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0:00
For Pacific Radio,
0:03
November 2024. 2024,
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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
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find my full interview archive, more
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than 6 ,000 of them now
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going back to 2003 to 2003, at .org And
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at .com/Scott show and all the other
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all the other pod and video sites sites and
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things out there and things out again
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once again. You can follow me on me on
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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
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know, what we're doing here, Scott, what
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the first, actually. I remember doing Skype
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Well I guess it was just a
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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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