Transcript
A (0:04)
You are listening to an art media podcast. Hi, it's Dan. This is a sneak peek from the members only edition of our show, Inside Call Me Back, where we pull back the curtain and have the conversations we typically have after the cameras stop rolling. This week, Amit was on the hot seat taking your questions. I hope you enjoyed this segment and if you want to get the full episode and support our mission at ARC Media, please become an Inside Call Me Back member by following the link in the description or by going to arkmedia.org that's arkmedia.org and to all our insiders, thank you. It's your support that keeps the lights on at ARC Media. Amit, welcome back to the Inside. It's been a minute.
B (1:00)
Thanks for having me again.
A (1:01)
Amit, I gotta tell you, I feel these days like I'm not the host of a podcast. I feel like I'm basically an info desk. I'm the recipient of a steady stream of WhatsApp messages, text messages, email messages and phone calls all asking me the same question, when is the US Military operation against Iran going to happen? The people who are mostly asking me this question are not asking me because they have any kind of geopolitical analysis that they need the precision of my timing prediction to input into their geopolitical analysis. The reason they're asking is all about logistics. These are people who are living in Israel who have to fly out of Israel but don't want to get stuck abroad if there's going to be a war and not be able to get back. Or they're people in the tech scene who are flying to Israel to do business and they are excited to go to Israel, but they can't afford to get stuck in Israel and not be able to get out for days if a war starts. So they would like me to know if the coming military operation will affect their travel plans. And I don't have an answer, Amit. So on behalf of the hundreds, and I literally mean hundreds, hundreds of people who have reached out to me, from acquaintances to friends to colleagues to close family, I ask you, Amit, would you travel in and out of Israel in
B (2:15)
the next few days? Okay. I am seriously about to print a T shirt with which I'm going to go tomorrow, the market in Jerusalem with the title I don't know when the attack is going to happen because that's the only way to skip the hundreds of people approaching to me.
A (2:34)
So you feel my pain. You feel my pain.
B (2:36)
Exactly. And I want to make it even more dramatic. I mean, there is a Difference. We can sit here for an hour and discuss the timing, and I might tell you that it's something between days and weeks, let's say. But then it's totally different than someone with a flight ticket or, or a hotel reservation telling you, listen, should I cancel, should I go there or not? Because then you are tested against your own predictions, which is very, very dangerous for a journalist. Not because people will mock you if you say that Trump is never going to attack Iran and then he's attacked. This is terrible. But even more terrible than that is if your parents in law count on you. I just speak hypothetically, of course. And now they're stuck in London and they're angry at you and your wife is mad at you. She doesn't have a babysitter. So to be honest, I would never recommend anyone to really give, you know, an assumption or to make a prediction to someone with tickets. While I still think that the attack is imminent, not within days, but within weeks and inevitable, I would question those, you know, waves of reports or reporting saying exactly the same. Simultaneously, 48 hours ago, it was, there were, you know, great negotiations with Iran, many concessions being made, and we are approaching an agreement, and all of a sudden now it's no, we are heading to a war. This war is inevitable. This looks like a spin to me. So my general assumption hasn't changed. There is going to be an attack, it's going to be massive, unprecedented in the scope of Iranian wars, and yet it is not a matter of, you know, hours or days.