We're back with another edition of The Federalist or Radio Hour. I'm Emily Tashinsky,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the
show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr
LST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts into the premium version
of our website as well. If you have not had your fill of David
Harsani, Senior editor at The Federalist, co host of Your Wrong, He's
back for more. David, Welcome to Federalist Radio Hour. Thank you for
having me. As always, I think many people have probably had their fill.
But it's too bad. It's too bad. You know, you had
a great conversation with Molly on the show on Wednesday's edition of Your Wrong.
But I think David, you and I were talking, and you know,
I had some questions for you as somebody who's covered the situation in Israel for
years, and as you were working through some of my questions and some of
the staff's questions, you basically were like, this would be a great podcast.
So I think, and you can correct me if this is wrong framing
here, David, but I think it would be sort of helpful to peel
back all of the layers of history, not all of the layers actually,
because that would be basically impossible, but peel back some of the layers of
history to get to a point where we can kind of understand contextually what this
very critical slice of land has meant to people over so many centuries. Does
that sound good? Yeah, I mean I think there's a ton or I
know there's a ton of illiteracy about it. But also viewing this situation and
without history is ridiculous, right, So I think adding that context is vital,
and it's you know, I hear a lot of people say it's complicated.
I don't know that it's morally complicated really or that complicated historically, but
there is a lot to it, if that makes sense. Yeah. Absolutely.
I'm wondering, and again, like you can say whether this is the
best way to start, but I'm wondering actually if maybe starting by asking you
what some of the historically illiterate questions or arguments I should say you've heard this
week have been. Is there a particular narrative you think is most worth debunking
or kind of pulling at that thread and showing how you know it kind of
unravels. Well, that's interesting. I think I'd take a step back first
and say that a lot of the language people use and it's not their fault.
I think we've been programmed to use certain words, and this actually is
the sort of thing that is widespread in all areas of political and foreign policy
to discussion where we use words like occupied territory or settlements or occupation, which
intimates something very strongly that is not exactly true or does not exactly fully explain
the context of events. So let's take the idea that Gaza is occupied.
I think I make it the years slightly off. I think it was two
thousand and four or five where Ariel Sharon, then the Prime Minister of Israel,
gave autonomy to the Palestinian people in the Gaza area. Israel doesn't really
have, you know, much of a Israelis and the Jewish Jewish history doesn't
have much claim on gods. I'm not saying they weren't there first and all
that, but I am saying that they don't really care about Kazaf. They
could hand Gaza back to Egypt, they would gladly do it. It's not
like the West Bank there are no you know, it's not the heart of
the Jewish faith or you know, it doesn't have Jewish sites in ancient Jewish
cities in the same way the West Bank does. But anyway, so Arial
Sharon actually uprooted settlements there. There was some infrastructure there and all of that,
and very soon the Palestinians were ripped up that infrastructure. You know,
there were elections and Hamas essentially won and started, you know, throwing FATA
officials, the more moderate party, off roofs and killing them, and they
took over Gaza and they've used it as basically a mini terror states since then.
If you know, I don't really understand why people keep saying that it's
an occupied place simply because it doesn't have statehood. It was given sort of
a you know, autonomy, and it hasn't, you know, And it
was like a test run for a Palestinian state. And this is what happens.
Only a few weeks ago, maybe a couple of months ago, FATA
in the West Bank was in unity talks with Hamas to form a governm.
These are the people who will if you they can have an election in the
West Bank, not for twelve years. I believe now because Hamas will win
or similar you know, folks to ha Mus will win. These are the
people that you know, the left and some on the right want to give
a state to. That is insane. The United States would never do anything
like that. I mean, that's just recent history, but I mean I
would say that that's the biggest kind of myth being floated around. Yeah,
that's really interesting for a number of reasons. But that question of going back
to I think it was two thousand and five, the question of settlements,
as you mentioned, that has been you know, I saw, actually,
this is pretty funny. I saw a quote from Judith Butler Nelly Bowls and
the Free Press is hilarious. Friday Newsletter today quoted Judith Butler saying something like
it's important to see Hamas and Hezbollah as a part of the global left.
So that paraphrasing it, but something to that extent, which is just spectacular
for a lot of reasons that you just mentioned, the lack of ability to
have elections, and you know, obviously the barberism and slaughter and terrorism.
But David, that's settlements question has been sort of at the forefront of a
lot of leftist discourse this week. Settlements. You used the phrase when you're
talking about settlements in Gaza, people talk about settlements in the West Bank as
well. What does that mean? Well, yeah, I want to get
back after this to the question of the long term actual connection between the left
and anti Zionism quote unquote, but yeah, settlements. I mean again,
the word settlement, of course, strongly insinuates that some that colonists are moving
into some place and building illegal villages and towns to displace people who are there.
Put it this way, I would challenge anyone to name another place on
Earth where we the United States government say it is wrong for a certain religious
minority to live in a place. So let's say West Bank is given to
the Palestinians. Are Jews not going to be able to have towns there or
live there. It is basically the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank of Jews.
That's you know, that's what That is the position of the United States
government. Unfortunately, that is the position of you know, the UN and
world government. It's a settlement is a town where Jews live in their historic
homeland. The names of the towns there are names given to them by the
Jewish people a long, long time ago. You know, there are holy
sites there, all kinds of holy sites. That doesn't mean that Jews should
go in and displace anyone. But just reverse the equation and think about this
a third. I guess, or I'm not exactly sure, what the number
is of citizens in Israel are Arabic or Arab origin. Do we call their
cities abu gosh? Do we call that a settlement? No, Jews have
every right to build and have towns. And you know, if if the
Arabic people there were an anti Semitic, didn't have a generational hatred of other
people, there would be roads going from those settle so called settlements to Arab
towns, and there would be economic activity and there would be peace. I
mean, it's the biggest cliche at this point, but Goldimere sed it.
It's just simply true that if the Arabs just put down their guns, there
would be peace. But if the Jews put down the guns, there will
be dead. And that is the equation. And and you know of the
West Bank right now and Gaza, the Gaza settlements I think were again,
I don't think that Jews have this again. I think Jews would hand over
Gaza in a minute and not really really very much care about it as long
as it wasn't a hotbed of terrorism, you know, which it has been,
by the way, since the since the Egyptians had it in the fifties.
So yeah, and then a lot of people will go back to the
weighing days of the Ottoman Empire and say, and you will know way more
of this history than I do, David. But essentially, you had Jews
fleeing pagrams in Eastern Europe and discrimination in Eastern Europe and coming to settle in
this area that was part of the Ottoman Empire, and you know, there
was tension. So the story goes about kind of the what's the best word
to put it, maybe like cultural tensions, you know. The kind of
Palestinian side of the story is that Jews who were settling in this area were
overly aggressive and that was an early source of tensions between Arabs and Jews in
this part of the world. How should people think about what was happening in
those last days of the Ottoman Empire, Well, they should think that most
of that story is a complete myth, is what they should think. Jews
from Eastern Europe began coming to Israel, and Arabs from all over the Middle
East started coming there as well. Because of the economic activity the Jews there
uh spurred. Now if you read there's a great book on this that people
are interested by if Ian Karsh. I think he was at Yeah, I
don't know where he is exactly, but he's somewhere somewhere, somewhere impressive called
Palestine Betrayed and it and it just is an incredible historical document or you know,
it goes to all the historical documents, census, census records, all
kinds of things where in any event, there's another book in Time Immemorial which
which does this as well. But he go he shows that it was palastin
that Jews and Arabs lived together relatively peacefully. It's not to say it was
perfect for for for for years and years, and as in the twenties especially,
and as you know, the British mandate came on all that they you
know, Palestian leadership was the one that for a number of reasons, you
know, up anti Semitism, patriot of Jews, jinda, violence against Jews.
There were massacres in the twenties already long before there was any or years
before there was any you know, Israel state of Israel on the horizon,
and they caused a lot of these problems. Many Arabs continued a most refugees
or many a large number of the refugees today where you know, Palestinian refugees
come from stock that comes from Saudi Arabia or Egypt or other places. They
have no more claim on that land than anyone else. That's why I don't
like the term occupied territory. But we can go into that history late a
bit later. It's important to remember that that mythology has been pushed by the
left as well, and just now talk about that a bit. It was
this, you know, well, actually let's just let's just take a one
thing at a time. So I think it's important to remember that this history
that says that under you know, Islamic rules, Jews, first of all,
Jews and Christians were second class citizens in the Ottoman Empire and under any
Islamic rule, as anyone knows. I'm not saying that historically speaking, Jews
living under Islamic law were any worse treated than they were, say in the
Middle Ages, under certain Christian countries. But the fact is that they were
second class citizens, and they did live relatively peaceful until it became clear to
the local leaders that they would be losing powers to Jews, who were quite
successful when they landed there, frankly, and more were coming, and obviously
after the Holocaust everything was ramped up there right. I was watching a PBS
documentary this week. I think it's called Seeds of Conflict. Actually I have
been watching it last week, and it goes into this. There are certain
letters from people who Arabs who lived in the area at the time talking about
how they can benefit from the Jews and a number of different ways. And
David the British defeat the Ottoman Empire take over this slice of land. It
seems to me from my reading of history, they don't really want to deal
with this area. They kind of kicked the question over to the UN.
The UN makes a decision that Arabs have never been happy with at all,
and a lot of people point back to the roots of this as the infamous
Balfour declaration, Lord Rothschild, you know, sort of embracing Zionism, Heartsulism
and all of that. What is the true story there, I mean,
I guess that is the true story. They were never happy with it.
I mean, they're talking about a two state solution now. There was a
two stage solution then, and I don't think you know. And Jews had
a far smaller slice of land in that you know, given to them by
the partition plan or whatever. So they were unhappy and every basically every Arab
country attacked the Jews there. There would have been another mini Holocaust there if
they had lost, but they didn't lose even then. Though you know the
idea that there's a distinct Palestinian people. Listen, I just want to preface
all this by saying, Palestinians who live in Gaza and who live in Hebron,
they exist. They view themselves as a nationality, and they view themselves
as a people. That's fine, but it is an invention of the twentieth
century. There is no Palestinian people. There are Arabs. Even early on,
especially before the nineteen sixty seven war, Arabs always were trying, you
know, trying to get the benefit of being an Arab and to the benefit
of being supported by Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Syria. They thought of themselves
as a trans Arabic people. There was no there's no real ethnic difference.
So but they were given their own state there, which would have been a
brand new state, the first time the Palestinian people I have ever had a
state or any kind of claim on a specific claim on that land, or
genuine claim on that land, even though I don't know why the UN gets
to decide these things, but that's fine. And they said no, and
they fought to war. And then ever since that day where Jews held off
all those armies, they want to reset history. You know, it's like
constantly, it's like losing a championship game and constantly resetting, trying to reset
it and play it over and over. It's like al Gore and Florida,
you know what I mean, the right exactly. They understand power, they
try to use power. And when when Israelis and Jews, for the first
time in a very long time, probably since the Roman Empire picked up their
own guns to defend themselves, that is bothersome to people. And the Arab
people constantly want to, you know, replay that game, and you can't
do it. Cold turkey great on sandwiches, probably not the best way to
break your bad habits. And I'm not talking about some weird mind trick from
your crazy neighbor, or something you saw on an email forward from your mom.
We're talking here about our sponsor, Fume, and they look at this
problem in a different way. Not everything in a bad habit is wrong,
So instead of a drastic, uncomfortable change, why not just remove the bad
from your habit. Fume is an innovative and award nominated device that does just
that. Instead of electronics, Fume is completely natural. Instead of vapor,
Fume uses flavored air, and instead of harmful chemicals, Fume uses all natural,
delicious flavors, so you get it Instead of bad, Fume is good.
It's a habit you're freedom enjoy, and it makes replacing your bad habits
easy. Your Fume comes with an adjustable airflow dial and is designed with movable
parts and magnets for fidgeting, giving your fingers a lot to do, which
is helpful for distressing and anxiety while breaking your habit. Stopping is something we
all put off because it's hard, but switching to Fume is easy, enjoyable,
and even fun. Fume has served over one hundred thousand customers and has
thousands of success stories, and there's no reason that you can't be one of
them, So join Fume and accelerating humanities breakup from destructive habits by picking up
the journey pack today. Had to try fume dot com and use the code
federalist to save ten percent off when you get the journey packed today, that's
try fum dot com and use the code federalist to save an additional ten percent
off your order today. Had to try fume dot com slash federalist and use
the code federalist to save an additional ten percent off your order today. And
for my kind of crude understanding of the history, I was messaging you this
week that historically none of this is, you know, unusual in terms of
how human beings fight over territory, fight over faith, Like it's really not
that. Uh, you're shocking to any student of how the world has kind
of worked for time and memoriam. What is interesting is that you have this
kind of Western liberal, i should say Western like leftist argument that people who
lost territory in a war first when the British took it over, punted the
question to the UN. The Arabs didn't liked the question or the answer that
the UN gave to the question for war lost the war. This grafting,
this Western liberal argument of occupation and colonization onto that situation that does strike me
as unusual to sort of add the sheene of moral high ground to what is
essentially a very sort of typical land religion conflict that went in one direction.
And by the way humans have operated, it's the question of colonizing an occupation.
Bringing that into it is I find that to be somewhat bizarre and modern.
Yeah, there are a few things there. So the greatest colonizers of
all time were the Arab people. The Arab people are the ones who colonized
that area. They came from someplace else, just like anyone else where.
Most people have. And you know, they always like to stop history in
certain points that are convenient for them and forget the rest. Like anywhere you
dig in the West Bank into the ground, are you're going to find something
Jewish from a thousand years before Arabs ever showed up. But that doesn't mean
that someone from Russia all of a sudden has a claim on an ara person's
house. But that war was much more complicated. And but I will say
you mentioned religious war, and I'm not dismissing that part of it. But
I would say in forty seven, and even in sixty seven, and maybe
even in seventy three, though it started to change soon after. This was
a national balistic conflict. There were many Christian plo terrorists who were Arab,
most Jews. There were secularized Jews who showed up from Russia. They did
amazing things. I mean they Hebrew was essentially a dead language, you know,
and they brought it back, and they brought back this nation that had
been destroyed by the Romans many many, you know, two thousand years earlier.
So in a sense it's sort of a historical miracle. But you're one
hundred percent right. It was just it was a fight where the Jews were
the Jews were the underdogs for many years until you know, things changed.
But it's almost a candyism right where the powerful are. You know, everything
is black and white. There are racists and anti racists, there are colonizers
and victims. It's not like the Jews showed up with the giant army and
took over this land. They bought the land they had For the most part,
they made the land a better place. They attracted people to come there.
Eighteenth century, I'm sorry, nineteenth century depictions of so called Palestine are
of an empty place and a dead place. The Jews revitalize that place and
they brought civilization there. I'm sorry that's offensive to people, but that's just
the case. And other people can participate in that civilization. But many of
them and not all of them, decided that they which they chose violence.
And again, you know, they constantly want to now redo that history,
which you can't do. It's not how it works. People in Israel never
going to pick up and leave. So right, you don't have the moral
high ground if you repeatedly lose conflicts and then engage in terrorism to get the
to redo the results, to erase the results of that. I just want
to say, like in nineteen twenty nine, the brown shirts or the bad
guys, but also the underdogs, didn't make them the good guys. You
know, just because there's someone more powerful than you now doesn't make them morally
deficient or anything, or being a victim doesn't give you the moral high ground.
Like you say, again, that's not to say that everyone. You
know that every Palestinian is guilty here though we shouldn't pretend that Hamas isn't very
popular, you know, as I've noted, if if they were elections right
now, Humus would win almost surely anywhere in the Palestinian world, and maybe
on the like Yale and Harvard campuses as well, but definitely in the Islam
in the Palestinian world, right right, Yeah, if you could also we
alluded to her or sort of talked a little bit about Balfour and Hurtzel and
Zionism. That's a you know, seed of all kinds of conspiracies that have
flowered in the you know, century plus sense. But you know, Balfour
is obviously relevant to this conversation. Hurtzel and Zionism are obviously relevant to this
conversation. There are you know, multiple tomes written on these and could certainly
be you know, thousands of books to be written on these questions, David,
But what should people know about Balfour and Zionism? I mean, Zionism
emerged when a lot of other nationalistic movements, did you know, and you
know, in the late nineteenth century or you know, early early twentieth century
is when you know, there were tons and tons of other people who are
also talking about have you know about who had nationalistic ideas about their people and
when it states for themselves and things like that. So it wasn't really that
unique. It was unique in the sense that the Jewish people had been scattered
across the world. So I mean, I don't know what there is to
know about it. I think, you know, it's interesting. There were
you know, with Britain in Britain and like what is the history of Balfour
basically, well in Britain, you know, I mean the British one over
that Ottoman land and then they had to deal with sectarian violence of all kinds,
you know, which they were dealing with in other places, including Ireland
and elsewhere. There were rebellions. There were Arab rebellions, and there were
Jewish rebellions. The Jews fought against the British as well, most famously blowing
up the King David Hotel, which was the I believe the headquarters of the
British authority there and they had enough of it. But there were times within
this where the British were became or the leadership in England was pro Zionist or
you know in that sense, at times where the war cabinet, the British
War cabinet was you know, allowed a lot of Arab immigration to try to
and and stopped Jewish immigration for you know, to as they see it,
balance it out. So it went back and forth. But the Balfour Declaration
I think it was nineteen seventeen, basically put British support behind a Jewish homeland
there. It was not the contours of it weren't you know, thought out
or anything like that. It was just like a declaration literally that there should
be some kind of British state and that the end that Britain should work towards
helping that become a fact. You know, a guy named heim Weitzman and
stuff and other Zionists where you know, went to Britain and or I believe
he might have been British who you know, fought for or you know,
lobbied the government there to do it. And this turned Arab leadership in that
area against the Jews basically once they thought there would be a Jewish homeland in
their land, and that sort of spurred a lot of the anger. Though
again it seems it is think about the imbalance of this. If there was
an Arab country there with Jews, which Jews, by the way, then
lived across the Arab world. Many of them later became refugees who went to
Israel because they were kicked out of those nations, not just Arab countries,
but also Islamic ones. So imagine imagine Jews rising up because there was an
Arab nation in existence. I mean, it wouldn't have happened, and no
one would have supported them anyway. But the reverse obviously did. So Zionism
itself later. I forget when the first Zionist Congress was, but that was
became a worldwide movement. There were people like Vladimir job at Tinski, who
was just a hero of mine, a great like intellectual. It was a
big part of that movement. So there was a left and right to it,
you and it grew. There was like an intellectual aspect to it.
There was also a militaristic aspect to it, and frankly a lot of guerrilla
fighters later against the British especially, but also if they fought against the Arab
authorities there as well. So I don't know, it's just a nationalistic movement
for the Jewish people to return to a land that they have a historical and
faithful claim on. I mean, if you read the Bible, if you
read the Old Testament, the whole thing after they reach Jerusalem, their king
David makes Jerusalem the capital of his kingdom, is centered around going back to
Jerusalem, about the importance of Jerusalem, about the holiness of Jerusalem. Christian
religions spurs there as well. I don't think Jerusalem's even mentioned in the Koran,
not once. So they have a claim there, a religious claim.
They've had people there. Jews have lived on that land, not many for
long periods of time, but they've always lived there. It's not like they
ever abandoned in and when they did, they were forced out. So I
don't know. I mean, the Zionism is complicated, but I guess it's
it's just the nationalistic movement like any other. Yeah. Well, and that
is the historical context that you've been talking about in the twentieth century, the
nineteenth century and the emergence of nationalism and how it shaped some of those big
conflicts. It's really interesting, especially considering what you were talking about earlier,
as in the way that Palestinianism and Palestinians are also borrowing heavily from this kind
of modern construction unless I mean, I think that's sort of interesting actually as
a side by side. Oh yeah, I mean later on you had you
know, Nasser in Egypt and others who who were anti you know, basically
anti religious. I wouldn't say anti you know, Islam, but it was
certainly downgraded and importance, you know, and nationalism was put to the front.
They tried out nationalism there, Egyptian nationalis. But frankly, a lot
of these countries in the Middle East were just drawn up, you know,
by someone you know, in Britain or in France. You know. So
you know, you have Jordan. You know, it's going to be hard
to be a nationalist Jordanian because the the most people in Jordan are Palestinian and
Hashmit hash Mites, you know, rulers rule over them. So I don't
know, I don't even know where I'm going with this, but yeah,
absolutely there was a nationalistic movement in the Egyptian world, in the Arab world,
and like I said, a lot of the Palestinian movements, you know,
the PLO leaders or other offshoots of that, we're not even we're not
even Muslim. That that happened later, I would say, in the nineties
and in the eighties as well, you know, sort of when there was
a revolution across the Islamic world, frankly of fundamentalism in Iran and elsewhere.
It changed from hamas is a religious organization or a faith based organization in the
worst sense. But it is, you know, it is not the same
as the PLO, which was a nationalistic or you know, movement. I'm
not saying they never tapped into any kind of a religion or religious fervor,
but they were definitely more you know, conceptualized as as a European style nationalist
organization. Hey, y'all, this is Sarah from the Sarah Carter Show.
Thanks for listening to the Federalist Radio Hour. Healthy blood pressure is so important.
In fact, more than half of the US population would benefit from blood
pressure support. Superbats heart chees are an easy and convenient way to support healthy
blood pressure and promote heart healthy energy paired with a healthy lifestyle. The antioxidants
and super beats are clinically shown to be nearly two times more effective at promoting
normal blood pressure than a healthy lifestyle alone. With my busy schedule, beats
shoes are a quick and convenient way to do something good for my heart.
They taste great and give me peace of mind about my health and overall wellness.
Effective and clinically studied. Superbats is the number one pharmacist recommended beat brand
for cardiovascular health support. It's flood pressure support you can trust. Get a
free thirty day supply of Superbeats hard shoes and fifteen percent off your first order
by going to get Superbeats dot com and using promo code Sarah. Get super
Beats be E E t s dot com code Sarah to get fifteen percent off
your first order. Get Superbeats dot com promo code Sarah. Plo is.
I hope it don't sound really stupid, but a lot of people might remember
the high profile Olympic incident with my personal favorite dictator. I have two of
them. One is the leader of Chechnya, the other the current leader of
Chechnya. But my other favorite dictator is everyone's basically Gaddafi. That was the
plo. Wasn't it the Olympic kidnapping? I think it was Black September,
which was like another listen. It doesn't really matter to me. They're basically
all the same, right, but it was I believe it was Black September
who did the Munich thing. They may have been an offshoot of the PLO,
but you know, it doesn't really matter. They were given. You
know, the Munich massacre in nineteen seventy two was planned by the Black September
group and with help with the logistical help from like far right people within West
Germany at the time, which is Antebby, which was another famous terrorist.
I don't know if people know, and Tebby was. You know, they
took all these hostages and brought them down to Uganda and all that that was
helped by far left wing terrorist group from Germany. So it's important to remember
in the seventies and so on, these groups were especially on the left though,
because they were the whole anti Zionism. Iteration of anti Semitism is an
invention of the Soviets who were allied with Syria and Egypt at the time and
things like that. So again I'm often on some tangent. I don't even
know what you asked me. I was like anecdotically, because we were talking
about the question of religion and nationalism, and I was thinking of Godafi actually
and the way that he handled those questions in his little Green Book, but
which is again one of the reasons why this is the dark humor. Of
course, he's everyone's favorite dictator. But and David, I actually don't know
who your favorite dictator is. But maybe you can answer that question. But
what you just said was so interesting about the role of the Soviet Union in
creating those questions. Would you be able to elaborate on that a little bit?
Yeah, I mean there are many books written on this. I think
the best it's called The Anti Zionis Complex, which is probably pretty hard to
find actually, if at since I'm a kid because my dad gave it to
me. But whenever I opened it, I know, like, what kind
of childhood did you have? But I still open that book and it's still
really relevant when you know in understanding, for instance, why a lot of
these left wingers are pro you know, Palace Hamas. I mean, that's
what they are. But we can get into that later. But yeah,
the Soviet Union, it is interesting because Stalin voted yes on the partition plan
because he believed, I think that that Israel would be a socialist state.
Everyone thinks that the United States has always been the great ally to Israel.
I'm not saying that Truman was not an ally at all. But it wasn't
probably until the sixties and seventies where the United States became that lie we know
of now. You know, initially the the in nineteen forty seven, for
instance, the Jews had a lot of weapons from the Czech Republican places,
communist countries like that to fight. It was only later, and there was
reason to believe this because most of the initial leaders and this is probably another
podcast that no one would listen to if I talked about it, with the
original founding you know, Ben Gurion and the basically what became the Labor Party.
Later they were far leftists. They ran a pretty authoritarian state, completely
run by unions and economic mess It wasn't until the nineties that Israel really turned
it around. They used violence against right wing parties, they spied on them
and destroyed them. So when you hear things like that, you're like,
yeah, Stalin, that sounds like something Stalin with liche right. So,
but so there was this sort of alliance beat behind these third world we let
to say third world anymore, is that politically incorrect? Outhern Hemisphere? Yeah,
third world thugs, third world's, third world thinkers and people live in
the thirteenth century in philosophically, we're anti civilization forces decided, you know,
the Soviet Union funded them, gave them logistical support, also as a cudgel
against the West and things like that. It was complicated, but the whole
anti Zionist. Instead of saying Jews, Russians would say, you know,
Zionists and they This was sort of philosophical thing that happened. So later on
you'd see like Angela Davis or you know, intellectuals here, you know,
using that same language because they are communists and Soviet Soviet you know, they
were pro Soviet Union, pro East Germany. Yeah, some extent or another.
Yeah. And that's why that's perfect because I was going to ask you
next to return to this question of Judith Butler talking about how it's important to
see Hamas and Hezbollah as part of the kind of global left. Again,
I'm paraphrasing that quote, but and I haven't dug into the context of it.
I saw Nelly Bowls again using the Free Press this morning. I imagine
the context would not surprise us. But the point remains, David, because
that question of anti Zionism versus anti Semitism it's actually in the evolution of Hamas's
charter, right. They have their charter in the eighties, nineteen eighty eight,
something around there that is explicitly anti Semitic, reads like mine comf Basically,
then they have the charter that they did in twenty seventeen, which talks
about being anti Zionist. And then you hear people chanting on college campuses right
now from the river to the sea. That is, to your point,
that's something that has a history attached to it, right where you have the
kind of Western left in the middle of the Venn diagram with Hummas. Basically,
yeah, I mean the Communis have always been on the wrong side of
civilization and this is no different for me. Israel is always a defining point.
If you can't, you know, if you can't take a very obvious
distinct position on whether you're with Hamas or Israel, then I know where you
know. That's very clarifying for me at least, and it's been the case.
I don't understand anti Zionism from any kind of Western person. I know
that there are some religious reasons maybe why some people are anti Zionism, but
the idea that the Jewish people who have been. I think it's fair to
say, given a pretty raw deal over history, shouldn't have their own state
to be able to protect themselves. I mean, Israel exists for this reason.
That's why. That's why you know, this has hit me harder than
anything since nine to eleven. And I think it's because this is why that
place exists. This is why I care about that place, because it's supposed
to protect Jews, because you're never sure if they're going to protect you in
another place. So I think that the security breach is so horrifying because that
that's their number one job and they let the Jewish people down, the government
there and the army, and it's hard to say. I know they're going
to make up for it and they're going to do their best. I don't
know. It wasn't on purpose, but it's still it's still pretty traumatic,
I think for Jewish care. And that's why I'm pro Israel anti Zionism.
Everyone keeps a lot of people believe that the post Holocaust environment was why Israel
existed, but as we mentioned, Zionism goes back beyond that. On that
movement was relatively strong before the Holocaust. A lot of Zionists were profits of
the Holocaust frankly, and but sure the reason why you could finally come to
fruition in the way it did was because of what had happened. Again,
just off on a tangent. I don't even know what you asked me.
I was just trying to remember, Oh, how about the Judith Butler quote
saying, oh, it's aren't for the left to understand Hamas as being a
part of their kind of global project and hes below is being part of their
global project. And David, then, what is the relationship between Hamas and
HESBLA and both Iranian proxies. It's hard to know how closely they work together,
but reports in the Wellster Journal and elsewhere say that they had all met
up in I believe it was in Lebanon, maybe Katar. And to come
up with this plan as well is more serious they have. They're almost in
a sense of state backing in a way that you you know, and Israel
can't you know, Israel has no can't overseee what's going up there. They
have serious rockets they are, you know, not these homemade ones they have.
I forget what the number is, but one hundred thousand that is a
serious war if it breaks out there where a lot of people are going to
die. But just to go back to the to the leftists, the nexus
between leftism and Hamas, this is a long time. You know, this
has been the case for a long time because of how the Soviets were infiltrating
Western intellectual circles, the Edwards say Ed's and Noam Chomski's, you know,
on and on. But it always has been something of a fringe intellectual pursuit
to be pro you know, plo or pro terrorist. However, and I'm
not saying this, he explicitly said this, but Barack Obama I think changed
the entire conversation when he became president and he turned on Israel. It became
okay for the progressive to come out and say the things that were used to
be said just in some you know, used to be in his zen and
you know, staple together and handed out on the Berkeley campus. You know.
Now you have Ben Rhodes, who's an anti Semite, you know,
making policy. Now you have Rob Malley, who very you know is a
fellow traveler at best of the Iranian regime in the you know, making Iran
policy now you have AOC and the squad who are anti Semites in Congress.
These are anti people who are against civilization. And they hate America too because
Israel is imperfect. And of course you can criticize Israel. I criticize Israel,
but the idea that the very state itself is somehow problematic, that to
me is anti Semitism, because that is the only state they say this about.
I have. You know, Ben Rhodes doesn't go out and say,
boy, you know Germany is in. You knows Romania has Hungarian land,
they better give it back. I mean, they never say anything or hey,
the Kurds deserve their own country, or these people deserve No, it's
only that little place that bothers them, and that tells me something very significant
about their worldview. You know, it's kind of easy to look at what
I think genuinely as a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and other places like that,
and have that be sort of the gateway drug too, you know, sophomore
leftist kind of positions on this. I can see how that would happen to
a college student. Although at the same time, and you know, I
don't want to be too kind to Ben Rhodes. He is no longer in
college, although his brain is maybe stuck in his freshman dorm room. That
the question of whether that land is occupied, I just for the life of
me, I don't understand other than you know, people seeing these these genuinely
troubling images and the genuinely troubling humanitarian situation in those areas to which Israel has
not been perfect. But you know, being perfect in a situation like that
would be borderline impossible. Anyway, that question of occupation, after fighting wars,
losing wars, and having land one, I cannot wrap my head around
that. Well, let's go back to nineteen sixty seven. I'm sure most
people know this, but in nineteen sixty seven, they are a bunch of
Arab countries masked troops along borders. Israel preemptively went after and destroyed the Egyptian
Air Force. They begged jo not to get involved in the war. There
is you know, you can read his history books. You can go to
the New York Times. In nineteen sixty seven, the Israelis warn the Jordanians
not to enter the war. The Jordanians ruled the West Bank at this time.
At this time, no one's talking about a Palestinian state. In the
Arab world, Soviets don't want a Palestinian state. No one cares that the
Egyptians have Gaza, do you know what I'm saying? Like that comes after
so Israeli ones and they don't back off. They get involved in the war
Israelis you know, take back Jerusalem, which was a momentous the Old City
which had been treated like a garbage dump, Jewish you know, holy places,
and they take back the West Bank. Right after the war, they
offer a state. They offer to give back this land for recognition from these
Arab countries who don't even recognize the existence of Israel. They want to get
Arab say no. Over and over again. States have been offered to the
Palestinians, including during the Clinton administration. They constantly say no because they can't
do it. Anti Semitism is so intertwined in their philosophical outlook that they can't
do it. The idea that you know, they want this thing called rite
of return where supposedly all the offspring of refugees get to go back to Israel,
which would overwhelm the place and hamswould rule Israel. This is the thing
that a lot of people, right, yeah, right, yeah, exactly.
So it's where they get their apartheid state argument. It's an apartheid state
because there are different kind of privileges based on ri city of religion, right,
and Gaza could have any privileges they wanted. They were given autonomy.
They could create a liberal republic if they wanted to, but that's not what
they choose. So and by the way, there's so much history here that
it gets a little bit confusing. But the Palestinians have set up shop in
Jordan, and you know what happened. The Jordanian government got into a civil
war with them and eliminated them. People were trying to get into Israel to
escape the Jordanian government. The Palestinians then they went to Lebanon. They created
a civil war there part you know, that involved Christian people and it was
very complicated and bloody. Wherever they go they create a huge problem. That's
why Egypt doesn't open its border and let in Gasen refugees. No one ever
talked, no one, but it's rarely talked about. Those people would go
there and vote, they'd want to bring back the Muslim brotherhood. So it's
a big problem in the area. But those lands are not occupied, they're
contested. There has never been a country there. Israel did not invade another
country. First of all, the other country invaded it. And that land
that we're talking about was always contested the Sinai for instance. Israel has no
interest in it. They gave it back to Egypt. Egypt wanted it for
peace. Israel has given up land for peace on numerous occasions. Yet the
Palestinians cannot give anything for peace. They simply won't. I'm talking about Fatan
now, so I don't understand. You know, we call it occupied territory,
but it's contested territory. But we're programmed to use these words which help
the argument of the of the other side, or at least from my perspective,
and implicate israelin Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, did Israel invade dicate them?
Yeah? Did Israel invade the West Bank? No, they were attacked
and they took land. That helped them defend themselves because you have this other
country right on top of you, and now you know, people are like,
give them a state. If anyone's ever been to Israel, you would
see how if you had these Cassam rockets in the West Bank pointed at you.
It would be devastating there. I mean there is no border. You're
right up on you know, cities are right up upon each other. So
it is impossible for that to happen unless there's a peaceful, you know,
government in that place and in Gaza. The Watchdotron Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how
it affects your wallet. Ninety nine percent that's the amount of homes in the
US that are unaffordable for the average American after a mass exodust from major cities
after COVID. There is not enough supply. With the FED raising rates so
fast, why would anyone want to sell their home? Is this bubble grilling
to pot Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting
you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdown Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You know,
the sort of contested West Bank question where al Axa is and there's different Three
different faith traditions have their most holy sites in Jerusalem and in Historically, when
land is conquered. When land is one in wars, it's normal for conflict
to continue. But to return to the point that we made at the beginning,
or we discussed at the beginning, that question of this occupation ideology is
so completely different than that. And it's the strangest lens I think to see
places like al Oxwa al Axa through that. I can't remember a time in
history where there was a similar kind of lens being grafted onto something like that.
It's just a really strange way to look at history from my perspective,
which which if you're Jewish or you're you know, you're sympathetic to Jews,
you would ask, why is that? Why is this one place the place
where all of a sudden we have a completely different historical lens. Why is
this one place the place where we, you know, we demand things of
civilization or the civilized people to give in or the liberal people, meaning in
the small l sense or the you know, whatever sense, to hand over
to the people who are or every you know, who stand against everything.
We're supposedly you know, we're supposedly for Jerusalem, the you know, the
Rock Alaska, the mosque there, the Rock, Dome of the Rock,
Oh my lord. Yeah, so custodianship of that is handed over to the
Jordanians. Israelis don't even run it. They try there. I don't know
how they could be more respectful of that. But yet, any time some
religious Jews are on the right to say, I'm we're going to march near
there because we believe that's our place, which have every right to do in
a free country, you know, that leads to riots, and all of
a sudden, the Israelis are these terrible, you know, authoritarians. Well,
Israel can't just shut down protests. Jews aren't even really allowed to go
there. Can you imagine if there was and that's a very holy site for
Jews, you know, they're not really supposed to go inside anyway, but
around it. So if there was an Arab holy site somewhere in Tel Aviv
and Jus said you can't go Arabs can't go there, We're going to give
custodianship to you know whoever. You know, the whole world would be upset
by it. But for some reason, we treat Palestinians like their little children,
that they're allowed to act like this way. And Israel's never really allowed
to defend itself, like people talk about proportionality, which doesn't mean what they
think. If it meant what they think, then Israelis would go and kidnap
Palestinians and you know, kill babies or whatever. They don't do that.
They try to limit civilian deaths, but they have every right to dismantle the
Hamas infrastructure in Gaza and to kill everyone who doesn't surrender who is in Hamas,
which is the entire government. Frankly, so, you know, we
used to fire bomb cities in Germany to win wars. We dropped atomic bombs
to wind wars. And they have every right to go in there, and
they're going to lose a lot of soldiers because they you know, because they
try to protect civilians, they're often going house to house, they're telling civilians
to leave, They're projecting exactly where they're going to be and go, and
that costs the lives of Israeli soldiers. And I'm not sure how many countries
would act in the same way. I think the United States does or would,
but not many others. Well, I'm so glad you brought that up,
because as you were talking, I was thinking about the irony in the
sort of the leftist discontent or the leftist demands I should say, of places
like Israel in the United States, or even the leftist sort of disappointments in
places like Israel in the United States, or disagreements. Its actually predicated on
this idea that they are better. That this is, you know, a
new kind of the small L liberalism is new in history, and therefore,
shouldn't you act in these ways we now consider kind of barbaric. And they
don't hold Hamas to those same standards. Obviously, you know, maybe some
people do here and there, but it's it's predicated on the idea that these
small D democracies, republican governments, liberal republics should should be better, and
that in and of itself, I don't think they understand that when they're applying
these standards to modern conflict, those standards are ones that Hamas would absolutely never
ever accept or abide by, because they're contrary to their interpretation of their faith.
In and of itself, these things are mutually exclusive. Yeah, I
mean, you know, to some extent, a Western civilized nation has to
act in a certain way during war. I think you do try to limit
like civilian deaths and things like that. But it's very difficult to fight a
force that has no who wants civilians to die. I mean, you know,
people don't understand Hamas wants civilians to die. They think the casualties help
them. They think they're martyrs and they think that this is going to help,
you know, spark an anti Jewish, anti Israel fire across the Islamic
world. So they want casualties. They always have. You know, the
p l O even years ago, would hide munitions under you know, schools,
they you know, in mosques, so it's very you know, so
then people will show that the mosque is blown up when in fact, you
know, that's a legitimate military target if you're going to put weapons there.
I don't know how else Israel has allowed. You know, everyone thinks of
Natanna as this this hawk. Molly gets mad when I say hawk because hawks
are like these magnificent, magnificent animals. I'm not supposed to demean. But
no, you know, everyone thinks he's gonna he's this aggressive right wing guy.
He's completely not. He's been hands off for a very long time in
Gaza years ago. You know, Israel's used to assassinate all these Hamas leaders
and then new ones would pop up and so on, but they have never
really dismantled that government. And I don't think they have any choice anymore,
not after this. This is nine to eleven level stuff, especially for Israel,
and they need to do it so and that, unfortunately will cause civilian
lives which are all on You know, that blood is in the hands of
Hamas leadership. They could come out at any time, all those guys and
surrender, but they won't. The whole place is going to be booby trapped
for more deaths, including civilian deaths. And I don't you know, there's
no there's no they have left Israel, no other choices, nothing else the
Israeli people can have. I don't know what the death holds that now,
thy two hundred. You know you can't have elderly burned in houses and babies
killed and then be you know, and then asked for a negotiated peace or
something like. These complete dimwits like AOC want asked for ceasefires. It's like
ask it's like calling for a seasfire when you haven't even gotten to death toll
of nine to eleven yet, you know, figure it out. I mean,
it is insane and immoral, and those people are Prohamas, and you
know, it's and I want to make the distinction between someone like Ben Rhoades,
who is not dumb, just anti Semitic, and AOC probably is just
a complete dim wit. I think there's a difference there. But you know,
functionally I find those people to be anti Semitic, and I don't really
think there's any need to hold back anymore in making those those claims about those
people. Yeah, that's interesting because you know, I think here we're all
for having conversations about what happened in the wake of nine to eleven, about
drone strikes, about you know, you can even talk about Abu Grabe.
But what's different between people talking about that, having conversations about where the US
aired, and the people who are calling Israel an occupier, calling you know,
the United States an occupier or whatever they call the United States and some
of these conflicts. What's different is that they they will not recognize that that
fundamentally cedes the moral high ground to Israel and the United States and western small
the democracies. That is fundamentally what's happening. That is, but they don't
understand that, and they don't believe that that they have immediately by holding those
places to the standards, they're conceding that those standards are better, and that
I think necessarily assigns the moral high ground to those places, and they the
way they talk about that is the opposite, as though, you know,
there's a loss of the moral high ground if you are you know, engaged
and you're making serious errors, making mistakes that you can talk about. But
that's seems to me to be quite absurd. On the one hand, it's
an incoherent and impossible argument that this country is somehow bad fulfiilling to live up
to better standards, therefore, therefore there must be a ceasefire. I mean,
it doesn't make any sense at all. Well, the inclination of the
United States after nine to eleven, I don't care what any listen. I
understand people are squeamish about using our power, but the inclination, even the
nation building, all of that, which I think was a massive mistake,
was moral. I don't think George Bush was out there saying I want to
ruin Iraq, or I want Americans to die, or I want anyone to
die. I think his inclination or his idea was that we can make it
a better place for them. I think it was a disaster, and you
know what, the first inkling of that disaster was giving Gaza democracy. That
showed you exactly where that's headed right now. But I think using American force
to say, listen, if you harbor a real terrorist, we're going to
mess you up pretty bad. Like you're going to there's going to be a
big price to pay. I am all for that. I'm not for hanging
around for twenty years building protecting Shio law in Shilah, protecting Islamic law in
Afghanistan, and having little enclaves that we pretend are free, because it's in
the long run that doesn't work, and then we'd have to be everywhere.
But I have no problem punishing people. And the idea that Israel wants these
occupied territories is so crazy. It is they would love, they would love
to fix this problem. They would love not to have to have Gaza there
in the way it is, or the west Bank in this in this way.
I bet you have Jordan said we'll take the West Bank. They would
agree to that in a second. If you have a state taking ownership of
this place. Then they become responsible for the missiles that fly out of these
places. So then there's someone to talk to or punish when it happens,
right, But now there is no one. I mean there is Humas,
but you know, you know I'm saying, there's no country that can that
governs those borders. They don't want to occupy anything. But the truth is
all these people think all of Israel is occupied when you really talk to them,
when you if you talk to the progressive types, to them, the
entire place this is occupied. When you see these flags of like Jews for
Palestine, I would love to send them to Hamas. Let talk to Hamas
and see how it works out for you, or Queers for Palestine. I
saw some sign up like go to Gaza, see how that works out for
you. I'm on the side of civilization. I know that sounds so black
and white, but in this case, it is black and white, and
I'm on. You know, everyone wants to tie this to like what's going
on in Ukraine. I think that's listen. I think Russia's aggressor there.
I think that's a huge issue. But it is different. That is a
far more complicated problem than this one. When people talk about how complex this
is morally, it is about the easiest thing going on in the world,
right, I mean, other than like slave labor in China. This is
the easiest, least morally complex debate going on. And you can pick a
side Israel. If Israel was like, you know, throwing a tactical nuclear
blast on Gaz, I would agree that we've gone. You know that we've
the whole debate is more complex, but they're not doing that. They are
working within international law and they are working to dismantle a terror network. So
I don't know, and complexities and how you address it are different than the
sort of moral complexities of uh, you know, black and white, right
and wrong. The Afghanistan point is an interesting one because Hamas. This is
a point that Left has been making all week at various times. Israel and
these sort of factional conflicts of the history of Hamas has made decisions not entirely
unlike decisions the United States made when it came to the Mujahadeen and in the
Cold War. And that's a complexity of the kind of answer, you know,
what are the sort of right and wrong ways to address the situation.
And it seems to me that is a very real challenge for Israel going forward
in a pretty again, correct me if I'm wrong on this a pretty divided
time in Israeli politics, not that everybody isn't united now, but on that
question of how to proceed a pretty divided politically charged time in Israeli politics and
where to go from here? There are there lessons from history, David,
you think should be paid close attention to going forward for Israel. Are you
talking about like how Israel supported Hamas? Has been all yeah, they have
been all over Twitter this week talking about Yeah, there's Medi Hassan article that
from a couple years ago that's been super viral about how, yeah, Israel
did offer support and thought that if they supported Hamas against other kind of factions
in the contested territory that maybe that would turn out better for them. Is
Hasani American citizen. Do you know it's a great question. I actually don't
know, because it's just interesting because he worked for Qatar's terror network and then
came over here. Also, by the way, has a problem on the
left that has never addressed about his Islamic views on sexuality and as a he
called gay people, animals or cows and pigs. I forget exactly what cattle
maybe, And that actually reminds me. I want to tell a quick anecdote.
When I was a student at gw one of the reasons I originally got
hired by Young America's Foundation out of college is that our chapter was asked our
YAFF chapter in college was asked by the student newspaper whether we would support a
religious exemption to some stupid bill the student association passed about mandatory pronoun sensitivity training
for the leaders of student groups. I answered the phone, told the newspaper,
like, I guess so I think I said yes, Like it doesn't
sound very tolerant of other people's beliefs. The student the LGBT group on campus
is called Allied and Pride put out a statement saying that GWAF had committed a
hate crime, and there was somebody who said, forget the context of it,
that we were worse than isis. Like, I don't remember if it
was actually in that statement or if it was something that one of the student
leaders said, but it came from like somebody on the side of pronouns and
sensitivity training. And that is how completely poisoned the mind, Like when people
are looking at college campuses right now and sort of slack jawed and marveling at
how people can behave this way. That's how completely poisoned their minds are.
That people who oppose mandatory pronoun and sensitivity trainings are worse than isis, which
at the time twenty fifteen was literally like throwing gay people off of bridges.
Yeah, isis is pretty bad. I think worse than isis is amazing.
It's really bad. Yeah, listen, it's just hordes of credulous virtue signalers
who don't you know, who don't who are you know, perfunctorially say things
that sound good to the year, but they don't. They're not thinkers and
not critical thinkers. And you know, it's just look at these college campuses.
It's a massive, massive problem. These people are going to be running
things soon. You know, Harvard law students who signed pro Hamas statements are
going to be running institutions one day. And I think a lot of these
people are already running institutions. If you look at their reactions, it's just
sort of incrementally becoming worse and worse. Just on the Hamas point, yeah,
I mean countries make mistakes. At one point, you know, Israeli's
helped hamast as a counterbalance to the PLO which was in power then, and
that was a mistake. But the idea that now anything Hamas does is their
fault, Like they're forcing a million people to be involved in Hamas stuff there,
you know, it's nuts. Yes, Reagan helped wanted to undermine the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan because he saw the world through his prism at the time,
and the most dangerous force in the world was the Soviet Union, which
I think was a you know, good analysis. Did it work out well,
probably not. I mean to some extent it did because the Soviets were
embarrassed and the Afghanistan War actually probably had a lot to do with their problems
that led to the fall of the Soviet Empire. So yeah, we have
to be careful when we, you know, we invade Iraq, we empower
Iran, right, So there are a lot of Yeah, It's why I
don't really have any kind of ideological outlook when it comes to foreign policy.
I think every situation is different. It calls for different ideas and you know,
and and different reactions. So I think that's important. But the prevailing
notion of civilization should be that we do what's best for the United States,
and under that should be we do what's best for to help people who are
on the right side of civilization. It seems pretty civil, you know,
as long as it doesn't hurt our country. It seems pretty pretty simple in
some ways. And maybe I'm just looking at it too simplistically, but yeah,
this Helmus thing is just I wish I could come up with a good
analogy. It's just like victim blaming basically, you know, and uh,
that's what guys like Mactaisan are about. I mean, he is he is,
he is a host. So you have these Prohamas people all over colleges,
you have them hosting television shows on MSNBC. You have them, you
know, in Congress, you have them throughout probably the State Department in places
like that. You have them in uh, bolstered by Katari money or whatever,
in supposed think tanks, including Brookings, which used to take plenty of
money from Qatar. I think they stopped maybe a few years ago. I
forget got hit with a I think it was just last year. They just
got hit with a their former president a big Farah charge over not disclosing lobbying
path of cutter they have. You know, these the all the experts there
are many of the experts you know were part of the peace process in the
past that failed miserably, that cost so many lives. And they're still on
you know, CNN and NBC lecturing everyone on how Israel should react. And
you brought up Israel before and the internal politics there. The best way to
destroy Israel, and every Israeli knows this is to just leave Israel alone.
If you leave it alone for like ten years, it won't probably not exist,
there will be a civil war. They Israeli politics is bananas. Anyone
who has lived there or pays attention would know that. But every time you
do something like this, the country comes together immediately. It's a small place.
When you have a thousand, five hundred deaths or whatever it is right
now, that touches virtually everyone in the country in some way, in a
personal way, they come together. They have no choice when they People don't
realize when you mobilize in Israel, that means like a huge the economy shuts
down. The country is everyone is part of that. That is a huge,
uh you know, you know, expense of energy like and of material
and of you know, willpower. So they come together, and this is
probably going to bring Israel together. I don't know where the government goes because
I think it's going to be difficult for Nettagne who to sort of something like
this. This isn't like, you know, some argument over the judiciary.
This is an existential threat that he allowed to happen. Lots of people died,
so he may not survive. But I don't know that that means the
center left is going to rise. I think maybe you're even going to go
farther to the right. You cannot have things like this happen, and I
just don't think the citizens there are going to stand for it. Any final
thoughts. David Harsani No, I mean, I I think, like I
said, I'm more affected by this than I have been since anything since,
you know, any events since nine to eleven. It was nice to hear
Joe Biden's speech, for instance. I'm kind of heartened a little bit by
some of the support, you know, but I'm also really concerned by mostly
on the left, but some in some circles on the right as well.
Where you have you know, historical literates, you know, preaching to the
to the credulous Twitter, you know mob and you know, just just having
people not understand the situation and being not just historically unclear about it, but
morally unclear about it. And I think that's a problem, but hopefully it
isn't as bad as it. Hopefully that the social media is making, you
know, amplifying it in a way that overstates how, you know, how
many people think this way. I think that was a really rude and passive
aggressive way to take a shot at Andrew Tate David who hooked israel socialist vaccine
policy in making this argument kind of in favor for Hamas this week. Yeah,
I don't want to start this argument with you or anything. It's not
about you at all or not cons but I am a little concerned by some
of the people who snuck into the conservative I wouldn't say movement, but are
like or now are thought of his being on the right, who are just
insanely crazy people who need to be you know, we need another like Bircher
cleansing or whatever, and that guy's one of them. Sorry, I was
actually going to say off that final thought that it is genuinely I think it
speaks to if you look at, for instance, Candice Owens the way that
she's reacted, or just other people. And I'm thinking even of like really
well intentioned people on the kind of new right who have been very critical of
Ukraine policy and sort of America first and all of that. It is interesting
because I do think for some young people, I always try to imagine,
you know, being eighteen, being seventeen and sort of on the right and
thinking through these issues in the atmosphere, the digital atmosphere, the media atmosphere
of today, and I just want to say that at least for young people,
I do genuinely think it is very very difficult for them to sift through
you know, fact and fiction right from wrong and get to know the bottom
of it. And actually it's partially one why I wanted to have this conversation
with you, David, to hopefully add some intellectual fuel and to be helpful
on those questions, because I think it is genuinely very difficult to get good
history and good information right now, because it is true, you know,
we are seeing horrific scenes of war come out of these areas, come out
of Gaza, and I think that is really it has this kind of effect
of adding the illusion of moral ambiguity if you are sort of untethered from the
roots of the conflict. Yeah, I think, you know, part of
it is that the Holocaust or the Soviet Union, at least my generation was
still fresh in people's memories. You knew people who know, my dad was
there, you know, like so you knew people, your grandparents whatever,
they were around, and it was something that was still tangible in a weird
way that it's not now. And I think on the right, the new
right, you have people who are reflexively anti war, and I get that,
and they're always they always think that, I don't know, they're reflexively
skeptical of anything anyone you know, in power tells them, and they have
this weird I don't know, Uh, I would say that they're they're they're
open to some conspiractorial ideas that they should not be open to, simply because
it works maybe fits in with their broader view worldview, which has to do
Ukraine and all that stuff. So yeah, I mean, it's bothersome to
me, but it is difficult to fight against because of you know, in
part because of so much of the lying and failures of the institutions. We
do have to be clear, to have of moral clarity, you know,
on things. And I think more more fresh in their mind probably is Iraq
or you know, that sort of thing, and to them this looks and
feels the same way. But I should just note that there is Israel doesn't
need the United States to fight Hamas. I mean, they need they probably
need help, financial help and whatever. But it's not like the United States
is going to get into war with Isabella. I mean, United States could
or invY, you know, I hear like this is the new Iraq,
like we're going to land forces in Iran. That's there's no zero appetite for
that. No one wants that. I think what the United States does is
provide cover for Israel to do what it needs to do. Hopefully usually that
only lasts a little while in the way that Israel wants. But we'll see
this time if it's different. But anyway, you know, that's I think
those are some of the reasons fueling that that kind of anti Israel. Yeah,
I believe, yeah, And this is not so this is I'm not
commenting on any of our young staffers. That a rack point is interesting because
I was thinking back to the post or the podcast that we published on September
eleventh this year, talking to are you know, mid twenties, some younger
than that writers about you know, they don't remember nine to eleven, they
don't remember the country before nine to eleven, and about their sort of what
it was like to kind of grow up in the shadow of nine to eleven,
even though they don't kind of remember what it was, And there is
just this intense cynicism. It's just is such an intense cynicism on the left
and on the right about America's moral standing, especially you know, they brought
up the kind of Patriot Act infrastructure that was created in the wake of nine
to eleven, all of the Americans who were sent overseas to fight in Iraq
and Afghanistan after nine to eleven, with the benefit of hindsight that we now
know and probably should have known then, in ways that were miscalculated, wildly
miscalculated, And that has fed a really deep cynicism. And I have nothing
but faith in our young staffers. They're they're great, They've been great this
week. But what I'm saying is I think that cynicism, where it exists
in other young people on the left and the right, is probably something that
makes it easier for people to, you know, just kind of throw their
hands up in the air and you say that this is all morally ambiguous sense.
You're trying to end this podcast, but I'm going to keep going with
I think I think a lot of that skepticism manifests in this hair. I'm
not talking about our staff, I'm talking about just in general manifest its kind
of a anti this idea that used to be prevalent on the fringe left in
colleges when I was younger, that the United States is no better than the
Soviet Union and we're no better than Russia. We're no better because we have
this injustice and that injustice. And you cobble together a few and then you
start talking about the United States like you're living in Nazi Germany. Well,
you know or not, we're having this podcast. A lot of people get
to write what they believe. I'm not saying that we don't have a lot
of really serious problems here, but sometimes I think, you know, a
sort of world perspective, a historical perspective, is really missing. This is
not the Patriot Act. I was against from the moment it was written.
But it is not the first time we've done this sort of thing. We
did it in World War One, we did it in World War Two,
we did it during the Civil War, we did it during right after the
Revolutionary War. There's a history of the overreaction in the United States. And
yeah, I guess if you didn't live through nine to eleven, you don't
really understand what a just earth shattering event it was for most Americans and changed
the world forever. But that should not I mean, I think maybe it's
an educational problem because schools maybe don't I'm not speaking about nine to eleven specifically,
but don't give a good historical overview of the world. Are scared to
take moral stands when talking about the world. It's like the whole Genous Day
Columbus Day debate, Like, you know, just because indigenous people were conquered
doesn't mean they were more moral than Columbus for instance. You know, it's
the same thing when you talk about how mas in Israel. So it all
kind of intertwines, if that makes any sense. But of course, as
we talked about earlier, they're also holding them to these standards, historically better
standards. You know, I both agree that we're you know, you've written
a book about this. By the way, that a mus killed twenty seven
Americans that we know of so far, twenty seven Americans were killed by how
mamas they hold hostages who are Americans, Like, I don't feel like the
reaction we're having would be the same as if twenty seven Americans were killed by
someone in France, or someone in Germany or someone in Canada, you know.
And to me, that also has something to do with the idea,
well, these people were in Israel, They're probably have dual citizenship, they're
you know, they're part of this, you know what's going on. No,
they're not part of anything. Many of those Americans were probably maybe many
of them were hard left wingers who thought that pas that Gaza deserved to be
a state, you know what I mean, Like, you don't even know
what they were thinking. These are civilians who were killed. So that whole
aspect of it also annoys me that people talk about this without mentioning that Americans
were killed, American citizens and we should be Really that involves us now in
a way that it wouldn't you know if there hadn't been an American citizens.
So I think that's an important aspect for people to remember as well. Yeah,
it's so helpful, David, and such a good reminder because I think
there is an impulse, and it's the ben Roads impulse, the freshman dorm
impulse to kind of learn some very inconvenient facts about America's history, in the
West's history, and you know, in the act of kind of proving you
know these things that a lot of people don't know, and a lot of
people probably should know. People should know the history of the FBI and the
CIA a lot more than they do, or various conflicts and absolutely, but
it's that sort of impulse as soon as you know it to act as though
you know it's powerfully invalidates the moral high ground. And part of that is
just because it's kind of fun to prove that you know that information, and
it makes you feel like you're in on a secret that other people aren't.
It's a very june to think of America as better than anyone else, you
know. So, you know, even though we are I mean, I'm
just I'm sorry, we are I always you know what book Euro trash.
Yeah, no, we are. I mean we are, and I don't
packs americanas over right, but we did bring a kind of peace to the
world that wasn't around. I don't know if people know this, but there
have far fewer conflicts in the world now than there used to be. Essentially,
the world was at war until the nineteen fifty as the world was in
a constant state of conflict almost all the time, all over Europe, all
over Asia. I'm not saying that we've done everything right. We certainly haven't.
We're human beings, and Israelis are human beings. They make mistakes,
they're bad people sometimes involved in that. But I think that our Christian you
know, we interviewed Tom Holland, but I think he's right. A Christian
perspective has manifested in a far more moral outlook. And we have to stop
being scared to say that that outlook on the world is better than the alternative.
And in the left in this country and some on the right don't believe
that that's true. And I think this is the fight for civilization and it's
worth, you know, in the long run, and it's worth worth saying
it out loud and not being scared to say it. And even though,
can you imagine being on a college campus like Harvard today and having to say
something like that or Columbia, I bet you it's pretty tough. Mm hmmm.
I'm glad that you brought up Holland because his book basically starts with the
anecdotes on romans and babies, and a lot of the conversation this week has
been centered on Hamas and babies. And exactly Hamas's treatment of babies is actually
as shocking to the conscience as it is us today. Is that is because
we are benefactors of the liberal world, and in a way that you know,
vast majority of people throughout human history have not been right. I mean,
the Canaanites sacrifice babies, the Carthgian sacrifice babies, the Spartans through them
off cliff, you know, and basically in what was eugenics, it was
Christianity that changed that equation for most people. And then when you see barbarians
right now killing babies, you understand why the Christian outlook is the superior one.
That's a good place to leave it. David Harsani belave it on that
friendly note. Yeah, that happened the obviously the author of euro Trash.
You should check out Euro Trash. That was a great book. David I
was the co host of Your Wrong and senior editor at The Federalist. Follow
Follow Follow David if you aren't already, follow him for some much helpful insight
perspective in the days that come. Harsani, hope you have a good weekend.
You too, Thank you. Of course you've been listening to another edition
of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dashinski, culture editor here at The
Federalist. Will be back soon with more. Until then, the lovers of
freedom and anxious for the friends. I heard the fame voice, the reason,
and then it faded away. M hm