Joint Jewish-Palestinian Israeli Protests, Gaza Death Toll, and the Return of Ran Gvili z"l

For the audio-only recording, click here.

Transcript:

Maytal Kowalski
Hey, Jon, How are you?

Jon Allen
I'm great. I'm in San Miguel di Allende in Mexico, more or less on holiday, but really happy to be talking to you about things going on in Israel and beyond.

Maytal Kowalski
You just had to, you just had to get that in to let us know that you're enjoying some sunshine right now.

Jon Allen
I did. I'm sorry. What can I say?

Maytal Kowalski
Fair enough. Fair enough. So let's jump right in and, like you said, Israel and beyond. So let's, let's start by doing that. Let's start kind of, you know, a little bit more pinpointed, and then we'll expand outwards. You know, the first thing I thought was really uplifting to see this past weekend was a joint protest between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel Arabs, Arab Israelis, Jewish Israelis on the streets of Tel Aviv coming together to protest about the rising crime rate in Arab towns, cities and villages, and how basically, Itamar benville, who we know as many things, but also as the Minister of National Security, has basically abandoned these communities. You know, for me, seeing this kind of be a topic that there have been protests in in Arab towns and villages for the past couple years, but this was the first time that we saw Jews and Arabs coming together to protest. I have a bunch of thoughts on this. I'm curious to hear. What did it make you think? What do you see of what do you see as some sort of opportunity here? Or is this the sign of something, something new and different happening? How much optimism Do you have around this?

Jon Allen
Well, I mean, you've pinpointed the key difference here, the fact that, for the first time, really, Arab Israelis, Jewish Israelis, have gotten together in a very serious, large protest about an issue that has been talked about for years. You know, for years, there has not been a sufficient funds in the Arab communities to deal with a lot of things. Obviously, they get less money for education, they get less money for housing, for infrastructure, but the issue of crime, gangs, killings, daily killings, where innocent people sometimes are the victims, people afraid to leave their homes. This is has been relatively new. I mean, relatively new, as you suggest, in the last two years where things have gotten out of control, and they've gotten out of control in large part, as you mentioned, because of the Minister of Public Security is happy to see these gangs operating, and for the Arab villages To be in the kind of disruption that they are, rather than sending the police there to assist, to help ensure that the rule of law and public safety is maintained, he's essentially done nothing, and that's Why the people were protesting. They need help, serious help, and and they've recognized that they're not getting it from the state. You know that one of the things a state is is called upon to do is to maintain public security. It's one of its most important goals. And that's not happening there. And it was, as you noted, particularly important, that Jews, Jewish Israelis, got together with Arab Israelis. You know, we've seen standing together, where Jews and Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis get together for a variety of reasons, but this wasn't just standing together. I'm sure they were there, but these were other Jewish Israelis who wanted to support their fellow citizens in a really on a really important issue.

Maytal Kowalski
Yeah, I agree. It was also really interesting to see that it was kind of as as you're hinting at, like it was Arab led, Palestinian led, and Jewish Israelis. And that's kind of been one of the critiques of the protest, is that it's kind of been largely Jewish Zionist. And it's like, hey, Arabs, if you want to come along, come along. But we're not really, necessarily going out of our way to make space. For you now that you're not welcome, but we're not going out of our way to make space for you. This was actually Jewish Israelis saying, it's your communities. It's your towns and villages. You tell us what you need from us, and we're going to show up in solidarity. And we saw it from from politicians as well. There's a really heartwarming video of member of Knesset you led khariv meeting with some Arab youth and having a conversation, you know, just kind of talking about as politicians should be doing, not just politicians from the left, but politicians should be doing. Tell us what's happening in your community. Tell us your concerns.

Maytal Kowalski
I also wanted to mention in that that I see this, and I'm curious your thoughts here, but I see this as a really interesting opportunity for the Israeli left to reclaim the Israeli political left, to reclaim the mantle of the party of safety and security, because that has been kind of, you know, the hardest thing, and what has caused the left to kind of disintegrate in Israel is the fact that, you know, after the Second Intifada, and then after, you know, the disengagement and all these different things, that the right has really been able to paint themselves as the party of security and the left are these like, you know, pie in the sky, peace loving hippies. They don't understand, you know, they don't understand our realities. Now, all of a sudden, we see the worst security failure in Israel's history happen under a right wing government, and we see an issue that's getting more and more attention. We see that it's the left showing up to say, how can we help safety and security in your in your community? Do you think there's an opportunity here?

Jon Allen
Well, it's interesting that the Democracy Party led, of course, by ear, golon, was the only party that participated in those protests. And of course, yet you're the

Maytal Kowalski
only, the only Jewish party that because the joint list participate.

Jon Allen
Yea, exactly, the only Jewish party, the joint list, of course, was there. And let's mention how important it is that the joint list is a joint list this year that will be so important in the upcoming election. But the fact that Democrat team, Democracy Party, led by law and was also there is significant. It's significant, as you say, because it's there, pushing for security within the country. But it's also significant because they are still the only party that has said publicly that they want to work with the joint list with Arab parties, who represent, of course, 20% of the vote. And most analysts would suggest that if the opposition to Bibi is going to win, they're going to need that the seats now, the largest number of seats that the joint list has ever got is 15. They got four or five in the last election, if they can get a significant number, and if the Democracy Party can get a significant number, and they're now pulling somewhere between nine and 15, I think 12, if they can boost that, then between them, they are going to be a significant block in the anti Bibi group. And I think it's, it's extremely important. I of course, would like Yair Lapid and Bennett and Eisenhower and Lieberman. Lieberman will, will never do it, but the others should be standing with the joint list the Arab Israelis. And perhaps we know they will afterwards, because they're going to need them, but they should be doing it now. So this, this protest, and who's participating in it is important for a variety of reasons, as you suggest, yeah,

Maytal Kowalski
and I think worth mentioning as well. You know, it's one of those things that I think a lot of folks in the diaspora are having their hard time, a hard time wrapping their heads around. Obviously, the Jewish establishment isn't too keen to promote protests, especially when they're joint Arab and Jewish. But we also know that from, you know, the extreme left seeing Zionists march with Palestinians is also not something that they really want to get behind. So this is something that while in the numbers, they have turned they turned out at least this past Saturday, they turned out similar numbers to what have some of the largest pro democracy protests. It seemed to me, at least to be a lot quieter in terms of the rhetoric. So I think that this is a place where the diaspora Jews that really care about this, I think that we should really also be showing our support and talking about this and promoting this, because this, this could really influence, as you said, it could influence a lot beyond just who's in the streets and how

Jon Allen
many, yeah, yeah. Let me just put in a plug for Standing Together and other groups who join together in Israel and who demonstrate the importance of coexistence within Israel. And one hopes that this will be a growing movement.

Maytal Kowalski
Ya, I agree. So let's switch to another topic now we, I think this past week or last week saw headlines that after over two years, the number, the death toll that the Hamas run Gaza Health Ministry had been long reporting, which is approximately 70,000 Palestinians dead in the past two plus years of fighting, which we have seen both the Israeli government and Hezbollah is across the diaspora and across the world. Vehemently deny. The IDF has now accepted those numbers, which I'll also mention, has always happened in past conflicts. The IDF always ultimately accepts the numbers that are being collected by the Gaza health ministry. What does this say to you? What is how are you? How are you feeling about you know, two years later, after this, you know, campaign to delegitimize these numbers and delegitimize, you know, the sanctity of life in Gaza. You know, a ceasefire comes into effect. People's attention is turned elsewhere, and all of a sudden, they quietly go, yeah, no, these are the right numbers.

Jon Allen
Well, I have a number of thoughts on it. One, as you suggested, I have spoken at a variety of venues where, where, when I mentioned that number, people would stand up and say, those are the gas and numbers. We don't believe them. How do you know? The second thing I would say is the 71,000 number is those that have been identified. They've all been identified as dead, and that's why the IDF and the Israeli government is accepting them. But there are 1000s of people still under the rubble. We don't know how many it could be 10,000 it could be more, so that number can go up Secondly, they seem to have suggested that two thirds are innocent civilians and that 1/3 were khamasniks were combatants. They also seem to have accepted that 20,000 of those innocent people, the two thirds were children. So we're now dealing with a very significant number of civilian deaths in a relatively short period of time, if you compare the number of civilian deaths that happened in Afghanistan, in Iraq, certainly in Ukraine, where the vast majority of deaths, there's a lot of deaths, over 2 million, but almost all of them are soldiers. They're combatants, and relatively few civilians. This is a very high number of deaths in a relatively short period of time. And the other thing that I would say is that this number appeared in Haaretz. It obviously appeared in in the Washington Post and in the New York Times, but it appeared in Haaretz in a story. It hardly made anything else in Israel.

Jon Allen
Yediot mentioned it. No other newspapers have have agreed to after criticizing the numbers all along, have even published it. So there are many Israelis who don't even know that Israel has agreed to this number, and unfortunately, probably many Israelis, given what they've been through, don't care, and don't care about how many, I don't know if the word is don't care, but don't have in their hearts the ability to care about what the number of children and other innocence that have been killed. So this is all part of what is going to happen when independent journalists are finally allowed in, the Supreme Court last week, once again, agreed to a two months delay based on security concerns by the IDF. There are hundreds of NGOs operating there. There's a ceasefire in place, and there's no reason in to my mind why independent journalists can come in, but they aren't. But when they come in and when they do their digging and when they report, then Israelis are going to begin to understand what happened in Gaza, perhaps better than now, and and some Israelis may may pay a price for that. We'll see. But the numbers are indeed, they've been shocking all along, and the fact that they've been finally agreed to, I think, is a good thing, and I would hope that those in the diaspora who disagreed with those figures will also agree that after 11 weeks of a siege and little food coming in even before that, or insufficient food coming in before that, that people were starving or were almost starving in Gaza, and that these also were not fake reports. That was a reality. So the truth comes out. It comes out after often, whether it was the Vietnam War or what happened in Afghanistan, but I'm glad it's finally coming out.

Maytal Kowalski
I was thinking the other day about the conference that we did two years ago, and you moderated a conversation with Rebecca Metzer, who, at the time worked for Gisha, which is an organization that deals with legal aid and legal issues for Gazans, their right of movement and legal rights in Gaza, really interesting organization. I remember Rebecca just being an incredible speaker, and I remember her, I'm going to try to pull up the clip and, you know, maybe send it out, or send out the YouTube link with when we when we share this as well, because I remember her sitting there, and it was, you know, maybe six months or not even six months after October 7, and just calmly explaining why these numbers are going to be not only accurate, but actually will probably be much higher, for the same reasons that you note bodies having been identified versus those still being, Those still under the rubble, etc, you know. And I think that it was really hard, to your point, it was really hard at the time for folks to accept it and hear it. And I think she was maybe one of the more controversial speakers in the room, but, you know, and I think you're kind of alluding to this too, trying to stick our heads in the sand and ignore it when it's when it's been, you know, like we saw with Rebecca. This has not been a secret. We have known this, just so many have tried to avoid it. And I just want to give just a special moment to reiterate something that you said so and let me clarify this. What you said, Israel has accepted that amongst that 71,000 20,000 were children. Israel has accepted that.

Jon Allen
I don't know if they've accepted that. The Gaza health ministry has said that 2/3 of those civilians dead. Israel says 1/3 two thirds. I don't know what Gaza health ministry is saying about the 71,000 but of the civilian deaths, 20,000 are children. Whether Israel is admitting that or not, I don't know, but if they're admitting that the numbers of the Gaza health ministry are right, I would hope they're not now trying to say that, no, it was only 10,000 children or 15,000 children that those are the numbers of generally accepted numbers, right? Yeah.

Maytal Kowalski
And I mean the depravity of saying only 10, you know, going only, you know. What is that only number that we would be okay with? I would only be okay with zero, quite frankly.

Jon Allen
Well, and going back to what you were saying about Rebecca, at the time, the Gaza health ministry was reporting 10,000 deaths. And at the time, I my wife, others were absolutely shocked by the fact that there were 10,000 deaths already in because you'd only had two or three months of war. The other thing I'll just say is that Gisha, whom you've mentioned, is strongly supported by the New Israel fund of Canada, one of our partners, and it's a it's a great organization, and it's one of the few, as you mentioned, that's fighting for the legal rights of Gazans, whether it's to get into Israel for hospital treatment, etc, etc,

Maytal Kowalski
yeah, and we'll link to them. Gisha is such an interesting organization, and often under the radar. So we're going to link to them as well. I know Rebecca is no longer working there, but the organization is definitely still around and doing work that is more important now than ever. So we'll link to them because it's worth people knowing a little bit more about who they are.

Jon Allen
I know we're going to start talking about Rafah, I think, and I imagine that one of the things Gisha is doing is trying to expand the number of Palestinians that are being allowed in and out of Rafah. And we can talk about that when you're ready.

Maytal Kowalski
Let's talk about that right now. Very good, very good segue. So this is going to be, I think, maybe a meatiest topic. So let's, let's devote a little bit more time to this, because we've seen a few things happen over the past couple of weeks. The biggest one, and we'll link as well to our statement about it. We saw the final hostage remains, the remains of Ran Gvili, z"l, who was a police officer who's thought to have been murdered on October 7 by Hamas. His was the last body in so being held in Gaza, in a lot of ways, that was being used as an excuse as to why we couldn't move to phase two of a ceasefire. He is his body has now been returned to Israel. We see we've talked about this push coming from the Trump administration to move to Phase Two. Like you mentioned, the Rafah border is now open, and let's just add to that. To make it even more complex, let's just add to that that we still see the Trump administration thrown around some threats in the direction of Iran. So we've got a Middle East that is somehow in a ceasefire and also perhaps in a lot of ways more volatile and insecure than ever. So what happens next? What are we going to see next?

Jon Allen
Well, concentrating first on Rafah,

Jon Allen
as you said, Prime Minister Netanyahu made the return of beauty a precondition. It really wasn't a precondition, but he made it a precondition, and that's fine. Body was returned, thankfully, and the he finally agreed to open the Rafah crossing, rather than opening it to both people movement and goods movement, ie, humanitarian assistance, he's opened it only to people movement that's People going out, many of them for medical aid abroad, there are 20,000 Gazans, according to the Gazan health ministry, who require either cancer treatment or operations, some medical treatment that they can't get within Gaza, given, Of course, the situation of medical care in Gaza, all, not all, many, many of the hospitals down. Much of the medicine not needed, much of the cancer care not available, etcetera, etcetera. So getting people out is, according to Israel, much easier. Israel has a less problem with people leaving. Obviously, 100,000 people have apparently left Gaza during the war, in addition to those that will begin leaving now, and there are people now returning. Those people returning are security checked by the Egyptians. Let's recall this is Rafah. Is the border between Egypt and Gaza. Both Egypt and Israel. Israel had taken control of the Gazan side. Egypt had control of the Egyptian side, so they were keeping the border closed and allegedly secure, preventing smuggling, etc. Now that it's open, we've got people coming back, not in the numbers that we would have hoped, very small numbers, 50 people, but people coming back and their security checked by the Egyptians and Europeans, who are at the Egyptian side, and then by Israelis coming in. So it's a good thing. It's not perfect. The humanitarian organizations had hoped that this would be used for humanitarian assistance, not yet. Maybe it will come and Witkoff and the Trump administration do seem intent on moving the second phase forward, and that is a positive thing, as long as they're in the picture and as long as they're putting pressure on Netanyahu and they're getting Turkey in. Egypt and Qatar to put pressure on Hamas, then this is a good thing. I think in Gaza, the most important thing to happen is getting the technocratic committee in there and beginning to work. And basically Hamas has said, once that technocratic committee is is in place and operating that they're prepared to begin disarming. That's what has to happen next in Gaza, as far as I'm concerned.

Jon Allen
Iran, yeah, if you want to talk about Iran, really

Jon Allen
another situation that you never would have predicted from the Trump administration. The Trump administration came in with a maga base that wanted no more foreign wars, wanted Trump to make America great again and concentrate on America, and frankly, forget about the rest of the world. Well, in some ways, he's forgot about the rest of the world because he's caught off USA, and he's, you know, essentially ignoring Africa, much of Latin America, except Cuba and Venezuela and Colombia. And now, however, after his foray in Venezuela in his failed attempt to grab Greenland, he has moved a significant it's not, it's not, perhaps, what he would need for a full offensive against Iran, but He has moved an armada of ships and planes and readiness to attack in Iran and he's claiming that he's either going to get a negotiation and agreement, Essentially, allegedly on nuclear, on ballistic missiles and on proxies, on stopping to aid proxies in exchange for not attacking. I would say in the in the region, Israel is not keen on an American attack unless it was a very significant attack. I mean, taking out Revolutionary Guard headquarters, taking our out the headquarters of the budgets, hitting the police and maybe, you know, getting home. But they're worried that if it's not super major, that Iran will do what it said it would do, which is attack America's allies in the region. And that would mean more ballistic missiles heading towards Israel. They don't Iran does not have much of a of a defense left after what Israel did in the last war. And it doesn't have much of an Air Force, but it definitely has rockets. And so they would attack Israel. They would attack a US bases. They might attack oil facilities, one doesn't know, but it would really begin to destabilize the region, and frankly, Iran did a fair bit of damage in Israel. The last time 1000 rockets, a few people were killed, a number were injured. But the damage to places like the hospital in the south and various other major facilities in Israel, whose names escape me right now, but there was serious damage done, and rebuilding is now taking place. So Israel doesn't particularly want this. The Saudis don't particularly want it. They were in the US. Their national security advisor was in the US the last couple of days, apparently, telling the US that they don't want it, telling right wing think tanks that they did want it. So who knows, but it's, it's, it's, it's dangerous, reporting this morning that the US hit a an Iranian drone that seemed to be approaching an American ship. So that's the first kinetic action in the region, and one really doesn't know what's going to happen. Let me just say that there was an important report the president of Slovakia. Slovakia is one of the two countries in the EU that has strongly supported the Trump administration. Administration, the other being Victor orbans hungry. There's a report out that the president of Slovakia met with Trump, and when he went back to speak to his EU colleague in Brussels and report on it, he reportedly told them that he was frightened by what he heard from Trump and and frightened about Trump's state of mind. He was seriously concerned about the way he was speaking and what he was saying. Now the president, I think, has since denied this, but four or five European diplomats are saying this is exactly what happened. And you really begin to wonder about the mental state of the man who could begin a war, a regional conflict, and that's, you know, it's scary enough when you've got a president who's making a decision, whom you feel is taking all the information in weighing it, and on that basis, is deciding what to do here. Iran is not currently a threat. Iran is has been sitting back. It's been a threat to its people, a serious threat to its people. It's not a threat to the region right now. Is Trump doing this to protect Iranian civilians? Is he doing this once again for the nuclear and the ballistic missiles? We don't know. But as I say, we are in danger of of conflict, and nobody knows how that conflict will end. Just worth mentioning final point, efforts to take out regimes in Yemen, in Iraq have not worked out terribly well. In Afghanistan, none of them have worked out terribly well. You don't know what you're going to be left with. And there doesn't seem to be a united Iranian opposition, either within Iran or outside Iran, and that itself is problematic. So wait and see with bated breath, right?

Maytal Kowalski
I wanted to actually the two questions that I wanted to ask you following up on that are kind of do touch on two things that you mentioned. So let's start with what you just mentioned in terms of taking out regimes. So that was something that was interesting to me when you said, you know, the Israelis would have no interest in a US attack unless it was something very major. But you know, so even if it is something major, and even if it's quote, unquote successful, what would happen next? Like you said, there is no unity in any sort of opposition or opposing force. So what would could you even like? Could you even try to predict or say, let's say there, there is such a major attack, what happens? What does the day after look like?

Jon Allen
It's really hard to say. Of course, the son of the Shah, who's in California and hasn't really been an actor in this until very recently, is saying that he would like to come back as a transitional figure and try and unite the country behind him. There are many people in Iran and outside Iran that don't support that, but he is the only figure that has stood up so far suggesting that he could play that role. But of course, it depends on how successful an attack is. Are you? The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is extremely powerful. It's not just an army. It controls much of the Iranian economy. They will fight to the death. The budgets will fight to the death. I don't know. I'm not, not expert enough to know whether an attack from the air, from ships, without actually getting boots on the ground, would be enough to eliminate these groups. So I'm really, you know, not able to predict what would happen, but you know, the hope would be that the bad guys would lose, and the way the good guys would somehow come out supported from the diaspora, as we've seen in in other places, sometimes Latvia, for example, Lithuania, where the diaspora. Came in and supported governments. But who knows?

Maytal Kowalski
And in fairness, I think that anyone who could say that they could confidently predict what is going to happen next or what would happen on the day after, is probably just blowing a lot of smoke. So it's not not just a matter of expertise. I think it would be hard for anyone to accurately predict that, but to ask you a final question which has to do exactly with your area of expertise, I'm really curious to hear from you. As a former diplomat, you know, we're talking about the Saudis. We're talking about Turkey and Egypt and Qatar, and the pressure that they're kind of trying to put simultaneously on the US administration and on Tehran to negotiate. Very unclear what a negotiation would look like at this point. And, and, and given that we're talking about actors who are,

Maytal Kowalski
you know, let's say dubious

Maytal Kowalski
diplomacy look like, how do you make those decisions in diplomacy, of like, who to engage with and when and what risks are taken when you're dealing with, you know, hostile actors, but who you need at the table to advance, you know, like is having someone at the table to advance one thing dangerous for what that may mean to their Power, for another thing going forward, and how is that managed? You know, specifically with amongst diplomats and negotiators.

Jon Allen
Well, let me say that, after having what I've just said about Donald Trump, he broke all the rules in bringing together the parties for the ceasefire. Nobody was ever supposed to deal with Hamas directly. He dealt with Hamas directly initially, and got a hostage release.

Jon Allen
Then he brought Turkey, Qatar and Egypt together. They aren't they aren't necessarily the best of friends. Qatar was not a great friend of Turkey, but they were all interested in the same thing, ie getting a ceasefire in Palestine. So they did come together. They had one thing in common, that Hamas leaders were both in Qatar and sometimes in Turkey. Obviously, Egypt had a good reason for wanting the ceasefire having this war on its border. So he brought these, these groups together, and then he did, frankly, what no other US president has been able to do, as forcefully. You know, George Bush 41 put pressure on on the Israeli Prime Ministers, Carter put some pressure on others have, but nobody has put the kind of pressure on Bibi that Trump did. And so he broke some rules in that regard by really putting the pressure on I don't know what he said, but it may have to do with the upcoming election. It may have to do with the $4 billion that Israel gets every year. It may have to do with other things that we don't know about, but he was able to get that ceasefire. So in many ways, he's kind of broken the rules and and gotten that Joe Biden was operating and was moving towards some of these things, but couldn't quite do it. He never could have talked to Hamas. He would have been demonized by the Republican Party, demonized by even conservative Jews, who normally vote for the Democrats. He couldn't have done that. He couldn't have worked with the Qataris, even though, of course, we now know that Bibi was working with the Qataris and millions, hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to them, but so But to your question, you know you you don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies. So it's inevitable that diplomats who are mediating inevitably will bring enemies together, and they will bring the Friends of enemies to put pressure on that enemy, on both sides, because there's their enemies to each other to try and make peace. And you know you saw this. Northern Ireland, and we've seen it in other places. None come to mind to me right now. But the other thing I would say is that we're in a bit of a new age, and you ask me, as a diplomat, we're in an age where the witkoffs of the world are talking to their counterparts in countries leaders are talking directly to leaders, the US ambassador in Israel, is not making these deals. He will carry them out. He will advocate for them. He will push he will be in touch with Kushner and Witkoff. But when Witkoff and Kushner want to come to Israel, they don't wait for a signal from the ambassador. He just prepares the way. So the role of ambassadors is, I would say, is, is somewhat less these days, when it's very easy for foreign ministers and Secretary of States just to pick up the phone and talk to each other. They're meeting constantly in the g7 in the g20 in g7 foreign minister meetings, etc. So yeah, there's lots of room for for hard work, but it's it's often being done at quite a high level of personal representatives of leaders, etc.

Maytal Kowalski
Interesting new world, in many ways, is what I'm hearing. Maybe some, maybe some, not, not quite for the best, but trying to keep some hope alive. Is there anything else we should talk about today, Jon, or could I let you go have a margarita and some tacos?

Jon Allen
I think we've talked about a lot, and I'm sure we'll be able to talk about a lot more. I'll give people a plug for a very interesting conversation on Israel dialogues this Friday at 12 o'clock. Aaron David Miller, who is one of the premier analysts of Israel US relations, and Asher Susser, who is a former head of one of the largest and best think tanks in Israel, and emeritus professor at Tel Aviv, u will be talking about us, Israel relations. So that's at Holy blossom, and it's called Israel dialogs. It starts at 12 on Friday. And if you want to hear two very intelligent people talking about what's happening, then tune in. If you can.

Maytal Kowalski
We will link to that as well in the in the email. So that's great to hear. I think you meant to say two other very intelligent people, because they've already listened to us, but

Jon Allen
yes, you're absolutely right.

Maytal Kowalski
And I actually didn't know about that, but that sounds like a fantastic conversation, so thanks for putting it on my radar as well. Okay, Jon, I'm going to let you get back to your vacation for the last the remaining few weeks that you've got in the sunshine, but thanks so much as always, for your time, and we'll talk again in a few weeks.

*This transcript has been automatically generated and lightly edited. Some grammar, spelling, and syntax errors may appear.