Calling Hamas a terrorist organization is ridiculous, racist, and plays into genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media and that we should be doing everything possible to combat. I support the right of Palestinians to resist occupation, including through Hamas, the armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance. [00:00:18] That was in Oakland during last night's City Council meeting. And it's really hard to overstate. And I'm going to try to be calm, open minded, understanding and not use the rhetoric that I really want to use, like the fact that I can't overstate [00:00:34] how much I despise these people and how self-indulgent and stupid they are. And yes, that is an ad hominem attack. That is exactly what it is. But it's also the perfect description. Okay, to let everyone know who these people really are. Now, let me just back up and tell you what the City Council meeting was about, [00:00:52] what was being debated. The city council was deciding on whether or not. And of course, this is symbolic, to call for a cease fire for the aerial bombardments carried out by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to stop [00:01:10] because of the high civilian death toll. Day after day, I come on this show and I condemn what the IDF has been doing. I've been condemning and speaking out against the disgusting, genocidal statements that members of the Likud party have been making since October 7th. [00:01:29] So I've been very clear about where I stand in regard to the various international war crimes violations that Israel has engaged in. But I'm also not an idiot, and I don't fall for propaganda by a group of people who carried out some of the most vicious atrocities [00:01:48] against innocent civilians in Israel. I don't need to carry water for them, and I don't need to fall for their stupid propaganda. But unfortunately, there are some fragment of the left and I'm hoping it is a tiny, tiny fragment of the left. That stupid enough to look at propaganda videos where Hamas is releasing [00:02:09] the hostages and gee, I don't know. Some of the family members of the hostages that are being released might still be held captive by Hamas. And so when you see the hostages who are being released waved to the cameras and awkwardly look like they're happy about the situation, could it be that they're [00:02:29] concerned about their family members who are still held captive by Hamas, which, by the way, also committed international war crimes by, you know, kidnaping innocent Israeli civilians. So, look, I want to break down the arguments made by these individuals [00:02:48] who were incensed over the fact that the you know, the measure that was voted on by the city council, which did in fact pass they did decide to pass a measure calling for Israel to engage in a cease fire. They did that, okay. [00:03:04] But they also wanted to include a provision that made it abundantly clear that they condemn Hamas, which should be an easy thing to do. But apparently it's not easy to do. It's not easy to do. So I'm going to break down the dumb arguments that were made by these leftists who think they're revolutionaries because they support Hamas, and they think that [00:03:21] somehow representative of freedom fighters in Palestine break them down, debunk them. And then I'm going to tell you how this is actually incredibly counterproductive for anyone who actually gives a damn about the well-being, freedom, and statehood of the Palestinian people. [00:03:38] Let's go to the first video. There have not been beheadings of babies and rapings. Israel murdered their own people on October 7th. There's been a lot of atrocity propaganda, ranging from claims of beheaded babies to mass rape. Are arguing that Hamas didn't carry out atrocities on October 7th [00:03:59] is both ignorant and shameful. It's also indecent and incredibly cruel to the victims. On October 7th, some Israelis, by the way, have actually accused Palestinians of faking their deaths or faking their injuries and wounds. [00:04:17] They're crisis actors, right? The crisis actor narrative has come from some on the pro-Israel side, and we have condemned that because it's disgusting. There is no evidence that you have Palestinians faking their own deaths. I mean, that is Alex Jones level, Sandy hook propaganda. [00:04:36] Okay. But people are engaging in it on the Israeli side. And then you have morons like the ones you just heard from engaging in it publicly during a city council meeting, because they somehow think it is helpful to deny the atrocities that Hamas carried out. I don't know how many examples we need to provide, but one of the videos [00:04:55] that I can't get out of my mind, okay, because I'm a human being, and when I see other human beings suffering, regardless of what their politics are, regardless of where they reside, my heart breaks. I don't enjoy seeing it, and I don't want to provide cover for what's being happened happening to them. [00:05:11] But what's so disgusting to me is we've all seen the video of an Israeli woman being forced into a truck by members of Hamas. She's wearing pants, but her backside is absolutely covered in blood. Well, gee, I wonder what happened to her. Why would she have all this blood on her backside? [00:05:31] Oh, but there's no evidence of rapes that occurred during these atrocities. It's true that Israel hasn't released evidence of decapitated babies. That doesn't mean that it's already proven that babies weren't decapitated. [00:05:46] We don't know. We really don't know. But I would just venture to say that maybe, just maybe, there's the possibility that the family members of those children wouldn't want photos of those babies being decapitated, floating around all over on the internet, I don't know. [00:06:03] I could be wrong. I could be wrong. They might find that incredibly cruel. They might be retraumatized by that over and over again. Maybe that's why they didn't want that out. But again, I don't know. I agree. We haven't seen those photos. We haven't seen that evidence, but I've seen enough evidence of the atrocities [00:06:21] that Hamas committed to acknowledge that they committed atrocities. And I don't need to provide cover for them to also simultaneously find the behavior and the military actions of the IDF abhorrent and in violation of international laws. [00:06:38] You can hold those two thoughts at the same time. I know it's crazy. If we're disgusted by the crisis actor conspiracy theories coming from the pro-Israeli side, pro-Israel side, I should say we should be [00:06:57] just as disgusted when we hear the type of arguments that those same types of arguments being made of Hamas. By the way, again, I want to reiterate, taking civilians as hostages breaks international laws. It's a war crime. Now. [00:07:14] Human Rights Watch also verified some of the videos that came out featuring Hamas carrying out these atrocities. So I'm going to give you some descriptions here. They're hard to hear about. I mean, I personally find them incredibly hard to to hear about, read about. So I want to give fair warning to people who still have a soul, the ability to feel [00:07:32] anything when it comes to human lives. But here are, again, this is Human Rights Watch. Here are the verified descriptions of the videos that Human Rights Watch has looked at in one verified video. Dashcam footage taken at 7:55 a.m. shows seven gunmen, including several yelling [00:07:51] in Arabic, kick a shirtless man in front of a bomb shelter connected to the Ram Junction bus stop just a few minutes walk south of the location of the Supernova Music Festival. One gunman shouts in Arabic, guys inside, inside here! [00:08:08] And they appear to argue briefly before another gunman throws an object into the shelter. A man dressed in civilian clothes dashes out. The gunmen yell take aim and shoot at him from behind as he tries to flee. As they are shooting, there is an explosion inside the shelter. [00:08:26] The video ends and it is unclear whether either man survived. You know, that also reminds me of one of the other verified incidents that happened on October 7th, and this is one of the incidents that I [00:08:42] also have a hard time forgetting about. So a father runs into a shelter where his two sons are a Hamas militant throws a grenade into that shelter. The father dies. Somehow, miraculously, the two young sons survive. [00:09:01] They start wailing and crying. One of them says, why? Why couldn't we die? Why are we still alive? And the other? His brother looks at him and says, we're going to die, aren't we? And as this is happening, a Hamas militant opens their fridge and proceeds to enjoy a Coke, a soda. [00:09:21] Oh, no, no, no, these are freedom fighters, right? I mean, look at the freedom they managed to secure for the Palestinian people who are now suffering brutal aerial bombardments by the IDF. Wow. Great job. Real, real great strategy there. [00:09:36] Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. I'm disgusted by anyone that would provide cover for this, but I have more. CNN visited that shelter, by the way, on October 9th and reported that its interior was splattered with blood, which would happen, you know, as you fire into the building in an effort to shoot and kill individuals. [00:09:54] Or if you throw a grenade into a building with the intention of killing individuals within that building. In a second verified video security camera footage filmed at 8:43 a.m., a man in civilian clothing who appears to be fatally shot lies bleeding [00:10:10] on the ground in front of a kibbutz. A group of gunmen congregate in front of a structure close to the dead man, and one throws an object toward it. Within 15 seconds, there is an explosion inside the structure and a gunman drags out. A person, shoots them at close range and beats them with the butt of his rifle [00:10:29] as the other gunmen look on. The New York Times also reports of just how indiscriminate Hamas is. Atrocities were. Obviously, they targeted everyone. It wasn't just IDF soldiers. They also went after civilians. [00:10:45] This is very clear here, but they also went after other foreigners. Those killed in Israel on October 7th also include foreigners and dual nationals. At least 31 US citizens and 39 French citizens were killed during the attacks. [00:11:00] Authorities in both countries have said. Other victims include at least 34 Thai nationals. Asian workers were a common sight in the farms near Israel's border with Gaza. So do do these people's lives matter or are they martyrs in the quest [00:11:18] for freedom for the Palestinians? And did they get that? Or are we seeing Palestinians live better lives today after Hamas carried out the atrocities it carried out? Of course not. It has made the possibility of an actual two state solution at this point pretty impossible. [00:11:35] And for anyone who thought that a one state solution, I get it. Look, I have empathy for people who genuinely think that that can be accomplished. A one state solution, a democratic country where Israelis and Palestinians live side by side and coexist. [00:11:51] Everything is fine. It's not going to happen. There's too much animosity. There's too much history. Realistically, a two state solution made a lot more sense to me. We're further from that than I think we've ever been. And there's a good possibility that what the IDF is currently carrying out [00:12:09] is ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip. So mission accomplished, freedom fighters. Speaking of the freedom fighters argument, I want to go to the next video. - Let's watch. - As an Arab. Asking with this context to condemn Hamas is very anti-Arab racist. [00:12:24] Calling Hamas a terrorist organization is ridiculous, racist and plays into genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media and that we should be doing everything possible to combat. Did anyone else notice that those who oppose this resolution are old white supremacists? [00:12:41] Weaponizing racism. Sexism. anti-Semitism. Islamophobia. I'm sick of it. Okay. Asking people to condemn Hamas is not racist. It's just not. It is a lazy and boring argument. Just as lazy and boring as the people who want to shut down critique of the Israeli [00:13:01] government by calling anyone who engages in that conversation an anti-Semite. Obviously, that doesn't work anymore, because people have felt more and more emboldened to speak out, and that's a good thing. Okay. But I'm also going to feel just as emboldened to speak out against [00:13:18] these morons as they provide cover for atrocities committed by Hamas. And look, this is different from people who want to make the case that the way Israel has treated Palestinians has led to more extremism. [00:13:34] That is an argument that I think has a lot of credibility. But that is also very different from then saying, oh, the extremists are totally okay in carrying out atrocities. That's when you go too far. You see the distinction. [00:13:51] At least 50% of the homes in Gaza right now. Totally demolished. Okay, I don't understand how anyone can see the aftermath of what Hamas did and think that they were justified in doing it, that it was somehow moral to commit [00:14:11] the war crimes and atrocities that they did, and then make the argument that it's somehow a good thing for Palestinians who, by the way, haven't been allowed to have an election in the Gaza Strip since 2006. They're not able to practice in a democratic process. They're not able to cast a ballot for who they want to be their leaders. [00:14:30] They are forced, okay. They're forced to live under the rule of Hamas. Half of the people living in Gaza weren't even born in 2006, when Hamas was elected. So the idea that Hamas is somehow good, a force for good in this equation [00:14:49] is insane to me. All right. By the way, one other thing I need to say. Let's dispel the notion that Hamas, like, consists of freedom fighters. Really? [00:15:04] And you're about to hear the arguments here, and then I'm going to tell you why, what Hamas did. I mean, I can't believe I have to spell it out, but what Hamas did ended up being devastatingly counterproductive. Let's watch. I support the right of Palestinians to resist occupation, [00:15:20] including through Hamas, the armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance. Hamas is not a terrorist organization just because the US and Israel deems it so. Hamas is a resistance organization that is fighting for the liberation of Palestinian people and their land. [00:15:39] Please seek help. Just please, for the love of God. Seek help. What Hamas did has already read to obviously, the retaliatory slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. So congratulations. I guess. Okay, at least 50%. [00:15:54] The numbers have actually gone up a little bit. 60% of residential property homes in the Gaza Strip gone destroyed through Israel's aerial bombardment. So did the Freedom fighters get what they wanted? [00:16:10] But there's more. The outcome of this could very likely. I want to repeat this lead to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. So the argument that what Hamas is doing represents armed resistance, as if [00:16:28] what they're doing is somehow helpful to the cause that we've been fighting for, for the Palestinian people is it's lunacy. It's what lunatics say, lunacy. [00:16:43] And just take a look at what the former Israeli prime minister just recently said during an interview on CNN. This is Naftali Bennett, and this gives you a little peek inside the future of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This is what the freedom fighters have led to. [00:16:59] Congratulations. Let's watch. Israel would retain overall security and defense responsibility. But we don't want to govern the Gazans. So what I think we would do is create an interim technocratic self-government that [00:17:19] that would say for about five years govern Gaza de-nazify Gaza, which means clean out all the incitement, all the education, that all Jews are pigs and devils. And after five years, we would revisit and figure out how to create a sustainable [00:17:38] government, perhaps with our Abraham Accord partners countries in that area. Okay, so let me decode that for you. We are going to occupy the Gaza Strip for security reasons, [00:17:53] and it goes more than just preventing the import export of the Gaza Strip. It's it's about actually being there, having boots on the ground, Israeli forces on the ground in Gaza for security purposes. [00:18:09] Right. Censorship. What the students in Gaza can and cannot learn about. I mean, it's just it's more restrictions, okay. More occupation. A puppet government, I mean, that's essentially what he's proposing here. [00:18:25] Naftali Bennett is saying, like, you know, we're prop up a puppet government that will have control over. Is this the freedom that the freedom fighters were fighting for? Is that what happened here? And the biggest problem with this faction of the left and God, [00:18:40] I hope it's a tiny faction. I don't know the real loud. And unfortunately, since they're super loud, they end up making all of us look like we agree with them. I don't agree with them. I find them super toxic, super problematic, problematic, super counterproductive. [00:18:56] Okay, the problem with them is that what they tend to advocate for isn't really about improving the lives of all people. Their ideology is really about improving the lives of one group of people at the cost of another group of people. [00:19:12] And you see this when it comes to criminal justice reform. It became very clear to me with criminal justice reform, they want criminal justice reform that leads to a softer criminal justice system for the actual perpetrators of crimes, including violent crimes, at the expense of the victims of the crimes. [00:19:30] Now, I don't I'm not on board with that. I'm not going to sign on to that, because I envision a world where we improve the lives of everyone, where we create a just justice system, where those who are accused are treated fairly, and the victims of these crimes [00:19:48] are able to get their own justice. But the way that these lefties handle situations is they everything is through the oppressed and oppressor lens rather than a dialectical lens. And when you see a situation as complicated as this war [00:20:05] through a oppressor oppressed lens, well then it's really easy to dehumanize innocent civilians on the Israeli side. And I refuse to do that. In fact, most leftists I would venture to say, are on board with what I'm saying. It's just these super annoying, loud idiots who show up to city council [00:20:26] meetings in Oakland, in Los Angeles and embarrass all of us and provide fodder for dishonest actors who want to use them in what they say to to paint a like, take broad strokes and paint a picture of what the entirety of the left is about. [00:20:44] So the reason why I talk about these stories, I know, like Minority Report got mad at me for speaking out against some of the lunacy that happens on the left because they feel that it's not smart, it makes the left look bad. Don't do that. Don't do that. Because, you know, we're supposed to be propagandists for the left [00:21:00] and provide cover, even for those who engage in bad behavior, I refuse. That's not what I'm into. What I'm into is holding members of our own side accountable, and at least drawing a distinction to make it abundantly clear we're not with this. [00:21:15] We're not in favor of this. This is not what the left represents. Because if you think avoiding any conversation about it is going to lead to a situation in which people don't know about the morons who said these moronic things, that the Oakland City Council meeting, you'd be mistaken. [00:21:33] You'd be mistaken. There's a very real effort right now to lump together level headed people, okay? Level headed people who believe in freedom, peace, dignity for all. With these ignorant leftists. [00:21:50] That's the reason why I think it's important to speak out against it. They think that they're freedom fighters. They think that they're being helpful when in reality, again, they are feeding into some of the paranoia the Jewish people in America are really struggling with right now because they think, oh my God, there's a giant population within our [00:22:08] own borders who don't value our lives. And why would you want to make anyone feel like that? Why would you want to provide fodder for the right wing when the right wing wants to paint the left? [00:22:25] As apologists for groups that carry out some of the most vicious atrocities imaginable? Why? Why would you want that? I. Again, this provides fodder for dishonest actors who seek [00:22:40] to deflect from Israel's war crimes by instead fearmongering about the entirety of the left, allegedly having the same thought process as what you experienced in those videos. And it's not true. And it's about time the general left grow [00:22:57] a set and speak out against these lunatics because they are a liability. And if you want to actually accomplish something, the self-indulgent idiots that you saw in those videos are going to be an obstacle to accomplishing the policies that we want.