This Past Weekend - E521 Bassem Youssef

Starting point is 00:00:00 I got a few tour dates to tell you about Wallingford, Connecticut, Portland, Maine, Banger, Maine, Moncton, Canada, Las Vegas, Nevada. We'll be back for the USC LSU football weekend. Oklahoma City, Northern Little Rock, Springfield, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Moline, Illinois. I've heard a lot about this issue and I wanted to deepen my own understanding. I recognize that this is a sensitive topic but the only way to truly learn is to seek knowledge. I decided to have guests from both sides of the aisle, if you will, to help me learn by sharing their views. I did this in separate episodes because I'm not a debate moderator and I

Starting point is 00:01:05 chose guests who I thought would share their views sincerely and I think both of them did. I'm very thankful to have the opportunity to learn which is something that they don't even have in some countries. Today's guest is a comedian who was born in Egypt and now lives here in America. He's also a political commentator, writer, and a former medical surgeon. He's been called the John Stewart of the Arab world and has been pretty vocal about the Israel-Palestine conflict for years.

Starting point is 00:01:34 You may have seen his viral appearance on Piers Morgan. We're gonna talk about that and a lot more. I'm very grateful for his time. Today's guest is Bassam Youssef. I will find a song I will sing it just for you Basim Yousef Yes If that's how you say it, Basim? No, Besim

Starting point is 00:02:18 Basim Oh yeah Softer, Besim Oh, Besim Not Besim Your student special at the Wiltern. Yes. On October 4th.

Starting point is 00:02:27 Yes. Okay. Yes. And what kind of like, so your audience is it predominantly, because you're Egyptian. Yes. And is your audience mostly like Egyptian folks or does all Middle Eastern people come out and support a Middle Eastern comedian? Mostly brown people, 60% Arabs, sometimes 50%, and then maybe 20% like Indian Pakistanis, and then there's a white.

Starting point is 00:02:49 So I get like between 20 to 30% white people, but it's different from each state, from each show. So it's been quite a riot, to be honest. Yeah, you've been doing comedy, because you were a surgeon, right? A heart surgeon, yeah. You were a heart surgeon. Yeah. That you've been only you've been doing comedy because you were a surgeon. A heart surgeon. You're a heart surgeon. Yeah that's crazy.

Starting point is 00:03:07 I know. Why would you stop doing that? Why would you? No why do it? Because medicine is terrible. It's a thankless job. Is it? Yes I spent 19 years of my life in medicine 19 years of my life and I say my my my show

Starting point is 00:03:23 I mean you do that because that's what's expected of you in the Middle East. In the Middle East, you're expected to be one of three things, a doctor, an engineer, or a disappointment. So I didn't want to disappoint my parents. So I went into medicine, and I went there for 19 years. I didn't have any kind of aspirations. It's like, what do you want to do? I'm just going to do the regular stuff.

Starting point is 00:03:42 I wasn't the guy who's cracking jokes in class or anything. Really? No, nothing. A regular guy, just a regular boring guy. Really, just a boring guy? Very boring. And then, so how do you realize

Starting point is 00:03:54 that you're able to be a comedian then? Cause that's kind of- I didn't. You didn't think at all when you were a kid. I didn't, I didn't. Revolution happened in Egypt 2011, and I just happened to be like a regular fan for John Stewart. And so I watched John Stewart for years and I had this dream of maybe

Starting point is 00:04:14 I'll be a writer on a similar show in Egypt. So when the revolution happened and I saw the kind of crazy stuff that they've been showing on television. So it's like the craziest conspiracy theories ever. And that was a revolution in Egypt? Yes, so the states from media was running all kind of crazy stuff. So I started doing YouTube videos, making fun of it. Yeah. Blew up.

Starting point is 00:04:39 And in two weeks, I had millions of views on my YouTube channel that I just opened. I didn't even have a YouTube channel before that. And then suddenly every single platform, every single television station won me on the show. And now it's a, now do a show. So I did a show out of nothing. And I hired people who was not in the business,

Starting point is 00:05:00 people who are like amateurs like me. And it became the biggest show in the Middle East. And I had 40 million people watching each episode. And so how does that end? Did you just? Oh, I was kicked out. I had my show canceled a couple of times. I had even the signal, the satellite signal jammed a couple of times.

Starting point is 00:05:17 I had lawsuits. I had a show shut down. People threatened around me. I was threatened. And then I, by both regimes, I had had I went through three different regimes Wow military Islamist military and then they they both hate with me yeah yeah yeah when you when you when you make one of people and everybody is like okay I think you're doing the right thing and I couldn't do the show anymore so I escaped I left

Starting point is 00:05:42 Egypt 2014 I came here into a very dark era. You know, your mom was like, I was everything, and then I came here and I'm nothing, nobody. And it was humbling. Because I thought, hey, I have a good story, I'm a doctor, I did comedy, I should come here and Hollywood should open its door. Nothing, nobody cares about you.

Starting point is 00:06:02 Like yeah, you were great in Egypt. Now, we don't know what to do with you. Yeah. So, I... Yeah, I think it's gotta be a big transfer. I think that's scary. That would have to be one of the scariest things, I think, for a comic is going to another country

Starting point is 00:06:16 because the entire template of everything is different. Like the pentameter of what's funny, like things that people know and don't know, references, all of that. And then you're in a whole new space and Hollywood does not care really. It's like you show up. They don't care.

Starting point is 00:06:31 It doesn't matter. And you have to understand, I was even a comedian who changed. I just been there for three years. I just left medicine, did a show out of nothing, became successful. So I only had two, three years under my belt coming to America as a comedian in Arabic.

Starting point is 00:06:47 So I got here. So I started doing standup comedy and I sucked so bad because it's my second language. And also I did, it's not just the language, it's the rhythm, the music. Each language has its pauses, its rhythm, its cadence. And I would write stuff that would be intelligent, but I wouldn't deliver it right.

Starting point is 00:07:09 So I went into the years of darkness and humiliation. And that was here in the US? That's when you first started stand-up? Yes. Wow. What was your first set out here? I did something in, oh, the improv, like open mic, and it was terrible. And I did a few open mics and then I,

Starting point is 00:07:34 but here's the trick, what helped me is that I was someone with a good story, so I didn't go into comedy the first, like right away. I won a speaker series. I'm a guy, I came from the revolution, Egypt. So I wouldn't go to talk to universities and stuff. Like a talk. A talk.

Starting point is 00:07:50 That's better. And then with that talk, I would put jokes. And then I was like, oh, I have a five minutes. Let me try it. And then I suck. It's like, no, that's not the five minutes. Yeah, now I have two minutes. Yeah, yeah, two minutes.

Starting point is 00:08:01 So I would go back and forth back and forth back and went for years. And when COVID hit, I still went on the road because I needed to have any time I can get. So I would go and I would play for five people, six people. And it was funny that people knew me from Egypt, from my own country, Arabs and Egyptians would know me. And they would see my names like,

Starting point is 00:08:24 oh, we have to come and see Bassem Youssef. Now in their mind is this guy with this huge show and they come and I'm a struggling comedian and I would see it on their faces. They would say, oh, too bad. Bassem is a husband. Maybe he'll be driving an Uber in three months. Yeah, maybe this is how we'll make his money.

Starting point is 00:08:42 So it was very related for me. And then two years ago, something happened. Started to fill in spaces, places, have kind of a few sold out shows and it went well. And last year I was actually talking about shooting my special already. I was having interest and then October 7th happened and then I blew up because of Piers Morgan and then more people came to me.

Starting point is 00:09:07 But here's the thing, when I was complaining about not having enough people coming to me, I wasn't ready yet. Oh yeah. After October 7th now, everybody knew who I am. So they came to my show. And you were a little more prepared. If I was, if that, if the piece of Morgan thing happened,

Starting point is 00:09:25 if that, two years ago, I wouldn't be good enough. And people would come and get disappointed. Yeah. So that, I think I took my time and I think I'm grateful for that. Yeah, it's funny you said about like your time and how it like, you think you have, I remember when I first thought I had like five minutes,

Starting point is 00:09:40 I'd be like, I'm the guys, I'm doing, I got five minutes, you know, calm down. But then you realize if you have five minutes, you really only have like two minutes You know, it's like when it really when you cook the fat down and kind of figure things out. Um Yeah, that Piers Morgan thing was huge for you. Yes, that was huge came out of nothing Yeah came out of nowhere a comedian friend of mine. Amir K Connected us and he works with me a lot on the road. And this was absolutely, this was just so funny

Starting point is 00:10:08 and insightful and ridiculous. Yes. Did you know it would have that big of an impact? It has 22 million views. Yes, yeah. That's, I went into that and I was warned by everyone that I know that not to go on the show. Because at the time with October 7th, there was a certain story and a certain perception and no one was allowed to talk outside of the perception.

Starting point is 00:10:34 It was all one sided. And my wife is half Palestinian and her family in many of them are in Gaza. And, uh, and they were bombed and she lost many of her family members all through the years, but it became so natural that Gaza gets, gets bombed that it's, it's, it's crazy that this is a part of their life. So we don't even talk about it. It's like, yeah. Uh, we don't, we don't, I don't even hear anyone about anybody of her

Starting point is 00:11:01 family until a bomb goes on. And that's not just like the last eight months. I'm talking about like years. So, uh, when that happened and I saw there's, this is one sided and our, my side of the story is not being allowed to talk, but nobody's is willing to listen because everybody was hysterical. So when he went in and he said, like, how's everybody, how's your family? It's like, well, I know I tried to kill my life, but she's using my kids as human shields.

Starting point is 00:11:26 So I used the same stuff that they're using because the way that they were justifying the continuous attack was ridiculous. One of them was by Ben Shapiro and even DeSantis, he said, well, you know, Israel warns Palestinians before bombing them. It's like, oh my God, how cute. How, wow, wow, wow.

Starting point is 00:11:47 So it's like, if, so if Putin warns Ukrainians, it's okay for Putin to bomb Ukraine because as long as you warn them, that's fine. And I find it's like, and I thought like, I think Israel became so effective of warning them that they actually be like, warn them ahead of their funeral. They actually been sending flowers to the funeral. It's like a, we're very sorry for your upcoming loss.

Starting point is 00:12:08 We're going to be there in 10. It's like, are you guys gaslighting us? And then I was hearing, oh, there's so many babies we kill, but we cannot help it. What do you mean? If you're the most funded, most advanced, most trained, most supported military in the Middle East and you can't help killing babies, maybe you can stick to your day job.

Starting point is 00:12:29 Maybe, maybe genocide is not the hobby for you. It's just, it's the, the, so it kind of like drew, it was for me, it, the, the, the, the justification just drove me crazy. So I took every single element that they were taking and I just regurgitated back to them. Right. And he said, so what should Israel do? It's like, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's the justification just drove me crazy. So I took every single element that they were taking and I just regurgitated back to them. And he said, so what should Israel do?

Starting point is 00:12:49 It's like exactly what they did, kill more people. Why not kill more? Kill more because the whole idea, if you talk about ceasefire, of please stop in the killing, you have all kinds of arguments not to. So all right, let's do whatever you want guys. And then show them how ridiculous, because this is what comedy does.

Starting point is 00:13:05 That is the job of comedy. Comedy doesn't counteract. It's like all right, let's see your idea, and let's multiply by hundreds and see how that feels. Because it is funny how the most crazy question that they ask me, remember that Theo, what's the proportionate response? What's the proportion?

Starting point is 00:13:24 How many dead bodies can we get away with? Yeah. What's an evil? What's what makes things fair? What's, what's, what's a good number to kill? It's like, I find it very interesting how the media suddenly is interested in calculus. If one Hamas rocket equals 10 Israeli strikes, how many funerals

Starting point is 00:13:41 can we plan for next week? What is this? What is this? Are there people in Gaza that are consuming your content that are able, do you think it's bringing some relief? Cause I can only imagine. If they have some internet, because you understand Gaza is basically, it's sealed off. Okay. Even before October 7th, forever.

Starting point is 00:14:05 I love it how he was just like, ah, we left Gaza, we're not occupying Gaza anymore. Yes, but you're making an embargo of sea and water and land and you cannot give five calories inside without going through the checkpoint. So it is fine, it's like, we're not occupying you, but we are locking you from outside. So when they get internet, sometimes they do.

Starting point is 00:14:27 And I get a lot of people supporting and someone sent me a video, it made me cry. In the middle, after I was bombing, they were like sitting, kids, and they were playing my video. Somebody downloaded them and they blame me on like an old television in the rubble. And that made me cry. Oh, so yeah, just so my listeners know, because a lot of us, we're curious about Israel and Palestine, you hear about it all the time, right? But some of us, we don't even know like what's going on there, you know? Because also a lot of the news you get, you're like, is this news even accurate? You know, like what filters is the news going through? So what do you feel like is happening in between Israel and Palestine?

Starting point is 00:15:09 What do you think is happening in Gaza? Is that the question? Oh yeah, it is a, it's a very complicated question. Here is a question of the century. What's happening there? Well, I don't want to talk about October 7th, not just now, because I don't, because things didn't start on October 7th. Yes, there is A country called Palestine that's been there and in this piece of land many people have went in and out

Starting point is 00:15:34 Had kingdoms have empires have states and they were like any any other place in the world, right? Yeah so any other place in the world, right? Yeah. So, very recently, and I would take, as recently as like 150 years, there was a promise by the Jewish people in Europe to have a national state or a home in Palestine, which was very weird because if those,

Starting point is 00:15:59 most of those Jews were in Europe and they were persecuted by people in Europe, even before Hitler, there was pogroms all over. And there was like a- There were what all over? Pogroms, like kind of like mini Holocaust where they would like go persecute them and they would like displace them. The many, most Jews in Europe didn't have a good life in Europe, especially

Starting point is 00:16:19 in Eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine and Russia. And, uh, and yeah, they have pogroms. It's called pogroms all over. They have been- Pogroms? Pogroms, Pogroms, P-O-G-R-O-M-S. Yeah, pogrom right here, an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group,

Starting point is 00:16:35 in particular that of Jewish people in Russia or Eastern Europe, which you just said. So they have been treated quite nasty in Europe for so many reasons. Many of them can actually track it back to the whole sin of Jews killing Jesus. And since then, the Catholic Church in Europe and many Christians in Europe have really dealt with Jewish people in a horrible way. Yeah, well, you should have killed somebody else. I think because they're going to hold that against you. Some people are. You should

Starting point is 00:17:02 have killed whoever else was there or not Jesus, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know. I don't even know who did or where it was. Was it like one of those like murder mystery dinners or something like that? No, because like it was the new religion and then there was the whole idea about like Jews pushing the Roman ruler to crucify Jews. But that doesn't matter because you shouldn't kill anybody before the sins of their parents Yeah, but anyways for they pick the wrong guy. Yeah, I mean they pick the Son of God. Yeah

Starting point is 00:17:33 Now I also but if you're gonna You gotta aim high can you imagine if like they're going with Jesus and then somebody's like hey, he's been made Guys he's a made man. He's a made man, he is the made man. Let's kill the other, let's get this other guy. So for years and years, he's not going well for them. And then after first war one, there was a promise by the British government

Starting point is 00:17:58 to the Jews to establish a home in Palestine. Why did they pick Palestine? Exactly, why? Was there other Why did they pick Palestine? Exactly. Why? Was there other options that they chose? Yes, there was Argentina, Madagascar, and Uganda. Ooh. As a matter of fact, the British government gave the Jewish people about 8,000 acres in Uganda in order to start a room, but it was difficult for the Jewish Council at the time,

Starting point is 00:18:25 or Zionist Council at the time, to bring people to go to Uganda or to Argentina. It's like, no, the only way that we can do it is to send them to Palestine because it's the Holy Land, it's the promised land. So did they choose Palestine or the British people are, because this was after World War I, it was like Britain and America. Yeah, in 1917, there's something called the Balf War I, it was like Britain and America. Yeah, in 1917 there's something called the Balfour Declaration, which was the, it was one of the British government who said, we can give you the state of Palestine as your homeland.

Starting point is 00:18:54 Okay, bring that up, Nick. Before 1917, it was the many, yeah, Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War, announcing its support of the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority of Jewish population. I like your fact checking everything and it's coming great! Well, this is good because I always wonder some little things and I know little things, but I don't know enough. But before 1917 there was other trials or with other options between between the for the countries I told you and you know what's the

Starting point is 00:19:28 kicker that's funny many or the thought orthodox Jewish rabbis uh objected for Palestine to be the homeland because in their Jewish faith we cannot have a land for Israel until the Messiah the real Messiah because they don't believe in Jesus, their Messiah would come. So they were a huge opposition for having a land of Israel in Palestine. In Palestine because it was a- Yeah. Because it was a-

Starting point is 00:19:57 Because it was not the time yet. It should wait until the Messiah to come and then that will create the land of Israel. Oh, I see. So wherever the Messiah. And then that will create the land of Israel. Oh, I see. So wherever the Messiah is sewed up, that would be the land of Israel. But the secular Zionist at the time, they said like, okay, how about like we build the land and that will force him to come.

Starting point is 00:20:15 So kind of like build it and they will come. How about that? So you understand like- Yeah, like field of dreams kind of. So because here's the thing, because many of the people who talk about like Israelis being like a biblical promise, even they were not having a consensus of what, where should we have. So whoever tells you, oh, it's consensus, it's divine. No, they even had problems deciding.

Starting point is 00:20:35 So anyways, and at that time, they were, in special 1930s after war, Hitler came to power, there were like droves and droves and droves of Jewish Germans and Jewish Polish people and Jewish Russians. They were like having, they went into refugee boats and they came to Palestine. And you know why? Because they were not granted visas by the United States, they were not granted visas by other European countries. Wow, so a lot of Jewish like German Jews, Polish Jews, they weren't granted visas by the West, but they were by Palestine. And Palestinians didn't have anything because it was a mandate by the British, they were occupying that land, but they were Palestinian people. So this became the myth of a land with no people

Starting point is 00:21:17 to the people with no land. And if you actually find that, you will actually find that thing. This was one of the myths, a land with no people to the people with no land so they will tell people hey there was no people living there so it is ours it is just a desert but it was never a desert there were like more than 1.2 million Palestinians living in that area a piece of land before the Balfour declaration before the Balfour declaration then the platform declaration then jewish people coming in and then those many of those jewish uh european residents started to form militias and armed gangs the uh uh like the hagana the ergon uh the stein and now were these jewish people

Starting point is 00:22:00 that had just been like rescued from war war from the Nazi Germany? From Nazi Germany, yeah. Okay. 1930s all the way to the second world war. So they started to move to Palestine, which is now Palestine and Israel. What was it called at that point? It was all called Palestine, Palestine, Palestine. Even after Israel was given the land? It was after giving the promise. The promise. Because if you read it, it was giving a promise to make the land in the land of Palestine. I see so even even many of those Israelis had Palestinian passport

Starting point is 00:22:28 So the land was called Palestine and there were Palestinian people living there 1.2 million at least Fast forward I'm not gonna go into so many details. I fast forward 1948 1947 48 there was like there was like many wars happening, many wars happening, many attacks between the Palestinians and the Jews because the Palestinians said like, you're coming from Europe and you're taking our land. It's like, no, this is our biblical land. Now it's ours. And those Jews were like supported pretty much by the British and the American.

Starting point is 00:23:00 You think that's like, oh, we don't want them back. So take all the weapons and stay there. So, uh, and then they, there were a declaration, a UN declaration, a partition school, the partition 1947. And they gave the Jews who were less than 30% more than half of the land. Okay. And they gave the Jew, uh, the Palestinians who were much more like 45, 49%. And who did, who was helping dictate that? Who was helping, not dictate it, but who was helping like facilitate it?

Starting point is 00:23:27 Well, after first, second World War, after 1945, the British and the Americans were like kind of the world's superpower. So they were, at the time I think it was- They were running the chessboard. I think it was Truman, it was Truman in power, who basically pushed, and there's like a video, black and white video for Truman

Starting point is 00:23:47 describing like we were trying to please everybody but it was difficult because we were putting them people into other people land and it's there in black and white so so that I'm why I'm telling giving this because the yeah these ideas see former president Henry Truman talks about generic in power in the middle east It is just like if you watch them, especially the one in the front of the map, you're the one in front of the back, the one in front of the map, you know, the eight take one. You see it's, it's, you see that word Palestine. Yeah. I had some surveys made in this part of the world when I was president of the United States This Dead Sea Valley is far below the Mediterranean Sea Valley several hundred feet my idea was oh this talking about the power

Starting point is 00:24:36 I think there's many videos like but but you can watch later where he actually talks about The partition and giving it finding people. Yeah, Let's just see if we can find it. Just so we have it. It was still a, yeah. Yes, yes. Yeah, that's the one actually. Yes. Roy Anderson was one of them.

Starting point is 00:24:53 We had several other people in the country, even among the Jews, the Zionists particularly, who were against anything that was to be done if they couldn't have the whole of Palestine and everything handed to them on a silver plate so they wouldn't have to do anything. It couldn't be done We had to take it in small doses. You can't move Five or six million people out of a country and fill it up with five or six million more and expect both sets of them To be pleased we had

Starting point is 00:25:21 So you see I'm I'm really talking about this because if you wanna talk about October 17th, you need to talk about the basis because they will always get like a point of time. The basis of this, this was a land of Palestinian people, people from Europe came in and they started to import other Jews from the other parts of Arab countries.

Starting point is 00:25:42 And they said, this is our land now for whatever biblical reason or whatever because this doesn't make any sense. This is like me coming into your podcast studio and say like hey my fortune cookie told me that this is mine now and I'm allowed to kill you. I don't care about what your Bible or Torah or Quran tells you if you have a holy scripture good for you but that doesn't dictate political decision that can affect the lives of other people in the region. So this is exactly what happened. And what drives me crazy is that we hear the whole idea about like the chosen people or the chosen people or the chosen people. Okay, fine. You think you're chosen people, good for you. Everybody thinks they're chosen.

Starting point is 00:26:17 Christians think they're chosen. Muslims think they're chosen. But what drives me crazy is the Christian Zionist, the pro-Israel Christian Zionists who say that they are chosen, that the Jews are chosen. And I'm sorry to say, isn't Jesus your guy? Are you in an open relationship? Yeah, he was before. Are you in an open relationship? How come you believe in a religion, in a god, in a doctrine,

Starting point is 00:26:42 but you believe that other people from another religion are chosen over you. Don't you feel unchosen? I mean, this is like a religious polygamy, right? Are you cheating on Jesus? Is this some sort of a religious form? It doesn't make any sense. And I don't, and I'm sick and tired of this whole idea about chosen people. What does it mean to be chosen? Do you have a bottle service? Do you have like a VIP lounge access? Are you like in a waterfront condos and we were like back in the purgatory in our little city like Timeshare? Well, it's great advertising, right?

Starting point is 00:27:08 I know. It's really great advertising if you just say you're the chosen people. How did that term come about, I wonder? It was in their Bible, in their Torah, but it's fine because everybody thinks they're chosen. Everybody wants to think they're chosen. That is the driving force of faith. Right. That I'm the only one on the heaven

Starting point is 00:27:25 and everybody's gonna go to hell. Yeah. But I don't understand if they're saying that they're chosen, why the Christian Zionists believe that? So what is a Zionist? A Zionist, okay, there's a Zionist, they would want you to believe

Starting point is 00:27:38 that the Zionists simply believe that having a national statehood for Jewish people. But that's more than that. Zionist is a... Are Zion for Jewish people. But that's more than that. Zionist is... Are Zionist Jewish or are they... No, not necessarily because you can be Zionist and still Christian or Zionist or an atheist because many of the pros... That's why I don't say Jews, I don't say... But I say pro-Zionist

Starting point is 00:28:02 or pro-Israel because many of the people in Congress are Christians, and they just like believe in Zionism. Zionism here, as we believe it from an Arab perspective, it is a colonial settling idea of ideology that is based on cleansing the whole group of people out of their land and you coming into, if you wanna have like a national state that's fine but you understand they are building it on the state of other people

Starting point is 00:28:28 you're coming in and you're doing it and just to give you a very very small snippet of the magnitude of what happened 1948 15th of May the day that Israel declared independence on that day, 750,000 Palestinians, three quarters of a million were displaced overnight. Overnight. Displaced from their village, displaced from their homes, displaced from their cities. They were killing, raping, they were burning,

Starting point is 00:28:57 all kind of things. And you have documentaries where Israeli soldiers, they talk, braggingly talk about like the atrocities that they did and the rape and the women that they raped and all of that happened. And was that? Yeah, so this is a perfect example. Okay.

Starting point is 00:29:13 You see, this is 1946 Palestine. This is all Palestine with a little bit of Jewish spots here and there. And this is the UN partition. Suddenly, the UN gave all of that white space to Israel. So the Palestinians are like, wait a minute, that doesn't work. But how were they lobbying the UN?

Starting point is 00:29:36 Is the UN the group that was doing it? No, no, but you have to understand, like UN has no power. Okay, got it. Who has the power? America and England. You understand that UN now, or security, America runs the world. Right.

Starting point is 00:29:48 So America is the superpower, especially after the second world war. They are the strongest country. Strongest they've ever been. They just like bomb, like drop two nuclear weapons for bombs. They had women playing baseball at that time. And you have even Henry Truman, it's like we tried, but like we're trying to do it, but it's difficult. But it's difficult. So this is, you see how it went from here

Starting point is 00:30:07 to here in less than 50 years. How now the Palestinian state, quote unquote state, have become just like islands and islands and islands. And so you had 1.2 million, now you have, you see this little green thing? You have more than five million Palestinians living there, crushed into these little things. Gaza, which is the little strip on the side,

Starting point is 00:30:31 it has 2.2 million people. And those 2.2 million people were not born in Gaza. More than three quarters of them came from outside, but they were pushing them, pushing them, pushing them. So we understand this is the state now. So the basis of all of this is occupation. That's why when they tell you does Israel has the right to defend itself and people say the unoccupying force has no right to defend itself as against the people that they occupy they say that again to me

Starting point is 00:30:56 so if you are an occupying force you have no right to defend yourself because you cannot it's like does the Nazi Germany has a right to defend itself against the French resistance You can't you went into their country right with might and with force and with military you occupy them You get them and this is why I know I'm telling you Well, how come they if you did October 7th, you should expect that well before October 7th it's been going on and on on every single day a Palestinian will wake up in the morning and an Israeli soldier or Israeli settle can go into their house burn their house take their house kill them take them as hostages put them in prison say that they are terrorists and they do before

Starting point is 00:31:38 a lot of people talk about that Israeli hostages you understand but before October 7 there are 5,000 Palestinian hostages in prisons. One of every five Palestinian has been put in jail. You understand? So put that in perspective. America has 330 million people. Yeah. So, so imagine.

Starting point is 00:31:59 Some people are missing. How many people are missing? 300. So imagine if, imagine, imagine out of those, about 65 million Americans is in jail right now. This is the reality of Palestinians. So at a certain point, if I'm talking to people who are listening to us now, you have a farm,

Starting point is 00:32:18 you have a land, you have your cows, your hurdle, your family, imagine for 75 years your house has no privacy, your family has no sanctity. You can't go to sleep knowing that you're gonna wake up and your house will be yours in the morning. You go in, people take them, being pushed out, they take their land, at a certain point you have to break, you have to snap. So you're saying that what happened on October 7th is just a buildup of a long series of things, that's just a pinpoint. And it's not new. I know a lot of people say like, I'll give an example, 2014, exactly

Starting point is 00:32:52 ten years ago, in Gaza, 2,200 Palestinians were killed, dead, 500 children killed. There was no October 7th. You understand? There was no October 7th. But they go in because it, and I gave this example to Chris Kuhn once, it's like, Israel is like, Palestine, Gaza, and West Bank is like a small fish bowl. And you have the power to go into this fish bowl, and you just like kick the shit out of those fish anytime you want.

Starting point is 00:33:20 At a certain point, one fish will be crazy enough, suicide enough to jump from the fish bowl and bite your pinky. That's October 7th. So you're going, I'm going to destroy, it's already destroyed. Yeah, you're creating piranhas. You understand that in just eight months, Israel have bombed Gaza more than America has bombed

Starting point is 00:33:39 Iraq for eight years. Wow. In eight months. You don't do that. You don't do that. You don't do that. And of course they tell you, oh, it's collateral damage, which crazy, right? It's all those people that died, this collateral damage. We really wanted to take that terrorist, but the school got in the way.

Starting point is 00:33:57 I mean, the geography is very hostile. Every time we kill Hamas, they just like, schools and babies come out of nowhere. It's like, I said that- I shouldn't be laughing at this. I know, I mean, it's dark because sometimes I feel that Israel has some sort of a program called No Civilian Left Behind. You know, it's like, it doesn't matter

Starting point is 00:34:16 if you're a little kid playing soccer or a Hamas terrorist, you get a piece of the action. It's like, you understand? Yeah know, it's like favored nations. Yeah, because I, as an Arab, I have no power. I'm not powerful as the United States, I'm not powerful as Israel. So all I have to do is just like laugh at this. Right. Because that doesn't work. So back to 1948, they displaced 75, 750,000 people and they continue to occupy the land every single day.

Starting point is 00:34:43 So you said that in 1948 What was that movement called and that was just like in one day it kind of happened Yeah, that's the that is the establishment of the state of Israel 1948 15th of May 1948 Okay and so when the Israel established itself and were they are is Israel able to establish itself by itself or did they have to have like support from Britain and America or to have like support from Britain and America or? Well, Israel didn't establish itself over one day. I mean, they've been doing it,

Starting point is 00:35:07 they're like having like pushing people into it from other countries and actually they had a lot of support from England and from America. And I find it very interesting how that Israelis made Americans think that terrorism is something that has been invented by Arabs or Muslims. Because if you talk to anybody, terrorism, oh Arabs, Muslims, you know that the first terrorist attack ever in the Middle East was carried out by Israel. King David Hotel killing 91 British soldiers, 91. That is the, and it was led by a Stern gang, which is Itzhak Shamir, who later became

Starting point is 00:35:52 the Prime Minister of Israel. So they have been killing people, they have been terrorizing people all through, and then they call Palestinian terrorists. And when that, so when that one day comes, the establishment of Israel as a country, is it like a certain, at that day day is there just like a mass where everybody has to move out of this space? And this is our they basically move them into if you go get back the map They move them into the West Bank and in and Gaza, okay

Starting point is 00:36:15 And then in that map that we've been yeah, and you see the third one. Yeah So now all of the Palestinians are into this So now all of the Palestinians are into this. 1967, we go to war with Israel, Egypt goes to war, get its ass kicked because we had Nasser messing up big time. And in 1967, Egypt went to war? Yeah, with, and then Israel- With who, with Palestine?

Starting point is 00:36:35 With Israel. With Israel. And then after that, Israel could actually completely control the West Bank and Gaza. I see. So now this is under, so what you could see in all of these green marks is an occupation.

Starting point is 00:36:48 And let me say it again, it's an occupation. It's a military force that is occupying people and it is an occupation because of a land that has been disintegrated from this to this. So you're saying that the, it wasn't the occupation, it was by force, it was never by agreement. Yeah, how can you agree to... Is there a lease? What does the lease say?

Starting point is 00:37:12 The what? The lease. There's no lease when you occupy... What did the lease say in France when Nazi came in and took over your land? You have nothing to say. You have people coming in with their... Most Jewish people I know are landlords, you know? So it's like, I can't imagine they would do this without a lease. Well, if you have an army next to you,

Starting point is 00:37:33 why would you need a lease? Because till today, till today, like you have, go into the internet and find just like Israeli settlers, terrorizing Palestinian farmers, just random thing. You have like a hundred videos. Happens every single day. So, and this is why I'm talking because everybody

Starting point is 00:37:54 is focused on this little strip, on the Gaza Strip. But people don't know what is happening in those green scattered, this is happening every single day. Every single day people, by the way, the hostages are not 5,000 people anymore. After October 7th, it's now 12,000 people. 12,000 Palestinians in prisons. In prisons. So when you talk about hostages, and I just want to get people back October 7th. When Hamas did this, and I'm not defending Hamas, I'm not into any kind of support of any group,

Starting point is 00:38:24 but they said we will release the hostage if you release our hostages. did this and I'm not defending Hamas. I'm not into any kind of support of any group, but they said we will release the hostage if you release our hostages because you have been going into our houses and taking people half of the P the 5,000 people that I told you about, half of them are women and children, half of them. So, and, and then they, they, and I'll just give you an example because I know what would people tell you, oh, but these are terrorists.

Starting point is 00:38:43 I'll give you an example of a terrorist. Uh, so I had Zuhra iqat, I caught she is a Palestinian mother you have to say it slower So I had to write out so wads I got sees she's a Palestinian mother Her husband was killed and then she wrote on Facebook. May God unite us in heaven the Israeli Authority considered that as an incitement for terrorism and they took her and they put her in detention for eight months That's the kind of people that they will take you for terrorism Alright, and and I'm not saying that there is violence

Starting point is 00:39:13 But put yourself in their place your house is being taken your farms are being burned your cattle is being killed your Your kids are being taken in front of you your your woman your husband Your wife may be even raped and taken away and sexually molested. How long can you keep going? Because, but we want peace. This is not a peace, this is subjugation. So you're saying that over time,

Starting point is 00:39:36 it's like a slow devouring of the Palestinian people is kind of what's happened. Yeah, yeah, it is devouring. As you said, they devour the land, they devour their lives, they devour their lives, they have, they are dehumanized and when you, when you fight back, you're called a terrorist. Now let's go back to October 7th because this is very important. Okay. October 7th, Hamas, which is a militant group that is living in Gaza that has won the election in 26,

Starting point is 00:40:02 2006, but they were never allowed to take power because Israel started bombing them. Okay, so Hamas was actually an elected group. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And when they ran for election, what were they running? They were running as a group. I mean, Hamas is a basically group that was created in 2006, and they don't like the Palestinian authority that was already there.

Starting point is 00:40:24 They didn't like them? They didn't like them. They didn't like them. Okay. And Israel, Netanyahu was so happy with that and they started to give money to Hamas in order to bolster them and make them stronger. And he said in the Likud party, in his party, he said, the only way to prevent a Palestinian state is to make the Palestinian factions fighting the whole time. He said that. So he created a monster. So he saw that, so you're saying that Netanyahu, who is the president of Israel, or the prime minister,

Starting point is 00:40:54 he saw that, okay, there's this alternative group, Hamas, who is causing conflict with the people who are in charge in Palestine. And so I'm going to fund Hamas. Yes, and Hamas was, I wouldn't say that they were moderate. They would say like, we want to eradicate Israel, whatever. And then they kind of revised their charter, but they weren't fun, like fans of each other. And did Israel definitely fund them? You have Netanyahu on tape actually confessing, facilitating their support many

Starting point is 00:41:31 times and you can look it up if you want. It's like, what I'm trying to say is they won the election 2006 and Israel didn't like it and then they started bombing and then Israel- Who won? Hamas? Hamas won by 51%. Okay. In Gaza. But then they were like in fighting and it didn't work and then Israel kind of like

Starting point is 00:41:51 created even a bigger embargo and then for the past like 20 years, they're just like being, go every time Hamas like retaliates, Israel retaliates and they retaliate and they retaliate, but who has the power, who has the military might? It's Israel. At the end of the day, it's militants. Oh yeah, Israel is a superpower. Yeah, so you cannot just like cry, oh, we're gonna perish because of a militant group. If we're giving you that money,

Starting point is 00:42:17 that doesn't work this way. But here's what I want to talk about, which is the most important thing about October 7th, which I find there is like a big failure of the American media. When October 7th happened, everybody was talking about raping women, decapitating children, putting women in oven. Even Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State, he went into Congress and he described this

Starting point is 00:42:40 scene about Hamas militants going into a house, raping the woman, blinding the father, cutting the limb of a child, cutting a finger of another child, and then cutting the chest, the breast of a woman and playing football with it and raping it. And I say, wait a minute, how is this happening during war? Where are the Israeli Apache fighters? Where are, where are the response? Because you know, I understand how big is Israel. Israel is like as small, actually as small as New Jersey. And in that area of New Jersey, there is like, there is a, you see, it's almost there.

Starting point is 00:43:20 Yeah, almost there. Yes, a little bit. And you understand, you understand, Israel has airfields and military camps in every five seconds, it's like Starbucks in New York. The response should be less than five minutes. It took them eight hours. Yeah, I need a Venti missile. Now, that testimony that I just gave you by Anthony Blinken came out to be wrong. Who's Anthony Blinken? Anthony Blinken is the Secretary of State. For Israel? No, for

Starting point is 00:43:48 America. For America, okay. So he went and gave that graphic detail in order to bring money to get money to be sent to Israel. These testimonies came out to be untrue, false, fabricated because they were promoted by rescue groups in Israel. They're called Zaka and had Zulay United, Zaka, Z-A-K-A. Zaka is a group that has been known to be lying. They fabricated babies in oven, babies in laundry line. Yeah, they keep putting the babies everywhere, no matter what side you're on, it's like, oh, the babies are here.

Starting point is 00:44:21 And yeah, that's the website. And if you look at, if you search for them, you will find that their lies has been debunked many times by the Israeli media themselves. Israeli media artists, Channel 12, they said that these people have lied to us and they have collected so much money because of the graphic details.

Starting point is 00:44:42 And you understand, these are lies that has been repeated by Biden, Anthony Blinken, the state department in order to justify the absolute maximum killing of Israel to pass. So this was made on a lie. So it's propaganda. Yeah. It's propaganda because you know, I'm not going to tell you they killed a million people, they raped women, they decapitated babies. That have a much more

Starting point is 00:45:06 stronger effect because what a baby could do to you. Baby could do nothing, climb up your leg. You decapitate him, you must be a monster. So now these are monster death cult worshipers that we can kill and we can bomb everybody. You see that? So it's a perspective, you're like framing it. So you're saying, but who's doing that, the Israeli media? Yeah, the Israeli media, the Israeli media, because all of the, and not just the Israeli media, the American media have propagated these stories and they have never taken back or refuted a single story. Oh, American media is not good.

Starting point is 00:45:36 And you know, and what made me like go crazy, the Israeli, they made themselves like, guys, this didn't happen. So this is like the strongest bro code I've ever seen in my life. It's like, you know, you're lying for your bro and your bro's like, dude, this didn't happen. So this is like the strongest bro code I've ever seen in my life. It's like, you know, you're lying for your bro and your bro's like, dude, that didn't happen. That didn't happen.

Starting point is 00:45:50 So America is lying hard for Israel, while Israel itself, the Israeli made, said like, guys, that didn't happen. All of these lies didn't happen. The New York Times article screams without words was debunked to be lies. There was so many people, lies, lies, lies. No decapitated babies were found.

Starting point is 00:46:07 Only one baby was killed, her name is Mila Cohen, she's 10 months old and she was died during an exchange. No decapitated babies, no rape awareness. Sheryl Sandberg and New York Times have spread all of these lies and they were debunked many, many times. And still the American media are running with the lies. But a lot of American media is...

Starting point is 00:46:25 If you say that, that would be anti-Semitic, so I'm not gonna go there, right? Oh, is that anti-Semitic? They're telling me everything that I say now is anti-Semitic. Oh, I didn't know that. But I'm saying that even the Jewish people in Israel telling you these are lies. Well, my friends, my Jewish friends who, they say that.

Starting point is 00:46:41 They say that the media is mostly run by Jewish folks. I don't think that that's... It is. They told me that. It is. It is. All of the corporates, all the CEOs, but that's a different thing. But I don't want to go into their intention. I'm just giving you a case that it didn't have... We can't say that though? Well, according to a bill that was passed by the Congress two months ago, there is now an anti-Semitic bill that anything, any criticism

Starting point is 00:47:05 to Israel will be counted as anti-Semitic. Any criticism to Jewish people who might have a dual loyalty to Israel and America, if you attack them, that will be called anti-Semitic. If you talk about AIPAC controlling the elections and giving money, that's anti-Semitic. And it's like, wait a minute, that's against the first amendment of the United States. Because I can, I have grown up seeing people shitting on everything, on the American president, on the American, on religion, on Jesus Christ. Oh yeah, gays, whites, blacks.

Starting point is 00:47:35 Jesus, whites, Muslims. But when you, but suddenly when you talk about Israel, which is a foreign country that we give aid, you can't speak, you can't talk about, you're labeled anti-Semitic. Why? Yeah, I got to... Yeah, some of it's like...

Starting point is 00:47:50 Well, we had Roseanne Baran, she's Jewish, she said something, she made a joke and our episode got taken down. But if she made it, it was obviously like a joke, you know? So some of it's just confusing because here's the thing I understand, like just say if you can't say, if we're not allowed to say something, at least tell us what it is. No, we're not. They always keep you in this kind of fear of saying something wrong and they have all of the, your anti-Semitic, like guys, like you have to stop this anti-Semitic because... Well, it becomes this boy that cried wolf kind of thing where it's like you accuse everybody

Starting point is 00:48:24 of anti-Semitic. It's like, dude, I have so many Jewish friends you think I'd be anti-Smitic because... Well, becomes this boy that cried wolf kind of thing where it's like you accuse everybody of... It's like, dude, I have so many Jewish friends you think I'd be... I don't like Netanyahu. I don't like some of the choices that I feel like that that country makes, but I don't have anything against my Jewish friends. That's why I'm very careful when I talk. I never say Jewish people. I say pro-Zionist, Zionist, Israel,

Starting point is 00:48:45 pro Israel. I never talk. No, no, no, no, I don't say about Jewish people because I know that a lot of Jewish people don't like what Israel is doing. I know a lot of Jewish people don't like how they control the Congress. I don't like how a lot of Jewish people that don't like how APAC, which is a foreign lobby and yet is allowed to to operate American local law, that they can openly brag about buying Congress seats. If you go into APAC Twitter account or X account, they would brag about like how 98% of our candidates. Do not accept all cookies if you go over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:49:21 Like go to their, no, not network, APAC, just, yeah, APAC go to their no no no no not network a pack just yeah a pack It's AI P AI AI P AI AI AI Yes, and a no no no no tracker yeah a pack yeah, that's one yes, and what is a pad a pack is American Israeli pack for Yeah, it's like American Israeli PAC for, yeah, it's like American Israeli. American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Yeah, Public Affairs, yeah, Public Affairs. So go down, go down and see what they talk

Starting point is 00:49:56 about the elections. When they talk about the elections, they always talk about like, they end it with, yeah, another great thing. Being pro-israel is good policy and good politics they end that with every hundred percent of a back-end or two Democrats won their primary rate 100 feet if how is like a foreign country like a foreign like an a lobby that works for a foreign country brags about buying your elections like that. You see, being pro-Israel is good policy, and every single tweet is like that.

Starting point is 00:50:29 They are basically looking to you in the eyes and say, like, we're buying your elections and you can't do anything about it. So I can accept that from NRA, because the NRA is a domestic group, right? At least it presents the interest of American home, like gun owners. Oh, this is a very-

Starting point is 00:50:50 Oh, I just saw this guy recently. Mr. Massey who said like each one in Capitol Hill has an AIPAC handler. It's like, I need to talk to my guy. Everybody but me has an AIPAC person. What does that mean, an AIPAC person? It's like your babysitter, your AIPACitter, who is always talking to you for APAC. It's just kind of like having an agent or whatever. Yeah, but like, go ahead, go continue.

Starting point is 00:51:20 And I don't understand why every American politician have to go there and bend the knees. You go have lunch with them, and they've got your cell number and you have conversations with them. Well I think part of this... I'll talk to my APEC person and it's clearly what we call them my APEC guy. I'll talk to my APEC guy and see if I can get him to you know dial those ads back. I'd see if I can get them to, you know, dial those ads back. Group of Americans who lobby on behalf of Israel there for anything. But I think also it's like, you have to look at it as like, like, is it like, we live in a country that is a capitalism, right? Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:51:58 And they are like Israel just does, they're, they're the best business people, you know? They're like, it's almost like Monopoly and they won. You know, that's what I feel like sometimes. Yeah, they won and good for them. They're very good, but how does an American feel? Right, but you can't hold it against them because they are good at this. You can't hold it against them because they won, right?

Starting point is 00:52:20 So you cannot hold it against Israel, but you hold it against Russia if they try, or China if they try. So why do we accept it from Israel, but you hold it against Russia if they try or China if they try. So why do we accept it from Israel from not from Russia? Except what? Except them controlling the elections, you understand? So you have an APAC which is a lobby, basic lobbying for another country. This is in the news and you can look it up. They paid a hundred million dollars in order to buy seats for, uh, Congress

Starting point is 00:52:48 people and Senate and because of the people they were able to put there, they were able to approve $26 billion to Israel. So understand as an American, your politicians are being bought for a hundred million dollars and because of that, your country will send 26 billion to a different country. 26 billion that could have been spent in my own country, in my own community. This is the biggest, the best, uh, return of

Starting point is 00:53:15 investment ever. You pay a hundred million and I take back 26 billion from you. That's crazy. Yeah. And, and, and this is why, when I talk about what's happening is I'm not even, you see, like, oh yeah, you missed that. What you just had, APEC targets progressive

Starting point is 00:53:29 with $100 million in its coffers. Yeah. So basically anybody who talks against you in Congress, you pay, basically you pay them out, and then you take more money. How much, don't we as Americans deserve the $26 billion to be put in our communities? Oh, I think it's like, this is, we give them money,

Starting point is 00:53:52 but they control us. Yeah. This is like. Oh, it's fucking, they're good at the business, dude. This is like a sugar daddy who's being slapped around like a bitch from his sugar baby. This is like, there is like basically picking up a kohor in the strip mall in Las Vegas and then suddenly she's in charge of your life. This is

Starting point is 00:54:13 like having a dominatrix and so like, I'm gonna kick your balls and you're gonna like it and you're gonna pay me 26 billion dollars for it. It's like that doesn't work because I come from the Middle East and I'm used to dictatorship. I am used for us having no voice. I'm used to a certain class of people controlling the country. But even then, we knew that these people are not in control because they had to answer

Starting point is 00:54:37 for China or Russia or America or France, right? Because we're a dictatorship. This is how dictatorship works. A democracy loving country like America or Britain go control a certain country and it's easier for them to deal with the dictator. So we knew that they were not calling the shots. It was called from Washington. I'm fine with that because I'm a third world country. We're from the Middle East. We have to follow the masters of this planet. Now, I came to America and I became an American. I thought I was

Starting point is 00:55:04 Now I came to America and I became an American. I thought I was like Joining I'm joining the winning team I will have a say in my country and then suddenly my country the most powerful country in the world the superpower in the World has its policies being dictated from Tel Aviv. How does it work? You see and and and it's fine It's and I ask Americans guys. Are you used to this kind of humiliation? You're supposed to be like from a country, for the people, by the people, and then suddenly your elections and being dictated by a different country,

Starting point is 00:55:30 how does it work? But to me, the thing is just like, making it, is it true or not? It's like, just tell me what's happening. I just told you. Right. So whatever I just told you, that like a foreign lobby from a foreign country is controlling

Starting point is 00:55:45 your politics right in front of you. And then you have, and by the way, I understand how lobby works because, but remember when Democrats was giving shit to Republicans, where they were having so much money from NRA, right? Oh, you're taking money from the gun lobby. How dare you? And then the Republicans were attacked there. You're taking money from the gun lobby. How dare you? And then the Republicans were attacked there. You're taking money from tech.

Starting point is 00:56:07 Israel is the only country that gives both sides and nobody questions. So basically it's not caring about the education will not get you elected. Caring about health care will not get you elected. Caring about the well-being of your American constituents will not get you elected. It is caring about what's good for Israel. So yes, guys, our neighborhood is shit. We have no sewage, no education, but God bless Israel. It doesn't, you're basically having a lot of people elected for your Congress

Starting point is 00:56:36 to look for a different country. Look out for a different country. To me, it's very, it does seem very bizarre. Yeah. I think a lot of that stuff, like when it hits my heart over the past, like especially eight months, you know, it's been, it makes me feel like there has to be a way better way to figure things out.

Starting point is 00:56:55 It's all about like fear mongering. They will tell you, but Israel is alone. It is surrounded by enemies that want to wipe us. Is that true or not? Is Israel surrounded by enemies or not? Bring the map of the Middle East. Because one of the reasons I'm sure America and Israel have a like work together is because they need each other, right? Okay, so Egypt is surrounded by Egypt. Egypt is the biggest military force in the Middle East.

Starting point is 00:57:18 That's my country. Okay. And they have having like a 45 years lasting peace treaty. There has never been a single missile or bullet shot from Israel, from Palestine, from Egypt to Israel, all over that. So Egypt and Israel have a good. Yeah. Jordan is the other country, peace, UAE peace. Uh, do you have the, the, the really the, the

Starting point is 00:57:41 big threat for Israel is the little militant group in the Gaza strip, which is Hamas and Hezbollah, which is south of Lebanon. And if you have all of that military might. Hezbollah, is that? Yeah, and it's up there, like you see the gray area, like in Lebanon. Yeah. Oh, is that where you live in?

Starting point is 00:57:56 So basically you have like two militant groups who doesn't like you, right? Supported by Iran, which is far away from you. And you have all of these Arab countries around you basically friends with you. So all of them, they want to kill us all, we're going to perish, all of this. You see Saudi Arabia, they have like almost normalized relationship. You don't believe that, you believe that they have a pretty stable. It is a way to push in war and make you, because if you're not threatened, how can you sell the war?

Starting point is 00:58:22 Yeah. And if you talk about October 7th, see what they want to be, you believe that before October 7th, there were peace. Actually, before October 7th, two weeks before October 7th, Israel bombed Gaza three times. Before October 7th,

Starting point is 00:58:36 Israel already killed 75 children in the West Bank in the same year. All of these numbers were happening, all of this ongoing, there was no peace before October 7th. And you go in and you go home with these lies that has never been refuted by the American media, although it was found to be lies and lies and lies, and you do that because you wanna tell people

Starting point is 00:58:55 we're dealing with terrorists, all of the Arab countries hate us and we have to kill us, and then they will bring in the Holocaust. I'm very sorry for the Holocaust guys, but we had nothing to do with your Holocaust. We were just like minding our fucking business. and then they will bring in the Holocaust. I'm very sorry for the Holocaust guys, but we had nothing to do with your Holocaust. We were just like minding our fucking business. I was dead or whatever, I wasn't dead, I wasn't alive.

Starting point is 00:59:10 We were in the Middle East, we were just there, and the Holocaust happened to you in Europe. It didn't happen to you because of us. And then you import people from a different continent because you didn't want them, you didn't give them visa, you didn't take them as refugees. And then you- Little American Britain, you mean?

Starting point is 00:59:24 Yeah, and then you put them on our land, then you take our land and then you tell everybody, oh there was no one there. So has America showed up, Britain showed up and tried to help like facilitate like communications to make things better there? There were many tries for peace treaties, but Obama said it best. In his book he said, the problem with Israel and Palestine is that one of them is very strong and one side is very weak Yeah, and there's nothing that compels me to give you land So they will tell you oh we we gave we give five chances to the Palestinians and they said no that is not true

Starting point is 00:59:57 When you when I have the whole land and suddenly you're gonna give me 49% that is not a deal That's like if you don't like it We're gonna take it from you if you give me like a shitty deal and you don't I don't accept 49%, that is not a deal. That's like, if you don't like it, we're going to take it from you. If you give me like a shitty deal and I don't accept it because that is my land, you just go and say like, oh, they didn't accept it. Right, so, but have there been deals offered but one way or the other, like PISH?

Starting point is 01:00:15 Yeah, yeah, like there's something called the Oslo Accords. It happened in 1995. The Oslaw Accords? The Oslaw Accords. And you have Netanyahu bragging on tape saying that I have personally sabotaged the Oslaw Accords and you have Netanyahu bragging on tape saying that I have personally sabotaged the Oslo Accords so it means nothing. Okay, the Oslo Accords are a pair of interim agreements between Israel and Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO, signed in Washington DC in 1993, signed in Egypt in 1995.

Starting point is 01:00:42 They marked the start of the Oslo process, a peace process aimed at achieving a peace treaty based on resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. Among the notable outcomes, Oslo was the creation of the Palestinian National Authority, which was tasked with the responsibility of conducting limited Palestinian governance over parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. So, this was helping Palestine create a government? Yes, but then it was, it was all over the way. It's now clean. The Oslo Peace Accords were wrecked by Netanyahu. And that was written by Avi Schleim, who's an Israeli author. Right. Because there's people in Israel that don't agree with Netanyahu, right?

Starting point is 01:01:18 Yes, I know. But honestly, I'm sick and tired of saying, oh, Netanyahu is bad, but the rest of Israel, no. 98% of Israeli community said that we're not doing enough in Gaza. Only 2% says it's too much. 70% of Israelis said that we should not send humanitarian aid to Gaza. A lot of people, and I don't blame, I mean, I blame them, but like when you tell your people that those are like evils and they're like vampires and they're like killers, of course you're going to hate them. Of course you don't want them to live. But you cannot expect to treat people like animals

Starting point is 01:01:50 and when they behave like animals, retaliate like animals, you go on and complain. Yeah. Right? How do you, is there a way, cause man, it's just there's so much, there's so much damage done there. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:02:04 How do you find, how is there some sort of a solution? Like what direction do you see? The solution is fixing the occupation. There is an occupation. And why doesn't America and Britain step in and say, look, we helped create this in the beginning. We want to be here to help us establish safety for these people now.

Starting point is 01:02:21 Okay, America. What is America made of? Government. What is the government is made of? Elected officials. These people are elected through what? Through elections. Who's controlling the elections and paying for certain people to be there? AIPAC. But do we know, but don't, doesn't every country have lobbyists that try to like influence our elections? Not a foreign lobby like this. Yeah, there is lobbies everywhere, but when you have a foreign lobby that works for an external country, that is not normal to you.

Starting point is 01:02:48 But is that considered just like, you know how we have like little base or little, what are the places called if you're in London? Oh, the embassy, like we have embassies in different places. Isn't that just like them having like a human embassy or something like a, you know what I'm talking about? Kind of making sense? I understand, but like that isn't that just like them having like a human embassy or something like a no no, you know talking about kind of I understand but like that doesn't work with lobbies with with parliaments and then like this is again This is like imagine a lobby that is openly funded by China and that lobby going there and buying seats for your

Starting point is 01:03:19 For for people who are pro-china seem like unfair. It's on it's it's it It should not be accepted in a democratic country. Why do we allow that to happen? It would seem like, well, but then you know what? That's where it comes down to capitalism because it's the same shit that we allow where, just like where that drug company came in and hired former people from the FDA

Starting point is 01:03:44 to come and work for their drug company. That's wrong. That's illegal. Right. And also, the government, I mean, capitalism wants you to believe that there's nothing you can do. It's only the free market. Even the free market has some sort of a government control. If a company goes out and become a monopoly, you have antitrust laws. And that government can curb that company. Yeah. But the problem is the government that should curb the influence of a foreign lobby is being paid

Starting point is 01:04:09 by the same foreign lobby. So who would come up and put like a questioning for Israel lobby, the people they just paid get into Congress, I paid you, I own your ass. You are not gonna go into Congress and then ask why are we following. So- Israel's a gangster.

Starting point is 01:04:25 Exactly. This is what really make me disenfranchised. I became an American citizen in 2019 and I was so, right in time for the 2020 elections. I was so happy. I'm going to be elected. It took me now four years. I'm not going to vote in the coming elections. What's the point?

Starting point is 01:04:40 Like, what about America, man? What America? It's like, so now I'm, why would I even care to vote for anybody while both of them are competing to be Israel's favorite bitch? Yeah. It's basically like this, it's like, oh, I'm the best one for Israel.

Starting point is 01:04:54 How about being the best one for America? How about doing what's good for America? Is it good for America to pay $26 billion? If I'm seeing this, how do I feel as an American? Well, I think it's, well, for one, I think a lot of people don't know what to think. A lot of people aren't super clear on maybe what's going on, you know? Because they're not allowed to, because they are being, all they need to do is like to see the headlines of the news and the headlines of news is always something bad about Palestinians or something bad about, nothing is bad. They don't spend enough time because they want their ESPNs

Starting point is 01:05:27 and they need to do Netflix. They don't want to involve. That's why a lot of Americans are still believing in the raping and the decapitated babies because you can't stay tuned into the news for long. So for them, they do the shock, the lies. And then when people say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, that didn't happen. It's like, it's too late now because people say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, that didn't happen.

Starting point is 01:05:45 It's like, ah, it's too late now, because people are kind of, they're too doubt. Yeah, I think a lot of people do not even believe the news at all anymore, though. I think the news has super lost a ton of credibility over the years. So what happens? You create a kind of apathy, so people don't care,

Starting point is 01:05:59 and business go as usual. The Congress getting bought, people getting bribed, 26 billion dollars getting sent to Israel, people continue having bombing and then every now and then, why is this happening? Because you checked out a long time ago. Yeah. And then you ask, what can we do? Nothing, because they made you check out a long time ago. So we have all of these people looking at what the government's doing, looking at what the world is doing. It's like, that ain't right, but there's nothing I can do about it.

Starting point is 01:06:25 And this is exactly how you run the world. In my country, in the Middle East, I do that because you cannot speak up because you're gonna be put in jail. But here, you can speak up, but nothing will happen. Nothing will change. Here, I think sometimes you get afraid to even ask questions about stuff,

Starting point is 01:06:43 and it's like, well, this doesn't even make any sense like Just at least let things make sense to me for me not be able to ask questions and shit is just fucking yeah That's the thing that's really really weird Yeah, because it's all about like the attacking so if you to go and you repeat what I just told you it's like Oh, I see you. He's a liar. He's an anti-Semite. He hate Jews. Okay. What did he lie about? They will never give you a details. What did he lie about? I'll give you an example. When I, on the second piece, Morgan interview, I went up to him and I gave

Starting point is 01:07:08 him a story, I told him that Israel used to give contraceptive pills to the Ethiopian Jews, Ethiopian Jewish women who were immigrated from Ethiopia. And for more than 15 years, Israel would give them contraceptive shots without them knowing So they would sterilize them will not allow them to breathe because they are black. Is that true? Yeah Dude all you know what I noticed it I was in Atlanta at the Coca-Cola factory or whatever and you can you can taste all the sodas from around the world look Coca-Cola factory or whatever and you can taste all the sodas from around the world. Look. Ethiopian women in Israel get been contraceptive without consent, huh? Yeah. So when Benjamin Netanyahu was in the government and he came out and he personally

Starting point is 01:08:00 apologized, right? So this is cut and dry. And you know what happened? The Israelis on the X, oh he's a liar, that never happens. It's here. So I'm just preparing you that every time you're going to tell them something, they will tell you, oh it's a lie, it's a lie, nobody said that. Well a lot of that's just, I mean yeah, people will position themselves constantly. It's like people are, especially if people are up to no good, nobody wants to get caught a lot of times. Yeah, it's like you saying something and somebody, you're racist. It's like, wait, what did I just say that was racist?

Starting point is 01:08:36 Oh no, you're racist. You're making me uncomfortable. You see that the way that they attack you, it's like, okay, attack what I said. Yeah. If I'm racist, I okay, attack what I said. Yeah. If I'm racist dude, I do it at home. Yeah. Behind closed doors.

Starting point is 01:08:48 But this is, you're anti-Semitic, you're racist, you're a homophobe. The way that they use, like the same way, oh, you're Islamophobe. I don't like this word, Islamophobe. I don't know if anybody cares about that shit anymore. Nobody cares. Well, people have thrown around some of those terms

Starting point is 01:09:02 so many times, it's like the boy that cried wolf kind of in a way. Exactly. It's like the boy that cried wolf kind of in a way. It's like you can't, I can't, you can't make it feel like I can't ask something or talk about something. Yeah, it just, sometimes it just, sometimes some of that stuff is strange. And it's hard. I mean, some of this stuff is even hard to talk about because it's like, I worry that even just by having like some of this conversation, it like you just it's kind of scary because I don't know what I could get in trouble for. But this is scary man because like I'm new to this country so like I'm kind of like following your lead guys and I'm saying

Starting point is 01:09:35 like wait isn't this country made created on the cornerstone of freedom of expression why is there some things that we are not allowed to speak about or afraid? This is the promise of the West. Come here and speak and say whatever you want, no matter how offensive it is, it doesn't matter because it is words. But then suddenly you come here and you find all of these red lines. And I was made fun of like when I came from the Middle East, you have all of these red lines. You cannot speak about that. We can't speak about Jesus. We can't speak about the American president, you can't speak. And now I come here and I see the red line.

Starting point is 01:10:07 You have one red line. Really? And you have one red line, everybody here, not you. Then that red line, everybody can see you guys cannot be able to talk about, which is Israel. This is your red line. Your red line is not even in your country. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:10:22 Which is crazy. That's a crazy statement. It's that crazy. Dude, I'll tell you what I heard, dude. I heard that Jesus, Jesus did like a lot of impersonations and stuff. What did he impersonate? His dad? Just his friends and stuff. But I heard that somewhere. I don't know why I read that, but he would do like impersonations, I guess, or whatever. But he would be like the Archangel Michael. It's like, hey Jesus, hey Jesus, and it's like, yes, Archangel Michael,

Starting point is 01:10:45 and it's like, hey, Jesus, hey, Jesus. But he's like. So an Archangel walks into a crowd. No, but I think, and okay, and I'll tell you something about like things that people find offensive, for example. We were basically profiled as Muslims that we hate. The slims, we call them.

Starting point is 01:11:04 Yeah, yeah, slims. Yeah. I made that up a couple years ago, it's like a, I don't want to say it's a racial slur, but if it is, you're welcome. Slims, it's like the slims of cigarettes? Yeah, it's like, whenever we say Muslims, we say slims.

Starting point is 01:11:18 We say slims, yeah. I think it's, I really like it. Some people might not like it and that's okay. And I, one thing that kind of like drives me clear sometimes like we like Israel, but we don't like Muslims. Like why? And then policy is like, should do you Christian values? Have you heard about that?

Starting point is 01:11:35 Should do you Christian values? Guys, what do you talk about? Do you do Christian values? You understand that people in Israel hate Christians. You understand that you go right now? True, you think you go right now. That's not true, you think? You go right now in the video and you write Israelis spitting on Christians in Bethlehem or spitting on Israel, on Christians in Israel,

Starting point is 01:11:57 you see? Spitting, hitting attacks on Israel, surging in Israel, occupying Jerusalem, ultra-Jewish, spitting on Christians. But this could be specific stuff. No, no, this is part, Jerusalem, ultra-Jewish, spitting on Christians. But this could be specific stuff. No, no, this is part, okay, so. You know what I'm saying, this might not be an everyday thing because I have a lot of friends that are Jewish and they'll treat me bad. There's like so many videos.

Starting point is 01:12:14 It's just like the videos keep scrolling as we say, that's not that very, you see how many videos right now we're talking? The videos keep scrolling, not that everything, but we happen to have a hundred videos to say that that's true. It says there's only 2000 videos. Okay, and you have actually one of their ministers,

Starting point is 01:12:35 Ben Gavir, who is the basic national security, as we said, it is actually part of our religion. There's no hate about that. And many of the rabbis will say that Jesus right now, Jesus is the son of a whore, the Virgin Mary is a whore, she made up the whole thing about the son of God in order to cover for her adultery. And Jesus right now is being burned with feces and semen for eternity. This is what they say. So basically, I don't know if you follow this trend. I've never heard that.

Starting point is 01:13:05 Yeah, you can find it out. And this is a trend on TikTok? No, not a trend. These videos are already there. So basically, when Christians go there, the Orthodox Jews will go, haktuah. They go, haktuah. They spit on that thing. So, and again, and I'm not saying that this represents all Jews, but what I'm saying is if you want net pick about this, because I grew up as a Muslim and all of those videos, net picking of like, oh, look at this extreme Muslim

Starting point is 01:13:38 who said that, oh, this must be all Muslim, all Muslim terrorists. And we have a lot of those videos on this and nobody's talking about it. So you understand how this is personal for me? And I'm fine talking about those horrible people in the Muslim community, but talk about everybody. Don't limit our speech.

Starting point is 01:13:56 By the way, and I hate the word Islamophobe. Anybody is allowed to talk about Islam or the Quran, whatever, I will never call you an Islamophobe. But I'm an equal opportunity offender. If you talk about my religion, let's talk about everybody's religion. Oh, yeah, yeah. If you're gonna talk about my politics,

Starting point is 01:14:09 let's talk about everybody's politics. I'm not here to attack Jewish people. I'm not here to attack Israel. I am just asking for my right as an American to be able to speak about everything without having fear of being canceled or having my career canceled. I had opportunities, my opportunities in Hollywood dried up completely after I talked.

Starting point is 01:14:32 Is that true? Yes. Do you think it's tougher for Arabic and Islamic entertainers in Hollywood? Oh, it is tougher, but there's also people who are not Muslims, who are not Arabs, who had canceled because of their opinions. There have been blacklists of people in tech companies that have been removed from their companies because of a post on Facebook and this is happening in America. And of course you remember what happened in these colleges where like American students were being beaten

Starting point is 01:15:00 by American police for the sake of a foreign country. You understand like the American university movement, which one of the most amazing movement that they went out against Vietnam, they went out against South Africa, and now they went out against Israel, and they're being hit and penalized in their own campuses for just speaking up. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like they should be able to do that at campuses,

Starting point is 01:15:24 but then what happens is investors or donators campuses for just speaking up. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like they should be able to do that at campuses, but then what happens is investors or donators to the campuses who don't, who believe what they believe, they choose to take their money away. And those donors are pro what? They're pro money. So if you, right please please Jewish billionaires threaten Columbia universities to withdraw their money. I'm never gonna fucking work here.

Starting point is 01:15:52 Dude I came here having receipts. I know but I'm gonna get in trouble. Pro Israel Jewish billionaires call it cuts look I there it is billionaires stop Columbia cash over anti-Israel protests. Columbia billionaires doors are giving a minute. So you see, what does it, so your donors, the donors have more loyalty to a foreign country and telling you, if you speak against that foreign country, I'm not giving you my money.

Starting point is 01:16:16 But it makes sense though, that makes sense. If you think that, that you say you're a, like I'm a New Orleans Saints fan. If somebody puts up a Falcons flag, an Atlanta Falcons flag, and I'm a New Orleans Saints fan if somebody if somebody puts up a Falcons flag And Atlanta Falcons flag and I'm a New Orleans Saints fan And it's my bar or something or I'm the one that helps take care of the place where they're putting the flag up I'm gonna be upset. I'm gonna say well I'm not gonna help take care of this place anymore if you support but the Falcon and miss oh

Starting point is 01:16:39 These are two people in the league in an American League But you are basically talking about the different you're, I'm not even talking about, I'm not even discussing your team. I am, I am saying, I'm saying that I don't want my college to take part from, I, I, you know, understand why they went, they said that we need to divest from any investment with the Israeli army.

Starting point is 01:17:06 Is that fair or not? That's fair. Like I don't want my universities, the one that I pay tuition to, to be involved with the military or the Israel. That's fair. And then you have Bunoor, no, we need to be involved in other people's shit.

Starting point is 01:17:24 And he need not to speak about that. That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense to me, man. Well, why don't like Arab, like why don't different groups start to build their own strongholds of like university and like media so that everybody can have their own channels? Most Arabs work in vaping. I don't know that there's not for money in their community.

Starting point is 01:17:49 Hey, smoke signals. We just said that like Jewish people are very good in business. We can't compete with that. We just have hookahs and vapes. We can't compete with them. But like, you see, if that is the case, don't call it a democracy anymore. If the whole idea about like who pays the more money, it's an oligarchy.

Starting point is 01:18:07 Don't call yourself democratic. Just say, hey, it's a capitalist country, whoever has more money, but that's dangerous because tomorrow China might have more money here and control it. So it has to be a fair game for everybody, but it's not fair because now they say TikTok, we need to ban TikTok because it's against Israel because it's pro-China.

Starting point is 01:18:27 So you're not even making the game fair. If Israel can buy its way through it, anybody should buy their way through it. Oh, I see what you're saying. You're saying, well, then if that's the case, then China should be able to do it too. And Saudi Arabia is able to do it and Iran is able to do it. But I think Israel is an ally. I guess why, I guess like... Why is Israel an ally? I don't know why. And which ally have you given 26 billion dollars? I don't know dude. You see, but these things we're repeating that oh Israel is our greatest ally. Why? I don't know, but you have to have...

Starting point is 01:19:00 Well, here's why I believe this is what I've always been kind of like I guess heard is that you have to have an ally in the Middle East because there's so much oil and power and money over there. Okay, wait, wait, wait. America doesn't have allies in the Middle East. What's Saudi Arabia? The biggest oil producing company in the world.

Starting point is 01:19:16 Iraq, Egypt, these are, UAE, all of Kuwait, all of these are allies for the United States. I don't know if Saudi Arabia is an ally, I don't know about that. Really? Saudi Arabia is the most beneficial for your economy. Really? They are the biggest buyer of your weapons. Except for those two buildings in New York City, dude.

Starting point is 01:19:32 Outside of that, you know what I'm saying? Well, in so why didn't you go after them? Because I guess somebody owed somebody some money or something. No, that's not about 9-11 now because it's a bigger issue. We're gonna go really down the rabbit hole. But here's the thing. you have all of those people, they're allies.

Starting point is 01:19:47 What has Israel done to you being an ally? It has ruined your reputation in front of everybody. Hates America because of Israel. I don't know if that's true. You think so? Yeah, everybody hates America because of Israel. I'm telling you. And that's why they hate America

Starting point is 01:20:01 because what Israel is doing in Palestine and how America is supporting Israel forever. And if you find America supporting the killing of my people, you can't help but people hate you, right? At a certain point, I don't think that Israel is a good ally for us. They are costing us a lot of money. They are harboring a lot of terrorists. The Jewish Defense League, there are three people from Jewish Defense League in 1994 who killed an American citizen and they escaped to Israel and Israel is not delivering you. Is that a work of an ally? Israel hit the USS Liberty in 1967. It's an American vessel. Is that an American? No. There's a book called By Way of Deception by Victor Ostrovsky who is an ex-Mosad officer

Starting point is 01:20:46 who said that Israel knew about the 1982 Lebanon bombing where 52 Americans were killed and Mosad held the information because they want to do it in spite. Is that the work of an ally? Israel harbors the biggest number of pedophiles in Israel, more than 50 people at least from 2014 by the Jewish watch community. This is actually a Jewish group who have actually said that. So you have people who are molesting American children

Starting point is 01:21:21 in America and they're escaping to Israel using the dual nationality thing and Israel is not giving you back. Is that the war of an ally? If somebody's a molester, you gotta send them back. It's on CBS News if you want to look at it. Like CBS News, you can talk about it. You don't like Israel, I think. I don't like Israel, no. I do not like it. I think their ways are evil and you see how Jewish American pedophiles hide from justice in Israel. That's CBS. I'm not making this up.

Starting point is 01:21:48 A lot of them too would hide by the, yeah, would hide. So, so, so, so is this, is this a work of a, of an ally? Is a, is an ally giving you a hundred million dollars to bribe your politicians, buy your, your elections and then make you pay 26 billion dollars? That's not a work of an ally. If someone takes 70 million dollars of tax exempt money for their veterans, that's not the work of an ally. But how much, how many issues did America create for itself just with its own practices of like doing this, like these, doing those sorts of things to other countries and stuff? I wonder. You know what I'm saying? Like, I wonder if there's a part of, if that's true, I don't know. I mean, America has known to finance and carry out coups in all kind of different countries. In Latin America, they're known to like, you know, overthrowing a government if they don't like,

Starting point is 01:22:39 for example, it happened in Chile, it happened in Argentina, it happened so many places. It happened in Iraq, Iraq in 1954, there was like an elected official that they thrown out because of oil agreements. America is known to manipulate the whole world. It is, that's what superpowers do. Right, so if the- Like the Romans did it, the Greeks came, I accept that.

Starting point is 01:23:01 I accept that because you're the police of the planet. Yes, it happened, It comes with a cost. But couldn't that evolve and then Israel could just become that? What do you mean? Like if we were the leader at one time, couldn't Israel be the leader at one time? Why? Couldn't China be the leader at one time? Well, China I can accept because it's a superpower.

Starting point is 01:23:20 But Israel is a client state. It's a small state. This is like basically you living, you, you, you working in a, in a corporate and the CEO coming every day and shitting on your office, shitting on your office. It's like, what is this? He or he's the owner. But then he brings his little poodle and then he shits on your desk. That's too much. That's Israel. Right.

Starting point is 01:23:39 I can accept it because you are the superpower of the world, but don't bring your brat dog to do it on my desk. That's too much. Because the only way that I can do anything because you are the super power of the world, but don't bring your brat dog to do it on my desk. That's too much. Because the only way that I can do anything for that dog is that the owner is the CEO and I don't want to be fired. So that's basically, Israel is the bulldog that's being that harassing everybody around it in the region. And, and, and they all know they hate us.

Starting point is 01:24:02 Where are we going to perish? Fuck it. You know, you're not going to perish. You have nuclear weapons. You have like, yeah, they're fine. They're fine. Definitely. It's kind of, they hate us. Where are we gonna perish? Fuck it, you're not gonna perish. You have nuclear weapons. You have like- Yeah, they're fine. They're fine. Definitely gets kind of wild.

Starting point is 01:24:09 They're fine. And then, okay, how is it sense of self-defense? Because I'm sure that you've seen these videos, all of these IDF soldiers wearing women's laundry, taking like the women's, the kids' toys, destroying empty hospitals, destroying empty schools just for the fun of it. that doesn't look like an army that is defending itself.

Starting point is 01:24:28 Yeah. Well, to me, it's felt like the feeling of it is that, like usually when you hear, I mean, I've said this before, usually when you hear like free a place, that's the place that needs help, you know? It's like you don't hear like free Michigan or free America or free China, or sometimes you hear free China.

Starting point is 01:24:48 But yeah, if you hear free Palestine, if you hear that, then that's usually, if something becomes that big of a fervor that that's the campaign slogan, that place usually needs some sort of help. How does someplace that's stronger, like Israel that has so much, how do they help? How do we get to it? Why would they help? They just want the land. But they're the... Remember the map that we saw how they

Starting point is 01:25:13 disintegrated? This has been ongoing from 1940s. But they obviously have enough of the land. No, they want the whole land. They want all over the West Bank. They want all of Gaza. And they have said many times on television that the only way this would happen if people in Gaza go into Egypt and people in the West Bank are driven into Georgia. Is this a legitimate map? Did you draw this map? It's from the internet! But they have been telling you openly we're gonna displace those people out there. But at a certain point they have to recognize hey we haven't this is... No they don't care. They haven't... Why would they recognize? See that's the part to me that's not cool, dude. Show me in this map anywhere where Israel has scaled back, what they have done, they

Starting point is 01:25:51 have moved forward to disintegrate the land more, push the people more, abuse the people more, and because they have the power, because they have American behind them, they are not compelled to do anything different. Well, they feel like they're in the right. Yes, they feel in the right because it's given, but the Bible gave it to me because God gave it to me. So if I believe I'm the chosen people, I can do whatever I want.

Starting point is 01:26:14 Oh yeah. And I have to tell you, like a lot of people ask me, Bessam, are you religious? I say like, if these are God chosen people, I have doubts. Wow. I'm gonna lose my job for another two more years for laughing at all. But do you think though that why doesn't America help Palestine? Why don't we?

Starting point is 01:26:33 Because they help. I just told you why. What is America? America is a government. This government is made of officials. These officials are elected. They need money for the elections. Who pays for election campaigns?

Starting point is 01:26:45 Who is the biggest? But even still, you could still help someone because they need help. No, no, they don't care. Who is the biggest recipient of donors from Israel? Nine million dollars over the years, Joe Biden. Joe Biden, yeah. Yeah, so why would he help?

Starting point is 01:27:01 Why would I help Palestine while I'm getting my money from you? I mean, he can give me all kind of like fancy political talk, but it's really about being reelected So the idea you are thinking as a human being what is the right thing to do and you're right But the right thing to do is not the right thing in politics The right thing in politics is to survive and have as much money as possible to stay in power as long as possible No morals no right and wrong, nothing. Just power. Well, one thing that didn't help, by having the term free Palestine, that's going to attract

Starting point is 01:27:33 all the... But if you label something free something right next to Israel, dude, no wonder they keep coming. They should have said a very expensive Palestine. It's a very expensive Palestine, but it is expensive. It's costing us a lot of money. They should have said under contract Palestine. Work in progress Palestine. Now is that a joke? Am I going to go to jail?

Starting point is 01:27:55 I don't know. Why would you go into it? You shouldn't. I understand that, but why do I feel like I might? Exactly. Why do you feel that? Theo, you are an outspoken person. You speak about anything.

Starting point is 01:28:05 You go on stage and you have no boundaries. When people in America start to have boundaries about a certain issue, we need to ask questions. Why? Oh, I get it. Why? And also, it's just like, it's crazy. It's just like, maybe it's my disappointment because I bet everything on this country. I really, really love living here, being here, and the only thing that I was promised, which is freedom, it seems not to work. And I'm someone who's been cancelled a few times, mapped for my own country. So I come here, it's like, hey, America, freedom!

Starting point is 01:28:39 It's like, oh, freedom of everything except that one thing. Come on, come on, dude, what kind of freedom is that? Maybe I should have like, I don't know, went to Tel Aviv instead. Well I think it behooves everybody if you can joke about everything. I think that makes things a lot more chill. How do you handle like not agreeing with Israel but still supporting like your Jewish friends and stuff that are in America? I don't think that's a difficult choice because the Jewish people, they are, here's the thing, they want you to make you think that all Jewish people are with Israel. That is

Starting point is 01:29:11 not true. A lot of Jewish people do not agree with that. So they... Oh yeah, I have a lot of Jewish friends that are on both sides of this thing. You have a lot of, you have a Jewish block that every single week that goes out in, in, in Europe and in America. And remember when we were talking about those universities, uh, uh, sit, the encampments, many of them, there was like a Jewish block that was part of, many of them were even arrested with their Arabs and American brothers, but they don't want to talk to you about that. There is, you can find many pictures for Orthodox Jews

Starting point is 01:29:45 burning the Israeli flag. Orthodox Jews in New York. OJs, yeah. Yeah, OJs. They do not represent us, but they don't want you to see that. They want you to see one thing. How do you get-

Starting point is 01:29:56 They hear this. All of those Jewish people, they don't like what is- If you can't show that, dude, we're gonna wanna- Why not? Yeah, you'll be. But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How many pictures of burned American flag have you seen? I don't look at those here. Not at night anyway. going in. Why not? But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait I'm not inviting people to hate on Jewish people. I just want to say you need to have the freedom to speak your mind even if it doesn't please certain people because this is democracy.

Starting point is 01:30:29 Democracy is noisy and you will listen to things that you don't like, but you should not feel afraid of speaking up your mind. Yeah. Yeah, I think the part where I even started to think about it was it just started to seem like, you know, obviously what happened on October 7th was horrible think about it was it just started to seem like, you know, obviously what happened in October 7th was horrible. And, but then it just started to seem like such a overstatement of, uh,

Starting point is 01:30:54 Yeah. It was like, oh, we have to kill Hamas. We have to kill Hamas. And then they just won't exist. And so, I don't know, there's something inside of me, even if I don't know anything about it, there's something inside of me that just says, this just feels messed up. I like the fact that they say like, oh, we're doing this for Palestinians. We will get rid of Hamas for them and the Palestinians will be grateful. And then I see the destructions. I see that, yeah, there's a lot of Palestinians who don't like Hamas.

Starting point is 01:31:19 But you want to convince me that you want to destroy that place and then you think those people that will be left will be okay with you. Do you think the Palestinian people knew that Hamas was going to do this October 7th? I don't think they knew and of course it's devastating for them and but it and I wish the October 7th never happened but again we come back it's like how long can you take it? How long can you take the abuse, the land theft, the killing? At a certain point, you're gonna be desperate.

Starting point is 01:31:49 And you're gonna be desperate against a much more stronger enemy. But isn't, like, when America revolted for tea, they revolted against a much stronger enemy. And I find it very interesting how everything in the American culture, you watch a star wars, you side with the rebels, you watch the hunger games, you side with the rebels, you go to Israel, you side with the oppressor. You don't side with the rebels.

Starting point is 01:32:17 You don't side with the people with no weapons. You say they don't side with the people with the machine guns or the knives. You say the people with the military arsenal. Yeah. Because they were deemed terrorists, less humans, dehumanizing. See how they talk about Palestinians? They are death cults, they are terrorists.

Starting point is 01:32:34 And what are Palestinians like? Like normal people, normal people, but they're living in a horrible condition. I married one of them. Oh gosh. So I can report that she has no fangs or nails other than the nails that she does in the nails alone.

Starting point is 01:32:46 So she's like a normal human being and we have normal kids and they don't turn into werewolves at night. They are normal people. They are normal people who have been in this land and they were taken away from them. Uh, this was a problem that was imported from a different continent done by other perpetrators.

Starting point is 01:33:04 They were rejected by other perpetrators, they were rejected by other white people, and they were just like put on us. And it is terrible, and it should not happen. So do Palestinians also have issues with Britain and the US then probably? Of course. But like I don't think they have any time to have issues with anybody. They have time to survive. They're living in tents right now in Gaza, and the people who live in West Bank are in

Starting point is 01:33:24 under threat to be killed or kicked out at any moment and I just I just want people to look at them as humans everybody who went to Gaza everybody went to the West Bank so what happened to those people and they will speak up they're being shut down are you able to look at Israel as humans too yes but I asked I look at everybody as humans and? Yes, but I asked, I look at everybody as humans and I will not do the same mistake that they have been doing to us, dehumanizing us, calling us terrorists,

Starting point is 01:33:53 but they are acting like terrorists. Why don't we give part of our country to Palestine? Why don't you give part of your country to Jewish people? Oh, are we? Why don't we give part of our country to one of the groups? At least that would help. Yeah, I think maybe, but it's not, it's. Or an island, what about that?

Starting point is 01:34:14 What about, what if you did a merger, you did Palestine? That's a good one. Yes. Do you think that's possible? Would Palestine accept something like that where it's like, let's give this place. I'm not Palestinian, so I cannot speak on their behalf,

Starting point is 01:34:29 but I think Palestinians want to stay in their land. And I think many of those, this is what drives me crazy because it doesn't make any sense. Any Jewish person all around the world, if you're like a Polish Jewish, like an American Jewish, just because you're Jewish, you can get the Israeli passport right now, right now.

Starting point is 01:34:50 And once you get the passport, you can come from Brooklyn, land into Israel, take a piece of land that was owned by a Palestinian right on the spot. Or a haum that is owned by a Palestinian, saying that this is your promised land. Like what do you mean you can walk into the house? Yeah, you can just walk in the house and you can have videos of people taking their stuff

Starting point is 01:35:09 and barging into a Palestinian home in the West Bank. It happens all the time. It doesn't make any sense. A Brooklyn Jew, just because he was born Jew, can just go to Israel, take the passport and take a piece of land that belongs to someone else. Even now, as we speak, does that make any sense? But most people wouldn't do that. Many people do that.

Starting point is 01:35:28 Many people do that. On every single given day, you have plans with thousands of Jewish people from all over the world coming from Eastern Europe, coming from Africa, coming from Latin America, coming from America, and settling in the land, settling in an Arab land. The Palestinian people, do they have a police department? They have like,

Starting point is 01:35:48 they have something called the Palestinian Authority, which is an oxymoron. And they are called the Palestinian Authority, but show me an authority that has absolutely no say about the foreign people coming in and taking land from your people. Yeah. It's-

Starting point is 01:36:03 Dude, my friend got a job at the airport. Um, and he was a little guy, right? And they gave him a Billy club and it weighed him down. But he was so little. He's like, he probably weighed 60 pounds or whatever. And I guess I think he's more effective more than the Palestinian authority. He has more power than they're

Starting point is 01:36:18 The club doing you'd see him run. He almost had to run sideways because the way the club would like shuffle and like block his legs. I wish it was that funny. What's the solution? You have to have some... The solution is the occupation and the solution is that Israel should stop killing Palestinians taking their land. It's as simple as that. Details, what land, how much. Well, that's not my thing to say because I'm a comedian, not a politician, not a Palestinian.

Starting point is 01:36:43 There are Palestinian politicians that can talk on their behalf, but I can tell you whatever is happening now is wrong. And I'm not, it's not my problem or my issue to come up with a solution because I didn't cause that crisis. It's someone else caused it and it's not for me to fix it for them.

Starting point is 01:36:59 But what I can say, what's happening is wrong. Are any American or British leaders, and some of this stuff I don't know a ton, you know, I'm trying my best to learn, is some American or British leaders trying to help negotiate that? Have we tried over the years to help? Yeah, but it's always been skewed towards Israel.

Starting point is 01:37:18 What Israel wants to do. Is that true though? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because both sides have rejected peace agreements, right? Yes, but one of them rejected it because basically you're giving them a very shitty deal and the other side rejected it because they want more. And now they're telling you, it's like,

Starting point is 01:37:34 hey, you know what, forget about the second state. Forget about two-state solution. Even the Israelis say that, it's all ours now. Forget it. What about like Latter and Bloom or something? Who is doing the, or remark or something? Who is doing the, or remark or something? Who's the, who's negotiating at all?

Starting point is 01:37:50 I don't know. There's no negotiation now. Like Israel hasn't gone to the negotiation table for the past 20 years. Like is Gaza on Zillow? No. I think if there's Zillow's. Oh, nice joking, dude.

Starting point is 01:38:04 Is that offensive? Oh my God, no, no, no, no. I learned to live a lot of things. I think Zillow's like... I just thought I'd say like... Here's the thing, if it's not on Zillow, I don't think you can take it. However, it's not in Zillow.

Starting point is 01:38:19 It's not, oh wow. But I think one thing about a lot of my Jewish friends I notice is they do a good job of working together, you know? Jewish people are great business people. And I don't want to kind of be the guy who says, hey, I have black friends, but like, I honestly like my agents, my managers, and they all come from companies

Starting point is 01:38:39 that are overwhelmingly Jewish people. And I have no problem with dealing with that. My utmost friend and the guy that I look up to is John Stewart. And I, he's the reason why I'm known to America. When I came on his show, he came to my show. I love him to death. He's my big brother and he's Jewish. I know.

Starting point is 01:38:58 And I, that's why I don't fall into this like Jewish, Jewish, Jewish. Now there are just like bad people that happen to be Jewish and there's a bad people that happen to be Muslims. They have bad people that happen Now, there are just like bad people that happen to be Jewish, and there's bad people that happen to be Muslims. There are bad people that happen to be Christians, and there are bad people that happen to be atheists. I don't look through the lens of religion, but I can see people who would use religion

Starting point is 01:39:16 in order to advance their policy. The same way that ISIS and Qaeda used Islam in order to promote themselves as the only speakers of Islam, we as Muslims rejected it. And the way that Israel is speaking on behalf of all Jewish people, Jewish people, a lot of Jewish people are rejecting that because it's not anti-Semitism to attack Israel. It's not anti-Semitism to create criticize Zionism. It's just like freedom of expression. And that is why I don't hold that. But they want to reduce you. You're a Jew hater. Dude, relax. I'm not. Yeah, I don't like when people say that sort

Starting point is 01:39:44 of thing. Yeah, it's a way to shut down the conversation, to scare relax, I'm not. Yeah, I don't like when people say that sort of thing. It's a way to shut down the conversation, to scare you, to intimidate you, to make people have a negative reaction to you without even you speaking. Dude, if I hated Jewish people, I would know. You would know, you would know. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 01:39:57 I feel like I'd be the first to know. You go to New York and not eat bagels, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I would have an eating thing. You boy called bagels in New York. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I would have a... Your boy called Bagels. Yeah. Now don't do that. Have you had debates with friends like on this topic a lot?

Starting point is 01:40:12 Yeah, many, many times, many times. And some of them listen, some of them are set in their ways, like anything. Like I, I, I, that's true for Americans, for Egyptians. I have debates about their Egyptian revolution with Egyptian friends who would never listen to my point of view. So yes, people, it's a very emotionally charged topic. So you will have people coming in very emotional and they will not want to hear. Yeah. Have you heard a good solution idea from a friend?

Starting point is 01:40:38 No, I got a solution is in the occupation and, and treat everybody living in that land equally, as don't treat them as sub-humans. But at this point, say they ended the occupation, right? Yeah. Those, the people, nobody's, the kids are never gonna forget, it's never gonna.

Starting point is 01:40:57 Yeah, yeah, you have created a catastrophe, you have created something that will last for decades. Many of those people do not like America right now. They don't like Jewish people like now. They don't like, now you just realize. But- Well yeah, because it's American young men and women,

Starting point is 01:41:15 they're probably at some point gonna have to go and put their blood in a field somewhere. Yes, and as an American, I don't want America being involved in wars in the Middle East. I don't want America to be funding wars in the Middle East. I don't want America to be funding wars in the Middle East. I don't want our taxpayers' money going to fund killing babies.

Starting point is 01:41:32 Some babies are assholes, I'll say that. Some of them, some of them, I give you that. Not a lot of me, every now and then you're like, whoa dude. But like, you don't want your money. But I'm joking too, babies. Yeah, but you don't want your money to be part of that destruction. Well, our country's fucking falling apart.

Starting point is 01:41:48 Everybody is addicted or dealing with addiction or families are dealing with loss from addiction. You kill people's spirits with the fucking bullshit plan for the vaccine. But don't make it worse and go and pay more money for destruction if it's already been fucked. Like deal with these fuck like. Don't make it worse and go and pay more money for destruction if it's already been fucked. Like deal with these fuckery, don't make it worse. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:42:09 And don't go and fuck yourself even more. I wish you guys could settle it on the field. Are there any sports that the, that Israel and Palestine play against each other? Circumcision. Oh really? That's the only thing in common. And who's winning? I don't know.

Starting point is 01:42:34 I think we get, because there are more Muslims, I think we're cutting more dicks than they. Yeah, there you go. This year, huh? This year. Like on the NASDAQ. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And let's see. When you see like the pain and the like physical destruction and the human destruction that's happening over there

Starting point is 01:42:51 and just like the videos of people being like maimed and brutalized on both sides over there, as a surgeon, that must make you feel some type of way too. Yeah, and there's a lot of surgeons and doctors who've been to Gaza and they come back with horrible stories because they are all over there. They tell you, because every single hospital in Gaza is bombed. 36 hospitals, all of them destroyed. They have like maternity wards and incubators being killed.

Starting point is 01:43:17 They have basically a place that has no basic needs and you're bombing the shit out of them every day. And you say, oh, we couldn't get Hamas. It's like Israel, I think the idea would be the worst in playing Jenga. You know, like, okay, this is a terrorist, ah, the whole region went down. Well, you do think that if the army is that acute,

Starting point is 01:43:42 that they would be able to be more articulate? Uh, you mean like killing people less discriminant discriminant? Just like getting exactly whoever Hamas is. They can, they can, but they don't care because, because we have seen them on video killing babies. We have seen it. We cannot just tell me it's by mistake when you have babies with sniper bullets in their head. Right? Twice. can say, that's my mistake. You can say, oh, we're trying our best. And then you blow up an empty hospital or an empty school just for spite. Yeah. You can't say, oh, we're not doing that by mistake. And you keep, and you cannot have a war when

Starting point is 01:44:23 80% of the people are displaced, 100% of the people are just, 100% of the place is destroyed, and 50% of the infrastructure is like completely wiped out. It's 80% of it. It's just, you can't, you can't. This is not war. This is annihilation. And-

Starting point is 01:44:39 Do you think it's gonna stop or no? It's been going on for eight months and I don't know how much they're gonna continue. And they- I think there was just, what's the latest? Nothing, they just bombed, there's a video of a refugee hospital. All Palestinians to leave Gaza's largest city, the latest Israel orders, all Palestinians leave Gaza. Yeah, also there's a-

Starting point is 01:44:57 Where do they go if they're ordered to leave? They just, in the rural areas around, they wanna push them into Sinai, but in Sinai they can't be, they're closed. Sinai is closed? be, they're closed. And they can't- Sinai's closed? The borders with Sinai.

Starting point is 01:45:09 Also you can see there's a video of a refugee hospital, as a refugee school in Gaza, that the moment that they were playing football and Israel just dropped the bomb as they were playing football. Well, let me read this. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas October 7th attack in which militants stormed

Starting point is 01:45:25 into Israel, killed some 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250. Since then Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza. According to the territories health ministry, it does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Wow. But yeah, that's the video. They were playing football. This is like a refugee camp. And then the moment what is a refugee camp? A refugee school. They're like

Starting point is 01:45:53 inside guys. They're all see. That's that's that's every single day. Every single day. That's every single day. Every single day. That's every single day. In schools and hospitals, every single day. They just happened two days ago. Yeah. Man. Yeah, I don't know. I just remember when I was a kid,

Starting point is 01:46:20 my mom would say sometimes, I don't know why we're sending Israel all this money. You know? But she sending Israel all this money. But she never liked Netanyahu. Yeah, but whether Netanyahu or Mo'ne, we said, we said, She said he looks like a bad guy. We send money to Israel even before Netanyahu.

Starting point is 01:46:34 The question is, there's just like a lot of questions and we need to be able to ask these questions without having fear of being canceled or destroyed or having our career taken away from us. Well, we fucking threw that out the window this episode. I don't think you did anything wrong, Theo. Theo, you did well, man. Even listening though, sometimes.

Starting point is 01:46:49 No, even listening now, you're afraid of listening? What happened to our American freedoms? It disintegrated to being afraid of listening. Oh, as a human being, I'm okay. I think just my life, I get worried about being able to still do my job. You did nothing wrong, Theo. You got a guy who spoke his mind,

Starting point is 01:47:06 which is what Americans are. I agree. You just gave me a platform to speak out my mind, and you're bringing someone else who will say the opposite of what I'm gonna say. It's gonna be up to people to decide. How do you support your Jewish friends just in the US and stuff or whatever,

Starting point is 01:47:20 who disagree with some of the situation there? Is that kind of tough sometimes? It is tough for them. I have a lot of Jewish friends who are in disagreement with their parents who are pretty much Zionists and they are they don't agree with that. And as Zionists what is it again just give me one more. Okay according to Jewish people or Zionist people it is just simply the having a national state of Israel in the middle in the the middle. So that's big. But for us, it's more than that.

Starting point is 01:47:47 For us, it's more than this. It's not just the establishment. This is what they tell you, just the establishment. But for us, they have done that by displacing people, colonizing their land and taking away their homes, taking away their land. For us, Zionism is not good. OK.

Starting point is 01:48:02 For who? For Arabs and Muslims, because they took a land from Palestinians under the pretense of this thing, and then they tell you, it's de-colonization. If Israel moved out of the territory there, do you think that another group would move right into it? No, I don't think. There's seven or eight million Jews in Israel.

Starting point is 01:48:24 That's a lot of people to move out. Right, but I'm just saying, say if that was vacated, would Syrians or Egyptians or somebody else cruise right in there? No, because there are already Palestinians there. And that- How many Palestinians live in Israel? Okay, there are 3.5 million who live in the West Bank,

Starting point is 01:48:41 2.3 million live in Gaza, so a total of eight. Inside Israel, in the territory, there are two million Palestinians live in Israel, and there are seven million Palestinians who live outside refugees. And where is one of the largest spaces of Palestinians outside of? Jordan.

Starting point is 01:49:01 Jordan. Jordan. What about in America? No, maybe they are like half of the people. Maybe Michigan? No, no, no. Michigan, there's a lot of Muslims, but many of them are Lebanese, many of them are Iraqis. Some of them are Palestinians.

Starting point is 01:49:12 I think they are about like 400,000 in America. A total of seven million outside of Palestine. Seven million. Some of them are refugees, some of them are citizens of other countries now How much longer do you think I see 175? Yeah, oh 175 thousand Palestinian in America. Yeah, that's like 0.05 they're very small some of them are on Wilshire every couple of every other set Yeah, yeah, some of them have the best

Starting point is 01:49:44 restaurants here Well, yeah, yeah, three of them. Some of them have the best restaurants here. Well, yeah, yeah I'm super glad we get to talk about it. Sorry, but some stuff I was kind of like Trying to like, you know, I just I think some stuff I don't know what if it's like I don't know what to say I guess and sometimes I just listen because I don't know how to like Some conversations are just you you just don't know what to say or do. Yeah, and I understand because for Americans, Americans have so much to worry about.

Starting point is 01:50:09 They have to worry about their own daily life and their own like paying their bills. And then it's like, why do we have to care about this remote place in the Middle East that we will never see? And now why is it like- Yeah, it's a great question. This is like an everyday.

Starting point is 01:50:20 This is an everyday, this is an everyday. Why do we have, and I feel for them. But the reason why Americans should care about that, because that is affecting our government, our democracy, our way of life. Because if you're an American, you think this is remotely, they're more from you, no, it doesn't, because it affects the way that you speak about politics. You hear many times, I don't know if I'm going to go to jail. Well, if you talk about something that's happening that foreign, you shouldn't be

Starting point is 01:50:48 worried about going to jail. You should be worried about talking about the government giving that much money for destruction. So it affects you. Whether you like it or not, it affects you. Yeah, I think one of the bigger problems that we have is that we facilitate so much war and weaponry in the world to try and leverage things. But then maybe that needs to happen for us to have the safety we have and maybe we're, you know, it's just, it's hard to know all that stuff, how one thing affects the other, you know? But you see, I find that this is actually the end result of every conversation. Oh we don't know maybe this is what will happen just in order but that's like a way to stay complacent. Yeah that's a good point. Because what is happening is not right. All of this money, all of these billions of dollars coming out from our pockets, that is not right. And I'm

Starting point is 01:51:39 talking about money, politics and freedom. These are the three things that are the cornerstones of American life. That's a good point. Our politics, our freedom, our money. If we don't know where our money is going and why, and why is our politics is being taken over by a foreign lobby, that is wrong. And you need to start from there. Yeah, it just breaks my heart. I mean, I just, you see what happened is over there

Starting point is 01:52:03 and it's heartbreaking and it's like, well, Hadi, Yeah, I just wanted to learn a little bit more about it I wanted to get some perspective from somebody that was at least Able to speak about it and who was willing to speak up about it You know and you've spoken vibrantly about it and and I understand how difficult it is because maybe some of your listeners your audience Don't really care about that stuff. So and I may be for them This is too heavy but for the people who are interested, what you did is to bring a problem that affects us,

Starting point is 01:52:29 whether we like it or not. And I'm happy that you're bringing a rabbi to speak on a totally opposite level. And I'm happy that when people have more questions, you bring more people to speak to you. I'm happy to come back again and talk to the people. And because at the end of the day, you listen not just for entertainment, but for education.

Starting point is 01:52:47 And there's so many things in that world that I don't know. So I listen to shows that will tell me. So I just want, I'm not here to attack anybody. I'm not here to say bad things about anybody. I'm here to just invite people to be more curious and to understand how things work and to form their own opinion and not just give up to, oh, this is the way it is, we can't change anything.

Starting point is 01:53:10 Because if you said that, nothing would change. And then you will come up tomorrow and you will complain about why things are not changing. It just needs to start from asking questions. Asking questions, open your mind, and I will be more than happy to come back again and talk about, I'm sure that you're gonna have so many questions, so many rebuttals,

Starting point is 01:53:30 like ask him this, ask him that, and I'm happy to come and, if you would get me on the show again, and I'm happy to speak. You see how we talked, it was nothing, there's nothing threatening what we did today. There's nothing anti-Semitic, there's nothing Islamophobic, we didn't, we didn't go

Starting point is 01:53:45 and attack people from different faiths. We just talk about politics and I might be wrong, but prove me wrong. Oh yeah. Bassem, thank you so much man. Thank you so much, I really appreciate you. Yeah, InshaAllah. What do people say? InshaAllah is like if God wills. If God wills. If God wills.

Starting point is 01:54:03 InshaAllah. InshaAllah. InshaAllah or Shala? InsAllah. Insha'Allah. I was just like, insha'Allah. Insha'Allah. Yeah. That's it. Amazing. Insha'Allah. Yes. You can, people can find you. BasimYusuf.xyz or Basim at Instagram. I'm starting my Montreal, I'm coming 20th of July, then I'm going a whole American tour in Florida, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis. I said that, yeah, Tampa, Orlando, Toronto. So I'll see you guys. Marvelous, yeah.

Starting point is 01:54:40 If you haven't seen this guy, watch his also his interview with Piers Morgan. It's insightful and interesting and funny. And it's okay to say that, you know, we have to laugh in times of pain. That's why God put it into us. Thank you. And yeah, just thank you so much for your time, brother. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the space. Thank you for accommodating me. I appreciate you. Love all of your listeners, guys. Love you all!

This Past Weekend - E521 Bassem Youssef

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.