The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Israel and American Politics with Dan Senor

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Dan Senor, the author of the new book "The Genius of Israel", is a columnist, writer, and political adviser. We discuss Israeli society during the war, the effect on American politics, Biden's hopes for reelection, and much more.

🎵 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 wherever you get your podcasts. Dan Natterman here at the top of the hour. Actually, it's 540. But in any case, I'm here with Noam Dorman, the owner of the comedy seller. And Periel Eschenbrand is here.

We've got Mike Suarez on the sound. Noam, can I run some guest ideas past you real quick? Yes, please do. Okay, I sent Perry a list, but there's a few of them you haven't yet approved. Ricky Schlott, you know Ricky, she's a friend of Mike Moynihan, she's a student activist.

Yeah. Okay, Ricky Schlott is approved. Michio Kaku is a CUNY professor, astrophysicist, and he also knew some of the people in the Manhattan Project. He was a protege of Edward Teller. That'd be great.

Okay, Michio Kaku is approved. Tony Woods, comic, Chappelle favorite. Yeah, that'd be great. Tony Woods. Geddy Lee, if we can get him, which we probably can't, but of course he's a progressive rock legend. I assume that's a yes.

Yes, yes. Diane Forrest, the world's oldest female comic who went to Guinness Book of World Records. can't but of course he's a progressive rock legend i assume that's a yes yes yes uh diane forrest the world's oldest female comic who had to get it to get in this book of world records she's 88 years old still doing comedy uh i don't know okay never mind her okay so we got everything except diane forrest and of course the rest of my list has already been approved and you wanted to talk about dave smith who we have yeah so dan got me in trouble with dave smith well i don't know if i got you in trouble you got you in trouble i Dave Smith. Well, I don't know if I got you in trouble. You got you in trouble, I guess. I brought up Dave Smith, and you then responded that you thought. Yeah, because you brought it up on a live mic, and I had to.

But anyway, it paid off because he's agreed to do the show after not being able to get in touch with him for a while. He's agreed to do the show. And Dave Smith is a libertarian comedian who has some views that I think are, my guess, would be fairly opposite Noam's views. So it should be a lively discussion. I'm pretty libertarian. So let's talk about the Aaron Maté debate.

Okay. First of all, a lot of people were interested. Dan had a meltdown and grabbed the mic and started screaming. That was a golden moment. But I'll tell you this. Somebody wrote me, said, you know what? Dan may have had a meltdown, but he was absolutely right about the point he was making. Was that Coleman that wrote that?

Yes, Coleman wrote it. Coleman told me that yesterday. Yeah. I don't know if you want to discuss that in more detail or just refer people to the debate. That's not on this podcast. That was on the podcast you do with Hot Tam. Yeah, but then I actually placed it on our thing here too. And so, you know, I posted – this is interesting.

So I posted the Aaron Maté debate at like 3 a.m. And I went through it. I did a lot of work. I looked up every single source, every single fact. I haven't done as much work since I was cramming for exams in school. And so let's say I put it up at 3 a.m. It's approximately right by 3, 10 a.m.

I like 30, 35 of the most nasty comments about how awful it was, what an idiot I am. And I wrote back and said, it's, it's been minutes. You couldn't even have gotten through the first part of the introduction yet. It's like,

and then it really hit me that, that, me that this is who we're dealing with. And it's not just one side of the issue. This is what the world is like. So I stopped the comments. There's no more comments on that. I'm not taking more comments because— Okay. Yeah, it's probably just as well.

Your mic's not working. I'm happy to take comments from— Is her mic working? I don't hear her. Talk, Peril. Your mic's not working. I'm happy to take comments from, is her mic working? I don't hear her. I don't hear her. Talk, Peril. Check. Hello.

Your mic is not controlled by that. What do you mean? That's the headphones. Jesus Christ. Are you a producer? You know what works? Twist your nose. That'll turn up the volume.

Is that a sound engineer? No, that's our... Okay. So, is my mic working? No. Okay, well, I don't have to... There it is. Now it's working. Okay. I liked it better the other way. So is my mic working? No. Okay. Well,

I don't know. There it is. Now it's working. Okay. I liked it better the other way. So it's controlled over there. Turn it up. Yeah.

So you want to take that comment back? That your mic wasn't working? No, that like I'm somehow supposed to fix it from over here. I didn't say you were supposed to fix it. I was so funny that you're turning up your headphones to make your mic working. Anyway.

So just, you know, this, this podcast goes from like the greatest intellectuals in the world to like this. Anyway, we'll be followed by Steven Pinker in a second. So I decided like, you know what? Hello, sir. Come on in.

Come on in. We're just finishing. Dan Sonora is here. He's our guest. We'll be chatting with him in just a couple of minutes. But first, I guess no one wants to finish up. He may be interested in this. Come on in, sir. Come on in. Come on in. We're just finishing. Dan Sonora is here. He's our guest. We'll be chatting with him in just a couple minutes. But first, I guess no one wants to finish up. He may be interested in this. Come on in, sir.

Come on in. So it occurred to me that what is the point of engaging in comments with people who obviously haven't read anything, haven't watched anything. So I, so I, and, and so in this Finkelstein debate, even though we got a deluge of pro Finkelstein comments, obviously from his followers, I think we have to remember that very few of them probably watched that much of it, or no matter what they had seen, no matter what they had seen would have had a different view. And that the important thing to remember is that this is,

these comments are a small fraction of the viewers. Hundreds of thousands of people saw that. And my intention, our job is to reach the reachable. And because I, after I saw his mate comments, I was like, fuck this.

I'm not even gonna do any more podcasts. But then I said, wait a second. There's plenty of people who are watching this who are actually unsure or they don't know the history or they're open to learning something. And this could even be a straw on the camel's back of their eventual change of mind. Like people don't change their minds instantly. Come mind. Like people don't change their minds instantly. Come sit down, sir.

They don't change their minds instantly. Sometimes they change their minds cumulatively. So if they got some facts, if they found it interesting to know that Aaron Maté, who I like, but Aaron Maté, this supposed world expert in the Arab-Israeli conflict, didn't even know that Jordan attacked Israel, which I just found astounding. I just found it astounding that this guy who's out there tweeting has millions of followers thought that Israel

attacked Jordan in 1967. And as I'm going back and researching some of his arguments, I constantly find myself at the same Noam Chomsky essay, meaning that he's really just, and I kind of, I kind of referred to this in the introduction, they cut and paste a line from here, a line from there. They don't do any serious, deep research that I can see. I mean, I don't want to dismiss him because he's, well, read. He's read books and stuff. But he does seem to just grab at a thread, a Chomsky thread, and there's no, you know, you think it's the tip of an iceberg?

No, it's just an ice cube floating on the water. It looks like the tip of an iceberg. So I really like the idea of you shutting off comments because I think that what winds up happening is that people wind up chiming in. They know nothing, but then they feel it's like this self-satisfied, like smug feeling like, oh, I got mine in. And I think that if you shut that off, you sort of kill that opportunity and instinct. Also, they're so nasty.

Well, they can be. Everybody can be very brave when they're sitting behind the anonymity. But literally everybody is so nasty. It's astounding to me. All right. So our guest of honor is here. Let me do the interest since that's what I do so well. Please do, Dan.

Dan Senor, I believe it's pronounced. Senor. By the way, I told him like five times before you got here. I'm senile. Am I on? Yeah, you're on, yeah. Do I need these or no? You don't have to.

You don't have to. You don't have to. Yeah, go ahead. Unless we play a clip from something, and then you'll know. We have a substitute engineer here today, Mike, and he's fantastic, but he's just getting his sea legs with the new equipment, so hang on. I think we got it all. Well, I saw Morning Joe recently. It was worse than this, so go ahead.

He's a, can I just say, senor. Senor. Senor. My whole life, it's been butchered. All right? What's the worst say Senor? Senor. Senor. My whole life it's been butchered. All right? What's the word? Senor? Now Mike's not working.

Listen, even I can lose my patience. Now her mic's not working again. Go ahead. Senor. Senor.

Yeah. Zenor. I mean, my whole life. I would go with Senor though. I mean, I know.

Some people say that throws till day on. Yeah. So, no, Senor. So it's Senor. Well, I mean, it's kind of cool. I know. Some people say that. Throw us until day one. Yeah. Why not? No, Senor. So it's Senor. Well, he's an American-Canadian columnist.

Meh. A dual citizen, I guess. No. No. Lived in Canada for a number of years. Was never a citizen. Okay. He's from upstate Utica.

Dan's Canadian as well, but... Well, my parents are. I'm not. Although I had citizenship until I was 26 or so, and then I didn't... What is it about people who've lived in Canada? They want to quit... No, I never lived there. I never lived there. Okay. My parents are Canadian. I got citizenship at birth. until I was 26 or so, and then I didn't... What is it about people who've lived in Canada? They want to quit? No, I never lived there. You never lived there. My parents are Canadian.

I got citizenship at birth, and then at 26, I had to fill out some paperwork that I never did, because I didn't even know I was a dual citizen the whole time. In any case, he's from Utica. We upstate people, we always... Hey, we're batting 100 on upstaters.

They're always nice. And he's the author of a book, The Genius of Israel, along with Saul Singer. And it's a New York Times. It's a best-selling. He also wrote the best-selling author, the best-selling book, Startup Nation. So anyway, The Genius of Israel, The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World. Thank you.

And you have a podcast. It's called? Call Me Back. Call Me Back. I thought it was Call Me Back. I didn't want to get it wrong, which I've listened to for the first time in the last few weeks, and it's fantastic. Thank you.

It's one of the best podcasts I've ever heard. What's the theme of the podcast, Jeff? Various things, but lately, obviously, it's been on Israel. It was geopolitics and macroeconomics and U.S. politics, basically, with a smattering of Israel in there every few episodes. But since October 7th, every single episode has been about Israel, and I've gone from doing it once a week to the first couple weeks of the Gaza war I did about every two weeks.

Sorry, I did about every day for a couple weeks, but now I do it about three times a week. And it's just about I talk to Israelis on the ground every single episode, almost every single episode. Israeli journalists, Israeli officials, Israelis living this trauma. Well, we like to consider ourselves the podcast of record on this conflict. And Noam's, Noam, you've got an

amazing compliment from this woman, Molly, with like a million Twitter followers. Molly Hemingway? Is that her? From the Federalist? Yeah, that's the one. She's an important person, I guess. She's got a million Twitter followers. I claim no credit. Noam's been doing a great job interviewing people about this conflict. Anyway,

Noam, take it away. I know you have a lot of... Now, we've been talking about Israel nonstop, and of course we're going... I noticed that. Every episode, it's like my podcast. We're going to talk about Israel with you, especially with you. But I want to ask you some political questions, too, because you are into politics as well. Yes, yes.

And that'll, of course, lead us into Israel anyway. But I just do want to ask you one other question before. There's some dark good luck that you've had, that you're coming out with a book on the genius of Israel. This reminds me of when these guys— it was almost like a crowdfunded level documentary on Ed Koch, like 15 years ago. That was good. It was very good. It was good. But it came out just the weekend that Koch died.

And it was all this and of course it floated. So this is kind of the situation. The opposite experience of Jack Welch, whose book, his big release date was September 11th, 2001. Exactly. Actually, I didn't think, never in a million years could I have imagined that October 7th would obviously coincide with, be a month before our book was released. Our publisher kept trying to get us to delay the book release long before October 7th. So the pub date was November

7th. Reaches out to us late spring, says, you really want your book to come out this year? Because you're writing a book about Israeli resilience while Israeli society is splitting apart. Israel's in the depths of judicial reform in 2023. The whole country, hundreds of thousands of people storming the streets every night protesting. It was like, really, the people were at each other's throats he's like you really want to come out you're talking about the whole book is about israeli solidarity are you crazy and we argued to him we're going to explain how israel's going to bounce back yes israel's in the depth of division and despair and we're going to demonstrate how israel's got the building blocks to pull back he says okay okay

so then fast forward he he says, we've got another problem. Two weeks before your book comes out, exactly two weeks, we've just learned the pub date, Britney Spears' memoir is coming out. She's going to knock you right off the bestseller list. This is terrible. And I tried to persuade the folks at Simon & Schuster that Britney Spears and I may have many things in common but we are not targeting the same demographic okay so he said okay okay then he comes back to me and he says um

new problem i take your point you and britney are not this is you know book about israeli resilience and britney spears are not necessarily going after the same reader. But Gal Gadot has a memoir. No, but close. Barbra Streisand. Oh! On the exact same pub date, on November 7th, Barbra Streisand's, a previous era's Gal Gadot. Barbra Streisand's book is coming out. And don't tell me that there aren't Jewish book buyers

who are going to be deciding between your book and Barbra Streisand's. And I said, fine, you got me. But different generation. And they may buy two books. Like maybe our books, you know, you search for one book and then they say, recommend it. You know, they give you the option. Maybe they'll recommend. And he's like, okay. And then, but he was really worried about the judicial reform. And I said, Israel's incredibly resilient. Part of what

we do in our book is lay the history of Israel tearing itself apart, going back to the founding of the state. This happens about every 10 or 15 years. The reason in 2023 we were so focused on it is because we all have these things. We all have phones and social media and everything's chronicled. But if you go back in Israeli history, in almost every decade, there's been like a moment where the country you thought was like about to go over the edge and it bounced back. No one here was paying attention. We go through in the book each of those moments and how Israel bounced back, and Israel bounced back from this.

He said, okay. And then October 7th happened. And what we are seeing now is, and I'm happy to talk about it, we are seeing the resilience of Israeli society. It's horrific and traumatic what happened to Israel at a government level and at a military level, but at a societal level, what Israel is experiencing right now, I don't think you would see in any affluent Western democracy in the world today. And so I just think there's a lot for those of us in the U.S. who live in a dysfunctional society to learn from.

Now, OK, well, let's start here because then we'll get to the politics. First of all, I think your publisher was wrong anyway because, you know how they say all publicity is good publicity and no such thing as bad publicity? The fact that Israel is in the news means that people are more likely to buy the book even if it's contrary to what's in the news

as opposed to if Israel was like a tranquil state that fell off everybody's radar, nobody's going to want to pick up a book The Genius of Israel. Israel's in the news, as opposed to if Israel was like a tranquil state that fell off everybody's radar, nobody's going to want to pick up a book, The Genius of Israel. Israel's in the top of the... Hey, this is weird. The Genius of Israel, they're coming apart over there. Right, right.

Right, it's... Write a book, The Genius of... It's provocative. Write a book, The Genius of Hamas. Right. Now is the time to come out with it, right? Right. Yeah, I mean, someone put it to me

when we wrote our first book, Startup Nation, which was about how Israel had developed the most important tech economy outside of Silicon Valley in the world in the least likely places, and we explained how Israel did it. So someone said to me, well, the analogy would be if you guys wrote Startup Nation and it was published while Israel's tech economy was in meltdown. Be like, really? You're writing about the dynamism of the – you probably wouldn't want that. I still think it might. Really? Yeah, because you say – You're writing about the dynamism of the... You probably wouldn't want that. I still think it might. Really? Yeah, just because... You're part of the conversation.

People might want... Because this is so weird. It's like a heterodox view on it. Right. Also, people might want some optimism to go with the grim reality. It's like that old joke

about the two Jews and one says, well, why are you reading... Aren't you reading the Jewish newspaper? Why are you reading the German newspaper? Well, because the German newspaper says

we control the media, we're doing great. So now- The New York Times review said explicitly the worst timing for a book you could ever possibly imagine. New York Times said that. I rest my case. And then they also said, but if Israel manages to bounce out of this moment,

it will be for reasons explained in this book. So they- Oh, but it looks like the joke's on everyone because it's a New York Times bestseller, so everybody could say what they want. So one of the knocks on Israel is that, and they really managed to find words that sound so chilling and threatening, so ominous. They call it an ethnostate.

Israel is an ethnostate. Israel is an ethnostate. But the kernel of truth in that comment, is that the reason that Israel is so resilient now? Because of the bond of a people. I can come back to the whole ethnostate question, but let me get to the second part of that question, very specific terms. Why do we think Israel is so resilient? Why do we think there's so much solidarity? Because it has, first of all, Israel has political polarization. Every wealthy Western democracy today is going through some kind of crisis of political polarization. Why that is is beyond

the scope of this book, but it is. It's happening in the United States, obviously, since 2016. Certainly happening in the UK, also since 2016, since Brexit. You can go to just about every European country, you're seeing these societies, hundreds of thousands of people in France storming the streets to protest Macron

and his various reforms, turning violent. I mean, country by... It's the elites versus the deplorables all over the world. Crazy parties getting elected on the extreme right in Germany. So there's something going on.

So we're not saying Israel is immune to political polarization, as we saw in 2023. It has a lot of it. What we argue is that Israel has shock absorbers, societal shock absorbers built into it, that just when it gets really, really tense, the country kind of pulls back. So what are those shock absorbers built into it that just when it gets really really tense the country kind of pulls back so what what are those shock absorbers because i think that gets to the heart of your question so i'll cite two or three we go through a bunch of the book one

national service compulsory national service most israelis at age 18 serve males for three years females for two years unless they go on to officer training school or into one of the elite units, and serve even more years. But the overwhelming majority of Israelis serve in some kind of national compulsory, most cases military service. So that accomplishes three things. One, it develops some incredible skills

for these young people at key points in their development, much better experience than they get if they were to attend an American college, an elite American college. When we worked on Startup Nation, Eric Schmidt, who at the time was at Google, told us, and Google at that point was hiring in something like over 100 countries, he told us, you take the average Israeli 25-year-old and you put him or her up against their peers anywhere in the world, Google will hire the Israeli. Because you just don't have, at that that age people who have accumulated that kind of experience

that Israelis have because they all go through this experience where they're leading people, managing people, having to make life and death decisions, lives on the line, managing massive assets. So that's one benefit of the national service. But what we focus in this book on are two other aspects. One, when you are serving in a military unit, you are serving with people from all walks of life because it's compulsory. So the son of a cab driver is in the same unit as the son of a tech billionaire. Okay, now in our country, tell me how the son of a cab driver develops a real

bonding experience with the son of a tech billionaire. You have an ultra-religious Jew serving that unit with a tattooed, ponytail, ultra-chic, hyper-secular Tel Avivian in that same unit. You have Jews whose families come from Yemen or Morocco or Turkey or Iraq or Iran, and you have Jews from the West, from Poland or from the United States or Canada, they're all, you know, you have people in the hull of a tank who are from big cities in Israel and from struggling towns. Can I make a comment here? Yeah. And you probably know about it.

You're describing almost exactly the opposite of what Charles Murray described in his first chapter of Coming Apart as to why America was coming apart. Lost shared experiences. Lack of shared experiences where he talked about how it used to be in the same neighborhood you'd have the son of the executive IBM with the contractor and now everybody's separated. By the way, I would suggest that the stand-up comedy world may be the closest thing you get to the son of a tech billionaire

bonding with the son of a cab driver. As comedians? For example, there's a comedian named, what's his name? His father's a billionaire, Julius Kroll, Nick Kroll. His father's a billionaire

or nearly a billionaire. I know. And he's a stand-up comic and you got Tracy Morgan who, I mean, I came from somewhat more modest means, and they're colleagues. So, you know, we got a big tent here.

All right. So that brings everyone together. Now, keep in mind, they do this for two or three years or longer. And then they have what's in the Hebrew word is miluim, which is reserve duty. So then they have reserve duty. So after they finish the regular service, until their 40s, they get most of them go back every year with their original unit. So it's like a reunion every year with the people you served, 25, 30 years old, 35, all the way to your 40.

So you're staying in touch with these people. When you have that kind of experience, it is very hard to look at your fellow citizen as the other. Like I said, you've been working in a warehouse on a military base with them. You've been in the hull of a tank with them. You've gone through basic training with them. Mika Goodman, who's someone we quote extensively in the book, who's a very serious public intellectual in Israel. He's got the most popular Hebrew language podcast in Israel about political issues.

He told us that after Trump was elected in 2016, he came to the United States for some conference. He was meeting with a bunch of academics like him, his peers in the United States. He was at Harvard, and he was meeting with academics at Harvard. And they were saying, he listened to their conversation. They were like, you know, I met a Trump voter.

Let me tell you what he sounds like. You know, or I read a study about the Trump voter. Let me tell you what they think. As though there was some kind of lab animal, like a lab experiment. And Mika said to me, are they talking about their fellow citizens? It was so perplexing to him that even, he says, look, guys I serve with in my unit, some of them, they're nuts politically, like nuts.

I disagree with them vociferously, but I would never view them as the other. I mean, I've been in the hull of a tank with these people. So I'm with them all the time. So we have incredible bonds. We just have different political worldviews. So I think the National Service does that. It brings people together.

Can we talk more about that? Because it's such a profound point. It's something I've thought about a lot. You're really, in my opinion, you're discussing where this is really human psychology and visceral instincts overcoming intellectual things. In other words, there's no substitute for being in the same room with someone, for spending time with someone. You can't read about it in books. It's not really about the fact that you disagree on policies that's driving you apart. It's because you're living separate lives. And you think it's because the politics's driving you apart. It's because you're living separate lives.

Right. And you think it's because the politics are driving you apart. When you're in basic training with a fellow citizen, you don't care what their position is on judicial reform. Because you're not dealing with – you're dealing with the essence of life. And you see this as one of their aspects as opposed to defining them. Exactly. But what we do in this country is we look at people we disagree with.

And because we have no shared experiences with them, all we know about them is what their political views are. So that defines them. Let me continue on this. So you're, I believe, friends with John Podhoretz. Yeah, very close friend. And you probably know stuff about this that I'm only curious about. But his father, Norman Podhoretz, at least very close friend. And you probably know stuff about this that I'm only curious about, but his father, Norman Podhoretz, at least at first, was a pretty strong

Trump supporter. And he did this interview in the Claremont Review of Books. I don't even know that publication, but the name sticks in my head. And he said stuff very much along the lines of what Joe says. How can you support Trump? He says, he reminds me of the guys I served

with. This is exactly what he says. He says, this was like the common sense guy. Yeah, they were a little rough around the edges, but they were good guys. I liked those guys. I respected those guys.

He's one of them. I recognize those guys. I like him. This is something that Norman Potthart, the father, said somehow just because of his generation, the son would be less likely to come to that insight. Yeah, because they don't have those experiences.

Yeah, yeah. And then lastly on the national service, the other aspect I think is profound and powerful is the entire incentive system in Israeli society as young people are growing up is focused on rewarding them for thinking of themselves as part of a team, as part of a group, as part of a community. It's not about your own individual excellence. So in the U.S., we reward young people as they matriculate in life for individual excellence.

How are your grades? How did you do on your SATs? How did you, you know, what was your reference on your job, summer job? It's all about getting into college, which is a very individual experience. It's all about individual merit. Now, Israel's a meritocracy too, but merit is judged not only on individual excellence. You've got to be able to perform, but it's all about from when they're a young age, how they are as part of a team. So the most elite units in the military that are like unbelievable launching pads for making it in high tech in Israel, you can't, it's like the equivalent of getting a degree from MIT or Harvard or Stanford, you can't get into those units. You could be a phenomenal talent with individual skills,

but if you're not a team player, you won't get into those units. And so it changes the way the whole culture operates because young people as they are – they're focusing on how to win. How do I win? I mean we – it's very easy to teach young people how to gain reward. Here we tell people – young people to gain reward by their own individual excellence. In Israel, the military experience, it's a culmination of stages in life

that's about how you deal on a team. But it even starts younger because most Israeli kids go to the Tsofim. Tsofim, exactly. So you know Tsofim. So the scouting movement is a big deal in Israel. Overwhelming majority do scouts. And it's all run by the kids.

There's no adults who run it. So young people go through Tsofim and then by the time they're 16 or 17, they're the ones running Tsofim and they bring in these other kids and it's a child run scouting movement that most Israelis go through and then they go from Tsofim

and then the next experience is the military. So it's instilled in them in a very young age. I think also the soldiers are trauma bonded, obviously. And it's also something that they don't really talk about like over dinner. Right. So it's like a culture where you've been through this horrific, usually experience and you have some sort of PTSD, but then you get back together, you know, once a month or whatever with your army buddies, and those are the people who you still are connected with. It's like your family.

Yeah. It's like a family. It's really interesting. So we have a chapter in the book where people say, I remember very difficult points in Israeli history. Like Yossi Klein Halevi is an author we quote extensively in the book, and he told us during the second intifada you should tell people what that is okay so the first intifada was began in 1987 when there was a palestinian protest movement against um israeli occupation

of of it started in the gaza strip but it was gaza and the west bank and then there was peace process in 1993 the oslo peace accords that was going to put israel going to put Israel and the Palestinians on the path to a two-state solution. It fell apart. We can go through the whole history. But in the late – in 2000 basically, a second intifada began just after peace talks broke down at Camp David that Bill Clinton, after Ehud Barak, who was prime minister at the time, offered Yasser Arafat 95, 98 percent of what he was asking for, according to Bill Clinton. Arafat rejected it, and then a second intifada began. And what it consisted of, which at the time seemed like the worst Israel has ever seen until October 7th, but at the time it was a campaign of suicide bombings in major cities

in Israel, blowing up buses, blowing up pizza shops, blowing up discotheques, blowing up, I mean, I can go on and on and on, and every one of these incidents, 10, 20, 30 people would be killed. Sometimes young people would be killed. I'd compared it more than once already to like a slow rolling version of October 7th. Yeah. Just spread out over many years. About the same number of people killed. Yeah.

The same cruelty. It's a good, right. Actually, it's funny, you just mentioned John Podhoretz. I have a text from him from the weekend of October 7th where he, I have this like visceral memory. I have so many memories of that weekend, but one of which was Podhoretz texted me saying, this weekend, as many Israelis are going to get killed in one weekend as the entire second Intifada,

which is, you're right, it was a two-plus-year period. But Yossi Klein-Halefi told us that his kids at the time were teenagers, and they were processing the Second Intifada, because they had lost people, they had lost peers, with their friends, like with their friend groups, with their, it wasn't, he said, we knew very little about where they were at. They were processing it with, so it's so they already had developed these communal arrangements, if you will, or communal groups.

It's a hevra is the word in Hebrew, which is, it's like a brotherhood or a sisterhood of friends. And it's a big part of Israeli life. I want to mention one other thing because I think it's important. So it's not just the experience of national military service.

Israel also has something we don't have, which we could learn from, with national rituals. National rituals that the entire country participates in. Also, I say this is extremely important. Whenever people go to Israel for the first time, I say, I always ask them, will you be there over Shabbat? Will you be there over the Sabbath? If they say no, I say, extend your trip. You have to be there. You won't understand this country unless you're there over Shabbat. Or I say, if they're going in the spring, will you be there during Memorial Day? Or Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day? Or Israel Independence Day? Or Yom Kippur. So why are all these important? In Israel, the overwhelming majority of Israelis have the same experience on Shabbat. 70 to 80%

of Israelis have a semi or very traditional Shabbat dinner on a Friday night. They are with family, often two, three, sometimes four generations. They're with close friends every Friday night. When you're in Israel, you feel like the country slows down, almost stops on Friday nights. Now, and like I said, it's sacrosanct. It's every Friday night. Now, when I say this, we have a chapter in the book called Thanksgiving Every Week.

We say that it's like Thanksgiving every single week. Because when I describe to Americans what Shabbat is like in Israel, where I say, tell me an example, I say to Americans, give me an example where you're with your family, here we are on the eve of Thanksgiving, so when you're with your family, sometimes several generations, and or close friends, very predictably, it's untouchable. You're not going to work during that day. And you're having that ritual, and you know the majority of the country is doing the same thing. Tell me an example.

And they always say Thanksgiving. Okay, I say great. Give me a second example. Give me one other. And that's when they get stuck. They usually say, sadly, Christmas. No, because a lot of Americans don't celebrate Christmas. A lot of Americans, that's when they get stuck they usually say sadly christmas no because a lot of americans don't celebrate christmas a lot of americans that's when they go away that's a they say um the super bowl oh oh that's okay they say people go to super bowl parties and it's a

sense that i'm doing something i'm watching the game i'm doing and the whole country is doing you feel like the whole country is engaged now by the way i'm a big football fan i love the super bowl i love the ritual of it i'm'm a New York Jets fan, so that presents its own set of challenges in terms of the Super Bowls. Jewish poignancy to that, too. I tell my kids it builds character. It's the Jets are the most Jewish

team. Dealing with adversity. But so they say the Super Bowl, and then I say, okay, that's the best you can do. You can't come up with one other, and they can't. So I said, okay, so now imagine a society where every Friday night you get Thanksgiving. So all these young people, they live their lives. They spread out all over.

They do their jobs. They go to the Army, and then every Friday they come back with their parents and their grandparents. And some do it more religiously and traditionally. Some do it much more assimilated and very secular or not, but they're all basically doing the same thing. It's a personal ritual, a familial ritual, and it's collective. You know the whole country is experiencing it. We don't have that here.

Memorial Day. So have you been to Israel during Memorial Day? No, with the siren? The siren. I want to get to other things. Okay, go ahead. Only because there's so much, and I have a long time. As three Jews here, what you're saying reverberates very deeply with me,

and I think parallel to it, Dan less so, because he doesn't have much connection to Israel. Anyway, but let's jump to American politics for a second, then jump back. How has it... Well, you could really talk about anything you want. The issues on my mind are Biden's age,

Biden being behind the polls, the effect on Biden's staunch pro-Israel attitudes. Will it actually hurt him in the election or not? What's your what's your lay of the land on American politics right now? I think Biden I mean, I don't need to you just look at the polling. I think Biden is quite vulnerable in his in the reelection campaign.

If you look at the New York Times, Santa polla poll, he's basically losing to Trump in every battleground state with the exception of Wisconsin, where he's ahead by two points. He could lose the popular vote even, right? Yeah, yeah. That's according to the most recent NBC poll shows that his unfavorables have gotten so high he could lose the popular vote. Biden's in real trouble. If I were advising Joe Biden, and I'm not, my politics are to the right of Joe Biden's, but if I were advising Joe Biden, and I'm not, my politics are to the right of Joe Biden's, but if I were advising Joe Biden, I would suggest that he not run for re-election, announce that he's basically a wartime president, which he effectively is.

He's got his hands full with Russia, Ukraine, with Israel, Hamas, trying to contain the situation in the Middle East that doesn't spiral into a kind of 1973-style regional war. He could have a flare-up on China and Taiwan. He's got his hands full, and he doesn't have time, and it would be irresponsible for him to expend his time trying to get reelected. And there's a very talented bench of Democrats, any number of whom could run for president, and he should be a one-term president and spend the next 14 months, whatever it is, doing the job, being commander-in-chief. Obviously, he's not taking my advice.

He's running for re-election. Do I think the war between Israel and Hamas will hurt him politically? No. I know it is unpopular with his base, and I see the same polling. Oh my God, it's so unpopular with his base. First of all, look, it's never good in politics for your base to be frustrated or disappointed. But at some point, it's not going, for his base, this election is not going to be a referendum on Joe Biden. It's going to be Joe Biden in contrast with someone else. And I suspect whoever that person is in contrast with most likely will be someone his base very

much does not want to be president. So his base will come home and rally for Biden. I think the opportunity for Biden in this environment is the crazy explosion of anti-Semitism that we are seeing right now, which is, I'm shocked by it. I mean, I thought I couldn't be shocked. I mean, I'm shocked by what's happening. I'm the, you know, I'm the son of Holocaust survivor, the stories of the Holocaust. You and Norman Finkelstein both. That's it, until there, right. It was like in the water, you know, growing up for us, the stories of the Holocaust. I never, as much as I was so aware of the Holocaust,

and it's a big part of our family's identity, I never felt personally vulnerable until 2023. Now I feel personally, physically vulnerable. I feel that way for my kids. My kids go to a Jewish day school. I mean, it is, I spoke at an event last night in Detroit, a Jewish event that all these guys are around me, these security guys, they're like following me everywhere I go. I'm like, what, what is going on here? And they're like, in this environment, we've made sure the sponsor of the event said we have to make sure that it's like the sense, there's a menacing feel to this moment. Now, that's the way I feel. What I am struck by is the number of friends of mine who are not Jewish, who are not personally vulnerable, are flipped out too by what's going on. They're looking at this, they're saying to me they're saying to me and they're not jewish and they're not really connected they have no real connection to israel they said wait a minute

on october 7th we thought the outrage around the world would be directed at the people who launched the the massacre against the jews that's what we thought the we never thought there would be outrage against the jews seems to be that there's outrage against the jew. That's what we thought. We never thought there would be outrage against the Jews. It seems to be that there's outrage against the Jews because they object to being slaughtered as opposed to thinking what they thought would happen, which was the outrage would be against Hamas. So they are so disoriented. And they're watching this on college campuses.

They're watching it in the streets of major cities. They're listening to Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, literally cite the protests in Paris, London, New York, and Washington. And so, well, look at this. We've lit up these people. We've empowered these people. They're like a fifth column for them, the way Nasrallah was talking about it. So my non-Jewish friends are looking at all of this, and they see it as, and they're right, as an extension or almost like a symptom of something that had been bubbling up before October 7th here. No, we've been talking about it for years.

Are you getting that sense from your non-Jewish friends? Are they freaked out by it? I don't have any non-Jewish. No, I'm kidding. My wife is not Jewish. She's totally freaked out. Right. Yeah, tearing down the posters of the children,

the hostages and the- Or saying that they don't even exist, that it's Israeli propaganda. And so they're freaked out by it. And so I think this is Joe Biden's sister soldier moment. If he looks these protesters in the eye and says, you are completely out of touch. You have lost your minds. Like if he confronts them, it may annoy his base.

His base will come around. Clinton had his sister soldier moment. He took on his base. His base will come around. Clinton had his sister soldier moment. He took on his base. His base came around. But the potential for Biden, if he really is running for reelection, is there about 5 million voters in this country, independent voters who swing. Some of them voted for Obama. Then they voted for Trump. Then they voted for Biden. We'll see who they vote for this time. But they're up for grabs. And I think if they see Biden taking on the – because that same NBC poll that has the Israel-Hamas war hurting Biden, that same poll, if you look at the approval rating of different names and organizations, one of the names they put forward is Hamas. Hamas' approval rating in the United States is 7%. It's like – if you can believe it, it's even lower than Congress's approval rating.

Okay, it's 7%. I think if Biden says, if you're carrying water for that organization, you are against America. It's not just about being against the Jews. It's not just being against them. You are against America. And I think it's a winning political issue. So I want to ask two points. One will end in a question, I guess.

So the first one is, I probably share your general politics. I don't know your politics that well, but looking back on the last eight years or so, I think that it worked out. I didn't support Trump. It worked out with Trump in the sense that we got through the four years. Nothing terrible happened. I know people say January 6th, but nothing terrible happened to the country. And we have something pretty strong to show for it from our point of view, which is the Supreme Court, which is, I wouldn't say it's far right, but it's pretty staunchly civil libertarian. And for instance, if the election had gone the other way, we would have had racial preferences for the next 50 years.

And now we've gotten rid of them. And I think most people are happy we did. So that worked out. And I think that if Trump were president, and I think we should thank God essentially for Joe Biden as well right now, despite the fact we might disagree with him on this and that.

You mean on Israel? Yeah. He's been amazing. Because if Trump had been president, I think, you know, in my opinion, the leader of the party always has a gravitational effect on the people of that party. So when the president supports Israel like this, many people are loyal Democrats. It's okay. And they fall into line because that's the position of the president.

We saw people take ridiculous positions because that was Trump's position. If Trump had been president and he had given Israel the same green light, which really Biden has given them, I think we'd have a lot more trouble to the left of Trump containing this, a lot more trouble. And you see the squad and all of it getting a lot more purchased and a lot freer to talk. And you'd see people who want, who are hoping to run for president in the next election, trying to position themselves to take advantage of this anti-Jewish reaction. So I think we should thank our lucky stars that it worked out the way we did. I will. I hadn't thought of that. And I do think Biden taking the position he has taken on Israel, which there will be points, I'm sure, in the months

ahead where I disagree with what he's going to do on Israel. But so far, if you had told me on October 6th that the next day Hamas was going to unleash this massacre on Israel and President Biden within 24 hours would come out with an incredibly powerful statement making clear whose side he's on and telling the bad actors in the region not to think for a second about capitalizing on the attack on Israel and deployed the military assets, the aircraft carriers, the squadrons of aircraft, the 2,000 Marines, you can go on and on and on, that he's sent to the Mediterranean, the bunker busters and other munitions he's sending to Israel.

And then most importantly, he gets on Air Force One and he flies to Israel while it's at war and he goes to a war cabinet meeting in Israel. He attends like he's a participant with the war cabinet and he gives this very powerful speech from Israel. I'm just, I couldn't have imagined it. By the way, I say thank God he's president and not Obama. If you look at what Obama said – Did you see what Obama said?

The worst. Yeah. I mean – and I just thought to myself these are two different world views in the Democratic Party. He said that there's no justification for what Hamas did, but it's also true that the occupation is unbearable. And we all have blame. We all share blame. All complicit. By the way, the key word you just said there is but.

This is to me the tell. I always listen when people are analyzing the situation because I do not believe October 7th and post-October 7th is a period for nuance. I'm normally quite tolerant of nuance in political debates. There's no nuance here, right? If you look at beheadings and then putting children in ovens and burning them alive and just mass slaughter and these filming of rapes, if you look at that and you want to apply nuance, we're done.

Like, I'm just not interested. First of all, the word unbearable, I joked about it. I said, tell my wife, yes, you're right. Cheating on you was unjustifiable. But it's also true that living with you is unbearable. It's the but. It's the but. When you say unbearable, you're saying, like, it's a non sequitur unless you mean to set

them off against each other. Exactly. That's exactly right. And so I listen when people say, yes, it was horrible, but you need to understand. Whenever there's the yes, but I'm like, stop. As opposed to Hillary, who said- Hillary was fantastic. Of course, his issues with the Palestinian occupation.

We're not talking about that today. Right. We're not going to dilute what went on today. Right. We could talk about it tomorrow, if you will. Right. Not today. John Kirby, who's the national security spokesman for the White House, National Security Council

spokesman, so he's the White House press briefer on all national security matters. Yesterday, he was at the podium. He was fantastic. He said, some reporter asked him, you know, some groups are saying what Israel is doing is genocide. How does the White House feel? He says, wait, if you're going to use the word genocide, let's use the word appropriately. There's only one party here that is trying to commit genocide, and it is Hamas. It is not Israel. It is Hamas. Israel may tragically kill or hurt Palestinians as part of prosecuting their defensive war, which is collateral damage.

That's horrible. We encourage them to do less of it if they can, if it's within their control. That's not genocide. They're not trying to eliminate the Palestinian people. Hamas is, read its charter. They're trying to eliminate the Jews from the river to the sea. That is genocide.

It was just clear, no nuance. All right, the other thing I want to say, and then actually I'm going to play you a couple of things. The other thing I wanted to say is that- I think I knew your headphones for that. What's that? Oh, you knew your headphones for that. What's that? Oh, you need your headphones. To some extent,

I blame... We're talking about all the anti-Semitism, all of it. I blame the American Jewish community, which for a long, long time now has not been... If you're not for yourself, who will be?

We have not been for ourselves. We have essentially thrown in the towel, peer pressure, whatever it is, became ashamed to defend our positions, didn't teach our children the most basic facts of the conflict. And on top of the confluence of, you know, woke ideology that took over at the same time. But people without even thinking about it, when they see that those people themselves don't even stand up for themselves, what do I need to go look into their case? I mean, they're not making their own case. So you just kind of get the vibe that it is an apartheid state. They do have something to be shamed of. There is no good case being made for the Jews.

You are zeroing in on an issue that I'm obsessed with. My mother, 85 years old, lives in Jerusalem, but as Holocaust survivors I mentioned, has lived all over the world. When we were younger, she was a widow. She didn't make much money. And I remember when she was dealing with her, you know, making her charitable allocations, she would only donate to Jewish organizations, to Jewish charities. And I'd say, but mom, what about this organization? What about that? She said, if Jews don't donate to Jewish

organizations and Jewish charities, no one will. There's plenty of people who can donate to these other things. And it has always stuck with me. If you look at the data today, the biggest Jewish philanthropists in the United States, the wealthiest Jews in the United States, on average, and look, these different studies, roughly around 10% of their philanthropic dollars go to Jewish causes. Most of them are donating to non-Jewish causes. And I think you're right.

I think hopefully October 7th was a wake-up call. You watch the reaction of these major institutions and these universities after Jewish philanthropists have showered resources on these institutions and been supportive and engaged and civically minded, and they're effectively abandoned. And I'm not saying we shouldn't still be engaged in the non-Jewish world, but we need to build up Jewish institutions, and we need to invest in institutions that are going to develop the next generation of Jews. That means Jewish education,

making sure Jews are literate, young Jews, Jewishly literate, making sure Jews are literate, young Jews, Jewishly literate, making sure they identify proudly as Jews, making sure they understand their relationship with Israel. Because if you don't, you know, teach kids and,

and, and cultivate that kind of thinking and identity, it's impossible. It's very hard to do later in life. And then when things get hot in a moment like this, if they're not, they don't, they don't feel any connection to it, they're like, why do I have to stick my neck out? This is not who I am.

Now, apropos of Jewish identity, are you horrified that Noah married a non-Jewish woman? You can be honest, don't worry. Nothing you can say would offend me. My wife, I don't know how she'll react. Do you have children? Three, yeah. I converted them.

Well, he's trying his best, but we know. You converted them? We took them to the conservative rabbi. They dunked them in the water. They said the magic words. Somehow it shoots to God, and now they're Jewish. And, you know, I don't believe in God. I'm not religious. And yet, for some reason, this ritual mattered to me.

I did it. Yeah. At some point in their future, if they want that. I don't know. What's that? How old are your kids? 11, 10, and 6. Okay.

But also Juanita does every single Jewish holiday. I mean, she does more. She got shadowbanned on Instagram for posting so much pro-Israel stuff but a part of me said you know if she had married a Palestinian guy she probably like I don't know to what extent she comes at it through love for me and her

Jewish children or through intellectual pursuits and you know I hope that it's through an intellectual way that she gets there I mean I wouldn't look the gift horse in the mouth no matter what. But she's very, very emotional in this issue right now. Yeah. So my wife, who is a convert to Judaism, is the same way.

She is so wrapped up in this moment. I mean, really. Well, Juanita didn't formally convert. Yeah, but she's – it sounds like she's living in a – Oh, no. She's – so, okay. formally convert. Yeah, but it sounds like she's living in a... Oh, no, she's right. So, okay. People listening to the show are going to get very mad because I'm always screaming at all the

ideas and things, and I'm being solicitous to you. So what I did was, because I didn't feel like I could make the arguments as well, I took some video excerpts of some smart people making some of the better arguments, some of the tougher arguments against Israel or to consider vis-a-vis Israel. And I want to play some of them to you and get your take on them.

So this is Robert Wright. How would you describe Robert Wright? I mean, he's not – I mean, he's politically left. Is he inherently hostile to Israel? I don't know. But he's definitely, he's a sane, respected, intellectual voice. He's not a crazy person. He's not a hater.

Yeah. But he's, well, you'll hear, but he's, go ahead. Play, make sure it's loud enough, too. Go ahead, Mike. So this is on the Glenn Lowry show. Glenn Lowry is one of my heroes. I love Glenn Lowry. He's been here. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. A couple a couple times go ahead so there are a few things here uh the plo

was once famous for killing civilians they weren't always sitting down at a table they changed okay this this this has been known to happen i mean they weren't exactly like hamas before that but extremist groups have been known to become more moderate, you know, on October 7th. These guys, I think they had a good, and their mission apparently was to go penetrate as far as you can and wreak as much havoc. Well, if they gave it much thought, they probably realized there was a pretty good chance they're not coming back alive. And, you know, you got to ask, how do you get a bunch of people willing to do that? And I think it begins with a lot of hatred of Israel. That's my view. You know, 75% of the people in Gaza are now homeless, Glenn.

They've been driven out with bombs falling around them. And these boys who are 8, 9, 10, 11 years old, even if they come to conclude that Hamas shouldn't have done this, do you think they're not going to hate Israel? I mean, this is just a feast for terrorist recruiters down the road. And that's basically it. Yeah. I mean, creating more terrorists. We should try to find a way for them to change because after all the plo seems to have changed you've heard these arguments what's your response to all that first of all um i have my issues with the plo which evolved into fata which is the faction the like the legacy faction of the PLO that now governs the West Bank.

And I do believe that Fatah, as much as I disagree with some of the things they do and their leaders, I do think they're serious about governing the West Bank. They have demonstrated an interest in governing the West Bank. It is why they basically have political sovereignty in the West Bank. They have never launched any kind of war, genocidal war, against Israel. They're mostly moderate. Most of the Palestinians and their leaders in the West Bank are moderate, secular Muslims. Again, I disagree with some of the crazy statements that come out of the Palestinian Authority, but they're not trying to wage war against Israel.

But how did they go from being violent to he's saying that somehow there's an ideology? Yeah, so let's look at the history of Hamas. Hamas was formed in 1987. It was basically, by the way, you look at their charter, it's very clear. They're very explicit. They are committed to wiping the Jews off the map. So is basically the PLO still. Except the PLO ultimately got into power and got serious about governing. Hamas never got serious about governing. Like Hamas never said, look, we're going to try and run the Gaza Strip.

In 2005, Israel left the Gaza Strip. They said, we're out. Okay. 2006, Hamas wins Palestinian parliamentary elections for the Palestinian Authority. 2007, Hamas says, thank you very much for these wins we have in the parliamentary elections. But the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, is still running the West Bank and Gaza. They said, we are going to drive Fatah out of here. They staged a violent coup against their fellow Palestinians. They were literally taking them up the tops of buildings and throwing

them. You can see this on video, throwing them off the roofs of buildings. It was a violent coup. And they took over. So now just look at what they have done with Gaza. Not only have they waged war against Israel, but they've used all the money that was sent to them from the international community, from all these Gulf states, from all these Arab states, to just develop like a terror launching pad. I mean, I've been to the Gaza Strip. I've spent time, I spent a weekend in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, which is where the first intifada was launched from which is a big source of the tension right now about jabalia being hit if you go to gaza strip it's a strip of land on the mediterranean i mean it sounds odd to say this but like if you

look at it from a topographical standpoint it it could have been an incredible Singaporean-like piece. Hold on. My play, Gaza Economy, this is amazing. I was just today looking for some clips of Gaza, and Michael Moynihan had sent me something just to illustrate your point. And you can actually play it

in the background without the sound while he's talking, but it's not what I thought. It's, at least it was. This is a 2017 Al Jazeera segment. Talking about electronics and toys. You'll see a TV. So you can just keep the sound off, Mike.

Yeah, just keep the sound off. So you'll just get a sense. As you talk, it'll come up behind you. Okay, here we go. In recent years, God's Trip has witnessed a great hike and consumer project. Welcome to another episode of our show, Economy and the People.

There's these beautiful malls, and it's going to show the beachfront property and the beautiful restaurants and the... Part of me says, well, you could do that in Manhattan too without showing, obviously, there's some bad things going on in Gaza.

Yeah. But it's still not what I expected to see. Yeah. I mean, it renders the comparison to the Warsaw Ghetto particularly grotesque. Yeah, it says today Gaza, it has many ideological sites, hotels, restaurants, theme parks.

Yeah. There you go. This is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm-sized hotels, restaurants, theme parks. Yeah. There you go. This is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm talking about. It looks like Akko. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good comparison.

So you sit on the water. So they could have turned this. I mean, Israel left in 2007. All Israel, you know, took thousands of Israelis, forced thousands of Israelis that were living in Gaza, forced them out, dug up the graves of the remains of their families, forcibly relocated them. Yeah, there you go. And they left the greenhouses there. They left the properties there.

They were getting billions and billions and billions of dollars in Gaza development money. And that money was used to build tunnels and a terrorist infrastructure as opposed to developing. So you asked me the difference between fata and gaza at some point and hamas i'm sorry between fata and hamas at some point like you give hamas a chance israel gave fata a chance and they've been trying to govern the west bank okay mike that's good okay and i just want to mention one other point this whole argument that young palestinians are getting killed and they're going to be the next generation of Hamas. Okay.

It might be true. But who's responsible for those Palestinians being killed? I mean, really. Hamas has been responsible for the slaughter of Israeli civilians and they're also responsible for the slaughter of Palestinian civilians because Hamas is choosing to fight their war behind the human shields of a generation of young Palestinians. They are choosing to do that. They're choosing to locate their offensive weapon capabilities at mosques, at UN-run schools,

at hospitals. They don't have to do that. But I think the argument is that Israel needs to think two steps ahead. Even if that's true, the people being killed are not going to see it that way. Of course, which is why Israel goes to great lengths, I think, at huge risk to Israel by warning. I mean, for three weeks, Israel was saying, we're coming for the al-Shifa hospital. We're coming. We're coming. By the way, you could argue the smart thing for Israel to do is not to give any warning. Who in war gives warning you just go take the thing out and and you take the military asset out it's not israel's responsibility to to make it harder for israel to wage its war and yet israel's for three weeks is broadcasting we're going out chief of hospital

they're contacting the hospital they're speaking to the doctors they're trying to figure out ways to get the patients out of the hospital. And they rejected it. And they're providing fuel and their fuel's being rejected. And so for three weeks, I'm telling you, this, from a security standpoint, put Israel at a, put its own soldiers at greater risk. It put its own operations at greater risk.

So at some point you have to ask, when Palestinian civilians get killed in that situation, whose fault is it? It's Hamas' fault. So let me answer you, and I'm going to... By the way, I think Biden, coming back to your earlier question, I think Biden needs to make this argument.

He needs to say, because Israel... All right, we'll come back to it. So I shudder to think, I don't shudder to think, but I'm going to say something. It's dark what I'm going to say, but I imagine that what I'm saying has been uttered from the lips

of Israelis at some point, which is that, well, it hasn't always been the case that these things cause more terrorists. After Hiroshima, it didn't cause more kamikazes. And by the way, going back to another thing you said, the kamikazes were ready to risk their lives without any real grounds for hating America so much that they were ready to risk their lives. And they got no virgins either. So ideology doesn't necessarily reflect actual experience.

But leaving that aside. Or Germany, Israel, I mean, the United States, bombed, obliterated Dresden. And we killed 200,000 or so civilians in Iraq without creating, you know, geometric numbers of terrorists. But what all those had in common was an overwhelming, horrible defeat. And the mind wanders to the notion that, yes, half measures might create more terrorists where unequivocal defeats might break will.

You know what else creates more terrorists? It's putting these kids into Hamas camp, like summer camp. The point is that Dan had it right. Israel, it's like when you get behind the wheel of a car on a Saturday night where you know people are drunk, you can't say, it's their fault.

You're dealing with drunk drivers and you still have to get home safely. Israel is dealing with whatever it's dealing with and still has to make the smartest decisions, drive the most defensively that it can. And if it's going to backfire on them by doing this, then obviously they shouldn't do that, even if all justice is on their side. So it's a weighty question, right? We can't just dismiss it as a stupid question. It's a weighty question. I'm sure they spent a lot of time pondering it. And then that's one aspect of it. And the other aspect of it is, okay, what are our alternatives?

Status quo? The status quo is not – Well, Israel thought one alternative was to get out of Gaza. 2005, Israel said, we're out. They occupied Gaza from 1967 to 2005. And then they said – and they kept trying to reach a negotiation and negotiated disengagement with the Palestinians. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't. Israel finally said enough with the negotiations.

We're out. It's yours. You win. We're out. Zeit gesund. You know, go develop Gaza. Go make it great. You've got these billions and billions of dollars from the international community.

You know, it's yours. And then this is what they get for that. All right. Wright also talks about the river to the sea, but I'm going to skip over that for now because I don't want to run out of time. So Yuval Harari, the guy who wrote Sapiens, he's a pretty brilliant guy in my estimation.

I agree. I don't agree with him on everything, but he's a brilliant guy. Yeah, I didn't think you were going to agree with him on everything. And he said a few things on Sam Harris. And I just wondered upon listening to him, it's funny, we have the same thing in our country,

that partisanship at some point gets the better of everybody. I detected something that seems like a Netanyahu derangement syndrome in him. And everything else he says is so brilliant to me. But play Harari 1. I should have labeled it better for myself, but I think Harari 2. By the way, I would recommend everybody

to listen to this most recent Sam Harris episode. It's very good, and you'll learn a lot from it. And Harari is really insightful. But go ahead, Mike. Immense grief and pain. Turn it up, turn it up. There is also immense rage at Netanyahu and at his coalition. It's clear to a lot of people that, yes, there were immediate failures of the military,

but this was the result, really, of 14 years of being ruled by a populist strongman who divided the nation against itself and put his personal interests before the national interests. And especially over the last year, you know, trying to undermine Israeli democracy. And it was warned again and again and again by people in the army, in the intelligence, that this is weakening Israel at a very, very dangerous moment and distracting all the country and the security forces from the main threats. And it simply ignored all these warnings. And now we are paying the price for it.

And I think this is a lesson that people all over the world should take to heart, that if you vote for a populist strongman like that, then eventually there comes a day when the entire nations pay a very, very high price for it. Yeah, I think I could be forgiven for hearing a pretty spot-on description of Trump in your description of Netanyahu. I wasn't aware of what a Trumpian figure Netanyahu was, not having followed Israeli politics.

So he's painting the picture of Netanyahu as this populist, strongman, responsible for all this. But then he says something which apparently seems to contradict that to me. Play Harari 2, and this is what's interesting to me. Israel and Saudi Arabia were in an advanced stage of negotiations mediated by the United States. and according to many credible sources, maybe we were just weeks away from signing an Israeli-Saudi treaty, which should have not just normalized relations

between Israel and maybe the most important Arab state, but also opened the door to normalize relations with much of the rest of the Arab world. As part of this treaty, Israel was also supposed to make significant concessions to the Palestinians, and it was hoped that it would be also possible to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But you're saying that there were concessions to the Palestinians built into those negotiations? Absolutely, because again, if it depended on the extremists in Netanyahu's government,

that no, you would not have any concessions to the Palestinians. But of course, the treaty was negotiated not just by these extremists. It was very clear, not just from the Saudi side, but also from the Biden administration, that there would be no treaty unless it includes significant concessions to the Palestinians

that were supposed to alleviate, at least to some degree, immediately, the suffering of Palestinians in the occupied territories and reopen the peace process. And there was a lot of talk that Netanyahu would have probably to ditch his more extreme allies in the coalition. Okay, so we get the point of that. And let me add one more piece to that puzzle. Can you play the John Kerry quote? So let me just set it up where I'm going with this. On the one hand, they're criticizing this guy for being a populist.

And this is what you get for electing populists. On the other hand, he says, but this knucklehead, whatever you want to call him, was this close to negotiating a deal with Saudi Arabia that would have revolutionized the Middle East and made concessions to the Palestinians. And he was literally on the precipice of it. And this is the context he did it in. Play the John Kerry quote. There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world. I want to make that very clear to all of you. I've heard several prominent politicians in Israel sometimes saying, well, the Arab world's in a different place now. We just have to reach out to them and we can work some things with the Arab world and we'll deal with the Palestinians. No, no, no, and no. I can tell you that reaffirmed even in the last week as I have talked to leaders of the Arab community.

There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace. Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality. Okay. So you have the eggheads who know better, the Obamas, the John Kerrys, telling us, what is the matter with you? We are never going to have peace with the Arab world unless you fix the Palestinian issue. The idiots like Netanyahu, the populists, say, no, no, no. Absolutely we can. He's right about to do it. Now, I don't know how you feel about it.

It does seem to me that in the last year, he did take his eye off the ball. And he does have his fingerprints on what went wrong. But does that mean we can't acknowledge? But he was also right about everything that they were wrong about all the people I mean I don't know where Yuval Harari was but I suspect he probably would have agreed with John Kerry at the time

but it sounds like the deal with the Saudis was also contingent upon including yes and Netanyahu was involved I mean Dan will tell us the story but you know what I'm saying Netanyahu was a lone voice saying that this was possible. He had a gut, call it populist. You know, the populists sometimes succeed because they are good judges of human nature.

They understand what makes people tick. He understood what was possible when the Harvard types thought it was ridiculous. He went to MIT. He's not quite a, you know, Netanyahu did. No, but I think it's not enough. It's an interesting thing. Yeah, yeah. So Netanyahu is not Trump.

Let me just, we can disagree with Netanyahu. I think Netanyahu made some mistakes in this last year with the judicial reform debate. I generally think he's done some extraordinary things for Israel through his various terms in office, but he's not impervious to making mistakes. He is not Trump. He is a deeply intelligent man who is a student of history. He reads about one nonfiction book a week, a week. He's a constant consumer of political biographies. He's a student of history.

His father, obviously, was a well-known, well-credentialed student of history. He is a very deep thinker about Israel, about Western civilization, about political philosophy, about geopolitical strategy. I mean, like Trump. Right. And he's a war hero.

Right. He fought in Sayeret Maktal, which is one of the most elite, it's like the Delta Force of the Israeli army. He had some extraordinary experiences in battles he fought and operations he fought in the IDF. I mean, I can go on and on. He's very experienced about governing. It's not a game to him.

He's done some, when he was finance minister in the Sharon government, what he did on economic reform was revolutionary for Israel and I think had lasting effects, some of which we wrote about in our first book, some of which we wrote about in this book. The way he managed COVID in Israel, which was really, he got Israel to be the first country that got vaccinated and

reopened its economy. I mean, it's important to recognize the guy has got talents. He's a serious person. Serious people can make serious mistakes. It doesn't mean he's Trump, first of all. So now let's talk about what happened over this past year. You can say the judicial reform process was misguided. I felt that way. There was some of it that I thought was worth doing. Some of it I thought they overshot. Either way, I thought they didn't build a consensus, which was a big problem. It's not clear to me yet, and I may be proven wrong, it's not clear to me yet that that is why the October 7th massacre happened because the argument is Israel took its ball.

It took its eye off the ball in 2023 focused on judicial reform when it should have been focused on the southern border. It should have been focused on its security. Harari says that there were 14 units on the West Bank and only two watching Gaza. I get it. The point is there was an underlying security doctrine in Israel going back to 2007 when Hamas took over, which was basically based on the assumption that Hamas wanted to govern Gaza, that as much as Hamas talked about genocide in its charter,

Hamas leadership was committed to governing Gaza at a practical level, the way the Palestinian Authority has been committed to governing in the West Bank, that they wanted to actually do the job of being a politician and running the place. And they weren't just focused on massacring the Jews. That was the security establishment consensus. If you believe that, then it's, you know, it's like after 9-11, when the 9-11 commission report came out,

the 9-11 commission said, I'll never forget this line in the 9-11 commission report, it said something like, there were many failures by the U.S. government, the U.S. security apparatus that led to 9-11, but the most important failure was a failure of imagination, that our government failed to think, wow, what could our enemies try to do to us? And if they did, how we would be vulnerable. I think there was a failure of imagination here of what Hamas, if they really wanted to wreak havoc in Israel, what they could do. That assumption or mindset or consensus was shared by, while we were listening to, I wrote down, so when Israel withdrew from Gaza, Ariel Sharon was prime minister. He was exceeded by Ehud Omer, who was prime minister when Hamas was consolidating power in Gaza. Then Bibi became prime minister late 2008, early 2009. Hamas is in power. Then Naftali Bennett is in power for about 15 months in 2022.

His government collapses. Yair Lapid becomes prime minister. Then, by the way, we're talking about people from the center, the right, the center, the left with Yair Lapid. And then Bibi comes back to power again, end of 22, early 23. And he's prime minister again. So I just listed one, two, three, four, five, six prime ministers. Bibi was prime minister for most of that time, but not the entire time. Six prime ministers. Not once did I ever hear from any of the others.

Again, I'm not here to defend Netanyahu. But this was the consensus. No one was saying, oh my gosh, we're on the cusp of a war from Hamas and we're taking our eye off the ball. People were critical of things Netanyahu were doing, but they weren't arguing that we were headed for an October 7th moment. I mean, so I just think this perception of what's happened, what happened October 7th was much broader than just Netanyahu. And he's the leader and he will take most of the blame as he should. And after this war, there will be a commission of inquiry to understand what actually happened and how this happened. Like there are commissions of inquiry.

Israel is ruthless about accountability of its prime ministers when there's been a war that goes sideways. For Golda Meir, after the Yom Kippur War, very aggressive commission of inquiry that ended her career and basically ended the Labor Party's position in Israeli politics for basically a generation. Ahud Olmert, after the second Lebanon War, which was a mess, basically ended Ahud Olmert's career. Also the commission on Sharon and Sabra Shatili. Exactly. That wasn't prime minister. Yeah. So there will be a commission of inquiry. We'll understand what happened. So I'm reserving judgment until that commission of inquiry because there's more we don't know than we do know so far.

However, I do know there were some lone voices that were raising concern about what Hamas was up to. But the extent to which the view that Hamas was serious about governing was held by people beyond just Netanyahu, it's pretty hard to argue with that. And if that's the view, then to blame judicial reform and what Netanyahu is doing, people really weren't arguing otherwise. I've sort of become, since October 7th, I was a little bit like this during COVID, but since October 7th, I've become obsessed with the whole subject of disaster science. Like how do disasters actually happen? So there's this guy, James Meggs, James B. Meggs, who's a writer about tech and science, and he just wrote this piece for Commentary Magazine. I'm going to try to get him on my podcast.

And he's written about this before. He's written these pieces on looking how we stumbled into COVID and seeing if there are any signs in other disasters around the world that are similar in terms of how one stumbles into a disaster. And he feels that that's what's happened with Israel and with Hamas, the Hamas invasion October 7th. Like what did Israel miss that resulted in this moment? So I'm going to do a podcast episode on my podcast about this topic of like applying disaster science to october 7th so we'll learn a lot as these processes play out and these investigations play out i think again i disagree with a lot of what happened in israel in 2023 but to make that the singular singular failure is is pins it's easy it's like lazy to just pin the blame on one person.

Yeah. All right. We're about out of time. I mean, there's a business cycle. There seems to be a complacency cycle. It's just human nature. You just get,

you get it after a certain amount of time goes by. You just, you let your guard down. Right. It probably will always be that way. Can I circle back to something we were talking about earlier? Biden and comedians are a melting pot. No,

no, but, but, but it is true. I mean, we've got a very, you should see what goes are a melting pot. No, no. I love that. But it is true. I mean, we've got a very, you should see what goes on here. There's no diversity like a comedy club diversity. But in any case, we're talking about-

That is like an original insight. That's good. The IDF and comedy, you know, the comedy business. Talking about Biden and how this affects Biden, I mean, how many voters is he going to lose just because even if he says all the right things that you deem to be all the right things and he says he makes that sister. So I didn't. By the way, I didn't get the sister soldier reference, but I let it slide. Do you want me to tell you? I guess briefly. Yeah. Yeah. And when Bill Clinton was running for president in 1992, he he took on very aggressive, sexist, racist language

being used by black artists, black rap artists on the left, what he would call on the left. And so Sister Soldier, he took on, he challenged. I think he was there. Sister Soldier was at some event or something. He challenged. And so it was this moment where he was taking on his own his own base, his own political. OK, so even if he also went to execute this poor soul in Arkansas.

Right. Even if Biden does that, to what extent will there be voters who says, you is, I'm so revolted by anything on the left that I'm going to then cross over and vote on the right. I've heard people voice this notion. And to what extent do you think this is significant? I think it's a risk. I think that I think the chaos on the streets of this country and the chaos on college campuses could get Trump elected in 2024, the chaos, meaning the chaos you're describing, this craziness on the left, I think that if they see in Joe Biden, though, someone who's willing to take it on is not a vessel for that craziness, but is actually obstructing it and standing up to the craziness,

I think he he has a real shot i think these independent voters that's what they want to see they want to see that he's sane that he's not captured you're basically saying well people by association say you're part of the crazy you're part of the left yeah but if he can demonstrate he's not captured by the left and that he's his own guy i think if i were advising him i would tell him first of all i'd tell him not to run. But if he insists on running, I'd tell him that's how he should run. There's such a terrible dynamic because Biden is so teetering that Republicans are ready to stick by Trump.

And Trump is so teetering that the Democrats think it's okay. Biden will get us through. But the fact is, I think if Trump were to drop dead tomorrow and somebody like Nikki Haley were the candidate, she would wipe the floor with Biden. If you look at any Republican running right now in a head to head, you look at the polling of the head to head with with Biden, they all beat him like easily. Like with Trump, it's interesting that he is actually beating him, but not handedly. But Nikki Haley crushes Biden. Ron DeSantis beats Biden. Chris Christie crushes Biden.

So, yeah, there's no question. I don't think, I know we have to go, I don't think it's crazy to think that it, it's probably less than 30% chance, but I give it a 15-20% chance that if it does settle with Trump and one other

Republican going into the next, you know, seven, eight months with his legal problems, with things that somebody could, could upend him. I agree. Could happen. I agree. I, uh, I'm hoping it happens. Yeah. We all hope it happens. Yeah. All right. Listen, you've been a fantastic guest. Thank you. Uh, your podcast. I didn podcast, I don't just say things like that. That podcast is fantastic. And the way that I came upon it is that Michael Moynihan from the fifth column, he introduced me to it. He said, this is the smartest podcast I've heard in the last blah, blah, blah.

Since October 7th, because of our Israel conversation. Yeah, yeah. Good. And it's really, really good. And I hope you had a good experience here. Buy his book. I want to come back. Oh, great.

I feel like we just scratched the surface. Yeah, yeah. Well, I had another question I'll ask you off here. Go ahead. You're wearing his swag. You got Israeli swag. I mean, I feel at home here. I'm Israel Chai.

I'm Israel Chai. The people of Israel live. He has to pronounce it. When I first met her, she was a real left-wing everything, but she's come around. You want to ask one more question? You know, you're talking about the genius of Israel, and you mentioned Shabbat, and everybody has Shabbat.

Of course, 20% of Israel is Arab, mostly Muslim. Is there any way to, at least on some level, bring them into this solidarity that you're talking about? Or is that just a lost cause? No, it's not a lost cause. I'm so glad you asked that question. And I'm so glad you said, can I ask one more question? Oh, good.

This question is one of my favorite topics since my book has come out to talk about. In our book, we spend an afternoon, we write a chapter about it, we spend an afternoon with Mansour Abbas, who's the leader of the Ra'am Party, which is one of the most important Israeli Arab parties in the Israeli Knesset, in the Israeli parliament. So you're right, about 20% of the population, a little less, is Israeli Arab, are Israeli Arab, and they have political parties in the Knesset, they have seats in the courts, in the Supreme Court, they have, they populate the universities, they're very well, very well represented, as they should be. But in the Kness, they populate the universities, they're very well represented, as they should be. But in the Knesset, most of the political parties have invade against

the Israeli government and the Israeli state for all of their existence. And then there was the Rom Party, which is this guy, Mansour Abbas, who led the party. It's an Islamist party. But he basically said, look, we're Islamists religiously, but we are going to work. Israel's always going to be a Jewish state. We want to be part of it. We have a lot of rights here. We don't want to leave. We don't want to go live.

We live much better lives here than we would in any other country. We want to live here. We want to be represented here. We want to help support our communities. The Arab communities in Israel have real security problems, Arab on Arab violence. We want to deal with that. And so he did something that no Arab party has ever done. He joined the Naftali Bennett-Yeir Lapid government in 2022.

He became, he became a, he was a kingmaker in the government. And then they ran again in the last election and he gained more votes than he had the first time he ran. I mean, the previous election, which means more Arab voters were supportive of him joining the government than being on the outside and throwing, you know, shooting at the Israeli government. Since October 7th, there's been some, I don't want to sugarcoat this because things could change, but so far, some incredibly powerful statements from leaders in the Arab community. Lucia Rash, who's an Arab broadcaster in Israel. So she's an anchor on one of the Israeli news channels. Very proud, self-identified Arab, Israeli Arab. She went on the air. She said it

in Hebrew. I think she said it in Arabic, and she certainly said it in English. I can forward you guys the clip. She said, I'm an Arab. I'm an Israeli citizen. Those people, Hamas, are my enemy. I stand with my country, Israel. And there should be no, talk about no nuance, there should be no nuance, right? In Jaffa, so there's a number of these mixed Jewish-Arab cities in Israel. Jaffa is one of these cities that, I don't know, it's maybe a third Arab. In May of 21, when Israel and Gaza were fighting, some of these cities lit up, Jews and Arabs fighting with each other in Israel. There was deep concern that would happen again after October 7th. A volunteer

civil security commission was formed from the bottom up. Israeli Arabs, Israeli Jews got together and said, let's form a security committee to make sure we never fight against each other because things are going to get hot now post-October 7th. Thousands and thousands of people are volunteering. They have big WhatsApp groups. They're organizing all these meetings. The Israel Democracy Institute just came out with a poll. First of all, Israeli solidarity is at its highest it's ever been.

It's like record level. Solidarity is really solidarity with each other and with the state. But most important, Israeli Arabs feel a sense of solidarity with their fellow citizens, including their Jewish citizens. Now, again, don't want to sound Pollyannish. Things can change. But there's something going on right now where for the Israeli Arab community, the Hamas attack was like a wake-up call because it like sharpened the differences. You know, we're sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, they would say, but not that. That, that, and many Arabs were killed on October 7th.

Israeli Arabs were slaughtered by Hamas. And some Israeli Arabs, I think, were taken hostage. And there's some incredible stories of... The guy with the bicycle shop? Yeah, yeah, yes. These amazing stories of heroism of some of these, like the Bedouin community was incredible, these stories of what they did on October 7th to fight Hamas. Because it's their country too.

Right. And that's what they say. And really it's the only way forward. And everybody who lives in Israel, doesn't matter if you're Jewish or an Israeli Arab, you're Israeli. You're Israeli. You vote in the elections. You have access to the universities. You're Israeli. You're Israeli. You vote in the elections. You have access to the universities.

You have access to some of the best health care in the world. You're part of the system. I'm not suggesting there aren't problems, and I'm not suggesting there aren't tensions. Of course there are. But October 7th may have had the effect of saying – of leaving many Israeli Arabs thinking we're not part of – that's their vision for the future? We're not part of that. That's their vision for the future? We're not part of that. We're part of this.

And we get into that in our book about these Israeli Arabs. We have a chapter on it. I'm really glad you – I think it's a really important question. It's part of what gives me hope. Yeah, Harari talks about this issue as well. He does? About the Arabs? Hopefully, yeah. He talks about it in a nice – in a way that I think you would agree with.

All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. Wait, The Genius of Israel. The Genius of Israel by Dan Senor. Get it at Amazon or a- Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble or the local Jewish bookstore near you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, guys.