April 16, 2024 • 46 mins
James and Shereen are joined by humanitarian advocate Charles McBryde to discuss Israel’s bombing of a World Central Kitchen aid convoy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi everyone, it's James. We just wanted to let you
know that some new shit has come to light since
since we recorded this. Specifically, a former staff of was
A Your Kitchen who resigned, who was of Palestinian descent,
wrote an op ed, I guess in mund Weis, which
is a publication that covers Israel than Palestine and the
United States role there, and it's given us some more
(00:27):
information about what's the two kitchen that we didn't know
when we first recorded this, and so we are going
to address out at the end. So after the second
ad break, Charles will go Sherean and I will come
back and we're going to address some stuff that we
found in that op ed. We will also link it
in the description to this podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yes, it's a really good article. I recommend you guys
give it a full read. But yeah, we will be
talking all about it at the end, so please listen
to the whole episode. Hello, everybody, Welcome to it could
happen here today. I am joined by my illustrious colleague James.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Hi James, Hi, Serene.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And my now friend Charles McBrien. Hi, Charles, welcome back
to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Hi know friends, Sharen it's wonderful to be here and
to know that you're a real person, not a.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, fun fact. I have met Charles in person, but
I have not met James in person, and I think
that's pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
That's why I got colleague and Charles colfriends. I think
we're not taking by.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
To it to that.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Don't read it too that.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Okay, we have.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
We're talking about World Central Kitchen and the tragedy that
happened last week in which seven AID workers were killed.
Both of these gentlemen have personal experience with the organization,
so I thought it would be good to talk about.
But James take it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Away, Okay, So yeah, I think I think we should
maybe start off Charles, you and I have both seen
World Central Kitchen in different places. Like my longest experience
with them was starting in twenty eighteen and Tijuana, right
when we were trying to feed people who were part
of a caravan of migrant to It arrived to write
before the midterms, and what was a relatively normal thing
(02:03):
became a really big political sort of football, which resulted
in the people, remember, like people being tear gassed in
Mexico from inside the United States, people being held first
in a baseball stadium and then in an old strip club,
which was really gross. And they're being essentially no NGO
(02:24):
presence at first, and then Mutual Aid presence and then
World Center Kitchen. Were one of the first people to
show up and cook for people, and like at this
point there was a really dying of need for food.
Like I have this vivid memory of three of my
friends and I are riding in a bed of a
pickup truck into this refugee camp and people just mobbing
for food and water, and like people would get about
(02:48):
like not stamping on children once once we stopped, but
like I was really worried there was going to be
a crash. People were very hungry and very thirsty, and
I had just had massive respect for people showing up
and just being like, we are people who cook food.
What we hate to do is cook food, and these
people hungryes who are going to give it to them?
And so I've always been admiring of their work since then.
(03:08):
And I went to Childs, like what your sort of
initial experience was with them, and if you could describe
like sort of what sort of work you've seen them doing.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, So first experience that I had with World Central
Kitchen was actually hands off. It was when my friends
and I we created this thing four years ago called
the Farm Link Project, which is a food rescue organization.
It basically finds food that's going to waste on farms
(03:40):
and are pays the wages of the truckers and the
drivers to transport the food to food banks that are overworked.
We sort of tagged in with World Central Kitchen in
the beginning of COVID and talked with them a little bit,
but there was never any official partnership. Some of their
comms people gave us advice, some of their fundraising people
with advice. First time I ever saw them in operation
(04:03):
was coming into the Jimish train station week two of
the Ukraine War, and they were the organization feeding all
the refugees coming in a bunch of people in the
World Central Kitchen, and the thing I noticed was none
of them were speaking English. They were all speaking Polish
and Ukrainian or Russian. And I started to realize, this
(04:26):
is an organization that knows how to mobilize a local
population in a local response as a part of the thing.
And that's something I really noticed when almost a year later,
I flew from Ukraine to Turkey when a seven point
five Magetude earthquake went through southeastern Turkey Kardastan, and I
(04:50):
flew into Adnanna and then basically linked up with the
World Central Kitchen people in the in the city of Osmania.
And one of the things I notice was how quickly
they were able to get into Syria when nobody else
was getting into Syria. And the reason is because it's
just chefs. It's just using chefs in restaurants in places
(05:14):
where they already exist. Every place in the world has
chefs and restaurants. And Jose Andres has this amazing quote
that I really like. He says, everyone already works for
World Central Kitchen, they just don't know it yet. And
I saw that in action. I saw all these kitchens
transformed into you know, shelters and food distribution sites, and
(05:36):
I got to work alongside their team. So my project,
I was trying to fundraise for heaters and blankets to
heat the AFAD tents in the affected regions in Kurdistan
and in the Kurdish villages on the on the border
with Syria, because there was it was still very cold
at that time and there was not, you know, adequate
attention paid to that. Obviously, AFAD and its cronies is
(05:58):
part of the whole reason that that incident was as
bad as it was. But World Central Kitchen stepped up
in a big way in Turkey, and I was really
impressed with kind of their outfit. We were working out
of the same distribution center, you know. I got to
a company, Jose Andres on a couple of his deliveries,
and we went in to Hate and walked around and
saw the extent of the devastation and visited all the
(06:21):
World Central Kitchen feeding sites and it was just it
was all Turkish people and Gurtish people who were there
working from World Central Kitchen. They had been mobilized by
this entity. So there's this decentralized element to World Central
Kitchen that I found really impressive. It didn't feel like
the top down, bureaucratic thing I kept running into in
my humanitarian work with these big NGOs. It was much
(06:43):
more grassroots, much more bottom up. So it gained a
lot of respect for me in that sense. Yeah, I
think that's a really good point to make that they
do have a different model. It allows them to be
flexible it allowed them to be places where other people aren't.
Like I think a lot of people, prehaps like are
not as familiar with the NGO world as you and
I might be. Like, NGOs often present themselves in places
(07:07):
where people need help. But it's like, you know, they
have large office buildings in white Land cruises, and they
have one way of doing things, and it's their way,
and sometimes that doesn't work well. I can recount countless
examples of this, right, NGOs that exist to do things
in a certain way and don't adapt to a local
situation or culture. And that's something the World Central Kitchen
(07:29):
have done really well in my experience, all over the world. Yeah,
they graft themselves on to a local response and every
everywhere that they go, it takes on a local flavor.
And I think it's that's why this happened, is because
they inserted themselves into a highly volatile situation and because
they are so decentralized, and because they are so on
(07:49):
the ground, they also expose themselves to the realities of
what Palestinians have been facing in Gaza and lost members
of their team, you know, as a result. And I
think that is part of that is there's a lot
of people who won't even go into Gaza, you know,
if they had the opportunity, like you said, these big nngos.
(08:10):
I think last time I was on the podcast Sharen,
I talked about, you know, seeing these big UN advertisements
in the Copenhagen airport saying save Ukrainian children when I
first when I was going over there, and then as
soon as I got there, I mean, the minute you
go east to Leviv, You're not going to see a
UN truck anywhere. And it was it was that way
for nine months, you know, INBA it was just a
(08:32):
bunch of people with like brand new white Land cruise
or prados sipping cocktails in Leviv while subcontracting with actual
humanitarians working closer to the front line. World Central Kitchen
was not that way. They were all the way out,
all the way on the east. Everywhere I went there
was World Central Kitchen cars even deep into Donyetsk. And
(08:53):
that was really impressive.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It just fit.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
It was so it felt antithetical to the whole nonprofit
industrial complex model that I'd become familiar with, and I
was impressed by that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, so perhaps we should to speak about exactly what
they were doing in Gaza, because I think people are
practical a little confused. There's been a lot of like
misinformation from all kinds of angles about what they were
doing in Gaza, So do you have a good handle
on that.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I mean, World Central Kitchen positioned itself. They engage in
slightly more activist humanitarianism than most organizations, which is why
I mean jose Andres went big on Ukraine. He was there,
he brought the whole team. I mean, they put they
dedicated so many resources to Ukraine, and for him it
(09:42):
was unequivocal. Ukrainians are the good guys, Russians are the
bad guys. We're helping the victims of this conflict, and
you know, we're on the side of the Angels in
this And that was the positioning, and I think it
was a bit of a wake up call when after
October seventh he did the same thing in Israel and
went and you know, gave food to the to the
(10:04):
to the different Kibut seam that were affected by the
October seventh attacks, and at first very much positioned himself
as like, we're here to help relieve the affected Israelis,
which again, for like polite liberals in the humanitarian world.
You know, Israel Ukraine both aligned with Western interests, Western
(10:26):
values theoretically, and I think and then you know, suddenly
the war focus goes from what happened in the Kibut
sim to what's happening in Gaza. And so they went
to Egypt and they started helping the refugees, and then
they tried to get into Gaza. Then they did get
into Gaza and they set up, you know, an effective
(10:47):
system of of food aid. And I started to notice
while that was happening that the perspectives of a lot
of the people that I was working with in the
AD community were starting to s on this whole thing.
People who didn't have a political interest in supporting the
Palestinians and we're just kind of supporting Israel because of
the default. When they actually went to Gaza, they started
(11:11):
to really change their tune. And you see this a
little bit with Jose Andres as well. I think Jose
Andres was, yeah, I mean this in terms of his
personal views on Israel, they seem to have very clearly evolved.
You can see very soon after October seventh, he is
calling out the Spanish Prime Minister on calling what's happening
(11:35):
in Palestine and genocide. He's saying that Israel has the
right to defend itself, and then he spends a bunch
of time in Gaza, and now he's greeting everyone in Arabic,
and then this thing happens and he immediately points the
finger at ISRAELI says, you guys targeted my team, you
killed them deliberately, and you made sure the job was finished,
and that is just so reproachable. And in doing so,
(12:00):
he became one of the only really big celebrity voices
to make what appeared to be something of a one
to eighty turn on that conflict. And pretty much everyone
that I've worked with in the humanitarian or journalism space
has also done the same thing in regard to Gaza.
I'd say most people thought my views on this were
too extreme after October seventh, when I began immediately criticizing Israel,
(12:23):
and now the ones who have actually been there pretty
much on equivocally say they're the bad actor in this region.
And I think you saw that shift happen in real
time with sort of the attitude that World Central Kitchen
took to Gaza. All of that stuff is available from
public statements, And I don't want to share private sentiments
that have been shared with me by members of World
(12:44):
Central Kitchen staff. Those are their own and they don't
represent the organization. But I think even just watching the
yo yo of Jose Andres's perspective on this change has
been enlightening.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, And I think, like it's easy to be critical
of someone having opinions which like have not aids well, right, Like,
and sometimes that's okay. Sometimes some since we need to
do that. Sometimes people say shit which is unforgivable. But
like I think in this instance, like we can be
critical at a point, but I don't think now it's
a time for that. Like I think now it's a
(13:17):
time for like everyone who wants the starving and killing
of innocent people in Gaza to stop is on our
side right now, and we need to welcome that. And like,
there are a lot of people in this country right
who we need to do that same one eighty and
giving examples of people doing that is good, like they
(13:39):
and there are a lot of people who don't see
themselves when they see dead people in Gaza, and that's
a problem, right, And that's some shit that they need
to examine. And because there's a lot of bigotry there.
But if they see themselves in those aid workers, or
they see themselves in Jose Andres and look, fucking when
I saw the bodies of those aid workers, right you
have a tall, skinny British guy with long hair in
(14:00):
a plate carrier with a badge on like that, That's
what I look like to ninety nine percent of the world,
and it's hard not to feel like, oh shit, like
that could be me, and I have well, I feel
like I have a lot of empathy for people in guards,
are friends in guards that we speak to them on
the podcast Shearing and I spoke to them last week.
But whatever it takes for those people to change their
(14:21):
opinions right now is what we need, and we can
we can dissect how we got here later, but like
every minute that this continues, more innocent people die. And
if we can stop this one minute sooner than there's
important lives that we can save. And I think it's
really important to focus on where we are, not like
(14:42):
how how we got here right now if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
As far as global conflicts go, I believe it's like
two hundred and twenty four aid workers have died in Gaza,
which is not a normal number in any kind of war.
So that's according to the UN.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, one hundred journalists, right, like every there is one
person I can think of who has worked with in
Gaza who is still alive. Everyone I know has lot
of family members And that's just my tiny slice, you know,
and by no means as affected by this as most people.
But yeah, three times as many children have died since
(15:18):
October in Gaza as are normally killed in conflicts in
a year worldwide. It's fucking horrific. And yeah, we will
do well to put aside our differences and make it stop.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I think.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yeah, I agree, opposition to genocide and wanting to end
it should be a very big tent. And the fact
that some people on the internet are trying to make
it a smaller one doesn't make a lot of sense
to me.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it promotes infighting, which is not helpful
right now. Yeah, it is helpful to not call it
a war and continue can't get a genocide because that's
what it is. So yeah, just continuing to change all
the rhetoric around this genocide I think is important. This
is also not the first time that Israel has directly
(16:01):
targeted aid workers that are clearly labeled as aid workers.
In two thousand and six and Lebanon, Israel struck a
red cross ambulance right in the center of the logo,
right on top of the truck. There was or the
van was a red cross, a clear red cross, and
it struck right in the center. I think that image
(16:23):
is now going around again from two thousand and six again,
I thought the first time that Israel has directly targeted
aid workers, and I think it's really appalling seeing leadership
in Israel just kind of apologize half hardly, being like
this was a mistake, and then they just move on.
It's if this was the red line for people one,
(16:45):
I find that frustrating. But if it's finally the red
line for people, I just hope it continues and people
don't let it go.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
That story there was absolutely fucking heartbreaking, right of that
young girl who is trapped in her car and she
called the ambulance, and the ambulance came and they bombed
the ambulance. Fight they killed her, and they kill the
ambulance drivers. Like those two ambulance drivers were Palestinian. They
were working for the Palestinian recrest, and they deserve every
bit as much outrage as to what Centralkitchen people do.
What they did with every bit as admirable. But like,
(17:15):
if this is what it takes for people to change,
then like I hope that they will also acknowledge that
everything else that happened before was an a trustee too.
Talking of like a trustees, we have an advertising break now.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
That was good James, good job, and we're back. Charles.
You recently got some online attention for a video that
you posted that was highlighting the vast imbalance of attention
(17:52):
that the targeted assassination of the AID workers got in
comparison to the murder and genocide of Palestinians. Specifically, people
were talking about how there was also a Palestinian driver
who was murdered along with the AID workers and his
name was not getting mentioned. His name is safe, Isam Abudaha.
And just a reminder of how frustrating it is that
(18:13):
this had to be the red line for people. There
are over thirty three thousand people in Gaza who have
been murdered, nearly half of which are children. There are
probably thousands more who are trapped under the Rubble and
other thousands that are just unaccounted for because of the
bobbing of hospitals and the lack of records. So to
(18:34):
have the killing of six aid workers be a red
line for people, That's what I mean by saying it's
frustrating because it is a tragedy. But tragedy has been
taking place for the past six months and also the
past seventy six years. So yes, the video that Charles
made got some well deserved attention, and I'd love for
(18:57):
you to talk about it a little bit.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, this was like a strange convergence of things for
me because I had been keeping up with the WCK
team as they went into Gaza. I'd actually even been
in conversations with some of them about potentially going there,
but I hadn't. I mean, like these were just buddies
from a humanitarian trip. I mean, you know, like James
probably knows, you make friends really fast when you're connected,
(19:21):
when you're in these sorts of scenarios, And you know,
I had, I made friendships while I was in Turkey
that I've I've maintained, and but then my my Palestinian
advocacy was separate. You know, I'm over here educating and everything,
and then suddenly there's this convergence of like former you know,
(19:41):
co workers on this team dying and then it being
the fault of this regime that I've spent the last
six months trying to educate people on why it's bad.
And I posted a video which was my tribute to
the fallen WCK employees, who were very close friends of
people that I got really close to on that project,
(20:03):
and it was a tribute to them and also a
way of pointing out how their martyrdom has has overshadowed
the martyrdom of so many Palestinians who will never get
the kind of press and attention that they did, and
(20:24):
I think it achieved that effect. The video went very,
very viral. It's exceeded a million views on TikTok, It's
around a quarter of a million on Instagram, and more
than that on the accounts that have reposted and shared it,
sometimes without the context that I am not a World
Central Kitchen employee, nor do I represent the opinions of
the organization. And one of the things that I think
(20:46):
made that story go viral is that I did shift
the attention to I said, this is a genocide, and
I said, as grieved as I am at the loss
of these people that I have this connection with, I
do want to point out that it is overshadowing the
horrendous loss of life of Palestinians, and I think that
resonated with a lot of people. It also resonated with
(21:08):
my former my friends at w CK, who reached out
to say, we appreciate you using your platform to talk
about this, especially considering the fact that w CK employees
do not typically are not really supposed to be making
statements online about this, so they have a little more
leeway with that concerning the fact that the head of
(21:31):
the organization has explicitly now condemned Israel for this strike.
But I've had some very interesting conversations with friends of
mine that either still work or connected to the organization.
And that's a slightly complicated thing because World Central Kitchen
subcontracts with so many different people, so at any given point,
there are people who are connected to World Central Kitchen
who are not representatives of the organization or technically employees,
(21:54):
So you know, you can't say definitively this is what
the majority of people in WCK f about Gaza or
Israel or anything. You know, different people have different opinions
about that whole situation.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I think what you tried to do was obviously not
to represent them, and it would be Disingenuousony want suggest
you did, but the internet does that. I want to
talk about one more, talking of disingenuous things on the Internet.
I guess there was this thing that went around immediately
in the aftermath of the photos coming out of the
different people's corpses that like it seemed to be mostly
(22:30):
like tankies or perhaps people who still believe that they
can generate revenue from FEUs on Twitter saying that like
because these people had a security team, the security team
was somehow spies, and the evidence they were working for
its right, Like, and you can speak to your experience, Charles,
like I've worked with security teams and seeing people working
with security teams all over the fucking world because war
(22:52):
is dangerous and you have the thing that everyone needs.
If you have the misfortune of being a veteran of
the global War on Terror, you have very few outlets
for your skill set. One of those is providing security
for humanitarian actors and journalists, and that is one of
the most pro social applications of your skill set. Yeah,
(23:16):
things to do with those skills, believe me.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Right. So I have encountered a lot of people in
my time in Ukraine and elsewhere who have decided to
turn their sort of military intelligence background experience into you know, well, okay,
I'm good at this. I'm familiar with these types of scenarios.
And if there's one thing I'm decent at, it's well
(23:42):
at least trying to keep people safe and give them intelligence.
And that is a that's never a guarantee. But in
all the people I've met who actually are legit, you know,
security consultants or just veterans who have applied their skills
towards a pro social, humanitarian proper are pretty good guys.
And while I'm sure you know there are some of
(24:05):
them who are connected to various you are still connected
to sort of the intelligence services of their various countries.
I think that's definitely a possibility. A lot of them
are not. They're just veterans who are trying to help
and they this is a way that they can make
a living and while doing something that has a low
moral hazard. So yeah, I dismissed that stuff. There's a
(24:28):
lot of conspiracies. The problem is, I mean, in the
vacuum of the sort of post manufacturing consent world where
none of us trust the Western liberal media, a lot
of people trust stuff that's even dumber, including just like
takes on the Internet that somebody pulled out of their ass.
And a lot of it is if you have set
(24:49):
yourself up against everything that comes out of the West,
then every everything that looks like a fingerprint of an
intelligence agency or anything is going to ring your ow
arm bells, obviously, you know, James. I feel like Ukraine
is a great example of this. The fact that the
United States supports Ukraine means that Ukraine must be the villain,
and that the entire thing must be a CIA si
(25:11):
OP and their spies everywhere. And I'm a spy for
going to Ukraine and helping grandmothers get their insulin. All
of those things have been said about Ukraine, about me,
about you know, that sort of thing, and we know,
we know it's not true. It's just that people. I mean, these,
as far as I know, these were guys who were
security consultants very similar to I work with a lot
(25:32):
of British veterans of the Global War on tear basically
on various different projects, some of it having to do
with PTSD, others having to do with environmental conservation, some
of whom have worked in Palestine and been in the
West Bank. And I think Brits by and large have
a more sane perspective on Palestine than people in the
(25:53):
US do. I've just noticed that they are like fewer
ultra zionist Brits than Americans.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I think our politics is lift nominated by that perspective.
There are ultra zionist British people, but yeah, it's also
just I think a little bit harder to live a
life in Britain where you don't know, it's not Palestinian people,
Arab people and and Muslim people, right, and that complete
demonization and dehumanization of Muslim people that the Western media
(26:22):
did for twenty years to manufacture consent for war that
wasn't about weapons of master attraction or women in Afghanistan.
It doesn't stick the landing quite so well when like,
you have friends and you can kind of see through
the nonsense.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah yeah, well, also I think the percentage of like
evangelical Christians was probably much less.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
No, one's breeding a fucking Red Cow in England to
take it to this third temple that I know of.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
That was one of the things I was going to
point out is I don't think you even have to
know like to be a Zionist, you don't even have
to know Jewish people in the US. I was raised
an ultra Zionist without knowing a single Jewish family, because
I came from an Evangelic community in South Carolina that
was very Christo nationalist, very kind of culturally dispensationalist. Even
though my family wasn't dispensationalist. It was all about in
(27:09):
times you support Israel because that's where you know, that's
where Jesus is going to come back. So yeah, I remember,
I mean I I even had like fake Passover ceremonies
in our church. God, this is bringing up some interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Into the trillma bugs.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
But truly, I mean one of my one of my
early sort of I would say I was I was
completely anti Zionist before I was even a leftist. And
part of that reason was because I got to know
a Palestinian friend in Washington, d C. While sharing a
desk with an Israeli conservative and a liberal Zionist, and.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Yeah, joke like these people walk into a bar. Yeah,
trio of people.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
So I like, I think I had kind of I
got pilled on Palestine. Part of it was because, like
I was a history major in college, so I learned historiography.
I just never applied historiography to the Israel Palestine conflict.
And then having these two voices in my ear while
like living and working in DC, I was like, oh,
I need to actually look into this, and so yeah,
I mean I would say even before I was like
(28:15):
a leftist, I was down on Israel. I figured they
were not the good guys. And then I think reading
The Fateful Triangle by nome Chromsky really solidified that. And
obviously Ilan Pope kind of was the nail on the
coffin for me. So and speaking of like, you know
what happens in DC, and you know, American's opinions on
(28:38):
the Middle East, most of them are dog shit opinions
because most people do not have some sort of strong
point of reference to this zone. But it goes back
to what we were saying about how being against genocides
should be a very big tent and we should resist
efforts to make it smaller. Because I'm reading through the
hundred years War on Palestine now Rashid Khaldi, and one
(29:02):
of the things that he said is how the war
is fought in the United States in Congress because we
hold the keys. So as much as it's as painful
as it is to try and change the minds of
dumb Americans with no geopolitical understanding, it's absolutely essential to
(29:25):
holding Israel to account. It is actually one of the
best things that you can do. And when someone who
has the international appeal of Chef Jose Andres points the
finger at Israel and said, you killed my employees deliberately
and you're starving Gosans, that goes a long way towards
(29:46):
shifting the opinions of the people who actually hold the
keys to everything Israel does.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, I think that's a very good point. And like
that's what we need to do, right I's to up
stop them getting bombs to kill people, not argue you
on Twitter or you know, Instagram or what have you. Like,
we need to make the killing stop. I wonder like
you spoke a childs but knowing people I know, World's
(30:14):
Central Kitchen are no longer working in Gaza for the
time being. From when is that's still correct.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
They they've publicly announced that they're scaling back their efforts. Yes,
I'm not sure if they're going to totally close down
their operation. I think right now they're probably trying to
reconsider their security protocols before making another step.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, I mean, I don't really know what as there
are things, of course, but like they did attempt to
deconflict I guess, and they were using a road which
is designated for the use that they were using it for.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
And Israel knew where they were, Like it's they have
to report where they are. So I mean, it would
be fucking crazy if Israel attacked workers again right now,
but also it's Israel. I mean, I need done crazier things.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Yeah, but can we like dwell on that for a second.
Like Israel constantly boasts about its ISR capabilities in IR's intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance. So like Israel is constantly reassuring people
that it is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties,
it talks about its chain of command for approval. And
(31:26):
in light of that, none of the things that they've
said about this make any sense whatsoever, Because if they're
protocols because they're either it's like they can't decide what
they're trying to gaslight the world into believing. Every claim
that they're making is muddling what they're trying to get
the world to believe about them, and it just gives
(31:48):
everyone the distinct impression that they're recklessly incompetent, lying, evil,
or potentially all three.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Right, even if you look, I was because I don't
know why this is the thing that I do. I
was looking at like trying to work out what munition
Israel had used, right to destroy those vehicles, and Israel
has they have a number of different sort of musus
that they could have used. But one of the things
that they do in the US does it too. But
it's a bigger thing with Israel is if they have
(32:17):
inert or low yield health fire ammunitions, so guided munitions
at a five from a helicopter or a drone, and
they use them to do a thing that they call
roof knocking, right, which sounds maybe like you're like knocking
on someone's reof what you're doing is sending a missile
through somebody's roof, and that is the means by which
you alert them to evacuate the building because you're planning
(32:37):
a larger strike that in itself. Yeah, we have this
great ISR capability, and what do we do with it?
We launch missiles into the homes of civilians and then
hopefully they will run away in fear for their lives
so that more of them don't die when we blow
up that block ten minutes later. Like, it's just, you know,
you have to look at what's happening, not what's being said.
(33:00):
I guess, but.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
No, they're absolutely allergic to accountability, and I think you
can see just how far they've been able to they're
scrambling now because they've been able to get away with
so much for so long, and their excuses are falling
apart because they're alternatively depicting themselves as a highly disciplined
and professional army or that they're just making mistakes because
it's war and that people should get off their back
(33:23):
because no one holds anyone else to the same standard
that they hold Israel. So it's like, which is it?
Like what are you trying to get the world to believe?
Are you either this like crack discipline unit with a
very sophisticated chain of command in an AI software that
you're really proud of for targeting or are you? Is
this the fog of war and you're just making mistakes
and everyone makes mistakes and we should get off your
back for it because you can't have it both ways. Yeah,
(33:45):
the civilian casualties are too high for you to have
it both ways. So either you are making mistakes and
too many people are getting killed and you're violating the
laws of rule, or you're doing it deliberately, which is worse. Yeah,
make up there in minds, I guess Charles.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Thank you so much for joining us today. I really
respect all the work you do and I am grateful
that you have shared your voice with our audience once again.
Where can people find you on the internet if you
want to be found, thank.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
You, Shrian.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Yeah, just you can find me pretty much everywhere except
Twitter with Charles McBride and that's McBride with a Y
rather than an I. It's on Substack, Instagram, TikTok, and
my website Charles McBride dot com will be live at
this point nice when this episode drops. So if you
want to support the humanitarian work I've been involved in
(34:39):
in Ukraine, you can support Mission Harkive on Instagram, it's
Mission dot harkive and their website is missionharkive dot com.
And if you're looking for an org that is already
working in Gaza to provide life saving aid in the
wake of you know, unrubbing gone, World Central Kitchen now
pulling out, Era pulling out, Global Empowerment Mission is still
(35:02):
there and still fulfilling a lot of the same functions
that those organizations were doing.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Thank you so much, Charles Scheren and James from the
future here giving you an update about the article that
we mentioned at the top of the episode. So the
title itself is I resigned from World Central Kitchen because
(35:32):
they refuse to tell the truth about the Israeli genocide
and Gaza. The ex staffer is Ramsey Tatami. The article
itself has some really damning information about WCK, so we're
going to get into it. He says. For months, World
Central Kitchen leadership censored material coming out of its Gaza
operation and refuse to honor staff concerns about their work there.
(35:54):
And even though they're finally taking a stand after its
personnel have been murdered, it is much too late. So
he resigned in early March of this year, and at
the time he was the only staff member of Palestinian
descent at WCK, and there is an amendment there. He
says that while WCK hired many Palestinian contractors in Gaza
in Egypt, he was the only Palestinian with staff status
(36:15):
following the departure of one other longtime employee, and he
resigned in protest of the extensive unexplained censorship regarding Gaza
at the organization. They talk about how in December seventh
of last year, they sent a letter to wck's executive team,
and that letter called for WCK to join other regionally
active NGOs in calling for a ceasefire and condemning Israel's blockade,
(36:38):
as well as conforming its language and coverage of Gaza
to the standard that was set by the coverage of Ukraine,
as well as stopping meal service in Israel. It got
forty three signatures, and the WCK executive team declined to
meet up with the people that signed the letter, and
they failed to respond to any inquiries, and they also
actively still served the meals in Israel well the second
(37:01):
day of the ICJ genocide. Hearing what's happening in January.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
There's one paragraph that I want to dialet as well,
just because I think it's very crucial when we're discussing
the fact that these people died working for a cetera kitchen,
And that's this paragraph that I'll pick up halfway through.
In another instance, a video of a WCK kitchen caught
in an IDF bombing was put on hold entirely. It
(37:26):
appears to this incident, as well as the fact that
WCK personnel were a boarder un convoy that was bombed,
have not been mentioned anywhere externally. Like, I think that's
a really crucial getting off point. You can have shit politics,
but if you're not saying stuff when your people are
getting bombed, like until they're getting killed, A, I don't
(37:48):
know what's wrong with you, and B if you didn't
change things, and I don't know they didn't change things, right,
that's not detailed here, but like you have to change
things if your people are being bombed, Like if I
I'm working somewhere where that's sol likelihood, you know, like
if if we get bomb once and we're lucky enough
to be okay, we do not continue doing the same shit.
(38:09):
And I'm not entirely sure that they did I don't
want to for a moment suggest that like this, the
people who died were in like complicit right, That's not
what I'm saying. It's not what you're in saying. I
very much understand the desire to go to places where
dangerous things are happening and help the people who did
nothing to deserve this, And I think the people who
did that deserve are an ending gratitude and respect. I'm
(38:33):
not for a minute saying that that's not true. I'm
saying that this organization needs to really think about how
it does shit if it wants to continue operating.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
And yeah, the blame is on the executives of this organization.
The article also talks about how the character of w
CK's relief response to Gaza it was like revealed very
early on after October seventh, the chief communications officer, Linda Roth,
she had put out a statement without the communications team's input,
(39:05):
which is apparently breaking precedent, and it was about how
Hamas attacked Israel with no mention of the Palestinian lives
that were lost. And then three days later, Jose Andres
posted a video to wck's Instagram where he only makes
reference to the October seventh attack with no mention of
the climbing Palestinian death till at the time or the blockades,
and then on social media, Charles mentioned this of the episode.
(39:29):
On October sixteenth, he tweeted at the Spanish Prime Minister
to be removed for her protest of the Israeli tactics,
and at the same time, WCK continued to work closely
with the IDF over the course of the relief response.
The initial statement as well as Andre's video were decisions
that were made by leadership against the concerns of the
WCK personnel. There's this paragraph that I want to read
(39:52):
just verbatim. Much of the work in a genocide is
not pulling the trigger, but instead minimizing and denying that
a genocide is going on. Genocide is a phenomenon of
gradual boundary pushing. Each increment must be accepted by the
parties with agency for the next to be reached. Under
the direction of CEO Aaron Gore, Linda Roth and quote
(40:12):
Chief Feeding Officer Jose Andres, World Central Kitchen recklessly endangered
its personnel. Sheelflessly exploited the situation for its own benefit
and actively participated in the normalization of an ongoing genocide.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I think what I want to say more broadly here,
it's my stance. I guess maybe other people share it. Man,
they don't. This situation is not going to be solved
by NGOs, and it's certainly not going to be solved
by NGOs which have this very explicitly neoliberal political agenda. Right, Like,
at best they can plug a hole in a leaky bucket,
(40:47):
and it's good when they do that. Right, if one
less person starves, that's good. It doesn't mean they don't
have to be perfect to help, but they don't get
to be exemptive from criticism because they're helping, right Like, well,
Central Kitchen didn't want to help us at the border
in Hucumber. My friends reached out. They didn't want to
do that. Yeah, I don't think you should expect endios
(41:07):
to share your your radical politics. It doesn't mean that
they can't do harm reduction, and it doesn't mean that
when they are doing harm reduction, they sometimes need your money.
And in the such situations where this is happening, you
should give it to them if you can't help more directly, right,
But like you know, if we look at their communications,
we do see them calling for a cease fire, which
(41:27):
is about what you can expect from an NGO. You know,
we'd actually it appears that we see Hosse Andrews calling
for a ceasefire, and we see World Central Kitchen saying
Josse Andrews called for a ceasefire, which I don't quite
know why they don't just say we are calling for
a cease fire. They didn't sign that document with the
other endo. It's like, I don't know if they're trying
to play like have it both ways. I don't know.
I don't I'm not privy to those conversations. Right, they
(41:50):
didn't sort of wholeheartedly say this is the genocide but
they have to get permission for Israel to do stuff.
I mean, now they're saying it, but after the a
Trustee that happened, the whole world is watching, right, not
that the whole world shouldn't have been watching from the start.
But I don't think Enjoys are ever going to be
you know, it's radical that there's people on the internet
(42:10):
want them before they're also they're doing stuff and people
on the internet aren't, so you know, we have to
respect that. And I don't want any of this to
take away from the fact that some people from all
over the world, right from Europe, from Australia, from the
United States, have died feeding people who need to be fed,
(42:33):
because that's the most any of us can give, is
our lives, right, And so I don't for a minute
want any of this to detract from the sacrifice they made,
nor should their sacrifice be held in any higher regard
than the sacrifice made by hundreds, if not thousands of
Palestinian aid workers right, people working for the Palestinian Red Crescent,
(42:56):
a Palestinian even that the Palestinian people working for National
NGOs right, or the United Nations people who have been killed, right,
None of the sacrifices it should be ignored or under
mind because if people have certainly given a lot more
than I have, I don't have any right to say
that I think, yeah this or it changes communications, right.
(43:18):
I think they've obviously realized that there is no nicely
nicely about this, like you have to call a spade
a space when it comes to what's happening in Gaza,
which is a deliberate and targeted campt to kill civilians
thousands and tens of thousands of children even, and I
think until we move the conversation on to one where
that is being called by its name, that it's to
(43:40):
say genocide, then I don't think we'll see that the
reactions that we need, and I think they appear to
have reflected on that. I wish they've got there sooner,
but they're there now, and I'm sorry that it took
these people's lives to get there. But what I see
from them is what I see from other endeos. They're
not certainly not uniquely bad. In fact, they are better
than very many indios. And they were there when other
(44:02):
people weren't, and they're delivering food when other people weren't,
so I don't want to I don't want to distract
from that. But yeah, they're this messaging, this internal conduct,
like there's some of these internal messages they are traveling
and like it. Again, it's just what i'd expect from
any other NGO, Whereas I've seen these guys do things
in many ways sort of better than other angios, but
none if that messaging takes away from these people giving
(44:25):
their lives, and I don't want to suggest that.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
I think the most telling thing is that they're making
the biases of their the top people that work for
this company very evident. And the article goes into Linda
Roth's background and her pro Israeli stances in the past,
and the fact that in all the outwardly facing materials
about Gaza, it was very typical to change the word
siege to conflict or to question the blockades. It talks
(44:48):
about how the people at the very top, their biases
just seeped through and the people that were actually working
for the organization were in disagreement with this. I think
the last thing I want to read from this art
goal just really highlights that WCK did not protect the
people that worked for them. It says, save the possibility
of genuine and competence, the WCK leadership's decisions were not
(45:12):
made to maintain neutrality, did not increase effectiveness, and, as
April first demonstrated, did not protect personnel. The leadership's failure
to honestly portray the dire reality in Gaza and lack
of an attempt to influence the genocide in Gaza via
its status and close ties to the Biden administration means
that they bear responsibility for its outcomes. Let no one
(45:34):
say they did everything they could and this is obviously
talking about the leadership versus the personnel. And then he
goes on to close the article saying that his experience
is one experience and when he resigned there was a palpable,
widespread atmosphere of disappointment among the staff and employees, and
he ends with just calling on current and former WCK employees, contractors,
(45:55):
and volunteers to publicly share their stories as well in
order to force account of ability and change.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, okay, if you work for a central kitchen, you
can message us hate to hear your stories that.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yeah, yeah, we wanted to make sure that this perspective
was shared. And again the article will be in the description,
so please give it a good read. But yeah, that
is the episode. Thanks for listening, Freebol's Done.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi everyone, it's James. We just wanted to let you
know that some new shit has come to light since
since we recorded this. Specifically, a former staff of was
A Your Kitchen who resigned, who was of Palestinian descent,
wrote an op ed, I guess in mund Weis, which
is a publication that covers Israel than Palestine and the
United States role there, and it's given us some more
(00:27):
information about what's the two kitchen that we didn't know
when we first recorded this, and so we are going
to address out at the end. So after the second
ad break, Charles will go Sherean and I will come
back and we're going to address some stuff that we
found in that op ed. We will also link it
in the description to this podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yes, it's a really good article. I recommend you guys
give it a full read. But yeah, we will be
talking all about it at the end, so please listen
to the whole episode. Hello, everybody, Welcome to it could
happen here today. I am joined by my illustrious colleague James.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Hi James, Hi, Serene.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And my now friend Charles McBrien. Hi, Charles, welcome back
to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Hi know friends, Sharen it's wonderful to be here and
to know that you're a real person, not a.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, fun fact. I have met Charles in person, but
I have not met James in person, and I think
that's pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
That's why I got colleague and Charles colfriends. I think
we're not taking by.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
To it to that.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Don't read it too that.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Okay, we have.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
We're talking about World Central Kitchen and the tragedy that
happened last week in which seven AID workers were killed.
Both of these gentlemen have personal experience with the organization,
so I thought it would be good to talk about.
But James take it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Away, Okay, So yeah, I think I think we should
maybe start off Charles, you and I have both seen
World Central Kitchen in different places. Like my longest experience
with them was starting in twenty eighteen and Tijuana, right
when we were trying to feed people who were part
of a caravan of migrant to It arrived to write
before the midterms, and what was a relatively normal thing
(02:03):
became a really big political sort of football, which resulted
in the people, remember, like people being tear gassed in
Mexico from inside the United States, people being held first
in a baseball stadium and then in an old strip club,
which was really gross. And they're being essentially no NGO
(02:24):
presence at first, and then Mutual Aid presence and then
World Center Kitchen. Were one of the first people to
show up and cook for people, and like at this
point there was a really dying of need for food.
Like I have this vivid memory of three of my
friends and I are riding in a bed of a
pickup truck into this refugee camp and people just mobbing
for food and water, and like people would get about
(02:48):
like not stamping on children once once we stopped, but
like I was really worried there was going to be
a crash. People were very hungry and very thirsty, and
I had just had massive respect for people showing up
and just being like, we are people who cook food.
What we hate to do is cook food, and these
people hungryes who are going to give it to them?
And so I've always been admiring of their work since then.
(03:08):
And I went to Childs, like what your sort of
initial experience was with them, and if you could describe
like sort of what sort of work you've seen them doing.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, So first experience that I had with World Central
Kitchen was actually hands off. It was when my friends
and I we created this thing four years ago called
the Farm Link Project, which is a food rescue organization.
It basically finds food that's going to waste on farms
(03:40):
and are pays the wages of the truckers and the
drivers to transport the food to food banks that are overworked.
We sort of tagged in with World Central Kitchen in
the beginning of COVID and talked with them a little bit,
but there was never any official partnership. Some of their
comms people gave us advice, some of their fundraising people
with advice. First time I ever saw them in operation
(04:03):
was coming into the Jimish train station week two of
the Ukraine War, and they were the organization feeding all
the refugees coming in a bunch of people in the
World Central Kitchen, and the thing I noticed was none
of them were speaking English. They were all speaking Polish
and Ukrainian or Russian. And I started to realize, this
(04:26):
is an organization that knows how to mobilize a local
population in a local response as a part of the thing.
And that's something I really noticed when almost a year later,
I flew from Ukraine to Turkey when a seven point
five Magetude earthquake went through southeastern Turkey Kardastan, and I
(04:50):
flew into Adnanna and then basically linked up with the
World Central Kitchen people in the in the city of Osmania.
And one of the things I notice was how quickly
they were able to get into Syria when nobody else
was getting into Syria. And the reason is because it's
just chefs. It's just using chefs in restaurants in places
(05:14):
where they already exist. Every place in the world has
chefs and restaurants. And Jose Andres has this amazing quote
that I really like. He says, everyone already works for
World Central Kitchen, they just don't know it yet. And
I saw that in action. I saw all these kitchens
transformed into you know, shelters and food distribution sites, and
(05:36):
I got to work alongside their team. So my project,
I was trying to fundraise for heaters and blankets to
heat the AFAD tents in the affected regions in Kurdistan
and in the Kurdish villages on the on the border
with Syria, because there was it was still very cold
at that time and there was not, you know, adequate
attention paid to that. Obviously, AFAD and its cronies is
(05:58):
part of the whole reason that that incident was as
bad as it was. But World Central Kitchen stepped up
in a big way in Turkey, and I was really
impressed with kind of their outfit. We were working out
of the same distribution center, you know. I got to
a company, Jose Andres on a couple of his deliveries,
and we went in to Hate and walked around and
saw the extent of the devastation and visited all the
(06:21):
World Central Kitchen feeding sites and it was just it
was all Turkish people and Gurtish people who were there
working from World Central Kitchen. They had been mobilized by
this entity. So there's this decentralized element to World Central
Kitchen that I found really impressive. It didn't feel like
the top down, bureaucratic thing I kept running into in
my humanitarian work with these big NGOs. It was much
(06:43):
more grassroots, much more bottom up. So it gained a
lot of respect for me in that sense. Yeah, I
think that's a really good point to make that they
do have a different model. It allows them to be
flexible it allowed them to be places where other people aren't.
Like I think a lot of people, prehaps like are
not as familiar with the NGO world as you and
I might be. Like, NGOs often present themselves in places
(07:07):
where people need help. But it's like, you know, they
have large office buildings in white Land cruises, and they
have one way of doing things, and it's their way,
and sometimes that doesn't work well. I can recount countless
examples of this, right, NGOs that exist to do things
in a certain way and don't adapt to a local
situation or culture. And that's something the World Central Kitchen
(07:29):
have done really well in my experience, all over the world. Yeah,
they graft themselves on to a local response and every
everywhere that they go, it takes on a local flavor.
And I think it's that's why this happened, is because
they inserted themselves into a highly volatile situation and because
they are so decentralized, and because they are so on
(07:49):
the ground, they also expose themselves to the realities of
what Palestinians have been facing in Gaza and lost members
of their team, you know, as a result. And I
think that is part of that is there's a lot
of people who won't even go into Gaza, you know,
if they had the opportunity, like you said, these big nngos.
(08:10):
I think last time I was on the podcast Sharen,
I talked about, you know, seeing these big UN advertisements
in the Copenhagen airport saying save Ukrainian children when I
first when I was going over there, and then as
soon as I got there, I mean, the minute you
go east to Leviv, You're not going to see a
UN truck anywhere. And it was it was that way
for nine months, you know, INBA it was just a
(08:32):
bunch of people with like brand new white Land cruise
or prados sipping cocktails in Leviv while subcontracting with actual
humanitarians working closer to the front line. World Central Kitchen
was not that way. They were all the way out,
all the way on the east. Everywhere I went there
was World Central Kitchen cars even deep into Donyetsk. And
(08:53):
that was really impressive.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It just fit.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
It was so it felt antithetical to the whole nonprofit
industrial complex model that I'd become familiar with, and I
was impressed by that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, so perhaps we should to speak about exactly what
they were doing in Gaza, because I think people are
practical a little confused. There's been a lot of like
misinformation from all kinds of angles about what they were
doing in Gaza, So do you have a good handle
on that.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I mean, World Central Kitchen positioned itself. They engage in
slightly more activist humanitarianism than most organizations, which is why
I mean jose Andres went big on Ukraine. He was there,
he brought the whole team. I mean, they put they
dedicated so many resources to Ukraine, and for him it
(09:42):
was unequivocal. Ukrainians are the good guys, Russians are the
bad guys. We're helping the victims of this conflict, and
you know, we're on the side of the Angels in
this And that was the positioning, and I think it
was a bit of a wake up call when after
October seventh he did the same thing in Israel and
went and you know, gave food to the to the
(10:04):
to the different Kibut seam that were affected by the
October seventh attacks, and at first very much positioned himself
as like, we're here to help relieve the affected Israelis,
which again, for like polite liberals in the humanitarian world.
You know, Israel Ukraine both aligned with Western interests, Western
(10:26):
values theoretically, and I think and then you know, suddenly
the war focus goes from what happened in the Kibut
sim to what's happening in Gaza. And so they went
to Egypt and they started helping the refugees, and then
they tried to get into Gaza. Then they did get
into Gaza and they set up, you know, an effective
(10:47):
system of of food aid. And I started to notice
while that was happening that the perspectives of a lot
of the people that I was working with in the
AD community were starting to s on this whole thing.
People who didn't have a political interest in supporting the
Palestinians and we're just kind of supporting Israel because of
the default. When they actually went to Gaza, they started
(11:11):
to really change their tune. And you see this a
little bit with Jose Andres as well. I think Jose
Andres was, yeah, I mean this in terms of his
personal views on Israel, they seem to have very clearly evolved.
You can see very soon after October seventh, he is
calling out the Spanish Prime Minister on calling what's happening
(11:35):
in Palestine and genocide. He's saying that Israel has the
right to defend itself, and then he spends a bunch
of time in Gaza, and now he's greeting everyone in Arabic,
and then this thing happens and he immediately points the
finger at ISRAELI says, you guys targeted my team, you
killed them deliberately, and you made sure the job was finished,
and that is just so reproachable. And in doing so,
(12:00):
he became one of the only really big celebrity voices
to make what appeared to be something of a one
to eighty turn on that conflict. And pretty much everyone
that I've worked with in the humanitarian or journalism space
has also done the same thing in regard to Gaza.
I'd say most people thought my views on this were
too extreme after October seventh, when I began immediately criticizing Israel,
(12:23):
and now the ones who have actually been there pretty
much on equivocally say they're the bad actor in this region.
And I think you saw that shift happen in real
time with sort of the attitude that World Central Kitchen
took to Gaza. All of that stuff is available from
public statements, And I don't want to share private sentiments
that have been shared with me by members of World
(12:44):
Central Kitchen staff. Those are their own and they don't
represent the organization. But I think even just watching the
yo yo of Jose Andres's perspective on this change has
been enlightening.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, And I think, like it's easy to be critical
of someone having opinions which like have not aids well, right, Like,
and sometimes that's okay. Sometimes some since we need to
do that. Sometimes people say shit which is unforgivable. But
like I think in this instance, like we can be
critical at a point, but I don't think now it's
a time for that. Like I think now it's a
(13:17):
time for like everyone who wants the starving and killing
of innocent people in Gaza to stop is on our
side right now, and we need to welcome that. And like,
there are a lot of people in this country right
who we need to do that same one eighty and
giving examples of people doing that is good, like they
(13:39):
and there are a lot of people who don't see
themselves when they see dead people in Gaza, and that's
a problem, right, And that's some shit that they need
to examine. And because there's a lot of bigotry there.
But if they see themselves in those aid workers, or
they see themselves in Jose Andres and look, fucking when
I saw the bodies of those aid workers, right you
have a tall, skinny British guy with long hair in
(14:00):
a plate carrier with a badge on like that, That's
what I look like to ninety nine percent of the world,
and it's hard not to feel like, oh shit, like
that could be me, and I have well, I feel
like I have a lot of empathy for people in guards,
are friends in guards that we speak to them on
the podcast Shearing and I spoke to them last week.
But whatever it takes for those people to change their
(14:21):
opinions right now is what we need, and we can
we can dissect how we got here later, but like
every minute that this continues, more innocent people die. And
if we can stop this one minute sooner than there's
important lives that we can save. And I think it's
really important to focus on where we are, not like
(14:42):
how how we got here right now if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
As far as global conflicts go, I believe it's like
two hundred and twenty four aid workers have died in Gaza,
which is not a normal number in any kind of war.
So that's according to the UN.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, one hundred journalists, right, like every there is one
person I can think of who has worked with in
Gaza who is still alive. Everyone I know has lot
of family members And that's just my tiny slice, you know,
and by no means as affected by this as most people.
But yeah, three times as many children have died since
(15:18):
October in Gaza as are normally killed in conflicts in
a year worldwide. It's fucking horrific. And yeah, we will
do well to put aside our differences and make it stop.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I think.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yeah, I agree, opposition to genocide and wanting to end
it should be a very big tent. And the fact
that some people on the internet are trying to make
it a smaller one doesn't make a lot of sense
to me.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it promotes infighting, which is not helpful
right now. Yeah, it is helpful to not call it
a war and continue can't get a genocide because that's
what it is. So yeah, just continuing to change all
the rhetoric around this genocide I think is important. This
is also not the first time that Israel has directly
(16:01):
targeted aid workers that are clearly labeled as aid workers.
In two thousand and six and Lebanon, Israel struck a
red cross ambulance right in the center of the logo,
right on top of the truck. There was or the
van was a red cross, a clear red cross, and
it struck right in the center. I think that image
(16:23):
is now going around again from two thousand and six again,
I thought the first time that Israel has directly targeted
aid workers, and I think it's really appalling seeing leadership
in Israel just kind of apologize half hardly, being like
this was a mistake, and then they just move on.
It's if this was the red line for people one,
(16:45):
I find that frustrating. But if it's finally the red
line for people, I just hope it continues and people
don't let it go.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
That story there was absolutely fucking heartbreaking, right of that
young girl who is trapped in her car and she
called the ambulance, and the ambulance came and they bombed
the ambulance. Fight they killed her, and they kill the
ambulance drivers. Like those two ambulance drivers were Palestinian. They
were working for the Palestinian recrest, and they deserve every
bit as much outrage as to what Centralkitchen people do.
What they did with every bit as admirable. But like,
(17:15):
if this is what it takes for people to change,
then like I hope that they will also acknowledge that
everything else that happened before was an a trustee too.
Talking of like a trustees, we have an advertising break now.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
That was good James, good job, and we're back. Charles.
You recently got some online attention for a video that
you posted that was highlighting the vast imbalance of attention
(17:52):
that the targeted assassination of the AID workers got in
comparison to the murder and genocide of Palestinians. Specifically, people
were talking about how there was also a Palestinian driver
who was murdered along with the AID workers and his
name was not getting mentioned. His name is safe, Isam Abudaha.
And just a reminder of how frustrating it is that
(18:13):
this had to be the red line for people. There
are over thirty three thousand people in Gaza who have
been murdered, nearly half of which are children. There are
probably thousands more who are trapped under the Rubble and
other thousands that are just unaccounted for because of the
bobbing of hospitals and the lack of records. So to
(18:34):
have the killing of six aid workers be a red
line for people, That's what I mean by saying it's
frustrating because it is a tragedy. But tragedy has been
taking place for the past six months and also the
past seventy six years. So yes, the video that Charles
made got some well deserved attention, and I'd love for
(18:57):
you to talk about it a little bit.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, this was like a strange convergence of things for
me because I had been keeping up with the WCK
team as they went into Gaza. I'd actually even been
in conversations with some of them about potentially going there,
but I hadn't. I mean, like these were just buddies
from a humanitarian trip. I mean, you know, like James
probably knows, you make friends really fast when you're connected,
(19:21):
when you're in these sorts of scenarios, And you know,
I had, I made friendships while I was in Turkey
that I've I've maintained, and but then my my Palestinian
advocacy was separate. You know, I'm over here educating and everything,
and then suddenly there's this convergence of like former you know,
(19:41):
co workers on this team dying and then it being
the fault of this regime that I've spent the last
six months trying to educate people on why it's bad.
And I posted a video which was my tribute to
the fallen WCK employees, who were very close friends of
people that I got really close to on that project,
(20:03):
and it was a tribute to them and also a
way of pointing out how their martyrdom has has overshadowed
the martyrdom of so many Palestinians who will never get
the kind of press and attention that they did, and
(20:24):
I think it achieved that effect. The video went very,
very viral. It's exceeded a million views on TikTok, It's
around a quarter of a million on Instagram, and more
than that on the accounts that have reposted and shared it,
sometimes without the context that I am not a World
Central Kitchen employee, nor do I represent the opinions of
the organization. And one of the things that I think
(20:46):
made that story go viral is that I did shift
the attention to I said, this is a genocide, and
I said, as grieved as I am at the loss
of these people that I have this connection with, I
do want to point out that it is overshadowing the
horrendous loss of life of Palestinians, and I think that
resonated with a lot of people. It also resonated with
(21:08):
my former my friends at w CK, who reached out
to say, we appreciate you using your platform to talk
about this, especially considering the fact that w CK employees
do not typically are not really supposed to be making
statements online about this, so they have a little more
leeway with that concerning the fact that the head of
(21:31):
the organization has explicitly now condemned Israel for this strike.
But I've had some very interesting conversations with friends of
mine that either still work or connected to the organization.
And that's a slightly complicated thing because World Central Kitchen
subcontracts with so many different people, so at any given point,
there are people who are connected to World Central Kitchen
who are not representatives of the organization or technically employees,
(21:54):
So you know, you can't say definitively this is what
the majority of people in WCK f about Gaza or
Israel or anything. You know, different people have different opinions
about that whole situation.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I think what you tried to do was obviously not
to represent them, and it would be Disingenuousony want suggest
you did, but the internet does that. I want to
talk about one more, talking of disingenuous things on the Internet.
I guess there was this thing that went around immediately
in the aftermath of the photos coming out of the
different people's corpses that like it seemed to be mostly
(22:30):
like tankies or perhaps people who still believe that they
can generate revenue from FEUs on Twitter saying that like
because these people had a security team, the security team
was somehow spies, and the evidence they were working for
its right, Like, and you can speak to your experience, Charles,
like I've worked with security teams and seeing people working
with security teams all over the fucking world because war
(22:52):
is dangerous and you have the thing that everyone needs.
If you have the misfortune of being a veteran of
the global War on Terror, you have very few outlets
for your skill set. One of those is providing security
for humanitarian actors and journalists, and that is one of
the most pro social applications of your skill set. Yeah,
(23:16):
things to do with those skills, believe me.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Right. So I have encountered a lot of people in
my time in Ukraine and elsewhere who have decided to
turn their sort of military intelligence background experience into you know, well, okay,
I'm good at this. I'm familiar with these types of scenarios.
And if there's one thing I'm decent at, it's well
(23:42):
at least trying to keep people safe and give them intelligence.
And that is a that's never a guarantee. But in
all the people I've met who actually are legit, you know,
security consultants or just veterans who have applied their skills
towards a pro social, humanitarian proper are pretty good guys.
And while I'm sure you know there are some of
(24:05):
them who are connected to various you are still connected
to sort of the intelligence services of their various countries.
I think that's definitely a possibility. A lot of them
are not. They're just veterans who are trying to help
and they this is a way that they can make
a living and while doing something that has a low
moral hazard. So yeah, I dismissed that stuff. There's a
(24:28):
lot of conspiracies. The problem is, I mean, in the
vacuum of the sort of post manufacturing consent world where
none of us trust the Western liberal media, a lot
of people trust stuff that's even dumber, including just like
takes on the Internet that somebody pulled out of their ass.
And a lot of it is if you have set
(24:49):
yourself up against everything that comes out of the West,
then every everything that looks like a fingerprint of an
intelligence agency or anything is going to ring your ow
arm bells, obviously, you know, James. I feel like Ukraine
is a great example of this. The fact that the
United States supports Ukraine means that Ukraine must be the villain,
and that the entire thing must be a CIA si
(25:11):
OP and their spies everywhere. And I'm a spy for
going to Ukraine and helping grandmothers get their insulin. All
of those things have been said about Ukraine, about me,
about you know, that sort of thing, and we know,
we know it's not true. It's just that people. I mean, these,
as far as I know, these were guys who were
security consultants very similar to I work with a lot
(25:32):
of British veterans of the Global War on tear basically
on various different projects, some of it having to do
with PTSD, others having to do with environmental conservation, some
of whom have worked in Palestine and been in the
West Bank. And I think Brits by and large have
a more sane perspective on Palestine than people in the
(25:53):
US do. I've just noticed that they are like fewer
ultra zionist Brits than Americans.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I think our politics is lift nominated by that perspective.
There are ultra zionist British people, but yeah, it's also
just I think a little bit harder to live a
life in Britain where you don't know, it's not Palestinian people,
Arab people and and Muslim people, right, and that complete
demonization and dehumanization of Muslim people that the Western media
(26:22):
did for twenty years to manufacture consent for war that
wasn't about weapons of master attraction or women in Afghanistan.
It doesn't stick the landing quite so well when like,
you have friends and you can kind of see through
the nonsense.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah yeah, well, also I think the percentage of like
evangelical Christians was probably much less.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
No, one's breeding a fucking Red Cow in England to
take it to this third temple that I know of.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
That was one of the things I was going to
point out is I don't think you even have to
know like to be a Zionist, you don't even have
to know Jewish people in the US. I was raised
an ultra Zionist without knowing a single Jewish family, because
I came from an Evangelic community in South Carolina that
was very Christo nationalist, very kind of culturally dispensationalist. Even
though my family wasn't dispensationalist. It was all about in
(27:09):
times you support Israel because that's where you know, that's
where Jesus is going to come back. So yeah, I remember,
I mean I I even had like fake Passover ceremonies
in our church. God, this is bringing up some interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Into the trillma bugs.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
But truly, I mean one of my one of my
early sort of I would say I was I was
completely anti Zionist before I was even a leftist. And
part of that reason was because I got to know
a Palestinian friend in Washington, d C. While sharing a
desk with an Israeli conservative and a liberal Zionist, and.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Yeah, joke like these people walk into a bar. Yeah,
trio of people.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
So I like, I think I had kind of I
got pilled on Palestine. Part of it was because, like
I was a history major in college, so I learned historiography.
I just never applied historiography to the Israel Palestine conflict.
And then having these two voices in my ear while
like living and working in DC, I was like, oh,
I need to actually look into this, and so yeah,
I mean I would say even before I was like
(28:15):
a leftist, I was down on Israel. I figured they
were not the good guys. And then I think reading
The Fateful Triangle by nome Chromsky really solidified that. And
obviously Ilan Pope kind of was the nail on the
coffin for me. So and speaking of like, you know
what happens in DC, and you know, American's opinions on
(28:38):
the Middle East, most of them are dog shit opinions
because most people do not have some sort of strong
point of reference to this zone. But it goes back
to what we were saying about how being against genocides
should be a very big tent and we should resist
efforts to make it smaller. Because I'm reading through the
hundred years War on Palestine now Rashid Khaldi, and one
(29:02):
of the things that he said is how the war
is fought in the United States in Congress because we
hold the keys. So as much as it's as painful
as it is to try and change the minds of
dumb Americans with no geopolitical understanding, it's absolutely essential to
(29:25):
holding Israel to account. It is actually one of the
best things that you can do. And when someone who
has the international appeal of Chef Jose Andres points the
finger at Israel and said, you killed my employees deliberately
and you're starving Gosans, that goes a long way towards
(29:46):
shifting the opinions of the people who actually hold the
keys to everything Israel does.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, I think that's a very good point. And like
that's what we need to do, right I's to up
stop them getting bombs to kill people, not argue you
on Twitter or you know, Instagram or what have you. Like,
we need to make the killing stop. I wonder like
you spoke a childs but knowing people I know, World's
(30:14):
Central Kitchen are no longer working in Gaza for the
time being. From when is that's still correct.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
They they've publicly announced that they're scaling back their efforts. Yes,
I'm not sure if they're going to totally close down
their operation. I think right now they're probably trying to
reconsider their security protocols before making another step.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, I mean, I don't really know what as there
are things, of course, but like they did attempt to
deconflict I guess, and they were using a road which
is designated for the use that they were using it for.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
And Israel knew where they were, Like it's they have
to report where they are. So I mean, it would
be fucking crazy if Israel attacked workers again right now,
but also it's Israel. I mean, I need done crazier things.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Yeah, but can we like dwell on that for a second.
Like Israel constantly boasts about its ISR capabilities in IR's intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance. So like Israel is constantly reassuring people
that it is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties,
it talks about its chain of command for approval. And
(31:26):
in light of that, none of the things that they've
said about this make any sense whatsoever, Because if they're
protocols because they're either it's like they can't decide what
they're trying to gaslight the world into believing. Every claim
that they're making is muddling what they're trying to get
the world to believe about them, and it just gives
(31:48):
everyone the distinct impression that they're recklessly incompetent, lying, evil,
or potentially all three.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Right, even if you look, I was because I don't
know why this is the thing that I do. I
was looking at like trying to work out what munition
Israel had used, right to destroy those vehicles, and Israel
has they have a number of different sort of musus
that they could have used. But one of the things
that they do in the US does it too. But
it's a bigger thing with Israel is if they have
(32:17):
inert or low yield health fire ammunitions, so guided munitions
at a five from a helicopter or a drone, and
they use them to do a thing that they call
roof knocking, right, which sounds maybe like you're like knocking
on someone's reof what you're doing is sending a missile
through somebody's roof, and that is the means by which
you alert them to evacuate the building because you're planning
(32:37):
a larger strike that in itself. Yeah, we have this
great ISR capability, and what do we do with it?
We launch missiles into the homes of civilians and then
hopefully they will run away in fear for their lives
so that more of them don't die when we blow
up that block ten minutes later. Like, it's just, you know,
you have to look at what's happening, not what's being said.
(33:00):
I guess, but.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
No, they're absolutely allergic to accountability, and I think you
can see just how far they've been able to they're
scrambling now because they've been able to get away with
so much for so long, and their excuses are falling
apart because they're alternatively depicting themselves as a highly disciplined
and professional army or that they're just making mistakes because
it's war and that people should get off their back
(33:23):
because no one holds anyone else to the same standard
that they hold Israel. So it's like, which is it?
Like what are you trying to get the world to believe?
Are you either this like crack discipline unit with a
very sophisticated chain of command in an AI software that
you're really proud of for targeting or are you? Is
this the fog of war and you're just making mistakes
and everyone makes mistakes and we should get off your
back for it because you can't have it both ways. Yeah,
(33:45):
the civilian casualties are too high for you to have
it both ways. So either you are making mistakes and
too many people are getting killed and you're violating the
laws of rule, or you're doing it deliberately, which is worse. Yeah,
make up there in minds, I guess Charles.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Thank you so much for joining us today. I really
respect all the work you do and I am grateful
that you have shared your voice with our audience once again.
Where can people find you on the internet if you
want to be found, thank.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
You, Shrian.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Yeah, just you can find me pretty much everywhere except
Twitter with Charles McBride and that's McBride with a Y
rather than an I. It's on Substack, Instagram, TikTok, and
my website Charles McBride dot com will be live at
this point nice when this episode drops. So if you
want to support the humanitarian work I've been involved in
(34:39):
in Ukraine, you can support Mission Harkive on Instagram, it's
Mission dot harkive and their website is missionharkive dot com.
And if you're looking for an org that is already
working in Gaza to provide life saving aid in the
wake of you know, unrubbing gone, World Central Kitchen now
pulling out, Era pulling out, Global Empowerment Mission is still
(35:02):
there and still fulfilling a lot of the same functions
that those organizations were doing.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Thank you so much, Charles Scheren and James from the
future here giving you an update about the article that
we mentioned at the top of the episode. So the
title itself is I resigned from World Central Kitchen because
(35:32):
they refuse to tell the truth about the Israeli genocide
and Gaza. The ex staffer is Ramsey Tatami. The article
itself has some really damning information about WCK, so we're
going to get into it. He says. For months, World
Central Kitchen leadership censored material coming out of its Gaza
operation and refuse to honor staff concerns about their work there.
(35:54):
And even though they're finally taking a stand after its
personnel have been murdered, it is much too late. So
he resigned in early March of this year, and at
the time he was the only staff member of Palestinian
descent at WCK, and there is an amendment there. He
says that while WCK hired many Palestinian contractors in Gaza
in Egypt, he was the only Palestinian with staff status
(36:15):
following the departure of one other longtime employee, and he
resigned in protest of the extensive unexplained censorship regarding Gaza
at the organization. They talk about how in December seventh
of last year, they sent a letter to wck's executive team,
and that letter called for WCK to join other regionally
active NGOs in calling for a ceasefire and condemning Israel's blockade,
(36:38):
as well as conforming its language and coverage of Gaza
to the standard that was set by the coverage of Ukraine,
as well as stopping meal service in Israel. It got
forty three signatures, and the WCK executive team declined to
meet up with the people that signed the letter, and
they failed to respond to any inquiries, and they also
actively still served the meals in Israel well the second
(37:01):
day of the ICJ genocide. Hearing what's happening in January.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
There's one paragraph that I want to dialet as well,
just because I think it's very crucial when we're discussing
the fact that these people died working for a cetera kitchen,
And that's this paragraph that I'll pick up halfway through.
In another instance, a video of a WCK kitchen caught
in an IDF bombing was put on hold entirely. It
(37:26):
appears to this incident, as well as the fact that
WCK personnel were a boarder un convoy that was bombed,
have not been mentioned anywhere externally. Like, I think that's
a really crucial getting off point. You can have shit politics,
but if you're not saying stuff when your people are
getting bombed, like until they're getting killed, A, I don't
(37:48):
know what's wrong with you, and B if you didn't
change things, and I don't know they didn't change things, right,
that's not detailed here, but like you have to change
things if your people are being bombed, Like if I
I'm working somewhere where that's sol likelihood, you know, like
if if we get bomb once and we're lucky enough
to be okay, we do not continue doing the same shit.
(38:09):
And I'm not entirely sure that they did I don't
want to for a moment suggest that like this, the
people who died were in like complicit right, That's not
what I'm saying. It's not what you're in saying. I
very much understand the desire to go to places where
dangerous things are happening and help the people who did
nothing to deserve this, And I think the people who
did that deserve are an ending gratitude and respect. I'm
(38:33):
not for a minute saying that that's not true. I'm
saying that this organization needs to really think about how
it does shit if it wants to continue operating.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
And yeah, the blame is on the executives of this organization.
The article also talks about how the character of w
CK's relief response to Gaza it was like revealed very
early on after October seventh, the chief communications officer, Linda Roth,
she had put out a statement without the communications team's input,
(39:05):
which is apparently breaking precedent, and it was about how
Hamas attacked Israel with no mention of the Palestinian lives
that were lost. And then three days later, Jose Andres
posted a video to wck's Instagram where he only makes
reference to the October seventh attack with no mention of
the climbing Palestinian death till at the time or the blockades,
and then on social media, Charles mentioned this of the episode.
(39:29):
On October sixteenth, he tweeted at the Spanish Prime Minister
to be removed for her protest of the Israeli tactics,
and at the same time, WCK continued to work closely
with the IDF over the course of the relief response.
The initial statement as well as Andre's video were decisions
that were made by leadership against the concerns of the
WCK personnel. There's this paragraph that I want to read
(39:52):
just verbatim. Much of the work in a genocide is
not pulling the trigger, but instead minimizing and denying that
a genocide is going on. Genocide is a phenomenon of
gradual boundary pushing. Each increment must be accepted by the
parties with agency for the next to be reached. Under
the direction of CEO Aaron Gore, Linda Roth and quote
(40:12):
Chief Feeding Officer Jose Andres, World Central Kitchen recklessly endangered
its personnel. Sheelflessly exploited the situation for its own benefit
and actively participated in the normalization of an ongoing genocide.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I think what I want to say more broadly here,
it's my stance. I guess maybe other people share it. Man,
they don't. This situation is not going to be solved
by NGOs, and it's certainly not going to be solved
by NGOs which have this very explicitly neoliberal political agenda. Right, Like,
at best they can plug a hole in a leaky bucket,
(40:47):
and it's good when they do that. Right, if one
less person starves, that's good. It doesn't mean they don't
have to be perfect to help, but they don't get
to be exemptive from criticism because they're helping, right Like, well,
Central Kitchen didn't want to help us at the border
in Hucumber. My friends reached out. They didn't want to
do that. Yeah, I don't think you should expect endios
(41:07):
to share your your radical politics. It doesn't mean that
they can't do harm reduction, and it doesn't mean that
when they are doing harm reduction, they sometimes need your money.
And in the such situations where this is happening, you
should give it to them if you can't help more directly, right,
But like you know, if we look at their communications,
we do see them calling for a cease fire, which
(41:27):
is about what you can expect from an NGO. You know,
we'd actually it appears that we see Hosse Andrews calling
for a ceasefire, and we see World Central Kitchen saying
Josse Andrews called for a ceasefire, which I don't quite
know why they don't just say we are calling for
a cease fire. They didn't sign that document with the
other endo. It's like, I don't know if they're trying
to play like have it both ways. I don't know.
I don't I'm not privy to those conversations. Right, they
(41:50):
didn't sort of wholeheartedly say this is the genocide but
they have to get permission for Israel to do stuff.
I mean, now they're saying it, but after the a
Trustee that happened, the whole world is watching, right, not
that the whole world shouldn't have been watching from the start.
But I don't think Enjoys are ever going to be
you know, it's radical that there's people on the internet
(42:10):
want them before they're also they're doing stuff and people
on the internet aren't, so you know, we have to
respect that. And I don't want any of this to
take away from the fact that some people from all
over the world, right from Europe, from Australia, from the
United States, have died feeding people who need to be fed,
(42:33):
because that's the most any of us can give, is
our lives, right, And so I don't for a minute
want any of this to detract from the sacrifice they made,
nor should their sacrifice be held in any higher regard
than the sacrifice made by hundreds, if not thousands of
Palestinian aid workers right, people working for the Palestinian Red Crescent,
(42:56):
a Palestinian even that the Palestinian people working for National
NGOs right, or the United Nations people who have been killed, right,
None of the sacrifices it should be ignored or under
mind because if people have certainly given a lot more
than I have, I don't have any right to say
that I think, yeah this or it changes communications, right.
(43:18):
I think they've obviously realized that there is no nicely
nicely about this, like you have to call a spade
a space when it comes to what's happening in Gaza,
which is a deliberate and targeted campt to kill civilians
thousands and tens of thousands of children even, and I
think until we move the conversation on to one where
that is being called by its name, that it's to
(43:40):
say genocide, then I don't think we'll see that the
reactions that we need, and I think they appear to
have reflected on that. I wish they've got there sooner,
but they're there now, and I'm sorry that it took
these people's lives to get there. But what I see
from them is what I see from other endeos. They're
not certainly not uniquely bad. In fact, they are better
than very many indios. And they were there when other
(44:02):
people weren't, and they're delivering food when other people weren't,
so I don't want to I don't want to distract
from that. But yeah, they're this messaging, this internal conduct,
like there's some of these internal messages they are traveling
and like it. Again, it's just what i'd expect from
any other NGO, Whereas I've seen these guys do things
in many ways sort of better than other angios, but
none if that messaging takes away from these people giving
(44:25):
their lives, and I don't want to suggest that.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
I think the most telling thing is that they're making
the biases of their the top people that work for
this company very evident. And the article goes into Linda
Roth's background and her pro Israeli stances in the past,
and the fact that in all the outwardly facing materials
about Gaza, it was very typical to change the word
siege to conflict or to question the blockades. It talks
(44:48):
about how the people at the very top, their biases
just seeped through and the people that were actually working
for the organization were in disagreement with this. I think
the last thing I want to read from this art
goal just really highlights that WCK did not protect the
people that worked for them. It says, save the possibility
of genuine and competence, the WCK leadership's decisions were not
(45:12):
made to maintain neutrality, did not increase effectiveness, and, as
April first demonstrated, did not protect personnel. The leadership's failure
to honestly portray the dire reality in Gaza and lack
of an attempt to influence the genocide in Gaza via
its status and close ties to the Biden administration means
that they bear responsibility for its outcomes. Let no one
(45:34):
say they did everything they could and this is obviously
talking about the leadership versus the personnel. And then he
goes on to close the article saying that his experience
is one experience and when he resigned there was a palpable,
widespread atmosphere of disappointment among the staff and employees, and
he ends with just calling on current and former WCK employees, contractors,
(45:55):
and volunteers to publicly share their stories as well in
order to force account of ability and change.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, okay, if you work for a central kitchen, you
can message us hate to hear your stories that.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yeah, yeah, we wanted to make sure that this perspective
was shared. And again the article will be in the description,
so please give it a good read. But yeah, that
is the episode. Thanks for listening, Freebol's Done.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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