TRIGGERnometry - War Expert Debunks Gaza Lies - John Spencer

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

John Spencer is a retired U.S. Army Major and leading expert on urban warfare, known for his frontline experience, strategic insights, and influential writing on modern combat in cities. Triggernometry is proudly independent. Thanks to the sponsors below for making that possible: - Hirsch Organic Grass Fed Beef Organ Supplement: Triggernometry exclusive 10% off at https://hirschorganic.com/pages/trigger - Protect your wealth with The Pure Gold Company. Get your free investor guide at https://pure-gold.co/trigger - Grab your free seat to the 2-Day AI Mastermind: https://link.outskill.com/TRIGGERNOMETRY 100% Discount for the first 1000 people. Dive deep into AI and Learn Automations, Build AI Agents, Make videos & images – all for free! Bonuses worth $5,100 if you join and attend. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Introduction 05:50 What Is The Correct Way Of Looking At The Situation In Gaza? 16:57 Population Displacement In War 26:22 The Casualty Statistics 37:28 Was There A Three Month Food And Aid Blockade By Israel In Gaza? 49:19 Is Israel Playing Into Hamas' Hands? 01:02:10 Is It Even Possible To Defeat Hamas? 01:03:32 How Should Israel End This War? 01:15:20 What's The One Thing We're Not Talking About As A Society That We Really Should Be? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm fine if people are anti-war. I'm not fine if people are anti-fact. Nobody's ever built 300 miles of tunnels underneath their civilians for the sole purpose of using their civilians as a shield and as a sacrifice. Every individual in Gaza could fit in Hamas's tunnels with ease. Why is it that Israel is held to not one double standard, but a whole list of double standards in war, that no other nation in history has ever been held to. What is the goal now by pursuing this conflict in this way? Alienates a whole generation of future Western decision makers, and that is a reality that Israeli politicians have to reckon with, surely.

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viewer, long-time fan. Well, appreciate that. You're one of the world's leading experts on urban combat and urban warfare, which is why we wanted to have you on in the context of what's happening in Gaza, obviously. You messaged me somewhat irate after our last couple of interviews on Israel with Pierce Morgan and Andrew Fox. You had a lot of disagreements. Before we get into all of that and your perspective on what's happening and perhaps answering

some of the questions of those two guests raised that we as non-examination. experts are not able to address. Tell everybody a little about your background and what gives you the ability to talk about these issues with some authority. Sure. So my name is John Spencer. I'm the chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Madison City Policy Forum, also executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute. I spent 25 years active duty U.S. Army as an infantry soldier and then officer two combat tours to Iraq, did the invasion, and then I was there during the height of the sectarian violence in 2008 in Baghdad to include the Battle of Sotter City. I don't rest on my own experiences, though. I've been studying urban warfare for over a decade.

I started in the Pentagon, actually in a research group and advisory role to our top four-star general of the U.S. Army and the Pentagon. After that tour, where we were looking at large cities like mega-cities, I moved to West Point, the United States Military Academy, where I was teaching strategy, leadership, military tactics in echelon, but really that strategy class has helped me a lot since then. I started a research center called the Modern War Institute. I was a co-founder of that. It started writing a lot about urban warfare. Now I have three books. I started a podcast, although I don't consider myself a podcast or not if that's a bad thing. I've been doing it for over six years interviewing top commanders of past battles, technical experts, veterans.

I've started in research role, though, since 2018, really. I've been traveling the world going into combat zones using different research methodologies like ethnographic, you know, basically getting on the ground in combat areas and recording what's happening and then the lessons that other people can take from it. So I write case studies on past wars, so I've covered most urban battles of the past from Stalingrad to most of the battles of urban awards. two actual walking the ground of battlegrounds i went into ukraine weeks after russia withdrew from kev and been into ukraine four times Azerbaijan to study their wars india and then israel of course

so i've been to israel now five times four times embedded with the idea actually with the commanders with the division commanders and others i've interviewed the prime minister three times the defense minister the head of the idea the chief of staff multiple numerous commanders observed them in the field and i didn't start studying war on october seventh and that's unique in some aspects unto other people who we call who have opinions i didn't start studying israel on october seventh and i surely heck didn't start studying war i had been going in and out of israel for years writing case studies writing research reports on their past urban battles from the 1973 battle of suez city the first intifada second intifada

ancient Jerusalem battle, etc. So I consider myself knowledgeable in urban warfare, but to be honest, in order to understand Gaza, you have to understand a little bit of history on what's come before, and I've studied a lot of urban battles, and I can help provide people like, it's really weird what you're saying about Israel here and all the double standards,

but you also have to have an understanding of things like civilian harm mitigation, which are the steps that militaries have taken even over the last 20 or 30 years to protect civilians, And I've been arguing with groups in the United Nations. I've spoken multiple times at the United Nations and with UN, humanitarian groups about how do you help protect civilians and urban warfare, but also the law. So then you have that part where you have to understand the full nature of the laws of war from what is the humanitarian requirements of the attacker to like what munitions can you and can you not use. And I've been writing, podcasting, and researching all of those topics. So I think I have some information to share about what's going on in Gaza,

but also to give people the framework because we have a lot of people that say things, either that are just wrong and we can talk about some of those people or just that are not informed by an actually research methodology. Well, it's great to have you on the show because of your knowledge and expertise. I was going to say I'm surprised how much hair you have, given that you've probably been tearing a lot of it out with the way that this conflict's been covered. So broad perspective, big picture, in your opinion, what is the correct frame and way of looking at what's happening in Gaza and Israel's war in Gaza that people who don't understand military conflict, particularly urban warfare, probably don't understand? Absolutely. It's an amazing first question, is to the framework is war, right? So although Hamas is a non-state actor,

the law of war actually covers an internationally armed conflict or a non-internationally armed conflict. And I know you had Natasha Halsdorf to try to explain the framework of the legal. What the world has been doing, though, has been applying a counterterrorism, counterinsurgency framework to Hamas. Because there is a heuristic of, you know, this is what people know, this is whether they understand Iraq, Afghanistan, the battles against ISIS. They keep considering Hamas a terrorist fight. a counterterrorism fight. And that's not the framework. That's not in any way the framework. On October 7th, the terror army that was Hamas's military and other terrorist groups and a whole lot of civilians from Gaza invaded southern Israel. Israel waged war in accordance with the framework of nations against

Hamas as the political and military apparatus of the area of Gaza, although it's not a nation. So this isn't a nation on nation conflict. It's a nation against a non-state actor. but also very unique in the context of it, unlike others, right? All these other frameworks that people talk about. And this is really where I've been playing whack-a-mole to people's analogies, people's comparisons is like, why are you comparing this to Iraq battles? Why are you comparing this to ISIS battles?

I mean, those are all insurgencies within nations where the U.S. or others are helping even a host nation fight an insurgency. It's a wrong framework. So at the very top is war. You have to frame it in the way of war. Now, how do people compare it? And I can give you all kinds of comparisons that you probably haven't heard of that are more applicable to Gaza than anybody else is using. And it is crazy. And I've tried to help people understand that from the size of the military, the terrain of Gaza.

There are some very unprecedented aspects of this where there is no comparison. And I can make really bold claims, and I'm sure we'll talk about them. Like, this has never happened in war before. So explain all of this, John. What are you talking about? What makes this conflict unique? What are some of the particular challenges that the Israeli defense force faces? What are some of the contentious issues that people keep claiming that you don't agree with?

Well, I don't know if we have enough time to go through all the contention issues. So the number one things, let's talk about the things that are. unique in war. Gaza. Gaza is a very unique situation. Hamas. So unlike any other comparison, Gaza is a small area, relatively. It's 25 miles long. And sorry, I don't do the kilometers. 25 miles long, 5 to 7 miles wide. It's a really relatively small area. But it actually has 24 cities. It has multiple cities of over 600,000, if not a million. You're talking about Gaza City. it's not a battle. It's a war. But I can't find any other situation again, because I've studied urban warfare for over a decade, and I have a little military service myself, where the enemy,

defender, has prepared the ground for 20 years for that battle. Most urban battles, from Stalingrad to Akin to Hway, all of these things, are meeting engagements where the enemy gets inside the urban area or is there and then for a short amount of times prepares it for a battle. And we can talk about some of the numbers of previous battles, but the fact that Hamas spent billions of dollars and prepared every bit of Gaza for war is unique. And that means if you're an attacker, again, if you just take the word Israel out of this and give the context of the war, there is no parallel. There is no parallel to the 300 to 400 miles of tunnels underneath every urban area in Gaza and connecting them all. there are tunnels around the world, and I've studied the Vietnam War from, you know, the tunnels of Kuchee to the tunnels currently in North Korea and China. Nobody's ever built 300 miles of tunnels underneath their civilians for the sole purpose of using their civilians as a shield and as a sacrifice.

That's their strategy. I know other people have talked to you about that, is that Hamas wants its population to be killed. That's also unique. The Nazis didn't do that. The Japanese didn't do that. Even ISIS didn't say, look, my strategy, is to get my people killed and then hope that the international community stops Israel short of victory. The aspect of the size of the enemy, right? I can, hopefully we'll talk about a couple of the previous battles that people use to do some type of comparison. Hamas was estimated to be 30 to 40,000 fighters on October 8th. That's just Hamas.

As you have heard as well, there are other combatants that join the fight in other terrorist organizations in Gaza. You have the Palestinian Islamic jihad, you have Lionsden, you have like 14 other terrorist groups. And this is where a major contentious thing I have is people calling combatants and civilians. In my world, and in the law of war, there's combatants and there's non-combatants. A non-combatant can turn themselves into a combatant and more easily than people think. You don't just have to shoot at the IDF or whoever to become a combatant. If you hold hostages, if you report on intelligence, if you carry ammunition, whole list of reasons.

But just the size of the enemy in Gaza in a 20-year prepared defense is what it is, is very unique and was going to make the IDF challenge astronomically hard to even get to the enemy. The other aspect I would have liked to save it until the end is that there's never been a war, and you've challenged people on this, where the civilian population is forced to stay inside of the main combat areas. The fact that Egypt, on October 8th, said not one person comes out of Gaza towards the Sinai Desert. Just from a military analysis, let alone a political analysis, I can't find that ever happening, right? In Ukraine, which I've been there, three to five million people left areas, massive civilian displacement in areas that Russia invaded, even still today. Syria, every war, every war, civilians get out of harm's way.

so that the militaries can have their fight and there be safeguarded or even move to humanitarian areas. Those, just the variables that before the war even actually starts, before the ground invasion starts, before the bombing starts, every aspect of the war against Hamas and Gaza is unique and there is no parallel. Hopefully we'll talk about the double standards, but I can keep going because that's the other uniqueness. It says, I've studied, again, I'm currently studying other wars. There's no other war where Israel, if you put their word Israel in it, then there's a whole different standard in what can be done, the way they assess the war, the false claims of war crime, genocide, all these things contrary to what Israel does.

This is all very unique. But war is a contest of will, so you have to get into, okay, fine, but how do you? you defeat Hamas, even that standard, right? So the ideal that Israel was supposed to have a day after plan in Gaza in October of 2023. Like what? Okay, fine, what's your plan? That would be like saying, okay, you know, you started against Japan and your goal is to defeat Japan, but what's your day after plan? No, you have to defeat the enemy. You have to take his power and then you start to work on post-conflict operations. Every aspect, the number one thing. The number one thing is that that I've been fighting since October 8th, though, has been this counting obsession. It's all a

version of, which is a great book, a lies, damn lies, statistics, where the goal is to make any number as a big as a number to make it as a big as a problem. And for this war, it's been a global problem. And it's just repeating the number that comes from a terrorist organization. As somebody who studies war for a living, there's never been a single battle in history, not a war, but a battle. in which there is a running daily count of how many civilians are dying down to a single digit coming from the enemy within side the battle, coming from Hamas. And the reason that is, it's impossible to know how many civilians are dying and all these other battles I can tell you about years later that they still don't know how many civilians died. But the ideal inside of Gaza, and there's all kinds of these nefarious actors who are trying to invent ways to validate, Hamas's casually numbers. If not say, no, Hamas is not right. It's actually more. It's crazy that this

statistical war that this is how many civilians are dying and how many combatants are dying. There's never been a military in history in any war who's ever been asked, look, I know your war is just, your goals are just, but what's your civilian and the combatant ratio? Because that's not the way the law works. That's not the way war works. And you would actually give people every terrorist organization around the world, a recipe for success. Oh, just make the number as high as you can. And it wasn't like this is the first time. Again, if you started studying war on October 7th,

you could probably imagine like all kinds of stuff. This is the worst I've ever seen. Okay, have you studied any other war? Have you ever studied any other humanitarian aid operations? No, okay, then I can show you other times when it's worse and worse and worse. And the numbers, in the chaos, even though the context of Gaza is so unique that the world won't even acknowledge it, right? So the fact that going back to Egypt, and I just interviewed the Minister of Defense again to validate that in the last 21 months, not one delegation,

not one nation, especially the UK, have ever brought up the target, the topic of, what about Egypt? Couldn't we move the civilians out of harm's way? Couldn't we get them out of the Hamas hands and set up a humanitarian area in the Sinai? Not one delegation brought that up. So you have to asked a question on, why is that? Why is it that Israel is held to not one double standard, but a whole list of double standards in war that no other nation in history has ever been held to, or would be if it happened to them? John, there's a lot to unpacking what you're saying, but on the Egypt thing, I would imagine what the pro-Palestine people, so to speak, would say is what Israel really wants.

I mean, Piers Morgan said this on our show. What Israel really wants is to displace the civilians from Gaza is to get rid of the Palestinian Arabs who live there. Therefore, they would love nothing more than for those people to flee to other countries. And the reason that the neighboring countries don't want that to happen, A, they already have hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from previous eruptions of this conflict. We know that in many countries to which those groups of people have fled, that has caused a lot of instability. Egypt is a poor country with its own security problems.

and so they don't want to play into Israel's hands and facilitate Israeli quote-unquote ethnic cleansing on the one hand, and on the other hand, they do not want to destabilize their own societies. Organ meats are some of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet, rich in B vitamins, iron and bioavailable nutrients that most modern diets are missing. But let's be honest, most of us aren't about to start pan-frying liver every day. That's where Hirsch Organic comes in.

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So not the boycott, the vest, sanction, awful thing that happens against Israel, but if you have BB derangement syndrome and you believe that he's just the nefarious actor that's guiding all this, or if you have TDS, Trump derangement syndrome, I would point like you did recently to somebody going, well, wait a minute, and during World War II, there's massive population displacement in every war, actually. And you could talk 2020 war of Nagorno-Karabok, 23 war, in the garnetkova, Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, population displacement is historically exactly

what happens to get civilians out of harm's way. Now, if you're, I'm not, you know, people want to put me in a bucket of pro-Israel or put other people in the, in the bucket of pro-Palestine, I think that's not the right framework. I'm pro-truth. And some people are anti-Israel.

That becomes a fact. They actually don't care about Palestinians or the cause. So if somebody is so adamant that Israel just wants to eradicate people, it's been, you don't listen to the words of actually Israeli leaders, like Minister Dermer, who's the Minister of Strategic Affairs, who has said, like, in the beginning, like, absolutely, you know, pass a UN Security Council resolution saying that the people can come back after Hamas is defeated.

But mainly I would say, and I hope you can put it in a picture, take out a map, look at where Gaza is, and look at where the Sinai Desert is, and then look at where Egypt is. There's a massive area. So I think it's bullocks that that's the excuse that people give. And one, historically, it's never been the case. And they're actually prolonging the war. They're actually causing civilian death. All you would have to do, on October 2023, right afterwards, Egypt launched a armor brigade and many other troops to the border to make sure no civilians got out.

They built a new wall. There's actually three walls. They built a new wall to make sure that nobody got. out. Now, if you're so adamant that you think that Israel, and there is this, in a lot of these positions, there's just nefarious Israeli theory underneath it. Like, oh, they're not, they're trying to do things sneakily. They can't do it in the open so they have these ulterior motives. Like, look, I look at it as a war objectively as possible. The fact that you say Israel, because you think they're nefarious, can't move the civilians out of the harm's way. You're not even, you're United

Nations, and you want to create a humanitarian. area where there won't be chaos, where Hamas won't cause the chaos. You could build a humanitarian area, and we're talking two million people. I fought in the neighborhood of Baghdad. That's two million people. It isn't the scale that's the problem. It's the fact that this is Israel. So of course, you can't create a, even if you want to create a fenced-in area in the Sinai Desert, where every international agency, even international militaries or security forces could help provide security of that area. Well, no, no, it's not an option because we believe Israel has nefarious goals. But I'll go to the double standard. In war, if somebody starts a war and there is a response

to that war, absolutely there is population displacement until the end of the war. And then if somebody's saying, well, the border shouldn't change either, right? So this, everything should be the exact same as October 6th before Hamas, the government of Gaza and its military invaded Israel. people don't understand the second and third order effects of trying to create this standard because it's Israel, because you believe you know the Israel Palestine history, which most people don't, or they're what we call revisionist history, where they try to invent the history of things that happened. It's because it's Israel. So I say that that argument, right, I don't attack people. I attack their bracity of their statements. And that just, you know, as one of my, the president said, that dog don't hunt. Like your facts are. not right that Israel can't do this and that the Trump plan to call the Trump plan ethnic cleansing is insanity. It is straight TDS that the movement of people to allow people to voluntarily leave somewhere where there is suffering, combat, awful things happening. But no, no, because it's Palestinians, you've got to stay in there. That's insanity. And it needs to stop because if not,

And what I write about a lot as well is like if you say this about Israel, are you just saying, well, this won't apply to us. You know, UK, France, whatever. This won't happen to us. You know, we won't have to follow these rules. This is just we just want Israel to follow these rules. Let me give you something that nobody I've ever seen on your show do is what would happen if this happened to the United States? You know, I could talk Britain as well. What would the United States do if an October 7 style attacks? And I don't even have to do the comparative numbers, right? The fact that it's like four. 40,000 civilians dead and thousands taken hostages. The United States military would respond immediately with overwhelming force. And I have to give people a class on what is portionality in war, like what is disproportionate. The United States would have responded to October 7th with amazing military force because we have 10 active divisions. We had the ability to dominate the sky. We would have made sure not a single rocket came out of enemy air. is headed towards our cities, like Los Angeles, if you talk about the southern border.

There were 4,000 rockets launched by Hamas on the morning of October 7th, and then there were about 8,000 more launched since then. The U.S. military would immediately invade that territory to retrieve our hostages. It would have encouraged other countries and used all of our forms of national power to encourage them to allow people to get out of harm's way, and we would have tried to end it as quickly as possible. And I think that's where people misunderstand. We would also have done the same things that Israel is doing to try to protect civilians.

And I have boldly said, and I challenge anybody, prove me wrong, that Israel has done more to protect civilians, as in the measures that any military has ever created in history. And because people don't know these, they haven't studied these. They're called civilian harm mitigation measures. Israel has done more than any nation in history to include any Western nation. what they have done to protect civilians, we would have done some of those, but we would have immediately responded with overwhelming. That's the goal in war, is to use overwhelming military force to convince your enemy to do your will, as in to either give back the hostages, surrender, or you take what it values most, which is its population centers in his land. That's war.

That's why the framework of this is all wrong. John, I'm really glad that we're having this conversation because the old adage says the first thing, the first casualty of war is the truth. And one of the difficulties that has been for me when I've been following this because we've been conducting these interviews and I'm sure everybody is working out what is true and what isn't. So let's talk about the casualties. How do we know that these casualties are, the stats are accurate or as accurate as they possibly can be? They say women and children killed. What do they mean by children? Does that mean up to the age of 18? 21.

Women, could these women be combatants as well? Explain a little bit more for us. Sure. One, I've already explained that nobody in the history of wars, everyone asked, but what's your civilian-to-combatant ratio? Nobody's ever taken the enemy's word on the casualty count. But fine, even if you took the enemy's casually count, so Hamas, the Gaza health ministry.

One, if you believe that there's a number or a story or a photo that leaves Gaza without the permission of Hamas, then you're just, you're biased. So of the casualty counts, and I know I heard Pierce Morgan say there's been 20,000 kids killed in Gaza, which is a lie. I really find it weird that people that are just anti-Israel will say numbers that even Hamas doesn't say. You're absolutely right if we talk about children, right? Because that's where they go to. Like, John, I don't care that you say Israel has done more. They're not effective.

Like, that's not true either. the Hamas Gaza health ministry numbers are have been shown to be methodologically and statistically even data centrically wrong full of errors full of double names um have you ever ask any of these people that use these numbers have you seen the Gaza health ministry list of people who have died by natural causes no it doesn't exist so 20,000 kids supposedly you're right the united nations puts kids at 18. So that's a list of people, anybody below the age of 18.

I joined the military of 17. I would have been on that list. The fact that Hamas has radicalized the entire population and deploys child soldiers, they don't care. Nobody cares. But what about the babies, John?

I'm like, okay, I absolutely agree. And this is the insanity of, you want perfection in war, you want a bloodless war? The laws of war account for civilian death and say you have to take everything, reasonable and feasible to prevent it. And Israel has done that.

But back to the numbers. There is no way, and this is again, you have people insane people, and I'm sorry that they're in the UK, who say they've figured out a way to figure out how many casualties have died. So they won't even take Hamas's numbers, right? Which again, every statistic that has spread around the world has been shown to be false. That's not what Hamas says, you know, the majority women, majority children. false false the fact that they try to say well this many innocent civilians and this is where i really as a as an analyst of multiple wars is that we believe not me but other people that there is somebody in

gaza who can point to a body even if it's an adult male and say well that person was a combatant and that person was not a combatant they weren't partaking in the hostilities is there civilian death in Gaza absolutely it's a war and hamas once Hamas kills people the most themselves. I mean, over 20% of Hamas's rockets. So over 13,000 rockets they've launched at Israel have landed inside of Gaza killing Gazans. They go on the list. Really, anybody who's died for any reason goes on the list. If you were Hamas terrorists to cross the border into Israel to kill, slaughter, rape, and maim and died, you're on the list. The list is insane, but, and other people have picked it apart from a data perspective. I think it's insane that there's a fascination on the

list when the actual question for any military other than Israel is, is that military following the laws of war in distinction, necessity, proportionality, and overwhelming it is yes. There's actually not been a single case to be shown that Israel has targeted civilians. Has been collateral damage? Yes. But here's some numbers in case people are so fascinated with the numbers, which I think is really problematic. Because again, when you have a combatant, a non-state actor like Hamas, who purposely doesn't wear a uniform, doesn't distinguish itself, just that. I mean, in Ukraine, millions of civilians joined the fight against the Russian invasion, and they wrapped the yellow or blue tape around their arm.

I don't know where they got all this tape, but they immediately distinguished themselves, even if they're carrying ammunition or whatever, as partaking in the hostilities. But let's talk about numbers, right? So everybody, I was getting the number early in the war, like 10,000 people killed. I'm like, okay, it's a war that nobody's seen in modern history. All those variables, the size of the combatant, the dense urban areas. But there's only one battle in American history. I can't find one in British history that has any of the parallels as in the density of the urban terrain, the presence of civilians, a vicious enemy.

And that's the 1945 Battle of Manila. I don't know if you know it. In 1945, after the U.S. military was defeated in the Philippines, we returned. and there were roughly 3 to 4,000 POWs and internees, so hostages, men, women, and children being held in the city of Manila, a city of about 1.1 million. There were 17,000 Japanese defenders. The U.S. military attacked to retrieve our hostages and liberate the city with about 35,000. So even the scale is not correct. In that battle, we retrieved our hostages, but again, 35,000 American and other attacking the city of 17,000 Japanese defenders.

There were 100,000 civilians that died in that battle. And nobody made a New York Times op-ed that was on the cover of the saying, too many civilians died in this war. Why was that? Because it's war, because the Japanese were the ones who were slaughtering the civilians in that war. Or let me give you one other one. Again, this fascination with the numbers is crazy. But, John, can I just interrupt you there?

I know you were saying this fascination with numbers is crazy. I do understand. And from an academic perspective, I agree with you. But let's also be honest, you know, this is a war that has not just been fought on the battlefield. It's not just been fought diplomatically. It's also been fought in the modern day arena of social media. And there are millions of people all over the world, particularly in the West, who are having horrific images shown on their phones of horrendous suffering of,

civilians. So I know what you're saying, but also as well, I do understand the fascination, because if you've just seen a baby blown up, then that's going to be at the forefront of your mind, surely. Absolutely. And again, if you started studying war on October 7th, you wouldn't realize that that is a uniqueness as well, right? The fact that a war of this scale and of this viciousness is aired on the phones, the algorithm actually drives it to their phones. Every awful thing that's happened in war gets driven to the the uninformed minds of massive populations.

That is unique. And this is where, you know, if we would have had TikTok during even the Korean War, right? In the Korean War, 50,000, over two million civilians died in the Korean War. It's a 37-month war. That's 50,000 civilians dying a month for the every month of the war,

for 37 months. Had we had TikTok during that, of course there would be something different. Had this not been Israel, there would be something different because they start with the image and like, that's awful. Israel did this on purpose. And they don't want to listen to anybody with any contradictory information about why is this happening. And the ideal that, well, of course, it's awful. Look what's happening.

And there are innocent civilians who are dying, but that's not the intention, which we could get to this baseless claim of genocidal intent. That is not the intention of the idea in any. way, shape, or farm, it is actually the intention of Hamas. Do you realize that every individual in Gaza could fit in Hamas's tunnels with ease? There's over 400 miles of tunnels. All 2.2 million civilians could fit in those tunnels, but you've never seen an image of a single civilian in those. And I, again, I do war around the world.

In Ukraine, the civilians sought refuge because Russia didn't give notice in the tunnels. And they still do in the subways and all that to escape the awful attacks of Russia. So yes, you're right. Absolutely. There is a fascination, again, with Israel, because I haven't seen protest about the awful things. And I don't do what aboutisms, but it's just any, you know, actual veracity of a comment, where are you on the atrocities that are happening in Yemen and Sudan and all these other areas? Even in humanitarian aid distribution, during the Somalia war, 200 to 300,000 people had died of starvation. and then the United Nations and others tried to get aid to the population and failed because the clans took it, they killed humanitarian aid workers.

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explode any myths. I've been reading about this. This may be completely incorrect. Was there a three-month aid and food blockade by the idea of preventing food and aid entering Gaza? No, so there was an 11 week. Is that three months? No, that's two that's two and a half months. Yeah. An 11 week pause.

But again, even the people that you've had on who so-called are informed about it, don't give you the full picture. So during the last ceasefire, which was right before this pause of the humanitarian gain going in, It was 42 days of CISC. There were 25,000 trucks of age that went in during those 42 days.

And then there was a pause in more aid going in while Israel and the United States enacted the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in southern Gaza, mostly three sites in southern Gaza, one in northern Gaza. Nobody talks about, well, where did that 25,000 trucks of aid go? And how long would that last while Israel developed a plan to continue the war? but also move civilians into southern Gaza and increase the aid there. They never said they wanted to stop UNA. They said they wanted to phase it out because of the fact not only was Hamas gathering. And I saw some, you know, recently in the, of course, there was a humanitarian crisis happening. But of all the people to be blamed, it was only Israel being blamed, right?

And this is the, you know, the thousand trucks of the United Nations because people won't give you the timeline. And I love long form podcast because let's talk about it. talk about the ceasefire, right? So not only did 25,000 trucks of aid go in, Hamas insisted and would not give hostages back unless Israel allowed one million Palestinians to move back into northern Gaza on top of rubble, minefields, everything,

so that it would be really hard for Israel to continue the war and provide humanitarian aid, which was centered on the south of Gaza. For some reason, that escapes people that the fact that there was this massive population displacement back into northern Gaza for Hamas' strategy. And what Israel was trying to do was concentrate the aid distribution into southern Gaza. People don't also recognize that there's been a statistic of how much does flour cost, right? So there's some really good analysis about the price of flour going up in northern Gaza.

Okay, who's selling the flour? that's actually not just Hamas, but there's not a production of any aid going in Gaza. It's a war zone. So that's aid that's been delivered that Hamas and Gaza civilians take and then sell back to civilians. It's a war zone. The idea that you're making Gazans walk through combat areas to get to the aid in southern Gaza. The entire Gaza Strip is a war zone. What are you people talking about?

Israel tried to create a mechanism to get the aid to directly to the people, and it was successful. But then let's talk about how Hamas tried to make it unsuccessful. Before the Gaza humanitarian foundation gave out one box of food, Hamas put out written guidance and oral, like they put it on their ex-feas, they put it out everywhere. If you take a single meal from this initiative, you will face severe consequences. And then they went out and attacked the humanitarian zone. Yes, it was chaos. Is it the most chaos that's ever been seen in war? No, that's absolutely ridiculous. It was chaos because Hamas was causing it and the IDF adjusted their operations in securing the outer zones. And no, I'm not a fan of warning shots. What I'm not a fan of more, though, is people that selectively take the facts and paint the story with that nefarious, you know, bad Israeli intention here is that they were trying to starve the population. Absolutely not, right? This is the idea of how much aid, not just food, medical supplies, field hospitals, new water pipes that Israel has done to try to get to the people. And we have to talk about even the people being a part of this.

In war, if you get the notice to evacuate, then those civilians should evacuate. But because of Hamas and other reasons, you see civilians not evacuating areas that when evacuation notices, because they have been told to evacuate and then Hamas. Moss pushed them back and now they're being asked to be moved again. The insanity here is the nefarious Israel was trying to starve the population as a mechanism of warfare. And that's not true. Just if you just lay out all the facts, what happened from the last ceasefire until today, which Israel has flooded. Now you have flooding of aid going in, not just from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The UN decided to start picking up the trucks again because of why they said they were stopping.

you have airdrops, you have many mechanisms. I don't see that being the cover of anybody's news, though. Israel floods, Gaza with aid. Well, I haven't seen that. John, even if people accept all of that, which of course many people dispute, but let's say it's all true. Even many people who are supportive of Israel's campaign

to destroy Hamas, including Andrew Fox, who we had on the show recently, as you know, feel that not much is being achieved anymore. Like, what is the goal now? Like, I know there's 25 hostages left, but is what is happening now, the continued destruction of Gaza, the killing of thousands of people? Is that really worth? And also, of course, the damage to Israel's reputation, because you can talk about the realities on the ground. The fact is that if there is one war that Israel is definitely, definitely not winning, it's the PR war, right?

That's just a fact. And by the way, I have to say, we've tried to have the Prime Minister of Israel, our show many times we've invited them on because I believe it's very important for the world to hear from them as well. And we're just, you don't seem to get anywhere and they don't seem to do many interviews with even fair-minded people like us. So it just feels like their side is not really putting out their message in the way that you might be. But my question to you is, which is what I'd like to ask them really is, what is now being achieved by continuing this war? What is the rationale here? I don't attack people. I attack brachdy of statements.

Has Israel been successful achieving its goals in the last 21 months? One, we have a fascination with short wars. The idea that if you accept, which again, if people, everybody can have their own opinions about the war, but they can't have their own facts. They can't have their own facts about what Israel has done and what Hamas has done. Okay, well, let's talk about the fact. What are Israel's war goals? And then we can assess whether they've achieved them and also whether continuing the war helps to achieve more of them. Right.

So if you do study war, then this is why I wanted it. interview the prime minister, the minister of defense, and the head of the idea. Just that chain is how, you know, somebody recently said on your show that this is just for political reasons. And like, okay, war by definition is the pursuit of political goals. Israel's three goals have not changed since October 8th. And if you listen to the prime minister, Minister Dermer, everybody in Israel's political military apparatus, the goals have not changed. Number one, return the hostages. Israel has returned through the use of many forms of national power, both military and political, over 200 of the 250 hostages in less than 21 months, against a irrational

actor who will only give up hostages if they think they need to in order to pursue their strategy of surviving the war. So number one goal. Number two goal was to dismantle Hamas's military and remove them from power in Gaza. Hamas no longer has a military. On October 8th, it had a vast military of over five brigades, 24 battalions, 40,000 fighters, 20,000 rockets, the ability to defend ground. That was a raid across the Gaza Strip. It no longer has as a military. Does it have a guerrilla force? Yes.

Does it have a lot of radicalized people who are willing to continue to fight? Absolutely. That's not the measure of effectiveness, though. Is Israel been successful at destroying Hamas's military? That's a fact. They absolutely have, and they are continuing that operation. The fact that the average age of a new Hamas recruit is 16 seems to escape people. Yes, there are new Hamas recruits.

The other one is to remove Hamas from power, right? Hamas was the political apparatus that invaded and ordered its military, its terror army, to invade southern Gaza. Israel has attritted Hamas's governing capabilities. You have clans rising up. They're writing op-eds in the Wall Street Journal about, I am not Hamas. I am controlling southern parts of Gaza. Israel has been successful at taking the power from Gaza.

Yes, it made missteps in the trying to rest that main source of power. And there's new statistics out just yesterday about how much money Hamas has made since October 7th to pay its fighters by taking the aid. And then lastly, so three goals, if I'm not being clear, return to hostages. dismantle Hamas military, remove them from power and ensure that Gaza never threatens Israel again. And Israel has continued to establish a border area and expand that very difficult situation that was the border between Gaza and Israel since October 7th. So if somebody says there's nothing being achieved here or there's nothing that has been achieved, they're just not right. The idea that you should have stopped the war, right? So, you know, I heard somebody say, you know, after the death of Yaya Yad-Sinwar, you should have just ended it.

There was no successes being made. And you were hurting Israel's reputation on the international stage. And you could talk about this ridiculous stuff about a two-state solution in threatening Israel to stop the war. Again, take out the word Israel and take out the word Palestine. And just if we were just to do this on paper, this is what happened on a, you know, a country is invaded by a terror force. All these things happened. The other country waged war. with these goals, we wouldn't be having this question of they're not achieving anything in this

war. And the ideal that you could do this in 21 months, again, that you could do this quickly under the constraints, right? Again, United States and no other nation would have done it this way because they wouldn't have been forced to, right? Six months of don't go to, don't go into Rafa. You gave the enemy a safe haven. Now the enemy still has safe havens in Gaza City, where they have never evacuated. They have in Dira Blah and in the humanitarian zone that was forced to be made. Absolutely, Israel has the right to continue the operation. And all these double standards that is being held to, it's still fulfilling, even though they're not right.

So where does this go? Israel has to remove Hamas from power, not just for the safety of Israel, but for the safety of the Ghazan people to not be used as human sacrifices in the the overall goal of Hamas, which has never changed, which is the destruction of Israel. I don't know if you saw recently how it thanked Kirste Starrmer about his threat to Israel and said, look, Britain, thank you for threatening Israel to recognize Palestine as a state in September, but make sure we're clear, we want Jerusalem to be the capital of that Palestinian state, and we don't want Israel to exist in it. John, there are people who are going to say, look, by continuing this war, you're effectively playing into Hamas's hands.

What Hamas wants is to delegitimize Israel on the world stage, to make themselves look like the victims. They don't care how many people die, how many civilians die. In fact, for them, the more that die, the better because the stronger it makes their position. And all Israel is doing by continuing this war is ultimately strengthening Hamas, plus the civilians that are in that area, are going to be ever more likely to be radicalized, the more their friends and their families die. Yeah, it's a great question. And I heard, you know, the great military theorist Dave Smith try to invoke insurgency math in this war, right? So, you know, the ideal, again, counterinsurgency theory where you have to protect the population. because there's a small amount of enemy

that are using the protection of being hidden within the population and you need the population support, all of this, that you're creating more terrorists than you're killing. If somebody was to apply that math to war, then World War I, World War II, Korean War, there would be no war fault.

If you have to take in the opinion of the enemy's population towards its support, right? If you look at Japan, if you would have pulled the Japanese population during War II, 100% would say continue the war, the emperor is a deity, we will die for him. In war against your enemies, military and political apparatus, you are vicious against them. You deal with the radicalization of the population after you have achieved victory. And again, I go back to, if you're saying it's the cost have been too much, this makes Israel look too bad despite the facts.

You should just stop. Then you're saying that anybody who repeats this sequence of the numbers game, the information operations campaign, you know, the demonization of the military doing everything physically possible to protect civilians, then you're saying that, one, you want Hamas to stay in power in Gaza, and it is Hamas, not last year, today that says, thank you. And we will rebuild and we will continue to do October 7th attacks over in. and over and over again. That's a fact. That's what people are saying if you say stop the war now. Now other people will say like, oh, we agree. We agree. Hamas can't stay in power. Then what's your

ideal of how to do this differently? And this is again, you know, the, this is the, even the people, the last few people you've had. Like, I don't know how to do this, but not this way. Like, well, I'm, I can show you how this has been done in any other war. Step one, remove the civilian population out of harm's way. For, there should be a globe. Where is the, where's the protest for Egypt, for Egypt to allow the civilians to get out of harm's way, so that the killing of civilians that Hamas is putting in the way stops. None, not one. I really push back at this idea of Israel is only damaging itself by continuing the war. We wouldn't say that about anybody else in any other similar situation. Yeah, but they can't achieve victory. Forgive me for interrupting.

There's a massive difference, which is Israel is a small country that relies on the support of its Western allies to be able to survive and function in a way that the United States doesn't have to reckon with. The reality, you can think that this is a public perception game, which doesn't matter to you as a military analyst, and I understand that perspective. But the reality is, if Israel, by pursuing this conflict in this way, alienates a whole generation of future Western decision makers, that will affect its survival over the long term. And I would argue that Israel is losing the PR battle in the West, and you are going to

to see people who are in their 20s and 30s today, who are going to be making decisions about military aid to Israel 10, 15 years from now, who are being radicalized to an anti-Israel position by what they're seeing. And that is a reality that Israeli politicians have to reckon with, surely. Absolutely. And this is, I will not deny that Israel hasn't lost a PR war. It never fought a PR. It's horrible at PR. And I'm again, I'm pro-truth. So I'm telling you what I'm I've learned from studying the war firsthand and interviewing these people or how it compares to other situations, which is this, you know, comparative analysis is a research methodology. But here's what I'll draw that line about it should matter. Absolutely. You can win every battle but lose a war. That's, you know, Vietnam, you name it. That's, that is absolutely. The fact that I want to, I'm a military analyst because I study war, which means I factor in what is the political goal and what is the, political context of the war. Again, the BB derangement syndrome is that it's just him. You know, he has a

lifelong history of or goal to strike Iran, which is, which is rubbish. I mean, that's insane hyperbole and not true. The damage to the PR war, right. So if you think that because Israel is continuing the war in Gaza, it is detrimentally hurting his status as a nation. Okay, let's talk about what it did to Hezbollah, which is ridiculous. of Pierce Morgan to say, well, if it can do this to Hezbo, why can't it do to Hamas? Like, that's just showing your ignorance on the complete context. Well, give us that context. Explain the difference.

It's it. Well, it's not a short answer, right? That's why these, these hosts want your 30 second talking. You've got time here. Not you. Explain it to us as long as you need. Not you. Okay.

You're not you. Right. So Hezbollah in southern Lebanon was a terror army with a nation, right? It had political power and military power. But it was focused on southern Lebanon. It had over 100,000 fighters, over 100,000 mid to long range or short to mid-range rockets. It was a vast enemy that Israel was focused on. And you could talk about, yes, it made it not focused on the threat of Hamas and all that information that was going on.

Israel was successful because it had infiltrated Hamas intelligence and Hamas, not Hamas, yeah, Hezbollah. It had infiltrated Hezbo. Just from a demographic situation, if you just as an analyst give the variables of what all I told you about what Hamas had built, Hezbo had not built, could not build that in southern Lebanon. Hezboa is a segment of Lebanon's population. It's a very diverse society that isn't fully radicalized towards Hezbollah's goals of destroying Israel, which is the Islamic regime in Iran's goal. So Israel was able to infiltrate Hezbollah's supply chain, its intelligence, even to be able to know where every single rocket launching location was because it's not

underground in most cases. And step one, like I said, in a war, is remove the civilian population. And what did Israel do when it started operations against Hezbollah give notification? And the entire population of southern Lebanon left. Nobody talks about what are the civilian casualty counts in Israel's war against Hezbole, because it's so low it doesn't make for news against Israel. They were very successful because they were able to infiltrate this terror army within a society. That's a lot different than the context of the urban terrain, the radicalization, the diversity of the society that was Hamas, or even the goals. I mean, Nasrallah pulled back Hezbollah when Israel started his operation.

It didn't fully fight. So there's so many reasons why Israel was able to defang Hezbo. It didn't defeat Hezboa. It wasn't its goal, right? So, like, will you acknowledge the fact that the goal in Gaza is the removal of Hamas from power and its complete military capability? That's not what the goal was to the Hezbollah. The goal with Hezbollah was to tear them to stop launching rockets at Israel. And that was achieved.

Same thing with the Islamic regime in Iran. What was the goal? So going back to Is Israel weaker today because it's continuing? It defanged Hezbollah. It detired Iran and had the United States. States join in its efforts to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Not a single one of the Arab the Abraham Accords deals fell apart. You had Arab nations defending Israel during this war. In 1948, there were five Arab armies that attacked Israel. In 1967, there were three Arab armies.

In 1973, there was two Arab armies. Now you have Arab nations protecting Israel in the Middle East. You had the new Syrian government, which is a former terrorist organization, knocking drones out of the sky that were headed towards Israel. Jordan was helping. Other nations was helping. The idea that somebody would say Israel is secluded on the global stage. It's done generational damage to its reputation is not true based on the facts. Israel since October 7th has fought an eight front war, seven fronts of seven different military organizations, and the, the eighth front, which is the information war, which

you're right, it's losing, it's horrible at it. It needs to do better. But the ideal that it is weaker as a nation and the threats to it are higher is not true. But what we do have is spineless global leaders. We have spineless global leaders who have listened to the disinformation

and it matters in a democracy that the population is believing in the junk. But you've had others who have stood up as leaders, not just the United States and President Trump saying, what are you talking about? Of course, has the right to continue operations in Gaza, and how about somebody stand up and help?

Let's talk about who else has ever been attacked in history and what nation has come to their aid. What nation has come to Israel's aid? I'm still waiting to hear or what nation has offered to help. Of course, the United States has helped in every way possible to include allowing the arms

that Israel has purchased to be delivered, although we were threatening since October 6th. to not only not send munitions, which we could talk about this, I understood where you can't use large bombs in an urban area was coming from, because again, I've been studying this for a while. But at one point, the United States was threatening to or stop the delivery of bulldozer parts into somebody who doesn't study war like, oh, that's nothing. You don't understand that the only way you enter portions of Gaza is leading with a bulldozer,

an armorized bulldozer. So when the United States administration said, we're not going to send you replacement parts. They were buying into the junk. It's just not true. And if it was true that Israel has a just goal, but Hamas has created a strategy that has worked, then you will see more Hamas around the world,

as in more Hamas strategy. You'll see the practice of hostage taking. You have a practice of this multimedia scripted disinformation campaign campaign picked up by mindless influencers, you will see more violence. If somebody wants peace, they should get on the same sheet of music that Hamas has to be destroyed. And here are ideals to help destroy Hamas and remove Hamas from power so the Ghazan people can actually be free. In 2025, more than half of all companies are using AI. Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have laid off thousands of workers because of it. No wonder 40% of people are worried

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professionals, marketers, HR teams, freelancers, business owners. This is for anyone who wants to stay ahead. Our team is doing it too. Spots are filling full. fast. So sign up as soon as possible. Click the link in the description to save your seat now. But John, is it, I can't believe I'm asking this question, but is it actually possible to defeat an enemy that refuses to say that it's defeated? So this, again, that goes to the, you can't defeat an idea. Like, you can't fight, this is that counterterrorism theory, that you can't, you can't defeat an idea this way. Who says that anybody's trying to defeat the high Hamas ideology at this moment.

You have a nation who is trying to remove a government from power and destroy its military capabilities. You deal with the radicalization of the ideal that has been there and fueled. I don't know if people have seen the, you know, the Palestinian Sesame Street have seen the unrued school books of Hamas. So that ideal, which I understand like this has been like, well, you can't do it this way. You're like, okay. Tell me his story.

historically how any enemy of any similarity has been defeated by by what giving them something no you have to move forward and take away their will to believe that they can achieve victory there are lots of ideals that are still around nazism you know ISIS all these people they don't have a autonomous region that they call their nation they don't have armies and they definitely don't have the ability to launch attacks against another nation at this moment depending on what group we're John, so if you're advising the Israeli government about what they ought to do from here, how should, how will this conflict and how should it and how should they proceed from here, in your opinion?

Sure. So again, if you study war, I get this, be a forecaster for us. How long is this going to take? How will this end? Look, if you study war, you know that there is no prediction. It's uncertain. It's political and it's human. I don't give recommendations to nations.

I have definitely helped people with understanding the, context and in the baseless arguments, it ends with the defeat of Hamas as the political power in Gaza. That can happen in many ways. Yes, the population in Gaza can rise up and that there are portions that are doing that. You can have other powers in Gaza, Palestinian powers, that could rise up and seize power. You could have the complete unilateral surrender of Hamas. It might be unlikely, but Hamas has the Hamas fighters, and again success, you just last

week had Hamas fighters surrendering in large amounts because Israel was at their doors. And this is the sanctuary part, that Israel has left portions of Gaza untouched, 25% not touched once out of concern for these

hostages and the difficulty of moving the civilians out of those areas like Western Gaza City and in other areas or eastern Gaza. But the ideal, so what's the recommendation? Of course, Israel cannot not fight the narratives, right? When you have a hashtag that's going viral and you have these influencers talking stupid,

the only way you fight stupid is with actual credible information, although some people won't be as credible. If somebody was doing this different, again, take Israel out of the equation. And I've seen this even in India, Pakistan recently, in other wars that are very recent, you have to communicate daily what's going on and what you're doing. You have to have a military person communicating every day. This is what our military is doing. This is the goal. You have to have a political apparatus, right? So the, you know, Israel, right, you know, right criticism doesn't have a spokesman for the Israeli government who is daily giving

the communication. I was telling somebody recently about COGAT, right? Kogat is the IDF arm that has been facilitating all the aid, the water, the medicine. They didn't even know what the organization was, let alone that it puts out daily information about all the things that Israel is doing to help the civilians. So Israel, in order to continue this war, and they're in debate as we're talking about deciding to go into that last 25 percent to move the civilians into the South under this crazy constraints that they have to fight the war. And then you have a United Nations session later in September that's the same.

going to, of course, say a lot of awful things. I would hope Israel changes its PR strategy, communicates more on a day-to-day basis. You can't wait until after something has gone viral and after nefarious actors start putting pictures of children trying to make stories about what Israel is intending to do rather than what is actually saying and actually doing in Gaza. And then I would hope, again, if you were to move the entire population of two million people into a area that Hamas can't get to them, you could end this war relatively quickly. I wouldn't say very quickly because Hamas would have lost its center of gravity, which is the

use of the population, not just as a shield, but the humanitarian suffering in every aspect that they're doing. But if you're asking me for a prediction of how this war will go, I cannot give you that. And absolutely, again, this isn't Bibi, the prime minister, of Israel. If you understand the politics of Israel, he has to maintain a coalition. It isn't like our system where he can be president for four years and just make all these decisions over the military, all these things. He has to face votes of no confidence regularly. It has to keep a coalition. But the Israeli society could decide very soon that, look, the cost are too much.

I know that we have the just goals that we have, but we don't want to pay the price in the loss of soldiers and the hostages, what they're doing to the hostages, which is awful. That's what a democracy does. It makes that decision. So there is nobody who can tell you how this is going. I as a John Spencer with just my personal opinion and think it's insane that you should say Israel should have stopped. It's not achieving its goals because that's not true. And if you're saying that about Israel, every democracy that ever fights a war, especially for its actual defense of its nation on its borders will not be able to going forward. Well, this is why I say that I'm just shocked at the PR approach from the Israeli leadership

because no offense, John, but you saying these things doesn't really cut through the same way as if Prime Minister Netanyahu was sitting there and making these same arguments to our audience. I'm just shocked at the fact that they're not pursuing a communication strategy of actually telling people what it is that they're doing and why, because in that vacuum, you are getting all of these narratives that you talk about being perpetrated with no pushback. And it just, it creates a media conversation about this that I think is completely divorced from reality. But I have to say, I put the blame on that for the people whose job it is to communicate about this. That's a fair

criticism. Although, you know, I like to say that some of these people that you talk to, again, I'm as pro-truth. I bleed red, white, and blue. I'm an American. I am pro-truth because I understand why it matters for the rest of the world, every other democracy. And criticism is absolutely, but when you try to balance criticism with like, yeah, but they're doing all these things wrong, like demanding perfection. So even in its information operations, when it has communicated, and nobody is reporting on those communications, when it reports COGA, again, daily, gives out what they're doing to alleviate civilian harm. Nobody cares. The prime minister absolutely has communicated the goals repeatedly, has communicated that their war is not what the people have got us repeatedly,

but you have people like, well, I don't care about that. This is what they're doing. This is the effects of their operations, which is insane. Or even, I think one of the greatest spokesmen that Israel has is minister of strategic affairs, Dermer, who was the U.S. and, you know, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. He has communicated on multiple podcasts and multiple interviews. This is what our goal is not. This is, of course, we have the right, you know, we are trying to alleviate the harm to civilians, all these things. You need to do better than that, of course. But there's also people who don't want to hear, right, who they invite on their shows. Yes, you, I know you would love to have some of these interviews, and I hope that they happen. But there are people who weren't

listening to even the things that are being said. And this is what I have a problem with is like you say because Israel in the beginning of the war said that he wanted to destroy Hamas that Hamas are animals that it wanted to not do anything to help Hamas and want to destroy Hamas that that's a genocidal intent that's insane let alone what militaries say about the other military they're fighting but then you want to rule out everything that israeli leadership has said about not wanting to harm the people of Gaza not wanting to starve the people of Gaza and then you take the radical political figures and say, yeah, but this guy said it. Smaltrich said this. Blenegovier said that. I don't know about the UK system, but that's like taking Marjorie Taylor Green statements or

some other crazy, some other people statements and saying like that's the policy of the United States. That, again, that's a double standard. That's trying to demonize the entire nation of Israel. And then this is the whole double standards game that is a part of this whole conversation. Let's push back on that. So I take your point there, John, but they would say, well, look, the finance minister has said these awful things, right? If Netanyahu doesn't do anything about it, he's effectively condoning it. Why has he not come out and said, this is unacceptable, the minister has been forced to resign? We were at war, but we do not use this type of language or rhetoric.

And Marjorie Tellegrine, I think, A, you were right to describe her as crazy. You didn't need to correct herself, but B, she's not in the cabinet, right? It's a big difference. So same thing with Smaltrich is not in the war cabinet. He has not been the person who's been making the decision. So you want to, I agree with you. I would have approached people making statements very differently in a wartime situation when you are Israel.

But you want to criticize the political leaders of Israel for being political. So this is, again, we try to apply our political framework on a nation like Israel, which is a vibrant democracy with a vibrant left and a vibrant right, and the fact that Israel does have to keep a coalition. And the prime minister of Israel does, I'm sure, and I think that's a correct inference to say, he does want to maintain a coalition and manage the government of Israel because he believes it's in the best interest of the security of the nations. Now, when you impose personal motives on somebody without data,

and what I say is in God I trust all others bring data. So yes, it's a right criticism. You should come out against that minister, whoever it is, for saying that thing, although it's not what he said. It's how what he said can be framed. So I absolutely support somebody saying, I want to destroy all members of Hamas. I want to take over the control of Gaza. Like, that's what militaries do when they're invaded and tack into a different territory. You take the power from the other government.

It's how it's being any statement, because there are a few statements coming out, are framed. It doesn't matter what they say after that. It's just, I'm going to take that little tidbit. Yes, you would think you'd learn. Like, stop saying, keep your mouth shut. But if you want to criticize Israel's political leaders for being political, as in trying to keep a coalition, separate of the just reasonable, what every other nation would do for the goals of the war,

then I have a little bit of pushback on that. If you understand that the prime minister of Israel has to maintain a coalition, if not the government falls, and then you have to have an opposition leader, all these things, then that's just not being reasonably an objective. But when you put ulterior motives on people's intent, then I have a problem with that. Before John answers the final question at the end of the interview, make sure to head over to our substack. The link is in the description where you'll be able to see this.

Despite Israel's best efforts to avoid civilian casualties, it is still being accused widely of genocide. What impact do you believe this war will have on the public's view of future wars and what impact will it have on the strategy employed by the militarily weak aside? Rebecca asks, what's the greatest misunderstanding about modern warfare that you want eliminated? Question from Daniel, who said you mentioned the term double standard a number of times. If this double standard exists, why do you think it does? Because it's Israel.

John, thank you for coming and giving us your perspective on this. I really appreciate it. We're going to go to questions from our audience, which we've got a number of great ones lined up for you. Before we do, though, the last question in all our interviews, as you well know, is what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that we really should be? I think we're not talking about the complete reforming of the Middle East that has happened since October 7th.

Not just what was happening in the Abraham Accords, but the dismantling of the Islamic regime's ring of fire, which had been allowed to grow for decades under lots of people's leadership, that the Islamic regime isn't close to a nuclear weapon, that even the United States has created multiple trade agreements that are about peace and prosperity in the Middle East. It seems to be, again, if it leads, if it bleeds, it leads, and for some reason, if it makes the Jews look bad, then it leads as well. Nobody's talking about the actual peace and prosperity, the fall of the Assad regime, the negotiate, all of these things that are happening that are of a positive note in the Middle East. And it's actually a complete generational change for the Middle East, the things that are happening. the weakening of the Islamic regimes hold on the miloese,

the strengthening of the ties with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, all these other individuals. Nobody's talking about that. All right, John, thank you very much. Follow us on over to substack at triggerpot.com.com. UK, where we ask John Spencer your questions. WikiLeaks showed us the sense of irritation and fatigue that Arab League has with Hamas.

Could the recent pressure from the Arab League, call it for Hamas to disband and disarm, perhaps change the mind? and the Charter off of us.