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Welcome to a Citations Needed News

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Brief. I am Nima Shirazi. I'm Adam

0:08

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We do these news briefs in between

0:27

our regularly scheduled full-length

0:29

episodes. And on this news brief, Adam,

0:31

we wanted to do an update

0:34

on Gaza. I know we've been talking about Gaza

0:36

a bunch, but, you know, when there's ongoing

0:38

ethnic cleansing, maybe that makes sense. And

0:40

especially when we are seeing in the media,

0:43

and this is a media criticism show, there's

0:45

a lot of focus still,

0:48

even after the invasion of the Al-Shifa

0:50

Hospital in Gaza. Adam,

0:52

we've seen now this moving of the

0:55

goalposts in terms of Israel's

0:57

ongoing hunt for Hamas.

1:00

Yeah, so there's something very strange going on here, which

1:02

is, this is kind of maybe more of a macro

1:05

lens here. But on October 13th, the

1:07

Israeli military issued an evacuation

1:10

order for all of northern Gaza, specifically Gaza

1:12

City, and 23 major

1:14

hospitals were told to evacuate. They've been called every

1:16

day since this evacuation order to evacuate.

1:19

And the reason why they're trying to evacuate northern Gaza,

1:21

they say it's because of humanitarian reasons, but the reason is

1:23

that, very clearly, as their president implied

1:26

on October 9th, they're going

1:28

to probably annex northern Gaza

1:31

and turn it into a quote unquote buffer zone. They may

1:33

settle it at some later date, but as The Economist notes,

1:35

northern Gaza is not inhabitable. It won't be inhabitable

1:38

for at least six months, probably several years,

1:41

because of all the dust and rubble. And there's

1:43

no infrastructure, there's no homes there. They've destroyed 260,000 homes. And

1:47

the 1.5, 1.7 million residents,

1:50

the vast, vast majority of whom have now gone south, because that's what they're

1:52

told. Now we'll get to how the,

1:54

apparently the main bad guys are in the

1:56

south now conveniently, but we'll set that aside for now.

2:00

This is sort of clearly their plan. It's their plan because

2:02

everything they're doing has been pursuant to the goal

2:04

of basically ethnically cleansing

2:06

North Gaza. And since they've been carrying

2:08

out the plan that they said

2:11

they were going to do, still we

2:14

see this kind of very credulous

2:16

taking at face value idea

2:19

in the media, which is like, oh, Israel

2:22

is still looking for like Hamas

2:24

headquarters. Yeah. And it's

2:26

strange because the major example

2:28

of course is Al-Shifa hospital. So

2:31

they rated the hospital on November 14th, 15th,

2:33

depending what hemisphere you're in. And this

2:35

was framed in the lead up to the rate of the hospital

2:37

as effectively a US intelligence

2:39

Tony Blinken. They all said it was a command and control

2:42

center. Now as of the time we're recording this on

2:44

Sunday, November 19th, the New York times

2:46

wrote quote, but proof of an extensive

2:49

Hamas command center under the hospital is yet to be

2:51

revealed unquote. So they found, I think a tunnel.

2:54

They found some guns supposedly, although

2:56

CNN claims they rearranged the guns. Yeah. Then

2:59

they like planted more guns because it's the

3:01

Israeli military and that's what they do. Yeah.

3:04

Or they, maybe they didn't. I don't, but they probably may have because

3:06

CNN says they clearly moved guns when they were doing

3:08

different videos. But let's say for the sake of argument,

3:11

they had some guns at the hospital. I don't know.

3:13

And they also released videotape

3:16

of armed gunmen, presumably

3:18

Hamas bringing in hostages to

3:20

the hospital on October 7th. Most

3:23

of whom are clearly injured to

3:25

receive medical treatment. And this

3:27

is seen as evidence that this is a Hamas command and control

3:29

center. This evidence is not satisfactory to the New

3:31

York times. It is not satisfactory to

3:34

us as of yet to justify calling

3:36

it a command and control center. Now most people on

3:38

the left and most people in human rights world would say it doesn't matter if

3:40

it was a command and control center. You still don't get the bomb and shell and

3:43

use sniper drones on a hospital. But I do think

3:45

it sort of matters, right? It sort of matters if they're lying about

3:47

that. It matters if this kind of hunt for

3:49

Hamas narrative is being propped up by

3:51

our media because in the days leading up to the raids, we had

3:53

headlines like this in the Washington Post, quote,

3:56

Israel's hunt for Hamas puts Gaza's

3:58

Al-Shifa hospital under siege. Israel's

4:01

military has sounded a steady drumbeat of accusations

4:03

that Gaza's largest hospital sits atop a

4:05

headquarters for Hamas. And

4:08

then the New York Times had

4:10

one that was even sort of more zero-dark-30-ish

4:12

when it said, quote, Gaza city hospitals are

4:15

caught in deadly crossfire. Battling

4:18

Hamas fighters, Israel forces are closing in

4:20

on hospitals where thousands of people are stranded.

4:23

And so there's this idea that there was a battle

4:25

like in the hospital, but there wasn't. Israel just

4:27

walked into the hospital. There

4:29

were some, I think, light skirmishes outside the

4:31

hospital because fighters attacked Israeli

4:34

soldiers wherever they are. But there was

4:36

no evidence of any shooting coming from the hospital. There

4:38

was no evidence of any gunfire when

4:41

they went into the hospital. And so there's sort of

4:43

this general impression. And of course, again,

4:45

as of this recording, there's no IDF casualties.

4:48

Clearly, if there was some kind of, you know, if this

4:50

was a military base, one would think that that would have

4:52

happened. So then they kind of waltzed into the hospital.

4:55

There's no evidence of any Hamas fighters or

4:57

any militants at all. They claimed that they actually had escaped

5:00

weeks prior. But there's still no, like,

5:02

evil lair that's been discovered. No,

5:04

there's no evil there's no evil lair at all. And

5:06

the threshold for what they show, they showed multilayer,

5:09

three-level. I mean, it really looked like a Bond villain

5:11

lair. We have conference rooms, you

5:13

know, all this lighting. These are like

5:15

the 3D computer models that were passed

5:18

around by Israeli intelligence and propaganda

5:20

outfits being like, this is what we expect

5:22

to find. And their big smoking gun

5:25

is like, oh, there was some hostages were brought into the

5:27

hospital. But of course, it's not clear to me

5:29

what they want them to do. Do they want them not to treat

5:31

the I mean, it's not really clear. I

5:34

mean, had they refused, that would have, I suppose, been worse.

5:37

They treated the hostages because that's what doctors do.

5:40

And it's not clear who they would even report that to since Hamas

5:42

is the governing body. Guess they're

5:44

supposed to report Hamas to Hamas. It's not clear. But

5:46

this was sort of seen as evidence of a command and control center.

5:49

Now, this is not evidence again, according

5:51

to the New York Times, this is not sufficient evidence for a command and

5:53

control center. And again, they're excavating

5:56

around the hospital. Who knows what they'll find

5:58

again, if it was, it doesn't appear to be at the. very least,

6:01

an active command and control center. And according

6:03

to the Economist magazine, who wrote

6:05

on November 18, quote, even

6:08

Israeli intelligence officials do not believe that Hamas

6:10

currently has its main headquarters to the extent that

6:12

such a thing exists below the hospital that being

6:14

al-Shiva. These they say have probably

6:17

moved to Khan, you know, and

6:19

so Israeli intelligence says it's not a headquarters,

6:21

according to the economists or at least to the extent to which it

6:23

has, quote unquote, Hamas presence. It's not what they claimed

6:26

it was. It's not a command and control center. It's not a headquarters.

6:29

The State Department, Tony Blinken has now kind

6:31

of walked it back. They went from saying it was

6:33

a command and control center. Now their new phrasing is it's

6:35

a command and controlled node, I

6:37

guess. So if it's like, and there are strict definitions,

6:40

according to international law, about what constitutes a

6:42

militarized hospital, having some

6:44

weapons there or treating

6:47

wounded prisoners or hostages is not nearly

6:49

sufficient enough to justify it being a military

6:52

target. And so groups will look into this in the

6:54

coming weeks. Amnesty International, I know, is

6:56

currently investigating it. The New York Times, Washington

6:59

Post, both of whom seem quite skeptical that this is a command

7:01

and control center, are investigating

7:03

it, again, to the extent to which Israel

7:05

believes it, they've now sort of shift the goalpost and

7:08

now say that the main bad guy

7:10

center is actually in South Gaza, which brings

7:12

us to the bigger issue of

7:14

what are they going to do next? Well,

7:16

right. So as soon as it was clear that

7:18

the Israeli line about

7:21

al-Shifa hospital was bullshit and

7:24

intended just to further terrorize

7:26

Palestinians and further clear

7:29

out as much of northern Gaza as possible,

7:31

you got former Israeli Prime Minister

7:34

Ehud Olmert saying in an interview

7:36

with Euronews on Friday, November

7:39

17th, all of a sudden he kind of comes

7:41

out and he's like, oh yeah, you know, quote, Khan

7:43

Yunus, which is in the southern part

7:45

of Gaza Strip, is the real headquarters

7:48

of Hamas. There they have the leadership,

7:51

they are hiding, they have bunkers, they have the command

7:53

positions, they have the launching pads,

7:56

end quote. So

7:57

instantly you

7:59

get the this shifting of the goalposts

8:01

that we've been talking about, Adam, which gets

8:04

us to, as you said, the purpose

8:06

for actually labeling

8:08

hospitals as centers of

8:12

command and control or centers of Hamas

8:14

threat because in

8:17

Israel's attempt to actually ethnically

8:20

cleanse

8:21

Gaza,

8:22

certainly northern Gaza at this point,

8:24

moving on to southern Gaza soon, some

8:27

of the last holdouts for people

8:29

who can't actually evacuate

8:32

are going to be hospitals. So there needs to

8:34

be a pretense and a pretext

8:36

for going into hospitals and

8:39

forcibly removing people

8:42

from them, sending them south and then

8:44

saying, oh no, we actually need to keep attacking

8:47

Gaza and we need to keep attacking

8:49

more and more southerly positions.

8:52

And then you get to Khan Yunus

8:54

and then eventually it's going to be, oh no, they're in Rafa.

8:57

Oh no, they're in Suez. I know they're in fucking

8:59

Cairo and then you eventually get to Johannesburg.

9:02

Well, now they're the BBC, the Red Cross

9:04

and the ICC. They're all Hamas now, but there

9:07

is a logic to it.

9:09

When one accepts the sort of human shields,

9:11

the perpetual human shields logic that justifies

9:13

killing 12,000 people,

9:16

upwards of 6,000 children if you include those who

9:18

are in rubble and almost certainly dead, there's

9:21

a logic to that morally that

9:23

begins to emerge. I think it's heavily animated by

9:25

racism. It's also heavily animated

9:27

by political necessity, which

9:30

is that if you take the human shields logic to

9:32

its end point,

9:33

then by definition,

9:36

all the Hamas guys' headquarters would be in hospitals

9:39

because if the vulnerability

9:41

and innocence and the preservation of life is

9:44

necessarily like sort of insects

9:46

going to some piece of rotten

9:49

meat, that's how they view

9:51

it, that they would go to the most vulnerable places. So

9:54

I think to some extent they begin to believe they're on bullshit.

9:56

Now, I think a lot of them are just kind of cynical and lying. They're kind

9:58

of improvising as they go.

9:59

But I think a lot of people genuinely internalize

10:02

the human shield's rationale because in a way when

10:04

you kill thousands of children in less than 40

10:06

days,

10:08

you kind of have to believe that, right? Because

10:11

then they say this in their statements. Whenever

10:13

Israeli officials are on CNN or on NPR or

10:15

PBS and they say, well, what about all the children you're killing? They

10:17

say, well, that's Hamas human shield. Hamas human shield. You have

10:19

to, that's how you rationalize it because how

10:21

else would you sleep at night? And so the

10:24

human shield's moral ecology

10:27

becomes its own

10:29

logic. And so therefore hospitals

10:32

and vulnerable places,

10:33

schools, et cetera, have to be the place where Hamas

10:36

keeps their headquarters. Now

10:39

Hamas has a lot of tunnels under Gaza. Clearly

10:41

that's how they operate as an insurgency force.

10:44

So they probably incidentally have tunnels

10:46

near schools and hospitals. But Amnesty International

10:48

looked into the issue of human shields both

10:50

in 2009 to 2014 and found no

10:53

evidence that they meet the legal definition

10:55

of human shield because the legal definition of human shield is

10:57

compelling a civilian to stay in

10:59

some place under threat so they can deter

11:01

an attack from someone who has air

11:04

superiority, which obviously Israel does. And

11:06

so they found that they did not meet that criteria because simply being

11:09

a guerrilla or urban insurgency

11:11

force, whatever you want to call it, does

11:14

not make you a human shield machine.

11:16

That's not sort of not how it works. Otherwise you

11:18

could just bomb whenever you want to bomb

11:20

because at any point you're going to be within 500 yards

11:22

of some tunnel or some machine gun,

11:24

which is exactly what Israel does

11:27

because that's their logic. And it's a logic that human rights

11:29

groups categorically since, again, since

11:31

Castled, since Protective Edge 24, they've

11:34

categorically denied that as a legal or moral framework because

11:37

it effectively militarizes an entire population.

11:40

And so that I think informs why

11:42

they, on some level, they may believe that all these hospitals

11:45

have these James Bond bunkers underneath

11:47

them because that sort

11:49

of follows from the logic of human shields, moral

11:51

ecology. So then they raid the place. There's

11:53

nobody there and they say, oh, they're here, but they filled it with

11:55

cement. It's like, well, okay, maybe, I don't know. But

11:58

typically, you know, historically.

11:59

military head,

12:00

because again, they're not saying some tunnels or some guns, right?

12:03

Had they said we're going to raid shell and use

12:05

drone snipers on this hospital because

12:07

they have some guns or they

12:09

have

12:10

or they treated patients on October 7th who

12:12

were hostages, nobody

12:14

would have said that justifies this, right? I

12:16

think that would have not passed the sniff test. But they say this is

12:18

their words, the quote unquote beating heart of Hamas.

12:21

That was the exact words that Israeli leadership

12:23

used until clearly it's not and

12:25

then they just shift where the beating heart is. Yeah,

12:27

they say, oh, there were some Hamas guys here a few weeks

12:29

ago and there was a gun. So yeah, there's

12:31

a militia, they're the ruling party of Gaza,

12:34

like, but that's not what you set. If

12:36

Israel treats a Palestinian prisoner in a hospital, the hospital

12:38

does not become a target for bombing

12:40

and shelling and drone snipers. But

12:43

this is all still taking Israel

12:46

almost at face value when actually

12:49

the point is that the

12:51

Israeli military, the Israeli government,

12:53

Israeli officials do not consider

12:56

Palestinians, whether they are one

12:58

minute old or 97 years old, to

13:02

actually be human

13:04

beings whose lives mean anything.

13:06

And so we see this because they say this out

13:09

loud. For instance, this past Friday on

13:11

November 17th, a former Israeli

13:13

intelligence chief was on Anderson

13:16

Cooper on CNN and said this.

13:18

Now,

13:19

again, one little

13:21

note, the non-combatant population

13:24

in the Gaza Strip is really a non-existent

13:27

term because all of the

13:29

Gazans have voted for the Hamas.

13:32

And as we have seen on the 7th of October,

13:35

most of the population in the

13:37

Gaza Strip are Hamas. Nonetheless,

13:40

we are treating them as non-combatant,

13:43

we are treating them as regular

13:45

civilians, and they are spared from

13:47

the fighting.

13:49

Okay, so that is Rami Igrat, the former

13:52

division chief for the Mossad,

13:54

the Israeli Intelligence Agency, who

13:56

said that this past Friday on CNN.

18:00

Gaza Naka 2023." So the

18:02

fact that this is so clearly an ethnic cleansing

18:10

campaign is not just

18:12

as you kind of analyze what's happening

18:15

and oh they say this and then they do this

18:17

and then they kind of say the next thing

18:19

and they try and move the population south

18:21

and south and south they are literally

18:24

saying what they are doing and

18:27

yet they're still hand-wringing

18:29

and sort of like ooh this is incendiary

18:32

rhetoric like the media says it's incendiary

18:35

or then you hear you know the US administration

18:37

whether it's Biden or Blinken or whoever the fuck

18:40

saying like oh well you know yes

18:42

of course we're gonna stand by

18:44

our ally Israel and keep rearming

18:46

them to the teeth so that they

18:49

can murder as many people as they want but we're

18:51

really you know thinking about really

18:54

making it clear to them that

18:57

we think they should probably

18:59

maybe try sorta kinda

19:01

to avoid civilian

19:03

deaths like it's such

19:06

fucking bullshit that's what makes

19:08

the liberal appeals for like a more humanitarian

19:10

work against Hamas popularized by people like Elizabeth

19:12

Warren and Bernie Sanders so cravingly

19:15

obtuse is that everybody knows that

19:17

this really leadership is not and does not

19:20

make a distinction and to the

19:22

extent to which they aren't bombing you know nuking

19:24

Gaza City or they show some kind of relative

19:27

restraint to what they could do which is what they argue that

19:29

oh we could destroy overnight if we wanted to it's

19:32

simply taking it up to the threshold that would not

19:34

create mass riots in the US

19:36

to be unable to defend them right they sort of take it up

19:38

just to the edge of what they can get

19:40

away with without totally creating

19:42

disgust in the US Congress and in the

19:45

kind of quote unquote Arab streets as they used

19:47

to say back in the mid-2000s which is to say

19:49

are a bunch of Arabs gonna go fucking start

19:51

riots and I mean I kind of feel at this point

19:53

Adam that there's nothing like even if they

19:55

were to go so far Pat like whatever

19:58

we're calling going up to the edge

19:59

still genocide. And so

20:02

going beyond that, honestly, I'm like,

20:04

what would it take? I mean, this

20:07

is what Ilhan Omar had said weeks

20:09

and weeks ago, right? And what so many

20:12

people have said before her comments,

20:14

but also since the idea of how

20:16

many Palestinian children does it take

20:19

before this vengeance is quelled on

20:21

the Israeli side? And it's like, well, here's

20:23

a question that takes at face

20:25

value that there is like

20:28

some sort of endgame

20:30

that doesn't have to do with ethnic cleansing,

20:33

right? That like, Oh, aren't you seeing the harm

20:36

you're causing? How can you cause so

20:38

much harm? And it's like, Israel

20:41

wants to cause that harm. Like, there

20:44

isn't actually a threshold because

20:46

they're not being stopped. And they won't be

20:49

stopped. Because the Biden administration

20:51

has said, flat out,

20:53

it will not put any limits

20:56

on whatever combat operations combat

20:58

I put in gigantic fucking

21:00

air quotes, but combat operations

21:03

that Israel is undertaking and decides to enact.

21:06

So the idea that there's a line

21:08

that they're going up to like, well, yes, of

21:10

course, they are not literally firing

21:13

every single missile that they have at once

21:15

at every single Palestinian

21:17

baby. But like, what they're

21:19

already doing isn't that far

21:22

off. Well, it's killing as many people as

21:24

possible to create a terror regime to ethnically

21:26

cleanse them to Egypt. Which is

21:28

to say, if I was to say, because people, again,

21:31

I think people, and I think a lot

21:33

of its racism, I think it's a lot of its cultural proximity.

21:35

I've been to Israel, I know Israelis, I

21:38

personally, I know that a lot of people in the West know,

21:40

you know, know Israelis anything, well, they wouldn't be sort

21:42

of axiomatically evil. Nevermind the fact that

21:45

we vehemently criticized Saudi Arabia and the US government

21:47

all the time on this, on this podcast

21:49

and described to them the most cynical motive as possible. We're

21:51

typically right. And no one sort of has

21:54

an issue with that. I think when it comes to Israel, it's

21:56

like, there's an assumption that they're being singled

21:58

out or something. And it's like, No, it's a very

22:01

specific form of early 20th, late 19th

22:03

century colonialism that has bizarrely

22:06

lasted until 2023, which

22:09

requires some very pre

22:11

Geneva, ugly tactics

22:13

to maintain itself. Like ethno states to maintain

22:15

themselves require genocide

22:19

or genocide adjacent activity, by

22:21

definition, this has always been the case. And

22:25

Israel's main problem is that they were about 75 years

22:28

late to the genocide party, where

22:30

Australia, the United States, other

22:33

settler colonies,

22:34

they just killed everybody. Right? I

22:36

mean, obviously the genocide against Native Americans in North

22:38

America is still ongoing. But in terms

22:41

of just numbers, like they're not a quote unquote demographic

22:43

threat like Palestinians are, which are roughly half the

22:45

population of the borders from the river

22:47

to the sea.

22:48

And so like, that's why it's

22:50

so crude and unprecedented. I mean, the number of children

22:53

killed in this war

22:55

far outweighs any other conflict.

22:57

The Washington Post is a very striking graphic, which

22:59

we can share with you. I mean, the bar graph is just,

23:02

and this is why there's so much urgency, so much anger, so

23:04

much frustration among activists, among young voters, that

23:06

this is pretty much a textbook ethnic cleansing

23:08

campaign, textbook genocide in

23:10

very key ways. But it's ours

23:13

and it's Uncle Joe's. And there's a sort of cognitive

23:15

dissonance there that people are struggling with. And I get

23:17

it. What I would say to you is that's probably

23:20

just due to kind of mindless racism and

23:22

mindless chauvinism and doesn't really

23:24

measure up to the objective facts. To give you one

23:26

example, in March of 2011, when

23:29

Moammar

23:29

Gaddafi said, he said

23:31

his opponents in Western Libya were cockroaches.

23:35

This was seen by everybody as evidence

23:37

of genocidal intent, right? One line

23:39

in Arabic about cockroaches.

23:41

This was seen as in and of itself, per se, evidence

23:44

of genocidal intent. And meanwhile, the

23:46

Agriculture Minister says, we're doing knockbox 2.0.

23:49

The president says, there's no innocent civilians

23:51

here. The Defense Minister, two days after

23:54

October 7, said, quote, we are fighting human

23:56

animals and we are acting accordingly. Right.

23:58

And then we say, I don't know.

23:59

I don't know, you know, in the New York Times, there's a roundup of it

24:02

and kind of treats it like it's ethno-nationalist

24:04

locker room talk. Like, ah, no big deal, boys will

24:06

be boys. And it's like, what the fuck are you talking

24:09

about? This is textbook genocidal intent.

24:11

Now, are they publishing a PDF on

24:13

their website, you know, israel.gov

24:15

saying, here's our plans for genocide? No,

24:17

although there was one minor think tank

24:20

that did basically spell out what they're doing, which is expelling

24:23

the Palestinians to Southern Gaza. This has been floating around right

24:25

wing circles in Israel for decades now, which is kind of the final

24:27

solution for Gaza to push them in Egypt. And

24:30

then annex the West Bank, so they have a two to one demographic advantage.

24:33

But this is the worst, this is the, we're

24:35

kind of saving the worst for last here in

24:37

terms of evidence of genocidal intent.

24:40

This was written by Israel intelligence minister, Gila

24:42

Demiel, in the Jerusalem post on November

24:44

19th, 2023. And

24:47

this is a clear in English, this is an English

24:49

Israeli newspaper. This is a clear

24:51

as day, and this is the intelligence minister.

24:54

This is the person who's most responsible for the

24:56

quote unquote post Hamas war plans for Gaza.

24:59

And this is a clear as day

25:01

blueprint for ethnic cleansing.

25:03

The headline reads, victory is an opportunity

25:06

for Israel in the midst of crisis.

25:08

It would begin by saying quote, Albert Einstein

25:10

was quoted as saying, in the midst of every crisis lies

25:13

an opportunity. This usually means you're about to get something

25:15

quite sinister. It would go on to say,

25:18

one of the issues on which my office has been working diligently

25:20

is how to proceed the day after Hamas has been defeated

25:23

and annihilated.

25:24

We will still have around 2 million people in Gaza,

25:26

many of whom voted for Hamas and celebrated the massacre

25:28

of innocent men, women and children unquote.

25:31

So right there you have the militarization of the

25:33

civilian population effectively saying, many of

25:35

them effectively saying they're all kind

25:37

of collectively responsible, which has been again, the logic

25:39

of the Israeli government since the beginning of this

25:41

war. And it would list that the current options

25:44

don't work. The Israel controlling Gaza,

25:47

the PA controlling Gaza, these are sort of aren't good.

25:49

So she presents what she calls quote, other

25:51

options for Gaza, but there aren't other options she presents.

25:54

She actually only presents in this op-ed one option.

25:56

And that's to remove Palestinians

25:59

from Gaza. to remove Palestinians from Palestine.

26:02

She would write, quote, another option is

26:04

to promote the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians

26:06

in Gaza for humanitarian reasons

26:09

outside of the strip. It is important that

26:11

those who seek a life elsewhere be provided with

26:13

that opportunity. Some world leaders are already

26:15

discussing a worldwide refugee resettlement scheme

26:18

and saying they would welcome Gazans to their countries. This

26:20

could be supported by many nations around

26:23

the world, especially those that claim to be friends

26:25

of Palestinians.

26:26

It is an opportunity for those who say they support the

26:28

Palestinian people to show that these are

26:30

not just empty words. Unquote, so here

26:32

we have, as long as you front-load it with voluntary, but

26:35

they're making Gaza uninhabitable, which

26:38

again, one half of Gaza already is uninhabitable.

26:40

Okay, human life cannot live there. And

26:43

now they're pivoting the war to Southern Gaza, so

26:45

presumably that'll go just like Northern Gaza, and

26:47

that'll be uninhabitable. So the entirety

26:49

of Gaza is being rendered uninhabitable,

26:52

and then you turn around and say, well, for humanitarian reasons,

26:54

we should voluntarily resettle them. That's not

26:56

voluntary, because they can't stay there, because there's

26:58

nowhere to stay, other than an internment

27:00

tent.

27:01

And the op-ed would go on to say, quote,

27:04

instead of funneling more money to rebuild Gaza,

27:06

or the failed UNRWA, which

27:08

is United Nations Relief and Work Station, which

27:11

operates a great deal of the things

27:13

that keep people alive in Gaza, the

27:15

international community can assist in the cost of

27:17

resettlement, helping the people of Gaza build new

27:19

lives in their new host countries,

27:22

unquote.

27:23

If I make the entirety of Gaza

27:26

unlivable, and then say, well, we should voluntarily

27:28

resettle them, there's a name

27:30

for that, and it's not a war, and

27:33

it's not a, quote, unquote, hunt for Hamas. It

27:35

is forcible removal of population, which

27:38

is a textbook definition of ethnic cleansing,

27:41

and a subset of genocide. And again, to

27:43

be clear, this is the person currently,

27:45

right now, this isn't some fringe minister, or some crazy

27:48

settler, or whatever, this is the person currently

27:50

in charge with the, quote, unquote, post-Hamasq

27:53

Gaza strategy, unquote. This

27:55

is the single most influential person

27:58

who is involved in strategizing this. who writes

28:00

an op-ed where she offers only

28:03

one option, and that is to expel Palestinians

28:05

from Palestine. There is no other

28:07

option proffered in this piece. In fact, all the other ones

28:09

are just dismissed at hand. I don't know how

28:12

much clearer they can make it. Right.

28:14

I mean speaking of the West Bank, just quickly, over

28:17

a hundred and fifty Palestinians have been

28:19

killed by Israeli military

28:22

and Israeli settlers since October 7.

28:24

So the idea, and there's no fucking Hamas in the

28:27

West Bank, right? Like, so the idea

28:29

that again, this like hunt for

28:31

Hamas can go wherever the propaganda

28:33

wants it to go to enable

28:36

the ongoing apartheid

28:39

regime terrorizing Palestinians,

28:42

whether it's in the West Bank or Gaza. But

28:45

you could frame anything as a hunt for Hamas. I mean,

28:47

again, the destruction of UN schools, the destruction

28:49

of refugee camps, the destruction, basically

28:52

anyone who's held out and refused to go to

28:54

their little tent cities in southern Gaza can

28:57

be reverse engineered into a hunt for Hamas

28:59

story. And this is what makes the media

29:01

adopting this narrative so problematic because they're

29:03

not connecting dots where they would absolutely connect

29:06

dots. If this was a baddy country,

29:08

these dots would have been connected a long time ago.

29:10

Yeah, there would be no hand wringing about complexity

29:14

or oh, this is there's a lot

29:16

of nuances here. There's a lot of history to unpack.

29:19

Only experts can really know what's going

29:21

on here. That would not be the

29:23

case where this happening almost

29:26

literally anywhere else. And there was

29:28

a front page of the New York Times on Sunday has a picture

29:30

of a Palestinian child looking down at his dead

29:33

sibling. And the headline reads smoldering

29:35

Gaza becomes a graveyard for children. And

29:38

then it's like, wow, that's like

29:40

really sobering and dramatic. And then the sub

29:42

headline, thousands are killed in bombardments

29:44

as Israel responds to Hamas attack. And

29:47

it plays into this human shields idea.

29:49

And this is all a very elaborate

29:52

that's developed over decades. It's kind of elaborate

29:54

or sensed moral ecology where

29:56

Israel can just kill thousands of children

29:59

and.

29:59

somehow it's always hamas his faults

30:03

and also the have no choice and

30:05

also ever was a human shields but also you

30:07

know they were human shields we're going to be a us anyway and

30:10

one feels like they're taking crazy pills

30:12

which is why you see this massive disconnect between

30:15

now younger people view the war versus cnn

30:18

and people are older who watch cnn msnbc

30:20

all day because are getting a totally different narrative

30:23

were

30:23

again all the sort of death and destruction

30:26

and i were your piece myself stuck with the anonymous

30:28

palestinian american contributor who

30:31

works as a quantitative researcher and

30:33

he showed the overwhelming preference

30:36

for focusing on israel israel deaths

30:38

vs palestinians even as the numbers

30:40

begin to skyrocket up to the several thousands

30:43

of the five digits and this is

30:45

is not what you see on twitter ends to

30:47

talk and you tube you to see

30:50

a different story there are tons of front

30:52

pages across the country adam i just want to note

30:54

like if you look at the new york post you look

30:56

at like a local paper

30:58

i mean i know that are prose the tabloid and murdoch

31:00

guy yeah i got it but

31:03

it's still a fourth most popular newspaper the country exactly

31:05

and you look at any kind of local papers

31:07

well and we are still seeing

31:09

personal stories on the front

31:11

pages about whether they're israeli

31:13

hostages or israelis who were killed in october

31:16

seventh and when that's all

31:18

you tell it is clear

31:21

whose lives

31:22

matter

31:23

yeah because our government funds and arms

31:26

one side of that and not the other side and so

31:29

this

31:29

kind of genocidal intent or ethnic cleansing

31:31

intentionality which

31:32

you can we have tons of evidence

31:35

for

31:35

and less israel publishes it on

31:37

their website sing this is our genocidal

31:40

plan even know everything

31:42

fits within that framework very clearly

31:44

again as several aid

31:46

organizations and human rights or decisions have been

31:49

sounding the alarm about of things like potentials

31:51

inside to become a diplomatic and you know i get it

31:54

but like the problem is that you don't have

31:56

a smoking gun until it's done you

31:57

have a smoking gun for ethnic cleansing

31:59

until it's pretty much over. And right

32:02

now, Northern Gaza, according to The Economist,

32:04

not inhabitable for six months to several years. So

32:07

yeah, when you destroy 25 hospitals and 52

32:10

health centers, you attack 55 ambulances,

32:14

you destroy completely 83

32:16

mosques, you partially

32:20

destroy 166 mosques, you

32:23

target multiple churches,

32:26

you destroy 262 schools,

32:29

and you completely obliterate any

32:31

kind of residential building in

32:34

entire neighborhoods in Northern

32:36

Gaza. You are not hunting for

32:38

fucking anything. You are just committing

32:41

genocide. Like, that's what that is.

32:43

I mean, they keep saying they don't make a distinction. And

32:46

the line between not making a distinction

32:48

between combatant and non-combatant or civilian

32:51

and soldier, once you erase

32:53

that distinction, then

32:56

all that's left is ethnic cleansing, right? Like,

32:58

there's no other option, unless you're,

33:00

you know, if you say we're gonna

33:02

eliminate Hamas, and then you say, pretty much

33:04

everybody's Hamas, if so ergo,

33:07

whatever sort of Latin syllogism you wish to

33:10

use, you're eliminating everybody. Right.

33:13

And so when you see headlines, like

33:15

from the New York Times, just the other day, that

33:18

say, quote, the Israeli military signals

33:20

its intent to battle Hamas in Southern

33:22

Gaza, and you see the Daily Beast

33:25

say, quote, Israeli military says

33:28

it is preparing to fight Hamas in

33:30

Southern Gaza. Think

33:32

about what that hunt for Hamas

33:35

line does to absolve

33:38

Israel from clear ethnic cleansing.

33:41

So Adam, I'm glad we were able to talk that through because

33:43

we're seeing these headlines over and over and over

33:45

again. And the dots just

33:47

need to be connected because they're so obvious.

33:49

And it seems like our media

33:52

is very hesitant to do so. Or

33:54

at least like proposed as an option.

33:57

Instead of saying like, Israel says they're gonna go after Hamas,

33:59

be like. Israel says they're going to go after Hamas,

34:01

but historically they've gone after whatever percentage

34:05

of people who have died, I mean, are not

34:07

quote unquote Hamas because they don't really think there's a difference.

34:10

I mean, has anyone even asked Israel what percentage

34:13

of people they've killed are quote unquote Hamas?

34:16

I don't think they've even said that. So

34:18

I mean, it doesn't matter to them. So why

34:20

should it keep mattering to American media? Well,

34:22

right, because the intent is clear.

34:25

And so that will do it for this Citation

34:27

Seated News Brief. We will be back

34:30

very soon with more full length

34:32

episodes of Citation Seated. Until then,

34:34

of course, you can follow the show on Twitter at

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appreciated as we are 100% listener funded. So

34:51

thanks again for listening. I am Nima Shirazi. I'm

34:53

Adam Johnson. Our senior producer is

34:55

Florence Burrough Adams. Producer is Julianne Tweeton.

34:58

Assistant is Trendon Lightburn. Newsletter

35:00

by Marco Cartolano. Transcriptions are by Mahnoor

35:02

Imran. The music is by Grandaddy. Thanks again.