Pier Pressure

This episode of "Start Here" by ABC News, titled "Pier Pressure," delves into the complex geopolitical and humanitarian issues surrounding aid delivery to Gaza amid conflict and infrastructural challenges.

1. The floating pier, although a remarkable engineering feat, struggles with reliability due to weather conditions and its proximity to conflict zones.
2. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is intensifying, with significant portions of the population, particularly children, facing extreme food insecurity.
3. Political and military policies in Israel regarding conscription are undergoing significant changes, potentially impacting its social and political landscape.
4. The episode also touches on broader issues of LGBTQ rights in the US, reflecting on the progress made over the past two decades.
5. The challenges in delivering aid highlight the complexities of geopolitical conflicts and the direct impact on humanitarian efforts.

1: Gaza's Humanitarian Crisis

The chapter discusses the severe humanitarian issues in Gaza, including starvation risks and the dangers to UN aid operations amid the conflict. Martha Raddatz: "The risks... are becoming increasingly intolerable."

2: Floating Pier Operations

Focuses on the operational challenges and engineering aspects of the US-designed floating pier used to deliver aid to Gaza. Martha Raddatz: "It's like a massive lego set made of metal."

3: Political Shifts in Israel

Examines the implications of Israel's Supreme Court decision requiring ultra-orthodox to serve in the military, altering longstanding exemptions. Unknown: "The days of disavowing their responsibility are over."

4: Advances in LGBTQ Rights

Reflects on the historical and ongoing struggles for LGBTQ rights in the US, highlighting the 20-year anniversary of legal same-sex marriages in Massachusetts. Ryan Reynolds: "Families are much happier. Relationships are more stable."

1. Stay informed about global humanitarian issues to better understand their complexities.
2. Support credible NGOs working in conflict zones.
3. Advocate for political solutions that ensure safety and dignity for all communities affected by conflict.
4. Engage in dialogues about human rights advancements to foster inclusivity.
5. Educate others about the importance of stable and consistent humanitarian aid in conflict zones.

ABC’s Martha Raddatz tours the newly reopened “floating pier” off the Gaza coastline, as the United Nations considers pausing aid shipments. Israel’s highest court strikes down a rule that allows ultra-Orthodox Jewish men to avoid serving in the military. And 20 years after its legal beginnings, LGBTQ Americans contemplate the future of same-sex marriage.

People

Martha Raddatz, Ryan Reynolds

Content Warnings:

None

Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.

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Martha Raddatz
And we've now changed into body armor instead of life preservers.

Unknown
But is this pier trying to break apart beneath your feet? Our team got a waterfront tour. Meanwhile, Israel tells its citizens, religion no longer gets you out of the draft. We prefer to die and not to go to the army. Policy change could be a political nightmare for Benjamin Netanyahu. And this pride month, we're talking to the trailblazers.

Martha Raddatz
We really have a very boring life.

I don't think it's not that boring to us. Well, it's not boring to us.

Unknown
What we've learned 20 years after this country's first same sex marriages.

From ABC News, this is start here. I'm Brad milked.

There have been several new developments in the Middle east over the last 24 hours, perhaps none of them more important than this. As you know, humanitarians, humanitarian operations have repeatedly been in the crosshairs in Gaza, and the risks, frankly, are becoming increasingly intolerable. Yesterday, reports began circulating that the United nations is considering suspending aid to Gaza, shutting down its shipments of food and medicine, not because people there no longer need it, of course. A report yesterday said half a million are now at risk of famine, of starvation. More than 96% of Gazans are currently food insecure. Another report says 20,000 children in Gaza are now dead or missing from their families. No, the reason the UN might shut down their aid is because their own people cant be guaranteed safety. In recent days, UN warehouses have been caught in crossfires. Un run schools have been struck by Israel amid suspicions that theyre used by Hamas. And when its not israeli weapons, its armed gunmen on the ground holding up UN food trucks, taking supplies for themselves. Of course, what would make a difference here is more aid getting into Gaza in the first place and big changes by Israel and Hamas in how they operate? Well, there have been developments in several of these areas and weve got multiple correspondents standing by this morning. So were going to hit a couple stories back to back. Lets start with ABCs chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raditz, who just returned from the floating pier.

Remember that? Erected by the US military basically broke apart within days of being deployed. It's now back online. And Martha, you actually stood on this thing, right? Like what is it like out there and what's it like to get there?

Martha Raddatz
Well, first of all, you travel from a military base in Israel and you're on the water for about an hour in a military boat on pretty strong seas.

And suddenly what you see first is the destruction in Gaza. We were very close to Gaza.

So you go along the coast, along the shore and suddenly you see this floating pier, this floating dock out of nowhere as we pull up to the floating pier and we've now changed into body armor instead of light preservers. But you see some smaller boats around it, you see protection. You see military officers armed on that floating pier. And it was a bit smaller than I imagined and much, much closer to Gaza than you get a sense of. You're about 1200ft away. There are no american boots on the ground. They are not supposed to go on shore, but they get within about 50ft of shore.

Unknown
We have to stay on this trident pier. So you can imagine the trident pier is touching, touching the shoreline, but we don't touch the shoreline. We only stay on the.

Martha Raddatz
Everywhere you looked, you could see the destruction in Gaza. You could see smoke rising from Gaza and buildings that were just completely obliterated.

Unknown
Stay there until we get all clear.

Martha Raddatz
As soon as you step onto the pier from the boat, you are rocking and rolling. Oh, boy. And the swells were by no means as large as they've been in the last couple of months.

You can hear this incredible, incredible clanging sound. I think that surprised me more than anything. It's like a massive lego set made of metal. And all of these parts are banging into each other with every sea swell. You guys are unbelievable that you're out here all day. Unbelievable. I frankly had a hard time standing up sometimes because it was rocking and rolling so much. So you get a sense of how the pier broke apart.

Unknown
So right now we're watching the weather. It seems like it's bad right now. This is actually very good conditions.

We're watching the weather several days in advance and we will pull this pier before it takes that kind of damage again.

Martha Raddatz
They've closed down this pier three times. Now, first of all, it was because it broke apart and they had to repair it. And that was just about a week after they started moving trucks off of it. That was back in mid May. And then they decided on their own that they would remove parts of it so it wouldn't break apart. So they shut it down on their own twice after that. And basically they said, look, we've learned our lesson and we will take it apart if we think there are large sea swells.

We just don't want it breaking apart once again. But you can just feel it and hear it.

Unknown
What you're seeing here before you has never been done before. And what we're hearing, you hear the trident pier here, the clanking, the sea state, a little bit of sea state. That's some normal business with J lives.

Martha Raddatz
It is a marvel of engineering that you can do this, that you can have these massive trucks, semi trucks, roll up onto that floating pier from the ships. But you can see how things have gone wrong.

Unknown
But that's the thing, Martha. At one point, a correspondent was talking about trucks of aid on the pier and I was like, I think you mean truckloads worth of aid like these big pallets. And they were like, no, no, no. I mean trucks, Brad. Like trucks go on and off of this thing. How much aid is at stake here when you have to close up shop? Because it can conditions.

Martha Raddatz
There have only been 18 days where this has been operational. I think in the beginning, last March, the Pentagon said, look, we hope to provide as many as 2 million meals a day. That has not even remotely happened because it has been shut down so often. But when we arrived, we did see several huge trucks, and not just truck loads, but huge trucks drive onto that pier from one of those landing crafts that lines up with the end of the pier and go towards Gaza. Some of the aid is just sitting on the other side and has not been delivered yet. But as the american military will tell you, we try. We keep trying. They say they have delivered possibly 13 million meals to the other side of that floating pier. But it is not nearly, nearly as much as they thought they could deliver. And obviously not even touching how much they need in Gaza right now.

Unknown
Now we're delivering 800 pallets a day. That's several hundred metric tons every day crosses this pier into Gaza. So it's making a significant difference. But the system does have to answer to the sea and that's what we've done.

Martha Raddatz
I talked to several service members who were on the pier and some of them in the military base about this mission. And, you know, they'll always say, look, we just want to do what we can. But this was a 230 million pier. Any food, I suppose, is helpful, but it's not enough. And I think they know that very well.

Unknown
All right. Martha Raditz reporting from Israel and from the Mediterranean here. Thank you so much.

Martha Raddatz
You bet, Brad.

Unknown
Okay, so that's the situation just off the coast of Gaza. But back in Israel, there was a tectonic shift yesterday that could really affect the military and political situations there. Let's go to ABC's Matt Gutman, who's in Tel Aviv where he's been reporting on the IDF. Matt, what is happening here?

Unknown
Brad, this is a political, military, legal earthquake in Israel.

The Supreme Court ruled that all these ultra orthodox students whose full time job, whose vocation is to study religious texts all day, that they have to be conscripted into the military, that there are no exemptions, no exceptions.

Unknown
So you have all.

Unknown
And it's not like these exemptions are new. This has been in place since Israel's founding in 1948. It was part of a deal cut by Israel's founding father, David Ben Gurion. And the deal was that he would provide exemptions to these full time, ultra orthodox, highly religious students so that they would not have to serve in Israel's military like the rest of the jewish population. Men and women typically serve between two and three years, starting at the age of 18, and that's mandatory for them, but it hasn't been for the ultra orthodox.

Unknown
Wait, so just so I'm clear, you're saying not only are there, like, religious groups that have always been sacrosanct and, like, they don't get drafted into this compulsory military apparatus that Israel has, but they get paid to not be part of that apparatus. And a lot of their interests are defended by this military that they don't have to join.

Unknown
So for many years, for decades, in fact, Brad, they have said that they are serving by studying these religious texts, by going to Yeshiva, by praying for the state of Israel, and that they serve a critical purpose for the state.

Unknown
They want us to be to go to the israeli army for that. It means to us. They don't want us to be religious. Therefore, we prefer to die and not to go to the army.

Unknown
These are one issue parties, right? They care about maintaining, you know, a certain religious status in the state, about making the official observance of Sabbath part of the government, and, of course, ensuring that their young men get to study in these yeshivas instead of being conscripted.

Unknown
Does that cause resentment within Israel?

Unknown
There has been massive resentment against the ultra orthodox and against governments that have supported them by rank and file Israelis who not only pay taxes and don't get the stipends to study religious and biblical texts, but have to serve in the military. And not only do they have to do their conscription for men about three years at the age of 18, but then they have to come back for reserve duty year after year, sometimes for decades.

Unknown
We are at war. We need every soldier, and the days of disavowing their responsibility are over.

Unknown
So there is a massive amount of resentment. In fact, there are certain political parties that have been established simply to try to create more equality between secular Israel versus religious Israel. This is a major issue, and it's something that is a massive political liability for Netanyahu, because now that he can't provide them this cover of the exemptions where their young men are not forced to be conscripted in the military, it's the kind of thing that might cause them to bolt from Netanyahu's government.

Unknown
Even though it's not Netanyahu that made this decision. Right. It's the Supreme Court who said, no, this doesn't make any sense legally. But you're saying this could still have a political effect on Netanyahu.

Unknown
Yeah, because they have nothing left to stay for. Arguably, it might cause them to bolt his coalition, which is pretty fragile. Right. If one of these parties leaves, he doesn't have a ruling party. He loses the prime ministership, and he exposes himself to not only commissions of inquiry about the war, but other legal troubles he's in, including three criminal cases at this moment.

He's got to try to keep this coalition together. It's unclear what he's going to offer these ultra orthodox political parties, but they are probably not very happy right now. And, Brad, if it gets to the point where the government can't create a new law that perpetuates, or at least for the time being, keeps these exemptions going, meaning that these ultra orthodox students don't have to serve in the military and are not conscripted, then it will create some problems for Netanyahu in the long run.

Ryan Reynolds
Wow.

Unknown
And to hear you tell it, Matt, like, I think I understand now how this agreement back in the day was meant to preserve this, like, tiny group of religious students. It's now become this booming population. I think it's a million ultra orthodox in Israel. Tens of thousands of people's kids could end up getting drafted who were not expecting to. Huge moment in Israel. Matt Gutman, thanks for walking us through it.

Unknown
Thanks, Brad.

Unknown
Next up on start here, they said gay people getting married would ruin it for the heteros 20 years later. How's that working out the new findings after the break?

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Martha Raddatz
It's exhilarating. It's really. It's absolutely thrilling.

Unknown
We're gonna get married.

Unknown
I'm so happy. 20 years ago, the first same sex marriages were legally performed in the state of Massachusetts. Again, there were dire warnings at the time. A decade later, same sex marriages became legal nationwide. The Supreme Court recognized that the constitution guarantees marriage equality. And this morning, as we head into a historically busy three day stretch of supreme court decisions, we're going to be getting opinions today and Thursday and Friday. ABC senior Washington reporter Devin Dwyer, who covers the court, has been examining how that debate over marriage has evolved over time. Devin clearly a lot of challenges for LGBTQ Americans just in the last year. But you've been reporting on some gains as well. What can you tell us?

Ryan Reynolds
And this 20 year milestone, Brad, really has been a moment of optimism for LGBTQ families. You know, especially now, as they're looking at these new battles over transgender rights.

Unknown
The breakdown of the family is something that we cannot afford in this country.

Ryan Reynolds
Just 20 years ago, there were so many apocalyptic warnings being thrown about both in our political and social spheres and intense debate over marriage.

Unknown
The children of America have the right to have a mother and a father.

Ryan Reynolds
Barely a quarter of Americans 20 years ago supported same sex marriage rights. Now it's north of 70%, and many people don't even think twice. These families are now interwoven into the tabloids of american society.

And, in fact, theres some new research now that is backing up the findings and benefits of that social shift 20 years ago. The RAND Corporation, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, very well regarded research organization, has conducted the most comprehensive and extensive analysis of the impact of same sex marriage ever performed to date.

Benjamin Carney
Across 96 studies. We found no negative consequences whatsoever.

Ryan Reynolds
I talked to Benjamin Carney. He's a UCLA psychology professor who was on this team of researchers. He told me they undertook this report, Brad, because this is no longer a guessing game. There's concrete scientific evidence now about the impacts that this change had.

Benjamin Carney
Benefits to the mental health of same sex couples, to the economic wellbeing of same sex couples who are more likely to apply for mortgages and make more money in their household income income. The children of same sex couples did better when their parents were allowed to marry than when their parents were forbidden from marrying.

Ryan Reynolds
Families are much happier. Relationships are more stable.

Discrimination against LGBTQ people has declined in a lot of cases because of the normalization and legalization of these marriage rights.

Benjamin Carney
Rates of hate crimes, rates of STD's went down for same sex couples and for lgbt individuals.

Ryan Reynolds
And he said that there was absolutely no evidence that it had a negative impact on anybody, especially different sex couples.

Benjamin Carney
In the years immediately subsequent to a state legalizing marriage for same sex couples, there was a slight rise in marriage rates for different sex couples.

Ryan Reynolds
But he says, for now, the science says same sex marriage in the United States, which was legalized nationwide in 2015, but those marriages have been performed since 2004 or 20 years ago.

It's been a positive development.

Unknown
And, Devin, I remember having this conversation with friends and family and people in my community 20 years ago, and you'd hear people say, like, why do they have to call it marriage. That's fine to be committed, but why does it have to be the same? We're not the same. These are people who largely have changed their minds completely. There are exceptions. But you spoke to people who were actually married under these initial state level laws.

Seeing this up close and then with 20 years in the rearview mirror, I mean, how do they look at how this debate and how it's evolved?

Ryan Reynolds
Well, we went to ground zero, where the first legal same sex marriages were performed in the United States. That's in the state of Massachusetts, Brad.

Martha Raddatz
By the time the day is through, hundreds of couples will have applied for a marriage license here, greeted by nearly as many supporters.

Ryan Reynolds
2004. This debate was raging. It was the height of the presidential campaign at the time.

Unknown
Our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America.

Ryan Reynolds
And there were Maureen Brodoff and Ellen Wade of Newton, Massachusetts.

Martha Raddatz
In Massachusetts, it turned into a battle. We are equal.

Almost a constant demonstration and lobbying and very intensive effort at the statehouse.

Unknown
I believe we should preserve that which has endured over thousands of years.

Martha Raddatz
And Mitt Romney was the governor at the time, was very opposed.

Ryan Reynolds
They had already been together for almost 20 years, met in law school. Their commitment really grew into this deep love. Did you feel urgency to say your vows that day, that first possible day?

Martha Raddatz
Oh, we were. I mean, that day was such a historic day, and we definitely wanted to.

Benjamin Carney
Be part of it.

Martha Raddatz
What had changed personally was the ability of our friends and our family to celebrate that relationship with us, which was on that day, was just incredibly moving.

Ryan Reynolds
And here they are, in the words of Ellen Wade, living a pretty boring life. What's the secret?

Martha Raddatz
I think we kind of try to take each other as we are and accept what we can't change.

Ryan Reynolds
They have a daughter now, Kate, who is a professor, and she is doing well.

But they say that this example, this fact, this 20 years looking back almost 50 years for them in a committed relationship with each other, that gives them hope as they look ahead to these other fights that you were talking about when it comes to LGBTQ rights, specifically in the area of trans issues.

Unknown
Well, and I'm curious, Devin, we have seen so much hate recently directed at LGBTQ Americans. Right? We've seen pride flags torn down. We've seen assaults. Right. And yet the same sex marriage part of it has not necessarily been the first thing on a lot of these assailants minds. Right. So I guess I'm wondering where LGBTQ people feel like the next debates are and which ones, I guess, are settled to them. Like, is same sex marriage, something that seems like a permanent right now or something that could be rolled back as attitudes change once again?

Ryan Reynolds
Well, the Supreme Court extended marriage rights nationwide in 2015, but there's still a little bit of unease about how rock solid that right is. I mean, in the wake of the Dobbs decision over turning Roe versus Wade, there's concern that this could happen to the marriage rights, as well. I mean, the Obergefell decision was one of the ones that Justice Clarence Thomas said should be reconsidered. Should those constitutional rights be revisited, do you think?

Martha Raddatz
No. And I think there's a lot of hysteria about Justice Thomas dissent.

Ryan Reynolds
I talked to a leading analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative arm that's planning a blueprint for a second Trump term agenda, and I don't think any.

Martha Raddatz
Conservative scholars are calling for that. Precedent is precedent for a reason.

Ryan Reynolds
And Sarah partial Perry says rescinding marriage rights isn't on the table.

Kelly Robinson
It is within the ability of the Supreme Court in a single day to. To roll back our rights over the last 20 years, 40 years, 50 years. Right.

Ryan Reynolds
But that's no solace for advocates like Kelly Robinson, the human rights campaign president, who says lgbtq people have their eyes wide open, and they're very aware that any of these rights can go away at any time.

Kelly Robinson
And this year, you know, I'm actually celebrating my fourth wedding anniversary with my wife. And I'm very clear that if I look back ten years ago, 15 years ago, our life just is not possible without some of these landmark decisions and even more so without the movement of people that showed up for equality and showed up for progress.

Ryan Reynolds
So there's a little bit of cautious optimism about the future of marriage rights for LGBTQ people. But the real fights right now, Brad, you touched on them, are in the area of transgender rights.

Martha Raddatz
Trans menace teenagers, children. They're not capable of making life altering decisions.

Ryan Reynolds
Gender affirming care for minors. Can transgender athletes, student athletes participate in those sports benefits for transgender people in the military and public service on university campuses? That's really where the flashpoint is now.

Martha Raddatz
Backtracking on rights for trans people. The backtracking on the book burning, it signals a lot of intolerance.

Ryan Reynolds
But what's giving so many of those activists and families hope pushing for those rights is looking at the case of the marriage fight. It was intense. It was ugly. It was politicized at the time. But here we are 20 years later, and you talk to Maureen Brodoff and Ellen Wade, and they say they are so happy now with how much change has happened and they say people in their community need to have hope that it can happen on all these other issues as well.

Martha Raddatz
If you know families like us, your opinions are more likely to change. We really have a very boring life, I don't think. Well, it's not that boring to us. It's not boring to us yet.

Unknown
Really excellent reporting here and worth just sort of remembering this historical context. 20 years is both not a lot of time, but also enough time for us to see how attitudes can change. All right, Devin Dwyer, thank you so much.

Ryan Reynolds
Thanks, Brad.

Unknown
Okay, one more quick break. When we come back, the hungry, hungry caterpillar became a tired, tired butterfly. One last thing is next.

And one last thing. I have always marveled at migration. Animals that instinctively travel great distances where they know, sight unseen, that food and sunshine will be waiting for them. Like my hometown in California is famous for the annual return of the swallows, which somehow fly thousands of miles from South America back to specific communities they know.

Caribou trek across entire continents. Humpback whales slowly swim 5000 miles to their breeding grounds.

But never did we think that a single butterfly would be capable of this.

Jason Biddle
This is one of the longest recorded flights, or journeys for individual insects.

Unknown
This is Jason Biddle, who writes for our partners at National Geographic, describing a new paper that just came out in the journal Nature Communications about the painted lady butterfly.

Jason Biddle
If you want to close your eyes and imagine them, they have colorations and markings that are very tigerish. So they're like black and orange and brownish, and they're, like stripey.

Unknown
He says. A decade ago, the scientist named Gerard Tavelara had a conundrum. He had heard of these sightings of painted lady butterflies in South America, specifically along the coastlines of French Guiana. Just one problem.

Jason Biddle
Of all the places that painted ladies exist, South America is actually not one of the places where they are native.

Unknown
So Tavolaro went there, and he spent days scouring these beaches where people had allegedly been spotting them. Nothing. Until he sees something hopping around over the sand, and he looks closer, and.

Jason Biddle
He pulls out his neck, and sure enough, it's a painted lady.

Unknown
The question, of course, is, how did they get there? Well, that took a decade and several experiments to answer.

Painted ladies flourish in several continents, including North America. So you might think, boom, they just migrate down like the birds, case closed. But genetic testing showed these butterflies weren't related to their north american cousins. So then they tried testing the pollen on insects wings to figure out which plants that pollen might have come from.

Jason Biddle
Two of these species of plant only flower at the end of the rainy season in Africa, which was sort of like a smoking gun.

Unknown
That's right. The proof was in the pollen. Further testing showed they actually probably passed through Africa from Europe. So the current theory is that these butterflies travel across continents and even oceans.

Jason Biddle
So they hatch in western Europe, they migrate down to western Africa, and then the wind blows and they get caught up in it and they travel the whole way across the Atlantic.

Unknown
If this is true, that would represent a migration of more than 4000 miles in less than a month. Now, some butterflies, like the monarch, do these long journeys, but a, over land and b, over several generations, they fly, they give birth, then their young carry on without them. We have never seen a single butterfly cover this type of distance.

Jason Biddle
They died on that beach. They were kind of gasping for life. Their wings were tattered. They had no energy left. But they made it.

Unknown
Jason says this raises new questions, not just about butterflies, but insects in general. After all, if we're just learning about one of the world's greatest migrations this year, how many others have we been missing?

Jason Biddle
We can't just put a gps tracker on a painted lady Butterfly. They're too small.

And that technology has not gotten that small yet.

Unknown
This, he says, is just one more reason to believe that there are more incredible journeys to discover. Or we're just waiting to hitch a ride and learn about them.

I was once reading a book about butterflies. Cause I'm not a nerd. I was just reading a book about butterflies, and I heard about this south american guy, didn't speak a lot of English, who called them flutterbys. Well, that sounds like a way more appropriate word. I'm gonna start saying that. Hey, big day at the Supreme Court about to get underway, so keep your antenna on ABC all day. I'm Brad Milke. I'll see you tomorrow.

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