Kind: captions
Language: en
I just don't understand what is the
historical relation between the US and
Israel that has brought us together so
closely is it just that it's the only
democracy uh western style democracy in
the Middle
East well that is certainly what a lot
of people say um that it's the the only
democracy in the region and so we have
to support them um there's I've heard
people make arguments that we have a lot
of common enemies and therefore that's
why we have to support them um I've
heard people make arguments that you
know there's uh they're a good trading
partner and uh we you know our
militaries help each other and things
like that again I just think um I think
all of these arguments are very very
flawed um and that's not out of any like
hatred of Israel as a country or
certainly of a hatred of Jewish people
or anything like that but I do just
think that there's the I think all of
those arguments are wrong I think
essentially Israel is not a democracy um
they they you kind of I mean they are a
democracy inside Israel proper um
however you know they've had control of
Gaza and the West Bank since
1967 and none of those people have any
voting rights or any rights what
whatsoever for that matter and I just
don't think you know I mean maybe you
could get away with that for like a few
years after a war you occupy an area and
then turn it over to them being
independent but if you've kept an area
totally controlled for you know since
1967 and none of those people have any
voting rights at
all I I don't know how you can consider
yourself a true democracy I think the
the term apartheid state makes a lot
more
sense okay and do you believe the
narrative that Israel does not want to
be controlling that area they would
rather be hands off I know I think it
was back in 2005 they withdrew and it's
like hey cool you guys do your thing
we're just protecting the Border does
that narrative just ring completely
false yeah I mean you know like I think
if you don't want to be occupying an
area then you know well they're sure
going about it all wrong if they really
don't want be occupying that area and
you know the the pull out in in 2005 is
totally
um let's just say what actually happened
there is much different than the way
it's spun by a lot of pro-israeli people
and it is true that they ended the
military occupation and they um and they
ended the settlements in Gaza there
something I I'd have to double check the
numbers on this but if you go check it's
something like 8,000 people uh that they
pulled out of those settlements and then
in the next year they put like 15,000 in
the West Bank and they then you you can
read about this in their own writing
where they essentially said that they
were like well the whole you know the
whole purpose of this is to freeze the
peace process because now we can say hey
look we gave them their own State here
in Gaza and this way we can keep
building up in the West Bank it's if you
if you uh go go uh search um smotrich
Google smotrich and um for Malahide as
he said what we're doing here is
essentially putting the peace process in
for Malahide and yes it's true that
since 2005 Israel has not technically
militarily occupied Gaza as they had
from 1967 to 2005 as they do from 1967
to this day in the West Bank but they
put a total blockade around the country
and they they control who and what goes
in and out they control the airspace the
sea space I guess there is no airspace
anymore because they don't have an
airport um they they control how far you
the you can fish off the coast of Gaza I
mean they have they have the thing under
complete control it's as Sheldon
Richmond uh put it where he said it's as
if the prison guards all left the prison
and surrounded the prison and then they
said look we fre freed everybody but
that's not really freeing everybody
that's just imprisoning them without
there being guards in the prison and so
no I don't think there there has been a
ton of deals on the table over the years
to give the West Bank and Gaza some
degree of autonomy and the pro-israeli
side will say well it's these the Arabs
just always keep turning down the deals
and we offered them all these deals and
they keep turning them down but at the
end of the day you don't really even
need a partner to stop occupying a place
you could just stop occupying them and
so I don't I don't buy into it at all
that they really sure do hate that they
have to do this but they've just had to
do this for over 50
years do you think that the Israelis
believe that um the Palestinians are a
security threat
sure yeah yeah no AB absolutely and and
the I mean you know when you say the
Israelis there are obviously like you
know we're collectivizing here and
there's there's people in the you know
there's the the war cabinet and some
soccer mom are not all the same people
um I think it's I think it's pretty uh
it it's probably widely believed and for
good reason that there are legitimate
security uh concerns terrorism is
something Israel's been dealing with um
since its Inception
essentially okay um the base assumption
that I run about why the uh the
right-wing Coalition that Netanyahu
represents uh wants to put it on from
mahide wants to sponsor homas wants to
make sure that they stayed in power long
enough maybe he even turned a blind eye
my thinking won't change whether he
turned a blind eye or was completely um
taken off course but that he
Because he believes that they're a
security threat of significant enough
proportion that they have to be um dealt
with in some way that um that drives all
the thinking now the policy might be a
terrible policy but if I'm right about
the underlying base assumption I at
least then understand meaning I can
rearticulate their decision-making
process not that I agree with it but
that I can rearticulate their
decision-making process process do you
think there's anything else um
underlying that that keeps them wanting
to blockade so they're not the prison
guards aren't in the prison but they're
still standing outside the prison so um
okay so there are these hard
right-wingers in Israel a couple clicks
to the right of Benjamin Netanyahu who
he's now Allied himself with um a lot of
this is because he had he had lost all
the liberals so badly that he kind of
had to Ally with some of the more far
right-wing uh parties their
constituencies which are a minority to
be sure in Israel they I I think are
largely motivated by religious uh
beliefs and they believe that Judea and
Samaria as they call it is supposed to
be part of Israel um and there's a lot
of their holy sites and stuff are in
there so I think those guys are largely
motivated by wanting the West Bank by
wanting the West Bank to be part of
Israel and of course Netanyahu did show
up to the UN a couple weeks before uh
October 7th with a map of Israel that
included the West Bank and Gaza all as
Israel but they certainly don't care
about Gaza as much they really care
about the West Bank that's why the
settlements continue um to this day in
the West Bank and so I don't think
exactly that they are first and foremost
motivated by the security concern
although the security concern is there
and it is real I mean it's not as if
there aren't terrorists who are trying
to kill Israelis Benjamin Netanyahu I've
always thought is more motivated by um
by kind of not that it's a religious
thing with him but that it's more like a
legacy thing that if he gets the West
Bank is part of Israel then he goes down
as the next great Israeli Prime Minister
and and all of that stuff now I'm not
saying the security concerns don't play
into this but the truth is that Benjamin
Netanyahu up till October 7th at least
in his rhetoric was almost always
downplaying the threat of Hamas we can
control the height of the flame was what
he bragged to his other uh you know
concent members there um uh or his other
lud party members in the knesset and so
I don't know I you know I'm sure it's
true for certainly for a lot of the
Israeli people that is a major concern
of theirs and understandably so I mean
these are people who you know lived
through the second
intifada many of them lived through
October 7th you could understand where
their concern would be uh security
issues um th this was also the concern
of many of the people who were opposed
to abolitionism uh in in the United
States of America many of the people who
didn't want to abolish slavery said that
they had real security concerns that if
you freed all these slaves all these
people you've been enslaving for so long
they were going to try to kill you if
you gave them their freedom and I can
also understand why they had those
concerns you know like those are
legitimate concerns the thing is that
you just go like in the it's an old
Thomas Jefferson quote right which he
said I always butcher this I bring it up
a lot too but where he said uh we have
the wolf by the ear and we can neither
afford to hold on to it nor to safely
let it go and that was him talking about
the slavery dilemma it's like well what
are we going to do we going to make them
all citizens and then they have second
amendment rights you're telling me these
people we were just enslaving can go buy
a gun now they're going to come kill all
of us and you could understand where
that's a legitimate concern but any
decent person looking back at that now
also recognizes that you're going yeah
but you can't enslave people you know so
I do think there are security concerns
on the Israeli side and I think even
legitimate ones the thing is that you
just you can't hold the wolf by the ear
forever and at a certain point you got
to just pull the bandid off and say like
okay we're not going to be in business
of occupying other people
anymore yeah it's interesting and look
everything is so different and I fully
understand that but given what happened
in Japan and uh Germany in World War II
the fact that even with all of the
horrendous
atrocities um we were able to help
rebuild and then get the hell out so um
look there's geography concerns why I
was asking about that I don't know about
the get the hell out part but we did
help uh
rebuild think we still got feel like we
I think we still got troops are we have
anything you would consider an occupying
force in Japan no I'm not suggesting uh
it's it's an occupying Force exactly but
uh I'll just say that the military
presence in in Germany and Japan the get
the hell out part comes a lot later than
the uh the rebuild part is all I'm
saying but no I'm not I'm not really
taking issue yeah that that that'll open
a can of worms that unfortunately I know
we don't have time for but the the one
last thing that I want to map your uh
base assumptions around is the argument
that you're going to hear a lot is the
um lack of moral equivalence between
what happened on October 7th which is a
barbaric Act of terrorism uh versus a
military response to a Barb barbaric Act
of terrorism plus them um having
hostages uh does that make sense to you
does that ring Hollow is it yes that's
the right way to think about it but the
response is just disproportionate or how
do you think of that no I mean I so I
understand it and it does make some
degree of sense to me but I think it's
the wrong way to think about things and
I think that on a you know on a human
level there's sometimes more advanced
societies and more advanced governments
what they end up doing with is they they
institutionalize things um and they they
make things much more advanced and less
primitive barbaric and so it's very easy
to see you know say like if you're you
know if if you're driving around in
Mexico and this is kind of a famous
thing in Mexico right that if you get
pulled over by a cop you can often just
throw him a few bucks and they'll leave
you alone and it's very easy for us to
look at that and go like look at the
corruption down there you know and
clearly it is a much more corrupt system
it's a much more nakedly corrupt system
um our corrupt
comes in different forms now if you get
pulled over by a cop in the United
States of America probably don't try
giving them money that that's almost
certainly not going to work that's just
not the way our corruption works because
our corruption isn't primitive and
barbaric our corruption is more like um
the prison guard Union will Lobby to
keep mandatory minimums for
marijuana now that's a much more
sophisticated form of corruption that
doesn't feel quite as gross and
primitive but it's on a much more
enormous scale and the result of it is
that people's lives are ruined over
something that is clearly very very
corrupt every bit as corrupt as paying
off a cop to leave you alone and you can
argue much more corrupt and so on a
human level I understand where someone
breaks out of their cage and comes out
to like just rip apart any person that
they come across that feels a lot
different than like someone pushing a
button and sending a missile into a
building that kills 40 people even if
that guy only killed 15 people it still
seems much more primitive and corrupt
and there's not nothing to that like you
know if you if you had to go out to
lunch with like an IDF pilot or a Hamas
terrorist you'd probably pick the IDF
pilot like that's a more civilized
person who is kind of doing a job and
can probably compartmentalize that and
not be a monster at home whereas I'd
imagine that Hamas terrorist is probably
unable to compartmentalize that and is
probably a nightmare to live around or
to go to lunch with
However the fact that this terrorism if
you will is so much more sophisticated
and so much more
systematized does not really remove from
what it what it is and you know as
somebody like I have two little children
um I think that most people out there
who have kids or maybe have nieces and
nephews or like some kids you you
know if somebody were to kill your kid I
I I don't know that it would be like it
would be of much uh relief to you to
find out that like don't worry it was
just collateral damage in a strike don't
worry we just we knew your kid was in
that building but we knew a bad guy was
also in that building and so we decided
to blow up the whole building
you know bro on the other side of that
it's still the same thing that happened
to you like the same crime is the same
crime that happened to you and so there
is this kind of tendency for us to even
like even to look at things like
terrorism verse collateral damage you
know what do you call it here look if if
there if there was a really bad guy um
and he was a murderer and he went into
into a a school and you know he's using
them as human Shields or whatever you
know and he's hiding behind all these
kids and then the local police
department came in and just blew up the
school and killed all the kids and that
we wouldn't sit here and go like well
that's collateral damage and hey it's on
this guy because he was using a human
Shields we'd be outraged at the local
police department and we would be like
you guys are a bunch of monsters who
just murdered all of these children now
I understand for practicality reasons
things are a little bit different when
you're dealing with conflicts within you
know a police Force's jurisdiction than
within different territories but in
terms of the moral act like if you're on
the other side of that if you for a
second put yourself in the Palestinian
shoes you can understand where that's
just like a totally unacceptable thing
to say to them like no it's terrorism
when anyone breaks out of Gaza and kills
people in Israel but we can absolutely
decimate Gaza and you'll just have to
accept that that's that's Collateral
Damage I think that's an unreasonable
thing to ask a group of people to
accept um I get why it's unreasonable to
ask the group of people to accept it and
I think that you have accurately
identified that um not only will it just
be totally meaningless to them whatever
weird distinction you're trying to make
you're also going to create more people
that will hate you and they will come
and kill you later and so from that
perspective it's just a god- awful
strategy uh and I know that you heard um
Coleman Hughes addressed this on Joe
Rogan but I found his argument pretty
compelling which is that um this is
actually Hamas is very intelligent you
can think what you want but it is a an
unbelievably effective strategy to turn
the a Western World against Israel to um
be willing to let your people die to not
want them to leave because you know
they're going to be bombed to have
specifically done this to court a
response and that you want the footage
of um the women and children just being
slaughtered endlessly
um that's a that's a really smart
strategy and if we go well we're just
going to let him get away with it and
because we're afraid to kill them and to
have this footage and quite frankly just
to do such a horrible thing um then they
can you know Peck us to death forever
coming over and doing these pot shots
killing a 100 here a thousand there 500
here um it would really be the perfect
get out of jail free card and I don't
see how you can let that stand
yeah yeah but I mean I I I think there's
a there's a false binary being created
there because it's not a choice between
doing what Israel is doing and just
letting them get away with it I mean
it's like look after not look this is
this is the TR this is true with all
terrorism with all asymmetric Warfare in
general that they're always trying to to
prod you into an overreaction because
that's the whole game right like Osama
Bin Laden didn't think he could take
down the United States of America by
knocking down the Twin Towers but he did
think he could get us to invade
Afghanistan and bankrupt ourselves just
like they had done with the Soviet Union
and so okay so the answer then is to not
invade Afghanistan and bankrupt yourself
but that doesn't mean you couldn't have
done the special ops uh attacks that
took out 90 plus% of the al-Qaeda bases
which is what we did immediately after 9
by Christmas of 2001 almost all of
al-Qaeda in uh Afghanistan had been
destroyed we then invaded the country
and decided we were going to fight a
regime change war against the Taliban
which went on for another catastrophic
20 years so the look before Netanyahu
the Israel always dealt with their
terrorism problem with targeted
assassinations special ops things of
that nature they never dealt with it as
just a problem for the regular old mil
to go in and just totally decimate the
place and so look nobody's suggesting
that you shouldn't find and target the
people who were directly involved in
October 7th no one's suggesting you
shouldn't do everything you can do to
get the hostages out but if the game
from Hamas was that which I think it was
I think Coleman's correct about that was
that we're going to provoke Israel into
this overreaction that will turn World
opinion against them well then they
certainly didn't have to do it in this
Reckless of a way and and who knows how
many of their own aages Israel's killed
I mean they admit to a few but who
really knows when you see these cities
destroyed what who's really accounting
for where all the hostages were um I
think that again it's it's not a choice
between oh we do absolutely nothing and
let let him get away with that or we
level the place um the truth is there
were a lot of different possibilities
for how Israel could have responded to
this and almost all of them would have
been a much better idea than what
they've done so is your BAS assumption
that uh keeping with the things that
Netanyahu has said himself that have
come out that um he wanted this frozen
piece he wanted a moment to be able to
get rid of them that really it was just
this attack happened to meet a threshold
where it was like okay now we can do the
real gloves off and get to what we
really want which is just the the total
um decimation of Gaza itself you know my
my best understanding of the situation
is that netanyahu's plan for propping up
Hamas was that um he would thwart the
creation of a Palestinian State and it
would kill the peace process and then he
could embark on negotiating with the
other Arab countries without ever having
to make a deal with the Palestinians and
he essentially felt like that was
working and he in his own words Hamas
was the the fire which whose flame they
could control the height of I don't
think October 7th was part of the the
plan I think it has totally decimated
his legacy and he knows that and now
he's in this desperate game of number
one trying to be you know it's like it's
not like 911 that happened like on
George W Bush's first year you know like
he's the longest serving prime minister
in Israeli history and it just happened
at the end this is his like and he's the
guy who took the hard approach that
we're going to thwart a Palestinian
State and we're going to prop up Hamas
and all of this stuff
I think he realizes he's politically
done after this and so now he's
searching for some type of Victory and
he also knows that as soon as the war's
over he's over and so he's kind of got
to keep the thing going so I don't
necessarily think it's as Sinister as
like he wanted this war all along I
think he had awful Reckless policies
that ultimately culminated in October
7th and is now in a politically
impossible situation and seems to be you
know as uh as John mimer has pointed out
seems to be almost um in some type of
like psychotic self-destructive spree
here there that he's unable to like pull
himself back in
from and how do you make sense of the
fact that the um that Hamas won't get
back the
hostages oh I mean I I think that it's
as easy as um look the part of it is is
what you and Coleman were just saying
saying that they they see this as a
victory they think that they're turning
World opinion against Israel and they
are they're not wrong about that um and
then also I think part of it is that
that is that's the leverage that they
have so they're trying I mean there's
been all types of like negotiations
going on and there there's been some of
them that are probably the fault of
Hamas some are the fault of the Israelis
some are the fault of the Americans but
Hamas just uh the other day it was
reported said they would work out a deal
to return the hostages but they didn't
agree to Israel's terms so I think they
do see this as their last bargaining
chip which it kind of is and they're
trying to get the best deal they can if
you like that clip check out the full
powerful episode here and I'll see you
there