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Matthew Hoh on His Journey to Palestine

Matthew Hoh on His Journey to Palestine

Released Tuesday, 3rd December 2024
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Matthew Hoh on His Journey to Palestine

Matthew Hoh on His Journey to Palestine

Matthew Hoh on His Journey to Palestine

Matthew Hoh on His Journey to Palestine

Tuesday, 3rd December 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
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0:00

For Pacific Radio,

0:03

November 2024. 2024,

0:05

I'm I'm Scott Hort. This is

0:07

This is Anti Radio. All

0:19

All right, y 'all, welcome to the

0:21

show. show. It is Anti-War I'm your host,

0:23

Scott Scott I'm the editorial director of

0:25

antiwar .com, and I'm the author of

0:27

the new book, the new book, Provoked. Washington

0:29

started the new Cold War with Russia

0:31

Russia and the in Ukraine. in Ukraine. You can

0:33

find my full interview archive, more

0:35

than 6 ,000 of them now

0:38

going back to 2003 to 2003, at .org And

0:40

at .com/Scott show and all the other

0:42

all the other pod and video sites sites and

0:44

things out there and things out again

0:46

once again. You can follow me on me on

0:48

you dare. you dare at Scott Horton Show.

0:50

All right, and right, and welcoming

0:53

this week's guest, it's the Ho,

0:55

he's great for he's great for a

0:57

lot of reasons, I have but I

0:59

have to point out every time

1:01

I introduce him to someone was the great

1:03

whistleblower of the of the Afghan 2009, of

1:05

2009, a former Marine a state and

1:07

then a State Department official. he went

1:09

to he went to Afghanistan, saw saw the truth

1:11

of what was going on, on, there's a huge

1:13

push. push. all through through the year

1:15

of 2009, Obama's first year to

1:17

force him essentially, just strong arm

1:19

him. into escalating the

1:22

Afghan Ho said, no, no, no, you don't have to do it. In

1:24

don't have to do it in fact you

1:26

should not do it It's not gonna work.

1:28

It's gonna be to be It's gonna be bad.

1:30

Please to be bad. just hide behind me, sir behind

1:32

and then his boss, even, the ambassador who

1:34

was a former general in charge of

1:36

the war. the war. said, yeah, listen to

1:38

him. so And so Obama could have hid

1:40

behind Matt Matt Ho, he could have hid

1:43

behind behind but he didn't. Barry, but

1:45

ordered the escalation anyway. ordered what happened, everybody?

1:47

He killed hundreds of thousands of people,

1:49

and he lost anyway. killed hundreds

1:51

of have stopped people, and everything he

1:53

could to stop. have And

1:55

don't you forget that. All right. everything he

1:57

to stop It's also important to know

1:59

that forget that. anti-war activist on all sorts

2:01

of issues ever since that time as

2:04

well, and including he just got back

2:06

from the Gaza border. Anyway, welcome back

2:08

to the show. How you doing, Matt?

2:10

Good, Scott. Thanks for having you back

2:13

on it. Very happy to have

2:15

you here. And I'm sorry, what

2:17

again is your official position on

2:19

the Eisenhower media network, sir? I

2:21

am the associate director at the

2:23

us and army network. The associate

2:25

and can you tell us a

2:27

little bit about that organization, please?

2:29

Right. We're an organization of former

2:31

military officers, diplomats, intelligence officers, got

2:33

an FBI agent, people know her,

2:35

Colleen Raleigh, of course, the great

2:37

whistleblower Colleen Raleigh, and we essentially

2:39

are an organization that tries to

2:41

get voices into the media. that

2:43

are opposed to a militarized foreign

2:45

policy, we argue for a diplomatic

2:47

foreign policy, opposed to the trillion

2:49

dollar a year, militarized budget, you

2:51

know, as well as to, of

2:53

course, the endless wars, whether they

2:55

be direct warfare or proxy wars.

2:57

And so we try and get

2:59

these dissident voices from people who've

3:01

been there, who've done those things,

3:03

who've... who have the experience into

3:05

the media where they're solely lacking.

3:07

Of course, I'm speaking about, you

3:09

know, the corporate media where we're

3:11

still largely shut out, you know,

3:13

and that's something we could talk

3:15

about too sky as well, this

3:17

is the role of independent media.

3:19

You know, it's the fact that,

3:22

you know, the work that folks

3:24

like yourself have been doing these

3:26

many years, but really come into

3:28

fruition these last couple years. I

3:30

say we're going to talk about

3:32

Palestine, the opinion opinion on Israel.

3:34

and to think that we've had

3:36

a majority for this last year

3:38

who've argued for a ceasefire in

3:40

American public, we have a majority

3:42

of Americans who say we should

3:44

stop sending weapons to Israel, including

3:46

a plurality of Republicans, that's, you

3:48

know, that's incredible when you size

3:50

that up against what the almost

3:52

all of our politicians and what

3:54

nearly all of our corporate media

3:56

have been saying. They've been repeating

3:58

just Israeli talking points for the

4:00

last 14 months, but the majority

4:02

of Americans are in agreement with

4:04

people like you and I, agreement

4:06

with the world essentially, that what

4:08

Israel is doing against Palestine is

4:10

wrong and the United States should

4:12

not be supporting. Yeah, absolutely.

4:15

And the difference absolutely is the

4:17

media. And of course, for people

4:19

who are sinus partisans, they'll just

4:21

say, yeah, because, you know, China

4:24

controls TikTok and they're brainwashing people

4:26

with their algorithm and making them

4:28

hate Israel and whatever, whatever. Well,

4:30

that's just a funny way of

4:33

saying. that people have direct peer-to-peer

4:35

media access. So people can look

4:37

out of Gaza's eyes. Palestinian residents

4:39

of Gaza's eyes. And so, geez,

4:42

we just couldn't do that before.

4:44

And you know, that's not to

4:46

play down October 7th at all.

4:48

What happened on October 7th is

4:51

exactly what happened there. Never mind

4:53

all the embellishments. Absolutely Hamas killed

4:55

civilians that day. Absolutely is horrible.

4:58

There's no need for any critic

5:00

of Israeli policy to play down

5:02

the actual atrocities of that day.

5:04

It's important to debunk the embellishments

5:07

because Belgian babies on bayonets will

5:09

get you into a world war

5:11

sometimes. And so we got to

5:13

not fall for babies and incubators

5:16

and all these kinds of things

5:18

that they do to us. But

5:20

there's no need to play that

5:22

down to point out the fact

5:25

that we call it Matt October

5:27

the 7th because it didn't last

5:29

past midnight The thing was over

5:31

by dinner time That's why we

5:34

don't call it the second week

5:36

of October 2023 because it wasn't

5:38

it was one day and they've

5:41

been killing people 370 something days

5:43

since then pal 80 So,

5:46

not just in, you know, not just

5:48

in Gaza, what, you know, when I

5:50

was there these last, this last week,

5:52

I spent eight days in Palestine, including

5:55

getting down to the Gaza border. But,

5:57

you know, what you saw was just

5:59

levels of violence in the West. levels

6:02

of occupation and subjugation that haven't been

6:04

seen in decades. And then of course

6:06

we see what's happened in Lebanon. The

6:08

Israelis have killed about 3,000, 3,500 people

6:11

in Lebanon, several hundred of them children

6:13

at least. I mean so, but the

6:15

point though is that we have this

6:17

technology now that allows people to understand

6:20

the world, allows people to share their

6:22

experiences. So we have the horror of

6:24

it, of course, a genocide being live-streamed

6:27

to us every day. Man, you know,

6:29

we see photos and videos every day

6:31

that we hope to God we never

6:33

see again and the next day we

6:36

see them. You know, but you know,

6:38

even it's curious though, not because I

6:40

shouldn't say curious, but the Israelis understand

6:43

this and the Americans understand this, not

6:45

talk about the governments, right, as well

6:47

as the major media outlets, because the

6:49

major media hates this, the corporate media,

6:52

they hate people like you, because while

6:54

you want you do their job better

6:56

than them, but you're a threat to

6:59

their profits, you're a threat to their

7:01

well-being, and if they're going to remain

7:03

in the elite, if they're going to

7:05

be a part of the the upper

7:08

level structures of the American Empire, well

7:10

they better do their jobs well and

7:12

that means making sure the public understands

7:15

the narrative gets the information, has the

7:17

facts that is in line with what

7:19

the American government, the American Empire wants,

7:21

right? But you see with the Israelis

7:24

the fear of this type of information,

7:26

the fear of this type of media

7:28

and you know they surveil everything. So

7:30

you've had Israelis, you know, teachers who've

7:33

been arrested for posting online what would

7:35

be called, when you read what they

7:37

post, it's rather tepid, but they're accused

7:40

of sympathizing with terrorists. You know, when

7:42

we were in Palestine, we went to,

7:44

you know, throughout the West Bank, out

7:46

to novelists, went to a university, met

7:49

with a number of college students, and

7:51

these college students had had four friends

7:53

who've now been in Israeli prison, likely

7:56

getting tortured because Israelis torture everybody. that

7:58

they put into prison, all the Palestinians.

8:00

This is, you know, well-confirmed. well documented

8:02

by the UN and the state international,

8:05

by Israeli human rights group Bethlehem, I

8:07

mean by the Palestinians' own testimony, by

8:09

journalists, there's no argument in that. Everyone

8:12

who the Israelis put into prison. is

8:14

tortured systemically and deliberately. But you know,

8:16

so these four young men were arrested

8:18

by the Israelis because they posted on

8:21

Instagram about Gaza. So everything is being

8:23

surveilled. But you also see it as

8:25

well too where the Israelis throttle the

8:28

information technology that's going into Palestine. So

8:30

that you'll be, it's interesting. So I've

8:32

got, I use my cell phone over

8:34

there and I pay Verizon 12 dollars

8:37

a day so I can use my

8:39

cell phone when I travel overseas. And

8:41

it works just like back here. as

8:43

long as I'm connecting to an Israeli

8:46

cell phone tower. Because as long as

8:48

I'm near an Israeli settlement in the

8:50

West Bank, I've got 5G coverage. But

8:53

the minute I go someplace where the

8:55

Israeli settlement cell towers don't reach me,

8:57

like say into Ramallah. or into Hebron,

8:59

of course, because Hebron has a settlement

9:02

right there, but into Nablus, say, or

9:04

Ramallah, my cell phone almost stops working.

9:06

And one, it's because Verizon doesn't recognize

9:09

the Palestinian cell network. It's part of

9:11

this whole larger process, which includes the

9:13

banks. This is why the Palestinians can't

9:15

bank electronically, because organizations, PayPal, are aligned,

9:18

of course, with the American government and

9:20

Israeli government, and they don't allow. that

9:22

type of electronic banking. But what you

9:25

have with the communications for the Palestinians

9:27

is that they're stuck at 3G. They

9:29

literally just got 3G for their cell

9:31

systems or the cell phones in the

9:34

last three years. You know, you see

9:36

signs advertising it in these Palestinian cities

9:38

at 3G as if it's something great,

9:41

something grand. We had that 12 years

9:43

ago, right? And so that's one of

9:45

the things that they do is they

9:47

surveil, but then they also throttle the

9:50

technology to keep. information from getting out

9:52

as best they can. Of course, they're

9:54

failing at it. But when we were

9:56

in Ramallah, we saw a public information

9:59

campaign really quite striking. People go to

10:01

my Instagram page or on Twitter of

10:03

posters. of the photos from that, but

10:06

you know, the unmute Gaza campaign. It's

10:08

not because the Palestinians aren't talking about

10:10

it, but the Palestinians realize that the

10:12

Israelis and the Americans are trying to

10:15

do their best to keep it silent.

10:17

And among the Israelis themselves, the conversation

10:19

about Gaza is incredibly limited. in Israel

10:22

proper. The discussion is only about winning

10:24

the war or about getting the hostages

10:26

back. The best you'll hear is some

10:28

type of conversation about disengagement from Gaza,

10:31

but there certainly is no conversation about

10:33

the war crimes, the atrocities, where the

10:35

actual government is going in terms of

10:38

ethnic cleansing in terms of putting the

10:40

settlers back into Gaza. There's no conversation

10:42

about that. And the story itself about

10:44

Gaza is on the third page. It's

10:47

not the front page in the Hebrew

10:49

media. They talk about Lebanon or more

10:51

more especially. They talk about the scandal

10:54

surrounding that in Yahoo, the politics of

10:56

the day. So you see this real

10:58

emphasis to keep Gaza quiet by the

11:00

Israeli government, just like you see with

11:03

the American government and the American government

11:05

and the American corporate media trying to

11:07

do so. But it's losing because, you

11:09

know, what we're doing here, Scott, what

11:12

you and I have, you're one of

11:14

the first, actually. I remember doing Skype

11:16

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11:21

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11:23

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11:25

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11:28

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11:30

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artisan coffee. And all right, it's Anti-War

13:07

Radio. I'm Scott Horton. This is KPFK

13:09

in Los Angeles. I'm talking with Matthew

13:12

Ho. the great Afghan war whistleblower and

13:14

peace activist and he's got a sub

13:16

stack column Matt's thoughts on war and

13:19

peace it's called and he has a

13:21

piece there called these last eight days

13:23

in Palestine where he's been to the

13:25

Gaza border and all over and talked

13:28

to a lot of people so just

13:30

getting you caught up there on the

13:32

conversation for people just tuning in. So

13:35

now, especially that I'm back on Twitter,

13:37

Matt, and I know you know how

13:39

this goes. Things are so partisan. Right

13:41

wingers are supposed to be good on

13:44

Ukraine and left wingers are supposed to

13:46

be good on Israel. But if one

13:48

side is... on the wrong thing, then

13:51

they get in trouble with people and

13:53

it's all funny social psychology the way

13:55

it all goes. But so I know

13:58

that you're on the left, but I

14:00

also know that you're a former marine

14:02

captain and state department official and so

14:04

I must assume by default you were

14:07

raised this way as an American and

14:09

probably especially as a US government employee

14:11

to think of Israel as America's allies

14:14

and good friends over there in the

14:16

Middle East, but I just wonder if

14:18

there's a story there. about like how

14:20

you came to understand that the situation

14:23

maybe was one thing rather than another.

14:25

Right, there is a mythology around Israel's

14:27

founding that dominates American, still does dominates

14:30

American culture or entertainment, certainly our news

14:32

media, these tropes and narratives and myths

14:34

essentially, and I was, I believed them.

14:37

And when I went to college, you

14:39

know, I had Hollywood versions of everything,

14:41

but also too having read like Herman

14:43

Wokes. the glory and the hope. Leon

14:46

Uris is exodus, you know, these novels

14:48

about the founding of Israel that were

14:50

modern mythology essentially. And I remember in

14:53

college, there was a guy named Ian,

14:55

who had actually, a Jewish kid, who

14:57

had actually gone and been in the

14:59

IDF, and he came back to college.

15:02

And we thought he was the greatest

15:04

thing, oh man, you know, you were

15:06

a soldier in the IDF, you know,

15:09

you know, in kind of the. that

15:11

wow this guy's a hero this guys

15:13

are you know he's been there done

15:16

that kind of thing and he put

15:18

us all he dispelled a lot of

15:20

it and then a very good friend

15:22

of mine my best friend essentially Jewish

15:25

and his family is very liberal a

15:27

father professor of European history and you

15:29

know I remember him saying to me

15:32

now this is all it's all BS

15:34

you know it's not the way it's

15:36

it's it's sold to you know I

15:38

mean so I always had that and

15:41

then I had my my ex wife

15:43

She was a human rights officer with

15:45

the State Department and she had lived

15:48

for a couple of years in Palestine

15:50

and in East Jerusalem and so she

15:52

understood the situation there in a way

15:55

that you know someone like her would

15:57

of course there and seeing it. But

15:59

I remember in 2008, because even then,

16:01

you're so assaulted, you're so under the

16:04

persuasion of our media, of our entertainment,

16:06

of our culture, that even those experiences

16:08

I had, I still defaulted to, okay,

16:11

but it's complicated, you know, when it's

16:13

really not. It's a story essentially about

16:15

land theft. That's it. That's all you

16:17

need to know is that what's going

16:20

on there. It has been going on

16:22

there for More than 100 years is

16:24

a story about land theft. That's it.

16:27

And, you know, Elizabeth, my ex, you

16:29

know, I mean, I'm here, she was

16:31

a duty officer to State Department during

16:34

Operation Cass Led. So in 2008, 2009,

16:36

as Israel was killing 1,500 or so,

16:38

or 2000, I can't remember if top

16:40

of my hand many, but conducting, you

16:43

know, this this mass aerial campaign. over

16:45

the course of six weeks or so

16:47

into Gaza, you know, she was relating

16:50

to me what was happening, what the

16:52

State Department was getting, you know, and

16:54

so that too, because what I would

16:56

hear that, oh, you know, they're just

16:59

wiping out Palestinians, just deliberately targeting civilians,

17:01

and you think, no, no, particularly someone

17:03

like me. coming out of the military,

17:06

taking part in Iraq and Afghanistan, where

17:08

we killed a whole whole lot of

17:10

civilians. Don't get me wrong. But we

17:13

didn't really, we didn't target them in

17:15

the way Israel does. You know, and

17:17

again, not excusing what we did there,

17:19

but there's a difference. And so I

17:22

just couldn't imagine the Israeli military doing

17:24

that. And Elizabeth, you know, explained to

17:26

me and told me information. Let me

17:29

slow you down there, I'm sorry, but

17:31

I don't want to break your train

17:33

of thought too much, but can you

17:35

explain a little bit what you mean

17:38

by that? What, like a severe disinterest

17:40

in collateral damage, compare like really blowing

17:42

a little kid's head off on purpose,

17:45

that kind of thing, that's what I

17:47

mean. That's essentially it. I mean, certainly

17:49

you're going to have I think in

17:51

war, you're going to become war's agent,

17:54

right? So you think you're going to

17:56

be moral and you became an agent

17:58

of the war's immorality no matter who

18:01

you are. And certainly, you know, in

18:03

Iraq, Afghanistan, the way we conducted ourselves

18:05

at time, particularly say in Afghanistan, the

18:08

use of our airstrikes, certainly killed a

18:10

lot of civilians. And that was deliberate

18:12

in a way that's different than the

18:14

deliberateness of the Israelis. The Israelis pursue

18:17

a doctrine called the Dehea Doctrine, which

18:19

sees the destruction of civilian life, the

18:21

killing civilians, as a military objective in

18:24

and of itself. This idea that we

18:26

will break the spirit, break the will

18:28

of the people by mass terror through

18:30

bombing campaigns, also as well. The Israelis

18:33

believe, Israelis, for them, the killing, again,

18:35

isn't of itself an objective, isn't of

18:37

itself a goal, that this is a

18:40

war of survival for them. So the

18:42

eradication of the other, what you see

18:44

as a continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,

18:47

I've gone on for decades, is a

18:49

goal in of itself. So, you know,

18:51

I mean, I don't want to... You

18:53

know, again, to fend what we did

18:56

in Iraq or Afghanistan, but certainly we

18:58

did not conduct ourselves in a way

19:00

where we bombed multiple multiple apartment buildings

19:03

deliberately. We hit hospitals from time to

19:05

time, but not in a way that

19:07

the Israelis do it. We killed medical

19:09

workers, but the number of medical workers

19:12

we killed, you know, would run into

19:14

the dozens say or maybe the low

19:16

hundreds over the course of how many

19:19

years of war in Iraq or Afghanistan.

19:21

where the Israelis in the past year

19:23

have killed just a thousand doctors and

19:26

nurses alone and taking about 300 or

19:28

so into captivity, torturing them and many

19:30

of them probably executed by now. So

19:32

you just see a difference in how

19:35

the killing of civilians is a deliberate

19:37

strategy by the Israelis. One, because they

19:39

believe it will undermine resistance to the

19:42

but also too as part of what

19:44

they're supposed to be doing. This is

19:46

part of the greater Israel project. This

19:48

is part of the Zionist effort here

19:51

is to rid this land of our

19:53

enemies. And so of course that itself

19:55

then leads into why, you know, in

19:58

the words of the legal people, this

20:00

genocide is so plausible. I mean, so

20:02

that's what you see occurring there in

20:05

this is a distinction. between what the

20:07

Israelis are doing and how we carried

20:09

ourselves and again I'll apologize and excuse

20:11

myself for like a third or fourth

20:14

time here in a sense of not

20:16

you know doing that for the Iraq

20:18

and Afghan wars which are war crimes

20:21

but there are degrees of distinction that

20:23

we should identify. Yeah absolutely and then

20:25

I'm sorry for interrupting you with that

20:27

for I really appreciate that elaboration but

20:30

you were still on your story of

20:32

what changed your mind about this do

20:34

you remember where you were? Yeah, but

20:37

basically I was, you know, and that's

20:39

kind of the end of it. At

20:41

that point, you know, I go to

20:44

Afghanistan, I take part there, I resign,

20:46

as you so graciously described earlier, Scott.

20:48

And, you know, then it's just a

20:50

continual evolution in my understanding. You know,

20:53

one of the things before I resigned

20:55

from my post of Afghanistan was believing

20:57

that maybe the Obama administration would be

21:00

different. maybe the war in Afghanistan would

21:02

be different. I hadn't been there yet,

21:04

so I wasn't going to, you know,

21:06

allow myself to have that final judgment

21:09

or verdict on it. And this is

21:11

all stuff I was lying to myself

21:13

about, right? It's all stuff I have

21:16

behind a closed door in my head

21:18

that I didn't want to open. Certainly

21:20

if you talk to me about the

21:23

Vietnam War, talking to me about what

21:25

happened in the US and Central America.

21:27

what the US was doing, say, in

21:29

the Mediterranean and Lebanon and in the

21:32

early 80s, you know, I would have

21:34

described it very well in a way

21:36

that I think yourself and your viewers

21:39

would agree with. But where I would

21:41

lie to myself is not allow myself

21:43

to understand that what I was taking

21:45

part in was this continuous line of

21:48

history that, you know, I was able

21:50

to disassociate my generation from previous generations,

21:52

which I think is a pretty defense

21:55

mechanisms that many people do to prevent

21:57

themselves from realizing their complicity, their role,

21:59

their part in these wars. And somehow

22:02

this is different than previous ones. Oh,

22:04

I would never have agreed with the

22:06

Vietnam War, but the Iraq war is

22:08

different, you know, when it's not. And

22:11

in this case, with say, what's occurring

22:13

in Gaza and Palestine, what's been occurring

22:15

in Ukraine, the people who are in

22:18

charge of it on the American side,

22:20

it's all the same people. that were

22:22

involved with Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria

22:24

and Libya and Somalia and Yemen and

22:27

so forth. So, but you know, you

22:29

see one of the things you see

22:31

that's interesting there, because we did meet

22:34

with Israelis while I was there, the

22:36

delegation I was on, we met with

22:38

Israelis, we met with rabbis, we went

22:41

with October 7th survivors. So certainly people

22:43

who are thinking this was a one-sided

22:45

trip, it wasn't and it wasn't meant

22:47

to be. But even among those peace

22:50

activists, Israeli, we also met with Israeli

22:52

peace activists, there's a line they won't

22:54

cross. So it's the same thing occurs.

22:57

It's a very human thing to prevent

22:59

yourself from being taken part in things

23:01

that you disagree with, you know are

23:03

wrong, you know that historically are problematic

23:06

to put it mildly. when you meet

23:08

with these Israelis, they would say, yes,

23:10

we're in favor of ceasefire, two-state solutions.

23:13

Someone would say, one-state solution, equal rights

23:15

for everybody, negotiations are the only way

23:17

forward, a political process, is the only

23:19

thing that can undo this. We do

23:22

need some type of reconciliation process, but

23:24

they would stop at the line of

23:26

understanding and acknowledging that what was occurring

23:29

in Gaza was a genocide, as if

23:31

there was a door. that they couldn't

23:33

open in their head, they would not

23:36

open in their head, a line, they

23:38

wouldn't cross, because if they admit that,

23:40

then this goes to their fundamental understanding

23:42

of who they are as a people,

23:45

that the Jewish people are, or as

23:47

soon as the Jewish people, because what

23:49

Israel is doing is separate from the

23:52

Jewish people, but the Israelis who claim

23:54

to represent the world's Jewish population, are

23:56

carrying out a genocide. carrying out atrocities,

23:58

or carrying out a historical event in

24:01

line with those genocides, atrocities, exiles that

24:03

had been committed against the U.S. people,

24:05

whether it was biblical history or modern

24:08

history. And so I think there's this

24:10

psychological aspect that occurs where people can

24:12

understand what's occurring. but then are able

24:15

to defend themselves from being complicit, because

24:17

that would then bring them on a

24:19

moral injury, as is called, that they

24:21

can't survive. So I think that that

24:24

having an understanding of how psychology works,

24:26

understands why people like me kept going

24:28

to war, even though We knew it

24:31

was wrong, was counterproductive, I was there,

24:33

I wasn't in the agreement with the

24:35

Iraq war before I went. And when

24:37

I got there, within one or so,

24:40

oh my God, what are we doing

24:42

here? But I kept going because I

24:44

was able to lie to myself, right?

24:47

Make up excuses or say, well, if

24:49

I'm not here, there's going to lie

24:51

to myself, right? Make up excuses or

24:54

say, well, you know, if I'm not

24:56

here, there's going to be somebody, there's

24:58

going to lie to lie to myself,

25:00

or say, or say, well, well, well,

25:03

I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm

25:05

a, I'm a, or I'm a, I'm

25:07

a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a,

25:10

I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm

25:12

a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a,

25:14

I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm

25:16

a, I'm a, I'm And you see

25:19

that among the Israeli public that actually

25:21

is willing to engage to a degree

25:23

with what's happening with the Palestinians willing

25:26

to be open to this idea of

25:28

we need something other than what we've

25:30

been doing for these last decades. And

25:33

there are many Israelis who recognize that

25:35

Israel is destroying itself that the cost

25:37

of this these last 13 14 months

25:39

you know economically Israel is bleeding out

25:42

we can get into that and certainly

25:44

saw those indicators wherever we went I

25:46

mean essentially the country is empty of

25:49

tourists but then also too politically you

25:51

know the country is fractured you've got

25:53

these reactionary religious right-wingers who are gaining

25:55

power it seems like there's nothing other

25:58

than center right there's nothing to the

26:00

left of center right politically that's viable

26:02

in Israel. People understand all this understand

26:05

that they're being isolated on the world

26:07

stage. You know, I mean, so you

26:09

have, you know, you see. understanding that,

26:12

but then you also have the culture

26:14

there, right? You have the whole ecosystem

26:16

in which they live, which has been

26:18

established over time and reestablished and reinforced

26:21

to continue designist storyline, right? I mean,

26:23

and when we went down to the

26:25

Gaza border, we got about as close

26:28

to Gaza as I think anyone could

26:30

get. We couldn't get to the crossing

26:32

point. that day, but we went through

26:34

a town called Sutterot, where they have

26:37

an observation post, a lookout post, essentially

26:39

like something you'd see at a natural

26:41

national park. This well-built platform with benches

26:44

and memorial plaques and the big metal

26:46

binoculars that you put a coin in,

26:48

you know, to look at something, they

26:51

had that looking into Gaza. And we

26:53

went down there, we had many religious

26:55

leaders with us, and the idea we'd

26:57

have a vigil. when we went there.

27:00

And as we were there, a school

27:02

group showed up, teenagers showed up, and

27:04

the first group of teenagers that rushed

27:07

to the top of this hill got

27:09

onto this observation platform, they were excited,

27:11

and they were pumping their fists, and

27:13

they were giving gods in the middle

27:16

finger, and they were proud to be

27:18

there. They were celebrating if they were

27:20

able to witness this genocide. And, you

27:23

know, when you see that thing, you

27:25

see that the genocide, this aspect of

27:27

the genocide, it's occurring, where the population

27:30

views destruction of the Palestinians, destruction of

27:32

the other, destruction of Amalek, going back

27:34

to the biblical, you know, prescription to

27:36

destroy God's enemies, Israel's enemies, you know,

27:39

you see it being carried out through

27:41

the educational curriculum. Right, you know, and

27:43

it's part and it goes to another

27:46

part because it's entertainment to watch this.

27:48

These kids have been brought from two

27:50

hours away to come down and witness

27:52

the genocide, you know, and hopefully maybe

27:55

they'd see a drone or even better

27:57

an F-15 or F-35 drop a 2,000

27:59

pound bomb, right? I mean, like, that's

28:02

that's the reality of Israel. And, you

28:04

know, know Israel through the English language

28:06

media in Israel, like Haarets and YNet

28:09

and some other sources, but the Hebrew

28:11

language media doesn't tell the stories that

28:13

the English language Israeli media does. And

28:15

that's really where Israel lies within that

28:18

understanding of themselves. that Zionist understanding that

28:20

that narrative that storyline and you know

28:22

you see that being reinforced but the

28:25

horror you know you get down sky

28:27

you get down to the guys at

28:29

border and you're not sure how you're

28:31

going to comprehend what you what you're

28:34

there what you're going to see And

28:36

to be clear, we were 600 yards

28:38

from the fence line and probably another

28:41

2,000 yards or so from the edge

28:43

of the built-up areas of North Gaza.

28:45

So you really couldn't see much. And

28:47

you certainly couldn't hear the screams of

28:50

people under rubble. You couldn't hear children

28:52

crying because they're starving to death. You

28:54

couldn't hear or see any of that.

28:57

But you could tell that once where

28:59

there was buildings, there's rubble now. And

29:01

you could see huge clouds of dust.

29:04

from the Israeli Earth-moving equipment. Some may

29:06

have been from their tanks on our

29:08

vehicles, but there is so much dust

29:10

in the air, they were doing massive

29:13

efforts to remake Gaza into their image.

29:15

In the same day, we were there,

29:17

the Israelis had a big press conference.

29:20

They had brought 40 trailers or caravans.

29:22

And the idea being is that we

29:24

will be in Gaza within the year.

29:26

I mean, so you know, I was

29:29

expecting all of that, but it wasn't

29:31

expecting to see a school field trip

29:33

taken to Gaza to have these kids

29:36

celebrate the genocide. Man,

29:38

that's something else. I'm so sorry that

29:40

we're out of time. That's how it

29:42

goes with live radio. That's Matthew Ho,

29:45

everybody, the American hero. Great whistleblower of

29:47

the Afghan worries from the Eisenhower Media

29:49

Network. And he's got a sub stack.

29:52

Matthew Ho, that's H-O-H. Matthew Ho, dot

29:54

sub stack. And it's called Matt's Thoughts

29:56

on War and Peace. And he's got

29:59

this very important. these last

30:01

days days in Palestine just just

30:03

back from there thank you so

30:05

much so much Matt. Hey, thank you

30:07

Scott Scott. that's it for

30:09

it radio for today Radio for

30:11

everybody Thanksgiving, I'm from I'm Scott and

30:13

I just wrote the new

30:15

book and I just wrote Washington started

30:17

the new how with Russia

30:19

and the catastrophe the new Cold War with

30:21

my full interview catastrophe in .org

30:23

and I'm here every Thursday

30:25

from 2 Horton.org. And I'm here every Thursday from

30:27

.7 KPFK. 90.7 FM in LA. See you

30:29

next week

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