The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Moderate Palestinianism - An Anonymous Palestinian Pragmatist

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

An anonymous interview with a diaspora Palestinian - an ex-Muslim who made millions on Polymarket and writes the Substack Moderate Palestinianism. He supports two states on the '67 borders with no right of return, opposes Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, and appears anonymously because these views are dangerous in his own community. On the heckler's veto that kills every peace deal, whether Palestinians can change, what Israelis get wrong about Al-Aqsa and the right of return, why he calls Ben-Gvir "great propaganda for my side," and why Israeli hasbara fails. His Substack: https://moderatepalestinianism.substack.com/ 0:00 Meet "Adam" - an anonymous Palestinian moderate 3:19 The heckler's veto - why no deal ever sticks 7:34 "I'm all for the occupation" - civil war, withdrawal, humiliation 15:24 What Israel should do anyway - settler terrorism and a $50,000 bet 22:11 How October 7th changed him - and can Palestinians change? 33:02 Why make peace with the Jews? The UAE, Al-Aqsa, the right of return 43:43 Beinart's one-state "nonsense," Ben-Gvir, and would Bibi take the deal?

All right, let's solve Israel Palestine. Welcome, everybody, to a very special conversation about Israel Palestine with Noam Dwarman, owner of the world famous comedy seller. I'm David, and I've had the pleasure of connecting him with a couple guests now on the topic, and we're here today with someone we'll be referring to as Adam. Welcome to the show. Adam is a diaspora Palestinian who has made millions on Polly Market. We are all very jealous and recently started a substack called Moderate Palestinianism.

His vision of peace is a two-state solution on 67 borders, living side by side with Israel without demanding the right of return. So, Anad Wilf, eat your heart out. And he's here today to talk about how we might actually get there. As an ex-Muslim willing to discuss coexistence, his views are not well tolerated in Arab culture. So for his own safety and the comfort of his family, he has agreed to be here anonymously, and we really appreciate that. Quoting from his flagship piece about the flaws of Palestinian and I encourage everyone to subscribe to a substack. Why am I writing this and no one else?

Why are the sane advocates for the Palestinian cause rarely ever Palestinian? It's because it feels pointless. I can point out all the many faults of Palestinian leadership throughout the history of the conflict. I can advocate for pragmatism. I can try my best to be a voice of reason in a culture that glorifies insanity. But who is going to be reading this, if anyone? Jews.

I am not going to be convincing any other palatism. Palestinians, certainly not after they find out I'm an ex-Muslim. The problem you have to solve with the Arabs and the Palestinians especially is that they are not open to being convinced of anything. They do not go out looking for dissent, opposing viewpoints or self-criticism. And when they find it in the wild, their natural reaction is to dismiss it. That was a lot. Speaking now as myself, I'm a lot more optimistic. There are two mainstream Israeli conceptions. I'm hoping this conversation might challenge. The first is the notion that Jews can't influence Palestinian culture, that the best we can do is explain Israeli history to anyone who will listen, and hope that one day Palestinians assert agency in a more constructive way. But you need only to look at Israeli Arabs to know how large an effect positive social interactions with Zionists can have on their beliefs and behavior.

The second is the notion that Palestinians are an ideological monolith across time and environment, and that the core is an objection to the idea of Jewish sovereigns. and principle. It is absolutely true that the root of the conflict since the 1920s has been that the Jews wanted to establish a Native American-style reservation for refugees in their ancestral homeland within which to seek self-determination, and that the Arabs considered them foreign colonizers whose political project to assert control on any of their land is an injustice that is a perpetual cause for war. Very little has changed, and yet we do not need to jump to the Aenot-Wilf conclusion that the only solution is Arab-Zionis. and that we can have peace, but not now, not until Palestinians accept the existence of Israel.

We only need to look the difference between Jordan and Gaza to see that when Palestinians have better leadership, they focus on building good lives instead of uninventing Israel, even in a context of perceived great injustice and a cultural refusal to accept it. Noam, she's all yours. Take it away. Hi, Adam. Thanks for joining. I've got to be here. So, you know, I've come to meet David and Adar, and I'll even extend my niceness to Matthew Cockerel, who I've had some friction with. But all these people who I think are good faith people on the other side of this issue, in a certain sense, you sound closer to me than they do.

So as a context for this conversation, I read your recent post about A.N.A.N. Wolf, I thought it was excellent. And one of the things you spoke about there, which I think is very much the heart of the matter, was that there's a heckler's veto. That was your term. There's a heckler's veto within the Palestinian community. I had brought this issue up to what's the name, Aaron David Miller. Like Israel can make an unpopular deal, and no matter what anybody thinks about it, that becomes a law. And it's basically reliable.

but a deal with even if it had been Arafat or a boss, no matter what piece of paper they signed, if they can't control a critical mass of their population such that somebody doesn't pick up arms and sabotage it, the hecklers can undo any deal made by the grownups, as it were. And then, of course, the Israelis know this, and that leads them to be pessimistic about, making any deal at all.

What do you think about that? I think that's obviously true, completely true. So I think that if you do eventually want withdrawal from the West Bank, the state that you need to leave the West Bank in is a pseudo-state. So what I mean by that is that the Palestinians and whoever is managing them, which could be the Jordanians or just an actual Palestinian government, has to have an actual monopoly on violence. And with that monopoly, they have to self-police.

They have to show a willingness to self-police, not just the ability. And, you know, we had Arafat who promised to dismantle the terrorist apparatus at some point. And he never actually did. Israeli is bringing that up constantly. But he did prove that it was possible to. So I am aware that, you know, there were some examples. People were arrested. And if he had actually shown the will to, you know,

govern to prevent this third party violence. I think it could have worked. So I think it's a real shame that you did. You know, Arafat famously kept saying to Bill Clinton, you're going to get me killed. You're going to get me killed. Right. He's talking about the hecklers, but, yes. Yeah.

And it's not going to be lost on people. That's how I'll bring it up so you can respond to it, that you feel the need to conduct this interview anonymously, which is not the first time I've interviewed a Palestinian anonymously. But I can't say I never interviewed an Israeli anonymously, but that was only because he was a prominent person. It wasn't because he had any fear. This is somewhat of a common thing. And that speaks to the issue in general, correct?

That's exactly right. We don't have a debate culture. We can give these opposing viewpoints and not, you know, just get, especially best case, you know, Sean. I mean, I want to tell you about myself, just because you don't, you might have tried to become familiar with me.

But although I might appear as a very hardline Israeli, like many hardline Israelis, I would do anything for peace. I always say, like, give them, why are you bragging about giving them 97%? Give them 105%. You know, like whatever it takes, and yet at the same time, as a realist,

you know, I'm very worried about nightmares scenarios. And I want to ask you this question. I have some, all the Palestinians I know in America want peace. That's for sure. They're all moderate. You might even know some of them.

But one of them said something to me one time that stayed with me. I don't know if he's aware that I said it out loud, but he said that his fear was that if there was peace, if there was a two-state solution, that the new Palestine state would immediately descend into civil war. And I took from that that moderate Palestinians might calculate that as much as they hate the occupation, they might be better off and safer if it continues.

that is, if they really believe that civil war and bloodshed is the likely outcome of a two-state solution. What do you think about that? I would say the same thing. So I am all for the occupation. I have issues, a lot of issues with things Israel does, but not once have I mentioned the occupation as one of them. Because I don't think they can withdraw.

I think if they did, you know, it would be a disaster, not just for the Israelis, for the Palestinians as well, right? I'm just trying to imagine this another Gaza scenario and I think there's a very good chance that's going to happen and even if Hamas or a similar organization

didn't take power they might, they might not I'm just skeptical that Palestinians have the will or the ability to police their worst elements I would not take that risk by the way, interestingly

you'll just as more of like context to me and really my father the word generous I think people have described the Almert offer and definitely the the Barack offers. They always say, with a very generous proposal, very generous proposal.

And my father used to get furious at the word generous, because in his mind he's right. Generous implies some sort of magnanimity. Like you're going above and beyond when you're generous, right? And my father said, no, no. Don't describe

it as generous because you're doing what you purportedly you're doing what you feel you ought to be doing, what's correct and just. And if you're doing something that's just, you don't describe it as generous. So that's just like a thread that's gone through my thought. So let's get back to,

and you know, and you can lead this conversation wherever you want. But I just, I had a conversation with Brett Stevens on like October 9th and where I predicted that the world was going to turn against Israel and the Jews. But one of the things we got into was I said that the Palestinian conflict was at root a psychological challenge because nobody will. I couldn't see the Palestinians ever agreeing to peace with Israel if it meant they had to buy into what was in their minds the ultimate humiliation. Who is going to agree? Humiliation is worse than suffering for people. And until something changed such that the Palestinians can feel good about or at least okay about making peace with Israel,

rather than saying we had to submit to the ultimate humiliation because they were stronger than us, I don't think they'll ever given, and I don't think Israelis sufficiently think along those lines. And I think that's where I might have common ground with David and Adar. So what do you think about that? It's a very interesting perspective. I think you are onto something. But what you're talking about is essentially Arab Zionism, right? It sounds like that's the end state.

You need them to accept that Israel exists. It's going to be a Jewish state and not try to undo it, essentially. And that's the humiliation that you're referring to here indirectly. I think you're, again, right, this is the end state. but I think there is a good enough, right? There's a middle state, a good enough, that is not Arab Zionism. And it's just, we're not willing to attack Israel

because it's going to make our lives worse. And we don't have to accept them. We don't have to say Israel is a Jewish state and they're going to be around forever. You can still have that, you know, I didn't talk about this yet, but Arabs have this fatalism, this belief that they're going to win eventually.

It's religious-based. I mean, maybe you know about this, maybe you don't. Anyways, they should use this fatalism. and just accept that it's not going to happen anytime soon. And I think that's a state where it's good enough, right? It's not a permanent peace. It's not a beautiful ideal. But it's just this is the state you want to get to, a stable status quo.

And for that, I don't think you need Arab Zionism. What you want is something like Jordan, something like Egypt, where there's a government in control and they know what they want. And the citizens at least don't care enough to start a revolution so that they go to war with Israel again. And that's basically what you need from the Palestinians. That's the thing that it's... You follow all those polls that come out of the West Bank.

I do. I'm huge on polls. Yeah. I really recommend that recent blog posts of yours to people. So what's your feel if in a safe environment where people, you know, we're not worried about their hide. And if a Palestinian politician with charisma, were to run for office saying the things that you believe in your heart about this conflict,

what percentage of the vote do you think he would get? I'd just be guessing. And in reality, I don't think it would go well. The things I actually believe, I don't think it would go off. So I'll answer the question, maybe 15 to 20 percent. That would be my guess. I think that's a terrible idea. I think that there should be a leader that wants to make peace with Israel,

but he should do it in a way that isn't Zionism. He shouldn't say, yeah, let's just give up, accept. He should be pragmatic, right? He should be, what's his name, Abbas? What's he to the Israeli Arabs? He's selling them, you know, he's not selling them on anti-Zionism. He's telling them we're going to solve crime, right? That's why, that's my impression of him, at least.

So he's saying, we're going to make your lives bare. And I think that a Palestinian leader could learn something from that. So we're going to have a state, for example, and we're going to have our schools and we're not going to be bombed and we're going to be able to move without these crossroads. And we're going to get our permits. We can actually build our lives, right?

And I think that's what a Palestinian leader needs to sell. I don't think he should be selling a beautiful peace and love with Israel, forgive your enemy type of thing. I think ideally he'd be thinking it, right? But I don't think that's what he should be telling us. people. And what percentage would vote for the pragmatic peace candidate? I think it could work.

I think maybe 70%. You'd be surprised the number of people who vote for Hamas and their top priority is something like corruption. They were not happy with fat. So good governance is something people, it's something everyone wants, right? You know, we talk about the culture wars in politics all the time, right? We talk, you know, Israel is a big issue in the U.S. right now, Israel, geopolitics, that kind of thing. But people just want cheaper gas, they want cheaper foods, they want a better cost of living. And that's what actually wins elections more often than not.

So, you know, so by the way, I'm just, you know, people are going to think that I sought you out in order to, you know, validate my own kind of opinions on this conflict. I just want to make clear that this didn't, that you came in through somebody from that I usually oppose, people that I usually oppose. people I usually oppose and people on the left. And I don't know to the extent that they agree with you or not. But let me let's ask the question this way because I fault Israelis sometimes. And again, this is where I think David and I have common ground. You know, if you are very, very sick with a likely terminal disease and a doctor says to you, you know, you have a 95, you have only 5% chance of survival, 95% chance you're going to be dead in a year.

but if you are one of those 5%, these are the five things you should do. You should eat right. You should do this, get a lot of it, whatever that is. People, you do those things, right? And if you're a pessimistic Israeli, that's not an excuse for not still doing the things

that would be the prerequisite to a good outcome, even though you think the good outcome is very, very unlikely. But, I mean, you know, a good outcome seemed very, very unlikely in Egypt. And then all of a sudden Sadat emerged and it happened. And the Israelis seem to be of the mindset right now that they can do anything they want, even if it's obviously incompatible with a peace process, because the peace process is almost certainly going to fail.

And my feeling is that, yes, the peace process is almost certainly going to fail, but you should still do and behave and do those few things, which if there's any hope at all, these wouldn't smother that hope. I feel the same way. So, no, I would personally right now prefer to be talking to Palestinians about this kind of thing. You know, unfortunately, to talk to a Palestinian, you have to tie them up and gag them and all that. So I have Israelis instead. So I can only say what I would feel if I was in Israeli because I have these liberal instincts myself.

But I also really hate, how do I explain this? I hate peacnicks who come in with nothing but platitudes. Like I watched your Peter Bernard, you know, I'm against the one-state solution, obviously. I think it's such a silly thing. And what I think that Israel owes it to themselves, and I guess to the world as well, you know as well as I do, how people feel about them, is to try. They just have to, you know, they have to leave a path open. Sure, they can't talk to the Palestinians. they can maybe influence them,

but it's not like you can just say, hey, let's make peace. That's completely true. But you have to leave a path open there for them. You have to leave the door open for your enemy to stop being your enemy. And that's what I think Israel should do. So I agree with you.

Yeah, like the settlements, for instance, and I'm no expert on the settlements, but I feel quite strongly that Hamas types, stopping the settlements is not going to exactly satisfy. them. However, the reasonable Palestinians that you refer to, and that's the population that we would like to see grow, yeah, they're quite offended by this, right? And you're foreclosing your option of any goodwill among the persuadable people if you're going to continue to allow what I've heard right-wing Israelis now call settler terrorism. Right-wing Israelis are

describing it that way. So it's astounding to me. It makes for amazing propaganda for, you know, again, the Hamas types that you mentioned. You can argue that they'd hate you anyway, but would you prefer that they be wrong? Yes. How do I explain this? Yeah. And it's something I hear very often in your Peter Binard interview. I did get the idea that you have this sort of fatalism, which right now you're convincing me you don't actually have.

But you have this fatalism about what people will think of you. You have no choice but to occupy the West Bank, for example. That's obviously true. But it's also true that you can be cracking down on settler terrorism. You can be policing what your government officials say publicly. Matrish and Benvir. And I think that kind of thing, it's in my article. I offered a bet.

I was saying, you know, if these things happen, I think the polls would improve by a certain number. And I said I would bet up to $50,000. And that offer is still open. By the way, I've gotten over 10,000 views on the article. And no one's contacting me to take that bet. but it's still open if anyone wants. Yeah, I'm a, I don't know if you heard my interview with Professor Sobelman. I have.

Yeah, so a couple things in there, which was, you know, different than the Binaught thing. First of all, human nature, you know, is, has an amazing quality to get used to anything. And this is both a positive and a negative. Like I said many times, like a nurse takes a job on her first day of the job. She is, she can't stand to hear a patient suffering and she runs to get him as medication and she, she takes care of him like it was her own child. And then you see the same nurse 10 years later and the patients are writhing in agony and she doesn't even, you know, finish her candy crush game early. And Benny Morris has even written about this. There's no question that the status quo level of abuse, as it were, that has, that Israelis have gotten used to.

to on their own side, much of this is just a function of human nature. You just get used to it. You know, the stuff that I'd heard Israeli, old Israeli people. This is going back in the 90s, lamenting to me, this like first generation Israelis, lamenting to me that they saw a people becoming comfortable with treating Arabs badly. This is Mrs. Boyarski, who was,

like 80 years old at the time. This is in, no, it was in the 80s. This is how long ago. And it's like, it just gets worse and worse. And, you know, I don't believe that's ideological. I think this is just human nature. And we see it play out anytime somebody's rules over another people. And in that Soliman interview, I quoted Thomas Jefferson talking about this of all people.

So, but anyway, I'm sorry to digress like that. But in the Solomon interview, I floated the idea to him that maybe it's better for Israel to fight a war with a Palestinian state on his border every so often than to deal with the occupation indefinitely. Do you have any thought about that? I think it's a terrible idea. Okay. Yeah. Don't do that. So I'll give you the—

Sure, sure. I'll give you the Arab perspective on this. for most of my life I was pretty apolitical, right? I hate Israel, sure, because I'm supposed to, but it was in the background for me. It wasn't very active. And that changed after October 7, not immediately, just over the preceding years. I got more political and I changed my mind quite a lot. To be clear, I've never been Amosite, like never in my life.

It was kind of both sides of bad kind of thing. And, you know, I decided to give writing a try after reading a very good non-Zionism substack piece. He called it self-indulgent, Jival as politics, and he tore apart this video of a very stupid Palestinian narrative about Israeli history. So I've personally always wished that Arab culture,

and not just Palestinians, because they're all very similar. I wish they were more truth-seatic king, more than they are. So I had to be the change you wish to see in the world. I'm trying to change the Palestinians to get them to a state where we don't have to get to the situation

and we're the only choice is to ethnically cleanse them by heking them out to another country or occupation forever. I don't want another Gaza situation, basically. And I think there's reasons to be positive about the possibility of changing the Palestinians. And the reason is just, it's only been 100 years since we learned to read them right, right? I'm not sure if you're aware, but like before World War II, Palestinians couldn't read them right. One of my grandmas, she can't read them right. And I think that things are slowly improving. And again, I like polls.

I like statistics, that kind of thing. And you say it yourself, the diaspora, they're more moderate. I think culture is a real thing. I think people can change. So my goal would be to figure out a stable status quo where people are dying, right? And we can go from there. I think withdrawal from the West Bank is a terrible idea. We talked about this earlier.

And I think one state solution is not even worth talking about. And I think a two-state solution is something you dream about, right? This is the ideal that's, I don't really care personally about an actual 67 border two-state solution. I just think that when you talk about it to Palestinians, it's a nicer vision. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, anything else you could sell, like, you know, the Trump plan. Let me interrupt you for just one second to drill down on something. When you say it's a terrible idea, what are the minuses for Israel and what are the minuses for the Palestinians?

Well, the minuses for Israel is that everyone's going to hate them when they have to, to do another Gaza situation. I mean, maybe this time around people understand more, but I don't think so. I don't think be part of that reasonable. And for the Palestinians, they die. That's there. That's the unfortunate part for them.

It's that simple. I'm very pragmatic about this. I think if I could press a button and just teleport everyone off the West Bank, I'd probably do it. I care more about, you know, children's lives. I care about nation or anything like that.

Of course. Let me ask David a question. Um, Adam is saying things. And I mean, I, I've tried to, you know, share my ultimate benefit of the doubt opinions that I have. They're not, they're not, I'm not faking them. They are things that I really believe. And, you know, I'm not focusing on my hardline opinions now, which are very realist and skeptical. But what is it about Adam, David, that, that you're drawn to? Because if, when I say similar things, things to you, you don't buy it? I don't think that you have cultural exposure to Palestinians. So I don't think you recognize just how malleable they are as a function of their lived environment. I think you're saying, okay, I, and like most Israelis, you're saying, I want them to

accept the existence of Israel. And I want them to pre-commit on behalf of their children to not, wage war against us in the future. This isn't... I never, I never said that. Of course, of course. But what I mean is, I think you recognize, well, okay, there wasn't anything different before 67. Clearly, it's not just about the settlements. You understand that there's marginal injustices, but I think you you think that the real injustice is the existence of Israel, and so long as Israel exists somewhere, well, I can't risk it. And I don't risk it. And I I agree if you were just trying to withdraw, right?

If anything, if I had your perspective, I would never even dream of withdrawal. But what I hear from Palestinians, and I'll go back to polling, when we withdrew or Israel withdrew, 75% of Palestinians who voted believe that Hamas should drop the uninvent Israel part of their platform. They voted for Hamas, but they didn't want Hamas to actually engage in perpetual war. most people about 60% didn't think that peace was possible, and of those who thought peace wasn't possible, a plurality voted for Hamas. But there was another poll, if you believed peace was possible, who would you vote for? They would have voted for Vata. When I talked to Palestinians, they have no conception that peace is possible or that Israel might want anything other than pushing them off of their land eventually. the idea of recognized that the second intifada was terrible for us politically in Israel.

The first intifada was good. Let's try to rebuild the Israeli left and work with them. That is a hypothesis that is incompatible with their world. Okay, Dave. Yeah, but so, so fine. But I am closer to Adam here because, and this is something I had brought up to many times. It goes back to the first thing I asked him about. It's the heckler's veto.

That is, well, the second intifada. It was a heckler's veto, right? I mean, as a Sumeraphat wasn't behind it. No, no, Arfat could have cracked down on it. I do believe that's possible. I think he had the ability to, just not the will. So I think that maybe the misunderstanding here is I probably align more with David. I align with your, you know, cynicism about Palestinian nature maybe, but I don't align on how changeable it is, I guess.

Because I think you can get to a situation like Jordan, for example. Jordan's not going to tolerate a revolution. Either old Egypt. That's a state you're trying to get to, not Arab Zionism. So my argument to David has always been fine, fine, fine. I have no reason to doubt you.

And this was the same thing I said to Bynard. But until one leader says such things, let alone a newsletter or a substax, until there's some thing that I can point to as a consumer of world events, to say, yeah, there's a movement here represented by Adam. And this seems very reasonable to me, and I'm a reason to be optimistic. All I hear is a bunch of Westerners and liberals overlaying the naive optimism onto an issue.

And they have nothing. I say, well, okay, email me an interview with a guy who represents what you're talking about. And this is the closest I've gotten to it so far is a guy behind an anonymous thing. You know, so, okay, I don't think you could say you're closer to David, but I actually think you're closer to me. But go ahead, David, go ahead. Okay, so first on the point of the Hekler veto, because I think this is really incorrect. If there is a social understanding that violence is going to be counterproductive, the extremists are not going to attempt violence and they're not going to get anywhere with it. Right. So let's take a look at Hezbollah in Lebanon. Like October 7th? No, no, no, October 7th is Palestinians have state capacity. Because they have state capacity and no one is suppressing them, they're going to vote for utopia.

They're going to elect whoever. 85% of the people are going to be non-political. And then the crazies with guns and an ideology are going to seize control. I am not arguing for withdrawal and free and democratic elections without any other context. Let me stay focused. On Lebanon, you have another institution, right, we have the PA in the West Bank. We're talking about the heckler's veto. We're not talking about unrestricted Palestinian id sovereignty.

For the longest time, Hezbollah made a credible case. Only we can deter Israel. Now, after two failed wars, even despite a track record of assassinating politicians and having a militia and being the strongest military in the region, we now have a prime minister and a president who are willing to risk assassination and say, screw you, we want sovereignty. Look at Syria. There is a ton of terrorists in Syria who want to march on front.

Jerusalem, nothing is happening. Look at Jordan. The Palestinians in Jordan are even more radical than the Palestinians are in the West Bank. They're not doing anything. So long as you're in a stable status quo, and there isn't someone giving people guns and telling them, do the revolution, they're not going to do anything. That's point number one. Point number two is if you have cultural exposure to Palestinians, you see how malleable they are. They have no internal awareness of this. They live in a closed political society. They aren't arguing about politics like we are. They aren't having a bunch of secret underground salons which are trying to figure out strategically what to do. They have a narrative. They have learned helplessness. And when someone gives them a gun and says, achieve your dignity,

they're going to use it. But also, something that Haviv said, it really stuck with me. He said they should try the Martin Luther King approach of doing peace. I see that all the time, right? I've done protective presence in the West Bank. I know a ton of palisive. Palestinians who are having their lives destroyed by crazy settlers and they're not responding with violence even though they could. They are trying to engage diplomatically. All of that is completely invisible to Israel because so long as Hamas exists, that's the only thing that Israelis here. And get rid of Hamas is not an action available to Palestinians. The only thing that I can possibly think of is Israel, hearing from people who know Palestinians, if you do this, they will

react this way, then Israel has to make the first move, and then Palestinian society will respond appropriately. You're never going to get... Okay. So you're making my argument essentially about the doctor's thing. Like, you're saying these are the things that they should do. And you can put your own probability of how successful that would be. I'm saying you can't ask for peace. You can't ask for a final settlement. You have to create a status quo and expect it to be stable. Yeah. So, okay. Adam, let me ask you a question. Forgive me if it sounds ethnocentric.

It's certainly ethno-naive. Temptation for a white guy in America is to look out at the Arab-slash-Persian world in general and clock all the tribal conflict and bloodshed and say to yourself, well, you know, people like David will always come up with a reason. But in some way, this just seems to be the nature of things over there. So why, if Sunni and Shiite, if Persians, if these people can't find a way to live happily together, why would they live happily together with the Jews?

Like, how naive is this idea that the one tribe, that's going to live in peace and harmony with the Muslims is going to be the Jews. Again, forgive me if that's an offensive question. No, no, no, it's not. We're talking about one state solution here, right? Are we? No, two states. That they're going to, going back to the beginning,

that they're going to just accept this kind of humiliation. The Nakhpa, we're just going to live with the Nakhpa, and we're going to live as a neighbor in peace with the Jews. In our land, we're going to give the Jews. We're going to give the Jews our land to live in, by the way, and we're going to be happy about it. Can you sharpen the question? If he was proposing a one state, I would understand your critique. But Jordan exists.

Jordan is fine. Why are you not fine with another Jordan in the West Bank? I am fine. I'm saying, I mean, I don't, this is why it's ethno-naive. I mean, Jordan and the Palestinians, these are very close cousins. But they don't, they're not raised either side on a, and not an indoctrination. of these people are sworn enemy.

I'm sorry, that's not really true. Of the Jordanians? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, not even just the Palestinians. Even the Jordanians, they don't like Israel. They hate them. They're anti-Semitic. We're talking about Israel.

We're talking about Jordan's relationship to Israel and why they're not at war right now. But my point is that if the Palestinians view that the Tuesday solution means giving the Jews our land. It does not have to mean that. not. And this is what I mean by something in the middle. You're not asking for Zionism. You're just asking for good enough. It's a good question. How do we know the Palestinians aren't going to attack us, right? And the answer is just their revealed preferences, right? War is expensive. It sucks. Why did the UAE make peace with, you know, I know they're not Palestinian, but why did they make peace with Israel? Why have they normalized relationships? Because it's better for them, because they live barolides. And just for their material gain, basically. And I think that's the kind of state that you're looking for. You're not looking for

we acknowledge Israel's borders and we were never ever going to try and take it again. I think it's possible to reach that someday. It is possible. But I don't think if we're anywhere close to that, obviously. But that's not the interim goal that you're looking for. You're looking for a situation where it just sucks to Star War. That's it. Yeah, I was in, I mean, I could, I was in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

And have you been there, Adam? I have. I mean, it's just amazing. It actually made me optimistic. In a sense, well, here's an Arab country and you see I saw like our orthodox Jew and a next to a Muslim woman, you know, dressed very modestly was like some Western woman with her breasts showing, you know, a lot of Cleveland. I'm saying this was a tolerant, obviously tolerant society. It's very tolerant. You know why it's really tolerant? Because the Muslims actually don't like this. They don't like it. But you know, people use the word tolerance very often. Am I tolerant if I'm

saying this to a gay person. I don't have a problem with gay people. I don't think I am. That's not what tolerance is. So the Muslims are actually tolerant there.

And they're tolerant because their government will allow them to be anything but tolerant. And that's what you need from a Palestinian state as well. Same thing. Well, you know, this means, at least it means this is possible. Absolutely.

But of course, they are wealthy and they're separated and they're not Palestinian. And they've kind of just like the Palestinian In the Israeli Arabs, to my understanding, they've already diverged culturally from their brothers who live just a few miles away from them. UAE is different at this point, right? There's a really cool stat here, a really cool poll I found. And when there was a normalization with the UAE and Israel, the people in the UAE, I think they were in the 80s against it.

And in the West Bank, it was, I think like 40%. against something like that. Anyway, isn't that an insane statistic though, that the UAE citizens were against it more than the Palestinians were? It's insane to me. And you can find a lot of polls like these are counterintuitive. I hope it's because the polls are wrong.

I think it's just because humans don't work that way. They just don't think in the same way as you do. You know, the citizens of the UAE, yeah, they're not happy. They're not happy about the normalization with Israel. But for them, it's not worth starting a revolution over. And that's all you need. That's it. Yeah, it's not a kitchen table issue for them.

Absolutely. So, listen, David, I'm going to turn it over to you. Why don't you ask him a question or two to bring out what it is that you really want the world to know about his opinions and more generally about the Palestinians? Yeah, Adam, there's a couple of things that I know Israelis really don't understand. One is just how much Muslims care about Alexa and what is possible. what is not possible. I was, I hope I'm not starting

World War III, but I was in Israel and I went up there and I was seeing the excavation. He means Al-Axa, not Alexa, the Amazon. No, I know.

You guys pronounce it really funny, by the way. It's Al-A-A-A-A-A. Al-A. I was looking at the Jews excavating for coins or whatever a couple hundred like feet southwest

of the mosque because they're like saying, If we find a coin, the Palestinians will believe we're from here. And in my head, I'm just thinking about all of those people that have told me, I think the Jews are doing something to the foundation and then it will collapse. And we can't have that. And we have to take over Jerusalem before it happens. And on the right of return, I think Israelis totally don't understand how it's experienced culturally.

I think they really believe that it's just a mechanism to convince the Westerners. into letting us take over Israel demographically. And the counterfactual is if there were 10 times as many Jews, such that this was a completely implausible mechanism, I do not think Palestinians would have any different relationship to it. So one, can you just talk about how there are very easy gains to coexistence that Jews could in principle do in terms of how they relate to the holy sites and then talk about the right of return?

All right. This is a softball regarding the Alaksa. Yeah, as you know, I'm not very religious myself, to put it mildly. So intuitively, I find this stuff hard to understand. But it's completely true that Muslims are obsessed with Al-Axa. And imagine a world where tomorrow is Joe announced that they're going to destroy Al-Axa, right? You wouldn't just have a problem with the Palestinians. You'd have a big problem with the entire Arab world. So that's how important Al-Axa is.

I've seen it argued, I think I've talked to you, you've told me, it might be more important than the rite of return in negotiations. It's just the idea of Jews owning Jerusalem and, you know, Al-Axa, is just completely unacceptable to Muslims. And I'm sure you know that Muslims are also very prone to conspiracy theories. They're very mistrustful of Jews, not just Jews, but especially Jews. And anything you do around Al-A-Sah, it's just they're going to assume the worst. I don't recommend it if your goal is peace.

I understand that there's a religious aspect for Jews as well, right? They also want to pray at the ruins of the Second Temple. But you're the more reasonable party. It's like you said, there's a lot of gains to be made if you maybe stop all that and you just make it very clear that you're not going to touch the Olaxo. And the second question was around the right of return, how the Palestinians think of it.

So in my debut piece, I called it Third Worldism, like the way they think about it. And what I meant by that is that they think, oh, this is mine, right? This is my land, right? And when they say this is my land, they're not talking about like, well, they are talking about all of Palestine, but with the riot of return, they're talking about where their grandpa's lived, like a literal, actual house, that some of them, you know, have the key. The house is gone, but they still have the keys, right? They still have the deeds or whatever.

And they're just thinking, I want that house back. And they're trying to write this wrong, the Nukba. Like, I'm sure you know, again, that the Nukba is a huge part of the mythology of Palestinianism. Like, it's our story. We were kicked out by the Jews from our homes. And for them, it's about writing that wrong. And, you know, the difference between what I think of the writer for turn and what

in our law of things is I don't think it's that malicious. It may be a little bit. It's a little bit malicious in the sense that the side effect is that it would destroy Israel if it were to ever come into fruition. But I don't think they're thinking of that specifically when they call for a right of return or they demand it. I think they're thinking, I want to take what's mine back. And I think that's a good thing because it changes the solution, right?

If destruction of Israel is the only thing that will help, then we're not going to get anywhere ever. If what they want is acknowledgments or how do I explain this? If what they want is just their stuff, like a material game, or, but from Israel, you can kind of assuage their hurt, wounded pride or whatever, without actually letting them return. I think there's a way to do that that they'd find acceptable, maybe. I've always been very interested in what would have happened if the omit offer were accepted. I think there would have been rioting, I do.

I just don't know about what exactly. Would it be the right of return would be the biggest issue here or Jerusalem? I'm really not sure. So what would you say, you said you heard my Peter Bynard interview? I found this very frustrating. I got a lot of criticism from people for being easy on him. But I thought to my ear, but I was wrong, to my ear, what he was saying was so kumbaya naive that I didn't need to underline it to people. But apparently I did.

You seem to have, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think you had a similar a reaction to what he was saying. I can't understand people who insist on a one-state solution. I think they're crazy, and I'm not for it. But if I was, if I was hypothetically calling for a one-state solution, I would still be doing the same things. I would be calling for a two-state solution. Because if you, while I convince the people who are most open to a one-state solution

in Israel, the Jews, obviously not the Israeli Arabs, if you want to convince them, you should probably convince them that they can live next to a Palestinian. Indian state without going to war, right? And then we could talk about one state solution. That option never actually goes away. I can kind of see like a vague idea of how a two state solution could happen. I can't even imagine how we would move towards a one state solution, like as in like a step by step basis, right, without a two state first. I don't think it's something so beautiful. It's such an amazing ideal like kumbaya holding hands. It's something that I want to achieve at all costs. I don't get it. What's so great

about it? That's what I think. I think that genuinely people prefer to live next to people who are similar-minded to them. That doesn't have to be race, of course. Jews aren't even, you know, as in gory, but it should at least be something shared. And Muslims and, you know, Jews don't

share a lot. I, you know, the stuff that Bynard says, and by the way, I wasn't faking how nice I thought he was. And since then, he, he came and had lunch in the oletry. I was away. I wasn't able to go and I hope to have

lunch with him. I don't, I, when I said that I think he has this wonderful faith in humanity, that was my honest belief of what he was saying. But I will say that when a minorly informed college kid expresses one state solution to us, you know,

he's a K, doesn't know any better. But when a seasoned, highly informed, a influential person like Peter Beinart expresses the notion of a one-state solution. To me, it's unbecoming. It's polluting our already polluted intellectual environment

with something which is so outlandishly impossible that neither side wants and would be destined to failure. and then all of a sudden automatically very much bandwidth is now devoted to digesting Peter Bynard's one-state solution nonsense. It upsets me. It's very counterproductive. I'm with you. And I mentioned this earlier. I really can't stand the piece next that you come to you with the platitudes.

I think potitudes are useless. We have to be pragmatic and both sides should be pragmatic. Yes. In the scenario where we have a one-state solution, even if there's no violence, even if there's no violence, we're going to, like, permanently have competition. Jews against voting for Jewish interests and Muslims willing for Muslim interests. Right now, today, in Israel, right? We have segregation, and not like, you know, official segregation, but Arabs live with Arabs for the most part. And Jews live with Jews, and it just can be more the same, right? It's going to be like a pseudo, one-state solution anyway. And that's the best case scenario, realistically. Yeah. But the, but the, but the advice. The advantage, I use that term advisedly, I've compared this to American situations. When you have 20% Arabs and 80% Jews, even though that might not be just, it's stable. When you have 50-50, all bets are off.

Absolutely. I think it would be the same for the other way around. Muslims are probably fine with around 20% Jews. They wouldn't be happy. This is the entire thing with the Balfour Declaration. It's the exact same thing. So, you know, I think Palestinians have no right to come. playing because they know. They know, like, it's the same if it were them. I don't think it's a very

serious argument. And it's like you said, Peter Bernard is an informed person, but he is the, this is the best version of the E1 State solution argument. That's how you should see it. It's a selection effect. This is the best version of it. This is what it looks like. It's not very convincing. All right. Exit question, unless David wants to say something afterwards, what do you want to tell us about Ben Gavir? Ben Gavir. I think he's great. He's great propaganda from my So that's honestly why I think. And it's the same with people like Randy Fine, Laura Luehmer. Yes, about Banghivir specifically.

But I think there's multiple people. Yeah, yeah. I think there's just multiple people like that who aren't actually doing much for Israel, right? I don't think they're doing anything good. Smotr is a different story, by the way. But Bangavir specifically, he's not doing anything particularly bad. But is it worth it if you're, you know, pro-Igill is this loud mouth who's ruining your reputation, and making Israel culture

to becoming an actual prior state in the eyes of Western nations is it worth it? I don't think it is. Of course not. Yeah. And what about Smotritch? He's good for Palestinians.

Smotrich has actual policies that are pretty bad for Palestinians for like a future to stay, which is what are we talking about? We're talking about the West Bank, right? Permits, that kind of thing. And he's done this successfully. Nobody really talks about the permits, for example.

I think that one's a big deal. Even before October 6th, seven, a Palestinian couldn't build in Area C of the West Bank. And I think that makes life so much harder for them. And again, it's kind of a quiet

thing. It's something people don't talk about. So he's effective in that way. He's the effective version of evil. I'd bet it that way. In a masculine question, I said it was the last quote, but this is like it. If God were to come down in the form of a burning bush

and speak to Benjamin Netanyat And speak to Benjamin Netanyahu and say, listen, Ben, if you tell anybody I'll deny it. But this is the truth. If you make the deal that Almert suggested, if you make that deal, I promise you, there will never be another Jew killed by a Palestinian again. No matter what you think, no matter what they say, I promise you that peace will hold and it will hold forever. But you don't have to take it. It's up to you, Netanyahu, but I just want to tell you, if you want to know what the future is on that timeline, that is the future of that timeline. You won't have Judean Samaria, you won't have whatever it is, but you will have peace forever.

Do you think in your heart Netanyahu would take that two-state solution or would not? I think he'd probably take it. I'm not certain. I don't think he's a very, I don't think it's obvious. I think he'd take it, though. I think so, too. Yeah, I don't think it's true for every Israeli politician, obviously. but for Netanyahu I feel like he would take it.

I feel like he would too. I also spoke to someone who knows him very well, who also told me they think he would take it, but nobody knows, you know, nobody can know for sure. But I just don't believe, I think he is a Jabotinskyite who, you know, feels that he will not take any chances with the future of the Jewish people.

It's not that he wants anything other than the safety of the Jewish people, but he will not take any chance. That's my feeling about it. That makes sense to me. I've always got in the sense that he's a pragmatic person, Nathaniel. He's not religious. Right. He kicks the bucket down the road.

That's what he likes to do before, you know, obviously, October 7th. And by the way, I am a fan of kicking the bucket down the road because I think things can always get better, even if you don't do anything. I think that the world trends towards secularization. You may or may not agree with me there. I think that's a phenomenal. No, I'm laughing because I was just going to live. let it pass when you said he kicks the bucket down the road. I'm saying, you know what,

nine times out of ten times. I think it's wise to kick the bucket down the road. Right. We can't do that, unfortunately, anymore. But it used to be a real option. And it was great, right? I think if, you know, if you could pause this element, if you could enforce the law, if you could leave a path open for Boston means to stop being crazy, I just kick the bucket until they do take that path. I think that'll be great. As long as you could, you know, guarantee your safety. That's what I would do as an Israeli apartment. There's a famous scene in which I'm sure is a movie which gets under the skin of Arabic people in Lawrence of Arabia where he, where this, where one of the British generals

says, yeah, do nothing. It's usually the best. He says usually the best thing. They're a very famous scene. All right. I think I cut you off there a little bit. I'm going to give you the last word. I think we should do this again.

I don't know if we'll ever get to meet you in person. But, you know, I think this has been a great conversation. the last word, Adam, to say whatever you want. Go ahead. All right. I think I said the most important things I had to say. It was a great conversation, I think. Yeah.

Hasbara. Explain to him just how bad Israeli-Hasbarians and what they should do better. I really, it's true. I want to David. Just a little bit. It's so cringed. I really hate Israeli Hasbro. I'm really not fan.

And I will say especially towards Arabs. They have some, you know, Hasbara towards Arabs. But not just towards Arabs. So I did tell you, like, after October 7th. I changed my mind. I think I would change my mind a lot faster if Israeli Hasbro wasn't so stupid. So if you're the most important people, they're not the Westerners, because they're reasonable, right? I mean, to send propaganda to. The most important people are the Arabs. And if you're trying to convince the Arabs, you shouldn't say things like we're the most moral army in the world, while, you know, Ben-Givir and Smotrich and others as well are talking about starving Gaza. you shouldn't be tweeting two years later about the refugee strike that killed 100 people in Arabic.

That did happen, by the way, and I'm referencing a real thing. You shouldn't be saying there's no such thing as a Palestinian, even if it's, I understand what you mean by that, by the way. I kind of acknowledge it. I think that there is such a thing as a Palestinian, but there wasn't before 1967. And I think you just need to use Israeli Arabs. I think that propaganda should come from them. I think that you should use the Arab states as well. You should be convincing them because they're very important, especially Qatar, by the way.

Qatar just basically owns the entire narrative, Arab narrative. So if you get Qatar on your side, you convince the Arabs. And that's what I have to say about Hasbro. I think you can do a much better job. And I think it would make a huge difference if you're actually trying to get the Palestinians to a state where you can make peace with them. Yeah, I agree with the thousand percent. they use their pessimism and their realistic skepticism as an excuse then to become populist as it were and just do everything that is designed to make sure to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy

that this will never be solved. It's terrible. I want to thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast. I know that you felt that it might be hopeless that if it ever became postings, public who you weren't, you know, wouldn't be good for you. I just encourage more people to have public conversations about this because people have zero exposure to people on the other side, even saying things like, I want peace. If I saw this, I would believe that the other side meant it. And if we just had more people, even to just ask each other, is it safe for me to trust your society now?

Because I think both societies have absolutely no idea what would happen if they let go and try to build something better, you know, than the last hundred years of war. So Adam, Noam, thank you for taking the time. Good night, everybody. Adam, I really appreciate you taking the time. I'm very proud to meet you, and I hope to meet you again. It was great. Maybe in person.

Thank you. Thank you, No.