Will Cain Country - Douglas Murray: On The Front Line In Israel

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

Story #1: An attack on free speech by Republicans.  Story #2: An arrest in the throat-slashing hockey death of Adam Johnson. Story #3: A fascinating and deep conversation from Israel with the New York Post's Douglas Murray. Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One, an attack on free speech by Republicans. Two, an arrest in the throat-slashing hockey death of Adam Johnson. Three, a fascinating and deep conversation from Israel with the New York Post. Douglas Murray. It's the Will Cain podcast on Fox News podcast. What's up and welcome to Wednesday. As always, I hope you will download, rate, and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment at Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News podcast. You can watch the Will Cain podcast on Rumble or on YouTube and follow me on X at Will Cain. Today, we have an in-depth conversation with the author of The War on the West. He's a Foxx.

news contributor, and he's someone I count as a friend and an enlightened and deep thinker, Douglas Murray. In the course of our conversation, which will at times feature the two of us pushing back on one another, but mostly, I think, in regards to our choice of words, is a reflection on the deeper historical debate about the Israelis and the Palestinians, but not so much a reflection on the current moral indictment and clarity on the current situation between Israel and Hamas. You're going to hear me describe Israel as a colonial enterprise. Douglas will push back on that characterization, but it's certainly a characterization that would have satisfied the founders of the Zionist movement, like men like

Hayim Whitesman or David Ben-Gurion. When I use a term in a debate that is landmined with traps and gotcha moments, I don't use a term like colonization with any type of moral judgment

nor driving towards a hidden agenda. I'm only using it to push towards historical reality towards truth. And the reason I think that's important is in order to ever find a solution or even an accurate point of view, you have to be accurate and real about history. I believe there's been no greater advance in humanity than Western civilization. And the tip of the spear in Western civilization has been the United States of America.

That doesn't mean that I have to accept some propagandized vision of a flawless history for the U.S. There's Hiroshima, there's Nagasaki, there's Japanese internment camps, there is the destruction of Native Americans. That, though, doesn't lead me to some cynical leftist view. that the United States of America is a flawed and hypocritical enterprise. It's just a reality-based view of the march, the perhaps inevitable, but definitely imperfect, march towards a greater civilization. I find it in everything in this world, we're so surrounded by propaganda that we arrive at a conclusion and have to back engineer history to support a 100% pure version of the present, we can simply do our best, though, to recognize reality. And that will give us

hopefully some vision of the truth. And then maybe some solution. Douglas and I will have a back and forth on that and other terms that surround this seemingly intractable problem in the Middle East. But it doesn't, I think, lead us towards an end result of analysis that is different. for how Hamas should be dealt with by Israel. I think it's important to talk about words, words as a tool to accurately depict reality, and not words as weapons, because the ultimate collateral damage or targeted killing in a debate where we constantly weaponize words, is my mind, is your mind, is our independence. And that leads us to story number one.

The attack on free speech by Republicans. Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was on Fox News this week, wherein she said that allowing people to post on social media anonymously represents, quote, a national security threat. She promised that as president she will force every person on social media to be verified by their name. Now, Nikki Hilliott's fair to say in this opinion and position would have stood up against the founding of the United States of America. Many of the Federalist papers staunch polemics in defense of free speech. And many of the treaties giving rise to the United States of America were, were written under anonymous pseudonyms like Publius.

Anonymity and free speech are almost inextricable. It's true. Nikki Haley is right that if someone has to put their name on something, they feel much more accountable. That's absolutely true. And if everybody on social media had to stand by what they said with their name, we would probably end up, at least on the surface, with some greater level of civility.

but we would also sue people fired in their jobs for their points of view. We would see people punished in the marketplaces. We've heard from guys like Dana White or Theo Vaughn talk about sponsors saying they won't participate in episodes of their show if it features RFK Jr. Or won't sponsor the UFC because Dana White endorses Donald Trump. And maybe that should always be public. Maybe you should quote, always put your name. on it, but it's not a freedom that every single person has. And as a byproduct, what we do

is we reduce free speech at the price of civility. But civility for me is a fine price to pay for freedom. I would rather have a rude and free society than a polite, caged voice of the people. Nikki Haley is not alone. Republican congressman from New York, Mike Loller, according to the Hill, has held up a new bill as a possible solution to anti-Semitism on college campuses, saying the debates in colleges and universities across the country are, quote, not a free speech issue. He's talking about protests, in many cases, horrific protests that don't appear to just be pro-Palestinian but supportive of terrorist regimes like Hamas. He's talking about the streets of New York.

Chicago or Los Angeles being filled with rhetoric that is, in many cases, undoubtedly, anti-Semitic. Lawler's solution to that, along with Congressman Josh Gottheimer, Democrat from New Jersey, and Max Miller, Republican from Ohio, and Jared Moscovitz, Democrat from Florida, is to introduce the Antisemitism Awareness Act in late October, which they hope will enable universities and law enforcement to go after anti-Semitic speech, which he described as hate speech. Quote, we have seen a rapid rise in anti-Semitism on these college campuses and we need to crack down on it. Lawler said to CNN. This is not about free speech. This is hate speech. For the record, as an aside, we do not have hate speech in the United States of America.

That's an artifice of Canada, of the UK. We may have hate speech in judgment, but we do not yet have hate speech in law, because hate speech is completely antithetical to free speech. You cannot have those two concepts coexist. If you believe in free speech, you do not believe that legally there should be a definition of hate speech. The Hill goes on. The bill would force the Education Department to adopt an international Holocaust remembrance alliances definition of anti-Semitism for use in enforcing federal anti-discrimination law. The I-H-R-A definition, which is not currently universally accepted, says the Hill, includes

anti-Zionism, a belief against the state of Israel as a factor, which some contend is simply a political belief and has nothing to do with religious discrimination. There are others, of course, who believe and have said that they believe anti-Zionism is indistinguishable from anti-Semitism. But who is to define anti-Semitism? Like, who is to define anti-Semitism? to define racism? Who is to define hate speech? I thought we just did this for five years as the defenders of free speech. Who is to define misinformation? Who is to define disinformation? All the power, all the power resides in the definer. The politician writing the dictionary. That, I for one, is a power I don't look to outsource to any politician or to any real individual.

I don't know that I will agree with my friend, my neighbor, my colleague, my ideological, in normal circumstances, compatriot on the definition of something that is racist, on the definition of something that is anti-Semitic, on the definition of something that is hate. And so, therefore, because we disagree, I won't sit there and say that my definition, should prevail, but nor should their definition prevail. Instead, we should adhere to the first, first amendment of the United States Constitution, and that is to protect free speech. Don't protect us from inscivility. Don't protect us from offense. Don't protect us from ugly hateful speech

protect speech because it will only be one turn of the screw and you know this you don't have to think back you don't have to sit there and go but my way is the way of moral clarity but this time we are right no because you know the next turn of the screw

and you only have to have a memory that lasts a few years to know that your speech vaccine skeptic lockdown skeptic mask skeptic Protector of children's gender surgeries defending children from doctors who would mutilate parts of their body. Anyone who dares to question the integrity of an election, it's only one turn of the screw until your speech is hate speech or your

speech is misinformation or your speech is disinformation. On this, I'm absolutist. It doesn't matter if I agree. It actually matters more if I disagree. On this, I'm an absolutist. I believe in free speech. And that will have me condemn not just your normal course of action with Democrats. but when it's their turn as well to betray a fundamental American value to have me condemn Republicans. We'll be right back with more of the Will Cain podcast. From the Fox News Podcasts Network.

Hey there, it's me, Kennedy, make sure to check out my podcast. Kennedy saves the world. It is five days a week, every week. Download and listen at Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. This is Jimmy Phala. Inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at Fox Across America.com.

Story number two. There's been an arrest in the death of hockey player, Adam Johnson, in the UK. If you'll remember just a few weeks ago, we talked about this incident where Adam Johnson playing in a hockey league in the United Kingdom had his throat slashed by. a hockey skate, a high kick by Matt Petgrave that hit, in a very awkward and unnatural movement on the ice, hit Adam Johnson's throat resulting in his death. We had on the program here, my friend criminal defense attorney in Texas, Todd Shapiro, to talk about whether or not criminal charges could be brought against Matt Petgrave. Looking back at incidences on and off the playing field on various sports. Shapiro's estimation was, no, there would not be any charges that could stick when it takes

place like that. And it's so gray, literally on the field or on the ice in athletics. Right now, when it comes to UK law, that looks like that's not to be the case. Although Petgrave's name hasn't been released or mentioned, a suspect has been arrested on charges of suspicion of manslaughter. It's a tragic incident all around. It does. And I said in that interview with Todd Shapiro, you can go back and listen to that. It's just a few weeks ago. It does to me look absolutely unnatural. It does not look like the normal course of hockey. It will undoubtedly because Petgrave is black and Johnson is white get drug into, you know, I guess America or Western civilizations, long look in the mirror over race. It really has nothing to do with race.

It has to do with whether or not this was reckless or intentional and outside the bounds of sport. We're going to step aside here for a moment. Stay tuned. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Neeson. Buy your tickets now. I get a free chili dog. Chili Dog, not included. The Naked Gun. Tickets on sale now. August 1st.

Story number three. New York Post columnist, Fox News contributor, the author of The War on the West, Douglas Murray, has spent the last couple of weeks in Israel, and he has ventured beyond the borders. He has visited the West Bank. He has passion, I think moral clarity on this subject. Although, as you'll see in this conversation, I don't think we have complete agreement on just exactly how to characterize. reality in this story. I don't think we have much disagreement on moving forward. Maybe we disagree on the characterizations of the past, but I don't think we have much disagreement on the actions for the future. I always find Douglas an incredibly deep and interesting thinker, and I want to talk to him about this and any other subject when he was willing to give me the time. And he gave me a good 45 minutes live from Israel. Here is Douglas Murray. joining us now live from Tel Aviv Israel is New York Post columnist Fox News contributor and the author of

The War on the West, Douglas Murray, one of my favorite individuals to speak with on any given subject, but one that I know right now, Douglas, is very near and dear. It appears to your heart. It is one that you've shown a level of passion and interest in that, I'll be honest, has in a way taken me a back. I didn't, I, um, you know, I wasn't aware of your deep interest in the conflict in Israel until I started seeing you on the network over the last several weeks. And if I'm being completely honest with you, Douglas, I've asked myself, why? And I've wondered, why is this a topic that landed with such weight on your life? Well, I've covered or been present for most wars in Israel since the 2006, Levinan War.

I've covered quite a lot of wars and conflicts, as you know. But you're right. There is something which every conflict involving Israel means to me. And I suppose it's just something deeper than the level of normal analysis, which is that I feel deeply, acutely attacks on the Jewish. state. I'm not Jewish myself, but it's always seemed axiomatic throughout my life. It's always seemed obvious that there's one Jewish state in the world. It's a miracle that it came to be, almost all the odds were against it coming to be, and that when there are annihilationist

attacks on it, absolutely everything is at stake. And not just for Israel, but it's a my view for the entire civilized world, it would be the unforgivable stain of our generation, of our century, if Israel actually were to succumb to the annihilationists of Hamas and Hezbollah and others. And it also seems to me that it's the front line of the civilized world as a whole. You know, we in America, where I spend most of my times, you know, we in America have had tastes of intifada, you know, we've had tastes of terrorism. In Britain, my country of birth, we've had tastes of intifada and of terrorism at home. France has, everyone has.

But it's always been Israel that gets it first. And there's never been any doubt in my mind that the one thing leads to the other. And that to that extent, Israel is defending all of us when it defends itself. and that where Israel goes, the rest of the civilized world goes. Where Israel goes, the rest of the West goes. And that's one of the reasons why people who hate Israel fight it with such incredible ferocity as we saw last month. So, you know, I always say that if I, you know,

even if everybody else in the world thought otherwise, the quote of the late Oriana Falachi, I'd still stand with Israel and stand with the Jews. You know, there's so many things I want to talk about with you today and respect the fact that you are in Israel. It is late in the evening. And you have spent much of today and much of the last couple of weeks, not just in Israel, but traveling through the West Bank. And I want to talk about specifics of things that you have seen. And I would also like to talk about what you've alluded to there is not just that the West has had tastes

of intifada, but sort of the embrace of Palestinians across the world. I want to hit all of those things with you. But before we do go into some of those specifics, I think there is an instinct, and I don't think it's an inappropriate instinct, and I'll just speak for Americans, to look at something half a global way. And I ask why this is so important to you, and you've already begun to answer this, but to ask themselves, why is this important to America? Why is it important for me to invest in something that seems intractable? And we've spent time here, Douglas, on this podcast, diving into, and we'll continue to dive into the history of this conflict, dating back to the 1880s. But I think even if you want to understand history,

even if you want to see the atrocities of today, there's still, I think, a not inappropriate instinct to say, why should this matter for America? Well, the first thing is that America should in my view have a domestic policy and a foreign policy. And I'm alarmed by the growth of people on the right as well as the left of American politics who think you can have one or the other but not both. America did not come to global prominence and indeed dominance by being only interested in itself. And I do hear people on the right as well as the left now who say, you know, we could save this money that we give to various foreign allies occasionally, most of which is a rounding error in any budget, whether it's the Democrats or the GOP in power. It's always a rounding error

compared to the budget in general and total in the United States. But this money that goes sometimes to America's allies, some people say, well, it would be better spend at home. We should secure our own borders and do that before protecting anyone else's. I find that stuff a sort of flippant argument. I don't think there's anyone in the world who honestly believes that if America gave no foreign aid or arms assistance or anything else to Israel that Joe Biden would be building a border in South of America. I just don't believe that's the case. I don't think that the inability to secure the southern border in America is because there's not enough money poured into it from D.C. D.C. could find that money in a heartbeat if it wanted to. It's a lack of

political will, not a lack of money that causes that. But to the greater geopolitical issue, Israel shares every single value that America shares. It is an outpost of American democracy. You know, it's based on the parliamentary system, on the democratic system, on the rule of law, on rights, on all of the most basic things which every college student in America thinks comes along like oxygen when you're born. But it doesn't.

And it sure doesn't in the region I mean. sitting in tonight. What people enjoy in Israel, very basic things, like freedom of movement, freedom of belief, freedom in general, is not something that people appreciate not many miles away over the border in Syria or not many miles away over in Saudi Arabia. You know, it is so important to my mind that America is a good friend. it should also be a good enemy by the way but it should be a good friend and that includes supporting helping assisting in any way countries that are like america and that aspire to the same values you know everybody talks whenever israel is in a war about the manner of war

that israel carries out and there is always criticism of it as there always is of american the American way of war. Israel's way of war is probably most similar to Americas, in that the minimization of civilian casualties is one of the absolute priorities, one of the guiding lights of every operation. That is not the case a few miles away over the Syrian border. Civilian casualties over there are the point. Over in Gaza, Hamas seeks civilian casualties, not just among the Israelis, but among the Palestinian population of Gaza. Every single difference in the world, moral and strategic, exists in that distinction, the people who would minimize suffering and those who would maximize it.

You know, Douglas, you know I've never had this conversation, and I agree with you on so many things in just our, I don't want to say perhaps our philosophical outlook on the West, on the world, but we haven't really had the foreign policy conversation together before. And I'm going to dismiss with this element of the argument. I am not someone who would say to what you just said, oh yeah, well, look at Hiroshima, look at Nagasaki. You know, I'm not someone that looks to find the moral equivalency between the history of the United States and Hamas. you are going to find hypocrisies in anyone's history. And they are sometimes, they are sometimes exceptions that prove a rule.

They are not this revelation of a corruption of a false edifice of morality, you know, which is what I think they're used as. But what I think is a better approach instead of cynicism is skepticism. And that is, I know let's expand our conversation. for just one moment. Ukraine is another place where you have been very invested as well. And I would say that there's a very, very skeptical and yet legitimate argument about the United States' ability to do some of the things that you just described. I mean, I think we met failure in Afghanistan on this front. We met failure in Iraq on this front. And the question then becomes, what is

our role in it, maybe not just America, but the larger West. Do you embrace the role that we saw, under Republican administrations, like, say, for example, George W. Bush is not just a proselytizer, but a liberator and a creator of these freedoms around the world, because I'm not sure that we're capable of that goal. No, I don't think that we are in America either capable of that goal. And Iraq and Afghanistan showed that in space. But neither Israel nor Ukraine are examples of that. Neither Israel nor Ukraine requests American troops to be on the ground in the tens of thousands to sustain their democracy. Neither Israel nor Ukraine, and obviously they're very different conflicts, seeks American intervention.

Ukraine seeks American support in trying to push back Vladimir Putin's invasion of the country and has somewhat stalled in that pushback in the time since I was last there, Israel seeks no American troops on the ground, the young men and women of the IDF, and the young reservists who have joined up with 130% rejoining of the IDF in the last five weeks, 130% reconscription are not asking

for any American soldier to risk their lives in Israel. They are asking for American help in arming them to fight Hamas, to destroy Hamas. They are requesting American help

in showing Iran and its proxies of Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon not to open another front there, because Israel could fight on multiple fronts, but obviously he doesn't want to do. It's asking for diplomatic support. And remember, it's asking for that support in an international community, which at the United Nations the other day couldn't even pass a vote condemning the Hamas massacres of the 7th October. On a simple resolution of whether the United Nations could condemn

the murder of pregnant women in their homes, the United Nations couldn't condemn it and there was an outbreak of applause in the chamber when the failure to condemn it was announced. So in the international arena, that's what we're looking at. We're looking at a totally sick international community. But America, America is better than that, should be better than that, is being better than that. And I think that that's something which Americans should be proud of and take note of. Nobody in the IDF is required. a single American to shed blood for Israel. The Israelis are the ones doing the fighting. The Israelis are the ones every day doing the dying here.

You, to my knowledge, are someone that is very unique in that you've had the opportunity, I think, as recently as today, to see the perspective literally behind the other line. I think, if I am not incorrect in the last couple of days, you've traveled through the West Bank. What have you seen in the West Bank? I've got to be slightly careful in describing my movements. I travel all over here, as I have many times before, during conflicts and not in conflicts. The situation, the West Bank is relatively quiet. Hamas does, of course, have plenty of operatives in the West Bank,

but for various reasons, they haven't kicked off to the extent that might have been expected. The North is not quiet on the Hezbollah front. There have been significant munitions fired across the border and people killed in the last few days. But that is comparatively quiet compared to what is happening in the South. And what is happening in the South, of course, is that on the 7th of October, a battalion-sized attack occurred against Israel. I think a lot of people outside Israel don't really realize this. We're talking about up to 4,000 Hamas terrorists coming through into Israel by land, sea, and air. And they landed at, of course, a music festival and massacred young people dancing in the early morning.

They went into towns and villages, kibbutz, and massacred people in their homes in ways that I don't want to disturb the nights of your listeners by describing in detail, but I could. I went through one of the kibbutz the other day where about half of the people who lived in this community of 400 people were either massacred or kidnapped and taken into Gaza that day. And the blood is still everywhere. And the stories are as horrific as you could possibly imagine. And actually more horrific than stories I've heard in any war zone I can actually think of that I've seen. In that area, there are just untold numbers of atrocities still being uncovered. The details still being uncovered. I was spent part of yesterday.

With the families of people, of the 240 people, it's estimated, were kidnapped and taking into Gaza, they include a nine-month-old baby and an 85-year-old grandmother. And I also spoke to some of those, including combat veterans or policemen, and others who were wounded that day. That is what Israel is fighting against now in the Gaza. It's fighting to eradicate Hamas in the Gaza. And the Gaza border is a lot more tricky than the rest of the country. There are regular missiles being fired. There's a regular bombardment. There is everywhere. A couple of missiles came into Tel Aviv just before we started speaking and everyone had to go to the bunkers here again. And I see the two people.

were wounded in the center of Tel Aviv. Sometimes that happens from shrapnel, from the Iron Dome system, falling to ground as a rocket from Gaza is hit. But Hamas' ability to fire rockets has certainly diminished in recent days. They are fighting on the ground, house to house, against the young men and women of the IDF,

and as a result, have less time than they normally do to fire rockets into civilian areas in the hope of killing Israelis. But that's where the real battle is, going on at the moment is the battle of Israel against Hamas inside the Gaza and people should remember that you know we don't have to go back to 1880 everyone can always go back earlier with this conflict you can go back for the year 3000 you have a situation of course in Gaza where this was land that Israelis lived in and under a very right-wing prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2005

Israel withdrew from the Gaza. I actually met a woman earlier today who was one of the Jewish women who lived in the Gaza who was forcibly taken out when the Israelis withdrew in 2005. It was incredibly traumatic for Israelis to watch their fellow Jews being pulled out of their houses by the IDF on the orders of the Israeli government. The land was handed over to the Palestinians and there was hope that they could live as neighbors, but Hamas was voted in by the people of Gaza. Hamas immediately killed their Palestinian rivals. Fatah threw them off buildings and shot them in the back and took over

the Gaza and has never had another election since and has brought up a new generation of Palestinians in the Gaza as people who are taught to hate and want to murder Jews from the very moment that they are born. And so Hamas that could have made Gaza into a Singapore, instead of building up, built down. Instead of building towers and skyscrapers, it built tunnels. And it funneled, by the way. And if anyone cares about the misuse of foreign aid, it funneled millions and billions of dollars of aid money from the United States as well as other countries into the pockets of Hamas' leaders, who have profiteered by the billions and live in great luxury whilst the peoples of Gaza are impoverished. Now, some people blame the Israelis for that. I blame Hamas.

Do you think, Douglas, you've traveled, and I understand, I appreciate you want to be protective of some of your movements, but I gather that you had some opportunity to see and discuss this current conflict. As you mentioned, I mean, you know, you mentioned you don't have to go back to 1880, 1880, and I, you know, I always appreciate a larger historical context because my goal is understanding. But do you get the sense, I have heard this, that in the West Bank, for example, Hamas has gained in popularity over the past month, that while Hamas wasn't perhaps the party in power in the West Bank, this has actually served Hamas's interest in the West Bank. Well, yeah, the West Bank is, of course, ruled by the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, I think, is now in his 17th year of a four-year term, if I remember rightly. I think it's about 17 years of a four-year term now. So democracy in the West Bank is not great. There's a lot of Hamas in the West Bank, quite a lot of been arrested by the Israelis preemptively in recent weeks, of course. Nobody can know what the actual opinion is currently is not very good polling. It's hard to do polling. It has to be said in the West Bank because it's hard to get people

to trust any polling, a company that asked them. But of course, Hamas has the popularity in the West Bank. Everybody knows that Hamas is corrupt. As I've discovered from the past, from travelling around there and speaking to the Palestinian Authority, Fatah members and others, everyone knows that Fatah is corrupt, that the Palestinian authority is corrupt. However, it is peaceful, by comparison, of course, with the Gaza.

And if you really want to see a success story, you should look at the figures that we do have for Arab Israelis and their attitudes towards Hamas. Because Israeli Arabs, who have all the same rights as anyone else in Israel, which would not be the case if it was a Palestinian state, of course, because there wouldn't be allowed to be any Jews, and that's the Declaration, not just of Hamas, but of Fatah as well. The Arab Israelis are very much in favor of protecting Israel, very much, overwhelmingly.

So they do not want to live under Hamas, and they don't want to live under the Palestinian Authority either, because those are the only other options on the table at the moment. Palestinian Israeli Arabs are the luckiest Arabs in the region, and they know it. And it's only the sort of professional, ill-educated, educated idiots at American Ivy League universities and other such places that would find what I just said so mind-blowing that they wouldn't be able to take it into their heads. so let's do something really hard and i hope that you don't resist and let is actually this is a way to do this let's let's presume israel's success in eradicating hamas what i want to do is um take hamas if we can out of this conversation because i think any rational person can look and condemn

hamas and obviously what happened on october seventh what if if hamas is not part of this this equation what is a workable solution to these two peoples? You know, again, I, this is where the historical context comes in to play. You know, people get so triggered by every single word that you choose in this conversation, and it bothers me that you can't just have a conversation. But look, Israel is a very successful Western colonization effort in the Middle East. Now, we can go back thousands. It's not a colonization effort.

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. We can go back thousands of years and make that argument, but there was a massive influx of European Jews to the Middle East in the 1880s, starting in the 1880s through the beginning of the 20th century. Well, there was also massive influx of Arabs from Egypt and elsewhere who soon became known as Palestinians. But there was also, but there was also a native years, that happened during years of the British mandate, a load of Arabs. But there was also a native population, well. There was an existing native population as well. Largely, it was the population of other Arabs coming to the land that is now called Israel, which some people call Palestine. And they are now treated as if they were sort of indigenous peoples of the land. Well, it wasn't empty,

but it wasn't empty, Douglas. Oh, it wasn't empty, but it wasn't that full either. And it isn't the case that there was a sort of first, I mean, there's a weird American version of this, which because of America's now sort of guilty history of itself, which has this sort of indigenous peoples and then wicked Westerners move in, that idea has been transplanted onto Israel. The first people have a claim to the land of Israel are the Israelis. They have a claim going back thousands of years.

In any case, the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 was voted for by the United Nations. It was United Nations who voted Israel. Israel into place in 1948. By the way, of course, they offered the Palestinian's estate as well, and they rejected it. But irrespective of that, let me just start off my answer by saying, don't assume everyone finds it easy to condemn Hamas. Don't assume that. Okay, okay. I don't. College and certain congressmen and women and others find it very hard to condemn Hamas. They find it hard to condemn them. It shouldn't take that for God. Fair point. But what I want to do for you

in my conversation is have a rational conversation between two people that can so that we can maybe move forward. This, what I see, when I said that and you pushed back on colonization, I don't know why you did, because I don't attach a value judgment to it. You and I have had long conversations in the past about colonization and the West. I don't consider it a dirty word. I don't consider it a immoral proposition to colonize. And you and I have had very, I think, and enlightening conversations about the value of Western colonization. And it's net, it's net positive for both the existing indigenous population and the greater world at large.

I'm talking about globally. So when I say that, I just want you to understand, I'm not heading down some political path with a predetermined outcome or a more, or even a moral judgment, okay? But what I am trying to do is just be historically accurate. And while you're right. I think that colonization is an appropriate term for the Jewish people in the land of Israel, but yes. Okay. Well, I think it's just, I think it's the most accurate term that we can do when you've got basically a 2,000-year gap between when Israelis lived there. And I understand there were,

there was Jews living in continuous Jewish presence, yes. Correct. Yes, minority, but yes, a continuous population. And they were continuous presence before Muhammad came up with the idea of Islam. Fair, yes. However, they were a minority. And there was a minority. an existing population, indigenous, native, for those thousands of years. And that leads us to a solution, the necessity for some solution. Now, let's just, you know, the American, the American experience that you drawn, I actually think it's a fairly interesting corollary. And I, again, I am not, I don't have emotional judgment to place on that. You know, like, did things happen with the Native American population that we can look back in history and go, wow, that's unfortunate? Absolutely. But it's the,

whether or not it's manifest destiny or the superiority of a Western civilization. It is what it is. It is what it is. And it created, I think, the best experiment in humanity, the United States of America. So my question for you is, what's the end result of this? If we don't want to colonization, call it colonization, call it whatever. But you have two peoples who have a claim to a land that is antagonistic to one another. So how my question that I'm leading towards in all this is, how does it sort itself out? I mean, in the American, in the American experiment, by the way, if we're just being blunts about it, the answer to how it sort itself out is one group was thoroughly and completely defeated, thoroughly and completely defeated. That is the historical truth of Europeans, colonizing United States of America and interacting with Native Americans. What is the solution? And I don't think anybody hopes for that to be a solution in the Middle East. So what is the solution for two peoples that have claims to this land? Well, the first thing is that the answer, the solution, as you say, has been on the table for over a century. The solution is two states for two people.

That includes probably the ugliest border of any country in the world. but it's been offered repeatedly for Palestinians. It was offered to them at the same time as the Jewish state was voted on by the UN Assembly in 1947, 1948. The Palestinians rejected it, and they've rejected it ever since. Every single negotiation, the Palestinian leadership, such as it is,

has rejected the idea of having a state because it has been persuaded by radicals within and without that 99% what you want isn't enough. It always has to be 100%. And Bill Clinton offered them 99%. And they rejected it. So Arafat was offered 99%

and he rejected it. Ehud Olmert, when he was Prime Minister of Israel in the 2000s, offered them 99% of what they wanted and they rejected it. They've rejected every single offer to have a state. So when people say, why isn't there a Palestinian state? I would say, ask the damn Palestinian leadership. and the answer from them tends to be they want the whole thing.

And by the way, once again, the whole thing is it's not a pluralistic, multi-ethnic, multi-religious state like the state of Israel is. It's a state which is Eudenrine, clear of Jews. So that isn't very workable. And when these people from the streets of New York, as I saw the other week, to the streets of European cities chaned from the river to the sea, that means the eradication of the Jewish state in its entirety. So that's not an answer, because Israel isn't going anywhere.

Okay. The Israelis are not going anywhere. Now, what are the Palestinians? The Palestinians in Gaza, as I say, voted for Hamas, have lived with Hamas for years, are the first victims of Hamas, but obviously not the last. But there is generally in conflict recognized to be a price to place. pay for voting in a fascistic government, which then wages wars on its neighbors. And that includes

the price to pay for the civilian population. All of those deaths are on the hands of Hamas. They didn't need to happen. They don't need to happen. But they're all on the hands of Hamas. The blood of all the Palestinians who are dying is on the hands of Hamas. And the people who call for a ceasefire, totally frivolously don't realize there was a ceasefire. And it was broken by Hamas on the 7th of October. The interesting thing is not a single Israeli, I think, today believes that Hamas can continue in the Gaza. What does happen with the Gaza is a very open question now, because the most left-wing people in this country, in the country I'm sitting in tonight, know that they cannot live beside Hamas. So what will happen there in the Gaza? It's an open question. The West Bank

also an open question. It could continue to be ruled the way it is as a sort of proto-state with massive amounts of international funding from America and elsewhere, going to the corrupt Palestinian authority to once again maintain the status quo, keep their mansions,

their shopping accounts in Paris and their bank accounts in Switzerland, whilst the general people sort of muddle alarm. And that's not the worst possible situation. The Palestinians in Lebanon, have a life. Palestinians and the West Bank have a life, and it's better than the life of many people in many other Arab countries. I think that one thing that at some point will have to be at least kept on the table is very significant population transfers. And that has happened

throughout history in this region as it has elsewhere in the world. So what would that look like? Jordan? Well, I mean, let me, I mean, without trying to trick you, what was the largest Palestinian population transfer of recent times? I don't know. It was 1991. It was the aftermath of Gulf War I when the Kuwaitis kicked out 200,000 Palestinians from Kuwait. Why did they do that? Because Yasser Arafat, brilliant, brilliant statesman that he was, sided with Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War.

And when the Iraqis were firing scud missiles into Israel was, of course, encouraging. that. So the Q80s didn't like that. And when the, when some Hussein's armies were kicked out, the Q80s kicked out 200,000 Palestinians. Well, that's quite a big thing to do. But by the way, I see no international approbrian then or since about that. None. Where did they all go, Douglas? They were dispersed. They were dispersed by the, by the Qaeda, who didn't care. So what? Jordan, West Bank, Gaza. At the moment, yes. And at the moment, as we're speaking, by the way, the Pakistani government is forcibly moving two million people from their country. Two million, as we speak, is there a camera there?

Is there any international news coverage there? No, because it's recognized that the Pakistanis can push two million people out of their country that they don't want back into Afghanistan, and they're allowed to do it. By the way, the Iranians are doing something similar at the moment. What does it look like in Israel? Well, my view is that the Palestinian problem, the Palestinian question, should not simply be a problem for the Israelis. It isn't just a problem for the Israelis. It is a problem that can only be addressed with a cooperation of the Jordanians, the Egyptians, and many other countries.

What that looks like, I don't know. What I do know is that the Palestinian question of Palestinian statehood has been an insoluble problem. and it has been an insoluble problem that the international community has given to Israel to solve. It is not fair that the Israelis should be expected to solve an insoluble problem on their own. I would like to see the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan, whose queen has been so unbelievably fulsome in her attacks on Israel in recent weeks. Queen Rania, whose only advice to the rest of the world on how to run a country is sleep with a human. king. Queen Rania and others have no pity for the Palestinian peoples. And we know that because they would take them in if they had pity. The same with Egyptians. The Egyptians haven't

opened their border with Gaza to all the Gazans. Egypt used to own the Gaza, used to run the Gaza. I have friends who are Palestinian who are born in the Gaza as Egyptians. They don't want them either. My point is simply, if this is an insoluble problem, it shouldn't be an insoluble problem offered only to the Israelis. If it's a soluble problem, and maybe one day it will be, it should be given to everyone in the region to solve. But one final thought of Emma, there are lots of insoluble problems in the world. I mean, you know, Turkey is a NATO member. Cyprus is an EU member state. Turkey in the 1970s invaded Cyprus still occupies the north of Cyprus illegally stole homes of thousands of Cypriots.

Is anyone trying to solve that problem internationally? No, everyone's moved on. Everyone's forgotten about it. Nobody makes multi-generational intergenerational Cypriot refugees their marching issue on American College campuses. The Western Saharan problem is not solved. Nowhere near being solved. It's just another insoluble problem that exists on the planet. So, again, when people focus on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, I would like people to realize, actually, we live with quite a lot of insoluble problems. So I want to make sure that I understand, and this is why I appreciate we had to go through our sandpaper to get to the solution that we are not antagonistically fighting each

other on. I just want to hear with clarity what you thought was a potential solution. From what I hear from you, and I'm just going to repeat it back so you can tell me if you think I understand it correctly is, you know, population transfer. Some people, and I'm not going, I'm going to say this to you directly, Douglas, so you don't stop down the conversation. I don't endorse or am passing moral judgment on this term, but other people call ethnic cleansing is happening all across the globe.

You're telling me it happens in Pakistan. It happens in Africa. It's happened in Turkey with Cyprus. Everyone focuses on in Israel when it comes to the Palestinians. So what you're suggesting is, which you said is a population transfer, is the potential solution is removing Palestinians from Israel to, with the cooperation, not from Israel. Okay. Well, I assume, are you talking about the abandonment of Gaza and the West Bank? I'm saying that whatever happens, Gaza is likely to be highly depopulated at the north, at least.

So we're talking specifically about Gaza, not necessarily. And as for the West Bank, who knows, but maybe it should be made the responsibility of Jordan. Maybe Jordan should step up more in the West Bank. I'm not talking about moving anyone inside Israel. Okay. So more of administrative states then? Yes. Okay.

Administrative states under the guidance of Egypt or Jordan. It's possible. I mean, I don't have a solution to it. I'm saying these are the sorts of things that should be on the table. You're smart guy, and this is the point of the conversation. I'm not asking you to solve the world's problems, but to sound them out with me, and you've certainly given them no lack of thought. Now, that's different.

I'm glad that I clarified because what I thought you were originally suggesting was physically removing the Palestinians to those countries. And I want to clarify something that you said for someone not listening to and may not. Jordan is a Hashemite kingdom. That means they are not of the same tribe as the Palestinians. And I believe that half the population of Jordan is Palestinian. Is that right?

Much more than half. Yeah. Yeah. And so what they're looking at, if there, people always say, why won't they take the Palestinians? You will know the answer more for Egypt. For Jordan, I'm sure the answer is they, They feel like they're hanging on to a kingdom by a thread and the more Palestinians that bring in, the greater risk of losing their kingdom. Yes.

And I think that the world should consider this, but one of the reasons why they're so-called brother Muslims and brother Arabs don't take the Palestinians in is a total lack of love for the Palestinians everywhere across the Arab and Muslim world. there's a reason for that. By the way, again, I don't get caught up in it. I know we're short on time. But if you go and ask anyone to name a famous Palestinian, just going back to your historic point, almost the only person that any Palestinian or anyone else can say is Miasa Arafat. Why is that the case?

Why is that the case? Why have they not created a culture which has had other people to talk about other than this particularly corrupt and ugly inside and out, imposter who held the Palestinian cause back for so many decades. One of the reasons why there's so little love in the region here, among the Arab and Muslim countries for the Palestinians, is that wherever the Palestinian authority, with predecessors organizations were, terror followed.

That was the case in Egypt. It was the case in North Africa. Africa. It was the case in Lebanon. It's been the case in Jordan. So you're right. One of the reasons why other countries in the region want to leave the insoluble problem only on the plate of Israel is because they know that if they help solve the problem by taking in meaningful numbers of Palestinians, their own kingdoms would likely fall. If Egypt brought Hamas members and population into Egypt, the Egyptian government would have an even bigger security problem on its hands and it currently has under General Sisi.

The King of Jordan holds on. Could he hold on if there were a larger population of Palestinians in his country, including, for instance, people from Hamas and Fatah? Maybe not. There have been plenty of coups, attempted coups, terror and much more. So I want to let you go to bed or get to your evening Netflix or dinner that's awaiting you here in Tel Aviv. I don't want to without at least addressing the West. And so let me ask you this.

I think that you and I probably could quickly diagnose much of what we're seeing in the West together. And so I'll lay the groundwork so you can advance the ball. You know, when we see these protests in America and in the UK, part of it is the product of a thoroughly corrupt Western education that sees the world through oppressor and oppressed and is assigned the oppressed view to the Palestinian view. You also have more so in Europe than in the United States, a large refugee crisis that. that has, or influx of Muslims from the Middle East that have failed to assimilate and see this as their, I guess, fight for their brethren. But how do you explain beyond simply just to protest? Protests are a big part of it, Douglas.

But also, as you mentioned, the UN. Like, outside of the United States, you're hard pressed to find another nation on the planet. And I don't mean to take away from the UK and some Western powers, but certainly not as full-throated as the U.S. who take the side of Israel. Why? Well, there's several reasons, but I'll just do two, perhaps. One is in relation to Europe, an awful lot is given away by the accusations that Israel's enemies level at it.

They tend to level the same accusations. Genocide, Hitler or Nazi-like behavior, ethnic cleansing. They claim that Gaza is like the war. Warsaw ghetto. Why do they say these things? For several reasons. The first is because it wounds and deeply hurts any Jewish person to be accused of these things. Deeply hurts and wounds. There are a million examples you could choose across history of what Israel is currently doing in the Gaza. Genocide, if it was a genocide and it's not, it would be the least successful genocide in history because in the last 15 years, the population of Gaza has boomed.

It's the first so-called genocide in which the population massively increases. But why do they say it, these people? Why do they say that the Israelis are like Nazis or have Nazi-like behavior or engage in genocide? Firstly, because they want to wound the Israelis, but secondly, for a very deep psychological reason, which is the number of people in Europe and the West in general, mainly from the far left, but also from the far right,

who, and actually elsewhere in politics, it has to be said, who still feel the deep moral stain of what was done to the Jews of Europe in the mid-20th century, not just Germany, but the countries that handed the Jews over so easily in the Baltic states, in the Netherlands, in France, and elsewhere. With very few exceptions, Europeans went along with this. And I would argue there was even a stain of this in America, of the fear of why did we not stop it earlier?

Why did we not accept Jewish refugees? Right, exactly. Now, if you then have this great moral burden on your back, but you get to call the one Jewish state out and pretend that they are doing the same thing, that means you're not so bad. You're not so bad. the if even the Israelis can be accused of Nazism of setting up the Warsaw ghetto again and much else

maybe we can get some of the past off our shoulders that is one of the deep psychological things going on here there's a second thing which I must say you mentioned the Muslim immigration into Europe and indeed into America in recent years this has had a deep impact not least in the protests on the streets of London, Paris, Berlin and elsewhere. The driving force of these protests have been Muslims. They are not, and I cannot stress this enough, they are not motivated by a love of the Palestinians. They are not motivated by a love of their fellow Muslims. We have flattered people by pretending that in recent years. We know that they don't care about their fellow Muslims because not 1% of these marches turned out when hundreds of thousands of Muslims were killed in Yemen in recent years.

Not one percent of these demonstrators turned out when hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the Syrian Civil War over the last 12 years. If you added up all of the dead of every side in every war involving Israel from the beginning of the state, that is the War of Independence in 1948, and you went up right to today. You get, if you added all of those deaths up from both sides, from every side, in every conflict involving Israel, you get an average six months of deaths in Syria over the last 12 years. So I do not believe these Marxists care about their fellow Muslims or their fellow Arabs or anything else.

They hate Jews. They hate them. It's deep in the core of their beings that the Jews must not be victorious. The Jews can be oppressed. They can be second-rate citizens, but they must not be victorious. To that extent, the state of Israel provides an enormous moral irritation clearly to many, I don't say all, but many Muslims in the West as well as in the rest of the world. That is a burden for the Israelis, but it's a bigger burden, I would suggest, for us.

I was in Times Square the day after the massacre. I saw the men and women who were waving Palestinian flags and Hamas flags and actually holding placards, celebrating the massacre of 24 hours earlier. They weren't protesting for a Palestinian state will. They were taunting the Jews and celebrating the murder of, Jews. That's New York. That's Berkeley. That's Harvard. That's Chicago. That's L.A. This is our problem. That's a great place to end this conversation. Douglas, listen, I appreciate the time, obviously. I always appreciate your thoughts. And, you know, it's always worthy. We could do this for three

hours. And I even appreciate the parts where you push back on what you think are some of my characterizations. But the reason that I appreciate them in turn. Well, the reason I appreciate just to put a button on this, Douglas, is I have enjoyed that our conversations get beyond the simple moral or emotional attributions to words. What you and I both believe deeply is in the, I believe in the moral superiority and the value of West, of the West. And I'm sick of apologizing for it. I'm sick of apologizing for the West. And you've written an entire book on it, you know.

But I also want to never believe that you can remove yourself from history or reality. You just have to acknowledge reality and say, well, then this is the facts. This one civilization or, you know, this other civilization is superior. And we're going to have to figure out a way that that isn't annihilated, that that is a value that is spread. And that's where I'm appreciative that we got to at some point today. Thank you, man. Thank you. Stay well.

There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Douglas Murray. Again, remember, check out the war on the West. You know, at the end, he gave us two reasons why there seems to be such anti-Israel sentiment across the globe. I don't know that I agree with his first one. I can't say I disagree. It's just not one that I can fully rationalize just yet, that the West is trying to excuse. itself for many European countries. Or he even talked about the United States because when

Jews were fleeing Europe, you know, there were many, many countries across the world for what it's worth, including Israel, but also the United States who did not open their doors to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. And it was Douglas's estimation that sort of the pro-Palestinian view on the world stage is a way to morally absolve themselves of the horrific decisions of our own past. I'm not sure yet that I fully think that to be the case, but I think when it comes to these protests, I think we, like I said, we have students indoctrinated into oppressor and oppressed. I think we have Muslim refugees all across the globe. I don't know how it is that almost every nation, as exhibited by the United Nations,

finds themselves in a position of constantly being anti-Israel. For what it's worth, I've received several emails from you, several asking, There's part three of your Israeli-Palestinian history. My anticipation is it should be coming Friday. Friday, part three of the history of the conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians. I will see you then, which is next time. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast. And Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon Music Act.

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