The Young Turks - Cenk Uygur & Peter Beinart: The Uncomfortable Truth About US-Israel Policy

Episode Date: May 10, 2026

In this powerful and potentially polarizing conversation, Cenk Uygur sits down with Peter Beinart to go deep on the issues that mainstream media often refuses to touch. Following their debate on Piers Morgan, the two reunite to explore the complexities of US-Israel relations, the influence of the donor class on American foreign policy, and the shifting narratives around the conflict in the Middle East. https://peterbeinart.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more at www.W.W.F35.com slash Canada. Hey, Jen, good to see you. Hey, can you hear me? Hey, I can. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. No problem. So, as I mentioned before, basically, just you and I will speak, but other folks here are here to listen, and they'll put, they might put questions

in the chat. I might convey some of them, but it's just a conversation between you and me. Okay. So for those of folks who don't know, and I'm sure he needs a little introduction, but Jen Guiger is the co-host

and creator of the Young Turks has been for more than 20 years, one of those prominent, progressive political commentators, and really, really glad we were able to do this conversation. It kind of came out of a conversation that we were on with Pierce Morgan, and then that conversation left me with some concerns.

And so, Jenk and I had a private conversation, and we agreed we do a public one. And, Jake, before I get into some of the things, to some of the concerns that I have, I think that it's important to acknowledge that you and I agree on vastly more than we disagree about. I think when it comes to Israel, Palestine, and U.S. policy. And I thought maybe I should just give you the opportunity to just say something about how you see the general problem with U.S. policy towards Israel and U.S. public discourse more generally. Yeah. So there's a lot to get into today, Peter. And thank you for doing this conversation. I think it's really important. And I especially wanted to have it with you because I trust you. And I think we'll have a good, thoughtful discussion, right? And yes, we definitely agree more than we disagree. Having said that, I think that we will find plenty to disagree on today. And so what I want to do is I want to challenge the way people think.

And if I'm being honest, especially not just Israeli supporters, but I'm going to get into Jewish American leaders and stereotypes and tropes and all those conversations today. And I implore people to have an open mind because what is going to be. to happen is I'm going to say some things that are going to trigger you. Okay. And so what trigger means is you have an automatic reaction, right? Like, oh, no, that's wrong, right? And I want you to push past that. Keep your open mind. And then at the end, if you still hate me or I don't agree, et cetera, et cetera, no problem. But if you shut down at some point, that means that you got uncomfortable, not because you thought I was wrong, but maybe you were a little nervous that I was right. Okay.

So I want you to keep that in mind as we go through this conversation, because it is definitely going to get uncomfortable in parts. Okay. So now, having said that to your question, Peter, of like the summary overall, I think what Israel's done so far has been atrocious. And I will use very harsh words to describe it. And I can't stomach it. I can't believe that anyone can stomach it. And so obviously we have the genocide in Gaza. We have the invasion of southern Lebanon.

We have the needless war that they started with Iran that they're forcing America to participate in. See, there's one right there. Oh, we're not forcing anyone. Okay, right. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Okay. So and so the fact that Israel is the powerful and the bad guys in this scenario is not even close. close. That's so I don't know how to, you know, the only question I think that you and I'll have,

Peter, is like the degree to which they are doing wrong, right? And so, and I think the Palestinians and the Arab neighbors of Israel have been grossly, grossly oppressed and, and just brutalized. And I think that if your heart is not open to that, you really got to look in the mirror and say, you know, what went wrong in your life? Sorry, but that's just, I mean, I would say that in the middle of any genocide for any group of people, okay? And then so, and I want to talk about that, and I know Peter does too, about other genocides and comparing. And then the last thing is, you know, where it gets really uncomfortable is when we come back home here to America and, you know, I want to talk about the politics and media. And yeah, I think Israel has enormous.

power here in America and they abuse it greatly. And so I want to get into that conversation as well. Thanks. So do I. And I appreciate it. And again, I think in terms of our understanding of how profound Israel's oppression is of Palestinians and its aggression in Lebanon and Iran, I think we agree. And I think we'll talk more about it. But I think we basically are analysis of the American political system when it comes to Israel is pretty similar. The thing that left me confused and troubled about the conversation on Pierce Morgan, I really didn't know what to do because I think that a lot of what you're doing is very, very valuable. And I try to ask myself sometimes the question, as a Jewish person, like, am I overwhelmed by certain fears and anxieties that I have, right? None of us are

like universal. We all come with our own particular baggage. And, and, but, I'm, but, I think the thing that got me in the conversation that I wanted to ask you about was when you said at a certain point, we're sick of Israeli control. They have driven Trump into every war, every war. And then I just thought, again, I don't think that was an anti-Semitic statement. I don't, I'm very, very, very loathe to accuse people of anti-Semitism. And I think the amount of bad faith and accusations of anti-Semitism has been an utter disaster in American public conversation. And it's been a disaster for Jews. So I don't think there's anti, that was an anti-Semitic statement. I want to be clear. But I don't think it was a factual statement. I just don't think that there's a good argument to make that Israel was responsible for Trump's invasion of Venezuela. And you said, and I went and looked, like, you said a bunch of times, basically, that you think that Israel got America into the war in Venezuela. And I just, that doesn't, I, I don't, I disagree.

I don't, I don't see the argument. Yeah. So, look, if you extend what I said to, like, of all. time. No, Israel had nothing new with Vietnam, right? So I don't want people to mistake what I'm saying. There is no weird, like, cabal where they, you know,

do things that are irrational, right? Like, I get the rationality of, like, I care, they, Israel cares about Lebanon and Iran, et cetera. They're going to affect that. And that's where we can again get back into the question of, to what degree did they influence America into those wars? On

Venezuela, that's a super interesting, case, right? So it's unlikely to be related to Israel. In fact, when we first start talking about it on the young Turks, we never mentioned Israel at all because what does Venezuela have to do with Israel? And then we started seeing clips of Lindsay Graham and others going, Venezuela's arming Hamas and Hamas, Hamas, and we have to do this for Israel. I'm not like, what?

Now, Israel's involved in this? What is this? Right? So I didn't come up with it. Like, we documented on the show. like dozens of people out of nowhere talking about how we have to do this for Israel. And I'm like, that is the strangest thing in the world.

And so then apparently Venezuela and Iran were preparing, were exchanging weapons or drones or something along those lines. And so was Israel 100% of the reason we went into Venezuela? Not at all, right? Did they tip the balance? Maybe. And if you remember, Peter, of course,

you and I had a conversation off here about, okay, Cuba would be is an interesting test case, because Cuba has absolutely nothing to do with Israel. As far as we know, there's no drones, there's no nothing, no neocon has ever mentioned a connection between Cuba and Israel. And so I said that means, I think, that we won't go into Cuba, okay, because Israel won't tip the balance. And so if they don't tip the balance, we won't do it. And lo and behold, we said we were going to go into Cuba and we didn't. But with Venezuela, we did. So, and by the way, Ukraine is, so that's another interesting example, right?

So Ukraine is, is it majority Israel? No, no, no, no, no way. Like, we had a, we had made a promise to Ukraine to, you know, if they gave up their nukes after the Soviet Union fell apart, that we would defend them. And plus, we're worried about the encroachment of Russia into Europe. So those are all super legitimate reasons. and Russia invaded, right? What we're going to do? We help them defend it.

Now, having said that, it, again, this is, I find out later as we are, you know, six months a year into the Ukraine war, oh, and I should have known this early. It's my fault. Like, now when I mentioned it, you'll go, oh, yeah, of course. So Israel wants Russia to be preoccupied because Russia was helping in Israel's perspective, Iran and Syria. And so if Russia's preoccupied, it will it be easier to, depose Bashar al-Assad.

Yeah, and it turned out exactly like that. So Israel is very happy that we're in a super-perlonged war between Ukraine and Russia so that Russia is distracted and has to deal with their own problems. And that allowed Israel, and by the way, Turkey to topple Bashar al-Assad and Turkey to occupy northern Syria and Israel to occupy Western Syria. So did Israel tip to balance on that? No, because we would have had that war anyway. Did they tip the balance and staying longer, perhaps?

Yeah, maybe. I mean, I guess on the Venezuela thing, yes, there are people who talk about Venezuela's relationship to Hezbollah. Israel may well be happy that the U.S. toppled Venezuela. But it just seems to me when one looks at the long arc of American interventions in Latin America, which 100 years of doing this, right? You know, we toppled the Arbenz in Guatemala in 54. We toppled Allende in Chile.

We tried to invade Cuba multiple times. We haven't. It just seems to me we armed the contours. It just seems to me there's so much evidence that this is the reoccurrence of, and Trump's even talks about it, the Monroe doctrine, of something the U.S. has been doing with great consistency for really long time. And so the fact that someone mentioned that they might, that Venezuela might have a connection to Hezbollah,

It just seems to be really a stretch to say that Israel is the reason for this when it's completely consistent with a pattern in American history that goes way back long before Israel even existed. So, Peter, look, we could debate, hey, was Israel 15% of a factor, 55% of a factor, 35, whatever the number is, right? So, and if you say, hey, Jank, no, I think it's a much smaller factor than you think. No problem, okay? That's not the hill I'm dying on, right? But in terms of the major, major wars that we are having in the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, every war that, you know, you again, Afghanistan? No, not Afghanistan. You've also said that the war on terror was, quote, war against America's enemies.

And the first war we fought after 11 was against, I don't, against the Taliban in Afghanistan. And so, again, I also felt like that was an overly broad statement in terms of exaggerating Israel's role. No, no. So, Peter, you're right to have this conversation and to correct me, I would argue around the edges, right? But so I, and you misspoke there. You said America's enemies. I said Israel's enemies and I think you meant that. Yes, sorry, you said the global war on terror is a global war against Israel's enemies. My mistake. Yeah. And I often say against Israel's neighbors, too. So now, Afghanistan in the beginning has to do with Taliban, 9-11, et cetera, and actually throughout, right? So, no, I wouldn't include Afghanistan in that. And when I talk about the specifics, I don't, right?

But having said that, most of the $8 trillion that we spent on the global war on terror wasn't global at all. It was all of Israel's enemies and neighbors. So Israel wanted us to attack seven countries. That's well-established fact in 1996, you know, project for a new American century. You know all about it. We all covered it, right? that was before the Iraq war and the neocons

were not at all Jewish but were they all supporters of Israel? Yes, right? So for whatever different reasons and did Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon want us to attack those seven countries? Absolutely, that is indisputable. Did we attack all seven countries?

Yes. So we can argue around the edges of Venezuela we could disqualify or exempt Afghanistan but at the end of the day, So, okay, if you got me on, maybe we spent a trillion on Afghanistan, the seven trillion attacking Israel's neighbors. Okay, fine, seven trillion is attacking Israel's neighbors. Like so, and again, Peter, it's kind of indisputable. I mean, these wars have almost nothing to do with us.

And Israel keeps saying back then, Iraq is our number one enemy. America must take it out. And then we do. Iran is our number one enemy. And America must take it out. And then we do. and we spend trillions and trillions and we lose a lot of Americans and it's it's unconscionable I mean we can get into the specifics but there is literally no reason for America to be in this

Iran war and when you do the cost benefit analysis oh my God the cost is monstrous the benefit is microscopic unless of course you're Israel in which case you want to be the regional superpower and you want to destroy every nearby country that could oppose you or that could help the Palestinians so I get why Israel wants to do it. It's very logical for them. And for us, it's the most irrational thing in the world, unless all of our politicians are controlled by Israel, which they most obviously are. But I don't just disagree with you about Venezuela and Afghanistan and what you say about Israel. I disagree with you about Iraq, too. Israel was not saying in 2002 that its greatest enemy was Iraq.

It was saying that its greatest enemy was Iran. And there's a whole series of quotations, both from Israeli leaders and from U.S. government officials saying, that what the Israelis were saying to the U.S., especially in the, especially from the beginning of 2002 until the fall of 2002, was that we think you're focused on Iraq when you should be focused on Iran. Let me just give you one quote from Lawrence Wilkerson, right, who was working for Colin Powell, who's actually someone I think a lot of progressive really respect. He said, quote, the Israelis are telling us Iraq is the enemy, that Iraq is not the enemy, Iran is the enemy, right? We also have the Martin Indic, the former ambassador of U.S.

Israel, that he's quoted in David Korens, hubris. He said that when he was in Israel, people spoke about Iran, Iran, Iran all the time. The defense minister of Israel in February 22 said Iran is more dangerous than Iraq. The chief of staff of the Israeli military in October 2002 said he's not losing any sleep over the Iraqi threat. I'm not saying that Israel did not support the war in Iraq. Israel did support the war in Iraq, but Israel did not drive the U.S. towards the war in Iraq. It was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who drove it, and Israel went along with it. Yeah, I totally disagree.

So we, Ariel Sharon said Iraq was their number one enemy at the time. When? I saw a direct quote from Sharon. So make you look, I saw it a while back if you want to pull it up. It's no problem. No, I mean, send it to me. But even Joe Kent has said that he has acknowledged. Even Joe Kent has acknowledged.

This is what Joe Kent said, that Sharon was initially against it because he wanted us to focus on Iran. But then towards the end, he got on board. This is Joe Kent talking to Tucker Carlson. Okay, but brother, but Peter, Peter, we all saw Netanyahu with our own eyes. He wasn't the by minister. Okay. When he testified to Congress, he wasn't in office. Okay.

So Ariel Sharon says, yes, let's go. Let's destroy them. Netanyahu says, there are, we want you to attack them. We demand that you attack them. And so those are the top two leaders of Israel over the last 20, 30 years. Hold on, hold on. Okay. And all of the neocons are.

are pro-Israel and they say, oh, we got to do it, we got to do it, Wolfowitz, Fife, all those guys, Bill Crystal, Pothords, they're all massive Israel first guys, all absolutely demanding this war. They don't care about America at all. The only concern that Pardorz and Crystal and Fromm and all those guys had was Israel. So they didn't coincidentally wind up having a perfect alliance on this. And Project for a New America's entry was seven countries. was first and Iran was last. And what did we do? Iraq was first and Iran was last. So look,

Peter, you can come in with some other random Israelis saying, well, we're slightly concerned, but not that, you know, we're more concerned about around, whatever. The bottom line is, they were on a list that Israel handed to our politicians and said, you must destroy them. And we did destroy them. And so we start, you could say, oh, maybe they wanted to start with Iran and end with Iraq instead of starting with Iraq and ending with Iran. But, but, you know, But there is no dispute that those are the seven countries Israel wanted us to attack, and we attacked all seven. No, first of all, I was talking about Ariel Sharon, who was the defense, who was the prime minister,

his chief of staff of the military, and the defense minister, all of whom said, and all of whom were quoted repeatedly as saying that they were much more concerned about Iran than Iraq. Netanyahu was not in office at the time when he testified Congress. And I think you're then moving to conflating Israel, right? those in the Israeli government with people like Wolfowitz, Crystal, yes, Wolfowitz and Crystal absolutely wanted the United States to go into war in Iraq. So did Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, right, and George W. Bush, all of who had more influence than Crystal and Wolfowitz. And I don't think that Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush were doing it because Israel wanted it.

They had a vision after 9-11 of how they wanted to remake the Middle East. They wanted the U.S. to take control of Iran's oil. They wanted to basically take the imperialist project that America had been pursuing in Latin America for a century and make it global as a way of dominating and transforming the Middle East and basically controlling the oil. And Israel truthfully was okay with it,

but it was not Israel's obsession in the way that it was Cheney and Romsfeld. And again, even the people who've done the deep, even if you look at the TikTok books, the book, look at David Korn's book, look at Mel Lephel's book, look at the series of books we have where they've interviewed everybody in the Bush administration,

try to reconstruct how we did it. You don't find a lot of references to Israel and APAC in these books. You just don't. And so I just don't think there's the evidence for what you're suggesting. So, Peter, if you say, hey, it's a confluence of factors, including oil for sure, and defense contractors, et cetera, I'm going to agree with you, right? If you say that, well, it just happened to be Iraq and that Israel wanted us to attack Iraq, and Iran and all the other countries.

I don't think Israel really did want us to attack or that's what we disagree. I think they wanted to attack Iran. And they knew, they knew that they knew that they also feared that the Iraq war would empower Iran, their greatest enemy, which he did. But sorry, go ahead. So, okay, so let's see if it's weapons of mass destruction. So that's the excuse they give us, right? North Korea built, what, eight nukes, probably more.

But North Korea is lucky. They don't have oil. and they're not Israel's neighbor. So we don't care about nukes at all. We don't care about weapons of mass destruction at all. That's just a total nonsense lie by both the American officials and Israeli officials. So we can eliminate that part of the conversation. But I bring up North Korea because it's such a great case of a totally rogue nation doing the thing that we say we're most concerned about building weapons of mass destruction.

And no one cares because they're not next to Israel. Period. I don't think that's the reason we didn't attack North Korea. I think you answered the reason. We haven't attacked North Korea because they got nukes, because they got on the other side of that. No, but no, but Peter. We attack countries that don't have nukes like Libya and Iraq and Iran. The North Koreans got bought themselves deterrence. And but not just with nukes, by the way, they also have the capacity to devastate Seoul and the American troops in Seoul. So they had a much stronger deterrent. So I don't think the fact that they're not an obsession of Israel is the determinant fact. It's definitely the determinative factor.

So I agree with you that, yeah, Seoul is greatly endangered. Japan is greatly endangered. That war would have made no sense. But having said that, we attacked Iraq on theoretical weapons of mass destruction a bunch. Can I curse here? Sure. A bunch of utter bullshit created by both Dick Cheney and the Israelis. Oh, they're going to get nukes.

So we have to attack them 20 years in advance. Iran, we have to attack them. And Yahu's been telling us they attack them for 40 years in advance. And they never even got nukes, right? So could we have gone, if we were really concerned about nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, could we have gone into North Korea much, much, much earlier, of course. But we're not concerned about that at all. It's nothing but a giant lie.

So then you go to, okay, how about oil? Like, oil is another connective tissue. So that's a, you have a perfectly good point when you say oil is a connective tissue, right? And a big driving factor, right? So I think Nigeria has a lot of oil. How come we haven't attacked them? Because they're not next to Israel. That's the only countries we ever attack are right next to Israel.

The ones that Israel says endanger them and how we have to, we have to, we have to attack them. And by the way, why don't we ever use their troops? Like, why are we using our troops for this Iran war that is a billion percent unnecessary that we don't want an Israel once? So why? But no, no, we, no, Americans got to die, not Israeli. So it's just, come on, Peter, come on. Oh, okay.

Again, I think you're throwing out a lot of things. I want to make clear. I'm not saying that I believe that Israel opposed the Iraq war. I'm saying I don't think that Israel drove the Iraq war. And I do think you have a tendency to, in these different cases, exaggerate Israel's role, not on Iran, on the current war, where I agree, Israel was absolutely central. On the question of why we attacked Iraq rather than Nigeria, well, the United States had gone to war against Iraq during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. We had fought Saddam Hussein, right?

He had the potential to be a really powerful anti-American actor in the United States, in the Middle East. And the United States has a history of basically trying to destroy every actor in that region that potentially could be an adversary to American. power. We were open, we had these no-fly zones. We had the sanctions regime, all of this stuff, which was basically unsustainable. We had an unsustainable. And so I think it's a completely different situation than Nigeria. There are lots of countries that had war that had, but we already had this history of a conflict with Saddam Hussein, right? And we saw, and so I think you can't, I think that's a central element of why. We were also afraid that Saddam Hussein could potentially, again, the United States cares much more about the Middle East.

than it does about West Africa, partly because of Iraq's oil, partly because of Saudi and Emirati oil, right? This is like the basis of the U.S. economy, and we fear that Saddam Hussein could be a hegemon. Again, I think the war was a horrible disaster and a crime, but I just don't think it's the same as Nigeria. But Peter, okay, so let's look at the context, right? So you say the context of the Iraq hostilities, et cetera, right? So how about the context of we give Israel every single thing they asked for. So, like, are we supposed to leave that context out? With that context in mind, then, oh, I'm supposed to believe that it's a coincidence that we've attacked all of Israel's neighbors, but not anyone who is not a neighbor outside of Venezuela, which was making drones for

Hezbollah. Well, first of all, we have a, we have a suffocating blockade on Cuba right now, and we've had sanctions against North Korea for basically your and my entire adult lifetimes, right? Yeah, so I'm not saying, yeah. I'm not saying, Peter, that we don't have any other interests in the world, right? What I'm saying is when the Israelis want something, and they tell us the jump, we ask how high, how many countries would you like us to invade? How many trillions of dollars would you like us to spend?

Yes, sir, absolutely, sir. And we can get into why, but last thing on Iraq. Yeah. So, you know, so conveniently, we don't attack the other oil countries. We don't attack the other weapons of mass destruction countries. They're on the list that Israel wants us to attack. Wolfowitz, Fife, all those guys. are massively pro-Israel first, and they're the ones who drove this war, and maybe does everyone

in Israel agree? Of course not, right? Did, you know, everyone in the Israeli government even agree at the time that Iraq should be a high priority? Probably not. Did Wolfowitz and the rest of the gang think that they were helping Israel when they did it? Absolutely. Do you think that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were Israel first? No, that's a little bit more complicated. So they, so, part of my thesis and we could transition to this to get to get into the context conversation right is that the problem is in israel the problem is money in politics right and so money in politics uh in on on an institutional and systemic level began in nineteen seventy six to 78 so the supreme

court decisions of baladi and first national bank of boston sorry first national bank of boston versus Blatty and Buckley v. Vileo. So that's basically where they legalized bribery. And then Citizens United comes along in 2010. I'm sorry. What? Sorry, Jenk. We'll get rid of that. Go ahead. No, that's okay. Yeah. So, and so Citizens United comes by and shoots a dead horse, but like with a gatling gun. So, and the reason I give you that context is because what has happened since then, and I wrote about the similar book, Justice's County, is that the Republicans quicker, but Democrats slower, but both parties start to take unlimited money. Okay?

The number one benefactor of that is not Israel. It's corporate rule, right? Corporations, Chamber of Commerce, et cetera. The number one donors historically in America is not Israel. It's big farmer, okay? And Big Pharma took a bigger advantage of this than Israel did, and I can give you details, et cetera. So, and we can't negotiate drug prices.

It's mental. So in that span between 78. and today, we have gotten progressively more and more corrupt. So when you're in that 2000 range with Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, are they influenced by the new, like the influx of APEC lobby money and the Israeli lobby money? Of course they are, right? Are they also influenced by old school factors, right? American hegemony, oil.

Military industrial complex, right? Military industrial complex for sure. I mean, Cheney had worked at Halliburton. He didn't work for Israel. He worked for Halliburton. Totally. And he got a $34 million golden parachute. And then conveniently, Halliburton got no bid contracts, right?

Huge factor. So I'm not erasing those factors at all. That's why Iraq's such an interesting, like, point in history where I think we make the turn and all we do is represent donors from there on out. Okay. And by the time we get to Iran, the control of the don't. owner class and not just the Israeli lobby, all the donors, is nearly 100%, okay, until Israel starts abusing that power so badly that now we're having a push back in terms of the electorate,

etc. But between about the last quarter century, basically, money took over everything. So it went from Israel influencing certainly the neocons, and then Bush, Cheney-Rumsfeld, to a large degree to now Trump doing Iran 100% because of Israel. And so this is where like a lot of Jewish folks have been taught. That's no, that's a trope and you have to hate it and you have to believe that the person is saying it is anti-Semitic. And just shut off your mind. Don't listen.

Don't listen. Right. So that's been my experience. So, and I say a lot of Jewish folks, definitely not all, where I'm having a conversation with you. And there's angels who have been fighting for. peace nonstop, right? And in fact, the majority of Jewish Americans are against the Israeli government. 63% are against that and Yahoo's government. Okay. So, so, but are they are these leaders, et cetera, and they've gotten people to believe that if you say these 38 different things that

qualify as tropes, just shut off your mind. Don't talk. Don't listen, right? But please get past that because it isn't about Israel, right? Like I, we give $35 billion in oil subsidies. That's, Nearly 10x of what Israel gets on an average year. Why? Because the oil companies 100% control Congress. So you can't say that big former 100% controls it, big oil 100% controls it. But when you get to the Israeli lobby, no, they're magically exempt because of a trope or whatever thing we invented. No, I certainly don't think they're exempt at all.

And I agree with you about the mounting corruption. And I agree with it that APEC and other pro-Israel donors are one very clear example. of how that distorts American policy and harms ordinary Americans and harms even more people around the world, Palestinians, most of all. But even on Iran, I guess I do feel like that sometimes when you state things, I feel like you overstate them, even on Iran where I think there's no question that Netanyahu pushed and pushed and pushed for Trump to go to go to war with Iran. We also know that Netanyahu was pushing previous American presidents to attack Iran. And Barack Obama didn't attack Iran.

He actually made a nuclear deal with Iran. So it does suggest, actually, that Israel doesn't always get everything it wants when it comes to U.S. wars, doesn't it? Yeah. So I give Obama tremendous credit for doing the Iran deal when he was in charge. And he resists a ton of pressure to do that deal. And it's, I'm a very significant critic of Obama from the left. but you got to give him credit on that and he held out so that's why peter i say i explain the the spectrum of how we got more and more corrupt as we went along right and so now in order

to make up for not attacking iran then obama you know is the one who did the memorandum of understanding four billion dollars a year for ten years unconditional what an a thing. Why would our aid to anybody or anything be unconditional, right? And then he gave them Iron Dome and he gave them every other thing that they asked for, but they still are bitter. Netanyahu still hates Obama because he dared not listen to Israel once, right?

So the arrogance of Netanyahu is unbearable and over the top. But also, like, it's interesting because his expectation is, you do as you're ordered, what the hell Obama didn't do as he's ordered? This isn't outrage. So like the exception proves the rule. Like we could see, okay, there's one thing that

Obama did that Israel was unhappy with. Biden then goes, oh, wonderful genocide. Beautiful. Please slaughter more Palestinians. Here's a $21 billion gift for you to murder more Palestinians. Oh, we love you, Israel. We love your genocide, right? But when they say to him, hey, go attack Iran. he's like everyone outside of Trump knew that attacking Iran was going to be an unmitigated disaster for America. So it's like it's like a murder suicide pack, right? And so every other president had enough sense to say, I'll give you everything else in the world. But if we go into Iran together, neither one of us is going to win. And this is, and you're going to absolutely like destroy my administration, American support for Israel, etc.

The only one dumb enough or compromise enough to go along was Trump, but also because of the time factor. At this point, control has gone from 50% to 70 to 80 to 100%. But let's do this counterfactual. Let's imagine that Trump's attack on Venezuela at the beginning of this year had been a disaster, that the helicopters have been shot down. We'd lost dozens of troops. We hadn't overthrown Maduro or we've gotten in some quagmire where are. Do you still think he would have attacked Iran?

because I actually think that his perceived success and hubris and kind of in the wake of Venezuela was another really critical factor beyond the fact that Netanyahu was pushing for him. You seem to be attributing it entirely to Israel. Yeah. So like it's totally fair to bring up that factor, right? And you're right that the ease with which we did Venezuela definitely gave him a false sense of confidence and hubris. And Peter, we're going to find out if I am exaggerating. And I also wonder it, right?

And so, like, I'm always open to new facts. And if new facts show a different direction, then I'm happy to adjust. I don't want to be wrong and I don't want to stay wrong, right? So like I laid out a marker with Cuba with you about a month ago and we have, the U.S. isn't talking about Cuba since. Okay, but that's a small thing and it's a little tangential and it's not dispositive at all, right? It's just a small data point. Okay, this is a large data point.

And I might be wrong. And I literally had a conversation with my production crew today about it. And so if we get out of this war now, like if Trump finds a way to taco and nacho and whatever else flip flops he does and goes, I can't have oil go to $150 per barrel. It'll be an economic nightmare. Everybody understands we have to stop this war. the only people who seem to not understand it is the stock market. If we continue the war, we are on the edge of worldwide economic collapse. Like, that is not a hyperbole.

And the top energy experts, the top experts, financial experts in the world are like, say the same thing. So we have got to end that war right now, right? And so if we re-enter the Iran war and we start bombing them again, and especially their oil and gas facility, or we put in ground troops. Your x-ray. Then I was right.

And the controls 100%. And at that point, I would even say that there's some chance, maybe even a good chance, that they have blackmail on Donald Trump. And that is not an outrageous proposition at all. Israel does blackmail all the time. And so like a lot of people in America are super naive about how politics works and in the Middle East, etc. And Israel's not the only one that does it. They just do it more effectively. But if it turns out that no, Trump does get a peace deal, it's, you know, I don't care about the details of it at all. We just got to

get the hell out of there. And we reopen up the straight of Hormuz, et cetera. And we don't re-engage in the war. And Israel's furious about it. But, and in fact, but there's no blackmail. They don't release anything. It's totally fine. And Trump just got talked into it with them because he'd been bribed by the Edelson's and was surrounded in a bubble and he's a moron. Then I'll come back and say, hey, you know, Peter, like, yeah, 100% was way too strong. So they were an enormous influence in going to Iran in the first place. And that's indisputable. And you agree with that. But it turns out it wasn't 100%. Right. And we did defy them when they wanted to stay in the war. So that's a super important marker.

And so we're doing this conversation at a good time to be able to see what happens going forward. But will you like I'm preemptively conceding that I could be wrong if it goes in that direction. If we stay in this war, which is absolutely maniacal, do you concede that it's closer to 100%? No, I mean, I don't think it's 100%. Because I don't really, I don't really, I guess I disagree with you. I don't think that what we do now really has that much bearing on. why we got into it. I think we got into it because Netanyahu was pushing and pushing, and Netanyahu has a lot of influence. In large measure, I think you're right,

because Trump is indebted to people like the Adelson's who gave him a lot of money. I totally agree. And it's not just the money, you know, it's also just the fact that certain people, that the Israeli story, right, we saw this with Biden, the story of seeing things from the Israeli point of view is dominant and hegemonic in American public discourse. particularly people of Trump's generation, and the ability to see things from the Palestinian point of view or the perspective of an ordinary Lebanese person in your own is really radically. And I think, frankly, it goes back to the roots of America being a settler colony. Because America is a settler colony, we, especially white Americans who love America as a settler colony and think there was nothing bad about how we created the country at all, naturally

instinctively identify with people who are in countries in other settler colonies. And for them, the Palestinians are like the Native Americans, right? They're the last people in the world you're ever going to identify with. The Lebanese are like the Central Americans, right? They don't, so I think the money is very important, but I also think there's a larger culture of about the way, especially white conservatives, see Israel, which has to do with their view of the United States.

Yeah, so here we're going to get into potentially significant disagreement. I don't think that's it at all. I think I can prove it. And I think that it is that Israel has, like mainstream media in America, does Israeli propaganda, again, near 100%. And so they have brainwashed the American people into believing that Israel is the victim and all the Arabs are terrorists that are bothering Israel. And they should be murdered. And Israel should take their land. And it's for self-defense.

They had to do it. They had to take 53% of Gaza. They had to take southern Lebanon. They had to take this. They had to take that. They had to take this. And so how could I prove it? Well, we all broke.

I don't think that's just different. I don't think that's disagreeing with what I said. So, no, the reason is that this whole, like, yeah, you're right, Israel is a settler colony. But like this whole, oh, well, American conservatives are naturally inclined to go in that direction because of the settler colony. No, because. So that's the part where I say that I have some proof now. So we all grew up with mainstream media and only mainstream media. I'm 56.

That's what I grew up with. And I got brainwashed. I thought that Israel was a victim in 1948. Now looking back at it, it's embarrassing to think that. It's obviously not true. In 1967, I was literally lied to and told that Israel was attacked. That's not true. Israel attacked first.

So we were all lied to. And why? Why were we lied to? Why did, so we can get back into those because I know that'll trigger people. Oh, no, no, no, because they've been lied to. Like the number one victim of Israeli propaganda is Jewish Americans. Like, nonstop, nonstop. If you don't help Israel, you're all going to die. Everybody's an anti-Semite. Help Israel. If you don't help Israel, we're all going to die. We're all going to die. Everybody hates you, right? Right. But remember, American Jews are more critical of Israel on average than white Christian evangelicals are. So yeah, and nevertheless they are. So credit to them. No question. Okay. So now having said that, so when like the media says constantly and both overwhelmingly implicitly and oftentimes explicitly

that the Palestinians are terrorists, right? Well, what the fuck is that? The Palestinians have been occupied for 58 years. There's been a brutal oppression and humiliation. I haven't met a single Palestinian who doesn't have a story of not just like losing freedom, poverty, occupations, and force and someone in their family dying, 20 people, 200 people in their family dying, etc. But on top of that, the part that gets me is the nonstop humiliation. They have every Palestinian as a story about how some Israeli soldier tried to humiliate them beyond comprehension, okay?

So yet, American media reports zero. none of that, none of that, and said to Palestinians are terrorists, Hezbollah's terrorists. They had to attack Lebanon. They had to. Otherwise, they can't defend themselves. If they don't take all of their neighbors' land, they just can't defend themselves. So if anyone else did this, in fact, others have done this, and the media's reaction has been completely the opposite.

When Russia goes into Ukraine, they're like, oh, day, and the Russians go, we did it in self-defense. Same exact thing, right? Now, I don't believe the Russians, and I don't believe the Israelis, right? but our media goes, oh, no, the Russians are definitely lying. It is not in self-defense. They're aggressive, horrible, horrible country attacking poor Ukraine, which is true. And they turn around, the same exact scenario. They're like, no, Lebanon had it coming.

Yeah, that's that. Of course. Israel should take that land. It's for self-defense. It's for self-defense. So, like, not a single cable news anchor has called it a genocide. It's like Chris Hayes has allowed others to call it a genocide. So I'll give Chris half a pass.

But, like, this is a coincidence. Rachel Maddow's like so brokenhearted over everything, but doesn't give a shit about the Palestinians, has never criticized Israel? No. And when we get into Israel's control of our media, I have a hundred examples to give you. But at first, that's the landscape.

That's the landscape. So in that landscape, yeah, the right wing, and I'll finish this thought real quick, the right wing, like I did, like a lot of Americans did, overwhelming majority of Americans, we didn't know anything else. We were just told that Israel is the victim. right, et cetera.

So now there's online media. Right. And once you broke the stranglehold that mainstream media had, the monopoly they had on, on new, so-called news. Now, all of a sudden, not just the left wing, so 80% of Democrats have a negative view of Israel, gone, right? But now the right wing, especially under 50. And the main divide, it used to be 40, then it was 45, now it's 50 because as time expands. So under 50 more, a lot more people, great majority, will get their news online. Above 50, they get it on TV.

If you're still watching TV, you still support Israel because they do nonstop propaganda for Israel. If you watch online, you get real news. And then the right wing's opinion of Israel cratered. So the settler colony thing didn't stick, nothing stuck. The minute you woke them up and made them realize that they're backing the terrorists, they were like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm out. I'm out. Now, under 50 years old, both the whole country, not right wing or left wing, under 50 years, Israel has a negative 45 approval rating, negative 45. That's because people started

getting actual news. One last thing, and we give a million of these examples, but just yesterday, Israel slaughter some guy who used to feed the cats in Gaza, and they leave him dead in the street, and the cats all, they won't leave him, they won't leave him even though he's dead, right? There's a guy, a picture of an IDF soldier masturbating to the destruction in Gaza, okay? There's a, there's a story about how the Israelis are now, and I don't know how to pronounce it, I mean, or whatever, that gulag they have, they're using dogs. Yeah, they're using dogs to rape the prisoners. I mean, this is, this is, I don't think there's any disagreement.

I don't think we disagree at all about how profound Israel's crimes are and have been against the Palestinian people. And indeed, what Israel is doing in Lebanon and beyond. I think that I wanted to talk maybe about the right, because I think it's something you've been really on to. And I think we see it a little bit differently. I watch your interview with Tucker Carlson, the way you sat down with Tucker Carlson. I have no problem at all with you sitting down with Tucker Carlson. I think it's good that you talk to Tucker Carlson. And I think it's good that Tucker Carlson is against the war.

And I think it's good that he wants to end American aid to Israel. I think those are all very good things because he's an influential guy. But I will say the thing that bothered me about the interview was you, I felt like he remains, I think, a white nationalist. He just did a commentary about the great replacement theory like yesterday. And I felt like you didn't challenge him on those things at all. And I felt like it was a missed opportunity. Not that you shouldn't have talked to him, but you should.

have pushed him on some of these things where I think he's a truly and remains a truly malevolent force. So, Peter, when I was growing up, I always wondered what I would have done during the Holocaust, right? Like, how much would I have, you know, expended every ounce of energy I have to fight against it? Because, you know, you might not agree with my sense of, I don't mean you, Peter, I mean like generally anybody listening, might not agree with my sense of justice and what I think is just and not. But I everybody who knows me knows I'm obsessed with injustice, right? So when I was reading about the Holocaust, and by the way, I took an international law class in Colombia when I was in law school there and I was super lucky. I had one of Telford Taylor, he was the second

Nuremberg prosecutor. And he gave us direct like direct firsthand evidence about the Holocaust. and it was harrowing, obviously, just the worst things you've ever read, right? And so now I have a sense of what I would have done. I would have done what I'm doing now in fighting against this genocide. And so if in the middle of the Holocaust, I had an incredible fighter against the Holocaust, but I disagree with them on taxes or their opinions on maybe something really offensive,

like Asians. My wife is Asian. right and so the he's furiously trying to end the holocaust uh but he's got these terrible opinions on immigration and taxes and asians i would have spent the entire time talking about the holocaust because our number one mission is to end it so that's how i feel about this so i'll get into fights with tucker and marjorie taylor green and all those guys on another day uh but for now we've got to end the the terror that's happening in the middle east and so That is such an overwhelming priority that I'm not going to distract from people finding out about that.

Well, I guess the issue that I have with the analogy is that it seems to me, again, I agree about the depth of the crimes that Israel is committing, but we're also facing a struggle inside the United States about whether America becomes a fascist state, whether it retains any semblance of being a liberal democracy. and I think Carlson has been a very powerful force on the pro-fascism, anti-liberal democracy side. What he said about January 6th for years and years. The whole basic idea of terrifying white people that basically that they're being, you know, that they're going to be overwhelmed by Somalis and Haitians. And so it seems to me, and I know you care passionately about that too. You don't only care about what Israel is doing.

You care about whether we're going to be a free society. And I think Carlson has been an enemy of that. And in an hour, you didn't bring it up once. So a couple of things there. Number one, you said that he's kind of been an ally of fascism. I would disagree with that. Right now, I think the number one fascist state in the world is Israel, and he's fighting against that fascism.

So that's proof is in the pudding in that sense. Is it a trick to then bring a different kind of fascism to America? Well, I understand the concerns about that. right and I'm not naive I'm wide-eyed about it okay but right now we don't have a lot of allies in this country in opposing Israel we all of mainstream media is against us almost all the politicians are against us and I don't know anyone that's flipped more Americans against the war crimes and the genocide of Israel than Tucker Carlson so in the middle of this historic run where he is waking

people up to the horrors of what has happened and getting them to be more moral, it's super unfair to ask me to attack him as he's doing that. Today, Manny Hassan got into, got made news. I know, and it was terrible, but that's not what we're talking about, the fact of this bullshit stuff about Metti Hassan who's being anti-Semitic. Of course he's not anti-Semitic. It's ridiculous. It's absurd.

No, no, no, I wasn't going to go there, Peter. Oh, okay. I hear you on that too. But, no, today many made news. when he said, you know, Tucker's appealing to a lot of Muslims, including some people in my family. It's hilarious what makes news and doesn't because, right. I've said this a million times. I now go to a lot of Muslim and Arab American events.

Right. And yeah, no, Tucker would win in a landslide with Muslims. And he'd get 80, 90% of the vote. And why? Think about it, guys. If you're a Muslim American, right. You've been abused in the media. And I'll tell you another story in a second.

Right. Your whole life discriminated against so vehemently over the top. And then this guy comes in from the right wing and convinces millions, maybe tens of millions of Americans not to hate Muslims anymore. And you want Muslims to go attack him? No. This was the guy who was talking about how Arabs, you know, remember what he said about Iraqis a few, you know, a few years ago, right? He's, he's been an anti-Muslim bigot for a long time. Now he's not talking about that for the moment, although he's still talking about Haitians and how they're destroying the United States. But I want to ask you, would you go on, I mean, would you go on Candace Owens and have that kind of friendly conversation or do you do a distinction between her and Carlson?

So, okay, lots of nuances there. So, and it's funny that you ask that today, but because Anna, my co-host, Anna Kusperian, is going on on Candace Owens today. Okay. So now, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Okay.

So we had a lot of discussions before Anna said yes to that show, okay? Why did we have discussions about that and not as much about Tucker Carlson? And Sean Ryan, by the way, went on his show last week. So because I care a lot less about what people's secret thoughts are, and I care a lot more about what they say on air. So yes, Tucker Carlson said anti-Muslim things before, no question about it. And by the way, this is important. I have a different philosophy on engagement than a lot of people on the left do, right? And as you know, right?

So, for example, Charlie Kirk said vicious things about Muslims, about how Muslims are going to slash the throat of America, et cetera. And nevertheless, I went out to America Fest with him, I had him on the show a couple of times, et cetera. Why? Is it because- But you challenged him? Yeah. No, by the way, we didn't even talk much about Muslims when we were on together, okay? So my thesis is, and for those you don't know, I was born into a Muslim family, were secular Turks, not very religious, and now I'm an atheist, right?

So, but I did grow up Muslim, at least in that cultural context, right? And so when, so when, so the secret thoughts is one thing, but when Tucker goes and says, don't hate Muslims. It is an anti-Christian thing to hate Muslims. That is just, it's nearly miraculous. And it's a gift that we have not gotten. By the way, he's way better against anti-Muslim bigotry today than anyone on cable news. Like Jake Tapper doesn't seem to give it one shit about Muslims at all, okay? I think, yeah.

Whereas I think Ali Valsh, she's pretty concerned about anti-Muslim bigotry. You think he is or no? Yeah, I do think he is. I don't think that I mean. No, no, he does anti-Muslim bigotry. he's not concerned about Ali Valshi? No, not Ali Valshi. I said J. Tapper.

No, I said Ali Valshi. I was giving you an example of someone who's on cable news who I think is more sincerely concerned about anti-Muslim bigotry than talking about policy. Ali Valshi. Okay, yeah. Again, exception proves the rule. We have to stretch to find one guy, right?

And maybe Chris Hayes again. Yeah, I think Chris Hayes is pretty consistent in being opposed to anti-Muslim bigotry. Okay, so all right. So two out of 40, 50, 60, whatever it is. Okay. Hold on. Let me just finish that thought.

Sorry, I don't take it. No, no, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. And I'm in. Yeah. Yeah, but Tucker also says on air, and I've heard him say it a dozen times. And so he's probably said it well over a dozen times.

It is anti-Christian to be anti-Semitic, to hate Jews, et cetera. So he does say that. He's to his tens of millions of viewers, he is saying over and over again, do not hate Jews, do not hate Jews, do not hate Jews. So I don't give a damn what a secret if he's, I care that he's saying to these guys, don't hate Jews, don't hate Muslims. And by the way, like I said, he's saying it more than 98% of mainstream media is. So on the other hand, Candice Owens, where she crosses the line is when she starts talking about Talmudic Jews, right? And so that's crazy talk. I don't want any piece of that.

It's not true and it's not helpful and it's discriminatory. And it's all the things that we don't want, right? So no, so why did Anna decide to go on on the show? Because we just decided, look, this whole idea of banishing people. and ostracizing them and shunning them. It's just not the right strategy. So what she's going to do is she's going to talk about the things she agrees with Candace on. And Candice has also had an enormous change of heart about Muslim Americans, et cetera.

And that has been super helpful. And tons of Muslims do appreciate her and tons of people who are against this genocide appreciate her. And then when they get to the other topics, we'll see how it goes. But Anna's plan is to say, no, I just don't, I'm not going to ban you for it. I'm not going to cancel you for it. but I don't agree with you on those things. And there's nothing wrong with not agreeing on those things. No, I agree with you.

I don't see a problem with going on to have conversations with people who have hateful views. I mean, I've done that myself. And I think there can be a value. It seems to me it's all about how you engage with them, right? It's about what you say in those conversations. And my concern about your conversation with Carlson was in an entire hour, people would come, what wouldn't come? away understanding that you thought there was any fundamental problem with his view about the United

States, for instance, which where I think, you know, where he has apologized for supporting Trump, but he hasn't apologized for the great replacement theory. And it's the great replacement to that basic idea of white Christian supremacy that even if they get rid of Trump is going to power the next Republican who's basically trying to impose racist anti-democratic policies in the U.S. So, Peter, I'm not voting for him. I'm not telling anybody to vote for him. I'm not, I'm not telling anybody to marry him. I'm not telling anybody to like welcome Tucker Carlson with open arms on every issue, right? So we can be nuanced. We can be intellectuals. We can say, hey, I agree with this and I disagree with that. But today, the major driving issue is Israel. So here's another

example and you'll watch it and it'll probably disturb you on this front again, right? But I'm telling you that I'm doing it on purpose. I want to talk about this issue and only this issue. and I want to have allies that help me on this issue. So on the Sean Ryan podcast, we mainly, again, talked about war, Israel, genocide, et cetera, and for a long time. But we got into ICE briefly. And even on ice, he said they went too far. And you're not supposed to shoot women in the head. And, you know, we both used harsh language.

I said that those ice guys were cowards. And I saw him flinch a little bit when I said that, but he still generally agreed with me. And he said that he called Trump supporters, I'm going to use the words here. Don't judge me for using his words, okay? He called him fucking mega retarts. But you're not going to get to that if you don't have the conversation and you don't have the agreements to begin with. And you don't, you know, form a common bond to break down the barriers. And one other thing, Peter, these days that I think is that part of the propaganda is to get everybody to fight on right-left issues and mainly Republican versus Democrats and the culture wars.

And so I think there's a great awakening that's happening driven by independence, but now also the right wing is starting to see it. And the left wing more reluctantly is beginning to see it that identity politics and culture wars don't touch the donors. So since they don't cost anybody any money, those are perfect. things that divide the country on. Let's get everybody to hate each other based on left, right paradigm. And then that way they'll be divided and they won't look up. And that way the donors can take all their oil subsidies, block us from negotiating drug prices, drive us in awards, et cetera.

So I don't want to feed into that. I want to go on these shows and find areas of agreement. So if Charlie, for example, when we talk to Charlie Kirk, we still disagree on many things, social security, et cetera. but we found agreement on we should ban private equity from buying residential real estate. Well, if we never went on and all we focused on was the things that divide us, we never would have found out the country's actually united. Nobody wants private equity firms to buy our homes, right?

So that has a lot of value to have those conversations. Yeah. I mean, I'll just say one more thing and then I'll let you, I'll give you the last word and let you go because we're running out of time. I agree with you that that a lot of, that there is. a potential for a lot of a kind of populist alliance on a lot of issues that have to do with areas where rich people and corporations are screwing ordinary people. But I also think there are quote, quote unquote culture issues that have huge material impacts on people's lives. Abortion, for instance, right? Or the attack on LGBTQ people, right? Where the left and the right

fundamentally do disagree. And I think basic or the right or whether Somalis are eating cats and dogs. I mean, Haitians, right? And like, how we treat those people. Like, and I don't think one can just create a politics that ignores those things because a lot of other people's lives are at stake in that. Yeah, but we're not ignoring them. I mean, when those fights came up, for example, I ripped Trump and Vance's face off, right? And I don't know that anybody mocked them more than I did. And anyone who believed that Haitians were eating cats and dogs. That's insanity. But, Peter, you get that in the middle of an interview about a topic, that we agree on if I randomly brought up that old topic,

you'd be like, what is this? Are you trying to pick a fight? Do you see what I'm saying? But you do pick fights and sometimes they're very valuable fights because they're thinking about things you believe. Yeah, when he says the next thing that I disagree with, then we'll have a fight over it. So look, but before we go, Peter, like,

I do want to get into the issue of what's happening here in America, right? So this is super deeply counterintuitive. counterproductive, right? This whole, Larry Allison buying half of American media, buying CBS, CNN, TikTok, and then this guy from Axel Springer, I don't know if you saw the story yesterday.

Yes, terrible. Yeah. Goes to Politico and says, you're not allowed to criticize Israel or this war. I mean, then you're doing the trope, brother. You're literally doing the trope, right? So then, and then when you, you pointed out so and this is and this i want people to understand different perspectives right if you're for example if you're jewish american you're almost never going to see this although now more

and more jewish americans do see it because the israelis are out of their minds so they're attacking everyone right so i had a woman who uh is one of the organizers for jewish voices for peace uh in california come up to me uh two days ago no over the weekend and she said they're trying to get me fired They're calling me a Jew hater when I'm Jewish, right? And it's happening to more and more Jewish Americans. And again, remember, 63% of Jews in this country are opposed to the Nanyahu government, right? So they're starting to feel these oppressive, what I call Gestapo tactics more and more. Every time I go to a Muslim or Arab American event, both Muslim Arabs and Christian Arabs come up to me and say,

I said something on social media that was just pro-Palestinian. I got fired. Like what you don't see is there is a group of people in this country financed by the Edelson's and Loeb and Singer and all those guys who hire a bunch of brown shirts like the lady who runs Stop Anti-Semitism.com, Canary Mission, etc. Laura Lumer, they fund them to spread anti-Muslim bigotry, which Lori Lumer does over the top, right? And she won't talk about where she gets her money because they don't want to be caught in polite circles spreading. bigotry when they pretend that they're so concerned about bigotry when it comes to anti-Semitism, right?

And so almost everybody has a story about if they're, you know, if they're opposed to Israel, I said something online, like benign. And the Gestapo came for me. They fired me. They ruined my business. They destroyed

my livelihood. They destroyed my life. I went on a college tour with my kids during spring break. I had not just Muslim students. I had young African-American students, white students coming up to me and saying, oh, thank you for speaking out because we're all afraid to say something now. They're making lists and we won't be able to get jobs if we're on the list. Okay. So somehow the 63% of Jewish Americans who are good people and opposed to this government have to unite and have

to have enough collective power to stand up to some of these Jewish American leaders that are driving in a disastrous direction. And by the way, ironically, driving up anti-semitism through the roof through their bullying tactics, right? Yeah, to be honest, Jenk, I don't think Jews like me need a lecture about that. I mean, we've been doing this for a long time,

often at significant cost within our own communities and even families. And as you know, the first protests against the Gaza genocide, where people were arrested in New York and Washington, D.C., were led by groups like Jewish force for peace and if not now. So this is an old story for many of us,

or many of us who are Jewish who are opposed to Israeli apartheid and genocide. And I think that it's a struggle that we wage and fight in our own way just as people outside the Jewish community. In some ways, yes, in some ways we might have greater margins of safety being Jewish. And it makes it maybe we're a little bit less likely to suffer some of those harms. But as you said, many of the people that Israel is called the great, greatest anti-Semites have also been Jews over the years, right? So I think it's, again, it's not, I don't, I'm not sure that American Jews need to be woken up any more than any

other group of Americans. All Americans have basically been complicit in this system of supporting what Israel is doing. Well, so I agree and disagree. So the agreeing part is easy. You're right about almost everything you said there factually. And, and there's been absolute Jewish heroes in the fight for peace. And I try to. mention them on every appearance that I make. So the Sean Ryan show used Ben Cohen from Ben and Jerry's as an example of an incredible American patriot and a guy who's done the right thing, et cetera, because I want to get into people's heads. This is not about religion. Whatever you do, and I literally said this on his show, do not hate Jewish people. That is totally wrong. I mentioned

this 63%. Fact all the time so that people get off of religion. So that's the part's overwhelming agreement that I have with you. The part I disagree with you on is, yeah, but people, Peter, your side is losing. Like the guys, the Ellisons and the Edelson's. I see the same. Actually, I think the same trends. I mean, in terms of money, you're absolutely right. But in terms of Jewish public opinion, it's also moving,

just as American public opinion is moving. Yeah. But all of us collectively have not been able to stop this oppression. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, and then every time you mentioned Like you guys, look, our business has been attacked in a thousand ways, right? And so, and what's galling is in the middle of this like, like this oppressive blanket of

intimidation and nonstop attacks, attacks. And if you don't know, you know, Laura Lumer docks to my wife this weekend. they're trying to get Anna's husband fired. He's a gym teacher in a local high school. And they're like, you have to denounce your wife. If you don't denounce your wife, what kind of Maoist, like, insane fascist tactics are these? They're going after people's families.

And our side has lost. So there's no pushback. There's, I don't see it. I don't see anyone going, what the hell is stop aty-semitism.com doing? What is Canary Mission doing? What is Ellison doing? They're like they're being monsters.

All I see from Jewish American leaders, I'm not including you, Peter, because you're influencer, et cetera, you in media. But I mean like the ADL, et cetera, they're almost universally on the wrong side. So like if you want me to believe that Jewish American leaders are going in the right direction, they have to show it.

So like, for example, the largest congregation, the rabbi in New York, who I think, again, in his largest congregation or whatever. I'm not getting it exactly right. He did an op-ed saying, we've got to stop supporting this,

you know, what Israel's doing in Gaza. Wonderful. I was like, okay, great. That's a significant Jewish-American leader going in the right direction, love it. Outside of him, among the leaders? Yeah, I mean, I think we, I have to run. But I think part of the question is what we mean by the term leader.

These are not democratically elected people. These are mostly people who are either oligarchs themselves or work at organizations that are funded by billionaire. is an oligarchs. In some ways, it's not that different than the other kind of lobbies you talk about, right? Bernie Sanders is actually, you know, probably has much more popular support among Jericho. He's actually gone out and run for something, right? So I agree with you. There's a huge struggle that is taking place within American Jewish life about this question of being complicit with supremacy and apartheid, and I completely agree with you. And it's taking, and it's part of this larger

struggle that I think we all need to be involved in to change American policy. And I think on that, you and I totally agree. Yeah, and I love you guys. And I want you to win so badly. Right. There forces for good and morality. And I want to talk about how, you know, you pushed back and won and were heroic in, you know, protecting everyone else. And by the way, Jews have done that throughout history, right? In the civil rights movement and there's so many other movements. So I believe in you and I want you to win. So let's do it together. doing it. I appreciate it. I hope we can continue the conversation. All right. Thank you guys. Take care. Thanks, everybody. Do you know your brain rot index? Of course you don't. I didn't either

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