0:00

This is Reverend Dr.

0:02

William J. Barber and we

0:04

are listening to the Ralph

0:06

Ada Radio Hour. Stand up.

0:08

Stand up. You've been sitting

0:11

way too long. Welcome to

0:13

the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.

0:15

My name is Steve Scrovan

0:18

along with my co-host David

0:20

Feldman. Hello David.

0:22

Good morning. And our

0:24

producer Hannah Feldman. Hello,

0:27

hello Hannah. Hello, Steve. Happy

0:29

birthday Ralph. Well thank you

0:31

very much and we're going to have a

0:33

very very prominent program

0:35

today by a superb investigative

0:38

reporter. Listeners, stay tuned. Yes

0:40

Ralph on the program today

0:42

we welcome intrepid investigative

0:45

reporter Jeremy Scayhill from

0:47

drop-site news who's going to give

0:49

us his insights into the genocide

0:51

in Gaza. as regular listeners know

0:54

Ralph has been calling attention to

0:56

the vast undercount provided by both

0:58

Hamas and Israel and believes if

1:01

the real toll which by many

1:03

estimates projects into the hundreds of

1:05

thousands were broadcast that would go

1:08

a long way toward galvanizing the

1:10

American people against this slaughter.

1:12

We'll also discuss with Ska Hill the

1:14

details of the October 7th assault, the

1:16

state of the fragile ceasefire, and

1:18

the possibility of a wider war

1:20

with Iran. Then... Close to the show,

1:22

Ralph has a response to his social

1:25

media post from someone accusing him of

1:27

being a hypocrite for not supporting the

1:29

so-called rooting out of corruption being

1:31

conducted by Elon Musk and his

1:33

doge dogs. You don't want to miss

1:36

that. As always, somewhere in the middle

1:38

we'll check in with our relentless

1:40

corporate crime reporter Russell Mokiver.

1:42

But first, what's the latest from Gaza?

1:45

David? Jeremy Scale is an

1:47

investigative reporter, war correspondent and author

1:49

of the books. Dirty Wars, the

1:51

world is a battlefield, and Blackwater,

1:54

the rise of the world's most

1:56

powerful mercenary army, is one of

1:58

the founding editors of the... and his

2:00

co-founder with Ryan Grimm of

2:03

drop-site news, a non-aligned investigative

2:05

news organization dedicated to exposing

2:08

the crimes of the powerful,

2:10

particularly in overt and secret

2:13

conflicts where the US government

2:15

is playing a key role. Welcome to

2:18

the Ralph Nader Radio Hour Jeremy

2:20

Scale. Thank you. It's my honor to

2:22

be with all of you. This is a

2:24

real opportunity listeners to hear from...

2:26

one of the greatest investigative

2:29

reporters of our time. And I

2:31

want to start, Jeremy, with something

2:33

we've discussed before, and that is

2:35

the whole vast undercount of death

2:38

and casualties in Gaza. So let's get

2:40

rid of one myth here. Hamas knows

2:42

that far, far more Palestinians have

2:44

been massacred. So does the

2:47

State Department, which is sitting

2:49

on information that it won't release

2:51

under our Free Information Act, and

2:53

so do many respected specialists. around

2:56

the world who three months after

2:58

October 7th would say things like,

3:00

well conditions continue a half a

3:03

million Palestinians and Gaza will die

3:05

in 2024. That was a statement

3:07

by the prominent global health director

3:10

of the Department of the University

3:12

of Edinburgh, for example. So what

3:14

we're seeing here is Hamas has an

3:16

interest in low-balling official figures

3:18

to keep down the criticism

3:21

denunciation by its own people

3:23

for not protecting them and

3:25

providing shelter. Netanyahu of course

3:27

loves a low-ball figure, so

3:29

his war crimes are not

3:31

connected to the hundreds of

3:33

thousands of deaths, not to

3:36

mention other casualties among the

3:38

survivors, and of course the

3:40

Biden and Trump administrations following

3:42

Netanyahu's processes. I think there's

3:44

a strong strain of racism

3:46

here operating Palestinian lives have

3:48

never counted by the US

3:50

and Israel over the decades

3:53

when Israel was bombing and

3:55

blowing up all kinds of

3:57

civilian infrastructure. So with that

3:59

background... What have you found out

4:01

about the proper estimate? Yeah, thanks

4:03

Ralph. First of all, let's just

4:06

fly up to 30,000 feet and

4:08

look at the big narrative picture

4:10

here. The way that Israel and

4:12

to a large extent the United

4:15

States have portrayed the population of

4:17

Gaza is that it's basically an

4:19

encampment of Al-Qaeda or ISIS type

4:21

figures. The reality is that among

4:24

the 2.3 million residents of the

4:26

Gaza strip... prior to the beginning

4:28

of Israel's U.S.-backed genocidal war, this

4:31

was one of the most highly

4:33

educated condensed populations on earth with

4:35

a tremendous number of people achieving

4:37

higher degrees. I say this to

4:40

point out that even though these

4:42

Palestinians of Gaza have been trapped

4:44

in what amounts to a concentration

4:46

camp where they're on a calorie

4:49

restricted diet, where even before October

4:51

7th they were subjected to repeated

4:53

Israeli military attacks, so-called mowing the

4:55

lawn, as Israel put it. there

4:58

is a tremendous level of education

5:00

and that certainly extends to the

5:02

medical field and the field of

5:05

forensics. So what I want to put on

5:07

the table right now is that

5:09

some of the greatest heroes in

5:11

the world right now are the

5:13

doctors, the forensic examiners, the nurses,

5:15

the first aid responders, the civil

5:17

defense units that go and try

5:19

to recover people from rubble. They

5:21

are doing an unbelievably difficult job

5:23

while many of them are watching their

5:26

own family members being killed.

5:28

Israel has also systematically

5:30

killed and imprisoned and

5:32

tortured doctors. So the narrative

5:34

about Gaza in almost every possible

5:36

way is from the West and

5:39

from Israel is just filled

5:41

with propaganda. Now to directly

5:43

talk about the issue of

5:45

how many Palestinians have actually

5:47

been killed in this genocidal

5:49

war that the United States

5:51

is bankrolling facilitating. offering political

5:53

and legal defense for at

5:55

every turn, you have to understand the

5:57

system on the ground in Gaza.

6:00

Palestinian medical officials

6:02

believe that they have to be

6:04

more precise than anyone else in

6:06

the world when they present

6:08

statistics because they are constantly

6:11

being accused of being liars,

6:13

this term pallywood, that they're

6:15

somehow faking their own death

6:18

or staging scenes of massacres.

6:20

They're aware of the narratives

6:22

of the West. And so when we talk

6:24

to officials at the Ministry of

6:27

Health, they will say we know.

6:29

that all of these statistics that

6:31

we're putting out are a massive

6:33

undercount of the death pole of

6:35

our people. But the reason that

6:37

they're doing this is because they've

6:39

implemented with international advisors from the

6:41

medical and forensic community a system

6:43

to offer an abundance of proof

6:45

for every single person that they

6:47

have documented to have been killed.

6:50

So when estimates are given of

6:52

48,000, 47,000, now it's around 50,000,

6:54

people need to understand something very

6:56

clearly. This is just the bodies

6:58

of people that have officially

7:00

been identified by the Ministry

7:02

of Health in Gaza, meaning

7:04

that they have either have

7:07

a body and a positive

7:09

identification of that individual, or

7:11

they have body parts, and

7:13

through forensic examination, they've been

7:15

able to determine the identity of

7:17

those people. They will not include

7:20

any other number in that total,

7:22

if they have not done a

7:24

positive identification. of the body. So

7:27

that's the first thing to understand

7:29

about all of this. The second

7:31

thing to understand is that Hamas

7:33

is not just the Kasam Brigades,

7:35

it's armed wing. Hamas also has

7:38

been the governing authority of Gaza

7:40

and not everyone who works in

7:42

these civil institutions is

7:45

a Hamas fighter or even a

7:47

passionate member of the Hamas political

7:49

movement which won democratic elections in

7:51

2005. came to power and then

7:54

there was a massive effort led

7:56

by the United States to try

7:58

to delegitimize that election. because the

8:00

wrong party won. I'm putting these on

8:02

the table. It's not directly what you're

8:05

asking, but I'm putting this on the

8:07

table because I think it's very important

8:09

context. I speak every single day to

8:11

people on the ground in Gaza, including

8:13

doctors, journalists, and others. So I think

8:16

I have a fairly good sense of

8:18

how they do this. Now, in preparation

8:20

for talking with you today, I spoke

8:22

to some of our reporters on the

8:24

ground in Gaza and asked them to

8:27

speak to Gaza health authorities to try

8:29

to answer some of this question. They're

8:31

very uncomfortable with this. for this reason.

8:33

They don't want to be accused of

8:36

engaging in any form of propaganda. Having

8:38

said that, they're saying that there are

8:40

very likely tens of thousands of bodies

8:42

that remain under the rubble, and that

8:44

in and of itself may be in

8:47

undercount. The Israelis are not allowing in,

8:49

even though the first phase of the

8:51

ceasefire agreement said that they would, they're

8:53

not allowing in any large quantity of

8:55

heavy equipment that could be used to

8:58

start doing... excavations. Every day in Gaza

9:00

now, they're recovering anywhere between dozens and

9:02

hundreds of bodies from various sites. Some

9:04

of these people were killed a year

9:06

ago, six months ago, eight months ago,

9:09

and then they have to go through

9:11

the process of identifying them. You also

9:13

have a reality that they do not

9:15

include any deaths that were not the

9:18

direct result of an immediate fatal military

9:20

action. They do include some people who

9:22

are brought into the emergency room. and

9:24

there's an attempt to try to save

9:26

their lives, but they die. But they

9:29

don't go and take someone who, like

9:31

we've had dozens of children die since

9:33

January of hypothermia in Gaza that have

9:35

been documented. Those are not included in

9:37

the death count, even though it's a

9:40

direct result of Israel blocking the delivery

9:42

of mobile homes and tents, which are

9:44

required under the first phase of the

9:46

ceasefire agreement. There were supposed to be

9:48

60,000 mobile homes, 200,000 tents. So infectious

9:51

disease, that's not counted in this death

9:53

toll that we're looking at. Missing people

9:55

of which there are perhaps tens of

9:57

thousands maybe... more than that. Those are

10:00

not counted in this death toll. So

10:02

it's not just that, you know, I'll

10:04

push back a little bit, I don't

10:06

think that this is a case of

10:08

Hamas trying to downplay it because they

10:11

failed to protect their people. I would

10:13

emphasize more, Ralph, I understand why you're

10:15

saying it, the professionalism of the Palestinian

10:17

doctors, forensic workers, and others, I think

10:19

is indisputable, and I understand the logic

10:22

of why they're releasing the statistics in

10:24

the way that they are. When I

10:26

then said, well, what do you think

10:28

is the actual death toll? No one

10:31

wants to answer that question, who is

10:33

a forensic or medical expert for obvious

10:35

reasons. We saw the letter to the

10:37

Lancet that indicated through its own formula

10:39

that 186,000 plus Palestinians are likely to

10:42

have died. And this is many months

10:44

old. Then we more recently had a

10:46

British study that said that there was

10:48

a 40% undercount of the number dead.

10:50

But when you talk to Palestinians whose

10:53

job it is to count the dead,

10:55

They're very reluctant to offer any other

10:57

extrapolation. The final point I want to

10:59

make on this is that Israel is

11:01

very fond of talking about the events

11:04

of October 7th in the context of

11:06

they wiped out this family. They killed

11:08

this family. There are approximately 2,000 Palestinian

11:10

families that no longer exist. Their entire

11:13

name has been wiped out of their

11:15

family. Let me repeat that. Roughly 2,000

11:17

Palestinian families have been erased from planet

11:19

Earth. since this started. So there is

11:21

no question that a dramatic number of

11:24

people died well beyond these estimates, but

11:26

I would defend the Palestinian health authorities

11:28

because I think that they're doing something

11:30

that they recognize they have no other

11:32

option. They have to be able to

11:35

prove a name and they've created a

11:37

searchable database and international experts have checked

11:39

their statistics. The rate of error is

11:41

minuscule, which means that they're telling the

11:43

truth about verified deaths. Well, you're talking

11:46

about extended families 2000 extended given idea

11:48

of how many in a extended family.

11:50

No, I mean this look. In addition

11:52

to all of the Palestinians I talked

11:55

to on a regular basis in Gaza

11:57

in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem,

11:59

I also have Palestinian friends, many Palestinian

12:01

friends, one friend of mine, 220 members

12:03

of her family, they've documented that they've

12:06

been killed. This is from one family

12:08

with the same last name. This is

12:10

a Palestinian American friend of mine. The

12:12

other day, I met a Palestinian doctor

12:14

from Gaza who lives in Germany and

12:17

60 members of his mother's side of

12:19

the family have been killed. and 50

12:21

members of his father's side of the

12:23

family. This is just in my social

12:26

circle. So if you extrapolate that out

12:28

and you hear what I'm saying about

12:30

2,000 families, you're talking about large Palestinian

12:32

families. You know, people will work their

12:34

whole lives to save up enough money

12:37

and they build a house that houses

12:39

multiple generations of their family. So I'm

12:41

investigating another story right now, Ralph, of

12:43

a strike that happened long ago, but

12:45

it relates to something else going on.

12:48

I'm just looking at one strike. There

12:50

was a building that was bombed that

12:52

was bombed. housing members of a family,

12:54

93 people were killed in that bombing.

12:56

They're all related. And that's not wiping

12:59

out that entire family. That's just one

13:01

part of one family. So when you're

13:03

talking about 2,000 families being wiped out,

13:05

when you're talking about thousands upon thousands

13:08

of people buried under the rubble of

13:10

what used to be their homes, and

13:12

then the Israelis come in with their

13:14

utterly sadistic macabre tactics where they then

13:16

bulldozed people, put them in mass graves.

13:19

I don't think we right now have

13:21

any sense of the scope of the

13:23

killing that has happened. We're not even

13:25

talking about disease, which has spread. There

13:27

is a report that came out in

13:30

early February that said that the life

13:32

expectancy, this is from the Lancet, had

13:34

dropped from around 70 years old down

13:36

to 40 years old in Gaza. This

13:38

is a staggering decline in the life

13:41

expectancy, and this was within just the

13:43

first year of the so-called war of

13:45

the genocide. that you had this remarkable

13:47

plummet in life expectancy of the Palestinians

13:50

in the Gaza Strip. Well, there are

13:52

5,000 babies born every month in Gaza,

13:54

2.3 million people, and they're born into

13:56

the rubble to begin with that severely

13:58

lowers the average life expectancy. Let me

14:01

broaden it out here. Why is it

14:03

important to have a more accurate estimate?

14:05

Because it will intensify the diplomatic, political,

14:07

and civic pressures to stop the killing

14:09

and to negotiate a peaceful settlement. So

14:12

we're talking now. In 2.3 million people,

14:14

Jeremy, they have lost more people than

14:16

the combined deaths from Hiroshima and Agassaki

14:18

in Dresden. That's important to get to

14:21

the Western psyche here, the full amount

14:23

of the horror and the genocide, in

14:25

order to mobilize more pressure. I had

14:27

someone tell me a few weeks ago,

14:29

you know, the Hamas figures, they're about

14:32

just what we lose on the highways

14:34

in a year. No big deal. Well,

14:36

it is a big deal, and most

14:38

of them are women, children, elderly, to

14:40

begin with. So with that background, what

14:43

would you recommend the civic peace groups

14:45

to start doing here or any other

14:47

groups in Europe and United States and

14:49

around the world? I think to go

14:51

back also to something that we spoke

14:54

about at the beginning, the campaign to

14:56

dehumanize Palestinians has been so effective. on

14:58

the part of the United States, Israel,

15:00

and we've seen an unprecedented embrace of

15:03

the militarism of Israel and the United

15:05

States in Europe as well, where you

15:07

have countries like Germany, where for much

15:09

of the duration of this 16 months

15:11

of a genocidal war, you've had a

15:14

media culture in Germany that is celebrating

15:16

Israel's actions, defending it, And a friend

15:18

of mine, Ali Abunima, who runs electronic

15:20

intifada, said that the Germans have been

15:22

punishing the Palestinians for the German mass

15:25

murder of Jews for many... decades

15:27

now, and I

15:29

think that that's an

15:31

apt description of

15:33

it. I bring that

15:36

up because we

15:38

can talk about these

15:40

statistics, and I

15:42

think you're right, we

15:45

should be talking

15:47

about a much larger

15:49

number of Palestinians

15:51

killed primarily with American

15:53

weapons and with

15:56

full bipartisan U .S.

15:58

support. But if we

16:00

don't find a

16:02

way to confront this

16:04

radical dehumanization campaign

16:07

where children are not

16:09

children, they're actually

16:11

future Hamas members, where

16:13

journalists are Hamas,

16:15

doctors are Hamas, the

16:18

United Nations is

16:20

Hamas, everyone is Hamas.

16:22

That to me

16:24

is sort of what

16:27

makes all of

16:29

this possible. I know

16:31

this from working

16:33

in war zones. Dehumanization

16:36

is the first thing you

16:38

need to do before you engage

16:40

in mass killings of a

16:42

civilian population. You have to make

16:45

it clear that these aren't

16:47

actually people that were killing. And

16:49

so while I think it's

16:51

an important, a vital discussion that

16:53

we're having, the broader picture

16:55

here is they don't see Palestinians

16:57

as people, and that has

16:59

seeped into the mainstream. On the

17:01

other side of this, though

17:04

Ralph, we see that there is

17:06

a completely unprecedented rejection now

17:08

of militant Zionism that pretends to

17:10

speak for the Jewish faith

17:12

in the form of an Israeli

17:14

state that is a settler

17:16

colonialist apartheid regime. There's an unprecedented

17:18

level of activism right now

17:20

and awareness of what the state

17:22

of Israel is doing to

17:25

not just the Palestinians in Gaza,

17:27

but also in the West

17:29

Bank. And correcting the record on

17:31

people implying that this is

17:33

somehow not as bad as it

17:35

seems, you have to do

17:37

a thorough interrogation of how many

17:39

people have actually been killed

17:41

in this war with Western bombs,

17:44

Western ammunition, and Western support.

17:46

Let's put the shoe on the

17:48

other foot. Assuming Israel was

17:50

the victim, and all this massive

17:52

bombardment was supported by a

17:54

superpower behind the attackers. You think

17:56

they would bother with just

17:58

estimating hospital and mortuary documented deceased

18:00

people? Before October 7th is Israeli's

18:03

bombed, periodically, Gaza and the West Bank. I think

18:05

the injury and death ratio was

18:07

400 to 1 in the

18:09

last 50, 60 years, 400

18:11

more Palestinians than Israelis. So

18:13

October 7th happened, two questions

18:15

to you. Number one, how

18:17

could the most modern multi-tiered

18:20

border security apparatus suddenly fail,

18:22

which was backed up by

18:25

human intelligence, 1920-20-year-old women. Israeli

18:27

soldiers were warning because they

18:29

were the spotters that there

18:32

were things going over the

18:34

border that sounded pretty menacing

18:37

and their superiors ignored it

18:39

and Netty House blocked any

18:41

official investigation. It's not really

18:43

credible that this was an accident.

18:46

They know how to lure Hamas into

18:48

something like this. Give us your take

18:50

on this sudden border collapse which some

18:53

of these Israeli reporters have

18:55

said was not accidental. There's

18:57

even some more recent information that is

18:59

starting to come out in the Israeli

19:01

press. There was an Al Jazeera documentary

19:03

that came out in, I believe it

19:05

was early February or late January. It

19:08

was only on Al Jazeera Arabic, though

19:10

it wasn't Al Jazeera English. And

19:12

it featured interviews with Kasam Brigades

19:14

fighters, which is very unusual to

19:16

see rank and file armed members

19:19

of Hamas's military division, the Kasam

19:21

Brigades interviewed. The Kasam Brigades members

19:23

said that they had intelligence. that

19:26

Israel was planning a massive offensive

19:28

against Gaza in the weeks leading up

19:30

to when Hamas launched the October 7th

19:32

attacks. And Hamas is saying in

19:34

that documentary that we consider this

19:36

an act of defense. Now, the

19:38

big caveat here is that they

19:41

have their own reasons to try

19:43

to come up with some retroactive

19:45

justifications. That had never been said

19:47

to me and I interview Hamas

19:49

officials all the time. But what happened after

19:51

that is then Ronan Bergman. who is

19:53

a reporter for the New York Times,

19:55

he's Israeli himself, and he also writes for

19:58

YNet, one of the biggest publications. in

20:00

Israel. He writes for them in Hebrew. He

20:02

writes for the New York Times in English.

20:04

He did a story soon after

20:06

that Al Jazeera documentary came out

20:08

that said that actually Israel had

20:10

quite advanced intelligence that Hamas was

20:12

going to be planning a major

20:14

assault, but also that there had been

20:17

a discussion of assassinating Yachasinwar and others

20:19

and that Netanyahu had sort of

20:21

walked out of the meeting and

20:23

wasn't interested in moving forward

20:25

with it. There are so many questions

20:28

about how this happened. Haratz and other

20:30

publications in Israel, including publications that are

20:32

not liberal or you know are not

20:34

particularly anti Netanyahu, are very invested in

20:36

this question and Israel is doing an

20:38

investigation and it's going to be very

20:40

interesting to see what happened. So I

20:42

think two things are at play. There

20:44

clearly were intelligence failures. There may have

20:46

been, I don't have evidence for this,

20:48

but there is a lot of smoke

20:50

around this story. There may have been

20:52

forces within Israel that thought it... It's not

20:55

a bad thing to allow Hamas

20:57

to engage in some form of

20:59

an incursion into Israel, and they

21:02

dramatically underestimated how successful that was

21:04

going to be. But the other dynamic of

21:06

this is that if you watch videos from

21:08

Kasam Brigade's engineering corps,

21:10

or you're really immersed in the world

21:13

of their literature, you see that these

21:15

are people making their own ammunition. This

21:17

isn't Iranian weapons being smuggled into

21:19

Gaza. These are people that have

21:21

nothing but time during the day

21:23

to be planning and plotting and

21:26

thinking that they have master's degrees

21:28

and PhDs in studying how the

21:30

Israelis think. Yaya Sinwar himself spent

21:32

decades in Israeli prison and

21:34

he translated from Hebrew into Arabic

21:36

the memoirs of the heads of

21:38

Israeli intelligence and then distributed it

21:40

to other prisoners and told them

21:43

you have to study the enemy.

21:45

You know his own interrogators said

21:47

that he was an incredibly brilliant

21:49

man. I think that the world

21:51

often underestimates Palestinians in many regards

21:53

and I think also in the

21:55

case of the planning for operational

21:58

oxaflud I think there was massive

22:00

underestimation of the ingenuity and capacity

22:02

of the Kasam Brigades to launch

22:04

this kind of assault. Look what

22:06

they've been doing for 15 months.

22:08

You had people that were portrayed

22:10

as rats hiding in tunnels, inflicting

22:12

massive losses on Israeli forces, and

22:15

being able to produce high-end videos

22:17

of their operations doing so. And

22:19

they fought Israel in what amounted

22:21

to a war of attrition, where

22:23

the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza

22:25

paid the price. But I think

22:27

that there is a real story

22:29

here, and I think that it's

22:31

one of these rare cases where

22:33

there is genuine interest that aligns

22:35

with the interests of people like

22:38

us, where we want to understand

22:40

how this happened. I think that

22:42

there's a lot of Israelis who

22:44

suspect that people in their government

22:46

knew in advance that something big

22:48

was going to happen, and for

22:50

whatever reason, and there may be

22:52

multiple reasons, didn't move to stop

22:54

it. Well, the Washington Post New

22:56

York Times reported long time ago

22:58

that... Netanyahu was given by Israeli

23:01

intelligence a year earlier before October

23:03

7th, the plans of Hamas. They

23:05

got a hold of the plans

23:07

of Hamas planning an attack. You

23:09

don't deeply into the Israeli count

23:11

of 1,200 dead from the Hamas

23:13

attack. It's interesting, the press doesn't

23:15

say the Israelis don't break down

23:17

how many were non-combat and... There

23:19

was a lot of propaganda that

23:21

was quite effective about the asserted

23:23

brutality of the Hamas fighters in

23:26

that 48 hour period. Why don't

23:28

you tell us what the real

23:30

truth is here? So I've spoken

23:32

with senior Hamas officials and I'm

23:34

one of the only Western journalists

23:36

that has interviewed any senior official

23:38

from Palestinian Islamic Jihad in decades.

23:40

I did an interview with the

23:42

number two leader of Palestinian Islamic

23:44

Jihad, Dr. Muhammad al-Hindi. who by

23:46

the way is a medical doctor

23:49

that worked at Alshefa Hospital in

23:51

the 1980s and I mean people

23:53

should actually read we published the

23:55

whole transcript of the interview I

23:57

did with him. because it was

23:59

such an unusual opportunity to hear,

24:01

you know, a long-form conversation with

24:03

one of the leaders of one

24:05

of the two most important Palestinian

24:07

factions that did October 7th. But

24:09

he told me from Islamic Jihad

24:11

that their forces, Sariah al-Qud, weren't

24:14

even informed until the morning of

24:16

October 7th what the actual operation

24:18

was or the timing of it,

24:20

that it was a close-hold covert

24:22

operation. that only a very small

24:24

circle of people knew the actual

24:26

plan. And so around 630 in

24:28

the morning, you have the Kasam

24:30

Brigades and Sariah al-Qud, the Special

24:32

Force Military Unit of Palestinian Islamic

24:34

Jihad, engage in a systematic breach

24:37

of multiple parts of the concentration

24:39

camp fence and wall. And the

24:41

first targets that they went to

24:43

were all of these military outposts

24:45

in what's called the Gaza envelope.

24:47

and they started killing large numbers

24:49

of Israeli troops, and then they

24:51

began to take Israeli military personnel

24:53

captive and bring them back to

24:55

Gaza. Now, the reason that they're

24:57

doing this is because Palestinians have

25:00

been shown repeatedly over the years

25:02

that the only way that they

25:04

can free any of their hostages,

25:06

any of the Palestinians who are

25:08

being held, and there's a couple

25:10

hundred Palestinians who are serving life

25:12

sentences, prisoner in the world. You

25:14

have Marwan Bargutti, who many believe

25:16

would win a democratic election in

25:18

an independent Palestinian state. The Israelis

25:20

have been refusing to release these

25:22

guys, but the main aim of

25:25

that operation was not let's kill

25:27

as many Jewish people as possible.

25:29

That would be stupid, even on

25:31

a tactical level. That was not

25:33

the mission. The mission was to

25:35

try to take as many captives

25:37

as possible, particularly soldiers. Remember, in

25:39

2011... You had more than a

25:41

thousand Palestinians released in exchange for

25:43

one... Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, and

25:45

among the Palestinians released in that

25:48

deal in 2011, Ralph, was a

25:50

man named Yajas Sinwar, who would

25:52

go on to be the main

25:54

planner of the October 7th attacks.

25:56

And before he was released from

25:58

prison, he told his captors that

26:00

someday we're going to come back

26:02

and we're going to kidnap your

26:04

family members. I mean, this is

26:06

like, you can't make this stuff

26:08

up. So this guy then organizes

26:10

this assault. The issue of Palestinian

26:13

prisoners is so important to the

26:15

fabric of Palestinian political life that,

26:17

you know, people can argue anything

26:19

they want with me. I deal

26:21

with this day and day out.

26:23

I talk to these people. I

26:25

know that that was one of

26:27

the primary objectives. Well, there are

26:29

thousands in jail. There are thousands

26:31

of Palestinians, including women, children. They're

26:33

just arrested, kidnapped in effect. No

26:36

charges are thrown in jail. Also,

26:38

even when they release them, they

26:40

replace them with more kidnaps. They

26:42

have prisons. listeners in the West

26:44

Bank itself for these purposes. Let's

26:46

get to the way that 48

26:48

hours played out. Right. So they

26:50

go in and first they start

26:52

attacking military outposts and I was

26:54

I've been told by personnel from

26:56

Hamas they were astonished at how

26:59

easy it was for them to

27:01

just waltz in to these military

27:03

facilities. Another thing people don't talk

27:05

about, they seized a lot of

27:07

documents. They took a lot of

27:09

documents, hard drives, other things from

27:11

the Israelis. Israel's government knows that.

27:13

They're very concerned about what level

27:15

of documents and Intel were seized

27:17

in those operations. Then they start

27:19

to spread out to the kibbutzim.

27:21

And as this is happening, you

27:24

know, now we're a couple hours

27:26

into the morning, other armed resistance

27:28

factions that had no role in

27:30

this whatsoever and weren't read in

27:32

on it, start going in to

27:34

Gaza. and they're only loosely coordinating

27:36

with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. So

27:38

they start going where they're going

27:40

around Israel and they start shooting

27:42

people, taking people, you know, doing

27:44

what they're doing. This was kind

27:47

of the second wave. And then

27:49

you had a third wave of

27:51

people, which is ordinary Palestinians who...

27:53

who's, some of whom have never

27:55

been outside of their concentration camp,

27:57

whose loved ones have been killed,

27:59

who've been on a calorie restricted

28:01

diet. So, you know, you can

28:03

imagine that you have different layers

28:05

here. You have special units within

28:07

Kasam that are very disciplined. Then

28:09

you have people that are kind

28:12

of, you know, they didn't know

28:14

anything was happening, and they're like,

28:16

wait a minute, this is the

28:18

war against Israel, and they start

28:20

pouring in. And when Israel first

28:22

starts telling the world about this,

28:24

and when the world starts recognizing

28:26

what's happening, they're saying thousands of

28:28

civilians have been killed. Then they're

28:30

talking about 40 babies were beheaded.

28:32

Babies were put into ovens. People

28:35

were being decapitated left and right.

28:37

And then you start to have

28:39

a little bit down the line

28:41

allegations that there was a systematic

28:43

mass rape program that had been

28:45

planned and that was implemented on

28:47

October 7th. The narrative within hours

28:49

of this thing starting. was set

28:51

by Israeli propaganda. And then when

28:53

the dust settles and we start

28:55

to actually look at what actually

28:57

happened there, there were roughly 1100

29:00

people that were killed that day

29:02

who were either Israeli or they

29:04

were foreigners working in Israel or

29:06

they were dual citizens of Israel

29:08

and other countries. And approximately one-third

29:10

of them were either military, police

29:12

or security services that worked at

29:14

some of these kibbutzim. many of

29:16

whom were in the Israeli reserves,

29:18

or they were working in a

29:20

coordinated program with Israel's security forces.

29:23

And then there's the question of

29:25

how many of the people that

29:27

were killed that day were killed

29:29

by Israeli forces that were responding

29:31

to it. You definitely had cases

29:33

of what's called the Hannibal Doctrine,

29:35

which is an Israeli practice that

29:37

indicates that it would be better

29:39

to kill Israeli personnel rather than

29:41

let them be kidnapped or taken

29:43

prisoner. by Palestinian fighters and kill

29:46

the Palestinians. who were driving the

29:48

vehicles or... Well, obviously they're going

29:50

to kill the Palestinians, but they're

29:52

going to kill their families in

29:54

homes. Yes. Now, I don't know

29:56

to what extent the deaths that

29:58

were caused by Israel are understandable

30:00

right now. There are some people

30:02

that believe enormous quantities of the

30:04

people killed were killed by Israeli

30:06

forces. I tend to doubt that

30:08

it's a large percentage, but it's

30:11

not insignificant. There are documented cases

30:13

also in some of these kibbutzim,

30:15

where Israelis themselves... said that Israeli

30:17

forces shelled and blew up a

30:19

house with a dozen people inside

30:21

of it. So we know that

30:23

that happened. We know that that

30:25

was at play. But I've gone

30:27

through, just to give you one

30:29

concrete example, I've gone through the

30:31

three dozen or so people that

30:34

were killed that day that were

30:36

19 and younger. They'd said 40

30:38

babies were beheaded. There was one

30:40

infant named Mila Cohen who was

30:42

a 10-month-old baby who died in

30:44

crossfire in her mother's arms. when

30:46

the Israelis were in a shootout

30:48

with the Palestinian resistance fighters who

30:50

were there, there were some toddlers

30:52

that died in their homes that

30:54

were engulfed in flames. There is

30:56

no evidence that a single baby

30:59

was beheaded. In fact, there was

31:01

only one infant killed that day

31:03

and it was, and we know

31:05

her name and we know how

31:07

she died. So when you start

31:09

to then realize these truths and

31:11

these facts, when you hear Israeli

31:13

officials make claims about... Hamas murdering

31:15

captives with their bare hands. And

31:17

they say, oh, the forensics indicated

31:19

that they were murdered with their

31:22

captors bare hands. Now, I don't

31:24

know what happened there, but I

31:26

know that in November of 2023,

31:28

Hamas announced that the Beavis family,

31:30

Ariel Bevis, and Kefir Bevis, Kefir

31:32

was nine months old when he

31:34

was kidnapped, it's indefensible to take

31:36

a child. No one should ever

31:38

do that. It's wrong from the

31:40

origin of it. And a four-year-old,

31:42

they're taken back to Gaza. Hamas

31:45

announced in November of 2023 they

31:47

had been killed in an Israeli

31:49

the flames of hope that they're

31:51

still alive because they wanted to

31:53

use that episode to try to

31:55

justify an intensification or continuing of

31:57

the war. And the chief forensic

31:59

officer, who is the one that

32:01

they're all relying on, also perpetrated

32:03

the hoax about beheaded babies, also

32:05

perpetrated other hoaxes and put the

32:07

official stamp of him being the

32:10

chief forensic officer onto Israeli propaganda.

32:12

I'm going to great lengths to

32:14

talk about this because... You cannot

32:16

believe anything an Israeli official ever

32:18

says about the conduct of a

32:20

Palestinian unless they show you irrefutable

32:22

proof because lying is the norm.

32:24

Propaganda is the norm. Exaggeration is

32:26

the norm. The accusation is the

32:28

confession almost always. And listeners should

32:30

know that a lot of what

32:33

Jeremy is saying now has been

32:35

reported by Haritz, the Israeli newspaper.

32:37

as well as a television station.

32:39

Apparently there was a program which

32:41

rejected one propaganda statement after another

32:43

about beheading babies. They showed the

32:45

Israeli propaganda and they say, it

32:47

didn't happen. It didn't happen. It

32:49

didn't happen. This is one Israeli

32:51

television station. I'm glad you bring

32:53

up Israeli media because it's very

32:55

interesting, Ralph. You can read, you

32:58

know, Haratz has its problems. There's

33:00

a critique that I think is

33:02

legitimate of Haratz, but Haratz does

33:04

journalism about Israel. that puts American

33:06

news organizations, including many so-called liberal

33:08

publications, to shame. And it's not

33:10

just harats, which is the kind

33:12

of liberal major newspaper in Israel,

33:14

but many of their mainstream establishment

33:16

publications have done better reporting on

33:18

some of these issues about propaganda

33:21

and Israel's own crimes than many

33:23

US news organizations, even some that

33:25

purport to have good politics. I

33:27

mean, it's really wild. But yes,

33:29

almost everything I'm saying is based

33:31

on Israeli sources. Just to give

33:33

you a sense of it, almost

33:35

everything I just told you is

33:37

based on Israeli media sources. Now

33:39

you wrote an article, long article.

33:41

for your new organization. Drop site,

33:44

which you are working with Ryan

33:46

Grimm, on February 24th. So this

33:48

is new. It's about the ceasefire,

33:50

how shaky it is. You quote

33:52

a spokesperson for Donald J. Trump,

33:54

National Security Council, spokesperson Brian Hughes.

33:56

He said, Trump is prepared to

33:58

support Israel and whatever course of

34:00

action it chooses regarding Hamas. And

34:02

you continue. Netanyahu has also claimed

34:04

he is in possession of a

34:06

so-called side letter from Trump and

34:09

one from former President Joe Biden,

34:11

assuring Israel it can resume full-scale

34:13

war against God that determines the

34:15

ceasefire is untenable. And that's quoting

34:17

you. You want to expand on

34:19

this, how they're violating the ceasefire,

34:21

not only with bombardments, but blocking

34:23

more humanitarian aid in the tents

34:25

and shelters and so forth? and

34:27

what you think is going to

34:29

happen? First of all, we need

34:32

to place the blame where it

34:34

really belongs, and that's on Joe

34:36

Biden and Kamala Harris, who were

34:38

the chief facilitators of the Israeli

34:40

genocide entirely. And also, if you

34:42

go back and look at the

34:44

ways that Netanyahu repeatedly sabotaged any

34:46

ceasefire agreement, he was consistently rewarded

34:48

by the Biden administration for sabotaging

34:50

the ceasefires, including when Joe Biden.

34:52

Last summer, Joe Biden stood in

34:54

front of the world and said

34:57

that we have a deal that's

34:59

based on an Israeli plan. This

35:01

was last summer in May. There

35:03

was a May 27th protocol that

35:05

Joe Biden told the world that

35:07

Israel had agreed to, and now

35:09

it's up to Hamas. It then

35:11

went, it got ratified at the

35:13

United Nations Security Council. And then

35:15

Hamas, and this was from my

35:17

reporting, and I have the documents

35:20

to prove it. American amendments to

35:22

the agreement, and they made major

35:24

concessions in it. Netanyahu then blew

35:26

up the deal. intensified the genocide,

35:28

and Biden rewarded him with ongoing

35:30

weapons shipments, political support, defense from

35:32

his problems with the International Criminal

35:34

Court and the International Court of

35:36

Justice. And then you have Trump

35:38

come into power, or actually before

35:40

Trump came into power. The only

35:43

before Trump came into power, the

35:45

only before Trump came into power,

35:47

the only reason there's a ceasefire

35:49

right now is because of Donald

35:51

Trump. There has nothing to do

35:53

with Joe Biden, had nothing to

35:55

do with Kamala Harris. They should

35:57

forever be remembered, big contracts with

35:59

CAA. to represent them and they're

36:01

going to go the Obama route

36:03

where they try to cash in

36:05

and they're going to do whatever

36:08

books and public speaking. They should

36:10

never be able to appear in

36:12

public without being asked about it.

36:14

Trump for his own reasons says

36:16

that if there is not a

36:18

ceasefire deal by the time that

36:20

I'm sworn in and hostage don't

36:22

start coming out there's going to

36:24

be held to pay. It was

36:26

framed as a threat against Hamas

36:28

and the Palestinians, but in reality,

36:31

Trump has a rather complicated relationship

36:33

with Netanyahu. Some indications that Trump

36:35

doesn't actually like him. Trump did

36:37

get $100 million from Miriam Adelson,

36:39

a dual citizen of the U.S.

36:41

and Israel, and she wants the

36:43

West Bank entirely annex. So it's

36:45

not that Trump is some friend

36:47

of the Palestinians, but Trump is

36:49

a transactional guy and there's a

36:51

wild card here as to what

36:53

he's doing. What you're referring to

36:56

is that Trump, and he's been

36:58

saying it more and more lately,

37:00

whatever Israel wants to do, it's

37:02

fine. Keep the ceasefire, don't keep

37:04

the ceasefire, let him, let him

37:06

deal with it. a tactic that

37:08

Trump is using, similar to his

37:10

Middle East Riviera, the United States

37:12

is going to take over Gaza.

37:14

Yeah, we have to take it

37:16

serious. It has total genocidal intent.

37:19

It naked, imperialistic threat to seize

37:21

this property. But as a Palestinian

37:23

analyst, Abdul Jawad Omar told me

37:25

the other day, he made an

37:27

interesting point. He said that Trump

37:29

didn't say Israel could have Gaza.

37:31

He said the United States, and

37:33

in a way, Netanyahu didn't like

37:35

that. that you have to remove

37:37

all of the Palestinians from Gaza.

37:39

And in the same way, Trump

37:42

talked about his border wall, about

37:44

immigration. you know, USAID now, it

37:46

becomes the agenda. So in that

37:48

way, it's being passionately embraced by

37:50

Netanyahu. Trump is a dangerous character

37:52

in this equation because what he's

37:54

saying, you have to take seriously,

37:56

is the President of the United

37:58

States. He is basically saying, if

38:00

Israel decides to start dropping those

38:02

2,000 pound bombs, of which I've

38:04

given him a bunch more now,

38:07

I've lifted all the minimal restrictions

38:09

that Biden had put in place,

38:11

it's a very, very dangerous situation.

38:13

And now you have a lunatic

38:15

Mike Huckabee going over there as

38:17

the U.S. ambassador. You have the

38:19

West Bank, where 40,000 Palestinians have

38:21

been forcibly removed. They've leveled Janine

38:23

to the ground. I was just

38:25

talking to our reporter in Janine.

38:27

She just came out of there.

38:30

It's completely destroyed. The Israelis are

38:32

seizing Palestinian territory in the West

38:34

Bank every single day. They're ripping

38:36

up the roads. They're displacing everybody.

38:38

They're smashing all of their homes

38:40

and businesses. Parts of the West

38:42

Bank look like Gaza like Gaza

38:44

right now. So we have to

38:46

take Trump seriously. It's extremely dangerous

38:48

what he's saying. But as a

38:50

journalist, I'm telling you, there's a

38:52

wild card here. Trump has an

38:55

authority with the Israelis and Netanyahu

38:57

that Biden didn't have after the

38:59

first like month or two of

39:01

the post October 7th environment. The

39:03

Israelis realized they could play Biden

39:05

like a fiddle. And with Trump,

39:07

he has more agencies. So I

39:09

guess it's a horrible thing to

39:11

say, Ralph, but I think one

39:13

of our best hopes right now.

39:15

is that Trump somehow has some

39:18

other vision. You know, the Arab

39:20

nations are meeting, the Egyptians put

39:22

together a proposal that doesn't look

39:24

bad on its surface for reconstruction

39:26

and keeping the Palestinians in Gaza.

39:28

Trump desperately wants normalization with Saudi

39:30

Arabia to happen with Israel, but

39:32

also the Saudis want the ability

39:34

to pursue a nuclear program that

39:36

Trump seems to be willing to

39:38

give them. So there's all these

39:41

things are floating in the air

39:43

right now. And the pathetic thing

39:45

is... We have to hope that

39:47

Trump has some agenda that isn't.

39:49

I want to do mass ethnic

39:51

cleansing of every Palestinian in the

39:53

Gaza Strip. It's a nuanced thing.

39:55

but I'm a journalist and I'm

39:57

just sharing with you relevant facts

39:59

and analysis that I'm hearing from

40:01

people and people can take or

40:03

leave anything that I'm saying but

40:06

I'm immersing this every day and

40:08

I'm sharing with you the chaos

40:10

of the reality right now. Share

40:12

the consequences of a headline in

40:14

one of the US newspapers page

40:16

one recently that Israel's planning an

40:18

attack on Iran in the next

40:20

few weeks you know listen they've

40:22

got what they're doing in Syria.

40:24

Yes, I mean, course, they're taking

40:26

territory in Syria and they're bombing

40:29

Syria and they've admitted they bombed

40:31

Syria over recent years hundreds of

40:33

times in violation of international law,

40:35

of course, but Trump has been

40:37

very denunciatory of the Iranian regime.

40:39

So if he gives a go

40:41

ahead, then it's going to be

40:43

a wider regional war. Certainly, the

40:45

Israelis are interested in a more

40:47

full war against Iran, but I

40:49

think they're going to be reluctant

40:51

to do it unless the United

40:54

States is fully backing them. Of

40:56

course, Joe Biden was backing the

40:58

Israelis in the military strikes against

41:00

Iran, but Biden wasn't giving them

41:02

carte blanche to go to full

41:04

scale war against the Iranians. It's

41:06

certainly a possibility in Trump world,

41:08

and we have to take it

41:10

seriously. On the other hand, Trump's

41:12

initial statements when he was elected

41:14

toward the Iranians were received pretty

41:17

positively in Tehran. The Iranians are

41:19

being very careful with how they

41:21

talk about Trump. I think that

41:23

there is some sense in Iran

41:25

that because Trump is a transactional

41:27

guy, that they may also be

41:29

able to make some form of

41:31

a deal with Trump. I think

41:33

that is a possibility. I also

41:35

think there's a possibility that Netanyahu

41:37

could get what he wants and

41:40

that the Trump administration would go

41:42

all in on a regime change

41:44

attempt through massive bombardment of Iran.

41:46

This very well could happen. We're

41:48

talking to Jeremy Scale investigative reporter.

41:50

The last bombing of Iran a

41:52

few months ago by Israel severely

41:54

disabled their air defenses. They attacked

41:56

the nuclear facility that was above

41:58

ground. and they blew up a

42:00

material supply factory that was crucial

42:02

to Iranian production of long-range missiles.

42:05

So it runs only lever now

42:07

is to block the sea lanes

42:09

for the shipment of huge amounts

42:11

of oil through the Gulf to

42:13

Western nations. They really don't have

42:15

many cards to play, do they?

42:17

No, they don't have too many

42:19

cards to play in a conventional

42:21

sense, but the Iranians are sophisticated

42:23

students of history and of the

42:25

United States. And I'm just emphasizing

42:28

to you that I think the

42:30

Iranians believe that they can make

42:32

a deal with Trump. I'm not

42:34

saying that that's likely. I think

42:36

they believe that there's a possibility.

42:38

So I would keep your eye

42:40

on that part of it. Read

42:42

carefully how Iranian officials talk about

42:44

the United States. On the flip

42:46

side of this, you have Netanyahu

42:48

that absolutely wants to... continue to

42:50

heavily bomb Iran, it doesn't have

42:53

to be full scale regime change.

42:55

He can use whatever incident pops

42:57

up. He goes to Trump. Trump

42:59

says, sure, you can bomb them

43:01

a bit. Then there's a, you

43:03

know, back channels between Iran and

43:05

the United States about what's going

43:07

to happen. Well, let's say they

43:09

don't do that anymore. These were

43:11

all choreographed things that happened when

43:13

the Iranians and the Israelis were

43:16

bombing each other some months ago.

43:18

There is a behind the scenes

43:20

choreography that takes place. and it's

43:22

aimed at preventing a fuller war.

43:24

If you remove those guardrails, yes,

43:26

you could have a scenario where

43:28

Israel hits Iran outside of the

43:30

bounds of kind of what has

43:32

been discussed behind the scenes, and

43:34

they push right up to the

43:36

envelope as you're indicating with some

43:38

of the sites that they hit.

43:41

But, you know, I think the

43:43

Iranians are smarter than Western observers

43:45

give them credit for. If they

43:47

engage in actions like the Houthis

43:49

have in Yemen, you know, this

43:51

is the poorest country in the

43:53

Arab world, and they have massively

43:55

disrupted disrupted disrupted. international shipping. They

43:57

have massively harmed the Israeli economy

43:59

with their attacks and blockade that

44:01

they've operated off the coast of

44:04

Yemen. If the Iranians enter that,

44:06

then the question becomes, does Trump

44:08

become so erratic in his response

44:10

to it? that he buys in

44:12

fully to a massive attack against

44:14

Iran. It's a wild card. Trump,

44:16

look Ralph, you and I both

44:18

know Sai Hirsch, the legendary investigative

44:20

reporter, I've known Sai for a

44:22

long time, but I met Sai

44:24

on the day of Trump's first

44:27

inauguration years ago. And I was

44:29

sitting in Sai's living room and

44:31

Sai said to me, Trump's a

44:33

circuit breaker to the system. He

44:35

wasn't praising him, he was just

44:37

stating a fact, he's a circuit

44:39

breaker. He is so unpredictable. predict

44:41

what he's going to do in

44:43

these cases. My hope is that

44:45

the part of Trump that seems

44:47

to be inclined to not be

44:49

a huge fan of massive wars

44:52

around the world prevails in some

44:54

of this. That doesn't mean that

44:56

I'm praising Trump. It means I'm

44:58

stating a fact. Trump has made

45:00

statements about American foreign policy that

45:02

you almost never hear a US

45:04

president make. And I think as

45:06

much as possible we have to

45:08

encourage that strand within Trump world

45:10

to say, yeah, that's the good

45:12

thing to do. Like, like, let's

45:15

not do it. talkish and it

45:17

comes with the added curse of

45:19

selling policies to liberals that would

45:21

be opposed if you saw the

45:23

bushes and chaines and trumps of

45:25

the world doing it. There's more

45:27

outrage among what I call blue

45:29

magga, you know, these sort of

45:31

cultish partisan Democrats over Trump's proposal

45:33

to take over Gaza as a

45:35

Middle East Riviera than most of

45:37

these people ever said during Biden

45:40

and Harris actively facilitating a genocide.

45:42

they're up in arms about Trump

45:44

talking about taking Gaza in a

45:46

much more passionate way than they

45:48

ever were about Biden actually facilitating

45:50

genocide. So let's be honest about

45:52

Trump in this regard, that there

45:54

are some strands of his orbit

45:56

that are different than we traditionally

45:58

get in an American president. And

46:00

so I'll hold on to a

46:03

tiny bit of hope, both regarding

46:05

Gaza and Iran, that maybe some...

46:07

Strange, unorthodox, perspective hits Trump on

46:09

these things. I don't think it's

46:11

the most likely route, but I

46:13

think we have to. be honest

46:15

about it. Trump sometimes does the

46:17

right thing for the wrong reasons

46:19

or accidentally. Just remember, Trump doesn't

46:21

like long drawn out wars like

46:23

the one between Russia and Ukraine.

46:26

He likes quick kills, which the

46:28

Netanyahu regime will promise when they

46:30

attack Iran. It'll be very quick,

46:32

Donald, and you won't have to

46:34

have any U.S. troops involved. Just

46:36

for the record, when Iran retaliated

46:38

against Israel with two missile strikes,

46:40

there were no casualties. They deliberately

46:42

avoided populated areas, a little damage

46:44

to a couple of air fields,

46:46

and on the first round, they

46:48

actually flagged the coordinates for Jordan

46:51

and the U.S. and Israel to

46:53

shoot down the missiles. This has

46:55

never happened before by antagonists. The

46:57

only casualty was a Palestinian West

46:59

Bank who's hit by debris. Let's

47:01

go to Steve. Jeremy, what do

47:03

you see as the end game?

47:05

If you were going to predict

47:07

10 years from now, do you

47:09

see a greater Israel completely isolated?

47:11

Do you see a two-state solution?

47:14

What do you see on the

47:16

horizon? I think the only thing

47:18

I would be able to say

47:20

with certainty is that there is

47:22

no chance, if you study the

47:24

past 76, 77 years of history

47:26

of the Palestinians, there is no

47:28

chance that they are going to

47:30

voluntarily... leave their land. There is

47:32

no chance that they are going

47:34

to lay down their arms in

47:36

a struggle for national liberation. And

47:39

I think that the only certainty

47:41

here is that the Palestinians are

47:43

not going to give up. And

47:45

the question is how much damage

47:47

has been done to Israel itself

47:49

by the events of the past

47:51

16 months within Israeli society, but

47:53

also on the world stage. You

47:55

know, history is filled with examples

47:57

where it seems that liberation struggles

47:59

are going to be stomped out,

48:02

crushed, eliminated, people will be annihilated,

48:04

and yet somehow when you're talking...

48:06

about people who have a deep

48:08

connection to their land, when you're

48:10

talking about people whose entire life

48:12

story is written in the blood

48:14

of their relatives who have been

48:16

expelled and imprisoned and tortured and

48:18

killed, that those people always have

48:20

the will to struggle. And so

48:22

I'm not in the business of

48:25

predictions, but I'm certain that there

48:27

is no chance that the Palestinians

48:29

are going to give up on

48:31

their righteous cause for national liberation.

48:33

I think that there are serious

48:35

questions about the stability and viability

48:37

of the state of Israel in

48:39

its current format. I think Netanyahu

48:41

radically miscalculated when he set out

48:43

to try to annihilate the population

48:45

of the Gaza Strip, and I

48:47

think that you're going to see

48:50

a real question being called on

48:52

what happens with the state of

48:54

Israel. are now saying Israelis control

48:56

all of Palestine and they're about

48:58

even in population Palestinians and Israelis

49:00

and it's a one state solution.

49:02

They're supporting one state solution, living

49:04

in peace with each other, maybe

49:06

under a confederacy and equal voting

49:08

rights. Well, the parties that are

49:10

in control of Israel want nothing

49:13

to do with that. Neither party

49:15

in the United States is going

49:17

to be endorsing that, but either

49:19

we're talking about apartheid or we're

49:21

going to talk about a democratic

49:23

vote. And, you know, when I

49:25

talk to even people from Hamas,

49:27

and Hamas, by the way, their

49:29

official position is that if it's

49:31

the will of the Palestinian people

49:33

to have a two-state solution along

49:35

1967 borders with Jerusalem as the

49:38

capital, that Hamas will not stand

49:40

in the way of it. That's

49:42

Hamas's current position. But if you

49:44

ask Hamas about that, they'll say

49:46

to you, show me the borders

49:48

of the other state. Can that

49:50

other state tell us where their

49:52

borders are? Because Israel is just

49:54

continuing to annex territory. So no,

49:56

I think you guys are getting

49:58

at something very important, which is

50:01

that many Palestinians now believe that

50:03

as long as an apartheid colonialist

50:05

regime is in that the cause

50:07

of liberation doesn't end. That's just

50:09

a fact. So this may be

50:11

the death of any serious talk

50:13

of a so-called two-state solution. Trump's

50:15

people are probably going to try

50:17

to ram it through. I mean,

50:19

this is going to be something

50:21

you're going to hear Arab nations

50:24

talking about. You're going to hear

50:26

the Saudis talking about. But I'm

50:28

just telling you that the one

50:30

certainty here is that the Palestinians

50:32

are not going to give up.

50:34

On that note, our time is

50:36

up. Unfortunately, Jeremy Scaill, it's been

50:38

a long narrative that you've conveyed

50:40

and you're continuing to convey with

50:42

your new group called Drop Sight.

50:44

How do people access Drop Sight

50:46

and get the daily material that

50:49

they can't get in normal news

50:51

outlets? Yeah, thank you rough. And

50:53

we have multiple reporters inside of

50:55

Gaza in the West Bank. A

50:57

part of our model is that

50:59

we work with local reporters, many

51:01

of whom have never been published

51:03

in the English language before. So

51:05

we're really honored to work with

51:07

such incredible journalists and bring their

51:09

work to an English-speaking audience. People

51:12

can go to drop site news.com.

51:14

We have no paywall. We take

51:16

contributions from people who want to

51:18

support our work, but we have

51:20

a firm commitment to... never limiting

51:22

our content to people that have

51:24

money to pay for it. So

51:26

you can subscribe and you'll get

51:28

the email updates from us and

51:30

you can always go to drop

51:32

site news.com. Thank you so much

51:34

for having me on you guys.

51:37

And Ralph, it's always an honor

51:39

to be with you from the

51:41

time I was a kid. You've

51:43

been one of my heroes and

51:45

I'm honored to have gotten to

51:47

know you over the past several

51:49

decades. Well, thank you, Jeremy, we've

51:51

been speaking with Jeremy Skay. We

51:53

will link to drop site to

51:55

drop site to drop site news

51:57

at Ralph Nader Radio Hour. When

52:00

we come back, Ralph is going

52:02

to respond to a social media

52:04

tweet calling him a hypocrite. Stay

52:06

tuned for that. But first, let's

52:08

check in with our corporate crime

52:10

reporter Russell Mokhiber. From the National

52:12

Press Building in Washington, D.C., this

52:14

is your corporate crime of Baltimore.

52:16

Minute for Friday, February 28th, 2025.

52:18

I'm Russell Mokhiber. What technology has

52:20

the potential to kill more than

52:23

half the human population? Four to

52:25

five billion children, women and men

52:27

in a short time, thereby ending

52:29

ending. thermonuclear war. That would be

52:31

apocalyptic, of course, but there is

52:33

another equally catastrophic threat to humanity,

52:35

one that is much more likely

52:37

to occur, yet unknown to much

52:39

of the world's population. This threat

52:41

is based primarily on the development

52:43

of genetic, engineering, and synthetic biology

52:45

techniques that allow researchers to create

52:48

new viruses and to make current

52:50

viruses more transmissible virulent and lethal.

52:52

That's going to a report by

52:54

Andrew Kimbrough. in the February, March,

52:56

2025 issue of the Capitol Hill

52:58

citizen. For the corporate crime reporter,

53:00

I'm Russell Mulcabe. Thank you, Russell.

53:02

Welcome back to the Ralph native

53:04

radio hour. I'm Steve Scroven, along

53:06

with David Feldman, Hannah, and Ralph.

53:08

Ralph, we want to close the

53:11

show today, having you give a

53:13

response to some social media posts

53:15

that are suggesting that you're being

53:17

hypocritical and should be supportive of

53:19

what Trump, Musk, and Doge, are

53:21

doing, and even implying that you're

53:23

not writing your own tweets-your own

53:25

tweets-your own tweets. saying Ralph wouldn't

53:27

say that. And I'm just going

53:29

to give an example of one

53:31

of the tweets here. It's from

53:33

somebody named Brian Kuzmar. He says,

53:36

come on Ralph, you spent decades

53:38

crusading against corporate corruption, exposing greed

53:40

and abuse of power at every

53:42

turn. Yet now you conveniently ignore

53:44

the glaring truth that our government

53:46

has been just as corrupt, if

53:48

not more so, and staggeringly wasteful

53:50

to boot. The hypocrisy is deafening.

53:52

Are you even writing this stuff

53:54

yourself or are you staffers just

53:56

parroting talking points to sidestep the

53:59

uncomfortable reality staring us all in

54:01

the face? Your response Ralph. Brian

54:03

you must be either a volunteer

54:05

musketeer or a naive or you're

54:07

just having fun. Obviously there's waste

54:09

and corruption in the federal government

54:11

over the years. Just look at

54:13

the military budget supported by both

54:15

parties bloated and taking over half

54:17

of the federal government's operating expenditures.

54:19

just in one department, unaudited by

54:22

the way. But you're talking about

54:24

gangsters coming in, the Trump Musk

54:26

cabal with. whole new rendition of

54:28

corruption. For example, they're into it

54:30

for their own enrichment. First thing

54:32

they did is fire the cops

54:34

on the corporate crime beat, shutting

54:36

down one agency after another firing

54:38

inspector generals, any agency that is

54:40

going after the corporate crooks, which

54:42

of course they have an affinity

54:44

for. The second thing, in addition

54:47

to getting the cops off their

54:49

back, especially all the agencies investigating

54:51

Musk. and his operations which have

54:53

been essentially put on the show

54:55

is they're enriching their own business

54:57

they're pushing for more tax cuts

54:59

for the super rich well that

55:01

includes themselves and they're cutting Medicaid

55:03

in half they got the European

55:05

Congress in the house cutting Medicaid

55:07

72 million Americans many of them

55:10

Trump voters cutting the budget in

55:12

half in order to pay for

55:14

even more tax cuts for the

55:16

super rich and big companies that

55:18

Trump gave them in 2017 during

55:20

his first term. So, you know,

55:22

just bring yourself up to date,

55:24

Brian. Trump is going after everybody.

55:26

In fact, 80% of the 160

55:28

billion dollars that Biden got through

55:30

Congress relating to construction of renewable

55:32

energy goes to the southern state,

55:35

the red states that voted for

55:37

Trump. And of course, in all

55:39

of these... trying to get rid

55:41

of meals on wheels trying to

55:43

get rid of headstar those affect

55:45

conservative families too and then Brian

55:47

you should appreciate this most of

55:49

the programs are being cut our

55:51

programs for serving ordinary people in

55:53

need most of them now here's

55:55

the biggest waste fraud and corruption

55:58

that preceded Trump the Trump Musk

56:00

axis is not touching corporate crimes

56:02

on government programs like ripping off

56:04

Medicare 60 billion would be a

56:06

year. They're not touching corporate handouts,

56:08

giveaways, subsidies, bailouts, hundreds of billions

56:10

of... dollars a year in tax

56:12

expenditures and these subsidy programs. And

56:14

they're not really touching the bloated

56:16

military budget, although they're making some

56:18

verbiage about it, because the Republicans

56:21

in the Senate have just added

56:23

another $150 billion to the military

56:25

budget. So those are the three

56:27

big items that neither the Democrats

56:29

nor the Republicans touched. And so

56:31

don't think that Trump and Musk

56:33

are any different, other than giving

56:35

even more green lights. for this

56:37

kind of rapidity on the federal

56:39

government and the American taxpayer and

56:41

their right to health safety and

56:43

economic well-being. So I think there's

56:46

going to be a real mounting

56:48

resistance and maybe we'll come out

56:50

ahead Brian but keep up to

56:52

date. Thank you for that Ralph.

56:54

I want to thank our guest

56:56

again Jeremy Skayhill for those of

56:58

you listening on the radio that's

57:00

our show for you podcast listeners

57:02

stay tuned for some bonus material

57:04

we call the wrap-up for fans

57:06

of in case you haven't heard.

57:09

Francesco DeSantis will be back next

57:11

week. So hang tight, we miss

57:13

him too. A transcript of this

57:15

program will appear on the Ralph

57:17

Nader Radio Hour sub-stack site soon

57:19

after the episode is posted. The

57:21

producers of the Ralph Nader Radio

57:23

Hour are Jimmy Lee Wert, Anna

57:25

Feldman and Matthew Marin. Our executive

57:27

producer is Alan Minsky. Our theme

57:29

music stand-up rise-up was written and

57:31

performed by Kent Harris. Our proof

57:34

reader is Elizabeth Solomon. Join. Thank

57:36

you everybody. Hi, this is Jimmy

57:38

Lee Wert and welcome to the

57:40

wrap-up. First, Jeremy Shea Hill tells

57:42

us a quick story that he

57:44

learned in the Al Jazeera documentary

57:46

about Hamas and their leader, Yahoo

57:48

Sinwar. And it also had previously

57:50

unseen footage of the chief of

57:52

Hamas in Gaza, Yahoo Sinwar, who

57:54

of course was killed by Israel

57:57

in battle. I mean, they killed

57:59

him while he was sitting in

58:01

a chair, but he was caught

58:03

on video. in one of his

58:05

last acts as a living. throwing

58:07

a stick at the robotic drone

58:09

that had flown in to track

58:11

him. But the Israeli narrative about

58:13

him was that he and his

58:15

wife with her designer purses were

58:17

living in tunnels and were in

58:19

the presence of human shields in

58:22

the form of Israeli hostages. Well,

58:24

it turns out that was a

58:26

complete lie and that Yajasinwar was

58:28

engaged in actual military confrontation of

58:30

Israeli forces. And when they did

58:32

the autopsy on him, they found

58:34

that he hadn't eaten for three

58:36

days. There also was propaganda, oh

58:38

he's on captagon on these amphetamine

58:40

drugs. The only thing they found

58:42

in his system was caffeine. And

58:45

so just giving you as one

58:47

example, they portrayed Yajas Sinwar as

58:49

a rat hiding in a tunnel

58:51

and it turns out that he

58:53

was actually operating as a field

58:55

commander at the time when Israel

58:57

accidentally found him and then he

58:59

was killed and Israel then took

59:01

his body and they're not returning

59:03

it. Finally, after the show, David

59:05

Steve Hannah and Rouse longtime associate

59:08

John Richard. discuss whether David can

59:10

sue the Democratic Party for not

59:12

fulfilling their promises and whether Hannah

59:14

should go to law school. You

59:16

didn't mention the Consumer Financial Protection

59:18

Bureau, which they've completely defanged. I

59:20

mentioned generally they're closing down the

59:22

federal cops on the corporate crime

59:24

beat, including EPA, OSHA, the Auto

59:26

Safety Agency, Federal Trade Commission, Consumer

59:28

Product Safety Commission, and various parts

59:30

of the Department of Health and

59:33

Human Services that's responsible to cracking

59:35

down on fraud on government insurance

59:37

programs like Medicare and Medicaid. It's

59:39

like corruption homeopathy. They're claiming that

59:41

they can cure conflicts of interest

59:43

by slattering on more conflicts of

59:45

interest. Wow. That's brilliant. Thank you.

59:47

I actually realized it's not the

59:49

best comparison because unlike homeopathy, they

59:51

don't water down their conflicts of

59:53

interest to barely detectable amounts. Hey,

59:56

I want to pitch a class

59:58

action suit for public citizens, Steve.

1:00:00

Yeah. I donated to the Democratic

1:00:02

Party. Yeah. I want my money

1:00:04

back. I found out where it

1:00:06

went to. I was used. I

1:00:08

want my money back. I want

1:00:10

a refund. All right, Paul, put

1:00:12

that on in the stoop. See,

1:00:14

the cat licks it up. Cat's

1:00:16

not going to eat that one.

1:00:18

This is John Richard, who should

1:00:21

know he's actually in the profession

1:00:23

of law. I know cats. And

1:00:25

he knows cats. All right, John,

1:00:27

let me ask you your question.

1:00:29

What if you put it up

1:00:31

the flagpole and see if anybody

1:00:33

salutes? What about that? I think

1:00:35

the best that would be for

1:00:37

you to go to small claims

1:00:39

court. That might get some press.

1:00:41

Litigation group is, as per discussion

1:00:44

we had with Steve, probably wouldn't

1:00:46

take a suit like this. It's

1:00:48

in that quadrant of litigation ideas

1:00:50

that Ralph lives. The Asian group

1:00:52

doesn't. I mean, look, look, look,

1:00:54

it is a novel complaint. He

1:00:56

is disappointed that a political party

1:00:58

did not do what they said

1:01:00

they would do. And that is,

1:01:02

I mean, that is brand new.

1:01:04

Yeah, I'm disappointed that my gym

1:01:07

coach, Jed Blanchard, said, if I

1:01:09

practiced hard, I could be a

1:01:11

basketball player and play for him.

1:01:13

But it didn't work out. I

1:01:15

mean, what can I tell you?

1:01:17

I'm not suing him. Well, as

1:01:19

the jerky boys once said, Sue

1:01:21

everybody. But do it yourself, that's

1:01:23

what I'm saying, small claims court.

1:01:25

Small claims court. I'm too busy

1:01:27

coming up with stupid ideas, John.

1:01:29

I don't have time. You know,

1:01:32

we have a solution if Hannah

1:01:34

would just go to law school.

1:01:36

In this case for you. You

1:01:38

know, it's either that or a

1:01:40

pit bull. Well, John, the flaw

1:01:42

in your plan is small claims

1:01:44

court is so that you don't

1:01:46

need a lawyer. I know, but

1:01:48

you want to. There's a flaw

1:01:50

in your reasoning. Your rhetoric is

1:01:52

flawed, John. No, but lawyers can

1:01:55

represent individuals if they need them

1:01:57

in small claims court. And I'm

1:01:59

based. on what David said, I

1:02:01

think he could use your help. But

1:02:03

are you saying because he needs

1:02:05

professional help, I agree. I'm

1:02:08

deploying reverse psychology here, John.

1:02:10

So you're not suggesting Hannah go

1:02:12

to law school that she has

1:02:14

the temperament to her permit. For

1:02:16

the intelligence. Good political views. Got

1:02:18

it all. I mean, you know,

1:02:20

I'm just a parent who failed

1:02:22

on three children. Like, you know,

1:02:24

three children who have two lawyers

1:02:26

as parents. What can I tell

1:02:28

you? I'm hoping for Hannah. I'm

1:02:31

hoping for all the children that

1:02:33

we bump into going to loss. Well,

1:02:35

I mean, it would break my heart if

1:02:37

she went to law school. If she took

1:02:39

the LSATs to just see, it would break

1:02:41

my heart if she did that. It would

1:02:43

be a real stab. Would be a shonda.

1:02:46

I'm going to put some money

1:02:48

into a prep course for just

1:02:50

to take the test and demonstrate,

1:02:52

you know, how else she could do. Well, excellent

1:02:55

reverse psychology, David.

1:02:57

You had me going. Don't listen

1:02:59

to John Richard, Hannah. Send me

1:03:02

a check and I'll, you know,

1:03:04

I'll look into my off. And

1:03:07

that's a wrap. Join us next

1:03:09

week on the Ralph Nader

1:03:11

Radio Hour. Until next

1:03:13

time.