What A Day - Netanyahu's War Expansion Plan

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing massive backlash — both domestic and international — over his government's decision late last week to take over Gaza City. Thousands marched in Tel Aviv Saturday to protest the decision, while the families of some of the remaining hostages called for a nationwide strike. On Monday, Australia became the latest country to announce plans to recognize a Palestinian state, while French President Emmanuel Macron called the Israeli plan 'a disaster of unprecedented gravity.' Already Palestinian health officials say 61,000 people in Gaza have died since the start of the war. Matthew Chance, chief global affairs correspondent for CNN, joins us from Jerusalem to talk about the latest in the war, the Israeli killing of five Al Jazeera journalists Sunday, and the risks that come with yet another escalation in the conflict.And in headlines: President Donald Trump ordered a federal takeover of Washington D.C.'s police, a federal judge blocked the release of Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell's grand jury transcripts, and AOL said it's ending its dial-up internet service.Show Notes:Check out Matthew's reporting – www.cnn.com/profiles/matthew-chanceCall Congress – 202-224-3121Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Tuesday, August 12th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What Today, the show that says, Sorry about our asshole president to the good people of Vietnam who are getting shoved out of their ancestral lands so that the Trump family can build a golf course. There's good news for those farmers, though. In return for their homes and land, some of them will receive about $3,200 and some rice. On today's show, hundreds of National Guard troops are preparing to deploy to another American city. And, beep, beep, boop. AOL dial-up is soon to be extinct. But let's start with Israel's efforts to expand the war in Gaza. As we talked about on yesterday's show, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans for the Israeli military to take over Gaza City,

despite a massive backlash from pretty much everyone, from Israelis to foreign governments, Netanyahu has doubled down, saying, quote, dismantling the two remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza City and the central camps, this is the best way to end the war. It could take weeks or months for the Israeli military to start enacting its plans, but it's still terrifying news for the families of the hostages remaining in Hamas control. They include Laché-Moran-Lavi, whose husband, Omri Mouran, was kidnapped on October 7th. He's still being held by the terrorist organization.

Lechay spoke to a crowd of thousands at a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Now the government has decided to expand the world and push deeper into Gaza. But my husband is still dead. Every invasion, every bullet, every heirstreet could cost him his life. This isn't just a military decision. It could be a death sentence for the people we love must. The Israeli military also confirmed that it, killed five journalists for Al Jazeera in a targeted air strike Sunday.

Military officials accused one of the reporters, Anas al-Sharif, of running a, quote, Hamas terrorist cell, claims Al-Jazeera flatly denied and that Al-Sharif himself had denied before his killing. To me, it's clear. The Israeli government is doubling down, not just on taking over Gaza, but on ensuring that there will be no witnesses to their efforts who aren't approved by and embedded with the Israeli military. So to talk more about the potential takeover of Gaza City and the many, many, many problems with that plan, I spoke to Matthew Chance, chief global affairs correspondent for CNN. He spoke to me from Jerusalem. Matthew, welcome to what today.

Hey, Jane. Great to be here. So let's start with the massive protests we saw this weekend in response to the Israeli government's decision to expand the war in Gaza. You're in Jerusalem. What's the mood like? Is the anger concentrated in big cities like Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, or is it fairly widespread? I think both of those things. I mean, it's fairly widespread. There are sort of protests around the country because the latest decision by Benjamin Netanyahu,

the Israeli prime minister, is so sort of like generally unpopular. But I was in Tel Aviv on Saturday night when that massive protest took place. And there were tens of thousands of people in the street. And it was swelteringly hot, like really humid. But real anger and fear amongst the crowds there, all these Israelis, and it's like something like 70% of the entire population, according to opinion polls, believe that this is an unnecessary military operation now.

It's just being done to keep Netanyahu in power. This all stems from the Israeli Security Council approval last week of plans to take control of Gaza City. This fell short of what Netanyahu had been pushing for, which was a full occupation. of the territory. First off, can you explain the stakes of taking control of Gaza City? Because Israel already controls, what, 75% of Gaza? Yeah, and that's why I think this is a slight sort of semantic problem. They already control 75% of Gaza. We're talking about the other 25%, right? And that's the bit in the middle. Gaza City, it's the most densely populated area.

It's where the majority of the Palestinians are currently located. About a million people in Gaza City. That's what the estimate is. And so, obviously, if you stage your military operation there, the casualties are likely to be high, already more than 60,000 people have been killed in the past two years in the military operation. So that's one thing. And the other thing is that the 50 hostages that are still being held, 20 who are still believed to be alive, 50 altogether, they're believed to mainly be in that area. And so, you know, if you go in with all guns blazing, many people think,

think the chances are those hostages are going to be executed or get caught in the crossfire. It's happened before, right? There's no reason to think that it won't happen again. Now, the plan to take over Gaza City has been criticized from like every angle. The Israeli left says it puts the hostages at further risk. Rights groups fear even more Palestinian deaths. The Israeli right says it doesn't go far enough. International leaders are furious that Netanyahu is doubling down in the face of mounting

pressure to reach a ceasefire. What is Netanyahu hoping to achieve here? it just to keep his government intact? Yeah, I think so, because even though you're absolutely right, the moves by Netanyahu don't go as far as the right-wingers in his coalition want him to go. It's still moving in that direction, right? And so it's still enough to keep them sort of supporting his coalition. In terms of the other stuff, you know, the international condemnation, for example, which has been growing. You've got countries like Britain and France, Canada, Germany, which has always, since the Second World War, been a massive supporter

of Israel. Germany's been critical. It's said it won't supply weapons to Israel anymore if they're going to be used in Gaza. And so there's this growing international condemnation. But Netanyahu's sort of immune to that because there's one country that isn't criticizing him, and that's the United States. President Trump has taken a much more hands-off approach. basically saying it's up to Israel to decide what it wants to do.

And that hands-off approach has very much been interpreted by Netanyahu and his government as a green light to conquer, to occupy, basically to do whatever they want in Gaza. Overnight, Sunday into Monday, the Israeli military also killed five journalists with Al Jazeera. The Israeli military confirmed the attack, claiming one of them was a member of Hamas. The United Nations Secretary General has called for an investigation. I mean, this would seem to be a deliberate killing of journalists. How does this impact that international pressure that you say that Netanyahu is immune to? Will this change anything?

I mean, I'd like to say that it will change something. But, I mean, you've got five journalists from Al Jazeera who've been killed. But there's something like 180 journalists who have been killed since the beginning of Israel's war in Gaza. And, you know, the killings are still going on. And so it's shocking, but unfortunately, you know, it's happening quite a lot. This guy in particular, Anas al-Sharif, his name was, 28-year-old Al-Jazeera correspondent in Gaza. I think he's particularly noteworthy because he's been so prominent inside Gaza. You know, he's been really the face of the war for, you know, certainly for Al-Jazeera,

but for much of the Arabic-speaking world. You know, so he's pretty well-known, very well-known. And of course, it comes amid a great... growing humanitarian crisis as well. So there's additional focus on that. I think what was striking for me, though, is that, you know, Israel didn't even attempt to deny that it killed this guy. In fact, they said that they targeted him on purpose because they thought or decided or knew that he was a, they accused him of being a Hamas operative. They said he was the head of a Hamas cell that was involved in firing rockets at Israeli troops and Israeli civilians. Now,

They've not presented very, you know, kind of convincing evidence of that, some list with his name on it, right? And certainly when he was alive, and Assal Sharif categorically denied that. And his news organization, Al Jazeera, have also denied it, saying that, look, this is just another example of Israel trying to silence people ahead of their forthcoming occupation. Al Jazeera is one of the few news organizations that still has a big team of reporters in Gaza. There's been a lot of conversation about how Israel has done its level best to keep journalists out of this conflict and to keep them from being on the ground, saying that it's for their protection, but who knows? What do you think that says about international coverage of the war, especially since, I mean, you're doing international coverage of this war? Yeah. I mean, well, it's not ideal, is it?

I mean, what you want ideally is access, free access, uninhibited access to Gaza so that we could. see for ourselves the situation, not because the Palestinian journalists who are there aren't doing an incredible job because they are. But I think, you know, opening it up to international journalists would provide a degree of transparency that just isn't there anymore. What I've had to resort to and what many people in my position, international journalists outside of Gaza, have had to resort to, is taking any opportunity we can to get a glimpse into the Gaza Strip. I mean, I was down in the south of Gaza a couple of months ago. I went in with the Israeli military because it's the only way you can get in. And then a few days

ago, I went up with an aid flight, which was being run by the Jordanian Air Force. And we were flying a couple of thousand feet above Gaza, dropping aid packages. Yeah, I was just about to ask about that. What did you see? You know, it is a desert of ruins that you're flying over. And it was very shocking for me because, you know, I spent a lot of time in Gaza. I spent many years, actually, as a reporter in the early 2000s, going in and out of Gaza, spending months at a time there. And so I know how sort of full of life the place was and, you know, full of people. I mean, it's one of the most densely populated areas in the world, right? And it's just a cacophony of, you know, sounds and smells. And you look down on Gaza City now and on the areas around it, and it's just,

it's just been laid to waste. It's been, it's been flattened in a way which is, it's quite hard, it's quite hard to, to believe. For the Palestinians in Gaza City, who are still there, where will they go if the Israeli military does take over? I mean, look, we don't really know the detail of this, but I mean, Israel has, you know, in so much as it has a plan that's been made public, and I'm not sure the military really has developed a plan yet. The military doesn't really want to do this, right? But what they've said is that, look, we're going to first, is the first step, we're going to evacuate Gaza City, which sounds easy, but it's not, because you're talking about a million people, many of whom have been displaced several times

before already, and they're living in basically rubble on the side of the road. And so they're going to be uprooted, they're going to be displaced and sent to what the Israelis are calling evacuation centers, which have yet to be built and set up. The Israelis say that in those evacuation centers, they'll be screened and then provided with the humanitarian assistance. Let's see. So far, the Israeli efforts at humanitarian assistance have not been particularly successful. But once the evacuation's complete, then the sort of second phase of the plan that's been announced so far is that there's going to be a full-on sort of military assault on Gaza City to destroy Hamas, who the Israelis say are sort of camping out inside Gaza City as

one of their last strongholds. And so that's why Netanyahu is so keen on it, you know, because you evacuate the people, you destroy Hamas, the war is over. The hostages are released. The trouble is it obviously may not necessarily work out that way. And that's what everybody is worried about, including Palestinians and hostage families and people around the world. Right. And it feels like we've heard this. story before about northern Gaza, about Rafah, like, do we have any evidence that Hamas is camped out in the rubble of Gaza City, that if they just invade, move all these people, which they haven't explained how they're going to do it, and just go after Hamas, that would work.

Yeah, you're right in the sense that, you know, that was the objective in the first place, wasn't it, to go in militarily and destroy Hamas, and they haven't managed to do that. And that, I think, is the essential problem, that Netanyahu's objective that he says, set for his military to destroy Hamas and wipe it out like it was never there, it's just not possible. It's just not achievable in a densely populated area where Hamas and other militant groups, they're sort of part of the community. That's the problem with the Israeli plan. I think it's not going to work. Matthew, thank you so much for taking the time to join me. Thank you very much. That was my conversation with Matthew Chance, Chief Global Affairs correspondent for CNN.

We'll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. What a day is brought to you by Bomba's. Summer is moving fast. Don't let bad socks and blisters stop you in your tracks. Bombas make socks, slads, and seamless essentials to keep you. keep up with however you pace your days. Running a marathon, bombets make socks for that, with sweat-wicking, blister-fighting, and impact-cushioning built-in.

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I can't say that given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we're totally surprised. That's Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, sounding a little resigned during a press briefing Monday after President Trump invoked part of the D.C. Home Rule Act. In an executive order, he declared a, quote, crime emergency. Why?

So his administration could, takeover Washington's police department. Trump said the action was meant to, quote, rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor. The president also said he's activating 800 members of the National Guard. Sound familiar? But Trump's idea of D.C. may be a little skewed.

Shocking. City officials have stressed that crime is falling. Bowser reiterated that though there was an uptick in crime post-COVID, officials have addressed that. This year, crime isn't just down from 20, It's also down from 2019 before the pandemic, and we're at a 30-year violent crime low. Trump did not provide a timeline for the control of the police department, but he's limited to 30 days under the Home Rule Act unless he gets approval from Congress, like that's ever stopped him before. During his own press conference earlier Monday, Trump also said his administration would be removing homeless encampments.

Well, that's not exactly what he called them. We have slums here. We're getting rid of them. I know it's not politically correct. You'll say, oh, so terrible. No, we're getting rid of the slums where they live. They? Slums? What? I lived in D.C. for 13 years and I'm lost. Trump has emphasized the removal of Washington's homeless population, but it's unclear where the thousands of people would go. Trump, I'm guessing, doesn't care. In the meantime, Bowser said she would follow the law regarding the, quote, so-called emergency and do everything to end it. She also indicated that Trump's actions were a reason why the District of Columbia should be a state with legal protections.

Speaking of cities facing an administration that hates cities, in June, President Trump federalized roughly 4,000 California National Guard members and deployed them along with 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles. Now California state officials are challenging the legality of that deployment in a three-day trial that started Monday in San Francisco. California is asking a federal judge to order the Trump administration to return control of the remaining troops to the state and to stop the federal government from using California Guard troops to enforce federal law. The centuries-old Posse Cometatis Act prevents the president from using the military as a domestic police force. But Trump's attorneys are arguing that the case should be canceled, because according to Title X, the president is allowed to call the National Guard into federal service when the country is, quote, invaded, and or when there is a, quote, rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority

of the government. The district judge on the case, Charles Breyer, says the protests in Los Angeles, quote, fall far short of a rebellion. The case could set precedent for how Trump can deploy the guard in the future in California or other states, which he's already doing. You might remember back in July, which feels like a year ago at this point, President Trump in the Justice Department formally asked to unseal the transcripts of the grand jury testimony against Jeffrey Epstein's ex-girlfriend and longtime accomplice,

Galane Maxwell. It came amid intense public pressure he was, and still is facing, about his administration's refusal to release a different truckload of documents known as the Epstein files. Oh, yeah, because they allegedly mention his own name multiple times.

And weirdly, this argument wasn't convincing. Look, the whole thing is a hoax. It's put out by the Democrats, because we've had the most successful six months in the history of our country, and that's just a way of trying to divert attention to something that's total bullshit. While on Monday, Manhattan Federal Judge Paul A. Engelmeyer officially rejected the request, saying that the DOJ's real motive was to fool the public with the, quote, illusion of transparency. Okay, Judge Engelmeier, go off.

Engelmeier added that the DOJ's claims that the testimony could reveal new information about Maxwell's crime, was, quote, demonstrably false, because it actually doesn't include anything we didn't already know. No new crime locations, no new information about Epstein's death or the sources of his wealth. Nada, zilch, nothing. So basically, the judge agreed with Trump's own words that the whole thing is... Total bullshit. Ah, the sweet, sweet sounds of AOL dial-up. Apparently, this crown jewel of the early internet will cease to exist on September 30th, according

to the company. But the bigger news might be that anyone was still using it? According to Census Bureau data, about 0.13 of homes in America were on dial-up internet subscriptions in 2023. So not a total dinosaur, but close. For our many, many Gen Z listeners, first of all, thank you so much. Anyway, long, long ago. go. In a time we liked to call the 1990s, there was a pop-up box in our computers that we had

to click on and then wait for approximately infinity amount of minutes to the sound of those beeps until we were granted access to this brand new thing called the internet. It was a glorious time where we learned to expect the unexpected because we'd inevitably be kicked off if anyone in our family needed to use the phone line to make a call. Yes, before cell phones, you had to use a telephone connected to a cord, connected to a wall. So on that note, we wish a fond farewell to you, AOL dial-up. We hope you're enjoying your newfound leisure time on a farm-up state, hanging out with Vine, Instant Messenger, Internet Explorer, Landline phones,

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