The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Dave Smith: Comedy, Ukraine, Israel, Libertarianism

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

A freewheeling debate on a lot of matters. Check out our YouTube page for sources and fact-checking matters. https://youtu.be/F1GkOhvscVY

Okay, this is our interview with the great Dave Smith. I'll keep the intro very short because it's a very long interview. There's a few factual matters that we had disagreements about. Please check our YouTube page to see who was right. This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy seller coming at you on SiriusXM 99, Raw Comedy, formerly Raw Dog, and available as a podcast and on YouTube. Dan Natterman here, a comedian, regular at the Comedy Cellar. Some would say underutilized at the Comedy Cellar, but that's a story for another day. Who would say that? I would say that.

Noam Dorman, of course, the owner of the Comedy Cellar, who is not directly involved in the booking. I'm more involved than you think. I just have plausible deniability. Fair enough. We have Peri Alashian-Brand with us, and she is a producer. She does some on-air stuff as well. She's not involved

in the book. Go ahead. And she is sort of a foil, if you will. That's her role, I think, on the show, if I were to characterize it. And we have with us a guest that has been, I don't know, a few months, I think, in the making, trying to get this. More than that, years.

Go ahead. Dave Smith is with us. Dave Smith is a libertarian, comedian, or comedian libertarian. I don't know what you would prefer to list first. Either is fine. Host of Part of the Problem podcast. Maybe you want to list that first.

He's a podcaster. A very well-known one. Wow, 400 on twitter that's uh that's a lot anyway they did nothing this promises to be uh i think uh hopefully um a um a debate where everybody gets along but i think there's gonna be a lot of disagreement in any case uh noam uh first of all thank you very much for coming. Thank you for having me. Second of all, I want to clear the air because you were very unfair to me. I sound like Trump.

You're very unfair. You're very unfair to me. But I don't think it was intentional. But for your audience, I want to clear the air. So I went and got the little clip of what it is that I had said about you. I don't know if you've ever seen it to this day. Yeah, I responded to you on Twitter. Well, you said that I was self-absorbed or something like that.

Yeah. Well, let me play it. Something like that. Yeah, but let me play the clip because now I'll just give a little background on this clip. I don't like to talk. One second. I don't even like. You got to play it on the screens too here so we can see it.

I don't even like to talk about such things as we talk about on this thing. Dan has some sort of passive aggressive tick where he will literally bring up something which he knows is uncomfortable for me. Because I don't even like to talk about people like in the comedy world on the show. It's not something I'm comfortable. And you will see on this thing. You don't know me well enough, but you'll see. But she'll recognize it, these long pauses where I close

my eyes and I'm trying to say, what can I say here to not, you know, to be careful. This is when I just got back from Vegas. I saw the Legion of Skanks. I don't know if you were there. I was there. And I was extremely impressed. And I

said over and over, and by the way, I'm also responsible, you don't know this, for the fact that Min Comedy was live streaming you guys. I'm the one who talked them into it because I thought that, you know, I recognize you guys have a great following. So anyway, so Dan brings up Legion of Skanks.

Okay, play. Is it at zero? I always get confused because I screenshot it. Yeah, go ahead. Play it. Is there a through line? Well, I don't want to get it wrong because if you get it wrong, you could be accused of saying something bad about them,

which is the last thing I'd ever want to do because I'm so impressed with what they've accomplished. But I think it's a Rogan-y type group. Yes, but what are they? A lot of these guys are on Rogan all the time, which is a wide net. First of all, they say they're not woke, right? They say a lot of things that you're not supposed to say. They're politically kind of libertarian maybe, maybe not, I don't know if that applies to

all of them, but definitely applies to some of them. And I'd say that the audience is mostly male. At least it was in Vegas. Who are the main skanks? It's Big Jay Ogerson, Ari Shaffir, I guess. I don't know. Luis Gomez. I can answer that for you. Luis Gomez, Ari Shaffir.

Go ahead, Mike. Legion of Skanks is their podcast. It's Dave Smith, Luis Gomez, and Big J. O'Crescent. Dave Smith, by the way, is somebody I wanted to have on this podcast. I don't know if he has any interest in doing it. He is a comic that has become sort of a political guy. Now, can you pause it there for just one second?

Dave Smith, I think, is angry at me. Now, Dan knows that I had already felt that you were angry. Dan knows this. I've said it to him before. So when he brings that up, it's not naively. He knows now I have to say this. So go ahead, continue. Go ahead, continue.

Go ahead, continue. Why? Because. Now, look at me, struggling. You don't use them? No, don't stop it. Would you use them? Should you use them? No, don't stop it. Would you use them? Should you use them?

Listen, this is the thing. These guys are... I mean, humans... What am I trying to say? There are some people out there who, when we had a chance to book them, we didn't book them. And we got that wrong in some way or right,

and the reality has changed. And some of them have become very big. So Dave Smith is somebody that we did look at, and for whatever reason, we didn't book him. A huge miss, huge, huge, huge miss. But I feel like these guys, no matter what, have a little bitterness towards the place, towards me, towards Esty. I don't know. And that's unfortunate because, you know, I'm quite admiring of all of them.

Okay, so that's what I said. Huge miss. It's actually the way I felt. I admired you guys no end. I felt. I admired you guys. No end. I was big up in you guys. I do feel, and I know that's just fine. Listen, there's a story. I wish I should have brought the video.

There's Bill Grundfest, who used to be the emcee at the cell, tells a story that Bob Dylan, my father used to never let Bob Dylan play at his coffee shop. And then Bob Dylan became a huge star. And then Bob Dylan used to come in periodically to the Olive Tree just to rub it in my father's face that he was a big star. And the point of that was that even though he was Bob fucking Dylan, it still bugged him that my father got there wrong.

So I always felt that anybody that for whatever reason got passed on, and I don't even remember what it was. I just remember that you didn't perform here and then you stopped coming for whatever reason. And maybe you got way better. Who the fuck knows? Maybe we just got it wrong, right? That's human, that it bugs anybody.

It would bug me. And I always felt like that you probably were just like, fuck him, he didn't bug me when he had the chance. And that's human to me. And that's why you can see, I was saying like, it's a human thing, but I admire these guys and we got it wrong like I get it you know so go ahead oh well I listen I wasn't like furious about it or nothing I didn't feel like you were like like horrifically insulting me or something but I do I guess I um like what it seemed like you

were saying was there's like oh yeah Dave is is bitter toward me and resents me for over a decade ago me not passing him at the cellar, which is just not true. And I've never said anything like that. I've never, like, publicly brought up that I was upset about this. And I have a lot of flaws, far too many to list. But I genuinely, I'm not one of those guys. I'm not, of those guys i'm not like a bitter and there's a lot of that in comedy like a lot of comedians who are very kind of like um uh kind of like feel wronged and bitter and resentful and i hate that that's not me at all so i kind of felt like you were publicly saying i am that guy where and the truth is i'm i'm a very grateful person um it's something

i i work very hard on being. But I have a great family, and I love my job, and I make good money at it, and I feel very blessed. I'm in the top 1% of the most blessed people. That's nothing. I'm top 0.1%. Two points to you. Hold on, hold on. Let me add some fact to this thing. The only reason I thought that was because over the years, I think even before we reached out to you to say, does he want to come on the show? And we never got an answer. And I've always figured, well, I own the Comedy Cellar. I'm not, you know, president whoever, but like, you know, you feel he would just write back yes or no. And I always felt like, well, the fact that he was ghosting me meant, indicated to me that he was pissed. But, yeah, I could be wrong about it.

I mean, obviously I am wrong. I take you at your word. No, I mean, I'm not saying I've never been pissed. I'm saying I'm not pissed off that you didn't book me. The truth is, and this was over 10 years ago, I just didn't have a great set when I auditioned. And that's that. There are people who could probably tell you about this but i was with that night that i was kind of like if i just didn't have a great set and that happens we've all like been in that situation before so i didn't i don't know you're still performing clubs you've never come

back to perform here i'd be happy i'd be happy to have you perform here and for all these reasons of course you would now well that's exactly so for all these reasons no it course you would now. Well, that's exactly. So for all these reasons, no, it's not. I mean, you're wrong if you think it's because you're famous now. No, no, no, no, no. I'm just joking. No, obviously, lots of people have been passed here who don't. But when you say that you you got it wrong, you're basing that on is his following or you're basing that on his expertise as a comedian. It's the following because I am of the assumption always that if somebody can,

this is not getting a Netflix deal. Somebody does a Netflix show, I don't know if they're funny or not because who the fuck knows why they got that. But if you can, on your own, in your own interface with the meritocracy out there, on YouTube,

develop a huge following for your stand-up comedy, it's very likely you're pretty good. Now, I'm not talking about TikTok videos. There's caveats there. But if you're actually putting half-hour specials out there and you're getting a million people to watch it, chances are, I can't be sure, chances are you've got something going, you know,

because there was no gatekeeper who put money behind you. This is people telling other people, you've got to watch this guy. He's funny. So I just put faith in that. Is that crazy? I mean, I don't know. It's your club. You've got a right to have whatever process you want to have on how to book it.

I would say, to me, if it was just my opinion, I would think it would be like, I think whoever the top comedians are, like the OG comedians, I'm not talking about who's selling the most tickets on the road right now. I mean, like the David Tells here. It should be like they all get to vote. They decide who the next guys who are passed at the club are. To me, that would be the best.

I thought you were a libertarian. This is a private property. Well, I started by saying it's your club. You have a right to do what you want. Now, listen, I didn't know that much about you until a few days ago, except that, you know, and I started doing like a deep dive on Dave Smith. And I was surprised that there are a lot of things that I really don't agree with you on because I always figured I would because you're libertarian. I have libertarian tendencies. Can we define exactly what libertarian is because Because I've never been 100% on that. Well, if I were to define it, I would say libertarianism is the belief in self-ownership,

private property rights, and the non-aggression principle. And that everything else is kind of extrapolated from there. But generally speaking, people who believe in very small government, free markets, non-intervention, stuff like that. My general interface with it, I agree with all that, is that people should be free to do whatever the fuck they want to do as long as they're not hurting somebody. And to be more specific than hurting, because hurting could be like dumping someone. Encroaching on them. Encroaching on their rights.

Would you agree with that? Hold on, Dan. So I was in the middle of something. I don't even remember what I was saying. What was I saying? You were saying you were in the middle of something. You were surprised that you disagree with me because you consider yourself to was in the middle of something. So I don't even remember what I was saying. What was I saying? You were saying you were in the middle of something. You were surprised that you disagree with me because you consider yourself to be pretty libertarian. Oh, yeah, because I find myself to have libertarian tendencies. And I really did lose my train of thought.

But anyway, so but you go further than I do on certain things. And I'm going to play some stuff to react to. But in a certain way, there's certain things which seem to me that I think are not fun in games that you are much more casual about. Now, that may just be performer stuff. I don't know what it is. So the

first thing that came to my attention was this guy, Nick Fuentes. You have him on your show. Now wait, now listen. I... Okay, so before we play, hold on. Before we play, I want to say this. I think you're absolutely right to have these guys on the show. I don't believe in

the fact that you shouldn't platform people. I think you should have every fucking Nazi and KKK member in the world on the show. So I don believe in the fact that you shouldn't platform people. I think you should every fucking Nazi and KKK member in the world on the show. So I don't, that's why I am like, like I had Norman Finkelstein on the show

and I got a lot of grief from very influential Jewish people like trying to like say, what the hell are you doing? You shouldn't be, and I'm like, fuck you. Do we believe,

we've been complaining for five years about all these people like heckler's vetoes and people chasing people out of things so they don't agree with them and now we was that just opportunistic like yeah i believe in this stuff but what i don't agree with is that we should have these people on to normalize them and not challenge them because to me and i don't think you're going to agree with me, Jews scream, and all oppressed people to some extent, cry wolf about racism and bigotry and anti-Semitism nine times out of ten times.

But there are real anti-Semites out there. There are real bigots out there. And they are dangerous. AndSemites out there. There are real bigots out there. And they are dangerous. And they do soften the ground. And we're kind of seeing it now with the Israel thing, regardless of whether we're on the conflict. We saw it on October 8th, kind of like a softening around where people are speaking very dehumanizing ways. So anyway, play this little clip and you tell me what you think. It's not simply to say, well, I hate blacks and Jews and gays and all of that.

I mean, I think the truth is that that might describe some people, but it really doesn't describe everybody. And I honestly don't think it describes Nick. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I really don't think it does. When a Christian talks, when a Christian quotes the Bible in America, you sit your ass down, Jew boy. This is America. This is a Christian country. This isn't Israel where they tried to ban the gospel. You made your money here, but you're not home.

And, you know, Hitler talked about the same thing. It's that when you look at a truly open society, a truly liberal, international, open society, that tends to be where the Jewish diaspora feels the most comfortable. And so they have this sort of histrionic fear of nationalism or of white solidarity because they recognize that in any kind of country that's Christian nationalist or God forbid, if there's a white nation, well, they're going to stick out like a sore thumb and be the aliens. So it sort of behooves them for a country to be as diverse and sort of Star Wars cantina as possible. You know, we're not with the Jim Crow stuff.

Who cares? Oh, they had to drink out of a different water fountain. Big fucking deal. Oh, no, they had to go to a different school. Their water fountain in that famous picture was worse. Who cares? Grow up. Drink out of a fucking water fountain. I get the point.

I get the point. So what's your feeling? Did you just misspeak or you actually don't think he hates blacks and Jews? Well, OK, so if you go back to the first clip that was a few seconds there, the only one I'm involved in, you might notice at the bottom of the screen it says Nick Fuentes versus Dave Smith. Because this is a twohour debate that we did. And the final, my closing statement of it was to kind of employ Nick and his young audience

to reject racialism and all of this kind of collectivist nonsense because it leads to really stupid places. But do you think he's an anti-Semite? I don't know. I don't really know him. So what would indicate an anti-Semite? Well, listen, again, anti-semite i don't know i don't really know so what you're doing well listen again it's i'm just saying i don't know what you're doing here right is you're

splicing one little clip of me with the worst clips you could find of this guy who is i think 23 years old and is clearly doing some type of like right wing shock jock thing. It's just like with all the internet comments, it's kind of difficult to tell who here is genuinely hates Jewish people, who here is trolling and saying the most offensive thing they can think of, who here is like some kid whose stepdad just beat the shit out of them and is like venting online. So I don't know. I don't, I think, I guess in that moment that you showed me, I was kind of like venting online so i don't know i don't i think i guess in that moment that you showed me i was kind of like presuming the best of you assuming you're yeah that's fine that's fine but i'm asking you now do you now that you've had more experience i just gave you

the answer i don't know and i haven't had more experience i've heard you play 30 seconds of random clips completely he went on the jews a lot on your show and then i imagine you've heard him on other shows he didn't he didn't go in on the jews a lot on your show, and then I imagine you've heard him on other shows. He didn't go in on The Jews a lot on my show. In fact, we didn't talk about that much. Have you heard him on other shows? I've seen, I've never watched a full episode of anything he's done.

I've seen the hits or whatever that get posted. Oh, sure. But also a lot of them are just kind of like it's a little bit difficult to tell and with that whole groiper movement it's kind of they're uh they're very young very male and they're very sarcastic like like the hitler youth well the hitler youth weren't very sarcastic no i i had the thought before you said sarcastic but so uh but so it's you know it is a little bit

difficult to tell where the line is and what they really believe and what they're saying to be shocking. Regardless, I think for an adult who's not a 23-year-old looking at it, I look at them as a reactionary movement to kind of the woke world that they kind of are reacting against. So I don't know what he feels about different groups of people. Fair enough. But this is what, and no, Dan, this is what bothers me. First of all, I think it's obvious. I mean, I can't read anybody's mind, but he's either an Academy Award-level actor,

or that was real venom coming when he's a jew boy this is more than just trolling i can't like i said i can't read his mind but that was pretty fucking convincing as a as a six-year-old person who's read people pretty well in his life that didn't seem like trolling and i and i watched a lot of him um but isn't what he's doing dangerous yeah i mean there's i suppose yeah i think i think almost anybody who is advocating any type of politics that are um authoritarian you could say are dangerous but there is a hierarchy of dangers and usually that is determined by who actually has power to implement their policies. So, for example...

They don't get power without having grassroots support. Yeah, okay, but for example... That's an important point. Okay, but let me just say what I'm saying. If there's a homeless guy outside who would have killed 10 million Jews if he was in charge of Nazi Germany, he's not a threat the way Adolf Hitler is

because he actually was in charge of Nazi Germany. He's not a threat the way Adolf Hitler is because he actually was in charge. He did have power. I see Nick Fuentes and his supporters having zero political power in this country. He had lunch with Trump. Yeah, he had one dinner with Donald

Trump where he was brought by Kanye West. The most famous guy in America brought him there or the two most famous guy in America brought him there or the two most famous people. Can I put one more thing on your mind? And then he got kicked out when they figured out who he was. Fair enough. Maybe that was a bad point. Can I ask you a question? Is it possible from his point

of view and from the other guy you had on, Richard Spencer, who is not a kid and says basically the same stuff. I just cut out some of the Richard Spencer videos because I didn't want to make it so long. Respectfully now, is it possible that they see you as a useful idiot? Useful idiot meaning here's the Jew who will have us on, laugh with us, say that we're not anti-Semitic.

He goes out there and everybody sees it. If it's okay with the Jews, you know, it's the precise kind of, it is actually a precise use of the term useful idiot when it's usually not used properly. Like, behind your back, I could just imagine him saying, this fucking sucker Jew has me on the show and I get to say

all this stuff and he doesn't even care. It's possible. Don't you worry about that? I worry about that. Well, it's possible that they say stuff like that behind my back, or I guess it's possible, as you said, that they're using me in some way like that. It's also possible that these guys, that maybe me being a little bit younger than you,

and these guys being a little younger than me, say the Fuentes fans, that maybe I have a little bit more insight into what their mentality is than you do, and maybe it's possible, just possible, that their entire energy source is your outrage against them. And that as soon as you sit down with them

and you kind of remove that from the table and you go, listen, I'm not outraged, I'm not giving you this, because that's where all their energy comes from, is that everybody's like, oh my god, we can't handle what they're saying. And then I just sit there and remove all of that and say, let's have a conversation. And I'll tell you, the truth is that I've gotten – I mean I can't tell you how many messages from people who were like, I was going down the alt-right pipeline until I saw your interview with Richard Spencer.

And then I kind of came back and saw that actually you were making some good points. And the thing that I did in the Richard Spencer interview, which literally was, I think, what exposed him the most, because I had never seen anyone do this before, and this is what I wanted to do, is I just had a friendly conversation with him. I was like, I'm just going to treat you like a gentleman as long as you treat me like a gentleman. We talked about what ideas we agreed on,

what ideas we didn't agree on. And then at one point I went to him and I went, okay, so you want to create an ethnostate in the United States of America. This seems like a pretty far-fetched idea. How are you going to create that? What level of violence are you comfortable with using in order to drive all these non-white people out? And he refused to answer. He just refused to answer. And then a lot of people kind of said they saw that as being like an explosion. I think you're right for having

these guys on. So I don't know, you know, you could always say like, oh, is it possible that by having pleasant conversations with these guys, you're being duped, you're right for having these guys on. So I don't know. You could always say, like, oh, is it possible that by having pleasant conversations with these guys, you're being duped, you're the useful idiot, and you're normalizing this now. I'd say that certainly when I had Richard Spencer on, he had a bigger following than I did. And Nick Fuentes, I don't know because he's been kicked off everything, but he, I think, has a pretty big following. So it's not as if I'm, giving, I'm like amplifying these guys' message. I think if anything, to some degree, I see these guys as being like radical dissidents of the current order. And I think it's correct to be a radical dissident of this order. They're

doing it in all the wrong way. And I'd, I'd want them to come over to, to, you know, like my side, but not really them as much as their audience. He's almost exactly in the middle of me and you. And I'm not outraged, but go ahead. But just, I mean, in relation to anti-Semitism and racism and so on, now you say libertarianism is the least government possible, or I guess roughly what you said, would that include legislation against a private business deciding they want to be whites only? Would that be part of the libertarian philosophy? Well, yeah, technically, it would be libertarian that you have the right to do that. It doesn't

mean that it would be something that we think ought to be done or would support doing that. But in the same sense, if you truly believe in freedom, in the same sense that you could say, I'm not dating any black people or I'm not going to, you know what I mean? Like in many senses where you can legally discriminate still now is you could have a no black people in the studio policy. Yeah. The fact that you have a store that faces a sidewalk to me shouldn't change that moral equation. I think Rand Paul got in trouble for saying the same thing. land in this country. And then segregation was the law of the land. And we could rattle down a whole long policies of where the government itself was literally what created the worst of the conditions. And then once they repeal all of those, they also go, oh, and we're also going to make it

illegal for you to discriminate in your business. And now that's an excuse for us to start hyper regulating all of these businesses. So the entity entity the government was clearly the most guilty in all of the history of like slavery and segregation and all of that so just saying you know but i i know that is kind of it's just funny because it's like we we live the u.s federal government is the biggest organization in the history of the world by any metric we spend over six trillion dollars in the chinese chinese communist party a substantially bigger more powerful government i'm not saying they might do different things for their own people go ahead but when it comes to like oh you believe in limited government it's always like right to this one like okay but what about hanging whites only signs on and i do understand where that's a concern. But yes, I would say that I think the mechanisms of the free market would do a very good job to cleanse that problem very quickly.

Can I answer you? I understand where you're coming from. I don't agree with you, but there are people who I respect who are not racists who do agree with you. I'm reminded of that thing in Oppenheimer where they kind of like a leitmotif where they says, theory will only get you so far. Remember that scene in Oppenheimer? What's the quote? Theory will only get you so far. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That it sounds good, but the consequences of it going wrong are horrible and not worth what we gain. What we gain is that people who would like to discriminate against blacks and Jews have the freedom that theoretically we would like every human to have that freedom. But that's really, so they're going to have to have blacks in their restaurant or Jews or white people. But to have a society where you have to check the rules of the place when you come with your black friends or you can imagine where, right now you could just imagine Jews not being allowed or Muslims not being allowed

in various restaurants. Second Avenue Deli doesn't want any palate. Like this is just... I think it'd be very unlikely. I mean, look, you could say theory... When you say unlikely, you mean a low amount of it, but not zero amount.

It would definitely happen. Well, I mean, look, there's never going to be a perfect world. And then what if a national chain, what if Chick-fil-A says no gays? Well, look, first off, I would say that the reason why Jim Crow

laws actually forced private businesses to segregate, okay, because they actually had the opposite end of government intervention, right, is because, why? Why did they have a law for that? Because too many of the businesses weren't doing it. And so they had to, because if you could imagine, right, this is in the Jim Crow South, and black people at this time are largely living

in poverty. And so the restaurants that they're going to aren't- You don't know that that's the reason. No, well, hold on. You don't know. No, no, no, I do know this. So what am I saying that you're objecting to? You're saying that the reason that Jim Crow laws were instated is because too many people were not sufficiently segregating. No, I'm saying that the reason why they— And I don't think that's correct. No, I'm saying that at least part of the reason why they made it the law of the land that you had to not serve black people at this restaurant is because a lot of them were doing it. Because if you could imagine, these are cheap restaurants. They wanted the money.

If someone's sitting there offering them money, they're like, come here, have a sandwich, like whatever. So I think all of the incentives of a free market would be pushing against exactly that type of stuff. Now, I'm not saying it's a conclusion that no one ever would misbehave. That's still not the case even now with the biggest government. But also, I would say, yeah, look, just to your general point of like there's theory, but it only takes you so far. And if this theory goes wrong, it can lead to disasters. I mean, yeah, that's true. But that's also true for lots of different theories, like say

neoconservatism, which has led to the deaths of millions of people over the last 20 years. That's true for, look, in the 20th century— I'm not sure what your point is. My point is that to pick out—you're arguing with this broad theory of libertarianism right over here in what you think is the Achilles' heel of the weakest point of it, rather than— No, no, no, no. Well, yeah, I'm only talking about that. I don't think it's the Achilles' heel.

I'm with you on most libertarian things. I'm saying on that one instance, I think that's where, you know. Yeah, my question was not because I was trying to debunk libertarianism. My question was just because here's an area where maybe it doesn't work or maybe it does. Let's have a discussion about it. Not because I was trying to throw out libertarianism. Let's move on to other things because there's a lot to cover. I'm with you.

I'm trying to build a business around the corner now. I've been joking a while. I could get my son's dick cut off faster than I can pull out benches. The laws are crazy. And think about what the – if you're talking about that with your business that you're trying to build and think about what the ramifications are of that, that this is happening. With every single business, not just in this city or this state, all around the country. Every law. How much wealthier we would be as a society,

how many more jobs there would be, how much more productive we would be. And then maybe a lot of these other problems, a lot of these social problems we have, which do seem to kind of come about when there's times of economic uncertainty. I mean, there's always scarcity, but when there's weaker economies.

Like, yeah, maybe actually we would solve a lot more of these problems and we couldn't even imagine how harmonious it would be if we just let people, literally like you're trying to do, produce value for other people. Okay, let's get into Ukraine. Okay.

I clipped a little bit of something you did on Rogan about Ukraine. I don't think it's unfair to you. I didn't do it to be unfair to you. I did it to just give an account. Can you play that, Max? But if it is unfair to you, I'm not the type of person to clip things unfairly.

Was it Rogan or was it Carlson? Maybe I didn't actually give it to you. All right, maybe I screwed up. There's nothing there about Ukraine? There's just the map.

Just the map of NATO and the... Oh, what a schmuck. Nick Flintes is right. Okay. Careful, you're normalizing him. Nick Flintes never said Jews were dumb. No, I'm kidding. All right, so...

Well, you could just tell me what it was I said. No, no. Or what you objected. I had a nice thing where you had'm kidding. All right, so... Well, you could just tell me what it was I said. Yeah, no, no. Or what you objected. I had a nice thing where you had each point. So your points are... All right, the first part was... Let's just start

from the second part. You feel that, in many ways, the West provoked Putin into this action. And you construct it in the same way Roger Waters does. You do say, of course, Russia had no legal right to invade Ukraine, which almost feels to me like a disclaimer.

I'm sure it's something more than a disclaimer to you, but it's something you feel like you have to acknowledge that. But then you spend, if that's one minute, you'll spend the next 15 minutes talking about all the ways that this is our fault right um i don't necessarily think it's our fault but yeah the dc and nato for sure so and you you make a lot of this not one inch thing which in my opinion you get that completely wrong i research i mean completely wrong but i'm'm going to let you say it, because the interview was a year ago, I think, where you talked about Ukraine.

So I want to allow for the fact that maybe you don't even have the same opinion exactly now, but what is your opinion on our contribution to this thing in Ukraine? Well, I mean, first off, I think I get the one-inch thing completely right, but regardless of that... Well, what is the one-inch thing?

And this basically was kind of... it was kind of almost like uh reported by people who were there at the time but now we can just go look there the documents have been declassified and like they're i mean i don't have the links on me now i didn't know we were going to talk about this but that basically in 1990 and in 1991 so this was right after the Cold War ended and kind of during or right before the process of the Soviet Union collapsing, that there were these, what they called the two plus four meetings. There was a series of meetings. This is the first mistake. This was not after the Cold War ended. This was.

Yeah, it was. No, this was 1990 when the Berlin Wall fell. Right, the Cold War ended in 89. No, the Soviet Union didn't dissolve until... Until 91. Until like a year and a half after that. And at the time the Berlin Wall fell, and they were negotiating with Russia

about what would happen with East Germany. Yes. It was not a far-gone conclusion that the Soviet Union was on its way out. Well, that's right. No, no, yeah, yeah. Okay, I didn't say that, though. I said it was after the Cold War, right before the Soviet Union ended up collapsing.

Okay? So, yes, you're right. So the negotiations were about Germany and the reunification of Germany. The Cold War is still going on. I mean, there's no end of the Cold War. Google the end of the Cold War. There's no official end of the Cold War. But so long as the Soviet Union is still alive, I would say that the end of the Cold War is when the Soviet Union disbanded.

It actually may have ended when Germany reunified, but it was not known at that time. So when Baker was talking about what would happen with NATO and whether we would move east or not, he had no conception that there was going to be other countries. No, yes, because, yes, they absolutely did. And if you want to go look at it in the record, and I'll send you, Noam, the quotes when I get home.

Hold on, Noam. I'll send you the quotes when I get home. Did you read Seurat's book? Not one inch. Let me just finish this, okay? I'll send you the quotes when I go home. But I read the whole book on this. Hold on.

Just let me just finish what I'm saying. Please. Forget reading the whole book on this. We have the minutes me just finish what I'm saying. Please. Forget reading the whole book on this. We have the minutes of the meeting. You can look at exactly what they said. I have the quote here. No, no, no. You don't have the quote that I'm referring to, so let me just finish what I'm saying.

Go ahead. It's not only that they say not one inch east a few times, but then in the follow-up meeting, they go, look, we already promised them not one inch each. So that means Poland and the others are off limits. So they're clearly talking about not just Germany. Do you want to look it up on the – you don't have to. I will tweet this when I get home. I promise you this is what was said. They even said in their own interpretation that clearly means Poland and the others.

So what they were saying was, what the deal was... Can you find it? Because this is a problem when somebody... Listen, I've read everything there is on this subject. I read a whole book on it. I read Mearsheimer. I read every major scholar on it. And I have not seen that.

Okay, I will find it for you. But let me just say, it's very clear that what they... Because first, by the way, the defense of this was that it never happened. Then it was, well, if it happened, it doesn't matter because it wasn't in a formal treaty. And then finally, I think even the New York Times acknowledged once these documents came out that they were like, well, yeah, it did happen, but whatever. So what happened was... That was with the Soviet Union, not the Russians.

So what happened was that when they were discussing the reunification of Germany, Baker said to Gorbachev, well, hypothetically, if we didn't move our forces one inch to the east, would this be be a way that they were talking about the reunification of germany right so at the time western germany was in nato and eastern germany was part of the soviet bloc so they're trying to negotiate a reunification for for nato and one of the ways that they basically got so you if you actually read the words to what's kind of interesting about it is that the the the West in general is kind of like flexing on Russian fears. So they keep kind of suggesting, like, how about an independent Germany? How about that? And that's because if you could understand, like, that's kind of a scary thought to the Russians.

So what they finally compromised on was they go, OK, Russia will allow German reunification. And the promise of that, and they could even be- And they allowed one more inch. They could even be NATO members. But they allowed one more inch. What do you mean? There was no limitation that we could move our forces into, NATO could move our forces into East Germany. The not one inch actually was abandoned in actually that treaty.

Well, listen, but the- And treaties supersede everything that comes that treaty. Well, listen, but the... And treaties supersede everything that comes before them. Well, okay, fine. They said they wouldn't move forces one inch east of... Of the Elbe River. So literally the middle of Germany. But then they did, and Russia signed off on it. Yeah, well, I don't disagree with that.

Well, then what came before... Okay, let me read you a few... No, but that's not... Okay, go ahead. So Mikhail Gorbachev. Now, there are other...to be honest, there's—he's a little— there's some other quotes of his that are not as on point but could be taken to be interpreted. But this was his full-quote interview.

They asked him about this specifically. He said, The topic of NATO expansion was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years. I say this was full responsibility. Not a single European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn't bring it up either. Another issue we brought up was discussed, making sure that NATO's military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces from the alliance would not be deployed in the territory of the then East Germany and German unification.

Baker's statement mentioned in your question was made in the context, in that context. Kohl and Genscher talked about it. Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify the political obligation was done and fulfilled. The agreement on the final settlement of Germany said that no new material. So that's that's Gorbachev. Very definitive. Then there's this guy, Kozyrev,

who is a Yeltsin minister, says, the argument about NATO encirclement is just propaganda. NATO was very useful for Russian hardliners because it provides the great enemy. However, if NATO dissolved tomorrow, they would still claim

the West is the enemy of Russia. Putin said, let me get to Baker. Baker says he admitted that he said it. He said Condoleezza Rice warned him that he shouldn't use the word jurisdiction. He says, I got a little forward on my skis and immediately pulled back. But the bottom line is, this is Baker, that's a ridiculous argument. It's true that in the initial stages of negotiations, I said, what if, and then Gorbachev himself supported a solution that extended the border that included the German Democratic Republic or East Germany within NATO.

Since the Russians signed that treaty, he asked, how can they rely on something I said a month before or so? It just doesn't make sense. Okay, so here's, listen, I get your point there, and particularly the Gorby quote I've heard a lot. There's lots of other quotes from Gorbachev. So here's another one, okay? And this just flies in the face of that one, right? So clearly he's on both sides, and I'll send you the link if you want. No, there are other Gorbachevs.

Let me see it. The Americans promised that NATO wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War, but now half of Central and Eastern Europe are members. So what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted. So Gorbachev- Hold on, but Gorbachev may not be referring exactly to that Baker quote. Well, okay, but he's making the point

that this was promised. Okay, so- Now, so he's kind of contradicted himself in several different areas. The fact is that you can look at what he said here or look at what he said there. But this is my beef with you. Or you can read the minutes of the meeting, which we have, so we what he said there. But this is my beef with you. Or you can read the minutes of the meeting,

which we have, so we know exactly what was said. This is my beef with you. This is an interesting fucking issue. Whole books are written about it. The greatest scholars are like, actually, I think they come down against you. But, you know,

I haven't seen one actually come out in your direction. But they take it seriously. But you present it as a far-gone conclusion. And this is what I object to. Because people, you're very influential. What is a far-gone conclusion? one of a number of facts in this ambiguous picture of both sides and perhaps provocations and perhaps pretexts. You know, every provocation can also be a pretext. You decree it as this is what happened.

We promised this and then we broke our promise. But the issue of provocations is very complex because I tried to write the timeline down here. So in 1994, they signed the Budapest Memorandum, which Russia promised to honor Ukraine's borders. Now, in a normal world order, that's that. You can bring up whatever, like statute of fraud, you can bring up whatever was said, whatever somebody said in a restaurant, over a drink, whatever it was, but at the point that you sign an agreement,

everything prior is superseded. You can't, otherwise, there's no such thing as treaties. If I can sign a treaty, a peace treaty, or whatever it is, and then say, I'm invading you three years from now because I feel like I, you know, you didn't live up'm invading you three years from now because I feel like you didn't live up to something that you said to me before the treaty.

I'm like, wait a second. That's not the way the world works. You have to bring that stuff in the treaty. But then, right after the Budapest Memorandum, Russia invaded Chechnya. Provocations. Now Poland and the Baltics, whoever, I don't remember, Estonia, Latvia, whatever, they're like, shit, Russia's on the march again.

We'd like to join NATO. Clinton was president at the time. Clinton was, you know, torn about it. Is Russia responsible for its provocations? Maybe if Russia hadn't done that shit, then these countries wouldn't have been eager to get into NATO. And there's provocations back and forth. But what's interesting to me, you're a libertarian.

Now, tell me if you agree with this. I don't put, like you made the argument, what if somebody came on our border? How would we react? Like, well, yeah, I get that. However, I regard dictators as thugs. I have no respect for dictatorships. Any country based on a dictatorship is a cousin of slave states.

They do whatever the fuck they want. Now they might be all right. Tomorrow they'll be horrible. A democracy is different. I'm pro-Western enough to say I'm not going to put them on the same plane. If we are about trying to fight for the right of people to not live under the yoke of dictators, I'm on that side. That's the side you should be on. So as long as there are elections and they claim that the confrontation is about spreading democracy, then I should be on that side?

That's a good point. Let me finish my little more, add to it, and then you can answer and you can include that. And you also bring up the fact that there's nuclear risks. Now nuclear risks, of course, that's the worst thing that could happen is a nuclear war, but number one, if we exceed to nuclear risk, then literally any country that has a nuclear bomb can start lopping off territories. We have to give them that much.

The game theory on that is nuts. And then if you really believe that, you should be in favor of bombing Iran, that they should have a nuclear bomb, because then Iran can start lopping off territory. And we have to let them have it under the same logic that we have to let Ukraine have it, except that at least the Russians are reasonable and the Ukrainians are GI. Also, the Russians actually have nuclear weapons. No, but I'm saying if we were to allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon— We're five years away, I've been told. Would you let them get a nuclear weapon or would you bomb them? I wouldn't bomb them. Okay, so if you allow them to get a nuclear weapon, then the second

they go into another country, you'd have to say, well, we can't risk a nuclear war, let's make, they should settle. But that's not what I or anybody I've heard has said. But that's the consequence of this. But the thing is, nuclear weapons are very dangerous, but they're never going back in the bottle. The most dangerous thing is dictators with nuclear weapons. It's not democracies with nuclear weapons. Dictatorships. Well, I mean, that's an assertion. I don't know that it's actually backed up by any evidence. Did you ever watch Chernobyl? Well, the only people who have ever used nuclear weapons aggressively were the Democratic United States of America. That is the most sophisticated point ever said by anybody on planet Earth.

You know better than that. No, I don't. It's a fact of history, so I don't know what exactly you think is sophist about it. But you're just asserting that the most dangerous thing is a dictator having nuclear weapons. Perhaps. I wish we could snap our fingers. Are dictatorships more likely to cause horrible wars than democracies? I don't know how you can even make that argument

after the last 20 years of American foreign policy. In the last 20 years, America has fought wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan. I mean, and we're going to look here and go, oh, the worst thing is what a dictator could do something like this. Yes. So I don't think that's actually I don't think that's self-evident. I'm also against dictatorships. I just think you maybe are kind of brushing over some of the crimes that democratic governments can commit. No, no, of course. I'm not brushing over the crimes. It doesn't seem, but look, anyway.

I'll ask the question a different way. If every country in the world was democratic, do you think that would be a more stable world than the world we have now? Quite possibly. Possibly or for sure? Well, no, because, you know, there's actually kind of a paradox there. So, like, most parts of the world probably would be a lot worse if they were democratic right now. So the question becomes in this hypothetical you're laying out of, like, how exactly did we get to this point from that point? Because what did Egypt do when they had democracy briefly, right?

Who did they vote for? The Muslim Brother briefly, right? Who did they vote for? The Muslim Brotherhood, right? Who did Gaza vote for in their democracy, at least largely for Hamas? I'm defining democracy differently than you. I'm defining democracy. I think actually you would agree with my definition, but I think you're just not, we're not being clear now. Democracy is not just about elections.

Democracy is about freedom free press free religion all the things so yes if the world were free that would be much better off we would be much better off if there was a lot more freedom in the world but let me go back to your point because i think you're mischaracterizing my position a little bit i'm not saying that vladimir putin's got nukes therefore he gets to do whatever he wants to, and therefore we must all just acquiesce to whatever he does because there could be a nuclear war if we don't. My position is more like, since he has nukes, let's not provoke a conflict with him at every chance we get to. Let's not put him in an impossible situation that we ourselves

would never tolerate. And then let's not cut a blank check to fund a proxy war on his border and discourage peace negotiations in the process. If you didn't think we had provoked him, you'd be in favor of us taking Ukraine's side, everything we're doing? No. So the provocation is not even the point? No, no, no, it's a component of the point. But let's take it out, hypothetically. Okay. Your position doesn't point. No, no, no. It's a component of the point. But let's take it out, hypothetically. Okay. Your position doesn't change. No.

If anything, what the United States of America should have done is the exact opposite of what we've done, which has now been confirmed in lots of reporting, that we were actively

discouraging peace negotiations. And, of course, this is another problem. That's not true either. Okay. All right. Well, Fiona Hill had the initial reporting on it. There were just more documents that backed this up. That's not true either. Okay. All right. Well, Fiona Hill had the initial reporting on it. There were

just more documents that backed this up. That we were discouraging, that they had come to the table and they were trying to work out a deal and that the Americans were basically like no, don't you take this deal. Or that Boris Johnson said it, basically. As a proxy. I read all about it.

I listened to Bennett's whole interview, you know, the Israeli. And but then Bennett tweeted out that he's unsure there was any deal to be made. I give it roughly 50 50 chance. The Americans felt the chances were way lower. And then he points out that the deal was going to have security assurances for Ukraine, which theians felt were actually not that different from ukraine being in nato so that was a that was that was a reason that it would fall apart and then and then russia took the deal off the table deals are hard but the uh well even if you're saying it was 50

50 i mean to discourage the 50 chance that tens of thousands more people are going to have to die? It's quite like a colonialist attitude, but the Ukrainians don't want to lop off 20% of their country. Put up the map that I had of the current Ukraine thing. Like, now, the things I was looking at up. You got it, Max?

Put it up. So, what everybody's encouraging Ukraine... Can you zoom in on it? What everybody's encouraging Ukraine can you zoom in on it? what everybody's encouraging Ukraine to take is to essentially give Russia everything that's pink there and if you look at it if you're not watching on YouTube

it's basically the entire Ukraine almost becomes landlocked it's about 20% of Ukraine's territory you had said on Rogan that it was majority russian it's not majority russian it's 58 percent and 56 percent um ukrainian ethnic russians are 39 percent and 38.2 percent of the the various old boss whatever it's not it's not majority russian but um even if it is majority russian the polls show they don't right now they don't well yes okay

the polls now have changed. But anyway. Hold on. But there was polling to be clear before the thing started. But it doesn't matter. No, I mean, it does. Because they signed a treaty recognizing borders. They signed a treaty.

And if that is, listen, you want at some point. You can't just win borders in a war, right? Listen, Israel. How's that drive with your Israel? Well, no, I was about to say the same thing. If you want Israel to sign a two-state solution, one of the biggest problems Israel has had with that, and we're going to go to Israel in a second,

is that, well, what if Arafat gets assassinated? Then the next guy takes over. A deal with a dictatorship is not the same thing as a deal with a thing. So we can't trust this. If the world signs off on the fact that it provoked Russia because something that was said 30 years ago. No, no, no, but that's not, but you're totally like, this is just ridiculous now because you're totally just like skipping over my entire point. No one's saying Russia is provoked because a thing was said 30 years ago.

You don't even need the, let me take it back because you said the provocation doesn't matter. If Russia. No, I didn't say that either. I asked you if your position would change if Russia wasn't provoked. Yeah, but that's a different thing than saying it doesn't matter. It did happen in reality and it does very much matter. But I'm saying if your position would still be the same, that Russia could change its mind in a treaty and say, you know what, I want this 20% of Ukraine now.

And the world says, well, this is a risk of a nuclear war, so you should give it to them. But we're going to be on our own here. We're not even going to have any... None of that is my position. So if you want to ask me what my position is, I could tell you. What am I saying that's wrong? I'm not just saying that if Russia signed a treaty and then changed their mind, they should have that.

That's not at all what I'm saying. In fact, as I've said many times, I think the Ukrainians have a right to fight for it. And that is their right. It is their choice whether, now they're not really getting to exercise that choice because of course their army is conscripted and they're forced to fight. As opposed to the Russians. No, they're conscripted too. Again, it's not catching me in hypocrisy. I wasn't claiming the Russian force was voluntary. I'm just saying that, yes, they should have a right to choose to, if they want to, to fight for their land. I'm not saying that at all. The point is that it's not just that Vladimir Putin signed this treaty in 94 and then changed his mind, that there were

a large series of events and that the wisest people within our own government were warning the whole way through that this is going to lead to disaster here. Go, go. That's a different point. I agree with you. No, no, no. Okay.. I agree with you. But then the story isn't, oh, Vladimir Putin signed something and then changed his mind. It's more like Vladimir Putin signed something, then we took this series of steps that... What steps?

Well, okay, first of all, I mean, if you haven't ever read... By the way, you only brought up the not one inch. That's why I brought... I don't know this other stuff you're going to say. You didn't say it in the interview. I said all of this in the interview. Um, so anyway, if you ever, if you haven't read it already, I would highly recommend anybody here,

go read, uh, the, uh, Burns who's current CIA director. Uh, and he wrote this private cable to Condoleezza Rice in 2008. This is when she was secretary of state and the George W. Bush administration's last year. And this is a private cable. This was not put out for any of us to see. We only have it because Julian Assange dumped it in a WikiLeaks dump. But so this is what they were saying to each other, the current CIA director talking to Condoleezza Rice. And he said, the title of the document is Nyet Means Nyet.

And the whole conversation was over Ukrainian entry to NATO. And what Burns says to her is that he's like, look nato is the brightest of all red lines for him and that was his term the brightest of all red lines and meaning not like when obama talks about a red line but this really is a red wait hold on let me just let me just finish hold on let me just finish okay so that's what he sends back to them right so he says to them that this is it and he goes not only is it totally unanimous in Russia, but if we move toward this, we are going to engender serious risks of a civil war in Russia, or possibly even worse, Vladimir Putin intervening into Ukraine, a choice, in his words, that the Russians do not

want to have to make. So two months after this document is sent, there was the Bucharest Summit, where they announced Ukraine will be joining NATO. Now, they didn't set a date on that. George W. Bush pushed it through despite the concerns of Merkel, who slowed it down. So they didn't get a date, but they did announce that Ukraine was coming in. And why did the Germans oppose this? Because they knew this would provoke Putin. Did you see Obama before?

Huh? I'll go back a little. I lost the, I'm sorry, it's my fault. I lost the train. I thought you were talking about the Bush administration. This is still the Bush administration. Okay. So this is all the Bucharest summit is in 2008. It's the last year of the George W. Bush administration. Okay. So that's, so then we announced it and then we took more and more steps over the years, especially after the Yanukovych government was overthrown with U.S. backing. Okay. So no, no, you don't know that.

It's another conspiracy theory. It's not a conspiracy theory, man. But anyway, we can go to— What is your evidence on that? What is the evidence of what? That we engineered a coup in Ukraine. I didn't say we engineered a coup, but we certainly backed it. I said we certainly backed it.

And there's pretty much no... No, no, you had said elsewhere, I think, that we had engineered it or something. Well, I mean, technically, if you want to get into it, the kind of NGOs, they take credit for kind of engineering it. If you want to look at that as an extension of the U.S. government, as a George Soros-funded NGO, the same as the government. I mean, okay, he's just the Democrats' biggest contributor,

and then he also runs these NGOs. They brag that they got the protest out. What was the catalyst to the protest? No, it's like the issue here is that it's like... Go ahead. Anyway, but after this coup happens, this totally organic revolution of the people, where, by the way, for some reason,

John McCain and other senators are right there, and we got, you know, what's her name? Nuland. Victoria Nuland in the streets handing out cookies. But it's a totally organic protest with no Western influence at all. But after that, NATO started doing joint training exercises with the Ukrainian army. I mean, just the type of things that if you could imagine, like if Russia were doing joint military training, you know, exercises with Mexico, what DC would do about that. And then, uh, that once again, right before the war broke out, um, Kamala Harris went over there and said, the plan is still Ukraine coming into NATO. That's still the plan. And like, listen, my, my position basically is that it's totally unreasonable for Vladimir Putin to have invaded the country and killed all these innocent people. They have every right to defend themselves against that.

But it is totally reasonable for him to have said it is unacceptable that your military alliance is in my biggest like neighboring state right here on the border. So let me just say, I don't think I made it clear. I'm actually quite sympathetic to your argument, which I would analogize to a terrible lack of defensive driving on the part of the United States of America. That we were, you know, poking a hornet's nest. George Kennan warned about it. I am not of the position of what you're saying. That's a Mearsheimer quote, not a George Kennan, leading him down the primrose path. That was Mearsheimer, yeah. Kennan says something similar. Yes, yes. So I am not... I don't buy the argument totally, but I've been torn about it because there's

definitely truth to the fact that when you make policy, you have to predict what the consequences of that policy will be. It's clear that the consequences of this policy, we were well aware, was a risk that Russia might invade Ukraine. So if we're going to take that risk, that has to be a smartly considered risk. And if it wasn't smartly considered, then that was a stupid thing for the United States of America to do. And you find this all over the place, right? But I want to add one thing to that.

But right on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine, the smartest people were saying Russia was not going to invade. In retrospect, people were saying, oh, it's a provocation. But at the time, even people I know who know a lot about Russia or tied up with influential people there did not think he was going to invade, meaning they didn't feel that the current climate,

you're going back 10 years, George W. Bush, but the current climate was such that they had a reason to feel this way. But again, there is something about this which is, for a libertarian, this is just what I find interesting, that, okay, now the Ukrainians have gone to war. They may end up having to lop off some of their territory. They're going to. But it might still be a victory for them because Kissinger had very much your point he was with for a long time before he died

he felt that in the peace that now Ukraine should join NATO. For very different reasons he may have agreed with some of that. But because one of the assumptions that underlay underlied, I don't know what the word is all the things that we're saying is that everybody assumed

that it was going to take two or three days for Russia to go right through Ukraine. A few weeks, something like that, yeah. And that was also part of the calculation here. The people who say don't provoke Ukraine, they were all saying, what are you going to do to them? They're going to be demolished by Ukraine. They're going to be decimated.

Didn't turn out that way. They may give up some territory and they may buy themselves an independent future. And they may look at this and say, you know what? It wasn't 100 percent victory. We didn't demolish Russia, but we're way better off than we would have been without this war. A thousand years from now, they may celebrate this war as the turning point in their history. And if that's the case, as a libertarian, you should be, you know what, fuck it, good for the Ukrainians. Well, I mean, I don't know.

No one that's like saying, if in a hundred years, Iraq has figured out how to be this wonderful, successful country, then we'll look back and say, it's a good thing George W. Bush invaded because they never would have done this if Saddam Hussein got out of the way. I mean, I suppose I can't argue with your possibility of what the future could hold. I will say that it seems like by taking all of these provocative steps and then giving a blank check to fund this war, it's extended the war, created the war, and extended the war. And I think hundreds of thousands of people

have died. But do you understand, do you agree that it's not fair to say only one side takes provocative steps? But I never said that. But who said that? Russia was on the march, too. Russia made the former Soviet nations, Eastern Bloc nations, very, very

insecure. They were urging us to take them into NATO because they felt that as soon as Russia got back on both feet, it was going to take them yet again in one way or another. Okay, but again, it's not like, I'm not making a binary statement. I'm kind of talking about things that I think are important. So I'm not making this statement that Russia is good or Russia hasn't done anything they shouldn't have done. And I could certainly understand why small Eastern European states

would want the biggest, most powerful government in the world to guarantee their security. Isn't it good for world stability? Well, I don't know. It doesn't seem like it's working out that well. No, I mean, I don't think so. I think that basically NATO, at least, if you had listened to the propaganda

for the 50 years, the first 50 years that NATO was created, you would have thought that if the Soviet Union collapsed and we made peace with Russia, that NATO would be disbanded. I don't know how much time Dave is willing to give us if you want to get into Israel. I mean, I don't know how much time...

I thought we were going to talk about comedy beefs here. No, no. So I want to talk about stuff you talk about on your shows. So, and listen, and again, and everything you're saying, I hope you will apply to the Arab-Israeli conflict because there are provocations. I think I'm applying the same principle.

So, for instance, we think Russia, Ukraine, should give up all that stuff on the map there, 20%, but then the same people will say the Palestinians had a right to say no to that deal in 2001 because there was 4% of the traditional West Bank that they had a right to hold out for. Talk about creating world instability. I'm not saying that. I think that's what the pro-Israeli side says, not what the other side is saying, that it was only 4% is what the holdouts were over.

I think I'm generally applying the same principle to both. It's to say that... He wants to talk about your Bagan tweet. My what tweet? I suggested that as a possible talking point, as well as the vaccine and the single bullet theory. He tweeted, there's a lot of conspiracy.

Does it bother you? Like, a lot of the people that you are fellow travelers with, Tucker Carlson says that we actually have alien beings and we're studying them and their weapon systems at the Pentagon. Yeah, I don't buy that. Roger Waters says that October 7th was likely a false flag. I don't buy that either. Brett Weinstein says that there were explosives on every floor of the World Trade Center,

and that's how they staged 9-11. Not familiar with that? Right. Oh, yeah, I can tell you that. The point being that the standards of proof, and then Tucker Carlson will say that you know, we knew about Pearl Harbor and William F. Buckley's in the CIA.

The standards of proof that these guys... There's some evidence on the Pearl Harbor one. Well, actually, I contacted a Japanese historian. Anyway, the point is that the standard of proof of these guys, if your standard of proof is so rickety that you're ready to state as fact... Can you play that little Tucker Carlson thing, that first thing, the right thing? The U.S. government has physical evidence of crashed non-human made aircraft, as well as the bodies of the pilots who flew those aircraft.

The Pentagon has spent decades studying these otherworldly remains in order to build more technologically advanced weapons systems. Okay, that's what the former intel officer revealed, and it was clear he was telling the truth. In other words, UFOs are actually real, and apparently so is extraterrestrial life. Now we know. In a normal country, this news would qualify as a bombshell, the story of the millennium. But in our country, it doesn't. So to me, it's like he's batshit crazy. Like, I would not take anything that man says about anything.

Okay. Is that not batshit crazy? I don't, honestly, I mean, I don't really know enough about it. I don't know who his source is or who he's making this claim. I would say he went a little bit far when he said it's clear he's telling the truth. I don't know why he thinks that's clear. But he's telling you, I don't know, some whistleblower. So I think that whole thing is a psyop.

Personally, I don't think any of it's real. I just don't buy. I'm just like, wait, so we all got like super HD cameras on us. And yet the only evidence of this is always the Pentagon being like, look, we have this grainy footage, and it's real. It's absurd. I just don't buy it. So I think that, now, what's an interesting story, even in my worldview, is that it's

like, the Pentagon does seem hellbent on trying to convince us that this is real, and I don't exactly know why that is. It's probably some type of scheme for more power, bigger budgets, or something like that. So i don't buy into it but no tucker carlson i mean look you have to like he's nuts well i disagree but you can focus in on these one like kind of specifics and like i said i don't i don't agree with that i'd i'd be interested to know why he is so sure this guy is telling the truth but i would say if you're going to talk about conspiracies and things like this over, say, the last four years, Tucker Carlson compared to almost everyone else in cable news has been less conspiratorial, more on point. He was better through the whole Russiagate thing where everyone just lost their freaking minds and became these wild conspiracy theorists, which all turned out to be nothing. He was kind of dead on that.

And through the whole COVID thing, he was pretty solid about pushing back against some of the more insane, tyrannical policies. But he was also conspiratorial on COVID. He was also... He turned out to be right about the conspiracy on COVID. He turned out to be right about something. Yeah, big portions of it, at least.

Well, let me put it this way. I was very COVID independent. Okay. It sounds like I'm big-upping myself, but it's true. I was very COVID independent. Okay. It sounds like I'm big-upping myself, but it's true. The things that they got right, I also felt that way all along. There was no need to buy into these conspiracies to know that there was a lot of obvious— You didn't need to buy into conspiracies to know that the fact that they were calling it racist to discuss a rally from China was fascist. You didn't need to know that it was obvious that the vaccines had not been as effective as they said. You didn't need to know that it was pretty obvious that they,

it didn't be a conspiracy there is to know there was pretty obvious that they really kind of put the vaccine off until after trump lost the election they were uh that the mask stuff was bullshit there's all sorts of stuff that oh yeah i mean you could go on for 10 hours on this but that the fact that they were like uh literally arresting kids on beaches and then demonizing anyone who walked down the street without a mask and then as soon as the Black Lives Matter protest happened, they were like, oh, the scientists say that racism is a greater threat than COVID. It's just insane. You and I agree on this 100%.

However, then Tucker Carlson brings some woman on in a wheelchair, you know, all contorted, and says it's because of the vaccine. And he has no basis whatsoever for that. And then he'll deny, you know, there's clear evidence the vaccines work. There's also clear evidence that able-bodied people didn't need to take it.

Yeah, it's a little, I mean, it's a little murky with the clear evidence that the vaccines worked, I would say. I don't know how clear that evidence is. But this is why, this is exactly my point. I mean, you can do your own research. Don't offend Dan here. I'm not against your own research. Dan doesn't like to do your own research. Don't offend Dan here. I'm not against your own research. Dan doesn't like to do your own research. But when I hear

Tucker Carlson say this stuff about UFOs, what that says to me more than anything is I'm not going to take my data analysis from Tucker Carlson. Nate Silver, who is also pretty vaccine

independent, has done deep dives on this, and he's written it and he's shown this and he's shown the graphs and in a very professional way. And he's he's not a flake. And he's and he's convinced me and I think it would convince any reasonable person that for as the risk of dying from covid went up, the vaccine had a big impact on sparing these lives. In red states where there wasn't a lot of, much less vaccine uptake, right after the vaccine, their rates of death shot up, while the blue states' rates of death went down. Yeah, but there's so many other factors in that.

I mean, look, COVID tended to tear through the cities first and then kind of make their way out to more rural points. You think Tucker Carlson would gangstamp us with that? No, well, look, I'm just saying that, look, a lot of these things, right, like stuff like that and stuff with just say like vaccine injury and stuff is very hard to actually figure out. Yes, but I'm just saying that they have a similar problem where there's just, there's so many factors going into it that it's very hard to extrapolate from that that like well this was the cause and this was the result so like like i know people who um so i know this one uh girl who's pretty young and imperfect woman i should say who's

pretty young and in very good health um who got who got double vaxxed and then boosted and then developed a heart condition uh after it now i do like that's how it happens most of the time and you're left going like i don't know i mean was it a result of that or was it not a result of that now she also had covid twice but it seems to me that it was either covid or the vaccine seems to be the most likely there is myocarditis you just don't know you just don't know myocarditis is so i'm from now. There's myocarditis associated with the vaccines, the mRNA vaccine. There's myocarditis associated with COVID. Yeah, yeah.

And this wasn't myocarditis. It was just another heart issue. But it's just like you are kind of left wondering. Now, the same thing when you see— And there's reactions to every vaccine, but it's a frequency. Right. But people like with that example you used, I saw a lot of people who are trying to extrapolate from this because at first the death rate in the blue states was higher and then the death rate in the red areas goes higher. But the issue with that is just that, like, there's lots of other factors involved in this, too.

And the truth is that the death rate right in the initial wave of covid right here in New York City was the epicenter. Right. And all the cities were where they had the most. But so then also they had the most. But so then also you had the most natural immunity in those areas. So in the later waves, the idea that the death rate would be lower in these blue areas and higher in the red areas. Absolutely. Makes sense without the vaccine. Absolutely it does. And I thought of that.

I agree with you. But at some point, unless you're actually going to take out a slide rule and crunch the numbers and have the statistical expertise to do that, at some point, you're going to have to size up the credibility of the person who is doing that. And that's what I try to do. There's certain things I can do my own research on, certain things I know I can't. So when a guy like Nate Silver, who I followed him on COVID, and he's not one of these fire breathing guys, and he's not all lockdowns, and he's actually against any, you know, he's pretty reasonable on this. When he undertakes that deep dive, and I have to compare it against the guy who's talking about UFOs, I'm going to say that I'm going to go with the guy...

Yeah, but I mean, you're cherry-picking one thing Tucker Carlson said and then giving the whole body of work... I'm cherry-picking one thing, but it's enough. Didn't he also say 90% chance Hillary Clinton was going to win the election or something like that? There was a 90% chance. Well, I guess we'll never know. I guess you can stick to that.

No, no, I mean... I'm just saying, listen, you could... You know what a 90% chance means? It means one out of ten times he doesn't win. Sure. But okay. But it seems like those odds might've been a little inflated. Yes, probably.

But, uh, so, but I'm just saying like to cherry pick one thing out of a guy and then kind of like dismiss everything else. There's a ton of things he says. There's a ton. Oh, okay. Bio weapons labs in Ukraine. Like he, he's, and he'll, and quite often if you really watch him, like I used to watch him, he'll say something once and then it'll drop off.

Well, okay. But he also, if you want to take him in his totality— I want to talk about Bacon. You're not going to leave, are you? Sure, sure, sure. No, no, no, I'll stick around. I got skanks at 8 o'clock, but I don't really have anything to do until then. So if you take them in their totality, I would also argue that Tucker Carlson said a lot of the most interesting things, a lot of the most important things, that no other voice in the corporate media was really or very few other voices were really talking about things that really mattered um so i you know you have to take people in their totality play that clip of dave and tucker about the gaza refugees we'll talk about tucker i was going to skip it but this is this is something you seem to agree with this

i think this is a horrible point it was a great interview you did with him by the way the fourth thing I want is the ability to like have a conversation about it for example on the question of refugees there were 2.5 million people living in Gaza obviously a lot of people of Israel want them to leave

I get it, whatever, that's their country but their argument is these people are too dangerous to live next to us. OK, that's their view. But then for people to argue that they should come here. Wait, I thought you just told us they're too dangerous to live in the place they were born. So they have to come to the United States. What does that say about how you feel about the United States? It tells me that you consider this country, my country, my children's country, a trash bin into which to throw your shit when you're done with it.

And I'm so offended by that attitude. I can't even process it. Like, it actually makes me red in the face mad. It's so disrespectful to my country that I can barely deal with it. And I have a lot of trouble speaking to, like, people can have their views about, you know, is it justified to kill thousands of civilians?

OK, I'm trying to stay out of it. But nobody can justify that argument that these people are too disgusting and immoral and dangerous to live next to Israel. But they should live in the United States. Fuck you. You're making that argument. And I mean, 100, 100 percent. One of the things that was really amazing to me was to see when Donald Trump... Sorry, I lost control.

It makes me so mad. You're absolutely right. My wife or something, it's so... All right, that's enough. You don't even like America. That's enough. That point actually offends me. Why is that?

Because, I mean, I'm pretty fucking pro-Israel. I don't have that feeling about the palestinian people when palestinian people are not a threat they have a beef with israel hamas has a beef with the palestinian people have a beef with israel they don't they're not a threat i know tons of palestinian people in in america they're not a threat to america they're not disgusting they're not they're not garbage okay but there are a lot but then so you're not making the argument But he's not saying no made this argument, but he's saying that they shouldn't that he's angry that we would bring them here No, the point he's making is that there and this is factually true is that there are lots of people who are simultaneously

making the argument that these people are too radical to live next to us that they are disgusting savages and all types of horrible language, and also are saying, and I mean these are people in the top level of the Israeli government, and also that all other nations have to take their fair share of them in, including the United States of America. But he's also saying we shouldn't bring them here. Yes. Right, so he's endorsing that opinion of them. No, no, no, he did not endorse that opinion of them.

He's saying the fact, no, that's not what he said. It's very clearly what he said. He said the fact that anyone out there, and lots of people do, could have both of these opinions together is— it lets you know what you think of the United States of America. So he thinks we should allow them in? No, but that doesn't necessarily follow. Just logically.

I'm on Dave's side on this particular question. He's simply saying that if you have those two views, you're showing contempt for America. He's not without taking a side in that argument. No, now, if you want, he doesn't. He says, I want to have the right to talk about it. He says, I want to be able to say that how dare you want to bring these people over here when they're so horrible. No, no, no, no. He listed off three things.

It was very clear what he said. He listed off a few things that he was like, look, however you feel about this war is like here's one thing. Number one, I want to have the right to talk about it. I want to have the right to think. And then he said, and also there are these people who have these two views simultaneously and having these two views simultaneously

basically indicates to me that you think my country's a trash can and you don't care about this at all. So the question is are there a substantial number of people who have these two views simultaneously? No. Which is unquestionably true. I understand what you're saying. It makes sense

what you're saying. But the problem is, he's also endorsing the idea that he doesn't want them here. Well, he doesn't exactly say that in this clip. I didn't get that. I would also... Anybody who listens to him knows. Well, yes, but that's a totally this clip. I didn't get that. I would also... Anybody who listens to him knows. Well, yes, but that's a totally separate issue. And he's called immigrants dirty before.

Well, okay. Regardless of that, because I'd have to have the context of that quote, Tucker Carlson has his own reasons why he thinks that we should have more border security and less, you know, like unfettered immigration coming into the country. His argument there would be that radical change is not

good for a country. And when you radically change a country by bringing millions and millions of illegal immigrants into it, plus the million a year legally that come in, that this is destabilizing to a country. Now, what Israeli has ever said that these people are discussing? They're fighting Hamas. You seriously haven't heard any rhetoric from people in Israel toward the Palestinians

that's been dehumanizing? I have heard some rhetoric. Not a lot. Most rhetoric has been people trying to limit it to Hamas. Most of the animal things, like by Golan and by, was it Weitzman. The president.

The president, right afterwards, they asked, did you mean all the Palestinians? He says, no, I mean Hamas. I know that I saw those videos. I had a screening of the atrocity videos. I understand exactly how the word animal comes to the mouth of someone who sees these things.

Sure. Yeah. But I don't know people who are saying, I don't know Israelis. I mean, you can find some crazy right-wing settler, awful person. There's millions of people there. Oh, yeah. Well, there's people I've heard on all sides, like people at protests on both sides

just saying really horrible things about the other group. I have a point about that, too. But the mainstream opinion is not that the Palestinian people are disgusting and if you would bring them into America, it's like we're a garbage can. That is a fucking mischaracterization

of what any Israeli...as a matter of fact, typically Israelis get along with Arabs outside of Israel. Like, you know, there's not— And inside of Israel. And inside of Israel. Just not inside of the territories that they control. when this has happened to the Israeli people, and it's not just what happened, with rapture, with glee, chanting, cheering, there's a natural question,

like, what the fuck do we do? Any nation would have that thing. But then to say that some refugees, not those people, the women and children, people displaced, should be brought to America, that that's saying,

take my garbage and bring it to... That's a total... But he's saying, which I have heard people who have made this argument, and in fact, people in high levels of the Israeli government have been saying,

everyone's got to do their part in taking in some of these... But the question is... But they don't mean, take our garbage. garbage I mean like they're refugees well they're saying because they're too dangerous to live next to us that other people need to take them in so that he's just making the point that I don't think I don't think that they're saying that the Palestinian civilians are too dangerous to I haven't heard that. And I've been following, I mean, again, I'm sure that there are some people saying awful things,

but I have not heard people referring to the Palestinian civilians in that way, nor referring to America as like some. So early on in the thing, the gray zone, there was like October 9th or something. There was some protest in Manhattan and there was this disgusting kid. I think he's a religious guy and he's wearing and he was carrying some sign like, fuck you, Palestinian dogs. It's like the most outrageous thing. And I was so outraged by this that I went on Twitter to try to find out because it's a pretty close knit community.

And I contacted some religious people to try to track down who this fucking disgrace to the Jews was and I did track him down and when I was told that he's mentally ill yeah yeah so I contacted the gray zone and I said listen I know you have him on your you know and AOC had had tweeted him out I said you know I it turns out this guy is mentally ill. I didn't ask him to take it down, but you'd think. But it was interesting to me that the example they found was the mentally ill guy. It's not that easy to find. Well, it's also just in general, and this is almost true for every protest.

It's like no matter what issue no matter how noble a thing you might be protesting against it always just draws crazy people to them and then you always have a certain element that's crazy in your protest like if you had a protest against vaccine mandates you're going to get like anti-vax kooks there who have all types of crazy views if you have a protest against the war in iraq you're going to get people who hate America there because that, you know what I mean? So like, I don't think it's fair to draw any sweeping conclusions,

what any one person says at any one protest. But that, that being said, I don't think, anyway, I don't, I didn't take Tucker's point the way, you might be right.

I'm going to go back and listen to it in context, but that's, that's the way I took it. Maybe it's because I know so much more. I'd say I think what he's talking about too is that there is this broader tendency from the neoconservatives and neoconservative sympathizers who have largely been in control of Republican establishment politics for most of the 21st century and part of the late 20th century that do seem to have this view that let's say using anti-Islamic rhetoric in order to sell a war is totally acceptable yet they get really upset when people use anti-Islamic rhetoric to propose like border security. So it was really interesting to me, and this is one of the things I mentioned to Tucker in the interview, where when

Donald Trump proposed that we cut off Muslim immigration, you know, when he was just a candidate. From nine countries or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even before he put that proposal in, it was just something he said in a stump speech when he was campaigning. Like, we're calling for a pause on all Islam immigration to the United States. And watching all of these neocons and all these right-wing radio show guys who had for years just been demonizing radical Islam, jihad, all of this,

Obama won't say radical Islam enough, all of a sudden they turned around and were like, this is so offensive. And it does seem like there was this neo... But I understand that. Well, okay, but I'm. And it does seem like there was this. But I understand that. Well, OK, but I'm just saying there does seem like there were a lot of neoconservatives who were kind of for like America, like war everywhere and very easy borders here in America. But is there a distinction that was made between radical Islam and the average Muslim, peace-loving Muslim person. At times, although a lot of those average peace-loving Muslim people were the

casualties in these wars, but there was also definitely a lot of just anti-Islam rhetoric that was trafficked in during the George W. Bush days and in the Barack Obama days that the kind of neocon right-wingers were very happy to use and embrace until it came to being

proposed for restricting border. Look, that issue is a thicket because there's a lot of Muslims in the world and a, I don't know what the percentage of them who believe this radical, crazy, violent stuff, but in absolute numbers, it's a big number. It's a critical mass number enough to upend every country. Most of the, until Ukraine, most of the horrible wars in the world in the last 10, 15, 20 years

have been Muslim-on-Muslim tribal violence. Sam Harris said it was like 50,000 Muslim-on-Muslim terrorist attacks over the last 20 years. Some crazy statistic. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'd have to look at what exactly his stats are on that, but I don't know how much of that there's Western involvement in. Let's say it's 5,000. No. But how many

of those Muslim-on-Muslim terrorist groups were like, you know, like in Syria where they had, I don't know if you remember the article where it was like, the boys that the CIA backed against the boys that the Pentagon was backing. We know that just between Fatah and Hamas, there's torture, there's hanging each other. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.

This is, unfortunately, a part of, within that world. Listen, take one of the stories from Israel. The volunteers who were going to Gaza to take these people to the hospital, right, they actually came and killed those volunteers. Say, well, you'd think, how could—so in some way, this ideology is profound, and you can't vet people easily for their ideology. And we've had—so, you know, I think we were all surprised after 9-11 that we didn't have more terrorism. I was always I was sure someone was going to blow something up in the subway.

Like, how could you stop that? Right. Somehow we didn't have that. Thank God. But I think that every decent person like the Syrian refugees wants to bring these poor people over. I was upset with Obama that he was bringing not enough Syrian refugees at the time. And then somebody said, but you know what? How do you vet out the... I don't know the answer to that. It's tough. It's a very tough question, particularly when it's a part of the world

that we've been at war with so much, and that I think most Americans would acknowledge we have a whole bunch of whoopsies over the last 20 years where we fought wars that we probably shouldn't have fought and killed a whole lot of innocent people. Iraq you're talking about. Oh, I'd say Iraq. Not Afghanistan. Oh, absolutely Afghanistan. But we had no choice what we were going to do.

We absolutely had a choice in Afghanistan. Look, you might say that the special ops missions in late 2001 that we didn't have any choice. We had to go take out the... But the idea that we had to fight a 20-year regime change war against the Taliban... We didn't fight for 20 years. We were there for 20 years. We weren't fighting for 20 years. But listen, the idea that we had to do a regime change war against the Taliban was absolutely a choice. This is where

they went wrong. And the reason they went wrong is not something easy to talk about. They believed there was historical precedent for this. Japan was crazy. Now Japan's a close ally and free. Germany was crazy. Now Germany's a close ally and free. Why can't we do that in Iraq? Why can't we do that in Afghanistan? hubris and mistake, right? The reasons are probably cultural and they're very difficult to talk about, right? But the intention, of course, getting back to nuclear weapons and, I mean... Well, it also, look, in those two instances where it worked, you know, quote unquote, in Germany and Japan, it was also what, like, a big step there was, like, ruthlessly slaughtering civilians in ungodly numbers, in numbers that nobody would be comfortable today doing. And so that's a component as well. Yes, yes, yes. So they should have thought of that.

But the idea of changing minds, look, getting back to it, this is interesting. Nuclear technology is, you know, 80 years old or something like that. 200 years from now, every country on Earth is going to have weapons of mass destruction. The technology existed in the 40s. So, and this is what their thinking was. I don't actually even believe it was about WMD. So how is the world not going to blow itself up? The world is going to need to have free and stable democracies because dictators having these weapons will eventually be the end of us.

It's not just because they're dictators and they're horrible. It's also, if you watch Chernobyl, because the very nature of dictatorships is that everybody says what the dictator wants. Nobody blows the whistle. Nobody wants to get in trouble. In Chernobyl, there were these crazy stories where they were measuring the amount of radiation and they were saying it's only 15 rengen. It was actually like 1500 rengen, and 15 was just the limit of the Geiger counter. But nobody wanted to be the guy to say, I'm sorry, sir, but it's actually 15. I'm sure in Iran, they probably have circuit breakers with duct tape on them.

You cannot trust this kind of stuff to non-open societies that don't have a free press and whistleblowers. It's a system that respects whistleblowers and encourages whistleblowers. So the thinking was, what the fuck's going to happen in the Middle East 100 years from now? We need to try to reorganize it. It was a huge mistake. I don't think that's what the thinking actually was. That was the whole Wolfowitz doctrine. Wolfowitz wasn't about WMD. It was about reorganizing the Middle East. Well, yes, it was about reorganizing the Middle East. But if you actually listen to these neocons

in their own words, if you go read a clean break, read the stuff from Project for a New American Century, basically what they were saying was that when the Soviet Union collapsed, that this was our time now to take over and to ensure that American dominance would continue through the 21st century. And in order to do that, here's what we wanted to do, was remake the Middle East in our image, not the old communist sock puppets. And we wanted to expand NATO as far as we could with their eyes on Ukraine, even back then at that time. I wish they had.

And so, well, OK, maybe you do. But when they did, when they saw 9-11— You should, too, as a libertarian. No, I completely disagree. Don't you want to maximize liberty in the world? Yeah, not through military action. If you think that—if you're saying— Your liberty depends

on the point of a gun in America. I'm not saying, yeah, as long as it's a defensive gun, that's fine. But if you're talking about killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in route to this project of then somehow it turns out to be a freer, better society afterward, which by the way

every time seems to backfire, then no, I would not support those means. Your friend Daryl Cooper corrected me. I said we killed 200,000 people in Iraq, and he said, no, they killed. He says we killed far fewer in Iraq. The American forces, he said, did not kill. Yeah, but whatever. We're still responsible for it.

Can I just press you on that point about remaking the world in our image? How far should we go to remake the world in our image? Dave said, you know, at the cost of war, absolutely not. Listen, I don't know what our image is exactly. Really, we got to figure out our own image at this point. I know that, I believe that our ideals, even if we'd fall short on them, libertarian actually is not a crazy way to describe our ideals. Well, it's the best of America. I don't think we do a very good job living up to it in a lot of ways.

But like, yeah, if you just look at like the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, it's like, yeah, that's kind of what we're supposed to be about. It's also worth noting that every single one of the people who wrote and signed those documents all very expressly advocated against this type of foreign policy, against entangling alliances and empire building. Looking for monsters to destroy. Yes. We'll lose our soul, and we have. So I know that our ideals are responsible

for great freedom in the world. Our military actions in World War II, you might think we shouldn't have gotten into World War II, are pivotal to many, many fulfilling lives in the world. Our technology, the engine of capitalism, our innovations, the fact that for free you can track yourself in a satellite in any place on planet Earth. This is products of capitalism that are remarkable. I agree with you on that part. That these things, that the miserable people in the world should have the chance to benefit from

and live lives, fulfilling lives on the order that we're living is something we should all want. And there is no system but our system to obtain that. So to spread that, you don't want to kill a few hundred thousand people. Well, you know what? I don't want to kill a few hundred thousand. I definitely don't want to kill a few hundred thousand people

and have it for nothing. There are trade-offs with lives. You know, the example I've used many times, like you want to save civilians? Let's lower the speed limit to five miles an hour. You know, there are, if you start thinking about it that way, there are always trade-offs. We allow a lot of people to die on the highway for the greater good of what it accomplishes to people to be able to travel at 55 and 70 miles an hour. These are impossible moral

questions. People die, but if it could have been done, and the world for the next thousand years, 10,000, whatever, would be able to live all these fulfilling lives on the order of the way Americans have lived for a long time already. Of course, I'd have to say that was the right thing to do.

Okay. I mean, I guess in, in theory, I don't completely disagree. I mean, yeah, I think that, um, I think that, uh, our capitalist model has produced a ton of wealth and that that has been spread around the world and that it's in many ways made the world a better place um i'm not against the theoretical vision of like spreading liberty throughout the world i don't think it should be done at the point of a gun i don't think it should be done militarily well i don't agree with that at all and in fact just as you said what you just said kind of contradicts that. We've spread our example.

Americans' blue jeans and movies and music and culture has led to a freer world without any of the military stuff. But that being said, when you paint this picture that, well, look, and I'm sure this is true. This applies to you. But when it's like, well, look, the goal here is we just want to make the world a better place. We want to raise the standard of living. We want to allow for more liberty for people of the world. And therefore it's like, oh, it's this horrible choice where maybe a few hundred thousand people have to die, but I hope it works out. I don't think that that in any way accurately describes this machine that is actually engaged in doing this. And the truth is that there are all of these like think tanks who are funded by weapons

companies who come up with these policy papers that oh yeah we really need to keep fighting this war we really need to fight this war we need to arm this country because it's a huge insanely corrupt military industrial complex and so it's not as simple as like oh these are all these kind of benevolent figures who just really want to spread goodness. I don't think that's what this system is. There is corruption in pharmaceuticals. Any organization, my own fucking organization, I find corruption. Like, this is the nature of human beings. Okay.

And it's shooting fish in a barrel to undermine anything by finding the corruption within the organization. Yeah, but I'm not just saying, is some level of corruption. I'm saying there is enormous levels of corruption that are very responsible for driving so many of these policies. So I'm not saying there's some corruption at the comedy cellar, like somebody, some staff member is hooking up with one of the comedians and then they get him more spots or something like that.

I'm more saying saying like the corruption whereas if like the whole thing was designed to lace the pockets of one person and there was a uh you know like there was like it turned out that you had been siphoning off five cents from everyone's pay and sending it into a secret account right so i'm saying like we're talking about levels of corruption so i'm not just saying like oh there is some corruption in the military-industrial complex, but hey, that can be said for any cafeteria. I'm saying the ungodly levels of corruption in there

where literally they will put into action policies that slaughter innocent people to line the pockets of very rich people is rampant. But at the time, people like Christopher Hitchens, who was quite aware of the military-industrial complex, was able to put all that knowledge, and I'm sure he firmly believed in it, in a certain perspective that still allowed him

to think that the goal was correct. He's not alive. I tend to think he would agree with everything I've said so far. I don't know if he had. Quite possibly. But he didn't feel that. Well, I don't know where he was on Israel-Palestine. I don't know.

I've read his stuff on Iraq and on Kissinger. He was anti-Israel, but I'm told by someone who knew him personally that towards the end of his life, he's quoted as saying, my baggage has shifted on that one. Well, he got really into and kind of critical of Islam in his later years. So perhaps that's where he was evolving to. I still think he was completely wrong to support Iraq War II

or the second, the George W. Bush War in Iraq. So he was against the first one under H.W. Bush. Dave Smith, Menachem Begis. So somebody tweeted at you, your inaccurate characterization of the six-day war

should be corrected next time you're on Rogan. On Rogan. You had said that, I don't have your quote here, you had said essentially that Israel chose to invade. Well, I said a preemptive war, which I think is even what the pro-Israel

side describes it as, that they felt they had to preempt the war. So then you quote Menachem Begin saying, In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations and the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him. Now, did you read that whole speech? Yes.

Okay, so what was the point of that speech? Because it's the opposite of what you're saying. Well, no, I mean, he goes on. Look, he starts by saying the speech was about what the broader theme was, the wars of necessity and the wars of choice in Israel's history. And so he goes through the list of the wars. Not just Israel's history. Okay, but so he's going through a list of like,

these were wars of necessity, these were wars of necessity. These were wars of choice. And I'm simply just making the point that he acknowledged this one as a war of choice. Now, yeah, he went on to say, but yes, it was a noble war. It was a defensive war in that sense. And that we were right to fight it. But he's just making the point that, no, we had a choice here. It wasn't imminent that we were going to be attacked.

No, he didn't say that. Well, what did I just say? What did you, that quote that you just read? He said, it does not prove that Nasser going to be attacked. No, he didn't say that. Well, what did I just say? What did you, that quote that you just read? He said, it does not prove that Nasser was about to attack. That's not saying he wasn't about to attack. No, but saying that it wasn't provable. It wasn't like... It can't be

provable. So his point, he starts by talking about the Second World War. He says, we waited in the Second World War until we had no choice. He said, but could in the Second World War until we had no choice. He said, but could we have avoided World War II and saved 30, 40, 50 million people?

Of course we could have. We could have taken care of it. We could have taken care of Germany right away. We could have preemptively fought them. Well, when we had... That's what preemptive means. Yeah, but there was a legal...

When we had... So he said preemptive. Okay. So then he says, in 47, we waited, and we lost all these people. In 73, we waited. He said in 67, we had calcius belli, meaning we had the legal right, but we didn't wait, and we lost very, very few people. Okay. people. And his point was that if you wait, it's immoral to wait because that's how you lose

horrible numbers of people. Fair enough. I'm just saying that this guy took issue with me describing it as a preemptive war, and I'm saying, look, here is in his own words. But in his own words, he's not. No, he may also make the case that we were right to do that. I would disagree

with him. But regardless, I think it's still kind of an admission there that he's saying, like, yeah, we chose to do that. But nobody disputes that it was a preemptive strike. The question is, is what would have happened had Israel done nothing? So let me— Well, yeah, speaking of things we can't prove, I mean, yeah. So what happened? Egypt, for people who don't know, Egypt asked, ordered the UN peacekeepers to leave. There were peacekeepers after 1956.

Ordered the peacekeepers to leave. Mobilized 100,000 to 125,000 troops on the Israeli border and closed the Straits of Tehran. Did everything that an army would look like to do right before they're going to attack. Sure. Israel went into a panic, an absolute panic. They waited until America gave the green light. And then when America finally said they were not going to open the straits of Tehran, America finally, Israel finally went in and blew up the Israeli—I'm getting tired—

blew up the Egyptian Air Force and all that. And to note that for a war where the enemy started on this footing, where they had amassed their army, Israel won this war in a matter of days. Now, when I debated this with Aaron Maté, he says, but you have to read The Iron Wall by Avishlaim. You have to read The Iron Wall by Avishlaim. So I went and read The Iron Wall by Avishlaim.

If I could have only one source to quote from, and that's the only source I would quote from, I would have been happy to choose that book. It made every point that I wanted to him. He talks about Nasser embarking on an exercise of brinksmanship. He took a terrible gamble and lost.

Israel was paralyzed by fear and by conflicting currents of opinion. The two weeks were traumatic experience. Well, who could argue that Nasser took a that it backfired and was a bad decision. Traumatic experience of the Israeli public that went down in the history of the period of waiting. The nation succumbed to a collective psychosis. He says,

the Six-Day War was a defensive war. It was launched by Israel to safeguard its security, not to expand its territory. It just happened to. War aims to emerge only in the course of fighting in a confusing, contradictory fashion. Yes, look, this is the defense minister for Israel. I'm not saying he's coming out of the group. No, he's an anti-Zionist. Oh, I'm sorry.

I thought this was a— I'm sorry. I'm just confused. No, this is the anti-Zionist historian that Aaron Maté recommended. Eshkol's government did everything in its power to confine the confrontation to the Egyptian front. They wanted to avoid a clash with Jordan and the inevitable complications of having to deal with a predominantly Palestinian population on the West Bank. The fighting on the Eastern Front was initiated by Jordan, not by Israel. King Hussein got carried along by the powerful currents.

And you know the story. Israel contacted Jordan, Don't invade us. We have no problem with you. There's a great quote here. At first, the Israeli government had no intention of... Oh, no, wait. At first... There's some quote here. At first, the Israeli government had no intention of... Oh, no, wait. At first... There's some quote here.

Oh, here it is. The Israeli reaction to the Jordanian shelling was restrained, even at the beginning, in the hopes that Hussein would desist after satisfying his honor. First, the Israeli government had no intention of capturing the U.S. Bank. On the contrary, it was opposed to it. Second, there was not any provocation on the part of the IDF vis-a-vis Jordan.

Third, the rain was only loosened when a real threat to Jerusalem security emerged. This is how things truly happened on June the 5th, although it is difficult to believe. And then he quotes a summation of an Israeli general that he endorses. First, oh, it's the same thing again. I'm reading it.

So that's, so very important for people listening. But so what's the point of this? The point of this is that the war with Egypt was preemptive because Egypt had amassed its troops on the border and had thrown the UN peacekeepers out. And Israel decided not to wait. For instance, Finkelstein had said, Israel has nothing to worry about the tunnels. Israel has nothing to worry about the rockets. It's very easy to tell other people to not be worried about things.

But when a nation provokes, you're worried about America's provocations. Let's talk about the provocation of 100. If we put 100,000 people into Ukraine, you'd be screaming provocations. Let's talk about the provocation of a hundred if we put a hundred thousand people into Ukraine, you'd be screaming provocation. Yes, but here's the thing Let me finish with it. But all that has nothing to do with the West Bank. Israel

did not take the West Bank in a war of a preemptive war. Israel took the West Bank in a defensive war. Not only a defensive war, but a war they asked them to keep out of. And then at first even allowed for some face-saving measures. And this is the key fact to the occupation. This was thrust on Israel.

It has nothing to do with Egypt. Okay, all right, listen. A few things there. Number one, so it's like if you're asking me, was the Egyptian military mobilizations a provocation of Israel? Of course, and you'd be an insane person to say that it wasn't. And if I was a prominent podcaster in Egypt at the time, I'd be like, let's not make this move. This might result in a war that'll be bad for us,

which it did end up resulting in, right? So I'm just saying that... But Israel actually had legal right to evade. Okay, regardless of that, I'm just making the point... Russia didn't. Russia signed the treaty. Okay, fine. Fair enough. I mean, if you want to talk about legal right, there's plenty of things that Israel does that they don't have a legal right to do. I do want to talk about legal right. Okay, fine. But there's plenty of things Israel does that they don't have a legal right to do. But you can get to that. There's plenty of things that the United States of America does that it doesn't have a legal right to do. So regardless of that, I'm just making the point that it's not like a, yes, I would say that's a provocation. It was a very stupid move.

Now, if you want to, I'll be honest, and I'll just, I don't know enough about the way the Eastern half of that war started. So if you want to say that Israel preempted the war that led to the Six-Day War, but they only preempted with Egypt and not with Jordan, you might be right about that. I just don't know enough about that. But I'll take you at your word right now. No, no, you should read about it. It's a very, very crucial fact. I've read a lot about the Six-Day War, but I'll grant you that point. But that being said, I don't think even necessarily, if you want to make the argument that um israel didn't start the war with

the intention of of taking control of of gaza and the west bank um and east jerusalem and if you want to say that um the occupation was kind of forced on israel at that point even if you accept that the fact that they've dominated these areas ever since is what's unacceptable. That they're at a certain point, you can't just be like, we won a war in 1967, and now you have no rights to any type of sovereignty over these areas. Whether we occupy you with the IDF is our choice, we will do that whenever we want to.

How much of everything gets into your country is our choice. That's Gaza. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Or, you know, the West Bank. They occupied Gaza at one point. But both sides have to be willing to make a deal. Well, yes, I would agree with that, too. But I also don't think that the pro-Israel... You said on one of your podcasts that Hamas has agreed to recognize Israel.

That's not true. Oh, they... I said that at points they had. No, they never have. That's absolutely true. You can hear them on the Charlie Rose show. Leaders in Hamas saying, we recognize Israel under 67 borders. 100% that's a fact. No, they never have. That's absolutely true. You can hear them on the Charlie Rose show, leaders in Hamas saying, we recognize Israel under 67 borders. 100%, that's a fact. No. Anybody, go find the clip. It's out there on the

internet. On the Charlie Rose show, Hamas leaders saying we recognize Israel under 67 borders. Now, don't get me wrong. That's not what they said when they were first created, and I'm sure that's not what they're saying right now. But I'm just saying there was a point. There was one guy who was interviewed that had said something like that.

By the way, it's worth talking about what that means. But then the reporter contacted the Hamas leadership and was like, no. No, it's in an interview. It's in a live interview that he says this. Anytime somebody on Hamas has said something off script like that, it has always been quickly, what's the word?

Retracted. Not retracted. No, it's disassociated. They quickly disassociated themselves from whatever the guy said. It has never been an official statement by anybody who speaks for Hamas saying so. The most recent document they have,

it does talk about they'd be willing to have Israel on 67 borders, however it says, but we will never recognize Israel, and Palestine, from the river to the sea, is an integral unit, meaning we will never give up the right to try to get the rest of it. I think the word is disclaimers. Yeah. Hamas is a bad group. Meaning?

Benjamin Netanyahu shouldn't have stated that they should support them meaning why would they not uh want to allow Israel to go back to 67 borders if they don't have to give anything up for it Israel will retreat to 67 borders give us back your holy sites give us back the Golan give us back all the all the geographically strategic important areas. And we will never have to recognize you. Don't agree to make peace with you. And don't agree that your country is not our country.

That's nothing. No, I'm not saying that. That's a better way. Denounce, I think, is what you were looking for. I'm not saying that if those were the terms of a deal, that would be acceptable. But Hamas has never said anything beyond that. Sure, we'll allow 67 borders. Oh, no. Well, OK, it started by you saying that Hamas has never said anything beyond that. Sure, we'll allow 67 borders. Oh, no, well, okay, it started by

you saying that Hamas has never said that, but they have said that. I don't know how quickly after that they walked back those comments. I know there's been a couple points where they've been made. Regardless, yes, I don't think Hamas is a great partner to negotiate. I don't think the Likud party is very good either. Now, as far as propping up Hamas,

can I just, I just had an interesting question. A personal question is you were very young when the Six- Day War broke out, you were probably five years old. Yes. But I would imagine in your house. Why didn't you serve? I would imagine in your house, that loomed large. I was wondering if that's in any early memories you had. Absolutely.

It loomed large. Well, I remember when I was a teenager, was when Bill Clinton, I remember seeing on TV when he had Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, and they had that nice thing, and they were like, Bill Clinton signs a historic peace process thing. And I remember as a teenager thinking, well, it's good that's settled. Let's talk about propping up a mosque. All right, we got that one taken care of. Let's move on to the next. I thought maybe you had more to say about what was going on in your house in 1968. Listen, Israel was always the number one issue in my home.

Well, Israel and civil rights were actually the two issues. And those are what I remember very much from a boy. I remember, I've told you, I remember very much when Martin Luther King died. And I remember very much how my father was happy when George Wallace got shot. And I remember things like that, and I also remember how important Israel was. But I also remember, it wasn't until I was much older that I ever met an Israeli who was not yearning for the idea that the Arabs would agree to peace. It was such a ubiquitous feeling among 100% of every Israeli I ever met until the second intifada, until that disillusionment happened, when many people began to say, you know what, like Benny Morris, we've been wrong here.

They're never going to change. So we are going to veer off in our own direction, and maybe someday this fever will break, and maybe someday it won't, but there's nothing we can do. Now, that doesn't make them right. No, it doesn't, and it doesn't seem to have worked out too well. Well, I don't know what the alternatives were. Yeah, I suppose you can always say that.

But the idea of just like, well, that's it. We have to walk away from any process that willmert, offered us blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. For whatever reason, that didn't go anywhere. We call upon the Israeli government now to come back to the table and enter into negotiations based on that deal we almost made. He would never do it. Yeah, that would definitely be a lot better.

And I think, well, look. And that's all he has to do. But here's the thing, right? So it's well, look. And that's all he has to do. But here's the thing, right? So it's like this. You agree it's all he has to do? No, I don't know that that's all he has to do. I think it would be great if he would do that. Do you understand that the Israeli public would throw Netanyahu out in a heartbeat?

But here's the thing, right? So the dynamic with terrorism is always like this. And, in fact, I think this has been pretty clearly shown over the last couple of weeks. But what was the goal of October 7th like aside from just the fact that like okay they provoke Israel into killing a lot exactly exactly in the same sense that why did Osama bin Laden and he wrote a bunch about this too right like why did he hit us on 9-11 he never had any dream that like he could destroy the United States of America. He was trying to recreate what we helped train him to do to the Soviet Union.

No, I don't agree with that. Well, he wrote about it, and he was trying to lure them into a war in Afghanistan, and he thought he could do that, and he was particularly happy, at least this is what his son said, he was particularly happy when George W. Bush was elected, because he was like, oh, this guy will definitely invade Afghanistan. That's not going to sound like a lot,

but he also said, when we bombed the barracks, America pulled out. America's a paper tiger. America doesn't have the stomach to stay in the Middle East. It sounds like that. Okay, so it sounds like that's paradoxical. But if you actually look at it, it's basically the same thing. That he thought he could lure us in, we'd be too scared, we'd bankrupt ourselves too much, and then we'd ultimately completely remove from the region.

Anyway, Hamas wanted this reaction, and look how well it's worked out for their propaganda campaign. They've turned global opinion against Israel in the most dramatic way I ever could have imagined in my lifetime. I'll say this, I think Israel's existence is in more jeopardy right now than it's ever been in my lifetime. Maybe not in yours, but certainly in mine, because I mean, this is, I'm born in the 80s. I have some sympathy for what you're saying. So the thing is then to be wise, if you're Israel, don't be George W. Bush, like an idiot and just like a bull in a China shop,

go run around and give them what they want. And look, the truth is to what you were saying, right? You're right. It would be a better world if Hamas would, well, okay, but it would be a better world if Hamas not giving them what they want well okay but it would be a better world if hamas maybe not 100 they're giving them a lot of it um it would be a better world if hamas would stand up and say listen let's go back to oslo let's like work on a real they're not going to it would also be a better world if the lakud party strategy wouldn't just be like we already offered it to you so too bad and. And by the way, if you do go listen, which I'm sure

you've heard, that secret Benjamin Netanyahu tape. Yeah, I want to talk about that. It's not as if, look, he openly kind of is bragging to other Israelis about all the poison pills that were in those deals to begin with. Let me answer you and let's get to that. Sure. I'm not afraid of that. And I don't want to defend Netanyahu.

Listen, most Jews I know, even in my family, most very pro-Israel Jews, are pretty critical of Netanyahu, are critical of settlements, are critical of the fact that— Settlements especially. There's a lot of even not liberal Jews who are very critical of that approach. Also, the approach— Hold on, let me get it. Sure, sure, sure. And this is also with Bin Laden.

And I've read this places. Hamas intended to provoke an Israeli reaction. They never expected this level of reaction. They did not intend to jeopardize their entire organization's future in Gaza. They miscalculated, just like Bin Laden did not intend to spend the rest of his life in a cave until he died. So they miscalculated. Bin Laden thought he'd seen in the past these provocations. America reacts and then stops.

Hamas had seen there's a flare-up, whatever it is. They probably in their own mind, like 9-11, didn't actually believe it was going to happen. Like it's on the drawing board, but they didn't really expect the trade centers to come down. They didn't think it would collapse. They didn't really expect to have this tremendous success. They've internalized some of the Israeli stuff. No, they've said that, too. They were not anticipating that level. So,

on one side of the ledger, I 100% agree with you. And I said on the day it happened, if Israel decided to do nothing, remember I said that to Brett Stevens? If Israel decided to do nothing now, I wouldn't question it, because I'd said that Israel has sympathy today, but you're about to see daily George Floyd videos and a worldwide defund the police reaction. And look— Wait, wait, wait.

But I'll just say—and it's—I mean, I'm not—I was not a supporter of Black Lives Matter or any of the rioting or anything like that, but you certainly understand we're seeing that video. Yes, I understand. And you understand we're seeing all these images of what's happening to Gaza. However, that's one side of the ledger. Sure. Is what Israel's facing now, PR-wise and all that. On the other side of the ledger, in their mind is, well, if we're going to do this, we're not going to fucking fuck up our reputation and have everybody hate us for nothing. We have to get rid of Hamas.

We have to get rid of Hamas. And I respect that, too. Now, you have criticized Netanyahu for propping up Hamas, which the logical inference from that would be he should have wanted to get rid of Hamas. So what does the world look like if he doesn't prop up Hamas? It should be a Hamas-less world. So like from a Zionist point of view, I understand the criticism of propping up Hamas. But from an outsider, it's like, well, if you're criticizing him for propping up Hamas, you should be happy

they're getting rid of Hamas. That doesn't make any sense, no. Listen, I'm saying, look. Why doesn't that make sense? Because if getting rid of Hamas was just getting rid of Hamas, then fine, you would be happy with that. If getting rid of Hamas means slaughtering... What other way is there to get rid of it? Well, right. But if it means that, then I'm

saying, no, I don't support that. Okay? So then maybe he was right. No, no, but if it means that, then I'm saying, no, I don't support that. Okay? So then maybe he was right. No, no, no, hold on. So then, first of all, I want to tell you about what the other prime ministers did. It wasn't just Netanyahu. Okay, but let me, like, let me get a point off of some of this.

Two more seconds, and then I'll let you talk. They were trying to buy off Hamas the way we tried to buy off Hamas, the way we tried to buy Iran off, to try to calm this, appease them. That's what propping up Hamas meant. There was criticism from the right for propping up Hamas,

which is why he said, listen, you guys don't want a two-state solution. If you really don't want a two-state solution, you should be happy I'm giving Hamas money because as long as Hamas is in power, you won't ever have to worry about that. And from the left, he was telling people, listen, you guys should be happy I'm doing this, because you're worried about... Right. So, okay, but what he said to the Likud party, to your fair point, kind of the right-wingers there, anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money

to Hamas. This is part of our strategy, to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank. So what Benjamin Netanyahu did, and what he said after that later in the quote is, we control the height of the flame. Meaning, because people were going like, but isn't this kind of dangerous to prop up a terrorist organization on your border? And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we can control the thing. So just to be clear, this isn't – this is not Yitzhak Rabin who, OK, stated that he wanted to have a peace process and wanted to give the Palestinians their own state. Now there's – as we were talking about in those Oslo Accords, it wasn't – it's not what the pro-Israeli side says that we offered them everything and they just said no. There was actually – no, it's really not.

There's a new book out now by a guy who was there okay there's that's absolutely not what it was and we can go through some of the the stuff on that but regardless of that he was at least saying that benjamin netanyahu here is saying in order to make sure we never give these people their independence we are going to support the most violent radical islamists amongst them because that's good for our strategy of dividing them. What do you mean by support? What support? Well, what he meant by support was I think essentially making sure that they didn't stop money flowing into them from Qatar, withholding funds from the Palestinian Authority.

But look, maybe you don't agree with it, but argue with his quote right here. That's what he's saying. I asked an Israeli political analyst about that, and he said it could be what you're saying. He said it could also just, as I said, it could also be just him giving red meat to his crazy right-wing flank.

Okay, but that in itself is kind of an issue. That's their red meat? Is that to support this group and then use this same group as the excuse for why we don't have to have any respect for the innocent lives here? And did you see the latest, whatever. Let me just say the other thing to your, because this is the counter to your point, right? Is that, it's like, yes, it would be great if you saw a Palestinian leadership stepping up and saying something like that. But what if Israel didn't throw away whatever goodwill they might have had on October 7th and all those people, even by October 8th, who are like, oh, we're about to see a bloodbath in Gaza right now, what if they stepped up

and went, listen, no, this is what we're going to do, okay? These guys who were involved in October 7th, that's it, we have to get them. But we're going to fight them the same way we dealt with terrorism through all of Israel's history before Netanyahu, which wasn't these indiscriminate bombing campaigns in Gaza. Not indiscriminate bombing.

Okay, fine. It wasn't the less than ideally discriminant level of bombing campaigns. And by the way, we could get into... You just said that Hamas purposely wants its civilians to die. No, I agree with that. So the number of Hamas killed is pretty low. No, no, but the number is pretty low. What country has, but the number is pretty low.

What country has ever had to fight a country that wants its own people killed? So just imagine then if Israel had risen above that and said, you know what? This is the most surveilled area in the world. We're going to do our best to pick these people out. Like we have historically done fighting terrorism before Netanyahu's government. They never did these type of military exercises. We're going to do our best to do that, but then we are going to bend over backward to ensure you that we are doing the most we can to make sure innocent women and children and men aren't killed,

and here's the real offer right now. You know what we always say we offered you back in the day? Here's the offer as soon as these guys from October 7th are taken out. They had an opportunity there, too. And what about the hostages? Well, yeah, and be negotiating for hostages well yeah and and be negotiating for hostages the whole time so so let me tell you i don't know that what you're saying is ridiculous i don't i don't i i like i mean i had said it like maybe doing nothing is a powerful statement

just to add to it though just to say after 9-11 the world in many parts of the world that you wouldn't have imagined like really kind of mourned for America. Even in Iran, they had like 60,000 people having a moment of silence at their biggest soccer stadium. And then we went on this 20 year murder fest and we blew all of that goodwill. But I want to say that I don't know that you're wrong, but, you know, these kind of pie in the sky ideas, sometimes they don't survive contact with the real world. you know, these kind of pie-in-the-sky ideas. Sometimes they don't survive contact with the real world. Yeah, well, sometimes these wars don't survive contact with the real world.

Sometimes they result in disaster. I want to make a couple points. Which one first? There's a difference between America and Israel in that America sent its standing army. Israel shuts down. The entire country is shut down right now. So they, it's horrible to say, they don't have the leisure to take their time, go in, secure this street.

It could take years, right? So however you want to factor that in, you have to just understand that that is a factor. When they're planning wars, America's plan has never had to say, well, listen, but the entire country is locked down now. It's essentially like a lockdown. Everybody's closed. Every male under the age of 40 is gone. Every male is at war. We can't have every male at war for five years, right?

Okay. Let me make my point. Sure, sure, sure. But as far as propping up Hamas, the accusation was, one, allowing cash in. Now, I think it's absurd to think that a country that can smuggle in

rocket components to build tens of thousands of rockets can't smuggle in cash. I don't believe that Israel was the reason that they couldn't get cash in.. I don't believe that Israel was the reason that they couldn't get cash in. I just don't believe that. There's lots of things they can't get in because of Israel.

No, they get everything in, obviously. They don't get everything in. They're not supposed to, but they do. No, they don't get everything in. They get some things through. They have tens of thousands of rockets. Every single thing... Not all of that was imported, though. Some of rockets that they every single thing that not all of that was imported though i mean some of that is they've dug up pipes and stuff like that

but much of it is with material you can't build this stuff without components that are not available in gaza number one number two the previous prime minister lapid had the exact same prop up Hamas policies. This is from Times of Israel. As part of his strategy, Israel issued permits to 14,000 Gaza workers to enter Israel with the promise of handing out more if the situation remains calm. Every single thing that I'm not going to go on so long. I have a bunch of quotes here, but I'm not going to go on and on about it. And Lapid said to

them, he gave a speech at the UN, a la what you were saying, an agreement with the Palestinians based on two states for two peoples is the right thing for Israel's security, for Israel's economy, and for the future of our children, in his first speech to the UN Assembly. Despite all the obstacles still today, a large majority of Israelis support the vision of a two-state solution. I have one of them. Lapid said that member states have asked Israel several times why it will not lift the restrictions on the Gaza Strip. Quote, we're ready to do more than that. I say from here to the people of Gaza, we're ready to help you build a better life, to build an economy. We presented a comprehensive plan to help rebuild Gaza.

We have only one condition. Stop firing rockets and missiles at our children. Put down your weapons. There will be no restrictions. The Israeli prime minister did say, this is just two years ago, exactly what you're saying. Did that prime minister also propped up Hamas? And he was answered with rockets

at some point you have to be open to the idea that they just may not want it what was lapid's rationale for propping up hamas because it's not propping up the the rationale is these people need money okay but i mean and maybe if we can give them jobs, that will calm them. Yeah, okay, but listen, Benjamin Netanyahu, again, you're not arguing with me, you're arguing with his own words.

He's saying, no, that's not why we're supporting them. We're supporting them because we want to thwart the ability to ever give them a free state. But I'm saying,

it would be nice if he... But I'm saying, when... I'm not saying... That's a good quote. I wish there were more quotes like that. I wish more people

were saying that. But can you understand what the quote says? Yes, but can you... We're not going to just do it again. We said it a year ago and we got rockets. You don't keep doing it.

They're balls in their court. Remember that speech? But why can't you just say the same thing but reversed? Why has it got to be this standard? Like if any Palestinian kid throws a rock until you make sure that never happens we get to dominate you forever. Let me just ask you this, Noam.

Why does Israel have a right to do this? To do what? Why do they have a right to say, under these conditions, we therefore allow you to be a government? But until then, we don't. We dominate you. Because they're shooting rockets. Well, is it because they won a war in 1967? No, because they're shooting rockets. Okay, well, Israel bombs regularly. Forget even the response from October 7th. There's all types of different military actions that Israel's taken against them. Do they have a right now? Isn't it the same logic to say

they have a right to fight back? I'll answer you. It's very interesting. So it came out in the papers that Israel had the whole plan and it was sitting on a shelf somewhere. And worse than that, that not only they had the plan,

but then there were intelligence reports that they were actively practicing for it and stuff. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. But it begs the question, if Israel had taken it seriously, what would it have looked like to thwart it? And what would people like you be saying if Israel had taken those measures? It would have looked awful. Israel would have been saying they were about to invade.

People like the gray zone would be saying, this is bullshit. It's an impossible situation. I'm not even disagreeing with that. The look of preventing it is horrible. Right, but it's an impossible situation, but you're only looking at it from the Israeli perspective. And there's also a Palestinian perspective where it goes, this is an impossible situation to accept that we just have to live under this. You think there would be a blockade if there was no violence from Gaza?

Why would Israel want to waste their time with walls and blocks? They don't have it in the West Bank. But see, this is, again, you're kind of proving my point here, where it's like you're looking at this from the Israeli perspective and saying— You don't care about provocations. Somehow you care about America's provocation by saying something, but actual rockets coming in, that's not sufficient provocation to say, you know what, you Hamas, you really should be responsible for this. I'm not saying that's a provocation, and I'm not saying Hamas isn't responsible for that. What I'm saying is that there's also another side to this story,

and Israel's also responsible for a whole lot too. And to think that these people who have grown up in a situation where they're utterly dominated by a foreign kind of foreign power, is something that is going to, and then the standard is that in this situation where you're being

dominated, until not one person here, which you can't really control, one person launches a rocket, oh, you lose all of your freedom too. It wouldn't be this one. They send hundreds of rockets. Yes, I'm just saying that the standard can't be that like, we will finally make a deal when your side is completely clean. I don't think that's a reasonable standard. And I don't think, I mean, listen, why is it that we just accept that Israel has a right to continue doing this? I told you,

because the rockets are coming in. Every country has a right Okay, but then why by that logic, do the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves? Because there's been plenty of Israeli aggression toward them as well.

Palestinians have a right to defend themselves. Okay. They don't have a right to slaughter as they did. I would say... Yeah, they don't have a right to defend themselves. Okay. They don't have a right to slaughter as they did. I would say— Yeah, they don't have a right to kill innocent people. Exactly.

I'd say that's true on both sides. But I would say that—this is an interesting question you're raising. I would say that the obligation now—they don't have a right to send rockets into Israel unless they are—have the intention of wanting to make a peace agreement with Israel. Do they have a right? Listen to what I'm saying. It's very important because if Israel said, we're never going to, we don't want to make peace with you.

We're going to occupy you forever. Then the Palestinians have a hundred percent right to send rockets into Israel. But if Hamas is the one saying, we never want to make peace, and Israel is the one saying, we're not going to do this, as Lapid said, until you're ready to make peace, then no, they don't have a moral right. They don't have a moral right. Do you agree with me? Well, no, not necessarily. I'd have to parse this through, but let me ask you a question. So you're saying, if Israel said, we're going to occupy you indefinitely, then they would have a right to just attack the country of Israel as self-defense.

Okay, so what if Israel doesn't say that, but they've been doing it since 1967? But they haven't been. They've over and over again come to the table. There were very few windows of opportunity in 67. But you see my point, though? I see your point. So if they say the right thing, but occupy you, then you don't have a right to defend? No, no.

If it's a lie, then they have the same right. Do they have the right if the IDF comes into Palestinian territory, not even on an anti-terror campaign, just during one of the many occupations, right? So Gaza pre-2005 or in the West Bank or something like that. And they come in to their territory and start yelling curfew and pushing people around and telling them when they can go inside and when they can't, do they have a right to defend themselves against those guys? Do they have a right to kill one of them? If a foreign soldier

came into my house and started yelling at my wife to get inside the house, I would try to kill that guy. Do I have a right to do that? Do they have a right to do that to the IDF? They might. It's a tough question because... I'm going to get you guy. Do I have a right to do that? Do they have a right to do that to the IDF? They might. It's a tough question because... I'm going to get you in trouble with our people.

If I got to go down, you're going down with me. Every individual has a right to kill themselves. What you're describing does not warrant the use of deadly force under any system of law. Screaming at somebody to go on a curfew, you're not allowed to kill somebody. At gunpoint? They're pointing a gun at your wife. Even at gunpoint, I don't think you'd... A member of a foreign military comes and points a gun

at my wife if I have a gun in my hand. I'm giving the legal standard. I'm not, again, I'm thinking it through. The legal standard is you have a right to use deadly force if someone's about to use deadly force to you. If a law enforcement... Pointing a gun at you would, in almost every jurisdiction, be a reasonable... If a law enforcement officer, and under occupation, jurisdiction be a reasonable law enforcement officer and under occupation.

Israel is responsible for law enforcement. Right. So if it's someone who gets an extra kind of an extra level of like supernatural rights type deal. So like the way a cop could do it to you. OK. But at least the exception and I don't really buy into this because I'm like a radical libertarian. But at least the idea with our police officers right is that the reason why they have a right to do that to you is because we have free and fair elections and we get some say in how our government is run and so theoretically we delegate this power to the cops but none of that is true but this is in the west bank or gaza they have no say in this this is why the origin of the occupation is so important.

Because no matter what, if your people are the one who attacked, as opposed to the ones being attacked, that is a different story. And it's a different moral thing. And if... But there's no statute of limitations on that? You know what I mean? After this, we should exchange materials to read. And after which, if your people... I'll read you just one... There was a letter that Arafat's... One of Arafat's ministers wrote an open letter.

He was shot after he wrote the letter. He wrote an open letter about the peace process to Arafat. It contains the following sentences. Yeah, I've read this. Go ahead, Reed. Were we honest about what we did? Were we right in what we did? No, we were not.

Didn't we jump for joy over the failure of Camp David? Didn't we throw mud at the picture of President Clinton, who dared to submit a proposal for a state with some modifications? How many times were we asked to do something that we could do, but we didn't do it? We did not do it. We have committed a serious mistake against our people, authority, and the dream of the establishment of our state. If that is an accurate depiction of what went on, then that affects the rights of these people. If this was an Israeli cabinet minister who wrote a letter to Barack after that, we would all say, fuck the Israelis. Their own man wrote a letter.

Well, hold on. But wait, we have Netanyahu on video. He doesn't know he's being recorded, saying that, don't worry about Oslo. We got the final say on how to interpret that. And I was going to interpret most of the entire West Bank as being one of these militarized zones. So don't you worry. So we do have kind of a version of that. But Netanyahu was not there at the various

chapters when there actually was a Palestinian Well, he was in some of them at some level. The major negotiations. I'm just making the point that I love this quote here, right? And there's something to it where he's going like, look, our

problems aside, we were offered something. We shouldn't have walked away. He said we were dishonest. Right, sure. And he's saying like, listen, we should have taken this and seen what we could get out of it. Ukraine would be happy for our deal. However, and what happened

to him? And what happened to him? Who? He got killed. And what happened to Yitzhak Rabin to him? Who? He got killed. He got shot by... And what happened to Yitzhak Rabin? That's different. Well, I'm just saying, the people who try to make peace, then Yitzhak Rabin gets murdered by a right-wing Israeli. Yitzhak Rabin got murdered. No other Israeli prime minister got murdered.

But Arafat, if you read the accounts, Arafat was worried about assassination throughout every bit of the negotiation. He kept saying, you're going to get me killed. You're going to get me killed. Yes. Oh, sure, sure. The Israeli prime minister was not. Oh, yeah.

Well, look, his situation is much more unstable. It's an outlier in Israel. It's a much more unstable situation that the Palestinians are in compared to the Israelis. So I think that's fair. I was just going to say, even assuming the deal was not a great deal, was there a counteroffer made? No. Well, I mean, look, there's debates about this and there's been different accounts of it,

but no, essentially it is true that Arafat ultimately walked away from the deal. You don't know me well enough to know how sincere this is. I did such a deep dive on this debate. I bought every single book, and then I checked the original sources of every single book. I bought Khalidi's book.

I checked his footnotes. He's got nothing. Every single claim of this other side of the debate leads to a brick wall dead end where you cannot find a single actual fact. With regard to what precisely? With regard to the fact that... Oslo Accords?

Camp David and Under Olmert. Okay. Every single fact makes it clear to me that the Israeli story here is true and the Palestinian story is revisionist. I say that, I would almost stake my own... Again, at least with the Oslo stuff, that's not what Netanyahu says.

Oslo was before, Oslo was I'm talking about when they actually, when Clinton was there. And then when Olmert was there. They tried everything. Shlomo Ben-Ami, who, Mate and Fingalsline like to take one quote that he says about how I wouldn't have accepted that deal.

He's written at length, that he says, never has the world, I have it here somewhere. He says, it is unlikely that the world has ever witnessed such an extensive effort aimed to trying to persuade the leader of a national movement to overcome his fears, pluck up his coverage and come to a decision worthy of a peacemaker. It was all in vain. What was shocking to me, however, was that there was no sadness in the Palestinian negotiator's face, no sorrow over a lost opportunity. The refugees' right of return was a historical impossibility. Why did they themselves not encourage refugees to live in the Palestinian state? I asked myself, what kind of national movement dreams of establishing a state only in order to settle its exiles in a neighboring country?

How is that a national movement that does not build an ethos based on in-gathering its exiles? This guy was in the room every day. This is a peacemaker guy. This is a guy whose eyes fill with tears. And he's a guy who's made, he calls Barack arrogant. I mean, he's unfiltered. But when it comes down to the essence of it all, even Indyk, everybody says Arafat never came prepared to make a deal. And if you don't believe the Israelis, we have one of Arafat's cronies saying it.

So I'm asking you to open your eyes. Maybe it's fucking true. Maybe I am. I am very I'm Jewish. I was raised in Israeli, but I'm a fucking honest person. I will turn my I will face the truth. I didn't want it to be true. I will open the book with dread.

Like, am I going to read something that's going to upend what I feel about it? But I'm telling you, I spent hundreds of dollars. I cannot find it. Is Netanyahu, Netanyahu is a Jabotinsky guy. I don't know where Netanyahu is. I spoke to someone once who knows him, who said, I believe he would want a two-state solution if there was a real one to be had.

But I don't, I don't know what the fuck. He's more concerned with staying out of jail and staying in power right now. Yeah, but look, I mean, okay, but that guy is the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history. So what he says- Yeah, but he was out just a year ago I mean, okay, but that guy is the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history. Yeah, but he was out just a year ago. Yeah, okay, but he's had the longest run,

and then he's right back in, typically. But I'm just saying, his view on this matters, too. And what he's telling you in his own words is that he also doesn't want a two-state solution. No, it doesn't matter. I'll prove to you why. Who was the prime minister when Sadat wanted to make peace? Uh, when Sadat wanted to make peace? What Sadat wanted to make peace? Menachem Begin.

That era's Benjamin Netanyahu. He was a fucking terrorist. There was no more right-wing figure in Israel's history. But as soon as Sadat indicated he wanted peace, Begin came along.

Okay, fine, but you're kind of right. And by the way, only Nixon can go to China. he wanted peace, Begin came along. Okay, fine, but you're just, you're, uh, you're kind of, I'm right. And by the way, only Nixon can go to China. It would be very smart, very smart for them to make the move

to try to make Netanyahu the guy that, who they put on the spot when they say they want to make peace rather than have Netanyahu in the opposition saying they're going to rip your country.

Okay, so that I agree with completely. But they don't do it. Again, but you're kind of just brushing away. You're letting them off the hook. They can say something. But you're, well, I You're letting them off the hook. They can say something. But you're, well, I'm not letting them off the hook.

I'm not saying like, yes, I wish many of the Palestinian leaders had behaved in drastically different ways over the years. It would be a much better situation probably if they had. I also think that like this is one of these weird situations where everybody undercuts their own point to such a large degree. Like even that guy like say like at the, say at the rally that you brought up before, before you found out he was like mentally ill or whatever. Like, let's just say, because there have been some people who have said some pretty horrible things, you know? And you're just like, what's your feeling as a pro-Israel guy when you see someone saying

that? You're like, dude, shut up because you're making us look so bad. And this is not representing my- Yes, it's horrible. And I'm sure, and there's lots of, for people who are on the pro pro uh you know the pro-palestinian side or whatever you want to call it i'm sure there's lots of people who see some of the stuff shouted at these rallies and they're like jesus christ man like of course you are just totally undercutting your own position here so i'm not denying that there's like some culpability on a lot of the the arab uh leadership here the

point more to me is that it's like you can't deny this other half of it too, which is that again, the longest serving prime minister in Israel's history is sitting here in his own words, telling you that we're doing everything to undermine the peace process, that we don't actually want a peace process, that in fact, our strategy is to avoid it ever being achieved.

Let's assume. And the thing I'll say is this, cause I do, I got to run over to do another show in a second, but I will say this, that like, I think what a lot of people react here to is that there's just a tremendous power imbalance here. Now, I'm not like some lefty who's like, oh, if you have power, that means you're the oppressor or you're the bad one. No, people don't react to that.

But the fact is that power does matter to some degree. And especially here as citizens of the United States of America, we have the most powerful government in the history of the world. I mean, a government that can literally snap its fingers and other governments don't exist if we wanted to. We'd rather just overthrow the regime than nuke them, but whatever. And to use this power to look at every, because there's also lots of other chapters of this story where, look, after 9-11, Colin Powell convinced George W. Bush that you got to go for a two-state solution right now. You got to go for a two-state solution right now.

You got to go for a two-state solution. And there's been several American presidents who have insisted that this happen, and they are undercut at every chance. Like, it just does not end up going through. And usually, this is a lot to do, not as some on the Internet might say, with some Jewish conspiracy or something like that. What it usually has a lot more to do with is the tens of millions of evangelical Christians in this country who will fall in line with whatever the pro-Israel position is viewed as being. So I agree with a lot of what you said. I've got to wrap it up. A concept I keep coming to lately is that of critical mass. The concept of critical mass in many, many contexts is very interesting. And there's an imbalance between Israel and the Arabs here

because in most democracies, in Israel, in America, 51%, if 51% of the public gets behind something, that's what's going to happen. And except for very rare exceptions, the country will stand behind that and other leaders can depend on that. And that's what's going to happen. And except for very rare exceptions, the country will stand behind that and other leaders can depend on that. And that's what it is. What is the critical mass needed to support a peace treaty with Israel such that Israel can depend on it? Is it 95%? If 10% of a ruthless, bandit-led, corrupt, violent, Muslim fundamentalist outfit

says, sure, we'll make peace with you, Israel's not going to risk it on that because the guy can get shot, they can break their word, if Putin can sign a treaty and go over it, and believe me, Israel sees Putin signs a treaty and then he broke the treaty because he was provoked and the world is now pressuring

the Ukraine to take it. We're not fucking going to be Ukraine in this. So we need absolute certainty that our security is in stone. How do we get that from Hamas? How do we get that from the PLo? We can only get it by having peacekeepers. There's many things we need to have for that. These are things that the

Palestinians didn't want. Reasonable people, like tough love, tough love on Israel is good. There needs to be some tough love in the opposite way, too. Say, listen, you have to understand, they're never going to do it if you can't give them something that they can go in front of their voters. You don't have voters. They have to keep their voters safe. You might have to say, okay, for 40 years, for 10 years, for three years, you weren't going to allow this. We're going to allow that. If you think this, it's insane. And there's, there's a lot, there's a lot to blame in the U S leadership for this too. Cause whether I like it or not, we are the dominant force in the world and kind of a global empire.

You don't like that? Better than the alternative? I disagree, but okay. But the fact that it's not just insisted, that you could ever just accept like, oh, Oslo didn't work out, so whatever. We're just not going to do this again. Like, it should be insisted that, no, no, no, you guys have to get back to the table. We have to start over and start over and start over. But listen, I'll say that. That might be true.

I'll just say this, right? The idea that these people in Palestine are just so dangerous that Israel cannot take the boot off their neck because this is too much of a risk to themselves, that they cannot grant them their independent state because if they did that, then who knows what the result of that is. They can't have rockets coming from the West Bank. Right. They can't have that. This is what they'll say. No, no, it's true. Radical – there is a real issue with radical Islam.

No question about it. And it's all throughout the Islamic world or throughout much of the Islamic world. There's a real issue with it. And my beef kind of is with my government for propping up so much of the Islamic world. There's a real issue with it. And my beef kind of is with my government for propping up so much of it. But regardless of that, Israel has been at peace with Egypt since the 1970s. They've been at peace with Saudi Arabia since the 1970s. They've been at peace with Jordan since the 1970s. Jordan never really had a problem with Israel. Right. Right. Yes. That's right. From the beginning. Well, they were the ones who they were most

kind of cool with early on. All of these places have problems with radical Islam. But they also have their own independence. Now, they have issues with Hezbollah in Lebanon, where they occupied for a long time, and this was the resistance that built up there. They have issues

in Gaza, and they have issues in the West Bank. This is very directly related to the fact that they have occupied and dominated these people. And what was the problem in 66? Well, hold on. Well, 66 was only a couple decades removed. What was the problem in 66?

Hold on, what was the problem in the Second Intifada? Okay, well, listen. Again, I do have to run here, so go through all of this. But the problem with 66 is that there was a lot closer to 1947 and 48. Second Intifada was right after they tried to make peace. They started blowing up all the Jews.

If you want to ever get out of this situation, and how exactly we get to the next peace table, it's looking pretty tough right now. And I would guess, I think Hamas and Likud kind of all have to go. Hopefully there would be a new, younger generation of leadership where there would be a real will. But this cannot – this can't go on forever. Can I ask you a hypothetical? Sure.

I think – listen, the best thing people could do for the Palestinians would be insist that they have elections. But they don't have elections, so – Well, they insisted that in 2005 or 2006 or whatever it was. No. Fine, but regular elections, not one election, in fact, of a dictator, of a military dictatorship. I mean, if people say that the Palestinians want peace,

then obviously the first thing that needs to happen is that they need to be able to elect their leader that represents what they want, right? But here's my question. That would be an improvement, for sure. But yes. If, and that people worry that Hamas could take over in the West Bank.

If tomorrow rockets started coming in from the West Bank, hypothetically, which is not a crazy thing, Israel would probably then have to take huge measures to blockade the West Bank as well. Who knows what they would do? We wouldn't be able to blame them but then five years from now we'd forget and say how dare Israel have this blockade and that's how this started in Gaza

at some point there was no blockade and the rockets came and everybody at the time understood Israel's situation and then they forgot about how it all started you can pick your different points in history and decide who started it, and both sides are going to tell you the other one started it. And there's lots of instances throughout where both sides started it.

Listen, I get the point you're making. We know Sharon wanted to pull out. I'm just saying it's very one-sided to go like, well, if these rockets come in, what are they supposed to do? And why can't we also ask the same question about the Palestinians to say, living under the current state that they're living under right now, what are they supposed to do? Like, look, you already told me that you told me they maybe have a right to kill the IDF in the West Bank there, right? That they might, you're not exactly sure, right? So I'm just saying that a lot of the pro-Israeli side will always ask, like, doesn't Israel have a right to exist?

But the truth is that, of course they do. And they are existing right now. And they have a right to exist. And they have a right to defend themselves. The point is that the Palestinians also have a right to exist and defend themselves. And where exactly you draw that line is actually pretty damn murky. In a war, both sides. For the record, they don't have a right to do October 7th, of course, because this is the Osama bin Laden logic.

That was like, oh, well, you elect your government, therefore innocent civilians are fair game to go murder. But that's just evil, and that's what we're all supposed to reject. I don't think that's their philosophy. Their philosophy is that we're trying to avoid as best we can civilians, not that they— No, no, no, I'm talking about Hamas' attack on October 7th, which was not... They were trying their best, but also if you read the new, what was it, the 972 report, we don't have time

to get into that, but some pretty not good stuff in there. I don't trust that outfit, but it could be true. So if that's true, the whole thing is that actually there have been instances of targeting civilians, but again, that's, you know. You know, there's a history of these reports coming out and then turning out not to be true massacres.

That is true. Listen, that's one thing. Can I say that? It'll be the last thing I say, I promise. Then I got to run. You can say the last thing. But that is also true and something people should keep in mind. It's not like sometimes in the fog of war there are numbers or information or narratives or reports that turn out to be false.

It's every time in the fog of war, there are things that turn out to be false. Like there are years later when they do the excess death rates, they get a much clearer picture of how many people died, the justifications for wars, what happened here, what happened there, a lot of that stuff. I'm not, by the way, don't infer from this that I'm saying like October 7th was some type of conspiracy or something. I'm just saying that a lot of this information – like, look, everyone ended up looking stupid over that hospital attack when they were arguing for – not everyone, but when people were arguing for days over who blew up the hospital and then they figured out no one blew up the hospital. So there's just a lot of stuff like that. Always remember that in the fog of war, information is – it's being channeled through two propaganda machines and then it's also people trying to figure things out in the middle of an act of war is pretty tricky you have to watch the

gatekeepers have you seen it i don't know i don't think so it's a documentary with interviews all the former heads of the shin bet and it describes some pretty upsetting stuff it was considered a not a pro-israel documentary. But one thing it does show... Was that about the 70... Was that about the Yom Kippur war? No, it's not about any wars. You'll be totally enthralled by this document. You should watch it tonight.

Okay. But what does come through in it, this is without regard to any particular incident that might have happened where some fucking Israeli animal shot some civilian. I of course I'd be, I'd be an idiot to say that that can't happen.

Oh, my people would never do that. Every people does that at the highest levels. There was an incident when they had all the Hamas leadership in one building, they could have blown them up. Ariel Sharon of all people called it off because too many civilians would die. When you see that kind of thing, you all people, called it off because too many civilians would die. When you see that kind of thing, at some point you have to put things in perspective. Israel is a country that has civilians in the room, lawyers passing off on things, fueled by rage, human.

You know, I used to say Obama, probably the first time he dropped a drone was probably like sweating. And I don't know, should I, should I? And by the end he was like watching the game, like, Mr. President, not now. Yeah, yeah, bomb him. Go ahead. I'm watching the game. You know, you get used to killing.

And I don't think Obama was a bad man. I think this is a deep weakness of human nature. I do. We can do that on another episode. I have no doubt that Israelis get used to killing, too. The first hundred civilians in Gaza that died probably gave them deep moral qualms. The last hundred, it's just they're used to it already. Yeah, and soldiers, particularly during the times where there was, like, real military occupation.

You know, soldiers are young men filled with piss and vinegar. And they are really in a race. This happens, yeah. But Israel is not an amoral country. And Israel has procedures. Israel has commissions afterwards. Ariel Sharon, who was behind, not behind it, but allowed the Sabra and Shatila massacre. You know about this. One of the worst.

He was called to task. There was an investigation. He was dressed down. He was, you know, like Israel is not, you know, there's going to be no Hamas commission to figure out what they allowed and didn't allow. That's for sure. But look, I mean, sorry, I love this. I swear. Are you going to come play at the club again now?

Possibly. Truthfully, I live. Oh, you're still mad. No, no, no, I'm not mad. I just, I don't really do city spots that much anymore. I got two little kids and I live like an hour outside of the city. But when you do, when you drop in. When I do, sure, I will come, yes.

But I'll just say this, and the last thing is that like, a lot of times people like, and because there are people who are really like this, I get lumped into this category, but in the same sense that I think invading Iraq was totally wrong and unjustified and just heinous, that doesn't mean I'm like saying, America is the bad country,

and Saddam Hussein's Iraq is the good country or something like that right so I'm just making the point that look it's amazing what Israel's created it's incredible what the Zionists pulled off like you could if you read Theodore Herzl I just go like he actually made this happen maybe Tucker Carlson's not crazy because Herzl is crazy same dude can you imagine if you were just like it just it was just like a few guys with no backing at the time I mean they got some backing later But like at the time had nothing and they pulled it off and they made and we're also gonna language out of it Israel is a great place a great place for people to live people have built lives there and happy lives there

I would even argue that look for the the Arab Citizens in Israel probably the best place in the Middle East to just be a regular citizen if you're Arab would be in Israel That almost undoubtedly, right? probably the best place in the Middle East to just be a regular citizen, if you're Arab, would be in Israel. Almost undoubtedly, right? That can all be true, and what they're doing to the Palestinian people can still be totally unacceptable. So that's all that I'll say. That's my final thing, and I'm happy to talk more. I have said many times, there are two issues there. My difference with you is that I don't think they're I think they're correlation not causation.

I said in one of my podcasts, if we lived in Israel and my daughter said, Daddy, I'm going to become a lawyer and I'm going to do pro bono work for the Palestinians because the way they're fucking treated on the West Bank is an outrage. I'm very proud of you, sweetheart, of course, because of course they're getting treated badly.

The very nature of the relationship with humans in authority, it's like it's police on steroids. And we believe in unalienable rights, right? We believe people have them. And the, I mean, I just know that this stuff, if 80% of it is true, that's a tremendous amount of it. Where I part company is that I don't think it has

or has ever had anything to do with the peace process. The peace process to me, from what I see, has been rejectionism. And people see these settlements and see the way they're treated, and they think, oh, that's the reason there's no peace. No, that's the reason the Palestinians are being treated horribly by Israelis. And that is a real fucking issue.

And I've never been someone who really felt I could really get into that because I always assumed a whole lot of it is going to be true. I'm sure there's some incidents that are not true. I'm just saying, be very careful of thinking that it's going to be true. I'm sure there's some incidents that are not true. I'm just saying, be very careful of thinking that it's the same issue. They can be totally separate. Hamas, West Bank, Arafat. Arafat's refusal to make peace.

This wasn't because of settlements, not because of settlements. The 67 war wasn't because of settlements, not settlements. Sadat did not invade because of the settlements. Hamas is not invading because of the settlements. Hamas is not invading because of the settlements. Hamas doesn't give a shit about the settlements. Well, they moved the settlements from Gaza, right?

Right, but Hamas is not invading on behalf of the West Bank settlements. If Israel didn't have a single settlement, Hamas would still be attacking Israel. So it's complicated. What's going on between Hamas and Israel is much more similar to what goes on between the Sunnis and the Shiites, the Shiites and the Wahhabis, the Wahhabis and the Alawites, the Alawites and the Christians, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. I mean, you might know all these conflicts. Yes.

And none of these issues with way more bloodshed, Iran and Iraq, none of these issues ever had settlements, ever had occupation. Sure, no, a lot of them had American funding, one or both sides of them. But I really have to run. The tribal hatred alone was fuel enough and continues to be fuel enough. Alright, you were a great, great guest. Thank you guys very much for having me.

I do appreciate it. Thank you, Noam.