Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ The grim reality of Israel's fight against extremism： A feature interview with Benjamin Weingarten

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. A terrible conversation today. A great conversation if conversationalism is what

00:00:06.160 you're after, but terrible in terms of the substance of it. I'm talking about how the

00:00:10.760 world so quickly careens into war. Our guest today is Ben Weingarten, the author and scholar.

00:00:18.520 I don't know. It's a tough time, but we got to be honest about it.

00:00:23.620 If you want to see the video version of this podcast, go to rebelnewsplus.com,

00:00:27.460 click subscribe. There's a lot of clips we're going to show, so you might want to do that.

00:00:32.380 It's eight bucks a month because we don't get any money from Trudeau, and it shows. Here's today's

00:00:37.700 podcast. Tonight, a feature interview with Ben Weingarten about how the alliance between leftist

00:00:48.640 progressives and Islamists helped put the world into war. It's October 11th, and this is the Ezra LeVant 0.98

00:00:55.680 show. I remember one of the most important books of 2020 was written on St. Patrick's Day that it

00:01:17.820 was released, which just happened to be the date when so many of the lockdowns from the pandemic

00:01:23.420 kicked in, which changed the subject on a hundred things towards COVID and the pandemic.

00:01:29.740 And it's a shame because I think one of the most outstanding books of the year was published

00:01:35.380 and was in some ways overshadowed by events, overtaken by events. The name of the book

00:01:40.260 is American ingrate Ilhan Omar and the progressive Islamist takeover of the Democratic Party. That was 0.88

00:01:51.720 the essential authoritative biography, and not just a biography, but really a current history of the

00:02:00.900 Democratic Party. That was three and a half years ago when we see the ramifications of the progressive

00:02:08.520 Islamist takeover of the Democrats in their reaction to the wave of barbarous terrorism in 1.00

00:02:16.280 Israel and the reaction to that in the United States and Canada. Joining us now via Skype

00:02:21.880 is the author of that book, our old friend Benjamin Weingarten. Ben, great to see you again.

00:02:29.280 Ezra, likewise. Thanks for having me.

00:02:30.860 You know, I was thinking of your book because it's good. It's just such a powerful book,

00:02:34.440 and the title says it all, American ingrate. Here's someone from Somalia who comes from one of

00:02:40.760 the most, well, Donald Trump would have a certain phrase for her country, but one of the most

00:02:45.700 rundown, failed states in the world to really one of the greatest countries in the world. And

00:02:51.280 her response is she wants to tear it down. That's that critical theory, that Marxism,

00:02:57.940 identitarian politics. It was bad enough when there was no existential crisis,

00:03:03.020 but the Ilhan Omars of the world are running the Democrats now, aren't they?

00:03:08.680 And we are unfortunately seeing the utterly devastating consequences of it in the barbarism

00:03:16.420 that took place in Israel and continues in no small part as a consequence of the concerted

00:03:24.160 Democratic Party policies that started under Barack Obama, under the Obama-Biden administration,

00:03:29.760 and have effectively continued in a third term under Joe Biden, wherein they have sought to elevate

00:03:37.100 Iran and its proxies, the world's leading state sponsor of jihad, into the strong course in the Middle 0.98

00:03:45.600 East, while doing everything they possibly could to undermine, delegitimize, isolate Israel,

00:03:54.380 and kneecap it, thereby turning on its head what should be in America's national interest and the

00:04:00.840 West national interest, which is a hegemonic Israel in that region with Arab, Sunni Arab allies as a

00:04:10.360 bulwark against Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of jihad. And instead, progressivism dictates 0.98

00:04:16.120 turning that paradigm completely on its head. And so what is the consequence? Was I argued in a recent

00:04:22.320 piece in the New York Post? Joe Biden has not only Israeli blood on his hands, but American blood on

00:04:29.520 his hands as well, and American hostages now, in no small part as a consequence of the U.S. effectively

00:04:36.140 being the world's leading state sponsor of the world's leading state sponsor of jihad via the Iran-backed 0.91

00:04:44.340 Hamas attack and the potential future attacks that are to come from other fronts, including from

00:04:50.660 Hezbollah in Lebanon, from Iran tied and backed, quote unquote, militias, jihadist groups from Syria,

00:04:58.400 and perhaps beyond as well. So this is a direct consequence of the left being in hock to Islamic 1.00

00:05:06.320 supremacists. We see how pervasive this is on elite college campuses around America. And we've seen it,

00:05:15.020 of course, in imagery and footage around the world. And you see it in a Biden White House, by the way,

00:05:22.000 that while it gets all of these plaudits for such stirring remarks in the last couple of days, twice its

00:05:28.880 State Department has put out statements only to then backtrack and delete them, calling for Israel to stand

00:05:35.760 down, essentially. So in other words, to accept and attack the most barbaric massacre in the history of

00:05:43.780 the country, minimally in the last 50 years, and one of the most barbaric massacres, arguably in the

00:05:48.460 history of the world, where in the equivalent of tens of thousands of Americans died in terms of the

00:05:55.780 ratios here, and babies were beheaded, and there were rapes and the hostage taking of women and children,

00:06:01.500 and the elderly, including at least one Holocaust survivor. And this administration says, Israel, stand down.

00:06:08.700 Surrender, basically. Don't respond. Don't defend your sovereignty. Don't defend your people. And invite still

00:06:16.680 more jihad to come. And then the administration does two other things. It refuses to revoke the $6 billion that it

00:06:26.400 gifted Iran as ransom for hostages, and is playing semantics and word games about, well, they can't access the money,

00:06:36.320 and the money is going to be for humanitarian purposes, etc., etc. And then, leaving aside the fungibility and all the

00:06:43.140 other issues around that argument. And then beyond that, they have hemmed and hawed over Iran's culpability in the

00:06:51.620 attack. Yesterday, we finally heard the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan say, Iran is complicit in the

00:06:58.040 attack. But they are so lawyerly in their defense, and they're serving as unregistered foreign agents for the

00:07:05.260 Islamic Republic of Iran, that they continue to say, we can't find a direct tie. In other words, they can't find

00:07:11.200 some communications of Khomeini getting on the phone and calling up Hamas leadership and saying,

00:07:18.100 it's go time, engage in the jihad. That is essentially the argument. Well, we can track 0.97

00:07:24.780 Iranian funds to Hamas, we can talk about the tactics that were employed, we can talk about

00:07:30.720 the apparent signal jamming and the sophistication of the attack. We can talk about all these other

00:07:36.060 elements of it that point to it being Iran backed, obviously. But we can't say definitively that there's

00:07:41.840 a smoking gun. So the defense of the Iranian regime continues. And that tells you all you need to

00:07:47.780 know about the cheap talk coming from the Biden administration right now.

00:07:52.280 Yeah, it's crazy. And I think back to your book, American Ingrade. I mean, Ilhan Omar is a symptom

00:07:58.200 and a cause in some ways. Let me show you some footage from Dearborn, Michigan, an enormous rally,

00:08:07.580 thousands of people cheering for Hamas. I'm sure you saw this online. Here, take a quick look at this

00:08:14.580 stadium. Take a look.

00:08:16.000 Go ahead.

00:08:16.740 So if you're a Democrat, governor of Michigan, of course, you're going to talk about, well,

00:08:45.560 sure, we're against attacks on civilians in Israel, but also against attacks on civilians

00:08:51.040 in Gaza, you're going to play it down the middle because you don't want to appall your old stock

00:08:57.760 American voters. But you absolutely would not be getting elected without the pro-Hamas vote. 0.71

00:09:04.960 And so on the one hand, you have Democrats chasing the pro-Hamas vote. On the other hand,

00:09:10.160 they themselves are making America, they're setting the, Ilhan Omar is not setting the policy

00:09:18.860 directly, but she's infusing the party with an ideology that you would call cultural Marxism. 0.54

00:09:25.720 Our friends are our enemies, our enemies are our friends, tear down what we have. I think there's

00:09:32.400 something diabolical about it. And it really feels like the decline of an empire. It really feels like

00:09:39.880 enemies outside and inside. And when America finally falls, God forbid, may it not happen in our

00:09:46.140 lifetime, it'll be because someone literally lifted up the drawbridge. That's how I feel about it. Ben,

00:09:51.720 what do you think? I agree. And you can look to the rhetoric of the elite campuses again, and in

00:10:01.160 Washington, DC and in Dearborn, Michigan, and it's all kind of one in the same and indistinguishable.

00:10:06.580 The entire logic to the policy, to the extent there is a logic to it is essentially America is the

00:10:14.760 great Satan and Israel is the little Satan. I mean, there's not that much difference in that rhetoric 0.73

00:10:19.100 that you would hear from jihadists to what you would hear from your cultural Marxist professor

00:10:23.220 at almost any university in this country. And so as a consequence of the West, great evil and raping 0.92

00:10:30.480 otherwise exactly where the Islamic supremacists are, and who are acting in arguably worse ways than the

00:10:37.800 Nazis, because they're not even ashamed in trying to hide their atrocities. They actually want it

00:10:42.860 circulated on social media for the entire world to see when babies are beheaded and women are raped

00:10:48.160 and beyond. And this is who our elites side with anti-civilizational forces, barbaric forces,

00:10:57.400 animal forces. It is the suicide of the West. To your point about the populations that have been

00:11:04.640 imported, and obviously, this has been illustrated even more starkly in Europe with mass immigration

00:11:11.400 from majority Muslim countries. But I always go back to 9-11. The 9-11 Commission got it right that in 0.99

00:11:19.080 large part, 9-11 was a consequence of a failure of immigration. And the U.S. response since then

00:11:25.600 has been to import, I believe the number is over 2 million people from majority Muslim countries since

00:11:34.020 that time. And it only takes a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a 2.2 million number,

00:11:40.100 let's say, to cause utter havoc and bring a society to its knees. And by the way, those people cheering

00:11:46.860 on the college campuses and then in Dearborn, Michigan and beyond, they essentially create a

00:11:53.460 jihadist or a jihadist sympathizers veto over U.S. policy. One of the evil genius aspects of

00:12:02.640 immigration jihad and of the information warfare essentially that's been inflicted on the West 0.96

00:12:09.760 is that today you have European powers and, again, rhetorically, the American administration

00:12:17.460 who are saying, we've got Israel's back and we're not going to stand with the Hamas terrorists. But 0.68

00:12:23.660 if and when Israel engages in a mass incursion into Gaza and it is grisly and it is grinding and

00:12:30.980 immediately on Western media, you have the images of dying children and crying mothers and such,

00:12:40.040 and the images of Israel striking mosques and hospitals because that's actually where Hamas

00:12:46.100 is hiding out because they're savage like that. And those images build up every single day.

00:12:52.220 The pressure is going to be immense on Western powers to stand down, including with the implicit

00:12:58.320 and explicit threat of attacks on our streets. And of course, as I'm sure you've seen, there's

00:13:03.340 already video of a Hamas leader from the lap of luxury in Qatar calling for a day of rage,

00:13:10.640 I believe this coming Friday, a day of action where jihadists are to get out in the streets and engage

00:13:17.940 in violent jihad in Western capitals and across the world for that matter. So there's a jihadist veto

00:13:25.600 that's been built into the West now, and they expect to put the West into submission under threat 0.91

00:13:33.900 of jihad. So all of the chickens appear to be coming home to roost and the conflagration starts

00:13:41.100 in Israel, but it extends through the rest of the world. And there are any number of reasons for any

00:13:46.920 number of challenges that Western powers are going to face in this, starting with defending their own

00:13:52.520 sovereignty. And we in America, we've had open borders for how many years? And Israel is the most 0.97

00:13:58.820 hardened state in the West with the first rate intelligence apparatus and cutting edge surveillance

00:14:07.640 technology and literal walls and substantial fortified borders. And Israel was overrun within

00:14:15.700 hours. So imagine how we are sitting ducks here in the West right now. And this points to

00:14:21.860 the maladies, the pathologies of the progressive ideology that has put us in this perilous state

00:14:29.440 in the West. And I believe it. I mean, in Sydney, Australia, you had thousands of Muslims outside the

00:14:37.700 opera. I was shooting flares at it, by the way, which is quite an aggressive premonition of what's to come.

00:14:42.560 And they weren't chanting, you know, Israel retreat to 1967 borders or 48 borders. It wasn't a

00:14:50.000 technical call. It was gas the Jews. Gas the Jews was what they were chanting. Here, take a look at

00:14:56.640 this from Australia.

00:15:07.080 oh

00:15:27.720 okay

00:15:37.080 And around the world, here in Canada, the chants of intifada, which is an Arabic way of saying

00:15:51.340 a revolt, a rebellion, a pogrom, a riot, chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be

00:15:58.280 free. That means totally exterminating the Israeli state. But I don't think they're done 0.98

00:16:03.580 in Israel. They're here in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, with the

00:16:09.540 same chance. I think there will be violence across the West. They're saying as much when

00:16:15.340 they're saying intifada, when they're saying gas the Jews, they're saying the same things 0.97

00:16:21.020 they say in Gaza. Why would we think they don't mean it? 1.00

00:16:25.460 Look, it is in the text of the Quran and the Hadith and the Islamic supremacists who interpret 0.80

00:16:34.780 it and take it as such. They subscribe to a totalitarian ideology that can brook no dissents

00:16:41.820 that is inherently expansionistic and seeks to make the entire world submit. And it's worth

00:16:47.380 noting when people record Allahu Akbar as Allah is great. No, that's actually not what jihadists

00:16:53.180 are saying. They're saying Allah is greatest.

00:17:23.180 It's an inherently supremacist ideology. And so, of course, to the extent they're in the

00:17:47.500 depraved and decrepit and decadent West, they feel that it is their job to impose their ideology

00:17:56.440 on it. And to your point, it's maddening the aspect of the Qatar part of this, you know, 0.98

00:18:04.140 beyond obviously the hypocrisy of the cowardly leaders taking refuge there. Qatar plays both

00:18:10.780 sides. Qatar has, I believe, the largest U.S. military base in the region. And at the same

00:18:15.720 time, they're harboring Hamas. And they're trying to play peacemaker between Israel and effectively 0.77

00:18:22.940 Iran in terms of hostage negotiations. So why do we have a base? Why does the U.S. have

00:18:28.020 a base in Qatar? I checked this before the show. Qatar is listed as a non-major NATO ally alongside

00:18:35.280 Israel. So it gets the same sort of support that Israel would. Qatar pays off Western think 0.93

00:18:42.280 tanks and lobbies hard in the West precisely to protect itself. And it corrupts us and it corrodes

00:18:49.500 us. And it's just so suicidal what we have done in the West. And I agree with you as well. I think

00:18:59.400 it only gets worse from here. And we've been lulled into a false sense of security. I've long felt that

00:19:04.860 we were very vulnerable to jihadist attack. And I've also felt that the best explanation for why 0.99

00:19:12.500 in America, at least since 9-11, there has not been a major catastrophe approaching that level

00:19:19.800 is precisely because the world has been going their way. There's been no reason to necessitate

00:19:25.640 engaging in offensive jihad. Much better to let institutions kill themselves and infiltrate them

00:19:33.040 and work within them so that we suffocate ourselves by our own hands, which is by our own hands is

00:19:40.460 what the Muslim Brotherhood has said in their own literature that's been exposed over time.

00:19:45.940 But now it appears they may be engaging for the offensive jihad. And this feels like a perfect storm.

00:19:53.720 We will see ultimately if this turns into a multi-front war with Israel. Today, there's been reporting

00:19:59.680 about attacks coming from the north. We will see if Israel itself opens up or tries to avoid 0.88

00:20:06.180 opening up a multi-front war by striking far beyond just Gaza and going to Lebanon, maybe beyond Lebanon,

00:20:14.080 maybe even to Tehran itself. You can see how this can spiral out of control very easily. And the danger

00:20:21.040 for us in the West, beyond the fact that it's in the national interest of all of our nations for

00:20:26.960 Israel to be a strong and free nation and to subdue the enemies of civilization around it is that the

00:20:34.760 enemy is here as well. There are Islamic supremacists within our borders. Despite how lax we've been,

00:20:41.060 there have been prosecutions and indictments of Hezbollah agents here. And we know, of course,

00:20:46.660 that Iranian agents have carried out attacks elsewhere. And by the way, of course, in the U.S.

00:20:51.800 government, we've now found out about what appears to be an Iranian spy ring that ran from the State

00:20:58.160 Department Iranian envoy Rob Malley to an individual he promoted to end up the chief of staff for the

00:21:05.040 Pentagon's counterterrorism office. So the compromise is real. The danger is imminent. And these are

00:21:14.120 incredibly dark and trying times potentially for the West. The West may not war, but the war

00:21:20.100 certainly wants us here. You know, just a month ago, Rebel News led a mission to Israel and the

00:21:27.120 United Arab Emirates. We called it the Abraham Accords trip. And we spent a week on the Israeli side and

00:21:32.660 we looked at, we had a tour of the fence, the wall, the high-tech sensors by Danny Tirza, the retired,

00:21:44.100 I think it was a colonel, who helped build them. And I, for 20 years, that technology was enough to

00:21:50.120 keep the peace. And I think that maybe lulled Israel into a confidence that it was, that it was 0.77

00:21:55.800 untouchable, that it had, it was the big, you know, man on campus, to use a phrase. And, you know,

00:22:04.840 the signing of the Abraham Accords, I think, was real and was meaningful. And we went to Dubai and Abu Dhabi

00:22:10.740 afterwards. And the peace there was real. And it was warm. And now that feels like a laughable

00:22:17.940 Eden time before the fall, before reality set in. And there was hope that Saudi Arabia would join. 0.94

00:22:25.160 And there was hope that there would be a railway all the way through Saudi Arabia and into Israel,

00:22:30.620 not the port of Haifa. And we would just be in this end of history moment where, you know,

00:22:35.480 nation would not lift sword up against nation and neither would they war anymore.

00:22:39.620 That was just a month ago. It felt so hopeful and so peaceful. And all of those assumptions are

00:22:46.260 cracked. And I think in many ways, Israel's the canary in the coal mine. It's going to happen 1.00

00:22:51.760 there first. But I look at that U.S. border and people cross it by the hundred, by the thousand every

00:22:58.640 day. Who knows what they're bringing in with them? Who knows what weapons, who knows who they are?

00:23:03.780 And I fear that there may be internal attacks in America the same way. And why wouldn't there be?

00:23:09.600 And if you're Iran and you've put all this effort into attacking Israel's high-tech fence, 0.91

00:23:15.180 of course, you're going to go in the unfenced border with the great Satan itself. Why wouldn't you?

00:23:21.620 It would be crazy if they wouldn't. I don't know. I went from being exhilarated with the prospect of

00:23:29.160 peace a month ago to being terrified about the near certainty of a larger war.

00:23:37.420 Yeah, we've, we've lived to some extent under the illusion of peace and end of times. I mean,

00:23:43.760 I do think that there is real merit to the Israeli Sunni Arab sort of defense conduit that was being

00:23:54.120 built. And that, you know, I think the conventional wisdom is to some extent, right, that these attacks

00:24:00.880 were in part about derailing any sort of Israel, Saudi, quote unquote, normalization or rapprochement

00:24:08.460 or something even more substantial than that. I also think, though, that it was about deterring

00:24:14.520 Israel from dealing with Iran and its proxies in the substantial way that it felt it might have to 0.94

00:24:21.720 with respect to nuclear program and beyond. So I do think there are other, there are other reasons

00:24:28.280 behind this attack. But look, in the Middle East, the strong course rules and the Sunni Arab powers 1.00

00:24:36.440 were sufficiently concerned about an ascendant Iran, aided, abetted and enabled first by the Obama-Biden

00:24:43.360 administration and now by the Biden administration, such that they were willing to set aside the hatred of

00:24:49.480 still masses of peoples within these countries to try and form relations with Israel precisely

00:24:55.400 because it was strong. And at minimum, they believed it was in their national interest

00:24:59.640 to side with Israel, probably for intelligence purposes, defense purposes, economic purposes,

00:25:05.560 and beyond. I don't think that that has changed today, despite the rhetoric coming from the leaders

00:25:12.820 of the Sunni Arab governments, which has been essentially pro-Hamas and pro-Palestinian Arab,

00:25:18.600 or at least not pro-Israel in response. But I still believe that all of those powers are ultimately 0.93

00:25:25.000 moved themselves by power. Who is strong? Who do we need to align with to protect our interests?

00:25:30.520 And I don't think that ends with what has occurred now. But that said, I don't see how there aren't

00:25:36.120 hugely bloody, grisly days ahead. It's an incredibly volatile situation. Israel, to some extent, is damned if it

00:25:45.720 does and damned if it doesn't. If it treats as its mission, eviscerating Hamas in Gaza, 0.76

00:25:54.920 that's more narrow than potentially what might be necessary. So what happens if Hezbollah opens up the 0.95

00:26:01.240 second front up in the north? What about the native Arab population in Israel or in Judea and Samaria

00:26:07.240 that could fight and attack from within? And then what about Tehran itself? Is Israel going to strike

00:26:15.560 Hamas's leadership in Qatar? And then what does that do? You can see this spiraling out of control

00:26:21.720 in a million different ways. So, you know, I still think that the notion that the other Sunni Arab powers

00:26:29.480 do not want an ascendant Iran, do not want a nuclear Iran is real. I think their respect for 0.69

00:26:36.680 Israel strength is real. But this was a psychologically massive blow and a substantively massive blow as 0.95

00:26:43.640 well. And to some extent, it's unfortunate that Israel, you know, we'll learn more about the reporting

00:26:51.160 in terms of how did this happen? How could there have been this catastrophic intelligence failure?

00:26:55.800 But by all accounts, it seems that much of this was that Hamas lowered Israel into a false sense

00:27:00.680 of security, where Israel essentially came to the conclusion that Hamas was not interested in

00:27:06.200 engaging in serious attacks. They were more focused on internally what was going on in Gaza,

00:27:11.560 and that by increasing economic relations with the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza, giving them work permits

00:27:20.120 and letting them come into Israel, that there would be this virtuous cycle and everyone would win.

00:27:25.480 The notion, though, that economics are what prevails and what trumps was folly,

00:27:31.400 as is the notion that a jihadist group dedicated to Israel's evisceration was going to suddenly give

00:27:37.080 that up. But we in the West love to delude ourselves in these naive beliefs that, well, you know,

00:27:44.600 the other side, they just kind of want the same thing that we do at the end of the day. And

00:27:48.760 unfortunately, time and time again, that is disproven. And Israel has a much smaller margin

00:27:54.840 for error than we do because of where it's located and how tiny it is in terms of the population and the

00:28:01.400 landmass. So this is a tragic, tragic lesson. We'll see what the other contributing factors were to the

00:28:10.680 failure. But it's devastating. And Israel faces existential threats from all sides today.

00:28:17.080 But we also face those existential threats as well. It may not be as salient, it may not be as apparent,

00:28:22.200 and it may not be as large today. But it's there. And even worse, of course, is the self-righteously

00:28:29.160 suicidal things that we do even without jihadists having to act on our shores.

00:28:33.640 You know, I saw this image of a huge crater in Gaza, looks like it was an apartment that Israel 1.00

00:28:44.280 had leveled. And it looked a little bit like Stalingrad, you know, an urban wreckage,

00:28:50.600 sort of like the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine, where Ukraine and Russia have been

00:28:56.520 shelling each other for a year. And Jesse Kelly, the pundit, who's a former Marine, said,

00:29:03.240 what does this look like to you? Only for only military types answer. And I read the replies,

00:29:10.600 and they said, this is a huge trap for an official army to roll in, in uniforms with vehicles. It's

00:29:18.040 it's a trap for snipers, for ambushes, you're shooting up, they're they're looking down. Like

00:29:24.760 Jesse Kelly basically said, if you go into Gaza, you are going into an ambush, booby traps, snipers.

00:29:34.840 And that's true. And that's the thing. Israel has the F-35 Lightning. It has an amazing stealth

00:29:40.600 fighter. It has the Merkava tank, which is regarded, although one of them was neutralized

00:29:46.040 over the weekend. But how does that work when you're fighting urban warfare against

00:29:52.040 a terrorist force that has had 18 years to lay booby traps? And that really got me worried,

00:30:01.960 that tweet by Jesse Kelly. And then I saw the United States has one aircraft carrier in the region

00:30:06.760 that is sending another. And the president of Turkey, Erdogan, had a little press conference. He said,

00:30:12.920 what's that all about? Who are you going to attack? Here's just a clip of Erdogan

00:30:16.280 talking about these aircraft carriers, and we'll put that out.

00:30:18.600 America, Uçak Gemisi'ni İsrail'e gönderiyor.

00:30:25.800 Amerika'nın Uçak Gemisi'nin İsrail'de ne işi var?

00:30:32.200 Ne yapmaya geliyor?

00:30:35.880 Ve buraya gelen uçak gemisinin etrafında bütün botlarıyla, uçak gemisindeki uçaklarıyla

00:30:46.280 ne yapacak? Orada bütün, artık, Gazze'yi etrafını vurarak, indirerek, çok ciddi katliamlara

00:30:59.960 adım atacak.

00:31:02.120 And he's implying, what are you going to do? Are you going to attack Gazze? Of course not. America wouldn't do that.

00:31:07.000 The ostensible explanation is to deter other regional powers from getting in, to deter Iran or

00:31:15.560 even Russia, maybe. I don't see it that way. I see it as Joe Biden deterring Israel from doing 0.54

00:31:22.280 anything outside of Gaza, deterring Israel from going after Qatar, from going after Tehran.

00:31:29.640 I don't know. I mean, I just don't think that it's the slam dunk for Israel militarily.

00:31:38.360 I don't know if anyone ever said it was, but I think, I think these are very difficult times,

00:31:43.800 and I agree with you. I don't think the Biden administration is actually friendly with Israel,

00:31:48.760 despite their public talk. I don't know, what do you, what do you make of the aircraft carriers?

00:31:52.520 Is it just a show of force? What's that all about? And how can Israel actually win this thing? 0.79

00:31:58.440 How can Israel do what it claims it'll do to destroy Hamas once and for all? How, 0.75

00:32:04.200 without retaking that booby-trapped Stalingrad?

00:32:09.960 Well, first of all, to your very first point about Gaza, to the extent this really is going to be a 0.82

00:32:15.880 ground-based mass incursion with 300,000 or 350,000 plus troops. And the casualties are going to be

00:32:25.720 massive. You're sitting ducks going into a war zone. We've all seen the movies from Iraq and elsewhere,

00:32:32.920 when you're going house to house, door to door, when we talk about the jihad tunnels in Gaza, when

00:32:39.400 there are hostages. And we haven't even talked about the massive size of hostages and the hostage

00:32:46.120 trades that Israel has engaged in in the past have been catastrophic in terms of the number of levels, 0.55

00:32:51.560 the levels of jihadists unleashed. And here we're, and that's with one prisoner. And here we're talking

00:32:57.880 about over a hundred hostages. So I agree with you. I think any kind of land-based incursion into Gaza is 0.91

00:33:06.040 going to be incredibly fraught. It's going to lead to massive casualties, because the other side has no qualms

00:33:12.360 about losing their people there. And beyond that, another concern that I know Israel has, based upon what

00:33:19.880 they've talked about in terms of fortifying their other fronts is, what happens if you have several

00:33:24.040 hundred thousand troops bogged down there, and then Hezbollah attacks from the north? Or again, you have Hamas or

00:33:32.680 other jihadist groups who are attacking from Judea and Samaria. So again, even before you get to

00:33:39.560 Syria or Tehran itself. So I agree, it's incredibly fraught and tactically complicated. With respect to

00:33:47.160 this carrier that was brought in, I think it's a token show of friendship that goes along with the

00:33:52.760 other rhetoric that we've heard from the Biden administration. But my inclination is, first of all,

00:33:57.400 how can the person that wanted to make Iran the strong course in the Middle East and that did 0.88

00:34:01.320 everything he could to put the screws to Israel, including trying to foment the leftist opposition 0.57

00:34:06.840 to the government, which created the destabilized conditions that itself could have enabled this,

00:34:12.680 and probably threaten unity in a time of war? Right now, how could you expect that suddenly,

00:34:18.440 on a dime, that administration was going to change and suddenly become Israel's greatest friend?

00:34:24.600 And so I agree, I share your inclination, and I'll probably be writing about this.

00:34:29.880 I think that support, to the extent it comes from this administration, is ultimately going to come

00:34:35.720 with strangling strings attached to it. In other words, I expect that support will constitute

00:34:41.880 ultimately a suffocating bear hug, especially again, as world opinion starts to turn on Israel,

00:34:48.120 as Israel does what it believes it has to do to defend itself. And you start to see the images

00:34:53.320 of the dead bodies piling up, and again, the crying mothers and such, on the other side in the war.

00:34:59.160 So I agree, the more involved the United States is, potentially, the more power it has to restrain

00:35:08.040 Israel and stop Israel from doing what it needs to effectively defend its interests. So, you know, 0.83

00:35:14.440 from my vantage point as an American, and I'll also be writing about this in the coming days,

00:35:20.440 from the perspective of our national interest, the Biden administration should get out of the way.

00:35:25.240 It should provide diplomatic support, it should provide intelligence, it should sell Israel the 1.00

00:35:30.520 weapons that it needs to defend itself. It should defend it in international forums, and it should

00:35:38.360 not break from Israel or have an inch of daylight from it. And Israel is a force multiplier for America's 0.95

00:35:43.880 interests. And by the way, there are Americans dead and held hostage right now, so we are part of this war.

00:35:48.120 But that said, the more involved the Biden administration gets, the more it would work,

00:35:53.560 I think, to the detriment of Israel's interests, and by extension, our interests. Israel needs to be 0.99

00:35:58.840 able to defend itself here as it sees fit. And so, to your last point about how tactically difficult

00:36:04.920 this is, I completely agree. Surrounded on all sides, essentially, by adversaries,

00:36:10.920 this presents a hugely difficult situation. I'm sure there are questions about the integrity of the

00:36:16.760 intelligence after what's happened. There's, again, the psychological shock. And then there's

00:36:21.320 the sheer number of people who have fallen in a very tiny country, which in and of itself is

00:36:27.240 devastating. So what do I think, ultimately, Israel is going to do? I think Israel is put to a choice

00:36:32.920 of, is the focus truly eviscerate Hamas in Gaza, and then perhaps re-annex it? And do you think that

00:36:40.440 that's the end of the hostilities? Or do you have to go more offensive and use an element of surprise

00:36:47.240 and do something big and shocking that goes way beyond just Gaza, or even just Lebanon, that maybe

00:36:54.760 goes to the head of the snake in Iran itself? And I'm sure those are the kinds of conversations that are

00:36:59.960 going on among the military leadership in Israel right now. Because as horrible as it is to expand this

00:37:07.720 potential war, it may be that Israel has to go way above and beyond the assumed scope to prevent

00:37:15.720 something much more cataclysmic from happening down the road. Well, there's no good answers here at all.

00:37:21.960 It's all terrifying. And I look around the world and I see our useless Prime Minister,

00:37:26.840 Justin Trudeau, instead of Stephen Harper, who was a sober-minded, respected middle power.

00:37:32.680 I see Joe Biden, who I don't even think is cognitively aware of what's going on. I saw an

00:37:40.760 unconfirmed report that in briefings, he's mixing up Ukraine and Israel. I absolutely believe that,

00:37:46.360 by the way. You know, his staff are calling a lid before noon, as in he's done working for the day,

00:37:52.040 he's had too much exertion. Everyone can see that. You talk about the strong horse, everyone can see the

00:37:58.040 weak horse in Joe Biden. Rishi Sunak gives some, you know, encouraging words of moral support.

00:38:07.480 But he's got an enormous, last I looked into the matter, there were more than 10,000 jihadis in

00:38:16.760 London being tracked by Scotland Yard. I think there's a real chance of terrorism in the UK.

00:38:23.320 So who's the ally going to be? It's going to be the European Union. It's going to be Emmanuel Macron,

00:38:28.680 maybe, who has issues of his own. We were there for the riots in Marseille a couple of months ago.

00:38:34.920 I think the world is a much more terrifying place. And ironically, they said, if we get rid of Trump,

00:38:42.280 we'll have sanity again. We'll have grown-ups in charge again. Trump was an era of peace. And I

00:38:48.200 don't think this would have happened under Trump. Maybe it would have. But I think if Americans

00:38:53.800 were kidnapped or killed, I think Trump would be attacking things right now. I don't think it

00:38:58.520 would have happened. Well, it certainly didn't during his administration. What do you think of that?

00:39:03.560 Well, first of all, when American troops were killed by Iran, we took out Qasem Soleimani,

00:39:10.840 the architect of the terror empire, the Shiite crescent that they've extended over the Middle 1.00

00:39:16.600 East. So if you kill 10 of ours, we are going to kill one of your most powerful military leaders.

00:39:23.800 And then what was the response to that? Well, yes, bounties were purportedly put on the heads of

00:39:28.920 Americans. But Iran could not do much more. They were neutralized. Everyone said that if the US moved

00:39:35.960 its embassy to Jerusalem, that there would be chaos on the Arab streets the next day,

00:39:40.120 nothing happened. You probably had more hand-wringing from Western capitals and our universities and

00:39:46.760 newsrooms than you did on the Arab street. The Abraham Accords, how could that possibly have happened? 0.70

00:39:53.480 Why? Because everyone in the Islamic world knew that Israel and the US were playing for keeps. 0.91

00:40:02.200 They were strong. And Iran poses a threat to all of those regimes and namely Israel. And so they 0.99

00:40:11.400 understood there was a credible threat of massive pain that would be inflicted upon anyone who would

00:40:17.720 threaten Israel or the US. The US obviously also showed that in its destruction of ISIS. And now that

00:40:25.320 credible deterrent is gone. And when that credible deterrent goes away, the weakness invites jihad.

00:40:33.080 The strength is what puts it down at the end of the day. And that does not mean nation building and

00:40:39.560 massive land incursions all over the world and boots on the ground and trying to democratize

00:40:45.480 the Middle East. But it means that if you kill one of ours, we're going to rain hell down upon your

00:40:52.040 leaders. Or you're going to have that fear in the back of your mind and you're going to think twice

00:40:56.440 before you act. And instead, what we've had here was the aiding, abetting and enabling of Iran and 0.86

00:41:02.680 protecting of its proxies and the cudgeling of Israel. And when that happens, it's an invitation to jihad. 0.87

00:41:08.760 You know, one of the most terrifying images that I think probably is the image that comes to mind for

00:41:18.840 Iranian leaders or terrorist leaders in the Middle East, it's probably their screensaver 0.88

00:41:23.800 on their computers is when under Joe Biden, America hastily abandoned Afghanistan. Trump was

00:41:33.640 Trump was withdrawing. But Joe Biden left in a Vietnam style rush, leaving behind billions of

00:41:43.400 dollars worth of military equipment, leaving behind allies, the haste of the of the retreat. And I

00:41:50.840 can't help but think that a lot of those U.S. weapons, which people, oh, those are just small arms.

00:41:56.680 Those are just jeeps. Those are just machine guns. I wouldn't surprise me if a lot of those were used

00:42:02.520 in this attack on Israel. When you dump billions of dollars worth of American military equipment

00:42:10.920 into the Taliban's hands. Of course, that's going to make its way into the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah. 0.98

00:42:15.720 How could it not? I think that that image of Biden fleeing the mighty C-17 jets taking off with

00:42:26.040 desperate people clinging to the wheel well, trying to escape. That's probably what the Iranians and 1.00

00:42:31.800 the Hamas and Hezbollah thought about every day as they planned their attack. Last word to you, Ben.

00:42:37.240 Well, you're absolutely right, first of all, on the narrower point about the weapons making their way

00:42:47.560 into Arab controlled areas. There was a report out this summer which showed that those weapons were

00:42:55.240 finding their way to the streets in Gaza. So once again, this is an indirect contribution of the Biden

00:43:02.200 administration to the jihadist cause, which is what makes this so outrageous and makes the talk

00:43:09.320 less than cheap that comes out of the administration's mouth. But you're absolutely

00:43:14.200 right. The nature of the pullout and the drawdown was such that all of America's enemies and all of 0.74

00:43:21.400 the West's enemies knew the world is open for business essentially to wreak havoc and go on the march.

00:43:28.280 And of course, we saw this with Russia and Ukraine. We've seen this with not only the bellicosity,

00:43:34.600 but the aggression from communist China. Now we're seeing it across the Islamic world as well. It's

00:43:42.360 open season when you have what amount to anti-American American leaders and those who back and concede to

00:43:51.960 and appease anti-Americans as well. And again, that's not a call for toppling every single evil

00:43:57.960 government in the world, because actually that ends up ultimately more undermining your interest

00:44:02.680 as we've seen in the way that it's played out. But what it says is you have to show overwhelming

00:44:08.040 strength and have that credible threat itself as a deterrent, or the other side is going to go on

00:44:14.920 the march. And every adversarial power is on the march today, precisely because of the Western

00:44:21.880 world's wokeness and weakness. Absolutely terrifying. Ben, where's the best place people can read your

00:44:28.280 work? You say you've got some pieces coming out in the near future. Where can we find those?

00:44:33.800 I publicize all my pieces at winegarden.substack.com, write for a number of other publications,

00:44:41.000 the New York Post, the Federalist Newsweek, Epic Times, and beyond. But I shoot out all of my content

00:44:46.920 at winegarden.substack.com, and then my Twitter feed as well at bhweingarden. All right. Well,

00:44:53.640 we'll put those on the website for people to find. Great to catch up with you. Of course,

00:44:58.840 it's terrifying and depressing, but we have to tell the truth of what's going on. Great to have you on

00:45:04.600 the show today. Thanks for having me, Ezra. I appreciate it.

00:45:08.280 Our pleasure. Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at

00:45:14.440 Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, keep fighting for freedom, and check out Avi Yamini's

00:45:21.160 daily reports from Israel at thetruthaboutthewar.com. Good night.

00:45:38.280 you

00:45:42.200 you

Rebel News Podcast - October 11, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ The grim reality of Israel's fight against extremism： A feature interview with Benjamin Weingarten

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