This is Sarah Stewart Holland, and this is Beth Silverth, thank you for joining us for

a new episode of Pantsew Politics where we take a different approach to the news. Today we are just going to process a big,

complex week of world and domestic news. We're going to talk a little bit more about what's happening in Israel and the response to the October 7th attack. We will discuss the small matter of needing a speaker of the House of Representatives so that Congress can function at all. And then we'll talk a little bit about Cummings, goings, changes in the presidential primaries. Outside of politics, we are going to share a little with you about our fall breaks.

This week has been a particularly great time to be a member in our premium community. We've been trying to use that space to continue to cover the terrorist attacks in Israel. I have been covering the updates on the situation on my show Good Morning and Beth is shared a refreshed primer on how we got the situation on her show more to say. We hope our premium content is always useful to you and this week is no exception. We'd love for you to join us there if you haven't already and you can find more information about doing that in the show notes.

Next up, we will discuss updates on Israel and Israel's response to the Hamas terrorist attack.

We are recording on Thursday, October 12th in the morning as we sit down to record the latest news from Israel concerns the formation of a unity government.

And I think that that's worth spending some time on. It's a reminder to me one that Israel's system is very different than the US system. And that's something that we return to every time that we talk about Israel. So just the possibility of forming a unity government is really interesting to me.

But secondly, I think it underscores the level of threat and the level of need created in Israel by this confluence of circumstances where you have Prime Minister Netanyahu embroiled in both personal scandal, political scandal, and now the concern that on his watch and attack like this was able to happen.

And in the face of that, instead of taking advantage of the moment, an opposition leader said, I will stand with you and we will govern together so that all of the people we are calling up to serve in this moment have confidence in their leadership.

I did think it was interesting. It took so long. It took a long time to negotiate this unity government agreement. I mean a long time in the sort of perspective we have sort of post 9-11 and then unity that's around the country when we were attacked on this scale. I think it speaks.

Like I said, the sort of constant, consistent criticism still flowing from Israelis towards Netanyahu that this unity government was formed, but that it took almost a week to reach some sort of agreement between the parties about what that unity government will look like because the terror from this attack does not erase the distrust that I'm sure this opposing party feels towards Netanyahu.

He is slippery. And I don't think that's going to stop. I think he probably feels even more threatened because of this criticism because of this act that will mark his tenure forever.

And so I'm not surprised that the unity government was ultimately formed, but I am a little surprised it took so long.

So as this unity government was formed, we keep hearing very strong statements from Netanyahu that the goal now is to eradicate Hamas. Now I think that's an unrealistic goal, but I understand the sentiment to be Israel will hold nothing back as it goes into what looks increasingly to be a ground incursion into Gaza.

And just for a reference, I think it's helpful to remember the entire Gaza Strip is about the size of Detroit, Michigan. We're talking about a very small area again where two millionish people are basically trapped and cannot go anywhere.

And so when you think about the devastation that will accompany that it's just horror after horror here in the wake of what happened on Saturday.

Yeah, the suffering and the Gaza Strip right now, I think it's hard to contemplate because when you look at the photos, it's not that it's just a small place. It's that it's so dense.

It's so, so dense. And I heard the most heartbreaking interview on NPR this morning where this Palestinian man was like, we are human to we are human to and we feel abandoned because they're just moving from place to place, hoping to find some place of safety.

There's been multiple reports that previously during these attacks, the UN schools were considered safe, but those have also been hit in this last few days.

And so there is just no safe place. There is no exit. There are discussions now between Egypt and the United States to set up some sort of exit for other nations citizens for other nationals, but that's no relief to the Palestinian people.

And so this attack unlike any they've experienced when you are shocking the people of the Gaza Strip that speaks to something that speaks to a real escalation, which again comes after the escalation like we talked about with Kerry, the the cruelty, the terror that came on October 7th was like nothing that the Israeli people had experienced before and we're learning more and more about that.

These cabuts is that they're now entering and finding people gun down at bus stops babies murdered people kidnapped like it's just so heinous and the suffering with the Israelis who have still failing members that have been kidnapped.

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