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Blindfolded and Arrested on Assignment in Israel · Question Everything

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Robin Simeon, the executive producer of Question Everything.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: And usually I'm behind the scenes on these episodes, but today,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Brian and I have switched hats. I put down my
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: editing notebook and dusted off my recording gear so that
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I can tell you this story that came to me
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: from a very close friend. Just tell me your name.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: My name is Rob Dodge.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: What do my kids call you?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Uncle Rob. No.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, evil gay Uncle Rob? Yes.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Rob is a dog-loving politics wonk who knows more about
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: movies than anyone I've ever met and can tell you,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: or my kids, countless porny stories about the restaurant scene
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: in New York in the 90s. Hence his nickname. Rob
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and I met working in restaurants in New York over
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: 20 years ago. Rob's 72 and is super plugged in
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to what's happening in the East Village since he's lived
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: there for 30 years. He works at a sweet little
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Italian restaurant on Fifth Street and Avenue B. It's also
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a celebrity spot called Lavagna. A while ago, Rob was
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: telling me about these two young men, 20-somethingers, who started
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: hanging out at the restaurant.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: And because it really can, I immediately stereotyped them as,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: you know, Hampton's spoiled brass moving into the East Village.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Turned out they were the furthest thing from that. Once again,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: stereotyping is not a good thing. They would come in
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: every Friday night, and slowly but surely, after about a month,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: we all became friendly.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Of course they did. Everyone loves Rob. One of them
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: was really into politics. His name is Jeremy. Jeremy Lefredo.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: He's a reporter, actually.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I found out a lot about Jeremy, and we would,
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: you know, we would talk politics, okay? I strike up conversations.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: That's why I'm good at what I do.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Then, almost a year ago, Jeremy disappeared for a while.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Rob didn't know why, until one of Jeremy's buddies told
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Rob that he'd been in Gaza, reporting. Rob was like, Gaza?
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: What the fuck? He got into Gaza when it was,
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: no one was getting into Gaza. It reminded me of
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: John Reed in the movie Reds getting into Russia when
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: no one got into Russia in another time and place.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: He's definitely got balls.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: On the trailer of this truck is wheat flour for
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: the starving and besieged people of the Gaza Strip.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Rob sent me the video report that Jeremy made about
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the trip from March 2024. In it, Jeremy is reporting
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: at a border crossing into southern Gaza, where he is
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: embedded with a group of Israelis who are there to
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: physically block trucks filled with supplies, like food, water, and gas,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: from getting to the Palestinians in Gaza who need it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: The title of the video is, in quotes, Kill Them All.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: The quote referencing a young man, Hebrew-speaking, who appears early
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: in the video. There are two Hebrew-speaking men early in
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the video, but the second one, he is in a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: white baseball cap, half-smiling, smirking, talking into the microphone on
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: his earbuds. He's subtitled, they read, We Need to Be
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: United and Kill All of Them. As in, calling for
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the mass murder of Palestinians. That sentiment shows up again,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: three more times. One man saying Israel could erase them
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: in one second. Another saying, the Torah says, to destroy them.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: A young woman, maybe in her teens or older, speaking
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: in English says, kill them, I don't care. It turned
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: my stomach. The video shows families, kids, camping out at
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the border. Some in matching t-shirts, organized groups, singing, sitting
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: in those low, tailgate folding chairs. It's kind of a
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: wholesome family sinister vibe. A couple of young men drink
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: beer and one flashes a peace sign at the camera.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: A man gives pastries to IDF soldiers. Jeremy says there
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: are dozens there. Also, according to Jeremy's.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Report, As soon as the settlers show up for these crossings,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: the military, meant to secure the area, stands down. and
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: guides everyone to the border gates.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF, appear to be letting this
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: happen at the border. The Washington Post reported on a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: similar scene where the IDF allowed the blocking of aid.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: One of the groups that day, Zav9, were so good
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: at repeatedly blocking aid to Gaza that the Biden administration
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: ultimately sanctioned them. But at the time Rob had sent
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: me the video, these aid blocking missions were just starting
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: to be known. Again, this was last spring. I hadn't
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: seen any reporting like it, especially the views of the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: people in the video speaking so plainly and hatefully. That
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: one guy in the beginning with his creepy smile. Jeremy's
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: video racked up views online. Commenters expressed outrage and praised
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the reporting. I was outraged and amazed. It is a
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: reporting feat, being there in person and getting all these
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: people to talk to him. At the end of the video,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: when the IDF lets some of the people into Gaza,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: which is not supposed to happen, Jeremy goes with them.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Jeremy films one woman in an orange T-shirt and big
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: sun hat, fantasizing about her husband's plans to build new
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Israeli cities in Gaza.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: He loved the Gaza Strip.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: Would you live there?
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: By the beach? Oh, for sure.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: My friend Rob watched this and thought, How is this
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: story not breaking news?
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: I found it shocking and surprising that, you know, network,
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: and that means all network media, no one picked up
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: on this story. And he somewhat, you know, he moved
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: my position.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: You're saying he moved your position with that video?
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Yes, he got me to see, you know, I had
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: no idea that the Netanyahu government was allowing settlers in.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: to come and block aid going into these poor people
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: in Gaza. No one did. He was the first reporter
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: to cover this story, to my knowledge. And I thought
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: it was a very important story to get out there.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: And that's when I turned him on to you, because
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: I knew you were working on this new podcast. So
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: I thought you two should be hooked up.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: The place where Jeremy works, it's controversial, to say the least.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It's called the Gray Zone. Their tagline is, Independent News
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and Investigative Journalism on Empire. Their coverage is strident and
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: so hypercritical of U.S. foreign policy that it ends up
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: being pretty sympathetic to America's adversaries like Russia, Syria, China, Iran.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: In fact, the Gray Zone's founder, a journalist named Max Blumenthal,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: is constantly trying to punch away implications that the Gray
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Zone is paid for by Russia or Iran. He says
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: it's funded by Reader's. though Max has been a frequent
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: guest on Russian and Iranian state TV, and others at
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the Gray Zone have worked for those places. There's this
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: place called NewsGuard. It grades the dependability of various news sources.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Out of 100, it gives the Gray Zone 49.5, and
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a proceed with caution warning, saying that the Gray Zone
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: has sometimes advanced untrue conspiracies about Western interference in global
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: politics and used misleading headlines. Just to give you a
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: flavor of the gray zone and its founder, when NewsGuard
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: was rating the site, Max Blumenthal responded to them, quote,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Do you seriously expect us to grovel for approval from
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the same tentacle of the national security state and financial
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: oligarchy that has rated CNN as a highly credible news source?
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I asked Rob about the gray zone. Do you know
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: who he works for?
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: I've done a little digging. I know what the gray
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: zone is. I know it's controversial. The weight. The mainstream
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: media makes it sound as if it's completely funded by
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Iran and Russia. I brought that up to him.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Rob was not so concerned. I think because the gray
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: zone is saying it can do important work that traditional
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: big-name media can't do because it's too intertwined with corporate
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and government interests. And then the gray zone is delivering
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: on that promise with guerrilla-style reporting. I saw the appeal
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: of that and was interested in Jeremy, who... whatever the
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: gray zone was about, was still doing a really hard thing.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Going to a war zone. Getting not one, but many
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: tricky interviews. And exposing corruption at the Gaza border. I
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: brought Jeremy's story up at a Question Everything story meeting, wondering, essentially,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: how should we think about that daring story Jeremy did,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: in light of where he works? I was having one
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of those moments, maybe you can relate, you find some
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: story online, and it shocks you or makes you angry.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: And then you wonder about it. Who made it? Can
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: you trust it? In this case, because my friend knew
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the reporter who made the video, I had a chance
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: to really figure that out firsthand, to see if this
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: one story was solid. I scheduled an interview with Jeremy
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: back in June about that story of his, the aid
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: blocking story, but he had to cancel. I had to reschedule,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and then I stopped hearing from him. Until this past October,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: when I learned that Jeremy had gone back to Israel
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to do more reporting and while he was there, got
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: arrested and hadn't been let go. Jeremy Lefredo holds a
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: very particular title. He's the only American journalist to ever
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: be formally arrested by Israel. And yet what happened to
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: him just three months ago has barely caught the attention
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: of major American news. Maybe you haven't even heard about this.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: When my friend Rob heard about it, he was furious.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: This is an American journalist to an, and I'm air
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: quoting this, which you can't see, an ally that we
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: are sending billions of dollars to as They commit atrocities
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: to the poor Gazan people. And all he's doing is
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: trying to find out what's going on so he can
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: report on it. I was appalled.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: That's the story we have today. The story of a
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: 20-something reporter blindly feeling his way through truly dicey uncharted territory.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: With so many twists and turns that this is a
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: two-part series. Two episodes this week and then our next episode, too.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Today on Question Everything, from KCRW and Placement Theory, what
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: happened to my friend's friend, Jeremy Lafredo, who was arrested
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: in Israel for being a reporter? At least that's what
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: he thought at the time, though to be honest, it's
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: not exactly all that straightforward. And by the end of this, hopefully,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: we'll see, I'm still figuring it out, I'll get an
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: answer to my question of whether I should trust Jeremy
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: and the Gray Zones reporting. Stick around. The day he
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: got detained, Jeremy Lefredo was in a car in the
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: West Bank on his way to the city of Nablus.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: This was a little over three months ago in October.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: It was a scorching hot day and Jeremy was with
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: four other people. A human rights activist, a human rights
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: activist slash reporter, a photographer, and another reporter who was
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Palestinian and was driving the car. It might help to
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: picture the West Bank like this. There's a big area,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: it's called Area C, and that's under Israel's control. Then
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: there are like islands within Area C. One of them,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Area B, is jointly controlled by Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: And the other, Area A, where Nablus is, that's solely
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: controlled by the Palestinians. Israeli citizens aren't even allowed to
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: go to Area A, though Israeli security forces regularly conduct
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: raids there. which is part of why Jeremy wants to
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: go there, to see what resistance to Israel looks like
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: on the ground in the West Bank.
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: I was watching videos online, like every day, all the time,
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: of what a raid in the northern West Bank looks
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: like right now.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: What type of weapons are they using?
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: How much movement can people exercise while the raid is happening?
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: How violent do the resistance fighters, the Palestinians— get when
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: their village has the.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Army in it. You know, it's just like, I'm seeing
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: all these videos.
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: This is probably the first time that, you know, this
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: era where you can watch a raid from someone trapped
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: in a house from their cell phone video and they
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: can upload it to the internet and I can watch
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: what it's like.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: So I know what it's going to be like there.
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: And I'm definitely really nervous, but I'm with people in
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: the car with me that have been traveling in and
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: out of.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: These villages for a few years.
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: So I do feel more comfortable being with them and
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: being with the group than just being by myself.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: The person driving Hussein Al-Harini had just turned 30. Everyone
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: else is in their 20s. Jeremy's 28. He was riding
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: in the front passenger seat. In the back seat was
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the human rights activist Meir Gorodskoy. There's another woman, an
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Israeli photographer named Sophia, who asked me not to use
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: her last name, and a Russian-Israeli, who calls himself an
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: activist and reporter Andre. He goes by AndreX on Twitter.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Meir and Andre both work for many different human rights
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: advocacy organizations in the West Bank. Hussein's Palestinian. He lives
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: in Natwani, a small village in the southern West Bank,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: so he's allowed to move through the checkpoints into Palestinian-controlled territory.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: And Jeremy's an American citizen, so he's allowed to go there, too.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Jeremy believed the others in the backseat were playing a
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: slightly higher-stakes game than he and Hussein were, because they
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: are Israeli.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: And they're not technically allowed into Nablus.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: They'd been driving for four hours on a main highway
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that was gridlocked with traffic, so they'd turned off onto
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the crappier two-lane backroads. So far, Hussein, the one driving
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the car, had been asked to show his ID at
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: every checkpoint. They pulled into the city of Burin. about
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: 20 minutes from Nablus, when they arrived at what Jeremy
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: thinks is the last checkpoint of the trip, on the
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: border of Area B and Area C.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: Apparently our Palestinian driver drove a few feet further than
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: the army soldiers told him to drive when they told
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: him to slow down. And for that reason, they told
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: us to pull off to the side and hand over
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: our identification. And the Israeli soldier asks for all of
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: our IDs.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling at that moment?
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: I'm thinking I am way better off than everyone else
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: in this car. Like I really am thinking like I'm
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: nervous for them, but I know I'm American and I
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: know I'm allowed to go where I'm going. So worst
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: case scenario, he tells us to turn around because these
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: people are Israeli and he found out somehow or they
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: get in trouble and I'm fine.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: The soldiers are in no hurry. Maybe an hour or
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: so goes by.
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: We're eating, uh, You know, cucumbers. We got out of
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: the car a few times. There was fig trees next
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: to us. We grabbed figs and went back in the car.
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: We're talking.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: What were you talking about?
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: They are all pretty nervous because they are, like, actively
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: about to break the law. Yeah. So they're nervous.
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: They're talking about maybe we should just go back. No,
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: but we can't because they already have our passports.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Okay. What should I say if you ask me if
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I'm Israeli? Should I lie? Should I just say I'm Israeli?
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: So they're having these conversations over and over again. People
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: are deleting things off their phones, deleting pictures, deleting apps
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: off their cell phones, hiding their phones and taking out.
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: Maybe they have a second phone. They say that that's
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: their primary phone. The Palestinian driver, he was deleting things
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: off his phone. I'm kind of calm.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: I am looking behind me and wondering what's taking so long.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I should mention I've spoken to everyone in the car
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: that day for this story. And some remember the order
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: of events differently, but the details here reflect the summation
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of what I learned. An Israeli soldier with an assault
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: rifle came over to their car and asked for their phones.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Andre started recording the soldier on his phone. Jeremy describes him, Andre,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: as someone who doesn't mind yelling at a soldier.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Andre says, I'm not going to give you my phone.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: You cannot take my phone.
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: And the guy says, no, give me your phone right now.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Get out of the car.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: The soldier puts his hand in the door, opens the door,
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: grabs Andre, grabs Andre out of the car by like
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: his head and neck, puts him on the ground, points
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: his gun, his M16 or AR-15, I don't know what
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: it was, a long gun, like a rifle, in Andre's face.
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: Keeps it there for like maybe five seconds. Everyone's silent.
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: It's really scary. And then he takes it away. He
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: hits Andre once in the face with like an open
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: hand and then takes his phone and now he says,
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: now everyone get out of the car and give me
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: your phones.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I said, I'm an American. I don't understand.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: And he ended his sentence by saying, but you still
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: have to give me your cell phone. He told us
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: all to get out of the car and sit on
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: the dirt outside of the car. I'm like crisscross applesauce.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: We're all a few feet away from each other sitting
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: in dirt about 30 feet away from this checkpoint.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: And they went across the street. They made phone calls to, like,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: what presumably was, like, their superiors.
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: And one by one, they're asking us to come unlock
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: our phones. And we all said no. Andre asked me
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: if I was okay.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I said yes.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: And we get yelled at by three different soldiers saying
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: to stop talking. And, like, I would just, like, look
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: at the sun. Or, like, I would look at the soldiers.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: Or I would look at the ground.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: No matter where I looked, like I'd have a soldier
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: pointing at me saying like, what, do you have a problem?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: And I was like, I don't know. How do I
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: act like I have less of a problem? Like, where
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: do I look?
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: The Palestinian driver next to me, I don't know exactly
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: what's happening with him, but like he needed water or something.
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: And he was like getting very tired, weak. And they
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: were making fun of him saying that vitamin D is
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: good for you. Vitamin D is good for you.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Jeremy says one of the soldiers called Jeremy by his
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: last name.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Mr.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Lafredo, come here, he says. Jeremy asked what's happening.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: They took out maybe 20 or 30 feet of cloth
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: and they wrapped it tightly around my head, my eyes,
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: my ears, and part of my nose as a blindfold.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: They shackled my legs and they put my hands behind
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: my back and zip-tied my hands.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And I said, why are you doing this? And they said,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: because intelligence.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Jeremy doesn't know what that means, intelligence. The others are
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: being handcuffed and blindfolded too. One of them, Sophia, was
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: allowed to not have her face covered. Also, this is
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: one of the spots where the people in the car
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: remember the timing differently, whether they got shackled this early
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: in the ordeal or later. They were taken to a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: military building where they sat in a room together, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: then the two women were put in a car and
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: driven off. Jeremy and Andre got put in a different vehicle.
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: We're laying down in the back of a military truck.
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: There are soldiers in the car saying, do you love Israel?
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Do you love Israel? Just taunting us.
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: I've seen the army go into Palestinian villages, and when
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: they arrest someone, they arrest them like they blindfold them
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: with a white thing, they shackle them, and they handcuff them.
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: I've seen that done before, never to an American, never
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: to anyone who's not Palestinian.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Jeremy can't quite get a handle on what's happening. Journalists
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: are supposed to be treated as civilians during wartime, supposed
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to be protected. That's in the Geneva Conventions that Israel...
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: which touts itself as the only democracy in the Middle
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: East signed on to. And yet Israeli forces have been
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: arresting Palestinian reporters in record numbers. As of this week,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel had arrested
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: 72 Palestinian journalists and media workers. The number of Palestinian
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: journalists and media workers who have lost their lives covering
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: this war makes it one of the worst conflicts for journalists.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: 157 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the conflict. Again, that's from the Committee to Protect Journalists,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: which found that 11 journalists were directly targeted by Israeli forces.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: It classifies those as murders. And Al Jazeera's numbers are
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: more damning, citing 222 Palestinian journalists and media workers killed
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: as of December 26 in Gaza alone. And in 2022,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Israeli forces killed a Palestinian-American reporter, for Al Jazeera, Shireen
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Abu Akleh. She was covering a raid in the Jenin
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: refugee camp, a place where Jeremy's hoping to go. An
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Israeli soldier shot her in the head while she was
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: wearing a blue press vest. Jeremy is not totally naive
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: about the dangers, but he also knows the U.S. is
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Israel's ally. So why him? What's going on here? Blindfolded
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: in the back of the Humvee, Jeremy wondered if they
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: were being driven in circles, as a scare tactic. Eventually,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: they stopped and pulled him and Andre out of the vehicle.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: They unhandcuffed me and told me that I can take
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: off my blindfold. I was in a parking lot on
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: top of a mountain. I don't know where I was exactly,
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: but all I could see was a parking lot and
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: that everything else was lower than me.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: So Jeremy didn't know where he was and didn't know
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: what happened to Sophia, Meir, or Hussein. Before leaving on
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: this trip, he'd been checking in regularly with his dad
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: in New Jersey and his girlfriend in New York, telling
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: them that he was fine, downplaying his nervousness about the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: reporting he was doing. How long would it be before
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: they started to worry because he hadn't touched base? How
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: long would it take his editor back in New York
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to notice that he'd dropped out of contact? Did the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: soldiers believe he was a journalist? Had they seen his work? And,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: if they had, would that help him or hurt him?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: When he was 19, Jeremy went to Manhattan College in
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Riverdale in the Bronx, where he studied history before switching
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to journalism and international relations. In college, he worked at
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: a local paper called the Riverdale Press. Straight out of college,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: he landed his first full-time job.
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: I worked for, this is controversial here, and I understand
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: how people might look down on it, but I worked
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: for Russia Today, like RT.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: RT is Russia's state-run media channel and textbook propaganda, a
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: megaphone funded by the Russian government. It blurs real reporting
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: with conspiracies like Obama birtherism theories or stories managing to
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: blame Ukraine for making Russia invade it. The original RT
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: was English-speaking only, so deliberately in search of an English-speaking audience.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It has since expanded to 10 other languages. Where Jeremy worked,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: RT America, was a branch of RT proper during a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: window of time when Russian-funded media operated openly as Russian-funded
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: media in an office in D.C. For a stint, they
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: even acquired Capitol Hill press credentials. But RT America was
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: still RT, for us, by Russia. Some of Jeremy's former
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: professors were not thrilled about him working for RT. They
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: thought it wasn't a great place to start off a
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: career in journalism, but Jeremy still thought he could do
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: impactful work producing a TV show.
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: Covering international relations and U.S. domestic policy. And it was
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: nice because as a young person, I was able to
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: truly produce a new show at 21 years old.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: I picked the topics. I found the guests.
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: I booked the guests, the professors, the U.N. rapporteurs. And
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: it was lots of fun and Of course, it's funded
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: by Russia. But at the same time, you know, it's
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: American journalists. It's an American audience. And of course, they
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: want to, Russia wants to, you know, categorize and show
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: how corrupt US systems of power are and how bad
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: our military is. Of course, they want to use that
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: for propaganda.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: And I get that.
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: But at the same time, a lot of that is true.
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of corruption here. Our military is not
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: always great. And so If we are Americans telling Americans this,
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: I don't I didn't see the harm. I understand my
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: paychecks coming from the Russian state. And like that's not
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: of course, that's not great. But like I it's you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: becoming from, you know, Murdoch or become from Fox News and,
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: To each their own.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: RT America shut down in 2022 right after Russia invaded Ukraine.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: This was after it had been labeled a foreign agent
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: by the DOJ and had lost its Capitol Hill press credentials.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Jeremy was gone by then, but he had made some
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: industry connections at RT. And it was at RT where
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: he met his future editor and Grey Zone founder, Max Blumenthal. Max,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: who at one point had written for more traditional places
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: like The Nation and The New York Times, had been
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: a guest on the RT America show Jeremy worked on. So,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Years later, when Jeremy found himself out of a job,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: with RT on his resume, and looking for freelance work,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: he got a job at Max's online news site, The
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Grey Zone. Before Jeremy, back in 2014, Max had gone
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: to Gaza and reported on the conflict. This reporting is
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: all very critical of Israel. Jeremy is Jewish, and so
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: is Max, and one of Max's books Jeremy loved, about
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: on-the-ground reporting in Gaza, When October 7th happened in 2023,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: 27-year-old Jeremy thought truly he would love to go to Israel,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: try to do something similar to what Max might have done,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: report the conflict there in person, to try to tell
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: a story that shows Israel not as a victim, but
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: as a clear oppressor, a state committing war crimes that
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the U.S. is aiding, with Max as his editor back
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: in New York. Jeremy had never reported in a conflict
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: zone before, had no training, had never been to Israel.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Max told him about a few fixers in the West
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Bank and names of hotels, but that was about it.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But he was eager. And so barely a week after
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the October 7th attacks, Jeremy got on a plane to
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Tel Aviv. Going to Israel, how nervous were you?
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I wasn't that nervous. It sounds crazy. I don't even,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: I can't explain.
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: But there are, you know, dozens of reporters in every
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: war zone and every conflict zone you can think of
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: And it was easy for me to justify this because
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: it was like, I'm just another one. If they're all fine,
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: I'll be fine. I wasn't wrestling it.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: If anything, I was really excited.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Say more about that.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Excited.
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: By going there, I automatically, I feel like I was
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: doing something more important than I was doing before.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: So I was happy.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I've heard this before from war reporters. You're a part
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: of this small community of people seeing what's really happening
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: up close. It's thrilling. The adrenaline is addictive and obviously dangerous.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: But it's exponentially more dangerous for people who aren't experienced.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: And Jeremy definitely wasn't experienced. Jeremy says that on his
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: first night in Tel Aviv.
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: I was on the phone with my father and talking
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: to my dad on the phone, walking down the street.
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: And like a siren starts happening. And he says, what's that?
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: And I said, I don't know, I'm going to mute you.
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: I thought, like, a fire truck was coming. And I said,
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: truck's coming, I'm going to call you back. I hung
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: up on him, and it was a rocket siren. And
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: I looked, and I saw people running. And, like, I'm
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: looking around, everyone's going to the hotel lobby that I'm
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: staying at. And, like, in this hotel, it's just journalists
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: at this point and a few displaced families from southern Israel.
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: And we all go into a bomb shelter. And so
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: it was a lot to handle. I've been there for
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: maybe four hours.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: He's stressed out.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: Am I okay? Should I stay in this bomb shelter?
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: Should I go across the street? Can I go back outside?
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: And I text my editor, Max Blumenthal. I say, I'm
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: in a bomb shelter.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: There's rockets. He says, um, interview people. And I'm thinking,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I forgot. Like, I'm at work. Max is saying, like,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: you're fine. There's going to be bombs in Tel Aviv.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: You should report on it and start interviewing people. You know,
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: he's lived in Gaza for many years during wartime. And
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: so I'm, like, thinking, okay, I think I'm overreacting.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: And I need to get to work.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: That's the dynamic and workflow between Jeremy and Max. Jeremy
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: would have story ideas. Max would give guidance. Then Jeremy
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: would wrangle together a driver here, a translator there, and report.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Over the course of the year, Jeremy made six stories
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: from Israel and the West Bank. There's the one about
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Israeli dissidents and the danger they're in for speaking out
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: against the war. A story titled, Armenian Christians Under Siege
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: by Israel. about the small Armenian community in Jerusalem's old
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: city who were facing displacement. And that story my friend
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Rob sent me, though I'm more viral than the others,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: about that group of Israelis blocking aid trucks on the
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Gaza border. And then, a few days before he was detained,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Jeremy filed a quick story about the Iranian missile attacks
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: on October 1st, 2024. He loaded that story on Grayzone
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: on October 5th, 2024. Three days later, on his way
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: to Nablus, he got arrested. The story Jeremy was on
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: his way to Nablus to report was by far his
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: most dangerous. He made a plan.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: I wanted to interview the resistance fighters from Janine Brigade.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: I wanted to interview the Palestinian fighters. My phone was
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: filled with conversations with people who I did not know,
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: who were supposedly fixers in Janine, supposedly fixers in Nablus.
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: And I'm asking them, how can I meet Janine? These fighters,
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: they're very secretive. But, like, people have, journalists have spoken
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: to them. And it's valid journalist inquiry to, like, ask
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: these people questions.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: And I would love to do that.
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: You know, the Janine Brigade is an organized fighting group
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: in Janine that protects Janine and the Janine refugee camp
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: from the Israeli military.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: The Janine refugee camp was where Palestinian-American journalist Shirin Abu
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Akleh was shot and killed by the IDF in May 2022.
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: So if the Israeli military wants to come in and
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: shut off the water and tear up all the roads,
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: then the Janim Brigade might shoot at them, and then
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: there will be a firefight. So their whole goal is
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: to try to protect the village and the refugee camp
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: from the Israeli military. And that's what all these sort of,
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: they call themselves resistance groups, but Israel would say that
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: they're terrorists.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: You're really describing a year-long trajectory here. Going from like, oh,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I don't really know what I'll go see or what
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I'll go get. And I just wonder if it registered
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: for you that you're becoming a different kind of reporter,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: that your tolerance for risk-taking had gone up.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually have not thought about that until you
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: just said that just now. Yeah, no, you're entirely right.
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: Just like a month before I was there, there was
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: a raid happening. in Jenin, which is when all the
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: entrances to the Jenin refugee camp are closed.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Buildings are blown up. Buildings are raided. The water's shut off.
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: There's firefighting between Palestinian fighters and IDF soldiers. And I'm thinking, like,
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: the chances are really good that I'm going to be around, like,
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: live gunfire for the first time ever.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: From the mountaintop parking lot... Hours after he'd been taken
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: into custody, on his way to do that dangerous reporting
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: in the West Bank, Jeremy still didn't know what he
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: was being accused of or what had happened to Sophia
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: and Mayer, the two women reporters they were with.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Andre and I were put in a holding cell. This
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: is not a jail.
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: This is like a police military compound in the West Bank.
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: And all of the police officers and intelligence officers and
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: soldiers are wearing plain clothes.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Everybody's just in jeans and a t-shirt. You're in a room.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: You know, we're in a room, but like it has
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: like a, Like a jail gate and everything on it.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: Oh, bars?
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. Okay, windows? No windows.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: The soldiers ask Andre and Jeremy to hand over anything extra.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Standard issue contraband stuff. A necklace, a hat, shoelaces, belt.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: After a while, some soldiers open the gate and walk
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: them down a hallway when Jeremy says they were suddenly
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: reconnected with the others from their group.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: The two dual citizens from Israel, they're two girls.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: They're women. Please picture two women.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: They're walking down the hall with the soldiers.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: And, like, they seem to be, like, they're not having
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: the same type of time that we are having. And
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: maybe because it's two Israeli girls.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: They're having a better time?
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: No, they're having a better time. They don't have the
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: blindfolds on and they don't have a look of fear, like,
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: in their face. So I think they, at that point,
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: had figured out that, like, we're going to get let
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: go very soon.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: They walk to the second floor of the police station.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: And there, in the hallway.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: They've put a big sign or a flag against the wall.
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: It says, together we will win, which is like the
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: nationalistic war slogan right now in Israel.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: There's five police officers.
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: They told us to stand in front of like a militaristic,
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: nationalistic war slogan. I'm shackled and handcuffed in front of
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: a big, you know, wartime slogan flag. And they take
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: out their phones and they're taking photos with their cell
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: phones and laughing, telling us to smile, telling us to
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: stop smiling.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Yelling at us in Hebrew. Like, I don't understand them.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Just for fun.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: This is like a trophy photo.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly what I mean. It felt like a
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: trophy photo.
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: And I have all these soldiers and police officers taking
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: pictures on their phones and laughing.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: It's getting later, which is scary. It doesn't seem like
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: there's protocol. Like, there's no one. No one is keeping
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: checks and balances on anyone.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Was anyone in charge? Like, did you have a sense
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: just of the soldiers who were there? Oh, this guy,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: he's in charge.
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: There was one woman who was like maybe 45 years
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: old that I only saw for a few seconds that
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: night that would come out of an office and ask
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: them a question in Hebrew. And they would ask me
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: in English and I would tell them the answer. She said,
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: who's the American?
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: I said, me.
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: Kind of like, you know, it's so naive to think
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: like she's asking for who the American is because she
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: wants to let the American go.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, it's me. It's me. She said, okay.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: And then she walked away.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: This whole time, midday to late at night, Jeremy and
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Andre told me they had not been offered food or water.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Not even a phone call. Until finally, a police officer
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: comes and tells Andre, there's a lawyer on the line
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: for you. Andre steps out of the cell, he's gone
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: a little while, and he comes back.
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: He's gone for maybe 30 minutes, and then I see
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: the two girls, the Israeli girls, walking by my holding cell. And, like,
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: they have a guilty look on their face.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: They feel bad. Their heads are down. From my cell,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: I said, where are you guys going?
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: What's happening? And one of them looked up at me
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: for a second. Like, she did not make eye contact
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: and said, like, they're letting us go. It was the
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: guiltiest they're letting us go ever.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Within the next hour or so, Andre was let go, too.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: And that's when I got scared and my heart dropped.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Andre left, and with him, any possible chance. for Jeremy
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: to understand what the soldiers or anyone around him was
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: saying in Hebrew. Jeremy sat there, quietly, listening to occasional
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: chatter in a language he doesn't know. And then, Jeremy says,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: something surreal happened.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: I'm Jeremy Lofredo for the Gray Zone in Israel, where.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: Last night Iran fired over 200 ballistic missiles. I hear
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: from the office, the police office that's next to my
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: prison cell, my own voice.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: I hear them listening. to my video report on the
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Iranian missile attack.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: That story that he quickly published right before heading to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the West Bank.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: I hear them listening to it on their computer speakers.
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: And that's when it finally clicks for me that this
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: is not about trying to get into Nablus. This is
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: not about being with Israelis who are not allowed in
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: this part of the West Bank.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: This is about my journalism.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: What Jeremy reported that so pissed off the Israeli military.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: That's after the break. The story that got Jeremy arrested,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the one he says he heard wafting through the bars
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: of his holding cell at the police station, was the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: story he'd filed just a few days before his arrest
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: about rocket attacks from Iran. Jeremy was at a cafe
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: in Jerusalem when sirens went off. People started to panic.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: And when you look up, what do you see?
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: They look like shooting stars passing by. They're far enough
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: into the sky where it looks like a plane almost.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen anything like that with your own eyes?
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: No. I was really nervous.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Iran's missiles were fired at several targets, including an Air
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Force base and at intelligence headquarters, the Mossad, in Tel Aviv.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Israel said it shot down most of them.
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: I remember texting my editor saying, like, is this the
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: first time that Iran had sent missiles to Israel since
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: the start of the war? Like, how unprecedented is this? Like,
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure I know.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: What did Max say? He said this is the second time.
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: They did this one other time when Israel bombed an
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: Iranian type of diplomatic mission embassy in Syria. But this
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: was definitely the biggest, you know, quantity of missiles ever
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: sent by Iran, at least since October 7th.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Jeremy had been getting ready to go to Nablus, but
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: given the missile attacks, Max was thinking about a new assignment,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: a detour. By the next day, he started texting Jeremy reports. Specifically.
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: Some videos that people have gathered, just what is happening
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: in different parts of the country, the aftermath of the
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: missile attacks. He says, it is a really newsworthy story.
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: Like these rockets, I know that's not your plan. I
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: know that we really have no interest in reporting on that,
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: but it's newsworthy and you're there.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: As Mack said it, if an Iranian missile landed in
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Tel Aviv, that's an important story. Not just because Tel
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Aviv is a big, dense, cosmopolitan city, but because there
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: were some photos and videos already out saying that there
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: was a crater very close to Mossad headquarters.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: There was a PBS NewsHour report of a journalist. His
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: name's Nick Schifrin. He posted on his Twitter account the
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: video of him and he standing in front of a
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: crater in Tel Aviv the night of that night.
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: This is the impact site for one of those Iranian
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: ballistic missiles.
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: He shows the camera, the crater, and then he points
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: to a building behind him and says.
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: That white building back there about 1,500 feet behind me
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: is the headquarters of the spy agency, the Mossad.
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: So he says where the crater is, he shows it,
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: and he says how far it was from the Mossad headquarters.
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: So that's the only thing that I saw about there
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: being any craters in Tel Aviv, about them being near
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: the intelligence agency headquarters. So Max sent this video to me.
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: He said, apparently there's craters in Tel Aviv. And you
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: can't find anything anywhere except for this one PBS NewsHour
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: video in terms of the damage caused to Tel Aviv.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Jeremy and Max figured there had to be more out there,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: more evidence of the damage done. And what if the
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: gray zone could break that news? Try to show the
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: extent to which Israel was much more damaged by Iran, possibly,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: than anyone was saying. To them, it seemed like the
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: kind of thing the government would be covering up if
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: they could see the destruction up close. Maybe they could
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: report some new details that other outlets might be less
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: likely to publish because they are embarrassing to Israel. So
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Jeremy made his way to the spot where the reporter
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Nick Schifrin from PBS NewsHour broadcast in Tel Aviv.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: He says he was 2,000 feet from the Mossad headquarters.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: He said that in the video. So I'm finding the
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: neighborhood that the Mossad headquarters is in.
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: I think we're on the right street. It seems like
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: we're near this building that was in one of the
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: videos that you could see. There was a 2013 or
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: 2013 sign on the building, and now I'm driving, and
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: I'm seeing that building out of my window.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, you just recognize it.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking for it.
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: Tel Aviv is similar to Los Angeles or New York City,
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: where there's giant buildings of apartments or offices everywhere, public transportation,
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: cars everywhere, highways. And so that's why seeing a crater
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: in Tel Aviv was so incredibly interesting because in Tel Aviv,
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: in the Israeli media. Like, you're told that a target
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: that they missed was in Tel Aviv. But, like, that's
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: not really the story, is that there's a crater in
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: Tel Aviv. I get to the place where I think
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: the crater is, and I look around, and I don't
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: see anything out of the ordinary, and then I see
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: a car that is totally demolished with dirt caked in
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: to the entire vehicle. I'm thinking, that's not a car crash.
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: There was four or five entirely totaled vehicles with dirt
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: and giant concrete pieces the size of my torso scattered
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: around everywhere. All the vehicles are mangled. This is the
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: day after the missile attacks. Still, they haven't cleaned anything up.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: I'm looking around. There's dirt everywhere.
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: There's cars that look like they just came from, you know,
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: the front lines of a war right here.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: I'm looking around. I'm seeing all this dirt. And I think, oh, wait,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: this is where Nick Chivrin was standing from PBS NewsHour.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: I look behind me. Everything is the same as the video.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Except for one thing. The crater is no longer a crater.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: It's more of a mound of packed dirt. Jeremy thinks,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Mossad must have tried to hide the hole where the
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: crater was.
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: That's where this big pile of dirt is. They just
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: filled in the crater with dirt. And I'm also thinking,
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: why are there no other journalists here? This is a
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: giant story.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: What Jeremy is seeing, he feels like it confirms the
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: idea that something is being covered up. that there's something
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: big here that the Israeli government does not want anyone
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: to see.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: This is the day after. And like, it's just eerie
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: kind of. It's silent. I'm the only one there. Every
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: time a car, like I hear a car, I think
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: it's the police. I don't know why I'm the only
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: one there.
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: And I'm also, they say, 2,000 feet from the Mossad headquarters.
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: But it was just a A street that I drove
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: to with my taxi driver, like an Uber driver could
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: take me there. It was totally open to go to.
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: The street was not closed off. There was no signs,
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: no anything. A missile came from Iran, their biggest geopolitical enemy,
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: and landed in their biggest and most populated city. And
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: there's no journals here. And there's still all the destruction around.
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: Destroyed cars everywhere.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Debris everywhere. Nothing had been swept up even yet. But
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: the street is open. It's just emptied. So I started
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: to be worried. I'm thinking the police are going to
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: come yell at me. Something's about to happen.
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: It was like an interesting energy in this place because
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: it's just a giant story.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: To be the only one there was strange.
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: I got back and I told Max that I'd done
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: this and this and this and got videos of this
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: and this and this. And he said, cool, when can
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: we have it out by? I said, oh, you're expecting
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: me to, okay. So I said, okay, I'll edit it now.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I'll put it together.
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: I'll be done in a day or two, and then
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: I will finally get to go do what I've been
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: trying to report on, which is violence in the West Bank.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: So I go to my hotel, and I put it together.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: The scene unfolded. Destroyed vehicles, torn up asphalt, and a
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: massive crater, roughly 30 feet wide, recently filled in with dirt.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: It's night. The camera pans from an empty city street
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: lit up with streetlights to a white, maybe 10-story building,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: much wider than it is tall.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: That's the Mossad headquarters. The missile had hit less than
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: 1,000 feet from Mossad headquarters.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: In a graphic, an overhead Google map image with two
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: big red circles shows where the crater is at Mossad
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: headquarters with coordinates.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Given the proximity to what is considered one of the
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: world's most advanced intelligence agencies, it seemed clear that Israel
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: was taking extra precautions to conceal the exact impact location.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: For The Gray Zone, in Israel, Jeremy Lefredo.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: One thing to be aware of. In order to report
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: in Israel, reporters typically get something called a GPO, a
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: government press office card. They are recommended, not required. Jeremy
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: doesn't have that. He told me he meant to apply
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: for one, but that after October 7th, he had the
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: impression that it was harder than ever to get one.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: So he skipped it. Plus, he thought if he was
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: formally denied, it would raise a red flag or carry
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: some kind of penalty. Then he got used to not
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: having one and never applied. The government press office application
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: requires you to say who you work for, show contracts
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: with your employer, and is necessary to get a work visa.
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: And so if you have a government press office card,
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: you need to go through this Israeli military censor.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: The Israeli military censor is pretty much what it sounds like.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: It's a department of the IDF that requires journalists to
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: subject their reporting to military approval before publishing. The idea
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: is that during wartime there's sensitive information regarding national security
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: that could harm the country. The IDF has published a
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: list of topics that are off-limits to reporters. The list
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: includes things like weapons used by the IDF and stories
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: about people held hostage by Hamas and the exact location
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: of missile strikes and the extent of damage caused.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Right here are the censored coordinates.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Which Jeremy definitely did in his missile strike video. In fact,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: he makes a point of doing exactly what the censors
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: say are off-limits.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Finding the exact impact site was difficult. Israel's military censor
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: had barred the media from reporting the locations of the
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: missile strikes.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: So yeah, Jeremy was aware of the censors.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it truly was.
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: But when I made this report of trying to document
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: where missiles had fallen, I saw that PBS NewsHour and
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: Yannet and all these big mainstream media outlets organizations operating
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: inside of Israel were reporting exactly what I was reporting.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Now, you might notice a discrepancy here. In the report
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: he published, Jeremy is suggesting that no one has reported
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: on this because of the censors.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Israel's military censor had barred the media from reporting the
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: locations of the missile strikes.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: And that he and the Gray Zone are bringing you
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: the real, uncensored truth. Which may be good for the
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Gray Zone's branding, but it's not entirely the case. Because
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: here he's saying he was aware not just of that
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: PBS NewsHour report, but of other outlets in Israel reporting
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: the story too. Which, if they were reporting, presumably they'd
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: gotten approval from the censor. So you were like, I'm
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: going to go out and do the kind of reporting
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: that I do. And I feel like it's not that risky, basically,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: because I'm seeing it reported in other places. international sites.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Yes.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Had you run your other reporting through the military censors?
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: I've never gone through the military censor. This is the
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: first time I've ever published something in Israel while I
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: was still in Israel. I always go there and I
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: document things on my camera. And I never publish anything
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: while I'm there. And I come back to New York.
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: And that's when I put everything together. So this was
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: the first time that I was reporting in Israel and
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: putting it out in real time. I was moving fast
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: and willing to– I didn't take seriously the threat of
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: the state. I could never picture them actually doing anything
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: to me.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: For what?
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: I thought.
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: So I put out the video and I even like–
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: I thought to myself, how can I make this better?
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Than the video reports I had already seen on this.
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: I said, well, I could maybe overlay where I was
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: standing with Google maps and show, show the viewer or
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: the reader exactly where I was. And it is, it's
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: public information, the, the Mossad building that you can find
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: it on Google maps.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: How about we visualize that?
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: How about I put a circle where the missile landed
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: on top of Google maps so people can really see
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: where it landed.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: So I was, I was pushing the envelope. I just
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: was trying to make my video better.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: But now, sitting in his cell, it seemed bad.
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: Listening to that was scary. Before, I didn't have to
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: defend anything. I wasn't doing anything wrong. But now this video,
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: I don't know what they're going to say. They're going
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: to say something about it was not allowed to be said,
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: and I'm going to have to defend it.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: I yell at my cell, like, excuse me. And someone
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: finally comes, and I say, why am I still here?
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: And they say, oh, we have to ask. And then
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: finally the lady appears. I say, what's happening? Why am
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: I still here? What's going on?
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: She says, there's a different protocol for you because like
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: you're a journalist. I said, I, they were all journalists
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: as well.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: I don't understand.
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: She said, it's a different protocol. You will have your
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: interrogation or you'll talk to your lawyer very soon. So
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: I'm sitting in this holding cell. Maybe now it's midnight
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: and an officer comes down and says, your lawyer's on
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: the phone.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: I said, okay. So I went to this office and
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: I answered the phone.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Jeremy says he has no idea who this lawyer who
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: called him is. He doesn't even know her name, which
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: means we weren't able to confirm it beyond Jeremy's account.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: We have only his account for this whole stretch of
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: the story where he's being held alone. The police didn't
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: respond to our requests.
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: And the lawyer says, Mr. Lafredo, I want you to
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: be very honest with me. I want you to be
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: very clear.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: I said, well, excuse me? They said, what did you do?
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Israeli authorities believe Jeremy was possibly giving information to the
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: enemy during wartime. Jeremy tried to explain.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: It could be this video. She says, what do you
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: mean this video?
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Jeremy says he's in the middle of trying to explain
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: more about the video to his lawyer when the door
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: behind him opens and a soldier comes in, walks over
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: to the desk phone Jeremy's on.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: And? He ends up hitting the thing that makes the
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: phone hang up. So he hangs up the phone.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: What he managed to gather from that call. Jeremy wasn't
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: suspected of being a journalist who was too flagrant with
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: the military censors. Jeremy was suspected of espionage.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: And that the consequences are very grave, very serious.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: Did they say what the consequences were?
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Not at that moment, no.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: In the days to come, Jeremy would learn. If convicted
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: of aiding an enemy during wartime, the sentence could be
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: life in prison or the death penalty. We reached out
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: to Israeli Defense Forces, and in a statement they said
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: they did not use verbal or physical violence against Jeremy
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: or the others he was with, except to use, quote,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: reasonable force, to remove Andre from the vehicle when, they say,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: he refused to exit to let them search. They said
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: part of the reason they detained Jeremy and the people
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: he was traveling with was because the five of them
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: said they were journalists, but none of them presented a
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: government press office card. I'm Robin Simeon. On our next episode,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Thursday the 30th, we'll have the second part of our
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: story about Jeremy Lofredo and learn more about why Israel
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: chose to arrest him. This episode was produced by Zach St.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Louis and was edited by Joel Lovell. Our show is
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: made by host Brian Reed, producer Sophie Casis, and associate
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: producer Emily Moltaire. Jonathan Goldstein, Neil Drumming, and Jen Kinney
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: are contributing editors. Fact-checking by Annika Robbins and Maggie Duffy.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Sound design by Brendan Baker. Music by Matt McGinley. Our
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Gina Delvac, Tejal Ajmera,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: and Jennifer Farrow from Philadelphia and Brooklyn. We are thinking
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: about you, Los Angeles. Special thanks to Eviatar Rubin, Yael Evan-Orr,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Dan Efron, Miki Meek, and Laura Starczewski. Thanks for listening.