From the voices on the trail to the voices in town. We're your elects, your headquarters, fifty five KARC, the talk station at six here, fifty five KRCD talk station. Happy Tuesday, love my Tuesdays. Here in the fifty five ARC Morning Show. For no other reason. Two segments one right now, the Breitbart Inside Scoop and we'll get the Daniel Davis deep Dive at the bottom of the air. In the meantime, though, I'm happy to welcome back to the fifty five KRC Morning Show. Bright bartb r e I t b Art
dot com. Book Market International Editor Francis Martel. Good you have you back on.
Francis, thanks so much for having me.
All right, let's try to make some sense out of
what's going on in the Middle East. Beginning with something that I thought I wanted to laugh, but it scared me at the same time, just recognizing the realities of the technology that exists today, but the idea that we were going to assume because our presum because they haven't taken responsibility for it, but that Israel somehow managed to get pagers and then also walkie talkies into the hands of members of Hezbala and then on two separate occasions
simultaneously blew them up, killing a multitude of people and injuring thousands, most notably members of Hezbala. How does any I'm pulling that off is just genius? And then my expectation was, well, once they do that, given that hisball will be back knocked back on their heels or severely damaged. From a hierarchy standpoint, that Israel would go in with an offensive and try to get those terrorists out of the area. So that seems to be the way it unfolded.
But your reaction initially to the explosive devices.
Well definitely shocked. I mean, I think like every American, you know, my first reaction was pagers were what years is this?
I know as you dive.
Deeper into it, there is evidence that several months ago, after the October seventh attacks by Hamas, the leadership in Hasbala told their officials get rid of your cell phone, get rid of anything smart. We're going to go back
to beepers because we don't want our communications intercepted. And then they made this large order of beepers from what they thought was this Taiwanese company which is one of the few companies in the world that still makes pagers, And it turns out that that shipment was outsourced to a very mysterious Bulgarian supplier. And so the Taiwanese company whose brand name is on the exploding pagers said, we didn't make these. We just had a supplier come up to us and say we want to pay you to
use your branding to make pagers. And so now the question is what is this company? I think it was, I'm sorry, not Bulgarian, Hungarian from Budapest. Who are these people? How did they get this shipment? How did they come into contact with Hezbala? And the walkie talkies are very
similar situations. The walkie talk that exploded the next day after the pagers had a brand name of this company Icon, which is based in Japan, and when the company was approached after the attacks, they basically said, this particular model of walkie talkie, we haven't made this in a decade. We did not make these unless they were very old models.
But you can get cheap knockoffs on Chinese websites. Still a lot of Chinese manufacturers, who obviously have no respect for copyright, just make this walkie talkie that we don't make anymore, and we still don't know where the has. A lot of people bought the walkie talkies. And then there's a whole other group of electronics that exploded that
raised all sorts of questions. There were solar panels that detonated, laptop, cell phone, There was a store like a text store full of computers and cell phones and all that that exploded, and so we don't totally know for sure which of the devices in there exploded. So there are a lot of unanswered questions, a.
Lot in The biggest elephant in the room for me in terms of questions is how did they manage to just get him in the hands of heads BALA members and not just the general public. This wasn't like HESBALA all walked into their version of the Best Buy or collectively you know, went onto Amazon. I mean, this was this is a sort of a private order place that ultimately inseircuitously worked itself through somebody who put bombs in these phones, But it was an order for his Bala.
Do they have their own account? You know what I'm saying.
Yeah, well, it seems like someone has balla called the Budapest pager company and said, we want a mass shipment of you know, thousands of pagers. Can you do that a bulk shipment? And they said yes. And so the question is where where did hes Bola end up contacting this company, Why did they choose this company? And what who is that company?
You know?
And there's a lot of speculation that that was an Israeli you know as intelligence surration, a big company. Yeah, but you know, Israel has not confirmed or denied they had any involvement in this. There's no no one has taken responsibility. But there are very few actors on the world stage that have that kind of intelligence ability and insultration ability to pull something like this off. So if it wasn't Israel, it's a very short list of potential people who did this.
True. Now the justification, of course obviously the ongoing conflict. Their terrorist organization internationally labeled as such, they run that particular area of the world. It's obviously on Israel's northern border. And since israel I guess has got pretty far along in its eradication of the Hamas terrasts in Gaza, they have now turned their attention to Hisbala. That's the order of things presently as you see them Francis.
Yes, and it's not just that they're going terror group by terror groups trying to eliminate them all. There is a massive crisis in northern Israel, where there's about.
Sixty thousand, sixty thousand, five hundred people who have been displaced from northern Israel. The Israeli government cannot guarantee their security on Israeli land because hes Bola has been bombing that territory for months and months.
So it's not just about getting rid of all of Iran's proxies, which Hamas is hes Bala is. It's about the fact that there are tens of thousands of Israelis who cannot return home in addition to obviously the hostages, and so they have to prioritize, you know, who are who are they keeping safe and the rest of the country.
You know, there's obviously a lot of concern with the Hoozies and Iraqi Iranian proxies that they are shooting missiles Israel's way, but there's a much more imminent danger in northern Israel, where the government does not control the land anymore. Has Bala controls that land, and that's a huge problem.
It certainly is in land that was previously held by Israel too, if I recall my history.
Correctly, Yes, that's Israeli territory. Those sixty thousand people are Israelis and they simply cannot live there because has Bola had taken it over.
Oh yeah, yeah, I was thinking eleven on generally because you know, at some points in global history, I mean Israel, if you look back to what the sixty eight war, I mean, they took over Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, they had the goal on heights, I mean everything. It looked like it was quadruple the size Israel was prior to the war erupting, if I remember my wars correctly. But in any event, we're still talking about Israel's border against
obviously a terrorist controlled sections of land. Now, I guess this is Iran's proxy war, right, I mean, this is Iran funded. The missiles are coming from Iran and they're going I presume Iran has directed these activities or is it your perception, Francis that these terrorist organizations are on their own and operating on their own decision making.
They are absolutely not operating on their own. This is absolutely an Iranian proxy war. And the reason they're relying so heavily on these proxies is that the Iranian military is not very strong right now. And a big part of that was that President Trump a sanctioned Iran very heavily and it's oil industry. And number two, he took out Cassam Soleimani, who was basically the foreign terrorism chief of the Iranian government. He reconducted an airstrike killed him
in Baghdad. And now you've put off that head. They didn't have anyone with the same amount of diplomatic and military talent to coordinate the kinds of terror attacks that they want to coordinate. So now they have to rely on Housi leadership, They have to rely on Hazbaba, they have to rely on the popular mobilization forces in Iraq, which are now calling themselves the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and they have to rely on Hamath and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
These are all groups that get Iranian money. These are all groups whose leadership travels to Tehran regularly to meet with Ayatola Komani and with the President. So Iran is very clearly involved here, and I don't think that these groups are active in a rogue way, because if they do something that just squeezes Iron, then the money gets cut off and they can't operate at all.
Well, I suppose then without dealing with Iran, we're I guess, I don't know. Iranians are constantly commenting. I saw the statement from Masud Peziski, and I guess he's one of their. He was at the United Nations General Assembly meeting. He was there to speak. He he is speaking. I mean, he acknowledges this is basically their proxy war. You know, we do not wish to be the cause of instability in the Middle East, as his consequences would be irreversible.
We the Iranians, and so it's almost as if he is substituting himself for the Huthis and the Hamas members and Hebala admitting that it is Iran behind all of this, and I guess his his ultimate goal is, well, it must be the eradication of Israel, because but for them and their policies relative to Israel, then none of this would be happening. I mean, this is what's so frustrating to me. So, if we're not dealing directly with the Iranians. Israel's free to go after the people who are directly
attacking its people, the terrorist organizations. I give you October seventh, that's them going after them. But there will always be, and I think forever, an unlimited number of people who hate Israel. It's baked into the equation generation after generation. They just need someone to fund it so they can organize their terrorist organizations or their guerrilla warfare and continue to go after Israel. This is not going to stop unless Iran is dealt with. Unless I've seen something wrong.
No, that is absolutely true. The only thing I would add to this is that the other source of seemingly unlimited jihanis that are willing to kill to eliminate Israel is the UN, the UN Release and Works Aid Agency for Palestinians that operates in Gaza. We know that they have schools where they teach children to hate Jews, to hate Israel, that martyrdom quote unquote is a good thing, And so there is a UN agency that's also banking
and expanding this genocidal hatred. So getting rid of Iran would get rid of the vast majority of the problem, and by that, by the way. I don't mean, you know, bomb or regime change, just cutting off the financial backing from Iran.
Which Trump did his administration with great with great effect. I mean, Trump sanctioned the hell out of the Iranians and it seemed to work to a.
Large degree, exactly. And that was kind of the brilliance of the Trump administration is that previous Republican administrations would be a problem like this and solve it with bomb, and Trump would always go to the money. Trump would be very quick to sanction people. The anecdote I always bring up is when the Turkish government arrested Pastor Andrew Brunson. He was arrested on charges of proselatizing Christianity and insulting the president or something. It was not even clear what
they arrested him for. Trump sanctioned Turkey to such an extent a NATO ally that he basically tanked the Turkish economy, and one day and in something like a week, they freed Pastor Bunton and then problem solved. So that's that's the kind of diplomacy that Trump brought to the table. That didn't necessarily you know, he didn't bomb Istanbul. He just didn't buy their goods anymore. And with Iran it was a very similar attitude of well, they have this
oil industry that supports everything. And he also sanctioned the other arms of Iranian financing, specifically Venezuela. Iran refines oil in Venezuela. Iran and Hezbala have very close relations with drug traffickers in South America, and Trump sanctioned everybody there. He cut off the money to everybody there, and that's
money that didn't go to Iran. In contrast, the Democrats gave Iran pallets of cash, and suddenly we have, you know, the popular mobilization forces in Iraq, which did not exist before Obama.
And they're that much closer to getting a bomb. So Francis Martel, you can see her tonight. She is going to be appearing in Empower You seminar beginning at seven pm. Empower Youamerica dot org. This is a virtual class only she's not flying into town to be a two twenty five Northern Boulevards. So empower you America dot org. Subject matter, how might US foreign policy toward Iran change in twenty
twenty five? I guess that assumes that there's a change in administration, and it doesn't go with the Harris administration, Francis, because I think we're going to get a whole lot more of the same thing if we don't elect Trump.
Absolutely, and you know, we're going to talk about both. You know what happens. What are the policies on the
table for Trump and for Harris. And we're going to talk about iron kind of in a much bigger picture way, not just what is Iran's relationship to its allies in the Middle East, but how does Iran leverage alliances in places like South America, its alliances with North Korea, It's membership in bricks, how does it use this global network to empower itself Because a lot of mainstream media refers to Iran as kind of this rogue state that's just out there on its own trying to do its thing,
and it's not. It is part of a deep and wealthy, global anti American network. So that we're going to dive deep into that. I'm really excited to work with the empower you folks. They do great work and yeah, hopefully it's going to be a good time.
I'm certain it is and very informative. Marcel. It's always a pleasure having in the program. And I might note that the Biden Harris foreign policy has led that rogue, independent, isolated state Iran into the hands and arms of the Chinese, as well as the North Koreans and the everybody else who has an interest against the United States. It's one of those the enemy of my enemy is my friend things and other global leaders look at it the same way. Marcel.
We look forward to seeing you tonight at power you America dot org.
Log in.
It's a virtual thing. Just register before seven pm. It's easy to do at a power Youoamerica dot org. Have a wonderful day of good luck with the speech tonight or the discussion tonight. Francis, thanks for being on the program.
Thanks so much for having me on.
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