The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

00:00:00.000 I mean, obviously, during the 60s, there was a huge rebellion in the United States

00:00:04.360 against the use of the military in fighting the communists in Vietnam.

00:00:10.000 As I matured and learned more about the absolute horrors of communism,

00:00:14.560 how many people in Cambodia died when the communists took over?

00:00:17.660 Four million in the killing fields?

00:00:19.480 At least.

00:00:19.780 Something like that.

00:00:20.660 This is extraordinary naivete to think one could go to Iraq,

00:00:25.400 or even Syria, for that matter, and force an American, U.S.-style democracy

00:00:32.980 on a people group that is broken into different faith groups,

00:00:38.420 Muslim, Shiite, Sunni.

00:00:40.740 It was completely absurd.

00:00:42.600 47 of 50 Muslim-majority countries are not democracies.

00:00:48.660 And there is a 4th or 5th century copy of what they call the Peshitta text.

00:00:53.940 And Peshitta means simple and straightforward.

00:00:56.660 And it has the Aramaic language of Jesus.

00:00:59.320 So I began reading that and then reading the Koran.

00:01:03.560 And while I had many nice things to say about Jesus,

00:01:07.020 it also said things, for example, he's not the son of God.

00:01:11.460 He wasn't crucified.

00:01:13.400 I felt, how does one say this?

00:01:16.520 We were assured by his opposition that he was a warmonger

00:01:21.140 and that you could imagine him voted in high school

00:01:23.640 as most likely to start World War III.

00:01:25.900 But, you know, one of the things we might always remind ourselves

00:01:28.360 is that we might not be able to recognize a true peacemaker

00:01:32.020 when one comes along.

00:01:33.420 But he shouldn't be trifled with.

00:01:35.160 That's the other side of Trump.

00:01:36.720 Right.

00:01:37.240 But that might also be absolutely necessary.

00:01:40.260 Okay, so back to Palestine.

00:01:41.800 I had the privilege today of sitting down with Mark Silgender,

00:02:02.040 a former congressman.

00:02:04.040 Mark wrote a book in 2008 called A Deadly Misunderstanding,

00:02:07.740 A Congressman's Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide.

00:02:13.000 Now, when Mark entered Congress decades ago,

00:02:16.880 he was a pretty straight-laced and rather hawk-like,

00:02:20.400 so war-like, evangelical Christian

00:02:22.920 with a pretty pronounced anti-Muslim stance,

00:02:26.880 pro-Christian, anti-Muslim stance,

00:02:29.020 very partisan in the religious sense.

00:02:32.020 And he had an epiphany while serving as a congressman

00:02:34.980 that he was not loving his enemies, so to speak,

00:02:39.180 in the proper Christian manner.

00:02:41.200 And that sent him on a quest

00:02:43.340 to learn about the commonalities of belief

00:02:48.700 that could, no, do unite the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian world.

00:02:55.340 Now, he particularly concentrated on Islam and Christianity.

00:02:59.880 And we discussed the consequences of that quest

00:03:06.100 theoretically, conceptually, and also practically.

00:03:10.860 Now, I'm interested in this because it seems to me

00:03:13.180 that Islam and Christianity, Judaism,

00:03:16.940 have been at each other's throats for hundreds of years.

00:03:21.120 And the situation in many ways hasn't changed.

00:03:24.760 Maybe it's even more crucial now than it ever has been.

00:03:27.360 And I've watched the Abraham Accords unfold

00:03:30.660 over the last six or seven years,

00:03:32.820 and there's a real pathway to peace there.

00:03:36.100 It's partly predicated on the United Arab Emirates'

00:03:40.300 attempts to bridge the tri-faith gap.

00:03:44.160 And Mark Siljander is operating at that nexus.

00:03:48.080 And so I really wanted to talk to him

00:03:49.700 about what he discovered

00:03:51.580 and how he managed to broker peace, by the way,

00:03:55.300 in six major international conflicts,

00:03:57.800 which we also talked about in some detail,

00:04:00.600 especially with regards to Darfur and Sudan.

00:04:04.220 We also touched upon the objection

00:04:07.760 of the neocon war hawks,

00:04:10.320 of which I suppose he once was one,

00:04:13.500 their opposition to his peacemaking ministration,

00:04:19.140 so to speak,

00:04:19.720 and why that opposition emerged.

00:04:21.800 He was accused of being a traitor, for example,

00:04:24.380 by the neocons who were hell-bent on regime change

00:04:27.960 as their answer to how to bring a longer-lasting

00:04:33.540 and more stable peace to the world.

00:04:35.480 Anyways, we walked through all of that.

00:04:37.580 It's one of the most,

00:04:38.580 I gotta say,

00:04:39.180 it's one of the most fascinating podcasts I've ever done.

00:04:41.680 It has a lovely narrative arc.

00:04:43.640 It ends absolutely perfectly.

00:04:46.440 Fascinating personal story.

00:04:47.960 Very interesting conceptually.

00:04:51.020 And what would you say?

00:04:53.040 Compelling with regards to Silgender's ability

00:04:57.440 to shed light on what actually goes on

00:05:00.160 behind the scenes,

00:05:01.920 internationally and domestically.

00:05:04.980 Join us.

00:05:06.900 All right, Congressman Silgender,

00:05:08.960 I wanted to talk to you today

00:05:10.820 for a variety of reasons,

00:05:12.940 hopefully all of which we'll go into,

00:05:14.680 but I think we should start

00:05:16.060 with the topic of your 2008 book,

00:05:19.620 which is a deadly misunderstanding,

00:05:21.900 A Congressman's Quest

00:05:23.240 to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide.

00:05:27.420 Well, there's lots of places

00:05:28.820 we could go with that.

00:05:30.940 Why was this your quest?

00:05:32.780 Why did you think you were the person to do it?

00:05:36.540 Why do you think a bridge can be built?

00:05:39.180 What's the nature of the divide?

00:05:40.800 All of that,

00:05:41.540 those are things we could spend an hour

00:05:43.260 or two hours on each of those subtopics,

00:05:45.700 but let's start with,

00:05:47.760 well, why was this your problem?

00:05:50.680 Well, it wasn't my problem, Jordan.

00:05:54.020 When in Congress,

00:05:55.060 they made speeches denouncing Islam,

00:05:59.120 the Koran,

00:06:00.760 and made external speeches as well.

00:06:03.360 I didn't like Muslims generally.

00:06:05.740 Even though I lived in Michigan

00:06:07.100 and Detroit had a very large population

00:06:09.940 of Muslims and Arabs,

00:06:12.060 and I had an epiphany.

00:06:14.060 Believe it or not,

00:06:14.620 in Congress,

00:06:15.280 it's possible for the spirit

00:06:17.360 to actually speak

00:06:19.740 or hit hard a person

00:06:21.880 within that context.

00:06:23.780 And I claimed to be,

00:06:26.940 as an evangelical at the time,

00:06:29.540 a follower of Jesus.

00:06:32.160 And the epiphany was very basic,

00:06:34.520 elementary,

00:06:35.380 and simple.

00:06:36.520 If you're really following Jesus,

00:06:39.320 why do you disdain

00:06:40.340 a whole group of people,

00:06:42.600 a whole faith group

00:06:43.560 of 1.5 or 6 billion?

00:06:46.220 Is that what Jesus did

00:06:47.680 with the Samaritan woman,

00:06:49.840 the tax collector,

00:06:51.300 those that could have been

00:06:52.280 prostitutes and others.

00:06:54.140 He and Jesus welcomed all

00:06:56.120 and loved them.

00:06:57.680 And love doesn't always,

00:06:58.760 as you know me,

00:06:59.340 like or agree with.

00:07:02.080 So I began studying the Koran.

00:07:05.500 Very simple.

00:07:05.900 This is when?

00:07:06.380 When were you making

00:07:07.140 the anti-Muslim speeches?

00:07:08.680 This is in my last term in Congress.

00:07:11.240 And this is one of the reasons

00:07:12.260 it was my last term.

00:07:14.840 What year?

00:07:15.520 What year was it?

00:07:16.360 That's way back in the late 80s.

00:07:18.840 I was in my 20s and early 30s.

00:07:21.280 Okay.

00:07:21.480 Okay.

00:07:22.200 So in the 1980s,

00:07:23.460 so you were operating

00:07:24.800 as a rather straight-laced

00:07:28.360 traditional evangelical

00:07:29.600 in the 1980s?

00:07:31.480 And a neoconservative.

00:07:33.120 And a neoconservative.

00:07:34.220 Yes.

00:07:34.580 You should define neoconservative

00:07:36.100 for everybody

00:07:36.640 who's watching and listening.

00:07:37.940 Yes.

00:07:38.220 That doesn't mean

00:07:39.000 you're a Republican

00:07:39.700 or Democrat particularly.

00:07:42.140 But for example,

00:07:43.440 Cheney,

00:07:44.620 Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld

00:07:45.960 during the Bush administration

00:07:47.480 were considered

00:07:48.240 neoconservatives.

00:07:49.660 My definition is

00:07:51.560 they're avid hawks.

00:07:54.560 They typically want

00:07:55.940 to change regimes

00:07:57.260 rather than cooperate

00:07:58.980 and work with regimes

00:08:00.340 by force if necessary.

00:08:02.380 I would say the Iraq war

00:08:04.860 is emblematic

00:08:06.700 of what a neoconservative,

00:08:10.440 they don't mind lying,

00:08:12.640 cheating,

00:08:13.880 being scondrels,

00:08:15.640 if you will,

00:08:16.360 causing wars

00:08:17.360 if their ends are met.

00:08:19.600 And the ends are?

00:08:20.260 And that's exactly

00:08:21.660 the question.

00:08:22.580 The ends are democracy.

00:08:25.480 Presumably,

00:08:26.280 democracy is some

00:08:27.560 of their deity.

00:08:29.760 In that,

00:08:30.780 their hope

00:08:31.360 that if we show

00:08:32.440 these poor ignorant

00:08:33.720 people overseas

00:08:34.840 how marvelous

00:08:36.120 democracy is,

00:08:37.540 they'll beg for it

00:08:38.660 and the radical Muslims

00:08:40.180 will denounce

00:08:41.240 radical Islam

00:08:42.360 to embrace democracy.

00:08:44.160 That was the hope

00:08:45.100 that drove the Iraq war,

00:08:46.420 for example.

00:08:46.980 And I remember

00:08:47.780 in the early stages

00:08:48.680 of that,

00:08:49.640 there was a delusion,

00:08:51.820 I would say,

00:08:52.620 that the democratic

00:08:54.600 distributors,

00:08:57.780 the distributors

00:08:58.680 of democracy

00:08:59.500 that constituted

00:09:00.460 the American military

00:09:01.500 would be welcomed

00:09:02.480 with open hands,

00:09:04.320 arms,

00:09:04.780 and when the dictator

00:09:06.220 tyrant was deposed,

00:09:07.720 the freedom-loving people

00:09:08.760 would rise up

00:09:09.900 and democracy

00:09:10.960 would prevail,

00:09:12.180 which is,

00:09:13.120 you might say,

00:09:14.660 a somewhat naive view

00:09:16.040 of how democracy

00:09:16.900 works.

00:09:17.560 And I know

00:09:18.460 that's a bit of a parody,

00:09:19.740 but that was my sense

00:09:21.120 of the sentiment,

00:09:22.740 the belief.

00:09:23.340 And so,

00:09:24.020 the neocons,

00:09:25.160 they were convinced,

00:09:26.580 let me see if I get it right,

00:09:27.920 the neocons were convinced

00:09:29.060 that if they put

00:09:29.840 the might of the U.S. military

00:09:32.020 and the willingness

00:09:33.060 to engage in warfare

00:09:34.320 behind their

00:09:35.400 pro-democracy words

00:09:37.360 and threatened

00:09:38.860 the stability

00:09:39.560 of authoritarian regimes

00:09:41.140 that there'd be

00:09:41.720 the possibility

00:09:42.400 of eliciting something

00:09:43.360 like, say,

00:09:44.160 a genuine Arab spring

00:09:45.660 or a genuine

00:09:46.360 transformation

00:09:47.240 among the freedom-loving

00:09:48.880 people of the Middle East,

00:09:50.220 something like that.

00:09:51.380 Am I parodying it

00:09:52.440 too brutally

00:09:53.880 or is that

00:09:54.580 a reasonable summary?

00:09:55.900 And it's critical to note

00:09:59.440 that for several

00:10:02.000 administrations,

00:10:03.440 including a Democrat,

00:10:05.260 there were regime

00:10:06.080 change policies.

00:10:07.260 And in the Bush administration,

00:10:09.420 there was a secret policy

00:10:11.220 revealed by

00:10:12.140 General Wesley Clark

00:10:14.000 some years ago,

00:10:15.940 much post-Bush's

00:10:17.720 two terms in office,

00:10:20.480 that there were

00:10:21.420 seven countries

00:10:22.480 they wanted

00:10:23.280 a regime change.

00:10:25.240 And they would do,

00:10:27.260 as you know,

00:10:27.880 anything to achieve it.

00:10:29.840 So,

00:10:30.720 I felt

00:10:32.160 it would be critical

00:10:33.580 since most of these countries

00:10:35.060 were Muslim countries.

00:10:36.400 And almost

00:10:37.960 all conflicts,

00:10:39.040 which are about

00:10:39.840 120 at the moment,

00:10:41.960 globally,

00:10:43.240 have to do with

00:10:44.220 Muslims,

00:10:44.880 Christians,

00:10:45.360 and or Jews.

00:10:46.760 That perhaps

00:10:47.460 a logical thing

00:10:48.700 would be to study

00:10:49.920 the Semitic

00:10:50.720 holy books

00:10:51.660 behind each.

00:10:52.500 Yeah, right.

00:10:53.380 And then see if

00:10:54.280 there's more common ground

00:10:55.760 than we have known

00:10:57.240 heretofore.

00:10:58.720 So, I thought, well...

00:10:59.600 Okay, and was that

00:11:00.240 part of the epiphany?

00:11:02.160 Yes, it was.

00:11:03.040 Okay, so how did...

00:11:03.840 Okay, so how...

00:11:05.400 So, let's go back

00:11:06.980 to the biographical details,

00:11:08.380 and then I'll go

00:11:08.920 into the neocon issue

00:11:10.640 again with you.

00:11:11.600 Well, you said that,

00:11:13.340 you know,

00:11:13.580 your initial stance,

00:11:14.740 this was back in the 1980s,

00:11:16.180 was rather

00:11:16.760 traditional,

00:11:18.100 straight-laced,

00:11:18.800 evangelical,

00:11:19.680 and you regarded

00:11:21.000 yourself as

00:11:21.940 an advocate

00:11:22.960 for Christianity

00:11:24.780 in the face

00:11:26.020 of something

00:11:27.080 approximating

00:11:27.860 Muslim error

00:11:28.820 and enmity.

00:11:29.460 And then when you

00:11:30.140 were in Congress,

00:11:31.280 you realized that

00:11:32.220 there was something

00:11:33.080 wrong with that

00:11:33.920 stance,

00:11:35.480 even perhaps

00:11:36.700 from a Christian

00:11:37.300 perspective,

00:11:38.520 but you also had

00:11:39.800 a conceptual realization,

00:11:41.320 which was

00:11:41.760 there is some

00:11:42.880 commonality of text

00:11:44.180 between the three

00:11:45.060 major Abrahamic faiths,

00:11:46.640 and if you analyzed

00:11:47.600 that commonality,

00:11:49.380 you'd be able to

00:11:50.380 start to establish

00:11:52.180 ground on which

00:11:53.060 negotiation for peace

00:11:54.380 might be established.

00:11:55.540 Is that about right?

00:11:56.520 Well, I didn't realize

00:11:57.800 there was so much

00:11:58.560 common ground at the time,

00:11:59.580 but that was the ambition,

00:12:01.400 and it was also

00:12:02.760 being a hawk.

00:12:05.660 You know,

00:12:05.840 we were fighting

00:12:06.780 communism at the time

00:12:08.160 during the Soviet Empire,

00:12:10.200 and as young,

00:12:11.440 naive, foolish,

00:12:12.980 and I was given

00:12:14.200 the chairmanship

00:12:14.940 of the Africa subcommittee

00:12:16.500 thinking that I was

00:12:17.640 important,

00:12:18.160 and it turned out to be

00:12:19.000 they wanted to use

00:12:20.140 someone young

00:12:20.820 and naive in a dupe.

00:12:23.400 So certain people

00:12:24.880 could sort of use me

00:12:26.220 with certain

00:12:27.740 legislative efforts.

00:12:30.280 So I promoted

00:12:31.340 anti-communist guerrillas

00:12:33.760 supporting guns

00:12:35.100 and arms

00:12:35.780 and propped up

00:12:37.400 despot regimes

00:12:38.740 that were

00:12:39.260 anti-communist regimes.

00:12:41.020 Right, right.

00:12:41.620 And it's,

00:12:42.320 in the epiphany,

00:12:43.160 this is so contrary

00:12:44.640 to what the Messiah

00:12:46.280 taught

00:12:47.640 and who the Messiah

00:12:49.560 was

00:12:50.220 as a

00:12:52.000 example of love

00:12:53.840 and compassion

00:12:54.720 and mercy,

00:12:55.720 not killing

00:12:56.940 and hate

00:12:57.580 and arming.

00:12:58.460 So it was

00:12:59.440 an overwhelming

00:13:00.520 feeling of emotions.

00:13:03.840 I actually

00:13:04.520 teared up

00:13:05.220 on the floor

00:13:05.740 of the Congress,

00:13:06.420 and I'm not one

00:13:07.140 often given

00:13:08.120 to tears like that.

00:13:09.700 And it was just

00:13:10.640 so powerful,

00:13:12.040 and I can't tell you

00:13:12.940 where it came from,

00:13:14.180 but it was during

00:13:14.840 the apartheid

00:13:16.160 debate

00:13:16.940 in South Africa

00:13:18.080 where there were

00:13:19.620 bills to condemn

00:13:20.860 the white regime

00:13:21.900 at the time.

00:13:23.100 And I was in charge

00:13:24.220 of it,

00:13:24.720 and I sat there

00:13:25.720 in the House floor

00:13:27.340 by myself

00:13:29.500 and my African-American aide

00:13:31.360 trying to defend

00:13:33.180 a bill

00:13:34.580 that is a weak,

00:13:37.360 useless,

00:13:38.520 toothless bill

00:13:39.560 to condemn

00:13:40.500 the white regime

00:13:41.440 in South Africa

00:13:42.380 as the Democrats,

00:13:43.680 Republicans,

00:13:44.560 came up with

00:13:45.240 an agreement.

00:13:46.400 My job was

00:13:47.240 to push it through.

00:13:48.760 And the debates

00:13:49.580 were,

00:13:50.560 for several days,

00:13:51.480 I'm looking,

00:13:53.460 there are 84 Democrats

00:13:55.040 on the Democrat side

00:13:57.120 and Republican.

00:13:58.240 I'm looking at my side,

00:14:00.060 it was just me,

00:14:01.660 my aide and I,

00:14:02.680 that was it.

00:14:03.560 No one else.

00:14:05.160 And it was obvious

00:14:06.000 to me then,

00:14:07.460 too bad it took

00:14:08.200 so long

00:14:08.700 to figure it out,

00:14:10.380 that I was being used

00:14:12.120 to prop up racism.

00:14:16.320 So the most radical bill

00:14:18.780 as an amendment

00:14:19.960 to the wishy-washy

00:14:22.840 bipartisan bill

00:14:24.800 that wouldn't hurt

00:14:25.560 the regime at all,

00:14:26.540 but at least makes

00:14:27.260 some

00:14:27.980 subtle statements.

00:14:31.600 I let that bill

00:14:33.540 go through

00:14:33.960 on a voice vote.

00:14:35.340 And it was historic

00:14:37.380 because it was

00:14:38.480 a little vibration

00:14:40.460 in the ocean

00:14:41.980 of apartheid

00:14:43.160 in white,

00:14:44.380 rural South Africa.

00:14:45.580 America

00:14:46.140 and it built

00:14:47.060 into a tsunami

00:14:48.980 essentially

00:14:49.700 within the next few years.

00:14:52.040 And that's...

00:14:52.340 So let me get that story

00:14:53.360 exactly straight.

00:14:54.320 So you were spearheading

00:14:55.560 a weak-kneed bill

00:14:57.380 to begin with.

00:14:58.240 Yes.

00:14:58.320 And you were doing that

00:14:59.780 to some degree

00:15:00.760 unbeknownst to yourself

00:15:01.940 as a puppet

00:15:02.640 of forces

00:15:03.360 that you didn't

00:15:04.740 fully understand.

00:15:06.220 But then I didn't

00:15:07.080 quite follow that.

00:15:08.040 What was the transformation

00:15:09.120 of the bill

00:15:09.980 that had the cascading effect?

00:15:12.160 Well,

00:15:12.740 there was a substitute bill

00:15:14.540 by Ron Dellums,

00:15:15.900 a very liberal Democrat

00:15:17.540 from California,

00:15:19.560 that had real teeth in it.

00:15:22.020 I see.

00:15:22.440 Oh, I mean,

00:15:23.040 it was seriously condemning

00:15:25.360 justifiably

00:15:26.360 the apartheid regime.

00:15:29.160 And he, of course,

00:15:30.680 presented it

00:15:31.460 as a substitute

00:15:32.660 for the original bill.

00:15:35.140 And all I had to do

00:15:36.860 was call for record

00:15:37.860 roll call vote

00:15:38.700 and be voted down.

00:15:39.720 We'd go back

00:15:40.260 to the other bill,

00:15:40.960 debate that

00:15:41.560 for another day or so,

00:15:42.960 and the weak bill

00:15:44.280 would float

00:15:44.860 through the Senate

00:15:45.660 and we'd go

00:15:46.060 through the Senate

00:15:46.740 and everything

00:15:47.700 would be copacetic

00:15:49.100 with the racists.

00:15:50.340 Well,

00:15:51.780 I refused

00:15:53.220 to allow

00:15:54.760 a voice vote

00:15:55.700 and no one else

00:15:56.640 was there

00:15:57.000 to call for it

00:15:57.820 except for me

00:15:58.600 because Republicans

00:15:59.900 didn't want to be seen

00:16:01.260 defending racism.

00:16:04.260 Okay,

00:16:04.380 and so what's

00:16:04.980 the significance

00:16:05.620 of you calling,

00:16:06.800 refusing to call

00:16:07.500 for a voice vote?

00:16:08.400 Because the Ron Dellums bill,

00:16:10.140 this extreme bill,

00:16:12.080 passed the U.S.

00:16:13.140 House of Representatives

00:16:14.220 as a substitute

00:16:15.380 for the weak bill.

00:16:17.080 And I was,

00:16:17.940 it was,

00:16:18.280 I was blamed for it.

00:16:19.460 And by the time

00:16:20.320 I got back

00:16:20.880 to my office,

00:16:21.540 I can't tell you

00:16:22.280 how many messages

00:16:23.100 of disdain

00:16:23.960 and anger

00:16:24.980 I received from that.

00:16:27.060 And that was just

00:16:27.520 the beginning

00:16:28.120 of this whole epiphany.

00:16:30.380 And then when I went

00:16:31.320 to the Middle East,

00:16:32.660 usually we go to Israel

00:16:34.140 because I was

00:16:35.020 on the Middle East

00:16:35.760 committee too.

00:16:37.300 And we were told

00:16:39.120 not to see

00:16:39.960 the Palestinians.

00:16:41.860 And I thought,

00:16:42.460 now wait a minute,

00:16:42.980 how can one ever

00:16:44.140 work as a mediator,

00:16:47.040 especially one

00:16:48.140 of the most powerful

00:16:48.840 countries in the world

00:16:50.060 and most powerful

00:16:51.860 parliaments

00:16:52.500 in the world,

00:16:53.160 the U.S. Congress,

00:16:54.440 if we don't talk

00:16:55.160 to both sides?

00:16:56.920 We have to,

00:16:57.540 I'm very pro-Israel,

00:16:59.040 but I thought we still

00:16:59.940 have to talk

00:17:00.560 to our enemies,

00:17:02.060 what are perceived

00:17:02.740 to be enemies

00:17:03.480 anyway at the time.

00:17:05.200 And I was threatened

00:17:07.580 at that time

00:17:08.720 not to pursue

00:17:10.260 this type of,

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00:18:36.200 Okay, so let me expand

00:18:39.160 on this a little bit.

00:18:40.320 So, you talked about

00:18:42.320 the anti-communism

00:18:44.580 and the role of the

00:18:47.480 military, the role of

00:18:49.180 force in combating

00:18:51.560 communism, and you

00:18:53.160 talked about apartheid,

00:18:54.380 and then we also

00:18:55.680 started to talk about

00:18:57.340 the conflicts that

00:18:58.400 involve the Islamic

00:18:59.440 world.

00:18:59.880 So, let me walk

00:19:01.100 through those with an

00:19:02.040 eye to fleshing out

00:19:03.820 the neocon

00:19:05.140 position.

00:19:06.620 I mean, obviously,

00:19:07.280 during the 60s,

00:19:08.440 there was a huge

00:19:09.140 rebellion in the

00:19:10.020 United States,

00:19:10.840 especially by young

00:19:11.700 people, against the

00:19:13.380 use of the military

00:19:14.580 in fighting the

00:19:15.900 communists in

00:19:16.960 Vietnam, an extension,

00:19:19.000 let's say, of the

00:19:19.580 Korean conflict.

00:19:21.040 Now, when I was

00:19:22.500 young, I was

00:19:23.440 temperamentally, I

00:19:25.500 suppose, predisposed

00:19:26.760 and also by my youth

00:19:28.000 to thinking that the

00:19:28.900 anti-war protests

00:19:30.340 were fully justified.

00:19:31.580 But as I matured

00:19:33.480 and learned more

00:19:34.060 about the absolute

00:19:35.100 horrors of communism,

00:19:36.460 both Soviet and

00:19:38.260 Chinese, I could

00:19:39.580 certainly see the

00:19:41.060 rationale for the

00:19:43.660 U.S. in particular

00:19:44.660 to do everything it

00:19:45.840 could from stopping

00:19:46.820 any population like

00:19:48.560 that of Cambodia,

00:19:49.980 let's say, from

00:19:50.860 falling into the

00:19:51.920 hands of the

00:19:52.500 communists.

00:19:53.160 I mean, how many

00:19:53.600 people in Cambodia

00:19:54.520 died when the

00:19:55.240 communists took over?

00:19:56.260 Four million in the

00:19:57.340 killing fields?

00:19:58.100 At least.

00:19:58.420 Something like that.

00:19:59.380 Some absolute

00:20:00.460 cataclysmic catastrophe.

00:20:02.720 And of course, North

00:20:03.440 Korea has never been

00:20:04.300 able, the Koreans have

00:20:05.080 never been able to

00:20:05.840 free themselves from

00:20:07.040 the grip of the

00:20:07.700 Chinese communists.

00:20:08.860 And so it's an

00:20:09.780 open question with

00:20:11.360 regards to communism,

00:20:13.020 how much diplomacy

00:20:14.500 is possible and how

00:20:15.660 much force is

00:20:16.520 necessary.

00:20:17.740 And the certainly

00:20:19.100 weakness in the face

00:20:20.320 of communism and

00:20:21.320 military weakness

00:20:22.400 was not advisable.

00:20:24.320 And then, so let's

00:20:25.880 just park that for a

00:20:26.960 second.

00:20:27.260 And then on the

00:20:27.980 South African side,

00:20:29.980 I mean, I've been

00:20:30.580 concerned ever since

00:20:31.780 the 1980s when the

00:20:33.380 anti-apartheid movement

00:20:34.680 emerged that South

00:20:37.760 Africa would turn into

00:20:39.020 what Zimbabwe turned

00:20:40.280 into or Rhodesia and

00:20:41.840 that the radical

00:20:43.080 leftists would take

00:20:44.400 over in the aftermath

00:20:45.520 of the disintegration of

00:20:47.040 the apartheid empire and

00:20:48.700 all hell would break

00:20:50.020 loose.

00:20:50.440 And it still seems to me

00:20:51.800 like that that's a real

00:20:52.680 possibility still for

00:20:54.360 South Africa.

00:20:55.560 Right.

00:20:55.820 So, so these are the

00:20:56.920 sorts of things that

00:20:57.800 you're caught, that you

00:20:58.780 were caught up in, in

00:20:59.660 that nexus.

00:21:00.400 And so the neocons,

00:21:02.720 from, from, from what

00:21:04.600 you've said, from what

00:21:05.360 I understand, they're

00:21:06.700 more likely to stand on

00:21:09.060 the side of like

00:21:10.360 resolute and even

00:21:11.660 invasive military force

00:21:13.540 to, to implement

00:21:16.020 regime changes.

00:21:17.080 Now, I want to add one

00:21:18.020 more thing to that and

00:21:19.000 then we'll, we'll go

00:21:19.780 back to your epiphany.

00:21:21.940 The, the, the

00:21:24.240 theoretical problem,

00:21:27.100 the problem with the

00:21:28.140 neocon theory in my

00:21:29.640 estimation is that it

00:21:31.380 seems to be predicated

00:21:32.420 on the belief that a

00:21:33.960 totalitarian state is

00:21:35.540 basically composed of

00:21:36.860 like a hyper thug and

00:21:39.200 his minions oppressing a

00:21:41.680 vast number of

00:21:43.040 essentially freedom

00:21:44.040 loving people.

00:21:44.900 And I don't think that's

00:21:45.860 a reasonable account of

00:21:48.320 a totalitarian or

00:21:49.580 authoritarian state at

00:21:50.580 all.

00:21:50.980 Like an authoritarian

00:21:52.020 state emerges when

00:21:53.200 everyone is lying about

00:21:55.080 everything all the time.

00:21:56.820 There might be the

00:21:57.460 worst thug at the top,

00:21:58.500 but the pathology is

00:21:59.680 radically distributed

00:22:01.100 through the system.

00:22:01.960 So the idea that if you

00:22:03.380 do a regime change that

00:22:05.400 you're going to evoke

00:22:06.880 something like democracy

00:22:08.120 in its aftermath strikes

00:22:09.400 me as wishful thinking in

00:22:11.740 the extreme.

00:22:12.620 So it doesn't seem to me

00:22:14.100 that the neocon fault is

00:22:16.400 necessarily their

00:22:17.400 proclivity to rely on

00:22:18.880 military might.

00:22:20.220 It seems to me that their

00:22:21.360 fault is that they have a

00:22:22.620 naive view of how

00:22:24.660 complex it is to

00:22:26.100 generate the preconditions

00:22:27.940 for a democracy.

00:22:29.820 Exactly.

00:22:30.760 Okay, so I'd be more than

00:22:32.760 happy to hear your reaction

00:22:34.020 to any or all of that.

00:22:35.780 And then we'll go back to

00:22:36.640 the epiphany.

00:22:37.500 Certainly.

00:22:38.520 Well, this is

00:22:40.500 extraordinary naivete

00:22:42.260 to think one could go to

00:22:44.080 Iraq or even Syria for

00:22:46.240 that matter and force

00:22:48.280 an American

00:22:50.460 U.S. style

00:22:52.220 democracy

00:22:53.400 on a

00:22:55.300 people group

00:22:57.020 that is broken into

00:22:58.700 different

00:22:59.400 faith groups.

00:23:01.260 Right.

00:23:01.760 Languages.

00:23:02.920 Muslim,

00:23:03.860 Shiite,

00:23:04.520 Sunni,

00:23:05.540 language.

00:23:06.000 I mean,

00:23:06.280 it was completely absurd.

00:23:08.780 No institutions,

00:23:10.000 no history of democracy.

00:23:11.400 With nothing.

00:23:12.060 Yeah.

00:23:12.640 And this is,

00:23:13.840 to me,

00:23:14.380 the biggest area

00:23:15.680 of deception

00:23:16.460 with a

00:23:17.780 neoconservative

00:23:18.820 ideology.

00:23:20.480 They are just

00:23:21.260 so still

00:23:22.960 believe that

00:23:23.880 democracy is the

00:23:25.180 best for every

00:23:26.440 country.

00:23:26.820 But how many

00:23:27.820 democracies,

00:23:29.260 Jordan,

00:23:29.500 are the same?

00:23:31.200 Well,

00:23:31.400 they're also a

00:23:32.100 minority of

00:23:32.780 governments.

00:23:33.600 And the idea

00:23:34.460 that democracy,

00:23:35.840 see,

00:23:36.160 the problem,

00:23:36.700 part of the problem

00:23:37.300 with this neoconstance

00:23:38.560 is the notion that

00:23:39.760 democracy is the

00:23:41.700 natural state

00:23:42.820 of governance

00:23:43.500 for human beings,

00:23:44.700 which is,

00:23:45.040 like,

00:23:46.140 it's rare

00:23:47.060 there are

00:23:48.740 a multitude

00:23:49.600 of unlikely

00:23:50.560 preconditions,

00:23:51.480 some of which

00:23:52.020 seem to be,

00:23:52.920 well,

00:23:53.220 this is something

00:23:53.740 else that we can

00:23:54.400 talk about,

00:23:55.580 some of which

00:23:56.260 seem to be

00:23:56.820 Judeo-Christian

00:23:57.660 in their essence.

00:23:58.680 It's like

00:23:59.040 47 of

00:24:00.600 50

00:24:01.680 Muslim-majority

00:24:03.540 countries

00:24:04.120 are not

00:24:04.760 democracies.

00:24:06.320 And 100%

00:24:07.300 of

00:24:07.880 Catholic and

00:24:09.460 Protestant-majority

00:24:10.540 countries outside

00:24:11.360 of Africa

00:24:11.980 are functional

00:24:13.120 democracies.

00:24:13.900 So this is

00:24:14.700 something we can

00:24:15.280 also delve

00:24:16.280 into when we

00:24:16.900 talk about

00:24:17.500 the

00:24:17.980 commonalities

00:24:20.500 between

00:24:21.060 Christianity,

00:24:22.640 Judaism,

00:24:23.300 and Islam,

00:24:24.220 because we

00:24:24.780 also have to

00:24:25.400 account for the

00:24:26.040 radical differences

00:24:26.860 in governance

00:24:27.480 style.

00:24:28.040 Okay,

00:24:28.400 so you

00:24:29.200 weren't a fan

00:24:29.800 of the

00:24:30.080 neocons,

00:24:31.280 even though

00:24:31.920 you'd started

00:24:32.800 out as more

00:24:34.260 of a hawk

00:24:34.920 and more of

00:24:35.480 an evangelical

00:24:36.380 hawk,

00:24:37.120 you had an

00:24:37.600 epiphany,

00:24:38.500 and the epiphany,

00:24:39.220 I'd like to

00:24:39.900 go into that

00:24:40.360 a little bit

00:24:40.800 more.

00:24:41.380 Some of

00:24:41.760 that was

00:24:42.160 conceptual,

00:24:43.000 maybe the

00:24:43.380 Muslims,

00:24:43.880 Christians,

00:24:44.320 and Jews

00:24:44.640 have more

00:24:45.060 in common

00:24:45.460 than we

00:24:46.000 might think,

00:24:46.760 but some

00:24:47.280 of it was

00:24:47.920 your dawning

00:24:49.080 intuition

00:24:49.620 that there

00:24:50.060 was a

00:24:50.340 conflict

00:24:50.740 between the

00:24:51.900 deep realities

00:24:52.960 of your

00:24:53.440 faith and

00:24:53.980 your political

00:24:55.000 approach

00:24:55.980 and strategy.

00:24:57.560 So how

00:24:57.840 did that,

00:24:58.260 yeah,

00:24:58.500 how do you

00:24:59.220 make sense

00:24:59.740 of that

00:25:00.180 realization

00:25:00.860 coming to

00:25:01.620 dawn on

00:25:02.120 you?

00:25:02.740 It was

00:25:03.140 sparked

00:25:04.280 Jordan by

00:25:05.020 a friend

00:25:05.620 from India.

00:25:07.260 He said,

00:25:07.760 Mark,

00:25:08.020 you talk

00:25:08.580 negative

00:25:09.080 against Muslims

00:25:10.240 and the

00:25:11.040 Quran,

00:25:11.480 but did

00:25:11.800 you know

00:25:12.460 that Jesus

00:25:13.840 is in

00:25:14.400 the Quran?

00:25:16.000 I jumped

00:25:16.820 out of my

00:25:17.400 chair and

00:25:17.760 said,

00:25:17.900 I don't

00:25:18.280 believe,

00:25:18.700 and this

00:25:18.980 is during

00:25:19.600 the epiphany,

00:25:20.360 it's still

00:25:20.920 developing,

00:25:22.000 it's like

00:25:22.300 one is an

00:25:23.380 infant,

00:25:23.920 you're born

00:25:24.380 into a new

00:25:25.440 thinking,

00:25:26.080 but it

00:25:26.320 takes time

00:25:26.880 to mature

00:25:27.540 and hopefully

00:25:29.320 someday

00:25:30.000 become an

00:25:30.800 adult in

00:25:32.580 the context

00:25:34.300 of the

00:25:34.620 epiphany.

00:25:35.080 and I

00:25:36.640 was very

00:25:37.100 angry,

00:25:37.580 I said,

00:25:37.780 I don't

00:25:38.040 believe this,

00:25:38.560 so I

00:25:38.760 bought a

00:25:39.140 Quran,

00:25:40.120 in English

00:25:40.780 of course,

00:25:42.040 and started

00:25:43.420 reading it,

00:25:44.580 in English,

00:25:46.540 and it was

00:25:47.260 extraordinary

00:25:47.840 how many

00:25:48.400 times it

00:25:48.880 mentioned

00:25:49.300 Jesus.

00:25:50.060 He's the

00:25:50.460 central

00:25:50.860 figure,

00:25:51.900 strangely

00:25:52.660 enough.

00:25:53.000 It was

00:25:53.520 a profound

00:25:54.980 discovery,

00:25:55.980 and my

00:25:56.740 wife,

00:25:57.400 I'd

00:25:57.640 screamed

00:25:57.900 back to

00:25:58.320 her,

00:25:58.440 Nancy,

00:25:59.700 do you

00:25:59.960 know what

00:26:00.240 the Quran

00:26:00.840 says about

00:26:01.480 Jesus?

00:26:03.000 And she

00:26:03.280 said,

00:26:03.480 I don't

00:26:03.740 really want

00:26:04.300 to know.

00:26:05.080 Let me

00:26:06.640 tell you.

00:26:07.620 And then

00:26:07.940 she got

00:26:09.180 quite

00:26:09.700 infatuated

00:26:10.920 with the

00:26:11.260 whole process

00:26:12.000 as well.

00:26:13.320 So after

00:26:14.220 studying it,

00:26:15.180 I called

00:26:15.740 a spiritual

00:26:16.520 friend of

00:26:17.400 mine,

00:26:17.620 who is

00:26:17.800 my pastor

00:26:18.440 from Michigan,

00:26:19.600 who spoke

00:26:20.360 Aramaic.

00:26:21.920 And this

00:26:22.320 is the key

00:26:22.880 linchpin now

00:26:23.800 with the

00:26:24.300 epiphany,

00:26:25.160 by the way.

00:26:26.440 He was

00:26:26.880 teaching me

00:26:27.620 Aramaic.

00:26:28.420 Right,

00:26:28.600 which is

00:26:28.960 Christ's

00:26:29.440 original

00:26:29.800 language.

00:26:30.260 Yeah,

00:26:30.520 Jesus the

00:26:31.160 Messiah

00:26:31.640 from Nazareth

00:26:32.900 spoke

00:26:33.260 Galilean

00:26:34.040 dialect of

00:26:34.840 Aramaic.

00:26:35.720 And there

00:26:36.160 is a

00:26:36.680 fourth or

00:26:37.200 fifth century

00:26:38.320 copy,

00:26:39.040 I believe,

00:26:39.600 of a copy

00:26:40.100 of a copy

00:26:40.660 of what

00:26:41.600 they call

00:26:42.000 the Peshitta

00:26:42.760 text.

00:26:43.600 It's in the

00:26:44.060 Museum of

00:26:44.720 London,

00:26:45.180 I think,

00:26:45.600 at the

00:26:45.880 moment.

00:26:46.720 And Peshitta

00:26:47.400 means simple

00:26:48.100 and straightforward.

00:26:48.780 And it

00:26:50.460 has the

00:26:50.900 Aramaic

00:26:51.400 language of

00:26:52.100 Jesus.

00:26:52.580 So I

00:26:52.820 began

00:26:53.220 reading that

00:26:54.560 and then

00:26:55.400 reading the

00:26:56.000 Quran.

00:26:56.940 And while

00:26:57.300 I had many

00:26:57.920 nice things

00:26:58.620 to say,

00:26:59.040 which I

00:26:59.540 love to

00:26:59.960 get into

00:27:00.520 before the

00:27:01.460 interview

00:27:01.800 expires,

00:27:02.900 about Jesus,

00:27:04.540 it also

00:27:05.120 said things,

00:27:06.200 for example,

00:27:06.920 he's not

00:27:07.660 the Son of

00:27:08.260 God,

00:27:08.940 he wasn't

00:27:09.580 crucified,

00:27:11.120 negative

00:27:11.760 against the

00:27:12.500 Trinity,

00:27:12.920 things like

00:27:13.380 that the

00:27:13.740 Christians,

00:27:14.580 including yours

00:27:15.260 truly,

00:27:16.240 felt a little

00:27:16.900 bit offended

00:27:18.200 by it.

00:27:18.620 So there

00:27:19.020 you go,

00:27:19.360 there's some

00:27:19.820 of the

00:27:20.040 problems.

00:27:21.020 But then

00:27:21.520 the epiphany

00:27:22.520 grew to a

00:27:23.280 second,

00:27:23.700 more minor

00:27:24.380 one.

00:27:25.840 I felt,

00:27:27.580 how does

00:27:29.060 one say

00:27:29.500 this,

00:27:30.860 a very

00:27:31.360 strong

00:27:32.060 notion

00:27:32.680 that is

00:27:34.120 in the

00:27:34.660 words,

00:27:36.360 the words.

00:27:39.580 So I

00:27:40.120 asked my

00:27:40.860 pastor,

00:27:42.400 Aramaic

00:27:42.900 speaker,

00:27:43.980 what is

00:27:44.760 begotten

00:27:45.780 in Aramaic?

00:27:46.900 and began

00:27:48.820 learning

00:27:49.600 Arabic at

00:27:50.480 some level

00:27:51.140 and comparing

00:27:52.940 the

00:27:53.520 begottenness

00:27:54.400 of Jesus

00:27:55.040 in the

00:27:55.660 Quran

00:27:55.980 and the

00:27:57.520 begottenness

00:27:58.320 of Jesus

00:27:58.800 say in

00:27:59.380 Matthew 1

00:28:00.200 with a

00:28:00.920 long

00:28:01.280 41

00:28:02.820 begots,

00:28:04.100 Abraham

00:28:04.640 begot

00:28:05.080 Isaac,

00:28:05.680 etc.,

00:28:06.340 and discovered

00:28:07.520 something

00:28:08.080 quite

00:28:08.520 fascinating,

00:28:09.940 that the

00:28:10.560 same word

00:28:11.460 the Quran

00:28:12.060 uses,

00:28:12.700 walid,

00:28:14.000 for Jesus

00:28:14.820 was not

00:28:15.580 walid or

00:28:16.560 begotten,

00:28:17.820 and this

00:28:18.100 may seem

00:28:19.380 a little

00:28:19.600 technical,

00:28:20.220 but it's

00:28:21.120 very powerful,

00:28:22.580 it's a

00:28:23.160 male

00:28:23.800 verb

00:28:25.980 action,

00:28:26.820 meaning

00:28:27.120 sexually.

00:28:29.440 So of

00:28:29.960 course,

00:28:30.400 no Christian

00:28:30.960 believes God

00:28:31.720 had sex

00:28:32.300 with Mary,

00:28:32.980 but that's

00:28:33.380 what many

00:28:33.820 Muslims

00:28:34.320 believe,

00:28:34.840 Christians

00:28:35.160 believe,

00:28:35.860 because we

00:28:36.340 say Jesus

00:28:37.600 was begotten

00:28:39.000 the same

00:28:39.860 way as

00:28:40.320 we were

00:28:41.240 begotten,

00:28:41.880 but in

00:28:42.700 the

00:28:42.860 Peshitta

00:28:43.340 text,

00:28:43.920 it uniquely

00:28:44.640 and without

00:28:46.640 any

00:28:47.160 coincidental

00:28:48.820 serendipity,

00:28:50.540 uses the

00:28:51.240 same word

00:28:51.760 as the

00:28:52.060 Quran,

00:28:52.480 Abraham,

00:28:53.100 walid,

00:28:53.620 walid,

00:28:54.140 this begotten,

00:28:54.860 begotten,

00:28:55.520 meaning sexually

00:28:56.340 conceived.

00:28:57.260 When it

00:28:57.640 gets down

00:28:58.140 to verse

00:28:58.520 16 to

00:28:59.440 Jesus,

00:29:01.160 the form

00:29:01.680 of the

00:29:01.980 word

00:29:02.280 changes

00:29:02.960 to a

00:29:04.180 feminine

00:29:05.120 passive

00:29:06.940 construct

00:29:08.480 in

00:29:08.700 Aramaic,

00:29:09.320 meaning

00:29:09.580 there's

00:29:09.920 no man

00:29:10.560 and there's

00:29:11.620 no action,

00:29:12.820 I mean

00:29:13.040 physical

00:29:13.560 action,

00:29:14.400 and when

00:29:15.100 Muslims

00:29:15.580 hear this,

00:29:16.720 the scholars,

00:29:18.120 the cab

00:29:18.560 drivers,

00:29:19.600 my close

00:29:20.120 friends,

00:29:21.240 they're just

00:29:21.940 enamored with

00:29:23.000 this.

00:29:23.500 So the

00:29:23.880 point is,

00:29:24.840 the way

00:29:25.320 Jesus was

00:29:26.100 begotten

00:29:26.800 in the

00:29:27.300 Bible

00:29:27.720 and in

00:29:29.680 the Quran

00:29:30.220 is identical.

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00:30:39.200 You said a

00:30:40.220 number of

00:30:40.560 things that are

00:30:41.080 of crucial

00:30:41.560 importance.

00:30:42.420 Okay.

00:30:42.840 Well,

00:30:43.740 I've been

00:30:45.360 thinking for

00:30:47.040 some protracted

00:30:48.360 period of time,

00:30:49.800 especially in

00:30:51.020 the aftermath of

00:30:51.860 the Abraham

00:30:52.320 Accords,

00:30:52.880 that there

00:30:54.760 are foundational

00:30:55.640 principles that

00:30:56.780 unite Muslims,

00:30:58.240 Jews,

00:30:58.600 and Christians.

00:30:59.340 They're all

00:30:59.780 people of the

00:31:00.380 book, for

00:31:00.800 example, and

00:31:01.560 they're all

00:31:02.800 Abrahamic people.

00:31:04.920 And those are

00:31:06.260 the idea that

00:31:07.780 all of our

00:31:08.420 cultures are

00:31:09.900 predicated on

00:31:11.440 a book rather

00:31:12.860 than a city,

00:31:14.140 rather than the

00:31:14.840 state, rather

00:31:15.860 than a military

00:31:16.840 power, rather

00:31:17.820 than an empire.

00:31:19.160 That's a

00:31:19.780 radical

00:31:20.280 similarity.

00:31:22.200 people of the

00:31:24.800 book is a

00:31:25.360 radical change

00:31:26.280 with regard to

00:31:28.100 say the

00:31:28.440 Romans or the

00:31:29.080 Greeks or the

00:31:29.680 pagan empires.

00:31:30.720 The fact that a

00:31:31.520 book is the

00:31:32.160 foundation of the

00:31:32.940 culture, that's

00:31:33.640 an unbelievably

00:31:34.680 revolutionary notion.

00:31:36.220 And then the

00:31:37.240 three, the books

00:31:38.020 that guide all

00:31:39.420 three of the

00:31:39.840 major Abrahamic

00:31:40.680 religions have

00:31:41.800 marked similarities.

00:31:43.540 One of them, as

00:31:44.240 you pointed out,

00:31:45.160 with regards to

00:31:46.080 Islam and

00:31:46.920 Christianity is the

00:31:47.840 centrality of

00:31:48.540 Christ.

00:31:49.420 Okay, so you

00:31:50.700 said that was a

00:31:51.560 big surprise

00:31:52.120 to you, and

00:31:52.720 I'm sure it's a

00:31:53.420 surprise to many

00:31:54.100 of the people

00:31:54.540 that are

00:31:54.840 listening.

00:31:55.900 Well then, where's

00:31:57.360 the rub?

00:31:58.140 Well, that's what

00:31:58.720 you turn to right

00:31:59.460 away.

00:32:00.420 Christ is a

00:32:01.020 central figure,

00:32:02.040 Jesus is a

00:32:02.700 central figure in

00:32:03.540 the Islamic

00:32:04.040 text, as he is

00:32:04.920 in the Christian

00:32:05.400 text, but there's

00:32:06.400 doctrinal differences

00:32:07.340 which you zeroed in

00:32:08.300 on right away.

00:32:09.440 But one of the

00:32:10.060 things that you

00:32:10.700 were fleshing out,

00:32:12.500 investigating, was

00:32:13.880 the possibility that

00:32:15.140 the doctrinal

00:32:16.020 differences with

00:32:16.860 regards to the

00:32:17.660 circumstances of

00:32:18.600 Christ's conception

00:32:19.900 birth, were

00:32:21.340 less at odds

00:32:23.680 than might be

00:32:25.360 if you were

00:32:25.880 ultimately pessimistic,

00:32:27.180 right?

00:32:27.380 Because the

00:32:28.080 question is, for

00:32:29.340 me, look, in

00:32:30.860 the Abraham

00:32:31.680 Accords, I

00:32:33.540 demonstrated that

00:32:34.580 people of good

00:32:37.320 will could

00:32:37.800 circumvent the

00:32:38.700 State Department

00:32:39.440 and, what would

00:32:42.160 you say,

00:32:42.600 accumulated

00:32:43.400 doctrinal

00:32:44.760 diplomatic wisdom

00:32:45.800 that it was

00:32:46.280 impossible to

00:32:47.000 negotiate peace

00:32:48.420 between the

00:32:49.380 Arab world and

00:32:50.180 the Israelis,

00:32:51.400 absent an

00:32:52.100 agreement on

00:32:52.660 Palestine, which

00:32:53.340 was never going

00:32:53.960 to happen because

00:32:54.780 the Iranians, it's

00:32:57.220 in the Iranians'

00:32:58.060 best interest to

00:32:58.840 keep the

00:32:59.220 Palestine conflict

00:33:00.180 with the Jews

00:33:00.920 going on forever.

00:33:02.320 And so that's a

00:33:02.940 non-starter.

00:33:03.740 And the Abraham

00:33:04.580 Accords signatories

00:33:05.840 just walked around

00:33:06.740 that in quite a

00:33:07.420 remarkable way.

00:33:08.460 And I don't think

00:33:11.220 that that's an

00:33:11.860 accomplishment that's

00:33:12.700 been heralded

00:33:13.320 sufficiently.

00:33:13.920 And I know that

00:33:14.600 the people,

00:33:15.440 particularly in

00:33:16.160 the UAE,

00:33:17.020 they've built

00:33:17.780 that tri-faith

00:33:20.060 complex, and

00:33:21.660 they seem to be

00:33:23.060 working towards

00:33:24.240 a solution that's

00:33:26.180 similar to the

00:33:26.820 one that you're

00:33:27.360 pursuing, which

00:33:28.100 would be the

00:33:28.600 idea that, well,

00:33:29.720 maybe we should

00:33:30.280 start with our

00:33:30.980 commonalities and

00:33:32.520 see what we

00:33:33.200 could negotiate

00:33:34.700 so that we

00:33:35.740 could establish

00:33:36.760 something approximating

00:33:38.420 at least a

00:33:39.140 lasting and

00:33:40.280 cooperative peace,

00:33:41.980 right, as

00:33:42.720 opposed to

00:33:43.500 continual

00:33:44.460 warfare.

00:33:45.120 Now, I was

00:33:46.940 stunned, first

00:33:47.760 of all, that

00:33:48.260 the Abraham

00:33:49.160 Accords were

00:33:49.840 ever signed,

00:33:51.040 but I was

00:33:51.620 also more

00:33:52.740 stunned that

00:33:53.380 they held in

00:33:54.740 the aftermath

00:33:55.260 of October

00:33:55.900 7th.

00:33:56.620 I know the

00:33:57.240 Saudis backed

00:33:57.980 off and

00:33:58.500 everything got

00:33:59.040 kind of quiet

00:33:59.700 about Arab-Israeli

00:34:02.200 cooperation, but

00:34:04.060 the accords

00:34:06.980 didn't fracture.

00:34:08.900 And then more

00:34:09.720 recently, I

00:34:10.500 noticed that the

00:34:11.480 UAE in

00:34:12.400 particular, but

00:34:12.940 also the

00:34:13.480 Saudis, have

00:34:14.880 taken steps to

00:34:15.760 do something

00:34:16.280 that the West

00:34:17.040 is very

00:34:17.520 loath to do,

00:34:18.180 especially the

00:34:19.220 UK, France,

00:34:20.160 and Germany,

00:34:20.840 which is to

00:34:21.800 define radical

00:34:23.480 Islam, right,

00:34:24.840 Islamism, to

00:34:25.860 set it outside the

00:34:27.160 canonical Islamic

00:34:28.260 doctrine and to

00:34:29.540 oppose it.

00:34:30.260 And the

00:34:31.480 leaders in the

00:34:32.080 UAE have

00:34:32.700 called out

00:34:34.600 Germany and

00:34:35.260 England, or

00:34:35.900 the UK in

00:34:36.620 particular, for

00:34:37.820 being weak in

00:34:39.680 their opposition

00:34:40.680 to Islamism,

00:34:42.240 which the UAE

00:34:43.480 and the Saudis

00:34:44.200 don't regard as

00:34:45.160 part of canonical

00:34:46.020 Islamic tradition.

00:34:47.920 If I got that,

00:34:48.740 does that seem,

00:34:49.440 is that in

00:34:49.880 accordance with

00:34:50.380 how you...

00:34:50.940 Yes, indeed.

00:34:51.400 Okay.

00:34:52.080 And the

00:34:52.420 Abrahamic

00:34:53.000 Accords were

00:34:54.620 not lauded

00:34:55.360 anywhere near what

00:34:57.020 they should have

00:34:57.540 been.

00:34:57.780 I was privileged

00:35:00.100 to be in the

00:35:01.040 gardens at the

00:35:02.720 White House

00:35:03.180 watching the

00:35:04.060 signatories and

00:35:06.340 working with

00:35:07.740 North Sudan,

00:35:08.800 where I visited

00:35:10.680 24 times the

00:35:11.900 Khartoum and

00:35:12.700 the surroundings,

00:35:15.280 to encourage them

00:35:16.560 to participate,

00:35:17.520 which they did,

00:35:18.220 as did Morocco

00:35:18.960 as well.

00:35:20.380 So the

00:35:21.160 Abrahamic

00:35:21.840 Accords began

00:35:23.020 to extend,

00:35:24.300 and Saudi

00:35:24.860 was, as you

00:35:26.100 know, as you

00:35:26.720 pointed out,

00:35:27.780 were right on

00:35:28.800 the edge

00:35:29.360 of joining.

00:35:30.840 Yeah.

00:35:31.420 And then

00:35:31.880 October 6th

00:35:33.880 occurred,

00:35:34.680 and what a

00:35:35.520 convenient thing

00:35:36.940 to happen

00:35:39.880 at that

00:35:40.360 timing.

00:35:41.280 It was

00:35:41.740 horrific.

00:35:42.920 It's nothing

00:35:43.660 less than a

00:35:44.940 atrocious

00:35:45.580 atrocity, but

00:35:46.540 it was also

00:35:47.160 well-timed.

00:35:47.880 Well, it

00:35:48.540 seemed to me

00:35:49.200 that the

00:35:49.820 purpose of

00:35:51.380 October 7th

00:35:52.340 was to stop

00:35:53.160 the Saudis

00:35:53.820 from signing

00:35:54.360 the Abraham

00:35:55.160 Accords.

00:35:55.860 Well, that was

00:35:56.640 one of the

00:35:57.680 goals, yes.

00:35:58.140 One of the goals.

00:35:58.940 It was Iran's

00:35:59.840 goal, and

00:36:01.100 there were

00:36:01.480 others, but

00:36:02.160 October 7th,

00:36:03.360 and that's

00:36:04.120 exactly why

00:36:05.660 the timing

00:36:06.200 was as it

00:36:07.080 was.

00:36:08.080 Right, right.

00:36:09.000 Well, and it

00:36:09.620 meant with

00:36:10.460 some success,

00:36:11.820 although the

00:36:12.500 agreements didn't

00:36:13.620 fragment.

00:36:14.800 Okay, so now

00:36:15.540 you have this

00:36:16.480 epiphany, and

00:36:17.780 so you were

00:36:18.900 talking about

00:36:19.580 going to

00:36:20.460 Israel and

00:36:21.820 speaking with

00:36:22.480 the Palestinians,

00:36:23.460 and you

00:36:24.380 faced opposition

00:36:25.620 from within

00:36:26.640 your own

00:36:27.000 party, especially

00:36:27.800 on the

00:36:28.740 neocon side,

00:36:29.980 for having

00:36:30.480 the temerity

00:36:31.180 to propose

00:36:31.800 such a

00:36:32.240 thing.

00:36:32.620 Okay, let's

00:36:33.160 pick it up

00:36:33.680 from there.

00:36:34.220 So loving

00:36:35.040 enemies is

00:36:36.280 not appreciated

00:36:37.840 in politics.

00:36:40.300 And this

00:36:40.560 is, I

00:36:41.320 don't want to

00:36:41.780 get off on

00:36:42.360 a tangent, but

00:36:43.200 this is why

00:36:44.100 Donald Trump

00:36:44.960 is disdained

00:36:45.740 by neoconservatives

00:36:47.960 as well, because

00:36:48.940 he talked to

00:36:49.600 Kim Jong-un

00:36:50.380 in his first

00:36:51.040 term, he

00:36:51.900 made friends

00:36:52.460 with Putin,

00:36:53.420 he's a

00:36:53.940 master

00:36:54.340 negotiator,

00:36:55.880 as you've

00:36:57.180 analyzed his

00:36:58.300 psychology, I

00:37:00.300 noticed on

00:37:00.860 one of your

00:37:01.420 blogs, which

00:37:02.420 is fantastic,

00:37:03.400 by the way.

00:37:04.760 And I have

00:37:05.280 a great

00:37:05.720 respect for

00:37:06.800 Donald Trump

00:37:07.380 because his

00:37:08.320 heart, I

00:37:09.140 believe, is

00:37:09.940 for peace.

00:37:11.080 And he

00:37:11.420 talks repeatedly

00:37:12.760 about all

00:37:15.240 these young

00:37:15.780 men dying,

00:37:16.800 all the people

00:37:17.460 dying.

00:37:18.740 He talks

00:37:19.480 about dying

00:37:20.240 and killing.

00:37:21.820 Repeatedly.

00:37:22.660 So I

00:37:22.920 believe he

00:37:23.360 is, this

00:37:24.420 is why

00:37:24.660 there's an

00:37:25.120 opposition.

00:37:26.140 He is a

00:37:26.680 man of

00:37:27.220 peace.

00:37:27.880 He's the

00:37:28.620 strangest

00:37:29.140 man of

00:37:29.700 peace.

00:37:30.300 Strange

00:37:30.980 indeed.

00:37:32.220 Regardless

00:37:32.900 of what

00:37:33.260 people say

00:37:33.800 about his

00:37:34.220 personality,

00:37:35.260 his

00:37:35.540 gruffness,

00:37:36.960 his

00:37:37.380 bluntness,

00:37:38.860 his other

00:37:40.340 characteristics that

00:37:41.420 you pointed

00:37:41.920 out in

00:37:43.000 one of your

00:37:44.060 excellent

00:37:44.580 presentations,

00:37:46.420 he's

00:37:47.220 inside,

00:37:48.020 and I

00:37:49.480 have no

00:37:49.960 inside

00:37:50.440 knowledge of

00:37:51.120 this,

00:37:51.360 but I

00:37:51.540 just

00:37:51.740 believe from

00:37:52.400 observation

00:37:53.160 that he

00:37:54.140 has this

00:37:54.600 compassion.

00:37:55.760 Well, he

00:37:56.000 also has a

00:37:56.680 track record.

00:37:57.540 I mean, when

00:37:57.900 he was

00:37:58.400 president, he

00:38:00.000 led the

00:38:00.620 West into

00:38:01.160 zero wars,

00:38:02.940 right?

00:38:03.360 And zero is

00:38:03.980 not very

00:38:04.440 many.

00:38:05.400 And so that

00:38:05.860 was despite

00:38:06.400 the fact that

00:38:07.200 we were

00:38:07.840 assured by his

00:38:08.760 opposition that

00:38:10.340 he was a

00:38:11.260 warmonger and

00:38:12.220 that it would

00:38:13.240 be Trump that

00:38:14.040 would be

00:38:15.200 most, you

00:38:15.720 could imagine

00:38:16.300 him voted in

00:38:17.060 high school as

00:38:17.660 most likely to

00:38:18.420 start World War

00:38:19.220 III.

00:38:19.700 And yet, when

00:38:20.460 he became

00:38:20.900 president, the

00:38:23.100 fruits that his

00:38:23.940 tree bore, let's

00:38:25.060 say, were fruits

00:38:25.760 of peace.

00:38:26.540 And that was

00:38:27.560 contradictory and

00:38:28.740 strange given the

00:38:30.120 combativeness of

00:38:31.100 his personality.

00:38:32.080 But, you know,

00:38:32.600 one of the things we

00:38:33.380 might always remind

00:38:34.280 ourselves is that

00:38:35.180 if we're not

00:38:37.280 ourselves capable

00:38:38.220 of promoting

00:38:39.960 peace, let's

00:38:41.520 say, in our

00:38:42.200 own family, let

00:38:43.400 alone at an

00:38:43.980 international

00:38:44.440 level, we

00:38:45.420 might not be

00:38:46.160 able to

00:38:46.520 recognize a

00:38:47.520 true peacemaker

00:38:48.220 when one comes

00:38:48.980 along.

00:38:49.680 He's not

00:38:50.160 necessarily going

00:38:50.880 to look like

00:38:51.460 you think,

00:38:52.720 because if you

00:38:53.220 knew how to

00:38:53.860 do that, you'd

00:38:54.500 do it.

00:38:55.440 And so, okay,

00:38:57.100 now Trump seems

00:38:58.040 to be doing

00:38:58.920 everything he can

00:38:59.800 to...

00:39:00.200 But he

00:39:00.480 shouldn't be

00:39:00.920 trifled with.

00:39:02.460 That's the other

00:39:03.060 side of Trump.

00:39:04.360 Right.

00:39:04.880 But that might

00:39:05.760 also be absolutely

00:39:06.900 necessary, right?

00:39:08.280 We don't know

00:39:09.440 what the

00:39:09.860 preconditions are

00:39:10.660 for establishing

00:39:11.340 peace.

00:39:12.160 He obviously

00:39:12.960 indicated to

00:39:13.760 people like the

00:39:14.860 dictator of

00:39:15.460 North Korea that

00:39:16.300 he could be

00:39:17.020 communicated with

00:39:17.880 but not trifled

00:39:18.860 with, right?

00:39:19.920 And Trump does

00:39:20.580 seem to have that

00:39:21.440 paradoxical personality

00:39:22.740 which is, don't

00:39:23.740 muck about with

00:39:24.500 me, but if we

00:39:25.740 don't have to go

00:39:26.440 to war, then

00:39:27.080 let's not, right?

00:39:28.800 And so, he

00:39:30.360 tromps around like

00:39:31.520 a bull in a

00:39:32.060 china shop and

00:39:32.800 it's not obvious

00:39:34.000 how much of that's

00:39:34.780 necessary, but I

00:39:35.620 really mean it's

00:39:36.600 not obvious.

00:39:37.740 None of that

00:39:38.600 seems weak,

00:39:40.240 right?

00:39:40.540 And I think

00:39:40.940 that was the

00:39:41.440 position of

00:39:41.980 someone like

00:39:42.500 Biden who

00:39:43.400 would promote

00:39:44.380 himself like

00:39:45.040 Justin Trudeau

00:39:45.780 does a lot of

00:39:46.500 these good

00:39:46.900 thinking liberals

00:39:47.700 is they're the

00:39:48.880 sort of people

00:39:49.500 in their mouths

00:39:51.020 butter wouldn't

00:39:51.720 melt.

00:39:52.160 They're such

00:39:52.540 nice gentlemen

00:39:53.420 and nice has

00:39:54.440 never seemed to

00:39:55.160 me to be

00:39:55.860 particularly

00:39:56.760 virtuous.

00:39:58.640 Discriminating

00:39:59.200 nice from

00:40:00.860 weak is a

00:40:01.800 difficult matter

00:40:02.800 and I don't

00:40:03.680 think people

00:40:04.200 make that

00:40:04.660 mistake with

00:40:05.280 Trump.

00:40:06.320 Okay, so

00:40:06.780 back to

00:40:07.340 Palestine.

00:40:08.040 Quick comment.

00:40:10.240 Jesus, you

00:40:12.160 know, they

00:40:12.460 had asked,

00:40:13.420 why don't you

00:40:13.820 call down your

00:40:14.920 angels?

00:40:15.800 Yeah.

00:40:16.380 Which he could

00:40:16.920 have, but he

00:40:18.980 did not because

00:40:20.660 it's, and I

00:40:21.920 don't mean to

00:40:22.420 say Trump is

00:40:23.520 like Jesus,

00:40:24.760 please.

00:40:25.540 I'm saying

00:40:26.360 there's an

00:40:27.080 attribute that

00:40:28.800 while there's

00:40:29.500 power behind

00:40:30.720 Jesus, Yeshua

00:40:32.360 as I call him,

00:40:33.160 his Hebrew name,

00:40:34.200 there's power.

00:40:35.740 Where he still

00:40:36.440 exerted love,

00:40:39.280 compassion,

00:40:40.360 and mercy.

00:40:41.700 Well, you see

00:40:42.240 the same thing

00:40:42.860 with Moses.

00:40:44.180 You know, when

00:40:45.060 Moses is near

00:40:46.820 the end of his

00:40:47.600 sojourn with

00:40:48.300 the Israelites,

00:40:49.220 they run out

00:40:49.820 of water again

00:40:50.640 in the desert

00:40:51.240 and the

00:40:52.580 Israelites ask

00:40:53.400 Moses to

00:40:54.000 intercede on

00:40:54.780 their behalf

00:40:55.380 and God

00:40:56.040 tells Moses to

00:40:56.980 ask the rocks

00:40:58.000 to deliver

00:40:58.520 water, right?

00:40:59.980 And he, instead

00:41:00.860 Moses goes with

00:41:01.900 Aaron to the

00:41:02.520 rocks and uses

00:41:03.680 his cudgel

00:41:05.200 to compel

00:41:07.180 and command

00:41:07.900 the rocks

00:41:08.600 to deliver

00:41:09.380 water, which

00:41:10.300 they do, but

00:41:11.460 his punishment

00:41:12.100 is that he

00:41:12.700 doesn't lead

00:41:13.260 the Israelites

00:41:13.720 into the

00:41:14.260 promised land,

00:41:14.980 right?

00:41:15.260 So the God

00:41:16.280 of the Old

00:41:16.800 Testament who's

00:41:18.080 manifested, let's

00:41:19.140 say, in the

00:41:19.620 spirit of Christ

00:41:20.500 is someone who

00:41:22.780 radically opposes

00:41:24.120 the use of

00:41:24.880 unnecessary force,

00:41:26.820 right?

00:41:27.120 Now, it isn't

00:41:27.640 that Moses has

00:41:28.440 no strength of

00:41:29.160 character because

00:41:29.900 he stands up

00:41:30.940 against the

00:41:31.540 Pharaoh multiple

00:41:32.820 times, puts

00:41:33.880 his own life

00:41:34.540 at risk.

00:41:35.460 He's a very

00:41:35.940 brave person,

00:41:36.820 but he's still

00:41:37.820 severely punished

00:41:38.740 for using force

00:41:39.860 when verbal

00:41:42.080 invitation is the

00:41:43.360 order of the

00:41:44.040 day, right?

00:41:45.560 Right.

00:41:46.020 And so it's

00:41:47.760 possible to have

00:41:48.520 that power at

00:41:49.640 your back and

00:41:50.760 still be morally

00:41:51.640 obliged to use

00:41:53.600 as little of it

00:41:54.400 as necessary to,

00:41:56.980 let's say, to

00:41:57.660 make your point.

00:41:59.000 Okay, so now

00:41:59.700 you're off to

00:42:00.600 Palestine, you're

00:42:01.860 running into

00:42:02.300 opposition, the

00:42:03.160 neocons, you

00:42:04.340 have an epiphany

00:42:05.060 that you should

00:42:05.620 be reaching out

00:42:06.320 and talking.

00:42:07.060 That becomes a

00:42:08.660 practical necessity

00:42:10.260 with regards to

00:42:11.160 the Palestinians.

00:42:12.080 Pick up the

00:42:12.600 story there.

00:42:13.600 Yes, and we

00:42:14.600 engaged and

00:42:15.900 talked and

00:42:16.660 broke bread and

00:42:17.600 had tea.

00:42:19.080 How did you do

00:42:19.800 that exactly?

00:42:20.640 Walk us through

00:42:21.280 the mechanisms.

00:42:22.180 Well, I mean,

00:42:23.140 when you're in

00:42:23.600 Congress, you

00:42:24.240 tell the

00:42:26.820 embassy, my

00:42:27.980 interest is to

00:42:28.940 see some

00:42:29.980 Palestinians.

00:42:30.580 I said, well,

00:42:31.320 that wouldn't

00:42:32.080 be recommended

00:42:33.120 or advised.

00:42:34.040 I said, note

00:42:35.660 taken, I still

00:42:36.820 want to see

00:42:37.440 Palestinians, some

00:42:38.560 of the leaders,

00:42:39.220 and some

00:42:39.780 average people.

00:42:40.760 We walked

00:42:41.400 down some

00:42:42.440 of the streets

00:42:43.700 in the West

00:42:44.300 Bank and

00:42:45.400 talked to

00:42:45.900 people and

00:42:46.560 knocked down

00:42:47.000 their doors.

00:42:47.560 I felt like

00:42:48.080 we were in

00:42:48.360 another campaign

00:42:49.640 of sorts, and

00:42:50.920 it was

00:42:51.460 exhilarating, and

00:42:52.600 I can't even

00:42:53.620 specify why.

00:42:55.440 It was like

00:42:56.240 meeting new

00:42:56.920 people, a new

00:42:57.720 constituency, but

00:42:59.020 there's something

00:42:59.600 missing, Jordan.

00:43:00.900 I was trying to

00:43:02.000 find common

00:43:03.000 ground.

00:43:03.580 One can be a

00:43:04.320 nice person, a

00:43:05.220 diplomat, and

00:43:06.020 break bread, which

00:43:07.300 is critical in

00:43:08.680 building interpersonal

00:43:09.660 relationship, but

00:43:10.940 there's no

00:43:11.580 spiritual

00:43:12.260 connectivity.

00:43:13.100 Right, right.

00:43:13.560 So, going back

00:43:15.120 to this thought

00:43:16.840 about the

00:43:17.700 begotten, we

00:43:18.540 spoke about earlier

00:43:19.400 that the Bible

00:43:20.340 says that the

00:43:21.580 Holy Spirit was

00:43:23.480 breathed into

00:43:24.480 Mary by God,

00:43:26.340 who is a

00:43:26.940 virgin, and the

00:43:28.440 sinless Messiah

00:43:29.620 was born.

00:43:31.240 Well, the

00:43:31.640 Quran says

00:43:32.240 precisely the

00:43:33.300 same thing, that

00:43:34.700 God, Allah,

00:43:36.140 breathed into

00:43:37.020 Mary's, a

00:43:38.040 virgin, room, and

00:43:39.960 produced Isa,

00:43:42.020 Jesus, a

00:43:43.660 perfect,

00:43:44.860 Zakiya, perfect,

00:43:46.760 unblemished

00:43:47.580 Mashiach, Messiah.

00:43:50.320 And I thought,

00:43:51.300 well, what's the

00:43:51.920 difference?

00:43:52.900 We call them

00:43:53.560 son, our term is

00:43:54.720 son of God, and

00:43:55.520 the Muslims are

00:43:56.220 all hung up on

00:43:56.940 that.

00:43:57.180 They shouldn't

00:43:58.180 be, because in

00:43:59.000 their mind, this

00:44:00.000 is the critical

00:44:00.580 point, and here's

00:44:01.720 the common

00:44:02.220 ground.

00:44:03.000 You could build

00:44:03.620 with Gaddafi,

00:44:05.700 Omar al-Bashir,

00:44:06.980 or your

00:44:08.880 neighbor.

00:44:11.160 That the

00:44:12.520 common ground

00:44:13.340 is that he

00:44:15.080 was born

00:44:16.040 supernaturally,

00:44:18.700 and the son

00:44:19.260 everyone, I

00:44:20.560 mean, excuse

00:44:20.820 me, the son

00:44:21.700 of God

00:44:22.220 construct is

00:44:24.000 ubiquitous

00:44:24.860 throughout the

00:44:25.620 Old Testament.

00:44:27.460 It's unique.

00:44:29.000 Anyone, any

00:44:30.780 being conceived

00:44:32.440 or breathed

00:44:33.980 by Yahweh,

00:44:35.440 including the

00:44:36.140 angels, they

00:44:37.700 were called the

00:44:38.260 sons of God,

00:44:39.020 looked down on

00:44:39.600 the women in

00:44:40.220 Genesis 6 and

00:44:41.520 said, aren't they

00:44:42.140 beautiful, and

00:44:42.780 created the

00:44:43.140 Nephilim.

00:44:44.120 Well, they were

00:44:44.640 called sons of

00:44:45.400 God.

00:44:45.860 Even high priests

00:44:46.740 were called

00:44:47.200 sons of God.

00:44:47.440 You see that in

00:44:48.060 the story of

00:44:48.700 Job, too.

00:44:49.660 Yeah, and Job

00:44:50.340 as well.

00:44:50.860 So, what I'm

00:44:51.760 saying, the

00:44:52.280 notion of son

00:44:53.120 of God should

00:44:54.220 not be so

00:44:54.880 offensive to

00:44:56.200 the Muslims.

00:44:57.280 The point is,

00:44:58.080 what do we

00:44:58.480 mean by that?

00:45:00.220 We mean that

00:45:01.180 God, Yahweh,

00:45:02.540 blew his

00:45:03.140 Ruha Kodesh, his

00:45:04.620 Holy Spirit,

00:45:05.500 into Mary, and

00:45:06.560 that's precisely

00:45:07.360 what the Quran

00:45:08.040 says.

00:45:08.480 The stories are

00:45:09.580 almost identical

00:45:10.740 and even

00:45:11.300 linguistically.

00:45:12.920 The Ruha

00:45:13.440 Kodesh, Arabic,

00:45:15.140 and Ruha

00:45:15.700 Kodesh is the

00:45:16.960 Hebrew.

00:45:17.640 See the sounds

00:45:18.440 of similarities?

00:45:19.800 Aloha is God

00:45:21.000 in Hebrew.

00:45:23.360 Allaha is what

00:45:24.380 Jesus himself

00:45:25.880 used in his

00:45:27.060 vernacular

00:45:27.680 Aramaic, and

00:45:28.880 Allah.

00:45:29.300 Allah, Arabic,

00:45:31.180 Allaha, Aramaic,

00:45:32.600 Aloha, Hebrew.

00:45:33.860 So, that

00:45:34.440 similarity was

00:45:35.400 stunning because

00:45:36.040 most of my

00:45:36.800 Christian friends

00:45:37.740 say Allah is

00:45:38.880 not the God

00:45:39.480 of the Bible.

00:45:40.980 Well, I

00:45:42.540 said,

00:45:42.860 etymontologically,

00:45:44.540 it is the

00:45:45.220 same God,

00:45:45.960 at least in

00:45:47.020 terms of

00:45:47.620 title.

00:45:49.360 Now, how

00:45:49.760 one views

00:45:50.420 God, maybe

00:45:52.120 through their

00:45:52.720 lenses, is

00:45:53.380 different.

00:45:54.080 There are

00:45:54.520 56,000,

00:45:56.040 give or

00:45:56.460 take,

00:45:57.280 sex and

00:45:57.660 denominations of

00:45:58.600 Christianity all

00:45:59.640 over the world,

00:46:00.600 hair-splitting every

00:46:01.560 little theological

00:46:03.060 difference, but

00:46:04.940 I would say

00:46:05.840 that there are

00:46:06.620 more dynamic

00:46:08.600 synergies between

00:46:10.580 the Quran and

00:46:11.460 the Bible.

00:46:12.040 I'm not saying

00:46:12.560 so much Islam

00:46:13.460 and Christianity

00:46:14.300 because they

00:46:15.340 have their

00:46:15.980 history,

00:46:16.940 dogmas,

00:46:19.740 culture,

00:46:21.080 and politics.

00:46:24.100 But you

00:46:24.320 mean in terms

00:46:24.860 of the

00:46:25.140 texts?

00:46:25.800 Yes.

00:46:26.800 Interpretations

00:46:27.480 but the text

00:46:28.500 in Aramaic

00:46:29.940 in the New

00:46:30.620 Testament,

00:46:31.460 the text of

00:46:32.140 the Quran

00:46:32.720 and Arabic

00:46:33.800 merge much

00:46:36.560 more smoothly

00:46:38.280 and consistently

00:46:40.060 than would

00:46:41.040 an Islamic

00:46:42.860 imam debating

00:46:45.060 a Christian

00:46:45.900 pastor.

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00:48:06.620 There's two

00:48:07.220 pathways we

00:48:08.000 could walk

00:48:08.400 down now.

00:48:08.940 We could

00:48:09.200 continue to

00:48:09.900 pick up the

00:48:10.440 biographical

00:48:11.020 story, let's

00:48:11.820 say, that

00:48:12.160 begins with

00:48:13.240 your interactions

00:48:13.900 with the

00:48:14.340 Palestinians.

00:48:15.180 Let's do

00:48:15.620 that.

00:48:15.940 Let's do

00:48:16.260 that.

00:48:16.480 I have a

00:48:16.840 very troublesome

00:48:17.420 question to

00:48:18.140 ask you as

00:48:18.660 well, but

00:48:18.940 I'll forestall

00:48:20.160 that for the

00:48:20.680 time being.

00:48:21.620 So tell me

00:48:22.260 what happens

00:48:22.880 after you

00:48:23.700 start to make

00:48:24.900 contact with

00:48:25.500 the Palestinians.

00:48:26.000 Now you've

00:48:26.620 pointed out

00:48:27.080 that what

00:48:27.440 you were

00:48:27.700 doing was

00:48:28.240 like a

00:48:28.920 constituency

00:48:29.540 outreach and

00:48:30.840 the beginnings

00:48:32.380 of an

00:48:32.780 investigation

00:48:33.300 into a

00:48:34.500 culture that

00:48:35.020 you had

00:48:35.300 regarded with

00:48:36.040 enmity and

00:48:36.760 as foreign

00:48:37.360 and that

00:48:38.020 there was an

00:48:38.400 exhilarating

00:48:38.980 aspect to

00:48:39.580 that, but

00:48:39.940 there was

00:48:40.300 something deeper

00:48:41.260 driving it,

00:48:42.100 which was

00:48:42.520 the search

00:48:43.340 for profound

00:48:44.440 commonalities.

00:48:45.520 My sense

00:48:46.260 is that with

00:48:47.060 regards to the

00:48:47.880 Islamic world,

00:48:49.720 unless we,

00:48:51.300 meaning Christians,

00:48:52.820 Jews, and

00:48:53.260 Muslims,

00:48:53.940 concentrate on

00:48:54.840 what we have

00:48:55.380 in common,

00:48:56.000 and work out

00:48:57.020 a framework

00:48:57.500 for collaboration

00:48:58.520 and fair

00:48:59.740 competition,

00:49:00.680 that the

00:49:01.380 alternative is

00:49:02.160 something like

00:49:02.760 capitulation.

00:49:03.660 It's always the

00:49:04.320 alternative to

00:49:05.200 negotiation,

00:49:06.300 capitulation or

00:49:07.220 war, and those

00:49:08.400 are both dreadful

00:49:09.460 alternatives, and

00:49:10.720 so it seems to

00:49:11.520 me that we

00:49:11.940 should at least

00:49:12.540 pray, hope

00:49:13.800 and pray that

00:49:14.980 there's more

00:49:15.500 that unites us

00:49:16.620 than there is

00:49:17.140 that divides us,

00:49:18.020 because otherwise

00:49:18.560 it's going to be

00:49:19.260 a real brutal

00:49:19.940 time, and the

00:49:21.480 Abraham Accords

00:49:22.260 seem to be a

00:49:22.940 real positive

00:49:23.480 move in that

00:49:24.080 direction, especially

00:49:25.360 with regards to

00:49:26.220 the UAE's

00:49:26.940 attempt to

00:49:27.600 initiate this

00:49:28.780 tri-faith

00:49:29.680 process, okay,

00:49:31.340 and obviously

00:49:31.880 that idea

00:49:32.840 gripped you,

00:49:34.040 okay, now

00:49:34.520 you're dealing

00:49:34.960 with the

00:49:35.280 Palestinians,

00:49:35.940 what happens,

00:49:36.760 what do you

00:49:37.200 realize in

00:49:37.920 consequence of

00:49:38.640 that, and

00:49:39.240 what happens

00:49:39.820 next?

00:49:39.880 I realize what

00:49:40.780 the Abrahamic

00:49:42.440 Accords are

00:49:43.060 missing, all

00:49:44.100 the interfaith

00:49:44.820 groups are

00:49:45.360 missing, what

00:49:46.620 our State

00:49:47.240 Department and

00:49:48.220 our own

00:49:48.580 government is

00:49:50.360 missing, it's

00:49:51.880 what I would

00:49:52.340 call the fifth

00:49:53.820 track of

00:49:54.460 engagement, which

00:49:55.440 is a missing

00:49:56.300 dimension in

00:49:57.220 statecraft, and

00:49:58.580 that is not

00:49:59.960 speaking about

00:50:00.820 religion or

00:50:02.400 even spirituality,

00:50:04.460 but rather,

00:50:05.520 since especially

00:50:06.860 Muslims are

00:50:08.160 deeply spiritual

00:50:10.140 people, and

00:50:13.220 they respect

00:50:14.500 and honor one

00:50:16.100 who brings

00:50:17.100 faith to

00:50:18.140 them in a

00:50:19.440 way that's

00:50:20.120 respectful, and

00:50:22.260 one of the...

00:50:23.480 So I did a

00:50:24.640 talk with a

00:50:25.800 pretty radical

00:50:26.620 Muslim character

00:50:28.740 in the UK,

00:50:29.980 Mohammed

00:50:30.300 Hijab, and...

00:50:32.060 I listened to

00:50:32.760 it.

00:50:32.940 Yeah, well,

00:50:33.440 you know, seven

00:50:34.020 million people have

00:50:34.980 watched that, and

00:50:35.840 most of them were

00:50:36.660 Muslim, and the

00:50:37.820 responses, the

00:50:39.820 responses are very

00:50:40.760 interesting, because

00:50:41.560 there's a number of

00:50:42.480 Hijabs, acolytes, you

00:50:43.800 might say, who are

00:50:44.880 making comments, but

00:50:47.060 the typical comment

00:50:48.260 is, from the

00:50:49.780 Muslim side, is

00:50:50.680 we're so glad and

00:50:52.500 relieved that a

00:50:53.220 conversation like

00:50:54.020 this is happening

00:50:55.560 and is possible, and

00:50:57.000 like, there was a

00:50:58.160 lot of dissent

00:50:59.080 amongst my team

00:50:59.980 about me going to

00:51:00.880 speak with

00:51:01.380 Mohammed Hijab, and

00:51:02.560 so, like, even

00:51:04.060 five minutes before

00:51:05.320 we were in the

00:51:06.320 car on the way

00:51:07.220 there, there were

00:51:08.200 people from my

00:51:09.120 team calling me

00:51:10.120 and saying, you

00:51:11.020 shouldn't do this,

00:51:12.000 this isn't a good

00:51:12.720 idea, and...

00:51:14.100 But it turned out

00:51:15.060 to be a good

00:51:15.680 idea, because the

00:51:16.920 conversation

00:51:18.040 struck a chord

00:51:20.840 and did indicate

00:51:22.160 that the kind of

00:51:23.660 dialogue that you

00:51:24.720 are describing

00:51:25.700 is not only

00:51:27.340 possible, but

00:51:28.880 necessary and

00:51:31.180 welcome, especially

00:51:32.380 on the Muslim

00:51:33.000 side.

00:51:33.340 they seem, the

00:51:34.620 Muslims, the

00:51:35.960 people who

00:51:36.380 commented in

00:51:36.920 particular, and

00:51:37.540 the people who

00:51:38.000 were there, seemed

00:51:38.960 very relieved and

00:51:41.480 excited that a

00:51:42.760 serious conversation

00:51:43.940 about at least

00:51:46.180 quasi-theological

00:51:47.280 matters was

00:51:48.020 possible, and that

00:51:48.920 could be done

00:51:49.400 respectfully.

00:51:50.500 They were pleased

00:51:52.320 to be, I don't

00:51:53.740 know, invited to

00:51:54.740 the table for the

00:51:55.940 discussion, something

00:51:57.160 like that.

00:51:58.180 Okay, so now you're

00:51:59.160 seeing that when

00:51:59.900 you're talking to the

00:52:01.240 Palestinians, and

00:52:02.100 now you're starting

00:52:02.720 to broaden out your

00:52:03.580 contact network, I

00:52:04.620 presume.

00:52:05.240 Yes.

00:52:05.500 Okay, so what

00:52:06.380 happens after that?

00:52:07.200 Well, besides, so

00:52:08.700 the idea of the

00:52:10.240 sonship of Jesus can

00:52:12.620 be mitigated to a

00:52:13.680 hair split between

00:52:14.640 Muslims and

00:52:15.340 Christians, and

00:52:16.860 then they would

00:52:18.480 say, they'd bring up

00:52:19.380 other issues.

00:52:20.600 What about the

00:52:21.420 Trinity?

00:52:21.960 What about the

00:52:22.620 crucifixion?

00:52:22.900 Yeah, that's the

00:52:23.620 question I was going

00:52:24.480 to ask you, actually.

00:52:25.100 Well, yes, there's a

00:52:25.420 whole litany of

00:52:26.180 issues that really, if

00:52:29.000 done lovingly.

00:52:31.980 Now, what I mean by

00:52:32.880 love is not like and

00:52:34.000 agree so much.

00:52:35.120 Yeah.

00:52:35.880 But one of the, in

00:52:37.080 1 Corinthians, there

00:52:38.100 is a love chapter.

00:52:39.900 And every wedding in

00:52:41.640 America, and

00:52:42.460 probably Canada, love

00:52:44.280 is patient, love is

00:52:45.280 kind.

00:52:45.840 Well, we decided to

00:52:47.100 do, one of our

00:52:48.320 studies was to do a

00:52:49.980 deep dive in what

00:52:51.740 are the 14 words

00:52:53.420 used in that chapter

00:52:55.880 in Aramaic.

00:52:56.800 What are the

00:52:57.840 sub-meetings?

00:52:58.660 What are the

00:52:59.080 cultural context?

00:53:00.960 How do we look at

00:53:02.340 it in antiquity?

00:53:02.880 To flesh out the

00:53:03.800 large language models

00:53:06.140 are very good at

00:53:06.860 that, by the way.

00:53:07.620 You can use them

00:53:08.300 technically to do

00:53:09.240 that.

00:53:09.900 So we've done that,

00:53:10.980 something very

00:53:11.500 similar, with the

00:53:12.300 word God.

00:53:13.260 You can ask a large

00:53:14.360 language model to

00:53:15.500 specify the semantic

00:53:17.340 domain of God.

00:53:18.540 And one of my

00:53:19.400 colleagues has found

00:53:20.600 a set of words that

00:53:21.600 can be used to

00:53:22.360 replace the concept

00:53:23.320 of God with 99.5%

00:53:25.820 completeness, right?

00:53:27.680 So you imagine that

00:53:28.540 the concept of God

00:53:30.380 could be explicated by

00:53:32.020 a cloud of closely

00:53:33.360 related words, which

00:53:34.480 is, it sounds like

00:53:35.440 that's what you're

00:53:35.960 trying to do with

00:53:36.500 the concept of love.

00:53:38.120 Exactly.

00:53:38.940 Okay, okay.

00:53:39.480 So you're doing that

00:53:40.320 in Aramaic.

00:53:41.160 We find that the

00:53:42.700 Hebrew cognates and

00:53:45.160 the Quranic cognates,

00:53:47.060 because they're all

00:53:47.760 sister languages,

00:53:49.460 Hebrew, Aramaic,

00:53:51.140 and Arabic are

00:53:51.820 similar to Spanish,

00:53:53.660 French, and Italian.

00:53:54.460 They're all based on

00:53:56.240 Latin.

00:53:57.700 Most of the Arabic

00:53:59.380 and Hebrew are

00:54:01.080 based on Aramaic,

00:54:02.400 the most ancient

00:54:03.180 language.

00:54:04.320 But they're all

00:54:04.920 cousins, regardless

00:54:05.880 of the scholarly

00:54:06.720 debates of which

00:54:07.640 came first, which

00:54:09.780 is frankly irrelevant.

00:54:11.500 They're all similar.

00:54:13.020 They use similar

00:54:13.780 words, understandable

00:54:14.940 words.

00:54:15.960 And as a consequence,

00:54:17.520 we're using these

00:54:19.760 new common ground

00:54:23.720 discoveries, to

00:54:25.700 engage people.

00:54:26.920 That was missing

00:54:27.920 in Palestine

00:54:28.720 during the visits.

00:54:30.340 We could talk

00:54:31.480 about tea and

00:54:32.480 coffee and family,

00:54:34.100 but I was

00:54:35.440 ignorant in terms

00:54:36.420 of faith, in

00:54:37.700 terms of their

00:54:38.300 faith.

00:54:38.780 Well, you also

00:54:39.340 said something very

00:54:40.240 interesting, which we

00:54:41.160 should also not

00:54:42.200 gloss over, which

00:54:43.380 is that you could

00:54:45.320 imagine that the

00:54:46.300 secular view of

00:54:48.500 conflict is that

00:54:50.500 it's primarily

00:54:51.220 political and

00:54:52.780 economic, right?

00:54:54.240 And that's always

00:54:55.340 struck me as

00:54:56.060 wrong.

00:54:57.060 Political and

00:54:57.560 economic conflict

00:54:59.040 is secondary to

00:55:00.200 conflict about

00:55:00.980 first principles,

00:55:02.100 about conflict

00:55:02.840 about, and that's

00:55:03.480 really theological

00:55:04.680 conflict when you

00:55:06.060 get right down to

00:55:06.780 it.

00:55:06.940 So it seems to me

00:55:07.700 to be completely,

00:55:09.420 it's as absurd to

00:55:10.580 presume that you

00:55:11.360 can make peace

00:55:12.600 without a theological

00:55:13.540 discussion as it

00:55:14.860 is to assume that

00:55:15.740 if you decapitate a

00:55:17.160 tyranny, it will

00:55:17.900 turn into a

00:55:18.480 democracy.

00:55:18.980 Right.

00:55:20.060 Those are equally

00:55:21.000 nonsensical

00:55:22.540 propositions, and

00:55:24.120 that seems to be

00:55:24.880 especially obvious,

00:55:26.240 as you pointed

00:55:26.920 out, what, it's

00:55:27.840 120 conflicts in

00:55:29.680 the world right

00:55:30.200 now, and what's

00:55:33.080 the proportion of

00:55:33.960 those that have

00:55:34.980 to do with

00:55:35.620 religious conflict?

00:55:37.060 Well, I didn't

00:55:37.920 say religious.

00:55:38.580 Yeah, okay.

00:55:39.400 See, that word, we

00:55:40.440 can get into it

00:55:41.200 later, is a word I

00:55:43.100 hardly ever use.

00:55:44.220 Okay.

00:55:44.820 With respect, because

00:55:46.000 I know you use it

00:55:46.940 frequently.

00:55:47.520 Yeah.

00:55:47.720 It's not in the

00:55:48.720 Old Testament, it's

00:55:49.760 not in the New

00:55:50.340 Testament, and the

00:55:51.780 Quran's use of

00:55:52.860 religion, the word

00:55:53.620 deen, that's the

00:55:55.040 Arabic, really means

00:55:56.560 the state of one's

00:55:57.520 life and submission

00:55:58.520 to God.

00:55:59.880 So the notion of

00:56:01.260 there is a

00:56:02.020 institutionalized

00:56:03.460 religious structure,

00:56:06.080 there was in the

00:56:08.040 Old Testament, but

00:56:08.940 they didn't even

00:56:09.540 call it religion.

00:56:10.680 There's no notion

00:56:11.520 of religion in

00:56:12.380 Hebrew.

00:56:13.680 And the only time

00:56:14.700 religion is mentioned

00:56:15.580 in the New Testament,

00:56:16.600 this is an important

00:56:17.280 backdrop, I hope, is

00:56:19.220 in James, and it

00:56:20.340 says, true religion

00:56:21.180 is helping widows and

00:56:22.900 orphans and keeping

00:56:24.400 yourself unstained from

00:56:26.780 the evil of the world,

00:56:27.760 which is what I believe

00:56:29.520 is a real Quranic

00:56:30.660 jihad, incidentally,

00:56:31.820 as an anecdote.

00:56:33.080 But getting back to

00:56:34.120 it, the word is in

00:56:35.700 Aramaic is ministry,

00:56:37.720 not religion that

00:56:39.300 implies creeds,

00:56:40.840 doctrines, hierarchy,

00:56:41.860 and so forth, and

00:56:43.820 religions divide

00:56:45.120 people, even

00:56:46.980 tribes divide

00:56:53.020 people, people are

00:56:55.400 divided by so much

00:56:56.740 besides religion, and

00:56:58.060 even denominations

00:56:59.360 can divide people.

00:57:01.280 But I found one

00:57:02.240 thing that unites

00:57:03.060 people, including a

00:57:06.000 story, and you might

00:57:07.540 read in the book,

00:57:08.400 about the Dalai Lama,

00:57:09.460 and that's Jesus.

00:57:11.640 Jesus does not have

00:57:12.940 baggage of

00:57:13.980 Christianity.

00:57:15.120 I'm not against it.

00:57:16.340 Yeah, yeah.

00:57:16.980 I don't want to make

00:57:17.860 that clear.

00:57:18.720 But I don't think

00:57:19.720 Jesus needs

00:57:20.560 Christianity to lift

00:57:22.580 his teachings up and

00:57:24.120 lift who he was.

00:57:24.980 Yeah, there's plenty,

00:57:26.240 there's a number of

00:57:27.380 people, a faction

00:57:28.400 maybe, or maybe even

00:57:29.760 more than that, in the

00:57:31.180 prayer group movement,

00:57:33.360 a presidential prayer

00:57:34.900 group that is

00:57:36.540 distributed all across

00:57:37.940 the Western world

00:57:39.060 now and beyond.

00:57:40.020 Oh, vastly beyond.

00:57:40.940 Yeah, that also

00:57:42.140 seems to be, what

00:57:44.820 would you say,

00:57:46.260 staking itself on

00:57:47.520 that particular

00:57:48.240 belief, right?

00:57:50.060 That there's

00:57:50.440 something about the

00:57:51.180 figure of Christ

00:57:52.040 that's unifying

00:57:53.580 outside, well, you

00:57:55.160 said outside the

00:57:56.300 religious.

00:57:57.060 You also contrasted

00:57:58.300 the religious, I

00:57:59.020 thought, very

00:57:59.520 interestingly, with

00:58:00.560 the concept of

00:58:01.880 ministry, right?

00:58:03.620 Which is a very

00:58:04.220 different idea, because

00:58:05.460 ministry is, what is

00:58:06.900 that, act of love,

00:58:08.380 something like that?

00:58:09.360 Act, yes.

00:58:09.480 So let's go back to

00:58:10.300 the Aramaic cloud of

00:58:11.580 words around love

00:58:12.920 and proceed from

00:58:14.680 there.

00:58:15.260 So there are, in

00:58:16.940 Corinthians, seven

00:58:18.040 elements, attributes

00:58:20.460 to embrace and seven

00:58:21.840 to avoid.

00:58:23.400 And we have turned

00:58:24.900 it into what we

00:58:26.640 may be presumptuously

00:58:28.040 call an algorithm.

00:58:29.940 And we is who?

00:58:31.380 Well, those of us

00:58:32.880 that have traveled

00:58:33.640 making peace, there's

00:58:35.260 numbers of Senate

00:58:37.080 and House

00:58:37.580 members, religious

00:58:39.520 people, both

00:58:40.400 Christian, Muslim,

00:58:41.340 and other.

00:58:42.440 We've traveled to

00:58:43.800 147 countries and

00:58:46.660 worked on six

00:58:47.600 conflicts and

00:58:48.480 releasing 52.

00:58:49.980 This is, I'm not

00:58:51.140 saying this is, we,

00:58:52.980 we're, it's not,

00:58:54.000 not nothing to do

00:58:54.860 with a brag or

00:58:55.880 presumption, but

00:58:57.880 the work, these,

00:59:00.160 this way of creating

00:59:01.360 common ground, release

00:59:02.380 52, hostages and,

00:59:04.360 and believers in

00:59:06.440 prisons all over the

00:59:07.620 world consistently.

00:59:08.760 And you said

00:59:09.460 ameliorated six

00:59:10.520 conflicts.

00:59:11.300 Yes, including a

00:59:12.240 genocide.

00:59:13.440 Over what span of

00:59:14.560 time has this

00:59:15.500 occurred?

00:59:15.900 30 years.

00:59:17.560 Right, okay, so we

00:59:18.540 definitely want to, we

00:59:19.720 definitely want to

00:59:20.380 delve into that.

00:59:21.400 But it's based on

00:59:22.220 love.

00:59:22.860 Right, and now you're

00:59:23.740 defining that.

00:59:24.540 You said there were

00:59:25.160 six?

00:59:26.400 Seven attributes to

00:59:28.000 embrace.

00:59:28.760 Right.

00:59:29.320 And seven to avoid.

00:59:30.400 Okay, okay.

00:59:31.100 For example, you

00:59:32.740 are emitting love

00:59:34.500 to me now by

00:59:36.920 creating a safe

00:59:38.020 environment by

00:59:39.600 which we can

00:59:40.280 communicate together.

00:59:42.040 Okay, and that's

00:59:42.720 definitional, so

00:59:43.740 what is the.

00:59:44.420 That's behavioral.

00:59:45.880 Yeah, yeah, yeah,

00:59:46.680 got it.

00:59:47.180 Well, that's what

00:59:47.820 you do if you're, if

00:59:49.040 you have any sense as

00:59:50.120 a psychotherapist, and

00:59:51.280 that is a logos

00:59:52.220 process.

00:59:52.720 Is it?

00:59:53.780 Well, Carl Rogers

00:59:55.360 was one of the people

00:59:56.320 who formulated that

00:59:57.920 most clearly.

00:59:58.720 the idea that if

01:00:00.260 you, Freud was

01:00:02.160 doing this, although

01:00:02.960 he didn't, he didn't

01:00:04.160 say as much

01:00:05.080 exactly.

01:00:05.780 Freud believed that

01:00:06.640 if you listen to

01:00:08.780 people and let them

01:00:09.720 speak without, like

01:00:11.100 spontaneously and

01:00:12.120 without expectation,

01:00:14.780 that their minds

01:00:16.140 would automatically

01:00:17.220 devolve towards the

01:00:20.260 problems that

01:00:21.040 confronted them and

01:00:22.220 start to spin up

01:00:23.360 something approximating

01:00:24.500 a solution.

01:00:25.740 And Rogers, who

01:00:26.680 was a Christian

01:00:27.320 seminarian before he

01:00:28.660 became a

01:00:29.160 psychotherapist, he

01:00:30.380 became an atheist, at

01:00:31.480 least that's what he

01:00:32.140 said, but his

01:00:33.180 doctrine was still

01:00:34.020 intensely Christian.

01:00:35.380 He believed that if

01:00:36.340 you, you could set up

01:00:37.740 the preconditions for

01:00:38.940 positive transformation

01:00:40.080 by setting up a

01:00:41.820 dialogue, dialogical

01:00:43.480 space, a lot of

01:00:44.920 Rogers' work has been

01:00:45.840 used by peacemakers,

01:00:47.820 like, like

01:00:49.340 consciously by

01:00:50.720 peacemakers trying to

01:00:51.900 mediate between groups

01:00:53.540 with opposing views.

01:00:55.100 One of the Rogerian

01:00:56.020 presuppositions, for

01:00:57.020 example, it's a very

01:00:57.720 useful one, is that you

01:00:59.840 listen carefully to

01:01:01.300 what someone says and

01:01:03.560 then you repeat back

01:01:05.180 to them what you

01:01:06.380 think they said until

01:01:08.220 they agree with your

01:01:09.320 summary to ensure that

01:01:10.900 genuine comprehension

01:01:12.160 has been established.

01:01:13.520 And it's a Rogerian

01:01:14.820 presumption that when

01:01:15.740 that happens, there's

01:01:16.660 transformation on the

01:01:17.740 part of both

01:01:18.380 participating parties.

01:01:20.240 But to me, that's

01:01:21.380 just, that's a

01:01:21.960 reflection of something

01:01:22.860 Rogers knew as a

01:01:24.100 Protestant seminarian

01:01:25.100 that, you know,

01:01:26.400 where there are two

01:01:27.500 more gathered in

01:01:28.440 Christ's name, so to

01:01:29.640 speak, then the

01:01:30.980 spirit is there.

01:01:32.160 And I think that's

01:01:33.120 actually technically

01:01:33.980 true from a

01:01:35.140 psychological perspective

01:01:36.340 because when people can

01:01:38.020 communicate freely, a

01:01:39.960 transformative process

01:01:41.220 that aims at something

01:01:42.560 like peace and

01:01:43.240 cooperation does make

01:01:44.840 itself manifest.

01:01:46.300 And I think you can

01:01:47.220 tell when that's

01:01:47.880 happening because the

01:01:48.540 conversation is

01:01:49.520 meaningful and

01:01:50.660 engaging.

01:01:51.200 that shows you how

01:01:52.320 deeply that process

01:01:54.700 is in accordance even

01:01:55.880 with the instincts that

01:01:56.980 mediate attention.

01:01:57.640 And you're very good

01:01:58.340 at that.

01:01:59.240 Repeating back, you've

01:02:00.420 been doing that.

01:02:01.580 Now you repeat back.

01:02:03.360 And we try to do that

01:02:04.720 when we're talking to

01:02:05.940 leaders, when they're

01:02:07.260 saying, well, the

01:02:07.780 United States has done

01:02:08.940 this and they don't

01:02:10.240 understand our position

01:02:11.640 and we patiently

01:02:13.020 listen.

01:02:13.760 Yeah.

01:02:14.980 So creating a

01:02:17.020 comfortable space, a

01:02:18.520 safe space, listening

01:02:20.120 and not pushing or

01:02:22.560 promoting an agenda

01:02:23.820 is in terms of

01:02:25.680 international peacemaking.

01:02:27.540 For example, we went

01:02:28.680 to see Omar al-Bashir of

01:02:30.860 the Sudan in the mid

01:02:31.820 2000s.

01:02:32.600 I say we, I mean,

01:02:33.960 there are sitting

01:02:34.520 members, former

01:02:35.380 members that the

01:02:36.860 delegations change

01:02:38.740 and we brought an

01:02:39.900 American Sudanese

01:02:41.000 Muslim who assured

01:02:42.760 the president that we

01:02:44.400 weren't there to

01:02:45.000 convert him.

01:02:46.040 Right, right, right.

01:02:47.440 Because this is one of

01:02:48.440 the problems you start

01:02:49.200 talking about Jesus

01:02:50.240 with anyone.

01:02:51.200 Ah, you're trying to

01:02:52.120 convert me.

01:02:52.740 Yeah, yeah.

01:02:53.340 Well, we skirted that

01:02:54.300 problem when I talked

01:02:55.760 to Mohammed Hijab

01:02:56.700 because one of the

01:02:58.080 things that happened

01:02:58.860 in the mosque was

01:02:59.740 that we had a

01:03:00.420 conversation about

01:03:01.460 Christ, which went

01:03:03.380 quite well, I thought,

01:03:04.740 remarkably well given

01:03:05.940 the circumstances.

01:03:07.060 But again, there was

01:03:08.520 no attempt on my

01:03:12.220 part, or Jonathan

01:03:12.980 Pajot, a friend of

01:03:13.880 mine was with me,

01:03:14.540 there was no attempt

01:03:15.500 to convert, like

01:03:17.480 to count saved

01:03:19.020 souls, let's say.

01:03:20.260 It was merely a

01:03:21.140 dialogue, right,

01:03:24.460 and an exploration.

01:03:25.580 And so that lack of

01:03:27.400 agenda, that's got to

01:03:29.320 be something like

01:03:30.360 humility in search of

01:03:33.140 peace, right?

01:03:33.900 Like if I want to

01:03:34.880 forge in accord with

01:03:35.960 you, the first thing

01:03:37.480 I should at least do

01:03:38.420 is try to figure out

01:03:39.840 who I'm dealing with.

01:03:41.560 And I'm not going to

01:03:42.400 manage that at all

01:03:43.240 until I listen, a lot.

01:03:44.820 And that's got to be

01:03:45.940 way before I decide

01:03:47.200 how we're going to

01:03:48.200 proceed, because I

01:03:49.480 don't understand at

01:03:50.240 all how I could even

01:03:50.880 possibly proceed with

01:03:52.040 you unless I knew

01:03:53.520 who you were, what

01:03:55.800 you valued, what you

01:03:57.720 would conceptualize

01:03:59.040 as peace, you know,

01:04:00.640 whether that was your

01:04:01.580 goal, and if not,

01:04:02.760 why not?

01:04:03.600 That requires an

01:04:04.460 awful lot of

01:04:05.060 listening.

01:04:05.780 Okay, so that love,

01:04:06.880 you said, one of the

01:04:07.640 attributes.

01:04:07.940 So there's several,

01:04:08.980 you know, I say there

01:04:09.580 are seven to embrace,

01:04:10.900 seven aspects to

01:04:12.500 avoid.

01:04:12.900 One of the things to

01:04:13.680 avoid is not to

01:04:14.900 shame or dishonor

01:04:16.280 someone.

01:04:17.120 Do not.

01:04:17.800 Yeah, that's a good

01:04:18.360 idea.

01:04:18.460 Do not push an

01:04:19.440 agenda.

01:04:20.400 Do not keep a

01:04:21.640 record of wrongs

01:04:22.580 that, oh, Mr.

01:04:23.880 President, you

01:04:25.220 armed the

01:04:25.920 Janjaweed in

01:04:27.840 Western Sudan and

01:04:29.380 Darfur, and you

01:04:31.180 are massacring the

01:04:32.760 African Muslims.

01:04:36.360 These are Arab

01:04:37.140 Muslims.

01:04:37.620 There's a difference

01:04:38.540 culturally in one

01:04:41.240 part of Western

01:04:42.720 Sudan called

01:04:43.500 Darfur, and there

01:04:45.840 are two and a half

01:04:46.520 million people

01:04:47.280 displaced, and

01:04:48.160 nearly a million

01:04:48.820 people have been

01:04:49.560 killed, tens of

01:04:50.720 thousands of women

01:04:51.820 brutally raped.

01:04:53.300 Yeah.

01:04:54.800 Wasn't, that would

01:04:55.660 be an elephant in the

01:04:56.600 room, wouldn't you

01:04:57.220 say?

01:04:57.460 Yeah, you'd think.

01:04:58.860 And every single

01:05:00.020 Western person that

01:05:01.460 came to see him,

01:05:03.540 what do you think

01:05:04.260 the first thing they

01:05:05.100 did?

01:05:05.420 Shame?

01:05:06.960 Disgrace?

01:05:07.400 I'm not saying

01:05:08.040 that he wasn't,

01:05:09.440 didn't deserve it.

01:05:10.380 I'm just saying

01:05:12.480 that love says

01:05:13.240 you don't push

01:05:14.440 that.

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01:05:22.660 Can someone please

01:05:23.280 invent a crystal

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01:06:19.260 Well, it's also

01:06:20.200 there's moral hazard

01:06:21.200 in there too, you

01:06:22.100 know, because, well,

01:06:23.240 it has something to

01:06:24.440 do with the problem

01:06:25.860 of seeing the

01:06:26.840 moat in your

01:06:27.860 neighbor's eye when

01:06:28.720 you're not too

01:06:29.340 concerned about the

01:06:30.120 beam in your own.

01:06:30.940 It's like it might

01:06:31.560 be the case that

01:06:32.420 there is a litany

01:06:33.400 of sins to be laid

01:06:34.540 at your feet, but

01:06:35.240 it isn't necessarily

01:06:36.040 obvious that me

01:06:37.840 personally, I'm the

01:06:39.020 one to do it.

01:06:39.720 I could be concerned

01:06:40.520 about the errors I

01:06:41.420 made.

01:06:42.020 That might be a

01:06:42.700 better focus of my

01:06:44.540 attention if I'm

01:06:45.340 trying to understand

01:06:46.040 you and make peace.

01:06:47.340 You know, and you

01:06:47.780 could imagine that in

01:06:48.620 any geopolitical

01:06:49.460 discussion, there's

01:06:50.640 going to be egregious

01:06:51.680 sins that could be

01:06:52.800 discussed on both,

01:06:54.420 on both, on behalf of

01:06:55.820 both participants,

01:06:56.880 especially if you

01:06:57.660 extend the historical

01:06:58.640 time frame, because

01:06:59.880 no one's going to

01:07:00.900 enter the room with a

01:07:02.860 complete man of

01:07:04.660 innocence if you go

01:07:05.620 back like 300 years.

01:07:07.620 You are so right.

01:07:09.480 We went with

01:07:10.620 congressional

01:07:11.180 delegations to

01:07:12.380 countries, especially

01:07:13.360 communist countries,

01:07:15.080 and we'd outline

01:07:16.340 Jordan issues that we

01:07:19.420 had with their sins.

01:07:20.960 Yeah.

01:07:22.120 And then they would

01:07:23.300 outline what we have

01:07:25.360 done.

01:07:25.740 We are hypocrites.

01:07:27.340 Yeah.

01:07:28.020 And they weren't

01:07:29.300 wrong all the time.

01:07:30.240 Yeah, right.

01:07:30.760 I'm not saying

01:07:31.320 America is horrible,

01:07:32.280 but we do have, if

01:07:34.120 you look back in our

01:07:34.880 history with slavery.

01:07:35.840 There's a few

01:07:36.200 skeletons.

01:07:37.080 Yes, a few

01:07:37.940 skeletons in Europe

01:07:39.020 with all their

01:07:40.300 expansionism.

01:07:42.060 There's definitely

01:07:42.900 skeletons.

01:07:43.460 So why be diverted

01:07:46.000 with arguing who's

01:07:47.980 righteous and who

01:07:50.040 isn't?

01:07:51.420 It's a foolhardy

01:07:52.180 Well, that's also

01:07:52.420 not the point of a

01:07:53.460 discussion about

01:07:54.320 peace.

01:07:55.040 If the discussion is

01:07:56.460 about peace, the

01:07:57.740 search is for the

01:07:58.520 pathway to peace.

01:07:59.760 The search isn't for

01:08:00.780 the longest litany

01:08:02.480 of previous wrongs

01:08:04.000 that can be laid at

01:08:04.780 the other person's

01:08:05.520 feet.

01:08:06.040 Obviously, that doesn't

01:08:08.160 even work with your

01:08:09.040 wife, let's say.

01:08:10.460 It certainly doesn't.

01:08:11.040 No, no.

01:08:11.560 You enter the argument

01:08:12.520 with an arm's length

01:08:14.260 list of all the

01:08:15.520 transgressions of the

01:08:16.620 past.

01:08:17.060 That's exactly what you

01:08:18.200 see happening with

01:08:19.380 couples who are on the

01:08:20.220 precipice of divorce.

01:08:21.700 They can't bring any

01:08:22.580 issue up without all

01:08:23.820 the unresolved issues

01:08:25.160 immediately, all the

01:08:26.860 unresolved demons

01:08:27.900 immediately entering

01:08:29.440 the fray and

01:08:30.440 complicating things

01:08:31.560 beyond belief.

01:08:33.040 Right?

01:08:33.240 So you enter the...

01:08:34.020 So we're sitting...

01:08:35.060 Think of this.

01:08:35.940 Now, say we were

01:08:36.980 sitting together and

01:08:38.980 we're talking to

01:08:39.740 Omar Bashir in the

01:08:41.000 midst of this horrific,

01:08:42.980 unimaginable genocide

01:08:44.360 with atrocities beyond

01:08:46.820 human understanding.

01:08:50.180 And we don't mention

01:08:51.600 anything about the

01:08:53.020 Janjaweed, the

01:08:53.980 murders, the rapes,

01:08:55.040 nothing.

01:08:55.280 We talk about, ask

01:08:56.840 him about his family,

01:08:58.960 his children, his

01:09:00.640 wives, plural.

01:09:03.160 And we get to sharing

01:09:05.020 the discoveries.

01:09:06.420 Now, here it comes.

01:09:08.300 Discoveries of the

01:09:09.360 common ground.

01:09:10.740 Ardia Moustraka, the

01:09:12.340 Arabic.

01:09:13.120 I tell him, Your

01:09:14.360 Excellency, we have

01:09:16.020 new common ground we

01:09:17.640 haven't known before

01:09:18.780 between the Quran and

01:09:20.720 the Bible.

01:09:21.740 He said, well, I

01:09:22.300 thought you...

01:09:22.760 I looked you up.

01:09:23.380 You're an evangelical

01:09:24.380 former, you know,

01:09:25.740 congressman and you're

01:09:27.580 not very...

01:09:29.060 You don't...

01:09:30.020 You're not very

01:09:30.740 appreciative of Islam.

01:09:32.840 He said, well, you

01:09:33.760 know, that was then.

01:09:34.600 This is...

01:09:34.900 I've read your Quran.

01:09:36.200 And rather than saying

01:09:37.400 as so many Christians

01:09:39.460 will do, it's of the

01:09:40.360 devil and condemn the

01:09:42.240 prophet and such.

01:09:44.060 Rather than

01:09:44.960 approaching it, they

01:09:45.880 love is...

01:09:46.600 That's disdain again.

01:09:47.760 That is using shame

01:09:51.000 again or using a

01:09:53.560 negative, hateful

01:09:55.060 approach rather than

01:09:56.880 we look for...

01:09:58.000 One of the loves, too,

01:09:59.480 in Aramaic is look

01:10:00.500 for the best inside of

01:10:03.300 a person or a

01:10:04.140 situation.

01:10:04.360 Right, right, right.

01:10:05.200 That's what you want.

01:10:06.200 What do we...

01:10:06.720 What can we find?

01:10:06.940 Well, that's a good

01:10:07.600 definition of love, I

01:10:08.880 always thought, is...

01:10:09.860 It is.

01:10:10.320 ...the best in me

01:10:11.140 serving the best in

01:10:12.260 you.

01:10:13.020 That is in the Aramaic,

01:10:14.640 but you wouldn't see it

01:10:15.460 in the Greek,

01:10:15.940 unfortunately.

01:10:16.480 That's in the Aramaic.

01:10:18.240 Absolutely.

01:10:19.060 It's one of the key

01:10:20.300 to-dos.

01:10:22.020 Look for the best.

01:10:23.060 It's a great definition

01:10:24.060 of parenting.

01:10:25.680 Right?

01:10:25.940 If you're...

01:10:26.940 That's what you hope

01:10:27.880 is a father that's

01:10:28.760 the best in you,

01:10:29.820 that's serving the

01:10:30.500 best in your child.

01:10:31.780 Definitely.

01:10:32.620 And that's what you

01:10:33.400 want in a marriage.

01:10:35.480 And first of all,

01:10:37.300 they're shocked.

01:10:37.980 You study the Quran?

01:10:39.320 Right, right.

01:10:40.560 You study this?

01:10:41.640 I've been studying it

01:10:42.400 for years, Your

01:10:43.040 Excellency.

01:10:44.420 Well, what do you

01:10:44.960 think of it?

01:10:45.380 I think it's

01:10:45.900 marvelous.

01:10:47.360 I have disagreements,

01:10:49.300 but I found things

01:10:51.480 that I appreciated.

01:10:53.960 And so what is

01:10:54.920 the transition?

01:10:56.240 Your Excellency,

01:10:57.040 especially as it

01:10:58.100 pertains to Jesus.

01:10:59.860 Yeah.

01:11:00.460 Oh, we love Jesus.

01:11:02.360 You can't be a Muslim

01:11:03.480 without loving him.

01:11:05.440 Right, which is a

01:11:06.260 very strange thing

01:11:07.160 to realize.

01:11:07.880 And that was in your

01:11:08.740 interview with Muhammad.

01:11:10.080 He said the same thing

01:11:11.460 as I recall.

01:11:12.040 And they will all say

01:11:13.600 that, which is true.

01:11:15.600 However, I say there's

01:11:16.940 deeper than that.

01:11:18.920 And so I go through

01:11:19.800 a machine gun litany

01:11:21.480 of what the Quran

01:11:23.140 says, and if necessary,

01:11:25.000 I don't speak Arabic

01:11:26.160 fluently, but enough

01:11:27.820 words of the Quran to

01:11:29.660 recite it in Arabic

01:11:31.160 if necessary.

01:11:32.000 And we go through

01:11:34.020 that he was

01:11:34.580 supernaturally

01:11:35.180 conceived, as we

01:11:36.140 alluded to earlier,

01:11:37.280 by the Holy Spirit

01:11:38.240 and he's sinless.

01:11:39.060 He could heal the

01:11:39.840 sick, the blind.

01:11:40.680 He could raise

01:11:41.780 the dead.

01:11:42.480 He could form

01:11:43.580 clay birds and

01:11:44.580 breathe his breath

01:11:46.620 on it.

01:11:47.200 And it became living

01:11:49.020 beings.

01:11:49.580 What a miracle.

01:11:51.100 And he was, Allah

01:11:52.940 took him up to

01:11:53.760 heaven, and he's

01:11:55.800 coming back on

01:11:56.580 Judgment Day.

01:11:58.380 That's what all

01:11:59.200 Christians believe,

01:12:00.140 too.

01:12:00.680 So, of course, I

01:12:01.540 appreciate that as

01:12:02.620 part of the Quran.

01:12:04.540 And he said, and

01:12:05.340 he looks like

01:12:06.180 surprised, because

01:12:07.320 very few Muslims

01:12:08.380 have heard it all

01:12:09.400 together.

01:12:10.040 And that's just the

01:12:10.780 tip of the iceberg.

01:12:12.060 We have dozens and

01:12:13.660 dozens and dozens of

01:12:15.140 unbelievably divine

01:12:17.440 attributes of

01:12:18.980 Isa, Jesus, in

01:12:20.680 the Quran.

01:12:21.160 Like, he's the

01:12:21.720 word of God.

01:12:21.980 How much of that is

01:12:22.720 outlined in your

01:12:23.420 2008 book?

01:12:24.860 Most of it, but not

01:12:26.020 all of it.

01:12:26.840 Since then, there's

01:12:27.680 been much more

01:12:29.000 research.

01:12:29.740 Where is that

01:12:30.420 available?

01:12:31.100 Well, I'm ready to

01:12:32.280 do a trilogy of a

01:12:35.180 new book called

01:12:36.060 At War with Peace.

01:12:38.660 But where there are

01:12:39.760 some people interested

01:12:40.580 in making a movie

01:12:41.500 first, and they

01:12:42.160 asked me to hold it

01:12:43.000 off and coordinate

01:12:43.860 with the

01:12:44.860 script and other

01:12:45.820 and the release of

01:12:47.160 a potential movie.

01:12:47.620 Could you do a

01:12:48.200 course on that?

01:12:49.280 Absolutely.

01:12:50.500 Could you do a

01:12:51.140 course for Peterson

01:12:51.920 Academy on that?

01:12:54.200 You don't have to

01:12:54.840 answer that.

01:12:55.500 Well, it would be

01:12:56.680 an honor.

01:12:58.560 I know, what do

01:12:59.140 you have, 50,000?

01:13:00.600 50,000 students,

01:13:01.780 yeah.

01:13:02.020 We got 30 of the

01:13:02.840 best professors in

01:13:03.940 the world.

01:13:04.300 Yeah, it's coming

01:13:04.720 along real nicely,

01:13:05.640 but that's a, like...

01:13:07.620 That's remarkable.

01:13:08.680 Common ground between

01:13:09.900 Islam, Christianity,

01:13:11.360 and Judaism.

01:13:12.240 That's, well, that

01:13:12.680 would be a wonderful

01:13:13.400 course, and it

01:13:14.820 sounds like you've

01:13:16.060 done a tremendous

01:13:16.720 amount of background

01:13:17.480 work preparing for

01:13:18.520 that, and so that

01:13:19.740 would be, well, that

01:13:20.660 would be a course I'd

01:13:21.420 want to take, so, you

01:13:22.740 know, that's one of my

01:13:23.460 criteria for determining

01:13:24.700 whether a course should

01:13:25.660 be offered, is, like,

01:13:26.580 what would I like to

01:13:27.360 know that?

01:13:28.360 So, back to the office

01:13:30.920 of Omar al-Bashir.

01:13:32.440 Yeah.

01:13:32.580 So, we're going, have

01:13:33.520 we brought up anything

01:13:34.840 politically yet?

01:13:35.820 The answer is no.

01:13:38.040 Yeah.

01:13:38.440 Families, friendship.

01:13:41.880 Then he interrupts.

01:13:43.900 He says, why are you

01:13:44.920 really here?

01:13:47.400 Yeah.

01:13:48.820 I've heard...

01:13:49.660 Gaddafi did the same

01:13:50.800 thing.

01:13:51.660 Why are you really

01:13:52.820 here?

01:13:53.220 Yeah.

01:13:53.760 He said, the truth

01:13:54.520 is, we want to become

01:13:56.680 prayer partners and pray

01:13:58.260 for peace together, and

01:14:00.080 together discover the

01:14:01.860 commonalities between the

01:14:03.880 Quran and the Injil, which

01:14:06.120 is the New Testament in

01:14:07.240 Arabic.

01:14:07.520 And why would he be

01:14:08.780 skeptical of that?

01:14:09.960 Like, why did he...

01:14:10.880 We talked already about

01:14:12.120 the difference between

01:14:13.000 the approach that you're

01:14:13.840 using, let's say, and the

01:14:14.940 classic State Department

01:14:16.060 use, or approach.

01:14:17.620 So, how would you

01:14:18.600 contrast the discussion

01:14:19.920 that you had with him,

01:14:21.500 in which this question

01:14:23.100 arose, with what he would

01:14:24.280 have expected from the

01:14:25.360 typical diplomat?

01:14:26.540 Okay.

01:14:27.000 That's a very insightful

01:14:28.860 question.

01:14:30.220 First of all, a typical

01:14:31.620 diplomat, you know,

01:14:33.720 diplomacy is shame.

01:14:35.400 Diplomacy, the things we

01:14:38.260 alluded to earlier, and

01:14:40.680 accusations, and

01:14:43.120 failures, and

01:14:45.020 positioning, and

01:14:46.560 manipulation, and then

01:14:48.640 if they don't agree, and

01:14:49.980 the politicians come in

01:14:51.440 and assert themselves, and

01:14:53.660 if the person to whom we

01:14:55.420 are addressing these

01:14:56.400 things to as diplomats

01:14:57.580 disagree, then we bring

01:14:59.500 up the other two, what I

01:15:00.900 call, tracks of

01:15:02.220 engagement, and that would

01:15:03.780 be economics, we could

01:15:04.920 threat sanctions on you,

01:15:07.460 your government, or

01:15:08.880 trade.

01:15:09.220 Right, so threat.

01:15:10.400 Threat, or military,

01:15:12.420 peacekeeping, or

01:15:13.720 bombing, take your

01:15:14.700 choice.

01:15:15.580 Right.

01:15:15.900 So where is, my

01:15:17.420 question, Jordan, where

01:15:19.000 is the good cop?

01:15:20.540 You know, everyone's

01:15:21.280 watched police shows

01:15:22.440 during the interrogation,

01:15:24.600 and the first

01:15:26.400 interrogator slams the

01:15:28.180 table, says, you better

01:15:29.340 talk, tell us

01:15:30.620 everything, you're going

01:15:31.600 to prison for 30

01:15:32.640 years, and we're

01:15:33.600 going to go after

01:15:34.180 your mother, your

01:15:34.780 father, your sister, and

01:15:35.900 your brother.

01:15:37.140 And this person is

01:15:38.220 frightened to death, he's

01:15:39.220 taken out, and his

01:15:40.400 partner comes in and

01:15:41.280 says, here's a cup of

01:15:42.120 coffee, don't mind my

01:15:43.240 partner.

01:15:44.240 Yeah.

01:15:45.120 You know, he gets a

01:15:46.500 little emotional.

01:15:48.540 Pocked under the

01:15:48.960 collar, yeah, yeah.

01:15:50.660 So don't pay, see, in

01:15:51.880 other words, where is the

01:15:53.080 good cop in U.S.

01:15:54.340 policy?

01:15:55.240 We don't have to be

01:15:56.280 religious with this.

01:15:57.380 So if I were speaking

01:15:58.740 to President Trump

01:16:02.420 or Marco Rubio, who

01:16:04.040 has the State

01:16:04.520 Department, I would

01:16:05.820 encourage them to

01:16:07.320 consider some type of

01:16:09.220 training for a

01:16:11.860 special advisor or a

01:16:16.460 special envoy that

01:16:18.420 would be for peace and

01:16:19.800 reconciliation, something

01:16:20.980 I don't care about at

01:16:21.920 time.

01:16:22.700 How could we, in

01:16:24.240 every country, there

01:16:25.960 needs to be a good

01:16:26.940 cop?

01:16:27.380 So we're sitting

01:16:28.240 there, getting back to

01:16:29.540 Omar al-Bashir, he

01:16:30.920 said, why are you here?

01:16:32.160 And I told him, we're

01:16:32.840 just here to be prayer

01:16:33.800 partners, find common

01:16:35.680 ground, and pray for

01:16:36.560 peace.

01:16:37.880 So we leave, we go

01:16:39.300 back home.

01:16:39.580 Did he believe you?

01:16:40.720 Yes.

01:16:41.740 Why?

01:16:42.300 Why did he believe you?

01:16:43.200 I'll tell you why.

01:16:44.040 How much time do you

01:16:44.880 spend with the president

01:16:45.800 typically?

01:16:47.340 Me?

01:16:48.020 Well, anyone,

01:16:48.860 anyone.

01:16:49.900 A very short amount of

01:16:51.440 time, yes.

01:16:51.700 Two and a half hours

01:16:52.720 later, it was

01:16:54.120 embarrassing, but we

01:16:55.100 had to go.

01:16:56.600 He was still

01:16:57.520 interested in talking.

01:16:58.760 Okay, got it.

01:16:59.640 So he said, well, can

01:17:00.300 you come back?

01:17:01.860 Yeah, that's good

01:17:02.860 evidence.

01:17:04.180 Yes, we will.

01:17:05.260 Within short weeks, we

01:17:07.180 came back, all the way

01:17:08.080 back to Khartu with

01:17:08.940 another team.

01:17:09.580 This time, he had a

01:17:12.840 room full of his

01:17:13.760 scholars.

01:17:15.020 Oh, yeah.

01:17:15.880 All dressed in, you

01:17:17.500 know, the Sudanese

01:17:18.880 attire.

01:17:20.220 And some of my

01:17:21.080 friends who hadn't

01:17:22.360 experienced this before

01:17:23.540 in politics were a

01:17:25.540 little shocked.

01:17:26.580 I said, remember, if

01:17:28.940 you're coming, you

01:17:30.120 don't have to come

01:17:31.120 with me.

01:17:31.520 I'm just a former

01:17:32.340 member.

01:17:32.780 I'm a nobody.

01:17:33.880 But we have

01:17:35.140 behavioral agreement.

01:17:36.820 Do not bring up

01:17:38.040 anything political.

01:17:39.940 Right.

01:17:40.120 Only ask personal

01:17:41.320 questions unless they

01:17:42.640 ask you.

01:17:44.360 Let them open the

01:17:45.640 door.

01:17:46.700 So we spent two and a

01:17:48.340 half hours again with

01:17:49.900 his, all his

01:17:51.280 scholars asking,

01:17:55.000 penetrating questions.

01:17:56.080 Well, about the

01:17:57.340 crucifixion and what the

01:17:58.700 Quran says and what

01:17:59.860 about son of God?

01:18:01.040 All these provocative

01:18:02.520 issues.

01:18:03.100 How do you feel

01:18:04.720 confident in addressing

01:18:05.860 those issues from a

01:18:07.340 Christian perspective,

01:18:08.460 let's say?

01:18:09.200 Because you, I presume

01:18:10.280 you didn't bring a team

01:18:11.180 of scholars with you.

01:18:12.340 No, I brought a

01:18:13.580 Muslim scholar with me

01:18:14.940 from America.

01:18:15.920 I always want to bring

01:18:16.660 a Muslim to a Muslim

01:18:18.840 meeting or a Buddhist

01:18:20.180 to Buddhist meeting if

01:18:21.260 possible to let them

01:18:22.960 know that we're safe

01:18:24.380 through this safe

01:18:25.800 environment and they

01:18:26.860 have to feel like

01:18:28.120 you're not there to

01:18:29.540 ambush them in some

01:18:30.640 fashion.

01:18:31.540 Yeah.

01:18:31.740 Well, I mean, how

01:18:34.820 did I respond to them?

01:18:37.600 They were shocked

01:18:38.980 because most scholars

01:18:41.320 have not heard this.

01:18:42.880 I was in Oxford

01:18:43.580 University lecturing to

01:18:46.100 people way above my

01:18:47.480 pay grade.

01:18:49.360 And the Brits were all

01:18:51.380 sitting with their arms

01:18:52.340 crossed.

01:18:53.140 They're good at that.

01:18:54.080 And 12 looking like

01:18:56.120 this at me.

01:18:57.320 Yeah.

01:18:57.560 I think they have

01:18:58.440 special classes in that.

01:18:59.720 My wife, Nancy, was in

01:19:04.360 the front row and I

01:19:06.520 tried to tell a joke.

01:19:09.820 Not one smile or

01:19:12.880 flinch.

01:19:13.420 They all sat there in

01:19:15.440 this.

01:19:15.680 Yeah.

01:19:16.280 Yeah.

01:19:16.800 And Yasser Suleiman,

01:19:18.420 who was head of Islamic

01:19:19.360 study, was the emcee and

01:19:20.760 introduced me kindly.

01:19:21.800 And I felt I'm in big

01:19:25.540 trouble.

01:19:26.000 My wife, similar to the

01:19:28.240 Ukraine ambassador during

01:19:29.680 the Oval Office meeting

01:19:31.060 with Trump and Zelensky,

01:19:32.740 went like, this is going to

01:19:34.320 be a disaster.

01:19:35.020 Yeah.

01:19:36.020 Yeah.

01:19:36.160 So I quickly threw up a

01:19:37.940 prayer.

01:19:38.660 I had all these fastidious

01:19:40.380 notes because I'm not a

01:19:43.040 scholar.

01:19:43.840 I have no paper in

01:19:45.360 linguistics or Islamic

01:19:46.760 medicine.

01:19:47.500 Yeah.

01:19:47.520 Yeah.

01:19:47.720 Political scientists, yes,

01:19:49.840 but not in those specifics.

01:19:52.260 And so they're probably

01:19:53.340 wondering, why is this

01:19:55.720 arrogant former

01:19:57.620 congressman from America

01:19:58.820 going to come and tell us

01:19:59.860 something we don't know?

01:20:01.960 Right.

01:20:02.580 And they were, I could

01:20:03.500 just, you could almost

01:20:05.000 smell the, the angst.

01:20:07.940 Mm-hmm.

01:20:09.200 Well, I felt just led to

01:20:10.760 close the book and just

01:20:13.260 start talking to him, much

01:20:14.460 like you do with people.

01:20:16.200 Uh-huh.

01:20:16.580 And said, I'm, I'm here

01:20:18.400 because I want to validate

01:20:21.000 some shocking discoveries

01:20:23.420 that could be game changers

01:20:25.500 if they're correct, but I'm

01:20:27.120 unschooled to know if they

01:20:28.420 are and I need your help

01:20:29.320 immediately.

01:20:30.080 Right, right.

01:20:30.420 Their arms went like this,

01:20:32.560 in this manner, and Yasser

01:20:34.340 Suleiman ended up being one

01:20:35.640 of the endorsers of the book,

01:20:37.580 as, as was a few others in

01:20:39.180 the audience.

01:20:39.840 Right.

01:20:40.160 So, so you turned yourself

01:20:41.660 from a salesman of ideas

01:20:43.140 into, uh, someone who's on a

01:20:45.680 quest for, for enlightenment

01:20:48.200 and them into the providers

01:20:50.600 of that.

01:20:51.100 Hence the subtitle that

01:20:52.640 Harper Collins came up with,

01:20:54.640 not me, you know, a quest.

01:20:56.740 Yeah.

01:20:57.160 Because it's one thing if you

01:20:59.020 think you know it all and

01:21:00.100 you're a professor.

01:21:01.380 Yeah.

01:21:01.620 Yeah.

01:21:01.680 It's another thing if you're

01:21:03.100 ignorant, ignorant and trying

01:21:05.060 to become less so, but still

01:21:07.440 ignorant.

01:21:08.400 Yeah.

01:21:08.880 Which is, that's a better

01:21:09.920 place to stand always, I think.

01:21:11.840 So, this showed me something

01:21:14.080 quite dynamic that don't

01:21:17.180 presume that I know

01:21:18.340 everything.

01:21:19.360 So, we were presenting to

01:21:21.320 the scholars findings in a

01:21:23.280 similar fashion.

01:21:24.340 This is now back in Sudan.

01:21:25.320 Back in Khartoum, Sudan.

01:21:27.400 Yeah, yeah, okay.

01:21:27.980 With Omar al-Bashir.

01:21:29.040 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:21:30.100 And, uh, to the disdain of

01:21:32.140 our government at the time,

01:21:34.480 you know, which was the

01:21:35.220 Bush administration, they

01:21:37.060 were just so angry with me

01:21:38.800 going there.

01:21:39.400 Because I've been there 24

01:21:41.780 times, I told you.

01:21:42.900 And, and at this time, maybe

01:21:44.400 this was only my second trip

01:21:46.180 with him.

01:21:47.540 And on this second trip, after

01:21:49.320 talking to scholars for

01:21:50.640 hours, he, the president

01:21:53.400 jumps out of his, leaps out of

01:21:55.160 his seat, actually.

01:21:56.620 And I thought, we said

01:21:57.880 something wrong.

01:21:59.400 Right.

01:22:00.080 Oh, no.

01:22:00.640 I've seen this before.

01:22:02.100 The meeting's over.

01:22:03.420 Goodbye.

01:22:04.080 Right.

01:22:06.040 I said, well, I'm sorry,

01:22:07.300 Your Excellency.

01:22:07.860 If we said anything that

01:22:10.440 offended, oh, no.

01:22:11.740 He says, we're having

01:22:12.500 dinner.

01:22:13.480 Mm-hmm.

01:22:14.600 And that's a good sign.

01:22:16.060 Mm-hmm.

01:22:16.340 It turned out, I thought,

01:22:17.800 a disaster.

01:22:19.060 And he opened these sliding

01:22:20.200 doors, and there was a table

01:22:21.400 for 30-some people lined up.

01:22:23.680 We all went in.

01:22:24.840 We were sitting together,

01:22:25.920 breaking bread.

01:22:26.740 Yeah, yeah.

01:22:27.560 He always asked me to pray

01:22:29.240 before, because they don't

01:22:30.680 pray before the food,

01:22:31.820 typically.

01:22:32.420 Mm-hmm.

01:22:32.660 They do a bismillah, which is

01:22:35.000 in the name of God, and

01:22:36.320 that's enough.

01:22:37.780 So, he then, at this dinner,

01:22:41.460 Jordan, said, well, now,

01:22:43.240 Mark, you were in Congress.

01:22:44.800 I said, yes.

01:22:45.320 And you were in the UN.

01:22:46.500 I said, yes.

01:22:47.500 You know, I can't accept this

01:22:48.660 UN resolution to deploy

01:22:50.640 peacekeepers in Darfur.

01:22:53.060 I said, I know you can't.

01:22:55.640 He said, what do you think I

01:22:56.740 should do now?

01:22:57.640 Mm-hmm.

01:22:58.160 Wow.

01:22:58.840 Who opened the door

01:22:59.780 for the elephant to come in?

01:23:01.140 That's for sure.

01:23:01.160 Yeah, no kidding.

01:23:01.880 Yeah.

01:23:02.520 I said, well, since you asked,

01:23:03.960 and of course, the team I'm

01:23:05.720 with, he asked a question.

01:23:07.420 Right, right.

01:23:08.120 I didn't hear him say it,

01:23:09.460 but I could feel it.

01:23:10.300 You're saying, oh, thank God

01:23:11.500 he asked a question.

01:23:12.780 And I had this plan.

01:23:14.640 And see, God gave you

01:23:16.640 very specific talents,

01:23:19.700 and you're applying them

01:23:21.660 and using them to influence

01:23:23.700 people, when I respect

01:23:25.220 very highly.

01:23:26.580 And he gives each of us

01:23:28.940 certain talents and backgrounds

01:23:30.440 for reasons.

01:23:31.960 And we have to discover

01:23:32.960 what that reason

01:23:34.920 or reasons might be.

01:23:37.200 And right then and there,

01:23:38.500 it occurred to me

01:23:39.340 that this is why God had me

01:23:42.500 in that useless politics.

01:23:44.220 I've served in town council,

01:23:46.000 state legislature,

01:23:47.200 three terms.

01:23:47.740 Yeah.

01:23:48.060 Three terms.

01:23:48.700 I'm not trying to...

01:23:49.680 That was, at least,

01:23:51.080 like, what a waste of time.

01:23:52.540 Mm-hmm.

01:23:53.400 Because you can't really

01:23:54.180 get anything done.

01:23:55.200 Mm-hmm.

01:23:55.500 That's why.

01:23:57.680 So I could get in the door.

01:23:58.900 Why would he talk to me

01:23:59.800 otherwise?

01:24:00.420 Yeah.

01:24:01.260 And ask a question such as

01:24:03.240 that, knowing of the background.

01:24:05.520 So people calling you

01:24:06.640 for your expertise.

01:24:09.160 And as a consequence,

01:24:10.140 you can help and bless people

01:24:11.800 and work with them.

01:24:14.060 And I gave him the plan.

01:24:15.240 I said, let's do a hybrid force

01:24:17.080 of African unions.

01:24:19.100 It'll mostly be Africans and UN.

01:24:21.100 Let's make most of them Muslim,

01:24:22.900 and I'll talk to the secretary general.

01:24:25.820 Ban Ki-ma, do you know him?

01:24:27.000 I said, yes, he's a Buddhist.

01:24:28.780 Mm-hmm.

01:24:29.480 And he's a very good man,

01:24:31.000 and we've become friends

01:24:32.180 because his number one goal

01:24:34.460 is to stop the genocide in Darfur.

01:24:36.960 And this is, just to remind viewers,

01:24:39.240 this is in the mid-2000s,

01:24:41.040 2004, 5, 6.

01:24:42.640 And he said, I'll do it

01:24:45.760 if you write it.

01:24:47.160 I said, I wasn't a bastard.

01:24:48.860 I didn't write anything,

01:24:50.000 including speeches.

01:24:51.680 He said, no, but I think

01:24:52.740 you could do it.

01:24:53.480 So we go to Dubai

01:24:55.460 a few days later

01:24:56.360 after touring with his plane,

01:25:01.320 the displacement camps in Darfur

01:25:03.840 with hundreds of thousands

01:25:06.120 of people living

01:25:07.200 in a blue ocean

01:25:09.560 of UN tarps

01:25:11.360 underneath these blue tarps.

01:25:13.360 And the kids,

01:25:14.340 hundreds,

01:25:14.840 would see a white face

01:25:15.880 and they'd come

01:25:16.820 and talk about food.

01:25:18.620 And it was,

01:25:19.600 it was so heart-wrenching.

01:25:23.540 I mean,

01:25:25.360 you have to say,

01:25:26.380 well, this is

01:25:27.040 what God made me to do.

01:25:29.520 Why am I here

01:25:30.620 in the middle of nowhere

01:25:32.200 in Darfur

01:25:34.100 in this horrible crisis?

01:25:36.860 Then I go to a tent

01:25:38.180 of hundreds of women

01:25:39.540 who have been brutally raped

01:25:40.880 and they're being attended to

01:25:42.440 and they wanted,

01:25:43.380 they said,

01:25:43.820 can you give them

01:25:44.580 a word of encouragement?

01:25:46.740 It was one of the hardest talks

01:25:48.280 I've ever given.

01:25:50.340 What do you say

01:25:51.400 to a person,

01:25:52.780 persons that had experienced

01:25:55.020 such horrific atrocities?

01:25:58.060 So right then,

01:25:59.920 my heart was committed

01:26:01.000 to do whatever it took

01:26:02.820 and wherever God

01:26:03.560 would lead me.

01:26:04.980 And once that was written,

01:26:09.040 the resolution,

01:26:09.960 the new resolution

01:26:10.840 that saves his face,

01:26:12.700 still accomplishes the goal,

01:26:15.200 it's much more detailed,

01:26:16.420 but it's not necessary

01:26:17.600 to get into it.

01:26:19.020 It passed the Security Council

01:26:20.740 even with some of our edits

01:26:22.300 that had to be corrected

01:26:23.200 later that are,

01:26:25.840 because we were typing

01:26:26.800 in a business center

01:26:28.140 in a hotel in Dubai

01:26:29.260 with his staff.

01:26:31.000 And it literally went through

01:26:32.680 and deployment of peacekeepers

01:26:35.040 were accomplished

01:26:36.020 and Ban Ki-moon

01:26:37.580 and I went there

01:26:39.000 to have a prayer session

01:26:40.480 and he's,

01:26:41.000 keep in mind,

01:26:41.600 he's Buddhist background.

01:26:43.640 Wonderful man,

01:26:44.660 by the way,

01:26:45.200 in my opinion,

01:26:46.060 in terms of a human being

01:26:47.420 and compassion.

01:26:48.780 So there's,

01:26:49.560 there's my wife

01:26:50.820 who was with me

01:26:53.320 and we go in

01:26:54.200 to meet Bashir,

01:26:55.800 the president

01:26:56.400 and his foreign minister

01:26:57.480 with Ban Ki-moon

01:26:58.780 and his chief of staff.

01:27:01.220 My wife was teasing him

01:27:02.680 because now I was friends with him,

01:27:04.660 I'd met him maybe 12 times

01:27:06.200 and we prayed together.

01:27:08.580 He laughed

01:27:09.220 and often offered me

01:27:10.660 a Sudanese wife

01:27:11.820 because he thought

01:27:12.360 I was a good Muslim

01:27:13.280 because I knew the Quran so well.

01:27:15.040 She said,

01:27:15.820 please don't offer my husband

01:27:17.040 any more wives.

01:27:18.480 It was,

01:27:20.740 it was,

01:27:21.480 as we say in North Carolina,

01:27:22.900 a hoot and a half.

01:27:24.440 It was amazing.

01:27:25.280 He laughed

01:27:25.920 and it really broke the ice

01:27:27.500 because,

01:27:28.380 you know,

01:27:28.520 Ban Ki-moon

01:27:29.120 is a great stature

01:27:30.440 of the UN Secretary General

01:27:32.360 and then we started all laughing.

01:27:34.160 My wife left

01:27:34.960 and we went in the room.

01:27:36.180 We're having tea and crumpets

01:27:37.760 and the,

01:27:39.320 the president says,

01:27:43.140 Omar al-Bashir,

01:27:44.460 remember,

01:27:44.900 it's Bashir,

01:27:45.520 his foreign minister,

01:27:50.280 the ambassador,

01:27:51.140 his chief of staff,

01:27:52.180 I mean,

01:27:52.700 his chief of staff

01:27:54.120 of Ban Ki-moon,

01:27:54.920 Ban Ki-moon,

01:27:55.460 just the five of us.

01:27:56.360 He says,

01:27:57.200 Mark, you pray.

01:27:58.340 He's always asking me to pray.

01:27:59.700 I don't know why.

01:28:00.940 So we hold hands.

01:28:02.200 Can you imagine this?

01:28:03.660 A Buddhist,

01:28:04.880 Muslim,

01:28:05.760 Christian holding,

01:28:07.540 praying,

01:28:08.040 holding hands.

01:28:09.460 I got up and said,

01:28:10.380 it's time for me to leave.

01:28:12.660 So we left

01:28:13.600 and the next day

01:28:16.200 they signed the Peace Accord

01:28:17.460 and they were,

01:28:20.100 there's peace.

01:28:23.360 All right, sir.

01:28:24.060 Well,

01:28:24.900 that's a very good place

01:28:26.640 to bring this part

01:28:27.620 of the conversation

01:28:28.480 to an end.

01:28:30.020 I think for all of you

01:28:31.320 watching and listening

01:28:32.220 that you can join us

01:28:35.820 on the Daily Wire side.

01:28:36.900 I think what we'll do there

01:28:37.940 is you talked about

01:28:38.880 six conflicts

01:28:39.740 that you've been engaged in

01:28:41.360 and I think we should

01:28:42.600 probably delve into that

01:28:43.980 and also discuss more

01:28:46.760 about the resistance

01:28:48.640 that the kinds of movements

01:28:51.160 towards peace

01:28:51.940 that you've been participating in

01:28:54.000 have encountered

01:28:55.360 and why those exist,

01:28:56.980 why those have existed

01:28:58.300 and still exist.

01:28:59.260 We got into that a little bit

01:29:00.360 at the beginning

01:29:00.820 of this conversation,

01:29:01.860 but I think we could,

01:29:03.860 that's fertile ground

01:29:04.680 for continued discussion.

01:29:06.420 So all of you watching

01:29:07.580 and listening,

01:29:08.140 you can join us

01:29:08.720 on the Daily Wire side.

01:29:09.800 Thank you to the film crew

01:29:11.700 here in Duluth, right?

01:29:13.840 We're in Duluth, right?

01:29:15.200 Yes, I had a talk here last night

01:29:17.120 with Father Mike Schmitz,

01:29:18.400 which went very well.

01:29:19.340 That'll be released on YouTube

01:29:20.480 in relatively short order

01:29:22.160 on faith.

01:29:23.020 And so that's probably

01:29:24.220 worth paying attention to

01:29:25.820 if you're inclined.

01:29:27.020 Thank you very much, sir.

01:29:28.060 That was absolutely riveting.

01:29:30.900 Thank you, Jordan.

01:29:31.600 Well, and I'm so interested too

01:29:33.180 in following up with you

01:29:34.380 with regard to the work

01:29:35.940 you're doing

01:29:36.400 on establishing

01:29:37.200 this like domain

01:29:38.760 of foundational agreement.

01:29:40.380 I mean, at minimum,

01:29:41.480 what that would mean

01:29:42.200 is that, well,

01:29:43.080 instead of fighting

01:29:43.760 about all of this,

01:29:45.420 you know,

01:29:45.700 we would understand

01:29:47.200 with the people

01:29:48.300 that we have to share

01:29:49.000 the planet with

01:29:49.680 that we agree

01:29:50.380 on all of this.

01:29:51.440 And, you know,

01:29:52.240 maybe we can,

01:29:52.980 this is something

01:29:53.560 Carl Rogers did point out,

01:29:55.080 you know,

01:29:55.300 if you listen long enough,

01:29:57.080 you find out

01:29:57.800 that many of your problems

01:29:58.960 vanish in the communication

01:30:00.140 and those that remain

01:30:01.720 are susceptible

01:30:02.900 to intelligent

01:30:04.880 and careful negotiation.

01:30:07.120 And so,

01:30:08.100 God,

01:30:08.440 I hope that's true.

01:30:09.460 It sure better be.

01:30:10.560 And your experience

01:30:11.600 has been that it is

01:30:12.620 and that's real experience

01:30:14.380 and with real consequences.

01:30:15.980 And so,

01:30:16.360 that's very much worth knowing.

01:30:18.120 Very nice talking to you, sir.

01:30:19.340 Thank you, Jordan.

01:30:19.760 You bet.

01:30:20.280 You bet.

01:30:20.580 My honor.

01:30:21.400 Yep.

01:30:21.860 All right.

01:30:22.340 Thanks, everybody.

01:30:23.000 We'll be right back.

534. He Helped End 6 Wars – And Was Called a Traitor for It ｜ Mark Siljander

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