UNBIASED - Israel-Hamas War Update, SCOTUS Lifts Biden Admin/Social Media Contact Restrictions, Former National Security Employee Pleads Guilty to Attempted Espionage, and More.

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

1. Israel-Hamas War Update (1:54)2. Supreme Court Lifts Restrictions on Biden Administration's Contact with Social Media Platforms (24:13)3. Notable Mention: Former National Security Employee Pleads Guilty to Attempted Espionage Charges (29:40)4. Notable Mention: GOP Speaker Nominee Update (31:28)5. Notable Mention: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) Pleads Not Guilty (32:34)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You are listening to the Jordan Is My Lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast and happy Tuesday. Today I am going to discuss an update out of Israel and Gaza, including but not limited to the four hostages that have been released in the past few days, an update from the International Court of Justice, and just kind of a general explanation as to the events that have taken place since the last episode. I'm also going to talk about a Supreme Court order

that basically lifted some of the restrictions put on the Biden administration as far as how the administration could talk to social media platforms when it came to censoring certain posts. I then have three notable mentions, including a former U.S. national security employee who pled guilty to attempted espionage, an update on the House speaker election, and Senator Bob Menendez's arraignment. As always, if you enjoy this episode and you like what you hear, please don't forget to leave me a review on whatever platform you listen and share the show with your friends, your family, your colleagues, whoever you feel will appreciate nonpartisan news. As my disclaimer, yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. And please note that all information in this episode is up to date

as of the time of recording, which is 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Monday, October 23rd. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. One of the main questions I have received since posting my two-part series about the war between Israel and Gaza is how we are supposed to know what is truth and what is not when it comes to all of these different contradicting narratives that we're seeing. You know, how do we decipher what's real? Unfortunately, it's hard to tell. And I am not in a position to tell you what's real and what's not real. I am not boots on the ground in Israel and in Gaza. So the best thing that I can do and the best thing that I can recommend you do is look at the facts that we

do have, look at the stories from both sides and make our best guesses. My best advice, I suppose, would be don't just look at the facts blindly from one side. I've seen a lot of people do this, right? Depending on whether people are anti-Palestine or anti-Israel, they tend to perceive one side as always right. Don't say, I side with Israel, so Israel must be telling the truth about everything. Or conversely, I side with Palestinians, so Palestinians must be telling the truth. It's possible that both sides tell their own truth or there's multiple sides to any given story, right? So, you know, again, just do your best to try to look at these incidents,

look at certain statements or certain facts with objectivity and try to form your own conclusions accordingly. But there really is no simple way to decipher the truth from the lies. So I will continue to do what I do every episode and give you all sides to any given story. With that said, I ended the last Israel-Palestine episode talking briefly about the hospital bombing. So it had just happened when I recorded. We didn't know much. In that episode, I said that there was a hospital in Gaza that had been struck by an airstrike, and it killed between 300 and 500 people, maybe more, depending on which report that you read, and that Israel was saying it was too early to tell whether the airstrike was an Israeli airstrike or a failed

airstrike from Gaza, but that Hamas and Gaza were saying it was definitely an Israeli airstrike. So here's what we have learned since then. A video has come out, and we will go over what that video shows, but just to kind of simplify both sides of this narrative, the belief from the Israeli side is that there was a rocket fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It misfired and it ended up hitting the hospital. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, by the way, I haven't talked about it much. It's another extremist Islamic group that's in the West Bank and Gaza. It's also backed by Iran. It's the second biggest militant group in Gaza behind Hamas, of course. So naturally, it's a smaller group than Hamas, but it is considered to be

more extreme than Hamas. And like Hamas, it's considered to be a terrorist organization by both the United States and the EU and has called for the destruction of Israel. Now, of course, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad denies that it misfired a rocket and in turn caused the hospital explosion and instead says that it was Israel that fired an airstrike that hit the hospital. So this video that has come out, it was taken by an Al Jazeera live feed, which is located in Western Gaza. It faces the east. And based on expert analysis, based on geolocation, the footage appears to show a rocket being fired from Gaza, traveling upwards into the sky. It flashes twice. It then reverses

direction. There's this short streak of light in the sky. And seconds later, two blasts can be seen on the ground. One was a smaller blast. The other one was a larger blast, one of which was the hospital, more specifically the hospital parking lot. However, I will also say that even though based on expert analysis, this footage appears to show, you know, the rocket being fired from Gaza, there's another research group based at the University of London that says the patterns that they analyzed show the projectile likely came from the direction of the Israeli-controlled side of the Gaza perimeter. So in other words, they're saying it came from Israel.

Here's what some different analysts are saying. Marcus Schiller, he is a Europe-based missile expert who has analyzed for NATO and the EU, he says, quote, I believe this happened. A rocket malfunctioned and it didn't come down in one piece. It likely fell apart midair for some reason, and the body of the rocket crashed into the car park of the hospital. There, the fuel remnants caught fire and ignited cars and other fuel at the hospital, causing the big explosion we saw, end quote. He then continues and says, quote, but it's impossible for me to confirm. If a rocket malfunctioned, it is impossible to predict its flight path and behavior, so I wouldn't be able to draw on usual analysis drawing on altitude,

flight path, and the burn time, end quote. Then we have retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Layton, and he's also the former deputy director of the United States National Security Agency. He also said that the aerial explosion was, quote, consistent with a malfunctioning rocket, end quote. He also added that the streak of light that's seen in the video was consistent with a, quote, rocket burning fuel as it tries to reach altitude, end quote. Then on the other side of this, you have a verification team from Al Jazeera who concluded that the flash that is seen in the video is consistent with Israel's Iron Dome. So I spoke about the Iron Dome last episode, I believe it was in part two, where they basically have this missile defense system that intercepts missiles that come over from Gaza. So what Al Jazeera's analysts concluded was that the flash you see in the sky is actually the Iron Dome intercepting this missile fired from

Gaza and destroying it midair like it usually does. It was not a misfire from Gaza. So, you know, what we do know for a fact, right, is that airstrikes have been flying from both Israel and Gaza. Israel has been consistently firing airstrikes into Gaza. Airstrikes have also been, you know, firing from Gaza into Israel. So that's what we do know for a fact, that airstrikes have been flying. We don't know for 100% certainty, I want to say 110% certainty, where this particular missile or rocket or explosion originated. And I'll get into a bit more why it's even more difficult to tell even on the ground. But this explosion happened at 6.59 p.m. And right around

that time, so at 7 p.m., Hamas posted on its Telegram channel, which is the social media platform that it uses, that it had bombarded an Israeli city with a barrage of rockets. A few minutes later, at 7.09 p.m., the Palestinian Islamic Jihad posted to its Telegram channel saying that it had launched strikes on Tel Aviv in response to the quote-unquote enemy's massacre of civilians. So you have both Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad saying that they launched rockets into Israel. However, along similar lines, you also have posts from Israeli officials about airstrikes going into Gaza. So there was a post written on X by Hanania Naftali, who is a digital aid to Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, that read, quote,

Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza. A multiple number of terrorists are dead. It's heartbreaking that Hamas is launching rockets from hospitals, mosques, schools, and using civilians as human shields. Hashtag Hamas is ISIS. That post was almost immediately deleted. And then Naftali writes another post following the deletion that says, quote, earlier today, I shared a report that was published on Reuters about the bombing at the hospital in Gaza, which falsely stated Israel struck the hospital. And then it goes on and it continues as the IDF does not bomb hospitals, I assumed Israel was targeting one of the Hamas bases in Gaza. And it continues on, but that's the relevant

portion. So you have, you know, posts from both sides that are saying rockets were launched into the opposing territory. One of the doctors working at the hospital when it was hit said that the hospital had also been struck three days earlier by two Israeli missiles without any sort of warning. And after that happened, allegedly, right, the Israelis called the medical doctor of the hospital and said, we warned you yesterday. Why are you still working? You have to evacuate the hospital. And then three days later, that's when the explosion happened. So the thought among this one doctor, and I'm sure others that live in the area, is that that was in a sense Israel's warning, like we're going to bomb or we're going to strike this hospital. So get out now. That's one of their positions as to, you know, why they think that this was

an Israeli airstrike. The IDF has said it doesn't target hospitals. However, we also know that the IDF has said that Hamas often carries out its operations from hospitals and schools, both of which have been targets of the IDF. And the UN and Doctors Without Borders have also said that Israeli airstrikes have hit medical facilities in the past. But if you talk to Israelis, they're very adamant about the fact that the IDF does not target hospitals. And if it does, it warns ahead of time and, you

know, it says get out. And that this action, this random attack on this hospital was not consistent with Israeli military's normal operations. The reality of the situation is we don't know where the explosion originated, as I was mentioning before, you know, until there's an on-the-ground investigation. Even then, we may not know. One of the analysts put it like this. He said, quote, we can analyze the footage, we can listen to the audio, but the definitive answer will come from the person or the team that go in and rummage around the rubble and

come up with the remnants of the munition itself, end quote. He also noted, though, that the on-the-ground investigation may not prove anything either because there seems to be a lack of evidence at the hospital site. Mark Gerlasko, who is the former intelligence analyst and UN war crimes investigator, what he said was, quote, when I investigate a site of a potential war crime, the first thing I do is locate and identify parts of a weapon. The weapon tells you who did it and how. I've never seen such a lack of physical evidence for a weapon at a site. There's always a piece of a bomb after the fact. In 20 years of investigating war crimes, this is

the first time I haven't seen any weapon remnants, and I've worked three years in Gaza. He also said that the impact point in the parking lot didn't appear to be consistent with the, you know, 500,000 pound, 2,000 pound bombs that Israel uses. So again, we don't know the answer. All we can do is, is look at, go look at the video yourself, you know, do your own research. I preach this all the time, the importance of doing your own research. Actually watch the footage. Read what analysts are saying.

Read what the analysts on both sides are saying and see, you know, whose story you believe. That's the best we can do in this situation. So that's what's going on with the hospital explosion. Now, I did want to also mention that Israel has released footage from its interrogations of Hamas gunmen who actually, you know, took part in the October 7th attack. and brought in for questioning. But these audio clips were released by Israel, and it shows that the orders they received from, you know, the higher-ups were to go kill the men and bring the women, children, and elderly as hostages. Another gunman said that they were told that their prize for bringing captives back would be a new home and $10,000. So that's what we know from that. But speaking of captives, four of them have been released since Friday. This was done with the help of Qatar and Egypt. Qatar and Egypt are kind of helping negotiate between all of the parties and

get these hostages freed. But two Americans were released on Friday, and then two Israeli hostages were released on Monday. So we'll first discuss the Americans and then we'll discuss the Israelis just in order of, you know, how they were released. A Hamas spokesperson on Friday said in a statement, quote, in response to Qatari efforts, we released two American citizens, a mother and her daughter, for humanitarian purposes and to prove to the American people and the world that the claims made by Biden and his fascist administration are false and baseless, end quote. The two American women have been identified as Judith and Natalie Renan. They're from Chicago. They were in Israel to celebrate Natalie's grandmother's birthday. Qatar confirmed this release on Friday.

They said that they will, quote, continue dialogue with Israel and Hamas in the hopes of releasing all civilian hostages from every nationality, end quote. Then on Monday afternoon, it was Monday afternoon here in the United States, but later on over in the Middle East, news broke that two more hostages had been released, this time two elderly Israeli women, Narit Cooper, 79 years old, and Yolkved Lifshitz, 85. These two women were handed over to the Red Cross at the Rafah Crossing, which is that crossing at the Egypt-Gaza border. And then from there, they were transferred from Egypt to Israel, where they got their medical treatment, and they are in stable condition.

Following that release, a Hamas spokesperson said, quote, We released two detainees despite the enemy's refusal to accept them since last Friday. We have decided to release them for compelling humanitarian and health reasons. Now, the day before, so on Sunday, Hamas actually said that they were prepared to release two more hostages. And this was a claim that Israel didn't really respond to. They called it lying propaganda. So, you know, obviously we know on Monday, Hamas did in fact release the two hostages, which begs the question, was this something that Hamas tried talking to Israel about, but Israel shut down? We don't know. We won't know They both declined to comment on the situation. So again, we won't know more until we hear their side, right? But Israel did say on Monday that the country is preparing for a quote-unquote multilateral operation, and that's going to be on Hamas from the air, the ground, and the sea. That's coming from Israel's defense minister.

President Biden and other United States officials have supposedly advised Israel to delay this ground offensive. They want more time to negotiate hostage situations, but it seems that Israel isn't necessarily on the same page. They said that there would be no ceasefire. And in fact, airstrikes have actually picked up in the 24-hour period between Sunday and Monday. On Monday, the IDF said that it had hit more than 320 military targets in the last 24 hours and that ground forces had conducted

quote-unquote limited raids to kill Hamas gunmen and search for hostages. Reports are showing that that same 24-hour stretch that the IDF is referring to, left more than 400 Palestinians dead, bringing the death toll to at least 5,087. Since this war started, at least 1,400 Israelis have been killed. Another development I wanted to touch on is that aid was finally allowed to cross over into Gaza from Egypt over the weekend. So we know that Gaza has been without food, water, fuel, running low on other humanitarian supplies, medical supplies, things like that since the war started. Trucks were starting to pile up at the Rafah crossing, but they weren't being allowed in. On Saturday, 20 trucks carrying aid were finally allowed to cross. That was the

first convoy. A second convoy of 17 trucks was allowed to enter on Sunday night, and then a third convoy of 20 trucks was able to enter on Monday. Now, despite that being 57 trucks, to give you an idea of the shortage, prior to the war, an average of 10,000 trucks of goods were entering Gaza every month, whether that be through Israel or Egypt, 10,000 trucks. So data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs shows almost 5,400 truckloads of goods would have entered Gaza in the last two weeks under normal circumstances. But as we know, only 57 have entered given what's going on. So those numbers just kind of help to illustrate the shortage that the civilians in

Gaza are experiencing at the moment. As a final note, before we move on from this topic, I want to discuss a new release from the International Court of Justice. The International Court of Justice is a, it's the judicial body for the UN. And I want to talk about not only what the release says, but what it means. So the release is titled, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem. And what it says is this. In part, it says, quote, the Legal International Court of Justice has decided to hold public hearings on the request for an advisory opinion in respect of the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, which will open

Monday, February 19th, 2024. A further press release will be issued in due course, detailing the schedule for the hearings and the admission and accreditation procedures, end quote. The specific question that the International Court of Justice will consider is this. What are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination from its prolonged occupation, settlement, and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967? So maybe as you can tell, this isn't so much a hearing on the specific acts that are being carried out, you know, in this war, as much as it's a hearing on the long-term occupation. Israel's prolonged control over the Palestinian territories, right? And what consequences Israel may have to

face because of it. So any war crime type case would have to go to the International Criminal Court, which is different. And you might be wondering, what might the legal consequences be and what effect does this have, if at all? To give you an idea, back in 2003, the International Court of Justice determined the legal consequences for Israel's construction of a wall in the occupied Palestinian territory. After running through their analysis, the court found that the wall is in fact contrary to international law. So it violates international law. And what the International Court of Justice said is that Israel had to stop building its wall and dismantle the parts of the wall that sat within the occupied Palestinian territory. It had to repeal all legislative and regulatory acts that

were adopted, you know, in regard to construction of the wall. And it was to make reparations for any damage suffered by any person affected by the wall. Here's the thing, though, and this is the catch. You might read that and you say, oh, well, then, you know, why didn't Israel stop? Like, why is the wall still there? These advisory opinions are just that. They are not binding. They don't really have much effect.

So a judgment would be binding. But an advisory opinion is just kind of the International Court of Justice saying, this is what we advise, but it's not necessarily mandatory. So these advisory opinions are meant to help keep the peace. They're meant to carry weight as far as morality goes. But again, they're not binding. And as we know, despite peace treaties and whatnot between Israel and Palestine, the two don't keep the peace very well. So I guess what I'm saying is this advisory opinion and these public hearings that are happening in February of next year, it's not going to have much effect in the grand scheme

of things. If you're interested in learning more about the International Court of Justice, what it does, or you want to read the advisory opinion that I just cited too, I do have some links linked for you on jordanismylawyer.com. So you can certainly check that out if you're interested. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll finish with the rest of the stories. You may have heard the news that the Supreme Court blocked an order on Friday that limited the Biden administration's contact with social media platforms. Let's talk about what it means.

There's this case called Missouri versus Biden. It was filed by Missouri and Louisiana. It's against the Biden administration, as the name implies, and it accuses the administration of working with social media platforms, so Facebook, Instagram, Meta, which is the parent company of both, to label certain posts as misinformation, posts about the pandemic, the vaccine, the 2020 election, even some posts about the Biden family, some negative talk about the economy. Essentially what this lawsuit alleges is that officials from the administration were influencing social media platforms to censor these types of posts by making public demands for these platforms to censor speech and by threatening adverse

consequences if they didn't censor certain types of speech. And one of the things that they would threaten, according to the lawsuit, is Section 230 reform. Section 230 provides social media platforms with immunity for content posted by its users, right? The theory there is the platforms themselves aren't responsible for what the users post. Therefore, these platforms have immunity. But over time, social media has really evolved and kind of changed. So the Biden administration would threaten Section 230 reform, meaning it could either take that immunity away,

or it could make it more difficult for these platforms to get immunity for certain things. So that would be the Section 230 reform threat. Back in July, a lower court had issued a preliminary injunction, which basically says while this case is playing out, the Biden administration has to stop its communication with social media platforms when it comes to misinformation, labeling things as misinformation, et cetera. As it was expected, the day after this preliminary injunction is granted, the Biden administration appeals it to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That's typically what happens in these scenarios, and it was not a surprise. In September, the Fifth Circuit upholds the injunction, meaning they're keeping it in place. It's not going away.

The Biden administration is still restricted in its communication with the platforms. So then the administration appeals to the Supreme Court. the Biden administration is still restricted in its communication with the platforms. So then the administration appeals to the Supreme Court. What the Supreme Court just did on Friday is block the injunction, which means that the injunction has no effect. The Biden administration can continue on as it usually would without restrictions until this case is actually heard and decided. In addition to lifting the restrictions, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, which means that it'll be added to their oral argument calendar. They'll make a binding decision on it sometime before the end of their term at the end of June, and that's what will happen from here. When it comes to orders like this, justices don't have to say which justice decided which

way, nor do they have to give any sort of explanation. They can if they want, but they don't have to. So it's a little bit different than opinions in that way. In this order, though, Justice Alito, Justice Thomas, and Justice Gorsuch publicly dissented. And so what that means is they're making it known that they dissented to this decision, meaning they disagreed with it, and they shared a five-page dissent, which I do have linked on my website for you, but I'll read a little excerpt of it to you. So it reads in part, quote, this case concerns what two lower courts found to be a, quote,

coordinated campaign, end quote, by high level federal officials to suppress the expression of disfavored views on important public issues. To prevent the continuation of this campaign, these officials were enjoined from either coercing social media companies to engage in such censorship or actively controlling those companies' decisions about the content posted on their platforms. Today, however, a majority of the court, without undertaking a full review of the record and without any explanation, suspends the effects of that injunction until the court completes its review of the case, an event that may not occur until late in the spring of next year. Government censorship of private speech is antithetical to our democratic form of government,

and therefore today's decision is highly disturbing, end quote. So that's how Justice Alito, Justice Thomas, and Justice Gorsuch feel about it. And as I said, from here, the Supreme Court will hear the case in the coming months. They'll render a decision about it. And as I said, from here, the Supreme Court will hear the case in the coming months. They'll render a decision on it. And I would guess that decision will come at the end of June. It could be sooner, but the court typically likes to release their more controversial decisions at the very end of the term. Like, you know, in the last couple of years, we've seen abortion, loan forgiveness, cases dealing with civil rights, things like that released at the very end. So I would guess June, but again, it could come sooner. In the meantime,

the Biden administration will go back to normal communication with social media platforms, whatever that means for them. And that is what's going on with that. So let's finish with a few notable mentions. The first being a former employee of the United States National Security Agency who pled guilty on Monday to six counts of attempting to transmit classified national defense information to someone he thought was a Russian agent, but really, unfortunately for him, was just an undercover FBI agent. Jared Dahlke worked for the National Security Agency for only two months in June and July of 2022. He had the title of information systems security designer.

And in August and September of last year, he used an encrypted email to send classified documents to someone he thought was a Russian agent. So in August, he requested $85,000 in exchange for all of the information in his possession. He claimed the information would be of value to Russia, and he said that he would share more information in the future once he returned to Washington, D.C. About a month later, on September 28th, he transferred five files. Four of the files contained top secret information. The fifth file was a letter he wrote, which said in part, quote, Hi friends, I am very happy to finally provide this information to you. I look forward to our friendship and shared benefit. Please let me know if there are desired documents to find and I will

try when I return to my main office, end quote. And according to the DOJ, Dahlke was arrested within moments of sending those files. So my guess is they were waiting for him to send them. But now that he has entered his guilty plea, he is scheduled for sentencing in April of 2024. And he does face a maximum of life in prison, though I doubt he'll get that once the sentencing guidelines are considered and everything. Second notable mention is just a House Speaker update. In Friday's episode, we were in the midst of Jim Jordan, right? So the day the episode was released, he went to his third vote, and we now know that he lost that third vote. Following that third vote, he was voted out as the GOP's nominee. And there are now nine new representatives from the Republican Party that are running for the GOP nomination. Those candidates include representatives Gary Palmer, Mike Johnson, Tom Emmer, Dan Muser, Kevin Hearn, Pete Sessions, Byron Donalds, Jack Bergman, and Austin Scott. Austin Scott is who ran against Jim Jordan for the nomination and lost to Jim Jordan, but he's now

in the running again. So the GOP conference met on Monday to hear these representatives pitch their case, if you will. And then Tuesday, they'll vote on a new nominee who will then go to the floor and try to win a simple majority of the full House at some point. Presumably this week, I would imagine it would happen this week, but we will see. And the third and final notable mention is that Senator Bob Menendez, who I have talked about multiple times in the past, he pled not guilty on Monday to the charges in his superseding indictment. Those added charges, of course, stemmed from his failure to register as a foreign agent despite allegedly acting as a foreign agent for Egypt. But if you want the

full breakdown of that story, check out my October 14th episode. That concludes this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Please don't forget to leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. And if you're a Spotify listener, you can always let me know your thoughts on each episode in the Q&A right, you know, in the episode description. So that's always a way you can kind of let me know how you're feeling too. Have a great week and I will talk to you on Friday.