It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm w Bzy Boston's new radio.
All right, we're getting to back to a more serious topic. Obviously, the Raffie Devers being traded to the San Francisco Giants from for baseball fans is a serious topic, but nothing is as important what is going on in the Middle East tonight. Israel and Iran are at war. We're delighted to be joined again by the Israeli Console General to New England, Benny Scharone, mister Consul General, welcome back to
Night's side. I'm sure you know a lot more about what's going on in in the Middle East tonight than any of us. What is the latest at this point? Obviously it's getting close to dawn over there. It's about a seven hour time difference, if I'm not mistaken. Good evening, sir, How are you tonight?
Good evening? Then good evening to the old It's always a pleasure to be at night Side, and I'm always appreciative of the opportunity to have that time to chat with you and with the audience. So I thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. So Israeli is a war, another war with military operation with Iran over the last couple of days. And this is this is extremely important because Israel is working in order to remove a double existential frat, to remove the nuclear thrat and to remove
the bablistic missile thrat that Iran imposts on Israel. And we have been doing that and we are successful. I think I can tell you this is quite clear that they are losing. Iran is not winning this war because we had significant military gains over the last couple of days. We had the ability to take off serious problematic enrichment nuclear Richmond's facilities and research and development nuclear facilities in Iran.
We had the success of taking out some of the nuclear program leadership in Iran and also some of the military leadership of Iran. And this is important because it allows a good opportunity not just for Israel, but for the greater Middle East.
So you've been successful, but Iran has decided to change their tactics and hit your population centers with deadly fire. That is very different from what Iran has done in previous attacks. Am I am I correct on that.
Oh, You're absolutely correct. You know, as we speak, I have you know, our family is back at home. My mother is now in a shelter, my mother in law, my brother, my sister in law, and I'm not unique. You know, most of the is raerely spending most of their nights in shelters over the last couple of days because Iran decided that they are want to deliberately attack Israeli civilian israel civilian centers, and we have witnessing, you know, we saw them doing that over the last couple of days.
They are doing that mainly through the nights, spending barrage of ballistic missiles with huge payloads, with extremely heavy loaded with explosives, and that creates a lot of damage. But I want to be one hundred percent clear, they are deliberately deliberately targeting civilian population. I'm saying that because when we are working and fighting in Iran, which we have been doing over the last couple of years, it is very clear the Iranian population is not, I repeat, is
not our target. We are working in order to remove the excidential threat to Israel from your own and we are targeting the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile shot.
In the position of your government, how long do you feel or does your government feel this exchange daily nightly exchange of missiles can continue.
So honestly, then I don't know. I don't know to say how long it will take, but I can tell you that we are determined to take advantage of that opportunity and make sure that we are not ending up that round of escalation with Iran. While they can maintain the nuclear thread, the nuclear capability, this is just not going to happen. Iran must never have nuclear weapons, Huran can't never have ran hum enrichment capabilities. And this is a little opportunity to make sure that this is the case.
You know, I've been a diplomat for twenty twenty one years and I've been dealing with Irun related issues on and off for the vast majority of my career. Iran has a track record of twenty thirty years of delaying tactics, engaging in negotiations, diplomating negotiations mainly in order to buy some more time, while at the same time continue to develop and promote its military preparedness. It's you building, it's
it's nuclear facilities, nuclear uranium enrichment. Making progress in the processes needs that are pretty much needed in order to take the enriched uranium and turn this into a weapon. So Iran have been doing that for twenty thirty years now, and it came to a point that you know, we just cannot see the decide seeing how they're advancing those capabilities.
So we all determined to do whatever it takes in order to move ahead and make sure that we are completely removing that double existential fat from the knack of the state of Israel.
Just a couple more questions, and one is this, This is not the first time that Israel and Iran have exchanged fire. Iran did this a year ago. They they all of a sudden attacked Israel fire the first shots. Here is the weaponry that Iran is using today and the ordinance that they're using today, is it similar to
what they used a year ago? Or have they improved either their delivery system or the the lethality the amount of power that the rockets that are falling on Israel this week from a little over a year ago, a little less than a year ago.
That is true. So we see it is true that we had more than once already Iranian attacks coming from Iran, you know, with ballistic misles, and that Israel. What we're witnessing now is more missiles coming at single point in time, and we are seeing much stronger missiles at least some of them, comparing to what we've seen in previous rounds of escalation. And this is another demonstration of how advanced is the Iranian ballistic missile arsenal and the ballistic missile program.
Now we have very good, very old defense system, which you know, if they are in a barrage, they are fifty or one hundred ballistic missiles and we end up with only three or four of them penetrating and hitting Israel. This is, this is, this is remarkable, right, but the damage created that even one of them is extremely lethal and problematic. But we can only imagine what have been
the situation without Israel's areal defense system. You just can you know, imagine the magnitude of the damage created when ten twenty fifty ballistic missiles with massive payloads are landing in the small states in Israel. This is, this is not a threat that we can allow ourselves to live with.
Last last question, and that is that I know that Prime Minister Netanyahu was interviewed on ABC News tonight Jonathan Carl, I don't know if you had a chance to watch that interview. But in view of the change in strategy that Iran has now employed, whereby they're willing to strike densely dense pocket relation centers, not military targets, which which Iran has has not done in the past, does that change the strategy of Israel? Does this put leadership in
Iran perhaps in the crosshairs? I know that the Prime Minister was asked that question tonight, and I don't think that you can be probably any more specific, but I assume that if that the calculus of how Israel is going to respond has to somehow change once civilian populations dense civilian populations are being hit outside of major cities.
So I said the following, then, you know, we obviously are well prepared for this military confrontation, and we've been working for years and preparing the capability. Is that the Iranian witness since last Thursday. This is not just you know, something that we came up with the very last movement, and this is well, you know, generations of Israeli leadership. I've thought a lot about the objectives and the aims and the means of this operation, and we will continue
to do that. We will continue to pursue our objectives. And again it goes back to eliminating that double existential threat from from Israel. I always say also that the Iranian people are not our enemies. We are not working in order to fight against the Iranian people by all means. Know, our problem is with Iran's leadership and Iran's nuclear and ballistic missals ambitions, and the fact that they are building
capabilities which aims at destroying the state of Israel. And you don't have to take my word and that because they have been actively and openly advocating for the destruction of Israel.
You know, yeah, there's no question about that.
We we can't. We just can't allow the world's most problematic regime get hold of the world's most deadly weapons. This is this is that can't happen.
I appreciate your your honesty and uh and of course you have I think the full support of my night side audience. They understand what is at stake here. I know Israel will UH continue this fight however long it takes. But is there a sense as to how quickly this might be resolved or is this something that you think could go on for weeks or longer.
I think when currently we are all focused on finding this military campaign and making sure that we are continue to do that. We are continuing doing whatever needs to be done in order to remove that double existential shred. This is the focus of the Israeli leadership. This is the focus of the Israeli military campaign, and we are determined to do that, and we will keep on doing that.
And i'm i'm I'm optimistic. If to judge on what we've been witnessing, I can tell you they are not winning this campaign.
Ron is not winning this campaign.
I I.
Your words to God's ears, mister, mister Godsil General Benny, Benny Shy, thank you so much for your time tonight, and know that our thoughts impressed are with you and the entire population of Israel.
Thank you, Dan, thank you night side and the audience. And I'd like to wish you and America, our dear friends here in America, quiet and safe night.
Thank you, thank you so much, and may your nights be and your people's nights become quieter and safer in the not too distant future. Thanks again, Benny, I appreciate your time tonight. We'll talk again. Take quick break here when I come back. I want to talk about a couple of incidents this weekend which talk about hated America and how there must be there must be a denouncement
of these sorts of activities across the political spectrum. Talking about a simple brick being thrown through the window of a Jewish store, a grocery store in Brookline, and talking about the actions of a madman in Minnesota killing political leaders and hunting down leaders. This and I want to hear I want to hear condemnation across the board. I'll explain what I mean right after the break.
Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Probably got a few minutes to the bottom of the hour. Hand I just want to talk about two unrelated, but I think related events. Seemingly unrelated, but I think related events. There was a ugly event that occurred on Harvard Street and Brookline over the weekend when some hate manger decided to throw a brick through the window of a grocery store called the Butchery. It's a kosher store on at
four to twenty eight Harvard Street. This brick, which had a writing on it that said free Palestine, was thrown through the market early morning, as I understand it, and I saw the story of the news yesterday, and I thought to myself, this is Brookline, Massachusetts, Okay, when this
is happening. And so this is some individual who had the audacity to basically walk down Harvard Street and throw a brick through the window of a Jewish owned grocery store which serves the community in Brookline, When at the same time this weekend, we had some madman in Minnesota decide that he would take it upon himself to dress in a police uniform and attempt to kill two political
leaders in that state and their spouses. He was able to take the life of a woman or state representative and her husband, and he wound a state senator and his wife. He's been captured, thankfully, but he had a list of like forty five people who were on maybe what was described as a hit list. And what is happening now when you see this spate of political actions.
Assassinations of the young couple who worked at the Jewish Embassy in Washington, d C. Cut down literally after they walked out of an event at the Jewish Museum in downtown Washington, DC. When you go back and you think about the crazed individual who set the home of the Pennsylvania governor on fire while his family. He and his
family slept in an upstairs upstairs bedrooms. And thank God that that fire was detected and put out, or we would have had the governors, the official residents of the governor, they call it a governor's mansion, look like a very nice house in Pennsylvania and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. So you have all of these incidents, not to mention the older group of Jewish people in Boulder, Colorado, a couple of weeks ago, who some madman decided that he would attack them with
Molotov cocktails. So what I want to see if I can get some of you tonight to join me. Oftentimes, what happens is when a Democratic politician is set upon the criticism of this attack, whether it's on States Congresswoman Gabby Giffords whose career was shot cut short. She was shot in Arizona several years ago, but now it's getting close to fifteen years ago, if I'm not mistaken. You have the group of people members of the Republican softball team who were attacked by a guy in Washington, DC
in a softball team practice. Steve Scalise, who was the number three person actually I think might actually be the number two persons in the house now suffered some life threatening wounds. What happens is there tends to be outrage on the side of the political spectrum that is attacked understandably, but a muted criticism or a muted comments from the other side, and it goes both ways. It goes both ways.
When President when President Trump suffered a near death in Butler, Pennsylvania, initially there were some Democrats who kind of laughed about, well, it wasn't hit, he was hit. He was hit, and if the bullet had been two inches closer, his campaign
would have been over that day. In about Pennsylvania, the bottom line is that we have engaged in tribalism in this country, where everybody on our side is right, everybody on the other side is wrong, and if something really bad happens to someone on the other side, we might say the right thing and whatever, but really not all that outraged. Now, this guy in Minnesota was some sort
of a right wing whack a doodle. He should be criticized by everybody across the political spectrum, and the same way that this fool who threw the rock through the brick, through the Brookline grocery store, the Jewish grocery store, he should be he should be criticized by everyone everyone. I want to hear groups like CARE, the Council on American Islamic Relations BIS, which I think is an anti Israeli organization at its core. I want to hear their criticisms.
You won't hear their criticisms. I want to hear criticisms from Democrats and Republicans, and I hope you'll join me. We're going to open this up tonight. We haven't talked about this in a long time, but there's too much violence in America, too much violence directed at political leaders. The way to get to a political leader vote amount of office, Okay, run against them, whatever. But this idea that somehow we're going to take political leaders out like
what happened in Minnesota is absolutely abhorrent. It should be abhorrent to everyone everyone, and it should even be more abhorrant to the people on the right. These are democratic politicians. I want to hear an outcry from conservatives denouncing that, just as I want to hear an outcry from Democrats. The next time that a Republican political leader is assaulted or attacked. Nuff said six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty.
I think this is an important topic. I hope you'll join me. Let's have at it right after this news at the bottom of the hour.
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z, Boston's news radio.
We talked about that big move last hour. We're talking this hour about the proliferation of political violence here in America.
We have a lot of violence in America, but in the last few weeks we have seen going back to the attack on the Governor of Pennsylvania's home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to other events, the assassination of two young staff members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, d C. After they had attended an event at the Jewish Museum in Washington, d C. What happened in Boulder, Colorado with the lunatic from Oh, I mean, with a flamethrower, just a flamethrower.
Happens to be Egyptian. And I'm not sure where his family is at this point, but I know that his family now is in jeopardy of being deported. So the acting US Attorney out there says this was him yesterday, cut number fifty four, saying that they don't have a clear motive. Really, this is Acting US Attorney Joe Thompson, cut fifty four.
The potential motive.
Let me say this.
There's been a lot of press with respect to the potential motive. Let me say this, there's been a lot of press coverage and speculation and discussion about manifesto. I've seen nothing like a Unibomber style manifesto in his writings. He had many, many notebooks full of plans, lists of names, surveillance efforts that he took to surveil and locate the home addresses and family members relationships with these elected officials. But I have not seen anything involving some sort of
political screed or manifesto that would clearly identify what motivated him. Obviously, his primary motive was to go out and murder people.
Now they were all.
Elected officials, they were all Democrats. Beyond that, I think it's just way too speculative for anyone that's reviewed these materials to know and to say what was motivating him in terms of ideology or specific issues.
There's a lot of.
There were some abortion rights supporters I believe on the list, but again there was dozens and dozens and dozens of names on, you know, hundreds of pages of documents that were recovered with his writings on.
Now, I don't know why an acting US attorney would try to fog the situation like that. The suspect fifty seven year old Advance Boulder into police custody yesterday to day manhunt dis According to New York Times, this guy impersonated a police officer and fatally shot State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark and wounded State Senator John Hoffman and his wife event early Saturday morning. Now, the
elected officials he targeted were all Democrats. Mister Thompson said, you just turn him here and say that abortion rights advocates are also among those mentioned in the list of names, but mister Thompson said it was too soon to determine the motive. Okay, So here's some of the folks who are on the list. Senator Tina Smith, us senator of a Democrat of Minnesota, said the man's list included her
and several other lawmakers, all of whom are Democrats. Minnesota's other US Senator, Amy Klobaschar, was also named in the government's writing her office. At at least three three of Minnesota's Democratic congresswomen were listed. According to a law enforcement officer, our representatives Elon Omar, Kelly Morrison, and Angie Craig. The state attorney general Keith Ellison, another Democrat. I mean, come on,
come on, this guy was out hunting Democrats. Now, if there are Republicans on the list, let's hear about that. But this guy was out hunting Democrats. Why is it so difficult for US attorney to say that, and why
is it difficult for Republicans to basically denounce this. My understanding is that there have been some comments made by John Toon, the Senate majority leader, in terms of providing I believe some protections for the two Democratic US Senators, Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar, which is a good thing. But I just think there's a hesitancy here to speak out if it's perceived as someone who's kind of on
your side of the field. Both of us have people both groups, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, hope you want to describe it Okay, right left, whatever demarcation you want to make. There are bad people on both sides. They're really bad people on both sides. There are people who will kill people. You can't be any worse in my opinion. I guess I don't know what's worse a murder or child molest I mean, you could make an argument.
I'm not going to go there. If you're going to kill somebody because of their point of view, their politics in this country, I want you to be condemned, but I want you to be strongly condemned by the people that you might try to associate with. That's all I'm saying. And maybe you don't think it's important. I do. I do. It was up to Republicans when Gabby Gifford was shot. It was up to Republicans to lead the outrage, if you will, that a member of Congress would be shot
by someone. Now, I think that guy was absolutely nuts. Maybe there was no political ideology, but I would want to see a chorus of people, her allies, political allies, and her political enemies to say this shall not stand. When Steve Calli's was shot at a softball practice in advance of the annual Baseball not a softball It's a baseball practice at a practice in advance of the annual house Baseball game, which was played last week and was each year is more and more interesting and more and
more successful. They get larger, larger crowds. They play it now at the home ball park of the Washington Nationals. Why is it so tough? Maybe someone can explain to me why the the level of outring is muted when it's someone that maybe you agree with that person on an issue or so, maybe you think that the Republicans are not the best people in the world, but that doesn't give you the right to shoot them. And maybe there were some of these Democrats in Minnesota that this
guy disagreed with. Sounds like he might have been a pro life Republican from what I've read. I don't know. I'm not doing the investigation, But where is the outrage? Where is the outrage on both sides? Okay? Because if we continue down this road as a nation, it's going to get really ugly. And I think that there are enemies of the United States of America from both the right and left, who would love to see us, you know, end up in some sort of cacophony of violence. We
see the violence in Los Angeles, that street violence. That should be that should be criticized across the board. No one should be blowing up police cars, No one should be setting cars on fire. No one should be throwing bricks off of bridges on civilian cars. There's no question about that, okay. And no one should have supported the j six people who went into the Capitol on January sixth,
twenty twenty one. No one should have supported that. But what happens is when you don't speak out against it and you don't call it what it is, it only encourages more action like that, and sometimes it causes action coming from the other side. So I'll put this out here. I got open lines. I hope you'll have the courage enough to say that that you will stand against violence across the board, no matter who it is directed against.
Simple as that. I'm not talking about the incident with the senator from California who was who tried to rush into a news conference and uh and he was pushed back out the door. That's a different story. That's that is a senator acting out who doesn't know how to comport himself. I'm talking about the physical violence in which people die or in which people find themselves maimed. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty.
This is an important issue. I hope you agree with me, and I hope you voice that agreement right after this on Nightside.
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w Boston's news radio.
Well, we have interesting calls lined up. Also, there's an interesting story tonight that I'm reading that says that Bloomberg is reporting that President Trump has decided to abruptly depart the G seven to calling for Tehran evacuation. So at this point it looks as if Israel is saying to people in Tehran to evacuate the city. That probably does not augur well for the city, and apparently there are a lot of traffic jams, and now the market is
not responding well to this. Right now, futures are down tomorrow, so we could have very an interesting day tomorrow. But in the meantime, let's get to our phone calls. Right now. Let me go to Tony and Natick. Pretty simple call. Tony asking everyone to denounce political violence, whether it comes from their side of the street or from the other, what do.
You think, Well, of course that's the most natural response would be the announcer. But I think we actually have to take into account with most of these acts that we're looking at mental illness and in the cream and uh, these people who who commit these acts, they're not on the belt right, or they're on one side.
Or the other. Oh yeah, right, No, there's no question they're they're they're out there. But the problem is, uh, if I just want to see an a virtually virtual, unanimous uh denunciation of any form of political violence, and if it happens to be coming from the extreme end of the political spectrum where you sit, you need to denounce that even more strongly than the folks on the other It has to you got to denounce it and denounce it strong.
Obviously. But I mean, have we not heard announcements or is it just matter that they're out of the announcements? And when when we're not getting it? Because I gotta.
Tell you, I'm fair I'm fairly sophisticated in this, and I'm not the smartest guy in the world uh on this, but often I'm looking to hear you know, it's easy for people who support the conservative cause when Donald Trump narrowly escapes assassination, to be outraged and all of that. But I want the Democrats who might look at Donald Trump and you know, some of the language the Democrats have used about Trump, he's a hitler in waiting and all of this, that's not language we should really be
dealing with. I can't stop people from saying that, but that that can appeal to the minds of people who you say, are are are not all there?
Right?
And and that's true and and you know, they get their juices flowing and uh, and then they they commit some heinous act.
But I think that these are as as we say they got in terms of their mental status, one foot in the on the grave and the other one on the banana field. They're on the edge.
I mean.
Our friend, our friend Luigi who murdered the CEO. Yes, you know, but you know what who I'm talking about?
Yeah, no friend, yeah right.
You obviously. I mean, the symptoms of schizophrenia are all there. And uh, it's sad that we don't identify this stuff and act out I treated better.
All right, Uh, well that's not that's nice. But once once it occurs, I just think we have to be quicker, and we have to be more unanimous in our denunciations of it, no matter where the violence is coming from. Simple as that. Hey, Tony, thank you for getting us going here. I appreciate it very much. Thank you.
Okay, great soon, good night.
Let me go to Alex and Cambridge. Alex, your thought on this, this idea.
Well, Dan, I couldn't agree with him more that both sides should condemn violence. And I you know, when when Trump as a candidate was nearly killed in Butler, Pennsylvania, President Biden expressed a very sincere It sounds to be concern and wish him well, But I think we have a unique president going on now who is uniquely prone
to very violent rhetorics, whether he's insulting ethnicities. I'm in contrast him with President Bush, after nine to eleven counciled Americans not to take it out on Muslims who happened to be your neighbor. He said, that's not what this is about. This is about the terrorists who attack New York. And you know, I agree with that.
I agree with that.
I got that kind of a president's And then we've got this guy who urged.
Well, again. You know, well, do you real whether you want what I'm saying, Alex, you're doing.
Alex, what are we talking about here?
No?
Right, See, what do you want to do is you want to demonize Trump, which is fine, but.
Remember I do because he's a demon. And here's the thing you're talking about.
That this is a good conversation.
You're talking about the Attorney General who failed to identify that the killer's motives in public, saying well, we're not so sure. We don't have any you know, record it is.
Uh, it's an assistant US attorney. He's not the Attorney General, just.
A US attorney, the US attorney, Thank you, thank you.
All right.
So he's being kind of wiggly, he's not being very He's been very close to the bone in terms of the text that this guy left.
And that's why I played the sound Alex, congratulations for fam. What I'm saying to you, though, is this, when you engage in and you start calling somebody a hitler or something like that, that.
Then he's a hitler.
No, you didn't know, you didn't.
But when some Democrat demonic about.
So, he's worse than hitler. He's the devil himself. Oh man, Alex, you're you're part of the problem, but he's there's you're part of the problem. If you're going to call someone demand maybe I am you're part of the problem, Alex. Congratulations is it?
But is it okay Dan to say things about people eating cats and dogs, to make these wild assertions that are not based on fact, To say a plane crash was caused by DEI, you know, blaming handicapped and black and Hispanic and Asian people for getting their plane.
Is that not How did he get elected? How did he get elected, Alex?
Because people are tired of rampant, out of control illegal immigration.
That's how he got elected.
Well, maybe the Democrats should have been smarter. I just don't think it's help Alex to engage in uh this criticize a specific Alex, I'm flat out of time. You've never called me before. I hope that the next time you call your bully to engage in a conversation, I choose. I choose not to. You didn't try very hard. Thanks, Alex. I appreciate your call. We'll be back right after the eleven o'clock news. Feel free, But this is Alex. No matter what would happen to Trump if he's a demon,
that's kind of okay. Okay, so this policy issues. Is Trump's language helpful No, No, absolutely not. Is Tim Wallas's language helpful not either. I mean Walls talks about we got to do this. You know, we have even people like Eric Holder, you know when when when they go low, we go really low. Anyway, it's it's an uppel battle, but I'll fight it. It's as simple as that. And it's tough not to dislike intensely and in some ways almost take the other side. We got to back off
from that. We gotta back off from that. If we don't, we're gonna be in real trouble. Coming back on Night's side right after this break at the top of the hour,