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We talked to you recently about Mark Andresen and then Zuckerberg going on with Joe Rogan and being like, you know, we.
Gotta deal with this.
This d banking Elizabeth Warren's d banking agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which actually is basically like the anti scam Agency, is sort of like the best way effectively to think about that. This is no surprise, but Rohit Chopra, who's been the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a very effective one at that, who, by the way, has a posed debanking people for political ends. He has now officially been fired and in addition put the next
piece up on the screen. Apparently the billionaire Hedgemund Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant has been put in for as acting director of the CFPB, and he immediately sends out a memo to staff saying you need to halt movement on any proposed or final rules guidance, suspend effective dates of rules, don't advance investigations or enforcement actions, no material agreements, no public communications or reports, seemingly giving Mark Andrews and Mark
Zuckerberg and a lot of other people exactly what they were looking for here.
Yeah. That I mean, yes, this is what.
Grod to hear to say, thank you, help people understand what is the import of this particular agency and just remind them why the Mark Andrews and the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world were irritated at it in particular.
Yeah, So the CFPB was dealing with, you know, scams and fraud and consumer protection questions, and so they would they were going after you know, there was this there's this company called Synapps which was like which was one of these fintech companies, and it sort of appeared like a bank and then a bunch of people lost their life savings in it. And the CFPB was investigating doing things to try to deal with with syn apps. Marc
Andreesen was a big investor in synapps. This is true for a number of different investments.
That he made.
He doesn't like that the CFPB is wasn't was enforcing the law. I think that's my general view. But this is also you know Wall Street generally. There are there are different parts here because there's some things that the CFPB was doing that Wall Street did like. So they were looking into big tech owned payment systems. Banks are afraid of that open banking rules that some fintech companies
liked that banks don't don't. Particularly, there's there's elements around FICO and credit reporting that some mortgage bankers don't like. So there's there's some industry splits, but by and largely what you find is that Wall Street and like hates any kind of anyone that tells them no, right, and that the CFPB and Roach Choper was saying, no, you can't steal everything. You can only steal a lot, right, and and so yeah, I know, how dare you right?
And the Silicon Valley, you know, was getting and has been getting into payments and banking style arrangements, especially especially Meta.
One himself is interested in this for Twitter as well.
Yes, the original you know vision of Confinity and X is literally PayPal.
That's what he's a sign of what he thought it was.
He made his original money from PayPal, right, so that was a big, a big part of it. But yeah, metas into it. Amazon is hugely into it too. I mean there there's Meta tried to start their own currency like Libra, right, and I know, and everyone's like, you know, how dare how dare Biden be so mean to Meta?
And it's like that was blocked under Trump right right?
First Trump, So we got to come up with a nomenclature for first Trump and now Trump Trump Trump.
Trump two point Oh I love what I do. Yeah, that's what I've been turning with as well. Trump the return.
I don't know, let's also talk let's let's go to let's see see four. This is sort of more directly related to the CFP B. You've had a similar order go out at the SEC that's Security Exchange Commission, which looks at sort of like you know, insider trading and other white collar banking crimes. So they say that this change has not previously been reported made under new leadership, they are tightening oversight of probes, basically making it so
that you have to go through the political appointees. If you want to, you can start an investigation, but if you're actually going to launch an official probe, you've got to go through the political appointees. You know, how should we understand this shift matter?
Is this common?
What does this?
So?
This is? This is actually a big deal.
It's one of these annoying things that annoying people like me paytential attention to. When you're an investigator, if you have you know, if you have to get permission from your boss to look into something, you're going to look into less stuff, right, and a bunch of agencies. Sometimes they delegate authority to staff to look into stuff, and sometimes they don't. This is actually true in Congress too, Like Congress has investigative authority. Sometimes they let the chairman
issue subpoenas. Sometimes the whole committee has to vote on subpoenas. It's a very different arrangement. If you have one guy who can just issue a subpoena if he wants to, And that's basically what they're saying here is there.
What they're now saying is if you work.
At one at the SEC, you have to go you have to get permission from the Republican Commissioners about whether to investigate something. And so that just provides a much tighter level of control over what the SEC is doing and means that the SEC is not going to be doing as much.
Has it worked like that in the past, do you know, is this like a reverse of guidance or Biden or I think the true?
Well, so what that article said and I'm just going off with that, right, you know, article on screen set is that it's traditionally the SEC gives wide latitude to to its people to just investigate. I know that the Federal Trade Commission better. They in the consumer branch of the Federal Trade Commission, They've historically allowed staff to just kind of I got a hunch that there's that vitamin supplement guys scamming people. I'm going to go investigate. I'm
not going to bug the commissioners every time. On the competition side, So for antitrust, they traditionally did have to get permission to investigate companies.
A couple of years ago.
The FTC changed that and said, actually, now on the competition side, if you if you smell something that's off, you can go and investigate. And so that's a way of just kind of saying we're going to let you do more.
But you know, it has there are.
Implications to it, right, so if things are going through the you know, staff doesn't always have a good political sense, and so sometimes they can issue investigative demands that are intimidating or scary or whatever.
So it's not like a completely outrageous.
Proposal, but in the context of the SEC, in the context of these of what Trump is doing more broadly, it really is about, you know, shutting down investigation of corporate crime. And that that I mean, there's we're essentially in the moment of the white collar purge, right, all crime is legal, right, and that that is kind of true I think for the next six months, year or something like that. I mean, also the DJ. You know, a lot of the shake ups that are going on
in government. I don't think there's a lot of investigations of crime going on right now at the FBI or DJ. And you know, you're seeing a CFPV shut down. You see the SEC basically same sort of very similar. You're seeing i think a rollback at the consumer protection side of the FCC, not the competition side. So what you, I think broadly are going to see is that there's going to be a wide latitude for pushing the law or just violating the law.
If you have a suit and tie.
Can you respond to some of the Some of the discourse online that I've been watching spectating is there's this analysis of you know, you people got your way, You anti trust people got your way under Biden, and the public voter for Trump anyway, and so you know, you have this stuff you care about your whole competition and going after white collar criminals like it's not all that popular, right?
What is your view of that?
And of because I do think that Biden, because he was an old man who couldn't really articulate much of anything about anything, did fail to enlist the American people in a project that was pissing off the tech barons and the Wall Street people, and is part of why they decided to completely throw in with Trump. So it ended up in a sense, I mean, I'm glad that the enforcement actions happen. I think that stuff is important
and hopefully has lasting riverbding impacts. But in a sense, you know, you got four years of a better approach.
You pissed off powerful people, but you didn't enlist the American people and help them understand what you were doing to create a sort of like popular understanding of why these things are important, which makes it easy for Mark Andrewes and to go on Joe Rogan's podcast and be like the cfp B they're d banking conservatives and loop it all into some you know, culture bullshit culture war umbrella.
Yeah, so there's I think there's two. There's two ways to understand what happened. Okay, So one, I think we can go into ways that the INtime monopolist sort of things that they we didn't do enough of. I'll say we because I consider myself this sort of a movement and stuff that's kind of our fault, right. And then I think there's the broader dynamic. So it's just let's just divide it into those into two different things. I think
the broader dynamic is far more impactful. So just to give you a sense of how much power the INtime monopolist had. So if you take the CFPB right, the anti trust enforcers which are in the Federal Trade Commission, and the Anti Trust Division, total budget right of all three of those is less than a billion dollars. Okay, the rest of the government, I don't know what is that five trillion dollars something like that. So you know, you're talking about a very very very small part of
the government. Now, it was I think important, and people noticed it because they were the only ones doing something that was actually different and articulating. Maybe not a new agenda, but a traditional agenda that the Democrats would have recognized.
In the nineteen thirties or nineteen sixties or something like that.
But the rest of the government, right, you know, Javier Basera at Health and Human Services, right, when was the last time we heard his name?
Right, do anything? Right?
And so how much can you really accomplish out of a couple of regulatory agencies when the Federal Reserve and we don't nobody is like, oh man, that j Powell at the Federal Reserve. That's the reason Democrats lost it is because nobody is nobody. That's just the water was swimming in. Oh Man, that Jenny Yellen at Treasury Department.
Oh man, that.
Well, Pow probably had more to do it with anybody, right, yeah, out of anybody else, that's.
Probably Oh yeah, No one's thinking that.
That they should.
You know, in twenty twenty two, Democrats overperform in the midterms at the height of inflation.
In twenty twenty four.
Got crushed, Yes, because people didn't want high interest rates.
It was a high interest rate election.
Yeah, right, I mean that's what it's.
It's so so that I think that that people noticed the inti monopolists because that was different, right, but it wasn't dominant in the administration. That The other thing is there was no alignment between the politics and the policy of the entire so, like, yeah, what you said is right. Biden didn't articulate it. But I think if you talk to most Democrats in Congress, right, they didn't know what the anti trust people were doing. They couldn't articulate any
of this stuff. So it was sort of this orphan agenda over here. And I only think it's totally fair to say, oh, you know, you made powerful people mad but didn't bring in any political benefits. Therefore it made it worse. I think those powerful people. I think what happened is the people voted. My guess is people voted for Trump because costs went up, wages went down, and Democrats were obsessed with stupid things, right, And that's not
you know, Lena CON's fault. That's a broader political dynamic. I do think though there are some things that the anti monopolists.
You know.
The other thing is when candidates were running, they were running on things like Inhaler's right, getting cheaper, right, and you know, Epipen's getting cheaper and junk fees and a whole like the arguments that basically the only thing Democrats had to run on in twenty twenty four that was economic was the stuff the anti monopolists had done. It didn't necessarily work, although I think in some races it
probably did. You saw it like in Las Vegas or in Nevada and in other states there were normy Democrats that were running on opposition to the Kroger robertson merger right.
And does this stuff work?
I don't know, but I'm not a political person, but it's like, if that's what they're if that's the only thing they're running on, you know, they're not running on the first you know, non bare binary undersecretary of whatever. They're running on you know, food prices, so that and the things that the Biden administration had done. The fact that the only people who did anything where the anti monopolists, is not our fault. But I do think this stuff
takes way too long. Right, so you launch something like you launch a Trump launched a Facebook suit in a Google suit in twenty twenty. The Facebook suit isn't even going to trial until you know, later this spring. So that's five years from them filing the complaint, six seven years from the investigation to even going to trial. It's not talking about appeals and everything. And that's just broadly true across the board, the suit against Ticketmaster, the suit
against Google, suit against Apple suit. People don't feel the effects because it takes way too long. And then the other part of it is I think I think the agencies did a great job. You know, you can't issue a rule and it takes three years to issue a rule tapping overdraft fees.
That's ridiculous. We gotta, you know, we gotta hurry this stuff up.
We also have to do something about the courts who just block everything that's nice, you know, which is which is kind of crazy, you know, the non compete rules, stuff like that. So there are a number of institutional factors. And then I think, you know, this is the first time that any of these people, you know, that we
had ever had any levers of government to pull. And so what you're seeing more broadly is the generational dynamic and a Democratic Party which was basically overlooking or actively helping oligarchs under Bill Clinton, under Barack Obama, and now some of the younger people with no mentorship at all. Right, we're saying maybe we should try something different. And nobody
in our lifetime has done anything like this before. So of course it's not going to be perfect, but it is the outline for a party that's going to advocate for the working class or all. And I don't mean that the Democratic Party, I mean either party that wants to do this is going to have to do some of these anti corporate things, and that's going to upset powerful people one way or the other.
Oh, I'm all in favor of upsetting the powerful people. I just think I mean, I think you articulated all very well, and I've thought more about it and have
a certainly more granular understanding than I do. But if you were pissing off the powerful people, but you aren't like an FDR explaining like I welcome their hatred and here's why they hate me and here's how it's still nobody knows about it, then you're just going to have a lot of powerful people mad at you and hold that on your destruction and you're not going to have the you know, on the other side, you need to have the people behind you to back you up.
You just have this joke when I would talk to someone who was, you know, we're going an anti trust case, I would, you know, they would say something about what they were doing, and I would just be like, a voter might hear you?
Yeah, Like that's really I mean if you look that.
I looked system sort of semi systematically at what the White House Press Secretary was would say, right, and they were asked about a Ticketmaster suit or a Google or whatever it was, and she would always say, I can't comment on pending litigation. And then people would be like, but it's Ticketmaster. They couldn't sell tickets to the Taylor Swift conference or a conference concert or.
God man, I am such a nerd. The jacket, it's really good.
I was a victim of Ticketmaster. Well I couldn't get a ticket, It's true, and we happened.
So, you know, she made fun of the reporters for answering, for asking a question. And so it's like, if that's your framework, right, if you just mock the idea that, if you mock your own administration's agenda, that's a.
Little that's a little bit. That's pretty weird.
Right, And I mean you saw, like anyway, I don't want to get into the Democratic Party. There's a I've been thinking a lot about it. But there's a basic problem that they have, which is, you know the street lamp issue. Right, So the street lamp the parable about economists. So a drunk guy is looking for his keys, yeah, right, and the guy and the cops says, why are you looking here? And he's like, where'd you lose your keys?
He said over there? Why are you looking here? He said, Oh, well that's what the light, that's where the light is. He's looking under the lamp. Yeah, And I think that's kind of what what democrats do is they are, you know, they're trying to figure out what what a problem. What to do about a problem that voters are complaining about, But they always look under the lamp post instead of where the problem is, even though they know it's not right right, And that's that's a that's a dynamic party wide.
Well, I always love talking to you, man, really appreciate you joining us.
Just when you thought DEI was out of the federal government, it is back with a vengeance. Let's put this up on the screen. We got a new task Force to combat anti Semitism announced by the Justice Department. They say in this anti Semitism is any environment in any environment is repugnant to this nation's ideal. Certainly, said Senior counsel Or Assistant Attorney General with Civil Rights. We'll be heading this task force. Apartment takes seriously our response ability to
eradicate this hatred wherever it is found. Task Force to Combat anti Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti Semitism in our schools.
Of course, everybody here a poorse.
And poses actual anti semitism. But we know that the definition that is embraced right Trump and has also been embraced on a bipartisan basis by members of Congress also includes things like daring to criticize Israel. Trump has also, you know, moved to put in place procedures to deport anyone from any students who are here on foreign visas who are pro Palestine and engage in protests there as well.
So even Christopher Ruffo took a principal stand on this one and said it was inconsistent with the push against AI.
Got a hand tool.
Put this up on the screen, He says. Supporters of this initiative should ask themselves, how is it reasonable to support a task force on anti Semitism while opposing an Ebrahm Kenny style task force on anti Black racism DEI? By the same principle, how is it reasonable to support a task force on anti Semitism without also supporting a task force of anti Wait racism and a task force on anti Asian racism, both of which are widespread on campuses.
How is it consistent for the administration to abolish DEI than establish a special task force for one rather than all of these groups.
I think that is very well.
So I think he's totally right, And of course there's always a huge blind sprout whenever it comes to all of this.
I haven't seen much push I mean maybe you're more tuned in, but haven't seen much pushback nice against this.
Yeah, let's all be real, like you know, like it's always been obvious it's fake. Uh, you know in terms of where you had Ron remember when he created literally affirmative action for Jewishness.
That's right.
So and these are state resources. He's like, anybody who feels unsafe and across the United States is welcome to come to Florida. We'll give you tuition assistance. And I was like, uh, are we understanding this? Or powerlunteer if we'll recall was like, oh, anybody who uh, well, it's actually not his company, but I mean he's an investor
or whatever. But but my only point is Peter, for some reason, is always socially the paltants like it's Joe Lonsdale and Alex cart it's a really Alex Carp's company, so he should get the smoke if people are looking at it to get it out there. He's a multi billionaire too, so there you go, you can attack him. My point around it is that it's obviously been a
blind spot. It's one which is wholly focused on by these donors, and it has become extremely important because this is the literal Department of Justice, the arm of the government now adopting this anti semitism definition from Congress.
What is it?
The IHR a definition around anti Semitism, instituting it in law, which is an obvious and direct threat to the First Amendment rights of all American citizens. Baby, that's I mean, that's my beef.
They basically want to like make it illegal to criticize Israel. I mean, it's insane. Glenn makes this point all the time. You can criticize America till the cows come home. You say anything about this country, and you should be able to, But you can't say anything about this foreign country that we ship billions of dollars in weapons and other aid to. Like, that's insane. That is a grave infringement on our rights.
And anyone who claims to be, you know, in favor of color blindness and you know, in favor of merit against DEI, anyone.
Who claims to be in favor of free speech.
Should be wildly opposed to this particular direction. There are a couple other things that I just wanted to get into the show to keep an eye on as well. In terms of that attack on free speech. You know, Ryan laid this out really well. Trump has basically adopted this new tactic where he sues a media organization or like an Sells or or whoever truly for buying large, frivolous lawsuits that in any normal time would either be
thrown out or he would lose on the merits. But these media organized media organizations, which are gigantic conglomerates, which want various things from the federal government and want to avoid let's say, antitrust scrutiny in whatever new merger deal that they have floated or you know that they just were able to accomplish. They want to keep in Trump's good graces, so they basically decide to settle and pay him off in what amounts to effectively a bribe to
leave them alone. That's happened a couple of times. But now we also have the FCC going after a number of different media organizations.
This is pretty wild. It could put D three up on the screen.
So CBS has been forced to hand over the unedited transcript from that Kamala Harris interview that Trump and other Republicans didn't like how it was edited.
I mean, like I mean, to be fair, they did edit it dishonestly because from in terms of the way they put it out or not.
Okay, well, Fox News dishonestly edited a Trump town hall and edited out his stuff. If the Biden administration, you know, if Kamala had been elected and the SEC was going after Fox News because they didn't like how the interview was edited, we should be opposed to that as well.
I don't disagree. I think that, I mean, the difference between Fox and CBS is about the network status in terms of their I forget exactly what it is about the fair something doctrine under because it's a network versus an actual channel on cable.
That's the pretext that they're giving.
I actually think was more egregious are all of these media companies which are settling with Donald Trump totally because that is literally like as you and I know, because we have similar insurance policies and others, it is the bar for having to pay out on defamation is you have to do what CNN did in the case of that guy who they defamed down in Florida. They were like lied about him. They literally had recordings that were
revealed where they're like, I hate that guy. I want to screw him over, didn't issue a timely retraction and caused financial harm to an individual, and he wasn't a public figure like you have to check like nine all of those boxes to be able.
That's why it's so rare that anything like it even happens.
I think it's much crazier that they are settling with the president literally paying I think all.
Of us crazy.
They're also going after the FCC is also going after NPR and PBS, saying he's concerned that they could be violating federal law by airing commercials. In particular, they say it's possible NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements. Again, obviously, what how do you feel about NPR PBS? This is like an ideological attack on them that doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not they are taking
appropriate commercial money. And then the other piece that kind of falls into what you were saying, Sager about the like capitulation and the bending of the knee. This is not an overtbride but you guys will remember before the election, the Washington Post, the Bezos Washington Post and the La Times both decided, even though they're at a real staff, had prepared endorsements of Kamala Harris, but they were just
not going to endorse at all. Well, the La Times tried to cloak this at the time and like, oh, it's because we don't like her policy on Gaza. I think at this point it's pretty clear that that was not really what was going on. We now have this is just absolutely agree. Just put this up on the screen.
So they picked up an op ed from a contributor that was very critical of RFK Junior and his approach, and it was actually an interesting op ed talking about his thesis was basically like the reaction to Luigi Mangioni and the support for RFK Junior in some ways comes from the same place of like, discussed with the healthcare system and its failures, and we're getting sicker and we're getting fatter, and you know, our life expectancy is dropping, and but he goes on to make, you know, very
critical argument about RFK Junior. So its its Originally the closing line said, although RFK Junior and Luigi Mangioni. Are both responses the same underlying problem of US healthcare corruption. There's a major difference between them. One allegedly operated outside the law to kill one person in defensive millions, whereas the other, via his egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence, seeks to use law itself to inflict preventable death on those millions.
Very critical of RFK Junior. The headline was supposed to be critical. Well, the LA Times before they published, stripped out all the sentences that were critical of RFK Junior, flipped the headline to be the polar opposite of what this op ed contributor intended it to be and published it that way.
And the owner of the La.
Times, the dude who blocked the endorsement previously, tweeted it out to, you know, celebrate this support of RFK Junior, which the author han't had intended in the total opposite direction. So, you know, another instance obviously of the media just like wanting to be on Trump's good side, et cetera, et cetera, that we're seeing almost almost across the board in various ways. And I think that you're right. The pieces perhaps the wildest direction.
By the way, if anything ever like that happens and somebody doesn't quit and that's crazy.
Well he doesn't actually what he's a contributor. He doesn't actually like work for them, I'm sure. And he said he will never publish with that us. But you can't.
I mean, it's just.
If somebody ever did that to me, I'm like, okay, it is outrageously ethical.
So between the time, you know, you work with an editor of course, and he proved, okay, this is you know, this is where we are and this would you agree to, and then before it's published, like imagine if you know our producers after you recorded your monologue went in and completely flipped on its head, changed the like insane.
You know, I almost imagine it to a previous company. Oh we'll just leave it there. Let's get to uh Anthony Lowenstein.
We are fortunate to be joined this morning by Anthony Lowenstein, who is an independent journalist. He's author of the global best selling book The Palestine Laboratory, also a podcast with drop site News, our friends Ryan and Jeremy and just released a documentary series with Al Jazeera English on the Gaza Laboratory.
Great to see you Anthony, welcome, good to see you.
Thanks for having me guys, thank you.
Yeah, of course I watched The Dark yesterday evening. You did a fantastic job. Let's just give your viewers a little bit of a taste of what is in that new documentary.
The Farmbra Air Show one of the largest in the world. Global weapons giants like Bae Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Airbus come to show off their latest military hardware. Billions of dollars of civil and military deals are done here every year. Standing shoulders to shoulder with these global military giants. Israel's top weapons manufacturers like Israel Aerospace Industries and missile makers Raphael.
In the main hall, Israel's largest private weapons company, Elbert, has a huge stand They needed to showcase their world class drones and missiles. Despite its tiny population, Israel is the world's ninth largest weapons producer. This high budget promo is for the Trophy anti missile system made by Israeli company Raphael. It's the kind of advanced technology Israel specializes in and makes the Israeli MIRKF tank one of the best on the market.
Automatically activated only when enemy fuyer the vehicle.
Both tank and anti missile systems sell around the world to undisclose clients. Overall, Israel exports more than thirteen billion dollars of weapons and surveillance equipment a year. And with adverts like this for the Spike firefly, Israeli company's hint that their products may have been battle tested in Palestine. So how does being a mad who to armed supplier impact Israel's diplomatic position? Could it give the country a measure of impunity when it wants to undertake its own wars?
So, Anthony, why did you think this particular aspect of the conflict was important for people around the world to understand?
When I started writing the book I came out in mid twenty twenty three, I felt that it was an issue that actually was largely of course, this was before October seven, an issue that had been largely ignored. I must say, no one else had ever covered it. They had, of course in the media here and there. But the Israeli arms industry explains so much about how Israel operates in the occupied Palestinian territories and also in the region.
I don't stay in the book or the film or the podcast that Israel's occupying Palestine simply to make money from weapons. That would not be true. But instead of a self perfetual wedding industry where you have a massive number of Israelis who of course going to the army, the IDF, they spent many years there, They're in intelligence, they're in various other units, and they take that experience
into the private sector once they'd left. And that's why, as we say in the film, it's now the ninth biggest arms still are in the world for a country
which is a tiny, tiny population. And we thought that the reason to make the film, which has been we sort of start as working with a British production company, Blackley Films, and the director Dan Davies since twenty twenty two, although it really ramped up last year, was to explain to people who maybe hadn't read the book called listen to the podcast that this issue I think explains so much about how Israel is using, particularly in the war in Gaza, as a way to showcase huge amounts of
new tech, including AI, despite the fact that on October seven, all the tech around Gaza failed. People failed, the military failed, the government fail. Everyone failed. Is from the Israeli perspective, of course, and despite that, the Israeli arms industry has never been better now might say better more profitable in the last fifteen sixteen months.
Yeah, Anthony, it's really interesting to think about both Gaza and Ukraine as the forefront of what warfare looks like in the future. So one of the things that you've touched on in your documentary is specifically this new use of artificial intelligence. So can you lay out some of
what that looks like. I think the world really got a taste of that with that famous drone footage several months ago of following that man and assassinating him even though he prepared to be doing npolutely nothing wrong.
One of the things that Israel has been doing before October seven was using AI, but since October seven there's been a huge expansion. There's a various tools that they use called lavender Where's Daddy really dystopian names, essentially finding so called legitimate targets in the Israeli playbook to kill people in Gaza. Now in theory in years past, it
was senior Hamas militants, senior Hamas leaders. What's happened since and we discussed this in the film in great depth is that the way that targets are selected is primarily done through AI, through a system of massive data collecting that Israel has been doing four years. There's about two going three million civilians living in Gars, that's been the case for many years, and Israel controls all aspects of that land, that territory, or communication in and out, all
information about personal details, et cetera. So all that data is fed into a machine and it essentially spits out information which is deemed to be legitimate targets. But the key point here is that, as Israel calls it legitimate
targets to kill civilians has been massively increased. So whereas in the past, if Israel would kill the Hummas militant alleged harmas militant, maybe five or ten civilians could be killed, now we're talking about one hundreds, and particularly in the first three or four months of this war after October seven, where the death toll escalated into the tens of thousands very quickly. It's important to say that I'm not arguing, in no one's saying that AI is not making all
these decisions. This ultimately is made still by people, by humans, and the ultimate problem here is the dehumanization of Palestinians is so paramount within Israel that if they kill twenty thirty forty fifty sixty thousand Palestinians deemed to be apparent terrorist,
that's legitimate. And what the fear I have is that film talks about this is there are many other countries that look to what Israel has been doing in Gaza as a model as stagam as you say, what Ukraine has been doing in their own wall, in their own country, essentially backs by the US their models. They're testing grounds, and the war has been used as a testing ground for every Rak and Afghanistan were as well. But the difference I think here is that the Israellies have a
captive Palestinian population on their doorstep indefinitely. And I fear that, and I've heard this from people. I was doing work on the film last year, spending time in Israel and Palestine across the world, and a lot of countries look to Israel with deep admiration, deep admiration because Israel gets away with it and they have to this day. No one is stopping them. This wasn't happening under Trump. On the bottom, I should say or frankly won't happen under Trump. Yeah.
I think that was one of the most chilling moments of the documentary, is talking about how this is something that many countries want. They want the sort of tech that allows them to get away with it, and I think it's important for people to understand this isn't just about battlefield technologies. You spend a good amount of time on surveillance tech as well, which is extensive beyond belief.
Particularly hit home for me at a time when Trump just announced this big Stargate five hundred billion dollar boondoggle. One of the people involved, Oracles Larry Ellison, has been out bragging about how AI is going to make sure that all citizens are on their quote best behavior because of the implementation of the surveillance tech.
Talk a little bit about that aspect of it.
Well, it's actually a quote in the film by a Palestinian, a digital rights campaigner called Mona Shtaie, who literally uses those words that Palestinians have to be in inverted commas on their best behavior, both in real life and online because the surveillance is so ubiquitous, and a lot of people have seen the film and only came out less
than a week ago. The first part. The first part said in Israel Palestine, and the second part we go globally where I go to the US Mexico border, India, Sri Lanka, not South Africa, and Greece and only show how Israeli surveillance and repressive tech is exported globally. And one of the things I think that many people don't
realize is how ubiquitous the surveillance is within Palestine. A lot of people compare it to Black Mirror, the British program which talked about a very believable near future where surveillance is utterly everywhere. So when Larry Ellison or anyone else says to be on your best behavior, who is making those decisions? What's best behavior? And it comes in in terms of Palestine. It means people who, for example, can't express their honest opinion because they worry they'll be
deemed as security threats, terrorist threats. And one of the things that AI is doing, and we talk about this extensively in the film, is actually trying to document every single citizen in Palestine with a certain almost like a traffic light, So you are deemed as a threat if you have certain political views, and we're saying to viewers as, despite what Israel and supporters might say, this is not about going after so called terrorists. The argument has not
been for years. Israel's killing all the terrorists in Gaza. Has Anthony Blincoln himself said in the last days of the Biden administration, Hamas is essentially regrouped and recruited huge amounts of people during the last war. Now, Hamas has been bloodied and beaten in certain ways, of course they have. It's been a fifteen month war. But Hamas is still standing, whatever we might think about them. That's the reality. So ultimately,
the question is what has Israel actually achieved here. They've achieved the decimation of Gaza. Yes, they've achieved the massiveveillance of many of the Ghazan population and a massive increase in violence in the West Bank. So that's what many countries look to with admiration, and we show a lot of that in the second episode of the film.
Yeah, I think that that extends also now to Prime Minister Netanyah, who's visit to Washington. He's actually literally here as you speak, speaking with President Trump. All indications are that he wants to scuttle quote phase two of the deal. How does your documentary fit within that?
Look. One of the things that's very clear is that within Israel itself, the country is split in a way that there are many Israelies who want all the hostages out, these rally hostages, which is a very reasonable demand, but there's a huge pressure on Netanyahu within his coalition to
continue the war to essentially even destroy Gaza even more. Obviously, I can't predict exactly what the outcome of that meeting between SnO and Trump will be, but I think I suspect that there'll be pressure onto to try to continue the negotiations to get more hostages out. There are many many who remain in under Hamas control, so it seems to me unlikely that Trump will simply allow that to happen. The danger, to me is not just about the hostages question.
The broader question is a Trump himself said, literally a week ago, very few days after we came into office, how about Jordan or Egypt just taking one and a half million Palestinians Like, hang on a minute, the idea of removing them from Gaza so Gaza can be rebuilt to whose dictates Jared Kushna his real estate mates. I mean, we can set of joke about that, but that's literally what Trump said, while at the same time the West Bank is on fire. And I think there is a
real kind of accelerationist in Israel. And I've been saying this for years, long before October seven. There are obviously the is Raleigh Jews who oppose what's going on. Of course they are, and some of them are in the film, particularly in the second part. Gideon Levy is one good example of that. But there is a sizeable proportion of the Israeli population that believes it occupation is legitimate. The dehumanizing Palestinians forever is okay, is necessary, is needed, is justified.
And when you have the world's biggest superpower, the US, whether it's Obama or Biden or Trump, basically saying go for your life. Here's more weapons. Israel's coming to Trump today asking for at least eight billion dollars of more weapons, and it's a good chance Trump will say yes to that. So what the outcome of the meeting will be, of course,
it is the possible to predict. But the bigger picture here is what the so called vision is for Palestine and the fear of many Palestinians and many, I would say, decent people around the world, is that the ultimate vision here is endless occupation, dehumanization, which never, by the way, brings peace to his relis. Yeah, none of it does. In fact, life for them is never being more insecure. In my view, never being more insecure. And I say that as someone who's Jewish mussel.
Go ahead, guys, and put E two up on the screen. To this point.
Trump was asked yesterday if he would support West Bank annexation, and he said he wouldn't really say whether he supports it or not. He said, I'm not going to talk about that. It's certainly a small country in terms of land. Talking about Israel, he then took out his pen and said, you see this pen, this wonderful pen. My whole desk is the Middle East, and the top of the pen is Israel. That's not good. It's a pretty big difference.
It's a pretty small piece of land. And it's amazing they've been able to do what they've been able to do. As you mentioned, part of the project here of continued occupation, subjugation, and assault of the Palestinian people has been a long term project of dehumanization. You know, to bring it back around to your documentary, how does the tech help to facilitate that ongoing process of complete dehumanization.
Well, hugely, because one of the things we investigate in the film, particularly in the second episode when we travel the world, is there are multiple examples the US Mexico border, India, the EU and Greece's detention, surveillance of migrants coming from
Turkey and elsewhere. The reality of South Africa today and particularly when to South Africa, look at the connection in the past between apartheid South Africa and Israel, but also today between both countries, and so much of the surveillance and repressive tech that Israel's testing and using in Palestine is deeply attractive to those countries. And obviously we could have chosen many other examples. This is what is partly
fueling Israel's seeming impunity. India, for example, is the world's biggest population country emoting it are very good friends and there's a massive example and we detail this in the film of India being inspired by how they is inspired by Israel's repressing Palestinians and they want to use that against the Muslim population, of which there are roughly two
hundred million people in India. So to see that tech first use in Palestine now appearing, for example in India on the US Mexico border at Greek detention centers backed and funded by the EU. Mexico we visit, which is the world's biggest and most obsessive user of Israeli spyware. I mean, let's be clear, Mexico, whether it's controlled by the right or left, they're equally obsessed with Israeli spyware. This is the reality of I guess, the seeming appeal
of Israeli repressive tech. So when Trump talks about it in his kind of weird explanation about the West Bank, which to me sort of suggested that he supports Israel having more land, therefore supporting annexation, I mean, let's be clear, Israel as quasi annexed the West Bank anyway, I mean we talk about I mean, it's important to say that it hasn't been officially annexed, but having spent time there in any Palestinian will say, I mean, Palestinian life in
the West Bank is deeply problematic, hard, and incredibly challenging. Long before October seven. But certainly since so the fear I have that many other nations are seeing what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank and also in Israel proper, and they see it as attractive and as the right and the far right increases its influence. It's worth saying globally, places like France, Germany, Sweden, much
a lot of Europe. Now parts of the US parties, particularly in Europe, but traditionally were literally neo Nazis view Israel as a model. Now that might seem insane when Israel is a Jewish state and there are quasi forma or current groups and parties in Sweden, in France, in Germany the traditionally how connected to the neo Nazis who see Israel as a model. Why because they loathe multiculturalism, they loathe Muslims. They believe in this concept of ethno nationalism.
And the film touches on that. In say India, which is in my view and many others, becoming an ethno nationalist Hindu state, and Israeli tech is fueling that. Now India is doing what it's doing for its own reason. It's not doing it because of Israel, but Israeli tech is central to that and we document in the film how that impacts Indian population in reality, and that's a scary fact. As the right and the far right grows in popularity around the world.
Anthony to tell people where they can watch the film. The first part of the series is out now, next part comes out when so.
It's available on YouTube for free. It's our Dazira English. It's available. Part one came out last week. It's on YouTube. You can google it easy to find. It's on social media. It's on YouTube on our DEASEIIR website. Part two comes out on februy the CIA. That will also be available on YouTube. It's been seeing now hundreds of thousands of times, and I encourage people to see because it will hopefully scare you and push you into some kind of action
and not be paralyzed by fear. That's the idea. Anyway.
Yeah, it was interesting talking to you.
Thank you, Thank you, Anthony.
Great to see.
Take care, thank you, Thank you guys so much for watching.
We appreciate it.
Great counterpoint show for you tomorrow. We'll see you then.