EZRA LEVANT ｜ The grim reality of Israel's fight against extremism： A feature interview with Benjamin Weingarten
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Summary
Ben Weingarten talks to Ezra LeVant about how the alliance between leftist progressives and Islamic supremacists helped bring the world into war, and how that alliance has contributed to the rise of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East and beyond.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. A terrible conversation today. A great conversation if conversationalism is what
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you're after, but terrible in terms of the substance of it. I'm talking about how the
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world so quickly careens into war. Our guest today is Ben Weingarten, the author and scholar.
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I don't know. It's a tough time, but we got to be honest about it.
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If you want to see the video version of this podcast, go to rebelnewsplus.com,
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click subscribe. There's a lot of clips we're going to show, so you might want to do that.
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It's eight bucks a month because we don't get any money from Trudeau, and it shows. Here's today's
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podcast. Tonight, a feature interview with Ben Weingarten about how the alliance between leftist
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progressives and Islamists helped put the world into war. It's October 11th, and this is the Ezra LeVant
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show. I remember one of the most important books of 2020 was written on St. Patrick's Day that it
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was released, which just happened to be the date when so many of the lockdowns from the pandemic
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kicked in, which changed the subject on a hundred things towards COVID and the pandemic.
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And it's a shame because I think one of the most outstanding books of the year was published
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and was in some ways overshadowed by events, overtaken by events. The name of the book
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is American ingrate Ilhan Omar and the progressive Islamist takeover of the Democratic Party. That was
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the essential authoritative biography, and not just a biography, but really a current history of the
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Democratic Party. That was three and a half years ago when we see the ramifications of the progressive
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Islamist takeover of the Democrats in their reaction to the wave of barbarous terrorism in
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Israel and the reaction to that in the United States and Canada. Joining us now via Skype
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is the author of that book, our old friend Benjamin Weingarten. Ben, great to see you again.
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You know, I was thinking of your book because it's good. It's just such a powerful book,
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and the title says it all, American ingrate. Here's someone from Somalia who comes from one of
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the most, well, Donald Trump would have a certain phrase for her country, but one of the most
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rundown, failed states in the world to really one of the greatest countries in the world. And
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her response is she wants to tear it down. That's that critical theory, that Marxism,
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identitarian politics. It was bad enough when there was no existential crisis,
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but the Ilhan Omars of the world are running the Democrats now, aren't they?
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And we are unfortunately seeing the utterly devastating consequences of it in the barbarism
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that took place in Israel and continues in no small part as a consequence of the concerted
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Democratic Party policies that started under Barack Obama, under the Obama-Biden administration,
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and have effectively continued in a third term under Joe Biden, wherein they have sought to elevate
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Iran and its proxies, the world's leading state sponsor of jihad, into the strong course in the Middle
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East, while doing everything they possibly could to undermine, delegitimize, isolate Israel,
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and kneecap it, thereby turning on its head what should be in America's national interest and the
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West national interest, which is a hegemonic Israel in that region with Arab, Sunni Arab allies as a
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bulwark against Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of jihad. And instead, progressivism dictates
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turning that paradigm completely on its head. And so what is the consequence? Was I argued in a recent
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piece in the New York Post? Joe Biden has not only Israeli blood on his hands, but American blood on
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his hands as well, and American hostages now, in no small part as a consequence of the U.S. effectively
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being the world's leading state sponsor of the world's leading state sponsor of jihad via the Iran-backed
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Hamas attack and the potential future attacks that are to come from other fronts, including from
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Hezbollah in Lebanon, from Iran tied and backed, quote unquote, militias, jihadist groups from Syria,
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and perhaps beyond as well. So this is a direct consequence of the left being in hock to Islamic
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supremacists. We see how pervasive this is on elite college campuses around America. And we've seen it,
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of course, in imagery and footage around the world. And you see it in a Biden White House, by the way,
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that while it gets all of these plaudits for such stirring remarks in the last couple of days, twice its
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State Department has put out statements only to then backtrack and delete them, calling for Israel to stand
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down, essentially. So in other words, to accept and attack the most barbaric massacre in the history of
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the country, minimally in the last 50 years, and one of the most barbaric massacres, arguably in the
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history of the world, where in the equivalent of tens of thousands of Americans died in terms of the
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ratios here, and babies were beheaded, and there were rapes and the hostage taking of women and children,
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and the elderly, including at least one Holocaust survivor. And this administration says, Israel, stand down.
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Surrender, basically. Don't respond. Don't defend your sovereignty. Don't defend your people. And invite still
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more jihad to come. And then the administration does two other things. It refuses to revoke the $6 billion that it
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gifted Iran as ransom for hostages, and is playing semantics and word games about, well, they can't access the money,
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and the money is going to be for humanitarian purposes, etc., etc. And then, leaving aside the fungibility and all the
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other issues around that argument. And then beyond that, they have hemmed and hawed over Iran's culpability in the
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attack. Yesterday, we finally heard the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan say, Iran is complicit in the
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attack. But they are so lawyerly in their defense, and they're serving as unregistered foreign agents for the
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Islamic Republic of Iran, that they continue to say, we can't find a direct tie. In other words, they can't find
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some communications of Khomeini getting on the phone and calling up Hamas leadership and saying,
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it's go time, engage in the jihad. That is essentially the argument. Well, we can track
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Iranian funds to Hamas, we can talk about the tactics that were employed, we can talk about
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the apparent signal jamming and the sophistication of the attack. We can talk about all these other
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elements of it that point to it being Iran backed, obviously. But we can't say definitively that there's
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a smoking gun. So the defense of the Iranian regime continues. And that tells you all you need to
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know about the cheap talk coming from the Biden administration right now.
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Yeah, it's crazy. And I think back to your book, American Ingrade. I mean, Ilhan Omar is a symptom
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and a cause in some ways. Let me show you some footage from Dearborn, Michigan, an enormous rally,
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thousands of people cheering for Hamas. I'm sure you saw this online. Here, take a quick look at this
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So if you're a Democrat, governor of Michigan, of course, you're going to talk about, well,
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sure, we're against attacks on civilians in Israel, but also against attacks on civilians
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in Gaza, you're going to play it down the middle because you don't want to appall your old stock
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American voters. But you absolutely would not be getting elected without the pro-Hamas vote.
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And so on the one hand, you have Democrats chasing the pro-Hamas vote. On the other hand,
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they themselves are making America, they're setting the, Ilhan Omar is not setting the policy
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directly, but she's infusing the party with an ideology that you would call cultural Marxism.
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Our friends are our enemies, our enemies are our friends, tear down what we have. I think there's
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something diabolical about it. And it really feels like the decline of an empire. It really feels like
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enemies outside and inside. And when America finally falls, God forbid, may it not happen in our
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lifetime, it'll be because someone literally lifted up the drawbridge. That's how I feel about it. Ben,
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what do you think? I agree. And you can look to the rhetoric of the elite campuses again, and in
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Washington, DC and in Dearborn, Michigan, and it's all kind of one in the same and indistinguishable.
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The entire logic to the policy, to the extent there is a logic to it is essentially America is the
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great Satan and Israel is the little Satan. I mean, there's not that much difference in that rhetoric
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that you would hear from jihadists to what you would hear from your cultural Marxist professor
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at almost any university in this country. And so as a consequence of the West, great evil and raping
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otherwise exactly where the Islamic supremacists are, and who are acting in arguably worse ways than the
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Nazis, because they're not even ashamed in trying to hide their atrocities. They actually want it
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circulated on social media for the entire world to see when babies are beheaded and women are raped
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and beyond. And this is who our elites side with anti-civilizational forces, barbaric forces,
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animal forces. It is the suicide of the West. To your point about the populations that have been
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imported, and obviously, this has been illustrated even more starkly in Europe with mass immigration
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from majority Muslim countries. But I always go back to 9-11. The 9-11 Commission got it right that in
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large part, 9-11 was a consequence of a failure of immigration. And the U.S. response since then
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has been to import, I believe the number is over 2 million people from majority Muslim countries since
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that time. And it only takes a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a 2.2 million number,
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let's say, to cause utter havoc and bring a society to its knees. And by the way, those people cheering
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on the college campuses and then in Dearborn, Michigan and beyond, they essentially create a
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jihadist or a jihadist sympathizers veto over U.S. policy. One of the evil genius aspects of
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immigration jihad and of the information warfare essentially that's been inflicted on the West
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is that today you have European powers and, again, rhetorically, the American administration
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who are saying, we've got Israel's back and we're not going to stand with the Hamas terrorists. But
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if and when Israel engages in a mass incursion into Gaza and it is grisly and it is grinding and
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immediately on Western media, you have the images of dying children and crying mothers and such,
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and the images of Israel striking mosques and hospitals because that's actually where Hamas
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is hiding out because they're savage like that. And those images build up every single day.
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The pressure is going to be immense on Western powers to stand down, including with the implicit
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and explicit threat of attacks on our streets. And of course, as I'm sure you've seen, there's
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already video of a Hamas leader from the lap of luxury in Qatar calling for a day of rage,
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I believe this coming Friday, a day of action where jihadists are to get out in the streets and engage
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in violent jihad in Western capitals and across the world for that matter. So there's a jihadist veto
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that's been built into the West now, and they expect to put the West into submission under threat
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of jihad. So all of the chickens appear to be coming home to roost and the conflagration starts
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in Israel, but it extends through the rest of the world. And there are any number of reasons for any
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number of challenges that Western powers are going to face in this, starting with defending their own
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sovereignty. And we in America, we've had open borders for how many years? And Israel is the most
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hardened state in the West with the first rate intelligence apparatus and cutting edge surveillance
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technology and literal walls and substantial fortified borders. And Israel was overrun within
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hours. So imagine how we are sitting ducks here in the West right now. And this points to
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the maladies, the pathologies of the progressive ideology that has put us in this perilous state
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in the West. And I believe it. I mean, in Sydney, Australia, you had thousands of Muslims outside the
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opera. I was shooting flares at it, by the way, which is quite an aggressive premonition of what's to come.
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And they weren't chanting, you know, Israel retreat to 1967 borders or 48 borders. It wasn't a
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technical call. It was gas the Jews. Gas the Jews was what they were chanting. Here, take a look at
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And around the world, here in Canada, the chants of intifada, which is an Arabic way of saying
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a revolt, a rebellion, a pogrom, a riot, chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be
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free. That means totally exterminating the Israeli state. But I don't think they're done
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in Israel. They're here in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, with the
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same chance. I think there will be violence across the West. They're saying as much when
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they're saying intifada, when they're saying gas the Jews, they're saying the same things
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they say in Gaza. Why would we think they don't mean it?
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Look, it is in the text of the Quran and the Hadith and the Islamic supremacists who interpret
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it and take it as such. They subscribe to a totalitarian ideology that can brook no dissents
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that is inherently expansionistic and seeks to make the entire world submit. And it's worth
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noting when people record Allahu Akbar as Allah is great. No, that's actually not what jihadists
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It's an inherently supremacist ideology. And so, of course, to the extent they're in the
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depraved and decrepit and decadent West, they feel that it is their job to impose their ideology
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on it. And to your point, it's maddening the aspect of the Qatar part of this, you know,
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beyond obviously the hypocrisy of the cowardly leaders taking refuge there. Qatar plays both
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sides. Qatar has, I believe, the largest U.S. military base in the region. And at the same
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time, they're harboring Hamas. And they're trying to play peacemaker between Israel and effectively
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Iran in terms of hostage negotiations. So why do we have a base? Why does the U.S. have
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a base in Qatar? I checked this before the show. Qatar is listed as a non-major NATO ally alongside
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Israel. So it gets the same sort of support that Israel would. Qatar pays off Western think
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tanks and lobbies hard in the West precisely to protect itself. And it corrupts us and it corrodes
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us. And it's just so suicidal what we have done in the West. And I agree with you as well. I think
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it only gets worse from here. And we've been lulled into a false sense of security. I've long felt that
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we were very vulnerable to jihadist attack. And I've also felt that the best explanation for why
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in America, at least since 9-11, there has not been a major catastrophe approaching that level
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is precisely because the world has been going their way. There's been no reason to necessitate
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engaging in offensive jihad. Much better to let institutions kill themselves and infiltrate them
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and work within them so that we suffocate ourselves by our own hands, which is by our own hands is
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what the Muslim Brotherhood has said in their own literature that's been exposed over time.
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But now it appears they may be engaging for the offensive jihad. And this feels like a perfect storm.
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We will see ultimately if this turns into a multi-front war with Israel. Today, there's been reporting
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about attacks coming from the north. We will see if Israel itself opens up or tries to avoid
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opening up a multi-front war by striking far beyond just Gaza and going to Lebanon, maybe beyond Lebanon,
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maybe even to Tehran itself. You can see how this can spiral out of control very easily. And the danger
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for us in the West, beyond the fact that it's in the national interest of all of our nations for
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Israel to be a strong and free nation and to subdue the enemies of civilization around it is that the
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enemy is here as well. There are Islamic supremacists within our borders. Despite how lax we've been,
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there have been prosecutions and indictments of Hezbollah agents here. And we know, of course,
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that Iranian agents have carried out attacks elsewhere. And by the way, of course, in the U.S.
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government, we've now found out about what appears to be an Iranian spy ring that ran from the State
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Department Iranian envoy Rob Malley to an individual he promoted to end up the chief of staff for the
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Pentagon's counterterrorism office. So the compromise is real. The danger is imminent. And these are
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incredibly dark and trying times potentially for the West. The West may not war, but the war
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certainly wants us here. You know, just a month ago, Rebel News led a mission to Israel and the
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United Arab Emirates. We called it the Abraham Accords trip. And we spent a week on the Israeli side and
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we looked at, we had a tour of the fence, the wall, the high-tech sensors by Danny Tirza, the retired,
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I think it was a colonel, who helped build them. And I, for 20 years, that technology was enough to
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keep the peace. And I think that maybe lulled Israel into a confidence that it was, that it was
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untouchable, that it had, it was the big, you know, man on campus, to use a phrase. And, you know,
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the signing of the Abraham Accords, I think, was real and was meaningful. And we went to Dubai and Abu Dhabi
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afterwards. And the peace there was real. And it was warm. And now that feels like a laughable
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Eden time before the fall, before reality set in. And there was hope that Saudi Arabia would join.
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And there was hope that there would be a railway all the way through Saudi Arabia and into Israel,
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not the port of Haifa. And we would just be in this end of history moment where, you know,
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nation would not lift sword up against nation and neither would they war anymore.
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That was just a month ago. It felt so hopeful and so peaceful. And all of those assumptions are
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cracked. And I think in many ways, Israel's the canary in the coal mine. It's going to happen
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there first. But I look at that U.S. border and people cross it by the hundred, by the thousand every
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day. Who knows what they're bringing in with them? Who knows what weapons, who knows who they are?
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And I fear that there may be internal attacks in America the same way. And why wouldn't there be?
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And if you're Iran and you've put all this effort into attacking Israel's high-tech fence,
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of course, you're going to go in the unfenced border with the great Satan itself. Why wouldn't you?
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It would be crazy if they wouldn't. I don't know. I went from being exhilarated with the prospect of
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peace a month ago to being terrified about the near certainty of a larger war.
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Yeah, we've, we've lived to some extent under the illusion of peace and end of times. I mean,
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I do think that there is real merit to the Israeli Sunni Arab sort of defense conduit that was being
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built. And that, you know, I think the conventional wisdom is to some extent, right, that these attacks
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were in part about derailing any sort of Israel, Saudi, quote unquote, normalization or rapprochement
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or something even more substantial than that. I also think, though, that it was about deterring
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Israel from dealing with Iran and its proxies in the substantial way that it felt it might have to
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with respect to nuclear program and beyond. So I do think there are other, there are other reasons
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behind this attack. But look, in the Middle East, the strong course rules and the Sunni Arab powers
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were sufficiently concerned about an ascendant Iran, aided, abetted and enabled first by the Obama-Biden
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administration and now by the Biden administration, such that they were willing to set aside the hatred of
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still masses of peoples within these countries to try and form relations with Israel precisely
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because it was strong. And at minimum, they believed it was in their national interest
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to side with Israel, probably for intelligence purposes, defense purposes, economic purposes,
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and beyond. I don't think that that has changed today, despite the rhetoric coming from the leaders
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of the Sunni Arab governments, which has been essentially pro-Hamas and pro-Palestinian Arab,
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or at least not pro-Israel in response. But I still believe that all of those powers are ultimately
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moved themselves by power. Who is strong? Who do we need to align with to protect our interests?
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And I don't think that ends with what has occurred now. But that said, I don't see how there aren't
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hugely bloody, grisly days ahead. It's an incredibly volatile situation. Israel, to some extent, is damned if it
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does and damned if it doesn't. If it treats as its mission, eviscerating Hamas in Gaza,
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that's more narrow than potentially what might be necessary. So what happens if Hezbollah opens up the
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second front up in the north? What about the native Arab population in Israel or in Judea and Samaria
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that could fight and attack from within? And then what about Tehran itself? Is Israel going to strike
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Hamas's leadership in Qatar? And then what does that do? You can see this spiraling out of control
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in a million different ways. So, you know, I still think that the notion that the other Sunni Arab powers
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do not want an ascendant Iran, do not want a nuclear Iran is real. I think their respect for
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Israel strength is real. But this was a psychologically massive blow and a substantively massive blow as
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well. And to some extent, it's unfortunate that Israel, you know, we'll learn more about the reporting
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in terms of how did this happen? How could there have been this catastrophic intelligence failure?
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But by all accounts, it seems that much of this was that Hamas lowered Israel into a false sense
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of security, where Israel essentially came to the conclusion that Hamas was not interested in
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engaging in serious attacks. They were more focused on internally what was going on in Gaza,
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and that by increasing economic relations with the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza, giving them work permits
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and letting them come into Israel, that there would be this virtuous cycle and everyone would win.
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The notion, though, that economics are what prevails and what trumps was folly,
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as is the notion that a jihadist group dedicated to Israel's evisceration was going to suddenly give
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that up. But we in the West love to delude ourselves in these naive beliefs that, well, you know,
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the other side, they just kind of want the same thing that we do at the end of the day. And
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unfortunately, time and time again, that is disproven. And Israel has a much smaller margin
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for error than we do because of where it's located and how tiny it is in terms of the population and the
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landmass. So this is a tragic, tragic lesson. We'll see what the other contributing factors were to the
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failure. But it's devastating. And Israel faces existential threats from all sides today.
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But we also face those existential threats as well. It may not be as salient, it may not be as apparent,
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and it may not be as large today. But it's there. And even worse, of course, is the self-righteously
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suicidal things that we do even without jihadists having to act on our shores.
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You know, I saw this image of a huge crater in Gaza, looks like it was an apartment that Israel
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had leveled. And it looked a little bit like Stalingrad, you know, an urban wreckage,
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sort of like the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine, where Ukraine and Russia have been
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shelling each other for a year. And Jesse Kelly, the pundit, who's a former Marine, said,
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what does this look like to you? Only for only military types answer. And I read the replies,
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and they said, this is a huge trap for an official army to roll in, in uniforms with vehicles. It's
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it's a trap for snipers, for ambushes, you're shooting up, they're they're looking down. Like
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Jesse Kelly basically said, if you go into Gaza, you are going into an ambush, booby traps, snipers.
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And that's true. And that's the thing. Israel has the F-35 Lightning. It has an amazing stealth
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fighter. It has the Merkava tank, which is regarded, although one of them was neutralized
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over the weekend. But how does that work when you're fighting urban warfare against
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a terrorist force that has had 18 years to lay booby traps? And that really got me worried,
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that tweet by Jesse Kelly. And then I saw the United States has one aircraft carrier in the region
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that is sending another. And the president of Turkey, Erdogan, had a little press conference. He said,
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what's that all about? Who are you going to attack? Here's just a clip of Erdogan
00:30:16.280
talking about these aircraft carriers, and we'll put that out.
00:30:25.800
Amerika'nın Uçak Gemisi'nin İsrail'de ne işi var?
00:30:35.880
Ve buraya gelen uçak gemisinin etrafında bütün botlarıyla, uçak gemisindeki uçaklarıyla
00:30:46.280
ne yapacak? Orada bütün, artık, Gazze'yi etrafını vurarak, indirerek, çok ciddi katliamlara
00:31:02.120
And he's implying, what are you going to do? Are you going to attack Gazze? Of course not. America wouldn't do that.
00:31:07.000
The ostensible explanation is to deter other regional powers from getting in, to deter Iran or
00:31:15.560
even Russia, maybe. I don't see it that way. I see it as Joe Biden deterring Israel from doing
00:31:22.280
anything outside of Gaza, deterring Israel from going after Qatar, from going after Tehran.
00:31:29.640
I don't know. I mean, I just don't think that it's the slam dunk for Israel militarily.
00:31:38.360
I don't know if anyone ever said it was, but I think, I think these are very difficult times,
00:31:43.800
and I agree with you. I don't think the Biden administration is actually friendly with Israel,
00:31:48.760
despite their public talk. I don't know, what do you, what do you make of the aircraft carriers?
00:31:52.520
Is it just a show of force? What's that all about? And how can Israel actually win this thing?
00:31:58.440
How can Israel do what it claims it'll do to destroy Hamas once and for all? How,
00:32:04.200
without retaking that booby-trapped Stalingrad?
00:32:09.960
Well, first of all, to your very first point about Gaza, to the extent this really is going to be a
00:32:15.880
ground-based mass incursion with 300,000 or 350,000 plus troops. And the casualties are going to be
00:32:25.720
massive. You're sitting ducks going into a war zone. We've all seen the movies from Iraq and elsewhere,
00:32:32.920
when you're going house to house, door to door, when we talk about the jihad tunnels in Gaza, when
00:32:39.400
there are hostages. And we haven't even talked about the massive size of hostages and the hostage
00:32:46.120
trades that Israel has engaged in in the past have been catastrophic in terms of the number of levels,
00:32:51.560
the levels of jihadists unleashed. And here we're, and that's with one prisoner. And here we're talking
00:32:57.880
about over a hundred hostages. So I agree with you. I think any kind of land-based incursion into Gaza is
00:33:06.040
going to be incredibly fraught. It's going to lead to massive casualties, because the other side has no qualms
00:33:12.360
about losing their people there. And beyond that, another concern that I know Israel has, based upon what
00:33:19.880
they've talked about in terms of fortifying their other fronts is, what happens if you have several
00:33:24.040
hundred thousand troops bogged down there, and then Hezbollah attacks from the north? Or again, you have Hamas or
00:33:32.680
other jihadist groups who are attacking from Judea and Samaria. So again, even before you get to
00:33:39.560
Syria or Tehran itself. So I agree, it's incredibly fraught and tactically complicated. With respect to
00:33:47.160
this carrier that was brought in, I think it's a token show of friendship that goes along with the
00:33:52.760
other rhetoric that we've heard from the Biden administration. But my inclination is, first of all,
00:33:57.400
how can the person that wanted to make Iran the strong course in the Middle East and that did
00:34:01.320
everything he could to put the screws to Israel, including trying to foment the leftist opposition
00:34:06.840
to the government, which created the destabilized conditions that itself could have enabled this,
00:34:12.680
and probably threaten unity in a time of war? Right now, how could you expect that suddenly,
00:34:18.440
on a dime, that administration was going to change and suddenly become Israel's greatest friend?
00:34:24.600
And so I agree, I share your inclination, and I'll probably be writing about this.
00:34:29.880
I think that support, to the extent it comes from this administration, is ultimately going to come
00:34:35.720
with strangling strings attached to it. In other words, I expect that support will constitute
00:34:41.880
ultimately a suffocating bear hug, especially again, as world opinion starts to turn on Israel,
00:34:48.120
as Israel does what it believes it has to do to defend itself. And you start to see the images
00:34:53.320
of the dead bodies piling up, and again, the crying mothers and such, on the other side in the war.
00:34:59.160
So I agree, the more involved the United States is, potentially, the more power it has to restrain
00:35:08.040
Israel and stop Israel from doing what it needs to effectively defend its interests. So, you know,
00:35:14.440
from my vantage point as an American, and I'll also be writing about this in the coming days,
00:35:20.440
from the perspective of our national interest, the Biden administration should get out of the way.
00:35:25.240
It should provide diplomatic support, it should provide intelligence, it should sell Israel the
00:35:30.520
weapons that it needs to defend itself. It should defend it in international forums, and it should
00:35:38.360
not break from Israel or have an inch of daylight from it. And Israel is a force multiplier for America's
00:35:43.880
interests. And by the way, there are Americans dead and held hostage right now, so we are part of this war.
00:35:48.120
But that said, the more involved the Biden administration gets, the more it would work,
00:35:53.560
I think, to the detriment of Israel's interests, and by extension, our interests. Israel needs to be
00:35:58.840
able to defend itself here as it sees fit. And so, to your last point about how tactically difficult
00:36:04.920
this is, I completely agree. Surrounded on all sides, essentially, by adversaries,
00:36:10.920
this presents a hugely difficult situation. I'm sure there are questions about the integrity of the
00:36:16.760
intelligence after what's happened. There's, again, the psychological shock. And then there's
00:36:21.320
the sheer number of people who have fallen in a very tiny country, which in and of itself is
00:36:27.240
devastating. So what do I think, ultimately, Israel is going to do? I think Israel is put to a choice
00:36:32.920
of, is the focus truly eviscerate Hamas in Gaza, and then perhaps re-annex it? And do you think that
00:36:40.440
that's the end of the hostilities? Or do you have to go more offensive and use an element of surprise
00:36:47.240
and do something big and shocking that goes way beyond just Gaza, or even just Lebanon, that maybe
00:36:54.760
goes to the head of the snake in Iran itself? And I'm sure those are the kinds of conversations that are
00:36:59.960
going on among the military leadership in Israel right now. Because as horrible as it is to expand this
00:37:07.720
potential war, it may be that Israel has to go way above and beyond the assumed scope to prevent
00:37:15.720
something much more cataclysmic from happening down the road. Well, there's no good answers here at all.
00:37:21.960
It's all terrifying. And I look around the world and I see our useless Prime Minister,
00:37:26.840
Justin Trudeau, instead of Stephen Harper, who was a sober-minded, respected middle power.
00:37:32.680
I see Joe Biden, who I don't even think is cognitively aware of what's going on. I saw an
00:37:40.760
unconfirmed report that in briefings, he's mixing up Ukraine and Israel. I absolutely believe that,
00:37:46.360
by the way. You know, his staff are calling a lid before noon, as in he's done working for the day,
00:37:52.040
he's had too much exertion. Everyone can see that. You talk about the strong horse, everyone can see the
00:37:58.040
weak horse in Joe Biden. Rishi Sunak gives some, you know, encouraging words of moral support.
00:38:07.480
But he's got an enormous, last I looked into the matter, there were more than 10,000 jihadis in
00:38:16.760
London being tracked by Scotland Yard. I think there's a real chance of terrorism in the UK.
00:38:23.320
So who's the ally going to be? It's going to be the European Union. It's going to be Emmanuel Macron,
00:38:28.680
maybe, who has issues of his own. We were there for the riots in Marseille a couple of months ago.
00:38:34.920
I think the world is a much more terrifying place. And ironically, they said, if we get rid of Trump,
00:38:42.280
we'll have sanity again. We'll have grown-ups in charge again. Trump was an era of peace. And I
00:38:48.200
don't think this would have happened under Trump. Maybe it would have. But I think if Americans
00:38:53.800
were kidnapped or killed, I think Trump would be attacking things right now. I don't think it
00:38:58.520
would have happened. Well, it certainly didn't during his administration. What do you think of that?
00:39:03.560
Well, first of all, when American troops were killed by Iran, we took out Qasem Soleimani,
00:39:10.840
the architect of the terror empire, the Shiite crescent that they've extended over the Middle
00:39:16.600
East. So if you kill 10 of ours, we are going to kill one of your most powerful military leaders.
00:39:23.800
And then what was the response to that? Well, yes, bounties were purportedly put on the heads of
00:39:28.920
Americans. But Iran could not do much more. They were neutralized. Everyone said that if the US moved
00:39:35.960
its embassy to Jerusalem, that there would be chaos on the Arab streets the next day,
00:39:40.120
nothing happened. You probably had more hand-wringing from Western capitals and our universities and
00:39:46.760
newsrooms than you did on the Arab street. The Abraham Accords, how could that possibly have happened?
00:39:53.480
Why? Because everyone in the Islamic world knew that Israel and the US were playing for keeps.
00:40:02.200
They were strong. And Iran poses a threat to all of those regimes and namely Israel. And so they
00:40:11.400
understood there was a credible threat of massive pain that would be inflicted upon anyone who would
00:40:17.720
threaten Israel or the US. The US obviously also showed that in its destruction of ISIS. And now that
00:40:25.320
credible deterrent is gone. And when that credible deterrent goes away, the weakness invites jihad.
00:40:33.080
The strength is what puts it down at the end of the day. And that does not mean nation building and
00:40:39.560
massive land incursions all over the world and boots on the ground and trying to democratize
00:40:45.480
the Middle East. But it means that if you kill one of ours, we're going to rain hell down upon your
00:40:52.040
leaders. Or you're going to have that fear in the back of your mind and you're going to think twice
00:40:56.440
before you act. And instead, what we've had here was the aiding, abetting and enabling of Iran and
00:41:02.680
protecting of its proxies and the cudgeling of Israel. And when that happens, it's an invitation to jihad.
00:41:08.760
You know, one of the most terrifying images that I think probably is the image that comes to mind for
00:41:18.840
Iranian leaders or terrorist leaders in the Middle East, it's probably their screensaver
00:41:23.800
on their computers is when under Joe Biden, America hastily abandoned Afghanistan. Trump was
00:41:33.640
Trump was withdrawing. But Joe Biden left in a Vietnam style rush, leaving behind billions of
00:41:43.400
dollars worth of military equipment, leaving behind allies, the haste of the of the retreat. And I
00:41:50.840
can't help but think that a lot of those U.S. weapons, which people, oh, those are just small arms.
00:41:56.680
Those are just jeeps. Those are just machine guns. I wouldn't surprise me if a lot of those were used
00:42:02.520
in this attack on Israel. When you dump billions of dollars worth of American military equipment
00:42:10.920
into the Taliban's hands. Of course, that's going to make its way into the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah.
00:42:15.720
How could it not? I think that that image of Biden fleeing the mighty C-17 jets taking off with
00:42:26.040
desperate people clinging to the wheel well, trying to escape. That's probably what the Iranians and
00:42:31.800
the Hamas and Hezbollah thought about every day as they planned their attack. Last word to you, Ben.
00:42:37.240
Well, you're absolutely right, first of all, on the narrower point about the weapons making their way
00:42:47.560
into Arab controlled areas. There was a report out this summer which showed that those weapons were
00:42:55.240
finding their way to the streets in Gaza. So once again, this is an indirect contribution of the Biden
00:43:02.200
administration to the jihadist cause, which is what makes this so outrageous and makes the talk
00:43:09.320
less than cheap that comes out of the administration's mouth. But you're absolutely
00:43:14.200
right. The nature of the pullout and the drawdown was such that all of America's enemies and all of
00:43:21.400
the West's enemies knew the world is open for business essentially to wreak havoc and go on the march.
00:43:28.280
And of course, we saw this with Russia and Ukraine. We've seen this with not only the bellicosity,
00:43:34.600
but the aggression from communist China. Now we're seeing it across the Islamic world as well. It's
00:43:42.360
open season when you have what amount to anti-American American leaders and those who back and concede to
00:43:51.960
and appease anti-Americans as well. And again, that's not a call for toppling every single evil
00:43:57.960
government in the world, because actually that ends up ultimately more undermining your interest
00:44:02.680
as we've seen in the way that it's played out. But what it says is you have to show overwhelming
00:44:08.040
strength and have that credible threat itself as a deterrent, or the other side is going to go on
00:44:14.920
the march. And every adversarial power is on the march today, precisely because of the Western
00:44:21.880
world's wokeness and weakness. Absolutely terrifying. Ben, where's the best place people can read your
00:44:28.280
work? You say you've got some pieces coming out in the near future. Where can we find those?
00:44:33.800
I publicize all my pieces at winegarden.substack.com, write for a number of other publications,
00:44:41.000
the New York Post, the Federalist Newsweek, Epic Times, and beyond. But I shoot out all of my content
00:44:46.920
at winegarden.substack.com, and then my Twitter feed as well at bhweingarden. All right. Well,
00:44:53.640
we'll put those on the website for people to find. Great to catch up with you. Of course,
00:44:58.840
it's terrifying and depressing, but we have to tell the truth of what's going on. Great to have you on
00:45:04.600
the show today. Thanks for having me, Ezra. I appreciate it.
00:45:08.280
Our pleasure. Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at
00:45:14.440
Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, keep fighting for freedom, and check out Avi Yamini's
00:45:21.160
daily reports from Israel at thetruthaboutthewar.com. Good night.