The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Live from the Table: Political Writer Brendan O'Neill on October 7, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Noam Dworman and Periel Aschenbrand are joined by political writer and author Brendan O'Neill. His new book, After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation is an unflinching account of how the West failed the test of Hamas’s pogrom.  Support the show and get 10 free HelloFresh meals at https://www.hellofresh.com/FREECELLAR

🎵 Okay, hit it Perry, you're gonna do the intro? Well, you can welcome and I'll do the... Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Live from the Table. My name is Noam Dorman. I'm the host of the podcast. I'm the owner of The Comedy Cellar. And Dan Nanum is not here tonight, but we're going to have the best introduction ever by Perry L. Ashenbrand. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Our guest tonight... However this turns out, don't tune out, okay? You're not good atbrand. Go ahead. Go ahead. Our guest tonight. However this turns out, don't tune out, okay? Go ahead. You're not good at this. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm amazing at this. Hi, I'm Pariel, and we are here with a very special guest, Brendan O'Neill, who's the

author of the new book, After the Pogrom, 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilization, which is a pretty unflinching account of how the West failed the test of Hamas's pogrom. It was published by Spiked Books, and it is available now wherever books are sold. Welcome, Brendan. Noam, how you doing? I'm good. This is not your first appearance on the show. You've been a guy who I've really admired now for like seven or eight years. Who introduced us originally? Somebody we know in common. That's a good question.

Was it Lou Perez, maybe? Or Nick Gillespie? It wasn't Nick. Maybe it was Lou Perez. Yeah. Or Nico Perino from Fire. Nico. It must have been Nico.

Yeah. And you've been an unflinching, uh, um, advocate for a lot of causes now that I think, uh, a long enough time that you can look back and say, ah,

I was proved right about that. And I was proved right about that. And I was proved right about that. Anything you got wrong. You think in the last, uh, since 2015. Good question.

I think I'm, you know what? I think I did get wrong? I think I underestimated, God, to get serious right from the get-go, I think I underestimated the problem of radical Islam. Because I remember maybe 10 years ago or so, I used to say, look, the last thing we need when there's an Islamist attack is the politics of fear and people panicking and running around like headless chickens. We need to calm down, relax. It's just a few nutters. That was my take on it. I took that

line of saying, look, let's not sacrifice liberty to fear. And I would still say that. That would still be one of my positions. But I think I underestimated how serious a problem it was. And that's one of the issues on which I've changed, not my mind, but I've changed the way I approach it. And that's one of the things in my book. My book is fundamentally about that issue, but all the other stuff, woke nurse, free speech, I was right about it all. Absolutely right. I mean, I want to get right to the book, but just because I haven't spoken about where are you on Trump these days? If I was an American citizen, I would vote Trump in a New York minute. I wouldn't even think about it because I don't admire everything about him.

I disagree with him on numerous issues. I think he's a bit of an oaf sometimes, a bit of an idiot. But I understand why so many Americans are willing to use him as a blunt instrument against the establishment. They need something to wield as a cudgel against the elites that have treated them like shit for so long. And they've decided that this is the cudgel. And I understand that so well. It's similar to why Brits voted for Brexit in 2016, the same year that Americans voted for Trump, because we wanted to send a message to the establishment. And I think there are clearly tens of millions of Americans

who want to do that again, who want a replay of that and want to send that message again. And I would happily join them and say, look, screw you to this establishment that has treated people so badly for so long. And I think that's a good message to send. What about this one issue? And this really is what gives me a lot of pause on, on policy, um, even more than, uh, in 2016 or 2015 when he started running. Um, I, I think most people don't really fear him on, on policy all that much. I think probably if he filled out a questionnaire of what his policies were, a good majority of the country would prefer his policies. But what about the fact that so many people who served with him,

Bolton, Pence, McMaster, Kelly, responsible people, all have come kind of to the conclusion he's too dangerous don't ever give that man the keys to the car again it's not worth the risk i i can't just dismiss that these people um you know well john kelly's the latest he's come out and said that trump admires dictators including hitler um he actually didn't say he admired Hitler, but he said he wishes he had generals like Hitler, which I took to mean like loyalty, not necessarily Nazi. Yeah, yeah. But it was, you know, Kelly was, he basically said Trump is definitely in the far right arena.

He made positive noises about Hitler to the extent of saying that he wishes he had generals like his. You know, I don't think we should just be dismissive of these things but i do think there's an element among some of those people that you've named where they've sensed that within the opinion forming classes being pro-trump is the worst thing you could be i mean it's it's a career killer in certain situations you could very possibly not get a book published or not get that position on, on a board that you might otherwise have got if you are audibly pro Trump, I think,

and not to be too dismissive or cynical about these people, but I do think there's an element where they've recognized, they've sensed where the wind is blowing and in order to preserve their careers or to still have some clout in 21st century America, they're throwing Trump under the bus and they're saying, oh yes, I did serve with him for 18 months or two years, but I regret it, he was a psychopath. The thing I would say about John Kelly is if it's true that Trump said all these things and behaved in a dictatorial fashion, why did you serve as his Homeland Security Minister for so long?

Why were you a White House chief aide for 18 months? So that's on him as well. If it's actually true what he says about Trump, and I have my suspicions that it's not entirely true, then the question becomes, well, why did you serve? Why did you stay there? I think he said something to that at some point years ago where he said he wanted to be there to try to make sure Trump didn't do anything crazy.

I don't buy that. Because the thing is, personally speaking, if I was working with someone and I had a genuine suspicion that they were an authoritarian lunatic who might even have borderline sympathies for Adolf Hitler or certainly for the way in which Hitler operate, I would be out of there instantly. I would be saying, don't go anywhere near that guy. He's crazy. They didn't do that. Now it's possible they didn't do that because they enjoyed being close to power and they thought, well, we'll suck it up because we've, we've got influence, which they did have. Or my suspicion is that it's not actually true. All the things they're saying are not actually true. But now they feel the need to say them in order to rescue their reputations in an era which is still psychotically anti-Trump.

So I do think there's an element there where they're trying to save themselves, save their own behinds by throwing Trump under the bus. Yeah, well, one of the lessons of life, I'm sure you've come to the same thing as I have as you've gotten older, is just no matter, even if you always kind of understood it, how much social pressures and peer pressure affect everything, every opinion, every journal. And I mean, just look at, I'll give one example that just burns me up. Somebody as respected as Peter Baker from the New York Times, I think his chief White House correspondent or something, he's out there tweeting about how Trump said he's going to be a dictator on day one. You know this? Have you seen the video? Yeah.

Trump does his interview with Sean Hannity and clearly joking, you know, barely containing a smile. Says, yeah, yeah, I'm going to be a dictator on day one. I'm going to close the border and drill for oil, and then I'll be done. But I'm going to be a dictator on day one. Then nobody could possibly take this seriously as a threat, right? And the New York Times, with a straight face, and he repeats it over and over, over. Trump, who said he'll be a dictator on day one and within his social circles, he's lauded for this. There's no price to be paid for being completely dishonest. As a matter of fact, the price to be paid would be if he actually said, come on, Trump was joking. Yeah. So he toes the line. Yeah. All the people who covered for Kamala Harris, they all knew. I mean, for for Joe Biden, they all knew. I don't want to say he's senile.

I don't know what he is, but they all knew he wasn't the best Biden ever that they claimed he was. They all knew he was having gaps. And as soon as he finally dropped out or maybe right after that debate, like 20 or 30 examples came to light. Right. And I think it was Mark Halperin said, we all wondered how the press could cover for Franklin Roosevelt and cover up his wheelchair. Now we know. Now you know. And now they're covering for Kamala Harris

about her lack of intelligence. It's the exact same cover, right? I actually, I feel sorry for Joe Biden. I've flipped between feeling angry with him for various things he's done and feeling sorry for him because of the've, I've, I flipped between feeling angry with him for various things he's done and feeling sorry for him because of the way he's been treated. Because I mean, just imagine how sinister the establishment is because for months and months and months, in fact, for a year or two, more than that, they told us he was perfectly fine. They said that best Biden ever,

the best Biden ever. He's more... Best Biden ever. Best Biden ever. He's more lucid than ever. He makes sense. He knows exactly what's going on. And they said that anyone who says otherwise, that's a far right talking point. And they openly said this. They openly said that those videos of him

wandering around in confusion were fakes. Cheap fakes. Cheap fakes. And anyone promoting them is a far right idiot. And you're just going along with the fascist drift on Twitter or whatever they were saying. But they knew the truth. They knew the truth, which is that he's unwell.

And as someone who has recently in his family, I've had experience of people with dementia. I don't know if that's what he's got. But I do know some of the signs of it, some of the early signs of it. I know what it entails. I've had intimate experience of it. And it's a very serious condition, which deserves a lot of sympathy and support. But instead, what they were doing with him, and he seems to me to have something of that ilk.

What they were doing to him, they were lying about it in public and saying, it's not true, it's bullshit. If you say this, you're a fascist or you're far right. And behind the scenes, they were presumably just saying, I don't know, go to sleep, Joe, we'll deal with it. And they were running the show on his behalf. So there's that kind of very cynical usurping

of the elected president by the bureaucracy, essentially. That is what happened. usurping of the elected president by the bureaucracy essentially that's that is that is what happened so it was profoundly cynical and disturbing and then when it suddenly became clear in that cnn debate where joe god bless him really screwed up because he was just very confused or very tired there was something wrong with him and he fluffed up his lines and he got confused and so on. Then they said, oh, okay, right. He is a problem and we need to get rid of him. We need to unceremoniously elbow him out of power and replace him in an incredibly undemocratic fashion with Kamala Harris. So then they shifted into the opposite mode where they said, now we're going, we are the truth tellers. We know the truth about Joe

and we're going to push him out of power. People keep saying that Jill Biden is really furious and she's stomping around like a Lady Macbeth about what's been done to her husband. I fully understand why she would be doing that. The way they've treated him, they lied about his problems to begin with, and then they just pushed him out of the white house and they got kamala to stand in in for him instead whoever is masterminding all of that the behind the scenes people the bureaucracy the elites that we don't really see the names we don't really know they are i think among the most sinister people in america in the 21st century you think there's people pulling the strings behind the scenes because i don't well i don't mean it in a conspiratorial way i don't think they are kind of rubbing their hands with glee and plotting out their plans i think it's probably very opportunistic it's probably quite instinctive they it's a day

to day thing where they respond to news events or they respond to developments or they respond to the cnn debate whatever it might be i so i'm not saying that they are puppeteers, like, you know, incredibly sinister people who know what they're doing. Yeah, nothing like that. I think it's very instinctive and opportunistic. But it is undemocratic. And it is ruthless. It is so ruthless what they do. And I think they do it because they are desperate to stay in power. And they might be desperate to stay in power because they think they've got good things to do for the country. Maybe that's an understandable reason to want to stay in power. But it is unquestionable that they have behaved in a ruthless and undemocratic way. Well, so this issue of peer

pressure and wanting to be invited to the cocktail parties and wanting to stay in good standing with your friends. This really has a lot to do with what's going on with the war and the reaction to Israel. So let's just get to your book. Your book is fantastic. I didn't read the entire thing cover to cover. I read like the first third or half of each chapter to try to prepare for the interview. But I thought a good way to approach it. By the way, you and Scott Galway, do you know who he is?

No, I don't know him. He's a podcaster, an NYU professor as well. You guys are really voices of just brave clarity on this issue. I just heard him today as I was driving in talking to Dan Senor, but I've heard him before. And, you know, I really admire your courage. I'm Jewish, and I don't even have the nerve sometimes to speak my mind the way you do. And we're very lucky to have an advocate like you. So the book is called After the Pogrom, 7 October, Israel, A Crisis of Civilization.

So let's start there. Why is this not just limited to Israel? Why is this a crisis of civilization, Western civilization? Yeah, well, thank you for those comments, firstly. I think, well, just bringing it from the last discussion to this one, you know, one of the reasons why the fascism accusations against Trump no longer land for me, landing anymore is because over the past year, since 7th of October, 2023, we've actually seen something that does have the whiff of fascism to it. And it's not come from Trump or his supporters. It's come from people who hate Trump.

It's come from the radical left. It's come from the campus left. It's come from certain members of the commentariat. It's come from certain members of the commentariat. It's come from certain members of the political class who responded to Hamas's pogrom of 7th of October by engaging in a form of Israelophobia that teetered on the brink all the time of outright anti-Semitism. And we've seen people at the Gaza encampment in Columbia University

referring to Israel as the pigs of the earth, a blatantly anti-Semitic term. We've seen them harassing Jewish students, telling Jewish students to fuck off back to Poland. We've seen them waving flags showing the swastika mangled with a Star of David. At George Washington University, students projected the slogan glory to our martyrs about two days after the Hamas pogrom, i.e. glory to the rapists and murderers who went to Israel to kill Jewish people. We've seen marches in various cities in the US and across Europe where people have chanted. In Australia. In Australia, where people have chanted in favor of Hamas. They've chanted in favor of the Houthis.

The Houthis, whose actual flag says, death to Israel and a curse upon the Jews. On the flag? On their actual flag, it says those words. And then in Sydney, in Australia, on the 9th of October, 2023, people gathered at the Sydney Opera House and chanted, fuck the Jews.

On 9th of October, in London, outside the Israeli embassy, people gathered ostensibly to protest against Israel. But of course, Israel hadn't properly done anything by that point. It was still deciding how to respond. That was a pro-Pogrom celebration on the streets of London in 2023. And we know it was because they were playing pop music and they were dancing and they were singing outside the Israeli embassy. They were rubbing the salt of Israelophobia in the wound of the pogrom. They

were taunting Jews after Jews had been annihilated. And tearing down the... And tearing down the kidnap posters. In fact, that was one of the things that made me think I need to write this book or I need to get my thoughts down because everywhere I looked in London, I cycle through London every day, everywhere I looked, I would see the ragged remains of those kidnap posters because as soon as they were put up, people would just claw them down or they would graffiti them. And in fact, there was a poster of the three-year-old twins because three-year-old twins were kidnapped by Hamas because they hate all Jews. They don't care what age you are. And they were eventually released.

But there was a poster of those three-year-old twins in Finchley Road in North London, which is an area with lots of Jewish people in it. And someone drew Hitler mustaches on the faces of those three-year-old twins. And I found myself thinking, what is this mania? What is this hysteria when people can- Hamas-a-mania, i think you call it yeah when people

can deface the image of jewish children yeah and it makes you think because who else targeted jewish children for persecution the nazis that they are i are the really the last people who did it because they didn't differentiate between age or anything else either so all of these things were happening and it just made me think i need to and i was finding myself getting increasingly angry by this out this resurgence of anti-semitism and i just thought i needed to do something about it but it also made me think and i don't want to dwell on this too much but it did make me think that all that crap we've heard about so-and-so being the new Hitler or Brexit being the 1930s all over again, or Trump being Hitler 2.0, all that stuff we've heard for years and years. And show me one Trump voter who has daubed Hitler mustaches on

Jewish kids' faces. Show me one Trump voter who has told Jews to fuck off back to Poland. Show me one Trump voter who has waved a swastika in the streets and mangled it with the Star of David just to taunt Jews. You won't find them. The people who've done that are so-called Antifa. The anti-fascists have become the fascists. And those are the events of the past year that I think we really need to grapple with. So the chapter, the name of your first chapter in the book is The Lore of Barbarism. And this is a heavy concept. of reverse psychology where people see the barbaric things that Hamas did, and somehow they say, well, Israel must be really awful to get people to do that, right? And it's partly that, and also, I guess when you already want to take the side of a particular group in order to eliminate the cognitive dissonance that that group has done something terrible, you recast it as, well, what else could they do?

Again, the other side, look at what's being done to them. So you have to find that Israel did something horrible to them. Otherwise, you would have to switch sides, and you're not going to switch sides, right? Yeah, you know, people say, well, 7th of October didn't come out of nowhere. You know, people love to say that this war didn't start on 7th of October.

Things were happening before that. Now, I'm open to the idea that the Palestinians have a tough time, right? There's no question about that. And Israel is responsible for some of that. I think also Palestinians' own leaders bear far more responsibility, especially Hamas and also Fatah. I think they're both useless organizations that have sold Palestinians short

and who, instead of providing Palestinians with a positive future, just obsess over Israel and hating Israel. But yeah, Palestinians have many legitimate grievances. But the idea that raping Jews is a reasonable response to political grievance, that's a new one on me. Or the idea that throwing hand grenades into a bomb shelter in which there is a father and two children is somehow an understandable response to grievance, that's a new one on me. I am not a pacifist. I understand why war is sometimes necessary, and I understand why people sometimes rise up against their oppressors, etc, etc. But normally that stuff takes place within the realm of normal war normal

resistance normal politics what happened on 7th of october was something completely different it cannot be compared even to the plo and i'm not a fan of the plo either it cannot be compared to those movements even it was something very different and the um german novelist herter muller she said this wasn't mass murder this wasn't terrorism this was a complete break with civilization and it was you know they not only did they go into israel to murder jews and they murdered 1200 of them mostly most of them were jews um they filmed it they shared it online they phoned their parents to boast about how many Jews they'd killed. Have you seen those videos, by the way?

I've seen the 46-minute film or whatever it is that the IDF made. Yeah, it's unimaginable. And so it was a pogrom. And that's why I called my book After the Pogrom. And I get a lot of flack when I call it a pogrom and I insist on calling it a pogrom all the time and I get a lot of flack for that because leftists will say well that's not accurate because the pogroms in Europe in the 1940s and going back hundreds of years were carried out by powerful groups against Jews who were not powerful whereas in this case it was the people

without power the Palestinians carrying power, the Palestinians, carrying out against the Jewish state. I don't buy that. I don't buy that for one minute. If you go into southern Israel, which was predominantly civilians, especially the Nova Music Festival, which was just young people, unarmed, dancing in the desert, and you rape people and mutilate people and murder people on the basis of their race that is a pogrom and it was as bad and in fact worse than some of the pogroms that we saw in europe in the 1940s when the nazis gave the nod to local communities going in to kill jews it was the same thing it was the same dynamic and people's unwillingness to recognize that i think is part of the problem well if you've seen those videos i don't know if your reaction was the same

but what what what i cannot forget is the rapture the happiness the joy to use common harris's phrase of the of the pleasure they were taking in these murders. It wasn't the graphic nature of the murders. Like I thought I was going to see something terrible, but somehow the graphic nature, except for the grenades that threw into those children, for some reason that was very, very hard to take. The rest of it looked like it was seen in movies and stuff.

But the rapture that these people had and the ala akbar well the the this can't be explained um i i couldn't explain that i i can't i just that's something i didn't know it could exist yeah it's it is extraordinary and it is like a cult it was like something you would think a cult yeah and i don't think we've ever seen anything like that actually i mean we know that things like that happen we know that things like that occur when people take not only murder but take pleasure from it we know we know of this but i don't think we've ever seen it on that scale before or we've we've never seen it recorded like that before, because they recorded their crimes for posterity. I think there was probably an element within Hamas's mind at some deep, probably quite instinctive level where they thought to themselves, how will the world respond to this? And I think there will have been a recognition on their part that the world would not respond

very well because it's fashionable to hate Israel. It's fashionable to feel pity for Palestinians and to absolve them of responsibility even for the things that they do. And I think they were banking on that. And that is what happened. So what happened is that people saw these crimes, heard about these crimes, heard that Jewish men, women and children were murdered. And almost instantaneously, people in the West made excuses for it. Or they said, well, what do you expect? What did Israel expect? So 31 student societies at Harvard University,

on 7th of October itself, while it was still happening, issued a statement saying this is entirely Israel's fault. Just think about this. Jewish women at the Nova Music Festival were being raped while those students put that statement out. While these students who live in eye-watering privilege on the leafy lawns of Harvard, who bang on endlessly about the problem of victim blaming, issued a statement basically saying she had it coming.

These people being raped, these people being murdered, these Israelis, these citizens of the most evil state in the world, they had it coming. That's what they were saying. Wasn't it in your book where you said these are the same people who, if somebody brushed somebody's knee by accident, they would scream Me Too. Yeah.

And now they were saying. Well, exactly. And you and I have talked about. That was your book, right? Yeah, that's right. You and I have talked about Me Too before. And, you know, one of the things about Me Too that I had a bit of a problem with

was the idea that every accusation of assault has to be instantly believed the reason I have a problem with that is because I believe in not because I disbelieve women but because I believe in due process and I think everyone has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty regardless of what they're accused of the other problem i had with me too is that there was a collapsing together of everything from the brushing of the knee or the drunken come on at a bar right through to sexual assault and rape everything was mashed together in an unhelpful way but what was interesting about on the 8th of october 2023 all of that went out the window. Believe women disappeared. It evaporated into thin air.

And in fact- Even if you find them naked from the waist down with blood around their genitals. Yeah. We don't know what happened. That's not enough. You know, on the 6th of October, 2023, it was enough for a woman to say,

I got felt up by someone. You had to believe them straight away. Otherwise you were a misogynistic prick. On the 8th of October 2023, you could see footage of a woman stripped from the waist down, murdered, butchered, her pelvic bones broken, and that wasn't enough. So the turnaround in, it was just extraordinary. And in fact, I make this point in my book, we went from a situation where we were encouraged to believe women to a situation where we were encouraged to believe fascists. The slogan of the left now, they would never say it out loud, but their slogan now is believe fascists because they took the word of Hamas. Hamas strenuously denied the accusations of sexual assault. Of course they would, because they probably have some element of shame.

And Israel did not help themselves at all by the fact that some of the things that were claimed turned out not to be true. So this is some ambulance driver. There was there were certain there were certain claims, outlandish ones, which did seem to fall apart. But the UN looked into it. Right. And they and they found the evidence was overwhelming.

And as you said, and some found the evidence was overwhelming and as you said and some of the evidence should have been obvious you know yeah well you know um chapter three of my book is called lying jews and um i once wrote some of that chapter in a starbucks in london and someone looked over my shoulder and just saw the word lying jews that wasn't helpful um but that chapter really looks at the atrocity denialism around 7th of october because there was loads of rape denialism every there were loads of people on the left and even in respectable circles were saying it didn't happen you're exaggerating you're making it up and there was outright atrocity denialism some people still believe believe that Israel killed most people on 7th of October in the way it responded.

That is categorically untrue. It's based entirely on one Haaretz report. And Haaretz said it's possible there were some friendly fire incidents. And it's possible there were because it was a chaotic event. And there are friendly fire incidents in every chaotic act of war. So that's possible but haretz makes the point that the idea that it was suggesting that israel killed most people is categorically untrue but the thing is people are unwilling to see jews as victims and that's the real driving force here people like john mearsheimer have given have given a wink and a nod to these theories, which is, I can't even comprehend that.

I mean, I'm a Jew, but I always try not to assume anti-Semitism. I hear Jews say it. I say, I wish you'd shut up. It's not anti-Semitism. Semitism. But then sometimes I say, well, am I underestimating? How does a guy like John Mearsheimer, where does this hate of his come from? When somebody is maintaining things which are not true, which are not rational, which you would not maintain these opinions in other matters with similar amounts of evidence before you, are you a seething Jew-hater? I don't know.

Well, it's a good question because the thing is that 7th of October is the best recorded terror act of all time and people still didn't believe it. We've got the footage. We can see them doing the things that Israel said they did. Also, they recorded it. Like, this wasn't like it was recorded

by, like, the IDF or Israelis. Like the people committing the crimes reported it and shared it with the world. And they're still saying it's not true. Yeah. Well, Hadley Freeman, a journalist in the UK said, you know, what's a terrorist got to do to get some credit? Because, you know, they filmed it. They shared it. They said, look how evil we are

and they still had legions of pathetic leftists and liberals and others in the west saying oh well you know it's not your fault it's israel's fault but the thing about um one of the points i make in my book is that um the the motor behind holocaust denial and holocaust denial is obviously a racist ideology it poses as a scientific inquiry into truth, but it's just a racist ideology. The motor of it is the idea that Jews lie about their victim status in order to maintain their power. So they lie about being victims and being murdered by Hitler in the death camps, etc., etc., in order to maintain what they really have, which is this global power. That was resuscitated after 7th of October. The exact same argument was made, which was that Israel is lying, the Jewish state in

this case, not the Jewish people, but the Jewish state is lying about the extent of suffering on 7th of October in order to justify its power in Gaza, in order to justify its war in Gaza. It was the exact same argument. It was a new species of Holocaust denial driven by this racist conviction that the Jews are a uniquely deceitful people. That's really what motored that response. I have two things I wanted to bring up, and then I want to go through all the chapters but okay the first thing is nothing bothers me more in this whole chapter than the weakness that i've seen in liberal american jews and this goes back to what we're talking about earlier the the desire to be accepted they do not take their own side and um the reason i was you saw me going on a computer because i

i remembered an old email i had had written in uh what year is this 20 beginning of 2019 where i was predicting that the next time there was a problem uh with israel that the american jews would not take israel's side because we have it here that essentially because intersectionality means that you can never take the side of white privilege over people of color so that Israel is wrong axiomatically. And I wrote here, and to me, this is the key difference between right and left-wing anti-semitism when it comes from the right it rallies us when it comes from the left it rots us and this is what i think you see in the american jewish community they will stand up to nazis oh boy will they stand up to nazis

but when it's coming to them from the left they rot yeah and've seen, we were talking before about a fight we had with somebody that I won't mention the name. It's a perfect symbol of that whole. And like we have Aaron Mate on the show. We have Norman Finkelstein on the show. We have like real Israel haters. They don't bother me at all. I'll go downstairs.

I have a beer with them. I know what they are. They're smart in their own way. I enjoy the back and forth. When I speak to some liberal Jew who is clearly buckling to the social pressures, it brings

out something visceral in me, a hatred in me where I just want to strangle them. And there's no better illustration of this as the way they ducked under the table when this genocide charge came out. Now, of all the charges,

you could say that Israel's doing this, Israel's doing that. The genocide charge is ridiculous. I don't want to debate it with anybody now. I know you're not going to disagree with me, but I'd be happy to get anybody on here to debate it. And I was asking, I'm talking too much. I was asking prominent Jews that I know,

journalists, can you write something about the genocide thing? Because this is going to stick. I don't want to upset my readers. I don't know. And sure enough, it has stuck. And it's Holocaust dilution. Yeah.

Oh, finally. Thank God that's off our back. I mean, yeah, it was done to the Jews, but now they did it to somebody else. And kind of even Stephen, now we can talk about something else finally, right? Am I? I could not agree more.

I think the genocide charge against Israel is repulsive. I think it is so profoundly sinister. And, you know, the thing I always think about. Where was the cover story in The Atlantic run by Jews? The genocide charge is a calumny. Yeah. Here are 15 writers on it. Where is the strength? Well, where was that anywhere? I mean, especially in liberal America and liberal Britain and liberal

Europe, it just wasn't there. But I'm sorry, but if you're a liberal non-Jew and you don't see the Jews standing up for themselves, doesn't that signal to you, well, if they're not really objecting to it, maybe there's something to it in some way you don't even realize. If they're not standing up, if we're not for ourselves, who will be? Liberal Jews, we're not for ourselves. And in a certain way, I don't blame non-Jews for taking that signal and saying, well, I mean, you know, they know more about this than I do. Well, you know, you're in a better position to criticize liberal Jews than I am. No, no, no. But I agree with everything you've just said. And I do think

that's a problem that more of those people didn't speak out. And also liberal non-Jews as well. I think more, there should have been a chorus of voices against this ridiculous genocide charge. But you know... But you and Douglas Murray are both more powerful and more forthright on this issue than any liberal Jew I can find. And that's a real shame because if there's anything to speak out about post 7th of October, it's this. Because you know, the question I always ask myself is, why is Gaza always compared to the Warsaw Ghetto? Right? There are loads and loads of instances of oppression and war from history that you could compare it to if you wanted to. If you really think Gaza is a hellhole, and I'm sure there are hellhole aspects to it, unquestionably, there are thousands of years of conflict from which you can draw an analogy. Why did they pick the Warsaw Ghetto? Or why are they currently referring to the removal of civilians from the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza? Why are people referring to that as a death march?

They could call it anything else. They could call it expulsion. I actually think it's Israel behaving as armies always behave in war, which is that you draw out the civilians because you want to fight the combatants. But you could call it expulsion, you could call it oppression. But why do they call it death marches? Why do they say Warsaw Ghetto? Why do they say death marches? Why do they say it's a new Holocaust? Because they want to punish Jews with their own historical grief. That is the entire aim of it. That's why they do it. It's not because there are no other things to compare it to.

It's not because there are no other analogies out there. It's because they want to hurt Jewish people. The whole entire genocide accusation, the whole entire discussion of a new holocaust, for example when there was that awful bombing recently which for some reason caused a hospital to catch fire and some people burnt to death in Gaza unspeakably awful, no one questions that. I do think there are

questions about whether there were Hamas weapons nearby, why there were so many secondary explosions etc etc and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask those questions, to ask the question of who is responsible for the burning to death of these people. But instantly, it was referred to as a new Holocaust. It was referred to as the burning to death of a whole race of people. Why do people say that when that is a completely wild hysterical accusation? Because this is Jew taunting masquerading as radical politics. It is anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-imperialism.

And that's why they do it. That is the driving force. And I think there's a broader thing here where I do think what's happening with the term Holocaust and genocide over the past year in particular is profoundly worrying and that more liberals can't see it really does concern me because I think what's happening is that the crimes of mid-20th century Europe are now being projected onto the Jews themselves. It's like Europe is having a reckoning with itself and trying to absolve itself of the fact that it committed the worst crime in history by now saying, well, the Jews are doing it.

They've become the thing that they once were oppressed by. They're the new Nazis. So there is this impulse, I think, amongst especially the upper middle classes of Germany and France and Britain who are obsessed with the idea that Israel is a genocidal state. There is this thing where they're absolving themselves of the crimes that their great-grandparents committed.

Their great-grandparents shoved Jews into ovens. Not the British, though. Not the British, but we were not as helpful as we could have been. But certainly people across Europe did this, and they can't live with that, or they find it difficult to live with that. And so one way in which they try to get around that is by saying, well, it's now the Jews who are doing it.

They're now the problem. And then in some circles, especially then in far right circles, and in some far left circles, that then leads to an even worse discussion, which is that maybe the Nazis had a point. Maybe they were right to view the Jews as a problematic people because look what they're now doing in Gaza. So then it feeds into this actual blatant anti-Semitism, which is now bubbling up in far-right circles as well.

That's exactly, I said I had two points. The bubble in far-right circles is exactly the second point I wanted to bring up to you. I'm happy you brought it up because this is a real thing and it worries me. Ready for fall flavors? HelloFresh has you covered. They send farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes right to your door. Make home cooking fun, easy, and affordable with HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit for a reason. No matter what

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just by going to HelloFresh.com slash free seller. Daryl Cooper, who I'm friendly with, had this interview with Tucker Carlson where he talked about Churchill being installed

by Zionists who wanted him in charge at this point in time. So you've heard that whole controversy. But more has come out since then. I interviewed Daryl Cooper, and what he told me was that this was an argument taken from David Irving's book. David Irving is the ultimate Holocaust denier.

So when he was asked about why Churchill, what was the motivation, Daryl took the argument from David Irving's book. Well, that's news enough. But then he also said, well, Tucker was kind of trying to pull this out of me. And then I looked at Daryl's sub, and he made reference to the fact that the night before, they had had dinner together, he and Tucker, where they discussed Churchill.

So I think it's very clear here that they had discussed this argument the night before, because there's no other way that Tucker would have even known what he thought in order to bring it out of him. Tucker had to have known that Daryl had this David Irving argument that he thought was credible. And Tucker wanted to inject this argument into the bloodstream of America and the world in a way. What the hell is that? It's horrible. It's horrific. That's what it is. You know, let's be frank. David Irving is a racist piece of shit. And that's not just my's horrific. That's what it is. You know, let's be frank. David Irvine is a racist piece of shit. And that's not just my personal opinion.

That's the opinion of the High Court in London. Because Irvine was denying the Holocaust for a long time in his writing, and he was writing sympathetically about Hitler. He started off as a legitimate historian and ended up as an anti-Semite. And then Deborah Libstadt, who's one of my heroes.

She's amazing. She's amazing. She's now the chief anti-Semitism warrior for the government here, which I think if anyone deserves a position like that, it's her. I've had the privilege of interviewing her a couple of times about her work on Holocaust denial

and about her defense of freedom of speech. David Irvin was arrested in Austria, I think. Yes. Years ago. Tucker makes, actually in that same interview, Tucker makes an oblique reference. Well, you know, they arrest people in Austria for saying this kind of stuff. He never mentioned it was David Irving. Yeah.

So I Googled, who was arrested in Austria? David Irving. David Irving. And, you know, he was arrested in Austria for denying the Holocaust. It's illegal in Austria and it's illegal in Germany. I'm a free speech fanatic. We don't think he should have been arrested. And so at that time I interviewed Deborah Lipstadt for the BBC in the UK and she said he shouldn't be arrested because she's a heroic person who, even though he tried to destroy her by suing her for libel which would have ruined her career she's still willing to defend his freedom to spread lies um in that case

he sued her for libel in london um he lost and the judge said okay i've now weighed up all the evidence then you're anti-semite you're a racist. So there you go. And his career was over. So if Daryl Cooper is relying on the arguments of someone like David Irvine, that is really worrying. If Tucker Carlson is then talking to Daryl Cooper and wallowing in all this crap, that's worrying too. But you know, the thing about Daryl Cooper, I just don't buy this bollocks about Churchill being the real villain of the Second World War. I got many criticisms of Churchill. But listen, if it's Churchill versus Hitler, I'm on Churchill's side all day long. Let's be reasonable about this. Controversial position. It's so shocking. These days it is quite controversial. But you know the thing- To be fair to Daryl, he walked it back. He said he made it- Listen,

you can watch my interview with him. I have my faults of Daryl and my criticisms of Daryl. But Daryl is small potatoes. Tucker is one seat away from Donald Trump. And it's a whole blob. Tucker praises Alex Jones. Alex Jones says that the Jews killed John F. Kennedy. J.D. Vance says Alex Jones is right about a lot of things. So you can see it all forming into a dangerous, as I said, entity.

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And, you know, the thing about Cooper that worried me most, I mean, I listened to the Tucker interview. I wrote a piece about it. And I think it's mostly crap. And I think the argument that the Jews died in the camps because the Nazis were disorganized, that is Holocaust denial, right? Because you are denying the intent behind the Holocaust. The intent behind the Holocaust was the destruction of the Jewish people. It was an accident. The idea that it was an accident is a species of Holocaust denial. And maybe Cooper doesn't understand that.

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn't recognize that. But it is a species of it, in my view. But the thing that worried me most about Cooper, he did a tweet, which he then deleted, but it's still out there, where he had a picture of Hitler walking through Paris after the Nazis conquered it, next to a picture of hitler walking through paris after the nazis conquered it next to a picture of that ridiculous olympics opening ceremony in paris this year where there was trans people last supper and all that crap and he said something like um preferable in every yeah the this image of this image on the left is preferable in every way to the image on the right that's really messed up because in my view the image on the right of the stupid last supper thing which i hated i thought it was awful that is obviously preferable

in every way to the other one because the other one was a jew murdering machine conquering one of the great republics of all time and suppressing its people and and shipping its jews out to be murdered in the east of europe um i would take a trans virtue signaling last supper over that any day of the week as would 99.9 of people so it was that it's those kinds of things that worry me but i i think you're absolutely right that you know i i focus a lot on the far left and and the mainstream left because i think they focus a lot on the far left and and the mainstream left because i think they have a lot of clout and influence and their arguments are very problematic and since 7th of october they've made excuses for a pogrom but we cannot ignore the

far right and in fact just to go back to a point i made earlier about um showing me the trump voter who's done all the stuff that these people have done on campuses. Actually, there might be some. Because the thing is, and I'm not talking about the ordinary working class man and woman who vote Trump because they want a better wage or they want to get rid of woke ideology. They're good people. They're motivated by good intentions. And I would probably agree with them on a lot of things. But there are definitely far right actors out there who would see Trump.

I mean, some of them probably see Trump as a coward and too pro Israel actually, but there are others out there who would support him. So I think we, in our rush to rightly critique the far left and their resuscitation of anti-Semitic, the anti-Semitic imagination, we can't ignore the fact that the far right is out there as well.

There's always been a dormant, it's like a herpes thing, and it comes back every period. And the far right, obviously, will always have a latent anti-Semitism. I don't think it's that latent. Well, for a long time, for a long time,

I rolled my eyes at people trying to point out the anti-Semitism on the right because it was never – there's always been ambient-level Nazis. They've always existed, and there never won't be. But in terms of the people who had influence, the right was the bulwark of support for Israel and for Jews, while the Jews enjoyed—I used to compare it to Jack Nicholson, You Want Me on That Wall, you know that movie? Like the Jews, we wanted all the right-wing crazies on that wall so we could indulge ourselves, our left-wing id in the Democratic Party and all the social justice stuff. Who was worrying about the Jews? Oh, the fundamentalist Christians, the neocons, everybody on the right.

But I do see it changing. But you know... Yeah, I mean, look at Candace Owens. Oh, listen, Candace Owens is an... And, you know, within those circles, she is not outcast. There are plenty of far-right-wing lunatics who hate the Jews. And as I said on the show a couple of weeks ago, somebody reminded me, I said, is it guilt?

I compared it to guilt by, I'm sorry. I compared it to guilt by association. It's creating an innocence by association for a lot of people. So, for instance, Joe Rogan, who is not an anti-Semite but is inclined to conspiracy theories a lot of these people go on his show now and they become sanitized in a certain way because if Candace Owens and Alex Jones

are a loud and polite company on the Joe Rogan show and Joe Rogan is pals with the comedians who work here and all of a sudden how bad could she be she's very bad it doesn't get worse she's a fucking lunatic but the thing is um but she's provided some cover now she's yeah this is the thing you know um what i find really interesting about the past year you're absolutely

right there's always been far-right nutters around and they're they're they're usually anti-semitic that's their thing and in fact, they usually hate the Jews more than anyone else. That's absolutely right. One of the conspiracy theories doing the rounds of the far right at the moment, and it's been doing the rounds of the far right for a long time, actually, is, I mean, they hate blacks. They hate Indian immigrants. They are racist.

They hate Jews more. But the thing is, they're responsible for the blacks. They blame the Jews for all that as well, because you people brought them over on the slave ships. You people are the organizers of the ideology of multiculturalism. You're bringing these people to weaken the white race. That's the new conspiracy theory. So they hate Jews above all others.

But what I find interesting about the post-7th of October moment is the reason, and this is what the more mainstream liberal voices cannot grapple with, the reason the far-right has had a resurgence over the past year is because so-called anti-Zionism has given a license to their anti-Semitism. It's given them a new cover because after the Second World War, actually, in the 50s and 60s, far-right people in Europe had a real problem, which is that everyone knew what fascism was like. Everyone knew that fascism led to the deaths of millions of people under the boot of racist lunatics. So people who still described themselves as fascists had a real problem. So they responded to it in two ways. They denied the Holocaust.

That's where Holocaust denial comes from. It was an attempt to cover their backs by saying, well, it didn't actually happen. It's all bullshit. Or they became anti-Zionist. Because that was the way in which you could still depict the Jewish people as the controllers of world affairs, as uniquely bloodthirsty, as taking pleasure in the murder of children. That's what they said about Jewish people

for hundreds and hundreds of years. Now they say it about the Jewish nation. And that's what I find so fascinating about anti-Zionism, grimly fascinating, which is that it mirrors so brilliantly well all the crap they used to say about the Jews. They used to say the Jews

love killing Christian children and using their blood to make bread. Now they say that the Jewish state is purposefully targeting and killing Palestinian children. They used to say the Jewish people were inordinately powerful. They controlled the banks. They controlled politics. Now they say it's Israel that does that.

They used to say that the Jews were sneaky, conniving, a kind of deceitful people. Now they say that about Israel. Israel lies. It spreads propaganda. It spreads myth-making in order to justify its power. The extent to which all the anti-Semitism has morphed into anti-Zionism,

that's what I find so fascinating. And that's why I think increasingly Israelophobia, this kind of blind hatred for Israel, this obsession with Israel amongst the influential sections of society, I really do think it's a species of anti-Semitism. And I think we need to call it out as such. The first line of that email that I tried to quote to you is, I guess it's theoretically true that a principled anti-Zionist view can exist without anti-Semitism. You can read about it in a thought experiment, but apparently it's very hard to find one living in nature.

Yeah, exactly. And you know, there was- As an empirical matter, it's, you know- I have been saying that forever. I mean, and very- We don't pay attention to you. Right, well, you should, because I've been right on a lot of this.

Try changing that affect that you speak with. The thing is, is that very intelligent people, Noam being one of them, has told me, Alana Newhouse being another one of them, that none of this- She's the editor of Tablet Magazine.

Oh, yeah. None of this is actually rooted in education or knowledge because I am consistently astonished how people are just wandering around with literally no fucking information. And I mean, even the charge of genocide, when you hear the numbers, it's like, oh, well, that's categorically false. I mean, it's fun to hate the Jews.

People hate the Jews. Anti-Semitism did not start on October 8th. It was always there around forever sometimes it kind of is under the surface and a bit latent and other times it blows up and it leads to the enslavement and extermination of six million people so but it's always there but what i find interesting from 8th of october 2023 onwards is the new forms that it's taking or the way in which it's been unleashed by this kind of obsessive hatred for the Jewish state that is in mainstream circles. And the point I think about antisemitism, which is why I think it is distinctive, even from other forms of racism, and I hate all forms of racism. I'm one of those old fashioned

people who thinks you should never judge someone by the colour of their skin or their race or their ethnicity. That's unpopular now on the right and the left actually on the right they're just racist scumbags on the left they think well you know um intersectionality and black people will never understand white people and vice versa i'm i'm an mlk person character not color that's all that matters to me um but the reason anti-semitism is different even to other forms of racism is because it is it's the canary in the mine. I know it's a cliche, but it is always indicative of society going down the fucking toilet. When antisemitism returns, there is a severe problem in your society.

It reflects an abandonment of the Enlightenment. It reflects an abandonment of reason. It reflects an abandonment of reason. It reflects an abandonment of all the values of civilization. And you can see that throughout history. You can see it in the medieval era. You can see it in the 1930s and the 1940s. When society turns against the values of civilization itself, anti-Semitism rears its head instantly. But don't you, I just have a question. Don't you think that Trump is in part responsible for that? Like, didn't he sort of normalize this sort of disgusting, spewing hatred toward other people? I think Trump is, I don't think he's responsible for the resurgence of anti-Semitism. No, not for the resurgence of anti-Semitism, for normalizing that sort of behavior, that it's okay

to hate another citizen because they are a, you know, Democrat, for example, or whatever the case may be. But I think it is, I think the the um i mean i would defend the right to hate uh i i mean i would even defend the freedom to hate minority groups i wouldn't i wouldn't defend it as a good thing to do but in terms of free speech i would defend the right of people to make those horrible expressions but i would definitely defend the right to hate someone on the basis of their political beliefs i don't think hatred is necessarily a big or clever emotion, but it is a legitimate emotion. So I don't have a problem with Trump saying you should hate Democrats because they're out to get you or they're going to sell you down the river or they're going to fuck up your life. I think that's part and parcel of political life.

I do think Trump has said some stupid things. I hated what he said about Mexicans. Um, I thought that was just so obnoxious. Um, I don't like what he said about women. Um, although I do think people obsess rather too much over that private off the cuff comment, he made a grabber by the pussy or whatever. I don't think that's relevant. I think people just obsess over it. Um, I mean, I would beg to differ, but that's fine. But, you know, just to use that as an example, I think what you have amongst the kind of commentary is an obsession over Trump, stupid Trump comments like that,

which was basically a kind of gym room, gym changing room style comment. Men do make those comments for good or ill, normally for ill. They obsess over things like that while turning a complete blind eye to the biden administration's green light to 15 year old boys to go into 15 year old girls changing rooms or the way in which the liberal establishment completely supports the right of six foot four blokes to take part in women's swimming and so i think the point is that so often we obsess over,

we're encouraged to obsess over the oafish comment or the stupid or side or the genuinely discriminatory remark made by a right-wing politician like Trump, while also being encouraged to accept the complete destruction of women's rights and women's privacy and women's dignity by the intersectional elites.'s dignity i want to say the intersectional elites yeah i want to say why i disagree with you first of all i'm pretty sure that women's march where it was the first time we heard about where the they wouldn't let the jews

march and that was pre-trump that's true so so obviously trump can't be blamed for that and trump's election in some ways is a reaction to that. But I'm going to tell you what I think the difference is. I've said this before. It goes back to what he said about Martin Luther King. What Martin Luther King gave us was a theoretical and intellectual basis to reject bigotry. And it was so simple a kid could understand it. You can't judge people by their, you know, traits that they have nothing to do with,

their skin, color, whatever it is. And I can remember being a little child, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. You judge people by who they are, their character. And what the left did is they said, no, no, no, no. It's actually good to start judging people by their skin color, by their ethnicity, by who they want to have sex with.

The only thing you have to be careful about is who you judge that way. And it's okay to judge these people, not these people. It was a totally convoluted, make it up as you go along, rationalization for bigotry. And all the guardrails, the theoretical guardrails, the intellectual guardrails, the intellectual basis for rejecting bigotry were

torn down. Now it's a free-for-all. If you can come up with some theory as to why it's okay to target them, go ahead. And of course, the theories are always bullshit. So why can't you hate Jews? Right-wing people, except for the, they can tell you why you can't hate Jews, because it's wrong to judge people by their immutable characteristics. Left-wing people can they can tell you why you can't hate jews because it's wrong to judge people by their uh by their immutable characteristics left-wing people can no longer tell you they no longer have a basis to tell you why anti-semitism is wrong but you follow there yeah no longer a theoretical basis if they were if they did this in the past or if they have privilege by all means get them yeah and so you you give people and now you can take your ugly retrograde urge for bullying and take all your hate you can

dress it up as righteousness and then have at it now you're a good guy for being an anti-semite and that's what that's what these kids in college campuses think they think they're good they're proud of it we're doing god's work that's what my anti-semitism. They think they're good. They're proud of it. We're doing God's work. That's what my antisemitism is. They deserve it. But, you know, it's, yeah, the politics of identity is the, I think, the key source of the new antisemitism. Now, this is not to deny far-right antisemitism.

It's not to deny that there are probably even people in the Trump sphere who are discriminatory or hateful towards Jewish people. I'm sure that's all true. But the new antisemitism we're seeing, I think, is a direct product of intersectionality. Because what that does, you're absolutely right, it resuscitates bigotry, it gives it the sheen of political correctness or the gloss of wokeness or whatever um but it directly resuscitates anti-semitic hatred because what it does it it divides people according to race according to ethnicity it says some people are oppressed and therefore worthy some people are privileged and therefore bad and it depicts the jews as the most privileged in fact they refer to the jews not only as white but as hyper white

and therefore their privilege needs to be checked they need to be Jews not only as white, but as hyper white. And therefore, their privilege needs to be checked. They need to be taken down a peg or two. And it's really, you know, but this is this is the ignorance that I'm talking about. When this go back to Poland, half of Israel isn't white. Half of the people in Israel are from fucking Arab countries. All from the left. It's all from the left, not Trump. It's not. I mean, I don't think that at this point it even matters whether- It was your point.

That's what I'm saying. It's really not Trump. I mean, Trump is responsible for the vulgar- That's what I'm talking about. The normalization of vulgarity in our politics. Okay, so then you agree with me. That's what I was saying, that Trump made it okay to be that. But this idea that

Jews are white, I mean, is the most inaccurate sort of characterization of American Jews, but even Israel, Arab Jews, I mean, from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, I mean, it's insane.

And why are they, it's insane. And why are they in it? Africa. Yeah. And why are they in Israel? Because they got kicked out of those countries. No one ever talks about that. Everyone talks about the Nakba,

which is essentially the consequences of the defeat of the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli war. But no one talks about why so many Jews are in Israel. Do you have five more minutes? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I just want to say about the Nakba because, and then I want to ask you one more question. I had, you know, I didn't know actually

that much about the Arab-Israeli conflict before October 7th. I thought I did, but I really didn't. And one thing I took for granted was kind of a sympathy for the Nakba. What they're suffering now is a Nakba. As I look at the Nakba now, the 1947 and 48, I made the point before that, first of all,

the entire world was taking out their battles on civilians at that point. It was completely normalized in Japan, in Germany. I mean, it was open season on civilians. So that's just important to keep in mind. It was, you had people there closer to the Holocaust than we are now to COVID. That's how recently they had gone through this. And then there's a partition and five Arab armies attack.

And you don't know. And everybody's a soldier, essentially. Right. I mean, there's there really is a fifth column living down the block from you. And what what was the Nakba in one way or another? Let's just let's assume the worst of it. They expelled. It wasn't all expelled. Let's just say they expelled 700000 people from their neighborhoods. And what did they expel them to? They pushed them over the line into their own land, into their own country.

They didn't push them to a foreign country. They said, listen, you're all attacking us. We've been through this. It is a war of genocide. You actually said, Benny Morris has it, drive the Jews into the sea. There's just no way we can live together. We're pushing you out over the line and you're going to be in now in your part of the country. This is maybe illegal. I don't even know.

I mean, it's hard to imagine how you wouldn't do that. But this is the kind of thing that you handle with money. OK, you know, we moved you. We move people in this country for build highways. You don't like it? We're going to have to, and part of any settlement should be, listen, you took your house, here's X amount of dollars. Yeah. This is not a historic catastrophe comparatively, by any means, compared to what so many other people have suffered.

Again, refugees into your own country. And I really never thought of it that way. And I don't really, I don't think it gets enough attention to the fact that this is, by historic standards, not what everybody thinks. What's happening now is awful. And I want to talk about what's happening now. It's very easy to get carried along the way, down the stream, and say, well, I support Israel. So so therefore anything that happens, I can defend. If it's 20,000 people die, well, 20,000. If it's 100,000 people, it had to do it, right?

But that's not rigorous. And I do have some respect for the argument from time to time because I've used it in business. I say, listen, this is not okay. Stop telling me you have to do that because I'm not going to accept that. So go back to the drawing board and figure out another solution because I'm not going to go for that. And almost every time people do go back to the drawing board

and do come up with another solution. So I have some respect for the Glenn Lowrys of the world who are saying, listen, I don't know. But I don't know. You know, they never separate the terrorists from the civilians. But let's say it's, you know, 30,000 civilians. Let's just say. But you cannot convince me that you had to kill 30,000 people.

So there must have been another way. Go back to the drawing board and figure it out have have you because i can't comprehend war i mean you have children no uh you have your family children and it's just it's easy to just again it's it's the the mirror image of what i described before is it's easy to say well well, we're right. So, you know, I guess they had it coming to them. I can't think about that. But you have to think about it.

You have to think about it again and again and again and again. Even if that's what it has to be, you have to force yourself to keep thinking about it. And I try to force myself to keep thinking about it because it's just impossibly awful to think about what they're going through. I agree with you. I think it's just impossibly awful to think about what they're going through. I agree with you. I think it's devastating. All I wish is to say, have you given that thought, and do you think there was something Israel could have done differently to accomplish its own security, which they have a right to that, and killed fewer people or been less brutal in some way?

Well, I don't know the answer to that question um the thing is i think you one should never be cavalier about war and anyone who's saying well fuck palestine we had to do it i think that's wrong wrong even people who support israel and i support support Israel needs especially in fact people who support Israel need to think very seriously about what Israel is doing and whether it could be different and so on but I just keep think my view is that it does come down to a question of principle before it comes down to the question of practical application because there are wars in history that caused massive amounts of destruction, including to civilian life, that I would support. So the American Civil War, for example. People think civilian casualties is a modern phenomenon of bombs and so on,

but there were civilian casualties, many of them, in the American Civil War. Before that, in the... Much worse. Yeah, much worse. And before that, in the English Civil War in the 1640s, thousands and thousands of people died. But that was a war that had to be fought because that was the war that dragged britain from absolute monarchy towards democracy the consequences of that war for

future generations was incalculably good i would say the same about elements of the second world war i would say that um many many german civilians died tragically in the attacks on Germany, but we had to defeat the Nazis because their threat to civilization was profound. I do feel similarly about Israel's I hate Hamas so much is that they started this infernal war by bringing the pogrom to Israel. And now they're continuing the war by refusing to surrender and by hiding themselves among civilians. So they bear ultimate moral responsibility for the war, although Israel, of course, needs to think all the time about what it's doing. But I do think it's worth bearing in mind that the depiction of this war as uniquely cruel and uniquely bloody, I think is untrue. And I do think there's an element in the media depiction of it and even the media obsession with it. The media is talking about nothing else. Who knows that there was a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia three years ago, in which 6,000 people died. No one

literally, you could ask 100 people on the streets outside here, no one would know. You discuss this in your book. Yeah, 6,000 people, that's a lot of people. Or who cares? Syria. Syria. Bashar al-Assad, I mean hundreds of thousands of people. And some of them were killed by

Hezbollah. And many of the people killed in Syria, thousands of them were Palestinians. And the pro-Palestinian lobby don't give a damn about them. So the... I do the American kids on campus. Yeah, they don't give a damn. So this obsessive focus on Israel is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, because I think it distorts people's understanding of the war, which is that it is awful, but it's a relatively normal war.

Right. That's the honest truth. And the second problem with it is that it very easily tips over into bigotry. Because if you start to see the world's only Jewish nation as the most cruel nation, you start to see the world's only Jewish state as the wickedest state, you are going to very quickly start to see Jewish people like that. And I think that's the real lesson of the fallout from 7th of October. The hatred for Israel quite quickly crosses over into a suspicion or even a hatred for Jewish people. And that's one of the things that more liberal voices in the West really need to guard against. You know, it's a perfect storm of an insidious, difficult thing

for Israel to explain because, you know, when you compare it to the Nazis, well, the Nazis had a big army and they're threatening to overrun Europe, and that's easier to understand. You say, well, Hamas, I mean, you know, everybody says if only Israel hadn't taken their eye off the ball, like what threat could Hamas be, right? And there's something to that, except that it's not just Hamas. It's the Houthis and Iran and Hezbollah and how they're all seeing each other and the idea that deterrence is necessary and that this, if Hamas could continue this way, this would signal to this ring of enemies that Israel is vulnerable and will not defend itself. But Israel can't do right for doing wrong.

No, that's right. and will not defend itself. But Israel can't do right for doing wrong. Because when it targets Hamas in Gaza, which is a very densely populated part of the world, it's accused of wanton destruction. You're just killing people left, right and center. But then when it did the Pages attack on Hezbollah, which I think was one of the most extraordinary acts of warfare in history, it was like 3,000 mini Trojan horses right in the pockets of the terrorists. Then it was still accused of this is terrorism, this is an outrage.

A couple of innocent people were killed alongside the terrorists. Even when it carried out the most targeted attack in history, it was still damned. And so what people, this is, I think, what it boils down to. And I've had these discussions with left-wingers and liberals since 7th of October. What they're saying is that Israel should not fight back and what that means is that Jews should let themselves be killed yes that is fundamentally what they're saying suck it up

take it on the chin it's not a big deal 1,200 Jews who gives a fuck that is they would never say that but that's what they're saying and And the thing is that... It's even worse than that, but go ahead, I'll let you finish. But, you know, it's like... And then it tips over into this contempt for the image of the Jew as someone with a gun who fights back. Because they love the image of the Jew that we've had in films for the past 20 years, which is the emaciated victim. That brings out nice emotions. You want to care for them.

You want to look after them. These poor Jewish kids, these poor Jewish people. But as soon as they see this 19-year-old buff IDF soldier with a gun who says, I'm going to kill Hamas militants, then they're like, no, you're a genocide heir. And there was a photograph of some young IDF soldiers outside a house that they'd blown up because it was a Hamas headquarters.

And loads of people online said, why are they sharing this photo? Why are they gloating over their destruction of this Hamas headquarter? And my response to that was, because they want the world to know that you can't kill Jews with impunity anymore. It's not the medieval era. It's not the 1930s or the 1940s. You no longer get rewarded by the church or encouraged by the government to kill Jews. Today, if you kill Jews, there are consequences.

You will have your head caved in like Simois did. There will be a war. There will be a response. And I genuinely think that is an incredibly important message to send to the world. It's necessary. If all was peaceful in the Middle East, except for Hamas, it would be different because then Israel would actually not have an existential threat there. But in reality, I believe Israel is more threatened, certainly the United States ever was in the 40s, and probably even, it's comparable to what England was facing, because they are surrounded by enemies, and these enemies can no longer be, the formula of deterrence has failed. One of the reasons Israel thought it was safe is because they would never do that, because

they know what we do to them. Now Israel realizes, oh, it doesn't matter if they know what we do to them. They'll still do it. And now Iran is two weeks away from weapons-grade uranium. And Hezbollah had 100 and something thousand rockets pointed at Israel. So Israel is facing an existential threat. But I'm going to go even further.

I always feel this compulsion to say that I've said this before on the show. I see people say the same things every day. I mean, every... But I always feel... And I can imagine, how can I be a politician like Kamala Harris 50 times? Imagine what can be on Bird Mode.

But I always feel funny when I'm saying something again. But in the North, I've heard various numbers, 60,000, 80,000, 120,000, whole cities are cleared out, right? In actual numbers like the size of Cincinnati, in per capita numbers the size of like San Diego or bigger. If not a single person died and America had to clear out San Diego for a year, America would carpet bomb. 100%. America is not giving up a major city. 100%.

For anything. But Israel should. Yeah. Just forfeit that part of your country. It doesn't matter. That's essentially what people are saying. But look at when Hezbollah fired that rocket that killed 12 Jews' children in northern Israel.

The radicals of the West said nothing. Not a word. Not a word. But then when Israel planted pages in the pockets of terrorists, they went nuts. They care more for the testicles of a terrorist than they do for the lives of Druze children. That is fundamentally what's happening here. So I actually think Israel needs to deal with the existential threat that I think Israel is suffering two sieges. It's under siege from these armies of anti-Semites that surround it, including the Islamic Republic of Iran and others.

And it's under siege from the intellectuals of the West. It's under a moral, it's under a physical siege from these armies. It's under a moral siege. That's the bigger threat. And that's the bigger threat. And that's why I blame the liberal Jews. And this is why, and this is why Israel needs to fight the battle on its borders in order to keep itself existentially secure. But I think the rest of us need to fight this battle in the West in order to say, you look, you know, fuck off.

Jewish people have a right to fight back. Israel has a right to exist and we should defend the values of civilization instead of succumbing to this politics of identity. So that's the battle we need to fight while Israel fights its battle. Well, don't lament, have hope. Kamala Harris deeply understands the intellectual and historical nature of this argument. I mean, one thing I can say about Joe Biden, I think we all agree, he actually is a Zionist.

He actually is. He'll sell certain things out to win an election. But if you gave the man sodium pentothal, I believe he deeply supports Israel. She, I mean, who the hell knows? Who the hell knows? And it matters. It matters.

All right, listen. Jew to Christian, it's very, really, it matters to me. I very much appreciate your clarity on this and your bravery speaking out about it. We don't have many advocates like you. I recommend this book very highly. As anybody who's listening can see, I actually remember so many things from it. You must be impressed that I remember so many things from reading the book. But that's because it's very, very well written. And like I always say,

some writers have a sense for the capillary. You have a sense for the jugular. So everything that you write, every point you make, it sticks in my brain. And I was able to focus on it. I wasn't distracted. That's because you're, and you can see by the way you speak too, you speak almost the way you write. That's a gift. But anybody who's interested in this issue and is trying to understand why they should support Israel or what the case is, what the best version of the case to support Israel is, read Brendan's book. It's called After the Pogrom.

After the Pogrom, 7th of October. By Brendan O'Neill. O'Neill. And I want to tell you something also. This is also the reason that I insist on talking to people like Aaron Mate and all the people that you hate because no matter what you think of them, they are going to be the ones who are going to throw up at you arguments that you need to consider. You're not going to hear it. Just listen

to me. You're not going to hear it from the pro-Israel people. Dan Senor, God bless him, we love him, is not going to come here and sit down and say, are you sure Israel's doing the right thing? Have you considered that you need to give these people the benefit of the doubt? I absolutely do not need to give these people the benefit of the doubt. I can learn those arguments very well, and I agree.

Wait a second, let me respond. And these people have been right about certain things. When there was a whole thing about the 40 baby heads and the Aaron Maté's and- That's irrelevant. Max Blumenthal was saying, no, 40 baby heads. I'm like, I think they're probably right. It doesn't matter. That stuff is irrelevant. I admire and respect being intellectually honest and rigorous. Okay. Neither side is intellectually honest. That's what you need to understand.

Our side, on average, is no more honest than their side. First of all, I'm- That's how people are. I'm- Everybody spins. What I'm saying is I do not feel any need to fraternize with people who are just so, just intellectually and morally corrupt and bankrupt.

And I have seen it time and time again. And so have you. So don't feed me that bullshit. Focus your resentment on our own people. You know, you know, this is, this is the example I always give when a customer complains that they've been waiting, I've been waiting 30 minutes for my hummus. I say to myself, no. I know they've only been waiting probably 15 minutes, but they're right. They're right. But they don't want to take the chance of giving me 15 minutes because they don't know if I'll think 15 minutes is quite long. Like if you're going to complain about something,

you spin it in your own favor. Everybody does that. Our side does it. Their side does it. Everybody spins. Even the good guys spin. That's what you always have to remember. You have to read everything with a grain of salt, even the things that you wish were true.

They're exaggerated also. I have no problem reading it. I just don't need to talk to these people. It really is an important lesson to learn to internalize an important way to read the news because it oh yeah it's it's very it's very captivating and it makes you feel so good to read something on your own side no you're right about that but so often they're not fair either yeah Yeah. Anyway, you agree, right? Yeah. I, I, I mean, I see both sides because I fully agree that one of the best ways to defeat your enemies or just to engage with them

is to engage with them. And I do think freedom of speech and that engagement and that interplay of ideas is essential in a civilized society. I also, there are some wankers out there I do not want to speak to. So I feel that as well. But I think, I've always thought that sunlight is the best disinfectant, to use an old cliche. And they can shine sunlight on our ideas as well as us shining it on theirs.

So I think it's a useful exercise for both parties. By the way, sunlight as a disinfectant, I have to say, I don't think I'm second even to you on my support of free speech. I have to admit, it's not working. Something is going wrong in the new technological age with the marketplace of ideas, where Candace Owens is one of the top five

or top 10 voices in the country now, where people who are saying that Tucker Carlson, UFOs are really satanic aliens, whatever. Something is, I mean, hopefully we will, as a society, learn to adjust to it and cyclically we will then uh re uh re rehabilitate our marketplace yeah but it's not working no but when people are immune to sunlight and that goes for our side as well it's it's proof that they are stuck in a rabbit hole or stuck in an echo chamber they they

they refuse to countenance any other view. But you mentioned Rogan earlier. Rogan's not one of those people. And I was on Rogan earlier this year, and we had this long, long, long argument about Israel-Palestine. And he was saying Israel has gone crazy, and I was defending what Israel was doing. And the amount of feedback I had on that, and I'm sure he had lots as well,

from either people saying to me I don't agree with you but I'm listening or people saying I really agree whatever is it does demonstrate that those having those public discussions is not only good for you and I the people actually doing it but for the listeners the audience because it will prick something or it will either give them the freedom to change their minds which is the one of the greatest freedoms or it will either give them the freedom to change their minds, which is one of the greatest freedoms, or it will fortify them in the beliefs they already had, whatever impact it has. These public conversations can sway not just the person you're talking to. Often they don't sway the person you're talking to, but there are loads of people out there who might think

differently as a consequence. And that's always worth doing. Also persuasion in my experience is not usually a sudden thing. It's a straw in the back, a straw in the back, a straw in the back. Then when you're able to change your mind without having to admit to the person I was wrong, and at some point you emerge with a changed mind. So you think you're not making progress with people, but actually over time you wear them down and then they do change their mind. Yeah. You have to try.

All right. Brendan, thank you very much. Thank you. Buy the book, everybody. Good night. Good night.