The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Inside Israel’s Secret Operation to Crush Hezbollah

Tudor Dixon (0:01)

Welcome to The Tudor Dixon Podcast. I have Justin Folk and Rotem Avny here to discuss their documentary that's covering this incredible Israeli intelligence operation called Paging Hezbollah. Their documentary explains how they managed to get those explosive pagers into the hands of Hezbollah terrorists who were planning more death and more destruction. The military op was years in the making and it required many IDF spies to live actually inside of Hezbollah's terror organization. This documentary comes on screen like a big box thriller, but this is real life, you guys. I mean, this is real. But I can't introduce this film to you without addressing the election last week. Before the election, there was a lot of talk about Israel. And a lot of people would say that that had a lot to do with the outcome. Everybody has a hot take on it now or a week out and everybody's like, this is what I think, this is what I think.

But I think that many Americans mistakenly believe that what happens in the Middle East is not our problem because we live so freely, Americans live so freely and so protected, that we don't always recognize there are dangers in the world and those dangers are dangers to us. We don't always vote to protect our freedoms because we take them for granted.

We don't recognize that there are cultures out there that promote violence.

We believe everyone thinks like we do. So I want to take you back to a really hard story, a hard reminder that not everybody thinks like we do. I want to remind you of a story from eight years ago, back in 2018, two 29-year-old American backpackers, Jay Austin and Lauren Gagan of Washington DC, they quit their jobs. They were going to prove to the world that everyone's kind. They decided to go on their dream cycling trip around the world. They were going to document it and they were documenting their journey on a blog called Simply Cycling. Their mission on this journey was rooted in the mistaken belief that human kindness exists everywhere, that it's just an inherent trait, that humans are always kind. They often wrote that the world as a whole is gentle. It's a welcoming place. And I get it because that's what we want to believe.

And too often, that's the side that leftist politicians sell you and they don't warn you about anything else. And sometimes it's hard to be on the side that says, hey, guys, there has to be an adult in the room. Sometimes it feels good to just not live suspicious, to not have to worry. But you have to have that adult in the room that makes sure that you're safe. Too many people think that danger is rare and mostly a myth.

And Lauren and Jay, well, they set out to show us that kindness is dominant worldwide.

So I want to tell you their story because it's a really sad one. They were misled by this idea of utopia.

They were misled because people don't do research on the truth, or maybe they refuse to accept that the history is past as fact. But Jay and Lauren, they went out on a mission to show the world that people are generally kind, and they were murdered by ISIS near the Afghan border. Why? Why? You probably want to know, why did they murder them? Just because they were there. That's evil. That's what happens. A car intentionally rammed into their group of international cyclists, but it didn't even stop there. Several men emerged from the vehicle and attacked the riders with knives, brutally murdered them. Does it sound familiar? Does it sound similar to October 7th, 2023, because I'm talking about 2018

If you didn't hear this story, something I doubt you'll forget anytime soon because I haven't forgotten it. Jay and Lauren had their whole lives ahead of them, and they lived by this idealistic belief that people are inherently good.

I want my kids to live by that. I want them to live by that, but be cautious because Jay and Lauren were murdered alongside two other cyclists from Switzerland and the Netherlands, and they didn't need to be. And ISIS bragged about it. They took responsibility for the ambush, and they bragged about it. Do you think they didn't know about their Simply Cycling blog? I'm sure they knew. I'm sure they knew, and they are that evil that they decided they would go after them and target them.

That's how they work. They do not want the world to think that everybody is accepting and loving because the rest of the world is not necessarily in that category. The Western world is unique. In the years since, the global cycling community has remembered the couple many times for their message of unity and trust, that message that they shared with the world of unity and trust. Here's the hard truth in that. That message is misplaced trust. They were murdered while trying to prove their message of unity, love and kindness.