The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Gaza and the World's Greatest Bank Robber with Liel Leibovitz

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Liel Leibovitz is an author and editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and the host of its weekly podcast, Rootless. He is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. His work focuses on thinking about anti-Semitism as a national security threat.

This is Live from the Table, a podcast about... God, Dan. Should I do it again? No, it's all right. It's also the official podcast of the Comedy Cellar. This is Dan Natterman, Comedy Cellar comedian, with an unprecedented two spots this weekend. It's an unprecedented low.

Well, we're closed on Friday. Well, I have one on Friday. We're closed on Sunday. Not all the rooms are closed. Oh. Not all the rooms are closed. Oh, not all the rooms are closed. Because you're shooting a movie here. Okay. But still, I mean, it still lowers the number of spots.

That explains it. I mean, that partially explains it. The other explanation is that I'm being phased out. Anyway, we're here with Noam Dorman. He's the owner of the Comedy Cellar. And there's going to be a new room opening at some point in the year 2025. Someday. Maybe early 2026 at the former McDonald's

on 6th Avenue and West 3rd Street. It's going to be called the Menachem Dormant Comedy Theater. Something like that, yeah. Or something of that nature. I love that.

Periel Ashenbrand joins us. Author of The Only Wish I Trust Is My Own and On My Knees. Stories of her sexual awakening

in New York. That's not what the book is about. Well, then you should have found another title for it. And we have with us, in person, Lyle Leibovitz. Liel. Liel Leibovitz. Editor at large for Tablet Magazine and host of its weekly podcast, Rootless, which I guess is a reference to The Wandering Jew, I suppose.

A senior fellow at Hudson Institute. I guess that's a think tank. It is. That's where I explore my sexual awakenings as well. Okay. And his work focuses on thinking about anti-Semitism, which we've been thinking about on this podcast, as a national security threat.

Welcome, Liel Leibovitz, to our show. What a pleasure. Now, first question is, are you packing? This is New York, man. They make it very, very, very hard. So, no. But one day, inshallah, if we get things right

and we can be free like the rest of America and enjoy the Second Amendment guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution, yeah. The problem with a gun, though, it's like you know, you can't can't i mean you can't just use it because somebody like gets in your face and pushes you right so you you know the point of the gun is never to use it right the more of them you have the less likely you are to actually be in a position when you have to use it but i could see like you know somebody starts with you and then you have a position when you have to use it. But I could see, like, you know, somebody starts with you,

and then you have a gun, and you might shoot them, but you're really not authorized to shoot them legally. Look, I'll put it this way. When I was, I think, five or six, I was walking around the house kind of with a toy gun, going like, bang, bang, bang, bang. And my dad just grabbed me. It's something I remember very clearly to this day.

He said, don't ever point a gun, even a toy gun, at something you don't fully intend to kill. If you're a serious gun owner, and I'm happy to say most of us are, most people in this kind of community, of which are quite a few Americans, the seriousness with which you take your training, safety, and stuff like that, it's no joke. We don't just walk around shooting people. Well, now that you've opened this door as though we are in a court of law, I feel obligated for you to share with them who your father is. My father is someone who took his love of guns to the next level.

A ruck Goldstein? No, he came at it from a gentler, kinder perspective. Look, my father grew up at, he was the son of a wealthy israeli family uh and kind of enjoyed a life of leisure at some point he was like 35 or 36 we all i think most of us have been there was summoned by his father said like you can't just fuck around through life you got to do something you got to find a job uh at which point my father said well that sounds highly unreasonable. I'll show him. And because he grew up in the 60s and it was all about like, you know, do something you love. Find your passion.

He decided that his passion was robbing banks. A pursuit at which he was singularly incredibly great. And so he robbed. Clyde Leibovitz? No, no, much, much better. Look, the Clyde nonsense was like amateur art, right? It was like walk in and shoot everyone. My dad would go in the bank, rob it, and out in like 37 seconds,

which is about the time it takes me to get off the couch to go to the bathroom. Like very, very impressive. Then he would hop back on his motorcycle. He would ride around the corner up a ramp he had custom built onto a van where he would stop and ask himself the sort of seminal question of bank robbing, which is, where is the last place you would ever look for a bank robber? And the answer, of course, Noam is? The van right outside the bank. The answer, of course, is the bank itself. Oh, the bank itself. At which point he would tuck his gun in, he would take off his helmet and his jacket and very calmly walk back to the bank, which at this point was already crawling with police officers.

Wait, but his face was not covered during the robbery, or was it? During the robbery, he had a motorcycle helmet. He was very, very famous. Off the robbery, he was just a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a beer belly. Genius. And he walks in and the police officer says, a receding hairline and a beer belly. Genius. And he walks in, and the police officer says, sir, there's a crime scene. You've got to get out. And my dad says, well, my wife will kill me.

Can I just make a quick deposit? I promise I'll only take a minute. And the police officer says, sure, go ahead. And so he goes ahead and deposits the money he had robbed two and a half minutes earlier. And this is before the 80s and computers making everything virtually untraceable while the police are setting up roadblocks like five miles down the highway. It worked very well, until it didn't. This is why they hate us.

How much money would he deposit? It couldn't be enough to arouse suspicion. It wasn't enough at all to arouse suspicion, especially because this was a well-known, affluent member of the community. So if he walks in with 30,000 shekels or whatever it was. Oh, this was in Israel.

This was in Israel. Yeah, but this was like a craze. He was known as Ofnobank because in Hebrew, a motorcycle is Ofnoa. So it was like everybody knew that this was going on. So how did he get caught? But he was also well-known in the community because why? He was well-known in the community because he fucked the banks over, which everyone was very delighted with, and he never hurt anybody.

So he was kind of a folk hero, the guy who did it, though no one knew it was my father. My father sort of lived the double life for... But you said if he deposited a lot of money, it wouldn't have aroused suspicion. Oh, because he was one of the wealthiest people in Israel. Oh, he was wealthy anyway. Yes, he was the sign of... He was robbing banks just for fun. Yes, did you miss the whole test? I'm just trying to get it all...

It was this, like, playboy rich kid who decided to, you know, have himself a little... Then when I heard rob banks, I forgot about the part that he brought rich. How did he get caught? How did he get caught? He kind of wanted to get caught. By the way, Perriello was not exaggerating. This has now been independently corroborated and reported.

There were like female bank cashiers who would like have a note like pre-prepared with their name and phone number. Kind of like in case he hits the bank, please call me. I'm available. Unbelievable shit. He at some point got tired of living a double life. I think he also got tired of not getting credit because it killed him to sit at like social settings and all the women were swooning like, oh my God, that bank robber must be so hot.

And he's like sitting right here. Like a superhero movie. Me, right. And so he kind of let himself get caught eventually after doing it 21 times for a year and a half. And he said, okay, look, I've kept every shekel. Here's what's going to happen now i'm going to give you back the money and then you're going to let me go and the police officer

this is not how any of this works no man you're going away for a very long time like he called us the day he was arrested he said i'll be back home if not tomorrow then by monday i was 13 and a half i was like my bet is anywhere from like 14 to 25 years from now. I was right on the money. And is he alive now? Oh, yeah. He's a young guy. How long was he in prison for?

He was sentenced to 20. He appealed. Got his sentence commuted to 14. I think he ended up spending 11 and a half. So visiting him in prison was my childhood. Prison in Israel is the fucking funniest thing you have ever seen. You know they get vacations from prison in Israel, right? No.

Well, certain people do. Well, most people do. Unless you're either a terrorist or like a severe drug abuser, here's the logic. First of all, socialist state. So believe in, you know, hey, let's be kind to everyone. Second of all, there's one airport which is pretty secure like where are you gonna go gaza lebanon syria like go right ahead there is no going out of this country so um i would sign up for dad friday morning and i had to return him to the police station sunday morning every three weeks or so

but a murderer would not get that no a murderer would not get that because this is also part of the they want to reform you they want to yes they want to rehabilitate you they believe in you well here's a question though if if after every robbery he's the he goes into the bank uh this well-known wealthy israeli goes into the bank to deposit money don't the police talk to each other like, yeah, there was this guy deposited? And then they're like, wait a minute. At every robbery, the guy goes back in. I'll do you one better. Yeah.

The gun was registered to his name, as was the motorcycle and the van. Like, literally, all they had to do was look at the list. That's Israeli police for you. Were you guys shocked to find out after a year and a half? I mean, that must have... Man, I dressed up like him for Purim. Like, the Purim before he was arrested. I went like him.

No! Yes. Wait, you didn't know it was him? No! What was going on? It was like my hero. I'm like a 13-year-old boy. Of course my hero is the guy fucking over the banks of the motorway.

This is literally like a superhero plot. I know. Where the son is, you know, the superhero doesn't know that's my son. It's the first Spider-Man. This is Spider-Man. Why are you writing this movie? We've talked about it. Yeah, this is a movie.

We're working on it. Okay. We're working on it. I was taking this so long. It's happened decades ago. You know. Okay. You need, one needs the time and the gin to reflect.

This is like a very funny, this is going to be a very funny movie. A screenplay. This is a screenplay. It's a very, very funny, I mean, until it's not, but parts of it are hilarious. And he didn't hurt anybody, which everybody loves a bank robber that doesn't hurt anyone. Look. I'm telling you, if you talk to me from Israel. But we

have to move it from Israel to America because we want the movie to sell. We want a big audience. Except for some things will never work in America because, for example, visiting him in prison, it was so sweet. The warden did his best. There was Bring Your Kid to Jail Day,

which is my absolute favorite day of the year because the warden would be like, your fathers are all guests here of the government. It's like, dude, I'm 14. I'm not retarded. I know that my father robbed a lot of banks and he's here because of that. But then you sit around and there's serial killers

sitting right next to you. So, you. A limited series. I'm thinking a limited series. And you can have it take place in Israel. Because nowadays limited series can be anywhere. Maybe the kid could be American. Maybe it could be a family of American immigrants.

I think you should move it to Korea. Those things are very popular now. It's very timely we we don't know anything it's believable yeah but at some point some uh some really really schlocky kind of true crime uh show this is like 15 years ago um did an episode about this but they were too cheap to shoot in israel so they shot in Canada. And all the actors are Arabs. Now, you know, look at me. They just got a bunch of Arabs because they figured it's the same exact thing. Who cares? So first of all, you see the streets.

And, like, you see, like, you know, literally you see, like, a moose in one of the – And French, right? Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons, right. It's unbelievable how Canadian is, like, back in sunny Israel, you know. He was preparing. And then you see some, like, Egyptian swarthy guy sweat. It's like, guys, nice, back in sunny Israel, you know, he was preparing. And then you see some like Egyptian swarthy guy sweat. It's like, guys, nice, nice effort.

But that ain't us. All right. Can we talk about, this is a great story. How can we talk about this? You knew this the last time it was on? What the hell's the matter with you? It's better in person, isn't it? You didn't know we were going to see him again.

How could you not have? Hope springs eternal. It's one of the greatest stories I've ever heard in my life. The idea that your son is dressing up as you, and you're itching to be... to get the credit, which is, of course, very common

with criminals. But just before we get to Israel, what was your mother's reaction when she found out that... Exactly what you would imagine, Norm. Tell me, tell me. It was a complete breakdown. Imagine that betrayal.

I mean, for me, it was one thing. I mean, my story is also crazier because I was home alone when this shit happened. Was she angry with him? She was devastated. No, she was thrilled. She was like, you know what? I think this takes our marriage to a whole new level. She was very angry with him.

They divorced shortly thereafter. He must have been nutty already in some way. I mean, you just don't- You think? Yeah, I think. So, I mean, like, she's already living with this nutty man, and she probably, like, until this happened, she thought she had stories, right?

Now all the stories seem very lame. There's a difference here. But I'm sure she had stories prior. The nutty guy who is just a sort of, like, you sort of happy-go-lucky playboy who fucks around. And then there's the bank robber who just went away to prison for the rest of... Well, 11 years, which seems like... He didn't know how long it would be. He's not 20, though.

Right. He was sentenced to 20. And he lives now in Israel? He lives in Israel. Okay. He has conjugal visits. He's very happy. He's remarried.

And does he still have... Do people still know who he is? Oh, absolutely. He's a major celebrity. He does ads for Banks. What's his name? Ronnie Leibowitz. You can look him up. He literally does ads for Banks. You didn't even tell me this story. I didn't want to risk it.

What is the matter with you? Because it's like having... I am talking to Mike. You didn't even tell me this story. I didn't want to risk it. Well, first of all. What is the matter with you? Because it's like having. Talking to Mike. I am talking to Mike. That's the only time he's ever told me to talk in the mic, by the way. I mean, it's like having like Bob Dylan's son come in who does something in his own right. I don't like making Liel talk about his dad if that's not like he hasn't been prepared for it. He opened the door.

It's my family story who cares well i think didn't you say do you know who his father is didn't you do because he said he started telling a story about his father and i said if you're going to tell that then you have to tell us who your father is is it any is it any wonder that i was raised with guns i mean come on that's that's the guy that's right i mean it's it's so this is an amazing story why don't you give me credit for bringing it up now? I give you credit. Contrary to popular belief, by the way, if I could just add this one thing,

is Israel, if you're in the army, of course you have guns, but it's not that easy to get a gun as a private citizen in Israel. We're working on it. It's getting easier and easier. But that is true, historically speaking. Nobody had guns if you're not in the army, usually. You can get one. Some people usually. You can get one. Some people did. You could get one,

but here's the thing. Israel has measures that I support as a gun nut, as a maniac, I support totally. If you want to get a gun in Israel,

it requires a whole lot of licensing, training, and ongoing renewal that is dependent on your ability to actually prove that you could operate a firearm.

That's exactly what I advocate for. That's what we need. But that's not what the true gun nuts advocate. You call yourself a gun nut, but really you're not. The true gun nuts want a free-for-all. I would say it's a chicken and AR-15 type of situation

because I think a lot of what our community, can I call us a community? Are we a community and AR-15 type of situation because I think a lot of what our community, can I call us a community? Are we a community of well-armed? Our militia believes, look, when all you hear on the other end of this debate is, why do you even need a gun? Why do you even need an AR-15?

We're going to take it away. Then your emotional natural response as an American is, fuck you. I don't want anything, and my opening gambit is, I want to compromise nothing. Let the record show when he made that remark, he was scrunching his face like an Upper West Side

liberal Jew. Correct. It's very hard to take. Isn't an AR-15 like a machine gun, though? No. It's semi-automatic. Who needs that? Why can't you just... Why do you need that unless you're in like a war? QED. Women. Point proven. Why do you need that unless you're in a war? QED. Women. Point proven.

Why do you need that? Why do you need a bigger computer? Can we talk about... Yes, please. So Liel has an article in Tablet Magazine, where Periel used to work. And the article essentially is very hardline. I don't want to treat it with levity because it's quite serious. But I'll let you say, but it's basically, we've had enough of this, and now you advocate

for pulling out all the stops and annexing the West Bank, Judea, and Samaria, as you put it in the article. So you want to give us a little overview of that position? For those listeners who still do not think that I'm a complete nutjob, sure. Look, this is the kind of article that nobody wants to write, and I think nobody wants to read.

I grew up in the warm bosom of the Israeli left. I was, I think, what, 15 or 16 when the Oslo Accords were signed. I was on a plane coming back from the United States, and the captain came, I'll never forget that, came on the sort of PA system and said, you're not going to believe this, but we have peace for the Palestinians.

And the whole plane was like stunned silence. It was like virtually unthinkable. A happy silence. A very happy silence, but it was so far out of the realm of the possible and imaginable that people were like, how? Like, that's not what anything, you know, anyone expected ever. Because it is an important data point because we often presume that people understand this history.

That at that point, this is early 90s. When was it? This is 93. It was the very, very commonplace position of almost all Israelis that this was a good thing. Peace for the Palestinians is a dream that we want. Huge. Right. Huge.

Look, my generation grew up. Our kind of like foundational memories, like my probably earliest memory is sitting in a swimming pool in the summer and then my father returning from the first lebanon war after i haven't seen him for lord knows how many months uh then the intifada the palestinian uprising starts like the entire childhood was all about you know violence war conflict strife and the assumption was this is going to go on forever so when someone opens the door and said no there's a different way all but you know the real kind of bearded zealots at that point, Alas turned out to be completely right, said, this is incredible. We have to give this a chance. And here's the thing. Maybe you were disillusioned at some point along the way, but if you weren't, I think

certainly October 7th did the trick. The point that I raise in my article is that every available metric at our disposal shows that the population in Gaza is ecstatically supportive of what Hamas is doing. We have both Palestinian polling and sort of international polling from Harvard University, Cambridge University, and elsewhere that shows that while support was somewhere in the 30% mark before October 7th, it shot up all the way to pass the 60% mark and only kind of dipped a little when these guys were losing the war. When you ask Palestinians what they actually want to do with Israelis, something like 47% said all of them need to die. 20% are kinder, said, well, no, they don't have, we don't have to kill them. You know, we could expel them.

And 17% said, well, they could live here as our slaves in a Sharia state. This is not a good situation. This is a highly, highly, highly religious, fundamentalist, Islamist community of people to the extent that you can't pull a sort of, you know, denazification a la Germany because, you know, Nazism is a la Germany, because, you know,

Nazism is one thing, and religion is a very different thing. It's a much, much deeper belief, which leaves you with this kind of really difficult question, what do you do? And also the German population, probably those percentages were not, did not correspond with the number of Germans that were down with the non-government program, I would assume. Plus, look, there are so many other data points. We have seen over the last 10, 15 years popular uprisings everywhere in the Arab world.

We've seen it in Egypt, in Tunisia, in Syria, in Libya. Everywhere people stood up to the dictators oppressing them and said, enough. We want freedom. We want the opportunity for a better life. Everywhere that is but one place. We have not seen a single Palestinian step forward despite so many efforts, including huge financial rewards and promises of safety and security from the Israelis, step up and say, I'm sorry, but the smothering of nine-month-old babies with bare hands, that's not an act of heroism.

Raping of 14-year-old girls, that is not national liberation. We have not seen one. That is all the data I think, assertion that there are many innocent kind of families out there in Gaza. Leary Elbug, for example, one of the female IDF soldiers, was held for 37 days without being allowed a shower by a family who taunted her as they made her prepare food that she was not allowed to eat as she was quietly starving away. We're looking at a very different reality here. So the question is, what do you do with people who declare

that the only point of their life and existence is to end yours? You clearly... Are you talking about annexing the West Bank? Hold on, hold on. Let's answer this question one step at a time. So the obvious kind of brutish answer would be like, well, you know,

a total war of annihilation, which is something that, thankfully, Jewish ethics does not permit and something that no one in their right mind in the state of Israel has ever, you know, even remotely advocated for or considered. This war is being fought with the utmost care for human life,

which is why we don't use certain kind of weapons and put our own soldiers at risk in ways that, you know, are very detrimental to us. So that's off the table. What else could you do? Well, maybe we could get someone else to be in charge. But sadly, the PLO is just, you know, a slightly frillier version of the same genocidal rage. We can't really replace A with B. I think that President Trump's option, and I think it really kind of like shuffled the cards, to find these people a nice, sustainable place to live in dignity and respect and give them a chance that, honestly, they don't really deserve. The people who held Liri Elbug without a shower for 37 days do not deserve a nice apartment in Abu Dhabi. But I think that all other options considered, if you truly want sustainable long-term cessation of violence in the region,

that is a very good and perhaps even the only option we have on the table. So just a few things. First of all, you say that Israel has fought the war with the utmost care. I just want to register that Israel has lost that PR war in terms of making that case to the world. I don't care about PR at all. No, no, I just want to say, and I blame the Biden administration to some extent for that also. You should. But also Israel. And even to me, at times I've seen things which have made me worry that that was – I don't think Israel is a barbarian nation. But I don't think America is a barbarian nation. And from time to time we hear horror stories about things that the American army has done.

And it's made me from time to time worry that that's almost like a party line. But I do in my heart believe that Israel is run by decent people. And every time there's been articles by people who were skeptical of what was going on in Israel, then they actually embedded themselves in the decision-making process. To my knowledge, they came away saying, no, I have to admit that their procedures are very good there. And of course you have rogue soldiers and whatever it is. But I know that some people, when they hear you say that, they'll be like,

what's the utmost care? Didn't you see how many people are dying? So I just want to mention that. The second thing is I also want to mention that one of the pillars of like the center-left Tom Friedmanites, and I

think this also includes the Biden administration, is that, no, Friedman was sure that once the Palestinians emerged from their tunnels and saw what Sinwar had wrought upon Gaza, they would turn upon him and run him out on a rail.

You remember these columns? Oh, yes. And what you're saying is he was 100% wrong, that they rallied behind his cause even more. As he had always been about every single issue. So which brings me to something, and I've always struggled with this. We don't understand them. And I can't understand it because how could you have that amount of death and destruction, lose your loved ones,

as surely they have, suffering, not knowing, I don't think they're starving, but not knowing where your next meal, not having a private bathroom. And you know, all the things that we take for granted, for as far as the eye can see, you're going to live this way. And yet you're double in your commitment to this cause rather than the obvious alternative is like

hey they've offered us deals before why don't we say you know what can we revisit one of those deals that's an amazing question uh i think the answer to this question involves something i like to call the fey fallacy uh after the great tina fey who had this really kind of hilarious but but but also pathetically wrong riff i think in 30 rock in which he says you know all that anyone anywhere ever wants is just to sit down in peace and eat a sandwich you know we look at these people and we assume that because we want nothing but to just like pay our mortgage, live quietly, have our kids go to a good school,

enjoy a meal, have our kids live, have them go somewhere nice, have them have a future, then all other cultures, all other people, all other belief systems must be the same. That to me is the height of sort of Western cultural imperialist arrogance,

because it basically erases the possibility that other cultures may have other priorities. We're looking at an Islamist society that has a deep, deep sense. And look, I say this with as little criticism as I can muster. I understand this. They see the existence of the Jews next door to them in sites that they also consider holy to be a huge bit of humiliation. They believe in the faith that, let's be really, really honest here and remember, is 700 years younger than Christianity. If we're grading them on a historical scale, they're about where Christians were when the Crusades were happening, right? They'd say they're the new and improved...

Sure, but it takes time for religions to sort of kind of, you know, calm down. Just like people, you know, teenagers are one thing, it takes you until you're 30, 40, 50, 60, or older to sort of finally chill and understand how life works. These people have a goal. Their goal is the eradication of the Jewish invader. Nothing else brings them joy. Nothing else makes any sense or brings them meaning. I totally understand and furthermore really respect that. And when they say this over and over and over again, I have a really simple solution.

Maybe let's listen to them and believe them. Can I just... I was going to say, distinction probably without a difference, but I just want to offer it. You say it's like arrogance that we think they're like us this way. I don't think it's arrogance

because I think it comes from, and this is why we have trouble understanding it. We imagine that deep within all humans are the desires for their children to do well, to be comfortable, to have ample food to eat. In other words, we imagine, so somehow that culture is almost overriding what we regard

as like the prime directives of being human. That's why it's so hard for us to understand. Because it's not an arrogance, like we expect them to have our taste in food or- Point well taken, but no, so- I understand my point. Yes, but if we're looking at the scale of... It makes it more remarkable.

If we're looking at the scale of human needs... It's a suicide bomb, right? So is glory. Yeah. So is heaven. Yeah. So is transcendence. So is afterlife.

So is the belief that whatever we have here is but a trifle, considering what awaits us on the other side. Those are very deeply human things that really resonate very strongly in a lot of cultures that choose to move away from everything that we have here towards some kind of, you know, Valhalla that awaits on the other end. That is completely understandable. It is neither weird nor crazy, except for if you've, you know, been, your religious imagination has been blunted, which sadly is the case for many of us deracinated Westerners

who didn't really grow up with any kind of real rootedness in religion. Well, we had a little technical pause. You were saying, Dan. I was saying that he mentioned not being able to shower, and I said, well, that's not... If you're going to talk about mistreatment of hostages, that's relatively benign.

And then you said, because anyway. I said, the point that I'm making is that according to our best estimates now, only a third or so of the people who crossed over to Israel on October 7th were actual Hamas terrorists. The rest were just people. Just civilians who came to partake in the looting, the raping, the killing. Well, I guess by definition, then they were Hamas. I mean, depending how you define Hamas, I don't know if there's like a specific membership policy. But Israel exactly has that.

One reason, for example, and this makes my blood boil every time I say it, but it has the added disadvantage of being completely true. One reason why we did not act against the kidnappers of the Bibas mother and children was because they were not part of any registered, acknowledged terrorist organization. And so the Israeli court system said, I'm sorry, you do not have permission to go against these people. That's the level of kind of, you know, kind of meticulousness that Israel takes. That's the kind of care that we take. I would like to just go on record and say that today was the funeral of the Bibas family, of Shiri Bibas, the mother, and her two babies, Kfil, who was nine months old when he was kidnapped,

and Ariel, who was four years old. And the babies were murdered by terrorists, although Hamas put on this like clown ransom performance ceremony saying that the IDF had killed them, although we have international agreement that they were, I believe, strangled to death. And then they're... Forensically, they were strangled and then bludgeoned. So that it would look like they were killed in some kind of strike. And then they're forensically uh they were strangled and then bludgeoned so that it would look like they were killed in some kind of strike and then they sent the bodies back to israel um with keys and locked coffins with keys that did not open the coffins and um it wasn't even shiri's body yeah so and od, and Oded Lifshitz,

who was one of the founders of Nero's, which was one of the kibbutz that they all came from, who was an 84-year-old peace activist and pianist and great-grandfather, used to drive children with cancer... Palestinian children. ...from Gaza into Israel, into hospitals in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for treatment.

And so the people who were killed were the biggest peace activists. I mean, the opposite of the position that you're taking is the point here, right? So just so we have context. Comes back to that. What do you do with a Nazi next door? There are not a lot of options. I think this one of repopulation, which again is neither that rare

nor I think morally reprehensible. It is something that we have seen happen again and again and again historically. I could give as an example, 2.3, I believe, million Germans who are repopulated from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia after the war simply because they realized, hey, these people are going to get killed by everyone for very good reasons unless we get them out of there.

I think 800,000 of them were taken to the Soviet Union and the rest to sort of like Western controlled territories in Germany because it is a very good pre kind of like premeditative way of making sure you do not have a bloodbath on your hand. So you think they it's all very difficult stuff. You think

first of all, I don't want to be a coward. I do think that a moral case can be made on behalf of the people being expelled as well. In other words, that if you have absolutely no hope, and after 100 years of this, we have every reason to think there's no hope. After 100 years, it's never been worse, that this is going to just mean death and destruction until the end of time.

There is a moral case to be made. This is what Benny Morris got in trouble for saying, you know, many years ago of clearing the land. Of course, for that to be moral, they would have to have some serious option of passing on, you know, some sort of end of the conflict, which they, of course, will. But they would have to say, listen, we're going to do this. This is your last chance.

But my question beyond Gaza is, do you also want to expel the Palestinians from the West Bank? No. I think this is a much more complicated solution or problem. I think that if we think creatively about this one, we could come to really interesting ideas. Here's one that I happen to be fond of. There's a very good Israeli scholar by the name of Dr. Mordechai Keidal. I think he teaches at Bar-Ilan University. A very long time ago, he made the very good, astute, and completely true observation

that all this talk about, quote-unquote, Palestinians is ridiculous. These are not people who have a sort of cohesive national kind of mentality. They do not see themselves as belonging to something called the Palestinian people. They see themselves as belonging to Hamulas, like little family-based clans that each live in a different city in the West Bank and don't necessarily love each other or share anything that they could see as a history. Kedah's idea, which I think is very, very good, is to say something like,

look, Israel could annex the West Bank all it likes. A overwhelming majority of Palestinians in the West Bank live in these cities. Each one of these cities could become an emirate. It could become a completely independent, self-sustainable, self-governing kind of municipality a la Monaco, if you will. We could connect all of them in a series of roads that aren't that difficult to build because it's a pretty small territory. We could give them access through Jordan to all the international travel that they want.

And then again, they could have their choice. Do they want to live in peace and just manage their own affairs? That's terrific. If they, on the other hand, choose to once again take all the resources and turn it towards death, mayhem, murder, and destruction, that's a totally different story. Now, how come, I mean, I've known quite a few Palestinians in my life. No Palestinian has ever defined himself to me in terms of these clans that you're describing. Of course not.

If you look at the whole history of Palestine, and I say this with not an ounce of sort of glee or machismo, but if you look at the whole history of Palestine, it is a completely fabricated construct that came to be in 1964 when an Egyptian con man by the name of Yasser Arafat realized there was a lot of money and support to be had because of the Cold War, because of Western sympathies, because of a lot of other reasons, from creating this counter narrative to the Jews called the Palestinians. The Palestinian liberation movement was founded three years in 1964, three years before the alleged occupation of the West Bank began. That only happened in 1967. The Palestinians now understand, at least a vast majority of them understand, that they have, you know, the Wonka golden ticket. They could be as sort of obdurate as they want. They could say no to any and every peace deal.

And at every turn, instead of saying, okay, you said no, now suffer the consequences. They then claim, no, no, no, no, let's go back, let's roll back the clock, let's go back to square one, and start negotiating as if nothing had happened. They could launch as many intifadas as they want, and then say, okay, well, you know, I'm saying uncle, let's start afresh.

But isn't this idea that there's not really a Palestinian nation? There's a lot of echoes of Ukraine and Russia here, right? But to whatever extent that they were simply people who defined themselves in terms of their resistance to Israel, at this point there seems to be such a common history that they've had and experienced that a national feeling, a legitimate national feeling has been forged among these people. In the same way we see these people, there's Ukrainians, I'm told, who were actually quite sympathetic to Russia, who are now firmly Ukrainians.

Right. Because of the experience of the Ukraine war. But here's the thing. We offered them the dream. We offered them the Palestinian state. Not once, not twice, not three times. We've offered it again and again and again under all sorts of permutations. Bill Clinton is very, very clear

on what was on the table and what was rejected. Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli Prime Minister. Just this week, Olmert came out with a map. Correct. Presented the plan. Everyone continues to kind of beg these people to please accept some kind of measure of responsibility for their own well-being.

And they keep on investing every shekel they have in the murder of Jews. The Palestinian Authority still diverts enormous resources to the Pay for a Slave program. Everyone who wants to kill a Jew and kills a Jew

receives a huge, huge, huge, huge financial settlement. The list of Palestinian terrorists that Israel released because of all this hostage negotiations contains 325 millionaires. Think about this number. 325 people who've done nothing in their lives except for murder Jews

and are worth more than $1 million. It's mind-boggling. These people keep on making the choice. At some point, hey, man, there's got to be consequences. Can I ask, if you're willing to give them autonomy through a system of emirates, as you put it, why not just give them the whole territory as a state? How many times have we tried that? But why

would they accept this other plan if they didn't accept you know, Omer's plan? This other plan that you're describing they're not going to accept that. They're certainly not going to accept that. Let's call it the fuck around, find out principle. Because that is now off the table. Because they need to learn at

some point that you can't just go on killing people and then expect people to succumb to your demands, which sadly is what Israel has done, believing naively, beautifully, but stupidly, that eventually, if you only beg them enough, they'll say, you know what, fine, I'll take a state and start caring for the future of my own children. But how are you going to put this Emirates idea on its feet? I'm not going to put anything on its feet. I'll be like state and start caring for the future of my own children. But how are you going to put this Emirates idea on its feet? I'm not going to put anything on its feet. I'll be like, that's the offer on the table. Do you want this? Cool.

Do you not want this? Great. We could have other solutions too. Well, they're going to say no, so then what? Well, I say it again. The tenor of the question already assumes this kind of imbalance between people with agency on one side and kind of completely helpless children on the other side. This is not how I see the Palestinians. I see them with the utmost dignity and respect. I see them as people with agency, just as I see

the Israelis and myself, right? If they want to say no, if they want to continue fighting, no problem. We'll continue to fight them. The one thing that they have to realize that October 7th must change everything in a way that we won't keep on coming to the same starting point and be like, no, no, no, no, please, please, please want to live in peace with us. You don't want to? That's great. We have other means too. What happened to the idea, you know, sometimes these ideas, they don't work and then you look back, what was wrong with that idea again? What happened to the idea of a federation with Jordan? That's just... You should ask the King of Jordan that

because he'll be absolutely terrified because the absolute majority of his state is Palestinians. It is completely true to say that there already is a thriving Palestinian state. And he already had a close call. When they rebelled against this king's father, the father in what is known as Black St. Thamer, slaughtered, I believe, something like 15,000 of them,

you know, was far, far less forthcoming than the Israelis were. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. You want to put them all in Jordan? Fine by me. I don't care. The point is that they need to learn that this kind of genocidal behavior has consequences.

Listen, they need to learn construction. I don't sign off on that because I'm offended by it because it's not actually truth. Like, what we want is a solution, not to teach them a lesson. But that's a solution right there. No, literally every war in the history of mankind

ended exactly the same way. One side was the aggressor. One side was the aggressor. One side was the winner. The winner made the loser pay the price for the consequences. Except for the Palestinians. Sharon was on the road to unilateral withdrawal. Sharon unilaterally withdrew. By the way, he started Gaza and then he had...

Forcefully misplacing 9,000 Israeli families which no one talks about as we cry for the poor she won't shut up about it we did this in Gaza we took 9,000 Israelis uprooted them forcefully without their consent

great psychological trauma that's a cakewalk compared to what Israel would go through uprooting the people on the West Bank but Sharon was ready to do it I meant on the road

because obviously his next stop was some or all of the West Bank. He was going to leave, I assume, the larger settlements intact. I can't imagine he was going to. Yeah, keep some of the settlements, the land swaths, whatever. But he, in other words, he wasn't planning to teach them a lesson. He would just say, listen, let's just get out of here. And yes, they're going to be dangerous, but better to deal with that danger when it arises than deal with the administration of this territory.

I've had the privilege of knowing this man. Ayatollah. Yes. During, you know, the later years of his life. He's a man I hold in the utmost esteem. I think that he, like Ehud Barak, like Ehud Olmert, like virtually almost every Israeli prime minister, with very few exceptions, felt the enormous pressure of the American administration saying, no, the only conceivable, acceptable, permittable framework

is Oslo. The only solution, the only equation is you leave, you give them territory for peace. I think October 7th laid all of that to rest. That is no longer the paradigm that must never again be the paradigm. If they want to come on with some other, Dan, exactly as you said, if they want to come on and be like, you know what, okay, we learned a sort of lesson, we're ready now to do something else, I think there's really no end to how much goodwill they will find on the Israeli side, because Israelis, again, want nothing more than to live in some kind of peace. If, you know, Yechia Sinwar's brother, who now leads Hamas, today rose up and said, guys, okay, mistakes were made, we're releasing all the hostages, we understand

that there's a lot of bad blood, I'm being obviously kind of naive and loopy, but can we return to the negotiation stable? I'm willing to guarantee that something like 70% of the Israelis would say, sure. I agree with you 1,000%. I've said this for years. People don't understand that about the Israelis. All they want is peace. And people think when they see polls that Israel opposes the two-state solution, they think that's the mirror image of the Arab objection to a two-state solution. It's completely different. The Arabs don't want two states on principle. The Israelis

don't want two states because they don't trust it, because they don't believe it'll actually end there. They believe it's just a step-by-step process. Which, by the way, is why this is incredible for me. It's really kind of dispiriting. You see President Trump come out with this plan which, if nothing else, is a kind of bold new way of approaching this problem. And immediately,

the so-called hardliners in Bibi Netanyahu's government were like, no, no, no, no, we don't mean this seriously. This is not real. Don't think about this. Guys, why? Here's an American president finally coming up and saying, no, no. We don't mean this seriously. This is not real. Don't think about this. Like, guys, why? Like, here's an American president finally coming up and saying, OK, let's solve this problem to your advantage. And the Israelis are like, we can't even imagine winning. So where are you on? I'm actually not happy with President Trump on the whole. He's much worse. I suspected, everybody knows who listens to the show, that the big risks of Trump were how he'd behave erratically in foreign policy

and how he would try to settle scores domestically. But on both those counts, he's worse than I imagined he would be. What are your thoughts? I see and acknowledge the premise of your statement. I understand it. I don't share it. I think, look, I said after Trump was elected the first time, I said that I do not treat him as a person or a politician or a political figure. I treat him as a plague. I treat him as a sort of divine force sent to us to teach us the error of our ways. He's a sort of a hugely kind of consequential

force that is here to change and uproot. Now, do you mean that literally, that there's actually a divine force? Oh, no, no. I mean this very literally. I'm a little yid, I believe in Hashem. I believe in his ways and his intervention in the world. I think that Trump in foreign policy is proving again an uncanny, unbelievable, blessed ability to walk right in two years of sort of held kind of perceived common wisdom and say, guys, this is absolutely wrong and and and kind of evil we're going to try something new we saw this for example when generations of american presidents say you cannot move the embassy to jerusalem because they will start world war three and

trump said nah that's not going to happen the arabs will never sign peace with israel without the palestinians like yeah actually no one fucking cares about the Palestinians in the Arab world. Everyone thinks they're horrible. He's doing the same thing right now. He's giving us the sort of courage and vision that we lack precisely because of this erratic

comfort with taking very big risks. And I love it, and I think it's absolutely necessary, and I'm incredibly grateful. I do agree with you that he leans, let's leave Ukraine aside for a second, but he leans absolutely in the right direction on a lot of things, just in a common-sense gut basis.

You don't have to be a genius. All you really have to do is take the opposite side of what the left has stood for on almost any issue over the last 10 years, which he does, just as a matter of being contrary, and you're usually on firm ground. But he's cavalier and unserious and joking about these matters

of the utmost importance. He's trolling with these videos where he's kicking back. I know you like it. I love it. It's the American spirit, as far as I'm concerned. And these are matters of,

as I said, the utmost seriousness, life and death, people's homes, people's children. And as much as I'm happy that he's changing the conversation and changing the psychology around the whole issue, I cannot sign off and deny that I do not respect that kind of ill-considered behavior. That is not the way leaders should behave, and it's not to his advantage. He would do much better with these ideas if he presented them the way you would present them. I hear you, and yet I think part of the reason that he needed to present them the way that he presented them, when you had to jump right into the minefield here, a whole administration that held that we must now be locked and kept captive in our homes

and succumb to completely, like, demonstrably insane, quote-unquote, public health restrictions, because that is the serious hashtag science thing to do. If that is respectability and leadership, I think you now need a very strong course correction, because we've been going down a really bad path. I think what won when Trump won is the sort of like indefatigable, undefeatable American spirit. Look, I'm an immigrant to this country. I love it unreasonably and beyond kind of like any kind of rational measure. Periel knows this about me. Big Reagan fan.

Periel's favorite human in the world. Well, Reagan is a good example of what I'm actually referring to. Reagan was similar in terms of breaking the mold on things. But as you remember, everyone called Reagan a clown too. When he said, oh, the evil emperor,

it's like, oh, he's quoting from a movie. He's so unserious. This will lead to war with Russia. He was completely morally correct. And I think President Trump is completely morally correct to say, guys, we have a really big problem here. And here's how we're going to face it. We're going to face it with common sense. We're going to face it with dignity.

We're going to face it with American power, which is the only currency in this world that I believe in. They called him a clown, but he won 49 states. Trump wasn't that far. Some people, you know, the elite liberal reporters called him a clown, but the country adored him. Well, I think you could argue. I think Trump's pretty loved. Trump.

I mean, there are people. No. Well, go ahead. Are you taking the Trump side now? What happened to you? No, I'm not. Oh, she's a huge Trumpist. I'm not taking the Trump side, but I've told you on air and off

that I think if you don't want to be intellectually dishonest, you have to look at it and tell the truth. And what my personal feelings about Trump aside, people are obsessed with him. All you have to do is drive through the United States of America. I was in South Dakota this summer. There were shrines on the roadside to this lunatic who, I mean, really? So I can't explain.

I mean, I can't explain. So look at him in Ukraine. I mean, and we're being run now by the podcast group. All the people who go on Rogan and Dave Smith and Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard

and all the people who trade conspiracy. RFK Jr. This scares the shit out of me. I'm very glad that we added Ukraine to the mix because Gaza really wasn't controversial enough. You're on Trump's side about Ukraine too? You know, it's when Ukraine comes

up, that's when I... No, but I want to hear what he says. It's interesting because... We had Aaron Maté on and I was all set and excited for a discussion about Israel. Ten minutes in, Norm says, nope, Ukraine. Ukraine. And then I just tuned out because I don't know anything about it. Well, you have two months

to learn something. Well, I didn't know. I hear your mate is coming on. I thought Israel. I'm sorry, but now, go ahead. I'll put it this way. I at least have, I hope,

have tried to feign the intellectual humility to say, whereas I have very strong feelings about Ukraine that match yours completely, I am willing to take a step back and see what this administration is doing because this administration has a way of being very correct about a lot of things.

I'll give you an example. Vice President Vance's speech in Munich, to me, was one of the greatest instances of American leadership and oration I have seen in a very long time is a person coming and saying, guys, understand what your problems are. None of these things happen in a vacuum, right? They all happen in a context. You want to be a serious continent. You want to be partners in kind of like reasserting the West and fighting a host of very, very real dangers that you could see every day on the

streets of your, my family, you know, my daughter and my wife were just in Berlin six hours before they arrived at the visit of the Holocaust Memorial. There's another stabbing there. None of that is sustainable. And no one in that benighted continent is talking about it. This is what American leadership looks like. Do I agree with Ukraine? No, I don't. Am I willing to sit back and watch how this thing plays out? Sure. Because I don't think anything else that we have done to date really delivered a kind of stunning change. I agree. I'm hoping that, you know, basically what you're saying is that beyond all the bluster and beyond his personal peak and whatever he, I mean, look, Ukraine is

signing a mineral deal now. I don't like the fact that we're extorting the minerals out of Ukraine, but I do recognize that Trump is accomplishing what he set out to do. And you have to acknowledge that he was effective you know the bluster the bluster part is is really um i've had the the pleasure of in in the summer to uh to be summoned if i may uh to an audience pretty intimate gathering with him uh and i expected a lot of the bullshit i expected a lot of like greatest president ever a lot of people's i expecting a lot of that kind of like you know what you see if you are fed by a diet of the New York Times and CNN. His command of details in pretty kind of

intricate national security related matters was sort of stunning. Did he get the number of warheads down to three? No, but he was very aware of where all the pieces were on the board, and his analysis was completely correct. And most importantly, he was clearly not trying to appease or ingratiate himself to anyone in the room. He just said very hard things that a lot of people are like, there's no way you just said that. I think he's much, much more serious.

And in fact, knowing a lot of people on his team, these are much more serious people than the sort of common perception among us Upper West Side denizens give them credit for being. I feel so much safer and so much more secure and so much cheerful for America knowing that this is my president than I did prior to January 20th. Well, we're going to see, but it has all the earmarks. 51 Intelligence. His behavior has all the earmarks of someone who is not considering things in a careful way. Perhaps it's gone to his head that his gut has some sort of divine or it's just something that he should just respect his own gut

because he's been right so many times before. Maybe, but look, let's- Pride comes before a fall and I just, you know, I mean, I've been in business a long time. The way he's acting, the way he talks, it just seems to me that it's gonna blow up in his face, but I hope it doesn't. I think this is certainly the case the first time around.

I think the first time around is a very classic textbook example of pride cometh before the fall. I think he bungled it. He was completely unprepared and got played any which way. But just the number that you mentioned right now, 51 intelligence officials. who knowingly lied three weeks before an election about a matter of absolutely crucial national security. The fact that then technology companies kind of muzzled White House official accounts from sharing the news, and all of that was sort of completely silenced. In fact, Pulitzer Prizes were given to those who lied about it.

And then all of a sudden, this man comes up and says, yeah, all these people need to go right now, and we treat this as a kind of vindictive, personal vendetta. No, it's not. This is priority number one. Priority number one is cleanse this country from the people who for too many years ran it like a Diebstädel, like this kind of junta of people who are not kind of, who are

above the law in their own eyes and actually restore kind of operation capacity. So the reason I was worried about his score settling and part of the way I formulated it at the time was because his anger is righteous. Remember I said that? I know he's going to want to settle

scores and I get the feeling because they deserve to have. But I understand sweeping out the people that you're describing, but he's replacing it with loyalists. He's creating an atmosphere of people were selling their loyalty to him, obviously, before our eyes to get jobs. He pardoning these January 6th assaulters of police. I can't, I would love to be able to say, no, no, he's doing the right thing. But I have to be honest. I see what's going on.

He's not just resetting the scales to where they belong. He's putting them in the other direction. And there's excesses there, and they're dangerous. Look, I know it's only been... You agree with me. I know these have been very eventful couple of weeks, but it's only been a couple of weeks. I think at the very least, and again,

I'm personally incredibly kind of optimistic about some of his more high-level appointments, including Pete Hegseth, including Kash Patel, which I think is an unbelievably important and great appointment. Marco Rubio, I think, is terrific. I'm very happy to give it. I'm by no means a sort of blind loyalist to this administration. I'm very grateful for some of the fresh thinking

and some of the fresh acknowledgement of real concrete problems. But at the very least, I'm very happy to give them as much credit as they need to really get something done. I'm hoping for the best. I just love anybody who comes on and turns you into a lefty.

No, listen, I've always felt this way about Trump. Going back to 2016, I've always felt this way about Trump. Going back to 2016, I said he's erratic. I don't respect that in a leader. That's never been something you say, yeah, we need a leader who's more erratic. It's always been just an assumption that that's a bad quality in a leader. To be vindictive is a bad quality in a leader.

Lincoln was the opposite of those things, which is why we consider him the greatest president ever. That doesn't mean in the end that the results will be bad because, as I started to say before, in the end, and perhaps even on Ukraine where we don't exactly know what he wants, but if he wants some sort of a fair settlement there, he's pulling in the right direction on almost every issue that he's pursuing in his erratic way. Can we all agree that he, no matter where we stand politically, he achieved probably the greatest thing that an American president will achieve in the last 75 years, getting rid of paper straws. Yes. Which was just a blight.

Getting in the back of me. Oh, paper straws. Yes, yes. They're now outlawed. Thank Bohushev for that. Paper straws are not outlawed. No, no, he's allowing plastic straws to come back. He's allowing. Well, for now,

I really hope that outlawing paper straws is the next step. Can I ask a question about the Bibas family, if I may? Sure. Well, because we had shifted a bit to Ukraine. What motivation did

Hamas, or whoever was holding holding them have to kill them, given that they were so valuable as hostages to be exchanged for hundreds, maybe thousands of Palestinians that were incarcerated? Of course, there's a lot of people that don't believe that they were killed. They believe that they were killed by the Israelis, and they bring this up, and it's a valid question. I believe that they were killed by Hamas, because that's what the evidence suggests, but what motivation was there to kill them? I think the answer is simple and sad.

The answer is that Hamas knows that Israel will negotiate just as fiercely for the bodies of soldiers as it would for live people. Israelis need to bring people home to burial. So as far as Hamas is concerned, can we keep them alive? Can we kill them? Does it really matter? To these animals, it doesn't. But they kept some of them alive and some of them... I had the question, why did they kill Hirsch?

I mean, you could make that same case as... Pure, I think it's luck of the draw. At some point, there was some maniacal, genocidal terrorist who decided, hey, no, I want them alive because it is my pleasure to abuse them. And by the way, I gave the example of the shower, but we know of far, far, far more horrendous

torture that these hostages were subjected to. Shackled, hung upside down. One maniac likes to torture his people alive. Another likes to smother a nine-month-old baby. It's a matter of personal opinion. There was no cohesive policy coming from the top.

It's just, in your mind, whoever was holding them, they all had their own vision. I think we know enough by now to know that there was absolutely no cohesive policy coming from the top. I think, as I said, because only a third

of the actual combatants that day, if you will accept that term, were actual armed terrorists and the rest were civilians. It was just a free fall. At some point, I actually do believe that Hamas didn't even know where some of these people were being held. I have a question. I was wondering this.

Has there been any talk about the following? I could completely imagine if my father were held hostage and I knew he was dead, and now Israel had to release 400 murderers for his body. I would say my father wouldn't want 400 murderers to be released for his dead body. Keep the body. Hopefully we'll get it back someday. I understand.

But not for a dead body. I understand. Do I want more live Israelis? How come no one has said that? Yes, we want the corpses back, but not at the cost of knowing that living people will die, as they surely will from these releases. Noam, part of the reason why this campaign of terrorism is so successful is because it forces Israelis to ask these gut-wrenching, heartbreaking questions, exactly like the one you did. There are quite a few families of the

hostages who do feel this way. Oh, they've they're they're well but again they they they also take great care to watch what they say and how they say it because they understand that there are so many families in so many different positions and a lot of families right a lot of families feel like i'd like i for example know i've gotten to know very well the incredible Goldin family, whose son Hadal was killed and kidnapped to Gaza long before October 7th. I mean, they went on a very long kind of public struggle to demand that Israel pressure Hamas to bring their son's body home because the thought of not having a grave is the most inhumane kind of just mind-boggling thing that could be.

But am I not right? In Jewish law, life supersedes everything. And if I were the prime minister, I would say, you know what, we are not going to release prisoners for dead bodies because we value life more than death, and we know that this will lead to more death of innocents. And I think that aligns with Jewish law and Jewish priorities, and the citizens will accept it.

You're absolutely right, except for in the larger context in which you already have to negotiate with these people because there are hundreds of living people. The living people, yes. Then at that point, you just want to make the deal and bring everybody back home, which is what Israel is. Look, I wrote somewhat strongly against this deal. I opposed it from the beginning.

But I'm telling you right now, if I was a member of the Israeli cabinet and this deal came for a vote, I would vote for it. No doubt in my mind. As much as I abhor it, as much as it drives me crazy, I would just raise my hand and vote for it and feel like the world has ended. I think that there's also, Dan, to your point, that there's something to be said for the psychological torture also. They forced Yarden Bibas to make a video. They told him that his family had been killed. And then this is quite some months ago.

And then they told him actually that they were alive. So when he was released after 500 days of being held hostage, he was expecting for his family to be alive in Tel Aviv. Another one of the hostages was told on stage in one of those humiliating ceremonies that they have when they release Israeli hostages, was told that his family was alive and waiting for him and he gave this speech like, oh, I love you so much I can't wait to see you. And you could watch this

online. You could see the terrorist laughing hysterically, being like, ha ha ha, we murdered and raped your wife, you know, seven months ago. It is, this is, I keep coming back to this point. He came out and found out that his two teenage daughters and his wife and his family dog, by the way, had all been killed. And they told him on stage exactly what you said.

There's another hostage right now. Alon Ohel, I believe his name is. Alon Ohel. We know these stories. Ohel main tent, by the way. Ohel does main tent. Shackled in the dark with a severe injury to his eyes alone. And we know that from other hostages who have been released.

So I have a naive question, if you'll allow me. I want you to say your naive question, but I just want to to say because I know people are thinking to themselves. They hear the stories about, you know, and I think some of them are true of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and things like this. That's horrible also. Yeah, but it is horrible. But there is something. It goes back to something we said before, but I've never been able to understand it. Yes, in every society that has prisons and police and people in positions of power over other people,

like in our own country, we've seen abuses and horrible abuses. But you've never seen the country celebrate them. It's always been something which, when they came out, were overwhelming a matter of shame and

reverberated through the culture and society in a way that demanded reform and accountability. I can't process any human anywhere being sadistic. I cannot process the culture that cheers this, that celebrates it, that is exalted and rapturous in their response to it. There you have it. I can't understand it. There you have it.

I think it's a good thing. I want to understand it. No, you don't want to. Because I have friends. I've had this conversation with people that we both know. And I've said that. I said, listen, I understand the grievances. God damn it, I understand it must be humiliating to go through checkpoints,

even if the checkpoints, even if they're necessary. I can understand all the anger. That's the one thing I can't, I can put myself in other people's shoes for all those things and understand the anger and the hatred. I can't understand the rapturous joy in seeing these children die. There you have it. That's the society.

Yeah, and that is the gulf. That's the thing we can't cross. People like to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as this really complex, intractable thing. It's actually become incredibly simple. If you want to

choose sides, this is what you're choosing. You're choosing between a society that venerates death and murder and a society that does whatever it can to prevent it. It's really that straight up. And yet, when Palestinian Arab people come to America, very quickly they seem to shed that aspect.

Something does seem to change. Much more seldom here, maybe even more in Europe, very seldom do I hear that kind of talk. I don't think I've ever met somebody from Gaza here in the United States, I suppose. Listen, I think it's very important to say that there are people in Gaza and who are Palestinian who do not espouse these beliefs. Much fewer than we thought. Well,

I mean, I would... Seeing one speak publicly would be sure nice right about now. Well, you can look him up. I'm scared of getting killed. I mean, you can look up Hamza Hawidi. He is a Palestinian from Gaza who made his way to Germany. And he is incredibly outspoken and very brave and was tortured I come from, as you know,

you've known me for, you know, I don't know, 20 years, maybe, um, from quite the far left. I have always been a sort of starry eyed peace activist for the Israeli Palestinian movement. Um, I still somehow believe that if Hamas were taken away, that, I mean, what I've always said is that 90-something percent of the Palestinian people just want to be left alone and eat a sandwich. I think that in the same way that you see the hostages hugging Hamas

and thanking them, I think because they have guns to their heads, that the Palestinian people, a lot thanking them, I think, because they have guns to their heads, that the Palestinian people, a lot of them, are living under that same wrath. Right? Let's kind of, let's unpack that, as we say in academia. Let's assume for a second that this

was true. Why don't you mansplain it? If this was true, I will certainly do that. This is Trump's America, baby, you know? We mansplain. America, baby. We meant splain. It's back. We can say retard. We can do whatever we want. If this was true, first of all, it still doesn't explain why equally or greater oppressive societies, again, Gaddafi's Libya, Assad's Syria, had successful revolutions.

This is literally the only Arab population that never rose against tyranny. That fact cannot be stated enough. Number one. Number two, you look at the polls. The polls don't support your theory because if what you said was correct, then all the polling that you would see

would have something like 100% support for Hamas. In fact, we see low percentage of support for Hamas before the war and very high percentage of support for Hamas. In fact, we see low percentage of support for Hamas before the war and very high percentage of support for Hamas. Hamas remained the same Hamas. The support didn't change because Hamas one day is like, guys, we're no longer a peaceful organization.

We're kind of like switching Iraq. They're living in like a land of destruction. Who else are they going to blame? Like they're going to blame you? How about their leaders? Because again, literally every other Arab population did it over the last six years. That strikes me as a

pretty good alternative. If you look at, although I've never been there, if you look at the West Bank, like Ramallah, I don't think that's an impoverished place. Neither is Gaza. Ramallah is actually a fairly, I think, upscale town. It is. So is Gaza. Yeah, I mean... Ramallah is actually a fairly, I think, upscale town. It is. So is Gaza.

But not anymore. The South is. I should have said, let's give more credit to the Palestinian people who continue to support Hamas in the following sense. The world has taken their side. This has been a tremendous

success for the Palestinian cause. And up and right through what they saw the American president, you know, vacillating and indecisive and obviously afraid of anybody from his left who might accuse him of being not sufficiently caring about the policy of evil. So they do see success from October 7th. And if we hadn't allowed that success, if Trump had been president then, maybe they wouldn't be so... If Trump had been president then, October 7th would not have happened. That I believe firmly but the point the point i think you're making you're making a far more grim point than i think you intended to uh because if i'm a palestinian and i'm like hey you know everyone in the world seems to be on my side

so that uh smothering of a nine-year-old infant and the raping and then you know shooting of a 14-year-old girl? Yeah, kind of cool. Then I'm doubly the moral monster than I would have been because at that point, what do I care about? Then I care about nothing. Then I'm a complete empty nihilist who is not fit for human consumption.

How much of the world really is on the Palestinian side? I suppose it's a lot, but take developed countries. Do you think that... Overwhelmingly. That a majority... Look, this brings us back to... The majority of the Americans support Israel, according to all the polls.

Because we're normal. But if you look, again, at the dying, if not already dead continent, Europe, which is committing kind of like slow suicide in so many interesting, fascinating ways, these people have found their cause. They have, you know, united themselves or aligned themselves with these, you know, destructors of humanity and civilizations, the Palestinians, because that's exactly what they imagined for their own continent. They have no attachment to their roots, to their history, to their religion, to their well-being. They have nothing motivating them except for some kind of lunatic belief in some ethereal notion of like, oh, we need to be virtuous, and therefore we need to side up with people who we think are

oppressed, and everyone just wants to live in peace, even though we're seeing grooming gangs raping 14-year-old girls all over this country. It's sheer lunacy, and it will destroy this continent. Not a moment too soon. Look, we're... But not in a moment too soon. Just to be clear, you're not celebrating the destruction of Europe.

I'm deeply, deeply saddened by it, but at this point, I think they've made their choice, and that's what's coming to them. I think when you say that we support Israel because we're normal, obviously the reasons we support Israel are much more complex than that, and it may be more fragile than we'd like to think. How so? Well, obviously the left doesn't support Israel,

especially under a certain, I don't care where the polls are, but under the age of like 35, it's completely different than over 50. And then, although Trump, we've said before on the show, I think is a quite reliable friend of the Jewish people, MAGA is not. Correct. And post-Trump MAGA. Absolutely correct. All you need is one of these, Tucker Carlson, who is not. Correct. And post-Trump MAGA. Absolutely correct.

All you need is one of these, Tucker Carlson, who is their North Star. That's right. They will turn against Israel, just like they're turning against Ukraine. That's right. And then what? So it's, you know, I'm worried. See, but my belief grows deeper. And this is when we get real crazy.

Because up until now, it's just been like the amuse-bouche of crazy. Now it's the steak of crazy. Look, I believe that America and Israel are different. They're different than any other country in the world because they are covenantal nations. The name for the United States in Hebrew is Arzot HaBrit, the lands of the covenant. These are two nations that are predicated not on the coincidence of living in a contiguous

territory for long enough to call it France or Belgium or Germany or whatever, but on an idea brought by words that we can make a change, that we could bring God's light of freedom and liberty into this world. I think that is the reason why the Hebrew Bible is as much America's founding moral document as the Constitution is America's founding political document. And I think this is why the words of the prophets resonate from anyone from Sojourner Truth to Martin Luther King. I think that this is so deeply embedded in the DNA of this country that we are different from Europe for that reason. We're a godly country, and I don't mean this in a shallow, stupid way, televangelist type of way.

And I think that though we now have a problem that is very much the result of very bad higher education, I'm not worried. I actually think we're looking at an incredible American renaissance happening quite soon. Because again, we're renewing a covenant, unlike a contract. It's something you need to renew every generation or so. We're renewing it. You're not worried about the Tucker Carlson's and the Candace Owen's?

I'm very worried about the Tucker Carlson's and the Candace Owen's. I'm also worried about what... I agree with everything you said. And I've worried about immigration for a long time because I detected that the immigrants of my father's generation, the sentiments that you express of this hyper appreciation and love for America, of leaving the old country behind and kissing the ground, and this makes you very receptive to this idea that America is a nation built on an idea, because that's what brought you here, and that's what you appreciate. But we can't pretend that the recent immigrants to this country feel that way about this country. Correct. They don't.

Correct. And so they will not, I don't think, be as, they will not treat it as so holy, this idea of America having a covenant and all this mumbo jumbo that is in our DNA. Like, you're probably like me, like, my father was this way. He's like, he saw George Washington as his forefather. Jew from Israel in the 30s. He's like, yeah, George Washington. These are my, you know, that's an incredible fiction that was common among all immigrants. But if you talk to like the Mexican guys who work for me, who are, don't send me letters. I love them.

They're the best employees I have. But just, they would not be angry to hear me say, if you ask them, how do you feel about George Washington? I don't give a shit about George Washington. That's not my ancestor. I didn't come here to become a descendant of George Washington. And that's different. That's uncharted territory.

And that might lead us to become more like these other countries. Well, how important is... I think it's crucial. Is that? Is a sort of civil religion of the founding fathers, how important... For a nation that has no genetic commonality? Nothing else. Nothing else matters. And by the way, on immigration alone, one should

full-throatedly support Donald Johnson. Full-throated? Yeah, absolutely. That sounds pornographic. Well, it's his sexual education and it's Queens. They do things differently there, I hear. If this administration does nothing else,

the border is the single most important thing that they could do, and they're doing it pretty freaking well. You know we went to the same high school. You and Trump? I went to the same high school as Candace Owens. No. I certainly did.

I mean, she came years later. But Stanford High School, the Black Knights. Go Black Knights. She's a problem. All right. You're a terrific guest. What better to have you in person than us?

You know, I do have a question. Thank you very much. I will take that as a personal compliment. It was to him, not to you. You know, you're obviously a very patriotic American. You're also a very

patriotic Israeli, it seems to me. Do you envision a possibility of returning to Israel, or you're making your stand with America and that's it? That is an incredible and incredibly difficult question. I think about this every day. I, again, cannot overemphasize how much I love this country and how grateful i am for it i also realize increasingly that my my motherland of israel as opposed to my fatherland of america um is going through a lot right now and needs a lot of a lot of help and a lot of uh energy and

a lot of investment and a lot of brainpower and brawn. I don't know is the only honest answer. I think there's a lot of work to be done in both societies. I only take great comfort in knowing that though decisions may take me to very different corners of the world, the project is honestly the same project. Because these nations share something very, very important. This is the sort of backbone of the West. This is something that, whereas you implement it in Israel or in America, you're doing something which is for the

benefit of entire Western civilization. It's not a competition between these two nations. Which is why it's so disturbing to hear Trump and his people around him talking as if they regret the entire notion of the Marshall Plan and rebuilding Europe. And you hear them talking about post-war order as if this was all a big mistake when it's been the only good thing that's ever happened on planet Earth, practically. We have our work cut out for us. You agree with me, right? Yes, but again, I mean, look, I think you said something very astute, which is Trump is not MAGA. In MAGA, when you see Tucker interviewing this human,

who I don't want to name, who calls himself an historian because he admits that he read 21 books in World War II and then concludes that Hitler was the poor kind of one who was aggressed upon. And Churchill was the real aggressor because, you know, some people who control all the money made him do it. We know who you're referring to. I don't know Dawa Cooper, who I actually have a relationship with. I have a soft spot for him, maybe a blind spot for him. But I know some of that backstory I'll tell you off the air. I would love that.

My heart sinks when I hear that. You block me. But it has to be all. Daryl blocked me on Twitter. I can't respond to his tweets anymore. In my opinion, Tucker is by far the bad guy in all this. When you see Tucker, when you see Candace, when you see the sort of deeply and serious and deeply wild and deeply unmarried, look, here's the thing. The woke right is not better than the woke left. We have a real woke right problem on our hands, and that's something we'll have to deal with as well. virtue of being this kind of you know demonic force of nature he's one man you know can jd

vance become a good sensible custodian for this movement i really strongly believe that he could it's a right that nobody saw coming like like that they used to say mitt romney's gonna put you back in chains and uh and reagan's hill don't you miss him now? Like the Tucker Carlson wing didn't even exist. And now it's dominating. So when I used to like dismiss the threat of the right, people say, oh, now you're sorry for that? I'm like, well, no, because that right didn't even exist. On that, we could agree.

Everyone hates the Jews. Yes. All right, on that note, thank you very much, Liel. Listen, this is terrific. I hope you'll come on semi-regularly because this is fantastic. Okay. Thanks, everybody.