Candace Owens - The Great Debate： Israel v Palestine

00:00:01.000 Metrolinx and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress.

00:00:09.120 Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks.

00:00:13.520 Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so.

00:00:21.900 Be alert, be aware, and stay safe.

00:00:25.140 All right, guys, welcome to another episode.

00:00:29.080 This is going to be a really great discussion between Ami Kozak and Dave Smith.

00:00:34.600 I'm excited just to have two Jewish comedians on because I will tell you one thing that has been lost in this Israel versus Palestine issue, Jewish humor.

00:00:42.320 People used to be so funny.

00:00:43.620 Jewish people used to be so funny they could take a joke.

00:00:46.100 It was the one thing we had in common, the blacks and the Jews.

00:00:48.400 But now all that's gone because people are way too serious.

00:00:51.960 Well, I'm very glad that these two guests will be able to have what I hope to be a meaningful discussion.

00:00:58.460 And if anything, what I want you to take away is that speech matters.

00:01:01.960 More speech, not less.

00:01:03.820 That's what we have coming up.

00:01:04.900 I'm Candace.

00:01:07.740 That will be great.

00:01:09.740 It's not.

00:01:11.640 All right, guys, I promised you we were going to have such a great discussion today.

00:01:22.920 I'm very much looking forward to it because I've already had a discussion with these two individuals, and they were actually productive on this topic.

00:01:30.280 And there has been a lot of nonsense and a lot of emotion.

00:01:33.160 But I think that these two individuals are going to have a good discussion.

00:01:36.280 I think it's also important to say, because you hear people say, oh, I'm moderating the discussion.

00:01:40.680 I don't have an opinion.

00:01:41.660 You guys already know my opinion.

00:01:43.220 You guys know that I've had Dave Smith on and that I agree with him on foreign policy.

00:01:47.180 So to keep this discussion productive, I'm just going to be as quiet as possible.

00:01:51.800 Not an easy task for me.

00:01:53.180 Not an easy task at all.

00:01:54.080 But I want to make sure that we're not accidentally tipping the scales, and occasionally I'm just going to say bad and mean stuff to Dave Smith just to make it easy.

00:02:03.100 All right, guys, thank you so much for joining me.

00:02:06.320 Thank you, Candace.

00:02:07.000 Thank you, and congratulations on the success of the new show.

00:02:10.720 It's awesome to say.

00:02:12.180 Whoop, whoop.

00:02:12.800 We can't cancel, Candace.

00:02:13.980 So, Ami, I do want to start with you because you and I had an offline discussion about really how not productive my discussion was with other people that I had on the show that I was not intending to.

00:02:23.260 People were upset with me thinking that I had sort of intentionally had on, like, a rabid pro-Israel voice.

00:02:28.400 I'm going after Rabbi Shmuley, and most people agree left and right that he's a, you know, an interesting person, so to speak.

00:02:35.060 And the truth was I was really only having Rabbi Barclay on because he had personally written an article about me, not because I think that he's the most logical pro-Israel voice or that he gets it right all the time.

00:02:45.760 I don't think he does.

00:02:46.960 So I do want to offer you an opportunity right here at the beginning.

00:02:50.620 We're seeing right now the media sort of saying that any critique of Israel as a foreign nation kind of registers as a critique of all Jews across the world, which makes it easy to call people anti-Semitic if they disagree with Bibi Netanyahu.

00:03:04.780 So I just want to hear your take on that.

00:03:07.220 Sure.

00:03:07.500 Yes.

00:03:07.780 Thank you.

00:03:08.160 I think that there's always a better way I maintain when there's disagreements to lend themselves to conversations and coming in good faith and understanding your opponent's positions actually and actually what they've said before coming into any conversation.

00:03:21.740 So there's conversations you've had since our conversation that I want to clear up, but also with regard to criticism, the idea that it's not that any criticism of Israel is being labeled as anti-Semitic.

00:03:35.980 But the point is that there's a lot of disproportionate criticism, the signaling out the double standard that Israel's being subjected to.

00:03:43.480 That is grounds for that, I do believe.

00:03:45.400 And I think that there is a catch-22 that happens in the anti-Semitism game where someone can make an incendiary comment, an anti-Semitic remark, and then the Jewish community calls it out.

00:03:56.880 And they say, well, you see, Jews are trying to control me.

00:03:59.280 You see, they're trying to control the speech.

00:04:00.920 And so it almost becomes an impossible task to combat effectively.

00:04:05.380 And I said this in our last conversation that to call things that are not anti-Semitic, anti-Semitic is incredibly unproductive and wrong.

00:04:11.400 And it's almost like a cry wolf scenario.

00:04:13.340 But when we do see things that are anti-Semitic and we call it out or problematic comments that embolden anti-Semitism, a catch-22 forms where I've seen it all over Twitter, too, where people say disgusting things about Jews.

00:04:24.460 They couch it sometimes in criticism of Israel.

00:04:26.840 And no one can deny that there's a lot of anti-Semites that disguise themselves in anti-Zionist rhetoric.

00:04:32.680 And they say these things.

00:04:33.840 And then when the Jewish community calls it out because they say these Jews are trying to control our narrative, control our speech, then we call it out.

00:04:38.720 They say, you see, you see, you see, and then proceed to double down.

00:04:41.480 And it just continues to spiral.

00:04:42.920 So it leaves the voices who want to speak out productively and constructively about this fairly stuck.

00:04:48.880 And in a world post-October 7th, when we see a rise of anti-Semitic incidences simply because Israel is in a war, and then you see thousands of people, mobs of crowds in the street cheering Intifada revolution, Al Qassam, here are your next targets, protesting at the Nova exhibit where Jews were slaughtered on October 7th.

00:05:07.560 I was there two hours before that with a cohort of comedians visiting.

00:05:10.940 When you're seeing these things and then you see a rise of anti-Semitism, I think rhetoric that contributes to that, we need to be able to open our ears and eyes to understand that being aware of these things and calling it out is not trying to control or censor.

00:05:26.740 And it is a real thing, even though in the past it may have been an exaggeration.

00:05:30.280 What do you think, Dave?

00:05:32.140 Well, I guess I agree to some extent.

00:05:36.780 I mean, I think that there's certainly, like, I see a lot of Jew-hating stuff on Twitter.

00:05:43.040 And I do think that you, when you're Jewish, you kind of can't, you can't win.

00:05:49.520 Like, you make a fair point there.

00:05:51.060 It's like, you know, I've heard, there was one thing that I got tagged in where it was like, you know, like a whole list of, like, political commentators with the star of David, you know, behind it.

00:06:01.180 And it was like, first off, they just got a bunch wrong, like a bunch of people who just aren't Jewish were put on there.

00:06:05.500 But then they had, like, me and Glenn Greenwald and Max Blumenthal and, like, a bunch of other people.

00:06:11.120 And you're like, yeah, but we're all, like, the sharpest critics of Israel.

00:06:14.500 And they're like, yeah, but you see, that's the Jewish game.

00:06:17.080 It's like, you control both sides of the, so it just becomes this thing where it's like, oh, okay, so if I was pro-Israel, that's proof that there's a Jewish conspiracy.

00:06:25.280 If I'm critical of Israel, that's also proof that there's a Jewish conspiracy.

00:06:28.960 So my feeling on that is just kind of it's a losing game, and I find it stupid, and I just, yeah, I mean, I totally don't like seeing that stuff.

00:06:40.160 I do think that the difference is that these are kind of, for the most part, random Twitter comments, and it's hard to know what's really going on there.

00:06:50.380 Is this somebody trolling?

00:06:52.280 Is this a 15-year-old?

00:06:55.380 I mean, like, I have no idea what it really is behind that.

00:06:58.960 Whereas when it comes to actual people who are known, who are making these arguments, I don't, I just don't see almost anybody.

00:07:13.580 I mean, I don't know, you know, correct me if I'm wrong.

00:07:15.460 Maybe there's someone I'm not thinking of.

00:07:16.620 But I see people like Candace, who, from everything I've seen, bends over backward to be like, hey, I am not talking about Jews here.

00:07:25.320 I have nothing but love for Jewish people.

00:07:26.940 I've grown up around Jewish people.

00:07:28.520 I see – that's what I see for the most part, that people that then still just get called anti-Semitic.

00:07:34.000 And so, you know, I do – where I would probably disagree a little bit is that I think the idea that if you are critical – I mean, look, Douglas Murray just had a debate at the Monk debate the other day.

00:07:45.520 His argument is that being anti-Zionist is being anti-Semitic.

00:07:49.520 And it's remarkable to watch people like Douglas Murray just become woke leftists when they – well, anti-Semitism is a shape-shifting virus.

00:07:59.940 And if you say anything critical of Israel now, you now own the entire history of hating Jewish people or something like that.

00:08:06.780 The truth is that there definitely is more criticism of Israel than there are of other governments, other countries.

00:08:17.440 Far worse governments too, I would say.

00:08:20.020 Yeah, but there's also – perhaps.

00:08:22.720 There's also a lot of reasons why that's the case other than the fact that it's a Jewish state.

00:08:28.000 And we could get into what all of those are.

00:08:30.700 But you could talk about worse governments.

00:08:33.380 There is something very unique about the relationship between the United States of America and Israel as it pertains to our foreign policy, particularly over the last 20 years, which has been catastrophic for not just our nation but every nation involved.

00:08:48.200 There's also something different about a war, which I hesitate to even use the word at times because I'm not sure that's the correct word for what we've seen over the last eight months.

00:08:57.740 There's – I don't know if I can think of another example around the world, again, correct me if I'm wrong, where a captive, permanently stateless refugee group of people are just being just mass slaughtered.

00:09:12.480 A group of people who do not have a military of their own, do not have a government of their own, are completely captive and have been ruled by Israel since 1967.

00:09:22.020 That's also unique.

00:09:25.500 And so I think there's a lot at work here.

00:09:27.920 I'm not going to argue that people hating Jews is not an element at all amongst anyone.

00:09:33.300 But at the same time, it's like if you, you know, if you are for border restrictions, you might attract some people who don't much like Mexicans.

00:09:42.880 And if you're for DEI, you're going to attract some people who don't much like white people.

00:09:47.600 And if you're critical of Israel, you also probably will attract some people who don't like Jews.

00:09:51.840 Because all of this to me is kind of irrelevant to the real question, which is what Israel is doing to Gaza over the last eight months and whether or not this is acceptable and whether or not we should be funding and arming this conflict.

00:10:06.660 That's a great, great question, and I would love to hear Ami's response to it.

00:10:10.420 You know, when you and I first spoke, Ami, it was only a few weeks, I think, after October 7th, and I think that we had a really great discussion.

00:10:16.080 Somehow I was still called anti-Semitic after it, and I was going – I thought that was such a productive discussion.

00:10:20.620 I learned so much, and I thought it was good and healthy for people to hear the pro-Israel side.

00:10:23.780 I was called a lot of things in the comments, too, but fair enough.

00:10:26.360 Yeah, yeah, they just sort of like – I thought it did both of us a disservice.

00:10:29.940 I was very proud of the discussion because I was coming from it in very good faith, and I know that you were as well.

00:10:34.900 And so I think that much has changed, I think.

00:10:37.540 People were floating around.

00:10:38.940 This is a genocide.

00:10:39.800 I don't think that matters.

00:10:40.860 We don't need to get hung up on the verbiage.

00:10:42.520 Do you believe that the response to the October 7th attacks has been equal, overboard, and also what would you say is an equal or an overboard response?

00:10:57.600 Well, first of all, Dave, I know I'll just say I know you wanted to debate Douglas Murray, but here you have him.

00:11:01.820 It's the next best thing, okay?

00:11:03.680 Everything Dave said is utter nonsense.

00:11:06.260 From the get, you know, people of your ilk.

00:11:08.600 But anyway, you know, this is what happens when you get two comedians to talk serious as well.

00:11:13.680 Yeah, for you, maybe.

00:11:15.340 Anyway, I'm a huge Douglas Murray fan, and I think he did an awesome job.

00:11:19.580 But for the record, I'll just say this.

00:11:21.260 A couple of things just to what Dave said, and then I'll address your question, Candace, because I think – Dave, would you concede that this – you know, you don't like the word war.

00:11:29.120 I don't like the word conflict because I think there's a fundamental flaw in presuming that Israel and its enemies are – and I'm using this word carefully –

00:11:38.260 moral equals in the sense in terms of the values that Israel tries to uphold, the state it tries to create,

00:11:43.740 which confuses me about your position in the sense that you're someone who's always fighting for individual rights and sovereignty

00:11:49.280 and that these governments, the whole purpose of government in and of itself is to protect those rights to the best of its ability.

00:11:56.520 That's what its primary function is.

00:11:58.260 And to the extent, to the degree to which Israel does that, better than any other area in the region,

00:12:03.600 I would think that at least morally, sympathetically, your solidarity or whatever you want to call it,

00:12:10.080 your advocacy, your opinion on this would lie more so with what Israel has to go through

00:12:14.560 because it's fighting regimes that do not share any of those values at all,

00:12:18.500 any of our values that are here today in terms of tolerance, individual rights,

00:12:21.860 these kinds of things that Israel, although it's imperfect, is a Western democracy.

00:12:26.340 So it always shocks me when I see people who are principled in your position not see that or side with that.

00:12:33.780 And I know you haven't fully condemned Israel fully, but like – and I've seen other interviews

00:12:38.240 where you do defend what Israel is – you know, the virtues of Israel.

00:12:41.280 But at the same time, I always find that very surprising because the values that you uphold

00:12:45.480 and say are fighting for on behalf of the Palestinians, it doesn't seem to me that there are regimes that represent them

00:12:51.340 and a lot of people in those populations don't uphold those values themselves or those desires themselves.

00:12:55.660 So seeing it through a Western American lens, you know, there's a hierarchy of values here

00:12:59.320 and it seems that the real motivating factor in this war is it's not a geographical or political dispute

00:13:05.500 or a conflict that presumes two sides are fighting as moral equals, but rather an ideological one

00:13:10.940 in which Israel is fighting regimes that are genocidal, that wish to see its destruction because it's a Jewish state,

00:13:17.480 because of not just the – not just it is a Jewish state, but Jews worldwide, and they've been very explicit about that.

00:13:23.300 So it confuses me that we impose this idea that everybody just wants the same thing

00:13:27.820 and we have to just work this out, you know, as a geographical dispute with all that messy history.

00:13:32.840 What's always seemed to me been animating this before any occupation of any territory even existed

00:13:37.240 was a deep-seated hatred for Jews, the Jewish people, and the Jewish state.

00:13:41.460 So even if people critical of Israel aren't anti-Jewish, the people Israel's directly fighting certainly are.

00:13:46.220 Okay, that is interesting.

00:13:49.760 So I only want to say that because I did have – and I'm interjecting here –

00:13:53.040 I did have a conversation with someone whose parents were forced out in, I want to say, 1945.

00:14:00.480 Is that the correct year?

00:14:01.680 48, yeah.

00:14:02.380 And it definitely – I don't think every person that has an issue with Israel

00:14:09.000 is being guided necessarily by this idea that it's just Jewish people.

00:14:13.240 I mean, some of these people were actually living there and had accepted Jewish refugees

00:14:17.540 into their home.

00:14:18.880 One Palestinian is coming to mind, Mohammed Hadid, who – they were allowing these refugees

00:14:25.420 to live there for two years.

00:14:26.640 They went out one day, came back, and the locks were changed.

00:14:29.320 And they said – this is, again, I'm telling you what Mohammed Hadid told me.

00:14:32.760 You're not allowed to come back here.

00:14:34.140 Your home is being taken over.

00:14:35.220 If you come back, they will shoot you and kill you.

00:14:36.820 So I think some people are being motivated by the – what they perceive to be the historical

00:14:42.360 injustice.

00:14:43.140 Do you think that that's a fair assessment to say that some people aren't just looking

00:14:47.140 at this as these are the Jews or looking at this as these are people who took our homeland

00:14:50.720 and it's not fair?

00:14:53.060 Or do you think it has changed over the years?

00:14:54.680 I think what's always fundamentally – like there are marginal issues and there are fundamental

00:14:58.860 issues.

00:14:59.240 And I'm not denying that innocent Palestinians suffered as a result of all this.

00:15:02.620 And I think, you know, you could play a suffering Olympics all day long and keep going back

00:15:07.120 and keep playing this game all day over who – you know, atrocities that have been committed

00:15:11.220 across the board throughout history.

00:15:12.440 That's not unique to the foundations and formings of any state.

00:15:15.180 But I think that as far as what's fundamental here is not that there's this thirst and desire

00:15:23.840 to create a Palestinian state, but rather to destroy the Jewish one.

00:15:29.220 Dave?

00:15:29.780 Okay, let me address a bunch of that stuff.

00:15:33.380 So I think – look, when you say – okay, so like I'm a libertarian and I believe in

00:15:40.160 freedom and government should, if it exists at all, only be there to protect property and

00:15:46.040 natural rights.

00:15:47.700 So, look, if you were to say, like, let's compare the United States of America to Saddam

00:15:57.200 Hussein's Iraq, which society would I rather live in?

00:16:01.480 Which society do I think is more moral?

00:16:03.780 Which government, you know, was less oppressive?

00:16:06.680 Okay, obviously the answer is the United States of America, but – or at least to its own

00:16:11.940 people who were probably a lot more oppressive to other countries.

00:16:15.440 But that's totally irrelevant to whether I'd have solidarity with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

00:16:21.700 The question is, who's right in this conflict?

00:16:25.240 Were you justified in invading and destroying and killing a million people there?

00:16:29.980 And the answer is no.

00:16:31.500 And so it doesn't matter.

00:16:33.040 Like, it's just totally irrelevant to the conflict.

00:16:35.280 Now, it's not irrelevant to how you feel about the country as a whole, but if you're talking

00:16:39.840 about the war in Iraq, I'm not going to go like, well, you know, you know, George W. Bush is not

00:16:45.760 as brutal as Saddam Hussein, therefore I have some solidarity with him.

00:16:49.220 It's like, no, he's destroying a nation of people.

00:16:51.560 He has no right to do this.

00:16:52.680 And by the way, he's also greatly degrading my country.

00:16:55.140 Now, as far as the rest of your characterization of Israel, I just – I think it's totally

00:17:01.880 unfair and not in line with the history, and it's kind of circular reasoning.

00:17:07.960 Like, you're like, well, but don't you – you know, Israel's the good guy, so how

00:17:12.300 come you don't support the good guy?

00:17:13.560 Wouldn't you be more sympathetic to them because they're the good guy?

00:17:15.840 It's like, well, no, but that's – look, Israel is not a Western democracy.

00:17:19.960 They're just not.

00:17:20.880 And they don't get to play this card anymore.

00:17:22.420 Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

00:17:29.220 They haven't occupied them for a few months after a war or even a few years after the war.

00:17:34.680 They've occupied them for nearly 60 years, for longer than the Soviet Union occupied all

00:17:39.940 of Eastern Europe.

00:17:41.220 And none of the people in those territories have any voting rights whatsoever.

00:17:47.940 So how can you call yourself a democracy?

00:17:49.520 By the way, I don't even – I'm not that into democracy.

00:17:52.880 I understand.

00:17:53.320 I don't really care about voting rights.

00:17:55.060 My beef is that they have no natural rights whatsoever.

00:17:58.060 But you don't get to just hold 5 million people captive for nearly 60 years with no voting

00:18:05.100 rights and claim to be a democracy.

00:18:07.260 That's an apartheid regime.

00:18:08.740 And so I don't – listen, the fact is, and many – just to your other point because

00:18:14.380 there were a few there.

00:18:15.280 Sure.

00:18:16.100 Many Israelis at the highest level of government have admitted this for many, many years from

00:18:22.020 Moshe Dayan to Barack, all up and down, a bunch of former prime ministers who admitted

00:18:29.720 it was Ehud Barack who said, if I was a young Palestinian, I'd be a terrorist too.

00:18:34.600 And it's not because they are just all possessed by evil and Jew hatred.

00:18:41.720 The truth is that the creation of Israel, however you feel about it, involved three-quarters

00:18:47.620 of a million Palestinians being kicked off of their land.

00:18:53.180 And then after 1967, they've been occupied by a foreign military ever since.

00:18:59.200 It is the most human thing in the world that you would develop hatred for the people who

00:19:03.100 did that to you.

00:19:03.720 There is no group of people anywhere, including the three of us, who would not develop a burning

00:19:09.280 hatred for the foreign military that is policing your streets, kidnapping your people whenever

00:19:16.940 they feel like it, killing your people with zero consequences.

00:19:21.700 I mean, you know, imagine the – you know, this government – look, the Likud party, Benjamin

00:19:27.600 Netanyahu's party, which is – he is the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Israel.

00:19:33.160 Israel was founded by who?

00:19:36.340 Menachem Begin, a literal terrorist.

00:19:39.420 That's what Israel did with their terrorists.

00:19:41.440 They elected them prime minister.

00:19:43.440 Who wouldn't – how could you possibly live in Gaza or the West Bank and not hate Israel?

00:19:48.320 Okay.

00:19:48.960 Can I respond?

00:19:50.220 Sure.

00:19:50.560 Yeah.

00:19:50.820 Oh, yeah, of course.

00:19:51.360 So there's a lot there.

00:19:52.800 I mean, I appreciate we're letting each other go for a little while because I appreciate

00:19:55.840 your perspective.

00:19:56.460 But you mentioned the word invasion.

00:19:58.980 And if we bring it to here and now and we talk about what happened on October 7th, because

00:20:02.780 we are talking about this current military campaign, just to kind of hone in on specific

00:20:06.640 points in history for a minute, because we can deliberate all of the history that you

00:20:10.420 mentioned and alluded to, and it can take up three hours.

00:20:12.860 But if we're just talking about here and now, right now, and trying to solve these problems,

00:20:16.480 on October 7th, who invaded who?

00:20:19.080 And did they invade occupied territory?

00:20:21.400 Or did they invade sovereign kibbutzim of individuals and deliberately target their

00:20:25.940 civilians because they were Jews?

00:20:28.280 Let's remember the terrorists that called his parents on October 7th, and they have

00:20:32.500 an audio recording of it saying, mommy, mommy, daddy, daddy.

00:20:36.000 He didn't say, I got our house back.

00:20:37.600 I got our property back.

00:20:38.600 Guess what?

00:20:38.960 I liberated Palestine.

00:20:39.980 He said, mom, dad, I killed 10 Jews with my bare hands.

00:20:44.080 And they scream in pride and elation.

00:20:46.540 They took Israeli babies that are still being held hostage today.

00:20:49.720 The reason they're doing it because they're animated by Jew hatred.

00:20:53.060 And I think to be naive to that is incredibly dangerous.

00:20:56.380 And it misses the entire motivation behind what Israel's facing.

00:21:01.800 This occupation of these places that you mentioned, first of all, Israel leaving Gaza in 2005,

00:21:07.940 2006, leaving it to every effort, in other words, for Israel to give land back and minimize

00:21:15.580 what you call the occupation, which I think is a false term.

00:21:18.120 And we can talk about that because occupation refers to one sovereign nation illegally occupying

00:21:24.120 an existing sovereign nation, of which there was no such thing when it came to Palestine.

00:21:27.960 I know the geography was called Palestine.

00:21:29.600 And I say that just as a point of preference to say that a lot of the language in this conversation

00:21:33.780 is deceptive.

00:21:34.760 It's not just a propagandistic talking point.

00:21:37.140 But I think saying terms like that gives people this false narrative impression that

00:21:41.140 a sovereign state of Palestine that was independent and had its own leadership and

00:21:45.000 its own independence was usurped by Israel in what you alluded to today, leaving out what

00:21:50.680 actually happened in the formation of Israel in that the refugee crisis was largely caused

00:21:54.620 by the fact that a lot of the Arab nations did not want the creation of a Jewish state

00:21:58.300 and sought to destroy it upon its formation.

00:22:01.100 And so we can't just start the story in the middle.

00:22:03.620 So fundamentally, you can say it's the occupation that's leading to all this terrorism.

00:22:08.360 And I know you're not excusing the actions of the terrorists.

00:22:10.900 Some people have tried to throw your way.

00:22:12.320 I'm not saying you're saying that, but you're saying that there's a context here.

00:22:15.580 And I would say, yeah, it didn't start on October 7th, but it didn't start in 67 or 48 either.

00:22:19.580 There were massacres of Jews in the 20s.

00:22:21.560 In Hebron, there were massacres and tensions between these two people and hatred going on

00:22:25.220 in the Islamic world going back to the beginning.

00:22:28.680 If you go to protests today and you hear chants in Arabic, they're not saying two states side

00:22:33.540 by side, liberation for the West Bank, for a free state of Palestine alongside Israel.

00:22:37.740 They're saying, Chebar, Chebar, Yari Yahud.

00:22:40.700 And what is that reference to?

00:22:41.740 Chebar, Chebar, Yari Yahud?

00:22:43.180 The battle of Chebar in which Muhammad came across the Jews and he gave them a choice, convert to

00:22:47.580 Islam or submit and become dimmies and second class citizens.

00:22:51.220 And this is what's animated the entire region and the expulsion of Jews throughout all of

00:22:54.900 the Arab countries in the Arab world.

00:22:56.720 And so the need for a sense of Jewish safety in the region, I think, is super important

00:23:01.440 and not to be discounted.

00:23:02.820 And my fundamental point is that I do not think it's occupation that leads to terrorism.

00:23:07.620 It's terrorism that leads to occupation.

00:23:10.580 In other words, the only reason these things perpetuate is because Israel is continually attacked.

00:23:14.500 And if you want the solution to stop, you have to have goodwill on the Palestinian side to

00:23:18.460 commit to not wanting to kill the Jews in Israel and attack them.

00:23:21.900 And I think leaving Gaza in 2005 was a perfect example of that.

00:23:25.200 What did happen?

00:23:26.380 We, you know, I know you've heard these points before, Dave, that greenhouses and infrastructure

00:23:29.280 were left there.

00:23:30.160 Hamas takes over, kills their political opponents, fellow Muslims, Fatah, and establishes

00:23:35.420 a terrorist statelet using all the international aid and funding to fire rockets and attack at

00:23:39.520 Israel.

00:23:40.060 Invade Israel on October 7th, breaking a ceasefire.

00:23:42.400 So accountability, I'm not denying suffering of what you're talking about for local populations,

00:23:47.160 but who's accountable for that?

00:23:49.360 And at a certain point, you can't say Israel is.

00:23:51.940 Okay.

00:23:52.380 So thank you so much.

00:23:53.500 And I want to ask a question back to you, Ami, Dave.

00:23:55.280 I know you're going to have a lot to respond to with that.

00:23:56.980 But again, I am, I want to be very clear.

00:24:00.460 Of the three of us, I know the least about the history, which is why I think it's important

00:24:03.800 to let you two talk.

00:24:05.100 Ami, just, I want, I do keep hearing this point over and over again that, you know, it wasn't

00:24:09.200 a state, meaning like, you know, this was just some territory, but people lived here

00:24:12.780 and my family is St. Tomian.

00:24:14.700 And I just think, you know, they've lived in generations upon generations in St. Thomas.

00:24:18.780 It's not officially a state.

00:24:19.900 It's a U.S. territory.

00:24:21.500 So is your thought process, I guess we're talking about Puerto Rico or we're talking

00:24:25.820 about St. Thomas, that if the U.S. wanted to right now, they could say, hey, we're giving

00:24:30.980 St. Thomas to Jewish people in Israel, give up your houses.

00:24:35.060 We're not going to give you any money.

00:24:36.760 Get out or you'll get shot.

00:24:38.620 And then your, your thought process is, hey, listen, you're not a nation.

00:24:42.800 Like you're, you're not a nation.

00:24:44.140 It's like this.

00:24:45.040 I know you've been living here for a long time.

00:24:46.820 Could you clarify that?

00:24:47.560 I don't want to misrepresent.

00:24:48.360 Yeah, I am not saying that and I'm not saying there, I think the whole essence of creating

00:24:53.220 Israel in a 1947 partition plan was that there were native peoples living there, Jewish and

00:24:59.220 Arab alike, and no one disputes that native people live there.

00:25:01.760 I'm simply dispelling a false narrative.

00:25:04.180 And I think a lot of people fall into that who aren't informed on this issue when you

00:25:07.380 talk to people, that there was this prosperous, free, independent state of Palestine with its

00:25:12.440 own sovereignty, with not in the context of under a British mandate and previously under

00:25:17.300 an Ottoman Empire.

00:25:18.480 And at a time when the whole region was being carved up by the Western powers and figuring

00:25:22.320 out what to do with the native peoples where there was tension, I'm not disputing that they

00:25:27.120 were present, but I'm just, I'm saying it to be very precise in getting the history right,

00:25:32.100 because I think it's often misrepresented.

00:25:34.320 And I don't know what Dave feels about that, but I'm being very particular and narrow in

00:25:38.300 specifying that because I think a lot of this conversation about this topic is so co-opted

00:25:44.140 by false words and language that's very confusing and deceptive.

00:25:47.380 But you would agree that telling people that have purchased a home and are living there

00:25:51.600 irrespective of the politics, that they have to get out without even giving them money,

00:25:55.800 because I actually was very surprised, Lauren, if they didn't get anything in return, I thought

00:25:59.040 maybe they wrote them a check and were like, get out.

00:26:01.560 I think we would all principally agree that that first thing is wrong morally.

00:26:06.020 Do you agree with that or not really?

00:26:07.400 Yeah, I can understand that position.

00:26:09.580 But I'm just saying at the time, the reason for a refugee crisis, and we can debate the

00:26:15.400 history and our accounts of this, is that if you accept that there's also a Jewish legitimate

00:26:22.920 claim to the ancestral homeland in Israel, and a priority to create a Jewish safe haven

00:26:27.940 for Jews, given what had happened to Jews historically in Nazi Germany and the Arab world,

00:26:32.960 not at the expense of local populations and to displace them.

00:26:36.400 The reason they were displaced is because of a refusal to accept a Jewish state and Jewish

00:26:40.400 sovereignty, and what followed were attack after attack after attack from the surrounding

00:26:45.700 Arab nations with the aim of destroying the Jewish state, not with the aim of creating

00:26:49.460 free Palestine.

00:26:51.360 Okay, thank you so much for clarifying that.

00:26:53.120 And I want to let you, Dave, now reply.

00:26:54.380 I know, sorry, he said a lot, and then I just wanted to, because I'm learning with you

00:26:57.920 guys, so I'm kind of going to ask questions.

00:26:59.500 Yeah, well, look, I mean, as far as the idea that there wasn't a Palestinian state, I do find

00:27:05.920 this to just be one of the weakest arguments.

00:27:08.240 I mean, human beings have natural rights.

00:27:10.320 This is the foundation of Western civilization is that your rights are not derived from whether

00:27:15.180 or not you have a government, and that people were there.

00:27:18.660 People were living in those homes.

00:27:20.240 They had homesteaded the area.

00:27:21.820 They had property rights.

00:27:23.180 They had natural rights.

00:27:24.080 And they were violently evicted from the place that they had been living for hundreds of

00:27:28.480 years, if not thousands of years.

00:27:30.340 And that's wrong.

00:27:32.520 And there's really no dispute here, because even if some of them just fled, which is true,

00:27:38.180 some of them fled.

00:27:38.980 Some of them were violently evicted.

00:27:40.520 Some of them fled because they saw how violently evicted others were.

00:27:43.480 But they weren't allowed to return.

00:27:45.160 And Israel had no right to do that.

00:27:46.820 But Dave, do you agree that there didn't exist?

00:27:49.120 Just to get clarification, do you agree that there didn't exist a sovereign state of Palestine

00:27:53.260 in the way we recognize countries today?

00:27:55.500 Yeah, but that's not even a debatable point.

00:27:57.520 Yes, that's true.

00:27:58.340 I think a lot of people think that.

00:27:59.720 I think a lot of people do think that.

00:28:01.300 I'm saying I think it's completely irrelevant.

00:28:03.240 I understand.

00:28:03.660 Yes, it's true that there wasn't a sovereign government known as Palestine.

00:28:08.920 They were ruled by the British under the League of Nations mandate.

00:28:12.640 And then before that, for 400 years or so, they were ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

00:28:16.500 Um, all of that is irrelevant to me.

00:28:19.760 And especially in the United States of America, it's just kind of, you know, like this was

00:28:23.740 like the Putin logic that he opened his Tucker Carlson show with.

00:28:26.860 There's something about, you know, like who has historic claim over these different territories.

00:28:31.200 I guess the British have historic claim over us, but we don't care because we wrote the

00:28:35.300 Declaration of Independence and said, screw you.

00:28:37.660 We're not doing that anymore.

00:28:38.840 We have rights.

00:28:39.640 God gave them to us.

00:28:40.780 But there's a bunch of stuff here that I want to talk about.

00:28:44.360 So, again, the question isn't whether they had a state or not.

00:28:47.580 The question is that Israel has been militarily occupying these people.

00:28:51.500 Now, in 1947, when the UN had their partition recommendation, they made a recommendation.

00:28:58.500 The General Assembly had no authority whatsoever to just go around carving up countries and deciding

00:29:04.000 whose territory was what.

00:29:05.500 They made a recommendation.

00:29:07.020 And then the Zionist settlers decided to violently enforce that.

00:29:11.840 Now, obviously, a lot of people, a lot of the Palestinians rejected it.

00:29:15.820 And for very legitimate reasons, in hindsight, maybe it would have been better if they accepted

00:29:20.240 that.

00:29:20.680 Maybe not.

00:29:21.760 However, they were they were granted 54 percent of the land in this recommendation.

00:29:28.320 After the war in 1948, they took 78 percent of the land.

00:29:33.880 After the war in 1967, they took 100 percent of it.

00:29:37.560 What every single peace proposal has been based around, going all the way back to the first

00:29:44.760 Camp David, through the Oslo Accords, through Camp David in 2000, to every time there's been

00:29:50.200 a serious negotiation about a two-state solution, it's always been that last 22 percent.

00:29:57.020 You're talking about Gaza and the West Bank.

00:30:00.040 No one, aside from what some dumb college student might be hollering or what someone on Twitter

00:30:05.460 might say, there is never been a serious conversation about from the river to the sea, about the

00:30:11.060 Palestinians actually get even the right of return stuff is always whittled down to like

00:30:15.540 a very small number of Palestinians who could maybe come back to where they used to live.

00:30:20.380 But we're talking about the final 22 percent that Israel has absolutely no claim to.

00:30:26.820 No claim.

00:30:27.760 That's what Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas believe from the river to the sea.

00:30:31.700 That's what Israel's fighting.

00:30:33.460 I'm sorry.

00:30:33.800 I just want a point of clarification.

00:30:36.060 Okay, one second.

00:30:36.880 Hamas has actually, in the past, agreed, said they recognize Israel under 1967 borders.

00:30:42.360 That may not be what they're saying right now at the moment, but just to be clear, they

00:30:45.680 have said that before.

00:30:46.680 Again, I'm not just talking about the dreams of some terrorist group that can never come

00:30:51.520 true.

00:30:52.100 You know, Osama bin Laden also wanted worldwide Sharia law.

00:30:55.320 That wasn't probably going to happen, though, okay?

00:30:57.560 So anyway, this is what's been going on in every single negotiation.

00:31:02.180 The entire global community, including every single United States president of my lifetime,

00:31:09.500 knows that Israel has no claim to that last 22 percent.

00:31:12.300 It is not theirs.

00:31:13.620 It's not theirs to give.

00:31:15.160 It ought not be their decision whether the Palestinians get a state or not.

00:31:19.080 It's not their territory.

00:31:20.760 That's why they're the occupying force.

00:31:23.200 Now, I just want to mention, because this is something that I know the pro-Israel side

00:31:27.980 always loves to brag about, that, well, we disengaged with Gaza in 2005.

00:31:34.080 A little interesting note about that that never, very rarely comes up, is that Benjamin

00:31:39.560 Netanyahu resigned over the disengagement.

00:31:43.040 This was in Sharon's government, and he resigned over it because he was so against it.

00:31:47.100 So, by the way, the guy who's in there now, the longest-serving prime minister in

00:31:50.520 Israeli history, resigned over this disengagement.

00:31:53.840 Well, because it worked out so well, Dave, in the long run?

00:31:56.800 No, no, no.

00:31:57.020 To disengage?

00:31:58.260 No, he resigned when they did it.

00:32:00.740 Yeah, he was against doing it.

00:32:03.400 Right.

00:32:04.180 And how did it work out to disengage from Gaza for Israel's security?

00:32:06.960 Hold on, hold on.

00:32:07.520 Why do you think they did it?

00:32:08.960 What's that?

00:32:09.840 Why did they do it?

00:32:10.940 Why did they disengage from Gaza?

00:32:12.320 Mm-hmm.

00:32:12.940 Yeah.

00:32:13.100 They pulled out 8,000 people from Gaza because it wasn't worth the protection of that settlement

00:32:18.120 to give an experiment in good faith and good will to see if a Palestinian state could be

00:32:22.860 created?

00:32:23.480 Okay, let me read you a quote.

00:32:25.260 Go ahead.

00:32:25.580 Okay, this is Doug Weisglass, who was the senior advisor to Sharon and his government when

00:32:31.680 they pulled out of Gaza.

00:32:32.760 Here's why they did it.

00:32:33.640 Uh-huh.

00:32:34.720 Quote,

00:32:35.080 And all of this with authority and permission, all with a presidential blessing and the ratification

00:33:03.240 of both houses of Congress.

00:33:05.320 Of course, he's speaking about our government, not the Israeli government.

00:33:08.960 I continue with the quote.

00:33:10.480 The disengagement is actually formaldehyde.

00:33:12.980 It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political

00:33:18.040 process with the Palestinians.

00:33:19.940 The disengagement plan makes it possible for Israel to part conveniently in an interim situation

00:33:25.480 that distances us as far as possible from political pressure.

00:33:29.100 It legitimizes our contention that there is no negotiating with the Palestinians.

00:33:34.540 You know, you mentioned that they pulled out 8,000 settlers or so.

00:33:39.080 I think it was a little bit more than that, 8,500, something in that ballpark.

00:33:42.120 That same year-

00:33:42.760 And the graves.

00:33:43.640 Hold on.

00:33:44.100 Let me-

00:33:44.400 Go ahead.

00:33:44.560 That same year, they put 15,000 in the West Bank.

00:33:49.140 So this was never-

00:33:50.180 Now, by the way, they also-

00:33:51.980 If you could-

00:33:52.760 So they pulled the IDF forces out of Gaza and put them all on the perimeter.

00:33:57.680 They still controlled the amount of food, the amount of construction supplies, the amount

00:34:04.900 of medical supplies that could come in.

00:34:07.160 They controlled the airspace, the sea space.

00:34:09.360 This is why all the international human rights organizations all say the occupation never

00:34:13.620 ended.

00:34:14.220 In fact, life actually got worse for the people living in Gaza.

00:34:17.400 But just to be very clear, the Israelis were very explicit in their own words.

00:34:21.100 They did this to dead the peace process, which they had agreed to, to see through.

00:34:28.660 Because the Americans, as well as the entire global community, was like, you got to stop

00:34:33.620 eventually.

00:34:34.260 Well, okay-

00:34:34.700 You can't just occupy these people forever.

00:34:36.400 You just did something inadvertently I can't let you get away with when you read me a quote

00:34:39.820 of one person and then said, the Israelis did this.

00:34:42.960 There were a lot of people that were for the disengagement because they genuinely believed

00:34:46.880 that if we cede land to the Palestinians to give their own right to attempt to self-determine

00:34:52.320 and form a state, then we will get more peace.

00:34:54.320 And every attempt Israel has made to do that has led to more bloodshed and terrorism against

00:34:59.540 Israel following Oslo Accords, Second Intifada.

00:35:01.980 And as we've seen now, what happened in the last 18 years in Gaza, you cannot blame Israel

00:35:06.640 for-

00:35:07.240 Wait, wait.

00:35:07.720 I didn't interrupt.

00:35:08.480 You cannot blame Israel-

00:35:09.360 You did, but okay.

00:35:10.240 Keep going.

00:35:11.480 Once.

00:35:11.880 I gave you one.

00:35:12.760 I'll give you one.

00:35:13.240 You cannot blame Israel for a culture that is bred within Gaza, raising children every

00:35:18.500 day in kindergarten, as young as kindergarten, that they should aspire to become shahids

00:35:23.600 and martyrs and they should live the day that they can go into an Israeli cafe in Tel

00:35:27.740 Aviv and blow themselves up.

00:35:29.180 That is what they've been doing.

00:35:30.880 You cannot blame Israel for all the international aid that's coming to Gaza, that instead of being

00:35:35.040 used to invest in infrastructure and build up a prosperous state alongside Israel, instead

00:35:39.200 we're investing in terrorist tunnels, terrorist activities.

00:35:41.880 And destroying any chance of an actual free, prosperous society.

00:35:45.480 You can't blame Israel for wanting to secure its border.

00:35:48.500 And you can understand why they would be cautious when pulling out of Gaza.

00:35:53.080 And look at what happened 18 years later.

00:35:54.740 I think you're always starting the story in the middle.

00:35:56.700 You're saying, well, they pulled out and they were cautious and securing the border and

00:36:00.140 monitoring things.

00:36:01.060 And that's what caused the terrorism.

00:36:02.360 No, they were monitoring things because they were smuggling rockets into Israel in order

00:36:07.100 to attack them and using all the aid and materials to build rockets and weapons to constantly attack

00:36:12.460 and deliberately attack Israeli civilians.

00:36:15.860 Every rocket fired at Israel is indiscriminate with the intention of killing Israelis and maximizing

00:36:21.660 civilian casualties.

00:36:22.520 And so I think this moral equivalency that's being done is really disturbing to me in the

00:36:28.100 sense that Israel is not doing those things, even though there's a disproportionate in terms

00:36:32.080 of the numbers we can specify, we can get into those details.

00:36:34.840 But the point is, the disengagement, there may have been politicians who said, oh, this will

00:36:41.880 cause this, this will do this.

00:36:43.140 We can benefit from this in such and such way.

00:36:44.680 But you're taking all the agency away from the actual terrorist regimes that took over

00:36:49.440 and sought to destroy Israel as explicitly stated in their charter.

00:36:53.220 How can Israel be called the one who doesn't have the moral high ground here when they're

00:36:56.480 fighting against regimes that took over with the explicit goal of wiping out Israel and

00:37:00.940 all of the Jews?

00:37:02.040 I don't care what they said.

00:37:02.940 Something in 67 is some kind of tactic to try to get world pressure off of them.

00:37:07.020 But they benefit from this kind of apologists for what they're doing.

00:37:09.900 I think for saying that it's all Israel, it's all Israel's responsibility, this occupation

00:37:16.200 is perpetuated simply because of Israel.

00:37:19.280 It's been perpetuated because of Israeli security needs.

00:37:21.980 That's why it's perpetuated.

00:37:22.360 Okay, you're doing a lot of arguing with straw men here and not anything that I actually said.

00:37:27.140 So number one, I didn't pick a quote from some random Israeli.

00:37:30.700 I picked a quote from Sharon's senior advisor explaining why they embarked on the policy that

00:37:36.200 they did.

00:37:36.600 He didn't say, this is what I like about the disengagement plan.

00:37:40.140 He said, this is the purpose of the disengagement plan.

00:37:42.900 I'm sorry if you had, I don't know, Paul Wolfowitz on record telling you this is why the George

00:37:49.920 W. Bush administration did something.

00:37:51.800 That's not the same thing as just like some guy in Kansas said it.

00:37:55.160 I didn't just pick some random Israeli.

00:37:56.960 I picked a senior member of the government as they were doing this telling you what the

00:38:01.780 policy was about.

00:38:02.540 And in terms of this, like a lot of these are like the buzzwords that I hear in these

00:38:07.060 debates, moral equivalency.

00:38:08.740 I never said they were the same.

00:38:10.660 In fact, I think Israel's done much worse to the Palestinians than the Palestinians have

00:38:14.320 done to the Israelis.

00:38:15.280 So I'm not saying they're the same at all.

00:38:17.180 And in terms of, well, you can react.

00:38:20.280 It's kind of an objective fact.

00:38:22.140 But look.

00:38:22.880 No.

00:38:23.680 Intention and when evaluating morality matters a ton.

00:38:26.280 I mean, if I'm driving.

00:38:28.040 But you're just assuming what the intention is.

00:38:29.920 I'm reading you their words of what their intentions are.

00:38:32.160 But Dave, if I'm driving in my car and I accidentally lose control of the car, the brakes go out

00:38:36.960 and I kill 10 people versus if I'm driving my car and I see one person and I deliberately

00:38:41.420 run over them.

00:38:42.520 The latter case is a much worse human being deserving of condemnation, even though in

00:38:46.860 the first case, more people died.

00:38:48.620 And I think people look at numbers and they say, Israel must be the bad guy here because

00:38:51.340 of the disproportionate.

00:38:52.180 This is so disanalogous.

00:38:53.440 I mean, like, yes, obviously, there's a difference between vehicular manslaughter and first degree

00:38:59.560 murder.

00:39:00.760 However, and self-defense and murder, I would say.

00:39:03.200 Yeah.

00:39:03.560 And self-defense.

00:39:04.280 Listen, this is all the stuff.

00:39:05.620 It's like, look, self-defense, just to be very clear about this here, OK, to break down

00:39:10.160 kind of these terms.

00:39:11.240 If somebody broke into my house and points a gun at me and I shoot and kill that person,

00:39:17.800 I can say, hey, I acted in self-defense.

00:39:20.340 This guy was threatening me.

00:39:21.300 Right.

00:39:21.540 I, nobody would argue if an IDF soldier shot one of the Hamas militants on October 7th

00:39:27.940 in Israel, no one would be sitting here going like, oh my God, how could Israel do that?

00:39:31.800 That would be legit self-defense.

00:39:32.980 Don't say nobody, but yeah.

00:39:34.140 Hold on.

00:39:34.700 Let me just finish my point here.

00:39:36.260 Now, if you, nobody I think is pretty fair on that, but whatever.

00:39:39.940 Anyway, if someone broke into my house, kills a family member of mine, and then runs out

00:39:45.720 into the world and I go, I got to go get that guy because of self, I have to defend myself.

00:39:53.000 Now, that, I might have a right to go get that guy, but that's not self-defense.

00:39:58.260 That's not what self-defense is.

00:39:59.540 That would be justice.

00:40:01.280 That would be revenge.

00:40:02.420 What if he keeps firing at you?

00:40:04.320 Yeah.

00:40:04.560 Let me just finish my point, OK?

00:40:06.060 Because you just told me to not interrupt you.

00:40:08.120 So what we're talking about now, even if you're just talking about Israel going and getting

00:40:12.880 the people responsible for October 7th, that's not self-defense.

00:40:16.260 You can call it justice.

00:40:17.460 You can call it revenge, but it's something else.

00:40:19.700 Now, if that person who just came over in my house and killed one of my family members

00:40:23.860 goes back to his house, and I know that his kids, his wife, his aunt, his grandma are all

00:40:31.300 in there, and I say, I'm going to blow up the house and kill all of them because I want

00:40:35.940 to get that one guy who came over here and killed somebody, I have committed not vehicular

00:40:40.900 manslaughter, but murder in the first degree, cold-blooded murder, OK?

00:40:46.780 So I'm just saying, I know things are a little bit different when we're talking about different

00:40:51.300 countries, even though Gaza is not exactly a country, but I'm just saying, invoking self-defense

00:40:58.440 to justify what is actually murder in the first degree is just pure trickery.

00:41:04.420 Like, that's not a real comment on what's going on.

00:41:07.100 I think it is.

00:41:07.660 I can explain it.

00:41:08.360 You're not dealing with anyone's real objection.

00:41:09.740 OK, go ahead.

00:41:10.860 I would say you're stopping the continuation of things.

00:41:13.860 It's not just going into the house.

00:41:15.980 And this really boils down to, a lot of this conversation boils down to the morality of

00:41:19.840 war to begin with, because it's not just a bunch of random individuals fighting.

00:41:23.720 We have governments that have a responsibility to seek out justice and defend their citizens.

00:41:27.840 And I would say it's not just somebody committing a violent act against you, but threatening

00:41:32.400 to do so over and over again.

00:41:34.000 And under that duress, a threat of violence is just as justified to defend yourself as

00:41:38.080 actual violence in real time.

00:41:39.500 Would you agree to that?

00:41:40.800 No, not necessarily.

00:41:41.840 If I put a gun up and I say, I'm going to shoot you and I'm going to keep doing it,

00:41:44.940 you have a right to defend yourself.

00:41:46.060 Right.

00:41:46.760 But if a homeless guy on the street goes, I'm going to kill you and your whole family

00:41:52.660 and I just murder that guy, you'd be like, no, that's not justified just because he made

00:41:56.840 some threat that he has no ability to follow through on.

00:42:00.380 And so, no, it's not.

00:42:02.600 I understand that.

00:42:03.540 But I'm just to, yes, to continue my point, it's not that they just commit this act and

00:42:06.920 then go back to their business.

00:42:07.940 If they stay in that family's house, outfit the windows of that house so that they can

00:42:12.880 successfully shoot RPGs at soldiers trying to do special operations and trying to gather

00:42:17.620 intelligence, and they use these houses and create military installations out of these

00:42:22.240 homes, then you do have the right to, that is self-defense and blaming Hamas for putting

00:42:28.700 these people in harm's way, for implicating themselves and embedding themselves and exploiting

00:42:33.480 that asymmetry.

00:42:34.300 Um, and Israel makes efforts to minimize civilian casualties, but it's not accountable to Israel

00:42:38.500 to do that when it is fighting a war defense.

00:42:40.300 It's a good, it's a, first off, that does not describe the vast majority of the cases

00:42:44.620 of people being killed in Gaza, but okay, in that hypothetical, I think the way you put

00:42:49.860 it is an interesting one.

00:42:50.880 They're exploiting that asymmetry.

00:42:52.580 Yes.

00:42:52.720 That's right, because this is an asymmetrical war, okay?

00:42:56.040 Do you think Israel exploits the asymmetry at all?

00:42:58.860 Do you think they exploit the fact that they have way more power than the Palestinians?

00:43:02.900 Dave, Dave.

00:43:03.540 Do you think Israel, in terms of this claims about genocide and being leveled at Israel,

00:43:07.740 which I think is a smear, just think about it this way, Israel could level the place

00:43:13.240 tomorrow.

00:43:13.840 They could have done it on October 8th and 9th and leveled the entire country.

00:43:16.920 They could do it, but they won't do it.

00:43:19.440 And Hamas can't do it, but they would do it.

00:43:22.740 If they had the military capacity, they would kill every Israeli tomorrow.

00:43:26.000 Do you not agree with that?

00:43:26.760 Okay, so I just want to jump in here, because I do want to ask a question about that, because

00:43:30.660 I have shown aerial footage.

00:43:32.760 There have been Doctors Without Borders that have gone there that have worked in tons of

00:43:35.880 war zones and have written pieces saying that this is not a regular war.

00:43:41.080 Like, it looks like they are raising the place.

00:43:43.100 And when I see, again, of course, someone will always say, that's propaganda here.

00:43:46.520 But when I look at it, it does sort of look like they want these buildings fully collapsed.

00:43:53.680 And then it's not helpful to the pro-Israel side when Jared Kushner jumps up and talks about

00:43:58.280 how profitable the property would be.

00:44:00.360 And so I do want to jump into kind of what Israelis are currently protesting.

00:44:05.220 I actually got a phone call today from an Israeli newspaper who was saying we would like a comment

00:44:09.840 from Candace because the Israelis are believing that some of this was a false flag.

00:44:16.120 He had interviewed some Israelis on the ground, and they think that, you know, there's a

00:44:20.320 larger plan that's at bay.

00:44:21.540 Now, that sounds crazy, unless you read the Jerusalem Post article, which came out earlier

00:44:26.560 this week.

00:44:27.080 I covered it on my show, where they are saying that there is no question that the Israeli

00:44:32.900 government knew that Hamas was going to kidnap 250 people.

00:44:39.280 I want to read it to you verbatim here, because I don't want to misquote the Jerusalem Post.

00:44:43.920 Obviously, none of us would say the Jerusalem Post is anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.

00:44:47.920 The headline read, the IDF knew of Hamas's plans to kidnap 250 before October 7th attack.

00:44:54.220 The IDF had precise information about Hamas's intentions, but due to prevailing conceptions

00:44:59.360 in the security establishment and possible negligence by officials, the warning signs were

00:45:03.520 not acted on.

00:45:04.680 Now, you can go ahead.

00:45:05.280 You can read that article.

00:45:05.960 Guys, we'll drop it in the link.

00:45:06.880 And I do want to say this is kind of gets into what Charlie Kirk was saying instantly about

00:45:11.120 any of us who have been to Israel, just like it's a very long time for them not to respond.

00:45:15.540 I've been to Israel.

00:45:16.120 You've been to Israel.

00:45:17.120 It's very small.

00:45:18.300 And there is just it feels like there's a military presence every five feet.

00:45:21.360 It's actually scary going into the country.

00:45:22.920 They're so secure.

00:45:23.640 You see women holding, you know, massive guns pointing down at you in the airport.

00:45:27.120 And so people were questioning whether or not they allowed this attack to go on.

00:45:30.900 And they had this intelligence and they wanted to go on for larger regions.

00:45:34.320 Additionally, we know that Egypt said that they had handed Israel a report and told them

00:45:38.580 that there was something that was being planned.

00:45:40.980 Ami, do you look at that and say, well, that's all a conspiracy and that's crazy?

00:45:45.160 Or do you think that's interesting?

00:45:47.880 I just like to hear your feedback on that.

00:45:49.460 What I would say to that is obviously everybody on the pro-Israel side especially wants a full

00:45:56.580 investigation as to how something like this could have happened.

00:45:59.560 The fundamental obligation of any government, first and foremost, before any other policy,

00:46:03.260 and we all would agree here, is to protect its citizens.

00:46:06.040 And everybody acknowledges that security failure.

00:46:08.220 To infer this nefarious incendiary reason, to me, sounds very much like 9-11 truthers saying,

00:46:14.480 hey, there was a lot of money to be made from the Iraq war and we needed a reason to go in.

00:46:18.040 So let's just let the planes hit the towers.

00:46:19.720 And it's not really Saudi Arabia and it's not really the hijackers.

00:46:22.100 It was an inside job.

00:46:23.380 So to me, it has as much credibility.

00:46:25.760 Upon hearing it for the first time from you here, that idea sounds about as credible as

00:46:30.940 a 9-11 truth or conspiracy.

00:46:32.240 Yeah, sorry, I should add more here because the article was a bit longer.

00:46:34.640 I didn't realize this was the first time you were hearing it because it did just come out

00:46:37.640 yesterday.

00:46:37.940 So that makes total sense.

00:46:39.160 It's that they actually have a document.

00:46:40.680 So a newly surfaced document has revealed, and this is the reason why the Israelis are

00:46:44.220 protesting, has revealed that the IDF and the intelligence systems had detailed knowledge

00:46:48.960 of Hamas' plan to raid Israel and kidnap 250 people weeks before the October 7th massacre.

00:46:55.020 The document, which was compiled in the Gaza division, outlined Hamas' intentions and was known

00:46:59.880 to top intelligence officials, according to a report by Cannes News.

00:47:04.060 And then it goes into further detail.

00:47:05.660 So I think, and by the way, quite ironically, yeah, 9-11, there were a lot of questions as

00:47:11.120 well.

00:47:11.800 USS Liberty.

00:47:13.120 And just so you know where I stand on this, I do not think that false flag attacks are

00:47:17.600 impossible.

00:47:17.980 In fact, I know they're not impossible because of the CIA declassified documents pertaining to

00:47:22.560 Operation Northwoods and JFK's refusal to allow them to stage a false flag attack of

00:47:28.460 the CIA on American soil to go to war with Cuba.

00:47:31.520 So if we accept that intelligence agencies, and I'm referring to America now, have attempted

00:47:35.820 those things in the past, and now they have documents alleging that they absolutely knew

00:47:40.640 they knew something.

00:47:42.080 Now, they could have been negligent.

00:47:43.120 That's entirely plausible.

00:47:44.260 I do think, given a lot of the rhetoric, and I definitely, I personally don't think

00:47:49.020 Bibi Netanyahu is a good person.

00:47:50.380 I do think he's quite nefarious, given statements he's made in the past, and he's been caught

00:47:54.900 on camera talking about, don't worry about America, and we're going to do this to the

00:47:58.480 Palestinians, turn the cameras off.

00:48:01.040 I just don't see him as a good guy, and I think that that's what a lot of people are

00:48:04.100 questioning.

00:48:04.520 Like, why do Jewish Americans feel that they have to defend this guy simply because he's

00:48:09.180 the leader of Israel?

00:48:10.820 There are always bad leaders.

00:48:11.980 I wouldn't defend Joe Biden against crazy stuff.

00:48:13.760 I think it's important to make those distinctions.

00:48:15.920 I would simply say that, you know, someone I think we all like, Thomas Saul is always

00:48:20.240 asking when you're evaluating things, compared to what?

00:48:22.560 You know, it's not like I can stand by everything Bibi Netanyahu said or would defend him, and

00:48:25.760 not everyone should, but compared to what?

00:48:28.060 When we're looking at the situation, the leadership of the opponents and the enemies of Israel have

00:48:32.640 said far, far, far worse, worse, more disgusting, more genocidal things than I think anyone

00:48:38.400 in Israel has ever said.

00:48:39.340 And it's evidenced by the fact that you just, you don't see the same kinds of, you don't

00:48:45.000 see IDF going in to a Palestinian home, dragging a body through the streets of Tel Aviv to mobs

00:48:51.140 of cheering crowds.

00:48:52.240 And I will say also, just as a point, that as we got into the weeds of the military actions

00:48:57.500 here and what's justified in our discussion before, Dave, about self-defense, I just, I

00:49:02.400 know that argument from authority, like, you know, everyone should be able to talk about

00:49:05.660 anything.

00:49:06.180 But it's to approach this topic with humility, as we all sit here comfortably in armchairs

00:49:10.880 in the West, commenting on our microphones and on our podcasts, as if we're military

00:49:16.020 tacticians knowing exactly how to conduct a war.

00:49:18.860 If we all accept the fact that war is horrible and war is tragic and war is ugly, like even

00:49:24.240 the just war, if we could, if you agree that there are wars that are just and you're never

00:49:28.740 going to not have civilian casualties and collateral damage, not saying those terms as just buzzwords

00:49:33.360 and just ways to evade responsibility and accountability, but we accept that in reality,

00:49:37.860 war is hell and war is tragic and you do your best, you do the best you can, but you, you,

00:49:42.680 I just think it's, it's really, I always find it really frustrating and it's kind of just

00:49:48.840 rich to see people, all of us, everybody kind of commenting on this as if they know if Israel's

00:49:53.280 just been responding to October 7th, we can tell them not the IDF, not the military experts

00:49:58.020 on this, who are trying to conduct this war, uh, we know best how they should do it.

00:50:01.560 And why the way that, what that manifests in ultimately is, you know, soldiers having

00:50:06.260 is 19 and 20 year old Israeli soldiers sitting in a booby trap building in Gaza, waiting to

00:50:11.420 be killed because the rules of engagement in Israel are super, so, so strict and, and they

00:50:15.880 have to go through so many channels before they actually execute, uh, operations.

00:50:19.360 And then we get reports back of dead soldiers who were blown up, who were killed because

00:50:22.700 they couldn't, uh, uh, execute, uh, properly be, uh, effectively because they were restricted

00:50:27.780 by rules of engagement that Israel imposes upon itself.

00:50:30.760 You would never hear that from the Hamas side.

00:50:32.940 You would never hear the Hamas issuing an apology for a rocket that landed in the wrong

00:50:36.780 place or Hamas getting up and saying, we're launching an investigation to find out what

00:50:40.360 went wrong here.

00:50:40.980 And Dave, I know you're not defending that and I'm not trying to just make points past you.

00:50:44.860 I'm just, I'm pointing out that to me, it's a point of confusion as to why not more

00:50:49.080 people see it that way.

00:50:50.080 If you only, yeah, if you only look at things from one, uh, side's perspective, and of course

00:50:54.860 that is the more powerful, the more wealthy, the ones who are doing more of the killing.

00:50:59.900 If you just look at it from their perspective, that's true.

00:51:01.920 You could just as easily say, Hey, we're all sitting here in America talking to our microphones.

00:51:06.100 What do you know what it's like to be lived in a blockaded occupied territory where you

00:51:10.520 just got to accept that your grandmother was just, you know, killed in a, in a, some drone

00:51:15.440 strike or that your kids just got their limbs blown off.

00:51:18.420 Maybe you got to join Hamas.

00:51:19.920 What do you know about the rules of engagement?

00:51:21.840 Maybe you got to go over there and kill whoever you can.

00:51:23.660 I mean, you could play this on either side.

00:51:25.260 Let me just say a few things.

00:51:26.380 Cause there's just been a lot here.

00:51:27.600 So I want, number one, I did read this piece in the Jerusalem post and I will say, I'm not

00:51:33.400 a conspiracy theorist on this.

00:51:35.060 I think that the most likely explanation, although I'm not ruling anything out.

00:51:41.380 I mean, there's definitely no question.

00:51:42.840 There were wild, um, exaggerated claims made about October 7th that were just not true and

00:51:50.920 were not founded.

00:51:51.840 The atrocities were horrific enough.

00:51:53.620 There was really no need for it, but there were a lot of claims that were made that just

00:51:56.840 turned out to not be true at all.

00:51:58.200 Um, there is no question that Benjamin Netanyahu is desperate to keep this war going as long

00:52:04.460 as he can, because whenever the music runs out, he's the longest serving prime minister

00:52:10.940 in Israeli history.

00:52:11.880 And his entire doctrine was, I'm going to do this and thwart a Palestinian state so that

00:52:18.040 we can protect our people.

00:52:19.500 And it culminated in October 7th.

00:52:21.620 So there's, yes, there, I wouldn't say nobody doesn't want a real investigation of October

00:52:26.360 7th, but there's a reason why we haven't had that yet.

00:52:28.880 But I don't know if any of you guys ever heard, in fact, I think I might've brought this up

00:52:33.260 when I was on your, uh, your old show, Candace, with my first and, uh, I'm guessing last appearance

00:52:37.940 on a daily wire show.

00:52:39.300 Um, but, uh, I made this point that there's a hot, um, mic or like a secret recording of

00:52:45.160 John Kerry, uh, that you can listen to from back when he was secretary of state.

00:52:49.160 And he was talking about the rise of ISIS in Syria, which of course, for people who

00:52:53.740 know about this, the Obama administration had a brilliant plan of arming all of the,

00:52:58.060 uh, anti-Assad rebels, um, to have another regime change there in Syria.

00:53:02.640 And this is why ISIS was driving around in Toyota trucks as they were, uh, taking over

00:53:07.000 parts of, of Syria and parts of Iraq.

00:53:08.900 And John Kerry is talking very candidly about this.

00:53:12.240 And if you remember, this is around the time when Obama called them, uh, the JV.

00:53:16.080 Uh, this was while he was sending weapons and, and funds in that he knew was ending up in

00:53:22.400 the hands of ISIS.

00:53:23.280 And John Kerry says very blatantly, he goes, look, we saw the rise of ISIS and we thought

00:53:28.340 this will be great because this will put pressure on Assad to step down.

00:53:32.540 Cause these guys are coming toward Damascus.

00:53:34.380 What's he going to do now?

00:53:35.360 You know?

00:53:35.600 And so he's going to have to step down and then we can put the government in that we

00:53:38.780 want.

00:53:39.040 But then they turned around and invaded Iraq.

00:53:42.740 That wasn't part of the deal.

00:53:44.220 You know, like it's just this tremendous hubris that you can prop up this terrorist organization

00:53:49.720 and then use them in the way that you want them.

00:53:52.300 And this is, I'm just saying, I know that for years, this was the Israeli attitude toward

00:53:58.080 Hamas.

00:53:58.700 This was the, the quote, we can control the height of the flame.

00:54:02.760 Benjamin Netanyahu said he was propping up Hamas intentionally so that he could look to

00:54:08.260 the rest of the world and say, Hey, look, we got no partner for peace.

00:54:11.280 Look, it's a terrorist group.

00:54:13.040 Who's one there.

00:54:13.880 He was literally just a week or two weeks.

00:54:16.140 I think it was before October 7th.

00:54:18.080 He sent the head of Mossad into Qatar to make sure, cause some of the funding to Hamas had

00:54:22.800 slowed down.

00:54:23.540 So he sent him in there to make sure the funding continued.

00:54:26.240 This was his strategy.

00:54:27.120 By the way, this has been acknowledged again by, we could go through a lot of quotes on this

00:54:31.340 one by all types of people at the top level of Israeli government.

00:54:35.400 It's been reported on in the Jerusalem post, the times of Israel, Haaretz, the New York

00:54:41.820 times, Washington post.

00:54:43.700 It's been widely reported on.

00:54:45.420 But I think this was more likely what happened that they, they totally underestimated Hamas's

00:54:52.060 abilities and they did not think at all that they could pull off something like October

00:54:56.620 7th.

00:54:57.080 And it seemed from what I've read about it, that even when they were getting this intelligence

00:55:00.780 that was like, Hey, they're planning something here.

00:55:02.900 They're planning something big.

00:55:04.040 It was like, yeah, yeah, they'll never pull that off.

00:55:07.140 We don't even really have to worry about them.

00:55:09.120 Israel has for the last 20 years been much more concerned about the threat of Hezbollah,

00:55:15.980 much more concerned about the threat of Iran.

00:55:18.100 They're totally downplayed Hamas as this little like punk gang that like couldn't do anything

00:55:23.580 to them.

00:55:23.940 So I'm just saying, is there a bigger conspiracy involved that is possible from everything I'm

00:55:28.680 looking at?

00:55:29.340 It seems pretty likely that that's just the easiest explanation.

00:55:32.900 Benjamin Netanyahu had tremendous Dick Cheney like hubris thinking he could get away with

00:55:39.340 doing whatever he wanted to.

00:55:40.940 And this is why he was propping up Hamas for years and it backfired.

00:55:46.700 That all to me starts the story in the middle, Dave, still, because at the end of the day,

00:55:50.440 what's been Hamas's attitude towards Israel since its obsession?

00:55:53.260 And what's been Israel's enemy's attitude towards Israel since its founding in 40 years?

00:55:56.880 Not on the side of Hamas.

00:55:58.100 Hamas has a bad attitude for sure.

00:55:59.660 And in perpetuating violent attacks and raising populations of people to hate the Jewish state

00:56:05.200 and want to kill it.

00:56:06.280 I mean, whatever political benefits one can operate in that scenario, that scenario exists

00:56:11.240 because it's a given.

00:56:12.500 And by default, not having to do with any occupation, they want to destroy all the Jews.

00:56:16.540 Don't you see the asymmetry here?

00:56:17.280 But don't you see the asymmetry in our arguments here is that I'm making a point.

00:56:20.420 Listen, I'm not defending Hamas, but you are defending the government of Israel.

00:56:24.260 No, no, no.

00:56:24.500 So when I point out something...

00:56:25.540 By shielding accountability from Hamas in what's perpetuating this war,

00:56:29.580 you're not defending their actions, but you're missing where the accountability lies.

00:56:32.680 No, I'm...

00:56:33.380 Okay.

00:56:34.140 Again, I'm not defending Hamas.

00:56:36.660 I'm not shielding them from accountability.

00:56:38.300 But you are defending the government of Israel.

00:56:40.640 So when I point to something that Israel's done horrifically wrong, that there's just

00:56:44.440 like no excuse for, you immediately pivot to how bad Hamas is.

00:56:48.860 Only because...

00:56:49.560 I agree.

00:56:50.340 Hamas is a bad group.

00:56:51.840 Sure.

00:56:52.100 Hamas is a bad group.

00:56:52.940 But the way you say it is all the emphasis...

00:56:55.380 Okay.

00:56:55.880 Let's say I agree with you.

00:56:56.800 Netanyahu did all these nefarious things.

00:56:58.440 And I'll just, for the sake of argument, I can...

00:57:00.420 That's a fact, dude.

00:57:01.360 It's been widely reported, it's documented, it's proven, and we have the quotes in their

00:57:06.080 own words, admitting to it.

00:57:07.620 There is still, to me, just the way I see that, there is a marginal issue and a fundamental

00:57:12.900 issue.

00:57:13.580 There is a world that these politicians are operating in, and that world is that Israel

00:57:17.960 is the underdog surrounded by regimes that wish its destruction continually and constantly.

00:57:22.980 And to shield accountability for them, that's not Bibi causing them to do that.

00:57:26.720 Bibi didn't cause Hamas to come in, slaughter opponents and Fatah members and take over

00:57:30.520 in Gaza and oppress its own people.

00:57:32.780 It doesn't...

00:57:33.360 Bibi doesn't write curriculum for schools in the Gaza Strip to hate Jews.

00:57:36.900 He doesn't do any of those things.

00:57:37.940 No, he just funds a terrorist organization so that he can make sure he never has to give

00:57:41.780 the Palestinians their freedom.

00:57:42.840 No, if the Palestinians wanted a...

00:57:44.560 In his own words.

00:57:45.420 If the Palestinians wanted a state tomorrow and started saying, you know what, we support

00:57:49.660 a two-state solution alongside Israel.

00:57:51.740 We're going to raise our children to support freedom and prosperity and live coexistent with

00:57:56.560 our Israeli brothers next door.

00:57:58.020 And then we have a Gaza Strip that I could go visit when I go to Israel and go in and

00:58:01.400 vacation there along people.

00:58:02.680 And by the way, no Jews allowed to ever live in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank.

00:58:05.860 It has to be Jew-free for this to be just.

00:58:08.240 Like, people are just emphasizing the complete wrong side of the picture here.

00:58:11.360 And that's what I feel you're doing.

00:58:12.960 It's that in the Gaza Strip, the idea is we have to get rid of all the Jews.

00:58:17.320 And no one seems to have an issue with that.

00:58:19.080 Every Jew has to leave for this to become a Palestinian state.

00:58:21.680 And no one seems to have an issue with that.

00:58:22.940 Like, in talking about the disengagement, no one seems to care that their main priority

00:58:26.800 is Judenrein.

00:58:27.680 No Jews here at all allowed.

00:58:29.140 In the West Bank, what about the, quote, settlements?

00:58:31.200 Listen, there's a distinction to be made between a caravan on top of a mountaintop with, quote,

00:58:35.020 settlers versus neighborhoods that have established a real property right in the settlements in

00:58:39.680 that designation.

00:58:40.680 And one has to account for new factors on the ground.

00:58:42.640 And you've said this before in conversations, Dave, that you don't want Israel to be, in terms

00:58:46.480 of the right of return, I heard you respond in your conversation with RFK, that you don't

00:58:50.500 believe Tel Aviv should just be turned over to the Palestinians and completely, you would

00:58:55.060 object to all that, right?

00:58:56.420 So I'm just saying my distinction here is not that I'm fully, Israel's imperfect and has

00:59:00.960 its flaws, but I do think it's super important to make distinctions between the marginal

00:59:04.580 issues driving the conflict and the fundamental issues.

00:59:07.440 And to me, to overlook the ideology that animates this region against the Jewish state existing

00:59:12.460 at all is the fundamental.

00:59:13.560 Look, there's no question that there's a long, and I find very fascinating, very tragic,

00:59:22.340 and very complex history in this region.

00:59:25.300 And it involves the Zionist settlers embracing terrorism.

00:59:31.380 It involves the Arabs embracing terrorism.

00:59:33.960 It involves, I shouldn't say not all of them, but groups of both.

00:59:37.300 It involves occupations and terrorism and military conflicts and all of this stuff.

00:59:43.080 But if you say you want to get down to the foundational issue here, like what's really

00:59:47.480 going on, this is the bottom line.

00:59:50.520 A bunch of Eastern European Jews decided that they wanted to start a homeland in historic

00:59:58.620 Palestine, that this was like where their holy book told them that this would be the

01:00:03.040 place to go, and they had suffered a tremendous amount of oppression in Europe.

01:00:06.180 And so they embarked on this plan, this very radical and, like, pretty damn impressive that

01:00:13.420 they pulled it off.

01:00:14.580 This was their plan.

01:00:16.340 It was a group of Eastern Europeans who had never been to the area, did not know anything

01:00:23.160 about the local people, really.

01:00:25.940 Most of them didn't speak the language that they decided they wanted to build this country

01:00:30.400 around.

01:00:30.820 In fact, I don't think any of them did at the very beginning.

01:00:33.860 And they started migrating there.

01:00:36.900 In this process, way before the beginning of the creation of Israel, it involved a whole

01:00:41.340 bunch of Palestinians being kicked out of their homes.

01:00:43.740 There was resistance to that.

01:00:45.380 There was violence on both sides.

01:00:47.600 When it culminated in the creation of the state of Israel, it resulted in 750,000 Palestinians

01:00:54.120 being evicted from their land.

01:00:55.660 Can I respond to that?

01:00:56.220 After the 1967 war, Israel has occupied them ever since.

01:01:00.180 And my argument is not that there's no bad guys on the Palestinian side or that they've

01:01:04.340 never done anything wrong.

01:01:05.720 My argument is that that is the fundamental issue.

01:01:09.100 And if you're not talking about that, you're not having a serious conversation about this

01:01:13.500 issue in the same way that if you want to actually talk about 9-11, you have to talk

01:01:17.920 about American foreign policy.

01:01:19.300 If you don't acknowledge that, then you're not even really having a conversation about what's

01:01:24.260 going on.

01:01:24.760 That understanding of the history, I think, is false.

01:01:27.680 The way you just said it, that this fundamentally-

01:01:28.720 What was false?

01:01:29.880 Fundamentally, Israel is formed by all Eastern European Jews displacing the native populations

01:01:35.320 there.

01:01:35.800 Do you dispute that there has always been a Jewish presence in that part of the world?

01:01:39.660 In Israel?

01:01:39.980 Of course there has.

01:01:40.600 There has been.

01:01:41.420 And that indigenous rights, and on that argument alone, that historically, Israel, that part of

01:01:46.860 the world, the last actual state, and you could go back, I'm going back now to the

01:01:51.240 2,000 years argument that I know you don't like.

01:01:53.320 But the point is that there is a connection between the Jewish people and Israel that goes

01:01:57.300 back thousands of years.

01:01:58.200 You don't deny that.

01:02:00.080 Yeah, sure.

01:02:00.800 But you don't get to claim a property right because you were somewhere 2,000 years ago.

01:02:05.240 No, I know, but just let me finish the point because you're simply starting the story at

01:02:09.520 this one element of Jewish immigration to Israel and ignoring, what about all the Jews

01:02:14.060 in the Arab countries that were immigrated because they were kicked out and expelled

01:02:16.600 and the efforts to purchase land from absentee landlords who weren't-

01:02:21.360 I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just want to jump in there because this is where it gets confusing

01:02:24.300 because over time, you know, Judaism used to be a religion, now it's a race, and now

01:02:30.180 some people think it's an ethnic group.

01:02:32.260 It's a bit confusing, right?

01:02:33.420 It's not a race, yeah.

01:02:34.320 It's not, you think it's not a race, okay, because some people would say to be Jewish is

01:02:37.860 to be a race.

01:02:38.300 I think what he's saying is that that migration from the majority of Eastern Europeans into

01:02:43.120 the Middle East, just to clarify, because I know it gets kind of confusing.

01:02:46.180 It's like, of course, there's always been people that follow Judaism that have lived in

01:02:49.900 that region, there's always been Christians, there's always been Jews-

01:02:51.800 Yeah, but I'm talking about the rise of Zionism, which is what ultimately culminated in the

01:02:55.580 creation of Israel.

01:02:56.420 My point was there were hundreds of thousands of Jews that were displaced from the Arab

01:03:00.180 world and ethnically cleansed from the Arab world in that part of the region as well.

01:03:03.980 We conveniently leave out that fact of what was going on.

01:03:06.140 No, but there's no, it's not conveniently leaving it out.

01:03:08.500 Yes, it's true.

01:03:09.340 In 1948-

01:03:09.480 You said foundationally this was all a European colonization and displacement of a people,

01:03:13.980 so I'm disputing that.

01:03:14.660 I was starting from the late 1800s and taking you up to the creation of Israel, but yeah, there's

01:03:19.080 no question in 1948 in Iraq and other surrounding Arab countries, a bunch of Jews were kicked

01:03:23.620 out.

01:03:23.960 That's wrong that they did that.

01:03:25.300 I have no problem acknowledging that that's wrong.

01:03:27.640 The difference is that nobody's defending that.

01:03:29.920 Nobody's pretending that never happened.

01:03:32.520 Again, listen, to your point that you said earlier, and this is, when I said, no, of course

01:03:37.580 that I don't think all of the Jews should go back to Europe is the answer, any more than

01:03:42.280 I think we're going to give the land back to the Native Americans.

01:03:44.960 That's not going to happen.

01:03:46.040 You know, it's many generations later, and you would be committing the same evil act

01:03:50.960 to kick all these people out of their homes now.

01:03:53.760 However, what I am saying about Native Americans is that, number one, we could recognize what

01:03:59.280 was done to them and say, hey, that wasn't so cool.

01:04:02.220 And number two, if there's any Native Americans around still, they should have full rights

01:04:08.000 protections under our legal order.

01:04:10.020 That they should have their natural rights protected.

01:04:12.660 You can't just keep abusing them.

01:04:14.340 At a certain point, you got to go, hey, the past was bad.

01:04:16.860 We're not going to 100% make up for it.

01:04:18.960 But going forward, you deserve your freedom as much as anyone else does.

01:04:22.280 And that's all I'm demanding out of Israel.

01:04:23.820 You just said the whole indigenous rights arguments to Israel, where Jews were technically there

01:04:27.900 first and displaced by previous empires, doesn't matter.

01:04:30.740 No, no, no, no.

01:04:30.940 You're talking about, hold on, hold on.

01:04:32.420 Listen, this is a totally different argument.

01:04:35.720 To say, oh, well, someone else was displaced 2,000 years ago or something like that.

01:04:39.260 Okay, fine.

01:04:40.880 Yes, lots of bad things have happened historically.

01:04:43.340 And as I just said, we're not going to be able to go back and rewrite every wrong that's

01:04:48.160 historically ever happened.

01:04:49.300 We can say, stop doing it now.

01:04:52.420 I get it.

01:04:52.820 Because that's the argument.

01:04:53.900 I'm arguing that the Palestinians get their crummy 22%.

01:04:57.480 Israel won.

01:04:59.080 Okay.

01:04:59.440 They won by illegitimate means.

01:05:00.980 I get confused about the, you know, the argument that like, we are the original Jews from the

01:05:06.580 Bible.

01:05:06.860 It's just Ivanka Trump, Ivanka Trump has converted to Judaism.

01:05:10.580 Is she now get to say that she has claimed to, I mean, people over these years have also

01:05:15.180 under a mass conversions.

01:05:16.500 That's why I keep trying to say it is relevant that we are talking about a religion here because

01:05:20.260 you can just convert into a religion.

01:05:21.980 And then to say, well, I'm this religion, so I'm the original person and I have a right

01:05:25.460 here.

01:05:25.820 I think it just gets crazy.

01:05:26.980 So we should really talk about practical solutions, which I think what you are saying.

01:05:30.480 I'm only talking about, yeah, go ahead.

01:05:32.700 Yeah.

01:05:33.200 What you are saying, Dave, is that you just believe that it just needs to stop.

01:05:36.740 Like everything just needs to stop.

01:05:38.240 Allow the people that are remaining there to be there.

01:05:40.280 And Ami, what would you say is a practical solution?

01:05:43.040 Do you follow Bibi Netanyahu's perspective that until we get every last hostage, we can

01:05:49.600 just keep blowing everything up?

01:05:51.780 Well, as far as things blowing up, we can keep blowing things up.

01:05:55.300 This idea that Bibi should accept a negotiation and ceasefire is to me so backwards.

01:06:00.480 They should give back the hostages unconditionally.

01:06:02.700 Don't we all?

01:06:03.040 But what if they don't?

01:06:03.660 Don't agree?

01:06:04.140 What if they don't?

01:06:04.840 Then you have to pursue the hostages.

01:06:06.380 What they're doing is-

01:06:07.060 But what does that mean?

01:06:07.760 What does that actually mean practically?

01:06:09.280 Like I need to hold you on the answer here because it's your perspective that if they

01:06:13.240 don't get back all 250 hostages, that he has a right to kill every Palestinian?

01:06:20.540 Every Palestinian.

01:06:21.400 There was a mission that took place a few weeks ago and Israel was demonized because

01:06:26.280 hundreds of Palestinians were killed in an operation to try to rescue the hostages.

01:06:30.420 I guarantee you if Israel could have walked in and taken them peacefully without firing

01:06:34.040 a bullet, they would have.

01:06:35.620 The question isn't are hundreds of Palestinians, even though they're, of course, they're not

01:06:39.420 making a distinction between who of those Palestinians were actually terrorists and

01:06:42.240 attacking the Israeli soldiers trying to rescue the hostages.

01:06:45.340 There's no distinction was made there.

01:06:46.920 And the real question isn't, is hundreds of Palestinian lives worth rescuing for Israeli

01:06:53.600 hostages?

01:06:54.100 The question is, are hundreds of Palestinian lives worth keeping for Israeli hostages,

01:06:58.480 worth kidnapping for Israeli hostages?

01:07:00.440 I hate this perversion that's going on.

01:07:02.300 They should be returned unconditionally.

01:07:04.440 And Israel as a government has a response-

01:07:06.240 But what is unconditionally?

01:07:06.320 I just need to hold you to an answer because I want to understand this.

01:07:08.880 Unconditionally.

01:07:09.380 They took them.

01:07:09.940 Unconditionally.

01:07:10.300 They took them.

01:07:10.760 They have to give them back.

01:07:11.360 So you mean, but let's be practical here.

01:07:12.960 If you say, we're just going to keep looking for our hostages until we get them back,

01:07:16.700 okay, is your perspective that he can quite literally kill every Palestinian if it means

01:07:23.240 that he's able to get hostages?

01:07:25.900 There has to be, we have to actually talk about this practically because everyone says

01:07:28.880 unconditionally and we say until every last hostage.

01:07:31.840 I'm like, okay, let's really talk about what you're saying here.

01:07:34.000 So the question to me is problematic and I'll tell you why.

01:07:36.800 I just, the question should be aimed at Hamas.

01:07:39.280 Is it really worth keeping these hostages when Israel has an obligation to bring them

01:07:43.400 back?

01:07:43.700 And whatever the military cost is and the collateral damage, you have a responsibility

01:07:46.880 to return this hostage.

01:07:48.100 You are the aggressor against Israel in this scenario.

01:07:50.440 In this current military campaign, I know Dave, we're talking about the broader context,

01:07:53.600 which I can revisit to sort of wrap up the conversation.

01:07:55.980 But in this current military campaign on October 7th, a ceasefire was broken.

01:08:00.760 You went into sovereign territory.

01:08:02.560 You slaughtered people.

01:08:03.500 And I take issue with this exaggerated claims of October 7th.

01:08:06.660 I mean, it's a gross conversation to have.

01:08:08.860 And I've spoken to many, many people who, it's not just reports I've read.

01:08:12.520 I've spoken to people personally who can attest to the atrocities.

01:08:15.440 But as you said, Dave, even murder and burning people alive is enough.

01:08:19.140 So let's just take that for what it is.

01:08:21.020 But my point is they aggressed against Israel.

01:08:23.760 It's their risk.

01:08:24.340 You can't all of a sudden then complain when there's consequences for that.

01:08:27.980 You have to be the ones responsible.

01:08:29.080 I'm not complaining.

01:08:29.540 Not you.

01:08:29.660 Not you.

01:08:30.280 I'm just trying to understand what you mean when you say until every last hostage.

01:08:34.820 I just need like a yes or no.

01:08:36.040 Does that mean that Bibi Netanyahu and the IDF have a right to kill every Palestinian if

01:08:40.720 it means that they are able to secure their hostages?

01:08:42.620 It's a very simple moral question.

01:08:44.220 It's not a simple moral question at all.

01:08:45.700 I don't think they have a right to kill every single Palestinian.

01:08:47.860 And gratuitous violence should be condemned.

01:08:51.020 But they have a right to pursue them.

01:08:52.740 And if Hamas keeps committing to keeping them in civilian homes, hidden amongst civilian

01:08:57.600 populations, Israel has a right and obligation and responsibility to rescue them.

01:09:01.880 I can't see how we don't agree on that.

01:09:03.020 Well, because the problem is there's a whole bunch of babies being killed.

01:09:07.520 So why don't you say Hamas, give them back and stop them?

01:09:09.960 No, it's no one's not.

01:09:11.400 Everyone wants the hostages returned.

01:09:13.040 Sorry.

01:09:13.340 It's when everybody wants the hostages returned.

01:09:15.280 I just disagree with unconditionally.

01:09:17.240 I think that that's very scary to me.

01:09:19.180 So you think it's just to pursue them, but maybe you're disagreeing with the means?

01:09:22.980 Yes, I'm saying you can't kill every Palestinian to get back 250 Israelis.

01:09:27.400 That's my position.

01:09:28.720 All right, guys, I hope you're enjoying this conversation.

01:09:30.780 I just want to take a brief pause here because we are talking a lot about freedom.

01:09:34.340 We're talking a lot about children.

01:09:35.320 We're talking about peace, prosperity.

01:09:36.900 Are these things achievable?

01:09:38.540 And of course, just as Americans, we ask ourselves, what kind of a future do we want to leave for our

01:09:43.780 children?

01:09:44.720 We know, especially now that these are not guarantees, freedom, peace, prosperity.

01:09:48.620 It's up to us parents and us grandparents to instill knowledge and a love of liberty in them.

01:09:54.720 Public schools are definitely not going to do it.

01:09:57.580 By now, you've probably heard of the Tuttle Twins.

01:09:59.380 These books are blowing up.

01:10:01.480 They teach kids economics, history, and the principles that make a free world.

01:10:05.580 If you've been waiting for the right time to get the Tuttle Twins books for your family,

01:10:08.780 now is your chance to get an amazing deal.

01:10:11.120 You're just going to go to tuttletwins.com slash Candace, and you'll get the books for 40% off.

01:10:17.360 So please do that to give freedom to your kids.

01:10:20.480 And you will also, at the same time, be supporting the all new Candace show.

01:10:25.420 Head to tuttletwins.com slash Candace.

01:10:29.220 Unless this is what's crazy and what there's such a disconnect when you even ask the question,

01:10:34.420 you go, I don't understand how this is even like an issue.

01:10:36.880 It's like, oh, well, the issue is that babies are being murdered.

01:10:39.880 That's the issue that me and Candace have with this.

01:10:41.880 I disagree with the term murdered.

01:10:44.620 You can disagree, but that's factually true.

01:10:46.820 Killed and murdered are different things.

01:10:48.180 You're ascribing intent.

01:10:49.240 Yes, they are different things.

01:10:50.480 Yes.

01:10:51.020 Murdered.

01:10:51.820 Murdered.

01:10:52.320 That's where we fundamentally disagree.

01:10:54.260 When you drop a bomb, knowing that there's babies down there,

01:10:57.860 knowing you're going to kill babies, you murdered them.

01:11:00.760 That's murder.

01:11:01.640 When Obama drops a drone on a wedding in Yemen, that's murder.

01:11:04.760 And when Israel drops these bombs on Gaza, they are murdering people.

01:11:08.100 It would be, listen, the standard, if you did that, like within a government,

01:11:13.060 within the legal framework of any government, this would be murder in the first degree if

01:11:16.680 anybody else did it.

01:11:17.520 So I'm quite comfortable using the word.

01:11:19.100 Let me just finish my point here.

01:11:20.980 So if you don't just fundamentally value Israeli life above Palestinian life,

01:11:28.540 then obviously if you have to kill a whole bunch of children to save one person,

01:11:32.740 it's not like, oh, that's obviously the correct answer.

01:11:35.060 You'd go, oh, I don't know.

01:11:36.720 I mean, there's so many innocent victims here, and that's the issue that people have.

01:11:41.100 Now, as far as your constant kind of like deflecting this back to like,

01:11:45.400 why don't you tell Hamas to release the hostages?

01:11:48.080 It's like, again, Hamas, release the hostages.

01:11:51.320 Okay, didn't work.

01:11:52.400 So let's talk about what we can focus on now.

01:11:54.860 This would be like if right on the dawn of the invasion of Iraq, I were to say,

01:11:59.840 well, I think Saddam Hussein should step down and institute Jeffersonian republicanism in Iraq

01:12:08.060 so we don't have to invade.

01:12:09.900 It's like, yeah, but that's not on the table right now.

01:12:12.400 So like what is on the table right now is should we invade or should we not?

01:12:16.340 The truth is that if the mission truly was, which by the way, just a slight correction,

01:12:21.300 Candace, Benjamin Netanyahu has not said that if they release the hostages, the war will be over.

01:12:27.260 That's things that I've heard a lot of like pro-Israeli pundits say.

01:12:30.800 Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas has to be eradicated.

01:12:34.320 So even if they did release all of the hostages, it's not as if he's said the war will be over now.

01:12:39.180 He's said until the job is finished, meaning all of Hamas is taken out,

01:12:43.740 which is totally unachievable and will not happen.

01:12:46.240 But the question becomes, if the primary goal here is to retrieve the hostages,

01:12:52.700 which I do think should be Israel's primary goal,

01:12:55.800 then what has led to them getting the vast majority of hostages back,

01:13:00.280 not just in this conflict, but in the past?

01:13:02.040 It's what we do when people take hostages right here in the United States of America.

01:13:06.620 Someone runs into a bank and holds a few hostages.

01:13:09.200 You know what we do?

01:13:10.020 We don't start dropping bombs on the place.

01:13:12.000 We don't go in spraying machine gun fire.

01:13:14.000 We call in a person known as a negotiator.

01:13:17.660 And you try your absolute best to negotiate the return of the hostages.

01:13:22.740 That's it.

01:13:23.720 And this has been successfully done many times.

01:13:27.060 It's a much, much better strategy than just slaughtering an insane amount of innocent people,

01:13:35.040 which is going to do nothing but guarantee that there's more hatred and more terrorism in the future.

01:13:39.260 I think history disproves that whole outlook that this will create more terrorism in the future,

01:13:43.980 because I think when you demonstrate to an aggressor that attacks you for ideological reasons,

01:13:49.760 that to the extent that you support this ideology of hating the Jewish people and hating the Jewish state

01:13:54.540 and wishing our destruction, to the extent that you buy into this,

01:13:57.540 you will face the consequences of our military doing what it needs to do to defend itself against that.

01:14:03.480 But history disproves my point.

01:14:06.100 Yes.

01:14:06.240 You guys have been, or you guys, Israel has been dominating militarily the Palestinians for decades and decades and decades.

01:14:12.640 We can go back to World War II, and we can go back to the fact that when you assert your,

01:14:18.380 I mean, war is a ruthless, terrible thing.

01:14:20.200 Can you imagine any sort of war where there isn't collateral damage or any civilians?

01:14:23.420 Does that mean it's never just?

01:14:25.140 Does that mean it's not just?

01:14:26.040 No, it doesn't mean it's always just.

01:14:27.500 But you said something interesting before where you said, okay, Hamas, release them, but they're not going to release them.

01:14:33.420 Does that still mean they're not accountable for what's to come when they don't do that?

01:14:38.100 No, Hamas ought to be accountable, but innocent Palestinians shouldn't be.

01:14:42.580 For the innocent Palestinians that die in the crossfire, I'm not denying that that happens.

01:14:48.400 Why are you not agreeing with me that Hamas is ultimately accountable for the escalation, for the perpetuation?

01:14:54.840 In other words, all of us here hate the sight of dead Israelis, hate the sight of dead innocent Palestinians.

01:15:00.360 So this whole idea of valuing one life over another, I'm with you on that.

01:15:05.420 But I'm saying, you know who does like the sight of dead Palestinians?

01:15:08.260 Hamas.

01:15:08.700 They tell you that very explicitly.

01:15:10.440 They love the sight of them.

01:15:11.160 So do a lot of Israelis.

01:15:12.700 Yeah.

01:15:13.300 That's a false equivalent.

01:15:14.640 Not at all.

01:15:15.600 No, it's not.

01:15:16.480 Why do you use this term?

01:15:17.740 I didn't say they're the same thing.

01:15:19.820 I didn't say they're equivalent.

01:15:20.960 I said there's also a lot of Israelis who like the sight of them.

01:15:23.960 Not at all to the same degree.

01:15:25.460 And a lot of the people killed, as I said, on October 7th were peace activists.

01:15:28.800 Ezra would want peace tomorrow with its neighbors if its neighbors just said, okay, we want peace with you too.

01:15:34.360 But they don't.

01:15:35.000 So I would just interject here to say that I believe that Bibi Netanyahu has a different agenda.

01:15:43.160 And I think what gives a lot of people pause, people that are agnostic on this issue, is when you say something that feels like a very easy moral question.

01:15:52.340 Like, do you believe every Palestinian should be killed in an effort to get 250 hostages?

01:15:57.060 And people don't say, no, of course not.

01:15:59.780 That would be crazy.

01:16:00.400 Like, we can't just kill a million people, women and children, majority children, because we need to get 250 hostages.

01:16:04.860 I did say no.

01:16:05.460 And I think that that kind of leads into that.

01:16:07.020 You didn't say, like, it wasn't an easy question.

01:16:10.120 You were like, eh, I don't know about this question.

01:16:12.020 It would be Hamas' fault.

01:16:13.660 And I think that that might be.

01:16:15.000 And this is really to be constructive here, Ami.

01:16:16.780 I'm not trying to come down here.

01:16:17.780 I'm just trying to be constructive.

01:16:18.940 Because I see I'm actually using you as a conduit to talk to the entire pro-Israel lobby, so do not take any offense to this.

01:16:26.460 I'm just me.

01:16:27.320 No, no, no, no, no.

01:16:28.260 That's why I'm saying I'm using you as a conduit, so please don't take offense to this.

01:16:31.500 But I want to communicate this, because there are a lot of people that are pro-Israel who lobby for Israel interests.

01:16:35.580 And I want them to just hear this feedback, because for me, and I think that I am a person that really just does see racial equality.

01:16:44.100 Like, I am not, I just do not value Israeli life more than Palestinian life, period.

01:16:48.160 Innocent life more than one over the other.

01:16:52.140 And when I hear that question, and people are not able to give such an easy response, like, obviously, no.

01:16:59.220 Like, I demand, I want every hostage returned, but not under a circumstance where a million Palestinians are going to be obliterated.

01:17:07.260 And yet we see so often that a lot of the pro-Israel voices are not willing to say that.

01:17:12.760 They're like, honestly, I've seen people tweet this until every, it looks like we're going to have to go in there,

01:17:17.680 until every last Palestinian, and it's Hamas's fault.

01:17:20.720 That doesn't make me, like, I don't think that that brings people closer to the pro-Israel side.

01:17:25.460 It makes people go, okay, are we dealing with racial supremacists?

01:17:28.280 Are these, are these good people?

01:17:30.020 How is there no compassion?

01:17:31.420 How is there no, wait a second, no, of course, we do want the hostages back.

01:17:35.400 But we also obviously know that we can't kill a million people to get back 250 people because that just sounds radical.

01:17:43.060 Right.

01:17:43.240 It sounds that way.

01:17:44.160 And when we talk about war and we look back at history and the millions of innocent people who are killed in conflict, in war,

01:17:49.940 one has to do, one does have to evaluate fundamentally how these things happened and who's accountable for those deaths

01:17:55.420 and who's accountable for innocent collateral damage.

01:17:57.680 And it's so obvious to me that all of those people we talk about that have been killed and have sympathy for in this conflict were alive on October 4th, 5th, and 6th.

01:18:06.140 Now, you're back to your question, if I need to clarify it.

01:18:08.700 Yes, of course, not every, what was your initial question?

01:18:12.420 No.

01:18:12.880 Every single Palestinian life?

01:18:14.320 No.

01:18:14.600 And Israel doesn't have to do that.

01:18:16.160 And thank God it doesn't have to do that.

01:18:17.780 And it wouldn't be just to have gratuitous violence against innocent Palestinians.

01:18:21.120 But when there are innocent Palestinians that are killed in collateral damage, yes, the fault is on Hamas for initiating this war.

01:18:27.080 Absolutely.

01:18:27.880 And when they embed themselves among those civilians, when they hide hostages inside a journalist's home that then gets reported,

01:18:33.520 Palestinian journalists killed, and you see that headline and say, oh, my God, Israel's killing journalists.

01:18:38.020 Well, the journalist was keeping three people hostage.

01:18:40.520 So this muddying of the waters over who's a combatant, who's a civilian, in all of these situations,

01:18:46.980 when somebody talks about children, but we're talking about a 17-year-old with an RPG, that's where I'm telling you it becomes,

01:18:53.120 I'm illustrating why it's very, very complicated.

01:18:55.120 And we can't just think of these things in black and white terms or in abstractions.

01:18:58.760 Like, well, a million people, that would be terrible.

01:19:00.720 But when it comes to World War II, when millions of people were killed in Nazi Germany,

01:19:04.360 or hundreds of thousands in specific instances, we're judging things in reality itself under the context of war,

01:19:12.920 which is horrible, and nobody on the pro-Israel side, at least for me, and I speak for myself, desires it or wants it at all.

01:19:19.640 But in wars of self-defense against wars of aggression that are committed against Israel,

01:19:23.520 you know, who are we as far as military testicians to say how it should be conducted other than the fact that it is just

01:19:28.500 and the hostages should be returned unconditionally?

01:19:31.820 And that would certainly mitigate civilian death on the Palestinian side.

01:19:35.580 So I like this, who are we to say what they should do militarily other than to say it's just.

01:19:40.020 I guess we're qualified enough to say that it's just, but we're not qualified enough to say that it's unjust.

01:19:45.700 The devil's in the details, absolutely.

01:19:47.520 Well, okay, so look, there's a moral question to be asked here on war, absolutely.

01:19:52.000 So if you imagine, I'll get to that question about war in a second,

01:19:55.280 but if you imagine, say, like, you know, there's a, someone goes and takes a bunch of hostages in a school or something like that,

01:20:04.540 and they're in with all the children, and your local police department comes down,

01:20:10.220 and they go, all right, boys, blow up the school.

01:20:12.900 And they blow up the school.

01:20:13.880 They kill the guy who took all the hostages, and they kill a whole bunch of kids with them.

01:20:18.100 And then they turn around to you and go, hey, Dave, why are you so outraged with your local police department?

01:20:23.600 I mean, that was on the guy who took the hostages, and he was using human shields.

01:20:29.540 And so it sure does suck that we had to kill all these kids, but it's not our fault.

01:20:33.640 It's that guy's fault.

01:20:34.900 You could see where maybe I wouldn't accept that answer.

01:20:38.380 Absolutely.

01:20:38.860 Hey, first of all, my tax dollars fund you, okay?

01:20:43.980 Which I'm not thrilled about to begin with.

01:20:46.780 And number second, you're the one, your whole justification here, right, is that you're the cops.

01:20:51.840 You're supposed to be the good guys.

01:20:53.340 You're the first world democracy in a sea of the third world, right?

01:20:57.900 So, yeah, there is a little bit of a different standard, you would hope, over a terrorist group or someone taking hostages,

01:21:05.000 and you who's supposed to be my taxpayer-funded police officers.

01:21:09.000 And if they turned around and said, well, sorry, all the deaths are just on them, I think we would all say that just on the logic of it,

01:21:17.120 saying because they took hostages and because they're amongst civilians, therefore, responsibility absolved is ridiculous.

01:21:24.760 Now, to your point about war—

01:21:26.960 I had a question on that.

01:21:28.780 Well, let me just—hold on, but I just want to get to the other stuff because there's a few things that I haven't addressed that you said.

01:21:33.820 Look, there has long been many brilliant people, particularly in the tradition of Christianity,

01:21:45.060 who have thought about, you know, just war theory, what a just war looks like.

01:21:50.080 One of the big separations that always is made is whether it's a war of necessity or a war of choice.

01:21:57.200 The question—look, when you think about the ungodly level of human suffering that Israel is bringing to Gaza right now,

01:22:06.040 I mean, forget even, like, so many of these debates, which I appreciate that we haven't gotten bogged down,

01:22:11.520 like, get bogged down into, like, the numbers, and do you trust the Gaza Health Ministry's numbers?

01:22:16.620 Do you trust Israel's numbers?

01:22:18.360 Look, I literally watched a couple months ago an interview with a doctor who just got back from Gaza

01:22:24.660 who was talking about the shortage of anesthesia.

01:22:29.420 It's like, if you could try to just think what that looks like.

01:22:32.160 It means they're operating on children with no painkillers, with no anesthesia, operating on little kids.

01:22:39.340 You're talking about bringing this profound level of human suffering to a group of people.

01:22:44.460 There's only one question that matters, and it's do you absolutely have to do this?

01:22:52.020 Is there no other option?

01:22:53.520 Is this—is it so self-evidently clear that the alternative to doing this would be worse than doing this?

01:23:01.420 Because this is so bad.

01:23:02.820 And the simple reality is that Israel just doesn't have to do this.

01:23:07.040 They don't have to.

01:23:08.260 Israel had a monumental collapse of intelligence and security on October 7th.

01:23:14.880 It is not a guarantee, especially after all they've done the last eight months.

01:23:18.980 It's not a guarantee that October 7th are going to happen left and right if they were to end this war today.

01:23:24.880 If they were to end this war today—

01:23:25.940 October 7th is the worst terrorist attack that's ever been pulled off in the history of the existence of Israel.

01:23:31.200 And there's been lots of terrorist groups, and they've been plotting a lot of things.

01:23:35.500 They pulled off this one big one, which I'm sure if we ever get that investigation, we'd find out.

01:23:40.240 As much as we already know, we'd find out even more about what a massive failure it was on Israel's part.

01:23:46.500 So how about—they could plug that up.

01:23:49.540 Israel, for years before October 7th, was propping up Hamas, was underestimating the threat of Hamas, and was relying way too heavily on their, like, machine gun robots instead of having, like, actual soldiers protecting their border.

01:24:05.640 So they could just not do that.

01:24:08.040 They could just stop right now and not do that anymore.

01:24:11.040 Stop propping up Hamas, stop relying so much on the machines, have actual soldiers there, and don't underestimate the threat.

01:24:18.000 They don't have to keep doing this.

01:24:20.260 They don't have to keep bringing this level of human suffering to the people of Gaza.

01:24:24.320 Two points, Dave, I wanted to ask you.

01:24:26.740 Does a government that represents a people have a unique obligation to its own civilians as far as protection?

01:24:34.980 Sure.

01:24:35.840 Yes.

01:24:36.260 So, in your scenario of the bank robber guy going into a bank and taking people hostage and his own government coming in and mowing everybody down, you would say it's clear that that's not comparable to two warring governments going at war against each other, one being responsible for its own civilians and one other being responsible for protection of its civilians.

01:24:57.780 Okay.

01:24:58.220 So just to be clear on a couple things there.

01:25:00.740 Number one, there is no government in Gaza.

01:25:03.300 Hamas is not a government.

01:25:04.460 They are a government.

01:25:05.240 No, they are not.

01:25:06.740 In what sense are they not a government?

01:25:08.780 Israel literally has control over the tax revenue.

01:25:11.740 They have control over their trade, their airspace, their sea space, how much medicine gets in, how much technology gets in, how much food gets in, how much sugar gets in.

01:25:20.900 No, they're not a government.

01:25:22.140 They're ruled by Israel.

01:25:23.440 But to your question, look, I'm not saying it's an identical situation.

01:25:29.180 And I even pointed out that, okay, things are a little bit different when you're talking about, like, you know, within a country versus not.

01:25:34.940 So you said disanalogous before, so I'm pointing that out.

01:25:37.280 No, no, it's a logical analogy.

01:25:39.020 The point is that the logic that says because they took hostages and because they struck first, therefore, all the death that follows from this is on them simply does not follow.

01:25:52.300 That's just not correct.

01:25:53.220 But could you imagine if you did a further analysis, hypothetically speaking, given that it's just for Israel to respond, which we agree, when they're attacked after extremists, they have to respond.

01:26:03.000 We're really arguing here.

01:26:04.340 And I'm just honestly trying to identify this area of disagreement.

01:26:07.480 It's that the means have been disproportionate.

01:26:11.240 They don't have to do it this way.

01:26:12.480 They could do it a different way.

01:26:13.540 And when I say who are you to say that, it's more like if you analyze it, could you imagine a situation where, given the fact that Israel does a lot of dropping of leaflets and intelligence gathering to find out where people are and sending in special forces and risking their own soldiers' lives and their civilians' lives for the rockets and fire they're willing to tolerate, having a high tolerance for their own civilian casualties?

01:26:34.700 If you analyze the situation, could you imagine a situation where the choices are just between bad and worse?

01:26:41.140 Well, I mean, look, obviously, as I said, October 7th was the worst single terrorist attack.

01:26:47.560 But in the 70s and 80s, Israel was dealing with terrorist attacks on a much more regular basis.

01:26:53.920 Of course, there was also the First and Second Antifada.

01:26:57.200 It was not until Benjamin Netanyahu that they ever started treating the terrorism problem as a military problem.

01:27:04.880 It was always targeted assassinations, special operations, negotiations for hostages, things like that.

01:27:11.960 That was always how Israel dealt with the terrorism problem throughout its entire history until this psychopath, Benjamin Netanyahu, rose to prominence and decided that we're just going to treat it for the regular old army.

01:27:24.220 Just treat it like it's not a people that we've had captive for six decades.

01:27:29.520 You think trading 1,000 Palestinian prisoners who've committed crimes against Israel?

01:27:36.260 Have they been convicted? Have all 1,000 of them?

01:27:38.780 They've committed violent acts against Israelis.

01:27:41.020 Have they been convicted? Because you started saying that, but then you kind of stopped.

01:27:45.400 In certain cases, yes, and in certain cases, no.

01:27:47.860 But they're not hostages. That's my point.

01:27:50.540 They're not innocent. They've committed violent acts against Israelis.

01:27:53.080 Well, you know, you kind of don't get to say that if they haven't been convicted of a crime.

01:27:56.800 That's kind of the whole way a system of justice works.

01:27:58.960 I understand that point. Fair point.

01:28:00.300 But my point is this.

01:28:01.060 Do you think it is moral to trade 1,000 for, as far as disproportionality?

01:28:07.280 In other words, incentivizing kidnapping and hostage-taking on the Palestinian side.

01:28:11.440 That's what those negotiations ultimately lead to.

01:28:14.080 Sinoir, who was traded back to Israel, was the one responsible for October 7th.

01:28:18.120 Okay. Yes. As everyone who's a member of Western civilization, this should be foundational, would agree.

01:28:25.280 That, yes, it's better to let 1,000 guilty men go free than put one innocent person away. Yes.

01:28:31.040 Oh, no, that's not what I'm saying.

01:28:32.520 Hold on. No, it's exactly what I'm saying.

01:28:34.840 It's better to let 1,000 people who are guilty go free than to kill 200 trying to save one person. Yes.

01:28:42.220 It's better to let 1,000 people who could risk attacking Israel again in the future go free.

01:28:48.600 See, listen, this is the point that I think me and Candace were getting at that I think you're not exactly understanding.

01:28:53.760 Okay.

01:28:53.920 See, even when you say this, you go, but that's a risk that some innocent Israelis could die.

01:29:00.180 Right.

01:29:00.600 No, because...

01:29:01.380 That's better than just slaughtering a bunch of Palestinians. Correct.

01:29:05.980 No, because there is a...

01:29:07.460 And I'm going to say it again.

01:29:08.500 This false equivalency between, oh, well, there's prisoners, Palestinian prisoners, and there's Israeli hostages, and we should just trade for them.

01:29:14.020 And I'm just saying there's a moral difference between the actions of one and the actions of another.

01:29:18.880 The crime of the hostages being taken were that they were Israeli Jews, and the crime of Palestinian prisoners is very different than that.

01:29:25.100 A lot of these people have committed acts of violence against Israelis.

01:29:29.240 Well, okay, so first of all...

01:29:30.540 I swear to do it again, like Sinoah, for example.

01:29:32.500 I think you're getting at a really important point here.

01:29:34.380 By the way, it also, this is, as a lot of the pro-Israeli side does, it's very like looking at Israel through rose-colored glasses.

01:29:40.720 I have heard several different, like, firsthand reports from former IDF soldiers who, like, quit and left Israel because they're like, no, we were just, like, rounding up people and kidnapping them.

01:29:52.580 And then, like, your, like, sergeant would be like, ah, whatever, we'll say he was throwing rocks at us.

01:29:57.040 And, like, no, there actually are a lot of innocent people, both in the West Bank and Gaza, who have been kidnapped by the Israeli government with zero due process.

01:30:04.920 Because, again, they have zero natural rights, you know, because screw them, I guess.

01:30:08.340 That's just what they have to accept forever.

01:30:09.700 But you made a point earlier that I never responded to, and I think what you're talking about now is somewhat on the same, similar vein.

01:30:16.060 And that you were saying, look, there's a moral difference between, like, Hamas running in on October 7th and just trying to slaughter in the most barbaric way, like, any civilian they could get their hands on, and an Israeli bomb that is trying to get one bad guy in, sure, might kill a lot of innocent people in the process.

01:30:39.420 But, like, there's just a moral difference between those.

01:30:41.780 And I do, on some level, I do agree.

01:30:45.340 Like, there is no question that one is, like, so much more primitive and barbaric and, you know, like, so I was just, by the way, I know me and Candace are both pro-life.

01:30:53.940 I don't know where you fall on the abortion issue, but it's not really important just for the point.

01:30:58.320 But someone said this to me yesterday, which is a very, like, kind of basic pro-choice argument that someone said to me.

01:31:04.760 They go, oh, so you say abortion is murder, Dave.

01:31:08.720 Well, so that means you've probably been around women who've had abortions before.

01:31:13.960 You're not treating them like a murderer.

01:31:16.160 You know what I mean?

01:31:16.880 And, like, there is a sense in which that's true.

01:31:20.060 Like, that's true.

01:31:20.860 If I, like, if I found out my neighbor was a woman who had an abortion once, I would feel a lot different than if I found out my neighbor was a murderer.

01:31:27.940 You know what I mean?

01:31:28.580 Like, but that's not necessary.

01:31:31.580 But, like, the act is the same thing.

01:31:33.700 It's just that, look, you have a little bit more grace for one because it's kind of like, eh, we live in this culture where people have been so poisoned.

01:31:40.640 Look, I know a bunch of military guys who went to Iraq.

01:31:43.600 They're murderers.

01:31:44.560 But I also don't look at them in the same way as someone who just, like, murdered his neighbor because they were caught up in this much bigger system.

01:31:51.780 They were propagandized.

01:31:53.120 I'd like to change the culture to a point where they kind of look at this in a different way.

01:31:56.960 So I'm saying there is something different about the barbaric murderer versus the soldier who fought in Iraq or the woman who's had an abortion or something like that.

01:32:06.140 However, while you can recognize there's something different about it, you can also recognize there's something very similar about it.

01:32:13.060 And if from the Palestinian perspective, like, if that was my kid and they got killed and you said, well, Dave, it's not as if it was some barbarian who ran over into your country.

01:32:23.980 It was just something that we accepted would be the outcome of pushing this button.

01:32:29.520 Then it's like, yeah, no, that.

01:32:30.940 So, yes, there is kind of a difference.

01:32:33.120 But there is also something where because a government is more sophisticated and more powerful, we do have this kind of reaction to look at it the way you are.

01:32:42.300 This is different.

01:32:43.680 They're not being kidnapped.

01:32:45.640 They're being detained.

01:32:47.120 They're obviously guilty.

01:32:48.700 We're not just slaughtering people.

01:32:50.300 We're having collateral damage.

01:32:52.200 I get the point.

01:32:54.180 However, if you're on the receiving end of that, it doesn't feel any different.

01:32:58.800 But it's not a linguistic trick, Dave.

01:33:00.920 I'm judging actions and the differences between someone taken into an Israeli prison.

01:33:06.500 I'm not claiming it's a linguistic trick.

01:33:09.200 I'm saying that there is often a feeling the more sophisticated and more powerful a country gets that it's like, oh, well, we're a little bit removed from the brutality of what we're doing.

01:33:21.100 Whereas if you're on the receiving end of that, you can understand where it feels just as brutal.

01:33:26.940 I said as far as the subjects go who experience such a thing, it doesn't matter if somebody killed your family member by accident or on purpose.

01:33:36.180 For the subjects experiencing it, let me finish the point.

01:33:40.260 The distinction isn't by accident.

01:33:40.880 No, no, I'm just saying for somebody experiencing a tragedy, a loss, a bomb being dropped on their family, and I can argue that it was just, if you can make that argument that it's just, as far as they're concerned, it doesn't matter.

01:33:51.880 I understand that point that you're making that for those subjects, it doesn't matter.

01:33:55.280 But it's super important for the basis of basic civilization and understanding these things that murder is not the same thing as killing and it's not the same thing as self-defense.

01:34:03.020 It's even though the outcomes, as you're describing, are all the same.

01:34:06.280 What's the difference?

01:34:06.880 This person was killed and it's barbaric and this person was killed.

01:34:09.420 I think you're missing my point.

01:34:10.800 I think you're missing my point a little bit because I'm not saying, no, it would look as terrible as it is to lose a kid.

01:34:16.000 You would feel different if it was an accident than if it was an intentional.

01:34:20.060 Like if it's an accident, you might fall to pieces and be hurt.

01:34:23.260 If it was intentional, you might be ready to go murder that person who killed your kid.

01:34:28.120 Now, my point is that it's not that it's unintentional.

01:34:32.000 Again, if Israel bombs a building that they suspect a member of Hamas is in, but they know that there's a whole bunch of innocent people there, it's not an accidental killing.

01:34:45.100 It's still a murder.

01:34:46.680 They've decided that the price of murdering these people is worth it to get this guy.

01:34:53.360 But you're ignoring the other side of that equation where leaving that person in place will lead to a battalion being killed or an attack on an Israeli.

01:35:02.200 No, I'm not ignoring that.

01:35:03.960 That's not a foregone conclusion.

01:35:05.960 It's not true.

01:35:06.900 It's easy for you to say.

01:35:07.620 If you don't face the risk of that on a regular basis, it's convenient to say that.

01:35:11.960 Again.

01:35:12.480 Okay, guys, we're coming up.

01:35:13.880 We're coming up here.

01:35:14.520 You're only looking at it from one perspective.

01:35:15.260 Sorry.

01:35:15.520 Go ahead.

01:35:15.720 All right, guys.

01:35:16.820 Well, you just heard Dave Smith mention the fact that he is pro-life.

01:35:19.500 You already know, but I am pro-life.

01:35:21.460 Well, the reality is that new estimates show that more than one million babies were killed by abortion in 2023.

01:35:26.540 That is the highest amount of abortions since 2012.

01:35:29.540 The overturning of Roe v. Wade only made them more ravenous for the blood of babies.

01:35:34.940 We absolutely must fight back against this evil.

01:35:37.820 Because when they shout abortion, we have to be screaming life.

01:35:40.560 And how do we do that?

01:35:41.400 Well, you know what I'm going to say?

01:35:42.480 We join hands with Preborn, the largest pro-life organization in the country that sponsors ultrasounds for clinics in the highest abortion areas.

01:35:51.820 Because when a mother is considering abortion and she meets her baby via ultrasound and she hears that sweet little heartbeat, it virtually doubles a baby's chance at life.

01:36:00.960 Every day, Preborn rescues 200 babies' lives.

01:36:03.700 And that, my friends, is a true miracle.

01:36:06.080 By the time I finish reading this ad, two more babies will have been taken by the tragedy of abortion.

01:36:11.260 But guess what?

01:36:12.080 It takes just $28.

01:36:14.940 $28.

01:36:15.840 And that could be the difference between life and death.

01:36:17.940 So please join the fight by sponsoring not just one, maybe even two, three, or 200 ultrasounds.

01:36:24.840 All gifts are tax-deductible.

01:36:26.900 To donate, all you have to do is dial pound 250 and say the keyword, baby.

01:36:31.800 That's pound 250, baby.

01:36:34.540 Or you can visit preborn.com slash Candace.

01:36:38.240 That's preborn.com slash Candace.

01:36:40.900 So we are running up against time here.

01:36:43.660 And so I, first and foremost, just want to say how much I appreciate both of you guys.

01:36:47.100 But I want to just give the floor for two minutes, Ami, for you to make your points regarding what is happening in Israel and also how Americans should engage in the topic.

01:36:55.700 And then to give the floor to Dave similarly.

01:36:57.860 And then I'm going to give the floor to myself because I was so good at staying quiet.

01:37:00.900 Yes, you were.

01:37:01.220 And it was very hard for me.

01:37:02.620 So you first, Ami.

01:37:03.760 In an effort to sort of steel man Dave's point and try to understand it fully, which I believe I do, and it's been great talking to you, Dave, and I think you've been really passionate about this issue and I appreciate your perspective.

01:37:16.280 I still stand by the idea that fundamentally what's driving this conflict is not geographical and it is not political.

01:37:24.660 It is not a land dispute.

01:37:26.000 It is ideological.

01:37:27.340 It is religious.

01:37:28.020 And the ideologies that animate what's going on in the West Bank, the people who hate the state of Israel and what's going on in Gaza, who hate the state of Israel and wish it destroyed, don't wish it destroyed because of a property dispute or because of what happened about its founding.

01:37:42.160 They don't want the existence of a Jewish state and they want, and they are the ones who are genocidal explicitly towards Israel and Jews around the world.

01:37:48.980 And to ignore that and say, if we just went back to 67 borders and gave these two places the right to the self-determination, we would just get peace and prosperity and coexistence.

01:37:57.920 Well, every single effort to do that over decades and decades has led to more violence against Israelis.

01:38:03.700 And the fact that even before an occupation of between 48 and 67, before the West Bank in Gaza, there was an effort to destroy Israel and attack Israel.

01:38:13.700 And they were, even before the founding of Israel, there was violence against Jews in the region.

01:38:17.620 And I think to ignore that fundamental reality, to ignore the culture that exists, not because of Israeli brutality, but because of radical Islamic fundamentalism that dictates that we must destroy the Jews, not just in Israel, but around the world.

01:38:31.960 And next up, by the way, America too, death to Israel, death to America.

01:38:35.140 This is an ideological conflict.

01:38:37.460 And there are other players at play here too.

01:38:39.540 We didn't talk about Iran and funding the proxies to destroy Israel, the little Satan, and America, the great Satan.

01:38:44.240 And so that to me is fundamental to this problem.

01:38:47.840 And other political actors we could disagree with, we can dispute, and we can talk about which policy is better.

01:38:53.040 There have been, Netanyahu hasn't been the only prime minister of Israel, but there have been other prime ministers with different policies.

01:38:58.400 And Israel still faces genocidal threats and annihilation constantly from the north, from the south, from countries all around that want to see it destroyed because it's a Jewish state.

01:39:06.880 And as far as American support for Israel, there is an academic discussion to be had about the role of foreign aid to any country.

01:39:14.400 And I'm curious to continue a discussion another time with you, Dave, about the positions of nation states and the legitimacy of nation states and the role of how we support allies and adversaries.

01:39:23.420 But as far as the list of countries, if we want to start with a priority of who to support or pull foreign aid from, there are plenty of worse countries, much more adversarial to the United States than Israel.

01:39:33.100 And one could make the argument that Israel doesn't ask for charity from the United States, but rather there is a strategic alliance that America benefits from in supporting its only ally in the region because they share the same enemies.

01:39:43.460 So one can have that discussion. That's an academic discussion. And there are plenty of pro-Israel people that are anti-foreign aid, too.

01:39:50.260 There have been super pro-Israel Zionists who didn't want Israel entangled with other countries and want to have full sovereignty and believe Israel's sovereignty is compromised by accepting foreign aid.

01:39:58.820 And that's kind of a separate subject. And I think to conflate being against foreign aid to Israel with other hostility or anti-Zionism isn't necessarily fair either.

01:40:06.280 But at the end of the day, the fundamental issue that Israel is facing is an ideological one from its enemies that want to see it destroyed much more than they want to see a free, prosperous Palestinian state.

01:40:15.860 They want to see a non-Israel exist.

01:40:19.800 OK, you know, maybe I could start with kind of a point of agreement there on the last thing you said.

01:40:24.660 I mean, it's certainly not the case for the majority of Palestinians, but there are certainly groups like Hamas who I do think you're right, basically, at this point.

01:40:33.920 Like things have gotten so bad that this death cult is kind of like risen up.

01:40:37.960 And I do think they just want to destroy Israel more than they even want something for their own people.

01:40:43.160 They're clearly very willing to sacrifice their own people.

01:40:45.360 And it's terrible at the same time, because I don't solely put myself in Israel's shoes.

01:40:50.940 I can just go, look, I got two little kids.

01:40:54.140 And if someone ever did anything to one of those kids, there is no level of evil that I wouldn't stoop to.

01:41:00.160 I mean, like I am capable of doing very, very evil things if anyone ever hurt one of my little kids.

01:41:05.780 I mean, like I could do something to the kids of the person who did that to me.

01:41:09.300 I could go to very, very dark places.

01:41:11.240 And so, yes, basically, this conflict has gotten so bad on both sides that the Palestinians are stuck.

01:41:18.680 As Daryl Cooper put it, who's one of the best minds on this topic, by the way, Hamas essentially celebrates losing.

01:41:26.960 It's like a sick death cult.

01:41:29.160 But this didn't arise out of nowhere.

01:41:31.400 And I'll say just two things I want to say very quickly, okay?

01:41:34.820 Number one, I reject all foreign aid.

01:41:38.760 If I could only cut foreign aid to one country, it would be Israel.

01:41:43.320 Israel is the first one that should go.

01:41:45.500 Number one, because it's received the most of it.

01:41:47.680 But number two, as you kind of admitted there, we have the same enemies, right?

01:41:54.860 Why?

01:41:55.860 Why do we have the same enemies, okay?

01:41:58.300 It's because we inherit all of Israel's enemies.

01:42:00.980 Benjamin Netanyahu came over to the United States of America in 2002 and testified before Congress as a regional expert.

01:42:08.400 And you know what he said, Candace?

01:42:09.800 You'll never believe it.

01:42:10.920 If you overthrow Saddam Hussein, democracy will sweep the region.

01:42:14.620 So I highly recommend that you go fight a war with Iraq, who, by the way, the neocons, essentially the Likud vanguard in America, had been planning overthrowing Saddam Hussein with Benjamin Netanyahu since the 90s.

01:42:27.500 You can go read a clean break.

01:42:28.860 The memo from Richard Perle and David Worms are to Benjamin Netanyahu about their plan for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

01:42:35.560 Not Israel overthrowing Saddam Hussein, of course.

01:42:38.080 The United States of America overthrowing Saddam Hussein on behalf of Israel.

01:42:41.500 Also, in that same congressional hearing testimony, Benjamin Netanyahu advocated that the U.S. preemptively attack Iran.

01:42:50.980 Coincidentally.

01:42:52.020 Now, we do have all the same enemies.

01:42:53.800 Look, let me just say this, and I'll finish on this.

01:42:56.960 All of human—there's nothing unique about Jews or Israel in terms of the evil stuff that their government's done.

01:43:04.340 I think that the way they founded the country involved violating a lot of people's property rights.

01:43:09.300 I think they've killed a whole bunch of innocent people.

01:43:11.860 Nothing I wouldn't say about my own government as well, you know?

01:43:14.780 And it's true for lots of governments around the world.

01:43:17.260 Throughout human history, there has been atrocities, genocides, ethnic cleansing campaigns, slavery, all types of horrible things.

01:43:26.100 And at every single point, there were people who would rationalize it, because that's what human beings do.

01:43:33.200 People are—we play tricks on ourselves.

01:43:35.900 We're very capable of coming up with good, rationalized arguments.

01:43:41.440 What Israel is doing to Gaza right now is simply evil.

01:43:46.300 It is inexcusable.

01:43:47.920 It's been going on for eight months.

01:43:50.840 Forget the health ministry's numbers.

01:43:54.340 When this thing is all over, it's going to result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and displacements.

01:44:01.300 It's going to ruin lives for generations, and it should stop.

01:44:05.800 All you really need to do is look at some of the images of what's going on in Gaza right now.

01:44:11.040 The only question that should matter is, do you absolutely have to do this?

01:44:15.580 Does this have to happen?

01:44:17.040 Could you stop?

01:44:18.080 Is there any other way?

01:44:19.420 And as soon as you start asking that question, you'll realize that, yeah, there actually could be a lot of other ways to handle this.

01:44:25.660 I do want to also say I really do appreciate, like, the spirit of this debate.

01:44:29.980 I know that, you know, we're both pretty passionate about it.

01:44:32.340 But a lot of the—for some reason, you know, the topic of Israel is a very—I don't know, Candace.

01:44:38.480 Have you noticed it's a little bit of a hot-button issue?

01:44:40.980 Yes, and that's why I was, like, I was very happy to have you guys back because I just feel like we've had productive discussions.

01:44:46.300 And I do—I want to just really commend Ami because he's coming into this knowing that, first and foremost, I tend to agree more with Dave Smith, and he was still willing to do it.

01:44:54.600 And here's what I always say.

01:44:56.280 In terms of any person who's pro-Israel, I respect the people the most that will get out there and debate their ideas.

01:45:00.440 It is, like, the reason why I respect Dennis Prager, even though I had disagreements with him, he will go out there and he will actually debate what he believes.

01:45:06.760 It's the people that won't debate what they believe that you should never listen to.

01:45:10.000 That's why I respect Ben Shapiro so much.

01:45:12.820 Oh, wait.

01:45:15.900 These comedians are just telling a joke.

01:45:19.060 And the last thing that I want to say, and just now to interject my opinion and where I come at this, you know, I became very well-known for being a person that stood up to my own community when Black Lives Matter became the prevailing ideology.

01:45:30.440 in America and everyone was sort of calling everyone racist if we didn't support this corporation.

01:45:34.820 And I challenged Black Americans to go, hey, first and foremost, you're an American.

01:45:37.960 Don't let somebody pigeonhole you and tell you that you are Black and you, therefore, must defend these certain things that don't really make sense.

01:45:45.220 And I want to say to Jewish listeners the same thing.

01:45:48.060 I know that in school I was propagandized to see myself as a Black person, to think about slavery as a horrific sin, and to always, therefore, have an emotional response when anything was happening to a Black person.

01:45:58.100 But at the moment that they are able to instill in you a fear, no matter how rational or irrational it is, they're able to control you.

01:46:05.060 And so, to my Jewish friends, I don't think of you as a Middle Eastern foreign nation that you are required to defend.

01:46:12.200 You aren't.

01:46:12.800 You simply aren't.

01:46:13.540 You are an American first.

01:46:15.480 You are allowed, of course, to critique Bibi Netanyahu, to critique what's going on there.

01:46:19.480 And you are certainly not required to defend death because you have some fear that perhaps was instilled in you to believe that if you don't, it's going to represent some sort of existential crisis.

01:46:29.560 And suddenly they're going to wipe you out of, you know, New York and L.A. and Boca Raton and all the other places that I go with my Jewish friends.

01:46:36.240 It's just not going to happen.

01:46:37.540 And I just come at this for I don't want to be involved in any of these foreign conflicts.

01:46:42.480 If you do feel a closeness to Israel, if you are Israeli, there are people whose family, like you said, grew up in Israel.

01:46:48.240 And that is the reason why you feel so attached to this issue.

01:46:51.440 Then more power to you.

01:46:52.700 You should also be allowed to speak about what you want to say.

01:46:55.520 You should never feel fearful in any city in America saying that you want to support Israel.

01:47:00.520 That would be completely wrong.

01:47:01.820 And to the extent that that is happening, you will always have my support.

01:47:04.940 And I hope that what everyone listening to this has learned from today is that what this country needs is more speech, not less.

01:47:10.720 You're going to agree with Dave some.

01:47:11.720 You're going to agree with Ami some.

01:47:12.880 What we can all agree on is that, you know, I'm better looking than both of them, you know, and you should just keep watching my podcast and my show for that reason.

01:47:22.540 Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me.

01:47:24.800 And I wish we had more time to do this, but I've got I've got a sick daughter, so I've got to I've got to go take care of her.

01:47:29.680 Thank you.

01:47:29.880 I know how that goes.

01:47:30.840 Thanks, Candace.

01:47:31.700 Thanks, Ami.

01:47:32.200 Thank you so much.

01:47:34.940 Thank you.

Candace Owens - June 21, 2024

The Great Debate： Israel v Palestine ｜ Candace Ep 10

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript