Urban Warfare Isn't an Alibi | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

In this episode of Eyes on Geopolitics, Dee and Andy Milburn discuss the complexities of urban warfare, particularly in the context of the Gaza conflict. They explore the high civilian casualty rates, the military decision-making processes, and the ethical implications of targeting practices. The conversation delves into the role of intelligence, the challenges of verifying targets, and the impact of civilian deaths on future conflicts. Andy emphasizes the need for restraint and the consequences of treating civilian casualties as an acceptable cost of military operations. Andy's article: https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/gaza-and-the-conduct-of-urban-war-civilian-harm-risk-and-responsibility/ 00:00 — Gaza War Explained 01:17 — Urban Warfare Targeting 03:40 — Civilian Casualties Breakdown 09:27 — Rules of War in Cities 16:03 — Targeting Mistakes & Intel 25:32 — Evacuation Warnings in Gaza 33:40 — Human Shields Explained 40:15 — AI Targeting & Blowback Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

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• 1:31Speaker 03

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics, a special one. Today, I'm joined by Andy Milburn. Of course, you know him. All his links are in the description. Check them out there, of course. He's got a great new article that he put out on War on the Rocks. That link is also in the description, so check it out. And basically, I want to do a justice. You know, it's called Gaza and the Conduct of Urban War: Civilian Harm, Risk, and Responsibility. The first line pops out to me. Urban warfare is often invoked as an alibi. Dense terrain and embedded enemy, human shields and imperfect intelligence. You guys, we're going to talk about the article, but please go check it out. That link is in the description.

• 2:16Speaker 03

  Andy, what's up, man? It's good to see you.

• 2:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, good to see you too. Thanks very much for having me on.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Please, this is your show too.

• 2:24Speaker 04

  So I think, you know, probably the the best way of doing this, of course, you're the producer, is I can, I can give you just an overview of the article. For those of our audience, I can save, please do read it. Save you, save you that trouble. By the way, so the article came out in War on the Rocks yesterday and you know, I've written, I'm not, I'm not a prolific article writer, but I've, I've had a number of articles published. And I would say

• 2:56Speaker 04

  just as far as direct feedback, this is, this is solicited more direct feedback than any other article that I have written just in the, you know, the first 24 hours it was out, it was published in the Early Bird, which is kind of the circular that goes out every day. It's not sent out by DOD, but it goes out throughout DOD. It's produced by, I think it's the Military Times and it's a compilation of top, you know, defense news over the previous 24 hour period and it was on that this morning. And yeah, I didn't, you know, honestly, I, this is a topic, as you know, that I've been

• 3:40Speaker 04

  looking at researching for a while. It plays to my background. I'll talk about that in a little bit. And it's part of the research for my book. I do want to say before I, I start talking about this that

• 3:54Speaker 04

  you know, the research, a lot of it came from personal interviews, over 50 interviews conducted with members of the IDF.

• 4:04Speaker 04

  Most of whom were involved in the targeting process at some stage. A lot of them were commanders, some of them were intelligence officers, targeters. And even the ones who defended the methodology were open and honest about how it is done. So I was able to get beneath the surface of, hey, we have these procedures and look at how exactly those procedures were implemented. So, yeah, so to your point, the urban warfare is often treated as an alibi.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  You know, the dense terrain and embedded enemy, human shields, just the uncertainty of war, imperfect intelligence, you know, all of those are kind of used to justify harm to civilians or to explain civilian casualties. You know, my article is, well, no, that by themselves they are not. You know, all of those things are real, but they don't explain outcomes by themselves. Because every modern military that has fought in cities in recent years faces uncertainty and civilian presence. And what distinguishes campaigns, it isn't how commanders respond to that uncertainty.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  It is, I mean, it is, it's how commanders respond to that uncertainty. It isn't the uncertainty itself. It's, you know, how do they prioritize risk?

• 5:40Speaker 04

  What levels of civilian harm, civilian death are treated as acceptable? And that's the core argument of my article. And I, you know, I begin, I point out the scale of civilian death in Gaza is exceptional in terms, in total numbers. And I talk about the fact that, you know, we're in the seventies of thousands and that the Lancet British paper points out that indeed the actual numbers may be as high as 40% higher than that when you factor in indirect deaths from starvation, from lack of medical care, you know, polluted water, whatever it may be.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  And so you're probably talking about civilian death toll of over a hundred thousand, which is staggering. But then, you know, you have to ask, so what percentage of of those tens of thousands are are combatants? That's really the the question. And, you know, even um when you when you look at just the demographics, the undisputed figures, right? Two thirds of those figures are women and children. Now Hamas, uh aside from using them as suicide bombers, Hamas doesn't use women as fighters. And by children, I mean sixteen or below, generally, you know, too low to be to below the military age males.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  Right? Um. So two thirds are women and children, obviously not combatants. Now that already puts Gaza's death toll of civilians, uh ratio of civilians to combatants on a different level than, for instance, in Mosul, where combatants were around fifty, you know, I'm people can challenge my numbers, you can look these up, but between forty five uh and sixty percent of total deaths, right? And Fallujah around the same. You'd have to go all the way back to Grozny, right? In the uh in the nineties, uh Grozny one and two, um which Grozny is commonly regarded as the most the the most civilian death intensive uh battle since the Second World War. You'd have to go back to that, find comparable numbers.

• 7:51Speaker 04

  And even then, um they're not quite at the level of the the ratios aren't quite the same. Grozny was about um it it was two thirds, it was around seventy percent. But uh recently, this is coming from the Israelis uncovered by investigative reporting. Uh and again, you can look this up. The Israelis themselves uh have have come up with figures that show that eighty three percent of those killed were civilians, which is an extraordinary extraordinarily high toll. And when I say extraordinary, I'm not just shooting from the hip, I mean compared to

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  to other battles and modern warfare, right?

• 8:31Speaker 03

  Was it uh was that leaked?

• 8:33Speaker 04

  What's that? Was that? Yeah. It was leaked. Yeah, it was leaked and it was picked up by The Guardian and an Israeli. I can't remember the name of the outlet. It's a strange name. It's plus nine seven two or something, but it's a well-known Israeli media outlet and they have published those reports. So that's irrefutable that Israeli intelligence came up with those figures. Those aren't produced by the Health Ministry or anything else that coming from the Israelis themselves. So when, you know, my point is this, when civilian death reaches that scale and shows that level of demographic consistency,

• 9:18Speaker 04

  something's going on, all right? Something's going on beyond terrain, density, or enemy tactics, because we had all of that shit in Mosul and Fallujah. I was involved in both battles. And so that's, you know, that invites a closer analysis of how force was applied, because therein lies the answer to why those figures are so high. And this is an argument about intent. Okay, I'm not, I'm not going launching down the genocide route. It's an argument about process. Civilian deaths in war are not random accidents. They're the predictable outcome of how targets are, how targets are defined, how intelligence uncertainty is handled,

• 10:00Speaker 04

  what weapons are chosen, and how much risk commanders are willing to accept. Or for them, for their own forces, or to transfer, at what point did they transfer that risk? What's the threshold for them transferring that risk onto the civilian population? And look, I've commanded, as you know, D, and this isn't me chest beating here, but I've commanded US forces in urban combat, including in Fallujah and Mosul. I've You know, I've I've lived with the moral weight of approving strikes where civilians might be present, where you're balancing that against your obligation to support the forces in the fight themselves, knowing that delays may result in more casualties for

• 10:44Speaker 04

  them. You know, I get it. That's those are not easy decisions, but I've I've had to make those decisions, um, scores for the hundreds of times. And, uh, and, you know, the other piece is that I I know as well as anyone that uncertainty never disappears in war. Uh, but in professional militaries, it's supposed to tighten restraint, not loosen it. So when intelligence is ambiguous, um, when when you don't have a good handle on civilian patterns of life, or when you lose custody of a target, and you, you know, I can get into that in a moment, what it what that means. Uh, the expectation is that

• 11:23Speaker 04

  strikes either slow down, or they stop, uh, you know, you pause, uh, precisely because the risk of killing civilians increases. And you may ask, well, why do you care? Um, well, you care because, you know, as I've said before, we fight, we fight with the values that we represent in Western militaries, right? We we don't adopt those at the enemy. But even if you don't give a shit, right? Even if you don't give a shit about the civilian population, there are good pragmatic reasons not to slaughter them en masse, because you are, you you may be solving the immediate problem, but you're going to generate far greater problems for yourself down the line. And again, I'm not shooting from the hip

• 12:05Speaker 04

  here. You can look at studies, uh, there's a very good one done by Rand on, um, read on insurgent regeneration in Afghanistan and Iraq, uh, and and the link between that and civilian casualties. And there is definitely a strong link. In other words, you start killing civilians willy nilly, um, you're creating anger, resentment that simmers and feeds right into that insurgent narrative. I mean, that's not rocket science, is it? You you can, you can understand that. And in Gaza, I can only imagine. Where um something like seventy five percent of families have lost people.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  I mean, close, you know, the families, close relatives. Um, I can't imagine the level of resentment and anger that is simmering. And if you and I were in that position, we would want to get revenge. Uh, even though we're not vengeful people, dear, at least you're not. Um, but in Gaza.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  I think that's, I mean, that's just human nature, right? Like, uh, you know.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  Of course, yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Your mom dies.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  Why, why, why would you imagine otherwise? Why would you imagine that a population um that is, that is incurred that number of casualties? Whether it's seventy thousand or a hundred thousand in a, in a two million, uh, two million um a total population? Why would you assume that life would return to, to normal after that? And there would be no sense of resentment with that? I mean, imagine that happening in the United States city. I mean, all these casualties too uh uh have occurred in an area roughly the size of Philadelphia. So can you imagine a hundred thousand deaths in?

• 13:51Speaker 03

  It's just chaos everywhere you turn, right?

• 13:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. At least in a building.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  Another bit.

• 13:57Speaker 04

  So anyway, that, that, you know, for those who accuse me of being a bleeding heart and who cares? And there, there are pragmatic reasons. I personally care about the legal reasons and I care about the ethical reasons because I represent, I did represent the United States military and I believe in the values that we, that, that we represent. Right? Um, but there are those who don't give a shit about those values. And I would say, well, there's good pragmatic reasons and you, you're gonna undermine your cause. It's a, you're gonna, tactical success will lead to strategic failure if you're simply slaughtering civilians. Anyway, so, you know, I talked about, hey, when, when the level of uncertainty goes up

• 14:38Speaker 04

  and you know, you're not getting good intelligence, you're not getting good patterns of life, uh, then, then. Then you have to, you know, for us in the US, that means we show more restraint. That doesn't mean we see strikes altogether. We don't support our forces. We find, you know, other ways of doing it. Perhaps, you know, we lay, we, we have a greater reliance on direct fire. Um, or we move more cautiously and sometimes that means incurring greater risk to your own troops. And that's just the nature of the game. That is, that's what we're in. I don't mean to say.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, look at Fallujah as an example, right?

• 15:17Speaker 04

  Hundred percent. And, you know, I, I was in Fallujah and, um, and I can tell you. Uh, in, in, in absolute contrast to the way the IDF operated in Gaza, we went in and cleared every single building. We weren't allowed to blow buildings away. We could, under certain circumstances, if we were taking fire. Um, but the level of authorization for that was, was relatively high and as a customary battalion level. Um, and yes, that was frustrating at times and it was terrifying.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  And you, you lost Marines.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I, I can tell you too, as an advisor, where every time we went in, we cleared buildings, there had to be an American leading the way into, you know, knocking down the door, going down, going through the fatal funnel down that hallway in the dark, just waiting for someone with a PKM to, to let rip. Uh, it was a terrifying bloody experience. And when you're inside those buildings, and remember our NVGs are not, especially in the Marine Corps then, were pieces of crap. And so you were, you were at a disadvantage to your enemy. I don't mean to, to digress here, but absolutely you were at a disadvantage. It doesn't matter that you represented the most powerful military in the world with all the resources we have.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  When you went in that door and it was you leading the way with one guy, you know, just staggered behind you. It was you two against whomever was in that house. And you were, and because you were moving and you were, you were silhouetted, you were at a disadvantage, but we did that time and time again. Now, of course, I would. That now if we had to do it, we'd do a lot more with unmanned systems. Um, but but my point is this, and no one can accuse me if they can of of not understanding the problem. Oh, yeah, I I understand the problem and I and I've been at a at at the kind of the dog's body end of this.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  Right, you've lived the problem, yeah.

• 17:13Speaker 04

  Um, so anyway, um, but. Uh, in in Gaza, uncertainty functioned in the opposite direction. Um, it it created license rather than restraint. That's, you know, and in my article, I show examples of this intelligence gaps were treated permissively.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  So it's like essentially like, oh, we don't know exactly, but like, let's just drop whatever.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  But what the hell, yeah, because otherwise our guys are are going to have to go in there, you know.

• 17:45Speaker 04

  It and by the way, it's just one of the last analogy with Flujer. We had, we didn't have as many tanks as the Israelis had. Certainly not, I mean, I'm talking about on the marine side, not at all.

• 17:57Speaker 04

  But we had the ones we had to use to good effect and the uh, and and they were great. They are actually, and the Marine Corps doesn't have tanks anymore, but they were an extraordinary extraordinarily. Um, useful asset and believe it or not, um, tanks actually help. Uh, rather than indirect fire, tanks help you cut down on collateral damage. Uh, yes, I know that you know the philosophy of the tank shell, but I I I but I I'm I'm talking about being able to pinpoint targets, to use thermals and all these other things um, to not not just shooting, but to establish. Uh, where the threat is and and to cover yourself as you as you cross danger areas.

• 18:37Speaker 04

  Anyway, so what I'm saying, and and I use examples here in in Gaza. Uh, the IDF defined target, defined targets very, very broadly. And if you, you know, as I have done and and examined this and looked at, okay. Why is this building being targeted? Well, we had a report from such and such that it was being used as a weapon storage place. How old is that report? It's three or four weeks. Uh, okay, what exactly, you know, is being stored there? Well, you know, it's we think it's this or that. It it's very vague stuff and of course, things and people get moved around all the time in an urban environment.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  So let's say, let me ask you something, Andy, if they had a report like that, right? There's a weapons, we- weapons store. At a certain building, that's three or four weeks old, the report, they wouldn't send like. A drone or some, try to get some eyes on on it and see like confirm it maybe?

• 19:36Speaker 04

  No, and that's the other thing. They had more drones and we had, we didn't have any drones in fluidity. We had drones in Mosul. But there's no shortage of assets and and where I'm heading on this is, so yes, you confirm. And then we've, you know, we've got a term in in US military, it's been overused, but. Uh, but the unblinking eye, right? So you lock on to. The target, whether it's a human or it's i- it's infrastructure and you hold on to that to determine. That you're getting the right person, if it's a person. And to ensure that there is, you know, that there aren't civilians wandering in and out of the target area, the area you're gonna hit. The Israelis don't do that as a practice at all. Um, and you, you know, you're familiar with.

• 20:21Speaker 04

  Uh, just as an example, the only strike they really investigated was the time when seven. Do you remember when seven World Central Kitchen, eight workers were killed in a convoy well marked? Coordinated through the the IDF and and uh, there's, you know, horrific, I've seen horrific video of that where. Each vehicle was destroyed in succession, right? Um, and and everyone inside killed. Well, they lost, they they know, they didn't, first of all, they didn't, they didn't track that convoy. And and having been on the other, other side of the the coin, having, as you know, been. In Ukraine, running humanitarian convoys under fire.

• 21:03Speaker 04

  And coordinating with the Ukrainian military, being tracked all the time by friendly forces is very important. They didn't do that. And they didn't, you know, they they they weren't tracking, uh, what they thought was. Hamas target, they lost custody and then they they picked it up and and assumed it was the World Central Kitchen convoy, but there's no verification. And so they blew it away now.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  My god.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  That that case was investigated because the Australian government.

• 21:32Speaker 04

  Launched a, I mean, it was terrible publicity for them. The Australian government launched. Uh, I mean, an official complaint, but there are many other cases of that happening. That was kind of the norm. It was just that one. That was the one time they investigated it.

• 21:49Speaker 04

  And so, you know, civilian presence was frequently just assumed away rather than actively assessed.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  And you can look at my articles for, you know, backing, evidence backing this up. And so the result isn't just incidental civilian. Uh, but it's repeated death. Okay, it's not. Mistakes happen. You hear that, well, you know, this shit happens. Yeah, it does sadly. Of course it does, even when you take. Taking all the precautions in the world. But repeated civilian death at scale. Um, reflects a pattern with how decisions were being made. It's not not the difficulty in the environment.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  And. You know, you've. You've probably read John Spencer's article. Um, saying that the, you know, the IDF shows unparalleled restraint. That's the term that that he uses that no other.

• 22:42Speaker 03

  I mean, it's kind of scary that he could like, you talk in absolutes like that, uh, that they use unparalleled restraint. I mean, that's, I feel like that's a bit of a stretch, um, but.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I mean.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  What's your thought on that?

• 22:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, doesn't it? He, he. Uh, unparalleled, never before, uses a lot of absolutes. Um, in in the first few paragraphs is an article in Newsweek magazine. It was republished elsewhere. He's appeared on CNN, major networks, and he's cited by. This isn't about being pro or counter IDF, by the way, I do want to say this, and again, no one can. They can't, but you know, I I've been involved in in efforts to support and do things for the IDF in the past. There's very probably, I would say, very few people of my peer group within the military special operations community who are more closely

• 23:34Speaker 04

  involved with with activities and efforts in support of Israel. So my credentials there are solid. I'm not jumping on the anti Israeli bandwagon here by any means, but I'm talking here. Remember about process. This is not an emotional argument. And so Spencer's arguments have been picked up by those defending Israeli methodology as hey, look, we've got this expert. Spencer calls himself an expert on his website. That's his choice. I personally

• 24:14Speaker 04

  avoid that term expert. I use the term student. I'm a student of modern war, an unwilling student at times, not an expert. And why does that matter? I think when you start calling yourself an expert, I think there's a danger that subconsciously you're going to cut yourself off from alternate points of view, right? Anyway, so you know, for instance, Spencer's article, and I do urge people to read it. He talks about, he, you know, he, it says that, hey, listen, the Israelis use this process. It's just the same process as we

• 24:52Speaker 04

  use. But actually, they're even more restrictive on on how they exercise restraint. Well,

• 25:00Speaker 03

  So his article is essentially like the not defending IDF in terms of like saying that they done more to show restraint than the American forces did in Fallujah or Mosul or any urban warfare.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's not the existence of the process, the process ostensibly is there. You know, targeting cells, legal advisors, precision-guided weapon munitions, warning procedures. It's how they are applied, okay? It's how they function under pressure. That is the real truth teller. And I don't, I can't imagine from what Spencer has written that he really took a close look at how these processes function under pressure, I think. I don't know how he wrote his article, but it looks as though he just took it as face value.

• 25:56Speaker 04

  So all these things, you know, precision-guided munitions, targeting cells, warning procedures are often cited as evidence that everything was done to protect civilians.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  But let's, you know, let's take some examples. I've already talked about

• 26:12Speaker 04

  I've already talked about the how intelligence was interpreted, how the Israelis dealt with intelligence uncertainty, right? They accepted a very high level of intelligence. And then for us, what would be an unacceptable level of intelligence uncertainty, they didn't follow through, they didn't double source it, they didn't employ a blinking eye approach, they didn't track civilian patterns of life. So a lot of what they they said was assumed. Plus, you've got the fact that in Gaza, the the density of the population was magnified many times by evacuation orders. And and and many times civilians were evacuated or told to move, they weren't

• 26:58Speaker 04

  aided in doing so from one area into another and that area.

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• 28:27Speaker 04

  It was subsequently bombed.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  Also, the interesting thing about your article too, that you mentioned like, like the, what they do with like the roof knocking or even like sending out messages to a phone network that is essentially degraded to the, on purpose, purposely degraded to a point where it doesn't work, but they let people know, hey, we're going to bomb the shit out of this area. So get out of the way. They send it on text or wherever phone calls and people don't get the messages because their cellphone network is fucked up or their internet is fucked up.

• 28:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. In a battle space where, you know, electricity, cellular networks, internet access have all been deliberately degraded, you can't assume warnings, warnings have reached civilians. And, and the time allowed for people to move wasn't, it wasn't realistic, you know, especially when you're talking about elderly or disabled people. And, and this, this discussion about roof knocking. So roof knocking is an IDF practice of firing a, a small ammunition into the roof of a, say a multi-story apartment building to warn

• 29:40Speaker 04

  the, the inhabitants that you're going to strike that building and to give them a chance to get out, right? Well,

• 29:48Speaker 04

  There's all kinds of problems with using an explosive munition to to warn people that you're gonna use explosive munitions, right? And I can tell you, having been under air attack and and artillery bombardment myself, it's not intuitive, all right, or reliable.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  It's like, oh, that one was that was a warning. We better get out of here.

• 30:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, to distinguish between a bomb, a munition that's intended to kill you and one that's intended to to warn you. But you know, the bottom line is this, I mean, warnings that do not reliably remove civilians from danger, they don't they don't meaningfully reduce civilian deaths. You know, in practice, they often function as a as a procedural step that allows a strike to proceed rather than than to, you know, rather than than to really warn civilians to to get themselves out of the way.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Uh, let me ask you this about, uh, you know, they would issue evacuation orders and they had moved folks to, you know, different areas as they were clean as they were bombing specific areas. Um, why didn't they let people leave Gaza? Right? We saw with Ukraine, right? When Russia take, uh, you know, millions of folks left Ukraine?

• 31:06Speaker 04

  I I mean, it's a great question. So, you know, for and I'm not an IDF spokesman, but of course, the IDF would argue that was a security concern. There was nowhere to go. You couldn't, Egypt wouldn't take them and you're not gonna let them onto Israeli soil because now you've got that security concern on your own soil, right? However, I would argue that, um, the the the problem was this, the there were all kinds of problems with communicating with the local population, as we pointed out. Um, but there was no

• 31:39Speaker 04

  There's no clear, reliable way um to to ensure, effort made to ensure that there were safe evacuation zones. And what I'm saying here is you don't, you didn't have to evacuate them out of Gaza. If you really didn't, you believe that was a security concern. I mean, Gaza, I know everyone keeps saying how densely populated it is, but there were, there are far less than the, within that, within the strip, all right, it's like a twenty something kilometer mile strip. There are areas, for instance, the beach area by the coast, um, there and and areas between the major population centers that could have been evacuation zones,

• 32:19Speaker 04

  evacuation corridors could have been set up. And listen, the Israelis are very advanced when it comes to biometrics and combining biometrics with AI facial recognition. They're always already using this technology in the West Bank to um to screen civilians moving from one way, one place to another. And it's very effective. If anyone who's gone from Israel into onto the West Bank knows, you don't see a human being when you go through all these turnstiles, but you are being screened, your face is being um identified by, and and matched against uh known, you know, known bad actors. So they've got this technology.

• 33:03Speaker 04

  They could have set it up to ensure that there were evacuation and and they had organizations, relief organizations within the strip. And I spoke to a South African um uh with the UN there and uh who explained how they they, you know, the UN was willing to to assist the Israelis in setting up evacuation plans um and to do much of the planning for them. All they needed was certain things from the Israelis to include forbearance um and and places, you know, uh where they they would set up and and assist in directing civilians. Um but they made no effort to do so, uh instead just.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  Drop leaflets or send text messages saying, hey, you've got by noon to move from here to there and this area is going to be rubble. And then there was poor coordination within the IDF, right? So again, you can look this up. As a result of investigations, often Israelis were herded, I mean Israelis, Gazans were herded into areas which were then struck. And that wasn't purposeful necessarily. I mean, it wasn't purposeful, but it was, it was just poor coordination within, within the Israeli military.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  I mean, that happened more than once, Andy?

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, certainly. I mean,

• 34:25Speaker 03

  How's that poor coordination if it's happening multiple times?

• 34:31Speaker 04

  When, again, I'm getting a little bit off track here, but one of the characteristics of the Israeli military that some people may find surprising because, you know, you always think of the Israeli military as, as being representative, as being forerunner in pushing mission command and initiative down to the lowest levels. That is not the IDF today. That was the IDF of maybe 1973, 1967, 1956, but it's not the IDF today. Decisions are made. It's a very hierarchical organization. It's a very Middle Eastern organization in that respect. Information is not well shared between units, between organizations. And

• 35:16Speaker 04

  I think that resulted in a lot of, of these mistakes. And I call them mistakes because I'm not for a moment suggesting that these were purposeful, you know, when, when this happened. But it's negligent and, and, and they happened because not enough, again, you know, risk was pushed on the civilian population, which was an undercurrent of everything that I'm talking about. And I haven't even discussed, you know, the IDF attempts at population control during Operation Gideon's Chariots in 2025. But the goal was again to separate Hamas from the local population and to move the population into, it's like a, a form of villagization.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  The British used the Malaya, we attempted, the United States attempted to use in Vietnam. You move the population into secure areas and you separate them from Hamas. But the, you know, the, the concept wasn't bad, but the implementation was so, so poorly done that it resulted, as you know, in widespread starvation and whether you want to call it famine or not, that is what the UN ended up calling it. Certainly a number of, I mean, the significant number of Gazans died of, from lack of food, lack of water.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  What about the argument about like Hamas using human shields?

• 36:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, great, great argument. So human shields arguments also frequently invoked to explain civilian deaths in Gaza. Now, by, you, you've got to, you've got to differentiate between Hamas using civilians, coercing them into position to shield fighters, and Hamas just simply operating from civilian areas. Okay? There's a, the distinction's important because international humanitarian law requires for, for the human shield argument to work, that there be some element of coercion.

• 37:22Speaker 04

  There's been no proof of that. In fact, although the Israelis commonly, and, and there's no doubt about it, they, listen, Hamas used civilian infrastructure. I mean, Islamic State used, embedded themselves in civilian infrastructure in Mosul. It's a common feature of urban war. But the Middle East Institute, reputable DC-based think tank, did an investigation into Israeli claims of human shield arguments and came out with the fact that although that argument was frequently cited, there was actually no proof of it actually occurring. And, and in cases where they said, you know, Shifa Hospital is being used for this or that,

• 38:03Speaker 04

  they could produce no evidence. But, but regardless, you know, international law is very clear. Enemy violations don't erase the attacking force's obligations. And civilian presence is still supposed to be a constraint or not an excuse. It's, it's like the comedian. Uh, what's his name?

• 38:22Speaker 03

  Bill Burr.

• 38:23Speaker 04

  Bar. Yeah. Like he says, you know, if you want to beat the shit out of your neighbor and he's holding a baby, you don't punch him through the baby, right? I mean,

• 38:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 04

  That was essentially the IDF's argument.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  I love that Bill Burr reference. That was very nice in the article.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  When civilians can't be separated from the battlefield, international law places the obligation on the attacking force to exercise greater restraint, not acceptance of how civilians

• 38:48Speaker 03

  Right, like let's just wipe everybody out. Yeah. At that point, let's just nuke Gaza, if that's the-

• 38:52Speaker 04

  And look, I mean, we've seen this before. In Mosul, where I authorized strikes, the Islamic State was deeply embedded in the civilian population. They used protected sites to include mosques. They constrained civilian movements. So there is proof, you can look this up, absolute proof, that they did use humans, civilians, as shields in Mosul.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  And yet civilian to combatant death ratios are significantly lower than in Gaza. And when you factor in the number of civilians killed by the Islamic State, that ratio becomes even more dramatic, that contrast.

• 39:34Speaker 03

  So, so like, I read Spencer's stuff and um,

• 39:41Speaker 03

  one of the things he said about like, you can't really judge proportionality if you're not, if you don't have access to classified intel. That was like, one of like the, you know, like you don't really know what's going on and why they're doing this, because you don't have access to the, to the classified stuff.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, he kind of dodges the, he kind of misses the point there. So that's exactly right. He said, well, he talks about using a small, you know, how do you know what munitions should be used? You know, expert. That's not the point. Commanders are commanders because they are judged competent to make those calls, right?

• 40:26Speaker 04

  Of proportionality. That's really what he's talking about.

• 40:31Speaker 04

  You know, how do I deal with this threat and cause the minimum number of uh minimum number of casualties? Uh as far as the intelligence argument, it's irrelevant. What I'm arguing is it doesn't matter. You know, the the whole point is not what an outsider knows, it's what that commander knows for sure and what he's assuming. And my point is that eh for us in US military, the onus is on you to verify that intelligence, alright? Um eh and so this was rather a kind of an opaque argument and then.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  Spencer says, well, they use precision guided munitions. They do, but the point is. A a precision guided munition can cause just as many civilian casualties if it. Uh if you know, if it hits a a target that hasn't been assessed for civilian presence, right? Precision and delivery is not the same as precision and targeting. So a bomb can strike exactly where you intended to and still kill civilians in large numbers. If the target itself was poorly defined or or your intelligence was stale. And you hadn't verified civilian presence or the whole, you know, civilian pattern of life. Um.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Andy, let me ask you, you mentioned about the unblinking eye, like what the US would do, like we would have eyes on. A target or a potential target uh.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  I like the way you said that. See what you did there?

• 41:58Speaker 03

  With eyes on, yeah, I know, thank you. Uh like and subscribe.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Why wouldn't Israel do that? You know, they're technologically advanced, they're using drones, you know, they're a modern military. Why not do that? At a for a particular target?

• 42:13Speaker 04

  Well, I you know, I'm speculating here, uh because it wasn't. Look, you've got the rules, right? You've got the law of armed conflict and then you have your procedures. But the culture within an organization matters a lot. Um you know, I can tell you, having served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Um that overwhelmingly, the institutional impetus was on sparing civilian life. On minimizing hero heroic restraint, right, was the term that we would use. What that meant is.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  Someone has to bear risk in war, either soldiers accept it or civilians do, although they don't willingly accept it, right?

• 42:56Speaker 03

  Right, yeah, yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 04

  In, in the US military, it's, it's a much more balanced discussion. We can't routinely shift risk onto civilian forces. Sometimes we have to bear a portion of that risk. If we're uncertain about civilian presence and so, or there is a significant civilian presence and so we can't use the munitions that we require before an attack, we have to accept that it's going to be a little more dangerous to attack that objective. And making this sound quite simplistic, these are hard calls, but that's the bottom line. But we hear that from our commanders and we had tactical directives all the time in Afghanistan outlining that as a policy.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  It was very clear that that was, that that was institutionalized in the IDF. That is not the case. You have civilian leaders, you know, you've got the head of military intelligence, Halevi, saying, I mean, it was leaked, you know, he would, he didn't intend to say this publicly, but it, you know, the fact is he was head of military intelligence and he said, hey, we're going to kill 50 Palestinians for every Israeli we lost in seven October. And then says, it doesn't matter if they're children. That's just the point, that's the way it's going to be. All right. You've got that, you've got Gallant talking about, we're going to cut off their food, we're going to cut off their water, they're just animals. You've got the president.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  What's interesting is Gallant's been, you know, ever since he resigned or got fired, was like touted as like the sane one in that war cabinet.

• 44:32Speaker 04

  I guess it's all relative, isn't it? You've got Herzl, you know, who is the supposedly liberal president saying, hey, the whole population is responsible for seven October, right? Um. And so you've got this institutional messaging. Do you really think that commanders then? And and then you've got this, you know, as I said, only one investigation was ever conducted. Into a strike gone wrong, and that was the the World Central Kitchen strike, and that was after Australia objected. So commanders know, you know, the messaging isn't, hey, you've got these procedures, there's a law of armed conflict, it is. Who gets fired when shit goes wrong? Right?

• 45:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 04

  And when and when that isn't happening, when you're hearing your own leaders going, they're animals, they're responsible. Hey, fifty of them should die for everyone. Do you really think you're going to exercise heroic restraint? I mean, they, you know, so I mean, that that and and then you get this, these investigative reports coming out about how AI was integrated into targeting. Well, that's not certainly not necessarily a bad thing.

• 45:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 45:42Speaker 04

  It's if you're using it to support decisions, but if you're using it as a rubber stamp and and the and the human in the loop is simply going, okay, okay, okay. Uh, then then that becomes problematic. You have Le Mans investigative um a report that shows that, uh, you know, for every Hamas fighter. It's really IDF instructions where, hey, you know, you can kill twenty or more twenty civilians.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Jesus Christ.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  You know, and that's just for lower level guys. I mean, that's a pretty significant threshold. We wouldn't have that. We wouldn't word things that way. And the point is, you're going to tell people you can kill twenty civilians.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  Do you think they're going to stop there? Oh, hey, it was fifty. Oh, I mean, so this, these are. What I'm saying is that the institutional messaging was such that it it really.

• 46:39Speaker 04

  It it suggested restraint was a bad thing. Now, if you challenge all of those things, well, you know, these are far, I'll go refer to Occam's razor. The fact that these are far more plausible explanations for why a hundred thousand or seventy thousand, whichever number you believe. Uh, or people were killed than unparalleled restraint, which is what Spencer says.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know how you can eat. That's a tough, uh.

• 47:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  Tough.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  So anyway, I mean, um, you know, and what happened, what was happening was civilian death was treated as an acceptable cost of doing business.

• 47:24Speaker 04

  An acceptable price to pay for the speed, the tempo, uh, force protection, uh, that that you needed in order to execute the campaign. All right.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  And what's interesting, like you mentioned, not to harp on it, but like you mentioned, it's just going to regenerate insurgents. Yeah. I hate talking like that too, because these are human beings that have lost lives and lost loved ones. Right? Like, it's a terrible thing that's going on. But the fact is, human nature is human nature, and people are going to want payback. After they see a family member get killed and, you know, lose their lives.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, and and, you know, as as we said, I mean, it this matters beyond legal debates, moral outrage. It becomes a strategic liability. And and we learned that in Iraq and Afghanistan, uh, when when the bottom line is this. I mean, you can, you can

• 48:23Speaker 04

  refute, try and refute this, but it's very difficult. Um, when you look at the studies that have been been conducted on this, when civilians are killed in large numbers, it fuels recruitment, it hardens opposition. Um, it undermines your legitimacy, which is an important point, and it prolongs conflict. And so, you know, tactical gains, um, achieved through through civilian destruction, um, almost always generate long-term insecurity.

• 48:52Speaker 04

  I mean, so the I know we're coming to the end here, but I mean, I, I, look, you know, civilians, you're not going to make war clean. You can't avoid. I mean, you're just not. It's never going to be a point where we can avoid civilian casualties, both certainly in, in urban warfare.

• 49:11Speaker 04

  Civilians are killed at this scale, as they were in killed in Gaza. It's not because urban warfare makes restraint impossible. They're killed when civilian protection is not treated as governing requirement of how forces applied.

• 49:28Speaker 04

  I mean, urban warfare is brutal. Civilian death, as I said, you can't ever eliminate it entirely. But how much death occurs and who bears the risk? That's a matter of choice. It's a matter of institutional choice. And in Gaza, the evidence suggests that those choices were pushed on to, on to civilians. And with profound human, and I would argue strategic, strategic costs.

• 49:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, it's, it's, it's a fucking, it's just sad. Um, one more tactical question. I remember we've talked about this many times on Eyes On, how you mentioned like the IDF doesn't do clear and hold.

• 50:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 03

  I mean, was that like they wouldn't clear and hold, they would just take out a place and then leave. Would that cause?

• 50:18Speaker 04

  That, that, that added to, that certainly added to the confusion. Now, I would say, I'll qualify that statement a little bit by saying during Gideon's Chariots in 2025, they seem to have learned their lesson a little bit more. The bulk of units still pulled back into, it's an improvised FOBs, combat outpost, they call McNuns, which are, you know, kind of little fortified. At Hawk fortified positions within the city. But this causes problems because you clear during the day, they don't, they, they, the conventional infantry units were not operating at night. I don't know why not, I think it may have come down to training.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  They had night vision goggles, but they just weren't operating at night. So they would clear an area, they would move back into their McNon at night, this was a pattern. Now during the, during the night, not that, you know, yes, Hamas would have some freedom of movement, but the civilians would move back into their areas because they would hear the sounds of fighting gone and so they would move back in the area. And then you get the local IDF unit coming out and clearing that area again, assuming everything there is Hamas. And look, I've been talked about.

• 51:37Speaker 04

  The fact that, you know, I just talked about indirect fire, but there's a lot of problems with how the Israelis exercise fire control, fire discipline, or lack thereof. In fact, they had free fire zones, you know, you've, there's significant amount of evidence to show that. My own interviews with people showed that.

• 51:59Speaker 04

  Areas where anything, you know, they could shoot anything or anyone and, of course, I mean, and, and in a, in a urban environment, densely packed, you're going to get civilians wandering into those areas.

• 52:13Speaker 03

  Like they didn't have to be armed either?

• 52:16Speaker 04

  Look, I mean, I, I, this is where you can get into, well, our rules of engagement say this, I'm talking about practice though, in practice. And, and yes, you can look at, you can look at all the evidence on, online, and I'm talking about investigation. And if that doesn't, you know, if that doesn't sway you, I, I mean, I've, I've, me convinced, yes, absolutely, it was a, it was a. Um. People were shot when very clearly they didn't have weapons consistently at scale. Um, I, a, a friend of mine, um, who I interviewed for the book, who, but not by no means.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  Uh, left wing, bleeding heart liberal, former South African special operations guy. Um, and, uh, and another guy, a former Royal Marine, okay? Um, operating with the U N told me that, you know, part of their job was just to gather bodies in the morning. Um, every morning, um, because of course it was a health hazard. And, uh, you know, uh, they, they would, they'll tell you elderly, disabled. Um, and, and all their time, all their time operating in Gaza, they never, never came across a single body with a weapon. And you could say, well, you know, uh, the weapons were removed. Uh, really, you know, consistently all the time from all those bodies. Come on.

• 53:40Speaker 04

  Um, so anyway, I, I mean, I'm getting off track here a little bit. Uh, my article's not even based on that, but I'm saying, um, again, this gets back to a, an institutional culture. I mean, the Israelis shot three of their own hostages, even after the hostages came out waving white flags. I mean, this is all in covered in the Israeli media, covering white flags accompanied by an Israeli officer. All right. They still shot them. Um.

• 54:07Speaker 03

  Wait, wait, they were, they were accompanied with an Israeli officer as well?

• 54:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he wasn't, you can look at, look up the account of how it happened.

• 54:17Speaker 03

  I remember when it went, when it went down.

• 54:18Speaker 04

  No one was burned for that. No one got in trouble for that. I mean, that, um, and yet there was all kinds of things.

• 54:24Speaker 03

  And nothing was like, and it was relatively early on too, I believe, right? It wasn't like, and you know, it seems like they were not, they were not reined in.

• 54:33Speaker 04

  I want to say it was in like April twenty twenty four. But anyway, so Dee, that's pretty much it.

• 54:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:40Speaker 04

  You know, I don't want to over.

• 54:41Speaker 03

  Incredible article. I want everyone to check it out.

• 54:43Speaker 04

  I, you know, why don't you invite John Spencer on to, uh, to, to offer a counter argument? I, I think that would be a great idea.

• 54:50Speaker 03

  Against, uh, yeah, I'm game. John, if you're listening.

• 54:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  Email me, baby. Uh, let's get you on and, uh, we'll hash this out mud wrestle. Um, check, I want everyone to check out Andy's article. The link is in the description. Um, it's for War on the Rocks. It's an incredibly, it's a really good article. Um, and of course, Andy's book, When the Tempest Gathers, incredible book. We're looking forward to the new books that are coming out. So stay tuned for that. Your Substack, all those links are in the description or in the show notes if you're listening. So check them out. Andy, I love you.

• 55:28Speaker 04

  Always, always a great time, Dee.

• 55:29Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the Food Allergy Podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 55:44Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 55:55Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you, you're not alone.

• 56:00Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 56:06Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the Food Allergy Podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 56:26Speaker 02

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• 56:54Speaker 04

  All the best.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  Thanks, everybody.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  Hey guys, I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House Podcast, the Eyes On Podcast, and the High Side News Outlet, which I run with Shawn Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week, it's going to come into your inbox, and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Eyes On and the Team House, and whatever's topical or current on the High Side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you, as social media algorithms are pretty iffy, and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once-a-week email, it'll slide into your inbox, and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week.

• 57:39Speaker 07

  It's really good, man. I'm checking it out.

• 57:42Speaker 03

  The website for it is teamhospodcast.kit.com/join. Teamhospodcast.kit.com/join. Go there, and you enter into your email list, or you enter your email into the little thing on the website, and you're good to go. And that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support, and hope you'll consider signing up.

• 58:05Speaker 07

  Where's the link?

• 58:07Speaker 03

  The link will also be down in the description, if you're looking for it there.

• 58:11Speaker 07

  And that's teamhospodcast.kit, K-I-T, Kilo India Tango, dot com, backslash, join.

• 58:22Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the Food Allergy Podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 58:37Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to "I'm deathly allergic," in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 58:48Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you, you're not alone.

• 58:53Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 58:59Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the Food Allergy Podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

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• 59:56Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:00:11Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:00:22Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:00:27Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:00:33Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

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  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:01:44Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:01:55Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:02:00Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:02:06Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

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  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:03:17Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:03:28Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:03:33Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:03:39Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:03:59Speaker 06

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star trust pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:04:34Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:04:49Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:05:00Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:05:05Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:05:11Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:05:31Speaker 06

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star trust pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:06:06Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:06:20Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:06:31Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:06:37Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:06:42Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:07:02Speaker 06

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:07:36Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:07:51Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:08:02Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:08:07Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:08:13Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:08:33Speaker 02

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:09:10Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:09:25Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic. In a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:09:36Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:09:41Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:09:47Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today. OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans, up to $400,000, make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star trust

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  Pilot reviews on deck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at on deck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by on deck or Celtic Bank on deck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolaire, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Zolaire 150 milligrams is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolaire, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolaire. Zolaire may cause a severe, life threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolaire should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolaire is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or hardened circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolaire.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolaire.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  This is an advertisement for Zolaire paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 1:11:37Speaker 06

  Chat GPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically and grow their skills. Chat GPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com slash parents to learn more.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch on deck. Small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at on deck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by on deck or Celtic Bank on deck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.