TRIGGERnometry - The Man Who Predicted Israel Attacking Iran - Ed Hussain

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

This conversation with Ed Hussain was recorded on 22 October 2024, 3 days before Israel attacked Iran. Ed Hussain is a British author and professor. As a political advisor, he has worked with leaders and governments worldwide. Ed joins us to discuss Islam and its compatibility with the West. Follow Ed on X: https://x.com/Ed_Husain Sponsor: Pure Gold. Our Trusted Recommendation: Protect your wealth with The Pure Gold Company. Get your free investor guide at https://pure-gold.co/trigger Sponsor: Mint Mobile. To get your new 3-month premium wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/TRIGGER  Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It did not start on October 7th, as they say, it's true. It started long before that because the planning, plotting, stockpiling of arms, being backed by Iran and being prepared for this day. Explain to me why is it that in Britain, the British government have refused to ban our Nazi party. The Muslim Brotherhood came out of German Nazism. Isn't it all extraordinary that we're here talking about Israel, whether it has a right to exist or not? When no one says Pakistan doesn't have a right to exist, creating the same year on similar reasons. So you think they're going to attack the road?

Yes. Yes. of when this side of a US election or after the US election, and much depends on who comes into the White House. Ed, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me. Good to have you back. The thing that I wanted to start with is we've been here for a few days in America,

and literally everyone says to us, is the UK as bad as we think it is? And I think what they're talking about is, you know, the riots, the fact that you've got sectarianism, kind of prominent in elections at this point and all of this stuff that we touched on last time. Do you think the UK is bad as many people now think based on social media and stuff like that? In some ways, yes, in some ways no. And before proceeding, congratulations to both of you for reaching more than a million subscribers on YouTube. So well done. It's a real achievement and it's hard to do in the competition of this sphere. But returning back to England, I think I just want to start by saying it's just

Here in America, most people seem to get their news from social media feeds and a very binary approach either at CNN or Fox and variations thereof. So on the one hand, yes, things are bad in England, and when you look at it from here, there's been an outcome of an election that was based around foreign policy issues, in particular Gaza, and the emergence of politicians who place a foreign issue for a foreign issue for first and foremost, above their own country's national interests and above the interests of Europe and the West writ large. So that's a real negative outcome. I think the fact that the, there's been a break in the political center right, there's been more of a steer towards the far right,

is also an area that's genuinely of a negative concern, and then the riots. And I think the riots shocked people here as they happened at the peak of the summer. But I But I think fourth and most importantly, the fact that weekend after weekend after weekend, we've seen people marching in London, upholding Hamas flags, supportive of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. And I think that's what riled people, especially here in New York and beyond. And that I think is a genuine concern. You don't expect that kind of culture to emerge from a country that helped defeat Nazism.

you know, was at the forefront of defeating Soviet communism by here, by Soviet communism, I'm referring to Margaret Thatcher's friendship alliance and guidance of this country and President Reagan in confronting and combating that ideological threat. So for those reasons, things genuinely seem negative in Britain, but we should never, I mean, my PhD philosopher was Sir Roger Scruton, and he would always warn us, especially those who had a more small-see conservative cast of mind that don't talk yourself into a negative position and forecast the future of any country, any community, any civilization, to be inherently negative because there's a risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy and be just being gloomy people.

So I think we have to be against the odds, optimistic, that there will be a turn in England's fortunes, whether that's under a new conservative leadership or whether it's responding to an American president's see, regardless of the candidate, that has a different feed. So, yes, there's a lot to be negative about, but we shouldn't beat ourselves up and then put ourselves in a position that this is the end of England, because many people throughout history have forecast that, and they've been wrong, and we shouldn't be part of that. The issue I have with that analysis, well, I agree with you. I mean, I'm personally someone who's very optimistic, even though publicly people think I'm very dumerish about things. But the issue I have with what you've

just said is when you were talking about the negatives, you were very factual and data-driven. And then when you were talking about the positives, you didn't give any data effect. You were just like, we've got to be optimistic. And the reason that I think that's, I would challenge you to be more elaborate on why you think there's the opportunity for a positive change is that a lot of people would say the reason that the UK isn't having the issues that it has is a demographic issue. When you have a very large Muslim population, most of whom are perfectly decent people, as you covered in your book, among the most, but a minority of whom are not, a minority of whom are Islamist, and as a society, we don't deal with that.

We stick our head in the sand and we don't deal with that, and there's no sign of that changing. Then the things that we have seen over the last year, whether it's the protest, whether it's the riots, whether anything else, will continue to happen. What do you say to that? I say to that that this is at the very heart of the future, not just of Britain, but the future of the West. It really is the issue. And most of our friends in this country here in America aren't prepared to confront that

fact, but they will hint at that by saying, ah, yeah, the swing state of Michigan might be responsible for the outcome of the election. By swing state of Michigan, they mean it's an area where there's a large number of Arabs and Muslims, and therefore the assumption is that they are responsible. quote unquote, pro-Palestine. I just don't buy the binary. You've got to be pro-Palestine or pro-Israel. I genuinely think you can be pro both. You can have a two-state solution, or at least aspire towards that. Now, that binary is also affecting the demographic challenge that you identified, and I completely agree with you. But a part of me feels,

Constantine, that, you know, being here in New York, New York, right, it's new because it's out of Yorkshire, you know, and we've got this great deep, historical, philosophical, demographic, indeed relationship with England. I always feel bad about beating up on my own country while you're abroad, but I have to answer your question, and I think the demographic issue, we should not conclude that things will be as they are now. Populations can change, and I think broadly we have several options in front of us, the status quo, you know, with demographics, with Islam, with Muslims, and the tensions with the mainstream

population. So that is untenable. The second is a more radical option, which is being thrown around in the underworld of the internet, which is, you know, self-deportation or mass deportation, whether it's illegal immigrants or people who have been born and raised in British. And if they don't aspire towards loyalty towards Britain, British value, British history, farewell. You know, we don't care where you go whether there's Afghanistan or Iran get out that that sentiment is also growing the third is that the bad guys in Bradford in Birmingham in Leicester in in parts of East London in in Glasgow and elsewhere Rochdale dewsbury the list is long the bad guys win and the bad guys over time

have Islamist majority areas. And that's what I fear is that the combination of the first option, the third option leads us to this place where they're separatists. They claim it to Britain, parts of Britain become apartheid states. And they want their own little mini caliphate. That's the current trajectory based on the first scenario. But I genuinely believe there can be a fourth option here.

That is, if there is political leadership to confront this issue, that Muslims in Britain or say Germany or France or here in America, they are Americans, Brits, Germans, French, first and foremost, the public loyalty is to their country, their land, the lifestyles that have and the liberty that has raised them. And their private dedication is to God. And their private dedication is to their faith communities, plural. And that's where the debate should go to. Now, President Macron in France has tried to get to that debate, I think. Very briefly, David Cameron tried. Tony Blair, my old boss, in his latter days of being a prime minister, tried. My fear is, I don't think Kiyos Dama is the man to have that debate, and I don't think Boris Johnson took this issue seriously enough.

So I don't put the blame entirely on Muslim communities. I think we need genuine political leadership on this issue, that you confront it from from first principles. In other words, how can you have an Islam and a Muslim identity in the West, starting with Britain, moving here to America and elsewhere, that is genuinely at home in and with the West. Their priorities are in the British situation, illegal immigration, the economy, national health service, what's going on with their own children in their schools, and not about what happens, you know, several thousand miles away in a nationalist conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, but we're not there yet.

Ed, this is a question that a lot of people are talking about, not openly, but behind closed doors, and they're saying, can Islam be compatible with the Western, Western values? And as somebody who has Muslim friends, et cetera, I'm saying, of course it can be, but then they'll go, well, look, there's roughly 40,000 jihadists living in the UK. We look at the Manchester bombings. We're looking at the murder of Sir David Ames, a London Bridge terror attacks.

It's a matter of time before the secrets of the services do a wonderful job, but unfortunately, it's the nature of it that there's one is going to slip through. Where do you stand on that discussion? I stand against those who think Islam and the West is incompatible, and I here should be naming names. Ayanhirsi Ali, I think has been at the forefront of taking a very personal issue that she's had catastrophic that was to now extrapolate from that, that somehow Islam and the West are incompatible. And I think that's wrong for the following reasons, because yes, the demographic issue in Constantine is absolutely right, but Francis, the issue with Islam and Muslims is, Islam is what Muslims make it.

It's the interpretations we take out of the texts that shape our reality. And to that I say four things, if I may. First is that how do we define the West? And the definition of the West, for me, the most convincing definition didn't come from Samuel Huntingdon. It came from Roger Scruton.

And that's why I was drawn to Roger as, I think, as his last PhD student. And I saw him just two weeks before he passed away. And we would have these tutorials. And I feel like I'm a political hybrid. You know, I was politically tutored by Tony Blair, but philosophically tutored by Roger Scruton. And he defined the West in four broad terms.

One, that the West is reason-oriented, as opposed to emotion or literalist reading of Scripture. It was a reasonable reading of Scripture. Second, that the West was focused on individualism, and the individual was sacred, and the individual's relationship with God was sacred, not kind of ethnic collectivism or tribalism. Third was based on the first two,

that he believed in secular laws, yes, derived from a scriptural inheritance, but our laws must be secular. We can't have the Ayatollah or an Ayatollah type or a calipat dominating parts of the West or the West writ large. And fourth was the emergence of nation states, the Westphalian Treaty in 1648 and the creation of the modern international order. Now, if you take all of those four tests, and that's a deeper definition of the West than

anyone else has provided thus far, and it takes an English philosopher of that kind of polymathic nature to provide that, on all four tests, you find ample evidence and resources and sources from Muslim history, philosophy and scripture, to identify, as Leo Strauss did, that individualism and individual culture based on reason is, the Quran is flooded with those references. So Muslims, unlike others, have an individual relationship with God. We don't go via the Pope. Similarly with secular laws and nation states,

Muslims want more nation states, not less. Muslims want a Balochistan, a Kurdistan, a Palestine, a Palestine, a Kashmir, and so on. So it's not that Muslims are against nation states. And on the question of secular laws, yes, there is genuine tension, and we should not be naive, that there are tensions around that. But the vast majority of the world's Muslim nations are secular nations. And there are degrees of secularism. And we're not French-style laicity where we're anti-religion.

But here in America, you see a kind of secularism that is religion-friendly. And I think Britain falls somewhere in between those two examples. And I think the Western world benefits from the presence of my own. Muslims because it's a reminder of what the West ought to be at its best. It should have a religious inheritance and it should have a reason-based inheritance from the ancient Greeks. So I just don't see there's a clash of civilizations or a clash of cultures, but there is a clash of interpretations. And I'll end this if I may, Francis, by saying that what we're seeing now pan out in parts of the Middle East should give us great hope. Yes, there's the Arab-Israeli conflict. I get that.

The issues pertaining to the Abrahamic Family House, the UAE and the Abrahamic Accords with Israel, shows that there's leadership, the leadership that we lack in the West, that there is this leadership to try to bring greater harmony, if you like, between Islam and Western civilization. Ed, I broadly agree with most of what you say. The one issue that I have is when it comes to things to do with humor. And for example, I can't imagine many Muslims would be pretty happy if a comedian did a skit on Muhammad, on the Prophet Muhammad, for instance. I think that would be taken incredibly badly.

I think that would, that comedian would be in fear for his life. So I guess what do you say to that? And in particular, what I'm also concerned about is if we're looking five years in the future, I don't see it as being unrealistic that we will have blasphemy laws in the UK. Well, I hope you're wrong, but that's a hope. I fear you're right, especially under a government that, I don't think we're exaggerating when we say the Labour government is looking at least 30 to 35 of its seats coming from areas where there's a significant Muslim majority population, and it wants to pander to that population because it has the need to keep relations

with America and Israel, but it also wants to hold those seats or increase its majority in the next election. And one way to do that is to say, you know, we will prosecute anyone who offends Muslim sensitivities. So I agree with you, I'm afraid, although I don't want to, but I've got to concede Francis that you're onto something. But I'm more interested in Islam than I am with Muslims on this issue. And I say that because Muslims, Today, Roger used to say that a lot Muslims don't have a sense of humor. So your mind and his mind echo that similar sentiment. You're like Roger Scruton, the great philosopher of your day.

He used to say that often, so yes. But then that doesn't mean that Muslims did not have a culture of humor. I mean, the Prophet Muhammad was known for jokes with his disciples and companions. In Turkish culture, Nasra Dinh Hodja was famous for being a cartoonist and mocking famous people of his time, caliphs and others. And when you're among Arabs and Turks, there's references to Nasra din Haja. But the issue of lacking humor is a modern issue among Muslims who are going through PTSD of losing global power, of having been an empire.

empire that subjugated hundreds of millions of people from China, Indonesia, all the way coming close to Poitiers in France in 732. It's a collective, how do we lose power to the West. And in that sphere of reflecting and thinking there's been a loss of humor, but that's not to say humor doesn't exist. Now, on the question of the Prophet Muhammad, here, you know, I disagree with most Muslims in Britain on this, and I think most Muslims in Britain are wrong and I think it's a genuine issue that will flare up again and again and again. It started with Salman Rushdie's book, where Muslims interpreted Salman Rosti's book in 1981, 82 as being a blasphemous text. And it's sad to see that

Salman Rosti was attacked here in New York, you know, upstate New York and Buffalo stabbed in one eye because of a fatwa from the Iranian mullahs and the fatwas enacted upon by a Shia American Muslim here. But I think on the question of Muslims being excessively sensitive around the Prophet, we've, two things. One, I understand that sensitivity. There's a verse in the Quran that says the Prophet is closer to the believers than their own selves, so I get that. But it doesn't then follow that we become more defensive about the Prophet than the Prophet himself would have been. He saw in his mosque in Medina a Bedouin'an man, a Bedouin man. come in and urinate, in other words, defiling the sacred.

He didn't kill the guy. This was from a position of power, because I can hear Douglas Murray saying, ah, yes, but this was in the nice days of Islam, and then when he had a position of power, he wasn't so kind. No, he was. It was when he had a mosque in Medina. He cleaned up after the guy and said,

this is sacred, we don't defile it in this way. He had three poets attack him. He let them go back to Mecca without killing them. And his own wives would mock him often. Isn't it convenient that your God reveals verses to you that satisfy your needs? And I know Muslims who feel this and oh my God, what's the same? But it's in the Quran. So I think Muslim sensitivities now towards this issue are just extreme.

I mean, relax, take a back seat. Someone drawing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad is A, nothing new, B, should not insult us. C, we should have the confidence to take on arguments with arguments. And D, it's much more important to maintain the liberty and free on which we are able to be Muslims ourselves because you destroy free cultures today in the name of blasphemy.

Tomorrow it will be you who will be blasphemous on someone else's account. So I think we're playing with fire on this and we should just relax and say, you know, a cartoon is just that. It's a cartoon, who cares? Because the Prophet Muhammad and God, we say is Allah, Allah, Akbar,

is greater than all of those things. So act like it, grow up. Well, Ed, you make very good arguments and I've always thought that the question that Francis asked is very, very low resolution about, not the humor one, but the one about, is Islam compatible with the West? Because there's many different types of Islam and there's many different types of Muslims. The issue I do have with your argument, you can't, I mean, it's a great argument in that

you're saying basically if every Muslim in the West was like me, everything would be great. And I agree with that. Did I say that? No, you didn't. But it's kind of implied in what you're saying, which is that if everyone adopted a Western mindset and was willing to submit themselves to the nation state and are that identity first, and was Muslim second to that, effectively, as we all are, whether we are agnostics or Christian. Why is that a Western mindset, constantly?

No, no, hold on. I'm not saying that's the Western mindset. I'm saying that's the way to do in the West. And the point I was going to make is exactly the point you made earlier, which is there are many countries in the Gulf right now who are also moving in that direction. The issue I have with all of this is, frankly, to be blunt, many Muslims in the West are not like you. And we have imported, this is something to Eamandine who we had on explained to us, and maybe you disagree, I don't know, but what if, what he explained to

us is that in the West, what we have imported is the civil war that is raging within Islam. And when you say Muslims are perfectly happy to live within the nation states, many are But we're not worried about those people. We're worried about the people that don't want a nation stay. We're worried about the people that want a caliphate, that want to free the lands of the Muslims from the non-believers or make them pages here, et cetera. And they are the ones that are driving the bus. Is that not fair to say?

Yeah. As you said, at the outset, there are vocal, loud, organized minority, controlling it, disorganized, quiet, moderate. No, sorry, sorry. The people with blue hair on university campus, are the woe cloud minority. These people are using violence and that's why they are... Who's using violence? The people who want a caliphate and the people who have that worldview. They are the ones who are the terrorists and they're the ones who are terrorizing

modern Muslims, right? I mean, you said that was a low-res question. I mean, I think that's also low-res framing. Please, I've got some resolution. I just don't think that, you know, there are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world. There are in excess of about 6 million Muslims in Britain, 43,000 at MI5's last count. It's a massive number. But put that in contrast with the 6 million Muslims and put that in the context of 1.8 billion Muslims globally.

And more importantly, put all of that in context of the fact that every time there's been an Islamist extremist threat, it's been Muslims and Muslim governments who've A been the victims of that first and B being the first responders. Yes, but that's my point, right, about the West is I look at the Gulf countries and I go, you guys are dealing with Islamist extremism way better than we are. Right. So same goes for Egypt. You know, they banned the Muslim Brotherhood.

Explain to me why is it that in Britain, the British government, Cameron and now this gentleman, Kiyos Dharma, have refused to ban our Nazi party. Right. I mean, the Muslim Brotherhood came out of German Nazism. and came out of Italian fascism. Read Jill Capel and his documentation of that. Tell us more about that. You say Muslim Brotherhood

came out of German Nazism. Can you just explain that story to most people? Tell us the story of the Muslim Brotherhood. It was born because an Egyptian school teacher, Hasna al-Banna, had a problem with the following, one that the Caliphate had just been destroyed in 1924. So he finds or founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. He and his organization then mimic what's going on in Italy and Germany throughout the 1920s

and 1930s. He literally copies their creation of brown shirts, the creation of mass rallies, their infrastructure, and their slogans of, you know, they want the Aryan race and a thousand-year Reich. He talked about the Muslims of the world coming together to recreate a caliphate that would last a thousand years. echoing of German Nazism. They were against Jewish people and for Aryan racial reasons. He fought Jewish migrants in neighboring Palestine, which then became Israel on similar grounds, on racial, religious, inferiority grounds. And they took their Bible is the wrong word,

but they took their manual of how to mobilize, organize, on anti-Semitism, on mass political parties, have paramilitary organizations as well as target the state. straight out of the German Nazi playbook. Now, to this day, they are anti-Semitic, they are homophobic, and they are sexist. If I pointed out to any element in Nigel Farage's Reform Party that reflected those strains, the Labor government will be shutting them down tomorrow.

And yet, in more than 30 constituencies that vote Labor, there is a significant Muslim Brotherhood ideological presence as represented by the Muslim Council of Britain, and a whole host of others. Now, there are two or three problems in saying and doing this. One, the moment you say this, they threaten you with legal action.

So anyone writing about this, I'm probably protected because I'm here in a freer country, but they try to shut you down. Two, your families become targets in schools, colleges, universities. Three, you're not welcome in the mosques anymore because suddenly Muslim Brotherhood types

control major institutions in Britain. So for those kind of reasons, it's become an embedded problem in Muslim communities that will not talk out against the Muslim Brotherhood. And Muslim majority countries have banned the Brotherhood for the reasons that I've identified. But here in the West, including in America, by the way, they will move very quickly on the clan, the Blue Clux Klan and white supremacist organization, but Muslim supremacist organizations as are represented by Islamists, not Islam, the faith and the lifestyle of 1.8 billion

peaceful people. But these guys, the Nazis of Islam, do not get done. banned, do not get confronted. And because of that, what you see in Britain is the control of these Nazi types, of Muslim communal discourse. The ordinary Muslim is busy kind of going for his job and paying his mortgage and looking for his or her next holiday. When Israel was attacked on October 7th, not a single one of those organizations and their influenced entities condemned Hamas. To this day. And that shows. shocks me that in Britain, to this day, there has not been a prominent public-facing

Muslim organization condemning Hamas and condemning terrorism. But out of the UAE, you had one of the ministers, the Dima al-Hashmi, coming to the United Nations here in New York and condemning Hamas as a terrorist organization. So there is a real problem in Britain and in the wider west that just confronting Hamas isn't enough. So in response to the to your question, yes, Muslims are being seduced by this ideology, but the seduction is being allowed by Western government. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. So the problem, we're both to blame.

In other words, Western governments as well as Muslim organizations or the Islamists, and I think it's the responsibility of care to confront this ideology now before it continues to embed itself ever deeper in Western societies, then it becomes, it reaches a stage of civil war because over you see five years, let's take a 50 year view. You know, if you have large chunks of the north, large parts of Siddique Khan's, London, whoever replaces him, become much more ideologically aligned with the Hamas world view and the rest of us are not there. We're closer to us, they are Gulf Arab allies. What do you do? And that's the fear that it leads to a place of collision. And in order to avert that, I think we ought to take action in the next

three to five years. And what does that mean, Ed? What kind of action can remedy the situation of this? What I would argue is a fairly late stage? It's late, yes, but it's still not irreversible. And as I say this, I fear that unless we have political leadership on this issue, and it is political leadership, we can't reverse this. It's now reached a stage where it has to be gripped from the political center.

The actions involve the following. First, you've got to ban the Muslim Brotherhood. There's a hesitation in doing that. hesitation in speaking about it, or genuine questions of liberty and individual freedom, but we cannot have entire mosques that have 15, 20,000 capacity, and we cannot have an Islamic banking system developing in parallel to the mainstream British legal system. We cannot have schools, we cannot have women not being able to divorce or get married by British laws, but by separate Islamist laws, all of this overlooked by entities involved in the

the tentacles of the Muslim Brotherhood. So that's the first thing that's got to happen, and that hasn't happened. And I think the second thing ought to happen is that British imams in British mosques should be British and not connected to institutions in Dauband in India and elsewhere. And how do you display your Britishness? I don't think it's too far to ask that mosques in Britain should fly the Union Jack. And mosques in Britain should pray for the royal family. That's not being in any way irreligious. It happens in every other country of the world and it happens with Jewish people. They pray for the royal family.

The Church of England prays for a royal family. British mosques are British. Why not? Lead the way, show how it's done. Those are two immediate prescription, but I think the third would be, and I think that's the more difficult and important one, is how do you define Britishness that is inclusive, welcoming, warm? Again, to cite Roger, Roger Scruton used to define patriotism as inclusive, that he would bring

in people from other backgrounds, faith, racial backgrounds, and patriotism is not exclusive as it is on the continent. And he would say that a true patriot respects the patriotism of his or her enemy. I mean, that's a noble definition of it, but you've got to know who you are before you respect your enemy's patriotism. Is Saladin and Richard's, the Lionheart situation? So, Saladin was convinced and confident in who he was. He sent his physicians and arms to the other side.

So we have to have that level of nobility in Britain, and I feel we don't have that. And in the absence of knowing who we are and defining it with its sense of strength, or at least feeling it, you can't confront the beast that looks at us at the moment, which is Islamist extremism. And why is this ideology, this strain of Islam so attractive? to people who were born and brought up in the West and enjoyed the fruits of Western civilization. Because in the West we're not able to answer that. When I say West, I should say in Europe, in particular, and Northern Europe, to be more precise,

we can't answer the human beings craving towards meaning, purpose, soul, life. It's the God-shaped whole that curses large parts of Northern Europe. One reason why there's less of an Islamist extremism problem, say here in America, in contrast to Northern Europe or in southern Europe. Don't forget, millions of Muslims in Spain, Italy, Greece, and there may be other problems there, but they don't have an extremism problem because you can openly celebrate divinity, spirituality. And I think it's an excess of secularism in Britain and France and Germany that has led to an excessive expression of faith on the parts of those. who are religious and that's young Muslims. That has to be part of the equation. Anyone who's got kind of second thoughts on this one, I'd strongly recommend read Leo Strauss.

Because he came out of Nazi Germany with this question, how are we to remain loyal to our Abrahamic covenant, Muslims, Jews, Christians, to this ancient covenant with God in the modern world where Nazism and communism go to the extremes of reason, devoid of religiosity and he spent a lifetime trying to answer this question. And interestingly, Leo Strauss's works took him to Maimonides because he found that the synthesis between reason, secular reason and philosophical or revelation from Mount Sinai on into Mecca and Jerusalem through Jesus, this dichotomy, Leo Strauss was hell-bent on proving that Maimonides or Musa bin Maimon, the great rabbi, Ram Bam, known to our Ashkenazi Jewish friends, helped synthesize, helped harmonize.

So he focuses on that. And from there, Leo Strauss is important to young Muslims across the West in particular, because from Maimonides, he identifies that it was the great Arab Muslim philosophers, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Ghazali, but especially the first two, who are Arabs, the last person, that helps shape Maimonides' his own thinking. So that's why, going back to your question about Islam and the West being compatible, we have a thousand years of compatibility

if we take this approach that Greek philosophy and Abrahamic revelations, Jews, Muslims, Christians have to have this tension. And part of the reason why today there's an extremism in Muslims in the West is that tension is no longer alive.

We've gone to an extreme of secularism where we can't openly talk about faith because we cringe when we do. Whereas here in America I see Muslims who are much more integrated. You know, the most extreme voices here come from Europe. A particular gentleman

on the far left who wrote a book about Ed Miliband and other matters. He is on the kind of far left here beating the drums. But American Muslims, I don't know who you're talking about. I don't want to name me. I don't want to name that. I worked out in that, yes.

What is this British thing you want to slack someone off, but you don't want to say their name. Everyone's going to know. You're also clever enough to work it out. I didn't name it. But the point is, with American Muslims, because when I'm at Georgetown University with students, I see American Muslim students serving in the White House, in the CIA, in the FBI, in the State Department, parts of the Pentagon, they're fully loyal to being American.

And here's the interesting issue. Muslims in the past, and Winston Churchill is in the record and saying that the Second World War would not have been won had it not been for Indian, Muslims and others fighting side by side with Britain. Muslims in the past fought under the British flag against the Caliphate in the First World War. Muslims fought side by side with Britain, Egyptian Muslims, Indian Muslims and others side by side in the Second World War. So I don't understand why we have a problem in trying to say, yeah, we're fully firmly west. You know, in the Quran, there's a verse,

there's an entire surah about the West, Surat Rum, about the Romans. The Prophet Muhammad was against the Persian pagans. We are natural allies of the West. So it's not that I'm kind of trying to be a Westerner. I don't have a choice, I am a Westerner. I was born and raised in this tradition. It's who I am.

And the Prophet Muhammad was firmly pro-West, you know, and there's no doubting the fact that he abandoned the Persian pagans and sided with the Roman. And the Quranic verses applaud him for doing so. So, you know, his meccan enemies were pro-Persia, pro-pagan. So that's why Muslims should be, as we were allies with the West led by Saudi Arabia in defeating communism and the Soviet Union, we should be now on the forefront of defeating the Chinese threat that we face civilizationalally.

And Muslim should be allies with the West in doing so, not being silent on China as, you know, several countries have been. Do you think it's partly education as well, Ed, in that they get a, certain viewpoint of these, you know, what these cultures are actually like, which is an idealized romanticized notion in much the same way when the Soviets wanted to radicalize young people in the 60s, 70s, even the 80s. They wouldn't tell them about the gulags or any of that, you know, it's just a land where everyone's free. Yes, there is education, but there's also a utopia that once upon the time Muslims were glorious Muslims, were the top dogs around the world,

Muslims had a great empire. You know all this kind of decolonization and you know Muslims were the original colonizers? You know, Muslims went from, you know, Mecca and Medina all the way north to the Black Sea, all the way south as far as central China with the Uyghurs, sort of East, yes, forgive me, and Indonesia and so on, and all the way west as far as France, knocking on the doors of Vienna on multiple occasions, and all the way down south to Yemen, and further southeast towards India and so on. So please spare us all of this stuff about decolonizing from the West. Muslims have a strong colonial tradition

because the rule is if you're not colonizing, you were colonized. That was the old rule. So yes, education is part of it, but the other part is that Bernard Lewis is to talk about this, and we haven't addressed this as Muslims around the world, that what does it mean to be citizens of secular nation states that you are now on par in terms of, of being seen to be equal in the eyes of the law with someone who's an atheist, someone

who's gay, someone who's transsexual, someone who's of a different faith background, Muslims still harbor this kind of strange imperial supremacy, you know, because we've, in India, in Spain, you know, we were a minority who was ruling over a non-Muslim majority and we haven't made that adjustment in the modern sense. So yes, it is partly education, but part of it is psychology. And I think that that's why I I'm a big fan of what's going on in the Gulf in relation to Israel because there's a shock treatment to Muslims. You have a choice.

You can either be on the side of, you know, AI and technology and innovation and going to space and coexisting and prospering with the sovereign wealth funds and everything else that the Gulf countries offer and peace and harmony and better relations with the West. Or you can go down the Hamas route and the Hezbollah route where you end up where they ended up. Can you tell us more about that?

Because we've heard people make the point you've just made, which is several Gulf nations actually, their rulers at least, are on the side of Israel and what's happening. Can you talk a little bit about the realignment that is happening in that area in relation to Israel and more broadly? The realignment comes from where our question was just a moment, Constantine, about the Muslim Brotherhood. They realize after 2011, and so many of us said, I mean, I remember being with the several friends in government in the region. And initially the thing was, oh, great, people

want democracy. Isn't this brilliant? And that was our default position. We very quickly realized that democracy should not be the first line of promotion. The first line of promotional should be, you know, liberty, should be individual freedoms, should be the rule of law, backing up these things. Once you have those in place, then when you have people going to vote, you have a kind of a democratic government. Without those things, you get Iran, you get Gaza, you get Nazi Germany and sorts. We've got to, we've got to, we've got to, you have defang Arab societies from the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood. And that's what those governments in the UAE, in Saudi Arabia, in particular, and alongside

with Bahrain, those three countries made it their priority to ensure that the Muslim Brotherhood and its infrastructure and its activism in banking, in hospitals, in schools, in universities, in the army, in the royal families, all of those were completely cleansed out. The Muslim Brotherhood as an organization was banned. And then it became apparent that you can ban the Muslim Brotherhood, but its great appeal to ordinary people was, ah yes, but Hamas is our branch in Palestine that is fighting the Zionists. And you've got to be on our side, at least on Palestine. So even when a cleansing of society happened where the Muslim Brotherhood's cancer was removed,

you're left with the Palestine test. So several governments in the region made it their business, especially the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and with tacit approval then and now by Saudi Arabia, by the fact that there are still airplanes above Saudi airspace going from Tel Aviv to Dubai and Abu Dhabi and Bahrain to this day when Americans and other airlines are no longer flying in, their calculation became, we've got to confront this head on. Israel does not threaten Saudi Arabia or 1.8 billion Muslims in the world. It doesn't. It's a fact. Iran does. Iran threatens is Gulf Arab nations and Iranian form of Islam, which is a Willa'Al-Faqi-type Islam,

seeks to convert ordinary Sully Muslims to their kind of religious fascism. So they made a strategic calculation that Jewish people are the children of Jacob, of Yaqub, another word for Israel in the Quran and the Hebrew Bible. And Muslims are the children of Ismail, the elder son of Abraham. And the Abraham Accord are designed to recognize the Jewish claim, rightful claim to Jerusalem that is endorsed in the Quran, by the way. And this is why when I see young Muslims protesting in London, the Quranic verse, Yeah, Kauomidchulul al-a-a-a-a-le-le-le-a-le-kattas,

oh, my people, enter the promised land that was written for you, or the holy land that was written for you. So the Arab governments in the Gulf made that calculation based on geopolitical, as well as their own interests, as well as religious reading, that it's far better for a peaceful world to have relationships with a country that is booming economically in the tech sector, but also has a strong defense capability. And let's take the battle to Iran and to the Islamists that, where are you on this one? Are you going to be anti-Jewish and anti-Israel and not recognize reality and therefore not join the modern?

moderate majority, or are you going to be in the other camp, which is to work with your governments, to be loyal to Mecca and Medina, your own religious headquarters, rather than fight over a third headquarters, which is shared by Jews, Muslims and Christians. So that was the calculation and the thinking, and it stood, you know, the test of time that we've now gone through a war in Gaza over a year, and the Abraham Accords and the embassies still stand, despite what's been said out of France, more recently by President Macron, but Islamist activists demanding that those embassies be shut. And by the way, how dare they?

How dare they make demands of sovereign nation states, that those nation states override their own interests, nullify their own treaties, because half a dozen Muppets are shouting on the streets of London. You know, so. Padiday presents. In the red corner, the undisputed, undefeated weed whacker guys. Champion of hurling grass and pollen everywhere.

And in the blue corner, the challenger, extra strength, Hannity. Eye drops and work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause itchy allergy eyes. And the winner, by knockout, is Padaday. PADDADY, bring it on. So why is the war in Gaza happening? I was in Israel on October 7th. I was on the receiving end of the animosity that you're referring to. So I speak with this kind of in very personal terms.

It's happening because of a fundamental problem and it's not about injustice. It's about the inability of Israel's immediate name. neighbors, ordinary people, what Americans here called Gen Pop, you know, the general population in those countries, not being able to recognize that the Jewish people have a legitimate right justified by scripture, archaeology, and history to be in those lands, to be in and around Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Hebron, whatever you wish to call it. There's a legitimate claim back by the Quran, the Old Testament, the New Testament, archaeology, and the Prophet Muhammad's own companion,

Omar, inviting Jewish people back in the year 636. Salahuddin Ayoubi in 11 to 87 Saladin brings Jewish people back. It was the Christians that forced them out. And there's Ibn Khaldun, the great Muslim historian, recognizes this. But today's activist Muslims and those in and around the state of Israel don't recognize the Jewish claim to be in Israel. And that's why Gaza happened. Because once the mood music is, Israel has no right to exist, then it becomes right, how do we remove it?

So that's why I think we should go back to first principles and recognize Israel, Yisrael, Ya'aqqoub has every right to exist. Who are we to say Ya'Korb or Jacob has no right to exist and Jacob's children have no right to a country? It's just a bizarre, benal claim, but that's where we are. Once we've settled that question, that's why the Abraham called it so important because it recognizes the Abrahamic claim, the children of Jacob, Yaakov, Israel is the same name, their claim to the land. Once you recognize that from the perspective of God, scripture, political reality, then you can say Hamas has no legitimacy. But we are, I'm afraid, now in a position of just trying to destroy Hamas without destroying its argument. So October

7th happened because large, two million people in Gaza were forced, you know, in Hamas concentration, camp to believe in the fact that their neighbor, Israel has no right to exist. Palestinian identity became not about prospering as Palestinians, but about destroying the state of Israel. And where we need to get to is a position where Palestinians have justice and they have their state, but Israelis have their security, where they feel as though there is a region or a neighborhood immediate to them that wants to destroy them. And once we have justice for Palestinians and security for Israelis, we're in a position where we won't have another Gaza and we won't have another October 7th.

Until that battle of ideas is won, I'm afraid no amount of just destroying the leadership of the bad guys will result in long-term success. But how close are we to those groups who, by the way, let's be honest, the people who run these places, they have a very strong incentive to maintain this battle. because if I'm in charge of Gaza, the idea that, you know, we should just live peacefully, it might be beneficial to my people, but it's probably not beneficial to me, because I'm not going to be a billionaire in the way that I currently am. I'm just going to say, yeah, exactly, absolutely right, yeah.

But it goes beyond that, Constantine, some of the neighboring countries, it is in the interest of some of the political leaders, we shall remain nameless, who want to maintain a Gaza that is a genuine geopolitical problem. So when they come to the White House, they have a... relevance to Western political leaders that here, I, you know, Gaza's in my neighborhood, and this is what I've done. And I am both the arsonist and the firefighter. Whereas what you're seeing, and you know, there's one particular country in the Gulf, that's

part of this particular problem, but what you're seeing, and that's why the Abraham Accords again. You said it not right. Yes, 10 out of 10. So, whereas the UAE's point is we will help the people of Gaza. We will help remove Hamas and we will supply them with hospitals, medical needs, create a port. Let's create a Dubai in Gaza. And that's a different vision.

The Saudis are broadly there and the Israelis will need that help, as will we in the West. We will need that help. But that's a different vision. But all of that falls from being able to recognize the fact that Israel is a reality. And isn't it all extraordinary that we're here talking about Israel whether it has a right to exist or not? When no one says Pakistan doesn't have a right to exist, creating the same year on similar reasons. Lebanon, Jordan. I'm sure if we did this podcast in India, we can have that.

Fair enough. I haven't heard that. Ed, what about the... Sorry, Francis, I just want to explore this fully. You mentioned justice for the Palestinians. Most of the people who use that terminology, I know that's probably not how you mean it, have demands that are incompatible with the existence of Israel.

So in your conception of, you say, We, the Muslims in that area, have to recognize Israel has a right to exist, but the Palestinians need justice. What does that look like? What does that look like for Israel? You're saying they need security, which basically means they're not surrounded by people who want to kill them. But what does justice for Palestinians look like?

It means, and again, it's not something that people would like hearing, but I'm not in the business of making people like me. It's not, I mean, that's not the point. I think, I believe in truth. And the truth is that whether it's a two-state solution or whether it's a three-state solution. By three states, I mean whether Gaza is its own state and the West Bank is its own state

because there's a chunk called Israel in between. And we've seen the experiment to create two countries on either side with a third country be difficult in multiple jurisdictions in the Balkans, in South Asia and elsewhere. So we have to be realistic. It might be that Gaza is its own state with closer ties to Egypt.

and what we call the West Bank has closer ties to Jordan. Gaza has a more Egyptian-stroke, a hard-line Muslim identity because of being under control by Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood since 2006. And the West Bank has more of a secular Arab nationalist identity because it's been under control of Fatah. So we have to recognize those realities.

So I don't think both of those countries will become one single country. And therefore, and if they did fine, It's up to the local people to decide if the situation is that one is wrong and people want to create a single Palestinian state, then it's up to them. But what it involves is that either way it is not a threat to Israel's existence. And I should say something else at this point. Neither of those areas, especially Gaza, should be a Jew-free state.

Just as there are 20% of the Israeli population who are Arabs of a Palestinian background, we should not in the international community, you know, be open to the concept of a Gaza that is Jew free, Judan Rhein. Because that is pandering to the Hamas narrative, that is saying that you can't have Jewish citizens of Palestine. So when you ask me, what do I mean? I mean having Jewish people who are citizens of Palestine and Arab and Palestinians who are citizens of Israel upholding the international order as we have it now. And it also means, you know, with Gulf Arab financial and other backing, having an airport in Gaza, if it's an airport that's needed in the West Bank, if it can be facilitated from Tel Aviv, having

an airport in Palestinian territory, having a police force, having the kind of infrastructure that they want. But the real issue is, I mean, should the Palestinian populations have a fully fledged national security infrastructure that involves having armed forces, well, if the the armed forces are people who aren't dedicated to destroying Israel by all means. But I think the, we in the wider world, you know, who are allies of Israel, both in the Gulf and here in the West, have to be convinced that there isn't the desire and the dedication to destroy a neighbor. Because if there is, I'm afraid you won't have a fully fledged Palestinian state.

And I think that's the precursor that focus on Palestine, focus on building a country that helps its own people prosper, travel across the Gulf, across the Middle East, travel across the world. But remove this hatred of Jews and of Israel and the dedication to destroying it. Once those three elements are gone, then I think there'll be no end of commitment from the Europeans and others to help create a genuinely viable Palestinian state. But I still believe, sadly, this is all dreaming. The dislike of both Israel, the West, America is deeply deeply ingrained in large parts of Israel's immediate neighbours. And Ed, why do you think this particular conflict engages people in places like the UK?

So I'll give you an example. Well, I've got a mate, he's Bangladesh-the-origin Muslim, and we talk about the Middle East, and he gets really passionate about it. And I go to my mum's family, a large portion of them come from Lebanon. My mother was in tears last week talking about what was happening to Beirut. And I am not as partisan as you are around this. I try and talk to different people and get what is actually happening before. And in no way am I foaming at the mouth which you are now.

So why is this happening? Well, when you say Midlissam, I assume he's not angry about Yemen, France. Yeah, yeah. I assume he's not angry about Syria, Francis. Yes. I assume he's not angry about Sudan and Egypt. And more pertinently, he's not angry about Iran and the shenanigans that are going on there. Right.

So we're talking here basically about his inability to fathom the fact that the Israelis, the Jews, have an upper hand over a segment of the population in Gaza and in Hezbo, and Iran. And so it's a problem with Jew hatred, you know, and we've got to call it out for what it is. It's the inability to accept that Jewish people who were considered to be under Muslim land, Muslim control for millennia, one millennium and a half, now have their own country and own state and having been bullied throughout history and I'm able to fight back.

And there is that bug there, you know, and I've got to confront that bug. So it's about this particular issue because I didn't see that outcry when millions of Muslims and Syrian Arabs next to your mom's country in Syria were being insulted and abused. But I didn't see the weekly protests pertaining to Yemen or pertaining to Suzyraubra. and pertaining to Egypt, I just didn't. So there is this issue, we've got to confront it. And that's why I think, you know, I've been spending a lot of time in the last kind of year, year and a half, reading the Quran.

And I find that as you grow older, you either grow in faith or otherwise, you kind of say that. And I find in my recitation of the Quran, real comfort and consolation that the Quran refers to Jewish people as believers. There were a portion of those believers who are seen to have changed scripture turned against God, but Musa, Noah or Noah, the list is long. And I think to your friend and others, returning to our source, our maker, God, our creator, and reflecting on those scriptures helps remove that anger that you see in people

who are either on the Islamist hard right or on the far left on the political spectrum get more widely in the West because you realize that the Prophet Muhammad when he comes to Medina as the bearer of the Quran he includes Jewish people in his

umma and no one can deny that Iran can't deny that the Hamas Hezbollah people can't deny that. That he his community or his umma included Jewish people several Jewish tribes written in the constitutional

or the Wathiega of Medina. One of the rabbis, Makhidok, and I got this from a friend, and this is really interesting, a friend who is Saudi, who works in the Muslim World League, in Mecca, where there are 62 Muslim countries

that are its voluntary members. From Mecca, they're now talking about someone called Moucheidq, who was a rabbi in Medina, who took out 200 members of his congregation to fight side by side with the Prophet in the Battle of Uhu, on the Sabbath. I mean, that's, that's our tradition, that's who we are. We're supposed to be

in alliance with our Jewish friends who are the children of the prophets. We are the children of Ismail, they are the children of Ishaq. I mean, it's not complicated. I mean, you've had Jordan Peterson on your show, and Jordan always talks about archetypes, you know, Jungian archetypes, that's who we are. So, you know, your friend and others need to get over the fact that they're now going to fight the Jews and destroy Israel. Those days are gone. You know, Israel's here to stay. One of my friends in the Middle East talks about Israel as love handles, whether you like it or not, you can't get rid of it, it's there. You know, you talked about humor earlier.

But that's just a humorous approach, recognized in fact, it's reality. Just as Jordan is there to stay, so as Israel is there to stay. You know, so your friend's problem, as I say, isn't with the Yemenis or others, but with Jewish people in the region. Because it's also as well. I hope you tell them that one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he wasn't prepared to listen to me. But it's also as well, when I see that side of the argument, look, like,

Like I said, seeing my mother in tears over what's happening in Beirut is awful. Obviously it is. Obviously it's heartbreaking. But I get quite annoyed when they go, well, you know, Israel did this and Israel did that. And it's like, you seem disinterested in what has Balar have done to Lebanon and ordinary Lebanese people. And the atrocities that they have committed and the misery that their Lebanese people live under because these, well, let's call them what they are. these nut job psychopaths, run the country in the way that they see fit, and if you criticize them, you're not going to last very long. As the Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafiq al-Hadidi found out in 2004-5, he was assassinated.

So you're absolutely right, but just to back you up further, another problem we have among young activists, especially Islam, is a complete loss of cause and effect. Now, Israel has been living with Hezbollah armed of the teeth on its northern border now for almost 20 years. And Israel held back because there was West and another pressure on Israel not to commence a war. To date, in this last year, Israel has been on receiving end of almost 15,000 Hezbollah projectiles, otherwise known as rockets coming into sovereign space. You know, you don't have the right to remain a sovereign state if in your territory,

you foster a terrorist organization. And that's why Britain went to Northern Ireland. And that's why America went into Pakistan and Afghanistan against Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and Abat-a-Bat. And Israel, under international law, has every right to be in those countries to remove a terrorist threat. I mean, it's not difficult to understand that Israel has a right to do that. But I think our friends in Lebanon and in Palestine and elsewhere ought to accept the fact

that as long as there's a terrorist threat in those lands, Israel is full. is forced to respond. So yes, it did not start on October 7th, as they say, it's true. It started long before that because of the planning, plotting, stockpiling of arms, being backed by Iran and being prepared for this day. And Israel is nothing other than a response to that. Now, it's a valid debate to say it's an excessive response. I understand that many of my Saudi friends say this the response is excessive. In their words, you get to go crazy for two weeks. You don't get to go crazy for a year. But I point out the cognitive dissonance that if Israel had listened to those arguments, we would not have Yahyazimu are dead. If Israel did not go into

Raffa' as it did, we would not have Hamas dismantled to the point it is. You can't on the one hand call for a ceasefire and then say, ah, isn't it great that Hezbollah's leadership is no longer alive, that Ismail Hanea of Hamas was eliminated inside Iran? So there's a cognitive dissonance in that response, but at the same time, I understand that, you know, the response can be understood to be too harsh. Every life lost is a tragedy. And it's also a cognitive dissonance to say, oh, you know, we should have a ceasefire with people who want you wiped off the face of the earth. Well, there was a ceasefire on October 6th. Exactly. The Israelis didn't break that ceasefire. Hamas intentionally broke that ceasefire. Hamas wanted this war. So Hamas got the war,

But what Hamas did not expect is that Israel would react to the point of taking out Hamas leadership at home and abroad and destroy Hamas infrastructure at the point that it did, nor that Bibi would bea bin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, would react by taking out Ismail Haniyah in the presidential compound in Iran. And Iran would be involved in the war directly. Those were unexpected responses. And before we wrap up, just on Iran, it's obviously the force that's driving all of this. When you talk about, you know, destroying Hamas, great, destroying Hezbollah, great. But if the force that's doing all of this is Iran, I mean, I don't think Israel is going to destroy Iran or its capability, right? So how does this end? Yeah. I mean, you often talk about Thomas Sald and tradeoffs.

Yes. So I think that's where we are. We go from this set of trade-offs to a different set of trade-offs. Thus far, the trade-off was Israel remains more or less silent and focused on its internal issues while Gaza and Hezbollah and Iran and others get stronger. That was the previous trade-off. Now Israel has broken out of that mold. The next set of trade-offs is a weaker Gaza and Hamas, a weaker Hezbollah.

Lala led Iran and an Iranian military capacity that's weakened. And the trade of then becomes that Israel's under greater public opinion pressure, but at least the kinetic threat, the threat of having hard missiles pointing out at you has been minimized. And Iranian nuclear and other capacities have been thoroughly infiltrated to the point that Israel is capable of pinpointing attacks in... in Damascus as well as in Tehran. So in terms of trade-offs, our trade-offs are now less heightened on a kinetic front, but more heightened on the public opinion front. But Israel's tried both, and it has to do what it's right for its own long-term existential strength.

So you think they're going to attack a rogue? Yes. Yes. It's a question of when this side of a US election or after the US election, and much depends on who comes in to the White House. The Israelis will not. accept several hundred bombs landing on them from Iran and they don't respond because the international community states don't respond. It sets the wrong precedent. And you can't fight, as per your question, you know, Iranian tentacles while leaving the head of the octopus unharmed. And I think, you know, you mean the Iranian president was taken out in Azerbaijan.

So it's a question of when the Israelis will respond. I mean, if you're in, you sat in Jerusalem, you want to minimize the threat surrounding you right now. You've done that broadly in Gaza with the end of Yahya's Sinwar and Islamah and Islamah. You've now got the north of the Israeli borders with Hezbollah. You don't want to attack Iran while you've got Hezbollah stronger on your north. You want to minimize what faces you and then go after the source of the threat. But Israel has pressure on it from its own Arab allies as well as us here in the West. but I think time will tell as to when it decides to strike.

Ed, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show. The final question we always ask is the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be? Before Ed answers the final question, at the end of the interview, make sure you click the link in the description,

go to our substack to see this. Do you think more critical voices who understand their religious and cultural impact and needed to combat the push of Islamic groups and politics? Is Ed, work? worried about the number of MPs elected for apparently just being Muslim, but also being elected for their stance on Gaza. Now is the time to sign up to our substack because you could win an all-expenses-paid trip

to our Christmas party this winter. Meet some of your favorite trigonometry guests. Chat to the two of us, get to know our team and a lot more. Flights, hotel tickets are on us. All you have to do is sign up now. We touched on that already, didn't we? we, the philosophy and the faith point. I think the other point that we should be talking about more and we're not is the issue of,

at least, did you say, why does society or just for this interview purpose? Why does society? What we should be focused more is the meaning of life where Heidegger focused. He said that philosophy for 2,000 years had been talking about the wrong issue. all kinds of details, Kantian focus on the reason and its limits, but what we should be talking about is why we're here and where we're heading, where we came from, you know, the whole purpose of being our own existence, and I think that's something we shy away from. And I worry about this excessive focus on technology and again, Heidegger talked

about technology. I only cite Heidegger because he was the last philosopher to kind of highlight that. But I think Roger Scroogeon also alluded to that, and Edmund Burke and others thought about this, and I don't think we think about it or talk about it often enough that why are we here? What is the purpose of existence? And being able to think about that, talk about that, I think, helps alleviate many of the world's many problems that we're currently focused on. Ed Hussain, thank you so much for coming on. Head on over to Substack where we ask and your questions. Why do hardcore Islamists prefer to stay in Britain rather than leave, even though they seem to despise living in the West?

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