Explaining Israel-Hamas war, mayoral candidate talks race, franchisee helping children, and more on Houston Newsmakers

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Middle East and public policy experts share details about the Israel-Hamas war and the history of this conflict.

• Mama Garcia shares more about her efforts to run for Houston mayor.

• The Dave Thomas Foundation is trying to find loving adoptive homes for children.

Watch Houston Newsmakers on KPRC 2 and KPRC 2+ at 10 a.m.

Israel-Hamas War

Thousands are dead and many more thousands have been injured in Israel and Gaza after a Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7. The response from Israel has been forceful with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising to wipe out Hamas. David Satterfield is a former United States ambassador to Lebanon and Turkey and is now Director of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. He has negotiated will all parties in that region and says the Hamas attack sets a new low bar.

“More jews killed, murdered in a single day since the end of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany,” Satterfield said. “More Israeli civilians dead in a single event since the founding of the state.”

The terrorist attack by Hamas is the latest in what has been a decades long conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Emran El-Badawi is the Director of Middle East Studies at the University of Houston and says young people will have to be the ones to change the reality of the region.

“If we are going to merely copy the older generation, the older generations of Jews and Arabs and Muslims and Christians, if we’re going to do that, we’re going to be in conflict forever,” he said. “This is why we’re here. It’s 2023, and it is embarrassing that the longest running conflict and occupation in modern history is still here.”

See more background on what has led to years of conflict in the Middle East and the prospects for establishing peace on this week’s Houston Newsmakers with Khambrel Marshall.

“Mama” Garcia says she is not delusional about chances to win mayor race

Her name is Annie Garcia, ad she’s also known as “Mama.” She’s in the race to be Houston mayor. The latest poll from the Hobby School of Public Affairs shows she has no chance as she and 11 other candidates are receiving less than .04% of votes. She says she understands the odds but being in the race may be a chance to influence whoever makes the runoff and ultimately wins. Her main priority has been education and says while the mayor does not have direct responsibility for the Houston Independent School District, there are efforts the mayor can take to make a difference.

“The mayor could expand parks and recreation, which is already and amazing resource in the city and going from just offering Summer camp (to) doing Summer tutorials,” she said. “We could be working to get the state out of our schools a lot faster with a mayor who saw a path for that and didn’t just say, this is not my problem.” See her full interview on Houston Newsmakers with Khambrel Marshall.

Below is the latest poll of likely voters for mayor released on October 10th:

Wendy’s franchise owner promotes importance of adoption through Dave Thomas Foundation

Ricki Oberoi owns 46 Wendy’s restaurants. He says he’s building four more to make it an even 50. That’s impressive but not as impressive as his commitment to raising awareness and money to help children find adoptive families.

“To date we’ve raised over 300 million dollars just in adoption funds, so we provide a lot of support to adoption,” he said. “Here in Houston, we have three centers (including) Dave’s Wonderful Kids who are looking for forever homes for children.”

Oberoi says all of his restaurants are trying to raise awareness about some of the awful realties for some children.

“There are 120,000 children looking for forever homes. We’ve got about another 80,000 that are going to age out who are 18 years old,” Oberoi said. “Suddenly, foster care ends, and they literally become homeless on their 18th birthday.”

Find out how you can help on this week’s program and on the link in the section below.

For more information on this week’s Houston Newsmakers

· The Honorable David Satterfield, Director, Baker Institute for Public Policy

· Website: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/expert/david-m-satterfield

· Emran El-Badawi, Ph.D. Director, UH Middle Eastern Studies Program

· Website: https://www.uh.edu/class/mcl/faculty/el-badawi_e/index

· Annie “Mama” Garcia, Candidate for Houston Mayor

· Website: https://mamaformayor.com/

· Ricki Oberoi, Wendy’s Franchisee

· Website: https://www.davethomasfoundation.org/our-programs/wendys-wonderful-kids/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI15jB1YjxgQMVwkd_AB1qmwmnEAAYASABEgLdVfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds