Hamas and Israel

Journey with us as we venture into the labyrinth of the Israel-Palestine conflict, with its multifaceted realities and heart-wrenching truths. This discussion isn't for the faint-hearted, as we present an unfiltered account of the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the political divides plaguing both the region and American perspectives, and the role Hamas plays. We fuel our comprehension with insights from @SharonSaysSo, a respected American government teacher celebrated for her factual and unbiased reporting. 

Our exploration gets down to the gritty details of the conflict, spotlighting the recent attack by Hamas on Israel and its aftermath on the global stage. Imagine the cacophony of a music festival transforming into a battlefield, and the survivors left grappling with the consequences. We don't stop there — we delve into the response from Israel, the US, and other Middle Eastern countries. The conversation delves into how political hurdles stifle decisive action, and how this conflict continues to take an enormous toll on innocent civilians.

As we wrap up, we scrutinize how the conflict transcends borders, influencing international relations and amplifying threats against Muslim and Jewish communities far beyond the Middle East. We pose difficult philosophical questions about intervention, the burden of superpower status, and the elusive nature of human rights. Despite the bleak reality, we also illuminate instances of hope, where Palestinians and Jews extend hands of solidarity to one another. Fasten your seatbelts, lend us your ears, and accompany us on this enlightening journey into one of the most volatile regions in our world.

Transcript

Sam: 0:10

Welcome to Babe. What do you know about the podcast with your favorite husband and wife duo, Sam

Tayla: 0:16

and Tayla. Each week we dive deep into a new subject, blending fun and seriousness to push boundaries and buttons.

Sam: 0:24

Get ready to expand your knowledge, challenge your perspectives and have a blast along the way.

Tayla: 0:32

Um, I will also try to not sniff into the microphone, for everyone's benefit. It's been a rough weekend.

Sam: 0:41

There's not even winter. That's the thing.

Tayla: 0:44

I know, but it's been going like illness has been going around.

Sam: 0:48

Yeah.

Tayla: 0:49

Um, I like at work, everyone is either wearing a mask or they don't care to wear a mask and they've just shown up sick and unwell and everyone's kids got sick. I don't know what it is flu, covid cold? Either way, I haven't been this sick in a while.

Sam: 1:05

Yeah, um, so I'm pretty sure I had some sort of virus. So I had just so everyone sounds mystery, mystery illness. So I had basically my migraine or headaches for like three weeks straight, um, and they're gone now and it's so. I was just, but, with the way it started and the way it ended, just feels like it was not really like an injury. It wasn't like, you know, some sort of medication made me feel better. We figured out something wrong. It's just, you know, kind of like ran its course. So I think it's some sort of or some sort of virus.

Tayla: 1:41

And related to the virus I have now.

Sam: 1:42

Yeah.

Tayla: 1:43

Okay, all right, yes, um, yeah, I just kind of under the weather Thursday, friday, saturday work up and wanted to die. Then Saturday night I'd take some night, will and what, get woken up from my drugged stupor to hear Ella just crying and crying. She says my inside, my ear, hurts. I'm like, oh my gosh, she has an ear infection. Um, actually that was Sunday night, so night two of the illness. Anyway, I feel like an old person telling a story or details that are not important for some reason, feel very important for me to correct Either way.

Tayla: 2:19

Uh, she did end up having an ear infection. It was a very long night but the problem was is I was so exhausted, not just from being sick as hell but also from being night cooled up. It was rough, rough, rough, but now that we know, and the kids aren't sick, really we're just medicating her and giving her antibiotics now. But last night a little bit of waking up to you. You woke up pretty tired this morning.

Sam: 2:45

Yeah, woke up pretty tired this morning.

Tayla: 2:49

Yeah, ella wasn't tired, she's energetic.

Sam: 2:53

Yeah, Um, she was, uh, she. She's like come dance with me, dad. And I was like, okay, I'm too tired. And she's like, don't worry, dancing will make it feel better.

Tayla: 3:05

Our first t-shirt quote from Ella Um. The other cool thing that happened over the weekend was rugby World Cup. If you guys are not fans, we're going to force you to be with our updates every week, but uh, we're. A couple is in France this year and South Africa just played on Sunday France in the quarter finals for the rugby World Cup. Wow, what a game. Spoilers, you might want to skip ahead like 30 to 60 seconds if you don't want to know what the score was, but wow, what a game.

Sam: 3:35

Yeah, we won by one point, by one point.

Tayla: 3:37

I literally haven't been so physically stressed during a game in a while. I literally was sitting on the edge of the seat holding, wringing my hands, just so stressed, cussing the TV out, cussing everyone out, just being like. I think that's the third time in a row, though, that we have beat the hosting team in a quarter final.

Sam: 3:59

Interesting. Yeah, yeah, and we got England next week in the semi-finals.

Tayla: 4:04

Who I'm hoping we beat again, because we beat them in the finals previously. So, yeah, Tune in at what. What time is the game?

Sam: 4:11

on Sunday.

Tayla: 4:11

It's Saturday, I think Saturday tune in this weekend sometime on Peacock Wow For real. Become a rugby fan. It's the best sport in the world to watch. But onto more difficult things. Our topic for the week.

Sam: 4:29

Spoiler alert Taylor's been crying about this.

Tayla: 4:32

Did you just call me Taylor? Did I? I think you?

Sam: 4:35

did.

Tayla: 4:36

Roll the tape back.

Sam: 4:38

I probably did. Yeah, You've cried many times.

Tayla: 4:42

Look, I say that like almost mockingly, but no, like I've literally been crying last night in bed I think we're just lying nicely and then I was crying and you're like are you okay? And I'm like, no, no, Anyway, I have been crying all day at work and just being like how am I going to get through an episode? I don't know, this may be a very I'm going to mime what you should do.

Tayla: 5:08

Yeah, push it down, push it down. I'm going to do my best to not just make this a blubbery mess no one really wants. We're going to try and make this as helpful for people as possible, but let's give a little bit of context behind the conflict in general. So let me pull up some of my notes For those of you who don't know who Sharon says so is. Sharon is noted as America's government teacher. She's pretty cool person. She's dedicated to reporting things as fact-based as possible, so a lot of things that I'll share are informed from some summaries that she gives. Yeah, and let me like give just my little two cents on.

Sam: 5:58

Sharon said so. I didn't know much about her, but I assumed it was just some like feminist kind of Instagram thing. Say that like it's bad.

Tayla: 6:08

I mean it depends how feminist and you know how balanced it is.

Sam: 6:11

But I'm just going to say, for those of you that are politically in the center or politically right and on the left as well, this has got to be the one of the most centrist people I know politically and she's very much like hey, we've got to basically say no to the two-party system right now. Everyone, everyone is corrupt, everyone is bad, and it's basically has championing things that we've said which is like hey, get money out of politics, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, being involved citizen, I'm just trying to say I'm a firm like two thumbs up for Sharon says so yeah, great person.

Tayla: 6:53

Yeah, I don't think Sam had been too exposed to her until we saw her speak last week, which was amazing, so big fans.

Tayla: 6:57

Anyway, a lot of what I'll share as far as context comes from. She's a gifted teacher. Just a really good summary from her. So I'm going to use her very basic background understanding of the whole conflict between Israel and Hamas in general just to start, just to kick us off, and then we'll we'll get into some things. So I quote both Arabs and Jews are indigenous to the land that is now Israel.

Tayla: 7:27

In the 1920s, after the League of Nations was formed post World War One, britain was put in control of what was then referred to as Palestine. Britain had a lot of financial interest in the Arab world and wanted to keep the relationship steady. But they did allow some roughness to be put into the world. So I'm going to use her as a summary of what I'm going to share with you. But they did allow some roughly 100,000 European Jews to immigrate to Palestine. After World War Two, when the UN took over and expanded the role of the League of Nations, both the UN and the US formed commissions to study what to do about Palestine and about creating the or about the concept of creating a Jewish homeland. Jews had just experienced a massive genocide during the Holocaust and for centuries had endured persecution in most places they had lived. Eventually, the US and the UN recommended that a Jewish homeland be formed. The reason for this was that they felt Jews needed to be able to defend themselves because of the many centuries of anti-Semitism, and the way to allow for that was the formation of a Jewish homeland.

Tayla: 8:36

A partition resolution was created and the country of Israel was formed in 1948. Some areas of the region were given to Palestinians and some to Israelis. Many Arabs in the newly partitioned Israel lost their homes. Thousands died. This became known to them as Nakba, or catastrophe. Five Arab countries immediately attacked Israel and since then Israel has fought multiple wars and experienced many suicide bombings, rocket attacks and mole. Many, many times have peace deals being attempted, two state solutions were offered and rejected by the Palestinians, etc. So for a period of time the Palestinian Liberation Organization recognized the legitimacy of Israel, but Hamas, the terrorist organization, does not, because of the frequent attacks by extremists.

Tayla: 9:29

Israel has built a smart fence with sensors and guard towers surrounding Gaza. They have severely restricted travel in and out of Gaza, where people inside are basically not allowed to live freely. Gazans are extremely poor. Most require the assistance of international humanitarian aid to live. Over half are under the age of 18 and 40% are under the age of 15. Gazans feel that Israel is keeping them in an open air of prison. Israel feels they have no choice but to restrict travel in and out of Gaza, and the recent attacks and now war are the types of things that they would point to as evidence that some Gazans want to wipe Israel off the map. Recent polling shows that somewhere between 30 to 50% of Gazans support Hamas or the leadership of Gaza, or Hamas which is the leadership of Gaza. Excuse me, it's extremely hard to know, though, how accurate those numbers are.

Tayla: 10:26

So Hamas, which is the US considers a terror group, is mad not just at the living conditions inside Gaza, but also the fact that Israel took some of their land in 1948 as a result of World War II. Palestinians feel they have been dispossessed of their homes and are now stateless. Recent skirmishes with Israelis at one of the most holy Muslim sites has also increased the tension. Actually, my family was in Israel this summer, and this specific conflict she's referring to happened the week before they arrived, where some Palestinians were involved in a Muslim ritual they had agreed to end at a certain time of evening. They went over and the Israeli guards went into that holy place and dragged people out to keep with the curfew. That was agreed upon. A complicated situation.

Tayla: 11:18

Anyway, back to this. There is no way to adequately share every bit of 75 years or thousands of years of history. In some slides this is what Sharon is saying and she's not portraying this as a complete history of the Levant in any way. But let's see, she speaks about anti-Semitism in a way that I think is important for us to talk about, which is the horseshoe, if people aren't aware of, like the horseshoe theory. So anti-Semitism is a topic that illustrates horseshoe theory.

Tayla: 11:50

So some political science say that the traditional way of looking at things on a political spectrum from left to right doesn't work.

Tayla: 11:58

That's how we typically think of spectrums, but with some topics a left or right spectrum doesn't work and the left and right are often closer to each other rather than further away, and anti-Semitism is one of those things. So anti-Semitism on the left often looks like viewing Israel and, by extension, jews as apartheid state colonizers. That's kind of the left anti-Semitism. And the right anti-Semitism often looks as Jews, as less than from a white supremacy standpoint, and might even hear phrases like Christ killers kind of get mixed in. So the left and the right are near to each other in this scenario, even though they're reaching the same destination from a different viewpoint, which is essentially anti-Semitism, racism. So, with all of that kind of, as a background not to, we haven't even talked about the conflict, the current conflict yet, which I'll give a bit of an intro to in a bit, but that's a background to what is leading to the current conflict. So, with that in mind, babe, what do you know about the Hamas-Israel conflict?

Sam: 13:04

A little bit, but, man, is it so nuanced that it feels like it's a tough topic to talk about? To be honest, yeah, you know, my first thought to go to and this is before the latest conflict just the whole fact that Palestinian Israel, you know, conflict is really complicated because, right, you have the Jews that used to live there thousands of years ago, right?

Tayla: 13:35

Yeah.

Sam: 13:36

And they get defeated in war and then basically exiled. The whole, the whole people. They go, you know, traveling around and because they are such a, I'd say, solidified community, wherever they go they never assimilated right. They stayed 100% Jewish and so they've never had a homeland after that and they've just built up their communities from there and then obviously suffered persecution because where they've gone they haven't assimilated, Right. So the local people are blame the Jews for all this.

Tayla: 14:14

This is the Jews fault.

Sam: 14:15

It wasn't like this before. And there's Jews here, let's blame them. So I can see why. You know, after World War Two you go holy crap, we killed six. Was it six million Jews or something ridiculous that's the huge proportion of Jews in the world.

Sam: 14:31

Yeah, so the allies go hey, we should have give them a homeland again, so that they're not just randomly all over the world and they can, all you know, try to come, come back here and so yeah, they have the option of a protection for each other, but also that an international community can support. So they try to work at ideal with what is, you know, palestine, which isn't their land anymore, as you know, it's the palestinians live there, and so a deal has tried to broker it, and it's obviously favored the.

Sam: 15:01

Jews, and so the Palestinians get the short end of the stick on that. So you can see why Cool, like, yeah, there was historical persecution for thousands of years, but now all of a sudden you got recent. The Palestinians now have been, you know, given like to have their land stolen and now forced and say, hey, now you go over here. Then, on top of that, israel has been attacked multiple times where you have you know where, from other Middle Eastern countries, and when they have been attacked they have defended themselves and they've actually taken additional land because of that.

Tayla: 15:36

So there's a Israel has a reputation, and I remember even learning, you know, in one of my intro to political science classes in international political science, my professor was kind of going through reputations that certain countries can garner, and I still remember the one that Israel has, which is you hit us once, we'll hit you back 50 times harder, and that's the the reputation that they have purposefully garnered for themselves and are definitely implementing today.

Sam: 16:05

Yeah, so I guess as a people they're just so afraid that we lose this and we are dead forever, like the whole identity of a Jewish nation. So you kind of feel for everyone involved, literally. But then you throw in the mix now of, hey, we're not, it's not like you throw in the mix of Hamas now, and it's now all of a sudden, I feel, turns very dark. Where it's not like just like these political things, where you're just like, hey, let's keep being political about this, you've got Hamas, which literally does not view Jewish people as people and are willing to kill babies, children and vice versa, the Israeli government doing the same to the Palestinian citizens in Gaza.

Tayla: 16:48

They are treating them the same.

Sam: 16:52

Basically, when they, when they fight back, they do so a lot more indiscriminately than I'd say they should. You know, I like firing missiles. It's, it's a lot. There's going to be a lot more citizen casualties, yeah, Because of that. So let's talk about what happened what kind of kick?

Tayla: 17:12

started this, this specific conflict. So on October 7th, hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel that injured and killed a lot more Israelis than they've successfully done in the past, and they were backed with information and money from Iran. So they launched hundreds of rockets and sent armed gunmen into Israel To murder and bring back hostages out of the citizens back into Gaza. So it was like Hamas said they launched 5000 rockets. Israel said it was half of that. Either way, it's in the thousands of rockets and Israel has activated, I think, more than 50,000 military reservists in, excuse me, in in response.

Tayla: 18:04

So, as things unfolded, the US and this hasn't changed, I guess, but but it has adjusted over time, so I'm trying to kind of give it in real time the US pledged its support to Israel and everyone unequivocally condemned the assault by Hamas. Now I do want you to kind of speak to what that attack by Hamas, because it is horrific. I want you to kind of if you would speak to what Hamas is doing. I want you to kind of if you would speak to some of the details that happen in that attack, like the music festival, for example.

Sam: 18:40

Yeah, so I watched a few videos and there's, I didn't go too deep down the rabbit hole because, you know, like you see in like one video like it starts getting more graphic and then in the comments they're like well, in this other video you actually get to see X1Z. I'm like you know I don't need to actually watch that much gore in my life, but it is. You know, some of the footage you know from the music festival and some of the skirmishes. Yeah, there's a subreddit called Combat Footage where you can, you know, see videos like that if you're curious and want to see all of it and see the documentation of it. But yeah, basically one of the things that happened was it was a music festival where a number of Hamas militants basically this sounds bizarre like paraglided over and moved across on certain checkpoint fences and basically just went on a shooting spree. Basically, in the footage you basically see everyone running from the music festival and because it's just basically a big open field, it there was described as basically a shooting range.

Sam: 19:50

There's no cover, yeah, so people were just dropping down, the survivors were just talking about, like you know, people next to you running, just starting to start falling down and you just keep going. And you know some of them get shot in certain places but keep going and then they, you know the footage just goes from like, goes from the hay there in the certain field. They're able to get into a car, the car drives off and they have, you know, these militants now in trucks.

Sam: 20:11

You know, like on the ground on the trucks and they're driving past all these things and they're getting fired upon from the trucks, and then they finally they see some you know police checkpoint places where they're able to get some cover for a little bit. Then all of a sudden they get overrun there. They're hiding behind tanks and stuff and the police only have little pistols, and so they run to like different another spot, like a freaking you know a shed, and then that shed gets you know shot up, and then they're running, and so it's just a massacre, right, and that's that's that, just that one thing.

Tayla: 20:44

And then yeah, 260 bodies were found at that music festival.

Sam: 20:49

Yeah Alone.

Tayla: 20:49

Like yeah, think about how many people that is. That's so, so it begins. Okay, so many people.

Sam: 20:57

Yeah, and that's just the festival.

Tayla: 20:59

Then you have yeah, there are 600 dead that day.

Sam: 21:01

And then you have bordering towns, which just basically gets. There are small little towns that just get taken over and basically the militants went house to house just basically massacring the you know every adults and children that they chose to, and then took hostages of ones that they decided to.

Tayla: 21:20

Yeah, yeah. The hostages they have taken is, from what I know of the number now almost 200. Usually women, children. A lot of verified videos showing them carried away. At least three Americans were killed in that initial massacre as well, and I think at least 14 are among the hostages. They haven't found either a body or confirmed a hostage, so at least 700 Israelis were also killed. Well, that's, I think that's the number, but at least 400 Palestinians were killed in that conflict. A lot of people, just did.

Tayla: 22:03

Yeah, let's see that day. Hamas said that their assault against Israel will spread from to Jerusalem and to the West Bank. And here was it. Here's an official statement from a Palestinian official. It said, quote as an occupying power, israel has no right or justification to target the defense of civilian, civilian population in Gaza or elsewhere in Palestine. And then they denounced the barbarous campaign of death and destruction to follow. That was quote. And Israel immediately, as I said, they started calling up their reserve military, started with. Really, netanyahu's language has been really, really strong on I think he said something. There's a phrase called like bouncing off of bricks, which is a phrase used to describe like once you've already bombed something, you'll keep bombing the rubble. So that's been the response from Israel. The US sent an aircraft carrier. They're sending a second aircraft carrier, kind of more, as a show of support.

Sam: 23:16

Well, it also is a deterrent for the rest of the Middle Eastern countries to wage formal warfare to defend Palestine, keeping Iran in check, essentially.

Tayla: 23:28

True, and the other terrorist organization, hezbollah, has been supportive of Hamas pretty openly and Iran did claim to have a hand in planning the attacks. So we spoke about this in our last episode. None of the money returned to Iran or unfrozen for Iran was used. But I believe right now the US and other countries are trying to pretty much freeze that money again and go back on that deal, since you know clearly Iran is willing to use money to purport these conflicts. So let's see One of the troubles as far as the US's involvement is. This happened literally as the house has no speaker. We have no speaker of the house, which means that any act or any decision made by Congress cannot actually happen until a speaker.

Sam: 24:29

Yeah, and one of the things is declaration of war is exactly is what Congress does.

Tayla: 24:35

And that's I mean a lot of people have suspected that perhaps that was well timed. Most people that are in the know kind of say that just I think it happens to be good timing. There's no way you could possibly time, you know, the house ousting the previous speaker, but it is really bad timing and and the house isn't? They keep kind of going through nominees but they don't have the votes. It's just the whole thing's complicated. I don't see that being resolved as soon as it needs to be either.

Tayla: 25:15

So let's talk a bit about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza specifically. So this is one of the most serious humanitarian issues of recent memory. Egypt says that the border crossing that they have with Gaza has been damaged and some humanitarian supplies that have been sent to Egypt from Jordan they're not able to make it into Gaza. Israel has ordered an evacuation of northern Gaza. It just flew over and dropped a bunch of leaflets from planes to let the citizens in Gaza know that they have to leave. That pretty much gave over one million people 24 hours to evacuate and people with nothing. This in and of itself is a huge crisis because these people have nowhere to go. They can't leave Gaza through Israel. Egypt is. Hands are tied on letting people go through there as well because of some international relation issues.

Sam: 26:23

Yeah. So Egypt actually historically doesn't want them. They don't want to have that refugee crisis. They ran into their own political problems actually because of it. There was a coup because of it, so I'll speak to Slater. But one of the frustrating things is they're part of the Arab world and the Arab world is saying no, we also don't want you here, so not cool.

Tayla: 26:47

Yeah, so Egypt has said Palestinians you need to stay on your own land, but they're also saying, hey, by kicking these people off of their land, that's a violation of international human humanitarian laws and this is pretty much the debacle of the Arab world. And I think that's pretty much the debacle that everyone is in is, like you know, israel, you have a right to defend yourself, but you can't. Like you are violating so many international humanitarian laws and, I would argue, performing terrorist like acts against citizens that have nothing to do with Hamas. And that's been the complication is people kind of misunderstanding that being pro-Palestinian liberation and trying to help the Palestinian people, who are described as being in an open air prison, to have a home and to have the well-being that they deserve as human beings, are not pro-Hamas at the same time. But because Hamas is a Palestinian terrorist organization, people will complete the two.

Sam: 27:58

Yeah.

Tayla: 27:59

So the US is trying to get people. They've been chartering flights to get Americans out of Israel. Oh, there it is 14 Americans were unaccounted for. Israel says that they're doing all they can to minimize civilian casualties. Israel is also kind of pushing back and saying the UN doesn't care about 1300 Israelis being killed and saying that the UN doesn't believe it hasa right to defend itself because it is cautioning them. Hey, you cannot be bombing women and children in Gaza like indiscriminately. And it's a complicated thing because the US does support Israel and pretty much the international community does, and we're pretty much that's what I feel so helpless because I feel like we're kind of just standing by while over a million people are just getting wrecked by missiles in a retaliation, in a revenge. And it makes me so sick to think about Hamas specifically and so different from the Palestinian conflict or the Palestinian movement is so.

Tayla: 29:26

The Palestinian movement is not inherently anti-Semitic. It's supposed to be to find a homeland and a space for Palestinians. But Hamas is explicitly anti-Semitic and that's why they did the horrific things that they did in their attack is because they don't see Jews as human beings. That's why they could murder and rape children and women. The whole thing is just so freaking, complicated and sad. I sent you a video of a British father. There was a British citizen in Israel with his eight-year-old daughter, who was. They were not together the night that this attack happened and he didn't know what had happened to her. You should probably describe what happened in the video.

Sam: 30:18

Yes, I think this. So let's say I thought on CNN. Basically he was being interviewed and he found out that his daughter had been killed and he said, you know, it gave him actually some comfort, because he said it was better for her to have been killed than taken hostage, Because he knows what that means.

Tayla: 30:48

Yeah, the atrocities that you'd have to consider in order to be relieved that your child is dead.

Sam: 30:54

Yeah.

Tayla: 30:55

It says a lot.

Sam: 30:57

Yeah. And so I think you know that very same emotion you're feeling is could you manage? If that's your child, you would be very much like, hey, I'm going to bomb the whole of Palestine, I don't care. You know, and I think that's what's what's happening here is that both sides have had these experiences and so they go. You know what? I don't care, I'm joining Hamas or I'm going to, you know, do everything in my power to protect Israel.

Sam: 31:25

So that's why it's that's, you know, become such a heated place in the world. And I feel like there's no winners here. And I feel honestly, I feel like one of the things that has caused this problem is that the international community hasn't forced a thing to happen, because we caused it. We caused it by putting Israel there and then we didn't solve it by, you know, coming up with a okay, let's support Palestine and help them build up an area of Palestine with enough space away from Israel and figure out ways for them to share parts of the Holy land, you know, make it like a neutral ground, kind of thing. And then you know we've come. Most of the Holy land is Israel.

Tayla: 32:12

Yeah, and this isn't to take away from the attempts by the international community to do so and that that is true. The attempts have been super ineffective, but I do think more ownership should be taken. But, I will say, any attempts at peace talks, neither side is. And again, this is speaking not for, like, I think, the everyday citizens, because I think people just want to be safe with their families. Right, but the both sides of the decision makers are unwilling to compromise, absolutely unwilling, and they don't. They've dehumanized each other to the point where they're like no, you don't deserve to exist, nevermind to have this homeland and to share it with us.

Tayla: 32:56

And I get so flipping angry because when people return hate with the same thing, I feel like you lose so much of the upper ground is not the right way to say it but like any, any moral high ground that you might have had is lost. At the moment, you're like I'm going to return the brutal, horrific, disgusting attack on women and children. By attacking women and children, it's, it's unhuman. And that's what I think like when I read and this is what I struggle with when over a half of your population are children, that means that is mostly who is being harmed in palace in Gaza. You're sending missiles to blow up babies.

Sam: 34:19

Just giving you a moment same.

Tayla: 34:24

Thanks. There's 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza with no access to care, and Israel has cut off water, power, to hospitals, to citizens. These are not the people that attacked you. They're not. They're not the same. It's complicated because they're all mixed together there. Hamas is using these innocent citizens and children as human shields, and to allow them to do that is wrong. And to allow Israel to be fine with getting through these human shields to get to what they want, I think is wrong. And today over 500 people that were in a hospital in Gaza were killed because a missile hit the hospital where Nikki babies were, where little toddlers were trying to recover from this and where citizens were trying to shelter. A missile hit the hospital and over 500 people are dead.

Sam: 35:41

I think that's actually a. That's example is a perfect illustration of just how messy it is, because the reports are saying that's. You know, israel is saying that that was actually a, a failed rocket from Hamas.

Tayla: 35:56

That's what they're saying.

Sam: 35:57

And there's footage that confirms this, but, at the same time, there's footage that you know. How accurate is that footage you know? Is that they, you know? Is it doctored? Is it changed? Is it you know?

Tayla: 36:09

and the fact is that Israel, whether they hit this hospital, they are sending missiles in to kill people that are among innocent citizens. That is, that is a fact. Yeah, so the the irresponsibility is. It just makes me sick to see, because that's, that's what it happens when you stop seeing people as people. This, when you have this problem.

Sam: 36:35

Yeah.

Tayla: 36:36

And how do you make someone see people as people? How do you do that? And you just, I feel so helpless.

Sam: 36:43

Yeah, it's a, it's a great moment to reflect again, like I said, and how sometimes how helpless we feel and how sometimes it feels how little we can do, which is opposite of what you know Sharon says. So you know she's all about. You know we are empowered and can make changes, but it is amazing what we as people, the horrible things we can do when we are in that frame of mind. Think about what happened after 9 11. We went and bombed the shit out of Iraq, like did you ever? I was a you know in college then and I got to watch it live on TV, shock and all. And basically it was just the US sending an insane amount of you know, rocket power into Iraq, destroying much of Baghdad and neighboring cities. So again, how many innocent people were killed in that that? We were the people that were at the aggressors on that. Iraq didn't, you know, do 9, 11, but obviously we had other wars that were before in the Middle East with George Bush won. So yeah, overall, war sucks Overall, these conflicts are very unnecessary.

Tayla: 38:10

We're not really learning from our past, are we?

Sam: 38:13

No, and it's a perfect illustration of for me, like I said, most people just wanna freaking like let me just do a job or, you know, mow like grass, or you know, keep my kids safe.

Sam: 38:25

You know, pay my bills and eat some food, that's all I really care about. But then you got this small part of the population that really wants to be in power and control the people, and they're in different parts of the world and they have different agendas and those crazy psychopaths are the ones that are running everything. That's the scary part to me. That's like I feel like in the United States we've got the same problems. You know, got crazy people in power and we gotta figure out how to get these crazy people out of power.

Tayla: 38:53

Yeah, cause it can just all go to crap real quick, real quick.

Tayla: 38:58

Um, I found a quote from President Biden in an interview with 16 Minutes. It's a kind of you can see him literally try to toe dip around this political support for Israel and the concern for citizens innocent citizens being attacked. He said President Biden said it would be a big mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza and further said that the extreme elements of Hamas do not represent all the Palestinian people. But taking out the extremists, there is a necessary requirement. Israel has to respond. They have to go after Hamas. Hamas is a bunch of cowards. They're hiding behind the civilians.

Tayla: 39:40

So, um, yeah, I don't know, it's just I have so many quotes from, like, the French president and the you know our own political leaders or whatever, but ultimately I think, um, the whole thing is just sad and I think that's why I just get so emotional about it is because my opinion I mean ultimately, I think back to World War II. Right, we had a genocide of millions of people and we stepped in too late the US, we eventually had this tipping point where we decided, okay, too many innocent people are being affected, we have to step in.

Sam: 40:38

I thought it's because they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Tayla: 40:40

They did. They did I mean, yeah, maybe you're about to. It is because of that. That's what garnered the local support from average citizens, right, but the people in government knew also they were getting reports of the genocide happening and at some point, whatever happened, we stepped in and it was too late. Not too late to make a difference. And it did, and that's why the war ended.

Tayla: 41:09

But when I think of how much could have been prevented with involvement sooner, the millions of people that could have survived, I worry. I worry that that's what we're trying to do, is we're trying to be like hope. It'll just kind of work itself out. Let's try and give our self pressure, and I understand the need to do that. I do because war looks so different these days with the introduction of like nuclear warfare. But at the same time I worry that it's an inevitability that we all need to step in. And at what point are we gonna decide? All right, this many million of people have been, this many children have been killed, this many, at what point do we step in? And I don't have the answer, but I'm worried. I'm worried that we take too long for an inevitability, does that?

Sam: 42:02

sound the right word.

Tayla: 42:04

Of us needing to step in. I mean, economists are saying that this conflict is a 50-50 chance of starting World War III and obviously we've had that buzzword thrown around a lot but yeah.

Sam: 42:17

So this brings in some philosophical questions and unknowns that I have, which is right now. One of the feelings that you're feeling is we, united States, and then, as an extension, the international community, which is the West, which is Europe, need to step in and help conflicts in these situations. But for us to have been able to help, we have had to be able to have the world's most.

Tayla: 42:54

Dominating.

Sam: 42:55

Dominating military, which is exceptionally expensive, and it's also meant that we've focused so much of our tax burden on the military industrial complex, which is not a very peace-like thing that's growing a world police is so that I've been in historically in opposition, Exactly so that's my philosophical question here, which is like, hey, we're so anti-war, we're so anti-military, so anti, all these other things, but when I wouldn't say anti-military but anti, but at the same time we then need to step in and be the world police. That's a very difficult thing to be.

Tayla: 43:46

It's an impossible thing to be.

Sam: 43:48

There's older American philosophies which are non-interventionists, which basically says this is a Middle East problem, you guys deal with it, this is not our problem. And if there's war, there's war. If there's genocide, there's genocide. We're gonna stay over here, leave us alone. We're gonna focus and build our nation and we're hoping that you see our example of a non-violent nation and you wanna replicate what we have, because look how great our society is. There's that philosophy and there's a philosophy which is hey, we don't trust any other governments, we do not support socialism, we do not support communism, we do not support any of these dictatorships. And so we're gonna grow the biggest, most baddest, most scary military superpower and we're going to tell you how to behave.

Tayla: 44:35

Which can make you a target as well.

Sam: 44:37

Which makes us a target, because we're getting into everyone's business and making enemies with so many different people.

Tayla: 44:42

Yeah, but it begs another philosophical question of like at what point do you have to put aside like what your ideal would be like? We're a non and prioritize the human rights of people around the world, and I think the complication with the US is that it's been very arbitrary not arbitrary, but it's been very choosing about when it decides to step in and when it doesn't. And it's not consistent If it could step in, if it did step into, like every little conflict. It just doesn't. So it's hard, but we have our own freaking problems to deal with. Over here, specific to this as well, we had a 71 year old landlord stab a six year old Muslim that was his tenant to death A six year old boy right here because of racism 26 times. He was stabbed in front of his mom and his mom was attacked and was so injured she couldn't even go to his funeral. There's the FBI is tracking an uptick in threats against Muslims and Jewish communities in the US, like to very, very important communities that both need support right now.

Sam: 46:04

The.

Tayla: 46:04

Palestinian and the Jewish community. Both really need support right now.

Sam: 46:08

Yeah, so I've got both Jewish and Palestinian friends and they are just normal US citizens basically. You know, they own a coffee shop and they are into EDM and love sushi, nuts and it's just pretty normal American stuff. But they're from Palestine or they're from Israel, like literally from those two places, and they, honestly, for the most part just like you know, we said earlier just want to live a normal life and just stay out of this. Right, they're the lucky ones that we're able to get out of that situation.

Tayla: 46:44

That's why they're here, which is ironic, because that's the opposite of why this was even formed. This homeland was formed not so that you could get out of it. You know, and I agree, I would say, that most actual, real Palestinians or Jews that I have are not anti-Semitic or not anti-Muslim. They're very supportive and have nothing but love for neighbors. In fact, I've seen and this is inspiring to me and I'm grateful that this news is out there too on like friends that are Palestinian or Jewish reaching out to check on each other, like that's what you need, that's what we need, and that's why I don't really have a side. I'm not on.

Tayla: 47:28

I'm anti-Hamos, I'm a little bit whether this is right or wrong I'm a little bit anti-Nesanyahu and the Israeli government's decisions right now. I come with a lot of understanding behind why they both formed and why they're both reacting. The way that they are does not excuse at all, in no way, anything that is affecting or causing women and children and disabled and elderly and literally any person that exists Like. If we can't agree on the value of life, what can we freaking agree on?

Sam: 48:04

Yeah, no, that's. The value of life is so low in that area. It reminds me of parts of South Africa which are very poverty stricken. The value of life is pretty much nothing. They'll kill you for your shoes, or they'll kill you because you just are different.

Tayla: 48:25

Yeah, in fact I've been messaging with my cousin in South Africa and she said it's been interesting to kind of watch public opinion there because she's saying that the community is a slightly more pro-Palestine and again, not pro-Hamas, pro-palestine. I think that comes from our own apartheid history. We have experienced what it is like to have an apartheid regime. We know that it is dehumanizing, it doesn't work and it's not good. The support for getting rid of this apartheid that there is between Israel and Gaza is important, but man is complicated. There's no real answer. I'm not going to pretend to have a simple answer, because it does feel like to give that both sides are do something. But to give them what they're do would be to take away from the other.

Sam: 49:23

Yeah, one of the biggest problems in this is that the leaders of Hamas are having a grand old time just hanging out in Saudi Arabia with older billionaire buddies, and this is all just part of political games from them, and it disgusts me.

Tayla: 49:43

I'm furious about it.

Sam: 49:44

So step one and this is the same thing that we struggled with here in the United States is the people that attacked us on 9-11 were Saudis and the people that have pushed this issue- are. Iranians and are also part of the Saudis. So there's a whole lot of money there making a whole lot of problems for a whole lot of people, and the United States and the international community is afraid of Saudi Arabia just because of how much trading we do with them. So that would be the first thing.

Tayla: 50:20

Yeah, and that's always the biggest question with these issues is what is going to be more important to you ultimately money or people? But the problem is this money affects people.

Sam: 50:30

It is and it's the same problem here.

Tayla: 50:32

Exactly.

Sam: 50:33

The United States is not clean and not like don't you know? It's like don't what's it throwing? Throw stones in glass houses. We're dirty here too. So we've got to, you know, we've got to fix house here as well.

Tayla: 50:46

We can't accept this and that's that's what. I keep feeling. Is this just this strong feeling of of unacceptability? I won't accept it. I won't accept this attack by Hamas. I won't accept the treatment of innocence in Palestine. What can I do? That's my problem is. I'm feeling really helpless, and I think a lot of people are. It's making me way more grateful for what I have.

Sam: 51:09

Yeah.

Tayla: 51:09

I think that's step one is to just live with gratitude and to appreciate what you have and, in Sam philosophy, kind of live your life to the fullest, because that's a way to be grateful. But I think it is like you have to just keep looking, even if you don't know what to do, like just keep trying or keep looking, even if it feels pointless to message a representative or to call or to send five bucks to a kitchen that you know is providing reputable charity to people in need, like whatever it is. Just do something, and that's that's what I'm feeling is I just have to do something, and that's something you and I need to plan as well. I think I feel a strong need to be really intentional with doing something that we can't do.

Sam: 52:03

Yeah. So to repeat, to explain my philosophy, that Tayla was saying is that you know this sounds kind of like counter positive thinking, but one of the things that I think about is right now I cannot change the world Right. I cannot just impose my will or impose my philosophies on the world. I cannot change it. But I can change myself. I can affect my personal relationships. So, focusing on how to manage those and be better. You know, how do you be a better brother? How do you be a better son? How do you be a better husband? How do you be a better father? So focus on that and then start to spread from there as you have capacity and as you have the resources, and everyone's lives will be different in how much capacity and how much resource they are able to garner from there. Because I think if we all start with ourselves and with our families, the world would be a better place. If we just start with ourselves and our families, if we just focus on that, and then, as you get the more resources, as you get more capacity, you start to affect change, like right now. Here's one of the additional resources. I just learned about that from.

Sam: 53:15

Sharon says so. You know, she always asks every representative in you know the federal government how many people do you need to contact you to for you to pay attention to an issue? And she said I've never had a response over 300 people. So that means if you can get 50 and she said the average was 40. So if you can get 50 people together to call a representative about a specific issue, they will pay attention to you, and so if you've got some additional leverage behind that issue, you can affect change at a federal level, starting with 50 people. So that's something that you should think about. If there's something that's so important to you, get as many people that are like-minded to take action specific action and you can start to create change.

Tayla: 54:07

Yeah, sharon McMahon for president, but she'll never do that. So many people say that, but it's true that complacency is what got us here in the first place and I think by having people that care because so most people do to match their care with small actions, it literally makes a difference. It does, it has to. So if you know of something that we can share with our little community that you know is helping with this conflict, specifically, that can help innocent people like we, would love to share the knowledge that you have. Please tell us if you know of a reputable charity or charitable organization, something that someone that has influence and or ability to get help to people who need it let us know so that we can share it.

Tayla: 55:00

It's, it's not much. We're a small, growing active community, but we can do something and I'm sorry that it's been kind of a heavier episode, but I think it's warranted and we're just grateful that we get to do this and we're grateful for every, every listen and engagement that we get. It means a lot to us and so just thanks for being here, guys, thanks for listening to the Babe. What do you know about? Podcast?

Sam: 55:28

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