yeah. It's hard, It's hard to know what to believe from government leaders. But yeah, what are your, yeah? I mean, the official justification from the State Department, according to a statement from a State Department lawyer,

is that they launched this war at the request of Israel and in the collective self-defense of Israel. And also in this, they also claim the self-defense of U.S. forces, I guess, in the region. But that is the official line, essentially, is that the war was launched at the request of Israel. And what Rubio was saying is because they were trying to claim there was like some imminent threat and that's why they bombed them. But they said, well, Israel was going to attack. And then if they attacked, we assessed that Iran would attack us as well.

Which, I mean, it was probably right because as I said, Israel is completely reliant on that U.S. support. You know, when the U.S. is intercepting Iranian missiles, I mean, that's direct U.S. involvement. Yeah. So, but anyway, you know, and the idea that Israel pushed the U.S. into this war, I mean, this is. You know, what I see really as the main driver of this war is Israel and its interests and Trump, you know, wanting to be as pro-Israel as he can. You know, I think the idea that he was kind of dragged into this, I think, is wrong. I think he went completely willingly. And he was, you know, so there was a big report from the New York Times that in early February, when Nanyahu visited the White House, he, like, gave this intelligence briefing to the U.S. saying that,

start this war, regime change is going to happen, we're going to install the Shah. There's going to be an uprising. It's going to all be great. And according to that reporting, Trump's top level officials basically told him, I don't know about this. I think part of the leak was to put that out, was from within the administration, people that wanted to try to distance themselves from the decision to start this war. So I don't know if I trust that. You know, it said Marco Rubio told him that, you know, it was BS basically what Nenya, who was telling him. But, uh, another thing that that report said that I think is right is that Trump was like totally willing and happy to go along with Netanyahu.

It's not like he was saying, oh, I don't know. Bibi, I don't know about this. What's your, and maybe we don't know for sure, but why? Why would, I mean, clearly his radians have gone down the toilet since this. Nobody's on board with the war except for the few neocons and the White House, you know. like he's especially younger people, even younger Republicans. So like it's what's in it for him? Is it, I mean, one theory is, you know, the Adelson's and these people giving hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump and his campaign that are extremely Zionist.

So is it a money thing? He knows that he can keep his Zionist donors happy by. I mean, you know, that's, that's the big question. And, you know, so I'll say that there is another interest here that I think Trump also wants to serve. And that's just the military industrial complex of the, you know, that is, you know, a major factor in all of these wars that happen. You know, they fund the think tanks that make the cases for wars and everything. And Trump wants, has increased military spending to these astronomical levels over a trillion dollar military budget this year. Is including. increasing it by 50% for $1.5 trillion next year. And I think that's part of the motivation here, too, is, you know, we can we got, we can justify this huge military budget. And, you know, we see all these reports about the U.S. using all of its stockpiles and these advanced missile interceptors and things. And that certainly is, um, uh, a problem for the U.S. in the long run that they can't actually beat Iran. But also there's an interest here. There, there's a benefit to the weapons makers and things that have a great. great influence on our on our government. But when it comes to the Israel stuff, I mean, that's kind of a lot to get into. Like, why? Why is he so on board with all this? And it certainly has something to do with his donor, you know, Miriam Adelson, who he himself said at the

Israeli Knesset, no cares more about Israel than the U.S. Right. And has almost direct access to the Oval Office. Like, didn't her husband, her late husband would kind of claim like I think Trump even said like oh yeah he can walk into my office any day like no he said that they would come in and and ask for oh you move the embassy to Jerusalem great here's another thing we want you to do for Israel I see they're they're like that out loud yeah yeah yeah that's one thing I appreciate about him like he just says it out loud rather than other politicians that you have to kind of dig and find and here's what's really going on he just kind of says it so yeah and and so and so but again that's kind of a whole other thing like you know why I think it

It is, some of it is just as obvious as that. His biggest donors are hardcore Zionists. And also like, you know, he's like a real estate guy from New York. Like, you know, this is just like, like Steve Wickoff is like a friend of his who, you know, he's someone who is very pro-Israel and everything. This is, you know, the people he's been around for a lot of his life. You know, it's because I don't see Trump as like an ideological Zionist. No. But he's, he's got, he's surrounded by it.

And, you know, Jared Kushner, of course, his son-in-law. And then, but the other thing that I think led, that I think played a huge factor in Trump deciding to do this was the attack on Venezuela. Oh, right. When they abducted Maduro, the Venezuelan president. Because there was this big buildup that happened in the months before they started bombing these boats, claiming that they were running drugs, just no evidence to that. There's just murdering people on small civilian boats. But there's this whole big buildup. And there's a lot of opposition among people, you know, the MAGA base to this idea of a war with Venezuela.

They went ahead with this attack. And from the U.S. perspective, it went off without a hitch, essentially. It's clean. You know, no Americans were killed. Some were wounded. But they actually went in. And I'll admit, I did not think that this was a serious option. I remember there was reporting about this being an option that they could go into Caracas.

and take him out, you know, like that. But they went in and they got out and then, and it was like just the day. And then Trump did announce, oh, we're going to stay in Venezuela forever. Now they're essentially controlling the country's oil trade. And they're, you know, under the threat of, you know, we'll bomb you again if you don't listen to us.

But after that attack, there's all these people on Trump's side who were skeptical who said, you know what, that was great. That was a Trump, you know, America first intervention in and out quick, no long, drawn out war, no American boots on the ground for longer than, you know, the operation. And Trump himself, I think, was just kind of, kind of upset, like fascinated and with the fact that this military operation worked as well as it did. And, you know, that certainly came with risks. And I'm sure he was told of the risks of how this could go really bad. I mean, imagine if all those helicopters were shot down and they were all just killed, all the,

Americans going in and then they ended up like carpet bomb in Caracas to try to get some survivors out or something. It could have went really pat. I mean, and that was the risk he was taking. Yeah. So it could have been like Black Hawk down on the stain that that had in, you know, the U.S. Yeah. Yeah. And so just important to point out that at least, I believe this is the number at least 83 people were killed in the attack, including Cuban presidential guards, Venezuela, military personnel, and at least four civilians were killed as well. Okay. But But anyway, so that happened. You know, he was riding high from that.

And he did this interview with the New York Times after that. And, you know, because the attack of Venezuela, totally illegal, the buildup, they were just lying about all the pretexts. I mean, these are details that would take a while to talk about. But then he was asked in an interview, you know, the New York Times reporters went in and interviewed him in the Oval Office. And they asked, like, do you care about international law? what is stopping you you know like what is the only

you know what I forget exactly the the wording but he his answer was basically my own morals are the only thing that will control

what I do just me and like that is just I remember just reading and thinking that was very ominous it's like yeah that is like there's something

scary I mean I can't think of a better word but like Trump's morals are the benchmark yeah yeah I mean, for any man to like think, just say that, you know, what is going to stop?

It's just, oh, me is dangerous, let alone the president of the United States. And, you know, so, and again, the reaction from so many people just like, this is great. The U.S., you know, I'm thinking of Matt Walsh, you know, he was like acting like he's skeptical of military interventions. And then he comes out with this big post on X saying, like, this is how America should operate. we have the ability to be the dominant force in our henosphere and whatever we want, you know, we should take it. And, you know, I think that's how Trump thinks. And he thought that there was a chance he could pull something off with Iran. Exactly what I don't know, but, you know, something like what Netanyahu is telling him.

And just for my audience, too, because we've been, you know, saying critical things about Republican administration, like you're libertarian. So you're not for either side. It's not like any kind of criticism of the right is like, oh, therefore the left is like, has it all together or something. Just so my audience knows where you're coming from. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm more like kind of right, like probably conservative now than libertarian. Like, you know, it's all relative, but it's like, yeah. So I don't really feel like I fit in with the, you know, mainstream American right at all. But I definitely lean more right. Yeah, socially. Yeah. One more quick question. Who is winning this war?

The U.S. Israel slash war on Iran. I mean, again, it depends on who you listen to on both sides, two very, very different narratives. Like, who has the upper hand right now? I think Iran does. Really? Yeah, because for them to win, you know, they don't need to do much more than just survive. And, you know, they established that yes, again, even more than after a 12-day war, they established that their missiles, they can hit whatever they want across the whole region.

And they took the step to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. They showed that they have control over that, which is such like a vital waterway. And Trump has shown that, you know, he is afraid of trying to bomb them into submission again because Iran still is room to escalate and their escalation would probably look like them really just lighting up the oil infrastructure in the Gulf Arab countries

and potentially closing the, you know, getting the Houthis in Yemen to shut down the Bob El Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, essentially, which would really be a nightmare for Saudi Arabia is something they clearly are desperately trying to avoid. And you think, you know, we see gas prices now in the U.S. If this all restarts and it really becomes a war on oil infrastructure, it's just going to get, you know, the global economic fallout is going to be much bigger. So that's the card that Iran still has to play. And, you know, the fact that Trump is still trying to, like, negotiate something. And the thing is that Trump is stuck. And he's not willing to do what's necessary to actually end the war and sign a deal with Iran. And unfortunately, I don't think he's going to be willing to do it until maybe potentially after another escalation, another round and things get worse. I think his nose needs to be bloodied a little more. And I'm not saying that as, like, a pro-Iranian. Like, I just want this thing to end.

I wanted to be clear about that. But I just think when it comes to Trump, like, it's going to take another kind of humiliation from Iran for him to back away here. Well, he can't take a loss. He has to somehow,

whether it's true or whether it's propaganda, come off as seen as victorious. So, yeah, he does seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. And my guess, and I could be totally off, is that I think the U.S. will kind of take more of a loss than Iran will, and yet somehow Trump and the administration will spin it as a victory and just kind of cover it up with rhetoric.

Like, I think that's his only way out. Yeah, I think so too. And, you know, I was hoping that after the ceasefire, that's what would happen, as he would just kind of declare victory and pull out. But what we're seeing right now, it does seem like movement toward another round of bombing. And I think the people that are in Trump's year now are like to the hawks who are just like, another two weeks, bomb him for another two weeks, and then they'll capitulate. But yeah, it's just a very bad situation.

And, you know, if you listen to my show, you know I'm not like an alarmist. I don't make like big predictions. No, not at all. But if things really do get out of control, I mean, there is the possibility of Israel using a nuclear weapon. I don't think that should be forgotten. You know, we need to remember that Israel has nukes. And that could potentially be an implied threat from me. Israel to the U.S. that like if you don't

support us, well, we're just going to have to use our nuclear weapons. And again, I'm not saying that they said that. I don't know if they did, but it could be implied. There is a weird irony. And I'm trying to find the steel man counter argument. Maybe you have one. But like, it is odd

that the U.S., which has, I don't know how many thousands of nuclear warheads, Israel, which has I think several hundred, illegally. by the way, right? They should not have nukes. Like they,

and these two countries, so one has illegal nuclear weapons. The other one has thousands, and the only country ever to use one, by the way, on civilians, 200,000 civilians, is telling a country that they're not allowed to even develop nuclear energy

with the possibility of creating a nuclear weapon. And they could say, well, they're the evil regime. They're going to use it. I'm like, well, how many civilians has Iran killed? How many civilians has Israel killed? How many civilians is the U.S. killed? Let's just take, let's just go back 20 years, 30 years. Who's the monster? I mean, and again, this is not like, Iran is like super moral or whatever, but it's like these two countries, I just don't know, they don't have the moral credibility to say, you're the bad guy and you can't have a nuclear enrichment program. Like, that doesn't make any sense to me.

But yeah, I mean, especially post-Gaza, like, you know, that what the whole world saw Israel do with the full support of the U.S. Yeah. But, you know, I remember like we were talking earlier about things that make people kind of change their opinion on things. I remember when I was younger, learning that Israel had nuclear weapons was one of those moments. I was like, wait, what? Because it's just like, all you hear about is Iran, you know, I've been hearing about it since I was a kid. like that oh, Iran's going to develop a nuclear weapon. Back in the 80s, Netanyahu's been saying this for 35 years?

Yeah. Obviously, I've seen the montage where it's like, they're two weeks away, they're one week away from development. He's been saying that since like the late 80s. So funny. And, you know, you mentioned the 80s. Other context is, because you know the way that the U.S. frames us is, oh, all of a sudden we've been at war with Iran for 47 years.

That's the new talking point. They've been at war with us. And the White House put out this whole fact sheet about Americans who've been killed by Iran's proxies, but they're all Americans killed in other conflicts by, you know, groups either allied or supported by Iran. It's like if you want to play that game, then you can go back to the 1980s when the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein against Iran in a horrific war. And Saddam used chemical weapons. And there's evidence that the CIA knew he was going to use chemical weapons and gave him intelligence for the attack against Iranians.

And so if that's the game that they want to play, like, then there's a lot more dead Iranians as a result of what the U.S. did than vice versa. Yeah. Not to mention the U.S. shooting down an Iranian airliner. And what year was that? I want to say 89, but I forget exactly when. And the U.S. back coup in, what, 1953? Yeah, yeah. People say this started in 79.

I'm like, no, it started in 53, actually. Yeah. Dave, I'm taking you... I was just going to say, like, the propaganda, so, you know, we've seen President Trump hasn't really said this, but others have said, oh, this isn't a war. We're not at war with Iran. But also, they've been at war with us for, you know,

for decades. It's just ridiculous. Yeah. Dave, thanks so much, man, for that day. I really appreciate it. Encourage everybody, everybody to go right now, subscribe to anti-war.com. Dave gives just a I mean a fantastic accurate 20 30 minute summary

daily summary or four days a week I think no you do five days a week I think yeah five days yeah just a podcast summary of all the stuff happening all the stuff that we've been talking about so check it out anti-award.com Dave thanks so much man for coming back on Thealge Trough yeah thanks again for having me president

if you would like to listen to or watch the extra innings portion of this episode where I give a solo recap on all the things we talked about in this episode, including how Christians should think through and respond to the war in Iran. Just head over to patreon.com forward slash theology and raw to gain access to the episode and others like it.