Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Iran 'maximizes spectacle' in latest bombardment of Israel

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Today, I want to talk about the very short war that broke up between Iran

00:00:06.860 and Yemen and Lebanese Hezbollah versus Israel, America, UK, France, and Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

00:00:14.240 I think you could almost call that a world war, but it was over in hours. I'll take you through it.

00:00:20.200 But first, I'd like to invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the video

00:00:23.760 version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a month,

00:00:28.740 not only to get the video content, but you help keep Rebel News alive. Because,

00:00:33.460 you know, we don't take a dime from Trudeau, and it shows. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:45.680 Tonight, it looked like World War III there for a minute, but the Israel-Iranians, 1.00

00:00:58.740 Iran battle, lasted just a day. It's April 15th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:07.460 What a strange war we had over the weekend. I thought it was going to be World War III for

00:01:24.860 a bit. As you know, the Islamic Republic of Iran backs the terrorist group called Hamas

00:01:30.920 that runs the Gaza Strip. It also backs the terrorist group Hezbollah, which runs much of

00:01:36.440 Lebanon. It also backs the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is a worldwide terrorist group.

00:01:44.460 Recently, Israel took out some IRGC leaders in an attack in Syria. It took out some senior generals.

00:01:53.860 Donald Trump did that, too, if you might recall. It seems that everybody knew when Iran's retaliatory

00:02:01.520 strike would be. And that sort of happened with Donald Trump, actually. It won't go down that road

00:02:07.260 now. But after that strike that killed the terrorist generals, the Al-Quds Force generals,

00:02:13.640 Israel and America announced that they thought, seemed like they knew, an attack from Iran to

00:02:22.720 Israel, not through Iran's proxies, but from Iran itself, what happened at a particular time.

00:02:28.780 In fact, Israel announced public restrictions on gatherings. They had a whole checklist of do's and

00:02:34.200 don'ts. It looked terrifying, frankly. It looked like they were shutting the whole country down.

00:02:39.260 Airspace over the whole country and neighboring countries was shut down, too. And indeed, the war

00:02:45.600 came on schedule. Iran launched cruise missiles and slower drones, which actually needed hours to

00:02:55.380 arrive, and the much faster ballistic missiles. Those were very fast. All of them were launched about

00:03:03.400 the same time. It was a challenging defense operation. But apparently, the vast majority of them

00:03:09.700 were shot down, with various degrees of help from other countries in the region, including Jordan,

00:03:18.120 Saudi Arabia, France, the UK, and the US, including some navy ships of the US. Attacks onto Israel came

00:03:28.260 from Yemen, Lebanon, but mainly from Iran directly, which has been a change. Now, as I mentioned, Israel

00:03:36.800 claims that as many as 99% of these attacks were shot down. Still, the ones that got through were

00:03:42.720 terrifying. Here's an image of how big one of the ballistic missiles was. Imagine if that detonated on

00:03:49.120 a house or anything. Here's a CNN story that I thought was unusual, but it was my thinking, too.

00:03:57.600 Iran's attack seemed planned to minimize casualties while maximizing spectacle.

00:04:08.660 It's a little bit out there for CNN. Here's another one. Iran says it gave warning before attacking 0.85

00:04:17.800 Israel. Now, the US says that's not true, but those are mainstream news sources saying that.

00:04:24.620 Here, let me read a little bit from an extended Twitter post by Naftali Bennett, the former prime

00:04:30.540 minister, who was actually in Canada just last week. He said, some points regarding the overnight

00:04:36.060 Iranian missile attack on Israel. Number one, contrary to what pundits are saying, this wasn't

00:04:39.920 designed merely as bells and whistles with no damage. When you shoot 350 flying objects, time to hit Israel 0.93

00:04:45.780 at the same moment. When you use three fundamentally different weapon types, cruise missiles,

00:04:50.280 ballistic missiles, and UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, you're looking to penetrate Israel's defenses

00:04:56.260 and kill Israelis. Number two, the US administration is telling us this is a victory. You've already won 1.00

00:05:01.580 by thwarting the missiles. No need for any further action. No, it's not a victory. Yes, it's a remarkable

00:05:07.820 success of Israel's air defense systems, but it's not a victory. When a bully tries to hit you 350 times and only

00:05:14.060 succeed seven times, you've not won. You don't win wars just by intercepting your enemy's hits, nor do you

00:05:20.280 deter it. Your enemy will just try harder with more and better weapons and methods next time. How do you

00:05:26.560 deter? By exacting a deeply painful price. It goes on at some length, but these are serious people who are

00:05:34.140 saying this. The war looks like a made-for-TV stitch-up, like that old movie with Dustin Hoffman called

00:05:40.460 Wag the Dog. Do you remember that? In a way, everyone gets a PR win here. Iran can look tough to its own 0.90

00:05:47.980 people and its supporters. Israel can get a military victory, a dramatic ratio of striking down those 0.76

00:05:58.420 weapons systems. It can feel great about it. Biden can get the upper hand on Israel and try to stop it

00:06:06.200 from finishing off Iran or to finish off Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip. How about here in Canada?

00:06:14.360 That's where we live. That's what we care about. Look at this from Toronto. Watch this video.

00:06:19.520 Everyone, I would like to make a quick announcement to address the process of beginning to announcement.

00:06:27.540 The Islamic Republic of Iran has just sent thanks to George towards Israel. 0.87

00:06:36.200 That was the moment the pro-Hamas thugs on the

00:07:06.180 street heard about the Iranian attack. The Twitterer says this is Toronto, where a mob is

00:07:12.180 cheering for Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran has just sent tens of drones towards Israel. 0.97

00:07:17.720 They were cheering Iran on our streets. Look at this from Calgary. Today, during the anti-Israel

00:07:26.540 rally in Calgary, a protester was seen giving a Nazi salute while holding an image of the Iranian

00:07:32.440 supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This comes a day after Iran attacked Israel.

00:07:38.440 We have literal terrorist supporters on our streets cheering Iran. The mayor of Calgary,

00:07:44.440 Jodi Gondek, her office was right behind this guy. I don't know if you could tell, but that guy giving

00:07:52.440 the Sieg Heil Hitler salute was standing in front of Calgary City Hall. There were police everywhere.

00:07:57.980 They didn't lift a finger. They didn't care. The mayor probably saw it with her own eyes from her window.

00:08:02.440 But remember, Jodi Gondek is the Calgary mayor who refused to attend a Jewish Hanukkah menorah lighting

00:08:10.440 ceremony because she said it was too political, and she's done the math. There's about 8,000 Jews in Calgary

00:08:16.440 and about 100,000 Muslims in Calgary, and there was no way she was going to go to a Jewish event and risk 0.94

00:08:22.440 all those votes. That guy with the Sieg Heil was her people. This is going on everywhere, by the way,

00:08:28.440 all across the West. I shouldn't say everywhere. There's no protest in favor of terrorism in places

00:08:34.680 like Dubai. But these people on our own streets, many of whom were brought in just in recent years,

00:08:42.280 they really want to kill us. And by us, of course, I mean you. They're dressing up for it. They're

00:08:48.200 practicing for it. There's also a sour online anti-Israel right-wing community. Jackson Hinkle is an

00:08:57.880 example of that. He's been on Twitter literally cheering for Iran and China. He calls himself

00:09:06.200 America first, but it's not America first to be cheering for the Iranian dictatorship against 0.66

00:09:12.600 America. How do you square that circle? I think the number one thing we have to do

00:09:19.160 is to fix immigration. For housing reasons, for social services reasons, for traffic reasons,

00:09:25.160 for inflation reasons, yeah, yeah. But also, I hate to say it, but I've noticed that most of the people

00:09:31.880 calling for terrorism in our streets are recent immigrants who were clearly not vetted for extremism. 1.00

00:09:40.280 Israel has its problems, but don't think we don't have them too. 1.00

00:09:43.800 Well, of course, as we say quite often on the show, foreign policy is interesting,

00:10:05.720 and it's an expression of our principles. But what really counts is the effect here at home,

00:10:10.840 in Canada, and of course in the United States? What does this say to foreign-directed,

00:10:16.120 foreign-financed radicals within our own countries? What about the fact that Canada,

00:10:20.920 for example, refuses to criminalize the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a terrorist group,

00:10:27.240 and that the government of Iran has 700 agents in our streets? As you saw cheering in support of Iran,

00:10:35.000 you saw that shocking image from Calgary, someone holding up a picture of the religious

00:10:39.480 leader of Iran and giving a Nazi-style Sig Heil, Sig Heil salute. Joining us now to talk both about

00:10:45.960 the foreign and domestic implications is our old friend Ben Weingarten. He's a senior contributor

00:10:52.920 at The Federalist. Ben, great to see you again. Thanks for having me, Ezra. Always a pleasure.

00:10:58.760 Thank you for taking the time with us. Let's start first about what's really going on over there. I am

00:11:04.440 worried that the massive rocket attack and its 90 percent plus success rate and being shot down

00:11:14.520 gave the feeling of a great conflict that Israel can take credit for and that the allies can take 0.78

00:11:22.040 credit for. But now Israel no longer has, quote, permission from the United States or the G7 countries

00:11:29.640 to go any further with Iran or, frankly, to go further with Hamas. That's what I'm worried 0.53

00:11:34.280 really happened. What do you think? Well, I think your intuitions are right. And if the reporting is

00:11:41.000 true and the reporting is consistent with everything we've seen about the Iran first policy that the

00:11:47.960 Obama-Biden administration and now the Biden-Harris administration has been executing for the last

00:11:53.880 11 plus years with the blissful interruption of the Trump administration, it's consistent with the

00:12:00.520 idea that the U.S. essentially coordinated with Iran about how it was going to attack, which is

00:12:07.320 asinine on its face, by the way, that America is coordinating the world's leading state sponsor of

00:12:12.280 jihad in an unprecedented assault, aerial invasion, territorial invasion of our purported closest ally

00:12:21.080 in the region, and then also coordinated with Israel, Sunni Arab nations, and others in the

00:12:27.480 response to provide defense and capture most, though not all, of the drones and ballistic missiles

00:12:35.240 launched at Israel to try to be able to claim some victory while also trying to appease the Iranians 0.99

00:12:41.560 and then to end the whole thing right there. And that somehow that constitutes a win and Israel

00:12:46.920 should take the win and just accept now as normal the fact that they can incur 300-plus ballistic

00:12:54.040 missiles and drones being launched at a New Jersey-sized country, when, by the way, Hezbollah itself,

00:13:00.600 let's note, did not really respond and engage, but they have hundreds of thousands of missiles

00:13:07.480 and other projectiles that they can launch at Israel at any time, when we know that Iran has flooded 0.53

00:13:12.920 masses of munitions into Judea and Samaria to threaten Israel from that direction, and then

00:13:19.400 you have Iran and all of its other proxies as well. And, of course, this aggression, this overt 0.60

00:13:25.560 aggression, overwhelming aggression, really began with Iran-sponsored Hamas in Gaza. And so what do I

00:13:32.840 think ultimately part of this is? This is in part about the Biden administration trying to further

00:13:40.920 box Israel. And what they will say to Israel is, look, you had all of the world community behind

00:13:47.400 you and trying to defend you here. You had the Sunni Arab powers. Look, the Jordanians stepped up,

00:13:52.600 the Saudis stepped up to defend you. All of this normalization and peace can be yours if you'll just

00:13:59.960 end the war in Gaza, let Hamas survive, regroup, and then form part of a quote-unquote Palestinian 0.60

00:14:06.600 authority, Fatah, which is Hamas-led government, to lead a newly established Palestinian Arab terror

00:14:15.240 state. And don't you dare think about seriously hitting Iran in a way that would destabilize,

00:14:20.840 let alone topple the regime, despite the fact that it just engaged in unprecedented assault against you,

00:14:26.760 despite the fact that it's been dashing towards a nuclear weapon and it's been enriched with tens

00:14:31.000 of billions of dollars and emboldened by the fact that the U.S. administration will do nothing

00:14:35.880 to deter, let alone punish them. But all of this can be yours if you'll just stand down, essentially.

00:14:42.680 And that would be absolute suicide for Israel. But the Biden administration is just as cynical and

00:14:49.160 political as would be necessary to think about it that way and to manage things that way.

00:14:55.000 You know, that was my thought because I thought, oh my God, the war is coming.

00:14:59.160 And then my first, I mean, first of all, I've never seen a war telegraphed by the warmongers to the

00:15:07.320 would-be victims so clearly. Like, they had it down to the hour. I was reading news from Israel,

00:15:13.240 from Washington, the attack is expected to start in 48 hours, in 24 hours. Like, real attacks,

00:15:19.400 I think of one of the most devastating wars against Israel was the Yom Kippur War,

00:15:23.240 on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur, when Israel was invaded in a sneak attack. The October 0.91

00:15:29.080 7th Hamas attack was a sneak attack. Almost never do you have to the hour the plans of the hostile 0.85

00:15:38.600 enemy. It seemed weird. When it came, I was scared of how huge it was. And then I was elated by the

00:15:47.000 massive success of striking it down. But then it was over and this all seemed so weird. And my mind

00:15:54.920 started thinking of conspiracy theories. And I thought, no way. There's no way that Joe Biden

00:16:01.320 engineered this, that he was in communication with both sides. But I see reports, actual reports

00:16:07.320 that this happened. What is the latest? Is it confirmed that Biden was in touch with both sides

00:16:12.760 here? I've seen hints to that effect in the Jerusalem Post and elsewhere.

00:16:18.120 We've also seen it in Turkish media. There's been an American media reports that through

00:16:23.240 Switzerland, essentially, the U.S. was communicating with Iran. And all I can say is 0.66

00:16:29.720 that this is just perfectly consistent with what we've long known, which is that the Biden

00:16:33.400 administration and the Obama Biden administration before it, and this should all be viewed as one

00:16:37.880 consistent, continuous, Iran-first policy. They have served as partners and protectors 0.94

00:16:45.480 of the malacracy in Iran. Iran, there's a notion that, well, Iran just had to save face 0.94

00:16:52.600 after the mastermind, one of the masterminds by on October 7th, was taken out, likely by Israel,

00:16:58.440 although Israel hasn't confirmed or denied it to date. But this notion that, well, they just had to save

00:17:04.360 face. And so now we can just accept a complete shift of the Overton window and normalization

00:17:10.040 of the idea that Iran can directly attack Israel. But if Israelis don't die as a consequence, it's not

00:17:15.880 really that serious. And we can all just move on and shift it under the rug. And you have the Biden

00:17:20.200 administration saying, we're ironclad for Israel's security and defense. But at the same time,

00:17:25.000 we're going to distance ourselves from however Israel might respond to this. But also, Israel,

00:17:29.400 you better take this win. And, you know, don't look over here, but there's lots of talk in the U.S.

00:17:34.200 about conditioning our weapons support on your conduct. You put it all together, and it's just

00:17:41.240 very consistent with everything that we know that this administration, like the Obama-Biden

00:17:46.280 administration before, was always back-channeling with Iran, was always bending backwards for Iran.

00:17:51.640 And let's note a couple of the first acts after October 7th that the Biden administration engaged in,

00:17:57.240 beyond the fact that it re-upped the $10 billion sanctions waiver to Iran. So you still have

00:18:02.920 billions of dollars flowing into the coffers of this malacracy to underwrite its jihadism 0.97

00:18:07.800 in the Middle East and all over the world. What were the two significant, one rhetorical and one

00:18:13.880 action steps that the Biden administration took? It sought to delink Iran from Hamas's attack,

00:18:20.040 despite the fact that there is zero chance of October 7th, if Iran isn't significantly

00:18:25.800 involved with it, whether it's funding, whether it's training, whether it's logistics, whether

00:18:29.800 it's intelligence and coordination with other proxies. But set that aside, what was number two?

00:18:36.360 It was, as Israel was planning to strike Hezbollah in the first week after, and Hezbollah is the far 0.99

00:18:42.680 more formidable adversary that could destroy Israel with how big its arsenal is and how 0.99

00:18:49.320 serious and sophisticated it is as a jihadist force in Lebanon. The Biden administration told Israel,

00:18:59.000 stand down, do not strike Hezbollah, do not escalate this war right after October 7th. And

00:19:05.160 the disastrous aspect is that every effort to, quote unquote, not escalate and to feed the Iranian 0.97

00:19:11.320 crocodile ends up dramatically increasing the chance of a catastrophic Middle Eastern war.

00:19:17.320 And that's why at the end of the day, what's in the national interest of the US, what's in the

00:19:22.040 interest of the West ought to be letting Israel do what it has to do, where it has to do it to 0.95

00:19:28.840 neutralize, if not eliminate the existential threats facing it, because those threats are our threats,

00:19:34.760 ultimately, at the end of the day. And for the West to reduce its footprint in the Middle East is going

00:19:39.880 to require Israel and the Sunni Arab states to serve as a bulwark against Iran and all of its nefarious 1.00

00:19:46.520 tentacles. We have that under President Trump with the Abraham Accords and burgeoning peace through

00:19:52.440 strength and an Iran that was on the ropes. The Biden administration has done the exact opposite.

00:19:57.800 And what is the result? Chaos, carnage and bloodshed, dead Americans, dead Israelis, 1.00

00:20:02.920 dead citizens of other countries as well. Hundreds of attacks on our troops and our facilities in the

00:20:08.600 region. And the Biden administration says we can't escalate this. Every act of, quote unquote,

00:20:13.480 de-escalation that the Biden administration imposes only leads to escalation from all of the worst

00:20:19.640 actors in the world and that live in that region. I just want to emphasize again, as an American,

00:20:24.600 Iran has American blood on its hands dating back to the Islamic revolution and the hostage crisis

00:20:31.000 in the 80s, in the attacks on US troops and other personnel in Lebanon, in the 90s with the Khobar 0.67

00:20:37.800 tower bombings in Saudi Arabia and in the 2000s with the IEDs that blew off people's legs and killed

00:20:44.520 people and ruined lives in Afghanistan and Iraq as well. And that continues to this day. So there is

00:20:51.800 American blood and the blood of our other friends in the West that's on Iran's hands. And so it's not 0.98

00:20:58.200 just Israel's fight, but Israel is the one that can end it. Israel can decisively act. The US will not. 0.75

00:21:04.760 It's very clear. It's abundantly clear. The US has no desire to do anything related to Iran,

00:21:11.160 not even to end the unenforced oil sanctions that have flown tens of billions of dollars into their

00:21:16.280 coffers. So Israel has to act in its interest and it will redound to our interest as well. But it is 0.90

00:21:23.320 shackled, no doubt, and feels the pressure, particularly from an America that is effectively partnered with

00:21:29.800 Iran. And that is at the very same time, by the way, trying to topple the government in Israel.

00:21:36.040 Yeah. I mean, it wasn't a few weeks ago where Chuck Schumer, who's Jewish, by the way,

00:21:41.640 basically said Israel must throw, must have a coup. He said this out loud that Israel has to replace

00:21:49.560 Netanyahu. The audacity of that. And it's absolutely shocking.

00:21:56.280 You know, one of the strangest things in the last six months has been all these US naval assets in

00:22:03.080 the region, in the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea, etc. And they're constantly being attacked by

00:22:09.480 Iranian proxies in Yemen, this backwater, dirt poor, backwards colony of Iran. And they're shooting 1.00

00:22:19.160 these drones and they're like at US warships. They're also hijacking or attacking merchant,

00:22:27.560 like freighters going through the Panama Canal. And the American response, put aside Israel, 0.69

00:22:33.240 America doesn't do anything. America doesn't flatten the Houthi extremists in Yemen. It just sort of

00:22:40.040 tries to shoot down the drones and say, oh, that's nothing. We're like Goliath,

00:22:46.760 and these are Lilliputians or something. Gulliver. And I don't understand this new American approach of

00:22:54.520 you can attack us and we won't do anything. It's so weird. And that's weird for America.

00:23:02.360 And now America's imposing that on Israel. Oh, you have to roll with it. You didn't have mass

00:23:08.120 casualties, so you just have to accept it. That's how it goes. I'm worried, Ben,

00:23:12.920 that America would actually shoot down Israeli jets that tried to attack Iran. I actually believe

00:23:21.080 that. I know that sounds crazy, but they more or less said that.

00:23:26.120 Well, it's worth saying a couple of... First of all, look, they talk about building this port

00:23:30.680 into Gaza and they say, well, no US boots on the ground there, but that's already a prelude to

00:23:37.560 intervention on the ground. We know that Samantha Power was a senior official in the Obama administration,

00:23:42.680 a senior official in the Biden administration. It's long been her dream to have boots on the ground.

00:23:46.840 And of course, that's against Israel. We've seen the Biden administration issue an executive order

00:23:52.600 to sanction anyone up to and including political leaders. And that would mean up to and including the

00:23:58.680 prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu himself. And there were threats to use this executive order against

00:24:03.880 the quote unquote right wingers in the war cabinet and in the government to sanction those who would

00:24:10.920 dare basically oppose US policy on a quote unquote two state solution and what the world will look like

00:24:16.760 in Judea and Samaria after the Biden administration is done imposing its will on Israel. And we know

00:24:23.480 dating back to the Obama administration, that the Obama administration was leaking out and was,

00:24:28.360 first of all, of course, surveilling, but also leaking out intelligence on Israel when it came to its war

00:24:34.280 efforts and undermining those war efforts precisely because they don't want Israel to do what needs to 0.58

00:24:39.960 be done ultimately to defend itself as it determines it against Iran. So to your point, would the US actually

00:24:47.640 intercept an incursion from Israeli warplanes? I pray to God that we're never in a situation like that.

00:24:55.160 However, will they take other measures to no doubt threaten, pressure, punish Israel? Absolutely. 0.79

00:25:02.840 And we've already seen myriad reports about the idea of conditioning weapons sales. You know, you have

00:25:09.080 the soft power quote unquote attack of claiming that Israel is trying to create a famine, that Israel may

00:25:15.000 have engaged in war crimes, and then the Department of Defense says no. But it's very clear that the

00:25:20.360 administration is doing everything it possibly can politically feasibly, given where the American

00:25:26.200 people are. And the American people are still overwhelmingly pro-Israel, even if the progressive

00:25:31.640 wing of the Democrat Party that's ascendant is not. And even if those at high levels of the Biden

00:25:36.360 administration are not. But they will push as far as is deemed politically possible to pressure Israel to

00:25:43.640 stand down and not defend itself. And it's all in service. You talk about the weirdness and the notion

00:25:49.560 that the US doesn't strike back against far weaker foes, that there really is no freedom of navigation in

00:25:55.720 the seas anymore. And that, of course, impacts everyone from a commercial perspective. But this is all in

00:26:01.320 service of an Iran first policy. Again, a policy which says, and this is insanity and ludicrous, 0.67

00:26:08.040 but there are true believers in this. And then there are others who have other objectives, but

00:26:12.680 believe in making Iran the dominant hegemonic power in the Middle East. And that somehow, 0.96

00:26:18.280 with the world's leading state sponsor of jihad as the strong course, that's going to lead to some kind 0.51

00:26:25.320 of solution that fits America's national interests. Utterly absurd on its face. Disastrous. We've seen the

00:26:35.240 disaster, the culmination of these policies, 11 plus years of these policies. And it's October 7th.

00:26:41.000 It's April 13th. It's the hundreds of attacks on the US and our allies as well. It's no freedom

00:26:46.600 of navigation. But you have true believers in this. You have people, of course, yes,

00:26:51.400 who are trying to curry favor with a marginal voter in Dearborn and elsewhere. But I think that that

00:26:57.640 underplays the significance of what's going on. There is an ideological as well as a political drive.

00:27:04.360 And then there's also greed associated with this, which is this notion that, sort of like with

00:27:09.480 communist China, if you come to some kind of accord with Iran about nuclear weapons, but really it's

00:27:15.480 also about legitimizing the nuclear program, appeasing the mullahs, and also opening up Iran

00:27:21.480 for natural gas deals and other kind of commerce, that somehow everyone's going to get rich and this is

00:27:26.680 going to lead to peace. And it's utterly suicidal from the West perspective. And again, it's going to be

00:27:33.960 left to Israel and probably Israel alone to clean up the massive mistakes that the West has engaged in.

00:27:40.680 You know, America and Canada have different perspectives for a couple of obvious reasons.

00:27:45.400 America has the mightiest army in the world. There were no Canadians involved in shooting down

00:27:51.160 those missiles. We don't have the people, we don't have the equipment, and we absolutely don't have the

00:27:55.240 political leadership. Canada also does not give any foreign aid to Israel. And Canada, in the laughable

00:28:04.280 decision, put an arms embargo on Israel. Laughable only in that Israel really doesn't buy anything

00:28:11.400 from Canada or certainly nothing important. So I think there's a special level of audacity for Justin

00:28:21.960 Trudeau to tell Israel what to do in defending itself. It's obviously a little bit different

00:28:28.120 with the United States, because the United States sells a lot of important military equipment to Israel

00:28:34.120 and it gives foreign aid to Israel. But I think that although those things are beneficial to Israel,

00:28:40.200 they may actually be a trap because they give Biden a sort of veto over Israel's maneuvers.

00:28:47.240 Israel can say to Justin Trudeau, go back to wearing your fancy socks and blackface, you child, 1.00

00:28:54.440 and what's Canada going to do? But as long as Israel takes money from the United States

00:29:03.080 and is reliant on them for military equipment, which maybe is inevitable, it's this risk of

00:29:09.720 being dominated by anti-Israel politicians from America. I don't know how to square that circle.

00:29:14.680 Maybe the only thing to do is to wait seven months and hope that Donald Trump wins the election in

00:29:19.560 November. Hey, and the question is, does Israel have seven months with the threats that are looming and

00:29:28.200 with adversaries knowing and led by Iran knowing that the getting is never going to be as good as 0.67

00:29:33.880 it is now, potentially if a Biden administration is jettisoned and it's replaced with the Trump

00:29:40.360 administration. And that, I think, wins in part the timeline and the acceleration of these jihadist 0.94

00:29:46.200 attacks, because you're never going to pocket greater concessions and potentially have it better

00:29:51.240 than Joe Biden, at least potentially for the next four years plus. So you're going to accelerate and

00:29:59.560 escalate as much as possible to gain to pocket as many benefits, as many concessions as you possibly

00:30:05.400 can, if not engage in the ultimate genocidal acts that you claim you want to undertake with respect

00:30:11.640 to Israel. But to your broader point about aid and the leverage it provides, and it's my view that this

00:30:17.640 was exactly why the Obama administration negotiated that memorandum of understanding between the U.S.

00:30:26.120 and Israel. It was to box Israel. Yes, we're going to support the Iran nuclear deal, but we're going 0.99

00:30:32.760 to shut you up and try to claim that we're pro-Israel by continuing to provide nearly $4 billion of military

00:30:39.720 support every single year. It was to not just pay Israel off, but try and box Israel through the 0.96

00:30:47.960 leverage of aid. And Israelis increasingly understand that that's untenable, that you can't be dependent

00:30:55.880 on the U.S., at least with a Democrat administration in power. And so there's been a lot of reportage

00:31:01.320 recently suggesting that Israel is trying to dramatically ramp up its own munitions production

00:31:07.640 onshore it domestically. But obviously that takes time, and it's very hard, especially when you're

00:31:12.840 in the middle of a war effort where your economy is hampered by that war effort, where literally you

00:31:17.800 have men and women, substantial parts of the population often fighting, or tens of thousands

00:31:22.680 of people in the North who have been refugees for months because the Biden administration won't let Israel

00:31:28.440 take the war to Hezbollah. But I think the broader point is it's untenable for any country to be 0.98

00:31:34.840 dependent on other countries for its survival. And to the extent you can avoid it, you do so.

00:31:39.960 Other actors, of course, are going to try to probably exploit, I bet, the wedge that clearly exists

00:31:46.280 between the Democrat Party and Israel at the very least. And this is a lesson that should have been 1.00

00:31:51.480 learned during the Obama years. I'm not sure that it was. I think Israelis are still, to some extent, 0.99

00:31:57.880 in my discussions with them and observations, in somewhat of a state of shock about where America is,

00:32:03.800 where the Democrats are. But at the end of the day, their survival is going to rest on

00:32:08.360 themselves. The U.S. can't be counted on with respect to Israel. And of course, that sends a 0.82

00:32:13.320 message to the rest of the entire world. And then to throw one more monkey wrench in all of this,

00:32:19.640 this is obviously an election year. I mentioned the Dearborn voters here. There's also oil prices.

00:32:25.320 And so you can imagine the pressure that the Biden administration and others around the world,

00:32:29.160 because there are national elections happening in numerous countries, major countries across

00:32:35.400 the world this year, that they're going to do everything they can to try and keep a lid on any

00:32:39.640 kind of activity that would make oil prices spike through the roof. So add that to the pressure. 0.87

00:32:44.440 On top of, for Benjamin Netanyahu, the internal pressure of many in the war cabinet who were ambitious,

00:32:50.760 those on the left who would love his head on a platter, and probably some on the right who will try to

00:32:55.480 exploit the situation as well. And it's unthinkable pressure on any Israeli leader.

00:33:03.240 But trying to deal with the forces of the U.S. that's not really an ally here and actually partnered

00:33:08.360 with your worst adversary, the rest of the Western world that's essentially aligned, the Muslim world 1.00

00:33:15.080 itself, which would be aligned with Israel, were the U.S. aligned probably in some parts,

00:33:21.000 the Sunni Arab countries against Iran, which poses a threat to them. 0.88

00:33:24.600 You have all of these forces surrounding you, and it's an untenable situation. And that's why,

00:33:31.720 from my vantage point, it would be in the U.S. interest and also Israel's interest to strike back 0.96

00:33:36.520 in a disproportionate way, not a proportional way, a disproportionate way to dramatically escalate,

00:33:43.240 to de-escalate. That counterintuitive sort of way of thinking, though, comes up against the

00:33:49.800 the hard practical realities that Israel is dealing with right now. And one of them,

00:33:54.280 obviously, to your point, is the leverage of the weapons.

00:33:57.560 I know you've got to run in about a minute, but let me put one last question to you. I see today

00:34:03.960 major bridges in the United States being blocked by pro-Hamas supporters. I see

00:34:09.880 Chicago's enormous airport, one of the most important airports in America, blocked. In many cases,

00:34:17.960 the people blocking it look easily removed, but the police response sort of cements it in place,

00:34:23.800 it seems to me. And I can't help but think of how porous the southern border is. Basically,

00:34:29.560 anyone walks in. There's no vetting. And many of the people are not Latin American. They're from Africa. They're from the Middle East.

00:34:37.960 I'm worried about a black swan event that perhaps a whole Hezbollah or Hamas crew 1.00

00:34:43.880 has come into America undetected, and it's going to have some shocking attack on a soft target within the country.

00:34:52.440 I'm not trying to be paranoid, but how could you not think about that? It's the easiest path to hurt the great Satan.

00:34:59.720 And it can be, you know, it's not a direct attack from Iran. It can be plausibly denied.

00:35:05.640 Do you have any quick thoughts on that before you go?

00:35:09.160 That's the entire Iranian strategy is you have all of these tentacles that are your proxies. And then 0.99

00:35:14.920 to the extent you incur costs, it's the tentacles that might be struck, but it's a game of whack-a-mole

00:35:21.240 that doesn't deal with the head of the snake or the head of the octopus, to extend the analogy.

00:35:26.040 To your point, we have porous borders. There have been myriad prosecutions of Hezbollah agents in

00:35:32.920 this country. There are fatwas out on the heads of numerous leaders from the Trump administration.

00:35:40.200 There was an Iran-backed, Hezbollah-driven plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador on US soil in

00:35:46.200 Washington, DC, not long ago. I would be utterly shocked if there weren't myriad Hezbollah cells 1.00

00:35:53.400 and cells of other jihadist groups that are currently operating in America. And the only

00:35:57.800 question you'd have to ask is, do they even need to be activated and operate when you have the

00:36:03.320 progressive left and the anti-Israel, anti-American, anti-Western forces that are ascendant, that have

00:36:10.920 disproportionate sway over the Democrat Party and thus over our leaders, including in the Oval Office

00:36:17.640 today? But to your point, does this serve as something of a check on US policy, the notion that

00:36:23.320 these jihadists might operate on our soil? I think you'd be foolish not to think that that's how these 0.99

00:36:29.160 leaders, at least our current leaders, operate. And it clearly impacts European leaders that they're

00:36:35.640 afraid of their hostile populations internally engaging in jihadist attacks to the extent they

00:36:41.720 don't cow and submit to the likes of the Iranians and others. So it's absolutely a serious, serious 1.00

00:36:49.320 threat. We're in an election year and you can imagine all manner of nefarious potential activities

00:36:54.840 taking place and what the knock-on consequences will be. So we are in a very perilous and volatile time

00:37:00.760 right now. And you have to pray that those with the resolve and those with the foresight

00:37:06.360 to see it and act decisively are able to do so because all of the malign forces are ascending 1.00

00:37:11.960 right now and the Judeo-Christian West is sadly in a terrible position. Well, as WB Yates wrote over

00:37:19.480 a hundred years ago, the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Ben,

00:37:26.840 I'm glad that you're one of the good guys and you are full of passionate intensity.

00:37:30.600 Keep up the great work. That's Ben Weingarten with The Federalist. Nice of you to join us today.

00:37:35.800 Thanks for having me. All right. There you have it. Stay with us. More ahead.

00:37:39.880 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Here's a question about medical assistance in dying and

00:37:58.760 my monologue on the subject. Lucas Chudley says, always money for immigrants, natives and foreign

00:38:04.200 aid, never any money for Canadians. That was such a shocking story of someone who

00:38:08.600 imagine spending four days on a stretcher in an emergency room and then being told, 1.00

00:38:14.840 yeah, we'll kill you. Sorry for the hassle. We'll just kill you. Unbelievable. 0.99

00:38:20.040 On foreign interference, someone whose nickname is User RW says,

00:38:24.920 unfortunately, Trudeau is focused on climate, increased taxes, trans schooling, increased

00:38:30.280 immigration, censorship in Ukraine. There is no room during his boredom to deal with real problems.

00:38:35.400 That's a reference to Trudeau saying he finds being prime minister boring. You know,

00:38:40.360 some people say that Trudeau is just naive and that he's maybe not paying enough attention or that

00:38:46.280 he's bored. I don't want to give him that much credit. I think he's absolutely in cahoots

00:38:51.480 with the Chinese influence. He's the recipient of the checks. His brother personally took delivery of

00:38:56.200 an enormous check to the Trudeau Foundation. He's not naive. He's on the other side.

00:39:02.440 That's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to

00:39:06.760 you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - April 15, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Iran 'maximizes spectacle' in latest bombardment of Israel

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