This episode reflects on the three-year anniversary of October 7th, 2023, a day marked by a devastating Hamas attack on Israel that led to widespread civilian deaths and triggered a seismic shift in American politics. The speaker emphasizes that while the attack was a terrorist act, its aftermath has caused an emotional and political realignment in the U.S., with right-wing figures like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson turning against each other, and a growing public opposition to Israel. The speaker argues that the American reaction has mirrored 9/11 in intensity, despite the event being abroad, revealing how national trauma can be projected onto distant conflicts. Central to the discussion is the scale of Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has killed more Palestinians than were killed on October 7th—highlighting serious humanitarian concerns. The episode critiques the exaggeration and misinformation surrounding the attack, such as claims of beheaded babies, noting that no credible evidence supports them. It also underscores how decades of Israeli occupation and systemic oppression of Palestinians create a moral context where the violence on October 7th is not isolated but part of a broader pattern of injustice. The speaker stresses that while Hamas committed horrific acts, the political and moral responsibility for the ongoing suffering lies with Israel’s policies and actions. Finally, the conversation highlights the importance of truth, accountability, and empathy in public discourse, calling for a more nuanced understanding that avoids emotional manipulation and embraces the full complexity of the situation.
what's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. Just me running solo this episode. Robbie the fire Bernstein is out on the road. I forget exactly where he's all over the place though. Go to porchdoor.com. Make sure you go see him. Oh, I know he's got his big show with Scott Horton in Austin this weekend, I believe that is. Go to porchdoor.com. I will post, I'll post the details about that on Twitter too. If that's easier for you, I'll tweet about it after the show. Okay. And then oh, and I should say then we'll be back. I got like a week and a half off to catch my breath and hug my kids a couple times. And then I'll be back out on the road. Comic Dave Smith.com. Coming to San Diego, American Comedy Company. Really looking forward to that one. Okay. So for today, as I record this, it is October 7th, 2026. So it is three years after October 7th. And I thought that would be something we would talk about on the show. Although, well, the show comes out, you know, it live premieres on YouTube at 8 p.m. And I think about, you know, half of you watch it tomorrow. So you will be listening on, you know, the ninth, but or I'm sorry on the eighth. But still, I think some of these details will be relevant. I also should tell you, I guess I can say this, right? Although I didn't see it posted yet. But I will, I'll be on a Tucker show tonight. So I'm doing Tucker show remotely. Obviously, I'm not jumping on a plane right after this. But so I'm going to do that. And the topic I think is also going to be on October 7th. So this, you know, the way our system works here. If you guys, the subscribers are watching this live in the afternoon, that's what subscribers get to watch it live and add free and uncensored plus to get the fourth episode, the bonus episode. But so this little, but so anyway, so the Tucker episode will premiere for the public before this one does. I think it's going, we're going live at six. So anyway, if you are joining us after just tuning into the Tucker episode, I apologize if I repeat myself at all, but you understand I have no way of knowing what I'm going to say with Tucker and what I'm going to say here. So I hopefully, I don't just say the same things. I'm sure I won't, I'm sure they'll be slightly different because I, you know, I ramble off the top of my head. And also because Tucker will be asking me questions. But I would, I wanted to say a few things. They're just on my mind. And then we can get into some of the reaction of what's going on on social media today. But as, you know, the first thing I was thinking about today, as it is October 7th, first and foremost was just kind of like the innocent people who died on this day three years ago. I think that, you know, there's all decent people should agree that when, you know, when, when civilians, when non-combatants die, that's, that's a tragedy that all life is precious. And a whole lot of people died on that day. And whatever that's the case, I guess they, I think on some level, that death should be treated with some degree of, of seriousness. It's going to come for all of us. So we might as well. It seems like the right thing to do. And, well, I mean, I, I don't know, you just forget any of the politics or any of the, I don't know, the, the other factors or any of the suffering of other people. There, there were real innocent people who died on that day. And out of respect for that, we should, at least, I don't know. I think the right thing to do is to at least try for a second to think about that. Now I was reading, oh my god, as reading through, I literally actually, and I'm not, I'm really not usually this much of a little girl, but I did, I was reading through a few, like, of, you know, just stories of things that happened on that day. That's just absolutely devastating. I was weeping earlier today reading this one, because, you know, it's funny, because they are, there were so, I shouldn't say it's funny, but, you know what I mean, it's a, there was so much propaganda about October 7th. There were so many, you know, just flat out lies, gross wild crazy exaggerations, like 40 beheaded babies, you know, things that just that did not happen on October 7th. But if the point is you don't even really need to make it up, because you actually just look at what did happen. I was reading this account, what got me was this girl, she's like in her early 20s, and she called back to her, her mom, as she was bleeding out, dying and asked her to tell her brother that she loved him, and she's talking about as she shot in her stomach and her arm, and she's lost, she's losing so much blood, and yeah, just try to put yourself in the position of some, some girl, you know, imagine that was your daughter, imagine that was you, imagine that, you know, and just meeting this horrific end. God, it's just, I don't know, it's the stuff of nightmares. And so, you know, that's, that should be kind of just taken by itself for a moment, a really horrible thing that happens that day, and a lot of innocent people died. It's also though, impossible as an American, and particularly as, you know, somebody who does what I do, and particularly mate being, you know, in the position that I've been in, over the last three years, that, you know, when you're talking about events like this, it's um, you always, you know, whenever we talk about anything you want to keep in mind the human aspect, I mean, we talk about wars all the time, we talk about policies that are life and death, even when even things like, you know, the more dry economic stuff, I mean, this is like, these are life and death policies. These are the difference between, you know, there's, and they should be taken with that seriousness. But you also, in event like October 7th, I mean, it's hard. It really is hard to add any hyperbole to this. It's hard to overstate that, and I think everybody listening to this, however, however you feel you'd have to agree, this October 7th was a transformational event. Our entire politics in America has changed since October 7th. The battle lines have changed. The, the in-out group distinctions have all been blurred. There is a freaking civil war on the right wing in America. Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson hate each other's guts. Mark Levin and me hate each other's guts. You know, like there's just, it's all, and it's all, you know, been fallet since then. These were people who, well, none of them would ever talk to me because I was always on to all this shit. But these are, you know, these are people who would have sat down with each other before that, you know, Megan Kelly and Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson and all of them. And like, even, even if you want to say like some of them like Megan Kelly, they didn't split till later. It was all over this stuff. It was all over the fallout, the aftermath of this event, October 7th. And one of the reasons, you know, it was, it was an interesting, I guess, position to be in where, of course, before October 7th for the, for the, I think for the overwhelming majority of people, they just didn't really even know about any of this stuff. Just wasn't even really something they thought about. And many people were like completely unaware of the relationship between the Israeli government and the US government. And so much of this got revealed after October 7th. And it seems like there was, you know, after that, there was just this mass reaction, you know, I mean, it was a mix of several different things. But there was this mass reaction toward just support for Israel completely cratering, falling off of a cliff. So one of the things, right, that right away kind of screams out. And this is why I think it was so revealing immediately, right? Want to think about the fact that October 7th, really think about this for a second. October 7th is a terrorist attack. A lot of innocent people are killed. Okay, that October 7th has transformed our politics. I don't see how anyone can argue with me on that. But okay, but I think it's pretty clear. October 7th is transformed our politics. It's a terrorist attack that didn't fucking happen here. I mean, I'm sorry that this is not to downplay the human suffering of the thing. It was horrible. It wasn't your average terrorist attack. It was a really brutal one. Okay. But like, it's just, I'm sorry, it's hard to imagine in attack anywhere else, including like London or Canada. It's hard to imagine an attack anywhere else, transforming our politics. Imagine an ISIS, you know, like terrorist attack in Europe. Okay, I'd like, it be news. We talk about it. We might even do something about it. Our government might even drop some bombs somewhere about it. But what it transforms form our politics lead to a civil war on the right. And by the way, I skipped this before and a civil war on the left as well. The democratic establishment is absolutely now just been swallowed by the anti-Israel movement and energy. And it's really hard to imagine any other place, any other place having this effect on us. It is
I really don't know what to say, but it is the reaction to 9/11 is the only other, you know, attack that I've ever seen anything quite like this for. Now, again, you can, to some degree, right? You can understand why that would certainly be true for Israeli culture, for Israeli people, right? The biggest terrorist attack on their soil. But we're, it's not as if we're, we're not next door neighbors with this country. They're not even in Europe, which is like our kind of, I don't know what relationship you want to say that America has with Europe, but we've started from there. And we had our country was like 90% made up of the people from there for its entire history until the last couple decades. And so, and they traditionally, you know, we've fought wars with them. And we've like traditionally speaking Europe, at least Western Europe has kind of been the closest to America, right? It's, and they're also just across an ocean. It's not even them. It's this country halfway around the world. It doesn't even, we don't even have like an official treaty. We're not even like officially the closest ally with them. We just kind of de facto are. So already there's just this very bizarre reality. We're like, why is it that, you know, obviously most Americans, I think understand that after 9/11, we had a very emotional reaction as a country. Now, at this point, the overwhelming consensus of the American people as well as I just think anyone paying attention to this is that we did a whole bunch of shit we shouldn't have done. You know, like, like the Patriot Act and Gitmo and Torture and starting wars based on lies, and just like a whole bunch of things we shouldn't have done. You know, that's that's kind of the general consensus now. But at least to some degree, you understand why there's going to be this emotional reaction. It's like almost like one of the prices that's built into humanity is that like, man, if your country is attacked, people are going to have an emotional reaction about that. But there's not really a reason why you have to have an emotional reaction quite in the same way about a country halfway around the world. I mean, in the same way that like, we have a reaction. Like, this is a very human thing, right? You, if there's a hurricane halfway around the world, and 500,000 people die or something, okay, that was a really bad hurricane. But whatever, there's a hurricane around the world, thousands of people die. You might feel really bad about that. You might see some images on the news and feel really sad. You might be on your phone on Twitter and like, see, oh my god, this person lost their house. You might, you know, text a thing to send some money to them. You might do whatever. But you're not going to have the reaction of like, your mother dying in front of you, which you might actually like fall to the ground in emotion and cry and, well, it's like, it's just not, okay, that's just human nature. You're not going to have the same emotional reaction. And yet, it revealed who did have that exact emotional reaction. Oh, who did really let you know that this is their family, that this is like, it just, it was already so exposing on its own. And one of the things that I've found interesting today, in looking at the reaction, is how much of that is still going on. And there seems to be almost like a very strange expectation from the supporters of Israel that everybody treat this as if it happened in America. And everybody treat this as if it was 9/11 just yesterday in America. You have to have that type of emotional reaction. And then also like the bloodlust that comes along with that, you have to be ready to go get vengeance, even though it was not America's, you know, sons and daughters who died that day. And like you can tell me, oh, there was this, the American or whatever over there, but that's right, what they say there, an American who joined the IDF and had dual citizenship is not exactly what we're talking about here. So it's, you know, understandably, most people's reaction to October 7th. And I think from the very beginning was that that's a horrible thing, not a reaction like it's emotional like it happened to us because it didn't, but a reaction like it's the fucking thing, the horrible thing that happened halfway across the world that like, yeah, that is a bad thing. And then reasonably what we all wish we had done after 9/11, but what was much easier for people to do about something halfway across the world was people went, okay, so what's the deal with that? This was the question we had after 9/11. Why do they hate us? I remember saying it out loud. I remember actually saying the question, why do they hate us out loud? Because that seemed to be a reasonable question to me as an 18 year old after 9/11 coming out of the whole Colgate 90s, like, why the hell these people got beef with us? Is it really because he beat the Iron Sheik up? You know, it's like, all right, you know, we didn't really know. And so people had questions about this dynamic. And then of course, everything just gets revealed more and more. There was more just focus on this. And then everybody watched Israel's response. And so now we're in a situation three years later. It's three years later. And Israel's response is not, well, I mean, it's not over, but a whole lot of it is over. In fact, right, here's the situation we're essentially in. And most people, not to, again, listen, it is a very different thing in many different ways. There's many different characteristics about, you know, a bunch of Hamas operatives, you know, breaking in to Israel and shooting up a bunch of people and taking prisoners, right, and stuff like that. There's a difference between that and the IDF, you know, slaughtering 100,000 people and completely destroying all of Gaza. They're different things. But generally speaking, the reason we're horrified by the oath is kind of similar. It's the innocent people who die. It's the living horror story that people have to go through the grieving mothers, all that stuff. That's the stuff that we really find horrifying about all of it. And of course, Israel did orders of magnitude worse to Gaza than Hamas ever did to Israel. I mean, to the point that, and this is kind of one of the numbers that almost demonstrates the scale of this whole thing. But Israel has killed more Palestinians than Hamas killed on October 7th since the ceasefire. Okay. Israel has killed more Palestinians since the ceasefire than people were killed on October 7th. So Israel's already killed more innocent people without the war. You know, just, and that's not counting before October 7th. And so people over the course of over the course of the last three years. And I think probably the, well, look, the main factors were the behavior of the Israeli government. The fact that they conducted this genocide in 4k and the whole world could see it. I mean, this was the major factor that made everybody hate this, this nation state. And then, of course, there was the relationship between the US and Israeli government and the nature of the Israel lobby. This all got very exposed because the entire Israel lobby was like activated to squash this conversation. And so that all got exposed. And it was just very obvious kind of the perverse insane relationship between the US and Israel that we, you know, discuss and talk about all the time. And then on top of that, there had been, it just like, you know, I mean, the timing of it, like, you know, the, really, I mean, the Israeli response to October 7th began on October 8th. And they started to think about this. It's like the end of 2023. It's coming into 2024. And it's being conducted through 2425 into 26. These are the years of the explosion of the podcast scene and the collapse of the corporate media. So as this thing is going down, the typical propaganda outlets, the propaganda apparatus entirely is like on its side bleeding out completely dead. Nobody watches or reads anymore. Everybody is getting their, they're in for particularly everybody 50 and under is getting all their information from the internet. Social media, podcasts, different news shows, stuff like that. And so there, it was like, they just couldn't contain it. We all had a fair shot. Like, that's really what happened, man. It's not, look, over the last three years, it's not as if the pro Zionists were boxed out. It's not as if what happened was, oh, did you see the tide completely turned? And instead of Nick Fuentes getting banned off of everything, now Ben Shapiro's banned off of everything. Ben Shapiro can't have a YouTube and a Twitter and and all that, that's not what happens.
They all still had their platforms. They all still were able to go on all the big shows and were able to make their case. What happened was we were too. You know, we were able to do it too. And they just, you know, when you had all, you had everything Israel was doing. You had the whole relationship between the Israel lobby and the government. And then you had people being able to go and debate it and argue it and everybody's, you know, it just became like a thing that was too big to deny. And that's, I guess that's a big part of what's going on today. Like that's why part of why the reaction is the way it is. Is that to those people, right? To the, to the, to the Israel lobby, to the hardcore Zionists, they. Today is a 9/11 in a sense for them because that is their country. You know, it's like Alan Dershowitz. Like, I'm sorry, sir. I suggested that maybe you got a little bit too much loyalty to Israel and you lost your freaking mind. You spazed out. Like you're watching an old man have a 10 per tantrum, shrieking, wasist. Like he's like a freaking woke 15 year old or something. Like, yo, that's crazy. I thought I can point out to him, sir, you left your lifelong political party over the issue of this foreign country. He's like, mm-hmm. But I can't suggest you have loyalty to them. So anyway, the reason why you see people about reacting emotional to them is because it is like it happened to their country. But they're also emotional because their, you know, their country has become completely hated in that time. So it's a day for them where like this happened to their country, their countries become completely hated. And also they can't reveal that it's their country. It's a very strange dynamic. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is superpower. People are always talking about getting healthier, making new years resolutions or plans for the summer to get in shape. 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I guess I could say this first before we pull it up because it is mom Donnie has a really upset some people, really, really upset some people with his post today. It's, it's, well, let me say this. I can defend mom Donnie on this one. There's, I will. In fact, I will defend him on this. There's, look, I defend Trump the other day. I'll defend mom Donnie today. It brings me no joy, but perhaps it'll make some of our listeners happy. So I guess maybe you could say this. The only thing you can really kind of criticize mom Donnie for here is I suppose you could make the argument that like, look, he's needling some people and he knows what he's doing and he knows this post is gonna get this reaction and maybe it's better to just not do that. You know, maybe as the mayor of New York, you got enough Jewish people in New York and they really care about this. So maybe just say October 7th was horror effect blah, blah, blah. But I mean, you know, nah, that's like the best argument and that's not even right. You know, even as I say it out loud, it's like, well, no, because you know what, he won. He's the mayor. He's the mayor because more people voted for him, including I think like 40% of the Jews who live in New York City voted for mom Donnie. So the thing is that yes, it is a very sensitive issue, but actually he's got more constituents on the other side of it. And so why does he have to bend over backward to only be sensitive to one? You know, if it is, this is the thing, right? They really treat this as if Israel is their country or that we are all supposed to treat Israel like it's our country. 'Cause you think about it, it's like on, I guess this is the difference, I'd look at it, right? When it's your country, the same way when it's your mom, you're more emotional or stuff like that. When it's your country, let's say it's the anniversary of 9/11. And I start making it about how the war in Iraq was sold off lies or something like that. You could understand where another, you know, another firefighter or another firefighter in Manhattan or someone like that would go, hey man, could today just be about like my buddies who all died or something like that? You know, like that, I get that, that makes sense to me. But like, when there was in the middle of an ongoing conflict for 60 years, there was a huge attack. And then as a result to that, there was a genocide that the vast overwhelming majority have, we've had this debate, we've won the debate, we've decided we are against Israel, like the overwhelming majority of us are on that side. On that anniversary, can you also go to them in a foreign country? Hey man, this isn't about the genocide that followed. This is just about that day. Why? Why does it have to be about that day and not the things before and after it? It's like, it doesn't, yes, if it's your country at a respect, like in the same sense that I can expect some type of reaction, my, you know, father's funeral, it's a different thing to expect that reaction from somebody just not in my family who didn't know the map, you know? Bad example, I didn't really know me there. Anyway, the point here is that Mamdani doesn't have to speak about this, like he's in Israeli being sensitive to a thing that happened on Israeli soldier on Israeli soil. Okay, let's pull up the Mamdani tweet. Let's see, what did he say here? Okay, he said, this day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7th, he really knew what he was doing with that one. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss. The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government's devastating ongoing genocide in Gaza in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, including more than 21,000 children. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed, that suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances, waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or a journalist and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing. Many, many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief as we mourn alongside them, all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes. Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue. Where war crimes are met with impunity and our federal government continues its complicity with every arm shipment. To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity. Oh, man, we're gonna have to give free buses to all those Palestinians evidently. Well, obviously this upset a lot of people and of course, particularly the war crimes line. It seems what people are upset about are that he gave a lot more words to the Palestinians suffering on October 7th. And then the term war crime, of course, they're upset with the term war crime because that does not imply terrorism. Or I suppose because that would, not that it doesn't imply terrorism because I guess that could kind of be a war crime. But in there, it is saying like the Israeli narrative that like there was a ceasefire or something like that before October 7th or essentially Israel wants to pretend that October 7th came out of the clear blue sky. But just, you know, that's how they almost say it, right? Like just your neighbor just attacked you. You know, that's just what happened. We're responding to that. But when you say war crimes, that implies that it was already in a war. So you were already in the middle of a war when this happened. And that just gives people a different outlook
it. Yeah, you know what, let's pull up Natalie, can you just, can you click on the quote tweets on this one? Because I actually think it might be fun to just scroll through a little bit and see who the blue checks are that are furious at mom Donnie. Can we do that on the, on the show, do we have that type of technology here? I would imagine. Okay, hold on, writing in the Republic. Okay, just people agree. I'm trying to see who's, uh, who's disagreeing. All right, let's, let's take a look here. Oh, Ben Shapiro. What do we got? 49 words here. Oh, I love that. Ben Shapiro is the first one. 49 words. 49 words. Intribute to the Jews, murdered on October 7th. 141 words on how Israel is responsible for everything. And the only answer is to hand more power, money and authority to those who wish to destroy Israel. I mean, is this like, how unhinged is this? So this is, this is the thing, man. And isn't it crazy? Like if people, people, um, who are in like the political world, do you remember when, like, remember woke one, remember how woke one when she got crazy. And Ben Shapiro would just like eviscerate leftist children on all this stuff. But honestly, like he would have eviscerated a bunch of their professors and stuff too, because like they were just all arguing for all this goofy shit and he could just tear it apart. But now he's got to look at this and like, what is even his argument? It's just Kathy Newman shit. Where did mom Donnie say that we need to give power over to the people who want to destroy Israel? Where did he say that everything is Israel's fault? He said the destruction of Gaza is Israel's fault, because it is because they did that. And what are you, what are you even talking about? Where he's going? So Ben Shapiro, this is what I'm talking about. We go on 9/11. You would do that. Okay, man. Look, that's usually a bad argument. Well, it's not an argument. It's feelings over facts. But that's, that's, that's usually an emotional appeal that would shut down debate here in America. But maybe here in America, it is appropriate at some time to go, hey, man, on 9/11. But like, he's going, hey, man on October 7th. What is the expectation that mom Donnie is supposed to be in Israeli? Like, like, it's not like he's saying anything callous about the people who died or showing indifference to them. He started off. That was the first thing he mentioned. Was it go? It was really horrible. The people who died. I'm sorry, Ben Shapiro. You're loyal to Israel, but that's all you get. He did the right thing. Like, I, I could get Ben Shapiro complaining. If he didn't say anything about the people who died or he was callous toward them, if he said that's what you get for being an occupying force, okay, then you'd have a point. But he said it in the first line. There you go. And why are there more words about what Israel did to the Palestinian than there were words about what the Palestinians did to the Israelis? Because they did a lot more to them. How is it? It's unbelievable that the Israel issue just reduced these like debate titans down to these shriveled up little teeny like little children. What are you talking about? Because he cares more about that. He wanted to give more attention to that. Far more suffering, far more victims, far more costly. There's a million reasons why you would pay attention to that. Did you not hear the part where he wrote that more Palestinians have died since the ceasefire than during October 7th? Okay. So that's why. Hey, let's see, let's see who else is is going at my mom, mom, Donnie. Oh, God. I really should get paid to be mom Donnie's, uh, those. Oh, there you go. Fuck off. Just fuck off brilliantly articulated by that guy. Uh, Spencer Pratt. Now he's probably going to be good. I just want to see the people disagree with him. Mickey Alio. Here we go. Stay him on you for trying to blow a kiss and slap Israelis in the face at the same time. That was a canky way to describe his tweet. All right. Blow a kiss and slap. That does though. I mean, honestly, I'm sorry, guys, I've been completely this blow a kiss and slap in his rally has just completely thrown me even off the topic of Israel Palestine at this point. That does seem like it'd be an excellent distraction for a slap would be to start with a blowing a kiss because you're not coming in with a kiss. You're like, you know, like, and then pop, right? Okay. I'm sorry. I'm going to actually have to I'm going to spend too much time thinking about that today. Anyway, shame on you. So he's on October 7th, Hamas raped, burned and murdered Israelis and Americans in front of their loved ones. They kidnapped others and tortured them for months. This is anti-Semitism, no matter how you try to put a bow on it. Israel has every right to defend themselves. If this happened in the US, you can bet we would defend ourselves too. Yeah, it's almost like it did happen in the US. We've been defending Israel ever since. But sure is treated like it did happen in the US again, like, this is I'm sorry. It's just it's crazy to watch this thing. And no matter what, as you guys know, man, I am not the biggest fan of mom Donnie and I hate the whole democratic socialist movement and all of that. And I will go down on that hill gladly. But like, I just I don't see how you can look at stuff like this. And not just you're like, dude, she's literally they're just making it up. They just kept he knew him on every single response. It's a joke. He goes, oh, yeah, you don't know is that they took all these hostages and brought them back and tortured them. Like he mentioned the hostages, dude. He led with that. Like, what do you, what is any of this? It's like this unhinged response. And they're unhinged because he's not super emotional and like, they want you to react like the towers just got hit yesterday. First of all, this was a different country. And it was three years ago. We've had some time to think about it. We've had some time to watch their response to it. Just I don't know. I'm sorry, man. Three years later, it's just so weird to see this so on display. And it's the same dynamic that's been going on this whole time. They just can't stop revealing their hand. It's like the fact that they're going at him like this reveals how crazy the whole relationship between Israel and America is. Everyone except them can see it. And that everyone just goes bigger and bigger and bigger. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Trollco. It's great to tell you about a brand that actually gets it. And Trollco is one of them. They were built by two guys from the oil patch who were sick of clothing companies pretending blue collar workers don't exist. While most brands chase trends and influencers, Trollco was made for the people who work with their hands, solve real problems and keep the world running. It's built on that simple dirty hands, clean money mindset show up, work hard and provide for your family and earn everything you've got. No handouts, no shortcuts. Just respect for the overlooked guys doing physically demanding essential work every single day. Trollco makes tough, comfortable hoodies, teas, hats, real workwear that actually holds up. And you don't need to be in the trades to wear it, even a podcaster like myself who values self-reliance responsibility and honest hard work. Well, then Trollco, that's the company for us. Go check them out right now at trollco.com/problem and make sure to use the promo code Dave 25 because that will get you 25% off your first order. Trollco, dirty hands, clean money, support a brand that supports real people. Trollco.com that's T-R-O-L-L-C-O, dot com slash problem promo code Dave 25 for 25% off. Here, let's see who else we get. Let's see if we can get a couple other stars on this Natalie. We already got Ben Shapiro and Nikki Haley. I thought we were going to do good. Oh, okay, Sarah. How could be Sanders disgusting and shameful to use October 7th as an excuse to repeat Hamas's talking points? Which one of those was Hamas's talking points? The 70,000 dead number that the IDF has accepted. Is that the Hamas talking point? Which of that? Oh, sorry, no, here, you can leave it up. Natalie, I'm sorry, that was a good instinct on your part, but we stand with the Jewish people and we pray for the victims. Their families and the survivors. Oh, yes, because there are no victims in Gaza, you see. There's a, you could tell by those aerial pictures, not one victim created. What is this? Okay, let's keep scrolling down to Hamas talking points. We'll say, "Oh, Dave Rubin, this jihadist in a suit couldn't even fake it for one tweet. Remember, New York, you were warned, so don't be surprised what happens next." Dave Rubin, you cannot defend your arguments to children. We've seen it. Remember when Dave Rubin talked shit about me and then I challenged him to a debate and then I said, "Watch as he runs away now." Like he said, "I was a moron." Dave Rubin, Dave Rubin called another human being a moron. And then I, you know, I only have one tool in my toolkit. So I said, "Hey, why don't you come on my show? We'll see who's a moron. It'll be real easy to find out." And then I go and now say, "No, coward because you know you won't." And then he went, "I will." He publicly accepted. And then since then I think Pierce and Patrick Bitt, David, like so all the biggest guys tried to set up this debate.
and he just ghosted everyone. Then he goes into this thing, well, I don't know why he was thinking he could handle 20 children, but they destroyed him. He just gets destroyed. The nerve of these people. They even talk shit. All right. Back, let's see. We'll do a couple more. Spencer Pratt now. Let's get him. He'll be good. Here, let's just keep scrolling a little see if there's anyone else that I know. Like if we get a name at cat turtlene, worth it, let's keep going. Here, hold on. Sorry. Let's get the Joel Barry. Get this terrorist. Go out of my country. Oh, pull up here. Pull up the other Joel Barry tweet, by the way. This is the type of stuff I'm talking about. There's just like a really is revealing. I'm again, with designers, it's unbelievable and I can't, I cannot stress this enough. This has been true, you know, essentially right. I was in a little bit of a unique position with the Israel thing where, like I said before, right, a lot of people just didn't know about this stuff and didn't have much of an interest in it. And I did. And I did. And so, you know, I mean, like you could go back and, you know, listen to the, we did. I know we did in Israel. A whole Israel Palestine episode, me and Scott Horton out in Pittsburgh, which must have been, oh man, I must have been in 22 or 2021, it had done several, you know, episodes on the topic, but I mean, you couldn't, you know, we were all people who were like obsessed with the terror wars. Eventually you bump up against the fact that Israel is a pretty big player in this thing. But so anyway, we were saying all the shit, we're saying now back then. But then after October 7th, everyone wanted it, explained to them. So it was interesting to be in that situation. And so I've basically been very publicly on big platforms arguing against the policy of the U.S. Special Relationship with Israel and arguing against the wars and what Israel is doing to Gaza and all of that. And it is, it is hard to really, you know, you just can't put into words how much in all of the debates I've done, in all of the podcasts I've done, in all of these interactions, how much the Zionists have just helped me. Like you just watch it as it's happening. It's like the whole time, it's like, it's their, it's their words. I could always just hang on with their own words, what David admitted, what they've written down, the things they say. And the biggest, you know, Zionist supporters continue to just reveal themselves for all to say, here's, here's Joel Berry's point, ostensibly in American. Israel's response to October 7th was disproportionate, disproportionately restrained. There's, there's Joel Berry. I don't know. He's one of the Babylon B guys. I debated the other one a couple times again, another guy who just is incapable of even defending his own positions. Dude, you know what's, and what's funny to me, these guys, a lot of these guys, they're, like, you know, when they're trying to dunk on me, like every, every time we do a, a debate, they always claim I got destroyed in the debate or something like that or whatever it is. They're, you know, I mean, I guess they don't claim that what I debated, Seth Delaide, no one says that, but no, they'll do it whenever they can. They always say their big go to is that they go, oh, Dave just makes emotional arguments. Dave makes emotional arguments, which is something that, you know, they just really don't even understand what they're saying. First of all, there's really no such thing as an emotional argument, like you could be emotional while you make an argument. If you're just being emotional, you're not making an argument. An argument actually means something. Everything isn't just an argument. If I just say I hate you, like, that's not an argument, assertions aren't arguments. So like, the strength of an argument is the strength of an argument no matter how emotional you were when you tell it, but also what they're saying, what they really mean is that in all of these debates, I point out the slaughtered children and they call that an emotional argument, which is not like, it's just, anyway, it's really, really stupid. It is the case that I get emotional sometimes during debates. I am often like an angry teenager, just in life in general, that is true. And I do get emotional sometimes, but you can get emotional and still make a really valid argument. It doesn't matter. Like, if someone, like, if you just take something that is true, right, like take a smoking cigarettes is bad for you, and it's been demonstrated by all of these studies that it drastically increases your risk for emphysema and lung cancer, right? Okay? Correct. And I got data to back it up and the studies are whatever, okay? So here's an argument or something like that. If I go, hey, you fucking retard smoking will fucking kill you and give you emphysema. And so are you, are you fucking mind you said, you know, I'm emotional now while I'm making the argument. The argument is completely unaffected by my emotional state of, so anyway, they don't even know what they're talking about. What they're really saying is Dave has morality, Dave appeals to morality. Dave says it's wrong to kill kids. Anyway, the point being, while these motherfuckers will claim that I'm emotional, I'm going, hey, we're funding this horrible policy, I'm making arguments about why it's wrong. And I'm arguing that we should stop. I'm arguing we should stop killing people. These motherfuckers are having emotional outbursts and defending the slaughter of people or advocating it further as they have been over the last three years, slightly different. Like this is pure, what we just saw at a Joel Berry, they ever want to say I'm emotional, when did I make an unhinged argument attached to it like that? When did I just go, I just went one day, it's three years later, it's a different country, but you know what, I'm really sad and I'm really emotional about this. So I'm going to say something like Israel was too restrained. Really dude, destroying all of Gaza wasn't enough. Is that, so I mean, it's just the most ridiculous assertion, the most ridiculous assertion that nope, and also you would just think, right? It's the thing that always happens with them, right? But like, wouldn't you not want to say this? Like if you were trying to win the argument, you know, like it's one of the things that's so interesting too is that like, it's like guys, the knock on you is that you're genocidal maniacs. That's the knock on you. That's what the other guys are saying. So wouldn't it just maybe be in your best interest to try to not look like that? To try to not encourage everybody that hear or, you know, that could possibly see this. That like, oh my God, you think they didn't go far enough? You look at all of that and think to yourself, I don't care, more. Do you not see why that would make many of your peers look at you as like a genocidal maniac? I mean, it just seems to me, you're yourself evident. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, a brand new sponsor who I'm very excited to have on board and that is Ghost Bed. They just sent me my Ghost Bed. I just got it and I set it up. I'm very excited to test it out. There is nothing more important than getting good sleep at night and it's one of the things that people don't think about when they really should. A huge portion of your life is spent sleep and so you really want to pay attention to what you're sleeping on and that's why you got to check out the Ghost Bed. It's engineered to help reduce the reasons that your sleep gets interrupted. Ghost Bed is designed to relieve pressure, help regulate temperature and support your body. It has cooling technology built into every mattress and it's made in the USA with Ghost Bed's 101 night sleep trial. You can try it at home because the real test of a mattress is how you feel in the morning. If you're waking up sore or tired before the day even starts, check out Ghost Bed. They're offering part of the problem listeners and extra 10% off their lowest prices of the season. So go check them out at ghostbed.com/problem and use the promo code problem for an extra 10% off of their lowest prices of the season. That's ghostbed.com g-o-s-t-b-e-d.com/problem promo code problem for an extra 10% off. All right. I guess there's a few other things, man. It's like, then I would say before we get out of here, I mean, kind of saved the most controversial for last. But there is something about, and some of this stuff I do apologize, you know, as I said at the beginning of the show, I'm, you know, forgive me. But I haven't done the Tucker show yet and if you're listening to this on the premiere, you have already seen it. And so I do probably, some of what I'm about to say will be repetitive if you just listen to that episode, because I want to make sure to say this on his show also, because he's just, you know, got such a gigantic audience. But, you know, when you have an emotional reaction like that and again, very clearly a disloyal to your country emotional reaction like that, like again, this is one of the things that has been so revealed, all of these people, it's hard. I'm not saying they are this literally, although maybe some of them are, but they certainly, they are like these people like Joel Berry and Ben Shapiro. They are in effect, foreign spies. They're basically foreign spies in effect for a foreign government. hear too secretly, you know, without telling you.
that that's where my loyalty is, they're here to secretly do the work of another country. They show it like they have this emotional reaction toward that country. Okay, well, as these people are in effect spies trying to like emotionally manipulate on behalf of this other country, which we are not such big fans of their government, then I don't know, it does, it does make one a doubt, it makes one walk to double down and just tell the fuck in truth about all this shit, which we have done over the years, but I think it is worth pointing out a few things here on the, you know, on the three-year anniversary of October 7th. I think it's appropriate to start as we did with the innocent people who died, and I think it's appropriate to end here with some harsh truths about what happened on October 7th. And I guess there's three that I would point out. Two of them, the first two, okay, so the first thing that should be pointed out is the lies about some of the atrocities that just straight up did not happen, and there is no evidence to happen, and they can trace these things back and be like, yeah, one person in the IDF just said it, and then everything went to there. And there were claims made like, you know, the 40 beheaded babies, of course. Joe Biden, you know, I think at one point said he had seen the photographic evidence, but of course this was one of the problems with having a senile president, is that who knows if one of his staffers just told him he had seen that, and at that point, I think Joe Biden was at the point that he may have had to believe that. That's one of the crazy things about Joe Biden, man. It literally got to a point where it was pretty clear that anyone around the president could have just manipulated the president simply by telling him that he already agreed to something. Simply by telling him, no, you already did that yesterday. I need to have to kind of go. Yeah, of course I did. Anyway, so this just did not happen. You know, I'm in the middle. I haven't quite finished it yet, but I'm in the middle of reading on Norman Fingleston's new book, Gravediggers of Gaza, which is really really great. And his first chapter in there, he goes into the rape and sexual assault allegations, and I mean, the long and the short of it is just that none of it's been, there's been no evidence for any of it. They're all types of claims like that that were made. Now again, like I said at the beginning, you know, it's a weird game. These things because they make a really horrible thing happened. They make up a lie that it was even more horrible. And then you're left in the position to go, let me debunk the claim that it was more horrible. And then they can say, wow, you're so cruel. You don't even care about this horrible thing that happened. It's it's all, you know, bullshit tactics. But of course, we're not doing that here. We're just telling the truth. That didn't happen. Horrible things happened. That wasn't one of them. So I would recommend Norman Fingleston his book and there's a bunch of people that I've done work on this, but that's that's a good place to start. And then the second one is the Hannibal Directive stuff, which isn't I don't know if Hannibal Directive is exactly the right term, but Hannibal Directive was an older directive that I think had been like had been sidelined. And as far as I remember reading, it applied to military personnel. I didn't think it applied to civilians. But the idea was that you would kill even your own people before you let the terrorists take them back as hostages because that's how they get leverage. And so, you know, but it's quite a bit different of a thing doing it to military than civilians. Anyway, that's just the term that people use, but I would highly recommend Max Blumenthal's work on this. He put out a full documentary and he's written a ton about it. He writes over at the gray zone. And look, man, there just is no question that a a number of the people killed on October 7th were killed by the Israeli government. Now, it's not the case that Hamas didn't kill people. There's undeniable proof that they did. There's GoPro videos that they themselves wear. They gunned down kids at music festivals. They threw grenades into bomb shelters. They killed one baby. I think with a grenade, I believe it was the story of the baby you got killed. And, and, you know, listen, man, all the, I mean, the levels of horror and evil that they committed that they are real. But it's also the case that when you see four cars lined up, that were clearly hit with a hellfire missile that was not done by the men with with with machine guns. It just wasn't. And there's all types of evidence of this that that Max Blumenthal has laid down. So that's another thing that is worth keeping in mind that that is part of it. And we do not have exactly clear numbers on on how many people were killed or what the ratio is. But there is something, I mean, that is one of the things that happened. And if we're going to talk about this day and we're going to remember it then let's remember it the way it happens. Let's tell the truth. And then the third one is kind of this. And this is in some ways, I guess the most controversial thing to say, but it shouldn't be. And the fact is that when you look at what happened on October 7th, you kind of do have to look at it in the context of the history, the situation, the actual lives that the actual people who committed and were victims of that that day lived in the actual policies of the government of Israel and the lack of a government of Gaza. And the fact that the government of Israel has kept them stateless for, for, you know, 80 years, they're certainly at least 60. And so as I said on the young Turk show a couple of weeks ago to Anna Kasparian, there is no excuse for killing a baby. And there was a baby killed on October 7th. There's no excuse for gunning down, you know, teenagers who are dancing at a festival. All of that is true. It's also true that every single, every single perpetrator on October 7th, every single Hamas militant who was engaged in violence that day was the victim of a policy of the state of Israel first. Like that happened first. Doesn't justify it. Doesn't justify what comes later. But if you want to look at their two parties here, or let's say, let's say to be more accurate, let's say more than two parties, right? So there's the state of Israel, there's the citizenry of Israel, there's the Hamas militants, there's the Palestinian civilians or whatever. Those Hamas militants, that 21-year-old guy, that 19-year-old guy, however old they were, you know, all young kids, presumably, that ran over there and started killing people. The first thing that happens, the state of Israel victimized that kid for his entire life. And this is not just true under the rules of morality or common sense, but this is also enshrined into international law. And this might be the most controversial of all points, but I can absolutely have nothing but sympathy and, you know, nothing but horror when you think about the civilians that were killed on October 7th. It is slightly different for the military. And that was about 30% of the people killed on October 7th. This dynamic almost never comes up. Almost never comes up. That part's different. And in fact, again, you can always find lawyers who will argue on one side or the other, but that is actually protected under international law. They have a right to target the IDF because they are militarily occupying them. The idea and forget anybody who's ever going to tell you, oh, they left after 2005. Yeah, the troops left. And then they just surrounded the place and control the airspace and the sea space and the electricity and the tax revenue and everything. They've controlled the entire thing. And like, when you're being oppressed like that, they had been putting a full, they had a full blockade on Gaza from at least 2007 to through 2023. That's an act of war. You're under war by a foreign ruling military. Those are legitimate military targets, man. That's exactly what we would call them. And in fact, our leaders would would justify a whole lot of collateral damage in the process of taking them out. No, no, no, I will say that's not the same thing as running down and mowing down a bunch of teenagers. You don't really, you can't really make the collateral damage. But the level of difference in morality from Israeli leaders and from American leaders is that they blow up a building if they were all in it together. Like they would still end up killing those teenagers if they were in the wrong spot, right? You know, if you're, it's still sad when people in the military die. It's not that it's not sad. Look, dude, it's sad when, when a guy in the Nazi army dies or in Stalin's commie army dies, you know, for the most part, those guys, listen, oftentimes they were conscripted, oftentimes, they were propagandized that, you know, however, we all do kind of look at it a little bit different. If you're marching in Joseph Stalin's army and you get killed or your march and made off Hitler's army and you get killed, and I'm sorry, dude, if you got the uniform of Benjamin Netanyahu's army on, that is a totally different situation. That is not an innocent civilian being killed there.
And in fact, while it might be really, really sad, and in fact, that guy might even be like an all right guy to everyone else in his life other than the, you know, the interactions he's had as, you know, like in the capacity of his job, but maybe he hasn't even done bad in his job. You know, he's just maybe he's just doing some job like he's a, you know, he's in front of a computer, just giving coordinates to the guy who's going to kill Palestinians. That's legitimate self defense to take that guy out. Just in the same way, like, look, dude, if fucking, let's just imagine we didn't have as big a powerful government as we did and China, you know, just stormed in here with their troops. You'd see every last one of them as a legitimate target to take out. I wouldn't even matter if they were just crunching numbers in the back, they're a part of the war effort. They're in uniform, you know. So anyway, something to think about, all right, we will wrap up there. I got to get out of here, have some lunch and then go record with Tucker. All right. Catch you guys later. Peace.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
October 7th, 2023, was a horrific terrorist attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of many civilians, prompting widespread global political and emotional reactions in the United States.
The attack fundamentally transformed American politics, leading to a deepening division between right-wing factions, with figures like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson now openly hostile, and a significant shift in public support toward Israel.
The U.S. response to the event was emotionally charged, with many Americans treating it as if it were 9/11, despite it being a foreign conflict, highlighting a paradox of national empathy and political polarization.
Israel’s military response in Gaza has been widely condemned as disproportionate, with over 74,000 Palestinians killed since the attack—more than the number killed on October 7th—raising serious concerns about potential war crimes and state-sponsored violence.
The Israeli government’s actions have exposed a long-standing, opaque alliance with the U.S., particularly through the influence of the Israel lobby, which has suppressed public discourse and distorted narratives.
Figures like Mom Donnie and others have faced backlash for addressing the suffering of Palestinians, with critics accusing them of shifting focus from the attack to post-attack atrocities, a point that underscores the moral complexity of the issue.
Debates over the accuracy of claims—such as the alleged beheadings of children or the "Hannibal Directive"—reveal widespread misinformation, with evidence showing that many atrocities were exaggerated or fabricated.
The core moral argument is that both Hamas and Israel committed violations, but the systemic oppression of Palestinians for decades by Israel makes the humanitarian consequences of the October 7th attack even more profound and ethically urgent.
Summary:
This episode reflects on the three-year anniversary of October 7th, 2023, a day marked by a devastating Hamas attack on Israel that led to widespread civilian deaths and triggered a seismic shift in American politics. , with right-wing figures like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson turning against each other, and a growing public opposition to Israel. The speaker argues that the American reaction has mirrored 9/11 in intensity, despite the event being abroad, revealing how national trauma can be projected onto distant conflicts.
Central to the discussion is the scale of Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has killed more Palestinians than were killed on October 7th—highlighting serious humanitarian concerns. The episode critiques the exaggeration and misinformation surrounding the attack, such as claims of beheaded babies, noting that no credible evidence supports them. It also underscores how decades of Israeli occupation and systemic oppression of Palestinians create a moral context where the violence on October 7th is not isolated but part of a broader pattern of injustice.
The speaker stresses that while Hamas committed horrific acts, the political and moral responsibility for the ongoing suffering lies with Israel’s policies and actions. Finally, the conversation highlights the importance of truth, accountability, and empathy in public discourse, calling for a more nuanced understanding that avoids emotional manipulation and embraces the full complexity of the situation.
FAQs
October 7th was a terrorist attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of many civilians. The event triggered a major shift in American political discourse, with a significant realignment of public opinion, especially on issues related to Israel and U.S. foreign policy. It led to a deepening divide on the political right, with figures like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson turning against each other, and a widespread anti-Israel sentiment across much of the political spectrum.
The reaction to October 7th is often compared to 9/11 due to the scale of civilian deaths and the emotional intensity. However, unlike 9/11, which occurred in a nearby country with a direct relationship to the U.S., October 7th involved a distant conflict, leading to a more polarized and emotionally charged public response that many feel is disproportionate to the geographical distance.
No, these claims have been widely debunked and there is no credible evidence to support them. The transcription notes that such claims are part of propaganda and exaggerations, and that they do not reflect the actual events of the day.
The Hannibal Directive, a military doctrine suggesting that operatives should kill civilians before allowing hostages to be taken, is referenced as a controversial topic. While not directly confirmed in the transcript, the speaker notes that Max Blumenthal's work highlights evidence suggesting Israeli military actions on October 7th may have included killings of civilians, which is a key point of ethical and legal debate.
The transcript argues that Israel's response was disproportionate and resulted in massive civilian casualties, with more Palestinians killed since the ceasefire than during the October 7th attack. The speaker criticizes the Israeli government's actions as a form of genocide, especially in Gaza, and highlights violations of international law.
The political right in the U.S. has deeply polarized since October 7th, with figures like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson now openly hostile to each other. This shift reflects a broader ideological split, with many conservative voices now aligning against Israel, which many see as a betrayal of shared values, leading to internal conflict within the right-wing political sphere.
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