Tangle - A fiery debate on Israel & Palestine

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

On Monday, I interviewed Hussein Aboubakr Mansour and Dan Cohen about the Israel and Palestine conflict. Mansour, an Egyptian-born Muslim who grew up hating Israel, is now pretty staunchly in the pro-Israel camp. Cohen, an American Jew who grew up being told Israel was his homeland, is one of the most followed anti-Israel and anti-Zionist journalists on the internet.As you'll hear in my intro to this conversation, there is some unevenness in how close each of them are towards the extreme on their respective ends of the spectrum, there was some controversy about the interview after we finished recording, and there are some details about both of their backgrounds that you should know before listening to this interview (for instance, Cohen worked for two years at RT America, part of the state-funded Russia Today news outlet). Still, I think the conversation was worth having, and I think the strong arguments, the bad arguments, and the complexity of this topic are all self-evident to the viewer when watching.I did my best to both moderate and add some context after the fact where appropriate, but I'd love to hear your feedback on whether you found the conversation educational, valuable, interesting; or alternatively if you found it useless, boring, or counter-productive. We are always looking to improve.You can read the article about the Hannibal Protocol here and the article examining if Israel's tolerance for civilian death was too high here.Thanks for listening and if you feel like you are getting anything out of our content, please like, subscribe and share!You can also check out the video version of this podcast on YouTube here, and a sizzle reel of our first ever Tangle Live event from August 2023, here.Today’s clickables: Introduction (0:18), Part 1 (9:54), Part 2 (17:25), Part 3 (36:35), Part 4 (63:20), Part 5 (80:40)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Hey guys, today we are going to be sharing one of the most difficult, controversial, and heated conversations that I have been a part of on the Tangle podcast and the YouTube channel. The conversation started like this. Long story short, in 2014, I went to Palestine, Israel, whatever you want to call it, and began my work in journalism. Kind of like, damn, you know, up, the issue of Israel, Palestine, and the conflict is imprinted on me. And the conversation ended like this.

Wait, you're accusing me of all these things. Hold on, let me just finish. I hope you're paid well, Hussein. I hope you're paid well for this, man. Now, before we play the interview, there is some additional context that I think needs to be added because a lot of things happened off camera that I think any viewer or listener here should know about. So I'm going to explain how the interview came to be, what happened immediately after it was recorded, and how I think about the way the people involved responded after we finish recording.

First, the conversation you are about to watch is between Hussein Abu Bakr Mansour and Dan Cohen. Initially, my interview is going to be with Hussein. He is one of my favorite followers on Twitter and someone who I think has spoken about the Israel-Palestine conflict with a great deal of thoughtful commentary and a unique perspective. Hussein is an Egyptian-born Muslim who describes himself as a former quote-unquote wannabe jihadist who, after years of teaching himself Hebrew and reading more about the Israel-Palestine conflict, came to a pro-Israel perspective. On the day that we were about to do our interview, I saw a tweet from Dan Cohen, a self-described independent journalist and anti-Zionist Jew, that he had been trying to debate the Israel-Palestine issue, but nobody from

the pro-Israel side was willing to talk with him. So I saw a very unique tangle set up. I could host a conversation between an Egyptian-born Muslim who grew up hating Israel and then came to defend it, and an American Jew who grew up being told Israel was his homeland and now felt staunchly anti-Zionist. I sent Hussein Dan's tweet about wanting to debate someone. I said that long-term, setting up these kinds of conversations was a goal of mine, and I asked if he would ever be game to bring Dan into the conversation. My intent wasn't actually to invite Dan onto the interview with Hussein, but to schedule a second interview with Hussein down the line and to invite Dan on to have a debate. Hussein said he was happy

to have the conversation though and concurrently suggested that we reschedule our interview because he had some unexpected child care obligations pop up. So I saw an opportunity, maybe if we moved our interview to the following week, I could schedule Dan to come on. We did, and I did, and that's how this interview came to be. We then had the conversation you're about to hear. As you'll see, it got quite testy at times. There was a lot of cross-talk and contentious exchanges about factual disputes. I did my best to allow Dan and Hussein space to argue with each other while also interjecting when things were becoming useless or I felt like the conversation needed to be refocused. The conversation ended shortly after Dan accused Hussein of being paid by the Israeli

government to hold the views he holds. And then, shortly after the interview, Hussein messaged me on Twitter, saying that he regretted participating and suggested I not publish the interview, otherwise I'd be platforming a propagandist paid by Russia and Qatar. For obvious reasons, such a request is not something I'd typically entertain, and in this case, I was a bit surprised by Hussein's reaction. The interview was heated, for sure, you'll see that, but I've moderated plenty of discussions that went south, and I thought Hussein did a good job of making his points clearly. Despite my instinct to tell Hussein that not publishing it was not an option, I actually tried to keep an open mind about his concerns, and I asked him to explain them. I told him I'd share the interview and the request not

to publish it with my team just to get some second opinions. Maybe I missed something. Maybe the interview genuinely was worthless, and it wouldn't reflect well on anybody involved to publish it with my team just to get some second opinions. Maybe I missed something. Maybe the interview genuinely was worthless and it wouldn't reflect well on anybody involved to publish it. However, before I could even get some second opinions, Hussein took to Twitter. He expressed his regret in participating, and he said he opposed giving a platform or any legitimacy to political hacks paid for by Qatar and Russia who are well-trained in preventing anything meaningful from being said. He also said that he was shocked that the host of the podcast, that's me, could not make the distinction between real opinion and propaganda and suggested that I was not intelligent enough to know that there is such a thing as people who are not real and I

don't understand the difference between someone who worked for a state propaganda service and someone who worked for American Jewish Civil Society organizations, and I can't tell the difference between opinion and propaganda. Hussein later apologized to me for saying I wasn't intelligent enough to know the difference, and I think we've smoothed out some of our differences over the correspondences we've had afterwards. But still, it started a hubbub and a dust-up on Twitter. Dan replied, calling Hussein a paid shill for Stand With Us, a propaganda organ funded by Netanyahu, as he put it. He also later insisted that Hussein cry more and said someone should change his diaper. I was pretty frustrated by the whole thing. To be honest, I thought about 80% of the conversation

was pretty useful, and the way it was devolving online after the fact was immensely disappointing to me personally. But there's some truth to Hussein's protestations in the sense that there is some unevenness in the places he and Dan were coming from. On the one hand, I think Hussein holds some pretty moderate pro-Israel positions here and is not particularly radical about his views. Dan, on the other hand, I think is closer to the fringe in terms of how he thinks about this issue with what I think he would happily describe as a radical anti-Israel and anti-Zionist view. Second, Hussein is an academic and he speaks like one, often in philosophical and historical terms. Dan readily

admits, even in our conversation, that he has an agenda. He has a horse in this race, and he speaks like a person with one. He uses provocative language. He sometimes speaks in black and white terms. If I have any regret, it's that I could have better avoided this unevenness by pairing them each with different sparring partners, someone who is more a mirror image of the other on this issue. Then there are also concrete allegations being made. In our interview, Dan accuses Hussein of supporting genocide because he once published a piece in an Israeli newspaper, while that same newspaper in a separate article justified genocide. I thought that was a very silly allegation to make. However, Dan also accuses Hussein of being bought by Israel because he once worked at a group funded by the Israeli government. And it is true

that Hussein worked for the Center of Combating Antisemitism, which is a division of Stand With Us, which is an organization with a mission of fighting antisemitism that receives money from the Israeli government. But as Hussein says, and as I find convincing, his opinions are born out of his experience growing up in authoritarian Egypt, being a political dissident, independently researching this issue, and going through a genuine personal evolution. Now, Hussein has also accused Dan of being a paid propagandist, spewing talking points from Russia and Qatar. I found that he has appeared as a guest on Russia Today, a state media outlet, and they have described him as a correspondent in older

social media posts. In a follow-up, Dan confirmed to me that he was a paid correspondent for the Russia state-sponsored media company RT America between 2017 and 2019 and has made unpaid appearances with them since. Dan also said that he has appeared as a guest with Al Jazeera, which is funded by Qatar, though he denies ever being paid by them. For me, the best reason to view Dan skeptically is primarily that his narrative and version of events don't meaningfully depart from the anti-West narrative we see from Russia propaganda, the same way I might be skeptical of an American partisan always defending their team. I think you can be skeptical of Dan's views in that way. My honest opinion, though, is that I think both Hussein and Dan have sincerely held views that

are an ocean apart on this issue. I think Hussein's views are broadly representative of the pro-Israel position, and I think Dan's views are in line with more fringe pro-Palestine folks in the Arab world and many far-left Western activists. And however uneven their backgrounds, their style, their expertise, where they fit in on the spectrum of opinions, I think they had some exchanges that are educational and worth viewing. I think there's value in having people like this in a room together, which is why we are publishing this interview, and I recognize that Hussein and I fundamentally disagree about this. Unfortunately, I don't think either of us is going to convince the other that he is wrong. To that end, we've

gone back, cleaned up this audio and video, and also recorded a few brief interjections where some extra context is worthwhile because Hussein and Dan are making contradictory claims. I did this not to shape the direction of the conversation in any particular way, but just to ensure that our viewers and listeners leave with more clarity than questions, and also to make sure that we're not spreading any bad information. So with that long and drawn-out introduction complete, I hope you guys enjoy the conversation and get some value out of it. As always, leave your thoughts and comments on the video and we'll be sure to try to address them. Without further ado, here is the interview. Hussein, Dan, thank you both so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Good to be with you, Isaac.

So first of all, you guys both have fascinating backgrounds and have covered this issue a lot in various ways. I want to give you each a minute or two just to talk a little bit about your background. Dan, maybe we can start with you. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to care about this issue and some of the work you've done on it? Sure. Well, I mean, it was imprinted on me from an early age as an American Jew who's told that my culture or, you know, my religion dictates that I support the state of Israel and whatever it does, and that it's some kind of like multicultural, liberal democracy where all people are welcome, and that it's a home for Jews. all people are welcome and that it's a home for Jews. And, you know, when I got a little older,

I examined those. I examined that and, you know, had some questions about it and it quickly became clear to me that I was lied to. And so, long story short, in 2014, I went to Palestine, Israel, whatever you want to call it, and began my work in journalism. And I was there for about three years, including, I was all over the country. I was inside Israel. I was in the West Bank. I was in Jerusalem. I spent seven months in the Gaza Strip, including during the 2014 war. And I made a documentary starting in 2014 called Killing Gaza, and I released that in 2018. I made that with a journalist named Max Blumenthal. And so, you know, those experiences shaped me. And, you know, I'm a, I have, you know, no shame. I'm very proud to say that I'm an anti-Zionist 100% simply because I believe in democracy and rights for all. Awesome. Thank you. And Hussein, I want to give you some time. Knowing your background, it's interesting. I immediately see a little bit of parallels there. Maybe you can speak a little bit about your upbringing, too. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's good to be here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Isaac, for having us. Well, my name is Hossein Abubakar Massouma, originally from Cairo, from Egypt.

Grew up there, you know, had my childhood, just a typical Egyptian family, Childhood, just a typical Egyptian family. And kind of like, damn, you know, growing up, the issue of Israel, Palestine, and the conflict is imprinted on me. It's just in the culture, it's in the air you breathe, especially that Israel had many wars with Egypt. And a lot of that was also wrapped in a very large dose that is quite inseparable from the issue of anti-Semitism. and murdered the Palestinians and they use it in order to kind of destroy the wider region and destroy the Arabs and destroy Islam. That kind of rhetoric, I grew up hearing it in mosques, watching it on TV, cartoons in the school.

It wasn't just, you know, it's not a fringe opinion. It's really quite mainstream. And it was really fascinating. You know, a lot of the best movies that I used to watch as a child, Egyptian movies, of course, they had Jewish villains in them. You know, a lot of the TV shows had Jewish villains. My favorite comic book series, books for youth, was called The Man of the Impossible, which is kind of a knockoff James Bond of Agent 00 Ahmed, who goes around the world and foils Jewish conspiracies everywhere.

It's exhilarating. One book is in Rio, the other is in Moscow, in Seoul, kind of the international thriller of that sort. And so I grew up in it in my mind, and just the issue could be explained in religious terms of the Jews are evil, or in secular terms about, you know, Zionist colonialism and Western imperialism that came to destroy the land and so on and so forth. In the early 2000s, especially during the very brutal years of the Second Intifada, the war on terrorism, Iraq, the rise of international jihadism. Al Jazeera became prominent during that time as well. That's

actually the first time that most people heard of Al Jazeera. It was a very radicalizing moment for a lot of people. I was a teenager at the time, and I just wanted to be a part of that struggle. It's a very big, grand, fantastical struggle of good and evil, black and white. And I wanted to help to destroy those evil Zionists, you know, the blood-sucking Jews and so on. But I was a nerd. I mean, I remain a nerd to a large extent. So I started to go online, teaching myself Hebrew, trying to teach myself about those Jews, those Israelis, and it was an educational journey that ended up completely transforming the way I think about these issues and realizing that the amount of, first of all,

the amount of anti-Semitism that just in the popular culture and in the religious culture and the secular culture, and there's the complete distorted view of reality that I grew up with, and how's that really hindering not just a peaceful resolution of the conflict itself, but the progress of the Middle East as a whole, the amount of terrorism that this plagued the region with is just unbelievable. And I started writing and talking about these issues when I was 20. I attempted to visit the Israeli embassy to talk to some Israelis, after which I was arrested by the Egyptian government. I was suspected of being a Mossad agent and a Zionist spy. And just to cut the story short, horrendous. You can imagine being arrested in an authoritarian regime in the third world and

charges like this. Horrendous experience. Ended up leaving. The Arab Spring happened. I tried to participate in it, but it didn't seem that it's going into any different direction than the Middle East or the region in general was already in. So I ended up leaving. I arrived to the United States in 2012. Received political asylum.

And since then, I've been living here and I've been trying to deal with these issues, whether deepening my own understanding and doing my own research in order to understand how did we end up, as many Arab societies, organizing ourselves politically, morally, organizing our moral vision this way, around basically, you know, thinking. There are a lot of people, sadly, in the Middle East that do believe that the moral vision of Islam equals freeing Palestine of the Jews. And I've been trying to work on that,

finding unconventional ways to think about it and thinking long-term about possible solutions because it's the world that I belong to. It's the world that I came from. And I care about it deeply. Thank you. I appreciate that. We'll be right back after this quick break. so obviously what is bringing us here and the reason we're sitting here right now is because of the Hamas attack in Israel and now Israel's military response that we're seeing unfold both

in Gaza and the West Bank so bringing it to this sort of present day and what's unfolding last month Dan I want to start with you here can you tell me a little bit about how you frame the attack from Hamas in Israel and sort of, you know, how you would describe what you're seeing since that attack has taken place? Well, I look at what the Israeli member of Knesset, Ofer Kasif, said. He had been warning the Israeli Defense Ministry for months and months, sent letters one after the other, that some kind of explosion of violence from Gaza was inevitable because of the pogroms being carried out by settlers in the West Bank in the village of Hawara, including the day before the October 7th Hamas attack. On October 6th, when Israeli member of Knesset, Zvi Sukkot, led a pogrom in this village of Hawara and killed a Palestinian. And now, actually, just this past

week, he was this man, Zvi Sukot, who has been investigated by the Israeli government on charges of terrorism, on charges of murder, on burning an Israeli police vehicle. He is now the head of the Knesset subcommittee on the West Bank, and he's on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. So, this is someone who is considered a Jewish terrorist by the Israeli government, who is now running the Israeli government in some capacity, who is in an important position. So, the idea that this started on October 7th is simply farcical. Same way that when we're told that, you know, in February 2022, Putin suddenly invaded Ukraine and there was no war raging before that. There hadn't been eight years of war raging in the Donbass. So, it's an arbitrary starting point. The fact is,

of course, this is purely about Zionism. This is purely about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which has been going on for more than 100 years. And in particular, the case of Gaza, well, it's been under siege since 2005. And you have 2.4 million people, more than half of which are children, who live under a suffocating siege, who do not have clean water. When you turn on the shower, you get salt water. You have a handful of hours of electricity per day. You can't leave. If you walk towards the fence, you will be shot by a sniper. defense, you will be shot by a sniper, and if not a sniper, then there are remote control machine guns operated by a team underground in a bunker miles away. So, I mean, I've seen these things

with my life, with my own eyes. So, any people who are living under these conditions, whether it's the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto or the slaves of Haiti who had their revolution from 1791 to 1804, which we celebrate today as the world's only successful slave revolt, or the slave revolts in the United States that eventually led to the collapse of slavery, inevitably, people are going to rise up. And what happens is, it's ugly. Violence is never pretty. It's never nice. And unfortunately, violence is never pretty. It's never nice. And unfortunately, innocent people or people who are, you know, people who are not necessarily involved end up getting killed. I mean, you know, the Haitian slaves, the slaves who made the nation of Haiti were not nice to the French slavers. You know, they didn't, this is just a reality of it so what you have is um gaza is

under siege for all these years you have um a an armed an armed resistance group an armed resistance movement of course which is hamas and the al-qassam brigades which is very sophisticated uh militarily and uh then and then you have is Israel keeping the softest of targets two, three kilometers from Gaza. And so, it's completely predictable as the Israeli MK, Ofer Kasif, repeatedly pointed out not only to the Israeli Minister of Defense, but also he wrote letters to progressives here in the United States, like Bernie Sanders, hoping that, you know, they would understand the warning that something horrible was going to happen, not only to Palestinians, but to Israelis

as well. So, I mean, you can, we can sit here and condemn what Hamas did all day, but it doesn't change the fact that you have a simple power dynamic in which one people living under siege and occupation and dehumanization in the most extreme ways that none of us who haven't, who've never lived in Gaza, who haven't witnessed that or tasted it, can experience. And you have, on the other side, the Israeli occupation, which, you know, maintains that system. And so, as long as that power imbalance exists, then there will be resistance. And so, that's the sad state of affairs. then there will be resistance. And so, that's the sad state of affairs. I want to come to you, Hussein, in one second. But before I do, Dan, I have a quick follow-up,

which, you know, I know from watching this debate take place online and doing my own writing about this, that the immediate response to a lot of what you just said right there is going to be that of what you just said right there is going to be that Israel withdrew from Gaza, you know, 15, almost 20 years ago now. And in response, the Palestinian people put Hamas in power and Hamas has agency over how the Gaza Strip is run and that the conditions that exist in a place like Gaza are not solely the responsibility of Israel, but also a product of the Palestinian leadership. How do you respond to that answer, that question? I mean, it's a completely absurd notion that Hamas has control of, like Israel controls Gaza's borders, three of Gaza's borders, three sides of Gaza, and Egypt controls the fourth side, the Rafah crossing. So, when I would go into Gaza, I had to go, the Israelis decided if I could go in or not.

I went through the Erez crossing. Any Palestinian who seeks to go to Jordan or to maybe get, you know, in the off chance that they're allowed to get some kind of treatment for a medical condition or anything like that has to go through the Erez crossing, which Israel controls. So, it's completely encircled by Israel. You have the Erez crossing, you have the entire land side controlled by the Israeli military, where anyone who walks up will shoot them. And then you have on the beach side, you have the Israeli Navy patrolling the waters and shooting at fishermen, at Palestinian fishermen on a daily basis. So that is not any form of sovereignty. Hamas simply controls inside Gaza, but that's in this tiny strip of land. Sure, they control it,

but they don't control their borders. They don't control their skies. You have Israeli drones and warplanes constantly overhead. There is a constant hum, a cacophony of Israeli drones directly over your head that can kill you at any point. So, here in the United States, if we were to say that, well, you know, we wouldn't accept that as another country or a foreign country, an occupier maintains a military presence over us where they can kill us at any point. That's totally absurd. The other, of course, border to the south is controlled by Egypt, which is an international border. But again, you know, so there's no real sovereignty or control for Hamas. Whatever you

think of Hamas, they do not control their borders. They don't control what goes in and out, except through illicit tunnel smuggling. Hussein, I want to turn this question to you now, a similar prompt that I just gave to Dan. How do you frame and think about the attacks from Hamas and Israel's response? And, you know, I saw you taking some notes and a couple of eyebrow raises while Dan was speaking, so feel free to address anything he said there, but I just want to give you some space to kind of answer that same question as well. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'll talk about what Dan said, and that will kind of also include or lead to the answer. The image that Dan portrayed is quite dystopic.

I mean, if it was true, then I wonder why we're not taking arms and go help those poor Palestinians. I mean, they are living basically in this prison in which you have armed to the teeth Israelis and wolves, snipers shooting everybody who passes. They go through pogroms, ethnic cleansing, slavery, an analogy to the slavery. So basically, yeah, in such a dystopian image, you know, of course, Hamas is kind of then Jango Unchained, right? It's kind of, that's the imagination. Okay, it was awful no matter what they did, but you have to understand this was Jango

rebelling against those dehumanizing enslaved conditions. And that very picture, I think, is understandable for a Western audience. It feeds on the moral categories that already, I think, everybody in the West knows. Slavery, ethnic cleansing, appropriates terms from Jewish history pogroms. But just the very usage of these terms, I think, should actually illustrate how untrue is this. The Middle East is not the United States. We don't have slavery. It's not white and black. We have conflicts between people. Even if you're pro-Palestinian,

I don't understand why do you have to be pro-Palestinian while absorbing entire people, entire cultures, entire histories. Wait, but sorry, what's not true? What is not true that I said? None of this image that you portrayed in these categories, in these analytical categories that you used, pogroms, ethnic cleansing. The Palestinian population have been growing. You can't ethnically cleanse people while they are increasing in numbers. You can disagree with the characterization, but the fact that there are snipers, that any Palestinian who walks within a few hundred meters of the fence is shot. I've seen it myself. I've seen it myself. You don't think there are remote control machine guns? I mean, I've seen those myself.

We saw what happened on October 7th. It's exactly why there are remote control machine guns. They are not there to kill hapless Palestinians strolling by the fence. That's actually precisely what they do. It's a system called see and shoot that targets people based on the way they walk. Dan, I want to give Hussein a chance to answer here. OK, I'm just trying to be purely factual here. I will. We will. We will. You spoke, Dan. I didn't interrupt you once. It's not like a hapless Palestinian walking and then boom, a sniper shoots him. There is quite a distance between the fence, which is a security border fence,

and where Palestinians live in the urban areas. What happened on October 7th, it actually shows why Israelis need this border control, which failed anyways. I mean, the failure of Israeli security here, it's not our issue, but it was very obvious. Now there are a lot of questions, not just about the characterization, but about the context in which all of this is placed.

Hamas is this jingo group that's basically rebelling on dehumanization, as if they are not a terrorist organization, registered so in most of the decent world, that are actually not acting on behalf of the Palestinian people or their interests. are actually not acting on behalf of the Palestinian people or their interests. They're actually acting on behalf of Iran. It's an Iranian-sponsored proxy that specifically did this in part part of an Iranian regional strategy in general that targeted assassinating and killing the chances of peace that was being worked out between the Saudis and the Israelis, which included components that had to do with finding a path towards Palestinian rights. I mean, that's also a context that I don't know why people don't mention, that what happened is not just a

terrorist attack or another episode between the Israelis and the Palestinians. There are major political powers at play here. As you said, Isaac, there hasn't been an occupation in Gaza since 2006. And yes, there has been, of course, a siege, exactly because this brutal Iranian back-terrorist organization, which was elected only once in order to correct. I think there would be a question if there was re-election in Gaza, if the people of Gaza would re-elect Hamas again. But Gaza doesn't only share a border with Egypt, I mean, with

Israel. It shares also a border with Egypt. And the siege was as enforced by the Egyptians, Arab Muslims, brothers of the Palestinians, as much as it was enforced by Israel. Not because the Egyptians are obsessed with killing poor, hapless Palestinians walking around, but exactly because of this terrorist organization. We're doing the Palestinians a major disfavor by absorbing the brutality, the criminality, the mass murder of Hamas, which I don't know how does it help the interests of the Palestinians anyways, walking door to door in Israeli towns next to the border and killing people in their living room, murdering mothers and children in their bedrooms. I don't know how that exactly

supposed to help the Palestinians get their sovereignty or get their political rights. Not just we support that, but then we absorb it in the world of moral cliches, of slavery, pogroms, so on and so forth. And we need to be honest with ourselves. If we really want to help the Palestinians, then we need to address the structural problems that have to do with Palestinian politics. Israel is not blameless. Israel is not innocent. You know this, Isaac, you saw my Twitter. I wrote blaming Israel many times. But we have to talk about the structural issues in Palestinian politics, in regional politics, that made this happen.

Dan, go ahead. I want to give you a chance to respond. um i mean first of all i don't know how um who's saying how you deny that uh you know palestinians who walk within a few hundred meters of the fence will be shot on sight i've watched it myself i've seen snipers shoot palestinians for no In fact, you know, you can watch in my documentary Killing Gaza, contrary to your portrayal that snipers are not simply shooting Palestinians for no good reason other than, I don't know, sport. You can watch in the documentary in the 2014 war during a five-day ceasefire when Salim Shamali, a young man, was walking through the neighborhood of Shajahiyah looking for his family amid the rubble. And he was accompanied by a group of international volunteers and an Israeli sniper shot him during the ceasefire. Despite the fact that he, of course,

presented no threat, he was just a guy simply walking, looking for his family. And as he laid on the ground, bleeding to death, the sniper fired two more shots at him and killed him as these people desperately awaited his... For sports, you said. Well, in that case, I don't know exactly why, but they murdered him. A sniper murdered him, so is the point, during a ceasefire. they murdered him. A sniper murdered him. So, is the point, during a ceasefire. So, when I, the way that his family found out that his, that Salem had been killed was they saw a news report. Now, when I went and interviewed his family days later, they were, of course, in a state of shock. His younger brother, Waseem Shamali, who was at that point 14 years old, was a soft-spoken, very sweet boy who looked up to his brother and who always took care of him. Now, Waseem was completely, of course, broken and devastated at

that point. When I came back about one year later to visit Waseem Shamali, he took me to the grave of his brother, Salem, and there he sat on his brother's grave and told me, and I asked him, And there he sat on his brother's grave and told me, and I asked him, Wasim, what do you want to do with your life? And he said, well, you know, I used to want to be like, you know, I don't know. I used to want to do something different, but now I want to be a resistance fighter. Now I want to join Al-Qassam because I want vengeance for my brother. So you're justifying October 7th. You're justifying what Hamas did on October 7th.

What I'm telling you is a simple story of why a 14-year-old, of why a 14-year-old boy told me. You can imply, you can take, you can infer that I'm justifying it if you like. I'm telling you why this little, why this 14-year-old boy… I'm not inferring, I'm asking. I'm asking, Dan. I'm not trying to trap you. Hussein, hold on one second, because I think this is an important point, actually, that

Dan's raising. All right. I just want to pause here. I think this is a good moment to call this out as the kind of thing that frustrated Hussein in this interview and also frustrated me a little bit. I think Dan frames Israel's policy on its border fence as shoot anyone who approaches it, claims that the IDF is killing for sport. And when Hussein calls him out about this broad stroke, he says, I don't know. They murdered him. That is the point. So it's like a

moving target. One minute he says they're shooting him for sport or suggest that. The other minute, he kind of backs off that claim and says they murdered him. That's the point. I think that kind of moving target as a claim is very frustrating rhetorically, and I understand that it is both true that the IDF has committed atrocities like the one Dan describes, and it's also true that I don't think it's the IDF's policy or a daily occurrence that they go around shooting Palestinians and all the Palestinians who approach the fence. I think it's inaccurate to portray it that way. That being said, I do think the story Dan is telling has some value and adds important context to this conflict, which you'll kind of hear me say in a different way in one moment. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break this is an important point actually that dan's raising which is

you know there is a cycle here that i've written about, that I've spoken about, which is that, you know, for every bomb that drops in Gaza and every citizen of Gaza who's killed by an Israeli attack, there are going to be surviving family members and friends of those who were killed who are going to be radicalized in that moment. And I think understandably so. And I think the story Dan's telling sort of touches on that, which I do think is a valuable piece of context here in that the vengeance here, whether it's Hamas' attack, if you want to frame that as vengeance for the occupation and the blockade and the conditions in Palestine, or Israel's current bombardment of Gaza, if you want to frame that as, you know, vengeance or a security decision or whatever you want to say, people are going to die and the people

who survive are going to be radicalized by that moment, which I do think is important here. Now, Dan, I guess my question for you is that the reality of the situation, accepting the narrative that you're, I think, poking at here and sort of extrapolating the story of this 14-year-old to the broader context of this moment is that, you know, this is how you get a group like Hamas in leadership in Gaza. Point taken. So we're here now.

Hamas is the leadership group in Gaza. They've just shown the world the kind of brutality that they're capable of. We have leaders, you know, from Hamas who are doing interviews in Arabic media saying quite plainly, we're going to do this again and again and again, as many times as Israel gives us space to do. So Hamas, you know, performs this brutal attack. The Israeli government, the Israeli military has an opportunity to decide how to respond to that. How do they respond to that? I mean, what should be

the response to that attack in your view, given that we know, I mean, we, again, you know, all that narrative arc taken, which, you know, I can totally accept that narrative arc that you're giving, taking that and then also realizing that there is this group, you know, that's in power in Gaza with the resources to perform an attack that just killed 1400 Israelis, saying that they'll do it again over and over again if they're given space to. How do you respond if you're Israel? I mean, what is the appropriate response then? Well, let's look at, for one thing, firstly, I think we should look at the way Israel did respond. What happened is still, you know, there needs to be an international investigation of the events of October 7th, exactly what happened. Because in the Israeli media, there have been a number of interviews that have come out

that have indicated that actually Israeli forces killed many Israelis that day. There was an interview from an Israeli woman named Yasmin Porat, who I believe was in Kfar Aza, and she said that the Israelis engaged in firefights with the Palestinians and many Israelis were actually, of the Israeli hostages, with the Palestinians, and many Israelis were actually, of the Israeli hostages, were actually killed by Israeli bullets. Then, you had a decision that came down from the top. There are multiple interviews of Israeli military figures who were on the scene, of commanders that have come out in Haaretz, the Israeli paper, who have said, we were given orders to fire tank shells at the houses where Israelis were held captive along with Palestinian militants, Hamas militants. So, in a hostage situation where you have your own people inside, would any sane, rational hostage negotiator walk

up and say, let's just burn the whole thing down, just kill everybody inside? No, it's the complete opposite. You should figure out, okay, how do we negotiate this? Hamas has now pulled off a huge operation that shocked Israel. So, and we have, you know, at that point, it was at least 100 hostages taken back into Gaza. So, what do you do when there's a hostage situation? You negotiate. But negotiations were never part of this. It was immediately just massive bombing. And now, as we've learned, there are something like 250, 260 at least Israelis held in Gaza. There is really no appetite for negotiation. The only, the small amount of the Israeli public, the people who

actually want negotiations for a ceasefire and a release of the hostages are being completely ignored. They were actually beaten by Netanyahu's police for protesting. It's beyond sickening. And they were actually attacked in the street by Israeli fascists who said, and this is a video I've tweeted, you can find it on my Twitter, who said, you're a traitor, we hope your family dies. So, there's a completely fascist ideology pulsing through Israeli society that Americans and, you know, people outside of Israel, I think, don't really understand. Americans and, you know, people outside of Israel, I think, don't really understand. But not only have I spent a lot of time in Gaza, I've spent many, many months inside Israeli society, inside these mobs that are like, you know, maybe you can compare it to like hooligans or other fascist groups. Call them Nazis. Why just stop at fascists? Call them Nazis. I have no problem with that. I mean, what? So now what? saying you're defending these people who don't want negotiations.

You're defending people who don't want negotiations, who want Israeli hostages to be killed. It's disgusting. Hold on one second. I'm holding on. Dan, I think the rhetorical flourishes aside that, you know, Hussein's trying to push you into or whatever. I mean, there's a little bit of a dodge in there that I just want to put a pin on, or maybe it's not a dodge. Maybe you've answered the question. But, you know, my point is, again, taking everything you've said, accepting everything you said, which I've read similar

reports about how, you know, it's possible that Israeli soldiers may have killed some of the Israelis or the hostages in the initial firing with, you know, Hamas soldiers. I think, I hope that we can broadly accept that most of the people who were killed were likely killed by Hamas soldiers. Well, we don't know. Until there's, until we have an actual investigation, we fundamentally don't know. I would say the overwhelming firsthand testimony, I mean, if we're going to take the firsthand testimony of a couple people and news stories that you cited, the overwhelming firsthand testimony that we've gotten from survivors on the ground has been that they witnessed Hamas soldiers killing hundreds of people, slaughtering hundreds of people, even accepting the fact that maybe there was fire

from Israelis that killed some of those Israelis. I think that has been the overwhelming evidence that we've seen in the news reports out of this. Again, I would dispute that, but okay. Okay. So let's take the investigation. We need an investigation on the events that happened. It sounds like what you're saying, and I want to make sure I have this, is just that broadly speaking, you think the response from the Israeli government, rather than the potential ground invasion and the bombardment of Gaza, which they've justified by saying that they want to destroy Hamas, the group that was responsible for this attack, is that they should be focused that like the response that you saw was one of military violence and military invasion? And what you're saying is there seems to be no interest or appetite in dealing with the couple hundred hostages who are in Gaza. Is that a correct

representation of your views? Yeah. I mean, have you heard of the Hannibal Directive? Are you familiar with that concept? Okay, so this is probably the most controversial thing I think Dan says during this interview, at least one of them for sure. To be clear, I think he's cherry-picking witness testimony here. The vast majority of the witnesses who survived this attack depict Hamas slaughtering hundreds of Israeli civilians. And of course, Hamas isn't even denying this. They're celebrating it. They're

taking full claim for the attack and the deaths. So it's bizarre to me that Dan would try and say that they didn't do this when the vast majority of the people who experienced it said they did. And then Hamas is also saying that they did. And now we have police reports and investigations that are happening on the ground, obviously from Israeli police forces, but I still think the reporting independently from journalists, media on the ground, all of it paints a pretty clear picture of what happened. On top of that, I think it's important to just point out that Israel is actively negotiating hostage releases. The evidence for this is the fact that we've had hostage releases. I think a half dozen now have been let go by Hamas because of negotiations that

they're having with Israel. So I do think it's important to clarify that point that Dan seems to be calling for a Israeli hostage negotiation as basically the policy, the way they should have responded. I understand they're not doing that exclusively. Maybe that's what Dan means, but they are doing that at least in part. We know that because some hostages have been released. So, yes, there was some reporting that Israeli soldiers may have actually killed other Israelis or hostages in the firefights they had with Hamas. But I think we know pretty clearly that Hamas killed the vast majority of the Israelis who were killed on this day.

Yeah, I mean, have you heard of the Hannibal Directive? Are you familiar with that concept? I'm not familiar with the Hannibal Directive concept, no. The Hannibal Directive is the idea that it's an Israeli military doctrine that when an Israeli soldier is taken captive by an enemy force, whether Hamas or Hezbollah or whatever, instead of allowing that to happen, what they do is try to kill that soldier, to bomb the area as hard as possible. This happened in 2014, for example, in the southern city of Rafah, when more than 100 Palestinians were killed after Hamas captured an Israeli soldier named Hadar Golden. So, this is not just like an accident of, you know, we tried, we, you know, accidentally killed some

Israeli captives. It was a mistake. According to these testimonies from Israeli commanders, they were given an order on the spot to open fire with tank shells onto these houses where Israeli hostages were held up. So what's clear to me is that. So what's clear to me is that... And for Canadians. The situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. They didn't not just want to negotiate, they wanted to prevent any more hostages from being taken in by killing them in order to prevent any possible negotiations. But of course, the horse was already out of the barn. So now, this massive bombing campaign in Gaza, well, is certainly killed. I mean, I think it's a safe bet, has killed many of the hostages,

along with, you know, now we're at 10,000, roughly 10,000 Palestinians. And according to Yediot Aron Roth, the Israeli website, there's a security official who said it's at 20,000. So who knows how many people have been killed? And you can bet that there are plenty of the Israeli hostages who have been killed among them. So that's, it's an actual doctrine called the Hannibal Directive. All right, this is another important spot to interject here. I think Dan is right that the Hannibal Directive, it's actually called the Hannibal Protocol, I think technically is a very real policy that the IDF once had. It's also important, I guess, the little twist on that, maybe the little extra context I would add is to part one, the Hannibal Protocol applies to Israeli soldiers, not Israeli civilians. So I don't think it's fair

to say this would be the policy response from Israel to just kill Israeli civilians. It's something that they did in combat with soldiers in order to prevent more hostages being taken. That's one. Two, this very controversial policy was actually revoked in 2016. There's a Times of Israel article about that. We'll drop it in the episode description and drop a little image of the link on screen here. So, it does exist, it applies to Israeli soldiers, and it was also apparently revoked in 2016, according to this Times of Israel article. It's an actual doctrine called the Hannibal Directive of killing Israelis in order to prevent any kind of negotiation. That is a textbook definition of fascism. And this is why I say Israel is a fascist state that does not care about its population,

is willing to sacrifice it in order to have an ethnically pure state or as close to an ethnically pure state as possible. And we've seen many Israeli officials, including member of Knesset, Orit Struck, and others, talk about the open desire and their plans to recolonize Gaza. So, that's the idea, is to ethnically cleanse Gaza, expel all of the Palestinians into the Sinai, and this is a plan actually presented by Bitzel El-Smotrich, the member of Knesset who is the finance minister. He presented the subjugation plan back in 2017 in order to do this. So, any Palestinian who does not agree to live by what are called the Noahide laws,

and no Christianity, no Islam, basically live as a slave, will be either expelled or killed. And that is what is being implemented here. So, Hussein, I'm going to come to you. I haven't, I don't feel that I've spoken enough. Yeah, yeah, I'm coming to you right now. Before I do, I just want to say, I think like, relative to the hostage question, I do think there is, you know, the counter narrative to that framing is, you know, that we have the examples of like want to come to you, sort of putting a similar question and again, giving you the space to respond to what Dan just said there in response to my initial question, which is how should Israel approach their response to Hamas's attack in this situation, given the leadership that's in place in Gaza

right now and the fundamental framework of this present day moment? I mean, how do you view that question? First of all, what we just heard was basically a major conspiracy theory in which Israelis are those misanthropic fascist beings. They kill Palestinians for sports. They kill their own people just to spite the Palestinians who want to ethnically cleanse or destroy Islam and Christianity. It's just unbelievable just the amount of just a pure, malicious image of the world and of Israelis. And of course, they can't do that without conspiring with the United States.

You had U.S. intelligence, you had the DOD, you had the Pentagon issuing reports about what happened on October 7th, investigating even about what's happening currently in Gaza. They must be complicit. They are faking the data. They are in on this misanthropic conspiracy by those terrible evil zionists this is just a cartoon this is this is not reality um but can you actually like is does the hannibal directive not exist i let me continue uh the hannibal directive is i'm not going to comment on on military military uh regulations uh that have been there on the

books for a long time and have nothing to do with the events that which happened. There are negotiations about the hostages that are happening. But you just commented, you just said it doesn't have anything to do with it. How do you know it doesn't have anything to do with it? There are negotiations about the hostages through Qatar. And Israel has been calling from day one, both Israel and the United States, calling on Hamas to immediately release all the hostages, which then didn't even do, didn't even call about Hamas, the

terrorist organization that's holding children, holding women, elderly, high farmer workers that have nothing to do with any of this as hostages in Gaza. Israel, since day one, have been calling on Hamas to release those hostages. Hamas is a terrorist organization that seems to be given the hollow on the aura of the little David facing this evil, mighty Goliath. I really it's the problem is that what Dan said is so general and so wrong and so concocted from different facts that it's not even a specific enough to be accurate or to warrant a response. But what can you debunk that actually say, what do I get factually wrong? I know you disagree with my analysis. What do I get factually wrong? It's not it's not analysis.

Life is not a narrative. I'm sorry to tell you, life is facts, political concrete. So what facts do I get wrong? You haven't been able to dispute a single fact that I've presented. Israel, Israel did not that the most of the people who were murdered were murdered by Hamas, who planned to go murder Israeli civilians on October 7th. As they said, they themselves said they issued videos, celebrated the murder. And then Dan Cohen here sitting in the United States saying, well, we need to ask really look at the conspiratorial thing. You you insinuated that very clearly in front of everybody.

We task if I don't know, I can't say, but it's not above the Israelis to murder their own people. It's just unbelievable that this is considered. Do you think those Israeli commanders quoted in Horaretz are lying? Were they lying? What Israel needs to do, Israel needs to go to continue the military operation. Wait, you're accusing me of all these things. I do want him to answer my initial question. In order to destroy Hamas, in order to save Israeli citizens, to save Palestinians from this Iranian-backed terrorist

organization. And afterwards, we can actually look at the first time in a very long time at the possibility of a political solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Once you don't have a terrorist organization actually ruling and using as human shields millions of Palestinians in this way. I think this is a view of the U.S. government as well. Of course, Israel needs to do so while making sure that Palestinian civilians are out of harm's way, which is extremely difficult to do given the official policy of Hamas of using the Palestinians as human shields. But this is, I believe, what Israel is doing right and what Israel needs to continue to do.

Hussein, let me ask you a follow-up question to that. So, I guess one of the issues that I run into with that framework for this solution, the go in and destroy Hamas, build up a new political coalition in their wake. Aside from the fact that I think that we've seen the US and Israel in various ways working together, try to perform that kind of regime change, quote unquote, if you want to call it that, and fail in the past, which deeply worries me. The other thing is, even if we take the rough estimates of the Gaza health ministry at face value, that there's, you know, 10,000 Palestinians dead, some of them may be fighters, some of them may be civilians. I think

we have good evidence to believe many of the dead, probably in the thousands are children. You know, to speak to Dan's story before, there is going to be a generation of Palestinians now who survive and experience this war, this latest bombardment from Israel, who I struggle to believe will be reachable. You know, after in the wake of this attack, I have a hard time seeing how they will be reachable from, you know, whether it's an Arab world backed leadershiped leadership or an Israeli-U.S.-backed leadership, it's hard for me to imagine a situation where coming out of this rubble, we have a population willing to accept the sort of introduction of some new political party, some new leadership. Even if before this latest attack, maybe Hamas wasn't very popular with the Palestinian people, which I grant also might be true or not popular with the Gazan people. So talk to me a little bit like real term, real world. How is it possible, given what Israel is doing right now, given the death toll we're seeing in Gaza, how is it possible that we can see some new political leadership introduced that's going to be accepted by the Palestinian people, by the Gazan people. I mean, to me, that's the most potent argument for a quote-unquote ceasefire

or some more accountability on Israel's part in terms of the civilian death toll we're witnessing, because I don't think it's a particularly good thing, not just for the Palestinian people, obviously, who are dying, who are seeing their family members die, their apartment buildings destroyed, their schools, their hospitals, whatever. But also for the Israeli people, the pro-Israel side, who wants a secure border and wants a safe Israel. I mean, they're losing political capital right now on the world stage because people are watching what's happening. And there's a great deal of sympathy for the Palestinian people. And I think, you know, justly so. And there are a generation of Israelis

that now is being traumatized or has been traumatized by the images. I took Orgat, an Israeli civilian, a citizen, I met him a couple of weeks ago. Orgat is from Kibbutz Be'eri, right on the borders. He was with friends in Tel Aviv when this happened.

He discovered that Hamas entered his house and murdered his own mother in the living room, in their living room from Hamas videos. That is, he was in Tel Aviv seeing all the now telegram videos being shared by the Hamas glorious resistance warriors. And in them, he saw his mother in their own living room, laying in a pool of blood. That's also traumatizing. People reconciled. Literary speaking, if we want to live in the world of college campuses, yeah, we can lament and sit in our false pathos, especially if we're aided by a lot of conspiracies and just a cesspool of hatred on Twitter, about how this can end poor people reconcile. Despite all the problems between Israel and Egypt and the environment in Egypt is still hostile to Israel, Egypt and Israel ended their wars in 1977.

They signed a peace accord. There are countless, countless examples. there are countless, countless examples. Europe after World War II, after massacring each other on scale never known between Israel and the Arabs, they reconciled. Israel currently in Gaza, let's just set that straight. Israel does not target civilians. Israel targets Hamas terrorists. All right, another important interjection here here just to rein in, I think, a little bit of a broad stroke here from Hussein. The question of whether Israel targets civilians or simply has a high tolerance for civilian death is actually something that is very hotly debated in this war. Based on the available evidence, I think it is not true to say that Israel targets

civilians, as many on the pro-Palestine side say. The IDF can almost always bring forward a security justification for a strike, and typically they are killing Hamas fighters or Hamas commanders with these airstrikes. But I also think to broadly say that Israel doesn't target civilians, as Hussein does, is not a nuanced enough statement. It's at least plainly obvious that Israel is very tolerant of the deaths of Palestinian civilians. The truth is that Israel's rules of engagement are classified. They're shrouded in secrecy. Its targeting practices are not well known outside high-ranking military commanders. Even U.S. officials have said they do not know how the IDF is assessing a threshold for civilian casualties.

I know all this because the Washington Post actually just published a lengthy report on this very question about Israel's tolerance for civilian casualties. So we're going to drop a link to that article in the episode description as well if you want to read a little bit more about it. Israel target Hamas terrorists. Sadly, yes, I'm not denying that this is tragic and civilians die, but to demand a ceasefire is basically to award a victory for the terrorist organization that started this. There was a ceasefire, as a matter of fact, on October 6th. If Hamas can be removed from power, in general, in any circumstances, any peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis will take some, a few generations, probably one or two, actually not that many,

for both populations to heal from a long, bloody, and scarring history. This is just a fact. But to leave Gaza the way it is, okay, after all of this has happened, all of those Israelis got murdered, all of those Palestinians got killed because of the orders from Tehran to the Hamas terrorists. And then we tell Israel, OK, stop. Well, what has changed? What was all of this suffering for? This suffering must not end for nothing.

It must end with a final change and end of this brutal reality. And only then, by the way, the Palestinians already have the Palestinian Authority. It's not that Hamas is the only Palestinian entity or leadership. We're not talking about regime change. There's no state. The Palestinian Authority can take charge of their population in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority actually was in charge before Hamas kicked them out. They murdered their officials. They threw them off the roof in 2005. That's before anything. And they kicked them out. And that's actually when the siege on Gaza started. It can't be all for nothing. The rule of Hamas must end. And then hopefully the Palestinians and the Israelis will start finding there will be scars. Nobody is denying that there will be scars.

There is not a house amongst the Palestinians. There is not a house amongst the Israelis that didn't have people who got killed, who sacrificed for this very sad and very troubling conflict. very sad and very troubling conflict. But that does not mean that there is one person here who we can caricature as Hitler reincarnate, who's a fascist and misanthrope and want to kill children. This is just a caricature and a cartoon that does not do any dignity to reality, does not do any dignity to the real people

who are involved in this. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Dan, I want to take this to you now. I mean, obviously, there is a civilian death toll that's happening in Gaza right now. I think, though, to Hussein's point, there is something about that death toll that is, you know, sort of organic to Hamas's actions, to what they do, to where they position themselves in Gaza. So how do you think about that, Dan? And also to sort of piggyback off some of the points Hussein's making here, do you believe that Hamas has, you know, the Gazan people's interests in mind, at heart? Do you believe they're a leadership

group that represents the interests of the people in Gaza? And if not, if they are, as Hussein describes them, just a proxy for Iran who's doing battle in the Middle East on behalf of their Iranian counterparts, then why should Israel accept them as the leadership group in Gaza right now? I mean, there was such a dizzying array of Hasbara lies from Hussein. you know, first of all, accusing me of promoting conspiracy theories that Bitzalel Smotrich's subjugation plan does not exist. I guess the Israeli paper Haaretz, which reported on it extensively in 2017, must be a wild-eyed conspiracy theory paper too. I just want to clarify, are you denying that the subjugation plan

does exist? I'm denying the characterization. You're asking a question, you're already putting a moral category, qualifying it. That's not okay. These plays of conspiracies, there are plans. Yes, there has been plans in Israel, in some corners of policymaking about the possibility of moving Israel, Palestinians, the Gazans to Sinai. These plans have never been adopted by any Israeli government. It's not the official position of any Israeli government. That's the finance minister who created them. Okay, so those plans do exist.

You like to pick those facts, concoct them in this image of conspiracy that you want to portray to people, in order to, as again, Israel, the fascist, the evil, the so on. Okay, so those plans do exist and you admit it. No, not subjugation plans. Not in the way that you described them. That is literally what it's called. No.

That's what it's called. It's subjugation plans? Do you know? That is precisely, that's not my, that is the official title of it. Yeah. The subjugation plan. That's not me. That's not my characterization. That's the official title of it yeah the subjugation plan that's not me that's not my characterization that's the official title of it i don't know what i don't understand is why you

refuse hussein to deal with reality every time i say something like this you call it this crazy conspiracy theory you can disagree with my analysis but it's obvious that you actually don't know hussein you don't know who's saying you don't know israeli society man you know you know whatever hasbara think tanks and outlets that you're associated with but you don't know what israeli society is actually about what is it about hold on before before before i go and i want to get a get a wrangle on this so dan my my question i'm putting to you is, does Hamas represent the genuine interest of the Palestinian people? Taking Hussein's, look, you know, we can debate the subjugation plan.

I'm, you know, I've seen articles talking about the existence of the plan. I can't remember exactly. I'll take your word for it, Dan, that the title is the quote-unquote subjugation plan. Okay, me again. One more interjection here. I think we have this and one more after it. So this is an instance where I think what Dan is saying and what Hussein is saying is broadly, roughly true. I think Hussein's portrayal of the issue is closer to the reality. The quote-unquote subjugation plan is real, and it has been proposed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. So Dan is right about that. He is right that Haaretz has reported on it. He sent me a link to the article after our conversation. But also, I think Hussein is right that Smotrich is a pretty extreme figure and that this plan is

not something that has ever had mainstream adoption. He is the finance minister. It was very controversial that he became the finance minister because he is considered a very far-right member of the Israeli government. I'm grasping for an American parallel here. Nothing is a great fit, but I think it would be a little bit like taking a proposal from Representative Lauren Boebert, the Republican from Colorado who is a far-right figure in the U.S., and then framing her policy proposal as some kind of wholesale policy adopted by the U.S. government simply because she supports it and she has a seat on some high-ranking House committee. Dan is right that the plan is real, but I think it's disingenuous to frame it as pure Israeli policy. I think it's quite evident that Smotrich

is a pretty radical person in the Israeli government. But we're going to talk about in a second, as you'll see in the interview right here, how that plan has sort of gained some prominence since Hamas's attack. I've seen articles talking about the existence of the plan. I can't remember exactly. I'll take your word for it, Dan, that the title is the quote unquote subjugation plan. I think Hussein raises a good point that, you know, the adoption of that plan from the military government wholesale, which is extremely divided on many issues and came into this latest attack, extremely divided, is not something that I've seen, but we can do some fact-checking and

lay out some ways. I'll just tell you really quickly, I published a report on this. There was an Israeli intelligence ministry plan that was published about a week ago that called for, it laid out three options. One, A, was the return of the PA to Gaza and said, but that doesn't fundamentally deal with our issue. B, was some other Arab ruler and that doesn't fundamentally deal with our issue or C the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai. This was just, this was just, but that was in the wake of Hamas's attack. So, I mean, and so this has been a plan before, and now it's being openly floated by the intelligence ministry.

I mean, how are we going to call this a conspiracy theory when they've published the plans? As that relates directly to my question, though, I think from my perspective, the point is that Israel feels justified in that plan now or justified in floating know, acceptable and they'd be glad to push them into Gaza or push them into Egypt, into Sinai, even accepting that that is, you know, maybe a common or mainstream view from

the Israeli government. That to me sort of shows that the outcomes of Hamas's actions is, you know, directly contradictory to the Palestinian cause, which is part of my question to you is, should we think of Hamas as genuinely representing the interests of the Palestinian people? And, you know, if yes or no, then therefore, how should the Israeli government think about Hamas? Because, you know, I, I obviously, I think you might be able to tell from my questions here, I'm very conflicted. And I think towards the center on a lot of these issues. But I think there's a really good argument that, you know, Hamas is not genuinely interested in the cause of the Palestinian people and is in fact undermining the potential outcome of, you know, a Palestinian state. So I want to hear you talk a little bit about that question specifically, because I've asked it a couple of times now. Well, okay, I'll put it this way. I mean, the first thing you just asked,

what, did the Hamas attack on October 7th give the Israelis the reason to want to expel Palestinians into the Sinai Desert? Well, I would say, I would draw this parallel. Did the Warsaw Ghetto uprising give the Nazis the reason to want to destroy the Warsaw Ghetto, to burn it down and murder all of its inhabitants as they did? Well, of course, to the Nazis, if you believe in the Nazi project they did, just like if you believe in the Zionist project, that there should be an ethnically pure Jewish state or as close to an ethnically pure state as possible, then yeah, I suppose you would believe that. But if you actually believe in democracy, if you think that all people should have equal rights,

then no, I reject that entirely. So, does Hamas represent the Palestinians in the sense that living under siege, like if here in the United States, if we were under attack by a foreign country, if we were under occupation, I would be allied with people that I don't really have anything in common with, you know, like the right wing in the Bible Belt who have guns and love their land and, you know, are patriots that I don't really interact with much, I would be lining up with them because they would be defending the country from foreign invaders. And that's who Hamas is, okay?

They are like, that's essentially who they are. They're a resistance movement, and that's why they're popular. And they are popular in Gaza. Not everyone agrees with them politically, but in times like this, people are going to stand with those who are fighting off the occupation, the occupiers, because they don't have any other choice. If you want democracy to flourish, for other parties to be able to come up and replace Hamas, lift the siege and the occupation, give people a chance to breathe

and have a little bit of life, give Waseem Shamali a chance to get out of this bombed out, if he's still alive, to get out of this bombed out rubblescape and go, you know, see the world, to enjoy life a little bit, and then people won't be in this resistance mode where, like, all he has is this bleak future his family's been killed so i might as well you know i can't get justice via any uh legal system i don't have any legal reproach so i'm just gonna sacrifice my body and my life to kill that guy who killed my brother and my family that's if you want to fix gaza that's how you do it. You allow them to be humans. You treat them with dignity just as any other every people deserve. So one thing I do, but I just want to is Islamist movement that does not believe in democracy,

that does not believe in civil rights. Zionism doesn't believe in democracy, either. That does not believe in in the rights of its own people and hasn't hold a single election since they came to power and kicked out the Palestinian Authority brutally and sat in power. But do Palestinians deserve rights? Should there be democracy, Hussein? Should there be democracy?

So you're against democracy. Jango, Unchained and their resistance movement is defending tyranny that the Palestinian people are the first people to suffer from. I want to make just one clarification. So I'm not just misquoted. I didn't say that the plans of the policy papers about the possibility of pushing the people of Gaza to Sinai is not there. I'm sure it's there. I've seen the report of that from the last week. They said it's not above Smotrich when he was out of government to have made a plan like this. He was in the government then. He was in the government then. I don't think so.

It's not above him. He's an extremist. I'm not defending him. He's the finance minister now. But this is not the position. What I'm saying, this was never accepted as a position, whether of the Israeli military or an official policy of the Israeli government. It is a framework to look at this, Israel's response to this latest incursion of violence. And, you know, again, I really loathe when people pick one point in time in this historical conflict and start from there. So I'll take Dan's point that, you know, this

didn't start on October 7th. I think that's quite obvious. I hope from our coverage previously, people understand that I know that. But I do think that this latest attack from Hamas did shift the ground a bit in the sense that it's changing the global attention on this issue. It's changing how Israel is thinking about this issue. And in the wake of that attack, I've written that there were kind of three broad responses that I've seen-unquote you know eradicate Hamas so we're seeing a ground invasion that's beginning that's now you know the Israeli military is encircling

Gaza City we're seeing the bombardment and we're basically seeing the full force of the Israeli military that's maybe option one the one we're witnessing option two was you know a military response that was proportionate and people define that differently. And a lot of people feel like maybe Israel has passed that point now. And so they're calling for a ceasefire, you know, to, I think Dan made this point earlier was, you know, the Israeli military has responded and now they need to stop because what they're doing is going well beyond anything that's acceptable under international law. That is actually kind of, I think, maybe a middle ground position. And then option three is Israel should understand that Hamas's attack is directly related to the root cause of the blockade

and the occupation in the West Bank, and they should lift the blockade and pull out of the West Bank, and they should respond to Hamas's attack by essentially doing what they're asking for, which is, you know, lifting the blockade, removing themselves from the Palestinian territories. That's generally, I think, the very pro-Palestine side. I'd be interested, Hussein, to hear you talk about option number three, why you don't view that option that I think Dan was just making an argument for as particularly compelling or acceptable from the Israeli point of view. And I think from your point of view, but correct me if I'm wrong. I call for a ceasefire.

I want, I want, nobody wants, if I was in Gaza and I was a father and they had children, I would be living in a nightmare. I can't even imagine how, what those people are calling. So I call for an immediate ceasefire. I call for an immediate release of the hostages and an immediate total surrender by the terrorist organization that's called Hamas. That's that's really what a ceasefire should be. Surrender the terror. The terrorist ceasefire, the terrorist. That's a surrender. Yes. Of terrorists that you're defending, Mr. Cohen, surrender, let the terrorists surrender, let all of the hostages be released and have your immediate ceasefire. This is not what people asking for. What people are asking for the Israelis is to lick their wounds, leave a

terrorist organization in power in Gaza, and then have this happening, you know, in four or five years again, have this all over, you know, and pack and go home. That's not an acceptable solution because this, you basically didn't solve anything. This is anybody who really wants this conflict to be resolved, who wants a structural change, knows that the best option right now, if Hamas is not going to surrender, knows that the best option right now, if Hamas is not going to surrender, that's really ideally your best option, is to call for Hamas to surrender and for them to release the hostages, and then you get the Palestinian Authority rebuilding its government in Gaza. That's really the number one option. If, sadly, you don't have that option, because you have maniacs

who are in power, who used the aid that comes to Palestine to build tunnels in which they can hide while the people of Gaza are in the surface, in the middle of all the fighting. You had Hamas officials being asked on live TV, why didn't you build, you can see the video, why didn't you build a single shelter, a single shelter for the people of Palestine that you love so much? And the guy said, well, our responsibility is our fighters. We built the tunnels for them. But the people of Gaza are the responsibility of the UN and Israel. They are the ones who are responsible for to take care of them. This is not going to cut it. You need Hamas. The Israeli objective here, Isaac, is not destruction. The Israeli objective is to get Hamas out of power.

This can happen not necessarily with firepower. This can happen if Hamas surrenders. Hamas doesn't want to surrender. Hamas wants to hide in the tunnels. And that's why Israel is going in. I'm not a military expert. I just I hate when people comment on a lot of the things that they don't necessarily are experts on. I don't know what exactly on the ground the Israeli tactics, but I hope that these objectives

can be achieved in a timely manner and with the least amount of damage possible, which is, I understand, it's very hard to do. we'll be right back after this quick commercial break dan i have a question for you you know and actually i'm gonna put this question to both you so he's saying you'll get a little bit of advantage here. You can think about it for a moment while Dan's answering. If I'm to take both of you, you know, together,

rather than, you know, pick a side here, if I'm just to accept what both of you are saying, I think there is a world where each of you have points that can coexist. And I have to be honest, it's not a particularly uplifting vision of this current moment, which is that each side is being led by power groups and power centers that are calling for the ethnic cleansing of the other side, either publicly or in private, that each side is interested in wiping the other side off the face of the planet, either publicly or in private. I mean, if I am to take both of your descriptions of the Israeli leadership, the current Israeli leadership, the current Israeli government, and Hamas, which I think is almost certainly the most influential and because of this moment, currently the most powerful group. That's not true, Isaac. I'm sorry, I can't have this.

We're not going to split the difference. That's not what Israel is. That's not what Israeli society is. That's not true. What do you think? Do you know what Amalek means? Hold on, wait, let me ask one question. Do you know what Amalek means? Dan, I'm actually, at the end of this interview, I'm going to give you both an opportunity to speak to each other.

I'm going to give you both an opportunity to ask each other a question. to speak to each other. I'm going to give you both an opportunity to ask each other a question, but I'm not here to equate Hamas and the Israeli government. All I'm telling you is that I'm listening to you as somebody in the middle trying to adjudicate this, right? And I'm speaking back to you, to both of you, what you're saying and putting those two things together, which is that the power centers on both sides are ethnic cleansing, uninterested in, they don't care about how many people on the other side they kill, et cetera, et cetera. So my question I want to ask is, who are the rational actors in your view, and Dan, we'll start with you, who are the rational actors from the Israeli government and from the Palestinian side that we should be engaging here, that we should be looking to for guidance on next steps about this. Because, you know, I think there

has to be a group or a coalition of people that genuinely represents the interests of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people who have maybe ideas that divulge from your framework for what the Israeli government wants to do. And it sounds like you believe that there are a lot of Palestinian people who are genuinely interested in a peace process. So what are the power centers we should be looking to in this conflict right now, if not Hamas and this current iteration of the Israeli government that you're describing as a fascist government? Well, I would say, I mean, regardless of whether you like Hamas or whatever you think of them, the fact is they are in power. And so they're the ones who control Gaza internally.

They were elected quite many years ago but you know they are the at this point they're the representatives of gaza they have uh international relations um you know their representatives were just in russia they have secret meetings with europe for example so while the you know everyone can say they're terrorists and denounce them in every way possible. The fact is they are representing the Palestinians. You're defending Hamas. You think Hamas are the wonderful representatives of the Palestinian people? Why are you putting words in my mouth, Hussein? You just did. Isn't this boring?

You just did. Who said they're wonderful? Hussein, I want to give him space to answer. You're going to get a moment here. I'm going to put the same question to you. So go ahead, Dan. I said regardless of what you think of them. That doesn't you know, I don't Hamas is not my government. I see like my preference is that Palestinians can have actual democracy and don't need a resistance movement. So then Hamas, you know, they can if they elect Hamas, that's for them. Just like if we elect, you know, whatever, the Democratic Party or whatever, that's what we have here in the United States. I don't think any foreign

country should be able to impose what government we have. Now, the question of, so who should rule? Well, I don't know. Palestinians have to decide that for themselves. Hamas is the ruling power. Whatever you think of them, whatever I think of them, has no bearing on that reality. So, they are the ones that you have to negotiate with, especially because they have the hostages and they have weapons, and they have a very sophisticated tunnel system in which they can kill Israeli soldiers who are invading, as they are doing. Now, on the Israeli side, there are very few people in the, there's no one in the government. You have a handful of people in the Knesset, who I think are sane, in the parliament, but

who are not ministers. And I mentioned at the very beginning of the interview, a member of Knesset, Ofer Kasif, who has been doing everything possible, and I'm helping him. I'll tell you straight up, I'm helping Ofer Kasif do everything possible to get some kind of ceasefire because Ofer lost friends. He lost friends, Israeli friends who were killed by Hamas. He's heartbroken and he knows, and he knew for months and months ahead of time, as he was warning the Israeli government and the U S government that something horrible was going to happen, that this was a matter of time so you know my so i i i respect all human life i want all human life to be preserved i want israeli soldiers to be able to live i want

palestinian fighters to be able to live and I want Palestinian fighters to be able to live and Israeli babies and Palestinian babies and everything in between. And the only way for that to happen is for what we've basically come to a point after, you know, 100 years of Zionism, where Palestinians have been pushed into this little tiny piece of land, the vast majority of them in Gaza are refugees from what became Israel in 1947 and 1948 when Palestine was ethnically cleansed, and they are now, they have nowhere else to go, and the grandsons, the grandchildren of those refugees are basically, they've developed a powerful resistance network, a resistance military capabilities. So, Israel has basically found itself in a war it cannot win. All it can do is carpet bomb the place and kill a lot of civilians while Hamas fighters are underground, largely safe in a network of sophisticated tunnels. So, Israel cannot reach, without negotiations, Israel cannot get its hostages back. And so, it's brought the very question of, well, what is the price of having a so-called Jewish state where myself, as an American Jew, I can go immigrate to Israel and get a passport

tomorrow and citizenship while Palestinians or, you know, while you, Hussein, because I don't think you're Jewish, are you? I'm not Jewish, no. Where you are not eligible to do that, nor are Palestinian refugee friends of mine who are not eligible to do that. So, until you deal with that system, which privileges one ethnicity or one group over the other, there is always going to be conflict. That's why I advocate democracy. And now we're at a point where things have come to a head in a way they never have before. So one state democracy, it's simple, like we have here in the United States. Okay, Hussein, I know you're going to have some responses to what Dan said. And

as long as you can work in an answer to my question, I'll give you space to have some responses to what Dan said. And as long as you can work in an answer to my question, I'll give you space to do that. But just to repeat the question again, I'm interested in who you view as rational actors from the Israeli government and from, you know, the Palestinian representation that you think might be able to work together toward something that is different and better than what we have right now. First of all, I'm glad that Dan finally kind of brought it very, very clear what this is really about. This is about the Jewish state and about not having a Jewish state.

Exactly. This is really what it's about for a whole camp of anti-Zionism and activism. It's really global that supports the terrorism of Hamas. I just want to point one thing. It's really a coincidence, Isaac, and this is why I have to bring it up. You know, I didn't know Dan at all before this. And then he, you know, he mentioned that he worked in Max. I didn't even look at his Twitter, to be honest. I was like, he told me it's a pro-Palestinian activist. Okay, I assumed some pro-Palestinian activist. I'm a journalist. I'm not so much an activist, but okay, go ahead.

And he said, like, he worked with Max Blumenthal. In my research, I read a lot of Nazi literature and anti-Semitic literature. You know, the... Are you going to call me a self-hating Jew? I'm not saying that. Real story. I just ordered this book, Eugene During. You know, classical anti-Semitic literature literature on which, guess what the seller sent me as a little present with the book? Max Plumenthal's little anti-Israel book. I think,

I just want to point out- Wait, what book is that? I want to see the book. It was How Israel Partisans Have Worked to Create Fear and Hatred for Muslims. I don't think that's Max's book. I don't think Max ever published that book. The Great Islamophobic Crusade by Max Plumenthal. I don't, that's not a book by Max Plumenthal. It's there. Here it is. I don't know where you i don't know that's not a book by max plumenthal it's there here it is i don't know where you got that but that's not a book by max thank you no that's not a book by max plumenthal so so that's totally false what you're saying yeah people can google it it's fine uh so what can i wait can i see the cover can i i really want to see the cover of the book i want to take max blumenthal here it is

okay let's see okay uh all right this is my last interjection here this was a lengthy article by blumenthal as far as i can tell it's not a book it looks like it's a binded piece of writing frankly this dispute is very reflective of some of the little weird moments where they're both saying some things that are partly true, partly not. But Blumenthal did write all this stuff. Hussain's totally right to bring it up, to show it, whatever. I don't think it's a quote unquote published book of his, but it is his writing. And he did apparently receive it in the mail and read it. So there you go. That's what that whole little back and forth was about. All right, that is my last interjection.

Here's the rest of the interview. So about the question that you asked, Israel has a lot of reasonable people in the government. You already have now, right now, a national emergency government that includes people on the right and on the left. You have Benny Gantz, who is one of the most decent and widely respected Israeli politicians who now entered the government. You had people or the figures who led the opposition. Israel is a fervent democracy that has been having a year-long protests against the government.

You have now one of the main figures of those protests, Yair Lapid, talking openly and supporting the government's measures and the government. We have a lot of reasonable people they can work with, other than the one communist anti-Zionist that Dan cited from the Israeli Communist Party, Maki. He's not from Maki, he's from Hadash. He's from Maki. You can find a lot of these reasonable people to work with. The Palestinian side, sadly, okay, the Palestinian Authority, even though that I am with and accept and promote the idea that the Palestinian Authority should be taken to rebuild the government in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority has a lot of problems. The Palestinian Authority

is pretty corrupt. They themselves have a lot of connections to terrorism. I think the solution will have to be regional in terms of Israel taking the help, working with Arab states, primarily UAE and Saudi Arabia, in order to reconstruct or construct or find an alternative, a Palestinian alternative that both is capable of governing and capable of making peace with Israel. Hopefully, this is the way out. The Israelis will have to work with the Saudis. They will have to work with the Emiratis. They will have to work with the Egyptians, which is somewhat challenging. But this is the only way out. The Palestinian Authority itself might have some capacity to restore some forms of government uh but the Palestinian authority everybody knows that's been decaying uh for some long time other than that you have to address you have to find you don't have really the rational leadership that you asked for

Isaac you actually have to find it you have to help it come to being and you have to create it and that's my that has been uh my criticism against Israel for the longest time, they really did not try to help social forces from amongst the Palestinians to rise aside from the very bad options that exist. I have to say it's not there. There are many structural problems with the Palestinian society, of which anti-Semitism and just the blind hatred of Israel is some, and you have to make those alternatives if we are to help Palestinian society come out of that very dark pit in which they are currently in. But to get to that, you're not going to be able to achieve any of that as long as you have Iran there and as long as you have Hamas there. So, before we get out of here, we're coming up on time here.

I want to say two things. First of all, thank you both for coming on and having this discussion. There's been a ton of crosstalk and I think a few moments of just like very basic disputes about, you know, the factual claims that have been made. I will ensure viewers and listeners here that I'm

going to follow up with both of you and do our best to clarify some of that in the episode description and give people a little bit of, you know, calling balls and strikes on some just very direct, plain black and white conflict. We have a couple minutes left. So I want to just give you each, you know, one or two minutes for either a closing statement or if you prefer maybe to address each other with, you know, a question that you find particularly probing or illuminating. I know we have a hard stop here coming up in a couple minutes, but I will start with you, Dan, just because Hussein had the last question there. Okay, sure. I want to ask Hussein, do you know what Amalek means?

Why? It's a biblical term. Why? Well, it's just a question. Do you know what it means or no? I'm familiar with the biblical term, yes. Okay, so you know what Netanyahu meant when he refers to Palestinians as Amalek?

He did not refer to Palestinians as Amalek. He repeatedly referred to Palestinians as Amalek on Twitter. Hamas terrorists as Amalek? He did not refer to Palestinians as Amalek. He repeatedly referred to Palestinians as Amalek on Twitter. Hamas terrorists as Amalek. Again, that's exactly what we have been doing. You're running cover for Hamas. Amalek is a nation. Amalek is a nation that doesn't exist.

It's a mythical nation. It's a mythical nation. Which is often cited, which Netanyahu cited to refer... Why are you running covers of terrorism? What's the lead of the question here, Dan? Yeah, the significance of the question. Well, Hussein knows exactly what it is. Clearly he knows.

So he knows... Basically he wants to say that he wants to kill all the Palestinians, which is not true. All right, but the question was for me. Alright, but the question was for me. This is a specific and explicit reference to a biblical nation that is an eternal enemy of the Jewish people that must be genocided, that must be exterminated, where you kill the men, the women, the babies. And it's very explicit about that. And so this is what Netanyahu is clearly referencing. Now, and again, there are not Hamas babies. Hamas is not babies. Hamas is a, whatever you think of it, it's a political

movement, or you can even call it a terrorist movement in your words, if you like. You can call it a terrorist group. I don't even care. My point is, this is an explicit call for genocide from the prime minister of Israel. Oh, okay. Okay. I mean, it's not him. I hope you're paid well for this man. Dan, that's nothing. Go ahead. You say no, this is your time. You said I want to give you one or two more minutes. Israel is not at war with the Palestinians. Israel did not go to Gaza to fight the Palestinians. Israel went to Gaza to fight Hamas, who are mass murder terrorists. It's just managing to kill 20,000 Palestinians. Who murder innocent Israelis, who've been oppressing Palestinians. If I was in the Gaza Strip, I would have been arrested and tortured and probably killed by now.

And there are many Palestinian decedents. There are many stories come out of Gaza about that abyss of tyranny that is the rule of Hamas. That's it's misanthropic, very misanthropic interpretation. I hope you're paid very well for this, Hussein, by whatever Hasbara thinks. Come on, let's keep it a little bit professional here. I think I'll say who my funding is. I'm paid by the public. I have no funders. I'm just paid by the public. Who are you funded by, Hussein?

I think Hussein is totally capable of coming to these views independently without being funded by anybody. But I think we should be transparent. If you go on my Twitter, it says buy me a coffee. The public funds me. I'm glad that people get to see this. I am saddened that there are such views. You write for the Times of Israel. You write for the Times of Israel, right?

In 2014, the Times of Israel published an article called, When Genocide is Appropriate. What do you think of that? I've had my work published in places that have published things that I find boring. Calling for genocide? Calling for genocide? That's sick. I would never have my work published somewhere that calls for genocide.

I think we're quickly spinning out into not useful territory. So listen, I'm going to end this interview here. As I said at the top, or just a few moments ago, I'm going to do my best to make sure that we, you know, suss out some of the gray here and some of the disputed stuff with some follow-ups with both Hussein and Dan after this. Clearly a lot of disagreement and these conversations are difficult, but I appreciate you both coming on. I think you each knew what you're walking into and have views that you hold sincerely from my perspective. So thank you both for giving me some of your time and taking the questions. I do really appreciate

it. Thank you. Thank you, Isaac. Thank you, Isaac. All right, guys, thank you for watching that interview. I appreciate you tuning in. As always, if you are enjoying this channel or enjoying the podcast, enjoying the YouTube channel, whatever it is, please consider subscribing. Punch that like button. Leave a comment with some thoughts. We'd love to hear from you. We'll be back here sometime next week.

Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. Peace. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, Thanks for watching. varied history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season?

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