They're not even hiding it anymore - The Grayzone live

0:02Hey, what's up, everybody?

0:04Welcome back to the Gray Zone.

0:06It's [snorts] uh full day.

0:10We're going to talk about everything possible and maybe even bring in a few guests.

0:17Um we're going to talk about what happened with the latest Gaza Samidoun Flotilla where Israeli torture Israel's regime of torture was broadcast proudly for the world to see and forced some actual uh diplomatic crises with Europe.

0:38And we're we're going to talk to one of the passengers on that flotilla who experienced some torture, witnessed some, saw what it was really like inside uh the uh the hellscape of Itamar Ben-Gvir the [snorts] serial killer who is security minister. We're also going to talk to Wyatt Reed our friend and colleague from Beirut who has been covering the Israeli assault on southern Lebanon and has some really unique insights and has produced some incredible work for us that you can see up at the Gray Zone.

1:13Actually, waiting for him to get into studio um because he was just he was just coming in from out of Beirut. And I want to cover the possible looming military invasion of Cuba.

1:27What's really happening in Venezuela? I dropped the new investigative piece which kind of wound up scooping the Washington Post and Reuters and some other majors might come in, but I think I provided more background than them on the imperial viceroy of Caracas who is cutting deals, some of the most important deals uh lucrative deals, extremely corrupt deals without any government portfolio, someone who's not even in the US government. And what I think is really going on overall in Caracas, I've been learning a lot in the last several days especially, so I'll talk about that.

2:06Um we'll talk about the prosecution of US anti-war activists or or or or federal harassment of US anti-war activists who tried to provide aid to Cuba.

2:19Uh there's a possible Iran deal in the works. I don't actually think it will ever come to pass, but Trump is putting forward making some noises about one while threatening to blow up Oman.

2:32And I think there's a lot more to cover beyond that. But so uh that's what we have on tap.

2:41And now that I've kind of killed as much time as possible, and yes, I'm for those of you who watched Judge Napolitano yesterday, I'm still recovering from that. He He made me go on at 9:15 a.m.

2:52It's a little early for me.

2:53Um so forgive me for the slow start here. I want to bring on uh a really a a someone I've known for years who is a fascinating person and uh very hard-working activist in the UK uh who's been working on issues of uh surveillance and the UK security dragnet for many years and is now a very working very closely with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and has uh experienced some of the most harrowing treatment at the hands of Israel's uh concentration camp guards who are actually you know, in charge of preventing humanity from reaching Gaza.

3:36His name is Kerry Bullivant, and uh I'll welcome him to the show to describe what happened with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

3:43I think this is a story that hasn't gotten enough coverage that's truly shocking.

3:48Um Kerry, welcome. Uh for some reason I'm not seeing you. Maybe are there Can you give us a thumbs up? Yeah, there's something a little bit wrong with your connection.

4:00Okay.

4:01Um okay, here we go. Well, we can hear you.

4:03We can hear you pretty well.

4:05>> Okay, cool.

4:06>> Um having some trouble with with the uh data where you are.

4:12>> Turn the camera off and on. Hang on.

4:21Is that better?

4:22>> Yeah, much better. So, Kerry, uh just introduce yourself to the Gray Zone, and then we'll talk about what you experienced as you attempted to sail to the Gaza Strip.

4:33>> So, first of all, thank you very much for having me on, Max, and and I'm a really big fan of uh the work that you do. Like uh it's incredible.

4:41Um the uh amount that you've done.

4:45Um and it was worth saying while I was on the flotilla, um there was a Albanian colleague of mine, comrade, who who was also sailing.

4:53And he was actually researching all of your work uh to to inform the work that he was doing.

4:59Um uh speaking in Albanian to to to the Albanian people.

5:03Um and yeah. Uh like your work's really reaching out further than you can even imagine. Um thank you for that.

5:12>> Th- thank you for saying that. That's great to know that I you know, I'm just reaching out into international waters.

5:18Um >> Yeah.

5:19>> Unfortunately, I unfortunately, I personally can't reach the militarized frontiers of Israel any longer because I think they would deport me, but uh you know, >> Well, they they they deported me a few days ago, so >> [laughter] >> we could we could be in that boat together, uh literally perhaps.

5:37>> So, so so so tell us uh you know, what why did you join this flotilla knowing that you could face danger? And and just tell us what happened.

5:47>> So, I mean it's not knowing that we could face danger. Um it was evidently clear to us um and explicitly clear to us um the sorts of uh experience that we would have if we chose to go through with this.

6:02Um I joined on the flotilla uh um at Crete and before I joined, uh 22 boats had already been um kidnapped in an act of international piracy um by the by the uh Zionist regime and 170 people had already been through this uh torture factory.

6:23>> Yeah.

6:23>> Um and so when we got to Crete about to join the boats, there were already people there with with um broken arms with their arms in in uh in a cast um with like plastic face guards to protect their broken nose and cheekbones, with people with uh with whiplash collars on um and so it was that was like our welcoming to the scene. Like these were the people who'd already done it. And many of them came again, immediately rejoined the flotilla to sail straight back into the situation again because really at the heart of this is the genocide, the genocide of the Palestinian people which has been going

7:02on for for 75 years now and has accelerated um in the last 3 years.

7:09>> Yeah.

7:09>> And it this is the test of our times. My mother um God bless her, she was uh um very heavily involved in in uh South South African anti-apartheid movements in sort of the struggles of her time and really that was the the environment in which I I grew up in.

7:31>> [snorts] >> And I now have kids and I need my kids to know that I will put myself in on the line, inshallah, to to to protect a better future for them Um and and that's what I would hope that they they will do when when their time comes and they're grown up and and if they see injustice.

7:53We all have this obligation to to stand against these genocides.

7:58>> Right.

8:00>> And apartheid and and so that's that's why I was there. I was there in honor of my my my mother and and Irish heritage and the colonialism that the Irish people suffered and as and as a witness for my children so that they can know that we can never allow genocide to continue.

8:21>> So um I guess for those who aren't aware of what took place and some of the footage that Israel's own government put out. I mean here was a scene here's one of the scenes of Itamar Ben-Gvir actually attacking activists and you know he was taking selfies I think with his own daughter in the room where activists were being held in torture stress positions. Um well this is just you know for public viewing.

8:52That's Ben-Gvir attacking her, the security minister of Israel in charge of the police.

8:58Then you can see >> This part in here in the tent I was actually inside it's just about to appear.

9:05>> Yeah.

9:08They're forcing activists to listen to Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem while held in stress positions with zip ties.

9:27>> So inside this tent this is where I I saw Ben-Gvir.

9:31>> You saw him personally.

9:33>> Yeah yeah.

9:34He came in and was like this tent was a tent of hell. The torture that was going on in here um while they were laughing and joking." I mean, the absolute joy that they were taking from the from the sadism in this tent was um shocking.

9:53>> Yeah. Uh what what what kind of things were they saying and doing?

9:56>> So, for example, just behind me there was a um a Brazilian comrade of ours. Um she was wearing a like a a woolly jumper with stars on it and she was zip tied um behind her back with her hands and they they lifted her up by her hands, by the zip ties.

10:17Um she started screaming that uh they were they were breaking her shoulder joints. Um and the and another um uh IOF soldier came and and literally soccer kicked her in the face.

10:31Uh a a huge kick while she was was like suspended in the air.

10:35Um while Ben-Gvir is walking around the the guards are uh singing along the with the with the national anthem, laughing and joking all the while they're they're kicking people in the head.

10:46Uh my my head was right next to the uh the edge of the tent, so I didn't get kicked in the head, but we were getting like they were stamping on our feet. Um bearing in mind we're already in a stressed position, it's already painful.

10:57Um kicking us in our sides and I was the thing [snorts] that shocked me was how much they were enjoying all of this. Um I'd never I've obviously followed the the issue of Palestine for for so many years, read so many stories about it, read stories about the games that they play where they try to shoot children in the same body parts on on certain days.

11:19And but yet when you see it for your own eyes, they're they're laughing and joking and and and hackling together and they as they dogpile um people who are tied up. And part of our training was we we in no way resisted uh anything that they were doing either physically or even in words.

11:40Part of our training was like you don't swear at them, you don't you don't attack them or accuse them of anything.

11:46And [snorts] they still just absolutely battered people. And the the primary people that they went for were the women, the elderly, and and the the smaller the smaller men. Um they I saw them pick up a a guy a very very slight build and they slammed him down on the ground twice and then hit him on both of his ears at the same time.

12:14Um and like the day after when I saw him he he'd gone deaf in one ear.

12:19I still don't know if his hearing's returned in that ear.

12:22But they cracked all of his ribs on this side as well. Um even when we were freed and we were finally back in Turkey, you had to be so careful when you were when you were hugging people or like celebrating with them that they were free because so many people had broken bones. I think it at final count around 75 people had various broken body parts including someone with spinal injuries.

12:51I saw a couple of people with broken feet and broken arms as well. Lots and lots of broken ribs. They were going for the ribs primarily because they that's a more hidden wound and a more hidden injury.

13:05Um and if you think about there were about 500 people on the flotilla. So if 75 or so had broken bones, that's about 20% of completely non-violent people who were tied up that had bones and and body parts broken in this vicious way.

13:25>> And uh some of the female activists I public I highlighted a testimony yesterday by one who I think was an Irish female activist uh described sexual assault >> [clears throat] >> sexual humiliation on a very systematic scale. Is is that something that you witnessed or know about?

13:48>> Um Yeah. Yeah, it is unfortunately something I experienced as well.

13:53Um Uh I s- I had to hold a young man in my arms um uh afterwards and he was telling me about his experiences and and they physically raped him.

14:07Um Uh my experience wasn't that severe.

14:11Um But they came up with me with a knife threatening to um cut off my my private parts.

14:19Um And this was unfortunately like completely systematic. Um when you went in for the strip search you were completely at their mercy and um Max, I don't I don't think I can explain to you like holding a young like 20-year-old guy in your arms and and he's crying because of what they've done to what how far they took that.

14:49Um And Yeah, go.

14:53>> They took it towards I mean I don't I don't obviously you know, details will n- not be necessary, but they they they raped him.

15:02>> Yeah. Yeah.

15:04>> Which is what they've been doing in State of Mind and other torture centers to Palestinians uh >> Yeah.

15:10>> Gaza doctor from Al-Shifa and Indonesian hospital Adnan Berch was essentially sexually assaulted to death by Israeli prison guards.

15:18>> Yeah.

15:19They they they inserted their batons.

15:22Um and the the thing is that we understand as as as um activists who have been following this, the levels that they go to with the Palestinians. Like even this we suffered like a tiny tiny proportion.

15:39But this was um done with such glee and with absolutely no fear of repercussions.

15:48Um they knew they had carte blanche. And we were I I really need to reiterate this. There was no resistance. There was nobody was struggling, [snorts] swearing, fighting back. We were delivering seeds to Gaza to regrow food.

16:05And this is how we were treated um imagine imagine how they treat Palestinians who don't have access to to to Max Blumenthal and don't have access to like these sorts of voices to to speak out in this way.

16:21Um it's it's terrifying. It's it's shocking. And it's only just now um uh even though these cases have been known about for years, only because the New York Times suddenly reported it that that people are suddenly starting to take some sort of notice. But I mean it's really horrific when you see it and experience it firsthand.

16:44>> Well, this was happening independent of Ben-Gvir. This this torture. Am I Am I correct? Like he he came in for the kind of photo op to put it all on display and to proudly show what Israel's values were, but this was happening anyway, correct?

17:00>> So for me from what I saw, the worst of the physical torture, the beatings, um happened in Ashdod Port where Ben-Gvir was. Um and and that's where the the the the sexual assaults mainly happened as well.

17:14Um there were two prison ships. On one prison ship, um, the one that I was on, they treated us horribly. There was no space to sleep. There was no, um, floor mats, uh, barely any food, barely any water. But they basically, um, for the most part left us alone. I mean, they shot my captain, uh, of of our ship for no reason and and left her with a horrible wound on her leg. Um, but mostly our ship was considered like the good ship, yeah? So, to only be shot, I think four people got shot on my ship. That was the good ship.

17:51The other ship, the other prison ship, the one that you saw in the video with the blue containers, um, that was the other prison container ship. They treated them like actual hell. They were firing, um, every two hours into the containers with, uh, with, uh, to to wake everyone up and then throwing stun grenades, um, to to disorientate people while they were trying to, uh, rest. There were far more sexual assaults. There was a man who I spoke to, um, they tased him over 20 times until his black his his, uh, back had almost no skin on it. Um, I mean, the these prison ships, both of them, were so overcrowded

18:31that there was no space for everyone to to sleep, um, and it was the the closest thing I've ever seen to sort of like depictions of slave ships when I was growing up, like people just sleeping on top of each other in in shipping containers with no mats, no no, uh, nothing. Just laying on the on the cold hard, uh, metal floor.

18:53>> This, uh, PR move by I don't know what to call it. By Itamar Ben-Gvir, Hasbara move, a reverse Hasbara, uh, was received very negatively by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, by, uh, Israeli ambassadors, including, uh, Yael Leiter here, the the ambassador here in in Washington who is also sort of like the manager of the Trump administration.

19:20And uh they said that you know these are not our values and that Ben-Gvir what he has done has hurt Israel's image. This is not who we are.

19:29Which I found funny. I think Ben-Gvir is sort of like the id of Israel. He's like the true soul which is why he's there and why he's increasingly popular among the Israeli youth. He represents the direction of Israeli society. Here's a foreign ministry tweet just simply declaring these are our values showing them treating flotilla passengers and here would you like some water and uh we're just talking to you nicely and questioning you and you know you get to sit in a nice chair and uh oh she's having a nice time grandma we we we we respect the elderly.

20:10Uh you know what do you have to say about that? What did did did you see any of that sort of treatment? Are those their values?

20:18>> So for me it shows that the [snorts] the the values that they um that he betrayed was by showing people um uh what what was happening. Um that was the thing like that's the that's the golden rule here is that these things happen but we don't tell we don't we don't tell and uh we we leave space for for our sort of like liberal Zionist friends to to obfuscate.

20:45With Ben-Gvir there's no space left for obfuscation left.

20:49Um so that's the that's the part that he's going against. As I said they were taking so much joy in this um agony. They take they took pictures of the people in the seats. Before you're in those seats you're in a a stress position pushed down as far as they can with your arm lifted up as high as it can.

21:07If you're walking down from one place to another and another officer is walking in the opposite direction, they're going to punch you in the face as a prisoner is passing by. How in a normal workplace you say hi to your to your to your person that you're you're working with, they just come and just hit you straight in the straight in the face and they did that to me numerous times as as I was going. And then they sit you down in the seat for for 2 minutes to to answer some questions from a civil servant about like what your nationality is and and do you agree to be deported? And that's the moment that they come in and take a

21:44picture.

21:45I saw one >> [clears throat] >> tweet from from from the ministry and I'm actually in the picture on the ship. And it says people celebrating being flotilla people celebrating being put onto an Israeli ship.

22:04And the the irony of that situation [laughter] after they've just beaten the hell out of us, we were we were congratulating each other and and and and giving each other a a warm reception as comrades who had survived and gone through this situation. But [snorts] they want to take that and twist it and and put it in exactly the opposite light like we're grateful to Israel. They held me on the floor while while my face was on the floor and my hands were up also touching the ground and I posed no threat to anyone.

22:35They tased me for over a minute constantly until somebody answered one of the questions that somebody else answered a question that had nothing to do with me even. This is this is their values. And the fact that they they were smiling and laughing and loving that along the way, that was their values and that's what they showed and that was part of what the flotilla was about. There were there were many objectives to the flotilla, but one of them was to um use our bodies to to to to show their values.

23:11>> Well, that certainly succeeded. I mean, if that was one of the objectives, it definitely worked. Uh they could not resist. And I think from their point of view and from Ben Gvir's point of view, he's playing a role which which he considers deterrents. He believes >> Mhm.

23:28>> you know, as Meir Kahane, his mentor, believed that if you do not demonstrate total force to your opponents, whether they're, you know, the the leftists who support the Arabs or the Arabs, there are no Palestinians in their mind, uh they will you cannot negotiate.

23:46They will keep coming back for more. And so, he believes he's warding off future flotillas.

23:52Do Do you think that that succeeded on their part? Less activists will volunteer to try to challenge the you know, try to scale the walls of the modern-day Auschwitz.

24:02>> Well, I'd say this. They captured um a whole load of people who within 2 weeks were back on another flotilla, um going in again. And I can only speak for myself in this regard, um but I'm going to be going up and down the country, um raising funds to to help put another flotilla together.

24:25And um even though like while we were sailing I spent five uh five, six days like completely seasick. I have apparently no sailing ability in me at all.

24:37Um and uh was throwing up. I'll be straight back on that flotilla again, um to to to keep on putting applying pressure.

24:48>> [snorts] >> Uh I said earlier on my friend was shot in the leg.

24:51Um and that was horrific. She thought she was going to die. Um it looked like they might have hit her her femoral artery and and thank God they didn't.

25:01But the our medics managed to uh uh get a tourniquet on her leg and and cut off the bleeding very very quickly.

25:09Um but uh even she said after that after being shot in the leg that she would rather that the um that the soldier was there guarding us and shooting her in the leg for crossing an invisible line than being in Gaza or Lebanon and shooting a Palestinian child in the head with a lethal round for crossing an invisible line.

25:32So the these actions um we have to keep doing everything we can to expose the the the crimes and the true nature of Israel. And they're losing. They're losing this this this war of public opinion um in in your home country like the the Americans which is generally been their staunchest allies are finally sort of shifting away. Um in a lot of Europe now um nobody wants anything to to to do with Israel.

26:03Um I think the UK where I am is one of the few countries now where um they still have sort of like uh a bilateral support from the two main parties.

26:12>> Yeah.

26:12>> But we might have Zack Polanski soon um a a green as the main party on the on the left and uh he's taking a very strong stance on on on Israel as well.

26:24>> And he's Jewish and he's getting attacked uh in >> As a as an as he said Mike yeah.

26:29>> Right. Using that kind of classic anti-Semitic cartoons and caricatures the British press is going after his family. They're calling his like former roommates and his former roommates' friends, cousins, dogs, owner. It's crazy.

26:44Uh so they're using >> You you you you wouldn't know anything about this Mike would you?

26:48>> [laughter] >> No.

26:50>> Like as person who speaks out for justice, like they're never going to attack you and accuse you of being an anti-Semite.

26:57>> No, no, no. Oh, no, they just say I'm Yeah, I'm Yeah, a Jew-hating Jew. I'm like, I'm not I'm actually a you-hating Jew, but anyway And what And why are the self-loving Jews such fascists? Why are they such haters? But But that But anyway, back I mean it is interesting to see how increasingly isolated the UK is and how the flotilla forced this issue. This is Giorgio Giorgia Meloni, the Italian Prime Minister. The images of Ben-Gvir unacceptable. It's inadmissible that these demonstrators are subjected to this treatment. It violates human dignity. And she summoned the Israeli ambassador and demanded an apology, a

27:35formal apology from Israel. Many other European states, I think France also summoned Israeli ambassadors.

27:42I think [clears throat] the UK summoned the ambassador, but they were It was a much more calmly worded clinically worded tweet. Meloni has previously condemned the flotilla. There are many, many Italian citizens who who go on these and help coordinate them. So, you know, the it There's much more pressure on her to condemn it. And this to me represents something of a diplomatic shift that could I don't Do you think this could lead to any concrete change in policy from the non Brit non-Commonwealth European states?

28:17>> I mean, I really hope so. Ireland was very close to to bringing a law that would have played full sanctions on on Israel. Um even though if they had done so, they would have been in breach of EU law and would have been fined fined a million pounds a day um for for taking those sanctions, but they were still within like five or six votes of um applying those sanctions and taking the fine anyway.

28:43>> So, the EU The EU will fine you a million pounds a day if you sanction Israel?

28:49>> Without the the full cooperation of of the EU. So, if a country to do it independently, that would be a a breach of EU law. Yeah.

28:58Yeah, so but even with that, they the the Irish parliament were very very close to passing the sanctions anyway saying basically fine us if you like.

29:07I'll say this about the the consulate staff.

29:11So, when we arrived in Turkey after like four days of like horrific torture I went to the to the to the British consulate staff and I told them that I'd witnessed a sexual assault and I needed to give them a statement about that and that this was a very important matter.

29:32And three times they said, "Yeah, yeah, no, that's really really important." and then walked away. And I had got to them I went up to them three times and tried to raise this issue with them. And three times they walked away without taking a statement and basically refused to do anything.

29:45>> [snorts] >> As we went to the medical center afterwards where people were getting their their wounds checked and and and everything officially taken down for all of the results of the torture. There were Irish, there were German, there were Belgium consulate staff there till 3:00 in the morning. I literally saw them with my own eyes.

30:09The Brits were gone from the from the center within the first hour. They didn't even go to the health center.

30:17They just left the airport. So, this was the this was the the the quality of the response from the British consulate and honestly I've come to expect no better from them.

30:31The the Irish the Irish consulate were telling me I need to pull my finger out and get my get an Irish passport cuz my family are originally Irish. And then they were like, "Then we can come and help you as well."

30:44I'd say if ever there was a strong argument for uh for doing that, now's the time.

30:49>> Yeah, I was reading a testimony from a uh Kiwi activist from New Zealand who is actually Maori and said that uh you know, he was brutalized brutally beaten.

30:58Uh they threatened to throw him in a room with dogs to be tortured. Uh you know, witnessed many of the horrors that you did and then you know, we're on upon return to Auckland uh they were not received by anyone.

31:10There is simply no government support for them. Complete silence about what took place there.

31:15Uh in Australia, we saw a Green member of Parliament uh speak up about the sexual assault and torture, but uh you know, labor was pretty silent.

31:26And uh you go ahead.

31:28>> I can go I can go one up on that um on on that um uh New Zealand uh case.

31:35As we arrived in the UK, um the British delegation, there was a a press conference organized in a hotel next door um and the police went and threatened the hotel that if they allowed them to do the uh um press conference, that they they would uh bring problems for them using prevent legislation.

31:54>> What?

31:54>> Um so said that it would be radicalizing and so we we had to go and do the press conference out in the in a in a field um not too far away from the airport because uh the hotel where we had booked were um uh basically uh intimidated by the British police to not even allow us to have the press conference there.

32:14>> That is insane. That's incredible. And and and >> Well, well, welcome to the home of democracy and free speech.

32:20>> Yeah.

32:21Yeah, the Western values are increasingly looking like Israeli values in the UK. This is how activists were received in Bilbao, Spain by Basque police and I want you to address this as well. This was pretty wild.

32:38>> Free Palestine!

32:45And they're still wearing the sweat suits that, you know, you that you were put in in prison that you see so many prisoners come out of Gaza wearing.

33:01>> This is really hard for me to watch cuz I was in the cells with a lot of these people and and I mean, they're really brave, wonderful >> These are Spanish police.

33:12>> wonderful captains. Yeah, yeah.

33:13>> Why are they beating them? Like they just walked out of the airport.

33:17>> So, to to to my understanding, even though the Spanish government is generally pretty positive on the on the issue of Palestine.

33:28A lot of these activists from the Catalan region and and so because they were support Catalan independence and and that's why the the best police came in at them like this. Um >> Okay.

33:48>> The a lot of the a lot of the the skate the sailors and the skippers were were Spanish because the flotilla actually began in Barcelona.

33:58>> So would you say, you know, Pedro Sanchez has been one of the most outspoken European leaders, Western leaders condemning what Israel's been doing in Gaza, its attacks on Iran, but, you know, he he was essentially green-lighting this treatment of these activists because of their affiliation with the Catalan independence movement.

34:18>> That's my understanding, but unfortunately, you know, in in in my experience, uh cops lean into fascism all too quickly and are often sort of like a a a rule unto themselves, even if they even if they're politicians um might have different positions.

34:38Um I think there's a lot of local politics that's that's going on there in in in in that scene.

34:44>> Yeah.

34:44>> It's really hard for me to watch cuz like they literally just come from being um beaten and battered and abused in similar ways by the by the Israelis and then they come home and and their own country does the same thing.

34:59>> [sighs and gasps] >> Yeah, I mean that was a just a it kind of shocking to me and I saw the Israeli foreign ministry promote it and say, "Oh, we we we condemn this." And you know, you know, we're not basically to say, "We're not the only ones and actually your own governments are worse." Which was extremely cynical but but typical of them. Just as typical as them condemning the UN for placing Israel on a blacklist of nations that practice sexual abuse on a systematic scale in their prisons when they had lobbied the UN in that very body to place Hamas on that blacklist. So they they said, "The UN has no validity. This

35:39is a fake body." But they were lobbying that same body back in starting in 2023.

35:45Just everything they do is completely cynical.

35:49Uh yeah.

35:52>> Rules [clears throat] for thee, not for me. Um and and this has been the uh the um operating procedure for for Israel for as long as I've followed this this this conflict. Um And you know, like I remember being a kid and and my mom explaining to me my mother had spent time in um in the West Bank uh before I was even born um working with uh um Palestinian organizations and groups.

36:24And yeah, it it's um This is a story that as we said at the beginning it's been going on 75 years um from before either of us um were twinkles in the eyes of our parents.

36:39>> [snorts] [sighs and gasps] >> Indeed. So, where does the where does the flotilla >> Yeah, yeah.

36:47>> What's next?

36:48>> So, um what's next is um actually I I I can send it to you as as well. I've got uh footage of our boat that was scuppered and sunk um and so one of the other boats managed to get back to it as it was sinking and and get some footage of that um which are I can send to you. I don't think it's been made public. Um uh but what's next for us is uh I'm going to be doing uh a range of talks uh across Europe um with comrades uh um at mosques um uh with as many people as I can um trying to to um show what happened. One of the things that one of the other objectives of this flotilla was to uh create first-hand witnesses who can

37:37speak from personal experience about what what had happened. Um and so we have a duty to the to the people of Gaza to to keep speaking out and uh and to keep working on this issue.

37:50So, um as we do those events we'll hopefully be raising money for for more boats and and and a bigger flotilla. The last flotilla that went was about 40 boats. This one was 82 boats. So, um hopefully the next one will be 120 150 boats and we will we'll come back with numbers until we get that aid through to Gaza.

38:15>> Well, Kerry Bullivant, thank you for the work you're doing to break this siege and to confront this modern-day Holocaust and thanks for bearing witness to what took place in Israel's torture prisons. Your voice is really valuable right now, so we're really We really appreciate you bringing it to the Gray Zone, to our audience here, and best of luck.

38:41>> Thank you so much, Max, for having me on and and like really I I know I said this at the beginning, but your voice has been one of the most important voices in in in documenting this genocide and in breaking doing groundbreaking investigations, which honestly too much of independent media, although it's needed, but too much of it is commenting on just what happens, and you guys are are doing really investigative work, which is so valuable.

39:09>> Thank you so much for saying that. I really think that's that's the essence of what we what we aim to do.

39:15I think that's the heart of our work at the Gray Zone, so I'm really glad you recognize it. And if I wasn't running my mouth right now, maybe I'd be working on an investigation, but wanted to uh to draw some attention to this situation, so uh thanks a lot, and we'll continue following your work.

39:32>> Just keep in touch. Let's not leave it so long next time.

39:35>> For sure. [laughter] Yeah, it's been a few years. All right.

39:38>> Yeah.

39:38>> Peace.

39:38>> mate.

39:41>> All right, harrowing testimony from Caribou event of what took place on the Gaza Samidoun flotilla.

39:49Or after they were abducted in international waters. Important to note that the US State Department has fully effectively green-lighted their torture and threatened them with or actually applied sanctions to their leadership um criminalizing them in advance of Ben-Gvir's uh propaganda torture festival.

40:14The Trump administration has also removed Itamar Ben-Gvir from its sanctions list. Ben-Gvir was sort of like a fig leaf, which the Biden administration used sanctioning him and some other settler terrorists to avoid sanctioning um figures closer to the military industrial military intelligence apparatus responsible for the Gaza genocide. And Trump removed sanctions on Ben-Gvir. So, so many green lights were given by the Trump mafia, which uh up functions as the US government right now, to conduct this torture on European citizens, American citizens, people from Australia, New Zealand, and around the world.

40:56Uh and you know, if I were going to be invited to like the Oscars or I don't know, the Met Gala, I don't think I could actually bring myself to go to the Met Gala, but I'd wear one of those gray suits that you see people emerging from the concentration camps maintained by Israel in uh in order to draw attention to the fact that there are over 8,000 Palestinians in Israel tortured Israeli tortured dungeons being held without charges. They are hostages. So, to draw attention to the hostages, that's what I would wear if I were a celebrity, but I'm not a celebrity and I could never be a celebrity because I would wear that.

41:40Maybe you know, just an idea.

41:43Um I don't know if we have any A-listers watching us. I know we got some like s- s- celebs who watch The Gray Zone on the low.

41:52Um we need to do more to draw attention to the fact that there are over 8,000 Palestinian hostages being tortured right now.

42:01And you know, what we w- and and we in the United States, we look at the civil rights protesters who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge and were beaten with truncheons, who were beaten at Woolworth's lunch counters, who were hosed down by Bull Connor protesting segregation in the Jim Crow South as heroes. The Democratic Party fetishizes them. These activists, what they are doing, putting their bodies on the line against the modern-day Nazis in Tel Aviv who are holding millions of people in open-air prisons, destroyed their cities, are still subjecting them to genocide.

42:43What they are doing is no less heroic.

42:45And they're risking They're They're taking an even greater risk to their lives confronting a a military that kills civilians for sport.

42:55These are the heroes of our time.

42:57And one day we will will look at them the same way we looked at the civil rights protesters who are now held up as the icons of the Democratic Party that still supports this apartheid state.

43:12Uh and with that, we're going to be joined by my colleague Wyatt Reed, who's in Beirut um to cover another angle of this situation. He's looking from the north on the apartheid colony uh from Beirut and has been to the south of Lebanon. And many of you who follow The Gray Zone are familiar with the work he's been putting out from there and and before that from Iran um as the first American reporter to report from the destroyed B-1 Bridge outside Tehran, one of the first American reporters to report from the Minab school where over 130 schoolgirls were massacred by the Trump mafia and the and its uh

43:57Israeli managers. Uh Wyatt, what's going on?

44:03>> Hanging in there. How about you, Max?

44:06>> Staying alive.

44:08>> [gasps] >> But yeah.

44:10>> Yeah.

44:11Uh so I like your background.

44:15>> Thanks. Yeah, I'm uh I'm trying out a new one today. So if you guys uh if the audience likes it, we'll keep it.

44:24>> I like the vibe.

44:26Um So a lot to cover.

44:31Israel is now conducting what a historically massive ethnic cleansing operation in the south of Lebanon.

44:38It is It has issued evacuation orders for this biblical city of Tyre, which is It's got a population of over 200,000 people.

44:47So that's like an entire ward of Washington, D.C. being evacuated by a foreign military. They've also issued evacuation orders for Nabatieh, which means that the evacuation orders extend north above the Litani River.

45:01Um pre- previously Israel has said that they wanted to establish a buffer zone below the Litani, but now they're pushing people north, and this is causing enormous human damage. What they I mean a human kind of a humanitarian catastrophe. And then when people are cleared out of their homes, they destroy the homes. If they stay in their homes, they bomb the homes. If people try to flee their homes, they bomb their cars.

45:25And they're escalating today because uh Trump is moving closer to a seems to be edging towards some kind of deal or um improving negotiations with Iran um as a means of sabotaging that.

45:40Tell us what you've been seeing, what's going on today, if there's anything you can add to my kind of bird's-eye view of the situation.

45:49>> Yeah, I think you summed it up pretty well.

45:52The The prospect of peace, I mean, it's Israel responds as they always do whenever there's a threat of peace breaking out, they take advantage of whatever moment they have to launch as many bombs and missiles and air strikes as they can before this peace actually takes hold. Um, and presumably that's you know, in part because they have some kind of target list and they want to wipe as many names off it as they possibly can and will accelerate whatever operations that they had. Um, but it's also because they want to sabotage any kind of negotiations. Um, and they just want to inflict as much damage as they possibly

46:36can on the civilian population to teach them a lesson >> Yeah.

46:39>> for being too friendly with Hezbollah and for not, uh, you know, turning them over to the Israelis.

46:47Um, I have, uh, I'm hoping to soon travel to southern Lebanon to see this firsthand.

46:59Um, but in the meantime, I can share some thoughts from a colleague of mine who is currently basically trapped in the middle of the evacuation zone. If you, um, pull up, I I I included this in the element.

47:18There's a the the the Israeli forced evacuation notice, forced displacement order, uh, includes a a map of the area in the city of Tyre.

47:33Um, so you can see the kind of tip of that peninsula is the only place for miles where people are allowed to be and uh will not be >> That's this area right here, right?

47:47>> It's a Christian neighborhood. That's right.

47:50Um, so that's that's the only area deemed worth preserving the where human life is allowed to exist um, at the time being. So, that's where my colleague and most journalists are stationed along with thousands of people who are now sleeping there in their cars, you know, finding whatever kind of hotel or shelter they can there.

48:15I got an update from my colleague and he said that with the ordering the issuance of these evacuation orders over the past 48 hours, that covers basically everywhere south of the Litani and and handful of places north of it.

48:37He said Sur, which is the Arabic word for for tire, he said it's a ghost town.

48:44He noted that there were three buildings that were targeted without being identified in advance where a father, daughter, and son were killed.

48:53He says they're using very a new type of missile that they haven't seen before that's extremely destructive.

49:01And I was told that there were 95 airstrikes in the past 48 hours in the south by Israel.

49:11Yeah, he told me that in this small Christian neighborhood in in Sur, it feels like you're trapped in a box, he said, just waiting for things to happen.

49:22Um the Israelis have made clear their intention of not just creating this buffer zone, but actually bringing up troops up to hold it at least for some period of time. Who knows if they want to permanently occupy it as Itamar Ben-Gvir has stated his intention of doing.

49:44>> Yeah.

49:46>> But he said they've we've got a power outage. This happens from time to time.

49:53Um they've infiltrated Yamour and parts of Za'tar uh trying to reach Shoukif Castle, that's Beaufort Castle.

50:02>> Yeah.

50:02>> Um >> Yeah, Beaufort Castle is a, you know, a historic archaeological monument that was struck by Israel directly, I think, 2 days ago.

50:12>> Yeah, exactly.

50:14Uh and >> There's also a There's I should mention there's an award-winning Israeli film called Beaufort about >> uh >> the the military defeat by Hezbollah of the Israeli military following uh Operation Grapes of Wrath when they, you know, the final phases before they pulled out in 2000. So, this is symbolic for them cuz they were holed up there.

50:34>> It's symbolic and it it is strategically valuable.

50:39Uh it's just perched high up. It's useful for surveillance and um yeah, so there there is it's symbolic and strategic value there.

50:49Um That's That's the update that we got.

50:52Um they're also beyond these you know, we've we've seen a lot of footage and we could pull up some videos of the uh attacks in Tyre and in Nabatieh.

51:03Um but they've also been bombing in Saida. They've been bombing much further north. And this is kind of something that I I predicted um a couple weeks ago with >> This is the Israelis >> This is Tyre.

51:18>> This is Tyre just a a few hours ago.

51:21Uh this came right after Trump announced uh you know, that he was moving towards a ceasefire deal with Iran.

51:30>> And this was 2 days ago in central Tyre.

51:35Uh what it looks like.

51:39What Israel has done.

51:41Uh >> [laughter] >> They're It's Gaza-fication.

51:44Mass destruction. Destroying people's homes they worked their whole lives for, killing any family who's there, evacuating hundreds of thousands of people.

51:56>> Yeah, but some somewhere in the neighborhood of 400,000 by some estimates I've seen.

52:01And just a a massive quantity of people.

52:04Um and there's really there's not any place for them to go.

52:09>> Yeah.

52:09>> There's already around a million people who've been forcibly displaced.

52:14Uh they live uh you know, where they can. Plenty of them are up here in Beirut.

52:21Um they live [clears throat] in these kind of makeshift refugee camp zones often or just uh there are whole streets in central Beirut where it's just it's like almost a kilometer of tent after tent after tent after tent after tent after tent after tent.

52:38>> Yeah.

52:38>> And when you interview these people, plenty of them are fairly successful.

52:43They, you know, are business owners.

52:47Um you know, [clears throat] you'll meet people who are living out of out of tents. And you know, I I talked to one older gentleman who had worked his whole life and he had uh some in in Nabatieh region. I'm forgetting the exact name of the village, but he had finally managed to build a supermarket a few years ago. And so he had his house and he finally um finished construction on this supermarket that he was just uh starting to make money off of. Um and then Israel destroyed both of them in the opening salvos of of its war on Lebanon. And so now he's living on this wa- waterfront refugee camp um out of a tent

53:36uh with a BMW that he can't put gas in cuz he doesn't have any money left.

53:41Um so that's that's kind of, you know, it's not just uh really impoverished people. It's also anybody from all levels of society that just get everything that they have wiped out and destroyed. Um, and then it's you know, it's it's the Gaza-fication effect. It doesn't really matter if you have money. You're just uh you're going to be forced to leave this place. You're going to be living on the street anyway.

54:06Um So that's >> So what what's what what what are you what do the the what does the population see Israel's objective as here? And you know, what kind of effect is it producing politically? Is it making them more supportive of the resistance? The Dahiya doctrine that Israel conceived when it destroyed the Dahiya district of southern Beirut, which is Shia majority in 2006, which was conceived by a opposition figure in Israeli politics now, Gadi Eizenkot, who comes out of the Israeli military and its general command, uh was aimed at demoralizing the population or attacking the support base of Hezbollah in order to because they can't

54:52fully destroy Hezbollah's military apparatus or its and they couldn't hit its leadership at that time.

55:00Um, is that having any effect now based on what you your conversations with people who are fleeing the violence?

55:08>> Yeah, I haven't met anybody who's fled from the south that has anything nice to say about Israel or for the US really for that matter either. They're fully aware who's backing up and arming this.

55:20Um I think there there's obviously a divide, a religious divide in the country, and Shias overwhelmingly hate Israel with a passion and support uh the resistance very strongly.

55:37Uh the Sunnis are a little more divided, you know, maybe closer to 50/50 in terms of whether they actually support the resistance.

55:45Although um very few of them would support unilateral disarmament by Hezbollah without the end of the Israeli occupation.

55:56Um and then the Christians, uh especially the Maronite community, are are really the only bastion of of any kind of pro-Israel sentiment. Uh but even them, a lot of them, if you'll talk to them privately, uh are not thrilled about what Israel is doing. Um and you know, even if it's just as self-centered as them not wanting to fill their Christian neighborhoods full of Shia refugees, uh they have their own reasons for not wanting to, you know, destroy the country. So, um it's really hard to find people who are who are supportive of what Israel is doing, even among the kind of historical rival groups of the the Shias, where, you

56:45know, Hezbollah draws so much of its support from.

56:48>> Yeah.

56:49And uh since I kind of brought up a political angle, over a week ago, Lebanon dispatched Lebanese the Lebanese government dispatched representatives to Washington to negotiate with Israel in violation of the Lebanese constitution.

57:08Uh this was under the watch of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who doesn't even have a political party and actually has no base and seems to just be kind of like a functionary.

57:20Um what kind of legitimacy does the Lebanese government have to negotiate with Israel? What what what's their objective?

57:28It seems to me, just to answer my own question, that they gave Israel the green light or enabled Israel by conducting this negotiation to escalate as they're doing today and did yesterday in Tyre and Nabatieh.

57:46>> Yeah, well there's the negotiations are basically ongoing right now or at least as of a few hours ago.

57:54Representatives of Lebanon and Israel met at the Pentagon with the US ambassador to Lebanon reportedly in attendance.

58:04>> Yeah.

58:05>> Again, this is yeah, this is illegal according to Lebanese law.

58:09Lebanese citizens aren't allowed to contact any Israeli resident or citizen let alone the actual government of Israel, right?

58:20So that's that's not allowed. It doesn't matter apparently.

58:26This government is not popular. No, it's widely seen as a kind of corrupt and made up of of self-interested elites who have no real concern for the day-to-day affairs of the average Lebanese citizen.

58:46So you know, there there's not a whole lot of love here for them either from what I've seen even from you know, even apart from people who are sympathetic to the resistance.

58:58The government is widely viewed with distaste and it's widely seen as as incredibly corrupt.

59:06The you were asking about how you want to >> Well, well there there there the reason they're meeting with the Pentagon is to discuss a disarmament plan which you know, the Jerusalem Post has reported the CIA is also devising to disarm Hezbollah with the Lebanese military somehow like this joke of a neo-colonial military set up by the US. Uh Uh I mean, how's that going to go down?

59:33>> Well, not not well according to uh Wafiq Safa, the senior Hezbollah official that I spoke with last >> Okay, so yeah, so you spoke to Wafiq Safa. Who Who is he and how significant was this interview? And then we'll I guess what we can um cover his response to the question I asked.

59:55>> He's generally described as a senior Hezbollah security official. He was the head of their uh public liaison unit for many years.

60:05Um He's certainly someone who is authorized to speak on their behalf.

60:10Uh he described uh this as kind of a bad joke. Uh he said first of all, he suggested that the that this would not probably happen. And I'm kind of inclined to agree to agree that um it's widely understood that and and and they also confirmed that um you know, any unit that is created by the United States with the explicit intention of trying to disarm Hezbollah will be treated as a hostile force, will be seen as a legitimate military target. Um so first of all, you know, they they would whatever unit would likely be destroyed by Hezbollah um probably pretty quickly.

60:56But uh you know, if not, I think this would be a very obvious segue into a kind of civil war. And though this government may be seen as sellouts and cowards and corrupt um there is still some hesitance to believe that they would actually intentionally create a civil war for the country that after all their family members still have to live in as well. Um so some kind of disbelief I think on the side of resistance factions. Interesting note to note with these negotiations is that these figures though are seeming to prolong the Israeli military assault somewhat intentionally some would argue.

61:44There have been a lot of reports this week that that Aoun and and you know his his prime minister with no party have been attempting to distance themselves from the negotiations between the US and Iran that they don't want to be included in this ceasefire agreement that Iran is is insisting on. You know the Iranian negotiators obviously have been quite open that they will not sign a ceasefire deal with the United States if it does not include Lebanon.

62:21And there are a lot of reports this week that Aoun and company are doing their best to prevent this from happening. I guess you know either for personal self-interested reasons like they don't want to become a sidelined and they don't want to have this decision made for them or or you know I I I couldn't possibly explain to you why they wouldn't want peace in southern Lebanon which is something that basically everyone in Lebanon you talk to wants other than out of spite or personal you know personal reasons and selfishness.

62:58>> Yeah.

62:59>> [snorts] >> Um It it yeah it it it it it seems like this government will possibly have to fall on its own sword here.

63:11Um I want to talk about some of the resistances operations which are increasingly successful and are really frustrating the Israeli military, but um for before that uh I we should highlight some of your uh interviews and the work you did in covering the heroism of Lebanese first responders in the south who are being targeted uh deliberately by the Israeli military and it looks as and and and one of those uh rescuers that you interviewed, who's also a noted photojournalist and was widely beloved in this in this area and known to many uh foreign correspondents, Ahmed Hariri, was uh killed, targeted in I think a

63:56triple tap strike after Israel targeted uh I can't show this footage, it's horrific, a father and his daughter in their car. Um let's play your uh report.

64:11It's on Instagram, which is a little tougher to work with here.

64:15There was an air strike on this place.

64:18Strike by the Israeli army.

64:22That was team being air strike.

64:24And he's This is Ahmed Hariri describing being in front of a home, you're you're speaking to him in front of a home that was targeted by Israel in which I think an entire family was killed.

64:34>> Yeah, 13 people were killed including a family of nine people and this was last Wednesday that I met with him um Wednesday morning and took this interview and probably wasn't uh you know, I I wasn't necessarily going to publish it until I got a a message Friday morning that said they killed uh Ahmed Hariri, you know, they killed this that uh rescue worker that we spoke to 2 days ago. And um you know, in the clip you can see uh he is one of the handful of paramedics that were um trying to evaluate uh the victims there, the father and daughter. I believe they were they were likely killed in the first strike. Um

65:22and they were checking their vitals, checking just for signs of life when uh Israel comes and hammers them with a a second follow-up strike, uh which is something that they've come to be known for.

65:38Um you know, when I first got here, I I was almost you know, nothing really shocks you about Israel's behavior at a certain point.

65:50But >> Yeah.

65:51>> I'm I'm I'm telling I'm telling myself, "They can't possibly be intentionally targeting all of these rescue workers, can they?"

65:58But now, you know, it's just it's it's on film, and this isn't the the only time this has happened.

66:04It's impossible to think of anything else is happening. It's just the most logical, rational explanation. Yes, they are intentionally targeting and killing rescue workers. Yes, they are intentionally targeting and killing journalists. No, there is no line that they will not cross.

66:20Anybody who is deemed a sort of useful participant in day-to-day life, um anybody that society depends on, they are going to be smeared as terrorists and executed on Hate.

66:37>> Yeah, they'll say these are the they're these are from the the Scouts network of Hezbollah, so it's legitimate to uh to kill them, you know.

66:45>> linked to the Boy Scouts, you know, that's that's that's who these guys were. They were uh young guys that were, you know, in their younger 20s, and they just joined something to help people. They just wanted to help their communities.

67:01And that is cause now for a death sentence from Israel.

67:07>> Well, let let's watch a portion of your short documentary on Nabatieh Rescue.

67:12Who are some of the the bravest people on the planet. I mean, they're going in to rescue people who have been wounded in bombings and drone strikes, knowing that they could be targeted next and will be targeted. And this clip begins at the funeral of the son of one of the rescuers who was himself a rescuer and he watched his own son be targeted by Israel. Uh we're going to and and then it will show you some of the GoPro footage that these rescuers themselves are filming in the midst of triple tap strikes because they want the world to know that they too are being targeted.

67:48Let's let's watch this for a couple minutes. I'm going to take a quick break.

67:57>> It wouldn't be the last time Israel killed a member of Nabatieh Rescue.

68:03A few weeks later on April 15th, Madi Abu Said was cut down when Israel followed up an attack on an ambulance with a series of consecutive strikes on the rescuers who came to help them.

68:15In all, Israeli drones attacked the rescue crews four times.

68:20Footage from Nabatieh Rescue's GoPros shows the moment of the final strike.

68:45>> Yalla.

69:30>> I spoke to the surviving rescuers who recounted the horrifying moment their colleague suffered a fatal wound by their side.

69:39Could you tell us what happened on April 15th?

69:44>> Okay. So, we knew there were strikes happening and but we did not knew that it is.

69:53Then the they told us that another team I asked them they were they got strike while they were getting a wound personal.

70:05They were not They didn't let them approach so they strike them.

70:13>> I think it's is it in this interview here where you can actually hear artillery?

70:19>> Yeah, I think it was incoming rocket strikes.

70:22You if you go to the end of this interview, you may have I was a I cut you a separate interview halfway through but then when I conclude this interview with this rescue worker.

70:35>> Okay, well, we'll just pause it there.

70:38But that that gives you know, people a sense of what these rescuers are dealing with.

70:43One was killed I think earlier today.

70:46Just horrific atrocities unfolding and you know, another reason why I want to focus on this issue is that I mean witnessing ethnic cleansing from the south on a historic scale, Gaza-fication, and it's really not getting the same coverage that Gaza got.

71:04And the attacks on rescuers Have you seen much I mean I I Alex Crawford from Sky News really stands out among the pack of mainstream reporters from corporate networks, but not really seeing much from the rest of Western media.

71:21>> Yeah, I mean when I've interacted with >> [clears throat] >> some of the Western mainstream media outlets, um uh I haven't been terribly impressed.

71:34Um you can see some some halfway decent coverage on um you know, Al Jazeera English.

71:42Um I uh I interacted at one point with the NPR correspondent here and when when we were in the south actually right after I filmed that interview with Imed Harriri.

72:00And she uh you know, not not to not to knock anybody who does this because obviously I I think it's wonderful to when people uh feed the animals which are often also suffering down here, but she was very concerned with um the cats almost more so than the people, and I looked up her social media presence later, and the number one video that she had put out by far and away most viewed was a story about cats in Lebanon.

72:35Um so that's you know, and she was complaining to me about how difficult it was to get access to Iran.

72:44Um and I just you know, sucks to suck, you you So >> There's a lot of cats there.

72:53>> There are a lot of cats. Maybe that's that should be your hook next time.

72:57>> Cats of Menab from NPR.

73:01>> So, that's you know, the mainstream media is here, but they are not and then often times I think they I think many of them do have their heart in the right place and it's not like they're oblivious to the suffering of the people going on. It's just that the editorial process is so thoroughly zionized that any halfway decent report just gets watered down by the time it makes it to to print and all of the useful information gets left on the cutting room floor and so you would and you know, by the time the editors get done jamming in phrases like Hezbollah stronghold and you know, IDF claims it's basically functionally

73:54indistinguishable from like a police report about how they killed somebody in the community. It's just there's no there's no real substance to it.

74:03You you would be forgiven for coming away with that thinking that there was no ethnic cleansing that this was just some sort of police operation to to clean up South Lebanon because the Israelis are just concerned with rooting out extremism or something. So, the there's there's systemic problems within these mainstream media organizations that prevent even people with their heart in the right place from getting the news out.

74:33>> Yeah.

74:34Um It's it's it is a systemic problem, but it's also an editorial problem in London, in Brussels, in Washington where where they may have the reports, but they're not going to to highlight them and emphasize them, or the New York Times is not they're not they're not going to decide to do a cover story at this point on hundreds of thousands of people being driven from their homes, or the D9 excavator testimonies that I've been compiling for a a possible future report, where they're just openly admitting their job is to destroy as many homes as possible for the Israeli military.

75:13>> And they get paid per >> They get paid per home, like mercenaries.

75:18And uh you know, some of them have actually been hit in FPV drone attacks, but no one in Israel really cares, because these are like the dregs of society, and come from classes in Israel that are, you know, resented or looked down upon by the Ashkenazi elite. So, you know, keep sending them in. It's It's effectively It's increasingly a mercenary army, you know.

75:39Where units are just being mixed all together and told to carry out as much destruction as possible.

75:47And it's not being It's It's not getting the attention that Gaza got. But, I remember also with Gaza, there was this kind of turning point where the slaughter got so intense.

75:57First, it was the, you know, it seemed like the turning point would have been the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital strike, where the doctors at this hospital in northern Gaza put delivered a press conference amid the bodies of those who were clearly killed in an Israeli artillery strike.

76:14And then Israel comes in and tells all the networks, "We have video breaking breaking of a uh Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket misfiring." And they show some uh badly pixelated lights in the distance, claiming and and they produce their own OSINT analysis, claiming that's a misfired rocket, as though it could do that much damage at all.

76:36Uh and and and that was it. Then CNN immediately kills its coverage, the New York Times walks it back. everyone kind of walks back, and it bought them so much more time before the media finally decided to uh start I think it was it might have been the New York Times article of doctors coming out of Gaza with x-rays of children with bullets inside their bodies uh in including in their heads, and and that that was kind of like their effort to to pivot a little bit. And you know, it always takes a few months before people are slaughtered before they pivot. So, the the alarm has not been sounded on

77:11Southern Lebanon and on Lebanon in general.

77:14And uh you know, I also think the the the concept of Hezbollah as a resistance organization that is defending a nation against an onslaught is it's it's just forbidden to acknowledge Hezbollah as anything other than a terrorist group in Western media.

77:33But uh I mean, Hezbollah clearly has changed. I think you put that question to Wafic Safa, which is you know, are you fighting a war of um you know, is is this a war of kind of like uh for the region, or is this a war of national defense?

77:53>> They view this as inseparable from the the Iran war conflict, from Gaza.

78:03Um to them, it's it's all one big war uh I mean, which uh the Israel is basically leading the US into a huge strategic error, uh which is the only way you can describe the Iran war, a massive unforced error.

78:20>> Yeah.

78:21>> handed control of the Strait of Hormuz directly to the Iranian government, and will likely remain with them for uh you know, may maybe forever, who knows? Um barring some kind of outside action.

78:36The uh another I think, interesting point that he made was describing the introduction of these drones to the battlefield, which is something that um they said is really taken place over the past 18 months.

78:53Um and he described it as kind of the resistance's response to the Patriot attack in September 2024 that um killed dozens of people, wounded uh thousands, uh over a thousand, and uh many of those killed and wounded, by the way, were not Hezbollah members. They were children in many cases.

79:17>> Yeah. And most of those who were targeted who were within the realm of Hezbollah were like reservists. They weren't even on the front lines.

79:25>> Yeah. Um and there was you know, the the Israelis had this kind of twisted uh explanation of saying, you know, we we would rather not kill all of these people. We want to leave them alive and crippled and basically to serve as uh a warning to other people. This is what's going to happen to you. We'll leave you disfigured and unable to get a job. Um and, you know, uh the resistance response was the introduction of these drones, um which have been a huge game changer in terms of asymmetrical warfare, uh especially given that Israel seems committed to overextending itself in the south of Lebanon.

80:13>> Yeah.

80:14>> Yeah, they're I I really I don't understand the strategic value of trying to occupy all this territory when uh they can't even defend their own supply lines. They just get blown up every day.

80:26There's another FPV drone video of you know, some Merkava tank or an armored personnel carrier or just Israeli soldiers themselves running out of the port-a-john and getting ex- you know, destroyed and and and blown apart by these uh first-person-view drones.

80:46Um so, you know, I'm not I I I think we had some some of that video cued up, but if not >> Yeah, let's watch a So, so the real story of this war is the FPV drone, the first-person-view drone, which are produced in workshops by Hezbollah members, and they're quadrocopters that are strapped with a RPG, and they deliver the RPG to Israeli positions. And the reason that Israel's unable to do anything about these is because they're connected with to a fiber optic drone that stretches from a fiber optic cable that stretches for miles.

81:26And the by being directly connected to a fiber optic cable, it's sort of an analog solution, asymmetrical solution to Israel's jamming capacity. It also has uh you know, this this laser system that can hit drones. So, Israel doesn't have anything to defend against these drones with, and they're just with with with almost uh complete reckless abandon hammering Israeli positions and also hammering the Israeli psyche because the Israelis were told in November 2024 when Hezbollah signed a ceasefire after the killing of secretary general and his kind of like spiritual leader Hassan Nasrallah that they were

82:05essentially defeated if or or at least defanged.

82:09And that's just simply not the case when you have Israelis returning to going to like medevaced into Rambam Hospital in Tel Aviv every day, and some of them are coming back in body bags. So, here's a highlight reel someone Ron Burgundy put together, an account Ron Burgundy, uh that I think really is one of the I think it tells the story of this war for Israel as the war continues, which is that they're going to be ground down as they attempt to hold positions and maintain a buffer zone.

82:47>> Some of these are Iron Dome batteries, too. You know, the >> Some of them are Iron Dome batteries or they may be decoy Iron Dome batteries, but they're definitely hitting Iron Dome batteries and radars at some points.

82:58I mean, some of the I some of those Iron Dome batteries are not being held down by cables, so I'm just wondering like what is the deal with that, but >> [music] >> I sped this up just cuz it's long.

83:17You can see hitting a D9 excavator, uh hitting like actual um logistical positions of Israeli soldiers. They they they they >> You'll notice that they've put up some kind of netting over top of certain areas.

83:34>> And it does nothing.

83:35>> As far as I can tell, it's only advertises their position for Hezbollah.

83:39>> Yep.

83:42You know, hitting those D9s, hitting the Toyotas, the smaller vehicles with an RPG can do a lot of damage. I know the Merkava has reactive armor, but you can see in many of these strikes they're hitting from the rear of the Namer armored personnel carriers and trying to hit the undercarriage of the Merkava.

84:04I So, we don't see what kind of damage they're doing, but you can assume they're doing a lot of damage in it um when personnel is is exposed.

84:13>> Everybody drew lessons from the Ukraine proxy war. And the lesson that Hezbollah drew was that there is no real answer for a army that needs to move and operate as a standard army, not as a gorilla fighters.

84:34They they have no way they have no answer for drones, specifically those like you know these FPV drones that have fiber optic cables, which means they are immune to jamming and to electronic countermeasures.

84:50The lesson I think the Israelis drew was that we should hire a bunch of mercenaries and create our own foreign legion and find idiots from either you know Westerners [snorts] who are bored or more likely I think people from third world countries that want a decent paycheck and are willing to die to get it.

85:18>> Yeah.

85:19>> But they proposed you know 10 to 12,000 member mercenary army to come take the places of all of these Ashkenazi Jews that don't want to die on the front lines and don't want to die in southern Lebanon. So instead you know you get the sense that they're sending them as Rohim, they're sending the Ethiopian Jews and you know now they're running out they need to find some mercenaries to throw at southern Lebanon.

85:49>> Let's go to Peru and and find a lost tribe in the Amazon of a lost tribe of Jews and ship them over. I mean that's they've been doing that.

86:01>> Oh.

86:02>> Yeah, I don't >> No DNA test required.

86:06>> [laughter] >> In fact specifically prohibited.

86:10>> During the first Lebanon war, first invasion of Lebanon, there was this movement called the four mothers and it was led by four kind of very um upstanding Ashkenazi women whose sons had been killed in the war.

86:27This is during the '80s, and they managed to organize large demonstrations with thousands of people calling for an end to the war because so many Ashkenazi Israelis were being killed, and they didn't want to die.

86:37Um you know, you watch the whole the whole shooting and crying concept came out of that war that, you know, we go to war and we shoot and we do what we have to, and then we come back and we we cry about having to follow these orders, and we make beautiful art and songs and, you know, dark songs and films like Waltz with Bashir. Have you ever seen Waltz with Bashir?

86:59>> I think, if I'm not mistaken, one of my high school teachers made us watch it.

87:04>> Yeah, I mean I could see that. I think it was It might have won an Oscar.

87:09But, you know, it's the ultimate Israeli shooting and crying film which highlights the Ashkenazi culture of the you have to follow this initiation ritual to be a Zionist, but ultimately you hate it, and then you just kind of move on with your life, and by by by talking about it and going to Breaking the Silence and giving delivering testimony of all the horrible horrible crimes you were forced to commit, blowing children's heads off and so forth and bombing homes, for that you expiate your sins and your guilt, and you're welcomed back into liberal Zionist society. Waltz with Bashir presents the whole Lebanon War as

87:50kind of a dream-like scenario, and Bashir referring to Bashir Gemayel, who was killed.

87:57Uh the the Maronite right-wing Phalangist leader, and you know, it reenacts actual scenes that took place in that war, but it's all dream-like, and it's only from the perspective of Israelis who um don't really take a moral stand on anything. Beaufort, another film that I mentioned earlier, is really famous film about the defeat of the Israeli military in southern Lebanon in like after Operation Grapes of Wrath.

88:26That's another shooting and crying film.

88:29Breaking the Silence, its directors, they they collect all these testimonies of soldiers, but they have no policy on refusal, and many of them are actually in the reserves.

88:39Um but they'll do tours of occupied Hebron and they're like anti-occupation.

88:44So it would is Israeli Israeli society is in a place now, Jewish Israeli society, where they can't even allow shooting and crying.

88:52Uh so what remove that whole class of people from the war. They thought they could do it with technical innovations and technological innovations like the drone. I mean, the Hermes drone came out of the failure of the first Lebanon War to reduce casualties and therefore take political pressure off this militaristic fascistic government. They thought they could um do anything they could to Hezbollah, and now you know, Hezbollah learned this lesson, and the FPV drone has completely flipped the script, and it's a political problem for Israel.

89:25Um Shir Hever, by the way, is someone who's doing a lot of work um I would refer people to, and he's a Israeli or maybe an ex-Israeli uh who helps lead the um BDS movement from Germany and is doing enormous amounts of research on the transformation of the Israeli military, the IDF, into a kind of mercenary army.

89:48Which I I think is like part of the downward trajectory of Israel.

89:53That that it actually other than its air force and Mossad is pretty much uh in deep decline.

90:02>> Yeah, and they're it's Hezbollah is only increasing its ability to um to target and to to its intelligence capabilities, for example, are far superior to what I believed before I came here and before I uh spoke to Wafiq Safa, um who described uh he kind of gave me a hint as to the developments that they've made in terms of their intelligence capabilities. Um when he noted that the operation to eliminate Colonel Meir Biedermann, >> Yeah.

90:44>> who was the commander of the 401st Armored Brigade, which is the unit that famously killed Hendrich Job, um he is critically wounded. Um you know, for all we know, he may be dead.

91:00Uh the Israelis are not forthcoming about their casualty count. But, um he was critically wounded in a a incredibly sophisticated drone strike, um in which you you can see the footage of it. Um This drone manages to enter into a secure compound, um and it's basically the the the command center of uh a what it seems to be like a forward operating base. Um And they managed to take out the commander of this unit.

91:41And they told me that they knew uh where he was slept and where he rested.

91:46They knew his schedule. Um they tracked him there uh when he was having a meeting with a bunch of uh other significant Israeli military officials.

91:57So, for them to be able to obtain that kind of intelligence, uh a and presumably they're they're going to be able to replicate that again. That's another issue that uh the Israelis, I don't think have a real clear answer for. I have no idea how they are getting that kind of information. Perhaps they've compromised some of the Israelis' devices.

92:20Uh perhaps they're getting information fed to them through, you know, from Russia or China to Iran to them kind of thing. Um perhaps they have their own indigenous intelligence um capabilities and that they've developed within Israel themselves. Who knows? But um you know, what is very clear is that the Israelis are more exposed to a uh to attacks than I think they've been in in decades.

92:54>> Yes. And and and and not just through FPV drones, but Iranian ballistic missiles have really punched some holes in Israel's fake Iron Dome, which we subsidize as US taxpayers.

93:08Turns out the United States was a lot was doing the lion's share of interception or attempted interception because Israel needed to preserve its own munition stockpile and the US burned through its own stocks, which were supposed to defend against China or Russia and you know, the the real powerful revisionist powers.

93:34And but now just a little a little quadrocopter with an RPG tied to it belly has completely has entered the battlefield and completely changed the game.

93:48It's one of the I think [snorts] one of the stories of the year. I don't know what Israel's going to do about it and you know, I haven't played anything from your interview with Wafic Safa of Hezbollah because it's it's translated with subtitles and I don't like reading over it. It's kind of boring to hear me read it, but everyone can follow it.

94:04We've posted several clips.

94:07Um everyone can watch it at The Gray Zone at our YouTube channel.

94:12Um but he he he had he previews some other in his words surprises.

94:18What was he referring to?

94:21>> I sure wish I knew. Um you know, it wasn't clear whether he was referring to a new type of drone or another uh technological capability that they're going to unleash on the battlefield um or whether this is just uh you know, political uh so, I mean, I I I wish I knew a little bit better. I didn't want to prod too much because he he seemed like he was being kind of deliberately enigmatic about it. Um but uh if if the FPV drones are any indication, uh you know, if I were an Israeli, I would be pretty nervous about that.

95:05>> Yeah.

95:07Um It it it really is remarkable that uh the US military with its proposed 1.5 trillion dollar budget has been completely stymied by Iran.

95:21And that is one other one reason why Trump is moving towards attacking Cuba.

95:27Just to have a win. They can't get a win. The US has been defeated in a way that it has not it since since uh since I can remember. I mean, the Vietnam War was a defeat. It was a real psychological defeat for US empire and the US working class suffered enormously, of course.

95:47It was terrible for the American population. I remember moving to Washington, D.C. as a as a boy in the mid-80s um to a majority black neighborhood and seeing guys strung out on heroin in uh their BDUs from Vietnam all over the place. That is that generation was still being like killed off with heroin and then the crack epidemic came and cleaned it all up. Um but the US economy didn't suffer. The global economy didn't suffer in the same way. The Iran war it it can't be contained in the same way these other wars were were contained. It's it's something that the US hasn't experienced especially in the post-World War II era.

96:29Um it's a much I think it's a much deeper blow to US global hegemony than Vietnam was uh and certainly more than the uh second Gulf War which was another defeat for the US. Uh wasn't [clears throat] economically contained and you know, the US elite is extracted a lot of a lot of benefit Halliburton stock for example.

96:52Um so unfortunately the Lebanese population is suffering massively. Uh I saw Aaron Maté was around somewhere. Um maybe he's finished with his last interview which I hope no one watched because you were watching the Gray Zone.

97:08Um as charismatic and brilliant as Aaron is but you know, if he wants to jump back in otherwise we can move on.

97:16We're also hoping for um another special surprise guest. I don't know if they'll materialize any minute.

97:24Um we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants today.

97:29Um hoping they can join now.

97:34Yeah, here's well, here's Aaron. Wyatt uh yeah, we're going to move on to some other segments but is there anything else you want to add or um highlight?

97:48>> Well, uh I I guess um I would just say stay tuned and keep um keep watching this space. I plan on releasing some hopefully pretty impactful reports in the next coming days. Um hopefully we'll be able to travel to the south and witness this Israeli destruction campaign first hand and then hopefully speak to some of its survivors.

98:19And um yeah, just uh stay tuned to the Gray Zone for sure. Uh there's some you know, some other elements that I included in the document that I think um you might find particularly interesting.

98:33Uh there's a video of uh of James Zogby talking about his meetings with the senior Biden administration officials that uh you and Aaron may want to discuss with me.

98:46>> [laughter] >> So revealing. It's just it tells you everything you need to know about the origins of the Gaza genocide, the Democrats' repeated refusal to intervene, um and then there ultimately their cowardice. Uh they it's it's like they're they're green-lighting this genocide and they won't even look you in the eye while they're doing it. Um unlike unlike Trump and Netanyahu are kind of gleeful about it and accuse people of who who uh uh object to their actions, you know, Trump accuses them of being a Palestinian. As though that's an insult.

99:20Um they feign uh concern for its victims uh and then, you know, press the genocide button anyway.

99:29>> Yeah, that's why it was so satisfying to finally confront Blinken. Much more satisfying than it would be to confront Rubio. Uh we're going to be hearing from someone who actually has confronted and challenged Rubio and uh is being targeted in many ways for that in a second uh and will be joined by Aaron Maté but Wyatt Reed uh you're our eyes and ears on the ground in Lebanon uh really value the work you're doing and definitely stay safe out there. We're going to be um hearing a lot from you and you know, highlighting your dispatches in the next few days so so stay safe.

100:05>> Do my best. Thanks, Max.

100:06>> All right. Peace, Wyatt.

100:10All right. So, we have Aaron Maté here and a guest coming in really quickly that we managed to uh who managed to become available for a a quick update on a situation we've been following Aaron's been following um many of you have been following but Aaron uh how is your last interview with the Mario Nafal which I hope no one watched?

100:31>> I'm confident that nobody watched it.

100:33Don't worry.

100:34>> [laughter] >> Great. Uh well, you know, you can watch it after >> Yeah.

100:39>> after we're done.

100:40>> Yeah.

100:41>> Wyatt >> same things I'll say here. Just in a different YouTube page. Yeah.

100:45>> Uh yeah, I I was did an interview with Judge Napolitano yesterday way earlier than I would have wanted to and he led the interview with the a ad for Lear Gold and I was simultaneously streaming it to our channel at the Gray Zone. So, I went into the editor to remove the Lear Gold ad and I accidentally removed everything around the Lear Gold ad so we had nothing but Lear Capital or Lear Gold as my Judge Napolitano appearance on the Gray Zone. Um I just made that private.

101:17>> [laughter] >> That's awesome. That's awesome.

101:23>> [laughter] [snorts] >> That's great. I hope somebody scree- I screen grabbed that. Send that to me, anybody.

101:29>> [laughter] >> And gold is like going the the price keeps going down after it was up so yeah.

101:36>> Well, listen, I know our guest is is uh very busy and I'm >> Yeah, yeah.

101:40>> I'm very happy she's here, so, yeah, we should bring her in.

101:43>> The So, quick intro. This guest is being targeted by the Trump administration for bringing aid to Cuba, for trying to save lives, and really for telling the truth on Capitol Hill about the Gaza genocide, about what the war machine is doing.

101:57This is a uh disgustingly cynical and sloppy political prosecution of one of the most courageous Americans, who's also a brilliant analyst, and we want to, you know, get her take on the Cuba situation. Uh Medea Benjamin from Code Pink, welcome to the Gray Zone.

102:17>> Hey, great to be on with two of my favorite guys.

102:20>> All right.

102:22It's an honor. Um yeah, I know that your your time is short, you're busy. Um tell us Uh are you Have you have we The the The news was that you and Code Pink were subpoenaed along with podcaster Hasan [ __ ] for violating OFAC sanctions in Cuba. Can you tell us the truth about what's actually happening there?

102:45>> Yeah, we heard it from Fox News, and uh I thought subpoena, well, that sounds really scary, and I was looking outside my window, going outside, looking around, thinking, is somebody going to be there to serve me with a subpoena?

103:00And nothing came, nothing came. And then a couple of days later, uh Jodie Evans was looking in her spam email box for something else, and lo and behold, she found a letter from the Treasury Department. You would think that if they were really serious, they would at least send it certified, but they sent an email, and it was a It's not a a subpoena. It's a request for information. Uh but it still is a pain in in neck. It means we have to get lawyers. It means we have to put a lot of time and energy because they're asking like 12 different categories of questions, you know, when did you go to the bathroom when you were in Cuba? Uh

103:42everything you did every hour of the day that you were there and not just you, I guess everybody and there were 170 people. So, I don't know. Um some ridiculous questions. They want to know everything that we brought to Cuba.

103:54Um all the transportation that we used to get there and when we were in Cuba, you know, all kinds of ridiculous things. So, it's obviously an intimidation tactic and we take it seriously, but it certainly doesn't stop us from doing the work we have to do, which is oppose what is really an unconscionable criminal policy that is literally killing babies, which we've seen um from the doubling of the infant mortality rate.

104:23>> Medea, one of the main talking points against you was that you guys stayed in a hotel that was supposedly off-limits to Americans. I I think I saw an exchange between you and Senator Rick Scott where he tried to bring this up with you. Can you uh clear that one up?

104:37>> Yeah, that's so crazy because, you know, well, when we were planning the trip, we didn't want to abide by these US regulations cuz there were lovely hotels we wanted to stay in that were modest, that were inexpensive, but if you look at the government US government list of prohibited hotels, there's a whole slew of them and there's only a handful that you can use. And in fact, when we realized that we might not have transportation because of the lack of gasoline, uh we had to pick one that was right in the middle of the city and that's one we picked. Uh it has to be one that's owned by a foreign company

105:14and in this case is Spanish. Although, I might say that more recently the US has put the screws on all of these companies, foreign companies that are working in Cuba. Now, it looks like even those Spanish and other foreign owned hotels, they're going to have to disinvest themselves of their Cuban holdings. So, we stayed in the US approved hotel and now seems like the poor Spanish are going to lose their their money on that one.

105:46>> Because of secondary sanctions?

105:49>> Because of secondary sanctions and you know, Max and Aaron, you know how ironic it is that Marco Rubio says, you know, we've got to have private enterprise in Cuba.

105:57Well, when we saw a lot of private enterprise in Cuba was during the Obama years when they started easing some of these sanctions. And the other thing is that the pressure the US the Trump administration is putting on Cuba right now is really harming all of these businesses, whether they're foreign businesses that were invested in Cuba. I mean, there's one company that for 32 years Canadian private mining company had been mining uh the nickel and cobalt in Cuba, the Sherritt International. And now because of these increased sanctions that just came out about a week ago, they announced that they have to be leaving. So, you know,

106:37so much for promoting foreign enterprise in Cuba.

106:41>> Yeah, I mean, Cuba has been open since the since 1989. It's just not in the way the US wants and it's the US that's seeking to close it off and I think, you know, since we got into this discussion, it seems like the US strategy is to only allow an opening within this private sector which starts with these kind of MIPYMES and now Marco Rubio's trying to ram down a hundred million dollars of so-called aid that can only be distributed by faith-based NGOs and pumped into the private sector. Isn't that kind of the strategy here is to sort of overwhelm Cuba with privatization?

107:18>> Yes, but even then the strategy is hurting the private sector.

107:23Uh it's really impossible if if you're a owner of a business and your child gets sick and you have to go to the hospital, these are government owned hospitals and they don't have medicine. So, uh you can't be promoting the private sector while you are draining Cuba of electricity, of fuel, of uh pumped water because the water is not getting where it's going. The elevators are not working, you know, uh nothing is working when you have this kind of medieval siege and uh that includes private businesses.

107:58>> Medea, you've been going to Cuba for a very long time. How does what you most recently saw compare to you know, what you know of Cuba from the past?

108:07>> I've never seen anything like this.

108:09We've been going to Cuba now in the last 2 years a lot and every time we go it gets worse and worse. People are more and more miserable. Uh they are they really don't know where this is leading and there's a sense of despair and hopelessness, which is precisely what the policy is aimed at doing. So, uh my heart goes out to the Cuban people. As it gets hotter in the summer and it gets very unbearably hot, um forget about air conditioning, they don't have fans.

108:36Already I have friends who say that their kids are having a hard time sleeping at night. And again, this is policy. It's so that Cubans will come out on the street and they're sweating and they're hot, they haven't slept and they're angry and they're saying this has to end and the only way they can see it ending is some kind of US invasion, some kind of takeover. Um not that that's what a lot of the people I talked to want, they just want to see some easing. They want to see a let up. They want to see Cuba be left alone. And this uh naval blockade, you know, there was a Russian uh the the only tanker that has

109:16reached Cuba in the last few months has been one Russian tanker, but that was used up in 2 weeks. There's another tanker that was on its way and has suddenly turned around. So, even that hope for Cuba has been dashed. [clears throat] There are other countries that are helping. The Chinese are helping sending rice. They're also helping with solar panels. There's some shipments coming in from Mexico, from Spain, but and all of our solidarity groups keep sending materials down, but it's a drop in the bucket.

109:47What Cuba needs is to be able to import oil. They need to be part of the international financial system so they can trade like anyone else. They need to lift the sanctions. And those sanctions are unfortunately codified and that happened after the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue plane that they have just indicted Raul Castro for.

110:08After that, Congress came in and codified the sanctions. So, it's going to be a long slog to get these lifted, but that's what the Cubans need right now.

110:17>> Uh how serious do you think the threats of an invasion are? Politico has a piece up.

110:23You The US has the Pentagon puts building blocks in place for Cuba invasion. The Navy's presence in the Caribbean has not reduced despite the Iran war. I think this is happening because of the Iran war, because of the failure of Trump to win in Iran, to score any military victory, to achieve any objective. Actually, it was a massive defeat and he needs a quick win.

110:44Do you think it's possible that the US will stage some sort of kinetic action against Cuba along the lines of Venezuela or even more aggressive?

110:55>> I think there are people in the administration who understand that this would not be a quick win, that there are too many people after all these years who still support the Cuban government.

111:06Of course, there's a lot of people who don't, but there are still a lot of people who do. And uh that there's no Delcy Rodriguez who just put into power taking out one person. Um this is a uh a government that has a lot of layers to it. And uh it might be that there are I mean certainly there are plans in place for an invasion. I heard that Trump said he didn't want troops on the ground more than 48 hours. Uh but I've also heard that they really want the slow bleed. Uh that they want to uh wait this out. That they know this summer is going to be very difficult. Uh and they're thinking that, you know, this could fall by

111:45itself um if they just play their cards right. They say they have even more possible sanctions. It's hard to even think of what else they could possibly sanction because they've sanctioned so much.

111:58>> Yeah.

111:58>> But, you know, I I think that there might be some preference to just uh letting waiting this out.

112:06>> Yeah.

112:07And and allowing many people to possibly die excess deaths. Uh I was visiting with a friend a mutual friend who went on a solidarity mission to deliver aid and said that while he was out in the countryside, he got an like an abscess in his tooth or in his gums and went in for an operation.

112:29Of course, you know, you get first-rate medical care in Cuba, but there's no anesthetic. So, he did the operation without anesthetic and suffered the most intense pain he'd ever experienced. And that's what the average Cuban is going through right now.

112:43>> Yeah, it's not a question, Max, of whether people uh will die. They are dying because of this. I mean, I mentioned the doubling of the infant mortality rate. You know, Cuba was a country that had a lower infant mortality rate than the US, than Western rich countries. And yet the fact that that is doubling now is because of these sanctions. And I know people who can't get their cancer medicines, who can't get the diabetes treatment they they need. There are supposedly 60,000 people who can't get operations right now, and many of them children. So, the sanctions are not an alternative to war, they are a kind of warfare, and they are

113:26killing people right now. And people should be so upset about this policy.

113:32They should be speaking out, pushing their members of Congress to vote for the war powers resolutions that are coming up in both of the House and the Senate. One coming up this week, the one other one probably the next week. So, we need to speak out and say this is unconscionable. We don't want to keep killing babies, and we don't want groups like ours who took primarily medicines and medical equipments to the pediatric hospitals to be harassed, intimidated, and possibly sanctioned with very severe sanctions because we are trying to save lives.

114:10>> And uh last question unless Aaron wants to ask or add anything, which is, you know, why do you why do you think what's the real reason that the Trump administration is targeting Code Pink, Hassan [ __ ] and the and others that it plans to target with these kind of demands for information and borderline subpoenas. My theory is, you know, Cuba was a convenient opening for them, but it's really about Israel.

114:37>> You know, I think it's about Cuba because these Cuban Americans in Miami have been pushing this for decades. And yes, some of them have connections to Israel, and many of them are sympathetic towards Israel, and take money from AIPAC. But really, they have their own issue, which is people like Maria Elvira Salazar, like Carlos Gimenez, like Diaz-Balart, Uh of course Marco Rubio. Their entire careers, especially the members of Congress, have been built around trying to overthrow the government in Cuba. And they've been going after us constantly and pushing the Treasury Department.

115:14They've been pushing the uh the um uh different areas of government, the State Department, to be investigating us constantly. So, I think that um you know, if you look at what uh how obsessed these people are. And they have a strong lobby and there what is a uh another connection to Israel, which is they learned from the AIPAC lobby.

115:38They're a smaller group of people. They don't have as much money, but they are well organized. And because the opposition like us um are not paid for by the Chinese Communist Party, contrary to allegations, uh the group supporting uh uh Cuba's right to sovereignty um do not have a lot of money and are not well organized. Um then they hold the the sway. The other thing to recognize is that it's our tax dollars, millions of them, year after year after year, that have been going to these groups in Miami to do everything from uh broadcasting radio and TV Marti that are blocked from getting into Cuba, but the money has

116:21kept going year after year, uh to actually going around the world and trying to find disgruntled doctors, Cuban doctors working overseas, who would tell how bad the Cuban government is. So, um that is uh another connection, just like we give a lot of money to Israel, uh we give a lot of money to these Cuba groups in Miami.

116:43>> Indeed. Uh one of the reasons I think, you know, they started getting this slush fund at was after the Bay of Pigs. There was a fear of blowback that they would actually carry out terrorist attacks inside the US unless they were given something to do. Uh and focus back on Cuba.

117:00Uh very extreme element, dangerous element, and uh >> and carried out extremist and violent acts in Cuba from the Bay of Pigs on. In fact, Jose Basulto from Brothers to the Rescue was a a part of Bay of Pigs and involved in violent activities ever since. And I remember being in Cuba when they blew up a hotel and killed an Italian >> Yep.

117:24>> tourist.

117:24>> placed a bomb in the trash can in the hotel, right? In the lobby.

117:28>> And of course, there's the airliner that they blew up.

117:31>> Cubana 455.

117:33>> Exactly. Uh killing 73 three people including the entire Cuban fencing team.

117:39And um the people responsible for that uh live their life out very comfortably in Miami. Um uh Posada Carriles one of them. We once did an action where uh it was part of the war on terror and we said there's a terrorist living in Miami. We went to the FBI office in Miami and we said, "You got to you know, you got to do something. There's a terrorist living here." We gave the address. Of course, the FBI didn't do anything. So, we went to his house and we also then did a um a a a a protest outside of Versailles um the restaurant where the right-wing Cuban Americans congregate. Uh and almost and we did get attacked. Uh and

118:21um we have been uh we have been complaining for years about these terrorists living in Miami. But of course, they are our terrorists, quote our terrorists, meaning the US government terrorists. In fact, Jose Basulto even said he was trained as a terrorist in the United States and in those overflights he was doing over Cuba, he said, "We want confrontation."

118:42Uh the US uh government people said, "One of these days the Cubans are going to shoot up those planes down." And of course, that happened.

118:51>> That it Yep. A warning was given to the FAA Uh right before it took place and a month before by the Clinton administration's top Cuba hand, Luis Posada Carriles died in his home, in his bed in Miami. His partner in crime who bombed the Cuban airliner 455, Orlando Bosch, uh was honored in Miami with Orlando Bosch Day. So, as you said, there are terrorists, you're our freedom fighter and you're being targeted for the righteous work you're doing to save lives and to um intervene against the war machine. So, we uh thank you for joining us at The Gray Zone and hope you know, I would just want to make sure everyone's aware of

119:35this so they can support you. How can people best support Code Pink as you're being targeted by the Trump mafia and the Gusano industrial complex of Miami?

119:47>> Uh keep donating to our humanitarian aid for our Cuba site, which is on our website. Keep joining us on trips to Cuba, which we will keep doing. We think it's very important that people keep going. We just had a group that came down back a couple of days ago and people came back and said, "These are the nicest people I ever met in my life.

120:05Why are we doing this to them?"

120:07>> Yeah.

120:08>> So, keep up the work and also, as I said, please call your members of Congress and tell them to vote for the War Powers Resolution to stop an invasion and the naval blockade that is happening right now.

120:20>> All right. Well, Medea Benjamin from Code Pink, thanks so much for joining us.

120:23>> Thank you. Great to be on with you.

120:25Bye-bye.

120:25>> Great to see you.

120:27So, yeah.

120:29Aaron uh Why Why do you think Hasan Piker's being targeted and uh Well, and are the are you know, he's close to a lot closer to the Democrats than we are.

120:42Are they speaking up for him? Do you think he's adequately being defended?

120:47>> Are the Democrats defending Hasan [ __ ] >> Yeah, like like like the Berniecrats.

120:51>> Uh Ro Khanna I think has spoken out in his defense. But yeah, no, they the Democratic establishment, a lot of them see him as the enemy because he's he's trying to push the party in a progressive direction and he's doing things like going to Cuba. So yeah, I mean, I think this just comes down to evil. Like the you know, these people whether it's regime change in Cuba or genocide in Palestine, they're on the side of evil and they're trying to silence people who are pushing back in their own ways.

121:17And Hasan [ __ ] has grown more influential. Like Code Pink's on the front lines, like they're the ones directly challenging members of Congress more than anybody else. So they have a target on their back. And Hasan [ __ ] is attracting a lot of young people.

121:28And so people in power see him as a threat. So recently I think Congress said voted to censure him and Candace Owens.

121:35>> Yeah.

121:36>> Like that's how they that like that's what they think is a good use of their time and energy to censor um online personalities and and uh but so yeah, um and the fact this was fed to Fox News to just shows that Fox is just a part of a disinformation campaign.

121:53>> Well, they're the you know, their reporter Asra Nomani who is this fake progressive Muslim feminist who walks around with a IDF t-shirt in DC is a fed. I mean, she's basically her job is to roll out these prosecutions to justify them or or justify the targeting of anti-war groups in Fox News before they come down.

122:15And she I think the there's a point of contact in the NSC named Shawn Chenowith who's doing this whole foreign disinformation operations like bot you know, bots are backing up Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson is being amplified by Iran, you know, that whole uh counter disinformation hoax uh uh >> Well, we can thank liberals for that one because that comes up.

122:38>> Yeah, that started during the Biden era.

122:41Um you know, with Russia gate.

122:43>> Yeah.

122:43>> But there's also um, Sebastian Gorka who's the new counterterrorism chief at DNI replacing Joe Kent.

122:51Who is basically an Israeli asset. I mean, he was a personality on Salem media which is now registered as a foreign agent of Israel.

123:01And he's declaring that the entire left like leftist anti-war activists are terrorists under this national security memorandum from the DHS.

123:11I don't know what they can do with that, but they're clearly just trying to crack down on descent as they ship more 2,000 lb bombs to Israel that are destined to make people upset because you know, most people don't like seeing entire families being slaughtered in their home.

123:28>> You know, it just came out from Responsible Statecraft that uh, Salem media got 13 million dollars >> Yeah.

123:36>> from the Israeli government. Which it then handed out to Republican firms uh, and and allies. 13 million dollars. Like imagine if they found even a fraction of that coming from Russia during the Russia gate era.

123:48>> Yeah. Yep.

123:49>> You know, um, 13 million but it comes from Israel so everyone's like, yeah, that's normal. We've just totally normalized this foreign government funding uh, media networks and and and pundits and that's totally fine. That's a form of foreign meddling, foreign influence that's completely acceptable.

124:06>> Who is uh, who are some Salem media personalities that we might recognize who are on who are a part of a foreign agent for Israel who's um, director of strategy is registered as a foreign agent for Israel?

124:19>> And uh, and again, they're run by Brad Parscale who was the former campaign manager.

124:24>> [laughter] >> And it's the person I mean, they include Scott Jennings, right? Of CNN.

124:28>> Yep. So, CNN's top conservative pundit is basically a foreign agent for Israel.

124:36>> Yeah.

124:37>> Here here it is. Actually, it's an Intercept piece. Since the Intercept seems to be less Omidyar-esque now, they're actually doing some real reporting.

124:46Ex-Trump campaign chief funneled millions of Israeli government money to his long-time allies' companies.

124:53Um one of them being Salem Media, which which is where Sebastian Gorka was.

124:59I mean, it's it's all like just naked out and out uh foreign agent uh influence peddling by Israel.

125:09It's right in your face. They've captured almost all of MAGA. Like all of MAGA's main personalities are on Salem Media.

125:17And then they're going after Code Pink and claiming that they're sponsored by the Communist Party of China.

125:23And uh it's not just like a thin read that is their source of evidence.

125:28There really isn't a They They They really don't have any evidence. So, they're demanding They're requesting information. It's a fishing expedition.

125:37Um Hasan [ __ ] you know, I I don't watch him. I I'm I really am not that familiar with him. I don't understand the sensation around him except that he's like someone who accuses Israel of genocide and uh you know, posts photos of himself reading Lenin on trains, who has a connection to the Democrats. So, you know, the the the centrist Democrats and Republicans want to hang him like an albatross around the progressive caucus's neck.

126:07Um as if that will actually work.

126:10That seems to be my sense.

126:13>> I mean, Max, like you're not his intended audience. He's on He's on Twitch, which is a platform for video game streamers, right? But look, I I think he's very effective. He's very articulate. Like he knows his stuff.

126:24He's trying to >> Oh, yeah. You were on stage with him at uh Web Summit.

126:29>> I was on a uh Oh, yeah.

126:31My dad Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, I mean I like like I he's um, I see why they want to go after him. He's very effective. Uh, he's good at it. And he he is, you know, educating more young people about the reality of Israel, which is a good thing. I mean, he he has more faith, I think, in maybe the Democratic Party than I might, but whatever, you know, um, I get why they're going after him because uh, he's popular. And you just can't tolerate dissenting voices that are challenging Israel um, and doing things like like going to Cuba.

127:03>> Yeah, and I saw Nick Fuentes call for him to be jailed. Um, I didn't really understand the rationale there.

127:11Um, but uh, you know, would we support President Rahm Emanuel jailing Nick Fuentes?

127:18>> [gasps] >> Probably not.

127:20>> No, no.

127:21No. [laughter] >> Yeah. Not because uh, you know, out of out of love and solidarity, you know, just there's there's something called principles in the Constitution.

127:33So, it's it's it's it's it's forcing out a lot. It It can the the mask lifting continues.

127:40And it really comes down to principles and not whether you agree with someone or think they dress well uh, or are obnoxious. I think the the the line is should people be jailed for upsetting the Israeli occupied government in the White House or not.

128:05That's pretty much the line here.

128:08Moving on, I mean, Trump I I want to cover Iran today. We haven't really covered that. Do you Do you want to discuss that? Trump is suggesting there's some kind of deal in the works.

128:20>> [snorts] >> I mean, how long are we going to go on with this for where Trump says is he's about to finalize a deal, everything's been settled, and then Iran tells the truth and says, "No, actually uh things are not settled." So, yeah, this is the latest as we're broadcasting. Trump was heading into some White House meeting saying he's going to decide whether or not to approve a peace deal with Iran.

128:41It strikes me that basically there's a general understanding that could extend a ceasefire.

128:46That would involve a partial reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and maybe some of Iran's stolen assets will get returned, a fraction of the money that the US has stolen from Iran, maybe, or maybe some sanctions will be lifted as a token gesture, but that's what strikes me.

129:01Uh if there is any agreement to be made, it's basically another temporary one to extend the ceasefire. The idea that like Trump and Iran have worked out the nuclear file, I mean like no, like that requires a lot of work. It requires people who know what they're talking about, not Steve Witcoff, Jared Kushner, and the guy they recently poached from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Israeli front group.

129:21>> Yeah, Nick Stewart.

129:22>> Nick Stewart. So, uh but it's just I think Trump continues to stall cuz he can't make a decision. He's surrounded by war hawks. Uh but he knows that his military option um is lost, that there is no military solution. He doesn't have the cards, as he told Zelenskyy.

129:39>> Yeah.

129:40>> Uh and he's just trying to figure out a way to I think delay an acceptance of defeat. And he's been talking this week about the Abraham Accords. All of a sudden he wants the remaining Gulf states that haven't joined it to jump on board. The whole point of the Abraham Accords is to sideline Palestinians.

129:56>> Right.

129:57>> Especially after Trump put the region in peril with his unprovoked war of aggression against Iran, he thinks they're going to turn around and reward him by signing on to the sellout agreement. Like so, he's all over the place.

130:10Rinse and repeat.

130:12>> Yeah. I I want to get to Abraham Accords in in a second, but just to cover Trump's message today on Truth Social.

130:19Um you know, he's apparently, according to some Iranian sources, um, and this has come out in Al Jazeera as well, that this comment, this this this post on Truth Social was actually part of the ongoing agreements that he's supposedly making with Iran that he has to announce this before moving forward in order to put it on the record as if anyone can trust Trump.

130:42Um, and he says that Iran must agree they will never have a nuclear weapon or bomb and that the Strait of Hormuz must be immediately opened and that he's basically pledging that it will soon be opened. Say hello to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite president.

130:59Um, the ships caught in the strait will be coming out. He's, you know, and and uh everyone can start heading home.

131:05And then he says the nuclear dust, which, you know, is his reference to the bombed highly enriched uranium, bombed by, uh, you know, an Operation Midnight Hammer, and Isfahan, uh, that it will be unearthed by the US in coordination with he call he calls it the Islamic Republic of Iran, which really does suggest he was doing this under some kind of negotiating pressure, plus the IAEA, and then destroyed, which means it won't necessarily come out to the United States to the United States, which was the initial proposal.

131:42I question whether the IAEA will or should be allowed in there given that they, you know, were furnished names of scientists that Rafael Grossi, the Secretary General's phone was hacked by the Mossad, and that he's proven to be kind of a tool of the West, and that all these scientists got assassinated by Israel. I question whether this is going to go down the same way. No money will be exchanged. Iran has been demanding money up front, uh, sanctions relief, and reparations.

132:10And, uh, you know, but he's he's suggesting there's some deal in the works, uh, which is obviously upsetting the foundation for the destruction of democracy.

132:19>> Mhm.

132:20>> [laughter] >> Yeah, well again, the money that Iran wants is simply it's own money.

132:24That the US has stolen for decades.

132:26>> Yes.

132:26>> In fact, a lot of it right comes from when the Shah was in power and he was buying all the US weapon where he wanted.

132:32So then when the Shah was overthrown, the US simply just kept the money rather than returning it to Iran. Uh, so it's stolen money that Iran wants back along with other assets that have been frozen around the world as the US can do because it controls the financial system and I mean, the main question for me is is Trump >> And and also some of that money is to um, go to like um, US journalists who were like hiking into Iran and were held prisoner. Uh, Shane Bauer being one of them who got something like $300 million of stolen Iranian assets.

133:04>> And then and then campaign after they get released, campaign for regime change against one of Iran's top allies.

133:10>> Yeah.

133:10>> Syria. Um, yeah. I I forgot about that guy. But um, then um, >> That's stolen money that could have been used to provide social programs in Iran that's now being used to um, allow a Bay Area failed journalist to just basically live lavishly.

133:29>> That's a nice life. It's a nice life.

133:30Good for him. Um, so uh, but my question is for Trump, uh, is he going to be willing to uh, stand up to Netanyahu and tell him to stop his war of aggression in Lebanon. Cuz that's what Iran is demanding. Iran insists on linking any ceasefire to Lebanon.

133:50>> And will Trump actually fall through on that? Can he actually tell Netanyahu to knock it off? I think if he wanted to, he could. The question is does he have the fortitude? Uh, does he is he willing to anger Miriam Adelson and Lindsey Graham and all those war hawks and Israel firsters around him? That's to me what this comes down to.

134:08Uh, remember a few weeks about a month ago he said that Israel's forbidden from bombing Lebanon anymore. Like like what happened to that one? Cuz Israel's been bombing Lebanon pretty much every single day since Trump issued that pronouncement. So, will he be willing to ultimately follow through on that? I think that's the question. And also on Iran, are they now really going to agree to not have nuclear weapon at this point after all they've been through?

134:32>> Yeah, exactly.

134:33>> You know, um if I were in their shoes, I I I don't know what I would do. I think they're in a tough position.

134:40Um if they renounce a nuclear weapon permanently, forever, they're making themselves vulnerable to two powers that have attacked them repeatedly and have nuclear weapons. Uh but also let's say they decided to go for nuclear weapon, they also would be inviting another US Israeli attack uh including with nuclear weapons.

134:59Cuz >> Here's the here's the threat of a uh US attack uh after the US completely failed on every level militarily.

135:08>> Um the adversaries know what's coming for and that's when >> This is our Secretary of War.

135:14>> and meet the fury of the American military or back down and you create a whole bunch of options for America and the president of what he wants >> You see how they're holding their arms?

135:24They're being told to do that because if they have an Audi belly button, they don't want the PR disaster of what Trump experienced in the White House where there was this guy with a huge gut and a gigantic Audi like his umbilical cord was was like sliced with pliers at his birth.

135:41And that so they're being told to stand like that. And also to cover up their guts. They're like some of them aren't in very good shape, but they're doing early morning training with Pete Hegseth. And this is like, you know, these are the like the front-line fighting forces that are going to seize Karg Island.

135:54>> Yeah, we're not going to have to do that anyway.

135:55>> So right now, hey, Iran has a choice.

135:59Meet at the table with the president and give up their nuclear program >> Look at the guy filming. Like [laughter] where do they come from? Uh yeah, Iran has a choice. Give give up your nuclear program.

136:10>> And as the president said, I'm lost on time. 2 days ago now, in the cabinet meeting, I'm sitting right next to him.

136:17He looks in the camera, he says, "Well, Iran can either do it the right way with a deal across the table, or they can deal with my guy on the left."

136:27That happened to be me.

136:28And it's not me, it's you guys.

136:31>> Who you guys?

136:31>> It's all of you.

136:33IT'S WHAT YOU'RE READY TO DO. It's what >> Yeah, well, that doesn't look very intimidating to me. I love his "This is war" shirt and his crusader tattoos.

136:41Like, I'm sure Iran is shake Iran the IRGC is shaking in their boots right now.

136:46>> Maybe Pete Hegseth is also trying to cover himself for a future war crimes trial, you know, by saying it's not me, it's you guys. So, trying to pass off responsibility for war crimes to these poor uh, soldiers under under his watch.

136:57But, yeah.

136:58>> Exactly. I mean, I don't I don't actually know if he even saw combat. He was he was assigned to a kind of like desk job, reassigned after his convoy was supposedly attacked, but there's no documentation of that attack. He was a mid-level National Guard officer. Um, yeah, it's you guys. It's not me, it's you guys.

137:17It's not uh, Steven Feinberg, my assistant at the Pentagon, who runs everything. It's you guys.

137:23>> And it's them who will die in the war that him and Trump launch. And uh, remember when Trump showed up at uh, the military base where the where the bodies of dead soldiers uh, come back to. He showed up wearing like a a baseball cap >> Yeah.

137:40>> and didn't look like he wanted to be there. Uh, yeah, so I mean, Pete Hegseth is right. It's it's not him bearing the brunt of the war, you know, risking his life for it. It's it's them. And of course, many more people inside of Iran who uh, on top of all the all the many that that they've already killed.

137:57>> Yeah. I mean, he had to wear that hat.

137:59It was a windy day and he had to keep in his weird yellow grafted conk pompadour from flying in the wind. And uh Like he has a kind of has a conk like in the '40s. And uh It was at the same time a very serious sign of disrespect.

138:21Uh I mean, there were rumors that a US jet was taken down um near Bushehr, where they're doing a lot of overflights yesterday. US military denies it.

138:34Uh some an MQ-9 drone a Triton drone was taken down over Yemen by Yemen uh Ansar Allah. US lost another drone 2 days ago. I mean, this is going to continue happening, but if they bring, you know, ground troops in, it's not it's going to be a political catastrophe. And Aaron, you mentioned, you know, this this demand by Trump for Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states to sign on with the Epstein Accords or the Abraham Accords, as they're formally known.

139:04And this would invalidate In doing so, it would invalidate, I think, the signature diplomatic initiative of the um Saudi monarchy.

139:15I think this was under Abdulaziz in 2002, the Arab Arab Peace Initiative, which is an initiative for a Palestinian state. They do have a domestic population to answer to that supports the Palestinians. MBS does, the Crown Prince.

139:31So, joining the uh Abraham Accords would mean sort of invalidating years of Saudi diplomacy and upsetting the local population that, you know, the UAE doesn't have to contend with.

139:46I think this is Jared Kushner's idea.

139:48This is the FDD's idea. Like, okay, if you're going to do a deal, do this, and it's a way of kind of like >> Yeah.

139:53>> gumming up the works. And also, it is a message to the Gulf states who are not the UAE, which is already just completely cast its lot with Israel and the US and especially Trump.

140:07Do this or we will start the war again and you will be destroyed by Iran. So we will actually be destroying you by proxy through Iran because we're going to be launching attacks from your territory and Iran has already told you what it's going to do. Yeah. The US is actually tacitly threatening Saudi Arabia with destruction and at the same time it is openly threatening its oldest ally in the region in Oman. The US has been an ally of Oman for 200 years with destruction.

140:39>> It's international waters. Nobody's going to control it. We're going to watch over it. We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have.

140:48They would like to control it. Nobody's going to control it.

140:50>> [clears throat] >> International waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else. So we'll have to blow them up. They understand that. They'll be fine.

140:59>> No. We'll blow up Oman if they don't behave like everyone else.

141:03Oman has been overseeing all the diplomacy around Iran. They tried to prevent this war through diplomacy and they actually disclosed that Witkoff and Kushner misled the public about what was taking place in the negotiations and used negotiations as cover for war. So maybe Trump can't forgive them, but Oman is supposed to be part of the maintenance of the Strait of Hormuz because it's in their waters and the large and the Strait of Hormuz is in Iranian waters. That's not international waters. I mean at one point the Strait of Hormuz is like 23 miles wide. That's not international waters.

141:41This is just a lie.

141:43>> Yeah, and Oman has said even in the aftermath of Trump's threats that they're going to work with Iran. So they're not accepting his threats to blow them up.

141:50And >> But this is a message to region region to to the Saudis to to everyone is the US will have you destroyed or will destroy you directly unless you start to actually behave like a member of the region and a member of the Arab world and the Muslim world and deal with Iran as a partner instead of an enemy and using the US uh for protection to protect your oil fields. Like it's the there's no the protection racket is over. Yeah. And the Trump administration has blown that up.

142:27>> The fundamental dividing line in the region in terms of what causes conflict is those who sell out the Palestinians and those who don't. And because Iran hasn't sold out the Palestinians, because Hezbollah hasn't, um they were targeted for regime change and targeted for aggression. And now Trump is saying to his Gulf allies, join the sellouts or else you'll be destroyed.

142:49>> Yeah.

142:49>> But uh it's just you know, it's I mean it's not going to I mean I don't see Saudi Arabia or especially Qatar like why would they especially reward Trump after he did so much damage to them with this war of aggression?

143:03>> Yeah.

143:04>> It's like the worst timing possible. If you're trying to get someone to sell out the Palestinians, this is the worst timing possible after Trump and Netanyahu launching a war of aggression that caused major damage to the whole region. I mean Qatar has suffered major damage uh after Iran retaliated. So did Saudi Arabia. So so why would they I mean to be why would they even in normal circumstances reward Trump and especially now? It just speaks to his complete detachment from reality and colonial arrogance.

143:33>> Well, speaking of detachment from reality, this is one of the leading Democrats in the house uh echoing a message from other leading Democrats who are sponsored by the Israel lobby.

143:48>> I am concerned and frustrated over again another potential deal and negotiation for a negotiation where we're going to unfreeze Iranian assets and give them billions of dollars to be able to control proxies again and to rebuild their ballistic missile program, never mind their drone program which is incredibly deadly and they've been increasing their drone capability. So, this is deeply concerning and look, I'm glad that Iran their capability militarily has been degraded, but if what we get from this initial deal is just going back to where we were before where Iran did not control the Strait of Hormuz, then what

144:33has been accomplished?

144:36>> Debbie Wasserman Schultz uh South Florida, supporter of regime change in Cuba, Venezuela, elsewhere and uh heavily sponsored by the Israel lobby and she's now actually going to run in a black majority district, one of the last black majority districts in Florida uh since the Republicans have uh gutted the Voting Rights Act and eliminating eliminated black representation south of the Mason-Dixon Line. She's going to run in that district. Um I don't know if anyone told her that uh Jerry curl is no longer in fashion in the community.

145:14Uh >> Well, that's why I mean change >> Change your look up a little bit.

145:18>> Yeah, it's called it's called gerrymandering, not Jerry curling.

145:22>> [laughter] >> Or or you could say it's all >> Jerry curl mandering >> I'm surprised that I'm surprised that like actual Jew haters haven't seized on this and called it Jewrymandering.

145:33>> [laughter] >> I'll go get there.

145:37>> Yeah, they'll get there. For a free trip from us. Um But yeah, uh >> There's there's too much to on with like revelations of like ritual child abuse in Israel for them to focus on that. But But yeah, uh the Democrats are not exactly putting up opposition or supporting this deal, but Debbie Wasserman Schultz supported the Iran deal under Obama.

145:58>> So it's like really?

145:59>> She did.

146:00>> Huh, okay. Well, because her talking points there were just basically Trump's talking points in opposing the nuclear deal. You know, why we giving them money, why aren't we talking about their ballistic missile program? That's what the Republican Chuck Schumer objection was cuz Chuck Schumer was a Democrat who also opposed the Iran nuclear deal. So, she's joined the Trump Chuck Schumer camp. I didn't realize that she supported the Iran deal. I'm very surprised by that.

146:23>> After I saw that interview, I looked it up and oh yeah, they're such cynical partisan bastards who really believe in nothing and it's not it's not just Israel's, anything Trump does, even if he is as we've talked about again and again, even if he moves towards peace, which he no longer really does, they oppose it.

146:44Um but their natural tendency is towards conflict.

146:48And uh I guess Obama was strong at that strong enough at that point to kind of whip the votes.

146:55But I I I don't see much you know, messaging there's not enough messaging around this war and how it is just utterly destroying not just the global economy, but the economy in deep red districts.

147:10In Nebraska, for example, in Kansas, where fertilizer is needed, Trump's base is being completely demoralized. Trump's approval rating is almost at a historical low.

147:23Trump is at the same place at this point in his second term that Richard Nixon was in 1972 during the secret bombing when the secret bombing campaign of of Cambodia was revealed. That's where Donald Trump is.

147:40Um no other president in recent time as times has been this unpopular. And it's because the American public understands, but the Democrats are like maybe they're what what the the cynical play is let's keep the war going or prevent a deal from opening the Strait of Hormuz because the um by destroying the economy we're weakening Trump or keeping the economy weak.

148:07The same way that Trump didn't uh and the Republicans blocked Biden from uh shutting down the US-Mexico border because they wanted the immigration crisis to be a major >> Yeah.

148:19>> to uh point of contention when Trump ran again.

148:24>> I have heard from people who work on Capitol Hill who are uh progressives that they think that's exactly what the Democratic strategy is. Let the war go on and make Trump suffer the political consequences.

148:35Uh so that would make sense to me that that's what they're doing. Make them own this war. Uh but at the same time as we see from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, there is a big constituency in the Democratic Party leadership that supports this war of aggression.

148:48>> Yeah.

148:49>> Their Senate leader is Chuck Schumer who openly bragged that his job is to get aid to Israel.

148:55Who openly said that we can't have peace with the Palestinians cuz they don't believe in the Torah.

148:59>> Yeah.

148:59>> He's as Jewish supremacist he's as uh Israel first Jewish supremacist as anybody in Trump's camp. So uh I mean no no wonder it's a pretty easy for Trump to continue this given the state of his opposition. And yeah I mean as for why he would blow everything up his whole political project up just for Israel. I I mean he's so narcissistic maybe he just doesn't care.

149:20He's not running for office again at least if he respects the rules. So therefore he just doesn't care. He doesn't care. He's not Is he ideologically a Republican? No.

149:30He's a guy who loves musicals and wants to like, you know, golf with his rich friends. And so, maybe he's already looking ahead to that.

149:39>> Yeah, and making his genius son >> [snorts] >> even wealthier.

149:43>> Yes.

149:44>> He's a genius cuz he can turn on and off his laptop.

149:48Barron Trump. Uh you know, we saw Thomas Massie get defeated by basically Israel and its billionaire cutouts, and that was sort of within a red district, a referendum Trump, and where Fox boomers stand on that in the Iran war. I guess they they support it.

150:09>> Yeah.

150:09>> But there's a statewide race in Michigan, which will be another kind of referendum. And you have Abdul El-Sayed, who is uh you know, running in a state with the the largest Arab-American population in the country, who's Arab-American.

150:25This cringeworthy kind of neoliberal candidate, Mallory McMorrow, who presents herself as just like an ordinary Democrat who cares about ordinary things, but you won't stop She refuses to stop taking money from AIPAC, can't take a clear stand on the war. And then, there's this other figure, um what, Haley Stevens?

150:49And this is her, very attractive uh candidate reflecting the Democratic youthful base.

150:56>> And in the United States Congress, I will continue to fight for the people of Israel. I will continue to fight for Israel's existence.

151:09Israel comes to me in my dreams. I see Israel's future, and I know that Israel will continue to exist for the Jewish people.

151:22I love you all so very much.

151:25HAPPY HAPPY HANUKKAH.

151:28THANK YOU.

151:31>> Israel comes to her in her dreams. By the way, she's not Jewish, just if anyone wants to become more anti-Semitic after seeing that, you know, she and Elissa Slotkin >> [laughter] >> are not Jewish as far as I know, but Israel comes to her in her dreams and she's a Democrat. She's getting wrecked in the polls.

151:49Uh, Abdullah Hammoud is winning handily in Michigan. So, you know, this could be a positive sign on where things could go towards 2028.

151:59The Democrats are the only arena for contestation on the Iran war at this point or on Israel-Palestine.

152:07And I and then I figure, you know, the the side that wants to sanction Israel, that wants to do a war powers resolution against the war on Iran and further wars, that would want some kind of lasting negotiation and deal with Iran will get stomped by the Democratic Party leadership, but there will at least be a more substantial fight and figures like Haley Stevens don't really seem to have a a future in places like Michigan.

152:36I just love that clip, so I wanted an excuse.

152:39>> I never heard of her. That's uh that's some good comic relief, so yeah, thanks for that.

152:44>> Um, I I want to talk about Venezuela. That's like the last thing I want to talk about. Anything else you want to cover?

152:53>> Uh, why I mentioned since we're still on the topic of Democrats, why I mentioned that clip of James Zogby talking about I mean, we >> Yeah, yeah. I'll I'll pull that up. That And it was interesting reveal because these figures, you know, they're trying to they're making a comeback tour. Tony Blinken and uh and and Jake Sullivan, who is NSC director, basically running the Biden administration as Biden uh mind decayed uh are are on a comeback tour and they want to come back into the party and take control over the foreign policy apparatus once again.

153:34Um This is Jim Zogby longtime Arab American activist who's always kind of been had a had a a foothold within the Democratic Party um which has made him kind of have a very soft position on Palestine, but he had access to these figures and he reveals some very the like just absolutely disgusting interactions with Sullivan and Blinken if you want to during the the early stages of the Gaza genocide if you want to roll it.

154:03>> Yeah. By the way, I bit of Grayzone trivia here. The person you're speaking to >> Yes.

154:08>> she was the head of a group, people might remember this, called the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the group that called me the biggest spreader of disinformation on Syria. And then when I asked for an example of even one one case of me spreading disinformation, they refused to provide and even change their complaints policy so they wouldn't have to respond to me.

154:24So she was ahead of that group. And funny enough, I just learned recently um that and I missed this announcement, but the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which again was like a NATO shady >> State Department funded, Bill Gates funded >> They recently merged with another group, uh the Alliance for Securing Democracy if you remember them.

154:40>> Like the ones who did Hamilton 68 and >> Hamilton like to the group behind the Hamilton 68 bots were basically everything that the establishment didn't like, they would tell you that a Russian bot was promoting it and the entire establishment media took that seriously.

154:54They're testifying before Congress. So anyway, they've merged with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. So congratulations to the Alliance for Securing Democracy and another useless pro-war think tank for joining forces. And of course, who even cares attention to them anymore, but just some nostalgia for people. But >> Yeah, so Jasmine El Gamal was the one who branded you the biggest spreader of disinformation and she's seen here interviewing Jim Zogby and she was like a former Pentagon hack, like kind of like a civilian at the Pentagon and she was part of the program which brought us the genocide in Gaza but now, you know, she

155:31is now a critic of this whole situation.

155:35Um, but that's sort of, you know, our own, you know, it's beside the point of what we want to >> Yeah, just a side note.

155:42>> show here.

155:43>> to a meeting with Jake Sullivan and I get there and here we were talking about October 7th and the aftermath and there were Arab American groups, Palestinian groups completely not included. He spoke first and talked about the trauma being experienced by the Jewish community and when he finished I said uh I understand that and I grew up with a mother who made me very sensitive to the plight of Jews during World War II and the aftermath and know from Jewish friends how traumatized they were and it reminded them of the pogroms. It reminded them of the threat of Eastern European Jews and I said, let me tell

156:18you my experience in the camps and survivors of the Nakba. That is happening now with Palestinians. They're feeling that one more time they're going to be victimized and expelled and they're under threat. I said, we have to keep both in mind and he didn't say anything and then toward the end of the meeting he started going like this with his hands on his head. I was like, what's going What is he doing? And he said, I have to say something. I know you're going to get upset but I have to say something. He said, what you said about, you know, that we have to remember the Palestinians, he said, that

156:41smacked of whataboutism. Like they're both equal and he said like that's unacceptable. [laughter] I was like, he was so angry that it startled me.

156:49>> Wow.

156:49>> And I said, I did not say you know, this justifies that. I just said, there are two peoples and we have to consider the the consequences to both. It was a bad experience. Then I went to Blinken and the meeting with Blinken was weird because I remember saying to him or somebody else said to him about the number of civilian casualties and he said, it's intolerable, absolutely intolerable. And I said, we should push for a ceasefire. He said, "No, that would be intolerable." I said, "So, there are two intolerables, and you've chosen the one that will make more of the other intolerable happen." And he

157:20just nodded. He did a lot of nodding. I don't know whether it was ideology, whether it was just out of being out of touch or in denial, or or what. I had never dealt with people more detached from the reality of what was taking place than these guys.

157:35>> Yeah.

157:38>> Well, thank you.

157:39>> and and this this this this is all backed up with their by their public statements. Like, that really reflects what Tony Blinken would say in public.

157:47Like, the loss of every child is intolerable.

157:51But, we must not have a ceasefire because on October 7th, Hamas entered homes and mutilated people with chainsaws, with hockey masks on.

158:01And >> Sorry, what?

158:03>> And then the meat hooks. Like, it was like that. He just lied openly before Congress on October 31st. Watch Tony Blinken's Senate testimony. He openly lies about atrocities on October 7th to oppose a ceasefire. And then the loss of every child, but then I'll tell you this, take a look in my cold, dead eyes.

158:20Don't you believe I care about life?

158:22I dress my own children up as Vladimir Zelenskyy for Halloween. I care about kids.

158:28He actually did that.

158:29>> I know. I remember.

158:30>> Um and Jake Sullivan, like human scarecrow Jake Sullivan, is much worse. And uh now they're trying to reinsert themselves. We can't let them come back.

158:39I mean, as horrible as Trump is, you know, we can't let that happen.

158:45Hunter Biden's trying to um have a comeback tour. I mean, that's how bad it is.

158:51But, Hunter Biden, for all he did, you know, him hitting the pipe with Marion Barry at Archibald's strip club doesn't compare to hitting homes of entire families in the Gaza Strip with GBU bombs, which is what Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken did again and again and again.

159:13>> [gasps] >> I think we've run the gamut on that region for today. Um I just wanted to highlight uh my latest report at The Grayzone, which was has been corroborated by The Washington Post. I think I forced them to come out with their piece a few hours after I dropped it.

159:35Um on who's really in charge in Caracas.

159:40And I've learned a lot about what's going on there through this through this report, which scooped The Washington Post and Reuters.

159:47And I provided a lot more detail on the corruption than they did. They um got access to the figure I wrote about who would not speak to me, who is the most important figure of the I would say of the Trump administration on Latin America, but is not in the Trump administration.

160:07So, the person who's really who really holds the keys to Caracas, Mauricio Claver-Carone, and that's his partner over his right shoulder, Jessica Badoia, who helps him run his investment firm, um Laura Fund, and is also a CIA agent who oversaw the um deportation or abduction of Alex Saab, but is also not in the Trump administration per se.

160:39The The The The person running the show, the imperial viceroy, who controls access to Delcy Rodríguez, who has determined which uh international firm, advisory firm, will advise Venezuela's government on its $170 billion in sovereign debt, who has overseen every scheme in the past relating to Venezuela, including the recognition of Juan Guaidó as interim president, the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to Cúcuta, all the sanctions on Venezuela, the sanctions on Cuba, who over who devised the kinetic operation to kidnap Nicolás Maduro and Celia Flores.

161:20This guy, he's not in the Trump administration, and so he's not accountable to anyone. And he runs an investment firm and has openly said that he aims to be the Cuban-American Jared Kushner, which means if you want any deal in Caracas, you have to go to him, and he's going to take a cut and raise tons of capital for his investment firm. And I have it on good authority from a former US official, a senior US official, that he was raising capital for that firm when he was in the Trump administration, which I think is illegal. But that's the way they roll.

161:53That's what Caracas is about at this point for them.

161:59For the Trump administration, it's just about making money, plundering the carcass of the post-Maduro petrostate.

162:07And in the middle of it all is Delcy Rodríguez, someone I've you know, interacted with in Caracas, interviewed.

162:16And it uh is and she is in a very precarious situation.

162:26The risk there is over-compliance.

162:30She's doing too much for the Trump administration.

162:34The other risk is non-compliance will lead to a potential massacre.

162:40What Delcy Rodríguez has done by embracing these figures, and I know she doesn't like Mauricio Claver-Carone, but has to deal with him because he's sort of the mentor of Marco Rubio, who was in the Senate when he was in the first Trump administration devising the entire Latin American policy.

162:57He He knows where all the bodies are buried.

163:00Um he knows how to move the paper.

163:04Delcy Rodriguez, if she doesn't comply, she will face more pressure for elections, and they'll run someone like Maria Corina Machado. They'll They could rig the election for all we know. They could suppress the Chavista vote, ram her in there, or she could just win outright because of years and years of sanctions grinding down and demoralizing the population, and then she will enact a purge working with the US uh working with the CIA, which is reestablishing its base in Caracas, of the Chavista leadership, and more than Alex Saab will go to prison. So, there's that risk. Not just prison, killings,

163:39the purging of the colectivos, the ending of the comunas, the uh you know, they they could get rid of the cooperative farms and left-wing media stations that flourished under the Bolivarian Revolution. So, there's a lot at risk there. But, the risk of overcompliance is that the Democrats come into power, and Delcy Rodriguez is completely identified with the Trump administration and its reign of corruption in Caracas.

164:05>> Mhm.

164:06>> Where Donald Trump Jr., a source told me, is going down there trying to rustle up funds for his 1789 Capital, which is just a pure channel for corruption.

164:15Peter Thiel has a new deal uh through a startup to reconnect Venezuela's Central Bank to the global economy, to the SWIFT network.

164:23And uh the other backer of that fund is Par- Palmer Luckey from Anduril. All the All these uh you know, MAGA crypto scammers and AI lords are doing everything they can to capitalize on the opening up of of Caracas, and it And there's there's almost no accountability. Where is all the money from the profits of Venezuelan oil exports going?

164:49Supposedly to a Citibank account in New York. There's some accounting firm that I don't know if it's what accounting it's producing.

164:57But the two um firms in charge of getting the oil out physically and how with their fleet of ships and taking it around the world including to Israel, Vitol and Trafigura are two of the most corrupt trading houses on the planet.

165:13And they've been given this deal by design because they're corrupt, because it's obscure.

165:20They were fined hundreds of millions of dollars under the Biden administration by the Department of Justice's Foreign Corrupt Practices Division.

165:29What's the first thing that the depart- the Attorney General Pam Bondi does under Trump? One of the first things?

165:37Get rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Division of the Department of Justice.

165:41Then they bring them in right after Maduro and Flores Celia Flores, his wife, are kidnapped.

165:46And they're selling the oil on the international market. And where's the money going? Is the money even going back to Venezuela?

165:53Some of it, I don't know. Trump said the money's going to pay for the Iran war. So it's his own personal slush fund.

166:01What we can conclude is it's just a very corrupt arrangement Delcy Rodríguez has taken on.

166:07And there are a lot of questions to ask about January 3rd uh when Maduro was kidnapped, why it took place.

166:15Um but I am going to just continue reporting the facts as they come in. And I know I got it right here.

166:22I don't think anyone can dispute anything in my report.

166:26We're going to have more and more reports coming out corroborating what I wrote.

166:31And I'm learning more and more about the deportation of Alex Saab.

166:36Um there's more coming out about that.

166:39And I'm getting, you know, I have sources >> explain that quickly. Let's explain the because people don't People who don't know who that is.

166:45He was first kidnapped under the Trump administration because he was helping Venezuela evade sanctions on Venezuela's food program, which he uses to feed people. He was kidnapped, uh tortured, put this put through this huge ordeal, finally released under the Biden administration under uh a prisoner exchange, right? Sent back to Venezuela.

167:05He's a Colombian national. And now in the aftermath of Trump's kidnapping of Maduro, Delcy deports Saab back to the US for another round of I presume torture and abuse. Um you know, looking at it from the outside, it's it's very confusing.

167:24>> It's confusing, but it's also a capitulation to dictatorial tyrannical US demands. There can be no doubt about that.

167:35Uh Alex Saab was made a citizen by Venezuela. He was Colombian. He was important to help them evade sanctions, which were a crime, and to sustain their economy, and to provide food to their population through the CLAP program, which I, you know, covered when we were in Venezuela.

167:53And now he's being treated like a dog by the Venezuelan government. They're saying he was corrupt, that he was uh collaborating with the US, and they just they sent him away to be tormented in a US prison, and he'll probably be used against Nicolás Maduro, whose prosecution was very weak, as I helped expose in the beginning.

168:13Uh soon after I mean, when I looked at like the charges against him. The US government sort of admitting it's weak, so they're going to use Alex Saab as a witness against him, most likely.

168:23Uh and he's been separated from his family and his kids, who've been sent to Italy, I think.

168:29It it it it looks bad.

168:32And at the same time, you know, I'm hearing from some sources in Caracas who are Chavista, yeah, he was he was uh getting a little too big for his britches. He wasn't playing ball with the new Delcy Rodriguez administration, which is all about party loyalty and strategic patience to try to like get through this difficult period and allow some vestiges of Chavismo and the Bolivarian Revolution to survive.

168:59Uh but right now, all we can say is Delcy Rodriguez has not prevented a massacre.

169:05The massacre that could have occurred on January 3rd, she has postponed a massacre.

169:11And I I don't know, you know, what that What what va- what what what value is there in postponing the inevitable?

169:21Well, either strategic patience works or it doesn't. But then the question is sort of like what is our role?

169:28What is my role?

169:29I've been thinking about this a lot. I'm a I'm a journalist with with opinions. I have my views and, you know, I have been really outspoken in opposing all of the financial terrorism against Venezuela. I think Chavismo was good for the country. It reduced poverty, extreme poverty by over 50%. It was providing social programs to the for the country through their own resources.

169:57And [snorts] they, you know, were not a threat to the United States. Uh I you know, I've interacted with their leadership, interviewed Maduro, I've interviewed uh you know, you you've interacted with their leadership. You know, what is the position that I should be in right now?

170:13My For me, I'm just going to tell the truth as I see it and as the facts come in, I will report them. It is not my job to defend Delcy Rodriguez. I'm not going to be defending Delcy Rodriguez at this point.

170:28Um and and some of the things that are being done, in my view, are indefensible, but it's also not my job to attack uh and condemn and call names when I don't fully understand all the complexities that I'm working on understanding.

170:44That's and and what is the job of, you know, the the solidarity movement or the anti-war movement?

170:50I don't think that necessarily needs to be their job, either.

170:54Their job should be, first of all, demanding that political prisoners, Nicolas Maduro and Celia Flores, be returned to their country or be released from the federal prison in New York where we, the US taxpayer, are actually paying for them to be held against their will after they were abducted after the killing of over 30 Cuban officers and the killing of many Venezuelan civilians. That's That's That's That should be the job of the the activists.

171:24The activists don't have to necessarily defend the government in power now.

171:29The activists should focus on condemning and combating the killing of non-combatants in the eastern Caribbean and near Venezuelan near Venezuela who are often just fishermen.

171:44Uh, activists should be focused on opposing the US military landing V-22 Ospreys in the middle of Caracas. And many people did come out and protest.

171:54But, uh, you know, to the uh, but I'm not going to uh, be subjected to uh, calls for loyalty.

172:04I I I'm I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to continue to investigate. I'm going to continue to to tell the truth and I think it's very dangerous for Delcy Rodriguez to over-comply and embrace Trump uh, more tightly than is necessary.

172:20But, uh, again, I think right right here at the Gray Zone, the most important thing is factual journalism more than rhetoric on Venezuela or Venezuela is concerned.

172:35And there's a just a lot we don't know.

172:38What I do know I'm putting in print and I think it was all true.

172:43necessarily and it wasn't like condemnation of Delcy Rodriguez per se.

172:47It shows the kind of pressure that they're under.

172:49>> Yeah. It's our business what our government is doing. That's what I think your article focused on, the key figures trying to pull the strings of Venezuela and how Venezuela responds to that is their business ultimately. You know.

173:02That's for the Chavistas to decide and and the people of Venezuela to decide. It's our business what our government does to them and it's as you've documented it's decades upon decades of financial coercion, subversion, you know, not just in Venezuela but across the world. That's what we try to cover.

173:20>> Yeah.

173:21So right now Caracas is becoming like a wild west environment for a free-for-all for mega vultures, like the worst swamp creatures, and mafiosi emerging from Trump's Washington.

173:42And that's the story right now as as far as I can tell along with the how how, you know, the this transformation is taking place.

173:51And I'm gaining a lot of insight. Thing The picture is becoming a little bit more clear to me. The Trump mafia and through the CIA, which is, you know, going to work out of this giant US embassy, which is being refurbished right now.

174:05They're moving from cooperation to total control. So the picture is becoming clearer to everyone.

174:11And at the same time, you know, Rick Scott, Republican regime change fanatic senator from Florida, is pushing for elections.

174:20Um seeing Al Jazeera push for elections.

174:24Qatar has been a factor here.

174:26Uh and not necessarily in the best way.

174:30And, you know, I saw them like try like uh hype up Maria Corina Machado in some of their coverage today.

174:36And Chris Murphy, the Democratic Senator on the uh Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, has been pushing Maria Corina Machado as a partisan cudgel. Like she's not someone who you would identify with a progressive Democrat from Connecticut. She's more like South Florida right-wing Gusana type.

174:57But he said she's inspiring and wonderful and that Delcy Rodriguez is a a narco-terrorist or I don't know, he used some racist term for her.

175:07And uh you know, that highlights where the Democrats could go if they take control of Congress. I don't know if they'll get the Senate, but they might get the House Oversight Committee and then they'll start looking into all these corrupt deals and pointing the finger at Delcy Rodriguez and demanding elections and they want democracy and then they'll bring in an anti-democratic figure like Maria Corina Machado. So, again, it's important to tell the truth here.

175:33Not not to always hold our tongues when uh you know, um the only thing that we can say is that a massacre has been postponed.

175:44So, that's my story on Venezuela and I'm sticking to it for now.

175:49Anything else you you think we should cover you want to add?

175:53>> Uh >> No.

175:55>> Zelensky honored a Nazi war criminal.

175:57>> What What else is new?

175:59What else is new?

176:00Um yeah, the question in Ukraine is whether it will I mean, look, Russia's been taking uh some serious hits inside the country. I mean, Ukraine's drone operation has gotten uh very effective.

176:16>> Yeah.

176:16>> And now the question is what is Russia going to do? They've been threatening escalation. They told Western diplomats to leave Kyiv, but they've issued a lot of threats before that they haven't followed through on.

176:25So, uh whatever it is, the decision to prolong the war by sabotaging the Minsk Accords and then by uh rejecting Russia's offers before the war and then by sabotaging the Istanbul talks and then by ignoring other Putin overtures that were actually disclosed much later. This is always the case. Like, all the facts we need to have a basic understanding of the reality of a war, they're all they're always disclosed way after the damage is done. Take for example the OPCW story, which we're still learning about some of the years later.

176:54>> Yeah.

176:55>> Uh so, now, after you know, more than 4 years, Russia's in a I think in a difficult position and I I don't have a read on uh on what Putin's going to do, but there are people around him who are urging him to escalate, which means foremost even more damage for Ukraine and maybe uh you know, trying to uh attack the capital Kyiv in ways that Russia hasn't before. So, as always, it's it's a scary moment and um it's it's difficult to predict where it goes next. And some even fear that Russia might take this to NATO states given the integral role of NATO states in the battle against Russia and providing Ukraine with weapons and

177:34intelligence to strike Russian forces and Russian assets inside of Russia.

177:39>> Yeah, I mean, if this keeps going on, I worry that one of those crazy little Baltic states is going to get hurt.

177:45Uh Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.

177:47They're heavily involved here.

177:49>> Yeah.

177:50>> And heavily.

177:52And this isn't about winning for the West, the collective West. It's not about winning.

177:59There are forces within the military intelligence apparatus in the US that are addicted to this war because it's a the perfect testing ground. And the as you mentioned, the drones, these small drone swarms swarms that Ukraine is honing, they're learning so many lessons from those and they're going to reap profits from that. So, it's not about winning, it's about keeping Russia weaker than it would be, keeping the war going so they can profit and they can learn lessons on the battlefield.

178:34And that's pretty that's that's that's that's enough for them. And if they escalate, if they force escalation, well, then it justifies the existence of NATO which should not exist, has no real reason to exist.

178:46>> Jake Sullivan just went on a Free Press podcast and I don't have the clip, but this this is a quote. He said, "Intense and deep intelligence partnership between the US and Ukraine had the effect of supporting the Ukrainians in killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of Russians."

179:02At a big picture level, that's a pretty strong story for American statecraft.

179:07So, that's what this was all about. It wasn't about defending Ukraine, uh ensuring its long-term security and stability. It was about killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of Russians.

179:16>> You know who else likes to kill and wound hundreds of thousands of Russians?

179:20>> Say it again.

179:21>> You know who else liked to kill and wound hundreds of thousands of Russians?

179:24>> Well, people like the Nazis who Zelensky just just honored. Um but also again, the flip side of killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of Russians is Russia killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.

179:34And people like Jake Sullivan don't care about that cuz the goal was just to bleed Russia.

179:38>> And Ukrainians aren't on board with it anymore. Like the average Ukrainian does not support the war.

179:44>> Yeah.

179:45>> That's why um Yulia Mendel came out on the Tucker Carlson show and condemned Zelensky, his former press secretary. She said, "I thought he was the so we were supposed to make peace at some point here. That's not what this is about anymore. It's about permanent war, shoveling our population into the meat grinder." She can't go back to Ukraine after that interview.

180:09>> No, well, she was um she's sh- She was deemed non grata a while ago and this is in my forthcoming book which Uh my deadline actually is Monday or else they're going to cancel my book contract. So, >> [laughter] >> my book is coming out actually everybody. Uh so, in my forthcoming book, you know, Julia uh Julia Mendel was former press secretary back, you know, years ago when she was first working for Zelenskyy, she she voiced some uh sympathy for the people of the Donbass as they were being shelled >> Yeah.

180:38>> by the government. And she even though she was working for Zelenskyy, she was summoned for police questioning just for voicing sympathy with fellow Ukrainians who were being shelled in the Donbass. And so, uh you know, since leaving Ukraine, she's spoken up more and she does not Tucker interview which is which I recommend watching. But yeah, that's the direction the Ukrainian government under Zelenskyy has gone in.

180:59But as you said, the people are not with us and that's why you've had to see so many people being kidnapped uh by Ukrainian forces to be forced to go out to fight because some people just aren't on board anymore with this with this proxy war.

181:13>> Well, the polls show most Ukrainians oppose it.

181:15>> Yeah.

181:16>> They're not into it. So, into the white van, into the Jake Sullivan van. They should call them the Sullivan vans.

181:25It's like the Folke Bernadotte when he was rescuing Jews from the camps in the in the white vans. These are the the Jake Sullivan vans that send people to the front to die.

181:36Um It's absolutely disgusting. And and and and and and also another major Trump failure if not um if not uh broken promise and lie to make peace with Russia. It's over.

181:52The Russians don't believe in in in in Trump or in his negotiating team any any more than Iran does at this point.

181:58>> Yeah.

181:59Yeah.

182:02>> Well, that was that was a a great stream. Uh Uh, we heard from Terry Bullivant of the Gaza Samidoun Flotilla, uh, Wyatt Reed reporting from Beirut, Medea Benjamin reporting from the Code Pink House in DC about Cuba, and uh, Aaron, thanks for joining. As always, great job.

182:23Uh, subscribe to us on Substack. You'll get everything we do free in your inbox. Uh, you can support us on Patreon. You can support us at the support button on the grayzone.com, where you'll find our investigations, and subscribe to us here on YouTube. Um, that's how you'll find out about these streams and everything else we do.

182:47Um, so, yeah, thanks a lot for joining, and we will be back soon. Peace.