Boston Public Radio Podcast
Best Of BPR 9/23: Israel's War With Lebanon Begins & The Religious Vote
Today:Israel’s war against Hamas rages on in Gaza, while Netanyahu appears emboldened to open a second front on its northern border with Lebanon and Hezbollah. We talk with GBH news analyst Charlie Sennott about the destabilizing Middle East.And, how are the presidential candidates reaching out to Americans of faith? We talk with Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett Price.
- Broadcast on:
- 23 Sep 2024
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- other
Support for Boston Public Radio comes from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Be revolutionary. UMass is the Commonwealth's flagship public research university, and committed to the relentless pursuit of progress. Learn more at umass.edu. And The Trustees, presenting Halloween on the Hill, a celebration of autumn at The Trustees' Long Hill in Beverly, running Wednesday through Saturday nights until October 27th, advanced tickets required. Learn more at thetrustees.org/Halloween. I'm Jim Brody. And I'm Marjorie Egan. This is the best of Boston Public Radio. New daily podcast from GBH, featuring our favorite conversations from our three-hour radio show in under 40 minutes. Don't panic. If you love filling your phone with episodes of our full show podcast, you can still find it anywhere you get your podcast, or just catch us live on 89/7 GBH, starting at 11 o'clock. Yes, Israel is expanding its military campaign into Lebanon. The ground truth projects Trolley Senators here to try and help us make sense in the violence in the Middle East, and Sir Reverend Zireen Monro and M.C. Price III, here to help us tackle the moral dilemmas of the day. We'll talk about an outrage in North Carolina after reporters dug up wildly offensive comments, left on a porn website that shouldn't laugh by GOP candidate for governor. Trump crony, Mark Robinson, plus how faith is shaping the race for president on either side of the political aisle, and here's the show. Hello there, Charlie. Hi, Jim. I'm Marjorie. Hi, Charlie. Great to talk to you, as always. So, this whole mess between, well, it didn't begin, but it was certainly escalated by the Israelis apparently blowing up these pagers that belong to members of Hezbollah and then their retaliation. What is going on? Why is this happening? Why is Israel attacking Lebanon, et cetera? Yeah, it is a big moment. I don't think, I don't think we can say anything other than it looks like the war between Israel and Lebanon has started, and that is hard not to agree with those who are on the ground making that assessment. CNN has been weeding in there, who I've known for decades, who's a reporter, who's measured, and it is hard not to agree with his assessment that we keep talking about what happens if Israel and Lebanon have a war, and his assessment is that war started today. And these airstrikes today in southern Lebanon that have just killed about 275 people are fearfully just the beginning. This is Israel's offensive. Any hopes of trying to reach some kind of a ceasefire agreement to bring the hostages home in Gaza has just, it's just blown apart. I hate to use that terrible metaphor, but it has just disintegrated back into violence. So military aggression is leading the day, no efforts at diplomacy, and nothing could prove that more than the Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon. You really write to bring up this amazing attack on the pagers of the Hezbollah leadership, including several of its commanders. That is an unbelievably sophisticated attack that Israel did on Hezbollah. And I want to say two things about that, and then I don't mean to talk too much at the top here, but there's a lot to frame. But one thing is to say, how long have I been saying that where is Israel on its more concerted, more precise, and more measured attacks on terrorists like Hezbollah, and looking at them with the precision that it did, for example, after Munich, Germany, where they went methodically after each person who carried out the attacks on Israelis in Germany so many years ago, this is that spirit of that attack, and it is hard to applaud something in which civilians were killed. It's hard to applaud something in which someone with the integrity of Leon Panetta is calling it pretty close to a terrorist attack by Israel. I don't agree with, I don't think I could disagree with Leon Panetta very often. The guy's brilliant. And that one I might disagree, it feels like a very strategic military response by Israel against Hezbollah on the edge of Hezbollah about to launch a war. They beat them to the punch. The problem is there is no apparent strategic pattern here that I can discern or that people who are a lot smarter than me and there on the ground can discern as to what is Israel's strategy here? What are they trying to achieve? And it feels like the Netanyahu regime in Israel is just continuing on this war path. I wish I could understand what was the strategy. Right when you think they might have a strategic edge, they seem to go back into this pretty horrific level of indiscriminate bombing and of heavy, heavy airstrikes like what we're seeing today in Southern Lebanon. So one of the things you're not when you say what's the strategy? I'm guessing that by not saying part of the strategy is the distract attention away from what Israel has done in Gaza, which the motive that's been ascribed to much of what Netanyahu does, you don't think applies here. You think this on the merits, getting in first before Hezbollah got to Israel was a wise thing to do? Is that right or no? No, I Jim, I'm so it's so complex. I feel like I've never felt more cautious about holding any opinions than I do right now because of the level of complexity and how things are playing out in the Middle East. I really want to go back to that sense of just being a reporter and I'm sharing with you what I'm reading in Haaretz, what I'm reading in Al Jazeera, what I'm reading in Washington Post, the New York Times, listening very carefully to a lot of assessments on the ground. I don't know. I think that that attack on the Hezbollah leadership was of course sophisticated. It's amazing. They entered the supply chain to get the pagers of Hezbollah fighters and they took them out with it. For those of us like myself who have complained vociferously for Israel's, what you'd have to say feel like almost barbaric indiscriminate bombing, this is the opposite of that. I am recognizing that, I'm noticing that and I see wisdom, I can see strategy in Israel doing that. What I can't see and what I'm really concerned about is I don't sense any overall strategy for Israel and the way it's handling with handling Gaza, there seems to be no movement on bringing the hostages home which needs to happen. There's no movement toward talks that could lead to a ceasefire. Those talks will take place in Qatar. Qatar is an incredibly important part of the equation here. The news organization Al Jazeera is based in Qatar. It's very connected to Qatar. Israel went in and shut down that news organization, raided the news organization in the West Bank, and shut it down to 45 days. That's not smart in the context of what's happening now. I don't understand strategy from Israel. I'm listening as carefully as I can, but I see glimpses of things that are kind of the old school way Israel used to fight, but they're completely in contrast and drowned out by the noise and the terror and the horror of the bombings that are continuing and today really ramping up inside of southern Lebanon in a way that has a lot of people who've been there a long time saying that the war in Lebanon started. Well, Charlie, we've been talking to obviously a lot about Israel and Gaza now, Lebanon. You've been saying, I think all along, that the lack of strategy involving Israel and Gaza had to do with Netanyahu wanting to stay in power. So, you know, a lot more than I do, isn't this more of the same? You know, well, I mean, they were retaliating, right, for Hezbollah's striking their neighborhoods that were near the border there. So, Israel's retaliating, but in a much bigger way. Yeah, I think Israel's ratcheting up the stakes. I mean, the big, wide, wide regional sort of hydraulics to keep in mind is that Iran controls, funds, supports Hezbollah. Iran has also supported Hamas. There are other regional fighters who are proxies for Iran, like the Houthis. I think I shared with the other week that there's a great analyst of this situation who once said that Hezbollah is like Iran's 401(k) plan. You only take it out and start using it if you really, really need it. Hamas is the thousand bucks that, you know, if you enjoy gambling, you're willing to waste if you go to one of these casinos, which I've never quite understood. But that levels of investment versus risk and reward are things to think about. I don't mean to be cynical in using such silly comparisons, but really, truly, Iran has a calculus in the region. And getting Hezbollah deeply involved in a war with Israel is a huge risk. And they know it. Iran knows it. Israel knows it. And when Israel crosses in and kills 275 and counting, these Israeli strikes are underway. I think, in fear, there will be more and higher death toll by the end of the day. It's a big regional equation. And yes, Netanyahu lies at the center of this, and he knows, as long as Israel remains engrossed in this war and now deepened into a regional war, he will survive politically. Even I am not capable of thinking cynically enough to think it's the only reason Netanyahu who does it is to keep his own political career alive. But if you know Netanyahu and I do know him, I've interviewed him, you have to say, this is a man whose political survival is paramount in his life, and he's proven it time and again, he's been severely criticized for it. He is severely unpopular in Israel for good reason because he has put his own career above what needs to be done for the whole country and real leadership. So I know those are nuanced points, they feel confusing and conflicted, but I think as the war intensifies, as the situation on the ground shifts and changes, it's a time to sort of approach things carefully, thoughtfully, and not be too opinionated. [Music] Hello Reves. Hey, thanks for having us back. Happy fall. Happy fall to you too. Well, that is not happy, but nice to see you too. I know. Let's start with the gentleman whose exploits have kind of transfixed America all weekend. The guy who wants to be the governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, people may know about him. He's apparently spent a lot of time on porn sites saying things we can't really talk about on the radio. He talked about how he wants to bring back slavery, and he might want to buy a few slaves. He said terrible things about all sorts of people, people who he's made fun of school shooting survivors, and talk about being a black Nazi and all this crazy stuff. Well, even though most of his staff resigned over the weekend, he's still got a spokesperson left who describes how he's been very bold and outspoken about his Christian faith. Oh, good. And who better to ask about this than Irene and Emmett? So I don't know. Do you think you're going to invite Mark for his guest preacher next week, Emmett? Or what do you think? Well, I thought you were very kind to even refer to him as a gentleman. That's a good point. But no, Marjorie, I am not going to extend that invitation to this person. I think the way that politics in this nation have just eroded is really, I mean, it's insane. And the fact that his entire team walks away, wow, yeah, yeah, you know, one thing we will know that on MLK Day, he will not be invited to be guest speaker, although Trump said, well, maybe for Trump's MLK event, because he said that that he was MLK on steroids. But I think there is something that we need to look at more seriously here, you know, because when I look at Mark Robinson, he has really ascended to a very high position within North Carolina's government. Excellent point. In a government, and so should Cooper, Governor Cooper, should croak or something happen. That is a great point. You know, we need to take this very, very seriously. So the question is, well, why has this guy who clearly there have been some public denunciation of his buffoonery, the outrageous incendiary remarks that he has made? And you've got to look at this, and I see this juxtaposed to Herschel Walker, is that the Republican in their uncensored way of trying to attract black people, they get people that not even black people could even rally behind here. And the thing about it is, I feel two ways about it, you know, Mark Robinson is a hustler, you know, and this is how I feel about when you have whites using you. I think if you're going to be a token, take it in for a good ride. I think he has cashed in, and this is why he can exit. His wife Daycare Center was closed because of just, you know, terrible, you know, infractions here. But I think that we need to look at more seriously how someone liked this, because this is scary. And if he got into office, should Governor Cooper, I don't know, something happens to him, what, what, I mean, what do you do? Yeah, that's a very, that's a very good point. I don't know, can you force the guy to resign? I don't know. Obviously you can't. I mean, I assume there's an impeachment provision, like there is in most state, but I haven't heard anything about it. By the way, Cooper is a Democrat for whatever it's worth. So obviously unlike Massachusetts, North Carolina must elect their people separately because needless to say, Mark Robinson is a Republican, you know, add one thing to this conversation we said the other day, Trump, this is prior to the most recent revelations by CNN, even though Trump has not withdrawn his support from Robinson referred to him as Martin Luther King on steroids, and he meant that as a compliment. He didn't, he meant he's even better than Martin Luther King. He's staying in the race. He was 10 points behind prior to these disclosures, and I don't think there are any polls that have been taken since so. So we've read a lot about how people all across America and race actors of the world actually are going to church, they're expressing their religiosity by worshiping on Sundays. The numbers are going down and down and down. The story from the Atlantic talks about how the black church used to be a reliable stop for Democrats, but the problem is one third of black gensiers and millennials don't go to church at all, never mind to their parents or their grandparents, black church. So how does this impact, do you think Democrats in the country and just what does this mean in general, you both know this well as pastors, what do you think of it? Well, you know, we have to contextualize this because I would suggest that the generation that we're comparing these millennials and post-millennials to would be the civil rights generation and the generation who actually fought in order to be able to vote, right? So there's a difference between the folks who fought, who previously could not vote and fought to be able to vote than a generation that may or may not, and I don't want to be an accurate tutorial, but may or may not take voting for granted. There's a different context here. And then the other piece is that we're talking about a pedestrian black church, a black church that was in black neighborhoods historically back again in the civil rights movement. Now we're talking about a hybrid church, post-pandemic, a church that has people who were both physically, you know, present, but also digitally and virtually present. And so I think it's an apple and an orange comparison. I agree with him and on that. And I just want to push a little further here. You know, I'm very glad that they understand, and this is in its favorite word, we're not a monolith. That's number one, whether we're talking about the same demographic group or not here. But I think the problem that Democrats have done is that they have traffic in a kind of racial trope too. And I just need to say that I've been tired of seeing white politicians come to our Sunday service on Tuesday before the election day. It's sort of like they want our vote, but not our problems. We got this old kind of saying here that black voters have permanent estrus, but we don't have necessarily permanent allies here. So I think that what they're seeing here is that they've got to work for our vote here not to take that for granted. And while you do have a hybrid black church, we still got to understand that this demographic group, Gen Z, and the folks that are not in my demographic group, which is the Baby Boomer, and even Emmett's group here are not going to church, but they're finding other ways to congregate and to be activists. And one of the ways that we've seen this, and we've seen our sort of children, our children, meaning that's the Black Lives Matter movement that has in many ways raised the kind of issues that we couldn't even begin to bargain our vote. And I just need to say this as a black woman, we're kind of tired of being sort of backbone of the black church, the black family, and now the DNC. So I think that if you want anybody, any black vote, you got to work for it. You know what I wonder, though, what is it besides the politics of it and the politicians coming? I mean, this is happening across... What do you mean? What is what? The decline in attendance? Yeah. Especially of young people. I mean, people say they're spiritual, not religious. Well, I don't know. What does that mean? Well, they say a significant chunk are also going to multiracial churches. Yeah, but I'm not... I'm talking about the overall picture. I say, okay. Is it that they've lost their faith, they're fed up with the church because of whatever reasons, if they're anti-gay or, you know, the Catholic church, anti-gay, and pretty much anti-woman, you'd have to say. Or what? You know, I think it's all of it, Marjorie, but I think the other piece to the question is, at least on the black side of town, if your big mama was still alive, you better be in church on Sunday. But no, I got to push back on that. That's not true, because number one, big mama might not be going to church for a number of reasons. That's number one. Number two, if you're talking about big mama and particularly raising the sort of Gen X generation, knowing that her child is trans to LGBTQ, she may not. I'm talking about back in the day, not matter, back in the day. But the other thing that we got to understand that we're not really realizing is that we really do have a very changing religious landscape here, that while even if you look at what we call the traditional religions, we got to look at the influence of Buddhism, Hinduism, because we have a very dynamic population. And even when we look at Christianity, we got different of obviously, different strands of that. And we have a Jewish population. So I just think that what we got to understand that while we're looking for an edifice, you're missing the congregations, the way people congregate and do church and do spirituality. What do you mean the congregations? Well, I mean, there are a number of ways of doing that. One of the ways certainly is hybrid, especially if you live up in this area, because this is the least religious area as we know. But you're not congregating if you're on hybrid, really, are you? Yeah. Well, believe it or not. It's worth distances and ways that in ableism in a way that we could never before hear and stuff. So if you're disabled, if you're ill, or for whatever reason we say in black church, shut in, you know, you can go to church here and be with people. All I'm saying is that and people gather, I see folks gather on some Sundays in the common here, Cambridge Common, they're just various and more creative ways. We don't need these buildings the way that we used to, just like with office buildings. We don't need as many as we used to. We're finding other ways to use those. Irene, did you ever go to Porter Square? But by a couple of Sundays, I've driven by the Porter Square of Teastop, and there's a, I don't know if you call it a church thing, but there's a religious service outdoors. You know about this. That's right. I mean, it's pretty incredible. And it really, really is. And I mean, and what they're doing is something even bigger in many ways because it's like by being in nature, saying that in many ways, if we use the word God and there's this philosophical statement called the teleological argument for the existence of God, which I understand God through the design of nature. And when you, when you incorporate an outside kind of worship, you're bringing all of what is magnificent and greater than what we are. Well, they're also praying for the train to come. That's a whole other issue. That's a good place. That's a good place. They're still there. They're still there waiting. By the way, and it's just to give people a sense of how great this de-religization is that a word? No, it's not even close. But you know what I mean? Of America is in this piece that Shira Schoenberg wrote in the Globe on the 21st decline in religion impacting theological skills, meaning summer closing and the numbers of people attending, including one you used to be affiliated with, Emmett is or down. They say that according to research out of this God from Eastern Illinois University and the Pew Research Center, in 1972, 5% of people declared themselves as religiously unaffiliated. It's six times greater now. It's 30%. Admittedly, it's 50 years, but it's still a huge increase in numbers. We're talking to the revs, Irene Monroe and Emmett, you priced third. So let's talk a little bit about, we already talked about the theological school, so let's talk about this guy that was vehemently against same-sex marriage. This guy. Richard Hayes. Richard Hayes. Thank you. Sort of the piece. Yeah. Wrote the definitive work against gay marriage, the Christian case. Now he's done a complete flip flop. So is this a big deal? Tell us what do you think, Emmett? Well, you know, I'm interested to hear what Irene thinks, but I would say this, I don't know how he comes back from this, because that chapter, it was more than weaponized. That chapter was, it was the go-to chapter, you know, from a theological framework that really hurt a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of people. Yeah, Irene, before you explain, can you say who is the guy? Who is he? Irene? You don't want to hear me, what I have to say. No, I totally do, but I've never heard of Richard Hayes. Who is he? Yeah. And he was the former dean, which is really important of Duke, University of Duke Theological Symphony. A very important person. And I just need to say this, not only was it wrong-headed, but it was wrong-hearted here. And now before COVID, the Methodist Church decided, before it decided to split, I had hoped that COVID would bring this church together here. I can't begin to tell you how problematic it is to love a church that doesn't love you, and the number of people of my friend, Straight and Gay, and who certainly side on LGBT inclusion in the church have been defrocked here. And particularly when the church had an option where, which was called the one rule, where you don't have to, if your particular parish or church did not want to acknowledge LGBT folks or ministers, you had that option. But what they decided to do was to split. And so, and I can't tell you, the number of people who it has harmed, the level of spiritual abuse, people who have left the church who have never gone back to the church. And I think that we need to even understand this, that while the United Methodist Church has decided to take a stance on LGBT clergy, it's not full-throated in terms of saying sex marriage. It just says that now, if your church wants to include same-sex marriage, you can do it. Why did this guy have such influence when he did this? Because of his statue. Because of his statue in the church. Because of the Duke thing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is an important, no, he is an important Methodist theologian. You could not take what he said, you know, not seriously. And the thing that bothered me, he said he wanted to be on the right side of God. And the problem with that, that if he wanted to be on the right side of God, you needed to see where God's people were. And that's the problem, that of church, that looks more towards doctrine and don't face the world. You know, Irene, stay with you for a second. I want to hear from him on this, is we talk, we've talked, if I had to pick a topic other than politics that we've talked most about through our 25 years in the radio, we talk about apologies and honest apologies, you have to determine what's a real apology as opposed to if I offended anybody, whichever I know is a phony kind of apology. Where are you on the apology thing? I read what Hayes said and obviously did a colossal amount of damage. So should he be forgiven? What do you, if it is heartfelt, I know you're, she's not on television, I wish she was. So the answer is no, his sin is such. Because listen, you even may have had good intentions, wasn't that the whole idea? But you got to be held accountable for the outcome and the outcome is devastating. Well, you know, how about you, well, I'm curious how you feel about apologies and forgiveness? Well, I think they're possible, but I think that there's a long route ahead for this person because the amount of massive hurt and destruction that has been caused, you know, from his work. It's a little too easy as he I believe is about to take the Dean position at Duke, whether again or whatnot. But it's too easy to pivot in a way where you're suggesting that you see clearly now and people should love you. The question is, what about the people who continue to feel unloved, traumatized because of what you did, yeah, thanks for listening to the best of Boston Public Radio podcasts from GBH. Our crew is Zoe Matthews, Aidan Conley, Nicole Garcia, Hannah Loss, our engineers, John the qua Parker, our executive producer is Jamie Bologna. You want to hear the full show download our full show podcast or tune into 89 7 GBH 11 to 2 each weekday. Today's episode was produced by Zoe Matthews.