The Ben Shapiro Show - October 07, 2024


ONE YEAR LATER: The 7 Lessons Of October 7


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 5 minutes

Words per Minute

174.90652

Word Count

11,538

Sentence Count

921

Misogynist Sentences

24

Hate Speech Sentences

51


Summary

One year ago today, the world turned upside down. The eliminationist terror group Hamas, whose charter explicitly calls for the death of Jews and the extermination of Israel, was elected in 2006. Since then, Hamas has spent billions of dollars building hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels below civilian areas. They have also sporadically fired rockets over the border, necessitating that hundreds of thousands of Israelis go underground or to their mamads, safe rooms. That s precisely what Hamas is counting on. At the same time the security wall between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel is breached by thousands of Hamas terrorists, they have taken out the monitoring towers, knocked down the wall with bulldozers, and destroyed all resistance in their terror rampage. It takes days to completely clear the area of the Gaza envelope of terrorists. In the United States, we begin to find out the details of the massacre, only a few days after the attack on the music festival by Hamas terrorists near the city of Re'im, near the border with Gaza, and by the time it s all over, some 1,200 Israelis have been taken hostage by the terrorists. By the time the assault is complete, some 250 have been murdered. This episode is brought to you by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) and is a gift from Benforthefellowship.org, to make a gift to the Jewish people in need of a safe room in the hellhole that is Gaza. God bless you. God bless and thank you, God bless, and God is great. -- Aye, and may you live in peace, bless you and keep you safe, be safe, rest in Paradise, be secure, and rest in the land of safety, and good rest, and so much more. -- Amen and good night. -- Psalm 139, -- -- Ebb and Good night, Blessings, -- Ode to You, my Lord and Good morning, Bless you, Bless You, Ode, Bless Me, and Bless You. -- -- Alyssa and Good Night. -- Eileen -- - Abraham -- -- - Ode To Meghan -- "Amen and Bless Me" -- -- "I swear to God, Lord is Great?" -- Ayn Elie? -- Ayesha -- Thank you, Lord bless you? -- Abigail -- And so on, Lord Bless Me? -- Thank you for listening?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Folks, watch the full unedited version of the show.
00:00:02.000 You can see all the images that we have to blur, for example.
00:00:05.000 Head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe and go watch the show over there.
00:00:09.000 This episode is brought to you by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
00:00:12.000 Here's what I need you to do right now.
00:00:14.000 Go to benforthefellowship.org.
00:00:16.000 That's benforthefellowship.org to make a gift today.
00:00:19.000 Remember, benforthefellowship.org.
00:00:21.000 God bless and thank you. One year ago today, the world turned upside down.
00:00:44.000 The eliminationist terror group Hamas, whose charter explicitly calls for the death of Jews and the extermination of Israel, was elected in 2006.
00:00:51.000 Since then, Hamas has spent billions of dollars building hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels below civilian areas.
00:00:58.000 They've also sporadically fired rockets over the border, necessitating that hundreds of
00:01:01.000 thousands of Israelis go underground or to their mamads, safe rooms.
00:01:06.000 That is precisely what Hamas is counting on.
00:01:08.000 At the same time the rockets are fired, the security wall between the Gaza Strip and southern
00:01:12.000 Israel is breached by thousands of Hamas terrorists.
00:01:15.000 They've taken out the monitoring towers.
00:01:17.000 They've knocked down the wall with bulldozers.
00:01:18.000 They've also targeted the IDF troops in the region, destroying all resistance in their
00:01:22.000 terror rampage.
00:01:24.000 Their first stop is Kibbutz Berri.
00:01:26.000 Unimpeded, the terrorists go house by house.
00:01:28.000 They have good inside information from Gazan workers.
00:01:30.000 They kill all the civilians they can find, including men, women, and children.
00:01:34.000 They drag dozens of hostages back into Gaza.
00:01:36.000 This is what the video looked like.
00:01:39.000 You can see them pulling through Kibbutz Berri, where they've blown away people in their cars.
00:01:45.000 You can see them simply running through the gates.
00:01:48.000 This includes civilians.
00:01:49.000 It includes elderly people on crutches who are going to participate in the terrorism.
00:01:55.000 You can see them walking through the town unimpeded.
00:02:01.000 You can see them running through what was a perfectly nice kibbutz in Israel shooting people in their homes.
00:02:10.000 And of course, I'm going through the refrigerators of people While they burn their houses and murder them.
00:02:21.000 The footage is, of course, deeply disturbing.
00:02:24.000 Here they are dragging some of the members of Kibbutz Beri away into the hellhole that is Gaza.
00:02:32.000 And this, of course, is bodies being taken out of Kibbutz Beri.
00:02:36.000 More than 100 bodies found.
00:02:37.000 The terrorists move town to town, slaughtering as many people as they can find.
00:02:40.000 They kill children in their beds.
00:02:42.000 They behead the body of a Thai worker.
00:02:52.000 He's not quite dead yet. He's still moving, but he's been actually moving in the stomach.
00:02:56.000 And they begin trying to use a shovel to behead him.
00:03:03.000 for the great sin of being in Israel.
00:03:07.000 I swear to God, I swear to God.
00:03:09.000 God is great!
00:03:11.000 Take a picture, take a picture.
00:03:17.000 God is great, praise be to God. God is great.
00:03:19.000 While screaming, God is great in Arabic.
00:03:21.000 God is great.
00:03:23.000 God is great.
00:03:25.000 Gazan civilians celebrate as civilian Jews and Arabs and non-Arabs are dragged back into hell.
00:03:33.000 into hell. This is a video of Shani Luke's dead body.
00:03:36.000 Oh She was, of course, at the Nova Festival.
00:03:40.000 You can see that her body has been completely crumbled.
00:03:43.000 They're all screaming Allahu Akbar, surrounded by civilians as they drive back into Gaza.
00:03:48.000 She clearly is dead from the position her body is in.
00:03:51.000 Hamas tried to maintain for weeks that she was not.
00:03:54.000 Meanwhile, Hamas terrorists, as mentioned, descend on the Nova Music Festival, a large-scale party near the Re'im Kibbutz.
00:04:00.000 Paragliders descend over the wall and proceed to kill 364 people, abduct dozens, and by the testimony of survivors, rape many of the women before murdering them.
00:04:08.000 You can see in this video, members of Hamas in their paragliders descending on the music festival.
00:04:17.000 This of course would become iconic in the United States when left-wing groups would actually animate logos in solidarity with the members of Hamas.
00:04:25.000 Israelis from all walks of life rush to the scenes of the massacres trying to rescue the Jews, Arabs, and others under assault.
00:04:30.000 Many die or are wounded in the attempt.
00:04:32.000 It takes days to completely clear the area of the Gaza envelope of Hamas terrorists.
00:04:36.000 By the time the massacre is over, some 1,200 Israelis have been murdered.
00:04:39.000 250 have been taken hostage back to Gaza.
00:04:43.000 Meanwhile, in the north of Israel, Hezbollah, a terrorist group backed by Iran, has joined the war as well.
00:04:47.000 They've started shooting rockets into northern Israel by the hundreds.
00:04:50.000 The only thing keeping them from a full-scale invasion is probably fear of destruction.
00:04:55.000 In the United States, we begin to find out the details of the massacre only gradually.
00:04:59.000 The terrorists had waited, as per their usual, religiously respectful arrangement, for a Jewish holiday in order to commit their horrifying crime.
00:05:06.000 My family and I had only left Israel on October 6th to make it home for the final of the High Holy Days, Simchat Torah and Shemini Yatzeret.
00:05:14.000 We arrived home on Friday afternoon.
00:05:16.000 On Saturday morning, on my way to Shul, I'm stopped by my security.
00:05:18.000 I'm told what's going on. First, they say, there are dozens of dead.
00:05:22.000 Then, a few minutes later, hundreds.
00:05:24.000 Then over the course of the day, over a thousand.
00:05:27.000 Members of my community are in shock.
00:05:28.000 Some have relatives in the assaulted areas.
00:05:30.000 One has a brother living in an area directly under attack.
00:05:33.000 The feeling of dread pervades not just our community, but the entire Jewish community worldwide.
00:05:37.000 It's the worst terror assault on Jews since the Holocaust.
00:05:41.000 In the years since October 7th, Israel has launched the most targeted successful urban military operation in human history.
00:05:47.000 Israel has destroyed 23 out of 24 Hamas battalions with heartbreaking but statistically minimal loss of life among their members of the IDF. Their ratio of terrorists to civilians killed is the lowest in recorded military history.
00:06:00.000 Israel has killed the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Khania, in a pinpoint operation in Tehran, Iran.
00:06:05.000 Israel has killed the military organizer of Hamas, Mohammed Daif.
00:06:08.000 They may have killed Yahya Sinwar, the military leader behind October 7th.
00:06:11.000 He's been out of touch for weeks.
00:06:13.000 In the north, Israel has, in the last month, absolutely devastated Hezbollah, an incredibly sophisticated and colorful operation utilizing exploding beepers, beepers Israel sold to Hezbollah, all simultaneously destroyed Hezbollah's communications and their top-level leadership.
00:06:29.000 Then there was a follow-up operation in which they exploded Hamas' walkie-talkies.
00:06:32.000 Then there was a series of targeted airstrikes that culminated with the destruction of Hezbollah's long-range capacity and the killing of their terror leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and his deputies.
00:06:42.000 And now there's military operations going on by ground troops in southern Lebanon.
00:06:46.000 Israel has also struck the Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis with force after Yemen sent a drone and cruise missiles into Israel.
00:06:53.000 Meanwhile, Israel and its allies have blunted two separate, massive, direct Iranian drone and missile assaults, and now Israel threatens extraordinary retaliation for Iran's last major act of war.
00:07:02.000 That happened just last week when Iran shot 181 cruise missiles into Israel.
00:07:07.000 If October 7th, 2023 was the low point in the history of the state of Israel, Israel now stands in perhaps its strongest position in living memory.
00:07:15.000 Iran's top two terror proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, have been eviscerated.
00:07:19.000 Iran itself lives in fear of Israeli retaliation.
00:07:23.000 The Sunni Gulf Arab states that were considering the broadening of the Abraham Accords, who may have thought that Israel was a weak horse after October 7th, are moving steadily toward normalization with Israel again.
00:07:33.000 But the last year has been a year of lessons.
00:07:36.000 In fact, there are seven major lessons that have to be learned or October 7th will be repeated to even worse effect, not just in Israel, but in the West more broadly.
00:07:46.000 Lesson number one, evil exists.
00:07:49.000 Now, it's become fashionable in the West to believe that evil does not exist, that really there are no truly evil people, only people who are misguided, who have bad thoughts or who are victims.
00:07:59.000 It's tempting to believe. We all believe the same things.
00:08:01.000 We want the same things. But we're prevented through conflicting ideologies and interests from obtaining those things.
00:08:07.000 That is a lie.
00:08:09.000 There are, in fact, better and worse cultures, better and worse ideas, and better and worse people.
00:08:15.000 And there is, in fact, evil.
00:08:17.000 It is difficult to think of better evidence of human evil than this phone call in which a Hamas terrorist, in the middle of the massacre, called his family to tell them how proud he was that he had murdered Jewish civilians.
00:08:30.000 Hi, Dad. I'm talking to you from Mifalsim.
00:08:34.000 Open my WhatsApp now and you'll see all those killed.
00:08:37.000 Look how many I killed with my own hands.
00:08:38.000 Your son killed Jews. It's inside Mifalsim, Dad.
00:08:42.000 And his father says, may God protect you.
00:08:44.000 Dad, I'm talking to you from a Jewish woman's phone.
00:08:47.000 I killed her and I killed her husband.
00:08:49.000 I killed 10 with my own hands.
00:08:52.000 And his father is saying, Allahu Akbar.
00:08:54.000 Dad, open WhatsApp and see how many I killed, Dad.
00:08:56.000 Open the phone, Dad. I'm calling you on WhatsApp.
00:08:58.000 Open the phone, go. That is the voice of evil.
00:09:03.000 Members of Hamas chopping the heads off dead Thai workers.
00:09:06.000 Members of Hamas shooting children in their beds.
00:09:08.000 That is evil. Hamas didn't just cross a border and kill soldiers.
00:09:12.000 It targeted civilians.
00:09:13.000 It celebrated the murder of civilians.
00:09:15.000 It celebrated the rape and slaughter of civilians.
00:09:18.000 The Nazis hid their crimes.
00:09:20.000 Hamas live streamed them in real time for the whole world to see.
00:09:24.000 It's not as though the West's enemies are hiding the ball here.
00:09:27.000 Yahweh Sinwar, leader of Hamas, has openly called for Israel's destruction, after, by the way, being healed of brain cancer while being held in an Israeli prison and then released.
00:09:34.000 The book of Isaiah says, Woe to us!
00:09:58.000 Lesson number two.
00:09:59.000 Only the credible threat of crushing force destroys evil.
00:10:03.000 Evil cannot be deterred through negotiation.
00:10:06.000 Buying off evil with promises of negotiated settlements does not work.
00:10:10.000 The old adage that you don't negotiate with friends, you negotiate with enemies.
00:10:13.000 That's only true when your enemies understand their failure to achieve a negotiated settlement guarantees their own destruction.
00:10:20.000 Historian Jeffrey Blaney authored a book called The Causes of War, where he examined every international war between 1700 and 1988.
00:10:27.000 288 years of war.
00:10:28.000 His conclusion, wars only break out when one side, correctly or incorrectly, believes it can win or can deal the enemy a serious blow for purposes of improving bargaining position.
00:10:38.000 He wrote, quote, anything which increases optimism is a cause of war.
00:10:41.000 Anything which dampens that optimism is a cause of peace.
00:10:44.000 Crush your enemies and win peace.
00:10:46.000 Let them know that you will crush them and prevent war.
00:10:50.000 War can only be deterred through the credible threat of overwhelming force.
00:10:59.000 That is why Israel is now pursuing the only strategy of war that has ever worked ever.
00:11:03.000 A strategy that has now been abandoned for generations by the West.
00:11:06.000 Victory. Victory leads to further peace as neutral states sign on.
00:11:11.000 That's precisely what Donald Trump knew when he brokered the Abraham Accords.
00:11:13.000 It was the weakness and stupidity of the Biden White House and the blindness of Israelis who went to sleep on Hamas that led to October 7th.
00:11:20.000 This is why the current Biden administration tactic of trying to hold back Israel from destroying its enemies isn't just wrong, it's dangerous.
00:11:27.000 Which leads to lesson number three.
00:11:29.000 Weakness incentivizes your enemies.
00:11:32.000 Weakness incentivizes evil people to act.
00:11:36.000 Israel has spent four decades apologizing for its own power, hoping to apologize for the necessity of strength in defending its existence in one of the worst spots on planet Earth.
00:11:46.000 Since Oslo, Israel has promoted the absolute lie that it could simply pay off those who wished its destruction.
00:11:52.000 Israel pulled out of large segments of the so-called West Bank, the biblical homeland of Judea and Samaria, and handed it over to the terrorists Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority, and Fatah.
00:12:01.000 They pulled out of Gaza and they handed it over to the terrorist group Hamas.
00:12:04.000 They pulled out of southern Lebanon and they handed it over effectively to the terrorist group Hezbollah.
00:12:08.000 None of it bought peace.
00:12:09.000 None of it. All of it bought war.
00:12:12.000 All of it. The same thing is true of the pathetic Biden administration.
00:12:16.000 Thanks to the increased strength of the Israeli tech sector and military over the course of the past decade and thanks to the rising threat of Iran created by the pathetic Obama administration and its truly disgusting decision to woo Iran in lieu of America's allies, the Sunni Gulf states signed on to the Trump-backed Abraham Accords.
00:12:31.000 They knew they'd have to form an alliance against Iran and that any durable future could be achieved only in alliance with a forward-looking technological and military power.
00:12:40.000 Then came the Biden administration, which moved quickly to alienate Saudi and Israel in favor of Iran again.
00:12:45.000 This led Iran in fear of the prospect of a Saudi-Israeli alliance to activate Hamas, the goal being to split the Muslim world over the Palestinians, who have never wanted a state and never wanted peace and have always been a tool in the Middle East to destroy the state of Israel.
00:12:58.000 When Trump says October 7th never would have happened on his watch, that is clearly correct.
00:13:02.000 If America had made clear it was going to back Saudi and Israel against Iranian proxies, Rather than attempting to chastise both countries for fighting those Iranian proxies, Iran wouldn't have had room to breathe.
00:13:12.000 Instead, they got billions of dollars from the White House and they went for broke.
00:13:16.000 Lesson number four. Division incentivizes your enemies.
00:13:20.000 Unity brings victory. Internal weakness.
00:13:23.000 Division incentivizes your enemies.
00:13:24.000 Israel was super divided over judicial reform, a question of just how the judiciary in the country
00:13:29.000 would be allowed to control the legislature and the executive.
00:13:32.000 That fight in Israel wasn't really about the structure of the judiciary per se,
00:13:36.000 it was really about the demographics of the state, with some secular Jews upset,
00:13:39.000 with some members of the rising tide of the religious.
00:13:42.000 The people of Israel, it turns out, weren't nearly as divided as the elite in Israel.
00:13:46.000 No matter.
00:13:46.000 Hamas saw, they saw weakness, and they acted.
00:13:50.000 Israel, however, instead of shattering, drew together.
00:13:52.000 The social fabric stood strong.
00:13:54.000 It turns out everybody secular in Israel has a religious cousin.
00:13:56.000 All the same people who had threatened to walk out on their military service instead signed up for immediate service.
00:14:02.000 Religious and non-religious, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, everyone joined up and fought side by side.
00:14:06.000 The people of Israel are united by a common enemy, of course, but they're also united by a common history and a shared fate.
00:14:12.000 So are we in the West more broadly if only we would see it.
00:14:16.000 But we may be too busy tearing ourselves down.
00:14:19.000 Which brings us to lesson number five.
00:14:21.000 The West has failed to teach its children the right things.
00:14:24.000 We have failed. The West has taken the cancer of decolonization ideology into its bones.
00:14:30.000 It is bone deep. For generations, particularly since the end of World War II, the elites of the intellectual West have been apologizing for Western existence.
00:14:38.000 They've been teaching our children the West is a colonialist power, exploitative, brutal, and that the enemies of the West, they're just victims.
00:14:45.000 That's why they're so upset.
00:14:47.000 That's why the children of the West are marching around with Hamas and Hezbollah flags next to their trans pins.
00:14:52.000 They agree with the words of Jean-Paul Sartre that, quote, you who are so liberal, so humane, who take the love of culture to the point of affectation, you pretend to forget that you have colonies where massacres are committed in your name.
00:15:03.000 Unquote. Lesson number six.
00:15:33.000 The West has imported its own enemies.
00:15:36.000 As part of its own suicidal path, the West has now imported millions of people
00:15:39.000 who wish for our destruction.
00:15:41.000 It is not racist, it is not bigoted to point out openly that importing millions of people
00:15:46.000 who openly sympathize with terror groups is not strength.
00:15:49.000 Diversity is not our strength in this sense.
00:15:51.000 That is insanity.
00:15:52.000 But that's precisely what the West has done, all in the name of supposed global reparations
00:15:56.000 for the success of the West.
00:15:58.000 This cannot continue.
00:16:00.000 Everyone knows it.
00:16:01.000 The Nordic countries know it.
00:16:02.000 The French know it.
00:16:03.000 The British know it.
00:16:04.000 And Americans know it too.
00:16:06.000 And yet to say so is somehow considered taboo.
00:16:09.000 It can't be. Not all cultures are equal.
00:16:12.000 Some cultures are far worse than others.
00:16:14.000 Not all ideas are equal.
00:16:15.000 Some ideas are far worse than others.
00:16:17.000 And not all people of all cultures and all ideas belong in the West.
00:16:21.000 If you march with a Hezbollah or a Hamas flag, you do not belong in this country.
00:16:26.000 You do not belong in the West.
00:16:28.000 You certainly don't belong on scholarship on an American college campus.
00:16:32.000 Final lesson, lesson number seven.
00:16:33.000 In every generation, they rise to kill the Jews.
00:16:36.000 So finally, the last lesson. The Haggadah, which is the document we, the Jews, we read on Passover, has a very famous passage.
00:16:46.000 And that's certainly true historically.
00:16:54.000 And as a religious Jew, I will say, yes, they fail because of God.
00:16:58.000 But they also fail because they are failures.
00:17:01.000 The very ideology of anti-Semitism is a failure.
00:17:03.000 It rests on a very simple premise that the Jews are a conspiratorial force who Who actually control the world through nefarious means, all in pursuit of corrupt ends.
00:17:13.000 This isn't just nonsense on stilts.
00:17:15.000 It's dangerous nonsense.
00:17:17.000 And it's not just dangerous for Jews.
00:17:18.000 It's dangerous for any civilization that cherishes success and incentivizes it.
00:17:23.000 One of the oldest stories in the Bible, of course, at the beginning of the book of Genesis, is the story of Cain and Abel.
00:17:27.000 In it, Cain and Abel both bring sacrifices to God, and God rejects Cain's sacrifice but accepts Abel's.
00:17:33.000 It's not really clear just why God makes that decision, but we do know what God tells Cain.
00:17:38.000 He says, quote, Why are you angry?
00:17:39.000 Why has your face fallen?
00:17:41.000 Surely, if you do right, there is uplift.
00:17:43.000 But if you do not do right, sin crouches at the door.
00:17:46.000 Its urge is toward you, but you can master it.
00:17:49.000 That, by the way, is the message of a successful West.
00:17:51.000 You can master those urges.
00:17:53.000 Instead, Cain kills Abel, the first murder in human history.
00:17:56.000 This is still the model of murder today, particularly political murder, justified by supposed victimization.
00:18:02.000 Cain was not a victim, even though he thought of himself as a victim.
00:18:05.000 Neither are those who turn their lands into hellholes, who spend billions of dollars on terrorism, who call for the leveling of human achievement in favor of a cannibalistic pseudo-justice.
00:18:14.000 They are scavengers, and they have to be fought tooth and nail.
00:18:20.000 October 7th may have been a win for Israel's terrorist enemies.
00:18:23.000 But in the subsequent year, they learned one particular lesson.
00:18:26.000 That if they bet wrong, if they attack the West, if they bet on the weakness of the West and its own pathetic unwillingness to survive, if they bet wrong on that, they will be destroyed.
00:18:35.000 I spent the last year talking.
00:18:38.000 With the parents of hostages.
00:18:39.000 With soldiers who have lost limbs in battle.
00:18:42.000 With the family members of soldiers who have been slain.
00:18:44.000 And family members of people killed on October 7th and since.
00:18:47.000 They all know one thing.
00:18:49.000 Israel cannot afford to lose.
00:18:52.000 And so Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran are finding out the hard way.
00:18:55.000 around and find out. It's about time the rest of the West learned that lesson and
00:19:00.000 applied it because that's the only type of West that will be able to survive and
00:19:04.000 thrive and humanity depends on precisely that the West surviving and thriving.
00:19:09.000 As we've been talking about today October 7th marks one year since the
00:19:12.000 worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
00:19:15.000 1,200 Israelis lost their lives, over 250 were taken hostage, and the war in Israel continues to rage on today.
00:19:22.000 Earlier this month, Iran launched a massive barrage of nearly 200 ballistic missiles at the Holy Land.
00:19:27.000 This isn't just another conflict in the Middle East.
00:19:28.000 Israel and her people are facing attacks from enemies on all sides who seek her destruction.
00:19:32.000 But there's hope. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is on the ground, providing food, shelter, and safety to those in need during this crisis.
00:19:39.000 Since the war started, thousands of reservists, everyday Israeli citizens, have left their families to serve their country.
00:19:44.000 Soldiers have been injured and their families need our support.
00:19:47.000 Your gift of $100 today helps the fellowship provide food and other necessities to these families to help them survive.
00:19:53.000 Here's what I need you to do right now.
00:19:54.000 Go to benforthefellowship.org.
00:19:56.000 That's benforthefellowship.org to make a gift today.
00:19:59.000 In the face of these many threats, the Fellowship's ongoing work providing security to Israelis has never been more important.
00:20:04.000 Remember, that's benforthefellowship.org.
00:20:06.000 God bless and thank you.
00:20:08.000 Now is the moment to give.
00:20:09.000 Never has there been, in recent memory, a more dangerous time for the state of Israel and for the people of Israel.
00:20:14.000 Remember, benforthefellowship.org.
00:20:15.000 Thank you so much. I had the opportunity a little bit early on this week to talk with the parents of a person who's still being held hostage in Gaza.
00:20:23.000 The suffering is not yet over for Jews who were taken and their families.
00:20:27.000 Everyone who is stolen off into the hellhole that is the Gaza Strip created by Hamas.
00:20:33.000 Hamas could surrender. This could be over any day they want.
00:20:36.000 But they are not. I was joined earlier this week by Orna Nutra and Ronen Nutra.
00:20:41.000 Their son, Omer Nutra, is a 22-year-old dual citizen of the United States and Israel and was kidnapped into Gaza.
00:20:47.000 Here's what it sounded like. Joining us on the line are Orna Nutra and Ronen Nutra.
00:20:52.000 They are the parents of Omer Nutra, a 22-year-old dual citizen of the United States and Israel, who was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th.
00:21:00.000 Orna and Ronen, thanks so much for taking the time.
00:21:01.000 Really appreciate it. Thank you, Ben.
00:21:04.000 Thank you for having us. Why don't we begin by talking about Omer as a person.
00:21:08.000 Obviously, he's an American citizen.
00:21:09.000 He decided that he was going to go join IDF. Tell me about your son.
00:21:15.000 Omer was born here in New York City.
00:21:18.000 He grew up on Long Island.
00:21:20.000 Very warm community.
00:21:24.000 He grew up in a warm Jewish community.
00:21:27.000 Very... We're Zionistic.
00:21:30.000 Obviously, we're also dual citizens of the United States and Israel, and we have a big family in Israel.
00:21:36.000 So we visited Israel many times.
00:21:38.000 We're both descendants of Holocaust survivors.
00:21:42.000 And Omer grew up on the ethos that, you know, Israel needs to be strong.
00:21:46.000 He loves Israel. And when he was accepted to college, it was a family decision for him to spend a gap year before he went to college in Israel.
00:21:55.000 And he chose to spend that year together with Israeli kids in a Mechina program, which is pretty much a gap year for Israeli kids before they joined the army.
00:22:07.000 And he grew very connected to his new friends and to, I guess, certain parts of his identity which were dormant.
00:22:18.000 And throughout that year, he started developing feelings that, you know, he couldn't just go back to his life without doing his share and protecting Israel, which he loved so much.
00:22:31.000 Yeah, but I want to add that Omer is...
00:22:35.000 An all-American kid.
00:22:36.000 He loves the NBA, the NFL, you know, he's doing fantasy leagues.
00:22:42.000 He's just like any American.
00:22:44.000 He grew up here. He loves America and he learned to love Israel.
00:22:50.000 And he has a messy room.
00:22:52.000 And yes, sometimes he's very goofy and he's extremely social and he's a big guy.
00:22:59.000 Everybody loves to hug him and to be together with him.
00:23:04.000 We miss him so much. So I know it's difficult, but take me through the events of what you know about what happened on October 7th with Omer.
00:23:14.000 Yeah, so Omer and his group were stationed between Kibbutz Nirim and Kibbutz Niroz.
00:23:21.000 And their job was to protect those Kibbutzim in time of peace.
00:23:27.000 And nobody expected, obviously, there was a big failure of intelligence because nobody expected what happened on October 7th.
00:23:35.000 And on early morning, October 7, they rushed to the border as first responders with two tanks and a small platoon of Golani soldiers trying to protect the border, not knowing that they're going to be meeting and facing thousands of ISIS-Hamas terrorists gushing through the border, attacking their tank.
00:23:59.000 That tank also had a malfunction.
00:24:02.000 The brakes were jammed.
00:24:04.000 Unfortunately, it had to drive very slow.
00:24:06.000 As a result, they managed to put explosives on the tank, put it on fire, and Omer and his team were pulled out of the tank after it was smoked and taken hostage into Gaza.
00:24:19.000 It took us a few months to learn that the driver was actually killed on that spot, and one of the soldiers was murdered as it was pulled out of the tank, and Omer And a teammate were taken alive into Gaza.
00:24:37.000 That's as far as we know.
00:24:39.000 There was a video propaganda that Hamas published that is just available out there and basically showing that they are pulled out of the tank.
00:24:48.000 But we have no further information ever since.
00:24:52.000 So there have been opportunities for the International Red Cross to get aid into Gaza, but they've not had any contact apparently with the hostages at this point.
00:25:02.000 Is that correct? The Red Cross was not allowed, and how can that be?
00:25:08.000 That the Red Cross is not allowed to visit any one of the hostages, and we got no official to see them, see their medical condition, give them attention, make sure that they're getting fed and getting water.
00:25:23.000 We have no idea.
00:25:24.000 We know from People that returned, the conditions there are horrible.
00:25:29.000 We have been kept in the dark.
00:25:31.000 This is, you know, you're talking about a terrorist, the biggest terrorist attack on the Israeli state on October 7th.
00:25:39.000 But for us, it's been a prolonged terrorist attack.
00:25:41.000 And of course, for the hostages, you know, they're still there.
00:25:45.000 And from what we just recently saw, the information that came out after the brutal execution of the six young people a month ago, You know, there's not much room left for imagination there.
00:25:59.000 We were shown the conditions that they've been held.
00:26:03.000 They were found emaciated.
00:26:05.000 You know, what else does the world need in order to take action on this?
00:26:10.000 So, obviously, your son is a dual citizen.
00:26:13.000 He's an American citizen. Have you spoken with the Biden-Harris administration at all about what's going on with your son?
00:26:19.000 What sort of support have they offered, if any?
00:26:21.000 What are they talking about doing?
00:26:23.000 So we are feeling that the Biden administration has been very communicative with us.
00:26:31.000 We've been traveling to Washington DC probably 15 times or more.
00:26:36.000 We met in the White House with the National Security Advisor team.
00:26:43.000 We are meeting them periodically, every two or three weeks, and they give us updates.
00:26:49.000 They care about our opinion.
00:26:50.000 We share thoughts.
00:26:53.000 But you know, as they said, the proof is in the pudding.
00:26:56.000 Our son is still there.
00:26:57.000 Seven Americans are still there.
00:26:59.000 And we are pushing them, as well as any international party, to do whatever they can to put pressure both on Hamas and in Israel to reach a deal that is so much needed to bring our son back and the rest of the hostages.
00:27:16.000 Yeah, it must be very difficult, obviously, not just what you're going through, but also to watch the world response to what has happened since October 7th.
00:27:23.000 People marching in the streets in solidarity with Hamas as parents of somebody who's being held hostage by Hamas.
00:27:30.000 What do you make of that?
00:27:32.000 You know, we think it's just insanity, you know, what's going on.
00:27:37.000 And, you know, we really believe that if there was real concern for the Palestinian people or really appealing to anyone who's really concerned, you know, for the Palestinian people, then they should be demonstrating together with us against Hamas and against Hezbollah and against all these enemies that are surrounding the state of Israel because they really do not care about the Palestinian cause.
00:28:01.000 They are taking their own people hostage, and they're just using them in their fight against the state of Israel.
00:28:08.000 So, you know, what we're seeing people demonstrating in favor of these terrorist organizations is just appalling.
00:28:15.000 And it's such an inversion of the truth.
00:28:18.000 Where's the moral clarity on this?
00:28:20.000 Zero moral clarity.
00:28:21.000 And I want to give an example.
00:28:26.000 The 7th of October demonstration at McGill University in Canada, and on their advertisement they're showing the tank that Omer was pulled out of as a pro-Palestinian victory that they are marching for the pro-Palestinians.
00:28:45.000 Can you imagine that? His tank is being shown on McGill University propaganda.
00:28:52.000 As a proof that what happened was the right thing, the attack on Israel.
00:28:56.000 It's disgusting. So you've started a GoFundMe to help to free your son.
00:29:02.000 You guys are going around and doing all sorts of diplomatic initiatives.
00:29:06.000 You're reaching out to other families who have relatives who are being held hostage in Gaza and conducting international media outreach.
00:29:12.000 We'll drop the link, obviously, below so that people can help give, you know, What's your message as parents of somebody who's being held hostage?
00:29:20.000 What is it that the American people, that the world needs to know about the situation of family members who are currently being held hostage by one of the worst terrorist groups on the planet?
00:29:29.000 Well, our life stopped on October 6th.
00:29:32.000 We spoke with Omer Lass on October 6th.
00:29:35.000 This was before anything, you know, happened, and he was expecting a quiet weekend.
00:29:40.000 Our life changed forever on October 7th.
00:29:44.000 And anything that we did or knew before that has shifted and been moved aside.
00:29:51.000 And like you said, we've been traveling across the world to Israel, back to Washington, to everywhere where there's an ear and an opportunity to impact or do something to impact the release of Omer and the remaining hostages.
00:30:09.000 And it's taken a toll on our family, On our work.
00:30:14.000 And it has a cost to it.
00:30:16.000 And we don't see the end of it right now.
00:30:19.000 You know, we pray and hope that this will end, but real soon.
00:30:24.000 But we're not seeing it right now.
00:30:26.000 We have to continue to put pressure on the U.S. administration.
00:30:30.000 Of course, we're in an election year.
00:30:32.000 We've been both in the DNC and the RNC. We saw that this is a bipartisan issue.
00:30:38.000 The hostages is a humanitarian issue.
00:30:41.000 It's not political. Yet everything becomes political, end of the day.
00:30:46.000 And we have to press everybody, including the current administration, now to act.
00:30:52.000 This is a matter of life and death.
00:30:54.000 There's no time.
00:30:56.000 The hostages are dying there.
00:30:58.000 We can't wait and say, let's see what the next administration is going to do.
00:31:02.000 We simply don't have that luxury.
00:31:04.000 So we are acting full steam.
00:31:07.000 And of course, October 7th coming up is just a date for us.
00:31:11.000 We count the days and the hours and the minutes, and it's all becoming very, very blurry.
00:31:18.000 And we appreciate any, you know, our community and anybody who's willing to help and assist in our plight to bring those hostages back.
00:31:27.000 There are hostages from 20 different countries, five main religions.
00:31:32.000 This is not just an Israeli problem.
00:31:34.000 This is not just a Jewish problem.
00:31:36.000 This is a humanitarian global problem.
00:31:39.000 And if we don't solve it, it's going to hunt us.
00:31:42.000 And it can come here.
00:31:44.000 You know, Omer was born a month after 9-11.
00:31:46.000 We were here. In New York City.
00:31:49.000 And we saw what terrorism can do.
00:31:52.000 We have to fight terrorism wherever it is, because if you don't fight it at its origins and its roots, it's going to hunt you and come back to your home.
00:32:02.000 And that's what we are shouting here in front of everybody.
00:32:05.000 Help us. Help us bring the hostages.
00:32:08.000 Taking hostages is such an unhumane Thank you, Ben. Thank you. We appreciate you.
00:32:38.000 I also had the opportunity to sit down with Aaron Boers.
00:32:41.000 He's 34 and a lone soldier in the idea from Great Neck, New York.
00:32:44.000 He was injured in Gaza as part of Operation Iron Swords.
00:32:48.000 He, of course, has been called by the left a member of a genocidal army.
00:32:51.000 A greater lie, it would be difficult to propagate considering the fact that according to Channel 12, foreign sources from Hamas have admitted that 80% of the casualties in the Gaza Strip on the Hamas side, on the Gaza side, have been members of Hamas or their families.
00:33:07.000 Aaron was wounded pretty gravely by Hamas terrorists while serving in the Gaza Strip.
00:33:12.000 We had the chance to sit down with him earlier this week.
00:33:14.000 Well, joining us online is Aaron Boers, lone soldier in the IDF from Great Neck, New York.
00:33:18.000 Aaron was injured in Gaza as part of Operation Iron Swords.
00:33:22.000 Aaron, thanks so much for taking the time.
00:33:23.000 Really appreciate it. Thanks a lot, Ben.
00:33:25.000 It's great to be on your show and I appreciate you having me.
00:33:28.000 So why don't we just start with how things went down for you, your journey since October 7th.
00:33:36.000 Absolutely. So I've, first of all, been a lone soldier in the IDF for a number of years now.
00:33:41.000 So I'm 14 years in Israel.
00:33:43.000 I moved from New York to Israel to be a lone soldier to enlist in the Givati Brigade, part of the combat forces in the Israel Defense Forces.
00:33:52.000 October 7th, day to day, I'm a marketer.
00:33:55.000 I'm a chief marketing officer at an AI startup.
00:33:57.000 I'm flying a lot for conferences.
00:34:00.000 October 7th caught me from Chicago to Las Vegas.
00:34:02.000 I was en route to my second conference of a big work trip.
00:34:06.000 I got off the flight.
00:34:07.000 I was married a month and a half before that.
00:34:10.000 And I had about 20 missed calls from my wife.
00:34:12.000 She was in hysterics because a white pickup truck with Hamas lunatic terrorists on the back of it had rolled into the border town of Sterot in the south of Israel.
00:34:22.000 And she was looking for some kind of calm in an otherwise extremely anxious, scary situation.
00:34:30.000 And I gave it to her.
00:34:31.000 But in all honesty, I knew that all hell had broken loose.
00:34:34.000 And I myself knew that this was different than anything I'd faced before and that we'd faced as a country.
00:34:39.000 Moving forward. And I got stuck in a suite in the Encore Hotel.
00:34:44.000 I was in Vegas scrambling to get back to my unit.
00:34:47.000 Delta canceled my flight at the same time that my unit was called up.
00:34:50.000 And we're part of the Southern Command, so our job is to defend the South and when needed to go into Gaza if provoked.
00:34:58.000 I returned to Israel three days later, joined my unit, and we were part of the first big wave on October 30th, part of the ground operation into the Gaza Strip to try to put pressure on Hamas to bring back those hostages and unearth that labyrinth of terror tunnels that they've spent all that humanitarian aid on.
00:35:15.000 And so I was there for about 15 days.
00:35:18.000 We uncovered six tunnels.
00:35:20.000 We're moving in a residential neighborhood in the north of the Gaza Strip.
00:35:23.000 Although what is residential in the context of Hamas?
00:35:26.000 A lot of the houses that we went into, we found tunnels in bedrooms.
00:35:31.000 We found RPG heads in a bedroom closet of one of the kids' bedrooms.
00:35:36.000 Just radicalization all over.
00:35:39.000 And as we're moving through that residential area, there are schools, there are mosques, there are hospitals that have left us standing because the idea follows a strict moral code.
00:35:50.000 We don't like to bring down civilian infrastructure, A, the optics of it, and B, again, it's against our ethics.
00:35:56.000 So a school was standing, an UNRWA school, that we had to pass in front of.
00:36:00.000 I'm in the officer squad.
00:36:02.000 We were passing in front of the school.
00:36:04.000 We're a little bit too exposed this day.
00:36:05.000 It's November 14th, 2023.
00:36:08.000 I pass safely.
00:36:10.000 I get to the house where we suspected a tunnel was in.
00:36:14.000 I turn around to see where my officer is.
00:36:17.000 This is my friend. This is my brother-in-arms.
00:36:20.000 We've been together for a number of years in the IDF serving together.
00:36:23.000 And as I turn around to see where he is, I hear and I see shots are fired out of the school and from behind the school.
00:36:32.000 It's A few shots very quickly.
00:36:35.000 My commander goes down, our comms person, our radio person goes down with him.
00:36:39.000 They were a pair. Both of them are on the floor, and I'm about 65 feet from the two of them at the entrance to this house.
00:36:46.000 I start shooting back towards the school.
00:36:48.000 There's no civilians in the area at this point.
00:36:50.000 I haven't seen a civilian in my 15 days in Gaza, nor under rubble.
00:36:54.000 Or alive walking around the Gaza Strip.
00:36:56.000 I think they've heeded at this point the orders of the IDF to evacuate.
00:36:59.000 So we're just talking about Hamas.
00:37:01.000 Hamas shooting at us from a school.
00:37:03.000 I direct my weapon towards where I hear the AK-47s blasting and I shoot back, but they're like ghosts.
00:37:08.000 You can't really hear them. You can't really see them.
00:37:13.000 They like to pop out of their tunnels for a few minutes, call chaos, and then go back down.
00:37:17.000 So I'm shooting for a few minutes, and as I'm giving cover fire to my officer and our comms person, I look over and I see that my officer is in bad shape.
00:37:28.000 It looks like he's lost a lot of blood.
00:37:30.000 In my mind, he's critically injured.
00:37:33.000 And if I run out and grab him and get him inside, maybe I can save his life.
00:37:39.000 So that's what I did.
00:37:40.000 I sprinted out to him. I'm getting shot at constantly as I do this.
00:37:45.000 I get to him. I pick him up.
00:37:47.000 He's got his gear on, his vest, and his bag.
00:37:51.000 And he himself is a very muscular guy, a heavy guy.
00:37:54.000 But I'm successful in lifting him up.
00:37:56.000 And I move two to three feet towards the house.
00:37:59.000 And on that third step, I get shot in my right leg by a Hamas sniper.
00:38:03.000 And the sniper was behind the school.
00:38:06.000 And it's like, I don't know, it felt like getting hit by a cannonball.
00:38:09.000 I felt my leg flew off my body.
00:38:12.000 And I didn't want to look. So I was on the ground now and I didn't want to look because I didn't want to go into shock seeing that my leg wasn't attached.
00:38:18.000 So I started to crawl myself back to the house.
00:38:21.000 And as I'm crawling, I get shot in my left leg by an AK-47.
00:38:24.000 But I'm crawling, crawling, crawling.
00:38:26.000 There's bullets from AK-47s going off all around me, hitting rocks.
00:38:29.000 The rocks are weaponized.
00:38:31.000 They're going into my right hip.
00:38:33.000 They're going into my lower right back.
00:38:35.000 And I'm just crawling, crawling, crawling.
00:38:37.000 You know, I want to live. I'm willing myself to the house, and miraculously I get there.
00:38:42.000 We have a few soldiers already inside who have crossed, and they take me in.
00:38:46.000 Our paramedic goes to work on my leg.
00:38:48.000 He thought I was going to lose my leg.
00:38:50.000 He thought I was going to die. 669 came, the best search and rescue team, in my opinion, in the world.
00:38:56.000 Within three hours, I was at Sheba Medical Center undergoing surgery that was a miracle.
00:39:04.000 They were able to save my leg.
00:39:06.000 They didn't have to amputate.
00:39:07.000 99% of the time, Based on the severity of my injury and the amount of bone that I lost, I lost eight centimeters of bone in my right leg.
00:39:16.000 An injury like that, they have to amputate, and in my case, none of the bone hit a key artery.
00:39:20.000 So I got to keep my leg.
00:39:23.000 They saved my life. The tragedy of my story is that my officer, who I thought I could have saved, was instantly killed by a sniper bullet, and I just didn't see it.
00:39:34.000 So he was the first person shot.
00:39:35.000 He was assassinated. Hamas loves to take out IDF officers to try to cause, again, chaos in our ranks, and that's what they did.
00:39:44.000 This day, they were successful.
00:39:46.000 His name was Omri David, 27 years young, was going to propose to his girlfriend at seven years, loved Israeli boutique beers on the On the beach and traveling to Thailand like all good Israelis do.
00:40:00.000 And we'll miss Omri Dili.
00:40:03.000 So that's my story.
00:40:04.000 I'll stop there. You mentioned the combat situation in Gaza.
00:40:11.000 Obviously the sort of propaganda that's going out from Hamas and that's been picked up by enormous amounts of Western media and of course college students is that Israel is pursuing some sort of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
00:40:21.000 That Israel is deliberately targeting civilians.
00:40:24.000 That Israel, the IDF, is an inhumane force.
00:40:27.000 You are operating on the ground there.
00:40:29.000 What do you say to those sorts of accusations?
00:40:32.000 Well, it's heartbreaking for me to see kind of where we've come.
00:40:37.000 You know, I'm an American-Israeli.
00:40:38.000 I'm proud of both those countries.
00:40:41.000 Proud to be born in America.
00:40:42.000 Proud to have continued my life into adulthood in Israel.
00:40:49.000 We're not committing genocide.
00:40:50.000 If we were, we're doing a horrible job at it.
00:40:52.000 The amount of time we gave to evacuate the north of the Gaza Strip to allow the IDF, you know, time to get Gazans into safety, you know, that meant that they had more time to set booby traps.
00:41:05.000 We did it anyway because we value their lives and we're not trying to drag innocent civilians into this conflict.
00:41:10.000 Hamas doesn't. And the fact that the school was allowed to stand, my leg, the fact that I'm still on crutches is a testament to the fact that, you know, we leave these buildings, this infrastructure standing, because that's the moral code that we follow.
00:41:24.000 And then Hamas abuses that moral code.
00:41:25.000 And they were using an UNRWA school from which to launch this ambush, to launch this attack.
00:41:29.000 But in that school, there was a tunnel.
00:41:31.000 There was a weapons depot. Why?
00:41:33.000 Why do you need those things in a school if you're using the money as an organization for good, for education, and to advance Gazan civilization?
00:41:42.000 So I think that genocide is a word to describe what's going on.
00:41:48.000 It's so inaccurate, and it's been disproven time and time again.
00:41:51.000 I think South Africa is still digging for some kind of clue to inform their political
00:41:59.000 attack on Israel.
00:42:00.000 So as someone who is an educated New Yorker, we're not committing genocide.
00:42:06.000 Every combat soldier I know in the Reserve Force, we're talking about a mechanic, a teacher,
00:42:11.000 a student.
00:42:13.000 These are not people seeking violence or people seeking war or conflict.
00:42:17.000 These are people who want to get back to their families, who prioritize Israel's survival, the growth of their own family, their own prosperity, perseverance.
00:42:26.000 And it's the opposite when you look at what Hamas is doing with the Gazan civilians.
00:42:32.000 They're focused on the destruction of another civilization versus the perseverance and prosperity of their own.
00:42:38.000 And I think that that's A real tragic fact on the ground.
00:42:44.000 So how are you doing? How's your rehabilitation going?
00:42:46.000 Obviously, it's been a while since your injury, but the costs of the injury are something that people don't take into account when they think about what's going on in these wars.
00:42:53.000 I mean, I've met other soldiers in Israel who have lost both legs in the war, people who are gravely wounded.
00:43:00.000 People pay attention to the numbers of dead, but they rarely pay attention to what happens to the injured afterward.
00:43:05.000 No, absolutely. So, I'll tell you, Israel's had a problem with this in the past, and they've addressed it, and the Ministry of Defense and, in general, the bureaucracy around wounded soldiers now has improved greatly.
00:43:16.000 That doesn't mean there are still gaping holes in the system and issues that With that, so there are about 12,000 injured soldiers today.
00:43:26.000 Not physically, you know, exclusively physical.
00:43:29.000 Some of that's mental, PTSD, etc.
00:43:32.000 Hospitals were overwhelmed for a time.
00:43:33.000 Now things are kind of stabilizing, but who knows what happens now with the Northern Front open.
00:43:39.000 There are so many organizations that have pulled together, so many international Jews, Christians as well, people from all over the world who have really started to donate and pay attention to injured soldiers.
00:43:49.000 I was five months hospitalized, and I felt greatly respected, taken care of, spoiled at times by people around the world who would come and visit and volunteer and donate, and it's been incredible.
00:44:02.000 That being said, you talked about someone missing two legs, right?
00:44:06.000 I have so much luck in my story.
00:44:09.000 I'm really one of the ones who should be grateful, and my story is one of miracles.
00:44:13.000 And I've met these kids who have lost both their legs, some who have lost more than that, and three limbs are missing.
00:44:24.000 And they have more, like a higher spirit, a better spirit than most people I meet on a daily basis.
00:44:32.000 So Israelis are super resilient and these people are trucking, you know, they're getting through, they're trucking through.
00:44:38.000 And I want to shout out to just the amazing organizations that, I won't name them, there's too many, but the amazing organizations that have come together, Sheba Medical Center and all the hospitals throughout Israel that have really like stepped up their game in caring for all of us.
00:44:51.000 But yeah, it requires more attention.
00:44:53.000 And I think you do sometimes feel like injured soldiers get lost in the mix.
00:44:58.000 And time will tell how much attention is paid to these soldiers as we get further and further away from those first few months of the Gazan War.
00:45:07.000 So, Aaron, obviously, the war not only continues, it's now broadened.
00:45:10.000 Israel has been doing heavy work in taking out Hezbollah in the north.
00:45:15.000 This week, there are a number of casualties in southern Lebanon among members of the IDF, so that war is very much in the fighting.
00:45:22.000 Meanwhile, Iran fired 181 cruise missiles at Israel this week, obviously.
00:45:27.000 What's morale like on the ground in Israel right now?
00:45:30.000 When I talk to my friends in Israel, it obviously goes up and down based on the news of the day.
00:45:35.000 It seems as though, based on the extraordinary performance of the IDF in both the Gaza Strip and in southern Lebanon in particular, in Beirut taking out Hassan Azrala, that morale actually is significantly higher now in Israel than it was a year ago.
00:45:49.000 Yeah. Yeah, I think the intelligence operation that was conducted day over day, week over week, what we've seen in the past month, just from how we've been able to dismantle Hezbollah without actually a high civilian casualty rate, which is impossible in the Gaza Strip because Hamas is essentially standing amongst civilians when they launch rockets.
00:46:12.000 And then, of course, they're using their tunnels to protect themselves versus Gazan civilians.
00:46:17.000 So, you know, it's just...
00:46:19.000 It's a miracle and obviously a testament to Israel's strength in that area.
00:46:24.000 The morale is really high. The ballistic missile attack, you know, the entire country was in bomb shelters and in one sense that's horrifying and in another it is unifying.
00:46:34.000 So the country has come together and you see isolated incidents, you know, of certain sects of the population maybe celebrating those attacks, etc.
00:46:43.000 That's really not realistic in what's happening on the ground.
00:46:46.000 You know, Our country is united, Arab Israelis, Israelis, Christians, Jewish Israelis, Christians.
00:46:55.000 The morale is very high.
00:46:57.000 People were sending memes and jokes, and I think we're one of the only population groups, in my opinion, in the world who's able to take these things and spin them into some kind of comedic relief.
00:47:08.000 And people are trying to go about their day.
00:47:11.000 I work in high tech.
00:47:13.000 People are trying to go about their day, to do as well as they can in their respective roles in the company, in the country, to keep the economy as intact as possible, to not let it affect their kids and And that's Israeli resilience.
00:47:29.000 So I'm proud of my country.
00:47:31.000 I'm proud of the people in it. And of course, the soldiers who are now tasked with fighting in the north and continuing what we've started as it relates to eliminating Hezbollah for the rest of the world.
00:47:41.000 Well, Aaron Bors, really appreciate your service and your heroism.
00:47:45.000 Obviously, Western civilization is in the middle of a war.
00:47:47.000 Israel's at the front line of that war.
00:47:50.000 Thanks for what you're doing. Really appreciate your time.
00:47:52.000 Thanks so much, man. Really appreciate it.
00:47:55.000 Well, speaking of the absolute weakness of the Biden-Harris administration, Kamala Harris continues to be awful on the Middle East, just as her boss, Joe Biden, is awful.
00:48:02.000 Remember that guy? He's still the president of the United States, but he doesn't matter anymore.
00:48:05.000 We just forgot that he's no longer alive, and we just pretend that he's still the president somehow.
00:48:11.000 In any case, Kamala Harris has decided she must do more interviews.
00:48:14.000 Now, that doesn't mean she's going to do any unfriendly interviews.
00:48:16.000 So she sat down with 60 Minutes.
00:48:18.000 She's going to be sitting down also with hard questioners, like, for example, the ladies of The View.
00:48:23.000 And also Stephen Colbert.
00:48:25.000 And also Howard Stern.
00:48:26.000 I'm sure you can expect many difficult questions from these particular journalistic exemplars.
00:48:33.000 This race is incredibly tight.
00:48:35.000 Every little bit makes a difference.
00:48:37.000 And Kamala Harris is terrible at this.
00:48:38.000 So, she was on 60 Minutes on Sunday night.
00:48:41.000 And she's absolutely incoherent.
00:48:43.000 First of all, the interviewer in this particular case asks her about the evils of Israel.
00:48:48.000 Because of course, this is 60 Minutes.
00:48:49.000 So, instead of her saying...
00:48:51.000 We are friends with Israel.
00:48:53.000 Israel's our ally. Israel needs the capacity to destroy its enemies since it is currently being attacked by Iranian proxies on seven different fronts.
00:49:00.000 Instead, she's still attempting to have the baby.
00:49:04.000 It's just pathetic. And so she just word salads this thing.
00:49:08.000 Do we have a real close ally in Prime Minister Netanyahu?
00:49:16.000 I think, with all due respect, the better question is, do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people?
00:49:26.000 And the answer to that question is yes.
00:49:28.000 Okay, well, that is not actually the question.
00:49:30.000 Would she say the same thing about Vladimir Zelensky in Ukraine?
00:49:33.000 In fact, would she say the same about any leader of any American ally?
00:49:36.000 Any. Literally any.
00:49:38.000 This administration is trying to suggest that Netanyahu is singly responsible for the situation in the Middle East when literally any Israeli leader worth his salt would be doing what Netanyahu is doing right now.
00:49:48.000 The left in Israel is unified with Netanyahu in trying to go after Hezbollah in Lebanon or retaliating against Iran or finishing off Hamas at this point.
00:49:57.000 It's just pathetic.
00:49:59.000 But of course, that followed hard on Kamala Harris sending out one of the worst tweets of the campaign.
00:50:04.000 She sent out a tweet. Remember, there was a hurricane, Hurricane Helene.
00:50:07.000 And Hurricane Helene did significant damage to North Carolina.
00:50:10.000 And now there's another hurricane that's about to hit Florida.
00:50:13.000 So what did she tweet out?
00:50:15.000 On Saturday, quote, Okay, so just to get this straight, we are not going to be sending more money to North Carolina.
00:50:47.000 We are going to be sending more money to the people of Lebanon.
00:50:50.000 By the people of Lebanon, by the way, she means a bunch of aid groups who will then hand it over to Hezbollah.
00:50:54.000 That's what all the aid does.
00:50:56.000 When you say you're sending $100 million, for example, to the Gaza Strip, it ain't going to the people of the Gaza Strip.
00:51:02.000 It is going to Hamas.
00:51:03.000 And when you send it to Lebanon, it is going to go to Hezbollah.
00:51:06.000 But that's what she does.
00:51:08.000 This administration is so legitimately awful on the Middle East, it's astonishing.
00:51:13.000 But that, of course, is no surprise.
00:51:15.000 That is why Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona says he doesn't understand why Arab Americans would think of voting for Donald Trump.
00:51:21.000 They obviously have an ally in Kamala Harris.
00:51:23.000 You know why he's saying this. What is your message to Muslim and Arab American voters there who are seriously considering either sitting out this election or voting Republican?
00:51:36.000 Well, they shouldn't be considering that.
00:51:38.000 They should be voting for Kamala Harris.
00:51:41.000 I mean, she is committed to their values.
00:51:46.000 She met with them, many in the Muslim and the Arab community here earlier in the week, to talk about the issues that they care about.
00:51:55.000 And certainly peace in the Middle East is at the top of the list.
00:52:00.000 Okay, so he's openly just saying the thing.
00:52:03.000 He's openly saying, on the weekend of October 7th, he's openly saying that Arab Americans should know that Kamala Harris has their back because she's putting pressure on Israel in the middle of a war launched against Israel's survival.
00:52:15.000 By the way, there's another terrorist attack over the weekend in Beersheba, in which an Israeli Bedouin wounded like 11 people.
00:52:21.000 And that followed hard on another terrorist attack that also happened over the weekend.
00:52:26.000 So this is a very much ongoing war, obviously.
00:52:29.000 Just absolutely pathetic.
00:52:32.000 Well folks, they are pandering and pandering away because election season is in full swing and the future is on everybody's mind.
00:52:37.000 But do you know what else should be on your mind?
00:52:38.000 The future of your family. No matter what happens over the next four years, one thing remains constant.
00:52:42.000 The need to protect your loved ones.
00:52:43.000 That's where policy genius comes in.
00:52:45.000 Let's talk about reality for a moment.
00:52:46.000 If something were to happen to you, would your family be able to cover their expenses?
00:52:49.000 Mortgage payments, college tuition, daily living costs, those don't just disappear.
00:52:53.000 Life insurance can ensure your family has the financial support they need, even if you're
00:52:56.000 not there to provide it.
00:52:57.000 Did you know that 41% of Americans don't have the life insurance coverage they need?
00:53:01.000 Don't be part of that statistic.
00:53:03.000 Policy Genius is the country's leading online insurance marketplace.
00:53:06.000 They help you find the right life insurance policy at the best price, so you can have
00:53:08.000 peace of mind knowing your family is protected.
00:53:11.000 Now I know what you're thinking.
00:53:12.000 Ben, getting life insurance sounds like a hassle.
00:53:13.000 Well, it isn't, because with Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies starting
00:53:16.000 at just $292 per year for a million dollars in coverage.
00:53:19.000 Some options are 100% online and let you avoid unnecessary medical exams.
00:53:23.000 Policy Genius makes it super easy.
00:53:24.000 Their licensed support team helps you get what you need fast.
00:53:27.000 They answer questions, they handle paperwork, they advocate for you throughout the process.
00:53:30.000 Save time, save money, providing a financial safety net for your family.
00:53:34.000 Head to policygenius.com slash Shapiro or click the link in the description.
00:53:37.000 Get your free life insurance quote, see how much you could save.
00:53:39.000 That's policygenius.com slash Shapiro.
00:53:42.000 Also, today is your final chance to join Daily Wire Plus at 47% off.
00:53:46.000 Use code FIGHT at dailywire.com slash subscribe before midnight.
00:53:49.000 Don't miss out on unlimited access to the truth, with uncensored daily shows from the
00:53:52.000 most trusted names in conservative media completely ad free.
00:53:55.000 This is your last chance to get live breaking news coverage and the hard-hitting investigative
00:53:59.000 journalism the left doesn't want you to see at this incredible discount.
00:54:02.000 Time is running out.
00:54:03.000 Join the fight right now before this 47% off deal expires at midnight tonight.
00:54:07.000 Head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe.
00:54:09.000 Use code fight for your exclusive discount.
00:54:11.000 That's dailywire.com slash subscribe.
00:54:14.000 Code fight for 47% off new Daily Wire plus memberships.
00:54:18.000 Okay, meanwhile, President Trump is also on the campaign trail and he has been doing a good job on the campaign trail.
00:54:24.000 He was... Out in Wisconsin over the weekend, he was also in Pennsylvania.
00:54:28.000 Over the weekend in Pennsylvania, he was rallying in Butler again.
00:54:31.000 Butler, of course, was the site of the first attempt on his life.
00:54:34.000 That was the attempted shooting that hit him in the ear and killed somebody in the background.
00:54:38.000 Elon Musk showed up to that particular rally and revved up the crowd.
00:54:41.000 Here was the brand new owner of Axe and an endorser of Donald Trump talking about how he is dark MAGA
00:54:48.000 Take over Elijah's take Hi everyone
00:54:59.000 As you can see I'm not just MAGA, I'm dark MAGA Well, first of all, I want to say what an honor it is to be
00:55:13.000 here and And, you know, the true test of someone's character is how they behave under fire.
00:55:25.000 And we had one president who couldn't climb a flight of stairs, and another who was fist pumping after getting shot.
00:55:35.000 Fight, fight, fight!
00:55:38.000 I mean, again, Elon is a strong endorser of President Trump.
00:55:42.000 He also apparently has launched a significant PAC in favor of President Trump attempting to move forward the get out the vote operation, which is going to be the single biggest thing in the election that matters.
00:55:56.000 Apparently, according to Politico a couple of days ago, The Elon Musk backpack and Turning Point have combined operations for Trump in Wisconsin, which is where Trump was this weekend.
00:56:05.000 He went to Pennsylvania with Musk, and then he went to Wisconsin campaigning in that state.
00:56:09.000 The internal polling I've seen basically shows all these states dead even.
00:56:11.000 The public polling internals look pretty much the same.
00:56:14.000 Here is President Trump doing something that he has been loath to do before, endorsing early voting in Wisconsin.
00:56:20.000 Early voting in Wisconsin is underway now, so if you have an absentee ballot, return it right away as soon as you can.
00:56:27.000 You can also vote in person using an absentee ballot starting October 22nd.
00:56:32.000 Now, I wish that he had done this back in 2020 and 2021, but better late than never.
00:56:36.000 Apparently, according to Politico, hundreds of ballot chasers that had been hired by Turning Point this week are combining with America PAC's operation in Wisconsin, according to four people with knowledge of the arrangement, granted anonymity, to speak freely.
00:56:47.000 America PAC We'll find out on election night.
00:57:13.000 So we still have yet to see conflicting reports from the ground as to where things stand in these various districts.
00:57:19.000 Suffice it to say that in the Senate, there are a couple of Senate races right now that are very, very competitive.
00:57:24.000 There are some where Republicans are pretty much going to win.
00:57:27.000 West Virginia, LaPierce, Montana.
00:57:29.000 Then there are a couple that are really within margin of error.
00:57:31.000 Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania.
00:57:34.000 Against Bob Casey, that looks like a margin of error race.
00:57:36.000 Bernie Moreno taking on Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
00:57:38.000 That one also looks like a margin of error race.
00:57:41.000 Eric Hovde, who I campaigned with in Wisconsin, against Tammy Baldwin.
00:57:43.000 That one's a margin of error race as well.
00:57:45.000 Those are all extremely, extremely tight races.
00:57:48.000 There's some other ones where a little bit more money could go a long way.
00:57:50.000 Mike Rogers in Michigan, obviously, would be a big one.
00:57:53.000 Sam Brown in Nevada. However, these are going to be very, very tight elections.
00:57:58.000 Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to win additional House seats.
00:58:01.000 Right now, according to certain oddsmakers, it looks like the Democrats are on the verge of taking the House.
00:58:06.000 It's very difficult to read all this conflicting data.
00:58:08.000 I mean, I'll be honest with you. People ask me all the time, who do I think is going to win?
00:58:11.000 And what I always say is, I have no idea.
00:58:13.000 I legitimately have no clue.
00:58:14.000 And anybody who tells you they do have a clue, they're fibbing to you.
00:58:18.000 According to Roll Call, Democrats are expressing increasing optimism
00:58:21.000 that regaining control of the House is within the party's grasp.
00:58:24.000 We have opportunities everywhere, said Representative Susan DelBene,
00:58:26.000 a Democrat from Washington state and chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign
00:58:30.000 Committee.
00:58:30.000 We're making sure we pick up seats in presidential battleground states
00:58:33.000 like Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan, but we're going on offense in states like New York,
00:58:36.000 California, even Iowa and Alabama.
00:58:39.000 DelBene joined the DNC chairman, Jamie Harrison, and Michigan Senator Gary Peters,
00:58:44.000 the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at a remote news conference on Friday,
00:58:48.000 one month out from election day.
00:58:50.000 Now, not all the changes in the House map do favor the Democrats.
00:58:54.000 Right now, again, it is clear that Democrats have some momentum in the House.
00:58:59.000 However, Republicans do have momentum in the Senate.
00:59:04.000 All that can be said at this point is every little thing matters, which means that you need to vote.
00:59:08.000 Your friends need to vote. They all need to vote early.
00:59:11.000 Because right now, when you take a look at sort of how this election is going to play out, Democrats are going to turn out in extraordinary numbers to vote early.
00:59:17.000 Republicans are going to turn out really heavy on Election Day.
00:59:20.000 Little margins are going to make all the difference in the world.
00:59:23.000 I can promise you this.
00:59:24.000 If Kamala Harris becomes president, Tax Network USA offers three key services.
00:59:50.000 protection, compliance, and settlement.
00:59:52.000 Upon signing up, Tax Network USA will immediately contact the IRS to secure a protection order,
00:59:56.000 ensuring that aggressive collection activities like garnishments, levies, or property seizures are halted.
01:00:01.000 If you haven't filed in a while, if you need amended returns,
01:00:02.000 or if you're just missing records, Tax Network USA's expert tax preparers
01:00:06.000 will update all your filings to eliminate the risk of IRS enforcement.
01:00:08.000 Then they create a settlement strategy to reduce or eliminate your tax debt.
01:00:11.000 The IRS is the largest collection agency in the world, and now the tax season is over, they're coming after you.
01:00:17.000 Tax Network USA can even help with state tax issues.
01:00:19.000 For a complimentary consultation, call today, 1-800-958-1000,
01:00:23.000 or visit their website at tnusa.com slash Shapiro.
01:00:26.000 That's 1-800-958-1000, or visit tnusa.com slash Shapiro today.
01:00:31.000 Don't let the IRS take advantage of you, yet they'll be in need with Tax Network USA.
01:00:35.000 Also, as you know, it's election season.
01:00:37.000 It's time to choose who we think of all the many myriad wonderful options is the best candidate.
01:00:42.000 But let's be real. Choosing the right candidate for the office, like your office, like the people who work for you, is really, really important.
01:00:49.000 And you have a little more control over it.
01:00:51.000 When it comes to staffing, a classroom, construction site, even a toll booth, finding the right person matters.
01:00:56.000 And this is why you need the fastest way to find qualified candidates, ZipRecruiter.
01:01:00.000 Today, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash dailywire.
01:01:04.000 ZipRecruiter doesn't mess around.
01:01:05.000 Their smart technology starts showing your job to qualify candidates immediately.
01:01:09.000 It's like the free market of job hunting, efficient and effective.
01:01:11.000 With ZipRecruiter, you can even invite top candidates to apply for your job, encouraging them to apply sooner.
01:01:16.000 If you want faster hiring for your office, choose ZipRecruiter.
01:01:19.000 See why four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within day one.
01:01:23.000 Go to this exclusive web address and try it for free, ziprecruiter.com slash dailywire.
01:01:28.000 Again, that's ziprecruiter.com slash dailywire.
01:01:31.000 ZipRecruiter is indeed the smartest way to hire.
01:01:33.000 That's why we've been using it at DailyWire ourselves for years.
01:01:35.000 ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire to try it out right now.
01:01:38.000 ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.
01:01:40.000 Meanwhile, Kamala Harris continues to gaffe.
01:01:43.000 So I mentioned that she was on 60 Minutes, but that's not all she was doing.
01:01:46.000 She also decided that she was speaking in Michigan and she had a bit of a teleprompter screw up.
01:01:52.000 Here's what that looked like. Remember his number 32!
01:01:57.000 Today we got 32 days until the election.
01:02:00.000 So 32 days.
01:02:10.000 I'm so hot.
01:02:11.000 32 days.
01:02:13.000 She has no idea what to do. Okay, we got some business to do.
01:02:15.000 We got some business to do.
01:02:17.000 All right. 32 days.
01:02:19.000 teleprompter goes at you. And we know we will do it.
01:02:25.000 And this is gonna be a very tight race until the very end.
01:02:34.000 This is gonna be a very tight race until the very end.
01:02:38.000 We are the underdog, and we know we have some hard work ahead.
01:02:42.000 Man, when that teleprompter goes out, she is the rued.
01:02:47.000 She also was on the Call Her Daddy podcast.
01:02:48.000 You know, I told you she's going to do a lot of adversarial media.
01:02:50.000 So she's going on with the lady who talks about sex all the time.
01:02:54.000 So here she is with this lady whose name escapes me because she's not important to my life.
01:03:00.000 Alex Cooper, I've been informed by producer Jessica.
01:03:03.000 So here she is explaining about abortion with the Call Her Daddy lady.
01:03:10.000 I want to pose this question more to you and the Daddy Gang, but one of the biggest conversations in this year's election revolves around a woman's body.
01:03:19.000 I want to take a moment and can we try to think of any law That gives the government the power to make a decision.
01:03:31.000 I know what you're going to ask.
01:03:33.000 About a man's body.
01:03:36.000 No. No.
01:03:39.000 Is there any law?
01:03:40.000 No. No.
01:03:44.000 It's... No. Well, I mean, yes.
01:03:48.000 Virtually every law, it turns out, makes decisions about people's bodies all the time.
01:03:53.000 Because they threaten you with jail if you don't follow the law.
01:03:57.000 And the vast majority of people who go to jail are men.
01:04:00.000 So it does make decisions.
01:04:02.000 Also, I could name some laws that specifically apply to men, like for example, the draft.
01:04:07.000 So men historically have been drafted, but women have not.
01:04:10.000 There are many laws that disproportionately affect men.
01:04:12.000 Say for example, the laws in divorce court, which overwhelmingly favor women.
01:04:17.000 So that's not true at all.
01:04:18.000 Also, you're missing the central point of abortion law, which is not about the woman's body.
01:04:22.000 It is about the baby that is inside that body.
01:04:25.000 Notice that men don't typically care, any men or women or anyone who's pro-life.
01:04:30.000 We don't typically care about a woman's esophagus.
01:04:32.000 It's not in our purview of interest.
01:04:34.000 Turns out we care about the independent life growing inside because that has human rights.
01:04:38.000 But again, it's all just nonsense.
01:04:41.000 I do get the feeling there are some Democrats who are starting to feel a wee bit skittish about Kamala Harris' chances here.
01:04:48.000 One of those people is Andrea Mitchell.
01:04:50.000 So Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC. She's saying that Kamala Harris needs to do more interviews because men are sexists.
01:04:57.000 So here we go. They've got to double down on doing more interviews and serious interviews.
01:05:03.000 Because what I'm hearing from Democratic and Republican business people and a lot of men.
01:05:09.000 And she's got such a big problem with men.
01:05:11.000 I think there's an undercount of the Trump vote.
01:05:13.000 I think there is misogynation in all of this.
01:05:17.000 Black and white men.
01:05:18.000 Big problem. But also the business world.
01:05:20.000 They don't think she is serious.
01:05:22.000 They don't think she's a heavyweight.
01:05:24.000 And a lot of this is gender.
01:05:26.000 But she's got to be more specific about her economic plan.
01:05:30.000 Okay. She does have to be more serious to avoid the misogynation.
01:05:36.000 It's like she's going for misogynation and misogyny and she ended up with a baby in the middle.
01:05:40.000 So that's weird. Well done, Andrea Mitchell.
01:05:43.000 Suffice it to say... She's not going to be doing any unfriendly interviews, Kamala Harris, because she stinks at them.
01:05:47.000 She's truly awful at them.
01:05:49.000 And if only the American people see through it, that will make all the difference.
01:05:53.000 Alright, coming up, we'll jump into the Vaunted Ben Shapiro Show mailbag.
01:05:55.000 If you're not a member, become a member. Use code SHAPIRO. Check out for two months free on all annual plans.