Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the call it like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of call it like I see it, we're going to take a look at the historical context of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas and consider whether after 75 plus years of hot covering conflict, at least in various times, there is any pathway here for an end of the cycle of violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
And later on, we're going to discuss some recent research into what was happening in the Americas right before Columbus landed.
Joining me today is a man who is always providing fresh insight off the top of his head, Tunde ogon. Lana Tunde, are you ready to show off your back seat freestyle today?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Of course. Every day.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Every day. All right. All right. Now we're recording this on October 12.
We're recording this on October 10, 2023. And last week, we saw Hamas launch a major attack against Israel, which seemed to catch the Israelis largely off guard. The attack appeared highly coordinated and with a barrage of rockets hitting Israel as gunmen were rolling in to dozens of locations in Israel, you know, outside of the Gaza area. And with this all beginning on a jewish holiday.
Now, Hamas claimed his claim that the attack was in response to, among other things, a 16 year blockade of Gaza, israeli raids inside West bank cities, attacks by israeli settlers, and the growth of israeli settlements.
And Israel immediately vowed retribution and has already declared war on Hamas and begun going after targets in both Israel and in Gaza.
So just a few days in, we've already seen hundreds killed and thousands wounded. So this has already turned into a major conflict. And what's terrible, you know, all war you can classify as not great. But what's terrible, even more terrible, is that many of these casualties have been civilians. Now, before we comment on the ongoing skirmish, we believe it's important to take a longer view here of this israeli palestinian conflict. It's been going on for, you know, like I said, 75 plus years. And so, Tunde, looking at the, if you want to go back to where you can really point to this current iteration of, you know, these lines, you could look at the post ottoman breakup, post World War one. So looking at that era, what stands out to you as far as kind of what set the stage for, you know, the, what has unfolded post that time frame?
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah, man, this is very, very interesting.
Just events here, and we'll go back. But I found in preparing for today, just the amount of misinformation about this topic is just overwhelming. And so let's hope that we're sourced well here, but let's acknowledge that, you know, things can creep through the cracks with us, too. But on a serious note, I mean, because the history of this, I mean, we can point to something like the Balfour declaration of 2017. Sorry, let me go. 100 years before that. 1917, not six years.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: You're getting into that misinformation.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Exactly. I'm about to spread some here, but no, of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which was from the British, who at the time were the ones controlling the Palestine area. I mean, there was an area called Palestine, which is currently where Israel is located. And that's what I mean. Like, this is one of those where history is definitely important to understand the relationship between the kind of geopolitics of the time and then the cultures that were there. So, for example, we think of something like the Ottoman Empire as something archaic from almost the Middle Ages or something like that. But in reality, the Ottoman Empire existed until the year 1920. So we're only 100 years roughly post the era of literally that empire being in existence. And so the region that we're discussing at the time, World War one, the British declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1914. So during that period, the British already were planning on what to do with that region once they won the war, because it was looking like they were going to win along with their allies in France and then later the United States. So the better known history are things like how the French and the British really divided up country or regions which became countries like Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, the oil fields, things like that. But what's left?
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Areas that had all been. Were at the time controlled by the Ottoman Empire, correct?
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And so. And what was lesser known at the time, and maybe lesser known in just regular history kind of discussions today, was that there was what was called at the time and what people like Adolf Hitler cited later in the 1920s and thirties in Europe, what they felt, they called it the jewish problem. The levels of anti semitism in Europe are well documented. I mean, you got from the Roman Empire to the Inquisition, the spanish inquisition of the 12th, 13th century, and all the way to the pogroms in Russia of the late 18 hundreds. And so at that point, Jews in Europe were kind of in the same position as African Americans in the United States in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, where if we think of things in the United States, like the Tulsa massacre or the red summer of 1919 or, you know, mass lynchings, things like that, those are things basically happening, especially in eastern Europe, to the jewish population, where, you know, people from the neighboring towns would just come in, kill a bunch of people, burn the town down, rape the women, you know, all that kind of stuff. So the Jews had been wanting to find a home of their own. And what was happening was, at the time, the British were thinking, hey, this is a good way we can handle the jewish issue, is if we create. If we have this land, which is.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Going to take over some land.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: And send them there.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting, I thought about the British. I go, man, they're good at this because they did that with Australia, too. We got this convict problem.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Let's go take over.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: We found this island over here in.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: The middle of Pacific. That was their solution to all the.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Problems after they tried to do that with the american colonies sending their. Their convicts here before they found Australia. So, you know, the mindset was the same by the early 20th century of, hey, we got this jewish problem. Let's go. We got this land over here. Let's go put them there. So without getting too much into all that history, it's just more of. That's kind of the original basis of how did the jewish population begin the migration to Palestine?
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Yes, because the Balfour declaration is when you started seeing waves of jewish immigrants going to Palestine, and tensions start to rise because there were people there already, the Palestinians were there already.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: And one thing I want to just finish up here with this period is this idea of Zionism, because that's. It was a mind of thought that began in the late 18 hundreds in Europe by mostly eastern european Jews. And the idea was that the jewish home is Jerusalem, Israel, that area, Palestine. And the thought, you know, again, the religious history was that the jewish temple was sacked by the Romans in the year 100 AD. And in jewish culture, there was always this desire to go back to the homeland. And so with what was happening, kind of. And it made me think of human migration due to conflicts. So just like we had the great migration of black Americans from the south because of the terrorism that they experienced from southern United States to areas like Chicago, Detroit, out in California. And that created conflict within those new areas because the white Americans in the north and Michigan and Wisconsin and these areas weren't used to seeing black. So, of course, it created tension, cultural tension, and I think the same thing here where the intent of the jewish population at the time was to escape persecution in Europe. But naturally, like you said, people were in Palestine, and it caused some tension. So that's kind of the. The early part of the journey. And then, I think, you know, we can shift.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: I wanted to.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: What stood out to me about that really is how this, what you have here is a problem being created by political actions. Now, there is a, you know, there's a human element in the sense that, like you said, there's violence being perpetrated in Europe.
And so there's, and, you know, just in general, a general, like, uncomfortable situation going on. But there were, these are decisions that were made like, hey, let's do this, you know, from a political standpoint. And let's, let's try to nudge people this way. Or, hey, they, we would leave if we tell them. They can. If we, if we try to tell jewish people, let's go to the Americas, they may not want to go or they may resist. But if we tell them, if we see that, hey, there's this movement within jewish populations to return to the holy land, maybe let's take advantage of that. And if we can say, hey, you know, we'll clear the way for you to go, you guys go, then we can, quote unquote, get rid of, you know, from, from the european standpoint, we can have them leave Europe. And so that, but that's a political action that creates that problem, so to speak, you know, and yes, that you creates this, the migration and the typical ripple effects that happen from that. But I think that's important to realize because when we get to the end or when we get to where we, to the modern term, oftentimes when you have problems that are created through, and I say problems, I'm not saying a group of people are a problem. I'm saying the conflict between two groups of people are a problem.
When you have one of those that's created by a political action or political acts, a lot of times it's going to require, you can't just shoot your way out of it. You know, a lot of, a lot of times, not all the times, but, you know, shooting your way out of it becomes very, very, very, like, very ugly because it takes a lot of shooting to do that. And so if you want to do it without ever somebody getting wiped out completely, then a lot of times it requires a political solution. And so I think that's something we have to keep in mind.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: To this day is that, hey, this was done by decision. This was, this issue was created by decision making. We're probably going to need some decision making on the, and buy in to work our way out of it, because if we try to shoot our way out, there may not be a, we may not get to the end for a really long time without a lot, a lot of pain. So just, you know, keeping us moving your thoughts, like, so this is all happening, and then you have the holocaust. And as you point, I thought it was good to point out, like, the persecution or killing of jewish people didn't begin there. You know, it kind of heightened. You know, there was a height kind of about it, but it was a.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Heightened moment, but, you know, crescendo, unfortunately.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: That's a good way to put it. And. And so then post World War two, but obviously, during a conflict, there's just, you know, the migration that happens there is due to the conflict. It's not a lot of just, hey, let's. We were thinking about just, you know, relocating and starting a new life, you know, type of thing. It's, you know, moving around is because of that is to avoid, you know, conflict. So post World War two, you know, kind of, I know you. I'll open it up to you to kind of explain the general like you did last time. I thought you did a good job. Good job with that. With the World War one piece or the post World War one piece. So, you know, what you see unfold there or what you think is important that unfolds there and what your big takeaways from it.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think you're right. I mean, it's interesting. I'm preparing for today. It was really. I could see a succession of patterns, and it's a lot culture based. I mean, you make a good point about political decisions. I mean, I learned in preparing for today that one of the big decisions, just to go back a little bit to pre world War two, before Palestine, as they were thinking, in the early 19 hundreds and into the teens, there was a stronger something called the Uganda scheme. And there was a strong consideration to make the jewish home in East Africa, because this is when Britain still had a lot of colonies in Africa and the Middle east. And so what they were trying to do, again, and it's interesting because you see a lot of the influence of eugenics into the mindset. Again, that's why I say culture is important, because the British, when you read the way they were writing, everything was about the race. They said the arab race, they said the jewish race. And this is when there was a.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Name that they say they took those races to mean. Very distinct differences.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Between the human beings.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And so back then, that's how it was looked at as like this chessboard in the world. And that, you know, we've got these colonies and these different races occupy these colonies and we can move these pieces around like pieces on the chessboard. That's kind of what european colonialism, kind of how they saw the world. And so what that, you know, leads to going forward is the ultimate, I would say, kind of experiment gone wrong in eugenics, which was the Holocaust. Right. This idea that now the aryan race is the dominant one that has to now exterminate these mud races or bad.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Races so they don't contaminate the gene pool.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Correct. And so, and so with the jewish people being the biggest target by the Germans and the Nazis at the time. So I think that once we get through the Holocaust, meaning the world in history, clearly the idea of eugenics was quickly jettisoned, and everyone acted like they forgot that they liked it, all these governments and world powers. Right. And so that's what I think gave the kind of the green light to say, okay, at this point, it's evident that the jewish population is vulnerable to attack pretty much anywhere. And so we need to get moving on creating a state and a home for the jewish people so that they all can have somewhere to congregate and be safe and be defended. And the decision was made that it was gonna be in the. Where Palestine was currently, which is now Israel. And so I think there's a lot of nuances in between. I mean, I was looking. There was a. The British had a tough time governing that area prior to world War two. So there was an arab revolt in 1936 against the british occupiers. Then there was a jewish revolt in 1944 to 1947. So there was a lot going on. And I'm sure, especially after the second world War, where Britain also was hurting and needed to kind of lick its own wounds from the war and all its stuff.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: No, that was a big part of it. That was a big part of it. We don't have money for this. We don't have time yet.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: We can't afford to have all these colonies and all that. So, you know what? Palestine, we're out. And we agree with the UN, put the Jews there. So it's kind of like it was a kind of settling of all of that from the first World War and second world War, of how we got to the Jews having a home in Israel.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Well, no, for sure. And when you look at. I think you mentioned the United nations. That's a big part of this. The United nations was just created after World War two. And part of, one of the things that they took on initially, and we're looking at was what to do with Palestine and all. And during that time frame. Israel declares war, a couple declares war, declares it's independence, declares its state statehood a couple years after World War two. And that's saying, hey, this is our land and we are a country now. And that provokes conflict immediately because again, the Palestinians are right there and say, well, how did this become yours, you know, all of a sudden? And so you look at the first, like, hot conflict between which you can consider the state of Israel and the Palestinians as right when Israel declares its independence and declares its statehood, you know, and that's, you're looking at 1948 is you have a war right away. And so if you look at from that period, there have been off and on now there sometimes the wars get like more formal and other times it's just, you know, attacks here or different things happening. But if you look at it from this, that point, the existence of Israel has been the cause for, you know, I don't know if you say war or the cause of conflict since its very beginning. And the arab states around that, that area, you know, the Palestinians and the Arab states immediately we're like, well, this is not initially all of the states were like, Israel has to go right away like it was. And that has over time, there's been progress towards recognition in different countries. And we may touch on that. But the overall point, I mean, because we're painting in broad strokes here, we're not trying to go through granularly everything that happened, but just to kind of give an overall flow, because if you parachute in right now and say, okay, I'm seeing what's happening now and I'm going to base my belief or my thoughts on this based on what's happening now and over the last five years, you really miss, you're looking at the tip of the iceberg, like, literally because, and also if you're trying to come up with any kind of solution on how we can stop this or how we can help stop this from continuing on, if you don't look at the context of historical context, then you're really fighting with two arms tied behind your back. Because there is a lot going on in terms of the depth of the mistrust, the depth of the disdain that has built up over years. Because starting with, you know, again, starting with when you're looking at from the israeli state standpoint, starting with their founding and moving forward, and I mean, they talked before, there's been four, like, major conflicts, but it's been a lot of stuff in between.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and I think, you know, you say it well, there's so many cross currents. And like you said, we gotta paint with broad strokes here because to begin to get into each skirmish and conflict, I think, loses the forest through the trees. And I think, you know, if we were to say between 1948 and now, I mean, I just googled Israel wars and the word history. And, you know, there's been a lot of conflicts and skirmishes involving many countries. I mean, I found it interesting. The Suez crisis in 1956 was when Britain, France and Israel teamed up together to attack Egypt. And it was in response to Egypt wanting to nationalize the Suez Canal. Yeah.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: And that's more of the kind of conflict we're more used to, like resources and commerce and. Yeah.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: And if you think about 1956, you're only, you know, 20 years from 1936, meaning the British probably still saw it from a cultural perspective as, hold on, this was our stuff. You know, this is our culture.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: You can't undersell that, though. That's the Suez Canal, which, you know, that the Suez Canal, you know, like, control over that is a major thing. And for sure Egypt was going to play along because, remember, United States declared war on Colombia, or, you know, we fought Colombia to free Panama so we could do the Panama.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Like that. That type of stuff is, is.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: That's economic hitman stuff. That's what.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: This is where all these cross currents begin to kind of meet. And also you get more conflict because you're right. That's nation state stuff about big, big games, big chess games, about who controls resources, all this stuff. Yeah, but then, like you're saying. But that's pulled in.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: I see what you're saying. That's pulled into the israeli palestinian conflict in a sense, because Israel's involved in their opportunistically, like, oh, you guys want to attack right here? Hey, hey, we're down. We're down. These guys all hate us.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Because Israel is considered a western style country with western democracy and is allies with Britain and France and the United States. So whenever those allied countries of Israel, like us and Britain, when you look at, let's say, what happened with Mosaddegh in Iran when he tried to nationalize the oil there, and, you know, we performed a coup and took him out, like, that's a fact. I'm not saying that America is terrible for that. I'm just saying that's a decision we made. But the consequences are that it didn't help Israel with its neighbors because they looked at Israel as basically a proxy for the western countries that wanted the resources in the Middle east and again, I'm pretty neutral on that. I'm american and we need resources. So at some point, I'm not gonna say I like the idea of starting wars over resources, but as an american, I'm gonna say that, you know, that's the way it went down and we all live with the consequences. Right.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Well, I mean, and honestly, to be fair, that's how much of history has gone down.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: So that's just life. It's not, it's not to say good or bad, but we are living with those consequences and we need to acknowledge it. So that, I think leads all these things lead us to now because although those are large nation state issues, what happened is real. People got hurt on the ground on all sides. So if we end up. And it's what happening now, right, like, and what happened even and not, this is a digression from specifically Israel. But if you remember, after 911, we have images of us hurting from an attack by al Qaeda. And then when we go to retaliate, what do you think? This is how ISis gets power, right? What do you think they're showing on social media and the Internet and the.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: News in those countries is not the twin towers falling. That's not what they're showing.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: That's not what they're showing. They're showing the american response and what it's doing in arab cities and arab civilians. And so again, should we have not responded to 911? No, I think we should have, but we just have to deal with the reality that these responses will cause situations that may just escalate.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Escalate.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: That's the word I'm looking for. Yeah, that could escalate it. And I think, unfortunately, the necessary response of Israel to this because they can't not respond, is going to create more images that potentially could escalate, you know, further responses to Israel and also build.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: The next generation of people who, you know, would be inclined to want to attack.
And that's a big part of it as well. I mean, I think that one of the things we have to mention is that I mentioned that a political solution is going to have to be needed at some point. And it's not like people haven't been working on this. I mean, peace in the Middle east is something that people have talked about since, you know, 1917 or 1918. How can we come up with? But really, you know, you look, post Israel time, the UN, what they proposed was a two state solution. And you'll hear this term, if you, if you do any kind of reading or looking at this stuff, two state solution where Israel has a, has a country and Palestine has a country and they are independent of each other and they both can run their own operation. And then oftentimes what's presented in there as well is that Jerusalem is kind of a international kind of place. You know, it's, it's not necessarily going to be owned by one or the other, you know, and very, but, you know, there have been very iteration, various iterations of what's been proposed, but this is something that has not come to fruition. You know, like, and I can say that that's, that's obviously hasn't come to fruition because we don't have a Palestine there now. It's, Palestine has some level of autonomy at this point in Gaza and in the West bank. And that feeds into what we have now. Because what, one thing to note right now is that Hamas has been, and this goes to your point of how the back and forth skirmishes, the violence, will create images that then the people see and say, okay, well, we got to escalate this because look at what they're doing to us. Hamas in Gaza has been democratically elected, and they're looking at it as saying, hey, we can, they're hardliners and they talk tough and they, I mean, real tough, like, Israel shouldn't exist. And so we would look at that as extremism. But to people who have been conditioned and saying that they're getting stuff blown up, who did that? Oh, it was the Israelis. And then in Israel they're getting stuff blown up. Oh, who was it? It was Hamas or it was the Palestinians. That, that type of bad blood that continues to escalate into fester, then, yes, you will have the Palestinians saying, do you understand how they. Oh, yeah, let's listen to these hamas guys because the other guys aren't, they're not able to bring security to us, we got to go with the hardliners and so, so forth. So you look at, again, so that's getting to how we got here now, you know, and so where we are now is, and I pointed out some of the things Hamas said as far as why they did it. I think we can all look at what happened, you know, this surprise attack and involved attacks on civilians, and we can condemn that. That's, that's, you know, attacking civilians is something that is, you know, you're not going to find many civilians that are like, yes, let's attack. Let's attack civilians. But so just your thoughts. I mean, you know, getting into kind of, I don't think it's necessary and I'll talk about this. I don't think it's necessary to take a side, so to speak, to actually talk about this in the sense that you can find fault anywhere you want here because this has been going on for so long and there's been so many, so much that has already happened there. You can find fault anywhere you really want to look. But just what's been your thought, seeing how this has unfolded, this most recent attack, and if you want to use historical context, that's fine, you know, but just kind of, you know, what's come to mind to you and just seeing what we're seeing right now, I mean.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: It'S, it's such a hairy mess and a conversation full of minefields that we're gonna step on. And I'm being serious because this is one of the most, probably most emotionally heavy type of topics in world conversation today. I mean, you know, you've got people lining up. I mean, you know, most Muslims or people of arab descent and all that are lined up on one side of majority of Jews and people in the west are lined up on another side. And like you said, also though, you.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: See other fault lines as well, though, just to kind of throw in there. Like, you see people who maybe consider themselves in a more oppressed group, sometimes they'll line up more behind the Palestinians or, you know, different. Like you see, it's a lot of different fault lines. You'll see as far as where people will line up and say, okay, I'm just with this group. So, you know, and then what ends up happening a lot of times with that is you get a lot of rationalization on whatever their group is doing and saying, oh, what? But it's ends justify the means, you know, or, you know, this is justified because of this and that. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's a dangerous thing to talk about.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's, um. No, and I mean, it's just because, I mean, and understandably right, I mean, I think it's amazing how powerful images are to us as humans. I mean, if we were just reading about some of this stuff, it would be different than when you see literally these guys coming in on para, you know, paragliders and I busting through the fences on the israeli border and literally kidnapping women and children. I mean, that's like a throwback to the Vikings or some middle aged way siege on a town that you're gonna go kidnap the women and children. And so as opposed to, I thought about this. Russia's behavior on Ukraine is actually similar, but it looks more traditional, I guess, because it's a military coming in in uniform with tanks.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: And most of the images we see are that and not of the other reports that we have as far as, you know, some of the more crazy stuff that's happening.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, and I just. I mean, images being important, the tactics are actually the same, which is very sad. Like you said, civilians bearing the brunt of it. Russia began its invasion of the Ukraine by attacking civilians. I mean, just putting missiles into cities, and we saw them hitting apartment buildings and killing people. We've heard stories of them using rape as a tactic, which the Russians have been well known since the first and second world war.
They're kidnapping children and kidnapping Ukrainians and bringing them back to Russia, and no one knows what happened to them. That's all been well documented.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: War is dirty, man.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's terrible.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: War is nasty. Yeah.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: But the images of what happened this weekend in Israel, it even looks more grotesque because, I mean, that's what I mean. It's the same thing in terms of, they're all gross, but it's like, when it's not even military guys, these guys look like ragtag guys just showing up on the street.
They just look like more like the.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Quote unquote if they were marching and stuff like that. You know, you just, you receive it as slightly different.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: It's not to justify that. Yeah. It's not to say that the Russians are somehow more noble. It's just to say that.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: It's an interesting observation.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Yeah. These images are so powerful that it is going to create more of that visceral need for especially those who support Israel to want to protect the civilian population there. And that's what I'm saying. Israel's response is going to create that same feeling for those who feel on the side of the Arabs and the Palestinians, and that's going to make this thing worse, naturally. And so that's why I say these cross currents are very interesting because when you look at, okay, you have an elected group of people in Hamas who were democratically elected in their country, but as a political party, their mandate is the destruction of Israel.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: So it'd be like if we had an elected party in Canada or Mexico, but they ran on a platform of, we need to attack and destroy America.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: How would we feel?
[00:29:47] Speaker A: I mean, and that has played a role in Israel. I mean, again, everything has, everything that has happened and is happening, but Israel is not open to, you know, and then has blockade. You know, we talked about settlements and homes and they're like, well, how can we have dialogue with you guys? How can we negotiate with you guys if your leadership is bent on our destruction? Destruction. And so that makes it more difficult for, like, so it's everything you can point to and say because, because this has been going on for so long and you're talking generations and generations, everything you can point to and say, oh, well, because that's. Because of that. Oh, okay. Well, that's because of that. And so it's really difficult to separate anything out in the abstract. Now. You can look at certain actions and say, okay, that's too much. That's, you know, inexcusable. And I think that's fine to do, but you got to be very careful looking at this, looking at this in a way where you're like, where you just isolate certain behaviors or, excuse me, certain, certain sides or certain positions and say that this is just, this is all good. And everything else that went from there is, you know, like, oh, is not good, you know, so to speak. One thing I'll mention just what stands out to me in this and this, you see this various times or in various types of conflicts throughout history, what stands out to me is one of the big problems we have here is the Palestinians, and from where they're coming from, it appears that they are operating, and then hamas in particular operating like they don't have anything to lose. And that's a problem. Like anytime you're in a situation where one side has a lot to lose and another side feels like whether they have something to lose or not is relevant, but they feel like, look, what more could happen? This is the, like, we're at the end, you know, so to speak. And so because the nature of Hamas, which I think this current attack, like I said, you can look at that as a tactic and say, yeah, that's, that's unacceptable. But the nature of this attack, and you pointed out something very important here, they're not going to be able to sustain that. Like that's, they're not coming and then they're going to be marching and stuff like that. And so the nature of this attack is the kind of attack that someone makes in, you know, like, well, hey, we don't have anything to lose. We're just going to throw this. And as hard as we can and go as hard as we can, we know that six months from now or twelve months from now, you know, we're not going to be still doing this or whatever. And so I think that's part of the issue that we have is that we would like people, when you have people coming to the table, you know, and I deal with, you know, as an attorney, I deal with, you know, alternate dispute resolution mediation type stuff and then also, you know, court trials and stuff like that. But the thing is, is that anytime you have two sides talking about something or in conflict, usually the way that you can get to a resolution is if both sides have something they don't want to lose and therefore, then can negotiate in a way that it's like, all right, well, here's what I'm trying to protect and so forth. And so to me that, you know, that whatever's happening in Gaza, and I get it, you know, Israel's doing what's doing in Gaza because Hamas is, you know, the, like you said, this is a group bent on their destruction and in their literature, not like secretly or in whispers, like in their front facing stuff. And so, but you put them in a situation where they have nothing to lose. And so I think it's difficult. And so we by say all this, to say all of the types of, you know, like agreements and so forth, that we look back over the time that people have had to try to negotiate, whether it be Carter helping or Clinton helping or whatever, they all tend to tended to lead to one place of this two state solution. I don't know if that's possible or nothing. But ultimately, and this is where I want to get to, ultimately, I want to see that there is some pathway to a political solution here because you would hope that this isn't just going to be perpetual where, you know, they're just attacks back and forth, you know, provoke. Hamas provokes or Israel, Israel provokes or, you know, whatever. And this is what we end with. So do you think there is a way forward that involves more coexistence and less persistent violence?
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Unfortunately, no. In the way it appears right now. I mean, let's look back 510 years from now and just see how this ended up being. But, I mean, I think because, look, this is the sad part, right? Is the end, whether it's a nation state or two individuals at a one on one level, like me and you talking right now, right at the end of the day, human beings best operate when they have trust. And right now, clearly neither side trusts the other. The Palestinians aren't going to have any trust for the Israelis, and the Israelis clearly aren't going to have any trust for the Palestinians at this point. So that's why I think the answer is no right now. Let's hope for maybe a cooler outcome over time.
But as you're talking, it's great the stuff you're saying, because there's several things I want to put out there. This idea, that famous quote of war is politics by another mean, just rings so true because like you said about this feeling of desperations, but also this feelings of, you know, you got to have a long term game plan if you want to see progress, right? So there does have to be a political solution. I think you made a good point earlier about, you know, those, and let's be honest, you know, those in western countries who feel that they are part of oppressed groups. And so you and I are two interesting guys here talking as black Americans who can say, you know, we can point to oppression in this country in its history. And even, you know, currently, you know, if we want to get nuanced in certain things. And I, and I think about it like it's so important how as humans, you know, we do, we are tribal and we do take sides. So I could say, look, there's a lot of people I've even seen here in the United States, and I think, you know, I need to be careful to nuance people who might be marching in support of the palestinian people as civilians who may be caught in a crossfire of a conflict that may themselves be normal, you know, moms or kids and things like that that aren't part of the terrorist stuff. I can appreciate all that.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, 2 million.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: People, not all of them necessarily are involved with this attack. Right. So we know that there's going to be innocent people that unfortunately get hurt. So let's acknowledge that. But there's also needs to be the recognition that there are some people, let's say, just, I'll pick on us in America. I won't talk about Europeans or other parts of the world, but I've seen some people here already marching and protesting in support of Hamas or in support of the destruction of Israel and all this kind of rhetoric. And I just want to caution people because some people think that they're supporting people that think like them in general. But there's a lot of this attitude amongst groups like Hamas. And I'm not making a statement against Islam or Muslims in general, but in every group you got hardliners, just like in Israel, there are right wing, hardline Jews that want to see Israel become a jewish theocracy. And they think that no one else should share that land and they want to keep building settlements and all that, and they provoke. So that's true, too. That's what I mean. There's stuff going on all over the place. But if you think about the type of rhetoric that Hamas uses, they are no different than the Taliban. So when you think. Or al Qaeda or ISIS. So when you think about things like women's rights, the rights of the lgbt community within the hard right wing muslim world, if you look at the way Iran handles things, who supports Hezbollah and Hamas? You know, these are the type of, when you talk about, and I think the same thing with, in a different way, when we talk about Russia and Ukraine, sometimes what we're talking about here is defending what we feel like are pluralistic democracies and the ability for countries to promote that way of living. And so I think there's a lot of people in America that need to also take a real look at what they're supporting when they feel, you know, that it's just this tit for tat.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: No, for sure. And, you know, the difficult. I'm glad you brought that up because the difficulty, as you said, is the desire to take a side. And so it's like, oh, why I want to take the side. Somebody. Do you see people with the kind of the sentiment, I want to take the side of the, of the person who's being oppressed, so to speak. But you're right. You probably should look it up a little bit more in terms of, okay, well, what is their leadership actually saying or trying to do and so forth? And again, you can find fault in situation when there's been a fight going on for 75 years. You can find fault if you're looking for it. But the thought being that it's not, you don't necessarily project your feelings on everything onto a, you know, a person or a group, a leadership group or whatever, because there's circumstances you can sympathize with, you know, and I think that's something that. Yeah, it's a good point. And the other thing that I'll mention here, and then you kind of alluded to this a little bit, is just that the thing that most concerns me. And, no, I agree. I don't necessarily see a YDe within reach right now, within even, you know, outside of this current conflict, which, again, these things heat up from time to time, a pathway to a more coexistence approach. But the reason I say that somewhat is because of the all that has been done. And, but these probably these two points play into each other. I just don't know that enough people who are in power want that, you know? And so, like, I think they like, again, Hamas, we know their stated solution isn't, let's find a two state solution, that it's the exact opposite of that. So Hamas itself is not looking for. To find a coexist, a way to coexist. And in a, in a fair way. Hey, let's do that. What's fair? We should get some land that you can grow stuff onto and yada, yada, yada. Like, that's not what they're talking about now. Are they saying. Are they. Do they have heightened rhetoric in order to ultimately compromise somewhere else? I don't know. I'm not in their heads, but I can only go from what they're saying right now, you know, in terms of what they're doing. And.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: Well, it's like Confederacy.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Back in there before the civil war, they were very explicit and put in writing what they wanted to do.
[00:39:57] Speaker A: Yeah. People now want to say, oh, and.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: That'S what I'm saying.
[00:40:00] Speaker A: It's like, no, they told us it was about slavery. You know, like, they said it. And so, you know, we can't go back now and say the Confederacy was about some noble cause estates and this and that. It's like, no, no, no. Their leadership was very clear that this was about preserving.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: It's like Hamas is saying, we're here for this, and right now Hamas leads the Palestinian right now.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. And so we gotta take them. And again, while I can understand why the people may have turned to them, it doesn't change the fact that what Hamas stands for is something that is not peaceful coexistence. And in Israel, I would say along the same lines, there are people, and there are people in the leadership. And again, this isn't everybody, but there are people that have indicated that that's not necessarily the direction they want to go as well. So I would. But I would say this, though. I think the bulk of the people like not leadership, because I try to distinguish between the leadership and the people, if you ask them, would, would veer more towards, let's just find a way to live. You know, let's find a way to live here. We, you know, it doesn't have to be they all got to go, or we all like. But I think it. Until that, that, until that sentiment is able to come through, then we're not going to be and come through in a forceful way where the people are like, look, we're done with this. We're done with. If it's just going to be fighting and then it's not, it's going to be very difficult to get to a solution. And the problem is, as you pointed out before, that each time we have one of these, each time the skirmishes get hot like this, it sets us further back from getting to the point where the people are like, enough, in my view, like you need, because each time there's less trust, each time there are more images, like you said, that allow the other side to be painted as villains, as evil and so forth. So that's my biggest concern here, is just that the cycle that we're in, it takes something to break the cycle so that things can cool down, so that then the cooler heads can figure out a way to make this work. And as long as we keep popping up with it, gets, keeps getting hot over and over again, then it's not going to happen. And there are some people who would like it to keep getting hot over and over again every couple of years or a couple of months so that it doesn't go in that direction.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: Well, the, the, I mean, I think you're right. And the sad part is, is that, you know, that this might have been a remain, one of the speculations I've seen that seems somewhat credible is that this could have been a response to certain things starting to work, meaning the potential coming together of Saudi Arabia and Israel and the normalization that Israel has begun to have in recent years with its neighbors like Jordan and some of the others in the region are, Hamas may have seen that as a threat, that they wanted to make sure that the neighbors didn't start cozying up with Israel because that means that Hamas is, influence will be somewhat diminished. And so, or they could have been scared that maybe the, Israel's neighbors will help Israel deal with Hamas and they decided they wanted to strike first.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: There's, you know, striking ideally, then, you know, you get more solidarity from the arab world and they'll pull back from.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Yeah, who knows? That's what I mean.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: That's, that's the kind of the, that's the full thought, basically.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: If that were the, the intent, let's see if it plays out that way. But, you know, it's interesting as I age, you know, and I'll end on this, I know, if we want to move to part two, I just started thinking, you know, because I thought, you know, like I said, there's 2 million people in this area, they say is about twice the size of Washington, DC. So very densely populated. It's going to be a lot of people that get killed over the next few days as Israel mounts its retaliation. And I started thinking, you know, al Qaeda attacked the United States on 911 successfully with a low tech surprise, and it worked to shock us. But the disappointing part, I think, for the arab world and the muslim world is our response for 20 years caused, from my understanding, the death of around 240,000 civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah, I'm going to assume 99% of them were Muslim.
Hamas, it just created a condition that's going to see more Muslims getting killed. And the sad part is that a lot of this is being done in the name to protect Muslims. And I feel like when I look back now and I could say, okay, like we said, we can appreciate how an underdog feels looking at american history and let's say with black people. And there was a time in the 1960s where we had the civil rights era, which is seen now historically as a time where blacks got fought and got, you know, finally a lot more rights. But there was two directions.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: Yeah, they had been fighting for a long time, but they were able.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: They were. Yeah, it finally came to fruition. But there was two kind of different lanes that kind of black Americans were occupying at the time. One was the more what can be considered, looking back at history, the more militant area, which was the Black Panthers, maybe the nation of Islam. There was a lot of that heated rhetoric. There were evidence that the Black Panthers wanted to create a Castro style revolution in America, so on and so forth. The other direction was the Martin Luther King direction, nonviolence, that kind of stuff. And made me realize in watching all this that when I was younger, when you're young and you're a little bit more full of piss and vinegar, you're kind of like, oh, Mandy, that nonviolent stuff is weakness and all this. But if you look at in the last hundred years, I mean, the two I can think of are Gandhi and India.
When you think of the british empire at its height and the oppression that the Indians were under, and then you think about Martin Luther King and the african american struggle when less than 100 years before the civil rights movement, blacks were slaves and then were in Jim Crow segregation and not full citizens of this country. So they were oppressed. And it seems that had black Americans gone more in the direction of the militancy, probably the response would have been similar to what we're seeing now, which was the whites who were aggressive would have been justified in going in with police and military to inner cities and really flatten and hurt more black people.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: It would have given them more power and more strength, the ones who wanted to do mean stuff anyway.
[00:46:27] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: You know, the white two wanted to, you know. Yeah, exactly.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: And so by, by showing the nonviolent hand, it kind of forced the society to say, hey, what's going on down in the south? Why are the police putting dogs on kids that are sitting there at lunch counters doing nothing?
[00:46:42] Speaker A: Well, no, in reverse, it may, it exposed the hawks, basically, on the, on the other side, the ones who just wanted to do violent stuff anyway. It took away their justification, so to speak, and so they looked worse because of the nonviolent tactic. No, it's an excellent point. Yeah.
[00:46:59] Speaker B: And I think somewhere in this journey. That's what I'm saying. Like, that's why this, to me, is just something to talk about. Hopefully, we see in the future that the folks like Hamas, there'll be another lane that can be figured out by those in the arab community that want to see some kind of change, because unfortunately, as we've seen as well, like I said, part of the reason Hamas got elected to power was the corruption of the higher palestinian government. So, you know, I know we want to move.
[00:47:30] Speaker A: Well, no, I mean, and I think that's an excellent point. It's one of those things that, you know, you point to, but you point to two people, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, who were more among the most influential people in the world. And so that's not an easy ask, basically, for that to come. That is something that, or that kind of approach, if you have a good enough leader and you get the people behind it, that has been shown to work in the face of oppression. And so, you know, whereas there are countless examples of the more militant approach, and sometimes, a few times they do work, you know, but a lot of times what it does actually is, you know, it emboldens and empowers the people on the other side of you who may want to do you dirty anyway. You know, not like it. It sends more people that direction, as opposed to sending people the direction like, hey, what? Why are we being so mean to these people?
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Why?
[00:48:27] Speaker A: What's going on? Why can't you, like, they seem decent enough, you know, enough? Because, as you pointed out, it creates the image, then it shows who the aggressor is and who the person is who's not the aggressor. So. But I got to keep us moving, man.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:39] Speaker A: You know, but I'm glad you got that point out, man, because it's an x. It's really an excellent point. So the second topic is we were doing some reading and just, there's some research out there and actually a book even just called 1491. And it goes into, and we know we just celebrated in America the Columbus day yesterday. And it goes into just trying to figure out what was going on in the Americas prior to Columbus landing. And so just what was your kind of, just this premise? Some of the things they got into was just how many people were actually here versus, you know, like they did something you. It's hard to know exactly, but, you know, you can still try to learn and research and so forth. So what stands out to you in this, in this 1491 type piece or this piece and study?
[00:49:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's fascinating because I didn't realize I bought this guy's book a few months ago and I had been reading it. So this is already was up my alley, this topic.
Look, I think it's fascinating just like a lot of other things we've had been learning in recent decades through the ability, I think, also of science and technology to help with just archaeological and kind of historical discoveries.
That there's a history is a lot more complex. And I say, I think, a good way, in a more interesting way than we assume. Then also this idea that I say this with a smile. History being written by the winner, that when people have, when people have, when people lose a conflict, normally their story isn't told. And that's something that I found interesting. And just watching some documentary about something else where they said, you know, the advent of film as well as the mass printing of books, really, it's only been about the last 150 years or so that the losers of conflict story has even been recorded. And so if we look at, like you're saying from the 1491, the year before Columbus showed up time, clearly there was a lot going on, but it's just that those stories weren't recorded. And so through the use of technology, even they're using some satellite technology now to see under the ground and all that, we can see certain structures and make assumptions as to what was here before then.
The numbers of people, I think, is very interesting because there's speculation that between the hundred years between when Columbus showed up and then subsequently the spanish conquistadors to kind of Plymouth rock and that era, that tens of millions.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: Yeah, 1492 to around 1620, basically.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: Yeah. That may be as many as tens of millions of Native Americans may have just died from the diseases brought by the Spanish. And so that when the other Europeans, you know, the British and others showed up later on that this was more of a wilderness, not because humans hadn't been here as much, but because there was just a mass die off. And a lot of the Native Americans that were found by the British and other Europeans that came in those later waves were kind of like remnants of. It was almost like a mad Max version of the Native Americans. Like, they were the remnants of people who had survived greater, more technologically advanced societies, but they were like, kind of like if we found ourselves.
[00:52:07] Speaker A: So, Max, terminology is an excellent way to put it.
[00:52:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause I think we don't appreciate that.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: Post apocalyptic, basically, of these cultures. Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:16] Speaker B: Like, if we lost our electricity and nuclear power plants and all that. I mean, it's not like I know how to run one of those, right. So if I showed up to a power plant by myself, like, okay, how do I turn this on?
[00:52:25] Speaker A: We just had you shoveling coal, manda.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, that's. I mean, in two or three generations, I mean, we'd be back to hunter gathering. Right? You can't just create stuff. So, you know, if you have a big shock to a population, it's understandable that, you know.
[00:52:39] Speaker A: Yeah, no, no, I mean, I think there's two thoughts that really came to mind here, and I think you put it well as far as, like, especially because a lot of the accounts that we read about come from that second wave, that post 1620 wave of, you know, of settlements that were coming here to the United States or coming to, you know, the. The Americas.
You know, what we read about is very narrative and, you know, top level what we read about from, you know, Columbus and then the conquistadors and so forth. But one is just the discussion on disease and how we. Yeah, it's really difficult for us to conceptualize. Like, if you look at the black death, you know, the plague, that's, you know, mid 13 hundreds. And so it's a year, 100 years later that Columbus is going over. And what you would have in that situation is the populations that are being touched by that, all developing an immunity to that. They can transmit it, carry it, you know, without dying, or, you know, they might just get sick. Because when a virus or whatever is new, when it's novel, it's much more dangerous than it is once your body sees it a couple times. And something that we have experienced with.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: I wonder how we'd experience today if we had a new pathogen in society.
[00:53:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:52] Speaker A: Who would we blame?
[00:53:54] Speaker B: I've been asleep since 2019, so just let me know.
[00:53:58] Speaker A: But and so it does, it stands to reason that if you're bringing microbes from, you know, the, from Eurasia and microbes that have been pretty, pretty big and bad and, but the population has gotten used to them, you're bringing them over here, that they could spread through the population here very quickly and you might wipe out in a 20 or 30 year as it spreads, you know, wipe out millions and millions of people. And so the disease aspect. And so that to me is if you don't, if you think about that, that's terrible. That, like, that's horrible to think about in terms of how like you may have had this like mass die off based on disease prior to any, any, like other cultures or societies you even have in contact with them. Only the people on the coast had the contact for the most part. Everybody else, you know, as it, as, as societies traded and so forth, like that, that's how it spread in inland. And so that, you know, like, so this, the potential for this mass die off unexplained to people who would have been, you know, inland or whatever, it's just like, oh, they're just, people are just dying. Like, oh no, a third of our population or half our population just died. And then, so that, plus how quickly the earth reclaims land or nature reclaims land is some. So I had never thought about it in that way, but just how the timing lines up and it's like, yeah, you could have had a plague, a black death sweep through North America and nature reclaimed that land in 5000 years or something like that. Like we were during the COVID pandemic. People were talking about, oh, yeah, the skies are clear and the lakes are.
[00:55:29] Speaker B: Like after three weeks of a shutdown.
[00:55:31] Speaker A: It'S like one year. And so it's like, so, yeah, I mean it's, it's an interesting thought exercise. Again, like there's so much that's happened in history that we don't know and we'll never know. But it's an interesting thought exercise as far as like, okay, yeah, wow. Like our, the way we understand it now, based on our best, or based on the best information available that we've had just now, if you reimagine that a little bit, there could be a completely different narrative that could be legitimate. And again, you don't know, you know, but that's, that's part of, you know, why you can look at it and just say, okay, wow, that, that alternative is kind of crazy.
[00:56:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it's interesting you mentioned about how quickly nature can reclaim territory in a sense, because I think I saw a documentary like ten years ago about Chernobyl.
And so, I mean, that's 36 years ago, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. And like I'm saying around ten years ago, I'm watching this documentary. So you're talking. That would have only been 26 years since then. And the lush green forests that have taken over that town and all the animal, because that's what the documentary that they were surprised that all these animals were flourishing. I mean, the wild boars and deer and wolves, there's this whole ecosystem there. And they were just saying how basically the radiation must not have been as detrimental as once predicted, but the idea was just how quickly, within a 20 year period, basically it was reclaimed by nature. And so the trees were growing over all the buildings and all that. So, but when I go back to things like talking about now the Americas again, if you think about the fact that the Mayans and the Aztecs and Incas and I might be screwing up which ones built certain pyramids, but this idea that, you know, the only time that we figured out how to measure triangles was when Pythagoras figured it out clearly is because these Native Americans didn't know who Pythagoras was. And it's probably more realistic.
[00:57:29] Speaker A: The Egyptians predated it.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: And the great pyramid of Giza was built 3000 years before Pythagoras took his first breath. So the reality is Pythagoras probably was taught this by somebody. So I think this is another example of, we have been taught that the Native Americans were savages that were basically living in the jungle and trees, just like we were taught that that's what Africans were and were and were benefited from slavery by being brought here.
We're not taught that these areas had these rich kingdoms that had their own knowledge. And think about it, to build a pyramid, they must have had some sort of written and mathematical knowledge and things like that. So.
[00:58:09] Speaker A: Well, I mean, but that's. We see that impulse, though, even today, because clearly there are certain people who want their history not to be accurate, but to make them feel good. And so it must make them feel good to have this narrative that the world was in darkness and then certain people showed up, or these, this area was in darkness, certain people showed up. But that's, that may not be the case, you know, and if you really look beyond just kind of the feel good, you know, desire of history, then you may learn that there was actually stuff going on and there's much more depth to the, the story than just, oh, this person showed up and everybody was jumping from tree to tree and branch to branch. And then after that, they, they learned how to walk or they learned how to read. So. But, no, I mean, it's. And again, learning about history is a journey. And so if you, if you only will allow yourself to walk one path, then you're limiting yourself. You're not really that interested in history. You might just be interested in feeling good about yourself. But so it, seeing stuff like this is an opportunity to continue that journey. And so it was very interesting. I mean, it was worth read. I mean, then I know once you finish the book, you know, we might have to hop back on here and look at it a little more deeply. But, yeah, we can get out of here from there, man. We appreciate everybody, for joining us on this episode of Call. Like I see it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: I'm tune, Dave and Lana.
[00:59:36] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
