6/25/24: AIPAC Spends $15 Million To Oust Bowman, Media Lies About Synagogue Protests, War Scholar Says Hamas Has Won
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- So today is primary day in New York and also Colorado. Actually, Lauren Boebert is going to be on the ballot, maybe losing her primary, but the one that most people are focused on is in New York, Jamal Bowman versus Westchester County Executive George Latimer. We can put this up on the screen. A lot of this race hinges on Jamal Bowman's pro-Palestinian stances. His increasingly vocal stance, which is interesting, I'll get into in a moment,

and the massive flood of money into this race, which is making it literally the most expensive congressional primary in history.

Dan Marans has a look at some of the underlying dynamics here. That's an interesting read. He says, it's not just AIPAC how Jamal Bowman alienated voters who once supported him. So you guys may recall the way Jamal Bowman originally was able to win the seat was also in a Democratic primary. He took out Eliot Engel. Now, Engel had been a stalwart ally of the pro-Israel crowd. He was a top recipient of AIPAC funding. He was really staunch on that point.

And Jamal Bowman at that point was trying to take sort of the liberal Zionist position, the sort of more moderate J Street style positioning there. I think perhaps he hadn't really thought all that much about the issue. He was trying to just say the things that Democrats typically say to try to appease everyone.

He wins that seat. It was in the context of the Black Lives Matter protests. Eliot Engel had gotten caught on a hot mic. You remember the saga? Yes, of course. Saying basically like, ah, the only reason I'm here is because I'm up for reelection. He was never in the district. He took it for granted. And so Jamal Bowman is able to win. The district has always been...

a little bit difficult for him because it is a combination of there's a part of the Bronx in there that's very like diverse working class. There are other diverse working class neighborhoods in the district. There's also a significant area of like

affluent suburban liberals and a significant Jewish vote as well. So there were a lot of lingering bad feelings among those for whom Israel is their number one issue about Jamal Bowman taking out Elian Engel. And then post-October 7th, when Jamal Bowman emerges as one of the most vocal congresspeople

in service of the Palestinian cause and, you know, not going along with all of these resolutions that are being passed through Congress, et cetera. He ends up with a giant target on his back. And his opponent, Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who is, you know, very sort of like centrist right-leaning, he's

doesn't want to raise, he's really running on like, I won't raise anyone's taxes, including the billionaires. He's taking 100% of the APAC line, et cetera. He's also a really well-known figure in Westchester County because he's been a local politician there. So those are some of the dynamics. We can go ahead and put this, or what do we have next? Is it the tariff sheet or the thought that we have next? Oh, we've got a little taste of some of how Jamal Bowman

has been talking about the funding that's been going into this race. He and George Latimer in one of their debates, he was talking about how APAC has been funding his opponent, etc. Let's take a listen to how that exchange went. The wealthy, and particularly for my opponent's campaign, billionaire Republicans are buying our democracy. The reason why our democracy doesn't work for working class people and the majority of the American people is because of big money in politics.

He is running a big money campaign. They are spending more money in this race to get me out than they have ever spent in their history, meaning AIPAC. More money than they have ever spent in their history. That sounds like a dog whistle to me. One issue, special interest, their issue, according to Politico, is Israel. Correct.

Yeah, so- Yeah, so let me- How is that raising- I think I still have time on the clock. Yeah. Good. So their one issue is Israel, not Mount Vernon, not the Bronx, not New Rochelle, not Port Chester, not White Plains, not Tuckahoe, Israel.

And they recruited him to run against me. And they're spending more money in this race than they have ever spent in their history. Why? Because I'm fighting against the genocide in Gaza and because I'm speaking up for black and brown people here. We should not be sending billions of dollars to another country to commit genocide- 30 seconds. While we are struggling to live day to day right here in this district. Thank you.

I agree with him. But you can see there he doesn't head. She calls it a genocide. And there's a lot that's interesting about this, Zagre. So first of all, AIPAC has put in some $15 million into this race, which is astonishing. And most of the ads they're running, by the way, don't have anything to do with Israel. But...

They obviously prefer George Latimer over Jamal Bowman. So what they've gone with and what Latimer has gone with is this idea that Jamal Bowman is all talk and no substance and Latimer is this like technocratic executive who's going to be actually able to, you know, work the levers of power and deliver for the district. So that's, you know, that's the dynamics of the campaign. One of the things that's really interesting with Jamal Bowman is, as I was saying before, when he was first running, it seems like, I don't know that he had a really well-formed campaign.

opinion on the issue. You know, he had... Yeah, you and I interviewed him at the time. He was, yeah, he was kind of all over the place. I mean, he just, you know, it was sort of like very typical. And there's a lot of new politicians who are like this. They just haven't thought all that much about it. They don't know all that much about it. So...

he gets into office and he agrees to go on a trip to Israel that was sponsored by J Street. Now, J Street is meant to be the like liberal Zionist alternative to AIPAC. Yes. So they're not as hardline. They're not as right wing. They're in favor of a two state solution, but they're still Zionist. So he decides to go on this trip. And actually at the time, it was a big like thing on the left. The DSA was very upset about the fact he was going on this trip, et cetera. But

But as it turns out, according to his own telling, actually going to Israel and seeing the reality and meeting with Palestinian, these young Palestinian students, actually visualizing and experiencing the reality of the apartheid system there and how some places are just, you know, off limits if you're not Jewish, off limits certainly if you're Palestinian.

That actually really changed his view and even made him feel like this nonsense we've been fed about the two-state solution, how this is an ongoing process.

This is a fantasy. So the more that he came in contact with the reality of what Israel is today, not just the sort of like top line talking points that liberals have been speaking to for years and years and years in the absence of like an actual desire among the Israeli government to pursue any sort of a peace. Once he actually had exposure to that, it hardened him in terms of his pro-Palestinian positions and

and made it so he's not just a liberal Zionist now, it's shifted him to really being an anti-Zionist. And he speaks about that now and has a lot of sort of moral force. So, um, you know, the bottom line here is he's very, very, very likely to lose today. We've got the New York times article we can put up on the screen here. AIPAC unleashes record $14.5 million in a bid to defeat, uh, Jamal Bowman, critic of Israel. Uh,

The delusion outside spending, they say, also includes another $1 million from a different pro-Israel group. There have been some other groups that have come in on Jamal Bowman's side, but obviously can't even come close to matching that amount of money. This is AIPAC also making good on their promise to unleash $100 million to take out and punish anyone who is a critic of

of their pro-Israel policies. So, you know, they really want to make an example of him. And I think they have a very good chance to do it. Let's put this up on the screen from Ryan. This is the latest poll, and it has Jamal Bowman losing badly to George Latimer, 48 to 31. And that polling has shifted. There's limited polling in the context of a primary, but what we've seen, it has shifted dramatically since that AIPAC money has come in.

Definitely. Friend of the show, Dan Marans, in the Huffington Post, in his write-up, though, he did say that Bowman has kind of been not at odds with the district, but he gave himself an opening that October 7th was going to be exploited. So they talk about that vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill back in 2021, which is very important to people in New York because of various tax breaks hidden within there, thanks to Chuck Schumer. They also talk, apparently, here about that pulling of the fire alarm

A lot of people were very embarrassed about that entire situation. They say, and this is a, he has a quote here from a chair of the Democratic Committee who actually was a Bowman donor as recently as January. And he said he had been frustrated with Bowman's failure to follow through on efforts apparently to arrange conversations, quote, with her rabbi and other Jewish friends, as well as his July 2023 decision not to attend Israeli President Isaac Herzog's speech in

to Congress, which Bowman, as you said, cited his previous Israeli visit as reason for not doing so. And Herzog is the one who said there were no uninvolved civilians. Correct, with the Mehdi Hassan interview, which was after October 7th. What Marins writes in the piece is basically, you have the fire alarm thing, you already had some previous just like annoyance with these like normie liberal Democrats, and then Israel poured gasoline on the fire.

and gave all the money in the world to anybody who wanted to exploit that. You put all of that together, and you've got the perfect storm to be able to kick him out of office. Yeah, and I always appreciate Dan's writing, and I think the piece is worth reading. But I will say that, you know, if you just look at the polling and the way it's moved since the money came in, like,

Clearly, the AIPAC money has been very significant part of this race. And it's also really clear, I mean, from the way AIPAC has positioned itself and some of the races they've got involved in,

Dan seems to suggest that if Jamal Bowman had just moderated a little bit on Israel, he may have placated them. And I just don't buy that because we saw them come in, for example, to a race in California where the person who was running, whose name I'm blanking on, he hadn't even he'd been a little bit critical of Benjamin Netanyahu. But he was pro-Israel, like he was on all of the talking points there.

But they still, because they were worried about him dissenting even a little bit, they still put millions into that race to try to defeat him. And so Jamal Bowman had already said enough that I think there was, if you don't go along with every single thing that they want, they know George Latimer is going to do everything, you know, and they already were upset that he had taken out Elliot Engel. So I don't think that there was a space for him to position himself. There just isn't.

At this point, the sort of positioning of a quote-unquote liberal Zionist, it really isn't possible anymore. It's just that space is gone because we've all been faced with too much of the reality of what Israel is, what it does, the way it lies, the way it oppresses the occupation, the way the occupation has expanded under every Israeli administration, whether they were right-wing or quote-unquote moderate or not. So to me, what was interesting is that Jamal Bowman

The more that he came in contact with that reality, the more his position shifted against what had been the liberal Zionist sort of standard talking points. And you see this stance with Joe Biden where he's kind of in no man's land still trying to parrot the liberal Zionist position when it doesn't really make sense to anyone. It's become very binary. You're either against what I see and what Jamal Bowman and others see as a genocide or you're not.

So I don't know that there was like a middle ground that he could have occupied that would have kept AIPAC out of this race, which is why people like John Fetterman, when he was looking to keep AIPAC and their affiliated or allied super PACs out of the race,

He just went to them and was like, tell me what I need to say, literally, according to Ryan Graham. And that's the only way that you can get away with it is you're just literally like, I will sub out my Israel policy to you. I will do 100% of what you say. If there's even like a hint of independent thinking or daylight, forget it. They want you gone. I don't think it's, yeah, I mean, it's,

A smart political strategy here, obviously, especially with the constituents that you've got. It's like the perfect storm. And yeah, I mean, look, in general, it was a problem for him. It always was. We'll see how things go, but it's not looking good. Yeah. It's not looking good. Yeah, I think it would be a mess, unless it's

crazier things have happened, but I think it would be a massive- It would be crazy if he wins. I will say, media-wise, it would be nuts. What a blow to AIPAC would that be. It would be shocking. Yeah. I will say, I was telling you guys, I was at the gym yesterday and somebody random asked me to go, hey, who is that congressman who can bench 405? That is Jamal Bowman. So maybe he is winning over the critical bodybuilder demographic. They're like, that's all I need to know about it.

It was crazy. I'm just saying, there are a lot of bros out there who are impressed. He did three reps, four or five, decent form. I'm impressed. Yeah. Call me impressed. Completely. I mean, I don't know that much about, I know that that's a lot of weight, but people were saying this is like the, you know, he's like in the top 0.5% of like power lifters. I would put it this way. If you're not juicing and you're able to do that naturally, that is just...

Shocking. So, you know, I always thought, no offense, I thought he was fat. But now, after seeing that, I'm like, no, he's got that power lifting body. He's got the meat and he's got the muscles. So respect where it's deserved. Yeah. Last thing I'll say on this before we move on to what's going on in Ukraine is just, you know,

Jamal Bowman is not stupid. I'm sure he knew that this was going to be an issue for him in this race. He knows his district. He knows, I think there's about 150,000 Jewish people. Now Jewish people aren't a monolith, right? They don't all see the things that the way that AIPAC does. However, and there's also class divide among Jewish people that we've seen as well. However, the Jewish people in his district are predominantly relatively affluent and he knew this was an issue, right? And,

And he said genocide. And he, you know, called into question some of the lies and the propaganda. And he's been very outspoken. He's taken votes that I'm sure he knew were going to be a problem for him. And he deserves credit for it. Like, that is actual political courage. I'm sure he knew he was risking his seat when he was taking those votes. And so I just want to say I appreciate that. I respect it. And we'll see what happens for him tonight. For AIPAC, if they lose, oh, boy, that would be devastating for them. It would actually be nuts.

If they win, you know, it's they're successfully demonstrating once again that you are punished if you dissent from their line on Israel. And that's really their goal here is to, you know, put a target on his back to make an example of him to show they've got the muscle to prevail in, you know, at least in certain places in the country. So we'll see what happens. All right.

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All right, so we wanted to bring you an update on this protest that happened in Los Angeles. So the protest, which no one in media will apparently tell you, was in the context of a real estate event at a synagogue where they were selling off

stolen land in the West Bank, exclusively available, by the way, to Jewish people. Now in America, restrictive covenants are illegal. You can't say this neighborhood is for whites only anymore. But in Israel, you can say this neighborhood is for Jews only. And so there's been a series of these real estate events. There was one in Teaneck, New Jersey. There have been some in Canada. This was the latest happening in LA. And so protesters showed up to protest in

this event. Counter protesters also showed up and the whole thing as the cops are just standing by and letting it happen, devolves into chaos and violence would be a little bit of a taste of that. You've got, I don't know who's instigating, etc. I can tell you there were journalists who had their, one journalist who had his phone stolen by a pro-Israel protester. I also wanna mention that there were protests outside of that Teaneck, New Jersey protest

synagogue real estate event as well. And those remained peaceful because the cops kept the two sides separated. So there have been, this isn't even the first time that protests have erupted at this thing. Okay, so that is what it looked like. Let me show you the poster of the real estate event that was, you know, for what was occurring at this synagogue. They say,

Come and meet representatives of housing projects in all the best Anglo neighborhoods in Israel. And again, this group, the My Home in Israel real estate company, they offer properties that are for sale in the occupied West Bank. And, you know, this is illegal by international law, probably illegal in U.S. law, too, certainly against U.S. policy, etc.,

The way this was covered in the press was so incredibly dishonest. It was unbelievable, unbelievable.

Unbelievable. Well, actually, it's totally believable in part for the course, honestly, of the way that they approach it. I'll tell you, Crystal, it is unbelievable. So I check in. I log in. I was like, okay, wow. It was like some crazy stuff went down in Los Angeles. And so I look into it. By the way, as people know, I'm pretty neutral on this. I'm open to it. Bunch of Palestine keffiyeh maskies beating people up. It's possible.

I'm skeptical. So we look into it and we're like, oh, yeah, it doesn't seem good. Now all of us, all these politicians start condemning the act. Everyone's like, oh, my God, this is terrible. It was a pogrom. It happened in Los Angeles. Now I'm starting to get suspicious because anytime I start to see that language come out, I'm like, wait a second. So then, you know, our producer is like, well, you know, it was in response to a real estate event.

And I said, what? What are you talking about? So then we start to look and we checked it. We had to check that flyer. We confirmed it. We go to the Los Angeles Times and we read, you know, the local paper about what happened. And you have to read, I want to say 20 paragraphs. We have this and put it up on the screen. We can put D3, please, guys, up on the screen. And it takes scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling to discover the context of the real estate event. And in my opinion, that

kind of does change everything though, because all the rhetoric that I see online is everyone's like, why are they protesting in synagogue? This is disgusting. This is a religious temple. Like how can they do this out of all the places to choose? I'm like, okay, well, if you're hosting a real estate event, auctioning off land in the West Bank and it says Anglo neighborhoods early, that

That's a little bit crazy. Can we all agree with that? All right. Now, I'm not saying anybody gets deserved violence. You know, I don't think there should be any violence. Again, on the other side. Agreed. But, you know, legitimate. I think around for a protest. So, I mean, this is what I mean. Let's flip it around. So, I'm Indian. Let's say that there is a Hindu temple, like the one I used to go to where I was growing up.

And there was an event there where they were auctioning off land in Kashmir. That would be a little bit crazy. Yeah. And we said it was only for Hindus. And then a bunch of Pakistanis showed up. And then there was like a clash or whatever. And people said that they had unprovoked attacked a bunch of Hindus. Even me. I'd be like, come on, guys. Like this – look.

they're within their rights, you know, to show up. This is America. Last time I checked, none of that is in the public sphere. The way people are talking about it, it's as if it was totally unprovoked. And I just think, look,

Again, I condemn violence. I don't think it should have happened. I think the police should have kept them separate, etc. That said, if you don't report that, you are just being blatantly dishonest. So dishonest. And that's the issue. Here's the way. To be honest with you, the LA Times, the fact they even mentioned that there was a quote unquote real estate event with none of the like, oh, and by the way, they're selling illegal stolen land, etc. And it's for Jews only. The fact they even mentioned that

puts them better than like 95% of mainstream coverage, which all portrayed this as like people just hate Jews. So they were protesting a synagogue with none of the context.

Now listen, I think it's fair if people want to say, "Listen, I don't care what they were doing in a synagogue. I think that a house of worship should be off limits period. You shouldn't protest." I don't agree, but I think that's a reasonable position you could take. Okay. If you want to say, you know, certainly you can say there shouldn't be violence. Okay, that's fine. I don't agree with the nature of the protest. I think also you could say,

From a tactical perspective, was it wise to go and protest this and knowing the way the media may portray it, etc.? So I think that's a legitimate point of view to make that argument as well.

But to pretend people just showed up because they hate Jews and they wanted to protest a synagogue is so incredibly dishonest. And this turns into, of course, a whole thing. Joe Biden puts out a statement condemning the anti-Semitism. Gavin Newsom, the mayor of L.A., Karen Bass.

None of them acknowledging that by the way, also selling occupied land in the West Bank, that is supposed to be counter to US policy as well. So in theory, they should be on the same ideological side of the protesters.

And then there's also just the double standard of every time a Palestinian protester, pro-Palestine protester does anything that the media can spin and lie about and colorably make appear like it's all about anti-Semitism, the president's got to put out a freaking statement. Well, there was an incident, you know, alleged in Texas where some unhinged woman asked a mom who's Palestinian American where she was from and then tried to drown her

kids, but when she learned that they were Palestinian American, where's the statement on that? Where's the statement on the, you know, Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli minister, a speech just came out where he said, hey, we're going to annex the whole West Bank. Or, you know, the video we showed you yesterday where they tied an injured Palestinian to the hood of an IDF

vehicle and are using him as a literal human shield. Where's the outrage and the statements over that? So this one, this drove me absolutely insane. Just to give you a little bit more background, here's D4. We can put this up on the screen. As I mentioned before, this wasn't the first of these events. This has been a series of events across our country and also in Canada. This one is focused on the Teaneck, New Jersey event. They describe it as the disastrous great Israeli real estate event.

And most of the events they say was a company called My Home in Israel, which also was involved in this one in LA, brought along to showcase available properties in both Israel and the Palestinian territories it occupies. Multiple units in a building in East Jerusalem, townhouses in the heart of the West Bank, and a fire station.

five bedroom villa with a pool in the luxury enclave of a fraught south of Bethlehem. From the first stop, they say in Montreal, protesters have shown up to condemn the sale of houses built on settlements illegally expropriated from Palestinians in the West Bank. And in Teaneck, I believe we actually covered here, there was a Jewish man who showed up at a community meeting and said, you know, this is outrageous. It's illegal. It's immoral. It shouldn't be happening here. And he said in his words, he said, there's going to be a protest because I'm

I'm going to lead it. This was a Jewish man in that community. So that's the truth of what happened here. But maybe the most outrageous and dishonest coverage came from where else? CNN, where they had Van Jones join to call it a pogrom, as you as you rightly said, Sagar. Just listen to this insanity in the way that he portrays this.

If you don't like what's happening in Gaza, it's your right to protest. That's not a problem. But you protest a policy. You don't protest a people. When you protest a policy, you go to City Hall and you protest. You go to the Israeli consulate peacefully, you protest. Maybe you go to your elected representative, you protest. You don't...

bum-rushed a Jewish neighborhood and run up on a synagogue. That's not protesting a policy, that's protesting a people. And that is across any line in America, and it has to be called out. You cannot protest a people. That is not a protest, that's a pogrom, and it has to stop.

Let's talk about the policy. Let's talk about how the Biden administration, how the president's handling the policy van. How do you see it? Where does he need to improve on this? Well, listen, I think that the president is in a tough position because the base of the party is very concerned about these images that we keep seeing from Gaza. And he wants to take a strong stand on behalf of human rights for everybody. That's Joe Biden. At the same time,

I think it's a little bit naive for some people to think that if Israel would just suddenly just stop doing what it's doing, that rainbows and bunnies and sunshine would break out over the Middle East and it would all be fine. The hostages have to be returned. If you can call for a ceasefire, call for a ceasefire on both sides. Hamas is still firing its rockets. They still have hostages kidnapped. So this is a complex issue, but here's what's not complicated. Politics can be complicated. Geopolitics can be really complicated.

How you treat your neighbors, how you treat people in your community is not complicated. You don't run up, I haven't seen any Jewish people running up on mosques with Israeli flags. If they did that, I'd be denouncing that too. There's certain things you don't do. It is a red line. If you wanna be a part of a protest and they say, we're gonna go to a Jewish community center,

We're gonna go to a mosque. We're gonna go to a Jewish restaurant. That's not a protest. That's a pogrom. My God. So if you listen to that whole segment, you would never know why the protesters were there. It's not just because they hate Jews and they wanted to protest in a Jewish neighborhood outside of a synagogue.

It's so dishonest. He says you protested policy, not a people. They literally were protesting a policy. That's why they were there. But you are too dumb or too much of a liar to actually inform your audience about what was going on. And like I was saying, listen, if you've got an issue, you don't think that that's acceptable. Okay, lay that out. But give people the facts of why they were actually there. They weren't just quote unquote bum rushing a Jewish neighborhood and running up on a synagogue.

Disgusting. Disgusting. Such liars. Unbelievable. As long as they put out the context, then you can say whatever you want. But it's like when you put it out of the context, that's what really pisses me off. And why is it that me as a news professional has to dig deep just to figure out the most basics? And

At the same time, I'm like, yeah, that's why I even have a job, right? In a perfect world, you don't even need to exist. But this is exactly what the issue is. So regardless of where you are, like, you know, some of the rhetoric out here, it's like, what are you going to do? Like, are you going to send in the National Guard? I'm like, yo, this is nuts. You're allowing foreign sales to happen in houses of worship. I mean, first of all, shouldn't you have your tax status pulled if you're going to be doing stuff like that? I don't know.

I don't think that should be allowed in American soil. Maybe just me. I don't think you should be having foreign sale, you know, foreign sales going down in houses of worship and stuff like this, which are official events. So anyways, I think this whole situation is crazy. And close down, but too exclusionary too. No, literally. I mean, it's crazy. If you're not Jewish, you can't go in and buy that real estate. I mean, that's not how we do things in America. It's, you know, since the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, you have to allow people of all backgrounds, races, genders, etc.,

to be able to, so you're having this exclusionary event that is counter to international law and you're saying people are not allowed to protest that. And the only reason that they possibly could have been protesting that is because of anti-Semitism. Yeah, exactly. Can't stand it. All right, Crystal, what do you take?

Hi, I'm Katie Lowes. 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 almost as if it's a season three.

And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth-pulling scene that kicks off a romance. And it was peak TV. This is new scandal.

content for your eyes, for your ears, for your hearts, for your minds. 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. Oops.

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.

I'm Angie Martinez. Check out my podcast where I talk to some of the biggest athletes, musicians, actors in the world. We go beyond the headlines and the soundbites to have real conversations about real life, death, love, and everything in between. This life right here, just finding myself, just relaxation, just not feeling stressed, just not feeling pressed. This is what I'm most proud of. I'm proud of Mary because I've been through hell and some horrible things.

That feeling that I had of inadequacy is gone. You're going to die being you. So you got to constantly work on who you are to make sure that the stars align correctly.

Life ain't easy and it's getting harder and harder. So if you have a story to tell, if you've come through some trials, you need to share it because you're going to inspire someone. You're going to give somebody the motivation to not give up, to not quit. Listen to Angie Martinez IRL on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the CINO Show. I'm your host, CINO McFarlane. I'm an addiction specialist. I'm a coach. I'm a translator. And I'm God's middleman. My job is to crack hearts and let the light in and help everyone shift the narrative. Whether your get down is sex, drugs, alcohol, love addiction, self-hate, codependency, or anything else for that matter.

I want to help you wake up and I want to help you get free. I want to help you unleash your potential, overcome obstacles, and achieve your goals. Most importantly, I don't want you to feel alone. So join me on The Cino Show, where each week we'll feature a compelling individual with an even more noteworthy story that will be sure to inspire and educate.

Listen to the CINO show every Wednesday on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. More than 40,000 dead, majority women and children. More devastation than Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined. Fertile siege, which has led to dozens of starvation deaths and an entire population on the brink of famine. An online assault that has left nothing sacred from schools to mosques to hospitals, cemeteries, and refugee camps.

There's no world in which these atrocities committed by Israel and Gaza are justifiable, let alone righteous. But according to the Israeli government and our own, they are acceptable, to be celebrated even, because they've been committed in service of a noble war aim: eliminating Hamas. That's the logic that the Israeli public and a decent portion of our own has bought. Yes, the civilian deaths are bad, but it's a price we must accept in order to get the Hamas bad guys.

But a new analysis in Foreign Affairs by political scientist and international security expert Robert Pape reveals that not only has Israel's genocide in Gaza been morally outrageous, it has actually strengthened Hamas.

Israel isn't just falling short in their war objectives. They have bolstered the very group they are supposedly seeking to destroy. They have murdered countless civilians in service of making Hamas vastly stronger. Incredible, but also, let's be honest, predictable. Turns out death and destruction are not the same as victory. So here is Pape in that article headlined, Hamas is winning.

Quote, the central flaw in Israel's strategy is not a failure of tactics or the imposition of constraints on military force, just as the failure of the U.S.'s military strategy in Vietnam had little to do with the technical proficiency of its troops or political and moral limits on the uses of military power. Rather, the overarching failure has been a gross misunderstanding of the source

of Hamas's power. To its great detriment, Israel has failed to realize that the carnage and devastation it has unleashed in Gaza has only made its enemy stronger.

So essentially, Israel and the US have focused on how many Hamas fighters have been killed as a measure of the success of the war. That is entirely the wrong metric. It almost doesn't matter how many fighters Hamas has today. What matters is its recruitment potential for the future. How many new recruits can they pull from the next generation?

Media reports and local polling suggest that number has surged massively. Here's the Jerusalem Post. Reportedly, Hamas is already looking to capitalize on this IDF-enabled surge in popularity. Now, this is a right-wing outlet, so you've got to sort through the propaganda about quote-unquote Gaza youths, which appears to be an attempt to legitimize killing children, and their credulous acceptance of Israeli lies about how many Hamas fighters they've actually killed.

But the basics of the reporting are that Hamas is holding recruitment camps and training sessions to replace the fighters they've lost to death, injury, and arrest. They claim that Hamas is looking to add some 20,000 new members to their ranks. But he

But even this biased outlet has a pretty straightforward accounting of the risk landscape potential Hamas recruits face. "18-year-olds choosing whether to join Hamas or not, on the one hand, face the reality that so many who have joined Hamas have been beaten and killed by the IDF. On the other hand, they currently have no horizon for finding work or doing much of anything other than sitting around in refugee camps, since no one has even started planning the rebuilding Gaza process, which is likely to take many years."

What they don't note is that those 18-year-olds face potential death and torture by the IDF, whether or not they join Hamas, since the Israeli government has so indiscriminately slaughtered civilians and has operated under a presumption that all men and boys are to be assumed Hamas.

Now, going back to Pape, Israel's actions have created ripe conditions for Hamas propaganda, according to him, which has been received favorably by many Palestinians. He points out the polls have found Hamas support and support for violence against Israeli civilians both surging after October 7th. In addition, Israeli atrocities have fueled what he describes as a, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote

People are less likely to volunteer for high-risk missions if their sacrifices go unnoticed. A community that honors the fallen fighters of a terrorist group helps sustain it. Martyrdom legitimizes terrorist actions and encourages new recruits. Terrorists will act as they see fit, but it is the community that ultimately decides where an individual's sacrifice is accorded high status or whether it is broadly viewed as irrational, criminal, and worthy of contempt.

The community's support for Hamas has also directly hindered the IDF's ability to successfully target Hamas leadership and locate hostages to additional supposed war aims. After all, what Palestinian with a shred of integrity would collaborate with the genocidal IDF? Yep, turns out indiscriminately murdering civilians while blocking peaceful pathways to negotiated settlement is a great way to search support for violent resistance.

If you create massive amounts of grief, despair, and rage, and block all nonviolent political processes, don't be surprised when that rage finds an expression in violence.

In the words of security analyst Internet Hippo, quote, I'm not a political expert, but if you eliminate Hamas but killed my whole family in the process, my first move would be to start Hamas 2.0. The truth is, just as we would have been better off if we had done literally nothing in response to 9-11, Israel would have been better off if they had done literally nothing in response to October 7th. Now,

Now, that's to say nothing, of course, of the Iraqi innocents and Palestinian innocents who were sacrificed on the altar of personal political interests masquerading as counter-terror.

For my part, I've got enough respect for Bibi to reject the notion that he was too dumb to operate at the intellectual level of Internet hippo. They knew their campaign wasn't going to eliminate Hamas. But in a sixth sense, strengthening Hamas actually serves Bibi's political interests. After all, he has consistently worked to bolster Hamas in order to block a potential peace deal and to maintain division between Gaza and the West Bank.

I don't see why that logic would be any different today. So long as Hamas remains, the IDF has endless justification for raids, bombings, and occupation, endlessly prolonging a war that Bibi wants to be endlessly prolonged. He can proclaim to gradualist international leaders that they have no partner for peace, even as he makes it clear he has absolutely no interest in a two-state solution or any other long-term peace.

The brutality of that annihilation campaign can satiate the post-October 7th bloodlust from the Israeli public and begin to rebuild Netanyahu's political standing. That's been working. All while accomplishing Bibi's stated goal of "finning out" the Gaza population, which is the constant ethnostate imperative. After all, if the whole logic of your state is that it must be controlled by a Jewish majority, then the very existence of non-Jewish children is a looming threat to the entire national project.

Eliminating Hamas is a convenient pretext for neutralizing that demographic threat through the mass slaughter of Palestinian children and mothers in particular. Now, in Gaza, Bibi and the IDF have seemingly destroyed everything but Hamas, and that may well have been the point.

It's a great piece from Robert Pape. I know you took a look at it as well. He talks about, you know, the body count figures in terms of the number of Hamas fighters they've killed are very disputed. The Israelis say somewhere around 15,000. U.S. intelligence says 10,000. Hamas says more like 5,000 to 6,000. In any case, the amount of support for Hamas has been predictably dramatically surged.

There has not been, they were betting or there was some analysis of like, oh, if we, you know, make this really horrible for them, people will turn on Hamas. The opposite has happened. There's been a like rally around the flag effect. Again, very predictable and very consistent with what we've seen historically in terms of bombed and besieged civilian populations. And so in spite of the technological military vast superiority in terms of the actual stated

war aims, it's been a total and complete failure on every level. Yeah, I keep coming back to North Vietnam. And I really recommend people need to go and read Robert Pape. He is incredibly smart. He's a scholar. He's a long studied air power, civilian populations, World War II. I've read about his stuff for a long time. And since the October 7th conflict, he's been doing amazing work. This is a very well-reasoned piece. There's nothing emotional within it. It's just pointing to death.

You're looking in your point of look together, the recruitment numbers. And look, if bombs could solve things, then we would have won the Vietnam War. If bombs could solve things, we would have won the Iraq War and Afghanistan. Guess what happened in every single case is that it was counterproductive, usually, unless it was for a direct military purpose. And in the long run, they outlasted us and they won.

I think in the same case, they have the will. They have the ability to stay forever and to operate in the shadows and to now fundraise both and fundraise and recruit for the people who have been victimized as a result of the policy. All they have to do is survive. Yeah. Israel is warning, is warning against a quote unquote ideology. Good luck. I've seen people try before. They always lose. It is not just, it's not just that, uh,

they're not defeated. It's that they actively like our operations in Iraq and the attacks on civilians led to a surge in popularity for Iraqi resistance groups and helped to create ISIS.

Our operations in Afghanistan led to a certain, the Taliban was like down to almost nothing. And they were able to rebuild and be such a formidable force that they just immediately take back over when we leave because our

occupation and our atrocities provided the moral justification and surged the support for these groups. So our actions, and now it's obviously what's happening with Israel and Gaza, have actually surged support for that group. Again, it's entirely predictable. This is something that we've been saying from the beginning. We highlighted those Jocko comments from the beginning of like...

This is not the way you go. If you are actually serious about taking out Hamas leadership, getting the hostages back, you have to win over the population. You need them to collaborate with you. You need to provide them a different path that isn't Hamas.

that was done and i don't think it's because they just didn't understand and they were stupid and foolish i think it's because the goal was never really eliminate hamas especially from bb's perspective again he's always supported hamas i think he still finds hamas to be very useful there because it gives him the pretext to do whatever the hell he wants prolong the war as long as he wants be as brutal as he wants you know maintain his position of power continue to block a two-state solution by saying there's no partner for peace all that logic still remains

So I can't be so naive as to think that he doesn't also understand what's going on here and how the idea of eliminating Hamas was always doomed to fail from the jump.

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. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarcki.

And I'm Holly Frey. Together, we invite you into the dark corridors of history and true crime. For each season, we explore a new theme, from poisoners to stalkers, art thieves to snake oil salesmen. And tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in cocktails and mocktails inspired by each story. Listen to Criminalia 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. 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.