6/13/24: Israeli Journo Smacks Down Jake Tapper Live, UN Confirms Oct 7 Friendly Fire, Morning Joe Goes Full Bin Laden
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So we've got a few updates for you with regards to wherever we are with that ceasefire proposal. First, we wanted to bring you Jay Tapper announcing on his program that Hamas had rejected the deal, which was not exactly accurate and getting corrected in real time. Let's take a listen to that. Hamas has responded to the latest proposal for a hostage and ceasefire deal, and Hamas has rejected it. CNN political and foreign policy analyst Barak Ravid is breaking this. Did Hamas, Barak, give any explanation?

for its rejection? Hi, Jake. So first, Hamas did not say that it rejected the deal. Hamas said that it gave a response to the Qatari and Egyptian mediators, that it gave several comments and remarks on parts of the Israeli proposal. Israel, the Israeli government, Israeli officials are the ones saying that after they received Hamas' response and analyzed it, they treat it as a rejection.

I think we still need to hear from the mediators and most importantly, from the White House. White House spokesman John Kirby said that the White House is still analyzing and studying the Hamas response. So Hamas is saying it just gave a few comments. Israel is saying Hamas rejected the deal. The White House still hasn't said anything.

of substance, I think we should wait and hear more what the White House says, what the Qataris say, and what the Egyptians say. What I heard from U.S. officials in the last few weeks is that because Sinwar thinks that

as the war goes on, Israel will be more under pressure and the U.S. will put more pressure on Israel. This is why they try to mobilize the international community to support President Biden's speech, including the Security Council resolution that passed yesterday that the Biden administration thought that if SINWR cares so much

about the international pressure on Israel, maybe when he sees the Security Council resolution, he'll have second thoughts on where the international pressure is directed. Maybe he'll understand that he's also under pressure and not only the Israelis.

So kind of a funny and subtly revealing moment there because the actual story was Israeli officials had said, and that was the Axios headline, Israeli officials had said Hamas rejected the deal and Taffer just takes that as Hamas rejected the deal because he just takes their word for it. How funny is it

the Israeli journalist who is an Israeli citizen, and I believe he served in the IDF previously. He did. He's like, hold on a sec, dude. He's like, that's just what the Israelis are saying. That's a perfect example, is that the Israeli media more skeptical of their own government or of their own coverage than the US media. Yeah. How else can you, that is it. You should look at that and put it in a time capsule. Look at it from all time forward. Perfect moment. But I mean, I have to say like,

I've read everything there is to read about their response and where we are. And it's honestly impossible to parse what is going on behind the scenes because it's very difficult to separate the spin from the reality of who's

who is positioned where. The best that I can come to, I want to show you some elements here that give you a sense of what we know, but I think we're still just at this fundamental impasse where Hamas wants to remain in existence because they're self-interested. They want the war to end and there to actually be a permanent ceasefire and some guarantee of that. And Israel, especially led by Bibi Netanyahu,

does not want the war to end. And it seems to be that that's a pretty unbridgeable divide, at least without the U.S. exerting much more pressure than they have to date to make this thing happen. We did hear from Tony Blinken. He described his characterization of what Hamas's response was here, saying that some of the changes were minor, others were unacceptable and unworkable. Let's take a listen to his exact words. Hamas has proposed numerous changes,

to the proposal that was on the table. We discussed those changes last night with Egyptian colleagues and today with the Prime Minister. Some of the changes are workable, some are not. A deal was on the table that was virtually identical to the proposal that Hamas put forward on May the 6th. A deal that the entire world is behind, a deal Israel has accepted, and Hamas could have answered with a single word, yes. Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks to

and then propose more changes, a number of which go beyond positions that had previously taken and accepted. So listen, I'm not portraying Hamas as like a good actor in this, but it's worth being skeptical of the U.S.'s commentary here as well, because they clearly from the beginning, they've framed this as this is the Israeli proposal and they totally support it. It's Hamas that's standing in the way.

when Israel, you know, the leaders of Israel Netanyahu in particular were consistently saying, well, actually we don't agree with what the U S has put forward. And this isn't exactly reflective of our proposal. So in any case, you can take that for what it's worth. We also have some harrass reporting about according to Israeli officials, uh,

what they are saying. Hamas's objections were here, some of the provisions that are considered quote unquote unworkable. So they've demanded that the ceasefire agreement stipulate that Israel withdraw from all areas of the Gaza Strip in the first week of the deal's implementation, that if Israel does not do so, the release of hostages will be halted. In a response given by Hamas to mediators on Wednesday, the group is

seeking a complete cessation of fire from the Israeli army, the withdrawal of the IDF from population centers on the first day of the ceasefire. On the third day, Hamas seeks an Israeli withdrawal from the Salah ad-Din road, which connects between both sides of the strip and the coastal road. Sources in Hamas told Haaretz that the amendments that were submitted are intended to ensure the withdrawal and ceasefire be established in the first phase and that Israel will not be able to

invade the implementation of all stages of the deal and return to fighting once all hostages are released. They also want China, Russia, and Turkey to be guarantors of the deal. So again, Sagar, to me it seems to come down to this fundamental divide that Hamas wants the war to be over, a ceasefire to be permanent, and Israel wants to keep their options open to continue the shooting and the bombing once phase one is up. - Yeah, I just think it's not, at this point I almost think it's impossible

Israel wants Hamas to commit to a ceasefire, release the hostages, and then commit to not being in power after the war is over. Hamas is like, no, I'm not going to do it. No organization, and again, I am not defending them, but what I am saying is that no organization except Israel

literally exhausting every single other option is going to agree to effectively what is an unconditional surrender. There was a Wall Street Journal article that quoted a lot of leaked texts from Yawa Sinwar, the head of Hamas. And the headline was basically like Sinwar willing to sacrifice like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians because he believes that he is winning the war. And I was starting to think about it. I think

he is a lot like any of these other insurgent character leaders who is in a nationalistic struggle against a stronger enemy. And again, I'm not justifying purely analysis. But if you look at Ho Chi Minh and others, huge portions of the Politburo during the NVA were like, yeah, we're going to lose a million Vietnamese.

At the end of the day, there's protests that are happening in the U.S. We can outlast these Yankee imperialists, and we will win. And they want us to surrender to them. They want us to literally give up our ability to govern what we see as our own country. As long as we outlast them, we will win. And they were right.

And basically what he says in a lot of these text messages is, yeah, it's sad, but a lot of people are going to continue to die. You can see that the West is beginning to rise up. There's a lot of outrage over the Israeli state. All I have to do is survive up until the point where their government breaks and international pressure comes and the way that they are conducting themselves is

is giving their opponents all the ammunition that they need, well, he's like, I mean, in a very rational way, he is exhibiting his own best self-interest and he has hostages to negotiate with and

I think I said this on our editorial call. Everyone's like, well, they should just give up and release him. I'm like, yeah, look, I agree. It would be nice. But there's only really a few recorded instances in history where a group actually voluntarily surrenders and puts itself up for annihilation. The Japanese under World War II, and even then they had to agree that they were going to be able to keep their emperor after we nuked them and effectively annihilated the vast majority of their populated cities. And Nazi Germany, where again,

We militarily occupied them and gave them no other choice after they fought to the death for every single scrap of their territory. Absent that, it's not going to happen, as we saw with the Nazis. We had conquered the vast majority of Germany, and they still wouldn't surrender. So you can see you really only have one or two options here. Like you can give up on this, quote-unquote, unconditional surrender, or you can continue, and he's going to keep pursuing the strategy, which is in his own best interest. Right.

Yeah, there was a revealing State Department exchange a few days back that really underscores the point you're making, Sagar, which is like, listen, if you're going to have a negotiation, both sides have to feel like they're getting something out of it.

And if you're on the Hamas side, and again, this is just to analyze the way they're looking at things. It's like, oh, I'm just gonna agree to you can go back to bombing and also we're gonna just self-destruct and go away. Why would we agree to that? And that exact question, this is D4 guys that I'm queuing up. That exact question was put to Matt Miller in a State Department briefing. And frankly, his answer was utterly preposterous. Take a listen. Hamas,

just a few weeks ago signed off on a virtually identical proposal. But you just spoke to the points of why this would be wonderful for Israel. And, you know, there's the way you've approached this so far is that Hamas, the way a lot of people have approached it, Hamas doesn't care about the Palestinian people. They only care about themselves.

And so there are, in a sense, three parties to this. Israel, the Palestinian people, non-Hamas, and Hamas. But I think the answer to my question, which is what's in it for Hamas, is essentially nothing for them. So again... Right? So...

They claim to represent. I'm not trying to be cute. They claim to represent the interests of the Palestinian people. But you don't believe that, and you've made it clear many, many times that you don't think that they do care about the Palestinian people, and they don't. Well, I suppose this proposal puts that question very squarely. Well, didn't the last one and the one before that and the one before that? And given that this one is nearly identical to the one that Hamas presented, I think it puts it in more squarely. So, Matt Lee, by the way, incredible. Just always nails these guys dead to rights. But he's like –

You're betting on Hamas to put the safety of the Palestinian people first. You're betting on the goodwill of Hamas and for them to not be self-interested whatsoever. In what other sense of this conflict do you hold that view? Now, I would also add to that, I mean, in addition to the idea that you're giving them nothing and expecting them to just completely capitulate and total surrender, but also you're

Hamas's provisions are designed to guarantee there is in fact a permanent ceasefire. And this is something that you can go and listen to Bibi Netanyahu and their UN representative and all these people in government themselves say. They do not accept that. They will not commit to that.

So there also is just this, even if you wanna grow Hamas has only the goodwill of the Palestinian people in mind. Even through that frame, they wouldn't accept without some sort of conditions and guarantee that there is a permanent ceasefire. There was an interesting exchange on Mehdi Hassan's network Zateo with the nephew of a hostage explaining his view of

Bibi's mentality and the way that he's been approaching these negotiations that I thought was worth hearing out as well. Let's take a listen to that. Always he and the government always choose the wrong way. And always ever since October 8th, everything they do is directed at not getting the hostages back. This is the plain truth.

They had many opportunities to sign a deal. They're always sabotaging their own initiatives. When people from the professional, you know, the negotiating team itself are crying out loud, this thing can't go on. We're sabotaging our own moves. And this is the reality for the past nine months. This is why we didn't get any hostages back alive. And Netanyahu was the first person

to jump on the photo app and push himself inside the frame with his boat, as he said, called it heroic military operation. The other that came back during the hostage deal didn't get a visit. It's not such a good photo app, apparently, for his base to see people coming alive and well

Yeah, and I think he puts that – I mean it's like that's the inescapable truth at this point because there were – have been deals – potential deals available all the way along. We know the bulk of the hostages that were released overwhelmingly came in the context of a deal. We also – this is something that's very present in Israeli politics, Agar, is –

Bibi has refused to meet with the hostage families in quite a long time. I mean, he's just completely shut them out. And in this way, he really is dramatically at odds with the Israeli domestic public. Even a majority within his own, you know, fairly hard right party, Likud party, want to see a deal to bring the hostages home. And that is the opposite of his priority because he just wants to be able to continue and continue and continue and expand.

done before. I just think his stance is going to continue and unless we can literally change irreconcilable differences, then nothing is going to happen. If the condition is, well, that's the other thing. If the condition, and this is why things could change, if Benny Gantz becomes the prime minister, if the condition becomes release of the hostages first, quote unquote defeat of Hamas second, then

we're in business, right? Hamas may sign that deal. They'll be like, okay, fine. You end the war. We're good to go. We're probably going to stay in power. That's fine. You're not existentially asking us to basically give up our arms. I

After that, though, the military organization, I was just looking back at those text messages that I referenced. He, Sinwar, believes he is winning. He's like, yeah, it's sad. It's true. A lot of people have died. He said, I believe that the Israelis are right where we want them. This is something he said like multiple days ago. There is no way that they would voluntarily just give up military resistance and then give up their hostages.

I'm speaking purely from a cold calculation. That's why the North Vietnamese example is a good one. In the end of the day, they were correct about their ability to withstand. Yes, millions of people died, but they knew that that sacrifice in their communist worldview or whatever was worth it. And ultimately they succeeded. So who's gonna be the one, who has more to lose is the other question. Sinwar also references,

that with Netanyahu, he's like, even if he wins, he said even Israeli victory could be a huge defeat because he knows what that would entail and what consequences that he could invite on the Israeli military if that were to occur. So you can hate him if you want,

But these people can both be ideological and deeply rational. And everything that they're doing is quite rational right now from their own self-interest perspective. Yeah, and that's divorcing morality from the question. It's not just Hamas leaders who feel that –

Israel is losing and Israel is failing in their objectives. I mean, you can read analyses to that effect in many mainstream Israeli newspapers. They're saying, listen, they haven't destroyed the tunnels. They haven't destroyed Hamas. They've only gotten a relatively small, less than a majority of their fighters have been killed. There are thousands of new recruits signing up. You've created a hotbed for future terrorism because of all the death and destruction that you've sown. And

Listen, the reality is before October 7th, and again, this is divorcing morality. This is not sanctioning anything, any of the horrors that were committed on October 7th against civilians.

Before October 7th, the Palestine question was basically dead. Even someone like, this is something Professor Norman Finkelstein talks about. Here he is, someone who's devoted his entire adult life and career to studying this. And he himself had given up because it felt like no one cared. There was no possibility of the Abraham Accord and these normalization deals that were occurring. And Palestine was playing no part in it. The idea was just to pretend this didn't exist.

And we are now in a very different landscape. And Israel is increasingly a pariah country. We're going to get to this new UN report that accuses them of extermination. They're facing genocide charges at the ICJ. Bibi Netanyahu and Yoav Galant, the defense minister, are facing ICC war crime prosecution. This didn't make it into our show, but we were looking at was it intel that pulled out of a huge $15

billion dollar deal in Israel. Their economy is really suffering. You know, the Western press is one thing, but if you go around the world at the way that they're viewing Israel, the way they're viewing this conflict, this has been devastating to Israel. It's also been devastating, by the way, to the U.S. and whatever prestige we had remaining in the world as well. So when you look at all those pieces, I think you have to agree with the assessment that, you know, um,

This has not gone well for Israel, and it's not a surprise because Bibi Netanyahu doesn't care first and foremost about Israel. Israeli security certainly doesn't care about the hostages. He cares about himself. He wants to stay in power, and he wants to stay out of prison too, because don't forget, he's facing corruption charges.

So, the US tried to give an alternative version of victory to the Israelis. Biden tried to frame what they've done already is, hey, you've degraded their capacity so they can no longer conduct another operation like October 7th. Call that a victory and move on is basically what Biden was proposing to the Israelis.

And without any sort of actual muscle being applied on the US side, without any sort of pressure or leverage, there may be some actors in the Israeli government that would accept that. But beating Netanyahu is not one of them. And that is incredibly clear and has been incredibly clear, by the way, for a long time. So that's where we are, the best I can tell with the ceasefire deals. Anything else you wanted to say there before I move on?

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There is a UN commission that's been looking into atrocities committed by both Hamas and Israel on October 7th and through the end of last year. So they just put out a report that is quite detailed and accuses Israel and Hamas.

by the way, but Israel, you know, that's the government that we're funding. So we take particular interest in, um, of some, uh, you know, outrageous war crimes and even crimes against humanity. Let's put the New York times right up on the screen. We give you some of the headlines here. So the headline is UN report accuses both Israel and Palestinian groups of war crimes

A commission produced the UN's most detailed examination yet of the October 7th attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza. Read you a little bit of this in that report released on Wednesday. The three-person commission does not itself carry any penalties, but lays out a legal analysis of

of actions in the Gaza conflict that is likely to be weighed by the International Court of Justice and in other international criminal proceedings. Israel did not cooperate with the investigation, surprise, surprise, and protested the panel's assessment of its behavior.

Some of the details here in terms of the Israeli side, they say during their months-long campaign in Gaza to oust Hamas, they have committed war crimes like the use of starvation as a weapon of war through a total siege of Gaza. The report also said Israel's use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas amounted to a direct attack on the civilian population and had the essential elements of a crime against humanity, disregarding the necessity of distinguishing between combatants

and civilians, causing disproportionate high number of civilian casualties, particularly among women and children. The conflict has killed or maimed tens of thousands of Palestinian children, a scale and a rate of casualties that were unparalleled.

across conflicts in recent decades. Other crimes against humanity committed by Israel include extermination, murder, gender persecution in targeting Palestinian men and boys, forcible transfer of the population, torture and inhuman and cruel treatment.

I'm going to get into some of the specific details here, which were the subject in particular of a lot of commentary and discussion online. But just to zoom out for a second of the import of this, because you guys might be, oh, another UN report, who cares? Which in one sense, okay, fair enough. In another way that you have yet another report accusing Israel of such grave crimes against humanity and Israel.

that this is likely to weigh heavily in a future international court of justice ruling with regards to genocide. And also potentially the ICC may take a look at this also in terms of war crimes prosecution against Bibi Netanyahu, Yoav Golan, and potentially others in the future, by the way. That's what gives this some weight and makes it really significant. It also carried a lot of weight. Mainstream press was forced to cover this and talk in detail about this. And it's

yet another instance of Israel's increasing pariah status internationally. Yeah, well, and there's also a lot of other stuff, Crystal, if we want to get into, about the Hannibal Directive, which they found, which is very interesting. Yes, so could we put the Hannibal Directive piece of this up on the screen? So the Hannibal Directive, the basic idea, and this has been documented in the past, that the Israeli military will...

kill their own in the process of attempting to get the bad guys or thwart hostage taking in particular. And there's already been credible reporting in places like the New York Times that there had been some instances of the Hannibal directive being operative during the response to October 7th. Well, noteworthy in this report, you have this paragraph that says, quote, the commission also verified information indicating that in at least two other cases,

The Israelis had likely applied the Hannibal Directive, resulting in the killing of up to 14 Israeli civilians. One woman was killed by ISF helicopter fire while being abducted from near Oz to Gaza by militants. In another case, the commission found that Israeli tank fire killed some or all of the 13 civilian hostages held in a house that's in that kibbutz

in Biari, that was the instance that I think has been most documented and basically admitted to by the Israelis who were involved in that operation. And witnesses, survivors had also testified to that as well, but still noteworthy to see this confirmed in this report. Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is not only has it been, I mean, this has been something that's been danced around previously, but it's important also just underscore, remember there were some revisions about the death toll on

October 7th, and it does still remain questions about specifically the Nova Music Festival to have a confirmation, or at least supposed confirmation here by the United Nations, not nothing. Yes, and they looked into the Nova Music Festival piece as well, and they weren't able to come to a conclusion there over whether the Hannibal Directive was also operative at the Nova Music Festival, so they left that question open at this time.

Another area that they dealt with was an incredibly politically sensitive issue, which is rape and gender-based violence committed by Hamas on October 7th. And I wanted to put, this is gonna be a little bit lengthy guys, but I just wanna make sure you have all of the information that was in the report so that you can know fully what this commission found. Let's go and put the first piece up on the screen. The TLDR here is that the commission found, quote, indications that,

that members of the military wing of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed gender-based violence in several locations on October 7th. These, they say, were not isolated incidents, but perpetrated in similar ways in several locations by multiple Palestinian perpetrators. The acts that were documented reflected, they say, clear abuse of power by male perpetrators, disregard for special considerations and protection of women's integrity. So that's gender-based violence. Let's go to the next

in the report. They indicate that Hamas rejected those accusations. However, they get into some of the specifics of the evidence that they found of sexual violence and gender-based violence perpetrated against women in and around the Nova Festival site as well as at a military outpost and several of the kibbutz

They say they collected and preserved digital evidence, including images of victims' bodies displaying indications of sexual violence, a pattern corroborated by independent testimonies from witnesses. Reliable witness accounts obtained described bodies that had been undressed.

in some instances with exposed genitals. They received reports and verified digital evidence concerned the restraining of women, including hands and sometimes feet of women being bound, often behind the victim's backs prior to their abduction or killing. Additionally, the commission made assessments based on the position of the body. For example, images displaying legs spread or bent over and signs of struggle or violence on the body, such as stab wounds, burns, lacerations, and abrasions. So let's go on to the next piece. They say, however,

that they looked at testimonies obtained by journalists and Israeli police concerning rape specifically, so as distinct from general gender-based violence or general sexual violence, but

But they were not able to independently verify those rape allegations. Due to lack of access to victims, witnesses in crime seats and obstruction of investigation by Israeli authorities, commission was unable to review the unedited version of such testimonies for the same reasons commission was also unable to verify reports of sexualized torture and genital mutilation. Additionally, the commission found some specific allegations to be false.

inaccurate or contradictory with other evidence or statements and discounted these from its assessment. So this is consistent with the Times of London piece that I did a monologue on earlier this week, which is effectively in terms of rape and specifically there's another piece that speaks to this, rape being used systematically as a weapon of war with top-down instructions and

from military commanders to use rape as a weapon of war. There is no evidence at this point, no testimony, no forensic evidence to back up those claims. We have one more piece that speaks to this specifically. They say that the commission identified patterns indicative of sexual violence in several locations.

The attack on October 7th, they say, enabled perpetrators to commit sexual and gender-based violence, and this violence was not isolated. But they say they did not find credible evidence that militants received orders to commit sexual violence, and so was unable to make conclusions on this issue. However, they say inflammatory language, disbelief observed with both parties, resilencing and discrediting survivors, further exacerbating trauma and stigmatization.

I know this was a lot to go through, but I just wanted to give all the details of what the commission report found, what they documented, what they claimed. And, you know, it gives a little bit of a fuller picture of what we know at this point of what happened October 7th, which is they found indications of

of gender-based violence, of sexual violence. They did not, they were able to falsify some of the journalist's tellings, some of the news accounts of specific rapes. They were not able to find evidence of specific rapes. The Israeli government continues not to cooperate.

they found no indications that this was used systematically as a weapon of war with top-down instructions, which again is consistent with prior reporting. Take it for what you will. Call it tedious if you want. Go ask any normie Israel supporter out there and they're going to bring up raping the babies every single time.

So if you think this stuff doesn't matter, it's kind of like going back in 2005 and be like, does it really matter that we didn't find WMD in Iraq? And it's like, no, yeah, it actually really does matter because the initial justifications for the eventual fallout, they matter a lot. And one of the very effective tactics that the Bush administration, war supporters, and all those people did is they moved

all of their lies and started architecting new ones instead of actually reconciling what really happened. We didn't get a full accounting until what, 2010 basically of like what really went down in those initial years and by that time the damage was done. So I say don't ever

forget. It's kind of like 9-11. Do the details of 9-11 still matter? In some sense, no. In others, we just learned two weeks ago that the Saudi government had even more to do with funding the hijackers than we knew at the time, and it was totally covered up. I would say it does matter. It matters both for the historical record and for future U.S. policy. Well, and it also matters because the Israeli government really used this as the center of their push to justify barbarism. Not just them, I mean.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, Joe Biden, I showed the clip of him lying about, oh, I saw the photographs. No, you didn't because those photographs didn't exist. So that's why your word tedious is correct. I also find it somewhat tedious, but I want to make sure that we're really clear about what we know actually happened on that day, what the evidence supports, what it doesn't support. There was one last piece that I wanted to put up here because this looked both at, you know, Israeli actions and Palestinian actions, uh,

crimes committed against Israelis and against Palestinians. There was quite a significant section about gender based and sexual violence committed against Palestinians. We can put this up on the screen, this was a portion of it. They say that the frequency prevalence and severity of sexual and gender based crimes perpetrated against Palestinians since October 7th across the OPT indicate that specific forms of this type of violence are part of Israeli operating procedures.

Palestinian men and boys experienced specific persecutory acts intended to punish them in retaliation for the crimes committed on October 7th. The way in which these acts were committed, including their filming and photographing in conjunction with similar cases documented in several locations, leads the commission to conclude

that forced public stripping and nudity and other related types of abuse were either ordered or condoned by Israeli authorities. So they're suggesting that there may have been operating orders

to humiliate Palestinian men and boys in particular, and perpetrate sexual violence, gender-based violence against Palestinian men and boys in a systematic way post-October 7th to quote-unquote get revenge for the crimes that were committed on that day. And there's quite a bit of detail in the report

about some of the acts that have been reported, which again, consistent with prior reporting. We had report from previous UN reports. We also just had New York Times documenting torture and abuse against Palestinian prisoners who've been taken by the Israelis, including multiple reports of hot electric rod being used to sodomize multiple Palestinian men. So, you know, this report provides additional detail there as well. Yeah, that's well said.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowe's and I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, unpacking the toolbox where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show to officially unpack season three of scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three mesmerizing, but

Also, we get to hang out with all of our old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people. Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth-pulling scene that kicks off a romance. And it was peak TV. This is new Scandal.

Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes. Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is.

I think he was like, oh, yeah, things come and go. But with me, it never came and went. Is she Donna Martin or a down-and-out divorcee? Is she living in Beverly Hills or a trailer park? In a town where the lines are blurred, Tori is finally going to clear the air in the podcast Misspelling. When a woman has nothing to lose, she has everything to gain. I just filed for divorce. Whoa, I said the words.

That I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Cheaters and Backstabbers. I'm Shadi Diaz. And I'm Kate Robards. And we are New York City stand-up comedians and best friends. And we love a good cheating and backstabbing story. Welcome.

So this is a series where our guests reveal their most shocking cheating stories. Join us as we learn how to avoid getting our hearts broken or our backs slashed. Listen to Cheaters and Backstabbers on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Crystal, what are you gonna look at? Well, earlier this week, Israel injured and killed roughly 1,000 Palestinians in an effort to rescue four Israeli hostages who had been taken by Hamas on October 7th. In spite of the horrific death toll, 274 souls approximately, this massacre was almost uniformly celebrated by American political elites and mainstream news figures who heralded the brave heroes conducting this daring mission.

But a few voices did recoil at the mass civilian death and clear war crimes, which displayed a monstrous disregard for human life. And the crowd over at Morning Joe, well, they just couldn't let that slide. But the fact that there wasn't absolute universal celebration of this latest Israeli slaughter really got to contributor Donny Deutsch in particular, who popped off in a little monologue designed to explain why actually, if you think about it, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians, including children and grandmas, was perfectly

fine, good even. Take a listen. We have to start to really talk honestly about the definition of civilian casualties. Four hostages rescued and 270 Palestinian civilians killed. We need to start to look at that word civilians. When the hostages are being held by a Palestinian journalist, a civilian, and a Palestinian doctor, a civilian is

These are not civilians. These are Hamas ambassadors. And yes, there are innocent civilians, but I think back to also the hundreds and thousands of rabid Gazans as they dragged their corpse through Gaza, cheering, hysterical, with glee and joy. And it's just, once again, the media coverage is—and these were four hostages that were taken on a day that 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, maimed, decapitated, killed in the most gruesome way ever.

And I don't know if Americans had four hostages that were taken and we had a rescue mission. And yes, there were 270 casualties. And many of those Palestinian casualties are deep, deep, deep sympathizers of Hamas. Would the coverage be the same way? Would anybody be criticizing the rescue mission or would it be truly one of heroism? But I do think we have to start to really be talk honestly, honestly about the definition of civilian casualties.

Now, Donnie was so proud of this little moment, he posted on Twitter proclaiming, let's have an honest conversation about, quote, civilian casualties. So, all right, Donnie, let's go ahead and do that. So off the bat, let's talk about this hypothetical American hostage mission that successfully rescued four of our citizens. You claim there would be no criticism of such a toll. And maybe,

I don't agree because although political and media elites, the morning Joe types, turned the other cheek when it came to war crimes of the war on terror era, many Americans did not. There was a robust opposition to the civilian death toll from drone strikes to CIA black sites and torture and Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. But let's posit, you're correct that the American public would accept the death of 274 people in exchange for four hostages. That still doesn't make it right.

Furthermore, there are American hostages being held in Gaza. In fact, Hamas claims that one of them was killed as part of this glorious rescue mission. Obviously, we shouldn't take Hamas claims without evidence at face value any more than we should take IDF claims at face value. We can say, however, with absolute certainty, that every hostage, American and otherwise, has been in grave peril due to Israeli bombing campaigns, including this one. You don't have to take my word for it. One of the just-rescued hostages told Haaretz, quote,

Our greatest fear was the IDF's planes and the concern that they would bomb the building we were in. Now, the US has not attempted a rescue mission for our five hostages. Instead, we're actually considering negotiating with Hamas to bring them home, which makes all the sense in the world since the overwhelming majority of hostages who have been freed came home in the context of ceasefire negotiations. Many more have been killed by bombing than saved.

Finally, we might take a look at some past hostage rescue missions for a little comparison of what level of quote-unquote collateral damage has been typical and accepted by the supposedly civilized world. Brandon Friedman helpfully compiled a list of some recent hostage rescue missions, and would you look at that? Maersk, Alabama, that was the U.S. Navy, zero civilians killed. Somalia, U.S. Navy, zero civilians killed. Nigeria, U.S. Navy, zero civilians killed.

Then we get to the Israeli operations and the number of civilians killed skyrockets. 66 in Operation Golden Hand, and of course this latest operation we now know took more than 200 civilians. So no, while we are no beacon of virtue and participated directly in this specific monstrosity, we have not operated this way and our citizens have not all just accepted brazen war crimes.

But let's dig a level deeper here, shall we? Because while Donnie mouths the words that of course there are some innocent civilians, his commentary strongly suggests that actually there really aren't. Even though the population is half literal children in Gaza. He asks us to think of the hundreds or thousands of quote, rabid Gazans cheering and hysterical with glee and joy who he says celebrated a dead Israeli in the streets.

These actions, he suggests, mean that Palestinians aren't really innocent civilians in the way that you or I are. Well, Sartu can play at that game. What have we here? Just Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, suggesting that Palestinian corpses be paraded through the streets on carts as they did in biblical times.

Sounds kind of akin to the actions Donnie claims drapes Palestinians of their civilian status. Now, Smotrich is a politician representing a large constituency. Should all those who celebrate these ideas be deemed combatants?

Maybe just those who vote directly for Smotrich? Maybe the entire society that could produce such a monstrous death cult. What do you think, Donny? And that brings me to my real point here. Donny thinks he's such a special big boy for coming up with this brilliant logic, but it's not new or special. It is the logic of exterminationists and terrorists

throughout history. Boring and stale as it is monstrous and disgusting. There are no innocent, no uninvolved civilians because the entire society is dangerous, complicit, from the babe in the cradle to the grandpa with his cane. If they are our enemies, they are by definition not innocent, not uninvolved, not civilians. That's the thinking. And it's the logic, for example, of Osama bin Laden, who blamed all

for the crimes of American political leaders. We voted for them after all, didn't we? Our tax dollars sustain their torture camps, buy the bombs, build the drones. Donnie Doinz suggests all Palestinians are complicit because in his words, they are deep, deep, deep sympathizers of Hamas.

Well, bin Laden considered us deep, deep, deep sympathizers of Bush and Cheney with, I have to say, more legitimacy. Because Hamas is authoritarian, majority Palestinians were not even alive the last time elections were held. We at least theoretically have a democracy here. In fact, Al-Qaeda and bin Laden had quite a lot to say about their definitions of civilians that Donnie would seemingly readily agree with if it was applied to Palestinians.

An Al-Qaeda theologian wrote, for example, that anyone who was useful to the unbelievers was fair game. Quote,

Our conclusion, but God knows better than anyone, is as follows. Those who can be useful to the unbelievers or to others must be killed, whether they are old people, priests, or invalids. You can hear echoes of this sentiment when Deutsch references the doctor, a journalist who were supposedly holding hostages, a claim made by the IDF, by the way, and lacking evidence. Bin Laden himself directly echoes one of Donnie's arguments. With evocative language, Donnie Deutsch brings up the horrors of October 7th to say, in essence, they did it to us first. Well, he didn't.

Well, here's Osama bin Laden, quote, "It's very strange for Americans and other educated people to talk about the killing of innocent civilians. I mean, who said that our children and civilians are not innocents and that the shedding of their blood is permissible? Whenever we kill their civilians, the whole world yells at us from east to west and America starts putting pressure on its allies and puppets. Who said that our blood isn't blood and that their blood is blood?" In other words, just like Donnie's logic, hey,

They did it first. Pseudo-intellectual sophistry when coming from Osama bin Laden or Donny Deutsch alike. Like logic of a sociopathic kindergartner. Which is what this all boils down to really. Tribal, in-group, out-group, evil cloaked in a whole bunch of bullshit. Which is why you'll be unsurprised to learn it is also the language of some of the other great terrorists of our time, the current Israeli regime. Which tweeted this out from their official government account, quote,

We need to talk about the elephant in the room. Many Gazan civilians participate in killing, raping, and kidnapping Israelis on October 7th. It is also reported that Gazan civilians were paid by Hamas to hold hostages captive in their homes. Hamas is intentionally involving the civilian population of Gaza in its war crimes. You can see there on the picture, they say, quote, there are no innocent civilians there. They just come right on and say it. But of course, this is nothing new. The words of Israeli President Herzog earlier in this conflict, he said, quote,

It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d'etat. Those words, by the way, were cited as evidence of genocide in South Africa's ICJ case against Israel. So congrats, Donny, for proudly broadcasting yourself, discovering the logic of war criminals and terrorists.

Tune into the next Morning Joe, where they discuss how sodomizing Palestinian hostages with metal rods is actually really morally complicated if you think about it hard enough. Just astonishing. I mean, that he was- And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowes. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And we're the hosts of Unpacking the Toolbox, the Scandal Rewatch podcast where we're talking about all the best moments of the show. Mesmerizing. But also, we get to hang out with all of our old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for an even more behind-the-scenes Scandal.

stories with Unpacking the Toolbox. Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years.

Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Angie Martinez, and on my podcast, I like to talk to everyone from Hall of Fame athletes to iconic musicians about getting real on some of the complications and challenges of real life.

I had the best dad and I had the best memories and the greatest experience. And that's all I want for my kids as long as they can have that. Listen to Angie Martinez IRL on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Get emotional with me, Radhi Devlukia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry. We're going to be talking with some of my best friends. I didn't know we were going to go there on this. I'm going to go there on this because this is...

People that I admire. When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what's going on. Authors of books that have changed my life. Now you're talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right? Never forget, it's okay to cry as long as you make it a really good one. Listen to A Really Good Cry with Radhi Devlukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.