Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Let's move on to Ukraine. This was also a very important story. This is one which we've been tabling for a little while. There's been no immediate developments with the biggest news that
really came out from just two days ago. Let's put this up there on the screen is you can look view it in two ways. President Putin of Russia has replaced Sergei Shogu, who was the longtime defense Minister, one of his closest allies in the Russian government, in a major security shakeup. Allegedly Crystal he had. He's been nominated and given a promotion. But I guess they call this promotion a promotional firing in the best way possible. But what's fascinating is that he did not put a military
man to replace him. He actually put a former deputy prime minister quote who specializes in economics to replace Shogu. Now, the reason why that's so important is that this shows basically that the Russian economy post sanctions, the way they've been able to survive is to fully ramp up their entire military industrial complex. It's the way that they've been able to pump so much money into their economy. They
become one of the major employers. Obviously, they've drafted and or recruited hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens into the military. They've got artillery production which is coming up. So economic management and a fusion of the war industrial complex tells us actually that Russia is in a more robust and actually self sufficient place than it was prior
to the war. Sergei's firing really comes on the heels of obviously his failed invasion of Ukraine and some of his embarrassing It just revealed the oligarchic corruption that was inherent to the system. Hiring somebody like this, especially on the heels of the many Russian victories recently that have been happening. It tells us where things are going in that they're coming at this from a total position of strength.
Their economy is doing better than the Eurozone according to the IMF, you know, the international molitor fun You've got putin basically more popular than ever, more of a stronger hold on power. The oligarchs themselves all have not deserted him despite all of these sanctions, And now you're putting somebody, frankly, even more competent who's in charge, which, if you think Russia's an adversary, is not necessarily something that you want.
So by all means, their military is much more powerful, their new leaders are much more efficient, and they're showing us that their war footing is actually on more of a basis today than it was before, and that any attempt to degrade their capacity has not happened, despite the two hundred billion dollars or whatever that we've spent so far.
Yeah, so reportedly, there's a few things going on here. To start with, Shoigo is the guy who thought that they would just roll into Kiev and knock off the Zelenski government and it'd be over like this and no problem. And obviously that didn't work out. And you'll remember the early phases of this war went very badly for Russia. I mean, it was really a truly a catastrophic, like
disastrous showing from the Russia military. There's also you know, all these I'm sure justified allegations of corruption in the sense that he's like, you know, corrup dude, who's feeding off the teat of the state. So there's that, and then the i think bigger picture here is that they describe this economist I'm going to go with Belusov as his name. They say he's a fan of military Kanesian Kanesianism. He believes in the supremacy of the government in the economy,
government first, then business. And so it's an acknowledgment too of the contours of where this war is at this point that basically, like you know, you're in this somewhat of a stalemate or Russia is starting to gain the upper hand. And one of the key questions here is, you know, how can your economy perform, how can you
spin up as much defense production as possible? And as as Sager is about to talk about, there are a lot of signs that you know, the Ukrainians, not only because there's been a lull in their support from the US. That role has now been filled. Don't worry, guys, all
the stuff is coming to you. But because they have so little of their own defense production capabilities that you know, over the long run, if Russia is focused on being able to spin up their own production and using that to bolster their economy and also keep people happy in terms of wages and jobs, et cetera, they're going to be They're going to be in a much better position.
No, and they are in a better position. So let's go to the next part. We've just got sign after sign after sign that this is just catastrophic news at every turn for the Ukrainians. Here we have major offensive in the Kharkiev regions.
Quote.
According to their own commander, the Russians simply walked in. This is the commander of the Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Union who fought in the Karkiev offensive. And yet what is he talking about here? He says, quote, Now his men are facing the prospects of doing the exact same walking in all over again. Because Russian forces have made small but significant gains right along the border of the Kharkiv region.
Their advances quote are only a few miles deep, but have swallowed up nearly one hundred kilometers already of Russian territory, and that in the more heavily defended east of Ukraine, it has taken Russia months to achieve the same. So they're trying to consolidate as many of their gains as possible before major aid begins to flow from the west. But even if the aid does begin to flow, you're going to see that the Russians have really mastered of
attritional warfare on the ground. They know what they're doing now at this point, let's put this up there. For example, Russia's bombardment of Ukraine is more lethal than ever. And what you see is that the Russians have now had two years to test NATO missile defense systems and ones that the Ukrainians have, and have developed custom strike packages that are maximized penetration and so that they can hit
all of the targets that they want. They say, in the past six months, Ukraine has intercepted only forty six percent of Russian missiles, compared with seventy three percent in the preceding six months before. The interception rate has fallen to thirty percent now and the interception rate for these long range Iranian drones has fell one percent to eighty two percent in the past six months. So drones, you know, remain relatively easier for them to shoot down. They seem
to have mastered that. But missiles, which are you know, frankly something that Russians, any highly advanced nation state would be able to develop, has largely been able to use and employ them. And it's something that the Ukrainians themselves has been one of the biggest strategic problems for them that is happening on the ground. I would also show you this a very recent interview with the Ukrainian top Ukrainian General General Sbitsky. This is from the economists. I'll
read you directly what he has to say. He does not see a way for Ukraine to win the war on the battlefield alone. Even if it were able to push Russian forces back to its borders quote an increasingly distant prospect, it wouldn't end the war. Such wars can
only end with treaties, he says. Right now, both sides are jockeying for the most favorable position ahead of potential talks, but according to him, meaningful negotiations can begin only in the second half of twenty twenty five at the earliest. He says, by then Russia will be facing serious headwinds because their military production has expanded, but it will reach a plateau by early twenty twenty six due to shortages and material and engineers. Frankly, this is all cope and
it's bs. You know, their artillery production, all of their military production, has no signs that it's going to plateau anytime soon. If anything, they're making exponential games year over year and crystal. If they're going to admit that even if they were to achieve their so called military objective and push the Russians all the way back to their borders, that they still wouldn't win the war, then what are
we doing here? Why are we spending all of this money except you know, increasing the risk of nuclear war and or a serious problem in Eastern Europe, which the last thing that we all need right now.
I mean, I can tell you what we're doing. It's just pushing the problem off to you know, after the election, and pushing it, kicking the can down the road because there's no real possibility of ending the war at this point. There's you know, effort to secure some sort of negotiation. As we've discussed before. Anytime that American presidents actually you know, draw down troops which offer am area, they get take
help from the news media. I mean, you could imagine if there was some actual concrete deal and Ukraine had to give up the Dunbas or.
Crimea or whatever.
Officially, Biden would be killed he I mean not literally, guys, but in the press they would. It would be wall to wall negative coverage, just like we saw with Afghanistan. So it's just like, we'll keep funding it, We'll just try to preserve the status quo, kick the can down the road at the cost of you know, courting disaster and at the cost of decimation of generations of Ukrainian men and you know, future possible instability years and years to come. So that's the phase we're in at this point,
and no one even denies that. I mean, there's not even a plan. You don't even hear this. It's not even talked about in the media anymore. We're entering that phase as well, you see. You know, obviously we've pulled some Wall Street journal reports and whatever, but when's the last time you heard them talking about this on cable news?
Is very much slid from the front page. It's just this sort of perpetual, ongoing conflict that they're working hard to push to the back of Americans memories and you know, attention span and hope that something undefined potentially one day.
Changes absolutely and last but not least, just to highlight why this remains dangerous, let's put this up there. We still see a lot of actions from Putin and from Russia which we don't want in a stable world. Putin orders tactical nuclear weapon drills quote to deter the West, which was only a week or so ago. He said on Monday that it would practice their deployment of tactical nuclear weapons after what Moscow said were threats from France,
Britain and the United States. This is because the insanity of all of this is that as the Ukrainians do worse and worse on the battlefield, and as the West realizes that AID alone it will never be able to prop them up. We have two choices. We can force them to cut a deal and we can just wash our hands of an irrelevant conflict. Or what the British and the French want to do is, hey, maybe we
send some troops there on the ground special forces and others. Immediately, the Russians were like, yeah, if you do that where we will kill them. We will strike and kill soldiers who are deployed onto Ukraine. And now what you know, we're an Article five territory. We're in a whole other disaster. And that's why the tactical nuclear weapon drills are not all that far away. I mean, we talk about this too with Israel and Iran, just because it didn't go
hot that one time. It's just all about tension and tension and tension. When you read history, it's very rare that a single event just happens in a vacuum. It's easily predictable if you go back and you look at all the signs, some of which can take years. I mean, you know, ten to fifteen years of tension and build up and all that before something eventually explodes. So recency bias is far too high. This is still a very very dangerous conflict.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely the case. Let's turn to the latest out of Israel. CNN actually spoke to an Israeli whistleblower about the extensive program of torture of Palestinian detainees This was quite a report, especially coming from CNN. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what they found.
Away from the military facility near the beaches of Tel Aviv. One young Israeli Army reservist agreed to speak about schools of detainees at Seti to Man. He says are kept in cages or pens, constantly shackled and blindfolded, many for weeks on end. We've hidden his identity and voice to shield him from prosecution.
We were told they are not allowed to move and must sit upright. They're not allowed to talk or peak under their blindfolds.
And what happened if they if they did do that, what punishments would meet it?
At we were allowed to pick up problematic people and punish them, having them stand with their hands above their heads for an unlimited time. If they didn't keep their hands up, we could zip tie them to the fence.
The Israeli military says detainees are handcuffed based on their risk level and health status, but the account talies with photographic evidence obtained by CNN of Palestinian detainees inside Seti to Men, and with hand and wrist injuries shown to CNN by dozens of Palestinians released back into Gaza. It was zip tied and blindfolded, says this former detainee, and tortured in a way I never imagined. One source telling us the restraints were so tight they had to amputate a man's hand.
And this is not an isolated report. We had heard previous reporting from doctors that it was relatively routine that people, because of the way that they were handcuffed, would have to have limbs or hands amputated. You know, the Israelis obviously claim like these people are all under suspicion of terrorism, but we know the way that they have interpreted any quote unquote military age male as a potential Hamas terrorist.
We've even also talked about how they were planning on setting up checkpoints around Rafa to not allow any military age male, regardless of whether they had even a purported tie to Hamas or other terrorist groups, to leave that area. And so this is absolutely horrifying. Like we remember Abu Grab, we remember the massive international backlash over that scandal of it, the way that the media was covered. Kudos to this whistleblower who is incredibly courageous to come forward to CNN,
and thank you to CNN for doing this report. But it's very limited what you hear ultimately about the treatment of these Palestinian detainees. And we even SAGA recently had a report of a prominent doctor in Gaza who died from torture in one of these facilities. So it's an outrageous and unacceptable situation.
There's just all there's these things are just like on the news every day, and I guess, you know, look again as somebody who's not like the lefty Kefia where and all that all I ever asked for is honesty and for people to just be real about what's happening, and these are all selectively ignored. I mean, the next part Crystal works, We're about to get to the you know, videos of these Israelis rampantly destroying AID inside or inside of Israel headed into the Gaza strip with the police
just sitting there and standing by. I'm like, how, you know, how in the world does this get not one ounce of media coverage here? And then also for all okay there, you know, because do the show with you and others. I see so many people who are left as very sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. And every time they're always asked, they're like, hey, do you condemn? And they're like yeah, And it's like, well, how many people who are out there on social media and who are basically working as
a fifth column in our country? Why are they not you know, asked, do you condemn like this violence? And you know, saluting of all of this aid like why it's the most basic and simple one and that's why it's ignored completely. Yeah, where's Dana Bash's segment about it.
Such a great such a great point.
When you have, i mean, the number of statements and the actions coming from the Israeli government, it's you know, it's insane. And we're going to get to Lindsay Graham in a minute calling to New Gaza, like do you condemn that? Like you, we're very concerned about what a nineteen year old might have chanted on a college campus. But what about when Lindsay Graham goes on Network News and says, hey, maybe we should New Gaza, let's go ahead and put up on the screen what soccer was
referring to. Now, this has been going on for months, but these are right wing psychos in Israel who are blocking and destroying aid.
These are new images.
The Gaza Strip is in obviously dire humanitarian crisis. You can see here the amount of AID that was supposed to go into the Gaza Strip that was completely destroyed.
Here here are the trucks.
Now this is entirely and this shows you how this is an Israeli government policy.
These are all the trucks that are lined up at the Egypt border.
And by the way, Egypt has also said since the Israelis seized the Rafa crossing in violation of their treaty agreement, that they are not going to cooperate at the Rafa border,
So that has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis. But you know, it's easy to like, obviously these psychos are responsible for their own contribution to genocide, but it's also very clear that this is the Israeli government policy number one, because they're allowed to block the state and no one ever intervenes, no one arrests them, etc. The Washington Post reported on how the police in the Israeli military were there and they were like hanging out together and like sharing food
and whatever, and you know, telling them you're good to go. Meanwhile, protests against the BB government, you know, much more aggressive response there. So we know that from you know, we know this is tacitly, if not actively supported by the Israeli government, and we also know the official policy, which from the beginning was announced We're going to have a
complete siege. They then opened up the tiniest trickle. But you have extraordinarily dire circumstances which are being exacerbated by the day because you now have a complete cutoff effectively of aid, especially into the Southern Gaza Strip. Northern Gaza Strip is already under famine conditions. And just to emphasize what a dire circumstances is at this point, Ryan Graham are on Ryan Graham doing some fantastic reporting about put
this up on the screen. American doctors, about twenty of them, are trapped in a hospital in Gaza, in the Southern Gaza Strip and they are facing death by dehydration as the entire population clings to life. So let me read you a little bit of this report. This is from Ryan Grihm and Hind Kudari who is there in Gaza.
She's a Palestinian journalist. Upward of twenty American doctors are trapped in Gaza as a result of Israel's post invasion closure of the Raffa border crossing into Egypt, Israeli has blocked fuel, food, and water from entering Rafa for over a week, leading to severe dehydration among the general population as well as among the doctors on mission. Relatives of the doctors were told by the State Department rescue efforts were underway, including through coordination with the UN and the IDF.
Yet on Monday, the Israeli military fired on a UN vehicle that was traveling to that hospital in Conunis near Rafa, killing a UN employee and injuring another. So, just to underscore what's being said there, you've got twenty American doctors suffering from severe dehydration who are trapped at this hospital in Conunis. The UN is supposed to be helping them in coordination with the State Department. They send a rescue
mission vehicle, and the Israelis. It appears we know that a UN vehicle was targeted in UN aid work are killed by these reelies. It appears that was the vehicle that was headed to rescue these American doctors. Now keep in mind, you can only imagine if these are the conditions that American doctors in Gaza are suffering through. Imagine what ordinary Palestinians are suffering through living in a tent for monthson and having no resources available to them whatsoever.
It really underscores for you how dire the circumstances are for absolutely everyone involved. Ryan was able to attend the State Department briefing yesterday and ask the spokesperson there about this report and about what the State Department was going to do about these Americans who are trapped in the Gaza strip and with their lives online.
Let's take a listen to what they had to say.
Citizens, doctors who are at the European Hospital and comunists facing de hydration. At least one of them is on an IV drip. Now is our understanding is that relatives have been in touch with the State Department, usministrations or anything you can say about efforts to get them out, And was the UN vehicle that was on the way to the European hospital part of those efforts?
So let me start with the second part.
I'm not sure of the operational and logistical specifics of what was involved in those specific efforts or not, but I can say is that we're aware of these reports of US citizens, doctors, and medical professionals currently unable to leave Gaza. As I've said before, we don't control this border crossing, and this is an incredibly complex situation that has very serious implications for the safety and security of
US citizens. But we're continuing to work around the clock with the government of Israel, with the government of Egypt to work on this issue, not just to address the very serious humanitarian assistance concerns that I just talked about, but as you so pointed out and Matt have addressed before, RAFA is a conduit for the safe departure of foreign nationals, which is why we continue to want to see it get open as possible.
And what does it say about conditions more generally in rothen and in Conunis If American doctors only arrived there recently, are already suffering from the hydration and maltnutrition.
So look, we have not been unambiguous about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. It is a crisis.
So if you ever were under the illusion, if you were traveling abroad and you got into some sort of trouble, your government would move having an earth in order to rescue. You should disabuse yourself of that notion right now, because it depends very much on the politics of taking such an action. And so here you see this very bland,
non plus language from the State Department. And by the way, Sager Ryan posted an update that one of the doctors that is trapped there by israel siege is Adam Hamaway, an Army veteran who famously saved the life of Senator Tammy Duckworth after her helicopter crash in Iraq. So these are American doctors, one of whom you know, I think you can very much say an American hero. And this is the sort of non plus reaction you get from the State Department.
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean yeah, like you said, I mean, there used to be a time the whole the sun never sets on an American citizen whenever they're traveling abroad. I'll admit I used to think that too, whenever i'd travel BI go out. Fine, and some of the sketchier places. Not so sure about that one, especially now, kudos to Ryan for doing the report on that. Yeah, you also found this and I actually did some reading on this is very interesting. Let's put this please up on the screen.
This is from Haretz and it's an analysis. It says why Israel's generals are now openly briefing against Neta Yahu. They say Israel's military commanders should have confronted Neton Yaho about the lack of strategy for the Day after Hamas before entering Gaza in October. Now, they may be right to blame him for squandering their tactical gains, but they
should also shoulder some of the blame. And what's happening, Crystal is that there is a glowing acknowledgment from the military establishment, both in Israel and actually here in the US, that the Day After plan and the inability to even think about that before tactically going in was a total disaster.
One of the reasons that I know that the elite opinion is turning is it's kind of hard to explain, but back in the mid two thousands there was a big counter insurgency revolution in the military about strategy in Iraq.
It was led by David Petraeus famously and a bunch of other guys like John Nagel and a few other scholars who kind of took over US military strategy in Iraq, and it worked for a period of time until there's debates around it, but it did certainly work, at least in what they were trying to do in a very
narrow scope from two thousand and seven to twenty ten. Well, these people whose fundamental insight is that you have to separate terrorist population from the civilian population and at times even expand at that time US lives to protect the civilian population to create a more stable environment in place, was the insight that should have been brought by the Israelis into what was going on in Gaza. Well, Crystal, Now they are all being quoted in the Washington Post
being like, yeah, that was a mistake. They clearly haven't been, you know, making any of that effort. That's what they if you were going to do this from they begin. Of course, this is all very couch, but if you know enough to read between the lines, you can see that both in Israel and here we are beginning to set the stage for the blaming of what will eventually follow. We're now in the Iraq five years where it's like, oh,
things are starting to actually get bad. Turns out the mission wasn't accomplished a little bit of an insurgency popping off in Gaza city and communists, oh, we have about this little rafa thing dangling. As soon as all of that is resolved and we get to see the real not destruction, but the full probably either resuscitation or whatever the hell, you know, insurgency comes next inside of Gaza, we will be having this debate, so you know, you can mark your calendar. It'll be a year from now,
maybe six months from now. But the ground is being set by people in the know, and they're like, we got to throw these people onto the bus.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And obviously all of these people we're talking about here with the IDF top brass, Baby nine Yang, the entire war cabinet, like, these people are.
All extremely pro war.
They have zero qualms about the incredible level of devastation and civilian massacres that have occurred, you know, ever since the first bombs were dropped post October seventh in the Gaza strip. And so the significance of this, though, is that you can see these divides starting to emerge for these generals in coordinated fashion to brief to the media
against Bebe Net and Yahoo. That is a very stark domestic political situation that is worth taking note of now in terms of like thereands certainly aren't clean here in terms of a quote unquote day After plan either because they're the ones who came up with the plan of we're not going to.
Do targeted strikes, We're going to do this overall.
Mass campaign of annihilation, even knowing that there was no quote unquote Day After Plan.
Like they knew that from the beginning.
They were expressing concern about it from the beginning, and yet they still push this plan which was ultimately adopted of the total and complete annihilation. So you can't really sell they you know, it's all Bebe's fault, its etcetera. No, everyone was in this together. Everyone signed off on this plan, knowing that Bibi didn't want to actually say what his plans were for the Gaza strip because he wanted to
keep his hold on power. He didn't want to alienate either the you know, extreme right wing terrorist psychos that are in his government coalition or the quote unquote moderates that are in his coalition, none of whom were actually moderate, and so he wanted to keep it vague. And at this point, I mean, they're really scrambling the latest thing
you sent this, I think this morning. They're like trying to talk the Palestinian Authority into taking control of the Rafa crossing, but they don't want them to say it's the Palestinian Authority. They want them to do it like in disguise, which of course the PA is like, oh, why would we do that? BB had previously said he
didn't want to work with them. A Also, it's a complete obviously it's a cluster from a military perspective, they're having to go back into Gaza City, having to go back into Jibali, a refugee camp because of course, because of course, because the idea they were ever going to
completely decimate Hamas is preposterous. And now you have top administration officials we played for you, Tony Blinkin, but Jake Sullivan and let's see, there was another one who said the same thing in the past couple of days, like, no, you're not going to defeat Hamas, So what are we doing here? We're just destroying civilian life in the Gaza strip, which has been really quite apparent from the very beginning. So absolutely, you know, extraordinary divisions that are starting to emerge.
Blame game starting to emerge all amidst the backdrop of continuing deterioration and die your humanitarian circumstances as Israel has begun that invasion in Tarafa. That's right, all right, guys, wanted to share with you a little atrocity denial, fake news being perpetrated from Joe Scarborough over at MSNBC, among others. But he was one of the most high profile spreaders of this completely false nonsense.
Let's put this up on the.
Screen, so he claims here, UN has estimates of women and children killed in Gaza. Apparently the Hamas figures repeatedly cited are false. Now, if you were anywhere online yesterday in proximity of in Israel, no matter what type of person, you very likely heard a similar claim made. Let me show you what this was based on. Let's put this up on the screen so the UN change it changed
the way that they were reporting fatalities. You can see here on May sixth they have the overall number of Palestinians killed thirty four thousand, seven hundred and thirty five you can see on the right. Two days later, on May eighth, very similar number. It goes up a little bit thirty four thousand, eight hundred and forty four Palestinians killed, so total numbers thirty four thousand n climbing.
However, when you look below.
In the May sixth one they say more than ninety five hundred women and more than fourteen thousand, five hundred children. In the May eighth one they say these are the individuals who are identified, nine hundred and fifty nine women versus seven seven hundred and ninety seven children so identified. So the difference here is whereas previously there were assumptions made about how many were women how many were children
based on the overall numbers and some identifying information. The Ministry of Health in Gaza has since said that some roughly ten thousand of the individuals don't have complete identification information, so they're changing the way that they are reporting on these fatalities. The number of fatalities did not go down,
in fact, it went up. In fact, if you look at the bottom, you can see that in addition to these thirty four thousand, you also have more than ten thousand who are reported missing or under the rubble, which means they are also likely dead. But this was used to claim that the UN has now decided the hamas numbers were wrong and have the number of women and children killed not.
True at all.
In fact, you and spokesperson yesterday, in response to Joe Scarborough and many others spreading this fake news, decided to clarify just exactly what was going on here.
Let's take a listen to that.
Thanks Varhan. There's some reporting that's come out that says, quote, the UN has half halved the number.
Of casualties has It's a hard word to.
Say you know what I'm talking about, though, yes I do know. Cut in half, cut in half. Thank you. The casualties from Gaza, is that true?
It's it's not quite the case.
No.
What I can tell you is this the overall number of fatalities that's been tallied by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which is our counterpart on dealing with the death tolls. That number remains unchanged and it's at more than thirty five thousand people since the Since October seventh. What's changed is the Ministry of Health and Gaza has updated the breakdown of fatalities for whom full details have
been documented. So what they recently published was that they gave figures for twenty four thousand, six hundred and eighty six out of three hundred out of thirty four thousand, six hundred and twenty two overall fatalities recorded in Gaza, and those twenty four thousand, six hundred and eighty six people are the ones for whom full details have been documented, in other words, people who have been fully identified those.
Out of those, then, out of that.
Smaller number that subset of identified bodies, you have seven seven hundred and ninety seven children, four thousand, nine hundred and fifty nine women, nine hundred and twenty four elderly, and ten thousand and six men. And the Ministry of Health says that the documentation process of fully identifying details
of the casualties is ongoing. Meanwhile, as you can see if you do the math, that there's about another ten thousand plus bodies who still have to be fully identified, and so then the details of those, which of those are children, which of those are women, that will be
re established once the full identification process is complete. We are teams in Gaza are unable to identify, unindependently verify these figures given the situation on the ground and the continuing combat and the sheer number of fatalities, and so we cite the Ministry of Health as the source for our.
Figures, and do you have any reason to believe that the Ministry of Health numbers are incorrect based on the years that the UN has worked with the Ministry of Health for Kaza.
Unfortunately, we have the sad experience of coordinating with the Ministry of Health on casualty figures every few years for large mass casualty incidents in Gaza, and in past past times their figures have proven to be generally accurate.
So important there at the end too, because this has used a lot of like, oh, well, you're just going to trust us, and says, well, listen, first of all, we can't in this war zone, with Israel, by the way,
providing limited access, we can't independently verify. And second of all, based on historical record, actually the Ministry of Health has been quite accurate, and in fact, this change in the identification of the data is really an indication that they're being quite careful and trying to be very meticulous in the way that they record and identify these Palestinians who have been killed.
So, you know, the thing that's.
So gross, Sager is, first of all everybody was telling Joe Scart like this is just wrong, this is not true, and the tweet is still up.
There's no community known on it.
You know, the UE comes out and says, no, no, that's a lie, that's not what happens, it's not true. And yet you just know that this talking point is going to be used, even though it's thoroughly debunked everywhere, It's going to be used over and over and go over again. The same way that there's still Mike Johnson's still out there talking about people plural getting stabbed in the eye with a palasinating flagging though that never happened.
The way that you still have people who are out there talking about babies being baked in ovens even though that never happened, and baby's beheaded even though that never happened. Like it gets debunked, but it doesn't matter, because it still persists. The claims still persist, and it still gets weaponized to dismiss, to dehumanize, to undercut the severity of
what has been done in the Gaza strip. And it's just such a gross episode and so characteristic of the dishonesty that has been endemic to you know, the way that this confliction has.
Been trust you want to don't trust mass and don't trust is real. I don't need to trust all those people because I got two pairs of eyes. So whenever I watched the Battle of Mosul, we saw ISIS being like, they're killing civilians, they're massacring civilians. Independent sources. ISIS his own videos and the Iraqi videos all show the same thing. What Iraqi security forces engaging with isis ICIS and uses them as human shields, and that in the many cases
they went to extraordinary lengths coalition forces uprate the civilian population. Okay, that's all it took. It's like the numbers eventually came out just validated what we saw at the time. What do we see right now, Well, you got videos coming about bombing a refugee camp. You got the IDEF coming out and saying, well, we're doing to hit one persons, we killed one hundred and fifty rubble that's collapsing all
over the places. You got and this is actually again, all I need is you go into Gaza and to
communists into Gaza city. We're like, we're going to destroy all the terrorists, and then you leave and then there are a bunch of terrorists that are still left there, and including rocket attacks and insurgent attacks, and the idea of death toll people haven't taken notice OF's starting to take up there even with these limited operations in Rafa, which tells us what that you've got a maximum amount of defense and that all of your strategy and all
that hasn't been working. And so whatever the death toll is, whatever it is, it's not about the number. It's about the proportion, and it's about what lengths that you have gone to. We're going to talk with Arjun about this Lindsay Graham quote about why we should new Gaza. And there's a lot of talk always about resident and all those other things, and even today at are very controversial
about why they are. But what everybody forgets is that the extraordinary links that were gone to both for Japan and for Germany to avoid ever having to make that catastrophic choice about trying everybody's best, from the highest sessions of the US military to including strategic bombing and trying to knock out different areas in places to minimize civilian casualties.
And only when the Nazis and the Japanese Empire basically made it a choice of complete unconditional surrender and actually ramping up their defense and making surrender and victory as difficult as possible. Did they resort to the mass civilian casualty strategies of Drusien of Hiroshima and of the fire bombing campaign onto Tokyo, and those were peer competitive enemies. Israel basically just came out the gate without ever trying
any of those steps. And what I would say is it because of the power and balance of that enemy they did not try and even do what the US did in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which it's not even about morals, strategically and militarily backfired and is not working. You can see right now it's very clear.
I mean, it's just it's just disgraceful. And yeah, to your point also, I mean, there's a reason why after World War Two the world community came together and said we got to have some rules to protect civilians, because this is you know, what we just saw unfold is outrageous. It's unacceptable, and that's what we're seeing right now. It's clearly outrageous. It's clearly unacceptable. And so if you're seeing those things on their face. It's very difficult to defend.
It's very difficult to deny the obvious horrors that are.
Being done in our name with our dollars.
And so that's why they pick up these lies and they run with them because the truth, the truth doesn't work for them anymore. It's nothing even approximating the truth works for them anymore. So, you know, I hope, but I don't really have any aspiration expectations of this. I hope this is a mark of shame against Joe Scarborough and other people who shamelessly spread this lie forever. This is a very problem that we played for Reied Zakaria earlier,
one of Biden's favorite angers. This is Biden's other favorite anchor who is spreading this abject lie that you have thousands of people telling him this is a lie, This is not true. The un itself comes out and says, this is a lie, this is not true. And you know, soccer, the reality is given the level of devastation, given what we've seen, given the humanitarian situation, given the lack of sanitation,
the starvation, the dehydration. American doctors who are on the brink of death right now because they don't have clean water to drink.
Given what we know about that.
I don't think that there's any way that these numbers even accurately reflect the full death toll caused by this war, because you know, how how could they how could they possibly know all of the individuals who have perished as a result of direct Israeli strikes and of the Israel Israeli siege policy. And we may never know, it may take years for us to have a more complete toll.
But to try to lie and pretend like, oh, actually, you know these have been halved based on the changing and the reporting of some data is.
So it's just so disgusting. It's just so utterly repulsive.
All right, Well, we've got a good guest standing by Argent saying of lever Time podcast. We're going to discuss further. Let's get to it.
So, our partners at Lever News have re upped, new and improved their podcast, which is called lever Time. We're really excited to be joined this morning by that podcast producer, Arjine saying, who is the Lever's senior podcast producer and has a fantastic new episode that I really recommend you guys check out going inside the Biden Administration's internal discussions and policy viz a Vi Israel Arghene.
Welcome, great to have.
You, Good to see you man.
Thanks for you guys.
So before I get into this podcast, I just want to sing your praises.
You know.
I've told this to David. I've been talking to Sager. You're doing such an excellent job in terms of the quality of these podcasts. I've enjoyed all of them. I'm a big fan. So let's go ahead. Why don't you break down for us this particular episode and some of the things you learned about who's most influential behind the scenes in terms of Israel's quote unquote bear head hug of net Nyahu.
Yeah, absolutely so. In this episode, we began by looking a little bit at why Israel means so much to the United States, and in particular to President Biden, who has long considered himself one of Israel's strongest allies in
the US government. Inside of the White House. During What's Happening Right Now, though, I spoke with Akbar Shahida Hmed, the Huffington Post diplomacy reporter, and he illuminated me to the fact that there are really three people inside of this administration who have consolidated power and taken control of Israel policy, and that is his Secretary of State Tony Blincoln, national Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. But most importantly is someone
who many people have never heard of. He's a gentleman named Brett McGirk. He's an advisor to President Biden. He's been a staffer for his entire career. He has gone between the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration now to Biden, and he is the one who has really pushed Biden to take up things that people who have observed Biden were surprised at, such as a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, which would involve a mutual defense
pact including sharing civilian nuclear technology. Brett mcgirk's career, though, really started during the Iraq War, when he was tasked with more or less the Bush administration schoal of rebuilding Iraq, and I would say that was really not a successful, beneficial or humane policy. Yet he has continued through government government as a staffer, and being a staffer, he rarely
gives interviews. He fits kind of behind the scenes, and I think that is something that has alarmed State Department officials. People inside of the diplomatic community say that they've been felt locked out. And Okbard told me a lot of that has to do with Brett McGirk, who really seems to have idea of ego and kind of his own desires that he's pushed Biden on on these issues.
Yeah, I know brekfas McGurk. Actually I don't know in personally. I've covered him for many years for you know, like you said, for Iraq Syria, he was at the heart of that. Famously resigned from the Trump administration, but come back he's kind of the pre eminent. It's almost like a World War two esque type figure, like the bipartisan foreign policy connoisseur. But you're very correct to point that out.
So one of the things that we wanted to get your reaction to was not only the kind of evolution of the pro Isra policy inside of the Biden administration, but also of broader Washington, where there does seem to be a complete coside really of Israeli military strategy, perhaps best exemplified by Senator Lindsey Graham. You can see both the emotion and the support here he has and clearly, you know, obviously there's at least a taste of this
inside the Bide administration as well. In a recent interview, he suggested that there should be nukes employed against Gaza by the Israelis. Let's take a listen to what he said.
Can I say this, why is it okay for America to not to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war?
Why was it okay for us to do that? I thought it was okay to Israel do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Senor again, military officials say, ever you have to. She has changed. But let me ask you about how.
These military officials that you're talking.
About, let me ask you something or crap. So what'd you make of that?
The shuffling on the papers emphasize at that point. But I mean that I think, as you said, Sarger, that underscores how emotional this issue is. And also that someone the Lindsay Graham feels completely comfortable to say that as a sitting senator. I mean, that's a pretty ridiculous comparison. On the one hand, World War two was a completely
different issue than Israel and Gaza. The machinations that had to go into World War Two, where largely are surrounding will one of the worst wars in human history continue, you know, and I'm not justifying what they did in World War Two, but to use that as an example to justify completely one sided war. I mean, Israel is clearly on the dominant side of this war. Over thirty
five thousand Palestinian civilians have died. The numbers are nowhere near in comparison, even taking into what happened on October seventh. So I think for Lindsay Graham to say that we should just go in and drop a nuclear bomb, it shows how comfortable the bipartisan consensus is that you can make such an extreme statement. If Lindsay Graham had said we should drop a nuclear bomb in a rock or Afghanistan, I do wonder would that have gotten the same level
of acceptance. I mean that clip that you just showed, I didn't see that registered in New York Times Washington Post. If Lindsay Graham had said, Hey, we should just go and drop a giant in nuk on, North Korea, I imagine that's something that you would see the mainstream media absolutely jumping on top of But it does seem like that kind of a comment, is hey, part of the course from Washington, even if it sounds absurd.
I mean, he's not even the first member of Congress to suggest such a thing like that's what's so crazy is or you know, a member of official in Israel they've also, some of them have suggested nuking Gaza, and it just sort of goes by as a blip. Meanwhile, I saw pictures this morning of college student protesters who are being charged with felonies under some like nineteen fifties era rule against masking that was put in place to
combat the KKKA. They're being charged with felonies for protesting and you know, rally chants that people don't like, and you've got a sitting senator who had actual power suggesting you nuke the gods of Strip and it's it's barely a blip.
You barely hear about it.
Yes, someone who's considered a statesman by people his own.
Right, great point. That's such a great point.
You know.
I wanted to ask you about another development in terms of the Biden administration and their policy, which is, while you have, and Biden has always operated this way where he has a very small group of advisors and they're basically the only ones that count, and every any newcomers, anyone from the outside's very difficult to break through. I mean, he's been in Washington for what freaking fifty years and
very locked into his ways. Not to mention, it seems like he personally has a deep ideological commitment to the Israeli cause, grounded on you know, a visit he had with Gold in my Ear in the seventies or whatever. But it's not uniform across the Biden administration. There are some individuals who, especially in positions in the State Department, who really do dissent from this jur and that's been
manifested in a number of ways. You've had some of these, like anonymous letters of Biden staffers or Kamala Harris staffers will say we're very upset about this, but very anonymous. You've had a few different resignations, and this is the latest one, which I think is quite extraordinary and quite powerful. We can put this up on the screen. The letter that was written. This was from sorry, just pause this
for a second. This is from US Army major Harrison Man, and part of what he said is that he felt so alone going about business his business. He was disturbed by the footage from Gaza. But he talks about how he had, you know, all of this sort of rationalizations of well, if it wasn't me, someone else would be doing this job, and my work here doesn't really matter that much anyway. But he says, I now realize the obvious. If I was afraid to voice my concerns, you were too.
I've always known what kind of people you are, and I should have had more faith in this team. So I am deliberate not sending this to the entire agency. I'm writing to people I know who might value hearing the reasons I chose to walk away. He also talks about how, as someone who is Jewish and was raised Jewish, how this moral imperative of never again and the inadequacy of just following orders was really impressed upon him from a young age, and so because of those moral conscious reasons,
he resigned from the Biden administration. You know, do you have a first of all, just react to this letter in this resignation, and do you have a sense of how widespread this dissent from the Biden administration. Top line policy is among sort of rank and file individuals such as this.
Yeah, I think what's really remarkable about this letter, and even thinking about Aaron Bushnell, who you know, did the self immolation in front of the Israeli embassy. These are not people who come from the traditional anti war constituencies. These are not activists. These are people who signed up for the US military, many of them in the wake of what we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you know, they had convictions that they believed in what the military
was doing, they believed in the United States government. And it says something to me that what they saw in Gaza, what they saw as a lack of ability to dissent, which inside of government usually you have traditional dissent channels. They didn't feel that they were able to properly dissent to the point that they went back on what they believed in and they decided to resign. In Aaron's case, very sadly, he committed a self immolation. And I've heard
that from State Department officials too. I spoke with one State Department official in January. He had worked on a RACK policy. He had worked on Ukraine policy. This is not someone who had an issue necessarily with the fact that the United States arms different nations. He said that in arms transfer as you start the goal of how how do you not do harm? But with how do you do harm reduction? He didn't necessarily debate the idea
that you would be sending weapons. But what he saw happening with Israel was this rapid acceleration of getting weapons over there, the complete squashing of descent. And he told me that he felt the debate was stifled and that similarly to Man, he was not able to adequately speak out against these things. And these are the people who are going public. But when I spoke with that official in January, he said there were many many more people
who privately said I completely agree with you. And when I spoke with Uckbart, he said something similarly to me. And so I do think that this is a very widespread problem within the State Department, especially for people who feel that in areas they've traditionally been able to provide descent. In this policy, there are communications and there are directives
coming down from the top. The State Department officials said it was coming from White House, in top level State Department, Blincoln Sullivan McGirk, and they were not able to push back on this. They weren't even able to debate the righteousness of this policy, much less the speed of which things were happening. So I do think that what we're
seeing is very remarkable within the United States government. For government officials, it takes a lot to resign, particularly in the case of the person we saw a couple of weeks ago, eighteen years at the State Department, Josh Paul, more than a decade at the State Department. These people built entire careers and they left, And that is just absolutely astounding to me in the way this administration is carrying this out.
Arjenne, what's your sense of whether there is a realization that the quote unquote bear Hug strategy has utterly and completely failed, And what's your sense of whether there is an actual policy shift going on right now with the Biden administration versus a rhetorical one. Of course, I'm referring to the fact that he said, listen, if they do a quote unquote major invasion of RAFA, we're going to
cut off some weapons shipments. But they have so are deemed what is the invasion that has already happened in Rava doesn't cross that red line for whatever reason. So it really does leave it open to interpretation whether this is an actual shift or whether it's an attempt to sort of pacify a left and young cohort in the party that is outraged over the atrocities that they see being committed.
Yeah, I think in terms of this being a successful policy, it's not been a successful policy, and it is something that for Biden has politically failed for him, he has given a lot of his administration's re election chances to as you said, bear hugging Benjamin Netanyahu. Net Yahoo is quickly becoming isolated on the world stage, Akamar told me. Foreign allies are consistently saying to Tony blink In, the Secretary of State, why are you doing this? Why are
you allowing this to continue? You have control over the situation. And there is a moment that I saw where India's Foreign minister actually said during a speech that he felt that the Palestinians had been denied sovereign for a homeland, and India under Mody had been and has been one of the strongest allies of Netanyahu. Mody and net Yaho
are very close with each other. And that's again another remarkable statement to show that even a very strong ally who believes in this idea of what Israel is trying to do create this religious dominant state, they feel the need to have to speak out and tell their allies in their region that, look, we don't agree necessarily with all of these full objectives. As far as is this something that is really a change, I'm skeptical of that, to be honest, Crystal, this is a pause on a
certain package of bombs. It feels a little bit mealy mouthed. And you know, I haven't seen Biden give a really forceful statement. He's given very taciturn comments saying I told them that if they went into Rafa, we would not provide these weapons. We've told them, We've told them. There's leaks to you know. Peter Baker the New York Times that he had a tough conversation with net Nyahu. He privately told I'm considering changing my mind. Yeah, that is
not a strong change of heart to me. I think a real change of heart would be a reconsideration of the historic policy of arming Israel, and also a reconsideration of whether the United States should be supporting Israel in no matter what kind of policy. That I have not seen a change of heart. And Josh Paul, who was one of the first people to resign from the State Department, he said something similar. He said it was a good sign, but it doesn't portend a long term shift.
Yeah.
I think that's all very well, said Arjine. Great to talk to you. Congrats again, guys. I can't recommend lever Time enough. It really is an excellent product. You'll learn a lot from it, and you guys have tackled a lot of really important and interesting topics, including airlines which lever News had a big hand in forcing some changes through, including the oil price fixing, which we covered here as
well with Matt Stoler. So definitely check out the podcast guys, and great to meet you arjin Man.
Great to meet you guys.
Thank you, it's our pleasure all right. Thank you so much for watching the Counterpoints. Have a great show for everybody tomorrow and we will see you all later.