The Mick and Pat Show: Complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Speaker 1: 0:55

Yeah, that one gives it gives me. The first time I saw it, it definitely gave me goosebumps. I just got chills.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Yeah, that was. That was visceral the way I felt watching some of those scenes as like it's so crazy because that song you know that song alone. You remember it for how it punches and the scene it with those scenes from like movies you've watched growing up.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Yeah, it's embedded in your, in your psyche, childhood.

Speaker 2: 1:22

You just remember the desperation in some of those scenes and, like you know the the score of what's his name? John John Williams. John Williams, the score, yeah, I don't know. It was just like kind of like I could almost feel that too while I was listening to it. But anyways, welcome to the Mick and Pat show I'll make.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Yeah, and I'm Pat. Yeah we were. We were just discussing an edit of the song Warpigs by Black Sabbath to scenes of Star Wars of Sith Lords, and it's a it's a wild one. Look at all. Did, yeah, watch it. It gets you it. Also. It's one of those ones that makes you think to beyond just it's. It grabs your emotions and it takes hold and it's playing on all these different things and things you've seen throughout your life, but then also it's, you know, like the first time I actually listened to Warpigs. I've heard it hundreds of times but I don't know if I'd actually listened to it.

Speaker 2: 2:30

Really.

Speaker 1: 2:31

I don't know if I heard it, you know?

Speaker 2: 2:34

dude, I've seen some Warpig edits that were a footage of conflicts all across the world and different timelines, and those that didn't have that much effect on me as that Star Wars one, and I think it's because, you know, I wasn't alive during World War two, right, I wasn't alive during Vietnam. So a lot of that footage is unrelatable to me. I'm not under, I'm not entirely. I mean, I get the context because it's been, you know, drilled into our brains growing up of, like you know here's what was going on at the time and you know yada, yada. But with Star Wars, right, which is don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Star Wars is more significant than those wars by any stretch, but if you grow up watching those movies and you grow up watching them at you know your fingertips as many times as you want and you are familiar with, like, the context of everything, right, and all of your friends are familiar with it and you've all discussed it Then you see, like a song like that applied to that and you remember the context of those scenes and how you know, violent or serious a scene was at some point before you know Disney took over and cheaped it, cheapened it out For sure, like you watched.

Speaker 1: 3:48

You've watched Luke wrestle for his soul. Yeah, and you've watched people fall to evil. You've watched them, dude. First time I saw it, I was impressed by evil.

Speaker 2: 3:58

First time I saw kids get killed Star Wars Episode three yeah, Like in a movie like Star Wars Episode three came out when like 2005, 2006. And I was like oh, oh my, that kid just got cut in half. You know, what I mean, Like that was that was visceral dude.

Speaker 1: 4:15

Star Wars does something. The reason of its success, you know, I think most simply put, is that that it deals with very just, simple things common to men, but in an extraordinary world.

Speaker 2: 4:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:29

You know, and so that's why it's almost every character is relatable and in some form or fashion, until Disney took over, and that the the way that it it's playing off of. You know. You know wars between two giant groups of spaceships and thousands of people, wars raging all the way down to wars raging just within an individual person's mind or heart or soul or whatever.

Speaker 2: 4:55

So there's something to say about how look, never served, I've never served in the military, but I tell you what I got a lot of buddies who did and I I don't know if there's a single one of them that doesn't have some kind of clone trooper paraphernalia or like Boba Fett, you know, like almost everyone I know who was in the military. That is like around my age, maybe a little bit older, maybe a little bit younger. They all have a clone trooper tattoo or a tattoo of the Empire logo or a tattoo of the rebel.

Speaker 1: 5:36

No, no, I don't know anyone who has rebels.

Speaker 2: 5:38

No, they're just like they're just dude. Everyone's like fuck the rebels, dude. You know who the rebels were. Isis, fuck that shit. Like, like I don't. I'm serious, bro. Like I can't think of a single person in the military who like like who related to the rebels. Everyone I think of like is like fuck it, ewoks.

Speaker 1: 5:55

I would just love to just give me a day on the range with the Ewoks dog and, and we got the first three episodes, which also then allowed them to be good too For a moment. Right, but like you know, so it's like. Then it allowed us to clone troopers to, you know but I'm just saying like to identify with them a little more.

Speaker 2: 6:12

I remember talking to some buddies after the episode seven came out and they're like dude Finn. Finn and Poe. I relate. I relate to the way those guys like seem to be experiencing the military service. But, like a lot of people, I don't think. I don't think Disney expected this. But one of the most famous Star Wars characters from episode seven is just the clone trooper. What they, what they describe it he had like as a insignia or whatever. But they everyone online just calls them TR eight are because he's the one that just like he's the one clone trooper. No, nothing special about him other than that he pulls out his like anti light saber baton and he points at Finn. He's like traitor and everyone was just like, dude, that guy, that guy was, that guy saw Finn with the lightsaber, was like fuck it, I'm gonna whoop his ass. And he did, bro, he did all this pretty hard and it was like I don't know why, dude, I don't get it and I'm not going to pretend to get it. I don't know if it's just, like you know, feeling like another Coggin machine or, like you know, disposability amongst being armed forces, but like it just seems like a lot of people in the military empathize with the grind. That would be a stormtrooper. Like and if you see the movies, most stormtroopers aren't like. I don't think the stormtroopers are really vindictive. You know what I mean. Like even like they seem. They seem like they're kind of a I don't want to work very hard military police force and that they're willing to like. Bro, if you're causing trouble and I have to work, I'm going to be real pissed.

Speaker 1: 7:59

They just have protocols and orders and execute them.

Speaker 2: 8:04

Yeah, and maybe, maybe there is scenes where they're like pretty on the nose, nazis, but like I always remembered those scenes being the like high command staff of the empire. You know what I mean? Yeah, the guys in charge of the whole thing. But you know, on this subject of war, pat, you have already spoken before about your experience with going to Israel and leading tours over there and connecting people to more of kind of what it's like to be a local and live amongst the climate of Israel. You've shown people what it's like, like I say, on the Palestinian side, but I don't know exactly if you take them to a Palestinian side or if there's like neighborhoods in Israel that Palestinians live in and you don't have to cross over to the Palestinian side. I'm just not entirely sure what that really looks like. And, of course, with the recent conflict that just bloomed up over the last week, you know, I talked to you at church and I said, hey, how do you feel if we do an episode, hopefully demystifying a little bit of what's going on? And maybe, if we aren't even able to entirely demystify what's going on because there's so many questions right now, we can at least give some context to help people better understand as the situation develops and hopefully they can kind of have their ear to the ground to try to discern what's true, what's propaganda, what's both true and propaganda, right, you know? And what is what is just like outright, outright twisting of a truth, or twisting of history and narrative. I'm not expecting you to be an expert, but you do. What are your kind of credentials in school? What do you do? You?

Speaker 1: 9:54

did Middle East cultural studies. I have a degree in Middle Eastern Arabic studies, interdisciplinary degree, where I also kind of studied Middle Eastern Arabic studies but also focused on polyps, religious history, a little bit of language, and then also traveled over there some.

Speaker 2: 10:15

Gotcha, yeah, okay, well, um, you know, for those who might have been trying to ignore it or just not really familiar, like you know, there's a conflict going on again. I have some things here that I kind of want to read off, just headlines, mostly just to get let people know, like what's going on. And I, and the truth is, is like I've heard from people who are much more experienced with, you know, time spent in the Middle East, whether military service or government service or used to live there, and a lot of them have said, like the world is not aware that this is very much a 9-11 experience for Israel, like most of the world is detached enough from this conflict and just use to a Israel Palestine conflict that they don't get that like this is a pivotal historical moment that there will be. There will be observed holidays for, there will be memorials for and I think a lot of people get desensitized to it. But to kind of put things in perspective, the conflict started, I believe, on October 5th. When was it? When they first entered?

Speaker 1: 13:09

Yeah, that was on this last I'm trying to think of the because the time difference but on this last Saturday. So yeah, october 7th. October 7th was when it yeah Friday, our America's Friday night, israel's Friday.

Speaker 2: 13:31

Saturday after morning.

Speaker 1: 13:33

It was a morning attack. Got you, yeah, morning attack.

Speaker 2: 13:36

But essentially what occurred was that the terrorist organization kind of a a very, I would say, well supported, well funded terrorist organization they are, as I understand it, the current military kind of police force government in the Gaza Strip, not the same thing as the military police force that is in the Palestinian military police force in the West Bank, but in the Gaza Strip Hamas owns it, and with that we're not talking about like just individual terror cells. But I'm not entirely sure what the final reports were of the amount of Hamas members that crossed into Israel. I heard a number as high as that a thousand Hamas members had. Well, what's the term? Invaded, or not necessarily invaded, but essentially posted at the border after the invasion, and that the invasion was several cells of not cells again, I shouldn't use that word but groups of over a dozen to several dozen coming in and coordinated efforts. There was an effort from the sea to come up the coast of the West Bank of Israel, not the West Bank, palestine the West Coast. Yeah, and then I think bank, because like body of water, right, you know. And then there was the Hamas militants, several groups that came in by vehicle, just straight up, going through border blocks, blockades you can see videos and photos of them in trucks, with technical trucks, you know, and technicals is the term for trucks with mountain machine guns and just rolling into a neighborhood, almost shocked that there isn't more of a force there to meet them and then getting out and starting to go door to door, take people, execute people, and then, of course, we saw the one that seemed almost comedic, but it isn't comedic because of what happened, but the videos of Hamas using these paragliders with fans and the kind of go-kart assembly where they use these paragliders to fly up over the walls and land among, and that was where, along do you know where that kind of occurred, what area that occurred along on Israel, if we're looking at a map of Israel, yeah, so if you're looking at a map of Israel that was out of Gaza and they flew basically just over the border wall, you know, and just straight to the east to land, and I don't know how effective those actually were or how many of them actually came over using that, I've seen some footage of them landing and shooting.

Speaker 1: 16:39

Well, and there was a lot of training footage that came out too. So it was like because there was like videos of them training with it and some high videos that they used to throw out there. So I mean, they did do it and so they did I don't know how many there were, but they, I mean they did, it was successful and that they didn't get shot down and they landed and they did assault via. Yeah, so they had a land, sea, air attack. You know the trifecta there, which was, you know, whether it was effective or not. As far as an actual assault to go by air or sea, their land assault was the most most destructive and most took the most lives by far. But the it did open some doors for them that we'll talk about later, about how they, you know, by by attacking in that way they were kind of going no holds barred and how they did that. And also they were also using, you know, but not surprisingly, because we hear about it every couple of years was they did use rocket attacks as well, you know, sending thousands, thousands of rockets over into launching them indiscriminately into Israel.

Speaker 2: 17:55

And that's like seeing the Iron Dome full on cranking out, like working around the clock.

Speaker 1: 18:02

Like.

Speaker 2: 18:02

I've seen footages of the Iron Dome Iron Dome activated for like one off. But to see the Iron Dome just four hours intercepting missiles coming from Hamas was that was nuts. That was like that was pretty crazy and like seeing the nighttime footage of it. But I do want to, I do want to, I'll be honest, I kind of want to shock people awake like cold water a little bit, with what's coming in and what's occurring here. Because, again, like people who are familiar with this situation and familiar with, like global economic crises when it comes to terrorist attacks and things like that, are saying like, think about how radically pissed we were after 9, 11 and how badly America was crying for war, and that's very much the same response coming out of like Israel and a lot of people, a lot of Israeli allies in the region. But anyways, with that, one of the places that was hit on Saturday morning was this music festival. If you haven't heard about it. It was a music festival outdoors. It wasn't a publicized location. They'd actually try to keep it kind of quiet because it was so close to the Palestinian border and with that Hamas. It's not clear exactly which attack was the one that landed closest here, but when they arrived it seemed like there was a confusion that Hamas wasn't expecting to be there from people who were reporting it like people who were there and survived. But Hamas apparently didn't know what to do and they're just trying to decide do we take hostages, what do we do? And then they ended up just killing 260 people at least and taking another 100 hostages and the reports coming out of this man, like it was just mowing into a crowd of teenagers and you know, young adults, festival goers, and they started going around and people are saying that they laid down because they were hurt or injured and pretending to be dead or you know, just in a state of you know deer in the headlights, kind of shock. And there's reports of them like Hamas going around and, after they had done this, starting to take and taking hostages of whoever was alive. They were. They were raping like the corpses of young women who they had just shot and killed and they were victims who were shot and injured. Still doing that. One friend of mine, one friend says she was there. You said a friend, yeah, not my friend, she, just she was there and she saw her friend stripped and paraded around naked and beaten and raped before she was taken as a hostage. And so, like this is we're not dealing with just an occupation, you know small military group or you know Kuduta occupation Like we're dealing with a shock and awe, demoralizing attack. Biden has confirmed, he has come out confirming that he has seen evidence of Hamas beheading Israeli children and babies and these attacks as they were going door to door in these villages. Some of the news sources for some of this, just so you guys know, if you look it up, you're going to get some of that firewall stuff of like subscription. If you go to European news and Asian news sites, you usually will be able to get past and get on the ground interviews and footage of what's going on in Israel. So if you find yourself looking up information that relating to everything that we're talking about, just know you might get stonewalled with more of the American sites wanting you to subscribe, but with that as well. In response to all of that, israel has bombed a lot back into Gaza and they're saying we're looking right now as an upwards of over 1100 Palestinians dead, many of those civilians, right, oh yeah. And so, like I am not saying that Israel doesn't have the blood of innocence on their hands. But I don't want people to think that this is simply a like. No matter what they hear, they're going to see people marching the streets that are, you know, with love to Palestine. You can't be a terrorist if you're fighting for freedom. You know you can't be a terrorist if you're rebelling against occupiers. There's so many celebrities running their mouth right now with pro-Israel, pro-palestine stuff without being even remotely aware, I think, of what they're associating themselves with and the kind of evil that is happening here and like everyone can have their opinions. I know Israel has blood on its hands. I know Israel is not an innocent, benevolent, good guy when it comes to like their military operations and the people that have died in response, like and that's war, but also like there is a different approach to this war, to these battles. When we look at what occurs between Israel's military force and the governing military of Hamas and the way they conduct themselves, and I don't think a lot of people realize that Hamas is just another radical Islam organization like Tarasel. I don't think they realize that it's just one that's been promoted to government police force and that they should like they should be. They should be just as offended by people supporting Hamas, as they would be if someone was supporting ISIS, because they are the same snake, just a different part of it exposing itself.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:03

Yeah, and I'm not saying again, I'm not saying you should be ashamed. I have my own beliefs and preferences, but I'm just saying if you would be, if you would be disgusted by someone supporting ISIS or the Taliban, yet you are pro Hamas and what they're doing, or in support of Hamas and how they're acting, claiming it's for the betterment of Palestine, then you are supporting the same, the same thing, and I just want people to have that disillusion clarified, right. That said, I do want it like. Those are kind of the big things like points I want to touch on. So people know, just like the death toll that we're seeing here, it was pretty much in the first 24 hours Israel essentially got a death toll out of that. Like they saw, numbers are changing and it's hard to tell just because by the time you're getting bodies several days into the war, but it looked like anywhere from a thousand to 1500 killed the first day when Hamas attacked, before Israel was able to respond. And so I got a lot of questions for you, pat, in regards to what your thoughts are, to the way certain things have been occurring and developing out of it. But more than anything, I think people should hear from you At least what you've seen as kind of the not just the American Western news of here is the Palestinian Israel conflict at a glimpse, but like what you've seen of it on the ground and really understanding kind of the the relations there. Yeah, so start back, I guess as far over as you want, because I mean I know mm-hmm, I know there's a lot of history there and I know it could easily fill up two hours yeah, yeah, so we can uh the do you need me to let me know to you? know me to give you a pitch?

Speaker 1: 26:09

no, no, that's good, cuz I'm just thinking about how far, how far back we're, how much we want to do, you know, because we can give, I'll give you kind of a flyover of you know how, even you know, basically the, the, the foundation of how we got to this situation. Yeah right. So yeah, long, long, long time ago, 2,000 years ago, jews lived in Israel right, and they'd been there for a long time. The around 70 AD, rome really took it to them and they. There was a great called the diaspora, the leaving of of Israel, and so not all, but many Jews left to, mostly to the north and to Eastern Europe, and then some to Western Europe as well. And over the course of the next, you know, couple centuries, there was fighting back and forth between different occupying forces. We had three crusades, I mean between the Holy Roman Empire and and the. We had a Saladin and his guys and a couple other groups that were the Mamluks, the Byzantines. Back and forth, there was lots of, lots of different groups have occupied this section of land over the years and so, fast-forwarding up to you know, 1914 ish, you know, world War, I era, the Jews had started to see a lot of persecution throughout Europe and there was a lot of prejudice, persecution going on towards Jews in many villages throughout Eastern Europe and as well as in Western Europe, and it became very uncomfortable to live in those societies and growing up in these environments where you are mistreated and misunderstood and kind of the whipping boy of the society. Anything that goes wrong was blamed on a Jew. There was these things called pogroms, which were where basically they would come and people in the village would come and beat and or kill, you know, jews in their town for various reasons, and so it had become for many very hard to live and maintain their Jewish identity, and so this idea of Zionism started to really take hold, zionism being the, the return to and the restoration of Israel. And so this is starting to take hold throughout the, the Jewish world around the end of World War I and gets more and more popular over the years. And one misconception a lot of people have is that when World War II happened and the Holocaust happened, then Jews started going back to Israel. This started happening before it started. They were going there, coming in there, before lots people just correlated straight up with like Holocaust happened. Jews need a place to live. They got Israel yeah that does play a big role in it as far as when governments got involved to finally kind of get behind and drop those borders for them and establish them as a state. Post World War II, like I said, ottoman Empire rule was going on also up until this World War I and then the fall of the Ottoman Empire in Palestine and what's now called Israel and the as as people started to come into Israel, there were kind of two different to to lump as an absolute lump in absolute terms. You have kind of two different groups of Jews coming back to Israel. You have wealthy Jews who have had, who are kind of excited about this idea of creating their state again coming back together and they're kind of funding this thing, they're showing up, but also they're and they're they've grown up in places where they've been able to be educated and to be to have privilege and they're seeing this is opportunity to kind of further that.

Speaker 2: 31:27

And then you have Jews who have experienced the stuff I was talking about before, with extreme persecution, these pogroms being killed, and those Jews are a little more rough around the edges and so when some Jews were coming into I mean you're gonna have I mean I and I say this just because I've watched, you know a few documentaries on it or a few films, but you're gonna have what is the at the time, steven Spielberg, like incredibly wealthy, influential Jew coming from America right to the promised land. And then you're gonna have the people who have no home, like Fiddler on the roof. Yeah, ever seen that?

Speaker 1: 32:09

yeah, like poor, down and outs and just as, just as much diversity as any other people group, and and and some of this too didn't necessarily also that there was a socioeconomic difference to then. There was also just like cultural difference of how they were treated in general. So people who were just excited about coming to reestablish the state, lots of them came in kind of peacefully, and also there was there was still you have a garless of socioeconomic because there were also rich, rich Jewish people who also helped fund and were a part of basically taking over and retaking the area. But at first, I'm trying to say is at first there was kind of wasn't that big a deal. It was like Jews and Palestinians were had been living together for thousands of years, the ones who had never left, yeah, and and Jews coming in, it was like they're kind of welcomed. But then all of a sudden there were some who came in kind of to take it by force instead of to live alongside. And so that's where we start to see the tension, the tension building throughout the. Between World War I, world War II, post World War II, you have the. The border gets established for Israel to be its own state at the partition plan of 1947 and between and then going forward from there. You have just basically, if you look at, a map over the years of Palestine Palestine shrink, shrink, shrink. Israel grows, grows, grows and so why would like?

Speaker 2: 34:04

I want to ask, like, was that always shrinking due to conflict? Or was it like a delegate agreement of between Israeli leaders and Palestinian leaders of, like, you know what is Israel and what is Palestine? I guess I'm just not sure like, was it always like what? What was? Who was deciding that? Who's deciding, oh, israel needs more Palestine and we're gonna like give, like we're gonna take more away from Palestine?

Speaker 1: 34:32

right. So the for the most part, it's not either of those groups, it's the UN it was the UN throughout time kind of saying like, alright, here's the border, here's how to do it. And you know, obviously both sides were had a voice in a verse, trying to have a voice in it. But yeah, for the most part it was a lot of outside forces kind of saying, alright, like we're gonna draw this up partition plan for this, you know kind of classic old-school, draw some lines on the maps, this makes sense. You people over here, you people over here, alright, we're good to go like we're gonna keep the whatever colonial capitalist ball rolling right which, in a world where people don't have opinions, hopes or dreams, that works for the machine to just plug it in. But for a lot of people that meant a lot of people being displaced, a lot of people having to leave their homes and a lot of people being upset about it. So throughout time we do have multiple wars have been fought. Since 1947 when the partition plan happened, and prior to 1947 there was lots of little skirmishes, riots, you know these sorts of things were going on. But we had in 1948 in Arab-Israeli war where Israel won and took more of the land than what was given by the UN and then Israel, or then UN, kind of made them give some back. And then it's funny because it's kind of a two steps forward, one step back is always kind of thing take a lot, give up a little back. It's kind of been the process for a long time. And so 1967 war had the. In this war Israeli government started establishing more settlements and you might hear the word settlements a lot when you're talking about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict where basically people come and they go into what's marked as Palestinian territory and they kind of set up shop there and then from there kind of start shouldering out and growing that little area and so all you know, little settlements start popping up and then spreading out and spreading out and taking, taking control there. And so the during this 1967 war is when you see the rise of the kind of some more of this guerrilla warfare groups, the PLO, yasser Fatt era.

Speaker 2: 37:12

PLO now is the governing military police force of the West Bank.

Speaker 1: 37:17

Yeah, yeah, and so you know, this is where lots of Palestinians are starting to really have enough of it as well, as far as feeling like all their, all their stuff just getting taken away and given to someone else. And lots of these settlements are put up and, quote unquote, abandoned, you know, housing, and then so the the pressure cooker. This place is like a pressure cooker very often where it's building, building, building, and then let's off some steam through, you know, small skirmish, conflict, whatever, and building, building, building, building. Okay, now let's off a lot like a whole. You know there's a war for a few days, and one note to have would be that, in general, this part of these, when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, these wars are typically very short, from 20 hour to seven day wars. Yeah, they don't mess around, they don't, they don't do America's, vietnam's and Afghanistan's, they. It happens very quickly. Now, peace really is never established in those situations, but there is, you know, kind of, there is a peace broker, and then people go back to their, to what they're doing, and then the pressure cooker kind of starts again. Different groups continue to push their agenda and so then the you, you go from this, you know, 1960s, we're up to where we have in the late 80s, the first called the Intifada. There's been two Intifadas, and the first into in. The Intifada is an Arabic word for means the shaking off, and the. This is when the pressure cookers reached a reached a blowing point and the lids blown off. And so there's been both in Gaza and in Palestine, the West Bank, you know major rioting, warring, unrest, and it's usually very violently put down by the Israelis. And so we had the first Intifada in the early 80, late 80s, and then the second Intifada in, like, around, you know, in the late 2000s or not. It was the late 2000s, you know, like 2007 or somewhere in there. And so now it's been going on since then. As you know, hamas continues to fire rockets over the border every once in a while, commit guerrilla warfare acts, suicide bombings, and then in return, we see Israel retaliate and respond with, you know, with rockets and you know these. You've seen videos of places in Gaza being bombed or rocketed and then also by using their IDF forces to go in and take people out. And so the what's been going on here for a very long time and what really takes a much more in depth explanation than that is, one group has continued to take land and the other group, another group, continues to lose land and with that lose their you know, their ability to be prosperous, to have normal lives, these sorts of things, that. And so the, as the one goat gets more and more nearly, gets less and less the there's people who've gotten more and more intense about the situation and how they feel about it, how they get to respond and react to it, and so we find ourselves with a conflict that is, you know what many deem kind of and have deemed. You know that it's never gonna fix itself. You know there's no plan for peace and there's lots of stalemates on the political fronts. And so it is a real, real pickle now for people who live in this region, because what we have now is we have, you know, second, third, fourth generation Israelis who are like, you know, they're born here, this is their places, their home, this is where they live. And then, in the same way, you have Palestinians who that's where they live to, and it's like the get into the, down to the thing of who's is it and who's should it be, and these sorts of things, and then, and so there, that's where we find ourselves.

Speaker 2: 42:18

Who calls it?

Speaker 1: 42:19

who calls it the Intifada, Intifada right yeah, the Palestinians, the Palestinians shaking off, and that the idea is they're shaking Israel off. Yeah shaking the oppression. They're shaking off yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:33

Because it's like you know, as I observe these things, like, I'm not entirely sure, when Israel I know there was a military conflict between Israel and Palestine where Israel took more land, I'm not entirely sure which one is specifically viewed as like the one where Israel pushed over and began occupying Palestinians, right Like. But Palestinians, I know, like interviews I mean have been mentioning a time or a conflict where they came under Israeli occupation and the idea that you know this is a part, a part theme, right, they're second class citizens in Israel that are treated differently and that they wanna shake Israel off because they feel that they don't have the same rights that they're you know they're treated as you know, I mean second class citizens, and I guess, like I, you know, there's so many things I wanna touch on and I feel like I have an organization here of like how to move about, to really get in here. And I wanna ask you you know how you see the conflict playing out now. You know there is a lot of conjecture from across the world of a lot of things of like that are playing into this, but in the way you see the conflict now and those you know who live there, you know, the people you know who live in Israel and Palestine. I mean, Pat, do you know Palestinians Like that you can think of by name and a face?

Speaker 1: 44:11

Yep, yeah, I've been in communication with Israelis, palestinians, gazans and since this happened, Gazans are Gazans different than Palestinians? So like, like specifically someone who was, you know, in Gaza, not currently, but they're from there, you know.

Speaker 2: 44:33

Okay, gotcha, yeah, so, and what are you receiving as communication for, like, how they feel about the conflict, about what is occurring? Because you know, there is this hurricane smoothing around, cycloning, when there's a conflict, and most of us only see, like the satellite view, right, the Doppler radar view of, like this big thing summarized through its, like, biggest points, right, but we're not really aware with, like, the opinions of the individuals that we're kind of lumping into it. And I've read things of Palestinians who are like not all of us are. Many of us don't want this, many of us do not want Hamas going in and attacking and killing Israel's, israelites, israelis, israelis yeah, like we're. This is awful, but we also don't want Israel bombing us or we don't want to be occupied by Israel. So it's like one of those things where, like I think a lot of what I've seen from on the ground in the nations is people discuss, like people mentioned it in a way of like, yeah, I would like my life to be better, but not this. This is not the way to do it, because now it's making life way worse, right, and I've seen a lot of Israelis being interviewed. Did I say it right that time? Yeah, okay, where they are also not in support of the way their prime minister is responding. And of course you know they're appalled by what has occurred. They're scared, you know they're hurt, but also they don't want. They don't want Palestinian men, women, children being bombed in their apartments. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 46:29

Right yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:31

And to clarify that, I just want to say to like a lot, there's a lot of images just being I mean, I think I was, I counted 15 images and under like 10 seconds earlier today when I was and they were like video snippets and some of them were less than half a second of bombs landing on buildings. And I want our audience to understand that Israel does have a practice of doing this. They've been doing it a long time and they do have what is called roof knockers. And if you've seen videos of bombs going off and the buildings not collapsing or something, what you're seeing is a roof knocker, which is, you know, in the area of. Many Palestinians and Israelis know, if a roof knocker lands, you have about 10 minutes to leave before the next one is not a roof knocker, it is going to level this building down, and that's why you'll see these concussive explosions on top of like a skyscraper no, a skyscraper, a top of apartment or a house or along the face of it, but almost no damage to the building. And it's because these are concussive, like simply warnings to the people to leave. Now, of course, israel doesn't do that when they have a prime target of like, hey, we have a group of Hamas fighters here. They're not going to go warn the Hamas fighters, right, but I just want people to know, like there, israel doesn't go for Israel's at least from what I understand from the conflict and their ethos and approach to these bombings and missile strikes in response to Hamas. These are not trying to blow up an apartment building of a thousand Palestinian civilians. I'm not saying they haven't done that. I'm not saying that there hasn't been thousands of Palestinians that haven't been bombed by Israel. I'm just saying there is an ethos that they put into practice to try to minimize innocent civilian casualties, which is far different than what we see from Hamas. Okay, but that said, I kind of want to pass it over to you.

Speaker 1: 48:41

What are you hearing from the people on the ground, because I'm seeing so much on different sides of the media, people on the ground and also and kind of where I see this thing going and some of that stuff. So the kind of going back to what I was saying before about how there's like third, fourth generation Israelis, as well as people who've lived in Palestine for a long time, just people who've grown up there, trying to go to work, trying to put food on the table, raise a family, just do their thing, and they have. There's people on both sides of this in that way. And so I think that, in the same way that we may, might understand, like the left and right in America and how we like just lump people into the box, you know, oh, you're conservative, okay, you're all this. Oh you're liberal, okay, you're all this. Like that's the same thing that really happens with this conflict in a lot of ways. Oh for sure You're, you're, you're propaustin, you're propaustin, you know, you're this. You're Muslim you do yeah, you're pro-Israel, you're, you're this, you're in all these boxes.

Speaker 2: 49:45

And so, on this note, Christians a minority in Israel.

Speaker 1: 49:51

Yeah, so Christians make up about 2% of Israel.

Speaker 2: 49:54

Where do they often land?

Speaker 1: 49:57

on where they live. I just don't I mean.

Speaker 2: 49:58

I'll say this I definitely don't hear that much about, like Jews beheading Christians. I do hear a lot about groups like Hamas going after, murdering, beheading Christians Right. Where does it, where do Christians usually land in the in the middle of this conflict between Israel, palestine?

Speaker 1: 50:13

Yeah, For one. A grand majority of the Christians. There are either Arab-Israeli or Palestinian Arab Christians. So, they're, you know, and then you have a very small group of Messianic Jews, gotcha.

Speaker 2: 50:28

Who live there?

Speaker 1: 50:31

And so that's, of course, generally speaking on those but the, and so they find themselves in a very unique place and I'll drill all the way down into the specifically. You know, like Christians in this conflict, kind of what that looks like for them. But because you ask about the people who I've been in communication with, and those people are Christians. So in the same way that we see we put people in these boxes of absolutisms, we have to kind of get away from that and understand that people are. It's not that black and white. Another thing to understand about what's going on in the area right now Israel itself is in a very similar place that, like America is in right now, where you have like A lot of division. A lot of division, a very like hyper left group Neo-liberalism yeah a very hyper left group, a very hyper right group.

Speaker 2: 51:31

And Menya, who's referred to as a far right conservative in Israeli policy.

Speaker 1: 51:37

Yeah, so right now the far right's in charge. You could, if you think of it, just like essentially, for you know who's in charge, Trump's in charge or Biden's in charge, whatever you know, kind of similar type of thing, and so you have that going on in Israel. Then you also have in Palestine a pretty broken week government, then in Gaza a government that is hardly a government. It ran by a terrorist organization?

Speaker 2: 52:08

Yeah, terrorist organization.

Speaker 1: 52:10

And then you have a government that's in charge of the people who really don't even live in the country.

Speaker 2: 52:16

So most, I would say this, I mean. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would say the majority of who's running Palestine, at least from what I understand, running the Gaza area, yeah, for the Gaza side Is Iran. Iran seems to have an insanely heavy influence on what Gaza does.

Speaker 1: 52:39

Yeah, they do have interest there, you know, and that's their foothold in, that's Iran's foothold in that in the space is in Gaza with their with through Muslim extremism, and so the people there are feeling I think there's a to start with Israelis. Israelis are feeling really disturbed and scared at what happened, nervous about for themselves, and so that's kind of where they're in a place of and angered for your Palestinians, your Arabs, palestinians, your Arabs, you kind of have. This is total like conjecture from my part, but like I really feel like a lot of people there in that space, palestinians and Arabs, have a internal turmoil going on when this happens. Like you're kind of what you were saying before, which is okay. I'm not a big fan of the Israeli government. I'm not a big fan of the way I've seen them treat us for years and years. I'm not a big fan of what I see going on. Also, I'm totally appalled by the actions of Hamas and then in the kind of deep back of their mind it's like but the only person fighting for me is Hamas, right, like deep, like deep back in the kind of this looks like the inner turmoil of just. But I don't like the way they're doing it, but I want to see change. What's the and I disagree with? And I'm not a Muslim extremist and I'm not someone who wants to see violence in this way, but I don't have a voice or a champion in the fight. So where do I land in this? And so there is a lot of identity crisis that goes on for Palestinians, kind of all this. Really, this last 50, 60 years, you've had a lot of identity crisis creeping up on Palestinians around. You know.

Speaker 2: 54:53

I wonder how much of that. Who are we Go ahead, I just wonder how much of that is rooted in it. It's like essentially being made a state by Britain, right, you know what I mean. Like out of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and all that Britain was kind of like, well, you guys are Palestine now, yeah, and it's just like most people at that point, you know. It's kind of like the way any line was drawn around Africa or something like that. Like we said, people were Nigerian, right, but there was a whole different groups of tribes, of different dialect, you know at the time of stuff, and it's just like, who are we to say that's what you were. And now, like now, here we are. We have such lost identity amongst a lot of those people, groups.

Speaker 1: 55:33

Right, and for a lot of people at the time they're like well, I'm just a farmer and that doesn't change when I get up early and do my job, no kidding. But then all of a sudden it really starts to. You know, as societies develop and things develop.

Speaker 2: 55:47

The biggest issue is if someone says hey, today, you know someone comes to your door, patent, and like they're like hey, just so you know you're Wyoming. Now, a lot of our day to day wouldn't change, yeah, but the moment someone comes to your door and like you, dirty fucking Wyoming, get in line. Just so you know you're gonna be taxed a little bit more than anyone else. Who's who is a Wyoming? And then it's like okay, hold on, yeah, yeah. One, who was it that decided I'm a Wyoming? And two, if I am and that's the way you're gonna treat all of us then like we're gonna, we're gonna tit to tat. Right and so it's kind of one of those things of like and I'm just incredibly simplifying it, right, you know? But I kind of can see the frustration and I can empathize with the frustration of not having that identity. I guess you know I actually I can't empathize, that was the wrong word. I can sympathize. I have not been in that place, right, right.

Speaker 1: 56:46

Right. And so what we have going on right now, I would say for lots, of, lots of Palestinian and I'm really only gonna speak to people who don't want this to be happening yeah, because you know, like to the people who want this to be happening on both sides there, we could have a whole conversation about that we're gonna talk about people who are peace seeking in this, and so it's like the for lots of Palestinians, arab Christians, they're having to. It's just, I think, for them, in some ways, it's just another day in the crap that goes on and it's sad and they don't like it, they don't want it to be happening, they want it to end, they want peace to come, and so that's what's going on there in a lot of ways. But then also in the Israeli space, you know you have these angry, fearful, upset people, rightfully so. But the counter argument from, like, a Palestinian, ghazan perspective is like welcome to my world, right. So it's like you know the oh, you feel violated, that's every day. That's all we live in is violation. You feel like you feel scared, All we live in is fear, and so and this is not to justify Hamas actions I denounce them. I denounce, you know, that violence and I. But for people who are struggling to understand what side of my on and this what is, is there a side I should pick? What's going on? And so that's where the yeah, those kind of feelings are, where it's like, oh, welcome to my world, you know. And then for Israel, it's like it is like a 9-11 type type of event, Like, okay, we were violated, we were invaded, we were our countrymen were killed, People were taken, and yeah, people, yeah, and now it's game on and his gloves off. And so now we're at where we are now, which is, you know, a couple of days into this. You know, you could call it a war, War's been declared, and so we're kind of seeing. You know, we're only a mere whatever 72 hours into the deal, right?

Speaker 2: 59:22

So Specifically, do you have anything of note that you can think? Not, you know, not name dropping, protect the source, right, but like just that you can think of, like words out of the horse's mouth of the. You know what you're hearing from people on the ground and what it's like with their experiencing. Like versus the narrative I guess I could say Cause I think everything you said is valid. I'm just like it still sounds like it could support like the usual media narrative and I'm just wondering like is there? anything that you think people aren't hearing on the news.

Speaker 1: 59:58

Yeah, I think that what was interesting one thing I did see that came through was like how, initially, when rockets were coming over from Hamas this is from the Israeli perspective it was kind of like, oh, like, sirens are going off again, gotta go to the bomb shelter, it's not a big deal, iron Dome will knock it out. This happens a couple of times a year. Then it was like day two of that was like okay, this is no, this is okay, this is. You know, yesterday happened. It was scary. Okay, now it could be really okay, it could be real now, and so like they're like having a getting heightened into that situation. But then what I've seen come from Arab Israeli Christians as well as Arab Israeli, arab Palestinian Christians, is just asking for prayers for peace, prayers for this to end prayers for this to go. You know, go away prayers for this to stop, for violence in on both sides. And so, while the Christians in the region are only 2% of the population, those people are the ones who really are peacemakers, in the sense of like they have a heart, a true heart for that. And while they inwardly might be struggling towards like I don't know, you know the thing I saw before, that that struggle of you know who represents me, who fights for me how does my situation, my standing, change? you know, while that's going on, they put that aside and there's a call for, you know, peace, understanding. You know an inch to violence.

Speaker 2: 1:01:51

Yeah, and I think I don't know about others, but I think that part I can kind of relate to. I mean, I'll say this like there was a part of me that was red-blooded and hot after certain events of like let's go get the bad guys. But at the same time, there's a part of me that disassociates, as a believer, the secular justifications of the war in the Middle East, right, and that, like I'll say, I mean my desire was, you know, in high school, back in like you know, pre-2013, that we would leave the Middle East, right. I mean I remember, like listening to the father of a Navy SEAL who passed away, danny Deets. He went to my high school and his dad still lived in the community and he spoke Every year. He spoke out a couple of things, spoke out a football game or something. I just remember hearing him and reading the story and I was so disenfranchised with war by then that I was like I think we got the guys right, so let's get out. You know what I mean. And so I understand that, like that plight of like I don't agree with the violence and I want prayers for peace, at some times I feel kindred ship with the necessity, like the need for violence. For you know, if I was a Christian in Israel and, like Hamas, had my baby, they were holding it hostage I'd be like every door, kick it down till you find my child. At the same time, as soon as that group is dealt with and the conflict is over, I don't see any further. I wouldn't be like we need more time and we need to make Palestine hurt more. You know what I mean. Like I don't feel that way. So I do empathize and I do understand that kind of idea of like the Christians there Appreciate you for sharing that. I do want to talk about a video I sent you that came out before the conflict and it is this video that essentially let me see when was it? 11 months ago, released by Al Jazeera plus, which is a funded in whole or in part by the Qatari government. The Qatari government is a very outspoken ally of Palestine, specifically the Hamas group. Qatar has deep roots of funding Hamas and so, with that Al Jazeera being a new source as things that come out, where sometimes I would say the information provided is still valuable and it's not that hard to disregard their bias in it. But I was wondering were you able to watch this video of the.

Speaker 1: 1:04:47

I got through most of it, Okay so it mostly follows. I'm familiar with the story.

Speaker 2: 1:04:55

Yeah, I would say the thing that I'm most wondering if you can speak to to help shed a light of just kind of what why a Palestinian views Israel's occupying, or why they view themselves as a second class citizen. You know, in this, in this video, the main thing that I cared about was this young girl, I think she's 12. And the video, just for in case anyone wants to watch, is called how Israeli apartheid destroyed my hometown. Do you think there's a little bit of dramatization in it? Definitely going with discerning lenses, but there is some honest, I think, demonstration of like Palestinians and their treatment is unjust by, you know, some members of Israel, some people who are part of Israel. In particular, there was just a scene where I saw, you know, the, where they were living and how their Israeli neighbors the term they used was so strange. They said that, like you know, this Palestinian family lives at the end of this alleyway and above them is an Israeli occupying family. They didn't say the Israeli family lives above them. They used the term of like occupy or something else Settled above them. Yeah, and it was just such a strange word to use for like what is usually, you know, you just think of like neighbor, but they say they had to put these nets up over their homes where they live and it's not really a home, you know, it's kind of a courtyard with a sleeping area, right, and they put these nets up because the Israelis throw trash down on them. Yeah, and it seems like there could be elsewhere for them to put that trash. And it's kind of done as a disregarding action to like throw trash down on the Palestinians that live beneath them and the amount of trash isn't like it would kill you if those nets snapped, like it would crush you in your sleep. And so I guess I was just wanting to like seeing that, was wondering, like other instances that you've seen, that, like you know, again we were denouncing any acts of terrorism here but definitely justify perhaps the perspective of if I'm a Palestinian, I feel like I'm second class, I feel like I'm treated less than yeah, so the the time you're talking about is called the Hebron and it's it's kind of a poster child city for especially, you know, the pro, pro Palestinian, you know, just it's the poster child of how to show, you know, that Israel is an occupier.

Speaker 1: 1:07:36

Okay, so that that's like the go to that's, that is a, that is a major go to town here, and here's why, if you and so the town of Hebron is super ancient, super old, it's where Super ancient. Super old.

Speaker 2: 1:07:51

Yeah, okay, I thought first I had to do a double guy. I thought you said it was super Asian.

Speaker 1: 1:07:55

Asian. No, not Asian.

Speaker 2: 1:07:56

That's not what I saw in the video, but okay.

Speaker 1: 1:07:58

You know it's ancient, ancient city. I mean Father Abraham, yeah there, yeah, dude, isn't his well there? Yeah, his big grave is there.

Speaker 2: 1:08:07

Oh okay, I got you, yeah, so like well, seems a little bit more important, but whatever Right, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:08:12

So like no, but the or is it a Jacob? I'm getting all mixed up.

Speaker 2: 1:08:15

Jacob's well, Abraham's great Well.

Speaker 1: 1:08:17

Jacob's well is in Nablus, and then you have the grave though, is it, rachel? I'm losing it here. But I mean it's Hebron, it's biblical, it's biblical city and it's played a large role in and, yeah, lots of Old Testament Bible stories and then up to modern time now Earlier, when I was saying that Israeli settlers, they come into an abandoned space, then kind of shoulder out, kind of like how you do at a concert. At a concert, you kind of push in and then once you get your spot, you kind of get your shoulders wider and then your buddy gets in there and he shoulders out, and then that guy gets in there and then next thing you know you've got like elbow room and you're kind of making sure no one's getting in your area at this packed out concert. That's kind of the way this goes. And so the way this went down in Hebron was think of the city like a donut, okay, and is your.

Speaker 2: 1:09:31

What's in the?

Speaker 1: 1:09:31

center, just the middle of the city.

Speaker 2: 1:09:34

Oh, okay, I thought we were getting, let me explain the donut.

Speaker 1: 1:09:39

So the Israeli forces at one point came in and it's a very dense pack city with, like I mean, like super narrow roads, like roads built for camel carts, ancient buildings, and it's also kind of on a hill, and so picture a donut. That's tall, okay, you know. And the Israeli forces at one time came into the city and just kind of bulldozed straight through into the town and this is also the how I've heard it from the Palestinian side of things but bulldozed straight through the walls to get to the middle. So now the donut hole is really occupied. So just like the analogy for at a concert, the donut hole, kind of get in there and held it and they're growing, growing, growing. Lots of other settlements in Palestine are way different. You have like, though it'd be more like in a field you grab a little patch of the field and kind of start growing it, but then in a buddy over there starts growing it and there's another, there's a Palestinian part of the field and they're kind of bumping up against each other. But this is the reason why people always point to this is because it's I mean, they went to the middle of the city and just took it and then kind of started to push outward from there, occupy from there. I've heard granted, this could be from a, this is from the, from, you know, the left side of the table on this, but I've heard as many as 3000 soldiers, you know, hold that city down. That's a lot of soldiers, that's a lot of people and so, yeah, so, stories about the. The reason why I mentioned that it's on a hill is because then you have, in the middle of the donut hole, you have the settlement of Israelis and then around it it's surrounded by Palestinians and so, unlike the other settlements that are a little more spaced out, they got a road between them. This is just jam packed together and so you get a lot more, you know, conflict brewing there, because it's just right in there, right on top of each other, and lots of these Israelis live above. And, yeah, they do. They throw trash, glass, bottles, acid, because acid gets through the, through the chain link fence they took it's not nets, there's netting and there's chain link fence turned up sideways, and I've walked these streets but the and so you can see where they'll throw. They'll throw whatever VCs, acid, whatever, down through there. So and like also, you know it's just like good gosh man, it's not constant, you know, it happens once it becomes a big story, right, but it does happen.

Speaker 2: 1:12:34

I mean, I'm just thinking about, like, what propaganda I'd have to consume to get to a point where, like I thought of a people group as it being okay for me to throw my shit on.

Speaker 1: 1:12:52

Yeah, yeah, no, and I think it's also pretty standard to kind of bus in your most zealous settlers to this area too. You know you're going to bus in those folks and so you know that is what goes on in in this city and the it's a good micro example of what's going on in the rest of the country and I've I've been in Hebron scene at first hand the, the tension, the control and also the hatred from both groups, from both groups back and forth towards each other, and the, the poverty that goes on there as well. And so, yeah, the there is and that's why Hebron gets, you know, spoken about a lot. Is, you know kind of the point at two to explain how, how Israel is occupying or taking over Palestine?

Speaker 2: 1:13:49

Okay, Appreciate you breaking that down. So now the I would say like the next part, I want to move into this. This episode is essentially breaking down why this is a big deal in regards to like our current geopolitical situation.

Speaker 1: 1:14:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:14:15

Because I think also there's there's a lot of people who always cry wolf when anything happens. Anytime there's, you know, a a tension surrounding something, maybe not even a conflict yet, but like just a tension between nations. Excuse me and I'm thinking of some specific YouTubers that just they're always like this is like this is going to be a World War three situation, and they've said that for the last 10 years, and you know, six months go by and like the tension eases or something like that, right, and or we find out something's not what it was depicted as. And this though, I think, I think we're, I think we are getting close to a storm, very close, Just because of how many people I would say that are skeptics of the acceleration in a conflict that are all of a sudden now concerned. So with that, this is going to be more moving into opinion here.

Speaker 1: 1:15:33

Right yeah, this is conjecture.

Speaker 2: 1:15:35

And I just want to make sure people know that, like we're delineating from Pat's, you know, expert opinion of being on the ground, knowing people, being familiar with the situation, day in the life of these people, what, what historically occurred in the region, and now we're looking at kind of things that are coming out of the conflict and the tensions that are kind of come out in relation to that. So, as we, as we discussed, you know, hamas is this. It is designated a terrorist group by the UN. This is not just a label that's thrown nilly willy in regards to Hamas, right, um, they, they are one of the rare terrorist groups that are identified as a terrorist group when they show up to engage, when they have a delegate somewhere, that is seen as a delegate of a terrorist group. Those of them who seem to hold a government position are seen as like terrorist in a government position. Yeah, um, and so when we talk about who supports them, when we're saying they're supporting terrorists, that is like a legitimate statement Like this is these are countries, these are nations that send weapons, send money to this group as, and using them as a proxy for what's going on. And, um, with that, you know, I sent you this video, uh, from first post, with a I believe I'm pronouncing her name correct uh, paul Kisharma, and she breaks down very quickly historic history and like seven minutes history of the conflict and um, israel, palestine and who's who is signing the checks for the weapons and money going into Hamas to equip them uh, potentially train them and give them the means to kind of start start this conflict and why. And so what we're seeing here is that recently Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, was uh had a point with Saudi Arabia where there was going to be help me, help me out here, pat, too, if I'm in the weeds Um, but they were going to come to essentially an agreement of cooperation and that was going to have uh quite a bit of an impact on Gaza and the way Gaza operates and the way other nations use Gaza as essentially a port area in an area for moving uh exports and imports. And with that uh, it is not a secret that Iran is doesn't want Saudi Arabia in Israel to be in uh a working relationship. And so what we're seeing is that it looks like Iran has been giving money and weapons uh, a lot of the weapons Hamas hot has are Russian. Russia has been selling weapons to Iran. Iran has then been selling those weapons to Hamas, equipping Hamas, teaching them how to use the weapons systems. Um and again, this is not a secret, like look up the type of rockets Hamas fires into Israel.

Speaker 1: 1:19:00

Yeah, those are Russian rockets, that's a as a very general, broad thing. No matter where you stand on who's the good guy, who's the bad guy, if they follow the money and the money but even more basic. More basic if the guy if it's an AK platform, it's one group getting supported, if it's black rifles, it's another group supporting. That's a pretty, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:19:26

And this is not to say that America hasn't done the same thing, right.

Speaker 1: 1:19:30

Right, exactly so, no matter what you think is that's your general thing, yeah, so uh, the yeah, russian Iranian support, uh, iran support to definitely to uh Hamas.

Speaker 2: 1:19:43

Um, and so it seems so, essentially, the insight seems to be that, as Nenya, who was about to come to this agreement with Saudi Arabia, Hamas attacked and Hamas attacks, with Israel, of course going to be responding to that attack. Well, um, from what I understand, Saudi Arabia has uh essentially Saudi Arabians in Gaza, or relations in Gaza, where Israel's response to Hamas creates a lot of tension with Saudi Arabia and now talks of cooperation. Stop Um, therefore, like preserving Iran's hold and Qatar's hold, Turkey's ability to use uh Gaza as a resource, still as their connection to uh. What's that see there?

Speaker 1: 1:20:45

The.

Speaker 2: 1:20:45

Mediterranean, um, and so creating that tension between Saudi Arabia and Israel benefits Iran, qatar, turkey, um, maybe even Russia, and it limits things. Now a lot of people are also asking. It seems like you know and I mentioned this earlier the footage that we see when Hamas arrived there was it took so long for Israeli forces to respond. Idf forces took a like a good amount of time to start responding to these attacks across, uh, across Israel, and a lot of people are wondering, like, what's going on? This is a nation that, uh, if anyone's ever heard of the Pegasus program, this is a nation that created the technology that allows a government to listen to citizens through their phone. Like Israel is a surveillance state, so how could they be caught so off guard? How are they not aware of this mass attack that Hamas is planning? Because it seems like, in if we look at the history, israel has been prepared Now a lot of people are wondering if you know. again, this is speculation, but a lot of people are thinking that Israel of course knew Hamas was planning this, allowed Hamas to attack because they knew the severity of the attack would give Israel the means to do another um, a reactionary response, but also turn that reactionary response into a dedicated uh, a dedicated war Right.

Speaker 1: 1:22:23

And pushing Right, because through declaring war you get to use uh governmental powers that you don't otherwise get to use, especially in this, in this very unique and uh, um, uh volatile situation. You know, the tip for tap back and forth stuff is really, you know, between Israel, Gaza, uh is is strategic and somewhat within a rule of engagement type thing, and so by declaring war, a little bit of an eye for an eye going on. Yeah, by declaring war, they're able to, going to be able to, um really fulfill a part of the um uh, conservative Israeli agenda.

Speaker 2: 1:23:10

At the same time, then, yahoo has been uh struggling with popularity in Israel. A lot of Israelis, uh, as Pat mentioned, are, you know, israel's, divided politically, like we are, and so, if this attack happens, it unifies Israel behind a military like full frontal assault that, like they, just they justify Netanyahu's actions. The Israel's like yes, we have to, we have to defend ourselves, we have to keep Hamas from being able to do this again. Um at at a global perspective, netanyahu and Israel itself. I don't think it's a secret, but the UN has been incredibly critical of Israel over the last several years Uh, and Israel has had less political allies in the uh global courts uh recently than ever before. Uh, their popularity is really going down and even, you know, if we look at the Trump presidency, trump's support of Israel, israel came at an incredible scrutiny across uh the United Nations. Now, though, we have United Nations full on speaking out in support as a whole. The organization is speaking out in whole uh, even in disregarding the members of the UN that represent Qatar, turkey and things like that that are present. I don't know if those are part of the UN, but I know they still have delegates that show up right Um, but the UN as an, as an organization, has spoken out in support of Israel. America, biden, the Biden administration has been critical of Israel, netanyahu, very critical of Netanyahu. Biden's now speaking out in support of Israel and sending warships, sending warships, um, which you know, we're, we're seeing this, that it seems like Netanyahu, if he was aware this was going on, was very easily able to turn this into a essentially a quick uh should, or get off the pot. Either you support Israel or you support what's going on with Hamas and Palestine. I say that air quotes, right, you support Palestine, even though Hamas, I don't think represents most Palestinians. No, you know what I mean. But, uh, and a lot of people are going to pick the lesser of two, right, they're like, well, shit, all right, like, and I say people, a lot of organizations are going to go, they're going to back up Israel in this right, especially when headlines are and this is just the truth, right, and Israel bombings, kill, lead to the death of a thousand Palestinians, both, uh, hamas terrorists and civilians. In a sense, uh, hamas is beheading babies. When you compare those two headlines and those are in a public eye, a government's going to have pressure to definitely support one over the other, and so the the speculation here seems to be rather valid. I think that Israel knew of this and allowed Hamas to get as deep as they did to justify such a visceral response that would force other nations to speak out in support of Israel or Palestine. Um, with that? Uh, not an insider of mine, right? Uh, from what we've heard, there are insiders in the White House. Uh, the U? S recently, uh just released $6 billion in funds that were uh frozen between a deal with uh Korea and Iran. It was, uh, it was oil. What's the terminology?

Speaker 1: 1:27:11

Um, basically they didn't. They uh put restrictions on oil assets, oil assets and trading and then froze that, that money, and then they just opened it up.

Speaker 2: 1:27:23

Yeah which, which you know is an insane thing of itself that the U? S can like freeze South Korea's money from going to Iran. But that's, you know, part of being the biggest swinging dick, I guess, right? Well, yeah, it was a South Korea. So South Korea bought $6 billion worth of oil from Iran, essentially, and they owed that money in America, froze it and now, in a prisoner swap, because Iran had 10 U S prisoners, uh, we released that $6 billion to go into a, an account in Qatar. The count isn't any. You know this is coming out of the White House, right, right, right the Biden administration saying that the six billion is in Qatar. It hasn't been spent. We're watching the numbers. None of the money that we that we released has gone out of the Qatar account to support Hamas.

Speaker 1: 1:28:14

That's what Biden admin is saying they never heard of Robin Peter to pay Paul.

Speaker 2: 1:28:18

Then Exactly Cause. That's what that's, that's kind of what we're seeing, and from the reason I mentioned White House inside is cause White House staffers on the inside have been essentially leaking to journalists. Um, that, just the mention. If you say the word Iran, you will be fired, you will be let go there and then, like the Biden admin is deeply embarrassed right now because, as soon it's almost as soon as that was done, the Hamas attack was approved. Essentially, it seems like the two were very correlated, right, and what seems like occurred is that Iran, in expectation of receiving this money, sent money and assets to Hamas, you know, and it's in kind of like you said, like hey, our paychecks coming, might as well spend it now, right? Um, and so there's a lot of frustration and there's a lot of focus and a lot of eyes on is the money still there? Can we verify it? Even if it's still there, did Qatar spend it, expecting for that money to be frozen in Qatar accounts? And so then Qatar is also sending that like kind of money to Hamas. And there's, there's just a lot of embarrassment surrounding this transaction and, of course, republicans are coming out in a mass criticism of the Biden admin, which it's so. You will hear things said that aren't entirely true, like there is a. There is a buzz phrase that Biden gave Hamas $6 million. Biden gave Iran $6 million, built billion. Right, that's billion. Yeah, um, as far as we're aware, that money hasn't not a, not a dollar that has gone to Iran yet. Right, but they're probably spending with the expectation of they will get that.

Speaker 1: 1:30:11

And yeah, it's in, it's. You know, obviously the right in America is going to grab onto this and play that out to the nth degree. But, that being said, it is a 1.7% of Iran's GDP, so that's a lot. I mean, yeah, a lot of money, but Iran has a lot of money, right? But even, like you know, I mean some people say 1% is not a lot, but in one fell swoop, 1.7% of countries, a country's GDP, that's a big, that's a lot of money. So it's a lot of money in general and a lot of money for them. So, yeah, and Iran undoubtedly supports Hamas and the. I mean they've had leaders in their government tweet things like like this is verbatim, not verbatim, not verbatim, but they say Israel needs to be wiped off the face of the earth. Yeah right, Like that's literally the things they say. So it's like of course, they're in involved with this you know, and they've felt this way about Israel for a long time, so they're like I said before that Gaza is one of their main footholds in the country.

Speaker 2: 1:31:32

Yeah, and this. This is really too on coming on, the coattails of the propaganda for Ukraine and Russia dying the transparency starting to come through and starting to see the holes through it. Russia's initial talks to like what they wanted from Ukraine was they wanted to get. They wanted up to the Donbas region to remain independent as a buffer between them and the European Union and the UN. And if we look at the current standing of what is Russian occupied in Ukraine, russia has won. Russia has been holding what they wanted to hold and what they've been talking about for decades of remaining neutral for the last six months now, and there is talks of a hundred billion dollars going from the US government to Ukraine to maintain this, this frozen. You know lines in the sand, because everyone, as far as like we're talking about, like President Zelensky recently rate I think it was just a couple of days ago, right after the Hamas attack was in the US talking to Congress and he essentially the situation that everyone coming out of Congress described it as is that Zelensky said that there is a standstill, the bat, the conflict is frozen in place and it is only frozen because of the amount of money we have provided Ukraine to keep it frozen. Not even Ukraine, zelensky doesn't have an expect, expectation to take more back and Russia is just going to continue to hold here up into the Donbas region. There's not necessarily clear signs that Russia is going to even try to expand, to take what's left Right. And so when we look at it like that and we're starting to see the narrative of that falling apart and Russia's, you know, on one front a proxy war with many of the power nations in Europe and the US through Ukraine, and then also now we have the kind of Russia Iran cooperation and likely this front against Israel, and now those same nations are having to kind of declare allegiance to Israel or supportive Israel, right, yeah, we're looking at an incredibly sensitive situation that if another nation has boots on the ground, here soon we're, we will only be dancing around the terminology of World War Three, right, like we're already in a proxy World War Three quite a bit.

Speaker 1: 1:34:22

It'll be like a couple of months ago and we're not in a recession. Yeah, it's like why is that? Well, we changed the definition of a recession yesterday. And that's what? Yeah, because something people need to remember about some of the World Wars that have gone on it wasn't, they weren't just a war. It wasn't like the whole world just said we're at war now. It was different things in different places, dragging in different groups of people, different allegiances. thus, in creating a World War, you know, and these huge efforts and so, yeah there, I think that, when it comes to the war that's happening right now between Hamas and Israel, I think that I see this going a couple different ways.

Speaker 2: 1:35:20

This is speculation.

Speaker 1: 1:35:20

This is speculation, we're not.

Speaker 2: 1:35:22

We're not, yeah, we're not political science experts on war geopolitics.

Speaker 1: 1:35:28

Right, right. And so what I see is, technically, because of this you could say there is potential for World War Three type stuff to happen. A US just sent warships over there. It's drug in multiple other countries to say you know who supports who, and if you look at a globe it's kind of 50-50 on who supports who. And within even our own countries here's this evening is more interesting with our own countries and people it's a little bit 50-50 on who supports who as well. I mean, that's a whole nother kind of thing to get into. But in this situation, yes, this could be one piece to you know, moving in that direction of major conflict.

Speaker 2: 1:36:15

If there's another player who, like you know, for instance, the way that Japan did sneak attack Pearl Harbor, if another superpower sneaks attacks, if one superpower sneak attacks another superpower during this, yes, we will go into World War Three, but the I mean, just think about, can you say it's not World War Three, even if, like, we're having US, like battleships, sailing into the Mediterranean and if they fire down a plane, a fighter, that seems to be coming to land aid to Hamas, or something that's not going to be a Gaza jet, as far as I understand, gaza doesn't have an air force, hamas doesn't have an air force, and so at that point, we have a plane coming in to assist Gaza that is from another nation and our ship, from our nation, has struck it down.

Speaker 1: 1:37:18

We're looking at, you know, two more nations directly involved in the conflict, with deaths right, Right, right, and so you could say that, yes, that does then maybe constitute something like that, just in the way that when Archduke Ferdinand got assassinated, that's just one dude got one bullet put at him. That's spied us into World War One through a other chain of events. But at the same time, if you take the war rush Ukraine, and in this specific war and I almost put this war in quotations at the moment and I'll go get into a little bit of why in a second, but boots on ground, how many people are involved in it and the efforts being put towards it at the moment, I'd say no, we aren't at that yet, even if, you know, a US ally did take out somebody from Iran, you know, flying over over that airspace which is not supposed to be there. So it's kind of how it goes, and so the who decides, though are you supposed to be there, Right, right right, yeah, no, and so, but we've we've directly and indirectly supported Israel for years, and so the I think that the, what I really think is going to happen here is and I'd hate, I think, that Israel is going to crush this out in the next couple weeks Max.

Speaker 2: 1:38:47

Now I just want to say that sounds so familiar to what we all speculate for. Russia, ukraine, right, right, it is different. It is 100% right.

Speaker 1: 1:38:55

And meaning because, like, if you are like launching here's what I would say if you're launching the assault that's going to take back over Israel with paragliders, you're you're not getting the job done. You know, now, if you know this does bring in Syria, lebanon and Israel or, and sorry, Jordan and Iran all like decided, okay, we're declaring war on Israel tomorrow. If that happens tomorrow, then no, this is not, then yes, we are headed in that scary direction. But if those other countries do not get involved to, if nobody comes to really support this, you know uprising, then it's. I think it's going to be really bad for people in Gaza. It's going to be really rough for Palestinians in the West Bank for a long for the next while as far as their security measures. But typically what we see when these sorts of things happen is Israel really does just pulverize the situation into submission. So I do kind of see it going one of two ways. It's not gonna be drawn out or, yes, like a lot of other big countries have to get involved for something to happen here, and that's kind of the. I don't see a middle ground in it. But I also don't see a high percentage of other people really coming to actually help, because the stakes are pretty high if you declare war on Israel for those other countries, you know. Now, that being said too, america currently has a weak administration and a spineless government who clearly showed their cards a couple of years ago in the Afghanistan pullout, showing that we do capitulate to terrorist organizations. We aren't willing to even keep our own gear on the way out, and so that did embolden. So the two things that really also from America's side, that led to this would really be, from a long-term perspective, yes, you could say America's a continuous support of Israel, but the two big things would be Trump's peace plan for the Middle East. Really, I think it did good stuff for peace in the Middle East, but at the same time, the extreme groups in there got more pissed about that right, and so you had people upset about that. And then those groups feeling more ostracized, more helpless and more willing to kind of you know nothing left to lose. And then the other piece being, yeah, our administration has, the way that we dealt with, the way that we cowered to the Taliban in our pullout, emboldened, the Emboldened all these groups. Emboldened Islamist groups all around the world.

Speaker 2: 1:42:08

Yeah, dude, you can't tell me there's not. You can't tell me that Hamas terrorists don't have a wet dream about getting as lucky as a Taliban group going into a deserted American base and getting access to all that sweet kid?

Speaker 1: 1:42:23

Because who won the war in Afghanistan?

Speaker 2: 1:42:27

Let's be real Taliban. Taliban won that dude. They won that war, they won everyone.

Speaker 1: 1:42:32

Right, and so it's like the yeah, I don't, and so, yeah, I think I see for this specific thing there's lots of speculation conjecture where you could say there's all sorts of different ways this could play out, but I expect to see it to be a short-term conflict.

Speaker 2: 1:42:56

I hope so. I pray because I think right now, if I was in the minds of those who want to crush Israel, now is the best time. Yeah, They've already seen that with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, most of the world just get mad and pissy, but we haven't really done anything to stop Russia. We've sent things to be in the hands of Ukrainians to hold them off, but we all the talk simmered out pretty quick, it's true, but you could.

Speaker 1: 1:43:31

the argument can be made that you could raise the amount of money we've sent to Ukraine. You might be able to raise from like 10 mega churches to send to Israel, like as far as fervent support and firepower. It's like the American government sit yeah, copious amounts of money, but also then you ramp up the mega church support for Israel. It's like you could probably get that support going.

Speaker 2: 1:43:58

The global non-government support for Israel is probably stronger than the global support. Like the global non-government support for Ukraine, I would say you know what I mean, just because of how massive Judaism and Christianism, christian Christianism. One thing I did want to note here is that, like there is a lot of like we're speculating. But looking at Radio Free Europe, radio Liberty, rferlorg, they have this article talking about Russia's potential influence and relation to the conflict. They consulted Hannah Knot, who is a Berlin based analyst with the James Martin Center of non-proliferation studies and she's an expert on Russian policy in the Middle East and she's kind of been echoing a lot of what we've been we've been talking about here, where she says we're not gonna, we're not seeing a direct connection here between Russia sending arms and weapons to Hamas, but what we are seeing is a strong Russia-Iran relationship. Russia's become much more skittish about re, re what is it? Reestablishing the Iran nuclear deal, and so with that, iran's given a lot of support to Russia from the Middle Eastern region. Iran gives a lot of drones and information back to Russia to use for conducting relationships in I don't wanna say executions, but executing missions. In regards to their political and military advances and operations in the Middle East, and Russia and Hamas go really far back. There's images of previous Russian leaders meaning with the heads of Hamas and delegating deals and working out relations and agreements, and they are definitely Russia Hamas much stronger relationship. Let's put it in perspective Russia and Hamas and Russia and Iran have a stronger relationship than Russia and the US, than Russia and Israel, and so the likelihood is that Russia is supporting Iran's effort to support Hamas. Russia is sending this equipment and technology to Iran that is making its way to Hamas. So we're kind of really seeing. I think Iran knows, and this has given a lot of credit to an enemy of the US, I'll say that, like Iran has long been, and I will say, a sleeping enemy of the US, right, they do not want the US to prosper, they do not want Israel to prosper, they do not want the European Union to prosper. They know how to be subtle. They know, I think, how to essentially get away with something and be like and not have something being able to be tied back to them, and with that, I don't think we're ever going to be able to directly say the money that we released for the prisoner deal went to Hamas. Iran's going to be like no, no, no, that money's still in the account, no, that money's still there. Right, it's still like we're not doing it, and Qatar is going to be like yeah, we haven't sent any money to Iran of what we've been holding for the US on this. I do think, though, that there is a chance, and this is the way I could see it playing out is that Iran or Qatar slip up and there is a unequivocal, clear act that they take that is an act of violence or aggression on Israel. Either you know. It's clear, like it's something I don't know, man. I don't know what this would look like. Maybe you know whether it's drones or weapons, or an insane amount of money or supplies, I don't know. Whatever it is Something like going to Hamas that severely hurts Israel, and it becomes a again a shitter get off the pot moment for the United Nations, for America to be like all right, we taking it to Iran now, or are we not? Because if we don't, then Iran can just do it again.

Speaker 1: 1:48:36

Right.

Speaker 2: 1:48:37

And Qatar can do it, and Jordan can do it and Egypt can get in on it. Now, and I think that's what we're going to, I think that's the biggest thing that we're going to run into is like, just like we talked a lot of smack with Russia, but we haven't been flying American piloted jets over Ukraine to combat Russian jets, right, right, we haven't. You could say there's US veterans on the ground or there is US agents on the ground helping organize Ukraine's like defensive assaults, but we don't really have a occupying force combating against Russia like we threatened. And now I think we're going to be in the same situation here and it's like it's like it's a dominoes falling man, and either we're going to have to put our finger down in front of one, and once we do that, it stops the chain reaction of the rest of those following falling and getting away with it, but then it requires us to really put the foot down, which I think is going to be another global war conflict, and I'm not saying I think nukes are coming out. I don't see this needing to be a Russia America nuking each other. Situation Right. That said, I do not think it's impossible that tensions is erode so much, or tensions increase in, relations erode so much that Iran somehow comes into possession of a nuclear warhead, that somehow comes into the hands of a terrorist organization, organization that uses it before it can be traced back. And therefore we have, you know, we had we had a runaway nuke, a broken arrow situation where a nuke got out of someone's control and now the whole world is trying to figure out where did that come from, who gave it to them, so that way we can punish them, right. And if, if fingers point to Iran and Iran is like no, no, no, no, we have no nukes, nuclear deal, right, then it's like OK, where did they get the nuke? Then, again, purely speculation. But I also can see that like that's not unbelievable to me. You know what I mean. So I think that's kind of where I land in, like concerns, for you know, this global conflict and how it could escalate, mm, hmm, I don't know, pat, do you got you got any kind of final notes on that that you feel like you want to kind of get off your chest thoughts or anything like that? Because I know we've been going for a while and I think we provide a very grounded context and history for people to start building their own opinions off of. Mm hmm, I think we've made it clear, you know, that you and I Aren't picking a side that we think is more just to kill innocents or anything like that. But, like, our heart is a desire of peace, you know, and of course we're not going to condone what Hamas does. At the same time and I am cautious to believe in the virtue of Netanyahu's handling of the situation that it wasn't something he knew about and is using to posture his, his, his administration into a better position in the world. It kind of like in the world geopolitical situations. So with that, like I'm very hesitant to our I say, like whatever he does, I support right, because of course I also don't support whatever the Ukrainians do, but I do desire peace, I do desire the death to stop.

Speaker 1: 1:52:21

Right, yeah. So I think we started this whole thing talking about a song by Black Sabbath, war Pig, war Pigs, and about the war machine and the. I think from a big, from a big perspective, there's a lot of people who stand to profit from Conflict and I think that due to that, this particular I don't call it an incident because it was a lot of people have died. But, this is this particular flashpoint has Opened up a door for the machine to turn, even more. And so I think that's a big part of why we're seeing it on the news constantly and our social feeds constantly, and it's being I mean it's it's the it's the number one thing to be talked about for the last three days, and while it is Lots of life lost in it, I can't help but wonder why we don't hear about all the other bad things that happen all the time, or or that this specific situation has been happening for a long time off and on between these groups. And in this instance, I think that the cynical side of me wonders about has is the reason I've gotten All these texts from people like all sorts of different people in my life. Hey, you know, I know you're connected to people over there. These things over there, you know, are praying for you, hoping everything's OK, you know, hope your friends are all right. That's all from a, from a genuine beautiful spot. But like is the reason they know about it and hear about it? Because it's a, it's, it's being propped up and being fueled, you know, fueled on all these sides, when you know is this Rather small terrorist group that did commit a large attack, but not a very powerful attack. In some ways, as far as nation to as far as nation to nation goes, mentally, spiritually powerful, right, right, I mean loss of life, huge the type of attack it takes a mental, spiritual toll on, yeah, and the moral Degenerate. But from a nation to nation, power force on power force. You know, the Because Is Because of that. Is there? Why are people hearing about it? What's going on with it? How long is it going to last? Are there things out there that are trying to prop it up, to make it a bigger? It make it bigger and go longer than it should and can and would if they didn't? And so I think that there's a lot of people who are no longer walking the earth, who were three days ago, who were innocent on both sides of this thing, and that also there's a lot of people who are scared right now, not sure of the future, and who are either locally, you know, in fear for themselves, or abroad, globally, fear, in fear for the world. We're telling what's going on, and so it is a heavy thing. It is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a. It is a sad and a horrific thing that's happened and when we spent some time, can you know, with some conjecture on what we thought could happen and theories and these things, but Ultimately, where it heads, we don't know, and we hope that it ends quickly and that these, all these different groups can Continue, can actually move towards, you know, true peace in the region and prosperity for these people.

Speaker 2: 1:57:12

So yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what it'll take. There's a lot of other people I know who have ideas Right, but I'll be praying and I think to kind of end it on a very. You know, this simplifies so much, right, like what I'm about to say, and it definitely is over simplification, but it is like the one thing that always comes to mind For me whenever I see anything about the Israel Palestinian conflict. I remember being in like sophomore year of high school, trying to like learn a little bit about it, and it was the day that I had a substitute teacher and it was the day where they passed out. He passed out a map of Israel and locations that were valuable personally to Palestine Ports, religious sites, cities and locations that were valuable to Israel and he's told us all To draw a line to divide that area. And it wasn't like the lines for guys in West Bank didn't exist and we paired up with someone to talk about it. I remember I paired up with this girl I didn't really know that well, but she was. She was taking it seriously too. A lot of people just draw a line. It's a country and a half right, and I remember he was going around looking at everyone's line. He's like there's no ports for Palestine, you're missing like West Jerusalem, for like, who would have that? And everyone was like, oh, shoot. And struggling. I remember I can't remember the line we drew but he came over and he started evaluating it. He's like, oh, I'm going to go to Palestine. But he came over and he started evaluating it. He's like this would work. And like I was like what? And he was like, as far as I know, I think like both sides would get what they want. And I like to think back like, damn it, I wish I still had that map to better, like to reference and understand, right, and not that that would solve anything, right, but I just always think about that and how much I want that map so I could look at it again and reference. But can we appreciate you listening? We hope that this is not a fuel to anxiety or fear, but that this, you know, conversation between Pat and myself is clarifying and I genuinely believe it's something that people should have an interest in, just for being aware, you know, I mean there are pro-Palestine, pro-israel marches going across our country right now. There are people. I was looking at images out of New York, Sacramento, arizona, and there are people holding up. There are, there are Palestinians, and you know they're US immigrants or citizens now and but they have roots in the Middle East. They're holding up the swastika and, you know, saying that it's not terrorism to fight against this occupation. And I think, like we should be aware, because this does directly impact the way our you know own society is going to handle this situation and how we're going to handle it with co-workers or neighbors and things like that. So I hope that this just informs people out there to to take an interest, do research themselves, form their own opinions, and I hope it Disuades a militant passion for one side or the other but encourages people to understand where both sides are kind of coming from and that there are, there are normal human beings that are in the midst of this conflict. You know that that don't want death on both sides and I think if we can humanize it, it makes it a lot easier to have a healthier approach to it. So with that, again, thanks for joining us, pat. Any sign off from you? Yeah?

Speaker 1: 2:01:46

just to repeat what you said was to pro this or pro that, to be pro people, get all the facts. You can don't dwell on too many of them, though, because they're coming at you from every direction, and you know, seek understanding and seek peace, and you know, put those things first, yeah till next time, Kim.