I'm John Batchel with my good colleagues, Bill Rajo, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy,

and Hussain O'Connie of the Hudson Institute. Bill, your item in Long War Journal attempts me to say

that the Taliban is getting back into the PR and presenting themselves as, I guess, stand-up guys because they're talking about Gaza.

But then again, everybody's talking about Gaza.

I've even seen Palestinian flags waived in the protests in Los Angeles.

It has nothing to do with Gaza whatsoever.

And the Palestinian flag is now routinely carried in public parks in New York City.

So the Taliban commenting on Gaza seems trendy on their part.

Have they got a PR office?

And are they raising from the level of Baghdad, Bob, to wandering into the mix of the rest of the media?

That's a good way to put it, John.

The, look, the Taliban have always supported the Palestinian cause.

It always has backed Hamas, at least verbally, right?

Rhetorically.

It's not new.

This is something that they have done.

I found that this was interesting in a very long Eid speech that was released for the

Eid holiday.

The Taliban Amir Malibu, Habi Atal-Kanzata, you know, he gave a lengthy dissertation on why,

you know, Islamic law, why the leaders need to follow it and implement it, why everyone

needs to practice it, the importance of it.

And at the very end, he only makes one call out to the world and to anything outside of Afghanistan.

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