Rebel News Podcast - AVI YEMINI ｜ Bibi's former advisor unpacks Iran's secrets

00:00:00.440 Welcome back to the Yamini Report. You're tuned in to the free audio version of this episode, which is solid, but it's just a taste of the full experience.

00:00:10.440 Over at YaminiReport.com, the full video edition is ready for you, and it takes things to the next level.

00:00:17.780 Why not head there now and join Rebel News Plus?

00:00:20.940 Because for just $8 a month, you get access to the video version of this show, plus every Rebel program and documentary.

00:00:28.220 We're not backed by corporate sponsors or government cash. We're backed by you.

00:00:33.860 So if you believe in independent journalism, go to YaminiReport.com, sign up for Rebel News Plus, and be a part of the fight for truth.

00:00:46.860 Welcome back to the Yamini Report. Today's special guest, David Keyes.

00:00:51.460 Well, I'm not going to bother trying to introduce you, David. Your resume is impressive, but many people here wouldn't know you.

00:01:02.800 So how would you describe? Who are you?

00:01:06.580 Well, I'm David. I grew up in Los Angeles. I moved to Israel with my whole family many years ago.

00:01:14.380 I've been sort of obsessed with human rights and fighting dictatorships for a few decades.

00:01:20.680 So I started a number of human rights organizations, one with the founder of Human Rights Watch, one with Natan Sharansky, the famous Soviet dissident who spent nine years in prison.

00:01:30.520 And then I spent several years as Prime Minister Netanyahu's spokesman and communications advisor.

00:01:36.400 So that was a crazy few years. Very interesting, very difficult, very challenging.

00:01:42.160 But I got to really see how things worked from the inside.

00:01:45.120 I then started a communications company. We build some AI tools. We make things go viral. We fight narrative wars.

00:01:52.180 So I've always sort of been in this fusion between the Israel world, the human rights world, and technology and AI.

00:02:00.520 So, like I said, it was impressive. I didn't know where to start on it. So thanks for clarifying it for us.

00:02:05.740 What years are you talking about? You were the spokesman for Netanyahu. Let's start there.

00:02:11.500 From 2016 to 2018.

00:02:14.580 2016 to 2018. So that's not that long ago.

00:02:18.480 How was it being a communications representative for Netanyahu?

00:02:25.220 He's a pretty polarizing figure around the world.

00:02:27.800 At that period of time, that was prior to all the big protests, if I'm maybe the beginning of it.

00:02:37.480 How was it?

00:02:39.960 It was the adventure of a lifetime, to put it mildly.

00:02:43.100 I hadn't served in government before that role, and so I came in with fresh eyes, I would say.

00:02:48.480 And when I came into the job, I looked around and I said, I can't believe things are done this way.

00:02:53.560 I would really like to change some things here.

00:02:57.020 And so I brought the eye of, I would say, the private sector, some of the new media stuff.

00:03:03.200 I wasn't sure why we were so dependent upon traditional journalists.

00:03:06.180 So I really wanted to go direct to the people.

00:03:09.740 I thought we had amazing truth on our side, an amazing story to tell.

00:03:13.680 And so I tried to innovate in the prime minister's office.

00:03:16.580 But I also had access to things that are truly once in a lifetime.

00:03:20.740 I was tasked with the prime minister for exposing Iran's secret atomic archive that we stole from Tehran. 0.91

00:03:27.240 I got to meet with all the world leaders and sit in meetings with Xi and Modi and Obama

00:03:31.940 and hang out with people like Elon Musk and other great figures of history, most notably Chuck Norris.

00:03:41.140 So it was fascinating.

00:03:43.040 It was amazing.

00:03:44.660 Non-stop pressure, 24-7 crises.

00:03:48.640 It's very hard to juggle all that.

00:03:50.440 The entire world is scrutinizing every syllable, every word that you say.

00:03:55.640 Constant fake stuff, misinformation, disinformation, just absolutely overwhelming amounts.

00:04:02.060 And that really also shaped my vision of the challenges that the free world and the Western world face

00:04:06.580 because we are up against extremely motivated, well-funded, large organizations

00:04:12.380 that have no qualms whatsoever about undermining every single value, every single story, every single truth

00:04:19.040 with reckless disregard.

00:04:21.900 So that sort of puts a new frame on what this whole narrative space and communication space is.

00:04:27.120 But I was also obsessed with trying to understand what worked, you know, the principles of effective communications.

00:04:34.120 Some of it's old school like Dale Carnegie and Ogilvy.

00:04:37.040 But every day in the prime minister's office, I would print out, you know, a dozen academic articles

00:04:41.680 about virality and persuasion and framing and, you know, resonance and reach.

00:04:46.680 And I tried to utilize that science to help us communicate more effectively.

00:04:52.060 So that's a sort of long-winded answer, but it was a really, really fascinating and difficult

00:04:58.080 and interesting and wonderful time.

00:05:00.180 So every adjective you could possibly throw at it, I think I experienced to some degree.

00:05:04.200 How did you end up there?

00:05:05.820 How did you go from the business sector to being a spokesperson for the prime minister of Israel?

00:05:10.500 They scoured the world for the most talented and brilliant spokesman, and I was...

00:05:16.100 I don't know why.

00:05:16.720 I've never gotten a call then.

00:05:20.080 No, no, no.

00:05:20.820 It was nothing like that.

00:05:21.940 I mean, I had been sort of in this space tangentially for a long time.

00:05:24.920 I studied the Middle East.

00:05:26.400 I studied Arabic at UCLA.

00:05:28.440 I did my master's at Tel Aviv University.

00:05:30.480 I was writing for, you know, all sorts of publications from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal.

00:05:34.880 And I had gone viral massively for pranking Iran's dictators and other dictators, really.

00:05:43.040 I did a series of sort of satirical pranks against the world's worst people.

00:05:49.420 What did you do?

00:05:51.080 What did you do?

00:05:52.640 A number of things.

00:05:53.780 The foreign minister of Iran came to NYU, and I rented an ice cream truck and handed out free ice cream

00:05:59.700 to celebrate 1,000 hangings in Iran.

00:06:01.680 You know, I went up to the now foreign minister of Iran, Ar-Akh-Jia, 0.91

00:06:06.440 asked him what his favourite way to hang gay people was. 0.55

00:06:09.060 I flew to Vienna to prank the nuclear negotiators of Iran and announced a faux human rights deal 0.93

00:06:14.560 that reduced the rate of hanging from once every two hours to once every two and a half hours.

00:06:18.920 What were their reactions?

00:06:20.340 Did they...

00:06:21.100 Well, they didn't like me too much.

00:06:23.840 Did they immediately catch on, or did it take him a little bit of time to kind of work out what was going on?

00:06:31.680 I don't think anybody had quite done it in the way I had done it.

00:06:35.000 So I think they were a little bit startled, a little bit, you know, taken aback in the moment

00:06:40.560 when Saudi Arabia hosted a job fair at the Gaylord Hotel outside of Washington. 0.94

00:06:46.440 I figured since they, you know, have the death penalty for gay people, 1.00

00:06:49.160 I'd throw a gay party at the same time at the same hotel. 0.99

00:06:52.100 And, you know, so I would do these kind of crazy stunts. 0.58

00:06:55.320 And I was trying to rename the streets in front of the embassies of dictatorships after political prisoners.

00:07:00.440 I was very inspired by the Soviet dissident movement and how the West sort of kept their names alive.

00:07:06.380 And so I tried to recreate that with the modern dictators.

00:07:09.480 So I was running around the world meeting with political prisoners and dissidents.

00:07:12.740 But I was also, you know, I would say changing the human rights narrative.

00:07:18.000 For a long time it was, you know, Israel is this, you know, terrible country. 1.00

00:07:21.740 And we're going to get to the, you know, North Koreas and Chinas and Irans later.

00:07:25.740 And the founder of Human Rights Watch, Bob Bernstein, who was the head of Random House for 25 years,

00:07:31.220 he saw the situation and he was, you know, really miffed, irate.

00:07:35.020 And so he and I together tried to, you know, reset this, what it means to be a human rights organization.

00:07:39.740 So we helped launch this crowdsourcing platform that linked dissidents and dictatorships with people that can help them.

00:07:46.900 In the West, we tried to put the focus where it needed to be, which was not on the one open society in the Middle East.

00:07:53.200 It has many flaws, many challenges.

00:07:54.820 There's lots of people doing great work on human rights.

00:07:57.280 There's a free press.

00:07:58.020 They're criticized all the time.

00:07:59.560 And then you look, you know, a little bit east and you have these monstrous dictatorships which don't get a fraction of the attention.

00:08:05.860 And they're completely let off the hook.

00:08:07.040 So all that's a long-winded way of saying that I was, you know, really obsessed with this one topic and I was trying to make human rights great again.

00:08:16.580 And I was in touch with a lot of people in the prime minister circle.

00:08:19.100 I, you know, Natan Sharansky was my mentor.

00:08:21.660 I met other advisors.

00:08:23.100 And so they reached out to me.

00:08:24.120 I was actually giving a lecture at Stanford and my phone rang.

00:08:27.660 And someone from the prime minister's office said, would you like to be the prime minister spokesman?

00:08:32.060 We think you'd be the right person for the job.

00:08:33.880 So I almost fell over.

00:08:36.200 But I was very honored.

00:08:38.040 It was incredible.

00:08:40.200 And hopefully did some good.

00:08:42.420 Well, it sounds good.

00:08:44.260 I guess my question when I was asking you how their reaction was, I just, we're just trying to work out, is it really, because we're marveling at the sophistication of the Mossad right now in Iran.

00:08:55.440 So what they've managed to do over the last week and a half or whatever it is.

00:08:59.660 But by the sounds of things, you know, is it the sophistication of the Mossad or is it the fact that the Iranian regime is just really cavemen in suits? 0.76

00:09:10.760 Well, you know, I think when you're in government, you see the brilliance of some people with great resolution.

00:09:21.340 You see the incompetence of the system with greater resolution than you'd ever want to.

00:09:25.940 Government writ large, you know, just as a rule is totally incompetent.

00:09:31.780 I mean, there's just no incentive structure to really do well.

00:09:35.460 There's broken feedback loops.

00:09:36.880 There's incredible bureaucracies.

00:09:39.040 You can't fire people.

00:09:40.060 You can't hire the best people.

00:09:41.380 Salaries are low.

00:09:42.840 And on and on and on.

00:09:44.320 Government is not the place where innovation happens.

00:09:46.540 It's where innovation goes to die.

00:09:49.260 The private sector is truly what is capable, I think, of changing the world.

00:09:52.920 All that said, there are a few things which are very important that government does.

00:09:56.160 And probably the greatest shining example of that, of course, are these intelligence agencies which have done marvelous, amazing, stunning, incredible work.

00:10:06.220 And so there's sort of this fusion between gross incompetence on the one hand where nothing really works.

00:10:13.080 You know, redundancies and just governments are just a terrible thing, you know, on the whole.

00:10:18.720 But there's some good people working very hard trying to do good.

00:10:22.420 It's really a mixed bag.

00:10:24.560 But I don't think people who, you know, I've read all the memoirs or most of the memoirs of former spokespeople of American presidents.

00:10:30.720 And I really identify with what they talk about.

00:10:33.060 It's kind of hard to explain the pace and the balagan, you know, to use the sort of discombobulation of the system if you haven't been there.

00:10:45.620 And just you'd wake up in the morning and there'd be 15 critical things that happened that you didn't know that were coming.

00:10:53.420 I'll give you I'll give you one random day, OK, because it just I said at the end of this day, I got to remember this.

00:10:58.680 It was in 2017 and I woke up in the morning and there was a huge scandal that Al Jazeera had done a sting operation and caught some low level guy in London, you know, talking his mouth off against the deputy foreign minister of England.

00:11:14.260 And so my phone phone's blowing up. You know, this is a huge scandal at the time.

00:11:19.000 And about an hour after that, tapes are revealed for the first time in Israel between the prime minister and a an oligarch.

00:11:28.280 And it's the biggest story in Israel and all the news are talking about it.

00:11:31.980 And then there's a government meeting that we go into and the government almost falls because of a religion and state clash and ministers are shouting at each other.

00:11:38.900 And then an hour after that, the military secretary walks in and says there's just been a huge terror attack in Jerusalem.

00:11:45.200 You know, so we jumped to the site of the attack and there's blood still on the truck that had rammed all these Israelis and the engine is still on.

00:11:53.760 And an hour after that, Rafsanjani, the former president of Iran, dies, sparking potentially, you know, revolution in Iran.

00:12:01.020 And so you just kind of zoom out and you're like each one of these scenarios you're supposed to be well informed about.

00:12:06.020 You're supposed to think, is it going to help or hurt if we talk about it?

00:12:09.140 What should we say? What is the truth? We need to know that.

00:12:12.220 And when it all happens at the exact same time, it's kind of hard to express what that feels like.

00:12:17.560 And that was an average, regular day.

00:12:19.480 And probably a bunch of other things happened on that day that I don't even remember.

00:12:23.880 As an Aussie, we want to know, I imagine in those years you worked alongside Mark Regev.

00:12:30.200 What did you think of him?

00:12:32.260 He was my predecessor in the job.

00:12:34.280 He was very nice to me.

00:12:36.360 He's a gem of a man and a very talented guy.

00:12:40.760 And I'm very appreciative.

00:12:41.800 When I first came into the job, I had a million questions for him.

00:12:44.480 And he would say, you know, ping me anytime.

00:12:46.440 We sat down in his office and, you know, spoke about what it means to have this job.

00:12:51.800 And, you know, we went through all the policies, which was an exhaustive process as well.

00:12:57.080 But yes, as I know, he went on to become ambassador, of course.

00:13:01.160 Yes, that was a good save because he's actually also my cousin.

00:13:05.360 So, well done.

00:13:06.860 That I didn't know.

00:13:08.380 You did or you didn't know?

00:13:10.160 No, I had no idea.

00:13:11.380 He is our cousin.

00:13:12.300 Yes, he is.

00:13:12.700 Okay, so there's a lot happening.

00:13:16.660 And I think for the audience, just to be clear, we're filming this at the present time.

00:13:23.500 President Trump has announced that there is a ceasefire.

00:13:26.240 Now, Iran's foreign minister has come back with an interesting tweet, which if you read

00:13:33.220 between the lines, it is saying that they agree to a ceasefire, but they say that they

00:13:36.700 don't agree to no agreement.

00:13:38.380 It's just that if Israel stops firing, they'll stop firing. 0.69

00:13:41.680 But they agree to whatever terms.

00:13:43.480 So, it's unpacking these Middle Eastern dictators and authoritarian regimes.

00:13:52.360 It's like you've got to operate on a completely different level.

00:13:57.800 I know we don't have to tell you that.

00:14:00.960 So, that's where we are now.

00:14:02.340 It's meant to be taking into effect in about four and a half or four hours from now.

00:14:08.180 We can see Israel's operating heavily right now in Tehran.

00:14:13.060 There's news coming through of someone, an assassination at a higher level.

00:14:19.600 They haven't named who yet.

00:14:21.220 So, a lot can change by the time this comes out.

00:14:25.760 I don't know where we'll be, but I guess this is a good time to hold you, test your prediction

00:14:33.620 abilities because on the right in America, and we'll get to that in a minute,

00:14:37.480 they've been so horrible at predicting, and I don't know how people have been so horrible

00:14:42.420 at predicting, and people have been so sure about how this will all play out if Trump does

00:14:49.020 certain things or if America does certain things, and it completely hasn't happened.

00:14:52.660 It looks like we're about to get what Trump always described as peace through strength.

00:14:59.060 But what do you think is actually going to happen now?

00:15:01.820 I don't know what's going to happen over the next few hours or days, but I think I can

00:15:07.800 make some general predictions that I feel quite confident about, the most important one being

00:15:12.120 that the Iranian regime won't fall. 0.90

00:15:14.280 You think no matter what happens?

00:15:16.540 You think no matter what happens?

00:15:17.660 No matter what happens, but I think the barrier of fear has begun to start crumbling, and I think

00:15:25.040 that that's a process which is very hard to come back from.

00:15:27.360 And I think when it falls, it's going to fall very fast, and I think that that's going to

00:15:31.320 be a lot sooner than people expect.

00:15:33.940 I speak to more than a few Iranian dissidents, some of whom have been tortured in Evin prison,

00:15:40.000 and when you look back at the Soviet example, the dissidents, a guy named Andrei Malrik wrote

00:15:44.500 a book, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984 or 5?

00:15:48.180 And he wrote it in the 60s.

00:15:49.820 Meanwhile, the CIA, Robert Gates, said that the first time they even thought that the Soviet

00:15:54.280 Union would fall was, you know, in 88.

00:15:56.700 So I think oftentimes the dissidents have a better read of what's happening on the ground

00:16:00.720 even than the, you know, benighted, you know, you know, poli-sci professors or pundits or

00:16:06.640 anyone else.

00:16:07.320 So I feel very confident that the regime has never been weaker. 0.91

00:16:11.660 They've been unmasked as both cruel and incompetent and fanatic. 1.00

00:16:17.700 They've wasted bazillions of dollars on this stupid nuclear program instead of feeding their 1.00

00:16:22.920 people and building hospitals and improving, you know, their water management and so many 1.00

00:16:27.440 things that they could have done to improve the lives of their people.

00:16:30.100 So there's no real way from walking that back.

00:16:33.520 Now, they may survive for a little bit, and they're incredibly brutal and repressive, and

00:16:39.220 they have used tremendous force to keep their people down.

00:16:42.820 You know, if I was a betting man, I wouldn't necessarily say this is going to last forever,

00:16:46.320 the ceasefire, and I'm very, very happy that the achievements that were achieved until

00:16:51.820 now, primarily the destruction of these nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan, that is

00:16:57.300 an absolute game changer, and it removes the one truly existential threat from Israel summarily.

00:17:05.780 And for that, I think every sane person on earth, certainly every American, every Israeli,

00:17:11.140 anybody who wants peace should be overwhelmingly happy because absent this action started by

00:17:17.780 Israel and, you know, helped to be concluded by President Trump, I think that Iran could 0.91

00:17:24.400 have very well achieved nuclear weapons, and I believe they would have used nuclear weapons.

00:17:31.820 So a lot of people, you know, they don't take their rhetoric seriously, but I do.

00:17:35.740 And it was exactly the same with Hamas. 0.83

00:17:37.280 I speak Arabic, I was listening to what Hamas leaders were saying in the run-up in all those 0.99

00:17:41.320 years, and they said, we're going to kill you all, we're going to slaughter you all, 1.00

00:17:44.440 we're going to rip out your hearts, and we're going to murder your children. 1.00

00:17:48.760 And Sinwar would sit with his interrogator in prison and say, in the not-too-distant future, 1.00

00:17:54.560 I will have murdered everyone you know.

00:17:56.620 And he was basically right.

00:17:58.880 And so we sort of, you know, too many people said, well, they're not really serious, and I

00:18:03.120 used to, you know, fight with these people all the time, a thousand-fold more with the

00:18:07.680 Iranian regime.

00:18:08.980 And so I'm so happy.

00:18:11.420 It's one of the happiest days of my life, the fact that, you know, these nuclear, you 0.51

00:18:16.420 know, sites in the bottom of mountains are, you know, ground into powder, and they can

00:18:21.720 no longer make the weapons for the foreseeable future that could truly kill millions of Israelis.

00:18:26.800 I think this act saved millions of lives.

00:18:30.880 Do you think, are you happy for the ceasefire to go ahead now?

00:18:36.080 No, I'm not happy with the ceasefire, because I think that it may throw a lifeline to this

00:18:42.100 theocratic terrorist-supporting dictatorship.

00:18:46.340 And I think that they may survive a little bit longer because of that.

00:18:50.940 I'm hoping that the people rise up.

00:18:52.780 I understand the fear and the reticence to do, you know, big military action, and it's

00:18:57.440 totally understandable not to want to send a bunch of ground forces or anything like

00:19:01.500 that into Iran.

00:19:02.460 But what I'm most concerned about is how do we support the Iranian people, the long-suffering 1.00

00:19:07.640 Iranian people, in their noble quest for freedom?

00:19:11.340 And my only fear is that people will say, well, you know, now we have to respect the Islamic

00:19:16.620 Republic of Iran.

00:19:19.300 One, we have to, you know, we have to sort of make nice with this theocratic dictatorship.

00:19:24.500 I think we need to apply maximum pressure at every instant and support people.

00:19:29.620 We need to make their political prisoners famous.

00:19:32.000 We need to sanction them.

00:19:33.100 We need to stop them from exporting terrorism.

00:19:35.340 We need to be ever vigilant on the nuclear file, because they are not giving up their aims

00:19:40.260 for one instant.

00:19:42.520 These guys are bin Laden on steroids. 0.95

00:19:45.280 They are Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on steroids.

00:19:48.080 They are true believers, and it's very hard for rational and reasonable Western minds to

00:19:53.900 even grasp the level of fanaticism.

00:19:56.180 But what would it take for you to not love your children?

00:19:59.800 That's the depth of belief that they have that they must destroy Israel.

00:20:03.380 So right now they're defanged.

00:20:05.300 They don't have the ability right now to do it.

00:20:08.240 But I don't think that they've given up even one iota, their ultimate aim of imposing Islamic 1.00

00:20:13.500 domination on the world, of destroying America, and of eradicating Israel. 0.96

00:20:19.600 I hear all the arguments you're making there.

00:20:21.820 I've thought about it today, and I feel on one level.

00:20:27.460 So there's the actual war with Iran, which clearly Israel and the US, those final strikes

00:20:37.420 by the US have set back Iran, even if they want to get back into the nuclear game, set

00:20:45.840 them back years, and that's if they survive as a regime.

00:20:52.220 But I feel like it's a tightrope because when you look at American politics, it was getting

00:20:58.140 super fractured.

00:20:59.160 And Trump, if he doesn't pull out, if he doesn't get some sort of ceasefire now, after striking

00:21:08.880 so heavily, doing it, especially in the fashion that he did, announcing up to two weeks and

00:21:14.360 then two days later, smashing it and coming out and celebrating it.

00:21:20.820 And most of the country and most of the world, even here on left-wing TV, they found it really

00:21:27.740 hard to criticise him as much as they wanted to, because even their contacts within Iran

00:21:33.140 that they're talking to were celebrating it.

00:21:36.040 But we know as soon as that becomes drawn out, even within Iran, there may be this effect

00:21:42.720 where people who don't really like the regime, but as soon as you start, you know, when the

00:21:49.140 death toll rises, they may rally around their flag a little bit more, or they just can't

00:21:54.780 sustain it long.

00:21:55.360 Who knows how, but just prolonged wars, never, you know, even just in America, the support

00:22:02.060 would have almost certainly dropped, even if they're having some sort of gains, but just

00:22:07.220 the involvement itself.

00:22:09.200 So I feel like there's kind of this tightrope that you have to play, especially sitting here

00:22:13.780 in the West, not in Israel.

00:22:15.640 I understand where, you know, half my family's in Israel.

00:22:18.480 I understand when you're sitting in Israel and all you're seeing is those ballistic missiles,

00:22:21.880 especially in the beginning of it, where you didn't know what capabilities Iran really

00:22:26.520 had.

00:22:26.820 I think after a few days, people realised, OK, we can survive this.

00:22:30.140 There'll be a bit of destruction.

00:22:31.480 But as long as we go into the bomb shelters, we should be fine. 0.78

00:22:35.460 But I think to give Trump that win within America, it almost helps us for any future issues.

00:22:51.560 So if Trump stops it now, claims, look at what I managed to achieve in what he's calling

00:22:57.400 the 12-day war we did with Israel, and he's saying we're a partnership in his speech that's

00:23:04.480 going to be famous, I think, for all time, where he says no team has ever, I don't believe

00:23:09.400 no team has ever worked as well together in history.

00:23:13.820 It's just so beautiful.

00:23:15.220 He said it, I'm paraphrasing, he said it much better, but it's like a crazy statement to

00:23:20.200 make.

00:23:20.500 Like no team has ever worked as well together as him and Bibi in getting this outcome.

00:23:25.520 Um, so he's leaving on a high and, and, and I just can't see, you know, even if they manage

00:23:32.800 regime change, you want the regime change to really come from inside Iran.

00:23:37.640 So I can't see from the, when you step back and look at it, it's, it is super risky to

00:23:43.980 keep going, isn't it?

00:23:46.540 There are risks associated with it.

00:23:48.760 And I completely understand domestically the need and why he wanted to do that.

00:23:53.240 And we should not belittle, even for an instant, the tremendous accomplishments of the U.S.

00:23:59.980 strike and the Israeli war.

00:24:03.060 Um, but I also think I also, my argument would be that domestic politics, so Trump leaving

00:24:09.620 this strike on a high and every American goes, yes, the American might is back.

00:24:15.020 We won that.

00:24:16.020 Don't mess with us.

00:24:16.920 Um, it's, it gives us brownie points for later if needed, and also political will from Trump

00:24:24.500 if needed, um, where he'll, he'll come and step back in as opposed to if it was a bit

00:24:31.100 more drawn out.

00:24:32.600 Um, he may not be willing to, he won't have the support from the people.

00:24:36.660 I think he's regained a lot of ground right now that, that would have been risk.

00:24:41.360 Maybe he would have, maybe there would have been another fantastic win, but, but I feel

00:24:45.040 like there are too many risks now to keep going.

00:24:48.640 It's a totally defensible position and it's very hard to know the counterfactuals here.

00:24:53.080 It's possible that a few more weeks, a few more strikes, a few more leaders taken out

00:24:57.240 and you would have had mass defections and the people would have risen up and, um, you

00:25:02.240 know, their entire stockpiles of ballistic missiles would be destroyed.

00:25:06.000 And perhaps the next many generations would be, uh, under a free and democratic Iran.

00:25:12.420 I guess we won't know that at this moment that that's a real possibility.

00:25:15.860 So I don't want to discount that.

00:25:17.320 You know, I spoke to an Iranian dissident with a PhD, um, you know, a scientist just an

00:25:22.620 hour ago.

00:25:23.040 And he said, one more week was all we needed.

00:25:26.060 That's all we needed.

00:25:27.740 So I don't know, you know, the, the crown prince of Iran, you know, had just made a

00:25:31.460 statement a day prior saying, you know, I'm ready to lead this country in a different

00:25:35.900 direction.

00:25:36.760 So I think we look at what I, what I found in, in, in all those years in the prime

00:25:41.280 minister's office is that there's almost never a good option.

00:25:44.120 It's always between bad and worse.

00:25:45.540 Um, and I understand why, why he's announcing this, uh, ceasefire.

00:25:49.860 Now, I think just, we cannot keep, we can't take our eye off the ball even for an instant.

00:25:55.380 And for as much as Iran fears America or fears Israel, they fear something much more and

00:26:01.500 that's their own people.

00:26:02.720 That's their greatest fear.

00:26:03.800 So I think so long as we keep up maximum support for the people of Iran, making their 1.00

00:26:09.100 political prisoners famous, ensuring that they have star links and free internet, making

00:26:15.360 sure that there are powerful economic sanctions if they continue to support terrorism, which

00:26:21.060 of course they will.

00:26:22.440 So we just need to be vigilant.

00:26:24.200 I don't know exactly what's going to happen.

00:26:25.900 My instinct was we need to continue supporting the people in this moment.

00:26:30.920 And my fear is that these, these tin pot tyrants, you know, rage back and continue repressing,

00:26:37.220 you know, over 90 million people continue manufacturing ballistic missiles.

00:26:40.800 But the beauty is now, at least we know of the supreme, you know, the superiority of American

00:26:49.260 and Israeli intelligence armaments, military and drive that, that they can truly wipe out entire, 0.61

00:26:58.260 you know, huge swaths of what took them just years and tens and hundreds of billions of dollars

00:27:06.040 in half an hour are just gone.

00:27:08.900 That's amazing.

00:27:10.020 And the penetration of Israel is, is legendary. 0.99

00:27:13.460 I mean, from the beepers to the atomic archive, to knowing exactly where these nuclear scientists

00:27:19.080 are, the entire world should be in awe.

00:27:21.500 I have to meet a lot of these people.

00:27:24.220 The top brass of the military in Iran in the first few hours.

00:27:28.060 I think, and I guess, you know, where I'm sitting, I'm, I'm, I'm hoping like you, I am hoping

00:27:35.440 for a regime change, probably like most Israelis, the way to achieve it. 0.99

00:27:40.200 I don't know.

00:27:40.740 I'm not going to profess to pretend to be any sort of expert, but I would imagine what we've

00:27:45.800 seen over the last two weeks shows that the Mossad clearly has, unlike the Shimbet failures

00:27:51.720 in, in Gaza, um, clearly in, in, in Iran and even in Lebanon, the, um, the Mossad are there

00:28:02.320 and they, they do have, um, a, a really sound presence.

00:28:06.680 So I would hope that they're the ones at this point that can pick up the thing and help the

00:28:11.060 local dissidents to, to rise up and to take it down from the inside because almost worse,

00:28:17.460 I don't know if, you know, if there was a regime change now for Trump in, uh, forced

00:28:23.200 by essentially, um, sustained another week or two, uh, military bombardment, uh, if, if

00:28:31.980 the government had fallen, but somebody, some other bad group had picked it up.

00:28:37.660 I don't know what Iran's landscape is like.

00:28:40.660 We know obviously they've got the crown prince or whatever, who's, uh, who you just mentioned

00:28:45.560 made this speech last night, but I don't know what kind of real support he has within

00:28:50.420 Iran.

00:28:51.200 Is he really going to be the leader or is some other group that we don't know going to fill

00:28:55.920 that vacuum?

00:28:56.620 And that is one of those potential risks where it could backfire for somebody like Trump in

00:29:02.600 the United States and by extension for Israel, because as soon as you lose popular support

00:29:09.060 for it within America, which we saw so many people trying to affect this time, um, it's,

00:29:16.980 it's going to be get, it's going to become harder and harder for America, for Israel to

00:29:20.560 be able to rely on their friend, wouldn't it?

00:29:23.780 I, I understand what you're saying.

00:29:25.340 And there's, again, there's a lot of validity, uh, to that position.

00:29:28.280 I can't discount it, uh, really at all.

00:29:31.020 I can only say that I will be satisfied if we continue to support the Iranian people, the

00:29:37.060 length of the war, it's very hard to know.

00:29:38.720 It's very hard to know what will come after.

00:29:40.740 There are certainly risks associated with it, but what we can't do is become, uh, lackadaisical

00:29:46.540 about who the Iranian regime is.

00:29:49.560 And I'm so happy that the president of the United States stood up and said, no, these guys

00:29:55.060 that chant death to America, these guys, I mean, think about the litany of horrors they

00:29:59.360 visited upon America.

00:30:00.580 You have some pundits out there saying, you know, Dave Smith said, Iran is no threat to

00:30:05.080 America whatsoever at all.

00:30:07.320 End of story.

00:30:08.340 Okay.

00:30:08.660 Well, let's go through it for a second.

00:30:10.760 They tried to assassinate the president of the United States.

00:30:13.940 That's not me saying it.

00:30:15.200 They deny.

00:30:15.680 It's the DOJ.

00:30:16.980 Of course they deny it, but, uh, not Iran.

00:30:19.840 No, no, no.

00:30:20.420 I don't think Iran denies this.

00:30:22.580 Dave Smith.

00:30:23.400 No, Iran denies it too.

00:30:24.680 They also deny it.

00:30:25.580 Right.

00:30:25.800 Or they haven't heard of it.

00:30:27.100 Right.

00:30:27.400 And they say, I've never even heard of this as we, we heard recently, but Google Farhad

00:30:31.280 Shaqari, you know, go read the DOJ indictment about this guy.

00:30:34.440 They tried to kill Pompeo and Bolton and hook.

00:30:38.780 They funded and armed the people who murdered 48 Americans on October 7th.

00:30:44.140 They funded the people who shot the drone that almost took out a U.S. consulate in Tel

00:30:49.480 Aviv.

00:30:50.420 They murdered and maimed thousands of American soldiers.

00:30:55.020 They tried to blow up a restaurant in Washington, D.C.

00:30:58.300 Okay.

00:30:59.300 And on and on.

00:31:00.240 This is the beginning of the list, not the end of the list, the beginning, not to mention

00:31:04.240 the murder of the Marines, of course, in Beirut and many, many other things.

00:31:08.260 Go look at who, you know, the Times and Axios was saying was the number one cyber threat

00:31:12.920 to the American election.

00:31:13.940 It was Iran. 0.80

00:31:14.940 Who hacked Trump's advisors before the election?

00:31:17.540 It was Iran. 0.80

00:31:18.920 So you have a regime which was attacking America nonstop, whose main goal is to cripple and 0.99

00:31:24.840 undermine America, Israel, and the West. 0.91

00:31:28.240 And then you have people saying this isn't a threat at all. 0.99

00:31:31.360 It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? 0.97

00:31:33.920 That makes no sense whatsoever. 0.99

00:31:35.960 So at least I'm happy that the leader of the free world said enough is enough.

00:31:40.600 You cannot incessantly kill our people, just try to destroy our allies, hack our elections,

00:31:47.180 try to murder me, the president, and all of our senior officials, and get away with it.

00:31:52.760 And they were getting away with murder.

00:31:54.800 And the previous administration, of course, had rewarded them with hundreds of billions

00:31:59.700 of dollars.

00:32:00.520 That was insanity.

00:32:01.380 Were you worried at any point during this conflict in the last two weeks that Trump wasn't

00:32:07.420 going to step up, especially with the level of noise coming from his own side?

00:32:14.800 You know, I was trying to read the tea leaves like everybody else, and I was pinging, you

00:32:18.360 know, friends that are close to that circle.

00:32:21.700 I was confident that he would do something about it.

00:32:25.120 And I, you know, he definitely had a little bit of deception in there, I think aimed at the

00:32:30.540 enemies of America, and good on him for doing the head fake of the two weeks.

00:32:34.720 But I think what can happen now is that every enemy of America can know with crystal clarity 0.99

00:32:40.480 that they cannot fuck with America. 0.99

00:32:44.300 And that's a beautiful and amazing and brilliant thing. 0.99

00:32:47.460 The fact that they know that there are real serious consequences, that you can't threaten

00:32:53.600 the annihilation of a people in a state, you can't try to kill the president of the United

00:32:57.800 States and just get away with it. 1.00

00:33:00.140 That was an insane position.

00:33:02.420 So this is a great sort of, you know, rebirth of sanity, I think, in the Middle East.

00:33:07.860 And I think for generations, people will talk about and think about and praise and laud the

00:33:13.100 action that destroyed.

00:33:14.900 And huge credit to Israel, too, my goodness, for taking this bold move, apropos wrong predictions.

00:33:21.860 Do you know how many people said that the prime minister of Israel did not have the boldness,

00:33:28.140 the gumption to do something like this?

00:33:30.800 Endless people on TV.

00:33:32.360 It's all talk.

00:33:32.980 He doesn't mean it.

00:33:33.680 It's all he's never going to do it.

00:33:34.680 It's obvious.

00:33:35.260 He's just blustering, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:33:37.540 He's totally just trying to get the States to do it.

00:33:40.180 He won't do it alone.

00:33:41.540 But, yeah, and then he took that bold decision alone.

00:33:46.060 What would you say to the, although, like, I don't know if he, when we say he took it

00:33:51.700 alone, yeah, he started it alone.

00:33:53.100 But clearly, when I was reading the room, and especially in hindsight, when you look at

00:33:57.920 the timeline, him and Trump were clearly working together behind the scenes.

00:34:05.400 They weren't working against each other, as was being reported in the media.

00:34:10.460 It was a game of deception that was being played.

00:34:13.560 And because of timing, if you look at like this, the first thing was the 60 days, day

00:34:18.520 61, Israel strikes, which was only a few days after he said, oh, we'll look at two weeks

00:34:25.200 or what, I don't know, that was next.

00:34:26.460 But it was, it was, it all lined up perfectly.

00:34:30.260 And, and, and, and, I know what happened then is just before they struck, Trump had kind

00:34:36.020 of calmed them down by planning that meeting for the Sunday.

00:34:41.120 So they weren't on edge, worried that something was going to happen in that period.

00:34:44.780 So it, like, unless you believe the narrative that Bibi Netanyahu was just completely defiant

00:34:51.060 to Trump, Trump must have been in on it.

00:34:55.660 And as he says in his own words, it was the best team in history.

00:35:01.540 Well, it's a great reminder that people have no idea what they're talking about, frankly.

00:35:06.200 And that was another thing I saw in government.

00:35:08.520 It's like, have some humility about what you don't know. 0.98

00:35:12.480 Stop speaking so goddamn confidently. 0.96

00:35:14.860 It's so true. 0.96

00:35:15.520 It's so true you say that because even people that, you know, like, uh, what's his name from

00:35:20.600 the war room, uh, Bannon, Steve Bannon, like all these people were trading on their previous

00:35:26.400 relationships, even Tucker, like these people were trading on their old or whatever relationship

00:35:33.100 they had in that particular period.

00:35:35.620 And like, they have some sort of insight into what's going to happen.

00:35:38.980 And it turned out none of them were right.

00:35:42.600 Yeah.

00:35:43.200 Well, I think there's, uh, layers of problems here.

00:35:47.060 Um, the first one is just, uh, everyone needs to realize that if they're not in the room with

00:35:53.480 the president at that moment, they don't know what is happening.

00:35:57.060 Okay.

00:35:57.440 They may have spoken to someone who spoke to somebody who sees something in a certain way,

00:36:01.380 who has an ax to grudge, who spoke to an anonymous person who, you know, wanted to twist it.

00:36:06.420 And then the media took it.

00:36:07.480 It's like a game of telephone.

00:36:08.440 And the social media rumor mill just operates, you know, ad nauseum. 0.96

00:36:13.720 And so people just, they take bullshit factoids that are not true at all, and then build layer 0.96

00:36:19.460 upon layer upon layer. 0.97

00:36:21.200 And I just saw the number of things that I knew to be true.

00:36:24.520 I would be in a meeting, I'd walk out of that meeting and I would see covered everywhere,

00:36:28.220 the exact opposite of what just happened.

00:36:30.780 I saw the speculation about everything, every decision I was involved with the prime minister.

00:36:35.300 And I would see just endless, endless people with a thousand percent confidence.

00:36:40.580 It's, it's one thing to have an opinion, perfectly valid, reasonable.

00:36:43.340 Okay.

00:36:43.720 But it's another thing to lose perspective that you might not know everything.

00:36:48.520 And we're, we have an epidemic of people who think they know everything about everything. 0.96

00:36:53.460 So my clarion call is a little bit of goddamn humility about what you don't know. 0.85

00:36:58.340 And I think that's proven, you know, to the nth degree with this latest, uh, you know, 0.97

00:37:02.180 and I wanted to get onto the new phenomenon that I'm seeing there.

00:37:04.940 But before I get to that, you mentioned Dave Smith.

00:37:07.380 One of the arguments that he's brought, um, forth over and over again, when it comes to

00:37:13.580 this, forget Gaza, um, when it comes to, to the Iran, um, Israel conflict was, Bibi Netanyahu

00:37:21.520 has been telling us for 30 years, um, that, uh, Iran is just weeks, months, uh, or even a

00:37:30.340 year away from obtaining that nuclear weapon.

00:37:33.080 And why should we believe him?

00:37:34.680 What, what's the answer to that?

00:37:38.480 Thank you for asking that question.

00:37:39.900 That's a very important question.

00:37:41.060 It comes up all the time now, and it's sort of parroted his truth.

00:37:44.280 And Dave Smith on, on peers, he gave two options.

00:37:47.340 He said, either Benjamin Netanyahu was mistaken, or he's lying.

00:37:54.300 Now, I, you know, I spent years with the prime minister, and I think it's, it's, one should

00:38:02.180 be modest enough to think for even just an additional section.

00:38:04.660 Is it possible that there is another explanation for this?

00:38:09.300 So let me explore that for one second.

00:38:11.440 It's possible he's mistaken.

00:38:12.520 It's possible he was lying. 0.97

00:38:13.440 But let's just, for, you know, for, for shits and giggles, explore a third option. 0.84

00:38:17.760 Now, is it possible that for the last many years, Iran has been close to getting a nuclear 0.91

00:38:23.820 weapon, but a 24-7 covert war waged by the greatest intelligence service in the world with

00:38:32.500 thousands of people working on nothing but this to deny Iran nuclear weapons, maybe that

00:38:38.100 had something to do with the eternal pushing back of Iran?

00:38:41.900 Call me crazy, but according to foreign sources, every month or two, some nuclear site would

00:38:48.660 malfunction mysteriously, and centrifuges would spin a little too fast or a little too slow.

00:38:54.080 And miraculously, every five or seven days, a top nuclear scientist would meet his maker,

00:39:00.040 thank goodness.

00:39:01.020 And every six months or so, some treasure trove of Iran's, you know, secret atomic material 0.99

00:39:07.980 would be smuggled out somehow and found its way to the military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

00:39:13.840 Is it possible that that had something to do with the fact that why Iran hasn't actually

00:39:19.180 achieved nuclear weapons?

00:39:20.840 I would say that that is the dominant reason.

00:39:23.700 Knowing something about this, that is the dominant reason.

00:39:26.960 Iran was close. 0.85

00:39:28.760 They are close.

00:39:30.220 And so many experts have said, they said, if Iran chose to develop nuclear weapons,

00:39:35.860 they would be weeks away from it.

00:39:38.280 That's what Tulsi Gabbard said.

00:39:40.380 Listen to Kurilla, what he said.

00:39:42.680 Listen to, it's okay if you want to discount all Israeli intelligence, that's fine. 0.88

00:39:46.180 I don't.

00:39:46.720 These are people I know.

00:39:47.840 These are people I worked with.

00:39:49.460 You know what I mean?

00:39:50.180 These are people that I have family members who worked in.

00:39:53.480 So I believe these geniuses who are capable of finding every nuclear scientist.

00:39:59.720 I believe that their assessments are true.

00:40:01.900 And I have seen the results of what this war has done to Iran's nuclear ability.

00:40:07.040 Absent Israel's efforts, they would have had nukes a decade ago, a decade and a half ago, 0.97

00:40:11.800 perhaps.

00:40:12.500 I don't know.

00:40:13.160 So Dave Smith should be tipping his hat to these brave and brilliant intelligence agents

00:40:18.740 that stopped a theocratic, genocidal, mass-murdering terrorist regime from acquiring the most deadly

00:40:25.620 weapons known to man.

00:40:27.380 Lying or mistaken?

00:40:28.380 I don't think so.

00:40:29.060 It's the result of this incredible, persistent, massive, covert war that you could fill the

00:40:37.180 library of Congress with examples of what has been done in order to stop Iran from acquiring

00:40:44.380 nuclear weapons.

00:40:45.640 That is the reason they don't have nuclear weapons today.

00:40:47.880 And by the way, just one more quick thing.

00:40:52.200 Having been, it was my job to take Iran's secret atomic archive and tell the world about 0.76

00:40:58.400 it, okay?

00:40:58.980 I spent so long just on this one project.

00:41:02.560 This trove showed copious amount of documentation that Iran had planned, plotted, said the number 0.98

00:41:11.620 of warheads they wanted, where they wanted to detonate it, who was involved, and on and

00:41:15.480 on and on and on.

00:41:16.580 And this is the same regime that said, we have never sought nuclear weapons ever, ever.

00:41:23.260 That's what the entire leadership of Iran says to this day.

00:41:28.140 It's so comical that it, so.

00:41:30.640 He is a comical.

00:41:31.300 I could go on and on about this, but yes, that thing I do find, I do find laughable, yes.

00:41:37.120 Okay, so just before I let you go and appreciate your time, I know it's getting later there.

00:41:43.320 We have seen this phenomena in the US where, I guess, Iran lost this war, but the other

00:41:53.320 group that seems to have lost this war domestically in the US is what's been dubbed as the woke

00:41:58.120 right, and so you see your Candace Owens and, what do they call him, him, Katarlson or Tucker

00:42:07.680 Carlson, but there's a whole list of them.

00:42:11.360 It's kind of become a trendy thing on the right to join these people that have pretty much

00:42:18.900 predicted everything in this war wrong, which has been almost a savior, like for all the

00:42:27.000 reasons that I mentioned before, because it would have just been horrible if they gained

00:42:30.540 any momentum beyond just the online clicks for the period that they got to enjoy it,

00:42:35.400 but now, obviously, their credibility has been shot, which is exactly what we need to

00:42:40.840 show that they don't know what they're talking about.

00:42:42.940 Again, this is all what we sort of unpacked already, but I want to ask you, what is happening

00:42:47.560 in America?

00:42:48.940 Because it's trickled down here as well, and it's now happening in Australia.

00:42:52.140 It's happening around the world.

00:42:53.120 There's this kind of group who identify as part of the right, not necessarily even Dave

00:42:59.180 Smith.

00:42:59.640 Dave Smith is a libertarian, so he was kind of left in the middle.

00:43:04.220 He's all over the shop as long as it's anti.

00:43:06.320 But there's the right wing that have identified as conservatives that almost every single one

00:43:13.860 of them, if you look back at their tweets four years ago, five years ago, it was staunchly

00:43:21.620 making the arguments against themselves today, and nothing's changed.

00:43:26.680 Israel is exactly the same, and a lot of these ones like Candace Owens will say, oh, well,

00:43:32.880 when you butcher 50,000 people, then what do you expect from me? 0.95

00:43:38.720 But that argument's bullshit because the problem is from day one of Israel's, you know, only 0.98

00:43:46.020 days after October 7th, she was already talking in this tone. 0.96

00:43:50.820 So it wasn't actually what happened in Gaza that caused it.

00:43:54.740 There was a shift.

00:43:56.620 Do you have any theory as to what happened and what's happening?

00:44:02.880 Well, I don't think there's ever been a monolith on any political side about what people feel.

00:44:08.600 And, you know, going back to the 80s, you know, there were many different opinions on

00:44:12.860 the right and the left.

00:44:14.440 I try very hard not to ascertain people's motives for what drives them to say what they

00:44:21.100 say.

00:44:21.680 So I'm never going to be one of these people that's, you know, oh, well, this guy's funded

00:44:25.060 by that, and so therefore he believes this.

00:44:27.480 Or this person just wants clicks, or this person, you know, is trying to curry favors with

00:44:32.560 this group.

00:44:33.000 I'm not inside people's heads.

00:44:34.540 And I think a big mistake that people make often on the other side towards people with

00:44:39.560 my views is they try to say, oh, you're saying this because you think X, Y, and Z.

00:44:43.480 I just prefer to look at the argument itself.

00:44:46.580 And on that, perhaps I agree with Dave Smith because he seems to say that a lot.

00:44:50.480 Let's just unpack the argument.

00:44:51.880 And that's where I find their ideas so offensive.

00:44:55.220 When, you know, you have this idea that Iran is no threat to America after it's killed and 1.00

00:45:02.300 maimed and murdered so many Americans, you need to explain that because that makes no

00:45:06.820 sense.

00:45:07.480 And I could give dozens and dozens of examples of the Iranian regime attacking both physically

00:45:14.000 and, you know, ideologically everything that America stands for.

00:45:18.800 That makes no sense.

00:45:21.160 If you're going to go, like, as Tucker said, and you're going to say, you know, I've never

00:45:26.280 heard of this assassination attempt.

00:45:28.340 Well, read up about it.

00:45:29.360 It's really important.

00:45:30.780 And if you want to say it's fake, go ahead.

00:45:33.060 You can say it's fake.

00:45:33.860 Let's have that debate at the very least.

00:45:35.940 Let's hear from the intelligence agencies.

00:45:38.080 Let's hear from the DOJ.

00:45:39.420 Let's hear from the FBI.

00:45:40.680 If you think the FBI is lying, fine.

00:45:41.800 But it should kind of be upon you to explain how and why they're lying.

00:45:46.440 So I just find so much falseness and so much vacuous logic at play about really important

00:45:53.200 issues.

00:45:53.620 I can't quite, I don't, I can't kind of psychoanalyze what's behind it.

00:45:59.540 I don't know what's behind it, but it's definitely there.

00:46:01.960 It's definitely dangerous.

00:46:03.280 It's definitely, I think, antithetical to the truth and to, you know, America's greatest

00:46:08.340 attributes.

00:46:09.280 And I think in a debate, these ideas will lose.

00:46:11.960 And maybe they are losing.

00:46:13.540 And by the way, you want to define what America first is.

00:46:16.140 Maybe the president of the United States and the spiritual, you know, founder of this movement

00:46:22.760 should have a say in what it means to be America first.

00:46:25.720 That seems to me to be a reasonable ask.

00:46:29.660 Finally, before I let you go, you've obviously had a relationship with the prime minister

00:46:35.180 Netanyahu.

00:46:38.720 Like I said in the beginning, he is a divisive person.

00:46:41.280 I know that prior to October 7, my mum was going to protest in support of him.

00:46:46.900 One of my brothers was going to protest against him.

00:46:50.020 So Israel itself has certainly been split over Netanyahu at least in the last seven, eight

00:46:56.240 years, whatever it is.

00:46:59.000 How is he on a, as a person, on a personal level?

00:47:05.440 He's a complicated guy.

00:47:07.540 He is brilliant.

00:47:08.660 It's very hard to describe how well-read he is.

00:47:12.940 You know, reads a book a week, has a photographic memory, remembers everything, is very intense,

00:47:19.920 is very demanding, expects the best, is in the weeds on things, cares deeply, immensely

00:47:27.920 passionate, feels that it's his life's mission to make Israel strong and safe.

00:47:33.980 All that said, I obviously had, you know, disagreements about policy matters.

00:47:37.660 And I told that to him very frankly when I did.

00:47:42.400 But I think he's a historical figure.

00:47:44.560 And I think that, you know, October 7 was obviously a failure of the system and it needs

00:47:49.220 to be investigated, et cetera.

00:47:50.840 I think the boldness and courage he has shown in going after Iran's nuclear program is legendary

00:47:57.080 and historic and will be remembered for many generations to come.

00:48:01.500 So he's contributed an immense amount to Israel.

00:48:04.280 No one is perfect.

00:48:05.380 No one doesn't make mistakes.

00:48:07.200 You know, I've had disagreements.

00:48:08.520 I'm sure there will be things I disagree with in the future.

00:48:10.940 But I think as a figure of history, he has contributed a tremendous amount.

00:48:14.820 And I don't like, I think it's unfair when people try to get in his mind as well.

00:48:19.580 I mean, they think they know him better than he knows himself.

00:48:22.140 And so there's a lot of things that aren't true out there from my experience at the very

00:48:26.300 least.

00:48:27.100 And so I'm generally appreciative, even though I didn't agree with everything that has been

00:48:32.160 done or surely will be done.

00:48:33.540 Do you think he has prosecuted the war generally?

00:48:36.840 So we've obviously got the Gaza part.

00:48:38.960 I don't think anyone can argue that Hezbollah wasn't dealt with properly.

00:48:44.400 And now it seems like Iran has. 0.83

00:48:46.620 Do you think at least the Gaza part of this is prosecuted well?

00:48:50.540 And what would you say to people who think he's only sustaining the war because of his

00:48:56.200 own personal judicial issues within Israel and the fact that once it ends, he has to face

00:49:02.240 the music about how it started?

00:49:03.540 I don't think that's true at all.

00:49:07.820 Not even when I own it.

00:49:08.940 You don't think it comes into his calculations at all?

00:49:12.620 Not really, no.

00:49:13.680 I mean, he meets with the families of the people that have been killed.

00:49:16.660 He's met with the families of hostages many times.

00:49:18.660 He himself had a brother who was killed in battle.

00:49:21.020 He himself almost died several times in battle.

00:49:24.260 I think he does things to try to protect Israel. 0.85

00:49:27.820 As for the conduct of the war, there are surely things I would have done differently.

00:49:31.920 And this is where there's inherent complexity to this question.

00:49:37.020 I, for 20 years, have said our goal in Gaza needs to be total victory over Hamas.

00:49:43.540 The total destruction of Hamas is a fighting force.

00:49:47.260 And so that was the policy I favored in 2007 and 8 and 9 and 10 and 11, all the way through

00:49:54.000 to 2024 and 2025 when it started to happen.

00:49:58.980 So I wish that would have happened much sooner.

00:50:00.580 I think many, many lives would have been saved.

00:50:03.220 And I probably would have done a number of things differently in the war.

00:50:07.620 That said, I'm eternally grateful that he has held that line as a goal of the war because 0.98

00:50:12.960 almost everyone who criticizes him would have long ago said, we're going to leave Gaza.

00:50:19.680 If Hamas is there, if Hamas isn't there, not really my problem.

00:50:23.440 We can't really defeat it.

00:50:24.640 You can't defeat an idea.

00:50:25.800 They're going to be there for all eternity.

00:50:27.780 Let's release, you know, any amount of murderers in order to get our people back.

00:50:33.440 And if Hamas has to remain in power, we'll deal with that another day.

00:50:36.900 I think that's insanity.

00:50:39.140 And the right policy is the policy that FDR chose after Pearl Harbor.

00:50:44.080 And that was the total defeat and destruction of the enemy.

00:50:49.240 And that's exactly what needs to happen with Hamas in Gaza. 0.80

00:50:52.800 We cannot relax for a moment and think even for an instant that they can remain after they

00:50:59.460 butchered and burned so many innocent people and would do it again and again and again.

00:51:05.080 So it's complicated.

00:51:06.720 The prime minister deserves a lot of credit for not cutting and running.

00:51:09.220 And other generals and other high-ranking officials were desperate to do that.

00:51:13.840 And they advised him to do that.

00:51:15.780 So it took a large amount of courage.

00:51:18.620 That said, I probably would have gone further and faster.

00:51:21.640 But I also have tremendous deference to someone who sits in that seat and is the decision maker

00:51:26.700 and sees all the intelligence and has to cope with seven or eight or nine fronts simultaneously.

00:51:32.200 It's very easy to be a pundit.

00:51:34.720 Like, you know, the conversation we're having to sort of flippantly say, oh, they should do this.

00:51:38.480 They should do that.

00:51:39.140 But when you're in the room with unbearable pressure, with so many different interests

00:51:45.320 at the same time, with superpowers asking you to do this or that, with munitions dwindling,

00:51:51.040 with people dying in the field, with attacks that come at the very instant you're thinking

00:51:55.800 about everything else, it is very, very, very hard to make good and judicious decisions

00:52:02.320 in those moments.

00:52:03.060 And so I myself have tremendous respect and deference for the prime minister and anybody

00:52:10.080 who sits in that seat and has that most difficult job.

00:52:13.760 David, thanks for your time.

00:52:15.000 Where can people find you if they're interested in hearing more of what you've got to say?

00:52:20.940 Check out David M. Keyes on X.

00:52:24.400 I occasionally post.

00:52:25.760 I didn't post for a long time.

00:52:26.900 I'm not really a creature of social.

00:52:29.200 Occasionally I say things or make funny videos, hopefully.

00:52:33.060 I like satire and humor, so sometimes I post things there.

00:52:36.220 That's about it.

00:52:37.460 Have a sub stack and things like that.

00:52:39.040 But thank you for the time and happy to have had this conversation.

00:52:43.180 Stay safe.

00:52:44.820 Keep in touch.

00:52:45.360 Thank you.

00:52:45.840 Thank you.

00:52:46.220 We'll see you next time.

Rebel News Podcast - July 02, 2025

AVI YEMINI ｜ Bibi's former advisor unpacks Iran's secrets

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript