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Honey, Bobby might get strep throat this

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I have Maddie scheduled for the flu. That's

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kids need to see their doctor... Mom,

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is it okay if I get pink eye next week?

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by. Stanford Medicine Children's Health. Access

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to excellence. Visit stanfordchildrens.org to find

0:44

a pediatrician. He

8:00

enrolled in Open University and I'm laughing a

8:02

little bit here, but you know when we

8:04

talk about no urenemy, that's what he did.

8:07

That's what he used his time in prison

8:09

to do. He learned, he

8:11

not only learned Hebrew, he

8:14

learned about Jewish religion,

8:16

he learned about the... Unborn

8:18

babies may kick their mother 30 times

8:21

an hour, making moms wonder, is

8:23

there a karate champion in there? Well, one thing

8:25

she won't wonder about is finding a great doctor

8:27

at one of our 65 convenient

8:29

Bay Area locations, Stanford Medicine

8:31

Children's Health. Statecraft

8:34

of Israel, the basis

8:36

on which it was set up, you

8:39

know, he learned his interest

8:43

in learning about his adversary went

8:45

way beyond military capabilities. And I

8:47

think among all Hamas

8:49

leaders, perhaps he had the

8:51

best understanding of

8:54

this enemy. He

8:56

spoke fluent Hebrew. In fact,

8:59

one of the Shin Bet interrogators said that

9:01

his Hebrew was actually better

9:03

than than his jailers. You know, I mean,

9:06

it was a while. Yeah, it's more educated.

9:08

You know, I mean, the jailers

9:10

probably spoke as though they're from, you

9:12

know, the Israeli version of the Brooklyn.

9:15

I knew it was coming. Yeah, probably

9:18

right. You know, yeah, he's

9:20

at least he'd at least study

9:24

the grammar. Yeah, he enunciated. Yeah,

9:27

yeah. So his real name,

9:29

not that you know, anyone really cares

9:31

at this time was Abu Ibrahim, which

9:33

is far more forgettable than the Yaya

9:35

Simwa. And, and

9:38

it's important to know where

9:40

he came from, right? He is. He's

9:43

actually same age, he's a year older than me, he

9:45

was born in Khan Yunus, which at

9:47

the time back then, was

9:50

a hotbed of

9:52

Muslim Brotherhood activity. You know, this

9:54

is during the 70s and

9:56

80s. You know, you don't

9:59

really think about the Muslim Brotherhood. Brotherhood having

10:01

a hold in Gaza, but it certainly did

10:03

in that part of Gaza, particularly in those

10:05

years. And so he

10:07

was in the Muslim Brotherhood. He was a prominent

10:10

activist. And just

10:14

one point

10:17

about the Muslim Brotherhood, again, not a

10:19

defense of the Muslim Brotherhood, but you've

10:21

got to understand the appeal that

10:24

an organization like that has

10:26

in the squalor deprivation of

10:29

of a refugee camp. Right. I mean, it

10:31

offers when you've got massive

10:33

unemployment and everything, the

10:36

Brotherhood offered an unequivocal message of insurrection

10:40

as kind of divine destiny,

10:42

right, the packing of God. And

10:44

that is what separated them and

10:47

then Hamas from secular organizations

10:49

like FATA. And

10:51

that appeal, the religious appeal really

10:54

caught on among young

10:56

Palestinians, you know, gave them right

10:58

direction and self-respect in

11:02

the refugee camp. And it gave them

11:04

something other than subsisting off of

11:07

UN handouts. And

11:10

it's interesting that was a social, just

11:12

like Hezbollah and later Hamas, there

11:15

was a kind of a social welfare aspect

11:17

of the Brotherhood, you know, as far as

11:21

kind of unofficial unemployment,

11:25

neighborhood, neighborhood, watch neighborhood

11:27

support. Okay. I'm

11:30

saying that because it's important to

11:32

know the appeal that these organizations

11:34

have and why they have such

11:36

an appeal. And I would argue,

11:39

although I don't really need to argue, I

11:41

think it's pretty that that even, you know,

11:43

guys like you and me, just, and

11:46

Jason, growing up in an environment

11:49

may well have fallen into that. You

11:51

know, I mean, we certainly, I mean,

11:54

why not? I mean, we're all Taipei,

11:56

I hate that term,

16:00

And no, he's convicted again for the

16:02

murder of 12 Palestinians and

16:06

given four life sentences, right? And

16:09

this is the beginning of his 22 years in prison. But

16:12

what is strange about this is far

16:14

from removing him from relevance, his

16:17

time there, which, you know, some of

16:19

it was in solitary confinement and all of which was,

16:21

you know, was spent studying. Kind

16:24

of it really cemented his

16:27

position within the organization. And,

16:31

and there are those who argue that

16:34

when he was released from prison in

16:37

2011 he was already kind of the

16:39

de facto leader of Hamas. And,

16:41

you know, how did he do that from prison? Well, you've seen the

16:43

movies, right? He imposed

16:45

his authority pretty ruthlessly, punished

16:49

informers, he positioned himself as

16:51

a leader among the prisoners, and

16:53

he negotiated on their behalf with the Israelis,

16:58

and basically, you know, enforcing discipline

17:00

among the inmates. The

17:09

guys who are interrogating him, the

17:12

Shinbad, there's a guy named Michael

17:14

Kubi who has spoken about him,

17:17

about Simoar. And because

17:20

of all Israelis, there's probably one or two

17:22

who know him well. One was

17:25

a journalist who covered Simoar. I can't remember

17:27

the guy's name. But

17:29

Kubi was a Shinbad agent, spent about

17:31

150 hours questioning, questioning

17:34

a Simoar. He's insistent

17:36

that, you know, he

17:38

used no brutal methods, blah, blah, blah. But

17:40

his, you know, his impression after that

17:42

time was of someone

17:45

very brutal, aggressive, and charismatic at

17:47

the same time. You know,

17:51

which is a good description of

17:55

any, you know, any bad acting, leader, you know, really,

18:00

when you think about it, I mean, something has

18:02

to draw people into that dark circle when it

18:04

was his force of personality.

18:08

So when he was released, this is an interesting part.

18:10

His brother, we're going to get to this

18:12

his brother Muhammad was

18:17

involved in the abduction of an

18:20

Israeli soldier, Gilat Shili. He

18:25

was captured in a, it was after a 2006

18:27

cross border raid, cross

18:30

border by Hamas into Israel and was

18:32

held by Hamas in Gaza for five

18:34

years. So

18:38

Muhammad was, was behind that

18:40

and the Israelis, by the way, have tried

18:43

to kill him six times. I mean, this was

18:45

a big, this was a

18:47

huge humiliation for the Israelis, because

18:50

they, you know, they exchanged 1000 prisoners

18:53

to include, to

18:56

include Simar, Muhammad's brother, right,

18:59

as part of this deal. 1000

19:02

prisoners. Now, there are those who

19:04

say that was a very bad precedent, because it

19:06

gave groups like Hamas

19:09

a goal for taking hostages and

19:11

in terms for exchange because they realized

19:14

they thought the message that they received

19:16

was that, you know, they could, they

19:18

could bargain one Israeli life for 1000

19:20

people. So you think fast forward,

19:22

that was Simar's message. That's how he was released

19:25

from jail. What do you think his

19:27

goal is going to be when he can, you know,

19:29

when he plans an operation himself, of course, it's going

19:31

to involve hostages because that's because of

19:33

the Israeli psyche, not a criticism. It's,

19:35

you know, it's, it's a very, it's

19:37

a very understandable

19:40

psyche and it's not shared by our government,

19:42

right. But

19:45

that's partly why this

19:47

whole, you know, this whole affair of

19:50

the hostages of last year, there's been

19:52

such a sense of betrayal against the

19:54

government, because many feel that this is

19:57

not in in

19:59

the ethos of the relative

22:00

moderate. And we'll talk

22:03

about Khaled Mashal, who's

22:05

the guy who may well

22:07

replace Sinwar. And

22:10

no one challenged his rule. Ishmael

22:12

Haniah, head of a master's political

22:14

bureau, was the nominal leader of

22:17

the organization, but he deferred all

22:19

operational decision-making to Sinwar.

22:21

And in fact, when

22:24

it came to 7 October attacks,

22:26

there were those who say that

22:28

even Haniah didn't know about all

22:30

the plans because Sinwar

22:34

was very, very good at

22:36

operational security. A little bit more on that.

22:38

So in 2017, right, that's six

22:40

years before the

22:47

attacks on 7 October. That

22:49

is when Sinwar started to develop this

22:52

plan. And as I mentioned, he was

22:54

a strategist and he realized that the

22:56

cycle of rocket attacks and reprisals against

23:00

the Israelis kept the

23:02

pot boiling, but they couldn't be an

23:04

end in itself. They weren't having any

23:06

type of strategic effect. And

23:09

as Israelis, the Iron

23:11

Dome system became more

23:13

effective. And

23:16

even the cross-border raids, except the one

23:18

with Shalit, achieved little.

23:23

So he started to hatch a

23:25

plan to strike Israel, a debilitating blow, one from which

23:27

it would never recover. And so, interestingly enough, in 2021,

23:29

there was another flare-up in

23:32

Gaza, I

23:45

think it was like 14 days long, the

23:48

usual pattern, several hundred Palestinians

23:50

killed and a handful of

23:52

Israelis. Actually, it might have been

23:54

2000 back in 2021. Anyway, the

23:59

interesting thing about that, it was

24:02

primarily exchange

24:04

of rockets, but

24:06

the Israelis did go in

24:08

and conduct limited raids. But

24:11

it seems now as though that

24:14

was kind of him testing the system. He

24:17

was low profile during

24:25

that time because he wanted the

24:28

Israelis to think that he was

24:30

focused on governance of Gaza, right?

24:32

And the Israelis were offering economic

24:34

incentives. Sinwar

24:37

had his life saved by

24:39

an Israeli surgeon while he was in

24:41

jail. So maybe the Israelis thought that he

24:43

might have developed a soft spot for them,

24:48

but not the case.

24:50

So even back in 2014, sorry

24:53

to jump around a little bit,

24:59

Sinwar started

25:01

talking to Hania, we know about

25:04

this, about enlisting Iran's support for

25:07

an attack. And

25:10

so from 2014 onwards, they were getting massive

25:13

amount of work, large amount of money

25:15

from Iran, some hundred million dollars annually

25:18

in the older years up to 2023. And

25:20

that was really

25:22

Sinwar and Hania's doing.

25:27

And because the rest of

25:29

the Hamas leadership, Mashal, were opposed

25:32

to Iran, were not opposed, but

25:34

they had pissed Iran off because

25:36

of their opposition, all

25:38

their support for the Sunni revolution

25:40

against Assad in Syria. So

25:43

Sinwar is the guy who recognized

25:46

they needed a state sponsor. And

25:49

that's significant. Without that,

25:51

again, they would still, Hamas

25:55

would be a

25:58

10-part organization. I mean, something

28:00

about, you know, the not the whole plan,

28:02

because no one knew about that, except to

28:04

write nearly unborn babies may kick their mother

28:07

30 times an hour, making moms wonder, is

28:09

that a karate champion in there? Well, one

28:11

thing she won't wonder about is finding a

28:13

great doctor at one of our 65 convenient

28:16

Bay Area locations, Stanford Medicine

28:18

Children's Health. And but certainly

28:21

a lot of the plan and what they were

28:23

working for, because starting in 20, starting in 2018,

28:26

Hamas started to, to organize

28:28

exercises, right

28:35

training exercises around

28:37

Gaza. And, and it

28:39

wasn't just Hamas, they brought

28:41

in PIJ, and a

28:43

couple of the other Palestinian groups. And

28:46

in those exercises, and you can you can

28:48

look this up on, I think there's

28:50

a good BBC article about it and YouTube's

28:53

and interviews with Hamas, for,

28:56

you know, Hamas members, they,

28:58

they were doing they were practicing

29:01

things like reaching fences, destroying

29:03

tanks, and

29:05

clearing kibbutzas. Okay,

29:07

so, you know, they

29:09

built up, they built this mock kind of training,

29:12

it's amazing, they did this under the eyes of

29:14

the Israelis. They had a training

29:16

area, it was near the near

29:19

the coast in central Gaza. And it

29:21

was kind of, it was, it was

29:24

the ground was below, I

29:26

mean, it was below ground level, you know, so

29:29

it wasn't clearly, you couldn't clearly see it. Unless

29:32

you were right up on it, it was very well

29:35

chosen. And and they they conducted

29:37

extensive drills there. They

29:40

they, they, they did four,

29:42

at least four major exercises

29:45

before seven October. By that

29:47

I mean, you know, once, once

29:49

every few months, right. But

29:52

in between that, there was a lot of other

29:55

training taking place, you know, even hang

29:58

glider, hang gliding training. because

38:00

Mashal was the guy I mentioned who wasn't

38:02

particularly pro-Iranian. So

38:06

here's one option. Now, Mashal

38:09

is in Turkey right now, relatively

38:11

moderate for a

38:14

mass dude. You know,

38:16

he's a little like

38:18

Hania. He achieved

38:20

fame in an unenviable way

38:23

back in 1997, when

38:26

Mossad tried to kill him in

38:28

Jordan, and it was a

38:30

botched assassination attempt. They poisoned him, and

38:33

then as he's flapping around in hospital, of

38:36

course, everyone knows, I think they capture a

38:38

couple of Mossad agents too, and all the poison

38:40

and everything. In King Hussein,

38:43

the King of Jordan says he's furious, and

38:45

he says, you know, you better fucking give

38:47

me the antidote now, and

38:50

Israel did, you know, they gave

38:52

to him. So that is why Mashal is

38:55

still alive. By

39:00

the way, at the same time after watching

39:02

that attempt is when Israel agreed to release

39:04

Sheikh Ahmed Yatsim from prison as kind of

39:07

a, hey, we're sorry for messing this up.

39:09

So you see all these all

39:12

these consequences. Yeah, yeah.

39:15

So he I

39:19

mean, it's a good chance it will be Mashal.

39:22

In fact, he was when Hania

39:24

was killed. Oh, gosh,

39:27

when was that? I can't remember.

39:30

But when he was killed a

39:33

few months ago, yeah, everyone, a lot of

39:35

people thought that it would be Mashal who

39:37

replaced him. But there's

39:40

another black swan out there. Ask

39:42

me who the black swan is. Who's the black

39:44

swan, Andy? Maumud

39:48

Sinwar. His

39:50

brother asked me if he's related. Yeah, his brother.

39:52

Okay, so so Maumud Sinwar.

39:57

You know, where is Sinwar? Where's

39:59

Yaya Sinwar? Marine

46:00

and a special operations guide to say,

46:02

but we jumped to, you know, counterterrorism

46:06

or counterinsurgency or

46:09

assassination. But

46:13

perhaps because, you

46:16

know, the UN and other organizations are

46:18

so ineffective at this, you

46:21

know, a huge part of all

46:23

of these military operations should be preemption,

46:26

perhaps the courts, it should be right. And

46:28

I would argue that it doesn't matter. You take

46:31

guards that you put it anywhere in the world,

46:33

similar conditions, you're going to have a terrorist problem,

46:35

right? You're going to have you're going to have

46:37

people, you know,

46:39

so whatever way you look at it, it's the

46:41

world's biggest prison. By that, I mean, you

46:44

know, they don't control their own borders,

46:46

right? So it is a

46:48

prison. It's not a political

46:50

statement. It's, you know, you put people

46:52

in that environment, low unemployment. And

46:55

you've got this perennial narrative about,

46:58

you know, the, the Nakba and,

47:02

and every day that the, you know,

47:04

they're hearing this, they're brought up in

47:06

this. And now you're going

47:08

to have, I mean, there isn't a single person

47:10

in Gaza and hasn't been, you know,

47:13

hasn't lost people. Right. So like we

47:15

talked about last time, you,

47:17

me or anyone else, we, we've got a mirror image

47:20

that these are human beings with the same, with

47:23

the same feelings that we do. And there's going to be

47:25

a lot of anger. Unborn babies

47:27

may kick their mother 30 times

47:29

an hour, making moms wonder, is that a

47:31

karate champion in there? Well, one thing she

47:33

won't wonder about is finding a great doctor

47:36

at one of our 65 convenient

47:38

Bay area locations, Stanford medicine,

47:40

children's health, maybe people who

47:42

say, yeah, let's forgive and go on, but

47:44

there's going to be a lot of young

47:46

men who've lost families who want

47:49

revenge. And yeah,

47:52

and you got to, you got to

47:54

assume there's some young, I mean, I

47:56

guess a bad word to say young

47:58

Turk in Gaza.