As war escalates in Gaza, with Israel preparing a ground invasion to try and rescue the hostages taken after the horrific Hamas terrorist attack and likely to attempt to eradicate the terrorist group who slaughtered [00:00:16] 1,300 Israelis and 27 Americans already via retaliatory bombing, Israel has killed 1,900 Palestinians. And there are now fears that this conflict will spread into a much wider war, [00:00:31] perhaps even involving Iran and the United States. From his mountaintop perch above a valley straddling Israel and Lebanon, Mohammed Mgheis has watched no fewer than four wars unfold. But none of those, he said, will compare with the war he believes is now brewing [00:00:49] between Israel and its hostile neighbors. As Israel lashes back forcefully against a massive attack on its soil by Hamas militants, Mgheis and others fear that an expected ground invasion of Gaza will spiral into a titanic clash that pulls in Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad. [00:01:08] Hamas is called on those groups to open new fronts against Israel if the nation's tanks roll into Gaza Strip. It won't just be conflict here, but everywhere, all the Middle East, Mgheis said. Hezbollah, Iran, everyone will join. [00:01:24] So the prospect of the United States, the prospect of Iran being involved, did Iran help plan this? Well, let's first listen to Anthony Blinken as interviewed by Lester Holt. >> Speaker 2: First, when it comes to Iran and its possible involvement, [00:01:44] Iran had a long relationship with Hamas. Hamas wouldn't be Hamas without the support over many, many years from Iran. And so we know that, we see that, when it comes to this specific attack, in this moment, we don't have direct evidence that Iran was involved in [00:02:03] the attack, either in planning it or carrying it out, but that could change. >> Speaker 1: That is the official word from the US government but then there's also this. >> Hamas, a militant group from Gaza, launched an unprecedented attack on Israel over the weekend. [00:02:21] Hamas worked with Iranian security officials to plan the attack, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran backed militant group. Iranian security officials helped Hamas plan a surprise attack on Israel, [00:02:36] senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah said. The green light for the attack, which included air, land and sea incursions, was given at a meeting in Beirut last week. >> Speaker 1: That according to the Wall Street Journal. In a worrisome preview of what might come, [00:02:51] border skirmishes have already erupted here in northern Israel, on the other end of the country from Hamas's multipronged cross-border attack. On Tuesday, a firefight broke out when gunmen slipped through the Lebanese border into Israel, killing three Israeli soldiers before they turned back. [00:03:08] A day later, Mgheis and other residents of Arab al-Aramshe, a tiny Israeli Bedouin village, watched as Hezbollah antitank missiles slammed into an Israeli position on a nearby hill a response the group said in a statement to Israel, targeting three of its fighters two days earlier. [00:03:25] Israeli forces replied with an artillery shelling that hit 10 houses in Dhayra, leaving three people wounded, Lebanese authorities said. Fearing that Hezbollah or other groups will try to capitalize on suspected cracks in Israel's defense, president Biden dispatched an aircraft carrier group [00:03:40] to the eastern Mediterranean and placed another at Israel's disposal. Hezbollah's long time insistence on the notion of unity of battlegrounds where it would come to the aid of sister groups such as Hamas against Israel and the west would force it to intervene, Hage Ali said. [00:03:56] And this is already becoming very dangerous here in the United States as well as there have been calls from Hamas for protests and violence in the name of jihad. US law enforcement agencies escalated security measures on Friday to safeguard Jewish and Muslim communities as protests over the conflict between Israel and Hamas [00:04:16] unfolded in a number of cities across the United States and around the world. Police in the two most populous US cities, New York and Los Angeles, said they were stepping up patrols, especially around synagogues and Jewish community centers, though authorities insisted they were unaware of any specific or credible threats. [00:04:32] The heightened security follows a call by former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal for protests on Friday, today, in support of Palestinians. Israel has been retaliating against a Hamas rampage in southern Israel last weekend that killed at least 1,300. At least 1800, now 1900 Palestinians have died in [00:04:50] aerial bombardment of the coastal enclave of Gaza by the Israeli military. At least one Arab-American advocacy group pointed to a more hostile posture taken by federal law enforcement toward Muslim groups than Jews. The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee said on Thursday that FBI agents [00:05:05] had paid visits to a number of mosques in different states and individual US residents with Palestinian roots, calling it a troubling trend. The conflict between Israel and Hamas could spread to cities worldwide as a former Hamas chief called for a day of jihad by Muslim communities. [00:05:21] Khaled Meshaal designated again Friday, today, October 13th, as the Day of Jihad, asking Muslims to take the streets and deliver a message of anger in support of Palestinians. That's, again, of course, today, we pray for everyone's safety. And he said that this is the chance to take jihad theories and put them into [00:05:39] practice, and that obviously involves violence in the very definition of it. So there's that. We'll go back to a little bit more on this in a moment, but, Cenk, I'd love to get your thoughts just on those facts. >> Speaker 5: Yeah, so a couple of things here. First, I wanna just give context to that Wall Street Journal video we [00:05:58] showed you guys. A couple of days ago Wall Street Journal halfway corrected a story. So their new headline says Iran knew Hamas was planning attacks, but not timing or scale, US says. [00:06:15] And the subtitles Tehran's leaders were surprised, according to US intelligence. So just give you the full context of it. Now in terms of this potential here, look, I now understand why Hamas did what they did. I thought, this is the dumbest thing in the world. [00:06:33] Why go be barbaric like this? Lose the moral high ground, seem like monsters, get your own people killed, etc. Now I get it. They want an all out war, not between them and Israel, which they have absolutely no chance of winning, but a war that draws in more people against Israel. [00:06:51] So here's the most important part. Don't help them. Don't try to bring Iran into this war, if you do, that is the only thing that could actually endanger Israel. Because I got news for Hezbollah. [00:07:06] Yeah, you can kill Israelis, I get it, right? But you're not gonna beat Israel. Hamas and Hezbollah together will get crushed. It won't even be close, it will be an obliteration. And you're seeing it now in Gaza. It's not just Hamas, half of Gaza is obliterated. [00:07:23] So that's not a war, that's just retaliation. And we could have the moral argument about how much of that is justified, etc. But Iran is a war. They have a giant military four times the size of Iraq, and the United States couldn't. [00:07:39] We got bogged down in Iraq and couldn't win. We got bogged down in Afghanistan. You think, what are we gonna do? We're gonna conquer Iran and we're gonna occupy Iran? This is crazy talk. And with now apparently almost no evidence that they had any part in this attack, [00:07:58] we, Do not help Hamas by making the war wider. So when Israel gets attacked by Hezbollah, they have to counter. We understand that. So counter whatever you have to counter, but do not go further because it endangers you more, not less, okay? [00:08:17] So that is super important. And then on the issue of it being worldwide, I mean, look, I'm gonna say things that are super obvious and it's not really directed at our audience because you're not the people who would do this. But any attacks against Palestinians or Jews across the world, and [00:08:36] more likely to be Jews, cuz how do you know who's a Palestinian? Maybe it could be against Arabs. Well, that certainly could be the case, but usually minority groups of Jews are attacked in different parts of the world, right? [00:08:52] Again, worldwide disaster. No one should make this any wider, let alone the deep immorality of killing innocent people wherever they are, right? But I'm now worried that the warmongers in America, we talked about it in the first hour, Lindsey Graham immediately pushing for [00:09:12] war so that his benefactors can get richer and richer and richer. The benefactors being the oil companies and defense contractors. And so, yes, those two groups of people and some of the banks that bet on oil, etc, not all the banks, but the ones that do would get spectacularly wealthy in [00:09:30] that war and the rest of us would die and suffer. And it is the only existential threat to Israel. There's no way in the world Hamas and Hezbollah can beat. >> Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is quickly, in my opinion, and becoming the largest issue, the biggest political issue in the world, [00:09:46] because as we're seeing, it could boil over into a world war because so many peoples' interests, whether those be geopolitical interests, economic interests, religious interests, are all tied up within that region. And it's very important, I think, that we continue to beef up security around [00:10:03] the country and we'll talk about this in a sec, just different political commentators and politicians that are taking advantage of the situation to chase clout and get AdSense dollars from Google talking about different types of topics surrounding the issue. Antisemitism has been a very huge problem in this country, and this issue, [00:10:22] unfortunately, seems to just be pulling people all the way to one side or the other. So I think it's really important that everybody just slow down and do their best to pursue peace because this really isn't something that anybody can afford to just escalate out of control. [00:10:41] So me, personally, I'm not as tied. I'm not Arab, I'm not Jewish. And so this has been an issue for me that's been more the outside looking in. So for me, I'm having an opportunity to learn more about people who were affected and really just look at this from angle on how can we do [00:10:58] our best to just promote peace and promote nonviolence in this situation? >> Speaker 1: And look, some of the Israeli bombs are hitting Syria, do not make the war broader. That's the only thing that can actually harm you on an existential level. [00:11:15] But look, the Israeli civilians in a poll said that 86% of them said Netanyahu was wrong for getting the intelligence wrong here. That doesn't happen normally after an attack. Normally you rally around the flag, but they were right. [00:11:32] They were smart to say, Netanyahu screwed this up and those people died because he didn't get the intelligence right, okay? So great. There's a kernel of hope there that the Israeli citizens pull their government back, right? They're not gonna want to do that in the beginning, we all get that. [00:11:49] We're all human. You've got rage, you've got sadness. You've got all this grief from the deaths of your civilians and citizens and friends and family, right? But at some point, we've gotta pull it back. If you just keep going and you obliterate Gaza and you go into Lebanon and [00:12:06] Syria, I don't wanna go past the point of no return, not only because of all the innocents that are dying in those areas, but because of the danger to Israel as well. >> Speaker 4: Yes, 100%. And I think that is pretty remarkable that many Israeli citizens are still [00:12:25] saying critical things about Netanyahu during this time that typically would be completely of national unity. And I would call for the same exact response from the Palestinians to speak out against Hamas. [00:12:41] This is a time when they're certainly not going to be slaughtering their own citizens, when they're so distracted trying to slaughter the Jews and probably, God forbid, but killing hostages that they took. And so it would be a really good time for [00:12:57] the Palestinian people to encourage their leaders of Hamas, this terrorist group, to release the hostages and make the situation much better, because, understandably, Israel is not wanting to allow aid in because it's a huge [00:13:13] bargaining chip at the moment for trying to get the hostages released. Of course, that can't continue for a very long time. The humane thing to do will be to let aid in, but they are trying to get these hostages saved as well. And it's just an incredibly scary time and [00:13:31] I just want to correct one phrase. I know, Cenk, you didn't mean that Hamas had a moral high ground. You just meant they hadn't committed these atrocities. And then now it's so clear to the world what they are and [00:13:47] what they did, but they've obviously sunk to a brand new low, and these situations have a huge human toll. These things don't just take place in news stories and articles. It's human lives with immense suffering on both sides of this unnecessary and [00:14:06] very tragic conflict that was set off by the bloodiest single day attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. And so we just wanted you to take a look at this video. It's a little bit difficult to watch, but of some of the incredible pain and [00:14:21] suffering that has been taking place just in the first week of this horrible occurrence on both sides of this tragedy. >> Speaker 2: They're the images of war shielding children from rockets in Israel and trying to comfort them from bombs in Gaza. The smallest victims hurt, scared, and those who couldn't be saved, [00:14:41] parents grieving at the funeral of a 23 year old soldier killed while battling Hamas militants. An 85 year old grandmother held hostage and paraded through the streets. >> Speaker 1: She's strong. She's a strong lady. [00:14:56] >> Speaker 2: In Gaza, images of homes crumbling and already destroyed. Charged shelters in Israel, bullet holes in a kindergarten window. Nathan Kenning has seen even worse. Recovering bodies from Kibutzbe Erie. [00:15:11] >> [FOREIGN] >> We couldn't believe the horror we were seeing. >> Speaker 4: Yeah, and so Cenk said that this is something that he's looking at more from the outside, being that he's not of either of these groups. I am, as I've said before on the air, I'm an Israeli-American, I'm Jewish. [00:15:26] And I was talking to my uncle, Shmuel Brenner, last night on WhatsApp? And he's in Israel with much of my family. And he told me about his old friends, the family of his very, very close friends, his old friends Oded Lipschitz and his wife Yohaved, [00:15:42] who were in their kibutzbe on Saturday. This is a photo of them right there. Oded was a journalist who has dedicated his life to the cause of peace with the Palestinians. He was no enemy of the Palestinian people by any stretch. In his retirement, he would constantly volunteer to drive sick Palestinians from the territories. [00:16:01] Two doctors and hospitals in Israel, and he's 85 years old, his wife's even older than that. And they were taken from their homes during this attack on Saturday, dragged across the border, and are now hostages in Gaza. [00:16:16] Their home was destroyed. They need their medicine. And it's just one example out of many, and I hope so much that they are able to make it out alive. If anyone knows anything about their whereabouts, please do let us know. Let me know but that's, of course, just one example out of so many and so [00:16:34] much tragedy on both sides of this issue, and we just pray for a quick resolution. >> Speaker 2: So Ben was right about his correction. Of course, hamas never had any immoral high ground, but Palestinians did, and now Hamas has lost that on their behalf. But I don't want Israel to make the same mistake, and [00:16:51] they're in the middle of making it. We show you those pictures of those Israeli victims cuz it's important for you to see them, okay? Those are real human beings. So when people talk like, there should be a resistance, but when you see the kid with the bandaged head, you realize that's not the resistance, that's just killing innocence. [00:17:08] And those two people, they were in favor of peace that Ben just showed you. So how does it help to kill innocence? It doesn't, almost every time, it's counterproductive right? Now, at the same time, I have to tell you guys, we don't have as many pictures of Palestinians because the press is not allowed in there. [00:17:24] It's much, much harder to get into Gaza, and you'd be nuts to be inside Gaza now because buildings are being bombed, and your life would be in grave danger if you were there. And so when you see the bandaged Israeli kid, please have sympathy for that person and their family and everyone that knows them. [00:17:40] But understand that there were also Palestinian kids that look exactly. [CROSSTALK]. >> That kid was Palestinian with the bandage. >> Right? That was a Palestinian. >> Speaker 2: And by the way, when you see the Palestinian child, know that there's an Israeli child just like that, okay? 583 Palestinian kids have been killed so far in a counteroffensive. [00:17:56] And there are two things you said, Ben, that I wanna address. So one is people say the Palestinians need to speak out against Hamas. But how there's no cameras. There's no microphones. How would a random person who we showed one guy there was a camera in there in [00:18:13] the first hour bed, and he's like, why are they killing us? And every day we wake up with death and destruction, etc. Now he's saying, why are they killing us? The same way that the Israeli civilians are saying, why are they killing us, right? [00:18:29] I get you wanna kill Hamas. I get that you wanna kill Israeli soldiers, but why are you killing us, right? So, okay, there's one voice that gets out, but there is no organized way. The Arab groups in America, the Muslim groups in America and in the west have all condemned what Hamas did, right? [00:18:44] But there's no way to get a microphone to the Palestinian people and go, okay, are you condemning Hamas? So when they don't have that ability to speak out, we can't say, well, you didn't speak out, so it's your fault, right? And I know you're not saying it's their fault. Okay, so one more thing. [00:19:01] They should never cut off the water and electricity. You cut off the electricity, you lose power in the hospitals. People are gonna die. So that is collective punishment. So there is no amount of time that I would allow that I wouldn't allow it for a minute, okay? So I would send in and I'm not saying you don't do anything, [00:19:17] I've said this all week. I would send in IDF ground troops, and they have begun today, right? But I wouldn't have bombed buildings. 6000 bombs dropped on Gaza, buildings leveled. Some people were able to get out. [00:19:32] Not everybody was able to get out. And that's why we have over 1500 dead now. Was it, no, 1900 dead. 1900 dead on the Palestinian side. At some point, we have to stop killing each other. >> Speaker 1: Yes, 100%. But I wanna just address what you just said about there are cameras in Gaza. [00:19:51] They all have phones, they all have cell phones, they all have social media. I've seen lots of it. Some of it is too graphic to show. I mean, no doubt when you drop bombs on buildings and children are killed. I saw a horribly graphic video of a Palestinian child dead with his part of his head gone. [00:20:06] I mean, you can't show that on the air in WhatsApp groups? That I'm seeing the most horrific things on both sides of this tragedy. I've seen Israeli children dead. I've seen people being decapitated or attempted decapitated in a video, uncensored of Hamas trying to do [00:20:23] this to a random Israeli citizen as he's dying in front of them. But that doesn't mean that people can't rise up against their government because they don't have a television network. I'm sure they do have a television network in Gaza. I'm sure they do have the ability to broadcast things out. [00:20:38] And every time you see these horrible videos of Israeli citizens being paraded half dead in the back of a truck and being spit on. There's 300 people saying, Allah bar with cell phones, filming it. >> Speaker 2: So especially that last point is very fair. [00:20:53] And guys, I don't know how they would do it, and Hamas would probably kill you if you tried, but you should do what some of the good people in Europe did during the Holocaust. Help those who are captured, help those who are hunted, and those whose lives are in danger, okay? [00:21:11] And I hope to God that there's some stories of Palestinians being able to rescue some of those Israelis out of the hostage situation that they're in now. >> Speaker 1: Maybe they don't even have to rise up against their government. They can literally just say to their government, release these hostages so [00:21:27] we don't all get killed so that we don't have this war escalate wider as well. Because, yes, that could be potentially bad news for Israel if it did, but it would certainly be incredibly bad news for Gaza as well. >> Speaker 2: No question about that. And look, last thing I'll say on this is, please, all of you, [00:21:43] wherever you are, whether it's Israel or Gaza or Lebanon or anywhere else in the world having nothing to do with this conflict. Rise up against the right wing forces inside your governments who always push for war and conflict. [00:21:58] And if it turns out it's not, right wingers. And now, a great development we also talked about in the first hour. Now, some of the right wing in America is saying, enough with war. That's great, we'll take it. I would love those allies, okay? So whichever government is telling you you need more war, more death, [00:22:15] more destruction, please vote them out. Please rise up against them no matter what side they're on.