The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - October 11, 2023


Discussing the Israel-Hamas War with Piers Morgan (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_595)


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

166.7783

Word Count

996

Sentence Count

59

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I'm joined by evolutionary biologist and author, Dr. Gad Saad, to discuss the latest massacre in Gaza, and why he doesn't think peace can ever be forged between Israel and Palestine. We also hear from President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, for more, I'm joined from Montreal by the evolutionary behavioural scientist and author, Professor Gad Saad.
00:00:05.620 Gad, it's heartbreaking. I mean, as I came on air tonight, I heard the story of, allegedly, it's not been completely verified,
00:00:16.200 but there are soldiers reporting that in one village they found the corpses of 40 babies, some of whom have been beheaded.
00:00:24.160 And we know that grandmothers who survived the Holocaust were dragged off and kidnapped, and God knows what's happened to them.
00:00:33.560 These are unspeakable acts of depravity. What is your reaction to this?
00:00:40.000 Well, of course, I'm devastated by it, but frankly, not to sound flippant about it, it doesn't surprise me.
00:00:46.280 For your viewers and listeners who may know me, I hail from Lebanon. We're Lebanese Jews.
00:00:51.160 When I was five years old in 1970 in Lebanon, and Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, died,
00:00:57.980 the way that the people on the street were mourning his loss was to have demonstrations singing death to Jews.
00:01:07.500 What did the Jews have to do with the fact that the Egyptian president had just died?
00:01:11.620 When I was in grade four and the teacher said, everybody stand up and say what you want to be when you grow up,
00:01:17.780 one of my friends, with whom I played soccer, stood up and said, when I grow up, I want to be a Jew killer.
00:01:24.500 When we left Lebanon to move to Canada during the Civil War, and the pilot had said that we are now out of Lebanese airspace,
00:01:33.780 my mother put a Star of David around my neck and said, now you don't have to hide your identity,
00:01:39.100 and you can be proud of who you are.
00:01:40.840 So this has nothing to do with colonialism and fighting for this piece of land or that piece of land.
00:01:46.920 It's an existential battle where one group of folks don't believe that the other group has a right to exist there with self-determination.
00:01:56.280 Once we get rid of that mindset, there could be peace.
00:01:59.880 I mean, I've got to say, I don't think peace has ever looked further away in this conflict.
00:02:05.580 I really think the scale of this atrocity is so appalling that it will demand probably a disproportionate response now from Israel.
00:02:15.080 I don't think Prime Minister Netanyahu will feel he has any choice but to hit Palestine harder than it's ever been hit.
00:02:22.500 And, of course, that will cause the deaths of many thousands of completely innocent people,
00:02:29.580 many of whom may share a view that Hamas are a bunch of terrorists.
00:02:33.660 And so it goes on. I just don't see how peace gets forged after this kind of thing.
00:02:40.560 I agree. Look, I'm a, by nature, by disposition, I'm an optimistic person,
00:02:44.460 but I get a lot of calls and emails from people saying to me, will there ever be peace?
00:02:48.280 And I hate to admit, but I think I share your view.
00:02:52.560 And again, it comes from the fact that there is one group of folks who do not believe that another group of folks have a right to self-determination.
00:03:00.600 Sure, they can tolerate them. Sure, they could have them as second-class citizens, as dimmies.
00:03:06.720 That's an Arabic word for second-class citizen who's protected and tolerated, of course, until you're not.
00:03:12.300 But they don't view the Jews as a people who are allowed to exist with their own individual nation, self-determination, autonomy.
00:03:22.120 And until that is resolved, this is going to go on ad infinitum.
00:03:26.860 I want to play a clip now. This is from President Biden speaking just a few minutes ago in the United States.
00:03:32.740 If the United States stands with Israel, we will not ever fail to have their back.
00:03:39.840 We'll make sure that they have the help their citizens need and they can continue to defend themselves.
00:03:45.080 Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Full stop.
00:03:50.640 There's never justification for terrorist attacks.
00:03:53.720 And my administration's support for Israel's security is rock-solid and unwavering.
00:03:59.340 I mean, Gad, you know, strong words there from President Biden.
00:04:02.140 It's taken him a few days to say them, I have to say.
00:04:04.600 I guess the problem I have with this is Israel is going to go in, like I said, incredibly hard into Gaza.
00:04:14.520 I imagine many thousands of people are going to die here.
00:04:18.580 The situation in Gaza will simply get worse.
00:04:21.880 It's already pretty intolerable for the two million people who live there,
00:04:26.240 many of whom are young people who live really hopeless lives with very little chance of ever getting out,
00:04:33.400 of living the dreams that most people have.
00:04:36.820 You know, I understand on the Palestinian side why they have felt oppressed.
00:04:41.380 I understand it.
00:04:43.100 I don't think you can play whataboutery at this moment after this atrocity,
00:04:46.920 and it doesn't excuse the appalling depravity that's been perpetrated by Hamas.
00:04:51.620 But I do understand why people in Palestine feel oppressed.
00:04:54.980 And I don't know how this resolves itself in the short to midterm or indeed long term.
00:05:01.980 And I hate that feeling of helplessness about this.
00:05:05.660 Well, it resolves itself when your moral calculus is outraged whenever any innocent is butchered in any place.
00:05:13.780 Right. So when I watched videos of ISIS taking 1,500 Muslim men and putting bullets in their head,
00:05:21.520 I was furious. I was angry.
00:05:24.020 I didn't have a tribal calculus that says, I am Jewish, so who cares if ISIS kills Muslim men?
00:05:30.500 So if I see a Palestinian child who is a complete innocent bystander in the war who is, you know, blown up, I'm angry.
00:05:38.740 By the same token, if you're seeing Holocaust survivors and Jewish babies being decapitated,
00:05:44.860 then boy, is your moral compass broken if you can't garner a bit of kindness and sympathy for their plight.
00:05:52.680 I completely agree. Gad, you speak so much sense, as always.
00:05:56.000 Great to talk to you. Thank you very much.
00:05:57.840 Thank you, sir.